I guess that's one way to fix social security

Let the old people just die instead of treating them, because if the senate stimulus package passes? Beware that if your grandmother or mother or aunt or uncle comes down with something that the GOVERNMENT decides is not cost effective to treat? They're going to order your doctor to let them just DIE. And if they don't? If they instead stick to their hippocratic oath about, oh, I don't know, helping people? They're going to face penalties. And as they do it more and more often? They will face more and more penalties.

What you and your doctor decide to do about any given health problem? Will now also include an equation dictated by the GOVERNMENT about whether you are worth the cost or not. Good-bye experimental treatments. Good-bye advances in medical technology. Hello rising mortality rate.

Daschle actually has this to say about health-care reform: “[it] will not be pain free.” He also says that seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them. WHAAAAAT? So my friend's Dad who just had a relapse of cancer, because he's older, maybe he should just accept it and die? NO. NO. NO. So, next time my grandmother, who's 92, is admitted to the hospital, instead of having a few months of re-hab, should just? Die? Because, she might not have that long to live anyway? It's not "cost-effective"? NO. NO. NO.

If the solution is more painful than the problem? It's not a problem. Or at the very least, this CLEARLY isn't the solution. I have some ideas regarding health care reform that are far less invasive of patient rights. Here's one off the top of my head. How about having one price for one service? If you accept $20 from the insurance company for XYZ, then you should charge a non-insured person the same $20, not $40. How easy is that? I'm not saying that the government should set the prices either, I'm just saying that within any given practice, the prices should be constant.

I hope the older people in your life are healthy enough to survive this. I don't know about you, but I think it's worth an email to your congressman to tell them that you actually love the older people in your life and would prefer that your parents' doctors be allowed to treat your parents as they see fit, without government interference.

It's a slippery slope. Next they'll be telling you that you can have 1 boy or 2 children.

UPDATED: Was there a recall on yesterday that I missed?

UPDATED WITH SCAN OF ELFIN WOMAN: Who is not so much elfin as I remember her, I thought she had pointy ears last night, now she's just big boob sexy comic book stereotype.

Because, I'd like to take mine back and trade it in on a less defective one. Probably not as much as Clinton would like to, but I'd like to none the less.

I stayed late at work yesterday to do a quick project for my project that was supposed to be over, but the client will not let die. Actually the head client guy just seems to be humoring the guy I worked with, because they are asking for things that are not normal deliverables. Anyway, I stayed late.

And I learned a few things.

• Someone in this office is drawing large breasted elfin looking women after hours, enlarging them to 11x17 paper, making copies and then forgetting to take the original off the copier. If it's who I saw walking away from the copier just before my discovery, this does not compute.

• I now know why my office doesn't seem very clean. Custodian came to my floor, left the backpack vacuum out in the hall near my office and never showed up again, and I was here until 9:15 or so. Well, he did show up once. He seemed to be wandering around drinking a coke.

That's not the bad part though. Clinton arrived home to a toilet that didn't flush properly. And after 20 or 30 minutes of plunging, and sewage, and running hot water in the bathtub to try to clear what he thought was a clog, he discovered that the clean-out cap was off and our yard was full of hot water.

This is the 3rd or 4th time we've called the utility district, so the guy with the truck, who has always been the same guy who comes, because it always happens in the evening, came out and about 85 feet out from the clean out he found the problem. As usual. It's cleared and things work well again for the moment, but he said since it's happened so much he's going to escalate it to the engineering department. Hopefully they find a fix for it, because it never happens at a nice reasonable time, you know, like when both of us are home and able to deal with it, or when the baby is in a good mood. Poor Landon, he just wanted to help, but Clinton didn't think he should be helping with sewage water.

This morning, when I woke up Landon, his face was in a puddle of blood. The air has been uncharacteristically dry here for about a week, add a toddler and a crusty booger he just wants out, but isn't awake enough to pin point his activities and poof you have a bloody nose! (And, yeah I should probably set up his humidifier again in order to avoid this.) I have said before that they should make peppermints on sticks like lollipops for just this reason. Peppermints will stop a nosebleed, but I don't like giving him a choking hazard so early in the morning. Luckily I found a candy cane leftover from Christmas, so it worked out, but it would seriously be neater if I could just find peppermints in lollipop form.

He really didn't want to be cleaned up. He kept saying "Enough!" But he did get to have candy before breakfast, so he finally gave in a little. On the way to school, sucking away on his candy cane, he had already sharpened it into a shiv like instrument, and he jabbed the inside of his cheek. "Mom, dat hurt!" "Well, bite it off and chew it, so it won't be pointy anymore" "Oooooh, dat good." And he only ate about an inch or inch and a half, so he's not set up for a big sugar crash either.

This evening, I have all kinds of blood stains to look forward to trying to clean off of various articles of clothing and sheets. Because it's not enough to bleed on your own sheets and pajamas, you then need to wipe your nose all over your ready to go work mom, so she has to change clothes, and roll around on her bed as if your goal in life is to have her wash the sheets that were just put on the night before. I guess I don't have a lot of room to talk, I have a blood stained stuffed armadillo from precisely the same kind of behavior.

Maybe there will be a recall on today too.

Interactive

Landon believes the TV to be interactive. I'm not sure if he believes it can hear him, but I think he believes that it can see him. I would think it would be the other way around, I am always talking to the TV, or rather to the stupid people on the TV. You would think he'd know that they can hear you, but not see you.

This morning we were running late, and because I'm lazy, the best way to keep him occupied long enough to dress him and me and load the car is to turn on the TV. I generally have the news on, but if I really want him to be still, I turn on Sprout - the pre-school channel. On Sprout they run the most annoying show. No, not Calliou. Pingu. (If it says Barney is on, I generally look to PBS, Nickelodeon or Disney to see if there's anything less offensive on - I should really add Pingu and Calliou to that list, but this child LOVES Calliou.)

Pingu is a penguin. A penguin who...chirps. The entire show contains no words. Just chirps. It makes me long for Calliou and his overly indulgent parents and whiney objections about how nothing is fair. I mean just the other day his friends showed up at his house and one had a ribbon she had won in some contest and he got all upset about not having a ribbon...but he didn't even compete in said contest. No one bothered to tell him that to win, you have to participate and also, you know, win.

So in order to make the little girl feel like her accomplishment meant nothing, Grandma sets up all these games for him to win a ribbon and Calliou just sucks at all of them. They had to play 5 games before Calliou actually won. When the little girl won, she got a ribbon, when the other little boy won, he got a ribbon, but when he won a second game, he didn't get a second ribbon, which he deserved, because he already had a ribbon. Heck even Rosie, Calliou's baby sister, beat him at a race or something because he got distracted. But no bother, just keep playing games until Calliou wins...something...anything. Why aren't kids allowed to feel what it's like to lose anymore?

Wait, I got side tracked.

Landon saw Pingu come on, and said "ing-gwen," he promptly jumped off the bed ran to the bar to get his penguin from his McDonald's happy meal toy collection of doom. What? You don't keep your toddler's toys in the wet bar? Why not? It's the perfect little cubby.

He came back and held the penguin up to the TV. To show Pingu that he had a penguin too, I guess. He seemed a little bit put off by the fact that the TV penguins didn't even acknowledge the penguin in his hand. He stood on his tippy toes and reached as high as he could towards the TV, as if he thought maybe they just couldn't see him. It was no use, the penguins were already in their little clique and his outsider penguin was just going to have to settle for the company of the hippo and the zebra. Not that he felt sorry enough for him to take him to school with him or anything. Just let him freeze in Mom's car while she's at work.

I don't know where I was going with this, except I really needed to get that whole Calliou thing off my chest.

The very last time we ever eat at BW3s

Buffalo Wild Wings only contains "W" two times. But people call it BW3s and it annoys the everloving crap out of me. There's a historic reason for the 3, but that's not the name of the place anymore, so it's BW2s if anything.

Our particular Buffalo Wild Wings is being run by teenagers. Teenagers who are blind, and independently wealthy.

Blind, because when a person is only half finished with their meal, and is sucking on the bottom of their cup through their straw, a normal waiter just shows up (or preferably had already shown up) with the tea for a refill, rather than asking if we want more tea. (Nope, I prefer to suck on ice with my hot wings! Who needs tea?)

Independently wealthy because clearly, they don't want a tip, or they would have come and collected the ticket, run it through the machine and returned to the table rather than SIT DOWN at a booth to bullshit with his friends for 5 full minutes.

When Clint finally got someone else to run the card, they were about 15 seconds from a walkout, she was all "well...you know...sometimes...it's just..." No. Unacceptable. Half the tables were empty. It was not busy. There is no excuse for this.

When Clint asked to speak with a manager...."uh...he stepped out." Bullshit. You just don't want to yelled at for your crappy crappy work ethic. (Not that the manager would have, because dude, if ever there was a 30 year old man trying to be friends with teenagers...it was him.)

Now, the one near my former place of business is always totally packed and when we've gone there we have recieved decent service. But this one. Never again.

I think it has something to do with the building itself. It used to be an Applebees and those people sucked at their jobs just as badly.

Naiveté, lots of it

I guess animal control in my city doesn't really care about neglected dogs. So long as they haven't bitten anyone or gotten out.

On the bright side, her yard did get mowed. A couple more boards fell off the fence. Our dogs discovered the other dog. I had to fix it the best I could with the materials I had, so now that fence portion looks a little bit like we're maybe just getting ready to move a trailer house in. Ugh!

I suppose it may be time to call the SPCA. But part of me thinks that this is just going no where, and I'm going to be fighting her about that dog until he dies. Probably from heat stroke.

***

You know how when you plan your weekends and stuff, you sometimes include a weekend that’s supposed to be your weekend off? One where you actually return to work refreshed instead of more tired than when you left the previous week?

Yeah. This past weekend was supposed to be that weekend for me.

It so wasn’t. My stellar mood didn’t help much either. But someone’s refusal to nap played a huge part in it. I need his naps more than he does, I'm almost positive.

So, everyone should know that for all intents and purposes I will be VERY VERY busy during the month of August. Very busy. Don’t even ask what I’m doing. It’s totally top secret…and busy.

***

Anyway, here's a video of some spin the bottle, watermelon style.

Not so much slipping or sliding

I tried the slip n slide.

I'm not 7 anymore either.

Thank god there were no pictures.

We got a 2 lane one, I swear they used to be longer and made of thicker plastic. But then I also think they shrunk the elementary school cafeteria, so who am I to say?

*****

The dog is still there. The rain and the fact that the fence is rotten meant that the two boards that were "fixed" fell again. I have called animal control again, as it appears they didn't even go out there. If it's not taken care of by the time I get back on Sunday, I guess I'll call the SPCA. Clearly our city police department is incapable of dealing with anything more than a traffic ticket.
*****

I watched an episode of Baby Borrowers last night (nothing else was on). Um...I'm not sure it's doing what it's supposed to be doing. The concept is to show these teen couples (they're 18-20, so they're not like high schoolers or anything) that they aren't ready to be parents (they claim it's to see whether or not they're ready, but there's an undertone in the editting of "these kids are screwing up big time if they have kids.")


So, throughout the show the parents observe the teen couples with their kids and make all kinds of negative comments about what they're doing, but with the exception of one end-of-episode-talk with the parents, all the comments were positive like "yeah, you did a good job." Um, what happened to all the negative stuff you said behind their backs? Make up your mind.

Why you may want to reconsider buying a house next to me

I will not hesitate to call the cops on you.


On Wednesday evening when Clinton and I got home from Lowe's, he went into the backyard and discovered our neighbor's dog had knocked a board down in the fence and was in our backyard.


I'm no dog breedist, ok. Have a pit bull or Rottweiler or Doberman if you want, but treat it with respect, socialize it with other people and other dogs, or you're going to have an angry dog. And angry dogs are like live grenades, you just never know when something is going to spiral out of control.


So this dog is a chow. A chow who as far as we know, and this is also the consensus of the neighborhood, is only visited by humans once a month or so. Seriously. I see our neighbor's car at her house once every 4 weeks. She does whatever it is she does and sometimes spends one night there, but then returns to where ever the hell she came from.


During the school year, I see her daughter dropping her son off and waiting for the bus, but they never go to the backyard. That poor dog has only seen a human about once a month. Which means, he's scared to death of people and that he doesn't know any other way to react than to growl and protest.


I confess, I knew about the dog. I knew the dog was in the backyard. But I was under the assumption that...I dunno, someone looked at it every once in a while or something. At a minimum I thought, maybe she had an automatic feeder (which still may be the case). Basically, I assumed that a person with a medical degree was on top of her own pet situation. I thought for sure she had enough brain cells to get that far in life, that she must have enough to know to care for her dog.


When Clinton asked me to contain Landon so that I could help him corral the dog, I went into the backyard with the intentions of seeing a fairly healthy dog, corralling him back into his own yard and going about my business.


That did not happen. While that dog may or may not be malnourished, he is certainly not well cared for.


That dog had huge mats of fur hanging off of it. As I stated earlier, the dog is a chow, he's pretty fluffy, so there's no telling if he's malnourished. But I know this in the very depth of my soul. That dog is wearing so much extra fur in 100° weather, I'm surprised he hasn't died of heat stroke. That's how matted he is. We are not talking about your average fully furred up chow. We're talking about a dog with twice to 3 times as much hair as he should have. In knots. Pulling at his normal hair.


When I saw the condition of that dog, my first reaction was "dammit, I do not want to have to be the person that deals with this." If it were an episode of "Animal Cops: Houston." I'd be the one they're talking about when they show up and say "We got a call..."


So I called animal control. And I waited about 30 minutes and no one showed up. So I called again and specifically asked that they send someone. And while it wasn't the 12 year old I got last time, this one wasn't much older. Unfortunately, by the time he arrived, since the dog had already retreated to his own yard, there was nothing he could do legally.


He "fixed" the fence. And yes those are intentional quotes - we aren't going to be able to fix the fence without going in her yard, and we can't get into her yard until that dog is gone or contained. And said that based on my description of the situation and the dog, that he would definitely have animal control send someone out in the morning to look at the dog.

We left town the next evening, so I have no idea what happened while we were gone. I have not heard the dog, but I also have not ventured over to her driveway to see if it’s still there. I’d like to pretend they came and got him.

Also this weekend, I was wandering around the outside of the house during the fireworks war zone. And I came across an old, female chocolate lab. No collar. Scared shitless. Do people not realize that there's a reason they tell you to bring your dogs inside during fireworks? They get spooked and take off! We tried to find her owners, but were not successful. We gave her some water and in the morning she was gone. Hopefully when things settled down she was able to find her way back home.

(Lighter topics to come this week. I promise)

Maybe I'm just Pissy

I saw this sticker on the way home yesterday and it made me mad.

"Silly Boy's Truck's are for Girl's."

Does everyone see what's wrong with that? Here's my main issue. Someone was probably relying on Word to proofread for them (that's how I generally proofread my blog entries - so I'm not really finding fault with the idea of using it as a proofreader) and Word is fine with it. This means 2 things. 1) Clearly the person who wrote it out doesn't get the difference between plurals and possessives. Is that not something that's being taught? Or have we taught the younger generation to rely so heavily on computers that they don't even know when something is wrong? 2) It went by at least 2 or 3 more people before becoming a sticker and no one noticed or corrected it, which just makes me sad - and I'm not even an English major or anything. (Clearly, because this blog is chock full of run-on sentences and sentence fragments.) [ It should be noted that it looked like a custom sticker, the girl driving or whoever gave it to her probably had it made - it did not appear to be a mass produced sticker - I've seen the saying before on stickers where everything is properly un-punctuated.]


Yesterday, since we were child free for the evening, we decided to go out for a nice dinner and a movie. We saw 21 for those who care - it's a pretty good movie. I stayed awake the whole time, and we didn't get out until almost 11:30pm - so that REALLY says something when I'm normally asleep by 9:00 or so. Anyway, they have the normal preview stuff about turning off your cell phones and seriously, at least 3 people in the theater spent the entire movie texting. WHY?!?!? Why did you pay $9.50 to see a movie if you're just going to text people the whole time? Not to mention the stupid glow from the phone. I guess at least the texting crap is silent. GAHHH I hate cell phones, I hate blue tooth and the people who think they're so important that they have to wear it 100% of the time. You're not THAT important that you couldn't keep it in your pocket and pull it out when someone calls. Which brings me to: maybe you should spend the time with the person you're with instead of talking to other people. It's just rude. And don't even get me started on the stupidity of people who talk on the phone in public restrooms.


Clearly I was born 30 or 40 or 100 years too late.

LBSCBDO

Clinton felt the need to correct me on today’s post. (and after this one, he may never do it again.) He claims that I not only require waking up on my own, but I require food before I can be a morning person. The short version – he’s wrong.

The long version – his reasoning is that on weekends I lose my temper with him in the mornings prior to eating. What he leaves out is that when we get up on a weekend and I say I’m hungry, he moseys out of bed, takes a leisurely shower, hangs around the bedroom with out a shirt on, falls under the spell of the TV a few times, and even possibly starts doing something entirely different from getting ready, like sorting laundry because he has some NEED to be the very last person to be ready to go anywhere (unless it’s for him, which is another post for another time.)

So at this point, I’m tapping my foot and huffing and puffing and shaking keys and yelling, because when I said I was hungry I had envisioned him jumping out of bed, getting dressed fireman style and walking out to the car, right then, not taking a shower and lounging around for 45 minutes watching TV. And yes, I get mad because when I said I was hungry, I did not mean – I will be hungry in 45 minutes. I meant I’m hungry now! And if I make my own breakfast and not bother him with it? I’m mean because he wanted to have that too, and why didn’t I wait for him. I can’t win for losing.

That does not disqualify me from being a morning person. It has nothing to do with the time of day – it has everything to do with telling someone an immediate need of yours and then having them completely ignore it for 45 minutes. I think it should qualify me for a tax deduction.

The fact that I get so frustrated and angry, I attribute to LBSCBDO (Low Blood Sugar Cranky Butt DisOrder). As stolen from The Pioneer Woman.

He has it too, only his generally manifests itself at 2 or 3 pm after he “forgets” to eat lunch.

Landon will probably be inflicted as well. I’m almost positive it’s genetic.

Christmas Shopping will be fun this year

Hey, guess what? Another recall? But, even better than developmental delays caused by lead paint. This one actually poses a risk of coma! And death! (It's Aquadots, FYI in case you didn't click that link.)


So as you look down the aisles at Target and watch, people now pick up toys and the first thing they look for is whether it's made in China. Then they look for how much of said toy is painted. Wanna know a secret? 99.9% of toys are made in China and painted.


You can hear the murmurs of parents asking about whittling lessons as they huddle scared in the corners of the stores. We may be returning to a time when children were given fruit instead of toys at Christmas.


I for one, say - don't be afraid. Proceed to your kitchen section and purchase a spatula, or a spoon, or a big plastic bowl, or a colander. Bamboo trivets, pot holders, 16 oz plastic cups, and cookie tins. All of which are inherently more fun than expensive toys...apparently.

Change it Back!!!!

I hate driving home from work in the dark. HATE. IT.

People turn stupid when the sun goes down. And even though now my morning commute is in daylight, there are less people on the road, and therefore less stupid people - that's the one I prefer to do in the dark.

Landon is also having some problems adjusting to the time change. It's almost enough to make me want to move to Phoenix.

What the Hell did the Damn Duck Do now?

I kind of feel like I'm just missing a cane, a moomoo and house shoes, yelling at kids to "get off my lawn!!!" Telling stories about how in my day I had to walk to school, 10 miles, in the snow, up hill, both ways. And today, I gripe about "these childrens' books today..."

We took Landon to the book store the other day. Clint picked out a book that he thought was cool.

Duck in the Truck

It’s cute, it rhymes, it has a story to it.

The duck is driving along in his truck and he hits a rock and get stuck in the muck.

A frog, a sheep and a goat all go out of their way to help the duck out of the muck.
But the last page is where I really have the problem…when the duck’s truck is unstuck? He leaves the animals who helped him, stuck in the muck. He didn't say "Thank You." He didn't help those who helped him. He just. drove. off. GRRRRR.

It doesn’t have as easy a fix as my other childrens' book I have issues with. At least for this one:
I can just skip the page where his mother breaks into his house and rocks him…as an ADULT. She breaks into his house, people. It's creepy.

What happened to the stories like “Whose Mouse Are You?”

That mouse lost his whole family and systematically went about solving his own problem by getting them all back. We need more books like that. Problem solving mouse books. Bring ‘em on.

Or Sheldon’s Lunch. Yeah they screwed up the recipe. But those animals cleaned the WHOLE kitchen before Sheldon’s Mom got home. Sure, they created their own problem, but they also solved it.

Or Popcorn. At a Halloween party, the house is accidentally filled with popcorn, also, by the time the parents arrive home, problem is solved.

So I find myself picking up children's books now and looking at the end to make sure they don't have some kind of rude protagonist, teaching my kid to not even thank the people who help him. His books don't all need lessons, but at the very least, shouldn't they model basic polite behavior?

And it won't bother me in the least if my kid fills my house with popcorn or blueberry pancake batter without my knowledge as long as he cleans it up well enough that I don't even notice when I return. I want him to be a problem solver, and if that's what it takes, so be it. At least I won't have to clean it up.

No MIPs?

I bet you thought you could come here for Birthday party pictures.

I thought you could too.

I don’t have my USB cable with me today. And the camera is all “No I won’t give them to the computer with out it.” Selfish.

So that will have to wait until tomorrow.

Instead want to hear about how I called the cops later that night?

Clint and Shane went to Clint’s parents’ hotel room, while I tried to get Landon to sleep at a reasonable hour.

SOME ONE we know didn’t go to sleep until like 11:20pm. I took him upstairs to his crib and went down to make myself a glass of ice water.

I looked out the window and some person is walking around Shane’s car. Weird.

I got my water, I went to the bathroom. I came back to see what they’re doing then.

They were still there. They looked like they were on the phone.

A car drove up and 4 more people got out.

They all walked around the car. They looked in the windows. After a few minutes they had been here too long for a “hey there’s this old car on ____ street, come look at it.” Way too long. Long enough for me to think. “I wonder if they’re deciding whether to take the radio, or the whole car.”

I locked the backdoor. I called Clint. “Uh…people outside, looking at Shane’s car. Unnerving.”

I hung up and I started shaking. This is not an emergency, you can’t call 911 because it’s not an emergency. Where is the regular phone number to the police station…city of ….no. I look up police. It’s under police,. But doesn’t say if it’s Ourtown or Town Nextdoor. I call anyway. I tell her I’m alone and I’m scared. And what’s going on, and she says she’s sending someone out.

I honestly thought if the cop showed up at the end of the street they’d scatter.

I called Clint and told him I called the cops.

The cops showed up. They sent a 12 year old. He was, literally smaller than my nephew.

Clint skidded around the corner about half way through their “investigation” Read: sit the kids on the curb and let them “think about what they’ve done.”

The 4 boys and 1 girl had a LOT of liquor – which they claimed to have found by the car. HAHAHA. It was cheap clear liquor. Nothing says “This is a teenager’s alcohol” like a $6 gallon of something clear.

They claimed they just thought it was a “cool car.” 2 were released to parents, 3 were allowed to just drive off! After finding them with gallons of liquor, he didn’t even do a field sobriety test. He just poured it out.

He said when he told them that what they were doing was a good way to get shot, that it’s like “their eyes were opened.” I think when they heard him say that they thought “if we act dumb, we won’t get in any trouble for this.” And they were right.

And then he tried to give us the bag. It’s not our bag. It’s their bag, you moron.

What happened to MIPs? Do they not give those out anymore?

Current Events

Guess what’s on the news today? No, go ahead, guess. It won’t be hard. I’ll give some clues. You tell me how many it took you to get it.

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Its kid related.

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Its China related.

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Its toy related.

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Its paint related.

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Its lead related.

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If you don’t have it by now, how’s life as an ostrich?

How many more lead paint related recalls are coming? It makes me afraid to buy toys. Luckily I’m not big on buying toys to begin with, but still.

It started out with cheap vending machine jewelry, but has moved on to Thomas the Train and Mattel. Every time I hand him a toy with any kind of paint on it, I think “Is this going to make him dumb?” “Am I poisoning my own child?”

And as a special bonus, this makes me oh so proud to own stock in Mattel.

My day can only get better

I dropped my 2 cans of soup and 2 packages of macaroni and cheese off in the reception area this morning...I'm pretty sure there will be a school supply drive this month. My job is totally making this small change challenge thing easy.

I’ve already had a terrible day – it started last night. When I discovered that the plate thingy around my tailgate handle was stolen, I thought it had just fallen off because it's broken before, but there’s clearly a dirty handprint where someone took it. I assume it's a bad design and someone else's broke and they took mine instead of buying a new one. It's a $20 part, people, it's not that expensive, it's a hassle, but there's no need to make someone else go through it.

Trying to be vague about it, Clint told me a story last night that has my hackles up, I cannot stop thinking about it and how awful it was. I don't really know what's worse, this story or the M!ke V!ck one, it's that bad in my opinion.

This morning when I left the house I saw a woman who does NOT live on our street walking her dog, shooing 2 dogs who had gotten out (the dogs do live on our street, or at least one does for sure) off of our street onto a busier street. I should have stopped then and picked up those dogs, but I took Landon to his baby sitters first because I don’t know the dogs’ temperaments, and when I got back I couldn’t find the dogs. It made me sad to think that a woman who has a dog would be so careless as to shoo a dog onto a busier street. And this woman walks with a stick in her hand, presumably to whack at other dogs when she comes across them, at least that's what I think now, since she was waving it around wildly at those poor dogs. I tried to be all “I hope one day her dog gets out and someone shoos it further away from her house and onto a busy street.” But I can’t even do that, because it’s not her dog’s fault that she’s cold-hearted.

When I got to the babysitter’s and opened my back door to get Landon out, his bag for the day spilled everywhere.

When I got to work and opened the back door to get my stuff out, my bag with my food drive donation spilled everywhere.

And now I have a headache.

I just want to go back to bed, can I go back to bed? I didn’t even get any Landon loving this morning because he was asleep the whole time. And I have class tonight so I won’t see him again until 9:30 or 10 tonight.

And the theme for the night was ... disappointment

Ever paid for something, to be somewhere and while you’re there you are mentally adding up in your head how many people paid to be there and what there must be in the bank account of the event group? Ever then start adding up what the cost of the event was and see a giant discrepancy and want to gouge your eyeballs out due to sheer anger?

Oh, hi, did I mention my class reunion was last weekend?

The theme was pirates of the Caribbean – which I can only assume they came up with after buying this cheap treasure chest from Oriental Trading Company which sat on the check in table. NOTHING ELSE was piratey or Caribbeany. The theme for the night should have been disappointment.

I’m not saying I want this job in 10 years, but I am saying I could have done a much better job. I have a few issues with the way things went down. And they’re kind of rambly because I just typed as I thought of them.

First of all, there should have been a breakdown of the cost for the afternoon event and the evening event, if you chose to attend just 1 of the 2 you should only have to pay for the one you attended. Second of all, you should not be able to show up and pay at the door. There should be a deadline to RSVP, you cannot plan an event based on an unknown number of attendees. A monetary surplus is inexcusable, because this is not a for profit deal. And those who paid ahead should have pictures on their name tags, and those who didn't should not - not the other way around.

Why did we fill out those little forms about what we’re up to? Why weren’t there awards? Most kids? Most successful? Living furthest from “home”? Ehh – I need more time to ruminate, but I could have come up with a good 10 or so awards. Why was there not more than plastic trays of food? For the amount of money we paid, there should have been more decent catering. I’m not saying there had to be a sit down meal, but it could have been actually catered – like we were told it would be. Why was there not a cash bar? Nothing says “classy” like hauling a cooler in while dressed in cocktail attire.

What’s going to happen to the pictures taken that night? Are they available for purchase? He certainly didn’t take the time to photo graph each person, so it’s not like I would buy a huge set of photos. Is there a scrapbook being put together somewhere? Will it be at the next reunion? What’s the point? What about the DVD? Who the hell is going to watch a DVD of their 10 year reunion? Totally unnecessary.

What happened to all the questions about what giveaways should be? There were no giveaways. There were 2 items in the drawing at the end of the night, one was a digital picture frame which was fine and the other was a picture frame mat. Whose idea was it to have everyone sign a picture frame mat and give that away? What is anyone going to do with that? Should I have a picture of my class hanging in my house somewhere? I highly doubt it.

They need to publish a ledger now. I realize that some people paid as little as $35/head, and some paid as much as $55/head. I really am interested to see what was spent where. And what the balance in the account is at this time.

I compare this event to a wedding, only because by my own estimation about 100 or so people attended. 100 people at an average of $45/head – is $4500 they had to work with. Take a wedding reception, replace nuptials with awards, adjust the cost of the flowers into the awards, and you have a much better reunion for roughly the same price. I know it can be done. I’ve been personally involved in at least 2 of similar cost.

Beyond my disappointment for not getting what I paid for, I saw people that I hadn’t seen in a long time, I talked to a few people I probably wouldn’t have otherwise seen again. But it felt very much like high school, where the people you see anyway are the people you’re sitting with all evening long. I know I was not the only one who was disappointed.

The Modernish Father has a pretty good wrap up of the night.

Oy with the poodles already!

Enough with the drama of last week…well, the drama of last Wednesday. I don’t like drama. I don’t like it one bit. I do not like it, Sam, I am. The final straw, so to speak, of drama turned me into a puddle of weepy madness on my kitchen floor yesterday when I got home from work.

So, we were headed to a meat market in Santa Fe Wednesday night after work, and I went home to meet Clint before going to pick up Landon, so we could go straight there. I walked in the back door, and..hey, what’s that light over there…OH MY GOD IT’S THE FREEZER!!! I left the freezer drawer open just enough to thaw everything in there….everything. Ice cream, shrimp, ground beef, pork chops, bacon, chicken, some brisket (thankfully not a whole brisket), some smoked chicken, a bag of ice, frozen veggies, popsicles…oh, what’s that on the floor…dripping…purple stainey-ness all down the grout line across the kitchen floor…that would be my thawed blackberries…nice. That’s annoying enough to clean up. Apparently Scrubbing Bubbles spray, poured on the grout line seriously cleaned that up in minutes without scrubbing. Also ruined a couple of towels by bleaching them with the scrubbing bubbles stuff, but I kind of expected that.

The thing that made me cry into my towel as I wiped the floor of blackberry juice/scrubbing bubbles cocktail, the golden ticket, the one thing that I have been dutifully saving for 2 whole months…my basket of frozen breastmilk…thawed..completely. Much like everything else in the freezer…it cannot be re-frozen. I still haven’t poured it down the drain… it’s hard enough to look at the basket of little baggies, I haven’t been able to bring myself to touch them, because I know I will count them, and then I will know exactly how much was wasted. Without knowing, I can think “all that wasted time and effort,” and it’s still abstract, like it could be 3 hours, it could be 14 hours. After I count them, I will know, I’m sure it will be more than I envisioned. It was enough to leave him over the weekend for Jennifer’s wedding with my mother, I was worried about having enough and began the process of stockpiling to be sure. I have 2 weeks to replace it. And hopefully I will have enough.

It took me a good 3 hours to get over it. Well, not over it, but I’m not as mopey about it as I was. Plans abound, last night I set a second alarm clock to go off every 3 hours, whether Landon woke or not, I pumped, I didn’t get much, but the more I do it, the more I’ll have. He’s turning 6 months this week, so with the introduction of cereal this week, we’ll get to store some that he normally would eat during those feeding times. I think I can make it…I think I can , I think I can.

He’s mad too:

Seatbelt

I don’t mean to make you cry. But I can’t help doing this, it’s important. One of the blogs I read each day points me to other blogs I might find interesting. Yesterday it pointed me to this one. Start here, and read the next few entries – if you can still see through your tears. Some of you don’t click links, so suffice it to say that Jeff dropped his 3 year old daughter, Isabelle, off at his cousin’s house to be babysat on Friday night. At 4:10 am Saturday morning, they got a call that Jeff had been in an accident and had been crushed beneath a car. The 4 posts (so far) that follow are the cousin trying to find a way to deal with the loss, and also how Isabelle is dealing with it.

Everyone has their stories of people who were saved by wearing their seatbelt, people who it wouldn’t have made a difference, people who were killed because they didn’t wear theirs and people who were saved by being “thrown clear” because they weren’t wearing one. The truth of the matter is that the number of people saved by their seatbelts far outweighs the number of people killed by having them on. Also consider this, because by TX law adults are “allowed” to remain unbelted in the backseat of a vehicle: one person without a seatbelt in the car endangers the other people in the car, because in the event of an accident they become a human battering ram and can kill the people who were wearing their seatbelts. See this video for an illustration of that. The video is in Spanish, but I don’t think you even really need the volume on to understand the point.

When we bought the Magnum, Clint made a promise to me that if he got the car he wanted, he would wear his seatbelt – something he didn’t do reliably before. He still has to be told sometimes when he gets in my truck. But if you ever need a reason to wear a seatbelt, it’s this:





and even this:



Tune in tomorrow, I promise not to give a lecture or make you cry. But I’m working on something spectacular.

You may need shin guards

If one more person tells me that Landon is spoiled because he prefers to be held, I will kick them in their shins. It is impossible to spoil a baby by giving them love and comfort. His wanting to be held, is simply that he wants to be comforted. I carried him 24 hours a day for 9 ½ months, any less than that is a short fall to him. And my guess is that those same people who dare to tell me that my child is spoiled…have a favorite chair or spot, one they think is the most comfortable, one they go to when they feel “down” or when they need to recharge…and I see no difference – maybe those people are spoiled, maybe someone should come take away their favorite recliner just when they get home from a hard day at work and want to sit down and rest.

Public Service Announcement

If you’re wandering down the toothpaste aisle, thinking to yourself “Hey, self, I don’t think my toothpaste is tasty enough.” And you come across this:

That's Lemon Ice Crest Whitening Expressions

Just walk on by, proceed to the cleaning aisle and pick up a pack of these:

They’ll taste about the same, and at least you can wipe the furniture with these.