Death of Ninja Truck

It looks as if Ninja Truck has met his doom. He went to the new mechanic yesterday, and after lots of looking and talking and a few tears on my part, I have decided that I just can't risk fixing him and having him possibly let me down again.

This is not a happy day. But more because the girls came home from school with lice. This means hours of combing and washing and laundry and I don't really even know what else because I can't even think about it right now. I soaked both their heads in vinegar, then again in olive oil, then wrapped them up in plastic wrap. They are actually pretty adorable, but I am completely overwhelmed.

After one dose of olive oil, I started combing through Madilynn's hair, just a few strands at a time. I realized that the first round hadn't worked and had to start over. I poured it all over their heads. They are going to have some shiny hair when this is all over with. And also really great shoulder skin, if olive oil is good for skin. If not, then really bad  shoulder skin.

After the plastic wrap turbans were in place, the olive oil began to seep out all over their faces and down their backs. I just told the girls to put socks on and now they are walking wood floor polishers.

My mom made the late-night Walmart trip for me to secure tiny combs, bug spray, and whatever else you can use in a war with tiny bugs. I'm glad she did, because my girls' plastic beehive 'dos would have garnered more attention that I probably need right now.

They are excited because they got to stay up late, play hair all night, and they get to skip school tomorrow. Not shockingly, Warrick managed to develop a stomach ache as soon as staying home from school was mentioned. After all the trouble I got into last year with sick kids, that school isn't sending my kids back home without a doctor's note.

The search is on for a new truck, yo. We aren't going to name this one until we buy it this time, guys...I completely ran out of names for the last truck. What I want y'all to do is to start thinking of a really good name for my truck (and don't be all lame about it, ok?) It's probably going to be another Suburban, if I can afford it. Otherwise, it'll be a Scooby van, in which case we are SO calling it the Mystery Machine. But if I get the Suburban, you guys have to help me think of a name. We can vote and everything, yo. It'll be fun.

Meatball Eggs and Other Nonsense

Today was Walmart day. :::Queue scary dramatic music::: I didn't even have the kids with me and it was still ridiculous.

There were about eleventy billion people in there, and they were an awful sort. They seem to want to claim the aisle. If their cart is parked in the aisle, they are the only one allowed access to that aisle until they choose to move on. I asked one woman to please let me by, and she scoffed and moved her cart a quarter of an inch. For the record, this quarter of an inch did NOT let my cart through. So I said "Thanks, lady, that was just awesome of you" and bumper carted her cart out of the way. Seriously? Why can't I just get some darn toothpaste in peace?

Then I overheard this conversation between a woman and her little boy, about seven years old:

Mom: No, I'm not buying those eggs. They're not vegetarian.
Boy: :::literally breaking into a screaming wail::: But I don't caaaaaaaaaaaare! I'm NOT A VEGETARIAN! I don't care if the eggs are vegetarian!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mom: I'm not buying them...they're not the vegetarian ones.
Boy: But who cares? Why can't we just get them anyway?
Mom: :::voice dripping with horror and disgust::: Because! Who wants to eat eggs that come from chickens that are fed MEATBALLS? That's just disgusting.
Boy: ME! I want to eat them!

I'm not into all the organic blah, blah, blah, but are people really  feeding their chickens meatballs? I mean, is this woman trying to tell me that the chickens which produce the eggs at my local Walmart eat better than my kids? And this is a problem why? Clearly I am out of some loop I probably don't want to be in anyway.

I ran into them later in the cookie aisle. This made me giggle, because I rarely let my kids eat packaged cookies. Not because of meatballs or anything, but because they'd rather have a piece of fruit or something, and find any cookies not homemade to be below their tastes. The mother was screaming, "I'm going to buy cookies ONE MORE TIME. But if you eat them like you did last week, you NEVER GET COOKIES AGAIN!" I'm like, Woman! If you're so concerned about giving your kid meatball eggs, then why not monitor the cookies a little bit?

I mean seriously...if the kid has free access to eat as many cookies as he wants, is it really going to kill him to get a meatball egg every once in awhile? The funny thing was, the kid was throwing a much larger tantrum over the eggs than over the cookies.

I honestly don't understand people in this town. Or maybe people anywhere, but definitely not people from here. Poor kid...all he wants is a meatball omelet and instead he gets processed cookie rationing and a screaming mother in Walmart.

Westboro and Train Horns and other Thursday Stuff

Today some friends of ours buried their cousin, a young man with a family who died serving our country. The Westboro Baptist Church cult decided to show up in our town for the second time in the last month. This is not cool with us. 

My little sister and I, along with a friend, drove by with my dad's truck, and there may or may not have been some train horn usage. We may or may not have made Westboro popcorn.

We joined a line of people leading up to the church who stood outside and waved their flags in support of this soldier and his family and friends. We got to see a lot of cool stuff, including these guys:

 

You can't tell from the picture, but there were about five or six of these, plus a few smaller ones. Very cool. These guys and the Patriot Guard are my new favorite people.

After that, I went home to get ready for class, and Shucks was freaking out. He was telling me that there was a member of the WBC in my backyard. I thought that was crazy, because how can popcorn follow you home? But he insisted, so I went to check, and sure enough....right in the middle of my backyard...............

It's a Giant Westboro rattlemouthacin.

Bergershnerger, Interwebz

I get a lot of advice for some reason. Perhaps I seem to need it.

For instance -- divorce. People see you're in a bad situation. They know that it's not really safe for you. They argue with any protestation of standing for marriage.

Then you finally do it. You leave.

Then you realize that you're doing everything you can and it's just not good enough. Nothing will ever meet anyone's standards again for the rest of your life. Your kids misbehave, they have crap on their faces, they rip their jeans and lose their shoes. Your can't fix your stupid truck no matter how hard you try. It takes two weeks to fix the dryer because you sometimes have to stop being the dad and be the mom. You eat chicken nuggets for dinner because there isn't time in the day to use the stove or the oven. You decide between going back to work for minimum wage or going back to school and trying to be successful. You work your ass off at school because you know that you have to be dependent on other people until you're done. You try to balance raising your children and cleaning your house and mowing your yard and getting your oil changed and feeding the dog and making sure there are groceries in the house and you never even have a chance to find out how your son's first day of school really  went because you had to worry about keeping everyone else from ripping your head off.

Because you know what? Leaving a marriage takes about a week. But I'm going to be doing this job FOREVER.

So guess what? I'm sorry, Interwebz. I will never be good enough. I never was, and I never will be. I'm ok with that. I'm even more sorry that you're not. But this is what you get. I can't do any more, and I can't even do what I've been doing for much longer. Thanks for all the support -- it's really awesome to that people will always be available to tell me HOW everything should be done. It's more awesome that people can be so smugly assured of how much better than I they would handle my situation. I'm sure they would -- I am the LEAST qualified person in the world to be raising these kids and trying to keep everything from caving in. I mean that. But I'm who I'm stuck with, so please lay off. I'm doing the best I can. 

Trickery

Remember awhile back when I joined Aunt Becky in a giant prank on you, Interwebz? And anyone who Googled Jason F. Brown got me instead? (As a matter of fact, if you Google it now, I'm still the second link -- poor guy.)

Apparently, their are people who get paid  for doing stuff like that. I wuvs me some Internet.

I think I need to quit worrying so much about numbers and start looking for classes in Internet Trickery.

School is going well, though -- four days back and I haven't completely lost it. I finished two tests and the only class I am taking so far is Financial Accounting (I HATE Financial Accounting!!), so I really need to pick up some more classes in fun stuff like Speedy Calculators to break up the monotony. I swear I'm going to have a degree in Cool when this is all over with.

This is my weekend with the kids, and I've already missed two awesome parties. On the other hand, my kitchen is clean and I learned a lot about Internet Trickery, so I've still got a couple things going for me. And it's nice having a full weekend with the kids, too -- Donovan has only pooped his pants once, and Emma told me not to worry about it, because grown ups are supposed to have big butts. All-in-all a pretty fantastic Saturday, wouldn't you say?

First Day of School

School started today (for the rugrats), and it went very well. It took about an hour to get from the road to the parking lot, prompting phrases like "Oh sure, just park right there, SNOB...your kid is WAY more important than the eight thousand other people waiting out here." And the hallways were jammed -- not with kids finding their classrooms, but with parents who decided to stand right between all the boxes of school supplies to catch up on the summer gossip. I may or may not have yelled "Everyone please find a doorway and just STAND in it -- CLEARLY you didn't graduate from the elite school you are sending your children to!" I don't know why I don't have friends there. But if having friends means getting in the way of people trying to claw their way through their damn day, then I don't want friends anyway.

Today, I heard a story about Huston standing up for Emma on the playground. I was so proud! Big brother defending little sister from some (stupid-face-booger-butt) kid punching her....makes me want to take him to Disney World or something. So he was telling me how the kids was saying that it was an accident, and then Huston said, "But clearly he was lying." (Wow -- he does listen to me -- what 8 year old says "clearly"?)

When Madi started Pre-k two years ago, she said "I missed you today, Mommy, but I didn't get all sad about it." (Which is just smartass enough to also sound like her mother.) Today was her first day of first grade, meaning her two and a half hour school day turned into seven hours. She did get a little sad about it today, but then she "got over it and got back to hanging out with her friends."

Donovan's only criteria in making decisions is whether something is absolutely fatal. If not, he will go ahead and do his thing.

Me: Donovan, go to bed.
Donovan: Am I gon' die?

Me: Donovan, put shoes on before you go outside.
Donovan: Am I gon' die?

Me: Brush your teeth.
Donovan: Am I gon' die?

So when he was telling me about his first ever day of school:
"We ate a snack, we didn't watch movies, we colored, and I didn't die."

Sounds like a success.

Train of Thought - the Panic Version

My babies all got home today, and also got enrolled in school -- a mere two days before it starts. Donovan lucked out and managed to crawl his way off the Pre-K waiting list, but I still have to convince him not to poop his pants between the hours of 12 and 4 to make this work. Otherwise, insanity begins anew on Friday.

I seriously considered quitting school this year. My household is already dysfunctional enough when I'm here alone -- the trauma of last school year is sure to be repeated this fall. But for now, I'll see how it goes. There is a chance that God is going to decide I've had enough at some point and things will slow down. There is a slightly better chance I just made Him laugh.

Ninja Truck is still un-fixed. I found him a doctor today, and from what I've heard, this new guy doesn't tell lies and such. Maybe things will start coming together.

The laundry is almost all the way caught up from when the washer and dryer broke. A few more days, and it'll be back to only holding up the walls in the laundry room instead of the entire house. And it's rained, so mowing will have to commence. And something needs to be done about the half a tree we lost in the front yard. Well, we didn't lose it so much as the tree lost it -- I found it on the birdbath amongst the lilies. And there are some major household projects that need to be started within a week. Basically, I am praying for an army of handymen to show up at my house and fix shit while I'm not looking because I still have kids and homework and meals and a dog and groceries and class and church and - most importantly - a blog. So really, I am short on time and long on things needing done.

Clearly, this pisses me off a little bit. But I can't remember a time we weren't running around crazy, so I'm guessing we will get through this, as well. You know what would be nice, though, would be some time to just raise my kids. Teach them things like "how to find your shoes" and "don't poop in your pants" and "coloring is only for paper". The urgent is always getting in the way of the important around here. I wonder how to make that stop?

I think a few beers, a good football game, and some mud to play in ought to fix everything. Maybe next month.

Train of Thought Post

There's one thing you should probably understand. I'm just not funny without my kids.

When they are home, I don't have time to think about anything...not so much because I am physically busy, but because they use my entire brain with their questions.

"How do babies get out of their mommy's tummy?"
"How do they get IN there?"
"What is a billion kazillion times fifty-four?"
"What's for dinner?"
"What was I like when I was a baby?"
"Can Huston be grounded for bothering me?"
"No, can Emma be grounded for bothering me?"
"What is your daddy's name?"
"Are you getting married?"
"Is Santa real?"
"What's the longest you can drive without pushing the gas pedal?"

And so on.

So when they're home, and it's about midnight and they're finally asleep; I just sit down and type my first few random thoughts and hit the publish button.

But when they're gone, I get to use my brain for my own purposes; like fixing the truck, Facebook, perfecting a fake British accent, and watching YouTube videos about people who fall off of things. So when I sit down at night, I don't really have any thoughts to write about (other than "I miss my kids, bring them home because I'm pretty much useless without them.")

The truck is still broken, although I have removed and replaced the wheel about eighteen times. Somehow, that hasn't fixed anything. I learned how to use a floor jack and also that they don't work well on muddy driveways. There are videos on YouTube that aren't just about people falling -- they have some about how to take trucks apart. It's pretty sweet...I just need to park my truck in the living room so I can watch as I go. Then I'll make my own video about how to not ruin your manicure under your truck and also how to be as greasy as possible while doing very little in the way of actual repair. (I am very good at that.)

One thing I have discovered this week is that there is still an entire movie industry out there, and they still make films that aren't animated! I watched a real movie, y'all! Did you know about this, Interwebz? I thought they went out of business back around the time Warrick was born...

Shucks is really mad at me for getting rid of the kids for another week. He thinks I'm pretty boring even though I let him in the house and also rode my bike around for his entertainment. Stupid dog -- if he had a video camera he could post YouTubes of me falling off my bike and become really popular. But he's obv not that smart. We already knew that, though, because if he'd figured out how to post my secrets, the Interwebz would have broken up with me by now -- but you still love me, right?

Top Ten Reasons Not to Fight on Facebook

10) That awkward moment when someone takes your side and you go check out their profile, only to realize they are an idiot.

9)  Passive-aggressive "likes" are just enough to piss you off but not enough to argue with.

8) People can find a website for ANY point of view. 

7) You will never convince them that the Interwebz is a giant liar.

6) Trolls.

5)  You are bound to get called the one name that will actually bother you.

4)  You will never EVER make someone see your point of view.

3)  Context is off -- people get mad if you say they're an asshole because they can't tell that you meant to call them totally awesome.

2)  Just when you come up with a brilliant argument, you log on to see that the person has stated their intention to stop responding/defriended you and blocked all comments/deleted the entire conversation.

1)  Everyone else in the Land of Facebook is laughing at you and wondering why you care.

Forget the Zombie Apocolypse Guys, We Got Wasps

During the hottest day of this year (and for this year, that's pretty dang hot), we were out for about five hours in the middle of the afternoon. When we got home, I noticed that the kids had left the door open.

After being in the hot truck, I figured this was something to care about, because my house doesn't stay very cool as it is, and a wide open door meant a very hot house. I was pretty upset when I saw that it was nearly 100 degrees in the house, and our little AC was just chugging non-stop.

Then I looked around and suddenly gave not a single shit that it was hot because it was the FREAKINGWASPOCOLYPSE in my house. Every ceiling of every room I could see was covered in wasps. While I will admit that I DID wonder how I could snap a picture for the Blog of Awesomeness, I did not want to take my eyes off those suckers for one second.

Instead, I held one hand toward the ceiling in the universal gesture of "STOP", did some ninja moves with the other hand in the universal gesture of "There are six little helpless kids RIGHT HERE, so nobody needs to bother with stinging ME!", and ducked. The wasps didn't really care to notice me because they were busy electing members of Congress for their new ceiling country.

I went outside, but they had left guards stationed out there. While I'm over my extreme fear of wasps, I still have a tiny one. And you know that buggy feeling you get like they're crawling all over you and you think "this is what a 'bad trip' must feel like?" I felt safer in the house where they were holding town hall debates instead of outside where they seemed more ready for combat.

I texted my brother and said "IT'S AN EMERGENCY! WE'RE ALL GONNA DIIIIIIIE!"

I'm not sure what happened after that, but at some point my dad showed up with two giant black cans of Wasp Death. I took some time to fashion holsters out of pantyhose so I could feel all awesome with my dual cans, said "bring it on" (only because of my accent it sounded more like "ohcrapohcrapohcrapohcrap"), and started shooting.

The wasps said "thwumpthwumpthwump" and I screamed a lot and there were maybe a few tears of terror. But in the end, nobody got stung and I felt like a badass and my house smelled really bad. And so ended the Epic Wasp Annihilation of 2011. Songs were written and sung, feasts were prepared, and rejoicing was heard throughout the land in the form of six short people who never once looked up from their movie the entire time.

Ms. Fix-It...or not

I haven't been around a lot lately because lots of things broke around my house and as hard as I looked, the only person around to fix them was me.

I'm not really all that handy, but I did manage to order a heating element for my dryer. I even installed it myself! After about a week of waiting on the part, I got it all put back together and the dryer still didn't work.

I need a dryer -- as you have seen, laundry is kind of a big deal around here. I couldn't afford to wait a week in between each trial repair, so I ordered something called Everything That Can Go Wrong Will Go Wrong Dryer Kit. It had replacement parts for pretty much everything.

I started with what I was fairly sure was the problem -- the thermostat. Since the original thermostat is no longer available, I need to modify my dryer somewhat to fit the new one. I got this, yo. Dryer modification ain't no thang.

But then there was a problem...the new thermostat only had two pluggie innie things, whereas the old one had three. This left me with one wire hanging around with no place to go. I consulted the instructions that came with the kit. They were helpful:

"NOTE: If there is a 3/16" terminal connected to the direct connect thermostat then one end of the jumper wire must be cut off and the male/female combination must be attached to the thermostat. The 3/16' female terminal must also be cut off of the wire harness and the 1/4' female terminal crimped onto the wire. Then that wire must be attached to the male/female combination ternimal. See Fig. 2."

Figure 2 contained a giant picture of the heating element (which was already installed) and a line, representing a cord that seemed to be attached to nothing in particular and drifting off to the end of the page. It should also be noted that the only thing described that I could point out was the thermostat -- jumper wires, terminals, harnesses...I have no idea what these things are.

What is basically wanted me to do was cut some wires, put new thingies on the ends of them, install new thingies for them to plug into, and say a prayer that nothing exploded. I was hoping I didn't accidentally purchase the kit from a terrorist masquerading as a parts site, whose intention is to get people to inadvertently turn their home appliances into WMDs.

I also installed a new fuse or something, some more wires, and some little black round thing. I put the dryer back together. It didn't heat up.

I said some choice words under my breath, but out loud I just said "SHIIIIIITTTT! Eff you, you damn dryer." Little ears around here, you know. I started throwing tools, old parts, and trash into a box to deal with after a smoke. That was when I found an entirely different little black round thing that I hadn't replaced.

It was about the size of a quarter, and I knew there was no way this little thing had caused so much drama, but I decided to put it on anyway, just to say I tried.

I took the dryer apart for the millionth time, replaced the piece, and now, my dryer is heating up. It's perfectly fine that the walls are a little melty all around it and that the National Guard is stationed in my yard with radioactive testing equipment...especially when I force them to babysit.