*dusts off the keyboard*

Which might actually be true if I wasn't fritting my time away on that dastardly Facebook. Which, while I love it has some serious downfalls.

If I read one more Hooray it's Friday! or Boo Mondays! I may weep. Save that shit for Twitter.

• The dog weighs almost sixty pounds. I don't know, but that seems big. I'm sure the growing will slow down a bit now. Maybe?
• Was just told that my hours at work will be a joke once a big development project finishes up. From a local engineer: "this town is going to EXPLODE when that tower is done".
• Shit. Love my small town.
  
• Sixty pound dogs make excellent foot warmers.
  
• Loving black cherry kool-aid.
  
• And frozen margaritas
• Two weeks until vacation!

And with that, I'm disappearing again. Not for long though...

Well, now. My retinas are officially burned right out of my eyes.

There is this giant glowy thing in the sky today and I just stared in wonder...

FINALLY.

Bedtimes have officially flown out the window this week - I ordered from Amazon for the first time since Christmas (which, just so you know, is a record hold out for me) and we're all staying up too late, tucked into bed with book lights and fans and a warm snuggly puppy.

Well, only my boy has the puppy because the OFFICIAL word is that the dog is not allowed on the beds (so sayeth my husband) but the boy's room is upstairs and the dog quietly goes in there and my son is all too happy to have him jump up on the bed. Next thing I know, I can't find the dog and I'm going up the stairs to make sure he's with the boy and not gorging himself on his 40lb. bag of dog food in the cellar - and then I have to make a show of pretending to mind that the dog is curled up with my son. When really, I could honestly care less. And they both know it.

My husband took the kids and two of their friends on a six mile bike ride today on the Canal. He and my daughter just got new bikes - so it was their maiden voyage. The girlie is eight but we're hoping to keep the bike for a few years and we thought she'd be outgrowing the foot brake option before too long. So we opted for handbrakes and gears. Now, I remember my first ten speed - it was the official coming of age bike. You were no longer a 'little kid'. I also distinctly remember riding it for the first time, backpedaling furiously while trying to stop - totally forgetting the handbrakes - and riding directly into a very prickly fir tree. Also, I used each and every gear but probably didn't really understand how to use them for like, two years.

So I tell the girl my story and envision her trying in vain to use her footbrakes, and the bandaids, the crying....Well, my daughter? Had it all figured out within the first hundred feet. Brakes, gears - the whole nine yards. I was suitably impressed.

Today officially starts Summer Vacation for the kids...now if someone would just tell Mother Nature that as of June 21st she's supposed to turn the knob on the weather machine to 'sunshine'...

I'm on vacation as of two p.m. today. Naturally, we've got a few things planned and seeing as it's supposed to be Summer at this point...everything involves the outdoors.

*Loud Sigh*

There are slugs on the deck. And the pile of sand that has to be wheelbarrowed down to the beach? Waterlogged and really, really HEAVY. I now have a special pair of always wet sneakers to take the dog out because the lawn is long (can't be mowed until it's at least a little bit dry) and yes, always wet sneakers are every bit as gross as they sound but I figure better to have one pair of wet sneakers than 5 pairs.

*Looks out window*

I suppose light grey skies are better than dark grey, right? Right?

And the gloves and scarf I have stashed in the car for hockey...at least I don't need them outside the rink. So that's something...

I haven't had to wash the car for a month.

Ummm...

Ladies, I'm grasping here, to find the positive... can you tell? Hard to find the silver lining in a bunch of clouds that are all the same damned color.

Oink freaking oink

So, have you all been hearing much about the Swine/H1N1 virus thing? No? Yeah, well why is that? Think it's gone?

It so isn't.

Dudes, there are over 100 sick kids in my girl's school. They've let us know about 11 confirmed cases. But there were 400 kids absent today. FOUR HUNDRED. Out of about 580ish. Most of these were for precautionary reasons - or simply because it was grey and raining and who doesn't just want to roll over and play a little hooky on a day like this? Or on days like these since it's been raining for about 822 days now. But I digress.

Was my girl there? You bet. They had the school professionally cleaned over the weekend, she has NO symptoms and so she went.

Apparently there were tears - students and teachers alike, there are huge budget issues, layoffs are imminent and the feeling of having the school year cut short - even by two measly days - has left everyone feeling out of sorts and all unfinishedlike. My girl is heartbroken that she didn't get a chance to say good-bye to a special needs aide that is assigned to one of her best friends. Heartbroken.

I was planning on making cookies for end of the year presents...but I can't imagine wanting homemade treats during Germfest 2009. So tomorrow, while my babe accompanies me to work she is going to make some pictures and we'll scan them and email them off. Kind of blase but I know it'll make her feel better.

Only two more days of rain in the forecast...so I'm holding off on finishing the ark. At this point the only reason the pigs would be invited is to ensure a lifetime supply of bacon and ham, the virus ridden bastards.

Enjoyable

1. Sims 3. Waste of time? Quite possibly. Are there better ways to kill an hour while my husband watches Ax Men? I think not.
2. The new (to him) boat is in heavy rotation these days. This was the first time he rowed by himself to the other side of the pond. They were hunting for minnows, which they found. They also grabbed a glop of frog eggs, which turned out to be toad eggs. We now have two minnows and 35 tadpoles in our aquarium. 3. Love this gum. And no, I don't eat the wrapper.4. I was so sure that I wouldn't really like this series. A western? In space? Yes and yes. What this guy did for vampires? He does even better for space cowboy types.

May 21st

See now in real life...my birthday is long gone. But on the blog? It was only three short posts ago. I sometimes like how that works.

My requests were simple. It was to be the four of us, clam strips and ocean. The weather was beautiful and I hit the trifecta - I got all three.

We headed here for dinner. Based on years of driving by on my way to and from the beach and the hugely long lines I've seen - I thought we'd give it a try. It's not much of a website, but I suppose I'd rather have them perfecting the fried clam than learning html and java.

Our view:No vibrating, flashing beeper thingy here. Just a number. On a rock.

The girlie and I? Thought it was delish - the clam cakes (fritters, really) were to die for. The menfolk, however? Not as impressed with their choices. My husband kept looking longingly at the plates of all you can eat crab legs that kept passing by our table. Ah, well - live and learn.

Now, it was downright hot at home but in Newport? Um, TWENTY degrees cooler. Actually not cooler....COLDER. Still though, I thought we'd hit up the sea glass beach before heading home. It was high tide and we pretty much struck out but there were jetties to climb and periwinkles to rescue. "You want me to go again? Because I can go again. Did you cut my head off? Are my feet in the picture? Because I can jump again, y'know. If you need me too. Do you need me to? Just get one more jump. Just in case."Not a problem, kiddo. I'll take a thousand more of these if you want me to.

In summary? Fantastic way to spend my evening.

And as a bonus? We got to come home my other birthday present:

This soccer position has a name

It's called Butt to the Gut.

It's one of her specialties. Which is better than her positioning when she started dome soccer with names the other team's parents would yell out like "Hey, wasn't that a hip check?" and "ELBOW!" Mama didn't take photos of those.

Really, this kid oughta be on the ice but soccer's only a few hundred bucks while hockey is much, MUCH more. Plus she's not much of a skater and frankly, the money for two to play? Yikes.

She's also learned that if she puts her forearm out and braces it and runs through people without shoving her arm forward? That's perfectly fine. In fact, it's called a forearm shiver. And her coaches LOVE it.

Now, obviously she's not knocking everyone flat on their collective asses but she gets the ball up the boards like nobody's business.

This next move though? I don't have a name for this one...

Fore!

I know it's no secret that I totally love where I live. I mean, the exact location of where I live - on the pond. It also happens to be in a fairly small town - two stoplights, very sketchy cell phone coverage and no grocery store. The usual things, I suppose. It's not a bad little town but all the new houses going in are McMansionish and change is in the wind...

Anyway.

There's this driving range, seemingly out in the middle of nowhere (suppposedly it's totally close to a main road - but I've never driven that way so I can't be sure). No golf course nearby, surrounded by woods and a few houses...really, it's kind of nice as driving ranges go. I guess - because one thing I don't do is golf. Unless, of course, it involves dinosaurs or fake pirate ships and the only club in use is a worn out putter - then I'm in.

But the boy? Wants to golf. He got an inexpensive set of clubs for Christmas so I taken him to the range a few times. This past time we grabbed one of his friends on the way and we ended up getting there fifteen minutes after it closed. But, and I'm guessing this doesn't happen in all that many places, we walked up to the little ball shed and there were ten buckets of balls and a cash slot in the door. And a can of bug spray.

Now, the cash slot? Big enough to stick your hand in and remove all the other latecomers payments. If there were any other late comers, which there weren't. We paid for three buckets of balls - they wanted more, so I let them collect another bucket themselves (stealing from the honor system - nice, eh?) so they could shoot for another ten minutes until it was too dark to play. They practiced their Happy Gilmore shot, burned some worms (fast moving ball that never really leaves the ground) and made general fools of themselves...definitely not following any golf etiquette that I've ever seen.


This, apparently, is the look on your face after a ball you hit goes whizzing by your mom's head.

Almost two a.m.

Okay, so I should totally be in bed but I've got better things to do.

1. One episode left to watch of Entourage, season three.

2. Contemplate dinner plans for tonight. It's my birthday and the weather is supposed to be positively summer like...I'm thinking seafood + picnic table + ocean.

3. Totally got sidetracked by Jen. First I'm strolling down memory lane - remembering our old Kool-Aid pitcher, then I'm wondering about letting my kids drink the stuff, then I'm thinking that Kool-Aid is the least of my problems, then I'm cursing at the thought that my mom threw the pitcher out, then I remember these cups I used to have...what kind of drink was that again? Then I'm googling 1980's drink mixes. Lo and behold...Funny Face cups.

See? Sleep is so overrated.

Well then.

The dog has a rock obsession. Well, maybe not an obsession but he eats an alarming amount of them...and now he's learned to swallow the smaller ones quickly - like as soon as he sees my hand go towards his mouth.

Dudes. Combine this with a week of dog poop induced worrying and let's just say I'm about done boiling hamburger and rice for his meals.

And y'all know I love Boston Sports and apparently there's this baseball team in town you may have heard of.

But right now it's a baseball team of which I know nothing about because my house is topsy turvy with Bruins love. That would have been fine by me had they not lost three games in a row, giving me a hockey induced stomach ache (maybe the dog's issues aren't rock related after all) and keeping me glued to Twitter and whatever other Bruins stuff I can find. Which, apparently, isn't even HALF of what's out there.

I'm a blip on the Bruins obsession radar, honestly. I checked the ticket prices for the playoffs and had to laugh. One ticket for a decent seat? On the verge of being out of my price range. For a family of four? Bankruptcy.

NESN HD, homemade popcorn and the couch with the kiddos begging to stay up for the third period. Not so bad.

Except for the fact that I'll be at work and watching it later, by myself, in my computer chairand on my 15" computer monitor in NON HD.

Ergh.

Truman Fix

My daughter's been training him with the usual commands. Sit, come, ROLL YOUR EYES AT MOM.

Good Friday? You bet.

Daughter: Good Friday? Why's it called Good Friday?

Me: Because you don't have any school.

*climbs inside handbasket to await journey to the underworld*


I'm hostessing an Easter Brunch this year. Which, while it's not my first choice or even my 61st choice of things I want to be doing...my mother in law scheduled her Easter dinner at a time that leaves me no choice. Well, no choice if I want to see my family.

Other reasons for it being a Good Friday?

Sunshine, kids making Easter chocolates with my mother in law, husband golfing, dog running around a fenced in yard, going grocery shopping alone, sunshine. dinner with friends, husband got his CDL license, thumb is healing nicely, the Bruins beat the Habs last night and oh...did I mention SUNSHINE?

Remember last year...my son had an accident, splitting his knee wide open? The whole incident the result of a flailing dive after a football thrown by my husband.

The injury left him unable to play in his hockey playoff game, unable to attend tryouts for next season, going to class with a footstool and limping for weeks? (Ed. note: His legs = toothpicks, with knees)

Fast forward to this past Sunday.

A friendly game of basketball between my husband and son. The boy goes to make a move with the basketball and my husband, doing some defensive mojo - slams into my son's hand, jamming his thumb knuckle to the point where blood spurted out from his nail bed. Immediate swelling. No tears, but lots of pain. Lots.

Twelve hours later it's bruised and swollen. He can move it, a little. A nurse friend of ours says, "It's not broken but WOW that looks baaaad". Thanks, nurse friend.

And guess what...once again, it happens the day before hockey tryouts.

The silver lining? My boy and I are giving my husband so much grief, nothing like a good guilt trip to keep your spirits up...

Our fictional versions of the story include:

1. My husband slamming the ball out of my son's hand with a whallop and yelling "DENIED" as my son falls down holding his hand and crying.

2. My son reaching for the ball and my husband, knocks him down and steps on his fingers while yelling "Too Slow!"

3. The fact that it's all just a psychological thing my husband's doing unconsciously because my son is better at hockey than he was and now my husband is green with envy.

Now, obviously none of these things happened but, hey, we're easily amused.

Contrary to popular belief there is no Easter Bunny. At least not at my house.

Just a grouchy mom going outside at the crack of dawn to hide eggs around the perimeter of the yard where the dog couldn't go because the underground fence would shock him.

Why outside? Because the dog would follow me around trying to eat the eggs moments after I hid them? Same reason why they were mostly hidden around the very edges of the yard. Color me bitter. Not that the whole dog thing made me bitter it's just that old Easter non-spirit I have.

There may be a glimmer of hope on the horizon though:

Scene: Tuesday morning in the bathroom.

My girl was brushing her hair and I was brushing my teeth and she says "I really want Mentos and deodorant in my Easter Basket."

My response, besides an internal raised eyebrow at her request? "Really? Well, why are you telling me, maybe you should be telling the Easter bunny..."

Her: "I just did."


So, what do you think? Am I off the secretive hook? Can I just get up at, say, six a.m. and hide the eggs and baskets with their knowledge or must I still trip around in the dark with a flashlight hoping that egg eating raccoons aren't living under my shed.

Grateful For

1. Empty water bottles recycled to be the most favorite dog toy.

2. Sunny spring days. They will not be taken for granted.

3. Tim Thomas, goalie extraordinaire

4. Opening Day at Fenway.

5. The Easter Bunny charade? Done.

If I hear one more person call him Marley....

Truman, the eleven week old dog? Twenty two and a half pounds. I can't remember what Baxter weighed but this is seeming large to me. Something else I don't remember...the whole blank slate thing.

He had to be taught to walk up stairs. One at a time, me putting one paw on a stair and then moving the rest of them in order while he stood half frozen in terror. On the same idea? He's not going down them. Not no how. Not with treats, not with the same step by step teaching. I'm sure he'll get over it but for now, I'm scooping him up and carrying him downstairs every morning and praying he can hold it for just a few minutes longer.

He didn't drink for most of the first day he was home. We showed him his water dish but it wasn't until my husband splashed it around did he figure out what it was.

His collar? The bane of his existence.

There were some loud squawky birds outside today and his ears perked up and he RAN for the door. Somehow I foresee eighty pounds of quivering terror...hopefully he outgrows this.


Last time, with Baxter? We went for the super happy puppy. The one that licked us and wanted to play. Six YEARS later, he was an enjoyable dog to have around. Years one through five? He was hell-on-wheels. Or paws, as the case may be. This time we walked into the dog run and when four of the puppies ran over to jump and play with us my eyes went straight to the dog hanging back, half asleep in the corner.

I'm half convinced he has narcolepsy. And I'm thanking my lucky stars every day.

So far my responses to the ultra annoying Marley thing have been:

• "Who's Marley?" which, when combined with a confused expression has people thinking I live in another dimension.
• "Um, no this isn't Marley...wasn't that a movie or something?"
• "Nope, not Marley...I'm pretty sure he died, didn't he?"

I only used the last one on a wack job lady at the tennis courts but seeing as she screamed it across the courts as we walked by and then let her dog follow us halfway home? She totally had it coming.

Today

• I am cautiously optimistic that maybe, god willing...I will not need the umbrella at all today.

• I was writing down a list of meals we might have this week and my girl looked over my shoulder and says: Chicken POT pie?!?!? All this time I thought it was Chicken POP pie.

• Wondering if a nine pound chicken will defrost in seven hours.

• Debating between staying home and doing whatever needs doing or going to see a play at my son's school.

Echo....echo, echo, echo. Anyone? Anyone?

Yikes, TWO MONTHS without a post?

Let's see how things stand around here....

1. Husband, still out of work. He's going back in a matter of weeks, though. A local channel did one of their 'investigative reports' on his company and the whole owner in prison thing. What it added up to was them trying to drum up a story and the people they interviewed saying they have no problem working with this company, they've totally restructured and blah, blah, blah. In your face channel five.

2. The boy? Is well. There's one more hockey game, a tournament final and we are DONE. For a month, anyway. School is going spectularly this year. He's trying to negotiate for a cell phone...Fail. It took him until about a month ago to start checking people in hockey, nothing like seeing your seventy pound kid rub a 150 lb giant into the boards. Love it!

3. The girlie? One minute she's the death of me and the next she's quite literally the kindest person I know. She's also trying to negotiate for a cell phone and this FAIL needs to be in caps. She's playing dome soccer and now Spring Travel is about to start. She's the little enforcer on the team and when she was told to choose her number for her uniform? She picked 17, after her favorite Boston Bruin - Milan Lucic.



Going on record here as saying that the announcer, Jack Edwards is THE best. "They have beaten them. And tonight they have beaten them up." Love that guy.

4. Truman. Welcome home.

Grocery Shopping

Dear Market Basket,

Just last week I was cursing DHL as a horrible, terrible company to do business with. But, stunningly, you have far surpassed them. Quite possibly far surpassed EVERY SINGLE COMPANY I HAVE EVER DONE BUSINESS WITH, actually.

I have friends who swear by you and your low prices and so, with a spirit of adventure and a touch of cabin fever I took my daughter food shopping with me. It was probably not the wisest time to go...four thirty on a Saturday afternoon...but I thought, how bad could it possibly be?

I was forgetting two things. One, I hate crowds. Two, I hate crowds of stupid people.

The collective IQ of the shoppers in your store on Saturday? Couldn't be much above, oh I don't know, 36? 42? And there was no freaking shortage of people. Literally, we walked in and my daughter and I just pulled off to the side (1. to grab some bread - which BTW had a hole in the bag and was stale good thing I had to put it back; 2. to gasp at the amount of people vying for space in your dairy section; 3. try to navigate around the bins that are so conventiently placed in front of the doors). Did I see the customer service window at this time? No, I did not. I was, instead, focused on the serpentine route to the cheese.

So, with a spirit of resolve, we set out. My girl? She couldn't walk next to me and chat...there was no room for that. She had to walk in front of me (not behind me and out of sight...far too many people, many of them unwashed.) so there wasn't any chatting just "honey, stop...I've got to get yogurt". Plus, apparently this was PRIME FREAKING TIME for your employees to be restocking the shelves. They clogged the aisles with carts chock full of boxes. You couldn't see around them and couldn't reach around them to get what you needed. Waffles? Fail.

Also, deli? Fail. I will not wait for twenty people to order before I can buy some cheese and a half pound of lunch meat. Do you have the cutesy little pre-order thing like Stop n Shop? Where I can order on the computer in the store and then stop by on my way out? Oh, rest assured...you do not.

Some of the middle aisles? Not too bad. I could actually see the low prices that my friends rave about and accordingly, I filled my cart. Again, though, we reach the other end of the store and it's FULL. We could barely navigate the cart in and out of the fruits and vegetables. But we persevered! And I only had to wait 2 and a half minutes for someone to get out of my way so that I could buy hamburger. Which, I would've loved to have gone home without - but the prices, so low, like a siren song....and so I waited.

Did I mention the free cookies? Well, in the little bakery section they put up a tin of cookies...for your munching pleasure. I spy them, let the girlie know and we try to make it over there. Now, I'll tell you...this was a HELLACIOUS trip for an eight year old. Tons of people, most of them mannerless...I thought, hurray - you've been vindicated with free cookies.

But that wasn't to be. A fiftyish lady, decides that she can move her cart faster and she literally cuts us off at the cookie counter taking the Last Freaking Cookie. Last one. She hears my daughter cry foul and she looks at us and takes a bite. Eye contact and everything. I may have made a snide remark in her direction...something along the lines of "oh, NICE" but I was thinking "You freaking lunatic, you make me stop my cart short because you zoom in front of me and then you look at my daughter as you hear her say "There's no more??" and you take a BITE? BITCH!"

The only good decision I made while at Market Basket? Not heading straight to the checkout line but instead locating the customer service window (tucked helpfully in a corner behind bins of food) to see if I needed a check cashing card before writing a check.

And pray tell, I DID need a check cashing card. And guess when I'll get it? 4-6 weeks. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I was told that I could indeed write a check...for $75.00 worth of groceries. Which, I had probably triple that amount in my cart.

My first reaction was to laugh, kindly because he must be kidding. Seriously, $75.00? At other stores you can just write a check -no cards necessary. Seriously? $75.00?

Then your helpful employee asks if I do 'telephone banking' to which I reply "WHAT? On the phone?" But what I'm thinking is more like "Is it 1995 back behind that customer service desk? Telephone banking?"

He proceeds to half ass explain to me about calling my bank to get a larger check approved. Which I completly misunderstand because five minutes later he's asking me, again about telephone banking and telling me that he tried to access my account but he needed the PIN number and would I just give that to him? To which I laughed at him and told him to just approve the $75.00 check. My girl, gamely goes and gets me a spare cart and I proceed to unload everything but $66.00 worth of groceries into it. Including the stale bread.

Your helpful employee tells me that my card will arrive in 4-6 weeks (speedy! Some stores give them out that day! Is it 1990 back there?) and that next time I come I should just stop by the service desk first.

My response? "Kind of presumptious to think there WILL be a next time"

I spent far too much time in that store. Comparing prices and finding groceries that I needed. Well, actually, that I still NEED as I couldn't really buy them. My husband told me that I should've just left everything and walked out. Which, I guess I could've but 1. Our dinner was in that cart; 2. The next day's dinner was in that cart (scheduled to be in the crockpot by 8 a.m.; 3. Those freaking prices...they are low. Asparagus? $1.69!


And so, with that...I still hate you, Market Basket. Are you busy next Sunday at 7 a.m.?

Dudes, I am on a tear

Pissing me off today....in no particular order:

1. DHL. Dear DHL, you suck. And FedEx is cheaper. Love, Jenny P.S. Srsly. SUCK.

2. This show, Lie to Me* *the truth is written all over our faces.

Okay this is one show that I will NEVER see. Why? Because of the stupid asterisk. Lie to Me? A fine title. Add the asterisk and little subtitle and I'm not watching.

3. Our superintendent. Hey, four inches of ice coating every driveway in town? Too bad, get to the bus stop. The mere THREAT of a snow storm? He closed school at four p.m. The day before.

4. Radio commercials with sirens in them. There's a few of them that I hear when I'm driving causing me to check my mirrors for oncoming fire trucks or police cars. Which, of course, are never there.

5. Animal shelters that charge $425.00 for a mixed breed/mutt puppy. And require a two hundred dollar obedience school commitment on top of that. WTF, I'll just go to a breeder then.

6. These freaky people at the library book sale I'm going to tonight. They wait in line all wrapped up in giant sheets or some shit with bags and scanners and then they RUN to the books and just pile them up and cover them with their sheets. There are quite a few of them and once they're done piling up books (think hundreds and hundreds of books) they get these scanner gizmos out and scan each and every book...for what? We don't know. BUT I HATE IT. It adds an element of stress to the night that just pisses me off.

7. Oh, wonderful...at the bottom of the screen it says..."Could not contact Blogger.com. Saving and publishing may fail. Retrying...."

Making me happy?
#7 is no longer an issue.