Writing blogs makes you less cranky.

I need to ask myself what’s reasonable.  Of course I’m never going to seem happy if I am always viewed as the bad guy.  Ant told me that everything’s cool until I get home.  I told him that hurt my feelings and that I knew exactly what he meant by saying that my family reminded him of the English.  Maybe someday he’ll read all these blogs and have some idea of what my side of things was like.  This morning I’m fired up about why I’m responsible for all the frigging housework and chasing after Ant and making sure the animals are fed, walked, clean, healthy, happy… and I still have to clean up after their barf and other functions.  I can’t even write my next sentence without sounding whiny, but good grief, no wonder I’m so pissy.  I would like to create an infallible system to share responsibilities.  Somebody’s got it pretty easy right now.

Okay, so now that that’s out, I feel better.   Now as a reward for reading my list of accomplishments, I’ll tell you about last night.

So I come home just as Chris is taking off for work.  I had 99 calls yesterday and somebody told me that in the 8 years they’ve been dealing with the VA, I am the most helpful person they have ever spoken to.  That had me feeling pretty good, so it didn’t bother me that Ant asked me what was for dinner as soon as I walked in the door.  I told Ant we would be going to the grocery store after I got back from walking the dogs (alone, since Ant still has a cough, I’m only slightly bitter) and asked him to please write out a grocery list.  When I came back, I found stuffed shells on the list.

“But we had stuffed shells not that long ago,” I said.

“Yes, but Daddy made them, and they were terrible.”

Well, okay.   So we went to the store and Ant did not make a scene, a mess, or a pest of himself.  He let me match sales with coupons in silence.  I took him to Blockbuster and let him pick out a movie and when we got home, the sprinklers were on.

The sprinkler by the door shoots out across the walk, probably to water the rosebushes against the garage.  This makes it interesting to get to the door.  I grabbed a handful of bags and just ran for it, shrieking.  My theory was that sometimes dumb luck applies, but I got sprayed in the face.  I waited on the porch to see how Ant did.  He carefully hid behind the car door, distributing grocery bags for equal weight.  Then he moved up to the edge to watch the rhythm, but misjudged the distance and got sprayed in the face just by standing there.  I was immediately consumed with the kind of laugh that you just can’t keep up with.  Ant almost lost his composure, but held it tight and tried to time his launch anyway.  He saw an opportunity and ran for it, but got sprayed in the face again.  We giggled our way into the kitchen to put the food away.  Ant went to start the movie while I started making dinner.

“Really?”  I hear Ant ask.  “REALLY?”

“What’s wrong?” I call from the kitchen.

“The sprinklers JUST turned off.”

Such is life.

Manic Thursday

I love my outfit today.  I just knew what to wear today and I feel so happy.  I've got this nice stretchy black top with 3/4 length sleeves, my awesome new jeans from Wal-Mart (who knew) and my gray Mary Janes.  I have these rainbow sherbet socks and they crack me up with this nice, sleek outfit.  As I walk you can see little slivers of yellow and purple craziness.  I look all put together until you catch a glimpse of my true age.

Tonight is new puzzle night!  I'm so excited!  I found another one of those puzzle piece within a puzzle piece puzzles, if you could follow that sentence.  This one will be much harder than the last one, so how exciting is that?  About as exciting as that 1000 piece Toulouse-Lautrec puzzle I just finished: so exciting at first, then you realize that it consists entirely of brown pieces with bits of a weird green.  Once you finish the border, you look through the box and say, "Shit!"

Chris was on the same page about Ant deciding to miss school yesterday.  Since he took his free time yesterday, we will be taking his free time this weekend.  Uh-huh.

"But I told you I didn't feel good enough to go to school!" Ant cried.

"Maybe in your sleep, because I don't remember hearing anything.  Besides, I certainly didn't give you the ok."

"True..."

I love it when logic gets through.


Do you ever have the urge to throw something?  Not in anger, but entertainment?  I used to have these urges to throw tapes or cds out the car window, but I've only followed through with that once.  Sometimes I just want to wing something across the room because it feels like it would fly nicely.  Lately I have the urge to launch something over the top of the cubicles and look confused like everybody else.  Nothing dangerous, maybe a balloon or something.  Draw a smiley face on it to increase morale.  Maybe an inspirational quote or interesting fact.

That's my update.  Feel better now?  I do.

Chris calls:

"Did you know that Ant was home?"

Excuse me?  I heard his alarm go on and on, got up, woke him up and he got up and went into the bathroom.  I went to take a shower.  By the time I got out, it was already past 7 when he leaves for the bus stop, so I went about my business.  Little turd went back to bed.

He's been sick, but uhhhh... WE decide when you stay home, ding dong.  I don't know if I can restrain myself from grounding him.  I called him and said the house had better be spotless when we get home.  Chris is also pissed, so this evening ought to be fun.  We should just take the damn door off the hinges-- many problems could be solved that way... and more created, but for now I'll just heave a big sigh and roll my eyes a lot.

I've been all kinds of aggravated today, but that has been alleviated greatly by making patients attempt to pronounce the medications they want to refill.  I had one guy today call me to change an appointment, then get all bent out of shape that now he had to "ruin his calendar."  What?

Almost done.