Spring Forward, Fall Apart

Hey, remember me?

I have been adjusting to my new job and my new schedule and realizing how frigging fortunate I am.  I have a job that fits my experience, my skills, allows me to help people, and relies on me to be there.  Okay, well they will eventually.  I have great benefits and my starting salary is above the Washoe County average income, making it possible for me to live here.  (That reminds me- congratulations to Loudoun County for being named the Richest County In The Country.  Jesus!)  The people I work with are nice and encourage me to come to them for help.  Every other Thursday is "Kumbaya Class," as one coworker has dubbed it.  That consists of team building exercises.  There were some complaints of how things don't work, but then the conversation shifted into examples of how they had worked together to solve issues in the past.  See why she calls it Kumbaya Class?  It was nice, though.  I left that day feeling like I had won something really awesome.  If all this isn't enough, I can wear jeans.  Now, I am trying to improve my wardrobe and so far I have put together some nice looking outfits that were interesting enough to entertain my inner weirdo.

I'm working on a puzzle tonight- one of maybe five I've done in the past week.  Yes, it is nice to be able to do what I want when I come home and not have to do homework.  Chris had to go into work early today, so Ant and I cleaned out the car and took the dogs for a walk.  He requested French toast for breakfast, but sadly we did not have enough eggs.  We picked up some later, so tomorrow I will make my first attempt ever.  Ant assures me it's easy.  He did his chores and I washed some windows and some clothes.  I made turkey burgers for dinner while Ant read to me about the Golden Age of Athens from his social studies book.  During dinner, he told me that he intended to go scuba diving in the Bermuda Triangle when he's 80.

"Ah, I see, so that you won't miss much in case you disappear there," I said.

"Right," he said.  "Maybe a couple birthdays... and a haircut."

It was SO warm outside today.  Riley sat with me out front while I washed the quail shit off the bay windows, but then she got overheated and went back inside.  She climbed up on the back of the couch and napped in the sunshine and the cross breeze.  I went to steal the Windex back from Ant and Jasmine followed me to the front door.  She had been watching me from the backyard through the hole in the gate and was SO EXCITED when I invited her to come out front with me.  She sat in the Dodge while I cleaned the windows and I opened up the doors so it was breezy and cool.  Jasmine was happy and followed me as I moved around the car, alternating between watching the street and giving me kisses.

So the dirty laundry finally fits in the hamper, but now there's no more room on the counter for dishes.  Earlier I set a glass too close to the edge of the table and it fell off.  The nice thing about a tile floor is that it really shatters glass effectively, distributing shards equally across the kitchen.  My puzzle looks like a 1000 piece smurfing blue nightmare and Ant just watched A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas.  Now that all our progress is sliding backwards, it must be time to set the clocks ahead.  I keep trying to tell myself that it's 10:45 because of daylight savings, but I don't believe me.  I read this great tip to start moving the clock ahead 15 minutes a day for four days before the 11th.  Isn't that a great idea?  I wish I had remembered to do that.  It's a terrible plan to move the clocks ahead tonight because tomorrow will just be weird and we'll still suffer the consequences on Monday.  We should move the clocks ahead on Thursday night so we'll be all messed up on Friday but have the weekend to recover.  See, this is why I should be in charge.

I'll only sleep with a tranquilizer dart.

Quickly, because it’s late and I have to get up early tomorrow:

I start work tomorrow!

I have all my little ducks in a row.  I have pants to wear, all my forms ready, apple juice and granola bars to stock in a drawer in my cubby…

I ran last minute errands all day and that kept me pretty occupied.  When I left the last place, the butterflies began.

“I’m nervous,” I told Ant.

“Jenny,” he said, “Don’t worry.  Just go in there and do what they tell you.”

After a few moments of thought, he added:

“And the next day, do what they taught you the first day without being asked.”

I think he’s onto something…

At least it wasn't a fork in the eye.

I didn't put this on Facebook because I thought someone might react to it poorly, so instead I'll put it on my totally public blog!

The caption is: "Why does game night always end this way?"

Which I think is terribly funny, but my suspicion is that somebody (who doesn't have boys) will think that we're beating Ant.  My friend recently posted this definition:

Boy, n.: a noise with dirt on it.

Yes, yes, yes.  But there's more to it.  They disappear with your stuff and leave their dirty dishes and trash around like someone's going to come along behind them and clean up.  I am currently waiting for my lemon bread to bake and guess what?  I could not find two of my measuring spoons.  There was not a tablespoon to be found.  Who took them?  Where are they?  What could they have been used for?  But most importantly- am I going to want them back?

Louis C.K. says that boys cause damage that can be measured in financial terms, like tornadoes.  I can agree with that.  He says girls cause psychological damage, which I can also agree with.  Have any of you ever watched the Bad Girls Club?  It is the worst sociology experiment I have ever seen.  It is my own personal nightmare.  It's like Lord of the Flies... with girls.  When my stuff goes missing I try to remind myself that it could be so much worse, and that I will always have an excuse to find a great deal on measuring spoons at Ross.

But back to the picture.

This could easily be any night in our house.  This is what they do.  Tonight they stabbed each other with forks at the dinner table.  I'm so glad we have a kitchen table now so that we are centrally located near the phone, the first aid book, and the band aids.  This incident was during The Game of Life.  Chris was a single dad working as a hairstylist, and Ant was a childless doctor who kept winning lawsuits and owned a Tudor mansion.  We kept giggling at how Chris's path aligned with real life and Chris shot Ant with a rubber band in retaliation.  Ant got hit straight in the eyeball and hit the tile floor screaming, convinced that he was permanently blinded.  Chris scooped him off the floor, cooing apologies and checking out his eye, then let Ant smack him repeatedly with a slotted wooden spoon and a maniacal grin to even things up.

"AAAGGHH!" screamed Chris.  "Okay, that's enough.  AAAIIIIGGGHHH!  AAAGIGIIIIIIGHHHH!  Okay, STOP!"

Ant got the peas or lima beans or whatever the hell we keep in the freezer for such occasions, and we finished the game.  By the time everyone reached the end, Chris had already wandered off to play bass.  Ant's eye is fine, but do not fail to notice the look on his face.  That is a carefully crafted expression made specifically for the camera.  He was already over it and giggling at the game again.

Boys might cause damage, but they sure are entertaining.

A Clumsy Couple

So, this morning I walked into the bathroom as Chris was getting out of the shower.  But to be fair, I didn’t walk in.  I barged in.  I was moving too fast and I guess I surprised him, because I knocked him off balance and into the wall.  There’s a corner there, and the timing was just perfect.  He scraped his shoulder on the towel rod and stubbed his little toe on the corner.  He yelled and fell towards the counter, trying to get the weight off his foot.  His hands went down on the counter and smushed my glasses.   There was yelling and ruckus and accusations of being an elephant, but we giggled and made sad noises for my glasses, his shoulder, and his poor little toe.

I just got off the phone with the authorization lady at the eye clinic.  You’re generally not welcome at the eye clinic without an invitation, but there are some exceptions.  So tomorrow I can go in and see what’s next.  Ha ha, see what’s next.  That’s not nearly as funny as this morning when Chris called me an elephant and then added that I probably ran over him because I wasn’t wearing my glasses and couldn’t see him.

But I’m proud to announce that I’m not the only clumsy idiot in the house.  Chris is setting up to do sound for a TV show at his old venue, Studio on 4^th.  His control room is the old walk-in fridge and it smells pretty rank in there, so today he brought in some incense.  Incense is not going to help, but Chris firmly believes in Nag Champa.  He’s always finding stupid little crevices to anchor incense sticks in and today he might have learned his lesson.  He was putting things back into the fridge (Don’t worry, it doesn’t work.) and forgot where he’d stuck the incense.  He backed into it.  I heard him swear behind the big, heavy door like this:

“OW!  Shit!  OW OW SHIT!”

It burned the back of his neck.  Ow shit is right.  I shook my head at the fact that he was burning incense again and said that he should not leave it burning in there.

“It’s out,” he said.

Yes, because he put it out with his neck.  We make quite a team, don’t we?

Overdue

***

Important Too Long Neglected Thank You Card:

Dear Tracy,

Ant, Chris, and I went to Petco last week with your gift card.  We got a new toy for each girl.  Jasmine got a new frisbee since the last one got lost a long time ago.  It is both tough and flexible, which is important because she's a Pit Bull.  Riley got a little stuffed squirrel with a bushy tail.  Ant picked that out carefully, testing all the squeakers and rejecting the ones she would quickly rip apart.  For Solo, we got a new fishing pole.  It has replaceable feathers at the end that can twirl on the attachment, so it really gets her attention.  Ant and I saw that thing on a show you should see at least once: My Cat From Hell on Animal Planet.  This guy is like The Cat Whisperer, only tattooed and much more emotional than Cesar.  All three of us weighed in on all three toys, and when we got in the car, Ant noticed that there was a small opening in the cat toy bag.  "Oh, this is open," he said, and took the cat toy out and started playing with it.  At home, Jasmine folded up the frisbee and carried it around, waiting to see who would take her to the park.  Riley attacked the squirrel and took under the coffee table to kill it slowly.  Ant flung the cat toy around for a half hour until I realized the cat was still in the linen closet and he was playing by himself.  Once she found out about it, she wouldn't leave it alone.  It's sad when we find her playing with it alone, so we play with her a lot more now.

Thanks for thinking of our animals- they would cover you in slobber and cat hair if they knew.

***

Ending on a High Note

I'll tell you about the rest of my day tomorrow, but I wanted to run in here and tell you a couple things now.

I brought Ant with me to meet Jody at the park to exercise the dogs.  Ant was excited to see Kaiden- he loves kids of any age- and wanted to push the stroller until the bumps got annoying.  Hidden Valley is one of our favorite places to go to walk the dogs because we can let them run and there usually aren't too many other dogs to worry about.  Jasmine can be quite obnoxious with other dogs and sometimes it goes too far.  I have been the main provider for the dogs forever- even back when Ant was the pottier.  He'll tell you that he did all the dog walking and that he was totally responsible for the dogs, but his memory is a little biased.  A long time ago, Chris and I broke up the chores and said that Ant would do dog potty walks, I would do long walks, and he would be responsible for their exercise.  This means he would take them out for runs with the bike or run Jasmine at the dog park.  I usually ended up doing the long walks to the dog park and exercising them myself.

The reason I am getting so defensive is because both Ant and Chris think they are dog whisperers.  If I tell Chris that something bad happened with Jasmine, he'll tell me it was the other dog's fault.  It's amazing how he can tell without even being there.  I was at Hidden Valley with Jody one day when some friendly dog came up to say hi and Jasmine ripped a chunk of hair out of him.  The fur actually flew, and that was the last time I left her loose around other dogs.  I wish more than anything that I could let her run free and socialize with all the other loose, happy dogs there.  She's dominant, and an asshole to other dogs.  I know this because it happens over and over again.  So today at the park, when I put the leash back on to keep her away from other dogs and Ant starts telling me what I need to do with her, I'm ready to tell him to take a hike.  Somewhere else, I mean.  I have been practicing being calm with him and not taking the bait, but this was much harder because I was already frustrated.  I can't tell you, Ant, how much I WISH it was that easy.  But I've tried it.  You believe she is an angel princess, and most of the time she is.  But sometimes she is a flaming asshole.

Today was no exception.  It was pretty nice out, and I had to put her on the leash several times and walk her away from many dogs.  I kept her from chomping on them, but she bit a dog anyway.  She bit Jody's dog Snoopy, the alpha of the group.  These four were best friends at the old apartment- they would play together every night.  With the exception of Riley, they all grew up together.  Snoopy has always been the leader.  Today they got in one of their arguments and Snoopy lost.  When Ant was busy telling me I was wrong to restrain Jasmine, Jody told him to look at Snoopy's bleeding nose.  Ant wouldn't acknowledge it.  Later, when we picked Chris up and I told him about the bite, he said, "Jasmine finally shut her up, huh?"  Even if Snoopy picked on Jasmine, which I haven't seen, why would that be an appropriate response?  Sigh.  Maybe I should call Cesar.

But Jennyway, it can be very stressful to go on those walks- or as I like to call them: potential lawsuits.  It is not usually fun to have the mini critic along, either.  We had to run to the science fair and Chris would have to go back to work afterwards, so I was really not looking forward to spending the evening with the child.  Last night was not fun, but I knew we had to get through homework so I put on my happy smiley face and started washing dishes while he did math.  He asked for help and we talked about ratios.  When he was done, I told him we were going to go through math, English, and science, so he needed to be prepared to get through all three with a pleasant attitude.

"I don't know why you had to say that," he said.

Yes, well, moving right along.  We scratch papered through math and I got to review simile, metaphor, and hyperbole.  At last, terms I am familiar with.  After that, we went through the next set of questions on the science study guide and- GASP!  He found a mistake.  After he finished that section, I had him read back through what we did yesterday.  He knew all about fossils and paleontologists and almost remembered what uniformitarianism was.  Uh-huh.  That's right.  I asked him what we would be doing tomorrow.

"These four questions."

"What else?"

"Studying."

Ah ha ha.  Go read your book.

"Can I take a break first?"

Of course.

He went over to the drum set and started banging on the cymbals.

"Jenny, look!  It sounds like a bong!"

"GONG.  It sounds like a GONG."

"Oh."

Oh, indeed.

Reprogramming

thankless job
thankless job
thankless job


he's not supposed to appreciate this yet... if ever...


deep breaths...

Why yes, I am crampy and bloated and exhausted and still remembered to pick up dog food and essentials. Yes, I put groceries away, fed the dogs, washed the dishes and made dinner while reviewing Ant's homework calendar.

Science homework all week is the study guide.  Guess how many days he's studied?  I don't yell at him for not doing his homework, I just ask him to tell me what a fossil is.  He struggles.  I tell him to look it up.  We get into a discussion about dinosaur bones and Jurassic Park's insects in amber.  I show him about Pompeii and we look at pictures and videos of the volcano in Iceland that nobody can pronounce.  (Eyjafjallajokull, really?)  Then I ask him to read me the first question on the study guide.  He waffles on the answer, and has no idea what the vocabulary word even means.  I have him look it up: uniformitarianism.  We go through four questions- a fourth of the study guide.  He pitches a fit because all his original answers were right.  I said that was very good, but the point was to study, not rush through.  He did not agree, and started arguing with me.

Well, that's not true.  He started arguing with me the minute we dropped Chris off at work.  He was in his usual argumentative mood, and cheerfully battled every single thing I said.  It was nonstop through the grocery store and I finally had to nip it when he tried getting personal.  That calmed him down and he behaved much better until science time.

He tried getting really surly with me again, but I did not take the bait.  I reminded him that I did not yell at him for not doing his homework, he got to pick out some ice cream at the store, we had a movie he wanted to see, and he was acting poorly because I was asking him to do what was assigned.  "You need to go take a minute and think about this," I said.

He went into his room and closed the door.  I wondered if he was going to come back at all, but I did not interfere, just went back into the kitchen and waited.  After maybe ten minutes, Ant came back into the kitchen.

"Well, that helped," he said.

He said he played the keyboard for a while and that helped calm him down.  I think that will be a good lesson in taking a time out when you get upset.  I did not get an apology, but he did listen to me.  I explained "study" does not mean "no homework."  I reminded him that he has an opportunity to do his work on his terms, but if he doesn't do it, he's going to do it on our terms.  Then I asked him what a fossil was, and he told me.  Ah-ha.  Then we watched a movie.


Later that night:

"Chris, where is the popcorn?  I can't find it anywhere!"

He looks at me with a no-duh look.  "It's in the freezer!"

I have the no-duh response.  "OH!"  I laugh.


Earlier that day:

"Chris, take a look at this book."

"What am I looking at?"

"Just open it anywhere.  It's full of hints and info."

"Hmmm."


"So, what did you learn?"

"If you store popcorn in the freezer, all the kernels will pop.  And you don't need to defrost it first."

And it worked.