Friday, January 30, 2009

In California, my new career will be: party planner

Because tomorrow is my kid's 10th birthday party* - it's going to be a terribly fashionable event at the ghetto glow-in-the-dark mini-golf place at our local ghetto mall.

The place doesn't serve food or do decorations (I did mention that it's ghetto, right?), but it's cheap and it's not at my house, so I don't have to clean the bathrooms or attempt to train my dogs.

So today, I baked 24 cupcakes (chocolate, yellow and swirled) (tomorrow they will be frosted and sprinkled with gold and purple sprinkles, the colors of the Lakers), dipped at least a pound of pretzels into white chocolate, purchased 3 bags of chips, 6 6-packs of full-sugar soda and 2 6-packs of Kool-aid, and we'll grab some pizzas on the way there - (no one will go hungry... although there could be a diabetic coma or two)

Also? There will be gift bags (candy and crap from the dollar store - whatever, they're 10, and this isn't the Golden Globes)

Who says I couldn't do this professionally? (whatever, maybe I could do White Trash Party Planning, Cheetos and wife-beaters could be my trademarks - all I need is a trailer logo and I'd be all set)

Whatever, I just want this move over with - can I be in California now?






*the actual birthday is Monday, February 2nd, Groundhog's Day, which means that the poor kid is forever doomed to his mom telling the corny joke "we thought he was going to come out, see his shadow and go back in for 6 more weeks - hurr hurr hurr"

Labels: adventures in shitty parenting

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Lost: one brain. Reward if found.

This morning, I pull up to my kid's school to drop him off.

There are two other cars in front of us, and for some reason, both of those cars are taking an EXTRAORDINARY amount of time to drop off their children (and watch the said children walk into the school).

Being that the drop off location is about 20 feet from the front door of the school, it shouldn't take more than, what, 20 seconds for to let the kid out of the car, and for the kid to get to the door, right? Somehow these were the slowest kids on the face of the planet and it was a couple minutes before these cars pulled away.

Now, it's not like I've got places to go or anything, but I really hate waiting (and seriously, if halfway into the school year, your kid can't find his way 20 feet into the school? I don't know what to tell you), and I'm really done with pretty much everyone in this godforsaken city by now. When these people are FINALLY pulling out of the parking lot, I put my car into drive and start to follow them.

Then my kid taps me on the shoulder to ask if I'd meant to drop him off or not.

Then he realized that he could have just had a free day if he'd kept his mouth shut for another few minutes (because, let's face it, we're a week from moving and if I'd gotten home without dropping him off? I probably would have just asked if he'd wanted to play Wii or something)

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

the crapstorm of 2009 rages on with no relief in sight

*alternate title: I'm just going to rename my blog "Whine Connoisseur"

• a new warning light (to join the other two that have been illuminated for a couple months) flickered on on my dashboard - something about the airbag and/or seatbelt tensioner thing
• Jason, the insurance guy who yesterday assured us, over and over, that we wouldn't have to pay anything unless the new door thing was OVER $1000, was apparently participating in some kind of opposite day because we actually have to pay anything UNDER $1000. Thanks for knowing your job and being able to correctly explain our policy, Jason. (here's a tip, next time, don't use the phrases "don't worry about your deductible" or "you won't be out of pocket anything" because when people hear that, then are told that they will actually have to pay $800+? They may not be happy)
• The hot tub in the house we're currently trying to unload has ceased 50% of it's function. Will prospective buyers believe that it's a big salad bowl or planter in the front courtyard?
• I still have about 40% of a cold
• I can't stop whining
• I have a cold sore on the inside of my lip
  
• I have PMS, so I've been weepy and morose for the last 3 days (or so)
• I was growled at by a pig today
  
• my favorite little rooster from the farm has disappeared (I would like to think that he was picked up by a nice farming family who will give him a cute hen house and lots of sunflower seeds, but the lady who runs the farm wants to believe that he was eaten by a coyote - geez, and I thought I was pessimistic right now)

Still, it's not all bad, right? I'm still looking on the bright side - neither our awesome renters nor their awesome (not watchdoggy) dogs were physically injured in the break-in. Between the new door and the new water heater, the house in Savannah is practically going to be a decent place to live (and maybe someone will eventually want to buy it). I made a really delicious pizza tonight for under $5. I still haven't shaved my head yet. And we're leaving this hole in a week and 2 days. And when I pull my head out, I'm pretty sure I'm going to delete these whine-tacular posts any day now.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

From my last post, you may have guessed that I'm having a bit of a tough go right now - that guess would have been correct, but I'm trying to focus on the good stuff right now, the positive stuff - like how, just a couple minutes ago, I was making dinner and I opened the refrigerator to look for some sour cream, even though I was pretty sure I had little to none (and if I had some, I was positive that it was either carpeted with a green shag rug of mold, or filled with that icky sour cream juice). It turned out that I had a whole container of non-expired sour cream - the full fat kind! Oh, happy day!



(I won't mention how, a minute later, I opened the rice cooker, got a nasty steam burn and realized that I hadn't had the lid on all the way so the rice wasn't cooked.)

Labels: suzy fucking homemaker

Saturday, January 24, 2009

In case you were wondering

It takes a shot of Tequila Rose and 2 Parrot Bay wine coolers for me to sing karaoke (courtesy of Wii Rock Band) at a party.

And the song? After a couple false starts on "We Got The Beat", the final product was "Kids in America".

And it was appropriately awful (but I kind of had to because our only friends in town felt it necessary to have a little going away party for us).

Labels: what about your friends

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

you know what's kind of awesome? When the jeans that previously fit perfectly starts to feel a little loose and droop a little bit and you realize that maybe you've lost a couple pounds.


Awesome, right?


you know what's kind of not-awesome? When the jeans and underwear that previously fit perfectly start to feel a little loose and droop more than a little bit while you're grocery shopping. Now, the jeans? You can work with, just be tugging them up every couple minutes, but the underwear? Well, you've kind of got two choices; you can reach into your jeans every couple minutes, to try to wrangle them up, or you can just let them go and hope no one notices that you've got separate panty lines on each leg, halfway down your thigh.


I started out trying to wrangle the panties, but I figured that I looked like I was either molesting myself or shoplifting, so I figured I'd just give it up and finish my shopping as quickly as possible. And in case you were wondering? It wasn't comfortable at all.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Dear Husband,

While I sympathize with the pain of having thrown out your back, Lord knows I know back pain, I do find myself wondering what the hell you thought I could do about it at 5:00AM (a full two hours before I have to get up to get the child fed and dressed for school).

Why exactly did you wake me up to tell me that you were going back to bed?

Did you want me to get up and plug in a heating pad for you? Because last time I checked, you still had opposable thumbs.

Were you worried that I might worry when I woke up (at a normal hour) and saw you still in bed? I'm pretty sure, after I made sure you were still breathing, I would have been able to put something together.

How about next time, unless you've set the house on fire or severed a limb, you just let me stay asleep, mmmkay?

Thanks,

xxoo

Labels: letter to

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

At 4:30-ish this morning, I dropped off the husband and child at the airport so they could jet off to California in search of a rental home for us. They will be there until Friday evening.

Yep, that means that I've got the house to myself for four whole days. Which has never ever happened before. Ever.

That also means non-stop pajamas*, chicken nuggets for breakfast, ice cream for lunch, frozen pizza for dinner and as many girl movies/shows as I can stand (without anyone rolling their eyes or asking if there was anything else on).

That also means that American Idol season 9 kajillion, premiers tonight and I have no one to watch it with, which kind of sucks. But I get the WHOLE FREAKING BED to myself tonight, so that kind of makes up for it.

Also, I found out today that if you are lounging around your house between your ice cream lunch and frozen pizza dinner, wearing fluffy Christmas pajamas and looking like a metric ton of hammered snot (because there's no one else home and it doesn't matter what you look like), the doorbell will ring and at the door will be the hottest postal employee ever and he will recoil a little bit at the sight of you as he asks for your signature. It's just a fact.




*that would be a great name for a kids' show, wouldn't it?

Labels: adventures in shitty parenting

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Last night, the fam and I are out for dinner at our favorite local restaurant and, through the plate glass windows in the front, I see a dwarf couple getting out of their car and coming in.

Now it should be noted that I am fascinated by dwarves, I know it's wrong and I can't explain it, but they (like miniature horses*) make me happy. And I had no idea that we had one little person living out here, let along a couple - so I was like "SQUEEEE!" when I see them heading into the restaurant.

Now, keeping in mind that we had just seen the episode of "30 Rock" where Tina Fey semi-accidentally starts dating a dwarf, I quietly warn my son not to stare. He glances at them quickly, barely raises an eyebrow and turns his attention back to his pho.

The host asks them where they'd like to sit (which was probably pretty sensitive of him because the restaurant has a bunch of normal-sized tables in the center, but they also have several really tall tables along the window, which are probably more private, but tall enough that even my fairly-tall kid has to climb up), and they point to one of the taller tables which happens to be right in my sight line.

You know how when you're trying really hard not to notice something, it becomes a magnet for your eyes? Yep, after specifically telling my kid not to stare, I can't stop staring. And I can't help but wonder** if they moved here together, or happened to be here separately and happened to find each other - I mean, I've got no idea the saturation rate of little people in your average American town, but I can't assume that they met by accident...

I don't quite know where I was going with this (other than how much I like Vietnamese food, Tina Fey and little people), but it reminds me of my favorite little person story -

years and years ago, I worked at a call center in Phoenix and there was a little person who worked there, one afternoon, I walked into the break room just in time to see her shoving some coins into the soda machine and reaching up to push the button for a Squirt.



*I'm pretty positive that lumping dwarves with mini horses will send me straight to Hell***

** Yes, I know I'm an ass, but I'm not an ass just for the sake of being an ass, I'm just curious about people.

*** my husband will be going to Hell, too, because after we left, he wondered aloud if they'd ordered the shrimp.

Labels: adventures in shitty parenting

Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Dear Stumbleupon,

Stop being so freaking fun! I've lost significant chunks of my life stumbling around the internet looking at everything I never knew I'd waited my whole life to see.

Thanks,


me

Labels: letter to