In just a few hours, my redhead will be 12. It will also be her first day of 7th grade. Mila will start her last year of high school. Jo will start her first year. Jyoti will start 1st grade. And I will be starting my sophmore year in college.

I don't know which makes me feel older, knowing my kids are far from babyhood or looking at my classmates and knowing they're only a few years older than my Mila.

The birthday girl is in the happy bunny shirt

blowing in the wind

My mother had always told me that when she passed, she wanted to be cremated and have her ashes spread out over Lake M* by a certain beach (I am being purposely vague) she used to swim at as a child. So when she died, far too soon, in 2000, my sister (the good one) made the memorial arrangements. It is illegal to spread ashes in public places, so we decided to do it late at night. The law was not going to stop us from fulfilling her wishes.

So after the memorial most of us headed towards that beach that I won’t name. Everyone found parking spots and no one noticed the machine that dispensed the parking stickers. We walked towards that beach and it was not a beach anymore. It was being converted into a golf course. This did not stop us. We found a way in, there is always a hole in a fence; it is one of the great unwritten laws. We headed towards the lake. We stood on the rocks and prepared to spread my mother.

Her best friend and I each took half of her. After a few quick words, we got ready to send her on her way. It had been calm most of that night. As we began to spread the ashes, the wind came at us and so did some of my mother. I think she would have found that hilarious. I would not have been surprised if the parts that were coming towards us had once been her posterior and this was her final way of telling the whole world to kiss her ass.

Everyone ended up with a parking ticket. We may have inhaled pieces of my mother. We broke at least three laws. It may not have been the most dignified send off, but it was funny and a great story. My mother would have been pleased.

Oh and I hate that a rose shows up on my blog.

I go to the movies fairly often and I go alone most times. I enjoy going alone because I never have to argue over which movie to see or justify seeing an animated film. I also don't have that awkward moment where we discuss if we should share popcorn or get our own. I always want my own because as much as I like my friends, I hate the thought of touching food someone's hands have been all over. Strangely, I don't mind sharing food that my daughters have touched or even finishing things they have taken bites out of it.

On Thursday, I got two free passes to a screening that's going on today. I made the mistake of inviting my friend Cyn. She often cancels out on me, normally at the last minute. I invited her on Friday, she said sure and I even offered to buy the snacks. I checked with her on Sunday and asked if she could still make it today. She responded affirmatively. I thought this might be one of the rare times that she didn't cancel. I talked to her yesterday and asked if she wanted to grab dinner before and she said sure. I thought that she might actually not cancel this time. I was wrong.

This morning I sent her a text just saying hi. She sent me a text back half, an hour later, just saying hi. The delay made me suspicious. I sent her another text asking if everything was okay. Fifteen minutes later, she sent me a text saying yes, but she has to cancel tonight. Because I am an adult (shut up) and I have adult (shut up, shut up) friends, finding someone to do something on a weeknight last minute is pretty much impossible. So I guess I'm going alone, which I really don't mind doing, I just hate wasting a free pass.

Not hard boiled

The idiot told me one of his friends had a problem with me, this letter is my response.
The names in the following letter have been changed to amuse me.


Ms. Huge Ego:

You recently informed my ex-husband, Mr. T. Idiot, that you are dissatisfied with my performance at my place of work. You expressed dismay at what you considered to be my unprofessional and personal attack on your delicate perishables. I was shocked when informed of your claim. What is the reason for my dismay? I have no idea who you are.

You see, although you are so familiar with me that you were able to recognize me with only the
help of a name tag and information gleaned from Mr. Idiot and your mutual friend Ms. Whatever, I regret to inform you that until informed of your complaint, I had no idea you even existed. Even now, with my new knowledge of you, I still could not pick you out of line-up. The only visual clues Mr. Idiot gave was a vague racial category.

As for my alleged attack on your precooked omelets, I did not wantonly and willfully destroy them. I do not know you. I do not care about you. I do care about my job. It may not be glamorous or what some people would consider important, but I take pride in my work. Even if I despise the customer I am serving, which has never happened, I would never do less than a stellar job. If you do not wish for me to serve you, that will not hurt my feelings as I will still get paid.

Mr. Idiot also informed me that you sought my dismissal by bringing my alleged misdeeds to the attention of my work superiors and you were disappointed when they did not immediately discharge me. I must further inform you that I was not aware that you had even registered a complaint about my service as I have only received commendations from said superiors.

Now to put all this in simple words in case I have overestimated your intelligence – I did not break your eggs. I don’t know you. I don’t care who you are, I’ll bag the same. I didn’t even know you were petty enough to try and get me fired because I do such a great job my bosses are too busy praising me to tell me anything negative.

In parting, I would like to thank you, while I was temporarily confused by your complaint, you have given me quite a jolly laugh.

I will

Okay, so when I get insomnia, I write crappy poetry. I enjoy writing it and I enjoy subjecting others to it. So read it, make fun of it, laugh at how bad it is; I already have.

I will

I will eat oranges.
I will eat grapes.
I will eat bananas.
I will not eat grapefruit.

I will read too much.
I will write, poorly.
I will sing off-key.
I will not dance…in public.

I will remember my friends.
I will forget their sins.
I will treasure their love.
I will not abandon them.

I will make fun of you.
I will make fun of myself.
I will make fun of everyone.
I will not spare anyone.

I will laugh.
I will cry.
I will pout.
I will not take life too seriously.

I will love.
I will lose.
I will win.
I will not hate.

I will live.
I will try.
I will do.
I will die.

I woke up this morning when my alarm went off at seven. I decided it was too early to be up and went back to sleep. I woke up again when my second alarm went off at seven thirty. I decided that it was still to early to be up and went back to sleep. Then my phone rang at nine twenty and sleep was no longer an option.

I turned on my television and tried to find some decent cartoons. I didn't pay too much attention to the television until I realised that I was watching the Care Bears. As if that realisation was not horrific enough, I also realised that I had already seen this particular episode....twice.

A day or two ago (I lose track of time when I'm not working or going to school and today was my first day back at work after four straight days off), I was reading http://www.mommywantsvodka.com/ I absolutely adore Aunt Becky and I read her every day, but what I'm trying, in my own meandering way, to get to is that a post that she wrote about understanding her adorable boy's babble made me remember when I couldn't understand Jo.

Before I even met the idiot, I realised that one day, I might have children. I had already done a lot of babysitting and had even been the primary caretaker for my sister's spawn for a stint. Somehow, I didn't think that real life experience with other people's children had made me ready for my own. So I did what I always did when I was unsure about something. I checked an armload of books out of the library.

I had my oldest, Mila, first (which normally the way it happens) , she was a dream baby. She slept through the night by the time that she was a month old. She hardly cried. She was the perfect little baby that no one believes really exists. She even potty trained herself the Christmas before Jo was born. There was never even a pull up stage with her.

Then Jo was born. Mila adored her from the day she was born and even changed Jo's diapers. Yes, I let my toddler change her newborn sister's diaper. I know I'm evil. Jo was not an easy baby. She was full of energy. Lucky for me, Jo also adored her big sister. Mila was more help than most of the adults around me (except for my mom, of course) and the two grew close.
Jo was always in a hurry to do everything and she hit most of her milestones early. I think she was just trying to be just like her sister.

One of the things she did early was talk. This would turn out to be not a great thing later on. Now, because I had read all those books and continued to read more books and researched things online, I knew that I should be able to understand about 50% of everything my girls said by the time they were two and 75% by the time they were three. With Mila, I understood about 75% of what she said when she was two and 99% of what she said when she was three. (I now only understand about 80% of what she says, but that's because she tends to speak Japanese.)

It was not the same with Jo. When she was two I only understood maybe one-third of what she said. I was concerned and brought it up with her doctor. Since she was doing great otherwise, he thought it might just be a delay and we would see how she was doing at her three year checkup. A year flew by and the redhead joined our family. I took Jo for her three year checkup. I only understood about half of what she said at this point. It was very frustrating for her. I'd constantly have to ask her to repeat herself and try my hardest to decipher from the words I could understand what she wanted or needed. Having had a speech problem when I was little, I completely empathised with her.

Her doctor asked to her to say a few things, asked her a few questions and gave us a referral for a speech therapist. I was elated. Jo was going to get some help with her speech and I'd be able to understand my little ball of energy. I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up. I took Jo to the speech therapist. The therapist asked Jo to say a few words and grilled me about Jo's development. She looked at Jo's mouth from every angle but inside of it. Then she burst my happy little bubble.

Jo's speech problem was not a physical problem. The reason Jo had developed the speech problem was because she had started talking too early. Then she told me the last thing that I wanted to hear. Our insurance wouldn't cover speech therapy for Jo because she didn't have a physical defect. There was no way we could pay out of pocket for it. She would have to wait until kindergarten to finally start it. I had to spend two more years asking her to repeat herself and playing translator between her and everyone but Mila (strangely Mila understood her).

She got through speech therapy and if you spoke to her now, you'd have no clue that she had ever had a problem. She is still a ball of energy at fourteen and is far more verbose than I am.

Shut your stupid mouth already

I'm in a mood so I guess this list reflects it.


8 things I never want to hear again.
I am sick of hearing certain things and I really have no desire to hear them again.

1. Blonde jokes or” having a blonde moment” – Replace blonde with your favorite racial slur and you’ll have a classic racist joke. They weren’t funny as racist jokes and they’re not funny now. They’re just excuses to make fun of women as stupid and slutty.

2. Don’t crush my bread/ be careful with the eggs – I was going to pretend the bread was an accordion and juggle the eggs, but since you warned me to be careful, I’ll pretend I have a modicum of common sense and treat them as if they were fragile. Thanks for letting me know how delicate such items are, I never would have figured it out on my own with my lousy 3.9 (darn math 122!) average.

3. Item A is the next/new Item B – Pink is not the new black. The snotty high school basketball star is not the next Jordan.

4. Your hair is so short! – Oh my bob, it is! Here I was thinking I was ready to play Rapunzel sans silly wig and now you’ve destroyed my delusion.

5. My sponsor/going to meetings/any 12 step references; I had to drop; I was so high; my p.o. - Now if I was actually in a conversation with you and revealed these things in confidence, it probably wouldn’t annoy me. You talking about these things loudly, in public, annoys me. When did the second A in AA /CA/NA change from Anonymous to Announcers? If you are out on probation on a drug charge, do you really need to announce to everyone on a public bus that your last drop was dirty because they told you not to smoke weed so you smoked some crack instead? (For those of you not up on the lingo – drop is the term for having to submit to urine analysis and a p.o. is a parole officer – the things you learn on the public bus is amazing.)

6. I’m so broke/I’m so poor/ this pay is so lousy– This is normally from someone drinking a four dollar coffee who has never worried about being evicted or which meals they would need to skip. People who have never had only one hot meal a day in a church or community center where they had to sign their name for each plate. People who never slept during the day at the library and walked around at night, trying not to be picked up for vagrancy. People who have never tried to feed five people and get school supplies and clothes on an $8 an hour job.

7. Any complaint about the weather before it hits 103 – This is Tucson, it gets hot. It gets hot every year. It’s not a surprise. It’s not considered a heat wave. It’s normal. It isn’t even as bad as Phoenix, so quit whining.

8. Don’t you miss the girls? – No I’m heartless and emotionally void. Of course, I miss them. They’re the reason I’m transferring to UNLV next year instead of U of A. They’re the reason I go to Vegas as often as possible. They’re the reason I put up with the idiot.

Afterthoughts

I wasn't sure about posting this here. If you hate it, I won't be offended. It's a very short story I wrote about a month ago. It's a bit depressing and there's no humor in it.

Afterthoughts

She looked at him, this man she once cared for, and imagined him choking on his own blood. She despised him, loathed him. His touch made her skin crawl. His drunken slumber was loud and his limbs flailed. If she were stronger, physically and emotionally, this would be over tonight, but she was weak, dependent on him for everything. She had let him run her life. He kept her from having any friends of her own, moved her away from her family.

She hated herself almost as much as she reviled him. She knew better than this, had been raised better than this. Why was she here? Surviving her childhood had not been easy, had she learned nothing from it? Why didn’t she grab the kids and run, somewhere, anywhere? She knew there were places that would take her in, protect her. Why was she so afraid to leave?

Tonight he had come home drunk, again. When they had first married, he had agreed that if he were ever to come home inebriated, he would sleep on the couch. He knew how the smell of alcohol made her think of her father, how it triggered the fuzzy memories of which she wanted no part. Tonight he didn’t sleep on the couch. He came in to their bedroom, held her down and forced himself on her. The violence of it seemed to increase his pleasure.

Still she couldn’t do more than imagine the knife slitting his throat. She was a coward. She deserved what he gave her. She cried. She thought of her mother, miles away, slowly dying of cancer. Her mother was a strong woman; so much stronger than she could ever hope to be. She put on some clothes, careful not to rustle the fabric.

She went to her children’s bedroom. Her precious, beautiful children. Thank God, she thought, they sleep so soundly. Please dear God, she pleaded, don’t let them ever find out how he behaves when we’re alone. She put the blankets they had kicked off back on them. They slept as fitfully as their father. She went to the bathroom.

No bruises. He never left bruises. Bruises would have made it easier for her to leave him. She suspected he knew that. She knew that he would apologize in the morning. She knew she would say that she forgives him. She knew that she would not forget. She knew he would overcompensate for his behavior for a week, and then it would start again. He would hurt her again, as he had before. He would force himself on her, as he did before. That was how they had conceived their middle child.

She went back into their bedroom. He was still now, in a deeper calmer sleep. She lay down next to him and wept herself to sleep, terrified to stay and terrified to leave.

nothing

I have nothing to say today. I had nothing to say for a couple of days now. Actually, I have had a few things to say, just everything I had to say, I thought of at work, where I couldn't write anything down. Since I'm easily distracted...ooh shiny...what was I saying? Oh yeah, since I'm easily distracted, if I don't write down my ideas or at least text myself a short synopsis, I forget what I was thinking. I have been known to forget what television show I am watching during a commercial. I'll try to have something interesting up some time soon. Now, back to the shiny thing. It's so pretty.