(Green) Thumbs Up!

I'm sloooowly, sloooowly getting the hang of domestic life. Like, it's really only taken me 8 months to realize that if I leave the laundry basket (whether its filled with laundry or not) on the floor next to the washing machine, the cats are gonna pee in it. Every time.

And I've got quite the garden growing out back which is yielding numerous sweet cucumbers and a teeny tiny pepper, which didn't taste rancid or anything!


Fetal cucumber. Go ahead, make the dick joke. I know you want to.


Behold: Magic tropic heat makes green things grow good!!

As you can see, greenery grows rampant in the wilds of southern Louisiana, whether you help it along or not. So you'd have to be a complete ass to do what I did in the front yard. Or, you could just be me.

We bought these two giant feaux clay pots to put perennials in and stick in the bald spots in front of the house where we don't have any other shit growing. They were kick ass: plastic but you couldn't even tell! And they had the perfect weathered-bohemian-yet-still-tasteful look of something purchased at Pottery Barn instead of Wal-Mart (shhh. Don't tell though).

So I put some pretty flowers in there and waited for the magic to happen. Except I forgot one thing. To drill a hole in the bottom of each pot. So, every time it rained, which it does just about every goddamned day around 4 pm here, the pots got more and more full of rank, mossy, slime-filled mudwater that had nowhere to go. Soon it started to overflow onto the lawn. And all the flowers turned brown and crispy and promptly croaked. And then came the smell.

Oh, the smell. Like horse manure left to decay in a bog...a smell that actually stings your nose with its foulness. This is what I picture zombies would smell like.

So, I spent this afternoon dumping out fetid, stagnant slop from inside these pots so that we could drill the holes in the bottom we should've drilled at the start.

And I got some fresh dirt and new flowers that got plopped into the pots, even though I could swear I could hear tiny screams coming from their tangled roots: No!!! WE DON'T WANT TO DIE LIKE THIS!!!

So, we'll see. At least I grew some vegetables though. One step closer to my dream of living off the land. Right? Right???

Wondering

Not to be gross, but just how long IS it ok for a kid to have blue diarrheah after consuming a 16 oz blue bubblegum slushie? A day? Several? This is getting weird.

Crazy Motherfuckers

This, um, club I used to belong to told us that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. I need to keep telling myself this. Like, repeat it like a mantra when I'm about to bust a cap in someone's ass.

Can y'all feel me?

Proper use of adverbs

When the teacher plopped Lily into the back seat during carpool this afternoon, she smiled and gestured toward the oversized granny shorts that my kid was now sporting, which I most assuredly had not dressed her in that morning.

"We had a little... issue with the black paint...hope it comes out! Bye!" Slam.

"Uh...wow, honey, how was your day?" I said into the rearview as I pulled out of the parking lot, watching Lily pick at some dried black paint spatters that streaked her legs up and down like she'd been splashed with tar or...what was it they called it in the Grimms fairy tales? Pitch? I think so. Anyway, she looked up and shook her head, annoyed. "Well. I didn't want to wear these GARDENING shorts," (the oversized dorkified bottoms actually had carrots and tomatoes and other vegetables emblazoned on them)"But I got paint on me."

"It's ok, sweetie. I'm sure it's washable paint. So, did you make an awesome picture, or what?"

"No. No, mom. No, Listen, I wasn't painting. No. See, I got this paint on me because APPARENTLY there was black paint on the bench and I sat down on it, and that's how I got all covered in it." She shook her head with disgust.


Apparently things aren't always what they seem.

my big, fat ass

My boyfriend and I embarked on this new fitness journey a couple weeks ago, called 'Couch to 5K'. (You can google it, but I'm too lazy to post the link...see? This is part of the problem). Since we both love sitting on the couch so much, and we both enjoy an evening cocktail or several, while sitting on said couch, we both noticed that we were starting to develop extra fleshy rings around our midsections and decided to do something about it. Yay, us.

In addition to beginning this descent into the burning hellfires of making our bodies move quickly and often, a process which slowly unfolds over an 8 week period during which you are supposedly going to ease into being able to run an entire 5k without difficulty, I decided to explore the world of raw foods too. I have only had one glass of wine in the last week or so, and have instead been drinking decaf chai tea in the evenings while curling up to The Office and True Blood on the DVR.

I started making zucchini 'spaghetti' and raw pestos and healthful sauces and nut 'cheeses' and stepping up my salad intake big time, in the hopes of jump starting my health. It's been fun experimenting with new recipes and reading about the benefits of going raw, or mostly raw (there are certain things I won't give up, like coffee. And vodka, sometimes).

So Jeremy weighed himself a couple days ago and he's lost a whopping 5 pounds. This after continuing to drink beer and eat whatever he wants for two weeks. I, however, gained a pound. What gives????? Anyone? ANYONE???

PS I hate you, universe.

No Santa Claus

So last night at dinner, my kid announced that she no longer believed in Santa Claus. "Well, how do you think all those presents get under the tree, then?" I asked Ms. Smarty Pants. This was met with a look of pity/weariness, which I find comes from my 6 year old more often these days when she's assessing me and my many, many shortcomings and deciding whether or not her mother might actually be, in fact, retarded.

"Um, the MOMS and DADS put them under there."

I remained composed(ish), "Well, I suppose they COULD do that, but it would be kind of hard, wouldn't it?" (Why this would be less plausible than Santa bringing the presents by breaking in through the screen door before visiting 10 zillion other houses in one night, I don't know, but I went for it).

Jeremy thoughtfully bit into his burger and said, "One year, I decided there was no Santa Claus, too. And I didn't get any presents that Christmas." Lily looked alarmed. I had to clamp my mouth shut at this point, because the twisted, dark-mother side of me wanted to one-up that one by telling Lily that kids who don't believe in Santa not only don't get any presents, but that Santa comes and steals the toys they already have, just as punishment, a la David Sedaris' Santaland Diaries (pure comic genius). I didn't, though.

Instead, I drew upon my motherly sensibility (as if I actually had some), and tried to bring the focus back to the whole mystery of the thing. "Well," I said, "I think it's nice to believe in a little magic. The spirit of Santa Claus is certainly wonderful to think about, no?"

Lily, at that point, took 'spirit' to mean, 'dead', and decided that Santa died a long time ago and it's his ghost who brings presents to all the little children.

And I decided to just let it go.

Chick Lit

Time gets away from me when I'm in the library. I get anesthetized by the delicious musty-worn smell of thousands upon thousands of books with their technicolor covers and plastic protective casings. A calm washes over me as I stand in the middle of an aisle, perusing all of the uncharted territory I've yet to discover: all the new adventures, romantic yearnings, sexploits and murders I've yet to dive into and immerse myself in. I liken it to perhaps what herbal tea drinkers experience at the end of a long day, curling up with a steaming mug of sleepytime. Being a maniacal coffee addict, I can't relate. But it must be nice.

Anyway, usually I love my library time. It's one of the only things I get to do by myself (Lily does often come with me, and sometimes even collapses into a beanbag chair with an easy reader, but once the childrens' librarian yelled at me for leaving her alone in the kids' section b/c she was too young to be unattended. Fucking Christ. I could SEE her from where I was standing. And it's not like creepy child molesters hang out in public libraries. Wait...Nevermind), but yesterday I found myself getting ornery as I languished up and down the aisles, noticing that more and more of the shelves were stuffed with books fall into a newly popularized category people call "Chick Lit".

Maybe it actually isn't THAT new. But Chick Lit, as a genre, annoys the hell out of me. Encased in candy-apple red or fuck-me hot pink book jackets, a lot of these literary morsels are nothing but formulaic, uninspired dreck disguised as 'writing for women'. Titles such as "Don't Make Me Choose Between You and My Shoes", " See Jane Date", "Friday Night Cocktails", and a series called "The Shop Til U Drop Collection" irritate me to the core.
I don't consider myself to be a scholarly writer by any means, and I'm far from established or successful, but if "White Bikini Panties" can get shelf space at the local library, then by god, why shouldn't the carefully documented journal I kept of my daughter's bowel movements for her first three months of her life?

All right, that's not fair. Not all Chick Lit books are crap. I know this. I'm really just letting off steam. I think it's because I'm feeling like I want to take my writing to the next level somehow. I love to blog, but I want to see my own book on a frickin library shelf some day. Hell, even if it's in the clearance bin at Barnes and Noble, I don't really care, as long as it gets published. Truth is, I'm kinda scared. OK, terrified. There. I said it. Happy?!