What next?

I have come to loathe whatever it is in the world that makes people get sick. Old age? A weakness of the system? Too many Krispy Kreme donuts? I don't know, but I hate it. And I want it to die in a way too obscene to put into words.

Seriously, this is the way people need to pass away: they age and age and age, and then one night, they go to bed, and they have a lovely dream from which they never wake up. Just like that. None of this, they age and age and age and then begin to forget everything, and then literally forget everything, including how to eat and breathe, and then waste away lying in a bed staring at the ceiling until one day the pauses between breaths get longer and longer until they just run together, and then there's no more anything. That's bullshit.

And no alien THINGS growing where they shouldn't be growing and making the things that are supposed to be there malfunction.

Nobody should ever get sick, and nobody should ever die. Or at least, nobody in MY family should ever get sick or die. Because both events suck, and I don't want to think about them even though they stare me in the face and poke at my chest and yell, "HEY! PAY ATTENTION TO MEEE!" If I don't think about it, it isn't real. That's how it works.

Something interesting?

Okay, how's this for interesting?

I have to go to the grocery store today after picking the Girl up from school. Just to get a very few things. Know what this is going to cause?

Unbridled drama. Great heart-rending sighs from the backseat. A whine that batters itself against my eardrums until they shatter and I'm rendered a quivering wreck with blood dripping off of my earlobes.

All because I want to pick up some salmon.

Damn you, tasty, tasty salmon!

I guess it's been long enough

I have been admonished to keep up my blog. What is perhaps not understood is that I post when something INTERESTING happens. See where I'm going with this?

However, in the interest of family peace, I hereby update my blog. Ta-daaaa!

Let me see--Zoe is officially in 2nd grade, and we're gearing up to send her to a new school, since I have finally had my fill of ACE's shenanigans. However, for the time being she seems to be doing well. I am particularly impressed by her ability to read French words with the correct or nearly correct pronunciation. This is because she's Super Girl.

Halloween came and went with a LOVELY Cyndi Lauper costume. Much candy was begged for and received--it was a good night. And the costume didn't take her Sainted Mother countless hours to make this time. Just a few evenings for the skirt, and a few shopping trips to Wal Mart for the accessories. It's hard to see from this photo, but her hair was dyed red for the occasion, and lasted several days at school.

During Thanksgiving, she baked her first pumpkin pie and it was most photogenic. I signed on as her helper, so all I did was open cans and handle the oven and stuff like that. Everything else that had to be done was done at her hands. So I took a picture. I call this one:

Gang Pie

Seriously, I'm not sure I could have done any better. From what I understand, it tasted good, too! (Never could figure out the allure of pumpkin pie, myself. . .)

This has not been the most exciting of posts, but at least it's out here on the interwebs for all to see and snooze at--any questions about Christmas wish lists may be directed to my Amazon account, where both I and Zoe have lists posted.

Maybe next time I'll come up with something a bit more fun. . .

Mortification

The Girl and I went to the Children's Museum today. This in itself was a huge triumph on her part, because I have grown to loathe the Children's Museum with almost every fiber of my being. Not because it isn't educational or fun for her, but because it makes me want to lynch myself from the boredom. When we walk in the doors and I get my first glimpse of the round lobby and the gift shop, my eyes glaze over and I turn inward, hoping I can make it through the next few hours without going on some sort of zombie-rampage.

On the second floor of the museum is a room devoted to creating stuff out of bits and pieces. There are egg cartons, colorful tape, crayons, scissors, ribbon, paper, you name it. And you can create anything imaginable (assuming your imagination is good enough.) We were sitting in there, across the table from a very large African American man and his two little daughters, and Zoe had found a wine cork. We also had a single strip of egg carton cups, and it was going to be a caterpillar with the cork as the head. Then she found a piece of grey styrofoam, but discarded it. I picked it up and discovered a hole in the underside. It fit perfectly on the cork. I handed it to Zoe, and said, "Hey, this could be his hair!" realizing too late that it looked almost exactly like Don King. Even though she doesn't know who Don King is, handing her a cork-head with a makeshift 'fro on it was going to open up a can of worms I wanted nothing to do with.

I went to work on the rest of the caterpillar, finding that crayons don't work on the styrofoam stuff most cartons are made out of. "Guess who this is!" Zoe hollers.

"I don't know."

"I'll give you a hint: he's holding a microphone!" Yeah, I know where this is going, and I'm wishing I was anywhere but here, anywhen but now.

"I. Don't. Know." Then I lean in and say, "Please be a little quieter."

Eye rolling. "Black hair and brown skin? Moooom. . . it's Michael Jackson!" And I'm thinking that the last time Michael Jackson had an actual 'fro was about 25 years ago, and also that the giant man four feet away from me is going to be offended by this aggressively white girl saying something that shouldn't be offensive at all, but could be twisted and construed to BE offensive somehow. I wanted to leap over the table to him and sob into his face that I'm NOT a bigot, and I didn't teach my kid that everybody with dark skin likes to talk about slavery! Honest! (Yes, she does seem to think that."

Nothing happened. We left Michael Jackson on the table and walked out. Really I should have kept him, because he looked a little bit like a mushroom.

I have recently received complaints that I don't blog often enough.

My time is limited, and it might be better for all two of you who read this to just sit down at the kitchen table and talk to me directly. I might even feed you.

That being said, I am only writing tonight because I don't have the stamina to tackle yet another exam, but I do have just enough energy to blather for a while about something inane. Rather than try to be witty and urbane about everything, though, I'm going to make you a list, in no particular order of importance, of Stuff That Has Happened recently.

1. I bought a bicycle. "But Stef! Don't you already own a bicycle that you so frequently don't ride that it's covered in rust?!" you may be asking your computer screen. Yes! That is the case, but I discovered that my tendency to not ride my bicycle was a result of having a bicycle that sucked. I bought a Schwinn cruising cycle, which means it has upright handlebars, like the bicycles used to have when I was a kid. There are no handbrakes, but pedal brakes, and there is only a single speed. It is bubble gum pink and has a little ledge on back where I can bungee my belongings. This bike is a joy to ride, and you'd think I'd be a size 8 again because I like it so much, but that's not the case. Perhaps I should try not eating Sonic cheese tots every day of my life.

2. I ate Sonic cheese tots every day of my life up until the Girl got out of school, which was also when I had to stop my internship at the clinic, which was situated 3 blocks away from Sonic, where the cheese tots dwell. Presto! Now they are only a guilty pleasure. And I do mean guilty. But that doesn't stop me.

3. I am a semester and a half away from finally graduating. (Yay.) I am also about 6 and a half months away from taking the VTNE. (Boo.) I say boo because I'm not sure I'll pass it without killing myself studying, and those in the know are well aware of my abilities to study consistently. (I don't have any.)

4. I have decided that what my life needs is simplicity (plus a lot of money.) Along that line, I have decided that I am going to, in essence, pick up the house, dump everything out, and start over. I'm talking brutality here, okay? If we haven't used it in 6 months, it goes away. I don't care who gave it to us or where it came from. If we're keeping it, it had better have a darn good story about how it came to be ours! For instance, I probably won't throw out my wedding shoes. Yeah, I wore them for about 4 or 5 hours one day over 10 years ago, but dammit, the Girl is going to have big gunboat feet, too, so maybe she can wear them! Underwear and socks are going away, because I have about 300 mismatched widow socks, and an equal number of pieces of underwear that are either too small, too big, cut funny, holey or just plain weird. I've already started on my clothes and the Girl's clothes (about 5 lawn and leaf bags full!) and shoes. Towels and other linen closet stuff goes next, along with kitchen gadgets and old cans of food pushed to the back of the pantry. The Girl's old bike and kid kitchen are going on Craigslist (with her permission, of course. She gets the cash!)

5. Once the simplicity is established, it will be further enhanced by the cleaning person/people I'm fixing to hire, and the interiors company that I plan to have in to strip our nauseating wallpaper, retexture the walls, and paint. Which will then mean we have to buy new towels for the bathrooms and possibly lay down some carpet tiles in the living, dining, and bedrooms. And also new curtains, naturally, and maybe new kitchen and guest bath cabinetry. But all that stuff? SIMPLE!

6. The simplicity will continue on in our food. I am trying to get away from all the prepackaged stuff and go more toward whole foods, but I'm having a terrible time. The biggest obstacle is the Girl's need for snack foods, and to be honest, as much as I'd like to be able to make my own fruit leather and crackers, it just isn't happening. I do try to get stuff that's organic or without hydrogenated death powder in it, but sometimes, you've just gotta have a Pop-Tart. (Okay, not really. I don't eat them because of the Gluten, the Girl isn't allowed to have them, and Zach doesn't eat them because he's too smart for that. I do, however, occasionally give the Girl the treat of Fiber One toaster pastries. They're just as bad as Pop-Tarts, but at least you poop them out, faster.) At any rate, this means that I'll be cooking more often, which is a good thing, and eating healthier foods, which is also a plus. Now if I can only figure out a way to get the Girl to stop seeing veggies as The Enemy. Does anybody have a recipe for Vegetable Ranch Dressing Soup? Hmmmm. If nobody does, maybe I could develop one! Note to self. . .

7. I have finally become slightly better at jugular blood draws, and intubated another dog last week. I am in love with my job. How many people can say that? Seriously, I love it. I feel more confident (except about the state boards!) and feel like I can figure out almost anything people need me to do there. Now all I have to really work on is my fear of handling cats. As much as I love Mr. Kitty (and I do love him something awful!) I still believe cats are evilish. But I'm not afraid to scruff them anymore!

8. We are raising 10 Black Swallowtail caterpillars in a butterfly habitat on our kitchen table. Thus far, 5 have become crysalises and there's one more getting restless which is what they do the day before they suspend themselves from a branch and go to sleep. Of the four remaining, I'm pretty sure one is retarded. Curious to see how he'll turn out.

9. There are probably way more things to blather about, but I can't remember them now, and even if I did, I wouldn't feel like writing about them, so instead I leave you with this quote from Eric Cartman:

"Hell YES I want Cheesy Poofs! Stupid Mom. . ."

I had no clue I could change the font here. Although I don't know why that never occurred to me, because you can always change the font, everywhere. Or almost everywhere. I'm pretty sure the New York Times doesn't want you going in there and mucking around with the font they use, because then the stories would appear less serious, especially if I were to change them to Curlz or something. That'd be funny. As you can see, I've chosen Courier today, which is a font I've always liked, simply because it looks like typewriter writing, and I miss typewriters.

I also miss getting paid for doing things, even though in the past, I was only ever really paid for doing things I didn't like, such as filing and answering phones and shuffling papers for people who thought they were way more important than they really were. Still, I got a paycheck out of it every two weeks. And that's true, by the way, the bit about me only doing work I didn't enjoy. Even the one and only time I worked for money in a veterinary capacity, I happened to end up working for the Veterinary field's antichrist. This is because that's how things work for me. True story! But I really do miss getting paid. I like money. I like buying stuff without feeling too guilty that it's a frivolous expense. Plus, getting paid makes one feel that they're not retarded. You know, because someone has hired them, indicating that they're probably good at something. I know, I know. I'm good at filing and answering phones and shuffling papers for people who think they're way more important than they really are.

The clinic where I'm an intern is losing a tech next week, and there's an ad up for that position on Craigslist. I would love to feel qualified enough to ask them if I could have the job, but I don't, and I'm not, anyway. Also, I don't have the time. I have come to realize that I can really only work nights, which means I am limited to working in an emergency or specialty care environment. Fortunately, this is what I WANT to do. But then that qualification thing comes up again. And then just to make it worse, there's another ad on Craigslist, for an EVENING and OVERNIGHT tech at--yes!--the veterinary antichrist's hospital. I suppose it could work if I grew used to the smell of sulphur and the feel of a trident nudging my butt.

Jobs I'm Glad I Don't Have #2

Bigfoot Tracker.