Yep, that's right - I am ass-deep in the here and now people, with very little time for the ether. I've written posts, while I'm standing half asleep under the watering can that passes for my shower these days (old pipes flaking are kill-ing me - there are days I could gleefully take a sledgehammer to my plumbing, but then I'd have no shower spray to doze under, and so it goes) but the distance from the shower to the computer is obstructed by some sort of time warp; you can't get there from here, so those poor posts withered on the mental vine, like water-starved cantaloupes.
I quit volunteering at school. I can't say why I quit, because litigation is a rampant, rabid animal in our downwardly spiralling society. Suffice to say it was a hard decision and even now I'm bitter and depressed about what had to be. But I'm moving on, because what the hell else is there to do?
We took the boys up to Washington DC during Easter break and made the fatal error of arriving smack dab in the middle of the Cherry Blossom Festival and a marathon going on at the Mall. I swear to you, I've never seen so many GD strollers and mini-monsters in my life. It seemed like each set of Uber parents/freaking idiots had three toddlers in tow. Because three year olds get so much out of being dragged through a museum, or two or three, and you know that Mom and Dad saw absolutely nothing but that same three year old, running six paces ahead through heavy crowds. People: that is why there are Children's museums in the world - so you can teach little kids how to go to the big museums. The Smithsonian has 14 museums - to see even 3 or 4 in a day requires longer legs, and more maturity than the average toddler possesses. and guess just how much of that trip to the museum those toddlers are actually going to remember? That's right - zippity do dah, nada, zilch. So what was the point?
I started the long awaited overhaul of my 1950s/redone in the 80s kitchen last week. Money is tight (is that really news to anyone?) so we're doing most of the labor to keep the cost low. I started with the paint, because it's the easiest and gives me the impression we're moving right along. The ripping up of the floor and the countertops will have to wait until summer, when the fascist regime's annoying schedules have abated for a few months (You did know I was talking about public school and their anti-family bullshit, right?) and we can live without a kitchen for a few days. It's going to be beautiful, even though right now I still have mauve (I shit you not!) counters and pink floor tiles, and I hate pink - oh my god I hate pink! When it's finished, the counters will be black granite with a stainless steel backsplash; the floor will be industrial grade black linoleum (because its easier on the feet, CHEAP, and belongs in a 1950s house) polished to a high shine, and the walls will be a lovely sap green (Home Despot called it "Scottish Isle") and the cabinets will be "Asparagus" green. The funny thing about those colors - they're really close matches to what was originally in there, before the rat bastards who lived here before us came along, made the kitchen mauve, and nailed giant nails into every damn wall in the house. I'm pretty sure I'll be cursing their name anew when we pull up the tile in the kitchen - they didn't think to tile under the appliances, because they were lazy DIY rat bastards with no taste or work ethic to speak of. And this is me, holding back the vitriol, because Oh Mein Gott in Himmel - you would hate them too, if you could have seen this house when they moved out.
Oh yeah, and I'm working on archiving an old family scrapbook of history, that I can't just do the way I want to, because there are too many family fingers in the pie. Because hell isn't complete without a little familial meddling and the omnipresent phone calls from my mother, whose special talent is calling right at the time of evening when Honey and I are thinking, "Hey! Let's get naked and get in love, baby!"
Riiinngg!
So this is me right now - a little frothy with the hate, but trying to focus on the positive. Oh, and definitely going out to buy a new phone, so we can SCREEN, dammit! "But other than that, I'm perfect!" - "Weird Science"
How you doin'?
