Is it a bad sign?

That the Small Person has taken to crying out "Dial the digits of liberty!" while we're wrestling on the kitchen floor?

And is it really bad that I was laughing so hard at her description of 911 that I lost control of the situation and let her gain the upper hand?

Because I KNOW it's bad that after pinning me and winning the round she chuckled maniacally and said "Ha, I knew that would get ya."

A Step Back In Time

Upon discovering a petrified partial bag of mini-marshmallows in the cabinet, Small Person said nostalgically, "Remember when you used to let me eat these as a snack?"

Grumpy Mom In the Middle of a Laundry Spree: "Yes, well, you also used to nap and poop your pants several times a day."

Small Person: "Does this mean that if I take a nap you'll let me have some?"

In place of a frosty margarita,

I'll take Creepy Buddy (he earned the prefix to his name after showing up here moments ago, unannounced, sweating profusely, offering up his greasy hands to me while asking to use my sink to wash.) as my new favorite Stress Reliever. I told him since he was here (unannounced) I would save myself the phone call and tell him not to come early anymore.

Early as in, say-you'll-be-there-at-5-and-show-up-a-full-45-minutes-early, early. Early as in, I just woke up The Earner, and he's sitting on the side of the bed in his skivvies contemplating the cruel fate that is less than 5 hours of sleep in the middle of 4 nights in a row, jonesing for coffee or more sleep or at the very least, his own apartment. Early as in, you caught me cleaning the upstairs floor, the dust pile being swept up including such gems as dead shield bugs (we don't know what else to call them, but apparently they're having quite the year everywhere), Q-tips from Small Person's room (what the hell is she using them for?), brightly colored feathers (ditto), and roughly a pound of foot powder that The Earner tracks all over the house before putting his feet into his shoes. It wasn't pretty, having you and your customer walk around me while I was trying to clean up the swill of our lives, scooting my zombie husband down the back stairs while you were coming up the front stairs, banishing him to the back porch for his waking process.

So sorry if I was a bit rude, but I haven't had a drink to take the edge off today yet, and you showed up at a handy time. Now pass me the vodka, and don't leave grease prints on anything I've recently washed.

Food

I am tired of preparing food. Due to food related issues, all food proposed for ingestion in this house is inspected and goes through a rigorous approval process so lengthy that it is not unknown for the item to lose it's appeal, go stale, and be forgotten before it gets the ok to join our little family. This means I make most things from scratch.

Of course, being The One Who Feeds People in our home, this means I not only navigate the deadly aisles of the local grocery, I prepare all foods, including and especially those "convenience type foods" (which are made from scratch, the processed versions of said foods including or having been made on unsanitary and lethal machines also used to process a main evil-DAIRY) here in our very own test kitchen.

When The Earner first started expecting me to make food for him (ie. the second the ring landed on my third finger with the clanging of a steel door slamming shut on my free time) that came to include his work lunches. I lovingly prepared sandwiches crafted of the finest loaves of wheat bread, choice deli cuts stacked high, crisp greens and tomatoes sliced with only the love that a new bride can summon. Salads of pasta, potato, and veggies where often found in these lunches, made in a big batch and individually wrapped in cute little tupperware containers with matching lids, a fork or spoon found handily next to the napkin and drinks provided. Fruit was standard, pre-washed, of course, sliced if necessary, often an out-of-season treat.

These days he's lucky to get plain ol' sandwich meats of questionable freshness slapped between 2 heels of whatever loaf was lying around here, some leftovers from last night's dinner or a frozen Stouffer's entree (whatever's on sale, of course) and sometimes a browning banana.

It's the culinary equivalent of "fuck you".

It's not like I have anything better to do.

So the realtor came yesterday. I thought it was only used car salesmen that were fond of the one-button-too-many open on the shirt, flowing locks brushed back from the forehead, a profusion of beepers, cellphones, blackberries clipped to the belt look. But I was wrong. Buddy (not his real name, but he seemed to REALLY want to be my friend) showed up with no less than 4 personal electronic/cellular devices. Is he that popular? Is this the way important people live, being strapped to many beeping and flashing shiny things, like a hostage Keanu Reeves is meant to save?

We rent this palace and our landlord is selling. He assured us that he's "putting it in that you renters want to stay". Great, I appreciate the thought, but I think that's about as binding as me "putting in that I want a dishwasher, new floor in the kitchen, no mold in the basement, new neighbors, and the fucking gutters cleaned". Yeah, not very binding, me thinks. So in addition to cleaning my ass off so random people can come see the piggishness of our ways, I should be packing our crap up? Dunno, as the astronomical (and comical) price the landlord is asking would indicate it will be on the market for quite some time. I believe I'll hold off on the boxing of crap for now.

Buddy is planning an open house for Saturday. I had a mental break down planned for Friday, but it looks like I'll be rescheduling. Also, The Earner is on nights, which means this little party is cutting into his prime sleep time. He is NOT HAPPY. I explained that NEITHER AM I, but we had to work with the guy, and Buddy was willing to do it a bit later so at least some sleep could be had.

The Small Person cleaned her room, with much griping and yelling. (she griping, me yelling) It wasn't until I came in and did a massive sweep of crap off the floor that she became excited and got with the program. Of course, she then spent another 2 hours arranging ceramic figurines on her dresser, laying out each of her necklaces in perfect order, fluffing each of her 97 throw pillows and shams on the bed, and generally wasting time while I bellowed from downstairs that I could use some help in the living room, please NOW.

I am left with the burning question: How much of this home improvement/sprucing the place up so it sells crap is my responsibility? My landlord didn't even show up yesterday when Buddy was here, so how serious could he be? And as a renter, am I to be making my best effort - as I would if it were my home I was selling? I don't want to hinder the process, because as Buddy said (maybe he really IS my new best friend!) if someone does buy the house maybe they would take care of it better than the current owner-and still keep the same renters. In that case we would definitely benefit. Hmmm, what a quandary.

It's not exactly a sign of the apocalypse.

My neighbors are an endless source of noise and amusement. They've been working on a remodeling project for a couple of years now, involving removal of stone within the walls of their home, completely removing the kitchen area (including all appliances, more on this later) and boarding up windows and installing new windows in different places. I have benefitted from some of this activity, and now claim two new rock edged flower beds from the stone removal.

Most of it is simply amusing to watch, as this guy tries to a) do it himself, involving ill-fitting tools for the task, many attempts, and typically ending in brute force and at least one important thing broken (once it was a load-bearing beam for the second floor) and b) call in some long-lost uncle who is an electrician or something by trade, I believe we're using the term 'trade' loosely here, as the guy is older than dirt and judging by his inability to park his truck without scraping the fence I'd say he's incapable of seeing well enough to wire anything other than cash through Western Union.

The latest home improvement project came out of nowhere today. For months now there have been two plywood covered areas where old windows once lived, waiting for new siding. No new activity has been attempted in quite a while, although talk a few months ago was about re-siding the entire house. However, apparently tired of the brown plywood in juxtaposition with the old weathered siding currently on the house, my neighbor has embarked on a new beautification assignment, along with something I found hysterical.

He got out his ladder and started shaking a can of spray paint. Climbing the ladder he started to methodically paint in the plywood squares. I guess this wasn't working fast enough, because he switched from a simple back and forth to a circular motion. Then words emerged in his spray art. Finally, he ran out of paint.

Not to worry! He had another can! He was able to fill in both old window sites with an uneven and blotchy (with some drips) application of white, which of course does not match the white of the siding. So now facing our house is a lovely partial sided/spray painted plywood mural to admire.

That's right, folks. It's non-stop fun around here.

Does it make me an unfeeling bitch...

if I found the quotes in this article to be humorous?

'Prime Minister John Howard, who hand-picked Irwin to attend a gala barbecue to honor President Bush when he visited in 2003, said he was "shocked and distressed at Steve Irwin's sudden, untimely and freakish death."'

Yes, sudden and freakish. But untimely? I'd say it was rather timely, as he was swimming above the sting ray immediately prior to being stabbed by it. That's pretty timely. It would have been untimely if he had been stabbed by a stingray last week while cuddling up baboons or having tea with the Prime Minister or something.

And this:
"It was extraordinarily bad luck. It's not easy to get spined by a stingray and to be killed by one is very rare," Collin said.
has me somewhat perplexed at the meaning. So was he unlucky? or highly skilled?

It's never funny when someone dies, and I am sorry to hear of his death. However... people, he flirted with danger and stupidity on camera, caused public outrage by dangling his child Michael-style over a pit of crocodiles, and thrived on stupid venomous pet tricks. And of course he knew these things were dangerous, that's why he always admonished the kids "don't try this at home" with a wink to the camera, while picking up an enormous snake and french-kissing it.

I think Time says it best in the obituary Rory Callinan wrote:
He quotes Steve himself:
"Steve Irwin's all pretty interesting on the telly or in the movie and that, but by crikey, it's great when he gets bitten," he once told Australia's ABC television. "Now and again I do get bitten. But I haven't been killed. And it's that, you know, that sense of morbidity that people do have. There's no use sticking your head in the sand and going, 'Oh, no, they're only here because, you know, I talk well.' Nah, man, they wanna see me come unglued."

Rest in peace, Crocodile Hunter.

So Ernesto's Not a Hurricane Anymore...

But he still wrecked our plans of canoing on a lake today. Bummer, as I had convinced The Earner to go and do a family activity with us. So now we're hanging around the house like bums. I should really go to the church and finish organizing music. 7 hours wasn't enough yesterday. By the time we called it quits at 9pm I was dizzy with hunger and copier fumes.

I'm avoiding doing something, so as usual I have picked up all kinds of extra projects. Best to be busy with other things, right? I have alterations to make for my friend's grandmother, I'm thinking of going and doing music, I need to sew bags for the vbs mission project, and a zillion other things. Procrastination, it's the American way. Never mind the time I sit here, chatting with Tami.

I have yet to discover the allure of sudoku puzzles. I sat at the table eating breakfast this morning working on a book of them. (hey, only because it was the only thing worth looking at on the table at the time, and I couldn't let my food cool while I located any of the 3 books I'm currently reading) Anyway, I've done a few of them now, and while I get the object of them, I'm not sure it holds the same joy for me as, say, winning at FreeCell. Not sure what's missing from it, as it has all the components of a good time waster: uses little to no brain power, logical, numerically based, can be done while thinking about something else, utterly pointless in the end. Of course, the most important thing is that it can be done while I'm on the phone. Maybe it will grow on me.