In Which my Children Change Their Last Name to Baudelaire.

Today it was made VERY clear to me that my children are going to grow up, leave me, and not need me to mother them any longer.  I wanted to die, and for a fleeting moment, and by “fleeting” I mean all fucking day, I’ve been on the brink of death over the shock this has caused me.

Here’s what happened: The school my kids go to is in desperate need of volunteers to help corral the children during lunch time.  So I did what any parent would do- I called the principal to bitch about their lousy lunch time routine and then volunteered to help.  My kids were mortified.  I was informed that I was not to hug them, kiss them, call them by any nickname, speak to their friends, speak to them, or even acknowledge the fact that I am their mother.  Doesn’t it sound like they HATE me?  I swear to god, my children, who I just yesterday was convinced love me more than they love anyone else, hate me.  And now I want to die all over again.

Ok, I’m back.  I was so upset that I was forced to go get a spoonful of peanut butter chocolate chip cookie dough.  I glommed down one spoonful and then dunked my DIRTY SPOON back into the tub of dough.

So.  It is one thing to know that your children will one day grow up and leave you; it is another matter entirely when they start showing signs of not wanting your mothering skillz.  Which, ok, objectively is good!  Who wants to make out with their mother in front of a whole lunch room full of friends and classmates?  No one that I know, and especially not my children.  (Seriously, don’t even bother spazzing over that making out crack.)  Today it’s the lunchroom where I’m not welcome, when do they totally kick me out of their lives?  GAH!
My goal as a mother, and I think it’s a good one, is to raise my children to be self-sufficient, confident, independent human beings.  How do I avoid having my heart broken when I achieve that goal?  I know that dependence does not equal love, need does not equal love, but caring and nurturing equal love.  What do I do when they no longer need that from me?  They seem to be maturing just fine.  And I don’t want to spoil that for them.   I’m the one that’s a wreck.

So?  Help me out here, people.

Me! Me! Or is it meme? Whatever.

All right.  I’m trying to start a hugely popular meme.  Just to see if I can.  If I can’t, I hope a pigeon flies by and … never mind.  Too much R Kelly yesterday!  My answers are in red.  TAKE THIS!  PUT IT ON  YOUR BLOG!

Spooky!  Scary!  Halloweenie! 

1.  Do you believe in ghosts?

I am not sure.  As soon as I decide that they can only scare and not harm me, I probably will.

2.  Have you ever seen a ghost?

No, but I sort of want to.  Only sort of, though.  It seems to me that as soon as I start believing in ghosts I have to believe in vampires and the boogey man and aliens, stuff like that.

3.  Have you ever experienced something that is best described by the word “paranormal”?

When I was a kid my mother had a little carousel horse music box.  No one was allowed to touch it because it was fragile (and ugly) but that thing would play music on its own all the time.  It was very creepy.  Especially in the middle of the night.  If I inherit that thing I’m throwing it away.

4.  Do you watch any ghost or haunting themed shows?

Yes!!  I watch Ghost Hunters and sometimes Most Haunted, or whatever that show is with the crazy Brits.

5.  If so, do you sometimes sleep with the lights on or wake up your partner because the show scared you a whole lot and you can’t sleep and don’t want to be awake alone?

Yes.  I will wake up Jimmy when Ghost Hunters gets too creepy.  I’ll pretend it was accidental, but it’s not. 

6.  Have you ever been to a supposedly haunted place?  If so, did you experience anything spooky?

In the next town over from where I grew up there was an allegedly haunted place called “The Gate.”  I’m not sure if it was an actual gate.  One night a few of my girlfriends and I decided to drive out to The Gate to see what we could see.  We were in a small car, I was in the back seat ALONE.  As we got closer and closer to The Gate I became increasingly agitated.  (read: frickin’ scared)  So I climbed between the two front seats to try to sit on my friend Val’s lap.  I was not graceful, this was a small car, and I accidentally hit the gear shifter to neutral.  So the car stalled and we sat there screaming in the middle of the dark and spooky road.  The ONLY thing that kept me from wetting my pants was the fact that I was sitting on Val’s lap.  She would have thrown me out of the car.

7.  How much do you love Halloween?

I love Halloween SO MUCH, but I don’t like all the horror movies that come along with it.  And we usually end up throwing away 85% of the candy.  A moment on anyone’s lips, a lifetime on my hips.  Not fair.

 

Ok!  Take this meme!  Put it on your blog!  And then let me know if yu did because I want to read aaaaaaaall about it!!

So much fun, I’m not even kidding.

All right. It’s been a busy week. I finished the Saartje Booties. Isn’t that the most fun thing to say? Saartje Booties. I love it. All I need now is to put on buttons, and I even HAVE some, so there we are. Baby Niece is due to appear tomorrow! So just in time.

This past Sunday was so grand! I got to meet Sarah while she was in town for a conference. We met for brunch at a place which I’m sure was once a glorious diner but now is reduced to selling rattlesnake-shaped mugs at the register. And reading glasses, too, I think, although I could be confusing that with something else. Like the optometrist. Anyway, we had a lovely breakfast and I asked her a million questions about cheese, archeology, sheep, vegetables, yarn, knitting, marriage, weddings, teaching, and many other things. It’s important you know that this diner wasn’t our first choice. On the other hand, it was the only place that was open in downtown Mesa on a Sunday, so it was our only choice and thus by default our first choice. Whatever. As we strolled along Main Street we happened upon a few weird statues. Here is perhaps the weirdest:

Right. This makes me think that Mesa, Arizona, is perhaps a fundamentally depressed town. Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, fell off, broke, and stayed that way because no one could fix him. Sad, huh? And a statue to commemorate the sadness and futility of life. Happily, though, it’s right next to a yarn shop that I’ve never visited, to that lifted my spirits some. So there we have Blogstalker Week 5, an interesting statue.

Right. My entire morning has been eaten up alive by this hot mess, and I simply cannot turn my eyes away. Last night we took the kids to see Weird Al at the AZ State Fair and it was SO GREAT!!! I can’t remember what in recent history has made me as happy as seeing my kids’ faces light up as a half dozen storm troopers walked onto that stage last night. They knew the Star Wars songs were coming, which is all they really know, but they know all of them. They jumped up and down and hugged each other, I nearly died. It was indescribably wonderful to see them having so much fun. I got a kick out of the song “Trapped in the Drive Thru”, and made a mental note to find out what song he was parodying with it. It turns out that it’s not a song, but an entire …. what, production? I’ve been watching that all day cracking up. If you ever read my blog ever again after today, you’ll understand why it reads like R Kelly’s hip hop opera from this day forward.

I’m really going to work on not starting every single sentence with the word “so”, promise.

What I Like About You, You Really Know How to Dance!

All right. Three things I luuuuuuuuurve, three things I hate.

Let’s get the unpleasantness out of the way first, bueno?

This picture was taken from the Chair ‘O Torture at the Officina de Torture, or, to the common folk, the dentist office. A few weeks ago I nearly died in the throes of agony caused by something gone horribly awry in the root area of my tooth. This tooth, a back molar, if you must know, broke two-ish years ago when I bit into a jalapeño cheddar bagel from Chompies. It’s not that anything was wrong with the bagel, the tooth had an old filling that finally gave out. I blame the desert weather. So I had a root canal, and yesterday I went back for the temporary crown. To do this, the dentist gauges out any last remnant of filling that may be in your tooth or perhaps all the way up to the bottom part of your brain pan. They they jam into your mouth some weird mesh tray thing, heavy with dental foam that undergoes some sort of chemical reaction when it comes into contact with saliva and the stub of what was once your tooth. And then you drool more, perhaps all down the right side of your face, perhaps forming a pool in your collarbone. Anyway, I hate bugs AND the dentist, so this picture counts for two of three. This grasshoppah, by the way, was as long as my hand from fingertip to heel of my palm.

I also hate the Pepto Bismol commercial where ordinary people are auditioning to be the next stars of the PB commercial. Come on. At this point in American culture, we ALL know what Pepto Bismol is, so there is NO NEED to have people singing about nausea, heart burn, indigestion, upset stomach and what I priggishly refer to as “the potty affliction.”

Now to happy!

I love yarn.

I love how weird my kids are.
I love all the sweet people who have commented on Mr. Hedgehog! He was SO very easy to make, I think everyone should make one. Some family members of mine will be receiving multi-hued hedgies for Christmas.

I’ve also finishes a baby bootie, and oh my god, it is so cute. Ok! Now you know.

Repent and believe, ye sinners, I actually KNIT something!

Ok. I have actually KNIT something and FINISHED it. Jimmy’s sister is having a baby in a few weeks and rather than keep knitting that baby kimono, which I of course messed up, I got the Huggable Hedgehog pattern and some yarn. 

Here it is on the needles so you know for sure that I knit it:

Here it is in a pot of boiling water:

Here it is drying outside:

 

Here it is just chillin’ on the patio:

I know these are boring photos, but I fell like I need to prove that I actually knit it. I love this thing, I really do!

Stats:

Pattern: Huggable Hedgehog for Fiber Trends by Debbie Radke

Yarn: One skein of Perendale Naturally New Zealand Yarns, one skein and a tiny bit of a second eyelash yarn, Temptation Naturally New Zealand Yarns.

Modifications: The recipe calls for knitting this hedgie flat, even though it’s on circulars. I took this to mean that if I wanted to knit in the round that would be just fine. But you know what this means? It means this thing is oddly-shaped, even after felting, and it has stitches in its side where I had to make a small hole to allow for stuffing. Whatever. It’s for a baby! She’ll probably barf on it a time or two. That is, if her mother doesn’t take one look at it and shove it in the drawer. I’d totally let my baby have a hedgehog!

Weird toys are the best. Especially hand-knit toys from an auntie with total baby fever.

My Other Ride is Your Boyfriend*

I know, I’m late.  Tomorrow is New Topic Day and I still haven’t done How I Get Around.  Knittyhead BS Week #3.

I have a 2001 Nissan Maxima.  I love her V6 engine.  When our time together comes to an end I will need another car with a V6 engine.  Can I get a V6 Prius?

So my car is a mess.  But she’s how I get around.  I really do love that car.  I’ve had it for two years now, which is sort of a record for me.  I had a white Ford Escort wagon that died shortly after I moved to Wisconsin.  Then I bought a white Dodge Neon that died almost a year after I moved here.  Come to think of it, since I haven’t moved to a new state, things should be just fine with Pearl.

Anyway, here she is resting in the garage.

 

 

Ok.  Here I am driving down the street.  My Treo camera is a bit slow, so I snapped the picture and then pulled away from the stop sign.  I wasn’t really cruisin’ my ‘hood taking pictures while my car was in motion, even though that’s precisely what it looks I was doing.  Notice the Check Engine!! light is on. 

 

Here’s the front seat.  Notice how I cleverly laid the window shade across the passenger seat so that you can’t see all the crap I have stashed in there.  Clever!

Here’s the back seat.  I wonder why my kids’ part of the car is cleaner than my part of the car?

 

I’m not showing you the trunk.  There may or may not be things in it. 

Finally, here are my feet.  Freshly pedicured by a lady who was approximately 17 months pregnant.  Yes, L, I did give her a big tip.  No one that pregnant should have to touch someone else’s stank ass feet, even though they’re not stank ass anymore because they soaked in a tub of lovely, frothy, cleansing bubbles.

 

You may see the scar on my left foot and then see the scar on my right foot.  These scars might lead you to believe that I am developing the Stigmata.  Do not be fooled by these simple scars.  Surely when God bestows that gift it will not be upon me.  Although, how do I know?  I should not pretend to know God’s will.  I’m only saying this because my version of belief in God doesn’t run with traditional versions of belief in God.  It’s the former Catholic schoolgirl, deacon’s daughter part of me that compels me to say these blasphemous things.  

I don’t know what I’m saying.  Anyway, that’s how I roll.  Peace out, heffas.

 

Also, you should know I took that Which Tarot Card Are You  quiz and it turns out that I am THE High Priestess.  Not A High Priestess, but THE High Priestess.  This means I get to tell people when they’re being irritating, whining twits who just need to get laid once and for all.  I know, that’s a daring and perhaps rebellious stance to take.

 

*Seriously, that is SO MUCH a joke.  I’m not a man-thief.  I just didn’t want to write something like “check out my ride” or “here’s my car.”