Seventeen

 

Age of daughter #2 for only a little while longer. In three weeks or so she will be "legal", as they say. This will be a relief to me for several reasons that I'm not at liberty to express since I have decided not to be That Mom. But there's one really important reason that I will be grateful she is 18, and that's the story I'm gonna tell.

I'm a bad mom. So I've raised kids who sleep in or skip classes when it's "life works" and they're going to be taught how to type "CAT" or how to copy and paste on a computer. I'm just not going to fight about stuff like that.

However.

Each and every time Jane or Micah sleep in or miss a class (it's frequent. I'm a bad mom), I get an automated phone call at 6 PM from the school. If I don't pick up, my phone will continue to ring every 10 minutes until I do pick up. Then there is an annoying recorded voice instructing me to call the school or write a letter explaining their absence.

I'm not gonna do that.

I hate when my phone rings.

My kids know how to type "cat" and how to copy and paste.

So don't tell me what to do in your bossy, not-even-real voice.

On April 8, Jane is turning eighteen. She has been instructed to not give the school permission to tell on her any longer, which means the phone will only ring about Micah for the next 2 years, not Jane.

It's a start.

These kids are fixing Cuba. They told me so.

They are armed with plastic hatchet type things (please don't ask why I have hatchet type toys, ok? thanks) And they are yelling: "Fixing Cuba! Fixing Cuba!"

They have that kind of energy because every morning at ten o'clock they eat Cheerios for snack, usually pretending to be vacuum cleaners and sucking them up through their lips, no hands.

If I were to name brand them, it would not be "Dyson".

And here's something from the "Completely Confusing" category.

I live in a town with roughly 14 churches per capita. Some years ago, two of the churches with dwindling populations wisely decided to join forces and practise some sort of opposite of a church split by forming a church join. It seemed cool and even sort of progressive. Then they started to raise funds for a building project. Wtf?

Remember how I used to blog eloquent about the large empty lot behind our yard that turned into a skating rink in winter that we watched people skate on while our idyllic children played video games?

Well. They're paving paradise and are putting up a parking lot.

And putting a huge addition onto one of those dwindling churches. I can only envision some sort of large brotherhood meeting (the sisterhood was baking brownies at the time) where it seemed so energizing and faith-ified to spend a couple of million dollars choosing brick colors.

*sigh*

In seventeen lifetimes, I will never understand building projects.

Factoid Number Five:

This necktie has been tied to the nonexistent railing of my broken deck for at least a year now, maybe longer. I can't remember why. Maybe if I have enough faith, it could turn into a magical necktie and the deck would get fixed. All my other attempts have failed.

Sam's bike is now showing bits of rear wheel, handle bars, and seat. I can't wait until it starts to show rust so I can feel more awesome about leaving it out all winter.

7.

Have I ever mentioned how I feel about the food cooking?

8). Sometimes I get a random comment on a bags4darfur blog post from roughly a zillion years ago:

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "tREedom": Wow, incredible weblog structure! How lengthy have you been blogging for? you made running a blog look easy. The full glance of your web site is magnificent, as neatly as the content material!

Also visit my page; (bah, virus, bla h)

Now,  I've never been the sharpest tool in the box.  But even I'm not dumb enough to fall for this.  

Let's break this down. "Wow, incredible weblog structure". Well. Gosh, golly thanks. It's called "Get the app for blogsy on the ipad. The "structure" is all there. I just type. Hence the "making the blogging look easy, because it is. All you have to do is write down all your idiotic musings and hit publish. Easy. But thanks.

I be blogging longtime. The full glance should have also indicated that I be bloggy longtime. Magnificent is usually reserved for my 40+ profile, but it probably also applies to my "can't put it down" blogspot whose URL was chosen while potty training my now 11 year old son. You see, I bloggy long long time. I'm so happy you noted how neatly is content material. I launder and fold it regularly.

9) Since writing #8 some hours ago, three more equally brilliant comments have shown up on the very same post.

10) This afternoon, the children were playing a game that required a secret password in order to pass through a made-up blockade. Let's just say that when I was a preschooler, we never used the word "vagina" as a password.

11) Speaking of the vagina.

I went to see the Doc again about my sneezing/coughing/jumping/peeing my pants issue. He is sending me for a strange pee pee test to someone named Dr Hildebrand. No relation. I can only speculate that there may be a trampoline involved.

12) After the Dr, I went to Walmart because the windshield wiper was broken and spring might come before August. Thinking myself clever, I took the broken wiper off so that I could match it up when I got to the wiper section.

Picture me, irritable, standing in front of a wall of wiper blades, not having the first clue what I'm even looking for. So I go over to the tire section and say to the guy - "I'm standing in front of the wipers and I don't have a clue what I'm looking for. Here's my broken wiper- can you help me?"

And he says- "What are you driving?"

I say- "Dodge Caravan, 1990".

Which was true. Like 6 years ago.

It takes me a full two minutes to realize that I'm even more of an idiot than I already knew that I was. So after I confessed that I actually drive a Montana, year of which I can't remember because I'm daft and I don't give a care, he says- that's easy. 24 inch wiper, any one.

For a stupid person, I pride myself on entertaining Walmart employees.

13) When I get back to the MONTANA, its dark and chilly and I have less than no desire to put on the windshield wiper. I simply Do Not Care. Our headlights don't really work either, so who cares about the windshield? I'll just follow the guy ahead of me and hope he's headed towards Niverville.

14) Tomorrow is no school. Which should be okay because Brian still has school, and I don't have ten thousand children coming, and at the end of it I'm gonna say- Brian? Make me the best Gin and Tonic you've ever made in your life. And he will.

15) My dinner was: a coffee from McDonalds that I sent Jane to get me while I perused wiper blades. I gave her my coupon for a free medium because I do their clever little sticker system. The coffee was lukewarm and yucky, plus I accidentally gave her an empty coupon thingie, instead of the full one, which made her look like an idiot, even though I'm the actual idiot. So, I went back to McDonalds, asked for a hot coffee instead, please, no coupon.

16) Main course was a Walmart banana that I ate in the MONTANA while driving home via the braille method.

17) Dessert: Cappucino flavor frozen yogurt. At home, at my table, with my ipad, chatting with you. And my brother via text. And my friend who thought going on a road trip with two preschoolers was a good idea. And my son Sam who must be growing because he's always eating toast with roughly 1.5 inches of nutella on top of it.

Seventeen. Which can only mean that tomorrow is sixteen which is actually sounding pretty much like two weeks since Saturdays and Sundays are like non-days.

You've all been so fun to be ridiculous with, I thank you.

*footnote- I've just spent about 15 minutes trying to remove the "BOLD" from the last half of this blog post. In draft, it is removed. When I republish, it reappears. I'm thinking of driving back to Walmart and asking someone in the electronics department for help. It worked for the wipers. And the coffee.

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