Ok, I’m sick and freaking tired of the same person sending me this damned virus over and over and over and over and over.
If you’re a Pacbell customer, check your computer for viruses. I’m getting it from Received: from HP (adsl-64-161-224-41.dsl.lsan03.pacbell.net [64.161.224.41]). Fix it, for the love of Pete!
Caroline’s been running around the house without a shirt on. We seem to have a hard time keeping clothes on that one. Earlier she climbed onto my lap and was hanging out watching TV. Max the kitten jumped up too and snuggled up with Caroline. I heard uneasy laughter coming from Caroline. “Mommy, Max… Max… Max, uh…”
I looked down. Max had latched on to Caroline. I firmly explained to Max that she was not his mommy and booted him out of our laps.
I feel like I would like to write a nice long entry tonight, but can’t think of what to write about. Similarly, I feel like shopping for something, but can’t think of what to buy. I guess I’m still feeling a little pent-up after Jo made me come home from Nordstrom early because she wanted to show off her red balloon to her sister.
Tonight as we were watching Seinfeld, Jo had a quizzical look on her face and said, “Mommy, are all people pink?”
What a lead-in for a good life lesson. I spent a careful 5 minutes talking to her about how people come in all different colors, from pink to reddish to yellowish to light brown to dark brown. “So you see, not everyone is pink, and lots of people come in other pretty colors too.”
“Like green! And purple!”
I guess you can’t win ’em all.
Speaking of diversity… Maybe I am just too damned sensitive. It’s not my battle to fight – is it? Why are people so damned awful about gays? I just can’t take listening to the crap about how ‘I don’t have anything against those homo-sexuals, you understand; I just don’t want to be in the same room with ’em and God help ’em if they get near my kids! But if they’re women, hey, send me a picture!’
Honestly. Why does anyone care? Do people really think that those there homo-sexuals are going to ass-rape their young son within 10 minutes if they’re in the same room together? Does anyone read the Leviticus passages in the context they were written? And why is it that it upsets me so much? Spending life on earth with some of the more ignorant, loud-mouthed sons of bitches who spout their arrogant and ignorant bullshit is starting to seem like a sentence.
Now I guess I’m Pushing the Gay Agenda(tm).
Here are agendas I’ll push:
The driver who cut you off is a dumb asshole, not a dumb woman driver, a dumb fag, a dumb coon, a dumb spick, a dumb wop, a dumb nip, or a dumb towelhead. That guy over there? He’s not an intelligent black man. He’s an intelligent man.
The part where Jesus says to love thy neighbor as thyself doesn’t have anything that says “unless” after it.
Assholes come in all shapes, colors, and creeds.
Other people have other ways of doing things.
If you think it’s not ok for foreigners to say bad things about the US while visiting here, it’s not ok for you to say bad things about their country while you visit it.
Not everyone who supports gun rights is a right-wing kook. Not everyone who supports abortion rights is a left-wing kook.
Categorize not, lest ye be categorized.
Just because you saw it on TV doesn’t make it true. Be a sport. Do your research, then develop an opinion about it.
A closed mind can’t learn anything.
Bitch about SUV drivers who drive dangerously if you like, but if I had a dime for every time someone in a tiny little car cuts my Suburban off so closely that our bumpers nearly kissed, I could retire.
I guess I had a post in me after all.
“First of all we wish to thank you for hosting with us during the past year.
We certainly hope doing business with us was a very pleasing experience.
-Featureprice.com, in an email received today but dated March 22, 2003.
I took Jo to Nordstrom today. That is a dangerous place for me to go. I have a feeling I will be spending a lot of time (and money) there. Heck, it’s not even like going to the mall. I can pretend I’m in a stand-alone store like Steinmart, only bigger.
Salespeople hunt you down to greet you and ask if you need help, but are non-obtrusive and respect “No thanks, just browsing”. The shoe selection is insane. They carry the European comfy brands like Mephisto and Dansko, along with Kenneth Cole, Stuart Weitzman, and Kate Spade. Huge amount of kids shoes, and a giant aquarium in the kids area above a table with crayons and coloring books. Kid clothing, even boutique labels, is actually not that bad. The most expensive kid thing I saw off-hand was a Cach Cach Yeti coat for $68.
I checked out the Estee Lauder counter because I’d heard raves about the Advanced Night Repair cream from people on a rosacea mailing list. The salesperson was really helpful, mentioned that they had a free gift for purchases over $35 and the cream was in the kit, so I got some other stuff too. She whispered over Jo’s head to ask if Jo would like a balloon, and ran over to the kid department to get one for her.
Jo’s really a timid kid. I think we need to get her into some sort of pre-school. She’s intensely shy around strangers. Every time someone talks to her she turns bright red, mumbles, and hides behind me. She was afraid of the piano player and almost had a heart attack when I took her on the escalator – she clung onto my neck for dear life. I have a really bad feeling about Santa pictures this year.
Anyway, I think I’m going to apply for a Nordstrom card. Lord help us.
The Seeing-Eye Cat made another foray, this time to Lowe’s.
My younger daughter is spending her first night in a Big Girl Bed.
Last night it was like there was a conspiracy to keep me from sleeping. First Cuervo snuck upstairs and started delicately eating kitten food from the bag. Then Maddie decided she was Mad as Hell and Not Going to Take It Anymore from Max, and chased him around the house for a good 30 minutes, slamming into the kids’ bedroom doors along the way. After I chased off the dog and calmed down the cats, I crawled back into bed and had just started to fall back asleep when I heard a couple of moans and a plaintive “Mommmmmmmmy” from the baby monitor. I crossed my fingers that she would just go back to sleep. All was quiet for the next couple of minutes, save a little thump that might have been the Jo hitting the wall as she rolled over.
Then I hear Caroline’s doorknob rattling, and a voice just behind the door saying “Ey! Openna do! Openna do!”. She had vaulted out of her crib and was trying to escape her room. I opened the door as instructed and she declared, “I got outta bed!”. Agreeing as to how she did, I scooped her up and brought her back to sleep in our bed, where she proceeded to wiggle for an hour or so until settling down sometime around dawn.
Today I sat Jo down and had a long talk with her about the bed situation. She has a built-in window-bed-nook in her room, which we planned to use for her bed. A while back she thought she saw a bug in there, and has refused to sleep in her “tall bed” for over a year since. I somehow convinced her not only to try the bed again but to get excited about it, and we moved the other bed from her room into Caroline’s, which had been our plan all along.
And a good thing we did. The other night, one of Caroline’s stuffed animals, appropriately named Kitty, disappeared into thin air within the space of an hour. This was bad. Kitty is necessary for bedtime. We tore the house apart looking for it in all the places the kids had travelled that day, to no avail. When hub moved the bed tonight, we saw Kitty, as well as a stuffed monkey, dog, and rabbit. Apparently Max the Kitten was making a stuffed animal stash for himself.
What a stinkhead.
The elm tree in the back yard is already starting to turn color and drop leaves. It seems like signs of the impending season change come earlier every year. It’s hard to believe in autumn and winter when it’s 94 degrees outside. I wonder if a temperature drop will come early this year. I remember when I was a kid, maybe 13, my mom and I went to eat at a diner. Next door was a time and temperature banner. As we ate lunch, we watched the temperature drop forty degrees, from the nineties to the fifties.
One of my favorite things to do is watch a storm roll in. Texas gets some really fierce and elemental storms twice a year – first in spring, around May, which is when the tornado happened in Cedar Park and Jarrell; then in fall, when the cold fronts battle with the existing warm air. The ranch in South Texas is the perfect place to watch a cold front approach. The house is set on a high hill, with views that go on for miles. The view to the north and northwest is unfettered, and the lights from the refinery 5 miles away look like a fairy land from the hilltop vantage. Since cold fronts usually come from the northwest, I can sit outside at the picnic table for hours, watching the black wall of clouds and lightning approach. This viewpoint is also perfect for watching the sunset. In fact, it was my “safe place” thought during the 24 hours of labor I had with my first daughter. I pictured myself drinking a longneck, with a mild breeze in my face, and a perfect purple and orange and red sunset that lasted as long as I wanted; a star peeking out from between the tree branches above.
Mom told me that as I got older, time would go faster. I didn’t believe her then. Now I do.