File under -- things I love about you

Lizzie, err, I mean Elizabeth (she's insisting on her full name these days), commented on my hands being "a little scratchy". I told her that was because they were a little dry and she told me maybe I should lick them.

Mental

Mental.

What kind of horror show are you running here?

Lizzie goes to a pre-school a couple of times a week. One of the points of interest for the kids was bug box where a caterpillar had cocooned itself. The kids would check each week to see what kind of beautiful creature it would turn into.

Well, the thing hatched this week and it was pretty alright -- pretty creepy! The teachers let the kids look and only answered direct questions because they didn't know what to say or what had happened. They said, "we didn't know caterpillars could turn into bugs".

Me neither, so I googled and it turns out the thing is a parasitic wasp. The mother wasp had laid an egg in the caterpillar, the caterpillar had gone about it's business and made it's cocoon -- all the while incubating this thing that eventually ate it from the inside out -- then it hatched it's creepy self out of the cocoon.

Nature is interesting and all, but I'm not volunteering the info to Lizzie any time soon. No need to to start her off with the nasty side of things. Kind of puts a twist on the old metamorphosis idea I've held all these years.

Hogaaan!

Oonta gleeban gloutan globan. (Gunter glieben glauchen globen)

I finally figured out how to get rid of the German. I clicked buttons until one of them gave me language options -- then I hit other buttons until the change was made. Kind of a risky move considering I deleted my last blog from someone else's comment section.

That's me though -- I'm a real edge skater.

okay, it's permanently changed to German

And there is no spell check.

Blogger?

Go ahead and post a comment to see the German words there.

WTF?

Someone from Germany entered my blog through my dashboard. This is the second person to do this. The real freakish part is that my dashboard keys are all in German.

Sombody tell me how do they do that?

I'm posting from it now. I can Als Entwurf speichern (save as draft), or I can Post veroffentlichen (publish).

Remeber Eric Roberts in "The Pope of Greenwich Village" when they took his thumb?

That's how I feel about the five degrees they took from me. They said Sunday would be 50 degrees and now they are saying 45.

I try not to pay attention, but I heard it and I was hopeful, now I'm a mixed bag and searching for a path to acceptance. This is a bullshit time of year. I can hunker down and accept Winter, make the best of it. When March comes I try to ignore it altogether.

When I was a kid, March was all in like a lion, out like a lamb -- but that has not held true during my grown up years, so I try not to fall for it. Plus, when I was a kid I knew how to have fun in any season, so if gloom and cold held, I got a jacket or rain gear and got on with it. When I am older, I will Winter in Arizona or some other warm place. For now?

For now I try to divorce myself from reality as best I can. When it gets a little warm and that melted snow/spring smell hits me, I do everything I can to keep the excitement low in order to keep the information from the part of me that will believe that winter is over. I can't just enjoy the moment, it's too crushing when the cold returns and we go back to lock down. In winter mode I can handle the cold -- but once I'm out of winter mode I'm like Jessie the Yodelin Cowgirl from Toy Story 2, "I won't go back in the box!"

Who am I kidding, I'm out -- I've already jumped the gun and now I'm going mental. Last weekend we had a day warm enough to create the smell of mud. When it was back down to twenty something Monday -- I was pissed as I pumped my gas in the fricken freezing cold -- what was it, a wind chill of minus 70? Crap.

Couple of singer songwriters in my house

The casio and kereoke machine are out, settle in for a couple of performances by a couple of seasoned performers. First up, Lizzie with an original number called "Cleaning up Is Dumb".

"Cleaning up is no fun
cleaning up is dull
I don't like to clean up at all
I don't like it, I don't like it, I don't like it at all."

(repeat several times)

That was Lizzie, killing me softly with her song at only five years of age. And next up, Winnie, with her original song "Seas, oh Seas and Other Things".

"Seas, oh seas
lovely fishes in them,
Lovely dashing sharks.
Seas, oh seas
what about starfish?
Seas, oh seas
are filled with lovely stuff.
Seas, oh seas
they are good to us.
Seas, oh seas
the love about them
Seas, oh seas
the animals,
Seas, oh seas, oh seas
Seas, we love em.
Seas, we see em.
Seas, oh seas
what's wrong with seas.
Oh, seas, oh seas, ooooh seas, oh seas..."

And an encore performance from Lizzie -- this one is called "The colors of the flowers"

"The colors of the flowers are so bright.
And some of them are dark too.
Some of them are black.
Some of them are green.
Some of them are really brown.
Some of them are red.
Some of them might be purple.
Some of them might be like a rainbow.
Some of them might be like a pink rose.
Some of them might be gold, red or blue or yellow, yellow, yellow.

I can't believe it.
I can't believe it.
I can't believe it.
I can't believe that they are so beautiful.

Some people hate it.
Some people love it.
Some people think it's so cool.
Some people think they are stupid.
Some people think they are very dumb.
Some people think they are very cute.
Some people think they are very cool.
Some people think they are a-okay.

Now, what everybody thinks, what everybody thinks,
what everybody thinks, what everybody thinks,
what everybody thinks of it --
Most people think flowers are pretty.
I can't believe it. I can't believe it. I can't believe it.
The colors of the flowers are so pretty."

If you want the teachers to think your kindergartener is a genius, teach them the days of the week before they get there

That last post reminded me of the fun I used to have with this one.

All the kids learn the days of the week, especially if they are Barney watchers. If you know the song, I'm sure you are singing it right now -- "Sunday Monday, Tuesday Wednesday, Thursday Friii-day, Sat-ur-daay, Sunday Monday, Tuesday Wednesday, Thursday Friday, Saturday." (I'm like Cartman with the "Come Sail Away" song (quote #14)-- once I hear that Barney song I have to sing the whole thing . )

So if you ask your little one the days of the week, they will usually tell you, "Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, ..."

But your kid doesn't really know the days of the week. The fun and entertaining part happens when ask them to break it down.

"Today is Friday. What day is tomorrow?"

They will pause, consider for a moment -- then they will pick a day, any day but Friday, and shout it out with confidence, "Tuesday!".

"Good guess, but tomorrow is Saturday. Let's sing the song."

You can keep quizzing them and going over the song for quite some time (days, weeks, months) before they really start getting it. It's fun, because if they are anything like my kids, they never lose their confidence and keep shouting out a day, any day -- it's funny stuff -- try it.

Writing assignment for Winnie -- 1st grade

To prepare for the Olympics I would have to:

get my leeatard on and

go get my shos on

Practis.

When she only had "get my leeatard on" I prompted her for more, "What else would you have to do to get to the Olympics?"

Very excited, "Get it the car and drive there!"

"Good"

I don't know why she didn't write that one down. Her teacher led her to the Practis idea.

Too much coffee turns me into a compulsive computer checker

I'm figuring this out tonight. I'm missing that hurricane alien show right now (can't think when I'm over caffeinated either).

I have made the rounds on my favorite bloggers a gazillion times tonight. All I have to do it mouse over the names over there on the right and it tells me if they posted or not, but I still keep clicking -- nope, no new post.

What the heck?

I'm only posting now so there will be something that has changed since the last twenty times I've entered the blog world tonight.

Surf something new? That wouldn't be near as compulsive as checking the same thing over and over.

How will I ever sleep tonight -- I'm so caffeinated. That's what I get for cutting back, I used to be immune to the stimulant effects of caffine.

Makes me wish I knew how to post streaming video

Did you know guinea pigs eat their own poop? Their poop has a nutritional value for them -- it contains beneficiary bacteria for maintaining proper gut flora in the delicate digestive systems of these critters.

For me -- I like yogurt.

Not those guinea pigs. And they don't poop first, snack later -- at least not our guinea pig -- she uses her butt like her own personal pez dispenser of poop.

Snack.

That's just not right

Dana Reeve died -- that's so so sad. Their poor son, it's just not right. Good people like that should get to stay here much longer.

Redundant bitching about my husband

Grumble grumble, grrrr, asshole. Fuckinasshole grumble grumble frickin fracken fuckwad.

He should always be on cancer alert, his manners are so much better when he thinks he might die.

GrrrrAAAAHHHHHG!

I kid, I'm a kidder. Oh.

The auto insurance agent called looking for some info -- he is trying to get us a better business policy and inquired about Rich's driving record and was it clear. Then he realized he had it right there in front of him. We were good naturedly bantering back and forth and he's saying it looks good and then, "oh, except for this marijuana in the car." And I, still in kidding with each other mode -- said, "oh, yeah that!"

The fun sucked off the line, he cleared his throat and kind of mumbled an "okay" in a -- if you think that's funny -- tone.

We exchanged a couple more business related words and hung up.

When I told Rich about the awkward exchange he said it was because he actually did have a possession charge on his record for an incident at the Canadian border.

Well, that explains that, doesn't it?

He's okay

Not cancer. Lipoma. Fatty tumor.

Just say so in the first place then!

The fatty tumor was our first thought because he's prone to them -- this is not his first. The doctor got us all freaked out because it seemed to be in tissue and not typical of the fatty tumors. And it wasn't the same odd shape they usually are, so I didn't like that. (I'm sure my husband is going to love me talking about his fatty tumahs -- oh well. If you read my blog, it's actually not the most personal thing I've shared about him.)

Anyway, it's not a usual fatty thing, this one collected around a gland or something which made it all freaky for us all. He doesn't have cancer, we all slept well last night.

The keepers of the life insurance policy have been found and it's paid, so all is well there too.

Cancer scare

We are having a cancer scare in our house this week. Not actual cancer, cancer scare, but a -- is there or isn't there cancer, cancer scare.

One answer would be serious and so you get scared that it might be that answer. The other answer means you were scared for nothing. So, you count on the nothing and the scare part doesn't feel so scary or serious -- it's more of a really heavy wait and see where everybody is just a little bit nicer to each other.

What's happening is that Rich has a weird lump that is getting checked today -- on top of the fact that he had surgery this week to remove a polyp from his throat.

We are doing much better with the actual cancer scare than we do with all of the imagined health scares which go on between us. And not that we run around being scared for each other, it's more silent suffering on our own, but with clues, "can't talk right now, I think I might be dying" (or in the beginning stages of MS, fibromyalgia, cancer, heart attack -- pick an ailment).

"Okay, let me know if that turns into anything then. In the meantime, have you seen my blue shirt anywhere?"

But now that he has gone to the doctor and actually has something, which is "probably nothing, but we need to get it checked out" to see what kind of nothing -- that could be something-- it is.
It's kind of weird. I'm not gripped by fear (like when the MS is causing the ankle pain), I'm calm and fairly okay with being in the wait and see mode. I'm ready to spring into action should it be cancerous (that is -- right after I faint. If it were late stage deadly cancer I would faint, but if it's early stages highly curable cancer, then I wouldn't faint). All the same, it will be nice when the "probably nothing" is a confirmed "benign" nothing.

Rich says he's not too worried either, but at the same time, he checked to see that his life insurance was paid up. We still don't have the answer because our agent died and he was independent and the parent company has changed it's name and we haven't got a bill since last payment(when the agent still lived). Nobody knows who is in charge of our policy. We still have some possible leads to get us through some more of the red tape.

Something to keep us busy while we wait to see.

A Room of One's Own Virginia Woolf? And how about some time of one's own to go with it.

I don't have no stinking writer's block -- I'm back logged with ideas. Got no time. Prioritize some time for myself, you say?

Come, watch my kids for me -- just an hour a day, same time every day -- a little slice of time I can count on. Or make my five year old understand what I mean by "super silent mommy time". Either of those would work real nice for me.

Soon enough I'll have all kinds of SSMT time -- but why's it gotta be so extreme? No time/lot's of time?