Archive for September, 2010

Today I have a parent-teacher meeting with ALL of the J-Man’s teachers.

Why no, I’m not nervous at all.

I got all mommed out with a sweater and a turtleneck, because I think that is what moms are supposed to wear.

The Pixies T-shirt and holey yoga pants probably wouldn't be appropriate.

Originally I actually put on a blazer and dress pants, and my mother and son looked at me and cracked the hell up.

Nice.

Anyway, that’s my morning. How are you?

Not the cats.

Alice the hamster went missing for an unknown amount of time in a house teeming with five felines.

On Friday evening, I put the hamster in her ball, as I do or the J-Man does most every evening, for a little exercise. Upon returning Alice to her abode, I closed the cage.

I KNOW I latched that cage. Why wouldn’t I? The cage doesn’t even close unless you firmly latch it, and I don’t think I’d be dense enough to leave a cage door swinging open.

On Saturday night, I did not let Alice out, because I was going out. The J-Man did not let her out, either, because he had a friend over. Clearly we are neglectful pet owners. Shame shield.

On Sunday, in my mildly hungover state, I happened to glance at the cage. The door was hanging open. “Oh, shit,” I thought. “They left Alice in the fucking ball!!”

However, Alice was not in the fucking ball. She was not anywhere. She was gone.

The five cats stretched and yawned and licked themselves in various places. Did they look sleepier than usual due to a nice shared meal of obese rodent, or was it just me?

I screamed for my mother (apparently one is never too old to scream “MOM!” while in a sticky situation) and began to search for Alice.

We grabbed a couple of flashlights and started to look under every available surface. Now, you have to understand that The TranceCave: Part Deux is pretty large. There’s a huge family room, my room, a bathroom, a big utility room, a few closets, a large pantry, all of which could have been housing an extremely fat yet still relatively small hamster.

We looked for two hours. Nothing.

The J-Man was out with my father and was not yet aware of the jailbreak, but when he arrived home, I had to tell him.

“Well, we’ll find her, won’t we??”

I honestly didn’t know, but we kept looking.

I called my dad and asked for his advice, and he simply said, “Well, if it’s dead, you’ll start to smell something in a few days.”

Nice.

I had a seizure and passed out for about four hours, and then woke up in time to hang out and look for another hour and put the nervous J-Man to bed.

“The cats are going to eat her.”

“Cats don’t actually eat their prey. They just kill it and play with it.”

That was so the wrong thing to say that I could have stuffed my foot straight down my esophagus.

After calming J. down and getting him off to bed, I looked a little more and decided to head off to bed myself. I had my iPod headphones on (lately I fall asleep to Iron and Wine) and the covers adjusted and was ready to turn off the bedside lamp and drift off to dreamland, when a parade of cats tripped quickly into the bedroom.

They moved in a straight line, heads down, almost as if they were following- OH MY GOD.

I jumped out of bed, iPod flying, literally flinging cats behind me, and saw poor Alice in the corner behind the dresser.

“Alice,” I said, because hamsters always come when called.

“Alice.”

Alice tentatively stepped forward.

I am not making this up, I swear it on my remaining good eye.

I brightened. “Alice!”

She moved a little closer, beginning that wobbly hamster walk.

“Al-ice!”

Closer. I was practically peeing myself that this was happening. If I could have called Animal Planet, I would have.

Finally she was close enough to grab, so I grabbed…

…and she dashed away.

Then I got the bright idea to shake a bottle of Lamictal (seizure pills), thinking that it would sound like her food.

Hey, it works for the cats.

It didn’t work for Alice.

After about a half an hour of calling and cajoling and moving the dresser and having her just go underneath the dresser and swearing and then apologizing to the hamster for swearing because hey, who knows what they know, I heard a scratching.

She was using her tiny little claws to climb up a pillow I had stuffed on the other side of the dresser to make sure that she didn’t escape. I let let her climb up, and then I grabbed her.

Hamster capture successful.

I put her back in her cage, gave her fresh food and water, and a carrot and a Cheeto for good measure.

Then I went to bed and slept the sound sleep of the successful hamster hunter.

Seriously, though, that little fucker has nine lives. To survive, possibly since Friday night, in a basement with five cats?? Good Lord.

And how was YOUR weekend?

This past Saturday we trucked out to the Wizard of Oz festival in Chesterton, IN. The event is a big local hoo-rah, featuring a large parade of costumed characters, vendors of notoriously artery-clogging foods, and sellers of Crap You Don’t Need.

We arrived after judiciously parking on someone’s lawn upon seeing that everyone else was doing it, and headed out to the parade.

Historically I am not a parade person. I see no reason to stand by the side of the road and ooh and ahh at fire trucks and papier-mâchéd, be-streamered pickups while someone occasionally tosses out a stale Life Saver.

It’s just not my thing.

The Wizard of Oz fest parade is pretty good, though. (Not to be confused with the Ozz Fest parade, in which people bite the heads off of bats, the trucks are loaded with pyrotechnics, and kids throw blood on the crowd.)

There are adorable little babies dressed up as Dorothy and her crew, which raises choruses of oohs and aahs. There are original Munchkins from the original cast riding around in golf carts, which is not at all weird.

Right.

There was a woman of at least seventy-five dressed as Dorothy, riding a bicycle. I wish I had pictures, because it was a sight to see.

There was a nine-foot-tall Tin Man on stilts. There were several vehicles bearing witch corpses.

There were cheerleading squads and dance teams and a band and all that, but I’d have to say the hit of the parade was some psychotic woman dressed as the Wicked Witch of the West, riding around in large loopy circles on her bike, cackling at top volume, “GIVE ME THOSE SLIPPERS!!” over and over. She was… special.

When the parade was over, we were on to the food. Since I am dieting, I ate only a fruit smoothie (which broke my grease-loving heart), but I saw quite the spread of triglyceride-bombing goodies. Huge fried turkey legs. Corn dripping with butter. Fried vegetables (so healthy!), just shining with grease. Waffle fries. (Oh My God I wanted fucking waffle fries.) Chili dogs. Corn dogs. Chicago-style monster footlongs. Pizza.

Yeah, it was a stellar place to be on a diet. While I watched my family suck down grease, we perused the Crap No One Needs. Of the things I saw, the most interesting were (with pricing): Knitted water bottle cozies ($20.00), a beaded bracelet that was literally some ugly plastic beads on an elastic string, and you know I know my damned beads ($10.00), those beanbag games, but in tiny form ($60.00, and I almost died), Wizard of Oz costumes for American Girl dolls ($50.00 WTF).

I am going to start my own business selling handmade crap. I make crap! I make crap all the time! I’m currently making a crappy afghan that probably would have sold there for a hundred bucks! I make jewelry when my eyes are halfway decent that is most definitely Not Crap, that I could probably sell at one of those places for a decent buck!

I am so getting a table at the next craft fair. Maybe I’ll even get a perm and a flowered sweatshirt and be That Woman. Or I could start wearing patchouli and lots of hemp and be That Woman. These seem to be the two types of women that populate craft fair tables.

Halfway through the Wizard of Oz fest, it began to pour. We took refuge under the trees for a while, and then went to a large antique store for shelter.

I have never seen the likes of this place. It was enormous. It was divided up into tiny little rooms, of which there must have been at least a hundred. Each tiny room had a theme. Cooking, Star Wars, Christmas, military, you name it. The J-Man found a newspaper covering the Kennedy assassination and started to read that. I was pretty into some old vintage handbags and of course, books. My mom and stepdad were looking at furniture. We must have spent two hours in the place, and I don’t think I made it through a third of it.

It was a pretty good day, though. Everyone got along, everything was pretty chill. No fighting, no glaring, no bitching.

Nice.

Today, not much is going on. I have holes in my cornea again due to dry eye + contact lens overuse, but I’m on four, count them, FOUR different damn medications for it, so hopefully it will clear up very shortly. The doctor is optimistic. It’s making me as blurry as hell, though, so I am typing this in VERY LARGE FONT.

So, in essence, I’ve been screaming at you this whole time.

And how are you?

Happy Thursday.

So what can I say, I’m a dirty slacker.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Ever hear that one??

Anyway. Things out here where God lost His shoes are as interesting as ever. The cats are still in constant combat, and I remain in the midst of it, holding up my pathetic and tattered little Swiss flag, screaming, “Can’t we all just get along?”

Apparently we can’t. This also holds true for the rest of the family, particularly my stepdad and… everybody else.

Now my stepdad has Ways. He has Ways that are different. He has Ways that are decidedly odd. Some people might call picking up the pepper shaker and moving it twenty-four times OCD, some might not, and I don’t judge; but let’s just say that the man has Ways.

As residents of Stepdadlandia, we are not allowed to let a dirty dish touch the sink. Each dish or glass or fork must be washed after using it, and I do mean directly after using it, as in you had better not let that dirty fucking fork make contact with that sink, because he can both hear and SMELL it happening and will freak out like you have never seen a human being freak out.

As a resident of Stepdadlandia, I am not allowed to go barefoot, even in the house. He thinks that this practice is dirty and unclean and doesn’t allow it. This breaks my free-footed heart.

As a resident of Stepdadlandia, one is not allowed to lie on the couch. He even glares at us when we sit on it.

Read that again.

Is a couch not expressly made for lying down or sitting?

This is what I believed lo, these many years. Apparently I was wrong.

Anyway, couch-lying is what bred what I have come to refer to as The Great and Terrible Rift between the J-Man and the Stepdad.

I know about the couch-lying rule and even the mistrust regarding couch-sitting because I have lived with my stepdad before. The J-Man, however, was not as well-versed; and one evening he wandered into the living room, saw something he fancied on TV, and innocently stretched out on the couch.

What followed caused me to drink for four days straight.

“GET OFF THE COUCH!!! YOU DON’T LAY(sic) ON THE COUCH!!! EVER!!!!”

The J-Man immediately burst into tears. I would have done the same thing, as the preceding speech was uttered with such vehemence and venom that the neighbors undoubtedly leapt from their sofas in tears.

My mother glared. “You didn’t need to do that.”

I glared, thinking, “You’re a ferocious crap weasel.”

I immediately went into the J-Man’s room to find him sobbing on the bed, and attempted to soothe him. Unfortunately this was not the J-Man’s first run-in with the Stepdad, whose theories on child-rearing lean toward the militant – much different from my free-wheeling ways.

The J-Man is a pretty damned good kid. He doesn’t really require military rules and regulations, in my humble opinion.

“Grandpa hates me. I want to move.”

“Grandpa doesn’t hate you.”

“Yes, he totally does.”

I talked with him for a while, trying to convince him that no, Grandpa didn’t hate him, put him to bed, and steeled myself to deal with Herr Stepdad.

“You know,” I said, “That was completely unnecessary.”

“He knew,” he shrugged. He knew he wasn’t supposed to lay (sic) on the couch.”

“No, he didn’t.”

“I’ve told him before.”

“Maybe he forgot, because most people in most houses lie on couches. He’s in his room crying because he thinks you hate him. You are really hard on him quite a lot.”

“Well, you spoil him, Jennifer. Why don’t you just put a bib on him so he can be even more of a pansy.” (for the record – being a pansy: not playing football)

“I HEARD THAT!” suddenly flew from the back bedroom. The J-Man was wide awake, which is something I should have assumed.

I was so full of rage I could have spit lava.

I went to once again soothe the now-furious J-Man, which took a good hour, and then went to the local watering hole without saying a word.

I’ve been pretty reticent with the Stepdad ever since, and the J-Man is pretty much silent when he’s around. I don’t blame him.

So things are pretty tense over here in Stepdadlandia.

I’m trying to figure out a way to deal with this situation without pulling a Farrah Fawcett Burning Bed, but nobody can talk to the man. He’s always right.

I feel for my son. I can’t imagine what it must be like to know your grandfather feels that way about you.

Maybe this move was a mistake.

I don’t know.

Anyway, that’s what’s been happening here at mi casa.

Happy Friday.

Man, my worries about the J-Man not fitting in/making friends were completely unfounded.

So far, he seems to have met every damned child in the neighborhood, and yesterday he had three boys over to play video games and run around in the spacious back yard. It was great to see.

He’s also been spending a lot of time down in the dead end of our street, flirting shamelessly with the girl who lives there, the girl whose locker is next to his and has purple streaks in her hair.

Purple streaks. At twelve. My mother would have plotzed.

I’m relieved to no end to see all of this social activity. These Indiana public school kids seem to be a much different breed of child than the snobby, aloof, private school kids at his old school, and for that I am profoundly grateful.

Unfortunately, they also seem to be rife with germs, as the boy came home from school puking at ten o’clock this morning. Ouch.

Hopefully it’s just a short-lived bug.

In other news, I had a fun weekend – the kind of weekend I rarely have anymore, one that involved a bar night AND a party and lots of beer and old friends and fun and hangovers and napping on Sunday. It felt really good, even though it took me a full two days to recover.

I’m far too old (and on far too much medication) for such shit, but it sure is nice to forget that and cut loose once in a while.

In still other news, my cats are at war with my stepdad’s cats, and as a fellow basement-dweller, I am caught in the middle of the constant yowling and spitting and hissing. It’s enough to drive you to drink.

Skittles constantly pounces on the unsuspecting Buttons and Cheetah, and believe me when I tell you that they are not amused by her youthful antics.

Did I mention that the door to my bedroom doesn’t close completely, and that Buttons and Cheetah both sleep on my bed, and that this tableaux plays out every night ON TOP OF ME??

Yeah. It’s thrilling.

And I have one more piece of good news – thanks to a lot of rigorous dieting, I have finally been able to dip below 175 for the first time in oh, at least five years and am fitting into clothes that are probably so out of style it’s sick.

I couldn’t be more thrilled.

Here’s hoping your week is going as swimmingly.

Happy Wednesday.