Dismembered

It sort of looks like the little bud vase they have in VW beetles...right?

Sometimes I wonder if my kids wet their beds because they know it's the only way one of us is going to launder their sheets. The filth has been getting out of hand, lately.

"Should I take off my shoes?" People always ask that when they walk into the house. "PLEASE DON'T!" is my panicked response. If people go in their socks or barefoot, they'll feel all of the dried cranberries, boogers, and mandarin orange syrup on the floor.

We knew the car was bad, but we ignored it. I thought Julie was making some sort of fun, faux flower decoration, but the above image is Fabreze-soaked paper towels crammed into the blower vents of the car, an optimistic attempt by Nanny McGyver to offset the smell. Saturday was the first nice, warm one of the spring. Tim thought it'd be a fun outing for the big kids to go get Heidi Hybrid detailed. He bought the detailing package that appeared to be all-inclusive. When Heidi was returned to him with unwashed seats, he complained. The man at the car wash said to him, "You look pretty educated...I'M NOT EDUCATED! BUT I CAN READ THAT THE $40 PACKAGE DOESN'T INCLUDE SHAMPOOING THE UPHOLSTERY." Tim replied, "It looks like your whole operation is dependent upon all the cars moving through the line....I think I'm going to park my car at the head of the line and then I'm going to take my kids out for lunch." There's only a tiny lurking little smidgeon of the piss, sour milk, coffee smell left. Those seats look almost new.

Whenever I launder kids' car seats, I wonder how many kids do you have to have before you can put a car seat back together in under a half hour. Taking the 9 random pieces of carseat upholstery out of the dryer and trying to figure out to which they belong in what formation with 3 little kids helping can really test a marriage.


love is blind...

Speaking of marriage...sadly, we've had our first gay bashing incident at our home. I was given these two roosters by 2 different gay men in San Francisco. What are the chances of that? I've always assumed that the roosters were meant to be together, and they have been for 15 years.

2 weeks ago, Tim had all 3 kids for the weekend while I made an unsuccessful attempt to flog pottery at The Philadelphia Invitational Furniture Fair. It was one of those, "everything got too quiet" moments. Tim looked up from his computer to see the living room covered with feathers. All 3 kids had been viciously plucking the tail of one of the roosters. He freaked out and made them clean up all of the feathers. When I came home, I asked them, "Why did you do that to the rooster?" They replied, "We were trying to turn him into a hen, so they could be married. Two roosters can NOT be married!!!!" What little fascists they're turning out to be.

TADA! chocolate-covered, amputee barbie! She got covered with whipped cream flowers too.

I got my revenge on Barbie. It was Lisa's birthday last weekend. Lisa and I have been best friends since she emerged from her mom 3 months after I'd done the same. Lisa and her family moved here this winter from Montana. She had such crooked movers that Tim invoked his "refuse to move the car" trick. Upon discovering that the movers weren't planning to reimburse her the $3000 they'd extorted from her. She sprinted down through the snow in her pumps and interview suit and boxed in a semi with her little Subaru. She sat in the car with her kids for an hour. The police came and she got her money back. Now that's the way to deal with crooked movers and car washers. I love my husband for that...(among other things)

Anyway, back to Barbie...Lisa's mom used to make doll cakes for her and her sisters. I had to do it. How else was I going to visually pep up a chocolate cake with chocolate icing? It hadn't occurred to me that Steel would come up the morning after I'd covered Barbie's loins with saran wrap (having already pulled out both of her legs) and gasp when I opened the fridge to get milk for her cereal. She did not want Barbie:
a. in the fridge
b. in a cake
Apparently I was supposed to have asked her. I forgot to take chocolate-covered paraplegic Barbie home that evening. Sources tell me she's had a trip through the dishwasher. Steel hasn't remembered that she's still at Lisa's house. I see Barbie's legs hiding behind the cutting boards when I'm cooking. As long as no one decides to clean back there, I won't get caught. In this house, I feel safe.

this is not a goldfish...it's a rooster eye sitting casually on a bedside table.
Barbie deserved everything she got...

Super Hero Institute of Technology

Rain blows.

Poor Toby spends her time waddling over to the front hall where the coats hang pleading, Apple Jacket! Outside! Hat on! It is especially crappy for making pottery. I move ware all around my studio in hopes of drying it faster, and I inevitably break a bunch of it. I put cup handles on too soon, and they all warp. During all of this I have to listen to too many traffic reports on NPR.

Making and breaking bad pottery was the middle of my day. Tim and I had to start the day confronting our nanny with a time-maintenance/being present discussion stemming from Toby's fall down the outside metal stairs. Julie (sanannyty) was running late the previous day and put Steel in the car first (probably because she was being the biggest pain in the ass) thinking that Toby would stay on the stairs with her brother. We all admitted to dropping the ball when it's 3 on 1. It gets hectic. Tuesday morning I asked Jack Peter to get dressed for school. He told me that he hated everyone in our family except for Toby and Steel and that he was going to dig up all of my tulips. I responded while I jammed a shirt over his head that if he touched my tulips I was going to throw away all of his toys and his markers. Toby could have been climbing onto a ceiling fan from the top of a bar stool at that moment, and I'd have had no idea.

The crappy day continued when Jack Peter did not get picked in the lottery for the Spanish Immersion Charter School we were hoping for. We can re-apply for first grade, but it will be more difficult for him. I was sad about that. I love that school. Julie sent me a text with the above picture saying that he might still get a place at the Super-Hero-Institute of Technology. (S.H.I.T)

That helped. As did filling out an application for the Performing Arts Charter School which is rumored to have a good French Program. I mentioned Jack Peter's unparalleled mimicry of Spanish-speaking Buzz Light Year. I also boasted about his annual tabletop performance at the McDonald family Thanksgiving dinner. This is the school that requires a list of 13 items to apply to the lottery. You're not allowed to visit until you've been accepted, so you're getting all of this crap together not knowing whether or not you like the place. I'm going to pop the results from my last Pap Smear into the envelope too. I hope they have a sense of humor.

I can't really bitch about my day. I got rock star parking both picking up and dropping off the kids at school; I got to hear my first Lady Gaga song on the way, and I didn't spill coffee in my lap. I didn't have to bribe Steel with lipstick to stop crying and let me leave her at school, and when I picked them up it was my favorite: dress up, dance to 70's music, and talk on pretend cell phone time. I got to drink wine and eat a yummy dinner at Heather's with her friend, Fiona, who also has 3 kids 5 and under. There were 9 kids, and none of my kids cried or hit anyone, and they all ate their vegetables. The girls spent the play date dressing up and cleaning the bathroom with cloth wipes and then throwing them into the toilet, so Rene's day ended with a plunger, but mine is ending with the happy discovery that Tim remembered trash day is tomorrow.