Unhappily Humbled

It is amazing how quickly a mood can go from untouchable happiness to sour.  Then, there exists this sort of indescribable internal conflict.  The happy part is struggling to not be drowned, while the disappointed and sad part fights for dominance.  As soon as something is not allowed to be funny, I lose.

I’ve had a very happy past few days, filled with hope and excitement, eagerness for the near and distant future.  But the only thing that ever stays the same is change.  Change for the better, change for the worse.

Unfortunately, today was one of those “change for the worse” kind of days. It started out way too early. Had I known ahead of time what kind of day it would be, I would have overslept on purpose. Three of the kids had to be at a track meet at 8:00 this morning. Normally I like watching live sporting events, but this one was cringe worthy thanks to my kids. I’m not sure how they ended up so unmotivated in all things sport, but they are. All of them.

The first fun thing of the day was waiting over an hour for the meet to start, as it was clearly off schedule and going to start late. The next fun thing was that nobody seemed to know where or when to go for the events. The announcer didn’t do a good job announcing anything, coach didn’t know, nobody knew. Somehow we managed to get my son where he needed to be for his race, the 4X200 relay. It would have been better if we had missed it. Aside from losing his shoe during his leg of the relay and coming in dead last, it was great. His relay team was so last that they were almost first for the next race that went.

The weather was hot, humid, and sticky, even at 9 am. The sun was stalking us in the tent, and we had to keep scooting our chairs back. But the tent was crowded, so we couldn’t keep scooting. We had 3 chairs for 6 people, so the little ones wanted to be held. When my undergarments are wet with sweat, I really don’t like holding anyone, especially people who weigh more than 40 pounds. We sat there sweating, consuming concession stand food, and waiting.

When it was time for the 50 meter, both of my girls had to run. The officials were insanely unorganized and it took a long time to get all the kids ready. My little girl went first, and got dead last. She tried. She really did. She was disappointed and wanted to know how she got last when she ran as fast as she could. Maybe she shouldn’t have had all those chips, candy, and Caprisun right before. Maybe she shouldn’t have whined, cried, and walked at every practice all season. Maybe she should have stopped looking around at everyone in the other lanes. Maybe she should have cared more about trying harder and less about winning. Who knows?

This day wasn’t awful enough yet, so my oldest daughter had to be sure and spice things up a little. Since the officials were so unorganized, she had to stand at the starting line and wait. For a very long time. She had enough waiting, because she was definitely the only one who was hot, bored, and sick of waiting, so she started to walk off. But she was sure to growl at the officials, fold her arms, scowl at them, and (what looked like it to me from where I was standing) spit at them. It should come as no surprise that when she finally got to run, she got last. Too bad all that bad attitude couldn’t be transformed into physical energy. She’d have gotten first by a mile in the 50 meter.

In addition to food and drink, they should sell ADHD medication and professional counseling services at the concession stand. Don’t look for us at the Olympics any time soon. Or ever. We humbly packed up our gear and walked back to the car, defeated. The kids didn’t seem to know or care why they had to miss their other events. I think I’ll save a bunch of money, a bunch of time, and a bunch of headaches and skip track season from now until forever.

Let’s count the things that just went right with those cupcakes…

Well that was fast. I guess counting to zero doesn’t take too long. Today is Anne’s half birthday. She is 7 1/2. Whoopee, yay, hip hip hooray, so exciting!!! Not. But since she has a summer birthday she gets to celebrate her half birthday at school today. Which means work. For me.

To save some money I wanted to make the cupcakes myself instead of buying them at the store. I started making the batter last night around 7 pm. I’m nothing if I’m not a procrastinator. I have everything in the bowl except for the eggs I need. Because I’m out of eggs. Call a neighbor, no answer. Send older kid out into the wild to find eggs. Success.

I got them suckers in the oven, and eventually the timer went off. When that happens the cupcakes are supposed to be done. Only they weren’t. At all. They looked like they had been in there for 2 minutes. Hmmm, better crank up the oven temp. Finally they got what appeared to be mostly done so I set them out to cool.

I was too tired to deal with frosting them before bed so I covered them with plastic wrap and figured I could frost them in the morning before I took them up to the school. See I am full of great ideas! In the morning I took off the plastic wrap, and the tops of the cupcakes. You’d think I stored these things in a greenhouse they were so, uh, moist. I tried to frost them and just ended up with more and more of the cupcake on my frosting knife. Oh, must be the knife. I switched to plastic instead of metal and it was confirmed that my knife was not the problem. The paper liners were falling off the cupcakes, and I was losing more cake with every spread of frosting I tried. My frosting supply was getting low and I was only on the fourth cupcake.

I need more frosting. I have the best idea for that. I will “whip up” some more. I read about this somewhere, in a chain email I think, about how to spread your frosting farther when you buy the kind in a little tub. I got out the mixer and whipped the frosting. That was great except for the fact that now the entire tub of frosting was wound around the beater. This was getting funner and funner by the minute. I’m nothing if not persistent though and I just kept on frosting, scraping what I could, and supplementing with sprinkles. Lots of sprinkles.

I was making good progress when the cute little kitty came along. And pooped a disgusting poop 6 feet away from me in her litter box. I think next time I will buy the cupcakes from the store. I don’t care if the price of store-made cupcakes goes up to $100. It’s worth it.

Oops, Forgot a Title… Now I can’t think of a good one…

A job. Seems simple enough. A brain. Seems useful enough.

I’m envious of every employed person, from doctors to Walmart cashiers. They have a job. And they know how to do it. I just watch people perform their jobs, and I wish I had that knowledge. I feel like I don’t know anything.

Let’s see, things I know how to do:

Make words on “Words with Friends”
Guess words on “Hanging with Friends”
Check facebook
Check job listings
Clean the house
Talk to the cat
Go to the store

I need to find a job that utilizes all those amazing skills…

I’m scared I won’t be able to learn a job. Forget getting a job, which has already proved to be impossible, I don’t know if I could easily learn what it takes to do a job well. I used to always be a fast learner, but have become so afraid of messing up that all I do is mess up. I say the wrong words when I can’t think of what the right word is (literally) and my memory is terrible. I get confused easily, and am too unforgiving of any of my mistakes. Maybe it’s best for everyone if I just stay home where the world is safe from me.

Avocado Caper

I have a sneaky cat. Well all cats are sneaky, so in that sense she is normal. She is pretty well behaved during the day, when I’m around. But if she doesn’t think I’m watching, she’ll break the rules. One of the rules is that she is not allowed on the kitchen counter.

I came downstairs to the kitchen this morning and was surprised to see my ripening avocados had been knocked off of the window sill onto the counter, and one was missing. I just knew she was guilty. Avocados would make for a fun ball for a bored, nocturnal pet. I looked at her and asked her what she did with the one that was missing. “Meow”, was her response. That to me meant I should look in all the rooms, especially in areas she might have accidentally rolled it under and been unable to retrieve it.

I walked around, and couldn’t find it. I pictured her scurrying about for at least an hour playing with my avocado in the middle of the night. I was getting more annoyed and frustrated because it was the ripest of the three and I was looking forward to eating it today and imagined it was going to be pretty banged up. I gave up. I gave her the evil eye, hoping it would guilt her into leading me to the absent fruit.

She is innocent. All charges against her have been dropped.

When the boys came down for breakfast I found out from them that they were responsible for the mysterious disappearance of my avocado. Last night, one of them had broken open a glow stick and the “poison inside” (as they like to call it) got all over, including on my beloved would-never-live-to-become-guacamole avocado which they promptly threw away to “save” me from it. They had set the other two on the counter (aren’t I observant to have not noticed all of this last night?) because they had to wipe the glowing goo off of the window sill.

I am now patiently waiting for the other avocados to ripen, the boys are guilty as charged, and the pet is exonerated, all pretty typical stuff for a day in my life.

Not “all over the place”

I have a weird sense of humor. I think that almost anything has the capacity to be funny. That’s not necessarily a good thing. I laugh because things are actually funny, because things are not actually funny, or because what I’m experiencing doesn’t fit quite as well into the “cry” category.

Humans are equipped with the ability to cry and the ability to laugh. What’s the middle ground? Those are two very specific polar opposites (well unless you cry when you laugh like I do or laugh when you cry, which I also do) designed to be a physical response to specific emotional experiences. I don’t know if that’s a scientific definition or anything, just my quick take on it. So what made me laugh hysterically to the point of tears and inhibited breathing at 3 am?

Vomit. More specifically, vomitous corn. Not sure if “vomitous” is a word, but it should be. I think things are funnier when it’s the middle of the night. Not sure why that is. Could be the sleep-deprived brain can’t sort out a proper emotional response. The situation was that my 11 year old son came to my bedside and said “Mom, I threw up”. Ok, no problem. I’ve practically got a degree in vomit cleaning so this should be quick. I say, “Where, in the toilet?” “No, in the living room”, he said. I respond, “You mean, all over the place?” “No, just on the floor”, he proudly states.

I should have taken a photo. Well, maybe not. But this was no little spot. It was all over the place in my definition of the phrase. It was splattered, and chunky. It smelled so bad I was gagging and dry heaving. I was laughing so hard that tears were streaming down my face and I couldn’t see. Thankfully my husband has a degree in vomit cleaning as well and assisted me in my hysteria by providing a bucket of soapy water, special cleaners, and rubber gloves. Nothing brings a couple closer together than vomitous corn cleaning at 3 am.

After all the “fun” we had cleaning, it was time to attempt sleep again. Not happening. Too wired, too awakened. So I got my iPod and checked my Scrabble games. Out of eight games, it wasn’t my turn on any. Go figure. I checked Facebook, but surprise surprise nobody had updated their status in the middle of the night. I checked my email, read some spam and turned it off.

All’s well that ends well though because the kid is fine, the carpet is fine (well for the most part), and I’m fine. I’m no longer laying awake trying to sleep or feel sleep deprived from that night. I’m not even retching or laughing hysterically. Only problem, was that I got to clean vomit again last night for my daughter. Only it wasn’t funny that time. Probably because it was only 9 pm.

The First Day of the Rest of My Life

Since my husband thinks I’ve given up on my blog (which I guess I kind of have), I’m going to write something for him to read.

What to say? Well, not sure. That’s why I haven’t been writing on my blog in the first place.

I could write about how I love fall and post a million photos I’ve taken of trees and the sky.

I could write about my sore leg.

I could write about the vacation I took this summer.

I could write about the time my husband slammed a heavy book on my heel and cured my ganglion cyst.

I could write about my jumpy finger that has me googling (is that a real word?) “parkinson’s”.

I could write about my experience as a stay at home mom with no kids at home. There’s not much to say about that aside from the fact it’s very quiet and I do a lot of talking to the cat.

I could write about how much better and different life is since my last post. But there’s no point in looking at the past.

I could write about how my 7th grader came home whining today that he has no friends, and I have no answers.

I could write about how my faith journey is taking me to strange, never-before-been-visited places (that’s mental places, not physical ones by the way).

I could write about how I don’t like coming up with “tags” for my posts.

But alas, I’m not going to write about anything. Because I don’t feel like it.

Fat Kitten on Tuesday

Oh wait, I meant Mardi Gras and a new kitten. On Thursday I got a new kitten from my mom whose cat had babies almost three months ago. I haven’t had a new pet since I was in high school. I really like her. She’s sweet and smart, and furry. I think I am allergic to her. My eyes are itchy, my nose too. I told the kids I don’t know if we can keep her and they all started crying and said if I give the kitten back to Grammy then they want to go live with her. Wow. So glad I’ve given up the past twelve years of my life to be so dispensable.

It’s Mardi Gras. Since I don’t plan to party topless in New Orleans, I’ll make some potato skins and have some beer and pizza. I’m looking forward to Lent. I felt like it would never get here. I have things I want to “work on” and I’m not diligent enough to work on them for “no reason”. I am not exactly sure what my exact plan is for Lent so I’m considering taking it one day at a time. I just want it to be fruitful. I want to have the right spirit about it without making everyone around me miserable like last year. We’ll see.