Archive for June, 2009

Bring on the heat and humidity

June 27, 2009 at 1:36 pm · Filed under General Banter

Fifteen years ago Rich and I bought our first house.  Despite our grand plans of living in it for a few years (at the time we moved in I was pregnant with Harrison.  It was early enough in my pregnancy that I still looked good) it has turned out to be the only house we’ve bought.  Sure, there have been others over the years that almost happened, but, at the end of the day, it seems increasingly likely that this is the house we will live in for, well, the rest of our lives. 

Over the course of our life here, we’ve made changes both large and small.  Painted walls and cabinets different colors, added a familyroom, switched inhabitants and titles for various rooms, switched up window treatments, bought new appliances…the regular stuff.  But today was the day I’ve been waiting for since the hot, hot summer of 1994.  Finally, after years and years of (mostly) patiently waiting, we now have central air.  Gone are the window units which did the trick, but not without a lot of noise, blowing and pockets of ridiculous hotness.  Walking up the stairs from my air conditioned familyroom to my air conditioned bedroom felt like an ascent into hell.  Getting out of the shower required me to move with enough speed to get to the air conditioning while trying desperately to avoid moving too quickly,thus breaking a sweat.  And drying my hair in the summer??  Not a chance.  It was ugly.

But today all that changed.  It took a week of drilling, sawing, ducting (or whatever you call putting in duct work) and general commotion, but was well worth the wait.  I returned from the supermarket, got out of my car into the thick humid (generally disgusting) air, walked into my house and was the happiest I have ever been to be home.  Ever. 

Sitting outside my porch is the “Porsche of all central air units.”  These were the exact words Victor (heretofore known as the Russian man who changed my life) used which, I’m starting to realize, may have been a horribly ironic choice of words.  Rich, as faithful readers know, acquired (as part of his mid life crisis) a little Porsche.  It has sometimes been a bone of contention between us with me often inquiring as to why he has a Porsche and I, um, don’t.  Damn it all!  Now  he can say I have one, too.

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Will it ever stop raining?

June 22, 2009 at 5:12 pm · Filed under Are You Freakin' Kidding Me?, General Banter, Kids

1. It is noon on Monday.  Georgie is done with first grade at noon on Wednesday.  He does not start camp until 8:30 on Monday…July 6.  Oh, boy.

2. With my back finally cooperating, I went back to the gym today for the first time in ten days.  Not surprisingly, I sweat more readily than I might otherwise have (given my new out of shapeness).  Imagine my disappointment when I arrived home to discover that I was unable to shower at my house.  See #3 for explanation as to why…

3. As I type, I am competing with the sounds of electric saws, dust, drills, tarps, the entire contents of my and my childrens’ closets spread across our respective beds and general mayhem.  Why, you ask?  Because today I am finally getting the central air conditioning that I have been jonesing for since we bought our house in 1994.   I have never been so hopeful for a heatwave….ever.

4. Anyone who has ever been in my company anytime from May through September knows that I hate the heat.  I take it personally when the thermometer rises above 80 degrees.  Humidity is just wrong and, as best I can tell, purposeless.  People who profess to love the heat make no sense to me.  There is nothing more disgusting that sweating after a shower, sticking to anything for any reason or being subjected to hair expansion ala Roseanne Rosanna Danna.  Given the events of #3, I will no longer be able to complain.  I still might, but that is my prerogative.

5. For the past three nights I have been up coughing my brains out.  It is that awful, dry cough which leads to dry heaving and gagging.  All unpleasant, but perhaps most unpleasant is that fact that Georgie has finally stopped waking me at three in the morning and now Iam waking me at three in the morning.  And, more unpleasant still is the fact that my damned doctor won’t call in a the magic cough pills unless I come in to see her.  It isn’t like I am asking for Vicodin or something.  Geez.

6. I continue my active addiction to Chipotle salads.  If you haven’t tried one yet, why the hell not? 

7. There is currently a group of five Russian men having lunch on the porch.  None of them speak a word of English, but my scant knowledge of Russian tells me that they are commenting on what a young looking mom I am to have a kid as old as Harrison.  Just sayin’.

8. My resume is done.  It has been edited, tweaked, revised, reformatted and reviewed.  Now if only I could find a job I even wanted to apply for…

9. At this moment, Harrison, Matthew and two nubile young women are hanging out in my basement.  I, along with my Russian comrades, are making our presence known, yet I wonder…is this acceptable or inappropriate?   And, I wonder, why don’t these girls’ parents seem to care whether there is a responsible adult home whilst they are here? 

10. I’d love to go to NYC for a weekend….haven’t been there in over 20 years. 

11. Why is it that the ponytails we throw our hair into while driving are always the best ones? 

12. Over the weekend, Rich accidentally locked our (friggin’) cat out on the porch all night.  Imagine my reaction the next morning when Georgie noticed him (the cat, that is) missing and discovered him (again, the cat) on the porch right next to the pile and puddle on my brand new furniture.  Suffice to say, I don’t think Rich will ever close the porch door without looking again.

13. I met a lady at Starbuck’s the other day who, for some reason, confessed to me that she brings wine in water bottles to the playground.  I assume the wine is for her.  I also assume she might have a little bit of a problem. 

14. Favorite Facebook statuses from past few days:

43 is a lot like 42 with less hair and more stress

I’m cranky and my leggings have a hole in the crotch, to no one’s benefit

Is wishing his dad a happy fathers day. You inspired me, you protected me, and you used  your  lawyer to keep that girls father from killing me when I was 17. Thx

and,

Just kicked some ass in Scrabble.  (This one was okay – it was the first comment that made it exceptional)

                  (first comment:) I cannot wait to be old.

So there you have it.

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One More Day

June 15, 2009 at 1:26 am · Filed under General Banter

1. Tomorrow is our final day of Baker School imposed quaratine.  Damn good thing, that.  Truly, the only thing worse than being home with a sick child is being home with one who feels fine yet has been told he cannot go anywhere.  It is not for the faint of heart.

2. I used to think that people who moaned about back pain were, well, whoosies.  I no longer think that.  I can honestly say I think it might be worse than labor.

3. I’ve never had a Red Bull.  They scare me.

4. Tonight, while putting Georgie to bed I ignored his maneuverings in his pajama bottoms.  That is, until he announced to me that he had just put made his penis into a bun. 

5. Can anyone explain why Kate Gosselin has been on the cover of “Us Magazine” for the past five weeks?

6. I am a little bit obsessed (but not as much as my brother is) with Danielle on “TRHONJ”

7. Today I spent $9.99 on Debbie Meyer’s Vegetable Bags.  I am sick and tired of my bananas rotting out on me and hoping this will solve my problems.  Then my life will be perfect.  But who is Debbie and how’d she get her name on the bags?

8. Right now Rich is at “The Hangover”  He needed to get the hell out of the house after playing nursemaid to us for the past week.  Too bad he is so tired he is likely to sleep through the whole thing.  But I will resist the urge to note that he did this week what I do every week.  Just sayin’.

9.   Since Georgie was out of school all last week he missed some of the final projects leading up to their family presentation this week.  Rich went to school on Friday and collected a life sized cut out of Georgie, a collection of paints and brushes and directions for him to paint it to a likeness of himself.  They did so today and then hung it to dry on the door leading to the porch.  I came around the corner, saw it and had the shit scared out of me.  It was like Flat Stanley (or Flat Georgie as the case may be) had moved into my house. 

10. Never seen “Bridezillas” until just now.  This “full figured” bride (read: she’s a cow) has sent a minimum weight requirement for her bridesmaids — they cannot weigh less than 200 pounds.  Now there’s a good basis for a marriage.

11. Tonight Georgie lost T.V. privileges.  He called me “woman”.  ‘Nuf said.

12. Is it just me is Brooke Shields now the spokewoman for about seven different middle aged female issues?  Given the fact she is my age, I actively resent that for so many reasons.

13. Sitting at the computer has officially spasmed my back…hope you all appreciate it.

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Swine?

June 11, 2009 at 11:16 pm · Filed under Are You Freakin' Kidding Me?, General Banter, Kids

It appears the Swine has landed at my house.  It started innocently enough with a call from the school nurse that Georgie was in her office threatening to throw up.  Now, I know my kid and know that him saying he is going to throw up is code for “I want to go home”.  He never throws up and, on the rare occasion that he does, he certainly doesn’t give me any warning beforehand.  Since I was literally unable to walk (or sit, or stand or, for that matter, move) that morning due to a bitch of a battle with sciatica, I asked the nurse to have him hang with her for fifteen minutes or so to see if the urge passed.  When I told him I couldn’t even walk, he gently responded, “you don’t have to walk to get me…you can drive.”  Clearly he didn’t get it.

Later that day I got a call from his extended day program.  This time the message was that “Georgie just didn’t want to be there” which is what I implored him to say lest he becomes the boy who cried wolf visa vie barfing.  (I prefer “barfing” to “puking”, “hurling”, “gooching” or “vomiting”.  Actually, I hate them all, but in terms of semantics, well, there you have it.)  Still crippled, I sensed that perhaps he was so tired he needed to come home, but still assumed he was fine.

And he was.  Until 3:30 the following morning when he woke up coughing his brains out and sporting a hefty fever of 101.7  Damn.  We Motrined him to within an inch of his sixty pounds, tucked him back in bed and shut off the morning alarm clock.  (What was the sense of getting up in the morning if we didn’t have to?)  Once the fog had cleared and I had Motrined myself to within an inch of my-(yeah, like I’d fill in my pounds here) self I called the pediatrician to see if they wanted to see him.  (Do they ever really want to see a sick kid?)  In fact, they did and off he and Rich went.

As I was crawling out the door to go to the acupuncturist (ahhh) they arrived home.  Walking in the door, Georgie announced to me that he had puked (his word, not mine) on the floor at the doc’s office.  I have never been so happy to have been incapacitated.  The only thing worse that a barfing child is one who does it on the floor, out in public and is alone with me.  Diagnosis: flu like symptoms, could be Swine, but they are no longer testing.  Crap. 

We all slept through the night last night.  When he first woke up, he immediately took his own temperature (QOD: is that odd?) and was a very acceptable 99.1.  Cool – that was fast.  And it was.  Until noon when it soared back up to 102.3 and threats of puking (again, his word, not mine) rang through the house.  Rich supplied a large plastic bowl and Georgie dragged it around the house like Linus with his blanket.  Alas, no more barfing and Motrin knocked the fever back down right up to the time of this writing.  This, it appears, is the course of this flu – two days, up and down fever and then its just a story. 

But the story doesn’t end there.  Due to a rampant run of Swine at our school, they have strictly enacted a seven day rule:  no child or teacher can return to school until seven days after the onset of symptoms.   Are you kidding me??  The only thing worse than being home with a sick child is being home with a healthy one who isn’t allowed to go anywhere or do anything! 

And that still is not the end of the story.  Harrison, who has spent the past week exploring Washington, DC with his graduating eighth grade class (a trip that literally hung in the balance until noon on Friday before a Monday departure because of the infestation of Swine at school) is due home tomorrow.  It wouldn’t be such a big deal, but I am praying that he doesn’t get it before Wednesday  because then he would be banned from graduation and, faithful readers may recall that he missed his Religious School Graduation last year because of his bleb episode.

So, let’s all gather round and pray that nothing else befalls our house this week — no more Swine, bad backs or bad attitudes allowed…

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