Blah

I know I've said this before, but I really hate January. Everything is wet, dirty and just blah. It's really the only time of the year that I actually get depressed, and I definitely have been this year. It's not really the cold that bothers me, but more just the same-ness.  It's always kind of grey, it's always below 30, the snow is always just dirty, etc. I had a friend who used to go tan to make herself feel better in January. I'd do that if a) I didn't hate myself with a tan and b) my freckled ass, having grown up in Arizona, is about one overly bright reading lamp away from a skin cancer outbreak.

Before anyone gets terribly concerned about my being depressed, I assure you my depression doesn't really go much past OMGIHATEJANUARY, which is easily cured by February (well, the last half of February, the first half is really just extended January). Hopefully I'll be crawling out of this funk soon seeing as tomorrow is the beginning of February.

In the meantime I've made a list of 10 things that don't really suck to remind myself not to be such an fun vacuum.

1.   Tomorrow is February
2.   Gamicon is coming up. I've always thought of Gamicon as my "soft launch" of Spring. Yes, haters, I know that Spring doesn't start in February. I also know that it is cold in February. However, I do know that the weather actually freaking changes in February. And that is all I need.
3.   Maggie is going to walk any day now, and that's always fun.
4.   I have the best husband ever.
5.   Molly turns 5 this month, that means she will go to Kindergarten soon, which I am very much looking forward to. We are both so.very.ready.
6.   I have 3 healthy, fun children (who are currently playing in the cereal).
6.5 I have above a 99% chance of NOT having any more! Yay surgery!
7.   I get to stay home with my kids and go to museums and parks and fun places.
8.   I have awesome friends to talk to at above places.
9.   We might get actual cancel school snow tomorrow night. I'm really looking forward to that, I could use a snowed-in day. Plus, it might be fun to be able to go out and play in the snow if it's not too cold.
10. My new living room furniture is ordered and should be here this month!  Yay!

Comebacks

In the shower this morning I remembered some vaguely rude thing someone said to me and I finally came up with a wonderfully biting comment that would have surely put her in her place. You know, if I hadn't thought of it two weeks late, in the shower, alone. I hate that! It's so unfair! I can count on one hand the number of times I've had timely comebacks to random rudeness.

One of my favorite times (and I know some of y'all have heard this one) was when Molly was a little under a year. It was a gorgeous Fall day. It was sunny and around 60-65 degrees. I picked Molly up from daycare and we went to the Post Office. I had dressed her relatively warmly that day; she was probably overdressed for the weather, so I didn't worry about putting a sweater or coat on her. She had also taken her shoes and socks off, but again, 60 degrees, so I didn't bother to put them back on for the 10 foot walk to the door.

There was quite a line in the post office, so Molly and I got behind two older ladies and began to wait. The two ladies kept glancing back at us, I kind assumed that they were looking at my super cute baby (or maybe me, who knows how they swing), but I was wrong, mostly. They were looking at my baby, but not because she was disturbingly cute, but because she was, in their opinion, woefully under-dressed for the frigid weather. Of course they didn't tell me that directly, instead they had a conversation in front of me.

Hag 1: Oh, my, that poor baby.
Hag 2: That's just terrible, poor thing.
Hag 1: Not even wearing socks, let alone boots.
Hag 2: I wonder where her coat is.

Molly coughs as she was getting over a bit of a cold (I liked to refer to the colds she got in daycare as kennel cough. I know, I'm awful).

Hag 2: (Very loudly) If that baby were dressed properly, she wouldnt be so sick!

Me: (Just as loud) Oh, that? She didn't get that cough from being cold, she probably got it from licking the floor at the mall when we were there the other day, don't worry about it.

They just stared at me. One of them may have forked the evil eye at me, not entirely sure. Other people in line laughed and I had my moment of glory. Four years later and I still roll that little memory out for myself every time I have a missed comeback.

Crappy Day

I had a crappy day yesterday. Nobody died, nobody even got terribly maimed (maybe a little maimed...but eventually Max will have feeling in his hands again) and everyone was fine at the end of the day.  It was one of those first-world, my diamond shoes are too tight kind of problem days. I probably should have bucked up, thought of people who had it worse and stuff, but instead, (probably because it's January, and January sucks my ass) I chose to just wallow in self-pity. By that, I mean I cried on the couch a lot.

Seriously.  I did.

The crying really had more to do with the book I was reading.  I finally, after all of these years, got around to reading The Dark Tower, and yesterday I was getting near the end of Book 7.  Book made me cry like a little bitch. Granted, I was already in a relatively self-pitying, miserable mood, but still, that didn't matter, I totally would have cried anyway.

But anyway, bad things happened, but really, they weren't all that bad.  All easily solvable.  I was going to give you a little laundry list of all the terrible things that happened, but honestly, I can't remember most of them today. Don't get me wrong, there were a couple of really sucky things (my laptop starting its death rattle, forgetting Max's gloves, and him almost getting frostbite, the lack of babysitter for Saturday--okay, so I do remember a lot of them, nevermind), but overall the day wasn't that bad.  I think it mostly had to do with the fact that it's cold and it's January, and like I said earlier, January really, really sucks.  Oh well, it's almost over, but I'm looking forward to February.

Haven't posted...resolution...will post more, etc.

I haven't been posting. I don't know why, believe me, I have plenty to say, I guess it's just that I don't have plenty to type or something. I didn't really make a "resolution" to post more, but now that the holiday craziness is over, I would definitely like to post more.  Writing, even poorly, is probably a good use of my rapidly depleting mental capacities.  Far better than watching my son lick his spilled water off the table, which is what I was just doing.

So yeah, more posting, more bitching, etc.  I can't promise every day, 'cause it would get so boring, so quickly. Seriously, I'd probably have to resort to shopping lists. Although that could be fun, you could totally judge my choices and shit, like "OMG, I can't believe she's not buying free-range nuggets to go with her Annie's frozen fries!"  But I won't do that to you.  Yet.  I mean, I can't promise there won't be lists, because I like lists, but they probably won't be shopping lists.

Because I'm an asshole

You know when you're driving along, minding your own business and out of nowhere some asshole in a huge car nearly mows you down?  Yeah, that happened to me the other day.  The being the asshole in the huge car and nearly mowing someone down part.

After dropping Molly off at preschool I was heading home with the other two kids and was clearly just not paying enough attention.  Short explanation is this, I stayed in the right lane, which turns into a turn lane even though I really wanted to go straight.  And once I realized my mistake (by "realized" I mean that the driver to the left of me, who was in the correct lane began honking at me and flipping me off) I didn't fix it, no, I compounded that shit.  Instead of just stopping, waiting for the honking car to pass, then gracefully slipping into the correct lane I decided to just turn right.  Mostly because I can't stand to be anywhere near the driver/vehicle I have just wronged.  It's just so goddamned embarrassing.  Seriously, I know they're still swearing at me and mentally re-hashing my bad driving.  That's what I do...and I know I'm not the only person who does that.

But anyway, so I decide to turn right, completely ignoring the fact that I'm almost a whole car- (and by car, I mean super-swank, sexy-bitch minivan) length past the turn.  Yeah.  So I basically execute this bastardized u-turn onto the side street.

The side street that has an oncoming SUV.  Who has slammed on her brakes.

And is also flipping me off.

Fuck.

At that point I pretty much just ducked underneath the dashboard and slammed the gas pedal home to escape my humiliation.  Okay, not really.  But I may have sped away from the scene a little bit.

And taught my two year old how to say fuck 'cause he can kind of talk now.  Yay, speech therapy!

Anyway, we lived, little man isn't dropping the f-bombs like I was afraid he might, but I still can't bear to drive down Benton street.

Here's a little pictorial re-enactment for your viewing pleasure. You can stop being jealous of my amazing art skills now, too.

I'm the red arrow.  The purple arrows are my innocent victims.  The little asterisk thingies?  When they started hurling obscenities at me.

Belated Wordless Wednesday - Chocolate + Car = Rookie Mistake

Karma is a fucking bitch

It is.  And not just the Karma that I worked with a long time ago, 'cause she was kind of a bitch, but not like a fucking bitch...just kind of bitchy.  But anyway, I mean the other karma.

Four and a half years ago I had a baby.  A lovely baby girl who decided that she would sleep through the night pretty consistently from about 4 weeks on.  Oh, we had a few nights where this didn't happen, and a period at about 10 months where she had some issues, but on the whole, girlfriend pretty much just slept.

At different points throughout Molly's babyhood I may have said (and by "may have" I mean OMG, I actually said this shit) things like, "I'm not tired, I don't understand what all the fuss is, they sleep through the night pretty quickly."  That's not really a direct quote, but it's a good summary of my thoughts on the subject at the time; a good representative statement.

And then I had Max.  Who didn't sleep through the night until he was about 16 months old.  He usually woke up once, but more often twice during the night.

And now I have Maggie, who has slept through the night a few times.  But apparently, that was just to mock me.  She wakes up a couple times during the night.  But I don't care, because I have given up.  I am old and I am tired and I really like not being a zombie during the day.  So Maggie just comes to bed with me and we both sleep.  Mostly.

Take that, karma.