Marine World, Vallejo!

We spent the day at Marine World, Vallejo! celebrating one of the Boo's very best friend's birthday. During my time spent at that illustrious amusant park I learned three very important lessons:

1) You are NEVER too old to rock black lycra shorts!

2) Airbushed form-fitting tanktops look good on everybody!

and

3) You should never let the fact that you only have a quarter inch of hair stop you from sporting a festive headband!

I also had the following conversation with a very nice young man as we waited for our respective children to finish riding the Cobra for the fourth consecutive time:

Him: My daughter...not this one... my other one, from my first marriage... she used to love this ride too.
Me: Yeah. Second marriage?
Him: Yeah.
Me: How's it working out for ya?
Him: good. I mean, I'm much more mellow anbout this one.
Me: Yeah.... See, that's what I want.
Him: What?
Me: the second mariage. Except I don't want to have to go through the first one to get there, you know what I mean?
Him: Yeah.
[longish silence]
Me: You know what. never mind.
Him: {nodding sagely as our various children run up and begin to climb all over us} o.k.

Today is a good day

I know! Not what you'd expect from someone whose BBQ has AGAIN up and left her for protracted lengths of time and whose other so-called friends (Mistah L-L!) have also deserted her in droves. But, it's all good. I understand that the road to total acceptance of your place in The Life of a Magnet does not always happen smoothly or immediately or even sometimes at all so I will instead simply rise above it and move on to other friend making pursuits!

Not sure why today was such a good day other than the fact that it's the third day of a week in which I expected to accomplish very little but in which I'm actually getting a great deal done. Part of that would have to do with the fact that God saw fit to give me a great Baby who is very patient as I drag her from meeting to meeting and essentially expect her to fall asleep on command so I can then work and the other part would be about having co-workers who are on-it as far as delivering the various bits I need them to deliver in a timely and courteous manner. And I ran into my beautiful Professor K by chance as well. She's still awesome and there's a 3% chance she will be teaching a class I'm taking in the Fall (fingers crossed -- hope, hope, hope!)

Plus, I get to see my Big Girl tonight (she and the CP are dropping by for a little impromptu photo-going-through and I am just thrilled at the fact that I get to see her essentially every single day this week!)

Hmmmmm. I think that's it though. Nothing new to report. Just general happy-happies. I'm trying to code a drop down menu right now and my brain got a cramp so I had to stop. I think I'm good now, though, so it's back to the mineshaft with me!

Ah, me...

Tired right now but in remarkable spirits. The re-design I'm working on for work actually looks like it's going to be finished on schedule which is shocking and shouldn't be allowed to get out lest design firms around the globe collapse inward upon themselves from the weight of all that guilt!

K. I have my baby with me all week (Damn you fabulous Daycare peeps for actually expecting to be able to take time off!!) so I'm doing alot of "working in the morning while Baby has her nap, driving to work to attend meetings with child in tow -- although the offers to watch her from the co-work peeps are definitely pouring in and are mucho appreciato! -- then home in time for longer afternoon nap so I can work some more followed by early evening walk, supper, playtime and... more working after Spark goes to sleep!" Yay! Sigh. It's all good though. As always the accomodatingness of my working world is amazing to me so I've nothing to really complain about.

Part of my morning today consisted of going to watch my used-to-be-afraid-of-the-water Big Girl not only dive for a ring but also float on her back AND voluntarily get her face wet!! I know! I'm just going to have "Proud Mommy!" tatooed in huge letters across my forehead in order to adequately convey the immensity of all that I feel for my Boo!

Heard from the big brother as well. It seems my nephew has just had his tonsils ripped from his five-year-old body but that all is currently well and he is doing fine. Poor little guy. Whilst he was on bedrest though mine nephew learned to play chess so I think it's pretty safe to say that we'll be seeing him at the Moscow World Championship delivering a much-needed spanking to the ever-weird Bobby Fischer either later this year or sometime early next...

My heart, she is full!

My Baby has sooo many teeth! She came with eight but now she's got like three molars and four side teeth all pushing in at the same time! Remarkably enough, she doesn't seem particularly crabby about it. I'm spending all this coming week with her so p'raps I'll see a bit more moodiness but these last few days she's been jest fine. In other news, the children are coming home at the end of the month. There was a bit of drama wherein certain people thought that I'd ceased to love them (!!) -- suffice to say tears were shed, sulkiness happened but as with most things, after some stern advice and a good spanking, everything managed to work itself out. Angel-baby, being the only functional one of the group is apparently going to stay out there a bit longer so he can get a better handle on the Punk Cowboy scene/continue getting laid regularly but DB and OG are heading back to the land of promise, sunny skies and moi. Couldn't be more thrilled. no really.

K. I'm actually just working right now so I should get back to it. Quick question: Why after all this time and a host change, do i still find Steve so hot??

Genius!

We just got home from the Boo's play. She, of course, was BRILLANT! Gretel re-interpreted as pre-pubescent bad-girl with a heart of gold! Fabulous I tell you and I'm NOT just saying that because she's my baby-girl. I love you, Baby-girl!!!!

Enough

Let me just put an end to this right now. [Apologies to those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, BTW, and shame on those of you who do! Now, don't you feel awful that I'm having to take up valuable blog-space that could have been devoted to ramblings about my babies/crushes on random aging song-stresses??!]

K. You all need to get over it. I am not, contrary to popular opinion, at all interested in either of you enough to make what would constitute an HUGE change in my life just to accomodate you and your silly drama -- have we not noticed that I JUST got another baby? That I'm working full-time? That the only girl I've realistically liked in ages while continuing to be adorable, is now essentially off-limits? I have other things to think about people! Local things! I am honestly sorry to hear that things are crappy out there (At the risk of sounding smug, I freaking told you they would be!) but, know what? they're crappy here sometimes too! Grow up. Deal with it. Do not think that I (in either my real or fictitious forms) can somehow get you out of it. You don't need to be out of it. You need to stop being immature about everything and learn to deal. Fer chrissakes, I hate that I sound so old about this but you all need to figure out what you want to be doing and start working toward something instead of making shit up and coasting on Daddy's Visa. I love you guys. I really do. but I'm also sort of invested in maintaining as stress-free an environment as possible and if you're just calling to give me grief then I'm going to stop answering the phone. [Those of you who know me and who know that I already don't answer the phone will, of course understand that that last bit was mainly for editorial "effect."]

(BTW, DB you are completely in the wrong on this one. Apologize immediately and stop being such a prick!)

Supposed to be working...

And yet I find myself sitting here contemplating fixing myself a SECOND bowl of Lucky Charms! Mmmmmmmmmm, Lucky Charms.

Hey Mistah L-L, where you at?? Are you gone away to the big fancy wedding yet? And more importantly, you're back when???

Apologies

So, I was making light of a situation earlier that I should not have been. Apologies to anyone whom I may have annoyed/offended/made sad. I didn't realize just how sucky living "the life" can be and I have to admit that sometimes I'm just so thoroughly insulated by my "overall happy/contentedness" that I forget that the world doesn't always appreciate/need my wry little commentary re: it. Sorry.

You choose the ending!

Him: Hey!
Me: Hey, Honey, what's up?
Him: I'm coming out there in August.
Me: Cool!
Him: What're you doing the week-end of the 21st?
Me: Nothin. Miss Boo has a sleep-over in San Jose but I'll be around.
Him: Can I crash at your place?
Me: Of course! You can meet the Baby.
Him: {loooong pause} Oh. Right. I forgot about the baby.
Me: Meaning??
Him: Um... I guess she's probably too young to go to someone's house. Like for a sleepover or something, huh?

Ending one:

Me: {offended} Damn Skippy! And she's a light sleeper AND I just got rid of all the skanky-ass, cold-sore-inducing germology you spread all over the place the last time I let your loser self "stay over!" Plus, you have a girlfriend now! Pig.

Ending two:

Me: Um. let me make some calls...

Now I know what Jesus would do but what do the rest of you'all think?

Hearts and kisses!

I love my friends. My beautiful Dirty Boy just called me from Austin to sing some Toby Keith song at me -- that boy is seriously going off the deep end. Ah well, he was cute once...

Then Ms. Bee checked in being all bright and chipper in spite of the fact that the lemon I keep insisting she drive is now this close to bursting into flames at a moment's notice! I like that girl. I like her family. They rock.

And finally, Little Brother just called to let me know that the rumours of him co-habitating in sin as it were with probably the only female either of those boys has ever dated that I thought was worthy, are, in fact, true. Yay!

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I had a very nice police officer sign off my fix-it ticket today. (This has degenerated into random musings at this point so bear with me...) He got all annoyed that I even got the stupid thing in the first place. he was all "San Francisco cops! Why'd he even write the ticket. Damn waste of everybody's time! Free-thinking rabble-rousers!" It was all very cute. K. so. That's it. The world remains closed but at least I know that my little bubble is surrounded by lots of other friendly bubbles and that when push comes to shove it remains all good.....

Circle life

My kid informed me last night via phone that my "life is closed." We were discussing my plans to take down (finally. After a year and a half) a picture that my Ex had made for me representing the four of us (me, her, her kid and my kid) as a single unit. It's a great picture and my kid likes it -- which, in part, accounts for the delay in it's removal post-break-up -- but it says "Mi familia" which we currently are not so I'm replacing  it with the new fancy 10X13 pic of me and my two girls all dressed up looking about as close to God-fearin' middle america as you can get (if you allow for the fact that 1) my hair is not as big as it should be, 2) I'm wearing far too little make-up and 3) my babies obviously originated from two "different daddies"... Actually, scratch that last one. By New Mexico standards DD's are pretty much par for the course. Anyway. New picture goes up, old picture comes down and I'm having a discussion with my big kid (who I MISS) about it all and she says, "Yeah, probably time to take that picture down. I don't think she was the right girl for you." Which is interesting/surprising on all sorts of levels but since I'm trying to be the adult in this relationship and since I'm TRYING not to take my dating advice from a six year old, I simply say "Hmm. Really?" Then the Boo says. "Besides, now you have Sparkle. We're all done." "Done?" I inquire. "Yeah, we're closed. Like a circle. We don't need anyone else." Which, when you think about it is kind of sad while at the same time it's kind of nice. It's also kind of true. At least right now anyway....

Punishment...

My kid who is never bad was bad yesterday. We were all quite clear that she was being bad. In fact we had the following conversation:
 
Me: Eat your food.
Boo: Why?
Me: Because you promised you would.
Boo: So, if I don't then I'm breaking my promise?
Me: Yes.
Boo: And that's bad?
Me: Yes.
Boo: Am I going to get a punishment?
Me: Are you not going to eat?
Boo: Nope.
Me: Then yes.
{silence}
Boo: Like what kind of punishment?
Me: I dunno yet.
Boo: A timeout?
Me: No. I dunno. I don't think it should be a punishment just to punish. I think it should suit the "crime."
Boo: What does that mean?
Me: I mean it should have something to do with food and eating. Like you don't get any snacks before dinner and when you get your dinner you have to sit quietly and eat it, one bite after another for 15 minutes. No playing, no talking to me, no watching a movie.
Boo: {thinking about it} Well, that seems fair.
Me: Oh yeah? Well, you could avoid it by eating your lunch right now.
Boo: No. I think I'll take the punishment.
 
Then she spent a significant amount of time asking me if it was time yet for her punishment to start. Weird. She did very well though. She was, of course, starving by the time it came time to eat so it wasn't too hard to sit and shovel in the bites. After her time was up I said, "good job! now I want you to keep eating but you can relax a little too." She said "Well, actually, I put the pillow on the cat so maybe I should stay on punishment for longer." I lurv my kid!
 
I lurv my other kid, too although I really am going to have to get some kind of a handle of the dealing with the wiggling. I get that she REALLY wants to be alot more mobile than she can be in her essentially not-yet-walking state but last night she had just been wiggling soooo much and being soooo impatient and fussy that (as I was trying to get through the door with her squirmy self plus a load of groceries) I just got exasperated and set her down on the porch whilst I popped inside to put down the bags. She, of course, promptly fell against the house and got a a very awful scrape on her cheek and a bump on her head. Nice. God, I suck at this parenting thing.
 

---

Prayers and good wishes going out to BBQ's special friend. I hope she feels/gets/stays better soon. Let me know if there's anything one so removed from the situation as myself can do to assist.
 

Whoo Hoo!

Guess whose baby girl just took five beautiful not-holding-onto-a-damn-thing steps toward her shocked yet delighted mom?? Go ahead, guess...! That's right! My Spark has officially walked! Well, toddled. Genius, I tell you! that girl is so obviously destined for great things!!

Quick side note/happy warm thoughts go out to Travelin' Man who just stopped by to be sweet at me cause he heard/read/intuited (don't want to go assuming anybody still reads this -- are there "stages" of blogging? Do we first assume that only a very select audience is reading us, then move into assuming that everyone in the world is visiting, before finally realizing that, in fact, noone is all that interested...? hmmmm.) TM, you are one of the sweetest boys I know (by far the sweetest man I know!) Thanks for lookin out.

Whoo Hoo! Now in addition to a Toddler, I have three more DVDs to peruse at my leisure. Which brings the house total to four. So, how many do I have to have before I have a "library"...?

This is special for Mistah Lovah-Lovah. Steer the drunk guy. (hint: use your mouse to keep him going straight.) -- thanks to so-called Lesbian who stole it from Geekgrrl.

Victory! (I think...)

K. So I suppose THE news would be that the Senate in a "stunning" 50-48 decision ruled against ammending the freaking constitution to make it so human beings of a specific flavor couldn't register for matching towels/sterling silver salad tongs. Here's a paragraph on the decision. Here's where you can see how your "representative" voted (Angel!!) Whew. A little amazed that this particular vote came up at all given the need to focus on, oh, I don't know, education, an aging population, the recession and the WAR but whatever floats thier boat. Nice to know my tax dollars are going toward crafting and supporting good, solid, effective initiatives!

Anyway. in other news, I'm sick. Sick of seeing Halle Berry on those stupid Catwoman posters! Ha! Sorry. Seriously. I am actually sick. I think I've managed to trace this particular lineage of cold to this one formerly very nice, considerate, somewhat attractive person who showed up at my BBQ's birthday bash with her entire sick family in tow -- given that there were 92 additional babies/children at the party and at least 10 stressed out adults I suspect the cold we all caught on that day will have worked it's way around the free world by mid-august. Again, seriously, not to be mean or anything, but if I'm dying and my baby's dying my first thought would probably be "Let's stay AWAY from a gathering involving every single person I hold dear and their kids." Again, just sayin...

I am also sick of Halle Berry as Catwoman. (I'm not even going to link to the various sites I'm so discusted.) I actually heard someone call a radio station, equally annoyed, to complain "I mean, seriously, Michelle Pfeiffer was the original cat woman!"

First, props to Ms. Pfeiffer, she is a woman amoung women and she more than did justice to the latex but I think we all would do well to collectively remember that those hallowed boots were shown the meaning of strut by none other than the fabulous Eartha Kitt in Season #2 of Batman -- circa 1967. (Yeah, I know Julie Newmar came first but Eartha Kitt IMO freaking defined that character! Wanna make something of it?? What?!)



Come on people. Look at her!

This vs. this....

Not that I'm a Halle hater, the girl's just not sexy. She's pretty. At times she's even beautiful but sexy...? Like this sexy...?! fraid not.

Alrighty then!

I bow to the will of my reading public -- for the record, I CAN'T just go back to the old design. Stupid Blogger templates erased it when I changed it over and it was almost completely customized so... Just not enough time/energy/reason to try to make it again. -- let's just live with this new design a little and see if we all make it out alive.

News: not much really. week-end is going well. Had a great day with the kids yesterday. Miss Tail dropped by this morn for a visit which was grand! Got to unload a bunch of stuff I've been thinking lately re: CP and Boo watchage and everything and I think the whole exasperating situation may just end up turning out o.k. (seriously, a win-win for everyone involved, I think.) At any rate stayed tuned for more info re: that. i'm not going to jabber on about it lest I jinx the whole thing so, for now, onto other topics...

---

Wanna hear something seriously disturbing? I was looking at the insides of my wrists the other day whilst the Boo was having her bath and she inquired what I was doing and I said, "nothing. just looking at my wrists." and she said "Why? Are you going to cut them?" !!!!!!! From a six year old. I am still shocked. She wouldn't tell me where she'd gotten that particular concept from either. I asked in what I thought was a fairly non-judgemental way what made her think of that in particular and she immediately got all weird and cagey on me. "Oh, no reason." quoth she. "I was...uh... just thinking about a foot and how you can step on something and get cut." Hmmmmmmm. Six years old. First grader. I'm scared of the world we've created sometimes.

Re: the new design

BBQ hates it. Anyone else care to weigh in...?

Ta-Da!

I've updated my look! What do we think? In so doing, however I've lost my links to interesting peeps/places so rest assured my angels, if you were there and you're not not, you will be baaach!! [If you could read that with a sort of Guv-ner Schwartzenegar voice that would be great!]

---

So, my truck is now so impossibly dirty that not only are minds across the country boggling at the very idea but it is also almost impossible to get a decent reading on what its original even kinda color used to be. My house is filthy too. And let's not even get started on my clothing situation! Although, I do need to give a mondo-huge THANK-YOU to BBQ for letting me come over ad use her washing/drying apparatus so at least the kids' clothes are not sparking any federal investigations...!

Filth, filth, filth.

Speaking of which (kind of) I watched some Canadian Tranny Pornography film last night and I must say there are some REALLY beautiful Male to Female mostly pre-op transexuals out there in the land of the friendly Mounties. One lady in particular made me seriously consider renouncing mine homeland for good. I mean they're already treating us gay types more fairly, the air is cleaner, the politics seem less skarewed, now they have ta throw in some really quite beautiful MTF types???! I mean, seriously, on some level it's got to be illegal. She was doing all her trash talk in French too. Very cute. BUT the thing is, the reason I even bring this up is because I'm wondering about the audience for this particular movie. I mean they had Boys doing the "Girls"; they had them doing each other (and the Boys) and they even had them doing Bio-Chicks -- which would all make me think that the target is MEN - heterosexual ones with perhaps a bent leaning or two - but there was also this stab at sweetness and "plot-development" that smacks of Girly-oriented-films so I wonder.

I mean, the actors were being really sweet to each other. i know it sounds weird but there was this one scene where one of the MTF actors was quite clearly over being sawed in half by her current partner's ENORMOUS member so she sort of wiggles away and leaves. She just heads out of the scene! Then the guy she was with (somewhat surprised) jumps up and goes after her and sort of catches her and throws her onto a bed (they were being all smiley about it but it was obviously unscripted and she obviously was still not into him just then) and they're sort of rolling around but then she looks at him really seriously "not-in-the-mood!" and sudden cut to the next scene where he's with some Bio-Chick who he's pumping away at and our heroine is kind of sitting in a chair off to the side just watching. Interesting. Not to say that people in the porn industry don't treat each other very well/considerately, I've just never seen it in a film before. Anyway, I'm probably jumping to a huge stereotypical generalization by assuming that just because they were sweet to each other (that wasn't the only part either. There was another couple who seemed very much in like with each other the female part of whom was being handled VERY gently -- albeit in a "hands behind the back" kind of way by her partner.) the movie may have been trying to give the ole nod to it's girl viewers and their "feelings" but... It was just interesting is all.

Marin County Fair

O.K. so with a name like "Marin County Fair" I can expect that it will be, on some level, fairly expensive/annoying, yes? Yes. So, WHY am I surprised that it cost $6.00 to park, $12.00 per person to get in, $3.00 to go on the roller coaster (although all the other rides were supposedly free) $7.00 for a hot dog and french fries, $8.00 for some cheesy dolphin-balloon on a stick that the kids all wanted -- all for the opportunity to walk around in the heat moungst booths selling overpriced Ren Faire crap and cell phones. I did get to watch a bunch of full-face makeup, extrememely white women revive the ancient art of sword/belly dancing though, which almost made it worth it.

Plus we went with the annoying uber-"globablly concious" dad of Miss Boo's friend so there were the requisite speeches on why he wouldn't pay "good money" for ice cream that his kid wanted and that was probably produced by some starving farmers in Guatemala who were only making three cents a year -- this being the same individual who told me that he'd "considered adoption because of all the children that needed saving" in this country but then realized he couldn't because his wife explained to him he'd have to stop traveling so much so he could stay home and take care of them. Also the same guy who made us all wait for him to get a brochure for outside miniature hottubs before demanding that we all head over to the bandshell to take in the "Afro-Carribean" act which was going to be doing "drumming or something." Blah.

First and foremost

Let me offer my profoundest best wishes and hopes for the absolute best-est year ever to my Best-est Buddy ever, the fabulous Ms. Q! Having been one of the select few graced with an invitation to celebrate the arrival of another year in Ms. Q's stellar life I just have to say, there are few people in this world that can occupy one of the highest pedestals I've ever crafted and not simply maintain thier balance over the the somewhat rocky meanderings of more than a decades worth of tribulations but also actively perform tricks but one of those people is my BBQ -- who I just need to constantly thank for being in my life. Every day I get to continue knowing you makes me feel that much luckier than pretty much every other shmoe I see slogging through thier pathetic lives riding on BART in the mornings, so, again I thank you.

God. I am so out of it right now. I'm having to pretty much re-type every single sentence I attempt due to spelling errors, bad grammer and just plain obtuse sentiment so I think I will actually keep this kind of short. Just wanted to check in with a howdy ho and Happy Birth to the BBQ, a HUGE I'm sorry to Mistah L-L for completely flaking out on him and Sir James tonight (I dunno, I am suddenly just really afraid of being around large crowds of people who are actively interested in watching things explode -- plus! I got TWO freaking tickets this week-end due to all the "increased police presence" out there! Dumb stuff too, like no front license plate and crossing the white line in the carpool lane. Really annoying.) Anyway. I'm going to crawl into bed now and pretend I'm safe and that everything that needs to be discussed in depth up here will be there for me to discuss in the morning. Hope you all are having a safe and healthy fourth. Nitey-night.

"Intimate" things you could learn about me should my bag ("purse" to most everyone else but I like to pretend I'm not that femme!)ever decide to fall open and spread it's contents out for the world to see:

1) I have a baby -- or I just really like carrying around a spare diaper and some wipes.

2) I have an older child, too -- or, again, one might surmise that I keep a bag of Cheerios and a box of apple juice on hand just in case my blood sugar plumets suddenly without warning...

3) I am currently sporting or have had in the recent enough past to feel the need to tote around a tube of "Dr. Morgan's Cold Sore Relief Lip Balm", a cold sore.

4) I am on or intend to soon be on the rag.

5) I am or soon will be sought by the law. Evidence: one assumed jury summons which is postmarked 5/13/2004 the envelope of which has not yet been opened and one unpaid parking ticket circa February 6th, 2004.

6) I am INSANELY busy up until October of this year after which either things slack off a bit or my various pens simply ran out of ink.

7) "Keith" is "cool!" -- I honestly do not remember who Keith is or why he is "cool!" but at some point we were close enough for me to scrawl this under what I'm assuming is his phone number on the back of a Santa Clara Medical Center business card.

8) I like M&Ms. Not enough to have finished the pack currently living in my bag but enough to have kept said pack around long enough for the candy inside it to have grown stale and powdery looking "just in case."

9) I have the cutest kids/associates in the world.

10) I couldn't take a decent ID picture to save my freaking life.

11) I go to Mills and am required to "check-in" at that fine institution this coming August.

12) I've recently returned from a visit to Yosemite where I camped in Hogdon Meadows, space #44

and finally

13) I am literate enough to subscribe to the Sun magazine but obviously not interested enough to actually open/fold back any part of the magazine in an attempt at actually reading it.

Nice.

Wow!

I've just been informed that the bank has raised the spending limit on my credit card to $6,500.00! What for the love of Sweet Lord Bee-Jezus were they thinking???? Anyway. Just a little shocked is all. I'll be cutting up that particular card later on today....

Now then, I need someone to give me 950,000.00 so I can buy two run down but still really very beautiful houses that are sitting on a double lot next door to my kid's daycare just waiting to be renovated into the combined 12 units of communal bliss that they are destined to become! What say folks, let's start our own housing Co-op!