Friday, June 29, 2012

Churchie McChurchiePants

Last night at church, someone (who obviously doesn't know my family that well) asked me if the Bean was my little brother.

HAHAHAHAHAHA.

As if I'd claim him if that were true.

LOL, JK.  Of course I would.  Maybe.

So when I responded that, no, he was my oldest son, the guy's eyes widened, and he said (I shit you not):  "you wear your age well!"

um.

My age?

How the fuck old AM I???

Anyway, so I go, "oh, no, I was actually much too young when he was born,"  which is pretty much 100% true.

The Bean is 18.  I was 18 when he was born.  I'm (barely) 37.

At a different moment in VBS, my friend Katie-bird, whom I adore, goes, "how old are you right now?" to the kids.  Who were, like, 8, 4, etc.  I go, "20!"

Then she goes, "how old will you be in four years?"

I go, "20!"

Vacation Bible School, which is now over, was pretty awesome.  Here are a few of my favorite moments:

1)  When asked, "what do you do if someone is bullying you," one small boy responded, brightly, with "bite him and kick him in the face!"

Awesome.

2)  I go, "do YOU want to tell me about a God Sighting," to another small boy.  He gets in the microphone, bats his eyelashes at me, and says, "I love you."  SWOOOOOOOON.

3)  "Hot dogs??  I LOVE HOT DOGS!!!  YES!  THIS IS THE BEST DAY EVER!!!"

4)  "Miss Sarah, do you need help tonight?"  I'm all, well, I'm sitting here, hiding under a tree, trying to smoke a cigarette, and I'm pretty unhappy that one of my favorite young people are busting me.  "yep."

5)  Caleb, into the microphone, "GODPROTECTSUSANDKEEPSUSSAFE"  Me, into the microphone, "Lord."

6)  Sometimes, an impromptu belting of Lean on Me around the piano is the only thing in the world that makes perfect sense.

7) "Oh, your name is Andrew?  Can I call you Andy?"  "um, okay."  "no?  How about Brian, I'll just call you Brian."

8) "How's it going, Gabby-The-Second??!!"

9) "Yeah, I just ate a plate of tater tots.  Now I'm having a plate of blueberries.  It's a balanced meal."

They got it, though.  And I'm not even going to do a 10), because the thing is, I heard them get it.  It's a cross, they said.  I can ALWAYS count on God, they said.  Kids are pretty badass.  So is Vacation Bible School.  So is my Katie.  So am I.  :)

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Sucka

On Saturday, around 3:00, my mother and I had the following conversation:

Her:  "Oh, so Caleb is going to go to Vacation Bible School this week?  Are you working at it?"
Me:  "No.  Under NO CIRCUMSTANCES am I going to volunteer to do ANYTHING for it.  I am going to drop him off and read for two straight hours."

On Saturday, around 4:30, one of the nicest human beings I've ever met, and her name is Heidi, too, of course, called me and did this:

Her:  (almost weeping) "I am begging, I need you, I need your help, is there any way you could..."

Guess who is leading the music--- and pretty much the, like, majority, of Vacation Bible School?

That'd be me.  The sucka.

Truth is, I'm tired.  Truth is, I didn't have enough time to really learn the dances.  Truth is, I'd have loved another week to prepare.  Truth is, I completely, 100%, totally freaking ADORE it.  LOVE LOVE LOVE.

I should have been a teacher (says the girl who was certified and thinks, ah, maybe every summer, and then thinks, ah, hell no, every fall).

So that's what I'm up to.  That was a pun.  The theme this year is SKY- like, fly away with God, or something.  It's sort of confusing.  But it's funny.

By the way, so am I.

The only thing else to talk about is The Walking Dead, and WHY DID YOU PEOPLE KEEP THIS A SECRET FROM ME?

I'm almost caught up on Season Two.  WORD.

And, by the way?  I'm all mediated.  Like, all the way.  Like, I'm done with the divorcey-horseyshit, and that feels good.  I'm not divorced, but I will be, and it's fine, and I'm fine and I'm glad it's moving along, and a lot of the anger and resentment is moving along, etc.  So that's sort of awesome.

And I love my kitten.

Monday, June 18, 2012

Carnie

I may have mentioned that I work in an onvention-cay enter-cay in south Louisiana.  Most of the events we get are boring, meetings, parties, that sort of thing.  Occasionally, we get the joy of a dance recital (and nothing is cuter than little girls tapping in the hall outside of my office). 

And then, we have the unusual.

Yesterday, we hosted an ircus-cay.  I'm going to tell you, we have one every fall, but that one is in a big tent out front.  The highlight of that is when an elephant walks by our outside window.  But yesterday's entire event was inside my building.  And you haven't lived until you open a door and find yourself eyeball-to-eyeball with a big, giant elephant.  They have pretty, snuffaluffacus eyelashes, by the way.

And then, there was a tiger.  Deeming it too hot to leave him outside, they put his cage in our back hallway.  I was afraid of being sprayed on by him, but not so afraid that I didn't slip past his cage so I could see his big, sweepy-weepy wittle face.  He was gorgeous.

My favorite critter, though, was the zebra.  Zig Zag was his name, and he was a part of the petting zoo, although his cage was clearly marked with "Zebra May Bite" (I mean, who puts a bitey animal in a petting zoo?)  Identifiying this as a risk, I spent the vast majority of the day hanging out with Zig.


Look.  Isn't he so pretty?  He was a sweetheart.  A bitey sweetheart.  I love him.  I want him.  I tried to talk them into letting me have him, and I got pretty close, but at the end, not so much.


He loved me, too.  I think that's abundantly clear.


In this picture, you can vaguely make out an elephant in the back of the room, and this, of course, was a llama.  Llamas have terrible teeth, in case you were wondering.

Despite having to work eight hours on a Sunday, something that I usually do not care for, this was a pretty fucking fun day.  I also held a baby emu, upside down, by the feet.  Make no mistake, if it had tried to peck me, I'd have had no trouble at all snapping it's tiny emu neck and cooking it into an emu gumbo.  Just saying.

Someone else would have had to pluck its feathers, though.

And, I got hit on by a carnie, someone who actually said, "I wish I had met you years ago," prior to asking me if I wanted to show him my office.  Um, no thank you.  He DID have all of his teeth, but his role was simply to sell popcorn, which makes him pretty much the lowest man on the ircus-cay career ladder, wouldn't you say?  I mean, he had to wear a red-and-white striped shirt.

So that's pretty much a weird day at work.  And Happy Father's Day.  But I'm still thinking about the elephant shit in our side hallway carpet...

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Minutes Taker

We have this Big Bored (that's an intentional misspell, thanks so much), that meets every month.  This morning was an instance of that meeting.  I am required to take "minutes" at this meeting, wherein I write down the first 30% of what they say before I zone out and start to think about other stuff.  Sometimes I write stuff like this at these meetings:

- Melissa -
   - blah blah blah great stuff rah rah rah

True story.  Today, though, was worse than usual.  Lasted about 2 hours, part of which was spent talking about God Only Knows What (although I know it was about bond refinanc...snooooooooooze).

And then this old dude, the one I refer to sometimes as my at-work-boyfriend, because he's probably around 70 but he likes to wink at me (frequently)?

He said the following:

"I felt like a turd in a punchbowl."

Ho.Ly. Shit.  That's a good turn of phrase.

I've never heard that before, but the internet sure has.  Even has pictures:

This is my joy.

Also, I'm kind of revolted.  But mostly joyful.

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Mother of a future investment planner. Is there money in that?

Last night, we went to my folks' house for supper (namely, supper that I cooked, but whatever, man, I didn't have to buy it.  So all good.)

While we were at the table, my somewhat-in-the-wine mother asked Doodlebug what he wants for his birthday (which is in just a couple of weeks.)

"mmmm...," he said, thinking...

"I WEAWY WIKE Transformers.  Or how about a savings bond?"

I kid you not.  My kid is planning his future.

I'm pretty sure I'm getting the kid some transformer stuff.  You can handle the savings bond, right?

Monday, June 4, 2012

Cat Mom

Well.  So.  I have had a cat for pretty much my entire life, unless you don't count the times wherein I've had more than one cat.

Priscilla (Presley) moved into my home in the fall of 2004.  Before I got married, before the baby was even considered.  When she moved in, she was already several years old.  Pretty sure this year made 16, for her.

Pretty cat, a bit overweight, mostly a good attitude.  At times, she would completely lose her shit and bite me, but only me, never the boys.

Much of her life these last several years was spent sitting near enough to me to be within earshot.  She didn't necessarily want to be ON my lap, but she definitely knew where I was, all the time.

When she was a bit younger, she would bother to, you know, lift her head.  If ham was a possibility.  Cat digs ham.

About 2 years ago, she was diagnosed with Thyroid cancer.  Make no mistake, that big sucks, but if your cat has to get cancer, this is the way to go.  She had to have medicine every day, to calm her overactive thyroid down, which we smashed up and put into wet cat food.  Fatty did NOT mind.

It worked pretty well, for a long time.  But...  in the last few months, we have noticed a decline.  For one thing, her whole back half hurt and she would fuss you if you touched it.  For another, the goiter in her neck had gotten to be about the size of... what?  I don't know.  between grape and golf ball.  Use your imagination.

The vet was all, "hey, pay $4000 and get her surgery," or "hey, pay $4000 and get her irradiated."  I was all, "hey, that's crazy talk."

Lately, she started having pain when she pooped.  Know how I know?  It made her cry.

So there really was only one okay thing to do.

She went to sleep forever on Saturday.  I was talking to her, petting her at the time.  Beanie was there, too.

She crapped on my leg when the first sedative kicked in.  I like that she got to still make me her bitch.

It was sad.  She'll be missed.  I cried like a bitch.  She has long been one of my very best friends.

She washed my face every night (gross.), including Friday night.  I'll miss that. 

The baby was looking forward to making a list of instructions for God for her, but then he forgot, as he should.  He is five.  And besides, we gave him a distraction...

This is Rosie, Rosanna (Arquette).  She's pretty fucking cute.  She's no Sparklecat, but she has potential...