Little Earthquakes

My iPod was on Shuffle Today

I'm having an introspective day.  On these days, it can either go up or down hill, but it rarely stays right in the sacred middle ground.  Unfortunately for me, about 2 blocks from my home I saw the most horrific deer/fence accident and nearly turned my car into a bridge embankment to avoid the sight.  "Oh that's not good at ALL," I thought as I sped up to get to the Bloody Mary I knew I would need to guzzle to recover from it.

To make things worse - Christy Trivia Alert! - I make foul Bloody Marys.  Really, they're bad.

Anyhoo, the day got worse. I have two active stalkers right now, one more dangerous (I think, but who knows?) than the other.  I guess I could look at the positive side and think, "hey, I've still got it," as I chicken strut Mick Jaggerish around in my 10 year old mom jeans and faded Northstars sweatshirt in my kitchen.  All fun imagery aside, let's just not deal with the stalkers right now because this one would be what my or any therapist would term "a trigger" for bad emotions. 

So, back to scheduled programming: As I was driving on my as-yet undefined introspective day, I noticed every song being shuffled by my iPod seemed to have such meaning to me.  Silly, laughable meaning.  Even as I was thinking, "My iPod really gets me today. Something is speaking to me. I should listen to this, louder even...."  I was kind of laughing at myself.

So here's what was going on in the car after dropping the kids off, all running together fast through my mind:
"We're only a phone call from our knees..."Oh wow, that's so true, I mean you never know when someone could just up and die on you and you should really be aware of that as you go through life and "When I said I'd take it, I meant as is..." totally, I always do and why doesn't anyone ever believe me? I'm not that much of a bullshitter. "And still I fear I said too much, my silence is my self defense..." Maybe that's why I have communication issues. "All your life is just a shame, shame, shame, now darlin, you don't wanna waste your life..." Oh no, I wonder if that's somebody trying to send me a message through my iPod like that Bruce Willis movie where his wife died and he heard her through the radio.  Or was that Bruce? Maybe another guy, because he was in Sixth Sense, would he do two movies like that? "These days I think alot about all the things I forgot to do, and all the times I had the chance to..." I wonder if I'm going to be thinking that more and more now. "I woke up in the ditches and I hit the light and thought you might be there, but you were nowhere to be found, no, you were no where near home..." yeah, I know about that sucka. "No right mind could wrong be, this many times. A memory is cruel, Queen of Attention to Details, defending intentions if he fails..." I should be more detail oriented, I didn't spellcheck my notes from that last phone interview.

Yep, and then I saw the deer on the fence and had a sucky Bloody Mary and the stalkers started biting at my heels and I slid down the hill.  

The End.

My Car is Emotional.

Hey, crazy, but I’m sitting in my mechanic’s lobby this morning, waiting for him to put brakes on my car.

In typical Hostile MJ fashion, she started squeaking her brakes about a month ago and I began thinking that yes, it was probably time for front brakes.  Then this morning I got the other typical Hostile MJ message on my screen that continuously chimed and flashed in red:
BRAKE FAULT
STOP
SEVERE WARNING
BRAKE FAULT
STOP – CHECK OWNER MANUAL

Jesus.  It should also have a skull and cross bones symbol.

I wish my car would sort of ease into its emergency situations.  It goes from slight issue to “I’m about to explode and don’t you dare drive me” really quickly.  Are all Germans this emotional?

Anyway, turns out my mechanic doesn’t have WiFi so I am writing blog posts and emails offline and feeling scarily disconnected.  

I considered walking the mile or so to the nearest Perkins in the hopes of finding coffee and an internet connection but I’m ridiculously dressed for walking or for spending more than 3.2 minutes outdoors.  In fact, my boots are absurd and I’m wondering if I’ll make it really anywhere outdoors today in them.  I’ve called Tony to my rescue and he said “Sure. I’ll drive you anywhere,” which makes my eyes all big and watery in my gratitude.  So that’s good.  He’ll drive me to the door of a Caribou or something and I’ll stumble my way through the slush and ignore the people rolling their eyes at my stupid boots and my inability to walk in them.  Maybe I’ll drag one of the haters down with me – and then 'accidentally' kick them with my pointy stilletto.

 

Mrs. Jensen is Not My Biggest Fan

Have you ever started off on the wrong foot with someone and it seems like there is some cosmic force out there making every other interaction with them awful? 

Well, unfortunately for me, that person is Alex's 3rd grade teacher.

We all heard about how we missed Orientation and how Alex kicked off her first day.  I emailed her teacher the following morning to tell her Al hadn't had the bang-up day we'd all expected and a little extra help getting her acclimated would be much appreciated.  She seemed chipper enough in her response.

The next faux pas is that I completely and totally forgot my first school conference with her.  Yep. Blew it right off.   At the rescheduled conference, she made Alex and I sit in the kiddie chairs, me with my knees up to my earlobes, while she sat in her mesh Big Person Chair. I was also having a cat lady hair day - beautiful.  

She told Alex how "all of the other kids in class get 100% scores on their spelling tests" but that Alex doesn't because we don't study at home "like all the other kids in class who are obviously studying hard with their parents."  Sigh.  I told her I wasn't aware that they don't study spelling in the classroom and would certainly begin working with Alex immediately.  She threw her dagger in about me missing Orientation so I couldn't possibly have known about that so it really isn't my fault.  I tried to turn the tide and show that I am a good parent! I am a good parent! by telling her about how my mother had bought Alex some books and that we were going to read them together.  I instantly sensed my mistake.  "I don't....agree.... with those books," she said piously.  "Oh?" I asked faintly.  "They are worded confusingly and undermine the efforts that we teachers are making." Mentally, I pictured the Hindenburgh video - the ship gliding along and then suddenly bursting into flames and crashing into the ground.

The rest of the meeting went much the same. By the end of the meeting, my body language was ridiculous. I think I might've crossed my arms so hard over my chest that I was clasping my hands behind my back.  My legs were even crossed away from her and I was leaning over the opposite side of my chair from the woman.  I should've just turned my back on her, it might've been more comfortable for me and conveyed the same message I was (subconciously) trying to give.

Since then, I've inexplicably lost forms, signed the wrong pages in Alex's daily planner, missed carnivals and failed to volunteer for the Halloween and Holiday parties.  What the hell?

Last night's issue made me realize that this might run a little deeper.  I signed my own name wrong on her request form for conferences in January.  Cristy Nichol.  Honest to God.

Serial Killer

I remember as a kid hearing about other kids having to play with old broken toys.  Teddy bears without eyes and dolls with no heads, etc.  Or maybe that was just my dramatic child brain imagining what it would be like to be an orphan or something.  Whatever.

Anyway, Alex was sitting in her room the other day playing with Barbie dolls.  I took a closer look and saw that one had 2/3 of her arm chewed off and only one foot.  The other was entirely bald except for a few patches of blond hair.  The Ken doll and no legs at all.  It was pathetic and I resolved to make sure Al got a few new Barbies for Christmas.  I asked Al if she was having fun and why she was playing with such mangled toys.  She looked at me and said, "Mom. I don't discriminate against the handicapped." I backed out of the room and had to sit on the step outside of her room and silently laugh (again). 

Here are the crime scenes for the Barbies:

And the prime offender of the Nichols House Barbies?

LALI, the reason for our huge population of "Handicapped Barbies."
 
 

Levi

While unemployed (which now I'm not - again - and I'll get to that later), I decided I ought to be doing something more than playing Warcraft, drinking, finding ways to not eat and finding ways to be healthy(ish) when I have to eat.  So, I thought about what I like to do besides the aforementioned things, and could only really come to one main thing: dogs.

So, I looked at Lali and remembered how I came to acquire her, and I volunteered to be a foster mom for a dog.  And then I panicked.  WTF?!  Really. What. The. Fuck. was I thinking?  What if I got a dog full of worms and eye infections and skin issues? And hello, puppies don't sleep and eat normally and they poop on the floor.

But then I remembered that I don't sleep either, none of us eat normally anymore, my youngest child wets the bed and I'm really just hanging around, wishing someone would poop on the floor, so this isn't that nuts at all. 

About 3 days later I picked up Levi, a 4 month old Tree Walker Coonhound who was scheduled to be put down the day before at an overwhelmed Missouri animal shelter.  Here's what he looked like when I picked him up:
 
He was a fantastic puppy and the kids and I adored having him.  He smelled like a barn when we got him and he was so thin that water pooled in his shoulder and hip bones when I bathed him.  One week into our fostering we met Evonne, a vet tech from my vet's office, at an adoption event that I was attending with Levi.  She had lost lost her Coonhound a year ago to Cancer and was struggling with her loss. 

After 3 weeks of living with us, Levi was adopted by Evonne's family.  He won the doggie lottery, that's for sure. 

In spite of everyone's concern about the kids and I handling a foster pup's adoption, we all handled it like pros.  I set it up that our job was to get Levi healthy and happy for his 'real' family, and we needed to teach him good manners, how to be a loving puppy and to trust us and other animals.  That's how we approached it and that's how we lived with him.  The kids are asking daily for another 'foster project' but I think we're going to wait until after Christmas and possibly after their birthdays to do it again.  I loved (almost) every second of the experience and I feel like we finally are able to give back a little.

Here's Levi, the night before he went to his new family: