I made a bit of a promise that I was going to keep you all up-to-date on Mort's lunch progress. And then I forgot about it. Because I was trying to determine the difference between a phrase and a dependent clause. And because my sister got married.

So, a quick update: It's not going well. I bought a Batman thermos thing-y that swears on Robin's life that food will stay hot for 5 hours. Which is not really an issue as Mort eats lunch at 9:45. I made Mort soup in the thermos. The same soup of which he can consume two entire pots in the privacy of his own home. The thermos returned home full. Fail. I filled the thermos with mac & cheese, a dish that Mort had been requesting. He didn't like it. I broke down and bought Mort his favorite sandwich from Subway and put that in his lunchbox. It made Mort cry tears of rage with how much he hated it. Yesterday, Mort's snacks returned home uneaten as well. Why? Because he felt there were too many crackers in the snack container. And then he proceeded to eat in the span of one hour: a plate of pineapple, a sliced apple, a yogurt, a glass of milk, a grilled cheese, a handful of baby carrots,a granola bar, a piece of raisin bread, and an ice cream cone. Had I put any of that in his lunchbox, he would have shown me no mercy.

He is also angry because the women who help out at lunch encourage him to eat what I have packed for him because" it's a great, healthy lunch!" Can I tell you how furious he was with me for making him a healthy lunch that people admire?

Should I just give in and let him buy lunch so that he can see how good he has it? Because no one there is going to slice his goulash surprise into triangles like Mommy.

I just made my first meatloaf. Meat loaf. Who freaking eats that anymore? I'm feeling very Mad Men. So I made a gigantic mixed drink to go with it. Because if you're having a Mad Men kind of night, you should embrace the fun parts. Not the parts where women were second-class citizens. But definitely the part where it was always 5 'o clock somewhere and you wore heels and your leopard fur coat to the grocery store. And to make meatloaf. And you could plunk your kid in front of the tv all day long while you smoked and drank and wore outfits and no one was any wiser that that could be construed as shitty parenting. Speaking of which, I need to go interrupt Mort's television show so that he can make Mommy another drink.

If I start Breaking Dawn, I will not finish the laundry or go grocery shopping or call the jeweler or the seamstress or run my errands or study for my mid-term.

If I start Breaking Dawn, I will finish Breaking Dawn and then my Twilight experience will be over. And then I will be sad.

Huh. So that was creepy. I was prompted for my email address and password and I put in one of my many. I have at this point...half a dozen e-mail accounts. One for school. One for work. One for friends. One for sending large picture files. and darn if I can remember them all. And I was up late last night doing strategic wedding planning and general talking and then I woke-up again at 4 to a coughing child calling for water and complaining of a hurt head (aka burning-up with fever) so I "slept" for an hour and a half squished into a twin bed with a twitching, whimpering Mort using my stomach as his pillow. The general gist being that my head is usually not the swiftest under the best circumstances, and is especially foggy right now.

So I typed in what I thought was my email and password and found myself on someone else's blog. A blog I've never read nor heard of. How bizarre is that? Could we really share the same email and password? I hastily logged out and could never recall exactly how that happened int he first place, but now I wish I could because I should probably warn that person of a glitch somewhere, right? Geez.

I decided to be a grown-up and transplanted the dinner plate hibiscus. Only I woefully misjudged their root situation and it will be a miracle and a half if they return next year. This spring I decided to tackle my boring yellow daffodils by carefully marking all the spots where I wanted to add more colorful and greater variety of bulbs. I of course could find only two of my sixteen little copper plate markers when I was planting this week. Wonder exactly what this mess is going to look like?

I finally received the score on my first test. Let's just say I did better than expected (a B) but still received the lowest grade of my post-high school career. Insert sad face.

Have to get ready to take Mort to the doctor.

I have no doubt that I drive my husband nuts because I fail to put the dishes in the dishwasher. I rinse them. I place them in the sink. And I walk away. What's so hard about taking that next step? The dishwasher is RIGHT THERE. Why can I not make the transition from rinsing off the dish, and op, up, ack, not placing it in the sink this time! Instead I could bypass the sink and place it in the dishwasher. Yeah, I just can't do it. Mort's teacher told the class that he does not believe that "can't" is a word. I was all, Aw, that's so cute. And a giant lie. For instance, men can't get pregnant. Even when they are really females living life as males. Nope, sorry, if you're pregnant, you are a woman. Even with that goatee. So, no, I don't think that deserves media coverage. Also, I can't be duped into believing that American Idol or Not Quite a Celebrity Can Dance are legitimate television shows.

And so, back to Duke. Who would like you all to know that he requested I refer to him in this blog as "The Duke." I chose No. As in, you can't be referred to as The Duke. I just finished reading Twilight. I didn't think I would. I had started reading it once before and couldn't do it. The writing was too Sweet Valley High. But this time, I did it and I even get the appeal. Hint, it's not the writing. So, my point being that maybe Duke isn't a vampire, but he doesn't harp on my dishes in the sink. And that is true, everlasting love right there. And seeing as how vampires don't eat food, can imagine how annoyed they would be by dirty dishes left in the sink? And having to wash them for all of eternity?

I just submitted my first graded assignment for class. It was hard. Freakishly, frustratingly hard. Hard enough that it makes me question my ability to have a career in this field. (Would you per chance like to read some more sentences that contain the word hard?)

I knew that I didn't have any formal training in the world of editing, hence undergoing the process of becoming professionally certified. However, I was unaware that I apparently also have no skill or background in the English language. Seriously. Duke was better able to dissect the sentences than I. And his last brush with English was 20 years ago. Ugh.

Someone has been returning home from school each day (cough*Mort*cough) having gotten in trouble for a repeated insistence on talking out of turn. Yesterday, however, he made it through the entire day without having to be spoken to about his speaking AND he won an excellence award for having written an complete sentence constructed and correctly spelled without any assistance. Hmmm. Maybe Mort should help me with my assignment...

I don't tend towards the hysterical. At least, I don't think I do. Maybe my loved ones would disagree. Anyway, I have had a small red irritation on my face for over a month now. Originally, I thought it was the start of a zit. Because wrinkles and zits are fun, fun, fun for the almost 40s! In fact, I said to my sister, "Look at this stupid zit." See, that proves it looked like a soon-to-be zit. But here it is a month later, and it is still here. Except now it's puffy and irritated looking and just never subsides. And I never touched it and it never became a zit. So that makes me wonder if it's time to see a dermatologist? Really? Have I reached this stage in life?

Another procrastination post. As much as I love words and love correctly fitting them together like a puzzle; well, I've got NOTHING on the people with whom I'm taking this course. They make me look like the kid who skipped English to go smoke in the bathroom. Because my whole deal with taking this course is that I'm a fly by the seat of my pants, edit from the gut crazy kind of gal. And it would be helpful to have some book learning method to my madness kind of skills.

But I am not as ...um, excited as my fellow classmates in debating subordinate clauses and what not. Who knew? In fact, just doing the readings is making me very very tired. Which is also not good. Because quite frankly, the last time I was this tired, it turned out I had mono.

I thought at the time that I was just depressed and needed a change, so I cut off all my hair and dyed it black. And then it turned out I was just suffering from mono. Falling asleep on the stairs while only halfway up probably should have clued me in, but really, when you're 18, you don't devote alot of time to wondering why you are too tired to walk up the stairs. At least I didn't. So then I had to have bad hair for the next three years. because I had to grow the black out and then cut it off again. Because black is impossible to get out of hair. At least then it was. Nowadays they have that fantastic color oops stuff that could take the color out of anything. So, yes, I had really bad hair. Plus, my hair was so damaged that I used to sleep with my hair drenched in olive oil and wrapped in saran wrap. So, I also smelled like a salad. Good times.

And now I think I'm tired because I am depressed. Or some other reason. Maybe it's the cold I've had for three weeks. But getting out of bed is so hard. I only manage to do so because I would never be able to function enough to drive Mort to school if he missed the bus. But I slept for eight hours last night. Granted, I only slept for four the night before. And my to-do list is growing and nothing is getting crossed off.

Thank God for my wonderful friends who keep me tethered to reality. They call and e-mail and hustle me along like we all do with our children or like border collies with sheep.(Have you ever seen those dogs work? They are fantastic). They make me leave the house and keep involved in their lives and keep involved in my own. Whatever did I do before I knew these people?

Must. Care. About. Lie. Vs. Lay.

And I do. In theory. But really, I would much rather LAY down. Ha! See how I brought that full circle? I don't need no learnin.

Now, I may be inclined to agree that 65 does seem a bit old to become a first time parent in many situations. However, when the 65 yr old in question is Elton John, I'm going to go with the thought that age is not an issue. Because I feel certain that the nanny he hires to raise the child will not be 65.

C'mon Ukraine, let's go. Elton John and his husband want to adopt an HIV positive child and the Ukraine has said no because Elton John is too old and in their eyes, not married. So, it's better for this child to live out his days in an orphanage? Really? It's one thing to reject Elton John because he didn't pass the home visit, but realism please. You are denying this child a family, a home, access to the best medical care money could buy because you don't like old British queens. Dude.

Okay, well Mort surprised me. He ate the hummus and the star fruit. The yogurt, however, remained untouched. Today's offering to the volcano god was a green pepper, warm from the garden, Fig NEWmans, and a replica of his favorite Subway sandwich. A testament to my love and/or OCD is that I reshredded all the lettuce the way he likes it.

I have a lot of reading to do for class. I'm having a hard time getting in the groove. I also need to start day 2 of trying to find khaki colored cords. You would think that is easy. But for some reason, no one has those buggers in stock in the size I need. I'm guessing every 5 yr old boy in the tristate area must have a pair save for us. And if anyone is looking for a niche that needs to be filled: dress shoes for boys that cost under $60. I'm not even talking anything fancy, I'm talking just not sneakers. Because apparently no one has thought to make them. Why are there a wide variety of platform heels for little girls and only sneakers and flip-flops for little boys?

Actually, don't get me started on the platform heels for little girls that some misguided parents must be buying or else they wouldn't continue to be made. Do you know how old I was when I started wearing heels for non-special occasions? 26. I was not 4. I was not 5.Parents should be as concerned with their girls having the freedom to run and jump and climb in comfortable footwear as their boys. Weird-o-rama. And yes, I'm stalling for time to avoid the mountain of books sitting to my left and glaring at me.

Oh goodness, and however did I forget about this one? Last night, Mort and I made pumpkin muffins. The same recipe as the pumpkin bread, just poured into muffin tins instead of a loaf pan. After dinner, Mort asked for one. I gave it to him. He took a bite and declared he didn't like it. This is the same boy who ate an entire loaf single-handedly last week.

"I don't like the shape," he said mournfully.

"Would you like me to make it look like bread shape?" I asked in a faux patient, helpful voice.

Big sigh worthy of someone named Mort, "No thank-you. I just don't think it will help."

One more thing and then I promise I will start studying. Or doing something else productive. Or watching E!True Hollywood Story. It's a ll a toss-up. I saw Inglourious Basterds this weekend and it was great. GREAT. I did want to see it, but I thought it would mainly be a "eh, yeah, it was alright" kind of film. I didn't love Kill Bill part 1 or 2. I liked From Dusk Till Dawn. I didn't really like Pulp Fiction (too violent). Jackie Brown was...eh. I can't help it. I like what I like. Mainly I like things that are nice. There's enough sorrow and violence to be found in every day life. I don't need to seek it out for entertainment. Anyway, I was surprised by how great the movie was. It was long and I didn't get squirmy or look at my watch even once.(Although I did have to look away from the screen with some frequency because of sad/violent scenes. But they weren't gratuitous.) Brad Pitt was doing a French Stewart face and goofy accent and I didn't even hate him. I cared about the characters. I was surprised by the plot. (I read like nobody's business, so most plots are as obvious to me as to anybody who reads a ton because they recycle the same five ideas over and over.) It was a good movie. In fact, it was the best movie I've seen in a long time.

In the tradition of Julie vs. Julia, I am going to start documenting what I make my son for lunch and whether or not I was successful in creating something that he is willing to eat.

Today I packed Mort a cut-up star fruit, hummus with crackers, and yogurt with blueberries.All things he clamours for in the privacy of his own home. I'm thinking he will eat the star fruit and the rest will return untouched in his lunch box. Stay tuned.

Mort has been playing school all morning. He is writing the names of his friends and relatives on a piece of paper and then grading their behavior. I'm afraid that most of the people we know have received only a check mark(good but not great) for their pretend efforts. My sister's cat, however, has been awarded 5 stickers and a smiley face, Mort's highest marks in his ranking system.

My cold has progressed to a full-blown head cold, but is still not a sinus infection. I don't know if that's even good because at least with a sinus infection you take antibiotics and it gets knocked out of your system. This feels like my head is stuffed full of cheap toilet paper. Duke feels certain that I simply have allergies. Because I haven't suffered from allergies my entire life so I couldn't possibly tell the difference between allergies and a cold. But he did get up with Mort this morning and make him pancakes while I slept for several more hours. So, I guess as long as I get to sleep he can call this what he will.

Mort woke us last night by hacking up a lung and when we gave him some homeopathic cough syrup, he announced, "My throat feels grouchy."

As we were falling back to sleep, Duke asked, "What was the adverb he used?"

"Grouchy," I replied.

"Oh, I guess that's a noun," he muttered.

"Well, really it's an adjective," said me, "unless you're referring to Grouchy one of the seven dwarfs and then it's a noun."

And for some reason this made us laugh hysterically. That seems to happen alot when Mort wakes us up.

At least Stella wasn't disturbed. Oh and on Mort's ranking system, Stella received a check and an x for less than good but not terrible behavior.

I sometimes wish that I was more crafty and hands on and could make beautiful things instead of just buying them. I do so admire people who have that gift. I guess that I should just be grateful to know such people. Because I benefit by proxy.

My sister is amazingly talented. I can't wait to see the magical land that she will create for her wedding. I think it will blow our minds with its sheer awesomeness. I feel certain that someone should be photographing it and filming it for design mags and HGTV.

It is rainy and I have a decent cold that I'm trying to stave off from turning into a sinus infection. And I thought I'd tackle the enormous project of sorting all of my hundreds of books by color and rearranging them. I was only a couple piles into it when I realized that I like them better just jumbled together, classics with trash and great works of literature with torn paperbacks.

Packing Mort's lunch has been a consistent struggle. I've toyed with letting him buy lunch, but I know that he will not eat the unfamiliar tastes that accompany familiar names. In trying to raise a child with leanings towards, fresh, organic ingredients and minimal processing, I have limited his palette towards the greater world. (We once tried to order him a pb & j at a restaurant. It was peanut butter made of many things other than peanuts, jelly made of more than fruit and white bread. He gagged.)

Mort has rejected all of the lunch items that I pack for him that he deems acceptable at home because they are the wrong temperature. On the list of items he will not eat in his packed lunch: grilled cheese, peanut butter and jelly, turkey sandwiches, wraps, and quesadillas. Yesterday, I packed him pb&j crackers and a slice of homemade pumpkin bread.

At dinner last night he announced out of the blue, "See! The pumpkin bread was just perfect! I could eat the whole thing!"

I started my course work last night. It took me a very long time. Probably because I was sharing my workspace with Mort who needed me to look at his drawing and/or magnetix creature every couple of minutes. Or to retrieve the magnetix pieces that kept "falling" onto the floor. Or to tell me how and why he built what he built and drew what he drew.

After I did all the stuff to assure the folks in computer land that I knew how to operate my computer and could thus pay them the exorbitant fee to take this online class, I printed out the 18 page syllabus because I read better when I can hold the material in my hands. And I have short-term-mommy-memory loss. I can tell you when show and tell is and when Mort last had steamed broccoli or received his booster shots, but I don't know anything on the schedule for Duke or for me. Or Stella, for that matter. Because my brain plays the all Mort channel all the time. Which is undoubtedly why I awoke at 1:30 am full of what-ifs and couldn't fall back asleep until 5. And then I had to get up at 7. And I've lost weight, but my jeans that fit when I was heavier no longer fit. Or it's entirely possible that I couldn't figure out how to button them and gave-up. I'll try again later.

Oh! So, can I just tell you how quickly my heart beat when I saw that the first assignment was an editing test? I LOVE that sort of thing. A Where's Waldo of grammatical errors. First I gleefully ripped through it, switching out apostrophes and changing words like "arouse" to "rouse" and matching up verb tenses. But then I started to over think things. And I became uncertain if I should really edit the sentences or just minimally clean them up. If I knew the sentence would read better by switching the phrases would the professor think I was taking away from the voice of the piece or was she looking to see if we were aware that the sentence structure could be improved? It took me about three hours to do 40 lines. It generally takes me three hours to do about five or six full page articles. I agonized over things such as whether or not I should change north east U.S. to Northeastern region of the United States (I did.) In the end, I went whole hog. Because if I was getting paid to do that piece, that's what I would have done. I would rather have the professor tell me that I over edited rather than that I missed too many extraneous bits and bobs. I think? I don't know. Neither scenario is great.Was I just showing off, hoping that when we dissect sentences and I have no memory of what a dangling participle is the professor will remember that I knew it's a Canada goose and not a Canadian goose? Probably. And of course, I am now checking my online grades every two minutes to see how I fared.

Yesterday, all of the mommies at the bus stop were summoned by the bus driver who informed us that one of our wayward children had repeatedly opened the window, thus setting off the alarm. (I am so old that when I rode the bus,there were no window alarms. You were allowed to open the window and get fresh air. And throw stuff outside. And write the name of boys you liked on the foggy glass.) The bus driver said none of the kids would fess up, so she yelled at us for awhile instead. Which would have been fine, but it had started to rain. And I had to hold my mail over my head because it seemed like a good idea at the time and it got all wet and I couldn't read it. I could tell right away by Mort's face that he hadn't done it. (I hope that kid keeps wearing that kind of stuff on his face, it will make my job so much easier.) And sure enough, he was the lone kid who had not participated. I praised him for choosing to not do something that he knew was wrong, but it was all reverse psychology. Because I know damn well that had he been ABLE to reach the window, he would have joined in on that action in a second.

Gotta go check my grades again.

Do you know Rachel Zoe? I mean, not personally, or heck, maybe personally, I don't know. Anyway, I have seen her in various magazines touting what is "hot" or having picked out clothes for someone or being slammed for being too thin. And I always think, "Ooh! I like what she's wearing!" However, yesterday I took a nap (I'm really getting into the swing of this kid at school gig) and while I was waking up with my second round of coffee, I turned on Bravo to see if perhaps they were showing any old Project Runway episodes. They were not. But they were showing The Rachel Zoe Project. And I think she may be brain damaged. Um. Isn't she like 40? Because I have 16 yr old cousins who are more articulate and less teeny-bopper than she. Is it a joke? Does anyone really speak like that? I am so disappointed that her seemingly flawless taste in clothes does not translate to a cool persona and instead translates to a 12 yr old imitating a Valley Girl from days of yore.

If I could think of any other pop culture stuff I wanted to discuss, I could call this the Hollywood edition and be on my way.

I got something fun for my sister's not-bachlorette-party. That's all I can say because she may read this. But it's not going to drive the Jersey boys insane for lifesavers and I think she will really like it and find it to be cute.

Our country, man. What's up? Is anyone really debating the merits of the President telling kids to work hard and do their best? And schools really didn't want to show that speech? It's called a democracy. That is the person for whom the majority, the VAST majority of the people in our country voted in the presidential election. And so if you want to cry because he's trying to lead our country out of the mess caused by previous yahoos, TOO BAD. Do it on your own time. A good lesson for children would be that regardless of where you stand, this is our President. And this is what he would like to say to our children. Not showing his speech? Are you kidding me? Can you imagine anyone getting away with that shit under the Shrub? Sometimes, my fellow citizens really scare the beejeezus out of me.

I need a dermatologist.

Duke and I have noticed an alarming trend in the very few television shows to which we devote any of our time. And it's a seemingly small pool, especially as we don't have anything fancy that would allow us to watch any of the good shows real time and we rent them in bulk and power watch them. We watch Weeds, the Tudors, Mad Men and Entourage. And although we had previously watched Californication, it was pretty eh/bad this time around so that one is off the list. Anyhoo, LIZZE from a now defunct college show keeps showing up on our programs! (Isn't that a bizarre word? I can't leave the house right now. I'm watching my program.) And because Lizzie, ie Carla Gallo is neither talented nor quirky , we are flabbergasted at her repeat appearances. Taking the cake was last night when she showed up on Mad Men. Seriously, she is either Steven Spielberg's kid (is he still relevant?)or she has compromising pictures of one of the Weinsteins. Because there are a lot of actors out there. There is no reason to keep casting her.

Speaking of Mad Men, is Betty Draper the worst mother since Joan Crawford or what? I wish Don would leave her pregnant ass ("I'm your little girl Daddy. You shouldn't bother me with this." and "Go watch TV." ) except then the poor kids would be stuck with her and poor Carla who is a significantly better mother to them. I assume there is a rationale behind her current plotline( being pregnant and an asshole), but ugh, she is entirely devoid of sympathy this season.

So, I've used up my blogging interest this morning, but I have enrolled in a program to become certified in editing. I think it should take about two years. And the cost of books has NOT become more reasonable since I graduated from college.

I've been trying to make brownies for the past hour. Not from scratch or anything. And yet every time I do the toothpick test (if you don't know what that is, you are even worse off than I and I can't help you), the brownies are still liquid. I was puzzling over this, and Duke said, "Oh! You only have the oven set to 325. Maybe it should be higher."

So, I dug the box out from beneath the coffee grounds (yes, still not composting. it's on the list.) and mused, "No...it says 325 for a dark coated pan."

To which Duke explained I was not using a dark-coated pan. Just a metal pan. Who knew there was a difference? Okay, probably everyone but me.

And what brought on this little fit of domesticity? Well, Mort had a dentist appointment this afternoon and instead of returning him to school, he and I went out to lunch. Because he missed lunch anyway. And then instead of returning him to school, we went to the playground. Because he missed recess anyway. And then we made brownies. Because it was a great day. And Mort may be the only child in the world to utter the phrase, "Going to the dentist is fun!"

What a week. I am generally not a tgif person as my job  knew no weekends, but today, today I say "TGIF."

I know that eventually this shall become our normalcy, but right now I feel suspended neither here nor there. I am looking forward to seeing my people this weekend and reverting to what previously looked like our life.

Although I suppose I do have more of a schedule now. Maybe that's what is throwing me off. Also, I seem to be requiring a lot more coffee. And I keep losing and gaining the same five pounds. And I was cleaning yesterday, marvelling that the house was dirty after I had just cleaned it, and realized it had been two and a half weeks ago since that actually happened. My time is alternately molasses and warp speed.

Jay is definitely dragging. I can tell because he's bouncing off the walls like he snorted a bag of pixie sticks. Not that he knows what those are, but I couldn't come up with a better anaolgy for the sugar high people now insist doesn't occur in children because of sugar. Have you heard that one? I know that I get crazy and  then depressed when I od on sugar, so you can throw out as many studies as you wish, but if my significantly larger body cannot handle it, there's no way a child is immune to it.

Also, on the topic of food and because I have yet to bring up our Italian friend in this post, here is a subject that incorporates both. There has been much speculation that carbs are Bad. Carbs make us Fat. I, however, do not believe that. Because when I go to Italy, I eat. I really eat. I have biscotti and bread for breakfast. I have plates of pasta with full-fat cheese for lunch. I have something carb-y at 11 at night for dinner. I drink wine. I eat snacks. I eat fruit and veggies and tons of gelato. And I always lose weight. ALWAYS. My activity level also drops when I am there as my activity generally consists of lying on a beach and/or sitting and eating.

Now, our friend Luigi was here and he ate things that I shun, but that Duke does not. The two of them ate steak and "pizza" from Pizza Hut (I put this in quotes as Luigi thought it was  funny to call that pizza) and cinnamon bread I had made for breakfast and two fast food meals. Luigi gained six pounds and his pants became very tight. Duke's weight didn't fluctuate at all. So, in conclusion, I think it's not carbs, but rather any non organic, processed food that we eat in our country. Thank-you for your time.

Hey, so apparently in my new phase of life, I am Taking Charge. We have had a slight plumbing problem for a very long time. Slight enough that we have chosen to ignore it for almost a year, save of course for when our Italian pal tossed his silk scarf over his shoulders and whipped out a wrench and demanded I hold the flashlight while he attempted to fix it. He's a neuro-physicist who has a cleaning person and a gardner and whose mother still makes him lunch. And he's a truly great guy. Hard not to love anyone who can make your husband laugh that hard. Anyway. That conversation went like this:

Me: Why do you know how to do this?

Him: Because I'm a man.

So, the sink was still leaking and I called a professional. Who quoted me such an outrageous price that I sent him on his muttering-under-his-breath way. And I called someone else. Who was over $300 cheaper. And now we have a beautiful new faucet that doesn't leak.

Also, I just weeded and cut back annuals and made note of where I want to plant more bulbs. It may not seem like much, but it is alot for me. Seeing as how I am really not adult enough to be a homeowner.

Nonsequitur alert.

I love fall!!! Transitional seasons are the best.( And fall trumps spring.) I bought boots and nail polish in anticipation. And the gigantic magazines are starting to clog my mailbox. And my green peppers are still growing as fast as Mort demands them.

Surprisingly, or not, I am having mucho trouble waking in the am to walk Senor Mort to the bus stop. Also not sure why I'm breaking out my seven years of high school Spanish. Luckily for you all, that about covers all the words that I retained. I can only imagine that as it becomes darker and cooler outside I'm going to sleep later and later...But by then, he should have the hang of it, right?

I had to pull over to the side of the road yesterday because there was a yellow jacket in my car. Under my water bottle. I kept trying to crush it with a piece of wood that I found but it refused to be smooshed. Then I found a heavy rock and the sucker grabbed a hold of it so that it could flatten its poisonous grossy body against the rock's surface and escape death. But that is okay because I chucked the rock as far as I could, rolled up my windows (well, I didn't roll them per se. Do cars even come with that option anymore?), closed up the sunroof and was on my way. I almost had to pull over again because I started retching and shaking at the thought of the yellow jacket in my car. And I kept imagining I could hear a buzzing or something brushing against my foot. Ick.

Hey, so I managed to score a trial editing gig for a publishing company. If I do well, I will have some decent steady work between the magazine and the books, and still be able to be volunteer and bus stop and soccer and lunch time mommy. I need to work because I would go out of my head just hanging out waiting for Mort to return each day. Can you imagine? It seems lovely in theory, but horrid in reality. I mean, there's definitely lots of stuff to accomplish around the house, but I certainly don't want to be the one to do them.

I am two cups of coffee and one cup of iced tea in and still I cannot fully open my eyes. I feel like it's a weeble day.

I haven't really found my daily rhythm of life on my own as of yet, but who cares when the weather is this outstanding, when the windows are open and I'm eating  arugula, tomatoes and a hard block of Parmesan cheese?

So basically I've been too tired and too busy to write. Or do anything except look-up at the end of the day and go, "HUH? Where did the time go?"

On on hand, Mort is super excited to head off to kindergarten. On the other hand, he didn't realize he would have to go every day. "What? When will I see my friends?" he demanded. I keep checking his birth certificate, but he really isn't a teenager.

Our house has been a balmy 80 degrees because we have a very dear friend visiting from Italy and truly, central air is one of the things that makes America great. I can't imagine finding another country as enchanting as Italy, but it is beyond hot there.However, we love our friend very much, and so we have the ac bumped up to 80 degrees and are panting and vying with Stella for the privilege of lying on the cool kitchen floor. Our friend, meanwhile is wearing pants, a sweater and a scarf and shivering and complaining about how freezing it is. However, our sink is leaking and damned if he didn't immediately take it apart and start trying to fix it. Maybe it was because I told him I would turn on the heat if I didn't have to call a plumber.

I am not a proper grown-up. I do not have sensible hair. I shop in clothing stores whose fashions are featured in the latest issue of Seventeen. (Is that still a magazine? I used to read it when I was 13. Does that mean girls today pause briefly to scan its pages at the age of 7 before they jump over to Cosmo to learn how to use double-sided tape so that their backless dresses stay-put on the playground?) I tend to ignore things that need to be fixed around the house as opposed to handling them. I love cookies for breakfast.

Anyway, tonight I met Mort's kindergarten teacher. I wanted to present myself as a grown-up. As a parent. As a sensible, mature person who does not let her son sing any of the lyrics to MIA's "Paper Planes", so I dressed-up a little. Not job interview level.( Although I did break out my heels. ) But not my standard tank top, cut-offs, sandals summer sloppiness. I actually had on a tank top and changed . Because you could see my shoulders. And I felt that was unseemly for a mom. Of course, every other parent there had on shorts and t-shirts and flip-flops.

I could barely stammer out a sentence to the teacher. Other people were talking to him like he was any old normal person and not their child's kindergarten teacher, but not me. I was revved so high my words came out all twisted and wrong. I undoubtedly made the "Do not let this mother volunteer" list. With any luck, the teacher just thought I was drunk, and not the possibly crazy mom that I actually am. I was writing notes like I was in college, trying to capture every word that fell from the teacher's mouth. And then I noticed that one of the sheets of papers he'd given us had a full outline of everything he was saying.

I mean, I know that all my dippiness comes from a basically good place. I just don't want to mess up anything that has to do with Mort. I want to be perfect, thereby ensuring that life for him will be perfect. Don't bother trying to follow that train of thought. There's no logic behind it.

For instance, the parents were asked to list two of their child's strengths and two things they needed work on. Can I tell you how I agonized over that? I looked around me like I was taking a test that everyone knew the answers to except for me. Pencils down. But I was still trying to figure out the angle. Where was the catch? What answers would ensure that Mort was accurately represented? If I raved over him, would he be ignored or dismissed as the spoiled son of an overzealous mom? If I was honest with his faults, would he be negatively labeled before his first day?

Good Lord, how will my nerves survive this milestone?

And also, don't you hate people who tell you what kind of person they are? Inevitably, if they have to tell you how they are, it bears little resemblance to how they actually are. I just thought I'd throw that out there, seeing as how I've begun my last two blogs telling you what type of person I am. Yeah.

I'm the type of person that cleaned her entire house top to bottom in two and one half days! Woo! I'm the type of person that now has velvet ropes around every room and is wrapping Stella's paws in saran wrap and making her shed over the sink.

I am a reasonably intelligent person. In college, I was a member of three honor societies and I graduated with honors. However, I just spent 21 minutes and 38 seconds trying to have extraneous charges removed from our phone bill and I am so turned around that I no longer have any idea to what I have agreed. For all I know, I've had our phone service shut-off and/or switched out for tin-cans and a string.

Really? Should something this base be so difficult? 

It should have been a three minute conversation:

"I've been charged for calls that are covered under my current calling plan."

"Oh, yes! I see that. Let me credit your account and make an adjustment so that doesn't happen again."

"Okay, bye! Love ya!"

What the hell took 21 minutes? What was all the talk about maybe it went to the long distance building instead of the local building and that plan wasn't recognized at that building? What was the talk about putting a freeze on something to prevent that from happening again? Why must they hurt my brain?

Isn't there some joke about asking someone what time it is and they answer blue? Because I think I was just involved in it.

Hi. So, here's today. I just realized that I forgot to turn off the stove after I made Mort's quesadilla. He's having a quesadilla, carrots, celery and organic fig newtons. By Paul Newman. Should they not be called Fig Newman's? Maybe they are. Let me check. Dang. They are. I thought this was my big break; I could copyright the name and sell it to the Newman Foundation for a gazillion dollars. Because it's not wrong to rip-off charities. Or non-profits. Or whatever the heck that company's deal is. What do I know? I actually forgot to turn off a stove. Really, who does that?

The thing is that I fell asleep at 11. I woke-up at 3. Mort woke-up at 5:30. Even though I had stressed that he could play quietly in his room, but he was not to leave his room until 7. Because Mommy and mornings just don't mix. But I still was woken from my semi-sleep state by a whispered, "MOMMY? CAN I GET UP NOW?" a mere 1 1/4 inches from my face. And then Stella leapt to attention. Kid is up! Time for breakfast! Watch me spin so fast I'll make time reverse just like Superman! I'll make it time for dinner and then spin back to breakfast again!

Then I took Mort to get his moppy-Mommy-I-want-a-ponytail-hair trimmed so that he can see whilst growing said ponytail. Now he has a bowl cut. Same difference.

So, every morning at my house looks about the same.

I am generally the last one up and at 'em, having spent some part of the night awake. Stella is always the first. I have two cups of coffee and then at some point start to realize I am functioning. I may or may not have had full conversations and/or written out my daily to-do list, all of which I will have no recollection. Stella spends her time sleeping and smashed against my leg. It's the closest she comes to cuddling, so I try not to move. 

Stella has a good way to begin the day. She opens her eyes, does some yoga and scratching, sneezing and twirling, and then begins staring at a still-sleeping Duke with her Jedi mind trick focus. If during this time Duke has the misfortune of breathing, Stella will take this as a sign that she has indeed chosen the correct time to awaken and begins to whine. TIME! Time to get up! Time for breakfast! Time to get newspaper!Oh, newspaper's not here yet? Because it's too early? OKAY! SOUNDS GOOD! WOO-HOO!!! And then once she has eaten, she goes back to bed and immediately falls asleep. About an hour later, the neighboring rooster starts to crow. In case you were wondering, those suckers are loud. But not as loud as a terrier who wants her breakfast.

I am losing my identity, my job and my almost daily connection with my friends. In two weeks, my only child starts kindergarten. And life as I know it will cease to exist.

     Sure, I’ll still be a mom. But it seems a little silly to be a stay-at-home mom when your child is busy elsewhere. Now that I have the hang of cramming cooking and cleaning into the tiny space right between Go Fish and drawing aliens, how am I to fill my days? I’ve taken the scenic route, career-wise, meandering through a myriad of nametags and overly bright smiles before finally graduating from college at the ripe old age of 31 and heading straight into Mommy world.

    And now that I’ve finally gotten the hang of this job, (wait for it…) the most fulfilling and challenging job I’ve ever done (and there’s that cliché. Oh please, you think I can hang with my son for five and a half years and not believe it’s the best job in the world?) and my employer is letting me go. Oh, sure, he feels that I’m a valuable member of the team. I’ve gotten awards, raises and the occasional bonus. But unfortunately, my services are no longer needed as they once were.

      Losing this job means that there’s really no need for me to haunt my usual hotspots: the park, the library, and the playground. I’ve developed deep friendships with amazing women over the past several years. But when they get-together for playgroup, I’ll be the only one not toting a kid along with my shared dish. So, other than the occasional ladies’ night out, where will I fit in?

     I’ve been having full-blown nightmares as of late. Generally, I’m trying to save my son from some unseen evil, but my guess would be that I’m trying to save me, as well. Save myself from the what-ifs of the future and the regrets of the past. How much time have I wasted over the past five and a half years wishing that I could have just ten minutes to myself? And now that I’m going to have those ten minutes and then some, how much do I wish I had just one more year of interrupted showers and a constant companion?

      I know that he’s only going to kindergarten. But it’s only the start of a lifetime of learning to let go.

A herd of happy adults and children were hanging out in happy land yesterday. The kids dressed themselves in various bits and bobs of costumes.

"I'm not Sarah!" hollered one.

"I'm not Thomas!" hollered another.

"I like your costume, Mort," remarked a mommy.

"I'm not Mort!" he said.

"He's incognito," noted another mommy.

"That's right,"Mort agreed,"I'm Ed Cognito."

Now, as some of you may know ( and if you are reading this blog, my guess would be you're one of the ones in the know) I am one of those lucky souls who is paid money to do something that I do anyway: find mistakes in other people's writing. Call it a compulsion, call it an obsession, I just call it plain old fun.

And oh my Good Lord did I find a doozie of a mistake. I was reading "Sleep is for the Weak" and the foreword is written by the EDITOR IN CHIEF of Redbook magazine. And three paragraphs in, I caught a truly unacceptable error. The word "of" had been used when the author meant to use "or". If you don't find that as mindboggling and head banging as I do, that's okay. But just know in your heart of hearts that is such a horrific mistake that I would assume heads rolled all over the place. Whether it was made by the author or the editor, I don't know. But it's on the first page. And it's glaring.How could someone not catch that? Seriously? It pretty much kept me up last night. 

Although on the other hand, just as i was almost lulled back into the baby longing that could accompany your first born venturing out into the world, I read this book. And remembered all the hellish things I had conveniently forgotten in the face of "Babies are so beautiful! Small! Lovey! Wonderful! Miracles!"

Yeah. I forgot the whole crying for hours straight. I forgot that inevitable, inexplicable cranky period every night for months on end. I forgot the whole poopy diapers for YEARS until one day it's potty training time and you will have to dash to the public restroom if you are a)nowhere near one. ANYWHERE. b)just about to check out in a store having waiting in an excruciatingly long line. I forgot the teething. The endless middle of the night drama. The mind numbing act of pumping so that you can go grocery shopping by yourself. Their inability to tell you what they want/need. The boredom. The repetition. Exisiting on three hours of sleep for a year if you're lucky. Being unable to so much as take a shower  with the shower curtain closed without a playpen/bouncy seat/swing crammed into the bathroom with you. Oh my God. Biology man. It tricks you to keep you reproducing. But now I remember oh biological clock! And by the time I forget again, I will be too old to breed.

I was seized by guilt and shame yesterday(well, hello my old friends!) at my garden's slow demise and decided to salvage what I could and start planting for fall. I only was two wheelbarrow loads into the clean-up of blooming cilantro and rottign lettuce when mort appeared and wanted to play Frisbee, so I didn't get very far.

However, as I carried the first load of weeds and uh, compost down into the field where the fox resides, I was suddenly struck by the notion that what if the fox wasn't the friendly neighborhood Stella-like creature I imagine it to be? What if it was rabid? What if it had no fear of humans and felt threatened and attacked me? What if up close it wasn't cute and instead was all gnarled and gross?

I loudly announced my presence by yelling, "All animals that live back here, I'm bringing a bunch of food, I don't want to see you. Please just stay hidden!" It worked, but it's amazing how much more appealing seeing the fox is when I'm behind my camera trying to get close to it rather than the other way around.

On a whim, I grabbed a book at the library titled 101 Things to do Before You Turn 40.

I would be hard-pressed to sit down and actually read it, but I did skim the major points.  And in doing so realized that either I have had a very full life, or the author has led a very sheltered one. Regardless, it was fun to mull over my list, should I have one while on the treadmill this morning. 

Looking back at the past decade, however, does make me believe that most of my best adventures were had by living life, not by making a list. Hold On! Something by the swingset--is it my fox, need to grab binoculars...and,no. Just more rabbits. Good Lord, does every rabbit in the tri-state area live in our backyard? Also, do other states refer to the tri-state area or just where I live? 

Anyway. So, my time-capsule of the past decade seems pretty much like I couldn't have dreamed it up prior to its happening.  Marriage to my best, 400 mile move, became college graduate, sold a short story, was pregnant twice, became a mommy, actually needed to start coloring my hair for more than fun,learned to make good salsa and a proper margarita, overcame fear of travel to countries where I didn't speak the language, grew a garden,had to choose between surgery or physical therapy,got a job utilizing my actual skills and education, made true friends. What I would like to see happen in the next decade? Run a 5k? Gather more work?Take up Pilates?Learn to be handy? Travel across the country? I really can't imagine.

Apparently I have my own brand of morality when it comes to the creatures of the forest that we live amongst. Stella killing rabbits? Eh, part of the cycle of life. Stella going after a mourning dove that couldn't fly? Absolutely not and much to her horror, resulted in her being scooped up beneath my arm like a loaf of bread. Go figure.

I have been editing a piece that is so far out of my comfort zone that I am simply pretending that the words I don't understand are written in a foreign language. Because basically they are. Science. Don't get me wrong, I believe y'all that the world is round and gravity keeps our feet on the ground and that there are black holes and Bermuda Triangles (c'mon, they are sorta the same, right?) somewhere out there. But please don't explain it to me. Because I already have trouble keeping track of all the stuff I really want in my head. The rest of it, I'm counting on someone else to know but have no need to share that knowledge with me. Like Duke. Poor Duke. He tried to tutor me in my remedial math classes that I had to take before I could even move on to Math for Dummies in college. I think he may have tried to use Sex and the City analogies for awhile:

Okay, now if Carrie is X and Mr. Big is Y-

and I would interrupt with, "Which season Carrie? Because I don't like the season that she had really bad hair and Miranda was a man. Can she be wearing her fur coat?"

It's amazing that I was inducted into Phi Kappa Phi, is it not? Thank God for whichever side of the brain knows language.

Anyway, I have been on a tear lately. I've been doing a couple of miles on the treadmill every single day. I've started cooking again.

Speaking of Mort, he does so delight me in thoughts and deeds. We were running errands and because he cooperated, we were allowed to LOOK at the toys. He, not surprisingly, saw a new-fangled Bakugan that he desperately wanted.

"Buddy, you don't even play with the ones you already have. I just don't think it's a good idea to get another one." Don't I sound like such a parent?

And he stared at the Bakugan for a moment and then looked up at me and said, "Yeah. They seem so exciting when they're in there, " here he gestured at the package, "but then when you open them, they really aren't."

I have to try and make this brief because i want to treadmill it before I start the day. That's right, I prefer to use the treadmill in the air-conditioning with the fan blowing as opposed to being swarmed by gnats and breathing in humid air and wheezing because someone is mowing their grass. Deal with it.

Sometimes when one sends out invitations over a month in advance and includes self-addressed stamped envelopes in which the recipient can rsvp, it is not only normal, but EXPECTED that one write yay or nay and drop said envelope in the mail. Do you need me to fill it out for you, too? Common courtesy people. Sheesh. Breakdown of human civilization. Assholes.

But on the positive side, our fox is alive and well and leaving half-eaten apples strewn about the yard. I may not have told you that I saw a dead fox on a nearby back road and was concerned that it was ours. But apparently it was someone else's.

In the immortal words of Merle Streep, that's all.

Do you know what sucks (besides wasp nests under the sliding board and oregano that won't grow)? The Complete Idiot's Guide to Raising Boys.

Periodically I like to torture myself by reading a myriad of how-to books regarding child rearing. Sometimes they are helpful in reminding me to be fully present and in the moment with my child when I'm with him, and not thinking of what I have to buy at the grocery store for dinner or when the next season of Project Runway will begin. Sometimes I glean insight as to why time-outs aren't always working (because I'm doing them incorrectly and not using consistency and/or first giving a warning and allowing my child time to correct his own behavior) or that using a calm voice of explanation can go a lot further than screeching. Thanks, Super Nanny!

And sometimes, like the Complete Idiot book, they remind me that common sense and unconditional love will always triumph over regurgitating old stereotypes and passing them off as truth. Boys aren't verbal! Boys don't like to read! Boys just want to run around and whack things with sticks! Boys want to marry their mothers and kill their fathers! 

DUDE. Thank God the husband and wife team who penned the book do not live anywhere near me, so my child will not be interacting with their freaks. Plus, they named one of their kids Bjorn. Had I seen that, I would never have even picked-up the book.

"Look," said I as the tiny puffs of white silk drifted through the lazy sunshine, "our entire yard is filled with wishes."

Do you know about wishes, aka some type of seed, not exactly unlike dandelion seeds, but not exactly like them either? Or was that just in my family? We always called them wishes and I've spent my life catching them, making a wish and releasing them into the breeze. I recently passed that bit of lore onto Mort, who was immediately skeptical and asked if his wishes would really come true. I'd love to know what he wished for and make it happen. Unless it was something involving dragons and pirates and sharks and tornadoes and ghosts. Which it probably was.

Anyway, a friend had stopped by as I was admiring the wishes drifting around our yard and she located the abundant source of them and screwed-up her face, "Uh, I hate to tell you this, but those are thistles."

And thus ended any speculation about the source of the spiky weed things that have infiltrated my garden like a million blades of grass that I can spend hours removing and have an entire new crop growing within 4 days.

My garden is so so terrible this year. I've spent more time and money and care and work than all the other years combined and even discounting the rabbits and the thistles, it is horrid. Things that I usually am pawning off on every passer-by because my garden is overflowing? (Hey there! I see you're out on a walk this morning! Would you like some basil/green peppers/jalapenos/tomatoes/ to enjoy as you exercise?) Pitiful. I have planted oregano 6 times. And it refuses to do anything but die. My basil is already going to seed. Spinach and arugula and broccoli rabe went right to seed. My peppers are refusing to grow larger than the size of the palm of my hand. My lettuce is bitter. My broccoli is dinky. Although on the positive, this year's grape tomatoes taste like sunshine on a vine. And I just may have ears of corn as I didn't mistakenly pull it this year thinking it was grass.

Don't you just hate conflicting weather reports? Like when you are supposed to spend the day at a friend's pool and the newspaper is calling for heavy thunderstorms but weather.com is listing 0 chance of precipitation. Who are you to believe? probably whichever one is predicting the weather you would most like to see.

Who  doesn't love having a friend that steps outside, collects some eggs and delivers them to your house so that you can make French toast?

BTW, I saw no evidence of the French horking down French toast in France. I did, however, see them carrying baguettes and muttering about stinky cheese.

As I am always complaining about my lack of sleep, I give mad props to the Sandman because I slept from 9 t0 6 last night and I feel like I could leap tall buildings in a single bound.

We took an impromptu family day to an amusement park and I realized that had I any doubts prior, I am officially on the other side of old. My first clue was when I spotted a guy with a full-on, proper 1978 mohawk, complete with individual two-foot spikes and shaved head. And I thought he looked like a little boy trying to play tough dress-up. And I also thought it was an impractical hair-do for getting on rides. A mere 20 years ago, I would have followed him all around the park thinking he was the bee's knees. Although he probably wasn't even a twinkle in his mama's eye 20 years ago.

My second clue was getting dizzy on the Tilt-a-whirl of all things. Didn't I used to feel that the more loops and swirls a ride had the better it would be? Who can't take the Tilt-a-whirl? Old people with inner ear issues, that's who.

Oh, and  I worried that my sunblock was wearing off and  I  actually watched the shows. Yep. Nothing says "old" like watching a bunch of amusement park wanna-be- Broadway-stars' rendition of "YMCA". Although if singing and dancing is your thing and you are in college or high school(?), wouldn't that be a great summer job? Way better than working at Long John Silver's.

I am taking a break from cleaning because it's dusting time and I surely hate dusting. it's pointless. It's annoying. It makes me wheeze. And by the time you're done, there's dust again.

Hey, I thought, I will just pop onto the computer for a minute and see if I have any more editing work awaiting my attention in my inbox. And I didn't. So, then I wasted some time looking at classes and other freelance jobs and trying to prepare for life as a full-time stay-at-home mom when my child is no longer at home full-time.

Also, I went to a party yesterday and totally fell-off the diet wagon. I resisted the cake. But I did not resist the margaritas. Mort and I split an extra-lean turkey burger with no bun and I had about 23 tortilla chips. I'm not getting on the scale today. Anyhoo, see how I'm not dusting? But I did clean the toilets as penance for my margaritas and tortillas.

"What?" Mort just yelled.

"I didn't say anything," I replied.

"Oh. It smells like marshmallows." And then he disappeared back into his world of whatever it is he's doing. See, how can anything else I do for the rest of my life compete with that?!? What job could I possibly have where someone says things like that? And don't roll your eyes and think, DUH! Any job with kids. Because I don't like kids. Unless they belong to me or people I love. Or are really really cute.

Hey, so today is day 4 of the diet and i have lost 3 and a half pounds. I guess how can you not lose weight when you go from eating any old horrible thing you want in ridiculous quantities and no moderation to three days of eating only gigantic bowls of fruits and vegetables with the occasional baked potato and meat ?

With any luck,by the end of day 7, my sweet tooth will be calmed and my processed food addiction will be broken. I don't know how I lost my way so drastically. I used to be such a  smart and healthy eater. Even if I had a slice of pizza, I would put a handful of spinach leaves on top of it. Although I think new eating patterns take 3 weeks to become ingrained. Well, maybe this will be a good jumping point to make healthier choices.

I like bangs. I think they look sharp. Duke, however, truly hates bangs. And it's hard to do something to yourself when you know your partner wouldn't like it even if Angelina Jolie (or whoever is the latest hot chick. Insert name here. I'm not up on this stuff. I'm still mourning the break-up of Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt. Sigh.)sported them. It's not that I couldn't cut bangs. It's just that I know it would be the equivalent of Duke shaving his sideburns above his ears so that the white of his skin showed. And maybe letting his hair touch his collar in the back but be closely cropped in the front. I wouldn't love him any less, but I would wonder why he would do that to himself every time I looked at him. So, Duke, if you secretly long for the haircut, those are my feelings!

My garden needs some tlc before it leaps into uncontrollable territory again. I could clean up the weeds and replace the fence and thin out the crop and get it under control again in a couple of hours or so. However, I'm in slo-mo. No sleep. Again and again and again. Duke thinks I should hit up our friendly neighborhood doctor and check out their views on prescription relief. The problem with that being that I have tried that in the past and they have two effects on me: I cannot wake-up the next day and/or they do not help me to sleep and make me feel drugged and hungover.

I've tried herbal remedies, I've tried chemical remedies, I've tried old folk tales, oh, I think I've tried everything. I think the only time in my life that I slept well and deeply was in the first trimester of my pregnancy where I slept every time I stopped moving.

I fell asleep on the couch around 5 am and awoke to Stella doing her morning yoga and Mort quietly slipping his freezing feet against my legs under my quilt. There was an apple on the table beside me that Mort had taken from the fruit bowl and washed and dried for me to eat when I woke-up.

Have you ever tried the cabbage soup diet? Good Lord that thing is specific. I'm a bit desperate as I am in a wedding in a little over two weeks and I'm still 7 pounds from fitting into my clothes. Mainly because I've gotten in the habit of eating whatever I want, whenever I want, in whatever quantity I want and not exercising. Ugh. Wish me luck.

I was lawn chairing (and yes, lawn chairing is a verb when used in the sense that you sit for .07 seconds before leaping up to get someone a drink of water, rescue someone from the monkey bars, find someone the purple shovel, NO not THAT purple shovel!) it with a friend yesterday while we watched our offspring and various neighbor kids tear throught the obstacle course she had constructed for them. (Isn't that genius? An obstacle course. Keep them focused and moving.) And she told me about a website called True Mom Confessions where moms get to spill their deep dark mommy secrets.

 It reminds me of that book where someone had handed out note cards and asked people to write their secret and mail it to the author. Do you remember that book? I could only read so much of it as it was really too painful and depressing and voyeuristic. 

However, that didn't stop me from checking out this site. And for the most part it seemed like sitting amongst a bunch of moms. Except for the couple of people who wrote in to share their secret that they read that site because it made them feel so fortunate to  be themselves with their great lives and not be the moms who wrote in with complaints.

And that just seemed mean. If moms are posting on this site because they want to get something off their chest without being judged or whatever, do they need other moms telling them how superior their lives are comparatively? I think the case in this site is if you don't have anything complain-y to say, don't say anything at all.

If your son is mean to a kid who was mean to him first AND is a mean little kid in general, does it count? A question for the ages, like a falling tree in the forest or the chicken and the egg.

Oh, alright, get off your high horse. I know it's still wrong. 

I can hear that Mort is watching something wholly inappropriate on the television but I am too tired to check it out. I sure hope it's not another Michael Jackson introspective.

With the trouble I'm having waking up in the am, pretty soon I will become one of those people who are incapable of speech until two coffees in. Actually, I'm pretty much that person right now. 

So, I now know what a $17 beer takes like. I give it an "eh". I wouldn't drink it again. there was a $45 beer on the menu and I was very tempted to order it. Because why in the world would a beer cost that much? It has to be crazy, right? But that was too ridiculous, even for me. And if I lived in Belgium, I would probably be very hungry. You can only eat so many waffles. 

I am dogsitting for a friend that got stuck at the last minute. The place where her family was going on vacation assured them that it was pet-friendly and dogs were welcome. And then she found out that wasn't true.

So as she has a lovely, waggly puppy with a super sweet disposition, I was happy to host him. And he's been great. No accidents. Chewing appropriately on nylabones. Lots of kisses. Complete deferrance and submission to Stella.

And Stella....well, she's being a bit of a jerk. Talk about a cranky old lady. Jeesh.

Good times.

I'll preface this by saying I woke-up promptly at 4 am and I have a horrid allergy induced headache because I forgot to take my allergy meds yesterday. However, I was very vocal about this last night, so my opinion stands and is not a result of crankiness.

WHO CARES THAT MICHAEL JACKSON AND FARRAH FAWCET DIED?!?!? Seriously. Did you know them? Were they your close, personal friends? Were you related to them? What's the hubbub? Yeesh. I get feeling a small pang at the news that someone died and saying, "That's a shame." But really, does every headline need to be about this? There's nothing more pressing going on in our country? Does every channel need to be interrupted to bring you this breaking news and have cobbled together shows on these people? 

For the record, yes, I grew-up with a Michael Jackson poster on my wall. (The one with the yellow sweater vest during the Thriller years.) I saw him in concert. I even made my own sequined glove to wear. I still have Wanna Be Starting Something on my i-pod. And I'm just not interested in his death. I DON'T KNOW HIM.

What I am interested in and I feel would be a much greater way to spend one's time is discovering what exactly Danielle tried to have someone do to Dina. That should be on every channel.

Disgruntled. Such a stereotypical Monday. Awoke to the sound of a quilt being dragged down the stairs. Told said quilt-dragger to go back to bed. He refused. Argument ensued. No hope of returning to much needed sleep. I slept from 11:30 pm to 1:30 am on Saturday night. And that was it. Not even sure yesterday was real. I almost feel that Andy Rooney made sense in his column? But that can't have happened, right?

I'm buying ladybugs today. Next year I will know to proactively plant lady beetle friendly items that make them feel warm and welcome to eat aphids in the garden. Soap spray doesn't seem to be working. Maybe because it's eco-friendly soap? 

Also need to do the latest post-strep scrub down of the house. I don't know why I bother. It's not like it has worked the other two times. The only family member who hasn't gotten it is Stella and she's hopping along on three paws and a bandaged foot that she refuses to allow to touch the floor. So she probably has strep throat of the paw.

If the plants in your terrarium are growing so quickly they soon will be unable to remain in your terrarium, does that mean you have done something wrong? Aren't terrariums supposed to last anywhere from 1970 on?

Dude, I have pretty much had it with today and it's not even 8:30.

And this year's organic gardening grossness trophy (currently held by last year's winner, the tomato hornworm) will be taken by the aphids and their disgusting ant puppeteers. Whilst checking upon how my garden fared while I was away, and marvelling at the way my weeds are thriving, I noticed yucky little black things and ants on my strawberry plants. In and of itself, not nearly the ball of gag reflex that the tomato horn worm is. Until I looked up how to rid my garden of them in a safe way. (For the record, a dish soap and water mix and/or lady bugs--you can call them Miss Beetle if you're nasty.)

And thus discovered that the ants harvest  and ingest some secretion produced by said  aphids and do their damnest to protect them from predators and even go so far as to safely carry them into their ant dens and then return them to the plant. I found websites describing the ants as "milkers" as the aphids are their own personal herd of dairy cows. OH MY GOD.

Even while part of me secretly marvels at this amazing feat of the insect world and the symbiotic relationship unfolding amongst my strawberries, another part of me really wishes they all just still looked like ants running amok amongst little black dots. Because knowing that those ants are milking those aphids makes me want to hurl.

Last year I returned home from a trip to the beach with my wonderful friends and all our offspring with a sinus infection (me) and a double ear infection(Mort). This year's trip has commenced with a case of strep throat (Mort). I'm sensing a theme.

And one other interesting tidbit from vacation. Well, it will probably be more than one. Anyhoo, when one is vacationing with their people and 73.6 childrens, there is no time for reading a newspaper and/or watching the news. We are all well caught-up on what the tabloids have had to say about the status of John and Kate and Will it Last and Maybe They Shouldn't Have Had 8 Kids and Oh My Gawd, is He Wearing Jeans With TIGERS on the Back Pockets? (Don't you love it when you rent a beach house and there are stacks and stacks of old magazines you haven't read? I LOVE that!) And we watched the season finale of The Real Housewives of New Jersey not once, but twice, whilst drinking wine and eating chocolate chip cookies.

Which brings me to my point: Um, yeah, who knew that said tubs of Nestle chocolate chip cookie dough were being recalled? Oops. Good thing we hid them form the kids so that we wouldn't have to share.

So, my car is purposefully small. I have owned it for almost a year and that has never been a problem. 

However, last year when I rented a house at the beach with my friends, I was driving an SUV. And it was filled to the gills with supplies. I have the same amount (mmm, possibly more) of stuff this year and roughly half the amount of car in which to place it.

On one hand, I am truly an expert packer. A teeny side benefit to OCD. I can make it work. Tim Gunn would be proud. Even my beloved Duke stands aside and lets me work my mojo when it comes to packing a car.

On the other hand, I'm not a miracle worker. 

This should be interesting. Will I be forced to give in and drive the other automobile? Will I surpass even my own packing prowess?

I am making salsa tonight with my first batch of garden picked cilantro. And I have a bunch 'o lettuce and spinach to take to the shore. I LOVE eating from the garden.

Meanies! I was sitting at swimming lessons (have you ever noticed that when you are a mom, an awful lot of your time is devoted to sitting and watching and driving and sitting some more?) and there were a couple of kids who were fairly hysterical at the thought of getting in the water and were panicking. The swim instructors were doing an awesome job working with them and the poor moms were doing their best to strike the right chord: do you ignore them? Do you encourage them? Are you gently stern? You have to run the gamut. Every mom has been there at one event or another, where your child has a meltdown and you have to figure out the best way to make life okay and not give-in. No one has all the answers. And kids are people, too. All we can do is help them be the best person they can be. My guess would have been that because we've all been there, everyone is pretty sympathetic to those times. For the people who look at you and announce, "SOMEONE's not happy," as your child is puddling on the floor and you are sweating bullets and trying to walk the line between being a grown-up and joining them in their wails, yes, you are not helping.

Anyway, so the woman sitting next to me at swimming looks at me and announces, "SOMEONE's not happy." I just tightly smiled and replied, "Poor little guy." Because the child is just scared/having a bad day/ tired/ none of my business. Unless a child is in danger and/or being harmed, I tend to keep my opinions to myself. At least until I can go home and write about them. It's hard enough helping your own child navigate the path of life. I'm not going to assume I can parent anyone else's child.

Of course the woman beside me continues to spout off her sour words of wisdom as to how the crying child should be dealt with, what the harried mom should be doing, how she wouldn't put up with that kind of thing,etc. And I'm sitting there thinking, "Really? Really? Are you really talking about this in such a public space? Are you that insensitive and rude and clueless?" For all she knew, I could be that child's mother/aunt/nanny. And she is spewing all these nasty negative thoughts about him all over me. And nothing I do is stopping her flow. I tried ignoring her. I tried saying, "Well, we've all been there," and "Well, I think they're doing their best." And then the heart-wrenchingly obese child (See how I slipped in my own frowning judgement on her parenting skills?)with her starts piping-up with, "Look at my pen! Look at my cut! I fell off my bike!"

This however, did prove to be a diversion as the woman then proceeded to tell me how hopeless the dangerously overweight child (?) grandson(?) with her is; how he screams when he takes swimming lessons, how he's scared to ride a bike. And the kid is nodding along in agreement. Oh man, it made my stomach hurt.

I guess it's easy to be cruel about someone else's child when you are that cruel with your own.

DUDE! You have to have your kid's back! If you don't, who will? If you don't think your child is the single greatest gift you've ever been blessed with in life, what chance does your child have? Everyone deserves to have someone wholly devoted to them, someone who thinks that at the end of the day, they are the greatest thing coming and going.

I may have moments where I sit in the safety of my friends with my head in my hands, wondering if I'm making the best choices or handling things the best way. But I wouldn't bother questioning myself and my parenting abilities if Mort's life wasn't my greatest concern.

For the record, I successfully avoided the hater and her child the next day on the bleachers. And the little kid who had been upset about swimming did an excellent job that day and was swimming around by the end of the lesson and the mom was right there with him celebrating his victory as surely as she had helped him through his crisis. I hope the judegy, mean parent was taking notes.

I have a mosquito bite on the palm of my hand. How does that happen without the owner of said hand noticing? It's really really really freaking itchy. Much itchier than the other 13 mosquito bites I collected over the weekend. (Yes, I counted.)

So, that old tale about a sensible diet and daily exercise as the key to losing weight? True. Who knew? At this rate, I very well may be able to fit into my summer clothes by July. 

I found the best headpiece on etsy. I'm hoping that my sister wants me to wear it for her wedding. I'm not sure where else I cold wear something so over the top. They are remodeling our grocery store. Maybe to the grand re-opening? 

I plucked the first non-bitten strawberry from the garden yesterday. And set it aside. And forgot about it and left it in the yard overnight. I'm guessing it's gone. I replanted my wilting herbs; discovered everyone has been having spinach issues; mixed in some mushroom compost; reinforced the entire existing fence with chicken wire and tacked it into the ground; and  got frustrated and pulled weeds with my hands. Heavier  gardener's tan than ever. It was a two shower day.

And then Duke and I split-up for the evening and watched our respective movies. His was a horror movie. Mine was a romantic comedy, He's Just Not That Into You. I thought it was cute. It made me cringe in some spots, but made me happy in others. It would have been an excellent movie to watch with my sister over chips and onion dip and cocktails and we could have clucked over the dummies.

If you aren't quite bathing suit ready, but you find one that you would be willing to wear in public, should you buy it even if you plan on it being the wrong size within a couple of weeks?

You know, I tried to buy a bathing suit at a jumbled store over the weekend. The bathing suits are sold in sets there. However, three suits were mismatched. For example: XS top, S bottom, XS top, M bottom, L top, XL bottom. Anyway, one of the mismatched suits was a good fit on me and I wanted to buy it. And the clerk wouldn't let me. "The sizes don't match. They have to match."

"I understand that, but there are three suits that are mismatched and seven that are correctly matched. The mismatched ones are not taking away from the correctly matched ones. They are just mismatched and that's the one I want."

"We can only sell the top and bottom in the same size, so you have to take a different one."

"But you have three on the rack whose sizes don't match. I want to buy one of those."

And on and on and on. And of course there was a long line of grumbling customers (which makes me feel terrible and anxious)and back-up was called to verify that I wanted to buy a mismatched suit, even though there were matched size suits available with the end result being that they would not sell me the mismatched suit. I was really bummed. And frustrated. Because it just wasn't logical and I couldn't make my point seem valid. Or maybe I didn't have a valid point.  But I honestly think the bored whippersnappers working there just didn't understand/care what I was pointing out. And I have worked enough retail to know where they're coming from. Sometimes you feel like dealing with annoying customers. Some times you don't. But what will they do with those mismatched suits? They didn't have a proper matching size and all the other suits were neatly accounted for. I just wanted to give them money in exchange for goods! I left the store empty-handed. I wanted to tell them I will never shop there again, but a) no skin off their nose and b) that would have been a big fat lie. Because I will shop there again. Maybe even today.

Had I known as a dippy youth that the secret to getting tan is to try and avoid getting tan, oh what a tanning maven I could have been!

I tried every old folk tale and devoted countless hours to bronzing my skin. I never really got as tan as i had hoped.

And now...now I am slathered in SPF 207, I have sunglasses and giant hats and I'm in the sun for half an hour and boom. I've got tan lines galore. Maybe it's just the giant hole in the ozone.

A pox upon our house? Strep case number two is up to bat. How is this possible? Duke and I have slept in separate rooms, I've been completely quarantined, I've walked around with a box of antibacterial wipes to erase my every fingerprint from every surface I misguidedly touched liked a germ phobic burglar. Seriously, how can Mort possibly avoid catching this when Duke has been 100% in charge of his every day care...in order to help avoid him catching this. Ugh.

Summer is starting! The farmer's market opens today, swim lessons begin soon and then it's off to the beach with some of my favorite people. I can't wait. And I think that the kids are old enough this year to have a great time under their own power while we laze in our chairs, point out stories to each other in the tabloids, and occasionally toss the offspring a snack. So exciting.

Although I should probably buy a bathing suit. And there may be people who enjoy that, but I don't know any of them. Thank goodness for Target and Old Navy where you can mix and match and buy different sized tops and bottoms for under $30. Oh that's right, J. Crew. I'm looking at you. You thought you had the corner market on that with your fancy $90 bathing suits. FACE.

Mort has stages in which he wishes to do and/or learn whatever it is I'm doing. Sometimes it's gardening, sometimes weeding, sometimes cleaning, cooking (wow, do I sound like a 1950s housewife or what? Yeesh) and his latest pursuit is the art of folding laundry. Think me not ungrateful, for I do have to do laundry every other day. But folding is a holdover of my OCD that I cannot let go. (And YES, I have released many of my OCD comforts. It will be a cold, hard day in hell, however before I give -up folding laundry.) I don't know if it's a holdover from childhood where I could do a chore and simultaneously watch TV or if it's a holdover from working in a chain store where you took a folding seminar and used a board to get that perfect look. Anyway, I can't stand for things to be folded by anyone but me and even whne Duke tries to help out, I have to refold his work. It's a compulsion, what can I say?

So, Mort wants to fold. Duke and I laughed about how his technique will fare against my OCD, but it is working out well! Because he wants not just to fold, he wants to fold like me. He wants it to look like mine. He wants me to show him step-by-step. I so know what chore he gets when he's older.

Strawberries are growing!!! I didn't think they would come to fruition until next year. So exciting!

Okay. A friend of mine called to see how I was doing and upon hearing I was in strep throat land for 16 more hours, came and picked-up Mort. OH.MY.GOD. I can really only hope that I am worthy of these wonderful people that I have been blessed with in my life.

I have never swooned over Mel Gibson. I liked Braveheart. Other than that, he's always been on the annoying side of annoying in my book. And his whole Catholic thing drives me nuts. Because I was baptised and raised in the Catholic Church. And I still know many people who are good Catholics, take comfort in the religion and yet do not agree with its practices. Mel Gibson, however, seems to consider himself so much a Catholic that he built his own Catholic Church and yet he is down with the divorce thing, down with the premarital sex thing and down with the child out of wedlock thing. Huh. And somehow, I think that if he wants to get remarried, he will have no problem having his marriage annulled, even with the seven children born within that marriage. Hypocrite. Had he not made such a big to-do about his religion, this wouldn't matter. Had he ever said he was Catholic but didn't agree with all it's teachings, than he had all his bases covered. Can you tell I've been quarantined within my bedroom for two days with no human interaction and more television than anyone should ever watch?

I haven't had strep throat since I was a youngster. I did not recall that it was so freaking painful. Swallowing was not an option. I dreaded every time it was about to occur. Good way to kick start a diet, I suppose, the whole lack of being unable to eat or drink because of  sheer pain. By the drugs are kicking in (and they have gotten fancy since back in the day of plain 'ol penicillin!) and today I am out of bed. My throat was so swollen you could see the swollen red lumps on the outside. I haven't been able to drink coffee because I can't swallow. But luckily the whole strep throat thing overrode any caffeine withdrawal.The doctor prescribed steroids to take down the swelling. I am still contagious until tomorrow, so I'm wiping down everything I touch and trying to keep a room between me and the rest of the family. Poor M has been working his normal 70 hour work week, plus being the 24/7 hands-on parent as I cannot get near Jay, plus working on a work-related but on his own time package, plus getting ready for upcoming gigs. What a time for me to be sick and contagious. Usually I can push through any illness, because you have to. But this contagious shite. Ugh. If either of them got this, I would feel beyond horrid. I guess I should stock up on echinacea.