Archives for June 2007

…this is the first time in my life I’ve ever been able to successfully wink my right eye.

Then again, it’s completely glued and swollen shut so winking my left eye has lost its charm.

Things are strange around here.

In ocular health news… it still kills! I’m giving the antibiotics a couple of days before going back to my neighbor’s house for things which I don’t know what they are. (If you comment on my funky eyebrows, I will FIND you.)

This morning I came down and found Belle and Sinead hanging out in the hallway. I’m so glad to have creative outlets like this. I’m also glad that besides having no god, Polly’s world also contains no metal parts.

I paid less than $3 for gas for the first time in forever… and was so excited about it that I took a picture.

Shaq has a new reality show where his image consultant has him helping obese kids lose weight. It’s getting good reviews and the premise seems promising. Here are a few quotes from the first episode that make me think it will be the best, most sensitive insightful reality show about children EV-ER:

“Of course they’re gonna tell me the truth. I’m a superstar.”

“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything this pathetic in my entire life. It disgusts me.”

“We’re gonna have to turn up the heat on these kids.” Then he smashes a bottle… because he CARES.

My awesome new biologist neighbor has been teaching me all sorts of interesting things about gardening, healthy living and home décor. She took me on a tour of my backyard introducing me to all my botanical friends, makes the most amazing organical foods and I plan on stealing several of her decorating ideas for my house, which has an identical floor plan to hers.

She is kind, listens to Laylee talk for hours and I recently found out that she practices homeopathic medicine as a hobby. I’ve always loved the word “homeopath” because in my world that’s how you would make a contraction of the words “homicidal” and “psychopath.”

I was coming home from the doctor the other day where I’d gone for help clearing up my randomly swollen eye and my neighbor told me to come over so we could come up with a natural remedy.

I tried the antibiotic drops for one day and found no change. So the next day I walked next door to Dr. Nat for some advice. She looked up my symptoms in a big fat book, packaged up some remedies and materials in a ziplock, wrote down instructions and sent me home with the strict advice not to use any chamomile, tobacco, alcohol, or mint while doing the treatment, not even toothpaste. (No whiskey-flavored Colgate. Check.) I was also not to touch the herbs with my hands or with metal utensils.

I followed all her instructions exactly and the sty was gone in less than 24 hours so I broke down, pulled out Old Bessy and whipped up some minty fresh breath. When I woke up this morning the sty was back but in the OTHER eye! I am being smitten by the Homeopathic Gods Against Oral Hygeine. Have you ever heard of the HGAOH? They’re big players in the Tarter Wars. They’re for it.

So now I’m left to choose whether to continue to look like a cyborg or knock Dan out with my halitosis.

Mine screams “THERE ARE CHILDREN HERE AND THERE’S NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT PUNK!”

I claim the land. They reclaim it. I install patio lights (or Dan installs them but the blog’s about me and they were my idea so I’ll say I install them) and the kids sprinkle tiny sand mounds on the solar panels of each one.

Sometimes they run into the patio lights with their tractors and trikes until they lean over to one side.

One by one the rocks along our pathway are changing colors. I think they’re evolving to blend in with the surrounding plastic play equipment, buckets and general hookie-loo lying around.

This gnome makes me happy because it reminds me of Magoo, just not quite as fast or loud. Sometimes when I’m counting off to make sure all 2 of my children are accounted for, my tally gets messed up by his presence amidst the ivy.

The other day I was sitting on the lawn when Laylee came up behind me and said, “Mom look!” I made the mistake of looking. I turned my head to find her holding a severed rotting bird head by the beak just inches from my face.

I screamed. She laughed. Magoo became fascinated with the rest of the birdy’s remainders and all of its buggy friends.

In most yards, a dead rotting bird head would be considered a bad thing. Around here, it’s a barrel of maggoty good times.

Sometimes I’m glad that my sister and good friend are willing to drive for eleventy billion hours to come visit me this whole week.

Sometimes I’m glad to have grownup ladies with me everywhere I go for a few days. It allows me some wiggle room on the whole “mature responsible mom” thing. These grownups sometimes wash my dishes, feed my kids and play games with me. I’d like to hire a grownup to live here full time and take care of us all. Grownup ladies are definitely worth having around.

Sometimes I’m glad that I don’t always have 6 kids under 5 living in my house. I can handle it for a week but SHEESH if I had a couple of sets of triplets I’d be a goner.

Sometimes I’m glad that in our culture, we can use “quotes” to make any statement “true”. Take these pitas for example.

Sometimes I’m glad that the kids go to the zoo just to ride on plastic horses who’ve been shish-kabobbed and bedazzled but then see real horses from the car window on the way home.

Mostly I’m glad that although Magoo’s nocturnal eyesight* is freakishly good, he doesn’t know enough about the miracle of life to ask questions. Strange things are happening in Seattle between an armadillo and a small white monkey. What will that baby look like, I wonder?

*It really is amazingly good. I think he could see the animals better in the dark than the light of day. Don’t worry. I frequently cook with garlic, carry a can of Coors with me at all times, and all of my stakes are made of wood.