it's mother's day. i just bought my husband a hoe.

i just thought that sounded funny. that's all.

it started out as a nice day. we went to meadows farms and bought some english boxwood, a persian lilac bush, a striped rose bush, some spearmint and some cherry tomato plants.

we dropped them off and then went off to the Taylor School neighborhood fair. BC hopped in the moonbounce, made a tie-dyed shirt, and fished in a pretend fish pond. she won all sorts of little prizes from playing tumbleweed bowling and the lollipop tree game. it was so much fun.

we got home, ate lunch, and were all tired. i went to take a nap, leaving BC in the capable hands of BS. in the 10-15 minutes i was upstairs, trying to nap, BC took an entire jar of vaseline and smeared it on herself, the wall, her blanket, her bear, her baba, her clothes, the wood floor, etc.

no library videos for 2 weeks, no candy for two weeks. the amazing thing is that she really doesn't care. no matter what sort of discipline we attempt, she could care less. it is really frustrating.

that's all.

i have two older brothers, howie and larry. howie is the oldest, then larry, then me. when we were little, we had a cat named Dumb-Dumb (no, i am not making that up. it was short for Dartagnon, my parents always insisted.) we all loved cuddly Dumb-Dumb to pieces.

one day, though, we found out that larry was severely allergic to the cat. larry used to have terrible asthma attacks, and lo and behold – we had one of the main culprits living under our roof with us. so mom and dad decided we would have a family vote: who stays – larry or Dumb-Dumb?

howie and i both voted for Dumb-Dumb. that was when my mom said that we were no longer a democracy, and that she and dad got TWO votes a piece and that larry would stay. Dumb-Dumb went to live with our friends, where i think he lived happily ever after.

years later, when i was in high school and larry was in college, i remember struggling through some Trig homework (Barbie was right – math IS hard 😉 larry sat down and helped me understand what the hell was going on with Trig. and i remember looking at him, and in a random moment, i said, “larry, you know what? i'm really glad we kept you and not the cat. i don't think Dumb-Dumb understood Trig, do you?”

today is larry's 40th. he rocks. as kids, we loathed each other. as adults, we are actually very good friends. i don't know many people who are smarter, funnier, or just plain nicer.

so happy birthday, dude. in your honor, i have stuck my hand down the toilet. you see, your darling beloved niece decided to put a ton of toilet paper in the toilet, and guess who had to fish it out before the toilet barfed it all over the floor?

(i knew that image would make your day! ily!)

i love to write. i live to write. and i get a little upset when people give me boundaries regarding what i can and cannot write about.

that being said, i am feeling very sad. i think i wrote something that hurt someone's feelings. i didn't mean to, you know. “i started a joke” and all that assorted Bee Gees crap. it is ringing in my ears at the moment (and very little is less pleasant than having old Bee Gees stuck in your head, mind you.) i just wrote a little something that involves someone i care about. lo and behold, it is going to get published now. i should be thrilled. i thought i used gentle humor, but evidently, i've hurt someone.

i am confronted with two conflicting parts of my nature: the desire to write, unfettered, versus the desire to protect those about whom i care deeply. i need to err on the side of the latter. but it can be hard sometimes.

trixie is having a two thumb day ::sigh::

e-mailing with an old college friend who i adore. she has two kids under 10. she and her husband went to see laurie anderson. i thought, how cool is that? i asked her, d'ya think our kids will ever appreciate how cool we are in comparison to other parents? her response i think is appropriate for all parents to read and understand. (and lisa, if you are out there, i hope you aren't mad that i am quoting you verbatim.)

“We've decided that we really don't want our kids to know how cool we are until they're all grown up — because they will have this biological compulsion to rebel against us, if we're too cool, they'll just have to go that much farther to rebel. We're afraid if we're too cool, they'll end up liking country music, finding Jesus and joining the military. And that, my friend, would send me over the edge.”

tonight, we went out to dinner. a man seated near our table asked his waiter for his drink, “on the rocks.” BC heard this.

“mommy, why does that man want rocks in his drink?”

little miss literal is at it again…

despite the fact that i wrote to the direct marketing association months ago to ask that we are taken off their lists, we still receive plenty of junk mail. BS has a new strategy for coping with this. at first, he merely voided out the request forms and mailed them back to the offender using their own postage-paid envelope. now, before he mails them this, he asks BC to draw some of her artistry all over the form before he mails it back.

the ymca has offered me a free, one-month membership. i always wanted to try the Y, despite the fact that i am neither Y nor M nor C. yesterday, i achieved nirvana with 40 minutes on an elliptical stepper followed by a ton of weight machines. today, i figured i would try out the step class.

now some might call me, er, challenged. i've got rhythm, to be sure, but i am not exactly someone nureyev would call upon and say, “honey, wanna try out these steps?” the class is taught by the perfect-bodied 21 year old who starts off class with the excuse that she might not be all there today because she just finished her finals.

poor baby.

after about 20 minutes of stepping on my toes, i decided that perhaps i would be better off downstairs on the poky elliptical stepper after all. i liked that much better.

i just don't appreciate people cheering me on while i sweat. its a little too richard simmonsy for me.

not to mention the shitty '90s dance music. didn't like it then; don't like it now.

it all started last night, actually. BC, about whom i waxed so poetically and lovingly yesterday, would not go to bed. meanwhile, BS was trying to take one of his online graduate classes, complete with headphones on. (still he could hear her scream.) in solidarity, i decided that i would stay up with him once she went to sleep. we finally got to bed around 10:30ish.

BC decided to awaken, screaming like a banshee, at 2:57 a.m. i know this because i went downstairs to check on her. “what's wrong?” i asked her, fearing g-d-knows-what.

“my covers,” she whimpered. “pull up my covers.”

i think that by the way she was shrieking, she must have been having a terrible nightmare. but in my comatose state, i was not exactly able to grasp that, so i was somewhat annoyed that i had to walk all the way downstairs for THAT. when i calmed her, i went back upstairs. neither BS nor i could sleep. he ultimately went downstairs to work on the computer, then he came upstairs, then, deciding he could not sleep, took his pillow downstairs to sleep. (a good thing, too, because everytime i nearly dozed, he would shift and wake me up.)

so the sleep-deprived awoke this morning to some pretty vicious storms. of course, BC never recalled awaking during the night and actually had the balls to say, “well, mommy, someone woke ME up this morning.” there are times i actually *do* count to ten.

so then, more mishaps. some annoyance in the portfolio department, some annoyance because of something i had said yesterday, some annoyance with everything. not to mention that our quarterly pest control service was for today (nice of them to tell me this — YESTERDAY!), and i am drinking tea that was near where the gent sprayed. (he swore that drinking it would be safe. i hope i am not poisoning myself as i type.) and then, to top it all off, i went to put my clothes in the dryer and i heard this ka-THINK ka-THINK noise. and then a burning smell. under further examination, it appears that something is in the dryer vent. i moved the dryer and took a look. hmm. do i unscrew things and check the vent out? like the good little wifey i am, i called up BS and gave him three options:

1) i can tinker with it. probably a very, very bad idea.
2) he can check it out.
3) i can call a repair guy.

he has opted for #2. but i know he is really, really pissed.

some days, i wish i could just crawl under a rock. ::sigh::