Friends Don't Let Friends E-Mail Drunk

A friend of mine had the privilege of receiving this e-mail this evening from me, because it was that kind of day:

I'm sorry, first I meant to e-mail you and then to call you, and here it is almost 9 and I feel too stupid to talk to anyone because I fell asleep with the one who really isn't a baby anymore but we're gonna keep calling her that until she is 30, and I just woke up and my brain is fried but it is too early to go back to bed. Now Larry is trying to talk to me about something intelligent and I swear I'm going to lose it, because I know it's something complicated and I don't want to think about anything complicated right now.



Where was I? Oh, yes, sorry. My whole life is like that first paragraph right now and I have no idea why, as we don't even have a baby anymore and I'm not pregnant; but Lord knows, I am drowning in a sea of crap and no one listens to me anymore and what is the point anyway?



I keep getting off track, don't I?



So, getting together next Saturday! Is it too late? I guess I hesitated to commit because your plans would cost us real money and what if someone threw up the night before and I had to stay home and wash 16,000 sets of bed linens, because that is what I always have to do whenever anyone throws up around here, which is way too often, and do you even remember throwing up more than once or twice in your entire childhood? I don't. So why is it like a flippin' hobby with my kids, huh?



Now Larry is mad at me because I just said that I don't care what he is talking about and I don't want to build our long-awaited summer vacation around his niece's wedding in Portland, Maine, which she had the gall to schedule on Labor Day weekend, because doesn't that make it really easy to travel up and down the East Coast? Us and every single other human being who owns a car east of the Mississippi?



So, I was going to say I'll just skip the whole thing, but the more I type, the more I realize that I really need to get out of the house, and screw the fact that Larry needs to spend that Saturday making our backyard into even more of a pit than it actually is, when I know he won't even bother moving the woodpile away from the side of the house, even though it is filled with ants (and termites, too, probably), which are infiltrating our house in record numbers...



Anyway, is this invite still open? If not, I certainly understand. Or maybe we can just meet at IKEA instead, where I need to pick up sheets, because, even though we have a zillion pieces of bed linens, no one ever has both a top sheet and a bottom sheet at the same time to make their beds with. I know other places sell sheets, but IKEA has the cheapest ones, and it's a good excuse to go buy some more frozen meatballs, since that is absolutely the only thing I cook that makes them all happy (except the vegetarian of course). Frozen meatballs, heated up in the oven and covered with sauce from a can, are apparently the nectar and ambrosia of the gods...I don't know why I ever even try to cook anything else.

So, IKEA, Saturday, you and me...right? Don't bring your kids, or I'll pretend not to know you. Thanks.


Ever have a day like that?

Status Report Updates

News Flash: Larry returned the chair to IKEA this evening. I convinced him that he deserves a better recliner than the one we foolishly brought home. Those of you readers who are hitched know that this whole episode has cost me an untold number of marriage points. Fun note: the woman at the returns desk wanted to charge him 20 percent because the item wasn't in the packaging. He pointed out that the receipt says only to return item with original packaging and then dumped a pile of mangled cardboard and plastic wrap on her desk. A supervisor got involved. Larry won. Life is sweet.

Mice Caught: Zero. And they're well-fed.

Health Report: Poor. I was up with my own croup in the middle of the night. Now I am coughing like a TB patient. In fact, Larry may be bargaining on my imminent demise and simply hiding the chair in the back of his car until such time as he can bring it back in here unimpeded.

Friendships: Shaky. One friend tried to steal my daughter's babysitting services for tomorrow night, the night that Larry and I have been invited out to our first grown-up party in years. And don't tell me she doesn't mean anything sneaky, because she knows she's invited to the same party as us. Another friend is mad that I won't speak to her on the phone due to my painfully swollen vocal cords (although I can do a great Lauren Bacall imitation right now). Apparently, she has something really interesting to share; nevertheless, she refuses to e-mail me. She's retro that way.

On the up side, a third friend gave me some Christmas fudge today. It was delicious. That's right, it's all gone. Considering that I have to return to Weight Watcher's in less than 2 weeks, there's no point in saving it, now is there?

Rachel Mischief Status: Moderate. Larry took the younger 4 kids to a small aviation museum yesterday, where there was some sort of flight simulator that they could try. Rachel was the only one who managed to "fly" the plane, beating out both her older brothers and her father. We are once again making sure to hide our car keys.

Guest Readiness: Near zero. Nothing that a coat of paint in the living room, curtains (same room), a nice piece of art over the couch, and some glassware that actually matches couldn't solve, though. Larry has his work cut out for him. Imagine - if he were single, he'd be idling away his weekend skiing or some such nonsense. Good thing he has a wife to keep him busy.

Interior Decorating Progress: 2 steps forward, one step back. I now have 2 chairs that I like in the den (oh, beloved flowered Ektorp, how I've yearned for thee!), but I need to spend tomorrow moving them to all possible corners to see where they look best. Because I have nothing better to do. Frankly, I'm just so excited to finally have a den, that I cannot help obsessing like this. Larry does not understand.

Good-night, fellow bloggers! Be good, for goodness sake!

We Can Run, But We Can't Hide

So, people who have been following this blog know that in our old house (the one 2 doors down from here), we tended to have a little mouse problem (like, um, the Israelis have a little Palestinian problem). And the woman who owned this house never got mice. That fact alone made it worth the extra 110,000 dollars to buy it, in my opinion.

Maybe it's us - maybe we are just rodent-attracting folks. All I know is I'm late posting tonight because I've been cleaning mouse poop out of silverware drawers and cabinets and trying not to think about the fact that we used silverware from those drawers today and, um, put them in our mouths, as a matter of fact......excuse me a moment while I go throw up.

Okay, let's change the subject, shall we? I think that would be a healthy idea. Larry took me to IKEA today. I didn't feel well enough to go (this cold seems to have a hankering to turn into pneumonia), but if I had refused a trip to IKEA on terms of ill health, Larry would surely have called 911 in a panic. So I went. We ended up bringing home 2 chairs for our unfurnished den - the beautiful Ektorp armchair with the flowery slipcovers that I had been lusting after for months (and at 40 percent off, as is!) and the depressing dark navy mini-recliner that Larry chose. Because he likes ugly furniture, apparently.

May I add that our den is painted dark grey (sets off the white brick fireplace and wood trim very nicely)? Dark, as in it needs bright furniture to keep it from feeling like the inside of a mausoleum?

So, now that we have the chairs home, it is obvious to anyone who isn't color-blind (or male) that Larry's chair doesn't belong in that room. Or any room, really. I'm trying to think how to break this to him gently. Not being pregnant, I can't use the hormonal-craziness method of getting my way. (Although, maybe menopause qualifies? Am I the only person who still remembers Edith Bunker having a fit because the suitcases were black?) Anna suggests that I just take it back to IKEA on my own, and when Larry asks, I can say, "Chair? What chair?" (I'd like to point out that Anna and I are actually bonding a little over our shared dislike of this piece of furniture.) Another option I've considered is to leave a note on it tonight that says, "The chair goes....or I go."

I don't know if I should risk that last one. He might call my bluff.

Isn't the woman supposed to choose the decor, anyway? I mean, Larry has the back deck and the front and back yards to mess with. I happen to think this is yet another instance where traditional gender roles are important. Perhaps our society's wholesale abandonment of them in the 70's precipitated this whole 50-percent divorce rate thing. I can just picture it: men and women, all over the country, calling their lawyers over irreconcilable interior decorating differences.

Or maybe I'm just rationalizing my determination to get rid of this chair. This dark, depressing, makes-Larry-look-like-his-Dad-when-he's-sitting-in-it chair.....

Caught Napping

Got my nap. Anna tried to ruin it by coming in at the beginning and demanding to know why she wasn't being allowed to go somewhere just because she was 3 weeks behind in schoolwork; so I explained to her how, if you want someone to grant you a favor, it's a bad idea to ask for the favor during that person's much-coveted nap time. She wasn't up to grasping this level of subtlety, so I had to resort to saying, "Get out of my room right now. " And she did. And my nap was great.

It's pathetic, but that was the highlight of my day yesterday. And today's highlight was my trip to IKEA. I meet a friend there a couple of times a year and we catch up on things and walk around and look at and discuss just about every single item in the store. Spending 4 hours like that is my husband's idea of a nightmare. Which is why I go with my friend instead.

I finally found a prepaid cellphone company that isn't going to make me buy a zillion minutes to get the cheap rate. Meaning we can keep our cellphone bills down to 400 dollars a year. That's less than 35 dollars a month for 4 cellphones, for the math-impaired out there. And there's no way a teenager can run the bill higher - when those minutes are gone, they're gone! We just have to keep the phones out of Rachel's grasp. There is always the chance she'll have a relapse and start flushing them again.

I've spent the last 10 days or so wondering why the boys' room still smells like barf. Today I finally got around to checking under the bed in there and...well, I guess Swiffering vomit isn't as effective as I thought. So I spritzed the whole area with Windex (only cleaning agent I could find) and wiped it all down (by hand this time) and then I went over the entire area with Lysol wipes. And it still smells in there.

Theo is sitting in the living room giggling (if a teenage boy can giggle, that is) over the ballpoint pen that Anna snapped in half in a fit of pique this evening. Girls are so cute, aren't they? Theo is planning to bring it in to chess club as exhibit A of "Why you may not want to date my sister..."