When bad things happen to good apples

Oh, and while I'm still in the playing hookie from school mind set, I just have to share the pinnacle of my culinary achievements. This is what happens when impatient mom slops a little more water in the carmels to make them melt faster so we can all get on to the next fun seasonal event. Look at me, I'm Queen of the Kitchen.

I ran away from my own office today

I ran away from my office today, boy did I need to. A mom and daughter came in at 10:30 (wrong day, they were supposed to be here Tuesday). Daughter is a newly minted professional person (she went back to professional school later in life) and while she was freshly divorced, in school and not making ends meet, she intercepted credit card offers in her mom's mail and opened accounts without permission, bad bad bad scene. Especially since, well, that’s criminal behavior and that kind of behavior could get daughter’s newly minted professional license yanked in a hot second should her mom choose to press it. And things between them started to get so tense, they have not reached a point where they can talk about what happened without tears and recrimination, there is so much anger and guilt spilling out all over my desk, respectively: daughter guilt, mom anger, so I faked a hearing at 11:00 (since they were here on the wrong day anyway) and fled.
I fled my own office to get away from angry sad people who love each other but are wrecked and ruined over what has happened between them. But the help I could offer, the mom didn't want to take, and I am not a counselor/listener/it's going to be all right personality, so I fled. I flew away from them, I cannot fix it for them, I think the mom thought I could wave a wand, and maybe attorney Samantha Stevens could wave that wand or crinkle her nose, me, not so much.

So on my mental health break fleeing from the scene of sadness, I picked up some kid costume things at a here just for the month gone November 1 Halloween store, some new casual black shoes because I was in Fred Meyer (I know, now Smith's, but it took me so long to get used to calling it Fred Meyer). But the Fred Meyer has shoes and it is close to my office and I will never make it to the mall, I only just kid myself that it will ever happen so, there it is, I'm into convenience not fashion don't you know and you that know me IRL as the kids say, know. I filled my tank and ran the van through the car wash because I must have driven through a couple of swarms of bugs between here and Kaysville the past few trips to visit the old folks. I'm loving the new Legacy Parkway even though I don’t drive on it, but others are and that leaves I-15 all open and maneuverable, just like I like it. So I feel SO MUCH better now and even better after I do a little blogging during work hours, ooh, look at me, I’m wasting time, ooh.
I even called my mom while I was running those errands and said, hey, although you think I'm spinning out of control a lot, it could be worse, I could be running up debt on your accounts without your knowledge or consent, so think about that, see, not such a disappointment although my freezer is packed to the gills with sacks and sacks and sack of Bertolli meals. But show me a working mom out there who doesn’t need a few, or many, meal time crutches crammed away in the freezer, huh? Am I right?

It's just that I have been so busy at work, which is a good thing. Mo' money to hack away at the Nora adoption debt mountain caused by the lack of (a) cash flow, caused by my lack of (b) foresight. For a few months before and well over a year after bringing Nora home, I was not creating a big old pile of steaming debt that is not related to Nora specifically, but caused by the Bankruptcy Reform Act for which I didn't adequately or even at all predict the whammy it was going to put on my income at just the same time I was bringing home No. 4 mouth to feed. But with the economy in a tail spin, I haven't slowed down for a few weeks and mom is coming in again to watch the kids after school so I can work late to try to catch up on things. I'm having bad interrupted sleep and really strange stress dreams that I remember because I'm waking up so much which is a sure sign that I’m under a lot of pressure, that and the bad impatient parenting, that’s a pretty sure sign too.

And maybe it's here, while I’m really feeling the strain of being the sole provider, that I'll air my pet peeve (chuckle, like I have just the one). When a member of a two parent household says to me, "I don't know how you do it, when Jack or Jill Sprat is out of town for business, and it's just me and the kids; it just makes me spaz out." Well Mrs. and/or Mr. Sprat, try that scenario without the absent Sprat's paycheck hitting the automatic deposit into your checking account on a bi-weekly basis and THEN we can talk, you know? But I don't say anything; I graciously accept the compliment, keep my lips zipped and smile. Hey, what can I say anyway? I asked for this, I sure did, so don't let me hear myself complaining now that I got what I asked for, but, seriously, sometimes I don't know how I do it.

Pretty much perfection

A wise friend, who I'm sure is not aware of my blog and is too busy for it anyway, peeled off a little piece of advice at our last bookclub meeting that I gamely hosted at my house a couple of weeks ago (one-half hour after I emptied the house of too many 8-year-old Hannah Montaniacs from Mimi's b-day party) which my suave and elegant friends gamely attended and graciously looked past, over and around the dust bunnies big enough to have reserved parking spaces in the hall and the full size cut-out of the aforementioned secret pop star.

I was at my end of the table lamenting work load and loads of laundry and the general penumbra of guilt that comes part and parcel with more than full-time work, full-time house keeping and full-time single parenting (the genuinely single kind without the benefit of monthly support payments, although many may disagree with my definition of genuine because I don't have to deal with the emotional cost of a reviled ex-spouse that may or may not be forthcoming with said support payments and may or may not be poisoning my childrens' minds). My friend, who is a judge and a good parent, very credible and, as I already mentioned, wise) said to me, very directly, well, yeah, there's all that, and there will always be all that, and sometimes more of that, but just concentrate on making one memory a month and call it good.

Well, yesterday, it was good, very, very good, pretty much perfection, and I'm here to wrap it in waxed paper, tie it with string, and call it good.

Another wise mother of my acquaintance, who seems to have come instinctively loaded with the making memories strategy in her parenting quiver, generously shared her inside scoop (get it?) on the top secret pumpkin patch location (yeah, top secret, about 2 miles from where I grew up, who knew? I thought pumpkins came from the front of Albertsons and that was that, well they get to the front of Albertsons from this place). Equipped with empty bladders and warm jackets (you never know what kind of facilities, or lack thereof, one may encounter), we headed North yesterday on a morning that just screams for a cliche: picture perfect. Good heck, mid-October in our great state known world wide for what? oh yeah, snow, and it was dry, warm and so sunny, so really? other than what that damn electoral college does to my vote, what is so wrong with this place? Rhetorical, purely rhetorical, no need to answer.



Last one in the pumpkin patch is a rotten squash.



Wait, we don't need no stinkin' coats, where do you think this is? Utah?

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(Don't know how I just stranded that line of magic code, can't seem to fix it either, oh well)

Come on sis (they call each other sis, is that too much? I love it) let's ditch the little losers, they're slowing down our pumpkin hunting mojo.



Come on sis, let's take the high road and we'll be in Scotland afore ye.



Who you calling loser? Look at us Ma! Top of the World, um, top of the hay bale maze!



So many pumpkins, so litte time. Come on, you knew I had to say it, they're standing in the middle of a big honking pumpkin patch, how could I not say it?




Ellie, cut your hair, we don't get paid when you wear a logo sweatshirt if the logo isn't visible. Go Utes anyways. And that is about the most I can rev up for my alma mater, I so don't get the wearing 'o the red, unless the Utes play the Ys, then, yeah, GO UTES, I can spend a few more capital letters for that.



We learned in school that some eggs have a long incubation period, wait, wrong science unit.



Sis, come look, I found the perfect one, oh, crud, shouldn't have blinked, look sis, I found the other perfect one!



Mom, if I don't get me some help with this cart, your Social Security payments won't be able to even touch my therapy bills.



YuYu, we drove all the way to Farmington for pumpkins, come on, go big or go home, or well, yeah, we'll go home too, but come on little gal, load up, we're in the middle of a big honking pumpkin patch.



Total cheesecake, but did you notice, matching themed $4 t-shirts? I was in it to win it yesterday, they'll remember the matching t-shirts for sure.



Okay, cart is full, time to bring it on home, many hands make light work.



Many hands also make cart crooked.



Okay you amateurs, let the big sis have at it, I'll show you how it's done, although this is my first time in a pumpkin patch too because until today, Mom thought pumpkins came from the front of Albertsons. I feel so cheated, hope Mom's Social Security payments will be enough to cover all the therapy.



Okay, finally, the last 20 yards to the car, Mimi finally pitches in to help. I don't call her the princess of everything for no good reason.



Sorry girls, all sales are final, too late to take any back. Just start lifting, it's only 80 pounds of pumpkins. Put your backs into it, tote those bales.



No really, my hands are full with the camera, just keep lifting, it will be done before you know it, really, trust me, I'm your mother, would I lie to you? oh yeah, well I really thought that pumpkins came from the front of Albertsons.



And despite Mimi's pained expression, a good time was had by all and a good memory was stored in the childhood memory banks, I'm pretty damn sure. One month down, infinity to go.

Irrefutable Logic

 

Can't really argue with it, just find it kind of odd and, truthfully, a little disturbing,coming from a second grader, but that's my kid, just kind of odd and disturbing and totally gorgeous.

Look who's 8 (and totally gorgeous)

 
 
 













The fair Mimi Catbird turned eight yesterday and she is a heart swellingly beautiful child, am I wrong? Oh good heck, look at this kid, she is a delight to see and even more delightful to know and love. Happy Burtday my lovely girl, my Hannah-mad darling, my pixie, my #2 daughter even though she is chronologically my #3 daughter but I brought her home after Ellie so I think of her as DD#2. What a tiny, happy baby was placed in my arms a little more than seven years ago and look at the beauty, look. at. the. beauty. These milestone days make me remember to be grateful, and that I am, I am. Oscar Hammerstein said it for me, I must have done something good.

Oh and the other three aren't too shabby either.