a nicer definition of the f-word

I'm in the dining room on my laptop right now, having just cleaned up a giant pile of crap that my giant pile of yellow lab puppy dropped off for me a few feet away while I was entering some bills into my bookkeeping software for the rental units. This is a conversation I just had with my six year old daughter when the kiddie table I had picked up at a yard sale a few months ago fell apart while she was leaning on it. She was in the sunroom watching Cinderella and trying to put the top back on the table so she and her sister could eat their dinner out there (it IS Mardi Gras after all and CAB is making a mean red beans and rice).

Mommy, this table is just fuckin'!

The table is what Kate?

It's fuckin. It's just fuckin'!

Did you say this table is just fuckin'?

Yeah, it just keeps falling apart! It's just so stupid and fuckin'.

Hmmm. OK. I'll try and fix it. And you? Try not to say fuckin' ok?

OK Mom. Can I say damn?

Not at school.

Locked Out

This morning I walked with my daughters and dog to deliver my dog's shot records so we could get the secret code for the gate at the dog park in my neighborhood. We've been locked out, waiting for two months for thevery busy dogpark gatekeeper lady to mail us the secret code that unlocks the gate, and just found out the very busy dogpark gatekeeper lady didn't have all of our paperwork and needed this last piece of paper in hand before she could grant us holy ground access.

This might have been a simple 20 second transmittal, had she a fax machine or an email address or any piece of current technology that might have allowed me to transfer the information without physically appearing before her, but she had no such equipment. She suggested I mail it, but she said also said the application I'd mailed two months before had "just arrived" this week, so I had little faith in the postage stamp, or her in-box which was the more likely detainer (I'm looking at mine now, over there, behind my laptop. Full. Sitting. Sitting.). So we decided it would be best for me to drop it off so she could give me the code and the dog park tags in person.

We drove by many times without the sheet in hand, and then we had the sheet in hand many other times when we took the wrong way home. And finally, this perfect sunny, 23 degree Sunday morning arrived and we decided a bike-ride-slash-dog-walk concluding in dog park play was in order. So we suited up in several layers--mittens, hats, helmets, scarves, "do we have to wear the heavy coats, mom"--and pulled out the tiny, training wheeled bikes from the shed ("There's our plastic bowling ball and pins, mom!"), attached the dog to his leash and set off on our 2 mile journey to the very busy dogpark gatekeeper lady's house.

All went fine on the trip there, with only the occasional whine or tipped bike. They were so suited up that the falls were merely padded rolls with bike wheels spinning in the air for several seconds before they were able to weeble themselves upright again. And finally, we arrived at the very busy dogpark gatekeeper lady's house.

She came to the door with her dog, Mischa, who was literally flipping, trying to squeeze past us all in order to reach my dog, Cash who was tethered to her lower porch rail. I handed very busy dogpark gatekeeper lady the paperwork, introduced my children, and awaited further instructions regarding the code.

Now the VBDPGKL likes to chat. When I'd asked her in a past phone call for the quickest way to clear up this red tape that was keeping us from dogpark play (we'd paid our dues in December, and the clock was ticking), she managed to keep me on the phone for approximately 17 minutes to answer. So I was a little worried when she stepped out onto the porch and tucked her dog behind the partly closed door so she could stand upright instead of taking that stance we large dog owners refer to as "holding the collar at knee level to keep my giant maniac of a puppy off of your head." And with Mischa properly tucked behind the barely open door, very busy dogpark gatekeeper lady began to settle into small talk position, arms crossed in the chilly air, one foot forward. Now, I had three small beings to deliver to a dog park today and none of the three would put up with a long winded discussion about the weather. Just give me the code. Give me the code.

Suddenly Mischa took one giant leap at the inside of the front door. It seemed more as if a giant being had tossed Mischa AT the front door, but it was confirmed immediately that Mischa was the only being inside at the time. And the door was locked.

Her husband had just left for a jog in the park, and she had left something cooking on her stove, she told me in a panic. I glanced up at her beautiful home. I considered offering to help her break in (as I had in my own house once or twice before by way of fire escape and old bathroom windows). But I thought better of it. We might still be on dog park probation, and if she was contemplating whether we were appropriate dog park material, we might not want to mention our breaking and entering expertise just yet. I handed her my cell phone and suggested she call someone. Maybe her husband had his phone with him in the park? Maybe she had a neighbor with an extra key? Not so lucky. Nope. What's with the absence of technology in this house?

Oh well. We took the long way home after very busy dogpark gatekeeper lady chased down a neighbor on the sidewalk who would drive her through the park looking for her husband (who might have had a key). It was apparent we were not going to get into the dog park today.

I wonder if she got into her house. Maybe I'll mail a note to a locksmith for her.

Saturday Morning

Awoken at 8AM by this from the bathroom down the hall:

MOM!! MOMMMMEEEEE!!! Abby peepeed on the floor in here and she's jumping in it like rain puddles!


My world...Welcome.

Plop, plop, fizz, fizz. Tums and vodka?

I'm tired. Just home from work. It's 7:30 and CAB (the fabulous Cook And Bartender I married a few years ago) picked up dinner from El Maguey tonight. I didn't have lunch except the espresso I got from the bookstore on my way home at 7.

I've promised myself and my writer's group to blog at least ten minutes each day (as writers we must write. right?) but I'm pretty sure I can't do it for ten today. My stomach is burning like there is a little pointy star inside. And not a flat one, but one of those round ball stars like you'd hang on a Christmas tree. And it feels like the star has burst through my stomach in several spots and it is shooting burning hot rays through toward my neck and my belly button and my back and my hips and my eyes. It hurts to breathe at the moment too because my jeans are squishing this starbelly of mine and I'd like to unbutton them but I try to avoid looking like Homer on most days. CAB has diagnosed the starbelly as a result of combining no food since 8AM with three shots of espresso at 7PM with chip-scoops of what appeared to be sloppy joes mixed with cheese from the Mexican restaurant, with vodka, cranberry juice and lime. He may be on to something.

I'm going to look for more Tums.

Ground Beef and Guilt Trips

Hell of a week so far. Long days and mom guilt nights. I'm certain there's a field trip I've forgotten to pack a lunch for, or a daisy scout troop I've neglected to send in a healthy, school policy mandated pre-packaged store-bought snack for this week. I've worked too many hours and come home late and taken business calls in the middle of spaghetti and homemade meatballs one too many times in the past four days.

My husband cooks and tends a mean bar in my kitchen, though. Thank god one of us read that part of the parent handbook that said meals should be provided on a regular basis. Don't get me wrong. If he didn't feed them, I would. But we'd just eat a little more like college students than we do now. And frankly, they seem to like boiled eggs, sliced strawberries and toast for dinner now and then when daddy's at a bike race and mommy cooks dinner. They like pancakes. And oatmeal. Who doesn't? I would honestly eat a baked potato with broccoli and ranch dressing every night of the week if I lived alone. Happily.

It's not that I don't like cooking, or even that I can't. It's just that I hate when the kitchen gets all messed up so I don't move out of my comfort zone (microwave baked potato), or use any more than two pans for any meal before stopping to wash up.

I was at Schnucks Wednesdsay night to pick up some ground sirloin my husband, the good cook and bartender, requested for his meatballs. And when they were out of the meat on the one tray that said "ground sirloin" I stood there frozen and slightly panicked, looking around for help.

Now, I have no business even approaching a meat counter on any other day. I see no reason to eat red meat unless it is filet bernaise from Sidney Street. I'm not sure what to even SAY to a real live butcher, except thank you (if he hands you a cold hot dog and you're five, and you're perched in the front seat of the cart at Kash n Karry in St. Petersburg, Florida).

Um, do you guys have any more of that back there? i finally asked the tall black guy behind the counter who had just returned from flirting with the fish lady at the next counter down from his. She was still saying something like mmnnnnnnhhhhhmmmm with her eyebrows raised high and her eyes on a tiger prawn, as he casually strolled over and stood behind his meat.

Uhhhh, naw. We don't had no more a that. The machine thing is broken.

So i asked him which one of the other two identical meats on either side of the empty tray was closest to ground sirloin.

Uhhhh, you want this one. It's 86.

I have no idea what that means, I said, mostly defeated by this venture. In the restaurants I'd worked at in college it meant we were out of crab legs.

What, you don't cook? he asked me. It's 86 percent lean. The other is only 79, so you want this one. It's closest to that one.

And he began to scoop the 86 percent lean brownish goo into a little paper tray, and he wrapped it with paper and taped it up.

Here you go, he said.

And I said, But I work--really really hard. Pathetic that time.

And he said, Somebody got to.

And I think I heard the fish lady say mmmnnnhhhhnnnn again.

Cold feet and first blogs.

There are not many things less romantic than having one's leg petted by another person's sweaty toes. They are coldish and dampish and a little bit sharp. For the first few minutes after he crawled into bed next to me, my husband swept his chilly, scratchy-nailed feet mindlessly up and down my right leg as he lay there chatting about an upcoming bike race while he settled into his pillow and warmed up his half of the bed. When I moved my leg he followed, scratching, smearing. Then he noticed the blog set-up screen I was staring at, and inserted a suggestion or two for blog names: Stuck in the Middle--a reference to my endless complaints about this land-locked city being smack-dab in the center of the country with no coast or mountain in site, and Hasapasakilu--the name I attended invitation-only art gallery openings under when I was in college and got the old apartment dweller's mail. Hasapasa had the coolest friends.

Temporary Digs just seems to fit. I can't stop thinking I should be someplace else. He's stopped with the toes thing, and I think he's sleeping. So I'm not quite as inclined to move out at the moment. But the coast still looks good from here.