Join Me in Snarkville

As of the typing of this, I’m sitting at a Recharge station in the Atlanta airport.  I’m sitting here because I took a bump off my flight across country in exchange for money.  (Cold Hard Cash!!  Mir would be proud, I think)

However, this is not a simple story of me going from having a seat on one flight to sitting on the next flight.  No, because this is me, it comes with a story.  Does anyone remember the “Perfect Storm”  where the forces of nature unite together and create a horrible storm and people die?  Well, no one dies in my story, but it about as many things that can go wrong as humanly possible. Read the rest of this entry »

Today was a day of travel for all of Snarkville. So, since I am beyond tired and about to scream if I don’t get 20 more minutes to get to the end of my audiobook — you get the notes (yes, the actual notes I took today to spark my blog post in the future).

1. When going to bed last night, I explained to Duke that we were getting up early to go to the airport and he needed to get dressed and not stall. So he tells me, “You have to turn the light on and say, ‘Good Morning, did you have a good sleep? We go to the airport now.’ Then I say, ‘Yes, I had a good sleep.’ and I get dressed.” Scripted yes, but worked like a charm. Thanks, Duke for planning that part of my day for me.
2. The streets are REALLY dark at night. (Profound much?)
3. How long does it take to print a bag tag and acknowledge my existance? Perhaps I’ve done this too much that I was asked by the line lady if I needed help because I was just standing there. Of course, I was standing there because I had already checked in and just wanted to hand them my bags filled with all the liquids I couldn’t carry on the plane.
4. Duke announced to first class on the plane that “I’m HERE.” Oh yes, that was fun.
5. My 4 year old son was better behaved than my “old enough to be my mother” fellow passenger on the other side of me. For the record, SIT STILL. You need not get everything out of your bag, hit me with it, elbow me fighting for the armrest (YOUR OTHER armrest), lean on me (in fact touching me in any way is out), and please don’t TOUCH my drink.
6. Why am I invisible when traveling with Duke. The flight crews don’t seem to notice him either — this is most noticeable when I need trash picked up, so I can grab something off the floor.
7. Do NOT stop my seasoned traveler son to tell him how to read his boarding pass to find his seat number. He KNOWS this and you stopping him was weird to him. (As was trying to tell him to sit back in his seat so he couldn’t look out the window.
8. My Bose headphones are a deadly weapon? WHAT? Yes, I was not allowed to put my headphone case in the pocket in front of me because ‘it is heavy and could hurt you if it came flying out.’ I also could not HOLD it, put it in my lap, or between me and Duke. However, I could keep on knitting with my pointy metal knitting needles. When was the last time you heard of anyone needing stitches from a random headphone case accident?
9. Walking down steep stairs with two bags and a Duke is HARD.
10. I don’t eat enough while traveling — got here and was HUNGRY. Ate an onion loaf — felt much better. Was it the food or the grease? Don’t answer, I don’t really care.
11. iPhone ticked me off for the first time ever — it interrupted my attempt to call Prince to keep beeping at me to accept texts from Prince. The problem was it wouldn’t let me hang up the phone until I’d accepted the text messages. That was SUPER annoying — Prince probably has a voicemail saying things like “Why won’t this thing hang up already….URGH.”

Don’t you wish you got to travel with me? I should warn you, I make you haul your own bag and don’t put up with poor in plane behavior.

I want desperately to tell you that day one as a stay/work-at-home mommy was awesome and amazing and the best thing ever.  I want to tell you that my fears have been calmed because I can totally do this and my house has never been cleaner, the child never better behaved, and I’ve never been happier.  Alas, I’d be lying — but in summary it was a good day. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday I plucked my poor son out of his school.  We stormed out of the door declaring that the fence gate would not hit us on the way out in our bottoms.  Alas, this storming may have looked a lot more like sniffling and cupcake eating — but it was storming nonetheless. Read the rest of this entry »

Today, I’m flooded with all sorts of emotions.  Today is the beginning and ending and I can’t help but feel like both the rug has been pulled out from beneath me and excited about the new horizon I’m facing.  But before I get into all of that fun a flash forward to Duke the teenager:

I had some errands to do after school today.  The first was to the office supply place in which I denied my child an “Easy Button” (hateful I know).  The next was to pick up Prince’s winnings at the bowling alley for the season.  At the stop, Duke really wanted to bowl, but alas, only the big kids were bowling and I couldn’t let him play around.  So, after I grabbed the money and made a run for the door — I hear Duke saying LOUDLY, “I want to go bowling.” (Me: “Not tonight, honey, I can’t let you.”) Him: “You never let me do anything.”

Get used to it, Buddy, I think your teen years are going to be hard on all of us.

especially when you don’t fall asleep until 2am.  URGH, how I hate that.

Yes, I tried to go to sleep earlier — In fact, I was blurry with sleep from 10pm forward.  I could not push mysef over into the world of sleep.  And I blame this bird. Read the rest of this entry »

Of all the things I feel I must share, not a single one of them is worthy of its own post.  So, you get the joys of yet another totally random post filled with the bits of our lives that amuse me. Read the rest of this entry »

Did anyone see it?  Good glad to know you all missed it.  It seems that if you don’t renew your domain name, your site goes dead, who knew?  Actually, I knew it was coming due, but where I bought the domain name from sends me no fewer 1BILLION e-mails regarding the subject starting about 3 months ago and I became immune to their annoyances.  Thus, I waited until the day I expired…opps.  But I’m back and no harm, no foul, right?  Good. Read the rest of this entry »

Dear Snarkville Cats,

I realize that you outnumber the humans in this house, but we need to sit down and get some rules that shall be followed from this point forward.  Failure to follow my simple rules will result in the removable of all kibble and perhaps your fur coated body from my presence instantly.  Remember that despite what your feline brain tells you, you indeed live here at my whim and I do not exist to merely serve you.

1.  There is NO appropriate time for you to lay across my neck.  No, not even then. Or then.  In fact, if I’m horizontal, you are absolutely NOT to lay across my neck and PURR loudly.
2. My toes, under my blankets, are attached to me and are not in fact devious mice like creatures that must be hunted and pounced on at anytime, most especially at 3am.
3. When I have a laptop in my lap, this is NOT the time to decide I’m lonely and need your company.  I do not wish to have you standing on my lap between me and my laptop.  In addition, when you do find the appropriate times to come to my lap, kindly take a seat and do not stand there with 14 billion times your body weight pushing down on all four of your paws at once.
4. If I put you out of my lap, this is not a game in which I’m asking you to keep coming back.  I put you on the floor for a reason (most likely to grab my laptop again) and I don’t want you to return just yet.
5. Feeding time in at 10pm at night.  Not at 3, 4, or even 5am.  No, I’m not getting out of bed because you are pawing at me for an hour in the early am.  If another cat in this house ate your food, learn from it and eat when the food is put down.
6. If my hands are outside of my blanket, this is not an invitation for me to pet you.  No, not even if you are kind enough to push, forcefully, your head under my hand.  If I am asleep, I do not wish to be woken up to your attempts to STEAL petting from me while I sleep.
7. Speaking of sleeping, when I’m on my stomach, my lower back is NOT a bathing location.  EVER.  You are not to crawl up and sit/lay/lounge in the small of my back and bathe LOUDLY.
8. You are also not to grump when I roll over to get you out of the small of my back.
9. You are NOT to puke on my bed.  ’nuff said.
10. Duke wants to play with you and he has learned to be gentle.  Please forgive him past tail pulling and get over it already.  The looks of “when is this thing going away” don’t work on me and I will be happy to hold you down for some 4 year old to pet you.
11. I know your schedules during the day is tough — what with the sleeping, puking and shedding thing needed to be done.  Please do us all a favor and pick up after yourself.  After you move my shoes around because you MUST put your face in them, could you put them back where you found them.  After you play for hours with some random lego piece/marble/Duke toy, please return it to his room where he can step on it and not me.  I’d be happier if you’d clean up the puke and the hair bunnies — but alas, I know when I’m asking for the moon.

Finally, this is *MY*  house and I let you live here.  Should you wish to continue to enjoy my good graces, you need to follow my rules to the letter.  I shall post them for your review at each of the litter boxes, as I know you’d prefer to have something to read as opposed to that pesky covering thing.  (Speaking of which, whichever one of you spends more than 4 minutes covering your work, please use the downstairs box so i don’t hear it at 2am.)

Yours,

The Management

If I could write sonnets, I would. If I had more money I’d donate it to him. If I didn’t think I’d scare him, I’d hug him. But alas, I thanked him tons and paid for my haircut and promised photos from the cruise.

So, you ought to know the before: The Before

Then there is the after: The After

A few more photos on at Flickr, in case you need better views.

Reactions thus far:

Prince: Love the color, that looks great — would like it a bit longer, though.

Duke: Mama, you cut your hair. (yes, I did, what do you think)  I think it is silly.  (Does that mean you like it?) Yes!!!

Queen Mum:  Isn’t that the haircut I gave you about age 10?  See I was right then too.  (Um, yes — fine — but that time you kept trying to making it even was another story entirely — feel better?)