Bits and Pieces

Contrary to the title, this is not a post by Fitty heralding his latest stalking victim. Instead it is an overview of what's gone on in my life during my not-so-intentional blogcation.

* Last Saturday our GS Troop went to Me and My [The Camp That Shall Not Be Named] Mama camp. We went last year and I nearly had to rassle and hog-tie a counsellor when she made me take off my 'do rag. This year there was no rasslin' with the counsellors, only with rodents. Many, many rodents. The unit we were assigned to had not been cleaned prior to our arrival and when Tater and I went into the cabin we chose, we were greeted by piles and piles of mouse poo. And the innards of the mattresses were strewn about and what wasn't strewn about had been made into quaint little mouse nests. *shudder* I like mice about as much as I like water, you know. Magnet Lady's cabin actually had a mouse running about IN IT, which she didn't discover until her bags were already in it. So she hollered at Tater, who isn't afraid of mice, just snakes. Tater opened the cabin door and was greeted with what I choose to call The Little Circus of Mouseville. Straight from The Green Mile, people. Mice, mice everywhere!! Scurrying about the rafters over her head, I tell you! And for someone who isn't afraid of mice, even Tater was freaked out.

After deliberation amongst the mommies we decided that we would not be staying in those cabins. Even after the counsellors offered to clean them out for us and even after the camp ranger offered us alternate housing, we were unmoving in our decision to not sleep anywhere near Mouseville. Because they could clean up the copious amounts of mouse poo all they wanted, there was no way those mice were giving up their carnival grounds in a matter of 8 hours. They had staked their claim on those cabins, by cracky. I knew that much. We instead talked our girls into tent camping at one of the mommies' house, my neighbor, who I'll call Neighbor. Neighbor has a pool. They were on board. We stayed the day, participated in the nature stuff, the craft stuff, the pool stuff, the ticks, mosquitos and all of that other good, wholesome Girl Scout camp stuff, but we left after dinner and headed home.

We mommies sat on Neighbor's carport and talked serious girl talk, while the little girls played in the yard and swam. About the time Mr. Neighbor got home with some pizza a storm rolled in and we ended up going home for the night and didn't camp at all. But we all had sunburns and mosquito bites to prove that we had at least tried to camp.

* Our toilet broke. There was something just not right about that toilet anyway because this is the second time it's gone all wobbly on us. And it has always leaked. Stupid toilet. So Paul bought two new wax seals and was going to nix the wobbling. Of course, he decided to do this plumbing job right smack during naptime. He promised to be quiet. And to be honest, I didn't hear much noise from back there until all of the sudden I heard tools flying, banging and muffled cursing. I was rocking a baby and didn't go back there, but I knew it wasn't good. Finally he came down the hall, flopped down on the couch and said, "Broke the [expletive] toilet." Oy.

He had replaced both seals and had gotten the toilet back into place and had tightened the bolt on one side. He went to tighten the bolt on the other side, but it was still wobbly, so he turned the bolt another quarter turn and just cracked the base in two. Ohhhhhhhh was he mad!! I don't think I've ever had to purchase a toilet in my life, but I knew they weren't all that expensive, but he was ranting and raving about $400 for a toilet and we didn't have that kind of money and of course, he punctuated every other word with an expletive. (Thankfully the kids were asleep.) I told him I thought we could buy a new toilet for around $100, but he wouldn't hear it. I then told him that I'd borrow the money from Mom, but that still didn't pacify him. I knew of another option, but I didn't want to use it. I continued trying to talk him into letting me ask Mom, but no. Finally, with heavy heart, I picked up the phone and called my dad and asked if we could buy/borrow/use one of the toilets up at Nana's. She's in the nursing home now and the town of Picher is in the middle of a buyout because of the town being unsafe and lead-laden and all that, so I knew that if no one else had staked a claim on the toilets there were two up there to be had. Dad said it wasn't a problem and that Paul could come by for the key any time.

I sent my husband to my dad's house with explicit instructions to NOT get the turd-brown toilet. Although, the alternative wasn't all that great. And now....now, we have a robin's egg blue toilet in our main bathroom. It's hideous. It's very, very blue. I think I am destined to always pee in colored toilets. Our last house had a pink toilet. And now we have blue. Chan's mom was the first of my friends to see it and bless her heart, she was so sweet when she smiled and said, "But, Kristin.....it matches the walls!" Uhhhh....yeah.....but the walls are pretty and uh....I wanted them to be blue. I didn't want a blue toilet. Not to mention it doesn't match the rugs or the hand towels. They're sage green. I now go pee in the blindingly yellow Tinkerbell bathroom just to avoid the hideous blue toilet. I'm not being ungrateful, I'm just pouting.

* Paul still loves his job. I'll just be glad when school starts and we resume with some normalcy around here. As it is now, the kids are going to bed at 10 or even 11, sleeping till 7:30 or 8 and he's sleeping till 10 or 11 because I've been staying up to wait on him and then we stay up till 2 or so. I'm very schedule-oriented and I like it when things go into particular time slots and go according to plan. Right now, there is no plan, no normalcy, no routine. I'm also very, very tired.

We have discovered, though, that it is putting a serious damper on our sex life. *Note: This falls into the Too Much Information department, so just skip on down if it bothers you.* We are a nearly every night kind of couple, every other night if I'm tired. That's just the way we are these days. Er, well....we used to be. Now that he gets home at 12:30 am ...... well, let's just say we're not handling the transition well. Cap'n Neurotic's Mom mentioned the fact that the whole family will adapt to the schedule, but she mentioned nothing about "Couple Time" and really that's okay that she didn't because, after all, she was my high school English teacher and I love her and all, but I don't want to know how they have scheduled sex all these years. Nothing personal, Cap'n's Mom.

I've obviously gotten into the habit of staying up for him lately because I tried the whole going to bed before he got home and sleeping a few hours. It din't work. When he leaves for work I send him out the door with a slap on the rear, a wink and a "Hey, wake me up when you get home, okay?" But invariably, he comes in all randy and anticipating only to get his hand slapped and to hear me whine "Iiiiiii'mmmm tirrrrrrrreeeeeeddddddd" over and over. I guess I even called him an name a few times. I don't remember any of it. I really don't handle being woken up very well, obviously.

Twice I've finagled sleepovers for the kids with Mom just so we can kind of make up for lost time and all that jazz. RLTKAOOTHS* is really the best anyway. But I'm just not ready to give custody of my children to my mother over sex. Yet. That may change as time goes on and we don't get our schedules synched.

* We had a family reunion of sorts yesterday. My Uncle Tom's birthday is on July 4th, so he and my Aunt Shirlye decided to throw a big shindiggity this year. We really aren't that close to the first cousins anymore, not like we used to be, so everyone was on board right from the start. Well, covertly my dad started calling some of his cousins and managed to get them all to come in as well. Karen and her crew drove in from Wisconsin - or as I say "Wees-kahn-siiiin", even though it probably drives Wisconsinites crazy when people do that. (Min-a-soooooda is even more fun to say, though.) And Gay and her crew came in from up in Kansas. They surprised the heck outta Uncle Tom and Nana and that right there was priceless. Throughout the day there were so many laughs, tears and stories told and I will remember yesterday for the rest of my life.

It was hot yesterday, so after a few hours Jon took all five kids to the Farmette and that allowed Tater and I to stay and visit with everyone. We ended up sitting in a big circle in the driveway, a group of about 25 or so give or take a few, and while there were times the entire group was involved in a conversation, for the most part little mini-conversations were going on all around. When Tater and I are around my dad, the barbs, smartalleck remarks and insults fly because we're just like that and he not only passed that gene on to us, but he brings it out in us as well. So then his middle brother, Mike, got in on it and after something particularly snarky from me he replied with, "Well, at least I don't have a tattoo, young lady." I didn't even pause when I said, "I don't have a tattoo, Uncle Mike." He raised his eyebrow at me and then I finished, "I have four." All conversation stopped.

Nana has known for quite awhile that I had a tattoo on my foot because she saw it one day when I forgot to put on foot-covering shoes and went to visit her in flip-flops, but she didn't know about all the others. So then I spent the next five minutes going around the circle showing off my tats to family members. Oh, the look on Nana's face. I her eyes, not only am I fat, but I'm now trashy. I love it. Then it was asked if I was going to get any more. I am seriously considering copying off my friend Stacie and getting the kids' names in Hebrew somewhere on my body and told the group that. My dad sat up in his chair and said, "Uh, Kiki, you aren't Jewish." And then the group took off with that and I became The Jewish Cousin. You probably had to be there and y'all are probably sitting at your computers with blank looks on your face, but trust me, it was funny.

Around 7:30 everone started packing up to head home. The kids and I had rented High School Musical that morning and the DVD messed up in the last 10 minutes of the movie, so I asked Tater if she would run me by the video store to exchange it. While I was on the phone with Mom, relating the details of the day (Nan saying I was fat and Kady comparing her food to turds) her cell phone rang and it was Gay, the cousin from Kansas. She wanted to get to get together with Mom, seeing as how they used to be related back in the day. We ended up meeting them at the Stables around 8:30 and stayed until nearly midnight, visiting some more, hearing more old stories and laughing till our sides hurt.

I left Karen and Gay a copy of my card, which has my blog address on it. They had been told throughout the day that I write some pretty amusing stuff and were anxious to check it out. 
* As I get ready to post this, I realize that it is now July 3rd. (Refer to this for some history.) I am now going to log off and commence to wrapping the children in bubble wrap. Just in case the curse begins really early this year.







(*RLTKAOOTHS = Really Loud The Kids Are Out Of The House Sex)