Sleep renters notebook crying NASCAR

This unemployment thing is rather interesting. It has propelled me back to being 16 again. I sleep so late it's shameful. Tomorrow, though, I'm going to check on a job opening I was informed about this week. I'm rather excited about it and hope they will take this poor jobless waif in. I have about 4 weeks worth of sitters that I need to wrangle, but hopefully it'll all work out. If it's supposed to, it will. I actually had my eye on a full time position at the college, but with the kids and a full-time college schedule, which includes Macroeconomics AND Algebra this semester, I'd better not push it. Part time will do just fine. Keep yer fingers crosssed.

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The rent house has occupants. Thank the Lord.

Funny thing about your town getting flooded - it brings renters in by the dozens. Or the threes, as in our case. In 24 hours we could've rented it 3 times and we never advertised it or put a sign in the yard. The people I wrote a brief post about here ended up bugging out on us and we gave them until 5pm yesterday to sign the contract. When they didn't show or contact us, we rented it to a very nice, especially precious older couple who I've known since I was literally a toddler. We were Baptists together at Hudson Creek Baptist Church just a ways up the road from where I live now. They're still Baptists actually, but I won't hold it against them - at least they're not cat people. They also just happen to be the grandparents of my displaced BFF, Tiff.

Day before yesterday we got a call from the first set of prospects. Yesterday we got a phone call from my cousin's wife's mother who is a realtor and she asked if we'd rented the house. I explained the situation, told her we'd be in touch after 5 and the rest is history. Then last night around 10:30 my mom called to tell me that her next door neighbor had just left and said they had people on the way over with their checkbook with the intention of writing out a check for whatever amount of money we needed in order to get that house. They are flood victims and very homeless right now - as they were moving their furniture out the back door, the water was coming in the front door. Poor folks. I almost offered them the playhouse the kids never play in, but then I remembered that 1) we're still flooded in and 2) there's no bathroom or kitchen in the playhouse and it's only a 10x10 room anyway.

Paul spent all day yesterday at the rent house, finishing the bathroom which we recently re-did. He also mowed the yard there and at Mom's (which helped her out tremendously), showed the house to the new renters, called me every 30 minutes to gripe about the first set of prospective renters and just generally reminded me repeatedly that he was out of the house and I was not. But I'm not bitter.

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The water is down a little more today. We heard from a neighbor that some folks got through in a jeep and a few went through on horseback, but since we don't have a jeep or a horse, we're still out of luck. Paul keeps saying he's so tired of being flooded in and then when he recovers from me slapping his face and kicking him in the shins, he is gently reminded by me that he has been out of here daily since Thursday. The kids and I are stir-freakin-crazy.

Tomorrow I NEED to do some banking, check on that job, eat Chinese food and switch the utilities in the rent house. I may become a horse thief overnight.

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My tear ducts are officially cleaned out and I'm not due for a good cathartic cry for quite awhile. I watched The Notebook two nights in a row. The first night, Paul couldn't stay awake while we tried to watch Stranger Than Fiction (which we never finished), so I told him no worries, I'd watch Notebook and he went on to bed. At 2am I was on the couch, in the dark, covered up to my chin in a blanket, sobbing so hard I thought I was going to throw up and/or wake up the rest of the house. Then, because I'd talked about how wonderful a story it was, Paul wanted to watch it last night. Big dummy that I am, I watched it with him and bawled just as hard.

There are only a handful of movies that make me really cry like that. I'll admit I'm a cry-er. I'll cry at Kodak commercials, an occasional blog post if it hits me just right and when my children go off to church camp for the first time, and I'm no stranger to shedding a tear or two at the end of a movie. But as far as sobbing my guts out, there are only a few that can elicit that kind of reaction from me:

Steel Magnolias - To this day, even after repeated performance of various scenes during my Competitive Speech days and even more repeated viewings on VHS, I still bawl when Shelby dies.

My Life - Paul and I watched this very soon after we lost our first baby. We both cried and sobbed and cried and sobbed. While I own it, I have yet to even take off the plastic. I thought I might watch it again someday, but I keep talking myself out of it. It's probably going to go in the garage sale next weekend. I don't think I could ever bring myself to watch it, to be honest.

Penny Serenade - The only black and white movie I own. Mom bought Tater and I each a copy for Christmas one year after the three of us sat in her den one Sunday afternoon and bawled ourselves silly while watching it on AMC. Cary Grant and Irene Dunne are a childless couple who adopt a precious little baby girl and ...... must stop......tears......coming......

The Bridges of Madison County - Movies this gut-wrenchingly sad should be outlawed. I read the book first and cried - I kid you not - for hours after I finished it. I would get calmed down, start thinking about it and start all over again. I honestly didn't think the movie could hold a candle to the book, but it did. The scene where it is raining and she is in the truck with her husband, behind the truck that holds her One True Love, I am nearly hysterical, nearly screaming, "Open the door! Just open the door and go! Go to him! Yes, it's raining, and you're torn between security and passion, but just go! You have to GO. NOW." Paul won't let me rent it.

I watched The Notebook thinking the same thing I did about Bridges - that there was no way the movie could compare to the book. After reading Notebook I went to bed and cried into my pillow for an hour. After watching it the first time, I went to bed at 2:30am, woke up my husband (who didn't appreciate that very much) told him that I loved him even if he was annoying and that I would tell our story to him when he's old and suffering from dementia. He sleepily replied, "What? I'm already old. And we don't have a story. We got drunk, I proposed and you said yes. I think I can remember that. Can I go back to sleep?"

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We also rented Talledega Nights last weekend. Paul and I watched it one night after the kids went to bed and I laughed so hard in several places that we had to rewind the disc because Paul couldn't hear. I had resisted renting it for a long time because I'd heard it was really stupid. In fact, within days of each other, I had heard from two different people that it was the best movie ever made and the worst movie ever made. It's no 40-Year Old Virgin or Knocked Up, but it's pretty dang funny. IF you like stupid, redneck, crude NASCAR humor, which I didn't think I did, but turns out I kinda do even though I still don't "get" NASCAR.

The next day, I let the kids watch it, but I kept my finger on the remote the whole time and fast forwarded through quite a few parts. Abby had been quoting the movie all last school year and said everyone in her class had seen it. "Shake and bake" is her favorite, as I'm sure it is every 10 and 11 year old's favorite. Sam really liked, "And I told her 'You got a lumpy butt.'" Kady didn't like it and left the room to play with her Polly Pockets. There might be hope for her, but the other two are too far rednecked to recover now, I'm afraid.