My Brush With the B-List

So after a couple crazy busy weeks and a little laziness on my part, I am back.

We don't get many celebrities in these here parts, even b (or arguably c) list celebs, so when I ran into Geraldo Rivera yesterday in my local CVS I was shocked surprised bemused. Bemused because there is just something about Geraldo. Maybe its the big mustache or perhaps its just the cheese factor. He was in the shampoo isle when I first spotted him. Then, as I waited in line behind him, he was nice to the cashier who said, "I know you, how you doin' Geraldo?" He then was followed outside by 2 giddy CVS employees and was nice to them too. Having lived in New York I know how to handle myself around a celebrity and just watched from my vantage point in the check out line. As I left the store Geraldo was driving away in a black Honda CRV with local plates. Anyway, I had to call Ralph right away to leave a laughing my ass off message on his voicemail. I am still laughing my ass off. A little internet stalking led me to his reason for being in my suburban hamlet. His in-laws live about 5 minutes from me.

I love seeing famous people in everyday situations, it makes them seem so much more...I don't know, how do you say...HUMAN. Do you have any celebrity sightings? If so, post them in my comments.

P.S. Don't worry Geraldo, I restrict my stalking to the cyber type.

You'd Barf Too

I have written before of my wonderful dog. Seriously, I love her to pieces, Ralph and I have even talked about getting her cloned. But when I wrote of my wonderful little girl dog I left out her one nasty little habit. She eats her own poo.

Foul, I know, the vet said that she probably developed the habit when she was a homeless dog. They eat their own poo and their puppies' poo in order to make themselves less noticable to preditors. Hello, where I live she is more likely to run into a skunk or a squirrel than anything that would do her real harm.

I have tried to be sympathetic about it, I picture her trying to protect her babies (which were not found with her, so they probably didn't survive). But the whole thing just disgusts me (and we've tried a million things to stop it). Literally, if she could reach her head around while she is squatting, she'd eat it like soft serve. On the bright side, I figure that at least she is discerning enough to only eat her own shit, at least she knows where its' been.

So, for 5 1/2 years Ralph and I have diligintly watched her every time she does her business in the yard. But today, after more than half a decade of never being lazy about watching her, I was lazy.

I haven't slept well all week, and last night I did. I just wanted it to last a little longer. Ralph announced that he was going to sleep in before the dog jumped off of the bed. When The Nurse gets her narcoleptic ass up before she is told to, we know she means business, so Ralph and I argued about who would get up with her, and as usually I relented. But, I had a plan.

I let her out and went back to bed, as I told Ralph, what's the worst that could happen. He replied that she could get out and get hit by a car...not likely. She could have a poop eating feista...then I guess you should go get her, afterall, I let her out. Of course, neither of us got up to go get her and she was outside, unsupervised for maybe half an hour. Ralph let her in and she ran over to eat her food. Then she promptly ran upstairs and barfed up a big glump of mucus, grass and shit. That's right, my dog barfed shit.

So Ralph with his dainty delicate stomach announces that he can't clean it up, which means I HAVE to clean it up or I'm gonna have shitpuke sitting on my wood fucking floor all day. Must I even discuss what shitpuke smells like.

As I am cleaning pile 1, the dog barfs up some more shitpuke on the stairs. All I can say is thank god for this. So I ask Ralph to take her into the kitchen where we can trap her in with baby gates and she can shitpuke her little heart out all over the tile.

Which she did.

Is 9 a.m. too early for a cocktail?

Does this sound unreasonable to you?

Ralph works hard for the money. He works hard for it, honey. So, I try to treat him right.

He is one of the owners of his company. They have tons of work right now, and IMHO, not enough staff to do it all. Therefore, Ralph works a lot of hours. He usually doesn’t get home before 7:00 (Tuesday it was after 10), but he often tries to get home in time to see The Bug before he goes to bed. Then he works in his home office until all hours, but that is another story.

Since The Bug was born, I have had only 1 request. I would like Ralph to call before 7:30, so I can plan my evening. If I know he is coming home soon, I might wait to eat dinner with him, or I might keep The Bug up a little past his bedtime so he can get a night night story from Daddy. On the other hand, if he isn’t going to be home, I’ll eat when I want and I’ll put The Bug to bed on time.

I don’t think that it is such an out-of-line request. He gets into work before 9 on his latest day, so, I think he could stop whatever he is doing 10 hours later to call his family for 5 minutes. Even if he had an employee in his office, he could say, “I just need to take a minute to let my wife know that I won’t be home for dinner.” Not that tough.

But, it is a huge point of contention, because he often forgets to call, or, like Tuesday, he says he’ll be home at one time (he said he was leaving ‘soon’ when I called at 7:30) but then gets home significantly later (walked in around 10:30). I try to understand the stress that he is under and not be a naggy bitch (my words, not his), but it just bugs the shit out of me.

Ralph doesn’t mind if I call him, but I feel as if I’m disturbing his work. I’d rather he call when he has a break, or when he realizes that he’s going to be longer than he’d anticipated. Ralph thinks that I am being unreasonable, do you think this is an unreasonable expectation?

A Day of Ups and Downs

This morning I was walking around my school looking for a substitute that was supposed to relieve one of the teachers so she could come to a meeting. I never found the sub, but I ran into a parent who was very upset with me at the end of last school year.

I almost didn't recognize her because she was smiling and waving at me. I looked behind me...no one else there. I waved back, figuring I could pretend to have been waving to a student behind her when she yells that she WASN'T FUCKING TALKING TO ME (yes, parents do sometimes talk like this in my school, nice). But she was fucking talking to me! We had a nice conversation, and both spoke excitedly about her kid's prospects for this school year. The day started on a positive, I'm going to be able to help out her kid.

At dismissal my principal asked me to go find a student whose mother had come to pick him up. I went outside a door that I've never gone out before and, because I was paying attention to looking for the kid (who the fuck I thought I was looking for I don't know,since he's new to the school this year and I've never laid eyes on him in my life) anyway, I wasn't paying attention to where I was going, and the next thing I knew I was on the ground. Yep, in front of kids, parents, teachers...and I picked today to wear a skirt...I twisted my ankle and got a huge scrape on my knee...that's why they call me grace.

Later, as I was sitting in my lovely office looking at my thermometer, which read 91 degrees (um, hello, how are kids supposed to learn anything when it is 90 fucking degrees in their classroom. Could we puhhleezz have some air conditioning!)Ralph called and said that he had a meeting near home and was done for the day, would I like for him to pick up The Bug from daycare. Hey, that would be great, then I could sit here in my own sweat and stank for a little while longer. But, having Ralph home at 5:00 is a rare occasion, so I took him up on the offer.

It wasn't until I went to get my purse from its' hiding spot in my office that I realized that I had left it in the teacher's lounge all afternoon. Not smart, shit disappears around my school, and I had credit cards in there. Just what I need, identity theft again. When I walked into the lounge, there it was, right where I'd left it. I just hope that nobody took my credit card #'s.

Then, I fell asleep while Ralph was reading bedtime stories to The Bug. I guess that all the insomnia and late night house hunting have caught up to me. I think I could really sleep right now, so I'm gonna go night night.

Internet House Hunters Annonymous

I’ve spoken before of my addiction. You know… the one that made me start writing this blog in the first place. I had to stop looking for houses on line, and blogging curbed the habit, for a long time (it was at least a month people!).

I admit that I am powerless over internet house hunting. Somehow, I’ve fallen off the internet house hunting wagon. I don’t even know how it happened, but all of the sudden, all of my free time has been spent NOT blogging, NOT emailing my friends and colleagues who I need to email, NOT even buying cute shoes.

I’ve been looking at houses on realty websites, looking at sheriff sale houses (WTF? I saw that movie with Ben Kingsley and Jennifer Connoly. I don’t think I’ll be going down that road any time soon). I look at vacant lots too, I even drove past one with Ralph last weekend. Then I look at house plans online because, I had better hurry up and find a house to build on that piece of land that I don’t even own.

I can’t stop. I look at the same listings over and over again…it isn’t as if I think something will have changed since the last time I looked. I obsessively go from the realtor’s listing to the county auditor’s website to zillow in order to find out if it is listed at a good asking price. I have been up past 1 a.m. for the last three nights looking at this shit.

I think I need an intervention. Seriously, I looked at the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. Seriously, but there is just a little too much god in them for me. Then I had an epiphany. Maybe I just need a new house, if I got a new house fix, I would surely be able to stay on the wagon for longer than a month. Ummm hmm, that’s going to be my new plan with Ralph. “Honey, a new house is integral to my 12 step program.”

The Good News, The Bad News & The Ugly News

It is not news here at Casa de NoMommy that I fell in love with Ralph’s house before I fell in love with him. To be honest, I fell in love with his living room, and the rest I figured I could mold into what I really wanted. Hmmm, sort of like Ralph…

Anyway, soon enough I was in love with Ralph too. I moved in, and the molding began.

We started in our 1970’s family room addition. It had ugly fake wood paneling that had to go. We ripped it off of the walls and found mold underneath. Great! We ripped out all of the walls, the ceiling and the floor. We replaced all of the studs in one wall ripped out another in order to put in a French door and then put it all back together again. Then we set about remodeling our 1940’s kitchen. We ripped out all of the cabinets and designed and installed all new ones. We put in a new sink, dishwasher, and a new countertop. We have waterproofed, put in new windows and doors, we’ve painted in and out, carpeted, had our tub refinished. To make a long story short(er), there is always something to do in a 65 year old house. And, as I’ve mentioned, I have had enough of it.

That is why I was so furious a few months ago when I went into my basement to do laundry only to find water all over the floor. We knew basically where it was coming from, but not exactly. It happened sometimes, but not every time we used one of the water producing mechanisms in the Casa. Around the same time we started smelling a nasty sewer gas odor coming from our linen closet. We knew that it happened when we ran the upstairs bathroom sink, but we couldn’t figure out why or how. I called a plumber.

The plumber came out and looked at both bathrooms, he went down to the basement, he looked at the linen closet… nothing. It was like when your car acts up just until you pull into the mechanic’s shop. No leaking water, no smell. The guy acted like I was out of my fucking mind. If something was going on it would be going on all of the time. If I wanted him to really figure out what was going on, he’d have to start opening up walls. Uh, no thanks, I’ll just wait for…something else to happen. Then it did.

Last week I had to shave my legs in the bathroom sink, I just didn’t have time to get back into the shower. When I was done I realized that the shirt I wanted to wear was in the basement. Fuck! There was water on the floor and it was dripping from the ceiling. On the bright side, I knew what had caused it, and I knew where it was coming from.

So, the other day when The Bug was spending the night with his grandparents, Ralph and I opened up the spot in our ½ bath ceiling that we thought would give us access to the problem above it. If it didn’t, we’d have to rip out more walls, which was a cluster fuck that I totally didn’t want to have to deal with.

We open up the spot and, lo and behold, the fucking PVC pipe isn’t even connected, there is daylight between one end and the other. So, every time we have run the sink in our full bath, the water has been going….who the fuck knows where.

The good news: we were able to fix the problem with minimal cost and construction
The bad news: this is what my bathroom ceiling is going to look like until I can get somebody in here to fix it.

Belly Achin' Part 3, The Conclusion.

The Bug started the morning a little clingy, but otherwise, fine. I was even thinking that I was silly to have stayed home today. Then, around 12:30, he woke up from his nap inconsolable, complaining of the belly again, and he just couldn't get comfortable. We went to the doctor.

After asking questions about what sort of pets we have and if they have been healthy (OK, now I'm scared shitless) the pediatrician announced that The Bug's belly felt good. He wanted to just try a strep test, for fun, and if it isn't that it is probably just a little virus. Ten minutes later we had our answer. STREP.

I had no idea that strep could be associated with a tummy ache in kids. So, we are armed with antibiotics and ready to kick this extra little bug outta here!