Escape, or The Best Christmas Present Ever

Note: This was written on 22 December at 2:00 p.m.


I am writing this from a hotel room in Waikiki.

Really. I’m not kidding.

Although I may not be able to post this until I get home tomorrow; I’m not paying a $15.95 connection fee.

This was my Christmas present from my husband: I am spending two days all alone in a hotel. I have no current responsibilities. No one is asking me for anything. I don’t have to cook, or clean up, or break up fights for two days.

Obviously I have no idea what to do with myself.

No, seriously. I’m going to read a lot, and write a little, and take baths without anyone banging on the door.

This is an awesome Christmas present.

Actually, the best part of the whole thing is having my husband admit that watching the kids all day is a tough job.

When we talked last night, he said, “You can’t accomplish ANYTHING! You spend one minute doing something, and then someone wants something, or is screaming, or is hitting someone else.”

Bingo.

Welcome to my life, honey.

I’ll just be over here escaping it for forty hours or so….

Can't we just watch Frosty?

We’re having a little trouble with Christmas spirit around here these days.


Me: Do you kids want to watch Christmas specials?
ET: No, I want to watch this show about the lady who’s addicted to eating chalk.
GG: Yeah, it looks AWESOME!

Well, phooey. I guess at this age the kids are more interested in the freaks featured on Discovery Health than in Rudolph and Ralphie.

Sigh.

Although there is a light at the end of the tunnel here: Apparently Discovery Health is being bought out by Oprah. It will become the Oprah Winfrey Network, or OWN; isn’t that a clever acronym?

ET is pretty upset about it. She feels that Oprah will probably do away with the two-headed babies and such, and put on her own stuff.

We can only hope, right?

I Feel Bad About My Feet

I’ve been feeling increasingly embarrassed about the state of my feet.

I mean, it’s December, so I really shouldn’t be worrying about it, right? Everyone’s feet are encased in boots and other warm shoes all winter, so I should save that worry for the summer, when the sandals come out…

Oh yeah, I live in Hawaii! The sandals are on all year! I wear flip flops to CHURCH, for goodness‘ sake! (They’re nice ones, I promise!)

So people are seeing my feet a lot, is what I’m saying.

And now I’m also learning the hula, which is a dance done barefoot. So I’m getting up in front of GROUPS with no shoes on, and my feet are not looking pretty.

Well, honestly, no one’s feet are exactly PRETTY, but mine are particularly unattractive, I think. I’ve got some heel calluses, and I’ve got… dare I say it?… hairy toes.

Yep. Toe hairs, they’re not just for hobbits anymore.

Now, I don’t know where these suckers came from. I don’t remember any foot fur in my twenties. And to be fair, it’s only a couple of hairs. I’m not exactly Bilbo Baggins here.

(Wow. My spell-check recognized the words “Bilbo Baggins.” Amazing! Tolkien would be proud.)


Anyways, I’ve decided to do something about the state of my feet. And I’m NOT getting a pedicure, if that’s what you’re thinking. It’s not just the fact that I’m kind of philosophically opposed to spending money on stuff like that, although I admit I cringe at shelling out even for a haircut, and wish I could do it myself. (I can’t, by the way, and I have the first-grade school photo to prove it!)

It’s also the idea of strangers touching my feet. UGH. I just can’t get past it.

So I’ve been working on my toes myself, and today I decided to get out the tweezers.

I also bought some special tweezing cream that’s supposed to help. Allow me to quote from the ad:

“Revlon's first pre/post tweezing cream that makes your tweezing experience easier and more comfortable.”

Well, I’m all for improving my “tweezing experience.” So I tried the cream.

OUCH! It didn’t help. Good thing I bought the cream on clearance. I’d be mad if I’d paid full price.

To be fair to Revlon, perhaps I was expecting too much. After all, no mater what cream you put on, you’re still yanking hairs from your body by their roots. Unless it’s a shot of Lidocaine, there’s NOTHING that’s going to make the experience easy and comfortable!

In any case, I hope my feet look better now.

No, I’m NOT posting a photo of them. Forget it!

It's been a crazy week!

Note: I started writing this LAST FRIDAY, and I'm just now getting it posted!

I've been busy this week, trying to get ready for Christmas, and Boo's birthday.

Why did I have a child in December anyways? It was really poor planning on my part...

So here's some things that have happened recently, in no particular order.

(I numbered them anyways.)

#1. Someone left a pen in his or her pocket, and there was ink all over my dryer.

That took a while to clean up.

No one has yet admitted owenerhsip of the pen in question, by the way.

#2. Baby Girl has started screaming, "I WANT IT!" twenty-four hours a day. (These numbers are approximate.)

It doesn't matter what "it" is either. Whatever is in her field of vision, she WANTS it.

Particularly if her brother happens to be holding it....

#3. The twins are on a mission to ABSOLUTELY DESTROY everything in the house, particularly Christmas decorations!

Baby Boy brought me one of my husband's grandmother's glass balls from the tree last week, saying ,"Uh-oh! Broken!"

(I thought we had those up high enough on the tree as to be unreacheable, but I guess not!)

Oh, he also had his clothes off. So he was naked AND holding broken glass! I'm not winning Mother of the Year this week!

#4. Lesson learned: Make sure to put up ALL gift-wrapping supplies immediately upon finishing with the presents.

Or ELSE!

Anyways, things have been NUTS around here! Hope to write more later.

Rejected by Goodwill...

Yesterday morning I took some stuff to Goodwill to donate and they rejected about half of it.

Seriously! I felt like a Jeff Foxworthy routine. If even Goodwill won’t take your old stuff…you MIGHT be a redneck!

In my defense, they said they wouldn’t take the stuff because of liability issues. I was trying to donate some old bicycle helmets, rollerblades, a child’s bicycle, a stroller and a baby backpack. (They did accept my old clothes and a lamp with a damaged shade.)

The guy said they couldn’t take any of that because someone might get hurt and then sue them.

I’ll pause, so you can insert your own “What is the world coming to?” here.

I’m just glad he didn’t think of someone suing because my shadeless lamp blinded them, or my old clothes didn’t keep them adequately warm or something. Then I’d never be able to get rid of my old stuff!

Or maybe someone’s done that already. Who knows?

Missing the Bus

Yesterday GG missed the morning school bus.

Every day I work hard to hustle her and Boo out the door in time to catch the bus, which as many of you know is like trying to herd a bunch of cats. We get almost through the doorway and one of them has forgotten something, or someone didn’t brush her hair, or there’s The Drama of The Shoes.

I mean seriously. Why can’t they ever find TWO shoes? That match each other, I mean. I’m thinking, you had two feet yesterday, and they were covered with two shoes yesterday! Why is there now suddenly only ONE shoe today? WHERE IS THE OTHER SHOE?

But yesterday we’d actually gotten through all of that, and both girls were sitting at the bus stop on the corner. I always sit on the porch where I can see them at the bus stop. Everyone was in place, when GG decided to begin another fun game they play sometimes: I Forgot Something.

I guess all kids play I Forgot Something, but mine seemed to have turned it into an Olympic event.

Here are the opening ceremonies of I Forgot Something:

First of all, the kid comes running back home.

Me: What’s the matter?
Kid: I forgot something.
Me: What did you forget?
Kid: Something….

This is followed by the front door slamming as the kid goes into the house for the mysterious object.

A few minutes later, the kid will re-emerge, looking exactly the same as she did before and carrying nothing. And this happens a couple of times a week. I have NO IDEA what they keep forgetting!

Anyways, usually the child doing this will hurry, and leave her backpack at the bus stop, assuming her sister will hold the bus for her if it comes. This is rather a big assumption, of course.

Well, yesterday, GG came back to play I Forgot Something , but she’d apparently decided on the slow-mo version.

She ambled back home, and I broke from the script and advised her to hurry up because it was almost time for the bus. She said she had plenty of time, that the middle school bus (which usually comes at least twenty minutes before the elementary school bus) hadn’t even come yet and ET was still sitting out there with the other middle schoolers.

So while she was in the house, a bus came and went. From where I was sitting I couldn’t see which bus, so I waited. When GG came back out, she walked to the bus stop, and then a few minutes later she walked back.

I went out to the yard to meet her. She said, looking at the ground, “Boo and the other kids are gone.”

I said, “You mean you missed the bus, after I told you to hurry, and you said you had plenty of time?”

(Sometimes I just can’t resist an I-told-you-so!)

 (Picture from http://icanhascheezburger.com/)

She paused a moment, and sighed deeply. “I guess you were right,” she said, mostly addressing the lawn.

So then it was MY turn to sigh deeply. Because I had to go get the twins up and dressed and drive to the elementary school!

It wasn’t really worth the I-told-you so.

By the way, later when I asked Boo why she didn’t ask the bus to wait for her sister, and she said she hadn’t noticed GG wasn’t there, because she was busy talking to her friend. GG thought that this was a lie, but I believe it; usually the girls completely ignore each other outside of the house.

Also, the middle school bus had just been late due to some sort of mechanical problem, which was of course unrealted to timeliness of the elementary schol bus.

Oh, and GG had come back to change her jeans into a different pair of jeans, because the first pair “looked weird.”

I guess the moral of the story is, Never assume your sister will hold the bus for you.

Or it could be, Listen to your mother, for goodness’ sakes, and HURRY!

It's December; How many words have I written?

Well, National Novel Writing Month is over. Did I succeed in writing 50,000 words in 30 days?

Does the above graphic give you a clue about the answer to that question?

As of midnight on November 30th, which was the deadline, I only had 47,292 words.

I was close. But, as they say, close only counts in hand grenades and horseshoes. Not that I've ever played either one of those things. And I don't plan to either, actually.

But that's okay. I will keep writing. If at first you don't succeed; it's always darkest before the dawn; all of that inspirational junk.

By the way, when I was searching for a graphic with "failure" on it to put on here, almost all of the images were actually supposed to BE inspirational. Which was kind of weird. Who's buying all these motivational posters with the word "failure" on them?

Anyways, I'll have more time to write now that Thanksgiving's over. Unless I get interrupted by ANOTHER major holiday.

What's that? ...oh yeah, I forgot. CHRISTMAS!

Oh well, see you in January....