At what point

Will things start costing less again?

Seriously, my regular old trip to the grocery store ran me an extra $60 this week, and I can't figure out what I did differently.

My husband and I bring home a relatively decent living. So if I'm worried about making ends meet, what are people who were already pinching pennies doing??

If worse comes to worst, I guess I've got enough acreage to start raising some livestock...

Haiku Friday

Sick of sick, I am
"Biopsy" a scary word
Need some distraction

_________

My stupid bi-annual screening for an issue I've had since I was the Boy's age ended with me drunk on anesthesia while Hubs listened to my not-as-friendly-as-usual doctor explain the numerous biopsies he had to do this time around...

I really need some happy to take my mind off of it, because worrying for the next 24 days is not going to do me or anyone around me a bit of good. It doesn't help that I'm in some serious pain today, and when I called to check and see if I needed to come back in, the message back from the doctor was essentially "You aren't looking good, I'm not surprised you hurt."

Pardon my language, but fuck a damn duck.

On the bright side, LB learned to say "Ta Da!" and "Uh Oh!" today, and it's really stinking cute.

Back to moping.

Dear man in the red truck...

No, not you. The other guy in the beat up red pickup at Go-Mart this afternoon. Wait, you're probably too drunk to know I'm talking to you.

Anyhow, I'm just gonna throw this out there. Please don't pump gas at the same pump as me with your cigarette dangling precariously from your lips. Because you are drunk. You can barely stand up, so how do you expect to control your open flame?

Woman riding in the truck with said man: Please insist on driving. Please? No? Hrm.

Well, sorry I had to call the cops. Actually, I'm not all that sorry. I hope you went to jail.

Please don't smoke and pump.
Please don't drink and drive.
Please don't smoke and drink and pump and drive. I imagine it increases the odds that you will kill someone exponentially.

In short, please don't be AN ASSHOLE.

That is all.

Klassy Lady

If you were at your local discount department store this evening, and you were eyeing up that lady with her two wild kids who was sporting blue cotton gauchos, a wife-beater, and flip flops, that may or may not have been me.

Laugh if you must, but just remember I make you look that much better.

Why Snow Baby lives in the closet

My Grandma fancied herself a folk singer. She fancied herself a lot of things--a gypsy, a good cook, half-Finnish instead of half-Russian in the middle of the Cold War. But I digress.

She used to sing us these songs, most of which I always assumed she made up, at least in part. But they were the kinds of songs that you pick up, and you start singing, and you keep singing until one day you're rocking your own kids to sleep with a Grandma classic.

The true test of whether or not you are a true Logan is your opinion of "Two Little Children." It's a lovely little melody, the lyrics and score of which hang in a frame on my parents' living room wall, and the only lullaby that can put my kids to sleep every single time--they, therefore, are true Logans. Other children, though, may run and hide and scream with their hands over their ears upon hearing the first bar.

Why?

Let me share the lyrics with you, and you can be the judge:

"Two little children, a boy and a girl,
Sat down by the old church door.
The little girl's feet were as brown as the curls
that fell on the dress that she wore.

The boy's coat was faded
and hatless his head;
a tear shone in each little eye.
'Why don't you go home to your Mama?' I said,
and this was the maiden's reply.

'We're too little to earn our bread,' she said.
'Jim's five, and I'm only seven.
There's noone to love us since Daddy is gone,
and our darling Mama's in heaven.

Our Daddy got lost out to sea long ago,
We waited all night on the shore.
For he was a sea-going captain, you know,
and he never came home anymore.

Our Mama got sick, angels took her away,
she said, to her home warm and bright.
She said she would come back to get us someday;
perhaps she is coming tonight.

Or perhaps there's no room up in Heaven, she said,
for two darling angels to keep.
She then placed her hand upon little Jim's head,
she kissed him, and then fell asleep.'

The preacher came early to ring the church bell,
he found them beneath the snow white.
The angels found room for two darlings to dwell
in Heaven, with Mama, tonight."

So yeah, I have no idea why any kid would dislike that song.

Anyhow, it's never bothered me. I sing it daily as I sniff my baby's neck.

But then my aunt shows up with this thing at Christmas. This...well, it looks like this:

Except it's plush. And creepy as I don't know what.

My brother, who also grew up with "Two Little Children," who doesn't know the words but hums along when I snuggle with Goose and sing it to him, runs out of the room. I'm still speechless.

Later on, after our aunt has left, I pull it back out of the gift bag. LB smacks it and cries, and Donut Boy yells at me to put it away.

"Okay, you're a grown man. What's your problem?"

"It's one of the two little children! Put it away!!"

Dear lord, he's right.

And my baby cannot play with one of the two little children. The two little children were meant to lull children to sleep; failing that, they were only meant to terrify in a completely abstract sense. The two little children were not meant to come to life.

So she's hanging out in the closet, peeking out at me whenever I go to get diapers. I shudder, and then I sing another of Grandma's song.

Let's hope my aunt can't find a Barney Google (with the goo-goo-googly eyes) for her birthday.

I need people.

I am reminded too often that I am not the type of woman who should be "domestic." I'm better suited to be some never-use-my-kitchen, send-everything-to-the-cleaners, who-needs-a-car city dwellers with everything I could possibly need a phone call away.

Tonight's "YOU SUCK!!" reminder comes as the result of a hasty hotel stay last week when the power company decided our exploding transformer was not a big enough issue to warrant a visit within 24 hours.

Anyhow, we picked a local hotel with an indoor pool, gave the girly her first dip (which she loved), and then had to hightail it out of there the next morning to get to school and work on time.

I thought I got the car unloaded, I really did. Then tonight I'm packing the Boy's bag for his rec center field trip tomorrow, and I realize that I never saw the plastic bag that had our swim clothes in it. Hrm.

Wanna guess where I found it? Under the back seat of the car. Literally UNDER it. Damn stow-and-go seating.

So those clothes were tied up in that bag for ten days. TEN DAYS.

Stank city.

And this is why I need people. To keep up with this crap for me. Because I suck at it.

My little weirdos...

Right this very minute, The Boy is doing 50 trips up and down the stairs. It's his own self-imposed punishment for getting checks for talking at school today. Instead of getting grounded for a week, he offered to walk up and down the stairs 50 times. I agreed to let that be his punishment, thinking that he wouldn't be able to do it in a million years.

He's on 38 right now.

And LB is in the floor, introducing the doggy Hubs brought home for her to her incredibly creepy green-haired troll doll The Boy bought her at Santa's workshop for Christmas.

My video camera is out of batteries. Dadgummit.

I'll bet you a dollar...

So I'm gonna guess that you did not participate in or overhear any of the following exchanges this weekend:

While sorting through a bag of hand-me-downs, Hubs pulls out a sky blue shirt with a wierd paisley print.

"This is kind of cool, huh LA?"
"Uh, dude. You're not a pimp."
"I thought you wanted me to dress up more?"
"I don't want you to dress like a pimp more, no."
"This isn't a pimp shirt."
"Mmm-kay. You're not Clay Aiken either. Or a member of Rascal Flatts."
"You're no fun."
"VEEEE-TO, dude. VETO."

I was just thinking it might be nice for him to wear a sweater sometime. Or even a shirt with no stains.
-------
According to a close friend of Hubs's family, one of our presidential hopefuls may very well be the Anti-Christ. She wasn't making a questionable joke--she is actually quite concerned and was putting the issue on the prayer list today. I passed on Sunday School this morning.
-------
I watched a Medicare-aged woman kick butt at Wii Sports Bowling last night. Her opponent was an equally aged man who wears his pants about three inches below his nipples. Her celebratory response to her big win?

"Suck on THAT, jackass!!"


You soooo wanna come hang out with us.

Most Awesomest

I'm going to create a new section called "Most Awesomest," and it's going to consist of the most awesomest thing I come across on any given day.

Today's winner is this juicy little comment from the call-in opinion section of the local paper:

If having a DUI checkpoint without announcing it in the paper beforehand is entrapment, then how can they get away with doing that for prostitution stings?

That, my friend, is a question that is not asked nearly often enough. I hope one day we find the answer.

Special Delivery

I got a call I wasn't expecting today.

I lost a good friend about six weeks ago. She was 33 and she died from uterine cancer. It was quick and tragic and traumatic for us all. Life has slowly but surely returned to a sense of normalcy, only instead of having her with us, we just have to settle for having her "with" us. Her spirit, sadly, is nowhere near as fun as she was.

I'd gotten a letter a couple of weeks back from the county fiduciary something or other saying I'd been named in her will. The will I helped her write three years ago before a surgery that was unrelated to her illness. The will we used to chase one of our co-workers around with, as she taunted "What of mine do you want when I die? Now's your chance!" It was entertainment to us in the moment. In a different light? Yeah, not so much.

So apparently she left me her wardrobe. Her entire wardrobe. And her wardrobe competes with mine as far as size goes. She and I, shopping soulmates. And her mom was in an emotional place today to want to do the purge. So she did.

Now the back of my car is filled with those closet protector things, each filled to bursting with who knows what. I wonder, is the M*A*S*H t-shirt in there? What about the pointy toed boots?

And then I wonder, do I want to wear this stuff? SHOULD I want to wear this stuff? She wanted me to have it for a reason, right?

I don't know the etiquette here...help?

Have we met?

If you've found me here, odds are we have.

But if you've just stumbled upon me, please allow me to introduce myself.

I'm la. 29 and holding (but I really am 29. For now.), somewhat gainfully employed in the healthcare field, daughter of Roaster, sister to Donut Boy, and wife of Hubs.

I've procreated once or twice. Meet the darling LB:


And the most awesome second grader ever, the Boy:


Now, I had a blog in a previous life, but I found that not often enough did I let my fingers do the talking. It wasn't nearly as cathartic as I hoped it would be, for a variety of reasons. So this is my fresh start.

I'm gonna talk about my kids. I'm gonna make fun of my husband. You'll learn that I'm a damn liberal, don't like to discuss religion, and that I don't hug. (Well, I hugged those two times...) I might be funny, I might be sad, I might be pointless. But I promise that I will always be la.

This is me. Thanks for coming along for the ride!