My favorite holiday

Yes! It’s finally here. The day we got serious about getting the King’s redcoats off “our” property.

“Taxes?! We don’t need no stinking taxes!”

We sure told him…

I’ve pretty much covered the reasons why I love the 4th of July and other stuff I like about summer, so what else can I do? Well I should clarify that although our line-up of performers leaves much to be desired, there is one who I hear is worth seeing. Amy is a friend and the neighbors say she’s a good singer. I got to know her and her kids when she lived on my block for a couple of years. But I had no idea she was singing last 4th of July or I would’ve made a point to see her (we went on the 3rd instead). She moved back home to another town in Montana this spring, so I’m glad she’s come back for at least a couple of days. To sum her up I’ll share a short story. My oldest daughter (who just turned 9 yesterday) has been to Amy’s house many times to play with her children, so she has heard her sing. She picked up a People magazine sometime this past winter (I buy it for the crosswords) and pointed at the totally fake photo on the cover (they really overdo those touch ups). “Mom, who is that?” she asked.

“It’s Britney Spears. She sings that song, ‘Hit me baby’… blah, blah, blah…”

“Oh! I know that song. She’s not a very good singer. Amy sings way better than her.”

“What about Sheryl Crow? She sings that song ‘I wanna soak up the’… blah, blah, blah…”

“Amy’s way better than her too.”

“That’s good to know…”

I like her already. So today I’m going to stop by and enjoy her performance. Then I’ll get really drunk and light fireworks. I hope I don’t hurt anyone…

Is it summer yet?

I awoke this morning to my 6-yr-old daughter waving a little package of Scooby fruit snacks in my face. She said, “Mommy, this is the last one. Can I have it?”

Damn, those are some good fruit snacks. Really sugary, but they sure are packed full of flavor. I liked the green ones best.

What was even more surprising than their yumminess and my daughter's graciousness was seeing the sun shining brightly through the curtains. Yes, the sun is back. Finally. It’s been too long. Days and weeks of nothing but clouds and dark skies. So I peeked outside and now the sky looks like this…



And everything is green. It's lovely. So today when I drop my “ride” off at the shop to get it all spruced up for our vacation (it has to be at least drivable) I’ll walk home with the sun shining down on me. This is good. Up until I saw the forecast last night I was expecting rain and hail like we had just a few days ago. I’m much too delicate to get caught in a cloudburst. Well, not really. But my daughters are. And they’re stuck with me today, so it helps that the weather is cooperating. It’s kind of windy out there but that’s alright. It’s supposed to get up to 75 degrees F. I’d take 70 at this point. It’s been too cold for too long. I’m hoping eventually I won’t have to run the furnace at night just to stay warm. Is it summer yet? Could it be? We’re usually a toasty 80 or 90 degrees by now. I can’t remember the last time it snowed in the mountains during June. I’m glad I'm not in the higher elevations right now. Ha ha, those suckers. I hope they have satellite dishes or something to help pass the time during road closures. Arts and crafts, perhaps? They probably just drink a lot of microbrew in their cabins and have sex all day long, to the romantic sounds of Hank Williams.




So anyway, it’s been really cold here, especially at night and my furnace runs on heating oil. When we first moved in this place it was cheaper than our natural gas bill had been, and way cheaper than electric heat. But the cost has been mirroring the gas prices and increasing the same, so when I filled up the tank the last time it was nearly $4/gal. Woah. Normally I’d be set until January of 2009. But I’ve already burned through ¼ of the tank, so now I might make it to December. “Guess what kids? You get heat for Christmas! That’s right, you get a warm house! Isn’t that awesome?”

Is it too late to impeach Bush? I think we’ve got about what, seven months left before he leaves office? Hmm. Don’t tell that to Dennis Kucinich. He might be on to something. Wouldn’t want to break his spirit or anything.

How about that Al Gore? I think I’m starting to see a pattern here. Do you see it too? It’s good to be Independent.

I had a few different blogs going on in my head yesterday at work, then I came home to do more work, and the next thing I knew I was on the couch falling asleep with the TV on. Shhhh, don’t tell Al Gore. I’m really trying to be green. Is this a good look for me?



I think the ruffled puffy blouse is so gay. Country girls wear plaid.

Hurray for summer.

Hurray for vacation time. I’m looking forward to visiting my homeland. It‘s been two years since our last trip. It’s a 14-hr drive that always turns into a 16-hr event because the kids need to pee every few hours… and get one hot meal… so when we finally arrive I’ll see brand new worry lines on my mother’s face. Wait… she doesn’t know exactly when we’re leaving, so I’ll try to keep it that way. I‘m sure I‘ll fail miserably. She has a way of finding out things. If only I were an only child… but then I’d have no one to sympathize, or top my stories of pain and woe.

Hurray for beer. A tall cold one always tastes great on a warm day, and is probably one of my favorite things about summer. I really don’t enjoy beer much the rest of the year. I will have one or two on occasion but I have to be in the right mood for it. I don’t understand this summer phenomenon. Before I had kids I used to drink beer nearly every day through all seasons, and like water on my days off from work. I couldn’t get back into a regular drinking schedule after the first kid. I’m such a loser.

Hurray for ice cream. The kids have a chant that goes like this: I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream. Then Mom screams. They always get what they want in the end.

Hurray for baseball. I hope the new ballpark is open this summer as planned, and is still cheaper than a movie. I’m not a tightwad, I just have trouble sneaking kids into the theater, and after the first two it starts getting spendy. The popcorn is like crack and priced like gold. And you can’t have popcorn without a three or four dollar container of pop that could drown a small child.

At Cobb Field everything was reasonably priced which made for a true day of fun. Holy crap, I’ve turned into my father.

Anyway, fun time with the kids is important and I’m always happier when it doesn’t cost too much green. Yep, I’m my dad.

Not only do I enjoy ball games, but my kids will come along, and getting ALL of my kids together to spend time with mom is a tough feat these days. Teenagers are funny people. The strange thing is I can relate.

Hurray for the drive-in, but it’s only for the kids. And when the kids are happy, I bitch on the inside.

Movies just don‘t get me excited like they did years ago. When I became a grown-up (some time in the 90’s) I started seeing a trend of crap peddled by Hollywood, so I thought, like I’ll die if I don’t see Arnold in his latest multi-million dollar deal. I think the way I feel means I’m getting old. I’d guess my parents lost their love for movies when Clint Eastwood stopped starring in Westerns. For me, cinema died when Harrison Ford disappeared. He is a true stud. I’m glad he’s making a comeback of sorts in this new Indiana Jones flick, but I didn’t see him in the last three Star Wars episodes! I still want my money back. Darned kids. Yoda hypnotize them so, why does, hmm?.

Hurray for Independence Day. Our town really gets into the celebration and stretches it out over a few days with parades, fireworks, etc… and people are always on stage trying desperately to convince me that they are entertaining. I’m not like the rest of the drunken sheep, I only applaud when I mean it.

Rodeos are fun, but only when Cowboy Poker is played. There’s something special about watching a live group of snuff-chewers sitting around a card table in a ring with a bull. How does your poker face work when you have over 1,000 lbs of irate animal (complete with horns) breathing down the back of your neck? At some point the fear reflex kicks in and running for your life becomes a bit more important. In fact, the mean bucking machine doesn’t really allow time for a game to get started. To see grown men scrambling and crapping their pants is always a hoot.

We can light fireworks for two weeks straight if we feel like it. This can be fun, depending on who your neighbors are. There is a guy on our street who goes to bed early, and he will call the cops, even though he knows full well we aren‘t breaking any law. So out of respect we resist whipping out the noise makers on weeknights. Who am I kidding? The truth is we don’t want the cops hating us any more than they already do. They get really annoyed by his phone calls, so we are kind to the guy just in case we ever need to call 911. As far as I know there aren’t any specific fireworks that are banned because I’ve seen it all. Then again, I don’t have a copy of the city code handy. It may not be a defense but it works for me.

Sometimes ignorance really is bliss, especially when you‘ve got a deputy watching your every move because you justifiably insulted a woman, who turned out to be his wife. I didn’t start it, but I like to finish things in a memorable way. I guess the truth really can hurt. This is why I have a newfound love for attorneys. You never know when you’ll need one on your side, which is better than having one on your back. But it’s good when they have your back. But not your rear. What am I talking about?

What do you like about summer?

My summer plans include something big this year

When most of my family was here visiting I was in the kitchen and my brother-in-law came along. Out of the blue he started talking about my dog. He told me how well-behaved she was, and asked me how old she was. I told him she was two and it took a few months to train her. Then he asked me point blank if I’d take my sister’s 3-yr-old dog for them. They didn’t bring Monty with them so I had no idea what to expect, other than he is very cute in the pictures I have. I told him I’d think about it, and he went on to tell me Monty is a good dog and he would love it out here. The only negative thing he said was that he liked to scratch on the door. I quickly got the feeling this guy has never owned a dog before and was maybe expecting him to be something like this:




I considered that my brother-in-law has been making renovations in their house since not long after they bought it a few years ago, and who knows when they‘ll call it done. It would be a good thing to get a family pool going on since the poker games are few and far between. Anyway, I figured the wear-and-tear factor could have something to do with my brother-in-law wanting to get rid of the dog. Now, I don’t want to take away a pet from my sister that she loves, so I asked her about it. She unhappily told me Monty had to go. That just left me confused. Especially when she said she’d trained him to obey hand signals.


This was Monty two years ago.

I thought about it for as long as I could, which was about a day. I wanted to give them an answer before they left. I was basically just a dancing puppet with my family pulling the strings. I thought about how my dog could use a canine companion. And if Monty eventually got put to sleep I’d get over it, but it would probably haunt my sister the rest of her life. So I told them I’d do it. I vowed to come up some time this summer on vacation and adopt Monty.

Later that day I was talking to one of my brothers and told him the news. He said Monty was stupid, and my dog was smart. Instead of wondering if I’d made the right decision after all, I chose to feel good about someone other than a neighbor who compliments my hair calling my dog “smart”. My oldest son has been calling my dog “stupid” in a loving way for the past year.

When I told my kids about my plan, all but one of them was happy. Unfortunately, when I’d mentioned earlier to my oldest son in a “ha ha” and I-told-you-so-way that my brother called my dog smart, I let the part slip out about him saying Monty was stupid. Where is the duct tape when I need it on my mouth?

The day the family reunion officially ended and they all hit the road, I called my dad. What do you know, he was taking care of Monty for them while they were away. And he didn’t have anything good to say.

Uh oh.

When my ex found out we’re getting another dog, he asked me if I’d take one of his dogs too. I found it extremely easy to say, “No.”

No time, but that will change

I really loathe the song “No Time” by The Guess Who, and it has found its way into my head again. Once every few years is entirely too often. I know it’s because I barely have any time to myself lately. Or maybe I heard it via a TV ad but I really don‘t see how the song could be used to sell a car. Either way, I’m looking forward to summer. Maybe you’d think life would be even more hectic with the kids out of school, but it’s quite the opposite. At least until August, when this evil thing called ‘boredom’ sets in and I consider trading away kids for things that are much more useful. For example, I’d like to get a man-maid just to see what the hell it is and discover all of its capabilities. It made an appearance in one of my dreams a while back, but I left him at the house to go out and dodge bombs so my questions were left unanswered. Anyway, with less than a month of school left our summer begins on Memorial Day Weekend, and I’m getting excited. Here are some ways I’ll have more time during summer:

The kids won‘t have homework. Thanks to the internet I’m always soaking up info but when it comes time for my brain to retrieve it, this is where I have a problem. “I can remember reading about the Mayans and when they predicted the end of the world, but sorry Son, it may have been 2012 or it could be December of this year. One of them is right, so just use both in your report to be safe. Or was it the Aztecs?”

Again, thanks to the internet it doesn’t take too long to find out but I’d rather have a photographic memory for the time-saving benefits.

They love to play outside. I get more done when they’re not in my face every ten minutes needing something. We know the people who live on our street and actually like two-thirds of them. Some of them have kids around the same ages so they all play together, then I don’t hear from my own until chow time or some one gets hurt. Usually it is only feelings. It doesn’t really matter unless blood is drawn, so I don’t let their squabbles rob me of my time. I tell them if they don‘t want to play I have some work they can do, which has quickly healed their broken friendships many a time.

They will spend more time with their dad. Their father rotates all shifts at work, and his days off are so varied and unpredictable it would take three rocket scientists with an 8-ball of cocaine to make an accurate prediction of his next schedule in advance. So throughout the school year the kids and I never know when he’ll have a weekend off to take them. During the summer it doesn’t matter - they can be whisked off at a moment’s notice on any day of the week, and I have no complaints.

I‘ll be doing less laundry. We’ll be wearing shorts and tees every day and when you compare that to bulky sweatshirts and jeans I guess it‘s pretty obvious. My sons wash their own clothes, but I don’t even like washing my own clothes, so I’m really excited about doing the wash for myself and two girls who spill everything they eat on themselves less often. I just can’t wait for summer.

Hurray for the grill. That means fewer pots and pans to wash. And it is always fun to draw a crowd only to send them away hungry. What happened to the pot luck concept? Someone bring me a dessert, damnit. I have lots of burgers to share, but someone please bring a good dessert. If I‘ve slaved over a hot grill it‘s the least you could do. And for God’s sakes people, stop sniffing the air and saying, “Ummm.” If you can’t contribute in some way, just step away from the grill. And keep moving ‘cause if I can see you, you’re too goddamn close.

So, how will I spend the extra time this summer? I hope I’ll be gazing upon the millions of stars up there in the sky like the wannabe hippie-slacker that I am, but most likely I‘ll be training our new dog to behave himself. But that is another blog entirely.

Are you looking forward to summer?