Weekend in Review

Saturday Adam had a 9am breakfast meeting and I got to sleep in. I slept until sometime around 11 and quite honestly, I don't really remember how we spent the first half of the day. I think Adam went swimming. Jeez, that must have been some hangover! Anyway, later in the afternoon we cleaned up the house and put the new rugs down that I got for my birthday. I dug through the change in my giant Coca-Cola bottle bank and separated the "silver" from the pennies. We were getting ready to head to my cousin's house to play cards. My family always plays for cash, we don't screw around!

Adam was close in his prediction when we got there that everyone would spend an hour taking pictures of my cousin's baby before we played cards. It was actually more like two hours. Some of it though was spent jerking around with birthday cake and ice cream for my cousin David's birthday. He's up here to visit from Tennessee.

Adam and I were NOT looking to donate our money to ANYONE Saturday night. We definately wanted to come home having more money or breaking even. I think we did end up donating a little, but we had fun, none-the-less.

Sunday Adam and I got groceries and then he worked with my brother-in-law out at his house. I piddled around the house. I went to bed around 7 because I had to work Sunday night. Got up around 9 to hang out with Adam for an hour before I left since he left really early this morning to go back to work. My sister kept the kids overnight and then took them to my dad's in the morning. I picked them up after a couple hours of sleep this morning and we all hung out and had a nice afternoon and evening. Blake was a little ornery, but nothing unusual.

Right now it's 11:50pm and I've been listening to our drunk neighbor lady fight with her kids for the last 45 minutes or so. I called the police about 10 minutes ago because it's starting to get a little rowdy. She drinks all the time and has 2 teenage kids. From what I can hear, and at this point I can hear almost every word, they've taken her keys and wont give them back. I really hope the cops get here soon. She's starting to get violent. My walls are shaking cuz she's pounding on them. Hopefully with her fist, and not a child. I wish Adam was here...

Tomorrow I'm going to take the kids to the Family Museum for a little play time. They don't know it yet. Should be a nice day.

Friday's Homecoming

Ahhh, Friday. Friday Adam came home. Whoohooo! Friday started out sort of weird. I went to bed Thursday night sooooo exhausted from the day. I really think as soon as I laid down I fell asleep because I don't remember looking around the room, adjusting my pillow or having any last thoughts for the day. I just remember straightening the comforter, turning off the light and setting the alarm for 7:15. That's it. Until 3:15am. At exactly 3:15 I woke up and looked at the clock. All of the sudden I thought I was supposed to be at work. It was like my body knew I had to work soon but my mind just could not figure out what time. I really thought I was supposed to be working 3rd shift at that moment. I sat straight up in bed and thought, "Why the hell didn't anyone from work call me??" I mean here it was, like almost 4.5 hours after my shift would have started. Then I thought maybe my alarm clock had the wrong time so I went in the bathroom. I have a clock in the shower. Same time. So I stopped. I wanted to collect my thoughts. Then I realized, I didn't have to work 3rd shift, I'm working 1st shift on Friday. Jesus. I don't have to be to work until 8:30 and I can get 4 more hours of sleep. I was so relieved. I got back in bed and fell right back to sleep.

A thunderstorm rolled in sometime after that with some pretty loud thunder. The first loud one half woke me up and I heard Emily wake up and run into my room and fling herself on my bed.

"Storm scare you, Emily?"

"Yes."

Got up for real at 7:15 and got ready for work. Helped my dad put his Tet socks on again and headed out the door. Stole rock star parking in a lot I'm not supposed to be parking in as an employee on 1st shift, but I didn't care. When I got to work our lead and another girl were there talking about Holidays. Our lead said she scheduled me for Labor Day, 2nd shift unless she finds someone to hire for PT 2nd shift. (Our last girl literally went crazy and works in a different department now, where she's gone equally as crazy) I wish now I would have had the wits about me to ask how many holidays that put me up to because we're each only supposed to have to work 4. That would be less if our lead would work some holidays but she doesn't do that or weekends. In fact, she barely does her 40 hours a week M-F. Case in point came at 11:00 when she left to "take her kids some lunch". She never came back and she wasn't scheduled to be off work until 3:30. Thanks a lot. I had already figured she was going to do that when I was thinking about work the night before. I was trying to think of who would be working with me and I figured she would either not be there because it's Friday, or she would leave early. Next week she's taking an "Office Day" on Thursday the 3rd because, of course, Friday she's off for the holiday. Tell me, how exactly does the lead of the switchboard take an "Office Day"???? We don't get to forward calls to her and I can't imagine there SO MUCH paperwork to do that she can't get it done while she's at the office. As it is when she's there she turns off her phone and doesn't answer calls whenever she feels like it. Anyway, sorry. That's enough of my ranting. What comes around goes around and someday she'll get what's coming to her.

Her leaving early did something good for me, it got me off a half-hour early because I couldn't take a lunch. That was cool with me. Adam called me at work around 2:15 to say he was off early and heading home because of storms in the area where he was working. He got home not too long before I did. After I got home Adam had showered and changed and we went out to dinner at a Chinese Buffet. That was nice because we didn't have the kids with us. Don't take that the wrong way because as much as you love them and love being with them, the occasional dinner out without them is Heaven, trust me! After dinner we came home and I showered, changed and we went to karaoke at The Paddlewheel. I had way, way....WAY too many shots and Adam ABSOLUTELY rocked the house. I really think he was the house favorite and sang the best of anyone there. We came home late and I saw that our neighbors were up partying. I really, really wanted to knock on the door but Adam insisted I didn't because they're "just a bunch of high school kids."

"So? I like high school kids!"

Pretty sure sober Amy wouldn't have said that. Again, I passed out when I hit the pillow and slept like a baby until 11am where I'm now suffering from a headache, stomachache and general blah-ness. We're supposed to go to my cousin's to play cards at 7:00. Ugh!

You Say It's My Birthday! It's My Birthday Too, Yeah....Oh, I Already Said That...

So, I turned 34 today. 34. It doesn't even sound right when I say it. 34. WTF, man?? My day started out ok. I got home from work and got a couple hours of sleep. Went across the hall to pick up the kids. I'm pretty certain they were happy to get rid of Blake. When I asked if he was good or a maniac she didn't even play it off like he was good even though he wasn't. You know the standard, "Oh no! He was great!" She said, "Eh, a little of both." Great. I made lunch for me and the kids (PB&J and chips) and I spent the afternoon yelling at Blake. Called my sister and made arrangements for all of us to have dinner at my fave Mexican restaurant, Adolph's.

Stopped at the hardware store before we went to the restaurant to have 2 house keys made. One for my dad and one for the sitter. Since they had the funky key blanks, you know the decorative kind, got two of those and will give the plain ones out to dad and the sitter. For myself I chose the leopard print key, for Adam a green one with monkeys all over it.

Went to the restaurant. My cousin, her daughter and her baby were supposed to already be there but weren't. The oldest of the three called a few minutes later to say her and the second oldest were fighting and they wouldn't be able to come. I wont get into details of what the second oldest was yelling to her mom in the background but let me just say that if MY daughter EVER talks to me like that, she'll be hoofing it on the side of the highway. Jesus take the wheel because I'm about to knock the shit out of my kid!

Had a great dinner and then it was present time. You'll remember my sister took Emily shopping on Tuesday for my present. Well, she decided I needed a shirt. It's a really cute girly polo-type grey shirt with snaps and what looks like a peek of a white lacy tank underneath and puff sleeves. She also decided I needed rugs. Which was funny, but they'll match the rug I already have in the kitchen. I plan to put one in front of the fridge and one in front of the center island. Then, she got me a big area rug to match those to go under my kitchen table. I can't wait to put it under the table and see how it looks. My sister got me a really cute purple and green "COCKTAILS" sign to go by the wet bar. It has a big martini glass on it. She and my dad also got me $100 combined, which will pay my babysitter bill this week. Ugh. I'd really rather spend it on a new bra since I broke the strap on one of mine (the one of two I own) and a new swimming suit since the bra on mine has absolutely had it. In fact, I don't even think you can call it a bra in there anymore. More like a lazy piece of fabric.

The kids picked out THE most awesome birthday card EVER for me. It probably set my sister back close to $10 but it's AWESOME. If you're ever near a Hallmark display, please keep your eye out for it. It's a wind-up card. It has a little handle in the bottom right corner that you crank and while you do that it plays Soul Bossa Nova by Quincy Jones. It's a song you'd probably recognize from Austin Powers. While that's playing there is cut out pics of a swinging 60's party going on with people dancing, dancing with lampshades on their head and swinging from chandeliers. The act of you turning the crank makes them move. Seriously, you can't help but wish you were at this party. If you've ever seen "Breakfast at Tiffany's" (my fave movie of all time) it'll remind you of the party scene in that movie. Awesome card.

After we came home I tried picking up the house a bit and Blake was awful. He even got a spanking and laughed the whole time. I put a couple loads of clothes away and Emily helped. Can't say enough about how much Emily stepped up this week and helped me. She really deserves something special when payday rolls around. I had to wash another load of Blake's clothes because since Tuesday he's gone through every single pair of underwear he owns except for one. That's probably about 10 pair. Packed the kid's clothes since they're going to my sister's house for the weekend and they'll be gone by the time I get home tomorrow. By the time the kids went to bed tonight it was after 10 and I was exhausted. I watched a little TV and went to bed. Welcome to 34. Sooooo glad Adam will be home tomorrow night.

Heel, Toe, Docie Doe Come On Baby Let's Go Shoot Ourselves

It's no secret to those who know me that I don't like country music. Like really. Our radio at work gets in two channels, three if I'm really lucky but usually the third only comes in for about an hour before it fuzzes out. The two channels that come in loud and proud and for days at a time, are the country station and the Jesus channel. So, after I get good and depressed from listening to the country station I get to switch it over to the Jesus station and get healed. Yay.

I turn the radio on because I'm the only one in the office all night on 3rd shift. The background noise keeps me company. Usually I try to keep it down to where it's just a mumble and I don't have to pay attention to what's being played or said. Because our radio is as temperamental as a premenstrual 16 year old, the volume goes up and down as it pleases. This means I don't always get to ignore what's on.

If I can't get a third, more normal station tuned in on the radio, I usually turn it on the country station. This is mostly because the Jesus channel only seems to have 12 songs, to match the 12 apostles, I guess, that they play every hour. That gets real old, real fast. The Jesus channel also annoys me because they, like every church service I've ever been too, ask for money all the time. How bizarre and completely inappropriate. As you can imagine they don't play those anti-satellite radio commercials that go "radio--it should be free", but it would be hilarious if they did.

The country station depresses me. Bad. I can't tell you how many nights I've had it on at work, I've heard a word or two of a song and I'm suddenly googling it to find out what the songs about. I really have no idea why I do this because I know what it's going to be about; either someone dies, or their kid grows up and becomes an adult, gets married, has babies of their own and whatnot. That's it. Yes I know there are the others that are about partying and drinking but those don't catch my attention. If anything they catch my anti-attention and I tune them out. I really don't care to know that you're here for the party or that she has a honky tonk padunkadunk. Good for you that you can put away a twelve pack without even putting down your baby. I'm happy as hell for you.

So I google the song, read the lyrics and now I'm crying. Suddenly I'm the subject of the song and I'm an 85 year-old woman in a nursing home who doesn't know where she is but remembers her long lost love when he walks in the door. Or, maybe I'm the single mother with 8 babies who is struggling to put food on the table and then dies of a broken heart.

Every time I finish reading the lyrics to one of these songs several things run through my mind.

1. What the hell were you thinking looking up these lyrics? They always make you cry you big dummy!

2. God! Who writes this stuff? I bet it's some pasty white 30 year-old walking around wearing all black and mumbling to themselves.

3. I've gotta get a different station on this radio

Here's the part I find ironic. The people who listen to country music, and I'm really only talking to the ones that listen to it exclusively and are HUGE country music fans, are usually the first ones to put down metal and goth music and the people that listen to it. They describe it as "dark" and "depressing" most likely without even listening to the lyrics. Sounds hypocritical to me coming from someone who listens to a lot of songs about death, binge drinking and sick kids.

So last night I'm at work, listening to the country station and I think some sort of national radio show is on. They are interviewing some well-known country singer and he's talking about how great George Jones is. Then I hear this well-known country singer say in his best country twang, "I've been singing George Jones songs since before I could talk." and he wasn't trying to be facetious. He was being serious. The DJ said, "No kidding. Wow."

Seriously? You want me to believe that before you could form simple words like dada and mama you were singing things like "He Stopped Loving Her Today"????? Suddenly pictures flash in my mind of that baby on those E*Trade commercials. Some chunky bald baby sitting in a high chair, covered in pureed green beans singing about honky tonks and beer. I hate the country station.

F*ck Hump Day

Shitty day today. At least the first half was. Adam got rained out so no work. Apparently he thought it would be a good idea to call me at 8am and wake me up. Apparently he forgot we sleep until 9am. Emily cleaned up her room and her brothers (yay Emily!) so I could pick up the living room, dining room, kitchen and vacuum. Suddenly I heard Blake in the bathroom say, "Mama, why is all this water on the floor?" I assumed he pissed on the floor again like he's done almost everyday this week. I went in there and saw a very large puddle of water. Told Blake to get out, flushed the toilet (stupid, stupid, stupid) because there was a big wad of TP in there. Water went EVERYWHERE and fast. Suddenly I easily had an inch of water on the floor and it was spreading fast. Tried to find our mop with no luck. Called Adam to see if he put it somewhere. Tried to make the conversation quick because of the spreading water. Adam wants to ask 20 questions.


1. Well who did it?
2. Well did you ask which one did it?
3. Did you spank Blake?
4. Is it from the toilet?
5. What was in the toilet?
6. Well was it just a bunch of toilet paper, or what?


Can you please just tell me if we have a mop, I've got like an inch of water all over the place. Then the bitching starts. "I DON'T KNOW IF WE HAVE A MOP..." The rest was just noise to me. I hung up and grabbed all of the clean towels out of the closet. No time for lectures. By this time the carpet outside of the bathroom was getting soaked. It took 6 full towels to finally get it cleaned up. Meanwhile my phone is ringing the whole time. I don't answer. I got a voicemail. He got a text message.


Put all of the towels from the bathroom, and some dirty ones that were in a basket to be washed, in the washer. Got them out and they were still pretty soaked. Apparently I had too many in the washer and they didn't get spun very dry. They took FOREVER in the dryer.


I started lunch for the kids and Blake came out in the living room to talk to me. Realized he had AGAIN peed his pants (third time today). Got out a clean pair of underwear and shorts for him and he starts throwing a fit. A big one. Ignored him. He kept it up for the whole time I cooked mac n' cheese, served it, Emily ate hers and for a bit after that. He didn't want to change his clothes and he didn't want help with it. I think he's really missing his daddy. I got him to let me help him get changed. He gave me a big hug when I asked him if he missed daddy and he sat and ate his mac n' cheese. Even cleaned out his bowl and put it in the sink when he was done.


After that he played for a while in his room when I heard a "bang". He starts whailing and crying, holding his knee and running to me. I scooped him up, knowing he was also very tired. I held him for a minute and gave him a good dose of "The House That Jack Built."** He passed right out and I finally got some peace and quiet. Whew.

I took the kids across the hall to the babysitter after dinner (how's THAT for convenience???) and then I laid down myself. A special shout out to Adam for forgetting I worked tonight and calling and waking me up around 8pm. I appreciated that. Got up around 10 and got ready for work. As I left the apartment I could hear Blake yelling for the cat over at the sitter's house. Great, he's still up at 10:25pm. They're going to hate me and never want me to bring my kids over there again. Said a quick prayer that Blake would calm down and fall asleep soon and headed to the car. Felt a sprinkle as I got in and hoped it wouldn't be raining hard when I got to work as my umbrella was in the house. I lucked out and it wasn't raining hard AND I got rockstar parking at work. Love that!

When I got to the office the 2nd shift girl had baked me a cake for my birthday (which she admitted to already eating a piece of, lol) and there was a present from everyone, a pretty candle.

Tried out a piece of the cake and OMG was it freaking good! It was a chocolate bundt cake with what I'm pretty sure was homemake chocolate icing drizzled on top. The girl that made it just turned 22 but she bakes like nobody's business. Seriously. She brings in cookies and cakes that could be on the cover of ANY magazine. From what I hear her mom was the same way (which I had guessed) and I guess her mom made ANYTHING you could find in the stores. Apparently she never knew Twinkies exsisted in the store until she was in her teens because her mom always made them herself when they were growing up. Can you imagine a warm Twinkie right out of the oven. Wow. Oh yeah, and this girl is a twig with two kids. I love her and hate her all at the same time.

**For those of you that don't know, last year when Adam went back to work, Blake and I got in a habit at naptime. Everyday at 11 or 11:30 he would come up to me with his favorite blanket and tell me he needed, "a little House That Jack Built". I would wrap him up, hold him and softly and slowly tell him the story of the House That Jack Built. He would usually be asleep before we even got to the man all tattered and torn. We don't do it very often anymore but it still works whenever I do it. I love having that little thing that only works for mommy! I'm so glad my grandma bought me that book at KMart when I was about 6. Thanks Grandma!!!

'Til Tuesday

I'm gonna try to make this a little more short and sweet than that blabbering piece of rubbage I posted yesterday. Ha! I just used my fave new word...rubbage. Anyway, due to the late hour I went to bed on Monday night, Tuesday morning I slept in until a retched 10:00. Craptastic. WTG Mom for leaving your kids to fend for themselves all morning. Turns out they were fine and had just been playing and watching TV, whew. Breakfast was served and I took a shower.

I did a little Internet surfing after that and found this TOTALLY awesome website where I want EVERYTHING. I found so many rad things to get Adam for xmas. I can't wait to go nuts on this website. Also everything is pretty cheap so...I just can't even tell you how awesome it is. I would love to share the site with you but as one of the gift recipients will be reading this, I must keep you in the dark for now. I promise though, December 26th, I'll spill the beans!

In the afternoon I called Adam's office to see about his payroll. Adam found out Monday night that his company is no longer issuing checks, they are doing the direct deposit thing, which is good, but potentially disastrous when they don't have our bank info, his first payday is on the 4th and rent is due by the 5th. Also with Adam being so far from home I was concerned. They were very accommodating and let me pick up the paperwork and fill it out for him. He even signed it via me, but shhhhh...that's our secret!

Emily asked me this afternoon when my birthday was. "Thursday." I said. She looked a little freaked and said, "Who's gonna take me to get your present?!?! What's Aunt Lisa's number???" So, she called my sister at work and left her a vm. She called back and they made arrangements to go shopping tonight. Since I was out that way to get Adam's paperwork we met her when she got off, had dinner and then she took the kids shopping. I got to spend a couple quiet hours home alone with a couple crazy new summer tv shows, some yarn and a crochet hook.

Adam called around 8 and said he was tired from putting in an 11.5 hour day. Not sure what time the kids got back but we hung out with my sis until about 10. I tried getting out of Emily what she got me for my birthday but she's locked up tighter than a steel drum. I can tell you that I'm NOT getting socks, a book, a CD, underwear, shoes, My Little Pony, a case of pop, eggs and bacon, or cauliflower. I'm stumped. I put the kids to bed, tried to catch up on more soaps and turned in myself. Tomorrow I hope to get some cleaning done then I have to work tomorrow night.

Monday, Monday...the first boooooring blog

I woke up early, very early this morning to help Adam get ready to leave. It was around 3:50am. Adam left around 4:15 and I got my clothes out of the dryer so I would have them in the bedroom for work and also before my dad got here around 6am. Tried for about 3.5 minutes to go back to sleep but I realized I would only get less than an hour of sleep before my alarm went off again. Decided to get up and read the Internet news. Called Adam and told him George Carlin died.



Played on the Internet for an hour then got ready for work. Scrubbed and scrubbed face in the shower to get peeling skin off of forehead. I mostly succeeded but my chest is peeling bad. Pretty gross. Came out to tell Dad good-bye when he reminded me about his socks. I had promised to help him put on his tet socks before I left. Old man toes are grody. This small act totally threw off my morning so I forgot my big bottle of water and the frozen mac n' cheese dinner I was going to take to work for my lunch. Will have to eat hospital food. Boo.



Pulled in the lot at work and Adam called to say he got to the jobsite. Went in to work where it was fairly busy for pretty much the whole day. There had been a gunshot victim that came in the night before so he got a lot of calls. At least until he passed away at 9:30am. Boo to gangs. Ended up eating California Medley soup (my absolute fave) and half of a sub sandwich. Forgot the other half in the fridge at work. Will have to eat it Wednesday night.



Got off work and came home. House a bit of a mess because dad is too old to pick up kid crap. Dad leaves and Blake is onery. Very. Blake goes in his bedroom to watch TV and a while later Emily comes out to report Blake has fallen asleep on his floor. At the same time we said, "Whew!" I'm glad Emily understands. I start to crochet a baby blanket for Emily's favorite babydoll, Daisy. Because I need another blanket to crochet? I'm already half-way through Emily's blanket and about 1/5 of the way done with Blakes. Ugh. What was I thinking?? Work on that for a while then start dinner. Emily helped get the table ready and picked out the vegetable which she had a very hard time doing. "I just love them all!" she said, after verifying that both hominy and green beans were vegetables.



Half-way through dinner Blake woke up and was crabby. Didn't really want to eat and I didn't really want to fight him. Got him to eat a little bit and realized he stunk...like doody. (Blake's about 2 weeks into being potty trained so we still have accidents.) Also realized he put on a diaper and THEN crapped in it. Was disturbed but a bit relieved I wouldn't have to clean out a pair of Spiderman underwear.



Got Blake cleaned up and put him in the tub. Emily took a shower. Blake played in the tub for a bit and was a lot happier. Must have been the doody diaper that made him crabby earlier. Dried him off, put on clean underwear and jammies and Emily finally graced us with her presence outside of the shower. She got dressed in jammies too. We called Adam to tell him good night and Adam hung up on Emily. Not intensionally, he thought the conversation was done. Emily wasn't. She cried because she didn't get to tell him she loved him. Then I was crying. Blake was looking at us like we were nuts. Emily called Adam back and the world was right again.



Tucked the kids in bed, picked up the house and put Blake's dirty clothes in the washer as he's currently wearing his last pair of underwear. Watched Intervention. Yay for alcoholics in recovery. Then tried catching up on the 23 episodes of The Young and the Restless that I'm behind on. I'm down to 20 now. Jesus. Finally went to bed around 1am and PASSED OUT!

My Baby Takes The Morning Train...He Works Five Ten-Hour Days...

Adam's construction job gets a little more intense starting tomorrow. Tomorrow he is being sent to BFE Illinois. In case you didn't know, and I don't know how you would, BFE Illinois is two-hours away. Let me repeat that in case you've been fingering the lenses on your glasses again, TWO-HOURS AWAY. So, because of that he'll be staying in BFE Illinois all week, coming home on the weekends. The kids and I are so sad! OK, I don't really think the kids have grasped that Daddy won't be home all week, but I'm super sad.

I'm trying to be upbeat about it. I think of all of the women and mothers who send their kids and husbands off to some foreign country for months and months at a time. Pretty sure they don't get to come home on the weekends. Still, it will be very weird for us. We've had times where one of us goes out of town, or whatnot but not for this long. We're not sure, really how long this job will last. I bet Adam will get more of an idea of that when he gets there but I doubt it will be as short of time as I want it to be. You know, like a day or something. That's how long I want it to last. Boo to road construction in BFE Illinois!

One positive I've found, (because my pal JC has taught me to find at least one in every shitty situation) is that he will be working five ten-hour days. That mean overtime, baby! Another positive (look at me, JC, I'm on a roll!) is that the town he'll be working in is in a county that has a higher prevailing wage than any of our local counties. About $4 more an hour. Mo money, mo bills paid.

So I'm going to try to update this blog daily with all of the trials and tribulations of my day so Adam can keep up-to-date with our family when he gets home on the weekends. You'll find my blogs to be more "Blake said this, then Emily did this.." rather than the Andy Rooney style, "Why are oranges called oranges but bananas aren't called yellows?" Hope you can tolerate it!

"You're on Bob's wood, Mr. Crab." --Lofty, "Bob The Builder"

As if the regular Bagel-fuls weren't bad enough

This morning I had to run to the grocery store on my way home from work. In the freezer aisle, something caught my eye. BAGEL-FULS! Apparently they now have several flavors of crap to choose from. I didn't stick around to really study them but a few that caught my eye were cinnamon Bagel-fuls and Bagel-fuls filled with strawberry cream cheese. The strawberry cream cheese only reminded me of one particular Saturday night a very, very, very long time ago. I don't want to get into details but the story involves a friend, a party and an attendee with the munchies who got caught in the kitchen with his fingers dug deep into a vat of strawberry cream cheese. When he saw us he started screaming, "GET OUT! GET OUT!" Remembering that story actually made me smirk a little, despite the fact I was staring straight at an entire freezer full of doody.

Things I Don't Understand Or Have Noticed This Week...

1. Why does a capital cursive letter "Q" look like a "2"? Why didn't they just make it look like a "Q" with maybe a little loop at the top?

2. How does laundry accumulate so fast? I mean, I understand we are a family of four, but seriously. My laundry is NEVER done, and I mean never.

3. You will get burned, and burned bad if you relax by the pool for a couple hours with no sunscreen. This is picture shows me better, actually. It was worse. I went to the pool three days ago.

4. Tupperware is freaking expensive!! Seriously, when and why did it get so expensive to buy a set of bowls, or storage containers for your dry goods?? I don't understand.

5. Next Thursday I'll be 34 years old. HOW THE HELL DID THAT HAPPEN??? No, really. I've said this before but I swear to God I turned 18 like 2 years ago. I have no idea how I got to be this age. I really don't.

Because you haven't seen enough of the flood on CNN, MSNBC, CBS, The Weather Channel...

Adam and I headed over to Davenport's SkyBridge this afternoon, known to us locals as "The Bridge To Nowhere", so we could take some pictures of the flood. Based on the number of people heading to the bridge, and that were IN the bridge, Adam and I realized that finally this bridge has a purpose. Above and below I've included a couple pictures of the bridge, obviously taken before the great flood of '08, so you can see that it really does go nowhere. Well, it starts out in a parking garage and ends up nowhere. In the pic below you can see how cool it is at night because they light it up. Red and green at Christmas time, Red, White, and Blue during those patriotic moments, etc. The fireworks in the background are most likely coming from the baseball park that is a block or two from the bridge.

This skybridge is now basically straddling dry and very wet land. We headed downtown and parked a couple blocks from the Figge Art Museum, who's front is now in the water. I took a few pictures and we headed over to the bridge...TO NOWHERE!!! *cue scary music.

There were probably about a dozen or more people up there with about half as many coming on and off the elevator at any given time. We had never ventured onto the skybridge since it was finished about three years ago. Despite a lot of the residents of Davenport making fun of this bridge and the fact that it really doesn't end anywhere, and putting up a good fight to keep it out when it was first conceived, it really is a cool place to check out the river (in or out of it's banks) as well as check out the sights of the riverfront, like LeClaire Park, Centennial Bridge, Davenport Levee, the Arsenal Bridge and the Casino boat.

These pictures above were taken from the road (obviously) near the Figge Art Museum.

This picture was taken on the bridge looking east down what is now quite literally River Drive. Don't worry, during the next pictures I remembered to take the flash off so as to not get blinded by the glare of the glass.

This is The Dock Restaurant which, lucky for them, closed a couple years ago. Something tells me they wont be selling it anytime soon. At least not without a lot of clean-up.

Here we are on the other side of the bridge looking West down River Drive. To the right you can see the Figge which is the larger glass building. Out in the distance you can see Centennial Bridge and under that bridge is John O'Donnell Stadium. Actually, it's now called Modern Woodman Park, because everyone has a price.

And here's the cute little hot dog stand just to the side of the casino boat. I remember my mom and I coming here, probably in '94 and on the corner of the building they had it marked where the river was during all of the floods. I was checking them out, '68, '70-something, wondering, "Where's '93?" OH! They had added a stick to the top of the roof that stick out and waaaay at the top was written '93. As you can see this year hasn't been as bad.

Looking west to Centennial Bridge.

This is the view you get from the end of the bridge on the observation deck. Can anyone guess why the casino has been closed?? Anyone??

Here's a little better view of The Dock Restaurant.

And finally, one of my favorite pictures I took today, although it didn't turn out as well as I had hoped, thanks to the sun. These are, or were, actually, parking spaces for riverboat employees. What they say are SUPERSTAR PARKING. Superstar indeed!

I hear the secrets that you keep...when you're talking in your sleep

Here are some things Adam said in his sleep last night:

1. Hyumna wanna chew ho back ta tank

2. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Maybe we should get a sponsor.

3. Showa tees bank lock.

Celebrity Circus Smackdown!

Did any of you watch the newest in summertime reality tv? That which is the Celebrity Circus? If you missed I seriously recommend borrowing your grandma's VHS copy of it just so you can see Blu Cantrell put the smackdown on one of the judge's. You all remember Blu Cantrell, right? She sang that "Hit 'Em Up Style" song that went a little something like, "I was beemin...in the deemin hama deemin' just a dreamin...cant believe that I ate my man's semen" er...something like that. Anyway, the show has 6 or 7 C-list celebrities, the most well known being Peter Brady and supermodel Rachel Hunter, if that tells you anything. They each do a different circus trick, get judged by a panel of three judges, one being cranky, one delivering soft blows and one gay (I know, very original) then we can call in and vote for our favorite with one of them getting voted off each week. Very "Dancing With The Stars".

So before each celeb performs they show a little bit of them practicing and the struggles that they had so you can begin to think, "wow, they have no idea how to do this" and then they come out and nail it and it blows your mind. All except Blu Cantrell. Poor Blu. During the clips of her practicing she was obviously very lazy. Even the trainers were commenting on her laziness and she would say, "I just know my body and I have to lay down a lot." Whatever. So, she performs an act on the Spanish Web, or something. Adam and I weren't too impressed with the performance because she really didn't do much of anything. Now we cut to the judges. The first judge is some professional circus acrobat, aka the cranky one. She proceeds to tell Blu just how it is, how she never even climbed up the rope to do her trick and that it was terrible, blah, blah. She gets similar yet nicer remarks from the other judges. Cut to commercial where Blu got to stew in her pissed-off-ness. They come back and host Joey Fat-one says, "Blu, those were harsh comments, what do you think about that?" She says to cranky judge, "I think even if I'd done this as many years as you I'd still do it better than you." DAYUM! They bicker back and forth with Fat-one cutting them off and talking over them and cranky judge gets the last word by giving ol' Blu a score of 4 out of 10. OUCH! Blu ended up with an average score of 4.7. The highest celeb, Stacy Dash from the movie "Clueless" got an average of 8.1 if that tells you anything.

I think if I were cranky judge, I'd be looking out for Blu Cantrell's brother, who's probably a Crip to be hiding under my car. I'm just sayin'.

How I spent my afternoon/evening at the competitor's office

Shortly after I woke up Tuesday afternoon I was on the phone with my sister and making my self a sandwich. Adam had the kids in the pool. While my sister and I were talking she said, "oh, Dad's trying to call on the other line. He can just wait." She said this because our dad calls us CONSTANTLY. As soon as he sees something on TV or he thinks about something he wants to tell us or ask us, he calls. Even if he had JUST talked to us a few seconds before. It can get annoying if he's having a particularly brain-storm-y kinda day. A few moments after that MY other line started beeping which I assumed to be dad also. After we hung up Adam's cell started ringing and sure enough, Dad. I didn't answer. Then he called on the home phone again. I thought, well, I guess I better answer cuz he's just gonna keep on calling. (Keep in mind this is a guy who had already called twice and been to the house and it's just now 3 in the afternoon.) So he tells me that he talked to a nurse at the VA hospital he goes to about all the problems he'd been having (which apparently were episodes of shortness of breath, dizziness and blackouts, none of which he had ever mentioned to me). She told him he needed to go to the ER. I called my sister and we arranged to take him. Here's the catch, my dad hates the hospital I work for, which is a really great hospital, btw. Rated one of the top 100 hospitals in the nation, only one of two in Illinois. He calls them a slaughterhouse. He's based this fact on three friends of his who have passed away there. One has had mild to severe health problems his entire life until he passed away somewhere in his 70's. About the same with another and my dad's very good friend battled cancer for a very long time and passed away there also. So, yeah, totally my hospital's fault, right? Anyway, because of this he wanted to go to the hospital across the river here in Iowa. So that's where we took him.

They registered my dad and put us in an exam room. Shortly after that it started getting hot in the room. That's because there was no air and no thermostat, despite EVERYONE who came in looking for one and then telling us there wasn't one. Thanks, we hadn't noticed. We ended up having to leave the door open. Not long after we were put in a room I heard the familiar "ding ding" and lights flickering for a code about to be announced. Then I heard, "Code Blue, first floor physician's lounge." I saw everyone at the nurse's station across from us look at each other and then almost every one of them went running. One of their own was down. They ended up shutting our door almost every time they wheeled someone past so we didn't get to check anything else out, however I can tell you that the physician did pass away. A 47 year old anesthesiologist. Very sad.

Over four hours later they determined there was nothing wrong with my dad. (tell me then, why has he blacked out three times in the last week...better hospital my ass!) As we were walking past the nurse's station and out the door I noticed a lot of "commotion". Huddled together was a gaggle of doctors having a conference. Some of their name tags indicated they were in charge of things. One of them, probably not a doctor was the VP of Corporate Communications. Around the corner near their pow-wow was a police officer stationed outside of an exam room. As we exited there were three or four police cars, one or two unmarked cars and a crime scene unit van all parked outside. Something went down while we were there, however we've never seen anything on the news. Kinda scary.

Pops says he's feeling better although I think he's afraid to admit he got poor care at his preferred hospital. Maybe next time he'll listen to me.

...his name is my name too

We get all kinds of sorts that call in to work. Since I work 3rd shift my calls are usually split up into groups. From the start of my shift until around 5:00-5:30, that's when all the crazies call in. Obviously not every call but the phrase, "it's happy hour somewhere" does seem to apply during these hours. After that the calls change to a lot of employees needing to call in, people wondering about appointment times or surgery times and a lot of calls from family and friends wanting to know the room number of a loved one. One of my pet peeves for these last type of calls are the people that give you 52 first names for their friend.



"Yeah, I wanted to get the room number for someone."

"Sure, what's the name?"

"Allison...Peter...Taylor...Joe."

"Um. Ok, so...what's the last name?"

"Peter."

(cut to me with my arms flailing in the air wondering...WTF??? That wasn't even the first or last name that you spewed out!)

"Ok, and the first name?"

"Taylor. TaylorJo Allison-Peter."



Are you serious??? Please remember when you're calling somewhere looking for your friend, if they have 5 different names, and ALL of them could be either first or last, be clear in the beginning. I don't know you're friend! You have to tell me, "The last name is hyphenated, it's Allison-Peter. The first name is TaylorJo." Better yet, just get friends with shorter names.

Weekend in review

This was a fairly busy weekend for The Warren's. I worked all weekend, actually I'm at the end of a 6-day stretch that started last Wednesday night. Tonight is the sixth night, I'm off tomorrow night then it's back on Wednesday again. Then I'm off for a few days, thank God! Anyway, Friday was pretty uneventful, I think. Honestly I don't remember much about Friday, except that it was busy at work. Lots of drunks, lots of people checking themselves or someone else into rehab or mental health. Lots of weird people calling. One old man called me and said exactly this, "I think I have the AIDS." I really didn't want any further details, however I think he called me again last night, more on that later.

Saturday morning was Emily dance recital. It started at 10am, lucky for me since I worked the night before. We had to be there at 9:30 but we got there early to get a good parking space. It was held at the Galvin Fine Arts Center at St. Ambrose University, which is a nice place and they have a lot of events there, however their parking situation leaves a lot to be desired. Anyway, there were eight of us total that came to see Emily dance and it was a great recital. I thought all of the classes did really well. I was impressed considering all of the students were probably aged 7 and under. Here are a few pictures post recital.

After that the kids went to my sister's to spend the night and Adam and I went to Riefe's in Davenport for lunch. It's been there since 1948 and we had never been. It was wonderful. Adam had a burger and fries and I had a hot beef. So yummy and very reasonably priced.

We came home and I eventually went to bed and Adam made some new friends around the apartment complex. They played volleyball and Adam allegedly broke one of his toes. Then they all drank beer. I woke up and went to work. How utterly exciting!

Sunday morning Adam had already left to help our bro-in-law with some cement work so I was home alone and I loved it! I went to the freezer and got out my new Bagel-fuls to try out for breakfast.

These things are the biggest, ackiest pieces of crap to ever find themselves in my microwave. I thought the problem I was going to have with them was that there wouldn't be enough cream cheese in them. I didn't realize there would be an over abundance, which is saying something because I like a lot of cream cheese on my bagel. So that was the first thing wrong with them. The second thing is that you either under microwave them or over microwave them. So I leaned towards over microwaving them because I'd rather have them too warm than still frozen in the middle. Well, when you get them too hot then the cream cheese is like lava and it squirts out the other end. Grody. Lastly, they're very doughy, like a pretzel. Like an under-done pretzel. You get four in the box, there's two in the freezer for the next time I get drunk and forget how horrible these are.

That night I worked again and it was a very uneventful evening. Except for one particular call. I believe it was the same guy from two nights ago who called and said he had the AIDS. This time he stuttered a lot and it was very hard to understand him. I had to make him repeat himself a couple times. Finally he said, "I was raped the other night." Oh. I transferred him to a nurse. Again, the less I know, the better.

So this morning Adam took Emily to her last full day of First Grade. After that we got some groceries and came home and ate breakfast. I retired to the bedroom to get a little blogging done and now I'm drinking a refreshing beverage.

Looks like water, right? Actually it's invisible cherry Kool-Aid. Now I can trick all my friends after school! Anyway, it actually tastes just like cherry Kool-Aid, not like those other gimmicky Kool-Aids that say they are a certain flavor but just taste like fruity butt.

This afternoon we're going to Emily's school for an awards program. Apparently Emily is getting some sort of award. Very cool, I think. Tomorrow is the last day of First Grade!! She goes for a whole hour then she's done. I honestly can't believe she's going into Second Grade. Crap!

Where have I been??

The same could be asked of you! Where are you? Oh yeah, I guess I actually need to start getting my blog OUT THERE in the world so people can read it. It would probably be helpful to post more regularly than every six months. OK, more posts and more "advertising", I promise.

So what's been going on with me? Well, not a whole lot. Still working, still being a mom. We did move about a month ago. The house we were renting was foreclosed, (despite the rediculous denial by the landlord) so we've found ourselves in a 1400 square foot apartment on the other side of the river. We're now Iowans again. We actually really love living in the apartment. Our original plan was to only live here for a year then buy a house but Adam and I are contemplating living here a few years, get some decent money saved, then buy a house. Our apartment has plenty of room, a cozy fireplace, two decks, one big one off the living room and one in our bedroom, and the pool is right outside our building. What more could a girl want, right? OK, a maid would be nice but I'm not sure I want a stranger touching my dirty underwear. Actually I'm quite certain I don't want a stranger touching my dirty underwear, thank you very much!

Another lovely tidbit of information about what's been going on is that my car got broken into last weekend. Adam and I went to a bar in town for some 8th wedding anniversary karaoke and my really great buzz was killed as I stood under the awning of the bar, waiting for Adam to bring the car to me in the pouring rain. He was only gone a few seconds when he ran back towards me saying, "Remember that new stereo I got you for xmas??" The guy next to me looked at me like he wasn't sure if I was one of those girls that was about to have a mental break-down. Like he might have to duck and cover at a second's notice. I said, "Are you fucking kidding me right now???" "Nope, ripped out the whole dash." They also ripped out my dome light, however they were nice enough to leave the dash and light in the backseat. Anyway, we called the cops, they took the report over the phone, an evidence detective came out and took pictures and we called our insurance company. Because of our $500 deductible we popped the dash and light back in ourselves and we'll replace the radio with a cheaper model whenever we have the extra cash. I can tell you though, I loathe my longer commute to work without a radio. Ugh, it really sucks.

As far as future plans, our little dancing queen, Emily, has her big dance recital tomorrow morning. The theme for this year's recital is "At The Movies" and all of the songs the kids are dancing to are from kid's movies. All of them are easily recognized, too, except of course both of the songs Emily is dancing to. Their ballet dance is to Carnival of the Animals which, from what I can find out, is mostly known from Peter and the Wolf ballet performances. Apparently it was also in Fantasia 2000. It is a pretty recognized song, though if you have a chance to hear it. Her tap dance is to a song called Jump N' Move. It's from Happy Feet. It's a Jamaican-style song. Mostly they say "Jump N' Move N' Jump N' Move N' Jump N' Move N' STOP!" however there are other lyrics. Lyrics we never really paid attention to during the last several months of studio practice...however...a few weeks ago Emily was given a copy of the song to take home for practice. That's when Adam caught a few words that perked up his ears. Words like, "horny" and "LSD". It took a few minutes of research for me to find the lyrics to this lovely kid's song and when I did Adam and I were a bit surprised to find out the song is about Ronald and Nancy Reagan and Nancy being horny and various drug references. We've decided not to rock the boat and not say anything. I'm quite certain the instructors never paid attention to the lyrics and who would think to listen for sex and drug references in a song that appears in a kid's movie? So, it's our little secret.

So what's been going on with all of you? How's your summer? Any big plans or are you just going to sit at home like us because the thought of paying $4 a gallon for gas to go anywhere exciting makes you sick to your stomach?


"I'm not even supposed to BE here today!" Dante 'Clerks'