Mamarati

what on earth do they put “beef cheek meat” in?

Beef Cheek Meat Recalled

Watch out all you beef cheek meat eaters!

Jacob is cleaning out his room and he just brought me a Liquid Paper Correction Pen from 1989. (Check out the new style, even. Fancy.) We’re talking typewriter days, here folks. We’re talking I was in college and we turned our papers in HAND-WRITTEN. Or we had to go to a professional typist and have them done. I actually had a typewriter then and typed papers up for folks all the time. I was such a formatting nerd.

This correction pen, that has been laying around this house for at least 3 years and has been moved from an untold number of locations prior to that is older than Jacob. Craziness.

But hey, reduce, reuse, recycle. Right? Does that fit? Yes, sure it does.

And, the crazy thing still works and has not dried up.

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/04/24/untitled-1.html

Too hilarious. Oh British TV… how I love you and wish you could be mine.

What a bizarre situation that was. Everyone was delayed at Newark. Some folks were in the terminal and had been delayed or canceled several times already. I was just about to get on the plane and there was a woman crying about not being able to make it to some meeting that was really important. I couldn’t really identify because I’ve never considered a meeting such an important thing, but I felt her pain.

The gatekeeper said that there was another delay, adding another 40 minutes or so to the time it would be to board and then she said they were overbooked and that unless someone with “flexible travel plans” would give up their seat, people would get bumped. Moans, groans and sighs filled the air as everyone contemplated the lottery situation at hand… (Would it be me who gets bumped?)

I decided to go ahead and take the $300 voucher since there’s a conference in July that I’d love to make it to, but with this being my last year of school, finances are tight. My last semester is going to cost over $6,000 alone. I’d also like to fly to Maine for graduation, so I bit the bullet and volunteered. This time I could hear sighs of relief and whispers of, “Is she taking it? Oh Good.” What the hell, you know? I didn’t have another flight to catch and no one picking me up had to be at work the next day.

I went to the American Bandstand restaurant for some potato soup that had carrots in it (later someone told me that was a Northern thing) and the worst artichoke / spinach dip I’ve ever had. No bueno. I started to get out my laptop and mess around on the Internet for a while, but then I realized that I’d packed my power adapter in my checked bag. Also on the checked bag were the books I needed to study for my midterm and finish anything that’s due this week for school. It was all on its way to DFW. Joy.

I had a guaranteed seat on the 7:40 flight, however, so all was good.

I went to the bathroom 6 times. During one stop, a woman was losing her shit completely. It was her birthday. Her flights had been canceled and delayed since yesterday and it was still going on. She just came in to go to the bathroom and dropped her cell phone in the toilet. She didn’t know anyone’s numbers by heart and couldn’t call them to pick her up. She was crying and completely going nuts. She was slipping around in her slick flip flops on the wet floor and pulled her pony tail holder out of her hair just so she could throw it down and say, “Thanks a lot American Airlines, I just fucking love you!” I didn’t know what to do.

When I got back to my seat I realized that maybe if she’d saved any of the numbers on her SIM card then she could plop it into my phone and call someone. I made trip numero 7 to the bathroom to see if she was still there, but she wasn’t. I came out and looked for her but couldn’t find her anywhere. Oh well. Good intentions.

I got back to the gate area to find that the flight between the 2:20 and the 7:40 had been canceled. More unhappy campers. Also, since the flight before was overbooked, they didn’t bump anyone but the folks on standby didn’t get on it or the newly canceled flight either. 7:40 was still on time, so I went and got a book to pass the time (Naked by David Sedaris who is one of my favorite authors.) I got bored and napped a little. Met some folks sitting around me and started cutting up and having a good time. The flight got delayed 20 minutes at a time for several hours until finally we boarded. Not at 7:40, but at nearly 11pm.

There was a guy sitting next to me and he was funny and chatty. He’d adopted a baby from Russia some years before so we talked about that process for a long time. I’d just had some tea so was cracked out. He didn’t seem to want to sleep, either. The lights went out and the rest of the plane was silent. Everyone was sleeping except he and I. We had the flight attendants to ourselves, so we proceeded to get plastered on screwdrivers.

I landed at 2am where boyfriend and Jacob were waiting to get me. I knew Jacob wouldn’t sleep. He loves and misses me, of course, but he really just loves going to the airport. A kid after my own heart, I suppose. Always something new and different at the airport. Plus there’s nothing like meeting people and sharing your most intimate details with them and then never seeing them again. There’s something liberating in that.

I almost fell asleep in the car on the way home. I don’t remember the part between pulling up in the driveway and me getting into my own bed (which is the hallmark of the end of a long trip, or in my case, two trips that seemed like one long one.) I only vaguely remember looking at the house and thinking about what a mess it was.

I woke up and called American to see where my luggage was and they said it was out for delivery and should come in the afternoon. I called again at 6pm and they said it should be there shortly. Finally, a guy that looked much like Uncle Jesse on the Dukes of Hazard with a stubby, nasty cigar hanging out of his mouth showed up in a minivan and gave me my bag. It smelled like he’d been penned up in there all day smoking that thing. It’s going to take untold amounts of Febreeze to get the smell out of that suitcase.

It’s always something, isn’t it?

OMG this is so funny. (Definitely not safe for work…)

What makes me sad about this recall is that about 672 cows died and then were thrown away.

So, I wish that over the years I’d been a smart mom and had written down all the funny things my kid has said. I thought I’d remember them all. Right. I can’t even remember what I had for breakfast.

Anyway — here’s a few:

Music Class — In his music class the teacher wanted them to all hold hands and sing a song. Now, why on earth a teacher would want these 6th graders to hold hands is completely beyond me. I personally think that kids can hold hands during songs until about 4th grade and then they can start it again about senior year. In the years between, no forced hand-holding should really be happening. It’s just awkward, embarrassing moments waiting to happen, no? Read the rest of this entry »

This guy on MSNBC is talking about how video games are to blame for the killings at Virginia Tech. He is saying that Cho was involved in the game Counterstrike and that’s how he learned to become such a calm, calculated killer.

First of all, I haven’t heard anything about him being all into video games, and they’ve been talking to his roomies quite a bit now.

Even if he was involved in the video games… what does that mean?

He was mentally ill, people. He was sick. He was not right in his head. The way people are describing him, it sounds like he had some kind of detachment disorder. But I am not a doctor. I just know based on everything they’ve said… he was sick.

He was not a product of a video game.

I mean, if you want to use that logic… that playing Counterstrike made him an excellent marksman and allowed him to be calm and calculated as he killed all these people… that it made him able to mastermind this whole thing…

If you want to lay it down like that…

Then I am on my way to Wimbledon, folks. Wii Tennis has paved the way for my future tennis glory. Move over Serena. I’m coming after you.

I mean, come on, my level is like 1600 something. I’m totally pro.

And Jacob is ready to manage, design and build a metropolitan city based on his extensive experience with Sim City.

And my boyfriend is, unfortunately, going to steal a police Bronco and use it to do stunt jumps. He should also be quite adept at using a giant bazooka type thing to blow up police helicopters. Grand Theft Auto has prepared him for this.

I just am not buying it. I mean, perhaps a video game that simulates this kind of stuff isn’t a great thing in the hands of someone who is psychotic.

But then tell me, what is??????

Ah, so his roomie just said on MSNBC that he never, ever saw him playing Counterstrike, that when he was at his computer, he was always in Microsoft Word, typing words… and that sometimes he would be there all night long and into the morning typing.

I bet they are going to find some crazy stuff on his computers. I think they found like three of them in his room.

So it wasn’t video games… it was Microsoft Word that made him do it!!!!

See, let’s not make these crazy leaps people.

I am tired of seeing all these gun control people on here, too. I mean, it was like, what? Five seconds after it happened and they’ve got all these gun people on. Pro-gun. Anti-gun. All of them up there spewing their agendas.

I’m tired of all these groups promoting their own issues. They don’t care about this. They don’t care about these families. They don’t care about the victims. They sure as hell don’t care about this messed up kid who did all this.

And they should. Because it’s just going to keep happening, stuff like this.

Normal people don’t do this.

Get it???

Normal people don’t do this stuff.

If someone should be up there pushing an agenda, it should be farkin’ NAMI, you know?

Ugh.

I gotta go take a quiz… (sigh)

This is all so sad.

So, I saw this statistic today:

“Of the typical 48 hours spent weekly on household chores, children average 6 hours, husbands 10, and wives 32.”

Are you friggin’ kidding me?

Who the hell is spending 48 hours WEEKLY on household chores.

Shit, I don’t spend 48 hours doing any one thing in a week.

I cannot even imagine what I would fill those hours with. Are these people, like, polishing doorknobs or something?

I don’t even spend the 32 hours that “wives” spend.

Hell, I don’t even spend the 6 hours that kids do.

I don’t know who these people are either. I think this statistic is askew. awry. awrong.

something.

I have no idea where my cord is. Damnation. My camera cord, that is. I took some pictures recently and I know there was one that I wanted to get on here.

I will worry about it later.

I am going to have to get up and get my little blog-about cheat sheet…. but the cat is so cozy right next to me and I am all wrapped up burrito style in my fish blanket…

Maybe I can get the boyfriend to go in there and get it for me. He’s up doing laundry anyway.

That or in 11 minutes when my battery is out and I have to get the power cord, I will get it.

I heard a cute exchange between two kids about 5 and 6 today at Lowe’s. The boy says, “Aren’t these things supposed to be in the jungle?”

The girl: “What are you talking about?”

The boy: “These chimpanzees.”

The girl, rolling her eyes in the most exasperated girly way: “They’re called pansies not chimpanzees!”

I just thought that was too cute.

I also saw a cute exchange between a girl and her grandma in the bathroom… it was like a freezer in there and the girl was telling her grandma to stand under the vent to feel how cold it was and she was so enthusiastic about it (the grandma) and hooping and hollaring standing under it. Then the little girl was using the hand dryer and making her hair do crazy things and the grandma was just laughing at her, like serious belly laughing. And then they trotted off together arm in arm to find grandpa and look at cabinets.

It was really sweet.

I miss that I didn’t have ties like this to family ever. A little with my grandma when I was very young… she would take me to garage sales and I had a lot of fun at her house, but then…

nothing. Nothing really after about the age of 7 or 8.

OK, had to get up to get my cord, so got my cheat sheet…

Not in any specific order…

We got a TV. I would link to it, but I really don’t know the specifics of it like say… the boyfriend might. He’s been researching this TV forever. It was like 3 grand or something the first time I think he showed it to me and he’s been threatening to buy it for a while. If it ever got below a thousand dollars, he said he’d buy it.

So we’re sitting here on a Saturday morning and he’s going through the sales flyers and low and behold, he announces that we have to go to Fry’s because the TV is $999. (Well that is below a thousand, right?)

I am beside myself with anguish. Oh what horror. Fry’s. I hate going there, please don’t subject me to that trauma, I say.

No, that is not at all what I say. I say something more like, let me just call David and get some clothes on and I’ll meet you at the car.

I love Fry’s. They have much fun geek stuff there and it is like a very special field trip. We’ve been going to a fancy one lately that has coffee, so that’s even more of a bonus.

So, then we discover that it’s cheaper at Best Buy, so we decide to go there. We go to one near our house, but they only have the display model, so we have them look at another one and they find one that is reported to have two in stock so we head there. The two they have in stock are also floor models, so we head to yet another, after confirming that they have one in the damn box.

We waste some time sitting in massage chairs, first, though.

Then we get to the third one and low and behold, it is there, in a box, fresh and shiny and new and waiting for us.

We have it hauled out to the car and find that it won’t fit in the back of the Outback. They cut the top of the box off and it goes in. Boyfriend drives and David rides in the front and I have to ride smooshed up against the back window. I felt like a kid again. You know, back when it was not against the law to throw your kids in the back of a station wagon…

We decide we need a cord of some sort to ensure proper installation of the TV, so we go to Fry’s anyway. I don’t care if we really need the cord or not, I’m just happy that we will be going to Fry’s after all.

We pick up the cord for way less than seems possible and I pick up Kirby Canvas Curse for the DS (which is completely awesome) and David picks up a game as well (I can’t remember what game it was that day… there are so many game buying days, aren’t there? We’re really pretty bad about that.)

We go outside and…

The car won’t start.

For real. The car that holds the 190 pound TV is sitting in the Fry’s parking lot and won’t start. And it’s hot and steamy in the car. And I’m pissed.

Here is the deal with my car. Someone who owned the car before me installed an anti-theft system. And it’s like a little code.

To start the car you have to first pull on the brights, push in the clutch and then turn the key. The brights have to be pulled the whole time this is going on. Sometimes, it trips if you don’t do it just so. It’s very finicky. Once it’s tripped, you have to reset it and try again. Resetting it is a mystery. It involves…

I’m not really sure. Sometimes you can mess with the door locks and the ignition. Sometimes you can roll the windows up and down. Sometimes you can mess with the hatch. Sometimes you can disconnect the battery. Sometimes you can say a special prayer and light a candle. Hell, I don’t really know. I mean, at one time or other, all of those things have either worked or not.

It’s like my car runs on Windows.

It’s just that evil.

So we go back into Fry’s and leave the battery disconnected (this after my boyfriend had to go back in to buy a set of sockets to even disconnect the thing in the first place) and I drink the rest of my coffee and we mess around with the massage chairs. (The massage chairs at Best Buy were way better, fyi.)

We go back out and it doesn’t start after hooking the battery back up, but then my boyfriend starts bouncing up and down on the hood and I turn the key and it starts. Yay.

I get back in my smoosh position in the wayback and off we go.

We get home and carry in the thing, which takes all three of us and my boyfriend has a good time hooking up all the wires, because that’s what he lives to do… drive fast and hook shit up…

And since then, I have had some of the best video game playing moments of my life.

And we got to watch Lost in HD this week, which would have been good, except it went so fast that I hardly had time to notice all the little things like how you can really see Kate’s freckles.

So there’s the TV story. It’s so monstrous in our little living room, but holy cow it’s a beautiful thing. I’m watching way too much TV these days.

And we’re getting a DVR because I’m all addicted to Grey’s Anatomy and Lost, of course, and now, thanks to David and a marathon where I stayed up till 5:30 in the morning watching on DVD two entire seasons that I missed: The Office.

I have even sunk so low as to buy the episodes I’ve missed this season on iTunes. I even watched all the episodes with commentary. I love this show.

It’s scary, the Dwight character… OMG, he is so my brother. My brother is just a freak who is totally not in touch with reality. I see Dwight doing stuff and I am like almost sick to my stomach with how much he is like my brother. It’s nuts. Especially since my sister and I were just going on and on about how he’s so unlike any person we’ve ever known in our lives, and how we were glad, though, because it means there aren’t other people like him out there… because that would just be truly scary.

And now, I realize, there has to be someone out there that is just like him because they’ve modeled an entire TV character after him.

I don’t want to know who that is, but I feel for all the people who are forced to interact with him.

I wish I could “expose” myself here and point you to my brother’s blog. He doesn’t know I know where it is… but you would just double over at the asinine stuff he writes in there. And he works in customer service for a computer store (not Fry’s, btw, thankfully or I would have to stop going there knowing they hired jackasses like him) and he writes about his customers in his blog like they are the lowest form of life ever.

Now, I totally get those tech support blogs that talk about the insane phone calls they get from people… but this is different. Different because he thinks he actually knows something… it’s like the highest form of hipocrisy I’ve ever seen.

Bleh. I don’t even want to get started on that. I could go on for days.

Other news… [protect]

Jacob… he’s done some funny stuff lately.

First, there was the lunch issue. He’s been on Adderall for a couple of years. There is a long entry to come about that whole issue, but I am not ready for it yet… suffice to say it will come.

At any rate, I’ve been worried about his weight for a while because it decreases his appetite and he’s such a small guy anyway. Now, I’ve taken him off the meds and wow, is he a different child. Miracle of all miracles and I’m so glad. Like I said, more about that later…

So, now he is eating like a haus and he’s tired of all the bagged lunches and loves the school food. I’m not extremely picky about what he eats, either, since he weighs like 5 pounds and you can see every rib he’s got. So if he wants to eat the school food and he will eat it (key word being WILL) then I’m all for it. So I tell him that I will put money in his account and he can eat school lunch every day. He’s excited about this.

So, there’s this system online where you can pay and it will email you when the balance reaches whatever you set. I set it at like 8 and 4 bucks. I get an email that it’s at 8 bucks… but I’m confused, because I just put 35 bucks in the account like a week ago. Then, the next day I get an email that it’s at 4 bucks.

I’m like, what the ?

So I go online to see what the deal is and I see where you can be all Big Brother like and check what your kid is eating. I look, and every day he’s got his lunch on there which is like 2 bucks and then he has alacarte [sic] which is $1.

?

What is he buying every day in addition to his lunch that is $1? It doesn’t specifically say…

So I ask him what he had for lunch that day and he’s like, pizza or burritos or chicken nuggets or whatever it was that day… and I’m like, is that it? And he’s like yeah.

So I ask him again when we get home and he confesses that it’s cookies.

But not just any cookies… these are the best cookies ever. They are crispy around the edge and soft in the middle and they’re “even better than yours” he tells me.

Nice. That’s going to win my heart and mind. That’s going to make me want to let you spend an extra dollar every day.

So I go to lunch with him that week to see about these cookies and I don’t know if you’ve ever had my cookies, but let me tell you — they are delicious. And these are not my cookies at all.

He tells me that I just came on a bad day.

Mmmhmmm. I tell him to stop buying so many damn cookies. One pack is 50 cents, and that’s as far as I’m willing to go.

So that’s settled, right?

Until he comes to me the other day with $3 of his own money and gives it to me and I’m like, what is that for? And he tells me that it’s for cookies. Because he “may have” gotten more than he was supposed to on a couple of days.

Funny.

I don’t care about the actual cookie consumption, I mean, I know he eats the rest of his food, too… it was the budgetary thing I was concerned about… so I thought it was cute that he knew to bring me some of his own money and take responsibility for that act.

Now, the online system has changed and is actually showing what they buy… I guess I wasn’t the only parent who was curious about how the funds ran out so quickly… so here’s the rundown:

09/07/2006          Lunch - $1.75  

    2 - 1oz cookies - $0.50  

09/08/2006          Lunch - $1.75  

    CHIPS/CRACKERS - $0.50  

09/11/2006          Lunch - $1.75  

    2 - 1oz cookies - $0.50 (x 2)  

09/12/2006          Lunch - $1.75  

    BAKED CAKE - $0.50 (x 2)  

09/13/2006          Lunch - $1.75  

    ICE CREAM - ALL TYPES - $0.50 (x 2)  

09/14/2006          Lunch - $1.75  

    ICE CREAM - ALL TYPES - $0.50 (x 2)  

09/15/2006         Lunch - $1.75  

    2 - 1oz cookies - $0.50 (x 2)  

09/18/2006          Lunch - $1.75  

    2 - 1oz cookies - $0.50  

09/19/2006          Lunch - $1.75  

    2 - 1oz cookies - $0.50 (x 2)  

09/20/2006         

    Lunch - $1.75  

    2 - 1oz cookies - $0.50 (x 2)  

09/25/2006      Lunch - $1.75  

    ICE CREAM - ALL TYPES - $0.50  

09/27/2006        Lunch - $1.75  

09/28/2006        Lunch - $1.75  

    ICE CREAM - ALL TYPES - $0.50  

09/29/2006      Lunch - $1.75  

    2 - 1oz cookies - $0.50  

10/02/2006          Lunch - $1.75  

    2 - 1oz cookies - $0.50 (x 2)  

10/03/2006          Lunch - $1.75  

    2 - 1oz cookies - $0.50  

10/04/2006        Lunch - $1.75  

    2 - 1oz cookies - $0.50 (x 2)

I hope the pre tag works… I have no idea if that is still compliant these days…

Ok, so then last week, he comes out of school and he’s been crying… he’s so upset and I ask him what’s wrong and he says that he has detention.

I say why, and he says that he got his name taken twice and he said something he wasn’t supposed to.

JUST GREAT, I think.

Yes, I cuss like a sailor, (I’m working on it!!!!) so, of course I’m wondering what it could have been that he said… did he say clusterfuck? bullshit? bitchass? hot diggety damn? jackass? I mean, there are so many options here… my mind is just racing.

So I say, well, let’s go talk to the teacher about this so I know just what it is that I should be concerned about…

She says that he said buttload. Buttload.

Phew. My mind is at ease. I can handle buttload.

He also constructed one of those paper popper things (learn how to make your own here: http://nerds.unl.edu/pages/sciencedemos/paper%20popper/pics.htm)

And he was popping it after the teacher had told him to stop. That peeves me way more than buttload, I have to say. Not the popper part, because those are cool and paper manipulation helps him express his creativity and further hone his fine motor skill. No, it’s the doing something after someone told you to STOP IT that I am concerned about. This is a problem we have been working on since like, the dawn of time.

I noticed that while I was talking to the teacher, she seemed to be smirking a little at telling me he said buttload. I note this and promise self to get full story from Jacob when we get in the car.

So here is how it went down…

They were taking these benchmarking tests (in math) for the oh-so-lovely TAKS and the teacher asked him how he thought he did and he said “I think I probably missed a buttload of questions.” The teacher told him that wasn’t appropriate. No big deal.

But then, later in the day, in English class, the teacher asks the kids if anyone can name a compound word. So Jacob volunteers and she calls on him and he says, of course, “buttload.” And the class busts out in riotous laughter… and she takes Jacob’s name.

I resist the urge to wet myself laughing in the car and tell him that if a teacher tells him it’s not appropriate to say, then he shouldn’t say it, blah blah blah on and on. He says he didn’t mean to say it again, but he always likes to get his hand up in the air first and then when she called on him he was on the spot and it was the only word he could think of.

He continues to cry and freak out thinking that his Dad is going to like, kill him over this, but even though his Dad can be a bit uptight sometimes, I know that he will find this very humorous.

And he does. He was cracking up. Thankfully, because Jacob was really torn up about it.

So I grounded him from his video games for 3 days and he served his detention and there you go.

Of course, it doesn’t help that he overheard all four of his teachers laughing about it in the hall because even they thought it was funny… but whatever.

Fast forward, or slow forward really, to the very next damn day… and he has detention again. (sigh)

But whatever, I mean, this is a kid who got kicked out of kindergarten three times and had detention almost every day of second grade… right? I’m trying to be optimistic…

So he doesn’t really know what it’s for, the detention… so I say, well, let’s go find out. He knew that one time his name got taken was for turning around in his desk when he wasn’t supposed to and he’d been told to face the front… so we just had to find out what the other offense was from the librarian.

So, we get to the library, and she’s all… well, ummm… you see… I really hated to do it, because I don’t generally like to give detention to kids for… umm… READING… but he was reading… and umm… he was supposed to be watching the movie.

My thoughts? Well, it is a library. And well, how about you don’t let them check out books that they are all excited about and then make them hold them on their laps while they are supposed to be watching a movie. How about check the books out after the movie? But whatever. He should have some self-control, right? So I say thanks and look at Jacob all stern like I mean it and we leave.

So I say, what was the movie about? And he’s all… it’s about the Dewey Decimal System. And I already know all that stuff and I was bored and I had a WWII book and…

Yes, nuff said. I mean, this child is no stranger to the library, right? And when I homeschooled him last year we went all over the Dewey Decimal System and he knows all the numbers and where to find everything and… so I can see his point.

But still, he should have listened to the librarian. She has a master’s degree, you know? Haha.

(I don’t have this on my list, but I need to talk about that, too… school. my school, I mean.)

So he did his detention and continued his groundenation and there was that.

I just thought it was so rich that he got a detention for reading in the library. Who does that happen to?

This is turning out to be the longest entry ever, eh?

So, one more thing about Jacob… this really pissed me off. I would have given him detention for this… Brandon comes over and he’s my Big Brother (the TV show) buddy. But he hasn’t watched the season finale yet. So we’re sitting here and Jacob is sitting with us and I’m like, OK, so you don’t want me to tell you what happens? And he’s like, NO, I don’t want to know who won because I haven’t seen it yet.

And Jacob blurts out, “Well, Mike won it.”

Just like that.

I thought I was going to smack him down. OMG. So I sent him to his room and was apologizing profusely to Brandon… ugh. I hate that. And we’ve talked about this since the dawn of time as well… about not ruining a movie or TV show for someone when you’ve already seen it. He’s turning out to be one of those talkers, and I can’t have that! You know, those people who talk all through a show or movie, who are all, where’s he going? what did she say? or when they’ve already seen it, they’re like… oh watch this it’s so funny, he says blah blah blah and then the place blows up. Or like, he’ll describe an entire movie or book by its ending. Oh, the book where the man flies off to the moon in the end and leaves the whole world behind? Is that the book you haven’t read?

I’ve got to break him of this habit or he’s gonna be “that guy.”

No one likes “that guy.”

On another note, I’m really sad that James didn’t win Big Brother. I liked him a lot. I liked his game. He was funny.

—-

I see on my notes I need to talk about Christina’s computer. She has Windows and she has also lived with a few guys throughout the life of this computer. These guys like to look at porn, and so of course, as a result, her computer is just littered with spyware and all manner of maliciousness. She brought it over for the boyfriend to fix and we’re going through and getting rid of all the crap she doesn’t need… and we find a folder on there that belongs to her ex-boyfriend… this guy lived with us when we were roomies and when my boyfriend was staying (not ever going back to his apartment) and it was like… a hell, all of us in that apartment, because he’s one of those loud, know-it-all fratdaddy types… and also because no one knew how to clean up after themselves or load a dishwasher correctly… but whatever. I digress… It really wasn’t that bad, but it was just like — not much square footage and lots of people and animals and everyone with a different schedule, etc.

So, like, I know this guy, is what I’m saying.

Or I think I do… My boyfriend opens up one of the movies just for shits and grins and it’s a dog and a woman… OMG, I about flipped out. You hear about these things, and it’s shocking enough to hear about them and know that this goes on in the world, but this was the first real, moving picture moment that I ever had of some barnyard porn and it freaked me out. I wanted to go scrub my eyeballs. It was horrifying.

And then it took a minute for it to sink in that this guy used to live in my apartment. Ick. Eww.

And the titles of all the movies were out there and there had to be over a hundred of the things.

And I’m not one to like… rag on someone else’s taste in porn, because everyone who looks at it has their own special flavor or whatever, no? But animals? Come on.

It was kinda funny though.

—–

Two more neighbor child stories… that I forgot to mention in my other neighbor child entry.

First, there was the English thing… I think I mentioned that I don’t really want Jacob to play with them too much and so every day after school he just says he has homework. Which is generally true, so that’s OK. He’s not lying.

One day, he was inside doing his homework and the kids were out in the front and he’d already told him he had it, and so the child with the grill was asking me when he would be done and I said I didn’t know. Then he asks me what it is that he’s doing.

Me: Math, Language, etc.

Grill: Language? What language?

Me: English.

Grill: English? Like they say over there? (And he’s pointing across the street from me, which is where my Hispanic neighbors live.)

Me: Huh?

Grill: Don’t they speak English?

Me: Ummmm, well, actually they speak Spanish.

Grill: Then who speaks English?

Me: Ummm…. you?

Grill: Oh, I don’t know.

Yeah, me either, sometimes. (sigh)

—

The other thing is this… the 3 year old… something has to be done about this and I don’t know quite what to do. He tends to not be supervised so much. Like, he’s always out in the yard by himself and he goes out in the street. And he crosses the street to the other house that they own that is mostly empty. (That’s another long story…) and he goes back and forth. Back and forth.

So, if this were any normal neighborhood, I would just go next door…

No, if this were any normal neighborhood, there wouldn’t be 3-year-old children running free in the streets with no parental supervision.

So, like, I can’t go and just say to the mother or grandmother to watch the kid. Because that would be an assault on their person. That would get my house burned down or my car keyed or, I don’t even know…

And if I call CPS, then they will for sure know it was me because I am… I just look like one of those judgmental mothers that would call CPS on someone, you know?

And if I do nothing, this kid is going to get run over and that will be so wrong and I would never live that Karma off, you know?

The other day, he ran out in the street and a big honkin’ SUV had to slam on the brakes not to hit him.

It has been better lately since I let them in the house, though. He’s been going over across the street a lot less and has been just going back and forth between their yard and my front door. Constantly. So maybe that’s a good thing. Although it is really getting annoying since he wakes me up at the asscrack of dawn banging on the door to come inside or ask me why the cat water has bugs in it or why there are so many spiders on the door or how come there is a bottle of motor oil on the porch.

I don’t know the answers to all of these things little boy. Please go back to your home. And let me sleep.

I want to put a Head Start flyer on their door. He’s old enough to go… and then he would be in a safe learning environment for at least part of the day.

—

I love Sharpies. I love the way they smell and the way they write. Especially when they are new. MMMMMmmmmmmm. Sharpies.

(that was seriously on my list, btw. Sad.)

—–

Since getting the HDTV we have signed up for Netflix again. I like movies. I like them even better on this TV.

Although now that we’ve decided to get the HD box and DVR, I’m kind of wondering if I can justify the cost of Netflix.

I don’t know.

My boyfriend says… well, we don’t get any movies on the HD box, though… we don’t have HBO or anything.

I guess that means he wants to keep Netflix and I will not worry about it any more.

—-

I am so excited about the Wii coming out. OMG I could wet my pants at the thought of downloading all those old games and all the new stuff that is going to come out.

Although, I am a bit disappointed at the Paper Mario thing. It is not going to be an RPG like the old versions of Paper Mario… it’s going to be more like the walk-through version of Super Mario Brothers.

Now, this is not to say that I will not buy the game. I will. You can be certain of this, but I will be pissed off the entire time I am playing it that it is not like my old Paper Mario… and I pray in my heart of hearts that they will come up with an RPG version…

I don’t remember if I ever told the story of Jacob erasing all the memory files on the GameCube. My mom got him this honkin’ card that holds like, more files than my hard drive, I swear… and so we have a lot of games and we’d played those lot of games a lot. LOT. Lot. And then like the dumb, easy button-loving person that I am, I let him get the Action Replay. You know, it loads cheats. Invincibility. All Shine Sprites found. Invisible carts. 999,999 bells. So on. So forth.

And then one day he’s messing with it and he erases all data on the memory card.

Everything.

Including the Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door file that I’d spent like a bajillion hours (with no cheats and no guide) working on. I was up to the final boss and hadn’t beaten her yet… I’d even cleared the Pit of 100 Trials.

It was a sad sad day in our house.

Because of this, I kind of had a sour taste in my mouth about starting a new Paper Mario file. Why, I don’t know, because it didn’t take me but like five seconds after the disaster to start winning back courses, characters and cars on Mario Kart, right? In fact, I think David and I sat down and did the whole thing in like a day…

But still, I was bitter about that single file.

Until we got the big TV. And then I’m all gung ho about playing and I stayed up several nights going through everything and it was the most fun I’d had playing a video game in a very long time…

So that’s kind of why I’m a little bitter about the Wii version not being an RPG. I want that badly.

In other video game news, I really need to play Katamari on the big TV more. I bet it will breathe new life into that one, too. All I have left on that one is a million roses. Psh. Like that’s going to happen.

—-

I have quite a collection of DS games starting…

Kirby Canvas Curse

Mario Kart

Big Brain Academy

Brain Age

Mario and Luigi Partners in Time

Animal Crossing

and Jacob has:

Starfox

Mario 64

Mario Kart

Nintendogs

Brain Age

Top Gun

So those are fun…

And he got Lego Star Wars, now that the new one has come out and it knocked the old one down to below $20. Yay. And we have been playing the crap out of that together. It is a hoot. So cute all the little Lego pieces… and if you hit your partner a few times then he can play with his head knocked off and that’s just funny.

—–

OK, so my school… the other night, my boyfriend and I were talking about what we’re going to do with the rest of our lives. It didn’t come up quite like that, all serious, but it ended up being that way.

And I have to admit, I haven’t really thought about it too much. That’s a lie. I’ve thought about it, but every time I do I start to panic and then I go into a shame spiral and have to eat a lot of chocolate and take a long bath to recover. I’m such a baby like that.

It’s school.

I have this huge chip on my shoulder about school.

I don’t even know if I’m ready to relive this whole conversation/nervous breakdown again…

It’s making me tense just thinking about it even though everything resolved quite nicely.

So..

I am so hot.

I will go cool down and then I will return to write about this. It’s the last thing on my list and it might just be deserving of an entire entry.

I remember this. I remember how writing about things is therapeutic for me because I can relive it inside my head and then I’m over it. This is what’s good for me about writing. I have to remember this every time I think I am too tired or whatever to write. That it is good for me. That it helps me move past stupid crap that is getting on my nerves way more than just talking about it or thinking about it.

It’s like once it’s written down it’s out. And then if I need to to back to it I can, because it’s there. Somewhere. Away from me and my mind. It gets it out of the rotation of thoughts that I can land on at any given time. And that’s nice. Nine times out of ten, I don’t have to go back to it. Or I may go back to it at the same time the next year or something and then it’s nice to look at it and have some different perspective. Some time, distance between me and the situation as it happened.

Remember Sammy Jenkis.

You know? I need to tattoo “write” on my body somewhere.

[/protect]

So I’ve started making myself a list of things I need to blog about, like the nerd that I am… maybe it will help. I am so scatterbrained lately.

And by lately I mean… the last few years.

First I should say I’m sitting here eating cheese turds. I fear I am going to finish them off even though we just got them yesterday after my boyfriend made a trip to Central Market, which is where the cheese turds live.

I call them this because they are really cheese curds, but the first time we got them I told Jacob he had to try these things… and he did and then he said, what are those? And I said — cheese curds. And he acted like he was going to spit out what was in his mouth… and he was all… CHEESE TURDS????

It was funny.

And it’s also evidence that my child talks with his mouth full, eh?

I know. You’re jealous that your kid couldn’t also be raised in a barn and/or by wolves…

[protect]

Speaking of children raised in barns… I may have talked before about the children next door… They are the grandchildren of my next door neighbor. They live in Alabama but sometimes come to visit at Christmas or during the summer.

This year, they showed up a couple of weeks after school started.

(Aside: It’s official — the cheese turds are gone! What can you even make with cheese turds besides poutine? I will have to research this further…)

So, yes, they showed up a few weeks after school started and I asked them what they were doing here. Seems like they would be back home. In school. But, having dabbled in homeschooling myself, I thought maybe they were getting some sort of alternative education.

No. They’re here until the first of December and are attending the neighborhood school.

Odd. Why come when school has already started and then leave right before a semester is about to end?

I leave this conversation for another day.

Some background… the mom’s special. I’ve talked to her a couple of times and she’s a real odd one. She’s like that character on SNL who is a one-upper. If you say “My son is 10″ she’ll say “My son is 11″ even though her son is probably only 7 or something. It’s the oddest thing I’ve ever seen.

The youngest boy is 3. (I’ll call him Baby.) The other two boys are in first and third grades. The first grader (I will call him Grill) used to have a grill of all silver teeth and I think his speech must have been affected by this, because you can’t understand a word he says unless you get used to talking to him. It’s like how mothers of toddlers can understand their own kids, but no one else knows what they are saying…

Anyway, now most of the silver teeth have fallen out (they were baby teeth, thank goodness) and now just two silver fangs are left.

The third grader is one of the most persistent children I have ever met in my life. (I will call him Persistent.) They always want to play with Jacob, but every time I let them in the house it’s total chaos. They’re not very well-behaved at all… And they are pushy and know little about gratitude… they want to eat me out of house and home and they touch and pick up every single thing that isn’t glued down. “What’s this?” over and over and over and over…

So, I don’t particularly want Jacob to play with them too much, and he doesn’t like to anyway. He gets really frustrated with how they handle his toys and games. So usually, when we get home after school he just says he’s got homework.

Because we do this, they haven’t actually come over since last year when they were in town. Last year, something was wrong with the sewage next door and so they kept coming over and then promptly going and pooping in my bathroom. Every time they came over, it was a poofest.

Friday, however, I thought I might see if things have changed. Plus, they don’t have a single toy over there. NOT ONE. Not a ball, not a car, nothing. They just play in the dirt all afternoon, no shirts or shoes. Except for the little one. He will have a shirt on, but no pants.

Good times.

So I’m going through all of Jacob’s old toys and thought I would give them a few. I had them out in the living room and when they come in the door, they start looking at them and I go into the kitchen to make some tea, knowing caffeine is going to be needed if I’m going to make it through this afternoon.

All of a sudden, Jacob is all… “WHAT IS THAT SMELL????”

So Persistent says, “It’s Baby’s pants. He’s poopy.”

Me — what???

Persistent — Yeah, he pooped his pants. He goes to the potty but only when he wants to and so if he poops my mom won’t change him if she don’t feel like it.

(BTW, before I let them in the house I told them to go back home and wash their hands and faces and get some shoes on… they were absolutely filthy… food and dirt and grunge all over… even so, when Baby came in the door I sent him back to wash his hands and face again, but he still came back dirty so I washed them for him…)

Me to Baby — are you poopy?

Baby — Noooooooooo.

Me — are you sure?

Baby — I not poopy.

Me — come here!

So he comes over, I lift his shirt and sure enough, his tighty whities are packed with a huge load.

Me — You go next door and have your mom change your pants and you can come back when you’re all clean.

Persistent — She ain’t gonna do it.

Lovely…

So he eventually returned and was cleaned up.

Chaos ensued with much touching and handling of things… yelling at the tops of voices, whatnot. They are hungry, so I start making some food. I ask what they had for lunch, because the little one is just chanting over and over “I’m hungry, I’m hungry.” Turns out they had cake, chips and Little Debbies.

The whole time all this is going on, the cat was hiding in the most remote part of our bedroom with her crazy cat eyes on…

About two hours later, I see the mom in the front yard looking around and hollaring for the boys.

I open the door… she sees me and asks if I’ve seen the boys.

WHAT????

They’ve been at my house for two hours, woman! Please tell me you haven’t been worried about the whereabouts of your children for two hours… including that of your youngest, a 3-year-old!

So, I send them back home. And I breathe a sigh of relief. And I think… I am not going to be so hard on Jacob in the future about his behavior, and I’m not going to worry that he’s too far outside the norm, after observing these other kids in action.

In another incident with these kids, I pulled up in the driveway and Grill was there and he said that he missed his dad…

Me — where is your dad?

Grill — He’s in prison. I miss him. He is fun and can make cool stuff.

Me — Why is he in prison?

Grill — I can’t tell you, it’s dirty.

Me — Just tell me.

Grill — no, it’s nasty.

Me — OK, nevermind, I don’t want to know.

Grill — he stuck his pee wee in somebody’s butt.

Me — Oh.

And I’m thinking, Dear… Usually people don’t go to prison for that unless it’s rape or child molestation, right? I mean, I know there are laws on the books about even having anal sex with your spouse, but if they prosecuted for just that, prisons would be overflowing and orphanages would be full of kids with no parents at home.

So I’m all… Was it somebody big like me or somebody little like you?

Grill — It was somebody big.

Me — So do you get to see him?

Grill — No, but I can write him letters or make him a poster. I can’t make a poster though because I don’t have any markers.

Me — You can come use our markers some time if you want to make a poster for him.

Sad. I don’t know what to think about all that. Especially since the Dad was with them last year when they came to visit. I mean, is this guy a rapist then?

More in a minute… I need to load the dishwasher.

[/protect]

BAD-LEXINGTONHOMESINC.NET

Wow.

It’s stuff like this that makes me so glad that we didn’t build a house. I mean, compared to what a lot of people go through, buying this house was so easy.

We had a great realtor, and my boyfriend has “outstanding credit” and all, so I’m sure that helped, but really, it was just not complicated.

at all.

I feel so bad for these poor people who have to go through this. And I’m such an idiot when it comes to stuff like that, I probably wouldn’t notice half of what they did and then would be sorry later on. I mean, look at what this guy said to them about the counter…

We upgraded for granite countertops, one which cantilevered the half wall to the living room. I noticed only one brace for this VERY heavy countertop and demanded a second “just like the model”. As a result, we now have 2 braces on sheetrock under the granite where there are NO STUDS. When called to their attention, Eric, the “VP of Construction” said he sat on the counter and it didn’t move. Therefore, there was no need to put supports into studs. The sheetrock was doing a fine job.

WHAT THE ?

Yeah, I think at that point I would have just picked the guy up over my shoulders and hurled him through the countertop and been like, “yeah, how’s it holding up now?”

(sigh)

I will post more about this later, but wow. Bank of America is just chock full o’ blooming idiots.

I want to scream.

I have not seen this type of across-the-board incompetence since I worked at the paper.

I am disgruntled.

I am going to close my account there, and of course, it will not matter to a single person there. Because you are just a number and they have a definite bean-counter mentality. Gee, only 14% of our customers are routinely unhappy with our service? We’re doing great!

I wonder how many companies have fallen because of that kind of attitude.

Or countries.

Watch out for that little faction. The sheep may be OK with things, but I&