TheMommyBlog

Tuesday, September 01, 2009 Bad Mood Dude, Family

Six kids under eleven between the two of us. 8:45 p.m.

Him: dad, dad, dad, dad, dad,  “what” daniel hit me twenty times…ok i will be right there
dada da dad dad, david is pushing the buttons on your safe
dad, dad, dad, dad, david has a knife
dad, dad, daniel is a bad word

Me: Kids kids kids kids kids
time for bed time for bed, jammies or bath jammies or bath,
fine tuck in time, fine tuck in time,
NO SOUP FOR YOU!

Monday, August 31, 2009 Bad Mood Dude, Family

My middle son this morning:

“How long would it take to cross this room at light speed?”

“I have never seen you move that fast on a school morning.”

“But how long?”

“I don’t even know the number for it… millionth of a millisecond?”

“So a thousand in a second?”

“Maybe nanosec—GET DRESSED, WILL YOU?”

I cannot believe I stayed up past ten with my eldest finishing math homework on MY WEEKEND. This does not happen, people, I am all about the homework. He’d had four travel team baseball games in two days, and I didn’t see him for a full 36 hours when I got him back after a playdate after a game last night. Grrr. I was already torqued out from trying to find his playdate’s house. I’d never been there, but he’s shown it to me on zillow.com, in a satellite image.

“Mom, it’s the one with the fence and the big deck, right off Harwood.”

“You mean the one we saw in the satellite image?”

“Yep.”

“Oh, then, why didn’t you say so? Be there in five.”

Eyeroll. Went to three houses before I found him. I’m good, but not that good.

I don’t think I quite made it to even Junior Parent in Training status tonight. We had an unnecessary conversation about why he had time for all the other stuff and not the homework (why do I ask? Why?), and just as I was going to move the party to the homework table, he spun in my office chair and sent a full can of Fresca spilling over my G5 CPU, three external drives, and a keyboard. There is no way a sane person could not freak in that situation, and he didn’t move fast enough (see above). I had to yank everything out from the space between my desk and the couch (Btw, it beaded up on the fabric like water on a shiny new car, I so love my teflon-coated red couch) and mop it all up before coming in with the big guns to get rid of the sticky. I think I scared the shit out of him because I let a few f-bombs go. THAT’S A LOT OF EQUIPMENT, PEOPLE.

After eons of reading Love, Mom: Poignant, Goofy, Brilliant Messages from Home next to him while he filled sheet after sheet of scratch paper, I finally sent him to bed while I sat up with the bonus (but required) last problem on his homework. I worked that puppy fifty different ways, and could not get it. I got within one whole number of the correct answer six different ways, but couldn’t get it right on the money. So I IM’d a mechanical engineer. Together, a legal and financial analyst and an engineer responsible for global sales in a technical field studied the problem. I would send a copy of my book to the first person who solves it, but I think he took the scratch paper with him. It was something like, “Supply the expressions using these numbers, in order, that would total one hundred: 3, 6, 5, 2, 54, 2, 5.” I don’t think that was the sequence so don’t go trying to solve it for me. I would only get angry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.

So, here we are, two numerically competent executives, baffled.

“Can we use fractions?”

“No, only whole numbers, THESE numbers, in sequence.”

“We’re talking algebra, right? So x=blahdeblah, where x=9.”

“9 isn’t one of the numbers. You can only use the ones there. No x.”

“This isn’t teaching them anything. It’s a trial and error problem.”

“That is the kind of answer I would have given in his shoes, and I wouldn’t have received credit. It’s deductive, it’s using non-linear thinking to solve a linear equation. It’s fucking driving me nuts.”

“What grade?”

“Sixth. And since it’s a bonus question, the answer isn’t in the back of the book. I looked.”

If he comes home with an answer I will die. “No! Don’t tell me! I have my slide ruler out and Q from MI6 on speakerphone!”

About This Post

It’s back-to-school time, and this year Sprite and TwitterMoms have partnered with bloggers like me to share back-to-school tips and tricks, advice, stories and more! Visit Sprite’s back-to-school channel on TwitterMoms to get helpful ideas, learn how to survive the back to school rush, seek out advice from other TwitterMoms and join the conversation. You can learn more about donating your My Coke Rewards Points to support your local school, how to enter for a chance to win some Back to School cash, check out recipes, or even play some fun games. Here’s to a successful and stress-free back to school season from Sprite and TwitterMoms!

Saturday, August 29, 2009 Bad Mood Dude, Family

That’s right, MacGruber and MacGyver can suck it, individually or as a team.

Our back yard gate, in its cast-iron-adorned hardwood glory, has been broken for at least four years.

It wasn’t enough that you had to physically shoulder the door up as you flipped the rusty latch up (I PAID FOR IT TO BE SEASONED YOU KNUCKLEHEADS) so you could shove it open, nearly falling flat on the grass. No, and it wasn’t enough that the extra “height” added to the base by my ex to make it more private started coming apart at the screws. And it wasn’t enough that when he took it down and reinstalled it a few months ago that it was bolted so close to the fencepost that it wouldn’t close the last two inches before the wood ground on wood and prevented a full close.

NO. The “height” built into the bottom—about a foot of additional, heavily styled wood construction—started to fall off of one side so that it dragged along behind the gate like a jacket caught in a car door as it sped away.

For the last year or so, the 564836786373678 cars that whizzed past our arterial street could see directly into our yard. This morning, I couldn’t take it anymore and fixed it with a hammer claw, a clog, and a hairband.

You heard me.

I lifted the thing off the hinges, bracing it on the bottom with my clogs and laid it on the grass. After walking around it a few times, I made an executive decision: Amputation. It was the only thing that would save the patient.

That extra piece on the bottom? Wasn’t there when I bought the door, and it didn’t need to be there now. I kicked it free and pried the wood screws out and put the whole bottom portion in the shed along with the shards and extra hardware. There.

It was a bit lighter then, so I muscled it back upright and held it hovering over the two hinges, lining up the pegs and praying they weren’t too rusted to slide in. My arms shook, sweat was pouring down my back, and then it fell into place with a *snick*.

Well, slap my ass and call me Judy: it hung straight now, and came within a half-inch of closing. What in the hell? At least two grown men have worked on this damn door for years and never did it hang so true.

There wasn’t anything I could do about the cast iron hardware; I’d have to call one of those executioner guys in a brass-studded leather jerkin and carrying a battle axe to get those puppies off, so I used the next best thing.

My hairband.

Ladies, if you have ever been pregnant, you know the hairband trick. You feed a hairband through the button hole on one side and loop the ends over the button on the other, et voila! You have extra breathing room, and your pants stay up. The same principle works when you wrap one end around the lever and loop the other over the latch.

Badabing.

Now it’s time to remove splinters, have a shower, and cross that fucker off my list.

Sunday, August 23, 2009 Bad Mood Dude, Family

I’m sitting watching the fire wire signal bounce around the screen like the Dell logo does on that old screen saver. Just need one more hour to transfer photos between the old computer and the new, and I will cry if it aborts because one of the files requires “permissions I dont have”- like who out ranks me here?

I AM ROOT. OBEY.

I could use a nap according to Logan anyway, so I might take his advice.

Earlier, I stopped by his dad’s to bring Daphne a bunch of dresses handed down by a friend to see if she wanted to wear one for first day of school, and got sucked into huge painful discussion about THE CELL PHONE. Yes, now that my son is entering middle school (and because I got an offer for a free phone and activation) we got him A CELL PHONE. You’d think that after three years of begging and being shot down and listening to me say annoying things like, “I was twenty-nine before I had a cell, and that was only because I gave birth to YOU and didn’t want to be stranded anywhere.”

Noooo. It has a lame keypad. So I said, trade it in and pay for it yourself and tossed him the keys to the thing.

Two excruciating weeks later, there is still discussion about which phone to get, how it will be paid for, whether he gets access to the Internet (NO, HELL NO), and whether it’s just easier to cancel the first line and get a new one so he and Dad can get it right away and have it for the first day of school. I used to get shoes for the first day of school, but I digress.

I surrendered to the discussion. It was circular in shape, and nebulous in substance. I started rubbing my forehead. When my son saw we were disagreeing he got very upset and said it was all his fault, which of course it wasn’t, but you know, his father and I divorced for a reason. Communication was ineffective at best. I tried to wrap it up and thought we left it so that I would call and take care of it since it’s my account.

Twenty minutes later, just as I stepped out of the shower the AT&T store called to get permission to cancel the old account, assign a new phone number, and activate a new phone. Whuafua? Okay, Bucky Boy, have at it. Take it away.

We should have taken Logan’s advice back at the house. When it looked as though there wasn’t going to be a quick resolution, Logan interrupted with sage advice.

“Dad, maybe you should talk to mom after she’s had a nap.”

That kids knows me.

About This Post

It’s back-to-school time, and this year Sprite and TwitterMoms have partnered with bloggers like me to share back-to-school tips and tricks, advice, stories and more! Visit Sprite’s back-to-school channel on TwitterMoms to get helpful ideas, learn how to survive the back to school rush, seek out advice from other TwitterMoms and join the conversation. You can learn more about donating your My Coke Rewards Points to support your local school, how to enter for a chance to win some Back to School cash, check out recipes, or even play some fun games. Here’s to a successful and stress-free back to school season from Sprite and TwitterMoms!

Wednesday, August 19, 2009 Bad Mood Dude

I just called in TWO favors for two separate rides to Wheelworks to pick up a tire. Idea was to get a used tire or just any old tire that could be used as a spare, take it home, put it on the car, and drive it back to get another new tire to put on the original rim. For those who haven’t caught up yet, I’ve had two flat tires in a few weeks. Didn’t get to repurchase one to switch back, and the spare blew with the kids in the car.

My trusty friend Marie took me in but they wouldn’t sell me a used tire, and couldn’t help me without a rim. Well, Marie is driving a spanking new car courtesy of Cash for Clunkers and I wasn’t about to throw my grimy tire in there. So she took me back and I called my ex to come and take me back, this time with the original tire and rim that have been in my trunk for two weeks. (I had to move the piece of bumper that fell out a while ago into the back seat to get to it because the CD changer bolted the carpet to the car. Nice.)

We went back, I dropped this weeks’ grocery money on the counter (good thing the kids are with Dad for the next five days) and took home a new tire to put on so I could at least drive. I’d worry about the spare another day.

ANYWAY. Side story: I desperately need a new computer because this one (the one I bought in 2004 and is still using software from that year) is coughing up blood. Lo and behold, I had a birthday this weekend and Mom gave me a check to get a new one. I love my mom more than anything in this world. I ordered it, paid for express delivery to make a few film deadlines…and…wait for it…the FedEx guy came and went while I was down the block putting on the new tire. I was practically under the car and didn’t see a thing, not that you could hear anything over my groaning back.

So now I have to wait for tomorrow (UNACCEPTABLE) or hope that my crying, begging call to the dispatch will be enough to convince the guy to redeliver because I JUST MISSED HIM. While WORKING ON MY STUPID CAR.

Back to scrubbing grease off my knees and then I’m going to stretch out on the hardwood floor for a bit.

P.S. Did I mention that my hosting account was hacked and turned into a phishing site? It was! Great fun!

P.P.S. This just in: Doubleday has joined Running Press and Crown Publishers in turning down my book.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009 Bad Mood Dude, Family

Today, my eldest goes to middle school orientation. He’ll be on his own for the day, but I need to go to the parent meeting to pick up a lock, class schedule, etc. so I have to depend on his dad for a ride there because my car is sitting in the street with one flat tire in front and another in the trunk. I’m all out of spares. Oh wait, he just called and offered to go for me.

“That’s good, because I already don’t know how I’m going to go buy a tire to bring home and put on the car so I can drive back over and buy another to go on the rim, and then change THAT tire and put the first one in the trunk for a spare. Especially after I sliced my forefinger open catching a falling fan yesterday and had to butterfly it because I can’t possibly pay for stitches. It’s going to be hard changing the tires with a finger I can’t bend.”

We are both under extreme pressure, and I am very fortunate to have parents who will do what they can to keep us from losing our home. He doesn’t have that safety net, so he’s in an even more precarious position and it makes us both really, really cranky. Especially since we divorced because we couldn’t deal with each other. You know, as divorcees do.

So I just went over the the huge pile of laundry in the chair and started folding towels. I said to Logan, “Man, it’s just this STRING of events! When’s it going to let up?”

“Yeah, it’s been bad for a while.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m not blaming the world. I own the fact that where I am is the result of all the decisions I have made, and how I’ve reacted to circumstances. I won’t blame our misfortune on outside forces because whatever happens, happens, and the outcome is merely a measure of the limit of my ability to cope.”

My son looked at me and said, “I didn’t understand a word you just said but I’m sure it was very meaningful.”

Tuesday, August 11, 2009 Me, Me, Me, Other people who write, Bad Mood Dude, BlogHer, Giveaways, News

The Momversation blog had a post that really hit home with me today, partially because although I’ve dropped off the BlogHer and Other Major Social Groups RADAR in the last few years due to overwhelm, I’m constantly inundated with PR requests, and partially because I am really starting to get irritated with the state of things.

Too many people are getting into blogging as if it were some sort of Amway. It’s not something to jump into while it’s hot so you can collect freebies and get paid to parrot. Blogging is something else entirely. What some people are doing now is the online equivalent of infomercials, hundreds of thousands of mini-Roncos. If all those products truly worked miracles, don’t you think we’d be able to get them at Target? The source becomes distrusted, worthless. And the rest of us are dragged down by association.

I’m thrilled about the Blog With Integrity movement and was on it in a hot second, but in truth I’m a little sad that we need it. I hate that people ask what I rake in (nearly nothing) and what PR folks send to me (you just would not believe it) and wonder how they can get in on it. I want to say, “Plastics” and go refill my drink.

Here’s the gist of the post and my response:

The “mommy blogger” backlash hit the front page of CNN.com today, as the PR Blackout Challenge and Blog With Integrity campaigns hit the mainstream media.  If you’re not aware, some mommy bloggers are under fire for taking money and/or free merchandise for recommending products and services.  It’s causing some people to question the ethics and truthfulness of the moms who are blogging today.  But according to the CNN article, some mom bloggers might just be overwhelmed with offers…

I just love how they slapped a screenshot of my site on the front page. Just hope people associate me with the Integrity group, not the Gimme group. I’ve worked too hard for too long to let anything external affect the moral stand I take on reviews. I will not take money, period, and if you send me something, there is no guarantee I will get past the note in the box. It’s so much work just looking at it, and the small percentage of items I do mention only make it here if those things have become part of my daily life.

In fairness, when there is something really cool offered as a giveaway, I’m on it. I don’t endorse anything, just report and reward. I have some great gift cards on my desk I’ve got to give away, and even that is making me hesitate because of all the hoopla. I’m not compromising integrity when I give things away, but it is still doing something I wouldn’t have spontaneously done on my own, and that is the crux of the biscuit. It’s my acid test. Even the legit stuff makes me jumpy. Too many people are doing things for the wrong reason (and calling their sites every possible variation on “The Mommy Blog” but that is a whole other rant). We’re all being spattered with the mud. It’s not a nice feeling.

Anyway. My comment:

I totally didn’t connect the blackout with all the PR requests in my inbox, that’s how scattered and overwhelmed I am. Nice! Now I’m just glad there’s a reason I can ignore them for a week.

I have literally stacks of things, mostly books, next to my desk that have been sent to me, and they are jamming up my life like you wouldn’t believe. Have to state a bit more strongly that I do not guarantee anything in the least, and the only stuff that gets mentioned is the stuff that thrills me and then only in the context of my life, writing as I normally do.

I’m sorry we’ve become saturated with gimme bloggers, and I get too many requests for help “getting started” or “succeeding” to hope that it will die down soon. Those of us who have been doing this forever with no anticipation of readership much less free stuff sort of feel like the guys who made it to Cooperstown before everyone started using steroids. The measurements are all off and the wacky surges have made the old numbers meaningless.

Then again I could be full of shit.

That last bit is what we should all keep in mind—that there is the distinct possibility that we are talking out of our nether regions. But at least I will be totally up front about it.

Saturday, August 08, 2009 Me, Me, Me, Bad Mood Dude, Family

Most of this discussion has been happening over on FaceBook because Twitter hangs when I tweet (there’s a sentence I’ve never contemplated) and it was too exasperating to write about here. I’m waiting for you all to get Mindy Fatigue and just move on to someone cheerier already.

So. Cash for Clunkers. Brilliant program. I went to my neighbor’s for coffee yesterday and flew right by her house because I was looking for the familiar Explorer in the driveway. I saw a new car and never made the connection. Turns out she was able to take advantage of the government program that lets you trade in an old car and offers incentives to buy a new car that gets 4 mpg better ($3,500) or 10 or more mpg better ($4,500). She showed me a flyer that just floored me. According to the math, I could have a brand new Jeep Patriot for just under nine thousand with all the trade in offers.

SCORE.

NOT.

I went straight to a dealership where the salesman was very low on inventory and even lower on information and social skills. He said I’d have to look up my own shit, and get back to him. I see him going places.

Then I went back to the office where my soon-to-be-ex-boss (Sorry, babe, but I’m going to milk that one for a while, although in fairness it was a solid business decision I supported) and I scoured the internet for info and participating dealerships.

Bottom line: your car is already rated for gas consumption according to the database on Cars.gov. It doesn’t matter what your particular car gets; it’s all in the specs. Pick your make, model, year, and trim and they will serve up city, highway, and combined MPG ratings. The combined one is the one they look at. You have to be getting 18 MPG or fewer to qualify.

My 1998 Volvo S7, bottom of the line, with balding, exploding tires, a trunk full of spilled gasoline, a bionic-class undercarriage from all the work done on it over the years ($7,500 in the last two years alone), which is worth about a thousand bucks if I’m lucky, DOES NOT QUALIFY BECAUSE I ALREADY GET 21 MPG. OH, FUCK ME AND THE HORSE I RODE IN ON.

So I posted it on FB.

Figures. My P.O.S., 12-year-old Volvo that’s worth maybe a thousand bucks soaking wet, smells of fuel and is dying, doesn’t get shitty enough gas mileage to qualify for the federal Cash for Clunkers Program. God, if you have it in for me, why not just come out and say it?

Replies varied.

“That Cash-for-Clunkers program is ridiculous! So, if you bought a car that wasted gas years ago (not that I have a problem w/people who bought what they bought) the Government is going to reward you now, but for those who bought higher mileage cars then too bad - your SOL!! What a joke.”

And my favorite: “isn’t the thing registered as a historical monument in your neighborhood?”

The two things I need most on this planet are a reliable computer because all of my income is generated online, and a reliable car because I’m a single mom with three school-aged children. Neither one seems attainable at the moment. Neither does the mortgage, after this next payment. I am actually looking at apartments or two-bedroom condos. The next move may be to sell the house and share a room with my daughter until I can actually support my family.

Wish I could put that all on an Amazon wishlist while some wealthy Good Samaritan cruised around randomly granting some of those wishes. It’s going to be a long month/quarter/year.

Sunday, July 26, 2009 Bad Mood Dude, Family

So!

Remember that slip-n-slide party I invited y’all to on FaceBook? Well, it was really more of a surf-n-slide since we have these great little boards you can really surf on. Logan was doing this killer stunt on his knees and ran into a sprinkler head, ripping a flap open on his kneecap.

We raced up to to urgent care and got Logan’s knee sewn back together. They put him in an immobilization brace (so much for travel team baseball practice!), and sold me some crutches. The brace is sized for an adult, and kept slipping down to his ankle. Fantastic.

Back story: I knew I was low on gas and had planned to get some before going anywhere yesterday, but that sort of got shoved down the list when I saw part of the inside of my son’s knee, so we raced to get stitches and forgot about the gas. You know what’s coming next.

We drove up and down El Camino Real a billion times, looking for each pharmacy and medical supply store on a list the doctor gave us so that we could find a pediatric brace. Everyone either didn’t have it or had closed shop twenty minutes earlier. Finally, we decided to go home and just as I was merging onto the freeway, the car began sputtering. NO NO NO NO NO. I immediately got on the off-ramp fifty feet later, made it halfway up the slope, and goosed the car onto the gravel breakdown lane. The kids just looked at me.

Fortunately, a friend lived not too far away and was there shortly with a jerry can of gas. There was really no way to get to where I was on the off-ramp, so he pulled up on the on-ramp next to us, and I picked my way through the bushes separating the two lanes and back again with the gas. I poured as much as I thought I could into the tank and put the can in my trunk, where the cup or so of gasoline still in there proceeded to leak all over the carpeted interior.

Ten miles later we started sputtering again. I pulled over and shook that can until every last drop was in my tank. I’m totally covered in gasoline by now and the car is filled with fumes from the trunk. Please don’t ask.

We got within a mile of home when the car started lurching again, and then it had a burst of momentum that carried us right up the off-ramp by our house, and I had to SLAM ON THE BRAKES because the car in front of me didn’t go through the yellow light. FUCK. Now I was on an incline, engine not responding. Waving everyone to go around us, I got out, put my nine year old in the driver’s seat (“Mom? Isn’t this illegal?” “Shut up and put your foot on the brake and don’t let go until I say so.”) and got ready to push.

FINALLY someone decided to help, and we got the car up over the hump at the top of the incline, and laid it to rest in the driveway of a ramshackle house right across the street. I shouted thanks at the backs of two guys running back to their cars which were now blocking the off-ramp. Meanwhile, a cop had pulled someone over one hundred feet in front of us, and never even glanced at us.

So. What now? “Kids, I need to get home to get Phil’s car, and I will be back here in ten seconds to pick you up. Don’t move, crack the windows, lock the doors, and don’t talk to ANYONE.”

“Mom? Isn’t this illegal?”

“Shush.”

I started running—in flip-flips—toward the house four blocks away when a nice man slowed to ask if he could help in any way. I weighed the odds of being axe-murdered in front of my (injured and trapped) children, hopped in his car, and said, “This way, just around the corner.” He was extremely nice.

Ran into the kitchen, grabbed Phil’s keys, and… wait for it… the battery was dead. I wanted to kick puppies, and then eat them.

Knocked on two neighbor’s doors, got no answer, saw someone pulling out of the driveway on the other side of our corner, threw myself in front of them and introduced myself. “Hi, I live right there, have been there eleven years, was friends with the people you bought your house from. Is there anyway you would consider taking me a few blocks to my broken down car and rescuing my children?” Oh thank God for the kindness of strangers.

We arrived at the car as I mentioned that one child was in a brace and on crutches. The driver’s passenger got out (the actual owner of the house—who knew) to give us room and let Logan have the front seat. He patiently waited in front of the ramshackle house for his friend to drop us off and come back for him.

Funny story: the driver turned out to be the head of a local educational foundation and talked to the kids about their school on the way home. I mentioned my stint at The Packard Foundation, and he asked, “Oh, do you know [the president and CEO, someone I worked with for twelve years and loved dearly]?” Stunningly small world.

ANYWAY. At this point, I have all the children home and safe, have one hour until the eldest was supposed to leave to go to the San Jose Earthquakes game, and still needed to get my car. At that very moment, my best girlfriend pulled up. “I saw your car. Get in.You can tell me on the way.” I am deeply in love with the woman.

She took me to get gas and then back to my car. Immediately, the cop who had pulled that other car over coasted to a stop alongside us. His window slowly came down. He stared. I threw him a big grin. “Hi there! Ran out of gas, have some now, all’s well, will be gone in a minute.”

He was not moved. “I saw your car here earlier and noticed that it was blocking a driveway. I came back to check on it.” I waited a beat, and then realized he was going to give me a ticket. FOR BLOCKING A DRIVEWAY OF A RAMSHACKLE HOUSE I’VE NEVER SEEN ANYONE GO INTO OR COME OUT OF IN ELEVEN YEARS. “Well, I’ll be out of here in a sec, thanks for checking!” Must be the end of the month when quotas are due.

I filled the car, waved my friend off, and drove straight back to the gas station and dropped fifty dollars into my tank. I’d called the kids on the way and said through the answering machine when they didn’t pick up, “Mommy here, everything is okay, I’m getting gas and will be home in five minutes. Everything is okay, and I love you and am so proud of you for being good and helping me figure out what to do. I’ll be right there, don’t open the door!”

When I got home, Daphne was gone and Logan was a mess on the couch. “Where’s your sister???”

“She went to look for you.”

“But didn’t you hear me talking to you through the answering machine [three feet from your head]?”

“The phones didn’t work.”

“But didn’t you hear me?”

“Mom. THE POWER IS OUT.”

And so it was. For six hours, during which we lit every candle in the house and did puzzles. Later, everyone insisted on sleeping in my bed with candles all around, even though they sleep in dark rooms every night. This time it wasn’t by choice, however, and the PG & E truck working across the street kept throwing scary shadows with the strobe light. I thought I would have a seizure before the lights came back on, precisely at 11 p.m.

I carried Daphne to her bed, helped Logan to his, and slept for maybe three hours before coming out here. Aaand I’m spent.

P.S. 2005 can relax now. I don’t even want to CATCH next week looking at me.

Sunday, June 28, 2009 Bad Mood Dude

…start changing a flat tire in front of a stranger’s house 5 minutes before the sprinklers come on.

Water, Tylenol, hot bath, and coffee, in that order. And then the living room floor until my back gives me permission to move about the cabin.

Sounds eerily familiar.

Monday, June 22, 2009 Bad Mood Dude, Family

Two, four, six, eight
Try not to hyperventilate!

Ten, twelve, fourteen, sixteen,
Health care system needs some fixing!

Eighteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two
Lost my COBRA with Renkoo!

Twenty-four, twenty-six, twenty-eight, thirty
Medicaid forms make head hurty!

Thirty-two, thirty-four, thirty six, thirty-eight,
Would try HIPAA but it’s too late!

Forty, forty-two, forty-four, forty-six
Where’m I going to get my fix?

Forty-eight, fifty, fifty-two, fifty-four
When meds run out there’ll be no more!

Fifty-six, fifty-eight, sixty, sixty-two
I’ve got prescriptions, how ‘bout you?

Sixty-four, sixty-six, sixty-eight, seventy
Sing it with me: “Glad this isn’t me!”

Ahhhh, fuck. I can’t decide which to read up on first, HIPAA or MedicAid. I’m sure I qualify for both, but don’t think the government will move in time to provide coverage by July 1. Thanks again, Renkoo.com, for pulling the rug out from under us with your usuall fab timing.

Got to go tuck the kids in and console my eldest for not getting a chance to pitch for all-stars. I’d lend perspective but there’s a bit of a stretch between hard coaching decisions and seeing total disaster and forced life changes barreling down the tracks at you.

Friday, June 19, 2009 Bad Mood Dude, Family

Anyone remember the bizarre week in August 2007 when I was employed for one week by a psychotic duo in a Silicon Valley startup? Anyone?

Well, aside for the euphoria-induced Monday when I started at an amazing job with kickass salary, followed by a buzzing Tuesday, a busy Wednesday booking travel to represent them at a conference because I so fucking rocked, a Thursday when I started to get frosty treatment and hushed intimations that my initiation by hazing was in full swing followed swiftly by a Friday when I was called into the conference room and summarily fired, it was great. At least those five days made me eligible for COBRA! Woot!

Well, I received notice today that the company is ceasing operations and therefore all COBRA coverage will end as of June 30.

In eleven days.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009 Bad Mood Dude, Family, Momversation

For fuck’s sake, let’s all take a breath here. I just came back from The Mama Bee, a site I enjoy and respect and will continue to admire for taking stands. I had to respond, though, if only to keep my own public perception from going down in flames. I left this comment:

The comments about shooting for the middle are not recommendations, they are what we tell ourselves to assuage some of the feeling of having failed to reach the pinnacle. No one would tell their children to be mediocre; but we tell ourselves sometimes that good enough is good enough.

I feel like I’m shouting from underwater: we are more representative than you think!

I am not a privileged, successful mom working from home by choice. I am screwed, basically, and I’m not complaining about “oh my life is so stressful with a spouse and luxury to stay home.” I’m unemployed, single, have three kids, and no child support. I’m in perpetual fear of losing my house. I used to be the ultimate WOHM making the big bucks and supporting my family, stay at home dad and all. Back then I could get insurance. Now I have bills in collections that would make your eyes bleed.

Working 14 hour days, six, seven days a week nearly caused a nervous breakdown. My husband left, I lost my job, had biopsies and lumpectomies, and then REALLY spiraled.

I have not “climbed to some form of “the top” and can now transition to a flexible or work from home arrangement.”

I’m drowning in disaster here. Because I don’t get that published on Momversation doesn’t make it any less true.

Why are women tearing each other down? We should all be grateful for what we have, do the best we can, and support each other. It’s not a contest. And it’s not a picnic. Some women have made it to the upper levels of Maslow’s pyramid, others of us just keep redecorating the basement. But it’s damn hard to put yourself out there only to be torn down and sneered at by the very women we want to reach, from whom we want to learn, with whom we want to thrive.

By the way, Momversation is my only paying gig, and it buys the food I put on the table. Literally. Please think and go easy.

If you would like us to offer suggestions, let us know. I lobbied for a Q&A feature. The conversations are supposed to be prompts for YOU to begin the real conversation. I certainly don’t feel rarified, but since I’ve been around forever I was an easy pick. We are constantly looking for more diversity in every sense, so PLEASE apply and get heard!

Monday, June 15, 2009 Bad Mood Dude, QOTD

Yesterday, at a graduation party, I explained to someone that Phil wasn’t with us because we’d split up.

She said, “You’ll find someone. You’re still pretty.”

Monday, June 08, 2009 Bad Mood Dude

MAN.

One thing I cannot stand is a broken promise. Especially the small, easy to keep ones. Like, I’ll pick up our child’s medicine and take it to school so he can stay there for the day. I think this one is my fav. Because then? Just when you’re getting ready to film a video segment on a sensitive topic, you get a call from the school nurse saying that the medicine never showed up and the kid can’t stay at school and his dad is not answering any of his phones, and then when you race over to the pharmacy, you hear that it was picked up hours ago. And then when you are at the school signing him out neither the nurse nor the school secretary will make eye contact. And then you drive over to see that Daddy has been home all this time, just not picking up the phone. And then you resist the urge to key his car all the way around. Because that was the car that used to be yours until you gave it to him in the divorce.

Thanks be to pink bubblegum that I have understanding friends who are willing to cover for me. I will now spend the afternoon not wanting to knock holes in the walls, because this is my house. And the negative nine hundred bucks in my account says I don’t have the luxury.