TheMommyBlog

Wednesday, May 12, 2004 Entertainment

I was just watching (I can’t hear you!) Monsters, Inc. with the kids and walked out to do the dishes just after the part where Randall pulls ahead of Sulley in the scare record competition for about ten seconds, until Sulley hits on a slumber party and reasserts his position. After the kitchen was sparkling (or at least no longer smelled like a sewer), I checked the blog, only to find…

... that Genuine has climbed to the top of the commenters’ heap!!! Lee, good God, man, what have you been doing??? Get a grip!! Get a move on!! Defend your title!!

I’m going to leave the room and walk away for a while. When I return, I expect Lee to have returned to the top of the list. No questions asked. I believe in each and every one of you.

Wednesday, May 12, 2004 Me, Me, Me

I feel like the fragile genius/idiot savant the villain’s henchmen keep in the back room, sheltered from life’s demands in an effort to preserve the strange, deep pockets of knowledge and expertise needed to keep the secret, evil empire alive.

Either that, or like an underpaid, overtired beancounter.

If the folks around me and out there depending on us had any idea what this exhausted mommy has been doing this afternoon, they might not fall asleep so easily tonight. I have just finished sending ninety-six payments totalling nearly sixteen million dollars to five different countries through the mail and over the wire, and didn’t do too badly.

What’s that, you say? Not too badly?? There is no room for error!!  Well no shit, Sherlock. Why do you think I am walking around with a permanent twitch under one eye? The former president of my organization, a man I love dearly and still think of in a fatherly way today, once casually mentioned to me that I could do my job day in and day out, getting 99.5% of it absolutely perfect, and still that last .5% could spell disaster.

His point? Only that I could never have a sound night’s sleep again. Actually, he just wanted me to know that the kind of things that came across my desk were special, and delicate, and dang expensive to fix if anything went wrong. And then he smiled his warm, friendly smile and told me how glad he was to have me around.

And then I spent the rest of the afternoon wanting to throw up.

So. Back to today. I did great. Really great. Only made one mistake, which I fortunately caught just as my mouse was hovering over the “send” button: I had put the bank contact’s name in the beneficiary field of one of the wires. One round million was slated to go to the person handling the account instead of to the large organization expecting it.

Had I not stopped to rub my eyes and polish my glasses, I might have made one nice little lady named Maggie in Palo Alto very, very happy.

And how was your day?

UPDATE: this nearly finished me off… *yawn* Amber has a lovely voice!!

Wednesday, May 12, 2004

I don’t really need much, nor have I asked for it. It was decided for me by Quizilla.

Wednesday, May 12, 2004 Family

The children were particularly clingy this morning and couldn’t bear to let me get up to shower, so I was pinned to the sofa in the kitchen, lying full-length with three children also lying full-length along me, with hardly an inch of child-flesh touching the cushions, elbows and knees flying. You get the idea.

In an effort to help Logan feel better, I explained that they would all get to come with me to work tomorrow! Yay!

Logan: “Wait. Does this mean I don’t have to go to school tomorrow?”
Me: “Yep! You get to come to work with me, just like last year! We’re going to have breakfast and lunch there!”
Logan: “Yay!”
Me: “And do you know what else is special about tomorrow?”
Logan: “What?”
Me: “We get to go to the Community School of Music and Ar—”
Logan: [beginning to glare at me]
Me: “But it’s fun! It’s not really school. It’s different.”
Logan: [rolls eyes, makes pouty face]
Me: “We’ll be making music and doing art and… “
Logan: [flops face-down on pillows]
Me: “It’ll be fun… [trailing off] ... really, I’ll just take you out of school so you can go to school. Crap. OK, do you want to hear why it might be special that we’re going there?”
Logan: [muffled through pillow] “OK.”
Me: “The people at my work gave the school some money to help them get a new building. Isn’t that special?”
Dylan: “Mommy, can I have a new building?”
Me: “No, honey. Logan, the school is so happy that we helped them that they want to have this party for our children.”
Dylan: “Mommy, are we gonna have a pi�ata at the party, and are we going to whack it and whack it and have all the candy fall out?”
Me: “No, honey, it’s not that kind of party.”

In actuality, it will be a whole heck of a lot like what they would be doing in school if I had just left them alone. But it will be better, won’t it? Better with their parents along?? Please say it will, please say it will, please say it will…

Tuesday, May 11, 2004 Haiku Smackdown

Those of you who have been following from home and know that the Thursday Haiku Smackdown is traditionally hosted from the East Coast will recognize the gravity of my situation. I have been having tremors and night sweats all week knowing what is looming ahead, but have finally worked up the nerve to say this out loud:

I will be at “Take Our Children to Work Day” this Thursday until 4:30 EST.

Hmmm. Not bad. Let’s try that again, but with a little more effort:

I will be at “Take Our Children to Work Day” until 4:30 EST this Thursday.

Still not happy with that. Say it like you mean it, girl!

I will be at “Take Our Children to Work Day”... until a massively dire emergency arises that can only be resolved BY ME, from MY office computer, behind closed doors, with shades drawn and phones forwarded!!!

The horrors! The DTs! How in the name of little green apples will I resist muscling my way with a ululating yell past the teachers and frightened children of the Community School of Music and Arts, where the festivities are to be held (um, do I WORK there? Noooo.), and taking over the Director’s computer with a snappy reminder that we helped fund their new building… ?