Out & About

We went to the Crossroads Kids Club on Tuesday. Britt was totally fascinated by the emcee. Can't you tell?



Her number didn't get called this time, so she didn't win a prize, but she did get up the nerve to go give Sammy D Salamander a hug. I didn't think she would so I didn't get the camera out in time to get a picture, though.

Then she played her little heart out on the playground



and she rode the big carousel and the mini-carousel



and then we had lunch and then we went and got in our oven-hot car and went home.

I hate strapping her into the car when it's so hot. I'm so afraid her tender skin will touch hot metal and sizzle up like a pork rind, but there's no place in the middle of a mall parking lot to put her while I run the air conditioner to get the car cooled down so, hell, what can you do?

Our other big outing for the week was to her zoo class. This month was all about ladybugs and...

Well, Grammy plumbed screwed up. Either because

1. I'm an idiot, or
2. the Alzheimer's is coming to get me.

Take your pick. Somehow I thought the class started at 11:00 (even though we've been going at 10:00 all year) and we got there an hour late, so she missed everything but the ladybug release at the butterfly garden:



Britt doesn't do bugs, so she stood back and watched the whole thing in disgust. I finally went and got a handful to show her that they wouldn't hurt, but she ran away shrieking. Then I tried letting just one crawl over my hand, but she just looked at me like, "Have your lost your flippin' mind, woman?"

The trip wasn't a total loss, though, since the cost of the class includes free admission to the zoo. We watched the geese on the pond for awhile



and then we went to Aquaticus and watched the Fin & Feathers show.



Well, Britt watched it; I watched her, since she wouldn't sit still and was all over the place.



Then we went downstairs to see the fish exhibits



and then it was time for a play-break



and a carousel ride or two.



She's always so cute on the carousel; while it's going around she waves to the crowd like a beauty queen on a parade float.

We have Boomerang!

Hot dawg!

I'm so delighted that I'm hopping around and grinning like an idiot.

See how little it takes to make me happy? I guess maybe that says something about how small my world is, but whatever.

We have Boomerang!

(***doing happy dance***)

Screw delighted. I'm thrilled! Thrilled, I tell you!

All right, before you TV haters get your shorts in a wad, let me tell you that filling a child's days with fun yet creative activities is a lovely idea in theory. In truth, there's a lot of hours in the day to fill -- day after day after day after day -- plus chores to do and meals to cook, so unless you've been a stay-at-home parent who has managed to fill a child's days with fun yet creative activities all day every day, just shut the hell up.

Anyway, Britt doesn't sit in front of the TV all day. She plays, or we play, and occasionally she sits down to watch a favorite show, or I'll pop in a video if I need her to settle down for a nap or so I can get something done.

We have Boomerang! Finally!

The reason this makes me so happy is that Britt is an Old School kid. Her favorite TV shows are Tom & Jerry and Mickey Mouse cartoons, and she loves Scooby-Doo. But she's never seen a Porky Pig cartoon or the Flintstones or Huckleberry Hound or Josie & the Pussycats, because no other channels we get show them, and I'm pretty sure they're going to be right up her alley.

Anyway, I'd better run because I can't sit in front of the computer while she's awake and it sounds like she's wreaking havoc out there.

Plus, Yogi Bear's on! Woo-hoo!

She's Gone

Bob came down yesterday, loaded up Britt and took her back to Kansas with him.



Oh, my sweet doll -- this is the first time she's been away from us in two years and I miss her so much. I keep listening for her and turning to look at her or talk to her, but she's not there and then I go, Oh, yeah...

But she'll be back on Monday, so there's just two more days to get through without her.

In the meantime, I'm keeping myself busy by fiddling around with iTunes, adding and deleting songs and setting up folders for different kinds of music. It's finally shaping up so's I can set it on shuffle and listen without wanting to hit the skip button on every other song.

Currently playing:

1. Golden Slumbers, The Beatles
2. The Rodeo Song, Garry Lee & the Showdown (lyrics here; I know you've heard it before)
3. Crippled Heart Blues, Lana Martino-Smith
4. Just Like a Woman, Bob Dylan
5. Too Much Time on My Hands, Styx (exactly!)
6. Just an Old-Fashioned Love Song, Three Dog Night
7. Limelight, Rush
8. A Hard Day's Night, The Beatles
9. I Saw Her Again, The Mamas & the Papas
10. Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Pink Floyd

It's better than it was, anyway.

So, since we're having a kidless weekend, Mikey took me out to dinner -- like on a real date -- and then we went to Dillard's to spend my Christmas gift certificate (my in-laws never know what to get me). I tried on 14 shirts and found only two that fit, and got a couple of pairs of jeans.

And now I'm about to say something I never thought I'd say in this lifetime:

My boobs are too big.

That's mostly why all those shirts didn't fit.

I had to buy a bigger bra last year and didn't think I was getting the push-up version, but it sure acts like one; now I've got cleavage up to my chin. Just two years ago, before I gained all this weight, my boobies were rattling around in too-big B cups, and now I feel like Chestica Simpson (though not quite as stupid, or as blonde. Or as young. Or as skinny). I think it's time to go up another size.

Also, I'm thinking about chopping my hair off.

Crayon in the dryer! Oh, noooooo!

Mikey tried to help me yesterday by running a load of laundry. I didn't know this until mid-way through the cycle when I walked through the utility room and heard the washer running. I may have been a bit shrill when I asked if he had spot-treated any of Britt's clothes because I've been fighting hard to keep at least some of them stain-free. Of course, he had not.

Nor had he checked any pockets because, while transferring the clothes to the dryer, I found half a dozen crayons in the bottom of the washer. Trying to avert disaster, I took every single item out of the dryer and shook it, but didn't find any more crayons. So, I turned the dryer on on and let it do its thing.

Big mistake.



Of course, the crayon was BROWN, so it looks like poop stains.

(***sigh***)

This is not cool. Not cool at all.

Good News/Bad News

I'll get the good news out of the way first, since it's relatively frivolous: I got my car back! Mikey found somebody to get Bridgie's car drivable, which cost way less than we were afraid it would, so me and Britt are ready to ramble again. Woo-hoo!

Now the bad news: My cousin's son (Aunt Fay's grandson) was killed in a wreck Thursday morning. He was 36 years old and left a wife and two or three kids.

Also, Mom had a "suspicious" mammogram so she's going in for a test Monday. She didn't know what kind, just "a test."

So, pray.

I'm a Moveable Feast

I'm sitting here with my trusty tube of RhuliGel (except they don't call it RhuliGel anymore) because we've had a mosquito in the house and it's been eating me alive. Britt has a few bites, too, but I'm covered with big red itchy welts. Ten, at last count. I must be extra tasty or something, I dunno.

Anyway, I finally managed to kill the little bastard tonight after chasing it around for three days.

And guess what?

There's another mosquito dive-bombing me right this minute.

Make that eleven bites. I just found a fresh one on my elbow.

Would somebody please bring me a can of Deep Woods Off? Like, stat? Because I have no car, you know, so I can't go get it myself.

Back to Britt

I've been obsessing over music lately, which is odd since I really don't have a big jones for music. It's probably just a way of distracting myself from the fact that Britt and I are housebound again -- all day every day. Day after day after day after day...

Anyway, I'll shut up about music for a little bit and get back to the real reason y'all come here.



We haven't been up to much, obviously, besides a lot of reading.



There was an attempt at playing in the sprinkler,



but the water was too cold.

Other than that, we just color and play with toys and dance to music videos and watch TV. It finally quit raining nearly every damn day and the mud's dried up, so now we can go out and play in the backyard with Pepper. Which is at least different from playing in the house but, really, big woop, ya know?

Sounds boring, huh? Yeah, well, boring suddenly doesn't seem so bad after the excitement we had yesterday:

We were sitting on the couch reading a book when Britt climbed down to grab a toy or harass the cat or something, I don't even remember what. When she tried to climb back up on the couch, she slipped and crashed into the corner of the book propped on my lap. Then she collapsed on the floor screaming, with her hands clamped over her eye.

And my heart stopped.

You know how moms will say, "Don't do that, you might put your (or somebody else's) eye out"? Well, when my mom said it, it wasn't theoretical. It really did happen in our family; my brother was blinded in one eye in a childhood accident. So that's what flashed through my head while I tried to comfort her and assess the damage.

The corner of the book had caught her just beneath her lower lashes. If it had been a quarter inch higher, it would have poked her directly in the eyeball, which could have meant scratches, a damaged cornea, or worse.

(***shudder***)

Anyway, the area was a little puffy last night, but it's not even black and blue today like I thought it would be.

It really freaked me out that something like this could happen. I mean, how dangerous can it be to read a book? And it's not like I wasn't watching her; I was right there! I was shaking all the rest of the day, knowing how close we had come to real disaster.

So, yeah, some kinds of excitement I can do without.

In other news, Sherri was in deep shit recently when the city sewer system backed up and flooded her house. You can see pictures of the damage on her Flickr page. She and Chris are staying at Cathy's (which is kind of like putting three wild cats in a bag, heh) until they find a new place to live.

ReShuffled

Whee! I got $65 worth of iTunes gift cards for Mother's Day and I've already spent it all, expanding my collection of tuneage by almost 13%.

I haven't listened to the radio in years and have no idea who's who these days, so I went with old favorites. Mostly '60s pop (because my sisters were teenagers back then and if the radio wasn't rattling the windows, the record player was), '70s guitar rock (because that's when I was a teenager), and early '80s MTV stuff (when it was nothing but 24/7 videos).

Now I can delete some of the crap I didn't like that much but uploaded anyway just so I'd have something to listen to.

And so, as my shuffle lineup becomes slightly less schizoid, it becomes slightly more dorky:

1. If I Fell, Beatles
2. Der Kommissar, After the Fire
3. You Did Not Have a Home, Rich Mullins
4. Nights in White Satin, Moody Blues
5. The Rain Song, Led Zeppelin
6. Party Train, Gap Band
7. Suite for Flute & Strings (Badinerie), JS Bach
8. Love Shack, B52s
9. Life in the Fast Lane, Eagles
10. Midnight Rider, Allman Brothers

Happy Mother's Day

To a girl



who grew up



to marry a handsome fella



and raise a passel of kids



who turned out pretty all right.



Well, mostly all right. I mean, none of us are on death row or nuthin'.



(My sisters are going to kill me for this.)

We made her a grandma



(Sherri's gonna kill me for this one.)

and they made her a great-grandma.

(Sorry, I don't have a picture of the great-grandkids all together. There's a bunch of 'em.)

But then, she was always great -- loving wife, devoted mom, and the most indulgent grandma ever.

Have a happy, Ma. I love you!

Help!

Look at me, I'm Sandra D
Lousy with virginity...

Yes, it's true. I'm a music-downloading virgin. I'm as nervous as a tender young maiden preparing for her wedding night.

I admit, it looks pretty straightforward: You pay your money, find a song, click the download button, and voila! But, I have questions.

My iMac came with an account ready to go at iTunes, but they charge 99 cents a song, which adds up pretty fast. No volume discounts, no specials, no nothing.

I've been googling to see what alternatives are out there, but I found way too much to make sense of. So I'm wondering:

Where do you download music from, and how much does it cost?

Have you had problems with any downloading sites? Are there certain ones I should avoid?

Do they make you install any kind of extra software?

If I try one of the free download sites, is the DoJ gonna show up at my door with a warrant?

Is there anything else I should know?

At the Zoo

I borrowed my car from Bridgie so we could go to Britt's class today, where we learned about lions and tigers (but not bears, oh my).

She made a cat puppet,



and then we rambled around the zoo for a while.

The highlight of our day was visiting the lorikeet enclosure. After we got in, I found out that you could get food for the lorikeets before you come in, and the lorikeets will have nothing to do with you if you have no food to offer:



Britt futilely chased after them for about 30 minutes, and then some nice person gave her their cup of food:



And, within seconds, she had a new best friend:

BrittSpeak

I was trying to read a book to Britt when she put her hands over my mouth and said, "Stop talking now! Mouth off!"

I try not to cuss -- because Little Miss Big Ears copies everything I do -- so I say things like "God bless America!" or "Merciful heavens!" or "Good God almighty!" a lot. So now, Britt's running around saying "My God mighty!" all the time.

Whenever she doesn't want something, she'll say, "No! I can't have it!" When I ask if she wants something to eat, sometimes she'll say, "No, I can't hungry yet."

She likes to whisper "secrets." She'll come up and whisper gibberish in my ear and I'll whisper gibberish in her ear, and she'll just laugh and laugh.

My roses are blooming now, and she knows what flowers are but she was puzzled by the buds, so I explained to her that they're baby flowers. So now she pets them very gently, saying "Awww, baby roses! So cute!"

Bubbly Girl

Britt loves bubbles. Bubble baths, bubbles in the kitchen sink when I'm washing dishes, or blowing bubbles from a bottle of liquid soap -- it doesn't matter. She loves them all.

Bubble baths are no issue, but I can hardly wash dishes in peace with her underfoot, begging for handfuls of suds to scatter around the house. And she makes an awful mess with the bottled bubble solution since she always wants to be the one holding it, and that's why it always stays hidden away with the Play-Dough and the Floam, only to be brought out as a special treat.

And now, Britt has her very own bubble machine.

It looks like it was blowing her hair back here, but it wasn't:



Well, it did blow her hair back in that sense. She was absolutely delighted with it, and danced about with joy:



And then she just sat and stared at it in awed wonder:



It's a lot easier to deal with than the bottled stuff, as long as she's not trying to carry it around with her, because it does spill. But it was just the ticket -- she loves it.

My Boys

The two men in my life, pickin' and grinnin' out on the back porch:



Bob got his shiny new guitar for Christmas.



Mikey's teaching him how to play it:

Mother's Day is May 13

If anyone I gave birth to needs some gift-giving ideas, one of these would be like the most appreciated gift ever.

Or one of these, if you're really that broke.

Carless, again

Bridgie had a wreck Saturday. She's fine; her car is not.

Some guy (probably illegal, definitely uninsured) tried to cross traffic in front of her and she hit him broadside. He didn't want to call the police and split before they arrived, leaving behind his car and his passenger -- an older guy who spoke no English.

Bridgie has only liability coverage, so there's no telling when she'll be able to get her car drivable again. So she's borrowed mine, and there's no telling when I'll get it back this time.

(***sigh***)

Our last trip in my car (for a while) was to Britt's art class:



She was cranky that morning, but she perked up a little once she heard we were going to make some animal puppets:



On our gallery walk we looked for paintings with animals in them, then we went back to class to make our puppets:



Britt cut up a paper towel with safety scissors while I made a bird dog puppet.

Heh, get it? Feathers and fur? Bird dog?

Okay. Never mind.

And so it begins

At least ten years ahead of schedule, Britt is already saying to me:

Don't tell me what to do!

Lord help me.

I am an idiot

When we bought this house six years ago, it came equipped with metal-colored plastic faucet handles in the bathtub. Those handles have broken and been replaced twice already, and now they're broken again, so we're back to using the RoboGrips to turn on the cold water.

So yesterday I was going to give Britt a bath but couldn't turn on the cold water. I tried and tried, but the little knobby-thing is just so stripped I couldn't get it to turn. I was so pissed I even called Mikey at work to bitch about it.

When he came home last night, he ran a bath for Britt and said that he didn't have any trouble turning on the water. I thought, Well, it must have been shut off pretty tight and he has a stronger grip than me, so whatever. I didn't give it another thought.

Until today, when Britt wanted to take another bath, and I couldn't turn on the cold water. I worked and worked at it, spitting and cussing the whole time, but it was no use.

Until it finally occurred to me to try turning it the other way.

I want you to see

what Little Miss B has done now.

I was on the couch watching TV and she was standing near me with a ball in her hand and, from the corner of my eye, it looked like she was sort of bouncing it against her chin. She wasn't.

She was biting it. Like an apple:



I freaked!

Luckily, all the pieces are accounted for, but while I was picking them up I noticed how hard the material is. So I tried biting the ball myself, just to see how bite-able it was, but my teeth only slid right across the surface.

Britt has this one really weird little habit: when I'm working in the kitchen, she'll grab my pants with her teeth so that I sort of drag her around with me. Sometimes she accidentally bites more than just my pants, and now I feel lucky that she hasn't taken any chunks out of me like that.

Not yet, anyway.

iTunes Shuffle

On Sunday I uploaded all my CDs onto my new computer, then I put it on shuffle and I've been listening to it ever since. The problem is, there's not a whole lot of variety to my personal collection because I still only have a cassette player in my car, so there hasn't been much impetus for me to buy a lot of CDs.

Mikey has a huge collection of classic rock CDs (and DVDs), but he plays that shit all the frickin' time, man, and I'm pretty burned out on most of it.

So, anyway, it took three whole days for a shuffle lineup to appear that didn't have the same artist (or composer) repeated within ten tracks:

1. Velvet Sky, Los Lonely Boys
2. One For My Baby, Frank Sinatra
3. Deuxieme Concert 3 l'Agacante, Jean-Philippe Rameau
4. I Am, Mark Schultz
5. Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, Bach
6. Symphony No. 8, Second Movement, Beethoven
7. Peace, Rich Mullins
8. 11-6-64, Steven Curtis Chapman
9. Moonlight Serenade, Glenn Miller
10. Nowhere Man, Beatles

Yeah, I know -- my musical taste is a bit eclectic, which is really just a nicer way of saying, "Gawd, I'm such a nerd."

Happy Girl

It's not often that I manage to get a picture of Britt laughing, or even smiling. She's usually annoyed that I try to get her to pose for me instead of letting her sit on my lap to look at pictures of herself on the back of the camera.

And so, I love this picture of her:

I took Britt clubbing

I saw a TV commercial for something called the Crossroads Kids Club (Music, fun, and prizes for everyone! And it's free!), I was all like, Whee! Let's go!

It's held once a month at a mall on the wrong far side of town and Mikey didn't want us to go, but I thought, hell, we can go once and if it's too hinky we don't have to do it again.

Boy, am I glad we went. Britt had a blast, so it was well worth the 36-mile round trip.

First, they handed out plastic eggs that held a piece of chocolate and a free ticket for the carousel. Then a four-year-old girl got up on the stage and sang a couple of songs. Or, rather, she whispered fragments of lyrics into the microphone while her parents frantically mimed instructions at her.

Then they handed out tickets for the drawing and, guess what?

Britt's number was called! It was the first time she ever won anything.

What she won was a box of 12 plastic "kaleidoscope" eggs, so it wasn't like a million bucks or nothin', but still.

Then Sammy D Salamander came out to say hi and get hugs from the kids, but Britt wouldn't have none of it.

And then, more goodies for everyone, including this cute bunny mask:



Then we used her free ticket for her first-ever carousel ride:



See how serious she looks? She makes the same face when she rides the coin-op horse in front of the grocery store, which is at least 30 or 40 years old and desperately in need of a lube job and possibly some bearings, because the grinding and grating noises are so loud that you can hardly hear the William Tell Overture playing. But the carousel was much nicer, and a much smoother ride. She loved it.

And then she played at the indoor playground for about an hour and then we went home.

Easter came a few days later:



Britt had so much fun hunting eggs over at my in-laws' that we've been hiding her "kaleidoscope" eggs around our yard for her to find.

So they turned out to be a pretty good prize after all.

Making Pictures

Britt loves to fingerpaint:



She only gets to do it at her art class, though, because we haven't yet brought any painting supplies into our home. It's been bad enough with the Play-Dough, and now with the Floam, which Mikey brought home last week, and which is currently hidden away with the Play-Dough.

I haven't been taking a whole lot of pictures lately, partly because I wasn't able to post any here and partly because the one-second delay between pushing the button and the shutter clicking means that, for each good shot I manage to get, I wind up with half a dozen that look like this:



Or this:



That's what the delete button's for, I guess. I have much better luck with subjects that aren't moving:

Britt's Zoo Class

I finally got my digital photo software installed, and it works! So now we finally have pictures again! Yay!

These are from Britt's first class at the zoo in February. First, they gave a presentation about lizards, snakes and turtles, and they passed around things to feel or see, like snake skins and turtle shells. Then it was time for a snack:



and a craft:





(After we got home, I put Britt's snake up on the refrigerator but she eventually managed to yank it down and those damned dots wound up all over the house. I'm still finding them.)

Then we listened to a story about the animals we just learned about, and then we went out to the zoo to see them, and then we were free to wander around as long as we liked.

I didn't take my camera to her second class and missed a heck of a picture. At the Andean condor enclosure, a condor came and stood directly in front of Britt. It was taller than she was and, when it opened its wings -- which were easily seven or eight feet across -- it was a breathtaking sight. I sure was glad there was a fence between them, though.

After that first class in February, we went to lunch:



and Britt experienced a McDonald's playland for the first time ever:



and then we went to visit her half-sister, who lives with their mother's parents:



They have a lot of fun together now that Britt's finally old enough to be a real playmate, and not just "the baby":



Unfortunately, their visits are few and far between, since Sarah's parents are about as flaky as she is. This visit (which I initiated) was the first time the girls had seen each other since September; we had another playdate scheduled in March but they canceled and I haven't heard from them since.

First bite of the Apple

So I got my new iMac Wednesday night. Did I immediately unpack it and get it set up and running?

Well, no.

Did I do it on Thursday?

No.

Friday?

No.

Saturday?

Um, no.

Gah, what is wrong with me? Instead of leaping about with joy, I'm feeling totally blah about the whole thing.

(***shrug***)

Beats me.

Anyway, I finally got it out of the box and set it up today, and it's just beeee-youtiful! It's all sleek and shiny, and it's so quiet! It doesn't wheeze and whine like my old one does.

Also, there's a tiny little video camera mounted at the top of the screen, and I was startled to see myself onscreen a couple of times during the set-up process. Live! In my jammies with ratty-looking hair and no makeup. Um, nobody can just dial in and look at me, can they? I have to turn the camera on from my end, right? Because Bridgie's already teasing me about putting a piece of black tape over the lens.

Still to do:

• Find the CD that came with my printer so I can get it hooked up.
• Try to install the software that came with my new digital camera.
• Try to install the software for Mikey's camera phone.
• Buy this, because there is no Mac version of the family tree software I've been using all these years.

It took me awhile to figure out that the browser loaded on my iMac is called Safari, but I was finally able to confirm that the Internet connection works. But the browser window is way smaller than it is on my old 13-inch monitor, even on Maximize, and I can't figure out how to make it any bigger. It doesn't even fill half the screen. WTF?

So am I typing this blog entry on my shiny new iMac?

Oh, hell, no. I can't frickin' see what I'm doing in that tiny little browser window!

It's here!

Mikey gave me my birthday present last night (I got the 20" model), but I haven't hooked it up yet. I'm still looking at the manuals and stuff.

Plus I'm thinking of what-all I need to do before I unhook this one. Like all the pictures on my hard drive that haven't been printed yet -- almost a year's worth. Gah.

Yeah, I know -- I totally chickened out and went with a desktop instead of a laptop. I'm too scared that I'll somehow manage to totally destroy a laptop in no time flat. Or lose it.

Plus, mine still has wi-fi capability and it's pretty portable. I mean, I wouldn't take it on a trip but, since there's no ginormous CPU tower attached to it, it could easily be parked in different areas of the house.

I'm eager to try it out but nervous, too, since it'll be so different from what I'm used to.

Wish me luck.

It's coming!

Just four more days until my birthday. And my new computer.

And, hopefully, I'll be able to post pictures and videos again.

Hopefully.

And then, hopefully, I'll be back to blogging with a vengeance. Because, right now? I'm kinda all "Meh. What's the point?"

Anyway, I know my new computer will be a Mac, but I'm wavering on whether or not to go laptop. Because, laptop? Wheee, freedom! Desktop? Means being stuck in the office on a very limited schedule.

I want a laptop, but I'm scared. What if wi-fi is slower than cable and I don't like it? How much does wi-fi cost? Should I keep cable as a backup? Because cable is expensive as hell, you know. And that little hinge-thingy that holds the screen on? What if I break it? Will it cost a lot to fix? What if I drop the whole thing and break it? And a zillion other questions. I don't know anybody who has a laptop or wi-fi, so there's nobody to discuss these things with, except for the computer nerds at Best Buy, which is better than nothing, I guess, but damn -- I miss the free computer advice from the IT guys I used to work with.

But if I chicken out and go desktop again, then I'm stuck in the office for another five or six years.

(***sigh***)

Anyway, I hope everybody had a happy Easter. We did, and we also learned an important safety tip:

Do not get in Britt's way when there are Easter eggs to be hunted. She will mow you down.

In sickness and in hell (Pt 2)

So the Barf-O-Rama pretty much ended Friday morning. Pretty much.

And then the Shit-A-Thon began. Or the Shitstorm, if you prefer. Sarah called that night, but I didn't want to deal with her so I didn't answer the phone. She called again Saturday and left a snarky message, so Mikey called her back and lit into her for making the baby sick.

Of course, the day before Britt got sick, we went to playtime at the library and shared toys with 20 other kids, went shopping at two different places, and then stopped by Poppa's store to visit. It's entirely possible that she picked up a virus at any of those places but, somehow, it just feels better to blame Sarah.

The diarrhea started that Friday morning and didn't stop for a week. I'll spare you most of the gory details, except for my candidate for the WORST DIAPER EVER:

Britt had her very first ever poop-running-down-the-leg diaper. When I opened it, the whole thing was filled with a sea of golden liquid, just barely contained within the edges of the diaper. I mean, seriously, I was totally goggled-eyed when I saw it. Somehow I managed to get Britt cleaned up and get the diaper out from under her without spilling anything, and then I stood up to take the foul thing to the trash and it spilled all over the couch, my pants and the carpet. Yay.

But she's all better now and back to being her normal live-wire self. She definitely lost a few pounds during her ordeal because her arms and legs look slimmer. Not skinny, by any means, since she was fairly well-padded before. Bob and Mary took her to the circus on Saturday, as soon as she was well, where they took this picture of her:



As you can see, she may have lost a chin, but she's still a cheeky little thing.

In sickness and in hell

Sarah came over Thursday to see Britt, for the first time since October.

I didn't get any fresh gossip from her because I don't care enough to ask any more, plus I wasn't feeling very talkative since I wasn't the least bit happy to see her. She still showed me the tracks on her arms, though, just like she has every time I've seen her in the past year.

Gah! Why does she do that? How stupid does she have to be to keep waving her fucked-upedness all up in my face?

Anyway, before she left she asked if she could come back over to see Britt the next day. She said she wanted to be consistent.

(She hadn't made any attempt to see Britt since October. Not even a peep at Christmas.)

So Mikey and I looked at each other and said, "Uhhhhhh, we'll have to discuss that and get back with you."

After we went to bed that night, the Barf-O-Rama began.

Oh, God. The Barf-O-Rama.

We were sound asleep when Britt puked all over our bed. Alllll over. It landed on the sheets, the pillows, the headboard, the bed frame and the floor beneath the headboard. Mikey took care of wiping down Britt and comforting her while I stripped the bed and found the huge wet spot on the mattress. I gagged when I saw the mess on the bed frame and on the carpet beneath the headboard, so I switched off with Mikey and took Britt to get fresh jammies on while he finished cleaning up.

Then, we adjourned to the living room. Mikey stretched out on the couch with Britt beside him, while I was scrunched into the loveseat. We were just drifting off when Britt sat up and spewed again. This time the sheet in her lap caught it and it didn't get on the couch, but I said to Mikey, "It's ridiculous trying to sleep out here. Let's go get in the bed in Britt's room."

And so we went and crammed into the little double-sized bed in Britt's room, and I was dimly realizing that the reason I couldn't roll over was because Mikey's arm and Britt's leg were both jammed down the front of my shirt when Britt puked again!

Aaaaauuuugh! How could there possibly be anything left in her? By this time it was about 4:00 am and we were exhausted and frustrated and worried, plus we were quickly running out of clean sheets and towels and mattresses that didn't have big stinky wet spots on them.

So Mikey and Britt settled down in the living room again, and I passed out across the foot of the double bed after I stripped it. Britt barfed again and some of it got on the couch, but Mikey just cleaned up the mess and put a towel over the wet spot and went back to sleep. And that's how we spent the rest of the night.

And then the Shit-A-Thon began.

(To be continued)

Songbird

Britt loves to sing. She tries to follow along with songs she hears, but she'll also make up her own.

When she makes up her own songs, sometimes the lyrics are unintelligible, but other times they are quite clear. Like the song she sang when I was lying beside her, trying to get her to sleep:

Happy happy game
Happy happy game
Happy happy game
Pie
Cake!

She sang the last two words with such awed reverence that I almost fell off the bed laughing.

In other news, Jenny is pregnant with her fourth child. Taryn just turned one last month, and Piper was two in December.

Wow.

"You cannot be fucking serious"

is what I said.

We have tickets for the Eric Clapton concert tonight. It starts less than three hours from now.

Bridget gave Mikey the tickets for Christmas, and it made him cry because it was the first time either of my kids had ever put real thought into what kind of gift he might really like to get.

So we've had over two months to prepare for this night. Bridgie's coming over to babysit Britt. I just took a shower and was fixin' to get ready. And then Mikey called...

You see, there's a trade show in town right now. Our store has a booth there. Actually, we have a booth that covers six booth spaces. And Mikey and his sister are manning it while his brother and mother hold down the store.

So Mikey called and said that he doesn't think we can go to the concert. He's unloading a truck, which will take at least two more hours, and then he has to return the truck, and then he'll be filthy and will need a shower and there just isn't time to do all that before the concert starts.

This is where I said, "You cannot be fucking serious." Among other things.

He asked if I thought Bridgie and her boyfriend would like to use the tickets. I said, "Yeah, that would be like us going to a Hoobastank concert." Just not our cup of tea.

Anyway, I told him that if we aren't going, he's gonna have to be the one to tell Bridgie, because she's going to be very disappointed. Possibly crushed. So I gave him her number. And that's the last I've heard.

I'm so pissed. It's not that I really wanted to go that bad; it's seeing such a special gift go to waste that makes me so mad. Any other time, it would've been no problem. Tonight, of all nights, it's suddenly a problem.

I am just not believing this.

Stuck

I haven't posted a thing for almost two weeks. Not that nothing bloggable has happened; it's because I'm so bummed about not being able to post any pictures that I'm just stuck. Writer's block, I guess. Or blogger's block. Whatever.

I'm not depressed or anything. Just pissed.

I think the relative geezerliness of my six-year-old computer is the reason I can no longer install any software successfully. I think I'm getting a new one for my birthday, which is just over a month away. In fact, I'm pretty sure of it, because Mikey will not be allowed to be happy until I'm happy.

I think I might get a Mac this time. Or something. I need to go see what's out there and talk to some people about what's what. But I already know that I never want a computer with any Windows products installed on it ever again. Never ever again.

***
In other news, I tried to wax my eyebrows for the second time ever, and botched it horribly. I still have eyebrows, but also a laceration where my thumbnail grabbed and ripped the skin instead of the wax.

And I wasn't even drunk this time, like I was the first time when I did it perfectly.

Go figure.

Mikey fixed something!

Holy cow!

My totally-not-a-handyman husband took something that didn't work and made it work again! Like, successfully!

Okay, here's what happened:

My dryer quit drying, so Mikey pulled it out of its cubby to check for a lint blockage. And there was a big-time blockage, so he cleaned that out. Also, the vent hose was all kinked and falling apart, so he went and got a new vent hose and went to work installing that.

And then, somehow, he managed to drop his pliers into the hole in the dryer where the lint trap goes.

(**sigh**)

But!

He fixed that, too!

He unscrewed the back of the dryer and the whole lint-trap housing thingy and got the pliers out and put it all back together and hooked up the new vent hose, and guess what?

My dryer works like new!

Is that amazing or what?

Yay, Mikey!

I took your advice, Sher

I downloaded the driver for my photo software directly from the website, followed the instructions to install it, and got a message that said, "Error extracting support files: Access is denied."

So now what?

Picture This

I've been dicking around with my new photo software, trying to figure out why it is that I can't figure out how to upload pictures from my new camera.

It turns out that it's not me that's the problem. At least, I'm pretty sure it's not me. I could be wrong.

Anyway, according to the manual, the uploading part is supposed to pop up automatically when I plug the camera into the computer. It doesn't. There are instructions for how to make it pop up manually, but that didn't work either.

So I looked further in the troubleshooting guide and I found instructions on how to look for two particular drivers in my device manager. Well, they weren't there.

Ooookay... so how do I make them get there?

Beats me.

The installation wizard doesn't give me the option to install individual components; it's an all or nothing deal. So I uninstalled the whole thing and reinstalled it. The two particular drivers still aren't there.

So that's what the problem is. Without the drivers that won't install, I will never be able to upload photos from my new camera.

(***scream, tear at hair***)

So what the hell am I supposed to do now? I could:

• trade the camera in for a different make/model, but will they take it back since I've had it for more than 30 days and I've opened the software packet? And will they take back the $50 memory card after I've had the cute pictures of Britt at the zoo printed? Because I'm pretty sure this $50 memory card won't work in any other make/model of camera.


• call the technical support number, but after waiting on hold for three hours will I get to talk to someone who speaks English? Will they just try to read the manual to me? Or maybe a a miracle might happen and they'll say, "Oh, yeah, I know what you mean. Do this and this and you're all set." (Yeah, right.)


• take my computer to the Geek Squad at Best Buy and pay $30 to have them install the software for me.


• buy a new computer, because maybe the problems I've had trying to install this software and Mikey's camera-phone software are related to the advanced age of my computer?

Hmmm, what to do, what to do?

It's freezing!

No, not the weather, although it is kind of nipply out there.

It's my big, beautiful freezer! You know, the freezer I got for Christmas in 2004? Or was it 2003? The freezer that's never been used because it's been sitting in the middle of the garage, marooned in a sea of household castoffs and blocked in by Mikey's weight bench?

Yeah, that one.

Finally, it has been dug out of the debris and pushed over to the wall. It has been plugged in! It works! Even though the warranty has surely expired by now.

Bob did it when he came to visit this weekend. Yay, Bob!

There's nothing in it yet, so it's just freezing air at this point.

But it's plugged in! It's working! It's one less thing on my list of things to bitch about!

Yay, Bob!

I'm pooped

Britt is not only peeing in the potty now; she's also pooping in it! Yay!

But... there's a problem.

Gah! Isn't there always?

Here's what happened:

Bob and Mary came down to visit this weekend, and Mary put Britt on the potty. And Britt sat on the potty without crying or flailing or screaming, like she'd been doing whenever I tried to put her on the potty. And she peed in it and she pooped in it, and we were all so happy. And she decided it was a fun thing to do, so she happily went to the potty whenever it was suggested to her. She even came up with the idea herself a few times. So, it was all cool.

And then Bob and Mary went home, and we continued with the potty-sitting program, and Britt continues to pee and poop in the potty. Except now, she doesn't want to get off the potty. She wants to sit there. All. Day. Long. She cries and flails and screams when I try to get her off the potty so that we can go do other things.

And it's not the potty chair she's using that I can move into another room so we can do other things while she sits; she refuses to even try using that. Nope, it's the potty seat that fits onto the big toilet that she loves to sit on, so we're stuck in the bathroom until I can talk her down from it. This is not so cool.

Seriously, it's from one extreme to the other with this kid. What is up with that?

It's always something

I'd planned on having a fresh post up by now about Britt's first class at the zoo last Saturday, complete with cute pictures, but there was a problem.

I got a new digital camera for Christmas; it's got twice the mega-pixels of my old camera, and it's only one-third the size. And no more floppy disks, ever! Wheee!

But there was a problem.

When I push the button to take a picture, it hesitates for about two seconds (to focus, I guess) before it actually takes the picture. Which is fine for landscape shots, but not so good when you're trying to capture cute expressions on a very active two-year-old. So I've taken lots of pictures of the side of Britt's head, the back of her head and the top of her head, but not so many of her face.

I wasn't sure whether I was going to keep this new camera, so I never installed the software that came with it. This is the third digital camera I've owned and I've never had this problem before, so I asked everyone I knew if they'd ever heard of such a thing, and they all (except Bridgie, who has an older model) said that their digital cameras also hesitate before taking the picture, which sort of convinced me that they all do these days, and so I finally decided to keep it.

So I grabbed my new camera on my way out the door Saturday morning and got some good pictures of Britt in her class at the zoo and, on Sunday, I finally installed the software so that I could post some of them here on my blog.

But there was a problem.

I got the software installed, I got the camera plugged into the computer with the USB cable, and then I couldn't find any way to upload the pictures from the camera. I mean, seriously! I looked at all the menu choices and even tried a few, and I studied the manual and I still can't figure out how to upload the freakin' pictures off my freakin' camera! I even had Bridgie try it when she came over yesterday and she couldn't figure it out, either.

Gaaaaaaahhhhh!

So, anyway, that's why you haven't had a full report yet, complete with cute pictures, from Britt's first class at the zoo.

Britt has a cold

She woke up with it after her nap yesterday, coughing and rattling all evening, and even vomiting a little bit. She woke up feeling much better this morning; her main problem today has been a snotty nose.

Mikey was trying to wipe her nose this evening while she shook her head from side to side to avoid the dreaded tissue. Finally, she exclaimed in frustration, "No, Poppa! MY booger!"

Potty Pooper

No, no, Britt hasn't pooped in the potty yet, but she has peed in it for the third time ever.

She's been doing this thing lately where she crosses her chubby little arms across her chest, tosses her head, and goes "Hmph!" to emphasize her indignation whenever I try to get her to do something she doesn't want to do. Like pottying in the potty:

No, Grummy! No! No potty! (cross arms, toss head) Hmph!

Anyway, she now has a potty seat that fits on top of the regular toilet seat, in addition to her potty chair. She was perched on that potty seat and I was sitting on the edge of the tub, reading books to her, when I noticed that the top of the toilet tank behind her right shoulder sat a whole lot higher than it did behind her left shoulder. Like, a couple of inches higher.

I made Mikey come and sit on the edge of the tub to see if he saw what I saw, and he did. There was some head-scratching and a few I'll be damneds tossed about, and we finally decided that the big bolt we found on the floor behind the toilet a few weeks ago -- a mystery we never got around to solving -- must have been part of what held the tank onto the toilet. And so it is tilting, badly.

Thus it appears that we have an imminent toilet disaster on our hands. And the toilet in the master bath hasn't worked for several years now, so if this disaster should happen to unfold before we get around to doing something to prevent it, we will literally be left without a pot to piss in.

Meanwhile, Britt's vocabulary continues to grow by leaps and bounds, and her pronunciation is improving, if not always spot-on. Spongebob Squarepants is now Ungebob Pants instead of BobBob, for example. And tonight she was running around looking for "asswipe"; it took us several minutes (of choking back hoots of laughter) to figure out what she really wanted: her flashlight.