TheGothMom.com

This would be us blowing up an anthill with a black cat. The little buggers were tormenting the hell out of us, going so far as to climb up the table and attempt to carry off the watermelon, cartoon style. We managed to divert their attention by dropping black cats into all of the available ant piles, and they spent the remainder of the evening repairing the holes. Cruel? I don’t think so! I’m sure that these nasty little creepy crawlies have their place in the universe, but damned if I know or care!

The requisite ground flowers -

A ground flashy thing that kids thought were awesome. The grownups - not so much. These suckers left many burnt fingers tips as the fuse seemed designed to do an instant FLASH BANG!

Then the real show finally started an hour late. Accompanied by many oohs and ahhs, the coolest ones were the ones that looked like a falling star. I couldn’t get a good shot of those for anything, they just showed up as dots :(. They did a fairly good job of it though, and we all throughly enjoyed the crap out of it.

It was a pretty damn good show, and well worth the hours spent waiting for it to begin. Between all of the folks who showed up, we had brought enough fireworks exactly to keep the kids entertained between 7 pm and 10 pm when the show started. We had lots of scorched fingers, gunpowder burns, food, sodas, kids that gravitated to us from other vehicles, and at the end, a few beers. Well, 2 of us did. One burnt the shit out of her finger, and needed the alcohol to take the edge off, and I needed it because, well, embarrassing tidbit here if you want to go ahead and skip this part. Something I didn’t think ahead to was the fact that there was not a port a potty on site. Just some gnarly trees. So after a 6 pack of soda, I had to go, and I had to go bad. What I didn’t take into consideration was the fact that my knee doesn’t work well yet, and when I squatted down, in the trees, I got stuck. As in, my knee refused to support my weight long enough for me to stand up. There is nothing worse then being in the squatting position, pants around your knees, and have to yell for help, so someone can pull you up and you can get dressed. So I needed a few beers to re-lubricate my knee, and to get over my mortification. Cause honestly, I didn’t plan on drinking last night. Not one drop.

Other then that tho’, I had a great time :).

Happy 4th of the July to all the US Americans out there. We’re getting ready to head out and go meet up with some friends so we can sit in a parking lot with a grill and make hamburgers, hot dogs, and chicken. It’s a fun event with kids running everywhere screaming their little heads off, everyone around us getting drunk as all hell, and every car in the lot with their own personal stash of things that go boom. Sounds great doesn’t it?

Oddly enough, I actually enjoy it. Granted, I come home with a nagging headache, the kids are hysterical on sugar and gunsmoke, the dogs are under the bed peeing themselves out of fear, but hey, it only comes once a year right? Who can’t enjoy that?

Family events are kinda new to us. We never really went out as a family when I was married, and before that, I only had my oldest to deal with so she pretty much went everywhere with me anyway. When we moved here, and I first hooked up with my b/f, 4 kids was just to much to leave the house with unless we were forced to. 2 of them were toddlers, and the other 2 were mid elementary. We both worked full time, went to school full time, extra plans were a headache.

Then I met someone who is now a very good friend of mine. The kind of friend who brings you food when you’re recovering from surgery, the kind of friend who makes you get your lazy ass up and moving to spend family and friend time. She was originally my littlest ones daycare teacher, and she was just so incredibly wonderful that she adopted the rest of us and made us start doing things as a family. Like going camping which I DON”T do, going for outings on the 4th, and having just general get togethers to do nothing more then let the kids hang out together and play while the grownups bullshit. And occasionally take turns getting properly shit-faced :).

The nice thing is that it’s an accepting friendship with no pressure, no strings, just open handed friendship with a willingness to occasionally smack me upside the head as a little wake up reminder. Which was exactly the kind of friend I needed.

Damn, start writing one thing and it goes off into something else. How the hell does that happen?

I just watched a show and this woman gave birth. It was clean, uncomplicated, and was over in a matter of minutes. Exsqueeze me?
OK, going back to my first childbirth, that was not the TV version. It was ugly, nasty, rude, and filled with many cusswords.
Let’s start off with the fact I was 18. Not a good age to be giving birth. Well, I don’t know that there actually is, but if you’re going to start early, 18 isn’t a good place for it.
Let’s set the scene shall we?
18. Got that? 18.
I was with an asshole. I should’ve capitalized that. ASSHOLE. I met him at the tender age of 17, fell madly in love, and thought it was such a wonderful thing. Something that should be forbidden to any one under the age of 25. In fact, should be forbidden to anyone thinking with their hormones. He was wonderful, full of life, charismatic. Actually, he was full of himself, one of those terminal – I have grand plans – idiots. Didn’t give a shit about anything except how he appeared. Which, I figured out later, was absolutely pathetic. Ahhh, the wonders of hindsight.
I digress.
I had this bizarre craving for peaches and avocados while I was pregnant, and one of the few times that he indulged me, we somehow managed to move out to Cali. Where he got hooked on crack. Yeah, long story. That isn’t pretty. I was aware that time was moving quickly and how much I needed to have stability and support, and rather then being smart and going home, I called mommy and managed to convince her to come out there.
So I finally go into labor, a good week late, thank you very much, and when I showed up at the hospital, the wrong Dr was on call. If you’ve ever gone to a practice, you know how this works. The Dr’s take turns being on call, if you’re lucky you get the one you like. I didn’t. 18, giving birth for the first time, I was with an asshole, terrified, in extremely unexpected pain (TV made it seem so easy!), and not having an easy birth.
She was a week overdue, 8 lbs, and my cervix didn’t want to open. No drugs because the Dr thought I was OK without them, the asshole was being, well, an asshole, and my mother was not doing well seeing her firstborn in such pain. My little brother was running the halls of the hospital entertaining himself, and a fine job he did of it. Plus, everyone adored him because he was so damn cute, and at 10? he was as sweet as could be . (Still is, but we don’t tell him that now ). I yelled, I screamed, I begged for a caesarean. I also begged for drugs, tried to punch my b/f, and when the Dr stuck his hands between my legs and made it worse, I kicked him so hard, I knocked his ass across a room into a wall.
I’m still proud of that.
It was nothing like TV. It was long, arduous, incredibly painful, and I wanted it over as fast as possible. I hated everyone and everything, I tried my damndest to inflict pain on others, (the b/f, the Dr) and I hated every part of it. I didn’t even get to enjoy the aftermath as she had breathing problems and was whisked off to the NICU for 4 days.
What’s the point of this? Birth sucks, and I wish they would stop glamorizing it on TV. It’s not fun, it’s sweaty, gross, painful, filled with obnoxious people, and can easily be the most miserable experience possible.
I had an epidural the next time, it was absolutely the bomb.

Until I sit in front of the computer and then I draw a complete blank. I was going to write what?

Luckily, I have something to distract me from my writer’s block. I’m on several techie lists, and there’s been an ongoing chain on how to properly translate for non engrish speakers. (Man oh man is spell check throwing a fit over that 1! It was on purpose tho’, just a fun little link.) Someone posted this utterly hilarious translator that takes what you say, translates it into various languages, and then back into english. It also translates it back into english between other languages, so you end up with this utterly bizarre thing at the end. So if I were to tell you I had an utterly fabulous day at work, it flew by with the speed of superman, and if I could have skipped on my way out of out of work today I would have, I would get this translation at the end -

It was completely of wonderful with the work, I flied later with
superman to the tax and if you ramificarsi in my escape without the
occupation could today, it would have it

LOL! Isn’t that awesome? And how utterly bizarre one could get with random sayings. I’m halfway thinking I could start an all new trend of posting something weird at the end and having people try to figure out what the hell it was in the first place. Not to often, that would be annoying as hell, but could be entertaining. I’ll jusy have to try to remember what it was in the first place.

Speaking of memory, I think mine has aged drastically in this last year. I can honestly say I’ve never had a strong short term memory, unless it has something to do with something fantastic. I can literally have something happen while I’m with someone, and the next week ask them if I told them about it. That can be excessively mortifying. Especially when it happens when your with someone you detest anyway, and you just gave them fuel to torment you for weeks on end. Yes it’s happened a few times. Anyway, without losing the point, my memory has diminished to the point of absurdity. Everybody has the “Doh!” moments when they’re looking for keys, this is an everyday occurrence, and mine has flat out gone to “Where’s my purse, where’s my shoes, where’s my phone, did I leave my vagina in there?”

Thank god that’s attached, cause otherwise we ‘d be calling in the FBI to find that baby. Not ready to give up it’s life yet.

In all seriousness, I think it’s time to investigate whether that ginko or whatever the hell it’s called really works. I’m not on any painkillers at the moment, so there goes that excuse. Since starting the thyroid meds, my hormones seem to be mostly under control so I can’t blame them. And I flat out refuse to buckle on the issue of age, almost 32 is to damn young to have lost my mind and not be able to find it. What does that leave? Just plain ditziness? I call foul on that! I’m hereby deciding that the trauma of all the knee crap has gravitated to my brain, and pieces of it are slowly dying. Yep, I’m all for having dead brain bits then anything else. Brain rot just sounds more pleasant.

Lost in Translation