Only Nola

Bizzy Bizzy

Aren't I just the little worker bee? I've been out doing yard work since, um... well, it feels like 4 in the morning, but in actuality I can only say it was really around 9:00. It's noon now, so I consider that three hours in the sun, mowing and weed whacking my brains out, to be the equivalent of about 3 days. Sure, it's a far more advanced math than most people use, but I'm smart like that. Catch up.

Oh, and for absolutely no reason whatsoever? Here's a picture I thought I'd share, from Mother's Day weekend...

I may not be photogenic, but at least my progeny is. Get out a camera and suddenly he's Paris Hilton. Minus the crack and the sexually transmitted diseases.

So this weekend's been a roller coaster of activity. Nay, a veritable Cuisinart. How's that for some imagery? The madness started Friday (for the family... for me? Started Tuesday. Being a mom is festive.) and hasn't quite stopped yet. It's slowed a bit, which probably helps increase the chances that those in my vicinity will survive till dinner. Friday I went to work, left at 1:15 (which I accomplished by skipping lunches all week to build up time so I could blow that pop stand at a reasonable hour. It's not a practice I intend to keep up. Lunch break helps keep me from biting the bitch in the desk next to mine.), hauled ass all the way across town to Connor's daycare (since Jonathan couldn't be sure that he'd be off in time to pick him up for me. I'd like to have a little talk with his boss. Just me, him, and a pair of jumper cables. Attached to my CAR.) to pick him up, drove from Springfield down to Jasper, Arkansas to pick up Nathan (battling every moron with a truck and a six pack who was on a mission to scar his family for life over Memorial Day weekend. I bet the family reunions will feature lots of mooning, farting, and urinating on foliage. At least if the fuckwits I saw on the road are any indication.), turned around and drove back to Springfield, grabbed Jonathan and the luggage from the house, THEN drove from Springfield to Daddy's lake house up past Camdenton (about two hours away). It was, obviously, a day full of fun and merriment. I positively glowed. Really.

The time at the lake was nice. FYI? Not every 8 year old is born to fish. I know, I know... shocking news to everyone. But, surprisingly enough, some 8 year olds get bored when faced with the prospect of sitting in one place and holding a fishing rod. A fishing rod which neither lights up nor has any resemblance whatsoever to anything remotely related to a Playstation. A fishing rod that does not play music on command. A fishing rod that does not get Cartoon Network.

Damn thee, fishing rod. Daaaaaaaaaaaamn theeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Yeah, Connor had enough of trying to fish after about five minutes. Daddy, ye olde fisherman from way back, was about ready to push him in the lake. I'm not sure I would have stopped him, since Connor's ants in his pants kept propelling him back and forth over my fishing rod. One good bite on that line at the right moment and I'd have jerked that pole straight up into Connor's little nads. I can't swear to it, but I'm fairly certain he would have found that less than entertaining. Not that I'd have laughed, either...

*coughs*

I also got my first lesson in how to drive Daddy's little old bass boat. Let me tell you, it's NOTHING like driving the ski boat or the pontoon boat. That motor with the handle that sticks out of it? The one you're supposed to use to steer? It's sentient. And it doesn't like me. Not even a little bit. I practically had to throw myself on it and offer it a blow job to get it to turn left. Daddy's all yammering at be about 'just push it to the right a little', like that wasn't what I was TRYING to do, thank you very much, and I'm sitting there about wrenching my arm out of the socket in my attempt to get the boat to do something OTHER than carve a path through the north side of the dock.

I now officially know just enough about driving that boat to kill myself.

Oh, and remember the monster fish? I'm happy to say that my father has now been forced to acknowledge his existence. The fish not only snapped Uncle Troy's fishing line last fall (which Daddy wasn't willing to quite concede proved that there was, in fact, a behemoth fish under that damned dock), but has now, as of Friday right before we got there, taken DADDY'S line as well. HA! I am so fucking validated. I have officially named the fish Walter (let's see how many of you get that reference... I'M WAITING!) and can also report that I caught that goddamned fish this weekend. Twice. Both times resulting in a broken line and negative actual fish.

I'm soooooo on a mission.

Yesterday we basically repeated the process in reverse. Left the lake house and drove down to Jasper, turned around and drove home. And fell down. The cats were glad to see us, but only in the moderately interested way that cats have. They're not like dogs, who are likely to have eaten your couch cushions while you were gone and will then piss all over themselves, and whatever they're standing near, when you pull in the driveway. And I am, indeed, thankful for that.

God, I love my cats.

I am also proud to report that all the seeds I planted in my garden a couple of weeks ago? Have gone mad. I've got itsy teensy tiny baby flowers coming up all over the place. Hollyhocks and Snow-in-Summer and Blanket Flower and... uh... I forget what all else. I'll post pictures of my babies after my camera's batteries recharge. The weekend was hard on them. They should just be grateful I didn't drop them in the lake.

I'm going to go see if the weed whacker has charged up enough for its second wind now. I wore the poor bastard out earlier. Pussy.

Nola the invincible!

Me and Connor

Connor and I down at the Landing in Branson.

That NEVER Happens

I, generally speaking, have the luck of a one-eyed, three-legged, syphilis-ridden hairless dog. But today?

Today is gravy!

I had to go run some errands today. The usual shit... hit the beauty supply store for some hair color (since I'm rapidly being outdistanced in the how-fast-they-grow-in versus how-fast-I-can-pull-the-little-fuckers-out race between me and the graywhite hairs invading my scalp) and conditioner; run to Quizno's for an awesome honey mustard chicken sammich (Connor gets no vote in the lunch selection. This is not a democracy.); go to Dillard's to whack a shoe salesman in the head with one of the pairs of shoes I bought last week (the pair that had soles which, after one DAY of wear, decided that the interior of the shoe was far too restrictive and broke free of whatever minimal amount of glue had been involved in holding them captive (is there some price hike on glue I don't know about? Is there any possible reason that one, yes, ONE, drop of glue was all that was holding the sole in? Some little deal they have worked out with SATAN?) and attempted to go AWOL. Ask me which one of us is prepared to go down in history as the first person to ever beat someone to death with a ballet flat? Yeah, no surprises there.); stop and get Connor some ice cream as a reward for putting up with the shopping and errand running that he loathes like nothing else... you get the picture.

But today we have bonus! Life is good! I may not have to kick a cat!

On the way out of Dillard's I remembered that I needed to buy a bathing suit. Words cannot express how much I hate the prospect of trying on bathing suits. Everything these days is either teensy, itty-bitty bikini style, or a one piece that would make my dear, departed grandmother vomit. It's discouraging, to say the least. And before anyone starts bitching at me that I must have it easy buying a bathing suit because I'm so tiny and all that blah blah blah, let me just tell you that being tiny is NO guarantee that finding a bathing suit becomes a piece of cake. All it's a guarantee of is that roughly 95% of all bathing suit tops will swallow you whole and the rest will contain enough foam rubber to float the fifth battalion. 'Cause I want to look like Jessica fucking Rabbit. All I want is a bikini with a boy-short bottom... one that doesn't require me to get a Brazilian or hock my soul to the Nair god every time I venture to the pool. And preferably one that isn't ugly enough to burn out a retina. Or twenty.

I found three, a measly THREE, bathing suits of at least moderate cuteness with boy-short bottoms. I tried them on. Only one didn't do strange and surreal things to the bottom half of my ass. We won't talk about it. Think Funhouse mirror effect. It wasn't pretty. The one that did fit, though, was a whopping $80. Yes, EIGHTY... DOLLARS. That's not pesos. I almost passed out.

So I leave the dressing room, resigned to putting the suit back because I can't make myself spend that much money on a bathing suit that will probably see the light of day maybe 3 times a year. On the way out, we pass this lady with a little booth set up right outside the dressing room doors. She's handing out lemonade in honor of some special one-day event thing the department has going on. Along with the lemonade she has these little cards. You get to pick out a card if you tried on a swim suit. Each card qualifies you for a trip to Cancun. Okies. I can do that. Well, each card, right by where you fill in your name and all for the drawing, also has?

A scratch off circle.

Now, under the scratch off circle there is, allegedly, a chance to win a discount on today's swim suit purchase. Not figuring it's going to be anything to write home about, I almost decided against the whole thing. Like I can take off for Cancun anyway. But then I remembered how much Connor likes scratch offs (to an 8 year old, a scratch off is like magic. To me? It's little gray shit that is almost impossible to get out of car upholstery. Whatever.), so when she waved the cards at me, I picked one and handed it to Connor. He set about demolishing the scratch off with great gusto. I continued yapping with the booth lady about nothing much in particular. I glanced over to see what he was staring at, and...

$100 free towards bathing suit of your choice.

Squeeze me? Baking powder? I looked at the lady, who's still just jabbering away about ... uh... something to do with her daughter... don't ask me, do I look like I pay attention when people talk? Anyway. She finally glanced down and was all 'oh, my!' I still figured this was some kind of sick joke or someone was going to pop out from behind the fake tree and yell 'SIKE!' or something. That's the kind of luck I have. Then I thought that maybe, since the scratch off was part of the entry card for the Cancun trip, that the $100 toward a bathing suit purchase was only good IF you won the trip. See? Like a bonus. Suddenly the yammering of the sales chicky permeated my brain...

Me: 'Um, I'm sorry... did you just say this is good NOW?'

Sales Chicky: 'Why, yes, of course! On any suit you like!'

Me: 'Uh... it's not for if we win the trip to Cancun?'

Sales Chicky (looking at me like I'm Rainman): 'Well, no. Did you find a bathing suit you liked?'

Me: 'Sure. I found one I was about to put back, because the thought of spending more on a bathing suit that I do on my cell phone bill made me break out in a rash.'

Sales Chicky: 'Well, now you can just walk it straight over there to the register for NOTHING! Isn't that GREAT! You're one of only FIVE today! ISN'T THAT AWESOME?!?!?'

I'm pretty sure they spiked her lemonade with crack.

Regardless. I'm now the proud owner of a reasonably hot bathing suit, from Dillard's, which cast me NADA. Zip. Zilch. Zero. And I got to brag to my neighbor and my sister. You can't put a price tag on that.

It's a good day to be me. Which probably means tomorrow my eyeballs will be pecked out by a freak gang of carnivorous hummingbirds, but hey...

Let's not dwell.

Let There Be ANTS!

I swear to God, I thought we'd done this already. Seriously. Didn't I go about 9 rounds with a veritible CLUSTERFUCK of ants a few years ago? Haven't I done my time? Isn't the mere fact that I've survived plague, pestilence, famine and ex-husbands enough to earn me Karma points on a scale with Mother freakingTeresa? What deity with a functioning sense of justice sees the justice in now having every nasty-assed ant in a five mile radius descend on my garden, which is, incidentally?... Attached to my fucking HOUSE.

The first day I find an ant in my house, there's totally going to be a mushroom cloud where Missouri used to be.

I have NO, count it, NO tolerance for buggage in my home. Zip. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Me and bugs in general get along about as well as Tom Sizemore and Gloria Steinem, much less me and bugs in my house. The very thought sends me perilously close to spontaneous embolism. I can't take it. When the little asshats showed up, pretty much out of NOWHERE, yesterday (don't ask me... I have no idea why. One day we have pretty much negative ant population, the next day? It's the Mardi Gras for the small and terminally creepy. *shudders* Icky little bastards.), I immediately sent Jonathan to get some spray for around the garden and garage, where they seemed to be congregating. He comes back, instead, with some granule stuff. Allegedly the ants are attracted to it, eat it, and fall over dead.

(...)

You noticed that word 'allegedly', right? Guess what the ants appear to be neither interested in eating nor in any way particularly affected by? Oh, shut up. My husband keeps telling me 'Well, they won't die overnight.' What the FUCK? Did I want someone to sell me something that was going to give the ants a nice case of jock itch? A head cold? DIAPER RASH? No, I wanted FATAL, people. Lick the granule and immediately call a goddamned priest. Do you hear what I'm saying? If I wanted something that was slow acting, I'd have just kept going out there with the Clorox Cleanup and hosing the little bastards down on an individual basis. 'Cause there is a certain satisfaction in that, FYI. And bleach, just so you know? Kills them FAST. They care for the Clorox not even a teensy bit.

Go figure.

The ants are busy trying to infiltrate the garage now. They're finding miniscule little seams at the edge of the garage door and making their way in. I'm not kidding. Sure, I may sound hysterical, but it's also TRUE. That whole hive consciousness thing... Jesus. I can't take it. I actually had nightmares last night about ants. Laugh at me and feel my sporkly wrath. I'm serious as a heart attack. I was up repeatedly last night with the nightmare that would NOT go away... kept dreaming about being covered in ants; they were swarming the house... and they were HUGE. It was beyond disturbing. God help everyone who lives here if they finally get into the house. I'll burn this bitch DOWN before I cave in to the ant collective.

THEY'RE THE FUCKING BORG!

I will not be assimilated...