did i mention. . .

that while very illuminating and beautiful to look at, i really am beginning to loathe full moons?

the chaos around here is 10 times its normal level. the only thing semi-holding things together is that bubby, in effort to secure himself a rubber snake and rubber shark from the rainforest cafe, has been really trying to be good, so his role in this is for once, minimal.

zizzy has 20030404303 fits per day about clothing, changing her outfits, and not being able to get into them properly. SCREAMING fits. she gets super mad and wants my help but doesn't want my help and then gets madder at the fact that she knows that she NEEDS my help. all her clothes are now taken out of her drawers and on hangers. the rest of the clean laundry that i had folded and sorted in a laundry basket is on the top shelf of her closet. i am not dealing with it anymore.


beebins. has not slept in approximately 3 days. the tooth has finally started to ridge out onto her gum line but the thing is, she is not just teething/tired/crazy, she has become the master sleep fighter. kicking and flailing and writhing around like a goddamned SNAKE. i thought the constant sleep interruptions were actually going unnoticed (in and by me) but right after lunch today i had a trademark SPAZ over something small (the telltale sign i have not had enough sleep or am just really really hungry) and i realized that THIS FUCKING SUCKS. she's getting the tylonal tonight, for sure. ugh.

zizzy got all of her teeth without so much as a peep. but this is also the child that slept through the night at 2 months, weaned herself a 8 months, ate every morsel of anything ever put in front of her and basically smiled her way through baby-hood. Oh and spoke in sentences at 13 months too, so if she ever did get upset about something, she told us IN WORDS what she was pissed about.

onto the more interesting items (not really). . .

1. dreamed about joey from work again 2 nights ago. this is getting a little. . . weird. again, not a sexual dream, but the implications of what happened in it are. . . disturbing. we were working at starbucks, i was the shift and he was the barista. then soon, MATT (my husband) comes in and HE's the shift and he's coming in to relieve me and he is going to close the store. so i'm leaving him this massive list of things that need to get done and pretty soon i realize that joey is leaving too, with me. as in, we're leaving together. i don't know if i'm giving him a ride, or if he's coming with me for some other reason or what, but the real issue is that I'm leaving work, leaving all my responsibility on matt, and i'm leaving with some dude. weird.

2. last night, i dreamed about lee gemlich (old manager from northwest that i though was hot). the dream also was not sexual or inappropriate, as far as my dreams normally go, but very random and strange. i was in some sort of detention at the U of M, for something, i don't know what. i think i was supposed to be a grad student. but a group of us were being interrogated for something and some creepy Mrs. Danvers lady was leading the questioning. I was getting mouthy and she was not impressed. soon i see from up in some little observation booth, lee gemlich is up there watching this whole thing. i saw him and wondered what he was doing there, like did he become a professor or something? then he came down because i guess he was the main guy in charge, and he had to get involved. i noticed he was wearing a red coat and goddamned riding boots or something (which now that i think about it, would make sense because he does bear resemblance to the actor jason isaacs who has played the main bad guy in the mel gibson film THE PATRIOT in which he would deffo have had on a red coat and riding boots. . . he is also the actor that plays LUCIUS MALFOY, who i also find intensely hot) and soon HE'S the one questioning me. but when he came down i had to sit down on this weird bar stool and face away from him while he paced around me in circles. the only awkward part of this whole thing was when i suddenly realized he was touching my back, as if to give me a back rub or something.

which, in my hierarchy of wants and needs right now, would rank WAY above sex.

Bubby

gets beebins' nuk when it falls down.

breaks up pieces of soy crisps on her high chair tray so she can try some (without being asked)

asks me last night, "WERE YOU MAD AT ME IN MIA'S ROOM, MAMA?" (when in fact YES, i was, since they were screwing around and messing with each other) and is genuinely concerned that i may have been mad at him. . .

says to me just now (when i told him to get down out of the refridgerator) WELL IF I WAS A NECKLACE CARPET SHARK I COULD EAT YOU UP YOU KNOW. . .

moving on

1. we went to see THE DARK KNIGHT the other night. it was GLORIOUS. i am full on in love with christian bale as bruce wayne.
i said it before on my media rants blog, but if it were possible to get impregnated by a film, this one would have done it. whoOt!

2. i am taking the shakespeare class at the U this fall. dove in and registered.

3. in order of preference, my new list of celebrities to have sexual dreams about is: CHRISTIAN BALE, GEORGE CLOONEY, and BAM MARGERA.

4. i miss the old olivia. things are just different now and every time i go back i am hoping for it to be "my olivia" not the real one it currently is. i think rod serling was very much onto something with all of his nostalgic twilight zone episodes about old men wanting to go back to their hometowns and realizing it was impossible and that they'd gotten old, things had changed. maybe people who just can't ignore nostalgia become writers or professional scrapbookers.

5. bubby is onto sharks now. i don't know what the hell i was doing when I was 4, but i can be sure i wasn't memorizing insect and shark books and telling anyone who would listen about their properties/characteristics/eating habits, etc. for all the work this child was as a baby (not sleeping, EVER) i hope this is an indication of things to come. he never slept because in the future he will be researching scientific items with which he will CURE CANCER OR HIV or something significant like that.

a fuller account

and i don't mean jake fuller.

to be fair, my brother was not the only one who let a spot of alcohol "affect" his actions.
looking back on saturday night, i really have to admit that i acted rather foolish myself when it came to being
drunk and disorderly (and seeing/talking to certain people at max's).

i had several drinks. i went to the front row of HAIRBALL and jammed out when they played poison (but leah did it with me, so i don't feel that dumb about it). i had several more drinks but at least had the sense to avoid shots; not one other person i was with, EVEN MATT, can say the same. at about midnight i was starting to get a little tippy on my feet and kind of started staggering. this of course was when the people i really REALLY didn't want to see or talk to came popping out of the woodwork. to deal with this, every time someone tried to make some sort of introduction or say hi to me (where i would rather have NOT interacted at all) i would just solve the problem by creating some other huge spectacle, like dumping someone's drink out on them (mostly matt) or on myself by accident, or tripping and falling (also not intentional but effective nontheless). without going into specifics or being really rude and offensive. . . well, people who know me can probably guess what and who this exchange was with. happily, someone else at the table decided to blurt out a bit of background while i was mopping up a spilled drink along the lines of HEY ANNA'S NOT AS FLAT AS A BOARD ANYMORE. . . . (thankx btw). other things were also uttered by my tablemates, things i can't really spell out here if i want to maintain a pg-rated blog.

anyway. i was very immature, it was kind of embarassing, but when it comes down to it, i am just not ready to MAKE NICE yet. give me another year or so and i'll consider it. for now, THE V FOR VENDETTA REMAINS.



also: we watched the end to harry potter and the phoenix today again, and much to my excitement, bubby has decided he no longer wants to be LUCIUS or DRACO malfoy when he plays harry potter, he wants to be SIRIUS BLACK (complete with whippy wand actions and saying GET AWAY FROM MY GODSON. . . .YOU'VE DONE BEAUTIFULLY, NOW LET ME TAKE IT FROM HERE).

oh the heart bursts with pride sometimes!

Somewhere in the world there are actual problems. . .

But in the meantime, here are the Starbucks patrons' issues.

1. some ESL dude and his "property" stood at the register and scrutinized the receipt of their FOUR VENTI STRAWBERRIES AND CREAM FRAPPUCINOS (which, after the cinnamon dolce and java chip are the highest priced items on the menu) and asked if we were certain that there was tax on a frappucino. Um, yes we are, and yes there is. Are you even in your right mind to contemplate that STARBUCKS wouldn't pay taxes? That the government isn't on top of that action? Please. 3.45 = $3.78 with tax. FOUR TIMES.
You were okay with paying $3.45 but when it crossed the line to $3.78, suddenly it seemed like it was maybe too steep?
Then as I plop them all up onto the counter asks me ARE YOU GOING OUT OF BUSINESS?!?!?! i said, this store specifically or starbucks in general? STARBUCKS IN GENERAL. ??!?!?!?????!???!??!


2. Pregnant granola south minneapolis chick comes in for her decaf espresso pods and sees that they all expire on august 31. a box of pods holds 12. has a scowling bit of attitude about it all and stomps out. if you have a box of pods that will be sitting around until august 31 then you are not a real coffee drinker anyway and clearly if you're drinking decaf you don't require any sort of quality whatsoever so who cares when it expires?

3. 4 year old child having a screaming fit because he could not have a hot chocolate. . . .OH WAIT. that was MY child. Then refused to walk across the street with leah and continued the fit out on the sidewalk but at least out of earshot and away from my coworkers. how embarassing.

So, full moon then?

Something is going on around here. I am actually HOPING it's a full moon because if my kids are acting like this on their own free will and nothing else we have serious trouble. my GAWD.

I know that Bubby dropping his nap completely most days and now going to bed on his own has made for a turbulent transition phase but it's beginning to get ridiculous the way his behavior pretty much turns into the worst ever come 4pm every day. I keep telling myself to be patient and each time something random and ridiculous happens I say to myself IT'S THE SLEEP, IT"S THE SLEEP, HE CAN"T HELP IT, IT'S THE SLEEP. IT WILL GET BETTER. . . (hopefully). but still, there are only so many screaming tantrums ON THE FRONT LAWN IN FULL EARSHOT OF PRETTY MUCH ANYONE ON THE EAST SIDE OF LYNDALE AVENUE that I can handle.

also. I left the lawn chair cushions outside in the massive thunderstorm last night as well as THE DIGITAL CAMERA.
nice work.

I am feeling very crampy and full of PMS which again, I am not used to, have no patience for, and really despise.

Tips at work have been horrid, the idea was proposed last night it may be because of a certain newly hired employee. I don't have any time for that, either. I have come to rely on a good weekly $70 and it's getting less and less each Monday that comes around. Sometimes I wonder if there would be any market for teaching a personality class, or HOW TO BE TACTFULLY SOCIAL WITHOUT BEING ANNOYING 101. . . I mean, I realize that I am decades older than most of the people I work with, but I don't think that simple people skills are things that you should have to wait to possess until after the 20s, SAY HELLO, GET THE DRINK ORDER, TAKE THE MONEY, TELL THE DRINK MAKER. WISH THEM A NICE DAY AND MOVE ONTO THE NEXT ONE. TRY TO SMILE AND/OR MAKE EYE CONTACT. IF THEY ASK YOU A QUESTION, ANSWER IT QUICKLY AND CORRECTLY. IF THERE IS A LINE GOING OUT THE DOOR, SLAM A RED BULL AND MOVE THOSE FUCKERS ALONG.

I have the hell weekend in front of me, close tonight, 7am tomorrow and 8am on sunday. The man upstairs probably won't be happy that I still haven't made it down to annunciation to give him, mary, and jesus christ a shout-out but apparently, people on the weekends need their half-caf grande inside a venti nonfat 172 degree no foam 2 and 1/4 splenda lattes. i don't think this is right either, but the family needs health insurance. So until Obama and Clinton set us up with a national healthcare plan, I remain.

random thoughts and happenings

(list form, time is short)

the good:

1. charlie called me today. he seems fine.
2. my hair is less orange after a little fix session and cut at juut.
3. the neighborhood seems to be filling up with kids and babies.
4. I only have to work for an hour and half meeting tonight.
5. books. I got a huge load at b&n clearance the other night, many more on deck.
6. a good idea for a book/film website someday.
7. beebins is upstairs gurgling, screeching, and laughing to herself.
8. she said MAMA (to me) yesterday.
9. I haven't charged anything on a credit card in 3 weeks.
10. bubby loves reading about insects.

the bad:

1. the haircut is a bit. . . mom-ish, as in too.
2. people's serious self absorption and materialism is annoying.
3. people are starving.
4. people are dying.
5. people are not nice to each other.
6. there are more important things in life than orange hair (straight teeth, fendi bags, perfectly round breasts, etc.)


in closing: the story of poop-man.

poop man eats dirt and worms. he lives in our toliet sometimes where many other smaller poop kids are put. poop man is the dad of all these poop kids, everywhere. everyone's poop in the whole world is poop man's kids. sometimes poop man goes out on his own and gets lost, like in the oven. then when he wants to see his kids he just goes into the oven pipes to the fridge pipes and finds the toilet pipes. then we say, "BYE POOP MAN! SEE YOU NEXT TIME!"
the end.
by bubby and zizzy.

Banned

The kids are banned from Starbucks for probably a good couple of weeks.
Mia had a complete LOUIE over the lemonade not being shared today while I was picking up my MEAGER tips. . . Quentin completely and totally instigated this and egged her on the whole time so really I was madder at him than at her.

ugh.

A visit to the museum

We took a trip over to St. Paul to the Children's Museum today; it was fun and went well. My favorite happening by far was when, during lunch at McDonald's, Zizzy decided to pull her dress off over her head, throw it on the floor behind her, and run away from me as I tried to put it back on her. She was running around McDonald's completely unclothed save for her pull up and Dora underwear on over the top. I might have gotten a little annoyed if it wasn't so fricking RIDICULOUS.

Also: Matt has begun to let Bubby watch REN AND STIMPY lately and it's making me realize that someday, despite the fact that the shows he watches now like OSWALD and BLUE's CLUES are annoying and drive me crazy, I will probably miss them and long for the days he was so young and innocent, watching these toddler shows. I'm just not ready for REN AND STIMPY yet.

A bit of excitement

From the norm around here, anyway:
I will sum up the best I can.

1. Somehow, someone got a hold of my visa number and tried making several charges with it through electronic websites, one for $8400 and another for $4100. Thankfully the fraud department called me immediately and the charges were never approved, but now the account is cancelled.

2. My birthday was lovely (aside from some random in Singapore trying to charge about 12k on my visa AND the mrs. meanies at pizza luce being rude). i endulged in some gluttenous fat, sugar, caffeine, and calories pretty much all afternoon and evening, justifying it because it was my birthday. i got several lovely gifts for which i am thankful.

3. beebins is about a week or two away from crawling. she is extremely happy, kicky, and roll-y all the time. hasn't been sleeping much, but at least she's happy.

4. i saw ROCK BAND today for wii at target. i held back, mostly because i know aerosmith guitar hero is coming out on the 29th and it's much more affordable. we will see about this.

5. i have both the kids quoting ROSEMARY'S BABY now, all i have to say is, "MOUSSE d'CHOCOLAT, or as minnie likes to call it. . . " and they both chime in together: CHOCOLATE MOUSE!
quentin has adapted this to also exclaim, CHOCOLATE RAT!!!!

Weekend Happenings

1. Bubby has taken to getting the banjo out every time "guitar hero" is played and enjoys jamming with whoever is playing. Today he cracked us all up by getting a yellow stocking cap (of MIa's) and putting it on while I played ROCK YOU LIKE A HURRICANE. "I'm bein' Slash," he told us.

2. The deck is lovely. We had noodles and company on it tonight (along with a few. . . glasses of yellow tail pinot noir). Ryan Fuller has his faults but the deck he made for us is really a wonderful thing.

3. Matt told me tonight that he thinks that Bub needs a brother. I asked him if he would be opposed to "rolling the dice" one more time, even knowing full well that it is possible if not likely we would conceive another girl. He said to let him mull it over for a while. To this I say, SO YOU'RE TELLING ME THERE'S A CHANCE.

hmmmm.....

4. I am reading a really random, exceptional group of books right now. LITTLE WOMEN, which i've been reading for a good couple of months now, has really taken a major turn for me lately and I find myself both crying and rejoicing at the sisterly events as they occur. I really have to say I love the stupid book and since I've been reading it, the kids have taken to saying, "MARMEE," which I think is hilarious. With any luck I can get them to start calling ME that full time. The other one I'm almost finished with is DESPERATION, which I have in my locker at work. I read it on my breaks and I'm about 3/4 of the way through. It's damned creepy, not that I expected anything less, but the more I read of Stephen King, his son, Joe Hill, or any author who has more than a few "works" out there, the more I realize that writers, much like actors, are very VERY self-absorbed and self-aware. There are items that King writes about, about being a writer, about being a father and husband that are so totally HIM that I just have to laugh. (not that I'm saying I'm any different or better, I'm not.)

Reading someone's book is very much like reading their own private diaries.

More on this later on.

KING OF PAIN.

as in, i feel like the.

yesterday did not go well.
beebins woke up at 545. FOR THE MORNING. she had been up approximately 3 times prior to this early waking, so needless to say matt and i were both very tired and did not share her kicking enthusiasm for the morning. then she had a doctor's appointment at 10, which matt brough her to, and she had to get 3 shots, which is never pleasant. matt said she was super happy and kicky, flailing about and smiling at everyone. then the sticks. . . and the WHY DID YOU DO THAT? WHY DID YOU LET THEM DO THAT TO ME?!?!?!? look . . .

while matt and beebins were at the doc's, i took the kids up to walgreens to get some cleaning supplies and then a coffee cake snack at starbucks. mia proceeds to fall onto the knee which was scabbed up 2 days ago from falling on it, and reopens the wound and bleeds everywhere. so we go BACK to walgreens to get some sponge bob bandaids and head home.
later, after a target trip I manage to burn my arm on the oven taking the pizza out and the kids were running around spazzing from the sugar in the lemondae (bi-ade) i let them have with dinner.

NEXT: as they are chasing all over the place, mia pushes quentin into the wall, where he splits a gash into his head. it was gushing blood and causes us all to pile into the truck and speed to the southdale ER. I called work on the way there, and luckily they were covered so they told me to not worry about it. long story short=we wait until 1030pm for bubby to get the wound stapled together. matt brought the girls home after leah (FAMILY SAVIOR) showed up with a jimmy john's and later some coffee for me, entertainment, and moral support for bub. she also took pictures of his head so he could "see" what it looked like, as he kept asking.

AND matt got a migrane.

THE END.

The Rain.

It has me thinking of a million things all at once. My memory is a deep and complex trap that has so many nostalgic items tied up in the rain going through it right now. We just got back from a little walk up to get coffee where it rained a bit off and on most of the way. The minute I smelled it I was in the middle of: the orange circus peanuts in a kemp's ice cream bucket on the last day of Mrs. Desotell's Kindergarten field trip to nester park.

The day it poured for hours and my brother and I had to move the garbage bins (which were hacked off bright aqua colored containers that once held fertillizer from northside) again and again as the rain kept wooshing them off the curb.

The night my mother had a million of her hutchinson friends over, we ate green chili burritos (lorene hanson's recipe), sang and played folk tunes on the piano, and chased our first bat in the new house.

The day we went to the twin's game for a 6th grade field trip and i wore my cousin heidi's aqua green esprit spring jacket and lost the $10 my mother gave me (over which I cried the entire game).

The smell of dirt in the Tersteeg's/Terry's parking lot when they put up the greenhouse and had lilies for mother's day.

The 8th grade field trip to the eden prairie mall and then some outdoor excursion/picnic where the biggest issue was my hair getting flat because of the weather. (other noteworthy items were purple eyeliner and a whitesnake cd).

The smell of the cornfields at 6am after it had rained the night before.

In 11th grade there was a night over at julie's where denise and chad fischer took my camaro and put a LOG into it. Later that night I hooked up with the Chris Wittenberg. Also, there was a huge tornado that ripped through highway 71 going north on the night of our prom (almost paradise). I had no idea of this of course, as I had been busy at the time, hooking up with Chris Wittenberg.

The second night we had Bubby home from the hospital it rained. It was April, and the day had been hot so the rain was refreshing. He slept in the bouncy chair while we all ate Leah's wisconsin cheddar soup, watched The Sopranos, and then Deadwood. I learned how to use the breast pump that night. We had Lund's cherry cranberry "juice drink" in the refridgerator, as Lois had determined that I was dehydrated and needed to drink many more fluids.

When Bub was about a year old it would rain often too. I remember having the windows open and the nice breeze blowing in through them carrying the rainy smell. I would get paranoid that he would knock out the window-prop and cause the heavy window to slam down on his fingers, so I didn't ever let him lean out on to the window sill although he wanted to very much. We watched a lot of baby neptune back then, and the Sesame Street 25th anniversary video that had En Vogue doing one of the segments.

After Zizzy was born we took walks to walgreens and kowalski's almost every day. One time we left when the sun was shining and when we came out of the store it was pouring rain. I had to distract bubby from the unpleasantness of getting wet so the whole way back i kept telling him we were getting SOPPED! he found the word hilarious and kept repeating it too. I made a scrapbook page of a picture i took of us when we got back. Zizz in the bjorn and bub leaning in, all of us totally soaked.

Then, last year, on July 18, KRIS SCOTT left our roof exposed with no tarp over it during a downpour that lasted about 2 hours. I was here with the kids when water started pouring in, first through all the light fixtures and then through every seam in every ceiling in the back half of the house. We left the house the next day and did not live in it again until October 28.

On our way back from Starbucks tonight, Beebins was kicking and laughing and having a great time watching the other two kids run around collecting leaves. I think part of the wonder of having kids, especially when they are babies, is the complete innocence and optimism with which they see the world. I thought of all my rain memories and hoped that by the time Beatrix is my age she will have fond rain memories too. I hope my kids never have to know war or poverty or desperation. I feel like I have been lucky so far not having to deal with these things firsthand myself although many many other people have. I want days where everyone in the world has nothing on their minds but the ridiculous kinds of things that fill mine.