I haven’t had antianxiety medication since I found out that I was pregnant with Bean.  What I would have done for a xanax the size of a golf ball to lick last night.

Guess where we’re going for our 12th anniversary?  Niagara Falls.  At first, we’d just planned on it being Sweety, Bean, and me but the guest list has expanded to include LB, BB, and BB’s girlfriend.  Maybe I had too much to drink one night and was feeling guilty about going somewhere so fun without everyone.  I think it’ll be a fine trip.  Inviting everyone happened before BB blew off the H00ters job.  If I’d have know that was going to happen – they wouldn’t all be going. As it is, I really like BB’s girlfriend and she’s excited about it – I’m not going to tell the kids they can’t come because we’re pissy with BB right now.

I’ve spent the too much time the internet yesterday trying to decide what tour to book. Decided to not purchase anything because my eyes were crossing. We know we want to do Maid of the Mist, Journey Behind the Falls, and Skylon Tower. That’s as far as I am in the planning process.  If you’ve ever been and have any nuggets of wisdom to throw at me, by all means, please.

Yesterday morning as I was getting ready for the day, Bean tiptoed away with her toothbrush. I noticed she was being very quiet which is most unusual. This is what I found.

Brushing Oliver’s teeth. And he was LOVING it.

See those curly things on the sliding glass door? That started life as a vinyl tree that was going onto Bean’s wall. Thanks to an unfortunate run-in with Sweety, the tree died and the branches have been repurposed on the door. They’re there to keep Budhole’s half-blind ass from smacking into the closed door. Sometimes, even if part of the door was open, he’d try to jump through the closed part. Not an issue now! I don’t enjoy having a geriatric chihuahua pissing up the place when he feels like it but I have no desire (at this time) to inflict brain damage on him.

I am the least crafty person in the world but I made something! An express envelope, some tape, and a rouge Halloween sticker have banded together to form a pouch to carry even more of Bean’s belongings in my purse! I am so pleased to not have crayons rattling around in there anymore.

She kept saying that Minnie needed a diaper so we rubber-banded one on.

Bean likes to help.

Does anyone else thinks the new Flickr sucks a bag of dicks? I am not a fan.

LB’s girlfriend is visiting for the first time after school today so I need to get the house “company clean”. I was going to do it yesterday but it didn’t happen. I’ve now decided if I can keep Bean out of my hair long enough to dust and make the house smell clean that it will do. Oliver and BudLight don’t know it yet but they are going to be hauled to the beauty shop for nail trims and baths. I’ve discovered half the battle of cleaning the damned house is getting the hounds clean.

Photo of a shopping buggy full of Bean and dogs forthcoming. Heh.

Sweety, Bean, and I went for a walk and when we got back could see that BB had crept out of his room to eat dinner before going back. He told Sweety that he was trying to avoid him. Everyone just hid in their own corners until bedtime last night.

What have I started doing for Bud Light? Scraping the freaking fat out of his dog food. We had a span of maybe 3 weeks where he was sleeping through the night and it abruptly ended. It ended after he went on a hunger strike and I started feeding him a different line of food from the same company I’d been using. So I’m back to feeding him what he was getting but the food is really fatty and it grosses me out. I don’t know if I’m skimming the fat out because I’m worried that it’s not good for him or if I’m doing it so I don’t have to see it when I feed him.

It wouldn’t bother me so much to take him out at night if it didn’t wake Bean up when he barks. I’m generally not asleep anyway but it’s really irritating to me to get up for his yapping ass and his yaps cause the Bean to go off.

We didn’t do too much on Mother’s Day. Got up early and had lunch somewhere then came home to nap. Sweety made kimchi for me that afternoon. He got crushed pepper instead of pepper flakes and that caused the kimchi to be insanely spicy. I thought I literally had blisters in my mouth the first time I ate it. It smells great and looks good but tastes like fire. He’s going to make a new, less lethal, batch for me soon.

The Bean suffers our foolishness.

I am peeved today.

BB’s job at H00ters? He’s not taking it. Nevermind that 99.999% of the reason he has the job is because Sweety got the interview for him. His mother’s husband works for a parcel delivery service and has been trying to get him on there for a few weeks. It would just be part-time work. Four or five hours a day, Monday through Friday. BB finds out that he should have an interview with the parcel service one day this week and he’s “guaranteed a job”. Sweety and I pointed out that *gasp* he could work BOTH jobs! What a novel idea! Nope. He says he won’t have time to do other things.

WTF? What other things? Keep abreast of the latest television shows?

I think what’s going to happen is he is going to burn the H00ters bridge to the ground and then find out that the parcel service won’t be accommodating to his schedule. He has graduation practice, graduation day, vacation with us, vacation with his Mom, a graduation party at his Mom’s – he told the hiring manager at H00ters about all of these days and they were willing to work around them. Parcel service is a giant company and I have a feeling that they will not give a tinker’s damn about his “schedule”. I told Sweety that I wouldn’t be surprised if we end up taking Bean, LB, and BB’s girlfriend but not BB on vacation because he can’t get off of work.

Guess what stops with his last day of school? The magical fucking gas tank that his car has. If you don’t have the sense of a turnip and think it’s a good idea to blow off a job for one that you don’t even have yet? No more free gas for you. Either he will have a job with the parcel service and can buy his own gas or he will be unemployed and out of school and won’t need to go anywhere anyway so the car can sit with an empty tank in the driveway.

We’re currently paying for insurance on the car he drives that’s still in our name. Do you know how much it costs to insure a car for an 18 year old boy? Enough to buy a beater of a car every year. That would be too damned much. Do you know what he wants to do with the car? Put a sound system in it. People, it’s an 8 year hold Honda Civic with a dent in the driver’s side back door. (Dent happened on my watch…not BB’s.) I told him that putting speakers in the car was like polishing a turd. Maybe fix the dent first?

He had to open an checking account for direct deposit of his check this weekend. It’s with the same bank we use and I’d thought about being nice and putting some money in it for him. Nope. Not happening. I’m happy to be nice and do extra things if you would at least fake some initiative.

I have to give him credit – for as slothful as he is – at least that’s our only issue with him. I mean it’s not like I’m finding hidden booze or drugs in his room. Haven’t had to bail him out of jail and he’s not beating the dogs. We’ve obviously aimed high here.

Bean loves wearing her bracelet around the house and was very excited to find that she could wear it on her ankle.

She’s started riding that little bike all over the house. Sometimes she says, “Vroom!”. Cracks me up.

She kept a dry diaper today from around 2 p.m. until she went to bed at 9 p.m.! We put her on the potty throughout the day and she used it.

The other day while I went to the grocery store, she stayed with the boys. She told BB, “Potty!” so he quickly put her on it and she did her business as everyone gave her high-fives and praise.

She loves to see herself on the camera.

My antisocialness has hit a new level. A friend left a voicemail last week saying hi and asking if I wanted to go out tonight. I didn’t call or text her because I was feeling like a grumpy asshole and couldn’t think of a good excuse as to why I couldn’t go. She left another message and I love her to pieces and figured I should pick up the damn phone and be sociable. Instead of making up an excuse as to why I couldn’t go out, I just told her the truth. That I didn’t feel up to the exertion it would take to hold a conversation. She understood. I’m glad. I could immediately quit worrying about offending her by saying no (She’s so nice I don’t think she’d really have been offended. It was just something to worry about.) and quit worrying that I’d accidentally say I’d go and then have to fret over interacting with people. I feel like a human slug.

I cooked the worst dinner EVER today. Beans and a pork roast in the crock pot with fried potatoes. Put it in last night and it was done this morning. It was just shit. The roast was so dry that you could use it to exfoliate your face and the beans were yuck. And I love beans. This is the first time I’ve thrown beans away in my life. I followed the recipe completely so this absolves me from the shittasticness of the meal. It was a bad recipe. Bean at the beans though so I kept some of them for her to dine on later.

I’ve been trying to not think about Mother’s Day being on Sunday but I’ve been a more-than-normal weepy mess this week and decided to just embrace the sads. Part of the reason I made fried potatoes tonight was they remind me of my Mom and Grandma. Theirs were always so good. Figured I needed to learn make them myself. Mine were not so good. Fried potatoes is probably not a dish that I need to make on the regular anyway.

Oh! BB has a job! In the kitchen of a H00ters. He starts Monday. It’s very close to where he will be going to school in the fall so he’ll be able to go to work easily after school. I can’t believe that he will graduate high school in a couple of weeks.

What was that sound?

Oliver bumping his noggin on the wall in his sleep.

Oh. Ok. He’s such a good boy.

Yeah.

I mean, good as far as dogs go. It’s not like he can play the piano or row a canoe.

At this point I realized Sweety was asleep and flicked on the light to wake him up. Usually, this will settle him down so he will quit talking. Instead he was facing me with his eyes closed and giant goofy grin on his face and while telling me that I was awesome. I gave up and turned the light back off.

Paint yourself.

Huh? Paint myself?

Paint yourself with the blood that’s left after you make homemade bacon.

This is when I got out of bed to go to Bean’s room.