What are you doing?

It’s called The Armadillo. I’m practicing.

Practicing for what?

If someone starts to attack you, you drop to the ground and do this.

*insert niece repeating The Armadillo*

Oh, no. If someone really attacks you – you need to punch them in the head or something. Don’t roll around while they kick you.

Aunt Anna, I can’t do that. It hurts my heart when I hurt someone else. Even if they’re being mean.

Tell you what, kid. If you’re ever attacked…fight back…escape…let your heart hurt and I’ll pay for your therapy to fix it later.

*insert niece flopping back on the floor to practice The Armadillo*

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I’ll read/reply to previous post comments later when I’m at a computer that’s not in the boonies. My Mom’s internet connections won’t open the comments page to even read them.

This happens every year – about midway through our vacation I start to worry about work. That maybe I did something wrong and when I get back to work I’ll discover that I’ve been fired. WHY DO I DO THIS?

Is it because this is the only time of year that I don’t eat Xanax four times a week? Am I detoxing from that shit and extreme paranoia is a side effect? Gah. You know what? I don’t even have caffeine at work anymore because I don’t want to be alert when I’m there. I eat my little pill on the way to work and sleep with my eyes open all day long. And if something freaks me out during the day? Well, maybe I’ll take a bathroom break and chew one of those little blue bitches up on my way off the floor.

I’m already planning on going into work on my own time the day before I’m scheduled back to clear out email and anything that’s been left on my desk. This will also give me the chance to make sure all my passwords work so I’ll know I’m still employed.

My Mom has chickens. Chickens that will eat anything, including meat. That is just creepy. When we go outside, I’m always watching to see if the chickens are loose and do I need to run. I warned Mom that she better watch out – she may go out there to sprinkle corn on the ground and they might rush her just to knock her to the ground and eat her alive.

After Sweety and the boys go home next Monday, my niece is going to stay with me an extra week while I run around Texas visiting friends. Yay! I’ll take her home on Friday and I’ll get to see her compete in a swim meet on Saturday. I haven’t seen her swim yet and I’m excited to see that.

And my nieces and nephews will finally all get to meet! Normally, I see Sylvie for a week and then visit my niece and nephew in TX the next week after I’ve dropped her off. They’ve always been curious about each other so that will be cool too.

Well, hell. Sweety is giving me grief about falling off my diet and eating Mexican food today and I told him earlier that I’d go for a fucking walk. It’s hot out there, people. I don’t want to go. But if I don’t, he’s going to walk around chanting “loser”. Better go find my sneakers.

We left the house around 4 p.m. on Tuesday and got to Mobile, Alabama at around 11 p.m. It turned out the Howard Johnson in Mobile, AL was NOT what I’d expected. It is now called the Emerald Palms and was a rattrap. I didn’t see any rats there but they may have been cleverly concealed in the filthy carpet.

After I checked in, a couple followed me out the lobby to my car and the guy was saying something. My instinct was to tell him to get away from me but I was afraid he’d follow us to our room and kill us. Or something. So I deciphered his mumblings and told him that I would rather not take the cash he wanted to give me and go buy him a cigar. I have no idea why he was looking for someone to complete this task because he was clearly old enough to buy tobacco.

As we were getting our stuff out of the car, LB was being an ass dawdling because it was pissing off BB. BB said something to him about hurrying up and he visibly slowed while getting his things. I told him it would be nice if he’d hurry up before BB and I were stabbed to death in front of him by Cigar Man and he got the hell out of the car before I took another breath.

This was the first hotel that I’ve ever stayed in that I felt the need to move large furniture against the hotel door. If I hadn’t been so tired, had a lick of sense and it hadn’t been so late – I’d have taken the boys elsewhere for the few hours sleep we were going to get. And of course, the free full breakfast was not so. It was a couple of plastic bins of cereal that was being guarded by a surly hotel worker as she wiped down the counter. We went to Burger King for breakfast instead.

The boys and I decided that we’re going to hit New Orleans next year as our halfway point on our way to Oklahoma and we will be sure to stay somewhere pleasant.

So, the coaew was bitching about when we leave to go on vacation. (I’d planned on leaving on tonight after work and she wanted me to wait til Wednesday) As a bit of extra Chickiemeanness, I’m leaving midday today. If she’d have kept her yap shut, I’d have waited til tonight but got to thinking of HOW can I fuck her day up more and make it work for me? Oh, I know! I’ll take a half day of vacation on Tuesday and let the boys know that we will leave on our trip as soon as they get to our house. I’m evil like that.

And by leaving a half day earlier, the boys and I are able to stop and do the fun things they want to do on our way to Oklahoma AND I’m able to pick up my niece so she can spend the week with us. I have to get to Oklahoma with a couple of stops to pick up my niece and then go to Texas and pick up Sweety when he flies in on Friday. If we left Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, we’d hurry through and get to my niece’s house without any fun stuff.

I have decided that BB will not be driving on any of the trip. I know he’s a good driver (sayeth Sweety) but my nerves just can’t handle it. It will be less stressful for me to do all the driving. Maybe next year.

22 DAYS! I’m off for the next 22 days! Wootie woot!

I can get it if it’s a super busy day but every day? I hear people say this and roll my eyes on the inside. Do they want me to think that they are far too superior to worry about something as mundane as eating?

I bet they never poop either.

Then I was kind of bummed because I wanted some color! I told her that I really didn’t want to strip out my hair today because I’ve heard so many things about how horrible that is for your hair and it took FOREVER to get my hair looking normal after spending a lot of time highlighting it. So she said we could bleach it a little and the blue should grab on but not be too bright. That was okay. I didn’t want it too bright because I was afraid that Sweety was going to shit his pants when he saw it. I wanted subtle blue. This time. Heh.

Instead it came out crayon green. And I’m okay with it. It was really a toss-up between blue or green from the start because I like both colors. When she saw it, she said if I really wanted blue that she’d strip it out today and redo it. I told her no because I really do like the color green.

But does it look like it was caused by being in a swimming pool for too long?

I can’t get a decent photo of this. The first one had no flash on the camera and the second one did.

During the game, I kept feeling how squeaky clean the inside of my mouth was. I noticed that around my gumline was a little sensitive after all it had been through and forgot about it. After the game it was decided that the ballteam and their families would go to a local restaurant for dinner because the restaurant owner said he’d donate 10% of our check back to the baseball team.

At the restaurant they were having a sale on alcoholic drinks (rumrunners). I was not going to get a drink since it was a function with kids but the lady next to me ordered a rumrunner and I took it as a sign. A sign to order a Jack Daniel’s & Diet Coke to calm my frazzled nerves.

I really really despise these sorts of functions. I hate it when people ask who I am and I say “BB’s stepmom” and either they don’t hear the “step” part and say “oh, BB’s MOM!” while I feel like a fraud because I don’t want to correct them or look at me weird because I’m a steppy. I always feel like they’re thinking that I’m a second-class citizen. (Which is pretty fucked up thinking considering how many people are divorced and remarried nowadays.) Tonight’s lady didn’t hear the “step” part and I worried that LB (who was sitting right beside me) would be mad/upset/wtfe because I didn’t correct her. Or maybe he would be upset if I DID correct her. Maybe I overthink shit.

Guess what happens when you drink alcohol after having your teeth cleaned and bleaching the skin off the inside of your mouth? The burning that you felt while bleaching your teeth is miniscule when compared to your tongue feeling like it just split down the middle and fire ants are running out of it while wearing tiny golf shoes.

Sweety saw my grimace when I took the first drink and started to telepathically give me shit over buying a drink. (Seriously, he can twitch his eyebrows and I know exactly what he’s thinking.) So I had to tell him that it wasn’t that I couldn’t handle the drink – it was that it was melting my tender mouth. Maybe I shouldn’t order a drink when I’m nervous. Though I did quit twitching my leg up and down and wringing my hands and gnawing on my cuticles by the time I was halfway through with the drink.

I don’t know if I was relaxed or if my brain was too busy devoting all pain signals to my mouth.

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It was the Man’s birthday and Margaret’s family came to Reno and met me for supper. The boys showed off their fishing gear and were so cute and well-mannered that I couldn’t quit watching them.

Maybe I have a touch of baby fever.

And the next night I met Gina. We had some awesome food at a little casino and then went to watch Sweety bowl. Gina was tired.

I was tired too but I know if I fall asleep in a public place that Sweety will mess with me so I stayed awake. I’ve come to realize that bowling isn’t the most interesting thing to watch if you aren’t playing.

The majority of the trip was spent toting around a guy that came by himself and had to zoom in on every thing that we wanted to do. He smelled like he’d never seen the business end of a bar of soap and made me want to stab my eyes out. I blame him for my tequila drinking at 10 a.m. It was the only way I could cope because I’d been forbidden from telling him to take a fucking bath.

I told Sweety that we will NEVER EVER AGAIN go somewhere with a group of people to split the cost of a rental car. Next time, we will rent a tiny car that only has 2 seats.

It wasn’t really a vacation. It was like I lost a week of my life. Then when we got home? I got to work for six days in a row to make up for some of the days I’d been off. So I really lost 2 weeks of life. I’m just starting to feel normal (normal. Ha!) now.

Oh, people! I let BB drive me for the first time the other day! I thought I was having a heart attack but I lived. He’d never driven my car either (it’s the same kind as Sweety’s, just a different year) so it was exciting. I’d thought that maybe he would drive some when we go to Oklahoma in a couple of weeks but I now know that there is no way that I could sit in the passenger seat while he zooms down the interstate at 70 mph. 35 mph almost did me in. He’s a good driver but I had a huge issue with putting my life in his hands. I can’t get him to pick up his dirty clothes consistently but he’s driving? I remember when he was little and looked like a puppy! Where has the time gone?