GRRRROWL.

This whole month so far has sucked ginormous baboon balls.

The other day, the kid said that he was "spanking" one of his stuffed animals. Since we have never spanked him in our lives, we started asking questions. Which led to one of his recently hired preschool teachers being fired on the spot.

An excerpt from the letter I typed out for the school records:

After he told us this, we tried not to ask any questions that would lead him to say one thing or another. We asked him if he liked Miss *****, and he said “I like her but she doesn’t like me.” When I asked him why he thought she didn’t like him, he said “Because she spanks me and then she puts me on the naughty bench.” We asked him if Miss **** likes the other kids, and he replied with, “She likes some of the kids, but she spanks them, and she washes their mouths out with soap.” Again, this is a disciplinary method we have never even mentioned in our household, so he would have no idea what it was without an outside source. I asked him what washing your mouth out with soap meant, and he said, “It’s where you have to get soap in your mouth because you said a bad word.” I asked him how it happens, and he said, “Miss **** squeezes soap in your mouth and you can’t swallow it or spit it out and you have to sit on the naughty bench with soap in your mouth.”

WHAT THE FUCK KIND OF WORLD ARE WE LIVING IN. I was so sad that he hadn't told us sooner. That despite all of the sheltering and interviewing of schools and all of that, this happened. And yeah, he said he hadn't had his mouth washed out with soap, although he named a couple of kids who had. And he's three, so I don't know if he even understands the difference between the truth and a lie, but regardless, that woman was not being loving and good to him.

The preschool owner is a wonderful woman, and she hired this girl recently to help while she is on maternity leave. She genuinely loves the kids, and the kids love her. But even that didn't keep the wolves out of the chicken coop.

Sigh.

I am so tired.

Shitshow Kitchen: Magic Cookie Bars

These are also called Seven Layer Bars, but that sounds like some sort of salad/cookie hybrid to me and not at all like the sugary, chewy, delicioso candybar of a cookie that this recipe makes.

This recipe is actually so easy to make that I have done it while intoxicated. Literally. It is nearly impossible to screw it up. I mean, even if you just dumped it all in a pile and mixed it around then baked it, it would probably be good. It is Easy^Greyskull.

YOUR INGREDIENTS!

Yes, those are Fahncy Chocolate Chips

1 stick butter (1/2 cup)
1 sleeve of graham crackers
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup butterscotch chips
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup shredded sweetened coconut

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Grab a 9x13 cake pan and cut the butter into it. Kind of strew it about. Then slide the pan into the oven while it preheats.

This picture is so exciting I bet you are about to pee.

While the butter is melting in the oven, dump your graham crackers into a ziplock bag and smash them with the condensed milk can.

Food doubling as kitchen tool? Check.

When your crackers are crumbs, grab an oven mitt (or your ghetto mitt AKA dishrag) and pull the pan out.

I love how this recipe involves zero work.

The oven just melted your butter for you. BAM. Sprinkle the crumbs on top of the butter somewhat evenly.

That was so difficult I need a break.

Then sprinkle the chocolate chips and butterscotch chips on evenly.

It is possible this picture is blurry because I was shaking with fatigue.

Open your can of condensed milk. It is best to kind of give it a stir before your drizzle it over the whole pan. Scrape out the rest of the can with a spatula. Realize that your condensed milk is... not right.

That grainy sugar at the bottom? Is totally supposed to have been melted into the milk.

Thank you, Carnation, for fucking me over on this one. What the hell. The easiest recipe in the world, using ALL PREPARED INGREDIENTS, somehow devolves into a shitshow once again. If this happens to you, do not scrape out the sugar crystals at the bottom of the can, because they are grainy and gross and sticky and if you try to flick them into the pan they will only end up coating your walls and cupboards, and even though you wipe everything down you will miss a spot, and it will harden onto the wall and you'll find it later and try to pry it off and the paint on the wall will come with it.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. Also, this may have been caused because I was using the Reduced Fat edition of the milk, and let this be a lesson unto me. Why would I even try to reduce the fat in something that is obviously going to kill me via diabetic coma before I am fat enough to succumb to obesity?

Throw the nuts and coconut on top and press it down.

COVER THE MILK!! COVER IT!! LET NO ONE SEE YOUR SHAME!!!

Pop it in the oven and set the timer for about 20 minutes. Take out the pan when it looks roughly like this:

NO ONE WILL EVER KNOW. IT IS OUR LITTLE SECRET.

 Let it cool, then cut it into bars. Do NOT try to eat while it's hot, or you will just burn your tastebuds off of your tongue and be unable to enjoy them when they cool. I usually cannot wait for them to cool on their own, so I cut them into squares after they're not molten, then take them out of the pan and wrap them in aluminum foil and put them in the freezer. I think they're best frozen.

Heaven.... I'm in heaven....

AND JUST LIKE MAGIC, they are perfection. Cut them into tiny squares and give your friend ONE square... then see what they will give you for MORE. One pan of cookies will magically turn into you naming your price. Control of the remote for a week? You got it. No dishes for the next few days? Sure thing. A baby liger? Let me call the zoo.

MAGIC.

Things You Wanted to Say Today But Didn't

If I were to tell you all of the things I wanted to say today but didn't, those things would fit in no space.

It's strange, I'm not generally a quiet person, but sometimes I get in these... moods. And then I speak so sparingly that a blind person could confuse me for a nun with a vow of silence.

It is easy to feel like quiet spells are unnatural when we are expected to Tweet every twitch and discuss every disgust. All of the things are open to opinion and opining. But the simple fact that we are able to broadcast our every breath doesn't make it necessary. Brevity can be the soul of wit just as loquacity can be the whole idiot.

It is okay not to talk all the time. It is okay to watch and wait and store things away for later. It is okay, sometimes, just to listen.

WTF #2

Rockapotamus

Survivor

So... I would like to regale you with entertaining episodes from this weekend, but alas, I lived through it once, and that is all the living through it I care to do, ever. Suffice it to say, I am alive (barely), Charlie has managed to stay out of the hospital (barely), and my mother and husband refrained from strangling each other (barely). I did pick up my PVCs again, which is awesome. Also, Dust forgot he had to open the store Saturday morning and stayed out until 3AM getting shitfaced with his friends, so I had to open for him on two hours of sleep because he was still too drunk at 4:00AM to drive. That was fun. Although he worked at the store for me that day, all hung over, so I guess we are even.

On the bright side, I also went to a pops concert at which the orchestra played, among other things, "Orange Blossom Special." Michael Krajewski was the conductor for the night, and the whole thing was just... incredible. I was laughing the whole time. I miss going to the symphony.

On a Scale of 1-10...

Today was a TEN.

A twitchy-eyeball-bleeding, hair-pulling, spirit-crushing 10.

My employee quit while my mother is visiting, the day before she and I were supposed to have our ONE day together. He decided to retract his two-weeks' notice and make it a two-days' notice. I succeeded in not killing him ONLY because he succeeded in evading the store, going so far as to text my husband to meet him elsewhere so he wouldn't have to come in to give me the key. This is probably better, since I wanted to rip his ears off of his head and stuff them in his nostrils. Of course, he demanded his check immediately, because God forbid he would have to wait until payday to get it, that is SO INCONVENIENT.

A photo of my ex-employee, the cat turd

Oh, and in case you missed it up there, YES. MY MOTHER IS VISITING. Cue the rending of garments and the rubbing of ashes onto the forehead. Also the wailing and gnashing of teeth.

And as if that wasn't enough. AS IF THAT WAS NOT ENOUGH!! Charlie has been suffering from diarrhea (like the really, really, TMI bad kind) for the past four days. I took him to the doctor the other day, and in the waiting room, as I hacked up a lung, the nurse was all, "Charlie?" looking at me, and I said, "Yes, that's him," pointing to my seemingly healthy child, and she was all, "What about you?" with that look that makes you feel like you are being sent to the corner with no supper. And I was all, "He is the one pooping like a firehose every five minutes." And right on schedule, Charlie tugged on my shirt, exposing my bra, yelling, "MAMA! I HAFTA GO POOPIES!!"

The poor little kid, I feel so bad for him. He woke up this morning, had diarrhea, then barfed as I was washing his hands. I just held him until he went back to sleep, then I had to get ready to go to work and leave him with the lions (my mother) while I worked all day today. Fucking work. I just wanted to be there with my sick kid. I feel so helpless when he is not feeling well. Like there is nothing I can do.

Argh.

So. That was my day.

ETA: Oh, yeah, so the thousands of dollars would be the plane tickets I bought for myself and Charlie that we are supposed to use to go out of town for ten days in a couple weeks. And now the fate of my trip has been thrown into uncertainty, as I may not be able to leave the shop now. FUCKING A.

I SWEAR

I promise I will post something later today, when my chest pains have slightly abated and I am no longer quaking with stress and suppressed rage.

I KNOW! Don't you want to hear all about it??

Tune in later for all the sordid details, including how I almost killed an employee with my bare hands, how I stand to lose thousands of dollars, how I ended up at the doctor's office and nearly had a heart attack, and how I am surviving all of the things WHILE my mother is in town visiting.

CHEST PAINS.

Name That Tune #8

Watch Your Step

Hop on the bus. We are going to take a little daytrip over to Serioustown.

After a number of hurty and self-hate-inducing things occurred recently in my life, I was quickly brought down to earth by the same things happening in the lives of my friends. It seems that self-repugnance and general feelings of idiocy and deserved solitude are going around when perhaps they should not be. So I feel that I need to share something with you.

I am the kind of person who only understands my own fault in any given problem scenario. If I go to a restaurant and the service is shitty, it is because the server hates me. If one of the store's orders doesn't ship, it is because I somehow placed the order incorrectly. If the milk goes bad, it is because I fucked with its tai chi.

I know. This is fucked up. It is totally fucked up. Also self-centered, in a twisted way. But I am not coming from a place of selfishness. Who would want ALL THE BAD THINGS? Not me. HOWEVER.

What I do know is that if these scenarios were being played out in my friends' lives, I would be all, "You are not perfect, because you are human. But you are lovely and beautiful, because you are a good person. It is the circumstances of your life that are fucked up. It is not your fault that the rain fell on that parade today."

I think, sometimes, that it is like an impressionist painting.

Ugly

This? By itself? Is an ugly kind of fuzzy blur of gray. It is how I view myself. My fucked up problems. Because I am right in the middle of it, all close up.

This, though?

Beautiful

Is the Cliffs at Etretat. The first image is part of it, viewed close up. I KNOW. I AM BEING SO TRITE WITH THIS. But for real, when you are inside of it all, you cannot see the big picture. You see some tiny piece that seems insignificant, fucked up, and ugly.

But on the outside? Everyone else sees a masterpiece.

It may seem, to you, that you have fucked your life up big time. That your window to the world is broken and shuttered. And yes, I initially wrote "shittered," and that works, too.

But guess what. Chicken butt.

No, no, no, I am trying to be serious. OK, Guess what. Your view of you is too close sometimes to be accurate. You need to step back to see the real you, except for you that is basically impossible. This means you need to depend on your friends-- the people around you who LOVE you, not the other people around you-- to remind you what kind of person you are. And when they tell you that you are beautiful, that you are trying as hard as you can, that you are the kind of friend or partner or sibling or parent or kid that anyone would be lucky to have, that you should not be so hard on yourself, that you make everything you touch turn to flowers--

Well, you should listen to them. Because they are standing about five feet back, and that is the optimal viewing condition, right there. Just out of arm's reach. You can't hit them, but they can blow kisses. Because I know you don't want to hear this, but they are going to fucking tell you, for Gods' sake, and you are going to listen,

Dammit.

And just so you know, I wasn't just writing this to be my own cheerleader. This is for you.

Lung-dwelling Tamarins and Salad Dressing in the Shower

I would love to write something earth-shatteringly beautiful, or side-splittingly funny, or even something pithily philosophical today, but all I can think of is the ache in my chest and back. It is like I went to the gym and lifted weights targeting my chest and back for three hours yesterday. Except instead of that, I have just been trying to cough my lungs right out of my body. My muscles literally ache from coughing. It is like there is a furry little tamarin lodged at the bottoms of my lungs, and my body will do anything to try to get it out.

If there was a poll to determine relative happiness of all campers present, I would register somewhere near the bottom.

HOWEVER! I did entertain friends on Friday evening until something like 3AM, I cleaned all the things on Saturday and wrangled the boys to a friends' place for dinner that night, and I made food and cookies yesterday. AND! I wrote a contract piece from beginning to end. I think this means I win all the things.

Also, I astounded myself with a discovery.

I KNOW! You are dying to hear what it is. Just let me tell you.

You know how your grandma is always telling you to clean with vinegar, and you are all, "Um, grandma, we have cleaning products now. I am pretty sure I can spray down the shower with Lime Away and it will work slightly better than a salad dressing ingredient."

BUT GUESS WHAT. Lime Away costs almost $5, and you need to use a whole bottle and scrub the shit out of your shower to get any results at all. A bottle of white vinegar costs less than a dollar, and you just spray it on, let it set for a few minutes, and RINSE OFF THE FUCKING HARD WATER STAINS. FOR REAL. It is like a miracle. To me, this is like rubbing Dr. Hartmann's Hair Tonic on a bald man and watching his lustrous locks grow in front of your eyes. I was astounded.

Aaaaand that is your helpful hint of the day. I am sure that you are all glad you stopped by for that one. Now you, too, can have a sparkling clean shower, like the mother fucking adult you are.

You're welcome.