I'm extra crabby because my mom is visiting. One week of familial closeness is 3 days over my limit. You can imagine what two weeks is doing to me. My brother was here for four days and that was awesome. I hadn't seen him in two years! I liked having him here.

I fell asleep on the couch earlier and then when I dragged my ass to the bedroom, Grumpy was in there playing some nasty, loud war game on XBOX live. Now, it's after one in the morning and I am wide-fucking-awake. For some reason, I got a moment stuck in my head and I thought maybe I had better get it down before I forget it ever happened.

It must have been about 12 years ago now. We still lived in Seattle. Grumpy was still in the Navy, before we were married and I had very short hair and was in pretty good shape from going out and dancing almost every night. I will have to dig out some pics. I had this dress that can only be described as material that shined like a disco ball. And I used to wear platforms that were about 6 or 7 inches. Many of my bar friends never realized I was short until I took off my shoes. I am under 5'4" in real life.

One night we were hanging out at a new to us club because we followed DJ Evan whereever he went. I think it was called the 2418. He spun the 80's we loved best and he was our friend. Anyway, we were at this club that was owned by Asians and had a clientele that was mostly Asian. They were cool, they liked the music, they liked us, no problems. The problems came in with the hoity toity, drunk, frat boy, douche bag types.

I was at the bar with my short hair, big shoes, and disco ball dress when one such douche bag asked me if I was a drag queen.

A drag queen? Are you fucking kidding me? Really?

I love my drag queens so I wasn't offeneded about being called one. I was offended that douche bag had the balls to ask me. And he obviously knew nothing about drag queens or he never would have mistaken me for one. Firstly, I wear a size 6, a far cry from the size 13 my b-i-l wears. Secondly, I have no trace of an adam's apple. Thirdly, my hair was very short. No self repecting queen would have short hair.

Well, douche bag caught me off guard and the only sassy response I could come up with was "Fuck you, asshole. If I were a drag queen, don't you think I'd have bigger tits?" Not really my best work. Then my very big and burly friend Bill came over to defend me as he had heard the whole thing and I almost started a very large fight when douche bag got all belligerent. I can't rightly recall how it all ended, except that Bill must have dragged me out of there for fear that I was going to get us kicked out of our new digs.

I was such a feisty queen back then.

I dig it. He totally supports my hatred of UofM and even though he is a stick up the ass conservative, we still get along just fine. Hopefully, someday I can convince him to embrace his freaky-deaky side and hop on over the liberal fence.

In the middle of the conversation, Hoho, who has been whining incessantly lately, started whining and sticking his fingers in my face. I was in the middle of a sentence and was irritated already because I had surpassed my whining maximum tolerance. I absently grabbed Hoho's hand while still talking with Cakes. It appeared that Hoho was trying to feed me the peanut butter he had all over his fingers. I was just about to lick his fingers and appease him, when I decided to sniff it first because a scene from Baby Mama came quickly to mind. Thank God I did that because the peanut butter in question ended up being a nasty poo-poo that had gone up Hoho's back and was causing him considerable discomfort.

Mmmmmm!

I don't think I will be able to eat peanut butter for awhile.

In September, I left Grumpy and the kids for an entire week, while I went to Charleston, South Carolina for work, which was mostly fun. My mom came out and stayed with the family. I had a great time but it was the very first time I had ever left any of them at all and I was glad to come home.

I was home a week before we all left to go on our very first cruise. We flew from here to Heathrow, before heading to Barcelona. From Barcelona, we boarded the Norwegian Gem and headed to Malta. On Malta, we toured Valletta and Mdina. Then we headed off to Italy. We stopped in Naples, Pompeii, and Sorrento. The next day we stopped in Citavechhia but were way to tired to make the trek into Rome. We spent the next day in Livorno, Florence, and Pisa. Little Bear turned 6 that day and had the best time ever in Florence. The next day we stopped in Villefranche, in France. We didn't have enough time to make it over to Nice but that was fine. It was hard enough getting to shore on the little excursion boats with Little Bear's wheelchair.

Aside from actually finding the wheelchair in Heathrow and finding ADA cabs in Barcelona we had a pretty easy go of it. It was a fun trip, but I was very happy to come home.

Since then it has been a blur. I've been asked to serve on board for the school district as Little Bear's school liaison for special needs. Whatever that means. I missed the first meeting while we were in Europe, so now I have to catch up.

I voted early last week but it didn't make me feel as good as usual becuase in many of the local positions the only candidates were Republican. Welcome to Arizona. Sigh.

All the way down my street there are signs in many of the front yards supporting Proposition 102 that changes the Arizona constitution to define marriage as "one man, one woman." They have a ton of money and advertise non-stop. I have received a zillion mailers addressed to "The Bugg Family". It's irritating to me that they assume because we are married with children, that we would automatically support this crap proposal. I contacted them and let them know that I don't support this kind of bigotry and that we want off of their mailing list. I hope they don't come after us now. I just don't get the mentality. I hope for anyone, that they find someone to love and that they can marry and have a family if they so choose.

And also, I think a strange twist of fate come my way and I hope I read the signs correctly. A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine accidentally ran over her cat with her RV. The cat has run out while she was leaving a campground. She had to move her RV to not block traffic and well... you can see where it goes from there. I felt terrible for her and have been thinking about her so much because her cat and her dog are her babies and the cat and the dog were best friends.

Last night as we came home from the halloween store, we pulled into the driveway and Grumpy stopped hard. He opened the door and bent over and picked up a kitten. He handed it to me and he said, "I almost ran this over!" I had NOT told him about my friend and her cat. We ended up bringing the kitten into the house (yes, I know, shocker). He's too skinny. You can see all his bones and he ate for about ten minutes straight. He's too cute. He's an all black short-hair and he's maybe 10 to 12 weeks old. He's not afraid of our cats and he just sits and growls when the dogs check him out. He slept with Little Bear all night.

I can't keep him. We have four cats and five small dogs already. The strays just know how to find me. I was thinking of putting him on Craigslist but I hate not knowing who he would go to and I refuse to take him to the pound. About 4 am it hit me that maybe he found me to get to my friend. She's coming here from Seattle in a couple of weeks to stay in an RV park for awhile.

I think the kitten found me so he could get to her. At least that is the idea I can't get out of my head. I emailed her this morning so I hope she feels the same way. Otherwise I may have another cat in the family and one less husband! I kid. Sort of.

Hoho has started taking in an interest in all the little bugs that inhabit our yard. He calls everything "beetle" even after I tell him what the correct name happens to be.

He does one of two things with said bugs. If they are outside he points, calls it a beetle, then stomps on it. If we are inside he tries to catch the bug and bring it to me, like a cat bringing mice to it's owner.

Uh, thanks.

Yesterday, twice, he came to me saying "Mama! Beetle!", handing me flies which promptly flew away the moment he opened his hand. I can barely kill the little f'ers with my handy dandy fly swatter and Mr. Miyagi over here can catch them bare handed.

God, I do love Photoshop.

Today is a day to sleep in, isn't it? It's Labor Day for Christ sake. But, at six am this morning I was jolted awake by the sound of rapid fire gunshots. I almost fell out of bed because it sounded like it was in my backyard. Close enough.

Apparently, as the kindly police dispatch told me, today is the opening day of hunting season, oh joy. Not. And because we live on the other side of the street from wide open desert, is seems every gun toting, giant truck with monster truck tires driving, redneck, dipshit, is out in the fucking desert shooting a gun. What the fuck are they shooting at that is really worth that kind of effort? Coyotes? Quail? Rabbits? Gross... I know it is hopeless to wish they shoot the snakes, spiders, and scorpions. I wouldn't mind that.

I could never shoot an animal unless it had a gun and was going to shoot me first. The worst part is these nimrods aren't even a quarter mile off the road. They could shoot right into a house. Is it wrong to wish that they all hear a noise, turn and shoot, ALL OF THEM miraculously being a perfect shot and killing each other in one big boom? That would be so nice.

The dogs and I woke up immediately. Of course Grumpy slept right through it and is still sleeping. I hate him, too.

The dogs are afraid to go out so I am sure I will also be cleaning up dog turd in my house because of these assholes.

If it weren't for Karma, I would be going down the road right now letting all the air out of all those stupid truck tires that are taller than I am.

Suck it, hunters!

Mom and Dad 1951/52 -

My mom was Homecoming Queen and Cereal Bowl Queen (Kellogg's - it's a big deal there) that year at Battle Creek Central. BCHS just called and asked her to participate in the 100th Anniversary celebration Homecoming weekend.

They want her to ride in the parade and everything because she is the oldest queen left (gee, what an honor, ha!), the only queen in history to win both titles, and her and my Aunt Sonjia were the only sisters in history of the school to both be queens. I wish Sonjia were alive to see this, she would have laughed her butt off.

The only thing that sucks is none of us can go because that weekend we will be returning from our trip to Europe. Whoo-hoo! I told my little cousin to go, as he just graduated from there and is heading of to WMU in a couple of weeks.

My dad would have gotten the biggest kick out of this.
Yup, that's my mama!

Also, Hoho has been saying "oh-whoa" and "baby soup" and it took me forever to figure out that he is saying water and bathing suit. I love it, baby soup.

Little Bear starts Kindergarten on Wednesday. I can't believe it.

When I get home from doing the Costco run, I usually unload everything in a heap in the living room just inside the front door and then I deal with it after dinner.

Dinner was in the oven, Little Bear and Grumpy were playing video games and I was sitting at the kitchen table filling out the passport paperwork. Hoho, I thought, was in with the guys playing video games. Turns out, he wasn't.

I walked around the corner to ask Grumpy a question and I found Hoho pulled up to the train table sitting on the big pack of toilet paper. He had opened the flat of juice boxes. He had a neat stack of straw wrappers, and had already put straws into about half of the juice boxes.

When I exclaimed "HOHO! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!!???", he looked up with the biggest, proudest grin on his face and the instant he saw the angry look on my face he started to cry his little eyes out. I was only angry for that briefest of moments and then when Grumpy came running to see what had happened, we looked at each other and busted out laughing. Grumpy ran to get the camera while I hugged Hoho and told him he did a very good job opening the juice boxes but that we only should open one when we are going to drink one. I then spent a half an hour "milking" the juice boxes into a pitcher.

FedEx is pissing me off, big time.

I work in an office, way the hell out in the desert. We have two employees and the office is only open from 8am to noon, Monday through Friday. It is a sweet gig.

But, FedEx is harshing my mellow.

The last few months, Mr. Speedy Delivery, is making his deliveries at 2 in the afternoon, the next morning I will call and tell them we are only open until noon and they will try to redeliver it again at 2pm.
I end up having to drive to the FedEx facility to pick up our packages. Lately they just leave a note saying they are holding the package for me to pick up. Last month alone, I drove to FedEx four times.

Everytime I go there I tell whoever is at the counter that we are only open until noon and I need them to come earlier. I have asked that they have the driver call me so we can arrange something, to no avail.

Basically, the FEDEX driver drives 54 miles to leave me a note, two days in a row, and I spend an hour and a half driving 54 miles with two kids and a wheelchair to go there and pick up whatever the delivery is.... and for some reason every person who works there and rides a motorcycle doesn't seem to understand that it is illegal to park in the handicap unloading area. Needless to say, I come home very grumpy, hot, and tired.

What bothers me most about all of this, isn't my wasted time, the effort involved or anything. I am mostly pissed because it is a collosal waste of natural resources. The gas alone! It is outrageous. I even called FedEx HQ tonight to complain and they basically told me I was shit out of luck as well.

I don't know what else to do... FedEx can suck it.
Anyone have any suggestions?

http://www.ultravioley.blogspot.com/

I know she suffered from Lewy Body Dementia for many years so it is probably a bit of a relief for her family. When my dad died from complications from Alzheimer's it was really a relief because the person I knew as my dad was long gone. It takes a big toll.

I prefer to remember her as the sassy, sarcastic, most Jewish, little Italian mama I ever did see. I loved it when she would slam Dorothy, Rose, and especially Blanche.

In my mother/daughter relationship with my mom I am Dorothy and she is most like Rose, but I still threaten to send her to Shady Pines anyway. I loved it when Dorothy said, "You'll have to excuse my mother. She suffered a slight stroke a few years ago which rendered her totally annoying."

Anyway, he used to be a real grump ass to me and was borderline rude but one day when I was sending out mail for my 2nd job, he recognized my boss' name and went all nutty. He was a tad star struck because he is a racing fan and apparently he is a really big fan of my boss. he didn't ask but I think he's hoping I'll introduce him or something. So, now when he sees me he smiles and waves and calls out to me. It's pretty funny.

But, I digress. I was actually going to tell you about how when I was leaving the post office after picking up the mail, I saw a women kind of hunched over in the dirt next to a gaint cactus. She had her back to me and I wasn't sure if she was ok so I stopped and asked her if she needed help. Well, what happened was that she had found a baby bird on the sidewalk and didn't want anyone stepping on it so she had used a piece of paper to push it off into the dirt. It was sooo tiny and it's eyes weren't even open yet and it was completely featherless. Poor thing! I looked around and found it's nest but it was far too high up for us to get him home and ants were starting to attack him. I knew it would die if I left it there. So, I used my mail to scoop it up, then I got all the ants off of it and took it to my office. I ripped the top off of a Kleenex box and put it in it's little bed. Then I put it outside on the ledge so it wouldn't get too cold while I called for help.

I ended up getting in touch with the wonderful woman who took in the dove with a broken wing that I found when we first moved here. She agreed to take the baby and I happily drove it over to her house. She has an incubator and assured me the baby Sparrow would be just fine.

That is three birds rescued in the last two years, five total. Four doves and one sparrow. I wonder what it means. This is exactly what my baby looked like.