OH, MY BLISTERED FINGERS!

Have I mentioned I'm from the suburbs? This doesn't mean that I'm anti-nature or anything. I like to look at nature. Sometimes I even like to sit outside and surround myself with nature. But, I'm not a big fan of actually getting nature on me. That, coupled with the fact that gardening is a near-impossible task with two very "helpful" toddlers uprooting corn stalks and eating peppermint leaves that are covered in dirt and bugs, has made for quite the weedy garden.

So, I took advantage of Big Daddy's twin being here today, and I left the cherubs in the house to go weed. I get most of my gardening advice from Plantea, and that wonderful website told me that the most efficient and effective weeding strategy is to slowly pull all weeds out by hand. This means that the dormant weeds underground aren't brought to the surface of the soil to sprout, and it also means that my fingers are covered in blisters and poo-dirt.

Eventually, the cherubs noticed that I wasn't in the house, and they wandered out in search of me. My cherubs are not suburban chicks, so they have no objection to coating themselves in nature from head to foot, and ingesting handfuls of nature (such as dirt, sweet basil leaves, peppermint leaves, and onion grass). It's too bad I didn't have my camera handy when Cakes was enthusiastically licking poo-dirt off of the handheld rake thingy (no idea what it's called, but you probably can figure out what I'm talking about).

So, here I sit, with nature under my fingernails, blisters on my fingers, and a semi-weedy garden.

LIFE LESSONS: AH, SEINFELD

It's so true to life, isn't it? I mean, some people don't like the show, they think all the characters are obnoxious (well, they are all a little obnoxious), they think the humor is irritating. But, no one can deny that this satirical look at four friends in NYC has at least one episode that everyone can relate to (I hate ending a sentence in a preposition, but I'm doing so to avoid sounding pretentious).

Who remembers the episode where George tried to break up with his girlfriend? She absolutely refused to let him break up with her; she kept saying they could work it out. When Jerry asked how the break-up went, George said, "Apparently, I was unable to break up beyond a reasonable doubt." He even tried cheating on her, but that just resulted in him being trapped in a relationship with both of them.

Well, Big Daddy and I made the mistake of hiring some friends for a business dealing. Two months after the original deal, we decided that it wasn't working and we wanted to go another direction. Apparently, though, we are unable to fire them beyond a reasonable doubt. They are flat out refusing to be fired and, unfortunately, refusing to sign the necessary papers to complete the firing process. What the hey? Who does that? We even went out and hired someone else to replace them, and they still are digging their heels in. They keep saying, "If you weren't our friends, we would just let you fire us." Huh?!

I'll keep you posted.

ERSATZ

Another of my little quirks is my compulsive quest for trivial knowledge. One of the reasons I read Muthering Heights on a regular basis is because the author stayed up late one night learning everything she could about badgers. LOVE IT! My English teacher mother often gets phone calls near the middle of the night requesting definitions or origins of words like "clinchpoop" and "popinjay."

Anyway, I was reading a news story online about one of Charles Manson's hippie chicks' possible release from prison because she is terminally ill and has only about 6 months to live. It's called a "compassionate release," and is very rare. The inmate must have family willing to shoulder the financial, physical, etc., burdens of caring for a terminally ill individual. The statistics are that, out of the 60 requests for compassionate release made last year, only 10 were granted (another compulsively obtained piece of trivia).

The point is, the article described Manson's murderous little clan as an "ersatz hippie family." "Ersatz"? What the hey is "ersatz"? So, since I know you are all waiting with bated breath, the meaning of "ersatz" is:

An imitation or substitution, usually inferior (of German origin).

Let's all use that word tomorrow and impress someone!

WHY MOM DOESN'T BUY STICKERS

Big Daddy's twin sister (Tracy) and her husband (Matthew) are moving near us from out of state. They will be living in our house for about three weeks while they find work and a place to live.

A short aside - the fact that Big Daddy is a fraternal twin has me panicked. I do not want to give birth to more than one child at a time. First of all, being pregnant with twins has to be like having a circus in your uterus. Second, it's hard enough pushing one kid out. Third, I already haven't had a full eight hours of sleep since I was in my second trimester with Bean. How much more sleep deprivation can a person survive? That being said ...

Aunt Tracy does not have children; so, she has taken it upon herself to spoil mine. The upside is that the cherubs are worn out before energetic Aunt Tracy is. The downside is that my children are showered with such parent-reviled things as Play-Doh and stickers. Here is the result of two sheets of stickers in the hands of my cherubs (and the reason why I don't give my cherubs stickers):



And, Mr. David (here doing estimates with Big Daddy) was not immune.

DELIGHTFULLY QUIRKY

That's how I like to refer to myself. Other people have said I'm weird, or that I have a lot of rules, or that I'm like a senior citizen. But, delightfully quirky sounds so much better, doesn't it? It's almost Meg Ryan-ish.

Anyway, since nothing of particular import has happened lately, I thought I'd let loose a stream of my slightly OCD quirks:

1. When eating Skittles, I separate them all by color. Then, starting with purple, I eat them two at a time. Then I move on to orange, green, yellow, and finally red (which is my favorite). The purple ones taste vaguely like Dimetapp, so I eat them first to get them out of the way. Now, if I end up with an uneven number of one color, I usually give the lone Skittle to my ancient Cocker Spaniel. Like I said, I like to eat them in pairs (an attorney I used to work for witnessed me eating Skittles and proclaimed me to be "all kinds of crazy").

2. I like circles. I don't really like squares much, and triangles are terrible.

3. Although I like to eat my Skittles in pairs, I prefer groupings of five when it comes to home decor. I will settle for groups of three, but I find groups of five more aesthetically pleasing.

4. I tend toward the cluttered end of the spectrum, much to Big Daddy's chagrin. On my list of priorities, picking up clutter is more towards the bottom, with caring for my kids right at the very top. However, as far as my books and DVD's are concerned, I am so organized it is almost debilitating. I have my books separated by genre, and then organized on the shelves alphabetically by author. My DVD's are all on the shelves in alphabetical order by movie title (and if I have movies in a series, I must own the entire series, with the exception of The Godfather III and Spiderman 3, which are HORRIBLE movies!). But I have a huge spreadsheet for my DVD's which separates all movies by genre, director, star(s), year made, and plot synopsis. Why am I so anal in this particular area? No idea.

5. I have a hard time eating with someone who allows small amounts of food to collect on the underside of the neck of their eating utensil.

Bean is a girl after my own heart. She needs her food cut in a particular shape in order to eat it. If the shape deviates from what Bean finds acceptable, the food (in her estimation) is only good enough to throw to the dog. She's as delightfully quirky as I am!

TWO GIRLS, ONE DAD, AND A RUSSET POTATO EQUAL ...

And, my personal favorite ...

On a totally unrelated note, can you guess my least favorite household chore?

LIFE LESSONS: ALWAYS USE A TOILET

I mentioned in a previous post that the world is Big Daddy's drum kit, and also his urinal. Given the choice between a toilet, or sharing streams with nature, my husband will always choose to go outside. Why? I don't know. I can only assume it's got something to do with testosterone. I will only pee outside if I'm 500 miles from the nearest rest area and am pretty sure my bladder is about to explode.

Anyway, this is Big Daddy's Life Lesson (and he is ever long-suffering to let me share this with the World Wide Web). It happened before I met him, when he was in his mid-20's. One evening, he was walking through a commercial section of town (lots of shops and restaurants, etc.), when he felt the sudden urge to go. Now, it being a commercial section of town, there were many porcelain options at his disposal. But, Big Daddy opted to go behind a store, behind a dumpster, behind a fence, to the edge of the woods behind a row of stores to do his business.

Unbeknownst to my darling husband, however, was that fact that a police officer saw him meander behind the row of stores, and probably suspected that he was up to no good. As such, the police officer followed my husband. I seem to recall a Seinfeld episode touching on this very subject .... So, the cop sneaks up behind him, then let's out a loud and sharp, "What are you doing there?"

Long story short, Big Daddy received a citation and had to go to court, where the ticketing officer and the judge had a few laughs at his expense.

Did Big Daddy learn his lesson? Well, now he just pees in our back yard.