One fish, two fish....Um, where's the third fish?

By 7:30 tonight, everyone in this house was sound asleep, except for me, of course. Even if I was exhausted, I doubt I'd go to sleep that early and miss my quiet time. This is my favorite time of day. In a way, though, I miss my little boy when he's sleeping. I just went into his room to check on him. What a sweet little boy he is. I'm such a lucky mommy.

Too bad I accidentally killed one of his fish today! :( Yep, I was cleaning out the tank, and I think I injured one of them while trying to catch him to put him in the fresh water. An hour later, he didn't look so good, and now he's upside down in the plant, looking rather---well, dead.

And I thought Captain Chaos was a danger to those fish. It's me they need to look out for!

Maybe he won't notice that one is missing!

Heads up, fishies!

Captain Chaos has a little one gallon fish aquarium with three small fish. This afternoon while I was putting on makeup, he came running into the bathroom to tell me, "Mommy, my fishies want to get out of their fish tank."

A few minutes later, he brought me a toy puppy (small enough to fit in his palm) and asked, "Mommy, can my puppy swim?"

I smelled a disaster brewing, so I went to check out the situation.

So far, he only had the top partially off of the tank.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Here he is a few days ago, trying on my glasses. The funniest thing is that he was totally nude when I took this. He got out of the bathtub, headed straight for my bedroom, and put on my reading glasses. Then he posed for this picture.

Just a little break

Since I usually post something at least every other day, I wanted to let you all know (since I do have a few regular readers) that I am having a bad week and might not be here for a few days. But don't give up on me. I will be back. I just need to recover from a big disappointment in my life.

Standoff

From now on, I am going to keep my camera in the truck with me at all times. This would have made a great blog post, if only I had pictures. It will be kind of boring without them.

While I was waiting in line at the bank drive-thru yesterday, I was entertained by nature. A lady in the lane next to me was watching it, too.

A bird that looked like this:

Was trying to catch a snake that looked like this:

Every time the bird would grab the snake in his beak, the snake would wrap around the bird's neck. The bird would then let go of the snake, and the snake would unwrap himself and slither away.

But the bird kept going back to get him. Every time he would catch the snake, it would wrap around his neck again. He'd release the snake again, and the snake would try to get away. But the bird would go after him again.

This happened 5 or 6 times.

Do birds eat snakes, or was he just playing with him? I have no idea. But this bird just would not give up.

When I had finished at the bank, I pulled over to watch for a few minutes. I just had to know what was going to happen.

The last time the snake was released from the bird's beak, he didn't try to escape. Instead, he wrapped the head end of his body around one part of the bird's neck, and his tail end around another part. Then he squeezed those two parts together, bending the neck of the bird. It didn't look like the snake was capable of squeezing hard enough to kill the bird, but the bird couldn't really go anywhere with his new snake necklace.

The bird just sat down on the grass, looking around. I guess he was waiting for the snake to give up.

At which point I am sure he would have gone after him again.

Stupid bird.

Stupid chick in an SUV

I don't usually speed. Not excessively, anyway. Being clocked at 61 in a 35 zone sounds bad, doesn't it? Who would drive so recklessly? Not I. That cop must have forgotten to calibrate his radar gun. ;)

But seriously, I was approaching the parkway off-ramp. I wasn't there yet. The speed limit on the parkway is 65, or close to it.

So, as the officer approached my vehicle, I was deciding how I should handle this. Being a cop-hating smartass did cross my mind. But I didn't figure that was likely to work. So, what to do? What's the best way to get out of a traffic ticket?

Option 1: Cry.

I have done this before. And I wasn't even trying to get out of the ticket. I was genuinely upset, although I can't believe it actually drove me to tears. I must have been having a really bad day. Anyway, it didn't work.

Option 2: Professional courtesy.

This isn't really an option anymore, since I don't work in nursing now. I've been pulled over a couple of times on the way home from work. I've never been given a ticket while wearing scrubs. Cops don't ticket nurses. Yes, I have had more than one police officer tell me this.

Option 3: Boobie flash.

Not gonna happen.

Option 4: Dumb blonde act!!

I hadn't ever tried it, but I thought it just might work.

I pulled the registration out of the glove box.

"Is this the registration?" I say this in a really disgustingly polite, I'm-so-dumb voice. The thing plainly says "vehicle registration". I knew exactly what it was.

Then I found my insurance card.

"Is this the right one? I'm not sure if it's the current one. I don't know how to tell." Same silly-me voice. The cop actually took the time to look over my card, find the date, and explain to me that when it says "November 1, 2007, not valid for more than one year", that means that it's good until November of 2008.

"Oh, thank you, Officer. I guess that makes sense." ;)

He told me how fast I was going, and what the speed limit was. I acted shocked and very, very ashamed of myself. "Really? Oh my gosh! Did they change it?" Yes, they lowered the speed limit. A YEAR AGO!

"Oh, I really should pay more attention to the signs." Hanging my head in disgrace.

Since he was already convinced I was clueless, he explained what the barriers on the off-ramp were for, and showed me how to tell that they had been hit in the past.

I just kept pretending to be dazzled by his brilliance.

He headed back to his car, and I was pretty sure I had wasted all of that effort and was about to be issued a ticket with a hefty fine. But when he returned, he informed me that he was only going to give me a warning. He said that the ticket would have been $211.

Of course I thanked him (and I really did mean it). He was an extremely nice police officer.

I had to take some Advil as soon as I got home. Playing dumb gives me a headache.

My new alarm clock

As far as sleeping habits, I've been lucky with Captain Chaos. He has slept through every night since he was 8 weeks old. I do mean EVERY night. However, he will occasionally wake up a little earlier than his usual 7 or 8 am. Today was one of those days.

Some people sleep all night with their kid in bed with them. We have never done that, and because of that, Chaos doesn't see Mommy's bed (actually, he refers to it as "Daddy's bed") as a place for sleeping. It's a place for hanging out and acting silly. So at 5:45 this morning when he asked me to put him in our bed, I knew my sleep was over. Not that I would have slept much longer anyway, but the peace and quiet of the morning was over, as well.

Oh, he'll pretend he's going to sleep. He'll lie down, and sometimes even close his eyes. For a few seconds. But I don't get too comfortable because that never lasts long.

"Hey." (Whispering)
But I don't say anything.
.
.
.
.
"Mommy."
I still say nothing.
.
.
.
.
.
"There's a hair on my face." (Anything to get my attention.)
But I still pretend to be asleep.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Finally, a loud, "BOO!"

Time to get up.

Mudslide

This is a post about poop. If you have a weak stomach at the mere mention of poop, stop reading now.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

Relax. There are no pictures. I'm not that uncouth.

We went to dinner tonight at a local restaurant. (I bet you didn't expect me to mention dinner and poop in the same post, did you?)

As soon as we finished eating, Captain Chaos got really quiet, then said, "I'm going poopie."

So I took him to the bathroom. A tiny, filthy bathroom with no changing table.

Ok, no big deal. I can change him standing up. As long as I'm careful, it shouldn't be too messy.

Unless it's a diaper full of extremely runny poop.

So, it ended up all over him.

All over me.

All over the floor and the garbage can.

Some poor woman walked in during the poop storm and actually offered to help me. I know, I couldn't believe it, either.

As we walked out, everyone was staring at the disheveled mom holding a half-naked kid and an armful of clothes.

So we came home and took baths. Again.

Yes, that's the end. No, I don't really have a point. Just thought I'd share one of the joys of being a mom. :)

(Sorry about the post title. It seemed appropriate.)

Angry White Man

If I keep finding articles this good on the net, I may never have to write another blog post again! I'll just link to other sites where people have said it better than I ever could.

This one is too good to just link to, however. I'm going to copy and paste the entire article.

And from now on, just call me the Angry White Woman.

In election 2008, don’t forget Angry White Man
Gary Hubbell
February 9, 2008

There is a great amount of interest in this year’s presidential elections, as everybody seems to recognize that our next president has to be a lot better than George Bush. The Democrats are riding high with two groundbreaking candidates — a woman and an African-American — while the conservative Republicans are in a quandary about their party’s nod to a quasi-liberal maverick, John McCain.

Each candidate is carefully pandering to a smorgasbord of special-interest groups, ranging from gay, lesbian and transgender people to children of illegal immigrants to working mothers to evangelical Christians.

There is one group no one has recognized, and it is the group that will decide the election: the Angry White Man. The Angry White Man comes from all economic backgrounds, from dirt-poor to filthy rich. He represents all geographic areas in America, from urban sophisticate to rural redneck, deep South to mountain West, left Coast to Eastern Seaboard.

His common traits are that he isn’t looking for anything from anyone — just the promise to be able to make his own way on a level playing field. In many cases, he is an independent businessman and employs several people. He pays more than his share of taxes and works hard.

The victimhood syndrome buzzwords — “disenfranchised,” “marginalized” and “voiceless” — don’t resonate with him. “Press ‘one’ for English” is a curse-word to him. He’s used to picking up the tab, whether it’s the company Christmas party, three sets of braces, three college educations or a beautiful wedding.

He believes the Constitution is to be interpreted literally, not as a “living document” open to the whims and vagaries of a panel of judges who have never worked an honest day in their lives.

The Angry White Man owns firearms, and he’s willing to pick up a gun to defend his home and his country. He is willing to lay down his life to defend the freedom and safety of others, and the thought of killing someone who needs killing really doesn’t bother him.

The Angry White Man is not a metrosexual, a homosexual or a victim. Nobody like him drowned in Hurricane Katrina — he got his people together and got the hell out, then went back in to rescue those too helpless and stupid to help themselves, often as a police officer, a National Guard soldier or a volunteer firefighter.

His last name and religion don’t matter. His background might be Italian, English, Polish, German, Slavic, Irish, or Russian, and he might have Cherokee, Mexican, or Puerto Rican mixed in, but he considers himself a white American.

He’s a man’s man, the kind of guy who likes to play poker, watch football, hunt white-tailed deer, call turkeys, play golf, spend a few bucks at a strip club once in a blue moon, change his own oil and build things. He coaches baseball, soccer and football teams and doesn’t ask for a penny. He’s the kind of guy who can put an addition on his house with a couple of friends, drill an oil well, weld a new bumper for his truck, design a factory and publish books. He can fill a train with 100,000 tons of coal and get it to the power plant on time so that you keep the lights on and never know what it took to flip that light switch.

Women either love him or hate him, but they know he’s a man, not a dishrag. If they’re looking for someone to walk all over, they’ve got the wrong guy. He stands up straight, opens doors for women and says “Yes, sir” and “No, ma’am.”

He might be a Republican and he might be a Democrat; he might be a Libertarian or a Green. He knows that his wife is more emotional than rational, and he guides the family in a rational manner.

He’s not a racist, but he is annoyed and disappointed when people of certain backgrounds exhibit behavior that typifies the worst stereotypes of their race. He’s willing to give everybody a fair chance if they work hard, play by the rules and learn English.

Most important, the Angry White Man is pissed off. When his job site becomes flooded with illegal workers who don’t pay taxes and his wages drop like a stone, he gets righteously angry. When his job gets shipped overseas, and he has to speak to some incomprehensible idiot in India for tech support, he simmers. When Al Sharpton comes on TV, leading some rally for reparations for slavery or some such nonsense, he bites his tongue and he remembers. When a child gets charged with carrying a concealed weapon for mistakenly bringing a penknife to school, he takes note of who the local idiots are in education and law enforcement.

He also votes, and the Angry White Man loathes Hillary Clinton. Her voice reminds him of a shovel scraping a rock. He recoils at the mere sight of her on television. Her very image disgusts him, and he cannot fathom why anyone would want her as their leader. It’s not that she is a woman. It’s that she is who she is. It’s the liberal victim groups she panders to, the “poor me” attitude that she represents, her inability to give a straight answer to an honest question, his tax dollars that she wants to give to people who refuse to do anything for themselves.

There are many millions of Angry White Men. Four million Angry White Men are members of the National Rifle Association, and all of them will vote against Hillary Clinton, just as the great majority of them voted for George Bush.

He hopes that she will be the Democratic nominee for president in 2008, and he will make sure that she gets beaten like a drum.

B. Hussein Obama

I'm too busy to do much blogging right now. The deadline on the article I am working on now is in a few days. I'm backed up on work for our business. And my son is screaming in his bed right now, refusing to nap.

I just wanted to link to this article about Barack Hussein Obama.

Why would anyone vote for someone who promises to raise taxes as a solution to everything? Or for someone who believes in partial birth abortion, a belief that, in my opinion, makes you a monster?

Oh, that's right. He's a black man. And it would be so refreshing to have a black man in the White House. Yes, that's right. I actually know people who are voting for him for that very reason!

And I thought we were supposed to be "color blind".

Please re-subscribe!

I figured out that, although my email notifications are still being delivered, my feed stats are not working. I have already burned a new feed. Don't ask me what that means, because I really don't know. I just know how to do it.

So now everyone will have to re-subscribe.

I also figured out that I can actually see all of the email addresses that are subscribed to my blog. So now I can send you all an email to let you know. But I don't think that includes those who are viewing this blog in a "reader", so that's why I'm posting it here.

So, even if you are still getting the emails, please re-subscribe now! If you don't, your emails will stop in a few days when I delete the old feed.

And that would be a real disappointment, wouldn't it?

Well, wouldn't it?

Yes, of course it would.

And I promise that in the future, I will read the instructions before I try to make changes to my feed. :)

Oops

I think I just screwed up in a big way.

I changed my feed address. I'm sure that some of you (Eema) have no idea what I am talking about. To be perfectly honest, neither do I. I just know that I had "burned a feed" for this blog, which enabled me to see how many readers I had each day, and also enabled YOU to subscribe to this blog.

Remember when I changed the name of the blog? Well, this afternoon I realized that some of the people who had subscribed were still receiving an email with the old blog name in the header. I was trying to figure out how to fix that, so I went in and changed the "feed address". Silly me. I didn't read all of the instructions beforehand, but I think that changing that address deleted all of my subscriptions, requiring all former subscribers to re-subscribe!

Big oops.

I had something like 18 subscribers. Not knowing who most of them are, I have no way of notifying them. So, if it's true that my actions deleted my subscriptions, then the only way my readers will be back is if they miss my email notifications so horribly that they come back here to find out what went wrong.

Damn.

If you are a subscriber, and you happen to stumble in here, please let me know if you have stopped getting the emails! And please re-subscribe.

Yep. I'm back.

No, I have not forgotten about my blog. I've just been so busy since we got back from vacation. My obsessive-compulsive tendencies forced me to unpack and put away everything as soon as we walked in the door. And I've even done a couple of loads of laundry and some cleaning. I also had some friends in from out of town.

But I'm back now! Even if nobody else has been looking for a blog from me, I know my mom has! So here it is!

We went on a cruise out of Miami, to Key West and Cozumel. The first night, on the way to the Port of Miami, we stayed in Ft. Lauderdale. When making hotel reservations, it's a little hard to determine what kind of neighborhood the hotel is in. I checked it out as best I could. I read the few online reviews I could find. None of them mentioned anything about crack town. As it turned out, it was one of those neighborhoods that you probably shouldn't hang out in after dark.

That was Sunday night, and we had planned to watch the SuperBowl at a sports bar that was nearby. After eating the greasy food, we decided that we should probably head back to our room before the rival gangs showed up and the shootings started.

The cruise was nice, although not as relaxing as I would have liked. A two and 1/2 year old does not understand when his routine is disrupted. Captain Chaos wanted to go home pretty much the entire trip. "I don't want to go on a boat. I want to go in my truck." That made me feel bad for bringing him on a trip where he wasn't having any fun. I did have a nanny (Eema, his grandmother), who is the only person besides my husband that I would ever leave my kid with on a cruise ship. Of course, she would keep him anytime for free, but I paid her for the week she missed of work. She didn't want me to do that, but I thought that would keep me from feeling guilty for having her do so much for us. It didn't. I felt like I should be responsible for CC, since he's my son. So I spent every afternoon in the cabin, napping with him. And I helped him with his dinners and fought with him over throwing the silverware, and I bathed him almost every night. And when I did take a break, it was for a couple of hours in the morning, but the entire time I wondered what he was doing, if he needed something from me, if he was bored, and if I should go relieve my mom so she could relax some.

He did sleep in Eema's cabin every night except for the last one, but I felt guilty about that, too.

I went on a "Ghost Tour" in Key West. That was very interesting. I'm not even sure I believe in ghosts, but I learned a lot of the history of the city, mostly creepy stuff. I like creepy stuff.

In Cozumel, I was supposed to meet my adventurous husband after his dive trip. Due to a miscommunication (read: he didn't listen), I spent TWO HOURS waiting just outside the ship at the place where we were supposed to meet. He was waiting somewhere else. That ended with me in tears, afraid that something had gone wrong on the dive boat.

So, I did get some free time, but a lot of it was spent feeling guilty, or convinced that my husband had died in a diving accident.

Conclusions:
1. Don't stay at the La Quinta on State Road 7 in Ft. Lauderdale.
2. A cruise ship is NO FUN for a toddler. I should have left CC at home with his Eema, which is what she suggested all along. He would have been much happier in familiar surroundings with his regular schedule.
3. When arranging to meet a man at a specific location, draw a picture for him and/or make him repeat the instructions back to you.

This blog is on vacation!

Due to the fact that I have a sick kid who does not appear to be getting better yet, and we are going out of town from Feb 3-8, there won't be much, if any blogging going on here for about a week.

I'll post pictures from our vacation sometime next weekend.