Tuesday, January 26, 2010

New Job!

(sort of)

I have been hired by a local school district to tutor two students who are homebound. At a nice hourly rate for (no more than) 2-4 hours a week, I am now rollin in it. Or, I will be, once I actually put in the hours. Oh, wait. Since I only get paid once a month, and won't actually get to put in any hours til next week, I will not see any money til mid-March. But still! CHRIST ON A CRACKER, it's SOMETHING!

Excuse my blasphemy. I am just really excited about someone responding to my desperate pleas for employment of any kind. As Carl put it, "My baby makin BANK! Now we ain't got nothin to worry about, no more!"

Interview highlight:
HR Guy: One of the students will be fine, but we are not sure how the family of the second student is going to respond to this whole situation. They might make it difficult to ever actually meet up, we're not sure.
Me: Yeah, sure. I can be that person for you. I'll be your Huckleberry.
Inside Voice: ....was that a Wyatt Earp reference? ...What? Why? WHAT?
HR Guy: Chuckle Chuckle har har!
Inside Voice: Mo, we are having a serious talk later. Idiot.

Friday, January 22, 2010

How to Stab Me in the Heart With a Dull Knife

Wendy: Let's play I'm the mommy, and you're the baby.
Mo: Ok. I'm the baby.
Wendy: I can't play with you right now, baby. I'm working on my computer. *gazes intently at pink princess computer*
Mo: ....ouch.
Wendy: *type type type stab stab type*
Mo: Well, that's ok. I'll just play over here quietly and let you work for a while.
Wendy: Babies don't talk. *twist*
Mo: Listen, little girl blue, with the man on the moon, babies do talk, all the time-
Wendy: BABIES DON'T TALK!

(Since babies don't talk, I gotta get this off my chest to someone: I can't even argue with her on this! Wait, yes I can. It's not even like I'm being a bad mother doing fun things on the computer. My bad mothering is in relation to doing taxes and futilely applying to jobs. If you're wondering whether that makes the dull stabby feeling better, I'll tell you right now-it doesn't.)

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Breaking a Promise of Taxes and Balls

for a moment of maternal coveting pining appreciation

Menfolk: unless you enjoy outpourings of baby-yearn and explicit ovary-talk, avert your eyes. Really, no one should read this. Everyone! Avert your eyes!

Yesterday, Wendy and I traveled over the river and through pines to visit my friend Kari in New Jersey. Kari is one of those creative, funny, lovely people who makes you happy that people exist at all, because she is just so awesome. She has these gorgeous green eyes and perpetually smells delicious. However, the purpose of this visit was not to sniff Kari's hair, but to ogle her delicious nugget of a newborn baby.


He is only about two weeks old, and still has that wrinkly, watery, womb look about him. The wise tadpole look. The Yoda look.

Here's the thing. The thing is this. After all of the anxiety and soul searching and hair-tearing that was Wendy's first two years, I did not think that I would want another one. This appears to be kind of like how I said I would never wear leggings. You see where I'm going, right? I'm going here:


He is so tiny...I forget every time that they can be this tiny.

There was another one at the New Year's party. She was heftier; three or four months worth of solid, cheeky baby. Flocks of women passing her around the kitchen and singing happy wordless songs; men straggling around the fringes, casting unheeded hairy eyeballs at their mates; ovaries bursting in a symphony of recognition.

Carl's no help. He has weathered a more few rounds of life's highs and lows than I have. He has a sixteen year-old and a three year-old. What can scare him now, really? He just watches this angst-filled argument between me and my eggs with patronizing amusement.


I only held him a little bit, because he looked so happy and peaceful draped over his daddy's forearm, or snuggled against his mommy...but I did sit close enough to smell his milky skin.... That baby smell. It's like a hypnotic drug.

And somewhere in the background, Wendy was fake-crying in a heap under the pillow fort she constructed, wailing "Iwannagohome! I. Wanna. Go. Home!" indicating the ease with which I might expect to introduce someone new onto my lap. I could mention our current financial situation and our uncertain future in our house...but I'm sick of mentioning it.

All of that logic stuff doesn't really matter, because that baby? That baby looked at me. He gazed right into my eyes with that hazy, alien look from beyond. That look that says, "do not ask for whom the bell tolls. Also, I have to fart."

Thank you Kari, for giving me a good dose of that baby stuff. He is beautiful. I'm doomed.

Thursday, January 07, 2010

A Post About a Teapot

Because this blog is so edgy. And badass.

When Carl and I promised not to buy each other Christmas presents, there was always the potential for cheating.

My mom and her guy also decided that they were too broke to get each other gifts this year. She then very clearly intimated to a friend that a very specific piece of jewelry must appear in her stocking. Or else. In her defense, she had not seen this piece of jewelry when she committed to the "no gifts" idea.

Anyway. Carl and I were deadly serious. And I really meant "deadly serious," not my mom's girl-style "like, sooo serious! P.S: this is a trick and a test, and you will pay for all eternity if you fail" kind of serious. (Given my tendency to either not tell him what I want at all, or give him vague, uninspired directives like "buy me a sweater," I think Carl was just deadly relieved.)

But...slight cheating did occur. I got "us" a firewood caddy for next to the stove, so that "we" don't have to go out on the porch early in the morning for wood to stoke up the fire. He found "us" an awesome green teapot, because "we" had been complaining that the old one was full of calcium buildup and had a leaking, rusty spout that splashed boiling water everywhere whenever "we" made tea.

We are just so sweet sometimes, I could yak.

Right now, I am off to the piles of unsorted 2009 receipts and bills. Look for my next post, entitled "TAXES ARE BALLS! MUSTY BALLS WITH LINT!"

Yay 2010! Go team!

Sunday, January 03, 2010

First Post of 2010

So Coherent, You'll Swear I'm Not Hopped Up on Cold Meds

It is January 3, 2010 and here in PA, our biscuits are bitterly cold. 7 degree wind chill, my friends.

If I was feeling Jane Eyre-ish, I would say that the wind is howling over the moors and buffeting our castle in a most disconcerting way. Instead, (in the land where tractors are sexy), I might best describe the wind as "a-hootin and a-rattlin hard enough to blow the tin roof off a chicken coop." Which it woulda done, had our coop much of a roof after the last time our heights got to a-wutherin. It did keep me up all night, thinking the house was breaking, and blow our recycling across the street and into the neighbor's treeline. (Balls!)

New Year's Eve was fun, you guys! Carl and I left Wendy with Erin and a tag-team of grandmas, and drove to a house party in Ocean City. Note: that is Ocean City, not Ocean, NJ, which, for you who only know the Jersey Shore from the show, happens to be two hours NORTH of Ocean City. Thank you, Garmin GPS of crapitude for robbing us of two hours of baby-free partay.

Really, we who have become reliant on technology to get us places, we are to blame. Carl and I have both been to Ocean City many times. We knew where we were going, we just allowed ourselves to be led astray. By a smooth-talking English accent in a box.

Anyway-the fun part. This is a great group of people. Low drama, a full bar (complete with a bitchin'-awesome bartender) and *excellent* food. We brought a pot of turkey alfredo stuff. I was a little daunted, bringing this to a party where people are known to bust out pepper-encrusted beef tenderloins and complicated gumbos and stuff. However, my pot of stuff was devoured in five minutes, because, duh. Drunk hungry people don't really care what they eat.

The house is right up the street from the boardwalk, so we had a great view of the fireworks. I stayed up til five in the morning. Someone (not me) peed on a car. Happy New Years fun for all!

And now, a moment of girl-talk:
Steph gave me black leggings for Christmas. I wore them to the party, along with sparkly boots borrowed from my aunt and an over sized white sweater. I had a very long conversation with a similarly attired girl there, regarding the perils of declaring loudly in front of witnesses that you will never ever help to bring the 80's back. Ever. My outfit also included big gold hoop earrings.
See what horrors you have wrought, Steph? DO YOU SEE?


No, you don't. What? Do you really think I'd take pictures of this thing I said I'd never do? I didn't vomit or kiss any married people or show anyone my boobs. But I did wear leggings. And Sweet Baby Jesus forgive me, I liked it.


Once we were both awake and properly caffeinated, Carl and I bundled up and took a walk on the beach. We held hands and watched the seagulls and picked up shells. We breathed the ocean air, and had a few moments of quiet gratitude, together.

Happy New Year, all. Let us be the change we want to see in 2010.