I CAN Schedule Myself For Four Weeks!

Ha!  See?  I did it!

 I made it through the craziest 4 weeks with nary a missed appointment.  I even handled the rescheduling of piano lessons due to the untimely death of the teacher’s cat, Jellybean (may she rest in peace).

As I ambled into the driveway this afternoon after work, I had two very excited little girls waiting on the front steps to tell me the best news ever.  THEY BOTH MADE IT TO THE DISTRICT LEVEL WITH THEIR SCIENCE FAIR PROJECTS!  Smart little things, aren’t they?

The results of their scientific endeavors will shock and amaze you all.  They will be shared, with pictures, in an upcoming post.

As a family, we have our scientific and scheduling shit together, apparently. 

Yep.

I hate this day.  I hate the marketing.  I hate the celebration of fluffy nothingness.  I hate the fact that as the divorce rate climbs, the Valentines Day market expands.  It’s silly.  And unrealistic.

 And yet I have been on the verge of tears all morning.

 Marketing is a very powerful thing.

St. Valentine’s Day Massacre – Volume 5

Action Required!! 

Once again, it is time for my annual anti-love mixed CD.  Over the years I have notice the blackness of my heart is becoming more of a dark grey.   Former St. Valentine’s Day Massacre CD’s have been full of vitriolic, hateful songs.  This year is still solidly anti-love….but with a softer and more sardonic twist.  It is one of my best. 

 If you would like to be the proud owner of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre- Volume 5 CD,  let me know in the comments.  I will email you for your address – and send the you the best and most realistic Valentine ever.  This offer extends to all you wonderful international commenters, also!!

Not So Super After All

Tonight I had to make a semi-emergent dash to the grocery store for tampons.  We’ve all been there – either as the tampon-ee or the dedicated boyfriend of one, right? 

I am not one to be shy or embarrassed buying tampons, condoms or anything of that nature.  But tonight was different.

You see, there is this adorable guy that works the grocery store check out line.  For a long time I flirted outrageously with him.  He is tall and has longish curly hair.  I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for the throw back hippie type.  He’s not even that, really.  He’s just…oh, he’s adorable.  Then I found out he was married with children – one of which both my girls goes to school with.

Damn. 

I stopped flirting (overtly, anyway), but I continue to stare at him when he is not looking.  I don’t deny it.

There were only two checkout lanes open when I got to the store.  The 10 Items and Under lane was staffed by him, and the other no-limit lane was staffed by one of the women that I regularly see working there.  I skittered into the tampon aisle thinking, “I will get my tampons and go through the lady’s line when I see his queue up a bit…”  I had a perfect view of his line down the coffee aisle, which I perused and passed by for a few minutes, irritated at the speed he helped his customers.

No queue formed.

I headed to the bread aisle.  There I could view both lanes.  I assumed that with a well-timed saunter to the front of the store I could make it there simultaneously with another customer, graciously letting them go in the fast lane and taking the other lane for myself.  This fantastic plan was foiled by a sudden glut of 3 overflowing carts lining up at the woman’s lane.

I would have to wait 10 minutes at the least to have another chance.  There was no way….I had left the girls home with a “I’ll be back in 5 minutes.” 

I wandered, muttering to myself things like, “C’mon Shari, he obviously knows that women menstruate.  What’s the big deal?  He’ll just be assured of your fertility….that’s good, right?”  But it wasn’t good.  I wanted him to view me as a clean, non-menstruating 35 year-old female (a still fertile, non-menstruating 35 year-old female, that is).  I didn’t want his vision of me to be besmirched by the Kotex Supers lounging in the bottom of the basket.

So, I did what any sane woman would do.  I bought a pint of fat free half-and-half, a greeting card and a pack of gum to distract him.

Think it worked?

I’ve Been Forgiven – and We’ve Got Talent

The drama, for the most part, is over.  The law has been laid down and they seem to accept it.  They get to call their Dad every night, and for now that is enough.  For the first time in a few days we have seen giggling and happiness creep back into our house.

Maybe it had something to do with getting used to the rules.

Maybe it had something to do with my self-declared “Dance Inappropriately to the Song Day”.  Inappropriately here does not mean hip gyrations, etc.  It means jazz hands during Paul Potts’ version of “Nessun Dorma”, waltzing to “Song for the Dumped” by Ben Folds, it means a chorus line kick ensemble during “I’m Not Crying” by Flight of the Conchords.  If you have never tried to dance inappropriately to songs, you really should.  You will laugh hard.

Maybe it had something to do with Sophie declaring that she wanted to do the Talent Show this year.  According to her, she will either play the piano, or stare at the audience for an entire minute without blinking.

I vote for the latter. 

The Dear John Letter

Dear John,

 It must be so easy. 

 It must be so easy to waltz in early every Sunday and take one of your daughters (alternating, God forbid you spend time with both at once) to the grocery store.  So easy to buy your $100 worth of groceries and a DVD or video game and call that child support.  It must be easy to compare your fathering to that of your own and to come up smelling like roses.

It must be easy to buy your girls, your 8 and 10 year old girls, cell phones and send them home for me to deal with the repercussions.  It must be easy to throw your money toward them, like the Wii at Christmas, to buy their affection.  It must be easy to leave two hours later and say, “I spend time with my kids every weekend.”

It must be easy to see them excitedly showing you their skating ribbons and patches they earned this week at their last lesson of the season, and walk out 2 minutes later – conveniently forgetting to leave your half of the promised payment for the next session. 

It must be easy to ignore my reminders that I have taken over paying for their insurance through my company since December.  It must be easy to have that money in your  pocket and listen to me tell you over and over that I am now paying an additional $300 a month, with no help coming in from you.  It must be so easy for you to say, “I don’t have that kind of money,” when I ask you to pony up $70 a month to help me pay for my train ticket.

I’ll tell you what isn’t easy, you son-of-a-bitch.

 It isn’t easy to always be the one who pays all the bills and not have anything left.  It isn’t easy to be the one that says no – that takes the new cell phones and hides them in my desk.  It isn’t easy to say, “Another month, maybe, and we’ll go on a little trip somewhere….another month.” 

It isn’t easy to hold their hair back when they puke.  It isn’t easy to sit wide-eyed by them in the middle of the night hoping desperately for their fever to go down.  It isn’t easy to coordinate school, crossing guard duty, science club, piano lessons, skating lessons, birthday parties, nanny sickness, work and sleep overs.  It isn’t easy to fix them a hot dinner every night after work and sit by them doing homework that I barely understand.  It isn’t easy figuring out where we are going to find at least 10 people over the age of 60 to test for Maya’s Science Fair Experiment.

It isn’t easy unclogging the toilet, taking apart the garbage disposal to get the dime out, scooping Cheerios and other offal out of the shower, mowing the lawn, pruning the roses, cleaning the litter box, doing the dishes or mopping the kitchen floor for the fourth time in two days.

What is easy is this – knowing that I am doing everything in my power to offset anything that you are doing to instill greediness and evil into their lives.  It is easy to use you as an example of how not to treat people.  It is easy for me to hold my head up high, knowing that through all the crap and name calling and underhanded controlling behavior I have always reacted calmly.  I have never bad-mouthed you to your children – and that has not been easy. 

On your death bed, when your heart is wrapping its last quiver around your final breath, you will look back and wish that you had been a different man.

That will be hard.

Sincerely,

Shari