Fun Monday

Janis is the hostess this week. Here’s the scoop: What kind of TV viewer are you? Do you like sitcoms or do you prefer drama. Are soap operas your cup of tea or murder mysteries. Game, variety and reality shows are big this year too. These are just a few examples. Share with us your favorite shows and why you like it or them so much.

House, Bones, Private Practice, Numbers, Ghost Whisperer, Medium, the Jay Leno Show along with Lie to Me and the Mentalist. We also enjoyed ‘Mental’ this summer, but it may not come back on, I guess. Basically medical, scientific, mathematic/law, and a touchy spooky, along with a little comedy.

Now run along to Janis’s and play along!

A little housekeeping, I posted a very short similar item to my last post over at facebook and it exploded in my face. Apparently I’m more stupid on there than I am over here, I guess, or maybe it was easier to misunderstand in such a short form. Plus I didnt’ get back to it for a while and someone took me not seeing someone’s post to mean that I agreed with them. One of my old college frienemies suggested I knock on the ceiling with a broom. Um, no! I would never do that. Now every one of my 200+ friends got an update about how someone would call 911 on me because I was beating on the ceiling with a broom and knocking angrily. I did NEITHER. Unfortunately, it was all taken out of context (the person actually ASKED if I did that– but you know people who read it will jump to the wrong conclusion about me after reading it–you can’t unring a bell, right?) and I didn’t see it until about 24 hours had passed, but hopefully it went by in a blip and I won’t be defriended in hordes! Those of you that have been reading pretty regularly know the personal hell we have been through in the last couple of years. You know all those stress points that make people go bonkers? Death of a loved one, a move, a baby being born (just being pregnant), changing jobs, changing of income. Yup, we’ve done them all (some of them more than once within a month) and it’s been totally crazy. All my friends are gone or ‘online’. Just because I blow off a little steam doesn’t mean I’m psycho, folks. It also doesn’t mean I can’t be in the other person’s shoes. I’m just SICK AND TIRED of having to write ‘I know it must be hard to have a 2 year old’ or the like in front of everything! Why should I have to. You all KNOW me. You know that I know it’s hard to have a 2 year old. I never said it wasn’t. I’m just sick of having to say it so I don’t get inflammatory comments.

This morning I wrote a very polite note telling them we had a baby downstairs (even though I already know they know) and asked them to please try and be quiet after 8 pm, explaining that my husband gets up at 4:30 AM and that we go to bed early. So far, it’s not working but Keeley got to sleep, which is important.

Unfortunately, it’s just as important for us, as her parents and caregivers, to also get some sleep. The folks upstairs were STILL moving furniture at 2 this morning.

We’ve turned the radio up fairly loud and so far Keeley hasn’t been bugged by the noise tonight. We had to get her up, because she wouldn’t nap (too loud), and I was afraid of retribution from the folks upstairs. It’s now ALMOST 9 and it’s finally starting to quiet down up there. Thank god. I feel SO sorry for that poor kid. She must be exhausted staying up that late. I’m not going to qualify that with ‘maybe she slept in’. We all know it. We’re not morons, let’s move on, mmk?

Cross your fingers that they quit moving furniture pretty soon, alright? I got maybe 3 hours of sleep last night, and that was after traveling all day yesterday and then we traveled all day today.

p.s. We think we saw the dad and kid at the ice cream shop and my husband thinks the guy is MAYBE 20. Also I think the kid is older than 2. She was able to follow directions, speak in clear sentences, and walk without ‘toddling’ so to speak. Again, I refuse to qualify with maybe we’re wrong about their age , etc. etc. It’s not a judgment on them, just an observation.

I would like to know what I ever did for karma or God or whoever, to bite me in the ass so hard. Our landlady? Who swore up and down that SHE was moving in upstairs, because she would be quiet and not disturb OUR baby after her spawn and grandkids moved out? Swore that she would not rent to anyone but a couple of a single person again? Oh yeah, she is moving a couple in upstairs all right. With a f***kin 2 year old.

We put our baby to bed and next thing we hear is THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP all the way across the apartment, one end and then THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP back. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. So I go up on and knock on their door and the chicken shits won’t even answer the door.

The girl can’t even be 19, I swear. Matt says she might be early twenties. I respect that everyone has the right to live somewhere, but why on God’s green earth would that lady SWEAR she wasn’t renting to anyone with kids again because it’s too loud, and then wham put a kid right over the top of us? A little kid who can’t (won’t) always follow directions and not run in the apartment.

What did I ever do? Seeing as she is doing this, there is no doubt in my mind that she will kick us out come November 1st and we will be homeless, because who is going to rent to someone for 6 weeks, right? And what do we do with our stuff for that amount of time?

What did I ever do to deserve this? In case anyone that’s reading this doesn’t know, the 7 and 10 year olds that lived upstairs ran back and forth and woke up the baby repeatedly. The dad was basically deaf and turned up his tv as loud as possible (right over our bedroom at 10 pm when we’d been in bed for over an hour), and the skanky brother showed up at 4 am drunk, screaming that he owned the place and could yell as loud as he wanted to and woke us all up. I actually called the landlady about that one, and she assured me that she took care of it, then again, seems like she’s hated us ever since. Sorry your son was an ass once and we complained ONCE about it. I think anyone would complain in that situation, not just me.

I repeat, what did I ever do to deserve this? My only sanity saver would be if the kid is in daycare. Then we only have to deal with a couple of hours of THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP from one end of the apartment to the other.

Like most of the bloggers with kids around my age, we’re starting to think about parties. Birthday, what to do about Halloween, good gracious, it will be a real big Thanksgiving for all of us, and Christmas, oh my! Followed of course by New Year’s bashes, football’s big game and then the season kind of winds down until it’s grilling season again ( I don’t like basketball, so I skip over March madness personally). We look forward to a new house for at least a few of these and we’ve tried to make room in our small place to host some parties if anyone is willing to show up. Since we have a smaller house, though, we have to throw smaller parties.

What I’m wondering about is if we should in the future do a combo party for Keeley, any suggestions for combo of birthday and Halloween party ideas ? I think as tiny kids, it might not go over too well, but once she’s bigger, she might enjoy getting to wear her costume more than once, and parents might be glad to get some extra use out of their costumes as well. Since those items will be on special during that time of year as well, we could use an orange/purple theme and carefully select some items to use from year to year that double as home decorations. Of course there’s always spooky music (we have Monster Mash on our ipods already!) and of course why not have candy as the party favor or shape a cake like candy for the theme? Older kids that can’t trick or treat anymore, well, their parents might appreciate if their kids had somewhere to go to stay out of trouble for the night. Seems like a lot of times it was either raining or blazing hot when we were trick or treating, never just a clear, cool night, either! I think it even snowed once!

So what do you think? Combo party or not? On Halloween or not? Does it depend on the age, or is it just WAY overstepping the bounds of Halloweenism?

Let’s see how ‘random stories’ goes over. You know, that thing, which is hilarious, disgusting, or weird that you just never told anyone at the time? Those random things that just slip your mind? Tell me what you think about Random Stories, if you’d like to hear more, etc.

For instance, in my creative writing class that I took in college, almost all of the kids were younger than me, but OH so much more, ahem, active than me. So they wrote a lot of their stories with characters getting it on in the bottom of empty swimming pools in public and then casually leaving for whatever adventure they were going on next. I was a little unnerved. One guy seemed better than the rest, his stories might have been a little darker, but not as freaky as some of the others. Cheery round face, kind of would remind you of a better looking pig. One day he didn’t show up for class. We all wondered what had happened. By the next meeting, we all knew. He’d gotten busted for having kiddie porn on the computer in his campus room. The silence in the room was deafening. We all had gotten as close as you can reading each other’s deepest stuff inside a classroom a couple of times a week. You could almost feel the shockwave. Then like that, it was over and no one ever mentioned him again.

One of these days we’ll be thinking about getting rid of the crib. By that I mean putting it in storage and buying possibly one or more wooden beds . So what will make nap time easier? Would it be a race car bed? I wonder if that will inspire race filled dreams or perhaps long nights of flashlight ’spotlight’ under the covers racing and not sleeping? I wonder. Then I wonder if perhaps since we have a little girl if we should go with something girlish and floral, whimsical and pretty. I do like that idea a lot, then again, maybe we should start with a toddler bed instead? Perhaps we should try and get a bed that can go through more than one child or be converted into a guest bed? Bunk beds, perhaps? Maybe we should go with a trundle bed. I like the one here. It reminds me of a sleigh bed, but of course has the trundle underneath, for friends and visitors from sleepovers to sickbed, should that be necessary. No matter what we choose, of course we have to consider that our little girl will grow up and be a teenager one day, so we need something that will grow with her. I guess we have some time to think. The crib will be with her for a while yet. I hope!

Faye is our hostess for Fun Monday.  She wants to know: Do you also have that “Back to School” feeling even though you’re all grown up? As your host for this week’s Fun Monday, and perennial student myself, I’m asking you to share your thoughts on the importance of lifelong learning.

Back to school! Back to school! This time of year has to be one of my favorites. Not necessarily for the weather, although I do tend to like it when I step outside and shiver in short sleeves, that has yet to happen, although I’m sure it will be soon. I always loved back to school time, because it meant new crayons, pens and pencils, and new adventures. At school I had access to more books, could talk to friends, and learn new things.

Even when I went to college and subsequently thereafter, I have purchased new crayons. In college, during finals week I would get out crayons and coloring books and sit in the hallway in my residence hall (dorm) and start to color. Those emerging from their own studying to use the bathroom or get some quality computer time in (e-mail), would cock their heads sideways, grin and ask if they could play. Needless to say our RA found us all outside her doorway, scribbling away on heavily cartooned pictures of puppies, kittens and so forth from the ‘$1 coloring book’. After college I bought crayons for nieces or nephews and sneak an extra one in for myself, and when I got to having unused packs in my desk drawer, I stopped. This year I got to buy some more for a nephew whose mother is going back to school and needed some help, and I found an unused pack in my desk drawer, adorned it with stickers and put it in the bag for his little sister, who is about 4.

The point of this Fun Monday is to see what we would like to learn. From high school, I didn’t keep many friends, and although I have caught back up with a few over the internet, we aren’t close. After college, I was determined to keep in touch and avoid those ’situational’ friendships that had petered out after HS. 5 of us from college still email (and I have another friend who isn’t part of the group but I get to e-mail regularly nonetheless) and I’ve sent out the blog address, although I think one reads regularly and the rest either never looked or didn’t care to keep up, which is fine. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea to listen to me rant and offer advice. The point of all this? How do I learn to make new friends I might actually see from time to time, get to have a coffee with, and giggle over? I don’t expect anything fabulous. As adults, we’re all busy with our lives and it’s hard to know how to get to know someone. So how do you do it? Or if you were me? We are still fairly new in town and I’ve been friendly to all the clerks and such I’ve come in contact with, but other than shopping, I don’t do a whole lot. All the other ‘walkers’ I’ve come across have headphones in, even walking with a baby in stroller, so they’re totally tuned out to the outside world. We also haven’t settled on a church yet, the one we have gone to does have quite a few young couples, but with our baby needing a nap right after services, we don’t get time to just ’say hello’ to anyone before bundling her off to be nursed and put down. So how can I make new friends? That’s what I would like to learn this year.

I do know a few people who need extreme makeovers in learning, particularly one of the contractors we considered hiring and the doctor I went to in order to get a referral for the pain in my belly that I’ve been having for a few months. They need refresher courses in their fields. Please feel free to scroll down and check out what I mean, and why I want to invest in duck suits!

After the doctor fiasco… Ami suggested that I get a duck suit if I have to go in and see him again and if he asks what’s up with the duck suit just quack at him…

We need one for the second contractor. 2 weeks ago he said he’d give us a quote in a week (catch that?) so he was a week late at it anyway, he suggested to my husband that he’d built a ‘faux’ cape cod before and Matthew could see it and of course my husband said, ‘no, we want the cape cod, price the cape cod’ — so what’s he do? Of course he prices the faux cape cod, which is really a 3 BR ranch, not a 4 BR cape cod. Hello? Quack, quack, quack.

Let’s just say the doctor’s visit was less than desired. I did get a referral to a surgeon, so I didn’t have to go through any tests yet (although at this point, a test would be fine, do it and get it over with, really, because the surgeon will order it anyway and this just slows everything down for another month, but oh well, it’s just my body, no big deal)…crap.

And crap seemed to be the theme of the day. As a way of introduction he told me he may have to excuse himself because he was getting a colonoscopy and basically he may have to go poop, I can’t remember the exact words, it was nicer than that, but still. Then he asks me about prior surgeries, and I had written down C Section and appendectomy and the dates. He repeated this out loud and I confirmed. Then he asked me if I had any kids (knock knock knock, are we in the same room?) so I said, yes, I do. And he then proceeds to ask me how that went. Uh? Well was it a normal delivery? Blank stare, followed by, well I guess as normal as it could be….and he proceeds to say, so you had a normal v-delivery then? At this point, I am SERIOUSLY starting to worry about this guy. Calmly, I said, no I had a C-Section. Frown wrinkles my face. He says, oh well, that’s you know sort of a surgery and he writes it down right below C Section and appendectomy on my paperwork. Seriously? Really? I didn’t even bother to correct him. He poked at my belly and couldn’t find anything. Damn you Betty Lou (BL is the name my husband gave to the odd protrusion) …anyway, I was able to explain my symptoms, since he didn’t ask me any relevant questions to focus on how it was bothering me…and he decided it was enough for a consult..he wanted to wait a week to make sure the insurance would cover it. Dude, seriously. Anyway, then the guy wasn’t there in another week so it will have to be 2. I go back the first week in September. I pray I never have to see this doctor again. I will be calling them to get me to a regular doctor and make sure they don’t try and stick me with this guy for my general welfare checkups. Not happening. No way.

Who goes to work the day they are getting ‘cleansed’ for a colonoscopy anyway? Let alone a doctor. Who should know better.