Did You Hear That?
Mood:  loud
Topic: Rants
It was the sound of the life being sucked right out of me. It’s not from having an active 3 yr old or having too much to do. It’s from spending a considerable amount of time with one of those people - you know the type - the lifesucker.

These people talk and talk and talk. You can’t get a word in edgewise. They ask a question of you, but then rarely let you answer. On the occasion that you are allowed to answer, they seem to listen, or at least hear, but then move on to another topic altogether and you’re left thinking, “what the f…?” Sometimes you try to jump in to add your views on the topic, but then wham, you’re cut short. They talk right over top of you. Sometimes you talk louder thinking they will shut the hell up and let you finish for cryin’ out loud. But it’s just not meant to be. You must suffer and you must do it in silence.

An added benefit is that they say the same things over and over. They forget that they already told you, so you have to hear the same story for days in a row. Sure, you’re polite the first few times, but when you get so you just don’t think you could hear it again, you venture to say “Oh yeah, you told me this before”. Does it help? Ha Ha Ha…no. You get the pleasure of hearing it again anyway because they’re already on their roll.

After days with a lifesucker, I want to scream “just kill me now – please!” cuz it’s too damn much work!

Another One For The Fat Girls
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: Cool
The first one was from Camryn Mannheim when she won the Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series (The Practice). The second comes from everyday life as told to me by a co-worker about a friend of hers.

A woman and her husband were out on a boat enjoying the beautiful weather, sunny skies, and waves. All of a sudden they see a boat heading toward them and it is weaving back and forth. The husband tried to move out of the way, but wasn’t quite quick enough. The weaving boat hit them and went up and over their boat. The husband had managed to push his wife down to the floor of their boat, but the propeller of the weaving boat caught her across the back. The good news, other than still being alive, was that the blade missed her internal organs and spinal cord by inches. It missed because she had a nice roll of fat in just the right place.

Now that's one instance where I’d be glad it's so hard to lose weight.

Liar, Liar
Mood:  suave
Topic: Lauren
Spying black and red marker on the yellow wallpaper (with Hello Kitty paraphernalia directly underneath it), I asked who had written on the wall. Tony replied, "uh-oh" and Lauren, who looked directly at me, said "I don’t know who did it". This was a first – a flat out lie from a little girl who has never told a lie in all of her three and a half short years and not only was it a flat out lie, but it was told while looking directly at me! But wait, it gets better…I asked her straight out if she did it, to which she replied “No”. I then proceeded to try to trick her up by asking if any of her aliases had done it. She said, “I didn’t do it”.

You may be thinking, “Wow, you’re in for it when she’s a teenager”, but I’m not approaching it from that view. No. At this moment, and granted I’m doing it in order not to panic at the thought of her teenage years, I’m choosing to look at the positive in the situation. At least she knows she and her aliases are one and the same person.

Right Between The Eyes
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: Cool
I saw a billboard on my return segment of the road trip last weekend. It had a large picture of Kermit the Frog and the following:

Eat Flies.
Date a Pig.
Star in Hollywood.

Live your dreams.
Pass it on!


I'm going to take that as a sign and get crackin' on a dream :-)

Road Trippin'
Mood:  happy
Topic: Lauren
The only real road trip I was ever on was back in my college days. You know the ones: drinking, joking, and long, interesting conversations. Ahhh...those were the days you say. (Pause here for nostalgic reflection)

Well, after this past weekend I can tell you that a road trip with a three year old can be just as fun and just as entertaining. Granted our drinks and snacks were of the diet coke, apple juice, and one muffin – “holey moley” sized – variety, but satisfying nonetheless. We had our music, Toddler Songs with a little Skynryd mixed in. And we had our interesting conversations, such as:

L: "I wish I wasn’t born."
Me: "Why? Then you wouldn’t be here."
L: "Yes I would. You could grow me in a garden. Grow me like a tree, like corn. At least dress me like corn – ha-ha-ha."

or

Moon Rats! Oh boy, let me tell you about moon rats. Moon rats are big ugly rats with no hands or toes. Or mouths or noses. Or eyes. These rats don't really do much other than just sort of lie there. You don’t have to worry about them being hurt though because there are pointy beaked birds that carry signs that say “Don’t step on the moon rats”


I can look back fondly on that one road trip in 1982, but you know what? That one time was enough for me. This new version of a road trip though, this I could get used to. And, besides being with my awesome daughter, one of the best things about it is no black out, no hangover, and no one telling me I had people turning their house upside down looking for aspirin ;-)

I Knew This Would Happen
Mood:  smelly
Topic: Rants
I knew it - they should have consulted me before they went ahead and set up the toll lane. I've already had one rant, which admittedly was pretty much my own doing, but this time it's all on them.

The new toll lane went into effect Monday and there are already problems. The DOT maintains the purpose of the toll lane is "… not to increase congestion or maximize revenue…” Hmmm, guess where the problems lie.

Congestion

Last week, as they painted the new lane division lines along the toll lane - two solid white lines - to separate it from the general lanes, I knew right off the bat that there was going to be a problem. Every so often the lines went from the double white lines down to a dashed white line to indicate where the toll lane users were supposed to enter and exit the toll lane. It meant the toll lane users would have to “sit” in the general lane until they reached the entry/exit points. The idea behind these sections was to allow for a safer transition to the toll lane. Users wouldn’t be cutting across two lanes of traffic to get in the toll lane right away. Instead, they would take their time and gradually get into position to enter the toll lane. Like that was going to happen. They were still going to cut over. Even though they couldn’t get into the lane right away, they could, and believe me would, feel the need to, “get into position” right away. On top of that, I measured and while it’s generally a half mile, at one point the distance from one entry/exit point to the next is 1 mile! And there are two highway entrance ramps within that mile!! Combine that with the users being forced to “take their time” and to me it spelled disaster. And I was right.


Revenue

They said tolls would range from $1 to $4 during rush hour. While they did fall in that range, I was astounded to learn that from the beginning of the afternoon rush hour at 3:30pm up until 5:40pm (nearly the 6pm end) the toll was $.50. At 5:45pm when I drove past the sign that listed the fee, it was $4. While that seems fine on first take, the lanes are working properly with the fee going up as the lane becomes more heavily traveled thus causing the money conscious solo-drivers to not use the lane and keep traffic flowing at 50-55 mph, look again. If leaving the fee low for so long and only upping it at the end of rush hour is not enticing users to sign up I don’t know what is. Who, other than misers, wouldn’t pay $.50 to get home in half the time? Officials reported a rush to sign up for accounts Tuesday. No surprise. Accounts must be opened with a $40 balance and the transponder is $1.50 a month...

Congestion AND revenue

It used to be that solo drivers could use the commuter lane outside of rush hour and it was a big help let me tell you. When 6pm came there would be a flux of solo drivers moving over to take advantage of that third lane. It really got things moving again. Now, with the toll always in effect, solo-drivers without a pass cannot use the lane – ever! This has bogged up the general lanes and added up to an additional 15 minutes to some commutes. So sorry, they can’t move over to the third lane, but gee, maybe they should sign up for the pass so they could get in that toll lane – then they wouldn’t have to wait so long. Then DOT could up the fee because there are more people in the toll lane.

The director of the project said "...I don't think what we see this week has anything to do with how it will operate." Yeah, right.

Okayyy
Mood:  not sure
Topic: Lauren
NOTE: We use the correct anatomical terminology around our house, but hell, if I received comments based on the word "snuckems", I can only imagine what would happen if I use the correct and complete word in this post. So, in the interest of avoiding any disgusting comments that probably would be made if I use the correct and complete word, I'll be using the first letter only. )

Apparently there have been conversations going on that I didn't know about because Lauren knows the difference between a boy and a girl. I found this out on a trip into a port-a-potty at the Race for the Cure. It was very crowded in there what with the both of us, our coats, and our bag of goodies, and we were having a difficult time moving around without banging into things. At one point, after loading Lauren up with everything she could hang on to, I told her not to touch the urinal. She asked what it was for so I told her that was where boys peed. She then asked how they reach their p up there. I casually mentioned that boys stand up to pee, but inside I was thinking "I didn't know she knew that word!" I knew she knew v because it comes up a lot when potty training, but p? That was news to me. Then the other night, after she walked in on DH in the bathroom, I overheard her say, "you have a hole in your p for the pee to come out". Of course, that prompted my grilling her on the difference between a boy and a girl to make sure she truly understood. Yup - she does.

Let's Make A Deal
Mood:  sharp
Topic: Lauren
Lauren will make a great negotiator some day. She drives a hard bargain, that girl. Every day Lauren is working to hone this skill. She works at it in just about everything she does. Play, sleep, dress...you name it, she negotiates for it.

Her favorite time to put it to good use is during dinner. Once in a while we're successful in having her try something she doesn't want to eat, such as the time we wanted her to try a bite of onion. After much persuasion, she actually tried it; then promptly declared, "Just as I suspected - I don't like it." Ah well, she tried it anyway. The other night though her actions started me thinking that if we ever sell our house, she is definitely the one who will do the negotiating. She wanted dessert even though she had barely touched her delicious stir-fry dinner. We told her she needed to eat a bite of red pepper first.
She offered up "1 bite of tomato".
We countered with 1 tomato and 1 red pepper.
Her counter: 3 tomatoes.
Our counter: 2 tomatoes and a pepper and she could pick as to red, yellow, or orange.
Her counter: 3 tomatoes.
Our counter (just to test her resolve): 3 peppers - 1 red, 1 yellow, 1 orange.
She stuck to her guns: 3 tomatoes.

It went for 3 tomatoes.

But shhhhhhh, tricky parents that we are, we snuck in a red pepper ;-)

Second Time Around
Mood:  d'oh
Topic: Blogs
I don't know how many people frequent my little ol' blog here, but if they do and they do so with any regularity and attention to detail, they may have noticed that almost all of my posts have an updated line below the post date line. It certainly looks like I just can't get it right the first time, doesn't it?. Well, in case you're curious (and even if you're not), no, I don't really update them that often. What happens is this. I start an entry and then, due to time constraints, have to save it as a draft to finish up later. When I post the draft to the blog, it posts as the day I started the draft, not the current day. This makes the posts out of order and order is crucial to a computer programmer. To be fair to Tripod, it is possible to change the date of the draft to post, but duh, I keep forgetting to do so. Then I have to go back in and change the post date so that the newest post shows up as the newest post. You'd think I'd learn.

Now I know you wouldn't want to miss even one exciting installment I have to offer, so I have worked diligently on this problem and am happy to report that I think I've got that part down.

Oh sure. No problem. You're very welcome. ;-)

Mother's Day
Mood:  happy
Topic: Cool
This year, as every year since I started participating in 1998, the Race for the Cure was held on Mother's Day. The first time I took part was six months after my mother's cancer had returned and I ran in the 5K. There was a point in the route where you turned a corner and could see about a half mile ahead to almost the end. It was filled with people and I mean filled! It was a sea of white shirts, pink shirts, and pink caps and it was awesome. I had tears in my eyes for the rest of the run. In fact, there was one point when I really had to pull it together or I wasn't going to be able to keep running. Every year since then I have participated and for the last 3 years Lauren has participated with me.

This year the race was moved to a mall with more space which is much further from our house and made it much more difficult to get there by 9am. So instead of being there on Sunday, Lauren and I went to the Kids Fun Run for the Cure on Saturday. Lauren was so excited to be running in the race and she did a great job being around so many people. As we stood at the starting line, I had my moment of teary eyes. When I had inconspicuously removed the tears from my eyes, I looked down into Lauren's face and noticed the look she gets when she is about to cry. I’m not sure why she was feeling that way and I didn’t stop to ask. If I had she would have started crying and then we wouldn’t have been able to run. Besides, I don’t think she would have known or been able to articulate the reason anyway. So we got back into warming up to “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes”, ran the short race, and Lauren collected her medal. Then we spent the afternoon together in the Mall of America. Grandmother (I’m sure she was with us in spirit), Mother, and Daughter.

A note about the tears: they are not necessarily because I miss my mom. I do miss her and am saddened that she is not here with us, but the tears are really from so many people gathering together in one place to honor those they’ve lost, to celebrate those who are still with them, and to work toward a cure for breast cancer. It’s getting closer every day.

To the many people who offer their time and money to support the fight against and the search for a cure for breast cancer – the event coordinators, the sponsors, and the participants - Thank you!