Raw Nerves

Dancin’!

 You know that Ren and Stimpy cartoon where they get hit by the RV and are twitching on the asphalt?  Yeah, I feel like that.  The problem is that I know that right now I am looking straight into the lights of yet another, larger RV, whose wheels are heading straight for my twitchy remains, and I am unable to move.

Oddly, it wasn’t the actual trip to Ohio that caused part of this condition, but the anticipation and expectation that things would go so badly.  The trip went fantastically well, and I mean that in the very essence of the word.  I have had fantasies of my children behaving so well, and they did!  Finn was occupied by the seat belt; enjoying figuring out how it worked.  Liam was occupied with his “cell phone,” and snack-foods that come in bags just the right size for miniature humans.  On the second-leg of our journey, both boys wanted out of the strolly, so I put on their “backpacks” with the leashes…now, that was a disaster.  Both boys wanting to go different ways, neither one of them wanting to be with me.  Finn searching the crowds for a new mom, and Liam just wanting to run free in a relatively open and lego-free space.  Escape!

I rather enjoyed moving down the terminal from gate to gate…watching the faces of the horrified masses as we hobbled past, and they wondered if we were on the same flight.  As soon as we got to the terminus of the terminal, I noticed the giant window that had the best view of the air-field I have seen in some time.  Thank you, Charlotte, NC!  Liam saw the planes, and immediately made for the window seats, hopped up on one, and proceeded to scream and shake with excitement over and directly at the “pay-paynes,” the ”car cars,” and the luggage hauler that he thought looked like “Thos.” (Thomas the train).  I’ve only ever seen actors shake like that, when they are portraying an electrocution.  My nerves were raw, and I had tunnel vision (just trying to block out the other travelers and make sure that the boys remained relatively occupied and happy), but everyone else apparently found Liam’s excitement exceedingly amusing.  Finn watched, but he had other things he wanted to explore, which brings me to the fact that I have never before in my life noticed how revoltingly filthy airports are.  Finn wanted to climb and spelunk each and every chair, and boy did he find some disgusting booty.  I was gifted with bits of antiquated slim-jims, dessicated bits of nachos, all manner of icky.   

The wedding was lovely, I think.  We didn’t actually see any of it; owing to the fact that it was held outside in a fence-less backyard where the Dread Pirates had their choices of exploring a vacant lot, and a gigantic black widow-infested jungle-gym.  They decided to separate and do some recon.  Thankfully, Kerry, Dirk, and Katie were all willing to aid in the chasing and occupation of the boys (while Pru drank in lieu of medication, which she is now certain she needs). 

The flight back home went almost as well, barring a dreadfully diaper-rash-ed Finn’s outbursts that were apparently just for the TSA people (and a few elderly women who were either going to jump me or trying to decide whether or not to step in and help).  It is after all of this, the flying time, the elevators in the hotel, the stairs, the constant motion inside vehicles, and a lack of any real food or real coffee, (or water, I suppose), that my inner-ear problem is kicking in with a raging bout of the dizzies, and both brain and body have been so well stressed and taxed that the anxieties are now marking their respective territories too.

The anxieties are overtaking my dreams, and that means bad stuff.  At best, that means a really good horror novel.  At worst, it means a completely freaked-out, sleepless, dizzy and halucinating Pru.  Dreams such as the one where I can’t find my class, so I am searching around this huge campus, through a Halloween-oriented mall, dodging frightening characters that want me to be a part of their decapitation game-show, and finally being late to class, where the professor decides that the only way I can make up the lost time is to write a commercially viable horror novel before the next class. 

By the time my first class actually takes place, on Thursday, I should have enough messed-up anxiety dreams to actually produce that horror novel.

Pru

Perhaps rabies?

I don’t recall getting bit…but I must have.  I just cannot shake the rage.  Sure, nerves over the upcoming descent into madness flight is part of it, but the rest?  I have only rabies to possibly blame. 

Of course, the boys have to get sick before we leave, right?  I mean, what good is a Little Gym class if we don’t lick the floor or stick our feet in our mouths, or something?  We’ve had plenty of illnesses compliments of the Little Germ, er, Gym.  This one is the snottiest by far.  Slime trails EVERYWHERE!  I wanted to leave the house-sitter with a relatively clean house, but I am now simply following the boys around, attempting to make them use their “bogie rags” and cleaning snot off of everything.  So, that’s the culprit for part of the rage.  Dirt and a Mobius cycle of cleaning that never, ever, ever, ever ends.  Oh, and add the constant crying, clinging, and re-messing of what I have just cleaned… 

Culprit #2:  NBC and the Olympics.   I really want an explanation for why on Earth there is no recording of the Opening Ceremonies.  Why?  I have looked everywhere, and the most I can get is some less than half-assed pieced together piece of excrement video of the athletes discussing how they feel about the games, interspersed with footage from what may or may not be a recent opening ceremony.  WTF?  I am assuming that the athletes aren’t suddenly going to change their mind about how they feel.  Like I am going to be astounded when I hear one talk about how it wasn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.  Why in the name of all that is sacred is it not possible to see the Opening Ceremonies after the fact?  Positively enraging!

Culprit #3:  A-holes.  Chances are you’ve encountered one or two in your lifetime.  The one I encountered yesterday should have his face beaten in by someone, but I will just stick to my story that his wife made him take his teenage daughter to the pediatrician because she is hopped up on the junk and pregnant or wanting birth-control (and from the evidence of the rudeness in the gene-pool there, chances of more offspring within that pool should definitely be controlled). 

I was on my way out the door of the Dr.’s office, and preparing to open the doors by myself (not an unusual thing.  Wasn’t looking for help.)  Exceedingly self-important-looking guy (SLG) next to his angsty she-teen (her playing with her cell phone, him on his laptop, tension clear as they ignored the Hell out of one another), offers to open the door for us.  

Me:  Wow!  Thanks!  That’s an unusual treat. 

SLG: I bet you do this by yourself all the time.

Me: Yes.  Usually.

SLG: You are probably a pro at it by now.  It’s probably easy for you.

Me: Oh, I don’t know, probably not.  I don’t think its something I have perfected yet.

SLG: Well, if you want, I can go back in, close the door, and you can practice it all by yourself from the beginning. (He says this all smug-like, as though I am putting him out, and had asked him to do this service!  Like I am wasting his time, and i’m just some dippy woman whom he is far too good to speak to.)

WTF?  All I could respond with was a stupidly, enragingly saccharine and squeaky, “Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you…”  It felt like I was telling that self-important bastard nothing but “thank you” for something that I didn’t even ask him to do!  No doubt what made me feel like shit made him feel like a stellar and upstanding citizen.  Idiot.  Asshole!

I didn’t even manage a, “Beg your pardon?” or an “Excuse me?”  Why am I always too stunned to respond the way I should?  I was so angry as I piled the boys back into the car in a downpour, snot and rain running down their faces, rain running into their infected little ears…ARGH!!!!  Who are these people with no rudeness filter?!  Why would you say something like that, in that tone, to  someone you don’t even know?  That’s a clear sign that you are a gift to the world right?  Who does that?!

See?  I don’t suppose that enrages most people for as long as it enrages me.  It must be rabies.

Hmmmm…that is not a smell I should be smelling…  You know the smell when you were a child and you put leaves between two sheets of wax paper and ironed them together?  I smell that…wax…

ENRAGEMENT #4! :  The boys have apparently been stashing crayons inside the air-conditioner in the sunroom…and those crayons have slowly been melting away in the stinkin’ florida heat!!!!  AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I need a very dark closet in which to hide and cry.

Pru.

Oh, and if we survive our trip, I will be certain to detail our adventure…  The doctor said that flying with an ear infection is fine…that when the ear-drum bursts it clears the infection and heals quicker.  Her words: “Everyone has this misconception that kids can’t fly if they have an ear infection, but that isn’t true.  The worst that can happen is the best that can happen, and that is that the ear-drum will rupture.  There will be some puss and blood oozing out of the ears, and it will hurt really badly, and they will scream really loudly.  They will feel a lot better after that though, and a lot quicker, actually.”

Next time someone says something to me without turning on their rude-filter, or replacing a broken one, I am going to respond right away, and not stew over it like this.  I just need a grab-bag of responses and the coolness to pull them off understandably, rather than screaming them out in a blizzard of incoherence.

Because henchmen need uniforms too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They arrived yesterday!  Team jerseys for the Dread Pirates Roberts.  We just wanted to let the world know what it is up against.

Who’s watching the kids?

Yeah, that’s not a good thing to hear.  I’ve been preparing for the coming semester with an alarming amount of zoning and Nerd-related procrastinating.  In fact, even more alarming, when I really contemplate it, is the fact that Walt, Walt’s wife, and Walt Jr. have all witnessed my full-on lazy parenting skills.  I don’t think about things as dangerous anymore.  I think about them as learning experiences.  Case in point:  Last Tuesday, Andrew dropped by to pick up some baby things I am donating to a friend of theirs.  Need I remind anyone that I am a genius?  I decided it was a fine idea to pick up the bouncy and put it somewhere out of the way…what better place than on top of the dining table?  Yes.  Finn found it.  Needed it. 

I had turned around for only seconds, and that was long enough for my little monkey to get not only on top of the table, but into the bouncy chair precariously perched on said table.  After that, it was no great leap to just let Finn and Liam climb all over Walt Jr’s playhouse.  The floor from which the slide and rock-wall descend are at about eyebrow height for me, so they must be what?  5 feet high?  Okay…4 and a half.  From the look on the Walts’ faces, I would say I did a good job of not watching my children, or rather, watching them…but not acting.  But that’s because I have faith in my children.  I have faith that if they don’t know how to climb down the right way, or that you can’t just step off of a slide, that letting them make mistakes will be the quickest way to show them the correct way.  Yes, it may also be the quickest way to the emergency room too.  But, I will apparently take my chances, mostly because I am a lazy, lazy woman (and I was busy enjoying my wine). 

Also, when you don’t watch yourself do things, they don’t seem nearly as horrible as they are.  For instance, the long lost cracker that I pulled out from behind Liam to quiet him, while Walt stared in abject horror, grabbed it, and tossed it as far away from my child as possible.  Yes, what I did was repulsive; but it did what it was supposed to do.  My magic-trick production of a cracker from behind his backside worked to stun and confuse the child, and also gave him something to do with his mouth, other than screaming. 

Okay, so not only are my parenting skills questionable and alarming, so are my television viewing choices of late.  While my mother was here, she introduced me to “Reaper,” and now I am as hooked as I was on “Buffy.”  It’s pure evil-genius with all the right puns and cliche banter.  That, and I found myself needing more zone-out TV, and stuffed my brain full of fluff with a follow-up of “The Cleaner.” 

I need to be stopped.  The zoning out/flaking out is officially out of my control. 

Pru

Personal Growth?

http://www.uncommongoods.com/item/item.jsp?itemId=16503

It turns out that “Male Enhancement” isn’t what I thought it was; and I have to say that I am sadly disappointed by that.  I am disappointed in the same way as I was with the “Christian Cleaning Service,” which, by the way, will not clean your home with holy water; thereby precluding them from having the catchy and very clever ad: ”Your Satan removal experts. Let us do the exorcise for you.” (okay, that’s a stretch, but my eyes/brain are bad and can thus accommodate the looseness of the “pun.”) 

Anyway, I decided to give the Male Enhancement people a call, since they like to guck up my inbox and seem to be about the only thing shown on TV anymore.  No.  I am lying.  I am way too shy (read: incapable of intelligent and off-the-cuff speech) to do that.  There are, however, plenty of men that I know who could use some souping up.  Of course, I mean the souping up the kind that enhances their abilities that are actually worthwhile, and really, they are enhancements that just about anybody would want (even for themselves).  Enhancing, say, one’s ability to multitask, or to stay focused.  Possibly enhancement of the ability to do housework, or the ability to enjoy it.  Perhaps enhancement of the ability to pick up one’s squished up wrappers or tissues, as they seem to be breeding out of control and hiding all over the house at a rather enhanced rate….  Speed enhancement is good too, or organizational enhancement.  I can think of plenty things that should be enhanced, none of which seem (sadly) to be on any pharmaceutical agenda.  The ability to be erect/erectly enhanced (?) doesn’t count as personal growth.  It doesn’t do much good at all really.  So why am I supposed to be amazed that this can happen, or that a pill can make it happen?  Why is that supposed to be a good thing for women?  It isn’t amazing at all.  It’s actually rather annoying.  I suppose things change when all you really want is one clean/uncluttered corner all your own.

It just seems to me that another type of enhancement pill needs inventing and will sell way better than the type they are selling now.  Just think about the market.  Women.  We love to change people and to buy stuff! (Especially if it comes in a cute package!) It’d be huge.  Better than diet pills.  But that just all gets into my plans to rule you, and I don’t want to divulge them just yet.  For right now, I am really exceedingly joyful that I have henchmen.  That’s right.  Be jealous, maybe a little frightened, and a whole lot awestruck, because Prucilla is now henchmen enhanced!  While practicing my evil laugh today, I noticed that I had a chorus…the boys were laughing maniacally along with me!  Eeeeeee!  Whahahahahahahahahaha!

This message has been naturally enhanced by the word, “enhanced.”

Your exhaustion-enhanced,

Pru.