I totally do not understand people who blog and then have their comments locked down so tight that you have to log into three different accounts just to leave a comment.

I totally wanted to leave a comment on this woman’s blog even if it was to just let her know I had been there.

I totally think that if you don’t allow lots of people to comment on your posts, don’t bitch when you don’t get any comments.

I totally think I was cool enough to comment.

I totally will steer clear of her blog from this point forward… after all, if I took the time to read it and CAN’T comment, what’s the point?

I recently finished reading American Wife: A Novel by Curtis Sittenfeld which was recommended to me by my coworker, Sarah. The book itself is a fictionalized characterization loosely based on Laura Bush. To pretend otherwise is just ludicrous as many of the obstacles that Alice, the main character, face mirror those that have happened in Mrs. Bush’s own life. From a car accident that killed a high school friend to her husband’s presidency being scrutinized for engaging in a war that could have been avoided.

The actual courtship between Alice (Laura) and her future husband, Charlie (George) was especially difficult for me. I found his character to be endearing and honest at times and it was increasingly hard for me to detach my hatred towards the real Mr. Bush and succumb to this new creature that was sweeping Alice up. After marrying him only a few months after meeting, I wasn’t the least bit surprised to learn about his ignorance, bad boy ways, DWI charge, and her eventual trial separation from him. It was also difficult for me to accept the way that she went back to him after he “found God”. It was almost as if you could feel her resignation about her marriage. It wasn’t that she thought she couldn’t do better… It wasn’t that she thought she was wrong and should move on… It was that she had made a promise to this man to be his wife forever and she was going to fulfill that promise no matter what.

At times, it wasn’t easy distinguishing between fact or fiction throughout the book. I’d like to think that her feelings at the end of the story are real… the resignation of realizing you can never really have what you want… understanding that your husband isn’t exactly what you thought he would be but not having the energy to do anything about it… but also recognizing that morally you have done the best you could with what you had to work with… A little sad but not disappointing.

For you… you know who you are…

Just a little background first… We are in the midst of a pandemic going by the name of the H1N1 virus. If you haven’t heard about it yet, you’re an idiot. Anywho, Delaware schools are now offering the H1N1 nasal spray (live vaccine) free to all students. As a parent, it was kind of a tough decision because the vaccine is so new. Do I vaccinate? Do I not vaccinate? I figure it’s kind of a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation OR it could totally be win-win…

Damned if you do = Kids get the vaccine and die because of some rare interaction
Damned if you don’t = Kids don’t get the vaccine and die from H1N1

Kids get the vaccine and stay healthy for the season… WIN!
Kids get the vaccine and die… two less mouths to feed AND a nice chunk of change from a lawsuit settlement… WIN!

Are you seeing a pattern here?

So, needless to say, it’s been a tough decision but I finally decided to bite the bullet, hope for the best, use every cliche I could think of, and I signed the papers giving the school permission to vaccinate the girls…

Question: Have you vaccinated your kids yet? Why or why not?

{story continued} Of course, being the good ex-spouse/fellow parent that I am, I also sent a message to their father (aka Ahole or Bass-tard) letting him know that they would be getting the H1N1 vaccine… Here is a short blurb of our “text”-versation today…

Ahole: Did the girls receive their shots? I can only handle the girls this wknd, there’s not a lot of room @ Maries. [aka White Trash Momma] I need to spend a lot of time looking 4 a full time white collar job so I can take nite GED classes. I’ve been looking for a full time job and I know now its all on line. Not the old way. I miss you all, best wishes. PS I want to know when they get the shot and how it affects them ASAP!!!
Me: Turned papers in for their shots. I think they receive them tomorrow.
Ahole: Think? Please find out and let me know I don’t want them out here in the boonies if one of them gets ill.
Me: You’re right. Maybe you should just forfeit this weekend so their real, full-time, responsible parent can observe them for 48 hours after the vaccine.

The best part is that he hasn’t paid child support since July and now has to go to court on November 4th. I’ve heard that if he doesn’t pay up before then, there will be “repercussions”… I’m hoping it involves handcuffs and a new boyfriend cellmate… but we all know I just can’t get that fucking lucky…

One of the best things about blogging is not feeling like a voyeur when you read other blogs. I write mostly for me… kind of like a diary but with a twist… but I don’t usually worry about who is reading my words which is probably why I write things that are honest and sometimes a little too open… Even when my life gets hectic, there are a few blogs that I follow simply because these incredible women have a place in my heart now… Jenners over at Life with a Little One lives life to it’s geeky fullest… She inspires me to “get creative” with her Fun & Games and makes me laugh… sometimes at her expense…

Another blogger after my own heart is Sissy at My Kids Might Be Martians. She is the self professed Family Bitch and the one woman who I have found curses more than I do. Her boys never cease to amaze me with their flair and even on days when she has nothing to say she still blogs… that takes talent… Plus she gave me this really awesome award so I had to include her.

I know I’ll never actually meet these two fine women face to face so I just want to say… Ladies, thanks for giving me lots of laughs and sharing your lives with me…

My bloggy friend, Jenners recently wrote about an awkward moment she had at Goodwill and I promised her I would share a goody from my past dealings with Goodwill. After Ahole left, I started cleaning out all the old stuff in my life. It was my time for a fresh start and I wanted things to be orderly, organized and secretly I just wanted to make sure I got rid of all of his shit so it wouldn’t haunt me later in life. Little did I know that would be impossible unless I got rid of the kids too. I have a horrible time just throwing stuff out especially if they are clothes or books and still in excellent condition. I’ve only met one person worse than me and that’s Mr. McD. He won’t even throw out socks when the elastic is shot in them…

I spent days going through boxes of old clothes, closets stuffed full of old coats and shoes, and dressers bulging at their wooden joints. I packaged up well over ten trash bags full of clothes and other miscellaneous items. And I don’t mean the cutesy white kitchen bags… I’m talking the big honking lawn and leaf brown trash bags. I even splurged and got the ones that with the extra stretch to them so I wouldn’t have to worry about a stray tap shoe falling out of the bottom while travelling to Goodwill to drop off my treasures. Which brings to me a minor dilemma… I didn’t have a car… How was I going to get all of that stuff to Goodwill?

Luckily, a friend from church offered to pick up the bags and take them with him as he just happened to work at Goodwill… Coincidence? Or act of God? I didn’t care… I was saying goodbye to stuff that was cluttering up my house… He stopped over after church that Sunday and picked up all of the bags.

After church the next Sunday, he asked me out on a date. Surely… I was up for anything that would get me out of the house and socialize with another adult for a while. While we were on the date, he mentioned the trash bags and said that he would get a receipt for everything so I could use the tax deduction. I told him not to bother with it as I was just doing my good deed and didn’t expect a reward.

Then he asked me if I liked to dress in lingerie often… ummmmm… WTF? Apparently, he was the one that untied the trash bags and came across the “play lingerie” that I had been keeping since before the boys were even born… Hot little corsets with lacy fringes… thigh high fishnet stockings… sheer gloves that ride up to your elbows and aren’t for any sanitary purpose at all… I think there might have even been a pair of crotchless panties or two… not sure… I was mortified… We laughed it off as best as we could but now I look back and think “I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN!!” The gentleman who worked at Goodwill and picked up my bags was none other than Mr. ILiketoWearWomensLingerie Facebook Creep.

In case you have ever wondered what type of conversations go on in my house… here’s a quick snippet from a recent car drive:

Steven: You’re stupid Beth.
Beth: You’re so stupid that you’ll live with your mom forever. You’ll be in your thirties and still living with mom.
Abby: Like Dad!
Melanie: Yes… like dad… Except Stevie is mentally retarded and has an excuse.

Those of you who know me know that I hate certain months of the year. February is one of them. October happens to be another one. When I was little, I was never really allowed to go trick-or-treating like other kids. Not that I complained because I never understood the whole “gimme candy” thing in the first place. My mom would make my costumes for the Halloween parade at school. At night, my grandparents and I would retire to the back of the house and make sure all of the front lights were turned off so we wouldn’t have to deal with obnoxious children interrupting our television time… a tradition I continued through my young adulthood.

When the boys were little, I decided to do better. I stayed up one mischief night creating the most awesome penguin costumes ever! (if my scanner worked I would show you the actual picture of a proud little Stevie in his penguin outfit but this other adorable kid will have to do) I even made the feet from scratch by dying three sets of tube socks orange, stuffing them and making cute webbed feet that would slide over their real shoes. Not one word of thanks was uttered from the beaks of penguins that Halloween. Not that I really expected it anyway…

Then came Ahole… Our Halloween “tradition” was for Ahole to either stay home or drive in a car around the neighborhood while drinking liquor to warm his belly. My most miserable Helloween was spent walking three children and pushing a fourth in a stroller through Dogwood Village in Galena. By the end of the trip, I was actually carrying one on my back, pushing a stroller AND yelling at the boys that trick-or-treating was OVER and I had to pee so bad my eyeballs were floating somewhere above my head. The worst part is Ahole and the car were nowhere to be found… I think I might have ended up with wet underwear that night but it’s quite possible that has been blocked from my memory.

Suffice it to say, Halloween has never been one of my favorite holidays. Mr. McD is fanatical about it… yes, it’s a source of contention for me this month… We’ll see if I last through it… I’ve been trying hard to stick to the “traditions” that I enjoy about this time of year. Carving jack-o-lanterns is one of these traditions. The best part is toasted pumpkin seeds! Here are our creations for this year:

I know… I’ve been bad and haven’t blogged in two weeks. I don’t know how it happens. I get super busy at work and just sort of crash when I get home so I’m not as attentive as I should be. Apologies and whatever… now get over it cuz I have a life… Now on to business…

Dexter 4.2 and 4.3

Because I’m behind in two of my reviews, I’m going to sum these up really quickly:

• Episode 4.2 was so frantic that I wasn’t sure where the writers were trying to go with the storyline. I’m guessing that the feverish tone of the show was supposed to convey to the watcher just how jumbled and frantic Dexter must have felt trying to find the missing body parts. Otherwise, there just was no excuses and I would chalk it up to bad writing.
• Do we really need Quinn as an added storyline? Can anything good really come of it? The whole reporter affair is so obviously going to blow up in the end but do we need to add in that he’s a dirty cop too? Just one storyline that needs to go away…
• And speaking of going away… We still haven’t been told what ever happened between Batista and Bawbwa [come on... I know I'm not the only one who noticed that Batista can't pronounce his R's]
• In Episode 4.3 we find out it was the delinquent kids father that was the vandal. Really? Like we didn’t see that coming from a mile away…
• So disappointed in Lithgow so far… Please writers, allow him to nurture his inner psycho… He just comes off as milquetoast creepy instead of Hannibal scary… “You, sir, are no Hannibal!”
• Astor needs a beat down… Am I wrong in thinking that she’s ten years old? Are the writers aging her and not letting us know? Last year she didn’t have boobs… This year she’s angst-ridden PMSing in every episode!! Rita doesn’t help any when she just gives a little sigh, rolls her eyes and says stupid shit like “you can’t treat her like a little girl anymore”. Ummmm… yes you can… she’s 10!!!
• And lastly… Rita… sweet “Karma Karma Karma Chameleon” Rita… little miss “you already had your coffee” Rita… I am dying to watch Dexter stick the knife in her chest… please let it be next episode… please…

Apparently, my tag cloud post was not included when the spider searched my blog… nor the post entitled “Quarterly Bitchfest”… which reminds me… I’m about due for a new one, aren’t I? Stupid spider… I deserve an R rating for sure… In fact, I might just go steal Sissy’s from her page and put it on my own… errr… borrow… I meant BORROW…