Desk Ducks

It's been a week. A whole damn week since I've written here. I made a promise to myself. I make promises to everyone, but the promises I make to myself don't seem to count. Like some how what I want to do for myself just isn't as important as all the shit I do for everyone else. Yeah, it sounds whiny, and you know what, it is. But if I can't whine here, were the fuck can I?

So the ducks and chicks are just about two weeks old. They've more than doubled in size and I can't imagine how we'll keep them inside for another six weeks. They're already hopping/flying out of their little box. I think we'll have to put a screen on the top by tomorrow, or my entire office will be covered in chicken shit. So far there are a few spots they've not pooped on. I'm hoping this little adventure into farming would be what I need to finally clean out my office and throw some shit away. (And not just chicken shit)

I want my office to be as organized as my mind. In my mind all my information is neatly shelved and easily accessible. My office, not like that at all. It's an amazing example of stacking, bridging and not moving too quickly. The only spot in my office that's clean is the place were the desk ducks sit!

Chicken fingers

We had chicken tonight. No big deal. I thought so, but Peeka didn't agree. She was very upset to think we were eating her baby chickens. Yikes! How come I never thought of that? Why wasn't I freaked out we were having chicken when I was just photographing and gently patting the little chickens in my office? Is it comparmentalizatoin at it's best? I'll just have to see how eating the chicken wings tomorrow works out!

Just moments

I promised myself, at least for the past few days, that I would write something here everyday. I've only 15 minutes to write, edit...as if...and post this puppy. Just a few moments. How many times have wished for just a few moments? When I was a little kid and wanted just a little more time to watch TV and I'd sit at the top of the stairs and try to see the TV through the railing. Or when my Grandfather died and I wished I'd spent the kind of time with him I used to when I was younger. After college when I wished I'd stayed awake for the those "How to write a resume" classes. The moments of my wedding, sandwiched between a domestic violence complaint and a breaking and entering case at the Justice of the Peace. The first kicks of recognition my baby was already on her way to being a wild child. The first moment I held my daughter on the stretcher in my driveway as the volunteer fire department oohed and awed in a brightening dawn. The first time I came home from work and she yelled "Mommy! Mommy! You're home!"

Just a few moments...

PS...I was five minutes late posting this!

PSS This photo was from 2004, so don't go thinking I'm having another.

PSSS Miss Kate took our belly shots!

Chicken poop on my desk!

Heavy sigh. Where to begin? I started this little blog thinking I 'd never really get chickens. What were the odds that Mike would actually follow through with this? This would be yet another phase that he’d be all excited about, but then the next thing would come along and he’d jump on that. Okay, that sounds bad, and I’m sure I’ll blog the hell out of that sooner or later.
Then he found the coop and the seven little chickens that came with it. Fine. I thought that was it. Nice little brood of tiny little feathered friends. Well, guess again. After an almost lovely day out with the girls, the beach, Portsmouth for Friendly Toast, then onto Kittery to my favorite candy shop, we came home. To a surprise. A live surprise. Fourteen live little surprises. Ah, more chickens you say. Yes, more chickens. Twelve, an even dozen peeping little critters. A dozen adorable three day old little chicks. Now you’re thinking, but you said fourteen live surprises! Ducks. Two fucking darling ducks! Well, duckling since they too are only three days old. The boys had already named them Daffy and Donald. But I’m calling the little black one nibbler. Mark my words, s/he is going to be a pisser! Already biting, well nibbling, and being mean to the cutest, most confused little ducky I’ve ever seen. Donald to the boys, but Dizzy to me. We’ll see who’s names stick!

Now the real exciting news. It’s not enough that we’ve got these petite peepers and as we all know they need to be kept warm and out of breezes…did I mention it was windy enough here today to nearly knock my SUV onto it’s side….so where does a reluctant chicken farmer keep the newly hatched fowl. In her office of course. What better place? It’s safe, from wind, wild and domestic animals…including the four year old mother hen who wants to hold each and everyone of them. If anything could kill them it would be the tender touch of my heavy handed, love-filled wild child. If they make it past the first weeks inside with her, the wide-open world holds nothing new for them.
So wish me luck raisin’ up these critters. I’m planning to have chicken wings soon, before I can’t imagine eating my little chickens anymore! Let’s just hope to hell we don’t get a cow. I’d died without BEEF!

Brain washing available

Brain washing? Brain. Washing. Washing the brain. Taking ones brain out, dousing it with Tide, tossing it into the Maytag, on delicate, it is a brain after all. Brain pan on the wash board. Beating the brain on a rock down by the river. Brain washing.

What the fuck! How crazy do people have to be to actually believe that someone can be brainwashed? I mean other than any organization that deprives you of food and sleep while marching you around in the rain caring more gear than your high bedroom ever contained...think "Be all you can be" but that's our government and they're here to help.

Just because someone leaves their home, travels 1,000 miles in the dead of night, okay, dusk of early evening to move into a home with people they've never met then highlights their hair fuchsia...does that really mean they've been brain washed. And who did this brain washing? The parents that were left, the medical establishment that drugged the washed brain, the state and local law enforcement agents that arrested the brain, and tossed it into a mental institution for two weeks, only to return the brain, then unwashed, to the parents that the brain eventually will run from. Who did the brain washing?

Okay, maybe it was me. Maybe I promised the father of the brains best friend that we could offer a room, food, more dogs than most people see in a lifetime, two bunnies, a cat, a roommate, seven chickens and sense of freedom. Freedom is a very scary word to the brain washed, brain washers, young adults, old people, timid dogs and the oppressed everywhere.

Freedom to make mistakes is always the hardest thing to give, especially for parents. I'm working on it with my little one. She's free to come and go, out the dog door, as she pleases. My belief that when she gets too cold, too wet, too hot, too tired, she'll come in. She's free to eat what she wants, more or less when she wants. Mostly she reached for apples before cookies and a juice box before soda. She's free to dress as she likes, my only request is that she finds two matching shoes to take with us in the event we need to go into a store. I'm sure she'll suffer from too much freedom and too many choices and we'll have to guide her away from certain things. No sneaking out the dog door and taking my car.

No tattoos, will change to no visible tats, the same with the body piercing.

No meeting people on the Internet will be a roll of the eyes, followed by "Isn't that how you met Dad?" Which I will follow with my own eye roll and "And you see how that worked out."

Any personal peeve, no more ice if you don't fill up the ice cube trays!

Where am I going with the brainwashing thing, or even where have I been with it. No one was brainwashed, at least not by me or my simple but loving significant other...love ya honey! Unless you consider a better alternative brain washing, then bring on the Tide and I'll get the fuchsia highlights ready for you.

Lexapro monorail

I just feel rather blank today. It's been chilly and raining all day. I got up early, still coughing and losing my voice. I should just face the fact I am not a morning person and should not plan to go anything in the mornings.

Who decided mornings were so wonderful? Why not the night? What do you do when you're most awake at night comfortable in the little circle light you work in while the rest of the world spins by in darkness and shadow? I tried, not often and with limited success, to accommodate the daytime world. Inevitably I stay up just an hour later, then another hour and before I know it I'm trying to figure out how I can make the next day with five hours sleep. Maybe longer days, like a 36 hour day, giving me a solid 24 hours to do stuff and then a 12 hour crash.

I love a 12 hour crash. Just sleeping and dreaming and waking and sleeping and dreaming again. I am always amazed at the dreams that feel so real when I'm having them. They're odd, but no more so than my daily life, but somethings just slightly off...I'm Peeka's sister or the dogs start talking to me. Hey, it could happen.

Lately most of my dreams are about falling in love, or just starting a new relationship. That giddy, light as air, everything is amusing time when you can only see the person they want you to see. The first date. The first weekend you spend in bed watching John Hughes films and he claims to get it, or at least the tough misunderstood guy. It's only later you find out he was really the dweeb.

I'm not sure why I'm dreaming about that. My meds keeps me pretty level, so I don't' really think I would have those ups and downs. There are hardly any roller coaster extremes on the Lexapro Monorail. At this point in my life, I think the monorail is all I could handle...just a straight shot anywhere I need to go...no more rapid heart beatings, fluttering of new love, just watching in happen on my couch. (I bet you were wondering what the picture had to do with all this!) So maybe it's envious moment of Danielle and Bennett that causes the dreams or maybe it's the erotic vampire novels I read before falling asleep...it's hard to say!

They're here!

And just like that I wake up and find chickens in my yard. Seems the fever induced dream I was having this afternoon where Mike wakes me up from sickbed to tell me for a mere $100 he can get a chicken coop, and seven chickens…guess it wasn’t a dream! No little chicks to hatch, or cute little fuzzy babies…just full grown, albeit little, chickens. On the up side, they have been handled and loved, so they don’t seem too freaked out by Mason and everyone else holding them. They also seem fine with the beagles.

In addition to the chickens this afternoon, Miss Peeka asked if she could dye her hair like the sister Jessica. Well, more like Danielle, since Danielle was getting pink highlights and Jess was trying not to be a blonde. (Please insert blonde joke here…) Now my four year old has punky pink highlights. I wish I could say I thought long and hard about letting her do that. But I didn’t. She asked and I said sure. There are some things that just don’t matter in a grand scheme of things. Hair dye will wash out or grow out. The memory of Jessica dying her hair will last, well, hopefully longer than the dye! Of course I’ve documented every moment, so even if she does forget, I’ve got plenty of pictures on a multitude of websites.

I’ll let you know more about the chickens as soon as I learn more about them.

Is a clean kitchen too much ask...you lazy beagle wanna be's!

I don’t really believe I’m that I’m unreasonable. I don’t think I ask too much of anyone, certainly not the hordes of people living with me with one job between them. I let a great deal of shit slide. We’re all busy people. I’m not so sure what they’re busy doing beyond watching movies all day and night from what I see. Now to be fair, even though I don’t think they deserve a fair explanation, but I want to sound less like a raving lunatic and more like a pissed off bitch. They, all the unemployed horde, do all of the running around for the pet sitting business and delivering and picking up of the Peeka…while I’m at work. I only call two or three times a day to make sure they have not forgotten any one, including Peeka.
So when I come home from work and the dishes are still in the sink, the clean dishes still loaded in the dishwasher and the clean dishes from Easter Sunday’s dinner still sit piled up awaiting return to the china cabinet, I remain calm. I hand out the Taco Bell they, the unemployed horde, requested. The Taco Bell that is in the opposite direction…okay I digress. All I want is to find a place to set down my purse on the counter. I went straight to my office. When I came down, no one had moved. So cleaned the kitchen, fuming the entire time and making a list of things that will keep me from kill them!
These are in no order other than the way they popped into my head as I was trying not to stab someone in the head with one of fancy new knives!
1. No dirty dishes in the sink. Rinse them off and put them in the dishwasher.
2. If the dishwasher is full, empty it. If it’s full of dirty dishes, then run the damn thing.
3. While the dishwasher is running, rinse your dishes and stack them beside the sink.
4. Fill the fucking ice cube trays!
5. Don’t drink my diet Pepsi. I don’t smoke your cigarettes and don’t I provide all the food and drink around here. For fuck sakes, leave me diet Pepsi alone.
6. Empty the garbage.
7. Put the toilet seat down. ALWAYS!
8. Don’t park me in.
9. Don’t smoke in my car.
10. Stay out of my office.
11. Don’t steal my change.
12. Give the dogs, rabbits, fish, cat… food and water.
13. If you take laundry out of the dryer, don’t ball it up and throw it in a basket.
14. Read the labels: on clothes and dishes. Some things still need to be hand washed.
15. Fill the fucking ice cube trays! (Yes I know I already said it, but damn, just do it!)
16. And lastly, for now…finish a god damn project! Just one! Clean the yard. Pick up the trees that you chain sawed up all over the damn place. Just something! Finish something! For fuck sakes!

I wish they little rant made me feel better, but now I’m even more pissed off than before. Oh well. They, the unemployed horde, won’t change if I don’t. If I didn’t feel so damn sorry for them…if I’d just develop some balls, something…I won’t have to fill my own fucking empty ice cube trays every damn time I open the freezer!

Girls Day Out

This is our third week of Girls Day Out! The first week, well, it was heaven. Peeka and I had a the perfect day. Hair cut for her, Monsters VS Aliens at the movies, consignment shopping then out for dinner...and not at her favorite McDonald's, but out for Lo Mien noodles at our favorite Chinese place. Not bad for a day with a four and half year old.

Last week we added Danielle to the party. We shopped at Michael's, getting all crafted up. Then on to some ice cream from Jakes...oh yummerific! Back to the consignment shop and then home. Also a delightful day.

This week, after planning and anticipating all week, Peeka turned into the devil child I always feared. The one that caused me to take a part time job so I could miss her! It sucked ass! She wanted to get her nails painted. We got there and she had a hissy fix and lay face down on the bench refusing to have her nails done. We should have gone home, but we plunged onward. To the Mall. I can't even begin to explain my dislike of the Mall, but I thought Danielle and Peeka might like it. Besides, I'd heard Danielle loves Cinnabons and it's only place I know that has them. More hours of ass sucking fun, minus one hundred dollars I can barely remember spending, I can't take it any more and text Mike to have him call Peeka and ask her to behave.

Let's just say that just amused her. "I be good Daddy," she says looking at me like she's going to fill my purse with Sprite the second I look away. "I be good for Mom. We're having lots of fun." She says goodbye and before I can ask how that went she slides under the table and tries to escape. I talked to Daddy and begged him to meet us for ice cream so I could hand her off! I know when I've reached my limit!

So if you're day out with the kids, friends, friends of family starts out with them in this position...just go home! Now. Unless you're the reason they're face down and unresponsive and you have some nefarious purpose...if that' s the case, I don't want to know! I'm just sayin'...

Home Alone

What are the odds? Usually the house full of people 99% of the time, and the one hour I actually have the house to myself, do I dance around listening to my Rick Springfield album...yeah, I said album...at ear splitting volume? Run around naked? Not likely...even if I was the last person on earth! Watching the news? Nope. I sit in my office just if they were all here...my only testament to being along...my door is open!
My hopes of daily updates, slid to weekly and now it's looking monthly....but I'm going to try again. So lets see...where to start...
From my last post...The girl staying with us had her baby, a little boy. She's back in the homeless shelter, as least she was a few weeks ago. The unregistered sex offender, to our knowledge, is still in jail. Oh happy day! Turns out he was not only unregistered, but was never to live in house with any children under the age of five. So far, Peeka seems just fine. She's posted a note on the front door telling him he's never allowed back in the house. (At least that's what she assures me the notes says!)
We have two new housemates. Bennett, one friend of Mike's that he used to work with. It's a delight to have him with us. He seems to be the only in the house with a certain level of discipline. He's the one mostly likely to notice Peeka sitting on the kitchen table during dinner and tells her to get back in her seat. Mike and I are so used to her hootnanny, that it takes us longer to notice. He's also the voice of reason when I leave Mike with power tools. But even Bennett gets caught up in the whirl wind that is Mike...like the time they dropped the tree on the power lines and phone lines.
Then there's Danielle. She's Mike's daughter Jessica's friend from Chicago and without going into great detail, even though I love the details, she's 18 and was in need of rescue from her family. She managed to get away and get to the airport where we've a ticket waiting for her since November. She's been trying to get away from them since her birthday back in November. We've talked to the police in both Chicago and here in NH, talked to a lawyer, and been ridiculed by Facebook group saying we kidnapped her and wont' let her have access to her medications. She asked her parents to mail her meds, but they refused. Can't imgine why she felt the need to get away from them. Can't you just feel the love and support from them!
Peeka loves having both of them around. It will be interesting to see how well they do when Jessica arrives next weekend for a few days. Who will get her attention? Daddy, sister, best friend...I'll keep ya posted!

PS We're still waiting on the chickens!

Kick in the ass

This is my new best friend. The boot I have to wear for the next three to six weeks. Seems the small fracture in my second metacarpal or metatarsal bone in my foot didn’t heal the last time I did this. But that’s not the kick in the ass.

The kick in the ass, and might I say the above boot will do rather nicely, is whenever we set out to help someone, to be nice, to take in someone less fortunate, it comes back to kick you in the ass.

Today’s kick in the ass…and I have to say this has been going on for weeks now, but it all came to head today. Some back story, ‘cause everyone loves a back story….

Three weeks ago we decided we should take in a roommate to make it through this minor economic hiccup (rhymes with fuck up). We found two people that fit our criteria…had some money and needy. I have to admit that we seem addicted to taking in strays. One was a pregnant homeless girl the other was a transvestite looking for a safe place to live. We picked the pregnant girl, she seemed the most dire. Besides, I don’t like hanging around men that know more about make-up and where to buy high heels than I do. Since I know nothing about make-up, that covers just about anyone who wears eye liner!

So the pregnant girl, (did I mention she was nine months pregnant?) asks if her boyfriend can come along to meet us. Sure, fine. That’s a good idea. I don’t think I’d want to move out into the woods with people crazy enough to take my pregnant ass in…so great, let the boyfriend, not the baby’s father, come along. Long story short he asks if he can join her. Promises to pay the rent, wants to be there for her and the baby, even if it’s not his kid. Cool.
Seven days go by, in which money gets stolen from my wallet and Mike puts a lock on my office door. Can’t prove anything, so we let it slide…very grudgingly. He, shall we call him Asshead, says he’s going to pick up his check from his old girlfriends house. Asshead’s gone for four days. The old girl friend calls and say she kicked him out because Asshead just beat the shit out of her. The pregnant girl takes him back. We tell her if she leaves with Asshead she can’t come back. Fine. She leaves.
She calls today to ask if she can get her stuff. Did I forget to tell say that she left with nothing more than the clothes on her back and a small duffle? Mike packs all her stuff and makes arrangements for her to come get her stuff…with Asshead. Mike says he’ll put all her stuff out on the stairs and she can just take it. They come. She loads the car and when she gets everything in the car. Asshead drives away. Drives away. She’s standing on the porch as he drives away with all her stuff. All the baby’s stuff. As Asshead is leave he’s send Mike a text message “Tell @#@@ that I’m taking her shit and leaving. I’ve been planning this all day. You’ve got my shit I’m keeping hers.” Mike was keeping his stuff in lieu of the rent he owns.
The police were called. Asshead was willing to come back to get his stuff as long as the police were here to “protect” him. In the mean time the police ran his name and confirmed what we’d found out from the old girlfriend. Asshead was a violent sex offender who had not registered the last two places he lived and he was NOT to be in the house ANY children under the age of five! WHAT THE FUCK!
What have we done? How could we let this man into our home, with our child? He was never alone with her, Thank God.
He was arrested. Hopefully to be in jail for a long time.
And where was I when all this was going on? At the doctor, getting this boot that I will now kick myself in the ass with, once I’m done kicking Mike’s ass!

Perfect Peace

If only there was some way to bring back all the goodness of childhood, all the security you feel when you're safe and warm full of the knowledge the you are the center of the universe.

There is one thing that brings me back to that. Brings me back to that one safe place, back to my grandparent's kitchen, late on a Saturday night. The only light is above the kitchen sink and the small flame on the front burner of the white enamel stove. The pop, pop, pop, echoing in the small space I share with Papa. Once the butter is melted, the popcorn coated and slightly salted our fingers mingle seeking the perfect piece.

Now Mike makes me the same kind of popcorn, shaken on the stove, coated with butter and now with parmasian cheese. While my fingers are butter-coated, I'm in Papa's lap, safe. The center of the universe, the perfect peace.

Chicken missing in time

I know what you’re wondering? What is? Have the chickens arrived and already flown the coop? Are they really going to keep the chicks in the house? Won’t the beagles eat the chicks? What is this a picture of? And why did that crazy bitch post it? It’s the middle of the damn night…at least for most people. Unable to keep up the suspense…since it is the middle of the night especially since it’s day light savings hoot-nanny time and moments ago it was 2 AM and now suddenly it’s 3:03 AM…and same song is still playing…creepy time travel kinda stuff!
I still don’t get that time travel stuff. How in the hell does that work? Is it like the Quantum Leap thing, where he could only travel in his own lifetime, except that one episode where he goes back to become his own great, great, great….grandfather using the DNA theory to explain how that happened despite the fact at the beginning of EVERY episode we’re reminded that he can only travel within his lifetime. And I’m going to have to say, if I could travel in time, even in my own lifetime, I’d certainly make sure that the future me was well taken care of…and not in that “Back to the Future Part 3” where he steals the sports almanac and bets on games to get rich. Or was that Part 2? I can never remember. I’d go back and invest a’la “Forest Gump” in some “Apple” orchard, do the dot com thing and pull out before Microsoft’s Campus becomes a compound for the evil empire. Okay, maybe I’d just play the right numbers in the lottery that I knew was a big winner…but then what does that do to the people, ya know those 45 factory works that pooled together four grand to drive across state lines and buy 3,600 tickets…come on…it was a long drive and they needed beer and McDonalds.
Now see what you did, you got me all wound up about money and time travel and I totally forgot what this was all about. So, before I forget! It’s a picture of my office floor. I’ve not seen in years! I was so excited I thought I’d share it! And next week, when I can’t see the floor again, I’ll time travel back to this picture!

This is how it all started...

Valentine’s Day 2009. 8:39 PM…The bookstore is closing in 41 minutes and I’ve yet to get a gift for my sweetie. Add to this pressure I know he went out two, two damn days ago and secured my gift. He’s usually the last minute “picked this up at the gas station” gift kinda guy.
Looking around at my choices, I spy a myriad of cherub-cheeked cupids peering out at me from picture books suited for children as well as overly sentimental adults. There were books of love poems, but he’d really know I was desperate. He knows I know he’d never read them, and he knows how I feel about poetry. I’d rather a hot poker to the eye than endure poetry! Luckily the store didn’t carry candy and/or booze…too easy a cheat. Fraught with feelings of inadequacy for forgetting a little thing like picking up a Valentine, I was shown the book of all Valentine’s books, The Kama Sutra!
We already have a pocket sized edition, good for getting wild in VW Bug or in a pop-up tent or when the “pop-up” Kama Sutra would be too cumbersome. I’ve also got a copy of the Comma Sutra, it’s really helping me with the my heavy handed punctuation…according to the subtitle, it’s to “position yourself for success with Good Grammar.” I wish I could say I used it often, but mostly I’m just a sucker for a good title! Getting back to my dilemma…I was looking at one of the fancier versions, The Complete Kama Sutra, the illuminated Erotic Art of India. I know they have cornered the market on acceptable sex texts, but I’m more fond of their hot exotic food. Ah cookbooks!
Oh to cover my love in chocolate…but then again, we didn’t need a recipe for that. Warm chocolate, drizzle and enjoy. Almost as easy at wet, rise, repeat…oddly similar now that I write it out. But I wander off topic…
I continued to look around the store, but held onto the copy of Kama Sutra. No point parting with a classic. How could I show my sweetie that care deeply, know him intimately, other than the oblivious erotic Indian sex book. He has so many interests…fixing things, collecting things, building things, making things go faster…all of which there are plenty of books on. Being a city boy, south-side of Chicago he brags often, he’s really taken to the woods. And he’s talked about getting this farm animal and that piece of much required farm equipment. So far I’ve gotten him a beagle, a lawn tractor and some bunnies. But I still think something’s on the tip of my tongue…some farm thing that I can get with minutes to spare at the bookstore. I rushed to the “Pet” section, made my choice and grinned my way to the counter.
I returned The Kama Sutra to the rack of eager but not selected Valentine’s gifts and plopped down my two books. How to Raise Chickens and Keeping Chickens. Content with my reasoning, either way tonight’s gift was to be about raising cock!