What are the odds of THAT?

I went to the first home preseason Canes game last Friday, and I went alone because we only had one ticket, and even though I could have gotten ahold of more than one ticket, Wheeler wasn't feeling well from another UTI.  The ticket was on the upper deck and the place was deserted.  It was excruciatingly dull to watch the game alone from that high up, and so I considered leaving after the 1st period.  Instead I decided to upgrade my situation - since it is just preseason, and the place was really empty, the ushers didn't care about people moving down after the 1st.  So I moved down to about 8 rows up off the ice and enjoyed the 2nd period much more. 

Between the 2nd and the 3rd, the little boy seated in front of me turns around and says "Ma'am? Does your son go to (insert my kid's elementary school name here)".  I looked stunned and said "Yes?" and he said "Are you Offspring's mom?", to which I said with surprise "Yes...", to which he replied "I'm Matthew and I'm in his class".

[insert feather]  Me  [insert fallen over]

This arena has almost 18,000 seats people - what are the odds of that?  A kid in my kid's class - and that he recognized me, and that I picked that seat out of all the seats on the lower level to sit in.  And that he was brave enough to speak up and say hello (my kid would have sat in silence and said nothing).  Bizarre.  Life is stranger than fiction sometimes.

The longest mile

On the walk to school today:

Mom, what would you do if Dog pooped on the sidewalk right in front of you?


Mom, what would you do if Deuce pooped so much that the bag wouldn't hold it all? 


Mom, what would you do if Dog had massive diarrhea all over your shoes? 


Mom, what would you do if Dogley barfed up his breakfast right here on the sidewalk? 


Mom, what would you do if ...

Sigh.

It was a very long mile.

I have to fill out this form again WHY?

I took Offspring to the asthma doctor this morning, and the receptionist handed me a form to fill out that was exactly the same as the form at the top of his chart that she was holding.  The form has on it his name, date of birth, address, phone number, insurance, parent's names, etc.  Nothing on the form is about medications or things that or symptoms, just demographics and insurance (which could change, but in our case, hadn't). 

She: please update this form.

Me: <glancing> oh, it's all the same, nothing has changed.</glancing>

She: <snippy> well, you still have to fill it out again.</snippy>

Me: (I take it and look at it more carefully)

Me: <politely> Ma'am, every single thing on this form is exactly the same, not one thing has changed, so there's really no point in me filling it out again.</politely>

She: <not politely=""> You still have to fill it out.  </not>

Me: <annoyed> Well can't I just cross out the date on that one and call it good enough?</annoyed>

She:  <loudly> NO. </loudly>

Me:  <crossly> FINE. </crossly>

Hrumph! How stupid it that?????  It was literally word for word 100% the same.  

And while I'm on the subject, why the hell do I have to HAND COPY down our insurance policy number, group number, address for claims, employer, blahdee blahdee, when they photocopy the damn PRINTED CARD (that you can, say, actually read versus my shitty handwriting) when you walk in?  And they take your photo ID and copy that too (just in case they need someone's ID for the Friday beer run??). 

Hrumph!!!

Me versus the self checkout machine

I hate the self checkout at the grocery store, I really do.  I never, ever use it if I can avoid it.  Even if I have only a few things, I will gladly stand in a long line behind people with a giant cartload of things because I hate self checkouts, and more saliently, they hate me.  They really do, I'm not making that up.  Today I had no choice though; I went to the store and there were no checkers available; I was forced to use the self checkouts with my 12 items.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Me: stare at it with trepidation

Me: take deep breath

It: stares back at me menacingly, taunting me

Me: key in my phone number

It: doesn't recognize it, arches its eyebrows at me

SCORE 0-1, me-it

Me: type in another phone number

It: beeps

SCORE 1-1, me-it

Me: swipe my first item

It: silence

SCORE 1-2, me-it

Me: swipe it again

It: silence

SCORE 1-3, me-it

Me: try again

It: beep

Me: AH-HA!!

SCORE 2-3, me-it

Me: place thingy in bag

It: objects furiously telling me to take item off weigher area and to wait for assistance

Me: I remove it and wait

Me: I wait

Me: I wait suh mo

Me: No one comes

SCORE 2-4, me-it

Me: Still no one comes

Me: I swipe it again.

It: beep

Me: I put it in the bag

It:  objects furiously telling me to take item off weigher area and to wait for assistance

Me: I remove it and wait

Me: I wait

Me: I wait suh mo

Me: No one comes

SCORE 2-5, me-it

Me: I let out primal ARGHHHHHHH that I'm pretty sure was heard in the meat section in the back.

Me: Swipe item again.

It: beep (apparently scared by my yell)

Me: I place item in bag

It: silence (ahhhh)

SCORE 3-5, me-it

Me: Swipe next item

It: beep

Me: Swipe next item

It: Please place previous item on the weigher

Me: I ALREADY DID YOU PIECE OF SHHHH....

REVISED SCORE: 2-6, me-it


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The end score ended up something around 12-738.

Have I mentioned how much I hate self check out lines?  It took me, no kidding, about 10 minutes to purchase my 12 items.  I'm still not sure that I actually either paid for everything or didn't pay for something twice.  I didn't look at my receipt because I didn't really want to know; perhaps the score was 11-739, or 13 to 737.  Grocery store checker-outer is clearly not in my career future.  

Snakey needs his beauty sleep too

I love this boy.  He makes his bed every single morning and cleans up the upstairs every single night.  This morning when he made up his bed, he carefully placed Snakey in bed:

The dogs days of summer are coming to an end, finally.  I am sitting on my back porch in the shade, there is a breeze, its 84 and the two dogs are laying here by me; in short - perfect.  Yesterday afternoon was just as nice.  Offspring and a friend played in the sand box volleyball court in our neighborhood after taking the dogs for a really long walk.  I left them there to play longer while I brought the dogs home as I had to start dinner.  Offspring's dad happened by while I was at home making dinner and thankfully gave me a heads up (see how I got that cute little volleyball reference in) that Offspring had been buried to his neck - YES HIS NECK - in sand when he got there.  Grrrrrreat.

I decided to scuttle my previous plan of just having him take off his shoes and shirt when he got home. I had already posted a giant sign on the door that said

STOP!  

TAKE OFF CLOTHES  

THEN KNOCK!  

DO NOT COME IN!

I needed instead take more drastic measures.  So I waited on the driveway when his dad said they were coming back. I sent his friend home and directed Offspring round to the front porch where I was watering the flowers with the hose.  That was the cover story anyway.  I told Offspring to take his shirt and pants off - behind all the flowers and rail no one could see him strip down to his skivvies I said, and much to my shock he did not object; he promptly undressed.  The moment he was (mostly) naked, I turned the hose on him full.  He shrieked with shock and then started laughing like a wild youthful* hyena, which made me laugh, which made him laugh even harder.  I'm sure our neighbors must have thought we'd lost our damn minds (note: we had).

It took me a good 3-4 minutes to get the sand mostly off.  It was everywhere, and I mean everywhere in on and around his body, every crevice crack and fold.  After I finished hosing him down,  I sent him straight to our shower downstairs where more and more and more sand continued to come off his body.  I had to wash his hair really well to get it all (mostly all) out, and I had really hosed out his hair outside too.  And now there is this very annoying fine layer of sand all over the house - and it figures, Uncle Air Force had swept the floors just that morning.

I can't fathom how any sand is left at the sand box volleyball court.

* I will admit I don't know what a young vs old hyena sounds like, but his tiny little boy voice cackling and laughing was so darn cute that I had to add 'youthful' to this description

Categories on my IPod

I just discovered my iPhone is also an iPod.  Yeah, I know.  Shuddup.  In addition to albums/artists, I made up these playlists, with an exemplar in parantheses. 

Country Top 40 (Dirt Road Anthem by Jason Aldean)
Dance (Bootylicious by Beyonce .... could anyone else sing a song by that title?)
Fun (Jive Talkin' by Bee Gees)
Loud ( (Supermassive Black Hole by Muse)
Mellow (Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol)
Misc Good Stuff (Bleeding Love by Leona Lewis)
Sad (Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley)

Noteworthy for those on Facebook: the Chicken Dance is under fun.