Lumpy Brownish Milk Ain't Half-Bad in Coffee

Shuffling into the kitchen at 6:30 in the morning, I tend to do things in a rather rote way:  Grab coffee mug, pour coffee (that is ONLY made because I set it up to go off by itself the night before...GOD bless the inventor of THAT TRULY MOST AWESOME INVENTION EVER!) and then grab the gallon of milk out of the fridge and pour it into the mug, then drink delicious, caffeinated goodness that is my ante meridiem nectar.

Yesterday, I noted to myself that this jug is already at the halfway point and that maybe I need to pick up another gallon before the end of my day. And as I thought this, I began pour the milk into my coffee and it fell into my mug like white stew. "What, WHA????"

me:  "Oh, crap!"

Ismail:  "What?"

me:  "I can't believe this! I just bought this milk yesterday and now I have to return it to the grocery store because it's bad."

Ismail:  "It's not bad."

me:  "Son, it's pouring out in chunks . My coffee looks like it has quark floating in it. OH, THE HUMANITY!"

Ismail (audibly annoyed - remember I hadn't had coffee yet and could barely see past the mug) : "MOMMY! The milk is NOT bad."

me:  "THEN PLEASE EXPLAIN WHY IT IS BROWNISH AND LUMPY????"

Ismail:  "Because Randa squeezed an entire bottle of chocolate syrup into it and then  poked marshmallows through the opening and shook it up."

me:  "Cool. Rocky Road coffee."

Just A Question

Is there something genetically linked in male  DNA that rears its head in puberty that causes boys to drip water all over the bathroom with no ability to dry it up?

Does someone pull them aside in middle school and whisper to them, "While you will still use every clean towel in the closet after your shower and leave them wadded up throughout the house, from now on you will also be required to step onto the bare floor NEXT to the bathmat and  shake violently like a wet dog to ensure that there is more water on the walls, floor, mirror, counter, and ceiling than ever hit the bath tub during your 98 minute shower while the rest of the family was  hopping outside the door in dire need of a  pee."

Thankfully I noticed it BEFORE I slipped and broke my neck. That is all.

Shiner

Me:  Son, you keep teasing your sister and one of these days she's going to tag you right in the eye.

     He:  Pffft! I don't think so. She knows better.

Me:  Mm-hmmmmm. Keep it up. I'm telling you, she's going to pop you one and make you cry.

     He:  Yeah, right. 

**********Several weeks later, during a power outage when nerves were high after sitting in

the dark for well over an hour*************

He:  Shut up, Randa!

     She:  Ismail, stop it. Don't say 'shut up.'

He:  You're not the boss of me. I said, 'Shut up,' so 'SHUT UP!'

     She:  Ismail! Stop yelling!

He:  Yeah, heifer! SHUT UP!

     She: No, Ismail! SHUT UP.

***SMAK!  HIGH-PITCHED SCREAMING AND WAILING!*****

Me:  Aiman, give me the flash light! Son, what happened?

     He:   She  punched me in the eye! I'm going to kill her!

Me:  Let me look at it. Hmmmm. Remember a few weeks ago when I told you to let her be or she'd pop you?
 
    He:  Yeah?

Me:  Well, consider that eye dotted! 

Endogenous Morphine....I Dig It

I've been a scale yo-yo most of my adult life. I've never been able to wear "skinny jeans" or super short skirts that require you to shave to your belly button. I was always very active and fit because I was a jockette all through school and continued playing in softball leagues and bowling and biking and running. I have always enjoyed working out. And anyone can tell you that muscle weighs more than fat, so when I was 140 pounds on the scale at 5'3 and a 1/2" (because that 1/2" means something to ME) and wearing a size 9/10, I was extremely thin. I have curves. I like them.

Enter married life and having 5 children in 6 years, with each child weighing within 4 ounces of my bowling ball that I'm now far too busy to use. About 6 years after my youngest son was born, I was watching The Biggest Loser with my husband, that guy whose waist is only 2 inches bigger than the day I met him. Anyway, we were talking about weight and getting back into shape and I asked him if I were to lose all this weight I've packed on over the years and managed to keep it off for a year, would he be willing to pay for plastic surgery to get rid of any excess skin and maybe put the girls back up where they belong since I'm wanting to stop tucking them in my pants. He said he would. I challenged him. I bet him that I could lose my 40 lbs quicker than he could put on 20 lbs. He took that bet.................and lost. I lost 44 lbs in 3 mos and kept it off for over two years. And then it started to creep back on.

Then I lost 10 and then I'd gain 20 and back and forth and back and forth until my heaviest (that I am aware of) was 231 lbs. OMG.  So, when I came back to Egypt with the kids, we lived so far in the boonies that I had to walk at least 1.5 miles just to buy milk and 2 to catch a bus. I started walking the 3.5 miles home from dropping the kids off at school and the weight started to come off. Then we moved to a 5th floor apartment where the elevator had not yet been installed (which is fine by me because I'm so claustrophobic and they're smaller than one of those public toilet stalls) and I managed to get down into a 12! It was soooo fantastic.

Then my husband came back from working overseas and I stopped walking as much because he didn't want me running all over Hell's half-acre all the time. And then we moved into a 2nd floor apartment that was much closer to all the amenities and schools. I appreciated the cut in time that moving provided me. The only down side was that it cut into my forced exercise program. So over the last year, I've ballooned up again. I don't know how much I weigh exactly, but my size 16s are getting a little tight. I ripped the thigh out of my pants stepping up to get on a bus. (Thank God I wear a long dress over my regular clothes so know one knew.)

I am trying to get back into shape. After the whole heart work up last year because I thought I was having angina attacks and it turned out to be stress and gas (not surprising at all) I have decided to make better food choices and start to exercise again.  Last year, I tried to go vegetarian and ended up gaining 10 lbs. And I really like meat. So that lasted only 45 days.

But now I'm trying to cut most of the non-produce carbohydrates from my diet entirely. I've stopped putting sugar in my coffee and tea. I will sometimes add a tiny bit of cinnamon for flavor. I'm trying to up my water intake and I've been taking Mohamed to his exams all week (approximately 5 kilometers away) and walking all the way back at a very fast pace (to 8-count 80's music, in fact.) I'm sweating like a whore in church by the time I get to the vegetable market and I usually complete it in 25 minutes! Of course, today was his last day of exams and I have no idea how I'm going to do this now....perhaps I'll change course and walk down to the beach and up to the vegetable market and back. That ought to be at least as long a course, if not longer. Whatever.

The main reason I started to blather on here was to say that I don't feel depressed today. I've been sad and angry and miserable most of this week. Fighting my angst-y teenagers is usually the straw that breaks my camel's back and after I scream at them and separate them I end up in the fetal position on my bed crying my eyes out. BUT today, after my shin splints stopped hurting me, I felt my face smiling without meaning to and I noticed  how nice the breeze was and how beautiful a view it was (provided I didn't look down at the garbage on the street.) And I felt better overall. Endorphins are nature's Prozac. I LIKE this feeling. I think I'm gonna keep it up.

Possible New Careers for Me

I'm looking for a new job. Something less stressful than being a Stay-at-home-Mom (SAHM.)  See, being a SAHM requires me to work between 18 and 23 hours a day, eat cold meals, and drink so much coffee that I am not only jittery but usually constipated for days at a time, unless I accidentally take my cholesterol medicine twice in the same day and then....LAWD!  Don't block the path to the bathroom.

I want a new job with benefits.  Health insurance, you ask?  Pish-posh.  I want  the benefits like the right to a daily shower with hot water, whether I need one or not.  I want to be able to sleep a full 6 hours at night without being awakened 20 minutes before the alarm clock goes off to be asked, "What time is it?"  I want to be able to have a "lunch break" where I can actually get more than one forkful of food into my mouth before someone else asks me to serve them seconds.  I want it all.

I'm thinking that a career in firefighting might be a good choice for me.  I got tons of training in how to get people someplace safely in record speeds by being told 12 minutes before soccer practice starts that I was unknowingly volunteered to drive the carpool.  I'm also pretty good with bandaids and antiseptic, so maybe I could train to be an EMT.  I break up fist fights between teenage boys at least three times a day.  Perhaps an official on a nuclear disarmament team?  Peace talks?  Referee for a football club in Liverpool?  Or maybe rodeo clown...but clowns creep me out.

Leave a suggestion in the comments section.
Oh, and check out my friend, Nuala Reilly's webpage for great reading material at this LINK.  She's awesome.

Did You Know You Can't Flush When the Power's Out?

After 29.5 hours of no electricity, our power has finally been restored. What does this mean? Well, certainly NOT that I can plop down at the desk and start "pinning" like crazy although my left-mouse clicky finger is itching to do just that. Nope. I had to cook three days worth of meat that had thawed in my freezer before it started to rot. This, while a tad exhausting, actually works out quite well for me and my daily quest for "what the hell to cook."

Tomorrow we'll have beef and okra stewed in tomato sauce and the day after tomorrow....or whenever....I'll just thaw the garlic and orange roast that's cooked and in the now operational freezer.  I caught up on the dishes, washed the sheets that were in the washer all day fermenting in that nasty "wet dog" smell because the water was old. I fed my family the Texas-fried steak and convinced my 13 year old that he REALLY needed a nap. (Apparently, teasing and fighting the 11 and 12  year olds is exhausting work, too.)

Because we have such low water pressure out here by the beach, we require electricity to pump the water up to the upper floors of the apartment building. Soooooo, guess what we ALSO didn't have for the last nearly 30 hours? That's right. Water.  I did have water, but not via the faucet. I kept sending the boys downstairs with buckets and empty soda bottles to fill up from the house on the ground floor. Whatever. It worked. And I gave the bathroom a much needed cleaning and flushed a couple of times....just.because.I.could.

So, the next time your power pops off for a couple of hours during an electrical storm, just remember:  It could be worse. You COULD live in the Middle East where some idiot could be digging a foundation for a new apartment building and because he's doing it without the proper licensing or permission, his digger could cut a major grid cable in half and you could be a really long time without internet and the ability to read MY blog. And that would be terrible. Oh, the humanity!

Why My Husband Refuses to Buy Me a Taser

As per my mother's request, here is a post from a few years back:

I've been asking my husband for about 2 years to buy me a Taser...but he won't. He just shakes his head and laughs everytime I try to explain my latest reasons for having one. He says I'm too "reactionary" and "hot-headed" to own one. Humph! Says HIM.

I promised him that I wouldn't shock the big-butted woman in front of me on the bread lines at the bakery and that I wouldn't shock the kids' new principal at the school EVEN if she "has it coming to her." I promised that I would NEVER use it on his siblings or his children and that I'd wait until AFTER his brother's wife has her baby before I used on HER irritating ass. He actually considered this for a brief moment and then shook his head and said that even if he wanted to buy me one they don't sell them in Egypt. I, being the ever problem-solving genius that I am, suggested that he just pick one up for me in Greece or in the US next time he goes on a business trip. He thought that he could out-maneuver me with the ole' "it won't get past customs" trick. But I was one step ahead of him as usual, and I retaliated with the ole' "but they come in leopard print carrying case AND have headphones with 1GB MP3 players now!" Surely he couldn't step past THIS intellectual landmine. But DAMMITMAN! He's been watching me and listening to me sidestep HIS issues with such grace and finesse for so many years that now the grasshopper has become the master....and he blew me away with this: "You are so accident prone that you'd probably plug the headphones into the wrong part and zap your own ears off! And even if that didn't happen, I'd have to leave a power-of-attorney with my lawyer every time I left the country so that someone would be able to bail you out of jail the two or three times a day that you get upset or impatient with someone and try to fry them."
I stopped and thought about it and sulked. I knew he was right. If you think he's wrong, I'll have to ask you to go through my blog archives to see my ramblings on why it is a good thing I don't choose who lives and dies on this planet as I'd be awfully lonely.

Hopelessness

She was a freshman when I was a senior. I knew who she was. I said hi to her when I saw her in the hallways at school. Her brothers and I were all friends. They lived on the court behind ours. Years go by and I read on the internet that she and her young daughter had died. I sent my condolences to the family. I didn't know how and something inside me kept me from asking about the circumstances. Today I read an article online that detailed the incident and I felt sick to my stomach. She was shot by police after refusing to put down a knife that she was using to repeatedly stab her four year old daughter. Now at first, I thought, "Oh my God! How could she?" but then I read on. She had been suffering from emotional and financial distress, probably not in that order. She'd lost her job and hadn't been able to afford to pay her rent for 5 months or more. The water had been shut off for failure to pay the bill. Apparently the state had been threatening to take her children. No one knows what they will do in such a situation. I mean, it's easy to say, "I know I would never" but how do you know? I would HOPE that I would never feel such hopelessness and fear as to take the lives of my children. I have to hope that my belief that God controls all would get me through.

I have been in some seriously dire situations financially. I lost a house to foreclosure. I had wages garnished for 6 weeks once (not just some...the entire 6 weeks of pay...$zero income.) And were it not for WIC and the kindness of friends and our ability to eat canned beans and bread, we may not have made it. And it was hard, but we did it. A lot of you know that we returned to Texas from Egypt last year to make a go of it there. After four months, I packed the kids back up and came back to Egypt. We just couldn't do it. We applied for food stamps and I was training to go back to work as an interpreter. My husband was working and applying all over the city for more work. But no one was hiring (except illegals) and we didn't have enough money to pay rent. When we finally decided that I was going to move with the children back to Egypt, my mom and sister and various extended relatives all had their opinions and emotions over the issue. But you see, none of those who were angry had been in a desperate place or lost a  home or had stared the inability to feed their kids in the face before. And we listened and tried to explain but they didn't "get it." And we left anyway, with a lot of hurt and angry people in our wake. Some blamed me. Most blamed my husband and assumed that he "sent me away." (Anyone who truly knows me, KNOWS that I am rarely forced to do anything against my will.) Whatever their opinions we had to do what was right for us and our situation. No regrets.

I look at the situation of my former school mate and I wonder what she would have done if she'd had the option we did. If she was able to take "the out" that we were, would she be alive today. God knows. I do know that through my grief for her surviving child and brothers that I again see a lesson reiterated. Judge not that you be not judged. We cannot judge her actions. God knows her heart and the desperate place that she was in. I pray God forgive her her sins and grant her His mercy. 

My Life's Work

Raising children has got to be the most rewarding, difficult job that doesn't involve hazard pay. It's loud and screamy and a little head-achy and sometimes poopy and vomity. But a lot of the time it isn't. A lot of the time it's funny and laughing and giggly and loving. Today is one of those really good days where I feel like I've succeeded at the "mom gig."

While I'm nowhere near finished with my "job," I know that I'm on the right track. There are some members of my extended family who have criticized my kids and the way I raise them. Do I care about those opinions? Not enough to change what I'm doing. Did those opinions hurt? Hell yes. But here's the thing. I. know. that. I. have. great. kids. Not good. GREAT!

Yes, they fight. There are FIVE of them and they are all extremely close in age and in a less than 1000 square foot 3-bedroom apartment. They have 5 extremely different personalities and interests and tolerance levels. They are all pretty vocal and equal on the teasing playing field. They all have great senses of humor complete with sarcastic rapier wit. They fight over the t.v., the computer and whose turn it is to do dishes. What kids don't? Do they fist fight? Yes. Do I allow it? No. Do they do it anyway? Yes. But I break it up and hand out punishments by taking away privileges.

For whatever fighting, teasing or tattling that they do, they are also extraordinarily helpful. My kids are the ones that see a woman struggling with bags of groceries and walk up and take the bags from her hands so that she can get out her keys to open the front door. They won't carry the groceries upstairs to her apartment because they aren't allowed to. But they will set them inside the door of the building. Unless it's someone that we know or unless they yell up to our balcony and let me know what they're doing first. My kids help with dishes...some of them without being told. Others help on the threat of no computer time. One actually gets bored and cleans out closets. Another will clean the stove top (a job that I abhor.) And one got sick of the handprints in the hallway and actually scrubbed down the walls for me 2 nights ago.

I still have to yell to get anyone to get the dirty laundry INTO the hamper as opposed to under the beds, but I never said they were perfect. My youngest buys me little things that he thinks I might like. If he gets 5 pounds spending money from his father, he immediately asks one of his older brothers to take him to the corner shop to "buy stuff." He almost always comes back with a can of diet soda or a  piece of gum or a package of ramen noodles for me. I don't have the heart to tell him that I cannot stand the thought of ramen noodles after living on them for nearly two semesters of college. I get love notes from them. My 13-yr old leaves me "I'm sorry" and "I love you" notes when I'm having a bad day. My oldest likes to text his love notes to me...usually after we have one of those "teenage angst" days together. My younger daughter will just go make my bed or wash a load of dishes if she's attempting to apologize. And my youngest is just a big hugger. My older daughter will tell me "Sorry, Mommy. Give me a hug." For an autistic kid, she's starting to learn empathy.

I know that I have put a lot on here about the OMG they're running me nuts times....but I guess that's because I use this blog as a sort of creative outlet to my own stress to keep from having an aneurysm or ripping out all of my eyebrows which are both inconvenient and terribly unattractive....especially when I get that nervous twitch in my face. But all in all, I have great kids who are learning to deal with other personality types in small spaces on a daily basis. And if they fight well, they make up better. And that's something that a lot of adults STILL need to learn how to do. Clearly, I'm doing something right.

Be Careful What You Wish For...

Last night I was in a really shitty mood. I know. Language, language. But I don't know that there is a better adjective to use than 'shitty.' So I'm not editing.

So you know how when everything in your life as a stay-at-home-mom (SAHM) becomes rote and goes on in a sort of "autopilot" mode and you wake up the same everyday and brush your teeth the same everyday and buy bread the same everyday and take the kids to school the same everyday and yell about watching cartoons before homework the same everyday and you're late with dinner the same everyday and you consider jumping from the balcony the same everyday only to argue yourself out of it the same everyday because let's face it a dive off the first floor balcony is only gonna get you into a cast and not into a dirt nap and then life would be the same everyday only in a friggin' cast which would just complicate shit and not really solve anything or give the same selfish result that ultimately you want anyway and that would be that the people in your life THINK ABOUT YOU more than just to locate some lost random item like a backpack, cigarette lighter, or adapter to charge a mobile phone. And it would be really itchy and hard to walk.

So you just suck it up day after day thinking "it's going to get better...it has to....I chose the SAHM life and I love my kids and my family and I wouldn't trade it for the world." And you know that deep down you never would trade your husband or children for one of those hot firemen calendar poster guys on a big red fire engine with his ropes and hoses....oh my! Although there would probably be a big long 'pros' and 'cons' list, if only mentally. But in the end, the SAHM-gig would still win out. Because after all, you ARE making a difference in the world by repopulating the planet with intelligent, kind and productive people. And you love them and they love you. And that husband, even after all these years, is still really hot. And he's seen you in the throws of childbirth and helped you during a really messy miscarriage and helped change the poopy diapers and made you dark-chocolate covered baklava for your birthday and he's seen you in bad flourescent lighting with all your stretchmarks and 'still planning on losing this' pregnancy fat and hasn't run screaming down the street in search of a younger, hotter version of you....AND STILL WANTS YOU.

But from time to time that overwhelming, 'oh dear God help me not to puke from boredom' feeling  hits you. And this is how I felt last night. And I told my husband that I was bored. And his answer was, "Go to bed."
NOT what I was hoping for. But men aren't intuitive like women. We have to lay it on the line with them. No hints-dropping because they're not designed to pick up on that sort of stuff. If we want flowers, then we have to say: "Hey, Honey. My birthday is Saturday and I want red roses with daisies mixed in and I want a gold bracelet and if you get me another kitchen gadget that plugs in, you can also hire me a divorce lawyer."
That's how you get what you want from men. Telling them stuff like, "I am bored with my life and I need a change," is NOT going to get you a hired babysitter and a night out on the town. I know this. But I hoped for a fleeting moment. And instead of living up to my weird female expectations, he lived up to the reality that is male. So I went to bed.


This morning I decided to wash the curtains in the foyer for a change of pace. So, I climbed up on the four foot wooden painter's ladder and took the curtains down. Randa was complaining because her brother farted next to her and it stunk. (The computer is in the foyer and she was playing on the computer.) So I told her to turn on the ceiling fan judging that I was at least a foot or more out of reach of the blades. She told me, "Be careful, Mommy." I thought, "How sweet. My little girl has overcome the autism speech issues enough to worry about my concern." And then I noticed that the curtain was stuck to the wooden splinters on the ladder so I lifted my arm out to pull the fabric away and stuck my damn hand right in the path of the metal ceiling fan that was on high.

I don't know about you, but five stitches in my index finger before noon definitely counts as a change in my regular routine. Think I'll keep my mouth shut from now on and just count my blessings.

Sci-Fi Super Hero Powers Wanted FAST

I want eyeballs equipped with laser beams. I want to be
able to cup my hands forward and have big, fat fire-balls
shoot out of my palms that blow stuff up. I want to just
squint in the direction of something or someone that's
just pissed me off to the nth degree and have their itty,
bitty, heads pop off and spin toward the sun. Or the moon,
if it's dark out.

I want to be able to make one of those tractor-beam
things like from Star Trek and suck my kids backwards
when they take off storming into another room because
they don't want to hear me. I also want to be able to
make one of those force fields like the chick from Fantas-
tic 4 only I want mine to be soundproof so I can block
all the damn whining, yelling, screaming, and tattling that
my kids do. Oh, and I want it so that I don't get a nose
bleed every time I use it....because, frankly, I'll get a
lot of mileage out of that one.

I'd like to have the ability to plant thoughts and ideas
into my kids heads, like Matt Parkman, the cop from
that show Heroes. That would be cool. I could do all
of my parenting without yelling and losing my voice.
That would be so awesome.

But you know what would be better? I wouldn't need
all these crazy sci-fi  powers if they would just stop
and see that I'm not asking the world from them when
I ask them to respect each other. I wouldn't have to
shout, "FAG is not a respectful word for your brother!"
I wouldn't have to remind for the 32nd time "Reading
your sister's diary is not only rude and invasive and
wrong. It is hurtful and it always going to be....no
matter HOW MANY times she writes that you're a
butthead in it!"

I'm trying my best to keep it together, but it's getting
mighty difficult. I hate my job sometimes. If I could
find something less stressful I'd be so out of here...
if I could just find where I could submit my resignation.
I hear nuclear disarmament is interesting and could
potentially lower my blood pressure. I imagine it's like
knitting, only without having the stress of "casting on."

But if anyone hears about a spot opening up in Super
Hero School for a middle-aged, slightly overweight
but still hot red-head who is beyond sick of kids,
drop me a line. Thanks.

Who's More Hormonal? Me or Him?

The deeper we get into the teenage years, the more I

tend to vent on here. Man. I hope they don't ever run 

across my blogs. If I'm suffering through the "poor me

my life sucks so bad" pity parties NOW..then I'll be 

catering "Pity-Palooza Suck Fest 2011" if they do read

them. 

I don't want to be one of those moms who gripes and

whines constantly about her kids. I remember how my

mom seemed always against me when I was a teen. I

went out for cross-country and track just to extend my

school day so I wouldn't have to fight with her all the 

time. But living in Egypt, we don't have the same sport

opportunities as we did in Germany or the U.S. I know

my oldest son would love to get a place of his own. He

keeps bugging me to find a 4-bedroom place so he 

won't have to share a room with his brothers. I told him

that he'll have to get a job to pay the difference in rent.

I don't want him to hate me. I do love him with all my 

heart. He is creative and artistic and sweet. But since

he turned 16, he's combined the teenage angst, tween

"put upon thing" and the 2 yr old tantrums that he skipped

and they're all coming out on my head full swing. I know

he hates me. He's 16. That's a given. But he is so loud

and mean about it sometimes. And he has his brothers

spending the night on the couch in the living room to stay

away from him.

It's just a phase. I keep telling myself this. I don't know

that I'm listening to me, though. I cried myself to sleep 

last night. And all four of the younger kids came into my

room to hug me and ask me not to cry. But not the one

that I was crying over. He'll outgrow it,God willing. And

maybe we'll be friends again. And maybe I'll go back to 

crying over championship sporting events and sappy 

Kleenex commercials again. And I won't feel like such

a failure as a mother again.

You Don't Understand What It's Like to Be Me

"You don't understand what it's like to be me!" shouted my

nearly 12 year old daughter when I told her she could not

sleep on the couch and instead had to sleep in her bed. Of

course I don't. Just like I don't understand what it's like to 

be her nearly 13 year old brother or her 15 year old sister

or her 16 year old brother....or the 64 year old doorman to

our building. 

I understand that she's beginning her journey through "Put-

upon-ville" and she won't arrive to "Finally-got-a-clue City"

until she's already visited "Whaddya-mean-I-can't-wear-

make-up Falls" and "But-all-my-friends-are-doing-it-burg."

There's like a whole road map of teen angst that she's yet

to travel. Yeah, and I'm so looking forward to it. That and

a root canal sans anesthesia. 

I can't blame her for my boredom with her particular road

trip through Hell. It was MY choice to have 3 teenagers 

before her and another one after her. I guess THIS would

be the reason for that whole "spacing" concept when it comes

to having children. Yeah. The light bulb finally came on and 

I get it now...a day late and a dollar short.

But that's fine. I'm in it now. And I'll be grateful when it 

passes and they've all....errrrrrrrrr.....WE'VE all made it 

through the teen years and the whole family has become 

human again. And then I'll start planning my revenge. 

I'll take lots of vitamins and herbs, like echinacea and garlic

and St. John's Wort. I'll eat right and exercise and live to 

be 147 years old and get Alzheimer's and wear adult diapers

and dribble on my chin when I eat. And they'll all be argu-

ing about whose turn it is to take Mom this month. HA!

And in my head I'll be laughing the last laugh and I'll tell 

each one in turn, "You don't understand what it's like to be

me!"

It's Africa Hot

Yeah, well, Africa Hot here in Africa just means the usual kind of hot.
The hot where you have all the ceiling fans and the portable fans run-
ning full blast all day and all night until the electric company shuts off
the power grid for about 2 hours so that the city can handle the sheer
volume of wattage being sucked out of it at once. Or maybe they're
just giving the little gerbils a tea and cigarette break outside of their
wheels.

And we sweat. We sweat while we sleep, while we eat, while we sit,
while we shower. Yes, we sweat IN the shower. We haven't even
hooked up the water heater since we've moved in. Who needs it?
Africa hot means solar heated water pipes. However, this also means
you don't get to drink cold water unless you've remembered to put
water bottles in the fridge. And with 5 kids, you'd think that would
not be a problem, right? You would be so WRONG. Because with
5 kids, we drink hot water out of the cold tap all the time. Mainly,
because we can't ever find the water bottles.

As a mom, I drink a bottle of water. I then carry it with me on my
next trip to the kitchen and wash it out and refill it and stick it in the
freezer (usually behind a bag of bread to hide it from those cold water
sucking fiends I laughingly call my offspring.) My kids, however, take
a bottle (usually my ice-chippy cold bottle hidden behind the bread
bags) and suck it down and then find a new place to store the empty
bottle. These places change hourly. I have found the empty bottles
under the computer desk, behind my bed, under the couch, on top
of the t.v., in the toy box, and on the top shelf of the closet.

And today, with all the water bottles empty, and the fans going full
blast blowing around hot air, Ismail and Randa decided to teach
themselves how to bake bread today....at 3 o'clock in the afternoon.

GACK.

Moving is EXHAUSTING

While I admit, I AM totally SUPER-MOM, I do have limits.
I can do a bunch of junk simultaneously but I have to draw
the line at cleaning two houses that are 3 miles apart at the
same time. So while I'm cleaning all the dust and dirt out of
the new apartment which had been empty for about a year
after not having been cleaned by the previous tenants for
the last ten years, I cannot possibly clean the apartment we
are still living in. I am good. I'm DAMN good....but not
THAT damn good.

So here's a message to the family: Hey, Sponges. (And I
mean that in the sucking the life out of me sense of the word.)
Pick up your dishes off the table and WASH THEM when
you are finished eating. If the washing machine goes off
after I turn it on before walking out the door to go hose off
12 pounds worth of dirt from the window screens, PULL
them out and hang them on the line. While it IS an automatic
washing machine, it too has limits. You kids are all over the
age of 10 and none of you has had your hands amputated,
thank God. So if you're hungry while I'm out, don't use
digits to call me to inform me of this information. COOK
something. Make a sandwich. Give me a flippin' break.

Okay, the soap box I'm standing on is getting wobbly....
I'd better get down. 

Today Started Out Fine...

...but in the last few hours it's become rather emotional. I've cried
four times in the last three hours. Well, one of those times was out
of sheer frustration having told the boys to go to bed no less than
5,362 times since 11:30pm. But the other three times have just been
weirdly triggered by Facebook and blogs of all things. Granted,
the Facebook cry session was due to a message I received from a
very dear friend of mine whose brother is dying of cancer.

While he and I were never close friends, I always had one of those
"Oh, God, I would just die if he were to ever walk up and say, 'You
are the woman for me,' but it'll never happen because he'd dating a
friend of yours" kind of crushes on him. So I never said anything.
Anyway, my friend told me that he had to tell his daughter that his
cancer didn't respond to the chemotherapy. I flashed back to my
senior year in high school when my mom had to tell us 2 weeks after
losing her leg to cancer, that she was terminal and had probably less
than 6 months to live. It felt like I'd had the wind knocked out of me.
I mean, I dealt with it. I had to. I was the oldest of four and had to
pick up Mom's slack while she was sick. But it sucked. I remembered
all those feelings of anger, sadness, rage, indifference, self-pity,
compassion and fear came bubbling back up after all these years. I
definitely can relate to how his daughter is feeling now. (Mom made it
by the way. She made the protocol for an experimental drug and
she's one of the NIH success stories for Interleuken II. As I understand
it, not that many made it.) 

I regained my composure from this bout of crying just after I added
my friend, her brother, his daughter, and their entire family to my
prayer list. I yelled at my kids and got back into the groove that is
motherhood, and then sat down to read one of my favorite blogs
and in spite of how hilarious Brittany is, she struck a nerve in me and
the next thing I knew, I was bawling my eyes out again with my head
on the desk. God, I'm such a sap. Pass the tissue. Ismail came in and
asked me if I was crying. I said yes. He asked why and hugged me. I
just gave him the usual mom-spiel about how I'm sad right now and
just need a quick cry. That seemed okay with him and got me a kiss
goodnight.

So then I thought maybe my other favorite blog might cheer me up.
WRONG! This usually funny, self-deprecating site was written in the
middle of some seriously stressed-out Mom-mode angst. I don't know
what's going on with Shauna's family right now but she made number
3 on my prayer list for personal intentions. And then the tears began
to flow again. Wow.

I need to drink a 2-liter bottle of water to refill my tear ducts, I think.
But maybe tomorrow will be better, God willing.

Symmetry is Overrated

Our toilet tank is broken...again. My husband has tried everything he knows to fix it and we've resolved to flushing with a bucket of water. It's easy. It works. Whatever.

So I'm filling the bucket up and I happened to look in the mirror and noticed it.
Wow. I'm totally not ever wearing this t-shirt again in front of people. I guess it's just par for my asymmetrical course. I mean, I have one eye bigger than the other, one ear lower than the other and one foot with a big ghastly birthmark while the other looks normal. You know, as normal as boxy feet shaped like Daisy Duck's can look. But I'm seriously considering entering a room with my left shoulder cocked forward so that it's not so noticeable that my right boob is more than half a cup size bigger than the left one.

Can I BE Any Busier?

So, here it is 2:56 a.m. and two of my kids have final exams tomorrow. (The other three will be busy fighting and beating the crap out of one another until I get back from the school with the first two.) And am I going to sleep? No. I'm watching Entertainment Tonight and attempting to catch up on my blog.

I guess that I could touch upon the  political and social events going on here...but I'm not ready to do that just yet. I'm still studying up these rotten kids for finals. Didn't you see the first paragraph?! I will get on it soon...right after the exams are over.

My husband is back from working overseas for the last year. Yay! Of course, this only means we now have plumbing problems to deal with. No, no, no! I don't mean that in the "Al Bundy" sort of way. What I mean is that there is a sort of Twilight Zone connection with plumbing and days that my husband travels by air. It doesn't matter if he's arriving or departing. Some pipe will burst, a toilet will overflow or a faucet valve will leak or snap off. It's like a family tradition now. I think we've even jinxed my neighbor as this time not only did 2 of our faucets break and the toilet tank, but her water pump started gushing water at the water main downstairs. My fear is she'll read this blog and then walk over with an open hand for me to pay for the repairs. I'm hoping that we'll be able to get all our plumbing issues straightened out so that we can shower, flush the toilet without filling a bucket first, and/or adjust the water pressure on our water pump without blasting the skin off our hands when we wash them, (not to mention the effects of a high pressure bidet! ZOIKS!)  I sure am glad that he's home...and that he's a pretty good plumber.

Today Sucks.

I have decided to postpone number 5 of 5 in the "Bright Spots in My Day Today" series.
Primarily because my kids all ceased being "bright spots" and turned into "black holes"
in the last 3 days. I love them all with all of my heart. But I just don't like them right now.
They're all sick and driving me up a tree. I cook, clean, dole out meds, put them in bed,
buy fruit and make soup. They in turn throw their dirty socks on the floor, run out onto
the balcony with short sleeves on, blow their noses and then throw the dirty tissues onto
each other, complain how they don't like this or that for dinner, get out of bed 47,000
times to fight and pee and drink water only to have to pee again and then fight about whose
turn it is to shut the light off.

Ismail is on my short list for the first available childless couple in search of a cute 12-yr
old to adopt. It's raining cats and dogs outside, the window in the back bedroom has water
running into it from the roof of the building and I'm almost out of towels. On top of all that,
I still don't have t.v. because I never replaced the ripped up cable to the satellite dish and
Frontierville on Facebook refuses to load. I swear I'm losing it. If it weren't so wet and cold
outside, I'd be heading to the pharmacy for Prozac. *sigh*

This too shall pass...this too shall pass....this too shall pass.

I've Got the Teen-Raising Blues

The funk is back. I could blame it on the geography,
but that would be dishonest. The truth is that I am
the mother of two teenagers and one 11-yr old who
started puberty early. (Lucky, lucky me.) THAT is
about 90% of my blue mood right there. The other 10%
has more to do with the fact that my husband and I
are living on opposite sides of the world...again. I
don't know. Maybe I should switch those numbers. Maybe
my problem is 10% teenagers and 90% not getting any.
I mean,really...I could probably better deal with the
teenagers if I had a really good release system...
which at present I don't. Well, yeah, I know. I COULD
drink. Except that it's against my religion. And it's
a bad example to these rotten ass humans I call teens.
I don't think I can tell them not to use drugs and
drink as a means to escape and have it be remotely
credible when all the words are coming out slurred and
interrupted by giggling and occasional belching.
Because LET ME ASSURE YOU, if I were to fall off the
wagon at this point, I would TOTALLY roll right into
a liquor store and remain drunk for the next 10 years.
Yes. That's correct. TEN YEARS, Baby. Because it'll be
that long before all five of my kids are out of their
teen years. And that would be one helluva hangover,
don't ya think?
So, I grit and bear it. And I blog. And enjoy little
tiny fantasies throughout the day that involve teenage
kids with severe cases of laryngitis that last weeks at
a time where I don't have to hear things like, "I hate
you!", "Whatever!", or "No, FAKELY!" which is usually
in response to the question "Oh, really?"
I'm sure one day it will all be worth it. I'll get my
MOTY award and be crowned Most Awesome Sober Mother
and write a book and be interviewed by Oprah after she
reads my autobiography with her book club: LOSING MY
SANITY WHILE RAISING KIDS WAS CHEAPER THAN XANAX (And
Other Money-Saving Tips for the Birth Control Challenged)
In the mean time, I'll just have to work out a little
more frequently after reaching for that comfort food!