observations on the current state of affairs

I was putting my latest gas purchase in my checkbook today and just for kicks looked back in June to see how much it cost me to fill up then. $52. Today? $19. Wow. It's been a long time.

Isn't that great? Being able to fill up for less than $20? Sure is. Up until I look at my 401(k) and see a total reversal of fate - it's worth about half what it was worth in June. Well that's kind of a lie, it's only down 30% in the last 3 months, 40% over the last year. I feel I've fared OK through all of this poopoo, I know most haven't. And thank goodness I don't have to retire anytime soon, I can sit back and buy into these funds at rock-bottom prices and will be able to see everything come back. It will come back. Who knows when, but it will.

It's interesting how things work. One turn of good fortune cannot be enjoyed quite as much because you're getting kicked in the ass somewhere else.

eek!

There is a mouse currently residing somewhere in my kitchen. Hubby saw it a while ago and told me about it, and I determined that he was crazy because weeks went by without so much as a peep from the critter. He even thought he was crazy and imagined it.

No such luck. I was coming up from the basement and saw it scurry across the counter top (the very one we use for cooking! Ick!). It ran behind the TV we have in the corner (yes we are junkies) and disappeared. Then last night my lovely daughter woke up at 12:45 to eat and as I sat down with her on the couch I saw it make a u-turn at the threshold of the kitchen and the living room and beeline back into the kitchen *shudder*.

I woke hubby up and told him he was to go to the store after work and buy a trap. A humane one, of course, not a glue trap - he'll never make that mistake again. In college his roommate bought a glue trap and got the mouse - problem solved! Oh, until he realized it's feet are permanently stuck to the trap and it's alive and was faced with the decision of letting it gnaw its own feet off or killing it (which he did with a rock).

There hasn't been any confrontation between my greyhound and the mouse that I know about, and I'm hoping it stays this way. I do not want to come home to a bloody pulp in the guest bed (aka greyhound's bed) (aka her kitchen). I do not, however, worry much about this because 1. the mouse is small and fast and can hide and 2. my hound is getting old and extremely unmotivated unless cheese is involved.

We need to strategically place the trap however in a place unseen by the hound. I have visions of her finding the mouse in a trap 1. being bothered all day by it and 2. doing unsavory things to the trap in order to get at said mouse.

It took plenty of courage for me to go into the kitchen this morning to get my lunch ready and use the neti pot (cannot go a day without this miracle worker). I could see myself leaning over the sink with water (and snot) running out of my nose and being scared half to death by a mouse that I rationally know won't bother me and is more scared of me than I am of it but of which I am irrationally scared shitless.

Oh joy, the wonders of home ownership. Why can't I have a dog that will catch small animals and dispose of them properly instead of wounding them enough to put them out of commission and die a slow, painful death?

things you should never hear at work

'It makes your testicles shrink.'

breastfeeding is messy

When I signed up for breastfeeding (in my head anyway) no one told me it's not such a great idea to do it when you work in a dry-clean-only type of environment. I'm wearing a really cute heather gray pencil skirt and have managed to spill milk on it twice now. It's not cool having to walk around the office with big old wet spots on a heather grey skirt - I either look like my bladder control is non-existant or like a messy slob, or both. I suppose from now on I should wear lots of black (which is not a problem).

Do they make bibs for this purpose? They really should. Perhaps this is my calling, my cash cow - developer of the pumping bib. Look out Bill Gates, here I come! Or I could just go and get a kitchen apron and save the world from yet another useless product.

Seriously though, it takes an acrobat to hold one pump on while gently removing the other and simultaneously rushing in with a paper towel to clean up any drippings. It's a miracle I haven't lost it and spilled everything all over myself (my sister cannot say the same thing, poor girl - at least her pants weren't dry clean only).

no freaking way

A man named Milton Betts has had the hiccups for a year. A year! I'm a mess if I have them for more than a few minutes! Hiccups are the most irritating things in the whole world. I get super pissy whenever I get them (ask hubby - he finds it hilarious). I know I couldn't deal with them for a year. Poor, poor man. Seriously, I'm horrified at the thought. Ugh.

i.am.a.mother

That is so weird. The other day a girl at work called me 'mama' - as in 'What's going on, Mama?' Then yesterday someone asked me how motherhood is treating me. I guess it's sort of like saying 'my husband' after you're married - it takes a while for it to sink in and start sounding normal.

I suppose I've always been sort of a detached person. Things don't hit me the way they do others. Like when a friend was killed by a drunk driver - I didn't cry until weeks later, when something reminded me of him. A lot of things just seem surreal until some sort of reality sinks in.

Also like when I almost delivered the Beezer at 19 1/2 weeks when I was leaking fluid. I knew up until that point that I was pregnant, that I was going to be a mother, but it hadn't really sunk in until I was faced with losing her.

Maybe it'll seem more real when she starts calling me mama or mommy. Not that it matters if it seems real or not, it is. I have a little Beezer.

I am a mother.

sucked in by the man

I'm so addicted to Starbucks. I swear they put some sort of chemical in there that keeps me coming back. First it was the evil pumpkin spice latte...so delicious. Now it's the cafe misto with one sugar - regular coffee with steamed milk. Yum. So much better than the crap we have at my office:

Of course we have to be fancy and get a Keurig k-cup maker. In theory these are great - you can get tons of different varieties so everyone is happy. However, they severely lack in taste. It's kind of like drinking a cup of burnt rubber. Horrible.

I'd be perfectly happy with a freshly brewed pot of Folger's. Hell, I'd even enjoy the store brand beans - that's just fine. Instead I'm forced to drink total crap made only marginally better with a flavored creamer OR stop at Starbucks and drop $2.30 on a cup of coffee.

You see my dilemma? I don't have a ton of willpower when it comes to food/beverages anyway (note my lunch cooler stuffed with M&Ms, Lemonheads, 3 Musketeers, and Whoppers swiped from the bowl in the lunchroom), so resisting the urge to stop at Starbucks when I pass by one every day and there's only nasty coffee waiting for me at work is next to impossible.

Remember when I used to be one of those people who thought Starbucks was gross? Sure, their sugary lattes were drinkable, and who doesn't like a mocha, but the regular coffee? Nah. Not worth it.

Stupid Starbucks. Maybe the one on my route will be one of the stores that closes. Yeah right.

why I love living in SoCoMo

Friday night the hubby was outside fixating on his new truck when our alley neighbor drove through. First let me explain what I mean by 'alley neighbor'. We've lived in our house for over 5 years now. There's an alley next to our driveway. The alley is a way for people on another street to get to their garages. It's also the only way to get to one house. We're not sure how this works - the house isn't actually on a street. What is its address? I've never ventured back there, and for the longest time I thought the only thing back there was the one house - I never considered people would use the alley to access a garage.

There are people driving back there all the time. Mostly people in beat up hoosiermobiles sporting flowing mullets and smoking cigarettes. I always thought these people were going to visit the alley neighbors who surely were cooking up meth - why else would there be an ongoing stream of cars driving back there? They owners have always been pleasant towards us, I just assumed there were meth addicts. Whatever. Not my place to judge, right?

Once the weather got nice and a cute little Bosnian grocery opened up on the corner (it carries beer) odd folks started walking down the alley to the store to get beer and whatever else at all hours of the day. I'm talking a parade of freak show looking people - guys with limps, missing teeth, stringy hair, cut-off clothes - some with one or two oddities, some with many more. I don't understand fully what happens back there because I've never been - I envision a cave of some sort where unkempt folk squat and cook over an open fire. It makes no sense, it's just what happens in my head.

We've had interactions with the alley neighbors once or twice. One time he rang the doorbell at 3 am to tell us our dome light was on - thanks dude, I'd rather have a dead battery then to have the shit scared out of me in the middle of the night. But it's nice, I suppose.

Okay, back to Friday night. Alley neighbor stops his car as he's making his way back to talk to the hubby. Apparently one night he was 'shitty drunk' and decided he wanted some tomatoes from our garden, so he helped himself to a few. Hubby, amused and I think relieved, laughed it off and said he could take some any time he wanted.

Hearing hubby tell the story was of course hilarious, as he was able to do the hoosier drawl perfectly. I also found it hilarious that our 'shitty drunk' neighbor couldn't live without tomatoes of all things while drunk. White Castle, I get. Greasy pizza, awesome. But tomatoes? Not what I reach for when I have the drunken munchies. If he wants tomatoes that bad, have at it. As long as I don't come home to another boat motor on my back porch I'm good (that's a story for another time).

Only in SoCoMo, my friends.