Thanksgiving adventures

11-30-09

As much as I so don’t want to be at work right now, at least it gives me a chance to regroup. It was a long weekend.

Wednesday evening, the Brenans arrived. The boys were dressed as Buzz and Woody, which seemed appropriate being we were going to the Magic Kingdom. We first went to dinner at Don Jose’s. Yum!! Dinner was good. The boys were clearly tired, but kept it together quite well. With Bobby in his Buzz costume, he had caught the eye of this one little girl next to us who looked at him as if she was really next to Buzz Lightyear. She was practically drooling on him. It was super cute.

We got to the hotel, which was beach themed. Appropriate since it bordered California Adventure’s boardwalk area. We went inside, and within 5 minutes, my boys each had a balloon. Talk about service! While the grownups did the check in, the boys and I went down to this room that had a giant sandcastle display which had a tv in it. It was playing Disney cartoons. The room also was filled with kid sized beach chairs. So they sat down and watched. It was such a great idea.

While still in the room, this other little boy wandered in. He couldn’t have been too much older than Bobby, but he was all alone. He sat down, and was pretty quiet. I didn’t think much about it. Grandma came in to hang out with us, when the boy started saying something. He was standing, and seemed troubled. He also didn’t seem to speak a lot of English. I finally made out what he was saying, which was “stuck”.

I went over to find that his finger was stuck between the slats of his chair. Crap! Luckily, the kid was quite calm. I didn’t want to just yank his finger out. It isn’t my kid, I wasn’t about to possibly break his finger. So I sent Grandma out to see about getting some help. He was so calm, only occasionally trying to get free. By this time, more of my own group was coming in. Andy tried to pull the chair apart a bit to free his finger. We were about to get some lotion or something when his finger came free. I checked out the finger, and it wasn’t swollen. He was able to bend it and seemed fine. He then promptly sat back down. Very strange. So the security guard and another cast member told us they would watch after him when we left. Grandma told me that it was another 20 minutes after Ken and I took the boys up that his parents showed up, and then they had the nerve to be mad at the kid.

The boys looked tired, but apparently not tired enough. I don’t know if it was nerves, growing pains, or just Dax being a pain in the ass, but he claimed his toe hurt in the middle of the night. He yelled, he cried, we changed his jammies. Nothing was working. Finally, I moved the now very awake Bobby over to sleep with Ken, and I crawled in next to Dax, where he promptly fell asleep.

Mind you, Bobby was up for a while longer. I also, was awake since Dax kicked me in the face twice, the stomach 3 times, my ass twice, and just various body parts more than I could count. He is a wild sleeper.

We got up pretty early since the character breakfast started at 7. I wanted to be able to have time to get over there, along with making sure we were ready to go. I was impressed when the entire group was ready to go when I wanted them to.

The breakfast was over at the super nice hotel that borders Downtown Disney. Such a gorgeous looking hotel. All the woodwork is very pretty. The dinning area was right outside near their pool. We were there about 20 minutes early. But I am glad we were. We were the second group there, beaten only by this couple that apparently has spent the last 2 weeks at the parks, eating at this restaurant every morning. The boys were able to run around and get some energy out so they would sit for breakfast.

We also started chatting with the security guard. His name was Gil. He was super nice. He wanted to let the boys “open” the restaurant. What this ended up meaning was he gave the boys the special bouquet of balloons to put on the table. He also gave them an autographed picture of Chip and Dale. This didn’t appear to be what the kids get normally.

The food was spectacular. They had these little Mickey waffles that came to the table fresh. Oh.My.God. So freaking good. They also had tons of yummy food at the buffet. We all ate tons.

But the more important part of the breakfast was the characters. I had read some reviews that there was little to no character interaction. I was pleasantly surprised to find those reviews were not even close. First came a bear from Brother Bear. The boys loved him. Another bear from that movie came over. A raccoon from Pocahontas, a gorilla from Tarzan, and Chip himself showed up. All of them spent a ton of time with the boys, letting them shakes hands, offer a banana to the gorilla, and we took gobs of photos. One of the bears even came back to bring them buttons with Chip and Dale on them. So cool! Dax and I saw Dale on our way out of the bathroom, but we didn’t talk to him. If you want the kids to see characters, take them there!!

Dax at one point did ask where Donald was, and Bobby said, “He is at McDonald’s, Dax,”

We walked over to the park a little after 8. It was crowded, but not bad really. We walked in, passing Dax off as under 3 (he got in free!) and I was so excited I could barely contain myself. We stood there for a second, and then Bobby says, “Mom, why are we just standing here?” Talk about shattering that glass. LOL!

The park was decorated for Christmas. It was very cool. We walked down Main Street, heading first towards Tomorrow Land. The castle was gorgeous, all covered in icicles. There was only one problem. It looked like half the size! Look, I know that some things when you were a little kid looked huge and then when you went back as a grownup, it wasn’t big anymore. But I have been to Disneyland as a grownup. I am telling you, the castle shrunk! I wasn’t the only one who thought this. Ken and Andy both thought the same thing. It was very odd.

The first ride the boys went on at Disneyland was the Buzz Lightyear ride. I had been wrong in thinking that the Buzz and Woody rides were only at California Adventure. And in reality, there are actually 2 of them, one all Buzz ride at the main park, and the Toy Story ride at CA Adventure. The Buzz one is far superior, and I am glad it is the one at Diensyland. No wait to get on, and the boys LOVED it.

We promptly went across to the “Darth Vader” ride. Dax saw the Star Tours font and got excited about it being Darth Vader. We almost didn’t get to go in with Dax. He is just the right height, when he stands up really tall. His head, in all fairness, did touch the bar, but it is close. Luckily, the 2 times at the park he was measured, they let him through.

They loved the crap out of Star Tours. Bobby was mesmerized. He couldn’t take his eyes off the screen. Dax giggled hysterically when we jumped to warp speed. I don’t know that I watched any of the ride, since I was watching their complete joy.

After this ride, we decided to go to the Nemo submarine. The wait time was super long, which is normal for that ride. So we considered going to Autopia. That wait was also long, but we picked up fast passes so we could come back. I told them we should go to Fantasy Land, but I was vetoed, and after a lot of standing around, and making half attempts to go to something, we ended up getting in line for the submarines. Luckily, the line moved pretty quickly. There estimate said 30 minutes, but Andy had a line length app, and it showed that it was much shorter. The ride was so amazing. We had not been on it since they had upgraded it to Nemo’s sub ride. I was so impressed with the technology and how great it looked.

We went over to Small World, and the boys enjoyed the hell out of that, too. After that, it was time to go back to Autopia. Man, Bobby really enjoyed that. It was now close to nap time for the boys. We wanted to get them down for a nap. We had late checkout on one of the rooms, so we needed to get them to sleep and get the rest of our stuff out of the room by 1. It was now 11:30.

Our other party members headed to California Adventure, and Ken went out to get the boys some lunch at McDonald’s. I hung out with the boys. Ken texts me about 5 minutes after leaving to tell me he ran over something, and it took out the back tire. Crap! I scrambled and got the boys some soda to drink, and then got them to lie down to sleep. Dax crashed instant, and Bobby took about 30 minutes. They were both out by the time Ken returned.

The only real problem was, they both needed another hour of nap time. It was now 1, and we needed to get out. Ken loaded the bag into the car and checked out, while I woke up two kind of cranky children. They cheered up after a little bit, but those first 20 minutes were iffy!

We met up with the gang at California Adventure. Here is where I started getting annoyed. The only thing I wanted to get them on there was the Toy Story ride. But since there was no fast pass, and the line was a 40 minute wait, the thought was to wait to see if the line died down. We hit up the Bug’s Life show first. I so assumed the boys would like that. I was so wrong it wasn’t even funny. Since it is a 3D show, and when the bugs shoot acid on the crowd, and in the process, we also get water spit at us, Dax was sure we were taking him to his own execution. He screamed, he cried, he buried his head in my armpits as the darts whizzed past our heads and the giant spiders came down from the ceiling. All kinds of bad. We did one more 3D show, which also upset Dax. Who knew the muppets were so scary?

We found the Monster’s Inc Ride, which was awesome. Not only was there no line, it was so much fun! We ended up doing that twice.

I kept asking when we would do Toy Story. At one point, we stopped at the bathroom, and when I was going in, I was told after the bathroom, we would head over there. I told Dax in the bathroom that we were going to see Buzz and Woody. We came out and I am told we were doing something else. Nice. I was pissed. My boys had been told 5 times they were going to see Buzz and Woody, yet we kept doing other shit. Plus, we got on some ride that I wasn’t even asked if I wanted to do it! It was this one that you are in like a hang glider seat, in front of a giant screen, flying over America. Look, it was gorgeous, but it made me ill. The boys loved it. Thank goodness.

Then they were going to see the Aladdin show. I wanted to see it, but let’s face it, making the boys wait for 30 minutes, then to have them sit for an hour in a show they might now like? Nope. Luckily for me, Ken agreed. So they went to the show, and we finally headed over to Buzz and Woody.

The line, although long, wasn’t bad. They didn’t seem to care about the wait, and they enjoyed the whole thing. The ride was nothing like I expected, but they still liked it.

After this, we decided to go on the ginourmous Ferris wheel. There was a line for rocking cars, and one for non rocking. I wanted to do non rocking, but I was vetoed. Yes, there is a pattern here. I was terrified. We waited as I watched the thing go around. I watched how much rocking the damn cars did. Holy fucking hell. One of the cages was empty. When we asked why, they said it has not been cleaned yet. Ewwwwww!!!! One person even had them stop the ride because it was too much. This made me happy that I had an out. But still, I would need to make it all around the circle once to get out again. Ken told me I could not go, but I felt like he would make fun of me, and the boys might get upset. So I sucked it up and got on.

I should have trusted my gut on that.

We went part way up and the way the thing is designed is it makes you slide and rock. I about died. I had to grip the seat, close my eyes and do deep breathing exercises. The boys were concerned for me, but luckily, they were having too much fun with the rocking to care. Ken made sure to yell to the guy to stop and I was able to get off, allowing the boys to keep going. Mind you, I was one of 5 stops the ride ended up making to let people out. The boys were apparently just annoyed that the ride kept stopping. If they had their choice, they would have stayed on it for hours.

We headed back to Disneyland for dinner and more rides. The boys really liked the train, especially the part with the dinosaurs. We ended up going to the Haunted Mansion, which got mixed reviews. Bobby enjoyed it, especially the end where you get some hologram in your car with you. Dax was a little more spooked. He also was exhausted. We decided to start rating their energy like a cell phone. The beginning of the day, they were at 5 bars. Dax was now on the red bar.

We were going to possibly go to the Pirates, but the wait was too long being that we needed to be on Main Street for the snow. That was way worth it. Ken was finishing up with our season passes, and he sent us out to the street to see the snow. We were in the middle of Main Street. We could see them light up the castle, and we were right under a snow machine. It was so pretty I cried. No joke. The boys were covered in the “snow”. It was so cool! Except when I inhaled some. Holy crap, that sucked! I thought I was going to cough up a lung. It was awful.

It was late at this point. The boys were tired, we still needed to get to the resort, and we had not shopped yet. We hit up the shops so we could show Grandpa what to get them since he wanted to get them something to remember the park for. Luckily, we found a baby Bolt (the only Bolt thing there). We also found a baby Buzz Lightyear, which I swear, looks like it has boobs.

Andy got them a couple of R2D2 spinning, screaming light up things. Thank goodness, all of this stuff was given to them at the end of the trip. They did get balloons, which had the Mickey inside the balloon, and it lit up. Super cool.

We did in fact have to carry the boys out. Dax almost slept by being carried. I had him for a while, but then Ken took him. Of course, Bobby wanted to be carried, too. Luckily, he didn’t mind being on my shoulders, which is so much easier to do.

Our day at the parks came to an end around 9. It was a long day for all. The boys fell asleep in the car on the way to the resort. Dax was tired enough that when I set him down to get him in his jammies, he stayed asleep. Both crashed out on their little mattress within a few seconds.

We clearly missed a lot of the park. But since we have the passes, my plan is to take them often.

The resort was not nearly as magical as Disneyland.

First off, the place was supposed to sleep 8. Apparently they didn’t mean comfortably. There were two rooms. Each room only had one bed. There was a pull out couch in the one room, and one in the living room. We ended up in the second room, Andy and Scott on the living room pull out. The place in general was crap. Ok, no, it was fine if it was just a hotel, but this was a resort where they want gobs of money so you can come back several times in the year. There was a shotty bathroom, only so so facilities, and over all, not worth the money they wanted Ma and Pa Brenan to invest.

Friday morning came much to quickly. I had not slept well, having to get up a couple times in the night to first, put Dax back on the mattress, and to cover them both twice. It was also incredibly uncomfortable, so I was sore, tired, and cranky come Friday morning.

We went to Coco’s with Grandma and Grandpa. Andy and Scott stayed behind. It was a good breakfast. They happened to have a pancake meal that looked like Mickey. So Dax ate the ears and then told us that he couldn’t hear anymore. He then ate one of the eyes and declared that Mickey was now a Cyclops. LOL!!

We got back, and I got the boys in the room. Andy, Grandma and Grandpa were sitting out at this patio area outside the room. I finally was sitting down to look on my computer for 5 minutes when Ken came in all gruff and told me I needed to go outside to talk with everyone. I was annoyed at the assault and the fact that I was ordered to go instead of him telling me what was going on, I was angry.

I went out and Andy was telling us that apparently Scotty went home. He had suffered a super severe anxiety attack. He has been getting these for a bit now, and they seem to be getting worse. The circumstances of the trip, the not being able to really “escape” and all factors contributed. I can so understand. Look, I love my inlaws, but it is chaotic. When we all get together, it is a lot of energy spent. So Scotty had to deal with his father in law, who often spouts off with his conservative crap (luckily, Scotty was gone for the one on Saturday, but I will get there). He then has to deal with Ken and I and two wild kids. Shoot, I would be stressed, too! Oh, and I was!

While sitting out there with them, we got on the topic of schedules and routine and how certain people are more ok with changes. It was pointed out that Bobby gets shy around folks and lately has been quite clingy with me. I was impressed with him in how much he hung out with everyone this weekend, but at Disneyland especially, he didn’t want to ride with other people. He wanted me. We talked about his sensitive nature, and then Ken said things he should not have said.

He proceeded to tell his parents and brother that it was my fault Bobby was this way. He told them that when he was a baby, I coddled him a bit more than I did with Dax. He said it was because of him being a first born, but essentially chalked it all up to me being an overly protective mother.

I was crushed. I was angry. I was sad. I wanted to take the boys and go home. Scotty was allowed to run, why wasn’t I?

The rest of the day, I was upset. To make matters worse, every plan we had, I was not consulted. And when I voiced an opinion, I was vetoed. I wanted to feed the boys. Nope, let’s go on this boat first. I wanted to let them nap. Nope, we needed to leave now. Everything I wanted to do, it didn’t matter. Even Andy mentioned to me that I seemed to be vetoed on a lot of things that day.

We did do a bunch of fun things. We went down to the pier. We went on a ferry (a short on to Balboa island). The boys went on a Ferris wheel and we played in the arcade. Turns out, Dax is not ready to play skee ball.

We went to the grocery store to get provisions for dinner and breakfast. I volunteered to make spaghetti. I only did this so I could have control of something.

There was some kind of campfire event that night at 6. We were going to go this, but Andy started looking it up, and it looked like it might be farther away than I wanted to walk to. I also was concerned that the boys would not enjoy it, and that I would have to carry a cranky kid back to the room. So I said we shouldn’t go. I was ignored.

We walked over to the fire pit, which was closer than we thought, but still kind of far. No one was there. No fire, no smores. A couple of people showed up, and they didn’t know about this campfire event. Great. Luckily, there was a giant sand pit near by, so I took the boys to play. There also was a bench, so I could sit and watch. I was miserable.

Ken came down at one point. We could have talked about things, but he was too interested in finding out what happened to the campfire. He knew I was upset, yet I was frustrated that he didn’t seem to want to talk it out. I even tried to bring it up. He seemed oblivious to my attempts.

Turned out, the guy who does the campfire was out sick. Lovely. We had trekked out there for nothing. Thank goodness my kids are such good sports.

We went back to the room where the boys watched the rest of Up. Then they went to bed. Thankfully, pretty easily. Then everyone watched Monsters Vs Aliens. I have seen the movie 100 times, and trust me when I say, I didn’t need to see it again unless it was background noise.

We went to bed where I continued my streak of uncomfortable sleeping.

The next morning, Grandma and Grandpa had to go to a 90 minute presentation. Basically, in order to stay there, they had to do the sales crap. They had to be there at 10. it was 5 minutes away. It was now 9:30, and Grandpa was anxious to get going. Grandma was still drinking her coffee. They started to bicker. Both were being cranky. It didn’t help, though, that Andy and Ken seemed to take Grandpas’s side. I had to point this out to both of them after they left. Thankfully, they understood what I was saying.

We took the boys to the crappy parkette they had there. For a family resort, the facilities were not fab. We went by the pool, we played with giant chess pieces, looked at coy, and wandered the grounds. Luckuly, Grandma and Grandpa did not invest, although, it was close.

It was now 11:30, and I was determined to make the boys nap today. I fed them and put them down. Grandpa seemed annoyed they were napping, as he wanted to go to the tide pools. I didn’t care. We could go later. We let them sleep until 2.

We went down to Crystal Cove beach and looked at the tide pools. I managed to not only find the first life forms, but noted they were hermit crabs (a lot of them) and didn’t run screaming! YAY!

We walked all around the beach there, and it was super pretty. I have not had time to upload those photos yet. I had taken 400 at Disneyland and on Friday. I haven’t even gone through all of those!

We then pilled in the car and drove to Vista. Apparently we were going to see where Grandpa grew up. Mind you, the house is gone, and the avocado orchard is now a housing complex, but we went there in raining dark to “see” it. The boys were such good sports. Me? I was quiet.

We stopped at some random Mexican food place for dinner. Andy ordered a pitcher of margaritas. Ken also ordered me shots of Chambord to put in the margaritas. I was pretty drunk by the time we left.

The drive back almost put the boys to sleep, but they stayed awake mostly. We got back and they fell asleep pretty quickly. I started working on pictures. It was at this point that all hell broke loose.

Grandpa was watching Fox news. I don’t know what happened, but it was mentioned and next thing you know, Andy, Ken and Grandpa are arguing politics. In all fairness, Andy and Ken were extremely calm. Grandpa was an asshole.

He was condescending. He was arrogant. He was a racist ass. He actually believes that Obama surrounds himself with communist advisors. He also believes that Fox news is the only true news channel and that they are not skewed to the right. He thinks Glen Beck is the only one who gets things right. He thinks black people are a problem. He fears for my children’s future for some reason.

I didn’t care that he was this stupid. I already knew this. I cared more about how he went about informing us of this. He told Andy and Ken they should watch more Fox News. Ken pointed out he already does. He acted like they didn’t know anything about both sides, which isn’t fair being that Ken not only listens to gobs of conservative talk radio, he reads up a lot on stuff. Ken was quite educated on the topics. Yet he treated Ken like a child. At one point, he said something, and then followed it up when Ken answered “right” that he was just testing him.

He continued with his arguments, and whenever Andy and Ken agreed, he made this big show of relief. But when they disagreed, he pretty much told them how disappointed he was in them.

He went on to say the war was Obama’s problem. When it was pointed out that Bush got us there, he quickly told them to keep Bush out of this. What the hell????

It was awful. They went on for 90 minutes. He was so rude about the whole thing. He refused to listen to their points and statistics, he only wanted them to listen to him. He thinks Jon Stewart is full of shit. He agrees with tea parties.

After he went to bed, Andy and Ken knew how annoyed I was. I had checked out, sitting at my computer, trying hard not to tell him to keep his bullshit away from my kids. I was most annoyed at how he felt his two grown sons were idiots.

I told Andy and Ken all of this. They agreed with what I was saying. I told them political debate is fine, when all sides respect each other. There was no respect on his side. He was just spouting off like Rush or Glenn.

Apparently on the drive home, Andy brought all of this up again with him and he had not realized how annoyed I get at these kind of talks. He doesn’t bring this stuff up in front of Scotty because it upsets him. Now he knows it upsets me just as much. He was very sorry. He also was less cranky in the car ride home. I am hoping he was just a little drunk from dinner and just passionate.

That was Andy’s favorite thing. He loved seeing his dad now feel the same kind of passion and fear that Andy has felt for the last 8 years when Bush was in office. Andy pointed out it was refreshing to be on the other side and to hopefully show his father how upset and hurt he was for a long time.

Look, I may not like Bush. I may love me some Obama. I think most politicians are annoying and find most of the process irritating. I think people are too vocal in their displeasure with their elected officials and don’t let them try to do their job. Look, we voted them in. Let them try.

Luckily, I had filled Ken in earlier in the afternoon about how he had really hurt my feelings the day before. He had not realized that is how the whole thing came out. We talked a bit, and he assured me I was the best mom he has ever seen. That night, we continued our discussion. It was good since I was able to explain a lot in terms of Brenan crazy along with how I feel so ignored on these kind of trips. I don’t think I need to be the only one making decisions, but let’s face it, if I am going to be mostly in charge of the kids, I want more of a say.

Sunday morning, the grandparents and Andy left quite early. They had a long drive ahead of them. We took the boys to the pool. It was nice. No one was there, and the water was a good temperature. We also went in the Jacuzzi. It was a good morning. We got home before 10.

The dogs were so excited! The cats were so excited! Our house was all kinds of happy.

My parents came over right when we got home. They needed a kid fix. They also got to meet Luna. Luckily, Luna was charming and sweet. Their visit was good as I think that got out the rest of their energy. The boys crashed out in a nap in their own beds. Ken and I caught up on some tv. It was a relaxing afternoon.

The boys were clearly coming down from quite the weekend. They were pissy at each other, fighting every second. It was rough. We had them play outside, and Bobby actually threw the toy lawnmower at Dax. Not good.

I baked a cake, hoping this would be one of those happy things for the boys. They still whined about everything under the sun. We put them to bed and Dax cried himself to sleep when he was denied the “milk with a lid in the kitchen”.

Our bed looked so inviting all day. I was so happy to finally crawl into it. It was such a shame I had to get up.

So now, I am at work, staring at a stack of statements I don’t plan on sending out, but I am keeping on my desk so it looks like I am busy. I really should have taken today off. It would have allowed me to unpack, and to get some rest so that I was ready to decorate for Christmas.

I have gone back and forth in my head about a tree. I had said no because of Luna and money. But I am wondering if I spoke too soon. Then again, money is a big deal. I want to get the kids bikes. Actually, all of the presents I want to get shouldn’t be that much. Bike, should be the most, with like $75 each. Then a soccer ball? Can’t be much. Plus, a couple of other small things. I don’t plan on spending more than $300. Presents for family, just web cams, so nothing fancy. I think if I get a small tree, it isn’t too bad. We will see. A lot depends on how much Ken makes this weekend, and if he gets paid anymore this month.

Yes, this week will be hectic. Ken has a birthday party Friday evening. Then on Saturday, he has the big Manhattan Beach tournament. I hate these tournaments. Ken doesn’t eat, rest, hell, he hardly pees. It isn’t good for him. Plus, it is an all day affair. Plus, he has to get the food to sell, and he has to clean up. It is all a big hoopla. Plus, with him needing to do a birthday party on Friday, he is going to be uber stressed. Honestly, it is getting to the point where December is bitter sweet for me. I love the holidays, I love all the stuff, but yet Ken is always at tournaments and the stress of me trying to figure out those Saturdays is annoying. I know, I should probably not get upset. It is his one livelihood, but it gets old. I do hope that when the boys start playing soccer he doesn’t miss a game for a tournament.

I wish I was crafty. I wish I had money, too. I would love to get a bunch of art supplies and invite a bunch of people over to make holiday crap. Kind of like a holiday party with a theme. It would allow the kids to play, and it would kind of be like my present to my friends. We have tables and chairs. I just need a fun idea. Hmm..if I was really smart, maybe I should just buy a bunch of plain stockings. Then some decorations. Tell everyone to bring a bunch of little toys to fit in the stockings that we can give to a charity. We could take the stockings to the children’s hospital or something. It would give our kids a sense of giving back at Christmas. Maybe I will plan for it better next year?

I suppose I should work on something. I have to figure out this program in which we are going to start sending invoices electronically to one of our larger customers. We have tried to set it up since 2002. Yes, you read that right. So now, I took it on myself to get it done. I am not proud, but I will be if it works. I don’t have the mental ability this morning, but I am going to try anyway. I need to be distracted from life right now. I have too much I need to do when I get home, and too much to do between now and Christmas. I am glad I get a week and change off. I really don’t want to go anywhere.

Ok, I just downloaded a crap load of stuff for this testing. It is gobs of data, and most of it, I am pretty sure I don’t do anything with as it is all programming crap. I think my plan is to hit up my girl in IT this afternoon to see if she can make sense of some of it. I am kind of the contact for this, but she really has to do the behind the scenes on the database stuff. I think she is just glad I have taken it on to get them to send me the right stuff.

Sigh. It is amazing how much sucking up some people do. I have sat here, listening to my two neighbors chat away all morning about the things they are getting the VP of finance for his Grandpa Shower. It is nice to see so many people have so much disposable income in order to get stuff for a man to give to his son when this man makes more money than my entire department combined. Mind you, we have a girl in our own department that just became a grandmother this year, yet we didn’t do anything for her. It just drives me crazy. Look, the generosity is nice, but until you are universal about it, then all it looks like is you are sucking up to the boss. So not interested.

Tomorrow is my slightly hectic day. I get my H1N1 shot. I also have a meeting at 2. I hate that since I know it will go long. Plus, I just end up sitting there, listening. It has only a little bit to do with me, and realistically, not enough to warrant me being on the phone.

I am thinking I need to do something little for the kids at daycare. Plus, something nice for the boys to give Maria.

My day is now going crazy slow. Luckily it is almost noon. I can go online, dink around, and then read my magazine. It is the yearly issue in which it has the list of folks who died this last year. It is all kinds of crack to a death hag such as myself.

As much as I know I have things to do when I get home, I may actually take today and just sit. I know that this free time is precious this week.

One more day!!!

11-25-09

One more day!!!!!

Tonight, our entourage shows up and we head out for holiday fun. First, Don Jose’s. Can’t beat that. Then Anaheim and the hotel. Then in the morning, breakfast with Chip and Dale, and then we are off to the most magical place in the world!! I am so excited!!

I am supposed to be swamped today, but in my super speedy nature, I finished the reports a good 2 hours before I expected to. In all fairness, I managed to reduce my report load by at least one 25 minute report, plus, I did an hour long report yesterday. I was just happy this morning when everything matched which meant one less headache.

I am stressed because I am not home packing. Ken is working on all of it. My understanding is that as I am typing this, the kitchen is already clean, and he is working on the boys’ rooms now. I sent him a text of things to pack that I had forgotten, so hopefully he gets those set up as well. When I get home, we have some personal business to attend to (Hee hee!) and then I think I can dive in on getting anything else I need.

Chris is spending the night tonight, thankfully. He is also coming over after his work, so he will be there pretty early. The dogs will have someone there in the same times that people are there normally, so it should be good all around.

I am showering the boys when they get home. That way they are nice and sparkly for everyone. Plus, it means I don’t have to worry about it later.

We also have to load up the car. Not that it will take long. When you don’t go with animals or babies, all of the packing is minimal. We have two giant duffle bags, that in reality we could so just pack a kid each in. We have a bathroom bag. We have pillow. Oh, and of course, the bag of “friends”.

It is important to the boys to have their own little furry entourage. Dax is traveling with his number 1, which is Bolt. In addition to Bolt, we find Popper, JoJo and now Charles Emerson Pachyderm (Dax can say the whole name, which pleases me so). Bobby hangs with BoBo, WallE, Spike and Carson. It is a pretty evenly matched set. Bobby makes it that way. If Dax takes Bolt, then WallE has to come since he got WallE when Dax got Bolt. If JoJo goes, he grabs BoBo. He is a funny kid with that.

We have decided to also let them load up their backpacks with a few choice toys. Although the goal is not to have gobs of crap all strewn about in this place, there is going to be some down time where we have not decided on a destination and the kids are bored.

There is some talk of going to the Wild Animal Park. This might be fun. I am mostly hoping for things like the pool to be heated. But overall, I think that we will find something to do. As I told Ken, I think that just the incentive of the boys being bored will get us moving. Even if we just go to local parks or other places to look around.

Ok, I was just super productive. I faxed statements to all the folks in my portfolio that SUCK!! LOL! Now I can just coast the rest of the day.

Happy Slapsgiving

11-24-09

LOL! Ok, so I guess today will not be the uber busy day after all. Close was delayed a day, which means my reports will not run until tomorrow. Sigh. Because that is how I wanted to spend the day before vacation. On the plus side, it will make the last day fly by, so that is good. I just hate having to rush to get it all done before I leave.

Well, my idea is now going to be presented. If our statements are now not running until tomorrow, yet still dated November 20th, and won’t be mailed until the 30th at the earliest, doesn’t it seem reasonable to not mail this batch? I just suggested to Fred that we go ahead and print them, because we “have” to. We just don’t have to mail them. Then we can run a new batch on the 30th and mail those. This would save me gobs of work tomorrow. Then again, I wasn’t planning on mailing mine at this point anyway since it was going to be so much later than the date of the statement.

So that leaves me with today with a meeting at 11, and really, dinking around all day.

4 years ago around this time, Dax was conceived.

Ken called into KROQ this morning to thank me for celebrating November properly. The K&B crew were quite impressed.

It is time for crate training. Luna was out of control last night with her barking and whining. In all fairness, she may have just been thirsty. This morning when I let her out, she practically dove into the water dish. That being said, she will be without water at night when she goes to bed. But at least her barking and whining will be confined to the crate. In reality, I am looking forward to her loving her crate. Lycos has mostly always enjoyed hers. She also loves her basket. Luna, although she does have a comforter that she sleeps on, doesn’t have that same kind of happy dog bed. I think once we get back from Thanksgiving, we will start basket training her as well. It will be important to do all of this for the sake of the Christmas decorations.

After I read to Dax last night, he yelled at me, telling me he wanted me to read it again. He really loves the book, “10 Apples Up On Top”. I told him that we already read it, to which he yelled, “But I want it!” Here is where I worry that perhaps I am a horrid mother. I promptly called him Veruca and started hollering in my best imitation, “But I want an Oompa Loompa NOW!” He was not amused. I, however, was crying from laughter.

Slapsgiving 2 was on last night on HIMYM. Normally we watch the episode the day after it airs, but we couldn’t even wait until then. I could at least wait until it was fully recorded, killing time by watching the pilot of HIMYM. Still wonderful. I went to bed feeling fully satisfied from my fix.

Although it is super cute to see some little kid with his “Customer in Training” mini shopping cart at the Ralphs, I can assure you, it is not as endearing when you are the one guiding said shopper. Bobby and Dax are pretty good kids from what I have been told. But their shopping skills are still rusty. We went to the store last night, which was a mistake in itself as the place was bustling with gobs of last minute shopping for stuffing and corn that was forgotten when they did the original run for Thanksgiving. Each of the boys had their own cart, both thankfully with giant pole affixed to them so that as a parent you have something to grab in order to keep them from slamming into a display of champagne. Seriously, the kids are, well, kids. They don’t exactly pay attention to what is going on in front of them. And to make it worse, they are my kids, so they are even more susceptible to bright and shiny objects. Ken leads the way, with Bobby close behind (sometimes too close, as I am sure Ken’s legs can attest), then Dax, then me, herding the little ones like a faithful border collie. Ken will go down aisles, and Bobby normally sees the turn, but Dax, chattering away to the cart, often misses the turn off. What makes it worse is when Ken only goes down the aisle maybe 2 feet to grab something, and then heads back down the main lane. This causes a back up. Bobby will put it in reverse, Dax, not seeing the change in the flow of traffic, doesn’t always put on his breaks in time, and then there is a collision. Luckily, no one fakes and sore necks and insurance cards don’t need to be exchanged.

In addition to the crashes, the parade often holds up other patrons. If Ken stops, the boys stop, but the problem is, they are ducklings in line, and the line is pretty long, blocking parts of the store. When the store is empty, it is no big deal. When the store is crowded, it is more of a pain. When it is right before a holiday, and the store has decided to put out several lane blocking displays, let’s just say we are quite the hazard.

When Dax leaves daycare, he now says in his low, James Earl Jones voice, “Bye Babies!” It is very odd.

It sounds like our weekend is plans free. Yes, the Disneyland is on Thursday (2 more days!!! YAY!) but on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, we have no plans. I am kind of hoping to go back to the park for a bit. On Saturday, I know that there is some 90 minute presentation (it is a time share afterall) that needs to be attended, but not by me. At that point, I suppose we will take the boys to the playground that is at this place. Ken really should call in to get those free Legoland tickets as we could so go there, too. But I am hoping for some swimming, which the boys will enjoy.

I am slightly wired this morning. Not sure what is up with that. Perhaps the Nyquil is still in my system. I downloaded several articles to read. I have kind of held on to them for a smidge later since now with there only being the meeting today, I think the rest of the day will be slow. I am nervous about the meeting, even though I have a feeling it is nothing important. I worry that they will announce some kind of layoff or new policy. Scary shit these days. On the plus side, I am in charge of a couple of long term items that they have not taken away from me yet, so maybe I am in the clear?

Ok, I just got an email from Disney. I signed up for their rewards thing. You get points and crap, and really, I just wanted my free stuffed animal of Kevin from Up that actually cost me $20. In reality, it is good that I signed up for them since lord knows we buy a lot of Disney movies and stuff. Either way, I am pleased to report they say they shipped my Kevin and baby Kevin dolls. It had originally told me it would be 6 to 8 weeks, which of course shocked the shit out of me. I can get things shipped to me the very next day from everything from Amazon, Netflix, hell, even the post office is quicker than 6 to 8 weeks. But perhaps they just give themselves that extra amount of time so I feel all warm and fuzzy towards them that maybe they are treating me special by sending it earlier. Either way, I am excited as I now have another present for the boys!

Why are people such idiots?

When I get home, I have just a little bit more to do and then I am ready for tomorrow! I am so excited!! In addition to the magic that will be happening Thursday, tomorrow night I get to have Don Jose’s. YUM! Chips and salsa, happy making all over for me. Plus, even though the hotel will not be fancy or anything, there is something about staying in a hotel that is fun to me. I am hoping that when we get out there, we can walk Downtown Disney a little bit. I don’t know that we will only because I want the boys to get some good sleep. Besides, we can hit up the street the next evening after dinner.

Is it silly that one of the things I look forward to the most is carrying the boys to the car because they are sleeping? I LOVE it when you see little kids so exhausted from the wonderfulness of Disneyland that they pass out on your shoulder. Sure, the kids are crazy heavy, but it is so worth it.

I am debating on what kind of purse to bring in there. It isn’t like we are going to be on the rides where a purse is a pain in the ass, but in reality, purses don’t mix with Disneyland. Then again, I want to be prepared for anything. I don’t know that I have anything that will work. I am going to look again tonight to see what is in my closet.

I just ran a report which I am sure is going to end up pissing me off. The variant doesn’t specify a date, just a month, which means its total will not match up exact with the end of the month figure. Now, I understand this, and there is not much I can do about it. But the boss, who is as dumb as a box of rocks, will not get this. He will insist on me harassing the IT department until the cows come home to change this, despite this being how we have done things since January. Sigh.

I now have the meeting. I hate these meetings only because I get so annoyed at the way the boss talks to us. He acts as though we don’t know how to do our job. Of course, in all fairness, I do think some of the reps are total idiots. Then again, I think the boss is, too. LOL!

Of course, the meeting was just as I had suspected. My boss speaking to us as if we are children. Oh well. At least it was only 15 minutes. And in reality, there were a couple of things he brought up we needed to know.

What do you mean there are no strippers?

11-23-09

Quite the weekend!

I played hooky on Friday. I really should not have, but it was nice to relax when in reality I won’t be able to do that for a while. I spent all day watching movies. I watched Ghost Town, Bride Wars and my 90210. All of them were sappy and depressing and heart warming all at the same time. It was rough. There was not enough tissue in the house. I was so drained.

You know it is true love when you then proceed to explain the emotional visual roller coaster that I was on all day and Ken just starts laughing at me.

Saturday was busy. We had gotten home pretty late on Friday night, which meant the boys didn’t get to sleep until 9. This meant they slept in until well past 7. I woke up around 7 to find that Ken was gone. I got up, remembering that he had to head out to a tournament. He was still there, but was leaving soon.

The boys staggered out and sat and had breakfast while watching UP. They were content enough to sit there through the whole movie. I was shocked. It meant I could dink around online and even start working on cleaning, which included mountains of laundry.

After the movie, I cleaned the boys. I had them help me scrub their rooms and get them ready for this week. They were quite helpful. They also helped with the living room and some of the laundry.

I sent them outside to play, and I worked on more laundry (Do you sense a theme?) and other cleaning things. I knew I needed to nap them before I would be taking them to my parent’s house. So I brought them in for lunch. They looked tired. They ate and zoned out to part of a movie. I almost didn’t want to turn it off because they were resting. But at 12:30 I sent them to nap. They both crawled under the covers, which is something they never do for naptime. I was sure it would be a successful nap, then.

Nope.

Neither one of them slept. They played in their beds for some time. I didn’t argue too much with them. I worked on packing their bag for the trip and was just thankful they were not whining.

I got them up and as I got things ready, they played. I got them over to my parents’ house around 4. I hung out for a while since Bobby was pretty clingy. Poor kid. Although I will give him mad props since he actually held himself together pretty well this time. It probably helped that my mom is good at distraction. Dax of course just waved and seemed pretty indifferent to the whole leaving thing.

If you want to ever amuse your kids, pick up cat and dog costumes at Halloween time and put them on stuffed animals. Even better when you get them on clearance. The dragon costume on Bolt is a favorite, and we had a pharaoh looking hat which now Spike is wearing. They fit perfect, and there is no animal voicing their displeasure.

I got home and Ken texted me indicating he would not be home until after 6. So I had an hour and a half to myself. I didn’t know what to do with said time. I played online. I fixed up my hair, playing with my new straightener. Wow, that worked quite well. I don’t know that I can use it every morning, but I am going to try.

The party for Mil and Ari wasn’t until 8. This of course meant we didn’t even need to leave until 8. Ken got home way earlier than this. You mean to tell me Ken and I were home, alone, with no place to go for a bit?? So what did we do? Went to a strip club.

We had talked about hitting up the Spearmint Rhino down the street from our house for years. Here was our opportunity. Of course, we picked the one night where there was no dancers because instead, they were airing the UFC fight. It figures. We hung out, watched the fights for an hour and a half. I enjoyed watching part of the fight. I was shocked since let’s face it, I have never enjoyed things like boxing. But this was strangely fascinating. One of the fights was actually quite interesting and I found myself actually routing for someone. My dude lost, but whatcha gonna do?

After a couple of fights, though, I was kind of bored. However, we had already paid the cover, we still were early for the party, and we might as well hang out. Besides, the main fight was between 2 guys I had heard interviewed a handful of times on KROQ. Now I would get to see them really fight. Plus, it was really cool to see Joe Rogan in his element. He was great! I knew he enjoyed the fights, and that he commentated, but honestly, I didn’t realize he was like the main dude. Who knew?

The main fight was interesting. It is 3 rounds, 5 minutes each. Not much time between rounds, either. It was 3rd round, about a minute and a half into it. Both had won one round each, so this was crucial. All of the sudden, their cable crashes. LOL!! The crowd was not happy. It took about 2 minutes to get it back up and running. But by that time, we had missed most of the round.

We left after the fight, which of course was funny since this is when the dancing started up. But by that time, I was so bored, I was done.

One nice thing about using the restroom at a strip club? If you are a girl, you never have to wait in a line.

We headed out to the party. We got there around 10. We walked in, and at this point, realized I knew NOBODY. Yeah, cause that is what makes me open up and be comfortable. There was a wonderful band playing. I think it was Ari’s band. They were so good! Everyone there was super hipster and awesome. I felt out of place.

We went in search of the birthday girls. We found Ari first in the kitchen, who looked at us like we were back from the dead. I was instantly happy we made it out. She was excited and almost flustered. Yay!

Ken told me to show him around, which made me a little uncomfortable. I mean, do you give someone a tour of a house you hardly know? But really, in hind sight, I was letting my shyness get in my way. We headed up to the attic, where we found Mil and many people enjoying the store. The store of course being the gobs of clothing that are brought their by people who know Conner and Mil and who bring their unwanted things to the attic for other people to enjoy while they get something from someone else. It is a brilliant idea, really.

Mil was thrilled to see us as well. She introduced us to the crowd as Bobby and Dax’s parents. Apparently, she follows their progress on FB through pictures and is quite thrilled with them. Even in this crowd, we are the parents of Bobby and Dax. LOL!

I did bring offerings to the attic. I didn’t look, which I am a little bummed about. But really, I felt odd looking when everyone was heading back downstairs.

Ken and I hung out in the dinning area (have I mentioned this house is the coolest house ever????) and I wasn’t sure what we would do. We listened to the band for a while, chit chatted with each other, and since Ken knows when I am at maximum shyness, we headed over to say goodbye to Mil.

Luckily, she came over then and talked with us for a while. She introduced us to her wonderful girlfriend, and we talked about several things. I was shocked at how many things she gushed about the two of us to Wes (I think that was her girlfriend’s name, but it was loud enough I am not 100% sure). I was impressed. I always consider myself such an outcast, but she was so happy we made it out and she still thought we were good people. We told them they needed to come by the house, which she loved.

There of course were Conner politics discussed. He was not at Mil’s birthday party, having chosen to go to Teaa’s birthday party instead. He even cleaned her place and did all the shopping for it. Apparently Teaa wanted to have her party at Conner and Mil’s house, but Mil was already having her party. Mind you, Teaa is married, so really, anyone who knows Conner knows what this implies. Mil and I both didn’t even need to say much except a lot of knowing nods and giggles. She is one of those people that I think has always known Conner better than anyone. She also, along with me, tends to compare our opinions of his girlfriends. When we both like someone, this means the girl is great, and tends to never last long. Both she and I really like Nadja, yet Conner of course bends over backwards for Teaa, not his girlfriend. Sigh. So sad.

We stayed for maybe an hour and a half. We chatted with Wes for a while, which probably bored the hell out of her. We got to see Ari’s new girlfriend. We also got to listen to Ari play a song she wrote. All in all, I am glad we went. It was not as I had expected it would be, but I am happy to have been there.

Sunday was exhausting. Since we got home super late, and we had to get up early to go get the boys, sleep wasn’t really happening. What really sucked was that I had to pee crazy bad at around 5. I wasn’t getting up until 5:30. I finally couldn’t hold it anymore come 5:15. Grrr!!

We headed over to my parent’s house to get the boys. It was 6 when we got there, and they were still asleep. They were wonderful and apparently fell asleep quickly. I was relieved. They had slept in Matt’s room, which I think the boys appreciated. They like sleeping in there since there is someone else in there with them.

We got them up and got them dressed. We hung out for a bit since we were still early for bowling. Dax shocked us all when we found that his pull up was dry! Yay!

Bowling was awesome. Most of the regulars were excited to see the boys they had really known since they were a bump were getting a chance to throw the ball. Bobby loved it. He was so excited and couldn’t wait for his turn. Dax did maybe 3 frames before he was bored. Let’s face it, he had a hard time getting it down the lane, so I can understand his lack of enthusiasm.

Bobby ended up bowling on Dax’s turns, which means he got to bowl a crap load. Dax bowled a few more times, so it all worked out quite well. Bobby was sad when we were done with our 2 games. I do know that going forward, he will be bowling every week. Yay!

I really should have continued cleaning, but I was so tired that I didn’t do much of anything. The boys played outside, I played around on line. During their nap (thank goodness they both napped!) we watched shows. Seriously, if you are not watching Glee, you should be kicked in the head. It is that freaking good. I am also enjoying Cougar Town more and more. When the teenage kid “comes out” to his neighbor just to fuck with him and to get him to admit some random secret, all I could think was, I really hope my boys grow up to do that.

Ken worked on my skirt, and I bathed Luna. It is hard to bathe a dog when your thumbnail is missing. Oh, yeah, I didn’t mention that, did I. I was doing laundry and caught my nail on something in the washing machine. It then decided to eat a giant chunk of nail from my thumb. OUCH!!! I have a giant band-aid on my thumb, which annoys the hell out of me, but air hurts it right now still.

We took a long overdue walk. We had not in some time due to scheduling conflicts. It was a good long walk. Luna is doing so much better with her leash training. The boys are both doing wonderful on their scooters, too. Lycos is such a good, patient dog on these walks. It is a good group.

At one point, Luna obviously needed more than walking. So I broke into a jog. I have not jogged in, gosh, ages. Aside from the boob issues (I was wearing an old bra), jogging felt good. If I could strap down the ladies, I could see myself working up to a longer jog. I had missed the runner’s high. Man, that is awesome. I jogged one long block, and then our block home later on. I am tempted to jog with just Luna some time. At the very least, I will try to jog for part of the walks each time.

The boys are loving their new stuffed animals my mom gave them. Of course, they were supposed to be Christmas presents, but my mom can never wait. LOL! Bobby actually came up with an original name for his tiger. He dubbed him Carson. I was so thrilled! Dax didn’t know what name, so I said Charles, which he liked. Charles then became Charles Emerson Pachyderm the third. Yay! Dax could say each of the names, and especially liked the fact that the elephant had three names.

I took NyQuil last night, hoping it would knock me out. I think it worked as I am pretty sure I slept hard. I am still zoned tired, but gee, what is new, right?? This week is going to be so busy. Today at work, not as much, but tomorrow is report day. Plus, I have more packing to do when I get home. I already pulled most of my clothes for the week, but I need shirts. Ken hasn’t packed yet. He is in charge of getting the house in order for Chris who is staying at the house to watch the dogs and cats. I worry he will be distracted by other things.

The Brenan folk will be in LA around 5 on Wednesday. We will be then heading out to Don Jose’s which is on the way to Anaheim. I can’t wait!! Andy is so excited. He has emailed me like every day. LOL! He told me I should show the boys Chip and Dale cartoons since they will see them. Ironically enough, there was a 5 minute cartoon that had recorded of them, and I had just showed it to them when I got Andy’s email. Too funny!

I need to make a packing list. It is possible that this will be my last journal of the week.

So my dad knows about Luna. Dax saw a dog walking by when I was leaving their house Saturday night and declares that it looked like Luna. My dad was actually cool about it. He didn’t mock, although he did laugh at me. He had seen the pictures. It was good. He was nice and even asked questions about her. So hopefully when we all get back, they can meet her. Phew!

Dammit, I feel myself getting sick. My nose is a mess. I so don’t want to be sick on Thursday!! Although really, I will just load up on meds.

My giant band-aid on my thumb makes texting really hard.

My day is turning out to be only slightly annoying. The boss is irritating, but when I really think about it, it isn’t that he is annoying, it is that I just can’t stand him. So any time he talks to me, I don’t want to hear his voice. Today he actually asked me reasonable questions, yet I felt the hate surge. Seems unfair of me, really.

I have my vacation approved. I will be off Christmas day and will not return to the office until the 4th. Yay! I don’t think we are going anywhere, so I have time to let the boys ride their bikes at the park. I can sleep in every day. Hell, maybe we will hit up random happenings just because. I am planning on making my Thanksgiving dinner on New Years Eve. So turkey dinner on that day. Should be nice. Of course it is only the 4 of us, but that is ok by me.

Man, I wish I was diligent enough to have so much vacation that they force me to take time off to use it. Then again, I don’t know that I could come to work every day for that long. Maybe that will be my New Years resolution. I will be at work every day. Might come in handy, especially since I can then take off the whole first week of Bobby’s first week of school. I don’t know of any family trips this next year, so I will have time to work with. I also think that we are going up to Ken’s family for Christmas next year, so I will probably take off a couple days before Christmas so we can get up there before the actual holiday. I know, who thinks of this stuff now, but I have to be good and not miss work. So starting January 4th (my first day back), I will not take any time off. Crap! I know at least one or two days I need in March. But that is ok. Those are for going up and planting my uncle’s tree. That is time requested in advance. It is those days where I play hooky I need to curb.

Day is officially going way too slow. The problem is, with it being the end of the month, I don’t like to make phone calls because they are about to get statements in the mail. Tomorrow is good because I am pretty steadily busy all day. Of course, now the boss scheduled a meeting for 11. Does he not pay attention to the fact that we are working on reports, statements, and various other month end projects tomorrow? What an ass. I am guessing he is out of the office on Wednesday.

I miss the days in which the CFO would let us go home early on a day like Wednesday. We all know it is slow and nothing goes on. Our current CFO doesn’t think in those terms. Hell, he barely speaks to our dept.

Bobby has clearly been listening to me too much. On Friday night at dinner, we had gone to a buffet. Ken was way full, but went back for more. I had warned Ken before he went, and expressed concern for his well being. He laughed it off and headed up. Bobby, who was listening to this exchange, says to me very seriously as he watched Ken walk off, “He is so going to be sick.” I almost spit my coke out. Then, yesterday, Lycos decided to poo right after Ken had finished picking it up. In the most Gena like voice he says, “Really, Lycos? Really? Now?” LOL!!!!

Luna gained 7 pounds already. Holy crap! We did the monthly weigh in for all dependents this weekend. Bobby gained a pound or 2, Dax held steady. The cats all stayed the same, thankfully, as did Lycos. But of course, Luna, being a growing puppy, was much bigger. She is going to be huge!

11-20-09

It is going to be a long day. First off, I have been up since 12:30 last night. I woke up with a random coughing fit, and I just couldn’t get back into a comfortable sleep. Not cool.

So I am tired and cranky, and it appears that there is some kind of showdown between myself and the girl here who made the mistakes on the spreads yesterday. I had one pulled out to run by the supervisor here from yesterday just to see if quotes were ok in the place of actual doc numbers when they were the same as above. She came to my desk yesterday and took it from my pending file and fixed it. Nice. I wasn’t trying to be a pill. Just with auditors about, I am trying to be concise. Of course, she will assume I am picking on her. Especially since it had a note on it to see the supervisor on it, and I just put another one back on her desk that she didn’t get the correct signatures on it. Sigh. I don’t want to deal with her today. I am so tempted to go home.

If I go home, I need to do it soonish. I will think about it. But what will I do if I am home? Sleep? Clean? Really, nothing that sounds like a good reason to go home. Sure, sleep is good, but we all know I won’t. Ken is home most of the day. I think he just has the one class at like noon. Of course, if I get home before the kids go, they will just crumple and cry when I take them to daycare. Oh, fuck it. I will just stay at work.

The cold is taking hold. The congestion is quite noticeable now. I am pretty sure that is why I actually woke up with the coughing. It was the drip into my throat.

One of my big fears happened last night. Dax got his thumb smashed in a door. The boys were running back and forth between their rooms, slamming the door each time. I heard the scream. It was like a cartoon tea pot. It started low and just kept going at decibels that eventually were so high that the human ear could not hear them. He came into the kitchen before I even got to him. He was sobbing, his hand up in the air. I noticed the slight bruise on his thumbnail, so I at least knew which digit to investigate. Poor kid was even in a bit of shock. His stomach hurt afterwards and he was just out of sorts. We put some ice on it, made sure he could bend it, and got him a band-aid. I know the band-aid wasn’t needed for a cut, but they think band-aids fix everything, so what the hell, right? Ken also gave him some Tylenol, along with some gripe water. He finally calmed down, but he didn’t really use his hand the rest of the evening. He had tried to hold his hamburger with it, but it still hurt. It wasn’t swollen or black and blue, so we of course are waiting until this morning. We will see how it is.

It is very difficult to do your hair when you have a sore neck.

I gave in.

Rockin

11-19-09

Holy hell, people at my work can be such idiots. Ok, maybe not idiots, but they certainly don’t do their jobs very well. It is amazing that they make so many simple mistakes that we have told them to pay attention to 100 times.

I process adjustments and spreads. The reps fill out these little spreadsheet forms (that I designed) that list the document numbers, some pertinent auditing information, and amounts and what to do with everything. It is super easy, especially when you have worked for us for, oh, I don’t know, 10 minutes. Yet they keep fucking these up. They forget to write a number down, they write the wrong one down, they don’t put the right info. It is crazy. I know, it isn’t a huge deal to make a typo, but this morning, the chick in her stack of 10 spreads, every, single, one of them, was wrong. Are you freaking kidding me??? Not one of them right? This is money, people? You have to be accurate. We have auditors swarming at all times. If we are missing even the dot on an i, we get dinged for it. Yet these kids don’t seem to care.

Now, some of it is my fault. I often correct these instead of kicking them back. Mostly because I just want to get the spread done and when I kick it back for one small number that they didn’t write on there, and I know what the number is, why kick it back. Well, now it is on principal. I have to treat them like children. It is a shame, but they will never learn if I don’t. Sigh. Simply amazing.

I am wide awake now. I am sure that will change. LOL! I feel tired. I slept ok, but really, I think just being at work makes me tired.

We didn’t do the walk last night. I decided that really, if I am trying to fight my sick, I needed to relax. So we all hung out in the backyard in the afternoon. We played catch with Lycos while Luna tried to get her head bit off. Luna found Lycos’s tongue endlessly amusing. Lycos would sit there, panting, waiting for us to throw the ball. Luna would then hop up under her mouth over and over, trying to nip at Lycos’s tongue. It was the best. When she actually got it, Lycos would promptly yell at her. Too funny.

The boys showed me exactly how much more agile and daring they have become. They continue to climb on things like Spiderman, all the while making me gasp, and of course in turn making Ken laugh hysterically as he points out they haven’t even begun to give me a heart attack with their gymnastics. Fantastic. Well, at least they have fun.

They played zombie for a while, which was amusing. What was even more amusing is our game of tossing the tennis ball for Lycos, while aiming at the boys. It sounds more cruel than it really is. Mind you, they often tell us to throw it at them. They are in the play house, which is where we are aiming anyways in order to hopefully get it up there so Lycos has to climb the ladder. Yesterday, they told me to throw it at them, so I promptly did, to which they laughed and laughed. When they flop themselves on the swings, we also aim for the butt. They think this is funny, too. We don’t hit them hard. So with one throw, we amuse the kids, and exercise the dogs. Who knew a $2 tennis ball would be so awesome?

At dinner, I decided to take Lien-Thi’s idea of having the boys tell me what they are thankful for. Dax was not much help when he just came back with his catchphrase of the moment. “Dax, what are you thankful for?” “Um, butt!!!” Bobby at least was more insightful. He first asked me to define thankful. I explained it to him, and so he thought for a second, then tells me, “Um, my shoes, you, daddy, Dax, some balls, and my shoes.” I could not have loved him more than I did just then.

The boys are eating like crazy. They wolfed down a whole sandwich, and a banana each. Plus a couple glasses of milk. And a small piece of cake. And get this, they asked for more food! I am so screwed when they get to be teenagers. I am going to need a second job just to pay for food.

On the advice of the net and Stephanie, I decided to give the dogs some pumpkin. Monarch was pretty annoyed when I opened a can of something and it wasn’t tuna juice. I offered him the orange glob, but he refused. Oh well.

We let the dogs in. Lycos smelled her bowl and was tentative about it at first. But she decided it was good. Luna was crazy. We set her down in front of her bowl and I don’t even know that she knew what she was eating for at least 30 seconds into her inhaling it. I have never seen anything eat that fast. I was tempted to give her more! I did give her the normal bowl of kibble, too. She also inhaled that. She acts starved every second of the day. It is crazy! I realize that is just a dog thing, but man, it is no wonder people overfeed their dogs when they act like this. You so just assume based on their behavior.

Poor Ken had to unclog the drain. He had to snake it and everything. The boys “helped”. Apparently when all the water rushed out outside, they were endlessly amused. They told me later how gross it was, but I could see the twinkle in their eyes with how happy the gross made them.

I got a nice fix of HIMYM last night. I am really upset that we are caught up. I kind of liked being able to watch like 5 episodes in a row. The problem is, I am now so addicted, I can’t go more than a week without watching the new one. Sure, the old ones are great, so that sometimes helps me get by. But I may need to record a few for a couple weeks and get caught up on other shows. We still need to watch House! Glee recorded last night, so as much as I need to watch that every week, I can wait a day or so. Why are there so many good shows???

It is going to be a chaotic day, I can feel it. It is month end, so this is the time of the week where everyone gets stupid. I don’t have to do reports till Tuesday, but the next couple days get stressful for folks, specifically my boss. Fun city.

One more week!! At this time next week, we will be eating breakfast with Chip and Dale! YAY!!! Also, in one week, I can finally start thinking about Christmas. I can decorate and do all kinds of fun stuff. It means this weekend is busy busy. We need to make sure the house is in order, laundry needs to be done, and packing needs to be accomplished. Man, I have so much to do! I can’t decorate for Christmas until we get back from the Thanksgiving holiday, but really, I don’t think it will take too much. I am considering a super small tree. What with puppyness and kidness, a tree might be scary. We will see. If I do the small tree on top of the entertainment unit, it will keep presents fresh, and the tree from being eaten. Plus, it is cheaper.

I have never worked in an service industry that gets tips. I know people who have, and I of course understand their desire for tips. But is it wrong that I still think the tip thing needs to go away? I think that people who waitress need to get paid a real amount. Don’t base their wages on tips. And if the service is bad, fire them. If it is good? Give them a raise.

This comes up because a caller into K&B this morning said he was a limo driver and he drives lots of people, including bands places. He asked is it wrong to expect say, Death Cab for Cutie to tip him when he drives them somewhere? I say yes! Their management paid for this service up front (which mind you also has the silly clause of gratuity included) and the guy drove them where they needed to go. Look, we don’t expect the driver to pay the band a reverse tip when they say crash or get stuck in avoidable traffic. So why should the band pay him for doing his job?

I know, this is a topic that has been endlessly discussed, especially back when Reservoir Dogs came out. But seriously, I question it all the time. And I tip well! Mostly out of embarrassment and fear that I don’t tip enough. I also love to tip a waiter that we might know. We have had several waiters in the past that we sought out and who treated us quite well. They gave us free food, stronger drinks, and made the whole night wonderful. So to me, tipping them made sense. But tipping someone who simply brought me my food in a timely fashion and got me a refill of coke shouldn’t mean they get 15%.

In reality, I am just annoyed by prices that are not what they say. When I get a burger and fries and it says it is $5, why do I need to pay an extra 75 cents for a tip? Why is it when the car says it is $15K, you can get them to bring the price down to $12K? Why is it when I log onto EBay that I have to keep telling them how much I am willing to pay for something? I hate auctions, I hate haggling, I hate tipping. It isn’t just because I am cheap, either. Seriously, haggling and auctions sometime get you stuff for way cheaper. I am just one of those folks that feels like shopping should not be such a hassle. I love sales, but not black Friday. I don’t care to push or be pushed when buying a pillow. I do like it when I see that something is on sale, though, and I am even pretty good about waiting until it goes down in price even more, but not so much that I am willing to check every day. If it happens to be cheaper the next time I am there, I might pick it up. Shoot, I have needed a better purse for 9 months, yet I refuse to pay more than $15 on a purse, and even then, that seems pricey.

The boys are really enjoying costume time. Today, they went as Buzz and Woody. I wonder if tomorrow they will go as the Tin Man and Lion. I told Ken it is clear that we need to set them up the costume trunk.

I love the term “cartoon hate” to describe an un-natural hate for something. A hate that is so extreme, it could only come from someone like Elmer Fudd towards Bugs Bunny. I may start using that term. I also have decided that beawesome rocks. On Bolt, Rhino says he is beyond awesome, or beaweseome. Dax and I both use the word.

I have had the damn song, “Movin on up” from the Jeffersons stuck in my head for a few days now. Facebook’s fault. Or more importantly, many applications. All of the games have the announcement of when you level or expand, and it says, “Gena is moving on up in Yoville”. So of course, all I can think is that damn song. Sigh. I think Ichipod needs to help me through this today.

Dammit! I realize all the newer songs I downloaded are on Ken’s itunes, not on Ichipod. Grr!!

Yay! The boss is off to a staff meeting and then lunch. He is going to be gone from 10:30 to 2!! Yay!!!

Is it wrong that I still like Milli Vanilli?

Crap. So apparently there is a second dose of the damn H1N1. In 30 days. So I will be arming myself with a lollipop this time so he can hold it while she does it. Sheesh. We may need to bring out the big dogs of bribery and go to McDonalds if he can do it.

Interesting insight from on of my IT friends. He just told me that he predicts that when the economy picks back up and jobs are more plentiful that half the people here will leave. I am surprised at this. He then proceeded to ask me that if I was offered $10K more a year at some place, wouldn’t I leave? It is an interesting question. The problem is, I have been offered other jobs in the past few years. Some with more money, some with better benefits, some, well, just possibly better. Yet I turned them all down. Even in the height of my annoyance with this place, I turned down a job that I had already accepted! Why? Well, of course there is the obvious reason which is that I hate change. In accepting a new job, it would mean new people, new situations and a whole lot of proving myself to people again. Let’s face it. I have been here for 9 years this month. In that time, I have shown the masses that I rock. I have helped change things for the better. I have created policies, I have created forms, I have made my mark. People know if something is broken, I am a good person to possibly fix it.

Plus, look at my benefits. And no, I am not talking health and dental. I am talking I am sitting here, writing my journal every day. I am listening to my radio every morning. I can leave whenever I need to. I get to come in at 6 every morning and leave by 2:30. I live 4 miles away. Can you get that at another place? Probably. But do I want to take the chance to lose that right now? Not really.

Of course, job security is always key. It is obvious that they don’t care if you have been here 5 minutes or 5 years. Layoffs can hit them all. But the norm is last hired is first fired. That being said, do I throw away 9 years to go to a place that has that plan in place? Sure, maybe if we were more secure financially. I might try for something else. But really, right now, there are very few places that hold appeal to me. Look, if Mattel came knocking on my door, I would already be sitting there right now. Other than that, I can’t think of any place that could woo me. Maybe some other toy store or I don’t know, a place like Earthlink used to be when I started. But I am too old to dink around with some places. I am not saying I am proud of my career choice right now, but honestly, I could be doing so much worse!

My morning has gone by much faster than it has all week. I suppose being busy is a good thing! Now I have an afternoon ahead of me that could be blah. We will see. I have to call a pain in the ass customer and try to decipher an IT email so that my boss who barely speaks AR can understand geek. Should be trying.

I refuse to get sick!

11-18-09

I am tired. I am fighting this cold that is quite insistent on getting me. I sneezed way too many times this morning. What is odd is that sure, I am congested, but not as much as I should be considering the sore throat and sneezing. So perhaps it is just a light one. I got to bed early again last night, so maybe I am beating it.

I dressed up a bit more this morning hoping that if I looked pretty I would feel better. It is an untested outfit, so I don’t know how confident I am. I will try to rock it, though.

My afternoon was pretty uneventful. I was in a bit of a haze because of the cold. The boys were in grumpy moods at my parent’s house. They must have been tired since they fell asleep pretty quickly. They had an exciting day since they had gone to daycare in costume. Bobby, for the first time, actually got out of his jammies on his own, put on undies and proceeded to put on a costume. He was going to help Dax do the same, except they determined that Dax had poop, so they opted against it. Pretty awesome, actually.

Luna has the “sit” command down pretty well. It isn’t 100% consistent, but she is getting quite good at it. I need to get her a dog bed. I ended up putting down a blanket for her, and she was quite pleased with that. The one we had before seemed to inspire her to pee on it, so I am thinking a basket like Lycos has. We even have a spot for it.

Lycos made some tremendous progress last night with her interaction with Luna. She hasn’t hated Luna or anything, but she certainly has not appreciated puppy bites to the face. Lycos was a little nervous at first with snapping at her, but since she has now done it in front of us with no punishment, she has determined it is fine to put the pup in her place. Last night, though, Lycos was a lot more playful and in charge. Normally Lycos ignores Luna until a bark is needed. Last night, Lycos pranced around Luna, pushed her down without any provocation from Luna, and she truly seemed to try with Luna. Lycos even played a bit with a toy in front of Luna. All of this made Luna very curious, and she was sure to bow down to Lycos when needed. It was a good sign. I think in a couple months, they will be actually playing. Woo hoo!

I keep forgetting to bring my paperwork to call for Bobby’s standardized testing. I am sure it is because I am putting it off. I also feel like I am willing to wait until after he is in preschool for a couple months to see if there is improvement. My mom will be frustrated, but I don’t know how much of that is just frustrated at colleagues in her field that don’t do their job right, or if she truly feels that Bobby needs the testing. I listen to him every day and I hear his clarity improving and I love listening to his ideas on things. He is quite insightful. So we will see. I know the testing doesn’t “hurt”, so perhaps I will try to remind myself to call this afternoon.

We made the reservations for the character breakfast. They had 4 different sets to choose from. Most were weak sauce unless you have a little girl. The princess breakfast rules all, but for my boys, I can safely say the Lilo and Stitch set, Minney and Friends, and Goofy’s kitchen all sounded pretty lame. On the plus side, there was a Chip and Dale one, which is good because I know they are familiar with them. They have watched it at daycare and seemed to like them. The breakfast time is at 7:10 in the morning, which sucks only because by the time we are done, we will not get into the park earlier than other people. Not a big deal, since the park opens at 8, so we are still going to get in pretty early. I also worry about getting to the breakfast on time because let’s face it, the Brenans are organized chaos. They have plans, but no set times, yet they know there are deadlines. It is all very crazy and hard to deal with when you are a control freak such as myself. Plus, I am an early bird, so when they are just walking out of the hotel at 7:10, I am telling you I will blow a gasket. We will need to leave our hotel by 6:45. I am thinking of telling them 6:30 so that I know even if they are running late, we don’t leave after 6:45. We have a bit of a walk to get to where we need to go. I will try very hard to not stress. Once we are in the park, I think I can relax.

It so looks like it is going to rain. I know it isn’t going to, but I can dream, right?

I was so annoyed this morning at 3:30. Between the cats hogging the covers and the Woot off in the other room, sleep was impossible. Woot off is big with Ken. It is the site that has super discounted crap. They have some amazing deals. Normally they only have one thing a day. But on some days, they slash prices and do like a Woot a minute. Ken has alarms set on the computer to yell, holler, and there is even a rooster that will tell him on certain things. Well, at 3:30, I got up to pee after I heard the damn rooster. I crawled back into bed, fought with the cats a bit, and just as I would drift off, cock a doodle fucking doo. Holy hell. This went on for the next hour. I don’t know why I didn’t just get up. Especially since I messed with my hair a bit this morning and was running a smidge late. Hell, I could have blow dried my hair, curled it and made it perfect.

Bobby tells us last night he is learning Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer at daycare. He then tells us Maria told him not to tell us because it is a surprise. Perhaps Maria didn’t explain what the word surprise means. LOL!

Apparently my hair looks good this morning, so this is a plus! I have been complimented twice, so I am feeling groovy. I know, I shouldn’t need the compliments, but I still like them.

I really need to finish my schooling. Seriously, I put all that time, money and effort (I know, a lot of it was BS effort, but effort nonetheless) into it, and I only have a little bit more left. All fun shit, too. Electives! I need to go, finish them out and get my degree. I don’t know what good it will do, but it can’t hurt. Plus, maybe I can take a class with someone. Anyone want to take some classes with me? Might be fun!

I think tonight we need to take a walk. We can do it before dinner so I don’t feel like I will throw up when we walk right after. Ken gets home pretty early, so we should be able to go when it is light out.

We made pot roast last night and we made it in Jack Daniels sauce. Not fab. The sauce is good, but the meat is the wrong kind of meat. Such a shame. Especially since we marinated it for like 2 days. I am having the left overs for lunch and they are not satisfying. Oh well, whatcha gonna do, right?

I am looking forward to getting home, changing into comfy clothes and watching my number show. That sounds cozy.

Ken said we need to make sure to turn the boys’ heaters on at night. It has officially changed over to cold nights and even colder mornings. Dax doesn’t stay under his covers as well as Bobby does. Really, both of them need some super comfy, toasty warm jammies.

blah

11-17-09

I am feeling rough this morning. Tired, sore, and just all around like crap. I think I am getting some kind of minor cold. Not sure yet. It could just be exhaustion. Although, I did manage to get to be super early last night.

Thankfully, Ken was home when I got there. He was able to come with us to the doctor’s office. I did forget the special band-aids, but I knew I at least had some Mommy Cat ones in my purse. Turns out, we would not be needing band-aids. I was so excited when they told us it was the nose spray one. Woo hoo!

We walked into the room, which was clearly just the “shot room”. I swear, we had an entourage. All of the nurses there know the boys and adore them, so they all wanted to be in there. Illiana, our main nurse who rocks, asked, “Who wants to go first?” Dax, very enthusiastically, yelled, “me!” Very cool!

Dax climbed up into the special chair. He sat back, and was super calm. The nurses explained what would be done, and he smiled. I held his hand, but truly, I almost didn’t need to. They did the first nostril, and he was more curious than scared. He laughed a bit, saying it tickled. They did the other side, and seriously, I was so happy since Dax was the perfect patient. He cheered for himself and all then nurses did the collective, “ahhhhhh!” Super cute.

Bobby’s turn. I was so happy for his sake that this wasn’t a shot since last flu shot was the one that he smacked out of his arm. He wasn’t feeling warm and fuzzy about another injection. I thought this was a perfect alternative for my scared little boy.

Let’s put it this way. When the boys first had to get shots when they were just a mere days old, it killed me. I thought, with all this technology, can’t they think of some other way to vaccinate my child? I hated seeing him cry. I hated seeing him hurt.

Yesterday, I would have given anything for them to have had the vaccination in shot form.

Bobby flipped out. Over the course of the next hour (yes, you just read that right), he squirmed, he cried, he threw the mother of all tantrums. It was horrible. The biggest drawback was that it wasn’t one that we could pin him down on, since if he was crying, the mist would not stay in his nose. So he basically had to be calm.

After about 40 minutes, we got him to let her put the tube in his nose, but not spray. This was the “practice” runs. It started with me doing it, then Illeana. He was fine, until we said, “Ok, this is for real.” We finally decided to be sneaky. The “practice” run was going to be real, Bobby just didn’t know. He of course felt the spray, so that wasn’t great, but it got in there. We still had the other nostril, though. A few more practice runs and then the real thing masked as practice, we got it done. What really sucked was that I had brought lollipops. On the last spray, I asked Bobby if he wanted to hold his sucker while she sprayed, and he was shockingly calm when she did it, then. Dammit.

On the plus side, the boys now are vaccinated with the H1N1. I got some of it smeared on my chest. Let me explain. After Bobby got the first squirt, he promptly buried his head, sniffles and all, into my chest. Fun.

We got home and got dinner ready. While I was doing something on the computer before I started dinner, I called to the boys to come to me since they had been fighting. They came over, but were so entranced by the tv, which happened to be on, they couldn’t seem to look at me for 30 seconds. So I declared it to be a no tv night since they couldn’t handle paying attention.

We finished dinner around 5:30. I introduced the boys again to mashed potatoes. Dax ate his, after some coaxing, but Bobby mostly refused. I explained to him that the cake we had made was only for little boys who ate their potatoes. He dinked around a bit, but still had not eaten it. So I took his plate and said it was too late. He was upset.

They took their showers, and we realized that this no tv thing certainly puts a bit of a creative streak in you. I mean, we normally use a 20 minute show right before bed. So last night, we ended up doing game night. We played a Thomas the Tank bingo game. The boys loved it. I may suggest doing it tonight as well. Bobby is old enough to do some other games, Dax may lack some patience, but we keep trying different games.

The time change put a damper on walks, only because the boys want to do scooters. I worry that since it is dark, they won’t be able to see cracks. But I think we need to just let them deal with it. I need to get some glow sticks so that they are decked out in glowing lights. I want them to be seen.

I just worked on this billing issue which has zoned me out. I am going to have a helluva day today if I don’t wake up.

I am concerned about my memory. I have been having some serious issues remembering certain things in the last couple weeks. Not just the basic things like walking into a room with a purpose and having no idea what that purpose was. Other things like names or even an entire trip to Disneyland with Jenni seems to be lost in this black goo that has taken over my head. It of course fucks with me since I tend to have a good memory. Plus, coupled with headaches I have been having and my assumption that I have something that is killing me, I am sure some of my icky today is from that.

Adam Lambert’s new CD is out!!! YAY! I might have to stop by Target on the way home from my folks’.

It is almost time where I am going to need to wear real shoes. I have been wearing my sandals every day. Mostly it is because I am lazy. I don’t get up from my desk except to pee, make lunch, make one phone call, and to leave, so I see no point in putting on shoes that are not the most comfy shoes ever. But being that is has been icy cold in the mornings (I have the heater at my feet right now), I think open shoes are not exactly the best idea.

I will be the first to admit I don’t know the full scope of this health care reform stuff. Mostly because I hate political arguments and so it just seems easier for me to stay away from it. I know, not a proud moment, but at least I am willing to admit to being clueless.

I am not sure who is for, or who is against, or hell, even what for and against means. I am hoping a quick wiki read will give me some info. I feel bad that I don’t know. However, after just reading a bit, I still feel my beliefs fall into categories that are probably not covered. LOL!!

I am at a loss. I need to do something about Bobby’s sensitivity. It might not be anything. It might just be his age. But seriously, the kid has issues. He won’t go up to pee at my parent’s house unless I go with him. His breakdown at the doc’s office, his anxiety about ghosts, all of it points to something going on that cannot be ignored. I need to make some phone calls.

There are days when I like my job. There are days when I tolerate my job. There are days in which I have determined that I have the dumbest boss on the planet and it is a wonder he can even speak because someone with that much mental retardation doesn’t have the skills to even form a word. Let’s just say my day today, well, it is even worse than option 3.

I am frustrated with today, so I keep looking for distractions.

I have decided that Christmas for the boys is going to be minimal electronic crap. I think this is the year they get bikes. Plus, they both need a new soccer ball. So I think I will go for old school presents like books and toys that don’t need batteries. I did already pick up a couple of plate sets for them. I was going to use them for lunch on the day I got them but I realized that I need Christmas presents! There is a giant Bolt stuffed animal at the Disney store for $40 that I would love to get Dax. I swear, when he sees it, he squeals in delight. There just is not that much Bolt stuff out there. Of course, he so doesn’t need a giant Bolt doll (it is as big as him), but he will like it. I am really hoping that Disneyland has a more extensive Bolt selection.

That was a nice cheery note! Lien-Thi just wrote me to tell me that she had decided to do the little write something on FB each day about what you are thankful for. I had posted this idea from Stephanie. Now Lien-Thi said even her kids are getting into the spirit! Way fun! I think I will need to ask the boys tonight at dinner what they are thankful for and we can start doing this every November. Obviously we will get things like toys and Dax’s very common answer of “butt”. Later, though, as they get older, I bed more insightful things will come out. Yay!

Side note on a brilliant idea. Last week, there was a birthday party at daycare for some twins that turned one. Well, they had a piñata for the other kids to beat the snot out of. Inside was clearly all of the candy these kids got when they trick or treated! Dude, if you have a birthday soon after Halloween, you are so set!! Especially when you are still the one in charge of handing out candy to them in rations. Awesome!

Ok, the hell day has kind of slowed down. Now it is just slow. I want a nap. I may try to take a brief one when I get home. I considered not going to my parent’s house, but realistically, it is one of those things that gets the boys to run around a lot.

I just had a lollipop. It made me feel ill.

Head hurts. Just took Tylenol. Hoping that will help. In reality, I am about to get my allocated net time, so it may help me just get out of work mode.

Only 10 more days till Disneyland!!!

11-16-09

I am not nearly as tired as I would have expected to be this morning. I went to bed super late last night, and woke up earlier than I would have wanted. But I must still have a bit of a boost from sleeping in for a couple hours on Saturday. Woo!

It was a pretty good weekend. Friday afternoon, we went to my folks, and the boys got to play with their robot costumes. That was awesome. They were made out of grocery bags, duct tape and dryer vent things. Dax was less thrilled, but Bobby loved it.

Friday night, we didn’t go out for dinner, but we did have the cozy dinner. While on our way home from my folks’, Ken pulled out the bed on the couch and got it all set up. He made the boys sandwiches and we all curled up on the bed together and watched Up. We even had popcorn! It was way fun. Stupid movie still made me cry, though.

Saturday, Ken had a tournament much of the morning and early afternoon. This left the boys and I. I told the boys they needed to clean their rooms. I had just organized the toy drawers in Bobby’s room on Thursday, and on Saturday morning, the boys felt the need to dump them all out again. Sigh. So I told them we could not do anything until they cleaned it all up. I refused to help. It took them 2 and a half hours. They never complained. Hell, I was the only one complaining. I hated the idea of them inside on such a beautiful day, but I also didn’t want to let them off the hook. I had to come in there a lot to tell them to stop playing and to actually clean.

On the plus side, with them in the house, I was more free to move about the house myself and get the house cleaned up. I did most of the laundry, cleaned my desk, cleaned Ken’s desk, cleaned the kitchen, the living room, and even some of our bedroom. It was good! I felt very productive.

I put the boys down for nap time, which they never actually slept. This is one of the other reasons I like them to play outside. It gets out that energy so they sleep. I tried to watch a movie, but since they never settled, it was hard to.

We got up and I sent the boys outside. They love being out there, and the dogs love it, too. I like it because I can still work on laundry and hear them. It is a win win for everyone!

Ken got home way earlier than expected. I had suggested for him to do a couple things where he would be able to go out that night, but nothing really panned out as I had thought. It was ok, though. We hung out and had a nice evening.

I really didn’t want to go to bowling. Mostly because I wanted to sleep in. But we went since we determined we would not be going bowling with my parents for a couple weeks, so we might as well go this week. Bowling was fine. Matt was grumpy very quickly in. I think he started off being pissy. Ken and I decided in the car to play the ignore card. Thankfully we did since Matt opted to fight with my parents and not us. I did manage to piss him off at the very end, which tickled me. I know, bad Gena, but come on! It was funny! And with good reason. I have pretty much told him he is no longer allowed to take the boys when he walks up to pay and talk to this chick that for some reason adores him. I don’t care for her as she is one of the idiot people down there that gives me a hard time for the boys having long hair. But the thing is, Matt can’t be trusted. He bailed on Bobby that time, which has truly shaken his confidence. Look, neither boy even wants to hold Matt’s hand when anyone else is standing near by. So I told Matt that he can walk with me and the boys, or he just has to go on by himself if he doesn’t want to wait. On Sunday, as he is getting ready to walk off, he starts calling to the boys. Mind you, not by name. He barked at them more like they were dogs. Both boys were not having it, and I finally told Matt no. He flipped out. He stormed off, not of course after telling me to fuck off. Awesome. Yeah, and I really want you with my kids when no one else is around.

While the boys napped on Sunday, I had hoped to watch a movie. Luna had other ideas. She was so insistent on getting up on the boys’ table to lick whatever month old sticky was still there. It was super frustrating. She is odd in her food frenzy. Ok, probably not odd to most dog owners, but we have become spoiled with Lycos who never freaks out about food. She likes it, but she doesn’t do the whole drama thing if food is 1 minute late. Luna seems hungry constantly. We worry we are not feeding her enough, which of course is probably not the case. I am hoping to take her to the vet this week to get her shots and maybe ask about that.

After nap, we spoiled the boys with Build A Bear. I had known about the clone costumes and Darth Vader costumes they had available starting yesterday. So we took Bo Bo and Jo Jo down to get them their very own clone costumes. Since we needed Darth Vader (Bobby’s words, not mine), Ken opted to make his very own bear with a Darth Vader costume. His bear is Mo Mo. Awesome! The boys loved it, and Ken even managed to get me a $10 gift card, so it means I can go back. They wanted the Scarecrow costume, Tin Man and Lion costumes. Bobby even told me last night we needed to have a costume party, so I see giant party with bears, elephants and dogs coming soon.

Bobby was having some issues last night. He decided he was scared of ghosts. Ok, no biggie normally since we just tell him Bo Bo and his other friends can protect him, right? Nope. He dropped this bomb shell with Ken. He pointed out that Bo Bo isn’t real, so he can’t help him. Crap. So Ken told him ghosts and monsters are not real, so it should not matter. The problem, I had told him about a ghost. Crap. When we were out on the swings at one point, the one swing was swinging on its own. So I said that it was a ghost swinging. This was a fleeting comment months ago. They thought it was funny. The problem? It now was no longer funny. Ken got him calmed down a bit until the evils of the flying world decided to take their revenge on Bobby. Yes, that’s right, a freaking moth decided to scare the shit out of the kid. See, I told you those are bad! Bobby didn’t fall asleep until almost 10. We had Lycos in there, which I think helped. It also helped that he was tired, but I worry about tonight. It is tough on the kid, since then he doesn’t get enough sleep. Not good.

We stayed up and watched Parenthood. I have seen it a million times, but Ken had only seen it once or twice. It is amazing how much more you appreciate some of the humor as you get older, and let’s face it, when you have kids a lot of the stuff was more relatable. We watched it since it was pointed out that the young kid of Steve Martin’s character was so Dax, what with his bonking things with his head. And the older boy, Kevin, was so Bobby in his super sensitive and sweet nature. We were not disappointed.

Ken and I had a good weekend in terms of us. I don’t know what it was, but it just felt like we clicked more than even normal. Always a good thing. Especially amazing since I get surly so much.

This coming weekend sounds super busy. I have the birthday party for a one year old in the afternoon on Saturday, the party that night, which means leaving the boys with my parents. And Sunday morning is bowling with the boys. Yes, they get to bowl! Woo hoo! Saturday night will be rough. Bobby gets so upset being left. On the plus side, I told him that they could take their clone costumes (people and bear) so that they could play clone with my parents. Ken even told them to take Mo Mo so that they had Darth Vader, too. I will bring a couple movies to hopefully allow them to be settled. My parents are leaving the next morning to go to Laughlin, so I had to get in their way. On the plus side, my parents are like me in that we get ready like 3 weeks early for a 2 day trip. LOL! I think that bowling that next morning will be fun, and maybe we will do Denny’s afterwards or something. If Bobby has enough patience to do it, my mom said that realistically he could start bowling with us on Sundays. We would start with him only doing the last game, but soon I would imagine he could do the whole thing. Dax doesn’t seem to care as much, so he won’t bowl yet. And if he wants to, both my mom and I said he could just bowl on our frames. Really, the people who will get annoyed is Freddie, Matt and maybe my dad on it being slower. But Ken, my mom and I don’t care. So we will see. Bobby does play the bowling game on Wii for the entire hour he is at my parents’ house, and bowls 192’s! He will so be frustrated when he doesn’t do as well.

My dad and I are were having way too much fun at bowling. There were gobs of new signs from sponsors of this tournament coming up. Most of them were shockingly vague. I mean, if you are going to pay for a banner, don’t you make sure it shows what you do. One said Armadillo. So my dad said they must sell armadillos. So I of course turn to the one which was only a quote saying something about there is always hope. My dad, without missing a beat, says it is selling Jesus, to which I quickly respond, “on a stick?” I am telling you, it is a wonder he and I could throw the ball at all we were laughing so hard.

I want to go home and curl up in my wonderful fuzzy red comforter. It is so soft and warm and happy making. I feel that we need to get another one just in case something bad happens to this one.

We had the always creepy talk about what we want to have each other do in case one of us is in a horrible accident. It came up when a little boy died over the weekend after the family decided to pull the plug. Horrible story, but Ken and I started talking. We have probably talked about it before, but it is always good to know the plan. My decision, I thought, I should put here in a blog. I figured someone could find it if need be. I have decided that really, the reason to pull the plug on me is if I can no longer express myself or communicate. Come on, even if I had my brain function, but I couldn’t get any of my thoughts out at all, it would be hell for me. I would rather not be in that prison. It would be upsetting, yes, to not be able to see my kids grow up, but you know, I would hate to be a burden on them and Ken. Now, if I can talk, or blink or I don’t know, type with my eyes on one of those special computers, sure, let me be. But otherwise, I think that Ken can make the call. I trust he will do what is right.

I know, uber downer, but it had to be said.

I love my snack of peanuts, but seriously, I don’t know that I can get them in shells anymore. It is a pain in the ass while at work to eat them.

The diva of my department was on a bit of a rant this morning. She was out Friday, so she acts all exasperated when we asks for things. She was on the phone, and came around to my area. First off, get off the fucking phone. Second, why are you in my area? Turn out she was looking for the computer that was Tammy’s old machine. Well, they took that last week or the week before because someone else had a virus. Diva gets all upset at whoever is on the phone and makes some remark about how she wishes someone would have told her. Dude, told her what? It isn’t her computer. It isn’t even something she is in charge of. She likes to think she is the office manager since she places orders for things like pens. I would like to point out she is a horrible office manager, then. First off, she orders shit we don’t need, and yet we are always out of things we do need. Our supply cabinet is filled to the brim with 6 different styles of highlighters, yet we have no labels. We don’t use highlighters much anymore, and yet everyone prints labels on a daily basis. Plus, how many fucking styles do we really need? I can see different colors, but 4 kinds of yellow???? Oh, yes, and when she hands out faxes, she never looks up who’s account it is, she just hands it out to who she thinks should handle it. It would take her all of 5 minutes to look them up, and I mean all of the faxes for 3 weeks, yet she chooses to feel it is too time consuming. So many other things, but she just irks me. I am frustrated with having her here.

I helped another cat! Yay! My coworker heard it through the grapevine that I have traps. So she borrowed one from me since she has a feral kitty at her house. She assumed it was a little girl, since it was so small. The trap worked perfectly and she got the kitty over to the vet. Turns out, it is really a little boy! LOL! He is full grown, and only 8 pounds. She was able to release him back into the neighborhood. She is continuing to feed him. He isn’t as keen on her right now, but it took some time to get him to come up in the first place, so she is hopeful. She is just glad to have gotten him fixed so there would not be kittens in the area. So yay!

Just got a call from the doctor’s office. They have the H1N1 shots. So the boys and I are heading down to the doc at 3 for them to get poked. They are not going to be happy about it. But we need to get it done. I am not getting one since I am fairly sure they only have enough for kids. If they want to give me one, sounds good, but if they can’t, no worries. There is talk of my work getting some vaccinations, so I may get one when they get them. I am already on that list. Ken is going to meet us there. I am so happy about that since let’s face it, too kids getting shots, not fun when you have to do it by yourself. Plus, Ken is hoping to point out that since he works with kids all day long, that perhaps he is one of the “high risk” people and needs to be vaccinated as well. Of course, I suppose that makes me high risk since I have 2 kids in daycare with other kids, and a husband with gobs of kids around him. They will all not get sick, but they will bring it home to me! Nah, I think I am fine for now, so I am hoping Ken can get the shot, too. Then again, he is more of a wuss than the boys are about shots. There is part of me that wants the boys to watch their father get a shot so they can see they are not being picked on. But do they really need to see daddy faint dead away from one needle?

Crap. It sounds like the kids’ Tivo crashed this morning. Ken wasn’t able to get everything off, either. Some of the Upside Down Show is queued to transfer, but who knows if that will happen. Luckily on that, they are now re-airing those episodes. Plus, most of the items on the Tivo are episodes that we can either get on Nick Jr (no more Noggin!) or DVD, but still super frustrating when the boys were apparently in the middle of a show when it died. Spongebob is like coffee to these kids. Take it away and you get cranky. So clearly I am a damn fool for now scheduling the shot for the same day. Yie!

The stress begins. I don’t know what to wear on Saturday. It isn’t fancy or anything, but I want to feel like I look good, but not so good that people can tell I tried really hard. LOL! Isn’t that what every girl wants? It shouldn’t be a big deal, but it is to me.

I hope that wasn’t a bad decision. They just brought around some list for a pot luck for the VP (My boss’s boss) is apparently about to be a first time grandpa. Ok, good for him. I am excited for him in just the idea that let’s face it, I like being a mom, and I know my mom likes being a grandparent, so I can see how this is way cool for him. But look, dude is having a grand kid. He doesn’t get a pot luck right now. Plus, the economy is in the crapper, no one has money, and let’s face it, does he think we want to bring food to celebrate his grandkid, or more specifically, him? Shoot, the man never talks to our department. Hell, he barely says two words to me unless I happen to be in the lunch room with other people. I am happy for him, but I so cannot warrant spending money on food for a bunch of people I hardly know to celebrate a grandchild when it would make more sense to spend it somewhere else. I know, I probably just signed my own pink slip, but I just think it is silly.

Ok, I officially know someone who had the swine flu! My 6th grade teacher just emailed out that she had it. She said it sucks. Good thing the boys are getting shots this afternoon. I really hope none of us get it. I hate the flu. I don’t do well with vomiting. I hate it more than anything. And more importantly, I don’t do so hot if I can’t do anything around the house. I also worry that if I got it that I would scare the boys. Mommy hurling scared them in the past. When my gall bladder thing happened, on the way to the hospital, I made Ken pull over so I could throw up. They were so freaked out. I would hate for them to see me all icky now, especially since they are older and understand more.