Hot Dog! or, Bad Parenting 101

This morning I was relieved to find that the temperature had dropped significantly.

I dislike summer intensely, mainly because of the heat. The heat, the sun, the drastic change in my schedule leaves me completely discombobulated.

It funny how despite hating summer, most of my hobbies, the beekeeping and the gardening, are most involved in the summer and require me to be outside in the heat.

I mentioned to G today that I should take up more Winter friendly hobbies, like hunting or ice sculpture.

I had been stressed out about this day for the entire week, but happily, it is behind me and in the end, it wasn't so bad.

I had a feeling it was going to be a good day when I woke up to the cooler cloudy weather. I was assured that it was going to be a good day after finding this totally awesome tidbit on Twitter.

It seems that the day Anthony Weiner had the press conference about incriminating pictures of his ding dong, was also National Hot Dog Day!!

I just love love love the way the Universe works. I'm so glad that it shared with me via Twitter. It truly made my day.

So now I'm winding down my pretty good day watching the BBC Sherlock with the kids. They love it. It's racy at times, but they do fine with it.

However, because of this show, I was posed with the rather uncomfortable task of telling the kids what a Dominatrix is.

I did it in the simplest, most abbreviated way. I forbade the children from sharing the info with their friends-they are good for this, which is why I answer their questions as truthfully as possible, while keeping in mind what they can or cannot handle.

I told them that a Dominatrix is a grownup that spanks other grownups for money.

So now for the past several hours, V has been sneaking up behind me, smacking my ass and demanding money.

I guess there could be worse professions.

Threat

I always do this to make my children laugh.

I did it again the other day while walking through the parking lot of Whole Foods.

A man passing by saw me do this to the kids and looked at me like I was the devil.

What the average passerby doesn't seem to grasp, is that when I threaten my children with bodily harm,

with colorful words or gestures,

What I am actually saying to them is,

"I love you and I think you're swell."

Bugs

Summer is crazy.

With the heat and carting kids around in the heat, working, cleaning, doing laundry, trying to organize my goddamn house for once in the heat, walking the dog and tending the bees in the heat, trying to write and garden in the heat and last but not least, wishing this heat would break, while in the heat, I looked up and saw it's been weeks since I last posted.

I've been busy and hot.

I'm actually off for the Saturday marathon shift at work in less than an hour.

So here is all I got for the moment-

I had dreams last night of cockroaches and earwigs swarming out of a muffin that I was about to eat. The rest of the dream consisted of me, trying to kill the vermin with a wad of paper towels.

This probably stems from finding a pair of live and very frisky earwigs in my peach yesterday, and maybe the 5 flies I found in my pho the other day.

Not to mention the battle Horst and I had at 11 pm last night in my basement with a nest of tiny red ants.

Is it fucking Fall yet?

Concert Ed

This is one of my favorite July 4th memories,  alongside the time G slammed V's fingers in a door and when an anonymous person left a corn infused pile of diarrhea along with the napkin they wiped themselves with, in my driveway.

I asked my friend Karen, who is standing in the front of this photo, if she had any photos of Concert Ed, so that I could write a post about him for the Fourth of July.

She kindly obliged me.

Even better, she sent me a picture of Concert Ed at the Bristol 4th of July Parade, which took place a mere 10 hours before our story begins.

There's Concert Ed, middle right, in the blue shirt, holding up his fist in solidarity. Definitely holding a beer.

And look, there's a 17 year old me, to the left of Ed, in front of the shirtless guy, (another Ed, I believe) wearing sunglasses. I have my mouth open.

Damn we look young.

I think of Concert Ed every 4th of July.

I imagine that there has to be another version of this story somewhere in the dark dank recesses of my old MySpace account.

I know I mention the anniversary of my Concert Ed experience every 4th.

I'm going to take it for another spin if you don't mind.

I used to live in Bristol when I was 17ish. I lived a mere 2 blocks off the parade route, in downtown Bristol.

Of course on the 4th, we hosted a big party the night before the parade.

I vaguely remember a person with poor hygiene, who shall not be named, who was a rather obnoxious drunk, pass out on our floor at this party.

Obnoxious drunks did not get safe passage in that house.

He got written on with sharpie and had the entire contents of our refrigerators condiment section poured on him.

I think he got stripped as well, his clothes thrown outside or something.

His name, nor the state of his underwear shall not be discussed.

Brutal teenagers we were.

But hey, he was pretty obnoxious and obnoxious drunks never received safe passage.

Ed, the guy with no shirt in the picture, brought Concert Ed.

I know nothing about Concert Ed, except that he was a bit crazy and I think he was either a veteran or an ex-hippie type who took WAY too many drugs and never totally came back.

Also, you could pay him to do a "concert" at your party, hence the name, "Concert Ed".

He would come with milk crates full of records and a record player. He would also bring a spinner and have people at the party spin this spinner.

 If you got a 7, he would select the seventh record in crate seven and play the seventh song, or something like that. I cannot remember the exact formula.

He would sit, surrounded by his milk crates and play air drums to every song and sing to himself.

I remember going to only 1 of his "concerts".

 I fell asleep before the grand finale, where he got all wound up and started yelling and Sig Heiling, during Simon and Garfunkles "The Boxer".

I also think of Ed whenever I hear that song.

(I will add that I received safe passage that evening and did not get written on or sauced with condiments while I slept. I was lucky like that. I am also a very light sleeper.)

So, yes, the party the night before the 4th and there is the picture of the Bristol parade. We are smiling and look quite happy, but I can assure you that we were all pretty hung over and probably quite sweaty and gross.

But who doesn't love a parade?

I had to work that day. I took a bus to work in Newport later on in the afternoon.

Downtown Bristol pretty much shuts down for the 4th. No buses come through, so after the parade, I hiked down to the bridge and caught the bus to work.

Later that night, Horst drove me home. As we pulled in the driveway, I saw that the back door was slightly ajar.

I saw a person's head low to the ground in that doorway.

I became alarmed, as that particular doorway led right into my bedroom.

My bed was placed exactly where that grizzled looking head was resting.

On a side note-parents-If you were dropping off your teenage daughter at her house and the door to her house was open a crack showing that an old man was sleeping in her bed, you'd ask questions, right?

You'd probably go in and kick that guy out or maybe make her come back home with you, right?

Ah, Horst...  He dropped me off, no questions asked.

 I raced to the carnival, which was also right next to our house. I located my roommate and some other friends and posed them with this question:

"What's Concert Ed doing in my bed?"

To which they had no answer.

I angrily marched back to my house, went in my room and demanded that he get up and get out, thinking that I was going to have to throw the bed out, boil it or perhaps run a flame thrower over the top of it in order to sleep in it again.

Concert Ed began to wake up, slowly, he was obviously still drunk.

And then,

Concert Ed began to puke in my bed.

As I was screaming in horror (as a teenager I was a screamer, as are most teenage girls, I suspect)

I heard him moan something about taking a lot of aspirin and somebody giving him bad water.

Concert Ed puked in my bed. Several times, in fact.

There is a poem in there somewhere, maybe for next 4th of July or even later today.

What's more to say than that?

I was enraged, my friend dragged me into the bathroom and locked us in before I could murder him.

Some other very thoughtful friends cleaned my bed.

 The rest is history.

I never saw Concert Ed after that night. Probably for the best.

Every year, when everyone starts to break out the red white and blue decorations and plan for the barbecue.  I remember Concert Ed.

Independence Day. The anniversary of our country and the time that Concert Ed puked in my bed.

Happy Fourth!

Alone

It's been hard to get back into the swing of things and write again.

I have so much writing to do. It's July, so I am participating in Camp NaNoWriMo.

My goal is to finally finish that pesky story I have been working on for the past year.

I also have that newsletter (that you should sign up for, if you haven't already, here) or you can just be lazy and go look on the Facebook page..Yeah thanks..

Then I like to write here as much as possible.

Last week I was on vacation in New Jersey. There is no WiFi at my mother in law's house, so I took a technology break.

It was fun. The weather was hot, but we had central air and went to the beach every day.

At the beach I learned that a sand crabs ass is actually it's face and it's face is actually it's ass.

They just crawl/swim/dig backwards.

Ass on the left, face on the right.

Realizing that they had cute little faces with eye stalks endeared me to them. I spent much of my time squatting at the water's edge digging for them.

I made it to the Glimmer Glass on Sunday, the night of the Super Moon-to see the horseshoe crabs mating. 

We only saw 3 pairs swimming in the water, there was a lot of mosquitos, but the moon on the water was very pretty. 

Just to say that I went to the Glimmer Glass to see the Super Moon was magic in itself.

My camera sucks, but here is a shot

Crappy camera..Crappy photographer. But it was very pretty.

I also had 2 more lumps removed right before vacation. They look like little mouths on the side of my arm. 

I drew little eyes and named them.

Again, not the best photo, but here they are, the top one is named Skidoozer, the Ambivalent Arm Muppet, the bottom is Skeeter, the Disgruntled Arm Muppet.

Wanna freak out and embarrass your children? Make your surgical scars talk to them. Good times. Good times.

So enough about crabs and arm muppets. 

My whole point of writing this was to talk about the difficulty of writing while being in a house full of people. Namely children, who are currently out of school and addicted to various internet games. 

I will also add there is 1 working computer for 5 people.

We came home from vacation and are now in a holding pattern until next week, when V & G go to art camp for 2 weeks and to comic club for another 2. 

This will give me much more writing time, I hope. 

 In this family it is asking A LOT to sit and write undisturbed for 10 minutes. 

I can't even go to the bathroom undisturbed.   

My family, all of them, are specially programmed to bother me at the most inopportune moments. 

If I have to start dinner, at least one, if not 2, people suddenly appear in the kitchen and engage in a carefully choreagraphed ballet where they place them selves exactly where I need or want to be, precisely 2 seconds before I get there. 

I sit on the toilet, at least one if not 2 other people suddenly feel the urge and get up to follow me in. If the door is unlocked, they stand in there waiting and ask me if I'm finished yet. 

If the door has a lock? 

Within minutes, the line outside the door resembles the line outside of a WalMart before it opens on Black Friday. 

I sit to write? 

Someone needs breakfast, a lost thing, immediate medical attention or Horst's specialty, a very silly story with no point that I was better off never knowing in the first place. 

So, I try to get up before everyone else and get what I need to get done, done. 

I tell the kids I need an hour and shut my bedroom door.

 I try to ignore the sounds of fighting and do not get up unless I hear the splash of blood or vomit.

I am looking forward to this coming Monday, when the house is clear of people for a few hours.

I can write alone, I can go to the bathroom alone. 

But then again..

Yes. I am sitting on the toilet.

I am never truly alone.