“Fire in the hole”

“These ones are light artillery”

“The really loud ones are air strikes”

“I wanna blow stuff up, too”

“Here’s some cannon fire”

“Take cover”

“Incoming”

“Bubble wrap is machine gun fire”

“No, the bullets come out of your eyes… super weapon” (should I seek therapy yet, you think? For them, I mean… maybe me, too.)

“Cover the secret passage by the fridge”

“I just deleted the fridge” (um, what?)

Sure enough, I can select my specific date, preferred time, specific massage service and whether I want male or female.  All they didn’t ask was what I’d like to drink and how do I like my coffee / lemon in my water?

In my perfect world, all appointment making would occur this way.  On a related note, in my perfect world, my kids’ school (and indeed everyone everywhere that is ever going to require me to fill out a form of any kind) would have all that paperwork online in pdf form that can be filled out online before printing out.  With 3 kids, school and aftercare/summer camp alone requires the filling out of approximately 40 forms / year.  Most of which is the same information written out 12 different times.  I could happily live without ever picking up a pen.

There are no phonics rules to cover this
The surname of the commander of the North Dakota National Guard is Sprynczynatyk.  I bet he was in 4th grade before either he or any of his teachers could spell that w/o having to stop and think about it.  Or look it up. And I’m thinking there’s a better than average chance that, if he’s married, his wife chose to keep her name.

Well that’s good news for everyone
At the end of the 70′s there were only 44 breweries remaining in the US. The 2010 version of Best’s Underwriting Guide has that number at 1,759. Now that, people, is what progress looks like.  Clearly, in some ways at least, the world is a much better place than it used to be. Half full, people, half full (of a finely-crafted microbrew).

It’s because we have the Google now
Three out of four people don’t always follow doctor’s orders and one in three don’t fill prescriptions. They say that like it’s a bad thing.

Exhibit A: When DS2 was 2, I took him to a Dermatologist for a skin condition. We weren’t sure what was causing it but the Dr. prescribed a cortisone / steroid cream and gave a regimen for its use.  Googling of a reputable source of established medical protocol info showed it to be a prescription and regimen that was *far* more aggressive than the starting protocol for adults. He was 2. That was the last time I followed any doctor’s orders w/o checking first.

Exhibit B: When DS3 was 3 I took him to the walk-in clinic because his neck hurt. I was pretty sure he’d just slept on it funny or something and it was just a sore muscle. But since it was his neck and he wasn’t that great a communicator yet, I just wanted confirmation there was nothing more serious going on. He was uncomfortable and didn’t have a full range of movement but not in actual pain. The examination confirmed what I thought (nothing serious). For a parting gift, they gave me a Tylenol 3 w/Codeine Rx for him. “To keep him comfortable”.  Who gives a 3 y.o. Codeine for something that is barely troublesome enough to slow him down?  There’s no reason to fill that.  Well, OK, maybe one.  Like if I wanted to have some around in case *I* needed it – to save me a trip.  But since a purse-size bottle of Advil expires before I take it all I didn’t see the need.

There’s a lawsuit for that
A MI woman is suing a WA man for damages because a romance sparked on Facebook didn’t work out. Hey, why stop there? Why not sue Facebook too? Maybe your internet service provider, as well? Whatever happened to vandalizing his vehicle (yeah, Carrie Underwood, I’m looking at you. You and your Louisville slugger), then getting drunk with your girlfriends so you can bemoan the general lack of quality male members of the species till the wee hours? I wouldn’t have had time to hold down a job for my entire 20′s if I went about suing every dude that turned out to be guilty of “misrepresentation”. Do you have any idea how many “Navy Seals” I met in my dating years?  I’m thinking not too many lawyers are gonna take that one on a contingency basis.

DS1 has been fixated on baking soda and vinegar volcanoes again lately.  Sadly, for him, the inlaws were here recently and DH used all the vinegar making escovitch fish.  So after much pestering multiple times daily about going to buy vinegar, I finally had errands to run today which took me to where they would have vinegar.

So, they’ve been out there trying it in empty plastic easter eggs and other such things.  Last I heard DS1 was in here looking for rubber gloves to blow up with it.  Just now, though, he comes in and stands by me @ my desk.

DS1 “Mom, have you had any beer yet today?”  So, right away, I know that there is definitely an ulterior motive at work here.  For the record, I almost never have beer during the week.  It should be noted that today was recycling pickup day.

Me: “No. “

DS1: “Oh.” Big dramatic sigh follows, complete with the full-on dejected body language.

Me: “Why?” Even though I’m pretty sure I know.

DS1: “We need something to make a volcano in.”  Followed by the look of eyes which are wordlessly begging (which is, of course, preferable to the audible kind) “PLEEAAASSE drink a beer”

Me: “OK, DS1 if you want to bring me a beer and a glass, you can have the empty bottle”.

So, I’ll just enjoy this beer while I veg for a bit before getting dinner.  All in the name sacrifice for my kids.

On my DH’s last birthday, he turned 52.  Today is our 13th anniversary.  So, by my denial math, he is twice as old as me and I’ve been married to him for half my life.

When I shared this math with him, he was a lot less amused by this than he could’ve been.  As a matter of fact, I’m pretty sure I detected some eye-rolling.

The new version has a default setting for opening the browser with whatever it had when it was last closed.  I don’t have to remember to click anything and my tabs won’t be lost in system crashes etc.

I will probably still not get around to doing whatever I want to do with a lot of the pages on these tabs.  But at least it will be because, at some point, I decided it’s not worth it / important / relevant or whatever rather than because I forgot to click something / clicked something by accident / my system threw a hissy.

It’s possible I should be concerned that this makes the list.  I’m going with the justification that many of those tabs are work-related stuff I want to do something with.  Yeah, that’s it.

Anyhoo… they just got home and it was straight to the fort.  Last night I heard them talking about it as a ninja something… I couldn’t remember.  So I ask DS3, who was standing nearby, “it’s your ninja-what?”.  “Ninja Hideout” he says with a conspiratorial grin.

DS2′s voice comes from ‘the hideout’ “Well, it’s not much of a hideout if you tell everyone.”  Right.  Because without him telling me I never would’ve noticed the blanket covered structure that is about 4 ft x 6 ft in the middle of a 10 x 13 room.

34 – Coffee as a sample.  That new bag of coffee?  I bought it because it was one of the samples  @ Costco a couple times and I thought it was really good.  I’d been waiting to buy it till we used up the other 2 (costco-sized) bags we already had.  So the anticipation had been building for some time. But this item is about samples. While they make my boys happy, they generally kind of make me twitch when I’m trying to shop with them (usually in a hurry) and they have to hit all the samples. Then there’s the sales pitch, the arguing over whether it’s good or not.  One refusing to try it the other begging me to buy it (again, Costco-sized.  I can’t count the number of times I’ve done this only to have them decide they now hate it and it’s not fit for human consumption.  Nothing like having a 64 oz of mango jelly in the fridge that no one wants.)

But coffee as a sample?  Yes, please.  But only if they’ve got some 1/2 + 1/2 or real cream(er).  None of that powdered crap.  Kind of counter-productive to the goal of selling more coffee, dontcha think?

35 – A clean kitchen.  (Inspired by the contrast in the state of my kitchen when I arrived there this morning vs. its current state. ) Even though I probably not actually the *furthest* thing from a neat freak, I am far enough down that spectrum that you can’t see it from here.  Nor can you really get there from here, I don’t think.  But one’s outlook on the day and life, even, can certainly be dramatically changed depending on whether the counters are wiped down, dishes washed, put away, etc.  Not to mention the clearing of the high counter where all the paraphernalia and debris that makes up a life (or 5) seems to gather. Not that I’m too keen on doing it (which is why I chose to blow it off last night and lay in bed having a long conversation with a friend, instead) but in the absence of that wand that went missing…

36 – Clean floors.  Sadly, this item was not inspired by observing freshly-cleaned floors in my house this morning.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  And it is only *newly*-cleaned that count here since, with the 2 small, 1 medium and 1 large two-legged boys and 1 medium-sized 4-legged boy clean floors only last about 25 minutes anyway.  Or 6 hours if they are in school / at work / napping in the doggy bed.

In any case, if the floors are clean, the house feels clean (even though that may not necessarily be is almost certainly not the case).  Note to self: get those boys trained in proper vacuuming technique and implement a schedule where they regularly do it.