"No bird! Go way! Bye bye!" [Repeat 1,000 times]

So mom and I took the Geej to her maiden outing to Red Robin tonight. Not sure why, but this bastard FREAKED the Geej completely out. She saw him coming from across the restaurant and immediately looked at me with a look that said, "Mommy?! What the HELL IS THAT THING?!!" As he came ever closer, she started with the "No bird. No bird. No bird," mantra that expanded quickly into the emphatic directive that is the title of this entry. Yes she enjoyed her grilled cheese and tomatoes from my salad and bites of beans from my mom's taco salad, but the entire time she was chowing down, the refrain of "No bird! Go way! Bye Bye! No bird!..." just went on and on and on.

I guess Disney's out of the question for...like...ever.

In praise of friends whose parents have lakehouses.

Had a nice time on Saturday afternoon/evening as The Geej and I were invited out to a friend's parents' lakehouse right on Lake LBJ. The great thing about lake culture--like beach culture--is that people tend to go full tilt. Take these mailboxes for instance. They say "lakehouse" in a very serious way.

There were lots of kiddos there--from age (almost) 9 to age 1 1/2. The girls outnumbered the boys. The Geej got some quality time with Malcontent Mama's little Casanova, Anderson. And I'm not sure why, but our parties that involve the kids usually end up with a massive breakdancing session. This was Saturday:
And this was at Malcontent Mama's birthday bash back in March. Hmm... Maybe SHE'S the reason behind all this breakdancing. But I digress. We had lots and lots of fun. The Geej thoroughly enjoyed her time at the "big wah-doh" although the ideas of getting on a boat or actually in to the wah-doh are still a little much for her. I predict by the end of the summer, she'll be all over it.

BTW--The standoff with my mom has come to an end. We were able to talk through things, and I got the apology I needed (and deserved) on Saturday afternoon. I'm glad because the whole thing was getting really, really old.

If you'd driven through my neighborhood early yesterday afternoon, you would've seen this:

And this:

















Yeah. I know...

Best boyfriend ever.

Yesterday I was in the midst of dealing with all of this stupid mom crap, when I received a very carefully wrapped package in the mail from Mr. Wonderful. After wrestling with it and trying to get it open for a while, I finally saw what was inside.

Check it:

See the poodle painting on the right, matted with the blue background? THAT'S what he sent me. See the poodles-made-with-gravel pictures on the left? Those I bought at a vintage store in Chicago for $5, which started my weird poodle collecting. Over the past few years, I've acquired a vintage poodle lamp, a poodle picture frame, and several lovely figurines. When it came time to move into my house and I knew that The Geej was going to have her own bathroom, I wanted to decorate it so that it was fun, but not too kiddy (since it's also the guest bathroom). So I decided to move all the poodles into the bathroom (except for the lamp...that's still in Geej's room). When Mr. Wonderful visited in April, I commented on how that spot (where the blue/black poodle is now hanging) was "missing something," and that I was on the lookout for something to go there. Then this arrives in the mail. It's so perfect, it's not even funny. Kind of like Mr. Wonderful himself.

Other new acquisitions? Two more damn baby dolls. While I was in Colorado, my mom purchased (and named) Britney (!) and Cindy. Britney can go in the bathtub with Geej, and Cindy wears a diaper (which is very exciting apparently). So now I have to contend with this:

How hilarious is that? She did this all by herself. She likes to surround herself with them so that they can all watch a little Teletubbie action before bed. Clearly Sally (the big one in her lap) is the favorite. Damn she's girly.

The Standoff Continues, Day 2

Well, my mom and I still aren't speaking. There have been a couple of terse e-mails back and forth, but the bottom line is, she still hasn't apologized for being out of line. So as of right now, she can pucker up and kiss it.

Yeah, I said it.

I'm too damn wiped to write. Sorry Internets. Must sleep.

Wha tha fuh?

Okay, I'm not sure what the hell was going on today, but shit was all fucked up. It started out normally enough, but as the day progressed, it just disintegrated.

Started feeling lousy yesterday afternoon. Felt lousy enough to do a quickie trip to the doctor today. She called in a prescription for me, and I had to go to the pharmacy not once, but twice to pick it up.

Went to get some prescription food for the Old Cat and flea medicine for the Young Cat at the vet's office and walked out $114 poorer.

Walked into a barrage of e-mails at work today that were about this apparently failed statistics tool we put up on our website, and now I'm going to have to deal with the IT nerds who are going to a) defend their work, even if it's wrong and it sucks and b) try and make me feel stupid and talk me out of making them do anything about it. Fucking IT fuckers...

Got summoned by the Executive VP who told me that this very big, first-time-ever, VERY important-to-my-team 2-day meeting with a bunch of company bigwigs that was supposed to occur next month had been cancelled. And my team, who have been pretty fucked over in the nearly 6 months since my nutjob boss left and they chose not to replace her, but rather to put me in an unofficial interim team leader mode--all of the responsibility, none of the pay or authority--was duly disappointed when I had to break the news to them.

Didn't have one single minute to work on a big writing thing I needed to do and get out to my team today. Hence, it didn't get done. And the big writing thing? It's for a meeting we're having with the Executive VP to discuss the item above on Friday . And tomorrow's Thursday.

Still feeling lousy all day long, but way too busy to even think about going home. And if I did get sick and had to go home, who would pick up The Geej? Feeling bad is not an option.

Call my mom on the way home to give her her daily ride home, stuck-in-traffic call from The Geej, and she says one of the most insulting things anyone's ever said to me. I tell her, "Do you have ANY idea how mad what you just said made me? I've got to go," and hung up.

I called her back just a short while ago, and she not only refused to apologize, but she also refused to even acknowledge what she said was out of line. I love my mom. You know I do. I've written about it many, many times on this blog. But this, my friends, is a doozie of a rift, and she will NOT see her grand-daughter until she sincerely apologizes to me. [And I'm serious too. She was supposed to come spend the night with me tomorrow night so she could get an early leg up on Memorial Day weekend traffic so she could drive to my cousin's graduation in Houston on Friday. And I told her, "If you can't apologize and admit that what you said to me was hurtful and careless, then I don't want to see you tomorrow." And she said, "Fine." I said, "Then have a nice trip," and hung up.] Extortion? Sure. But if you only knew what she said, you'd understand. (And no, I'm not going in to that here because I'm afraid the keyboard will burst into flames with all of my rage.)

All this stress about my mom? It's torn my stomach up, and I've been, shall we say "a little loose," for hours now.

Oh yeah, and The Geej wouldn't eat tonight and decided to pitch a royal fit at bedtime (which is unusual for her). I guess she can sense the stress in me, and it's setting her off.

So I ask again: Wha tha fuh?