Laundry and I have not been getting along lately.  Everytime I think I’m finished with Laundry I find it has somehow reproduced itself.  Laundry is worse than bunnies.  Laundry is the houseguest that never leaves.  Laundry is more dogged than a telemarketer.  The things in life that are certain should be death, taxes and Laundry.  Unless you’re a nudist.

In a house of five people and one dog I do at least two loads of laundry daily.  At least.  If all or some or even just one of us has gone out of town for the weekend, or just a sleepover at a friend’s house, that easily doubles.  Sometimes when I’m feeling super industrious I get the idea that I will get all the Laundry done in one day so I won’t have to deal with it cluttering up my floor.  On days like that I end up doing five and sometimes six loads.  That’s a lot of Laundry.  Once that last load has been scooped up and tossed into the washer there is that feeling of relief and accomplishment.  I feel super and even superior because I have conquered the Laundry.  Then someone takes off their socks.

The only cure for Laundry is nudity.  What isn’t worn doesn’t need to be washed.  Except curtains on occasion.  Bedsheets and blankets too but weekly is fine for those.  And towels. FRICK!!!

Okay, the cure for Laundry is nudity, vertical blinds, beds of straw and drip drying.  Like I said: death, taxes and Laundry.

Anorexic half-ply. This toilet paper came into fashion with the advent of the mega-roll toilet paper dispenser. Traditionally toilet paper hung in stalls on normal rolls much like what you have at home, often with two rolls mounted on the wall right next to each other. From there someone devised a gadget that could hold multiple rolls stacked one above the other in a container that would lower a new roll when the lower ones were emptied. After that another genius devised a large contraption that would only hold one roll but that roll was giganormous. One industrial size heavy duty long lasting mega-roll of toilet paper. Janitorial drudges everywhere applauded this advancement in technology. And then someone got cheap.

Due to the size of the roll they reasoned out that you could fit more length on roll (ie. you could wrap more around the cardboard in the same amount of space) if you stuck to single ply. These things weren’t rocket science and they weren’t so bad. People don’t expect to find the best toiletries in public restrooms. We’re somewhat innured to these slight offenses and I’ll admit to some apathy regarding toilet paper. At least until I discovered anorexic half-ply.

Apparently some accounting department wizard realized the inverse relationship between the thickness and how much could be squeezed onto a roll and determined that in order to get more bang for the buck toilet paper should be even thinner. That’s right, even thinner than single ply. Then they figured that putting more toilet paper on a roll would cost more even if it was thinner so in order to keep materials at the same level they simply made the sheets half as wide. Now we have skinny toilet paper that is thin enough to wear as a veil without obscuring your vision. Anorexic half-ply.

I was in the bathroom at work the other day and another woman was in the stall next to mine. I drink a LOT of water so she finished well before me and, as the only thing separating us was a partial wall that doesn’t block sound, I heard as she began pulling her TP off the roll. And pulling and pulling. I actually saw it begin puddling on the floor before she tore it off. Then I finished my business and did the same thing (minus the puddling on the floor because who wants to use toilet paper that has touched the floor of a public bathroom!).

The moral of the story is that cheap toilet paper may be half the cost of decent stuff but people will use three times as much. If you know anyone who is responsible for purchasing bathroom supplies please forward this to them. Help put an end to anorexia because it is a disease that affects not just toilet paper but also all those who use it.

1. A woman I passed on the expressway had a bumper sticker on her trunk that said “Jesus is coming. LOOK BUSY!” Made me chuckle.
2. A Sherwin-Williams Paint truck had a picture on the back of a giant paint can pouring out over the earth, complete with latitude and longitude lines, and a tagline that said “Cover The Earth” right next to it’s hazardous materials signs that said Corrosive and Flammable. Props to them for that politically incorrect message.

I wasn’t always like this. Once when I was little, by which I mean medium sized as all times when I was smaller than my current size are when I was little, we had a cat. Or rather, a cat had us. He showed up one day and seemed content to just hang about our house so we named him Smokey and my mom started buying him food. He was an outdoor cat due to the family’s collective feline allergies and that suited him just fine. When it was cold he would take refuge in the breezeway and catch mice in the garage. When it was warm he would prowl the neighborhood. And then he didn’t come back. I was walking to school one morning and saw a dead cat in the middle of the road. Sort of a smokey gray cat. Thus ended my only pleasant relationship with a cat.

So PK requested a cat, I flatly denied the request, she pouted a bit and then business as usual resumed. Until Kida showed up. In the absence of a real animal to love and torment PK invented one and since it was about the time that she got the movie Atlantis on video she named the invisible one Kida. PK asked if it was okay for her to keep Kida and thinking that a non-entity couldn’t be too much trouble to take care of I acquiesced.

Kida went with PK wherever she went and did whatever PK did. At least everything that was naughty. Kida was forever getting into trouble. Particularly at the grocery store. Every time I turned around PK was disappearing around corners yelling at her cat to stay by mommy. I would go tearing off after PK and tell her to just let the cat go but that never worked. Eventually I started yelling at Kida myself which PK assured me worked very well. Unfortunately I looked a bit bonkers doing it.

Other strays joined Kida occasionally, once we had 3 dogs stay with us for awhile, but all of them eventually disappeared. Kida stuck, at least for a time. Then when PK was five her father bought a dog and Kida whimsically poofed out of existence.

A few months ago SB made a new friend. A little kitty who follows her around and does everything she does, especially the naughty things (which with SB are so much greater and more varied than the naughty things PK did). At first she was referred to as the kitty but one day kitty turned into Kida. PK swears she had nothing to do with it and after the argument the girls had today in the car I’m beginning to believe her.

PK spent the weekend with her dad and in her absence Kida behaved abominably. She was crawling out windows and running down aisles at the stores. She just wouldn’t stay out of anything. She finally began to calm when we picked PK up. In fact, she curled up with PK on the back seat to take a nap. This obviously caused SB to become incensed and she started screaming about PK stealing her cat. Then PK angrily yelled that Kida was hers first and SB had been the one doing the stealing but SB was brooking no arguments and wanted her kitty back. I hollered, “Kida, go sit on SB’s lap and stop causing this commotion!”

Kida did as she was told but soon SB was complaining that she had gone off to sit with PK again. When I asked PK why she kept taking Kida she insisted it wasn’t her fault. Apparently Kida wanted to snuggle with Kida. Yes, two Kidas. PK’s cat decided to whimsically reinvent herself just to give me a headache.

Now I, the woman who hates cats, have two. Two cats both named Kida who have a special knack for repeating all the naughty behaviors of my two daughters. And I yell at them, the daughters and the cats. I think maybe I just need to get a dog. I’ll name him Milo.

Harry Chapin – The Essentials

Last night PK was outside playing with a friend from our neighborhood until a little after 8. That’s actually later than her normal bedtime but I’ve decided that maybe I’m being a little too strict with her since she is 9 years old and it is summer. Really what it was is that I finally remembered how much it sucked to have to go to bed when the sun was still up and the rest of the kids in the world were outside playing underneath the open window. New summer bedtime is 9. SB still has to go to bed at 8 although that doesn’t mean a darn thing cuz she never crashes until about 9:30 anyway. Still, one day I will prevail and she will bow to my authority and realize that Dr. Spock was right when he said that 3 year olds need more than 9 hours of sleep.

I totally hijacked that paragraph from myself…

When last we saw her PK was playing outside with her friend. I called her inside a bit after 8:00 and she started practicing her katas and pestering me to stop selling out to corporate America and watch her do her forms for a few minutes. Balancing on the arm of the chair I was nestled in and watching me type over my shoulder, one of her least charming new quirks, she suddenly jumped up and announced “[Insert name of sweet girl from down the street] is bad!”

“I thought you liked [sweet girl from down the street]? What happened?” I asked dutifully.

“Well, [sweet girl from down the street] bought ice cream from the ice cream man and then she said she had to go home and she turned around and threw it on the ground?”

I was having quite a bit of trouble discerning why a kid would waste her money on ice cream only to throw it on the ground. I was also confused about how such behavior would be labeled bad. Unconventional, yes. Weird, sure. Bad didn’t fit and I couldn’t see my even-tempered PK getting so bent out of shape and judgemental about something so odd even after considering the import of sacrilegious ice cream abuse.

I mumbled some vague platitudes about not judging others and learning to live and let live while PK stared at me like I’d grown a third head. Most times that I open my mouth to speak my children give me the second head look so I’ve become rather accustomed to it. A third head is an accomplishment that I rarely attain. “She just lit-ter-ed,” PK enunciated for me. Light bulb!

PK’s father married a woman a couple years ago giving Ellie her coveted step-mother. For some reason she’s always wanted step-parents even while she bemoans the fact that her parents won’t live together. She’s a complex child who recently complained that it wasn’t fair that her friend got to go through her parents getting divorced while her parent’s split amicably when she was an infant. PK’s step-mother is a really nice woman whose most annoying quality is her tiny cute blondeness. She has always treated PK with respect and love and has tried to nurture her sweet and kind tendencies. Especially towards animals and nature.

See, the stepmom is a big animal lover. One day I was driving PK to hang at her dad’s and was wearing this great beat up brown leather jacket that I picked up at a thrift store downtown years ago and PK asked me to take it off before we got to the house. I don’t know about all people but I’m the kind of person who only wears a jacket because I need it to keep warm. It was cold outside and I asked PK to give me one good reason to not wear my jacket.

“Stepmom thinks it’s mean to make coats out of animals and she’ll get really upset if she sees you wearing leather.”

PK’s sincerity aside I really didn’t care what my ex’s wife felt about my choice of outerwear and I told PK that much. She fretted a bit and it made me wonder what had happened to her dad’s favorite black leather jacket. He really liked it. I remember back when he wanted to get a full-length black leather trench. I guess those times are in the past now.

So PK stood before me full of righteous indignation because her friend had thrown not her ice cream, but the ice cream wrapper, on the ground. I offered the excuse that she probably didn’t realize that littering was a bad thing to do. Most kids PK’s age don’t think much about dropping all kinds of things on the ground. They’ll drop their favorite toys on the lawn under a sprinkler without giving it a second thought so why on earth would they give garbage any extra consideration.

PK wasn’t having any of that though. “I told her that littering is bad!”

“Honey,” I said, not everyone understands things as much as you do. You know a lot about this stuff but not all kids do, you should cut her some slack.”

PK responded with blatant outrage, “But I explained to her about global warming!”

She haughtily left the room when I dissolved into tearful laughter. Granola and Birkenstocks, here we come.
Big Yellow Taxi – Counting Crows (I like theirs better than Joni Mitchell)

May 24, 1994

With birthdays wearing on me due to their never going quite as I had planned in my mind I requested that we not make a big deal of my 17th. My parents tried to talk me out of it but I insisted that I just wanted to let the day sort of slide by without a fuss. They obliged. No one said happy birthday to me. There was no cake, no presents and not even a family dinner. Nothing. When I got home from work that night in tears my father asked what was wrong and I screamed that they forgot my birthday to which he replied, “We didn’t forget, you said you didn’t want to do anything.” I forgot to read my teenager to parent translation dictionary where it clearly defines don’t make a big deal as completely ignore. My fault.

May 24, 1995

Several bad birthdays under my belt I expected a little better for my 18th. I was coming of age, I was an adult. I could start voting. I could also have a screaming match with my parents regarding whose fault it was that number 17 had gone so wrong. Then I could run to my boyfriends house where his mother would see me for the first time and misinterpret my not politely introducing myself through hysterical sobs as pure malice and begin a 4 year long vendetta against me.

May 24, 1998

The day before I was at a party thrown by the aforementioned boyfried who was by then the father of PK and my ex-boyfriend but still my best friend. He had turned 21 the week before and decided to have the party for both us. During the course of the evening I had one drink while he had several. Most of the other party goers had more than they could handle as well. As the clock struck 12am, my birthday, I found myself tucking in several friends who were in the process of passing out. By 12:30am I was cleaning vomit off of PK’s stuffed animals who had the unfortunate fortunes to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

May 24, 2002

This was the year that decided to turn my birthday pity parties into faint memories by taking control of the whole affair and throwing myself the most kick ass party ever. All my friends came, there was food and music and laughter. There was my brother in law playing bartender and mixing up enough frozen strawberry margaritas to keep me double fisting all night long. There was even a cake with a scepter and tiara which I used to crown myself the Queen. I made a drunken toast and all was right with the world. Then everybody left except my former high school sweetheart who I ended up kissing (probably my fault but it’s a bit hazy). SB can thank her existence indirectly to that night.

May 24, 2005

Two kids and one boyfriend trying desperately to make amends for continual stupidity comprised my 28th birthday. After a long day at work all I wanted was to come home and not have to think for the rest of the day. I picked up the kids, got inside and then spent the next hour fielding questions from the boyfriend about what I wanted for dinner, where he should go to get it, how he should get there, what would be easiest and on and on ad nauseum. I finally got sick of it and ended up with chicken strips from Jewel, strawberries dipped in burned chocolate and a purple helium butterfly balloon for a present which was promptly stolen by SB. Boy, if you’re reading this, just so you know, I lied. That wasn’t okay.

Today

Arriving at work I got an ecard from my distraction which was sweet. No one at work remembered until my boss was flipping through her calendar around 11 and saw it written in. She then asked me to pick where I wanted lunch from and bought lunch for the whole office in my honor. I got a few more ecards and emails from friends who I didn’t even expect to remember so that was all swell. The sky was clear and sunny, the music on the radio calming and the traffic all moving. As I spoke with my distraction a gorgeous stormed moved in a broke overhead. And then he told me he lied to me. Well, not lied, just blatantly avoided answering the heart of a question that I’d asked yesterday. I knew today was too good to be true. Oh, and not a single person from my family has managed to pick up the phone to wish me a happy birthday.

Did I put my karma on backwards?

Several chapters later I was just being introduced to a country bumpkin named Bonnie who verbally assaulted innocent New York cab drivers when a sudden ruckus caused me to lower my book. The sound was that of a schizophrenic fly having a nervous breakdown. I didn’t see the fly but as I gazed in the direction of his last know location I saw a cloud of dust rising from my lamp. This lamp is one of those that stands on the floor, reaches about 5 &12;’ tall with an inverted open cone at the top. I am not the kind of person who dusts regularly and when I do I don’t spend the time dusting out the inside of a lamp that no one can see into anyway. Is that lazy? Probably, but you wouldn’t have known if I didn’t tell you so at least I get points for being brutally honest.

Anyway, so I’m seeing this cloud of dust rising up out of the lamp and looking at the semi-opaque shade I can occasionally see the poor fly ram into the side as he spins wilding around the light bulb. This went on for a good 20 seconds which doesn’t seem like long but I’m sure it was quite an eternity for the fly. At the end he suddenly just flew out of the lamp and landed on the wall. Just standing there. On the wall. Doing nothing. The entire time I was writing this. In fact, he just a moment ago hopped from the wall back onto the outside of the lamp and disappeared around the backside. Part of me is hoping that he’ll head back in and clean out the rest of the dust saving me the trouble for another year or so but I hardly think I’d be that fortunate. With my luck he’ll die in there and then I’ll have to empty out his carcass.

The whole thing brings me to a serious question that I’ve pondered several times in the past while changing light bulbs. How do insects get into closed light fixtures and even more importantly why do they want to be there in the first place? A glass dome fixed over a light bulb hanging from the ceiling hardly appears to be a happening party place and yet every time I have to replace a burned out bulb there are dead bugs in the dome. My theory is that it’s insect fraternity hazing gone horribly awry. Stranger things have happened.

Stranger things like the fly suddenly, inexplicably zooming out of the lamp then diving straight back in like some sort of kamikaze pilot on speed, whirling around the inside of the cone then tearing out to slam into the wall before recklessly throwing himself back at the light bulb. Seriously, he just did. He’s quiet now, apparently resting for his next near death experience. I am sharing my home with a manic-depressive suicidal insect. I wonder if that will lower the value of my home.

[10:27] ThndrClwds: But I digress.
[10:27] ProgCappy: So chairman is nothing like a shortened version of chair manager, huh?
[10:28] ProgCappy: wouldn’t it be stoneman back then?
[10:28] ThndrClwds: The cavemen gathered round once a week and held deep discussions about their most heart-felt concerns, the foremost of these being how uncomfortable it was to sit on the cave floor with sharp bits of rock digging into their bottoms.
[10:29] ProgCappy: I can’t wait until you write a book.
[10:29] ProgCappy: it’ll be either one of the most fascinating stories I’ve ever read…
[10:29] ProgCappy: or a wonderful insight in the minds of the insane…
[10:29] ThndrClwds: In an effort to end the discomfort and move on to a subject of slightly greater import the cavemen held a democratic vote to determine who among them should be in charge of dragging chairs to their weekly meetings.
[10:29] ProgCappy: I’m not sure which…
[10:29] ProgCappy:
[10:31] ThndrClwds: One candidate was unanimously chosen for his ability to rise about the crowd. Cave drawings tell us that this rising was quite literal as the caveman who was chosen was a large hulk of a creature standing head and shoulders above the rest and possessing the ability to lug all of the necessary chairs to the meeting in one trip.
[10:32] ProgCappy: how convenient
[10:34] ThndrClwds: For several phases of the moon this new arrangement worked out quite well with the cave leaders of the day making huge strides towards improving the quality of life for their nomadic tribes. These pioneers of diplomacy even managed to reach and agreement with the HMO although detractors still argue that the HMO bribed them into a contract which benefitted no one but the lawyers. Still, peace reigned and contentment flourished.
[10:37] ThndrClwds: Then during one meeting there was an argument that threatened the very structure of this new system. The unanimous winner of the chair election found himself on one side of a disagreement battling against the rest of the group who, it must be said, were much smarter than he (this is again documented in ancient cave drawings which depict the other members of the group wearing loin clothes around their loins next to a giant Neanderthal wearing a loincloth around his eyes much like a blindfold) but he was more passionate about his cause and along with his fervor he also had size on his side
[10:39] ThndrClwds: In a flash of inspiration he grabbed the chairs from under the bottoms of the other cave representatives and yelled “Oogla Booka BLAGGA!” which translates roughly into “I brought the chairs and unless you want to go back to sitting on the floors you’ll do things the way I want them done!”
[10:41] ThndrClwds: Terrified of this sudden burst of anger and shuddering at the though of the sharp bits of rock once again poking them in the butt the rest of the cave men relented and allowed control of the meetings to pass over to the giant who set up the chairs.
[10:43] ThndrClwds: Thus, the leader of a committee is now called the chairman and all proposals for improved dental hygiene were struck down until after the Stone Age because one man didn’t want to have to brush his teeth.
[10:43] ThndrClwds: The end
[10:45] * ProgCappy applauds.

In junior high my cousin promised me that we would go to a game. But then he moved and I moved on. In high school I had friends on the school’s unofficial team (the school couldn’t sponsor the team on the record for insurance reasons) and desparately wanted to watch them play but my lack of a driver’s license hindered my attempts. Post high school I went through a drought. None of my boyfriends played and time was precious with PK. After several years in a hockey-less existence I met people at work who were hockey fans. They vowed that we’d go to a game once the season started again in the fall but I got laid off before the Stanley Cup was awarded in the spring. However, my new job seemed ripe with opportunity. A boss who is an avid hockey fan and even still plays (although he’s getting pretty old and it might be time to retire the skates or at least trade the stick in for an ice walker) in a weekly league. Every year he says that there will be a company outing to see the Hawks. Or the Wolves. Because it’s more fun when the team you’re rooting for actually wins. Still, it hasn’t happened yet.

This year seemed so promising though. The boss is still waxing on about the company outing which, if history is any indication, won’t happen, but even better is the Boy. Yes, that Boy. The Boy may be many things, but when he talks hockey I hear a distinct note of sincerity so when he promises that we’ll go see a game I believe him. Except there’s still a hitch.

The Lockout. The damn players and the damn owners and the damn league can’t get their damn heads out of their damn rears and the damn season is going down the damn drain. DAMN IT! I’ve read about the dispute over their Collective Bargaining Agreement. I spent time at www.espn.com reading the history of the leagues troubles. I understand that the league is losing money and the players are getting paid too much. What I don’t understand is why they can’t find a compromise. There’s always a compromise available but in this case no one is looking for it. They don’t even have talks scheduled! I personally have my opinions as to how this should end but that’s not even important here. What is important is that it ends. That the players stop pressing their noses against the windows where they’re watching others play and get their noses pressed against the glass while they’re playing. So someone please make it end. For me.

Seriously, I want to be a hockey fan but I can’t do it if they aren’t playing hockey. I would hate to lose another year watching sappy made-for-tv movies on the Lifetime channel when my time could be so much better spent watching giant squid being thrown from the stands then being scooped up and taken for a ride on the Zamboni.