Stampede!

Let's get this out of the way before I start, OK? I will no longer be pretending that I feel some massive level of guilt for not blogging on a regular basis. There are approximately three of you who read this blog, and at least two of you also have access to my antics on Facebook. It's pretty much the same antics. There. Now I won't need to start my 2011 yearly post with an apology.

This morning, M pressed her ear to the living room carpet and called me over in an excited whisper. "There's a stampede coming," she said. "Oh my," I answered. "A stampede of what?" She gave me a look that suggested I am not very smart, and said "stampedes are bulls, mom." Right. Silly me. "How long do you think we have until it gets here?" I asked her. She thought maybe 20 minutes. 30 max. "What should we do, then?" I asked in a faux-alarmed tone. "Well, you should probably gather all of your jewelry," she answered, "and meet me in the basement."

I may be squashed flat by the bulls falling into my basement, but dammit, I will be covered in shiny baubles when I go.

Much Needed Laughter

The other day, I had to be fingerprinted, TB-tested, hepatitis-tested, HIV-tested and drug-tested for clearance with various agencies that work with kids in our state. It was... exhausting. And not very much fun. On the up-side, I think my daughter may have an interesting story based on the fact that Mommy had to go into the booking area of the jail and later had to pee in a cup, but somehow I don't think her version of that tale is going to cast me in the best light.

I was at the point where I needed to find the humor in this process. My friend Jill was one of our references for our homestudy. I saw her tonight, and she brought a copy of the reference form with her. She thought I might want to see what she said, maybe even read it aloud to the group we were with. What follows is Jill's handiwork.

How long have you known this couple?

I met Heather during my incarceration, which was about 6 months ago. Heather and I served time together for tax evasion.

How would you describe their character?

G's character: Peter Griffin, the father from The Family Guy. Like Peter, G is irresponsible, a heavy drinker, and has an IQ that is borderline at best.

Heather's character: Nemo. She often seems "lost," but is also a fantastic swimmer.

How would you describe their parenting ability?

With the help of SRS, I think they have the potential to become great parents. It may be too late for poor M, though.

Would you recommend them to adopt a child?

Yes. The tax breaks that additional children bring to the family help people like Heather and myself stay honest and up-to-date on our taxes.

Additional comments?

Please don't hold Heather's illegal alien status against her. She's still a wonderful person.

Busy, Busy

As usual, right?

I'm about a week away from the end of the semester, and I just need to assemble my final project for the one class I'm taking. That shouldn't take long. However, I'm really irked because we had one group assignment during the semester and neither of my group members did their work. Yes, I got two duds in my group. Ugh. So, I am lacking some feedback that is supposed to be included in my final project. It's bad enough when group members don't pull their weight, but even worse when you can't really make up for it. I'm going to try, but I don't have high hopes for getting full points on my project. Boooo.

We met with our social worker about our homestudy last week. We have to fill out all of our initial paperwork again because of some crazy issue with the notarization. The paperwork is perfectly fine, mind you. We just have to copy over all of the info and have it re-notarized. Argh.

In addition, we have to go get fingerprinted and come up with statements on letterhead to verify our employment. None of these things are terribly difficult, but after so many papers and hoops and such, I do start to feel a little bit sad that no one has to check these things before you take a biological baby home from the hospital. Yes, I want them to know that I am a fit mother. It's just that I feel like I am so much more than an income statement.

Currently, I'm baking some parmesan fish that smells so amazing, I can't wait for lunch. My friend Alison sent me a recipe for parmesan chicken that is really easy and yummy. Just throw some mayo and parmesan on top of the chicken, smear around, and toss some bread crumbs on top before baking. I decided to adapt it a wee bit for the fish I had in the freezer. If it tastes as good as it smells, this adaptation was an excellent idea.

Welcome to My Brain

Yes, it's been a while. I have missed you, my little ducks.

Some stuff has happened between now and 80 million years ago when I last updated this joint. I will not go into all of it. Most of it is incredibly boring. The highlights: I still hurt myself constantly (am currently limping thanks to a softball injury, sporting a bandage on one hand due to a tragic interlude with an orange peeler, and nursing one arm because I apparently scrub my shower far too vigorously); I have the adult ADD; and we are working on a homestudy, which means I have to demonstrate my adequate parenting skills to someone else and hope that they are sufficiently adequate. I have high hopes that the social worker will base most of the homestudy on the most excellent and sparkly state of my shower.

Oh, I started grad school, too. Please don't ask me when I intend to graduate. I'm holding out at least until I know which doctoral program I want to move on to.

The ADD thing... kind of huge. After the diagnosis, I read a couple of books about adult ADD, and I found within them my life story. No one ever noticed that it was hard for me to focus on so many things because I was very good at hiding it. Sure, they noticed that it takes heroic effort for me to be on time for anything, and that I procrastinate, and that I'm impulsive, and that it's amusing that I can change conversational topics 27 times within the same paragraph. What wasn't so obvious was that the constant influx of new and exciting thoughts spinning around in my brain made me feel like my entire life was a house of cards trying to stand up to a Wizard of Oz-level wind storm.

So now I'm learning to deal with it. I'm making schedules (my mom just fainted when she read that). I'm learning that "clean the house" is an impossibly overwhelming idea that I will never be able to start on, but that "scrub the shower and then sweep and mop the floor" is a reasonably good place to begin for one morning. I have not yet figured out how the space/time continuum seems to disrupt itself between the time when I walk out of my front door and actually make it to the car, but I am working on that, too. I will conquer time. I will.

My doctor gave me some drugs, which is awesome and helpful. I was previously unaware that ADD drugs often bring with them a sudden increase in physical coordination. It makes sense, I suppose. It caught me off guard when I turned up for softball practice just after starting the meds and suddenly understood very clearly what it meant to keep one's eye on the ball. No kidding, that phrase never made sense to me before. Of course, I always tried to have a general sense of where the ball was. That's sort of the point, right? Before, though, it was like the ball donned an invisibility cloak just before it crossed the plate, and I would have to swing blindly at it and pray that I might at least come close to hitting it. Now? I have the Marauder's Map for softball, and that invisibility cloak is toast.

The downside to trying to drug myself into somewhat normal behavior is insomnia. Really bad insomnia. Not being able to sleep does tend to give me lots of time to think, though, so that's kind of nice. I'll close with a small sampling of my after-midnight brain activity.

Thoughts I Had Between 2:13 and 2:54 a.m.

• There is really no point to having a large bed if your husband is a snuggler. Fifty percent or more of the bed will nearly always remain unused, and you will never be able to claim any more bed space than is required for you to lay rigidly on your side in a perfectly straight line. If you jump over the snuggling husband and try to use the other side of the bed, you will only end up in the same rigid line position but facing the opposite direction.
• Is Julia Child's Boef Bourguignon really so amazing? Isn't it just beef stew? With wine? I guess it must be pretty fab if they made a movie about beef stew.
• If I were a cat with a cast on my leg, I would not go up and down the stairs constantly, particularly since there is absolutely nothing in the basement that I truly need.
• I should try to draw out the bed situation in stick figure diagrams for my husband so he can understand why I make pitiful sounds when he wants to snuggle up to me. Although I love his bulging biceps, one of them is now covering 3/4s of my pillow, and his elbow is in my eye socket.
• Every dollhouse I've ever seen either has no stairs, or the stairs go through one of the bedrooms. That would be awkward.
• I want this. But it's expensive. And pretty. Logically, I should get this, because, you know, storage space and changing table, etc. But the other one is so pretty.
• Being snuggled in this manner feels dangerous. I'm supposed to like this. But I can't move my arms. One of my legs is now dangling off the side of the bed. If I fall, I won't even be able to flail my arms dramatically while plunging to the floor.
• The cat gets the last laugh, because it hurts when she walks on my legs with her cast.
• Irises are gorgeous, but I hate the way they smell.