1.  Have a Sexy McSexy breadwinner of your own.
2.  Have a nanny ± maid service.
3.  Like food.
4.  Spend all day at Panera "studying."*
5.  Grocery shop for essentials like monster bag of Laffy Taffys, peanut butter M&Ms, and Salt 'n' Vinegar Pringles.
6.  Sit on your tukkus in front of the sweet goodness that is a flat-screen TV, warming your ridiculously entitled, dying little soul in the soothing glow of The Gateway to Obesity and The Moral Corruption of Society.

Repeat ad nauseum.





*And by "studying," you know I mean fighting to stay awake, zombie reading through chapters of long-forgotten physiology (Starling forces for $500, please), and systematically working my way through THE ENTIRE MENU.  (The mac and cheese is the best eat-out mac & cheese I think I've had - just don't look at the calories.  'cuz yeah.  Then you'll understand why it's the best.)

Let's recap.  (Or not, because now that I think of it I have not told you a thing about where we live - or maybe I have, and it has just BEEN SO LONG since I've touched this little blog doohickey that I simply DON'T REMEMBER.)

Anyway.

We live in an apartment.  With a little balcony.  And no yard.  (Whatsoever.  Which is fine, tradeoffs, understood.)  Fruit Loop christened the balcony "our yard" during my second foray into gardening last year.*  That was somewhat successful, especially if you measure success by the dumbfoundingly pervasive number of petunia seeds that are sprouting this year (in my reused dirt).**

Anyway.

Last year's garden was a trip to the local big box home fixer upper store with a garden center***, wherein I purchased plants - heirloom and cherry tomatoes, petunias, pansies, snapdragons.  Somewhere I picked up some green peppers, plants or seeds I cannot recall.  (I suspect they were dollar section seeds.)  And things were good!  The heirloom tomato plant was appropriately prolific, though I think my choice of container limited it somewhat.  (Similar here.  But not really, because mine was the cheap red plastic version on clearance.  Score!)  The green peppers followed a similar course.  Overall, successful enough to make me ambitious this year.

This year, the garden has expanded.  Flowers were relegated to a few spare, small pots - pansy and snapdragons seeds from last year.  (Please, please let the sprouts I see NOT be more rogue petunias!)  The bulk of the garden -- 2 of my beverage bins of red plastic awesomeness + 2 balcony boxes + a raspberry bush!  That is flowering!  (I am worried about a distinct lack of bees / pollinators of any sort.  Maybe I should send the ya-hoos out to stick their grubby little fingers all over and hope pollination happens that way.  Oy, I know there's a terrible joke in there somewhere related to puberty and general boy grossness.)  The green onions are already growing, and a cucumber (or zucchini...I don't remember which box is which at this point), sprouted today!  Overnight - literally!  (Clearly these are fascinating times.  And I don't get out much.  Whatever.)  Green pepper seeds harvested last year are being given a second shot with more space, and jalapeno seeds have been planted in the hopes of diversifying our pepper output.

So.  Not one of those sophisticated setups, but it's a start.  And it's more than what we even have time for right now, but something about growing my own food has always appealed to me.  Even if it's just a little bit at a time, I'll go for it.



* Two years ago was the first "yard" - balcony boxes of cosmos, calendula, and marigolds galore.  They were beautiful.  Unruly, but beautiful.  Harvested bajillions of seeds, especially cosmos and marigolds.  Will have to add those to the list to plant next year.  Because seeds last indefinitely, right?  :)?  Also hit up a well-known dollar section, ("the fun stuff section," as the ya-hoos are wont to call it), and snagged seeds for a strawberry plant and a basil plant.  The strawberry plant was given approximately 3 years before I axed it, (sacrificing a few measly unedible "berries" a year for the space to plant! more! things!)


**I think this may be my new business venture.  Mail-order petunias.  Purple.  Only.  Forever.  Because that's how many seeds were apparently sown.

***Which thankfully was NOT Lowe's, those Muslim-hating bigots.  :)

Appalling.  I cannot believe stuff like this exists.  Given an unbelievably thin veneer of "wanting to help," the website FindMyAccident.com crassly publishes motor vehicle accidents across the US.  With details apparently garnered from a hodge-podge collection of sources, including police reports, accident victims, eyewitnesses, and random voyeuristic users (all of these people unverified, mind you), this site composes an erroneous summation of any number of vehicular accidents.  The worst part - aside from the blatant insensitivity (to put it mildly) - is that FindMyAccident.com participates in rampant supposition and furthering of unfounded claims regarding those individuals involved in the accident.

Please don't tell me you are trying to help victims of accidents by offering lawyer connections, bolstering accounts of accidents with putative eyewitness information, and being a general community do-gooder website.  BS.  This is far and away purely voyeuristic, and the folks who conceived that site and are in charge of running it should be ashamed of themselves for allowing very real tragedies to become just another piece of rubbernecking fodder.

So. I think I mentioned those cats. (See: CONE OF SHAME.)

Technically, they have names. We've been over this. However, I need something more descriptive. I mean, "Tap?" What does that really mean, anyway? So let me give you a quick rundown of the various monikers these beasts have had in the whole six days we have had them.

*May Day --> Maytag --> Grumble --> Poopcat --> Grumble

*May Flower --> Whirlpool/Kenmore/Jenn-air --> Tap --> StiiiiiiiinKY --> @^F&#(*) !!

You see what happened there? Grumble redeemed herself. Upon removal of the Cone of Shame, she shaped up re: the general cleanliness of cats.

Tap, however. Tap is downright manic, and is an absolute booger when it comes to mischief. And continuing to do what you just told her not to. And doing it again. And then again. And then I finally carry her by the scruff of her neck and unceremoniously dump her in her catbed for a kitty timeout. 'Cuz she'll totally learn from that, right? What - she won't??

So. Yeah. Those cats. Endless entertainment for the kids. WHICH REMINDS ME. Haha, Tap, this is called "coming full circle" - you have officially been tortured by The Despot.* He's a pretty good tail puller, isn't he? And he keeps doing it, doesn't he? Ahhh, I knew we had kids for a reason.**




*Okay, peeps, seriously. THE CAT IS NOT BEING ABUSED. YOU DO NOT NEED TO CALL THE HUMANE SOCIETY. It was a friendly tail grab between, well, friends.

**Okay, also seriously. THE KIDS ARE LOVED. YOU DO NOT NEED TO CALL CHILDCARE PROTECTION SERVICES. We had them for more than just animal control.

Whoooooaaa, Nelly! It has done been almost a month and a-half since I posted here. (Truth to tell: I haven't even visited here the whole time, either. Forgive me, little blog!)

Some odds and ends to report, nothing that seems earth-shatteringly important. Got 2 kittens. One is uber-mischevious. The other is uber-...well, right now, uber-ucky. Not entirely her fault (though it is). The kittens were spayed just over a week ago, and the ucky one wouldn't leave the surgical site alone. 'Round here, that, my friends = CONE OF SHAME. Which is great and all, except for when she uses the litterbox.

She will inevitably return with cat poo ringing her cone of shame. (As if it wasn't shameful enough before??)

So, yeah. Not quite sure how that works, what with the cone of shame being AT THE POLAR OPPOSITE OF HER BUSINESS END OF THINGS. But whatever, it is what it is.

I Windex her Cone of Shame. Haha! I shall sanitize these feral outdoor beasts yet!

So, what else. Nothing that can't continue to wait. Maybe some reviews at some point. Maybe some recipes. Maybe a discussion of upcoming plans. Maybe some quotable quotes from the kids. Maybe some FUBAR stuff, that's always fun!

Or maybe another six weeks of absolutely nothing.

Aren't you just on pins and needles with anticipation?

Fruit Loop is in the throes of a pretty gross cold. We're talking stuffy nose, junky cough, even more junky junk coming out of his nose...Really slimy, colorful, delightful stuff.

Today we are driving to the store, cruising* down the highway, when I hear a voice pipe up from the back seat:

"Tissue!"
...
"Mom, I need a tissue!"
...
"Mom, do we have any tissues?"

Since his stuffy-voiced self was asking more urgently each time, I finally paid attention. (Heh. Kidding. No, I don't ignore him. He just repeats things at quarter-second intervals until you acknowledge and answer. And then you have to repeat yourself at LEAST another three times. And then you have to scold him for not paying attention. After you repeat yourself one last time. Yelling. Just typing that makes me tired. UGH.) I tell him I'm driving, he'll have to wait until we get to a stop where I can get him a tissue.

(For the record, we DO have tissues in the car. It's just that they are over in the glovebox. Stashed away, keeping the rest of the car nice and organized and presentable and UNCLUTTERED. Which, you know, would TOTALLY BE A LOST CAUSE IF THAT TISSUE PACKET WASN'T KEPT FIRMLY IN THE GLOVEBOX. Where it belongs. The little outcast.)

ANYway.

So I tell him he needs to wait.

"But, Mom, look!"

I look. And ask "What?"

"A boogie!"

Indeed, a boogie. Right there, on the edge of his finger. A boogie which he has just extracted from his nose with said finger. A boogie which is now precariously close to becoming one with the interior of our minivan. And I mean that in the grossest way possible.

GAH. But I can't get him a tissue. We will surely have an accident and DIE. So all I am left with is the same injunction:

"You'll just have to wait." (I'm pretty sure I preceded that w/ an "Ewww, Fruit Loop!" And quite possibly** a wince and an eyeroll at my lot in life. You know, the part in the mom job description that says I will be the boogie picker upper.)

Okay, so, fast-forward to our destination. Just before we get out of the car, Fruit Loop says his nose hurts a little inside. I tell him that often happens when you have a cold, raw skin, blah blah blah.

A few minutes later, as I come around to get him out of the car, I ask if he needs his tissue and where the boogie is.

"I put it back."

You put it back??

"In my nose. That's why my nose hurts inside. Because of the boogie. It's hard."

He put it back. I don't know whether to applaud his resourcefulness or just...ewww, Fruit Loop!

I ended up just laughing. Which, of course, he thoroughly appreciated.

Take-home lesson of the day: Be prepared. In case, you know, you pick your nose and have nowhere to put your petrified boogie.






*Not really - it's Friday, and that means TRAFFIC. But not important. This time, anyway.

**No, definitely.

Well, not really. (C'm'on, people, this isn't that kind of show.)

We have a Netflix subscription. Often we'll alternate between kids' movies and "grown-up movies" in the mail. Let me state right now, for the record, that "grown-up" is not my preferred vernacular. Being the mature and serious soul that I am, I prefer referring to things as, well, they truly are: kids are kids, "grown-ups" are adults. Naturally, I raised Fruit Loop accordingly. Kid are kids, adults are adults.

(Ha, funny story: File this under The World According to Fruit Loop (and Most Every Other Preschooler on up to Teenager.) Apparently, only kids get to do fun things. And adults only get to do boring things. AND NEVER THE TWAIN SHALL MEET. This proclamation was delivered with such solemnity, such forbearance, such dejection ... yet such noble martyrdom, as Fruit Loop came to terms with the fact that he, too, would one day grow up, and, thus, would only do boring things. But, until then, we parents are the ones doing the boring things. And we are totally not allowed to do any fun things. That is within his purview, and his alone.)

Back to our story. We live in a large building. And, as you can guess, large buildings have large, communal mail rooms. Hundreds of boxes. Hundreds of tenants.

I don't know how many times Fruit Loop asked if it was kids' movie from Netflix, and I replied "No, it's an adult movie," and people looked at us funny, and little old ladies fainted, and other parents covered their children's ears... Because, really now.

I have since started referring to adult things as "grown-up" things.

Besides, I'm prrrrretty sure Netflix doesn't dabble in the adult entertainment industry.