JUST STOP IT!

All children go through a period of being an asshole. How you handle that period of their life determines if they remain an asshole.

You want to know how to stop the bullying? Take responsibility for your little asshole. There is no way you don't know you are raising an asshole. You live with it. And I don't care how diabolical your little asshole is, he/she cannot switch it on and off. You have witnessed the asshole'ness in your home, and there is no way you think that that is reserved just for you.

You KNOW you are raising an asshole. STOP IT! If you throw your hands up and give up, it is the rest of the world that suffers. 

When the bullying results in harm to another human, I think the parents of that little asshole should be made to pay. Incentive for those parents to actually 'parent' those children.

Keep it up, and when I am Queen I will make you pay.

If ya are one...It's your day.

What I like about Mother's Day is that, for me, its not a big deal. The Boy lets me know every day that he loves me and appreciates everything I have done for him. I am so proud of him sometimes that I could bust.

THE BOY IS 20 TODAY!

He is the best thing that ever happened to me. I am so proud of him I could bust. My only regret is his sperm donor.

Happy Birthday!

I am a friend of Bill.

I believe my crazy addiction faze has run its course.

I don't usually succumb to those sorts of all-consuming activities. Well not since my 36hour HTML coding marathon. I was surfing the net, way back when, and thought I should try this HTML shit. I bought a book and sat at the keyboard for almost 36 hours straight, I think I napped a couple times but it was like as soon as I got to sleep my mind would work out the problem I was having spacing the tables correctly and I would snap awake and have to go right back to the computer.

I guess it happens at the beginning of anything interesting for me. I can't seem to find a happy medium. When the FarmTown thing started winding down, meaning I had the biggest farm I was ever gonna have and more money than I could spend, I started looking at other things that I could do to fill the time between harvests. I dabbled in YoVille and BarnBuddies, but I think I am over it now.

So, what has been happening around me while I was single-mindedly tending to my fake life online?

Well, The Boy got a car, you knew that. But he has yet to move back with his father. Don't get me wrong, I love The Boy, but I was living the life while he was gone. My house was never more dirty than I made it. There was no obstacle course on the way to anywhere (ie: towels, socks, clothes, shoes). There was always something to drink when I opened the fridge and I was never surprised with an empty carton of ice cream.

While he was gone for that year, my power bills were cut in half and now I know why. The washer and dryer have never stopped since he walked back in. He takes two showers a day and has to make sure the bathroom is full of steam (nice and warm) before he even steps foot in it.

He never says where he is going or where he has been and forgets to say 'luv ya' now when we part company. He won't take the garbage out or clean a dish or even just pick up after himself. He goes to school when he feels like it and takes a fit if you say anything about it. And he lies! I am not sure why, but he lies about everything, stupid things that don't even make any sense to lie about. It's almost pathological.

I have figured it out, seems that the person he is living with is the person he shits on.

I fixed his wagon as far as school is concerned. If he misses one more day this year, I will have his father cancel the insurance on his car. No exceptions!

So, I am just waiting for TBF to get his shit together and get his house built so the boy can move back. Hopefully I will not be wiped out financially by then.

Should people need a license to become parents?

Is it just me? I mean are people so dense as not to see the obvious possibility of danger? Especially at something like a monster truck rally? Or maybe they are just so self absorbed as to ignore this inner voice, just so they can go have fun without shelling out money for a babysitter.

I remember one year my sister-in-law wanted to take my then four year old son to the Shrine Circus. I agreed, she had been to this circus before, I couldn't imagine she would take him anywhere dangerous. At the last moment my mother and I decided to go as well. We thought we could find my sister-in-law pretty easily and sit with them. As it turned out, it was not easy to find anyone at this event so we ended up sitting by ourselves.

I have to tell you that I was frantic from the moment we sat down until I finally got The Boy the hell out of there.

Seriously, I could not imagine how any parent with half a brain would take their children to such an event. As we sat down, they first brought out the elephants. Never in my life have I seen such completely dejected, miserable, joyless looking animals in my life. All I could think of was that if these animals ever decided to just fuck off, there would be absolutely nothing anyone could do. And don't even get me started on the tigers that they had enclosed in a flimsy chain link fence-like pen.

After I finally got to The Boy and we were making our way to the car, I saw other parents leading their children in the opposite direction towards a rather long line. I stopped dead in my tracks and my blood ran cold. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

Another of the elephants was fitted with some sort of platform/saddle on his back. Six to eight children were sitting atop this thing while a circus worker was leading the elephant around the parking lot. Looking into the eyes of this animal, it wasn't hard to see it was not happy. The only thing that was stopping this elephant from just taking-the-fuck-off was a chain around its foot the likes of which you might find attached to a German shepherd in your yard.

How could a sane person look at that setup and think, "Oh ya, that looks fuckin' safe enough from my child." Are you kidding me? Give your fuckin' head a shake!

And that was a circus, admittedly geared for child entertainment. I only have to hear the words monster truck to know it is not an event that I would ever take a small child to. I can't imagine what possessed this family to take their children.

I feel bad for this family losing their child but if you want to go to an event like this, please leave your children at home.

Otherwise, when I am Queen, I will revoke your license, Crayon!

For those of you too cheap busy to buy the publication.

From MrBarters, August 22, 2008.


Click on image read the article.

I brought him up right.

I sleep in today, knowing I was totally out of coffee and sugar and so flat broke there was no hope I was getting any til payday.

I roll out of bed at 2pm and fire up the computer. Fist thing...The Boy messages me.

TheBoy says:
did you want to borrow 20 or soo till you get paid?
Evel @ Home says:
ya, that would be cool
TheBoy says:
im gonna get a shower and see if i can come over ill talk to you in a bit

Now I try and wrack my brain, how did he know I was broke? Did someone tell him? Who was I whinning to last night?

So he arrives about 10 minutes later with the life-saving twenty bucks.

The Boy, "Are you hungry? Wanna go to McDonald's?"

So yeah, The Boy takes me to McDonald's. And pays for it.

No, this was not a dream I had, it really happened. I think I must have done something right.

And you all scoffed at the whole digging a hole in the backyard thing.

Quality time.

That's what I get from The Boy now.

Since moving to his father's I think I see him more.

When he was here, he was pretty much holed up in his room.

Now he comes to visit.

Visit and talk.

He might even let me meet his girlfriend.

Might.

The Boy is back in the will.

The Boy just showed up with coffee, donuts, and this...



He is officially back in the will.

Happy Mother's Day Everyone!

This is my mom, circa 1975 at one of my little brother's hockey games. We made her remove the purple hat but she still had a cow bell in her hand.

It will be interesting to see if The Boy even calls me today.

Update:

Went out to my brothers to have lunch with my mother.(lobster...mmmmm)

As of 7:26pm, no call from The Boy.

But hey, Happy Mother's Day to me! This is my new monitor.

An Acer 20" Wide-Screen, love it. Do I feel guilty that The Boy has a crappy 17" that turns green on occasion?

Not so much.

Man of few words.(no idea where he gets that from)

While The Boy is gone, I get sporadic emails. The trip was supposed to be from April 9th to the 25th.

I was wondering how he was going to manage being with 'the family' for that long but he was gung-ho about it.

I also worried about him driving through the states. I am sure you are all really nice people but I have CNN and I am programed to think you are all crazy psycho axe-murderers, don't blame me.

I told the boy, please when you stop for the night, just drop me a line so I know you are not chopped up and stuffed in the trunk of some car. For the most part he did and I was thankful for it.

I figured once he arrived in Florida I would not hear from him as often because, I would hope, he was having too much fun.

These are the emails I get from Florida:

April 12- I ask him if he is having fun and that I hope he is taking a lot of pictures.

yep ive been takin some pictures but dad dont got the drivers for his cam on here so ill show them to you when i get back

April 13- I tell him that Sammy misses him and that the school's automated system keeps calling to inform me that he is skipping school.

i told my teahcers you told them i was goin away
yull have to call them back and tell them to fuck off

April 14- I email him, since he is already sitting at the computer he could give me a little more info about what he is doing, I can't tell if he is having a decent time or not. Did he get my email about Sammy?

yeah i got the email about samy thats funny

went to universal today and it sucked i cant stand being around (his little brother) he getting on my nerves

I get nothing for a day, I figure he is busy having fun. Then this.

April 16-

find me a fuckin plane ticket home (with a little angry emoticon added to the end)

Now what? I email back, but get no more response. Then just about half an hour ago, I get a call.

It's The Boy, he is in Georgia.

"What do you mean, you're in Georgia?" At first I thought he fucked off hitch-hiking or some foolish thing.

"We are on our way home." Thank god he said 'we'.

"Why what happened?"

"Nothing, we are just on our way home."

"But you weren't supposed to be home for another week, something must have happened."

"Dad wanted to leave early, says traffic is bad in New York on the weekend."

Ya, right. Cut your Florida vacation by a week, to avoid weekend traffic in New York? Except wouldn't his present course put him in New York for the weekend?

I am sure in TBF's mind it makes perfect sense.

White Horse - False peace.

The Boy's Father has again begun to freak me out. I would say that over the last few weeks we have had a half dozen civil conversations. One day he even joked around with me. It makes me very uneasy.

There has got to be a rift in the space time continuum. Even though I left him 16 years ago, TBF usually acts like I punched him in the face yesterday. This niceness seems like one of the signs of the apocalypse.

I was discussing it with Bunnie the other night. I was telling her about The Boy driving me crazy with the car and his weekly bitch fest about where we live. (away from all his loser friends) He has been impossible to live with. Then I mention the uneasiness that TBF is causing. She knows TBF, so she understands why I would be suspicious.

"What do you think he is up to?"

"I'm hoping he's trying for custody."

I have a better chance of getting struck by lightning. In my living room.

And I paid for the privilege.

We went out tonight so I could show The Boy how to put air in the tires. A useful skill considering that every one of my tires has a slow leak.

As we pulled up to my regular gas station I saw that the air filler thingy was otherwise occupied. This sucked because this is the only station I have found that actually has free air. I kid you not, you have to pay for air now.

Oh, they do have one of those pay machines but if you ask them they will flip a switch and turn it on for you free of charge. This is good for me because of the aforementioned slow leaks, otherwise I would have to take out a second job to pay for air.

So, since that station was out of the question I decided for this outing I would go to one of the others and pay. It's 50 cents, The Boy needed to learn and I was interested in just how much air 50 cents buys you. In the interest of science, we pull into the Esso and are greeted by this.



The first thing I noticed was the hose. It is retractable. Interesting. I start to pull on it and it seems to be pulling back. I must have to pull it out all the way, like a vacuum cord? I try this. Nope, I have to hold it while The Boy puts the air in the tire otherwise it will yank him back off his feet. Exactly how do you get this done without a buddy?

We manage to get two tires to the correct psi and wrangle the hose around to the other side of the car. I am holding the hose while The Boy takes off the valve cap. Just as he applies the tip to the valve stem the air stops.

The Boy then lets go of his end of the hose. It starts to retract faster than I can grab it. So fast that it is literally burning my hands. I look up to see the nozzle coming at me at a pretty good clip. I have to tighten my grip on the hose, burning my hands further, to avoid having my head cracked open by the fucking thing.

WTF?

I have to fight with the hose, pay for fucking air and it doesn't even stay on long enough for all four tires? What a racket. I am at a slow burn as I enter the station. I tell The Boy it is to get rolaids for him, but I just have to voice my opinion to the attendant.

My hands stinging, I enter the station. "I can't believe I just paid 50 cents to fight with your fucking machine only to get cut off before I actually got air in all my tires."

"You had to fight with it?" He is maybe 16 and clearly not the sharpest tool in the shed.

"How else do you keep from getting dragged across the parking lot on your ass?"

"Uh, I just step on it." Not something they printed on the instructions. They were more concerned that I only put quarters in the machine. Not enough space to put actual helpful information on the signage.

"How much money did you feed it before you came up with that brilliant solution?"

Blank stare.

"Well, my solution is to never frequent this gas station again. Period."

I'm up! I'm up!

It's 3am and yes, I am up. The alarm was set for 5am but I can never sleep when I am starting something new. I have too much on my mind. I am traveling with a couple of guys (not my car) and The Boy will be driving himself to school.

Is there gas in the car? Does The Boy know how to pump gas? I never thought to show him. The tires are low, does he know how to put air in them or even how much? When was the last time I checked the oil?

Fuck it! I get up and take the car to the garage, make sure it has gas, check the oil and put air in the tires. Might as well grab a coffee on my way back.

Get in the shower, dry my hair. It is now 4:48am and I am ready for the day.

Nothing to do now but surf the net and goof off. Or I could call the sister....you know, pay her back for all the times she called me before noon. Something to consider.

Summer vacation is over. Thank Fuck!

Sometimes the boy will ask a question I know the answer to, but don't. Does that make sense?

Mostly he will ask me questions that he knows I don't have the answer to and could never know.

"Why is the sun yellow?"

Ok, I could probably find out the answer to that, but I am busy catching up on live feed updates for Big Brother and I don't give a fuck why the sun is yellow. He does this, I realize, just to get on my last fucking nerve. I can not wait until school starts.

He sees that I am reading something, so he starts.

"What is Labour day?"

"It's a holiday for workers."

"But why do schools have it off?"

"Teachers work."

"But why..." I know he really doesn't give a flying fart about any of this, he is just trying to bug me. I should have called the little bastard Butt Why, he says it enough.

"Why are you wondering about this? You have Google, don't you?"

So, here it is. Everything you ever wanted to know about Labour Day.

Have a good one.

I am woman, hear me roar.

Men go crazy buying every screwdriver known to man and every drill bit. He has dozens of drawers and tool boxes and half the shit he doesn't even know he has. And the other half he doesn't remember what it does.

All a woman needs is a good rock and a butter knife. Possibly a bread knife if something has to be sawed, but when does that ever happen?

Today I am fixing the molding in front of my shower. It literally disintegrated. I did need some sealant, but the knife pried the old stuff out and the rock nailed the new stuff in.

Oh and I did need that bread knife for the miter joints.

ROAR!

What exactly have I done to deserve this?

I work. I come home. I go to work again.

I have long ago abandoned the bar scene. I don't trust myself not to snap the neck of some drunken Barbie doll for pouring her drink down my back. I don't drink (although I think after this morning I might just take it up) and don't have much patience for drunks if I am sober. Dilemma. So, aside from the biweekly booty call, I don't get out much. Which is fine, I enjoy just being at home, lounging around, surfing and watching tv. It really doesn't take much to make me happy.

I don't buy a lot for myself, I dress for coverage, that's it. The things I buy for myself are usually computer related. I am, by no stretch of the imagination, a shopper. Although I do try every so often, but standing in the entrance to Walmart makes my skin crawl, so I manage to get in and out pretty quickly.

Off topic for a second, my sister and I went to Walmart recently and she insisted on using the self-serve checkouts. They promise to be faster, do-it-yourself. After ten minutes of scanning the mini blinds over and over until the blasted machine finally recognized it, we were finally finished. "Oh ya, that was faster." I say, rolling my eyes.

As we make our way to the exit we are accosted by the store greeter. Most greeters look like carny folk and clearly this kid is ... mentally challenged? I think they put these people in this position because they think consumers will take shit from them for fear of not being politically correct. I am nothing if not a PC, equal opportunity bitch. Ok, I wouldn't kick a blind kid and blame it on the dog, but if you piss me off, I don't care if your a head in a jar, I am going to object to it. "Mind if I check your bag?" he says. My sister is secretly hoping some small, shiny object has captured my attention and I will not respond. Her hopes are dashed.

"If we say, yes would it make a difference?"

As he checks the contents of her bags against the receipt I go off. "Oh ya, this is soooo much quicker. Fight with the machine for ten minutes and then waste another ten minutes while they frisk us like shoplifters. I am so glad we didn't waste time making the cashier do the job for us."

As my sister repacks her bags, "They do the same thing at Cosco, Mamme."

"Thanks for the heads up."

Anyway, where was I? Oh ya, I don't drink, I don't go out partying and I don't spend money on myself. So why does The Boy think that I will take shit from him day in and day out? He wakes me at 7am this morning. "Make me some scrambled eggs?"

"Make em yourself."

"I don't know how!" Are you kidding me?

"It's scrambled eggs, not nuclear fusion. Fuck off somewhere!" He opens the curtains and lets the sun blast me in the face. I try to kick him and he grabs the post on the foot board of my bed and pulls. The bed crashes to the floor.

That is when I lost my mind. "Why is it that when you get mad, you smash my shit?"

I broke, started bawling. Remember its 7am and he has woken me from a dead sleep, not the most stable I have ever been. This totally takes The Boy by surprise. He then tries to fix the bed, with me in it, not an easy task. All the while I am ranting. Telling him how all I do is work and all he does is spend the money and bitch and complain about there not being enough for him. He doesn't like the house, he thinks the car is a piece of crap, he doesn't like the neighborhood, he wants to live in another town. On and on and on he bitches about how his life is so bad.

"How long do you suppose I will put up with this shit before I slit my own throat?" As I said, it doesn't take much to make me happy. Just a little peace and quiet, my things intact, that sort of thing. But faced with The Boy, breaking one of my only possessions? "Explain to me why I work to give you everything you want when you can't even manage to not break the few things I have for myself?"

I really can't wait for the empty nest.

Don't mind me.

We had a bit of a scare over the weekend. My mother, who is in a nursing home, had to be taken to the hospital. She has is was sepsis? I don't know how it is termed.

She was pretty out of it, didn't know the war was over. She also was experiencing apnea that pretty much freaked the hell out of everyone, especially my sister who, every time she stopped breathing would shake her. It was looking pretty grim. The troops had to be called in.

The priest was called in and gave her last rites. That was Saturday. I should have known she was getting better. At one point she was trying to get out of bed, babbling on about something incoherently, and I got annoyed and told her she wasn't going anywhere. She grabbed my hand and said, quite clearly, "Oh will you shut up!"

She has anger issues, I have no idea where she gets that.

By Sunday morning she was sitting up having a cup of tea checking the obituaries for her name. That priest has skills.

This little episode also granted me the privilege of yet another face-to-face with The Professor. He also has skills, he didn't make eye contact with me once. And apparently his children are trained well. I said hello to them and they looked right through me.

Whatever. They stayed their 20 minutes and then left. Big help to the rest of us who were trying to make sure Mom didn't spend too much time all alone. (And when I say 'the rest of us' I mean the females of our species.)

The Professor's Wife was actually pleasant. I guess she wasn't let in on the whole 'snub-the-sister' pact. I guess you have to be a blood relation.

Anyway, later that day, my cousin Diane showed up to visit.

SISTER: "The Professors Wife was here."
DIANE: "And?"
SISTER: "She was talking to the nurses, finding about Mom's condition."
ME: "Isn't that a 'conflict of interest'?" My sister ignores me.
DIANE: "Is she a nurse?"
ME: "No she's an occupational therapist... but she did stay at a Holiday Inn Select last night."

Prepare yourself to be awed and amazed.

The guitar is in the building.

Picked up The Boy's new guitar today. Ya, I know, there will be no thanks for that but I am a sucker. I know this about myself and I am okay with it.

The first order of business is to get him to learn the song from the second video in yesterday's post. New Again - Brad Paisley and Sara Evans. I am addicted to it. I will make sure he records it so I can post it.

Now I am broke. Pretty good, it took me til 11am this time to blow the whole paycheck. Personal record.

The Boy has absolutely no vision.

The Boy thinks I have lost my mind. I saw these on sale at the local grocery store.

"Wow, look at the price of these sods!"

"What are sods?"

"Grass. 16 inches by 48 inches...for less than a buck fifty each! I'm getting some."

"We live on the second floor, what are you going to do with grass?"

"What do you mean? I'm gonna put it on the deck." I start calculating how many I would need.

"Can't you just picture it? The whole deck covered in grass. So cool. Let's see, the deck is 14 by 8 with that L shape at the side..."

"You're insane."

Kill joy starts debating me:

You can't put grass over wood, it will die.
I will water it.
It drinks from the roots.
I will lay plastic down first.
You're insane.

"Ya, that last part does seem like a lot of work. And if I do get it to grow I would eventually need to mow it." Starting to sound less appealing. "I just remembered the cats, they will no doubt shit on it." May have to rethink this.

"And people will think you are nutts."

Suddenly, I have an epiphany. "Holy shit, I've got it! I will buy two sods, lay them in cookie sheets. That way I can water them and they won't die, and if I need to mow them I will just use scissors. Oh ya, this is gonna be great!"

"Two?"

I look at him like he has two heads. "Duh...one for each foot."

He shakes his head, "Insane."

"You laugh now, but this time next week, I will be sitting on my deck with grass between my toes."

Oh, and Happy Mother's Day. What did I get? Well the boy geared up the BBQ for me. Filled the tank and bought dogs and buns.