The Big DumpTruck

Ahh, the stench of bus exhaust is in the air today. Leominster Public Schools are back in session. This summer went by FAST. I mean, seriously, did they have more than a few weeks off? It doesn't seem like it.

I took the requisite first day of school photo, and I actually think that maybe he's wearing the same shirt today that he wore for the first day last year. Well, we'll just keep it in rotation until he bursts out of it like the Incredible Hulk. If we're lucky, it will happen when he's angry.

I hope he has a good teacher this year. Nobody recognized her name, so she might be new. Scary to get the new teacher, because nobody can tell you anything about her. But her name sounds nice, if that makes any sense, so we'll see.

All seriousness about this Katrina thing aside, I do want to say that I seriously pity the people who rented the house we rented for vacation this week. Cause it's a couple thousand dollars a week, and they have no sun in sight. We apparently hogged it all up. Of course, there's no chance that they will have water up to their eyeballs and have to go sleep in a football stadium, so I can't offer too much pity, but man, if it was me down there in the rain with the kids for a week, I'd be slowly drinking myself into a stupor. As it is, while we tried to limit the amount of time the television was on, they still watched these two Gamera movies I had with me about 50 or 60 times. Lord help us if we hadn't been able to spend a few hours down in the water every day. I'd have the dialog memorized.

(You know what's cool? When your kids discover the stuff you loved as a kid. I wasn't a big Gamera fan, but my sister was. She was into channel 56's "Creature Double Feature" every Saturday starting at noon, too, which is I guess how she knew Gamera. So the kids are totally into it, and aren't at the "so campy it's cool" stage. They actually find it thrilling when the big pointy-headed monster that kind of looks like an octopus uses his pointy head to stab Gamera, but then Gamera uses his fiery jets to spin off with the monster stuck to him and he wins the fight! Hooray Gamera!)

But enough. I don't need to see these again for a number of years, thanks.

Okay, I can complain, I'm good at it. But I won't, not when I've got half an eye on the news reports from Louisiana.

You'd think you would come back to work after vacation refreshed and raring to go, but maybe it's the 2 weeks remaining of a 4 week contract thing that makes it hard to be refreshed about anything. Or maybe it's mentally preparing for Wednesday's first day of school. Or the fact that the dog either has some kind of urinary tract infection or he's in puberty because he is literally peeing all over the entire house since we picked him up from the boarding place Saturday. I'm tired of walking in pee. Oh, and by the way, they gave him the more horrific haircut ever. When they brought him out we thought it was the wrong dog. I want my schnoogie woogums back, not this little ratty poodle-faced pup. *sigh*

Wait, I said I wasn't going to complain, right?

I am such a liar.

Okay, it took me all day, but here are some photos of our trip. Of course, these are only a few of the 300 I took, but I'm not going to bore you completely. You can click the restaurant sign to pull up the page of images (it may take a few extra seconds to load, but hey, I'm worth it!)

On our way home. I'm sad. So, so sad. But relaxed, so there's that. I think we'd be close to home already if there hadn't been an apparently *really* bad accident on Route 6. We were stuck in stop and go traffic for over an hour. Great fun.

Can't wait to start pullung together all the photos and video. I think a trip to Target for photo processing is in order. That should set my back a small fortune. Of course, this might be the trip that makes a photo printer a sound investment. Mr. Dump was telling my about an HP photo printer that ends up costing less per print to use than a CVS or snapfish...I am going to look it up.

More later when I am home with a real keyboard...

Just wanted to check in so you'd know I'm still alive. I'm alive! Lots of fun. Best house on the planet, my friends. I don't think we could have picked a better one.

Don't fight with each other while I'm gone. Today's plans: siteseeing this morning while my sister's family hits the beach for a walk and then a bikeride. We didn't bring bikes (I don't have one) so we're just having family day.

High tide is 2:40 or something like that, so we'll all be back for the beach then. Where we are is a large sand bar thingy (I'm up on my beach lingo) and at low tide you can walk out almost a mile, literally. I had my pedometer the first time we walked out and round trip we did almost 1.75 miles. Of course, we dawdle because there are so many different kinds of crabs and little fishies to watch and catch. Yesterday we lingered a little too long when the tide started coming back in and all the sand bars disappeared and we had to wade through thigh-deep water in areas. And high tide practically comes up to the steps you take down from the house.

So ya, we're having a really sucky time, can you tell?

Out of the mouths of babes. You can tell this kid spends more time going to tourist destinations than being out in the great outdoors. I could have tried to mess with his head and tell him the doors open at 9, but I was a good girl, and said they are open 24 hours a day.

Almost ready to go. I plan to post if my cell phone has coverage. I'm sure there's coverage somewhere on the Cape. Failing that, I'll send smoke signals. Keep your eyes on the clouds.

Side Note: Made my third (4th?) trip to the Leominster Target. Dropped $200. I forbid myself from going back for at least a week. But hey, all the summer stuff was on clearance! I got a Coleman Queen Size air mattress for twenty bucks. This replaces "old reliable", the one that I destroyed by closing the trunk on it, causing the latch to give puncture wounds. Got Junior a sleeping bag for $20, too. His old one, a trendy Blues Clues number, holds about half of him. Plus, he's a second grader now, he can't be seen in a Blues Clues sleeping bag. What kind of monsters are you people?

Today is Junior's last day of camp (he isn't going on tomorrow's trip - he's going to spend the day with his cousins instead). Yesterday they handed out the camp awards. I expected some sort of crazy award - the last time he got one (at the end of the school year) it was like the "flying feet" award for his crazy dancing.

So he makes me stand there while he presents me with his certificate...and I immediately get all verklempt (how do you spell that?). I had to give him a HUGE hug while I composed myself.

You see, ever since he's been a toddler, I've used the phrase "are you being a good listener?" I don't know why I use that, I just sort of made it up one day, but "you're not being a good listener" was the replacement phrase for "Bad boy" or whatever. (Additionally, when he was really little and not listening, I'd say "do you want happy mommy or angry mommy?" to let him know that how he was behaving would have the consequences of putting me in the right or wrong kind of mood.)

I would always tell him he needed to be a good listener at daycare, preschool, school, etc. Meaning, you'd better mind your manners and pay attention to the grownups in charge. A good listener is not a troublemaker. A good listener, well, listens. If the daycare lady says you can't play near the street, well by gum, you don't play near the street. Etc. Etc. At our house, being a good listener means you are behaving as you should.

His camp award?

Best Listener.

It may sound stupid to anyone outside of our house, but I have never been prouder. To me, it means my mom stuff is sticking. I am raising a great kid.

I'm not a failure as a parent.

He's a good listener.

Good gravy, they put a lot of mayo on the sandwiches here. So in case you're keeping track, that's no olives but extra mayo. I would trade 2/3 of the mayo for some olives, let me tell you.

Longtime readers remember the adventures of the little boy who wouldn't eat anything. He has expanded out SO much in the past 6 months, I'll give him that. Last week, he discovered he liked pickles. Now I know he and I had talked about pickles. Around the time he started his salad with Italian dressing addiction, I remember telling him that he'd like pickles because they are crunchy and they have that Italian dressing-like vinegar vibe. But no, I couldn't get him to eat one.

Well Friday, on our way up to St. Albans, we stopped at the Vermont Country Store. And he and I bought one of those big pickles you buy right out of the barrel. A big pickle and some cheddar cheese. It was one of the greatest days of my life, I tell you! All kidding aside, I ADORE that place. We ended up spending a HUGE amount of time in there, and even though it meant us getting into St. Albans later, I didn't care, because I love the VCS just that much.

If you live in New England and you haven't been, well, let me just insist, okay? Get in your Ford Escort and get moving. It's exit 6 off Route 91N (route 103) in Rockingham VT. And then after you go there, keep driving until you get to Chester VT. If you don't think Raspberry and Thyme restaurant (right on the main drag, in "downtown" Chester) doesn't have the most amazing sandwiches on the planet, I will personally come to where you are and put you out of your misery. Seriously.

I knew it was bound to happen. This morning I suddenly realized I was going the wrong way to work. That's such a GREAT feeling, knowing that you have to backtrack. Puts a smile on your face and a kick in your step, it does. Obviously, I needed way more sleep than I got.

The drive home from VT was much more annoying than the drive up, because it insisted on raining 95% of the way. We took a lot of stops on the way up, which was good because we were in vacation mode, but on the way back we probably shouldn't have stopped as often as we did. We didn't get home until about 7pm, at which point there was a thunder storm going on, and we passed a house that had lost half a tree from a lightening strike (the fire department et. al. were there). Thank GOD IN HEAVEN that it didn't happen as I was driving by or I'd be in a straightjacket right now, instead of typing to you. I hate hate hate lightening.

Anyhoo, back to the grind for a WHOLE WEEK and then a week's vacation. Woo!

We're here in St. Albans with ZERO ZERO ZERO phone/internet connectivity
on my SideKick. Luckily there's a computer in the hotel lobby that I can
use to check my mail and send some out.

You may not hear back from me until tomorrow. Try to have a good day
without me.

It's Thursday, so you know what that means!

No?

I was hoping you knew.

Okay, instead of the usual tripe, I've go a link to someone else's
tripe. Or more specifically someone else's pickled pork rinds and other
things one shouldn't eat.

It's very very funny stuff, but the photos of the food items may cause
you to question humanity.

http://www.thesneeze.com/mt-archives/cat_steve_dont_eat_it.php

Going to a family reunion this weekend. This is for my mother's father's side of the family. I'm trying to decide if I should bring my digital camera or my video camera. I'm leaning toward video, just because that might be more fun for her to look at later, after I burn it down to a DVD. Do you think perfect strangers who happen to share a common relative n generations ago will be happy to be on camera? I'm not sure.

The reunion is in upper upper upper Vermont. That's a lot of Vermont to drive through.

Maybe we'll try to find

• Sandra Bullock's sister's bakery.
• Those lesbians with the maple syrup farm from the Postcards from Buster PBS show.
• Our way back home on Sunday

Coupla random thoughts. You know, corn nibblets. (Nibblets? Where is my dictionary...)

• Weather.com's 15 day forecast, while probably not anything close to accurate, is now officially giving weather predictions for the week we're on vacation. Right now it looks sunny and in the mid-to-high 70s. As long as it isn't going to be a whole lot cooler down on the Cape, I'm good with that.
• Still job hunting. Not loving that at all.
• For some reason, my current "editing" pen at work is a hot pink Pilot Razor Point, extra fine. It adds a little pizzazz to my day. And you know, right about now, I'm taking all the pizzazz I can get.
• I don't know how to spell pizzazz. Neither does the blogger spell checker. I did not mean pixies, thanks.
• I found some shoes I want to order from Amazon.com, but I don't know if I should. What if they don't fit, or look uglier on my feet than they do in the picture?
• Today's breakfast - a raspberry white chocolate chip scone. Now I can face the day!

And no, I'm not talking about the fact that he pooped on Junior's backpack this morning.

See, when it's my turn to take him outside, I recreate scenes from various movies and television shows. I call the dog Scooby, Benji, Lassie, or Toto, depending on what I'm recreating. And sometimes when he's sniffing I'll ask if he's found the scent of the murderer. You know, cause he's obviously part bloodhound. He may be just a little too big to carry in a basket.

Hey, it amuses me.

And if we *happen* to save a little boy trapped in a well, won't you be all "oh, sorry we mocked you and Lassie there." Uh huh.

When I'm yelling at the dog to get out from underneath the desk for the 100th time, I decided he needs a middle name. Because you cannot yell at someone without using their middle name. So I decided he should have the same middle name as Mr. Dump. I tried Junior's middle name but it didn't work for me. So now he's got a middle name and it just works better when I'm yelling "stop eating the blinds!" or "If you don't hurry up and poop I'm going to scream!"

Mr. Dump brought Phantom to Junior's summer camp and some woman started yelling "I just love a little rat dog!"

Uh, thanks? How is one supposed to respond to that? "He's not a rat dog" is probably a good start. (For the record, we always call chihuahuas rat dogs because of the Mexican Rat Dog urban legend. But Phantom is a cockapoo, not a rat dog. )

This has been a public service announcement.

I may be the only person I know who can get injured by oatmeal.

I'm just saying.

(Okay, it was hot, cooked oatmeal, and it landed on my finger and gave me an ouchie. But still, it counts as an oatmeal injury.)

It's been far too long between Little House on the Prairie books. I know that they're probably labor-intensive, what with the small words and the big print. Maybe it's the illustrations (which really, are some of the best ever done for chapter books - far far better than the Harry Potter illustrations). But because Laura Ingalls Wilder is taking so very very long to get the next book to her publisher, I'm going to step up to the plate and write my own, just like I am volunteering for HP7.

Let's see. Manly and Laura are married, and their daughter Rose was born. Their house burned down but they saved the "Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread" plate. Okay, got it.

Okay, the book starts out with Laura announcing to Manly that she's tired of being a stay-at-home mom, she wants to move to New York and try her hand as a Rockette. She tells him that there's no future in farming, and that if he comes with her, he might be able to find work as a male model in the clothing district. He agrees to come with her for one year - if she doesn't have any success, she agrees to move back to the dirt farm and feed the chickens until she dies. Hilarity ensues.

In case JK Rowling has a hand cramp, I'm willing to take a stab. I've made some notes.

The next book is going to be wildly different. Nobody goes back to Hogwarts. Instead they buy a van, paint it and call it the Magic Machine...Harry Hermoine, Ron, Ginny, Hagrid and their dog, Scooby Doo.

Sure, there's an extra human. Ron can be Don Knotts.

How am I supposed to enjoy my salad here at my contrct job when they don't have green olives available to me?

I am crushed.

Other than that, I'm busy. But no green olives, damnit!