Cassidy: Mom, how did you meet Julie?
Ben: In a strip club.
Me: OMG we did NOT MEET in s STRIP CLUB. WHY WOULD YOU EVEN?! DUDE!
Cassidy: hahahaah So, how did you meet her?
Me: Street racing.
Ben: BECAUSE THAT IS SO MUCH BETTER!
Me: Yes, it is.

Naked dancer or criminal street racer. Pick your poison.

My poison was driving fast down long straight farm roads in the dead of night.

Moral: Julie and I met while BEING AWESOME.

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I love Mexican food. When I want to feel like a kid again, it’s my go to meal. I was lucky enough to be raised with a Mexican extended family. Like, REAL Mexican. Not that Americanized crap you get in a restaurant with premade tortillas and rice from a mix. Enchiladas made with love, mole made with 84 ingredients and simmered ALL DAY LONG then eaten with a batch of tortillas made fresh that day with REAL ACTUAL LARD from a tub. Real Mexican food is made with tubs of lard. TUBS OF LARD, PEOPLE.

Ben: Why do you want Mexican food?
Me: I don’t WANT Mexican food, I need it.
Ben: …
Me: Don’t look at me like that. LOOK AT MY OVARIES!
Ben: You are going to feel like shit later.
Me: No I won’t. Mexican food is MAGIC.
Ben: Yes, stomach aches are magic.
Me: Enchiladas.
Ben: Endless bathroom trips.
Me: Nachos.

We ended up getting Mexican food. Before I put my fork down the magic stomach ache started. As we were leaving the restaurant I started to blame Ben for allowing me to make such a stupid, estrogen driven decision. WHAT WAS HE THINKING!?

I was up ALL NIGHT LONG. The cramps. And the magic stomach ache.

It was bad.

So the next morning I was up before everybody else which is not something that happens on a weekend. EVER.

Cassidy was walking downstairs as I was sitting on the couch after having spent about 20 agonizing minutes in the downstairs bathroom finally ridding myself of all that lardy Mexican poison. LARD IS POISON, PEOPLE!

Cassidy: *deep breath*
Me: *looks innocent* Dude, sorry. I totally turned the fan on.
Cassidy: Did you make… bacon?
Me: What?
Cassidy: It smells like bacon, did you make breakfast?
Me: WHAT!?
Cassidy: I smell bacon!
Me: The only thing I’ve made today is POOP!
Cassidy: What?
Me: I made poop and YOU THINK IT SMELLS LIKE BACON!
Cassidy: EWWWWWWWWW!
Me: HAHAHAHA Mexican food is MAGIC!

For the past month when anybody needs to, you know, do THAT BUSINESS in the bathroom we refer to it as “makin’ bacon” or “I’m going to go make bacon”.

There are three morals to this story:

1. Mexican food is MAGIC.
2. Teenager are actually CRAZY.
3. My poop smells like BACON. Fuck roses, man. BACON!

MAGIC. CRAZY. BACON.

IN ALL CAPS.

Aren’t you glad I blogged now, honey?

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Me: We should pretend like I died. For the food. Then, when people get here we can be all HAHAH JUST KIDDING… but leave the eggrolls.
Ben: I think that’s a good idea. But let’s not pretend.
Me: …
Ben: haha I was kidding.
Me: I am blogging this right now.
Ben: Why are you suddenly blogging everything I’m saying!?

Because, Ben! There needs to be a public record of things like this. Now watch, when I die, YOU AREN’T GOING TO GET ANY EGGROLLS!

HA!

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But one thing he’s far above average at is driving. We joke back and forth quite often (mainly I joke) about who is a better driver but he is hands down one of the best drivers I’ve ever gotten into a car with. And I don’t just mean every day driving around town. I mean like, get him on a track and he will give you a ride like you have never had before. The times I rode with him I often hopped between THIS IS TOTALLY AWESOME and OMG WE ARE GOING TOO FAST TO MAKE THAT TURN then followed that up by I AM GOING TO HURL GET ME OUT OF THIS CAR!!

Watching these videos often makes me nauseated. When you are in the car, those high speed turns, the force of the car fighting against what all the laws of nature say should not be possible… the video just doesn’t do it justice. It’s a pretty awesome feeling.

Ben hasn’t driven like that since his accident. I know he misses it. It’s in his nature.

So Monday when he sent me an email about going Karting with some of the guys from work I was like YES! GO DO THAT! Because Ben after driving fast is the best kind of Ben to be around.

I was totally kidding.

Kind of.

But I had no doubt that he’d come home with these:

It’s a good thing too because he’s also an excellent source of heat on cold nights. I can’t imagine how much it would cost me to have to try and stay warm if he wasn’t around.

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Ben: It’s happening consistently and regularly.
Me: Consistently and regularly is redundant.
Ben: You aren’t contributing to the conversation.
Me: I’m contributing to your education.
Ben: You are contributing to my hand to your face.
Me: HAHAHAH! BLOGGING THIS RIGHT NOW!

<3

This is normal. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

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I kind of hate “here was my day” posts. Except Becca’s. I love her posts. I love her life. I feel like I’m sitting at an adorable little coffee shop and my friend is like GIRL, LET ME TELL YOU when I read her posts.

OH! And Lisa’s. Because she’s awesome and does awesome things and makes awesome jokes and it generally just… kind of awesome.

So anyway, I’m totally going to subject you to one now.

I got up at before dawn, (LIKE EVERY WEEK DAY YOU SO WISH YOU WERE ME RIGHT!?) and found the closest pair of jeans I could grab and put them on because it’s JEANS FRIDAY and I am very happy about that. I also grab a shirt out of the closet in the pitch black and hope it matches. It does. And it happens to be a shirt with a logo from work on it. SCORE.

I wake up suddenly about two hours later. I guess I slept during the hour drive into work. Probably because it was raining and rain makes me sleep.

Work.

Work.

Work some more.

Come home, there’s teenage drama. This kid, you guys. There is SO MUCH going on with this kid right now but I’ve mostly not talked about it online because I think she deserves the privacy but let me just say, TEENAGERS! GAH!

Melanie texted me and was all DOG PARK! LET’S DO THIS! And YAY! Ben is home early! So we meet Melanie at the dog park and her wife is out of town and she’s like WHERE ARE WE GOING TO DINNER!? I’M INVITING MYSELF TO DATE NIGHT!

And most people would be like WHAT!? Invite yourself!? But Ben and I are like YES! WE LOVE MELANIE! Her wife is out of town and she was so adorable and we love Melanie TO DEATH so we were thrilled to have her along.

Dinner: LAUGH, eat, LAUGH, talk, LAUGH. We have some really awesome friends. I feel lucky and thankful. Mel is telling us stories about her room mate and I’m seriously dying. And then Mel and Ben are making fun of me and Ben has that adorable somewhat tipsy grin and his eyes are doing that thing where they light up his ENTIRE face and I have one of those moments where I’m like I’M JUST SO HAPPY. THIS IS AWESOME. CAN IT LAST FOREVER!?

And now we are home and it’s cold, man! And it might rain tonight. I love nothing more than an open window at night with the sound of the rain outside and the faint smell of clean on the breeze. But it’s cold, man. So I’m going to coax Ben off the couch where he’s already fast asleep and up into bed and fall asleep to the sound of something awesome like a Hoarders rerun instead.

Goodnight, friends! Till tomorrow!

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This man. <3

I could write 1000 words and it wouldn't do him justice.

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10 minutes before that I was on the phone yelling and fighting for something I believe in so strongly it causes PHYSICAL pain. Actual. Physical. Pain.

Right then, in the middle of my zen calm, the phone rang and after the conversion I’d just had, I dreaded even looking to see who it was but that Mommy Sense kicks in when your kid is away from home and you HAVE to check the phone because no matter how old they get, when they are away and the phone rings there’s always that 1/4 of a second that you say a silent prayer they are okay. So I do, and it’s Ben and I silently thank the Universe that my daughter is still okay and answer the phone:

Ben: So you want to go see Green Lantern tonight? There’s an 8:15 show and we can do dinner first as long as we leave when I get home.
Me: I was actually going to ask if you wanted to see that tonight but I didn’t want to push too much with your back hurting.
Ben: Let’s go! I’m good!
Me: Okay! I’ll change!
Ben: OKAY!

And you guys, I got off the phone and for a few minutes the world was perfect. Cassidy was off doing whatever it is tween girls do on sleepovers. She’s spending the night with my Dream Friend for her. Her friend Alexis is exactly what I’d pick if I could have picked her friend FOR HER. She’s sweet, polite and quite mostly but every once in awhile she will crack up with this hearty belly laugh that is infectious. She is a good secret keeper. And her parents are nice and smile a lot and participate!

And Ben. Ben’s back is hurt so sitting for a long time hurts him and I know that he WANTED to see Green Lantern but he also knew that I needed to not sit on the couch and Be Sad and Be Worried tonight and he suggest this movie as much to help me as he did for himself and… I just love him so much. I know that I’ve said this before but, you guys, this man. This man is amazing. And selfless. And patient. And I’m so lucky to have him.

And then Kumo farted so loud he woke himself up. And Danica was like WHAT WAS THAT FULL ATTENTION IMMINENT INVASION. And Samus was like WHY ARE WE RUNNING IS THERE TOYS, WHERE ARE THE TOYS LETS FIND THE TOYS YOU GUYS YEAH!.

And the moment was over. But it’s moments like that, those moments, they’ve kept me sane the last week or so.

I have a really long, probably ugly, war in front of me but as long as I can grab onto these moments between battles, remember what I’m fighting for, I will succeed.

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Anyway, I have always loved them. Really, really loved them.

Then the damn time went and changed on me.

So. I know that there were a lot of people that had problems with iPhones around time changes, or for some reason on New Years they went all wonky temporarily, but they seemed to get all the bugs worked out pretty quickly.

And then mine had to go and turn into a raging, hormonal, demonic asshat.

When I got up last Sunday I checked my phone and was happy to see that it had changed time perfectly. I hugged it and pet it and told it I loved it and we spent a beautiful Sunday frolicking around town and shopping and eating like BFFs do.

And then Monday morning for some unexplained reason she turned on me and our relationship at this point is barely hanging on by a thread.

(Back story: Cassidy’s alarm clock died late last week so I had to gave her mine and had been using my iPhone to get up every day.)

Monday: My alarms didn’t go off. Not a HUGE deal because I still woke up in time to get to work. Knowing that in the past you just had to delete your old alarms and create new ones, I did that and knew that the next day we’d be back on track. I even set one to go off at 3:30AM because I was all motivated to GET UP EARLY and work out! WOOHOO! THIS IS GOING TO BE AWESOME!

Tuesday: My alarms didn’t go off. I had the one set for 3:30AM and another set for 4:15AM. Neither went off. I woke up at 5:27AM. I have to be out the door by about 5:10AM to get to work on time. We had a very serious conversation on the way to work about where our relationship was headed and how trust is something easily broken and not soon forgotten or fixed once it’s lost. I thought she listened. I thought we had synced. (HA! See what I did there!?)

I was wrong.

I also deleted all my alarms and set only one up to go off at 4:15AM. And BOUGHT AN ALARM CLOCK. I figured that eventually it would start working correctly again, but in the mean time I was going to start relying on the awesome multi color glowing alarm clock I got at Target.

Aside: I got a Timex Color Changing Alarm Clock and when I plugged it in it was LATE and admittedly I had a bit of an issue getting it set up. IT WAS LATE. Ben had to help me once or twice (or seven times) and I set it down and he was like, “So, it glows? Can you turn that off now?”

TURN IT OFF!? It CHANGES COLORS! Why in the hell would you want to turn it off!? Well, the good news is that according to the reviews on Target’s website, the glowey awesomeness is only going to last a week or two. Sadness, I’ll HAZ it.

ANYWAY!

Wednesday: Apparently buying an awesome glowey alarm clock kind of upset her because not only did she go off at 4:30AM, the same time as my alarm clock, she first went off at 3:30AM! EVEN THOUGH THERE WAS NO ALARM SET FOR 3:30AM!

3:30AM is REALLY DAMN EARLY! You know, in case you didn’t know that. And not only that but since it was 3:30AM(!!) I kept hitting the SNOOZE button instead of the SHUT THE HELL UP button and it might have gone off three times. And I couldn’t just TURN THE DAMN THING OFF because… it wasn’t actually THERE in the menu to turn off!

Ben said something at that point that involved my phone and an outlet on the southern region of my body that was not nice and I can not mention here.

That was a really long day.

Then, at one point that day I started my Netflix app to show something to Cassidy and she was all HA! YEAH, RIGHT! CHEAT ON ME WITH THAT GLOWEY PIECE OF CRAP ALARM CLOCK! NO NETFLIX FOR YOU!

Thursday: THERE IT IS! 3:30AM ALARM.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

I was seriously about .184 seconds away from throwing it against the wall. Instead I just took a deep breath and turned the phone completely off so it wouldn’t go off again. And so Ben would not perform the act I talked about earlier involving my southern region.

I synced her for the first time in a week today. You’d think that after, like, Monday I’d have done that but that’s what a person WHO HAD GOTTEN SOME SLEEP would do and I was not that person. Since then, Netflix is like OKAY FINE I guess we’ll work.

If for some reason though you see a mushroom cloud over the Bay Area at around 3:30AM tomorrow? It will be safe to assume that it’s Ben’s head exploding.

Also, I will admit freely, the reason I didn’t actually throw it against the wall is because if I did it would make it somewhat difficult to feed my Tiny Wings addiction.

<3

Oh you silly tiny winged bird, how I love you. Love you enough to forget about the fact that I haven’t gotten more than four hours of sleep in FOUR DAYS.

Four. Days.

Goodnight!

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Drama.

Not mine. Well, kind of mine in that it involves Cassidy but not mine to share publicly. But man, writing is cathartic and I needed to get it all out that way because my head was about 30 seconds away from BLOWING THE FUCK UP for two days.

SO. Life has been, you know, life. Friday Cassidy spent the night at a friend’s house and then the night was… long. Saturday was running errands, a nice long walk down on the levy with Ben and the dogs, lunch with Bob, Judy and John and a movie that Ben’s been wanting to see for awhile¹.

Today was breakfast with Melanie and Kim, laundry, a NICE LONG NAP then dinner at Fresh Choice because Cassidy got to choose dinner and it’s her FAVORITE. We just finished up watching Big Trouble in Little China with Cassidy and now that she’s in bed, we are catching up on TV we missed throughout the week. Like Spartacus which you can’t really watch with a 12 year old. heh

It’s a really good thing I don’t blog every day, you’d be like DO YOU EVERY DO ANYTHING INTERESTING!? And the answer is yes. ALL THE DAMN TIME. Eventually Cassidy won’t be a sensitive tween anymore and embarrassing her on my blog will be common place again.

In the meantime, here she is being cute in one of those rare moments she doesn’t have that ever present look of “OMG WHY ARE YOU TAKING MY PICTURE WE ARE IN PUBLIC YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO ACT LIKE YOU DON’T KNOW ME” on her face.

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