Like many good things, the award comes with a catch. A simple catch (not like marriage):  answer a few questions. The challenge:  be witty & interesting.  I’m sure I’ll fail miserably, but I’m a good sport, so here it is:

1. Where is your cell phone? charging
2. Your hair? ponytail
3. Your mother?  traveling
4. Your father? deceased
5. Your favorite food? carbs
6. Your dream last night? funny
7. Your favorite drink? chai tea latte
8.Your dream/goal?  Self-employed/work at home
9. What room are you in? bedroom
10. Your hobby? reading
11. Your fear? not reaching my dreams
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years?  the hell outta here
13. Where were you last night? in bed
14. Something you aren’t?  tactful
15. Muffins? yup, with tea
16. Wish list item? bigger house/smaller mortgage
17.Where did you grow up? SoCal
18. Last thing you did? complained
19.What are you wearing? work clothes
20. Your TV? big & flat (like my ass)
21.Your pets? pains in the butt
22. Your friends? funny
23. Your life? twisty
24. Your mood? crabby
25.Missing someone? sort of
26.Vehicle? I heart my car
27. Something you’re not wearing?  my glasses
28.Your favorite store? Amazon!
29.Your favorite color?  today, black
30. When was the last time you laughed? recently
31. Last time you cried?  a few months ago
32. Your best friend?  outgrew her
33. One place that you go over and over? Starbucks
34. One person who emails me regularly? my sister
35. Favorite place to eat? out

And hold your horses, ladies, for I hereby bestow this same toss under the bus award on the following blogs & bloggers, that I love:

Rock and Drool

One Fine Neurotic Mess

and

Paisley and Pretties

Today, E, boy genius, bless his heart, thought he’d help out. So I’m at work, writing a hellish professional court report on a case that is a fucking mess, and I get a text message from E about him baking a cake. He’s never baked a cake before, so kudos goes to E for effort. (A little aside about the cake:  I’m not sure how it’s possible to bake a cake mix meant for a 9×13″ pan in a 8×11″ pan and have it come out 1″ thick. And have some raw, runny pockets interspersed. It was . . . interesting. I’ll have to have him teach me so I can pass along the wisdom.)

And then I have the following text message exchange (apparently I do much of my parenting via text & twitter. Geez.)  with E :

E:  I tried to do the dishes, and it ended up in kind of an I Love Lucy fashion. But I’m cleaning it up.

DM: I’m cracking up. I can only imagine. Thanks for cleaning it up.

{Naturally at this point I Twitter about it. And tell all co-workers within earshot.}

E:  Well, that’s the end of my dishwashing career.

Then I receive an image (courtesy of the working MMS on my iPhone):

Blurry but bubbly!

Blurry, yes, but what you’re looking at is my best bath towels and bubbles on the kitchen floor in front of the dishwasher.

E:  Think I used a little too much soap.

DM:  Ya think?

Later E tells me that while the dishwasher fiasco is happening, the Big D is sleeping (taking his not-so-hard-earned lazy ass daily nap). E wakes him up to tell him he’s going to mop the floors . . . kitchen & bathrooms . . . neglecting to mention it’s with the soapy, wet bath towels. The Big D mumbles something about dinosaurs wearing shoes. Yes, D is THAT helpful.

E:  The bubbles just kept coming an coming.

E:  You’re going to tell this to everyone at work, aren’t you?

Oh honey, you know me better than that.  I don’t tell people  just at work!  I Twittered!  I blogged!  Now THE WORLD knows!

Turns out E used the Dawn dishwashing liquid and not the Cascade dishWASHER liquid. And just so we’re clear, I really truly do appreciate my son so much for helping out. Thanks E! Love you!

We ate until we were all S*T*U*F*F*E*D.  And then we had dessert . . . of a fashion anyway.  This is E’s plate:

Does this look like dessert to you?

Sometimes, I swear, I think he’s not my kid. Really? DESSERT consists of shredded carrots, mushrooms (2 kinds!) and gummy bears???  WTF?!?!??  Then I noticed the brownie and thought, yeah, okay, maybe he is mine.

You notice that the it-isn’t-a-monopoly-it’s-just-an-exclusive-contract-only-carrier-in-the-US AT&T hasn’t really advertised that their network HAS NOT BEEN READY to iPhone MMS for the past couple of years. In fact, I distinctly recall seeing the iPhone sending pictures from the txt screen on the demo video in the store when the 3Gs came out. So I bought one. WTF?? WHY can I not send a picture?!?!??

It’s funny — I don’t send all that many pictures via text message. But I’ve sooo missed this feature since I got my iPhone.  A few days after I got the iPhone, I was shopping without my children. Shopping. Without. Children. Luxury of luxuries, yes?  Being able to browse to my heart’s content . . . to be distracted by all the shiny things without having to do constant vigilance on what the other three pairs of hands were touching . . . to be able to look at bras without any embarrassed boy companions LOUDLY bemoaning their existence. Pure Luxury. Deserving of Caps.  But I digress.

I found a shirt I thought J would like. But J, being J, is P-I-C-K-Y has highly evolved — and very discerning — tastes. Particularly about his clothing. So I thought I’d snap a quick pic & txt it to him, right?  WRONG. The  iPhone I had already fallen in love with — have I mentioned my iPhone is like my best friend? — can NOT send a picture via a text message. No MMS capability. At. All. Seriously? This phone can tell me where I am within like 2 centimetres, tell me where the closest Starbucks is no matter where I am, can name that tune after hearing a snippet on the radio and it CAN NOT SEND A PICTURE?!?!?  WTF?  So my husband’s aunt, who has like a free AT&T phone, steps up, snaps a pic and a few seconds later I’ve got a txt from J giving me his blessing to buy the shirt. Meanwhile, I’m still staring — dumbfounded — at my phone. I felt so betrayed.

And yes, there’s an app for that. There’s workarounds. For $5 I can buy an app send an MMS “text” via email to another phone. Like I’m gonna spend $5 for my phone to do something every cell phone I’ve ever seen can do for free? Get real. And why should I have to work-around AT&T’s inadequacy?

AT&T has the chance to make it up to me tomorrow. They’d better not fuck this up.

The residual crankiness continues into the evening. I don’t know if it’s hormones, but I feel such a sense of rage tonight. I really really want to hit something. This is sooo not like me — I’m the peacekeeper, the pacifist. But right now, I have the propensity to be violent. THIS SUCKS!

Sidenote: I don’t know if I mentioned it, but I changed the kids’ school to a public charter school, so they’re doing a lot of their work as homeschool. It’s a great school — but that’s a whole ‘nother thing.

Anyway — I was helping Jare with his science whilst I was cooking. You’re thinking “uh-oh — not a good idea”. Go ahead, admit it, you know you’re thinking it’s dangerous for the easily-distracted-ditzy-DoofMom to do two things at once. And — this time — you’d be right.

We sit down to eat — the Big D, as you’d expect, is shoveling food into his mouth without comment — looking pained, but no comment. I’m thinking it’s ‘cuz I won’t let him salt his food anymore. (I’m not an ogre, people! It’s because of his blood pressure.)

Jare takes a bite of his rice and announces: Mom, this rice has no flavor.

I’m like — shit! — I forgot to put the seasoning packet in the Rice’A'Roni!  I gotta say, I like plain white rice. I like plain brown rice. But I learned something tonight — I don’t like unflavored Rice’A'Roni! It tastes like dirty sockwater (or what I’d imagine dirty sockwater to taste like if I cooked rice in it). Blech, blech, double-blech!

The family erupted in laughter, finger-pointing, and general gaiety directed my way. I swear, forget one little thing . . .

The Big D, bless his heart, says “I wasn’t going to say a word” knowing full well, the last time he criticized my cooking I didn’t cook for about 4 years! A man that knows what’s good for him — what a find.

DoofMom:  Why shouldn’t an eleven year old boy have a cell phone? I think he should have one — he’s going into 7th grade and he’s responsible.

the Dad:  hrmph

——————–

So after school today, Jare and I had this text message exchange:

Jare:  Hi Mom.

DoofMom:  Hi honey. How was ur day?

J:  Good. Wen do you get off work?

DM:  I get off @ 5

J:  How is dad?

DM:  Dad is ok I think

J: Is he at the store?

DM: I don’t know. Is his car gone?

(at this point, DoofMom is scratching her head — the Dad should be home with the kids . . . he didn’t say he was going anywhere . . . )

J:  Ya

DM: Is Gabby home?

J:  No

DM: Dad might be getting Gabby

J: But gabby is home and dad is home

DM:  Dad is home?

J:  Ya

DM:  Alrighty then

———————————

the Dad:  And this is why you don’t give an eleven year old a cell phone.

“If you put a dryer sheet in your pants and fart through it, it smells good.”

Good to know, Jare. Good to know.

A few days later, I overhead DH on the phone with his mother:

The Dad:     I told you I’d call before we came over today.

Mother:   I know, but I didn’t know if you actually would.

The Dad:    I’m a man of my word. I do what I say and say what I’ll do. . . .

:::wait for it:::

The Dad:   So I’m not saying much these days.

Priceless.

You may recall that my vet advised me to collect fecal samples from the 3 cats and Doodles. I don’t know if anyone has tried to collect fecal samples from cats, but it’s not easy. In fact, it’s a downright pain in the ass. To begin with, my cats are housetrained. Not litterbox trained. They refuse to use a litterbox. They do their business outside. And absolutely not if anyone is watching. They all use the same area of the yard. It’s IMPOSSIBLE to tell who’s poop is whose. And that’s making the quantum leap that it is possible for me to get to the poop before the poop-eating dogs.

To make a long, shitty story short(er), I never did get adequate fecal samples for the cats. So, $185 later, all animals are on meds for Giardia.

Back to the internet addiction — it was rather a rude awakening to realize that I’m totally addicted to the internet. I was unable to check my email for over a week and I seriously panicked — what was I missing? how does one keep up without internet? I can’t tell you how many times I said “oh, I’ll just check that online” and then felt that kick in the stomach feeling when I remembered I couldn’t. Addiction sucks.

So I did what any other red-blooded girl would do — I used sex to convince the Big D to get another dog. See I figure: we had 3 kids, 3 cats and only 2 dogs. It’s only right that I get another. My current issue is that there are 3 of everything except parents (so DH and I are on the lookout for another wife . . . preferably one that likes to cook and clean and doesn’t take much room. Let me know if you know anyone.)

The new dog is a Maltese. Cute as a button and has a sparkling personality. We named her Muff (a reminder of the tactics used to bring her into our home? ya think?) — her name was Angel (but seriously, me with a dog named Angel?? I don’t think so.) Mose loves her. Really loves her. Poor Muff doesn’t get a moments peace and the kids are getting an at-home doggie sex ed demonstration.

Makes for interesting conversations over dinner.