Some Days, the Universe is Against You.

And other days, the planets align, the clouds part and Heaven smiles down upon you. Today was that day.

Look what came in the mail just moments ago!!



Not only the stupid car title that I've been waiting for, but also the Discontinued Noro Kuryeon 139 from Knitting-Cat. And get this - IT'S EVEN THE RIGHT DYE LOT!!!!!! I wept with joy.

So now all I have to do is get the title to the claims guy tomorrow, put the check in the bank, and get a cashier's check for $2502.00 made out to the Reverend Aldi. Yes, I think it would be funny to pay for his cashier's check with a cashier's check. I should tell him that our bank charges three dollars for a cashier's check and ask him for change.

Excuse me while I exhale. (insert sigh of relief)

Ok, moving on, a few folks asked questions in the comments sections recently, and I'd like to address them, if I may.

Criosa inquired about the presence of Captain Underpants among my purse's contents. Captain Underpants is on my key chain. It was the closest thing I could find to a super hero in Power Panties.

Jo asked me to explain Grant's Farm. I can pretty much recite the whole tour. The land was originally owned by the Dent family and when Ulysses S. Grant married Julia Dent in 1848, her parents gave them 80 acres of land as a wedding present. The land is now owned by the Busch family (as in Anheuser-Busch), and is home to rare animals from six of the seven continents which you can see when you ride the tram through the deer park.

Then at the end of the ride, you are dropped off at an area where you can feed goats, watch animal shows, and see the World-Famous Budweiser Clydesdales. But the best part is that you can get two free samples of the Budweiser product of your choice. There's no charge to get in, but you have to pay $8 to park. If you're a genius like me, you get a parking pass for $30 at 9am on Opening Day and it more than pays for itself by the time it closes for the winter.

You can also get free beer samples at the Brewery, but the glasses are smaller and you have to walk through an hour-long tour to get it. The tour is interesting, but I'd rather just skip to the end.

And finally, Brother Ed asked me to explain Cooter Rootin'. Well, Ed, it means a trip to the gynocologist. Do you use the word Cooter over there? It's another word for snatch. If not, I'm sure all of us would love for you to enlighten us with the UK terminology for female genitalia. And hell, just for kicks, give us some dick words too so we can impress our friends.

Here's a pic I snapped for you all yesterday.



Why, yes, I do take my knitting EVERYWHERE.

Going With Plan B.

So last night R had to swallow his pride and take Reverend Aldi up on his offer to float us the amount of the insurance check until the title gets here.

And, in true Aldi form, the Reverend insisted that we cover the cost of the cashier's check.

So we're paying him back what we lent us, plus two dollars. Just like the paperboy from Better Off Dead.

I WANT MY TWO DOLLARS!!!

I thought that was absolutely hilarious.

They blew us away by so generously offering to help us out, and yet deep down inside, they're still the cheapest people I've ever met.


Aaaaaanyway, one week from today we close on the house. And, quite coincidentally, October 3rd also happens to be my Bloggiversary! So in honor of both occasions, I will be having a contest. I haven't decided what it will be yet, but it will take place in October. And the prize will be something that both knitters and non-knitters can appreciate. Sound good? Excellent.


Wish me luck on my Cooter Rootin'!!

Blogstalking #2

Purse Guts!

What's in your purse? What do you carry around with you everywhere you go? What must you have available to you at all times?

Knitting, lip gloss, a camera (obviously not pictured), and Xanax.
The rest is all trash, pretty much.




I shall point out the more interesting of my purse's contents.

The pink thing is the Knowknits pouch which houses my portable knitting projects when I'm not working on them in the parent pick-up line at school. At the moment I'm not happy with my current project but I'm not going to start over. I'm stubborn like that.

Next to it is a map of Grant's Farm, like I need one. I think one of the Apes gave it to me to hold because for some reason they always insist on picking one up when we enter. I'm pretty sure I could navagate the place blindfolded.

Near the bottom is my bottle of Xanax. I haven't taken one since the day I wrecked the car, which was two weeks ago today. It seems like longer, doesn't it? It's been a zany two weeks, fer shure.

There's a Mary Englebreit calendar so I can keep track of my demanding social life.

For some reason I carry my Science Center membership packet including parking passes and free Omnimax movie tickets in my purse, just in case I should want to swing by there on a whim.

I always carry a little notebook. I've done it forever. I love to write down gift ideas when I'm out shopping. I jot down funny things Pie says. Plus, it often comes in handy when we're waiting somewhere and the kids are bored. If you don't carry a little notebook with you, try it. You might be amazed at how often you use it.

Another thing I almost always have with me which you can't see is my camera, and extra batteries in case they die when I absolutely have to take a picture of something. And when I don't have a camera, I have a camera in my phone. I love technology.

Keys, sunglasses, makeup bag, Coca Cola lids (which will be entered at My Coke Rewards for free Blockbuster movies), and receipts make up the rest of my purse guts.

I wonder what Ed's going to do for this assignment.


Oh, and if you didn't see the 5pm update on yesterday's post, please take a moment.


In other news, as I try to keep my mind off of my duplicate title application's long long journey to the Capital City, I should thank Sherry (aka knitting-cat) for bailing me out of the Kureyon 139 bind I found myself in!

I had actually ordered some online, and when I didn't receive it after 11 days, I called to see what the deal was. Well, apparently they were out of it and, as I already knew, it's been discontinued. So Sherry's going to trade me, and my No Buying Yarn Since February Diet is still intact!

Down From The Ledge

NOTE: I plan to update this post accordingly throughout the day, so check back.

6:30am

Deep breath. In through the nose... out through the mouth.

My humblest thanks to everyone who offered their help and words of encouragement. It really is gonna be ok. You know me, though. I'm a panicker.

Here's what I'm going to do today:

At 7:30am, as soon as it opens, I'm going to call the DMV office in Jeff City to see if there's a kind soul who'll listen to my story and take pity on me. And I'll either see if they can speed up the process or allow me to make a new, this time expedited request.

I'm so not above bribery at this point. Maybe I'll offer to knit them a FunFur scarf or something. Or better yet - I'll save that as my proverbial Can O' Whoopass, as in "Don't MAKE me knit yer ass a FunFur sling!!" I actually kinda like that idea.

The outcome of this phone call will determine what I do next. Stay tuned.

7:40am

I got up, showered, donned my Power Panties, my comfiest bra and my Life Is Good t-shirt for inspiration, and took my meds before calling the DMV office.

I spoke with Connie at the DMV. She was extremely nice and she listened to my entire sob story and offered some hope. She said they no longer charge an additional fee for the Expedited Processing. Now I don't know if that means they're acknowledging that there's no such thing as expedited processing and the people that paid more to get it were getting pissed off or something, but at least the local DMV office is off my shit list now since they really had no reason to offer R the super-quick service, and I don't have to reapply since doing so would gain me nothing and of course, given my craptastic luck, I'd cancel the current application and reapply and the next day the first one would show up in my mailbox.

She also said it won't take anywhere close to four to six weeks, so her advice was to wait it out, and if it still hasn't come by the end of the week, call back. She didn't say what they could do for me if it hadn't come by then, but hopefully it won't come to that. She checked to see if it had been entered into The System yet (don't you love how every business has The System and if something's wrong they always blame it on something going awry within The System?), and it hadn't, but she assured me that was okay, it will probably go in today, and once it's in it won't take long for me to get it.

I hate waiting, but it's all I can do.

2:17pm

Ok, so I'm trying really hard not to think about the duplicate title application sitting in a pile on a desk in my local DMV office waiting for some genius to enter it into The System.

So let's talk about other stuff.

I'm settling into my role as a Van Mom. I seriously have no idea how we ever got along without a van. I LOVE it.

It was becoming a borderline child abuse situation.




MUCH better.



Oh, and there's some other random drama going on, too.

When I picked Pie and Beebie up from school one day last week, Beebie mentioned that her little boyfriend Romeo was not allowed to go to the library anymore. The first thing that came to my mind, given my Puritanical upbringing, was that maybe he had uberconservative parents who found out there was a book called Daddy's Boyfriend in the library or something and forbid him to go into that den of sin. I don't know if there's a book called that or not, and I don't care.

But when I asked her, Beebie said that he was climbing up the shelves like a ladder. A genius, he isn't. I asked her if she saw him do it, and she said that she did, and she told him to stop but he didn't, and the librarian called down to Mr. Sumner and he is now banned from the school library because he doesn't know how to behave.

I asked Beebie what she thought of this, and she said she thought she should talk to him. I don't know if she did or not. I should also point out that apparently Beebie and Romeo's relationship is on the down-low. Interesting.

Oh, and get this - remember how Beebie decided she wanted to do GIrl Scouts at her new school and I was all for it because the troop was already established and nobody was going to try to con me into running for Troop Leader. Several weeks ago, we filled out an interest form indicating that we'd like more information about meeting times and whatnot, and we have yet to hear from them. I'm pretty sure there's a Girl Scout Troop Blacklist, and that bitch Stella's behind it.

Never confuse Stella with Anti-Stella. Anti-Stella's kickass. She's watching the boys for me so I don't have to take them with me to my cooter rootin'. Last time I was there I took the boys into the room with me in the double stroller. That's how long it's been. I'm like 2 years overdue. My kooch probably looks like my ironing board.

And something else I have to tell you about is this - in the three years that we've lived in this house, never once have I spoken to the owner of the leasing company. I'm always dealing with his idiot assistant. Imagine my surprise when I get a phone call from Mr. Beaver (Remember when his emails kept getting blocked? That was funny) alerting me to the fact that the homeowners had called him to find out "If the downed tree limb was still in the front yard."

Well, yeah, it's still down in the front yard. I mean, if it's the branch I assume you're talking about. Why?

The owners have received a citation from the city telling them that they need to get it out of the front yard or they'll receive a $1000 fine. So they want you to get it out of the yard.

Are you serious?? This is the first I've heard of it. I mean, yeah, it's been in the front yard for months but it's not in the way of anything and not on the neighbor's property, and I didn't think it was even that visible from the street.

Well, can you at least move it to the backyard or something? It needs to be out of the yard by tomorrow.

Thanks for the notice, owners. Uh... no... it's not a huge branch, but it's too big for me to move it by myself. We can move it when my husband gets home.

That's fine, I'll let Bob know.

So we moved it to the back. I mean, I felt kinda bad for it being a problem, but nobody told me it was a problem, and I had to wait for them to call Evilite and for Evilite to call me and five me a 24-hour deadline when I would have moved it a long time ago if somebody'd let me know It was a fuckin' issue. Whatever. Why didn't the city just leave a note on my door? Would have been taken care of tout de suite.

So I figured I had about a week until Bob showed up in his truck that looks like the one Jed Clampett drove to Beverly... Hills, that is. But today when I came home from dropping Beebie and Tito off at school, it was gone. So I can't take a picture of how Not Big Enough To Be A Fuckin' Problem it really was. But I'll see if I can't find some way to convey it for you.

We're on a main street in our city, so I know they drive around looking for Beautification Issues, but there's no way somebody driving by would have seen it from the street. We assume our neighbor is the one who ratted us out for Having a Large Branch in the Front Yard. At first I thought it might have been the cop who came to tell me Tito was flirting with danger, but then I figured that was probably too recently and the owners had presumably had some time to contact, um, ME, but they chose to wait until the last second to throw it on me. Assholes.

I can't WAIT to get out of here.

5:11pm

Plan B.

Assistance has been offered by a somewhat unlikely source. The Aldis (no, that's not a typo, THE ALDIS) said they'd spot us the cash if the title doesn't get here in the next couple of days. We were stunned.

I was hoping it wouldn't come to this, but when we get the check from the insurance company, the bank would put a 5-day hold on it anyway, which means the latest we could get the check and deposit it in time for it to be in the bank on the 3rd is tomorrow, so yeah, we'll pretty much have to take them up on this offer. Gih, I hate borrowing money. But there's no way around it.

Which is not to say that I'm ungrateful to them or to everyone else who so kindly offered their assistance and encouragement. I very humbly thank you all. It blows my mind that learning to knit has brought me so much more than just the simple joy of taking a ball of yarn and two sticks and making it into something fabulous.

It's expanded my network of friends beyond anything I could have imagined. And not even just the friends from the Knittyboard, the other non-knitters who have come upon this blog one way or another. I'm pretty transparent on here, what ya see is what ya get, so you all really do know the real me. Just think - I had never learned to knit, our paths may never have crossed.

I doubt the idea of starting a blog would even have occurred to me had I not wanted the other Knitties to think I was cool, and it's become such a cathartic outlet for my stress and bitterness, plus it's great to feel like people are going to be happy with me when good stuff happens. I love the security of knowing that there are people all over the world looking out for me, and I've never even met them. That's so cool.

And kinda weird at the same time, but cool.

Not Enough Xanax in the World.

To get the full effect, be sure you've read all of yesterday's post before you read this one.

I have an update on the title thing, and it's not good news.

I fuckin' knew it.

It's been ten days now, so I went to the DMV website, and found that it takes not one week, but two weeks to get it - that's if you specifically ask for (and pay extra for) expedited processing. Regular processing takes four to six weeks. I assumed R had asked for the expedited, but when I asked him, he had no idea what I was talking about. They hadn't offered it to him, and since he'd been told it would only take a week, he thought nothing of it.

Now, because some fucknut gave him the wrong information, instead of a week, we'll be waiting four to six weeks, and we'll be $2800 short on closing costs, barring anything short of a miracle. I can't ask my parents for any more money since they're already paying the down payment on the house for us. I can't ask R's parents because they just aren't the sort to lend money. I don't know what we're going to do.

I'm just sick to my stomach over it.

We've spent the last ten years pulling ourselves out of $20,000 worth of credit card debt so we could finally buy a house and we found one that's perfect for us and now I'm just terrified that it's all going to fall through because last Tuesday an ambulance turned out in front of the guy in front of me and he stopped instead of merely slowing down, and I couldn't stop fast enough and I wrecked the car.

R did due diligence in researching the title situation, he thought, by calling the office directly and because they misinformed him, we're not going to be able to close on the house and I have no idea what to do. We've been waiting since July to seal this deal and if I hadn't wrecked the stupid car everything would still be on track. I'm so pissed.

It's 4am right now, I can't sleep. We're fucked beyond fucked.

Free Beer and Burritos? I'M THERE.

Since Wednesday I've gotten two free burritos at Chipotle and five free beers from the good people of Anheuser-Busch.

A new Chipotle opened up near us, and I happened to drive by on my way to Blockbuster to pick up Deadwood Season Three discs one and two and I saw a sign that said Burritos - 100% off today only. So naturally I went in and got me one. In fact, I had Tito with me so I actually got two (one steak and one chicken) and took one home for R to have for dinner.

I preferred the steak one, so R got the chicken, and instead of saying "Gee, thanks, you awesome, thoughtful wife!" he said "Well, I wanted to try the steak one too!" So when he got home from work at 7:00 we went back up to see if it was still going on, and they had run out of food. But, the Chipotle guy said, they would have the same free burrito deal tomorrow from 11-1. So guess where my ass was at 10:59?

That was Thursday. Friday was the actual Grand Opening, so I thought maybe they'd have some freebies or something, so I got Anti-Stella to come up with me and sadly, the burritos weren't free this time, but they were still awful damn good. So I had three Chipotle burritos in as many days. I think they add the secret ingredient to make ya crave it fortnightly - I could go for a steak burrito right now.

R's been off the last few Saturdays, so today we took the kids to Grant's Farm for what will probably be our last visit of the season. Once again, we got more than our money's worth out of the $30 parking pass. One of the things I was saddest about after I totaled the car was the loss of the Grant's Farm parking sticker. But, as if by divine intervention, I was able to successfully peel it off and put it on the van.

Oh, and remember how we couldn't find the car title anywhere in the house? We applied for duplicate copies back on the 12th, and we can't get the check from the insurance company until we have the title. They told R it was supposed to take a week, and it's not here yet, and so I went online to check into it, and apparently it takes 2 weeks, which gives exactly one week flexiblity before the closing date.

If it's not here next week we will be BEYOND FUCKED. When we bought the van, we put the amount that the insurance company told us we would be getting down as down payment - only we borrowed it from our Closing Costs Fund which we've amassed by putting half of each of the last six paychecks into this savings account.

So if the title doesn't come I can't get the check and then we'll be $2800 short when we show up at closing, and officially Completely Screwed. I'm still hopeful that it will come on Monday or early next week so I can stop freaking out about it, because I don't think there's enough Xanax in the world to get me through it, if that shit goes down. It's the only factor keeping me from being totally psyched about closing on the house. Everything's been going so smoothly lately, I'm almost expecting this title thing to fuck us.

While we've been living off half a paycheck, I've tried to make some extra cash (and decrease the amount of stuff that we'll need to pack) by selling stuff on eBay. I told you about the MTV jacket I sold for $36. This week my top money maker was a Paul Frank T-shirt that went for $32. I also sold 4 of Beeb's training bras, thinking some mom somewhere would probably love to pay less than retail for them. They're not cheap!

They were purchased by someone named Luis.

I wanted to give Luis the benefit of the doubt, thinking maybe it's a lady using her husband's eBay ID or something, but I looked through his feedback, and yeah, I'm pretty sure Luis is a dude who lives in his parents' basement. The other purchases Luis has made include an 8 gig Ipod Nano and something that allows him to get over 5000 cable TV channels on his PC. I think I'll put "Thanks for your quick payment, enjoy your training bras!" when I leave feedback.

This week I'm selling two My Little Pony sets, another Paul Frank shirt, and a vintage play phone that has a picture of what looks like a young Conan O'Brien on it.





Anyway, so today we got to Grant's Farm just as it opened, and I got my early morning buzz on at 10am.

Beer #1


Beer #2 (it looks like I let Pie taste it, but I didn't)


PLUS, get this. The bartender was giving me shit for choosing Rolling Rock as my first sample and Bud Select for my second, so he said he'd let me have a third one if I tried something new, so I did. It wasn't my favorite, but hey, it was still beer.



The bartender guy probably thought if he got me drunk enough I'd climb up on a table and take my top off. Well, the joke's on him, because little does he know, it would only take, like, a beer and a half - at most.

So since I was feeling kinda loopy, and we'd been disappointed by the Peoplewatching this time (must have been Normal People Day or something - but they still let us in, go figure) and it was only 11am, R and I decided we should take the kids to the Brewery for better Peoplewatching and more free beer! So we went downtown to the World-Famous A-B Brewery, and took the tour.




The Peoplewatching, again, was lackluster. Perhaps I was distracted by the little boy pulling on my arm and telling me he needed to go potty...



REEEEEEEEALLY BAD.



Or maybe I'm just getting used to hanging out with freaks and they don't stand out as much to me anymore.

This is not a picture of me and Beebie.



It's a picture of THIS guy.


We had to quit because it looked like he was starting to catch on.


So I had five free beers today and I didn't even have to put out.


But I probably will anyway.

Just Who Is Penny Karma Anyway?

I have joined with several other Knittys (plus belovED) and will be participating in the webring called Blogstalking. Blogstalking with other knitters (and non-knitters) is one of the things I love most about blogging. And I probably wouldn't blog if I didn't knit (even though I don't usually blog about knitting), mainly because the knitters were the only ones to read it for a while, when I first came upon the Coffeeshop scene. So I guess it's one of the things I love most about the fact that I know how to knit, too.

Anyway, to explain Blogstalking for those who may be unfamiliar, each week there's a new assignment, and the idea is to post pics of whatever the assignment was, and then stalk other people's blogs to see what they did for the assignment. This week's challenge was a great way for the participants to introduce themselves: to create a post that answers the question, "WHO AM I?"

Well, if you read my blog with any regularity, you'd know this was a complex question for me to answer, especially in photos. I mean, I'm a wife, mom (which of course means nurse, chauffeur, referee, chef, etc.), daughter, sister, daughter-in-law, recovering caffeine addict, aspiring dominatrix, disastrous finanical-mismanager, insatiable flirt, anxiety-plagued insomniac, emotional overeater, evil genius, snarkmistress, and all-around badass.

Oh, and I knit, too. I've got a lot on my plate.

And three weeks from today, I'll be able to add HOMEOWNER to my list of titles. But only days ago I became... a van driver.





So just to be different, instead of showing you who I am, I thought it might be fun to document a few things that I am NOT.

Unlike OLPP, I am NOT a big fan of the ironing (Kathy, girl, I love ya like you can't believe, but that is SERIOUSLY fucked up). I don't know if R has seen me use an iron, like, ever. This one has been in my basement untouched for the last three years.





Yes, that is dust on my ironing board.

Additionally, I am NOT patient. But I do carry a lil project with me everywhere I go so I actually kinda look forward to situations where I have to wait. I also always have a camera with me, so I can capture little funnies when I see them. Such as...

Dontcha just love that Used Car Smell??



Here's me waiting for the paperwork to go through on the van.



I hate my chin. And my hair. And my presciption sunglasses.

I have some self-loathing issues. I attribute these issues to the fact that part of me will always be in Seventh Grade - my distorted body image, awkwardness, insecurity, longing for acceptance, and constant self-criticism are an ongoing presence in my life, and probably always will be. As a grown-up I'm able to play it off my social ineptitude as a Fuck The World attitude. And I can usually shut my inner seventh grader up with a cupcake or something.

It's kinda funny that I am a total perfectionist, yet I am NOT organized (I wish I were more organized, perhaps then I wouldn't be waiting for my duplicate car title to come in the mail... grrrrr). The one exception is my weekly dinner menu calendar.



Yes, Bezzie, that's a Cooter Rootin' Appointment on the 26th. Sign me up for KAYE!!

It's not a testiment to my organizational skills, it's really more a product of my frugality. I try to go grocery shopping as little as possible, and when I take the time to look in the fridge and the pantry and make note of all I have, I realize I can easily make it to the next paycheck without having to buy anything more than the staples of milk and bread.

Occasionally I do deviate from the menu, but generally, it helps me remember (usually) to thaw the meat the night before, and I don't forget about the meat in the fridge for so long it goes bad and gets wasted. I hate wasting food. Obviously, looking at my ass, it's clear that not a lot of food gets tossed out of Chez Karma.

See, there's my inner seventh grader again.
Shut up, Skank! Here, have a Twinkie...

Because I could use some good karma.

Pay It Forward!

I found this on Kickass Rachel's blog (I'm pretty sure she won't mind me calling her Kickass Rachel) and I got kinda sidetracked with all the crap about totalling the car and whatnot, but here's the deal.

I will send a handmade gift to 3 random people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this Pay It Forward exchange. I don’t know what that gift will be yet and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week, but you will receive it within 365 days, that is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return, if you like, is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.

And I know that there are some non-crafty folks who read BMB, so if you're non-crafty and you'd like to participate, I'll allow you to promise to do something nice for someone else. Doesn't have to be handmade, just heartfelt. Deal?

Anti-Stella's already in the running for watching my Apes several times last week while R and I went van shopping. And when I have a minute I'll write about what an experience van shopping was. There are pictures.

In Which We Bid Farewell To an Old Friend.

A Loving Tribute to my Mazda Protege

You've taken us many places, on our Adventure Days to Exotic Locales:

Metropolis, home of Superman

Elephant Rock State Park


The World's Largest Bottle of Ketchup


The Great Godfrey Corn Maze


Ha Ha Tonka


Sedalia


Rendezvous at Fort Des Chartres



To Local Favorites:

The Drive-In for great people watching

The Pevely Flea Market to dominate Costume Contests

Grant's Farm for free beer


The liquor store when Grant's Farm was closed


Countless trips to the Zoo



We met famous celebrities

Like Popeye



And we showed Mr. Feely my bra strap.



You never complained when we added Plexiglass
(look carefully)



Or Kitty Litter



Or used you as a getaway car when we took the bamboo blinds out of some rich people's trash.




My kids grew up with you.






And while it breaks my heart to see you like this:







(especially after giving you new brakes, a new battery and new tires)

Know that I will remember the 113000 miles we drove together fondly.

As I drive around in my New (used) HONDA ODYSSEY!!!!

TOTALLED. And there's more.

Totally totalled?

TOTALLY.

You called it, Bezz.

This time yesterday, I was floating on a Xanax cloud and thinking, "Ok. We have a $500 deductible. It'll be tough to swing it, but we'll work it out." R was able to leave work yesterday morning and meet me at our mechanic's place.

Cool Tom (who has seen my piercings, by the way) said he didn't think the damage looked too bad, so I drove the wrecked car all the way home, and R and I spent the afternoon watching the rest of Season One of Deadwood.

I'm so grateful that throughout this whole ordeal, not once did the thought "Oh my God, my husband is going to be furious..." enter my head. I am fully aware of what an incredible gift that is. I knew with 100% certainty that R is loving and supportive and he would not make me feel bad for having this stupid accident. He is SUCH a fantastic husband.

Still, when the insurance rep called me this morning just before 9 and said "Mrs. Karma, I'm afraid I have some bad news...", I kinda felt obligated to give R the chance to be pissed at me. Cuz having to buy a new vehicle just before closing on our house is a whole lot more drama than just dealing with the $500 deductible. But he still wasn't mad.

And did you SEE the pictures?? It really didn't look that bad, right? I DROVE IT HOME, for cryin' out loud. How can they total it out if I can drive it? They're giving me $2600 for my 2000 Mazda Protege with 113000 miles on it. Ugh. I'm so not in the mood to go car shopping right now.

Oh, and I'll just take a moment to sing the praises of my frind Anti-Stella, who totally rocks. A little backstory is necessary - I must first preface this with a story from yesterday. Tito was not satisfied with the dinner menu, so I told him his choices were to eat his dinner or take a bath, put his pajamas on and go to bed.

He chose the latter, but not before telling me, "I don't want you! I wish you were Cooper and Nelson's mom!!" That would be Anti-Stella. And for the record, let me just say I'll bet Anti-Stella would have done the same damn thing.

Oh, real quick, another funny - Tito was in the tub and Pie came in and offered to help Tito get clean. Pie asked if it was ok if he got his shorts wet. I said, "Sure, that's really nice of you to help Tito wash his hair! What a thoughtful brother you are!" thinking he meant Is it ok if they get splashed a little? And I wouldn't have cared if that was the case, shit, he's doing me a favor.

No. Pie got in the tub with his shorts and underpants on and just took a bath right along with Tito. WHY didn't he just get nekkid? How much more trouble would that have been?

Anti-Stella and I have the kind of relationship that I can call her up and say "Hey, it's Sarah... and I'm in one of those situations that only I or maybe Lucy Ricardo can manage to get into." She is the kind of friend I can call when I can't find my car keys and my kids has to be at school in five minutes. And don't think I haven't.

A couple of weeks ago, tore the house apart looking for my stupid car keys and I called her in a panic and she was all set to pack her crew in the van and take me to drop Pie off, and, had it come to that, she'd have helped me pick everybody up three hours later too. But as it turned out I found my keys under the covers of my bed - don't ask - and tragedy was averted. And guess where I went immediately after I dropped Pie off?

Lowes. To get not one, but two spare keys made (cuz I figured I'd probably lose the spare, too). I knew that as soon as I had two spares, I'd never lose the damn things again. And I guess, in a way, I was right. Yeah, now I have three keys to a car I can't drive. I'm so pissed.

So today, Anti-Stella took Pie for the morning so R and I could go look at cars. I'm telling you, she ROCKS. And R and I found a vehicle we like. So now we have to give the insurance people the title so we can get the money for totalling the care and use it as a down payment on the other car. It's a van, actually, which I said I would NEVER be able to drive because I'll feel like I'm driving the Partridge Family Bus.

We can't find the damn car title. ANYWHERE. I have saved every single Family Circle magazine published since 1998, and I can't find my fucking car title. Worst case scenario, we've ordered a duplicate which will be here in a week, but FUCK, what a pain.

I should have stayed in bed yesterday.


UPDATE - so as I'm typing the words "I SHOULD HAVE STAYED IN BED YESTERDAY", I hear a knock at my back door.

I had been continuing my frantic search for the stupid car title, and the kids were all up in my grill, so I told them to go play outside. Beeb asked if the three of them could take a little walk.

They've asked to take a walk - the three of them together, without me - before, and I have NEVER said yes because I have this horrible vision of someone seeing three little kids walking down the street without a grown-up with them and calling DFS on me.

Today, however, they were underfoot and driving me crazy and I just wanted them out of my face for five minutes so I could tear the fucking house apart looking for the title. So I said Ok, fine, yes, just take the Walkie-Talkies and don't cross the street and just go down to the corner and back and come right home.

Five minutes later, it's Officer Friendly of the Karmaville PD, following Tito up the driveway.

"Are you Mom?"

"Um, yeah..."

"Do you know where your son was?"

"Well, he was supposed to be taking a walk with his sister and brother..."

"Ma'am, he was down at the intersection of Rush Hour and Extremely Dangerous, sitting by the fire hydrant watching the cars go by."

FUCK.

So he wrote down my information and asked me a billion questions, and then when Beebie and Pie got home, he talked to all three of the Apes, telling them that they need to LISTEN TO THEIR MOMMY.

I'm just so fucking mortified.

This is not my first run-in with the Po-Po as a direct result of something Tito did. Once when he was about nine months old, just barely walking, I heard my phone ring, and because I was changing Pie's diaper, I called out to then-5-years-old Beebie to answer it. I asked her who it was, and she said she didn't know because she couldn't find the phone. Oh well, I thought, Tito must have been playing with it and hid it. No problem, whoever it was will call back.

Less than a minute later (I was still changing Pie), the doorbell rang, and since I was still busy, again I called upon The Beeb to assist. I asked her to get the door and tell whoever it is I'd be right there.

"Who is it, Beeb?"

"Oh, it's a couple of police officers."

I figured they were there to ask me about my creepy downstairs neighbor, so I wasn't freaking out or anything. I walked into the living room all nonchalantly and asked what was going on.

"Ma'am, did you call 911?"

"Um, no..."

"We received a 911 call from this number."

"Well, it wasn't me, I have no idea..." Then I figured it out. Somehow, within about a three-second span, Tito pushed 9-1-1, then hung up, then hid the phone somewhere.

"Well, we called you back, and when no one answered, our standard procedure is to send an officer over right away."

And they were fast, I'll certainly give them that.

"SHIT, the baby must have been playing with the phone... Christ, I'm so sorry..."

"Oh, that's all right, ma'am. We're just glad everybody's okay."

The child entered the world via emergency C-section, and has been nothing but a shit disturber ever since.

I Will Never Complain About How Boring My Life Is EVER AGAIN.

Never let it be said that I don't have a natural fuckin' flair for comedic timing. Look what happened to me this morning.




Right in front of the Fire Station, an ambulance pulled out in front of the car in front of me, and before I realized the car was stopped and not just slowing down, CRUNCH.

Kids and I are ok. Other car wasn't nearly as badly damaged, and the guy was cool. The boys were disappointed that the cop didn't take us all to jail. I got a ticket for Failure To Exercise Highest Degree of Caution or something like that. It's not as cool and badass as a Drunk and Disorderly or a Lewd and Lascivious Conduct or Public Urination charge, but whatever.

Thank God for Xanax.

And for my awesome husband who left work to take care of me. I had planned to blog today about how R fixed the toilet last night. So I'll have to dedicate a later post to R's awesomeness.

Yes. It's True. I'm a Lazy Tart.

Keep yer drawers on, Bitches.

Ok, sometimes I don't blog for a long time because I'm really busy. Other times it's just because my life has been boring for a while. And not even comically boring. Just your everyday garden-variety boring. I'm even yawning as I type this.

Lemme think if there's even anything I can tell ya about...

Ok, remember how I've said many, many times how the first sound you hear in the morning totally sets the tone for the entire day? A few days ago, I woke up to my darling sons standing at the foot of my bed, beaming.

"Guess what, Mommy?"

I hate that question. Because at my house, Guess What can totally go either way, ya know?

"We have ants!!!"

Huh?? You mean like Aunt Drama and Aunt Huggy?

"No! Ants! They're good bugs, so we don't want to step on them!"

So I sprung out of bed and found on the living room floor a hardened bread crust, hosting a colony of the happiest little ants you ever saw. Great. So I sprayed the crap out of them, and the boys shrieked in horror as I napalmed two hundred of their new best friends to death.

The next day, the sound I woke up to was Tito in the bathroom:

"Mommy!! I can't find my wiener!!"

You can't find your WHAT??

"I'm trying to go pee the pocket way and I can't get my weenie out!"

Oh, Christ... Well, check again. I'm pretty sure it's in there someplace. Keep diggin', buddy!

Five seconds later -

"Got it!!"

Yeah. So that's about as exciting as things have been around here. It's the calm before the storm. We're closing on the house in less than a month. I'm so happy that all of you are sharing the excitement! I think what I'm looking forward to most of all is having the chance to tell FIL to get the fuck out of my house, if it ever comes to that. Hopefully it won't, but life is funny like that. Perhaps I'm even secretly hoping it will.

The focus of my free time for the last week or so has been my search for Noro Kureyon 139. Now, I'm not even 100% sure that's the colorway I need because, stupid me, I threw away the ball band and this is from my huge Yarn Barn purchase when we went to San Antonio two years ago.

I really thought I'd bought three skeins but I guess I didn't, or perhaps I used one of them or traded it for something. Anyway, I have mastered Feather and Fan and it looked so kickass in this yarn that it about broke my little heart when I got to the end of the second skein and realized the scarf I was making wasn't long enough - and later discovered that the colorway was discontinued. Drat.



Here's me working on it in the only speck of shade available at the Air Show last weekend. It's just about the exact moment when I realized I wasn't going to have enough yarn, but it's still that blissfully ignorant window of time when I honestly thought I probably had more in my stash at home. That's why I'm half-smiling in this picture and not yet pulling my hair out.

So I found it online and yes, I cracked, people. I bought one skein of yarn. For the first time since February. It pained me to do it because I was so proud of my yarn diet. But it had to be done. And I don't even care if the dye lot's the same or not, screw it. I just want to finish the damn thing now. It's time to start Holiday Knitting.

Fortunately, I've got some time to knit when I'm in the carpool line, where I spend half my life, it seems. Ugh. But all of the kids are doing great at school. Beebie even has a lil boyfriend! I'm not entirely sure what I think of it, but she's digging it, so whatever.

We did have a little talk about appropriate boyfriend/girlfriend behavior and that she should always tell him (and me) if he ever does or says anything that makes her feel uncomfortable. I think she can handle it. She did tell me that when they were sitting at a table in the library, he put his hand on her knee under the table. I tried not to freak out (I find libraries incredibly romantic places, myself), so I asked her how she felt about it. She said that she thought it might not be appropriate for their age. I told her I agreed with her.

So we'll see how it goes, but Romeo needs to remember that Beebie's mama is watchin' him, and I'm SO not above kicking his little 10-year-old ass. All I know about him is that Beeb told me that her friends said that he gets in trouble a lot. And he's shorter than she is. And he has the handwriting of a serial killer.

Beeb also auditioned for the Special Chorus at her school. Have I mentioned in as diplomatic a way as possible that singing is (ahem) not Beebie's gift...? Well, she went and auditioned, and made it! And the other two kids in her audition group did not. I figured they must have taken everybody, but apparently they didn't. Way to go, Beeb!

I will say that one of the things I'm going to miss most about Beeb's old school is that crazyass music teacher who wore that Brokeback Mountain - The Musical outfit one year and the Phantom of the Opera with the jockstrap on his head the next. That guy was always doing something blogworthy. I'll have to see if anyone emerges as Prime Blogfodder at this school. I suppose it bears mentioning that Ms. Cheesy has two dachsunds named Mickey and Minnie. Maybe I'll have to change her name to Ms. Ubercheesy.

Let me think what else is going on... oh, I know. I saw the movie Kickin' It Old School with Jamie Kennedy. It was really just awful. And I like Jamie Kennedy. And I like breakdancing and 80's flashbacks jokes and stuff. But it sucked. I've seen a lot of shit movies recently. Underdog was pretty fuckin bad, but it did show the process of Felting rather prominently, so I'll give it Knitter-love points.

I've been eagerly awaiting the fall premieres of my favorite CW shows and, in the meantime, pacifying myself with a great season of Big Bro. Because we don't have cable, R and I will often rent an entire season of an HBO or Showtime show and watch it for several weeks. We love Weeds, The Sopranos, Six Feet Under (which has my vote for Best Show Ever), Entourage, and The Tudors (Yowza!!) and our current show is Deadwood. We're only about halfway through the first season, so don't tell me anything!

Oh, and can I just say in my unique transitionless way that I'm pissed off at WalMart today? Why, you ask? First of all, I went to pick myself up some Werther's Chewy Caramels, and get this - THEY DIDN'T HAVE THEM! NONE! They had two rows of the hard candies and no chewies. And not even a tag indicating that they would be back. Oh, I was bitter. Bastards.

And while I was standing in disbelief in the Candy aisle, a little old woman kinda walked past me to pick up some peanut M&M's, and when she bent over, she farted! You know those itty bitty old lady farts? Yeah. One of those. I giggled silently to myself and thanked God that the kids weren't with me. Can you imagine my Apes? EWWW! MOMMY! THAT OLD LADY TOOTED!!!

So anyway, I decided to fix my chewy craving (please keep all Oral Fixation comments to yourself) with a bag of the fruit-flavored Tootsie Rolls, which come in Cherry, Orange, Lemon, Lime and, my favorite, Vanilla, which obviously isn't a fruit but it tastes awesome when you pop a Vanilla one in your mouth along with an Orange or a Cherry. So I opened the bag in the car and pulled out an Orange. Righteous... all I needed was a Vanilla.

So I fished around in the bag and pulled out several handfuls, each completely devoid of Vanillas. Oh, there's NO WAY... I thought. I dumped out the entire bag on the passenger seat, and I swear to you, there was NOT ONE VANILLA in the whole bag. I couldn't believe it. It's just not my day.

I guess the most interesting thing that happened this week was my eBay auctions. I've been rounding up sellable stuff and last week I made enough to pay for my one skein of Noro 139, which I seriously hope is the right colorway. This week, however, I posted a jacket that I got at a church sale a few months ago. It was a Kickass Old School MTV satiny Starter jacket, from back when they used to only show videos.



With about two hours left, the bid was up to $ 1.04, which was $.04 more than I'd paid for it. I checked back two hours later, and the jacket sold for $36.00!!! WOO HOO!! So I think a little yarny splurge might be in my future. Then I'll keep selling stuff so I can buy sheets and bedding for the King Size Bed I'm going to get when I'm in my new house. This Friday I mail off my penultimate rent check to Evilite! Can you stand it?