Kid, see the psychiatrist--Room 604

And I went up there, I said, "Shrink, I want to kill. I mean, I wanna, I wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, Kill, KILL, KILL." And I started jumpin up and down yelling, "KILL, KILL," and he started jumpin up and down with me and we was both jumping up and down yelling, "KILL, KILL."

And that? That is how I feel about Special Education and Individual Educationamal Plans and conferences and basically, school.

It's the end of the school year and there are final concerts and special events and field trips and big long term projects. Everything involves more homework, more forms to sign, more children to talk off the ledge. But who's talking me off the ledge? No one. My stress levels have shot through the roof and are now orbiting the earth like a fucking satellite.

If you work at my children's school and call me up today? I'm going to scream at you. Guaranteed.

Kill, kill, KILL, KILL.




On the other hand, the lawn guys are here, which is nice because the yard was starting to look like throw-up. So there's that.

iPawd

more cat pictures

My life is like my blog

It's busy.





You could even call it cluttered.








Even though I realize that it's better with lots of white space.




How about you--is your life like your blog?

I can has silence?

You guys, it is so lucky that the Genius at the Genius Bar actually did give me a new iPod yesterday. (Excuse me for a second while I go lick it ... oooh, yummy.)

Because today has been one of those days. One of those days where the moderately charming and mildly amusing Poppy has been forced to deal with the conversational output of other human beings for hours and hours. And hours.

This is because I:

a. stupidly volunteered to pick up a fellow chorister who lives two towns south of me, meaning that I had a car full of company on the drive to church;*

b. dealt with warm-up, church service, and rehearsal, none of which is silent;**

c. ended up driving the first chorister and an additional one back north;***

d. arrived home at 4:00 to have my husband ask whether I wanted to help him take a few large items to rummage sale drop-off;****

e. having finished that enjoyable activity, had my daughter walk in and say something like (and I might possibly be misquoting her) "Wanh, wanh, I can't find the sheet for my Independent Reading Project, so please comb through the house and find it, and then do my homework for me;"*****

f. upon having placed said daughter on a sofa to watch Little Women (the independent reading project is about Louisa May Alcott) walked into the kitchen to cook dinner only to find my husband having a noisy and protracted work-related phone call. So I put on [lick] my new iPod [/lick] to listen to an audiobook while I cooked dinner;******

g. and spent dinner listening to my now much more cheerful daughter chatter about various and sundry things and my son try to tell jokes. *******

So. No wonder I'm now HIDING IN MY FUCKING BEDROOM.

If the phone rings, I'm going to flush myself down the toilet.********

-----

* The first fatal error of the day. And it was only 8:30 a.m.! My, aren't I an early bird.
** At this point, becoming a Quaker looks pretty fucking good.
*** And one of them wanted to return some shoes to Marshall's, so I had to wait for them.
**** The answer was no, of course. But I did it anyway.
***** Don't worry; her helpless act not only did not gain her any substantial homework assistance, it also lost her her iPod and Nintendo DS.
****** The broccoli was undercooked and the chicken was tough. Serves him right.
******* Thank God there was wine.
******** Here's my living will, for those who care; if I flush myself, do not call a plumber.

The imminent death of my iPod

Oh hai.

I'm at the Apple Store at the Old Orchard Mall in Skokie, IL. This is a mall I completely and utterly hate.

I mean, more than I hate malls in general, which is quite a bit.

They keep adding on to this mall, and there doesn't seem to be any consensus whatsoever as to what constitutes attractive or even practical design. As a result, if you look the quaint phrase "higgledy-piggledy" up in the dictionary, it will be illustrated with a photograph of this mall, whose motto should be "Where consumerism, poured concrete, and piped in music vanquish common sense and good taste."

So anyway. I hate this mall, which puts me in an evil humor. And I'm here to get my iPod fixed. And there's a really long wait for the "Genius Bar."

I have a long-term, not particularly happy relationship with the "Genius Bar." Did you know that my current iPod is my third? In this (and about one other way) I can actually call myself an early adopter. Check it out and be impressed: I had the original 5 gig iPod--the one with the click wheel that really turned.

It fell victim to the famous Apple "Logan's Run" Battery Scam, where you charged your battery 30 times, and then, when you'd grown accustomed to having an iPod, and your machine is packed with great music, and has reached a peak of youthful energy and indispensability, it dies.

So then I got the cute little blue Apple iPod mini, which had no more memory, but was little and adorable. Except eventually I filled it up, and the click wheel never worked all that reliably, anyway.

And now, the iPod Classic 30 gig, with video! And a bright color screen! And a pretty decent-sized hard drive!

Except it stops sometimes for no reason. And it freezes up. And when I select a file to play, it freezes and then moves forward one file and starts playing that one instead.

So I am here, first to bitch at the first person who asked me if I needed help, and then, in an hour and ten minutes, to be completely polite to the so-called "Genius" at the so-called "Genius" bar, who, I predict, will treat me like I'm a moron because I'm a 50-something housewife in a pink sweatshirt.

And then I will shove my iPod up his ass.

And then, they will give me a new one, if only to get me the fuck out of the store before I get ideas about where to put the iMac (with the 24-inch screen) I'm currently blogging on.

And I'm going to click "publish post" and walk away with this up on the screen for everyone to see. Because I'm cheeky that way.

Last minute Mother's Day gifts

Just kidding. You have over a week!

But in case you forget--again--I'm sure your mother will be touched to receive a thoughtful Mother's Day greeting card from someecards.

Something truly heartfelt and touching, like this card, will make her realize you fully understand all the sacrifices she made in bearing you, nursing you, and bringing you up.


Meanwhile, because I'm not satisfied with a greeting card, not even a funny one, I demand to be given this:


And I don't care if it breaks the "no gifts that plug in" rule.

It's CUTE. I WANT IT. GIMME.

p.s. Unfortunately it's manufactured by an English company and has the wrong kind of plug, so it won't work in America. Stupid Brits! Between the way they screw around with the language, drive on the wrong side of the road, play cricket, and talk with those irritating, "I'm-so-much-smarter-than-you" accents, I say it's time to start Revolutionary War II: Colonial Backlash!

Or not. Just give me all your Cadbury--the good stuff, not that shit you export--and I'll go away quietly.

GLORY BE 2 CEILIN KAT, AN HIS KITTEH, AN TEH HOLY GHOST.

Ceiling cat says, click and read.