The classifieds

(possibly posted in the want ads by yours truly)

Looking for a good excuse to go to Africa. Not to mention the money as well as the time to go. If you are able to supply any of these things (excuses, money, or time), please feel free to reach me; but I do request that you have your contact information readily available.

Oh. One more thing. I'm also looking for a different mode of transportation to get there. Know of any cruise ships headed to west Africa? That kind of thing. Please let me know.

elegance

Ever wonder what song Spiderman would choose when playing the piano?
Check out the sheet music.

that's what's up.

the famous policeman

I was on the phone this morning in the front yard and a neighbor walked up to me and told me that I should go and talk to the policeman that was parked across the street (and up a bit). She said that he's got a photo of a neighbor who raped and beat up a 16 yr old girl who's now in the hospital. I hung up the phone, called the kids in, put on a movie, and walked to the policeman to check out the photo.
After coming back in the house, I threw in some laundry, blah blah, and about 10 min later, policeman is knocking on the door. The kids are in awe as he asks to use the bathroom. I of course oblige and REALLY hope that the bathroom is clean. REALLY REALLY hope. All of the sudden I notice that O-Dog has left his cereal bowl on the kitchen table. I rush to toss it in the sink. Meanwhile, the kids had immediately begin scuffling around for paper and crayons.
"If you guys are going to draw then let's turn off the movie."
"No, mom. We want his au-to-graph..." they reply wistfully
So Mr. Policeman re-enters the living room and serious as a heart attack, the kids are all starry eyed with their paper and colored pencils shoved in his direction. All asking the poor guy for his au-to-graph. A few police badge stickers handed out later, he heads out the front door.
Before the door even finishes closing Miss Z says, "Just wait until I tell (my friend from the neighborhood) about this!"

P.S. After he left, I went in and checked, and the bathroom was clean

under the umbrella

As a mom there are umbrellas that we live under, whether (weather, how punny) we live beneath them intentionally or not is not what I want to blog about. Let's just say that we do. Or rather, I do. And to throw having my little diverse family under that umbrella just adds to what I'm talking about.
Umbrella is a term that I am using to describe expectations that I try REALLY hard to live up to because I assume that 1) someone cares more than I do about my family. 2) my children reflect my parenting, therefor my work, therefor myself. Kinda like 6 walking report cards. 3) I want to please man?? I don't know. Just go with me on this one.

Today I'm just going to talk about the hair umbrella. I live under the white-mom umbrella in which I feel like I have to disprove to every person on the planet. Women especially (men don't seem to notice these things). Let's look at the girls' hair:

I tried to get this photo bigger to no avail.

Now Miss B is the two heads on the left and Miss F is on the right, this picture was taken directly after I typed the word hair. I spent about 2 1/2 hours on Miss B's hair and about an 1 1 /2 on Miss F's (she can't have beads in cause of soccer).
Why?
Why on earth would someone do that?
I blame it on the umbrella.
I feel like I have to disprove the notion that white women don't care about black hair *while* proving to white women that it is possible to learn how to cornrow, for goodness sake. I do the girls' hair about every two weeks; this is more than necessary but I don't want those fuzzies to aid in anyone's suspicion that people shouldn't adopt outside of their race.
I learn every new style, I eye all the unsuspecting children who walk past me to see what their sporting, I spend an equal amount of time planning to do hair than I do actually platting.
Think I'm overreacting?
People (ahem, women) stop me in grocery stores, at church, in public restrooms, the park, at the mall. You name it, they've probably stopped me there. They stop me and ask me about the girls' hair and "who did it." This question is always asked with suspicion and it either follows or precedes questions about whether or not they're "my" children (don't get me started on that one). Upon learning that, yes, I did their hair, there is a guaranteed moment of shock quickly followed by a cover up. I hate those moments, and yet I live for those moments. Those moments are why I spend so much time on hair. Those moments prove that umbrella wrong but also prove that I willingly live under it.
Stupid umbrella.

P.S. I hardly ever give Prissy's hair a second thought.

things I wish that I liked

1. Wine. Wine drinkers come off as sophisticated and sheek. I personally think that it tastes like sour grapes with a bitter tang. Why oh why?

2. Being pink. This is a strange one, and yet it's true. I'm still scratching my head whilst figuring out what on earth God was thinking. But in the meantime, I'm fortunate to be married to someone who thinks it's hot.

3. Sports. I idealize how cool it would be to be a runner or tennis player. And then I think about actually doing it and it's about as appealing as eating from the compost pile. The only thing that I truly enjoy about the Olympics is the 'walk of nations.' The clothes, the diversity, the third world countries that get missed while on commercial break, this is what I love. Everything after that is, in a word, pretty boring. Sometimes it's fun to imagine how disappointed that some of the athletes must be when they lose. But again, that doesn't really have anything to do with sports.

4. Hot dogs. What can I say? They're cheap and easy (head out of the gutter).

5. Cleaning the house. Man, if I enjoyed that task, something might actually get done around here.

6. Forgiving pooh heads. Shall I start a whole new post for this one? Nah.

7. Waking up to this (Yes, that's my front yard. They parked a few cars there, a few across the street [not shown] and then snuck to a drug house a couple doors down with their K9 units. This seriously impressed the kids). Husband and I are still trying to figure out where on earth that God wants for us to live. Going beyond just being satisfied, I wish that I truly saw our neighborhood as a mission field every day that we spend here. It often just gets old and so I put away the welcome mat. Must. work. on. attitude.

8. Change. Mi madre would be the first to remind me that it spends the same. And yet it's such a freakin' nuisance. Heavy, clinking around in my wallet that's already crammed with receipts that are at least a year old, right next to all of those lame punch cards that don't seem to be good for anything and yet I have well over a padgillion. Speaking of change, why do dads always have a pocket full? Will this evolve over time since we now just swipe most everything? I think that it would be an injustice for our children to not have a pocket-full-o-change-memory of their dads.

9. The rain. It makes things green, makes the air quality better, we need it for survival and yet it's irritating. I know, I know. Why do I live in Seattle. For the culture, my friends. It rocks here. Maybe if it rained without clouds while holding a temperature of about 85 degrees, I would no longer hold this view.

vigilante

So last night the kids were playing outside (around 8 pm) and Priss comes running in the house saying that creepy guy was coming into the yard and talking to the kids about "fris-bees." Husband hops up and goes outside while I pause the movie we were watching and stand up to see what all the fuss is about. As I stand up, I see a dude (think creepy. not homeless, creepy) straight walking into our front yard but no Husband and no kids.
So I head to the back to get all the kids inside and BLAM there he is again, this time standing at the back door, watching for me. I open up the screen and shout (he's a foot away, maybe) in his face that he needs to leave my property NOW. I don't see Husband anywhere but the kids all start gathering around while dude is for real trying to argue with me about whether or not "he's cool." I don't care if you're cool or not GO AWAY. Then my man comes around the corner and uses his scary voice while pointing to the road. The kids are filing in the house and then Husband shouts to me, CALL THE COPS! Cause dude is not trying to leave and Husband is getting pissed while he tries to intimidate guy by walking towards him and then towards the road. This threat doesn't phase dude.
So I go in and grab the phone and walk back towards the back door again dialing 911. All I can see is Husband running down the street.
Dude goes into our neighbors yard and then into another neighbors yard, right into the back (over the fence). Husband comes home because their kid was at our house saying he needed him to translate. So off Husband and neighbor kid go to inform his family that creepy dude is in their yard now. When Husband arrives there, he sees neighbor dad escorting dude out of his back yard. Then creepy dude sees Husband and starts cussing at him and telling him "It's mfing cool, man! these are my effing friends and we're just effing hanging out. Why don't you eff off you duh nuh nuh nuh nuh?"
Husband asks neighbors if they know creepy guy. They shake their heads. Husband wonders if he will have to take creepy guy down because his posture is getting more and more violent.
According to my watch, it's been 10 minutes since I called the cops and nothing. I'm standing in the driveway with the kids inside, waiting for either creepy guy or the cops, whoever shows up first. Another 10 minutes go by.
Husband is standing in front of neighbor kids house chatting with neighbor dad while I just sit on the bumper of the car and wait about 5 more minutes for Husband to come home again. He wants to go looking for creepy guy because apparently he was going after neighbor's kids too. Husband is going vigilante on me and I'm really trying to hold him back. He says he won't be able to sleep. I remind him about knives and to stay a bit away from creepy guy if he comes upon him. I shove his cel phone into his pocket and he leaves.
I sit in the driveway waiting for either creepy guy or the cops, whoever shows up first. Another 10 minutes go by. Creepy guy is long gone (30-35 minutes later) and the cops haven't even showed up yet. I know that no one was being threatened physically but DANG. 30 minutes when a creepy guy is waltzing the neighborhood trying to bait kids (the boys specifically)?
Cop FINALLY drives by about 40 min after the original phone call to 911. I call Husband to bring his vigilante butt home. He and I are sitting in the carport and joke about the events of the evening when a guy on a dirtbike(?) goes by at about 60 mph. No joke. He's got no helmet and so I wink at Husband wondering if he'll hit the same block as cop who's looking for creepy guy. Sure enough! Cop pulls him over and they fight about him getting arrested.
We may not have gotten a creepy guy, but we caught a meth guy... good enough?

my nosey family watching the dirtbike guy get cuffed.
Big P and I are making fun of them from the doorway where I took the photo.

touchy

I used to write. Not blog write, but actually write. But if people didn't ogle over it, I was hurt. If people did ogle over it, I figured it was cause they were biased cause they loved me. And so I hardly ever do it anymore. I'm too freakin' touchy.

I'm also touchy about my kids. Touchy about my husband. So I hardly ever divulge what I hold dearest to me (unless I'm attempting to make light of it) because I don't want anyone to squish it. It's like being afraid to walk around in your bathing suit because you're nervous about your post pregnancy kangaroo pouch and then, once you finally get the nerve up to strut your stuff, no one even notices that you're swimming. Do they not know how much freakin' work it took to get you out there?!? Apparently not.

So the drama drama that I mentioned surrounded our oldest, Big P. On Wednesday, he had a bunch of seizures and then went to take a nap and I went to check on him about 45 minutes after having a conversation with him (which ended with me telling him to go brush his teeth cause his breath stank) and he was unconscious. I screamed in his face, I slapped his legs and his torso. Nothing. There was vomit on his pillow and he wasn't home. Thankfully, mi madre was at the house and she helped me to carry him to the car so that we could get Husband and head to the ER. I exchanged mi madre for Husband and we sped off down the highway. Big P kept vomiting on himself and woke up a bit (as in opened his eyes - not actually woke up). It then appeared that he was seizing (he has complex partials) rather than the weird unconscious state that he had been in prior. It was bizarre and scary and no human should ever have to see their child like this.
Over and over and over.
He kept trying to take off his seatbelt and open the door while we were floating down the highway and I was crying and praying and he was fighting me with all of his strength. All I could think about was what if I hadn't gone in there to check on him. What if he had choked on his vomit. What if what if what if. We got to the hospital and I turned on my 'make jokes to lighten the crazy tense situation.' They gave him a bunch of sedatives and he finally stopped seizing. We went back to our vacation and I played it off like I am strong and in control and it's no big deal to almost have your kid die in your arms.

But it is and I hate this.

drama drama drama

we're back from vacay. it was good. not without drama. maybe I'll tell you about it tomorrow. soooo lazy.

I never take enough pictures and always regret it.