Who says you can't control the weather?

To make a flood:

Plug the drain in the bathroom sink, stick your sister's toothbrush in the little overflow hole, turn the water on full blast, lock the door behind you as you run out. Contain your maniacal laughter just long enough for the floor to become thoroughly covered with water, requiring the use of every just-washed-this-morning towel in the house to clean it up.

To make snow:

Dump the entire contents of the ice bin from the freezer onto the kitchen floor. Dump the contents of the sugar canister on top of the ice. If you do this during the right time of year, right in the middle of summer, the ants that will almost immediately converge on the mess will look like a group of wee skiiers milling around on the slopes.

To make a sudden rainstorm complete with beautiful waterfall:

Turn on the shower. Open both the shower curtain and the liner as far as they will go. Stand under the water at the exact angle that will deflect the water off your body onto the sides of the tub. Watch the water pour over the side of the tub until your father runs up from the basement soaking wet and yells, 'Turn off the damn water! NOW!'

To create a heat wave:

Wake up at 2 a.m. and decide that you are freezing. Turn the heat on, and push the little temperature control button up until it won't go any higher. Go back to sleep. Be thankful when your parents wake four hours later that they are stuck to their sheets with sweat and can't get up to send you to the desert far, far away.

The best laid plans

This was not the day I had in mind. Swimming lessons with clean, well-behaved children in the morning, errands after, then home to a tidy house and sweet but mischievous children who are fun, yet know their boundaries...that was the plan, oh, fifteen years ago or so.

This is the reality: swimming lessons with not-too-filthy, well-behaved children, one of whom has to get in the water fully dressed in pants and long sleeves and won't remove his shoes till he reaches the water's edge. The teenaged lifeguard who is teaching the boys' group is patient and kind, and I'm sure the girl teaching Zoey's group is only pretending she doesn't notice the snarls in her hair and the dirt under her toenails. It takes forever to get to the truck afterward because Jeremy's legs are frozen and he walks stiff-legged, on his heels, the whole way to the parking lot. Back home the wet clothes are exchanged for dry after a frantic search for clean undies and then I'm off in search of a broom to replace the one somebody broke last week. If I'm lucky I'll get to use it this afternoon. I leave amid hugs and kisses and threats if the house isn't cleaned up by the time I return, and the little people are left in the care of their older siblings. Back home I am greeted by slightly less messy house and we get to work. I attempt to get Sebastian to take a new herbal remedy that might help him with his outbursts, rage and refusal to listen, and of course that turns into an all-out war; fifteen minutes of Mom versus Ten-year-old, complete with the boy screaming, running out of the house and deliberately spilling water down the front of his shirt. Jeremy can't beat one of the games on his new Batman computer and loses his mind, throwing boxes at everone and shrieking at the top of his lungs. A nasty comment gets Sebastian sent to his room where he screams and kicks the door; the noise is too much for Jeremy who loses it again, running around with his hands over his ears and crying. While my back is turned, Zoey adds her 'special ingredient'-clay-to the meat I'm cooking for dinner. It's only a tiny bit, and I don't care. I stir it in and it looks like onions. There is a ukelele with no tune, a teenager begging Can I? CanICanICanIMomComeonplease, some kind of tinny music, an argument over where to keep the Batmen, an adolescent drummer, and a needy five year old all fighting for space in my ears and my head. If I say yes to one I'm doing wrong by another. If I say no to one, I'm an evil bitch.

This was not the plan, but I'll adjust, and if you have a spare valium or seven I'll take that too.

Oops.

If you have a craving for an egg salad sandwich, make sure you pay attention while the eggs are boiling.

Otherwise all the water in the pan will evaporate and then the eggs will begin exploding, shooting steaming hot ovid projectiles all over the kitchen. You will get to play 'dodge the missile eggs' while trying to slam a lid onto the pot. You will be laughed at by children who still think the height of comedy is a nice loud armpit fart. You will never get your damn sandwich.

And burned eggs stink.

Democracy at its finest

ALBANY, N.Y. - The highest courts in two states dealt gay rights advocates dual setbacks Thursday, rejecting same-sex couples' bid to win marriage rights in New York and reinstating a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in Georgia.

*sigh* Right...because love and commitment are bad...good thing we have people like this to make sure our country does things the right way...you know, blowing shit up...killing, hate and racial profiling, that's what we're all about. Not a bunch of homos who have the audacity to want the same rights everyone else has...

Oh and why the hell is it always 'gay rights'? What about simply 'human rights'?

I'm done now...gonna go kiss a girl and give a politician a well-deserved stroke...;)

Sigh

I miss my friend Michelle...she's exactly like me only beautiful and cool...we even eat the same thing for breakfast and both have NIN-damaged boots...and it's been a shitty day and if she was here we could go outside and open a bottle of wine and lean on each other and get giggly...and she would just get it, cause she's like that...

Die, pervert

A new law has been passed in South Carolina. It states that anyone convicted twice of raping a child under 11 can be executed. As a most-of-the-time flaming liberal, I should be outraged, but as the proud parent of four people under11 and two who have luckily passed that age without something like that happening to them, all I can say is Hell Yeah. I don't know why they have to wait until the second conviction. If they have irrefutable proof that this person did this horrible thing, the first time should be enough to allow them to be wiped off the face of the earth. I don't think the death penalty is a deterrent. I don't believe in 'an eye for an eye'. I believe if you do something like that to a kid-or to anybody, but especially a kid-you deserve far more than the government will ever legally be able to do to you. So if the worst we can do is make you live in fear, knowing your death is imminent, then so be it. Ideally, we'd let the perverts suffer at the hands of the victims' parents, but that will never happen.