Over email today at work:

Becky: My stomach is very, ah, bubbly today!
Shelly: Uh-oh. Did you eat a battery? (after I told her about a 3 yr old who ate a battery)
Becky: No but I had a Diet Pepsi Max and some Peeps! Which is a recipe for a very bubbly tummy!
Shelly: Oh my God. I just pictured them swelling in your tummy as they float in the carbonated pool. Bright pink and yellow expandable birds with their little black eyes getting larger and larger.
Becky: and them saying in muffled voices “peep! PEEP!!!”
Shelly: Bumping up against one another….
Becky: If you think this isn’t going to be a blog post you are so wrong!

Diet Pepsi – $1.25
Peeps on clearance at Walgreen’s – $.25
Telling your best friend about the bizarre noises your stomach is making after eating such disgusting items and having her TOTALLY UNDERSTAND – PRICELESS

*After critiquing my son’s fine cleaning techniques I decided to take an honest look at myself and see where he might get his cleaning abilities:

1) Realize there is a problem with the current state of cleanliness of your room and agree to tackle that problem. Right after another cup of coffee.

2) When all the coffee in the house and the entire apartment complex is gone and you are buzzing like a bee… mentally organize how you are going to clean up said room. It’s bad. It looks like the closet vomited all over your floor. Do some Yoga moves to try calm down.

3) Decide to start in one corner and work your way through. Now… which corner? Ooh! How about the one with the computer in it?! Check a couple blogs while you are deciding if this is the really the best corner to start in.

4) OK enough is enough. Finally decide to pick the corner with the big pile of clothes on the floor. Determine whether they are clean or dirty. Get your kid to smell them.

5) Find the clean laundry pile. Start to put the clothes away. One at a time in your closet. Ooh look! THERE ARE THOSE SHOES!

6) Try them on. So cute!

7) Find just the right pants to go with the newly discovered shoes.

Prance around the room in “new” shoes and cute pants while singing along loudly to Brittany Spears “Gimme More”

9) OK back on task. Begin to fold the child’s laundry which is now all over your bed. Ooh IM bell went off! Race to computer to see who messaged.

10) 30 minutes later, go back to pile of clean clothes. Fold. Fold. FOLD MORE! Sprain your arm from patting yourself on the back for making such good head way.

11) Oh! Was that my cell? It IS my cell. Hmmm, where is my cell? “Ben! Where is my cell?”

12) Decide that finding your cell phone is much more important and urgent that dealing with the messy room and the laundry. You ARE the adult after all. Finish it tomorrow.

Awhile ago, my son very lovingly and very randomly named our 2001 Isuzu Rodeo, “Blade”. This made me laugh hysterically when Ben first came up with this name because our car is so NOT a Blade. He couldn’t be further from a Blade. Harry or Rudy, perhaps, but not Blade. Blade to me is like a sleek black bitchin’ Camero. Not a tomato red SUV. But Blade he is.
We LOVE Blade. In fact throughout this past brutal winter, Blade has gotten Ben and I through some pretty bad weather. After one really tricky snowy afternoon, when I pulled old Blade into his stall in our garage, Ben literally got out of the car and hugged him. My son hugged the car. Yes, I am fully aware that this child needs a pet. And soon!

Blade and I have an understanding. After 6 years together he knows I don’t like to wear my seat belt and he doesn’t say anything about the matter. He just shines his little seatbelt light in hopes that I do put my seatbelt on but he doesn’t insist on it. He’s the sturdy quiet type. I can feel his love. He doesn’t need to shove it in my face.

Sadly, however, Blade is getting old. Very old. Recently I just spent an arm and a leg getting a new windshield/roof for him as his old one rusted out and therefore water was raining from the roof of my car. It was as lovely as it sounds.

Now he has decided to do something funky with the back brake light and make a VERY loud noise from below. I’m waiting for it to get so bad that I turn people’s heads when I drive by. If they cover their ears and cringe, it’s time to take him in. Until then… he’s just loud.

The thing is, I feel like he’s giving up on me. I feel like, Blade wants it to all be over. Should I call a crisis line? “I think my car is going to commit suicide!”

Well mister, you can THINK AGAIN! You are paid off my dear. You hear me? PAID OFF! You are MINE! ALL MINE! And Ben and I need you. I’m not ready for a fancy younger model. So dear Blade, get a grip! Pull yourself my your seatbelt straps!! You aren’t even to 100,000 miles! To some you are still a spring chicken! What do I need to do to get you to snap out of this funk? Do you need a good washing? A new air freshener? A good waxing? You name it buddy and it’s yours!

I won’t let you go. I’ll pour more money into you if need be. Ben and I will eat Ramen noodles for a month if that’s what it takes.

I often feel like Blade and I are in that scene from Titanic. He’s in the icy water, ready to go under and I’m on a door floating in the water.

Blade: I love you, Becky.

me: Don’t you do that, don’t say your good-byes. You must do me this honor, Blade. Promise me you’ll survive. That you won’t give up, no matter what happens, no matter how hopeless. Promise me now, Blade, and never let go of that promise.

Blade: I promise.

me: Never let go.

Blade: I’ll never let go. I’ll never let go, Becky.

Clearly I’m in desperate need for a pet too. Or a love life.

When your child is small and he has twinkle eyes and cheeks like this:

and curls like that,
take pictures and keep them readily available.

So when he looks like this:

and says things like “MOM! I don’t want to talk about it! OK!!?” or “FINE! MOM! Just STOP!” and then gives you an eye roll so big it shifts the gravitational pull of the moon….

you can look back at this picture of your sweet little imp when he was little and didn’t talk back

and therefore you will be not be so tempted to put him on a unheated train car headed to Eastern Europe where he will be adopted by Evzen and Eliska and will spend the rest of his days working on their potato farm.

Of course I’m kidding. I’d make sure his train car was heated. Sheesh… what kind of mother do you think I am?

I have terrible luck with men. Really, it’s just… bad! I seem to have a knack at picking the crazies, narcissists or the ones who are scared by their own shadow. And it seems as if the past six months have been particularly unlucky. Or maybe I’m just seeing this through the eyes of Josh.

Josh is my co-worker. Actually to call him my “co-worker” is putting it mildly. More accurately, Josh = my work. We sit in a fairly small office, and it’s just the two of us in there. In fact it’s just the two of us in this whole small department. If he is gone, I’m alone. Yes there are other people in the building but those are just “Hi, how are you?” people. You get the idea.
Luckily we get along great even though we really have nothing in common. Besides our differences on religion, politics and Global Warming (which I have now forbid us to talk about) our love lives couldn’t be more different. Josh married his high school sweetheart and other than one other girl that he dated briefly in middle school, he has had this one wonderful woman in his life for 12+ years. People, the guy is only 29.
Then there is me. I now laugh at what the Universe has doled out to me as far as my love life goes. But for Josh, watching and living through this has been a painful experience for him as the men in my life seem to come and go. Quickly.

To me, it’s like a clumsy person stubbing their toe all the time. Yeah it hurts for a minute but you get over it quickly. For poor Josh, he’s getting a toe amputated each time one of these so called relationships of mine fail.
This last one might have put the poor guy over the edge.

I really thought this latest guy, I’ll call “Jack”, might have had potential and might have lasted longer than 2 weeks. I even declared before my trip to Seattle “Josh, I think I might be officially off the market!” It was a happy time in our little office.

Until yesterday.
Josh came in Monday morning and said “So… how was the birthday party? “Jack” came right? You guys had a great night, RIGHT?!?!”

There was silence.

Josh: Becky?
Me: Um… no. He didn’t show up.
Josh: WHAT? WHY?!?!
Me: Well, he said he was sick.
Josh: Oh OK. Whew.
Me: Um, but I haven’t heard from him since.
Josh: Uh oh. That isn’t a good sign. What did you do?
Me: HEY! I did nothing! Really! But yeah, I don’t have a great feeling about it either. I’ll email him and see what’s going on.

3 hours later

Me: (sharp intake of breath) What!? JERK! Whatever!!!
Josh: Oh no… What?!
Me: Oh “Jack” and I are really done now.
Josh: NO!!! What happened? Are you kidding? TELL ME EVERYTHING!!!!

Like the stubbed toe, I was upset but was even starting to get over it as the end of the work day approached. At one point I looked back at Josh who was just sitting at his desk with his head in his hands. He said in an exasperated voice and almost talking to himself “I don’t know what to tell you Becky. I don’t know what it is. What can I do but to offer a shoulder to cry on?”

After work I went to the gym and then hung out with my cute kid to dull the pain. The pancakes I made for dinner didn’t hurt things either.

Josh, on the other hand, didn’t bounce back as easily from this one. This morning he came into the office and didn’t say “Good morning” Didn’t even say “Hi.” First thing out of his mouth was “OK I have been thinking about this. The next guy you date, do the EXACT OPPOSITE of whatever you have been doing.”

“OK, and what would that be?”

“I don’t know. Just DO IT!”

I have a first date on Thursday night. For Josh’s sake, I really hope it goes well.

Another birthday has come and gone. And what a fine one it was.

Saturday night I had dinner out with great girlfriends at my latest favorite restaurant.

Then we moseyed (I guess when you are this old you mosey places) to another fun party at a bar downtown with old friends and new.

This guy was new.

So was this one.

Oh and here’s another new one. This one was REALLY weird too. Came up to our table, said hello and then asked us all what our favorite temperature was. Then he asked another friend of mine if she liked to canoe. That’s why Richelle looks so pleased to have her picture taken with this odd fellow.

I guess this is the face you make when you turn 36.

OMG! How old am I now?

Finally yesterday my loving parents threw me a family birthday party on my actual day of birth.

As you can see, they think of me as a very serious and mature woman.

Yep. You read the cake decoration right. It does say “Barbie” and it rocks!!!

So thanks 35 for keeping me company for 365 days but I’m ready to see what 36 has in store.

Mommy, for your birthday, let’s go to a bakery to get doughnuts!

Ooh, good idea! But they might not be open because it’s Easter.

It’s Easter!? TODAY?!?

Yep.

Why don’t we celebrate Easter? I want to!

Well honey, we are Jewish and Easter is a Christian holiday.

We are part Jewish and part Christian.

Actually, no. We are ALL Jewish.

But we celebrate Christmas.

*long pause*

Hmmm, ah yes we do but that’s because we believe in Santa.

*another long pause*

Oh. OK.

Look at what funny FUNNY Mother Nature did to us today in Wisconsin?

Isn’t she a riot!?

Sweetheart, why don’t you worry about your seasons playing nice together in the sandbox rather than being a comedian. Hang up your early April Fool’s Joke and work on Winter and Spring getting along and figuring out who’s turn it is.

My suggestion would be to give Winter a BIG time out. Maybe you can whip him into shape. Clearly me writing letters to him didn’t help.

Cousin Amy did a great job of getting the camp details just right.

Check it out at camp runamucka–next gen

(my hair still hurts from looking at that close up…)