September 30, 2017

This morning I had to make an emergency phone call to my daughter from the toilet because the toilet paper roll was empty. God forbid someone else replaces it! Do I have to do everything around here? It’s like, “Mom’s drinking coffee, let’s really screw with her!” I am outnumbered for sure. My kids have no idea how to communicate unless it’s by way of a smartphone. I almost had to send a Snapchat from the toilet. I’d love to watch that go viral. I’m going to have to make a Youtube video to get through to them. “Hey guys! Today I am going to show you how to change a toilet paper roll.” Good grief! The zombie apocalypse is coming people but it isn’t going to be caused by a virus. It will just be our kids in 10 years wandering around clueless about how to do anything. Lord help us all!

November 8, 2016

Today I am going out to vote because it is one of the cool things we get to do in the United States as adults. Kids get the fun job of pulling their own teeth and running everywhere they go. We get this. I am exercising my right to my own opinion and I will be tolerant and understanding of those who don’t agree with me. I will obey God’s will to love all humans. After posting this from my phone that is so old it isn’t smart anymore, I will leave my 40 year old home that cost over a 1/2 a million dollars, get in my 12 year old car, take my child to daycare and go to the job that I love but would be homeless without, then do my homework for a school that I have a private student loan for, then I will go and vote. I will channel my best Napoleon Dynamite attitude when asked who I am voting for with an angry “Whoever I feel like, GOSH!” because that is my right. Happy Election Day FB friends!

With all of the chaos and drama in the world it’s really nice when you have something happen in your life that restores your faith in humanity. This story isn’t an example of one. Tonight I went to Target after days of shopping all over town searching for missing pieces of Halloween costumes for my family. I finally found the very last thing I needed and was mentally and physically done for the day. If you could see me, you’d believe it. In the very crowded store I was thankful to have only a short wait in the self checkout lane. Two were in use displaying the green light overhead while one was flashing red with a 4 year-old pushing all of the buttons while kneeling on the part that weighs your stuff. Good times. I finally got my turn to purchase. I scanned my item and put it in the bag. It didn’t weigh enough to register so I had to convince the machine that, yes I did want to bag my item and, oh no don’t start flashing red. Mission accomplished until I realized that I didn’t put my debit card in my sassy little black cross body purse. I only had my license and, oh thank goodness $6 in cash. Honestly I don’t know where the cash came from since I haven’t carried any since the 90’s. I couldn’t find the color leggings I needed for my costume anywhere on earth in my size and had to settle for girls size 10-12 which was thankfully only $6. In case you are

wondering how I fit in girls 10-12s, they stretch. But geez,  I didn’t have enough for the tax, and yes I actually said that out loud because that’s what I do. I talk to myself. Embarrassed, I slinked to the team member that watches over the self checkout but obviously didn’t care about the 4 year-old now jumping on the machine next to me, and told her that I needed to go scavenge my car seats for 48 cents. I had hit a new low. This is where viral posts are born. When one of the at least 34 people around me hear of my woes and come to my rescue with the change I need to make my purchase. Nope, not today. I ran out to my car because you can’t panhandle outside of Target, unlike Walmart. I got into my car just barely since my fob battery is hit and miss and started rummaging around. Since I had just cleaned out the entire car I was surprised to find 23 cents, a Cheeze It, and a Lego Friend head but I was still 25 cents short. I called my niece with my cell that was in single-digit percentage for battery life, seriously I need to have a pity party, and told her about how pathetic I am. She came and rescued me with a quarter. No questions or strings attached. How many people do you know that would do that for you? So now all is good. I returned to the store and completed my purchase. I got home safely and quickly changed the battery in my key fob, plugged in my phone, and then grabbed a handful of change and chucked it inside of my car where it settled into random cracks and crevasses in my seats and will stay there until I will undoubtedly need it some other time. 

February 10, 2016

Flossing and driving is bad for the environment. Here is why. This week I am part of a very fun Fitbit challenge called the Work Week Hustle and this is why I chose to run to meet my tween at the orthodontist instead of drive. I also chose to run because I can. Our town is small and we can do cool stuff like that. There are two things that I can do while running when my music app isn’t working. One, I can sing which is also bad for the environment, or two, I can concentrate on my surroundings and then get an idea for a rambling Facebook post. Cleary today I chose the latter. There are many things I see while cruising around on foot in Alpine. Today I saw a dead coyote and about 100 (or maybe 3) discarded flossers. I don’t see dead coyotes very often, like never, but I always see the flossers. It’s probably the same flossers I ran by 10 years ago because newsflash they aren’t biodegradable! Yesterday I ran a different route and wouldn’t you know it there were flossers there too! That run was a little less fun though because half of my face was numb after dental work and my forehead was still aching from the tragic egg burns but Wes was with me so people didn’t have to worry that I was disoriented and lost. So, back to my point. It makes me wonder what the heck people are thinking when they toss flossers or any other trash out of the window. Hybrid driving recyclers multi-tasking by flossing while they talk on their cell phones hands-free balancing their soy lattes and gluten-free vegan muffins. Such good people until boom they toss their flosser out the window. I am pretty sure when the world ends roaches and flossers will still be here. Don’t get me wrong, by all means, please floss daily and make my job easier, just don’t throw the floss out the window. Those things are like tiny weapons. I feel like I should add that when I give my patients their goody bag of samples. Ok, see you in 6 months and hey remember to discard your trash in a waste receptacle, no one wants their foot impaled by your flosser!

February 5, 2016

Trying to eat healthier these days so I microwaved an egg for lunch. I discovered that you have to break up the yolks first. Lesson learned! Egg everywhere, walls, ceiling, carpet, my dentist. Even burns on my face! It was laughable though. I decided to eat a carne asada burrito instead. Never been burned by one of those!

January 7, 2016

What do you do when your house and yard flood? You build a snowman. Our house was built lower than the land around us like New Orleans. Not exactly but sort of. Actually not at all but still we are lower than the neighbors around us. We know we will flood every 10 years or so when we actually get serious rain. It’s who we are and where we live. It’s our own twisted kind of Karma. So what did I do after the latest flood? I didn’t win the Powerball (you’re welcome) I built a snowman, from hail. I went to work and had a weak “snowball” fight with my boss and danced in the hail like an idiot. I ate Hershey kisses all day because someone went to Hawaii and brought back kisses with macadamia nuts in them. OMG. I came home and was grateful that my husband had cleaned up all of the mud on the back patio and made the pool look less like the Amazon River than it did yesterday (he’s really just amazing). I made a winter dinner of chili then had popsicles for dessert. Then I wasted 2 hours tonight on Facebook instead of cleaning the house because the sarcastic phrases are so funny and keep me from losing it. Like how lame Californians are and how it was so much better when we were kids because we did super dangerous things and survived. So tomorrow’s another day (profound). Tomorrow I will do all of the things I didn’t get to today and I won’t eat anymore kisses (I ate them all today). Tomorrow I will stay off of Facebook and pay attention to my kid’s faces instead. Tomorrow I won’t build a snowman.

August 25, 2015

Summer around here is drastically different from the other 3 seasons for sure. We stay up late, sleep in, swim in the dark, and wear flip flops 24/7. Swimming is considered bathing and a bathing suit is often pjs. We…have…fun! Our house is full of kids for days on end. So much so that I came home from work yesterday and walked into Lord of the Flies without the violence. Sleep-deprived lazy kids everywhere so full of junk food that they could barely move in the balmy 86 degrees inside yet the volume of their voices was megaphone worthy. They moved like zombies in their heat and food-induced comas. No one bothered to crack a window or even pick up the spilled Cheetos so it was the ripe odor of feet, overflowing garbage, and adolescence. Somehow when school is out they forget how to pick up after themselves. Tonight I was explaining, well let’s be real here, arguing, with my Little about why she needed to wash her hair (the kid is about 2 days away from dreadlocks and one all-nighter from being feral) when she reached up to touch her hair and pulled out a stick. We are counting down the days until school starts. Christmas has nothing on Back to School which truly is the most wonderful time of the year.

June 2, 2015

So I went for a run today after work. A real run which to me is about 6 miles, OK with a 12 minute mile average in this hilly town but whatever. I know, I usually subscribe to the “Unless you fell and smacked your face on the treadmill I don’t care about hearing about your run on Facebook” but this run was different. It started out as a necessity as I forgot to drop off my Girl Scouts year-end financials after work and decided to literally run them over to the treasurer’s house. I left my lab  home because I know that by mile 3 he is done and I usually have to call my husband to pick him up.  The dog can swim but running and hiking are just not his thing.

Around mile 1 I started to wonder why the heck I was out running. I mean really. I was gone all day and hadn’t seen the kids. Dinner wasn’t ready and I was pretty sure there was laundry still in the washer, which would be mildewy if I didn’t get it in the dryer. It was hot and I forgot my giant hideous visor so Hello sunburn and more wrinkles. My financials were sure to be sweaty and misshapen by the time I got there. I mean, who runs with an envelope in their hand?

By mile 2 I had jumped high over about 50 sticks still unnerved by the snake found in the toy box today. About that time a guy on a motorcycle honked at me and gave me yet another near heart attack of the afternoon. He must have known me. It clearly wasn’t a “you’re hot” honk but was more of a “good for you” honk like it warmed his heart to see someone like me out exercising. After all, I put my pjs on when the time changed in November and I just recently took them off. I broke the scrubs-pjs-scrubs cycle a week or two ago and decided that I needed to get back in shape.

It’s rare that I have any time alone. I really don’t want any. In 10 years or so my husband and I will have lots of time. It is more rare that a thousand chores and tasks aren’t running through my mind. We all have so much to do. My life is busy and exciting and I wouldn’t change a thing.

So I went back to pondering why exactly I choose to run for exercise. Maybe it is to appease my Fitbit. Probably it’s because I am not coordinated enough for Zumba, Crossfit seems like it would cause hemorrhoids, and Shaun T.’s Insanity makes you jump too much I mean really a sports bra can only do so much. I definitely don’t have the patience to walk so I run. It helps that all of my co-workers are in great shape. It is motivational. We are a bunch of fitness nerds for sure. Well I claim to be but have really slacked for the last 6 months.

By mile 3 I was in the zone and my thighs were rubbing so fast together that I thought I saw smoke. On the plus side, if I ever were to appear on Naked and Afraid my thighs would make a natural fire starter and I could bring a bowl as my one item and no one would be able to make fun of me like all of the idiots who bring a bowl but have no way to make fire. I would just have to go for a quick run.

I dropped the envelope at the treasurer’s slightly wrinkled and continued on the loop to home grateful for the downward slope of Alpine Boulevard. Man this town is hilly. Right around Janet’s restaurant I heard my tracker call out “Mile 4…average pace (well you don’t need to know…it’s slow).

As I approached the new BBQ place in town I paused a little as I saw a group of people gathered outside with their heads bowed as if in prayer. I immediately wondered what was going on. I mean I hadn’t been on Facebook all day. What did I miss? As I passed the group I realized they were all in line to get into the restaurant all with their heads bowed looking at their smartphones. Seriously? Well the up side is that the new place is hopping and I hope it stays in business for a long time.

I didn’t hear my phone call out mile 5. I might have been in a coma. Once I arrived home my tracker was just about at mile 6. Boom done.  That’s the best I can do to take some time for myself. Forever the multitasker. Who says you have to make time for yourself? How is that done? I am pretty sure that all of time is already made and I don’t have the power to make anymore. Why am I running when all I really want to do is eat a box of Jujyfruits. Everyday. That’s it. I just want Jujyfruits. (OMG I don’t think I know how to spell Jujyfruits because a squiggly red line keeps appearing under it.) But not the black ones because I decided a long time ago that the black ones are what you get fed when you go to Hell. Those and Good and Plentys and Black Red-Vines. That’s when it hit me. My thoughts are similar to a Seinfeld episode. OMG I think about nothing.

September 5, 2012

Summer around here is drastically different from the other 3 seasons for sure. We stay up late, sleep in, swim in the dark, and wear flip flops 24/7. Swimming is considered bathing and a bathing suit is often pjs. We…have…fun! Our house is full of kids for days on end. So much so that I came home from work yesterday and walked into Lord of the Flies without the violence. Sleep-deprived lazy kids everywhere so full of junk food that they could barely move in the balmy 86 degrees inside yet the volume of their voices was megaphone worthy. They moved like zombies in their heat and food-induced comas. No one bothered to crack a window or even pick up the spilled Cheetos so it was the ripe odor of feet, overflowing garbage, and adolescence. Somehow when school is out they forget how to pick up after themselves. Tonight I was explaining, well let’s be real here, arguing, with my Little about why she needed to wash her hair (the kid is about 2 days away from dreadlocks and one all-nighter from being feral) when she reached up to touch her hair and pulled out a stick. We are counting down the days until school starts. Christmas has nothing on Back to School, which truly is the most wonderful time of the year.

July 21, 2012

So today we went to Fashion Valley Mall.  It’s the mall that the rich people go to and that us “East County” people go to when we wantto feel fancy. I was completely under dressed in my running shorts and tank and probably the only woman in the whole mall with cellulite. We went in to the Windows store and were browsing around. The kids and Wes started playing an Xbox game with controllers, (except Raegan because she asked if she could “play on a tablet”). I wanted to try out the Xbox Live games and found one that I could actually activate by raising my hand. I think the one I first tried had a bookcase blocking the sensor thing but I waved my arms around for about 5 minutes anyway. There was this young guy playing a battle something type game next to me and he was swinging his arm around to activate the sword on the screen. He kept cutting his eyes to side glance at what I was trying to do. His game looked like fun to me but my game was a flying airplane/war plane something game. I took off with my arms stretched out in front of me like Superman as the game started and tried to fly the plane on the screen but it kept crashing. Side glance. I leaped side to side and swung my body around like I was hula hooping…no luck. Side glance. Kept crashing…kept trying to fly like superman. Side glance. The screen kept flashing “WRONG WAY” in red. Wrong way? I was facing and flying forward. Side glance. Finally after about 8 minutes of failing to fly the guy next to me switched his game to play the same one I was attempting to play and failing miserably at. He never said a word to me. He raised his arms in front of himself and positioned his hands like he was driving a car or flying a plane…and started to play the game. Forehead slap! Ohhh, now I get it! I just turned to him and said, “I used to play Atari, and I was good!” And then we left.