Boy there has been all kinds of trouble at the Bright house. Ava asked rather succinctly, “What the hell is going on over there this week?”

It started out with a plumbing issue that turned into a debacle that took three days to fix. My plumbing is now less 45 pounds of hair, various tree roots, and god knows what else.

Also, we have a brand new toilet.

Then tonight our internet modem took a crap. Best Buy is useless. The modem is not even 5 months old! I spent about an hour on the phone with Motorola. They were super nice and helpful and a new modem is on it’s way, but we’re not completely convinced that there isn’t something else wrong in addition to the modem.

My Honey wants me to take my turn on the phone with tech support, but that makes me want to cry.

Jeez, I’m practically afraid to come home anymore.

I live less than a block from the elementary school that My Honey and I both attended growing up. I always thought it would be really cool for my kids to go to the same one. It wasn’t to be, however. That school district has become a bit of a disaster in the 35+ years since we went there.

First of all – HOLY SHIT did I just type that I was there THIRTY-FIVE YEARS AGO? I’m horrified by that realization.

OK – I got a grip on myself. Anyway, we’d never have sent our kids to that school now. But I still think it would have been cool. The school district is in such dire straits that they’ve been closing schools and they’ve remained vacant while they decide what to do with the buildings.

After many stops and starts, finally they sold my old elementary school to a developer for residential properties. Now some builder is going to put up cookie cutter houses or something equally dreadful.

I can’t tell you how sad it makes me to see them bulldozing my old school. I pass by it literally ever single time I leave my house. While we were camping they demolished the gym and basketball courts. On my way home from work tonight, I noticed the lower grade wings were missing.

It makes my heart hurt.

My 2nd and 3rd grade classrooms are no more. Rooms where I spent countless hours in the corner for talking. Where we practiced our Christmas program music by Mrs. Dooley’s piano. I can still sing all the words to Up on the House Top and even do the little dance steps and hand movements. The room where I wrote my first ever story is gone – The Lonely Crayon. I won the school competition for it in third grade.

Pretty soon Mr. Miller’s 6th grade class will be gone, too. He was my favorite teacher of my entire school career. That’s the class room where my father embarrassed me beyond all reason, scarring me for life when he entered my classroom with my forgotten lunchbox and said, “Birdlegs forgot her lunch” in front of everyone.

And the room will be gone where I played flute in the school band for at least three weeks before I decided, nah.

And the courtyard where we had cake walks.

And the stage in the cafeteria where my girl scout troupe put on the very first play I wrote (with my mom).

And the library where I checked out every Judy Blume book over and over and over until the librarian made me try something else.

And my 4th grade class where we watched the solar eclipse with those special doohickeys we made in science so we didn’t burn out our retinas.

I’m depressing the hell out of myself.

 

The Bright family is making me go camping again. Ostensibly, this is for Sassy’s birthday. It’s what she wanted to do for her 13th birthday. I don’t understand why, but whatever.

She has several friends coming with us and we invited the extended family. Now it’s blossomed into an enormous 786 person melee. I might be exaggerating a little, but not by much. Just understand that there will be a crap-ton of people.

This does not make me any  more excited to go. You faithful readers will surely recall that I consider camping – or any outdoor activity, really – as an abomination.

This week finds my family launching into a flurry of activity. There’s packing clothes and buying groceries and, inevitably, there’s something that needs to be repaired on either the boat or the camping trailer. This year, both.

So this evening I’m standing at the kitchen table folding laundry. Sassy asks if I’ve done any of hers yet. I pointed to her pile.

“Great,” she said, grasping a t-shirt from the stack. “I want to iron my clothes for camping.”

I looked at her with the same expression you’re making right now. Sassy has never ironed a single item of clothing in her life. I have no idea what the hell this is about.

“Why?” I asked, stupidly.

“Because I just want to.” I never got a real reason out of her. There was no point belaboring it.

She turned on the iron and I showed her how to fill the reservoir for steam. By God, if she was going to iron, there would be creases. She proceeded to try to jam the t-shirt over the ironing board, neck first.

“No,” I told her, and flipped the shirt around. I know what she was trying to do. She wanted me to iron her clothes for her, but that in an inexcusably stupid idea and I’m not falling for no “banana in the tailpipe” (gratuitous Beverly Hills Cop reference).

“How do you do this?” she asked making ineffective swipes with the iron.

“You take the hot metal part and press it against the offensively wrinkled clothes.”

She made a “har har har” noise at me. I have no idea where she gets this sarcastic tone.

I resumed folding clothes because that’s what people do. She abandoned the ironing plan because that was stupid and no one irons clothes to go camping.

Captain America Civil War was quite good in our estimation. Prepare yourself – it’s very long. We don’t recommend you drink any beverages before the movie because if you get the large, 55 gallon drum size soda they sell at the concession stand then you’ll never make it through the film without having to pee. You need to be careful. You’re not going to want to miss any parts of the film that have the yummy Winter Soldier in it. As always, there are some great lines in the film, ones we and the kids have been quoting ever since we saw it. We have some other good stuff to share with you too.

1. Rocks. Another huge diamond has been found, this one in Botswana by a Canadian owned Lucara Diamond Corporation. Weighing in at 1,109 carats. it’s as big as a tennis ball. They’re calling it the Lesedi la Rona which means Our Light. It’s to be auctioned off at Sotheby’s in June and they’re expecting somewhere in the neighborhood if$70 million dollars. It’s beautiful even without being cut. The Sisters are going to send Sotheby’s a check.

2. Met Gala. We love the Met Gala Ball every year. The themes make the dresses so entertaining. This year the theme was Manus x Machina. The gowns were pretty awesome. We loved Emma Watson’s “gown” since it was actually pants. She looked like a sort of cyborg futuristic samurai – the result was very cool and she has amazing style. The winner, though, is the gown worn by Claire Danes and designed by Zac Posen. She looked like Cinderella – but with a dress that lit up by fiber optics. Cinderella would have peed herself for this dress.

3. Best ATM. Ever. We can’t think of anything more brilliant than this ATM. The Sprinkles cupcake company has several of these ATMs around the county. You insert your credit card and OUT COMES THE CUPCAKE OF YOUR CHOOSING. We wrote that in all caps because it’s seriously important. We mentioned several years ago about a baguette ATM several years ago in France. We really love this trend.

4. Looking better than ever. Take a look at this picture. There have been a lot jokes about moving to Canada after the general election in November. We’ve been considering Cuba. The border is open now and their food is better. Besides, the weather is tropical and the Sisters freely admit that cold is NOT a favorite thing. Still, Canada has hockey and croissants and now this. We present to you Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada holding panda bears. You’re welcome.

5. Our boss. Amylynn moved her office from one part of the office to another. That’s a big job for sure. She successfully filched the office pictures from the old office but needed someone to hang them up for her. She asked nicely and her boss was willing. We love this picture. The man had to improvise a tool belt. Not everyone’s first choice.

A new Krispy Kreme opened by our house. It’s the only one in our entire town. Previously all of the Krispy Kremes were closed – something to do with a nasty divorce where the husband and wife owners broke up and didn’t want other people to be happy.

The new store opened exactly a week ago. A whole week. At the grand opening, they gave away a bunch of year supply of donut packages and t-shirts and all kinds of stupid donut paraphernalia. People camped out the night before. At a donut shop.

What the hell is that about?

They’re freaking donuts.

That being said, I wanted to bring some to our office. We work on the completely opposite side of town from my house and the KK, and most of the people who work with us live over there too. That means I’m in the enviable or disastrous position of living less than a mile away from carb central.

My boss heard me talking about this plan and thrust three twenty-dollar bills at me and reminded me to bring a receipt. Holy cow! $60 worth of donuts. Gads.

I happened to be driving past said KK on Wednesday evening about 8:30. The drive thru line was wrapped around the building and stretched down the street. AT 8:30! AT NIGHT! I began to fret about the plan. If the place is this crowded at 8:30 at night, what the hell is it going to be like on a Friday morning? I didn’t want to be like an hour or more late for work. On the other hand, people heard the donuts were coming and they were expecting them. I think some people haven’t eaten in days thinking they are going to gorge themselves on those incredible glazed delights.

Ava has actually threatened me if I don’t show up with donuts. Really.

I’ve come up with a plan. After I drop off the kids at school I’m going to go over there and see what’s up. If the drive thru lane is as out of control as I expect then I’ll park at the Hobby Lobby in the next parking lot and hoof it over there. Surely the lobby won’t be as bad as the drive thru, right? RIGHT?

Here’s what I recommend. Eat breakfast anyway, people. I guarantee nothing.

 

I had every intention of wearing something Star Wars-y to work today in celebration of May the Fourth. And then I totally forgot.

In fact work was so insane that I didn’t even remember it was May the Fourth until the end of the day when Ava called me to lament that we didn’t celebrate.

My boss was hanging out in my office when she called. “What was that all about?” he asked with a bemused expression.

I mentioned that we were disappointed in ourselves that we didn’t property celebrate the Star Wars holiday.

And then he made fun of us that we even know May the Fourth exists in relation to Star Wars.

So I ask you – which of us is more ridiculous? The Star Wars aficionados or the sad little man who’s totally missing out?

You know the answer.

Jojo Kitty would take every opportunity to act like Godzilla if he had the chance.

Imagine if you will something brilliant and snort-into-your-coffee witty here. It was a bad day at work and all the witty and brilliant stuff was leached out of us. It was so bad, Amylynn had a wee temper tantrum. Not necessarily something to be proud of, but sometimes they’re the only way you’ll get heard. It didn’t last long, but her point was made. Here’s some funny stuff that got us through most of the week.

1. Mama’s got a brand new bag. Look at how gorgeous this bag is. It came from Coach at a massive discount. The Sisters both get emails from Coach about clearance sales and special discounts. We rarely bother with them anymore because, no matter how quickly we respond to the email and take the link to the site, everything we like is sold out. We don’t know what the deal is – it’s almost like they only had two of them to begin with or something. However, when this purse showed up in the email teaser, Amylynn followed the jump and lo! there were still bags available. This one arrived at her house and there was much jubilation. Go ahead, admit you’re jealous.

2. 30 years in the making. We may have mentioned before that Ava does not possess an ATM card and she hasn’t for thirty years or so.  Long story but, if one is being honest, it was her own fault. She did try through the years to get one but the answer was always a raised eyebrow and a swift NO. Hold on to your hat, her request was finally approved! The Sisters went right over to the bank to request said card and no matter how hard the Bank of No Forks tried to chase them out of the bank they persevered and ordered it. It came the other day and like all credit cards you had to call in and activate it. Well it refused to be activated and the lady computer insisted Ava activate it at an ATM and promptly hung up. Ava took herself over to the ATM, input her four digit code and, like a boss, extracted $20.00. The boy who lives at her house said “Welcome to 2016 Mom.” And a great welcome it was!

3. You have yourself a great little day, ya hear? The Sisters were told to “have a peaceful day” while they were shopping this past week. Both of them worked retail so they know how boring it is to keep up the, “have a nice day” schtick. But peaceful? That’s just kinda stupid. The Sisters can’t remember the last time they had a peaceful day – can you? We prefer GODSPEED. Everyone one should be wished Godspeed because that’s something we can all really use. GODSPEED. You’re welcome.

4. Coconut cookies. The Sisters bought these at the Costco this week. It was probably a mistake. They made by a company with the totally obnoxious name of Mrs. Thinster’s. Nevertheless, the lure of coconut cookies was too much to ignore. It turns out they’re super crispy and buttery and quite yummy. Still, our number one comment is, “They’re coconutty.” So, there you go.

5. Penny for your thoughts. This Sunday one of our favorites, Penny Dreadful, comes back on. Honestly, This is going to be an epic night of television with both Penny Dreadful AND Game of Thrones. These shows and completely crazy and totally outlandish and we LOVE them. The casts are incredible, the costuming and sets are gorgeous, and the plots are never boring. Every time you turn around something whack-a-doodle has occurred. Excellent conversations with squealing and sweeping arm gestures happen every Monday at the Keurig. You shouldn’t miss it!

I think it would be a whole lot easier if they had hands to hold them with.

Ava and I are pretty certain Sassy has super power at this point.

Remember last summer she had spinal fusion surgery, so now she has giant titanium rods on either side of her spine and these crazy ass screws in her back.

Sorta like Wolverine.

Last Saturday she had a little incident. She was ever so briefly electrocuted. It happened when she and her father were working on our camping trailer and something or other didn’t get grounded. There was a puddle of water and a metal ladder. The rest…well, she’s fine. Let me just put that out there. I imagine that electricity going through her back was a bit awful.

She’s been milking it, though – as anyone would. As late as Monday night her legs were still too exhausted to wash the dishes.

So now we’re wondering what her super power might be. Power to roll eyes faster than a locomotive. The ability to fly off the handle like an eagle. A persecution complex taller than a skyscraper.

I definitely think there should be a cape for her birthday next month. Something with a lightening bolt on it.

Like a testy little Harry Potter with a metal skeleton.