There was a lot going on at the Bright Compound yester eve.  I got home from work and both kids were in their respective rooms sniveling.  Apparently, SOMEONE wrote with ball point pen on my & My Honey’s sheets and wouldn’t fess up.  I also found blue crayon on The Bandits sheets and his wall.  Needless to say, The Bandit is restricted from using any writing utensil for a week.  But he tries.  He asked me in the most plaintive, angel voice if he could have a pen so he could practice writing his name.  What good decent mother would refuse her child’s desire for education?  This one, that’s who.  Nice try, little boy.

 He also cut his own hair last night.  Sassy immediately professed no knowledge how his head came to be missing half his hair.  I have a tendency to believe her.  Her misbehavior stems mostly from her mouth, not her misdeeds.  He tried to tell me that: 1) I cut it. 2) his teacher cut it 3)it just happened 4) he didn’t know who did it.  In that order.  I think he needs to work on his timeline when lying.  The troubling thing is that we can’t find any evidence of the hair cut.  I expected to find hair somewhere, but nope.  Mysterious.  It doesn’t look too bad unless you stand taller than him and look at his head.  Unfortunately, he’s short.  Remember, he’s four.

The last event in The Bandit Rodeo came at around midnight.  I went in to get him up to go potty in order to avoid a wet bed.  That is a truly hysterical event every evening.  He never actually wakes up, you just walk him into the bathroom, holding him up like a drunk, lean him against the potty and when he feels the porcelain on his thighs, he goes.  Anyway, when I went last night he was wearing his Batman top and ABSOLUTELY NOTHING else.  That would be fine if I walked in and found Christian Bale like that, but not so much The Bandit.  It sets your mind racing.  What could he possibly been up to?  I live in fear that I’ll find out. 

And that, Dear Reader, is why no new words were written last night.  I know you’ll forgive me.  Or, you could come over and wrangle The Bandit and I’ll write like the wind.  No? Ah, well.

My 40th birthday (gasp, wheez, faint) is rapidly approaching.  Ava asked me to write a list of my 40 Favorite Things – do you see the theme here?  Below is the list in black, Ava’s comments in red, my comments back in green, and then Isabella’s in blue.  I’m posting it here because I was requested to do so by a constant reader (god bless her, really!)  The point is, you can really “hear” us in these comments.  Enjoy.  Or not.  Normal people may not find this amusing in any way.  I will not think less of you.

1.My husband He’ll appreciate the top billing.wish i could say the same 

2.My kids

3.My family

4.Books – all books – every genre

5.Movies – especially action and 80’s teen movies (Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink [apparently anything Molly Ringwald was in.] ) I hate molly Ringwald, I’m surprised you don’t hate her since we look like her. It used to bother me back then, but now not so much. When I was in high school I worked at a movie theater, believe me I heard it 2 or 3 times a night.  I can’t watch her act now that she’s an adult.  She’s very annoying and not very good. I have an eighth grade picture of myself that you would swear is molly ringworm, I mean Molly ringwald

6.Buddha & Kwan Yin (the female representation) ditto Kwan yin sister!

7.Ganesha – the Remover of Obstacles, Patron of Letters – often represented with a broken tusk in his hand to write with – “patron saint” in Hindu religions for writing and writer’s block.  Besides, he’s an elephant (see #36) I have him next to my bed…i might need a different kind of elephant for other problems…

8.Cookies – store bought then Oreos, home made then Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip You like store bought cookies better than homemade? NO – but if I’m going to eat store bought cookies I want them to be Oreos.

9.Ice Cream – chocolate chip from Baskin Robbins or cheese cake with Heath bars from Marble Slab Creamery  We should go to Marble Slab for lunch on Friday.

10. DisneyLand – NOT DisneyWorld I want to go to Disneyland in Dec.I want to go to DisneyLand now. I never want to go to Disneyland again…

11. Good Friends Shouldn’t you just have put my and Ava’s names here? Yes, probably.  I think we should rank higher…at least over disneyland : )

12. Shoes – pretty shoes, comfy shoes, cute shoes, all shoes. horribly uncomfortable shoes, shoes for the sake of shoes…

13. Coach purses.  I think the skies just parted…AMEN! , in the non-jesus-ish amen sort of amen. the more i type amen the more it looks like hymen. interesting…

14. Tiffanys – the pretty blue boxes.

15. Wine, Hard Cider (Ace Pear!) and Lambic

16.Sleeping late on 1000 thread count sheets

17.Giggling

18. Writing Number 18?  Your talent has ranked it otherwise.

19. Shopping – see above re: shoes, Tiffanys, Coach

20. Hawaii – especially the North Shore of Kauai – Napali Coast, Hanalei, Princeville

21. Cruises – especially to the Caribbean – St. Lucia, St. John & Antigua

22. Mexican food – cheese enchiladas mmmmmmmmm.

23. Puppies – all fuzzy sweet puppies – especially ones with long ears and big feet who sleep on the table and make a racket while you’re on the phone. And forsake me for my husband.  I swear he’s in love with the man.

24. Pirates – the cool, sexy ones.  Not the Somali type.  See next entry.  See next entry…

25.Johnny Depp – mmmmmmm  Johnny is mine, sorry.  I will call him and see if he can come to your party but you’ll have to keep your hands to yourself.  The birthday girl gets extra privileges doncha know  He’s all yours ladies.  I am saving myself for the very specific, battle-encrusted, skirt-wearing, dreadlock-bearing whats-his-name from that one movie. Crap, I think I have Alzheimer’s.

26. tattoos – I know, but they really are addictive What happens when the girl wants a tattoo?  I’ve been telling her that tattoos and ear piercing are EXQUISITLY painful.  She totally believes me, at least for now.  and I can’t talk my daughter into one for anything…

27. Pedicures & red polish

28. Red Vines – super fresh – I like to tie them in a knot and put the whole thing in my mouth at once.  Sounds like something in a Sherrill Quinn book : )

29. Godiva Chocolate – although usually I don’t get that much of it because either The Bandit or the Dog eats it.  Chocolate will kill your dog but not your kid. Well after they’ve eaten my chocolate, I often want them dead.

30. Presents.  I LOVE getting presents. I have witnessed this euphoria…2 years ago, she opened the presents while the people were in the backyard, before it was present time, then she pretended she had no idea what was in the gift bag when they all came back in and she “opened” them. It was a sight to behold…

31. The Muppets.  That includes Sesame Street.  Especially Grover, Snuffelupugus!, The Swedish Chef, Bunson Honeydew and Beaker, Fozzie Bear, Stattler and Waldorf – really, why limit yourself.

32. Bruce Springsteen – The Boss – Favorite songs of all time – Thunder Road and Born to Run

33. Live blues – one of the best concerts ever was Buddy Guy at the Cajun House in Phoenix

34. My iPod

35. Massages – best if followed up by #27

36. Elephants  WHY? They are matriarchal, they have amazing nurturing abilities, the species is fascinating is so many ways and they look cool.  The African ones are bigger and cooler looking than the Asian ones.  Remind me to tell you a really amazing study they did once.  Blew my mind.  Elephants are one of only two animal species besides humans who will tend to the sick and infirm.  (African weasels the other one, but they are icky and don’t have trunks.) Also, they call the females ‘cows’, which is how i feel right now. well, except for the lactating part.  thank god. as in the the godless wonder of a god, not actually god.

37. Lady Bugs

38. Winning – at anything I’m competing for and just in general.  And you make fun of me! I’m only making fun of you cause you’ll lose to meWith my feeble, diseased brain, I thought this said WHINING. I was laughing and ready to contribute that I, too , am a champion whiner. but nevermind.

39. Sea food – alive they freak me out, but dead and with butter, dear God, Lobster, Crab and Shrimp.  I didn’t know this about you. didn’t know what?  That I love to eat them or that I’m afraid of them when they’re alive?  Seriously, they’re very scary looking.  Very spider like. i wont mention any of this to my vegetarian daughter. she would have nightmares of a buttery mouth savoring seafood.

40. Heirloom jewelry – specifically my Great Grandma’s wedding ring – I wear it every day.  On May 31, 2017 it’ll be 100 years old.

The following from my daily desk calendar:

Writers are terrorized by editors, who wield the power to reject stories they submit for publication.  Not the struggling writer Erle Stanley Gardner, even before he became famous for his Perry Mason courtroom series. 

When he was starting out in the business, Garner submitted a mystery story to a magazine with a note for the editor:  “Three O’clock in the Morning is a damned good story.  If you have any comments, write them on the back of a check.”

The Sisters think he might have been a genius.

My Honey and I took Sassy and The Bandit to a baseball game this evening.  It was great and the home team won.  And the best part was that the game really came down to the wire.  At the bottom of the ninth inning we were tied, bases loaded, one out, and Junior Spivey hit a beautiful line drive to center field that came up short of the fielder.  It was wonderful. 

I have always loved baseball, and with the exception of hockey, it’s the only sport I enjoy live.  Or, on television for that matter.  I played as a child and have fond memories of my father coaching my team.  Sassy had no compunction what so ever in telling me she really didn’t want me to explain the game to her this evening.  Ah well.  She does enjoy shoes so we have that in common.

The Bandit was quite happy to discover that he could be as loud as he wished and his father and I wouldn’t shush him.  I encouraged him to yell and clap all he wanted.  He was also delighted to watch the goofy mascot dance and clown around.   Of course, the hot dogs, popcorn and nachos went a long way in impressing him, too.  So I have hopes that my boy will be a baseball fan with me.  I guess as long as there is a silly mascot and junk food, I’ll have someone to accompany me to the ball park.

After the game, there were fireworks.  Yowza!  Our little AAA ball park is quite small and the fireworks were quite close.  My ears are still ringing from the booming explosions.  But they were fun and beautiful and patriotic.

Even with all this going on this evening, I still managed to push out four pages.  36, 325 words toward my 100,000.  Wow, when you say it like that is is really quite daunting, isn’t it.

So both My Honey and I were worn out this evening and the thought of making dinner was spirit crushing.  The obvious solution, of course, was pizza.  The Bandit was goofing around and put a pepperoni over his eye and pretended to be a pirate.  “Aaaaaaarrrrrrg,” he said, giggling.  Unfortunately, now his eye is red and sore.  Lesson learned: pepperoni doesn’t make the best eye patch.

While writing this, My Honey called me in to show me that very same adorable, precious pirate drew with crayon all over the beautiful bookshelves my favorite father-in-law made for me.  These were the very same bookshelves I threatened to surround with barbed wire when the kids were born.  I resisted my gut instincts and look what I have to show for it.

Anyone want a pirate?  Cheap.

So The Bandit is finally asleep.  This is an exciting thing, Dear Reader.  As much as I absolutely adore him, The Bandit is exhausting to say the least.   Between him and Idiot Dog it’s a miracle anything gets done around here.  Tonight we read chapters three and four of Charlotte’s Web and then we  both fell asleep in his toddler bed.  I’m sure that’s a comical picture: he all sprawled out in his Spider-man pjs, his backie (the special blue silky blanket that Isabella bought him when he was born) and his Super Duper Snuggle Bear (that Idiot Dog has chewed both ears and the tail off of) and me, folded in half, all in a bed with a crib mattress. 

The crib mattress reminds me of a bittersweet memory.  When both Sassy and The Bandit were babies we had a heck of a time getting them to sleep in their cribs.  More often than not, they ended up in our bed, in fact they still do.  Most mornings My Honey and I wake up with both kids, Idiot Dog and the Worlds Laziest Cat in bed with us.  Thank God it’s a king size.  Anyway, more than once I curled up in their crib with them in an effort to get them back to sleep in there.  Well, one night as I lay curled up in the crib with a sweet smelling infant and contemplating the ceiling, I got to wondering what it was like in the crib from the baby’s perspective, so I raised the sliding rail all the way up.  Now don’t you know I couldn’t get out?  Seriously, when I swung my leg over the side I couldn’t touch the floor, even with a tippy toe.  I also couldn’t find a toe hold on the outside strong enough to enable me to swing my other leg over.  So I was stuck in there.  A 35 year old woman stuck in a crib with a 3 month old, wondering how all those little kids climbed out of the stupid things.  They must be either braver or more reckless than me.  Or perhaps they didn’t know enough to protect their privates from being maimed by the crib rail.  Anyway, I had to do the whisper/yell out the door until I could attract the attention of My Honey so I could get out.  After all, I couldn’t wake the baby I’d just cuddled back to sleep.  Of course, the baby awoke when My Honey couldn’t stop laughing when he came to spring me.  Now that is humiliating.

So this evening after I awoke with a charley horse from the stupid tiny bed, I came into the kitchen and discovered that The Bandit had scrawled all over one of my rubber spatulas with a ball point pen.  Why?  Why does he feel possessed to do these things?  My Honey said because there was a pen and a spatula.  My own little Sir Edmund Hillary.  He does it because it’s there.

The Idiot Dog is another story altogether.  He has another very weird habit.  Weirder even than standing, sitting and sleeping on the coffee and kitchen tables.  I realize that this is a hard act to follow, but humor me.  He hides things in the furniture cushions.  Things like bags of cookies, his toys, stolen stuffed animals.  In the early stages of this behavior, he would walk around with this toy in his mouth, whining, trying to figure out what to do with it.  It was only a matter of time before he figured out he could shove it between the pillows.  Now I find all kinds of oddities there.  It’s very exciting – like a treasure hunt.

So between fishing out a loaf of bread from the couch and trying to get ink off a spatula, I’m not writing on my book.  But, Dear Reader, I am writing to you.

We are having one of our monsoon rains here in the desert this evening. They last for about a month, and it’s just about one of my favorite things in the whole world. The desert cools off, for a while, until the humidity sets in. Tomorrow it’s supposed to be 107 so with the humidity, by afternoon, it will be almost unbearable. But, then the rains come again, complete with world class thunder and lightening and the rivers will run, at least for a couple of hours.

For now, there is nothing more enjoyable then sitting in a cool house with all the doors open, listening to the thunder roll across the sky, and waiting for the power to go off. If you don’t know how good and clean the desert smells when it rains, then you are missing out on one of the purest sensory pleasures known to man. Get to an airport right now and fly on down. Do it now, because by late August it will be too hot for the planes to land at the airport. I wish I was kidding.

So, come tomorrow. We’ll sit on the patio and drink a nice, cold bottle of chardonnay and ooh and aah at the lightening. I’ll show you how to take deep, cleansing breaths of sweet, creosote soaked air and completely relax. I’m telling you, it’s the best thing ever.

I know that you people don’t believe my stories or this one or this one.  I hear the doubt in your voice when I relate some of the antics at the Bright Compound.  You think to yourself, “No, she must be exaggerating.”  I tell you that I am not.

This past weekend My Honey went fishing with my brother, The Fish Whisperer, and the Idiot Dog was absolutely despondent that he was gone.    He pined, I tell you.  I walked out of the kitchen at one point and saw this.  I suspect he just became so exhausted from peering out the window, he had to rest.

Of course, my initial reaction was, “What the hell is this?”  Idiot Dog just looked at me as it to say, “Oh, hi.”  Before I made him get down, I grabbed my phone and took this quick picture.

Because, no one would have ever believed me otherwise.  I mean what dog does this?  I often find him on the coffee table, but the kitchen table?  Really?

Even with all my long winded complaining, I can’t ever leave here.  What would I ever do for amusement?

I finished another short story last night around midnight.  I must confess that this one was a lot more difficult for me than The Sea Rose was.  Maybe it’s easier for me to place myself in a completely fictitious place in a long ago historical time.  I can make up more stuff and you get to believe me because, really, how much do you know about 17thcentury pirates?  However, this new story takes place in current times and, God’s honest truth, I agonized over details.  I literally stared at the page on my computer for three solid days in the middle of a love scene before any real words made the page.

This story has a working title of The Guardian.  It’s about Gabriel, the Archangel, who is in love with the soul of a woman and he wants to spend a mortal life with her.  He only has 48 hours to make her fall in love with him.

I’ve sent it off to the rest of the Sisters for their input and soon the edits will begin.

Once it’s made it through the rewrites, I’ll post a sneak peak.

So you all know the Bandit, my four year old son.  You may also have read on these pages allusions to our efforts to put him to bed.  Well actually, putting him to bed isn’t the real problem.  Keeping him in bed is what causes the most effort.  I understand the Child Protective services frowns on duct tape.  Even though he’s a pain in the tookus, you’ve got to laugh at his creativity.  The following is a list of stuff that My Honey and I’ve caught him doing while his sister slumbers peacefully in her bed.  Please keep in mind that some of this stuff is occurring as late as 10:00 or 10:30.  I’ve begged the day care to stop giving him naps, but my understanding is that the teachers are so exhausted by his and his homeys shenanigans that by lunch they are begging for respite.  I’m out of luck.

1. Of course, there is the usual nonsense about being thirsty or having to pee.  But really that’s quite pedestrian for The Bandit.
2. Reading – we’ve removed countless story and comic books from his bed.  I don’t get it.  His little night light is hardly sufficient to see the pictures.
3. Looking at The Lion King slides in his View Master.  See above about the lighting conditions.
4. Building extensive race tracks for his Matchbox cars on the frame of his toddler bed.
5. MANY evenings we’ve gone in to check on him and found him missing all together.  He is later located in either our bed or his sister’s.  He’s not usually sleeping there, he’s screwing around with Sassy’s things.  Thank God she’s asleep and doesn’t know he’s touching her stuff.
6. I’ve removed the following after he’s asleep: cap guns, countless Hot Wheels, books, dinosaurs, CDs that belong to Sassy, stick ponies, model ponies, basically anything that’s portable.
7. One night he snuck in our room and stole all of our pillows.  There were 8 pillows in his bed, counting his one, all piled up on top of each other forming a tower.  Perhaps he has delusions about a retelling of the Princess and the Pea.
8. Another night I went in there and he’d put all of his cowboy gear on over his pajamas.  We’re talking sheep skin vest, chaps, boots, hat and holster with guns.  He feel asleep like that.
9. Coloring in his Spiderman coloring books.  Again, please reference the above commentary on the lighting.
10. Playing with marbles and dominoes.
11. He has a flash light that shines the Bat Signal.   That stupid thing is often coming from his room.
12. My absolute favorite of all time occurred this week.  My Honey heard water running and found him with about 15 of his Matchbox cars lined up on the bathroom sink.  He was conducting a car wash.  There was water everywhere.

Really, if CPS knew the truth I’m sure they would repeal the duct tape policy.