Another day of vacation, and my kids are now officially driving me crazy. One of the biggest problems is that I’m in the back seat with them. I’ve come to the realization that these are the most annoying people…ever. One of them smells and it’s probably not the one you suspect.

They fight nearly constantly and when they’re not fighting they’re getting along and that’s almost worse. Perhaps I’m getting short-tempered, but I’d argue that I’m more likely a beleaguered saint, destined to die a miserable death when I finally fling myself out of a moving car on a California freeway.

As I’ve mentioned before, the boy is really coming into his own sense of humor – separate from that of his father and I. I’m really loving this, even when I’m also mortified by what he’s just done.

Take for example dinner last night. It had been a really long day at Sea World and we were very tired, but still we braved one of our favorite restaurants. The boy went to the bathroom. He seemed to be in there for quite a while, but he eventually showed back up before I had to send in his father, so I didn’t think much of it. Until he went back the second, third and even tried for a fourth time. What the hell was going on in that bathroom? Never fear, it was nothing terrifying. Unless you consider The Bandit alone with a chalkboard in a men’s room.

Today, we went to the beach. When we walked back to the hotel room we had to navigate through about thirty young people, sitting on the grass, completely in the way, holding some sort of youth church group. Well, we decided, at least they’ll probably be quieter than the traveling football team that was here earlier this week. Up in our room, we told the kids to strip and get in the shower to get all the sand off.  The Bandit did this on our balcony where he took great glee in flashing the church kids. He really got into it, too. There was a definite hip wiggle and a fairly distinct cat call. 

Sigh. 

I do want to confess something. I’m not totally without fault today. 

I couldn’t resist. 

Maybe, I’ve been hanging around Ava for too long. 

Tomorrow we go to the San Diego Zoo. If anything fuzzy should disappear I’m totally blaming The Bandit. 

What’s the last thing your child did that mortified you? Have you ever been thrown out of a museum? Are you able to resist the “Do Not Touch” signs? Really?

We’re in San Diego this week. I can not tell you how glorious that fact is. At one point today, it was 30 degrees cooler in San Diego than it was at home. 30 degrees. That doesn’t even seem possible, but I assure you, it is.

We left for California at 4:00 in the morning on Saturday and arrived at 11am after stopping for breakfast along the way. That pretty much left us a full day to devote to vacationing. We stopped off at Mission Beach so the kids could check out the ocean while we waited for our rooms to be ready at the hotel. I sat in the sand because, if you don’t already know it, the Pacific Ocean is freakin freezing. My kids rolled up their shorts and piddled around in the small surf. Their father, grandmother and I took bets on which kid would “fall” in first and of course it was The Bandit in 12.7 seconds.

Ava noted that a person can’t fall into the ocean from the beach, one has to wade in. I beg to differ. My child can “fall” anywhere. We just rolled our eyes – because what are you going do? – and trudged back to the car for a change of clothes, which is what we should have done from the get go.

I don’t know if it’s because he’s seven now or what, maybe it’s just that he’s my kid, but that boy is getting really funny. His sense of humor is starting to really develop past the fart jokes and that sort of nonsense, to a delightful use of quick zingers. Today he said, “Stand back. I’m a savage” totally out of the blue.  

Honestly, no truer words have ever been spoken.

So, while we frolicked around in 72 degrees – isn’t that the idea thermostat setting? Why yes, it is. Thank you for asking – we stopped and picked up some cupcakes at this adorable bakery in Sea Port Village, Frosted Robin Cupcakes.

These six cupcakes are, starting from the top left and going clockwise: Chocolate with blue vanilla, red velvet (of course), lavender, pink lemonade, cotton candy and chocolate with chocolate. 

Of course, I bought a half-dozen because why wouldn’t I?

Unfortunately, they didn’t taste as adorable as they looked. Sigh, that is often the case. These were a bit dry and the flavors underwhelming.

Nevertheless, I am totally willing to fly to Grand Cayman to test out their other store. Is anyone willing to sponsor such an event? Think of it as bettering mankind one cupcake at a time.

You and me, together, in an unselfish act for humanity. I’m available after Friday.

I found his little tidbit of frivolousness vastly entertaining.

The delegates who attended the Constitutional Convention spent much of their time getting drunk. One surviving document is a bill for a party on September 15, 1787, two days before the signing of the Constitution. Items on the bill were: 54 bottles of Madeira, 60 bottles of claret, 8 bottles of whiskey, 22 bottles of cider, 12 bottles of beer, and 7 bowls of alcoholic punch, all for 55 people. Talk about a political party!

Here’s to continuing the fine celebration. I expect, if they’d known the glories of barbecue and margaritas, they’d have had those, too.

And from what we know of Ben Franklin, I suspect his ascot came off immediately following

How are you celebrating today? What did you take off besides the shackles of King George?

I’m exhausted. I’ve been working like a maniac at work, which is very unlike me. Just because I’ve been concentrating, don’t let that fool you into thinking that I’m being dedicated or anything. Still hate Bank of No Forks as much as ever, but the deal is my wee family is going on vacation all next week so I’m trying to get a ton done.

You know what really drives me crazy? People who leave voice mail messages excruciatingly slowly, droning on for five minutes, then give their phone number at Mach 2 and garble the number so badly there are only six intelligible numbers.

Things have not been going well so I come home from work very frustrated.

My frustration level has remained fairly high, which then translates into irritation, sometimes causing me to fixate on something to an irrational degree.

Take for instance, marshmallow flavored vodka. What the hell is that? Who drinks this crap? Why even invent it? And the commercial is hideous. What about blue lipstick screams marshmallow vodka? Who the hell thought blue lipstick was a good idea?

Why can’t I just change the channel when it comes on? Even when I’m watching something on the DVR I stop and watch that damn commercial and get all riled up over it.

Clearly, there is something wrong with me. My old therapist would definitely have something to say about it.

 Is there something that you find yourself irrationally irritated over? A commercial? Someone or something from work? I’ll bet that irritates the hell out of me, too.

I love Steve Carell. I think I first found him on The Daily Show and then became a huge fan of The Office and later The 40 Year Old Virgin. You can imagine that I’m really looking forward to Seeking a Friend for the End of the World.

The premise of the movie is that a huge asteroid is coming and it will destroy Earth. If you know that everyone is going to die, and nothing will matter in the end anyway, what would you do with your last three weeks on this planet? Not counting the serious loving and cuddling of your family, because of course, duh, you’d do that. But what else?

I would eat all the cupcakes.

My Honey says he would go find a couple of people who’ve needed an ass whooping for a long time.

I’d go drive both a Lamborghini and a 1967 Mustang Shelby Cobra GT500 very, very fast.

I’d make them let me pet a panda.

Go to Rome.

I’d manage to track down Bruce Springsteen and ask him as nicely as possible to do a live version of Thunder Road for me.

The prospects are limitless. What would you do with your last three weeks? Would it be illegal, because honestly, what difference would it make?

It seems everyone but Ava and I are getting new jobs that they are very excited about. I would love a new job that I could learn to loathe, though, honestly, I don’t think I could loathe any job anywhere near as much as I loathe Bank of No Forks. I would have to work for actual Satan in actual Hell before I could hate it as much as BofNF.

A very good friend listed me as a reference on his application. Mercifully he told me this ahead of time or I would have been clueless when they called me today. Of course, I gave him a glowing review. So much so, that I actually thought I was a bit unbelievable and tried to temper my responses.

Of course, the instant I hung up with them, I called him to say they called.

Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!

“Hey, that job just called me for a reference,” I told him all excited.

“They did? What did you say?”

I told them you stole my car and impregnated my cat.”

“Oh, that’s great. Thanks.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah, and then they wanted me to assign a number between one and ten to describe how

  dependable and honest you are.”

 “Really?” I could hear the fear in his voice.

“Yeah. Don’t worry, I gave you a good solid six.”

“Uh, thanks.” He must know I’m kidding about the car and my cat, but I suspect he’s a little concerned about that six business.

“That’s just the kind of friend I am,” I assure him.

Later today, I heard that they offered him the job. I called to congratulate him.

I know it was because of those sixes.

Ever given an excellent employment referral? Ever gotten one? Who’s the one person you’d never have talk to your prospective employer?

At the Bank of No Forks we have a security guard. We have often thought that it is ridiculous, the amount of security we have. You have to have a special swipey badge to get into the building and again to the private side of the building where we all have our offices. Customers are never allowed into the private side – ahem, Ava – so that’s why Jojo the Tiny Kitty can come to work with me everyday. Customers never even know he’s back here.

I guess we really shouldn’t be complaining about the level of security. At least BofNF wants us to be safe, right? Probably what they want is not to get sued. **eye roll**

We do get some “special” people here, but usually we’re mentally prepared for them because we work by appointment only, and we’ve already talked to them on the phone so we have a pretty good idea that they’re nuts. Sometimes customers are just really angry – usually at BofNF not us personally – and we’re quite good at talking them down off the ledge. I have an excellent track record of making my customers laugh by the end of our appointment.

We still joke around about snipers in the parking lot though. It’s the same sort of dark humor police officers have. And those guys at the morgue. It keeps us sane.

Today our receptionist was relating a story where a customer took  his anger out on her, calling her a really awful name. Really awful. A totally uncalled for expletive. She expressed concern that he’d show up in the parking lot someday. We pointed out that we have a security guard. Nothing against our security guards – our current one is really great and we really like him. So does Jojo. However, the guards are not armed with anything more powerful than their cell phones. We wonder how things would go down if there ever was an incident.

But then it occurred to me. If the sniper shows up and starts taking us out, I’m going to scream out, “Go for my legs!” I’m certain I’d never have to work again after that law suit.

The way I look at it, I don’t need my legs. I hardly use them anyway. Then I could wear all the cute shoes in the world and never have to worry about them pinching my toes.

Not a service panda, but holy crap, look at how cute!

I would immediately try to convince My Honey that I need a Service Panda. Don’t you think a panda bear would look really cute with one of those little, green vests? **A quick little aside. I Googled Service Panda and nothing came up. What do you think that means? It means I’m a trailblazer, people. Visionary.**

Even better, I can get pushed right to the front of the line at Disneyland.

Service Pony! You know they make little shoes for those ponies so they don’t slip in the mall. What kind of service animal do you want? The sky’s the limit. Service Platypus? Pygmy Hippopotamus?