I was so excited the other morning because The Bandit dressed himself for preschool.  This has never really happened before.  Bandit is not a morning person.  Let me say it again with the correct emphasis.  Bandit is NOT a morning person.  When I suggest that he go in and choose shorts and a shirt, he will throw a fit of various proportions.  Sometimes it’s just a loud “No!”, but all too often it involves flinging himself on the carpet and wailing. 

However, this morning he emerged from his den with glaringly mismatched shorts and shirt.  I said not one word of criticism.  The other thing My Honey and I absolutely must not do as his parents is mention how proud we are of him or praise him for this kind of activity.  Oddly, this will cause him to rip his clothes from his body in a complete snit and refuse to put them back on.  The best course of action is a beaming smile and a quick kiss on the head and smoothly wade into the dreaded Tooth Brushing Battle.

So the little man wore his chosen outfit out to breakfast.  His father started to mention the combination, but I flung myself in front of that speeding bus and successfully diverted a nuclear melt down.  After breakfast, I told him to hop into his room and put on shoes and socks.  He emerged with his Vans and no socks.  Again, I said nothing and glaringly dared his father to ruin it with a comment. 

For once, we had a relatively yell-free morning.  I was really proud of my little dude. 

Then I came home.  The preschool had told his father when he picked up the boy that they didn’t want him to wear those shoes anymore because he wouldn’t leave them on.

They also strongly suggested underwear.

This morning when My Honey was taking me to work, I noticed him peering at the gauges on his dashboard.

“I need to get petrolene (that’s what he calls gas.  I don’t know – who understands men?)”

I lean over the cab of the truck and glance at his gas gauge.  “No, you’ve got lots of gas in there.”

Right on cue we hear a loud “Bing” – the truck informing us that it also believes it needs “petrolene”.  I scoff and reach up to the computer readout on the roof of the cab.  The computer calculates, based on your driving habits and the available gas in the tank, how many miles you have left.  It said 16.

“Pshaw,” I say, “you can keep driving on that until Wednesday or so.”

“Unlike you, I don’t feel compelled to gamble on how long I can still go on an empty tank,” he says.

That’s not it exactly.  It’s really more of a game of skill.  I look at that little “Bing” as if my Dodge is saying to me, “Game on.”  I’ll ride those available miles until the calculation tells me zero.  Of course, I get a little panicky at that point, but that’s all part of the game.  It all begins with 13 miles or so and, I think to myself, work and home are only about two miles apart – give or take.  Theoretically I can go six more days on that if I don’t go ANYWHERE else.  And you need to factor in hills and such, that will change how many ounces the tank thinks are in there.  My drive way sits at a slant so, in the morning, the Dodge tries to psyche me out telling me there are only three miles left.  That makes me a little anxious, but I’ll soon remember that the computer told me eight when I parked it last night.  Ha! The Dodge thinks I’m a fool, but it doesn’t know who it’s dealing with.

And then Ava or Isabella will call me for lunch and that disrupts my whole strategy.  

I think I like living dangerously and, now that I’m a grown up, and my wild days are over, Gasoline Roulette is where I get my kicks.  Of course, it could be that My Honey is just more responsible than I am – after all he’s the one who set us up with AAA. Which, I’d like to point out in neon letters, I’ve never had to use because I’ve run out of gas.

My car’s been in the shop.  If you think I sound perfunctory and maybe a little bitter, you’d be right.  I hate feeling trapped – at work, at home, wherever. 

My Honey drove us all to our respective destinations this morning and, when we got to Sassy’s school, I hopped out to walk her to her 1st grade class room.  When I climbed back in the truck, My Honey was distressed.  Apparently, an older kid, one of the middle schoolers most likely, had a lit from the passenger seat of the car that dropped her off and immediately hustled away from the parking lot.   Her mother stepped out from behind the steering wheel, and in front of everyone, proceeded to vigorously wave goodbye and yell how much she loved her daughter.  That alone would be embarrassing, but apparently, the mother was wearing what he described as “full on pajamas, a robe and everything.”  He related that the poor child never looked up but rather ran faster from the car.  He was appalled on her behalf.

My take on the situation?  I suspect someone was obnoxious at the grocery store last night.

If I know anything about my readership, it’s that you’re a blood thirsty lot.  I know that you’ve all been waiting with bated breath to know the outcome of the shoes.  Did she slip on the stairs?  Did she trip on that dust mote by the elevator?  I am sorry to disappoint you all, but I am relieved to tell you that I survived 9 hours in the shoes.  I even brought extra sandals in case what I assumed would be the inevitable.  But I did it! 

For those of you that are disappointed, never fear.  There will be plenty of opportunities for me to tell you of horrifying trips to the emergency room.  After all, The Bandit just started soccer and there is potential with Sassy in ballet.  Besides they are related to me, and a clumsier, more accident prone person I have yet to meet.  Except for my brother – oh, the stories I could tell.

Usually, I decide what I’m going to wear for work while I’m in the shower.  Most times, I choose my outfit based on one piece I want to wear and then figure out all the rest of the ensemble.  All week long, I’ve had an outfit in mind but have chickened out at the last minute.  Go right ahead and banish the vision of tube tops and cut off jeans from your mind right now.  I work in a corporate setting and, admittedly most days I dress on the lower spectrum of the dress code nevertheless, I am within the bounds of propriety and reason.  I just generally go for comfort rather than high style.  Don’t get me wrong – I own the shoes for high style, just not the stamina.  I have a strange juxtaposition going on: I LOVE shoes and own a lot of them, but I love nothing more than being barefoot all the time.

 So the one piece I’ve wanted to wear all week is a specific pair of shoes.  My trepidation wasn’t from wearing the heels all day, they are surprisingly comfortable.  The reason I wimped out every day was a cold sweat inducing phobia.  These particular shoes have sat in the lovely box on my dresser mocking me since the first week in September.  If you are unfamiliar with the humiliation these shoes have brought to my life, feel free to take a journey back in time and refresh your memory.

Finally, this morning I decided that I needed to look that fear in the face, climb back up on that horse so to speak.  So long as there aren’t any ice cubes, and I pray to God (the god that invented Manolo Blahniks and Christian Louboutin) it doesn’t rain, and I’ll be alright.  I’ll keep you posted.  I’m nothing if not forthcoming with my public embarrassments.

Roscoe, The Idiot Dog, is a big galoot.  He’s tall and thin like older puppies generally are.  I say puppy because he’s only a year and a half, and anyone who has had big dogs will tell you that they are still very much a puppy at his age.  In fact, it is my belief that they don’t even grow a brain until well into their second year.  I tell you this because perhaps it will explain some of his antics.  That sitting-on-the-table thing, I’m at a loss over.  It’s just weird, and I don’t think that anyone is going to give me a believable explanation.  But, under the category of normal puppy behavior is his playfulness. 

That dog races around like a maniac for hours until he just literally drops where he is from exhaustion.  Unfortunately, he often doesn’t have anyone to play with.  The humans in his pack aren’t always up for a wrestling death match. 

Yesterday evening he was really wound up.  When I caught up with him, he was racing up and down the hall and baying like a pack of wolves.  He leapt on a big heavy chair and it skated across the room on the tile.  That explains why the furniture keeps moving.  So he grabs one of The Bandit’s toys and bows in invitation.  Bandit ignores him, he’s coloring and will not be disturbed.  Roscoe is having none of this so now he starts muscling the boy by sidling up to him and bumping into him trying to move him.  Bandit tells him to go away and shoves him back.  Roscoe persists, this time by standing on his coloring book.  The dog is bigger than the boy and now my little man is getting frustrated.  The dog simply will not go away.  So Bandit looks up and bites the hell out of the dog, right on his flank, and went right back to coloring. 

Roscoe just looked at me as if to say, “Did you just see that?”, but he did leave the boy alone after that.

I don’t know who was more surprised me or the dog.

I would like to send a thank you out to Roscoe, The Idiot Dog.  It is because of him that our pantry is swept, mopped, and repainted.  This morning, as in most Sundays, Sassy and The Bandit were up early watching cartoons.  My Honey and I try to eek out a little more sleep before their squabbling forces us out of bed and out to our full times jobs as referrees.  In my sleepy fog, I kept hearing a loud banging.  My Honey and I sat up just as the kitchen trash can came into view with Roscoe at the helm, his head and shoulders completely inside.  Crap!  I could hear the manic strains of cartoon music coming from the living room.  When we surveyed the damage, it was not good.  There was icky kitchen trash strewn throughout the entire house: the family room, kitchen, hall, laundry room and, most annoying of all, through the living room where the kids blithely sat watching cartoons.  I suspect the banging annoyed them, but did they dare glance away from the holiest of holy television shows?  No, don’t be ridiculous.  My only consolation and defense of the Sunday morning ritual is that at least they are watching PBS. 

My absolute favorite part of the mess was a entire 1 gallon jug of apple juice that emptied out under the shelves of the pantry.  Clean up of that swampy mess entailed removing the shelves which of course entailed taking all of the food out.  The plus side, of course, will be that we will have a well ordered pantry.  I say “will be” because once the pantry was emptied and mopped, My Honey decided to paint and do a little drywall repair.  Why is that?  Why does every job have to grow exponentially larger?  If it had been entirely up to me, I’d have just boarded up the pantry and pretended like it didn’t exist. 

Anyway, Roscoe has been relegated to the back yard for infinity, or at least until this afternoon, My Honey is off to Lowe’s for supplies, my kids are being cruelly forced to clean their rooms.  And me?  I’m hiding in the office fearing that My Honey will come up with something for me to do. 

Shhhhhhh.

I’m bored.  This is never good.  I’m not good at idle.  I either spend money or eat bad things.  Now, I’m a poor chubby person.  As you know the Sisters have been working very hard on revisions for my first book.  I had an assignment for that, but I’ve done my part and sent it on to the next sister, Isabella, for her to do her edits.  I’ll admit that I’ve got some issues with POV, point of view for the uninitiated, and she’s a wiz at it. 

Now I wait.  Ava has espressly forbidden me to start a new project.  She’s very strict.  She won’t even listen to ideas about new projects.  Here’s the problem, if I don’t have an active project, my mind wanders: there’s the secret project that I’ve been contemplating, and that stupid knight has made another appearance in my day dreams.

I’m really sorry, Ava, but today is the day I take Sassy to ballet, and it’s a really long drive, and my mind wandered.  I have a name for my Knight and a name and nationality for my damsel, a name for the bad guy, and a whole plot.  If you don’t give me an assignment soon, I fear that words will have to be written.