No answers. Just stories.
Fever, headache, crap all over the house, the children watched too much television and our one excursion was to Trader Joe’s where people asked me how come Mare didn’t have a coat and Ren was wearing nothing but a leotard?
Dinner was rice and broccoli with a side of hostility and regret.
8 a.m. Contented the children with snacks and cartoons, took a cup of coffee and the laptop back to bed. One hour into vacation and it’s going great.
8:02 a.m. Eden’s crying.
8:03 a.m. Eden’s screeching.
8:45 a.m. Fed Eden leftover tortellini for breakfast. I figure she doesn’t mind because, no one told her the social rules of breakfast food.
9:00 a.m. Nursed Eden, put her down, got back to cold coffee.
9:05 a.m. Ren stomps up stairs to tell me they are bored. I crack out the cool marble-tower run builder set thingy I bought for just this occassion. It’s Dutch.
9:10 a.m. Ren wakes up Eden, crying that she can’t read Dutch. She can’t read at all, actually, but that’s a moot point.
10:00 a.m. Up to my ass in marbles and Dutch. Eden is finding new and interesting ways to kill herself with marbles and piss off her sisters by smashing towers. That’s when it hits me: Holy SHIT this is a lot of kids.
1:00 p.m. Driving to Starbucks in 65-degree weather. Home Alone is playing in the back. Ahh … Christmas music and violence. Welcome, Spring.
2:00 p.m. Home from Targay Baybay. Sending the children out to play. Only 115 hours of break to go.
3:15 p.m. Screechy-Mc-Asshole is not happy. Ren is going to run away. Mare is halfway through the first Little House book. VACAY IS AWESOME!!!
I look like hell.
Although I am apparently looking better than I was. One of Ren’s teachers remarked to me last week that Eden is finally looking older and I am looking younger. As Eden’s health stabilizes some of my gray gaunt expression has warmed.
But there are dark circles under my eyes.
Eden is still not sleeping through the night. In fact, she is up on average, three times per night to nurse, or about every two to three hours.
In other words, I’ve been on a newborn schedule for about a year. I haven’t completed a REM cycle since just after the end of the Bush Administration.
I get a lot of grief for this — you mothers know, we get a lot of grief for everything. I am asked for the Sleep Report by people who think that I should be looking more rested by now. Some of them are generous, others critical.
Take care of yourself, they say. You work now, you can’t do this.
That is the problem, of course. I work now. I work full time with part time day care for Ren and only four hours per week for Eden. Eden is a pro at going to meetings, playing quietly with toys while I take notes and try to ask insightful questions to make up for the fact there’s a baby with me.
She has gotten used to nursing while I bang away on the laptop behind her head, to eating in her high chair while I read through notes or get a meal made.
Eden has figured out that if she wants to get on my schedule, 2 a.m. is her best bet. At that hour, there’s no laptop. It’s just her and me under the covers. I rub her baby down hair between my fingers while she feeds. I carry her back to her bed, her legs hang limply over my arm. She sucks her thumb and nuzzles against my chest. We always stand there a minute before I put her down, just rocking, her and me. When I set her down, she brings her legs up under herself and is instantly asleep.
“How can you do it?” people ask. “How are you still getting up every two hours?” My wise-ass response comes straight from Men in Black — “You get used to it. Or you suffer a psychotic episode.”
My straight answer is that some day she will be thirty. Some day, God willing, I’ll get an ungodly-hour phone call and arrive just in time to see her greet her own baby, and maybe I will watch her hold her baby close, comforting him or her, despite how beat up and tired and overwhelmed she is.
She’ll know how to do it because it was done for her.
And I’ll think back to that crazy year I spent working, not-sleeping, barely keeping all the pieces together. And I think I’ll think it was a pretty small price to pay, the exhaustion.
Sarah – PayPal :
Hello, I’m Sarah and I’m here to answer your questions about PayPal. Even though I’d like to be a real person, I’m not. I’m programmed to answer your questions. How can I help you?
You :
I would like to have PayPal waive all fees for donation to my Haiti surgical team project. Whom should I speak to?
Sarah – PayPal :
Could you confirm what kind of transaction you would like to cancel?
-Sending money
-Moving money to your bank account
-Adding funds to your PayPal account
You :
Seriously?
Sarah – PayPal :
Could you confirm what kind of transaction you would like to cancel?
-Sending money
-Moving money to your bank account
-Adding funds to your PayPal account
You :
The word cancel wasn’t even in there.
Sarah – PayPal :
Could you confirm what kind of transaction you would like to cancel?
-Sending money
-Moving money to your bank account
-Adding funds to your PayPal account
Sarah – PayPal :
I found the following information, which could be helpful.
How do I manage my profile information and preferences?
What are PayPal fees?
I want to cancel a transaction
How do I close my PayPal account?
You :
You’ll never be human, Sarah. Give up your quest.
Sarah – PayPal :
I’m a virtual person. My software allows me to speak with you. I’m right here if you have any other questions.
You :
And the yoga thing you’re doing with your hands? –It’s not helping you.
Sarah – PayPal :
I’m sorry you’ve had a frustrating experience. Perhaps I can help you if you ask me a short, clear question.
You :
How do I get PayPal to waive fees for my Haiti relief donations?
Sarah – PayPal :
Could you confirm what kind of transaction you would like to cancel?
-Sending money
-Moving money to your bank account
-Adding funds to your PayPal account
You :
Sarah, you bug me.
Sarah – PayPal :
Could you confirm what kind of transaction you would like to cancel?
-Sending money
-Moving money to your bank account
-Adding funds to your PayPal account
You :
Ever just wish you could go out for burgers and the amusing house wine?
Sarah – PayPal :
I’m shocked. I don’t think that’s really something you should say to a virtual person. Please don’t use inappropriate language. Let me know your PayPal issue and I’ll do my best to help you.
You :
I didn’t use inappropriate language, Sarah, I just said you can’t have the amusing house wine. Which offended? The amusement or the wine?
Sarah – PayPal :
I’m afraid I didn’t understand your question. Can you ask it more simply?
You :
What offended, bitch?
Sarah – PayPal :
I’m here to answer questions or to help you contact PayPal. Let’s resume a polite conversation.
You :
Okay. How do I contact PayPal?
Sarah – PayPal :
Would you like to contact PayPal by:
-Email
-Phone
It is true that bloggers don’t wear underpants.
I mean, we do. But when you’re home Working It at the computer, drinking coffee, the kids are in school and it is Freaking Arctic out … well, who can be bothered?
I did think to myself, as I grabbed the Schmoop-in-a-bucket and headed out to collect Ren from school that I should really consider getting dressed. After all, the last time I drove someone somewhere in my jammies, we were in a car accident. On a military base.
A Lance Corporal saluted my husband while snickering at my cute flannel night shirt covered in a trench coat. Aaaaawesome.
So when I threw on my snow boots and parka, popped a hat on the Schmoopy and headed out into the world I did actually think to myself, “Clothes would be much smarter.”
And then I shut the door.
I got Schmoop settled, hauled on the frozen driver’s side door, got it open, reached into my pocket and …
Holy shit.
Oh no.
Never. I want to say this: NEVER in 20 years of adult responsibility have I EVER locked myself out of a house or car.
This is my second time this year. I blame the baby.
As I mentioned, it was arctic. And the Loser Cruiser warms up nicely when it has the benefit of ignition, which it doesn’t without a key. So I covered the Schmoop in my coat. But not before digging through the pocket and finding …
Mama’s New iPhone.
Angels weep.
I set to work. A call to Sunbeam and Moonbeam — who’s got a spare to the Tilty-Floored Farmhouse? Moonbeam had one, but she’s gone back to Amherst. DAMN. Sunbeam gave hers to Thunderbolt. Thunderbolt is in Rhode Island. Cute Husband said he gave his to Thunderbolt, too … which means we have one unaccounted for, but whatever, I’ll sort that out later.
Sunbeam was forty minutes away but agreed to collect the Doodle from School. Good. I checked the Schmoop’s hands and cheeks — they were warm. I kept the door shut, so mother-freaking-careful not to keep it TOO shut, if you know what I mean.
A call to Happy Progressive Smiles. Just my luck, the Head of School herself answered the phone. In person. Herself.
“Yeah, so,” I said. “I am going to be just little late getting Ren …” She laughed. -That great at-you-and-with-you kind of laugh that makes it all okay. She promised to feed Ren and keep her someplace warm until Sunbeam could get there. Then I shot an e-mail to the folks I was freelancing for that afternoon.
“Stuck in my driveway, locked out. Please look over the material I sent and tell me if it needs anything.”
Then I Googled locksmiths. As the search results came up with phone numbers, Momma’s Little Miracle helpfully offered to dial them for me. The sixth one said he was fifteen minutes out, so that was great.
By then, Sunbeam and her twin sister Tango Foxtrot* had arrived with the Doodle. They piled into the frigid Loser Cruiser with me to wait for the locksmith.
I used Momma’s Little Miracle to memorialize the event:
Sunbeam and Tango Foxtrot were quickly bored, and given that their car was both warm and mobile, they got into it and sped away to hang out with their friends or whatever it is the kids are doing these days.
But it was okay, because the locksmith assured me he would be there any minute.
“Thank God you have the iPhone,” wrote back my client. “Download the fart ap for Ren, that will keep her amused for a while.”
I seriously debated doing that, but didn’t really want to introduce Ren to the idea there was anything for her in my iPhone. Thank God the Loser Cruiser is such a pit, you can find anything back there. I handed Ren her pink princess computer. She searched for the elements Cinderella needed for her perfectly pink tea party while I flung pygmies at volcanoes.
It had now been an hour since the locksmith said he was coming. I called him back, annoyed and very cold.
“Listen,” I said. “I am stuck in this car with an infant and a toddler and it’s very cold. If you’re not coming, just tell me and I will call the cops or something or go to a neighbors.”
“No,” he said. “I’m coming, I swear.”
Fine, all right, whatever. I hung up and decided to start a game of Spite and Malice.
“Who’d da toddler, Momma?” Ren asked, in that oh-so-innocent voice that foretold DAYS of endless reminding of the damage I had done to her fragile dignity.
“Oh, I just said that,” I said, “to make him come faster. If he knew you were a big girl, he might not come so fast.”
“Oh.”
Then: “Momma. When he sees me, he will know I’m a big girl. Not a toddler.”
“Of course,” I said, sensing danger.
“I look like a big girl.”
“You do, of course.”
“So he will know you lied.”
“Right,” I agreed furiously tapping my fingers to flip cards, refusing to make eye contact.
“You lied. And it will be very obvious that you did.”
“Sure will,” I agreed.
Ten minutes later, I was on my fifth card game, Ren had put away her computer and was badgering me incessantly about her status as a Most-Definitely-Not-a-Toddler.
“Because toddlers can’t talk the way I can. Toddlers, Momma? DON’T SKI. Ever seen a toddler ski? And toddlers don’t sit as nicely as I am sitting. Toddlers run all over da place and yell …”
I found it amazing that she was hammering so mercilessly on a single word uttered to a complete stranger on a cell phone but ignoring the fact that it was because of me that we were stuck in the frozen minivan in the first place.
“Hey, you know what let’s do?” I said, spying a birthday invitation in the pile of mail on the floor. “Let me call Julie’s mother and RSVP her birthday party, okay? How about that.” I tapped on the number on my little device of Love and Mercy. Voicemail.
Here is what my message sounded like:
“Hi, this is Liz Schwarzer calling –”
“Momma tell Julie’s mother I am not a toddler. Toddlers don’t go to big-girl birthday parties.”
“–to RSVP for Julie’s birthday. The tea party sounds just great, Ren is so excited.”
“Momma. I did not say I was excited. Don’t lie. DON’T LIE ABOUT ME ON THE PHONE ANY MORE MOMMA.”
“Ren. You are excited about Julie’s birthday, honey!!! HAHAHAHA.”
“LET ME TALK TO HER!”
“Ren, she’s not on the phon-” (sound of phone being bumped, hitting the floor) “oh, shit,” (sound of phone being batted about the floor by cold fingers that can no longer grip. Baby starts crying.)
Finally, I got my fingers around the phone.
“Hi, hahaha, sorry ..” (Oh my God what is Julie’s mother’s name?) “um, right, so we’ll be there. Thanksbye.”
I decided I’d rather be cold than sitting next to an irate toddle– excuse me, WOMAN — so I stepped out of the car to call the locksmith again, and beg him for mercy. He swore he was on his way. It had now been two hours since I called him, two and a half since I had locked myself out. I was very very cold.
I got back in the car to distinct evidence that Ren had been playing with my lipstick.
When I uploaded this picture, I had the answer to the question, "Where is the freaking Dora video?"
I have no idea why that put me over, but it did: I called the fire department. They arrived at about the same time as the locksmith, carrying the same exact tools. The locksmith charged me fifty dollars.
I got back in the house about three hours after I had left it, having spent that time sitting in my driveway contemplating the meaning of life, the brilliance of the iPhone, the utter stupidity of going out in winter without socks, no matter how heavy your boots are.
As I was pounding my screaming feet against the shower floor, I conducted a little After Action Report in my head: Eden had stayed toasty warm under my big coat, so no harm there. Ren was fine. Lipstick seemed like small potatoes. Julie’s mother (“Sandra?” “Cathy?”) was either going to just love me or just hate me from now on, and that seemed like pretty small potatoes, too.
I probably should have given up on the locksmith much sooner, called the fire department or gone to a neighbor’s.
Gee, I should really get to know the neighbors.
“When all is said and done,” I told Cute Husband later, “I’m really glad I didn’t forget the iPhone. For example, somwhere in Hour Two, I was looking up Starbucks locations all over the Commonwealth. I couldn’t get to any of them, of course, but at least I know where they are now.”
“That’s a great combat tool,” Cute Husband agreed. “Somewhere in Afghanistan, some Lance Corporal is programming the lieutenant’s iPhone to find insurgents and latte.”
“I feel like maybe you’re mocking me.”
“Never.”
“It’s not nice to mock.”
“Can’t let anything go, can ya, Ren?”
“Stop it. STOP MOCKING ME.”
“Oh, okay, Ren.”
“Whatever.”
*I have no idea why. I’ve just always wanted to say “Tango Foxtrot.” She’s probably going to kill me when she reads this.
Mare was insomnnaic until midnight or so. I finally got her to sleep by putting her next to me and rubbing her back. That was when the baby woke up. She was perfectly happy as long as someone was playing with her, but if you dared to stop she screeched hysterically. We tried sitting her between us and ignoring her, but it’s so hard to ignore a person who is sad, particularly when her expression of sadness involves stabbing fingernails into your eyeballs.
So then I cried. And Cute Husband swore, and that woke up the other kids, and then we yelled at them, and then they all cried. And then he took the Small Beastly One downstairs and watched television with her and I got the other two to sleep in our bed and then he finally got the baby down and grabbed himself the last remaining five-inch strip of mattress (no blanket) and I forbade him to bitch about it.
At about 5:30 a.m., Ren peed.
So we were all up (and two of us were wet — and given that one of us was covered in urine that was not her own I thought it was poor manners for the other one to be weeping about it.)
I managed breakfast, got everyone out the door with lunches, mittens, hats, backpacks, library books (Mare), Barbies (Ren), and extra strength Tylenol for the road (me).
The windshield wipers didn’t work.
It had snowed in the night.
It was the first day of school after break.
I was low on gas.
I got everyone dropped off, tucked Eden back down for a nap, considered cleaning and decided to watch the Daily Show instead. Then I braved the e-mail inbox, seriously wished I hadn’t, and ate a piece of chocolate cake.
I found out that my windshield wiper motor is REALLY special. This motor, apparently? It sings in six languages and will complete your tax return as you commute.
Oh, no? It doesn’t do that? All it does is freaking move a wiper blade across a 5-foot span of glass? Then why does it cost more than I make in a week??
Whatever.
The worst part about days like this is the spiral. It’s like a bad fall — you think you have it, you throw your weight, you try to catch your balance … and then BOOM. You’re down. Life sucks. There are little shrimp tails in the corner of the kitchen floor and you don’t even give a shit.
I know this gets better, I thought to myself. This always gets better. I just have to remember what I do to get out of it.
Answer?
I got new tub toys. Our old tub toys had been around since Mare was a toddler. (Homer? STILL THERE.) They were in a pile in a plastic bin that had layers of slimy black ick at the bottom. None of the pieces made sense any more. I pitched most of them (all Homer ever did was piss us off, anyway), scrubbed the bin, and got some new things.
It was pretty, it was shiny and tidy and organized, and it made me want to bathe the kids.
Then I cleaned the bathroom to make it all match. Once I had done that, I wanted the bedrooms to match, too. Of course the kitchen. I had beef stew going before long, and by bedtime there was a fresh table cloth and the floor was swept. Eden was doing the Terminator scooch across it.
At 7:00, I tubbed the Littles. Eden laughed and splashed, and I soaped up all her wrinkles and dimples and scrubbed her fuzzy head. Ren demonstrated how to pour water down herself, and we all experimented with the new toys.
My bed sheets were dry and fresh and in the spirit of charity, I let Ren back in. (First I made her hit the john.) We had our nightly meeting while Mare read to herself downstairs.
“How’s school?” I asked.
“Oh, it’s good,” she smiled. “I love my teachers. ” She climbed into my arms and I stroked her back. She smelled like oatmeal shampoo.
“Was it fun tubbing with Sister?” I asked.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Did you see how she trusted me and wasn’t afraid of the tub because I was there?”
She sounds just like Mare used to.
Downstairs, I can hear the shower starting. After she showers, Mare will read Harry Potter to herself for another hour before she goes to bed.
Life moves on, every single day, even the ones that suck. And sometimes, getting one foot in front of the other means picking one thing to fix and letting it inspire you. Even if it’s only a bunch of tub toys.
Let me put this in context for you:
I had been up until 1 in the morning finishing student papers. I nursed Eden at 1:45; 3:45: 5:45 and 6:30. Ren and I both slept until 9:00. School starts at 8:00. Mare was annoyed.
There was no taking Ren to school at that point, so she came with me and the baby to the gas station and the bank, executing a full Post-Birthday Meltdown on the way home when Barbie’s shoes wouldn’t stay on. Of course we hadn’t stopped to feed Eden.
The house looks like it has been hosting frat parties for the last three consecutive nights, only instead of empty beer bottles, the floor is littered with Barbie packaging, shredded wrapping paper and miscellaneous food scraps.
FYI I had just checked the weather channel and it’s going to rain Saturday when we expect 18 screaming little girls and Sleeping Beauty. I was thinking about that a lot.
So I banged the front door open, dragging my screaming children behind me, trying not to panic about housecleaning and money and rain. I set Eden down, went over to the table to get her cereal bowl, to the sink for water, back to the table again. Ren followed, barefoot, whining about this or that.
We had absolutely no idea we were passing back and forth within inches of the bottom half of a very large dead squirrel.
With a fluffy tail. And, like, colorful entrails.
I finally noticed it when one of the cats shot guiltily past me. How does a cat “shoot guiltily?” I don’t know. I guess you live with anything long enough you kind of get to know its moods. But something about the way he ran out the door made me stop and turn to look on the gorgeous handmade rug Cute Husband earned as a young boy selling carpets in Turkey. (‘Nother story for a ‘nother time.)
The point is that there the squirrel was. The bottom half of him, anyway, bleeding into that fine carpet.
“Momma … what’s wrong?” Renny asked. I had whisked her around to face the dishwasher. The new dishwasher. Nice, stainless. Free of intestines.
As far as I know.
I was standing next to her thinking Step Two was eluding me.
I seized into giggles. This happens to me. Most often when I am placed in a position of responsibility with absolutely no idea how to proceed and there’s a corpse on the rug.
“Why we staring at the dishwasher?” Ren asked. I couldn’t answer. I was wiping away tears and gasping for air.
“Because,” I finally said. “There’s a dead squirrel on the rug.” And your mother’s idea of problem-solving is to fixate on kitchen appliances. WATCH AND LEARN, KID.
Finally I did what any self-respecting liberated independent woman would do.
I ran across the street to the neighbor’s house. He’s in construction, and works from home. Over the last two years he’s always had whatever we didn’t — sand for the driveway, a spare shovel, tips for fixing the gutter.
It wasn’t until he was standing, pale in my kitchen, shovel in hand, that I understood what I had done to him.
“You might have been better at this,” he said, swallowing, staring at the Corpse.
“Perhaps, but it’s too freaking late now, get in there.”
No, no, no. I totally didn’t say that. I didn’t say anything, it’s hard to talk when you’re gazing at a dishwasher.
“MOMMA THE GUTS ARE COOOOL!” Ren said.
“I’m sure they are, Baby,” I said.
I heard Nice Neighborman gag. I am a terrible person and I just don’t care.
He got the squirrel, swung around with it on the shovel, not looking, heading for the door.
I didn’t have the heart to tell him he left one paw behind. Maybe he noticed and didn’t have the heart to tell me.
He pitched the squirrel over the hedge. The little fluffy tail soared and landed right in the middle of the Secret Garden, where the girls take their tea. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that, either.
Okay, well, whatever. I plugged Ren into a Barbie movie with a bowl of strawberries, mixed up some cereal, sat Eden down, and began to feed her.
I thought about things. Mainly, about the rain Saturday. How was I going to deal with that?
“Momma?” Ren asked, coming toward me, “can I have some more strawberries?”
“REN! LOOK OUT FOR THE–!”
“Coool!! SQUIRREL FOOT!”
“Want some milk with that?”
“Yes, please, Momma.”
“Nice manners, Love.”
Now, what to do about the rain?
I ran the kids to school, fast, and got back for the dishwasher man. While he was here, I folded laundry and planned out the day. We had an impossible list of needs, first and foremost among them, a grocery run.
There was no food in the house. No coffee, either.
Once the dishwasher was in, I got in the car and ran to the school, making plans on the cell phone as we went.
“We’re going to Wal-Mart,” I told Ren when she got in. “To pick up dish detergent, garbage bags, and a new broom. We’re going to the market for food, and then the toy store so you can pick out a birthday gift from you to Sister and one from Sister to Zoe. Then we’re going home to prep dinner and finish cleaning up. Then we’re going to get Sister at school, run her to Zoe’s party. Then we’re going to the airport to collect Auntie.”
“I’m hungry.”
“Right. First stop’s bagels.”
I don’t like the coffee at the bagel place, so after Ren and I had our little hot white-paper packages, I drove across the highway to get to the Starbucks. I would need to cross back to get to the mall, but I was more than willing to pay that price.
Coming out of the Starbucks drive through, I was looking at the clock and budgeting time for each errand, sipping a hot latte, trying not to spill, eating a freaking bagel like a starved wild beast, while trying to pull into traffic and across three lanes to get to Wal-Mart.
This is no way to live, people. I know that.
Anyway, I pulled out, and whatever, I cut a woman off.
A very small, angry little woman.
In a Datsun.
I am HER – that horrible woman with the screaming kids in the mini van, obsessed with schedules and Starbucks.
So I thought, “I’m going to wave to that lady, show her sheepish and sweet. We’ll be each other’s brief little soul mates. She’ll know I didn’t really mean to be an asshole.”
So I sent the command to my hand: “Wave nicely.”
But there’s another line of code in my head, a stronger line, deeply imbedded, that no part of my body will ever violate: “DO NOT SPILL LATTE.”
My hand, the unhappy child of divorce, chose a compromise. It raised the cup toward the angry little woman in the Datsun, and it jauntily lifted one finger.
I will let you guess which one.
Percocet gives me funky dreams.
Like this one:
There is a knock at the door. I open it, and the hospital pediatrician is there. The one who didn’t approve of me. She is flanked by scowling nurses in their scrubs.
“You took home the wrong baby!!” they screech.
Oh, I say. Really?
In response to their demands, I produce the infant.
“How could you not know this is the wrong baby?”
I don’t know. I mean, I knew she didn’t look like anyone in our family, but I thought that was okay.
“Yes, but how could you not notice THIS??” they ask. They open her diaper and reveal a penis.
Damn. They have me there. I really should have noticed that one.
The children’s school — Happy Progressive Smiles — has sent home a sheet on which we are to pledge our commitment to some act to help the environment in honor of Earth Day.
I wanted to count saving the hospital peri bottle from the landfill by bringing it home for the girls to use in the tub.
“That’s inappropriate,” Sunbeam said.
She is such a buzz kill sometimes.
Da Momma: Elizabeth, a journalist and college instructor. Formerly a latte-slinging, cell phone-talking Washington political junkie. Now a wild-dancing accidentally offensive woman with an irrational passion for flinging things on the floor and hanging things from ceilings. Wants you to think she's a grown-up, even though she calls her Dad the minute things get complicated.
Baby Eden: The Schmoopy. My sweet little Three, who shrank instead of grew. But she's always had Momma's back.
Mary: Devoted to hermit crabs and FREAKING OUT. Made me a mother.
Karenna: Peekaboo Streak. The Roodle, Doodley. Everybody knows about Roo. Passionate about folk music. Some werewolf tendencies. Always looking for new employees. Sophisticated vocabulary
Cute Husband, Esq: A former Marine, it was he who instilled in our daughters a love of getting up very early in the morning to go off and do things. Some days he's lucky he's still alive.
Moonbeam and Sunbeam: Yes, okay, somehow or other they got the same sorta names as our cats, Moonlight and Sunshine. That was a total accident. However, like the cats, they are super-cuddly, will get food for themselves if hungry, and they're part of the family. Like the rest of the family, they believe in the power of liquor, drugs, and hot glue. They have no fear of blood.
The Beasties: Two cats. And some cacti that refuse to die. This is a picture of a fish we killed a long time ago. Need to update that.
