Did I Mention She Was Snoring Too?

Tallulah Rockstar fell asleep with her beloved tennis ball IN HER MOUTH!

I had time to walk into the room, see her on the bed, get my camera out of the bag and take a few pictures before she woke up.

When she woke up, she gave me the evil eye.

Then she spit out the tennis ball and went back to sleep! Weird dog! (But note, she is still snuggling with her tennis ball!)

P.O.'D

toothpastefordinner.com

I see this cartoonist has visited my post office! Peace y'all.

When Last We Blogged...

I was having a hard time keeping up my end of the posting regularly idea and it seems like not much has changed on that front! So sorry. Yet life here has been great even if I haven't been blogging about it! First - gratuitous cute dog pictures:

Tallulah is a social sleeper. She is happiest if she can find a person or two over which to drape herself. She's given up sleeping on Wasabi. He won't put up with it. She tries to skooch up to him but he scoots away.
Snuggling with her tennis ball as a last resort.

This is as close as he'll usually let her get. Although immediately after this picture Wasabi sat on Tallulah (who was still sleepy). He was looking at us taking his picture and I think he thought he was going to get a treat and assumed the "Good Dog Sit" position. (To make it clear, we are not in the habit of rewarding him for perching on his sister!) I wish we'd been able to get it on film, though. It was funny.
"Wait, take that one again. I blinked."


I would post some pictures of the kids but they won't hold still. Chaos is busy with his Warhammer 40K armies, Bug is kicking butt at school and leading some Tribal Wars, Mayhem has a new girlfriend (this one is also smart and cute - the boy has GOOD taste!), the Princessa is planning her 13th birthday, and Havoc has been busy playing the lead in his class play (Aladdin), baking, and talking people into playing Alhambra dice with him.

Linus and I celebrated our anniversary yesterday! We met at our friend Mat-a-tat's birthday party (which is fun because Mat met his now-wife at that very same party). We needed to go back up to IKEA to get more shelves for the boyos - so Linus and I made a little getaway of it and stayed the night in Virginia. It's been a pretty long time since he and I have had time just the two of us. It was great - although I talked his ear off about training. We laughed and caught up with each other, being silly and not on a time schedule. It was such a relaxing time! We did see a sign along the way that I wish I'd been able to take a picture of. It said (in large blue letters) GREEK HOUSE FAMILY ITALIAN RESTAURANT. (Maybe there's a whole trend of Greek Italian restaurants because Bet and I ate Tiramisu for dessert at the Casa Grecque outside of Montreal for my birthday a couple of years ago.) Anyway, that was one of the things besides the sheer pleasure of hanging out together that made us laugh.

Bet and I have been training. We have a mini-triathlon this weekend and we've added a half-marathon to our schedule for August in preparation for the oly tri in September. I'm pretty on fire about being athletic. I've met some really kind and encouraging triathletes. I'm also still writing - every day in fact - but there never seems to be enough time to get all the way into it. Strangely for a "stay home" mom - I'm out and about A LOT.

That's the fly by. Peace!

Stragglers

Thank you for the comments, emails. I haven't decided quite what I'll do but for now I think I'll keep posting more or less the way I have been. (Let's hope for the more because I've gotten pretty good at the less and it's not as much fun, now is it?)

I realized I was behind on promised pictures! As usual they are clickable if you want to see them larger. Here is Tallulah Rockstar - the crazy conehead - giving me a mournful look. (I particularly like the "You are my sunshine" pillow next to her that I didn't notice when i was taking the picture.) When Wasabi had to wear a cone it paralyzed him. If the edge of the cone touched anything - he FROZE. I would find him standing stock still and have to coax him to move again. Tallulah? The vet told us to try to keep her quiet for the first few days. I raised my eyebrow at him, we both looked at her, and he said, "Good luck with that." She proceeded to smash, crash, and bash her way through the next two weeks. The cone was in sorry, sorry shape by the time she FINALLY got to take it off.
In case you think that Chaos, being nearly 16, might have grown out of his Calvin phase...think again. Here is a picture of Chaos, Mayhem, Uncle Richard, Linus, Bug, The Ninja Princessa, and Havoc. We miss you Uncle Richard!!!

I guess the Calvin look is better than the I'm-practicing-for-my-mug-shot look:
The one where Chaos is sort of smiling? Mayhem is being silly (and Tallulah has snuck into the photo.) This is why God invented Photoshop I suppose.
And finally we come to fun and games with sharp objects. Linus would like you to think he was grievously wounded while defending my honor. In truth, he lost a fight with a box cutter while doing something involving servers at work. He managed to miss all tendons and major blood vessels - thankfully. I should have taken some pictures when it had all those blue stitches in it.
Then I could have framed it next to this picture and had a matched set. Bet sliced her leg open in two places while building our glass block wall this morning. Warning: do not step over razor sharp spikes of metal embedded in a half built wall.
I've told them both that in this circumstance three is not a charm. No stitches for Lilymane. No. No. No. So, how's your weekend going?

Inhibited

I'm having a hard time deciding what to do about my blog. I love Lilymania. It has been such a great thing for me - an outlet, a connection, a quiet space, a catalyst for other writing, a conversation, a repository for motherhood moments, etc. The problem is that soon - and by soon I mean next year (bleck) - I'm going to be on trial. I feel like I already am on trial. The custody battle is simultaneously too immediate and excruciatingly slow. I love that my blog is "public" even though it is anonymous. I have met wonderful people I could never have hoped to meet if I'd kept my blog limited to readers I already knew! I have enjoyed the safety and authenticity that blogging in the open under a fun name affords me. I think, however, that both safety and anonymity will fly out the window as the legal crap accumulates. Maybe not - but the possibility is truthfully more likely a probability. It's like discovering that your creepy ex has the power to go back in time to eavesdrop on the frank conversation you had with some friends on a terrace at your favorite restaurant. Yes, you knew at the time that you were in "public" but you also were reasonably sure he wasn't anywhere around and you weren't pitching your voice to carry. NOT that I have anything to "hide" but the idea of him and his ridiculous lawyer crawling through my daily joys and worries with the express purpose of finding something to use against me to take my children away is disturbing. I have done nothing illegal or wrong or harmful to my children ever. I'm not a perfect person (by ANY stretch) but I am a damn good mom. I know I am. But it's like shaking when a cop is following you closely when you know you weren't speeding, your registration is up to date, and all your tail lights work. You just want the fucker to go away and bother someone else. The whole time you're thinking "What have I done? Why is he following me?! Back off pig." And every story of innocent people caught up in bullshit situations cascades into your brain.

It makes me rage - at him (for being such an invasive jerk) and at myself (for doubting myself). It makes it much harder to write anything, much less to write something meaningful. I'm trying to get past it. I think I want to write anyway. It is who I am. Writing is how I process and stay connected to people and information. I just want him out of my process! That's why we got divorced! In real life, if I knew he was lurking around, I'd tell him to buzz off (and if he wouldn't stop I could probably get some injunction or other to make him). But as far as I can tell there is no Blogland equivalent. Lurking to cause harm and misery is accepted by the courts and encouraged by attorneys. Niiiiice system we've got, eh?

So that's where I am. We'll see where I go. Peace, my friends. ( <--By "friends" I mean everyone on the planet except Mr. Tapioca Head and his attorney Mr. C. Ridiculous Bumpkin. Those two can go soak their heads in toilets as far as I'm concerned.)

Heartless

Bush and Putin have a heart-to-heart? How? 0+0=0. Just saying.

Listful

Biked for an hour then ran for 20 minutes yesterday. That's known as a "brick" in triathlon lingo. I think it's called a brick because that's what your legs feel like. Either that or it's short for B-ike, R-un, ICK! Bricks have sucked for me in the past but yesterday's was awesome. I biked on the trainer which is boring but makes the transition to running easier for me. If I've been riding through the world at 12-13 mph and then hop off to run about 5 mph, it's makes me feel even slower than I normally do running (which is saying something!!) Yesterday, my run was strong and fluid. I kicked ass on the finish. No legs of brick for me. So, yay for the first real week of training. Only twenty-three more to go.

I keep trying to tell y'all about mediation but it keeps coming out as unmitigated, toxic spew so we'll see if that post ever gets finished.

This afternoon Chaos starts driver's ed. He's ready for it. I am not. I should be. It's only because of convoluted state laws designed to prevent drop outs that Chaos couldn't start driving this past fall. Ready or not, I signed him up for the very first class I could. Ay yi yi. DRIVING.

Friday was a good day for Mayhem. No more restriction and he has a new girlfriend. (Good thing he got his cell phone back, eh?) Not so for the Ninja Princessa. While she is no longer "The Princess and the D" she is learning that three C's don't cut the mustard either. Poor Princessa. She started off being angry with her teachers for giving her such bad grades, managed to let that slide into being mad at us for enforcing the parameters that have long been set, to finally, finally admitting she was upset with herself. It took her a while to move from a whiny "but I'm trying really, really hard" to a more realistic understanding of how little she has been doing, even though that little bit is more than she was doing at first. If she'd turned in her homework every day, asked questions in class, and not gotten reprimanded for attitude and reading outside books during instruction - I would be ok with C's. But she has - so far - chosen not to do the work it takes and she's learning what happens. No fun all around. Being the bad guy is a drag. Do you know how much it SUCKS to have her still on restriction - especially now that she is all alone in misery? I don't like having to be the "mean" parents! I very much want her to get her act together so we can play a bit before she goes away for the whole summer. For starter's I'm dying to take her to see this movie!!!

I cheered the Lady Vols on to victory last night. What a nail biting finish - winning by one point in literally the last second!! Why, why, why do these things last until almost midnight? It would be much more civilized to play the games earlier in the evening. So I could get some sleep. Because I'm sure the NCAA is itching to switch their schedule around to accommodate my beauty rest needs. Oh well. That's what the Finals are all about, eh?

Sorry for yet another disjointed list-like post but I'm saving my limited ability to write coherent paragraphs for the fiction word count of the day. Love y'all! Mean it! Peace.

Stayin' Alive

I am alive even though you couldn't tell it from my blog!!
Sorry my friends.
So. I have a post about mediation half way written. I have new furniture to post pictures of (having gotten home from Nashvegas only to turn around the next day and drive to IKEA in VIRGINIA to pick up, drive back, and put together 600 pounds of flat packed shelving.) I have ten pounds less of me than I did six weeks ago. I have bits and pieces of a new manuscript that I'm working on since I am having trouble making headway writing about Marcia. I have two middle schoolers who hope, hope, hope to be off of restriction this afternoon when report cards come out. And? I have a straight A high school student for the first time! Chaos got perfect A's on his report card. (Well A's in his five core classes and high B's in his two electives - PE and Computers.) Woo hoo!! The way we work grades is that we pay $7 an A, they pay us $7 per C, and we call it even with B's. For straight A's (in the five core classes)- they get the $35 plus a $15 bonus but we told them all that we'd double that $50 the first time for each of them. Chaos has come close - oh, so close many times but this is it. He finally got his $100! Bug will likely be the next one to earn his $100. He's got solid A's in his first two classes and only three weeks to go. (Since he takes his classes two at a time every eight weeks - his offer is a bonus when he gets five A's in a row.) That's the round up of what's been going on. (I wanted to blog but I couldn't figure out how to do it without spewing tapioca everywhere. Now that I've got a bit of buffer in terms of time and having the kids back home, I'll try to post about mediation sometime soon.)

I'm sad that my buddies Richard and Aimee had to cancel their plans to come visit us this week. Please send them some good mojo. Baby is fine, but Aimee is in quite a lot of pain and is having trouble with normal activities like walking and riding in cars! Our other Richard (aka Uncle Richard) is here this weekend. I'll have to post a picture of him with the kids. They were jumping like fleas all around him yesterday. Today when I came back from my swim I caught Tallulah curled up on top of him for her nap. I think there are going to be some serious objections to letting him leave the Dwelling crew.

This is the first official week of training. The others were "fixing to get ready to get started" pre-training weeks. This is the real deal. 23 and 1/2 weeks until the race! It helps to have a healthy outlet for crazy excess energy churned up by negative stuff. I can't tell you how much better of a mom, friend, and partner I am than I would otherwise be.

I know this is a pretty disjointed, list-like post but er, some post is better than no post?? Peace!