Monday is always a total carnage situation of domestic sloppiness at our house. I usually plan cleaning, not paperwork because of the Monday mess. But for some reason I imagined that today I could ignore it and at least work on the taxes.

Not so. I’ve run off to a cafe with wi-fi. I came actually for a croissant. But then arrived and wanted asiago bread. I’ve been known to drive 50 miles for croissants.

I no longer feel sick. But I’m tired. And this does not make for a lot of productive housework. Friday I hung shelves in the laundry room. They’re nice and level, though way too high for anything but storage. Then Saturday I felt exhausted and sat on the couch doing taxes.

I pulled DD out of ballet. She’s annoyed. So am I. She wants to go, and just goof off. I think if she’s going to go and we’re going to pay tuition her teacher should teach, not babysit the toddler they allowed to enroll. Anyway, too late to join a new program this season. And it’s time for swim lessons.

DD has developed a sudden aversion to water. She screams in the bathtub and says she does not want swim lessons – which is exactly why she needs them. I taught swim lessons when I was a teen. So in theory I could teach her. But it has been my experience that things go much more smoothly if the instructor is a stranger. Kids are weird like that.

I am going to continue to ignore the charcoal colored, elastic/cotton hat knitting attempt. I’m now on the lookout for organic cotton for a pattern that may or may not be more simple.

I started a hood/cowl thing in bamboo silk blend for me, mainly because I had the yarn and sort of a pattern. The Silk Fountain Hood pattern confused me. So I’m just knitting a very simple lace pattern, which is working out fine. Though by the time I finish I may have to throw the cowl in with the winter clothes and down into the basement until next year.

DH is impatient for me to become a better knitter. He wants a new hat.

I pruned the cherry tree and have been gathering the sucker branches to make a compost bed. It is far from a work of beautiful manicured gardening. But in my opinion, preparing compost for future caprice salad ingredients is more important.

Off to the census.

Fax Machine by Cary Lee

The local library has doubled it’s fax rate.  $1 per page, the same as the mailbox and office places.  Nice.  Tax revenue drop  much?

That’s only a tiny bit of my rant, which is not internet safe.  Let us suffice it to say, people suck.

While she is ranting, the kids begin putting some books back onto the shelves.  The ranting woman then says no, put them in the return basket, because that’s not where they go, and you’re making them hard for other people to find, blah, blah, blah.

[bitchy blonde mom]

Ranting woman then goes to a nearby table with her child.  And the mom of the two allegedly unruly kids tells them they must behave and be quiet in the library.  Not a peep came out of them for the next 30 minutes.  So I can’t really imagine them being all that horrible.  Because usually when I see kids being that bad, and getting told to behave.  They are pretty rotten unruly kids anyway, and just go on being rotten and unruly with their idiot parents.

Weird.  The mean mom encounter du jour.

I am inclined to think the ranting woman is just a bitch.  Because when DD said to me, “This is a great book,” and I replied, “Terrific, read it,” mean mom snickered in a very bitchy way.  Or maybe because I saw her bless out that other lady I just have it in for her now.

Other news

DD has a fever and has been stuck to me like glue.

Cable back on tomorrow.  DH wants to celebrate with Asian food.  A votre sante to gluttony.  Yeah, that’s not Asian.  But I don’t know any Asian toasts.

Should be sleeping, but am up hatching my plot for world domination.

And who appears behind us?  Hyena and her stinky kid.  Those of you who have been with me for a long time will remember Hyena.  At that moment, I could not think of anyone that I would like to run into less.  I stood there, trying to think of someone. 

[mother daughter]

I turned toward the cashier and listened to Hyena tell Stinky not to get anything they already have and list off the top ten really lame bands for children five years younger than Stinky, because they already have those, just not in the car.  wtf?  Hyena then held their place in line while Stinky went off to find boy band du jour.

Happily, DH sensed my discontent and asked if I wanted to go to the car and get DD settled.  Good man!  Off we went to the car.  I wondered for a few steps about how Hyena would trash talk me at the office – because that is her habit – but then forgot about it until now. 

Excellent, love that I forgot, until I felt the urge to chat with you all.  Must not give a flip.

Being the super extra exciting person that I am; I am super extra excited about cleaning the house next week unfettered by DD.  I plan to drag at least one carload of things to charity.  And I look forward to doing so without her around trying to retrieve everything.

And I hope to get a ton of writing and sewing done. 

• if there is room in a school system for pre-k, the kids (age 4 by August of that school year) go there.
• if there isn’t room, only the kids with special needs go there for pre-k (age -2-4).
• if the school system is full and only the special needs kids go to the public schools for pre-k, then the other kids go to privatized pre-k.  This means they attend at a certified daycare or private school, but the state pays for it, not the parents.
• OR they don’t have to go to pre-k, it’s optional, can stay home with mom, be in daycare or whatever, and just start K at age 5.
• if the school system is full, you have to find a slot for your child at a local private place, and in most of the metro counties there are more kids than open slots.  You call the various places and either get on a waiting list, or into a lottery system, and hang out until August wondering if your child will have a school or not.
• OR if you want to circumvent this nonsense, and have money to burn, you can just skip it and enroll your kid in private school

Arrrgh!

I have heard quite a few parents say they would never use the state funded pre-K,which they consider to be inferior.  These are typically the same parents whose children are going to attend private school anyway.  Lucky them to have the funds.  I have also heard that the state system is too rigid, or that the naps are ill-timed, and that children have been removed.  But alas, it’s overflowing with children – so how bad can it be?

Blah, blah, blah.

After a frustrating period of research and phone calls, we’ll be visiting at least two schools next week and getting on at least two lists.

Who knew that college prep classes would bring about a declining population of people who can sew and change the oil in their own car.  That’s what I imagine anyway, from my own life experience.  I didn’t take home economics, or auto shop because I had to take French and Chemistry.  Making lasagna and tuning up the old whoopdee would have been a lot more fun and cost effective (at the time).  I would have loved to have spent the period after lunch sewing my own perfectly fitted prom dress.  But alas, I was taking Calculus.

I cursed my parents.  (Sometimes I still do.)  My dad made me change the tires and the oil in the car before he agreed to take me for a learners permit.  My mom made me hem my own pants.  I am now shocked to discover the number of people willing to pay to get a pair of pants hemmed.  Seriously?

I don’t say this in mockery.  I just didn’t know.  I knew that everybody didn’t get an old Singer for Christmas when she turned five.  That’s the if I give my kid this thing seven years before her peers maybe she’ll stop bugging me gene.  But surely by twelve they got grandmas machine.  Apparently not everybody.

It’s a weird world I live in.  I get to say to myself every week, really, other people knew that all along?

A blogger mentioned in a post a while back that whomever she wrote of knew who they were.  I’m glad it’s all out there and clear for her on her blog.  Me, here, not so much.  On this blog, repeatedly, and by more than one person assumptions have been made that I am talking about someone when actually, I wasn’t.  This has been both positive and negative.  And it is often the same people doing the assuming.  Which tells me something about that reader – that they presume others are thinking, talking, writing about them.  Yeah, sure, people aren’t always wrong.  But they aren’t always right either. 

I sometimes think people might be writing about me… but they also might have three friends with four year olds who drive economy cars.  I asked my BIL if the dog formerly known as ours got run over due to a dead-dog post made by him or his wife (don’t remember who).  When he said no, obviously, I believed him.  It was a pretty simple transfer of information.

Also, what is an insult?  IMHO, if child L, pushes my child down on the playground, makes bodily sounds at lunch on purpose, and sasses his mother, and all of these things are true; and I mention it.   Then those things are facts.  Are facts insulting?  If I don’t mention it, that’s omission.  And if I don’t mention it, but state that L is a brat, then that is insulting.  That’s just my definition.

Perhaps it is my inner journalist speaking.  I am allowed to state facts.

There. I’ve said it.

–Frog

i got scammed for $600 with some people using a fake but real looking DHL website to fuck you by celinecelines

I tried to submit a review following the directions and received a rejection, twice.

Scam.

REVIEW STREAM: paid review |write review – earn money

5. What does the bulk rate mean ?

Sometimes we receive reviews that don’t match some of our criteria. In these cases we are still ready to buy it, but we’ll pay you the bulk rate for it.
After you have written your review on the Write Review page you’ll have to decide if you’re ready to get paid at the bulk rate for your review. If yes, check the bulk price box. If not, don’t check it.
How your payment is evaluated :
- If your review meets all of our criteria you’ll be paid the regular rate;
- If your review doesn’t meet some of our criteria, and the bulk rate box was checked, you will be paid at the bulk rate;
- If your review doesn’t meet some of our criteria, and the bulk rate box wasn’t checked, the review will be rejected (you can resubmit it with the bulk rate box checked);
- If your review doesn’t meet all of our criteria, your review will be rejected whether the bulk rate box was checked or not.

The Software Judge site is a scam too, happened upon it quite a while ago.

Bah, it is not a good writing week for me so far.

Rant by ex.libris

There’s a nice welcome to the splog (spam blog).  You can see that I surfed onto several of them today.

I’m not anti-advertising or anti-commerce. In fact, I really like targeted ads on some of the software sites that I visit.  Some of them save me a separate search for things I need anyway.  So nobody start flaming me about how advertising keeps many websites free to consumers.  I get that.  I do.  And I don’t mind people funding their blogs with relevant ads.  Turn a profit even.  Long live capitalism.

But for the love of all that is good and holy don’t insult me by asking me to refer readers to a splog filled with irrelevant crap.

If your blog is about humor; have humor ads. If you have a personal blog, general ads (but not 60 of them all unrelated).  Clearly, I’m no advertising genius.  It’s just common sense.

Obviously, I don’t make any money with entrecard.  But I do try to approve entrecards that link to sites about humor, cooking, parenting, writing – stuff that gets mentioned on this blog.  In other words, things that if you’re reading here, might be enjoyable to also read somewhere else.  Even things that never come up here, but are nicely done.  Not crap.

Ok, deep breath.  Rant off.

by dno1967

I don’t shop at Target often because I don’t like their return policy.  But I found it strange and contradictory that they would be French and uncharitable.  First, I thought they were an American company (which they are).  And second, the French are socialists.  You know, the people who have universal health care and three years of paid maternity leave.