The Unbearable Stench of Impossible...

So... the Impossible Son is now a freshman in high school.

*pause for motherly whimpering*

In our small town, the freshman campus is separate from the high school.  It's also on the other side of town from where we live.  Not a big deal, because this is a small town.  I am lucky, though, that his first period class, athletics, is at the high school, and so is his last class of the day, because this means he can walk to school in the morning and walk home in the afternoon, since the high school is just down the street from us.  Which means... no more sitting in long slow lines of cars to drop off/pick up my student, HUZZAH!!!!

*dance of joy, dance of joy*

Since Impossible is also on the high school cross country team, this also means that every other morning, he has to be at the high school at 6:30 a.m. for running practice. The Husbandly One drops him off on his way to work, and if I wait long enough, I can go out on the back deck and see the whole team go running by.  They get back to the school in time for the team to shower and get ready for their first period class.  Which, for my son, is athletics, as I mentioned earlier.

The next thing I need to mention is that my son, at 14, is the tallest person in our house.  He is all long arms and legs, and the basketball coach pretty much started drooling the moment the Impossible Son loped into the gym.  So... the Impossible Son spends first period playing basketball pretty much nonstop.  All. Period.  Long.

All freshman who have their first and last periods at the high school are required to ride a bus to go back and forth.  This bus leaves at a very specific time, and if a student isn't there at that time... too bad, so sad.  There is only ONE bus for this.  I totally get that.

However, what this means for athletic students is... depending on the coach, there is NO TIME FOR A SHOWER.

This... is NOT a good thing.

So, Tuesday morning of the second week of school, I was sitting and staring at the story I'm presently working on and wondering if I needed to do little tweaking of my outline when the Dropkick Murphys start screaming, "I'm a sailor peg, and I lost my leg! Climbing up the topsails, I lost my leeeeegggg!!"

It's my phone, and I think, "I turned in the athletic forms, he has all his school supplies, omg, what has he done now?"

"Hey, Mom."

I frown at look at the clock, thinking, did he miss the bus?

"I need to come home and take a shower."

Blink.  Blink.

"Wait a minute, didn't you take a shower after class?"

"There was no time," he said a little sheepishly.  "I mean, I barely have time after practice to throw on my clothes!  I have to get out to the bus as fast as I can, no time for a shower!"

Okay, I know that's true, it was true when my daughter was a freshman, and will probably be true until the construction at the high school is finished.

"Impossible, you'll just have to suffer through it," I begin, knowing the school won't just let him come home.  Then I realize, the ringtone was the Dropkick Murphys, not the Legend of Zelda.  He was calling from the school office, not his own phone.

"Mom, everyone in my class says I reek!  I stink, Mom, even the teacher says so!  I need a shower!" he insisted.

It doesn't normally take me this long to catch on.  "Wait a minute, are you just calling me on your own, or did the teacher send you to the office to actually go home and take a shower?"

"Yes, Mom, my teacher insisted!"

"Okay, I'll be there in a few minutes."

I was sort of stunned, but, having been around the Impossible Son when he was sweaty, I could sort of see it.  Thing is, he didn't have that much of a body odor problem, really.  It was mostly his feet that would get us during soccer season, where we would beg him to keep his shoes on until we were out of the car.  But that's soccer pong, and just means keeping his gear clean.  So, I got in the car and drove over to the freshman campus to sign him out.

The freshman campus was built in 1923 and has all the problems you'd associate with a building that old.  It's small (the current class of freshmen are practically bursting out of the seams), it smells, and it's hard to air condition.  In fact, only the classrooms and offices are air conditioned, while the halls are NOT.  It's like walking into a sauna when you enter the building, and you want to hold your breath until you get into the office, where it's nice and cool.  At least for a few minutes.  Air conditioning at the freshman campus really means not as hot as the hall way.

So, I wade through the sauna to the relative comfort of the office to sign my son out.  He arrives and keeps a careful distance from me, and when we get outside, immediately moves downwind of me.

"It's bad, isn't it?" he asks, eying me as we walk to the car.

"Not really."  I take a careful sniff, but I don't smell much because... he's downwind.

"Just wait," he says ominously.

Amused, I unlock the car, we get in, I pull the window shade off the dash, start the car and get the AC going... and immediately my eyes start watering, my gag reflex leaps up and punches me in the throat, and my nose and lungs start rebelling and trying to escape.

"Oh... my... God..." I gag, turning to stare at my son in horror.  "Did you roll in something dead??"

He's grinning at me.  "I know, right?" The Impossible Son's cheeks are red with embarrassment, but there's an odd sort of pride in his eyes, too.  "It's awful, isn't it?  I told you!  You didn't believe me!"

Frantically opening all the windows in my car, including the sun roof, with the AC going full blast in the faint hope of getting the... the... STANK out of my car, eyes watering and leaning away from my child, all I can say is, "Holy crap... how the fuck did this happen??"

"Mom," the Impossible Son says as leans helpfully away from me, "we ran four miles this morning in cross country, and then I had to go straight to basketball practice!  No time for a shower!  And then we barely have time to dress before we have to catch the bus!  We all reek!"

I think all my nose hair was gone by the time we got home.  My eyes are watering just remembering this.  It was horrible.  Like... old cheddar cheese that's been sitting in a bowl of water in direct sunlight for three days, and moldy soccer socks in a hot car, with a little muddy dog and three weeks unchanged cat litter box.  During a hundred degree summer.  With... sweat.

*is still horrified*

I never thought I'd ever say that about one of my children, but omg, he reeked.  It made soccer pong look... pleasant.

So, after he'd decontaminated and changed clothes, he told me the story.

He was in his second period biology class, and the teacher had broken them up into smaller groups to work on their assignment.  First, the kids in his group had started moving away from him with, "God, Impossible, WTF?" and "Dude, did you even take a shower??" Then some of the groups that were close to them started complaining and became vocal about insisting he go home to take a shower.  The teacher, noticing the increasingly vocal protests, called him over to find out what was going on.  At this point, Mr. Impossible had had enough.  "Miss Biology Teacher, I really need to go home and take a shower," he said apologetically.

She said humorously, "So you're a little sweaty, you're fine, stop messing around and get back to work."

"No, I really, really stink, that's why they're all complaining," he insisted.

At that moment, the AC came on, and the vent was apparently behind him and blew air directly toward her.  He said she was opening her mouth to probably tell him to go back to his table when his personal cloud of stench was blown into her face.

She froze.  Her eyes went wide and her nostrils flared.  Her eyes bulged as she stared up at him with horror, then they reddened and started to water.  Her nose looked like it was trying to pinch itself shut.  Her hands gripped the desk so hard, her knuckles went white.  And her mouth snapped shut.

He said, "I seriously started to worry about her, because it was like... she stopped breathing!"

Of course, she stopped breathing!  She was trying not to smell him.

After a moment, she started frantically pointing at the door.  "You," she said, scooting hastily away from him after thrusting a hall pass at him.  "You!  Home!  Now!  SHOWER!!!"

"Well," I said, leaning toward him, "you smell much better now."

"I should," he said as we got in the car to go back to the freshman campus.  "I used almost half my body wash cleaning myself off!  Do they make industrial strength body wash?"

"No, and before you ask, Axe Body spray is not shower in a can," I said firmly.  "If you had used it you would not have smelled better.  You would still have the Stench, it just would have been... the Stench WITH Axe Body spray.  And that would have been much worse."

"How do you know?" he asked as we pulled up to the school and I parked.

"Because the pot smokers at my high school used to try to disguise the smell of what they'd been doing before school started with this mint breath spray called Binaca.  And it never worked."  I grinned at him.  "They never understood why they kept getting caught, but you know, it was because instead of smelling like pot smokers, they now smelled like Fresh MINTY Pot Smokers™!"

He laughed.  "I'll pass that on!"

"Good.  Because we're all kind of tired of smelling sweaty teen pong with Axe Body spray!"

You know, I'm still working on getting the smell out of my car!

To Chip, Or Not To Chip...

The Husbandly One and I have such awesome communication skills sometimes.

I only have two lunches to make in the mornings now, the Impossible Son's and the Husbandly One's, so it's not such a frantic thing as in the past.  As such, I'm a little more relaxed in the mornings, which is a good thing, considering how creaky the autoimmune thing makes me now.

So this morning, I'm making the Husbandly One's lunch and I admit, I was a still a little under-caffeinated and moving a little slowly.  Sandwich was done and it was time to add chips, so I hooked the step stool with my foot (because I'm fun-sized, yo!) so I can get to them.  They are kept on the top shelf of our cabinets which are, of course, way above my head.

As I stepped up to get them, I looked over at THO and said, "You know, I had quite a fight to hang on to these chips yesterday," as I reached for the bag of sour cream and onion potato chips.

"Yeah?" he said sort of absently, because he was at the table, drinking coffee and surfing Facebook.

"Yeah," I said, pulling the bag down.  "Your son discovered the bag and practically emptied the damn thing in a 'small' bowl.  He's doing the 'eating everything in sight' thing again.  I had to confiscate the bowl and rescue the chips!"

Both THO and Mr. Impossible love sour cream and onion chips.  Thing is, where THO has learned moderation and to ration them out to himself, Mr. Impossible is still at the Hoover stage of his appetite and will eat an entire large bag at one sitting if we let him.  So THO basically hid this particular bag of chips so he'd have them in his lunches this week.

I had opened the bag and was about to put some in his lunch when THO turned around and said, "Oh, we have chips at work, so you don't have to put any in my lunch.  Unless you just want to."

I frowned at him.  "So..."

"You can put them back," he said, watching me.

"Okay," I said slowly, rolling the bag up and clipping it, then getting back up on the step stool to put them away.

They are in my hand, about to touchdown on the shelf, when he says, "Or you could throw them in my lunch... if you want."

I stop, stare at him, then slowly start to take them back down off the shelf, preparing to unclip them again.

"Honey, we have chips at work," he said.

Breathing slowly and evenly, I don't unclip them, and start to put them back on the shelf.

"Unless, you know, you just want to put them in my lunch."

I study his face.  He's not teasing me.  He's entirely serious and has no clue. Okay.  I start to get them down again.

"Honey,  I said we have chips at work!  You don't have to put any in my lunch!"

"AAAAAUUUGHHH!!!  Will you make up your mind???"

THO looks shocked.  "What??  What did I do??"

"We have chips at work, unless you want to put them in my lunch, but you can put them back because we have chips at work, unless you want to put them in my lunch, which one is it??"  I glare at him.  "I have not had enough caffeine for this!!"

Yes, he apologized, and thus he has survived to live yet another day.

"And That's Why I Almost Fainted At The Dentist's..."

I totally blame the show "Bones" for this...

I went to the dentist today to have a molar pulled.  It was one of those so-called "twelve year molars" because they tend to come in when we're twelve or so, the last to come in before the wisdom teeth.   Second molars, I think, is the official name.

My second molars were crooked and very hard to clean, and thus, they had issues.  I had the second molar on the upper right pulled four years ago because it had a cavity that went nuclear, to the point of needing a root canal.  My dentist poked and prodded around the tooth for some time before finally sitting up and saying, "Well, I could do a root canal on this thing, but... I should probably send you to an oral surgeon for that."

Now, you have to understand, I am a huge chicken when it comes to dentists, for a very good reason.  My first introduction to a dentist was the Dentist From Hell when I was four.  It was very traumatizing, to the point that even to this day, I break out in a cold sweat just thinking about him.  My parents found a kind, gentle, non-threatening dentist after that who worked very hard to help me overcome my fears.  When I hid under the dental chair from him, he plopped down on the floor and talked quietly to me, singing and telling me stories until I came out again.  He's the only reason I can even contemplate going to a dentist now.

And the dentist I'm seeing now is AWESOME, he totally understands that I'm a huge chicken about dental matters and why, and he does an awesome job at making sure I don't feel a damn thing when he works on me, and his work is faultless.  I trust him completely, because he's really good about warning me before he does something, and understands my thing about needles and works to accommodate that.  And really, that's all I ask.

So when this dentist that I trust told me he may have to send me to someone else, you can imagine my dismay.  So I asked why.  And he said, "Well, the thing is, I'd have to put you under anesthesia and dislocate your jaw just so I could have a hope of getting back there," he said frankly.  "And even with that, there's no guarantee that I wouldn't break your jaw, your mouth is just that small.  An oral surgeon would be a better bet for you on that front."

So I thought about it and asked, "Do I need this tooth?  I mean, is it necessary to keep my teeth in line or do I chew on it?"

"No," he said, after checking it again.  "In fact, I can safely say you've never chewed anything with that tooth.  There's nothing under it, either.  It can come out if you want."

So that's what I did.  He pulled it out, and after all the pain meds wore off, I suddenly realized a neuro-facial pain I'd had for years, so long I'd hardly noticed it anymore, except when I had a migraine, was gone.  The roots of that tooth had been pressing on nerves and I had no idea.  I still get migraines, but they haven't been so bad since that tooth came out!

So, recently, I started having pain in the upper left second molar.  Mostly just low level pain, but every once in a while, something would fire off the nerves on that side of my face and that tooth would hurt!!  It would cause major pain that would fade to minor twinges, then back again.  So, I went in to have it looked at in September and again, he found a cavity.

"I could fill it," he said with a frown.  "But..."

"Let me guess," I said, "you'd have to dislocate my jaw just to get at it?"

"The cavity is on the back of that tooth right where you're having a hard time cleaning it," he said.  "It could be filled, but I'd have to send you to an oral surgeon to have it done, because I can't get to it without hurting you, and I refuse to hurt you."

So, after some discussion, we decided to pull it.  And that was what we did today.

Oddly enough, it wasn't as difficult to take out as the other one.  In fact, he sat back a lot sooner than I expected and said, "Okay!" and I frowned and said, "What?  That's it?  You're done??"

"Yep!" he said with a grin.  "And you came through it beautifully!"

Now, I almost fainted three times during this visit, which is unusual for me.  I usually manage to stay pretty calm, despite my anxiety.  My philosophy is this is something that needs to get done, there's no use freaking out, crying, or fighting because that just makes it harder for everyone involved and makes it take longer. I'm all for keeping it quick and efficient!

But today?  *sigh*

The first time was because of the needles.  This dentist uses a gel to numb the gums before giving a shot, which works most excellently.  And that was great, except on the last shot, I was very much aware of the fact I had a needle in my gum because he had to lay the syringe across my lip while the needle was still in my gum.  So after it was all over, I got all woozy and light headed and the dental assistant was quick to set the chair so my head was lower than my feet.  Yay.

She also distracted me with a cooking show that was on the Food Network, which worked excellently well because the cook (I have no idea who she was) was completely incompetent and doing things WRONG and I couldn't help pointing it out!

The second time, the dentist raised my chair a little too quickly, but you know, he was trying to reduce the risk of excess bleeding, and I'm totally cool with that. I'm just not cool with, you know, face-planting on that hard, hard floor they have in the treatment rooms!  I remember telling the dental assistant that my chair needed to be lowered before I pitched face-first off it and went SPLAT!

The third time was all "Bones" fault.

See, I could hear the moment the tooth released from my skull, could hear the faint crackle and cricks and thought, "Huh, wonder what the micro-fracturing looks like, and how long it'll take 'em to remodel?

And that's when my brain went, "Holy crap, are you actually analyzing micro-fracturing of your own friggin' skull???"

The world went kind of wobbly at that point.

I'm fine now, and recovering somewhat comfortably.  It's sore, but the pain is steady and bearable, as opposed to stabbing and acutely uncomfortable.

At this point, I'm ready for a glass of ice tea and maybe to take another nap, because the pain meds are kicking in and... oooooo, lookit all the pretty colors...

Out of the Bushes...

So this morning, I wasn't at my sharpest.  

Alright, let's face it, most mornings, I'm not at my sharpest.  Sometimes, there just isn't enough caffeine on the planet, you know?  But this morning?  Oy.

First off, when the Impossible Son and I stepped out onto the front porch to leave for school, he stopped and went, "Uh... Mom?"

"What?" I asked as I locked the front door.

"Look," he said a little too calmly, so I turned around and looked toward the driveway and my mouth dropped open.

"Where the hell's my car???" I asked, shocked, because it wasn't in its usual place at the end of the driveway.  Then memory kicked in and I looked up toward the garage and went, "D'oh!"  Because I'd forgotten that the Husbandly One had moved it to air up the tires.

Yes, I normally park at the end of the driveway.  Why?  Because there are billions and billions of little tiny birds that live in the red-tipped photinias that our predecessors planted alongside the driveway and (1) they are the most prolific poopers on the planet and (2) they have extremely accurate aim when it comes to the vehicles I drive.  I mean, I actually gave up washing the minivan when we had it, because I would have had to wash it four times a day every single day!

Everybody knew my van, because it was the red one covered with bumper stickers... and bird poop.  Not exactly a notoriety I was comfortable with, you know?

So when we got the CR-V, I made the decision to park it at the end of the driveway, before the bushes.  Results?  No more bird poop.  I'm the only one who parks in the driveway anyway, so might as well park the way I want, right?  *sigh*

So, the Impossible Son and I got in the car, my son chattering away as usual, I start the car, put it in reverse and check the mirror, preparing to back out.   All of a sudden, a tall, thin, grey-haired figure lurches out into the street from behind the bushes, slack-faced and dragging one leg, one arm swinging wide while the other is held straight down and in front of a stiff body.  The early morning light casts a grayish yellow pallor to the skin, and my first thought is, "Holy crap, the zombie apocalypse is real, WTF???"

Mr. Impossible says, "Mom?  You okay?  What is it, what's... OMG, Mom, is that... is that a zombie???"

The Husbandly One nearly got a frantic phone call to come home RIGHT NOW!!!

However, my brain kicked into gear and I said, "No, honey, that's the sewing lady who lives down the street."

"Why's she walking like that?" he asked, watching her lurch her way down the street.  

"She had a stroke a few years ago," I said as I plugged in the iPod to give my pounding heart a chance to slow back down to a more normal rhythm.  "We usually see her walking in the mornings."

"Yeah, but from the other side." Mr Impossible watched her go as I slowly backed out.  "Guess she decided to take a different route today."

"Yep," I said, and we made our way to school.  

The funniest part though is, until that moment, I never realized how much zombies in movies walk like stroke victims.  No, really, think about it.  The same stiff legged gait, the arms held out for balance, one swinging loosely, the other sometimes curled up close to the body, or held out straight, the slack-jawed face or dead expression with one side of the face drooping... 

Yep, I was definitely awake as I took off for the school.  Nothing like a couple of shocks to get the old adrenaline pumping!

I'll take a pass on that tomorrow, though, thanks.

Dumber Than A Box Of Rocks... With Fur.

I have never claimed that the current version of the Triplicats were smart.  The original Triplicats... now those were some scarily smart cats, but they were raised by a dog, so...

The Triplicats 2.0, however... are dumb as a box of rocks.  But we love them, mostly.

Today, though, they're making that box of rocks look pretty damn smart.

So, I take my kids to school every morning, and when I get home, Calcifer, the orange tabby, is usually right at the front door, waiting for me to unlock it so he can either greet me with much affection... or make yet another escape attempt until he decides, "Hey, wait a minute... it's FREEZING out here!! LET ME BACK IN NAAAAOOOOOWWWW!!!!"

This morning, he wanted to slip out, so that meant me squeezing in through a barely opened door while blocking him with my purse, then yowling softly at him to make him back off.  He didn't back off far enough, because when I stepped back to lock the front door, I stepped on his tail.

Did I mention I was wearing Doc Marten's this morning?

He let out a truly epic cat squawk of pain, and I hastily lifted my foot while saying, "Well, if you didn't want to get stepped on, you shouldn't have gotten under my feet, you dumb cat!"

He streaked away from the door, a very unhappy cat.

In the meantime, Muta and Yuki came hurrying in on hearing Cal squall to see what was going on, and they see a cat racing away from the door.  Do they think, "Oh, no, our littermate that we've known and lived with for the last FIVE YEARS is hurt, we must check on him!"

No.  Those freeze-damaged little brains of theirs say, "INTRUDER ALERT!  INTRUDER ALERT!  STRANGE CAT IS TRESPASSING ON OUR TERRITORY, REPEAT, STRANGE CAT IS TRESPASSING ON OUR TERRITORY.  ATTAAAAAAACK!!!"  And they do.

All I know is, squalling cat running away from me, I lock the door, and turn to see Muta and Yuki both frizz out and go into full attack mode, racing after him while yowling their battle cries and slashing at him like he's the feline version of Public Enemy Number One.

Calcifer, already freaked out, is completely stunned and basically says, "Wait, what the fuck, hey, it's me, I'm hurt, WAIT, WHOA, OH, MY GOD, THEY'RE TRYING TO KILL ME!!!" and runs for it.

I grab pillows off the couch and fire them after the cats to distract them, because I can't believe they're actually attacking Cal.  Took me a minute to realize why they were attacking him.  It's... stunning.  I'm thinking, his scent hasn't changed.  His color hasn't changed.  Nothing about him has changed.  So why???

I figured they'd probably get over it and forget.  That later, Cal would come out of my daughter's room, and the other two would be like, "Hey, dude, where you been?  There was this other weird cat here, you should have been here, we would have totally kicked his ass if you were here!"

That... hasn't happened yet.

As a matter of fact, now, they don't recognize each other at all!  I mean, here it is, seven hours later, and they ran into each other in the kitchen, and it was like, "Who are you? "  "No, wait... who are you??"  "Da fuck??  Who the hell are
YOU???"
There was a squalling melee in the kitchen, and now they're all hiding from each other.  All three of them.  In.  The.  Same.  Place.   Under my bed.

This should be fun.

My cats.  Are idiots.

Peeking through...

Every once in a while, little glimpses of the woman my mom used to be comes peeking through...

So, I was talking to her today, and while we were talking, Bets walks in to show her something.  The first I hear of it is Mom saying, "What's that?"

"It's broccoli, Mom," I hear my sister say.

"Huh," says Mom thoughtfully.  "Okay."  Then after a long pause, she says, "Is it supposed to be brown???"

I nearly fell out of my chair, but managed not to laugh out loud, because I was dying to know the answer, you know?

"It's dehydrated," I heard Bets say with exasperation in her voice.

"I see," Mom said politely.  "That's... interesting."

"I'm gonna take it back to the kitchen and put it on a plate so you can eat it after you get off the phone," my sister said.

"Okay," Mom said.  "That's fine."  And then, after a moment, when she was sure Bets was gone, she leaned close to the phone and said, quite emphatically, "I'm not gonna eat that."

Yeah, I completely lost it at that point.  And I don't blame her one bit!!  Brown broccoli??? WTF????? Do I even want to know???

Growing, Growing, Too Much Growing!

I cannot keep up with my son's rate of growth.

He's twelve years old, and already looks like a teenager, all arms, legs, and lankiness.  Yesterday morning, while getting ready for school, he came to me and said, "Mom, I'm out of socks."

"Look in your drawer," I said while finishing up lunches, "I know there were four pair in there two days ago."

"There are no socks in my drawer, Mom, I looked!" he insisted.

Grumbling to myself, I went to check and sure enough, lots of underwear, no socks.  So, I headed for my bedroom and the Sock Basket.

In case you're wondering, the Sock Basket is a small laundry basket where we toss all the socks with missing partners.  Sometimes, the missing socks turn up buried in the furniture, hidden under the bookcases or, even more surprisingly, on the shelves of the bookcases.  I have found socks where you expect, jammed into shoes or hidden under beds or the kitchen table.  And I have found socks where you don't expect, like... in a box of music CDs, or on top of the XBox.  And I've found them where you shouldn't expect to, like... between the pages of a book?  Really???  Stuffed into one of the drawers of the china cabinet?   Seriously, guys?? What possible reason would any of you have for stuffing your dirty smelly socks in there???

It's moments like those that I realize my children are strange, strange people.  But I love them anyway.

So, I went to the sock basket, figuring I could at least give the Impossible Son a mis-matched pair of socks, which seems to be all the rage among the teenagers of our small town anyway.  No, really.  They buy pairs of wildly colored or striped or spotted or patterned socks and deliberately mix them up, and wear the resulting mis-matched pairs.  I was dubious at first because, hey, grownup here, raised by parents who kept all our clothes strictly matched and handed down ironclad rules of dressing: 

1.  "No plaids and stripes shall be worn at the same time!!"

2.  "White shoes shall not be worn before Memorial Day nor after Labor Day, unless you are in the Navy and serving in Florida or the Tropics, and you, Young Lady, are not in the Navy!"

3.  "Sandals will not be worn before May, nor after September, I don't care if it's December 25th and it's 90 degrees F and we live in Texas.  It's just Not Done."

4.  "All socks shall be matched and be the same color, and they shall be a color the same as or complimentary to the outfit you are wearing.  And if no matching socks are clean, you shall wear sandals, unless it's before May or after September, in which case, you are Out Of Luck."

However, I got over it, and have seen the mismatched sock thing as a good way to empty out the Sock Basket.  So getting into the spirit of it, I found a mismatched pair for the Impossible Son and handed them over.

Ten seconds later, "Mom... they're too small."

"What do you mean?  We just got you those socks."  

I looked down.  Now, these are what my kids call "footie" socks.  They're the short little socks that barely show over the top of your sneakers, and my son is particularly fond of them.  The sock should come up over the top of his foot and up the back of his heel.  But it doesn't.  It doesn't come up over his heel.  It's too short.

Jaw dropping, I grab another pair of large socks and hand them over.  These are supposed to come up to the ankle.  Except... they don't come up over his heel, either.  So... I grabbed a pair of the Husbandly One's socks, a mismatched pair as well, and they fit.  Kind of.

"How does Papa stand these?" the Impossible Son asks conversationally as he tilts his feet side to side, peering at them dubiously.

"He loves them," I said, putting the other socks back in the basket.  "He says they're very comfortable."

"They're kind of tight around the top," and I look down and sure enough, I see red lines pressing into his skin where the socks end.

I stare at him.  "Honey," I said slowly, "I can't give you any of my socks, because my feet are much smaller than yours.  And I can't give you any of your sister's socks, because her feet are smaller than mine!"

"I know," he said miserably.  "I'll... just wear these."

I had just bought my son socks.  And he had outgrown them in less than two weeks. 

*pauses to hyperventilate*

You know, I thought I was prepared for this.  I thought, because I've already been through the teenaged thing with the Impertinent Daughter, that I at least had an idea of what to expect.  And it sank in.

This... is going to be totally different.  Teenaged boys have a completely different growth rate than girls.  I knew this intellectually, of course.  But I was basically being slapped upside the head with it.  

When the Impertinent Daughter started her growth spurts, she outgrew a brand new pair of shoes in less than an hour.  They had fit just fine in the store, had plenty of wiggle room, and were comfortable.  We put the shoes back in the box, took them to the cash register, bought them, and went home.  She took the shoes out of the box, put them on, took three steps and cried out, "They're too tight!!"

Understand, she's still wearing the same socks she'd worn to try the shoes on.

I knelt in front of her, just like I had in the store, and felt her feet in the shoes, and it felt like her feet were about to burst out of them.  Literally.  I made her take them off and put her old shoes back on.  

She couldn't get them on.

I thought maybe her feet had swollen for... whatever reason feet swell, so I said, "Hey, run around barefoot for now, we'll try them again in the morning."

She couldn't get them on in the morning.

When we went back to the store, her feet had grown a whole size bigger!

So... I thought, when it came to the Impossible Son, hey, I can handle it!

Riiiiiiight.

He's grown nearly four and a half inches since last May.  Which doesn't sound like much, until I tell you that three of them were just in the last two and a half weeks!!  And his hands are now officially bigger than mine, which I know isn't saying much because I have small hands.  His feet are huge right now (think Sora from Kingdom Hearts), and I know that means he's going to grow again, to fit those big feet.

He's going to be taller than me.

I knew that.  I expect that, but it was always in the distant future, when he would be sixteen, seventeen... not now.  Not... like... by next summer, when he'll be thirteen.

Holy Mackinoly... he's going to be thirteen.

*hyperventilates*

He's my youngest child, and all of a sudden, time's passage is rushing by me as I watch his jaw lengthen, his chin lose it's pointy-ness, his face taking on a more adult aspect, and my baby is receding further and further into the past.  I no longer see the cheerful toddler, or the bouncy kid with the big grin, I see the adult that is to come, and whoa!

Then he catches a toad and brings it to show me. And goes flying awkwardly after it when it hops out of his hands.

Yep.  The kid is still there.  And I can still smoke his butt at Smash Brothers.

Hey, it's the little things...

Impertinent Fan-Art

I've been sitting on this for a while, and kept meaning to post it, but life and stuff, you know?  Gets in the way.

Anyhow, this came about because of a conversation the Impertinent Daughter and I had after one of the "turning the Wraith human" episodes on Stargate Atlantis.  Because we wondered how much of their human characteristics would they retain, how much of the behavior they'd witnessed among the guards would they remember and try to imitate...

What would happen if two Wraith tried to... high five each other?

I don't know what I like most... the verbally challenged drone, or the "Oh, crap!" moment, followed by flailing.

Because cats, they love the technology, too...

Why, yes, I DID allow my cat to play on my iPad mini... why do you ask???

Because I like to get their attention...

I'm at the dryer, pulling out dry towels and putting them in the basket when I hear the fridge door open.  And I know it's the Walking Stomach otherwise known as my son, so I immediately call out, "Leave the strawberries alone!  They're for lunches!"

"Not touching 'em!" my son shouts back as I hear crackling and rattling coming from the kitchen.

"Leave the blackberries alone!" I shout.

"Not touching 'em," he shouts back, sounding almost bored as more crackling and rattling is heard.

Just for grins, I shout, "And whatever you do, leave the squid tentacles alone!"

"Not touch... wait... WHAT??"  An outraged face pops up in the door to frown at me.

"Just checking to see if you were listening," I said with a grin.

Yep, still got it.

When Ketchup Meets Impertinent Force, Part 2

Do y'all remember The Centrifugal Ketchup Incident? You know, when the Impertinent Daughter was trying to get the ketchup from the bottom of the ketchup bottle so she could pour it out... and ended up splattering it across the ceiling, the floor, and the cat?

She did it again last night.

That's her, laughing herself silly (and being a little embarrassed, too) after splattering the kitchen and the dining room with ketchup. She was, once again, trying to get the ketchup from the bottom of the bottle to use on the Husbandly One's grilled burgers. She swears up and down that she sealed the top of the bottle. She SWEARS!!

As you can see, it clearly wasn't.

Once again, it's across the ceiling, and now makes an X with the splatter from 2010, which, while it was cleaned up, took off the popcorn ceiling in those spots.

*sigh*

She hit the paper towels...

And inside the cabinet. It's across the counter, across the dining room table, and in the far corner of the dining room, too. I'd show you those photos, but... they came out blurry, so... you'll just have to imagine it. At least she didn't get one of the cats this time!

And the lesson learned? JUST OPEN ANOTHER BOTTLE OF KETCHUP, SHEESH!!!

Because creativity needs to be nurtured...

The Impossible Son has one class period that at one time might have been called "study hall." However, this one is more interactive, as it's basically a tutoring period because our district fell way behind on math and reading scores ("hmmmm, wonder how that happened?" Jo asks sarcastically). So... he's getting extra help in math and in language arts.

So, a couple of days ago, they were working on "correcting sentence fragments," basically changing fragments and making them into whole sentences. And the example given was "at the station," which had a finished example of "I can meet you at the station tomorrow morning."

Then the teacher made the mistake of saying, "But that's boring, I'm sure y'all can do better than that!"

Heh.

So... these are the sentences my SON came up with. His "corrections" will be in italics. You might want to put any liquids far from the computer, and don't drink anything while reading, because some of them are surprisingly hysterical.

Don't say I didn't warn you!

1. Before the dance I killed a vampire.

2. While we worked on the experiment my friends turned into zombies.

3. Once the baseball season begins, THEY WILL COME!!

4. Ahead of me, he watched me with a bat.

5. After the summer vacation, vampires came.

6. Without a pen or pencil I can't kill Bigfoot.

7. Opposite the park he still watched me, but with Bigfoot.

8. When she began to speak a bear came, wielding a sword.

9. Even though the temperature was warm, the bears took over.

10. From my seat, I could see the orcs coming.

11. Next to the library, they were still watching me.

12. How the rumor spread was because of the duck.

13. On top of my dresser was a honey badger.

14. Past the principal's office, they continued to watch me.

15. When they are found, we take them to NARNIA!!



I think my personal favorite is #6. I laughed so hard when he read that one out to me that I nearly drove us into a ditch. Though... a bear wielding a sword is pretty funny, and so is a honey badger on a dresser. I wonder if it cares?

For eleven years old and having virtually no writing instruction beyond what I cram down his throat during those times he's willing to sit still for it, that's not a bad fledgling effort at letting his wonderfully weird sense of humor show through. What kind of bothers me, though, is the teacher had laughed and said, "This is weird. It's crazy, what's up with this??"

And then I remembered, "Oh, wait, that's right, they don't have things like irony, humor, and creativity here." Because, you know, this sort of thing, well... it's normal at my house!

Yes, yes, I'm getting sarcastic again.

Still, I'm proud of what he's done, and happy to see his creativity developing. I can't wait to see what he does next!

Because my daughter's mind is just as warped as mine...

This is what happens when the Impertinent Daughter gets bored halfway through an assignment to write a journal entry as if she were a colonist who had managed to survive a year in one of the New World colonies in the 1600's...



"Friday, August 29, 1600-something -- Sunny. The recent arrivals to the colony were a great relief to all of us as they came with supplies. I mean, we have been trading with the Indians for food and some of their supplies, but... it isn't the same as using what we good English folk are used to using. Besides, if there is anything our new arrivals (and some poor, clueless souls here) should worry about, it's the werewolves. Those bloody pests have been getting too many a man as of lately! Tomorrow night is the full moon and some of the stronger men are going to go hunt them down and rid our colony of these beasts the illness. I think it may come from the water? Or whatever we have been eating. We basically live in a swamp. What the Indians don't give us and that the other colonial men pick up is probably not good for us. And then there's the natives themselves! I've seen some in the woods outside of the borders of our colony, but they don't venture too near. Probably because we're all obviously diseased here and they don't want it. Besides, they've got their own problems. I hear the werewolves are getting them, too. The infestation is worse than I thought diseases are spreading to them and from us no less! But, at the moment, that is of no matter, I have survived a year here in this new world colony, even if it is crawling with moonlight freaks a little dangerous... it is an occurrence worth writing about!"



Part of me wants her to turn it in just like that, but I'm fully aware that as it's only day three, and she doesn't know the teacher well, it's probably a little too early to be testing the bounds of the woman's good humor. Still, she's awesome, and incredible, and I love the skew in her humor!

Werewolves. Heh, heh... briliant!!!

Because they put the lime in the coconut and that song won't go away!!

Sometimes, sitting down to write a blog post is ridiculously easy, because my kids will do something, or my mom will say something, or I will do something that I feel compelled to write down. It's my way of programming it into my memory bank so I don't forget it.

Other times, though, writing is unbelievably difficult. It's difficult to pull the words out of my brain, or to flog my brain into thinking of something worth writing about.

It's not that my life is uneventful. Because, seriously, there is always something going on. Always. It's just deciding whether or not it's blog-worthy.

For instance, my son has started junior high, and with it, he has also signed up for band. Yes, I finally have a band-geek in the house. And I thought he was going to be a percussionist, because that's where his interest was for the longest time (and still is, I admit it), but... he tested well on trombone, and they are woefully thin on lower brass while being embarrassingly full on percussion. So... my son is going to play the trombone.

As you can see... at present, the trombone is bigger than he is! I have no doubts, though, that he will grow into it.

This is beside the adventure of what the Impossible Son being in junior high means for all of us, most especially my husband. I say that because he seems to be even more reluctant than me to relinquish the baby that once was for the teenager that is coming. I admit it, I look at our son, and I see the cheerful baby that used to reach up for me, that would take every step the Husbandly One did, one small fist firmly gripping the seam of THO's jeans, the other reaching out to explore whatever was in reach. I see that baby, and then I blink and I there he is, my son, lanky, overly long arms and legs and awkward angles, lengthening jaw and too big feet and I think, "Where did my baby go?"

I thought that with the Impertinent Daughter, too. I looked at her when she was at that awkward in-between stage, missing the baby, and getting to know the teenager, and now I'm watching her turning into a young woman... and it's both incredibly cool, and extremely freaky.

And they're both having a growth spurt at the same time. This means we literally cannot keep enough food in the house. As soon as we bring it in... it's gone. And remember, my kids are the kind who like to snack on frozen veggies as a "cool treat." So, not only are the fresh fruits and veggies we bring home from the grocery store disappearing almost as soon as they come home, but so are all the frozen veggies, too! Crackers, granola bars, raisins... ham, chicken, leftover spaghetti sauce, bread... it's all disappearing, and I'm not sure where the kids are putting it because it's not showing on them at all. Except for the increase in height factor.

This leads me to a weird little aside. We were leaving the junior high after sixth grade orientation last week, and the Impossible Son had asked me if I knew any trombone players when I was in high school band. I laughed heartily and said, "Kiddo, my first real boyfriend in high school was a trombone player, and he was taller than me!"

"Really?" Mr. Impossible peered up at me, and really, he doesn't have that far to peer up any more.

*sigh*

"Yep. He was six feet, three inches tall," I said with a grin.

"How tall were you?" he asked, and that's when I came to a complete halt and kind of stared blankly in front of me. Because it only just then dawned on me. I was only 4'10" when I was dating Mr. Tall Trombone Player. No, seriously, back when I was dating him, I had no clue. I never thought about it, except that I found it awkward to hold his hand or to kiss him, because he was so much taller than me.

I went to his senior prom with him, and he had to pick me up to dance with me, my feet dangling two feet above the floor, because otherwise, it hurt his back to bend over and hurt his knees to crouch down and dance!!!

Oblivious Jo was oblivious.

*shakes head*

Of course, seeing the look on my kids' faces when I told them that was hysterically funny, because I had to give them a comparison scale, so I said, "Imagine if the Tall Blonde's husband was standing next to... Grammy." Grammy is THO's mom, and she's shorter than I am. It was an apt example.

"You're not 4'10" now, are you?" asked Mr. Impossible.

"Nope. I'm about 5'3" now," I said. "Still short, but not as short as I was back then."

The Impertinent One spent a lot of time snickering about that, and I just laughed it off, because really, it is funny! And no, I wasn't blonde, I was a ginger back then, so... chalk my obliviousness up to inexperience and general nose-buried-in-a-bookishness.

In the meantime, the Impertinent Daughter has started her junior year of high school, and this year, we actually have textbooks in our science and math classes!!!!

And the people rejoiced.

Mrs. Sees-Plots-Everywhere has so far been quiet, but the Impertinent One reports her prowling on the periphery of the school, eyeing students and saying nothing. Yet. It can't last, of course, but we shall see.

Still, the Impertinent One seems determined to worry about every single little thing that it's possible to worry about, and it's quite a challenge for THO and I to calm those worries with sensible advice. Or lots of hugs and chocolate. Or jokes. Jokes work. Sci-fi marathons, too. Or general nerdiness. That seems to help from time to time.

So, as you can see, there's been quite a lot going on, it's just... kind of hard to decide what to write about, to choose just... one, or two.

And now, to go bake some cookies to throw at the kids so there's something left for the rest of us to eat!

Because they are LOUD...

One of the drawbacks to living in an old house with wooden floors is the fact that it often sounds like I'm raising a herd of young elephants. Clumsy young elephants.

Our house is built on a pier and beam foundation, which means it is built on a series of concrete pillars allowing a crawl space under the house. This is the norm in Southern homes as it allows air circulation under the floor, an essential in keeping cool in a climate that is hot nine months out of the year. And while this is great for keeping the floor cool, as well as allowing access to plumbing and wiring, etc... it's not so great when you have heavy footed children thumping around the house.

By the sound of it, my kids both weigh approximately six tons a piece.

This is great when I want to know where they are, because I can tell just by listening which child is where. And I can tell precisely how close the teenager is to killing her brother just by how much heavier (and faster) those foot stomps get.

This isn't so great, though, when they're horsing around in the living room while waiting for me to get stuff together for our weekly trip to the library. Or do I mean "elephanting" around?

When the Husbandly One and I were first married, we lived in a house built by my father's uncle in 1925. It was small and had a lot of cool doors with cut glass door knobs and each door had a lock with a skeleton key. Well, except the bathroom door. That one had a little knob on the inside that turned like a deadbolt.

Anyhow, it, too, was built on pier and beam and had beautiful wood floors that we loved. We had no children then, just a very large, enthusiastic Labrador Retriever that we loved very dearly, and his herd of cats. And while Max could be loud when chasing his cats around the house, or when they chased him right back, for the most part, it was pretty quiet.

That entire neighborhood was full of old Craftsman houses on pier and beam foundations with similar wood floors. And the house two doors down from us had a family with two small children.

Let me tell you something. I always knew when the mom gave her kids something with a lot of sugar in it. How, you ask? Because I started hearing what sounded like a herd of small horses thundering through a canyon. Seriously. You could hear every single footstep from two houses away when they'd start running through the house. You'd hear resounding booms when they'd jump off the couch and hit the floor, towel capes flapping behind them, and then there would be the rapid fire clatter when they'd race down the hall, chasing imaginary bad guys, or the bangs when they knocked something heavy over in their enthusiasm. And I'd hear the thuds when they'd finally have their sugar crash and pass out for the rest of the afternoon.

I always thought it was funny. Annoying, but funny. And I'd think, "Wow, why doesn't she just shove them out in the backyard like my mom used to do us?"

That always goes through my mind now when I hear my young elephants thumping through the house on their various adventures. I wonder what my neighbors think my kids are doing, and if they can hear it from two or three houses away.

Once, I came back through the back gate after walking to hear, "Thump, thump, thump, THUD, thump, bang, CRASH!" and then my husband bellowing, "Will you two cut it out?? WAIT TILL YOUR MOTHER GETS HOME!!"

I was laughing before I even got in the house. Everyone froze when I came through the door and all I could say was, "Wow, y'all are LOUD."

I suppose I should resign myself to being an elephant herder for now. I'm sure there will come a time when there won't be feet stomping through my house, and I'll miss it. But for now, I find myself wishing for less elephants and more... ninjas.

Ninjas would be seriously cool. Huh. I think I just got a scathingly brilliant idea!!

I'll get back to you when I'm done!!!

Adventures in Grocery Shopping...

This is what I posted on Facebook a few minutes ago...

"Grocery shopping with my children is rather like being orbited by my own tiny planet and moon. A hyper, dancing, chattering, extremely frenetic tiny planet while a very grouchy, cranky moon continually snarks and fusses at the tiny planet. No wonder I forget stuff. Aleve, please?"

The Impossible Son orbits around me, literally sticking to my side and hopping, dancing, twirling, and jigging on both sides of me, and behind me, and in front of me, until I can't keep track of him and I end up almost falling over him or bumping him or... yeah. And yes, it drives me NUTS. It was one thing when he was small and I could easily move him either into the basket or up on my back or hip and thus out of the way.

Now, however, he's eleven, and he's in that all long arms/long legs stage of pre-explosive growth, and that's just entirely too much boy to be dancing around Mama and nearly tripping her up!

And while he's doing this, he's talking my ear off and with the grocery store being full of people and annoying music, I can't make out a word he's saying, and I can't focus or concentrate for anything. GAAAAAAHHHH!!!!

In the meantime, my daughter is pushing the basket, fussing almost nonstop at him to get off the shelf, get off the the display, move out of the way, don't touch that, put that down, don't pick that up, get that for Mum, please, no, don't put that in the basket, not that one, genius, the other one, wait, no, don't touch that or you'll knock it all over... MOOOOOM!!!

Yes, as you can see, the fun of grocery shopping with my kids lives on.

It's very... migraine inducing.

Good thing I love them. Of course, I can't walk away from them and pretend they aren't mine because (1) they look just like me and (2) it's a small town, everybody knows us, and no one is fooled any more, though they might take them off my hands for an hour or two out of sheer kindness. Maybe.

Have I mentioned that my kids are also going through the ravenous wolf phase? The Impossible Son is eating nearly everything in sight. Fruit doesn't last long in our house. Or frozen vegetables. Or crackers. Or ham. Or hot dogs. Or leftover grilled hamburger patties. Or cheese. Or chips. Or bananas... dammit, I forgot bananas!!

*head-desk*

And the Impertinent Daughter, at 16, is still growing, and has moments of, "I'm not hungry," followed by three or four days of, "eat ALL the food in the house!!" And there are days when she sort of eyes her brother, but he's too skinny to eat. Not enough meat on those long bones of his. Perhaps I should be nervous!

And then the Husbandly One comes home and says, "Where's all the food?? Didn't you just go grocery shopping???"

And I say, "It was sheer self-preservation!! I had to, or they would eat ME!!!

I don't know why he never believes me...

Because sometimes, you never know what they're going to say next...

So, we're having a late birthday party for the Impertinent Daughter. The twelve and under crowd is mostly in the living room playing on the XBox, the teenagers are in the dining room playing Scattergories Categories, and the adults are on the back porch, sitting around a table, drinking beer, chatting, and enjoying the evening.

Suddenly, Super-Goalie comes charging outside and says, "How do you spell intercourse? Is it with an I or an E?"

We all blink, and then one of the dads leans forward and says, in a deep, sonorous voice, "R-U-B-B-E-R!!"

*dies laughing*

I love my friends!!

Weirdest. Morning. EVER.

You know, I haven't posted a Weird Animal Story in a while, mainly because the Killer Psycho Mockingbirds have been relatively quiet. So... I guess we were kind of overdue.

So... this morning. We troop out of the house so I can take the kids to school, and as we get to the car, I pause. Why? Because there's this huge BUZZARD, also known as a turkey vulture in the street behind my car. Just sort of... hanging out. You know. "Doopty doo, doopty doo, nothing to worry about folks, hyuk, just doin' mah buzzard thang heere, heh... don't mind me, now, y'all just... pretend I'm not here!"

Riiiiiight.

And he won't move. Usually, buzzards don't like being approached, and will take off if you get too close. Not this one. I figured whatever it was that was dead, it must be really, er... tasty. Or something. Problem was, I couldn't smell anything dead nearby, and didn't see anything, either. So, I herded the kids into the car and had to back up creatively so I didn't end up with a big ol' turkey buzzard stuck to my rear bumper. And it was as I was pulling out that I realized what had attracted Mr. Buzzard.

Our neighbors had this... this... HUGE FISH lying in their front yard against the mutual hedge between our properties. I swear the thing must have been six feet long!! NO WONDER Mr. Buzzard was so determined to stick around, I mean, he must have thought he'd hit the Mother Lode of Dead Crap!!

Okay, so... the kids were freaking out, and laughing hysterically, and kept looking back to see if he'd approached the Big Dead Fish yet the whole way up the street.

The Impossible Son looked back as we turned and said, "He's going for it!"

So... we get to the Impossible Son's school, and there is a truck in front of us that has a... tiny deer sitting on the hitch. No, seriously. A tiny little deer, sitting cross-legged on the hitch with one of it's forelegs up in the air, like it's saying, "Hi there!!"

The Impertinent One said, "Oh, I wonder if it's like the cow Papa and I saw on a truck once! When they hit the turn signal, the cow's eyes glowed red and the legs went up and down!"

"Yaaaaagh!" I said. "That sounds creepy!! And distracting!!"

The truck didn't turn, so the kids were disappointed. However, after I dropped the Impossible Son off, and then went to drop Miss Impertinent off at the high school, the truck appeared again, turning out of the driveway of one of the schools I pass on the way home, and there was the tiny deer again. This time, the truck turned, and THE DEER WAVED AT ME AND KICKED ONE LEG UP AND DOWN!!

O.O

I almost had a car accident, I was so... mesmerized...

So, when I got home, Mr. Turkey Buzzard was pecking half-heartedly at the Big Dead Fish, and I could swear he was saying, "WTF is this shit??" I peeked around the hedge and realized his problem right away.

It was a TAXIDERMIED Big Dead Fish!! In fact, it had lost most of its scales at some point, and there was fiber sticking out from where it had split at the top, and oh, the reek!!! Evidently, the bushes sort of protected us from it.

Mr. Buzzard gave this indignant squawk and sort of hop-flapped away before taking off for something less well-preserved. I mean, seriously, it's pretty bad when you manage to disgust a BUZZARD.

"It was just my imagination, running away with me...."

So, after the Impossible Son's soccer practice, it was decided to head to our favorite local Tex-Mex restaurant, Mr. Taco. We were in the mood for fajitas, or at least the Husbandly One, the Impertinent Daughter, and I were. We have discovered that Mr. Taco's "fajitas for two" plate feeds the three of us nicely. The Impossible Son had his usual chicken strips, no gravy.

We forgot that Thursdays are live mariachi band night.

Did I mention there are all hard surfaces at Mr. Taco, with nothing to absorb sound?

o_O

Anyhow, yeah, it was loud, but the food was worth it! Once we'd eaten ourselves to a lull, the Impertinent One begged a pen off me, grabbed a clean napkin, and immediately began to sketch the mariachi band members, then took it to them before fleeing back to our table.

They passed it around among themselves, looking at it intently, then marched over to our table and serenaded her with "Just My Imagination," and a Spanish/English version of "I Just Called To Say I Love You."

Her smile was incandescent, and she giggled almost the entire time, hiding her face every once in a while, but mostly beaming at them with delight. I rubbed her back from time to time when it looked like she was getting overwhelmed, but mostly? She absolutely loved it!

I think she was also chuffed that two of the mariachi singers actually fought over who would get to sing to her! And if you've never seen a violinist and a trumpet player arguing over who is gonna sing to the pretty girl, then you have no idea what you missed!

I think she's just beginning to have an inkling of the doors her art can open for her. This is going to be an interesting journey to watch!

A peek inside my sketchbook...

I'll give you three guesses what we watched last night... and who I absolutely fell in love with...

Here's your first clue...

Heh, yeah, I know, how much more obvious could I be??

Thought I'd better practice them for lunch notes, and I'm also practicing Master Chief from Halo.

Oy, who knew armor could be so darn hard to draw?? All those planes and reflections... and I'm trying to do that at 6 a.m. with little caffeine? Am I crazy??

Oh, wait... I am. Never mind.

Anyhow, Tangled was better than I expected, and didn't take itself too seriously, which I liked, and whoa, could Rapunzel wield a frying pan or what??

Okay, off to bed now. Just thought you'd like a peek at my sketchbook...