spring fever

Well, I made it out alive, folks. Just barely. Spring has sprung and my nine day tap-dancing-fire-eating-two-shows-nightly-and-don't-forget-to-tip-your-server extravaganza is over. Our long week involved a three hour hike over crevasse, waterfall & sandstone and an overnight visit to ole Kansas City for what could have been a little heavier on the blues and BBQ for this lady but ended up more Crown Center kiddo-pool oriented. Then with a couple of ear-splitting play dates thrown on top of that...things blossomed into a regular ole Spring Breakdown. Or a future 28 day dry-out at Hazelden....however ya want to look at it.

I had to crack up at the munchkins with their hiking sticks. They walked like little Trojans over those endless slippery Ozark rocks(as I twirl said mustache)...but slept like tiny blond angels that night. Just the way me likey. My thighs were quivering jello the next morning, when I finally made it to the kitchen, but it was fun and gave us an opportunity to venture out and see the area since most of the time I am trying to hide from it. Thank you, urticaria. There was a cave the locals call the Devil's Icebox...black as pitch and three stories deep but Mama picked up the pace and avoided this claustophobe's worst nightmare. W. begged me to let her see "the center of the earth", but I said nope and promised them a Barbie flashlight and a couple of Wal-Mart parkas for next time. Yeah, right.




It wasn't an over water bungalow in Bora Bora, but it was better than nothin'. We actually had an up on high, fab view of the purdy city lights from our K.C. hotel room that got Big Daddy and I all verklempt & nostalgic for our past life. But it was nothing that a box of Corbett Canyon couldn't cure. The kids experienced an art making frenzy called Kaleidoscope at Hallmark Headquarters and a tres cute Wizard of Oz collection while we were there. Well, let's just say it was charming the first time we toured, but after my rotater cuffs were yanked down the yellow brick road and my back was balled up on the miniature Dorothy Ruby Red Slipper slide for a gazillion times...I felt like the Flying Monkies had beat the stuffing out of me.

And don't even get me going on the not one, but three birthday celebrations we had for my youngest over the course of the last two weeks. We did a kid thing for her, of course, then had to coordinate the extended fam's schedule for yet another made with love, scary as hell to look at homemade cake sugar overload. Between that and our traditional birthday Taco Night with the Mags and T. puking tomatillo on me afterwards, I think I have just about been there and done this one, folks. Yep, little Curly-Top, when she wasn't blowing chunks, was celebrating like Oprah and her big 50, for God's sakes. Awash in all things pink and princess. Just the way she likey.




The flu struck W. immediately after the school bell rang recess, so she snotted up a storm most of the time. Thank the universe for Tylenol though. That stuff's like crack for kids. One snort full and they're good to go for anything! It sure helps us old baton-twirling gals out. Of course, being the organized super-mom I am, I forgot my digital camera and ended up shooting most of the trip on my Razer. Now if I can come up with the 50 bucks it will cost me to email it to myself, I just might have some nice memories to blubber over when I'm old and gray. Oh, wait a minute..that's right. I'm already there.

hallelujah

..couldn't have said it better myself. And that's why I'm just now taking my orangs out to eat, Mr. Caff. ;-)

have car, will travel

Help. One worn out, husband-less, over 40 mother is facing NINE full days of Spring Break hell with two blonde-tufted squealer monkeys under the age of five and no money to go anywhere or do anything. All friends who are geographically desirable please respond immediately to this desperate plea and invite said family to visit. Sleep over. Chat. Swim. Drink. Yacht. Something. Anything. 216 hours, people. 12,960 minutes of "What are we gonna do today, Mom? Where are we gonna go? Huh? Huh? Huh?" For those of my buds overseas...you might wanna send a paddle.


And Oprah, if you're reading this? I prefer to fly Air Tahiti. Non-stop.

Happy Birthday, baby! Thank you for always clearing away my Eeyore raincloud just with your smile. And thank you for the gift of being your mom. It is by far the best role I've ever played. You are my light and don't ever forget it.

If this isn't impetus for World Peace...then I don't know what is!

ba-rock

back to biz'ness

Alrighty...got two words for ya. Flu shot. Six days and four pounds later, I have risen from the ashes like a phoenix....a disheveled, limp-winged, dirty-beaked one but a phoenix nevertheless. Note to self- ALWAYS get a flu shot from now on and really, Mama..really..get your ass back to the gym. It's called an immune system, woman. Build it up....okay???

Folks, lemme tell ya a little something about Influenza A. It hurts. It hurts like hell. I have realized that I don't think I have ever had the flu after experiencing what I did this past week. Good grief. How can one old bod have an aching chest, snotty nose, flaming migraine, burning fever, a cough that sounds like Rosey Grier, throbbing muscles, blurry vision & light sensitive peepers, no appetite, nausea and a bad-breathed white trash attitude of allowing the kids to watch T.V. like a couple of street junkies...running around, half-naked with only peanut butter spoons and Triscuits to eat, and quite possibly from the smell of it- go unbathed for what I do believe was over three full days? Yep. Give a ring out to the producers of COPS and lock me right on up. I was down for the count and couldn't give a flip about nothing..no way, no how. And you would think I'd be the size of Avril Lavigne after ingesting only udon noodles and lemon ginger tea for a week. But when ya throw in a few dozen dead-of-night spoonfuls of Haagen Daz, I guess it all evens out and the shelf that's on my backside...still there, unfortunately. Oh, well, it gives me somewhere to put my duster.

Yes, in my dizzy, glassy-eyed state at the computer board this morning, all I can say is...I am darn glad this mucous-y Freddy Krueger is slowly creeping its way on out of my lungs and I can finally get all my dishes put back in the logical place and pick up the 83 balls of tissue that have littered my bedside table. Aww, thanks hon, for trying to do my job for almost a week..I really appreciate it, but baby, you might be able to work like a trooper, bringing home that proverbial bacon to your woman but you can not do Mama's job like she can. I may be unpaid and un-401 K'd but I am still the C.E.O. and my company needs me. I am determined to get back to the office and find my Kitchen-Aid spatula tip that went MIA during this fiasco and attack the utility cart that has enough paper piled on it to compose a couple of versions of War and Peace. Yes, it is high time for this little house Frau to toss out the Ibuprophen and don her super-hero apron, whirl up the vacuum and get right on down with her big, bad domestic self. But first things first. This morning, I will drink my orange juice, shave two very scary armpits and find the scrunchy that's disappeared into the rats nest I used to call my hair.