Shiner.

When I still worked for a private school, I injured myself one weekend and came to work on Monday with a black eye.

It was fake injury day, so I blended right in.

After a couple of days the kids figured out it was real and started asking how it happened. Because kids are totally oblivious to everything around them, I had fun making up a different story for each kid that asked.

 

The kids were oblivious enough that they rarely noticed when I told conflicting stories in their presence. It took them at least 6 months to sort it out, and as far as I'm aware several of them still believe there was a polar bear, plane crash, and/or ostrich involved.

Shamefully domestic.

Sometimes I just feel way too domestic. Since I work from home I also do most of the cooking and cleaning. While I am a proud and independent woman capable of handling powertools and minor car repairs, I occasionally catch myself doing things like being way too excited about my new mop.

But seriously, if you don't already own one, go stop reading this and go buy one right now.

It's been raining way more than normal, and I've pretty much given up on keeping the floor clean until the yard is made from something other than mud.

Refrigerator Organization

We ADD sufferers are not like the rest of you. Our brains do not work the same way. You can tell if someone has ADD based on how they organize their refrigerator. If you don't have ADD, yours is probably organized like this:

Whereas, if you have ADD your fridge probably looks more like this:

Most of this is the direct result of having a brain that routinely forgets things exist if you can't see them. I've been known to sprout new civilizations in the lettuce soup at the bottom of the crisper drawer.

Public Service Announcement: You can wash fridge drawers and shelves in the shower with hot water if you have a handheld sprayer. I am not responsible for any genocide that may result from this advice.

Things That Live In My house

My house has a lot of things in it. There's me and my husband Z:

My best friend Pirate? And her husband Woot!:

My super Smartdog:

Pirate?'s Scruffydog who thinks he is my dog:

My Tinydog:

Z's incredibly Evilcat:

The Hellions:

And my snake, lizard, fishtank, finches, butonquail, and several elderly and/or defective parrots. It's a pretty big house, which is a good thing. Our previous house was a 100 year old 700 square foot farmhouse. It was pretty crowded.

I am the designated animal caretaker, therefore the animals must follow me through the house at all times. It's like a little parade.

Pretty much everything came in as a stray or rescue or some sort, so they're not perfect. I do enjoy them though, although the birds have gotten a bit demanding lately.

Regular People Party

Monday was weird because Z volunteered to marshal* for the big fiesta parade on Saturday. This means he got invited to a big fancy party and I had to go and pretend to be a regular person. This is difficult for me, it takes a lot of effort to talk to regular people about regular things and not offend anyone or make them think I belong in jail. I have compiled the following list of topics I need to avoid when talking to regular people:

1. Dead baby jokes.
2. Number of pets I have or what I feed them.
3. Things I do on vacation.
4. Deep personal desires to commit crimes.
5. Stupid baby-naming conventions.
6. Pitbulls.
7. Operant conditioning.
8. My dog.
9. My wedding.
10. My grandmother.
11. Live babies.
12. Bizarre health problems.
13. Television.
14. Baby strollers.
15. ADD.
16. Weird stuff I read in the news recently.
17. Anything I learned on the Awful Forums.
18. Details about hair dye.
19. My ever-increasing dependency on my phone.
20. My musical preferences.
21. Any casual references to Hitler.
22. Zombies.
23. My internet friends.
24. Rube Goldberg.

Before meeting Z at the party, I had to shower and get dressed. This would have taken a lot less time if I had remembered to put the shower back together. Our showerhead has become a ridiculously complicated beast with a water filter and also a dog-washing attachment in between the wall and the part where the water is supposed to come out. I say 'supposed to' because I couldn't actually get it to stop leaking everywhere. After applying an untold amount of plumbers putty, I gave up and just bathed with water spraying all over the bathroom.

Then I had to find something to wear. Sometime in the last two years I accidentally got rid of all my nice clothes. We were really short on closet space so I decided to get rid of the stuff I hardly ever wear. Apparently I don't dress up very often, because I pretty much eliminated anything that wasn't a tshirt or a lacy tanktop.

I can't actually remember how I originally planned on ending this blog, so here's a picture of a brontosaurus.

*Spelling tip: marshal has one L, the name Marshall has two. These two things are not the same.

Cosmic metabolic karma

I used to be one of those people that could eat anything and never gain a pound.

It pissed people off.

Then one day I developed appendicitis.

After they removed all my abdominal organs and then put them back again, things never quite worked right. I have something called gastroparesis, which basically means my digestive system no longer gives a fuck. It digests what it wants, when it wants. I now have the metabolism of a python.

I found this out about a month after I got out of the hospital. I was having really horrendous reflux, so I went to a specialist for an endoscopy, which involved shoving a camera down my throat while I was not properly sedated.

I had a bezoar, which in nonmedical terms is a magical stone found in the third stomach of a Syrian goat.

Instead I'm not supposed to eat fresh fruit or vegetables. Also, I drink soda sometimes to make up the calories I miss from not eating. It's the stupidest doctor-approved diet ever, and makes me look like I have the pallet of a 6 year old when I'm trying to look like a responsible adult.

Group Home

The house next door is a group home for severely mentally disabled teenagers.

They basically scream and make random incoherent noises all day.

I don't really mind this. Whenever I'm in our yard yelling weird stuff, I can pretend all the other neighbors assume it's one of the group home kids. They're not really that coherent, but I can hope.