I need to get gouslashes and a bikini

As God as my witness, I will find something to wear today.

I'm saying that out to generate success. With only a few days to go until our Disney Conference and every single activity possible planned in between, I have exactly 90 minutes today in which to find suitable clothing and supplies for a family of six in that mixed bag of weather possibilities known as Orlando in February. Could be eighty and sunny, could be forty and raining.

Pack accordingly.

This worked so well for reptiles...

You crazies, you got me all distracted with iguanas and property law and I totally missed that I had a whole host of other assignments due (ones that actually pay) and so I have to extend my research/interview requests to include:

1.) Suggestions for giving books as gifts this holiday season. Kids, adults, fiction or non--anything that really sticks out for you this year?

2.) Somethng hilarious Christmas column.

You can just write, proofread and submit that last one to my stocking.

Thanks.

(But leave a comment on the first one...)

No really, I'm serious this time. Really.

Perhaps you are already familiar with NaNoWriMo, which translates to National Novel Writing Month to writers around the literary world. November is traditionally the month someone determined was a good one in which to challenge people to write a novel in 30 days.

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Here in Safety Harbor, Novemeber is hereby designated as GYFNFA--which simply means, "Get your freaking novel finished already."

GYFNFA has already passed by several times here this year--you'll recall June, August and most recently October as celebratory months. But now, I'm serious. December 1 will mark 2 years of this particular project, and if I don't finish it now, it will never, ever, ever happen.

I really don't have that much more to go, and now that Trunk n' Treat, Halloween, a few birthdays, baseball season and all of my excuses are over, I should be quite prolific for the next 30 days.

Look for my furious typing fingers and furrowed brow this month.

Saying good-bye to October:



Amy doesn't like the spooky music coming from across the street.



Before the sugar coma.




It's already 400 degrees, the fire just ensures that all of the Fun Size Snickers melt.

Just made the Jell-o for the oozing brains exhibit, should have saved some for shots

In a few hours, I will be knee deep in All Hallows Eve Eve. Which for this gal, means our annual Trunk n' Treat event at school.

If you look back over the years, you'll see that I love this event, I really do. You will also see that I have skated any responsibility for this party which is probably why I like it so much.

That changes this year. They put me in charge of the whole thing because they are crazy. Or they don't read my blog to know that I am crazy. And unorganized and not fit for planning anything except how I can skirt more planning. It's pretty much a survival skill.

So tomorrow will be interesting. It will either be fine (because really, there isn't a whole lot of stuff you can do beforehand for this) or I will have screwed it up so horribly that they will lock me into a trunk and push me over a cliff.

But if I don't die in a flaming "accident" (Please forward this to law enforcement officials upon my untimely demise) I can always rely on my pumpkin-carving skills when we have to go on the lamb.

As long as that lamb is in Sleepy Hollow or something.

(Dang, don't forward that clue to my soon-to-be assassins.)

Happy Birthday, here's a fake I.O.U. for your fake hamster

I am currently on the last minute hunt for hamsters. Of the mechanical variety.

It's A-Dog's birthday tomorrow and I am scouring the entire greater Tampa/Orlando area for Zhu Zhu Pets, an endangered species according to Toy R Us. Who knew that they would be sold out before freaking Halloween?

Store clerks are laughing at me when I call and ask if they have any in stock. Amazon just has a huge 'LOL' banner across the page, and I swear Target had the Twitter fail whale on their toy site. It's crazy with a capital Zhu.

The absolute worst part of this whole thing? Not the disappointment when she opens her rain check, but that she might actually want a real hamster instead.

*&^%$ holiday Ebay conservationists...

The Uniform Store

Call me a slacker Mom. Call me last minute. Call me crazy--but I waited until 4 business days before the first day of school to go to the uniform store.

It was reckless, I know. But I hate going to the uniform store. It is annual trip into shopping hell.

Picture, if you will, a warehouse. A charming, dank warehouse housed in the middle of an industrial plaza. It rains only over this building each and every time I go like its the Munster's house on 1313 Mockingbird Lane. Now throw in some bad clothes and really long lines, and you've got the uniform store.

The saleswomen (and I use the term "sales" to refer to the hand written cutout tax table they consult rather than a computer, not in any sort of service aspect) are gathering starched clothing from bags around the room. They bark out, "How many kids you got?" and "Oh, you sure did wait long enough," or "I bet we're all sold out of that." It makes a girl get all warm and fuzzy inside.

So we begin the process of finding clothes that fit. There is no rhyme or reason to the sizes--a small gym short will reach Matty's ankle while the same size polo will reach his belly-button. After 4 hours and 37 different size designations, we come out with a wardrobe that would do any preteen tax accountant proud. And then she writes it up.

No, literally, writes it up.

With a clipboard and form in triplicate, she writes out every style number, sku, price, price extension, vendor number, style number, wage of the loom worker that wove the scratchy pants. It goes on and on and on...

The bill turns up at $357. I have absolutely no idea if this is wildly exorbitant or amazingly reasonable, because I don't know what I actually got in that bag--I'm afraid to reach in for fear of being bitten by one of the baby polyesters that were harmed in the making of that skort.

I pay (by check--I figure if they can't conduct commerce by 21st century means, than I pay with archaic methods to match) and go home to launder the brand new clothes at least a dozen times to make them pliable enough for human limbs.

Don't even ask me about the shoe store...

Day 2 Post-Op

I may look like a drunk chipmunk, I feel like a hungover crocodile.

This. Sucks. Beyond. Clenched. Words.

Is it wise?

In my quest to visit every medical professional I can think of this summer, I've finally decided to get my last two wisdom teeth out. I only have two left because the first two over 15 years ago didn't go well.

Anyway, after waiting 1 full hour for a consultation with the oral surgeon--if I didn't want to be completely euthanized I could have skipped this formality but I want to wake up 3 days later under a cloud of Percoset and ask if it was a boy or a girl--I finally get in to meet the doctor.

Very nice, and I am immediately sheepish about being so bitchy about waiting (if only in my indignant mind) because he is so apologetic and starts telling me of all the good drugs he is going to give me before, during and after the procedure. I ask if we could just do it now?

But I tell him that while I appreciate his impassioned speech on the risks and benefits of general anesthesia, I am already dentalphobic and will be signing up for the coma option, thanks. I am scheduled for July 8.

"July 8? Is that a Tuesday? You may want to reschedule because I leave for vacation on that Thursday."

"Um, isn't that after the 8th?"

"Yes, but I would hate to leave town just two days after. It's not that your case is particularly complicated, it's just that at your age, it's going to take you longer to recover."

At my age? What the hell?

I was just about to launch into my 4 c-sections, heart trauma and misc. other surgeries in which I am chasing toddlers and dogs 15 minutes post-op when he gives me a Valium to take on the morning of the 8th before I even get there.

I smile with 2 teeth more than I will after the 8th.

Mail call

Regular readers of this blog of idiocy will instantly know everytime they check the mailbox and see the stack of Christmas cards in their mailboxes and the one from our family conspiculously not among them that the reason for this seeming slight is not because I have forgotten you, but because the freaking photo of my children that did not materialize like the ghost of Ansel Adams on the card until, oh, I don't know...say the 15th or so? That means Shutterfly.com--the official sponsor of the Divacard--is in a rush mode (I hope) to get it out to me post-haste so I can afix the pre-purchased stamps and enclose the first annual Christmas letter on annoyingly blinding red paper because when you wait until the 19th to buy Christmas stationary, your choices are limited to leftover pumpkins and easter eggs.

That was a long-winded way of saying the card is coming, if you want holiday snail mail from moi (again, regular readers will know my French reference is more than a cute colloquialism) then email me your address and you too will receive pictures of my kids Photo-shopped around a yule log.