As I write this post, I swat a mosquito

I first moved to Houston in August of 1996 after college. I had never spent much time here, and I definitely felt like the country mouse visiting the big city. Skyscrapers, awful traffic, fancy shops, and all kinds of people. One of the things I noticed was how every afternoon at about 3:00, it rained. Without fail, thunderstorms at three o'clock, you could almost set your watch by it, very different from the central Texas Augusts to which I was accustomed.

It rained a lot actually. The streets would flood about once a month and it was always a major news story. Sadly, someone would always misjudge an underpass and drown. I learned how we were on a vast coastal prairie that was covered with concrete and that concrete was preventing the land from soaking up all that rain, like the sponge that it was. I say "we" because after a few years of living here I began to notice that despite the concrete, Houston was actually very beautiful. And very green. I would go home to San Antonio or to visit my grandmother in Lubbock or grandpa in Uvalde and notice that Houston was actually kind of like a tropical paradise. Lush green landscapes, a place where one house could have gorgeous tropicals and the next door neighbor could have a cottage style garden, all living in botanical tranquility.

Then in 2001, there was tropical storm Allison. I was heading to SA for a friend's wedding. I barely made it out. Hyphen didn't. He slept in his car on I-10 and when the water finally receded, he and a band of other unlucky motorists had to walk to some store that was open on the access road (in Houston they call access roads feeders) to let their families (some of whom were hysterical) know they were okay--this was bcp (before cell phones). Wow, that was a lot of parenthesis.

At the time, we lived in the Sunset Heights. It was an old neighborhood, and we didn't have proper drainage, just these huge culverts in front of our lots. After something like 35 inches of rain, they were really, really full. Actually the whole city was horribly flooded and we were very grateful that the Heights lived up to its name, our house was safe. The medical center basements were so badly flooded that the lab rats drowned and years of research was lost. Tragically, downtown, people were drowning in parking garage elevators, the symphony lost valuable sheet music and rare instruments and most importantly, something like 30,000 homes were flooded. But it didn't happen in New York, so most people never knew about it.

But back to our culverts. Afterwards, there were crazy mosquitoes. They would swarm you when you got out of your car and you had to run in the house. My dogs snouts were always covered with the the little vermin. Everyone was miserable. The 500 year flood, they said.

Fast forward to 2011. The driest year in recorded history. If you look at the tree rings, it is possibly the driest year in 300 years. Memorial Park? A wasteland of dead trees. Good ole Anise Parker, so fiscally responsible that she let them all die rather than water them. All the plants that are so used to getting so much water have not had a significant rainfall since sometime in 2010. Only people who are willing to pay the increased water rates are watering their grass and even in posh river oaks, there are brown yards. Coyotes are roaming the streets looking for food. I didn't even know we had coyotes. And the other night, I smelled a skunk. I felt like a city mouse visiting a place where there were skunks. Except the "place" was under my house, somewhere in the vicinity of the hall closet. Then about two weeks ago, it rained three inches.

Now we are fortunate enough to live in a neighborhood without culverts. But the post rain mosquitoes? Worse than tropical storm Allison mosquitoes. H calls them assassin mosquitoes. I call them rabid vampires mosquitoes on crack cocaine. But I can't run to the car, see? I've got kids. Two of them. And they take forever to get into the car. They swarm the car and we spend the first ten minutes of every drive killing them. My three year old, who loves all animals, knows how to swat them. My baby is so covered with bites she looks like she has some type of pox. My dashboard is littered with their tiny corpses--my own little hall of horns.

But there are people (dad) who read this blog who say climate change is just a bunch of hogwash. A 500 year flood. Two hurricanes. A drought to end all droughts, and for the past two winters we had weeks in the 20s. I may not be a scientist, but this little mouse smells a rat, and it not just the winds bringing in the Pasadena smell.

what I do all day

The following represents a true and accurate account of the messes I have cleaned up this far this morning:

1. peed upon sheets and bedding
2. spilled milk sippy cup
3. spilled container of rice
4. two poop butts
5. spilled juice box, which was blamed on Tallulah-- convenient since her vocabulary is limited to "no dog" and our respective names and ranks and cannot defend herself-- but seeing how I had given the box to Annabelle and she was standing in a puddle of juice and spreading it around with her feet when I asked how it happened, I feel that both the direct and circumstantial evidence will be in Tallulah's favor

6. Blueberry muffin crumbs

It is 10 after 10 and Annabelle just asked me how to open her crayon rock box. I think we will be heading out for the rest of the day to prevent further destruction from occurring.

velmas and thelmas

1. Velmas

Annabelle: Mom, I want to be named Velma now.

Me: okay. For today, or forever.

Annabelle: forever.

Me: that's a long time to be named Velma.

Annabelle: there's going to be some more changes too. I am in kindergarten now and my teacher's name is Miss Luciegiada.

Me: Miss Luciegiada?

Annabelle (slightly annoyed at my mispronunciation): no, Miss Lucie gi-A-da.

2. Thelmas:

Welcome follower number 9, Miss Thelma Duncan. Miss Thelma hails from the bustling metropolis of Bronte Texas where she is currently in a two way tie for the title of sexiest senior Coke County, female division.

tallulah walk watch 2011

So here is how it is:

Back in June, Tallulah began to crawl and pull up at the same time. The pulling up caused some speculation on when she would walk. And as usual with my family, we decided to make it a little interesting. Price is Right Rules applied (which again I will explain to my dad, closest without going over). Annabelle got August 13th. Audrey chose September 1, Mom got September 10th. Dale chose October 10th, I picked October 13th.

Walking was defined as 4 steps in a row without any aid.

In the very beginning of August, she stood up on her own, which is the last hurdle Annabelle conquered a few days before she took off. So it was looking good for Annabelle. But, no dice. It looked really good for Audrey, but no.

Mom's date came and went despite the fact that when she visited she tried to get her to practice by returning the walking toy Audrey's twins had borrowed. Dad's came and went. And then it was me and Dale. The crucial reason I picked her 11th month marker was because while she was a great crawler and a great puller upper, she was not a cruiser (walking while holding onto something). Annabelle crawled, pulled up and cruised all at the same time. Tallulah doesn't. If she wants to go somewhere and is standing, she sits back down and crawls, even if there is a perfectly good coffee table available for her to cruise with.

Dale chose it by pure logic. Asian babies walk late according to some book he read.

Today is October 13th. She is 11 months old. She has until midnight tonight for me to win the kitty. Okay, until 7:00 when she goes to bed.

So, we are going to reset tomorrow. She is starting to cruise. But still prefers to crawl. She can stand on her own for a really long time and is very solid when she does.

Entry fee is ten dollars. I am choosing December 13th.

Ante up!

little boobies, saggy boobs and a catholic fish fry

The day started with us wathcing the today show. Some voluptuous woman was being interviewed by Matt Lauer, and H said "where are Matt's eyes right now?" "Where are your
eyes right now?" I asked. To which H replied "you know where my eyes are." Sigh.

Then the girls and I went to the zoo and I wore this cute jersey sundress with a ruffle down the front. It is perfect, except that the ruffle drags it down a little in the boob area and so I have to wear a sweater over it, for modesty's sake--I mean, I don't want everyone seeing those things, just one person, and preferably in the dark while wearing a supportive foundation garment. After the zoo, we came home and made an apple pie for the fish fry at my church tonight. H came home and made individual fruit cups for the soccer game tomorrow --we are in charge of refreshments and goldfish crackers were not an option for the Nguyen family. Baby Tallulah was napping and Annabelle and I went outside to water the trees and play. Play evolved into "tickle me!" and I finally succeeded in tickling her so hard that she peed in her pants. Score! So we went inside and I had to get her changed for the fish fry. I convinced her to wear this pink dress that grandma got her. After a while I noticed that it sunk a little low, revealing her chi-chis. So I was trying to figure out how to fix this and H remarked "don't' worry about it, she's three, no one will care." My reply was something like this: "we are going to a fish fry at the church and I don't want her boobies to show, and btw-are you really going to wear that Buccees t-shirt?"

Then I changed my sweater, which in the course of the zoo trip and yard play had gotten a little dirty and put on a long sleeve cheetah print cardigan, and we headed out the door to eat some men's club cat fish.

We arrived at the parish hall, settled in with our plates of catfish, hushpuppies coleslaw and curly fries. I had Tallulah in my lap and she immediately latched on to a hush puppy, which took her about thirty minutes to eat. After a few minutes Annabelle wanted to sit in my lap too, which is pretty standard at our house--everyone wants mama at dinner time--you would think I would be thinner from always attending to other people's culinary/emotional needs, but somehow it doesn't work out that way.

Everyone finished eating. Annabelle and her friend went out to play with her friends dad. H went over to talk to someone and it was just me, Miss S________ (Annabelle's friend's mom) and baby Tallulah and baby Tallulah's sippy cup which she kept dropping. She dropped it again and a man who was sharing our table picked it up for us. I said "thank you" and he said "your welcome" and then I noticed where his eyes were.

You see, when you hold a squirming child they pull on stuff, and my sweater had somehow come out of place and my dress was pulled down and my entire left boob (encased in a bra) was completely exposed--for God knows how long--at the same Catholic fish fry at which I didn't want Annabelle's little flat chest showing.

Miss S_________ said not to worry, I probably made someone's day. Either that or made them toss their hushpuppies.

the problem with facebook

the problem with facebook is that for a while, I was addicted.

Our History
I loved it. Facebook sent me an email a few years ago, letting me know that my old friend K______ B______ had joined, and wouldn't I like to join too? I didn't know how fb got my email, or how it knew that K______ B_____ and I had been friends who lost touch, but I joined just to see what she was up to. And then a few days later, facebook let me know that double stuff oreo wanted to be my friend, would I accept? Hell yeah! And then fb put me in touch with a few other people and I was really happy to see how they were doing. Funny,even now, the people that I am the most interested in are the people I was first "friends" with. And then it finally found my old friend J______ W_______ who I really had really missed over the years and was so happy to hear from.

the inevitable downward spiral
200+ friends later, I was spending too much time on fb. When you are a stay at home mom, you can't screw around at work when you boss isn't looking, so after I finally got the kids into bed I used my precious me-time to spy on people on fb, sometimes for more than an hour. And it always leads to other gratuitous Internet surfing, and I was going to bed after midnight, and then having to wake up at all hours to take care of various children and couldn't fall back to sleep due to Hyphen's constant and horrendous snoring. And then wondering why I felt so terrible.

rock bottom
Facebook then decided that it knew me better than I do. And it decided that I actually wanted to hear about someone who we will call Perosn X (real creative, I know) Person X is actually an amalgam of several dysfunctional people who are proud of their dysfunction and like to share it. Person X is going through a horrible divorce/break up. Person X hates their ex. Person X is now back together with their X. Person X just went shopping. Person X has the best boyfriend in the world. Person X just went hunting. Person X just got a mani/pedi. Etc.

In short, person X was taking up all my newsfeed, despite my best efforts to change it. Because all person X ever does is spend time on facebook. I would log on and see all the posts and realize that I didn't care and would rather scrub my floor than vote on whether person X should get a tattoo.

realization
And then the Jackie O interview book came out. And I started to think about privacy. And mystique. How some things should remain private. How in a tell all society, where we keep up with the Kardashians, fb is our own reality show. And I got really grossed out.

So I decided to limit my time to fb to twice a week. We'll see if I can do it.

By the way, if you are reading this blog and wondering whether you are person X, the answer is, yes, you are. We are all person X.