My Blah-Blah-Blog

Last night I watched The Backup Plan. It was cuter than I thought it would be and it had several laugh out loud moments as Jennifer Lopez “suffered” through her pregnancy. In one scene she was unwittingly roped in to coach another woman through a natural home birth: there was much panting, wailing, gnashing of teeth, blood, sweat and tears (not necessarily in that order). I admit I rolled my eyes a little over the absurdity of the scene but not before I recounted my own (fairly) absurd childbirth experience 12 years ago at 3:20 tomorrow morning (May 17).

I pretty much slept through the entire birth of my first child, not by choice and certainly not because I have super hero powers residing in my loins that cause child birth to be a painless-then-pop-it-right-out experience. No, no, not at all. Let me tell you how it all went down.

May 16, 1999. I was about 38 weeks preggers with my daughter. I was working full time and barely had a nursery ready when at around 3 that afternoon – my day off – I got a phone call from my OBGYN’s office. My doctor was out of town on vacation (of course) so the on call doctor gave me a call as a follow up to some sort of test they’d performed earlier in the day. She wanted me to know that I’d have to come to the hospital as soon as possible (RIGHT NOW!) to be induced as my protein levels were out-of-control and too high for the health of the baby.

I freaked out (OMG what do I do first!?) but then became annoyed because 1) I had to work the next day and 2) I wasn’t ready for the baby yet (I still had two weeks!) and 3) I had not eaten all day except for a bowl of cereal in the morning and here it was almost 4 already. I have no idea why I’d put off lunch for so long. After all, ravenous and pregnant are synonymous, right?

I was SO not ready for this kid. But, like any other mom-to-be who suddenly goes into labor, I found myself realizing that the end was indeed in sight and I needed to get my butt in gear and get to the hospital. No time to do anything other than grab an overnight bag for me and the baby and a carseat and off I went to the hospital.

I debated on grabbing some food to go on my way in but I remembered that it’s recommended you don’t eat just before going into labor. Besides, I was scared to death I’d poo on the doctor during labor so I didn’t bother. Surely the kid would be out in a few hours anyway and I could grab a burger.

After getting checked in, I was wheeled in to a nice little room, and was told to wait for the doctor. By now I was really, really hungry. It was almost 6:30 and I begged for some dinner. The nurse said no which made me secretly hope if I got sick and puked, she’d have to clean it up.

Besides, I had friends who told tales of eating the biggest meal ever only to go into labor shortly after. My own mother recounted the burger and strawberry shortcake she had just hours before delivering me after a bumpy ride to the hospital. All those moms/babies seemed to make it just fine after a big feast right before labor. Why couldn’t I at least have some fricken crackers?.

At some point a headache set in, followed closely by the worst case of heartburn ever. It was so bad I swear I could spit fire. I pleaded for some relief and the nurse reluctantly brought me a small dixie cup of what tasted like lemon-lime syrup with battery acid mixed in. That $h*t burned going down! Hungry, heartburn-ridden and head-achey, I realized in my misery that I was definitely not looking forward to having a giant baby head squeezed out of my nether-regions.

Eventually we were told that the doctor didn’t want me to deliver the baby until the next morning anyway, (see how urgent my case was?). I was nervous and starving to death and felt like I really was not about to get to sleep any time soon. The doctor decided to authorize a horse-sized coma inducing hospital-strength sleeping pill. I took it with some water (which unfortunately did not help the fire that roared in my esophagus). It must have been around 12:30 or so. I was looking forward to a nice rest.

She also authorized another medication: a cervical insert thingie that would soften my cervix and would induce labor. I asked her if it was alright to take a sleeping pill and a cervical insert at the same time and she said not to worry. She explained it would take all night to kick in so that I’d have a slow, easy start to labor in the morning after a nice night’s sleep from the sleeping pill. I’d be rested and ready to go!!!

Tucked in, lights turned down, I turned on the TV. A League of Their Own was on. The last thing I remember was Tom Hanks saying “There’s no crying in baseball!” before I drifted off to sleep around 1:00 am…

Only to awake about 45 minutes later to find that holy ^%($ I am not feeling so good in my girl areas and what the hell I peed myself? Is that blood? Zzzzz.

Wait, what is happening? Holy hell I’m in FREAKING zzzzzzzzzzzzz

I’m in FREAKING labor y’all! ZZzzzzz

Have you ever tried to complete a task while dozing off? You know, nodding off at work while typing?

Yeah well it was pretty much like that: I was in full on narcoleptic labor.

I don’t remember much from that night except everyone being incredibly amazed that I went into labor and popped out my firstborn in a record 45 minutes start-to-finish. My then-husband kept drinking cup after cup of coffee to stay awake but was struggling as well (we found out the next day that the hospital was 7th day Adventist and didn’t serve caffeinated drinks).

I vaguely remember seeing that little round baby face with teeny tiny red lips and thinking “she looks like my grandfather” and hoping that maybe she was really a he if she was going to look like a boy.

And I remember the new nurse on duty turning up my oxygen and asking me to repeat my name and birth date while firmly patting my hand. Apparently she didn’t realize my narcoleptic behavior was caused by a sleeping pill but thought I was drifting in and out of consciousness from the strain of labor.

Not.

I may have mumbled out my daughters name before completely passing out. I don’t remember pushing or anything. I did get an epidural at some point – I think – but who knows. For all I know they hatched my daughter in the next room.

The next morning (way too damn early) they brought me my little bundle of joy, I was ecstatic to discover she did not look at all like a man, and I called my parents who lived so far away so they could hear their first grandchild cry.

So here we are, 12-years later. I am still sleep-deprived and narcoleptic with occasional headaches and frequent heartburn. I’ve since learned my lesson about not eating lunch.

It may not have been a tale worthy of A Baby Story, more like Birthing Fails instead. But for that little package of joy that I received that day, I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.

Not even a nap.

And would you believe I’d love to have just one more? Sounds like someone needs to turn in their sleeping pills for some stronger meds.

I’m not perfect. I’m going to air some dirty laundry here and I’m going to start with telling you about … surprise! My laundry. I like to do laundry and I do it (what feels like) every day. With me and two kids we’re always having mountains of laundry pile up around the house. We have common places where  piles start: on the bathroom floor. It starts with discarded jammies before hopping in the shower and it grows from there. Then there’s the hallway: this is where clothes that are tripped over in the bedroom get tossed to so that they are “out of the way.” In reality they are still in the way: MY way, and between the kids and the dog traipsing through they get dragged into my room and start yet another pile in my doorway: the was-on-the-floor-but-got-moved-to-the-hall-and-are-now-in-my-room.

This pile eventually grows so large that it merges with the pile in my bathroom as it oozes out the door. This pile gets kicked about so we can close the bathroom door and then my bedroom floor is littered with clothes that don’t even belong to me. Speaking of which, it is very weird to find someone else’s kids’ clothes in your laundry and you have no idea how they got there.

I finally decide that if I don’t get the laundry done someone, most likely a small child, is going to disappear, so I make the kids help me carry down all these piles and piles of clothes downstairs to get sorted into color piles for washing. Now our downstairs hallway is impassable because of the piles and mountains now residing there. These neat piles don’t last for too long as the kids and the dog and even me walk through them or jump over them. This pile now oozes into the living room and random socks and undies can be found kicked under the coffee table. Gross.

I finally get all of this wonderful laundry washed, dried, folded and sorted by owner. Sometimes the kids help if they’re around but if it is late at night or they are at school, I’m usually doing the laundry by myself. I don’t mind too much because it is sort of a therapeutic and mindless way to be productive while unwinding.

The piles are set on the couch or table or – if I’m feeling extra energetic – on the respective owner’s bed. They sit in a nice pile until one of a few things happen: they get put away, they get shoved onto the floor, the dog lays on them and pushes them off or they get crammed into a closet.

Nope, not my real laundry. I use a dryer.

Yeah, I reeaallly hate that. The clothes that end up on the floor migrate (on their own mind you) back to the newly started dirty laundry pile. I think they call out to each other to join them or something. Other clothes still on the floor get kicked along to under the bed and are never heard from again. More become covered in dog fur and fuzz and dirt and become so wrinkled they have to be rewashed again before they can be worn. That or they can be saved for a Halloween costume, wolfman or wookie.

What I don’t like about laundry is when it is time to put away clothes. I obsess when clothes are mixed together in drawers: pants HAVE to be with pants, shorter ones on the left and longer on the right, darker colors on the bottom and lighter on top. Don’t mix socks in with underwear and don’t mix short sleeves with long sleeves. Of course we don’t have enough room in any of our three dressers for all of our clothes – and Mister Man doesn’t even have a dresser – poor kiddo uses bins for his clothes. So to put all the clothes away where they belong becomes a bigger chore than I’d like to do at the moment so I usually set them on top of my dresser with well-meaning intent to put them away “later.”  However, before “later” arrives, I need that one shirt in this pile so I dig it out and so on and so forth until my clean pile has been depleted into a dirty pile and the cycle starts all over again.

This, my friends, is just the monster that is laundry. It doesn’t include the monster of dishes or children’s toys or bathroom trash that ends up missing the trash can and hides in a corner behind the toilet.

So why does this go on?

I’ve learned not to care, that’s why. The time and energy and effort I put into making sure everything is just so is wasted because laundry is, and ever will be, a never-ending chore.  I’ve realized that my happiness isn’t based anymore on whether or not my favorite shirt is in a drawer (in the right drawer!) but mostly whether it’s clean and I can find it. Sure, my day would be less stressful if I didn’t have to look at any of these piles and think “I really need to get to that” or if both my kids had clean clothes put away instead of school-morning rummages through piles of “are these clean or dirty I can’t tell so I have to smell them” clothes to find their school uniforms.

With all of the mess and disorganization in my house one thing remains clear to me: I’m not a hoarder (yet) and there are no cat pancakes (catcakes) anywhere. We don’t have rats or rodents, only an occasional ant, spider or wood roach. There are no moldy pizza boxes under anyone’s bed or mystery smells with an elusive hidden source. I’ve found that I can sleep better at night without chiding myself about what I didn’t do today because I have decided that I don’t care about what I didn’t do anymore – it’s not worth it.

Although, this pile of nicely folded clothes is so yummy...

My logic may be flawed for some of you and in some situations it won’t work, say feeding your kids or going to the grocery store or something that DOES cause mystery smells or catcakes. It’s a relief to embrace who I am and what I CAN do and know that the world won’t end because we are all really too lazy to put away our laundry, and the neighbor lady won’t really think too badly of me if I have laundry piles on my couch (although we don’t answer the door when the laundry pile is in the hallway. It’s too much of a liability if small children or animals wander in the doorway).

Sure, the kids should help out more. Yes, I should take two seconds to put away my clothes. If I can get over OCD to have clean laundry piles not put away, you’d think I could get over OCD of having mismatched clothing items in drawers. If you don’t like your food to touch then you know what I’m feeling.

A friend of mine asks me “How do you want to live your life” all the time as he often thinks the same. We have differing views: for me, considering my background, I need little to be truly happy. I’m safe, my children are safe, and we’re not starving. We have our own little piece of the world and although everything around us is topsy-turvy and upside-down and still a great big unknown, we’re happy. Yes, I have days I don’t want to answer the door because there are dishes in the sink or I’m wearing pants with paint stains on them and my hair looks like I brushed it with an egg beater. Yeah, there are toothpaste spots on the mirror and last week’s leftovers in the fridge (they don’t smell (yet)) and my trash really needs to go out.

But ask me if I’d rather spend an hour cleaning a mess that can really (honestly truly no kidding) wait until tomorrow (for real tomorrow, not “tomorrow”  as in next week) or sit with my kids who are growing older every SECOND of the day and this is an hour I can’t get back. Go ahead, ask me.  I’ll pick my kids every time. They are 11 almost 12 and 8 almost 9. In a few very short years they won’t want to snuggle up on the couch, they’ll want to be with their friends off driving around eating cheeseburgers and spending their allowance on MORE clothes for me to wash. My son won’t always sit on my lap, he’s going to be too old for that very soon.

Us moms need a life outside of a mom’s life. If I really did NEED a perfect Martha Betty Stewart Crocker house then I suppose I could get up at the crack of dawn and work straight through til my sweet children are tucked into their military-made beds with sheets so crisp you could cut someone with them (since I would have ironed and starched them no doubt). And of course I’d collapse into my bed with my hair in pins and cold cream on my face and be content to know my children – whose  names I’ve forgotten because all I do is clean – are sleeping soundly.

I’ll pass. I’ll take the laundry piles and the sticky light switches and the drink-box straw wrapper stuck to the bottom of my shoe for one more family movie night, one more round of video games together, one more round of reading books together.

I’ll get to the laundry tomorrow.

The mention of NASCAR has always brought images to my mind of overweight wearing jeans and cut-off flannel shirts over white wife-beater shirts, and bleached-blonde chicks in cut-off shorts and cut-off shirts. And they are all wearing beer-hats. And drinking beer with a wad of chewing tobacco between their lower lip and gums while discussing what to eat for dinner at “mom’n ‘em’s” tonight.

However, Mr. Man is a big fanboy of cars – especially the shiny fast ones. Hey, he owns a hot red Lotus, what can I say? He definitely isn’t the beer-swigging red-neck I associate with NASCAR, so when he mentioned he was watching a race and invited me to watch it on his big screen, I thought maybe it would be something akin to the Formula One race in Monaco.  Nope. It was NASCAR.

I gave it a fair shot though, and soon found myself rooting for the adorable Joey Logano, 19-year old racer from North Carolina. I was thrilled that at such a young age, he found himself living out his dream and competing with the likes of the Petty and Busch families.

But back to Target.

Watching a NASCAR race became a bit of a routine for us and we’d get together, turn the volume up loud so we could hear the revving of the engines, and we’d hope for a good crash – one in which nobody was hurt of course.

Eventually I got my kids in on the action and, much to my surprise, my 10-year old daughter was an instant fan. She picked Jimmy Johnson to be the winner in the race we were watching and sure enough: Johnson won. He won every race she watched as a matter-of-fact. (Next season I may have her watch again while we place bets online for her winning pics.)(If you want insider information contact me and we’ll work out a little $$ deal.)

But disaster struck and some sort of drama started up between the driver of the Target car, Juan Pablo Montoya. Now, I didn’t follow it closely enough to know, but according to Miss NASCAR herself, Montoya ran several drivers off the road including my precious Joey and her precious Jimmy.

So we’re driving to school this morning, talking about what to do in the summertime when vacation hits. We thought it would be fun to see a NASCAR race. Our conversation took a quick turn and went something like this:

Mom (that’s me): Oh, hey, I need to stop and get you a tri-fold board for your science fair project. I tried Wal-Mart but they didn’t have it, so I’ll try another store today.

Miss NASCAR (10-year old daugther): Oh thank you mommy! You can find one anywhere. Try Office Depot or Office Max (apparently she has insider information on office supplies, too). Oh, just DO NOT SHOP AT TARGET! NO! NOT AT ALL!

Mom: No Target? Why? I like Target! What is wrong with Target?

Miss NASCAR: (hissing dramatically) Montoya!

I pondered telling her the evils of Wal-Mart that lots of people use as their reasoning to boycott the store, but we shop there often for some things we just know are much cheaper. Surely those reasons are way more legit than someone bumping the back of your car while going 200+ MPH on a tight-cornered racetrack.

Miss NASCAR: (hissing again with much more dramatic flair, even better than Shatner’s performance in Star Trek when shouting “KAHN!!”: MONTOYAAAAAAH!

Mom: I’ll skip Target, but just for today. That’ll show them.

She seemed satisfied and started chatting about some boy in her class that she has a crush on. Funny girl.

Now let’s review. I’ve been sitting in my [broken] car for more than a half hour, pressing on the break pedal like mad so my car didn’t roll over a small curb into a pretty sizable ditch. I’d been crying and was pretty stressed out. My hair was a mess, my makeup was streaked and I’m sure I had a mild look of panic on my face. But then Officer Hunka-Hunka showed up. Rawr!

I casually rolled down my window as this very cute (and possibly non-married) officer approached my car.

Me: (trying to be very casual) “Oh, hello! Something’s wrong with my car. It’s stuck in reverse and I’m a little worried I’m going to roll over that hill over there.”

The officer stepped back and surveyed the situation.

“If I’d known this, I’d have come sooner” he said. I’m pretty sure he meant that if he had known that my gorgeous, beautiful self was in distress he would have come sooner to assist me.

“I was dispatched to a motorist assist” he said, as if reading my mind and saying that there was no way in heyl that he’d have hurried over because of my good looks.

I was slightly annoyed by the dispatchers choice of, well, dispatching. When I was a dispatcher, a “motorist assist” meant helping a driver who was lost, or locked his keys in the car, or maybe had a flat tire. But for a poor distraught girl whose car was going to plunge to her death off roll off of a cliff!? Okay, so maybe it wasn’t a cliff…

“Okay, here’s what I want you to do. Ease up off the brake and roll your car to the curb.”

“Alright,” I said, “but it’s going to go pretty fast.” He just nodded his head and started using air-traffic-control-hands at me (keep moving, keep moving). I figured he was not only handsome but brave as well to have me start rolling the car towards him. He must have an ulterior motive: get my car out of control so he can grab me out at the last second, sending us both tumbling into the grass where he begins to feverishly kiss me and then…

Oh, wait… sorry. Back to my story.

I ease off the brake.

My car goes FLYING.

I slam on the brake. It barely works.

“I don’t think that is going to work. I barely lifted my foot off the pedal.”

The officer looked over the cliff of death and came over to my car.

“Okay, here’s what I want you to do. Ease up on your brake and roll toward the curb. I’ll stop you from going over.”

“You’re going to stop me? Okaaay.”

Eeeassssy, eaaaasssy. LURCH!

My car flies forward toward the very-cute-and-nice-officer.  He dives into the hood of my car with arms extended trying to stop it from rolling.

I’m trying to be calm. He’s shouting “Easy! Easy!” My brakes are NOT cooperating.

I wonder how many years a girl gets for running over a cop.

I lean my head out the window and say “I’m going easy but I think I’m going to run you over!”

This went on for about a minute.

And that is when he jumped out of the way and my car went “cccccrrrrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaakkk-ccccccccccccrrrrrrrrrrrunnnnnch” on the curb. Like the Titanic sinking, my car moaned and groaned for about 5 seconds and then, all was quiet.

“You can get out now,” Super Cop said.

I wish I had stayed in my car, cause when I got my fat butt out, my car rolled a little more.

“I’m really sorry I had to call you out here for this,” I said.

“You did the right thing,” he said. “If you’d never called, I never would have been able to meet such a beautiful woman. Want to go to dinner?”

Yeah, kidding. He just looked at me funny.

“You did the right thing,” he said. “You got a tow coming?”

“Yeah I have a tow coming. And my brother. Thanks for your help.” Oh please oh please oh please give me your phone number…

“Have a nice day.” And then he left.

I looked at the bottom of the front end of my car. It was all mushed from the curb.

And I looked down the cliff of death. I could have probably rolled right on over it and not hurt myself at all. Just probably my car. 45 minutes of agony for nothing.

Maybe if I’d called 911 and said “My car is going over a cliff!” the response time would have been faster… AND maybe at the end I could have sat in the back of an ambulance with trembling hands, drinking hot cocoa with the    Officer’s jacket around my shoulders and him tucking my hair behind my ear…

Why is it when you look your worst, the cute guys come out of the woodwork? I bet if I hadn’t had a little nervous break down and was quite calm AND was having a good hair, makeup, face day, then they would have sent Barney Fife.

He would have asked me out.

Dear Officer:

Hello. I’m the girl who almost ran you over a few weeks ago while you tried to save my car from rolling over a curb and down an embankment. Just wanted to say sorry…

It was a nice, sunny, very warm day. I had just finished up an appointment and was in my car ready to drive home. I started it up, put it in reverse, and carefully backed out of my parking space. When I shifted the car back into drive, there was a funny grinding noise. I let up on the brake and put a little pressure on the gas.

To my surprise the car went backwards, not forwards as I had expected. I pushed down on the brake again, changed the gear shift position back to reverse and then to drive again. This was when I noticed that the shift stick was moving with too much ease and the needle on my dashboard was NOT moving.

Oh noes! My car was stuck in reverse and my gear shift was broken!

I took a deep breath and decided I’d just back into another spot and turn off the ignition then call someone for help. I slowly backed my car around the corner of the building as far as I could go to a less crowded area of the parking lot. I backed right up into another parking spot with the rear of my car facing the building I’d just left, with the front of my car facing another row of empty parking spots in front of me. Beyond the curb to those spots was a fairly large cliff ditch and wooded area.

Did I mention that this part of the parking lot sloped quite a bit? Right towards that fairly large cliff of death ditch?

No problem. I would follow through with my plan: turn the car ignition off and call someone to come help me out.

I wasn’t sure if I should turn the car off (can you do that while in reverse without something blowing up?) while stuck in reverse. I decided to call my dad and tell him what was happening. He told me to put on my emergency brake first, and then turn off the car.

I did and to my horror, the foot brake pushed up and my car pitched FORWARD. I threw off the emergency brake (let’s go ahead and rename it the “useless brake” for now) and panicked. I used both feet to push the foot brake down as hard as I could. “Uh, dad that didn’t work!”

We decided to try to turn off the car and THEN put on the emergency brake. I turned off the ignition (but couldn’t get the keys out since my car was still stuck in reverse). Then, I pulled up the emergency brake. Same thing happened: the car started to roll forward.

By now I was now halfway out of my parking spot and heading towards that nice little wooded area. With the cl, er, ditch.

Oh, and my phone battery was beeping at me. I gave my dad the address where I was (in case the car rolled over the cliff of death ditch and they needed to recover my body) and hung up. I only had about a minute or two before the phone battery died.  Who do you call when you really need some help?

Why, call 911 of course!

“Raleigh 911 what is your emergency?”

“Hello. I am at blah blah address and my car is stuck in reverse in the parking lot and I can’t stop it. And I’m by a ditch.”

D’oh! That’s not what I wanted to say but it worked.

“Ma’am, have you put the car into drive?“

“That won’t work. Nothing is working.”  “Ma’am, have you asked someone to jump your battery?”

I explained my situation again, in a more urgent tone. “No! I mean that my car is stuck in reverse, it won’t switch gears. It won’t start. And I keep rolling toward a ditch and I’m afraid the car will go over the curb and wreck.” (Sweet Jesus I’m going to die!!!)

I asked her if she could please send help since I was trying not to hit any other vehicles. Now that I was a bona fide hazard, she said she’d send help.

I sat in my car waiting. And waiting.

And then I started to cry. I was pretty frustrated and felt really dumb just sitting in a turned off vehicle, legs straight out pressing on the brake as hard as possible, in the heat, cell phone dead. You know the kind of crying that makes your face look like you were swatted with poison ivy: all red and blotchy? Yeah, that was me.

“Take a deep breath and calm down” I told myself. After all, it’s probably nothing big and it could be worse. I could have the kids with me. This could have happened in traffic. Or both.

I wondered if I should just let the car roll forward slowly and then “hit” the curb. Then I could escape this death trap.

However, the curb was MAYBE 3 inches high, and beyond the curb was a drop. This went through my mind: car roll downhill.  Car go over curb. Car crash in ditch.

*whimper*

And that is when he showed up. Hello Officer Hunka-Hunka from Raleigh PD!!!

To be continued!!!

What would my blog be if I didn’t include the adventures of house/pet sitting!?!?!? Boring, that’s what!!!

This past Easter, the kids and I spent two weeks house sitting and pet sitting in a beautiful 6 bedroom 6 bathroom 3-floor house in a really nice neighborhood. My friends have a great house with all of the fixins (read: plasma tv, every electronic gadget imaginable…) In addition to a super spiffy and nice house they have three pets.

Lucky is a pretty old doggie, but is awful sweet. Nala is a cute little kitty. She is soft with white-ish grayish fur and blue eyes. S’more is a gecko. She/He eats crickets. (Geckos are androgynous at first glance. I wasn’t going to go snooping.)

Easy peasy for pet-sitting, right?

WRONG!!!!!

On Monday morning I woke up to find what looked like a small, neat pile of Easter candy on the living room floor.   But then I found a ripped open Ziploc bag behind a chair and realized one of the animals had gotten into the candy and ate about 90% of it. Crap!!!

Chocolate kills dogs you know, not sure about cats but either way it looks like SOMEONE is going to have a bad stomach ache with all the candy AND wrappers eaten. My stomach started to churn as I imagined telling my good friends that their pet died. But hey, let’s wait and see what happens before we make any sad announcements. I decided I’d be checking cat poo and dog poo for the next 24 hours (S’more was not the culprit since he/she cannot get out of his/her cage).

On Monday night my brother and his girlfriend came over for dinner. While we were eating, a neighbor boy came over crying that he couldn’t find his mom (I know her too.) I told him to go upstairs to play with my kids. While I was calling her cell (she’d gone for a walk), my brother went upstairs to check on the children.

Let me pause while I say a prayer of thanks as I remember how God saved my butt that night. Thank you, thank you oh thank you.

So my brother yells for me to come upstairs right away and this is what I discovered/found/learned:

S’more is out of her/his cage on the floor.

The heat lamp that keeps S’more warm was on the floor. Bulb down.

A little lesson for you:

• Bulbs on heat lamps are hot – that is why they call them heat lamps and not cold lamps.

• Heat lamps burn your fingers. They burn carpet too. Carpet in your friend’s half-million dollar house.

• Expensive carpet burns like plastic: it melts into a nice, pretty, crispy circle of brown solid matter.

• Geckos have holes on the sides of their heads. These are their ears and not holes that you think your child poked into their noggins.

So after that fiasco – we got the boy home, S’more in her/his cage, thanked God that the house didn’t burn down, yelled at my daughter who took S’more out and put the light on the rug, and then finished dinner.

Tuesday: Time to feed S’more crickets. I had to dump a dozen crickets live into her/his cage. S’more is fast on her/his little legs and randomly chomps crickets. There is carnage all over her/his cage. It is disgusting.

Wednesday: Lucky and Nala appear no worse for the wear after eating half a gallon of Easter candy. Still no poo, though.

Thursday morning: Nala pukes all over a Persian rug in the Music Room (complete with piano and harp.) The puke is pink and nasty. I really want to go home.

Thursday afternoon: Nala escapes outside. I want to kill my daughter.

Thursday afternoon: Nala is found under the house eating grass. Nala comes out after two hours of coaxing. (Did you know cats REALLY like tuna and if a cat is stuck under your house that tuna on a plate will get it right out? Yeah, I didn’t know that either until my brother told me.)

Thursday night: Nala has the runs in her litter box. It stinks. (Did you know that if you wretch enough while trying not to pass out from the smell of kitty litter diarrhea then your eyes start to water and you think you might really puke your guts out???)

So I think Nala ate all the candy. She sleeps on my lap most of the night and doesn’t move much. I’m pretty sure I’ve killed her.

Friday: Poop duty (doodie!?) day. Guess what I find in Lucky’s pooh? Tons of foil wrappers and candy wrappers. I guess chocolate doesn’t kill all dogs. Still not sure what made Nala sick.

Friday night: Nala turns into the cat from hell and bounces all over the house attacking me and the kids like she’s ingested two tons of cat nip. I guess that means she is either feeling better or has a rare form of rabies and is going to eat us in the middle of the night.

Saturday: S’more’s cage is littered with miscellaneous cricket parts: a head, an elbow, a wing. It is really gross.

Sunday: going to take Lucky for a walk. It goes like this:

Come on Lucky!! Excited! Woof woof! Let’s go for a walk! Woof woof!

Here we go, out to the sidewalk!!
(Lucky jerks back and screaches) YIPE! YOWL! BRWOOOWW! YIPE YIPE YIPE!
Lucky, what is the matter? (Lucky looks rather put out) Pant pant pant whine.
You okay Lucky? Woof!! Okay let’s walk! Woof woof!
Time to go home, come on Lucky! Woof!

Almost there! Here we are! (through the front yard steps) Pant pant whine!
What’s wrong Lucky? Come on in! (tug tug) YIIIIIIIIPPPE! YOOOOOOWWWWWWLLLL!!

Lucky, what is wrong!!!!!!??????

(Calling neighbor) Something is wrong with Lucky! (listening) yeah, uh huh… oooh. Electric collar? Sends a shock? Oh.

Here’s what I learned: If your friend has an electric invisible fence, make sure you TAKE THE COLLAR OFF OF THE DOG BEFORE YOU TAKE HER FOR A WALK.

I don’t pet sit any more. So don’t ask.