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* Linda’s getting married tomorrow! And can I just say, I am so glad she’s a July bride and not August, because this is going to be one of the last times I get to see most of my favorite Seattle people in one place.

* Guess who’s pregnant? Woo-hoo, more baby cousins!

* Lizardbreath’s baby girl won’t sleep. Moms of toddlers (or former toddlers): head over and give whatever advice you’ve got.

Oh, and thank you Angie for telling me about FailBlog. This made me laugh so hard last night that I snarfed milk out of my nose while I was eating a bowl of cereal.

see more pwn and owned pictures

(Apparently my blog columns are too narrow because the whole picture won’t fit there - same problem I have with embedded YouTube videos. Oh well, you get the idea.)

Happy weekend, everybody.

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So that last post brought up some interesting stuff. I thought about writing a whole long post explaining my personal religious beliefs - not because I thought I needed to defend myself, but just so I wouldn’t be misinterpreted. And you know what? If you’re curious, I think I basically summed it up in this post a long time ago. If you want to know more about my beliefs, drop me an email; otherwise I don’t think there’s any need to bore you with it.

Topic change: house stuff! We’ve had four or five showings now, which is good, although stressful. My child likes to disassemble… well, everything, really - toys, kitchen cabinets, her dresser, you name it - so whenever we get word that we’re going to have a showing, it seems to take a really long time to frantically clean everything up and get the house in good showing condition. And I’m really wishing we didn’t have so many cats, because vacuuming the house every other day is getting really old.

[Speaking of which, if any of you know anyone who might want to adopt Cleo and Greta? That offer still stands. I'm taking them to the vet next week to get their shots updated, and then I'm going to start talking to all of our neighbors and maybe put an ad on PetFinder to see if I can find them a new home. I won't give them to a shelter, so if I can't find a place for them, then I guess they're meant to stay with us. But I'm going to try my darnedest.]

Anyway, on Tuesday, we had two showings for the same people; in the morning, just the wife came to see the place, and she came back that evening with her husband. (This is why I don’t know if I should say we’ve had four or five showings - technically five, but only four separate families.) They seem like the most promising so far. The wife really loves the place, but the husband has a laundry list of things he was griping about. This is all based on the feedback that their realtor gave to ours, so I’m not sure if maybe they’re just playing good cop/bad cop to see if they can get us to drop our price.

The story we heard is that they sold their house two years ago, and have been renting ever since then. They were planning to buy some huge 25-acre lot and build a house on it - not because they have animals, mind you, just because they “want privacy” (25 acres?!) - but they haven’t been able to close the deal in the past two years. The realtor says the wife is at the end of her rope, and she just wants a house already. I guess the husband is still hung up on this “dream house” idea. Dave said it’s pretty likely that we’ll get an offer from them since the wife usually controls those types of decisions. Which I knew, of course, it was just funny to hear my husband say that. I guess he’s already learned that expression that “a happy wife makes for a happy life” really is true. He’s a smart egg, I knew he’d catch on quick. Heh.

Regardless, I’m really surprised at how many people have been coming to see the place - we’ve had a lot of drive-by’s, and have already had to refill the flyer box on the “for sale” sign a couple of times. (I know a lot of that is because of nosy neighbors, but we don’t have that many people in our neighborhood.) So it’s good. Dave and I were trying to think of this on a 6-month scale, since that seems to be about the average time most houses take to sell these days. I was thinking ok, no biggie, at least we’ll be able to host Christmas at our new house. Now I’m wondering if maybe we’ll be in a new place by Labor Day. One can hope, right?

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Today is my birthday.

It’s weird that it’s been kind of a non-event on my mental radar. I’m really excited about Cate’s first birthday in a couple of weeks, so I kind of keep forgetting about mine. Strange how that works, isn’t it? Besides, it’s not like 32 is some big landmark number.

Looking back at my blog entries from last year, I see that I forgot about my birthday last year as well. Of course, that was because I was so preoccupied with feeling miserable and wanting my pregnancy to be over and done with.

I do have a couple of nice birthday things going on, though. I went shopping yesterday and got myself some jeans, thanks to my sister. I’m getting a massage and a facial, courtesy of my parents and Dave, respectively. And tomorrow night, I’m having dinner with Kris. So it’s definitely a lot better than last year - if nothing else, I’m at least going to get out of the house.

Plus, Cate is at daycare today and I don’t have any major pressing deadlines going on at work (at least not right now), so I can kind of enjoy some Mommy Downtime. I think I might take a bubble bath and a nap. Happy birthday to me, indeed.

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I try not to write about my dreams too often, because I figure it’s probably really boring for other people to read. And honestly, I have no idea if anyone is going to think that this is funny other than me. But here goes.

Sunday afternoon, Cate and I took a nap together in my bed. (Dave is totally going to call me out for saying “my bed” instead of “our bed,” because I say “my” in reference to lots of things that technically belong to both of us. But he wasn’t there, so in this case, use of the word “our” makes it sound like the bed belongs to Cate and me, and it’s just confusing. Whatever. We were in the king-size bed in the master bedroom. Sufficiently overexplained? I thought so.)

In the dream, we lived in this enormous old mansion. It was at least four stories tall, and had all sorts of weird hidden staircases and rooms in strange places. Sort of like the Winchester Mystery House, I guess. I knew it was haunted, but I knew where the haunted areas were, so we just stayed out of those parts of the house, and figured we were ok.

Oh, random aside: Dave wasn’t Dave in the dream. The guy playing the role of my husband looked familiar, and I knew his voice, but I couldn’t place him. Finally it clicked and I said (in the dream), “Oh hey, look, I’m married to movie star Keanu Reeves!” Not just Keanu Reeves, but Movie Star Keanu Reeves. Like his middle name is Keanu. It was just kinda funny, is all I’m saying.

Anyway, at some point I had to go into one of the haunted parts of the house. No reason why, just dream logic, I guess. I left Cate with my brother and sister because my husband Keanu was off doing lord-knows-what. I walked into the haunted room, and suddenly I felt something pressing against my back and I felt a hand grab ahold of my hair. I had a split-second of absolute terror, where I was convinced that the ghosts had gotten me…

Then I woke up. And I realized that what I felt in my back were Cate’s feet, and she was the one pulling my hair, trying to wake me up. Yeah, it’s weird, I know. It was just funny/strange to go from feeling completely petrified to waking up and realizing that, in fact, the “ghost” is your 11 month-old child who has declared that naptime is officially over.

Oh, and while we’re talking about dreams, I also keep having lots of childbirth dreams lately, but I think that’s because Cate’s first birthday is coming up later this month. You know, big milestone thing, the brain starts thinking about what was going on this time last year, etc. Still, I wish that my subconscious would knock it off, because they’re kinda freaking me out.

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There’s a whole big mess of stuff swirling around my head lately, but I’m having a hard time putting it into a string of coherent sentences. And trying to find the time to sit down and write is sort of a problem for me right now. I’d use the fact that Cate is demanding as an excuse, but actually, everything is a problem right now. I seem to be going through a lazy phase. My parents are coming in a week, and normally I would already be starting the Big Clean-A-Thon that I do prior to any family visit, but I just can’t seem to make myself get off my butt and do it.

Just to clarify: My parents don’t actually give a flip how tidy the house is. They are coming for one reason only, and that is for a week of Grandbaby Love. As long as the house doesn’t smell like cat pee, I doubt they’ll notice anything else. The cleaning spree is just something I do before people visit. I’m sort of nuts like that.

So… yeah. More stuff later. Right now it’s time for our (Cate’s and my) mid-morning nap. Whee!

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It’s been hours, and I am still so angry about this that I could spit.

This afternoon, I went to the grocery store and brought Cate along with me. I’m going to start painting tomorrow, so I want to make sure that we have all of our essentials (diet coke, bread, etc.) so I don’t have to run to the store covered in primer.

So, grocery store, blah blah. We finish shopping and head out to the parking lot. There’s a white sedan with four teenage boys who are just hanging out. They see me with the baby, one of the boys jumps out of the car, and throws one of those firecrackers on the ground that explodes when it hits the pavement. He jumped back into the car, and they all laughed and watched me to see my reaction.

Are you freaking kidding me? These little punks throw a firecracker to see if they can scare my baby? For the record, Cate was sound asleep in her car seat and didn’t even flinch at the explosion, but that’s so not the point.

I glared at them and reigned in my initial impulse, which was to either give them the finger or shout some obscenity across the parking lot. (Good mommies don’t scream profanity in public, do they?) I gave them the hairy eyeball while I was loading the groceries into my car. Meanwhile they moved on to their next target. Some guy had a souped-up restored antique car (don’t ask me what it was, I don’t know; it was purple, does that help?), and as he was driving away, they shouted “faggot!” at him. Note that they yelled this as the guy was driving away. Yeah. Scaring babies and yelling slurs at people who can’t hear you. Clearly these are some big, bad-ass, brave characters we’re dealing with.

But you know, I was so pissed about the firecracker that that little bit of hate speech just sent me over the edge. I was about to put Cate back in the car, but then that happened, and I was all, “oh heeeell no!” I put Cate back in the cart and stomped back inside.

Now, the woman at the customer service desk… how do I explain this woman? I think she’s in her 40’s, but she could just as well be 70 and I would have no idea. She has dyed jet-black hair that is permed within an inch of its life, a big wall o’ crispy bangs, she wears about a pound of black eyeliner on each eye, and she’s got some severe smoker’s teeth. Every time I have ever been to our local sports bar, I have seen her there, and she is always drunk. Right on.

So, I tell her about the boys in the parking lot, and when I get to the part about the firecracker, she’s all, “They tried to scare the baby?!?! Where are they?!” And off she stomps out the door. I was glad it was her and not one of the nice customer service ladies, because this woman honestly would’ve scared the crap out of me if she’d gotten angry at me, so I can’t imagine what she’d do to a bunch of spineless teenage boys.

I guess the kids figured out when they saw me head back into the store that I was going to rat them out, so they were gone by the time Scary Lady got there. Oh well. I gave her a description of the car and she said she’d keep an (heavily lined) eye out for them.

I just can’t believe that anyone would intentionally try to frighten a baby. I know they’re just teenage boys, which automatically means that they’re stupid and inconsiderate. It’s just… wow. That’s a whole level of stupid that I was not expecting.

If this ever happens again, I am totally going to go over there and tell them to go home to their mamas. And I might throw in some profanity for good measure. I just hope I don’t haul off and smack them, because while good mommies might occasionally curse, they definitely do not get arrested.

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I finally got a MySpace page, mainly because Kris and a couple of other friends bugged me about it. So fine. Here’s my page - if any of you are on MySpace, please be my friend? Right now I only have a few people, and it looks really sad.

It’s weird, though, ever since I set up the account, I’ve been obsessively looking for people I used to know, and I’ve found so many of them. Heck, I have relatives on MySpace, and I didn’t even know about it until I just happened upon their pages. And virtually every boy I’ve ever had a crush on? They’re all on MySpace. Including the guy I lost my virginity to. Yikes! I emailed him, but I have no idea if I’m going to get a response. It was almost 12 years ago, and I’m guessing I probably scared the bejeezus out of him with my little “Hi!! Remember me?” note.

There’s also an ex-boyfriend of mine I found, who I’ve stayed friends with over the years, so I wasn’t surprised to find his page. But apparently he doesn’t read this blog, and he hasn’t seen me in the past six or seven years, so he was all, “Daaaaamn! You look great!” Which… yeah, ok. He’s a nice guy and things didn’t end badly between us at all, but that was still a nice little “HA! So there!” kind of moment.

Yeah. I know, I’m a freak.

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