Die!

Die!

Die!

Die! Die! Die!

Die, evil doer!

Die!

Diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiie!

Kris: That's an awful lot of death for someone so young.

Me: Yeah.

Good lord, what have I gotten myself into?

Okay, so, for the record, any woman that says she wants a child is clearly uninformed.

And any woman who claims to be informed and still wants a child is clearly insane.

Day two of Sam-a-rooni's visit has been progressing nominally okay. I did have to call Mom today, though, in order to get myself out of a jam with Sam that I had, well, in all honesty, gotten myself into in the first place.

This morning we made waffles for breakfast. When Sam woke up at 7:40 this morning (glory, hallelujah, he slept in past 6:30 am!), he leaned over to wake me up. How that kid slept through Bella's barking, Kris' tripping over the folding chairs in the hallway, my hushing the dogs, and my neighbors carousing outside his window, I'll never know.

We went to purchase buttermilk for the waffles at the Safeway.

Twice.

Turns out, Safeway's buttermilk is packaged in medium green packaging. The low-fat milk is also packaged in green, but a slightly lighter green. The Safeway employees have a habit of misplacing the low-fat milk with the buttermilk. Worse, they stack them on the buttermilk. So, when I find the buttermilk and reach for the one on top, I grab the mis-shelved low-fat milk. I've done this twice now, and it annoys me.

Time for a letter to Safeway and Lucerne.

Anyway, after going to Safeway twice, and finally stirring up the waffle batter and making waffles, we finally had breakfast.

While I was cleaning up after breakfast, I heard Sam ask, "What is she doing?"

Puzzled, I walked out to the living room from the kitchen to discover Annie humping Sam's leg.

Well, not really his leg, as Annie is almost as tall as Sam when she stands on her hind legs. I'd say more like, Annie was humping Sam's back.

Not a good sight.

After I knocked Annie off, and sent her to her crate, I had to explain to Sam the reason "Why was she doing that?"

Starting with the pack mentality (which I had explained earlier when Sam had asked why Annie and Bella were in the bed with Uncle Kris, and where did I sleep, and why were they in my bed (come to think of it, why are they in my bed?)), I explained pecking order and top-dog/bottom-dog and animal's desires to dominate each other. Then I explained that since Annie hadn't met him before, she wanted to make him the bottom dog by dominating him.

He seemed to understand, because later he made some comment about Annie being the bottom dog. He then commented, "I like Bella now."

Heh.

Ah, the event that happens every couple years or so.

Kris and I disappear, separately mind you, not to be heard from, for one, sometimes two days at a time.

For Kris, the first disappearance happened in 2000, when he vanished for about 10 days straight. Couldn't find him anywhere.

Subsequent disappearances have been followed up with unusual withdrawal symptoms, funny smiles and animated gestures of wand waving and spell casting.

I'll see him again in two days.

When he's finished reading the latest Harry Potter.

Then I'll get to disappear.

But not before I finish up some projects. One in particular needs finishing up sooner than later (hi, Bharat!). My reward for finishing up that one will be reading about Harry's sixth year at Hogwarts.

How's that for motivation?

It's 9:20 at night. I have just finished up and launched the website, user-facing part of online rostering for the UPA. I have been nominally been sitting for, according to the timeclock I use, 11.5 hours. That's eleven and a half billable hours.

No wonder my butt is numb.

I need a run.

When I was in high school, I managed to get into a huge fight with my mother's husband. Of course, now I don't recall what the fight was about, but I'm sure at the time it was The Most Important Thing In The World™.

At some point in the argument, which lasted days as neither of us was willing to cede to the other in this Important Thing™, my mom told her husband to give up, let me win. He (of course) resisted. Why should he give up to a 14 year old? A 14 year old! Any rational adult (especially one who had survived being shot down in a helicopter in Viet Nam) could outlast a stubborn 14 year old. Sheesh!

But then my mom told him about The Cereal Incident.

When I was little (as in really small, as in 3 years old), I ate my cereal the wrong way. In other words, I ate cereal the way everyone else does. Of course, I now eat cereal the correct way, but back then I was young and innocent. Basically, I ate my morning Cheerios by pouring a bowl of milk, opening the cereal box, pouring in the cereal, then eating really fast. You have to eat cereal fast because, as everyone knows, soggy cereal sucks.

So, one morning (did I mention I was three?), I poured my milk, poured my cereal, and started eating as fast as I could. Unfortunately, my Cheerios became soggy before I could get to the ones on the bottom.

Ick.

So, when I was down to the soggy cereal (ick!), I took my bowl to the sink to pour the remains down the drain and put my bowl in the sink. I don't know how Mom and Dad managed to train us kids to put our dishes in the sink after a meal, but I can't recall not doing so.

On this particular morning, Dad saw me walking to the sink with the bowl of milk and soggy cereal, and told me to sit back down and eat it.

Huh?

Eat this soggy cereal?

Why? It's soggy.

I'm sure he replied with something like, you shouldn't pour so much into your bowl if you can't eat it. I don't recall that detail. I assume he came over and took the bowl from me, putting it back on the table. He probably plunked me down in the chair, too.

According to Mom, Dad told me to eat that bowl of cereal.

I refused.

Dad countered with the threat, "You will sit there until you do."

And so I did.

I sat there all morning. I remember "reading" the back of the Cheerios box, really the only thing to do when you're three and stuck at the kitchen table all morning. There was a Winnie the Pooh on the back of the box. He was on the left side of the box.

I sat there all afternoon. Mom would wander in and out of the kitchen looking at the forlorn little girl draped over the chair in sheer boredom, and wonder who was going to win this battle of wills. Or as she recalled, "The thing I remember is your being draped across the chair, sitting up, then with your feet up over the back of the chair, then laying sideways on your back, then your tummy, then kneeling... I think one time you may have been on the floor with your hand on the seat..."

I sat there all evening. Dad would sometimes come in to see how I was doing. He'd find me sneaking off, and put me back in the chair. He wasn't able to go to work that day because I wasn't off at nursery school, so someone had to be home with the kid.

Still I sat there.

I was allowed to go to the bathroom, and eventually I was allowed to go to bed. I wasn't allowed any other food with the family at dinner because I hadn't finished my breakfast.

Dad was ever so kind as to put the bowl into the refrigerator for me to consume the next day.

Joy.

The next morning, I was back at the table with the bowl of sugared milk and nearly non-existent Cheerios. By this time, the Cheerios had all disintegrated. All I needed to do was choke down the milk.

But to do that required (what else?) Cheerios!

I put a small handful into the milk, and ate the delicious, crunchy Cheerios with the uncomformably sweetened milk. I was ravenous at this point. I finished the milk, one handful of cereal at a time, thereby discovering the correct way to eat cereal.

I'm still not sure who won that battle of wills with my Dad. Sure, I ate the cereal. But he didn't go to work or out that night.

And my mother's husband?

He gave in after he heard the tale of the Cereal Incident.