Stumbling Towards Perfect

Mother's Day is Sunday. I'm a mother. I guess I should be looking forward to this, but the truth is, I'm not.

I don't want to be home this weekend. I don't want to have to fight with the Bean about how yes, she does actually need to clean her room, whether it "works" for her or not. I don't want to listen to her ranting and going on and on about how bored she is, or how ridiculous I am, or how dumb her sister is. I don't want to have to sit through her insulting every member of the family until one of her friends calls her and asks her to hang out and then suddenly she switches personalities mid-thought into happy, cheerful, and I have to pretend to not be confused and stressed about her mood swings.

I don't want to be home and stand in front of mountains of dirty laundry, and unswept floors, and dirty dishes and the fact that no matter how many times I ask people to take off their shoes on the rug, they still feel the need to leave them in t…

At work, as in life, one should find joy in the simple things. Like writing with purple pens.

It started innocently enough. We have this insufficient database that we totally overpaid for and it basically is as effective as vacuuming your living room carpet without the hose-sucker-upper-thing connected. Anyway, last year I jotted my important info the inefficient database spits out at me in red ink on all my reports. This year I thought I'd jazz things up a bit by using purple ink. The purple makes me happy. Distracts me. "I hate this stupid program, it doesn't even work right - hey, Purple Pen! I missed you! You're so pretty..." I even purchased three identical pens, thinking what would happen if I ran out of ink in June and they discontinued my pen of choice? See, I was thinking ahead.

What I didn't think ahead about is what would happen if my purple ink plan caught on. Like, what if someone I didn't necessarily care to be associated with liked my purp…

Tall Overbearing Bald Guy: [obviously angry and annoyed] When is it illegal to mow and blow?

ME: [umm... when it's videotaped with a minor?] Excuse me?

TOBG: Don't you have some rule that says people can't mow and blow their lawns at ridiculous, ungodly hours of the day?

ME: [Ah, we're talking about lawn maintenance!] Unfortunately we do not. However, many private associations have rules governing such activity so you should check with the association.

TOBG: [increasingly loud & angry] I don't care about other associations! I only care about where I live!

ME: That's fair. Except I don't know where you live.

TOBG: [ignoring me, getting louder] People shouldn't just be allowed to mow and blow whenever they want.

ME: [distracted by the knowledge the term "mow and blow" has been used three times in less than a minute, and all I can think of now is low budget porn] .... Uh, well, you can contact the police department with a noise complaint. I …

Were you just about to call the police to try to locate me? I haven't gone missing... I've just been stuck with writing material. Ever since I promised Big V I wouldn't print hate-blogs about his stupid dog I'm at a loss. I can't tell you about how V had to reinforce the dog cage again. And again. And again. (Including his creative use of chairs, mops and vacuums - don't ask, because I can't tell you.) I can't tell you about the dog getting out of not only his pen but the actual house, or how Big V woke to the dog barking in the back yard, patio door wide open, and Satan hosting his own doggie party. I can't tell you about coming home and finding the dog sleeping peacefully on our bed, with the bedroom door shut, and his dog pen in the exact same order it was when we left. How he's getting over a 6 foot wall I have no idea. (That's how tall we reinforced it. There's cement board, plywood, duct tape, deck screws - you name it, it's in…