Today’s Clara Jane’s first full day of first grade. She’s going back to school minus several inches of hair and a prominent tooth, but with the knowledge of what it’s like to spend the night at the zoo, catch a big channel catfish, make Girl Scout-approved bee traps in the woods, the wisdom of the first Ramona book, a new baby cousin (and that babies are rather dull and sound like chickens when they scream),  a smidge of OCD caused by the uber-reorganization of her belongings, a new feline friend who’s an enemy to cicadas, and the knowledge of what a baby tiger feels like.

So we had a pretty good summer, really. When I wasn’t imploding from the stress of trying to maintain my school year work schedule without the benefit of school to raise my child.

She doesn’t look any worse for wear, does she?

Ah, routine. You were my enemy for so long. But now, you are my best friend because I can foresee more writing and less chainsaw-juggling in my near future.

But I want to share the summer adventures, too. So here’s the quick version.

Gordo’s still settling in.

Who am I kidding? Gordo settled in about 10 minutes after he arrived. He’s taken over. Romi, our old cat still isn’t amused, especially since Gordo’s decided they’re going to play, whether she likes it or not. This means he chases her while she imitates a deflating balloon on a rampage.

He also loves the dogs. A little too much. Brian’s busted him snuggled face-to-face, legs entwined, with Murphy.

As for Chloe, Gordo has special feelings for her. He expresses them by wrapping his front legs around Chloe’s shoulders and chewing her head.

Sometimes he headbutts her in the face.

Occasionally he tries to sleep with her. Which is funny because Chloe has pissed off every dog she knows by snuggling.

She’s not amused by Gordo.

Also? Gordo plans to eradicate our house of all drinking straws.

No, my world doesn’t revolve around my cat. Sometimes he’s asleep and I have to amuse myself in other ways. On Fourth of July, I amused myself in a way I’ve always judged others for: by buying a shit ton of fireworks from a stand beside a rural highway, then setting them off in my within-the-city-limits driveway with friends, my child, and beer.

Slow child? Let’s see how slow she is when she chases you with a three-foot sparkler!

This isn’t a good idea, Erin.

Neither is this, Brian.

There’s Black Cats in the beer can. Of course.

No one got so much as singed or arrested. God bless America.

Clara Jane’s been a camp fiend this summer. I had this great idea to enroll her in a bunch of camps that would enrich her life and keep her entertained when she gets sick of looking at my face three days into summer break. I also figured I’d smack out a month’s work of work per camp week, because I’m magical.

I spent a lot of time running in circles, often cussing. Occasionally crying. And once, getting so frustrated I bit my iPhone.

Camp involved angst, of course, because this is Clara Jane and she is my child and therefore, angstful. Upon starting camp at the zoo the morning after our pyro-fest, she was a little weepy, unsure, and clingy. Until her friend Alice, who’s done the zoo camp a few times, grabbed her hand and drug her away.

To celebrate her last day, we met Alice and her mom at the park filled with cement turtles overlooking the zoo, and Clara Jane insisted on celebrating her victory.

That night, the kid who gets weepy if I leave her home with Brian while I run out for an hour or two in the evening, spent the night in a sleeping bag at the zoo. Without us. And the next day, she complained that she didn’t get to sleep at the zoo that night.

The next week she went to Girl Scout day camp. She made a sit-upon, learning the proper way to fold a flag, made her own lunch in a cabin, and ran through the woods with a bandanna tied around her head to keep ticks out of her hair while chasing scurvy pirate boys and building bee traps.

On the last day, her group – the youngest at the camp – was the color guard.

I tend to get pretty cynical about unquestioned patriotism. I love this country and I’m so grateful to live here, but I don’t think it’s perfect. I think a lot of crap gets covered by blind patriotism.

But seeing my kid solemnly  march to the flag pole with a pack of her little peers, carefully unfurling the flag, being so careful to make sure it doesn’t touch the ground, was just a bit overwhelming. And hopeful. That maybe these girls can take the lessons they’re learning about love, peace, conservation, kindness, and kicking scurvy boy pirate ass to heart and use it for the betterment of everyone.

After these two camps, I find myself with a kid so independent I just might give in to her wishes to rent her own apartment. But only if it’s in the school district, because she’s already enrolled.

We visited some rescued tiger cubs.

It hasn’t all been about the kid this summer.

Okay, it’s mostly been about the kid.

Brian’s building a 36′ by 12′ pergola in our backyard. During the hottest summer ever. It’s not going quickly, but damn if it’s not going to be awesome when it’s finished. And when I have a wood-fired outdoor brick oven to go with it. You’re coming over, right?

But I’ve had some grown-up fun. I saw Hole and Lady Gaga in concert within days of each other. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the feminist mind fuck that pairing was.

Erin and I were way underdressed for Gaga, even though it took me three days to get all the eye makeup off my face.

We also met my new favorite band, Semi Precious Weapons. The lead singer tried to drag me around by my necklace. Which is a cute necklace. And he’s a jewelry designer, so I’m honored. for real.

While I gather my thoughts and try to figure out how to get Clara Jane to dinosaur camp and meet deadline without crying, enjoy my favorite song du jour.

Or if you’re feeling tender.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll have it figured out. I’m pretty sure the secret of the universe lies in those two events. I just can’t see it yet through all the black eyeliner that refuses to wash off.

Many years ago, in my first apartment, I attempted a container garden of herbs, peppers, and tomatoes. By mid-July, when it should have been raging, I was told that it looked like Anne Rice’s garden.

This was 1995 or 1996, and thus, relevant and funny. Vampires are better at keeping things alive than I am. Ha ha ha.

A few summers later, one of Brian’s aunts gave us a massive ton of clippings from her spectacular garden as a wedding gift, to start our own garden.

The plants survived the drive to St. Louis from upper Michigan. They did not survive Chloe the Basset Hound.

Did you know “basset” is French for “wee elephant”? Because that’s what the garden looked like an hour after I planted it. Like elephants had paid a visit to suburban St. Louis County and ravaged a 3 foot by 3 foot patch of my yard.

Which is just as well. Between St. Louis’ August heat, our solid-packed river bluff clay and limestone soil, and The Plantpire LeStat, they really didn’t stand a chance.

So I gave up, and have been fine with this. But this spring, Clara Jane decided she wanted to garden.

In March I bought 50 (approximately) of those all-natural seed cell little greenhouse things, and we went to work, sowing 928,572 seeds.

They did well at first. Just about everything sprouted. Then I went to Ohio, got out of the habit, and it all went to hell. That was followed by what I can only assume was a freak hurricane that formed in the Mississippi River, moved a few miles east, and dumped the shit on my seedlings.

Five lettuce seedlings survived, until the were snorted out of their pot by the dogs. Another one of Brian’s aunts said that there’s a lesson in that.

I learned several lessons:

1. I suck at gardening, still.
2. Six-year-olds aren’t interested in anything for more than 10 minutes and will ditch all the work on their parents.
3. This shit gets expensive, fast.
4. Red leaf lettuce is doggie cocaine.

So I bought some tomato and pepper plants, along with a few herbs. I don’t know why. We got heaps of tomatoes, peppers, and herbs from our CSA, usually more than we can consume. Still. I started them in small pots, thinking we’d use our newly-inherited tiller to make a plot in the backyard, surrounded by dog proof edging.

It was roughly 387 degrees every day in June. The plants sat in their little 8″ recycled bamboo pots and wilted.

But today … See, I’m taking two weeks off work. Clara Jane’s visiting my parents. Gordo’s acting like he’s lived here forever and doesn’t require supervision. And it’s gorgeous outside. Barely 80 degrees.

Since the tilling hasn’t happened and I have no idea how to use that machine, and my yard is full of cement piers (don’t ask), I moved the tough survivors into bigger pots. Which feels a little like moving a body in the beginning stages of decay into a roomier coffin.

I ran out of potting soil after four plants. Not sure how this is possible, as I bought 2 giant bags every time I set foot in a store from March through May. I wonder if it got used in the cement pier construction.

Seriously. Brian and I have joked about just paving the yard and painting it with tennis court paint. We would all be better off.

Did I mention that today I got all gardening gussied up? I see people I know who are good gardeners, and they always looks pleasantly dishevled in their work gear. I can do that! I rolled up my jeans, put on my old black Mary Jane Crocs, threw on a shabbily well-aged smocked baby doll shirt, and for the first time in my life, at least since that Halloween I went as a gypsy, I tied a bandanna around my head so maybe, for once, I won’t be sweat-bathed. Perfect attire for making an emergency trip to the garden center for more organic Miracle Gro, right?

See that line on my neck? I wish I could say it was a scar from a wicked bar fight. It’s not.

So that’s where all my extra potting soil went! I totally forgot I was storing it in that roll of neck fat.

I swear, I did not roll on the ground. I did not go shoulder-deep into a big tomato pot. I was not rooting for the rare Illinois black truffle. That’s the product of half an hour of gardening, Robin style.

I wish I’d noticed my unclean before I went to the craft store to buy yarn. Which is what I did instead of going to buy potting soil, as planned. I’m going to stick with what I know I can do: knitting, walking around like Pigpen, and occasionally using my Death Touch at the botanical gardens, just to see if they revoke my membership.

Coincidence that this coincided with the most debilitating panic attacks of my life? Not at all.

I love animals, and I’m all for rescuing animals in need. I support my local Humane Society, and try to do the same with my dear friend Kristina’s place of employment. If there’s an animal in need, we try to help. Like two weeks ago when our neighbor found a cute little pup about to get nailed on the four-way street. There was a time when I would have said, “Dog in danger and no owner? My dog now!”

I have since grown a brain and realized this is not always the best thing to do. Sometimes it’s best to spread the word and make sure the dog goes to a good home that isn’t mine.

My pets are mighty well-loved, but there are a lot of them. And getting each one involved a special trip to hell. To whit:We adopted Chloe in 1999 when she was two years old from Mid America Basset Rescue. Brian had never had a dog. I’d never had one as an adult. But I wanted one. We’d bought our first house two months prior and were a few months from our wedding. Planning to get a dog after the wedding, I decided to start working ahead.

I never work ahead on important projects. Just things I probably shouldn’t be doing.

When I emailed the rescue group I said we were interested in a female basset, between 1 and two years old. I was told great, we should fill out the application and prepare to wait a few months to get a dog who met our criteria.

Late that night, two-year-old Chloe arrived at one of their foster homes. She’d been purchased by a military couple from a breeder as a puppy, who allowed her the run of the army base where they lived. Chloe went to military dog jail a bunch of times for running wild and free. She had worms. She had puppies. She was grossly underweight. Her owners had way more than the allotted two pets. The MP made them surrender her to the rescue group around the same time I was sending the email saying, “Hey! We think we might like to have a basset hound. Someday.”

A week later Brian and my dad did the fastest fence-building ever to contain our new dog. But that wasn’t the worst.

The night we got her, at 9 p.m. on the dog, Chloe flung herself on the floor and did this:

I called her foster mom and, as calmly as I could asked, “WHY THE HELL IS CHLOE HAVING A SEIZURE AND WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH HER?!?!?!?!”

“Oh, she just does that at 9:00 every night.”

The vet told us that she was “expressing herself”. And she still does. Often. And loudly.

A few months later, our cat Romi showed up on our doorstep on Halloween, scared to death. And no wonder. She was declawed, starving, and not exactly trusting of the humans. I don’t blame her.

Brian built her a little shelter from boxes and old towels on our porch while we tried to decide what to do. I had Whiney, my 12-year-old cat who pretty much hated everyone but me. Chances were strong that she’d eat Romi, which would be bad for her diabetes. But when another stray tried to usurp Romi’s shanty, we decided we needed to move her inside. On a Friday night. Before being out of town the next day.

We took her to the vet that evening while our dinner got cold on the counter. She didn’t show signs of any infectious diseases, so we were safe to bring her home. But it didn’t seem fair to bring home a new cat, then go out of town the next day. It also didn’t seem like a good way to keep our house standing. We decided to have Romi boarded at the vet.

While doing the paperwork I reached into her carrier to hand her over. When I did, she tore me from the base of my index finger to my wrist.

Remember how I mentioned that Romi had been declawed by her previous owner? This shredding of my palm was done with her incisor. A vet tech trainee really wanted to give me stitches, and St. Louis County put me on rabies watch for two weeks. Welcome to the family, Romi!

And then there’s Murphy. We were somewhat trying to get pregnant, and a friend told us to get a dog. Because as soon as you get a big responsibility like a dog, you’ll get knocked up. Ha ha!

Our 18-year-old neighbor adopted Murphy, then nine months old, from a puppy mill rescue group a few months prior. Good, right? Wrong. An 18-year-old who works 12-14 hours a day and has a social life, living in an apartment with no yard, has absolutely no business having a puppy of any kind. Especially one that’s half beagle, half coon hound.

I had seen Murphy hanging out in another neighbor’s yard. She was friends with Murphy’s owner and knew the puppy was being crated during all those working hours. She was such a beautiful dog, with such sweet, soulful eyes. Plus, we’d had Chloe for nearly five years and I was aware that hounds are the best. I love them.

The dog-sitting neighbor agreed that we would be better for Murphy than her owner and talked her into relinquishing Murphy to us. The poor thing. She had no social skills. Scared of everything. Not very smart. But we can help! We’ll socialize her! Obedience classes! Maybe even agility training! We can build the best dog ever. We have the tools.

Two weeks later, I got pregnant with Clara Jane. Murphy has never set paw into a class of any sort. Much of my pregnancy was spent chasing Murphy’s ass around the neighborhood, screaming at her to get back home after she’d escape. Often, this was done while barefoot and braless.

That was our last pet adoption, and I said no more. At least until someone dies, which means I don’t even want to think about adopting a new pet because I’m sick in the head and sort of think that adopting pet #4 will hasten the death of one of the others.

And yet, this didn’t matter last Sunday.

We were out and about, and Clara Jane asked if we could visit the rats and snakes at Petsmart. I usually say no, but I think I had some cabin fever from spending so much time at home during the recent heat wave. I mosied back to the kitty section, where the Humane Society of Monroe County keeps a few adoptables.

On the top row, a white cat stretched through two cat cubicles, sound asleep on his back with all four paws in the air, working his mouth like he was nursing, and I laughed at him.

Then I saw that his name is Gordo. Spanish for fat. And I laughed some more.

Litter box trained. Good with cats. Good with dogs. Declawed. Neutered. Born on New Year’s Eve, 2008. Not that I had to say any of this. When Brian walked back and saw the look on my face, he just went for an employee to open the meeting room.

Gordo ran to us and went into lover mode. And I fell. Hard.

Of course, Clara Jane and I had train tickets to go to my parents’ the next afternoon.

Brian did the paperwork on Monday. I came back Tuesday night, leaving Clara Jane at my parents’. And this morning, we brought Gordo home.

We’re hoping he relaxes soon.

Actually, if he gets any more relaxed, he might be dead. This is the most mellow creature I have ever met. When Romi hisses and spits at him, he quietly ducks and moves from her path. When accosted by the dogs, he came to them.

Murphy finally has a friend!

And while Romi’s made a lot of noise and won’t let Gordo come upstairs, she hasn’t been bothered enough to raise a single hair or puff up. And Gordo hasn’t said a word.

He’s used the litter box. Had a snack. Had a nap on the basement loveseat under a sunny window. He’s given me 74 headbutts.

Oh Fat Man. We didn’t plan on getting you, which means you’ll fit in perfectly.

However, if I postpone blogging until I’m not angry, depressed, or upset, there’s a good chance I won’t write anything until school begins again.

Clara Jane spent the first week of break visiting my parents, where she frolicked and played and lost teeth.

Not only that, but when the Tooth Faerie leaves both cash and the tooth when she visits Mimi and Grandpa’s house! It’s a magical world out there in western Missouri.

Different story in western Illinois. I should have known on Sunday evening, when Clara Jane’s hand fell asleep and she uttered, “Stupid gravity. I’m gonna kick your ass,” that we might be in for a trying week.

Monday morning started with Clara Jane using her preferred method for waking me: crawling into bed, snuggling under the covers, and then flailing like she’s time traveled back thirty years and is attending a Black Flag show.

Waking up to kidney kicks and punches does not make for a good start to anyone’s day. Another thing that doesn’t help? Getting the, “Well, you better enjoy her while you can because they grow up so fast” speech before the bruises have had a chance to reach their optimal shade of indigo.

Wait … I’m supposed to enjoy this? If so, I’m definitely not up to par as a parent. Because I don’t enjoy being pummeled awake by someone I labored 32 hours to birthe. There wasn’t much to enjoy about her on Monday, unless you really dig snark, whines, being ignored, screaming, and hissy fits.

Clara Jane started magic camp that afternoon. I hoped her first trick would be making her shitty attitude disappear. She learned how to make balloon animals instead.

Cute, right?

Balloons make me anxious as fuck. Horseman #1 will come bearing balloons shaped like cute little critters.

On the way home from camp, she informed me that I had to be there on Friday, which was news to me. Had I known I probably wouldn’t have scheduled a chef interview for work during her Friday camp time. This, after some exchanges that led me to think I wasn’t doing enough for work even though I was running in circles trying to keep up my usual pace.

I came home and cried for two hours.

There were promises that Tuesday would be different. And it was. It was worse. I awoke from my pummeling still exhausted from the day before, and wound up in tears within an hour of my kid’s wake-up rendition of “TV Party” on my lower back.

But then … a knock on my door. Could be family services, alerted by the radiating angst coming off my house. But no, it was a young neighbor. She handed me her babysitting business card.

My word! God has sent his angel! I resisted the urge to grab her by the arm, drag her into my house, hand her a signed blank check, and flee until August. Because that’s probably illegal. But I did stick her card to the fridge and entertain thoughts of the perks of having a babysitter mere doors from my house who can obviously read my subliminal distress signals.

An hour later, another knock. Another young neighbor. Another babysitting card. Sweet Jesus! IT’S LIKE THE UNIVERSE KNOWS TEENAGERS CAN DO A BETTER JOB WITH MY KID THAN I CAN!!!! I’m willing to accept that.

Okay, so perhaps there was no horseman on Monday, aside from the repeated rotten behavior.

After dumping Magick Girl at camp, I rushed to a downtown cafe to grab lunch and squeeze in my usual six hours of work into my allotted three. I had pause at the priest in full cassock who lingered near my table for a bit. But one of the local crazy ladies also lingered by my table. I’m not sure which one to put my stock in. All I know is I don’t have any private work space in my house, even though there are essentially two offices in my house. One’s being used by Brian to store shit. The other’s being used by Clara Jane for … I’m not sure. She might be running an online casino. I should probably check her computer.

Horseman #2 arrives in the form of lack of a sane work environment. Who can get a damn thing done with all these priests and crazy people and grade school card sharps wanting my attention?

Wednesday was lovely. The horsemen like to take a day off so they can catch you off-guard.

Horseman #3 arrived Thursday morning in the form of vomit. Lots and lots of vomit, being deposited in my bedroom doorway as I was waking.

The kid couldn’t help it. And she’s fine. No fever. Seems she had the typical hay fever stuffiness and a night of post-nasal drip set her off. Unfortunately she’d already eaten breakfast, including a rather large glass of milk. Judging from the amount of smelly curds in my hallway, I’m guessing she consumed a half a gallon or so.

You know how they say that when you’re a mother and your kid partakes in a normal but vile bodily function, it doesn’t bother you because it’s your child? Either that’s utter bullshit, or it’s another mark that I’m really not that good at this parenting shit because Jesus. While cleaning the vomit that trailed through three rooms, I couldn’t stop gagging. I covered it with towels, took a respite to catch my breath, and returned to find one of my dogs, cleaning up the mess.

Horseman #4 is a hound dog.

I sent Clara Jane to camp since she didn’t have a fever, refrained from further projectiles, and kept demanding food, including the foods she’d just vomited. If you feel like eating another Kashi bar after experiencing a half-digested one passing over your tongue in reverse, you’re well enough to go practice your card tricks. The sooner you get out there and start earning that Three Card Monty cash, the sooner Mama can go to the very quiet hospital.

After taking her to camp, I came home in time for a quick phone interview I had scheduled with a chef from a local culinary school. I’m not crazy about phone interviews, but I didn’t have the time to spend in transit. So phone interviews – which involve using speaker phone and a digital recorder – it is.

Normally when I do phone interviews I throw my dogs outside because they have a history of causing problems during such interviews. But the hellfires were here on Thursday, especially at 2:30 when the interview was scheduled. I gave them each a chewie in hopes that they’d fixate on gnawing instead of making obscene noises and howling. Since both dogs are lacking teeth, a chewie should last a bit, right?

What teeth my dogs have left are freaking buzzsaws. They were finished with their chewies before the chef and I had finished exchanging pleasantries. Perhaps they’ll sleep.

Five minutes later, I noticed Chloe the Basset hound, five feet from me, on her back. She looked at me and, speaker phone engaged, she cut loose a guteral roar. It’s this thing she’s always done, where she flops onto her back, writhes, and makes noises that have been compared to the possible call of the mighty velociraptor.

We call them grunties, and Chloe’s was  gearing up for a Bonnoroo-level grunting set list.

I need a fucking office.

I was working from the coffee table, where Clara Jane had left some clothes pins from magic practice. I grabbed one and, continuing my, “uh huh, oh yes, right” interview noises, I lobbed the pin at Chloe to distract her. It clattered beside her onto the hardwood floor. But it was enough to distract her from her little roar-core gig.

Next time I checked, Chloe was still on her back, clothespin in her mouth, aimed directly down her throat.

Awesome. Rescue a two-year-old severely neglected Basset hound. Keep her happy and healthy until she’s 13 years old. Then watch her kill herself by choking on a clothespin lobbed at her to make her shut the hell up.

Without stopping the interview, I grabbed a large cushion from the couch behind me and flung it at her. The ensuing thump gave the chef pause.

And that’s when I pretty much gave up on the possibility of doing anything correctly for the next two months.

I know. I can’t wrap my head around that. Not only the fact that it was seven years ago this week that I got knocked up after a night of rib-eating and beer-drinking – although I can’t wrap my head around that, either – but I’m also freaking out because good God, there’s a lot of events at the end of the school year, just when I’m frantically trying to get ahead on work stuff.

Today was the awards ceremony for kindergarteners though second graders at Clara Jane’s school. I went, hoping that perhaps since she was one of two kindergarteners allowed into the first grade advanced reading program a semester before everyone else that perhaps she and her reading overachieving pal might get some special recognition.

They didn’t.

Really, I’m fine with this. Kids don’t need awards for everything. My kid in particular doesn’t need the self-esteem boost. But if they could see what I’m seeing at my house, perhaps they’d recognize just how advanced she is.

This is her current reading material. Brian decided it was a good time to introduce her to Calvin and Hobbes.

Don’t get me wrong. I love Calvin and Hobbes. Love them. It’s a love that has withstood all those stickers of Calvin urinating on stuff. It even survived living with a surly college roommate and her twice-her-age boyfriend getting matching Calvin tattoos above their nipples.

No word on if they had them lasered off when they divorced. Or if they had the tattoos altered so that Calvin was pissing on the former spouse’s name. But I’m digressing.

Calvin and Hobbes are awesome, but for an imaginative six-year-old, the books aren’t so much a social commentary as they are an instruction manual.

Every other page she shrieks, “That’s so cool! I wanna do that!”

I can’t wait for snowman building season to arrive.

Then there are her correspondences with the Tooth Faerie.

She’s got a mouthful of loose teeth. We visited my parents last weekend and she was concerned that the tooth faerie wouldn’t be able to find her if she was out of town. She instructed Brian to take a letter in which she explained her whereabouts and warned the tooth faerie to not injure herself on the metal bedframe. She wrote the postscript in her own hand. To whit:

The tooth faerie (uh, me) thought it would be cute to write back, not foreseeing that of course Clara Jane would turn this into an old-timey pen pal relationship. The next night, she again instructed her father to take a letter, this time detailing dental care, her hopes of having teeth fall out of her head, and how she’s meticulously putting the plug in the sink when she brushes so as to not wash the down the drain.

The tooth faerie again responded that perhaps a thump to the head would make the teeth fall out faster. Don’t worry – the tooth faerie’s not really that mean; she just knows that Clara Jane finds talk of thumping people on the head to be absolutely hilarious.

Obviously, she has some control issues. I want to tell her to let go and let Tooth Faerie. She’s eased her letter-writing campaign, but has started exerting her control over the grocery list.

Just picture it – I arrive at my local food emporium, look into the list I’ve transcribed into my iPhone and think, “Hmm. I don’t remember putting popsicles and Slim Jims on my shopping list. I don’t recall having eaten Slim Jims in the past two decades. But they’re on the list so surely we must need them.”

I don’t have the heart to tell her that it doesn’t work like that. Nor do I have the heart to tell her that a vertical list doesn’t require commas, and I don’t require a 6-year-old copy editor. There’s someone already getting paid to edit my copy elsewhere.

She’s also using her new-found writing skills to help herself:

She’s this close to figuring out how to operate the DVR. When that happens she can stop the “notes to self” and program it to record “Wipeout” her own damn self.

So yes, I do think my child deserves a prize for her advanced verbal skills. I also think I deserve one if I manage to keep her from starting her own blog before she begins first grade.

Two weeks ago, unaccustomed to my new, much smaller vehicle, I slammed my forehead into the door frame while doing the so-tasking job of exiting my car. I’ve had a concussion, and I’m sure this wasn’t another one. When I had a real concussion after hitting my temple, I drove myself to work and didn’t remember how I got there. When I got home Kurt Cobain had died and I made my unlicensed roommate drive me to the emergency room.

This was different. This didn’t alter my reality. It just hurt like grim death and left me with a goose egg and a bruise above my left eye. It still hurts when I poke myself in the head. Which I do more than I realized.

The concussion didn’t hurt nearly as bad for as long, and offered the side effect of slightly altering reality. This just sucked.

The day before I injured myself, my hound dog Chloe turned 13.

She celebrated by browsing the dental treats at Petsmart and scaring the fuck out of the adoptable cats.

I’m pleased to report that, even though I’m prone to panic attacks caused by the knowledge that my pets will die someday, I’ve handled Chloe’s entrance into her teens quite well. It helps that she tries to kill Murphy at least once a day. Today, she did it three times.

Murphy can’t wait for Chloe to keel.

The weekend after my head injury and the dog’s birthday was one of my favorite weekends in Prettytown – Art on the Square. That’s when Prettytown shuts down the streets downtown for the sake of celebrating art and drinking craft beer. It’s second only to the weekend when they shut down the streets downtown so we can celebrate chili and Stag.

Because we’re grown-ups, every month Brian puts money in our special Art on the Square fund so we can buy one piece of real art at the festival each year. It’s by far the most mature thing we’ve ever done.

Last year we bought a painting of a naked Japanese lady. This year, we opted for pottery made by an artist who, we learned after the transaction, lives down the street from one of Brian’s many uncles.

I’d be surprised but Brian has so many uncles that there’s a good chance you live near one, too.

It’s lovely, no?

Except after we put it on the mantel, I happened to be on the opposite side of the room and I caught myself wondering, “Who in the hell grated cheese on the mantel?”

I love it. I do. But now every time I look at it I see a $400 box grater.

Care to wager on how long it takes for someone to get drunk and attempt to use it on a brick of pepper jack? I’m predicting sometime in early August.

The next day we hit Iron Barley’s seventh anniversary party with Erin and Will. There was whole hog and giant mac and cheese, and a Two Dolla No Holla barrel – pay two dollars, reach into the icy barrel, and you get to keep the tallboy you reach. I had my first malt liquor, ever. Then we took Clara Jane to Fred’s Six Feet Under, because that’s exactly where a six-year-old needs to be. Well, it’s where my six-year-old needs to be, because where else can she dig on Diesel Island covering Waylon Jennings? It was hot, sweaty, crowded, loud, and a hell of a lot of fun.

With her bar-hopping out of the way, Clara Jane embarked on her second-to-last week of kindergarten, which means my life has been consumed with school activities. Like the school picnic.

We live in a fab school district that still does things like set up rides in the teacher’s parking lot, dismiss early, and turn the kids loose. Last year I was wholly unprepared. We showed up with a few bucks, which Clara Jane blew through on bounce house tickets and sno cones. So this year I planned ahead – I bought the $12 wristband for unlimited rides and slides and bounces, and a bunch of tickets for games and food.

She opted to spend two hours in a cardboard box shanty town, which was free.

The little boy’s been her on again/off again “boyfriend” since the beginning of preschool. He spent most of the day in the shanty town, too. His mother’s a neurologist and intimidates me with her big brain, even though she’s a perfectly nice person. I told her I knew they’d run off to a shanty town commune someday, but I figured it would be in college. She said that as long as they’re not hiding in cardboard boxes to smoke pot, she’s down with it.

We literally had to tear the cardboard house down around her at the end of the day.

Speaking of school, I was asked if I might be interested in serving as the second vice president of the PTO next year. I stressed myself a bunch about it, but decided that since I didn’t go to a single meeting this school year, my services would be better utilized by focusing on occasionally showing up before staging a coup.

Last weekend, Clara Jane and I made our first solo road trip in nearly six years for my little cousin’s baby shower in my hometown. Brian opted to stay home and commence construction on a pergola that might wind up being bigger than our house.

Last time Clara Jane and I made a road trip, it was also to my hometown. She was six months old and screamed the entire trip. It stormed, too. It sucked so hard that I’m still not that fond of going anywhere with her without a chaperone. Even the short drive to school could use some intervention.

This time was better, although it was a fast trip on a hot weekend with a lot to do following a giant freak-out of a week. But it was fine. She spent some time drowning Granny Viv’s scrap metal duck, which has been her duty since she could grab his scrawny neck and shove it into a pan of water, which she did at an exceptionally early age when you consider she didn’t figure out that whole walking thing until she was 18 months old.

As for the baby shower, I managed to show up with her baby blanket finished. Not that I remembered to take a photo of it before Brian did the crochet trim. Here’s all I have.

Yes, I can do a couple of feet of entrelac knitting. No, I can’t do one round of single crochet around the edge. At least not without professional guidance.

My head hurts.

Such as, “That’ll be bacon, a two-egg omelet with sauted mushroom, onions – red onions, garlic, and Maytag blue cheese. Oh, and bacon-chocolate chip pancakes. And simmer those strawberries while you’re at it. More coffee. More!”

And, “No, you can’t watch ‘The Electric Company’ for the 36th time. It’s my trashy TV day and I need to spend some time with Oprah and Rielle Hunter because what fun is Mother’s Day if I can’t heap judgment and knit? You’ll understand someday, Child. Go play in the dirt.”

As I said a few days ago, this is the first Mother’s Day in which I’ve been able to sit back and be spoiled.  Usually we’re in Sedalia with my family. We’re doing Mother’s Day when we’re in town for my cousin’s baby shower in two weeks, so it’s not like I’m piling the benign neglect on my elders.

Although this probably should have been the year I went home for Mother’s Day, as we had a little health scare with Granny Viv last month. After having some pre-cancerous skin cells removed, she got a call from the doctor’s office that only said her blood work was irregular and they’d scheduled an appointment with an oncologist two weeks later.

My, but that’s a helpful phone call, isn’t it? Especially in a family where panic is a favorite way to pass the time.

That’s Granny Viv on her 84h birthday in February. Looking pretty sharp, isn’t she? In the past year she’s lost a bunch of weight, attributed to having all of her teeth removed and replaced with some ill-fitting dentures.

But when she gets the oncologist appointment made on her behalf without consultation, suddenly it seems like it could maybe be more than not being able to gnaw chicken off the bone that’s causing the weight loss.

Do you know what she did the day she got the call about the oncologist appointment? She dug a sewer trench with Grandpa Chuck.

Don’t bother checking Web M.D. I already did. Sewer trench-digging by octogenarians is not a sign of leukemia. I checked twice.

For two weeks I tried to live by the words I told my mom: “Settle down. She’s digging sewer trenches. She’s fine.”

BUT IT’S AN ONCOLOGIST!!!!!

Yes, but for an otherwise-healthy 84-year-old who hasn’t been seriously sick a single day in her life. As The Cuz said, Granny has the immune system of a tank. “Irregular blood work” for her probably means she has a cold and her white blood cells are treating it like an onslaught of smallpox. I mean, that’s kind of how people live to be 84 years old in the first place.

As you can probably tell from my tone, Granny’s fine, and The Cuz was right – a sinus infection had Granny’s immune system doing a march-on-Gettysburg-style attack. But with someone her age (and with her insurance), you don’t take chances, right?

Except now my panic-prone family all needs Klonopin and Xanax refills.

As for the weight loss, she’s been instructed to fix it with Carnation Instant Breakfast and ice cream. And maybe drinking a glass of whole milk instead of two percent on her sewer trench digging days.

Granny Viv’s a card-sender. She sends us a card, just to say hello, on the first of every month. So of course she sent me a Mother’s Day card.

I bought one for her. I can’t find it. Why yes, I do suck and I hope she hits me with her sewer trench shovel in two weeks.

Granny Viv’s one of those wonderfully co-dependent matriarchs who will spend an entire meal running around the kitchen while everyone else eats. “Do you need another biscuit? I hope the chicken’s okay. Is it okay? There’s some beet pickles in the fridge. I’ll get them in case you want them. Who wants pie? I made five kinds from elderberries I picked in the woods.”

The woman’s lost so much weight because she’s never eaten a meal because she’s too busy waiting on everyone else. A Mother’s Day like the one I spent? That would never enter her mind. She doesn’t take a day off.

And yet in the Mother’s Day card she sent me, she thanked me, for having Clara Jane and giving them a child to love.

When I find the card I bought for her, I’m going to thank her for not having cancer. And for digging sewer trenches at 84 years old. We should all be so bad ass.

This is Little Lulu. She’s one of my favorite things. I got her last year from my friend Alecia, who makes fantastic dias de los muertos art. I fell in love with Little Lulu the first time I saw her. Not surprising, as I love circus fat ladies.

Historically, circus fat ladies tended to have polycystic ovarian syndrome, which I have. It makes you fat. It makes you hairy. It makes you infertile. It makes you a little crazy. Yep, that’s the circus ladies. I’ve always felt an kinship with them. At the very least, if I start feeling down on myself I can think about what it was like 100 years ago to have this condition. Yeah, sometimes I have a hard time finding clothes that suit my taste and look decent on me. Yes, there were some unfounded infertility fears before Clara Jane was born. Yes, I have a touch of the crazy but we’ve done a good job of keeping it under control by managing the PCOS hormone imbalance. But at least  now, I can lead a normal life.

Our society may be obsessed with beauty, but at least those of us with such a condition aren’t relegated to being freaks. And that’s because circus fat ladies who consented to medical testing that led to the discovery, and eventually the treatments, for PCOS. I feel like I owe them a debt of gratitude for the lives they lived and what they sacrificed so that me and other women with PCOS can at least have a chance.

That just leaves the hairy part. That’s the only part that I still have issue with. Call it what it is – the one physical trait I haven’t come to terms with. No matter how much of a feminist I am. No matter how high my self-esteem is. No matter how badass I am, I fear I will always be preoccupied with the hair on my lip and chin.

And again, I’m lucky. My hirsutism isn’t very extreme. Nothing a little weekly maintenance can’t cover. I think. One of my paranoias is that it’s far worse than I realize and perhaps I’m walking around with a giant black beard on my neck wattle.

But that’s all going to change soon. Yep. I’m having some cosmetic procedures.

I want to throw up just saying that.

I am so, so, so, so anti-cosmetic “procedure”. Unless it’s for something extreme that makes life more difficult than it should be. What I have is an inconvenience coupled with my own mental hang-up.

That said, on Friday a big discount service I’m hooked on had a daily deal – a shitload of laser hair removal for 88% off the usual exorbitant price.

I thought about it for about 30 seconds before I called Brian and said, “Buy this for me for Mother’s Day. I’ll pretend to be surprised.”

Of course, if he took it upon himself to buy such a thing for me without being prompted, I would have been pissed off because of my destroyed self-esteem. That’s just how these things work.

How excited am I about this? Very.

How guilty do I feel about this? Very.

I’m going to expose my face to laser beams because I am vain and bored with tweezers and wax. How does this make sense in any possible way?

I don’t feel bad about getting my eyebrows shaped. How is this different.

1. Laser beams

2. Done in the same place where they do Botox.

3. Laser beams

And what if this is some kind of gateway cosmetic procedure drug? What if this goes so well that I decide to finally get my boobs reduced, fat lipo’d, and every hair blasted from my body until I look like one of those weird inside-out looking cats?

I have no desire or need for Botox. Thanks to the fat and having oily skin as a teenager (and, well, now), I’m quite smooth for a 37-year-old. Besides, I don’t mind wrinkles. I rather like them. I like the character they bring.

But Botox also paralyzes sweat glands, and I sweat like a motherfucking hog whore in church.

It wouldn’t take much to talk me into anti-sweat ‘tox in my forehead.

That’s how Heidi Montag turned into plastic, isn’t it?

I worry that one insecurity could easily have a domino effect.

Not enough to refrain from having parts of my face burned off.

Little Lulu would have done it if she had the opportunity.