MFA Mama

smoke

   This is what I get for failing to pay attention to the news.

   There is currently a lot of smoke in the air in MFA State from wildfires burning on our side of the country, and I had no idea because I keep my head in the sand, mostly. So naturally I started wheezing on the way to work, where we were doing some demolition, and in helping to rip out a bunch of elderly fixtures I started wheezing and excused myself (much to the disgust of my coworkers and immediate superiors) to get some fresh air (hahahahaHAohFML), then gave up and went home after only three hours' work to take a whopper dose of antihistamines and go to bed in the AC with my nebulizer handy (thank you, innernet fairy godmothers of the nebulizer and albuterol amps!).

   I'm not sure whether going to work tonight is a good idea. The air quality today is "code red" and you aren't even supposed to let CHILDREN outside, let alone people with respiratory issues (which, to MY disgust, would totally be me) (and yeah, I am STILL not okay with/acknowledging that fully because WTF NOOOOO DO NOT WANT).

   At least I know why I've suddenly had such an uptick in symptoms and overall fatigue/mental blurriness-around-the-edges. In fact, I think I'll go and take a nap.*

 

*   Why yes, yes I DO appreciate the hell out of Hotter right now. I would reeeeally be struggling to care for the children and animals and house right now if it was just me. He's the best wife ever!

the one where I'm "meh"

*   Another third shift down, and good riddance. I hate it a little bit more every day.

*   I sold the BlogHer tickets. It's mostly a huge relief.

*   My back and my lungs both suck right now, and I hate them.

*   I have kind of a rage-hangover from the shit the XY pulled yesterday. I hate that he sees nothing wrong with throwing my entire household including HIS CHILDREN into confusion and turmoil and ruins just about any day that I have to interact with him. That makes it very hard to facilitate his involvement in the childrens' lives.

*   The weather here is dreary. Booo, Nature. 

*   I've eaten entirely too much strawberry-rhubarb crumble for my own good lately. How are all of YOU?

happy MFAther's Day

   This Father's Day started off with me getting madder than a hornet over some fuckwittage on the XY's part (those of you who follow me on the Twitter already heard that he had us all up and at 'em so that he could take unscheduled visitation and stood the MFA Children up, tried to blame me, then came several hours late), and the gift I wanted to get for Hotter was out of stock at our local Soulless Corporate Megalith (yeah, I'm getting him something from THERE, because I've never seen it sold anywhere else and apparently I've been drinking the kool-aid in the break room), and the MFA Children left a LOT of breakfast-food waste (and are all half-sickly, rendering said leftovers Unfit For Human Consumption), and I went outside all cranky-pants and fed the chickens:

 
Figure Two: Because chicken videos are awesome for every occasion!

   And then the stupid chickens reminded me of the post I ought to be writing, not the one bitching about the XY, who sucks at life but always has, but the one about how Hotter is an awesome dad.

   Because okay, he has maybe made me want to slap him a handful of times in the past year and a half, but he's solo at the helm and manages to feed, clothe, and micro-manage the interpersonal relations of three very...ummmmlet's say SPIRITED...little boys, and he's so damned nurturing that that chicken near the END of that video? Boris? The one that let me put the Blackberry ALL UP IN HER GRILLE? Is totally blind and okay, technically he actually thought that he was like, LORD OF THE POULTRY and had taught her to feel love and exhibit anthropomorphosized signs of affection and really she just can't run away from his pettings and isn't snuggling his chest with her head so much as she's feeling for an escape route from his loving arms and he was, like, DEVASTATED when I pointed out the truth but HE KEPT THREE KIDS WITH VARIOUS SPECIAL NEEDS AND A BLIND CHICKEN ALIVE, PEOPLE. That's one hell of a dad!

   Happy Father's Day, Hotter. 

the word of the day is...

...rasorial.  H/T Amy Reynaldo for this humdinger of a vocabulary word! She wrote it on my wall on the Facespace a few weeks ago, and we flog it into the ground here on a daily basis.

Ex.: "Aww, the Wyandottes are turning rasorial!" (those are the youngest and tiniest of the MFA Flock, still in the former snake tank indoors) or "Did the chickens eat that leftover macaroni?" "Yeah they went ALL rasorial on that shit!"

 

mom is great...

...GIVE US THE CHOCOLATE CAKE!

   Oh yes, we had cake for breakfast here. I figured the cake had four entire eggs, and cream cheese, and wheat...why, it was practically a fried egg and a bagel with cream cheese, and THAT is okay for breakfast, so why not? We'll pretend the three whole Hershey bars I melted and beat into the chocolate buttercream frosting were a dessert served separately!

   Plus everyone's nerves needed soothing: a predator made off with one of the Easter Egger chicks in the night. We just moved them outside with the turkeys, into an enclosure with chicken wire around the bottom few feet of chain link so they wouldn't exit through the links. I'm still not sure whether the chick with the bright golden mantle exited the pen under her own steam and got snatched up after or was dragged from the pen, but the gap where the edges of the chicken wire meet was slightly widened and covered in golden feathers, so...yeah.

   The good news, court-wise, is that the judge gave me a new court date. The bad news is, it's the same week as my OTHER court date for the same inability to pay the same tax and now I have COURT WEEK coming up in August. I've lost my tolerance for multi-court-appearance weeks since my divorce was finalized and am already dreading this.

   Health-wise, I'm no longer OHMYGODSICK but still have the juicy cough (as do all three children). Mr. Takes-Two-Immunosuppressants-Twice-A-Day is unscathed, naturally, the arsehole.

   Other than that, I am DREADING the summer grocery bills, as the MFA Children are now out of school and will be home all day eating like locusts until early Fall, and so tired I swear I must've been bitten by a tsetse fly. How are all of YOU?

updates, various

*   On court: I just couldn't get moving in time for court. I have a combination of "fever, aches, and upper-respiratory lurgy," "back that has gone from 'walking wounded' to 'you're not leaving the house today' overnight," and Terribly Sore Tits and it wasn't happening. I called in sick the minute the clerk's office opened, explaining that I wanted to appear before the judge and see if he would dismiss this but was too ill. "I'll ask him...you can call back later," she said. "Should I leave my phone number?" I asked. "No, nobody's going to call YOU," she said, and hung up. Awesome! Not! Still, "called in sick" probably sounds better than "almost got it straight in time" and the check has (of course, NOW) cleared and worst-case scenario I get automatically found guilty in absentia and fined as I might have anyway even if present, but without getting yelled at by an MFA County judge (oh I've had one literally kick the bench and bang on it with his fist AND his gavel--you never know what the crazy emm-effers will up and do, hi ho!). That would suck but I'd avoid a trip to the courts complex, and I'd almost be relieved. Hopefully they reschedule it, but either way I'll be okay with it I guess (until the night before any potential make-up court date, probably).

*   On Middle Child's birthday: oh yes, happy birthday, Middly! I don't know why catastrophic events (like his parents splitting up, on TWO out of seven to date, yes the XY and I did it to him TWICE! And court dates! And police presence!) always have to fall on your big day. Poor kid! Your request for my all-day chili and a very special cake made me glad I stayed home and slept last night, because otherwise I wouldn't have had it in me to pull it off. Court-date and illness/injury aside, the XY has been practicing lousy communication skills and Hotter is treading hazardously close to mah verra last nerve and I kind of want to crawl back in bed until Sunday at the soonest. But dinner and dessert tonight will be excellent if it's the last thing I ever do...

*   On the poultry: Hotter and I moved the pens today, and I have officially Seen Everything. I was waiting on Zombie Hen to lay her egg (I needed four room-temperature eggs for the cake, which is this recipe, but with cream cheese and milk instead of buttermilk, which I cannot stand) and kept finding her sitting, but no egg. The last time I checked I opened the hutch to find Paul the rooster sitting on the nest. He growled at me, sounding rather impressively savage, then flew up out the open roof-panel revealing Zombie Hen's egg, which he'd been keeping warm. I...huh. Well then. Hoookey-dokey. Freaky-assed birds!

MFA Q&A

*   Biz asked me about my willingness to eat ham. Well, see this is one of the main reasons (besides non-belief in higher powers) that I identify as a "lapsed cultural Jew." Judaism is both a culture and an ancient Abrahamic religion (oh yes, it's not the only one), and my father was (allegedly; it's complicated) the first atheist in the line. We were KINDA Jewish. We celebrated Passover and Hannukah and Purim, but had a Christmas tree and ate pork and mixed meat and dairy. We bought a box of matzoh for Passover but also usually had chametz in the house. I took bagels to school in my lunchbox before bagels were a "thing" (oh yes, America is a Bagel Culture now, but hasn't always been), but don't speak more than a smattering of Yiddish. Since I don't believe in the god of the Hebrews, Leviticus doesn't dictate what I eat, although I have an uneasiness about eating pork that I sometimes think might be some kind of "cultural memory." I also cannot--CANNOT--bring myself to even sample most shellfish and seafood. I've overcome the pork thing thanks to bacon (mmm...delicious bacon) and ham, and have been known to eat and love casino-style clams while anemic, but would walk out of a dinner party before I'd put an oyster in my mouth. I'm weird.

*   Several of you expressed a real desire to know just how Hotter gets so many ticks in his fun-zone, so I asked him:

MFA Mama: The people want to know what's up with the ticks on your junk. Do you have any official comment?
Hotter: Tell them it's ATTRACTIVE JUNK!

*   ...

*   Nobody ACTUALLY asked, but I am not at work currently because I'm sick. Fever, chills, body aches and wheezing with productive cough. Blehhh...I think I'm going to try to call in sick to court tomorrow. It's THAT BAD. At least if the judge issues a bench warrant I'll have free healthcare in The Stony Lonesome, right?

*   How are all of YOU?

hambone

*   My father used to play the spoons while he was hovering over the stove (he was a chef, too, haha go ahead and say it) and sing a song whose proper title and lyrics I do not rightly know, but "hambone" was the protagonist and one line went "hambone went to the grocery store" and then there was ham and then the bone and then bean soup, etc. accompanied by rhythmic side-slapping and spoon-clicking, and often much bug-eyed face-making. His thyroid was overactive for much of my childhood, and he could make bug-eyes like nobody's business. Anyway, I digress: "hambone's" final stop here at Casa MFA is the layer pen (Paul and the grown-up laying hens and the "Nuggets 1.0" are in there). I really should have taken another video. Hotter and I watched one of the old Barred Rock hens meticulously pick the marrow from the end of the hambone for several minutes and just about laughed ourselves sick. Chickens are not nice.

*   Hotter tore enough of the skin off of his shins in his most recent man vs. well-cap adventure that even I was kind of impressed. I kept on eating my macaroni and cheese and leftover ham pickings, because I've gotten kind of shellshocked into not giving a shit about anything short of a dead body, and sent him to shower and fetch the tweezers and bandaging stuff. I don't know if my cleaning and bandaging abilities and level of preparedness is more awesome (WHOO! PUT ANY SEVERED BITS IN A BAGGIE AND THEN ICE TO PRESERVE VIABILITY FOR REATTACHMENT, KIDDIES!) or pathetic (that I am so used to blood and such that it no longer even interrupts my dinner), but I am seriously thinking of buying Hotter some shinguards.

*   I have to go to court tomorrow and am looking forward to it about as much as I do my next round of un-numbed dental work (no, not even soon, but SOMEday). It's for being too poor to pay a county tax, not anything to do with the MFA Children, but still. Same complex, same pool of judges as I've dealt with on many unhappy occasions due to the XY, same pre-court GI unrest. Bleh. This is especially awesome (no, not really) in that the child support check was a bit late and hasn't cleared so my story will essentially be "nope, still haven't taken care of that, yes, I know, six months, disgraceful, but the funds are PENDING so--"...yeah. I'll be lucky if I'm not thrown in jail for contempt.

*   For the first time in a loooong time I'd love a cigarette. Don't worry, I won't. Just saying. Effing poverty. Effing XY. EFFING COURT.

*   Our innernet was off for two days and Hotter managed not to snap at ME (he did thoroughly bawl out a bank manager for telling him the same thing I had tried to tell him about a common bank policy, but hey it wasn't me and I didn't hear it, being in the MFA Minivan with the kids, so YAY). That's the good news. The bad news is, he has every reason to lose his junk right now in light of some unbloggability, so bleh to that. He's MOSTLY forgiven for his earlier transgression; honestly I'm too tired to even be mad at him about it anymore. What did I miss while I was away?

oh, the suspense!

   I was happy not to get a call yesterday; it bugged me and bugged me and shortly after publishing that post where I mentioned it I just ovaried up and called the head dude over at the Temp Agency #1 office, because he's cool. Unfortunately, he didn't know anything about half the temps being cut and was just as upset as I was. He promised to call me when he knew something and then I finally fell asleep and he didn't call and I went to work and nobody appeared to have been fired, even the most useless of the mouthbreathers on the site. Which, to be quite honest, we are talking blue-collar labor at a Soulless Corporate Megalith store in a very rural area of the American South; if someone manages to truly stand out in their incompetence and overall mediocrity then it's not even a question of whether management knows they suck at life. Management will be the first to tell you if you are looking for said mouthbreathers that they are "probably walking in circles around the store, if they're not in the bathroom."

   Last night at work the on-site representative of the boss-man at Temp Agency #1 (who is also working as a temp, as are his spouse and adult-ish child) clarified that the boss-man hadn't gotten this list in time to call everyone, so there was a mass reprieve. TOMORROW, he now says (by which I mean today, but I haven't slept yet, so), the axe will fall (although he did add that I shouldn't worry, I was a good worker and didn't walk laps around the store or play with the automatic sinks in the bathroom). And now I can't sleep, but I don't want to be that freak who pesters the boss-man at Temp Agency #1, so mehhh.

   Probably I have nothing to worry about, but this company being what it is I'm a little worried I'll get cut for being a woman.

   Hopefully the manager who openly admires my arse will have some say in the decision?*

 

*   Yes, it IS a minor miracle that I haven't at some point shrieked "I HAVE A MASTER'S DEGREE AND ALMOST WENT FOR A DOCTORATE IN WOMEN'S STUDIES, YOU ASSHOLE" and gone after him with the business end of a claw-hammer. *facepalm*

and then I died on the spot

 Big Child and MFA Mama sit at the table, struggling with a complicated craft project as Middle Child looks on. Outside, visible through the window, the MFA Ducks come flapping into view.

Middle Child: Hey I know, we should kill one of da ducks and make dem into some DUCK TAPE!