Why Nothing Ever Gets Done Around Here!

I had the best of intentions this morning, really I did, but life just sort of took over.

I have some major revisions due in 10 days on a book that has just driven me crazy. So when I woke up this morning I told myself this would be the day to start working on it. I just want to get it over with so I can move on to the fun stuff.

But before I could do this I checked my email, and my website stats (my newest form of procrastination.) Then hopped in the shower. I got dressed and was about to move the laptop into the kitchen when Martha showed up with chicken biscuits which caused the dog to have hysterics and this woke up the boys.

For some unknown reason, this made me remember that I'm going to a big po-lice awards dinner with Martha and don't have a thing to wear. Ben wanders into the kitchen as I'm thinking all this and says he needs a ride to the school to play basketball, which is right on the way, sort of, to Marshalls where surely to goodness they have one damned black dress that will both fit and look well, frankly, amazing...so I leave the laptop on the bed and tell the dog I'll be "Right back," which we all know is a lie.

Why do I even tell the dog I'll be right back? She doesn't understand English but she sure as hell seems to know a lie when she hears one. She hops up on the back of the sofa, presses her nose to the bay window and cries. Tell me she doesn't know I'm lying!

Anyway...Ben's friends are late, but the church across the street is in the last throes of a garage sale. Now I need more crap in my house like I need hemoroids, but the car's hot and I'm thinking this is a good way to waste a few minutes until Ben's basketball buddies show up, so in we go.

And of course...it's all you can carry out in a bag or a box for a dollar because basically, it beats having to carry the stuff out to the dumpster if you can trick stupid latecomers into doing it for you. They're church people, not morons...although...well, that's another topic entirely.

By now I'm making a mental note to call my doc on Monday and schedule a time to get my ADD meds readjusted. Obviously they're not working...but then I see the two chandeliers on the table across the hall.

I'm trying to get my house back to "normal" so I can put it on the market and these little puppies are just what I need to replace the Chicken Feeder Chandelier (No, I'm not kidding) in the dining room. They look soooo NORMAL. And I don't have to stand there debating which one looks more normal, the polished brass or the burnished brass, because I can fit both of the suckers into one oversized box and only pay a dollar!

So, after I dump Ben back at the house because his friends are M.I.A, I proceed to Marshalls where I lose almost two hours but find two perfect, eat-your-heart-out, Jones New York, size 4 and size 6 dresses, both on sale for $25 a piece!!!

I am a goddess...a shopping wizard...a minor deity.

I come home and waste another thirty minutes trying to get two teenaged boys who are playing video games to tell me which dress looks best to them before I realize they aren't even paying attention and even if they were, what do they know?!

Which is when I remember I was supposed to be doing my revisions.

Which is when Ben's friends re-surface and it feels like my day is starting all over again because I'm back in the car, driving him to the school basketball courts.

I dump him off and say I'll be back in an hour and a half, race home and find Adam waiting for me. "Can I take those pictures of you now?"

"What pictures?"

"The ones I told you I wanted to take last night...It's for your Mother's Day present!"

Oh, yeah, right...like I'd deprive myself of a homemade Mother's Day Present? Only I'm guessing he's updating my website, so this time I'm gonna look decent...which takes another thirty minutes because it involves restoration and reclamation of makeup and hair that never had a fighting chance with me this morning anyway.

And somehow Adam and I end up in the backyard. I'm holding a Glock 9mm airsoft gun which looks and feels almost real. I'm darting around the corner of the basement door in 4" heels and jeans, shooting at the dryer that I forgot to sell in a garage sale because it's now an imaginary bad guy.

Which further de-volves into us setting up targets with old Starbucks cups on top of the rabbit cage and shooting without aiming as fast as we can until I remember I have to pick up Ben.

In the meantime, the laptop overheats and shuts down about 3 times and I lose the two revisions I've made on page 2 and have to start over...and I'm only on page 2 and now it's 5 o'clock!

Martha calls. She's working Duty Captain and wants to know when we're eating supper and what we're having.

Yeah, I'd like to know that very same thing, only I tell her I'm going to work until 7 and worry about supper then.

She hangs up and the phone rings again and it's Grandma Alice. I sent her Mother's Day Flowers and we haven't caught up in almost a year.

Catching up takes an hour but I don't mind because I love her.

I sent my mother flowers too, so she calls next.

This takes 10 more minutes because she has to give me her new phone number because she forgot to tell me she moved...and that she and dad have a bazillion new medical issues...and she gives me a phone number with one too many numbers. When I point this out, it confuses her and this takes longer but I clean out the old mail in my email box while we're talking, just so I accomplish one damn thing today.

I get back to the revisions and I'm on page 5 when Adam materializes beside me. "Can JP come over and shoot in the backyard?"

Easy. Sure.

I keep working only somehow it turns into 8pm and Martha doesn't want to be a pest but should she eat with us or one of her other friends? She tells me Vickie is having a quiet weekend up at the lake, writing, and for a brief moment I fantasize about running away to a local motel, or Panama City, Florida.

I tell her we'll have dinner soon, then I call Adam and ask him to light the grill.

"I'm worn out, Mother," he says. "How about we order pizza?"

Worn out? He's worn out?! What the hell has he done all day?

But I'm too worn out to argue. We order pizza. Martha comes and Adam informs me that every carton of lemonade, milk and orange juice in the refrigerator is expired.

I go to the damned grocery store at 9:30. I have coupons so it takes longer but no one I know is there. I enjoy the solitude and see one of my books for sale in their book rack. It is the first time I've seen one of my books in a grocery store and I would call and tell someone, but I realize I've forgotten to bring my phone. I take a moment to spread all my books into the available slots at the top of the rack labled "Best Sellers." I am enjoying myself immensely.

I come home and have to clean out the refrigerator of expired things before I can put the new ones in. This reminds me that I have to get the kitchen ready for the painters who are coming on Tuesday to make the kitchen look "neutral." So I clean out under the sink and pack another couple of boxes.

Adam calls me in to look at the new animated flash opening for my website and I suddenly see my profile...my breast sagging, thigh bulging profile. He says no, he will not shoot it all over again. No, he won't "Fix" it. He appeals to his younger brother who is lying across Adam's bed, an M-16 in hand, playing video games. "Does she look fat?" he asks.

Oh yeah, like Ben will agree with me on that one and get immeadiately kicked out of Adam's room!

"You look great, Mom," he parrots.

It's 11:30. I have no brain left, so I decide to write a new post here. Somehow it becomes 1a.m. It's as late as it was last night when I finished posting my blog. I am sensing a pattern here.

I suppose it could be worse...I am reading the headlines scrolling across the top of my screen. I could be the man who carved the runaway bride on a piece of toast; or the mother who ran into her son with her car as she was picking him up after his stay in the hospital; or the mother of the boy who listed his brother for sale on ebay. Yes, it could be a lot worse I'm sure...