Sunday, July 31, 2011

Virgin Housewife Laundry Tip #1

When you sort your family's laundry, make sure to check each pocket for items that should not be washed. For example, guitar picks in that tiny pocket inside the front pocket of your husband's jeans, every single inch of your daughter's clothes for stickers after storytime or dinner at Sweet Tomatoes or sticker books from Grandma, your dog's bedding for random bits of chewed up crayons, your own jeans for cash given to your kid for her birthday and immediately pocketed into your own pants because you're so much better at keeping track of things than a five year old. At least in theory.

And today I learned another lesson about laundry sorting. Cargo shorts are a great place for daddies to store kid's suckers. Or perhaps Daddy was not keeping it for his daughter as much as he was hiding it for himself to enjoy later. Either way, after it's washed inside the pocket of a pair of cargo shorts, your husband will have the opportunity to wear them with his "tie-dyed" brightly colored shirts you have previously spilled bleach on.

Saturday, July 30, 2011

My dishwasher has dirty dishes in it - Hooray!

And this means they're not in the sink. This means I'm so caught up on our dirty dishes that I don't have a full load to wash. And I even checked the coffee pot - clean from just having been washed this morning. I'm feeling quite sufficient at my new dish washing job.

Now to master weeds and keeping pet hair off the floor and furniture.

Even The Wicked Queen Said "Please"

I was loading the dinner dishes into the dishwasher. Katie came into the kitchen and announced, "Even the evil queen said 'please.'"

She had been in the living room watching an old Little Bill VHS tape. Yes, this was today, 2011. We like to kick it old school in our frugal house. But because she was watching Little Bill I couldn't quite figure out why she was telling me about the evil queen in Snow White. But I still wanted to know where she was going with this, so I played along."

Me: "When did the evil queen say 'please?' I don't remember that part."

Katie: "When she asks for some water. She says (hunches her back like an old woman and makes her voice sound scratchy) "Can I please have some water?"

Me: "Oh. Well, that was nice. I wonder why she said that?"

Katie: "Maybe because she knows that good guys say 'please' and she was pretending to be a good guy."

Only five years old and she's already losing her childlike naivete.

Political Stew A'brewing

Katie is begging me to go outside with her so she can play in her blowup hippo pool, which is cool with me because that means I can swing on my glider and sip iced tea, which is really living it if it were up to me.

But I had to tell her hold on cuz I feel a political stew a'brewing within me. My father-in-law came over earlier and we talked politics some. It's weird when our elected officials are so lame both a conservative and a liberal can agree that they're lame.

But anyway, it got me talking about how I like the idea of raising taxes on the richest people in our country. Which really isn't even raising taxes at all, but returning the tax rate for the highest earners in our country to where it was back before we were trillions of dollars in debt. Giving our rich brothers and sisters that extra 3% or whatever was supposed to stimulate the economy, but I'm unaware of that happening.

I read recently that back in Eisenhower's day, taxes for the wealthiest Americans was something crazy like 91%. And people today are whining about 39%. What crybabies we've become. What happened to the hard working Americans who survived the Great Depression and lean World War II era by living with what they've got. Now we're so busy with our smartphones shoved in our faces we're ignoring the fact that the dumbasses in charge are swindling us. Unless you are reading this post on a smartphone. In that case, change the metaphorical term to junk food or reality TV or something else that leads to sedentary civics.

So here's something I've thought recently. I know a lot of people vote Republican because, in general, Republicans support limiting a woman's right to choose what is done to her own body, and I completely understand not wanting to pay taxes that go toward paying for women to have abortions. Even though there are muddled ways that our tax dollars do not pay for abortions, somehow. Don't ask me how.

So I kinda understand why someone who doesn't want women to decide what to do with their unwanted children wouldn't want their tax money going toward her abortion.

But what I can't fathom is why that same person also doesn't want their tax money going toward planned parenthood (which is a great resource of information on how NOT to get pregnant and a distributor of condoms and other healthy ways of not having a baby when you're not ready) and toward a federally funded department of education (which doesn't support the education of "someone else's kid" or someone else's "problem" but our future citizens and workers and people we want to learn how to read and how to work and how to be civically minded so they don't end up in the welfare or prison system like their parents before them.

I know I'm shushed away and called a Pinko Commie, but I simply cannot understand why people don't like to pay taxes. Taxes are good. They pay for good things that enrich our lives and protect us from people who want to kill us.

And to answer my most-asked question, "Do you really trust these morons to spend your money?" Yes, I do believe the government can spend my money better than I can. Teachers will be able to broaden my daughter's horizon more than I can. Fire fighters, police, highway and bridge and levee builders can keep me safer than I could doing those things for myself. Our miliary protects me far better than I ever could from people who want to kill me. (If attacked I'd probably fall into a fetal position and start crying.) Our judges and legislators can figure out the law better than I ever could. The FDA and EPA keeps me healthier than I could on my own. Government sponsored arts and social and humanities projects allow me to experience things I wouldn't get to on my own. Us taxpayers pooling our funds together so my dad, who is a veteran of World War II, can afford the nine prescription medications he takes to survive and dance and get engaged at age 85 gives both of us a more satisfying life. Please don't cut medicare and social security. I don't want my dad living with me, and I certainly can't afford his meds.

We are in debt as a nation, and we have insufficient funds in the bank of reality. Why is it bad to raise taxes? Please, give me the best reason you got.

Friday, July 29, 2011

An Old Housewife Can Learn New Tricks

Today I figured out how to hold the laundry basket with one hand and my hip and how to hold a coffee cup with the other hand and walk up the stairs without spilling a drop.

Five Days Late

I am five days late. I had been working full time at the public library for over seventeen years until five days ago when I officially went from forty hours a week to twenty-four hours a week. No. Not pregnant. I'm sub-fertile according to my asshole Reproductive Endocrinologist, but that's another story.

When I switched to part time, it was my intention to start this blog. On day one. I'm five days late. But at least I'm finally here.

I have been spending a good amount of time with my family, especially my daughter Katie, who just recently turned "a whole hand." It's beyond wonderful.

I spent the last twenty-two years supporting myself financially, and now I'm closing my eyes and falling backward to let my husband, my amazing, sexy, funny, supportive husband Will, catch me. It scares the hell out of me and simultaneously thrills me. If I wanna write, I need time. I couldn't work forty hours a week, take care of Katie and our family and our pets and myself, and then have enough energy to write. Well, I did when I wrote the autobiographical novel about my brother's recent death due to liver failure, but that was the anxiety doing all the typing. And that too is another story.

So here is what I've been up to since beginning my journey into feminist domesticity.

Mostly staring at the walls, thinking. Like this: I think Nietzsche would have loved Facebook or Twitter or any other electronic means where he could share his insightful aphorisms.

Oh, crap! I'm supposed to be mopping the floor. Bad housewife! This is no time for philosophy jokes.

I don't know what I'm doing. I just poured coffee beans into the water reservoir on the coffee maker. Deep breath. I pulled out a Big Lots shopping bag and hung it from a cabinet door so it would stay kinda open. So then I remembered to take off the glass coffee pot and the basket and proceeded to dump the beans into the Big Lots bag...that I evidently didn't first check to make sure it didn't have a hole. So now I'm searching for our dust pan so I can clean the coffee bean spill in my kitchen. I'm ok with a broom. Katie is letting me borrow her's since I can't find mine.

So I remembered that Will had recently (within the last couple of years) bought a fancy dust pan with a long handle on it so you don't even have to bend over to clean up your shit. And it's black. And I have a green tendency to not turn on the light when I open the garage where we keep our broom and dustpan, and voila! With the light on, it was easy to see it was there all along. My frugal ways sometimes get in the way of time management, but they often lead to philosophical insight.

So I swept up the coffee beans. I poured water into the water reservoir this time, added a coffee filter to the basket and put more ground beans into the basket. I turned on the machine and successfully made a cup of coffee. By this time I was exhausted and could really use a cup of coffee. So I poured myself one, opened the fridge, and, we're out of half n half. Which is the only thing I like in my coffee. FML

I was really jonesin' for a cup of joe, so I searched our cupboards for some artificial creamer. Yay! The last time my mom visted she brought some powdered creamer. Bad thing was it was flavored - yuck. I prefer mine just plain coffee creamer flavored. This was vanilla caramel. But again, I was desparate. So I poured some into my coffee and stirred. But it wasn't getting lighter. So I poured some more. Still not lighter. Then it dawned on me that caramel is not as light as regular powdered coffee creamer. I took a sip. Bleech - waaaaaaay too creamy and sweet! My hard work tenacity ruined and I can't even treat my failure to a nice cup of coffee.

Ah, well. I'd continue with this titillating tale of my first world problems, but Katie wants me to play dollies with her now.