Happy birthday to my darling oldest child, and happy anniversary-of-becoming-a-mom to me.

In a happy coincidence, Madalyn's field trip to the local kids' ranch (a reward for meeting reading goals) is today. She is going to be one busy bee. She arrived at school only to immediately jump on the bus to her gifted & talented class. She'll get back to her campus and go straight to lunch and, from lunch, onto another bus for the field trip. She will return to school an hour before the end of the day, during which time she and her classmates will eat the cupcakes I'm taking down there when I go to drop off her special birthday lunch. When she gets home she'll have her presents and after that we'll go to dinner. It's going to be a fun birthday, and that's not even counting her party on Friday evening!

Personally, I will be glad when it's all over and I can relax, because this crap doesn't get done by itself, people. Phew.

It must be nice to have all the answers. To be able to sit in your ivory tower and look down your nose on everyone who hasn't made the same choices as you; to be able to convince yourself you are somehow superior or will produce superior results.....that must feel really good. For you, that is. For those of us ignorant, thoughtless sheep down here in the muck it just pisses us off.

I just don't understand people who are so insecure with their choices that they have to diminish others to make themselves feel better about what they're doing. Or is it that they have low self-esteem and are desperate to prove to themselves that they are doing something "right?" Sure, there are things in life that are not perfect and that need change. But that doesn't mean those things are 100% bad, across the board, nor does it mean that anyone who chooses those things is lazy, uneducated or unable to think for themselves. Believe it or not, sometimes people? They make different choices than you do. And it doesn't mean they're stupid. If someone has truly thought over an issue and has made an informed decision about it, then that is all you need to know and you should shut the hell up with the subtle barbs and sly digs about how we, the unwashed masses, are so deluded and wrong. You aren't better than me, your kids aren't better than mine. NO ONE is "better" than anyone else. We're all human beings and we're all doing the best we can. Just because my best is different from yours doesn't make me wrong and you right.

Feeling very contemplative today and I'm getting on my own nerves. I just got back (Tuesday night) from a fun-filled weekend wherein I got to let my hair down (as much as I ever do) and be care-free. Now I'm paying for it by being all thoughtful and stuff. Cripes. Can't a girl just have a good time once in a while? Is there an "off" switch on my head somewhere?

I was in my closet considering purses the other day (what, like you don't mull over handbag choices?) and I happened to find, in one of the candidates, a miniature composition book that I used to carry around for use in jotting down notes or reminders. (I'm notorious for this, by the way; I am forever switching purses and leaving items that I don't need or no longer want in the old one, then rediscovering the items months or years later, like a really boring time capsule.) Apparently the last time I used the particular bag where the book was found was May of 2008, as I found paperwork from my '08 trip to AROTR in it. This lead me to spend the next five minutes pondering whether or not the innernets at large would consider that fact to be an indicator that I own too many purses.

Later on I was flipping through the composition book. Mostly the pages are filled with records of debit card transactions and random notes meant to jog my memory ("Drop pressing Get Tylenol JZ haircut"). However, one page bears the following inscription:

"I'm about to be made responsible for a pack of deranged rabid howler monkeys!"

That's it. No elaboration or explanation. Just that rather pessimistic declaration which I, apparently, felt the need to record for posterity and possible further use (on this blog, no doubt).

If I had to take a guess I would imagine that the statement was triggered not by psychotropic drugs, as one might assume, but by the advent of Vacation Bible School, for which I always volunteer. I would've been with the 2nd/3rd graders that year, who, while considerably more civilized than the Kindy/1st grade group, are still a handful. Actually, now that I think of it, I remember why I would've been expecting the worst. The first two years I helped with Madalyn's class she was in the Kindy/1st grade group, and a wilder bunch of heathens I've never encountered. Then I took the following year off, not because they'd broken me but because I had a newborn Eliza at home. So I missed the first year of her being in the 2nd/3rd grade class and, consequently, didn't know how they'd behave and expected them to be just as exhausting as my first two groups had been. Therefore, as Monday approached, a sense of impending doom settled over me like a blanket of smog over Van Nuys, and probably lead to that note in my composition book. All for naught, that, as I ended up being pleasantly surprised at how much more mellow the kids were at two years older.

I could go on more about the composition book and how every. other. entry. in the transaction record section is FOOD, but I wouldn't want the gimmick to die of overuse.

This morning I decided to see if I could both amuse and disturb my husband simultaneously. I retrieved my days-old iPhone (3! G! S!) from the cabinet in the hallway where it had been charging all night (or, rather, since 1 a.m. when I'd finally willed myself to put the thing down and go to sleep). I set my sights on my target, walked into the kitchen and, cradling the phone, began to sing Peaches and Herb's "Reunited."

Mission accomplished.