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Jul. 14th, 2008 07:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraFinally finished the JDK graphic design work. I think it looked okay not withstanding that Microsoft Word is the stupidest program for graphic design work ever invented though a necessary evil, helas, since all brochure templates print from it.
Finally got rid of Robin. No, I didn't murder him. I was tempted! Dispatched him, instead, to paternal relations on the East Coast who will no doubt be on the phone with one another within twenty-four hours denouncing me as the Worst Mother On the Face of the Planet. I can't actually disagree although fuck 'em just on general principles.
Little Store had its worse weekend yet – in high tourism season – which _______, the resident Steinbeck Plaza 'tard, helped celebrate by coming into the store yesterday around 4pm, unzipping his fly, and flashing his dick at me. Could Bozo and Jumanji possibly have put him up to this? Fortunately there were no customers in the store at the time. Don't actually know what to do about it – in general _______ is quite harmless, and I can only imagine this was some sort of dreadful anomaly fueled somehow by Bozo and Jumanji's hatred of me and _______'s own intense hatred of the Homer Simpson who sings outside my front door. Do I report him? Or do I let him slide? Decisions, decisions.
Robin was totally out of control those last three weeks. And working now essentially threejobs with absolutely no support system – and let's not forget the dogs! the dogs have needs! – it would not be an exaggeration to say I was going out of my mind, was completely unavailable for those family meals, humorous conversation and even-tempered discipline which is all adolescents really need from their parental units. Even the refrigerator was mostly empty. Since the Cannery Row Company gave me their ultimatum – pay the past-due rent or you're out – every spare penny has been going to them
He had a few assigned chores: taking out the garbage once a day, cleaning his room, cleaning his bathroom, walking the dogs. He had karate three times a week for an hour. In exchange for this, he got running around money, twenty-five dollars a week. Except he didn't do the chores unless I screamed at him twenty times in a row and he outright refused to go to karate: "It's summer, I don't want to. I want to hang out with my friends."
I took a deep breath. "But I want you to. Isn't that important to you at all?"
Apparently not.
Too bad Pol Pot isn't still recruiting for the Khmer Rouge army. Robin would be a natural.
It came to a head one morning last week. As usual I'd set my alarm for four, staggered into the kitchen to brew the caffeine, staggered out to my computer to begin work on the JDK propaganda piece of the day – Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Cornhusk Dolls. Turned on the light in my office and – my God! Code Brown! Dog shit all over everything.
And there was poor Milo looking so penitent, Milo who wouldn't even shit in the house after he got hit by a truck a year and a half ago and his pelvis was fractured. We'd had to carry him outside on a blanket sling before he would shit.
Robin had obviously not walked them the night before. But he had done this elaborate ruse thing to make me think he'd walked them, opening and closing the front door and then twenty minutes later opening and closing it again.
I sat down on my chair and started to laugh.
Not the first time I'd been saved from falling into mucky tarpits of self-pity and despair by my black black black sense of humor.
Clearly I couldn't work while there was dog shit all over everything.
Clean up would shave an hour off the time I could slave for JDK. But I was due to arrive at Job # 2 at 8am sharp. And the Joan Crawford schtick – waking Robin up at four in the morning, snarling, "You will clean this dog shit. And by the way, you're using metal hangers when I've always told you to use wood hangers!" – did not appeal.
So there was really nothing else to do but clean the dog shit up myself, all the while wondering: did I really take the right baby home from the hospital?
After that I was just counting the days till I could get rid of him. You would be too!
Packing, making the flight arrangements, communicating with the far-flung members of the Plunket/Trumble clan were tasks that stretched me even thinner. But I did them. Called up Max and begged him to take Robin to the airport: "I really don't want to have to drive that far."
Max is a good kid. "Sure," he said.
It turned out that Robin was highly ambivalent about going. He'd been having too much fun hanging out with his posse:
They are a very cute posse, I must say. They came and visited me at the store yesterday. One longs to write a YA novel about them, The Summer My Mother Had Her Nervous Breakdown. Possibly they find a magic coin that grants them half a wish á la Edward Eager. Or a prehistoric animal on the Big Sur beach á la E. Nesbit. Or possibly they stumble across a social networking system, Spacebook, that's really a recruitment tool for aliens.
So, his very last day here Robin calls around 4pm and announces that he is off with his buds to see Hellboy – "We'll get out around 6."
"Uh, no," I say. "We're supposed to be at Annie's at 6, remember? We're having dinner and then Max is picking you up."
We wrangle over this for a few minutes until finally with ill grace, he gives in.
Then as we're leaving, he snatches my cell phone.
"Give that right back!" I hiss. I am on the verge of high dudgeon.
"When am I going to get a phone?" he whines.
"You had a phone, remember? You lost it."
"Yeah, but that was like a year ago."
"And how does it being a year ago change the fact that you lost the phone?"
To Be Continued if I can find the time…
Finally got rid of Robin. No, I didn't murder him. I was tempted! Dispatched him, instead, to paternal relations on the East Coast who will no doubt be on the phone with one another within twenty-four hours denouncing me as the Worst Mother On the Face of the Planet. I can't actually disagree although fuck 'em just on general principles.
Little Store had its worse weekend yet – in high tourism season – which _______, the resident Steinbeck Plaza 'tard, helped celebrate by coming into the store yesterday around 4pm, unzipping his fly, and flashing his dick at me. Could Bozo and Jumanji possibly have put him up to this? Fortunately there were no customers in the store at the time. Don't actually know what to do about it – in general _______ is quite harmless, and I can only imagine this was some sort of dreadful anomaly fueled somehow by Bozo and Jumanji's hatred of me and _______'s own intense hatred of the Homer Simpson who sings outside my front door. Do I report him? Or do I let him slide? Decisions, decisions.
Robin was totally out of control those last three weeks. And working now essentially threejobs with absolutely no support system – and let's not forget the dogs! the dogs have needs! – it would not be an exaggeration to say I was going out of my mind, was completely unavailable for those family meals, humorous conversation and even-tempered discipline which is all adolescents really need from their parental units. Even the refrigerator was mostly empty. Since the Cannery Row Company gave me their ultimatum – pay the past-due rent or you're out – every spare penny has been going to them
He had a few assigned chores: taking out the garbage once a day, cleaning his room, cleaning his bathroom, walking the dogs. He had karate three times a week for an hour. In exchange for this, he got running around money, twenty-five dollars a week. Except he didn't do the chores unless I screamed at him twenty times in a row and he outright refused to go to karate: "It's summer, I don't want to. I want to hang out with my friends."
I took a deep breath. "But I want you to. Isn't that important to you at all?"
Apparently not.
Too bad Pol Pot isn't still recruiting for the Khmer Rouge army. Robin would be a natural.
It came to a head one morning last week. As usual I'd set my alarm for four, staggered into the kitchen to brew the caffeine, staggered out to my computer to begin work on the JDK propaganda piece of the day – Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Cornhusk Dolls. Turned on the light in my office and – my God! Code Brown! Dog shit all over everything.
And there was poor Milo looking so penitent, Milo who wouldn't even shit in the house after he got hit by a truck a year and a half ago and his pelvis was fractured. We'd had to carry him outside on a blanket sling before he would shit.
Robin had obviously not walked them the night before. But he had done this elaborate ruse thing to make me think he'd walked them, opening and closing the front door and then twenty minutes later opening and closing it again.
I sat down on my chair and started to laugh.
Not the first time I'd been saved from falling into mucky tarpits of self-pity and despair by my black black black sense of humor.
Clearly I couldn't work while there was dog shit all over everything.
Clean up would shave an hour off the time I could slave for JDK. But I was due to arrive at Job # 2 at 8am sharp. And the Joan Crawford schtick – waking Robin up at four in the morning, snarling, "You will clean this dog shit. And by the way, you're using metal hangers when I've always told you to use wood hangers!" – did not appeal.
So there was really nothing else to do but clean the dog shit up myself, all the while wondering: did I really take the right baby home from the hospital?
After that I was just counting the days till I could get rid of him. You would be too!
Packing, making the flight arrangements, communicating with the far-flung members of the Plunket/Trumble clan were tasks that stretched me even thinner. But I did them. Called up Max and begged him to take Robin to the airport: "I really don't want to have to drive that far."
Max is a good kid. "Sure," he said.
It turned out that Robin was highly ambivalent about going. He'd been having too much fun hanging out with his posse:
They are a very cute posse, I must say. They came and visited me at the store yesterday. One longs to write a YA novel about them, The Summer My Mother Had Her Nervous Breakdown. Possibly they find a magic coin that grants them half a wish á la Edward Eager. Or a prehistoric animal on the Big Sur beach á la E. Nesbit. Or possibly they stumble across a social networking system, Spacebook, that's really a recruitment tool for aliens.
So, his very last day here Robin calls around 4pm and announces that he is off with his buds to see Hellboy – "We'll get out around 6."
"Uh, no," I say. "We're supposed to be at Annie's at 6, remember? We're having dinner and then Max is picking you up."
We wrangle over this for a few minutes until finally with ill grace, he gives in.
Then as we're leaving, he snatches my cell phone.
"Give that right back!" I hiss. I am on the verge of high dudgeon.
"When am I going to get a phone?" he whines.
"You had a phone, remember? You lost it."
"Yeah, but that was like a year ago."
"And how does it being a year ago change the fact that you lost the phone?"
To Be Continued if I can find the time…
