Wordjanitor Strikes Again

Sometimes you're faced with situations that, well, it's likely no one you know will ever have to face themselves. And sometimes those things are life-changing. And other times they're just freakin' weird. Case in point: Walked into my back yard Saturday afternoon and found a four-foot lizard. An iguana named Iggy, to be more precise. Unfortunately, Iggy was deceased. And unfortunately, I had to figure out what to do with Iggy before @ also discovered this little bit of Wild Kingdom (brought to you by Mutual of Omaha) in the back yard. Where's that safari jacket when I need it? After the WTF moment passed, I removed said reptile from the lawn and fairly nicely packaged it for the neighbor so that, when she returned from her latest experimentation with mind-altering chemicals, she could bond with her green friend before disposing of it. I considered a few alternatives, including leaving it on the hood of her car, but realized that the car has actually been missing f...

@ and I have a running commentary about chickens. When I don't know how to answer him, I bring in the chickens. He likes me to incorporate chickens into his bedtime stories. Sometimes he makes it very clear that I am, indeed, a "big mean chicken." When he barks, I cluck back at him and he generally replies with, "Quit bok-bokking mama!" (So then I meow and wind up going through a litany of other animal noises until I give up and return to the rusted trusted barnyard fowl.) With @'s brother, it's hawks. The relationship is different. I don't get to play the verbal games. But I see hawks in odd places. Or, it's possible the hawks were always there and I didn't see them. Shortly after the boys were born, a young hawk moved into in our neighborhood -- in the mix of Silicon Valley's freeways, expressways, and Starbucks. At first he seemed to spend a lot of time going from tree to tree as if trying to find other hawks or get his bearings. Event...

The guy pictured here is my new best friend. I can't remember his name, but in a relationship like this, do names really matter? I had a horrid week. A week that just got worse like the compounding daily interest on a very bad short-term loan. It was capped off by some arrogant, self-important, female-fearing twit who opted to rip into me about the work I do and suggest that I was in the wrong job, should be removed from my clients, am a complete failure in any sort of collaborative work, and probably wasn't even a nice person anyway. Ouch. Logically, I know the guy has some sort of issue with me or the rest of the planet. Or he's completely stoned on the fictional kool-aid of a pathological liar in the near vicinity (who does exist, by the way). Logically, I know he's wrong. But after a week of multiple challenging conversations, communication judgment errors on my part, and an overall haze of bad attitudes roaming the environment... I left the office early. Quickly a...

Generally, I like it when @ makes new friends. And I like that he loves to be outside and is curious about the plants and critters that populate the yard. But, everything has its limits. Take this morning, for instance. The wee boy opted to use the blissful nine minutes between right-handed alarm clock snooze-button bashing to leap on to the bed and steal one of my pillows. OK, fine. I skipped my morning push-up, crunch, etc. ritual, so I should have been up anyway, but stealing my pillow while I'm groggy can be dangerous. After we sorted out that the pillow thief was relatively benign, we agreed that said thief would snuggle up with said pillow in my bed while I took my shower. A hunch told me that he would not indeed be in the same spot in which I left him upon my emergence from the shower. However... when the dog barged in and the wee boy knocked on the shower door with "Mama, look what I got" I really wasn't expecting to see a snail. But, that's indeed what ...

This morning, @ was looking at CDs in the rack and pulled out two Beatles anthologies, asking what the music was. I told him that it was the Beatles. "Oh," he says. "The ones from the car show." Fuddled, muddled, and suddenly astounded. "You're right, the band from the car show we went to with Grampa Doug." A YEAR AGO, a (very good) Beatles tribute band played at the annual car show where my dad lives. A YEAR AGO. @ was two and a half then and the band probably played for two hours max during a long, hot, chaotic day filled with cars, trailers, engines, people, dogs, music, hot dogs, playgrounds, motorcycles, and such. So, of course, we listened to the Beatles this morning. At the moment, he's measuring the porch. I bought him his very own tape measure this afternoon. I measured the porch to build a deck a couple of weeks ago and ever since, tape measures are suddenly something more than the ever-present boxes on his daddy's hip pocket. T...

Luke is having a slumber party. His bestest buddy Butch is here. Butch belongs to Jeff and Katie down the street. He and Luke can chase each other, wrassle, and otherwise convince the uninitiated that there's about to be bloodshed. If I open my front door, Luke tries to bolt to Butch's house. If Jeff and Katie open theirs, Butch bolts over here. I swear they have cell phones; it's as if they can hear the respective doors open three houses away. I'm trying to decide whether the two knuckleheads can both sleep in the house tonight. They're alternately chilling and then remembering that they're nuts. Luke is nosing a chair across the dining room and Butch is trying to figure out why. It's like watching a cartoon, at least until one attempts to mount the other. Then it's more like Animal Planet. It's good to get insight into your friends' lives. Unfortunately, I now have insight into Jeff's knee. Butch is here because Jeff and Katie are at the...

No doubt about it, my son is a character. Unfortunately, this weekend he chose to be a character from an as-yet-unwritten story about gremlins who take over the universe while laughing maniacally and peeing on the front lawn. Honestly, I don't think he felt well. He fought naps like they were a upstart nation invading his precious homeland. I think he said, "I don't want to" more times today than in his entire life thus far. On the plus side, he helped wash my car and pick tomatoes from the garden. He's convinced we need to eat the pumpkins (two are orange) and was very excited to see that several new ones made an appearance in the garden while we were gone last week. The coolest part of it is that he planted the pumpkin vine and the darn thing is amazingly healthy and prolific. He has an interesting ability to distinguish "snail buddies" from "yucky snails," each of which meet a different fate. The yucky snails are taught to fly (usually unsuc...