Driving home from work yesterday I noticed a new cell phone tower on a large hill between Riner & the county line. I was surprised but then, thinking back I realized that I haven’t heard my phone beep because it’s lost signal at the county line for weeks now, I wait for that beep because in the valley there & for about a mile more after you cross the line there is no cell phone service, I don’t mind that too terribly, as I said though, there’s no more beep, the service is available all the way between work & home.

That’s a good thing I guess, though I have some reservations about being that totally reachable & I don’t like the tower, it’s ugly. I didn’t even know they were building it so I guess I’m not terribly observant, (not as observant as I thought I was at least) There was a slow moving car in front of me who turned off on my normal road to home so I went around the longer but flatter & less curvy way so I had a few more cell phone towers to consider on my way home & I was thinking about what else could be up there, whether there were monitors etc, & whether we’re giving up privacy for convenience (I’m a big fan of conspiracy theories & worst case scenarios & regularly cook up some great ones while driving back & forth to work- it’s how I know I need to get a book on cd- the weirder & more out there my theories get, the more I need a book to listen to- to take my mind off my bizarre ideas)

Arriving home is always a decompression, I’ve been go go go all day answering rapid fire questions from people who are obsessed with their television & then I get home & it’s all quiet, 18’s online re-doing her myspace profile again (cupcake wallpaper? Why?) her BF is upstairs playing video games (I guess, I don’t usually ask) 11’s curled in the chair supposed to be doing homework but really watching tv & 8 comes running out to greet me at the car, hoping, as always that I’ve brought some treat or snack home for them.

My arrival though I try not to make it so, usually throws everyone into chaos dishes get done, people clear off the computer, showers are suddenly remembered about & taken, this is one of the reasons though my kids tell me they love me & all that, it has been better & easier for us with me on a later schedule, I’m not really a pleasant person when I arrive home & find children’s dirty laundry & their dinner dishes strewn about my living room, working until 11pm, meant that 18 would look around at whatever time she sent the kids to bed & scream ‘you better clean this stuff up, because if I have to hear about it from mom, nobody gets any tv tomorrow’ Now I come home & do the fussing myself.

So ms 18 has poison oak, which she got while cleaning out the brush which had grown over my daffodils, she had some on her hands & now has it on her cheek, below her eye & above her eye. She didn’t mind it too much but the school nurse saw her with it & called me insisting I need to take her to the doctors for some prednisone, I called the doctors at 8:20 this morning & they called me back about an hour later to say the doctor’s assistant could see her at 3. The BF took her under protest because he’s short on gas, I had to go get ms 11 after her remediation & so couldn’t take 18.

This is the bank completely cleaned out by 18 & her friends, they tell me there is an albino squirrel living in the tree to the right of this area, one of the trees my hammock is usually tied to, I haven’t seen it yet but I’m looking for it! Don’t my daffodils look lovely?

I was thinking today while I was hanging laundry on the clothes line, of the day back in February when the ex & his GF & her daughter came for the first time to visit, the daughter was outside with 11 & 8 & when I came out with a basket full of laundry to hang on the line she asked if my dryer was broken! Of course, to some extent it is, as it still doesn’t heat up (the ex replaced the heater coil but it still doesn’t work, he says he thinks the main power line is burnt out- so far he hasn’t said anything about fixing that part yet) But I was reflecting today that even if the dryer worked perfectly I’d still dry most of the simple stuff out on the line, only jeans, towels, facecloths, socks & underwear go in the dryer now & I don’t think I’d change that if the dryer worked better (I still dried a lot of stuff on the line back before the dryer stopped working- though not as much as I should have)

One of the reasons is because I love to get outside & enjoy the weather, to hear the birds call, to observe the newest signs of spring…. at this point Scarlett, our banished cat, jumped on my ankle & started sharpening her claws on it, she’s been banished because the only time she saw the new kittens she started trying to play with one like she does mice & then tried to eat it. The kitten is fine, but she’s not allowed inside until they’re larger or she learns to behave (that second one is probably not going to happen) The kids are so annoyed about the whole thing that they don’t want to even feed her. I’ve drawn the line there but she is adamantly not invited in at all.

While sitting at the school waiting for 8 to come back with his sister (He gets restless & insists she’ll never come out of the school if he doesn’t go in after her) it occurred to me that if I was making broccoli cheese chicken, and I laughed at 18 last night when she made rice the wrong way (she boiled minute rice) just how much rice was left at home? So I called 18 & she confirmed that she had indeed, finished off the rice we had at home in feeding herself & the BF the night before.

So when 11 & 8 came out of the school, it was off to the grocery store, as soon as we walked in they started clamoring for oranges (they say don’t go grocery shopping when you’re hungry, taking just out of school, had lunch at 11:30 kids to the grocery store is equally as damaging to your wallet) Originally, since I had about $25. on me & thought I only needed rice, milk & maybe something for desert I could pay cash, about halfway through the store I realized I was going to have to write a check - ugh, made worse by the fact that the check was the last one in the book & I also remembered as I was ripping it out that I only have 2 books of checks left. Augh!

On the way home I bribed 18 by cell phone to start dinner because it was nearly 5 at that point, we walked in to the smell of cooking chicken & 18 immediately tore into the twix bar that I had bought for 11 which began a round of ‘you always’ & ‘you nevers’ which makes me wish I’d had no kids & just kept cats I could be the crazy fat cat lady with billions of them now I remarked to 18’s BF over the din of the girls yelling at each other. He nodded & said he thought he needed an I-pod with earbuds so he could drown them out at times like this.

18 skulked off upstairs with the BF in tow & 11 helped me make dinner, 8 made a bizarre tent with his blankets & my tomato stakes in the front yard. No back yard fun for my boy, he’s got to put his brightly colored Thomas the Tank Engine blanket among others in my front yard & hang them from sticks. As if the neighbors didn’t already think we were crazy enough! Oh well, my new hammock will be arriving tomorrow & then they’ll all know I’m crazy when I lie in it & read all summer long!

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