*My friend Cassie thinks it has something to do with the amount of swearing in-front-of/at my mother that I do. The crap here is me censored, people.

This is my blog. Welcome! It's not terribly popular, which is fine because then I'd feel some obligation to write something of quality and also on a regular basis. And, honestly, maybe I do have time for that, but I'm far too lazy. It would definitely cut into my lazy time.

That does not mean I don't pay attention to what's going on with it, though. I see how many times it was visited in a day, I see what people are reading, I see where they're reading it from (both physically and how they found me). Mo Diva- obsessed with food, this girl, but totally dedicated to thoroughness on said subject- sends a lot of traffic (the good kind) my way. Also, I pay attention to who is following me- I do check your sites, just in case you don't use the stalker software I do. (By the way, Andy? For clarity, your "hoo haw" and my "hoo haw"? We're totally referring to different things (assuming I ever mention my hoo haw). Let's not get these things confused, okay?)

I'm related to close to half of my over a dozen followers, so it doesn't take a whole lot of "paying attention", but I noticed a while ago a new picture appeared, but the number hadn't changed. Eh. People change their image. No big deal.

I looked closer today. Y'all? My mother unfollowed me. This? Will be a rift bigger than that between Candi and Tori Spelling! How dare you unfollow me! (Shut up, Cassie, it's not a "technical issue".) I'm not sure what I did*, lady, but you are never seeing my children again! Also? I'm taking all my sisters with me! (They're totally going to take my side on this completely rational issue.) You will be stuck with just Dad to talk to! How do you like that, huh?

Ahem. Sorry about that... to Dad! You can come, too, except you never read this blog (which is a good thing because he might make me take down the bat video) so you won't know about this trouble... Wait... You never read this blog! You get to stay with Mom! Is a little loyalty too much to ask from family? (Don't answer that, Cate.)

Six Word Saturday

Cate!

Check out my gorgeous weather, bitches!

I am, in Fact, Typing This From the Roof

A few weeks ago, Sam and I noticed some damage to the ground all around the downspout of the front gutter. It goes directly into a drainage pipe that runs underground for... well, for the sake of brevity, let's just say forever and all distance. Point being, if it's clogged up under there, and the water is backing up and damaging the ground like that, our front yard is screwed. And so are we. Because we'll be digging up the entire distance from our house to the road. Or maybe we'd have to shove some kind of scope or rooter or something down there. Except that it's sealed up, downspout to drainage pipe, where they meet. So we'd have to ruin that, first. Or something. I have no idea. It just all seemed like it was going to be horrible.

But then came the good-news-bad-news situation. During the next heavy rain, we looked outside and discovered that the water wasn't backing up. It wasn't going through the downspout at all. It was pouring like mad over the edge of the gutter. So, yay! No damage to the underground drain! But, crap. It's blocked up at the roof. So we've got to go on the roof. Which we've never done. In the almost four years we've lived here. Because we have no way of getting up there.

Have I mentioned the bit where Sam's afraid of heights, and I'm terrified of falling?

We purchased an extension ladder for this express purpose, and this is where we discovered the downfall of living on a double-directionally-sloping lot. It was near impossible to get the ladder positioned with any stability to reach the proper spot of the gutter on the back side of the house (we did, though, and Sam discovered all was clear upon mounting the ladder- woohoo!), and was quite literally impossible to do so in front of the house.

Flash to the argument scene. Sam throws the ladder up, gives it a shake. I yell and show it lean precariously to one side with a single foot placed on the bottom rung. Sam shoves a rock under one leg of the ladder. I yell some more. Sam repositions repeatedly. I yell again. Sam gives it a shake, gets both feet on the bottom rung, I threaten to not hold the ladder in any way because I am not participating in this sham of safety and there's no way he's not going to fall anyway so I might as well not be under him when he does.

Anyway, we figured out that there's no way in hell to get to the bad-pain-in-the-ass-trouble-making-gonna-have-to-kick-it-repeatedly-if-only-I-can-get-to-it part of the gutter without actually climbing on the roof, so we might as well go to the flattest part of the ground and climb from there. This was okay because, in an interesting bit of team work, Sam was willing to work from the ladder but not climb on the actual roof, whereas I could not work from the ladder but could happily walk all over the roof like a mountain goat on acid.

Envisioning the absolute nastiness of a clog that a full waterfall from the gutter would entail, I demanded a glove and something pointy, which, to Sam's mortification, I promptly shoved into the waistband of my pants. I could see him imagining me gutting myself on it. Then he'd be a widower with three children. It was his turn to yell. But, really? There was going to be yucky stuff. And possibly bugs. The pointy thing was going up the ladder with me, one way or another.

I climbed the ladder, staring straight ahead. I got to the roof line, staring straight ahead. I contemplated how I was going to hoist my ass over the top of the ladder and onto the roof. It took a bit, but I managed to get on the roof. Oh! And safety stuff. I was totally safe about it all. Harnesses and ropes and... stuff... Don't yell at me, Mom and Dad.

I climbed over the peak of the roof, down the other side, got close to the edge, peered into the gutter. Nothing. Not a single leaf. The entire length was spotless. Huh. I moved right to the corner of the roof. The hell? There, settled right into the mouth of the downspout, perfectly wedged in, was a tennis ball. ("Oh," said Connor, later. "I wondered why that never came back down.") It was damn good on my part that I didn't leave my pointy thing behind because I needed it to lever the ball out. Then, because I'm me, I threw the ball at Sam.

After one or two more bits of maintenance things on the roof, I sat down, top of the ladder before me. Crap. After the trouble getting from ladder to roof, I had no idea how I was going to get roof to ladder.

"Coming?" Sam asked.

"Don't rush me!"

You Can Kiss My Ass, PETA.

As my sister's facebook status says, it just wouldn't be a trip to our parents' house without a bat "situation". Now, I am great in all sorts of crises. Except bats. No bats. No effing bats. So I scream like a twelve year old girl at a Jonas Brothers concert, demanding to be let out of whatever godforsaken room the nasty plague carrying rat with wings- and fangs- has ventured into. And by "demanding" I mean knocking over my poor mother and trampling her as I flee- every bitch for herself. And by "ventured" I mean swooped in and angled straight for me. And did I mention the screaming? I cannot even control the screaming. Hell no. Bats? Hell no.

Don't believe me? As proof I offer the following video. My sister is the one behind the camera. The red fringe is the blanket she kept resolutely over her head for several minutes after the bat had finally departed. My father is the brave one in boxers who I dragged out of sleep with my screeched, "If I have to suffer through this, he does, too!" I? Am the one you can barely hear yelling from behind the closed door of another room. Please excuse the language (and screaming)- but there was an effing bat in the house.

The elephant in the room is that the crap-gangville-strip is the famous Route 66. They should be embarrassed.

One evening of our trip, we go to a fantastic mexican restaurant. They make a margarita to end all margaritas. Normally I'm a frozen margarita girl because it needs to be frozen to cover up the nasty syrupy mess that most places serve. This one is excellent on the rocks, no salt necessary.

At one point, a woman comes over and says "Quieres mas? You have limonda o agua?" Now, as I have neither lemonade nor water, I pay no attention. (Or maybe it's because I'm nose-deep in my big-ass margarita glass.) Until I notice there's been no response.

"Uh, Alex," I say. "Do you want more lemonade?" "Oh. Sure." He passes his glass over, and I look curiously at Sam. "Why are we not responding to the waitress?" "Well I know I didn't get what she was asking." Huh. Over the years, I've tried to maintain some semblance of the remedial Spanish I took in high school. Paid off, I guess, as I barely notice the Spanish-English merging that she uses as she comes and goes from our table. I'm sure she's dumbing it down (Enlish-ing it up?) some, but I'm still understanding her perfectly. I'm proud of (read: full of) myself for my bad-ass bilingual-ness. Even from the bottom of my second delicious big-ass margarita.

And then we end up at Wendy's a few nights later. "Welcome-to-Wendy's-I'll-take-your-order-whenever-you're-ready-unless-of-course-you're-a-dumbass-gringo-in-which-case-you're-not-understanding-a-word-of-this-and-I-will-treat-you-like-crap," comes through the speaker. In Spanish. I assume. Because I? Don't speak a single word of Spanish. Apparently.

"Uhm... hi?... Can I... get two orders of nuggets?... And..." "Anything else?" she says. I'm sorry? Since when does "and" mean "I'm not in the middle of a sentence"? I know I'm slow here, but I'm thinking of how effed-up "nuggets de pollo" would sound. Eventually I finish and she gives us our total- I think?- and, we assume, asks us to pull up. Except I can't understand a word she says in English, either. I'm so flustered that I screw up the order and have to ask her to add on some junior bacon cheeseburgers at the window.

Now this is a personal insult. Right? It must be because the holy-bitch grows fangs. Sam hands over what I believe is way too much money, but it must not have been because we only get a dollar and change back. Huh. But then frostys come through the window (wee!), and then she yells at us. Something about nuggets de pollo? She shuts the window and Sam stares at me. "Pull up?" I say. It's really an odd sensation, the combination of fear, confusion, and growing pissed-off-ness. The woman is being heinous, but she's holding my nuggets de pollo hostage, y'all.

Eventually she comes out and- I am not kidding- throws the bags of food through the car window before dashing back into the restaurant. Thank god we got our frostys before we pulled up. And pissed-off wins the emotion battle that has been roiling within me. Heinous-holy-bitch is lucky because Sam is the one in the driver's seat and pulls away before I can go jump the woman.

It's not until we're almost back to the hotel eight miles on the other side of the crap-gangville-strip that we had to traverse (at ten-thirty at night) to get there (because of the lying-liar signs at the exit that said Wendy's was right here) that I found the receipt stapled to the bag. She had short-changed us by ten bucks. If I didn't live two thousand miles away? She and I would have words. Of course, we wouldn't be able to understand each other...

Look! A tufted titmouse on the bird feeder! (Yes, this is just that interesting.)

So. It was a long-ass trip. And I only posted once during it. And not at all since. I know. I'm not back in any kind of routine yet, and on top of that I won't be for a while to come. But I'm gonna try a little harder. Possibly.

The trip was great, but not exactly humorous. There's plenty of great pictures! To me. Everyone's seen other people's pictures of the Grand Canyon, so mine are probably just special to me... At some point maybe I'll share the bit where I refused to share my booze with Sam's aunt. Or another time when I didn't climb through the Wendy's drive-thru window and bitch-slap the woman inside. I'm particularly proud of that one.

And It's So Late Because Iowa Lies About Their Free Wi-Fi at Rest Stops

We're currently on the road, traveling across the country. As I'm writing this- writing, mind you, not uploading- we are in Iowa. Which, by the way, the conversation I just had with Sam went: "The hell, where are we? Illinois?" "Iowa! What the hell? Oh no, are you writing a blog entry?"

An hour ago, I was going to say that the most exciting thing that had happened so far in this trip was getting a suite at the motel, enabling us to actually shut a door between us and the kids. Now? Emily has conveniently topped that excitement with one of her own making.

We just stopped at the "Mississippi Valley Welcome Center". It had a view- ish- of Ol' Miss, a little shop full of that random crap you see in touristy places, a playground (thank you hay-zeus), and plenty of picnic tables.

We had our lunch and the kids went exploring down a path in the woods. Grampa carefully put the fear of poison ivy into their heads, and I followed up with a "Stay ON the path!", which was well bordered with (their) knee high undergrowth. It wasn't long before Emily was screaming. Now, I don't mean that arguing-screaming or attention-screaming. Fear-and-pain-screaming.

We tore down the path to find that they had strayed away from the path onto a fallen tree. Okay, but when I say fallen tree, I mean the top was touching the ground and the other end was still connected to the stump four feet off the ground, which is precisely where Emily had fallen off of it. And. Ready? Into three foot high nettles. That surrounded the entire tree. For yards and yards in every direction.

Luckily, Grampa was not dressed like me in a short dress and flip flops and could wade in and retrieve the now screaming-crying-snotting poor little girl. Turns out she is as allergic to nettles as I am. Blistery looking hives were appearing all over her.

I ran ahead to the parking lot and grabbed my first-aid kit, as did Grandma.

Grampa and I slathered her with every non-sting non-itch wash, cream, and roll-on that we could find. As prepared as I thought my first-aid kit was (it sure cost a helluva lot to build), I didn't have a single antihistamine, child or adult, but Grandma and Grampa went and bought some.

An hour later, she is nearly hive free. Emily asked why she had gotten covered on both arms and both legs but none had gotten on her face. She was as surprised as the rest of us. The girl has had two emergency room visits for facial injuries, not to mention she had killed a baby tooth and permanently marred an adult tooth years before it ever erupted. "Because, for once," I said to her, patting her back, "you actually protected your face."