We interrupt this blog for a bit of fiction from Connor (a finish-the-story assignment):

Suddenly, he tripped and the men were on top of him, hitting him repeatedly. When he was bruised and bloodied, they dragged him back to the cottage. They tied him to a stake in the front yard by his hands and feet so tight he could not move an inch.
The old woman came out and cackled madly. "In the morning, boy, in the morning," spittle going down her chin and her eyes wide and quite mad. The boy stared at her for a moment, fear in his eyes, before he drifted into unconsciousness.
When he woke up, he was being dragged away by the men. By now he was barely conscious and when they dropped him, he could barely move at all, let alone get away. They looked at him for a moment, then, grinning evilly, they said, "Good bye, boy." They pushed him down, and soon he was suffocating on dirt.
He struggled for a second, then he lived no more.

No Beer This Time

Sam is testing Ethan on spelling. "Curl."
Ethan responds, "c-u-r-l."
Next Sam says, "Bitch."
Beat.
Beat.
I look at him, befuddled. Ethan starts giggling.
"Huh?" Sam says as if it had come from someone else. He rechecks the paper. "Oh. Birth."
I think Sam's cold meds are slowing his brain down a bit.

Dear Charlie Sheen: wtf

Trashing Chuck Lorre? I've never seen him do anything but state the obvious about you, no name calling, and then express amazement of your ability to be not dead. You were foul and nasty and one step away from the slurring anti-semitic Mel Gibson. If you're not on drugs, if you're just high on life, then you have lingering pot smoke and cocaine dust in the air, not to mention a build up of lsd in your spinal fluid- been cracking your back a lot lately? Is there some urban legend about crystal meth remnants, too? If so, then it also applies. That, or the syphilis has gotten all the way to your brain.

Also, make up your mind- will you be surrounding yourself with a porn paradise or the love of your ex-wives and children? One or the other, asshole, you can't have both.

Another also? You've created a suck show. It's gone down the crapper along with you. Lorre's done all he could to keep it afloat with your stupid anchor ass. You are not Nathan Fillion and your show is not Firefly. Ergo, you have no mighty band of followers. Get over yourself.

To Claim the Meditation Was Unsuccessful Would be an Understatement

Dammit, is the sound still on on the television? No, ignore it. Need to learn to ignore sounds if I want to be able to meditate at work... Where would I? The break room? People will think I'm insane. The bathroom! No, no lids. Go to the car- it won't be freezing much longer... It might get too warm, not idling the car, I kill the environment too much anyway. Roll down the windows, open the sun roof. Freakin' traffic. Stop! No thinking... The refrigerator just kicked on. I guess I'm never around actual complete silence. Block that out... What time did I start? Stop thinking! Breathe, breathe, breathe. Now you're thinking about breathing! Now you're picturing the word BREATHE. Focus. The center of the A. Focus. Focused on that flower when I was in labor with Connor. Could I draw that flower now? Oh my god, stop thinking. I could blog how bad at this I am. Clear your head!... Am I really thinking about blogging about thinking about blogging?... God, how long has it been?

I'm mixing my beer and my sudafed tonight. Is this why they card me when I buy each of them?

I think the proof of this fact is that I published this post before I actually wrote it. Score one for the beerdafed. I've never had to retract a post and it took a few minutes to figure out how to do so.

I've got a cold. Whine, whine, bitch, moan. Normally, I just take a sickness like a woman. That is to say, I've got shit to do, I've got to keep moving. This time, I am whining like a total man. You know how they get when they're sick. Life must come to a sudden and painful halt. He is suffering, you must too.

Well, that's me right now. This sucks. I'm talking head-down-on-the-table-at-Connor's-hockey-practice, Ramen-noodles-for-dinner, please-don't-take-too-much-advantage-of-me-kids sick. And it's just a cold.

I did it to myself. Two days before this hell cold came on, I thought, "Gee, I've made it through most of this winter without being ill." I've told you before that I am Murphy's Law's bitch. I am fully aware of this fact. So I immediately followed up this thought with, "For which I am super grateful, god, or gods, or Murphy. Whomever. I am thankful. I am not thinking of this hoping for any sort of irony."

I am also fully aware that it is extraordinarily odd that I talk like this to myself. At least it wasn't out loud.

I've spent approximately 19% of my day at work, these last few days, wiping down things I've touched with lysol wipes. Phones, keyboards, mice, pens, door handles. I even considered anti-virusing customers' credit cards before handing them back. Then I decided that was a lot of work for little payoff. You should all probably avoid aisle 4, though. I had to rearrange that whole bitch today, it's probably all plaguey.

Did he really punch you in the face, or did you jump him and slam your face into his fist?

Emmy woke up sick today. Actually, I think she went to bed sick- at seven without dinner. It was hard to tell, last night, whether she was actually not feeling well or just didn't want the pork chops- and, to be fair, the smell disgusted me. I don't eat pork, but even if I did I would have drank my dinner anyway.

Emily is a bit dramatic and a bit hypochondriatic (yuh-huh it's a word), and she worries about everything and internalizes her stress, so much so that she gets stomach pains over upcoming events, even if it's something exciting like her birthday. And, yes, she has been through a whole range of tests, and there seems to be no physical cause for the pain- which has begun an annual appearance two weeks before Christmas and disappears miraculously the day after her birthday. I tend to monitor this pain by making her rate it numerically- 1 is it doesn't hurt, 10 is I can't move and I need to go to the emergency room. This really doesn't work as well as I'd like because it tends to be, "Oh, my stomach is on an eight!"... and then she'll throw out a leg to trip Connor as he's running past. So we go ahead and halvesies whatever she claims.

What all this means is I can't just dose her every time she complains about an ache. I have to be an uncaring, awful mom and offer her sympathy but essentially ignore her the first couple times she complains about something. It makes me feel like a real jerk. It makes her think that her feelings and pain don't matter, and that really sucks. But it's a little like "my brother hit me" or "he called me a bad word". Really? Did he actually hit you, or did he brush past you? Did he call you a name that has ruined your self-esteem, or did he say you were being a meany? Likewise, do you have a mild headache, or is your brain about to burst through your eye-holes?

The imagery? You're welcome.

Emmy and Ethan went sledding with friends right after school, and Emily came home achy and exhausted, said she was going to rest. She came down long enough to reject the dinner, went back upstairs, and actually went to sleep. Okay, so probably really not feeling well. She woke up still achy and exhausted, and decided to mix in a little "my belly hurts", just for flavor. I dosed her with tylenol and water, she fell back asleep. Normally when the kids are sick, I can't even get them to stay in bed with staples.

By 8:30 in the ay-em, I heard this pathetic, scratchy call, "Can I please have just some toast?"

"Sure," I called back, "or you could have a hard roll with cream cheese." Hard rolls (which are not hard, by the way) are the big treat in this house, probably because my kids have no idea what white bread is.

Much louder and clearer this time, "Well now I want a hard roll."

She'll be fine.

The Irishish Doesn't Suck

While I know it may not be technically true, in my book Irish Coffee simply refers to coffee that has become even more fun to drink by the addition of alcohol. Sure, Irish Whiskey is the traditional route, but that's not necessarily the most creative recipe ever. And I like creating new recipes! Sometimes that's a new blend for mashed potatoes, sometimes it's a new modification to a pie, but tonight! The coup de grace! A new whatever you call liquor in Irish Coffee!

Sam had a hockey game tonight, and what better way, short of a paper bag wrapped around a bottle, to drink in public than spiking coffee? Plus, it's damn cold in most ice arenas. Dual purpose beverage.

Of course, normally I brew up some coffee, and Sam Irishes it for me. Tonight, apparently, cleaning out his car somehow trumped my future beverage slash hockey game enjoyment.

He left it up to me.

Bad move.

I had about two minutes to choose my alky, and I honestly don't know the bottles all that well. Combine that with the fact that the bottles are distributed between the kitchen and multiple places in the dining room (we do it up right, y'all). It could have taken a disastrous turn. It did not. No, really!

At that point I just started pulling every bottle out of the assorted cabinets, snagging any that seemed vaguely coffee complementary.

And thus I grace you with my new recipe for Irishish Coffee! (Bear in mind that unnecessarily dirtying extra dishes in this house is a mortal sin. This is why all the measurements involve eyeballing, not because my motto is "the more alcohol, the better". I swear, that's not my motto.)

Brew up a whole bunch of coffee- whatever will fit in a thermos (or several), but with space to spare; into the thermos it goes. Find the Van Gogh Double Espresso Vodka (Double Caffeine- says so on the label!). Pour a bunch of this into the same thermos. Find the Irish Whiskey because something has to put the "Irish" into "Irishish". Pour that into the thermos, too. Man up- pour some more in there. Coffee sometimes needs lightener, right? Know what will lighten this? Add a hugely healthy splash of Godiva White Chocolate Liqueur. You don't need much because the alcohol content therein is notsomuch; don't waste too much space, but chocolate is chocolate, ladies and gents! Add some sugar because, yes, you manned-up with the Whiskey, but it's still got to be palatable. Use a straw to sip a bit of this still incredibly hot mix out of the thermos. Add a dash more sugar because you're still not that manned-up. Congratulate yourself on your ingenuity.

The final step is hearing your husband mention whipped cream, but not until the car has already left the driveway, and swearing under your breath at that obvious miss. Make a mental note- must reattempt recipe right after you get home from the game soon, but with addition of the heretofore neglected whipped cream.

Don't forget some sort of mug to drink out of at the game. Nothing says "lush" like falling ass over teakettle backwards off the bleachers trying to suck the bottom out of a thermos.