Ah, life. How entertaining it is. And how incredibly frustrating and overwhelming sometimes.

Due to some recent changes in Casa Della Sabre, I find myself being somewhat bogged down by stresses outside of my realm of influence. Which is to say, life is kicking my ass.

That, however, is not the problem. The problem is that my normal MO is to face challenges head on, find the solution, and work on them until they are no longer issues. It is with usually dogged determination that I tackle issues, whether it be work, parenting, whatever.

I find myself at a place where that particular modus operandi is not quite working. And, as we all know, the definition of crazy is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different outcome.

What I need most right now is to be able to relax. But I find myself unable to do so. I am on constant guard, and quite frankly, my muscles are beginning to ache from being so damn tense all the time.

So speak up people. What does a Type A personality, a most profound and unwavering ENTJ do to relax when in a situation that has wonked right the fuck out of control? How does someone like me sit back and take what comes as it may come, and simply chill out and relax?

Oh help me, great wisdoms of teh Internets. Speak your words to me and tell me how to work out the kinks in my shoulders, not to mention mind, before I go stark raving mad and you see me on the 11:00 news.

Seriously, what do you do to relax when the world has spiraled out of control?

It’s Thursday, and in case you forgot, Thursday is Good Humor day at the office. In less than an hour, the Good Humor man will be parked outside of my building delivering his frozen bits of goodness to all who stand in line.

One comment about that statement from you pervs and I commence with the bitchslapping.

*ahem*

Anyway, yours truly is currently chained to her desk as we are having issues with our authentication gateway. The server is hung (yeah, that’s what happens when you use IIS people, it HANGS) and we are unable to reboot until all of our call center reps are OFF THE DAMN SYSTEM.

*sigh*

Which means, until I get the call that I can switch back to gateway authentication instead of local authentication (which runs on FreeBSD and is, oh, you know, RUNNING) I’m stuck here.

Meantime, new subscribers will be unable to create personalized accounts, and old subscribers cannot make any changes to their existing accounts. All of that is done via the aforementioned gateway.

Want to change your information and get personalized stock advice? GET ME MY ICE CREAM BITCHEZ! No ice cream, no personalized authentication.

Seems fair to me.

Recently, Cricket came home and informed us that she’d like to go to DC to see “the three branches of government.” Specifically, she’d like to visit the White House, Supreme Court, and the Capitol. She also expressed an interest in viewing the Constitution and other documents. I find this to be extremely cool as her interest in American history was seriously lacking throughout the school year. She is currently in summer school, retaking history. She’s found an interest, and that makes me very happy.

On Sunday, we took her and a new friend she’s made to the National Archives as there are no tours available on Sunday to any of the other places she’d like to see. We took the Metro instead of driving. Cricket’s new friend had never ridden before, Tetris had never ridden before, and Cricket loves it. Hell, the Metro in itself is like a field trip to her. Me? I like to stare out the window - until we get into the tunnels, of course, and then I like to stare at my fellow riders.

We got off at Metro Center and walked a few blocks over to the Archives. We stopped and loaded up on street vendor dogs and ice cream - much to Tetris’s amazement, they really did have chili cheese dogs, although he had rather insisted that they didn’t. He’s really sort of cute that way.

As you enter the Rotunda of the Archives, there is a beautiful display of the Magna Carta. I took a few quick pictures of it and found myself momentarily alone, which was a very good thing. My eyes got a little dust in them and watered up… the fact that I was reflecting on the slow, painful death of Habeus Corpus was merely coincidental. Swears!

After leaving the Archives, we headed across the street and wandered the Sculpture Garden for a bit. Took a few goofy pictures, which I hope to get uploaded sooner rather than later. I still have to install software on my computer for the new camera Tetris gave to me.

As we were leaving, we spied a boy who was maybe all of three years old standing by a tree with his pants around his ankles happily whizzing. His parents? Near the reflecting pool, their combined expressions reflecting both amusement and mortification. To be three and have all the confidence in the world that no one cares if you whizz on a tree. So awesome!

Another stop for yet more chili cheese dogs - really honey, I told you that they were available - and back on the Metro we go.

By the time we took Cricket’s friend home and got back home, I was so tired and wiped out that I wanted to fall asleep on the spot. It was an excellent day, perfect weather, great company, and an opportunity to educate my daughter on what this country was -really- built on, what our collective goals and dreams were in the beginning. Hopefully, we’ll return to that one day.

As a side note, I would love to see a copy of the Treaty of Tripoli displayed prominently at the Archives. But, alas and woe is us, I doubt that will ever happen. But that piece of little known history should be parked right up there as a reminder of what our forefathers really meant when they authored the first amendment to the Constitution.

A conversation last spring with my son:

Zach: Mom, there are ants all over my room!
Me: That’d be because of the food in your room.
Zach: I don’t have any food in my room!
Me: Yes you do. Not to mention empty soda cans.
Zach: *indignant* I do not! God! Why do you hate me?

Another conversation about two months ago with my son after walking in the house from work and being assaulted by the smell of dirty socks:

Me: Good god, what is that stench? ZACH!!!
Zach: What?!?
Me: For the love of all that is holy, would you do your laundry? Your dirty socks are stinking up the house!
Zach: I don’t smell anything.
Me: Everyone else does.
Zach: I’ll do it later, I want to go out with my friends.
Me: Do it now! You are stinking up the house!
Zach: *indignant* God! Why do you hate me?

A repeated conversation with Zach and Cricket:

Me: People, where the hell are all the towels?
Zach: In her room.
Cricket (at the same time): In his room.
Both, in unison: Nuh uh! You have all the towels!
Me: Oh for pity’s sake, can we just get the towels?
Both, in unison: I don’t have any!
Me: Fine, dry off with your clothes then after your shower!
Both, in unison: *indignant* GOD! Why do you hate me?

Another repeated conversation:

Me: Uh, guys? Could you please bring all of the cups, bowls, and such out of your rooms and into the kitchen?
Both, in unison: I don’t have any! I cleaned my room yesterday!
Me: Look, there are no glasses in the cabinet and none in the dishwasher, just bring them down and quit arguing with me!
Both, in unison: *door slam* GOD! Why do you hate me?

After work yesterday, I went home, geared up, and headed into my son’s room. I did this sometime back with my daughter’s room, even going so far as to take a shovel with me. Wow, was she pissed. But you know, I figure it this way: If she cared so much about it, it wouldn’t have been on the floor under a pile of garbage. *toss*

The task: Clean up the absolute disaster he left behind, including the closet and his dresser.

The supplies: Clorox Clean-up, Fantastic, Windex, paper towels, rubber gloves, tongs.

The outcome: No less than four loads of laundry, including one full load of socks that could have walked themselves to the washing machine and at least a full load of towels. Two gigantic Hefty bags of trash, including a bag of french fries, several half eaten candy bars, empty (and not so empty) chip bags, a good half dozen empty soda cans, five empty “cup of noodles” thingies (”I didn’t have any! Cricket ate them all!”), and more ripped up paper than you can shake a stick at! After a thorough cleaning of his closet, I was able to consolidate 6 boxes of random junk into four boxes of organized chaos: cds/dvds/games, various electronics, lights (think flashing neon things), and school work. Also found: no less than five jackets (”Wear your jacket, it’s cold today!” “I don’t have one!”) shoved in the bottom of his closet. A glass filled with water and nickels (uh, huh?), several bowls and spoons, a plate, and a few other cups and glasses. Various chip clips (”Hey, where did all the chip clips go?” “I don’t know, ask Cricket!”), rechargeable batteries, and other assorted odds and ends that I’ve been looking for. Oh, yeah, and school books that the school is charging me about 8 million dollars to replace.

And the most important thing of all? The room no longer stinks! Of course, the laundry room does now, and will until I finish all of his laundry tonight. But that’s easy after last night’s disaster!

Teenagers!

Christopher has posted the absolute best pre-movie video ever made!

Pet peeve number 762: assholes who bring babies to movies. The fuck? What on earth makes you think a loud movie theater is a good place for a nine month old screaming poop factory? Get a babysitter or stay home you selfish fucks!

I took Cricket to see Shrek the Third recently and got mighty whizzed off at the people behind us. They had the grace to STFU after I turned around and gave them the hairy eyeball, but they wouldn’t take their squalling brat out of the theater. Uh, just because mommy took the baby up two rows doesn’t mean I can’t still hear it screaming. I can. And when it’s not screaming, I can hear mommy whispering “shhh, it’s okay baby,” over and over again. It is NOT okay! GO HOME! GDI!

*ahem* Sorry bout that.

When mine were in diapers, they didn’t go to the movie theater period, plain and simple. I didn’t take them to the theater until they had the ability to sit down and shut up for two hours. And if they couldn’t or wouldn’t comply? We left. Cuz, yanno, the other people paid for that show too.

While I may be a serious bitch, I am -not- a selfish asshole.

Edited to change “theatre” to “theater” as it dawned on me that an archaic spelling might be taken as a sign of illiteracy *smirk*

Somebunny woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.

*sigh*

Yeah, somebunny was me.

I had several disturbing dreams last night, but I think the most disturbing of all was a dream in which I almost drowned. The disturbing bit was not so much that I was drowning, but that in my dream, I was perfectly okay with this. Not going to analyze that, thanks anyway.

I woke up with a headache, the type that feels like someone is cramming ice picks into your eyes. Whee. I snipped, snarked, bitched, stomped, and then cried in the shower for a little bit. Dammit, I have nearly two weeks before the red tide, there is no reason for me to be so pissy!

Oh… and slightly related, if you’ve noted my absence on IRC after yesterday, that would be due to a hard drive failure. Which, you know, happens. But dammit I hate reinstalling and then having to rescue all of my files off the old drive. It’s gonna take two weeks to get everything just so.

Yeah yeah, back ups. I know. Anyone want to recommend good software that will do that shit routinely for me using my dvd writer?

Sincerely,

Sabre McPissyPants

i hate everything