More proof my children are plotting my demise

A conversation between two kids, aka, my children plot my demise before a baseball game:

Evelyn throws her arms around my neck and whispers, "Mommy, I love you so much that when you and daddy die and the sun devours the earth, I'll take you with me in a box to another planet."

I say, "Oh, God, really? I mean, I love you, too. You're sweet and creepy. But mostly sweet." (Note to self: don't call your daughter creepy.)

Rags, disgusted, comes back with "Evelyn, you can't do that! You can't carry mom and dad around in a box!"

Stupidly, I breathe a sign of relief until he says, "They're too heavy. You'll have to rent a truck or put wheels on the box or something. Come here, I'll show you. Mom, can I measure you?"

My response? "I'm going into the kitchen. I'm sure there's something I'm supposed to be doing there."

Fin

Burned - also known as "learning to wear sunscreen the hard way"

Back to my normal, mundane irritations. Today I hurt like hell.

Yesterday I worked out at the Y for about an hour and a half, doing substantial amounts of cardio and increasing my weight load, which is always bound to hurt. Still - yay! I'm stronger!

Then I took the kids to the pool to meet up with a few of their friends and one of the moms, who I'm friends with. And, like an idiot, I forgot my sunscreen before taking my children to the pool. Keep in mind, my kids do not burn. It doesn't matter whether or not they wear sunscreen (though I make them anyway to avoid skin cancer and guilt) - since they were babies, I've never seen them develop even so much as a light blush across the bridge of their noses, whether we were at the beach in stinging hot sun or not. I, on the other hand, do not have the beautiful, rich tawny and latte skin they inherited - the best of both me and their father. Instead, I'm "blessed" with pinkish cream-colored, freckle-prone skin.

We were at the pool for almost three hours. As a result, last night I was so crispy I was feverish by bedtime. The fever seems to have gone away this morning, but my skin hurts today. It stings even when I don't move. That, combined with normal muscle soreness (which will be way worse tomorrow - usually takes me 48 hours to really hurt), has resulted in the consumption of lots of ibuprofen with my coffee.

But there are two bright sides to this stupidity: one, this will fade to a tan, a pretty decent one. Two, while we were at the pool, my daughter taught herself to swim without help! She has now earned her snorkel. That's what I use to bribe my kids to learn how to swim alone. Normally I refuse to bribe, but if it gives them incentive to either a) learn something scary that will ensure their future safety (learning to swim is not optional) or b) finally learn a difficult task that is developmentally appropriate (limited to potty training), I'm all about it.

Anyway, off to attempt a shower. Glad I took all that ibuprofen because I will surely need it.

Just another crazy week in the news

Sometimes I hate everything. This week is a good example. It seems like when everything goes to shit, it does so in spectacular fashion. Anyway, enough about work...

Two things:

1. Flipping devastating news in Charleston. First of all, I am not big on organized religion, but I still hold things that others hold sacred as sacred or at least worthy of respect. Second, race. It's a huge problem in this country. Not that people are other races - that's beautiful. But that people hate other races just for being.

I'm in an interracial marriage. I don't often think of it that way, but I am. My husband and I come from vastly different backgrounds and cultures. As my kids often point out, he's brown and I'm pink. Had my children been in that church, had my husband been in that church, would they have deserved to die just because of their brown-ness? Of course not. It's hard to imagine what the hell was going on in that kid's mind and how he became so poisoned. And it's hard to imagine how one half of the country or at least the talking heads that represent that half can sweep that aside. Race is an issue in this country. It never went away. If we don't talk about it as a problem, it will never be solved.

2. Climate change from the Pope. I cannot tell you how happy I am that a Pontiff would recognize the devastation that is climate change. We all contribute - I do. You do. And I cannot tell you how disappointed I am that people are decrying recognizing science as "political." There's nothing political about accepting fact.

Data is put before you. You analyze the data. It proves X, therefore X must be a valid point. If X hurts us all, we should do something about it. Simple, but not easy, but there nonetheless. Again, if we don't talk about it as a real problem, we will never be able to stop it or, in this case, make it less bad. Because at this point, that's really all we can do.

Ok. Off my soapbox and back to the absolute and complete circus that is my work. Sometimes I just want to walk out that door. Other times I'm energized by the spiderweb of challenges set before me. Anyway you look at it, Medicare is hard and many people are jackasses for whatever reason.

Tell me lies, sweet little lies

Work is aggravating the bejeezus out of me. I've been in back to back meetings since 7 a.m. and it is now 4 p.m. I still have another couple of hours of work ahead of me, but luckily I can do it while my children sleep. In the meantime, I've been able to stand up only long enough to pee (you're welcome).

Anyway, to entertain myself when I'm not speaking or thinking I started thinking of all the nice things we say to each other when we don't always mean it.

Here are a few:

To my husband: "Your beet root, broccoli, kale and pineapple smoothie is delicious!" (Urp.)

To my son: "Those shoes make you go way faster." (You're too fast as it is.)

To my daughter: "I just don't want the roly-poly bugs in your bed because they're happier outside. They should be with their families." (OMG, bugs in the bed - bugs in the bed!!)

To my mom: "I think Meghan Trainor's song All About that Bass is adorable, too." (at least the version used in the diaper commercial is)

Anyway, that's all I've got. My brain feels like it's turning to mush inside my skull and will shortly run out my ears. Another delightful visual. And something heavy (hopefully a branch and not a dead squirrel, badger or other rodent-like animal (I like to say badger, though realize having one fall on my house is unlikely)) just fell on top of the roof. So I should probably go make sure it's all intact.

M/I Brain

I cannot seem to get reject codes out of my head today. Probably because I help put them into a large claims adjudication system. We've been getting new legislation almost every day on one of my projects for the past two weeks, and my brain is turning to absolute and complete mush. Seriously, it's getting to the point where I'm getting a bit numb and it's hard to give a shit. Probably because I no longer have many shits to give.
 But, on the bright side, it's summer! Pools are open, days are hot and the water is starting to warm up after a pretty chilly start to the season. I can't wait until this evening. Watching third graders play baseball is pretty boring, but I get the company of adults that aren't expecting me to do stuff, my daughter gets to play on the play ground and in the dirt with her friends and my son gets to do his favorite sport with all his buddies. It's win-win-win.

Also, since I have meetings double and triple booked from 7:30 a.m. straight until I leave to pick children up and frequently get so pissed in the middle that I find myself walking around the block a few times to calm down, I'm losing weight pretty quickly. So that's not all bad. Though heaven help me if things slow down.

Assisting in this delightful de-poundage is my husband, who has adopted the Vitamix as his new baby. Did you know that a kale-beet-tomato-pineapple smoothie tastes like dirt? Sweet, sweet dirt? Yeah, I didn't know that either until this morning. I also now know that I don't like drinking dirt, but it's filling. Oh, and better than the previous day's raw broccoli-carrot-pineapple smoothie, or whatever that was. I had a sip, but my husband forced down two glasses. Probably not incidentally he had broccoli smell oozing out of his pores for at least 24 hours.

That's really all I've got - boo work, yay summer. So more or less the same thing I say everytime.