Sunday, June 8, 2008

Locusts Coming Soon

Where the heck have I been? Well, I'll tell you. Dodging 100 year flood waters and the apocalypse.

The flood part is true although I was only dodging the high water in the streets of my neighborhood in a vain attempt to take my kids to garage sales during our recent monsoon. I'm sure you've heard (unless you live in a hole) that Indianapolis and south of Indianapolis were hit by about 10 inches of rain. It's hard to understand how much rain that is unless you've seen it so let me just put it in perspective for you - it's a hell-of-a-lot of rain. Hope that helps.

The apocalyptic part is several things together - the flood, the heat (our air conditioner is on it's way out) the dog (she's STILL on her way out) I put a quarter tank of gas in my car and it cost $25 (hey, it feels apocalyptic) and the most catastrophic event this summer - the end of school.

Yes, we've been doing the summer thing for an entire week now. Which means I'm exhausted, broke and I only made $27 at our garage sale after a week of cleaning things out, pricing, bickering with my children, and considering upping my dose of pro-sanity pills. (You may know them as anti-depressants. I'm trying to be a glass half full kinda girl.) What did I get for my week of running and scrambling, sleepless nights because of the dog that's on her last leg or at least 3rd to the last leg? A flood and a broken air conditioner?! And did I mention $27 at my garage sale? I told the kids they would get a cut so that brings me down to about $15. That's two days worth of gas. Yippee.

I know things could be a whole lot, lot, worse. At least that's what I keep telling myself. We're not homeless, although we're hot, we're still alive and well (not including the dog of course) and we're not homeless. Hey, I'm a work in progress. I'm not like those artist blogs I've read that are all sunny and happy and hopeful - I hate those people. Ok, hate is a strong word. I really get disgusted and gaggy when I read that happy crap. (About those pills.....)

The bigger bummer, yes the bummers get bigger, is that my sister-in-laws lake house was flooded by the rains and the dam (can I say damn?) was partially washed out. That could mean our weekends at the lake would consist of looking at more mud than water. I'm an adult, I can deal with this kind of disappointment (with a little help from my pharmacist :) but my kids not so much. That and the fact that Fido is about to be fish food (I'm still working through this) could make this (and I know I sound like Eva) the worst summer ever. Wait, let me do that justice - THE WORST SUMMER EVVVVEERRRRRRRRR!!!!! What's really going to top it off is when Phoebe finally kicks the bucket and I tell Maya that we're not going to replace her with a puppy. I should probably just go ahead and order Maya some pills too.

So that's all the good news I have to share today. As I'm sitting in my den roasting like a wiener over hot coals I'm looking at the grass in our front yard that is so tall it's gone to seed and thinking it's just a matter of time before the locusts arrive.