Home is where you hang your hate.

It's my fault I hate my current house.  A long time ago I had a house in South Provo.  Aidan's Dad and I bought it from a couple that had really done a neat job fixing it up.  We did some tweaking, too.  All of my extra time was pretty much spent thrift shopping for decor seeing as how I was mostly a stay at home mom back then.  We painted and landscaped.  It turned out so well I over did the self congratulation. When it came time to sell it, I cried for days like it was the end of the world.  I cried more over that house than I did my Ex.  But then again, the house never cheated on me and called me bad names behind my back.  We sold it for 15,000 more than we paid which was really pretty good at the time and for the BYU area. 

Cut to: Years later, I listen as I hear myself saying to my husband and the Realtor that I can fix up this house.  I did not take into account the following...

1.  I have quit drinking coffee.  I used to have half a pot at breakfast, a latte or an espresso in the afternoon and at least one more cup around four or five.  I could have cut the lawn with fingernail clippers I was so high.

2.  I had one child.  And he liked to play quietly, by himself, for hours.

3.  Ty really did a majority of the work.

4.  Ty had a Dad that told us how to do a majority of the work.

5.  Most of the hard stuff was done before we got there.

6.  The disastrous, slap-dash construction of this house VS the old solid one.

7.  I am kinda old.

8.  I have an actual career now that takes actual effort.

9.  We do not have credit cards with tens of thousands of dollars available to us.  (Thankfully, really.)

10.  I am a raving lunatic.  And I don't know what the hell I am talking about.  I mean this kind of thing needs to go to people that really know what they are doing not someone who can paint some tile and lay some flooring.  And Brett didn't know the total depths of my insanity since we had only been married a year.  After seeing how hard it is for my neighbor who is a professional, I am stymied I ever thought I could do it on my own.

So in buying this house my mouth wrote a check that my Butt can't cash.  In the meantime...  

1.  We have one bathroom.  And it doesn't really work.  We are all showering in a 3X3 ft shower with broken tiles and twenty year old non-skid flower decals that make me wonder how many Y students have peed on them.  

2.  About seven hundred square feet of our downstairs is infected with mold.  One day I lost my mind and I just pulled off the faux wood paneling for no reason.  Now if I had not done this the mold would not have been an issue.  It would have been sealed up in there and stayed in it's little happy place and since it's not the toxic kind and we are not allergic we'd have been fine.  We could have painted and laid carpet and let it go like that forever.  I unleashed it.  And now it's angry and blames me for all of it's problems.  

3.  The stairs to the deck are a rotting wooden death-trap.  One is even missing.  Not only have the kids tripped over it countless times but the dog actually fell through to the concrete down below.  Which is a good ten foot drop.  He is OK.  Just stupid and that's unrelated.

4.  The dishwasher falls out of the wall.  And the dish rack comes rolling out onto the floor, or my foot, or the dog.  And the dishes all fall out and break or spill out everywhere and need to be re-washed and scraped of pug hair.

5.  The downstairs has asbestos ceilings and asbestos tiles and asbestos tar adhesive holding down the asbestos tiles.  No plumber or construction worker or person of intelligence will come down and work on our house for even just one day, even one hour, because exposure might make them die a horrible death many years from now.  So we have that to look forward to.

Living here reminds me every day of my life that I am full of myself and I'm an idiot and I am living in a place that I said I could fix, but instead endangers my family and neighbors and dog and thus makes me want to cry every minute I'm in it.  

Brett and I share an odd factoid.  We have both moved over 30 times.  Our families broke and set and re-broke repeatedly like bones that didn't knit right.  Brett moved almost 20 times before he was 21.  NOT counting his mission.  I moved, I think, 27 times total.  My son has moved six times in his short 8 years.  We all are tired.  We are all disappointed.  We all want our lives to just...start.  To just have friends and family come for dinner, to have neighborhood kids stay over night, to use a working bathtub.  If Brett had lost a limb in the military or one of my kids had been diagnosed terminal we might qualify for an Extreme Home Make-over.  But we are not messed up enough as to receive television charity and not pulled together enough to qualify to be what we have always wanted to be.  Just a normal family.

Get out your copy of Singles...

I love fashion and I have never posted anything about it, really.  I follow it religiously which has gotten me into trouble in the past.  (See Prom Dress Debacle on Top 5 Most Embarrassing list from past blog entry.)   I wouldn't blame you for thinking I know nothing about it were we ever to meet.  I follow it on the inside.  Brett has his music, I have my fashion.  But I don't know how he does it since there are new bands nearly every five minutes and half of their music sounds the same.  

I don't have many talents.  I really don't.  And especially not compared to Brett.  But for as long as I can remember I have been able to tell what's going to happen in fashion.  I may or may not choose to participate, but I know what's going on.  My ex-step sister Amanda who lives in Reno informed me about a year ago that the 80's were coming back!  See, with hip networks like this how can I not know what's going to be cool.

So to inform you all officially, get ready to WELCOME IN THE 90'S.  It's brewing like a pot of coffee at The Central Perk.  All of the old music is subversively being routed into soundtracks, girls in Doc's are in magazines and even Urban Outfitters is showing 8-10 eye work boots with babydolls.  Teen Vogue practically began it.  They primed the pump by showing boots with party dresses close to two years ago.  Dakota Fanning wore MJ platform combat boots with a taffeta dress in her Teen Vogue spread, and she asked to keep them.  It's been snowballing since.  About then Marc Jacobs came out with a fall line very inspired by Grunge.  It was waaaay too early for most and he quickly recanted with his next show being nearly Chanel like in nature.  But it's the decade he is sprinting to embrace since it was the first decade he found recognition.  But I digress...  Brett and I just watched an episode of Fear Itself and the girl was in a great jersey grecian dress with combat boots.  The Dark Knight even will begin to turn a lot of young people towards darker themes and old school goth inspired fashion, like The Crow did.  Dust off your Doc's if you've got 'em.

Don't believe me?  Let's do the math.  The children of the 90's are coming into the 13-25 year old age group where they are asked to pick and choose and they will use old faint memories of what their big brothers and sisters did and wore to inspire them.  And they'll use the excuse that they think it's funny to "remember" grunge.  But because no one wants to be a full-on copy cat it will be twisted up with small doses of the 30's and 60's and Emo and Punk and a generous helping of hipster thanks to American Apparel and UO.

But one thing is for sure.  None of those themes have anything to do with Paris Hilton.  In fact any girl that considers herself a fashionista ( a term I loathe, LOATHE!! ) and has used tons of money to buy her style will have to start using it to look like she's a broke artist, or not be cool.  Celebutants will fire their agents and publicists.  Celebrities will be falling all over themselves trying to remind people they have street cred while sporting designer combat boots and utility handbags.  But money will be out, power to the people.  Oh, and it also is an election year and we are in a recession that is not being called a recession.  So, go new grunge style, what ever you will be called!  I will look forward to seeing you hit your stride next couple of years on the coasts and reach Utah in 2011-2012 if the wind is right.  I already bought my slumpy vintage dresses and round-toed wingtips.  Join me and begin a revolution.

Welcome to the Hotel California.

So we went to California.  We stayed at the Carlsbad Holiday Inn.  Aidan asked if it was a Motel, a Hotel or an Inn.  It oddly was neither of the above.  It was a windmill.  

So the first day we went to Legoland.  There were not so many people there since it was a work day.  The weather was a perfect temperature, in the 70's.  We casually went from ride to ride as a group and everyone was able to have a decent time and do what they wanted.  And then it all took a dark turn.

Aidan was the only kid that wanted to go to the obstacle course.  So I sat on a wall and waited with some other tired parents when I heard screaming.  A very large young boy was being dragged down from the upper level by his wrist.  His mom pulled him down the stairs and the boy continued to scream, "I am controlling my anger!!"  Keep in mind, I have never heard a human unleash this kind of sound.  Screaming from the inner depths of hell in his dark, ugly soul.  He was let go of, mistakenly, once they reached the bottom of the stairs.  The Mom kept walking towards the exit I guess assuming he'd follow?  But the boy went over to a man sitting by a stroller and spit in his face and screamed, "I hate you, I hate all of you."  And in that moment I thought I was seeing a troubled boy spit in the face of his father.  The man, sat with no emotion in his face.  The boy, still screaming, left that man and moved down the wall.  We locked eyes and he began to swing his fists and come at me.  The boy is about to punch me in the face and is screaming that he hates all of us, all of us and I am just watching from outside of myself.  His mother catches him around the waist with his fists inches from my face.  He swings angrily at the air while his Ma drags him back.  I say, "I thought he was going to punch me in the face!"  She smiles and says in that Mom in denial tone, "He's just frustrated..."  And then they are gone.  And the two women next to me and I are left with our mouths open.  We laugh at her ignorance and the woman nearest me says that she would ring her kid's tail if he ever acted like that.  We all agree that he is the kind of kid that grows up only to go totally Columbine one day.  No joke.  And then I think, "Hold the phone that guy isn't his Dad!"  Cool as a cucumber he still sat motionless with his sunglasses on with zero change in his expression.  Like he has strange kids spit on him everyday.

The next day was Beach Day and everyone got in a fight because we all set up different camps on the beach and no one wanted to pick up and move to be closer to one another.   So there was a camp one and a camp two.  Both camps one and two couldn't let it go that the other camp was so full of pride that they wouldn't budge to be by their camp.  I felt like Mom should lay down the matriarch trump card but she didn't play it, because she's nice.  While camp one was packing up to go, camp two came over to camp one.  Then the four Measom/ Merritt's went alone to a little local corner taco shop and the others went to a big fancy sushi restaurant.  I got sick, I think from the taco shop, and couldn't eat desert at the sushi place.  I had to go back to the room right quick...

Saturday we went to Sea World.  Imagine that all of Southern California decides collectively one weekend to not go shopping at Walmart but go see some whales instead.  This would be the weekend we decided to go.  And it's a million degrees even though it's supposed to be 70.  And my neck is out because of the Hotel bed and I'm super sunburned from Beach Day even though I spent fifty bucks and three weeks tanning.  And there are four families with young kids in double wide strollers and three single people and a senior all trying to navigate through thousands of people and talk to one another about where we all want to go and what we want to do and how to get there and who needs to pee or breast-feed or eat and height requirements for rides and explain it all over again to the next family while we are trying to find the three year olds that ran off in the crowd and buy churros and water and find shade.  I was miserable for six and three quarters of the nine hours there.   I spent fifty five dollars on lunch.  At the end of the day just our family went to the arctic exhibit which was nice and cool and fun to be at.  Bella found a spot up front of the crowd at the walrus pool and they had just been fed.  They eat and re-eat their food by barfing it up on the window and then chewing it back up for easier digestion.  So you get a clear view of regurgitated walrus chow.  Bella gagged hard, twice, and each time the crowd collectively went, "WOAH!" I reached her and stopped her from gagging a third time and bolted to an area that looked easy to clean.  We then went to the log flume which we insisted to the kids was going to be fun.  It scared them so badly that we are still apologizing.  It wasn't so much a flume as an actual roller coaster.  Aidan keeps recalling it and crying openly.

TMI alert:  On the way home I was sad to get my period even though I had spent the weeksuper uncomfortable and bloated as a house.   Because although two tests told me I was not in fact pregnant I was just certain I must be after being huge and over a week late for something like the eleventh month in a row.  That night we got to stop in Vegas and stay with Brett's pregnant sister and his baby nephew while I'm doubled over with cramps eating ineffective ibuprofen wishing my laundry to hurry and defy physics and dry in five minutes.  We drove home in bad moods.

Brett and I are getting divorced.  I can not conceive an actual child with a man I am married to.  In my experience he has to secretly want to demean me and treat me like crap for me to be able to conceive with him so he's going to work on those character flaws while we file the paperwork.  By the time it's finalized I should be knocked-up proper.  With any luck we can then take our new bastard baby to Sea World.  

Murder at the Merritt's.

Bella and her friends got along well yesterday.  They pretended that they were a family of chefs that had a couple kids, in the form of Bell's baby dolls.  I was getting ready for my big date with Brett.  When it came time to leave we just kicked the girls out and sent Bella with the sitter to go bowling.

This morning Bell brings me some little pieces of pink plastic from the backyard and asks what they are.  I can tell she knows they mean something but can't place their importance. This is not new, there are pieces of things strewn all over our backyard.  Purple Styrofoam noodle bits, water guns, shredded pool balls.  You name it and our dill-hole dog has shredded it and strewn it about the lawn.  (No one ever told me this about Pugs.  And I asked a lot of people about them.  For seven years.)  So she places the pink things in my palm and I turn them over noticing they are softer than the usual stuff Pugmann finds to chew up.  And it's a nose and an ear.  And I scream like it's really a detached human face I'm holding.  Because...

Brett and I have been trying to get pregnant for a while now.  I joke with everyone that we are getting divorced because I am incapable of conceiving a child with someone I'm actually married to.  But I got Bella this little baby doll that I fell in love with.  She looked and felt real and said cute things in a cute and not annoying voice, like, "Mama?  Mama. Dada? Dada."  And then she'd laugh.  And she sucked on a baba and went to sleep and breathed deeply and her chest would rise and fall while her eyes would close and she'd look so peaceful.  And that is what the dog ate.  He ate my baby's face.  

So I told Brett when he came home for lunch that we knew harm had befallen Baby but we didn't know what the animal did with her body.  Brett looked around and found her face down in the basement like Jon-Benet.  Without the garroting.  Or pineapple in her stomach.  But I digress.  So I pick her up and brought her upstairs, not thinking about leaving a pristine crime scene, again paralleling nearly exactly the Jon-Benet case.  And I show Brett her face.  Brett asks Bella if she wants to see baby before she goes night night forever.  I mouth, "NO!"  And whisper that it will traumatize her.  He covers Baby's open mechanical face with his hand and lets her kiss the top of her head.  I wrap her in an old rug and throw her in the garbage can outside.  Now paralleling the crazy Utah County case from a few years back where the husband got caught in a web of lies and killed his wife and threw her out in a rug in an attempt to keep from their families that he didn't get into Med School.  (Guess what?  They found out, dip shizzle!  And also, good call unnamed med school.  He obviously wouldn't have handled the pressure.)

So the dingo ate my baby and now the dingo is roaming free in the neighborhood somewhere avoiding prosecution.  He better make a break for Mexico.