a day in the life

after a long, boring, unstructured, campless, activity-free summer, the school year is finally upon us. and on day two of this new school year, i excitedly got up at 5:40am to prepare lunches and breakfasts and deliver the kids to their respective schools. after drop-off, i went home, tended to the dogs, paid some bills, checked facebook and looked at the clock - 2pm, time to collect them. after a 25 minute wait in carline, i picked up my son mac from elementary school. then we proceeded to the next carline to pick up my daughter amelia from middle school - another 25 minute wait. however, on the way to the second carline, we stopped by mcdonalds and picked up two oreo mcflurries because i knew we would be late getting home. when i had both kids in the car, we headed to the stables for horse riding lessons.

when we arrived, amelia hopped out and headed in the barn to ready her horse. mac tore through the barn making neighing sounds. really loud neighing sounds. i rounded him up and told him that he had to be quiet and stop running - he knows the rules. i made him bring his drawing that he had been working on so that he would keep quiet during her lesson, then we headed out to the lesson ring. mac sat at the picnic table and started to work on his drawing and i walked a few feet away and rehashed the day's lack of events with a friend on my cell phone. after a while, i went over to check the progress of the lesson and the drawing and i saw that mac had, with a pen, drawn pokemon and "diary of a wimpy kid" figures all over the picnic table - deep, carved figures, accurate and detailed. embarrassed and apologetic, i said to the teacher, "mac has drawn all over this table," her response to which was complete and awkward silence.

i gathered mac up and we had enough time to drive 10 or so miles to the next town and buy a sponge and some cleaner (along with some antacids for the heartburn i felt creeping into my left shoulderblade). we came back, cleaned the table - to the best of our ability - and then headed back to the barn to get amelia and go home. only amelia wasn't finished cleaning the horse and putting him away, which meant more time for mac to get into trouble. but before i had even processed this thought, i saw everyone looking down the hall of the barn towards the screeching noise. i couldn't see mac, but i knew it was him. i turned the corner, following the noise, and he was nowhere to be found. i searched each stall and outside the barn. as i began checking stalls for a second time, mac came barreling through the barn and ran right through the horse accupuncture station, where wires attached to the horse's back run from the horse to a small device of some sort. the accupuncturist, along with the stable manager shot me looks that could have killed, which at this point would have been a pleasant escape for me. i yelled at mac and sent him to the car. i checked amelia's progress then went back to the car to hide out for the remainder of the lesson and maybe yell at mac a little more, but then i saw that he was walking around in the front seat. i opened the passenger door to find that he had spilled the melted oreo mcflurry all over the front seat, covering my sunglasses, two books, some papers, and my ipod shuffle and ear phones.

i was barely holding it together at this point, but managed to get amelia in the car, mac back in his carseat and we drove home. in silence. when we got home, mac climbed over amelia's seat to get out of the car and amazingly managed to both knock over amelia's cup of water and spill the contents of his backpack, which was unzipped. when we finally all made it inside the house and started the homework process, i checked my phone and had a text from a friend saying "hope you are having an awesome day! how great is it having the kids back in school?!!"

club level

i recently had the opportunity to do something i have never done - i stayed on the club level at the ritz carlton. for those of you that have never experienced club level, i thought i would provide a short summary of what i learned there. and for those of you who frequent the club level at the ritz carlton, are we friends? because you sound like an asshole.

the first thing i learned is that club level people are better than you. it is obvious who is and who is not accustomed to the club level experience. this became clear to me when i ventured to the dessert bar in the club level lounge. as i lifted lids and meekly peered underneath for something i recognized, a very distinguished-looking man in his 50s asked if i was there "with the conference" - as in, "clearly you are not the sort who can afford a club level room at the ritz on your own." i indicated that i was indeed with the conference and he nodded and resumed conversation with his wife whose accent could only be described as being from somewhere better, wealthier than wherever you are from.

second, i learned that heineken tastes like crap even at the club level, confirming everyone's suspicion that wealthy people are not beer-drinkers.

the third thing i learned is that ritz carlton club level children are the worst kind. these matching-pajama-and-slipper-clad kids drinking hot cocoa and snacking on gourmet rice krispie treats are better than you and they don't even know it. i don't know why it makes it worse that they don't know it - but somehow, it does. their level of comfort in the club level lounge is disturbing, so much so that i had to take my heineken and my fancy rice krispie treat back to my room where i propped myself on layers of down to watch back-to-back episodes of law & order.

the last thing i learned that i will share with you is that apparently yippy little dogs are allowed on the club level. club level yippy dogs are only slightly less annoying than club level children.

i miss the old days, a simpler time when people like me couldn't afford to stay at the ritz carlton. when there was no need for club level, because the entire hotel was club level. when it was unnecessary to offer beer because no one low-brow enough to drink it was there. a time when there was no giant jar of cookies or coloring book in the lounge for the precious little ones because the precious little ones, like the family pet, were not welcome at the ritz carlton.

gas and vomit and other reasons to not cook

sunday, my husband steve and i were both in kitchen, oddly enough, throwing together a spaghetti dinner at the gas cooktop when i noticed the strong odor of gas. i didn't think much about it since we did have one of the eyes on. but then later, i noticed the smell again and saw that one of the burners was turned to low, was not in use and had no flame. i turned it off. i came back about an hour later and saw that the burner right beside the one that had been on, was now turned to low, was not in use and had no flame. i turned it off. then i went outside and watered my withering plants that i stupidly planted during a heat wave. it took probably an hour before i was satisfied that everything was either dead or drenched. when i went back in the house, the smell of gas was unmistakeable. when i called the company that had delivered gas to us in the past, i was told the number was not valid. so i called georgia natural gas, even though i knew i was not a customer, in the hope that they could tell me who to call. well, they did even better - they told me they were sending someone to our house to check it out. in the meantime, they asked us to wait outside and to not turn on or off any electrical appliances. they also asked for my cell number - not my home - presumably because the home phone would likely be destroyed in the explosion. so we waited outside, for over an hour. we played with the dogs for a while and then my son mac decided he would kill time by spinning violently around the yard. not surprisingly, he felt sick after that and because it was still over 90 degrees out, despite being nearly 10pm, steve thought he might be more comfortable in the car with some air conditioning. and this seemed to be a great idea, right up until the point where mac vomited spaghetti all over the back seat. in the meantime, the gas guy arrived (from a not-so-nearby town, he pointed out) and was apparently not excited to be at our house. he was even less excited when he informed us that we weren't on natural gas, we had LP gas. he said this as if he were explaining the difference between the floor and the ceiling. he also had detected no gas in our house - at all. and so, we thanked him, he grumbled and then drove away. and so we took our dogs, our daughter and our vomited-covered son back inside and called it a night. and i think we all learned a valuable lesson. i learned that cooking is dangerous and should be avoided and mac learned that violent spinning should only be done at a friend's house.