Said Sam I Am

But how does the baby get INSIDE the mother?

Well, all human babies start from a tiny egg deep inside the mother.

And?

And what?

And what makes the baby start growing from the tiny egg?

Love.

(Pregnant Pause)

I don't love eggs. I don't even like 'em.

Who wants to rub my feet?

I am listening to a song called Fallen Peaches. It kind of goes like this...

Across the corpses on the hills
The sunset spread her flames
And her glowing fingers held me
As they dug my shallow grave

Yeah.

It's labeled Gothic Country.
And I wonder why I feel depressed sometimes!?!
Thanks, Pandora!

Sam is working on sight words. He doesn't like them and I think they're stupid.
What happened to phonics? It wurkt for me!

Sam has developed a vocal tic.
It sounds like a piece of rigid plastic caught in a bicycle spoke.
Only, Joe can't hear it. (A number of people at school have noticed it.)
How can you miss a sound like that?
He does it even while he's speaking.
It sounds like prairie dog.
It worries me.

I also found a polyp on Sam's inner cheek.
Joe can see it.
Sam says it's always been there but I don't believe him.
Certainly I would've seen it before now. Right?
But really? How many times do you check your child's buccal pouch?
It worries me.

And honestly, that song about fallen peaches worries me too.

On The Side

Just a few photos of gigs I've done this year. I've been lucky enough to participate in events in some beautiful backdrops. But lately it has been so hot I can't hardly stand myself to do an outside job. I have a five hour gig in a downtown Atlanta parking lot next weekend. Yeahhhh. It should be every bit of sweltering so think cooling thoughts for me next Saturday!

The Incident At Sam Flax

Sam Flax is an art supply store in Atlanta. They have locations in New York and Orlando too. After a face painting gig few weeks ago, we stopped in for Leah to pick up some illustration boards. She's working on a top secret project that's more promising and cohesive than anything she's done before. I'm really proud of her but that's about all I can say about it. It's her baby after all.

I don't know if art stores excite everyone like they excite me but each and every aisle makes my heart race a little. Leah had a special size request so we had to wait around (FOREVER) for the boards to be cut to those specifications. In the meantime, I found some acrylic enamels for use on glass and metal. And then I found these:


They are magnetic balancing peoples. They were so cool and I heard them calling from across the store. Yoooooooohooooooooo!?! they said. Leah followed me over. We discussed them in depth. And then I reached out and touched them. My podnuh stepped back. For once, she was not involved in the spillage. And that was a lot of falling, rattling and scuttling on the part of the magnetic peoples only to be outdone by my own stumbling, fumbling and muttering. When we all came to rest, Leah bent over and picked us up one by one.

The good news? Immediately after the incident we were presented with our items and hastily helped out the door. It did not hit us on our asses on the way out.

Saturday Is Funday: Birthday Buddies

We went to the park today for a birthday party for Zoe's classmate.

And here I am showing off my new old lady dress, swollen leg & knee brace! Woo!

I cannot even begin to tell you how hot it was on the playground.
Once they'd both seared their tender arses on the slide, they were ready
to return to the oasis of the sprinkler.

And last but not least is my better half rockin' the mural for unwed mothers.

Botanical Anomaly

We embrace all oddities here at The Calmpound so we were very pleased to see the plain old Coneflower doing something different this year.

Seems Mother Nature started thinking out of the box a bit...

I can't get enough of these little anomalous purple blooms!

The Most Beautiful Recitation

Isabella Is The Bee's Knees

Depth Perception

Ewwww Factor

Ewww. We were all fascinated when we found these bags of baby shad in the bait section at the store. The red ones have a red dye added and are sold as "wounded" baby shad. Isn't that sad?

Sam requested I post his photo holding said shad. His commentary follows: "Fish. In bags."

And there you have it, folks. Very much like his daddy, he is a man of few words.

*I have a vicious summer cold. It is eating my brain cells and this is about the best I can do. There is nothing quite like 95 degree weather and a head full of snot*

Look Alive!

We celebrated his first day of Kindergarten and her first day of Pre-K today. They don't look so great pictured above. Happily I can report they perked up somewhat during the drive to school and once they got some breakfast in them, were good to go. Both teachers reported exemplary behavior. How long do you suppose that will last?

First day down, 179 to go....

Day 4: The Petting Part

• Many "DO NOT!" signs
• A seemingly endless supply of animal saliva
• Oppressive heat
  
• A lesson concerning the poor choice that was sequined pants
• Zonkey whiskers
• Joe = afraid of camels.

That's about all I can say of the petting part.

Like A Hawk

Swingers?

Yes. Swingers.

And it's us and you and them? All six of us?

Yes. Theoretically.

Wow.

Yes. Wow.

I am seldom knocked a windin' like my Grandma used to say. Today, I was. My coworker and friend called me in a tizzy. An absolute tizzy. She goes into a lot of tizzies so I was not immediately concerned but then she started talking sex. This woman never talks sex. (Don't think that hasn't been a barrier for us.)

She tells me the big talk around school is us! Someone let the cat out of the bag so to speak that me and the beloved enjoy swinging. That we do so with her and her husband and another couple! This has been widely believed for four years or so. Which goes a long way in explaining some of the strangest comments from the people I work with.

The person went on to try to allay my friend's horror by telling her once she got to know her and the other lady, she knew it wasn't true. "Kim, on the other hand, is a different story," she said. Great. I'm a different story. She also divulged to my friend ("if you don't already know") that I'm a witch. I know I come out of left field sometimes but a swinging witch, for heaven's sake?

It's a bit surprising, very amusing and somewhat irritating to be thought of by your coworkers in this manner. Not that I have anything against witches or swingers. I love most all the people of the world. People all over the world. Join hands. Start a love train. Love train... None of this has any bearing on anything. The reality of it is a bunch of bored women who move in packs (cliches) just as they did in high school preying on who they can.

Speaking of prey, that's a red-tailed hawk feather Joe's holding in the photo up top. We've had an ever growing family of hawks raising their families on our property for the last few years. They are fantastic looking birds and we learned they are monogamous. They mate for life.

Now. Put your keys in this bowl.
:: CACKLE ::

Day 4: The Pony Part

The exact change happened to be $7.13 for each child.

It was their first contact with ponies. It was actually their first contact with anything larger than a smallish dog. I was pleased we were able to lead the ponies. The kids had a blast. Zoe now plans to ask Santa for a pony at Christmastime.

She may get a rabbit.
Possibly.

Zombie Juice

What do you do when the world gives you Zombies? Make Zombie juice, of course!

Stephanie wrote a very honest and heartfelt post and I read it today. She shares her struggles with us. I had my suspicions about her but now, I know. She's strong. And she'll laugh and shake her head when she reads that.

"What makes your life hard?" she asks. And I think to myself....what a wonderful world...

HA! Sorry. Can you tell I'm uncomfortable? So why am I sharing my own hard knocks? I don't know. But why not?

What Makes My Life Hard

• My relationship with my son. My firstborn child does not live with me nor does he have any interest in seeing me. If anything, I feel as though he hates me. His dad hates me and has made that very clear. My son thinks his father hung the moon. And this is very hard.
  
• My relationship with my parents. Now heavily influenced by my relationship with my own son. It's not as hard as it once was but it's still very much like an onion. Many, many layers. I am an only adopted child. It would take an eternity to enumerate so I will only say they have a hard time relinquishing control and I have a hard time with boundaries. And they live in my back yard or rather, we live in their front yard. Which complicates things a lot.
  
• My relationship with my body. This one is a doozy! I am now dealing with chronic pain in my knee. The cortisone injection has worn off and it's really messed up, folks. I can't afford the $800 out of pocket MRI to diagnose the problem nor can I afford to miss work for surgery. I am effectively crippled for this next school year. It effects me every moment and sleep is not always an escape. And speaking of sleep, I am sleeping poorly and eating in my sleep again. I have put back on about 15 lbs. I am afraid I will need to resort to some sort of psychotropic medication to curtail my problem. My weight is a concern in and of itself and that ties into my knee, my GI issues, my hypothyroidism, my stress, my depression. And last but not least, I once lived a very, very unhealthy lifestyle. I live with the shame and temptation of returning to it. This is also very hard.

These are the (big) things that make my life hard. Of course, the little things snowball and if they didn't apply to any of these categories, they will soon enough. Like Steph, I don't dwell on the negatives. I try to find the good in everything. According to how you look at it, finding good sometimes makes life hard. Doesn't it?

It can always get better or worse.
Nothing to do but the best you can and wait and see.

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