what I learned this week…

1. Twenty-year old women either all have breast augmentation or I’ve forgotten how perky 20-year-old’s breasts are naturally.
2. Not that I’m looking.
3. Apparently I was not joking when I said I’ve run out of things to say. In the last three weeks I’ve only written 6 posts. Unacceptable. This will not stand. Next week I’m writing four. Lookout.
4. Someday I will become one of those grown-ups who listens to each voicemail they get in a timely manner. I will not be one of those individuals who stares at 37 unheard voicemails in sad and quiet desperation (because she hasn’t listened to any of them in 2 weeks) – deciding first to delete all messages from people she speaks to daily (husband, mom, etc. – because most assuredly those messages are purely logistical (“what time u getting’ the kids?”)) and all messages from people who she’s spoken with in the last 24 hours (because doesn’t the most recent conversation append and replace any former conversation?) – thereby whittling the number down to 24 and forcing herself to push the “play” button even when the phone has recorded 2 minutes 45 seconds of message that could have been said in 15 seconds or not said at all or better yet, TEXTED.
5. By the way, why can’t we all just TEXT, at least most of the time?
6. My kids are well-behaved in restaurants. They are. I’m owning that small victory.
7. I guess it’s alright to not feel overly compelled to sit in a café or small room or in front of the computer writing…because it’s summer. And I want to get out. It’s fun to get out in the summer. Especially when it’s 112 degrees. That’s really fun.
8. My 5-year-old son is incapable of flushing the toilet without being reminded. He will never do it, ever. Is there a mental handicap surrounding toilet-flushing? Sorry, Rocket’s future partner. I tried.
9. I finally discovered a serious advantage to being totally and completely disorganized: you can find ANYTHING in your car if you look hard enough. Last night we went to a party out in the country (which is, evidently, another climate, even though it’s 1.5 miles from my house). The wind started blowing and it got COLD. Like sweatshirt cold and I didn’t pack enough warm stuff for the baby. However, I was able to locate one pair of pants, one pair of socks AND A BEANIE in my car. Pshht. Well-prepared mother if you ask me.
10. In 3 weeks my baby girl will be one. Is it just me or do years actually pass by more quickly as you get older? Damn.

1. I’m having a little trouble remembering the past week (which is a little alarming), so we’re just going to limit this list to things I’ve learned in the past day. or so.
2. I’m not sure I could survive in an environment without air conditioning.
3. I hope we can afford to run the air conditioning as much as I’ve been running it.
4. If we cannot afford to run the air conditioning as much as I’ve been running it, I’m going to keep running it like I normally do and lie to my husband about it.
5. It’s too bad they don’t have a coffee delivery service. This morning, upon discovering we are out of coffee, (oh hells yeah at least I remember that far back) I faced a predicament: leave my house in the 100 degree heat, by myself with ALL THREE kids, at a time that interferes with the infant’s morning nap (which is, incidentally, the only guaranteed nap of the day) thereby risking a day of annoyed-and-irritated-baby-for-undisclosed-reasons….OR, not have coffee (which seems out of the question, right?). Strangely, I chose option 3: drink a shit-load of earl grey tea and hope for the best.
6. Earl grey works, in a pinch. (And by “work” I mean of course “prevented that knife-stabbing caffeine-withdrawal headache until you are forced to leave the house and can buy more coffee.”)
7. On Friday (oh look! I remember two days ago!) we celebrated my father-in-law’s 60^th birthday party in St. Helena, at a sort of wine & cheese wealthy-person street fair. You walk around to all the shops and each one is serving a different wine, the idea being that you get drunk and buy shit, I guess. Since we don’t drink, we just kind of walked around and looked at things we can’t afford and scowled at the yuppies. It was fun though. The Napa Valley is supremely beautiful and my father-in-law’s sisters are some badass women, all married to laidback, really smart nice men. Good family makes all things fun.
8. While attending the aforementioned street fair, I noticed two things: 1. Hair-flipping 21-year-olds with fake tans, who do that screaming thing when they see each other (you know the one…arms up, running toward one another, ‘oh my GAAWWWWWWD!’) are just as annoying on the street as in a bar (counter to what one would think, the scream does not dissipate in the open air, nor does the scent of their perfume); 2. No matter how thin they are, there are some outfits that should just not be worn on 50-year-old women. Just should not.
9. Vital realizations almost always come to me AFTER I’ve blown it, rendering the said realization useless in terms of preventative value. They only serve as the catalyst for the quiet utterance of the following words: “Oh FUCK I really should not have said that.”  For example, we take these “Myers-Briggs” tests at work and I always think it’s hysterical to make jokes about trying to rig the test so I come out a “feeler” (which is a more sensitive type person). AND THEN after making this joke numerous times, the thought steals into my mind, like a thief in the night: “Janelle, you know, you might not want to make that joke any more, considering it involves FEELERS, who, be nature, get their feelings hurt more often, they may not think you’re funny, Einstein.” DOH! SHIT! But the thing is I wasn’t trying to make fun of the feelers, I was making fun of myself, for being so non-feeler-like…you know, the juxtaposition of my personality with the label “feeler.” You see, then I try to make it better, and it just gets worse.
10. Although, is it possible to rig one of those tests?

Oh well. Some people never learn. Have a good week!