TYPICAL SATURDAY

Typical Saturday Afternoon


1:30 Saturday Afternoon – Evan is still not home, will not answer phone, phone goes straight to voice mail, resort to iming him on face book the only form of communication he will entertain these days.  Great feature of this form of communication is I pop up on the screen he is looking up in front of everything else, and if he ignores me I just keep sending my message over and over again.  My own form mom pop-ups!   Brilliant invention!
 Me: Evan! Hello! Where are you?

Evan: Hi mom! (leaving out a crucial piece of the reply I was looking for! where he is!!)

Me: Where are you evan? Are you coming home soon?

Silence, Silence, Silence, Silence, Silence.

Me: Evan, Where are you? Are you coming home soon?

Evan: WOW Mom! I don’t know. I’m at Jared’s. bye!

Ladies and Gentleman, that is the alpha and omega of my mother son dialogue on Saturday, August 29! 

ok so,

1:45 – The crazy dog is now locked out of my room after bringing me the cat’s bed, the cat’s food dish, the cat’s toy mouse, the empty can from the cat’s food this morning, an empty water bottle, Evan’s purple UW hat, my black flip flops, and my green adidas workout pants all of this while I was having the former conversation with my son. Apparently he has decided to take up singing after listening to me sing to him catchy tunes like, “You are my Cody, my only Cody, you make me happy......” And, “Oh how I love Cody........!” At least I think that's what he's doing.  Its pretty pathetic.

In other words, he is scrunched up to the other side of my door howling, (loudly) right outside of my bedroom. I think it’s time to go to the dog park.

2:10- start getting ready to go to dog park, have to find choke collar, oh there it is in top drawer of night stand. Now I need poop bags, where did I put those? Oh yeah in bathroom drawer above my hair brushes. Logical place for them, I think! Now furry yellow creature is running around in circles like a circus animal and  jumping up and down up and down, up and down again.  To make sure I can see him in the mirror as I am attempting to do my hair and re-apply lip gloss.( you never know when you might run in to an eligible bachelor.) Ugh! Cody shut up! I’m going as fast as I can. To be so lucky as to have picked out the most mentally challenged lab in America.
Okay, now all I need is leash, chuck it, oh yeah and my phone, just in case, I have been on a  date or two with men at the local dog park. Last time didn't work out so great though.  He was the tall distinguished dark and handsome guy with the little black and white pug named Otis, and it seemed to be going great.....until he mentioned, “oh yeah I know I said that I was divorced andbroke up with my former girlfriend a couple months ago but I’m hanging out with my ex-wife on Friday night and having dinner with my ex next Thursday. “   ????? That's kinda weird, don't you think?  Wow okay dude!

And men say that women are complicated and hard to figure out! Are we really the complicated species? Honestly?


As I approach the dog park. I realize yep absolutely no eligible men at the local county dog park today, good thing I spent that extra 20 minutes doing my hair and putting on mascara and lipstick whilst the crazy yellow canine did his version of canine jumping jacks in the bathroom directly behind me so as to make sure I could see him in the mirror and knew he was waiting for me. I’m sure the other canines in the park appreciated the extra effort I took in putting lip gloss on though. 


Although no eligible bachelors, there were some freshly posted new dog park rules: of which I am about 98% certain that #2 was created specifically for my juvenile yellow furry friend himself.



2. OWNERS OF DOGS IN DESIGNATED OFF-LEASH AREAS MUST BE PRESENT AT ALL TIMES WITHIN VOLCAL CONTROL DISTANCE OF THEIR DOGS, AND ENSURE THAT THEIR DOGS DO NOT CAUSE PUBLIC NUISANCE, SAFETY HAZARD OR HARASS PEOPLE, OTHER DOGS OR WILDLIFE.



Ok, well how exactly would that work if your dog barrels through from one far side to the other farthest side, then from one far side to the other farthest side, stopping only for the occasional and very crucial lifting of leg to moisten area with his own secret powered and potent scented body fluids, sniff a new or interesting dog butt or put nose in other freshly moistened and scented area. Are they aware that the dog park is 4.5 ACRES!!!!  Do I look like a freakin world record marathon runner to you?

That would be an entertaining site. “Hey daddy, how come that girl keeps running back and forth back and forth after her dog?”, “Well, son she is staying in compliance with the posted county dog park Rule #2 .” And, about that underlined public nuisance and harassment. Do you think peeing on log 3 times, whilst man is sitting on log, would be defined nuisance? Hmm. Personally, I think the dude should just get up and move to another log. He’s peed on you like three times now! He apparently really wants to make sure that everyone, dog that passes that particular log knows he was there. So, I have an idea go to another log.  How about the one right next to it? (Really you are just going to keep sitting there and complaining about it? ) Here's your sign!

Or how about excessive canine butt sniffing, barreling in to other dogs or people at full speed, stealing other dogs toys or single focused chasing and attempting to mount others inappropriately and excessively after being warned by extremely direct communication methods that, “no am not at all interested!!!  In fact big yellow PIBD (pain in butt dog) I will bite your head off if you do not leave me alone, NOW!.”   At least I'm pretty sure that is what they are trying to say.  (hey I know some human males like this too, maybe I should carry around dog park rule #2 with me as a general rule when on chance I run into one of the male versions of the human species that needs to be reminded that excessive attempts at mounting are defined as “being a nuisance ”as well.)

This Is Us! My Family and My Life

Who am I? Inside I’m an all American strawberry blonde, free spirited girl.  I love to dream, love to dance, love to laugh, and have fun.  I love romance, and stories about falling in love, labrador retriever puppies, gold hoop earrings, shopping malls, painted toe nails, farmer's market flowers,  baby toes, lip gloss, great books, country music, neopolitan ice cream sandwiches, white sandy beaches, and sun kissed noses with freckles.  I also am particularly fond of the way muscles look inside the strong arms of a good looking man.  My childhood dreams included, getting married a house full of kids,a picket fence and a family dog. Only, my life took a slight detour the summer of 1992.  The summer before my senior year at Ingraham High.  I remember so clearly taking that First Response pregnancy test in the second floor Nordstrom ladies lounge at Northgate Mall. I went in with myself and small piece of plastic to pee on,(so I thought).  I came out of that stall with myself +1, and two blue lines. Holy beep!!!  Life had changed, instead of planning the last year of my high school life, the senior prom and filling out college applications, I was getting morning sickness, prenatal vitamins, and strech marks.  Instead of shopping for the latest accessory at Claires and Express I was shopping for pregnancy jeans,breast pumps and nursing bras. Wowzah! 
 There goes the rest of my care free teen years, along with my future on perfect life lane in suburbia, USA! I was seventeen and pregnant!  Suddenly life changed as I knew it FOREVER!!

Fast Forward 16 years to 2009: That 17 year old is now thirty-something and my visions of my future on beautiful life lane with a perfectly clean and sanitized house,decorated with Pottery Barn Curtains and Vases and William Sonoma baking dishes, with a ravishingly gorgeous hot and hunky husband who gives me all his money now looks more like a crazy, chaotic life raising my 16 year old son, with Cody the psychiotic dog, and Jack the cat instead of the hunky husband.   There aren't many Pottery Barn decorations, just piles of laundry, backpacks from school, boxes of grape sports drink and XS energy drinks, or remnants of what used to be the box chewed into cardboard pieces all over the front room.   Sweaty white gym socks, yellow labrador retriever hair evenly distributed in every square inch, different varieties and shapes of half chewed dog toys and bones, the basketball used in the neighborhood dunk contest last Tuesday, wii game controllers, guitar hero guitars, a sunburst Epiphone electric guitar with a very large extremely loud electric guitar amp.   Today my dreams now involve things like being told when and where my son is going before he leaves and coming home sometime at least within the same calendar day he said he would. This year to have a report card with a passing grade in that English class we have taken three times now.  I dream of decisions being made to actually go to school all of the days that school is in session, or at least enough to receive that high school diploma next year.   I dream of Glacier Peak High School without any teenage girls, or at least any that my son would be interested in.   I dream of peaceful nights without midnight runs to Taco Bell for cheesy double beef burritto and double layer nachos.   I dream of a kitchen without empty pizza boxes, ice cream cartons, and cheetos bags.  My financial dreams are now getting through an entire month with enough in my checkbook to pay the electric bill and the water bill both on time without overdrawing.  In the future my visions are a home with doorknobs on ALL the doors and a microwave that actually has a handle to open it with! Wow, wouldn’t it be great!

So, this is my so called life! Real Life as a teen mom turned thirty-something still single, doing her best to raise a teenage son.  Long gone is the cute guy, my third period American Literature infatuation who sat in the second row. I look like a woman outside but still feel like that seventeen year old girl full of dreams, trying to figure out the meaning of life, walking the halls of Ingraham High in 1993.  Only now I have fine lines, an electric bill and I live with a 16 year old boy (that looks strangely similar to that guy in third period American Literature class), a 1 year old yellow labrador retriever, and a cat named Jack!
I am not sure where this is blog is going to go, but it should be quite a journey.  Feel free to add comments, encouragement, advice, empathy, Prozac, I mean Advil, jokes, whatever.   Don't expect a large amount of great advice and deep profound wisdom, or the secret to raising a teenager and keeping your sanity, because between you and me I really don’t have a clue what I’m doing and I'm pretty sure I might have already lost my sanity! Here We Go!