She don't need no stinkin' 2nd grade

Tuesday was Margaret's last day of school. She passed the second grade with flying colors ... not that kids really pass grades anymore, but instead get shuffled onward regardless of their progress, but I'm not in the mood for ranting about our failed education system right now.

I'm just glad school is out for summer. Now Bill is on duty.

I love summers. I get to have lunch AND dinner with my family every day, regardless of the fact that I'm the only one that has to get up early during the week.

Mar's going to be in third grade next year at a new school. I wrote about that over here.

I feel like I can finally exhale. No more classes, no more writing curriculum (OK, I will be writing curriculum for the 19th c. class I'm teaching in the fall, but I'm not counting that) and no more worrying about homework or piano lessons.

Thank gravy for summer.

Tot awesomeness

Saturday, Bill and our neighbor, Greedy, were playing what I like to call "hockey pucky." Hockey players call it "stick and puck" — I think they smoke too much crack. Hockey pucky is so much more awesome and can be used interchangeably with "sticky pucky."

So Bill and Greedy were at the ice rink. Greedy's wife, Sarah, and I decided to ride our bikes with our kids down the mosquito-laden riverfront trail and skeetch off at the rink to see the boys play hockey pucky.

We gathered up the kids and off we were.

It was a looooong, but completely awesome ride.

When we came up on the back of the ice rink we debiked and tumbled over the dirt and debris between the trail and the rink parking lot. Those 90 seconds saw us each get eaten alive by mosquitoes. Ick.

We parked the bikes and walked in to find the Zamboni on the ice and the boys not. They had just finished. Doh!

Oh well. We decided to have a cook out to celebrate a friend's college graduation. As we were planning the details, Greedy said, "We've got tots."

Margaret immediately chimed in, "Hey Napoleon, gimme some of your tots."

She's more awesome than I could ever imagine.

I wonder why ...

I wonder why I never posted this picture of Laurena from the Fruita Fat Tire Festival:


I know, we are the epitome of classy.

Last night at practice we were working on a new original song that is based on a certain reality TV show. While Rock of Love was airing, discussion of each episode took up much rehearsal time. To say we enjoyed this show is the understatement of the year ... we reveled in the jacked up nature of this train wreck.

And to show our love for all things Bret Michels (thank you Bret Michaels), we're including references to our favorite parts of season 1 and 2 of Rock of Love in our new song.

That's right, Riveter is uber-classy.

Oh, we love acting out this SNL spoof, way too much:

At least I'm not sweaty

Throb, throb, throb ...

My eyes opened early this morning and it was excruciating.

Pound, pound, pound ...

Argh, my head.

I tried going back to sleep because I'm stupid and lazy, but the pain was overwhelming.

I stumbled to the hall closet and began to blindly search for migraine drugs. Bill came to my rescue and handed me the box of gold-plated pills (OK, they aren't gold-plated, but they cost enough to be. 20 bucks a pill is just crazy, drug-company people. Make Viagra $20 a pill. Give us our migraine pills on the cheap, ffs.)

I choked down a pill and fell back into bed.

Ten minutes later the nausea brigade were doing a dance in my gut. Thank all things lucky that I still had some nausea medication left over from my fun bout with the stomach flu.

Once I start puking from a migraine, I always end up on the losing end of an IV in the emergency room. (I once had an ER doctor say to me, "Oh yeah, you're migraine puker." Neat! I'm the migraine puker. Good times.)

I choked down another pill, sent my boss an e-mail telling him I'd be late to work then buried myself in my pillows waiting for the evil to leave my body.

Migraines can kiss all three of my asses.

So, no bike ride for me ... but today I am far less sweaty.

Still biking it

I've always been envious of people who can ride their bikes to work. I love riding my bike, but have been too afraid of looking like a dork in my work clothes to actually do it myself.

Then I realized I always look like a dork anyway so why not just go full-on dork.

Yep, I rode my bike to work again today. It's been four days since I've driven or even ridden in a car. And I came oh-so close to biffing it scared the bejeezers out of me.

I was trying to adjust the location of my water bottle in my basket when I took both hands off the handle bars ... uh, hello stoopit, 'the hell? Luckily I have cat-like reflexes when faced with eminent road rash and I saved myself.

The wild wobble just adds to my dork allure, I'm sure.

I don't think it's going to last much longer, as it's supposed to be 95 degrees today. But whatever.

Not only have I been logging the miles on the bike, but Mar has, too. I wrote about how I spent the weekend nagging her over here.

More proof my sanity is closer than ever to being theoretical

The following is a conversation between me and the iced tea sitting in my bike's basket on the way back to work after lunch:

Me to iced tea(out loud so everyone who thought I was a dork for riding my bike to work would have more proof they were correct): Oh no! Why do you keep popping your lid off?

Iced tea (not to be confused with Ice T — whose real name, by the way, is Tracy ... huh): Splash, splash, spill.

Me: Doh. Come on, now. Keep your lid on. We're almost there.

Iced tea: Pop. Spill.

Me: Oh man, my tea's spilling (this was said to no one and hopefully that's who heard me talking to my cup of iced tea while I rode my bike back to work).

Iced tea: Dribble, dribble.

Me: Why did I even bother trying to bring a drink with me.

Why me?

Why do I have to be the one who talks to my kid about sex? Can't she just learn about it from her friends or read about it in the dictionary?

Gah! Sometimes being the mom is a bum rap.

Click here to read about the awkward conversation I had with my kid about s-e-x.

Cockroach induced screaming

From the "It's a small world" files, I got this e-mail from a friend about the video I posted yesterday of the weatherman freaking out over the cockroach on his foot:

I worked with that company during that freak out. The weatherman was with SNN, and I worked for the same company. Management freaked out when it started circling. The guy apparently got a ton of offers, including Leno, but they told him they would fire him if he accepted. The guy who leaked the footage totally got fired.

So to the dude who got fired, thanks. Thanks for sacrificing your job so we could laugh at that dude screaming like a girl over a bug. It was totally worth it ... for me.

And I would like to note that we have no bug-related incident at band practice last night and only one incident of Boom Boom, our dude drummer, shaking his head in disgust when we refused to listen to his lesson on music theory.

We're rockin' chicks, we don't need no stinkin' music theory.