Don't bother me I'm writing

I'm an unhappy riser -- anyone who's ever had to wake me up will attest to this. They might go a step farther and tell you I'm a belligerent, rabid b**ch in the A.M. I am -- especially when I wake up late. Mornings have always been a challenge. And most people know better than to pick a fight with me while the gunk is fresh in my eyes. But for whatever reason my husband -- once again -- strays from the pack in this arena. Too bad for me -- I've given him a buttload of ammunition since I started this blog. And there, of course, is the downside to admitting your foibles to the world. Someone will undoubtedly turn them around on you, and you -- like me in many a heated argument -- will be completely disarmed by your clever diction. And so I was this morning. I woke to my daughters screaming playfully, but alarmingly loud in the bathtub. The time on the clock was 8:10 a.m. giving Lily just 25 minutes to get dressed, fed and out the door to school. And seeing as ...

Oh, to have some time and peace and quiet. I wonder what it would feel like to not hear any voices all day -- to not be asked to wipe someone's butt, or blow someone's nose. I'm on break, but it's not really a break. Anyone with children knows that the work away from home is the break. You don't get lunches at home -- you don't even get bathroom breaks. You can try to close the door, but someone will barge in on you:  "I have an emergency. My sister yelled at me, and I told her not to." Or, "The cat is under the bed, and she won't come out." Or, "I can't find my Lalaloopsy doll." Or, "Daddy yelled at me for breathing." The joys of being home with children. I can see why housewives take to drinking. I'd have gin and cocktail olives for breakfast every morning with orange juice and vodka, if I wasn't operating under the delusion that I'll block out something here and there to work on my 50,0...

Husbands and wives kill each other over money and other little things like sex and kids and the division of household labor. It got me thinking that perhaps Jerod and I have been looking at our financial struggles all wrong. There's little to be gained should one of us dismember the other -- some peace and quiet maybe. Beyond that there's debt, homework, dirty diapers, tantrums and tattle tailing, none of which any sane person wants to deal with alone. As long as we're poor the chances that Jerod or I will meet a suspicious end are negligible. The holidays put me on this train of thought, because Christmas time has set the stage for many a knock-down-drag out in our household. Take our first Christmas as a marital unit. A wife might expect something special under the tree -- a sentimental, thoughtful gift -- to remind her for years to come of that first magic Christmas she spent with her husband.  My husband returned from Wal-Mart that year with his broth...

Saturday marked a new low for Jerod and me -- enrollment in the doesn't-get-out-much club for broke married people with children. We were guests at a wedding. A beautiful wedding on a boat in Seattle with free food and -- insert the Imperial Margarine music here -- an open bar. This was a big letter day for the Bacharach-Trenchard duo, because we never go out anymore -- two kids, no money, no energy -- blah, blah, blah. Case and point: Our last date was more than a year ago -- dinner out. I was on the rag. Our social life features delivery pizza, on-demand movies and comfy dinners with friends and family. We have no complaints, but it's nice to go out now and then.   I'd marked the wedding on our calendar in red marker with hearts and stars and smiley faces. It could have been our wedding for all the fuss we made. But -- as I said -- we hadn't done a proper date in ages. It was nice having something special to look forward to. We dug our fancy clothes out o...

I'm a lot like Pigpen -- the Peanuts kid beleaguered by filth. I'm messy. I cook messy, do my hair and makeup messy, get dressed messy, fix my coffee messy -- I clean messy. My husband hates it, and I  hate that he follows me all over the house to catch me in the act of making messes -- and the moment I turn my back on something that's not where it belongs he jumps out like a jack-in-the-box and scolds me. It drives me insane -- explode-out-of-my-skin homicidally insane. It occurred to me last night while I was angrily rolling out a pie crust -- swearing because the dough was too warm -- that Jerod -- my husband  -- is my Grandma Kay's revenge. She popped into my head first because she'd disapprove of my swearing. Then in mid chuckle -- my mind's eye picturing my grandmother clap her hands and chirp something disciplinary like "don't be so ugly" or "I'm very disappointed" -- I felt something soft and slippery glop between my ...

I stood in a hospital maternity room 14 years ago -- only half horrified at the entire birth process -- waiting to meet my best friend's daughter, Miss Lauren Eloise. This bundle of blue-eyed joy filled the fortunate or unforunate role -- depending on your point of view -- of First Baby in our small family of friends. I like to think of Lauren as my unofficial third daughter, my almost niece and -- when she's not calling me the "meanest person on the planet" -- my friend. These blessings are mine more than hers. She's put up with a lot from me, though I'm confident she'll eventually pay me back for the teasing and practical jokes. My experience then with little people -- as an only child and having been a terribly irresponsible teenager -- was rather limited. My name was on nobody's list of approved babysitters. So Lauren was my first stab at being parentish or auntish -- not that her mother needed or even wanted my assistance. I forced ...

My first car was a silver 1982 Buick Skylark, named Kim after a girl I couldn't stand from school. She was great as far as piece-of-crap clunkers go. She only required a quart of oil every 20 miles, so everything I owned -- an ankle deep collection of clothing, school work, handbags, shoes, fast food wrappers and unidentifiable trash -- was splattered with greasy dribbles from near-empty containers of 5W40. The radiator was more temperamental than the engine, forcing me to run the heater full blast on the hottest days of summer to prevent the bitch from overheating. This fine bargain of an automobile that my parents bought me a few months shy of my 19th birthday seized up on our first road trip together a few miles west of North Bend stranding me on the side of I-90 with my friend, Erika. Several state troopers passed us up before a kindly trucker stopped to help. He suggested that I pour ice-cold water directly into the radiator that was s...

Last night -- when I started this post fully intending to publish it by my self-imposed deadline of 11:59 p.m. Monday through Friday (Saturdays and Sundays are optional) -- I was watching How to Train Your Dragon with Ashlyn. This was worth celebrating as it marked our apparent graduation from the Deathly Hallows and Michael Myers to something light and cheerful. We've watched the first installment of the final Harry Potter story some 20 times since it's Oct.8 premier on HBO. It's the only thing to do in my bedroom as far as Ashlyn's concerned. Every Saturday and Sunday morning -- every weekday afternoon upon my arrival home from work -- Ashlyn leads me up the stairs chanting "Ha-we Potta, Mommy. Ha-we Potta."  If I'm in my room writing I can set my clock by the protests that go on in the hallway outside. The muffled giggle and thunk-thunk of a small fist hitting my door are followed by a few moments of quiet, in which I can hear her breaths getti...

There's a song I like to sing when I'm having a bad day. It mentions chain saws and ripping people's heads off and fat lips and blood stains. And that's how I'm feeling right now for no particular reason other than I'm tired and my house is a mess and my kids are noisy and my husband farts too much and I haven't gotten any substantial writing done in weeks. Boo hoo -- right? I have this block of wood that I salvaged from the scrap pile when Jerod -- my bless-ed husband -- framed in our basement in Pullman. It's about the size of a brick, and I picked it up one night after Jerod and I had a knock-down-drag-out over something really important like a wad of my hair in the bathtub or his tapered Levis that made him look like a 50-year-old Bible salesman. I wanted a bat, but all I could find was a block of wood. I kicked it across the garage a couple of times. I beat it with a hammer, and I kicked it some more. I needed a comeback to whatever zinger sent...