Arrrrrrrrrrr!

Tomorrow be International Talk Like a Pirate Day! I keeps forgettin' an' then I remembers an' I'm happy all over again. I gets a tingly feeling inside like when I tortures someone or plunders somethin'.

Anyway, here's a survey you should go take, thanks to Addie:


You Are A Pirate!


What Type Of Swashbuckler Are You?
brought to you by Maddog Varuka & Dawg Brown

There's girl and boy pictures for each result! Yayyy, boobies. Oh, and go visit my pirate alter-ego on Myspace: The dastardly, deadly, devious (and drop-dead gorgeous--hey, this is a fantasyland pretend identity) Cap'n Musketball Miranda! Scourge of the Sea! Dog of the Deep! Raider of the Fridge!

Anyway, computer and camera are still not getting along and it's all I can do to not bash in the CPU with the camera and hang myself with the USB cord. Mom pointed out that the computer is actually hers, so if I did that she'd be quite upset. That helped.

So I drank a lot of whiskey last night, can you guess what happened this morning? That's right, the munchkin came over for about 30 minutes. April, the teenaged biological mom, was watching her today and got called in to sign some papers for her new job, and by the time she dropped the kid off here she had her throwing a fit. Which I hate. As soon as April left I put her in time out and explained to her that I understood she was unhappy and disappointed, but that if she continued to have a fit we would have NO FUN, while if she would calm down and play nice we would have LOTS of fun and when April came back she'd be jealous and miserable, and also that my poor dad was in the room too and couldn't watch tv until she quit being such a butt. Guess what happened. That's right, we had a blast. She wanted to watch part of a movie so I sent her over to the bookcase to pick one out and she picked Return of the Jedi in deference to my dad (and because she has a major bone for Yoda, who is on the box), and then proceeded to make dad play Barbie Slut Fight (a real game that any child under the age of 9 will spontaneously begin playing the moment you give them a Barbie, even Amish children instinctively know how to do it) until she decided to torment my cat (she's not mean to her, the cat just hates children of any stripe and Sierra looooooves her and follows her around and pets her the wrong way and wants to put her face on her and kiss her). Then April came back and was kind of dissapointed because the kiddo was calm and happy and likely to stay that way all day.

Anyway, go talk like a pirate. The website even has hilarious pirate pick-up lines which I guarantee will work on me.

Babysitting Drama plus Ebay News plus Software Drama =

So, I finished my Shapely Tank, and I managed to catch a photo of the kiddo with pants on her head, and I also got a pic of her (she's two, mind you, and can't read yet) fallen asleep for her nap with a book across her chest, and I can't post any of them here because my computer has decided not to recognize my camera. I've posted many a picture from this same camera before, mind you, but now the computer can't find it (even when I go to "settings" "control panel" "new hardware" and ascertain that the computer can indeed find my camera.)

Never mind, I already cried today over it, there are much better things to cry over, like the various Hurricanes and Tropical Storms that have and are still wreaking havoc across my part of the world. To which I say, come stay at my house, we know when to evacuate and will be going to Austin, not Houston. Really. E-mail me and I'll tell you where to call to get in touch with me. Really.

But my picture thing is still getting me down. I really want to post a picture of Panty-Head with Pants (not panties) on her Head. Just captured today, and totally useless as long as I'm having this problem. She was awesome today, btw. We walked 4 blocks to the hardware store, bought the wrong plunger (how can you buy the wrong plunger? Ask my mom), watched the huge earth-moving equipment building the parking lot for our new grocery store, and walked 4 blocks home, and she was as good as a two-year-old can be. Why would I undertake that kind of walk with a toddler, you ask? Because I asked her if she'd like to go with me or stay home with my mom (my mom is always her preference) and she said go with me, and I asked her if she'd like to walk or go in the car (we walk two blocks to the park every day she's with me because I said so, just like why she does the arm-over-arm monkey bars every day we go to the park--because I'm living my junior-high humiliations through her and obliterating them by the work she does with me to assure she'll never submit to them) and she goes, "I go wi' Ke'ye and WAK, no CAW!"

It took us approximately 1.5 hours to walk 4 blocks, buy the wrong plunger, watch the backhoe and bulldozer and dump truck and flattener and walk back, with all the usual stops at the lawn mower store and the boat store (on the way, we had to walk by them and she fricking loves any kind of specialized equipment) and I loved every minute. Fault me, go ahead. I'm the strictest child-raising-advocate you can find and I fricking LOVED it.

Until I got back and realized we got the wrong plunger. And then there was diarrhea. Yep. And she usually goes home around 4 o'clock, but she didn't go home till 8 tonite. I was ready to fall down. Yet I still knitted her baby doll a hat ("This ma babu, she gost no HAT!") and gave her a bath (After the squirts episode: mom loved spraying her with the movable shower head, I loved getting all the poop off her and we all hated being in proximity to the toilet that hadn't been PROPERLY plunged because I bought the wrong plunger. I wonder what distracted me?) and discussed the movie version of "Horton Hears a Who" with her. Anyway, I'm most proud of finishing my Shapely Tank last night and not putting the munchkin in a dog kennel (I've got one) at 5:30 this evening (shortly after the bath).

Oh, and by the way, my shoes got a bid today and 39 people have looked at them and I really appreciate anything y'all have done to get those stats for me.