Late last night I saw one ant in my kitchen, so I wasn’t too surprised to wake up to the superhighway of ants on the counter this morning. We haven’t had any in the house in a couple of years, but we used to all the damn time. They don’t really need to eat anything; they just cruise around excitedly waving their antennae all over. I say that, but these ants today were having a little party on the bit of strawberry left sitting in the sink. Used to be they’d just come in from a crack in the baseboard and make a line that went under the dishwasher. (Dude. I just googled ants to see if they were carpenter ants. I may NEVER stop shivering. Ewww. Ick. Yuck. FullBodyShudder.) They’d generally show up with heavy rain, high temps (like now), or um, if there were ever any scrambled egg bits left anywhere in the kitchen, which used to happen more when a high chair was in use here.
They *love* eggs.
Anyway. This morning there was an ant superhighway and I looked at it and sighed and was all, Damnit, now I have to kill you. Which, you know, makes me feel bad, because not only are they working so hard (!) but one time I heard an interview with one of the Zappa kids (MoonUnit, I think) where she said that her father never, ever killed ants but instead lovingly shepherded them out.
Me? I went for the poisonous bait (Grant’s Kills Ants!), poked the gelled toxic crap with a toothpick to make sure they could get to it, and then stood there drinking my coffee and watching them find the poison and tell their friends. I couldn’t help myself; suddenly I was hissing at them, Ha ha ha! Die you little fuckers!
Maybe I need to switch from yoga to kickboxing and get some of that aggression out of my system?
Later, after several hours in the office, I left work a little early to go to the dentist to get two fillings. I have teeny cavities, nothing bad really, but they need to be fixed before they get bad. Either that or my dentist doesn’t want to hurt my self-esteem. He’s all Noooooo, your teeth! they’re great! Really! It’s OKAY! No worries! But, um, come back in a month, okay, so I can put in three more fillings and fix that cracked tooth.
It was a really shitty way to spend the afternoon, with a bit of foam wedged into the back of my mouth to keep my jaw open while he fixed the two cavities between my molars. And now it’s sore and I’m crabby and it’s hot and I can’t sleep. It was funny, though, at the dentist, because he was all, So? HOW many kids do you have again? and I said, Four. And he said, And now you work full-time, too, right? And I said, Yes, I do, and HE SAID, Hahaha, so this is your relaxation time! And I’m all WORD. Then he said that my jaw was tense, asked if I was stressed, and kneaded my jaw muscles for a minute so I could open my mouth up enough to not bite his fingers off. Also? Many jokes were made about how I got there late and they rushed me back and I was all Hey, wait! I totally need to brush my teeth, and he was all, Eh – I can deal. And I said, Um, no. Dude, I had carne asada tacos for lunch. And he goes, Eh, I have TOOLS. And then while he was drilling and putting the fillings in he kept saying, LET ME JUST GET THIS MEAT OUT OF THE WAY. And I laughed like this: garhahagar, because my mouth was full of cotton and shit to bite down on and sharp objects and drills. Also, don’t you totally hate how they smush your face over to one side to get to the back of your mouth and you just know that your nose is like, practically inside out, and all your nose hairs are just sitting there for the dentist to have to look at? I want to ask for a little hankie or something next time.
When I came home my mouth was still numb, but it was time to be at Back to School night, so off we went and I didn’t get to eat, or – more importantly – drink, anything before we left. They were sneaky and had the PTA meeting sandwiched in between the lower and upper grades’ presentations, so we went. The people running it are all nice and everything, but honestly? that’s all the good I have to say about PTA meetings. They make me want to sneak out for a smoke. I don’t smoke anymore (cloves don’t count, right?) though, so instead I text messaged with Jenny and cut out of the meeting early. It was totally just like that time in high school where I cut Latin class and went and walked around. Really.
By the time we got home at 8:36, I was starving and in desperate need of a beer. Willow and I sat at the table after I poured her some milk. She ate her cold, leftover pizza, and I had chips with hummus and salsa for dinner. We talked about her day a little and she stopped midway through telling me about playing musical chairs and said, Who made the world? The sun? And were the dinosaurs killed by a big rock? Some people think so. I think the world was made by the sun and that a rock killed the dinosaurs because today I saw dinosaur skin in the drain at the Y (day care).
I looked at her and said, C’mere. Let me smell your milk.
It seemed fine, so I guess she was just asking weird questions. I told her that I didn’t know who made the world, but that if she wanted to believe it was the sun, I’d buy that for a dollar. How’d you know it was dinosaur skin in the drain? I asked her. Oh, she said, because it was green.
Huh, I said. You learn something new every day.
Wow, what a day you had. I have drunk the kool-aide here and actually volunteer with the PTO (weirdos here have an o instead of an a). The meetings are a snore fest though.
Thanks for all you kind wishes for our safety. We made it through the hurricane just fine, no damages at our house. It was an ordeal to have to drive 400 miles and wait it out, hopefully next time I will be able to relax and enjoy the “vacation”. Your kindness means so much to me.
Kick boxing does sound like a good idea!
FWIW, Dweezil is the coolest of all Zappa’s (exluding Frank of course)
you are totally freakin’ awesome!
i hope your sore mouth feels better and the non-bloggable stuff gets easier soon.
I have read your blog ever since I found it via Postsecret. I read a few that were supporting Hopeline that week and really only stuck with yours.
Just thought I’d let you know that you have friends across the country and that this whole post made me laugh my butt off.
I don’t want to alarm you, but I think your kindergartner is smoking pot. Because my old college roommate used to ask me questions like that ALL the time. 😉
Green! Of course!