Tuesday, November 10, 2009

It's really not about olives

So I had planned to blog about how my babes LOVE black olives. I bought a case of Lindsay black olives (the very best brand) at Costco...and there was some eye rolling from my husband who happens to loathe black olives, but I have successfully produced two offspring who love black olives just like their Mama. My little sister has this thing about being an olive lover or a non olive lover, and how we come from a family of 5 olive lovers to 1 non olive lover. The two olive lover kids that have been married, somehow have married two non olive lovers and this had brought down the ratio of olive lovers to non olive lovers. I am happy to report that I have fixed the ratio again to the proper balance in the force with my two happy olive loving babes.

So this is not about olives...really. It is actually about adding another horrible day to my list. I feel that I have these really out of control days where there are these crazy out of the ordinary things that happen...as I become heavy with child. It never fails! When I was pregnant with Fiona I had that horrid day when Iain split his eye open and we thought he had crushed his leg so he needed a radio graph and I spent some good time freaking out in the E.R. Then, also pregnant with Fiona, our water almost got shut off. So I was traipsing around town, with a heavy pregnant belly and an equally heavy not yet 2 year old trying to pay our water bill at the city offices. They were less than helpful.

Today, we started out with this great idea of a bike ride out to see Husband for lunch. My attempt to ween ourselves away from Husband after a week of stay-cation was going to give us an outing with a picnic. We read a pile of books before going, so that took away my bike time, so we piled in the car to leave and whirrrwhirrwhirrwhirr the car was dead. Lovely. Just lovely! How could this be? So a long day's worth of phone calls to AAA and waiting for the jump, refusing the $122 offer of a new battery put in right in the convenience of my own garage which seemed like a rip-off actually was!! I drove over to my new friends at Auto Zone and they told me that my battery is totally fine and not the dead, wasted cell that the stupid crooks at West Side Auto Pros claimed my lifeless battery was. I can say that WSAP are dirty filthy crooks because this is not the first time that they have tried to screw us over on car repairs. They are bad dogs for sure.

The most refreshing part of my below average day was the honesty and forthright truth from a decent person. Eric told me "I don't work on commission, and I would love to sell you all of the things that you would need, but you don't need this!" He had checked my battery twice and it gave a good report...twice. I love it when people don't try to talk me into something that I don't need!! It makes me trust them and respect them as well!! Plus, without selling me anything, I will become a customer. Easy as pie.

So this post, is not about the black olives, and still not about the faulty battery. Instead, it is about my little mischief maker. I could be blaming this dead battery on my own personal, and compact Curious George, but it is highly likely that when I caught him in the driver's seat, something could have been switched over and turned into a "parasitic drain" on the battery. Husband or I could have made a mistake as well...however, let me share the situations that George has been responsible for, which has caught us with that stupid "How the heck did that happen" look.
  • The mild things like leaving food in "hiding" places around the house, are still mild, but everything has a start, and I would say that hiding a chunk of banana in my asparagus steamer for...how many days? We will never know. It was just that horrible smell that had to be tracked down by detective mom.
  • It made no sense as to why I would be taking the first shower of the day, and I have some warm water starting out, and then the water continued to get colder and colder and ICE cold. What could have happened? Oh yeah, George flipped the switch on the hot water heater in the basement. So Husband had the task of lighting the pilot light after I rewashed a couple loads of dishes in the dishwasher and thawed out from my shower. And yes, I most likely had shampoo residue in my hair. This turning off the hot water heater has happened at least twice now, and maybe I have blocked out the third time.
  • This summer, I reached into the ice dispenser to find a bunch of wet sticky ice. Very peculiar. I thought very little of it for a few hours, and then when I went to check again, I noticed that the ice cubes were stickier and wetter! Yes. He turned the freezer AND the refrigerator off.
  • The crock pot dinner, that wasn't done by dinner had been shut off at some point during the day.
  • The thermostat has been switched to OFF as well.
  • Sometimes the dogs, and babes end up outside with no shoes or socks on, and they are all out in the front yard.
What I have realized is that I am really not as OCD as I could be or should be having this little ball of mischief living in my midst. "That's the kind that puts strychnine in the well!" I continue to ask the Lord for a host of angels to protect my little man and little woman from getting into trouble and hurting themselves. They are so clever and silent when they get into trouble...oh yes, I did change my pronoun from him to they. He has an accomplice now. We have found her on top of the table eating leftovers. It only takes a moment of "Where's Iain" or "Where's Fiona?" and they could be standing with both legs and feet submerged in the toilet or covered in face powder and broken eye shadow and tubes of lipstick that are smashed all over the cupboards and smeared on the floor and all over their bodies as well, looking as if they are covered in war paint and ready for battle.Our ratio was good.

It is about to become not so good.