Edgy Mama

I’m having a bit of trouble adjusting to Wordpress. I have yet to successfully load a properly-sized photo. And I need a Flickr badge and to get my Blogads and Google ads into the sidebar. And I need a “Buy an Edgy Mama T-shirt” page–not that anyone seems to want one. Blah, blah, blah.

I haven’t had much time because I somehow ending up trying to write four articles this week. Luckily, I managed to talk my editor at Mt. X into letting me postpone the deadline for one of the stories, so I can wait another week until I need to panic and start working the phone.

Otherwise, we’ve had exploding toilets, dog barf, tummy aches, and heinie rashes here at the pnav. The toilet exploded when I flushed it and a huge air bubble popped the water refill hose out of the tank where it sprayed down the bathroom and then leaked under the floorboards into the basement. The damn city keeps turning off the water while they dig up all the yards in the neighborhood looking for a disappeared water line. Then the pipes pass humongous air bubbles that are strong enough to explode the tank.

The dog barf seems to be a result of Biscuit’s eating stuff he’s not supposed to (grass, small plastic toys, marbles). The tummy aches are excuses to try to avoid school or other potentially unpleasant activities. The heinie rash is from the antibiotics which fixed the impetigo but also decimated the happy colon flora.

So, I’m ready for the weekend. Even though I’m sure it will bring new challenges. But I might get some sleep.

Thank you all for the e-mails of concern and despair. For the past two days, clicking on edgymama.com has taken you to a website for golf carts. And not just any golf carts, but those marketed only to fluent Latin scholars.

Needless to say, my transfer from Blogger to Wordpress is not going smoothly. Server problems, possibly Charter problems, DNS transfer delays. You understand. The Internets, she is a fickle mistress. And I prefer men.

Soon, I hope, the new Edgy Mama will emerge–smoother, cleaner, and with more cowbell.

Thanks for your patience and for letting me give notice here. Stay tuned. xoxoxo

(Kind of crossposted from Blogasheville.)

Last night’s late night drama was the election upset. If you’re not in Ashvegas, you probably don’t give a damn about city council elections, so you can skip this paragraph. If you’re here, and you didn’t vote yesterday, you’re irresponsible and I’m officially upset with you. Voter turnout was low and the progressives lost a seat to a Repub with no political experience. For more incisive analysis and real numbers, y’all can visit the AC-T, Scrutiny Hooligans or Ashvegas.

The past several nights have seen a remarkable variety of late night drama (LND) at the pnav: including the fire department, the police, midnight cat visits, and prodigious cat vomit.

Four nights ago, I was reading in my jammies, snuggling with Biscy the Dorkie Poo, when bright lights flashed through my bedroom window. I lifted the blind and saw Fire Truck #7 at my doorstep and three fire fighters moving quickly up the front walk. I called to E-spouse, who was in his office working. We both threw on some clothes and ran downstairs as the fire fighters pounded on the door.

Turned out that a 911 call had come from our house–from, specifically, E’s work phone. The fire fighter told us that cordless phones often erroneously call 911 when they are off the charger and their battery’s dying. I couldn’t get from him why this happens. Is the phone calling for help? Asking to be restored to the charger, please? Or do cordless phones call 911 after a certain amount of time in case their owners have died and are being eaten by their Dorkie Poo?

Anyway, E had made an international call and must’ve dialed 911 instead of O11 by accident. Then, when his call didn’t go through, he tried again, so the 911 dispatcher couldn’t get through to ask if he’d meant to call for assistance.

The fire fighters were understanding and left. Then, 10 minutes later, a policeman showed up. He hadn’t received the “it’s okay” call from the fire department or the dispatcher or whomever calls the other responders off. He’d already circled the house and asked E-spouse for identification and for details as to who was upstairs. I was back in bed and decided not to get up and get re-dressed again. I considered yelling “Help!” but I realized the police might not find that funny.

Anyway, E clearly did not seem suspicious, and when the policeman saw Biscy, he warned E that he’d left the back gate open. Good to know.

The next night some neighbor’s cat got in through the cat door, which is locked so Houdini, the fractured feline, can’t escape. First Rocky freaked out and started doing that deep in his throat howling thing that sounds like a baby crying. That freaked Biscy out, who ran around the house like a mad dog, barking and howling, until he cornered this sweet little black cat. The cat clearly belonged to someone, although it was collarless. When I opened the front door, the cat haughtily slinked out, ignoring the territorial little dog howling at his heels.

Seeing the cat leave the pnav was not enough for the Bisc because he could still smell the damn cat. Bisc then proceeded to sniff around and bark spasmodically for another hour. At 1 a.m. Finally, I wrestled the puppy to sleep by holding him on my stomach in the bed and scruffing him every time he started to bark. After 1/2 an hour of fighting me, he finally settled down and went to sleep. There are, definitely, some advantages to having a small dog. I don’t imagine I could have wrestled a Lab to sleep.

The next night (yes, it continues), Rocky the sumo cat overate and vomited all over the dining room rug. Which my girl didn’t notice when she stepped in the sick, in her slippers, and tracked it all over the house. My boy did notice it when he stepped in it barefoot. Anyway, I spent about an hour cleaning up cat vomit. It’s amazing how much a 20-pound cat can spew.

So tonight I’m looking for quiet. No more late night drama would be great. Have you had any LND lately?

I brought Houdini home late today. He seems much better than he was yesterday, in that his breathing is less labored. The vet’s concern has been that he hasn’t eaten on his own, but once at home, I got him to eat some torn-up bits of cheese.

Houdini is happy to be home, but he’s not happy about the crate. He cried quite a bit at first, which upset the kids. Now he’s calmed down. He did manage, even, to drag himself into the tiny litter box, but then he spazzed out and got litter in his food and water bowls and all over the crate. The lady at the cat store told me to go with this certain type of litter because of its absorbency, but I might need some of the recycled newspaper pellets. They’re bigger and less likely to get kicked all over the place by a cat with a fractured pelvis. Plus it’s always fun to let your feline piss on yesterday’s news.

Thus, this week, I become Nurse Jane Fuzzy-Wuzzy in a big way. Imagine a giant muskrat caring for a small cat. All I need is the full-sized white apron that Nurse Jane wore. Nurse Jane Fuzzy-Wuzzy is a character from “Uncle Wiggily’s Storybook,” which was one of my favorites as a child. Uncle Wiggily is a rabbit gentleman who dresses quite nattily in a top hat and carries a cane. Nurse Jane Fuzzy-Wuzzy is his sidekick and a muskrat. The twosome have adventures and teach life lessons to the animal children of the forest.

At one point, I tried reading some of the Uncle Wiggily stories to my kidlings, but they found them rather dull.

Anyway, I’m feeling rather dull in the head so I think it’s time for bed. Anyone have any ideas for my parenting column this week?

So far, October has been a better month than September, and yes, I know it’s only the third day of the month. And I have a cold. Which I could blame on Fliss, but I know I contracted it from my 6-year-old, who has been snotty for several days.

But at least, so far this month, I’ve had no run-ins with the police or any criminals who want to steal from me. E-spouse thinks it’s funny now to ask me at the end of the day: “Get in any trouble today?” Not until you asked that question, guy.

Several of you guys have lamented the lack of literature on the bloggie lately. I have been reading, but I haven’t had much energy to write about reading. But I’ll throw you a few tidbits.

My best read of the summer was “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy. The book is a depressingly realistic post-apocalyptic survival story. And it’s fricking beautifully written. I cried three times while reading it. I had to go back and read certain sentences over and over. On practically every page, McCarthy describes the gray blandness of the new, ash-filled world, yet every time, on every page, he uses new and different ways to describe the same views. Incredible.

At the moment I’m reading Elizabeth McCracken’s “All Over but Niagara Falls,” which lots of bookie friends told me to read. I’m enjoying it, although it doesn’t have the combination of great writing and page-turning appeal that I truly love.

Next to my side of the bed is a small bookshelf, which holds about 40 books, depending on how I pile them. This is my “to read” bookshelf. I like to lie in bed and gaze at the titles and wonder which book I’ll get to devour next. It’s almost as good as lying next to shelves filled with candy. If I didn’t have kids and small doggies that would be tempted by any visible sweets, I might set up the top shelf of the bookcase with candy, while leaving the bottom for books. How great could life be?

Anyway, I was thinking that I’d let you, my readers, pick the next novel I read. I’m going to give you three titles, and each of you gets to vote for one in the comments, then I’ll read that book, and, I promise, write a review of it on the bloggie.

Vote for one of the following by number or title:

1. After Dark by Haruki Murakami.
2. Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky.
3. Cataloochee by Wayne Caldwell.

Caldwell, of course, is the local writer. I saw him sweeping in front of his store just yesterday. Just realized that the other two novels are translations, one from Japanese and one from French. All received good reviews.

So, friends, which book should be next for Edgy?

There’s going to be a lot of me in tomorrow’s Mountain Xpress, Asheville’s weekly alternative newspaper. Luckily, there will be no photos of me. Although I’m a little hurt that they didn’t want any photos of me. Even though I’ve gained five pounds. Which is probably why none of the other Asheville bloggers want to see me naked.

Really, I’ve got to stop eating or something. That’s at the top of my to-do list. Stop eating. What’s up with me gaining five pounds before my high school reunion, which is in mid-October? I’m supposed to lose five pounds, before I gained five pounds, which makes the math really suck.

No, I haven’t been blogging much, but I’ve been writing like a fiend. I promise to get back to you with more bloggie goodness soon. One of the problems with being a freelancer is that you’re always pitching story ideas, and then when editors say “yes, great idea, and here’s your deadline,” you say, “Hurrah” until you look at your calendar and see that you already have three articles/columns due that same week, sometimes two on the same day (today). And then you scramble. And you run around all day doing interviews and taking photos and making phone calls and waiting for sources to call you back. Then you write all night. And you hound your braintrust friends to edit your stories, and say, “Can you do it like right now, pretty please? Because I need to turn it in before I take the kids to swim lessons and cook dinner and pretend I have a life away from this laptop.”

Then you have a week where you get pulled over by the cops twice in one day, on the day before you have an appointment at the DMV to get your stolen driver’s license replaced. And you end up with only one ticket, but it’s a “you must show up for night court” ticket, even though you’ll probably get off because your record is as clean as the inside of your washing machine. Because you haven’t been pulled over by the po-lice in 22 years, and how they managed to find you twice in one day is just beyond comprehension.

And then you wrench your back. Getting out of bed. Which reminds you that you should not get out of bed on Sunday morning, ever. No, no, no. But the drugs are working. Kind of. Except at the end of the day when you’re writing furiously to meet deadline. And wanting to say “hi” to your bloggie buds.

Below are notes taken verbatim from my girl’s “clue-finding” notebook. She wrote these this afternoon. Parenthetical remarks are mine.

* Stolen wallet and phone at the place where mom’s interview. (actually, it was where mom was doing volunteer work).

* When mom carried the art upstairs.

* He saw a few people leaving to go to bojagles. (She means Bojangles, home of artery-clogging fried chicken).

* The person that stole the phone turned the phone off.

* the man heard the bell so he ran up stairs.

* two people leaving.

* the people could steal the wallet because maybe they ran out of money and stolen the wallet to buy food at bojagles.

* the person that stolen the wallet and the phone lift no sign of evidence.

* not even footprints.

(And then mom spent three hours on the phone, the land line, cancelling and suspending, reporting and speculating. Luckily, Cam Jansen Jones is on the job).

One reason I love writing about small businesses and entrepreneurs is that I have a big, wet, soft spot for underdogs of any and all varieties. I know I’m supposed to be objective, but I want these folks to make it, particularly the ones who’ve put everything on the line for a lifelong dream. I heart that kind of commitment and persistence big.

Then every once in a while, I end up talking to a small business person who is haughty and self-righteous and says not nice things about my underdog friends, and it ruins my day, so I have to go out and drink four beers instead of two. Four beers on a tummy holding just a bit of popcorn and a peppermint stick. But the beers made me happy and silly and unable to sleep. Of course, the boy woke me up three times as well, which he rarely does anymore. The last time was at 5:30 a.m., and neither of us went back to sleep.

Now I’ve got this sour beer in my tummy feeling and I’m too tired to focus, although I need to pack up the Mommy van to drive myself, the kidlings, and the Biscuit to Atlanta this afternoon. Where, luckily, I will be seeing and staying with old friends, including my best friend from high school and college and my best friend from when I lived in London, who now lives in Addis Abbaba, so when her family is anywhere within an 800-mile vicinty of mine, I try to see them.

Meanwhile E-spouse is schmoozing in Sweden. The e-mail I got from him yesterday said he was hanging out with the Queen of Jordan and she’s HOT. That’s the kind of e-mail I get while I’m feeding and driving and getting up in the middle of the night with his kids.

Have a great weekend, y’all.