December Challenge Day 7

Most restaurants would flip out if they had a rodent infestation. Today Adrian and I went to a place that not only embraces rodents, they have them on payroll!

On Friday, the day Adrian had a melt down at school, I found, stuffed in the bottom of his back pack, an invitation to a classmate’s birthday party. The party was today at Chuck E. Cheeses, and I have to admit I had a lot more fun than I anticipated. Don’t get me wrong. We’re not getting a family fun pass or anything, but yeah. It was a’ight. And the diarrhea hasn’t started yet, so bonus.

Anthony’s mothers started the kids out with a coloring activity. If the kids finished a picture, they were given an additional 12 tokens (3 dollars) to play the games and ride the rides.



We were positioned right next to the animatronic stages, so it made the coloring seem boring. “The Kids” (Adrian and Anthony…and later Lilianna) were more interested in dancing with the robots.



Following subpar pizza and sodas, the kids were cut loose to play for a bit. Anthony and Adrian chased each other around the indoor playscape, and then I was able to coax Adrian onto a few theme rides.



The picture above was a roller coaster adventure. There is a screen in front of the cart and the cart, in theory, is supposed to mimic the actions of the ride. HOWEVER, I was watching from behind and the ride was out of sync with the video. Adrian didn’t seem to notice and had a great time.

I had posted a twitpic when I got there of the delicious candy apples Anthony’s mom had made. I was jealous. I so totally wanted one.



But at least I was able to have some of this cake. Folks, when I tell you this cake was the bomb, it was the bomb-digityest-bomb-bomb of cakes I’ve had in a long time. I wasn’t a huge fan of the icing, but the cake itself was a white cake with a strawberry cream cheese filling and sliced strawberries on top of the cream cheese. I almost nutted in Chuck E. Cheeses. How embarrassing is that?



The absolute best part of the occasion though, was I got to get this very sweet picture of my sweet little boy. I love that kid, and am glad that he’s got friends that will invite him to Chucky’s.



Completely random thought, I just felt a crown fall off in my mouth. JESUS! Seriously? THREE WEEKS BEFORE CHRISTMAS? Why can’t they fall off in March when the IRS pays me back???

$164 yesterday. $88 two weeks ago.

December Challenge Day 6

We were on our way out to dinner last night when we picked up Adrian at school. Not only did he have the shittiest day ever in class (teacher wants ANOTHER parent/teacher conference to discuss his behavior issues), but he also apparently died at the bowling alley in Extend-A-Care for acting like an asshole and the entire group of kids on the field-trip were forced to end their “fun time” early and go back to the school. The three adults were in tears when we got to the school to pick him up because they say he hit the ground face first with such force that they thought he may have fractured a vertebrae or something. I was so angry about his behavior in school that we cancelled our dinner plans and went home instead. I felt like a dick for punishing him after he had a “nearly life-ending experience”, but I sent him to bed…at 6pm…without any dinner…and a stern lecture. Our fun family night out, therefore, ended up being a sack of burgers from What-a-Burger and watching Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer with Nathan while Adrian cried himself to sleep.

This morning Adrian and I were in much better frames of mind. We had a discussion about his shitty behavior through the week, as well as whether or not he was actually hurt from his near death experience. He said that it didn’t even really hurt when he fell. Oh well.

We went to our regularly scheduled Campfire meetings. It had been our first in a few weeks with all the Thanksgiving/Oklahoma travel. (It’s only once a week, IT’S ONLY ONCE A WEEK)

Afterwards I sent Jed to the theater with Nathan to see Bolt again while I kept Adrian home with me. Perhaps I’m punishing him too much? But I don’t know what else to do to get through to him other than putting a remote control shock collar on him and giving the remote to his teacher for Christmas. I’m not really sure what the deal is. I know how he is when I drop him off at school…my sweet little loveable Adrian. But something happens to him between 730 am and 1030 am and his body, mind, and mouth are taken over by Satan.

So after campfire Adrian and I went and did our weekly grocery shopping AND we bought all the supplies to make our Christmas gifts for various teachers/teacher aides/co-workers, etc. I bought TEN bags of pretzels y’all. For real. I loves pretzels. BUT, these ain’t for me, sadly. I’m doing my oft requested asshole burning spicy pretzels (I keep telling folks to eat them first before sticking them up their assholes, but they just don’t learn) and I’m going to make some white/brown chocolate drizzled pretzels as well. A “naughty/nice” pretzel blend, if you will. I also bought stuff to make some slap your momma good caramel corn and cashew brittle and candy cane brittle.

Then we ran to gay-Wal-Mart (Target) to buy some more stuff. We got a last second birthday invitation to one of Adrian’s classmates yesterday (thanks for that advanced warning) at Chuck-e-fucking-Cheese’s of all places. Two of Jed’s knocked up co-workers will be soaking their panties soon, so I got a couple of baby gifts. I got a ton of other shit too that added up to 140 bones, but I can’t honestly remember what it all was. I DO know at one point the cashier was feverishly looking for something and I noticed the screen said “scan gift card now” and she then handed me a $5 giftcard. I asked what it was for, assuming I had been her 100th blow job for the day or something. She said it was because they had merchandise throughout the store that if you bought certain quantities of such you automatically got a giftcard. Apparently the 4 Glade candles I bought netted me a $5 gift card.

So here’s my thought about the current state of financial affairs.

Rather than giving me 5 fucking dollars back for spending $10 on candles, WHY NOT JUST LOWER THE PRICE OF YOUR FUCKING CANDELS BY $1.25? Instead of giving me back $5000 for buying your $32,000 car, WHY NOT JUST PRICE YOUR MERCHANDISE APPROPRTIATELY TO BEGIN WITH? Why bother with 25, 50, or even 75% off sales? Merchants, hear this. WE realize you’re not LOSING money by selling items at 75% off. YOU WOULDN’T BE SELLING IT AT 75% OFF IF IT WERE GOING TO NET YOU A LOSS. Merchants, if you would mark your shit at a reasonable cost to begin with you wouldn’t be having problems getting people through your doors now. Last week I bought two things at Target. I bought a game called “Break the Ice” for Adrian to give to Jed for his birthday. I paid $4 for the game. Today I bought the same game for the party we’re going to tomorrow. I paid $5 for it today. AT BOTH prices Target is still making a profit. AT TWO DOLLARS, Target would probably still make a profit. It infuriates me, ESPECIALLY since I KNOW how much I paid for the fucking game last week the way stores fuck with their prices. MOST INFURIATING…last week I bought a dual screen DVD player for the car (at Target). I paid $88. Jed’s cousin mentioned she wanted one for Christmas. Since I drew her husband’s name for the family gift exchange this year I thought I would get him one. Today, same Target, SAME DVD PLAYER, $164. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? Ford, GM, Chrysler, and any of you other greedy business owners out there (Target dude) can go fuck yourselves. Sorry you’re failing, but quit taking advantage of your customer base. Perhaps that’s why you’re failing. Consumers are tired of your shit.

I think I’ve spread enough cheer here. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

December Challenge Day 5

This will be quick folks. I know you’re ready to get the weekend started. Okay, you may not be ready, but I sure as hell ams.

I did a’ight on the History test last night. Looks like I’ll be pulling a mid-range B out of my ass. And I’m cool with that. Better than a “C”, not as good as an “A”, but hey, two out of three ain’t bad.

I registered for next semester earlier today. Pray for Jed. Pray for me. U-G-L-Y! Oh well.
Adrian has had a shit week at school. I don’t know what his problem is this week. I think that whole “Satan is watching you and knows if you’ve been bad or good” thing is tripping him out. It seems the harder he tries to be good the worse he is (at school). NOW the upside to him being a little shit at school is that he has been so sugary sweet at home!

You know what? That’s good enough for today. Have a weekend folks. Have a weekend.

December Challenge Day 4

NEW POLL!!!
Not for you folks reading this on MySpace, but since I’ve been cross-posting over on Blogspot, this applies to y’all. The rest of you can skip ahead.



Regarding Teddy. 4 of you would like to see me shot. This hurts. . 5 of you think he’s hot enough to nut on. YAAAY us!!! 8 of you are into horse-sex. That’s disgusting. You know you can die from that shit, right??? And 3 of you need to get off the interwebs and watch some news every once in a while.

I’ve posted a new poll (again, over at blogspot) for you to participate in. You only have 5-days, so snap-snap.

B, as in…



This saddens me a little bit.

Tuesday evening I ran by the school to drop off my “A-paper” and to see if my B-paper had been accepted. Class starts at 705. When I walked in the door I was SHOCKED, I tell you, SHOCKED, to see the professor sitting at the desk in the front of the room with ONE other person sitting in the class. And the other boy in the room wasn’t even from MY class, he was from a DIFFERENT class making up time. There were, at the beginning of the semester, 27 people in my class. As I was digging through the pile of manila folders looking for mine I said, “Did all the others just stop coming”? And he said they had. He said the majority of the class was fine with the C’s they had gotten and didn’t care to pursue a B or even an A. I found my folder and was happy to see “B paper accepted 12/02/08” written on the outside. What this means is NOW the minimum I’ll get for the class is a B. IF my A paper is accepted, then I’ll end up with the A. But what this also means is that kids today are fine with being “average”. WHY? WHY WOULD YOU STOP AT A C WHEN YOU HAVE FOUR WEEKS OF CLASS LEFT? Is it laziness? Or do they just not care? A “C” for me is unacceptable.

ANCIENT history:
I have a history test tonight. Have I mentioned how much I hate history? I wonder how miserably I’ll fail it tonight. With any luck I’ll get a C…and I’ll be happy with that! (Pot/Kettle)

Amazon.com ROCKS SOCKS:
I’m done with ALL of my Christmas shopping. I did it all in about 20 minutes on Amazon.com and was able to get free shipping AND “the best prices”. Now all I have to do is sit back and wait for the packages to arrive so I can wraps my pressies…and study for my test.

Mmmmmmm, gurl, you twisted:
I’m ALMOST ashamed to say this out loud. One of my stalkers posted a tweet the other day about the Twisted Sister Christmas album. I thought he was joking. He said it was “actually good”. I KNEW he was joking. BUT then I found it in my GuyTunes store…and I clicked on the sample links. AND I’LL BE GO TO HELL it WAS good. So I bought the Twisted Sister Christmas Album and it’s my new favorite album of 2008. Merry Christmas yo, for reals.

December Challenge Day 3.2

There are angels among us:
February 16, 2006 is a day I’ll never forget. I was walking through the living room at 1006 pm and I caught a glimpse of a photo on the news of a familiar face, with a name I knew all too well, and the words scrolling across the bottom of the screen, “The body 18-year old Bowie high school student Jennifer Crecente has been found in a field in south Austin”. The words stopped me dead in tracks. I refused to believe it was MY Jennifer Crecente. I picked up the phone and called my dear friend, Elizabeth, Jennifer’s mother, just to make sure this wasn’t OUR Jennifer they were talking about on the news. There was no answer. I called her cell phone. There was no answer. And I knew what I didn’t want to believe was true.

I’m not exactly sure how old Jennifer was when I met Elizabeth. Based on Adrian’s physical and emotional age, I want to say she was 4. Elizabeth was the leasing agent at the apartments I lived at when I first moved to Austin. Elizabeth and I became fast friends and by virtue of being her friend, I became close friends with her daughter. Elizabeth was a single mom at the time. I made sure to take Jennifer on shopping sprees on the appropriate holidays so Jennifer could spoil her mother properly. She was a joy to be around. Over a couple of years I had met someone and moved on from those shitty apartments and Elizabeth moved on to bigger and better things herself. Though we were in the same city we didn’t get to see each other daily as we had when we lived in the same complex, but saw each other when we could. And that included checking in on Jennifer. I think the last time I saw Jennifer alive was at a Halloween party when she was 14.

That first year after Jennifer’s murder was brutal for everyone, none more so than Elizabeth, I’m sure. But rest assured, a murder doesn’t just affect the victims, their families, and the perpetrators of the crimes. A murder affects everyone that has come into contact with everyone involved. Jennifer died in February, 2006. In December, Elizabeth had sent an email out to all of her friends to let us know Texas People Against Violent Crime was having a “Tree of Angels” tree lighting ceremony to honor victims of violent crimes. OF COURSE, I went. Perhaps out of guilt for not being as present in the past few years as I could, but most definitely because I felt Jennifer deserved to be honored. It was a beautiful experience.

The family members and other loved ones who wish to honor a person who was a victim of a violent crime were encouraged to bring an angel for the Christmas trees. The angels are tagged with the victims name before being placed on the tree and then each subsequent year the ornaments are put out for the families that want to put the same angels back on the tree (in addition to the new victims from the current year). I’m not sure exactly why I missed last year’s ceremony…I think I may have been out of town. But Elizabeth emailed last week to let us know the ceremony was coming up on December 2. I told her I’d love to go. THEN she emailed back a few minutes later and mentioned she had been invited to speak at a seminar in New York about Teens and domestic violence and wouldn’t be able to make the tree lighting ceremony. I told her I’d be there for sure and find our old angels at the church and be sure they made it back on the tree.

Last night I was at the Tree of Angels by myself representing my “family”. I’ve put a slide show together below to show what violence in Travis county looks like. The event is quite sobering. I’m not quite sure what is more sobering. The sheer number of Angel representatives, or the number of small children bringing up ornaments for mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, grandparents lost to senseless violence. Be sure to notice the “empty slates” of trees with nothing on them contrasted by the finished product. I only captured the fronts of the trees, but I assure you the anguish and, ironically, joy envelopes the entire tree.

Merry Christmas Jennifer. (F)reddy loves you.

December Challenge Day 3.1

The boy becomes:
When I met Jed 9 years ago he was a 24 year old boy. Today’s his 34 year old man. Yes, I realize the math doesn’t work out…but I met him 2 weeks before his 25th birthday, so he WAS 24 NINE years ago! It’s been a great pleasure to watch him grow into the man he has become.

Happy birthday boo.



This was us way back then. We've all put on a bit of weight...even Roscoe!