Holy breakdown y'all, peonies

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I'll be honest in telling you that today has not improved much. My mouse battery died a slow death over the last few hours, just slow enough that I forget every time I stand up from the computer, and I have been repeatedly frustrated since. "Why isn't the cursor moving? Where is the cursor? What is wrong with the mouse? Shit, the battery again!" A dumb mind reel on loop. At present, Ol is utterly committed to an outrageous crying jag that commenced in the bathtub twenty minutes ago when Jack got in and took shotgun, continued during the initiation donning of his new hot dog, ketchup and mustard pajamas (which, btw, I'd hurried to launder today for said initiation because he was so thrilled), persisted amidst a loving backrub by a loving babysitter and showed no sign of letting up after I excused dear Katherine, informed Ol that his nonsense would now have to be his solo nonsense, put him in bed, turned off the lights and shut the door.

Jack was a hot mess when I got home too, with more than the usual amount of dirt about his face and neck, clutching his Darth Maul novel to his chest as if the entire populace was attempting to seize it from him, and so thoroughly disconsolate about something that he was unable to take his shoes up to his closet even though he had to step over them to ascend the stairs.

It's a rat's nest of silliness around here, people, just plum absurd. So perhaps I'd best get excited about Cinco de Mayo and make a margarita in the not-too-distant future.

In an attempt to escape the ululations reverberating throughout my home, I took my pruners and camera out to my peony bush. The two buds burst into bloom today and as it's supposed to rain tonight, I decided to go ahead and pick them so their delicate petals don't get razed. What a spectacular flower!

www.em-i-lis.com

www.em-i-lis.com

www.em-i-lis.com

Grr

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There are times when I retreat into hermithood simply to avoid dealing with jerks, the too-chatty checkout gal, inept drivers that abound, and general irritations and rudenesses that dot regular life but seem outsized on days like these. I bet y'all do this too; sometimes, it's really the only way to go. Today started off well enough, and damn if it isn't Cinco de Mayo, a faux-liday I usually love but feel ambivalent about this year. But things have sort of devolved for a whole host of stupid reasons, and now I'm grumpy and tired. I found ants in Nutmeg's food bowl, the space behind my left ear is sore because Oliver threw himself at me yesterday in a loving hug with the sad side-effect of pushing my earring against my head such that the back pierced my skin (OW! "There is just a little blood, Mom!"), Percy is driving me batshit with his neediness, the kids' "treasures" -read: crap- are everywhere, and frankly, I am really tired of the temps each night sinking to the low 40s. Let's call it a day on cold, can't we? I had to buy Oliver a new pair of jeans because the holes in the knees of all the others were approaching Kardashian-style which I can't bear. I just want to put away the coats. And maybe write a treatise on ways to express kindness or gentleness in emails.

Usually, cooking gets me out of a peevish slump but even that appears to be a roadblock to zen today because I just deconstructed what appeared to be a beautiful bunch of fresh (like, I JUST bought it) celery only to find that the interior of each stalk has been cored away and is now brown. Perhaps some pest on a bender went nuts and masticated the hell out of this thing, but I'm not using it and I'm not just tossing it (flipping organic celery). Back to the damn store I'll go where this time I will hope to avoid overly-chatty checkout gal -let's call her Vicki- who always asks annoyingly personal questions about my children's whereabouts. Every damn time. It drives me bananas.

It appears that it's time to take the bull by the horns on Ol's pronunciation of "r" and "th", and he's just commenced with some speech therapy. Jack did the same in PK, as he couldn't say "k" which was kind of hilarious because his favorite color was pink, which he pronounced 'peent', and we'd say, "Wow, Jack, you really love peent," and he'd yell, "No I don't! I love PEENT!" He was so sure he was saying pink, bless his heart. Anyway, now it's Ol's turn for his precious Brooklyn-like "r"s and I will SO miss them. I love his where-did-it-come-from accent because of that funny r. Boo.

I keep looking at that fabulous picture of Jack from last night's ball game, as if the happy balm that it is will erase my malaise. But as if often the case, I think I'll just have to let it run its course.