My sister Penelope has two wonderful children who are...well...weird. Which is fine because weird is a verb around my family, so that is all fine and good, but her youngest Boo is obsessed with animals in every sense of the word. She watches Animal Cops on Animal Planet and believes it is her six year old duty to interrogate the hell out of anyone with a pet just to be sure they are being treated kindly. This is the same girl who wrote up signs that said do you love pets check yes or no, and took it door to door gathering check marks and signatures.
Well. She decides that she wants to be a horse. Not a pretend horse. A real honest to goodness horse and she begins driving everyone crazy about it. Six year old's are really good at that, driving you bat shit over something they obsess over. Finally my sister decides to put a stop to it when they had this conversation:

Boo: You know how you wished and hoped for a sweet little girl when you were pregnant? All you wanted was a normal girl but then you find out you actually had something else?

Penelope: (Oh God, is this the "I'm gay" talk? Can they know they're gay at six?) Yes...

Boo: Well you didn't get a little girl, you got me--a HORSE!!

Penelope: (Oh thank God) I did huh?

Boo: Yes, so for now on you treat me like a horse. A real live horse.

Penelope: Okay! Sounds good. Go take all your clothes off and get outside and I will find a blanket for you.

Boo: What? Naked? Why?

Penelope: Horses don't wear clothes.

Boo: Go outside?! It is frosty out there! The neighbors will see me naked. I will freeze.

Penelope: This is going to be great! I have a pony now! I will get money and go to the farm store and by some straw for your stall which is in the dog house because you are so small. I will try to clean out the pee and poop every day or two.

Boo: I have to pee and poo outside?!

Penelope: Horses eat Hay so that will save me a lot of money! I hope you like grass, Boo.

Boo: Wait. Grass?

Penelope: I will be sure to give you fresh water in the dog bowl once a day. I hope it doesn't freeze up on you.

Boo: GRASS?! Can't I come in and have dinner with you?

Penelope: Horses don't come inside the house. No. Sorry.

Boo: Can I come in and warm up? I will stand at the window and look really cold. You will feel bad because your daughter is outside freezing. How would you feel about that?!

Penelope: Are you kidding? I would feel great! I have a HORSE!!

Boo: Um... Can I not be a real horse? Can I just pretend to be a horse once and a while but still be a real kid? I DON'T WANT TO BE A REAL LIVE HORSE!!!

Penelope: Well, if that is your decision I am fine with it. I will play horse with you sometimes but the rest of the time you are a real normal kid-right?

Pure genius, that sister of mine. To this day whenever they play horse she makes sure you understand that it is a GAME and she isn't real and doesn't want to go outside naked to pee and poo and freeze. She only wants to prance around and be cute. Which I will agree, that girl makes one hell of a cute horsey.

Hello peeps! To my many, numerous fans who have missed me (Hi Kathy and Mom!) I will be back to spewing my life on the internet whithin a week should everything go well. I am getting a new computer in a week or so and oh! The things I have to say. My first entry will be 101 ways to pass the time when you no longer have a computer or the internet. The Boy will be writing half of it. Punkin' could write the other half. I can't wait to get back into the saddle. Oh no I can't.

Have you all missed me?!

Here are snippets of conversations heard around my world lately

Bodivy: (truly scared that she pushed her mom too far this time screams in horror) NOOOOOOO.....I think you are really going to really kill me this time!!

Penelope: What?! Have I ever killed you before?!

Bodivy: No, this is going to be the first time!

Penelope: I should kill you! You deserve a good killing!

White Chocolate: Needing to know the last name of an instructor, WC walks up to me and asks me "hey, what is Peters first name?"

Me: Peter.

WC: What? No, his first name?

Me: Peter.

WC: WHAT?! NO! HIS FIRS.....Oh fuck.

Me: You're an idiot.

Penelope walking up to me flashing me the west coast hand sign all bad ass and gangster like: "Hey Homie Gee Whizz."

Me: OMG you are huge retard.

Boo inspecting my cat Manilow after he had a fight and got a boo boo on his head: This looks bad.

ME: I know.

Boo: What are you putting on this? This looks infected. Are you putting medicine on him? (Lifts cat head and inspect eyes, nose, and pries mouth open to peer down throat) He looks all right here. (flips cat over and inspects every inch for signs of neglect and abuse) Look at this! Manilow has fleas. You are putting flea drops on your animals, right?

Me: Um, well...I ran out awhile ago and....

Boo: (Rolls eyes and sighs loudly because obviously I am taxing her patience.) Let me see your cats food and water. (carries cat with her to kitchen for the inspection) Is this water fresh?

Me: Yes.

Boo: (gets on hands and knees and sniffs water) You have to change this every day, you know. You do that, right?

Me: Yes, ma'am I do.

Boo: Good. Let me see their litter box.

Me: :::Points:::

Boo: This needs to be cleaned out right now! Whose job is it to do this? (I point toward The Boys room) Where is The Boy? I am going to go get him and tell him!!! (stomps off to pet police The Boy for awhile.)

Oh yeah. Did I mention she is 5 and in Kindergarten? Yes, she is. She is also addicted to those pet police shows on animal planet and has made it her mission in life to make sure everyones animals are well cared for. And she ain't above getting all up in your business about it, either.

The Boy: Whatcha reading?

Me: An article on Puberty and boys.

The Boy: Why?

Me: To see if there is a medical reason you are the worlds biggest dumb ass lately. I think puberty and retardation goes hand in hand.

The Boy: I am just lazy.

Me: That's what I am afraid of. I better find a reason here why I can tell you something ten times and you never do it, let alone even hear me, and I better find a reason why you want to beat the asses of every punk in our neighborhood.  I want to learn why your very cool mother has suddenly became a huge harsher of your mellow. I had better find some proof here that you are normal and hormonal or you are SO grounded.

The Boy: Well, I hope I am hormonal then.

Me: Yeah me too.

The boy: (points to screen) heh heh!! It says "Gonads."

Me: Oh God. You're normal.

White Chocolate after a 20 minute phone conversation with me: Okay, well I need to go run a bath and get ready to go. I have one of those peel off masks on my face that I need to take off now.

Me: Peel off mask? Bath?! Geez dude, enjoy your vagina time. Why don't you put bubbles in the tub and completely turn into a girl?

WC: Bubbles! Good idea.

I usually write a big to do on here about my birthday before it happens so everyone feels pressured into messaging me birthday wishes. (Thank you SuperDave who messaged me the day BEFORE my birthday with no prompting whatsoever. You still rock the hardest, my friend) But this year my birthday falls on the weekend before the last week of school before finals. So I was more busy writing a Psych paper than begging for attention. Sorry. I am going to the beach to camp with WC and his daughter, The Boy and his friend, and Punkin' on the 14th for my birthday so you still have time to send me jewelry and stuff. Be sure to wrap it in money. Thank you.

I bought a pool the day before my birthday which is now forever called The Worst Day Ever (WDE) I was hoping for a midnight birthday swim but it wasn't full of water by midnight so I passed. The Boy and a neighbor kid broke the world's record for getting grounded from the pool for a 24 hr period by leaping into the pool before it was even half full of the water. From the roof.

It wasn't that they jumped from the roof really that got me. I mean, my story The Barn is exactly like this. When I put the pool up I realized that it was positioned in a place that was going to make leaping off that roof look pretty inviting. At least to a 13 and 14 year old. I warned them not to do it, and I left them to watch three little one's while I ran an errand. When I got home the little ones were bursting with I-am-telling-on-you-ness and the two boys were banned. Banned before it was even filled. If they hurt themselves no one was here to care for them except three little one's. Not real responsible. I mean, when I saw the situation I fully intended to look the other way a time or two so the kid could leap from the roof, I mean, come on! I did it. But they chose to pick a dumbass time to do it. And I am just that mean, so yeah. Banned.

So I have been thinking of my closest people in my life and counting the ways I love them and I will leave this entry with a quick and dirty list:

I love The boy because he is so entertaining and infuriating. He let's me dye 1/3 of his bangs blue, and the bottom of the back of his hair the same color. He let me put black eye liner on him and paint his fingers AND toes with black fingernail polish. Then he allows me to take him shopping in stores to watch people watch us. He shakes me and sings "my milkshakes bring all the boys to the yard..." in public. He still gives me long hugs. He has great taste in music. He refuses to be ordinary.  He quotes Monty Python.  He will kill spiders and chase me with the dead bodies. He is so full of raging hormones right now, with testosterone making him feel invincible, he does things like flings himself from rooftops, scales trees, and rides his skateboard with no helmet. Should he ever make it to adulthood, he is going to be one hell of a wonderful human being.

I love Punkin' because she is mushy, and gooey, and everything little girls are. She keeps her room clean. She let me dye her hair in stripes of blue that has now washed out to beautiful blond streaks. She can control a horse with her thighs. She dressed in her swimsuit the other day and then put on one hell of a show for us doing some weird freaky chicken dance complete with thigh jiggles. Then laughed so hard she peed. She writes me love notes on the computer almost everyday. She is way more beautiful than I was at her age. I love her because once she was too easily crushed and hurt emotionally and never stood up for herself. She has recently found her inner bitch and now if you mess with her you best watch it because she will cut you. She is probably the sweetest heart I have ever met. She is never disappointing.

I love my sister Penelope because she takes no shit ever. She is probably the best mother, woman, home schooling parent I have ever met. Everything is a lesson and she always takes the school (My boy and her two kids) on field trips to learn. Next week they are going camping for two nights. All school related. Her kids are complete freaks and she appreciates them for it. She teaches appropriateness, but allows kids to be their own freaky deaky selves. She councils my boy through his teenage angsty, puberty hell he is in right now where no one gets it. No one understands. HOW CAN WE POSSIBLY RELATE?! My sister finds ways. When my daughter's self esteem plummeted into the danger zone my sister took her clothes shopping and got her all new outfits. She pushed me to give her horse back riding lessons, and have her read books on puberty. She let her hang out with her wild ass kids every night for a week swimming with her cousins who completely approve of who they are-every last chubby inch-until my daughter realized her body is just fine. My daughter bloomed under my sisters watchful eye and now is assured, strong, self confident, and (sometimes anyway) a total bitch when the situation calls for total bitch. Plus my sister called me at 1am on my birthday to sing to me. So she is totally my favorite sister right now. Pick it up sister in Canby!!

I love White Chocolate because he STILL lets me hang out with him. He hangs out my van window while I am driving and yells to the world what a terrible driver I am. He will suddenly out of the blue for no reason slam his hands on the dashboard and scream as if I hit something. WC is like a giant baby gorilla. He is big, clumsy and always entertains me at least once a week with how he crashes his bike, or fell in a hole, or fell over a crack, or tripped over a dog, or something while he shows me all his bloody wounds. WC walks around like a bloody stump half the time and I appreciate that he goes that far to entertain me. Even after he began to hear whispers of people wondering if we are secretly dating he didn't kick me to the curb. WC is a really good dad. I have never seen him blow off his daughter so he could do something better. Ever. Ends up WC is a really good friend if you are having the worst day ever. He is hilarious. He knows everyone. He thinks he knows everything. He loves to tell me I don't. He bought me a Simple Plan CD for my birthday and in typical man fashion calls me instantly and just tells me. He also bought me a card with an almost naked man on the front which, you know, makes it the almost perfect card. It said for my birthday he was going to give me something really long and hard. Written inside is a huge assed math equation. THAT made it the perfect card! I love him because I told him he had to cook the whole time on our coast trip because it was my birthday and I should not be asked to lift a finger. He agreed. But that was when we were going to stay in a hotel. I switched it to camping which means camp cooking and he didn't weasel out of the task. He is trainable. I will deny it if you repeat that. He is gruff, grumpy, ornery, and chews my ear like a puppy dog until I have to smack him with a rolled up newspaper. He is also funny, sweet, a hella of a dresser, and a really great person. He is totally in touch with his inner vagina. He shares really great things with me. Should he ever make it to adulthood, he too will be one hell of a person.

I also want to thank the crew I work with who surprised me on the worst day ever with a card signed by everyone for my birthday. I appreciate you all.

37 is going to totally rock.

Teenagers love to mouth off to their mother's. It is actually a game teens like to play together, every one trying hard to out blast their friends mothers until someone gets pissed over it and puts a stop to it. This is usually the child of the mother being blasted. This child is known as the mamas boy. My son is not such a child. My child will lead the group deeper and deeper into the slam-your-mother forest until one by one the kids back out afraid of what will happen to them if they go any further. My son is the master. And he practices all. the. time. When no one is around, my teen will carry on this tradition alone, honing his skills for later when he have an audience to witness his display of mouthy bravness. I had such an exchange with The Boy yesterday:

Me: Hey son, I am going to jump in the shower.

The Boy: (Looks up at me bored) Good luck with that mom, you can't wash the stink out of ugly.

He is thirteen. We shall see if he makes it to a driving age. It aint looking good.

The Boy and his friends came in the other day and told me that they formed a Geek group of dorks.

Me: You did huh?

The Boy: Yes, we call ourselves the Nads.

Me: The Nads?

The Boy: Yeah, want to hear our group cheer? (Boys all grin at each other)

Me: Sure...

All Three Boys: GO NADS!! GO NADS!! GO NADS!!

And yesterday on the way to school The Boy tells me him and his two friends are joining a bowling league this summer.

Me: You are?

The Boy: Yes, and we already named ourselves.

Me: And what is that name?

The Boy: PWN stars!!*

* there is an expression in young persons speak where they say "owned" much in the same way we in my generation would say "face." It means you were owned. You lost. You suck, I rule, you were Owned. Somehow in text world it morphed into pwned. Pronounce it like Own, but with a P. Pwned. My kid is gonna be a pwn star.

Teenagers are awesome.

I know I haven't written in a bit but I got real sick which made me behind in school, then there was all the homework catch up, and now I am in my last week before finals and I will be so damned glad for a break. Because I need some rest and I want to write some stories. And stories, there are a few.

But. I wanted to wish everyone a Happy Pi day!! With all this math I have been working on it inspired me to at least come and blog this today. Lord knows we need small goals. Anywho, I have actually been counting down the days until this day for 5 days now. I have no idea why I thought todays date would be so darn cool, but it has proved to be every bit as fun as I thought it would be. If only I had thought of it sooner I would have bought this shirt from Think Geek. But as usual I don't think far enough ahead. Man, I hate that.

Back to the books now.

I have been busier than a one legged man in a butt kickin contest lately. This term has brought me some very intense classes as well as three hours of homework every night and on the weekends I have several more to do. Just today I worked from 1-6pm on nothing but getting ready to take a math test on Tuesday. I have to beat White Chocolate this time, and if I was a betting girl, and I can be, I would put money on me because while WC was off up in the mountain this weekend having a life, I sat on my fat ass at home solving systems of linear equations. I worked these problems over and over willing them to become ingrained in my Swiss cheese brain. It better have worked this time too, is all I'm saying. Other wise a memorable hissy fit shall be thrown. Much on the hissy, high on the fit.

 

Life hasn't been all work and no play though. I do have a really cool story that I have been meaning to tell since Christmas break. There is a new coffee joint in town called Steam Heat that is very much like Central Perk in Friends. On the weekends the management brings in local talent of various sorts like musicians, artists, and writers to do the voodoo they do so well. This man contacted me after finding my blog and strangely enough didn't think I was a complete waste of space and invited me to go and be a featured artist and read several of my stories.

 

Oh hell yes! My plot to become rich and famous is finally gonna see some game time. I decided to gather a group of 8 or so writers to read with me so the pressure of carrying the whole load doesn't rise up and choke me to death. Since I work in the writing tutoring center at the college I have the perfect medium to use to gather up a handful of starving, desperate writers such as myself and go rock this place one weekend. I am beside myself with giddiness and delight. How cool is it that this man found me? I mean I didn't take my work to him and beg that he validate me as a real writer, he came to me. Finally karma takes its fist out of my ass long enough to shake hands.

 

And the coolness doesn't end there, either. A reporter came into the writing center to do a story on it and me being the shy and meek person I am pushed over lil old ladies and one baby to bravely give the interview. I even managed to get WC involved so he could have a little bit of the spotlight for himself. Just a little though, a wee bit off to the right side of me, almost out of my very large and fantastic shadow. That, boys and girls, is justice.

 

But it gets cooler. This reporter, we can just call her Miss Pretty, decides I am far too fascinating a person to not have a whole other article written all about me featuring why I am at school, my struggles to be as awesome as I am, and explain how my hair is so wildly in my face all the time with the just-been-fucked look that is so popular these days. I can easily answer that. God knew when he made me I would grow up to be Shalagh so he decided to throw me a bone and give me spectacular hair. But I digress. Besides having a great nose for interesting stories this woman seems to be the kind of girl I could easily become friends with and as I have learned, having friends in college makes the whole studying for hours and hours to be on honor roll every term worth it. She is even going to go to Steam Heat and do an article about them getting local students involved in their talent search. When will this greatness end? Life totally rocks right now and I haven't even told you about the Wii I just bought yet, either. I am drunk with satisfaction.

 

Completely drunk with it.  

Ever since school started last year I have felt like a college student, but I didn't feel like I had a college life. Sure I met neat people like Nick from my writing class who is a musician and a throw back to the hippy era, as well as one scary mo-fo, but I didn't really have college friendships that would make the whole college thing the thing that is known as a college life. Then I got the job in the writing center and all that has changed.

I don't know exactly when the friendship happened or who gave shit to who first, but somehow one of the funniest friendships I have had since starting college happened. Somehow a very unlikely friendship began. First it was my infatuation with the ultra hipness of this person, who besides being hip was also ornery as hell. If I love me one thing I love me an ornery smart ass. His yes's can be no's, but you never really know. He says he will call and then doesn't half the time. He refuses to make plans because something better might come up and hey, I can't be harshing his mellow. I mean, he never harshes mine. Sometimes he's aloof and sometimes he is all over the place like a newly potty trained labradoodle. He justs comments casually on something then walks away leaving me to wonder what the hell he is talking about, enough so I fixate on it until I figure out what he meant. He is irritating, sometimes infuriating, and often exasperating. Example: He has a cold. I told him the medicine to get and even took him to pick it out. You would think I asked him to brush his teeth with rabies and gargle with raw sewage. He refused to buy Zycam because his "Guts told him it is evil." Seriously, man, WTF?! I finally talked him into Airborne, but even then it was a fierce debate about how vitamins and such are good for you, and not poison. You see what I mean? The guy is so contradicting that it makes him fairly fascinating. So once I was interested in him then it was my goal to make him wonder how the hell a soccer mom could somehow, in very different ways than him, be hella tight too. And that? Didn't take long.

Soon we got on to the whole making MySpace a cool place to hang which is almost impossible to do, and it brought to me an old friend I had all but given up on which was a really great side benefit. Finally, and I don't know why, we shared phone numbers and the rest as they say, is history. We began to hang out outside of school when WC didn't have something better going on and I realized that he is a really neat person. He is playful and totally full of shit. Two of my favorite things.

We have a math class together and have been competing for grades. We made a big deal out of it, enough so that our table mates were just as interested in who won as we were. He whooped my ass. Slaughtered me. He mopped the floor with my math failure butt. I got to class early and saw that he had gotten a solid B, the score I thought I had gotten, only to discover I got a high D. I don't know how that happened as I studied my ass off for this test and I knew how to do everything. EVERYTHING. I must have made some sign errors or plain stupid assed Shalagh mistake like adding two plus two up to eleven or something. I knew that once White Chocolate heard this he would be the universes biggest pain in the ass. So I did what any self loving person would do and lied to him. Of course this is after I confessed to my table mates that he kicked my arse. He didn't believe me for a second. So I did the second best thing and lied about how hard he kicked my arse. But he still knew.

So White Chocolate got even by stealing my calculator, which I cannot be without because I might add two and two up to eleven if I don't have it. He smugly made me pilfer through all my crap before pulling it out of his bag complete with hair gel all over it. I should have taken this as lesson number one to not fark with the king of numbers, but I am ignoring all that. I am right now as I type this planning my retaliation. Yeah, yeah, I know I said we were even, but I just said that.

Now college is fun. I have someone to look forward to, and evil to plot, and math to study, and bets to win. College life is fantastic. I love all the gathering with your friends after class and running out to the van because you have a spare 30 minutes before work and you have gossip to catch up on, questions to ask, bullshit to sling, and tons of dope to smoke. No just kidding Mom, I was only seeing if you were paying attention.

Being a college student becomes living a college life when you can recall several adventures you had while learning. Frankly, what I always missed about not going to college when I was younger besides a fatter paycheck of course, was the college life we fondly hear so much about. I always wanted to stay up late studying with my friends, drink beer, party and get all wrapped up in some kind of nautiness that is completely legal. Frankly if I was younger I would also go for some of the illegal college nautiness like naked drunk dryer rides or something.

No, just kidding again mom. Seriously, I would never do that.

I know this makes me a bad person, but I simply must share my favorite game to play. It involves my friend White Chocolate(WC). WC is a fly assed white boy who is waaaay too chocolate for his own good. I could list several reasons why it is good to be friends with WC, but at the top of that list would be: He is a uber cool 26 year old man, who dresses great, always smells good, is totally fly, is funny, good at math, endearing, totally never harshes my mellow, shows fantastically good judgment skills because he hangs out with me, and isn't put together funny. Which apparently is a big deal. But my ultimate favorites are that WC is a pilferer (Which I called it a digger today and he promptly corrected me that his generation calls it PILFERING, so I will say that from now on. God forbid I say something embarrassing) ((Sa-Weet!)) and the fact that he loses all his shit, all the time. And here comes the game.

WC is of the generation where they wear pants with a ton of pockets and frankly,  pockets are in everything they wear. Apparently this generation is really into mobile compartments. Well, him having all these pockets is like super Christmas and they just beg for him to stuff them all the way up with tons and tons of shit. Tons and tons of shit to lose. I have seen this man climb into my van and promptly lose something. I am not sure he even knows what is missing, he just knows something is by God, and so help him, he will find it. So he begins to dig. 'Scuse me, "Philfer."

But WC doesn't just dig, he frisks himself first. He takes each pants pocket and squeezes them from the outside several times while mentally trying to tally the contents, then he pulls every thing out and shuffles them all around while looking for something, sometimes he isn't even sure what, then organizes it back into some weird assed WC order than only makes sense to him, replaces it all, and then goes after pocket number two. He will hit every pocket, then hit the shirt, then the jacket until he feels his entire person has been satisfactorily frisked and molested, then he begins the pilfering in his backpack.

Same deal only with a backpack.

I just sit there giggling because I know what will happen when he has gone through every piece of shit he brought with him. He will look up at me like "Dude, double you tee eff?" and I will be all like "WC, check your pants." Now he knows he just went through his pants, but at my suggestion he does it all again. First he frisks, then......

I just sit and giggle.

"Shit, it isn't here any frickin' where."
"You didn't check your jacket."
"Yes, I did."
"No you didn't."
"Dude! Watch...."

And he is off molesting himself while he goes through all his stuff again.

"I told you! It isn't in my damn jacket!"
"So you did. Did you try your backpack?"
"What the hell?! YES I tried my backpack!"
"But you didn't check the outside pockets."
"What the F?! Yes I did.....LOOK!"

And off he goes. I sometimes see if I can make him pilfer through all of his shit until we get to where we are going. Sometimes I just see how long I can make him pilfer before he gives up totally. This never ceases to be fun. That man is a gopher, he is. Dig dig dig dig.....

I am so going to hell.