oh this is weird looking

Well it's like in the Wizard of Oz when them flying monkeys (in the Haunted Forest...so - i'd turn back if i were you!) tore into the Scarecrow and threw one leg over there and his arm over there and well...that's him all over.
My blogging capabilities/post options are all in a funky row - somewhere else. Huh?
my whole layout chingadero has Changed. Yahoo switched to Beta too, so my e-mail looks just as weird. Everything is not as it once was. something to do with the java script que la fregada. But i'm still plodding along. And I'm even trying to talk Happy into a switcherooney for tonite: with me gettin her lapwarmer flat Black portable and she gets the more grounded albeit klutzy klunker komputer as i still haven't gotten the tower and the 18pack of Bud to my computer guy.... i tell ya i'm the one of the Best procrastinators out there.
A lot has been happening here in my mind and in Nipomo. My drunk-ass brother shows up every Morning before we leave for The Bus! ...as he sleeps in one of the junker trucks parked in the side yard. Poor guy. He's all dirty and extremely hung over and today had weeds in his hair. It's just too trifling for me so i escape w/Pop-pops into my room with the snakes and leave my mom to enjoy his visits and give him the 5th degree about why and what's the stuff he's got stuck in his drunk ass hair....i give up. It's very hard to reconcile the sorry/sheepish dude who just slept out in a rustbucket in the yard with the obnoxious loudmouth yelling at me to, "lock the door, you stupid bitch, I don't Care!" As far as drunken tirades go: his are pretty destructive. My bigger kids have no respect for him. Zero tolerance. My little guy Pop-pops who doesn't know any better: always sweet and (i'm kinda glad just cause i don't think most people are)he's always cheerful and greets him with a welcoming, "hi Tio!" In return, my brother brings him dirty old used toys (one time a sorry-ass looked like it had been floating in an oily puddle semi-flat plastic purple ball) and my mom washes them in the sink... she says it's the thought that counts and i'm thinkin': that's sad. especially for my mom. Pop-pops actually played with the ball after she wiped it down with hot soapy water.
Also too:
Dewbug Daycare has too many special needs kids! Being so new at this, I don't know how we got into the special needs arena...but it seems like we are some sort of magnet for behavioral problems (including slight to moderate autism) and now we have a beautiful 4 yr old girl who is completely deaf. She's wild, too. Danielle is playing the part of Annie Sullivan. I know some sign language and we connected/kinda bonded over glitter & glue on that silent artsy fartsy level that needs no words. We even taught each other the sign [language] for Sunglasses. She's very smart and incredibly demanding attention-wise, it's almost impossible to keep up w/her. She also likes to beat up the other kids. A hellion But i kinda like her (and am silently rooting for her) Her sign language name is a V (like a 2 fingered peace sign on the forehead) trailing down to mimic long hair. I hope we are able to keep (up with) her. The Sign Language Interpreter @ Headstart (preschool) told us she has been Really improving since we've had her at Dewbug Daycare, (yay!)so there's that.
And here's a doozie:

I've been touched by fricken Angels! For real. I'm reading a book by Sylvia Brown whom I Luv. She's a smokey voiced no-nonsense psychic. I feel kinda ghetto for liking her so much but ina GhettoFabulous kinda way. So this book is All about Angels. The sappiest kind. Sentimental & Foofy with wings, the ones that save people from car wrecks (w/trains!) and protect little children. THOSe kinds of angels. And I'm just the gullible type a girl to buy into that shit. Hook line & Sinker. I have even spotted a few on the bus! (that's "angelic" on the older gentleman cholo's balded head)
This angelic lookin' homie smiled @ me like he knew me. I made a silly decision to only read the angel book while on the bus which is working out amazingly...so he sits down in front of me and i took a couple of sureptitious pix...as he just happens to have what it is i'm reading about Tattooed on his pelon pate! Yep, i am as crazy as you thought i was. I'm even thinkin' just Maybe some Christmas Angels will float on down to Nipomo and pay me a visit and then: my holidays won't suck. Who knows, crazier things have been known to happen, right?

Happy Tuesday! The Mother/Daughter Edition w/a cameo by G. and Pop-pops

So Happy says to me,

"Come on, Mom! Let's you and me take some pictures..." Boy, she didn't have to tell me twice.

I threw on some make-up, Licketysplit (she even took pix of me smearin' it on) And now, Now we have the added benefit of Happy's mad photoshopping skills. I threw in a picture she futzed with of G and Pop-pops as an illustration of her cleverness. I am posting from her laptop so i feel kinda flat and state of the art...and just a nagger unfamiliar....i can't seem to get my blogger footing here lately. I'm thinking it's because I am very attached to my old clunker computer...i don't know that i like sitting on the couch with a laptop in welll duh, my Lap...it's warm, though & i like that. Plus i really like these pictures Happy took of her and me. We make a good team. I'm the brawn and she's the brain. So there's my cause to celebrate and i sure hope you can join us by having a kick ass Happy Tuesday your own self.

A Headache and a half

i poisoned myself: Tylenol w/codeine and every coupla hours or so alternated 3 Advil liquid gel fast acters. It was a lot of OMG why is this happening Again (craptacular family fun)and my tooth hurt then i caught a dark yellow snotted flu cold bug of yucka and G. came home from college for the very first time. Plus one of my babydaddies moved to fricken Maui! Not Happy's Dad, he's my favourite and the best. Pop-pop's Papa up and sailed away to Hawaii, which is fine with me but kinda sad for poor fatherless 2 yr old.

Also my fucking computer is like a magnet for trojan thingamajiggers and it's sometimes cooperative and mostly not. This sucker is Old. It's been souped up & all but; alas, i think i've gotten as far as this old clunker Can go. I'll leave it up to my boozy computer guy to decide my cyberfate. Okay: Just so you know things did not Completely suck for the first holiday (gag) of the Season:

THE MUSIC CAME Back! As did my G. for which i was very happy.and grateful.

He made a giant cookie and warned us not to eat it. It was very flat and crunchy. I didn't have much of an appetite.For people i can't stand to be in the same room with, or for big turkey dinners and all the subsequent mushy leftovers. Okay i'm done bitching and boy it feels good to blog again!
Hello Out there. Sorry i can't sometimes comment...but sometimes i can. I also can't watch movies (sad)or upload pictures properly. I'm kinda like a deafmute.
Blind in one eye. Cyberwise that is.
So if you could please bear with the timeliness or lack thereof and thank you for not giving up on me. Okaybye. For now.

yeah, so i needed a LOT of this

Oh! for the love of power tools!

Yep. I needed extensive therapeutious of the artsy fartacular. As Miss Peggy Lee (con gusto) would Sing:

"you gotta have heart! miles and miles and miles of heart....

when the odds are sayin you'll never win, that's when a grin should start,

but First! You gotta have heart."

and the guys in the background sing..."Corazon! Corazon..."

This is just a little background action

for my cyberlove girlie: Miss Suziblu

herself. I sure hope she likes it and she doesn't mind that by handsew i meant safety pins. Lots of them. Ahhhhhh!

How i Love my Art as Therapy. I do, i do, I Do!

I knew as soon as i answered that knock at the door that our goose was Cooked

Now why would you want to dine with drunkards and other icky people when you have kids and they need to be protected from such yuckiness?!? My mother is of the mind that if you are family, you Are Welcome. Regardless. And me, G., Happy, and Pop-pops, we can't stand it. So we cloister. Flee and avoid. But at least we are together And eventually the bad people leave and we eat, even though there's a bad taste in our mouths.

Thanksgiving Dinner sucked but i'm still grateful even though i'm A day late and a dollar short

which just gets all cancelled out (the day late and dollar shortpart)because i'm a great procrastinator and live well below the poverty level. And Live well, we do. But i must come clean and tell you the reason i hate the holidays so much is mostly because i have some Very Unsavory family members...spawned by my brother the town drunk (when he's in town). I treat days where most people celebrate loved ones with Careful Avoidance. Only to be bombarded at drunk-thirty in the morning....but ew and ugh! I'm used to it. The Holidays suck.
Ho HO ho.....wake me when it's Over!

That's Why I'm Easy

I'm easy like a Sunday Morning .... went around opening all the curtains in the house. Felt kinda like Miss Judy Garland in the movie Meet Me in St. Louis (directed by Vincent Minelli whom she later married)...when she flits daintily around the house, singing a lovely song, only she's turning out the lights. But you get the picture...as a matter of fact, i started taking pictures as i always have my favourite camera ever(better than polaroid?yep) at the ready. Digital affords me such immediacy, and choice and clickety options.... Ahhhhh technology. Now i can invite you in the house for a little visit and a peek at the curtains. Wooo hooo.
so here's the curtains in the living room

The dining room.

i left Happy's curtains alone cuz she's still sleeping.

I left G.'s curtains alone as it has craftily turned into the explosive

artsie fartsies in there. I opened my curtains and please don't be afraid in my room, the snakes aren't real but just driftwood and manzanita roots i've dyed green or painted to look poisonous. Oh & check it out: i got windows outside my windows. i took the picture from a funky vantage point....
Which brings me to: the inside of the Very First Arched Bookshelf I ever built so that it sits In the wall. Oh how i cried that night, like a big baby because my dad stood me up, my brothers wouldn't help me and i thought i didn't know how. Waaa waaa...I Wanted an arched bookshelf before i could finish this wall. So i made myself do it all by myself. It was the coolest experience. Very gratifying. This is the veiw from inside that shelf:

And here's who hangs out in there.

Hope your Sunday is wholly gratifying and that you find it easy!

this is changa/construction monkey(when the peluda/hair part was blonde) in the arched frame jobbbie - pre-pop-pops when her bigger kids were small-ish and she was pretty pleased.

and these are my prettiest girlies

I gotta be the Luckiest Mother on the Planet! My life is So Sweet, it really is. Sometimes i get scared that something bad

is going to happen. I worry too much. I couldn't get ahold of one of my kids and i thought the worst. I gotta Stop doing that.

I gotta trust in the Good Things. In the future good things, In the good things that have already happened. In the good things that are happening Right Now. Pop-pops went to bed relatively early and i have been surfin the net....enjoying my Saturday Night....I ate the cream cheese topping off of two slices of carrot cake my mom brought home from the church bake sale. I combed out all the scary-ass snarls in my hair. I feeeeel Good. So tell me, if you will: Whatta you got that's good/what makes You the Luckiest Mother on the Planet?

Meanwhile Back in San Francisco

G. Lives on top of a steeeeep climb.

G. is always rushed and G. is pressed for time.

G. he Loves his mother, wears his heart upon his sleeve

G. bought her a train Ticket, couldn't wait for her to leave.

Heee heeee(just kidding!) although we did Bug the Shit out of him. G. is holding up a Brand Spankin' New Adult pass (he turned 18 during our visit!) And in his defense for wanting to get rid of us: we bug. We leave leggos Everywhere. We make a Lot of late night noise. We have problems with bedtime...Big meltdownz. Scream crying. G. got used to the quiet studio apartment life. And there was little brother Crying all loud & obnoxious for No reason, making a mess and having huge fits of babyrage during Delicious lunches we couldn't enjoy because Pop-pops prefers to chase the birds. And when the hill got too steep for me with the strollie and i had to take a break or two or three....G. kept at a brisk trudge wanted to push the strollie his own self so we could climb those steep ass five fucking blocks of calf muscle Work-a Mama Out OMG this UPhill climp to his studio....... - we kinda got into it about the big damn hurry he's in. But then he came home from his second shift [at work across the city], flew in the door with a "Lucy I'm Home!" and everything was Alright with the world. I love him so.

And he really was happy to have us visit. We got along just like old times so it really was Nice & Easy to get down & enjoy each other's company. Oh, I was Sooo Happy to see him. It is just amazing to me that he is so fucking determined/diligent/smart and he wants to accomplish So Much. Oh i got lucky, having him for a son.

In Honor of Veteran's Day

a rainbow from my own backyard, yesterday in Nipomo, California
HOME
speaking of which & how there's no place like it:

LET's Bring them HOME, already!

The bus! The BUS! The bus the bus the bus: San Francisco Style

So this time around, we had the most interesting dramatic gut wrenchingly frightful and injurious (poor Pop-pops lost the first layer of skin on both sides of his ring finger to the fuckin cup holder [on the Amtrak bus] that pinched, bruised then trapped as we tried to pull the lil digit Out and the piece of shit cupholder fucking collapsed right on his hand as he screamed us into a vortex of sssshhh sssh ssshhhh...cried himself to sleepiness) transportation situations. The most trippy bus rides. Ever in our lives. 2 of them. A close third was the last one we took w/G to the Amtrak station on the Embarcadero. A 45 minute ride all the way across San Francisco on Mission St. The Munni bus is loooong and crushingly crowded at 7am, especially when the unregulated back bus door opens for people who don't have to pay. It's Impossible to get to the front/busdriver/till with the people packed in like pickles, (the kosher dill spear kind). Nobody's there to tell these picklepacked busriders that it Is Very unsafe to be smashing us into one another or to be in the little stairwall to the door w/one's Face smooshed against the glass. Crazy overwhelmingly crowded and Fun! G. & I stood facing each other while balancing Pop-pops perched on his folded up strollie, it was exciting and i was thoroughly enjoying myself. Only a littly panicky when we were getting Shoved towards the window. That's when the nice woman let us sit as she had to work her way against the herd of incoming non-paying backdoor people. And we, too, were a dollar fifty richer free-riders cuz we had done the same thing; but Not to not pay as i had my paper dollar & fitty sense All ready. You have to put the dollar bill in the bus money taker like it's a change making machine - all flat/face up and put the coins in a seperate slot. While holding a squirmy two yr old and managing a heavy stroller, as the bus takes off, it's quite a balancing feat. G., Pop-pops and I almost didn't take the oh so crowded bus thinking we could wait for the next one because this one was oh so crowded. Then we looked at the time and realized we'd miss the Train Home (hello!) so we had no choice. We were standing in front of the back doors when we realized this - So thru the back doors we went. Getting from point A to point B in San Francisco is a wild ride. Although if you ask G., he says the thrill for him is gone.

This is what the Munni bus looks like on the inside, right after the mass exodus (people move in herds) and before this trio of free-riders got out. To catch the bus to catch the train.
Here's the second of the jacked up busrides:

the one i mentioned earlier w/the heinous cupholder incident: OMG. Very nearly at the end of That busride; I was seriously scared for our lives when we went down the Cuesta Grade. Scare the piss outta you steep and winding. When you start out so High Up it feels like you are careeeeening down down down also twisting and turning and Braking - - - as close as possible to the futile little posts on the side of this Mountainous road - that goes on and on...and these Stupid little 2 feet high posts are the only thing seperating the Bus the bus the bus the bus THE BUS! (Pop-pops still Sings that) from sheer cliff and a possible downward nosediving Death. The busdriver would get to going too fast and have to break hard enuf that i had to hold on to Pop-pops, who could sense my terror and started to kick & squirm, tried everything in his power to get away from me so he could stand up and play with the damn cupholder he just almost lost his finger to. He was agitated as All at once the bus got very quiet - all you could hear was him screeching/me fussing with him...the energy was palpably fearful. Hushed and alert. The bus The Bus! was going too damn fast. My stomache started to hurt and i just wanted the ride to be over, already. Stop the Bus I wanna Get OFF!

(left to right: ghastly squooshed lil digit THE BuS! sidewayz the bus right side up)

I was never so happy to see flat freeway and San Luis Obispo! We were almost home. And...you know, there's no place like home...there's No Place like Home.

Oh the THINGS i could post. About San Francisco and my Joy joy and The Drama and the Horrible Mean Meltdowns of the Terrible Twosies when the Pawn

Gets Overcrowded on the bus and some nice little woman of color gets up a few stops before her stop so the lil long haired commuter and I can have her side seat then has to stand hovering over us smiling as she hangs on to the pole with the black strap above our heads before she disappears into the herd of people gettin thru the back doors For Free....

My words and feeelingz are all in a jumble because i experienced such Cosmic Joy, man. And also the hills and my emotional rollercoaster that i was on were fucking steep & heartpoundingly STEEP. I admire the 18 & overness of my Big Son G. Sooooo much OH! my heart could just BURST. So I gotta

re-assemble myself back here in Nipomo and i'll let this Photobooth strip of pictures speak for themselves. I apologize for the unsightly baggage under my eyes but i stayed up all night High on Life and my boys were sleeping so sweetly and just getting to hug and kiss and watch them and i'm kinda proud of the bags under my eyes just a little....i'll be back with more hopefully unjumbliness Later.

Pop-pop's First Ride on a Train. Choooo chooooooo

All Abooooarrrd!!

So what - we only got to travel on the rails for 25 minutes out of our 6 hour trip. It was without incident and way more relaxed, as opposed to the other time spent on the damn bus the Bus! Amtrak is tricky that way (anyway, we prefer our genteeel country bus w/its absence of cupholders, and the bus driver Waits and even once helped me with the strollie and nobody is squishing nobody) It was a Very Nice 25 minutes train ride. Smooooth and flat, as we strolled up to the dining car and got a very Cold Water and a lovely Cookie to share with our little friends that made the trip with us.

Marshlands? We got everything on the central coast! Home again home again jiggity jig.

"OH YEahh!!! "

if you asked Pop-pops, "So, did you have a good time?" i think this look says it all.