Carsick kids, Nekkid Nitwits, and Flying Phones

So.

The last two days. Let me tell you about them.

I was driving home from a visit with friends in the Western part of the state when my son says (about an hour away from home), "Mom, I don't feel so good. I think I'm going to throw up."

There was a plastic bag on the seat next to me from when we stopped at Sheetz, so I frantically dumped all the contents onto the passenger seat while doing 80mph (65, if you're a cop and reading this) and flung the blue plastic seat behind me just as I heard the first "bllllllllllllllllaaaaaaaggggggghhhhh", which covered El Nino, the booster seat, the car seat, the car floor, and the back of my driver's seat. Fortunately, the second ""bllllllllllllllllaaaaaaaggggggghhhhh" landed in the bag. I rolled the windows down, took the next exit and parked in the first parking lot I could find.

I sat El Nino on the back of the car (thank god I decided to go with the hatchback) and started to change his clothes when I see the dog hop into the back seat. Betsy decided that regurgitated eggs and blue raspberry icee were the perfect combo. In hindsight, that was probably my kid's downfall. Hmm. Anyway, I yelled at the dog, cleaned the kid and car as best as I could, and drove home with the windows cracked. Fortunately, El Nino fell asleep pretty soon after we got back on the highway. Puking apparently wears him out.

Of course, things only get stranger. Just past exit 30, I noticed a Ford Explorer in the field next to the highway. Odd, I thought. Odder was the fact that two people - a man and a woman - were on the roof, apparently sunbathing. Then they started to stand up, and I saw something odder than two people sunbathing on the roof of their SUV by a major highway in 40-degree weather.

They were naked.

I really wish someone was in the car with me to confirm what I saw, because no one believes me.

So I get home, make the requisite phone calls to my mom, my son's father, and my friends to let them know I've arrived at home safe, if not mildly nauseated by the smell, while I do my best to shampoo the car seats. I put the cordless phone on the roof of my car.

Can you see where this is going? I can.

I drop El Nino off at daycare this morning and get on the brief stretch of highway to get to my office. As I accelerate, I hear a clatter and look in my review mirror to see my cordless phone fly through the air and land on the road behind me, where it shatters into about a billion pieces .

So I feel like an idiot already, but then guy in the car behind me follows me off the highway. By the time I'm pulling into my office's parking lot, I'm almost hyperventilating because HE'S STILL THERE. I could swear the phone didn't land on his car, but maybe he's going to say it did and there's damage and he's going to freak out and I'm going to have to call my insurance company and my coworkers are going to wonder why I'm out here with some dude and this is so going to SUCK..... but I roll my window down.

"Um, do you know you lost your cell phone on the highway back there? I just wanted to let you know."

Whew.

The rest of the week will get better, right?

Good News

Hold the phone... two posts in one week.

First, on Motherverse's blog, I've contributed a new post. Check it out here: When Did Feminist Become A Bad Word?

Second - I got good news from Motheringheights.net. My short essay, "For Want of A Key", has been selected to be in the anthology "The Mothering Heights' Manual for Motherhood, Volume I". That will be out shortly before Mother's Day. Which is very cool, as another one of my essays "Mouse Ears and Monster Faces: Adventures of the Medicated" is due out around the same time (May8th) in the anthology "How to Fit a Carseat on a Camel: And Other Misadventures Traveling with Kids".

Woo! It's a good Leesa day.

The First

A friend of mine keeps asking me, "If you have so much writerly ammunition, why isn't there anything on your blog?"

I've done my best to avoid answering that, but it's probably time to do so.... and my first post seems most appropriate.

I'm not sure if this blog is going to be something that I post regularly on. My original intent was to have this website be more archival in nature - if I were to get something published, people could potentially be linked to this website and find other things I've written. And find out a little more about me.

So... archiving, yes. Blogging? Ehhhhh.... we shall see. I really like the idea of blogging, of writing semi-regularly and flexing my writerly muscle (exercise is good, yes?), but I know at this point I don't have the discipline. My next post could be in a few days. Or a few months. Or even next year. Afterall, I'm the girl who had a livejournal and made all of two posts on it. I think it still exists out there somewhere, but I'll be darned if I ever use it again.

I have good intentions, I swear... just an unhealthy lack of discipline at the moment. Although, considering I'm a single mom, I work full time and go to grad school part time, something has to give. It's always my writing, though.