A cleaning dervish

Wracked by hayfever, I unleashed a torrent of housework on our wee abode today. Sadly, it doesn't look that much different. It seems so unfair.


Some truths I learned about parenthood this weekend:
- Even the smartest teenagers can be astoundingly dumb.
- It's hard not to take their cluelessness personally. In a span of three weeks, we'll have seen A for a total of 15 minutes (the amount of time it took to pick him up at his friend's house -- where he'd spent the entire weekend -- and take him back to M's). Ouch.
- Anything but equal custody leaves the 'other' parent as a bit-player. T knows he's active in the boys' parenting, but being a peripheral figure in daily life makes him really sad.
- I feel like an outsider, still. That makes me really sad.


I'm not naive enough to expect the boys to want to hang with us all the time (although E is amazingly willing to do the most boring stuff with us). 
But is it naive to think it common courtesy to spend a little part of your weekend with the folks, if only because they're daggy enough to  want to spend time with you? Is this situation exacerbated by the fact we're dealing with two boys? 

'In Peril'

Apparently my status on the newspaper's daily staff roster is 'In Peril'. I totally want that on a t-shirt, perhaps alongside a photo of me in an ill-fitting rhino suit.
Judging by the amount of coffee I've consumed this morning, the pronouncement is not far wrong.


Successfully completed today:
- Did some writing assistance for my swing-dance-school-operating friend, which was TOTALLY VOLUNTARY AND UNPAID thank-you very much, Citizenship and Immigration Canada.
- Um. I made the bed.
That's about it, unless I can also count drinking coffee.

Meanwhile, T and I are in the midst of an escalating battle between our good selves (henceforth to be referred to as "The Good Guys") and the mice that somehow wriggle into the cupboard below our sink to scrimmage in our green-waste bin (to be known as "Those Little Bastards").

We were quite impressed when our first volley - a tray of evil poison pellets placed beckoningly beside some water - was entirely consumed.

We became a little frightened when the second offering was downed as well. During daylight hours. While I was in the house.

I'm heading out shortly to stock up on more evil poisonous stuff. Who knows how many of Those Little Bastards are in our walls?

I hope none of them are Mighty Mouse.

One month and one week

To say we were stunned would be an understatement. Exactly one month after marrying my love, I had to walk into the newsroom and tell my editors that I was no longer allowed to work. Nor study. Nor collect Employment Insurance, into which I've paid for three years. Huzzah.


Things I've considered doing in the meantime:
- Write a novel one sentence at a time as Twitter tweets.
- Be active every day to become a doyenne of litheness.
- Teach myself French by reading only the French side of Canadian product packaging and visiting lots of coffee shops.
- Swan about my local shopping strip collecting fresh, exotic ingredients with which to make delicious, unusual meals for my darling husband.
- Update this blog.


One out of five ain't a bad start.