On The Road To Womanhood... Wearing Roller Blades???

I went to bed Friday night the mother of a tween, but awoke the next morning the mother of a teen.  How scary is that?  Yes, Mikayla is a true teenager now, having turned 13 at 12:57 a.m. Friday night/Saturday morning.  Oh the horror!  I'm OLD now!

It's hard to believe that the tiny, 6 pound, 13 ounce baby that I delivered is now nearing womanhood.  I say nearing... she's still got plenty of growing to do!

Thinking back on that labor and delivery I can both laugh and cringe.  The pain!  Oh, the pain!  Why did I not get an epidural?  Having Mom and Jill in the room should have been so comforting to me, but the blasted pain was so bad that I was delirious for most of the labor.  Speaking unintelligibly, moaning and groaning as if that creature from Alien was in my belly, not a sweet, innocent baby.




And let us not forget the most profound thing uttered from my lips during labor.




"Doc!  My hoo-hoo HURTSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"




But now look at her, my beautiful fiesty girl.

Always with the mismatched socks that match not her outfit, or even each other.

The child looks nothing like me.  She's all Oko.

She's a short little thing, but with legs that go for miles.

She's a playful thing when the mood strikes, but if she's not in a happy mood?  Watch out world!




Twice that day she made me sing Happy Birthday to her in my "funny" voice.  I do believe she recorded it and posted it on Facebook.  Little stinker still doesn't get it that it takes a lot more than that to embarrass her mama!




Here she is decked out for July 4th... on July 3rd.  Ermmm?  Huh?

One of the neighbors organizes a kids parade to celebrate Independence Day and for some reason, this year it was held the day before.  It was totally adorable, the kids, adults and dogs being led by two motorcycles and one quad driven by a retired Marine.  Yeah baby, yeah!

That's my little Jordyn, my favorite kid in the neighborhood, aside from my own.  And that's her proud daddy, Tom, who has fought for our country with bravery and pride.  Thank you, Tom!!!

They're at the ready!  Can you spot Strudel's ass?

And they're off!!!







Hope all of you had a fabulous holiday weekend. Mine was spent in the house by my lonesome, feeling horrendously weak and tired. I just found out that I'm anemic, so hopefully after a bunch of iron pills are consumed I'll start feeling my normal crappy again.


Muah!

I Smell A Rat!!!

Sniff sniff.  Do you smell it?  Smells like rodent to me!

But not that rodent.  He's just too weird looking.

I'm talking about this rodent...

And she doesn't smell at all.

Try to tell me that's not a face you could love?  I'll tell ya what, I love that face.  I love this rat!  

Unfortunately, she's not mine until I kill her owners and steal her.  Her name is Cheesy and she is Madison's friend's beloved pet.  But for the next week, while Cheesy's family is away on vacation, I get to rat-sit!!

Ya know, while the rats mice are away...

I know you're all thinking I'm some kind of ratshit crazy, but... I adore her.  I adore almost all critters, but I especially love ones that will snuggle and cuddle, wrap their tail around you and lick you senseless.

And that's exactly what Cheesy does.  She's kind of like a dog, but with a disgustingly scaly tail and little beady eyes.

I think Strudel wants to eat her but we can't have that, no no!  So Cheesy is spending time between Mikayla's and Madison's rooms upstairs, with playtime downstairs while Strudel is confined to the bitch cave.

I'm in rat heaven!!!!

Did I mention that I lurvs her?

Cloudy With a Chance of Electrocution

There are very few things that I enjoy about summer in Florida.  I could count them on one hand.



I love all of the lizards and tree frogs that come out to play at this time of year.  Any day now the tree frogs will sing their mighty songs each night, especially after a good soaking of rain.  I can't tell you how much I love that sound.



I love love love the powerful storms we get at this time of year.  Lightning strikes hitting the ground, great claps of thunder that will scare you right out of your seat... love it!!!



Except, the thunder usually doesn't scare me right out of my seat and there are times when maybe it should.



Several weeks ago, I was sitting out here in the bitch cave, playing on my laptop and enjoying the raging storm around me.  Any normal person would be enjoying said storm from the safety of the inside of the house, but not me.  Oh no, I'm much too stoopid for that.



So, I sat here enjoying myself until a huge fork of lightning came down in the woods directly behind my backyard.  At the very moment it struck, the sky let out a crack not unlike a sonic boom, but before I had a chance to jump out of reflex I felt a jolt that went from my thumb resting on the space bar, up my forearm, way past my shoulder, and up to my right ear.



I had been zapped.  Not badly mind you.  If it had been bad I wouldn't be here to type the tale.



But it did stun me enough to get my hiney indoors immediately.



Okay yeah, I grabbed my computer first.  But then I ran inside immediately.



My forearm was actually aching for quite a while, but this was my first zapping and I had to let someone know!  I quickly called Jimmy to excitedly tell him I'd just been electrocuted.  The conversation went something like this:



Jimmy:  Hello, this is Jim.

Me:  It's me!  Guess what just happened?

Jimmy:  You iced somebody in Mafia Wars.

Me:  Well yes, but not that.  I was zapped by lightning!

Jimmy:  Well, you're obviously not dead, so can we talk about this later?  I'm late for a meeting.



Hmph.   Thanks for sucking the excitement out of my victorious battle with Mother Nature.  Next time I'm calling Jill.  At least she would show some appreciation for my near-death experience.



This is not the storm that nearly killed me (pause for drama) but it sure was a beauty!

Jill was here that day and once the storm broke loose, we stood on my front porch to capture some of it.  Listening to this makes me cringe because I thought my NY accent was basically gone.  Not so apparently!  Blech!

And then a little more video for your viewing pleasure.







I bet you're feeling mighty jealous of my beautiful storms, aren't you? Well, don't be because along with the lizards and the frogs and the storms, comes the devastating heat and humidity. The other day it was 100 degrees with a heat index of 123.



Melts the skin right off your face.