The monkeys were on a Black Eyed Peas kick last week. “It makes us giggle and makes our booties wiggle” is their reasoning. Can’t argue with that! We actually bravely ventured out for a bit on Black Friday. We were so not the early birds though. We were like the 9am birds. Our first stop was breakfast, then on to pick out Christmas mornin’ jammies (our lil tradition), various fun deals (hello Goonies for $3.99) and then ultimately our Christmas Tree (it’s up and lit, no decorations yet though).

Merrily cruising along on the way home when track #17 of the BEP CD I made them comes on. It’s “Where is the Love?” Thinking they’d passed out because they were actually quiet, Eldest Monkey screams “STOP! PULL OVER MOMMY!!” scaring the absolute shit outta me. To the point where I actually throw on my blinker and pull over on the side of the road, my heart thumping louder than the bass in the song. I slam it into park and spin around to ask EM what is wrong, doing a quick scan for blood or some proof of silent mayhem. She replies “You gotta call them now mommy.” “Umm…. Who am I calling and why baby?” “The Peas mommy, you gotta call them right now.” I know I should be PISSED because she’s screaming for me to pull over and they are both fine, but instead I’m just staring at her all perplexed. Deep breath.

“Well honey, I don’t have their phone numbers and why would I be calling them? “ Her lil eyes started to tear up as she fought to explain. “You just have to find their numbers mommy. You have to! They are so sad and they can’t find the love because of all this bad stuff that is going on in the world. They need to know mommy. They need to know that people care and help each other. They need to know that there are people out here that care about EVERYONE and would always help them and not hurt them. You taught us how to smile and show love to EVERYONE no matter how they treat us or where they are from or what they look like. Even when they are super grumpy. And especially when we don’t even know them. They need to know mommy that we got their love right here. No one loves more than we do. You taught us life is all about love. That we are all about love and the monkey family does give really good love mommy. You taught us how to. You just gotta call them and tell them that mommy. ”

Yeah, halfway through that I started tearing. It killed me to look at her and say “Baby, they are famous and famous people don’t put their phone numbers out there for everyone to see. “

Then the lilest monkey plucks the thumb out of her mouth and with such conviction says “It’s easy mommy, you just email them mommy and say ‘Yo! I got your love right here!’ Yup. That’s what ya do. You can google that.”

I freakin’ love my lil monkeys. And they’re right. We do give good love. ☺ So, to the Black Eyed Peas and everyone that’s ever wondered just where is the love? We say Yo! I got your love right here!

Though I am a firm believer in “everything happens for a reason” when I’m down or upset, I’ll still wanna smack ya for telling me that. No matter how much I know it’s true. So, for the last day or so, I’ve been just off. Kinda up and down and all over the place. Like more all over than usual. Life’s been chucking curve balls and so go go go this last two months, I think it may just be finally catching up. If you’ve been reading my lil ramblings, you know one of the biggest upheavals was our move back to the town I grew up in. I will never be a cheerleader for this town, but today, I found some solace.

Well, this morning was rough. Lil one is still mopey that sis is going to school. On the way home from dropping her off, lilest yelled “LOOK MOMMY A RUMMAGE SIGN!! Can we go???” I figured, sure, why not. We’re driving down the long street and not seeing anything. I’m just about to give up and I spot a barrel with two blaze orange flags sticking out of it at the end of a driveway. The house that hugs this driveway was a beautiful, almost log cabin looking house. One of those that beckons you to come inside and put your feet up for a spell. I look down the driveway and see a full working stop and go light flashing and yup, rummage stuff. The light alone was enough to tell me it was going to be fun. When I began walking down the driveway, lilest monkey in hand, I realized that this was going to be much more than fun. It was transforming. Invigorating. Comforting. Blissful. Slightly sad, but all around wonderful.

At first site I spotted two HUGE displays of hand made purses and scarves galore. I had found me a knitter. A damn good one at that. To my left, just past them, were two HUGE bags full of beautiful wool yarn. Price $5.00 each. Seriously one skein of them was worth more than that alone. Lil one spots a box of books and we start digging through. For a whopping 10 cents a piece, they have a bunch of Little Miss books and a book long packed away in my memory. Spider saves Christmas. Spider and Peanut were scholastic books from waaaay back in the day when I was little. So, I tell lilest to go nuts and pick out whatever she wants while I check out what’s in the garage.

Two steps in I stop and tears well up. There on a table before me were stacks of artwork done by Mr. Pierce. He was my first art teacher ever and was amazing. He came in to our elementary school on a special basis and I just loved him. While registering eldest monkey for school, the walls of the hallways in the school administration building were peppered with the same work of his I remember once hanging at my school. I stopped to explain to the girls who he was and how wonderful he was. I began wondering what had happened to him. Today I found out. Mr. Pierce is no longer with us. But, I now have in my collection a wealth of his work. Ink drawing after ink drawing that will forever remain priceless to me. Including many drawings of, yes, monkeys.

While I lovingly went through them all, secretly wanting to just purchase them all and horde them, lilest discovered their chicken coop. Seriously, a coop with two live chickens. One laying an egg as we lingered there. The couple that were rocking on their back porch, him smiling, her chatting with us and crocheting (she does knit too), entertained lil one with stories about the chickens. The woman, Cathy, then came over and took the male out and let lil one pet him. His name was Raven. By the time I had finished sorting through my memories on art board, lil one was in a rocking chair on the porch gleefully petting Raven and chatting about the scarf I was making her for winter.

All of my artwork, two big bags of yarn, countless books, two leather binders, a big ole box of vintage Valentines and a huge art pad cost me all of $15.00. We actually hugged our goodbyes to the couple and made our voyage back to our getter. While loading our new prize purchases in, Cathy came running down the driveway (she’s pretty spry for her age) yelling “WAIT!” She brought this giant red plastic case and told us we could have it for free, to put all the new books in. She then asked us to come back any time we want to say hi and pet the chickens. Then, more hugs all around.

It wasn’t a difficult decision, next week lil one and I are going to bake some banana bread and stop on by. And to hell with a whole knitting group, I think I found me a new knitting pal.

As I drove home, which was just a hop and skip away, I realized, I had found my spot. The spot in this town that made me cease to feel quite so displaced. A point of reference that reminded me that home is indeed where you hang your heart. The view outside your window may contain ugliness, unpleasantness or way too much Stepford for your taste, but the warmth inside remains. Outside our door may lead to Monotonous Flaws, but inside is the eastside, bay view, even the SF bay area. It is what we make it. And just down the street and up the driveway is solace, complete with a chicken coop

When it comes to memories, elephants got nothin’ on my monkeys. Back in like May we were at Wally World getting my oh so beloved Sudafed and crabbiness ensued. So, in an attempt to redirect, I told them if they were good, I’d take them to see the fishies. Thus a ritual began. Every trip to Wally World led to a pass by the fish. When they first saw them, they of course wanted to bring them all home. “But mommy we can have a whole wall of tanks.” I knew we were going to be moving in the next couple of months and moving fish is NOT fun. So, I told them when we moved, we’d get some fish. They made me pinky swear.

Months later, we did indeed move. Two days after that, they began to not only ask when we were going to get fish, but reminded me that I did pinky swear. Never mind boxes were everywhere, complete exhaustion on my part and having to run around the entire town a million times to get eldest signed up for school, they wanted their fishies. So, I did what any mom in my position would do. I stalled my ass off.

End of August neared and eldest monkey’s birthday rolled around. Yup, mom got her a fish tank. We marched into Wally World and marched out with a feeder goldfish lilest monkey named Tink, a “fancy” goldfish I named sushi, a spotted Molly eldest monkey named Wonder Woman and Chauncey The Wondersnail. Oh the love and excitement. They wanted to sleep by the tank. They wanted to tuck them all in with blankets and yes, I had to sing the tank the bloomin’ lullaby.

Next morning Chauncey ole love was bobbing around on the top of the water, floating like a lil golden apple. I am FREAKING and googling the hell out of Gold Mystery Snails. We have to rush off to start the day. On the way home, I decide to stop at the pet store and see what they think of what I read and get Chauncey “a friend,” just in case. Kind of a soften the blow kind of thing.

Before we walk in there, I type up a lil explanation of what’s going on to show the sales person on my iPhone notes. (I swear I would marry that phone and bear its children.) She rocks and did really well with explaining it without the monkeys catching on. Of course it helped they were wielding their own mini carts (which amped my anxiety off the charts) and were distracted by more fish. She agreed it could just be an air bubble and instructed me how to handle it. WOOT! Small problem- they didn’t have ANY snails. Grrr. But, the girls spotted the smallest lil African Dwarf Frog I’ve ever seen. Seriously, it’s like Über Dwarf. So, we brought Princess Leia home and added her to the aquatic tribe.

BTW, we get home and and that lil shit Chauncey is happily whipping around the tank. Sneaky lil snail.

Two days later the lights go out on the tank. Grrr..

Then Wednesday morning rolls around and the dreaded has happened. Wonder Woman is so not wonderful any longer. Thankfully, instead of floating to the top, she’d gotten stuck between the wall of the tank and the giant dayglow colored stone thingie that I thought was obnoxious when the girls picked it out, but now want to hug. Eldest thinks her fish is just sleeping.

Now, lil miss “Wonder Woman’s Mommy” just started kindergarten the week before so she is a wee bit on the emotional side right now. Plus, if there’s a way to keep my kids from suffering a loss, even just a fish, I’m gonna take it. Knowing her lil sister will rat me out in a heartbeat (I seriously tried to give her a lesson on avoiding the complete truth to keep from really hurting another person’s feelings the week prior. I know mother of the year here. She ate a coveted Lunchable while eldest was at school and I told her instead of saying a Lunchable, just list the contents of it when eldest asked her what she had for lunch. First words outta her mouth when eldest climbed in the getter at the end of her school day “Mommy got me a Lunchable and I ate it. I’m sorry,” DRAMA commenced.) yeah off to grandma and grandpas she went. Thing was, I only had a little over an hour window now to pull this all off. Operation Wonder Woman II is on. Come Hell or high water, I’m not failing this one. So, I haul ass to the pet store and am about to start running to another store when out from some crazy tower thing in the tank pops a spotted molly that looks miraculously close to the original Wonder Woman. (The fish, not Linda Carter, but I guess you knew that.) The lil fish guy tosses in like 5 of the teeny tiniest lil itty bitty snails that I’ve ever seen. YAY! A distraction, just in case. I fly home with 30 minutes to spare. I give a quick porcelain funeral, then tank clean and treated and all critters in place. I barely made it. But, it was a complete success. We actually still need to name all the bitty snails that are currently being collectively called “cutie pies.” Lilest monkey comes home and checks the tank and is none the wiser. True test comes when we get eldest monkey. She burns a path in the hall carpet racing to their room to see the new snails and yells “MOMMY!! MOMMY!” I freak until I hear “Wonder Woman is awake now!! And how cute are these lil insy snails!?!??!” **HAPPY DANCE** Mission successful.

This was a monkey weekend away so I was on aquatic tribe feeding duty. Saturday night I sat in there for a bit just watching our crazy lil tank family. Of course I am now neurotic about checking and counting heads in there to make sure all are still kicking happily. Now, the lil ones are hard to find and tend to tribe up at times, crawling all over each other. Poor Chauncey had 2 on his shell the other day. But, I swear two of them were getting it on. Their lil heads were all intertwined and there was definitely something going on. Now, I’ve never seen a snail throw down, so for all I know there could have been some brawl going on over territory or one of the other snails or maybe one was just talking some smack. I’m a lover, not a fighter though, so I’m really thinking they were doing the lil snail nasty. Which means I should probably start googling snail birthing . By the way, you are all getting early holiday presents. Start picking your snail names now. Gotta be honest, whatever they were doing, it was kind of cool. I didn’t stand there long with my held tilted wondering what was going on. I turned off the light and pondered playing them a lil Barry White. Get down with your bad selves lil itty bitty snails.

My background is hefty in art and my mom is like the original Martha Stewart (minus the stick up her ass), so it’s no surprise that the monkeys and I are a crafty bunch. Odds are if you’re reading this, you are from the US so you are aware of Michaels. If you’re not- it’s a massive craft store chain. Not my first choice for art supplies, but it’s the crafty go to store. The one closest to us hates us. But, we torture them anyway because I’m too stubborn to drive 20 min out of my way to go to another one. So, they can suck it.

Why would they hate lil ole us? Here is how our love affair began…

Halloween is one of our favorite holidays so we ventured there to get stuff to make all kinds of spooky fun. We get there and there is but one cart left. Of course it was the squeaky one. Like nails down a chalk board squeaky. But, I have a 2 year old and a barely 4 year old, so yeah, the cart was necessary. We whipped through the store as quickly as possibly giggling at how horrible our cart sounded while other customers and the staff glared at us. We get to the front by the check out lines and there’s a row of $1.00 crap. The girls were so good, so I told them they could pick something out. I’m leaning down looking at something eldest monkey picked out and, out of the corner of my eye, I see someone grab lilest monkey and start lifting. Instant rabid protective mom kicks in. I snap up, grab the lady’s arm and glare at her saying “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Now at this point I realize she’s an employee and like 50 something years old. I don’t bloody care if she’s a young Mother Theresa, she’s touching MY CHILD. She has the nerve to then glare at me and say “I’m switching her to this cart, it doesn’t squeak.” I look at her, smile really pretty hoping to fool the monkeys into not realizing what was about to come out of my mouth and say “If you don’t let go of my daughter, I WILL rip your arm off and beat you to death with it. The check out is right there. You don’t just start plucking someone’s child out of a cart.” *bat eyelashes* Her brilliant reply: “Your cart is annoying.” My retort: “It’s YOUR cart and I have no problem getting REALLY ugly with you right now. So, for the last time, let go of my child or I swear the police will need to get involved. While you’re at it, you may want to tone your attitude down just a notch because I’m being incredibly polite right now and that’s fading…fast.” I won. Shocked? She let go and walked away calling me names your standard lil 50 year old shouldn’t be muttering. I think she hung a picture of us up in the employee lounge with a not so nice warning on it.

Round 2.

So, for lilest Monkey’s 3rd birthday, she wanted a Tinkerbell cake. If that’s what she wanted, that’s what she was getting. I gave Michaels a call and they had a Tink cake pan. And “a” meant just one left. I asked them if they’d pull it and hold it at the customer service counter for us for like an hour so we could come up and check it out. I had a list of things to get so we got there and started whipping through with our thankfully non-squeaky cart. So far, so good. I can’t seem to find the sewing section and there’s an employee just hanging out in floral looking bored, so I ask her… “Excuse me, do you sell safety pins?” Miss Attitudinal: “Ah..yeah. Of course.” Here we go. “Great, would you be so kind as to tell me where I might find them?” She tells me some isle number and off we go. Isle number doesn’t exist. There is a mini tribe of older employees hanging out in the back by where the isle should be coffee clutching, so I ask them using my nice, sweet little polite excuse me voice. The conversation pauses as they look at me for like 30 seconds and then back to bipping the go. My right eye is now twitching. Screw the safety pins.

I noticed earlier they had some yarn on sale super cheap, so I figure I’ll let the girls pick some out for me to knit them scarves for winter. Problem- we have to break through my group of new best friends to get down the yarn isle. Deep breath. Smiley happy face and sweet excuse me voice. They part like the glaring red sea and let us through. We turn the corner and there’s two more of them blocking the isle. Grrrr… To make it extra ribbed for my pleasure, there were boxes of stock scattered on the floor down the isle. Not only do I have to get crab and crabbier to move, I then need to deftly maneuver the cart around the stock. Sweet smile. Polite excuse me. Bob and weave baby. Monkeys pick yarn and up to customer service counter we go. Another deep breath. Home stretch and I have not done too badly.

We stood at the empty customer service counter smiling for 12 minutes while Miss Attitudinal and two other lovely employees stare at us. Finally, a manager comes over and says “Can I help you?” You know I very much wanted to inform her nah, we just dig hanging out under the customer service sign for no reason. But, I refrained. She pulls out the cake pan and it’s just Tink’s head. I ask lil one if she likes it. I can’t blame her at all for saying “Mommy, it’s just her head. No wings. Everyone has a head, only fairies have wings.” Off to the cake isle we went. They had a package of really cute little Tink figurines for the tops of cupcakes. Wee one loved them, I could totally work with them, off to the check out we go.

There was very little surprise that all of a sudden there was a line out of nowhere. In it we patiently wait. Three people get checked out and we are about to be next. Another employee comes plodding up and opens her register uttering the words I now you’ve all heard before “I can take the next customer in line.” The lady behind me whips over there like Flash freakin’ Gordon. At this point, I don’t have the energy so I look at the employee to see if she’s going to do the right thing and correct the woman. Nope. Eldest monkey, bless her heart, says very politely “Excuse me ma’am, but she said the next in line and that is us.” *beaming little glow* The woman scowls at her and proceeds. I’m fighting down the rabid protective mom thing now. Eldest then looks at the cashier “Excuse me Miss Michaels Lady, but you said next. That means us, not her.” I’m thinkin’ “You go lil one.” The cashier then scowls at my daughter. The customer flashes her a dirty look. Now I’m counting to 10 in like all 5 languages I know. I look at my precious little confused peanut and say “Some people are just rude baby, it’s almost our turn.” And then all hell breaks loose…..

The chick looks at the cashier and says “I guess bitch doesn’t fall far from the tree.” OH NO THE FUCK YOU DIDN’T JUST CALL MY LIL GIRL A BITCH!!! Before I can even go off, lil monkey stands up in the cart, points her tiny lil finger at the evil customer and screams “NO ONE CALLS MY MAMA AND SISTER A BITCH!!! NO ONE!!!!” She was PISSED. Shaking angry red in the face pissed. I think the whole store was staring and holding their breath at the same time bracing for my response. I just busted out laughing. It was now our turn. The woman who just got schooled by both monkeys needed a price check. So, we were actually done before her. Hello evil customer from hell, meet Karma, she is a lovely little thing. And yes, I absolutely made sure we all smiled, waved and said goodbye to the lady who was in such a hurry. In the car I let them know they couldn’t say the word bitch, but honestly, lil one was still fuming and muttering it under her breath the whole way home.

Three days later it was her birthday. She woke up, rubbed her eyes, got smothered with birthday smoochies and the first words out of her mouth to me were “Mommy, I’m 3. Now can I say bitch?” >;-)

With these two visits, a strong mutual dislike has been established. Like I said though, I’m not going out of my way, we can handle them. They’re gonna have to suck it up. I’ve been to Michaels all over the area and other states and have never encountered the treatment we consistently receive at this one. These are not the standard 18 year old snotty young sales people one pictures when horror stories of the disappearance of anything resembling customer service start being told. These are adult women that should know better. They should damn well remember a time when even fake smiles, a resemblance of enthusiasm for a job and politeness were expected. If you’re surly because you’ve woken up at 50ish and realized your life career has been a Michaels salesperson and are bitter about it- it’s not my fault. Do something about it. So, while I commend you Michaels for your Work Program for Bitter Old Hags, I respectfully request you change it to another location. Give those of us in the area a little bit of a breather and the hags fresh meat to be disgruntled at.

If you met my monkeys, you’d immediately understand the perpetual state of lateness. It’s not for lack of trying though, I assure you. In fact, I had a lil chit chat with the monkeys about punctuality. Yes, I used that word with the 3 & 4 year old. Anywho eldest monkey looked at me and said “We’re rockstars and rockstars show up late.” So, that’s just how we roll.

The point to this? I’ve been wanting to do the blog thang for quite a while now I’m all for that which is cathardic and (as a very rockin’ and way cool mom pointed out to me recently) this is a good way for me to keep track of the wonderfulness of life in monkeyland…….

P.S. I read an article today that said don’t wait until your blog is perfect before you start it. This is so NOT the background that will be permanently here, but hey- I should get credit for at least following the advice. I don’t always play by the rules, I often run with scissors and, like this blog, I am a continual work in progress.

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