Recently in Life in the Kingdom Category

On Saturday, C-Man left the house at 9:30 a.m. to drive an hour to San Antonio so he could play in an all-day miniature wargame tournament. When he was done there, he drove back to North Austin to play in another miniature wargame tournament all evening.

You covet our lives, don't you?

For my part, I did what any reasonable person would do and begged my mother-in-law to come over.

"Don't you and your daughter want to come over Saturday afternoon and bring that Christmas tree that you've been promising to give us and decorate it and make cookies with Boy Detective?" I said, "Your son's going to be out of town ALL DAY."

"Ooh," she said, "My daughter said I could just bring the tree over when I come to work but your idea sounds way better."

"Yes, doesn't my idea sound fun? Also, did I mention your son is going to be out of town ALL DAY?!"

They showed up right after lunch, and they even brought daughter's boyfriend, The Farmer, whom Boy Detective adores. Score!

I mixed up a batch of sugar cookie dough and refrigerated it for half an hour, following the instructions from my paternal grandmother via my mother's handwriting on the index card. My mother-in-law mixed up a batch of molasses gingerbread cookies and did not refrigerate that dough, following the instructions on the index card in HER grandmother's handwriting.

We rolled out half the sugar cookie dough and then painfully negotiated the following items:

• how much colored sugar Boy Detective was allowed to eat out of a spoon
• how hard he could slam his hand down on the cookie cutters to push them into the dough
• how much he could complain about not getting as much colored sugar as he wanted

My mother in law rolled out the molasses gingerbread dough and cut out some cookies. I tried to transfer them from the table to the baking pan. Squish.

"This doesn't get refrigerated," she said.

"It might do better if it was," I said.

"You don't put all the flour in at the beginning, it makes the dough tough," she said, "You work it in as you're rolling it out, and you put quite a bit down on the table too so it won't stick. But I don't like to put too much down because then the backs are all floury."

"Hmm," I said.

I finally worked out how to get them onto the spatula in almost their original shape, but the transfer from the spatula to the pan was asking too much. The bells were warping into unrecognizable lumps, the crinkly-edged circles were uncrinkling and un-circling. And then I had a clever idea. Don't try to slide them off the spatula, just flip them onto the cookie sheet! I am a genius!

Except that we live in Texas. In compliance with our state constitution, we have a Texas-shaped cookie cutter and use it at every cookie-making opportunity.

When I lived in Colorado, I did not have these problems.

C-Man's company holiday party was Thursday night. I have known about this party for at least a month. Also, I work in my house, which is where I keep my clothes. And yet, this is how I got dressed for the party:

Okay, I sent that report... ooh should I check email one more time? No! Stop checking email. I don't have time to answer it anyway. Do I still hear video game sounds from downstairs? Yes! That's good, that means C-Man isn't on his way back up here yet to find out why I'm not ready.

Oh god, the closet is cold. Is there anything clean that I haven't yet put away that could help? No. Shit. Um, um, the red pants, I always wear the red pants, oh I do not want to wear the red pants they have a big crease in them and oh no they're also really dusty WAIT! THE BLACK PANTS! That's what I told C-Man earlier I was going to wear but then I forgot. OH NO DO THEY FIT AGAIN? If they don't fit I am totally screwed. What the fuck am I going to wear if these don't fit?! Wow they have a lot of dog hair on them. But THEY FIT! I can never gain or lose weight again. Thank god they fit because my husband would freak out if I had to take a shower and shave so I could wear a skirt OH FUCK my pedicure is from July. I don't think it can even be CALLED a pedicure anymore. That means no open-toed sandals, is it warm enough for those anyway? It's not far from the parking garage to the front door but then I would probably have to cut my toenails real quick why don't I have any other black SHOES oh I do, those should be fine THEY ARE FULL OF SAND?!

I will use this clean white sock to scrub them out my GOD what the hell did I do in these shoes the last time I wore them? When was that anyway? And why are the soles unsticking from the base? Please tell me I can unstick them and stick them back where they're supposed to go, oh hang on my feet go there anyway haha. Gack, these feel awful! They're still full of dirt! Dammit, C-Man is going to be here soon and he's not going to be happy that I'm not ready to leave.

Black pants, black pants, black pants with a... oh no, I never DID find that black camisole that I pretty much have to wear under anything I'm going to wear with these pants I am so SCREWED! That basket is dirty laundry, that basket is dirty laundry, that basket is clean laundry is there anything down in there long underwear C-Man's shirts socks HEY CAMISOLE! Okay okay this is going to be okay. No long sleeve shirts clean. Um. Okay okay I can make this work with a... sweater over a black sleeve shirt! Oh, that black sweater I bought right before BlogHer, it's in the drawer right there and hey look it's hopelessly wrinkled! WHY DIDN'T I THINK ABOUT THIS YESTERDAY?!

I could throw that in the dryer for five minutes and it would be fine except no we're supposed to leave five minutes ago, um, what about this one that I bought in Portland that's just as good oh um I really don't want to wear this NO IT WILL BE FINE BECAUSE IT HAS TO BE! GO BACK TO THE CLOSET! No wait, what's in this drawer? Pretty brown shirt! NO pretty brown shirt is wrinkled too! The dryer won't even fix it how am I going to fix it? I hope the internet will tell me and how am I supposed to store these damn things anyway when I don't wear them very often I feel victimized by my clothing and I really want to yell at someone right now I hope no one comes upstairs. CLOSET! NOW!

It's cold in here. Um, okay, ummmm... green shirt! Christmas party, green! Pull it on, remember it's going to be cold, do you need to wear a bra under the camisole? I don't want to wear the green shirt, there must be something else here REALLY why don't I own any CLOTHES? Take the green shirt off the hanger, pull it on, go to the mirror. I was so right, this haircut is too short. I'll tell everyone it's fine but I really don't like it. Leave it ALONE it only gets worse when you mess with it. Oh, right, do I need a bra? No! Score!

And this sweater looks great! Except for the sleeves. And the sleeves of the green shirt are making the shoulders kind of lumpy. I'll tuck them in this way instead OH LORD NO don't do that, and what the hell am I going to do with this part ACK the camisole is too long, can I tuck it in NO then the button on the pants will show through the shirt can I fold the camisole a little AHA YES. The shoulders don't work. Oh I hate the sweater sleeves I forgot they had buttons, what if I unbutton them? Yeah, no, I need to stop trying to save this now no one's going to be looking at me anyway seriously get over yourself you're 37 years old and have a kid and a bad haircut and you're going to stay for like an hour WHY DIDN'T I GET OUT THE OTHER SWEATER AN HOUR AGO THEN I MIGHT HAVE LOOKED DECENT this is ridiculous and the camisole is showing because the green shirt is so low cut I DO NOT CARE it's the same color as my pants and sweater it's fine it doesn't look like a bra whatever just go downstairs DO NOT FORGET TO LINT ROLL THE PANTS!

Fuck, purse. Oh but that's easy. HEY, where's my BLACK PURSE? Ohhhhhhh, I threw it away because the handle started cracking after 15 years. The little one though! Right in my dresser drawer!

NOT IN MY DRESSER DRAWER!

Last time I would have used it was when when when BLOGHER! Suitcase? Ooh I'm so smart look in the little red suitcase not there what the hell is wrong with me that I have not completely unpacked from a trip I went on in JULY?! Please tell me it's in the big red suitcase no it's not no no no THERE! Hahahaha, I win, little black purse, I hate these shoes they are full of dirt I am throwing them away right when I get home but I am not going to this party to have a good time I can just absorb punishment it's fine. Is there anything I can do about my hair? No. Do I own any powder? No. Dammit, that was dumb, why don't I own any? Origins counters are all in another state? NO. But I am so tired of power compacts breaking and spilling stuff everywhere. LEAVING NOW.

And then I put my black purse down on the kitchen table next to my four year old son, who was eating yogurt.

(C-Man almost immediately picked it up, fearing catastrophe, because, as always, he is my hero.)

I wore his black Honda mechanic's jacket because I don't have a coat that's as long as the black sweater I was wearing.

And I did forget to lint roll my pants.

1. Something bad happening to my kid.

2. Libertarians taking over the country.

3. Discovering in my 40s that I was just as self-absorbed and horrible in my 30s as I was in my 20s, and thus all my self-congratulation in my 30s about finally becoming a reasonable human being were delusional. And then having the cycle repeat in my 50s.

4. That I will be required to eat kale every day to stave off a deadly disease.

First Question: Where is all this dirty laundry coming from?

Seriously, it's out of control. One of the people who lives here is only about 40 inches tall, so his clothes are just not that big. I wear only a couple of pairs of jeans a week and a clean shirt every day (I promise.) C-Man has a distressing tendency to wear pants for one day and then throw them in the wash even if they are not actually dirty, but STILL I DO NOT UNDERSTAND HOW ALL THESE LAUNDRY BASKETS FILL UP SO FAST. If The Dog was wearing clothes you'd think I would have caught her by now.

Second Question: Who is eating all the food?

I cannot comprehend how we can go to the store, spend buckets of money, cram a bunch of stuff into the cabinets, find new and exciting ways of balancing bananas and apples in/around the big plate on the table where we keep that stuff, and then ONE DAY AND FIFTY FIVE MINUTES LATER we are unable to pull together a coherent meal for dinner. My standards for coherent are pretty low. Mac and peas and waffles? Sure. Risotto and edamame and a smoothie? Sounds fine to me. But when you're eating saltines with peanut butter and 1/4 cup leftover pasta with parmesan and calling that dinner, that's a little shaky. Where did all the actual food go?!

Have you seen those blog challenges where the author must post five or ten things about themselves they genuinely like? Sometimes there's an added stipulation that you can't undercut anything on the list, like by saying "My eyes are lovely, which is a good thing, because people notice them instead of my nose."

I have never found it difficult to come up with a list of my outstanding qualities.

I have also never found it difficult to come up with a similarly sized list of my faults. With detailed examples and possibly footnotes.

Overall, though, I'm convinced that I'm awesome. One negative side effect of this is me acting like a complete jerk without realizing it. Exhibit A: my twenties. Another negative side effect is that I'm in a perpetual state of confusion about why I can't keep up with my current life.

Why is it not possible for me to work, parent, wife (is that a verb?), clean, balance the checkbook, have friends and hobbies, and also make time to save the world? I should be able to do all of these things, because I so obviously rock.

The fact that never in my entire life have I done as many things as are on my to-do list, and I have less time than ever before, is no impediment to my shock that more is not getting done around here. The HSA receipts are not attached to their proper monthly statements, the child's closet ONCE AGAIN has a bunch of stuff piled on the floor, the lamp we stopped using several months ago has not yet been given away on Craigslist, the dog is scratching her hair off again and no one has called the vet, the blogs are neglected, I haven't sewn anything in years, the baseboards are really quite gross in the kitchen, ironing is only dimly recalled, any pretense of nurturing the yard has been abandoned, please don't go into my garage, the Netflix disc has been sitting here for two months, I have friends in L.A. and New England I haven't talked to in a year or more, and it would be awesome if I could wash my hair every other day instead of... whenever it happens now. Every three days I hope.

The towels keep coming out of the wash with this musty smell and I don't know why. I'm paranoid that the drought means we may have foundation problems eventually and we could possibly be doing something about that but I haven't even looked online for basic info. We're using way more water than last year even without maintaining the yard and surely I should do something about that. I have cards from lovely people I met at BlogHer this year (and last year) that I should sort through and do something with.

If I were as cool as I think I am, the closets would be cleaned out on a quarterly basis, the hand me down clothes would go straight into a box for Goodwill or a friend (Hi LC!) and be sent straightaway instead of sitting on my office floor for six months. With all the shoes Boy Detective has ever outgrown. And our broken bathroom scale. And the wedding present we got for my cousin but never managed to drop off at their house which is 10 minutes away. I would have already called the bank to find out why the Quicken download of information from my mother in law's credit card that's attached to C-Man's account has stopped working, claiming that the password is incorrect even though it used to work and no one has changed it and why does everything have to be so much HASSLE?

I am seriously considering taking up caffeine again, after more than 15 years without it, just so I can handle my life. My alternative seems to be making a choice between blogging and reading comics, or dropping both entirely because there just isn't room for that and sleep too.

What do people with actual difficult lives do?

Dear Neighbors,

Since we moved into this house almost five years ago, our yard has often been an eyesore. Our sins have included grass so high we could lose The Dog in it, overgrown flowerbeds that caused even my own mother to use the term "abandoned" to describe the look of our house, and even one famous transgression that involved cardboard boxes of grass clippings sitting in front of our house for several days. We really appreciated your warning that "someone" might call the city if we didn't take care of that issue.

We seem to have gotten most of this misbehavior under control, though. So we imagine you were quite surprised yesterday morning to discover that we had begun storing a mattress, box spring, and bed frame on our lawn.

We were as surprised as you were.

Upon realizing there was a complete bed in our front yard, we took a careful inventory of the beds inside our home to determine if we might have misplaced one. Accounting for the beds we usually sleep in was fairly simple, as we had just gotten out of them. The downstairs sleeper sofa was also intact, and we confirmed proper storage of the deflated air mattresses in the upstairs linen closet.

Had there been a bed in our front yard when we went to sleep? No. Was there a bed in our front yard when we woke up? Yes. Did any of us recall acquiring a bed during the night and leaving it in the front yard? No.

Given that the bed only made it halfway in to the yard, actually, with half in the street, and also because it was blocking the fire hydrant, it seemed prudent to take immediate action.

Also we saw several of you drive by, slow down, and stare.

The City of Austin was more than happy to take a report of illegal dumping, and assign a code inspector to follow up within 1-2 business days. "Do you have a list of hauling services you refer people to?" we asked. No, sorry.

Through the amazing power of Yelp, though, we connected with Big Time Roly, of Big Time Trash Hauling, who answered his phone right away and gave us a quote. He apologetically asked if it was too much. He said he could be here by 7 p.m., but then called back to say he could actually come by in about an hour. Win!

By the time y'all got home from work, the bed was gone. In its place I should have put a sign that said "WE DIDN'T DO IT!" but it was a hot day and I had a lot of work to do.

Regards,
The Princess

Suddenly, when you open your trusty computer desktop calculator while paying bills, it looks like this:

It's unnatural, I tell you.

1. If you have time to do everything on your list, you have time to do the important but horribly painful stuff first. Doing all the easy and fun part at the beginning because you are a procrastinator is self-sabotage, because then you're doing all the shitty jobs at the end when you're out of energy and time. And you feel haunted all day because the bad stuff is still on the list.

(I said I LEARNED this, as in, the truth of it has now coalesced in my brain. I didn't say I manage to remember and act accordingly every day.)

2. Salads don't have to be mostly composed of lettuce. You can put an egg and a smidge of cheese and five different non-lettuce vegetables in a salad, and it's still better for you than eating yet another bowl of cereal.

Previous post here in case you are desperate for more of my hard-earned wisdom.

Allow me to share with you this excerpt from our neighborhood group newsletter:

Dear Residents: For numerous years past, the same small group of volunteers has rallied the troops to make ---'s very popular parade and picnic happen. The children who enjoyed the event while growing up are now grown, and these volunteers are tired. Numerous requests have been sent out for the past three years for new blood, but none has materialized. So, this year ---- will not in any way be associated with a July 4th celebration.

What this means to you is that there will be no official parade, no parade permit, no police escort, no event insurance in case someone is hurt, no park reservations; and no food, drink, vendors, shade structures, politicians, or entertainment at the part.

I sincerely hope all of you enjoy your July 4th, wherever you may be, and that the ---- event is revived in the future. Even if it isn't, though, so many enjoyed the event for so many years that the memory will live on for a long time. Thank all of you volunteers so very much for keeping the event going as long as you did. You deserve a big round of applause.

Other titles I considered using for this post:

• Why I'm not a joiner
• And yet, we will probably make it to July 5th just fine
• Maybe if the minister across the street (our "area coordinator" for the neighborhood group) would stop talking smack about our yard behind our backs, I would give a damn.

Somewhere in this house is a DVD case for 40 Years of X-Men. Inside it is an Adobe Photoshop installation CD.

I know this because when we cleaned out the hall closet in December, I found the Adobe Photoshop CD case. Inside it was the 40 Years of X-Men DVD.

After cleaning out the hall closet, I cleaned out my office closet, which was the other big dumping ground for computer-related items.

Since then, we have also cleaned out the linen closet, Boy Detective's closet, our closet, the DVD and game collection, Boy Detective's art cabinet, Boy Detective's dresser, all of his toys, and our bathroom drawers. (One of the ways I try to manage stress is to organize things.)

Where the heck is the Photoshop CD?

My brain is locking up when figuring out what to do next. If it's not in one of the several reasonable places it might have gone, how do I go through a 1200 square foot house looking for it? Do I systematically remove all of my belongings from their storage locations, room by room? It seems so ridiculous to unpack kitchen cabinets, but I can't find a middle ground given that we've already gone through all the likely locations. There's no reason why it would have ever left the house, and the chances that Boy Detective made off with it are fairly slim, so I am just baffled.

If anyone wants to pick a place for me to start, that would be exceedingly helpful. If you want me to keep an eye out for any of your missing stuff while I'm looking, that's also fine, just let me know what it looks like.

Alternately, if anyone wants to recommend a downloadable graphics program that can crop and resize but allows me complete control over image dimensions, since that's about all I ever do with Photoshop, that would be awesome. Under $100 would be even better.