Our Little Girl Is A Woman Now, Or Have You Ever Really, Really Wanted To Laugh Even Though You Knew Laughing Was The Utterly "Wrong" Thing To Do?

So Ex Sister-in-Law and I and her two daughters, Third Niece and Fourth Niece*, along with Daughter-Only, were school shopping over the weekend. This shopping involved driving in Rochester, which compared with my teeny tiny town is the Big City. At one point, I lost patience with the guy in front of me and said just above a whisper, "All right, fuckwipe, make a decision or get the hell out of the way."

ES-I-L chuckled and said, "Wow, I've never heard you cuss behind the wheel before."

I explained that now that my job involves driving so much I really have a lot less patience for other people on the road. Daughter-Only piped up somewhat in my defense, "Well at least you're not as bad as So-and-So [a family friend known to be a little, shall we say, testy, especially behind the wheel]. She screams at everyone."

"Well, that's because So-And-So is a B-I-T-C-H," I pointed out, oh-so-cleverly spelling the word even though my nieces are 9 and 12 and well beyond the age when I can get away with that.

Without missing a beat, Third Niece chimes in, "Are you just F-U-C-K-I-N figuring that out?"

*Formerly Youngest Niece and Next-To-Youngest Niece, whose Blog Names have been changed by the arrival of Fifth Niece, brand new daughter of Baby Brother and Sister-in-Law-To-Be. Similarly, Only-Nephew has become First Nephew with the arrival of Second Nephew (formerly Fetus-On-The-Fridge).

Don't Even Mention The Table Saw

So we've moved again about which I'm not at all happy. I've been acting like a complete ass instead of acting grateful to have a roof over my head. In my defense, it's not that easy to muster gratitude for a roof when it's not only got moss growing on it but grass and a few stalks of goldenrod sprouting up there as well. Looking on the bright side in this case probably means being grateful that the goldenrod didn't have fertile enough ground to actually bloom.

In addition to the flora sprouting from the roof, the house was full of the previous tenant's belongings. Not just a few things left behind in a last minute move, but rooms full of furniture, clothing, bedding, eyeglasses, half-finished bottles of water, and so much more--all tidily arranged and remarkably clean considering the house had been left empty for nearly a year.*

This meant essentially moving two households of stuff over the course of six days. Our new landlord told us we were welcome to keep any of the left-behind stuff that we wanted and have a yard sale with the rest. Hubby was delighted to find a variety of new (still in the package) and like-new power tools on the cluttered back porch. On one of our many trips between houses, he said to me, "There was a belt sander that I don't think has ever been used."

From the backseat, Daughter-Only piped up, "Why would you want to sand your belt?"

*Long and complicated story, but we've been assured she's not dead and also not coming back for any of her stuff.