I was sleeping blissfully this morning when I woke up. I had heard something. And there it was again. My baby, screaming "Mom! Mom!" I jumped out of bed and ran into the boys' room. Aaron was sitting up in bed. I asked him what was wrong.

"Marissah is in our room!" he said.

I looked around, doubtfully. There was no one but Micah in the room with him and he was dead asleep.

"Marissah's not here, honey. Go back to sleep," I told him.

"Will you get me some water?" he whined.

I got him some water. When I brought it back to him he told me Marissah was in Micah's bed, under the covers. This led me to remove all of the blankets (and there were several) covering Micah and showing Aaron that Marissah was not, in fact, in his bed. He seemed satisfied and went back to sleep. I, on the other hand, was up for a good half hour after that, trying to get my heart to beat normally again. Nothing like being woke from a dead sleep by your child screaming to get the blood flowing, huh?

I'm still trying to figure out why on earth he thought Marissah was in their bedroom, much less in Micah's bed. And why would that be so earth-shattering as to wake me at 3:30 a.m.? Did I mention that I was the only one who woke up when he screamed? Everyone else continued to sleep like the dead, including Micah, who was a whole three feet from Aaron.

And as further punishment, Aaron is wide awake as I write this.....at 6:35 a.m. It's going to be a long day.......

Overheard......

Aaron, standing on the couch: Micah! I'm the king of the world! (loses his balance and sits down, hard) Well, I'm almost the king of the world.

January Book Review

Disco for the Departed
by Colin Cotterill
©2006 247 p.
Soho Press

Dr. Siri Paiboun is the reluctant national coroner for the People's Democratic Republic of Laos. Set in 1977, while the country is still acclimating itself to the new communist government, Dr. Siri and his morgue employees attempt to solve the mysteries that come their way. Disco for the Departed is the third book in this wonderful series. Dr. Siri and Nurse Dtui are summoned to the province of Huaphan to investigate a body found buried under concrete. Meanwhile, Mr. Geung, the morgue attendant, has an adventure of his own.

Disco is witty and sly, with a nice dose of mysticism to tantalize and entertain. The characters are wonderfully drawn and readers get a real sense of Laos. Fans of slightly out of the ordinary mysteries should not miss this series, which includes The Coroner's Lunch and Thirty Three Teeth. As always, I recommend reading the series in order.

My weird dog

OK, it's official. My puppy, Doc, is weird. A couple weeks ago, Doc was just acting strange toward me. He was growling at me and backing away whenever he got close to me. I called for Mike and he thought I had something on my hands that Doc didn't like the smell of, so I washed them. No improvement-he was still growling and backing away like he was terrified. The only thing I could think of was my sweater. It was new, never worn before. I hadn't washed it because it's cashmere. I took it off and Doc still growled at my arms, but nothing like what he did when Mike held the sweater for Doc to smell. He was scared of my sweater. I'm thinking he can smell those goats or something and he (obviously) doesn't like it. LOL

This morning I put on an angora blend sweater because it's freezing here. Well, reverse the reaction to the cashmere sweater. I thought the puppy was going to eat me right along with my sweater. He was just nuts over it! So, for future reference: goats=bad, rabbits=good.

Winter Weather Whine

Micah finished his science fair project last night (which snack is more nutritious-PopTarts, granola bars or popcorn) and had to take it to school this morning. Instead of making him lug the big half-moving box I decided I'd drive him.

I went out to start the car about 15 minutes before we had to leave and when we got out there the windows still weren't clear. ACK! For the first time in six years (since we lived in Great Lakes), I had to scrape my windows. Do I even own a scraper??? Nooooooo, of course not! I remember scraping my windshield with my driver's license back in the days when I was young and too dumb to think I needed a scraper. It somehow didn't seem right to desecrate my California drivers license with frost, though, so an old, used up Starbucks card had to suffice. I certainly wasn't going to risk my debit card or either of my library cards, was I?????? Besides, I'm sure Starbucks has new designs on their cards for Valentine's Day, right?

The boys were mesmerized by the frost everywhere. Micah is sure this means it's going to snow today (hate to disappoint him, but only COLD is in the forecast) and Aaron mistakenly thought I said "frosting," which I guess is pretty appropriate.

After we dropped Micah off, there was only one thing to do. It was time for a Starbucks run. After all, I was cold and I needed to replace that card. Right?

I'm not safely ensconced in my nice warm house (well, relatively speaking) with a grande Peppermint Mocha and the half of Aaron's cranberry orange muffin he didn't eat and a brand spankin' new Starbucks card with a Valentine's motif. Life is good, but it would be better if it wasn't so damn cold!

Help Me Out!

Mike and I (okay, I mostly) want to take a vacation in April. No kids, nothing too terribly touristy. Mostly, I want to sit on a beach somewhere and vegetate. I suggested Florida's Gulf Coast. Mike has no desire to go there. But then he says he doesn't care where we go. So, anyone have any suggestions? (Thanks for suggesting Sacramento, Meircee, but you have no beach!!!! Love you!)

I'm sad.....

Yesterday I learned that one of my favorite authors passed away. This wasn't just any old author to me-this was Barbara Seranella, author of the Munch Mancini mysteries. I knew Barbara from an online mystery group I participate in and I can tell you that she was a wonderful, genuine human being. I never got to meet her in person, but I will miss her anyway.

Barbara's books feature Miranda "Munch" Mancini, a mechanic who is also a recovering drug addict. In the beginning of the first book in the series, Munch is trying to start over-off the booze and drugs and away from her wild life-when her father is murdered and she is considered a prime suspect. Barbara's writing got better as she went-and it was excellent from the beginning. Do me a favor and look for at least one of them. You won't regret it.

Sickies-Part Deux

Today is the first day I haven't had everyone home sick since the weekend. Do I have to tell you I was losing my ever-lovin' mind???

Micah is still home. He finally isn't running a temp, but he's still exhausted. He slept over 13 hours last night-and that's the fifth night in a row for that!

And me? I still haven't gotten sick. I felt crappy on Tuesday, but it never amounted to anything. Must be my exceptional physical condition and the attention I pay to my all-around well-being. Bahahahahahahahahahahahah!

Sickies

I've got two sick kids this weekend. Micah started complaining of a cough on Thursday, but it really hit him hard on Friday night. I gave him some Children's Tylenol Flu and he puked it right back up. Nice. Saturday morning I got up to find him sleeping on the couch at 9 am. Remember, this is the child who has to be medicated to sleep at night. Oh yeah, he's sick.

Micah took some Tylenol (but not the pukey stuff) and felt better shortly after. But by 4 pm Aaron was down and out. He napped on the couch for about 3 hours and when he woke up I tried to convince him to take some medicine. He wasn't biting, though. Aaron puked, no medication involved.

Today has been a battle. Aaron still won't take anything, so he's just staying on the couch and whimpering every once in a while. Micah feels better, but still has a fever. Mike has this crap, too, but I don't have to take care of him, thank God!

So far, Marissah and I have been lucky, but you know what's going to happen. Everyone is going to get well and then Mom will get sick. And who is going to take care of Mom?????? Hahahahahahahaha.......that's right! NO ONE!!!!!!

Lucky me. Being a mom is highly over-rated.......

Justifiable Homicide

I'm contemplating homicide tonight. Or maybe just assault. Whatever it is, you can be sure it will be felonious and it will hurt. A lot.

I left the house at 3:30 this afternoon to pick up a few things from Wal-Mart. Marissah came with me because she needed some stuff for a school project. I should preface all of this by saying I am extremely tired today. I haven't slept well in a few days and it's catching up with me.

On our way to Wal-Mart Marissah explained to me that she can't just bring two things on her list to school, because then she'll only get two extra points. You see, they are making an edible cell model and the teacher gave them a list of supplies she needs. I told Marissah I was sure she didn't need ALL of that stuff, but she insisted she did. And those extra points are why. For each item on the list that the kids bring in they get an extra point on their grade. 15 items total on the list and you get 15 extra points. That's a HUGE difference when it comes to a project or test. My beef is that I'm essentially *buying* her grade. There is NO WAY the teacher needs all 24 kids to bring a package of paper plates. Or a pack of Dixie cups. Or a freaking package of gumballs. Gimme a freaking break.

We got all our stuff at Wal-Mart and went to check out. I went to swipe my debit card only to find it wasn't there. In fact, my entire wallet seemed to be missing. #%(*#Q&%*(#Q)*^$ And that is exactly what I said! The cashier at Wal-Mart was kind enough to say she'd hold my stuff, but I was pretty sure she wouldn't. This is Wal-Mart. In Tennessee. Need I say more? Besides, I had bigger things to worry about. Namely how I was going to get onto the secured base without my military ID.

I don't know any of the sentries on base, but there are some who are more friendly than others. You know I didn't get one of the friendly ones, right? Oh no, never happen. I got this runty little guy who apparently thought I was scamming him. I explained my predicament and he asked all kinds of questions (including where my husband works and if I have stickers on my van---as if he couldn't see the stickers right in front of his beady little eyes). Finally he told me to wait a minute, but not before he asked to see my driver's license (it's in the wallet with my freaking ID you moron!). I thought he was going to get something or someone to sign me in, but he just went to wave a car from the adjacent parking lot through. Then he came back to my side of the road and waved me through. As I was driving past I said "Thank you!" and he yelled for me to stop. I kid you not, he said: "Whoa, where are you going in such a hurry?" I was just about ready to strangle him, but I kept my cool. He finally let me go, but gave me a lecture about how important it is to keep my information on me. @@ <-eye roll. When I finally got back to Wal-Mart I was just tickled to see that not only had my cashier kept my stuff out, but she had just suspended the transaction so it was super-fast. I've never received such good service in Wal-Mart before-in Tennessee or elsewhere-and I made sure she knew that.

Now I had just one last obstacle. I had to pass the Moronic Sentry before I could get home. I seriously considered going all the way around to the other gate, but it was already 5:00 and I had no desire to prolong this excursion any more than I already had.

By the time we hit the gate I already had my ID out of my wallet and my window down. I was hoping I could just slide on through, but of course he remembered me.

"Well," he said. "I see you found it."

"Actually, it was never lost," I told him. "I just forgot it."

"Aw, you were just playin' tricks on me, weren't you?" he said in a smarmy voice. I swear, he was flirting with me.

I didn't stick around for anything else. He could have called Shore Patrol on me and I wouldn't have cared. Talk about an asshole. Did I mention how short he was? Napoleon complex, for sure. Short people should never be given power positions.

I'm glad I made his day, glad he got a laugh and some entertainment at my expense. I'll be thinking of him tonight when it drops down below thirty degrees and he's still standing outside at that gate. And I'll be laughing, too.

I can guarantee you that is one sentry I'll never forget and he'll never get so much as a "have a nice day" from me again.

Just Call Him "Striking Catfish"

Mike has been researching his genealogy since Marissah was a baby. We got this little family tree from the hospital where she was born and it got both of us more curious about our ancestors. He's made contact with many different relatives and traced his grandmother's family line (Paulson) back quite far (the 1600s or so). Last night he stumbled on some really cool connections.

To make a long story short, he was able to connect his grandmother's line to all kinds of royalty. If that's not cool enough, this line, being that it's royal and they tended to inter-marry, ties into other royal lines. He's descended from (among others) Marcus Aurelius, Constantine and King Herod. Cleopatra is part of his line, but he's not directly descended from her, along with Alexander the Great. Mike's line goes to Alexander the Great's lesser known brother (I am not joking here) The Rabbit. I forget his first name, but it's one of those impossible to pronounce Greek-sounding names.

And then, just to put the icing on the cake, his line ties into the ancient Egyptian line. So my husband is descended from the ancient Egyptian rulers, the first was named......"Striking Catfish." Less well known that King Tut, for sure, but isn't it much more fun to call Mike "Striking Catfish"? I know I'm enjoying it. OK, Mike claims "Striking Catfish" was the wife's name and the husband was The Scorpion King. I'm sticking with Striking Catfish. ;)

To sum things up, we now know my husband, and in turn my kids, are Swedish, German, Norwegian, Danish, Bohemian (hahahaha), and Austrian. Then we can add the places that no longer exist like Macedonia, Persia, and ancient Egypt. Plus a lot of Jews from Judea. Oh my......talk about a mutt.

Happy New Year!

Hope you all have a safe, prosperous, happy new year!

Merry Christmas to All!

Yes, that's the winning holiday photo. Notice the lovely date stamp. Oh well.

Hope everyone has a very merry Christmas and that Santa brings you every single item on your lists!

Love,
the Bengtsons

This and That

Well, Micah placed third in his spelling bee! I was so proud of him! They had a lot of trouble with the microphone and he didn't hear his word correctly. He spelled "method" as "nethod." LOL He wasn't disappointed, though-the two kids that placed ahead of him were both fifth graders. He did so well!

The kids are done with school now until January 3. Not sure how we're all going to survive that. Nana is coming on Saturday and I mailed all my packages and cards today (I'm late!). Now I just have to wrap. And wrap and wrap some more. Ugh. I loathe wrapping presents. One reason is because I suck at it. *sigh*

This is SO wrong!

Ya'll know how I feel about Mustangs. Imagine the shock and disbelief I felt when reading this. And no, I will not be getting one. Mustang Wagons? I'm going to cry.......

Spelling Bee

This morning I learned that Micah is going to be in the school Spelling Bee tomorrow. Who knows how long he's known about this. I only found out because I asked him why he had a 5th grade spelling book in his backpack.

Turns out he won the classroom Spelling Bee ("I was the person who lasted the longest Mom. Everyone else got out before me."). The winner of each class moves on to the school Spelling Bee. He's not sure what time it starts tomorrow, but he thinks it's 1:10. Or maybe 1:20. Or 1:00 (guess who is calling the school today to make sure?). My little speller......

Holiday Photos

When I was pregnant with Aaron and having anxiety attacks over how I was going to parent three kids, my friend Dawn gave me a tip. She told me that the hardest part of having three kids was taking pictures. Naturally, I scoffed at her. That's what clueless people do, you know. And then I had three kids and tried to take pictures of all three of them and it was hell.

I skipped family Christmas photos last year. I just could not bring myself to go through the torture. So I knew this year I was going to have to bite the bullet and take them, lest friends and family think I'm hiding my children from them or something. On Saturday I made all the kids dress in red and I broke out the adorable little Santa hats I bought for the dogs. Kids and dogs gathered around the tree and I took up the camera. And that's where my whole plan fell apart.

Doc, the puppy, was not going to wear the hat. No freaking way. I swear, if he could talk he would have said something along the lines of "Are you out of you ever-lovin' mind, woman?" Okay, no hats on the dogs. Gracie was willing to wear hers (or too stupid to realize it was on her head), but it would look ridiculous with just one dog wearing a hat.

Now that we've removed the hats, Gracie has decided she's not up to having her picture taken. Maybe it was a bad hair day. I don't know, but whenever we tried to get her to sit for a picture she immediately walked away. Okay, scratch the dogs. Kids only in the picture. This will work.

I got everyone posed just so and snapped a quick picture. Checked it out in the viewing screen and realized I had left the digital date on it. ARGH!!!!! I reset the camera so the date would not show up on what I was still convinced were going to be my perfect family photo Christmas cards and we were ready to go again.

Except we weren't.

After 10 minutes of cajoling, I couldn't get them to sit still. I thought maybe if they sat on the couch they'd do better. I was wrong. This is the picture I managed to snap just after I told them they were going to be grounded from everything if they didn't sit nice and smile.





Marissah loves her cheesy smiles and Micah and Aaron can't sit next to each other without messing around. The proof is right here.


And now, of course, Doc changes his mind and decides he should be in the picture. On the couch. Did I mention it's not even six months old yet and I really don't like animals on the furniture. Well, I decided to bend my rule for the sake of the Ultimate Christmas Photo. (Who the hell am I kidding?!)



One more picture and I'm ready to hang it up. Get the damn dog on your lap, look and me and smile pretty. I think I may have threatened to pull ears, but I may have just wished that.




What the hell. Enough. I'm sending out the picture with the date stamp on it. Do you know what pisses me off the most? I spent 45 minutes taking these pictures and I end up using the very first one I took.

Dawn, if you're reading this, I'm sorry I ever doubted you. I stand humbled before you. I can't do this again. Next year it's JC Penney portrait studio or nothing.

Christmas Mushrooms?

I bought some more ornaments for our Christmas tree today at Wal-Mart. It was looking a little sad with our special ornaments and a mere five red balls. I bought a big package of shatter-proof ornaments, because, well, I live in Heathenville. Anyhoo, Aaron and I were putting some on the tree and what do I see??? Why, Christmas mushrooms!

Who the heck puts mushrooms on their Christmas tree?! Is this something I don't know about? I know some people put a pickle ornament on their trees, but I've never heard of mushrooms. There were four of these in the package I bought. The rest of the ornaments were normal-stars, pinecones, twirly things, bells, etc. And four mushrooms. Maybe the ornament makers in China were just bored and thought "Hey, I know! Let's give those crazy Americans something to think about. Let's make them some mushroom ornaments!"

I have to say, those mushrooms are not going on my tree. I feel about it the same way as I feel about those ugly Croc shoes. Just because everyone's wearing them doesn't mean they're cute. I threw the mushrooms away.

Ah, I should have done a Google search earlier. Turns out I was on the right track: Mushroom Tradition. I'm still not putting them on my tree.

Make it stop!

It's cold here. Yes, I'm being whiny. But really, last year we didn't have our first frost until the middle of December. Here it is, December 4, and it's been cold for a week already.

I was so cold today that I put on a shawl. It's a very, very cute shawl. It's bubble gum pink and it's cable knit. Not really heavy or anything but it keeps me warm. And it looks good with my pink long-sleeved shirt. Well, my husband doesn't like it. In fact, he commented to Marissah that I'll make a good little old lady because I'm already practicing. ARGH!!!!!!!! Obviously, this is coming from the man who still keeps his Miami Vice suit because "it's gonna come back in style." (As a very funny aside, I just did a Google search for "1980s vintage mens suits" to link to one that looks like it. Can't find a single picture of anything that looks remotely close. Guess they're not coming back anytime soon, huh?)

Anywho....it's cold and I'm sick of it already. I want 75 degrees and sunshine, not 35 and gray. Yuck.

Happy Birthday!

Today is my best friend's birthday! Everyone join me in saying "Happy Birthday Meircee!" She deserves a very special day because she's a wonderful friend. :)