firefighter girl 1, snails 100 and counting

It's early Saturday morning. I'm sitting on my back patio in the cold, damp air, drinking gnarly coffee. I make it strong, anyway, but there was just a little bit extra in the bottom of the bag, so I dumped it in. . .maybe a bit too much, even for me. But at least I'm awake. The kids are inside, playing monkeys and monsters. I'm not quite sure what the rules are, but they're giggling wildly, so it must be fun--either that, or the game is just a cover for kitty corralling. Anyway, they're so high energy it makes me tired; fueled by youth and a breakfast of three kinds of cereal, dumped together in the same bowl, that, when mixed with milk, looks a lot like cat vomit. But they seem to find it delicious.

I don't usually have both of them on Saturday, but MixMan's daddy went out last night to celebrate his birthday, and Miss Diva's daddy had a Salsa dancing lesson last night. So yesterday we played hard, ran through the sprinkler, built, painted, and planted a window box, and stayed up late watching Toonsylvania. I checked this morning to see if the snails had eaten any of the new plants. Only two casualties, but this is becoming a serious problem. I don't like killing anything, and apparently news has spread in the neighborhood that my yard is a snail sanctuary, with tasty plants to boot.

This is war. Time for the heavy artillery. Beer. In shallow dishes. Snails love it, or so I hear. And yeah, they die, but at least they die drunk and happy. But I'm not behind this idea one hundred percent; I mean, it seems like a lot of work. I'll have to check itty bitty snail IDs, limit entry to snails at least 21 days old. Still, it's probably easier than my nightly snail chucking, when I toss snails into the grass and hope that at least some of them make their way to the neighbors' yards instead of back into mine. I dunno. I'll keep you posted.

Yesterday, MixMan's school had a first grade performance of music from around the world. I loved watching him sign the words, singing quietly with his sweet voice. Afterwards, one of the parents said to her kid, "Let's get a picture of you with the little deaf boy!"

WTF?!! I am so glad that MixMan didn't hear that. There are benefits, I suppose, to being deaf. On the way home, to channel my anger into something constructive, I turned up the stereo in the car, bass thumping so MixMan could feel it. We sang along to one of my favorite songs, the Black Eyed Peas' "My Style." It starts out with an a capella round "Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy," except I swear they're singing, "Lord have MRSA, Lord have MRSA." And why not? Everybody else does.