Green's Hill-Amy Lane's Home - News

Saturday, May 9, 2009

Bless me Father, I ate a lizard.

For anyone who's ever read A Canticle For Liebowicz, that line right there is high comedy--and, pretty much, that's all I've got for you.

I've been in training for the last two days. The thing about working part time is that everyone assumes "It must be nice to get off early," without really getting the fact that you're not getting off early, you're reporting to duty for your other job. So when my administrator asked me 'ever so nicely' if I could please please pretty please show up for five days (non-consecutive!) for the full day of training, I tried to explain that this would completely fuck up everybody's life to the extreme--but I don't think I quite got the message through.

In order for me to stay at work until 2:30, the following has to happen:

Mate has to drive from Folsom to Citrus Heights to pick up Cave Troll, and then drop him off in Natomas. And then go back to Folsom. This adds up to about 40 miles of driving, much of it city driving, on Mate's lunch hour.

After I pick the kids up from the babysitter (who we now have to pay extra which I'm not making) I have to haul them NOT home, but to the Fair Oaks Library (this is one suburb over from home) in order to pick up Chicken. This effectively turns the half-an-hour trip home into an hour of driving for the little kids, which sort of sucks--especially since Cave Troll already made a similar trip only three hours earlier.

"Thank you, Amy! That's wonderful that you were able to do that!"

"Don't thank me, thank Mate, Ladybug, Chicken and the Cave Troll. They really are the ones suffering here, right?"

I feel bad because yes, that's pretty darned ungracious of me, but after I got Chicken home yesterday and effectively passed out in front of the television (because I stay up later working part time than I would working full time) and THEN took Chicken to a party and THEN dropped Mate off at the movies so he could save the line for Star Trek and THEN picked Chicken up from her party and THEN actually GOT to the movies...

Well, I was cooked and done. After four hours of sleep, I was still cooked and done, to the effect that, as I was bringing the short people from gymnastics this morning I truly had no predictive ability for the suicidal squirrel that decided to throw himself in front of my car as I hit our residential neighborhood.

It's true--I did try to dodge the little fucker, but as I looked in my rearview mirror and saw his tail spazzing out in his little death throes, that line from Canticle For Liebowitz came back to me. It's spoken by a young man training for the ministry (it's a warped, post-apocalyptic ministry, but there's the whole fasting in the desert thing to contend with anyway) and he finds what he thinks is the secret to the universe, only to have his finding so covered up by bureaucracy that he almost loses his faith. The poor guy is sent back to the desert for prayer and fasting, and he's so miserable that he has a falling down. Hence, "Bless me Father, I ate a lizard." "Say five Hail Liebowitzes my son, and do penance. Amen."

So here I am, tired to the gills and trying to do my best for my superiors, and I still manage a tiny fuck-up that's going to be tail-spazzing in my dreams.

Bless me Father, I killed a squirrel. "Say your ed code my daughter, and be sure to read your section on curricular mapping. Amen."

Oddly enough, I'm starting to lose my faith... go figure. (Fucking squirrel. Really. Do they have to get suicidal in the spring? Can't they just go antagonize pit bulls or something, do they HAVE to run into traffic? Just sayin'.)

(Happy Mom's day tomorrow--if I'm not quite as cooked and done and get a little more time to myself, I shall try to get to everyone's blog tomorrow. It's been so busy here, I've actually READ BLOGS I HAVEN'T COMMENTED ON. Considering how very little I like to keep my mouth shut, that's pretty amazing:-)

I'm going to go write three unintelligible pages for Rampant, which I will try to clean up by tomorrow--I'm about at 500 pages-yee-ha!)

9 comments:

TinkingBell said...

Hmm - and that about says it all - Happy Mother's Day, Amy! - I feel it's probably all downhill from here - squirrels or no squirrels!

ismarah said...

I'm a bit of an oddball (really) and despite English being my third language, I notice spelling and typos very easily (although I am not immune myself - nobody is). So I've noticed a few typos in your books but the content has been so wonderful that they haven't truly bothered me. (It gets better, promise). So I've just completed a hugely important thing yadda yadda and decided to reward myself with some books from Amazon.
Now, as you don't have anything more that I can purchase yet, I bought 'Ink Exchange' by a published author (HarperCollins) that I hadn't read before. And it's FULL of typos! So published people with editors and sub-editors aren't all that, really.

Oh, and just saw a ? woman calling herself Amy Lamé and immediately thought of you. Sorry.

roxie said...

In the Terry Pratchett Discworld novels, Death is a major, and rather amusing character. Among other things, he has a little sidekick - the Death of Rats: an animated rat skeleton in a black robe and cowl, walking upright and carrying a tiny scythe. The Death of Rats also does squirrels, gerbils, ferrets, etc. You were just the blade on the scythe of the Death of Rats, swung without your knowledge or consent, to accomplish his duty. IT WASN'T YOUR FAULT!

Gee, wouldn't it be easier for Mate just to take Big Q to work with him? (cackles evilly and runs.)

I hope Chicken realizes that as soon as she passes her carmitzvah and gets her license, she will become alternate chauffeur. Till then, you and Mate deserve applause and praise and extra naps!

Galad said...

Your whole family should get a special commendation for enabling you to get to the training!

Hope today is a lovely Mother's Day with no commuting (or squirrels)

ismarah said...

SQUEAK! to what Roxie said.

Louiz said...

I must re-read Canticle for Liebowitz (which a. I can never spell and b. need to retrieve from my father who I lent it to).

Squirrels are evil and deserve it.

NeedleTart said...

Happy Mom's Day. Now that the boys have left home (or as good as) I realize that what they say is true. Enjoy every last minute, even while carpooling. Whether it's you or the spouse it's still quality time and you will remember all the things you wanted to do (try singing along to musicals to keep them busy, or ask school review questions, we were always big on history and Hey! YS is a history major). You could always ask grammer questions (just runs, no evil cackel).
Posted.

Donna Lee said...

Squirrels probably cause as many accidents as any human being. You'd think they'd have gained some genetic wisdom and passed it along that asphalt is not their friend.

Hope your Mom's Day was a good one!

Unknown said...

Well, on the bright side to everything, at least Jewish scientists aren't converting to Catholicism just to save literature from raving mobs who kill and burn anything intelligent. Hopefully we will always have that solace.