Broken Record

It's been muggy and hot the last several days in Rhode Island.  Given that fall weather will soon be on its way, I decided to take the littles to a beach for some end of season ocean time.  I was on call the day we decided to go, so I decided to take the kids to the Warwick City Beach since its closer to the hospital then some of my other options.  That way, my turds could enjoy the sunshine, but if a pregnant lady decided to poop out her baby during my outing, I could get back to help her without a lot of fuss. 

Since it's the end of September, and Warwick City Beach is not one of the south county beaches, it was nearly deserted.  It was hot, sunny, quiet, and perfect...

Once we landed, Bubba announced that she needed to go to the bathroom.  I told her there was a porta potty open for her convenience.  She then insisted that she planned to pee in the ocean.  I then informed her that there was no reason for her to foul the ocean when a perfectly good porta potty was available.  I tried to tell Bub that although I find pool peeing and pooping in any body of water a crime punishable by death, ocean and lake pissing is more negotiable depending upon the availability of adequate toilet facilities.  As there was a perfectly good porta potty, I insisted again that Bub use it.  After five exchanges with me demanding use of an actual toilet, and Bub demanding the use of the ocean as her toilet, I finally gave up arguing since I wasn't totally sure she needed to go anyway.  Unfortunately, Bubba really did need to go to the bathroom and took my pause of silence as a stamp of approval.  No sooner was she up to her calves in the water, then she began to let loose with a stream of urine a horse would envy.  Wouldn't you know it, she also started pissing right in front of the only other family on the beach.  Yep.  Classy.  I tapped her on the head and stuck my face close to hers to give the family sitting behind us the illusion that I was scolding Bubba.  In reality, I was telling her that next time if she was going to pee in the ocean, she should at least submerge her butt in the water so no one would know how trashy she and her mother really are.

After the pee debacle, I sat on a bench and watched my babies try to catch bait fish and molest little hermit crabs.  I also spent a fair amount of time giggling as Bub ran away from imaginary crabs in the water that she was sure were going to pinch her.  I probably spent an equal amount of time telling Bubba to stop throwing sand...  Add in the cold Diet Dr. Pepper I brought along for the ride and I was in pure heaven people.  After about 20 minutes, I noticed this lady sitting on a inflatable raft, hanging over the edge and dangling her arms in the water.  Sometimes she would lay back on the raft and dig around with her toes.  She wasn't very far out so I wondered if she was digging clams.  However, she didn't have anything to put the clams in on her raft, so after about 20 more minutes spent watching her, I decided she was probably just a weird loon doing some sort of strange exercise on her raft.  Turns out my original suspicion was correct, because she finally dragged her raft in from the water with one hand, and started yelling at the father of the family who got to see Bubba empty her bladder.  "Quahogs!"  She yelled at this complete stranger.  "Come see the clams I just dug!"

One of the things I love about Rhode Island is how often complete strangers yell at other complete strangers so that they can have a conversation with them.  Sometimes they both yell at each other from the original distance, and sometimes, they gravitate together and visit face to face in a more respectable, if somewhat loud manner.  The father walked over to her and I could see they were discussing the quahogs and decided I was NOT going to be left out of this conversation.  I wandered down to the beach and the lady immediately started yelling at me about the quahogs.  Turns out she not only had four clams in her hands, but had been stashing the others in her bathing suit top:

It was then I noticed that besides her toes, she had been using a car ice scraper to dig them with!  Here's her haul when she had emptied out her bra...

She then began to tell us about how she rescues "dawgs" and proceeded to give my kids a "dawg" toy to play in the ocean with, which they promptly began to do.  Then, she and the father stranger began talking about how much they liked Warwick City Beach.  The dude's wife then wandered over and before you knew it, the clam lady had introduced herself to all of us and all of us introduced ourselves to her and to each other.  Then, we all stood there talking about various things for another 15 minutes.  After our nice visit, she called us all honey and she kissed us on the cheek New England style...  Yet another thing I love about Rhode Island.  By that time, it was getting to be dinnertime and I needed to get home to see my sexy lover and make him some supper.  I called the rats out of the water and off we went with sand between our toes, a smile on our lips, and some of us, with pee drying on our butts.  A most satisfying outing indeed.  Here it comes, I'm a broken record...  I LOVE RHODE ISLAND.

Beezelbub's Homie

As all of my Snapchat friends know, I am in the process of a giant home renovation.  One of the biggest components of my renovation is my antique pine banisters...  that some douche canoe faux painted so that they would look like wood!  I have been stripping and sanding those pitiful banisters nearly every day since I moved into my home about 4 months ago.  It is tedious and painstaking work, and most days I feel like I am barely closer to finishing than I was when I started.  Best of all, the rest of my life continues to need my attention.  Thus, laundry, cooking, grocery shopping, and watching my remaining brats, often punctuates the down time I have from my refinishing work.  However, if you think that my life sounds like drudgery, you would be wrong, because I live in Rhode Island.  True, sometimes my downtime is filled with tedious work, but it is also frequently filled with fantastic new adventures.  Why, this last week alone, I went to the Nordic Lodge with Jared and my friend Renee.  What is the Nordic Lodge?  Why it's an all you can eat seafood buffet, and because it's in Rhode Island, perhaps you can begin to imagine the wondrous delights I found there.  The outside alone is breathtaking.  Here's my lover in awe of the pond it overlooks:

There's hammocks, benches, picnic tables, and chairs of all kinds all the way around the building for people to sit on while they wait for their turn at gluttony.  I found this one after my meal and Jared has agreed to reproduce it for me:

I actually couldn't figure out why they needed so many places to sit until AFTER I ate.  I managed to eat 2 lobsters, about a ton of fried scallops, one raw oyster and one raw littleneck clam (because I am trying to be a legit New Englander) at least 1 kilo of jumbo cocktail shrimp, 3 King crab legs, 2 Diet Pepsis, some pineapple and watermelon, one bite of garlic bread, an ice cream sundae made from Hagen Daas ice cream, several pastries, a brownie, countless bites of Renee's and Jared's desserts, and 4 chocolate mousse cups.  I know.  Disgusting.  But it was 96 bucks a head and lobsters are only 4.99 a pound at Market Basket right now.  Therefore, you can see that I had a lot of eating to do to get my money's worth!  It was after I completed my appalling show of gluttony that I realized how important all the seating outside was.  I could barely breathe when we left.  For that matter, I could barely move!  When Renee asked if we could wait while she went to the bathroom, I gladly agreed so that Jared and I could fling ourselves in a hammock and let our bursting guts level out and relieve some of the unforgiving effects of gravity.  I still felt ill the next day and told Renee to never take me to the Nordic Lodge again....  until someone I know comes to visit... and then we need to go back immediately!  It was a fantastic adventure.  Way better than sanding my banisters!

What else did I do?  Well, I've been babysitting my parent's three legged cat Dexter.  How did Dexter get all the way to Rhode Island?  Well, he isn't really here, but my youngest demon likes to think she is Dexter.  Occasionally, she will go several weeks without pretending to be a cat, then will suddenly remember how much she likes to be Dexter, and then she does nothing but meow for every word she says.  Sadly, no one in the family but Bubba speaks cat, so she's forced to meow in frustrated tones while using hand signals to convey her desires.  It's magical really.  I managed to have Dexter in my car on the way to Boston yesterday.  Here he is:

Why was I going to Boston?  Well, because I live in such an awesome place, I have season tickets to the theater, and so Jared and I got to take Hannah to see Phantom of the Opera at the Boston Opera House.  Jared and I have seen it several times, but this was Hannah's first opportunity and she was excited!  For anyone that has never seen the Boston Opera House, you should try to get there!  It has a long and storied history and was even owned by old Joe Kennedy at one point.  It is absolutely gorgeous from every angle and Hannah managed to snap a lovely pic upon our entry:

It was a wonderful show, and for the second time this week, it was way more interesting than sanding my banisters and attending to my other menial tasks.  Isn't that picture lovely?  You know what's even more lovely?  The item you probably missed in the bottom half of that picture Hannah took.  That's the thing about Hannah.  She's savage and I believe she came straight from the bosom of Satan.  Hannah noticed immediately what was in the lower corner and cropped her picture accordingly.  Let me save you the effort of zooming and include her second rendition of her original pic:

I know.  It should absolutely become a viral meme.  Don't bother trying to come up with anything.  Hannah will think of some way to use that picture in a million different combinations, each more savage and rude than the last.  It's been a pleasure to get to know her dark gifts so intimately.  I lead a blessed life, especially when I'm not sanding my banisters... 

How Much?

As most of you are probably aware, I love Rhode Island.  I mean I love Rhode Island.  I love the scenery, the crazy people with their crazy accents, the food...  I just LOVE Rhode Island.  Since my lover arrived with my stinky kids, I haven't once considered moving back to Idaho.  However, I do miss lots of things about the Gem State and sometimes wish I could transplant them to the Ocean State.  Some of the things I miss are my mommy and daddy, my eldest brat, a few weird friends I left behind, some of the lovely patients and professionals I used to work with, the mountains and the stars...  Oh, and I miss this:

That's right.  I miss a grocery store.  WinCo has bulk food, cheap bread, cheap produce, an extensive Mexican food product aisle, and WAY more variety than any of the stores out here.  It's ridiculous how much more variety this one store has over all its New England rivals combined.  I could literally do almost all of my shopping at WinCo and that often included most of my toiletries as well.  I detest shopping, but I could get it over with in about an hour if I didn't bring my brats with me and if Jared didn't throw a fit when I wouldn't buy him something out of the quarter candy machines.

Since moving to Rhode Island, I feel like singing Joni Mitchell's Taxi Cab song.  "Don't it always seem to go... that you don't know what you got til it's gone..."  I realize that most people probably think Joni was talking about major social issues like deforestation and overuse of pesticides.  However, I believe she must have been discussing my feelings about Winco, because I sure wish I had appreciated and cherished Winco more when I was home.  

For those of you tempted to think I am being melodramatic here, think again!  I did my twice monthly grocery shopping yesterday and it took me about 4 hours to complete.  I had to go to four stores to find the best deal on the things I needed and it was horrible.  For the first time in my life, I have to go through the grocery ads and make a plan.  There are things I sometimes have to forego until next paycheck because I run out of my budgeted grocery money faster here since almost everything is more expensive!  I've had to give up my expensive cheese habit in favor of essentials like bread and milk and bananas and it's pissing me right off!  I also can't find a lot of things we as a family used to eat a lot of, or else I have to go to several stores to find said item.  Want to know what one of the toughest and most expensive item to find has been?  

That's right people.  Wheat farina cereal.  I could buy this crap for less than 2 bucks a pound in the bulk section at Winco.  If I wanted it flavored, it was only a couple of bucks a box and I could find several flavor varieties with Maple and Brown sugar being the favorite choice.  Don't misunderstand me.  I love wheat farina but could absolutely live without it.  The problem is that this cat loves it:

Emma could eat Cream of Wheat every day of her life if I would let her.  And since I love Emma, I love to buy her Cream of Wheat.  I couldn't even find it at the Aldi's where I do some of my shopping, and I haven't been able to locate a box of the Maple and Brown sugar flavor in any of the stores out here unless I wanted to buy it in individual packs, which I don't.  Stop and Shop had it for almost 5 bucks a box.  5 BUCKS A BOX!  This stuff is made out of wheat not gold you retail morons!  I left the store in disgust and considered giving Emma up for adoption so I wouldn't have to deal with the problem any further.  However, I decided to try the place that usually bails me out of nearly any shopping problem I have... Amazon...  Unfortunately, Amazon had sellers that wanted to charge 9 dollars a box for stupid Cream of Wheat.  The upside was they had any flavor I could want, the downside being, IT'S CREAM OF WHEAT AND ANYONE THAT PAYS THAT MUCH FOR CREAM OF WHEAT DESERVES TO HAVE THEIR ASS KICKED!  It only took me about five minutes to realize that Amazon was not going to save me this time and I threw my phone down in disgust.

Thankfully for Emma, I rarely give up on solving important life problems and that includes keeping Cream of Wheat in my house.  A few days after my initial search left me defeated and angry, I went ahead and bought a box for almost 5 bucks at the local Shaw's, thinking 5 bucks isn't that much for something that Emma loves so much.  Fast forward about 1 week and I noticed this morning that there's only one serving left in the box I bought.  Suddenly, five bucks seemed liked way too much to be spending for Emma when I can't afford my 20 dollar a pound stinky cheese habit anymore.  Fast forward again to my lunch hour today.  I needed some toothpaste and have decided that any time I'm in a store, I'm going to check for wheat farina cereal and try to keep track of who stocks it for the least amount of money.  It just so happens that Dave's Marketplace had it for 3.50 a box!  They still didn't have Maple and Brown Sugar, but at least I got two boxes to last Emma for half a month for only 7 dollars!  Eureka!  

What's wrong with people out here?  Is it possible they don't feel rage about their shopping experience because they just don't know about WinCo like I do?  Am I going to have to move back to Idaho to get some food satisfaction?!  Hold that thought.  It looks like Market Basket has lobsters on sale for $4.99 a pound again this week.  Screw you WinCo.  You're dead to me.  You and all the Maple and Brown Sugar Cream of Wheat on your shelves!  Looks like Rhode Island is the place for me!