I am sitting here, slightly grumpily, with a cup of tea. The cup of tea, which is not nearly sweet enough.

I am trying to adjust to using less sugar in my tea – in Georgia, tea is not properly sweet until NO MORE SUGAR WILL DISSOLVE IN IT – but someone told me that’s bad for me. My teeth rotting, or sugar makes me hyper, or something equally stupid.

Nonetheless, I persist in attempting to curtail the sugar.

And when it’s iced tea, that’s ok. I can handle less sugar. There is ice to distract me, and fun cups, and Voldemort usually ends up drinking half of it. Which is why it’s mint and caffeine free.

But when I’m feeling yucky. When I’m starting to come down with something. When I just don’t feel good. I want hot, sweet, tea.

And my tea is getting to be lukewarm, because it’s not sweet enough for me to drink as quickly as I normally do, and I am pouting.

1. Rainbow Fish

A dreamy young fish becomes lonely and is convinced by the wise octopus that the only way to make friends is to give up everything that makes him different.

Moral of the story: Buy your friends. Be just like everyone else.

How it should end: Rainbow fish takes his scales back and tells them he’d rather make friends who like him for him.

2. Wemberly Worried

A young mouse with a severe anxiety disorder is repeatedly told by her family to “Stop worrying!” She makes a friend, and everyone thinks she cured.

Moral of the story: You’re being an idiot.

How it should end: Wemberly has a total panic attack on the playground, the ambulance is called, and the doctor proceeds to put her on medication, therapy, and berate her parents for medical neglect.

3. Love You Forever

An elderly woman drives across town to break into a house and emotionally molest her middle aged son.

Moral of the story: Parents have the right to touch you inappropriately without your permission, because THEY LOVE YOU.

How it should end: Middle aged son cuts off Mommy Dearest and moves so she can never find him again.

Voldemort started Kindergarten. (He’s also figured out how to hack the ipad password so he can buy his own games. He is a dangerous, dangerous child.) In KINDERGARTEN, which I am not yet over. Holy crap, my baby is in KINDERGARTEN. He’s in real school! Where he has real homework! Where they don’t take naps! Where he’s forgotten 2 lunch boxes and a jacket already!

He comes home and casually tells us about the stories and the playground and how he knows his letters and somebody puked in the trash can, and it’s all so WEIRD.

Kindergarten. Gah.

I’ve started the new job, and great news! I’ve only had ONE panicked stress cry! Admittedly, it involved an actual anxiety attack and took two hours and some xanax to calm down, but HEY! And the fact I’ve be proactively taking the xanax everyday has NOTHING to do with it, I’m sure.

Instead of doing anything useful at home, like dishes or laundry, I hang out with the kid while he watches his way through the entire Power Rangers collection on Netflix, and I read Teen Wolf fanfic.

Yes, the MTV show. Yes, about werewolves. Who are very frequently shirtless.

Now, this probably would make MORE sense if I had actually seen a single episode of Teen Wolf, but I haven’t. I just needed something (ANYTHING) as a distraction, and this seemed to work. Regardless of logic.

Also going on is Brandus insistence that I start taking any kind of classes in anything that interests me, probably going with the vain hope that one day I will no longer have to teach and can support us by doing something else. Underwater Basketweaving, it is! Unless they teach classes in living in yurts and raising llamas, I mean.

Fuck teaching, man. Seriously.

Dear half.com,

We have had a lovely relationship. I’ve been buying and selling movies and books on you for years and years and I greatly enjoy it. We’ve had our ups and downs, with things being mismarked as “excellent” when they should have been marked as “broken as shit,” but that’s ok.

However, I have come upon a stumbling block.

See, I was searching for a specific cookbook, one I’ve borrow from the library. I didn’t have it in front of me, so I searched the terms “frugal” and “$75.”

Flurnamen Und Eigentumsverhaltnisse Im Suden Von Beuel is NOT at all what I am looking for, and really doesn’t resemble Family Feasts for $75 a Week but I thank you for the attempt. Whatever the hell it was.

Sincerely,
Still confused and still hungry.