I'm sorry, but just how long have I been asking or suggesting to him that he had to get his freakin' truck fixed and just how long has it been parked dormant out in the parking lot gathering leaves and dust? How many times have I set aside the money and asked him to take care of it and had him promptly ignore me?

Usually, it isn't a huge problem, but this summer it is. He is working full-time and I'm not working at the office at the moment at all, but rather working at home where the kids are and where the groceries should be. When I will be working at the office, it will only be at half-time status specifically to take Russell to and from swim lessons in the morning, for which I have to have my car. It regularly gets to be 100 degrees here. I am not hauling two little kids all over town on the bus when it's a 100 degrees out. Not to mention, it's MY car.

I'm not even clear at this point that we can get his dumb truck running because he's let it sit for so damned long (at least not for an affordable amount of money), but it seems like our best option considering that he's not too keen on taking the bus or getting rides.

I did set up a ride schedule for the summer for him, so that he can carpool. We work with a bunch of enviromentally conscientious people, so carpooling is cool in our office. It will cost him $5/week for gas, which frankly is pretty damned cheap and he'd make my life ever so much simpler. And I'll take him back home at night. He doesn't like getting said rides via carpool, though. He said he has to talk too much and it freaks him out. I've married a social wimp.

Tonight at dinner, he wanted to know why I was mad. I am mad because for two days solid, I've had to take the kids to Sacramento to bring him lunch and then rather than make two trips, I've sat there and waited him out. Today, I got him a ride and tomorrow, he's got a ride both ways. I've got stuff to do and I am not taking the bus with my kids, dammit. I'm just not.

Of course, this brings me to another nettle in the community property idea.

Pauline.

She's been taking the baby out all over the complex and while I don't have an issue with her holding the baby or even taking her out occasionally, I'm not thrilled with her making it a daily deal. I'm also not thrilled that the baby ends up being on the laps of 3-4 people every time she does that and that's a lot of contact with a baby. And everyone touches her hands, which go into her mouth and which one of these days is going to give her a horrid cold. I told Pauline no tonight because I knew the baby was hungry and was waiting for my other side and she got all pouty on me. I'm sure she's gone and told someone what a witch I was not to let her take her out, but I just told her that she couldn't take out my hungry baby.

Genny had patiently let Pauline play with her and distract her for a good half hour, but I really wanted to just sit down and feed her because I'd been feeding her on-the-go today and it was just too stressful. It's nice to just have a quiet sit-down nursing and play with her. I didn't want yet another interrupted nursing for the day. Apparently, Genny didn't either because she conked out after I nursed her for 4 hours solid.

I did go to Sherry's because I couldn't stand listening to Genny screaming in the back seat and Sherry's is 5 miles closer than my house is. I had endured about 15 minutes of her screaming in the car (I was on the causeway and couldn't do a damned thing for her.) and went there to feed her. I just can't harden myself against the screaming and I was feeling unsafe driving. When I got to Sherry's however, I was really pissed. Mike had put her in the carseat in the back without strapping her in. I was positively horrified.

I talked to Mike about it, and he apologized, but I told him the apology wouldn't have met much if we'd crashed and she'd died, which was pretty harsh, I know. But I simply couldn't imagine forgetting a thing like that. To me, s/he who puts the baby in the car makes sure baby is strapped in. The topper of it was that he had the baby with him for a while because we were at work and he sent Russell to tell me,"Mike wants you to get your butt up front now." I was in front of the born again Christian co-worker and I was mortified to my toes. And now in light of the fact that he had the baby that 5 minutes of waiting and didn't check that she was strapped in became fodder for some angry ruminations on my part and more apologies on Mike's.

We'll get over it...in like a million years or so.