She tried to tell me that I was supposed to do some series of laps and I literally stuck my tongue out at her (with a twinkle in my eye) and did my own thing. I'm sorry, but there are just some things a big assed broad can't do and of course, there are the things I won't do. I cannot, for example, short-armed as I am, bicycle in the water, propel myself forward and leave my hands on my thighs while doing that. First, I am simply not that coordinated. Secondly, my arms simply don't reach and if I slouch in the water so that they do reach, I'll be sucking pool water. Thirdly, I am sorry, but I don't do the mermaid kick. My knees are the knees of a middle-aged fat chic with serious soft tissue support issues and I don't tend to hyperextend them. like that. I swear if this chick would just get her stupid ass in the pool, and wear a couch pillow under her freakin' water belt, I could take her seriously.

And invariably, I try like hell to avoid her class and she ends up substituting for the other class that I like, but which simply put is an exercise in avoiding someone else's elbow up an unwanted orifice.

I found out that I could check out classes in the next town, but I haven't had time.

At any rate, after a long hideous aqua aerobics class I come home to both kids in bed and my husband in a perfectly sour mood. I looked at him and said,"What's wrong?" To which he responded with a look of death and increased volume,"Nothing's wrong!" I looked at him and laughed. "Oh, really?"

Then he spilled it. Apparently, Russell had gone full on ballistic. Mike had finally just sent him to bed a half hour early because he wanted to string his ass up. Whatever is going on with Russell apparently means that he needs his boundaries restated for him, so we're doing it. We told him that due to his behavior that evening as well as several other instances recently of poor behavior at bedtime that this indicated to us that he needed more sleep and his bedtime would be switched back a half hour.

If I'd been here and seen some of the wall kicking, table banging and other shit he pulled with Mike, he'd have had his butt tanned. Of course, that's probably why he did it with Mike. He wouldn't dare do it with me.

Then yesterday afternoon, I noticed he's got a cold. So apparently, he started his cold in his usual nuclear blast sort of way. I felt bad for both he and Mike. Mike and he worked it out, but whoa, nelly.

Last night, though, was shopping night. I took Genevieve with me to Costco and got our stuff there. She was totally tired though, so I just took her home to daddy who changed her butt and dropped her in bed. Then I went back out to Walmart and shopped all over God's creation for a freakin' metal bucket for the fireplace ashes.

We've been avoiding turning on the heat because it's so expensive and because this is a reasonably new house with some level of weatherproofing. The fireplace takes off the chill in the morning and evening, so we've been using that until it's gotten too full with ashes to be realistic. So last night, I got a shovel, a poker, and a metal pitcher. I have the feeling I'm going to Ace Hardware and buying a metal bucket and returning the stupid pitcher, but it's kind of pretty, so I'm thinking twice about it.

I swear though, I realize Americans are rather lingual-centric, i.e., they only like to speak English, but not all of us are. I was listening to this trio of Spanish speakers and hearing them comment on how they were fat and skinny and what the hell was I looking for -- oh probably for her fat husband (how did they know?) and then Genny squawked about something and I slipped and called her,"Mi-ha" which is a Spanish familiar term for "my daughter." Then the guy said to his friend in Spanish something like,"Oh, shit, she understands us!" They laughed uncomfortably, because I didn't look up from my hunt for 44/34's and moved elsewhere. I shouldn't have slipped, but when I hear a language I know, I like to speak it -- to me it's natural to do that. What seems dumb to me is their surprise.

Dorks. Yeah, I'm your friendly neighborhood cavacha (white girl) and I know what you're saying. Yo, it's Spanish, not Swahili, and doesn't it occur to you to expect that half the Southwest speaks the stuff? Yeesh.

Of course, I am constantly stunned in restaurants and various locations at how many native Spanish speakers about lose their minds when they find out you understand them. It's just so exciting to them that you know their language. And frankly, I'm very rusty speaking any more, but I understand pretty well. It's just plain bizarre to me.

Of course last night, at dinner, I was telling Mike that after 5.5 years of German, I was having trouble remembering all my pronouns. Then I dreamed about it all night and I remember them now. I keep expecting my high school German teacher to come down from der Himmel (sky/heaven) and take away a Stern (star). We used to get a star if we really knew our shit in class, which was worth a full grade point at grading time. If you had a 90 and three stars. You had a 93. Pretty bitching, those Sterne.

The only thing that used to be weird about him is that we learned this phrase "Vorwartz ho!" (Forward ho!) and he'd holler it and start marching in front of the chalkboard. He was a singularly odd man.

The only other thing I remember is a sad German drinking song, which I had to sing last at a pizza joint in Davis about 8 years ago to two very drunk and loud roommates. "Du, du liegst mir im Herzen....Du, du liegst mir in Sinn....Du, du machst mir viel Schmerzen, du weiss nicht wie gut ich dir bin....Ja, ja, ja, ja. Du weiss nicht wie gut ich dir bin." You, you are in my heart...you, you are on my mind....you, you cause me much pain...you don't know how good I am to you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't know how good I am to you.

Good to know that people are ungrateful in Germany, too.

Well, this has gotten convoluted enough...So Vorwartz Ho, baby.