Ugh Valentine’s Day. Ugh Presidents Day.

Trying to write anything creative right now is proving terribly terribly impossible due to a little run of crappy we’ve had here. I’ve got 3 or 4 posts started, but none finished, and all outdated, despite their all containing information I wanted to tell you. So what do I do? Mashup? Forget it all and move on? Just keep writing and pretend everything is still current?

Yes. A list! Of all the crappy! So I can get it out and move on! You’re brilliant!

(Warning: It’s a long one. And it contains nothing truly tragic or even deserving of much attention. It’s just that there’s been enough compounded crappy that I’m feeling downtrodden and low and ready to come out from under it all.)

1) Last Tuesday night, I finished up a stupid job that had been plaguing me with its stupidity and pointlessness for way too long. Mere minutes after I went to bed that night, at around 1:30, Lucy woke up and basically didn’t go back to sleep. At all. Til morning. Zoe woke up around 3:30 and she was in for a penny in for pound too. While highly unusual, this would actually have been not so horrible had they just stayed in their room and talked, played, read, whatever. But instead, they kept coming up to our room so we pretty much didn’t sleep either. Thank god for school the next day, and thank GOD they don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day at their school because between the stupid job and the not sleeping, I would definitely not have been ready with their armfuls of valentines. Ugh.

2) After I dropped the girls off at school, I went to the grocery store because the stupid job had kept our cupboards bare for too long. This is not newsworthy in any way (no, I didn’t win any luggage this week). But upon leaving the grocery store, I pulled out to make a left turn across a 4-lane road and a car appeared out of nowhere (from behind a SUV that I thought I could see around but it turns out I couldn’t) and I ran into it. My first car accident ever. I still feel so depressed about it that merely typing it here caused all the air to go out of the room. I’ve had my driver’s license for 21 years and I’ve never hit anything. Much less in a scenario so banal as to have “not seen a car around an SUV” when I “knew” darn well that there was no car coming. Dammit. Dammit. I’ll say it again. Dammit. Ugh.

But it gets better.

3) The guy I hit turns out to be this terrifically nice guy who could not have been kinder or more understanding of my ineptitude (he was way more understanding of me than I was of myself). We exchanged business cards and I see that he is in the same business as my cousin. Whom he knows. Well. Whose wedding he will be attending in 2 weeks. Whose wedding I will be attending in 2 weeks. Did I just hear you cringe? Yep. Me too. Ugh.

4) When the cop shows up, he turns out to be a nice guy too. So that’s lucky. But then I go to get my 21-yr-old driver’s license out of my wallet and find it not there. I had just flown to and from Houston a few days before and my license was still in my jacket (that I wasn’t wearing that day), for easy airport access. Ugh.

5) When the cop looks at my registration, he notices that it is overdue — a fact I was unaware of. Turns out the DMV renewal didn’t get forwarded from our Durham address and when we renewed our other car back in who-knows-when October or something, the DMV logically didn’t assume that our other car was also at the new address. So not only is our registration overdue, but our address hasn’t been changed, well beyond the required 60 days after moving. (Does this mean I can no longer claim to be overwhelmed from our recent move of 7 months ago?) Ugh.

6) Also? The inspection is overdue. This we knew. But the “check engine” light had been on when the inspection was due (last July — the month we moved), which meant we couldn’t have the car inspected until that was fixed. And we needed a new transmission in that car. And a new windshield to replace the one that was cracked. And then there was oil leaking. So really we just weren’t driving that car at all, thus creating no emissions, and, therefore, not needing to be inspected. Right? Not right. Ugh.

7) The cop must have taken note of my innocently frazzled yet cooperative state (the kind that makes you rub your eyes and run your hands through your hair a lot) and didn’t give me a ticket for any of those infractions. Not one. And then! A minute or two after he tells me that he isn’t going to ticket me, he turns to the guy I hit and says “Do you want me to write her a ticket for any of these things?” And the guy says, “No no no. We’ll just let our insurance companies duke it out.” And the cop says, “Are you sure? I haven’t written any tickets this week and I really want to write a ticket.” Ugh. (But only because of the close call. Really, I feel good about whatever karma backlog I had working for me there.)

So that was Valentine’s Day.

Then there was a bit of good stuff. A mind-blowingly great concert on Thursday. My friends who may be moving here came to crawl around Charlotte for the weekend. My niece turned two. Zoe and Lucy’s good friend Samantha turned 5.

Moving on — back to the crappy.

8) Still strung-out tired from last week, we got in bed around 9:30 last night (crazy early for me, a lifelong night-owl). At midnight we were awakened by Zoe yelling in a terrified way. I ran downstairs to hear her vomiting all over her bed — all chocolate cake and watermelon from Samantha’s birthday party. I got her cleaned up and tried to calm her hysteria in the bathroom while Bob cleaned up her bed and got the guest bed made for her (and me). Bob got Lucy back to sleep and Zoe proceeded to throw up on the hour, every hour until morning. Ugh.

9) Lucy wakes up slowly this morning, which is good since we’re running around trying to get Zoe somewhat settled on the couch, and calls out to me, “Mama, the reason I’m squinting is because there’s something in my eye.” Not having noticed the squinting, I go over to check it out and find that both her eyes are pretty much glued shut with eye gunk. I wipe them clean with a damp cloth and find that inside, her whites are completely pink. Ugh.

10) Doctor informs me that Lucy has not just pink eye but also an ear infection. Oh. And rotavirus. Which, obviously, Zoe has too. Ugh.

Short and sweet. Happy Presidents Day.

And hey, tomorrow is Mardi Gras! Which will see Bob heading out of town for two days (on business, granted) while I Fat Tuesday with two kids with rotavirus and pink eye (because c’mon — you just know Zoe’s gonna get it too). Ugh.

At least we’ll have beads.

Okay. I’m done. Thank you so much for listening.