reason #52 why i'm 35 and licenseless...

so
yesterday my husband and i
went for a bike ride...

a little history here...
i have never been really really athletic
nor have i been a big rider of bikes...
when i was kid
i had a bike
and i rode it
but we lived in the country
where pretty much the only rule was get on the grass if a car is coming...
i doubled once with my older neighbor on her ten speed
and stupidly (albeit accidentally) stuck my foot in the spokes
of the front wheel causing the bike and, subsequently, both of us
to flip head over heels...
i was awarded a very nasty huge purple blue bruise on my hip
for that one.

while driving my own ten speed
and carrying a handful of 45 records (heh heh)
i tried to brake to no avail
when coming around the "dead man's turn" that our
driveway is located on
and couldn't stop...or slow down...
(my brothers still refuse to admit that someone messed with those brakes)
i completely missed the driveway
and became air-borne as i flew into the water-filled ditch...
while i lay bleeding in gross, disgusting, leaf-sodden water
with my bike chain wrapped around my leg
my father came to my assistance...
well...
he would have...
if he would have stopped laughing.

but i bet he felt bad when he realized i was
bleeding...bleeding from an injury, i was hurt
(and when my mom shot him a dirty-how-could-
you-stand-there-laughing-at-our-broken-traumatized-
brave-but-not-athletic-bleeding-daughter)

so...
like i was saying
yesterday
my husband and i went for a bike ride...
i have been riding in town for a couple of years now
and although i have had a few minor mishaps
(like the time i was on the sidewalk between a parked car
and a building and there was a man coming towards me
and i panicked-shouldistop?shouldislowdown? whatshouldido???
so i ran into the building and scraped my arm)
anyhow...
my husband is a biking fool really
and is zigzagging in and out of places
and is way ahead of me
and i'm trying to keep up
and i nearly hit that kid
(well, get him out the way then for christssakes)
and then that dog walked in front of me
and then
my husband crossed a busy street
NOT at a crosswalk and i panicked again
what do i do?
do i cross?
do i wait?
do i go up further and try there?
what do i do what do i do what do i do
so i crossed
and nearly got hit by a car
and the man did this big "throwing-up-of-the-arms"
and the mouthing of the "what-the-fuck"
as i stood there on my bike in front of him
trying my 35-year-old hardest
not to burst into tears....

and that, fellow readers...
is why i do not have a drivers licence

one more thing...

i keep finding myself
(in two meanings of that phrase)
on different blogs
that almost seem to be trying to tell me something...

the first one was this
and then i got to this
and i'm wondering whether it is because
i lamented about not knowing what i wanted to be
what i wanted to do
and i weighed out all my options
according to money i could make
and level of discomfort that came with each
and it makes me acknowledge
the fact that i KNOW deep down
that none of these are what i want to do...
what i want to do is something creative
and full of ideas and wonder and fun and art and interest
but
i want to be able to make money too
i want to be able to hold up my end of the "bringinghomethebacon" bargain.
and i am uncertain as to how to make the two fit...
i think in the silent part of the back of my head
i am thinking planning stategizing
that if i could make more money doing something else
then i could afford
to put more into my creative side
but is that the wrong way to look at it...
oh.
i just don't know.
i do know that i have 2 kids a mortgage and a responsibility to provide
and
that is what is constantly forefront in my head
despite what i would like to be doing...
sigh.

or is this just my version of the mid-life crisis....

once again...i remain undecided...

sigh.

so i have found out that one of the children
i look after may be going somewhere else
around the middle of september
which will leave me with one child to look after.

i love this child like he was my own...
i have been providing care for him for about 2 years now...
but i can't live on 100 dollars a week.

realistically
i know that i could advertise to look after more children
but the stage we are at with the house
i don't know if it would work out.
the stairs are plywood really and completely open
the floor is unfinished
the kitchen is unfinished
the bathroom is unfinished
we occassionally still have staging attached to the house
and we still have bags of construction waste packed behind
the barn...
sigh
does this sound like the type of environment you would
commit your one year old to?
me neither.

sigh.
so then i checked into going back to school
and found out that there is a good possibility that i can
for sept of 2006
but now
what do i take?
human services
and i could be a TA?
dental assistant...
good money but putting my hand in other people's mouth?
LPN...
shift work? not bad money? demand?
medical secretary...
i always wanted to be a secretary
(goes back to my whole i-love-school-supplies-and-office-stationary-fetish)
but money? demand?
sigh.

what the hell am i going to be when i grow up????
and i thought i grew up in 2003 when i finished my ECCE course....
argh.
fuckin'fuck.

kermit the frog here with a muppet newsflash....

it appears that our local convenience store
has hired an insane woman
in order to cut down on the threat of people
robbing the store with a syringe...

(this is just speculation, of course, but whatever)

my first trip into the store, she was bubbly and happy
and full of "hi, how are you tonight?"s
and when i politely responded the obligatory "fine, how are you?"
i got a suddenly cranky snarky "my feet ache, i'm sweating and tired
and want to go home"
heh
heh
ok then...

so there was a line of people ahead of me
and a man was going to pay for his bottle of water with a 50...
annoying i know but not against the law as far as i have heard...
so here is the conversation:
cashier: i can't cash a 50
man: oh?
cashier: i can't, i'm not allowed..is that all you got?
man: yes
cashier: well, i'm not allowed to cash it (very snarky)
i just cashed one and i don't have enough cash
in my till to give you change. is that all you got?

(is it just me, or are there little fault lines in her story?)
man: yes...thats all i have
cashier: (as she is punching in 50.00 on register and counting out change)
well, i can't cash it, i don't have the money in my till...i'm not
supposed to cash them, i just cashed one, 20, 40, 50...theres your
change...just remember next time, we're not allowed to cash 50's
and we don't do it....

um...ok?
if you are going to lie, have a good story first
i worked in retail...i know you lie...i lied
"yes, your book is on order" (when really we forgot)
"i have the order right here in my hand" (when really we couldn't find any
thing that remotely looked like an order done for you and when we ask
if we can verify your name and number, thats why)
"no, i'm sorry, that book is on backorder" (again, your book somehow
slipped thru the "lost-special-order-black-hole")
but
to be fair
we also had people that THOUGHT (for dead certain fucking sure)
that they HAD placed an order with us
when in REALITY (unfortunately, it is hard to bring some people
to that state of mind)
they had only inquired about the book and had NOT placed an order
or
better yet
had ordered it at another bookstore but would swear on a stack of bibles
that they ordered it from our store
and that we were just incompetent
(which we sometimes were, but damn, were we good liars....)