Balls!

What a day. As soon as it began, I was ready to go back to bed.

The little Critter has a perfect attendance record, but today she woke up crying. Apparently JJ left less-than-quietly this morning, and the usually-frightfully-difficult-to-awaken LC was jolted awake with the thought that Daddy had not hugged her goodbye. JJ NEVER does; he's out the door too early. But today it bothered her. She climbed into bed with me to say "Daddy left!" and then began saying how she needed a nap, and she needed to stay home and play hooky.

Oh, bother.

Then after repeating said phrases a few more times to make absolutely sure I heard them, she bounced up and logged on to the computer in the bedroom.

I had no sooner got back from biking her to school when the phone rang. It was Joanne from PTA. Joanne had hung up before I could answer, and then Candy called a few minutes later.

Side note; I cannot abide Candy. It's gradually gone from

* a justifiably low opinion of her abilities and skills, to
* wonderment at her nastiness being tolerated, to
* bewilderment that she is even acknowledged to exist, to
* downright loathing.

She is a rumor-monger, one who has taken every chance she could to make me look bad. She's perpetuated myths about me that have made me mad enough to punch holes in walls. Hardly anything gets me that angry. And she served on the nominating committee with Joanne and has learned not to leave her side. Joanne is the school's PTA darling, working three times as much and as hard as anyone else. But Candy has rubbed off on Joanne, and that has strained my relationship with Joanne a lot.

So whenever Candy calls, something is up.

But it wasn't Candy on Candy's phone, it was Joanne's friend Marilu. Marilu wanted to know where the oreo truffles were that I was to have made for the teacher birthdays this morning.

Well, all year I've been making these things, dozens at a time, for every single teacher. Usually it's been about eight to ten dozen. This time she asked me for 28 dozen. Oh my stars. Never mind that I'm working on three campaigns for school board, that I have five classes in production, that I have maybe a husband and children in there to deal with.

So I said "Why don't you ever ask Sandra to do them? Sandra knows how to make them!" To which she replied that no, Sandra would not make them, would never agree to make them, and no explanation was given.

Aimee piped up and said she'd try to make half of them if I would e-mail her the recipe. So I did, with lots of helpful hints. And I made my fourteen dozen happily (okay, rather grumpily, but I made the durned things) and brought them to school a day early. I left them right atop the file cabinet with Joanne's name on them prominently.

So when Marilu called I presumed they just hadn't bothered to look for them. No, they're calling to tell me they are short.

And in my head, I was saying "How is that MY problem?"

Every month I told myself I'd tell Joanne to take a hike about these things. She has waited until the last minute to call me and ask me to do them, or she has forgotten until the day before to give me the number of orders she needed. But still I made them without complaint.

Not this week. And because she couldn't be bothered to check on the other half, she was short. And I get to look bad because of it. Only I could try to do something nice for someone and still get blamed for it going to crap. Remind me to tell you the other beef Joanne has with me. It's a killer, and it's why we do nothing together socially anymore.