Today’s thoughts are produced in the basement of our little row house, Baltimore City, Wyman Park. I am tasked with washing an unbelievable amount of laundry and one of the side-jobs of doing laundry in our house is to monitor the occasional and devastating overflow of the slop sink which the laundry water drains into. An incredibly arcane hook-up, but it is what it is, and because yesterday one of the water alarms went off while I was doing a load of laundry (meaning the H20 level in said slop sink was dangerously close to the edge), I am paranoid it will overflow if I step away, hence the basement location. It has happened a number of times with disastrous results, flooding all the way to the front of the basement from the back, compromising the un-moldieness of our downstairs bathroom. The basement is a wet place. Not always, but it has those tendencies and it cannot be denied. I think I’ll sit through the present load washing right now, then let the water alarm tell me of disaster for the next load.
The clothes in the washing machine at the moment are a large, wet, and urine-riffic pile of clothes, thanks to the very thirsty Mimi. I had just removed her diapers to get some dry ones one moments before the floodgates of pee pee opened all over the rug in the middle room; the doors to the bookcase, the floor, and whatever else was in the piss path was hit. One of the worst accidents in recent pee pee history.
Really, both girls could easily be potty trained by now. Both pee and poo in the big and little toilets regularly. Right now I am not pushing it because this coming Saturday we are taking a road trip to see spouse’s parents and sister and new cousin in North Carolina. The idea of stopping every twenty minutes to pee in some nasty roadside truck stop is unappealing to say the least. Germ-0-riffic to say the most. This will be the last time we will have the option to use diapers for such an occasion, so I’m all about it. Bring the di-dees. Pee in your pants like you just don’t care. When we return in a week, mama’s gonna get all up in using the potty. Get ready, girls. The undies are coming out and I don’t want any more puddles. NO MORE PUDDLES, YOU HEAR ME?!
Good friend Alix is in Key West this week, enjoying an artist residency. Doesn’t that sound great? I needs me one of them. I must make that some kind of goal for myself; get away for one week per year to focus on art-only. Nothing else. It is good to have goals.
Despite the fact that I got very little sleep last night due to the incessant hacking of my eldest sweet coughy daughter, I am strangely energized. Could be the two very strong cups of coffee I drank today. Maybe I should try to drink some water. Do some water shots ala nappy. I love water shots.
20 Fingers, 20 Toes 
when we were kids and took road trips galore, my parents kept an old cool-whip container that we would use as a tiny toity along the way. if we had to pee, they’d just pull over and we’d pee in the plastic alongside the roadway. they’d dump it out there and wash it at the next rest stop. granted, this was over 30 years ago in the midwest, where rest stops were scarce and wide open roads allowed us to pull over whenever we wanted. but it alleviated the germ issue and the fear-of-falling-into-the-big-toilet issue all at once. (why we didn’t just pee in the grass ala camping is another question.)
Yuppy baby companies make little foldable potties that use a huge ziplock as storage for pee and poo. Kleiosbelly has the best, cheapest idea…tupperware of sorts. Something for the back of the car that means any stop is possible. That, and the every hour squat in weeds makes the trip fun.