Amy's Misc. Ramblings

What I Think About When I Pee

2010-11-17T17:09:00.000-08:00

Have you ever noticed how often people have to dodge murderers in public restrooms? I mean it happens all the time in the movies – that suspense riddled scene in which the shotgun toting psycho killer kicks open stall by stall searching for his prey only to find that they’ve somehow eluded him by some trickery of stall swapping.

This is why I can’t enter a public restroom stall without part of my brain formulating my hide/escape plan in case of psycho killer. Should I go under or over? Is the gap around the door small enough that I could pull my feet up and perch on the toilet to avoid a lazy gun toting psycho who just checks for feet?

I was in the public restroom at an upscale department store the other day and I almost couldn’t do the deed. There were actual walls between the toilets – floor to ceiling! My only escape route would be under the door. Hello shotgun splatter to the face –come on people, that’s just poor planning right there. I was tempted to talk to store management about it.

And what do men do? Sure in the movies their bathrooms are lined with stalls, but according to the men in my life there’s usually only about one or two stalls in a normal public men’s room and the rest are urinals. You can’t hide behind a urinal! This is why I’m able to take the long lines for the women’s restroom at stadiums in stride. I’ll trade a bathroom stall door as a shotgun shield over a defensive urinal cake toss any day.

Onion Hands - Look for the Las Vegas show soon!

2010-08-12T19:45:00.000-07:00

You know how some people have special gifts like being double jointed or having a pouch that they can carry their young around in – no, sorry, wait – those are marsupials. But anyway, my point is that some people are special. They have gifts that others do not and they use those gifts to further their fortunes or help others.

I’ve recently discovered my own gift. I’ve actually known that I’ve had it for several years but it’s taken me this long to embrace it as a gift. You see my hands absorb and retain the odor of onions for incredibly long periods of time. Now, now, you’re probably saying to yourself: “This woman is an idiot. Everybody’s hands smell like onions after they cut them – who the hell does she think she is?”

Well, do your hands still smell like onions 5 days later? After repeated hand washings and showers? Do they? Well mine do.

Now for years I considered this as somewhat of a curse. However, recently I’ve been watching America’s Got Talent and I’ve determined that based on the level of skill and talent that most of the people on that show possess – I could really be in the running next year.

Just picture it – me on stage with my hands outstretched. I could show a video clip of me cutting onions several days earlier (I’ll hold up a newspaper or some other proof of the date) and then I could show me washing my hands repeatedly. Then when the video is over I stick my hand under Howie Mandell’s face and ask him to “Smell my finger!”

I think it’s brilliant. People will be wowed. They’ll be blown away! I’m not sure how it would translate into a Vegas show(the prize for winning America’s Got Talent) but if Criss Angel can make a whole show out of Gothwear, excessive eyeliner and melodramatic arm movements then I can transform this into something too. Maybe I could do garlic too just to spice things up.

As a side note I’ve recently discovered that I can eliminate the onion odor on my hands by jerking off my kitchen faucet. While that sounds like fun I think I’ll see if this talent show thing works out first.

Probably

2010-07-17T16:49:00.000-07:00

Let me set the scene:

I’m at Wal-Mart standing in the checkout lane waiting for a Mexican midget* to pay for his fishing lures (seriously – I can’t make this stuff up!). I’m nonchalantly leaning on the cart, clad in knit Capri pants and an oversized t-shirt. Now I’ll be the first to admit that I didn’t look my best. It was hot and I had hastily pulled my hair back in a messy ponytail. I’m not exactly what you’d call “skinny” or “of a healthy weight” either but I’m no cow, and if I died tomorrow it would not require the use of a crane to lift me out of my house, nor would I have to be buried in a grand piano crate.

Anyway, at one point I happened to turn my head to the side and witnessed a kid about 15 or 16 two aisles over who was aiming his cell phone camera in my direction – actually , right at me. Upon my turning towards him he embarrassedly flipped his phone shut and put it in his pocket.

I checked behind me in the line of his aim and determined that I had to have been his intended target. My internal sense of self loathing caused my heart to race and my palms to sweat. Would I be the next entry on People of Wal Mart? It seemed unlikely. After all, none of my excessive folds of flesh were hanging out, my butt crack was not exposed, I was not wearing leopard, zebra, or giraffe print, no cleavage was visible and I was not accompanied by a pimp.

I turned to my husband who at that time just walked up to me, told him the particulars of this kid’s behavior and said, “Do you think he was taking a picture of me?”

And do you know what he said? Well, just for fun, let’s first go over what SHOULD have happened. He should have scoffed, put his arm around me and said, “Of course not. Why would he? Unless of course he wanted a picture of the pertiest girl in the store!” (for some reason he should have turned into a redneck - a redneck with a heart of gold, but still – maybe because we WERE in a Wal-Mart).

At the very least he could have said, “Nah, he was probably aiming for the Mexican midget in front of us.”

But that’s not what he said. Instead he shrugged and said,”Probably” and then engrossed himself in the checkout lane magazine rack. The ONLY good thing I can say in his defense is that he did send the kid a couple menacing glares. But still “Probably?, PROBABLY! Probably?”

Sure he couldn’t have been aware of “the crazy” going through my head at that point, but what other reason does anyone take a picture of a stranger with their cell phone than to ridicule it? How could my husband think this wouldn’t damage me irreparably on a mental and emotional level? “Probably!?”

Will he be catching hell for this for the rest of his life? PROBABLY

(* In no way or form do I intend any disrespect to “little people” in this post. I use the term “midget” which I believe is no longer politically correct, but I’m too big of a fan of alliteration, and “Mexcican little person” (or would it be “little Mexican person”?) just isn’t as much fun as “Mexican Midget”. Oh and I mean no disrespect to Mexicans either, or to people who like to fish, with lures, or with midgets, or just with Mexicans in general . . . I don’t know that I’m making this any better, perhaps I should stop now.)

Strong Enough for a Man, or a Woman Who Runs Out of Her Own

2010-07-14T04:16:00.000-07:00

I ran out of deodorant a couple days ago and I'm either too lazy or too busy (this distinction depends on whether I'm feeling self-loathing or self-justified) to go to the store and get some.

I've been using my husband's in the mean time. The problem though is that it's AXE deodorant and therefore I've had to strap my arms to my sides so as not to cause a stampede of highly attractive women every time they get a whiff of my pits.

I slipped up yesterday at work and raised my arms to pull my hair up in a ponytail and before I knew it, half the Human Resources department was in my cubicle. I had to beat them off with a stick, which was actually quite cathartic.

I'm Baaaack, and unable to dispatch the undead

2010-07-08T21:00:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I know nobody is reading this blog anymore, and why would you? I haven't posted on here for a year for God's sake. If you're still checking this thing for content then you really ought to get some form of a life. Join a gym, start collecting taxidermied animal parts or stalk a celebrity or something because that's just sad.

The reasons I stopped posting were many and justified, but who cares right? The point is I missed this blog. I thought I would be fine with my other creative outlets but I'm not. I can't cuss on them first of all, nor can I relate things such as this:

I tried to kill a vampire in my dream last night. I kept stabbing him over and over again with an orange colored pencil (it was all I could find that was stake-like) but I couldn't seem to locate his heart and I just kept thinking, "Jesus Christ, I've got to be close to it right, maybe nicked an artery or something!" and then he walked away and came at me from another angle and I got behind him and started stabbing his back thinking I could pierce his heart from the back but nothing was happening.

So I start thinking maybe I'm stabbing the wrong side of him and then I'm looking down at my own chest and re-enacting placing my hand over my heart for the national anthem - you know to refresh my memory and make sure the heart is on the left and then I'm doing the whole, okay, so do I stab his left or my left and then I realize "Stupid bitch you're both facing the same direction, keep stabbing him on the left!". Thankfully he stood patiently and waited for me to figure it out.

Then as I'm stabbing in vain, another vampire comes into the room but I don't have to stab him because he's my roomate's boyfriend (don't ask me where the roomate came from she just appeared when vampire 2 showed up but in my dream this seemed normal). So the guy I'm stabbing sees that this vamp is co-existing with us humans and he realizes that he can shake off the societal shackles of his species predatory nature and doesn't have to suck me dry and then he's all like, "I know you've just attempted to kill me at least 50 times, but let's put all that behind us and make out."

Now first of all I'm just really frustrated because I've always thought that stabbing would be my thing right. I've always felt that if I had to kill someone I'd be pretty adept with a dagger you know. Don't ask me why it's just a thing I have okay. I don't actually plan on stabbing anyone so chill. So there I was unable to even stake a vampire who's just standing still and letting me stab him repeatedly. It was demoralizing really but I rationalized that the fault lay in my implement rather than my skill alone. A colored pencil really shouldn't have been my weapon of choice. After all shouldn't vampires be staked with wood? And while there is obviously wood in a colored pencil is there really enough? Did the fault lie in the fact that I was impaling him with colored graphite (or whatever colored pencils are made of) instead of a nice sturdy sharpened stick? I concluded that it was so and then felt perfectly at ease taking him up on his offer of making out. Which by the way is really awkward when fangs are involved.

And it was at that point that I woke up and realized that I've been watching way too much True Blood.

See. Where else am I going to be able to express something like that? Maybe a psychiatrist's office but I don't have the time nor the adequate health coverage for that - and hence the Rambling Amy blog is officialy back up and running.

Now I can't guarantee I'll be posting incredibly often but I shall try my best and if anyone is still reading or starts reading, I'd like to apologize in advance for the crap you're going to have to scroll through.

In Memoriam

2009-06-29T21:44:00.000-07:00

It's been a tragic couple of weeks. We've seen the loss of two cultural icons: Farah Fawcett, the golden haired beauty, and Michael Jackson, the undisputed King of Pop.

The airwaves have been filled with countless video montage memorials. The nightly news shows have dedicated hours of coverage to these worthy individuals. Sales of Jackson's music have soared, radio stations are playing hour long blocks of his greatest hits. News sites like CNN posted memorial banners at the tops of their home pages. Everyone has been talking about these tragic deaths.

However, another recent tragedy has occurred. Another iconic figure has disappeared off the landscape of our culture. The great Billy Mays died on Sunday and I've been extremely disappointed in the lack of coverage on this tragedy.

Sure there has been some internet coverage. Some TV coverage as well but I feel the poor man has been slighted. Sure he didn't revolutionize the pop music industry, and I'm sure he never looked good in a bikini or feathered hair, but Billy had his own magic and he will be missed. Doesn't he deserve an infomercial montage from Katie Couric? Shouldn't the sales of Oxi Clean be through the roof by now?

So in honor of Billy raise your glasses and then pour them down the front of your shirts! The power of Oxi Clean will take out the stain!

After I clean my bathroom with Kaboom I'm breaking out the orbital sander and using it on my hardwood floors to simulate years of wear and tear. But I know that Orange Glo will renew it to it's former shine in no time.

Farewell Billy.

Okay, now I've go to lose 5 more pounds

2009-02-12T18:51:00.001-08:00

In my last post I talked about how my upcoming 15 year high school reunion was going to be the catalyst for my new healthy lifestyle.

Well, it hasn't been going all that great so far. I give you exhibit A. The Monte Cristo:

Now if you've never had a Monte Cristo before, well you should. It's like a ham and cheese sandwich wrapped in a funnel cake - and if that's not enough to turn you on then I think you should probably consult some sort of professional.

My friends and I have been in love with the Bennigan's Monte Cristo for quite a few years, and things were looking pretty black when they announced a few months ago that they were closing half their restaurants. Thankfully though the one in our city remains open for the time being but my friend Carrie and I still harbor some fears that the current economy will rob us forever of the joys of the Monte Cristo and so we made it our mission last night to discover the recipe for the monte cristo and to learn how to prepare it to perfection at home so that we would never have to go without its greasy goodness.

We found a recipe online, purchased our supplies and set to work. We prepared the sandwiches:

We dipped them in the batter and placed them in my ancient fry daddy.

We dowsed with powdered sugar - we were a little more generous than the usual dusting you get at the restaurant. Less is not always more my friends!

And then the moans of satisfaction commenced!

Notice the contented faces, the powdered sugar on the lips and the shirt. Ah, it was a beautiful thing.

And we ate it all!

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to check and make sure my little gazelle workout machine will still hold my weight.

Is 15 Years long enough for them to forget how much of a loser I was?

2009-02-04T21:16:00.000-08:00

I got a call today from an old high school classmate. She was calling to verify my address so that she could send me an invitation to the upcoming 15 year class reunion.

What I found most amusing about this is the fact that this will be the first class reunion invitation I've received. It's not as if I've vanished. I simply got married and moved to the city. My parents and even my brother still reside in my hometown and have their phone numbers and addresses listed in the local phone book. However, the coordinator for this year's reunion is the only one that has taken the initiative to actually call my mother and get my information. And that's a perfect illustration of my ranking on my high school's social ladder - an afterthought. Okay, maybe I'm a little bitter. Aren't we all when it comes to high school?

Something unexpected happened though when I recieved this call today. I actually wrote the date down on my calendar. I had known the dates of previous reunions because I keep in touch with an old classmate and she had recieved invitations but I never for a moment entertained the notion of attending, and now here I was marking it on my calendar.

Why? Nostalgia? A sick and twisted yearning to rediscover my awkward social ineptitude?

I can't really say. Maybe because I saw this event as a motivational opportunity. What better way to convince myself to start improving my health and self than the thought of being on display to the homecoming court of '94?

Sure, I'm hoping that the prom queen has gained 200 pounds and lives in a trailer court. Of course I want the guy I had a crush on throughout junior high to wind up drunk and make a complete ass of himself by re-enacting the music video of "Hanging Tough" in only his boxer shorts. But even if she's still gorgeous and he's still Mr. Wonderful it will be fine. I've got nothing to prove. I'm happily married to a wonderful man, I have a good paying job, two wonderful children and a good life.

Yeah, whatever. Now I just have to figure out how to lose 50 pounds and get my tits lifted before June.

Ladies, put on your camo undies and dab some "Doe in Heat" on your wrists!

2009-01-14T21:16:00.000-08:00

I don't think any further comment is needed on this one.

So much for the spirit of the season

2008-12-30T21:48:00.000-08:00

I’ve been so busy preparing for Christmas that posting has been pretty slow. And the holiday fun is not over yet. I’m headed out of state over New Year’s to celebrate a late Christmas with more family. But I didn’t want to leave you empty handed while I was gone so here is an email that I sent to my very best friend Shawna around the 15th of December after my husband called to inform me that some asshole had stolen my vintage bicycle directly from our front yard.

It was completely non-functional (tires were shredded, chain was rusted) but it was charming and I had put a basket on the front which I decorated throughout the year with seasonal items, and I’d place potted plants or pumpkins on the vintage metal child’s seat on the back of it. I loved that thing and I was planning on writing a blog post about its theft. But looking back, I think the raw unabashed hatred and sense of helplessness that I felt after that theft could not be conveyed any better than in this excerpt from an email that was composed directly after I found out it was stolen:

Some Mother Fucking, Son of a Bitch is going to die! Die a horrific death. If only the fury of my hatred could be fired out of me like a bullet out of a gun, and magically seek out the asshole who has done this, it would be a thing of beauty!

Some jerkoff has stolen the bicycle from the front yard. The vintage bicycle that I saved from the curb and gave a new home to. The one I lovingly added a basket to the front and filled with seasonal flowers and decorations. The one that added charm and whimsy to an otherwise shitty front yard.

Gone. Stolen. I haven’t been this pissed for months, years maybe.

You know how sometimes for fun or an ice breaker people will ask you what kind of super power you would have if you could have any super power, and people say , flight, or invisibility, or super strength etc. Well my super power would be the ability to recognize the people who steal stuff from people’s lawns. Yes, I’d want the ability to look into their souls and recognize what they are and then I’d want the power to punish them for the rest of their lives by making their things disappear. Maybe not even their lawn ornaments but just anything – one day they’d wake up and I’d have removed every pair of underwear they own, including the pair they had on. The next day I’d remove every mirror from the entire house, the next day I’d take the steering wheel out of their car, the spoons, their toothbrush, every pair of shoes . . . on and on until the last day of their life.

They’d wake up every morning and find something gone – just like my bike was gone – and my payback would be complete. . .

And while my reaction might seem a little dramatic for the theft of a bike I got for free, I think it speaks to that feeling of helplessness and violation that you get when something is stolen. You can’t do a damn thing about it and it’s frustrating. Not to mention that if you sit and think about it long enough to realize that some stranger was inches from your front door at night with evil intentions (okay maybe evil is a little overboard but they certainly weren’t friendly) and that you were at home alone with your kids, then it compounds that feeling of helplessness and even mixes in a good dose of fear as well about what “could” happen.

So now that I’ve given you a good dose of reality after the fantasy and charm of the holiday season. I’m heading out for more holiday cheer. Have a Happy New Year everyone.

oh and don’t ever think about stealing anything from my front yard. I’m installing motion sensors and stockpiling weapons by the front door so they’re within easy reach when the next person tries to steal my Malibu lights.

Tacky Treasure time - cast your vote!

2008-12-22T21:30:00.001-08:00

The tacky treasures are awaiting your vote! Go to www.freewebs.com/tackytreasures to cast your vote!

Santa Snob

2008-12-10T16:47:00.000-08:00

We recently made our requisite December journey to the Mall. Not for shopping, not for an orange Julius, though that would have been nice, except the Julius has raw eggs in it doesn’t it – isn’t that what makes it frothy or is that an urban legend? Maybe just a smoothie would have been better or some ice cream from the creamery – sorry – off topic.

It was time to see Santa – that jolly old soul. The most ironic thing about seeing Santa is that it’s never jolly. We knew the line would be horrendous, and it was. We knew it would be packed with snot nosed impatient children – and it was; ours fitting in perfectly with the rabble.

We’ve gone to the same mall every year since Aaron was born to see this particular Santa. I’m a bit of a Santa snob – I’ll admit it. I’m not going to sit my kid on just anyone’s red velvet robed knee. Oh no, if I’m going to perpetuate the myth that is Santa then by God I’m going to do it right by choosing a Santa that could actually BE Santa.

He’s round, he’s jolly, he has a REAL beard of snowy white, a gentle voice and a genuine way with children. This way when the kids get old enough to realize that we’ve been lying to them for the entirety of their childhoods, they might at least appreciate the fact that we were damn good liars and picked a heck of a good actor to aide and abet us in those lies!

How about you? Are you picky about which Santa you take your kids to see?

Nothing tops the black fuzzy poster

2008-12-04T20:44:00.000-08:00

The Christmas season is here and I’m running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to get everything done. There are cookies to be baked, cards to be sent, photos with Santa to be taken, shopping to be done, gifts to be wrapped, family feuds to begin, or end . . . and the list goes on and on.

Due to economic issues, and the fact that I am kind of crafty, I’m making a lot of gifts for people this year and while I think they are fantastic, I sometimes wonder if the recipient might think they are completely lame. To combat these fears I try to focus on some of the worst gifts I and people I know have received over the years and in comparison to some of these gifts, my hand knit scarves seem like the most thoughtful and beautiful gifts ever!

Potpourri.

Now in general there’s nothing wrong with Potpourri. It’s not my cup of tea but I suppose it serves some sort of purpose, doesn’t it?? Like an alternative to cat litter when you’re in a pinch? Anyway, it wouldn’t have been such a bad gift had it been paired maybe with a candle or a lovely bowl or something to put it in except there was nothing else. Just a plastic baggie full of potpourri from the dollar store, with the price tag still on it. If you couldn’t afford to give me anything that’s fine, just get a card or a scrap of paper and write a lovely note wishing me a happy holiday. A 99 cent bag of potpourri is like leaving your waitress a 2 cent tip, it just shouldn’t be done unless you want her to spit in your salad the next time you eat there.

Ch-Ch-Ch Chia!

While there is something intrinsically fascinating about watching something sprout from the back/head of a terra cotta (insert your shape – sheep, tweety bird, Homer Simpson, Garfield) figure, I don’t think the Chia Pet has ever been or will ever be elevated to “good gift” status. My husband got one of these as a gift one year and quite frankly he’s still insulted by it. Though he’ll deny it, I think the true insult came from the fact that it wasn’t even the terra cotta one – it was one of the cheaper heads made out of nylon with a face painted on it - you know like the ones you made in kindergarten from your mom’s pantyhose. Perhaps if it had been the actual terra cotta variety, he might have gotten over it by now.

KOOL t-shirt

I think this might have been a birthday gift actually, but a bad gift is a bad gift so it makes my list. When my husband was in grade school his grandparents were pretty heavy smokers and they used that habit not only to supply themselves with lung disease but also with countless gifts for their grandchildren, and I’m not even counting the second hand smoke as one of the gifts! They’d save up their cartons and packs and send them into the company for free merchandise. So Matt was often gifted with a KOOL or Salem T-shirt as a gift. What could a 13 yr. old want more?? Hey at least they didn’t pair it with a carton of ciggies.

Black fuzzy poster

Now in general I try not to make fun of hand made gifts. Because even if they are absolutely hideous, if somebody put the effort into making something for me, I try to look past the fug and appreciate the time and the thought. However, I don’t think coloring in one of those black flocked posters really counts as hand-made so I have no qualms about poking fun at this gift.
It would have been a different story if it had been a gift from say a 9 yr. old, or even a 15 – 16 yr. old. But, no. This was a gift from a grown woman. A black fuzzy poster that she was incredibly proud to announce that she had colored in all by herself! I can’t even remember what the image was – perhaps a unicorn or a kitten or something, shockingly I did not keep it.

Panties

Everyone had that grandmother who bought them socks or panties every year. Well my friend’s grandmother took it a step further – actually 2 steps further because not only was she gifted with panties every single year up to the age of 15 (yikes) but she also was forced to put them on and model them for her as if it was a festive holiday sweater instead of a lacy pair of undies with the days of the week printed on them. No wonder the poor thing is in therapy now.

Mini bottles of shampoo/conditioner from a hotel

While it’s a great idea to share mementos and photos from recent trips with friends and family, it’s not usually looked upon fondly when you share your trip by gifting them the bottles of shampoo from the hotel you stayed at in Hoboken. A friend was once given mini bottles of Super 8 shampoo by her husband’s grandmother. So either her grandmother is very cheap or perhaps she’s not well liked by the in-laws – or maybe both.

What’s the worst gift you’ve ever received??

Excuses, Excuses

2008-12-01T18:35:00.000-08:00

So I know things have been a little slow around here. Posting has dropped off dramatically and I’m sorry for that but I do have a legitimate excuse. I’ve launched a craft business and I’ve been busily creating products, setting up my online shop and creating content for my craft blog.

Now I know what you’re thinking; “Woman, it’s about time you did something! I mean with a full time job, plus being the sole caretaker of your 2 small children in the evenings while your husband works, it’s about time you took advantage of all that abundant free time you have!”

And you’re right. Because I was seriously wasting my time on things like personal hygiene and sleep. It was laziness, pure and simple and now I’ve found something worthwhile to fill up the hours of my day.

Now I’m still in that optimistic stage of the game. I’ve sold two things (hurray!) and hope to sell more. Right now my stuff is just online but I hope to do some local craft shows and stuff next year when I have more inventory built up. I’m really trying to find my niche and that’s hard. I don’t expect to earn enough for champagne wishes or caviar dreams, but I love creating stuff so I figured I might as well try to hock some of it while I’m at it.

If you’ve got nothing better to do – check out my shop on Etsy: http://www.pinandpaper.etsy.com/

and visit my crafty blog as well:
http://www.pinandpaper.blogspot.com/

Why she’s on the short list of people I’d give a kidney to

2008-11-24T17:27:00.000-08:00

A recent email conversation between me and my friend Shawna:

From: amy
Sent: Thursday, November 20, 2008 12:49 PM
To: Shawna
Subject: Had enough

Have you ever used a nasal spray? I don’t generally like squirting stuff up my nasal passages but at this point I’d just really like to breathe. Was wondering if you had any recommendations.
I’ve been trying to look online and I’m finding all this stuff about how I could possibly become addicted to them. So if you catch me selling myself on the street to score another bottle of Afrin – be prepared for an intervention.
At this point, it’s worth the risk.

From: Shawna
Sent: Thursday, November 20, 2008 1:40 PM
To: amy
Subject: RE: Had enough

I can’t do that stuff either not sure why. I hear it works.

Don’t worry about the addict thing it runs in the family and I am an old pro with interventions. I’ll tell you what I will wait till you get addicted to crack and become your ideal size and then will kick you off the drugs. I mean there might as well be a pay out to addiction if you ask me. Then you will hate your self for being weak and becoming an addict but you will look great naked.

Now this is a gal with my best interests at heart!

Down with DYFEA? Join the Campaign!

2008-11-19T18:43:00.000-08:00

You’ve just reached the checkout at the store and the gal behind the conveyor belt has already mindlessly slid 10 items past the scanner and then she turns to you and says, “Did you find everything alright?”

I hate that question.

I’M AT THE CHECKOUT! Which means that if I hadn’t found what I was looking for then I would have left – without buying anything! Or if I had more than one thing to purchase then I would have already enquired about the item I couldn’t locate to some stock boy or other employee or resigned myself to the fact that they don’t carry that product.

Maybe if they asked BEFORE they started ringing me up, then I’d believe it was more of a genuine question/concern. What are they going to do if I say; “No, I couldn’t find the right brand of heavy flow tampons.” Are they going to stop ringing me up and guide me back to the aisle and help me search, despite the lineup of 8 customers behind me? Are they going to send out a stock boy to find them? Do they write it down and have a meeting after closing to discuss how they can better organize the tampon section?

I don’t think so!

Now I realize that it’s one of those questions that’s not really a question. It’s really just a social nicety – a greeting – like when someone at the office says, “Hi. How are you?” They don’t really care. They don’t want you to launch into an itemized listing of what’s going wrong or right in your life. They just want you to say “good” so they can move along and get their coffee. I get that. But it still irritates me to no end. And I’m writing about it in the hopes that the shoddy logic of it will irritate you as well and perhaps together, we can bring about some change in this world and make that idiotic phrase obsolete in the retail environment.

Who’s with me??

I’m thinking of having some buttons made up.

Yearning for something in poor taste?

2008-10-28T18:23:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year folks - Tacky Treasure Competition time!

The 2008 category has been chosen and shopping commences on Nov. 1.

Check out our newly redesigned website to learn more about it.

http://www.freewebs.com/tackytreasures/

Birth Control

2008-10-15T20:49:00.001-07:00

Whenever I start getting fuzzy feelings about having a third child I try to remind myself of how much joy the 2 children I have right now give me, and how if I had any more joyous moments like the one below, that my head just might spontaneously combust.

And all this because I put food on her plate. Yes, food - ON HER PLATE - and it was unbearable. Lucky you only have to endure about 56 seconds whereas I got the pleasure of a full 7 minutes!

On a side note, I'm not cruel and enjoy watching her scream. I've learned that there is nothing I can do to soothe her. If I hold her she pushes me away, if I try to talk to her she screams louder. However, if I just sit back and wait for it to pass, she jumps up like nothing has happened and the only clues that there was a meltdown at all are the tear stained cheeks and snotty nose.

And her baby brother is going as a soy sauce packet

2008-09-19T11:57:00.000-07:00

I realize that when you publish a magazine with home made Halloween costume ideas in it, that after a few years you’re going to be searching for something new and exciting to feature rather than the cliché pig costume made from pink sweatpants.

However, I think this costume featured in the recent edition of Family Fun Magazine is a little odd:

Has your 7 year old ever expressed a desire to dress as raw fish and rice rolled in seaweed? Are all the other kids in the neighborhood saying, “Mom, my princess costume is SOOOO LAME! Chrissie is going as Sushi! You could have at least gotten me a Wonton outfit or even a dumpling costume! I’m going to be the laughing stock of the neighborhood!”

Maybe it’s because I live in the Midwest and sushi isn’t really all that big around here. Maybe I’m just out of touch. Does anyone else think this is weird??

But if you’re dying to make one of your own check out the instructions at the Family Fun website, which truly does have some pretty cool kids crafts and stuff on there and I would also recommend the magazine as well.

Best and Worst List

2008-09-10T16:26:00.000-07:00

I love lists – doesn’t everyone? And today in an effort to somehow make a cohesive post out of three completely unrelated musings that have been rattling around in my brain - I bring you my Best and Worst list.

Best place to wear a black nylon leotard, rainbow dress and a care bear backpack:

A comic book convention

Worst place: any other public location

Best business name:

Stinkie fingers bait shop. It’s memorable, it’s appropriate to the business and it’s spelled with an “ie” which makes it that much more charming. Are you going to go to some bait vending machine for quality catfish lure or are you going to head to this place? I know where I’m going!

Worst Business name:

The Royal Flush. I realize this is a Poker themed name which perhaps they thought would go well with a “Lounge” however, it’s seldom a good idea to invoke bathroom related lexicon into the name of your restaurant. Was “the Urinal Cake café" taken?

If they were dead set on a card themed name couldn’t they have gone with "Full House", or "Four of a Kind" or even "UNO!" would have been better. Add to the fact that the steak on the sign somewhat resembles a bowel movement floating in a blue toilet bowl when you drive by at 45 mph and that the building itself is a steel warehouse in the industrial area of town and you’ve got yourself a restaurant that everyone thinks is a plumbing supply store.

Best male fake hair in a movie:

Ben Barnes in Prince Caspian (his hair was too short before filming – these are extensions) - Grrr Baby Grrr.

Worst:

Nicolas Cage in any movie within the last decade. I mean seriously. Let’s take Ghost Rider as an example – they can turn this mans head into a flaming skull and yet all they can muster with his fake hair is this botched Bosley hair restoration look?? Couldn't the hair have been computer generated as well?

However, in the Hollywood Hairdressers defense - this is what his real hair looked like when he was younger so I guess you can only do so much:

Oh the humanity!

2008-09-02T20:46:00.000-07:00

I'd like to start out this post by saying that I love my mother.

But . . .

when she showed up with a bag full clothes for the kids that she'd gotten while garage saleing and within its contents was a size 2T shell suit, I started to question her sanity.

You remember shell suits don't you? The fugly fashion of the late 80's and early 90's? If not, then let me refresh your memory. That's not even the worst part. Before I had a chance to burn it, Gwen had grabbed it and was pushing it in my face, desperate to put it on! What was she so attracted to? The hideous color combination? The odd placement of the printed panel? The sweat inducing properties of the synthetic non-breathable fabric?

I don't know, but she loved it. I'm only going to indulge her this one time though. I cannot let her wear it again, and definitely not in public. I'd better get it burned before she finds it again and requests a coordinating fanny pack to go with it.

Confession - the Kit Kat incident

2008-08-22T20:08:00.001-07:00

Forgive me Super WalMart, for I have sinned. This is my first confession.

I knew it was wrong, I don't know what came over me but when I saw her there with her face covered in chocolate, I just lost it. I mean she'd been trying my patience ever since we entered the automatic doors. The greeters recoiled in fear when they saw she was untethered. Fellow shoppers did their best to avoid her in the hopes that she wouldn't target their shopping cart, commandeer it and push it directly into the 6 foot display of pantiliners on aisle 6.

She was a force to be reckoned with. She scoffed at the confines of the cart. She spat out the pacifier with her shrieks of anguish. She mopped the floors with a face full of tantrum tears. Other mothers embraced their children lovingly and vowed to be forever grateful that they had such an easy child.

Finally I reached the end of my epic journey - the checkout. I was almost free and clear and while placing the contents of my overflowing cart onto the conveyor belt I glanced down to see her with the Kit Kat - half eaten. I knew what I should have done. I should have laughed in one of my patented "oh how entertaining these little angels can be" laughs, handed the candy to the cashier and asked that they ring it up since my sweetpea had already ingested the majority of the shiny wrapper. But I didn't. I glanced around to make sure no one had seen it and then threw the open candy back on the shelf behind a box of king sized peanut M&M's.

Was it embarrasment, frustration? I don't know. I stand before you in shame and with sincere regret. I'll throw an extra 58 cents at you the next time I'm there. Oh and you might want to rethink that endcap full of light bulbs over in the hardware aisle. Thankfully she was distracted by the air freshener display in automotive.

He draws the line at indecent exposure

2008-08-19T16:33:00.000-07:00

Over the years Matt has grown accustomed to my sense of humor and no longer argues with me when I ask him to make a stupid pose with an inanimate object. See the example above. All I had to do was ask him if he loved me and when he replied in the affirmative I told him that I needed him to pretend that inflated T-Rex was about to eat him. I even once convinced him to fondle the breast of a female statue at a mini golf course (I seem to have lost that picture, perhaps he found it and destroyed it).

There are times though where he still refuses me. For example - as he stood in front of this replica moon in the Kansas cosmosphere he repeatedly declined to grace me with the image of 2 moons. I mean come on - it would have been hilarious and the surveilance camera wasn't even pointed anywhere near it.

Just call me the Lunch Lady

2008-08-06T13:44:00.001-07:00

We’re currently hosting our 2 nieces and our nephew at our house and while it’s been fun so far, and Aaron is in absolute heaven with his live-in playmates, there have been challenges as well.

One of the biggest challenges for me is meal preparation. Cooking is not one of my favorite tasks (which is somewhat odd since eating is) and I often struggle to cook something for myself and my own 2 kids and now I’ve got 3 more to worry about. Last night I opted for chicken nuggets, mac and cheese and peas – a healthy meal balanced with items from each of the three processed food groups (processed powdered cheese, processed chicken parts formed into nugget shapes and heavily salted canned vegetables).

While the preparation was no different than usual, the quantity was and I spent what seemed like 15 minutes just trying to calculate how many nuggets to bake and whether or not I should do one box of Mac and Cheese or two. Once preparation was complete – putting it all on plates was an elaborate assembly line production which conjured up images of school days in the cafeteria. At one point I wondered if I should be wearing a hair net.

Tomorrow I think I’ll serve up some mashed potatoes with an ice cream scoop.

The fruits of my very minimal labor

2008-07-29T21:42:00.000-07:00

I planted a cherry tomato and a grape tomato plant in a huge pot on my patio this year. It was my way of connecting to mother earth, and enjoying tiny tomatoes on my salad without having to pay $2.99 every 2 weeks.

They're so delicious and were so easy to grow that I've started wondering why I don't garden on a much larger scale, and then I remember that I'm still officially on strike. My parents promised me 10cents for every quart of strawberries I broke my back to pick from our huge family garden back in 1988 and I've yet to see a penny of that money.

Unfortunately I was only 12 so according to my lawyer, the contract was not legally binding since I was a minor. However, I'm still pushing for a settlement. If you factor in lost wages and pain and suffering, I think we're talking close to $2,000.

Creative Writing 101 - Character Development

2008-07-21T20:28:00.000-07:00

I attended a creative writing class once that suggested taking a situation or scene that you witness (a couple sitting at a café, a group of people having an animated conversation on the street etc.) and using that scene as a starting point for character building. Who are the characters? How did they get into that situation? What is prompting them to act they way they are?

I’ve attempted it a couple times but never really found an adequately inspirational situation to evolve into a proper set of characters. That is, until Sunday night.

Matt and I had taken the kids for a ride in the evening, pretty much to get them settled and to be honest – to avoid our normal lengthy nighttime ritual just for a change of pace. On our way home, around 9:30 or so, the kids were snoozing softly in the back and we were just getting ready to pull onto our quiet street when we noticed a car stopped at the intersection.

A woman, probably early to mid 20’s, was leaning her entire torso out of the window and yelling at someone either on the street or in the cheap motel on the corner. The driver of the car was a man, about the same age, slouched in the driver’s seat, looking fairly embarrassed and dialing someone on his cell phone. Here’s the kicker. The woman was completely naked from the waist up. Yep, fun and fancy free my friends.

Now after the initial shock and excitement wore off; I mean stuff like this is a fairly rare thing to witness by two socially dead middle aged parents in the heart of the Midwest, I began to create my own detailed storyline to fit the scene.

The woman’s name is Tamara, and she insists on being called Tamara, not Tammy. She practices the almost extinct art of macramé and also crochets things like pop can belts and purses and sells them on ebay to supplement her income from her cashier job at the local health food store. She’s just gone through a very messy break up with her boyfriend Dan, whom she caught sleeping with her best friend Samantha in a cheap motel.

She was feeling a little sorry for herself tonight and had a few too many bottles of Boone’s strawberry wine while watching Footloose. The fight scene at the bar got her all teary. She remembered the time Dan had punched some guy who had playfully smacked her on the behind at the local bar. She’ll never forget that romantic day they spent together after she bailed him out of jail for assault. Anyway, she’d ran out of liquor and didn’t want to drive to get more so she called up Terrence, her co-worker, whom she knew had a secret crush on her and would jump at the chance to do something for her. Sure he was a complete geek and she suspected that he was stealing herbs from the “male enhancement”display at the store, but he seemed harmless enough and could take her for more liquor.

Terrence was delighted when he got the call and was so excited that he even logged off Socom (his username is TerrITup29) before finishing the battle. He was sure that his online teammates would understand. He wondered if he should he take some of those herbal supplements before he went? He picked her up in his Mom’s Camry and she was so drunk that he thought he had about an 85% chance of getting a little first base action.

He made a critical error though when he chose the route that took them by that motel with the ancient outdoor swimming pool that they had filled in with dirt and allowed every manner of weed to invade.

She just lost it when she saw it, and before Terrence knew it she’d ripped off her shirt, threw it in the backseat, leaned out the window and started shouting obscenities at the numbered doors of the Motel. She was reliving that terrible night when she discovered Dan and Samantha in room 3B and fueled by the power of cheap liquor, she was somehow reliving it barechested.

Terrence was in a complete panic. This scenario had never come up in that online tutorial; “What to do on a date with a hot chic”. Desperately he dialed his best friend Kyle – he was the guru. He’d made it all the way to the finish line with Sarah Grettelman on prom night. Sure, she’d been drunk, and possibly slightly unconscious, but it still counted as a score. Kyle would know what to do – especially with a drunk chic. He just needed to lay low until he got a hold of Kyle. That couple that just passed him in the mini van looked like they recognized his Mom’s Camry. Maybe they knew her from the neighborhood association?!

Now isn’t that fun? Talk about inspiration! Come up with your own characters or at least a believable scenario if you’ve got nothing better to do.

My friend Shawna came up with the following: the driver is her boyfriend and they were having an argument. He suggested that she needed a boob job, and was in the midst of calling one of his buddies to confirm his beliefs and she was so irate that she whipped off her shirt and was soliciting opinions from passersby.

What do you think?

Losing a finger or two could be considered as a character building experience.

2008-07-15T21:06:00.000-07:00

I recently upgraded the status of my “body fat terror alert” from yellow to red. It’s been determined that my ass is a weapon of mass destruction and I’ve enlisted the help of Weight Watchers to help me fight the good fight.

Losing weight is always a struggle, but I like the “Points” system and so far things are going well. The key is to have a lot of weight loss weapons in your arsenal – and I’m not talking about workout equipment or little scales to measure out all your portions – I’m talking about 2 cupboards worth of Fudge Grasshopper and Fudge Stripe 100 calorie packs.

Because without these things I could seriously be caught licking the Oreo cookie crumbs off the faces of my children, or worse: “Here sweetie, eat this Little Debbie Fudge Round and don’t worry if you get all messy, Momma will clean you up . . Oops, we’re out of wet wipes, let me just nibble that chunk of cookie off your sleeve there . . .”

I take these treats seriously here people. First of all they’re pricey and second of all they’re the only things that can keep me on track on certain days and I’ll be damned if I’m going to give even one of these little cookies up. But I have 2 children and as anyone with children knows – what’s yours is theirs. Far too many times I've had little fingers reaching into those sparsely populated bags. Too often have they reached for their own entire pack! I cannot allow this to go on. So far I’ve found the following strategies to be beneficial:

Distraction: Throw in a Dora or Diego DVD and as their little eyes alight upon the glory of Nick Jr. entertainment and their little bodies (and probably minds) cease to function, I sneak into the kitchen to enjoy my 100 calorie pack in peace.

Bargaining: “No honey, you can’t have any of Momma’s cookies . . . Oh don’t cry! You know how you’re always wanting to play driver in the van? Well here are the keys – go on out and play in the van for a while. Just remember to leave it in Park because neither one of you can reach the pedals.

Other times I try lying but Aaron is getting too old for that to work. For some reason he doesn’t believe that those cookies taste like broccoli, and he’s smart enough to recognize the boxes in the cupboard when I try to tell him that we’re all out.

Now maybe some of you are thinking that I should be sharing these low calorie, low fat snacks with my children in order to teach them how to be healthier and I’d have to say that I agree with that in theory. However, they really have fairly little nutritional value and most of the time my kids are content with some fruit. Thankfully they haven't yet learned to equate happiness with sugar and chocolate. Not to mention the fact that things are going to get really, really messy if I come home to find that I’m completely out of those 100 calorie miraculous elf created treasures. So even though I love my kids so much that I'd throw myself in front of a bus for them, they'd better leave my cookies alone if the want to go through life with all 10 digits intact.

Crapping in echo canyon

2008-06-27T18:51:00.000-07:00

Aaron saw a Kipper cartoon the other day about echoes and this afternoon while I was in the living room I heard:

"MOMMA . . . momma . . . momma"

What?

"I'M POOPING . . . pooping . . . pooping"

Okay.

"COME AND WIPE ME . . . wipe me . . . wipe me"

God I love that kid!

Because nothing's funnier than a genetically deformed animal

2008-06-22T10:26:00.000-07:00

Aaron loves knock, knock jokes and after suffering through his own made up jokes for a couple months (Knock knock - who's there? - House - House who? - House Door! and somehow that was hilarious to him) we got him a children's joke book. For the most part it's okay. It's got some groaners in there and some pretty bad puns but it's also got some jokes that are really bad. I don't mean that they're simply not funny - they're just in really poor taste. For example:

"Where can you find a dog with no legs? - Right where you left him."

"What do you call a mouse with no legs? - Cat food"

Seriously, who compiled these jokes? The screenwriter for Saw?

For now we just don't read them to him, but we'll have to conveniently lose the book when he learns to read.

House Envy

2008-06-15T20:00:00.000-07:00

Have you ever disliked someone for something they have no control over? Loathed their mere presence without ever making the effort to get to know them?

My neighbor is a very amiable divorcee in her early 50’s. She moved in about a year ago and she’s always been exceedingly friendly. I’m sure she’s a lovely person and I’m always ready to wave and say a friendly hello when I see her but beyond that I can’t seem to muster much effort.

Truth is, I hate the fact that she bought the house next to us. I’ve always liked that house ever since we moved into ours and when it was up for sale we toured it and after seeing the inside I loved it. In the timeframe between the tour and the day it sold I had hundreds and hundreds of lovely and vivid dreams of owning it myself and raising my children in its quaint window-seated bedrooms. Playing piano in the dining room, where the antique piano that’s been cluttering my mother’s house for years would have fit perfectly, creating a perfect garden oasis in the huge double lot backyard . . . But unfortunately when it was up for sale we were not financially ready to buy, and it would have been out of our price range regardless.

It’s really not fair of me to project my feelings of loss and regret on her and yet when I see her I can’t help but feel bitter that this single workaholic older woman is traversing the wooden winding staircase and hallway that should be littered with my children’s scattered toys and abandoned shoes. The walls are probably pristine and white when they should be covered in crayon scribbles and scuff marks. I mean what does a single old lady need with a 2 story, 4 bedroom house? She travels quite a bit and when I see it empty I almost feel like the home itself is sighing. It’s longing for the bustle of children and domestic goodness. Its windows are aching to be covered in tiny fingerprints and to rattle with the joyful screams of playing children. Instead it’s dark and lonely and quiet and I blame this on her.

Completely ridiculous and silly and yet there it is. It’s not her – hell I could have found fault with anyone who moved in there that wasn’t me. If Jesus himself moved in, I’d complain about how he doesn’t invite us to his wild monthly luau parties. Ewan McGregor could move in and I’d be livid that he trims his hedges while fully clothed.

I keep thinking I’ve reached a point that I can let things go and move on. I try to convince myself that my dream home is somewhere else and really wherever my family is together and happy is really a dream home anyway right? And then I see she’s having pizza delivered and all I can think is – I bet she just chucks the leftovers into one of the spare bedrooms. I mean what else could she possibly be using that space for?

Word Up!

2008-06-11T22:20:00.000-07:00

I'd like to tell you that we spend most of our afternoons cleaning up state parks, volunteering at food banks, reading fully unabridged and annotated versions of literary classics or bonding over games involving laminated educational flashcards, but that's not quite accurate. What really happens is that I try to wind down from 8 hours of soul sucking meaningless busy work while keeping the kids entertained with a little age appropriate cartoon entertainment.

And on those days when my responses to Dora's continual queries of "Where are we going?" are: "hell", 'insane" and "the liquor cabinet", I'm glad that there is another cartoon option out there.

Enter WordGirl. A new show on PBS Kids that I absolutely adore. I always have a softspot for any show in which the characters converse with the narrator - that nuance never really gets old for me. Plus the focus of the show is increasing children's vocabularies which is a noble cause in and of itself.

It's just so original and well written that it's one of my favorite TV shows right now and I'd watch it even if the kids weren't around. I mean how many shows have super villians who fling bratwurst? Check out part of an episode here.

Of course since I adore it, the kids don't really care for it. True, it's aimed at a slightly older audience than 1 and 4, but still it's entertaining. If I can coax Aaron into watching until the Captain Huggy Face dance segment comes on, I'm golden.

I dare you not to smile while watching this!

l've named it "Bic"

2008-06-10T04:37:00.000-07:00

Thanks to my Scottish/Irish heritage and an insanely unlucky genetic makeup I am covered in freckles and moles. Freckles I can deal with. I’m actually oddly attracted to freckles. I love looking at people who are excessively freckled. It makes their skin strangely beautiful and unique, almost like traditional Henna skin art. But I digress.

What I don’t like are moles. Moles have no redeeming qualities. None whatsoever and don’t even talk to me about the famous Cindy Crawford beauty mark mole. It’s only attractive because it’s on her and it’s the only one she probably has. And sure it looks great but I bet you $50 that she has to get that baby waxed on a weekly basis to keep 2 ugly thick black hairs from growing out of the middle of it and dangling onto her upper lip. How attractive is that?

I make an annual trip to the Dermatologist where he slices and dices off moles of questionable size, shape and color. Thankfully all have come back from the lab as normal. Melanoma is not a pretty thing. However, the side effect of all this slicing is scar tissue and mole remnants. You see sometimes they don’t get the entire thing and part of it grows back and then takes on a weird deformed existence.

This is one of my particular favorites. For some reason the wounded and pissed off root of this particular mole decided to take its vengeance by growing back dark blue/black; therefore causing everyone who sees it to inform me that I have a dot of ink on my arm.

Sure I could get it sliced off again but I’ve grown to love the oddity of it. And much like a belly button cat ass tattoo, it’s a great conversation starter.

Culture . . . and man boobs

2008-06-05T19:09:00.000-07:00

While flipping the channels the other night I landed upon a PBS special on a group of traditional Hawaiian dancers. It was mesmerizing. They didn’t perform for tourist luau’s, they performed simply for the ritual of it and instead of flamboyant flowered lei’s and cheap grass skirts, they donned handmade traditional costumes; broad palm leaf skirts hung low on the waist to accentuate their hip movements and simple dyed scarves wrapped around their chests. The men were bare chested with a short palm leaf skirt around their waist. It was truly beautiful.

They were dancing in the foreground of a volcano and, seeing this as an educational experience I started talking to Aaron about it. We discussed the volcano and we found Hawaii on the big map in his room and as I was silently praising myself for offering up such a cultural and educational experience for my son, he turned to me and said;

“Why is that man naked?”

I assured him that he wasn’t naked; he just didn’t have a shirt on.

“But I can see his boobs.” was his reply.

True, he was a larger man and I couldn’t quite argue with the kid’s logic, but I said “Men don’t have boobs, honey.”

With a serious and resolute look Aaron then informed me, “Yes, Momma they do! They’re just smaller.”

He was so confident that I knew it wouldn't be easy to convince him otherwise. Plus, the visual evidence was almost overwhelming in Aaron's favor and I really didn’t have the energy for a full on discussion of pectoral muscles vs. mammaries.

When the subject comes up again I’ll be sure to address it properly. Until then I just hope he doesn’t ask the next man he sees to show him his boobies.

What "Lozzie" taught me

2008-06-03T21:56:00.000-07:00

Everybody has things they regret: ill advised piercings, that new shirt you thought was stylish and unique until the first day you wore it and 2 people congratulated you and asked when the baby was due. . .

One of my biggest regrets is something I said years and years ago that at the time seemed completely and utterly innocent and yet it haunts me to this very day. My grandmother, whom I never saw very often as a small child because she lived several hours away, used to say “Lozzie” all the time. It was her word and I loved it. I’m not sure of the origin of the word and it doesn’t really matter. It was used as an exclamation like “Goodness Gracious” (or if it was me “Shit!” or “Damn”).

I loved the way she said it. Sometimes it was a loud and raucous Missouri accented “LAWZZIE!” uttered at the end of a funny story. Other times it was a more subdued and endearing “Lozzie, child you sure do look like your daddy.”So when she and my Grandpa moved back to our little town when I was about 11 I happened to mention to my parents how much I was looking forward to hearing “Lozzie” more often and when they looked at me quizzically I pointed out that Grandma said it all the time and I adored it. Well naturally this charming and endearing story was eventually recounted to her.

And . . .

The woman has never uttered the word again. EVER! Sometimes I think it might slip out when she’s telling a funny story or being spontaneous – but it never does.

I don’t know if she felt self conscious about it. Like how if someone tells you they adore the fact that your right ear is bigger than your left, and you, never having realized this, start wearing ear muffs year round. I felt guilty about it for the longest time, and then I finally decided that it was her issue not mine. If she wasn’t willing to embrace herself then there wasn’t much I could do about it.

But it did teach me that you should probably keep most of that stuff to yourself and that’s my public service message for today. So, if you ever feel the urge to volunteer up the fact that you love the patch of hair on your husband’s back because it’s the exact same shape as the state of Rhode Island or that you adore how your Aunt says the word “orange” as “oinge” – DON’T DO IT - because then you’ll be stuck shaving his back every month and your Aunt will feel the need to get speech therapy and avoid you like the plague any time a citrus fruit is in the vicinity.

And if someone ever offers up a quirky thing about you that they love, don’t feel self conscience or judged. Don’t even think about it. Just say “thank you” and revel in the fact that you’re loved and accepted for who you are.

Because "Thingamabob" just doesn't sound tasty.

2008-06-02T18:37:00.000-07:00

I was surfing the vending machine selections this afternoon at work and there was the usual – M&M’s, Snickers, Twix, and then . . . I noticed a small shaft of light coming from some inexplicable source and alighting upon the most glorious treasure imaginable:

There it was beaming at me like a gold nugget in a pan of mud, like a diamond amidst a pile of pebbles, like a clearance priced plus-size pair of jeans on a rack of size 6 skinny pants.

I love Whatchamacallits, and they’re pretty rare. You’re not going to find one of these babies at your normal checkout counter candy center. Most convenient stores don’t even carry them – and to find one in a vending machine is almost like a once in a lifetime occurrence. It was the only one in the machine and had probably been sandwiched between a Twix and a Snickers. I mean what are the odds that it would be front and center, just waiting for me? It was kismet!

I savored that thing like it was my last meal, and it absolutely made my entire day – and I don’t even care that it makes me sound incredibly pathetic – it’s the truth. It’s all about the nostalgia. Ah sweet, chocolatey memories.

6 Degrees of You Know Who, and the joys of small town life.

2008-05-30T17:58:00.000-07:00

I grew up in a small town not far from where I live now. I really loved living and growing up there but for now I’m in love with the convenience, culture and opportunities that my larger city life affords.

We go back there to visit my parents quite often and when we do the conversation inevitably turns to town gossip. I enjoy a little gossip, however the majority of the time I have no idea who they’re talking about. Sure every once in a while I’ll know the person, after all I did grow up in that town, but I’m not good with names. I have cousins whose names I can’t remember - let alone some guy I’ve never met who lives in a town that I haven’t lived in for about 13 years.

Sometimes I just flat out say that I don’t know who it is. I tell them I have no clue, don’t recall or never did know them in the first place. Other times I like to play along, simply because it seems to bring them a strange sense of satisfaction. I call it the "6 degrees of You Know Who", similar to the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon but with no cinematic knowledge required:

Mom: “Did you hear about Ed Smith?”

Me: “I don’t know who Ed Smith is.”

Mom: “Oh you know who Ed is. He used to be married to that gal that had that little antique shop on 4th street. They’re divorced now.”

Me: “Nope, doesn’t ring a bell.”

Mom: “You remember, she used to sell Avon and they had a boy, what was his name? Joe? Jared?”

Dad: “I think it was Josh.”

Mom: “Yes, Josh. Was he ahead of you in school or behind you?”

Me: “I don’t know.”

Mom: “ I think he was older than you. He played baseball I think.”

Me: “Was he a pitcher?”

Dad: “I think he played 3rd, but he might have pitched too. Do you remember him?”

Me: “No, I just always pay more attention to pitchers, they’re more glamorous, like the quarterbacks of baseball.”

Mom: “Oh. Well he just got married.”

Me: “Who? Ed or Josh?”

Mom: “Josh, the son.”

Me: “Oh yeah?”

Mom: “He married that gal, Teresa, that manages the convenient store on the north end of town.”

Me: “Uh huh.” (staring blankly)

Mom: “Oh you know, she used to be a cheerleader. She was in that bad car wreck her senior year with that other girl who was dating that kid in your class.”

Me: “What kid in my class?”

Mom: “Steve or something like that, used to play the trumpet. His sister was in 4-H with you.”

Me: “Oh, okay, yeah. Yeah, Steve. I remember Steve.” (At least I think I remember Steve or am I thinking of Sam? No Sam didn’t have a sister . . . They’re really excited that I remembered Steve so I’m going to go with it.)

Mom: “Well then you’ll remember that he dated that Anderson girl. Not the oldest, I think she was the youngest one.”

Me: “Yeah!” (I don’t remember anyone named Anderson but I’m not letting on)

Mom: “Remember she was in that terrible car wreck on prom night, broke her legs I think. Well this gal Teresa was with her and got hurt too. You remember that right?”

Me: “Yeah, of course.” (At this point I’m beginning to wonder if I was abducted by aliens at some point and the majority of my memories were removed for their research purposes because none of this is ringing a bell. I do remember a bright light in the cornfield when I was about 17 . .. )

Mom: “Yes! Well the other day Ed’s pickup was stolen right out of his driveway and . . . “

And then 10 minutes later we’re back on Ed, who I still don’t know and yet since I remembered the ex boyfriend of the high school friend of his new daughter-in-law it’s now assumed that I’ve known dear old Ed my entire life.

I used to find it really annoying and now I just go with it and I love it! It invokes such small town nostalgia. Sometimes I miss that small town feel. I miss that you can go into town and recognize the majority of the people on the street. Sure you might not know them well or even know their names, but you just might know that their wife’s daughter from her fist marriage just had a baby out of wedlock with that kid that used to get in trouble all the time for skateboarding on the courthouse steps and spray-painting the water tower. And if that doesn’t foster a sense of small town warmth and friendship then I don’t know what does!

Things I don't understand

2008-05-28T21:00:00.000-07:00

There are a lot of things in this world that I don’t understand: terrorism, child abuse, people who honestly believe that global warming is not in any way linked to or caused by the excesses and pollutions of humanity. The list could go on and on but today I feel the need to highlight some of the more mundane daily things that I just can’t quite understand:

-My work pants have 2 buttons and 3 clasp closures on them and I don’t understand why? Does this make them more sophisticated than a normal pair of pants with just a button and a zipper? I mean, they’re pants – it’s not like they’re encasing 2 million in bearer bonds or the technical readouts of the death star – just my ass. Should it take me a full minute to get them undone when I have to take a piss?

-They can build a car that will tell you the outside temperature, the pressure in each of your tires, whether or not your oil is low and give you turn by turn directions to the nearest Baskin Robbins but they all come with the same old boring horns. I for one would like some horn options. Maybe a nice friendly “beep” to tell the gal in front of me that it’s time to stop applying her mascara and actually drive since the light turned green 5 seconds ago. How about a nice blaring “kiss my ass” sound for the jerk that cuts you off. Can I have some options here? How about making the horns customizable like your cell phone ring. That way when some hot guy in a convertible is staring wide eyed at my unbrushed hair and wondering if those are gummy bears or goldfish crackers whizzing past my head from the backseats, I could throw him a little “Don’t Ya wish your girlfriend was hot like me” horn action from my dingy mini van.

-There’s a show on Animal Planet called Groomer Has It. It’s like Project Runway or Design Star – for dog groomers. It’s not that I don’t understand the show, or don’t understand why desperate tv producers are still latching onto the tired yet successful reality show concept to fill the airwaves. What I don’t understand is why I can’t stop watching it. During the last episode I watched a contestant, in an effort to make an Ali- inspired egotistical speech said, “I groomed like a butterfly and ummm groomed like a bee.” On this show a loose tuft of fur on a groomed dog is gasp inducing – I mean it’s ridiculous and has no merit and yet I can’t stop watching it! I fear I’ve been brain washed. I think I may need professional help.

-Have you ever wondered what it would be like to steer a sheep? I haven’t, and yet it appears to me that many people have and in an attempt to experience that sensation, have encased their steering wheels in thick wooly covers. Now to me it seems like somewhat of a safety hazard to place an inch of synthetic fur between your hands and the device that keeps your vehicle under control at speeds of 70 +mph. I’m not one to judge though. Perhaps they’re preparing for one of those rodeo sideshow sheep riding events?

80's CliffsNotes - Fads

2008-05-22T22:11:00.001-07:00

Okay, I promise - this is the final installment of my 80's CliffsNotes series. Then I might find the energy to think up some original content.

There were tons of fads in the 80’s. Looking back, none of them made much sense but that just makes them all the more endearing.

Since the 80’s was all about music, you were nothing if you didn’t have a boom box. Now it was mostly rappers and breakdancers who carried them around on their shoulders down the street, but everyone had them because portable music was a must. Oh and they played these things called Cassette Tapes – you might have heard of them. You had to rewind them after you played them and take them out and flip them over to listen to the other side.

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Hannah Montana is nothing more than a rip off of Jem. The best cartoon ever about a recording studio manager who was really a rock star in secret. All she had to do was press her gawdy star earring and BAM she was decked out in full pop star ensemble and ready to rock! Sure there were other great cartoons in the 80’s (The Smurfs, Rainbow Brite, Care Bears, My Little Pony) but nothing quite as great as Jem because it incorporated 80’s fashion and music and the MTV culture into animation.

Cabbage Patch kids were to the 80’s what Tickle me Elmo was to the 90’s. I think some parents actually died while wrestling each other for one of these

The Rubik’s cube was a very popular item in the 80’s and succeeded in making 99% of the population feel like complete idiots when they couldn’t solve it.

“The Wave” was born in the 80’s. At an 80’s sporting event you’d do the wave at least 10-20 times. Sure it got tedious after a while but you haven’t lived until you’ve been part of a sea of bodies working together to create one cool spectacle.

The 80’s had its share of phrases and popular words. The phrase “Where’s the Beef?” was made popular by a little old lady on a Wendy’s commercial. Surprisingly enough you can find a lot of situations in which to use that phrase and we did. “Not” and “Psyche” were also popular and were used quite frequently. For example: “Those boot cut jeans look great on her – NOT – she should so tight-roll those or she’ll be the laughing stock of the roller rink” or “I think 6 bracelets are enough on this one arm – PSYCHE – I’m so adding at least 10 more!”

Professional wrestling was really popular in the 80’s. We were all Hulkamaniacs back in the day when being a Hulkamaniac was cool. They didn’t bleed and they didn’t hit each other in the head with chairs, it was just good, clean, cheesy fun.

80's CliffsNotes continued - Fashion Edition

2008-05-19T21:04:00.000-07:00

Here's the 2nd installment of my gift to my young friend who was denied the joy and pleasure of experiencing the 80's properly.
The most important thing you need to know about 80’s fashion is that we were perpetually trying to make ourselves into large upside down triangles. The point was to make our upper body as wide as possible through the use of shoulder pads and oversized T-shirts and then make our lower halves look as small as possible through the use of tight rolled jeans or leggings.

You could never have enough accessories. If you only had on 5 bracelets then you might as well not have any on at all. Earrings had to be either large hoops or of the colorful dangle variety – after all they had to be big to stand out in all of that hair.

Jeans were big in the 80’s. They were mostly high waisted and tapered at the leg therefore making them as unflattering as possible. If we found that they weren’t tapered enough at the leg we would employ the tight roll technique. Acid washed jeans were a big favorite as were jeans that were pre-ripped. If your parents were loaded enough they’d buy you the ones that came pre-ripped/torn from the store. Otherwise you’d have to try and artfully rip your own.

Slouch socks were a fashion must and would always match your shirt – not your pants. Preferably the were layered so that you could have at least 2 colors on. Another favorite was the slouch boot which was a high heeled boot with slouching leather around the ankle. All of these ankle options accentuated the tight leggings or tight rolled jeans.

T-shirts were preferably bright in color – usually neon and they were always worn big. If you felt you had too much fabric you could always use the T-shirt buckle or tie it at the waist. Sweatshirts were acceptable but only if the sleeves and neckline were cut out so that you could wear them off the side of your shoulder.

Don’t forget the leg warmers Everything about dancing was big in the 80’s. This included ballet leg warmers as well as tight leggings or the ever popular stirrup pants.. Aerobics was born in the 80’s and it was perfectly acceptable to wear spandex aerobic clothing anywhere and anytime. Sweatbands became high fashion!

Jelly shoes were all the rage, despite the fact that they wore holes through the flesh of your toes and made your feet sweat like crazy. Other popular footwear included high tops or any tennis shoe as long as it was fitted with neon laces.

CliffsNotes - The 80's Hair and Makeup

2008-05-15T21:05:00.000-07:00

One of my friends recently celebrated her 21st birthday - can you imagine?! I think I was 21 at some point but I can't quite remember what that was like.

Anyway, as much as I enjoy her youth and general naivetee, her lack of experience and knowledge with certain things was always a nuisance. I mean she actually turned to me once and said, "Who's Stevie Nicks?" It was a sad, sad day.

Not to mention the fact that she's unable to weigh in on important cultural debates - like how Jennifer Beal's character in Flashdance could possibly have time to train, walk and care for a pit bull while juggling welding, exotic dancing, training for a prestigious ballet school and sleeping with her boss.

So as part of her gift, my hubbie and I burned her some 80's hits compilation CD's and I worked up some 80's CliffsNotes for her on the subjects of Hair and Makeup, Fads, and Fashion.

I'm quite proud of them really and it finally hit me that it's ready content for the blog. So here you go. I hope you enjoy this trip down memory lane, or for you youngin's a small education on the greatest decade ever.

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CliffsNotes - The 80's Hair and Makeup:

80's hair was either one of the following: Feathered, crimped, curled or teased. Whatever the style it had to be Big! The bigger the better. If you had trouble fitting your hairstyle through the doorway then you knew it was almost perfect! Once your style achieved the right height and width you had to keep it there with the use of either Rave or AquaNet hairspray. I believe that we unwittingly depleted 85% of the ozone layer in one decade alone. Not to mention that our hair was always in desperate need of a good V05 hot oil treatment from all that teasing and crimping.

Bangs were big - and I mean BIG. If you could get them to stand a full 12 inches off your head then you were automatically in the running for prom queen.

There were a variety of hair accessories in the 80's. The banana clip allowed a cascading flow of locks in the back and ample opportunity for large bangs in the front. Headbands were also popular but keep in mind that they never held the bangs back - Oh no they were used simply to offset the bangs
Scrunchies were a must have. Ponytails were worn off to the side and held with scrunchie that coordinated with your outfit. The great thing about scrunchies was that they were also useful as fashion accessories when you wore them on your wrist.

.As far as makeup in the 80’s: blue was king. Blue eyeshadow, blue eyeliner, blue mascara. The more blue the better - and we caked it on thick. It went from eyelid to eyebrow and often spilled out wide to the sides as well. Like everything else in the 80’s eyeliner and mascara were used in excess as well.

Spit or swallow? The phlegm debate.

2008-05-12T20:17:00.000-07:00

I have a cold – AGAIN – and this time around I’m experiencing some nice juicy coughs and a plethora of phlegm. Matt has come down with the cough as well and during our weekend of hacking and building snotty-tissue mountains I started to ruminate on the everlasting spit or swallow debate. And of course by this I mean whether or not you spit out the phlegm that you cough up or do you swallow it.

Matt is a spitter: hocking great mounds of mucus onto sidewalks or into wadded tissues – and there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m a swallower. I’ve always been a swallower and for years as a child I was berated for this and told that I was making myself even sicker for not spitting that phlegm out. “It’s just going to come right back if you swallow it – you have to spit it out.” my parents would say. And I believed them for several years and I made valiant efforts to spit. But I’m not a good spitter. It’s not a skill that comes naturally to me, and when I attempt to spit it usually ends up as an embarrassing and messy scene involving spittle trails on my chin and an ineffectual wad of saliva and mucus a mere 2 cm. from the toe of my shoe.

So for years I swallowed in shame. Convinced that I was making myself even more ill, until one day when I finally realized that it was all just a scam, a myth, an urban legend. Let’s think about it people: phlegm comes from your lungs, or more accurately from your trachea. When you cough it up it dislodges and lands in your throat or the back of your mouth. When you swallow it goes down your esophagus and into your stomach. Therefore it’s been cleared from your lungs and in effect you’ve accomplished the same goal as spitting. You’ve removed the phlegm from the trachea.

Why is there still this belief that if you swallow the phlegm that you’re somehow being unhealthy? Is it ignorance? A gross out factor? It seems that a lot of people think it’s gross to swallow phlegm. My question is, how is it any worse than spitting it out? The phlegm is inside my body anyway, and sure it’s nasty, but I’d rather swallow it quickly in a fraction of a second and allow my digestive track to dispose of it, than to have it travel over my tongue (and taste buds) and teeth and shoot it out between my lips.

I searched online for medical proof that swallowing phlegm was detrimental to your health and I found none. Everything that I found backed up my belief that it doesn’t matter whether you spit or swallow, just as long as you remove the phlegm from the trachea. And yet I ran across several message boards and question and answer sites where the same old adage, “if you swallow it, it will just come back” was repeated by the ignorant masses.

I’m thinking of starting some sort of public educational campaign. I need to stamp out the ignorance and let people know that it’s okay to swallow, though I’m not sure I’d get good reactions If I made posters that said “There’s no shame in swallowing!” or “You don’t have to spit – you can swallow!” and posted them up on Laundromat and YMCA cork boards.

Practical Shopping tips for the first time parent

2008-05-09T12:30:00.000-07:00

The thing about most first-time parents is that they have no idea what they’re getting into. Sure they think they know, but then they’re also scared shitless and are inundated with magazines and books and advice and clever marketing strategies that keep them constantly overwhelmed. It’s this state of mind that most baby product manufacturers love. They love to create it and they love to take advantage of it, because if they can convince you that you NEED their product for the safety and well being of your child, they know you’re going to buy it, no matter how incredibly impractical and useless it is.

My best friend Shawna, a very informed and level headed first time parent, ran across such useless baby items when she was shopping for her child and she shared them with me for a good giggle. I’ve highlighted the most ridiculous down below and in the interest of public service, I’ve also listed some more practical alternatives for the first time parent.

Item #1:
Baby Care Timer

Price: $24.99
Product description: This unique timer takes the guesswork out of keeping baby comfy, cozy and happy. Large display shows the elapsed time since the last diaper change and feeding, how long baby has been awake/asleep.

Alternative product(s): andy clock you already have, common sense

Price: free
Product description: Want to meet all of your baby’s needs? Curious as to whether your baby is hungry, sleepy, wet, or soiled? Then try the advantages of common sense and the use of any timekeeping device.

If baby is unhappy then check its diaper. If the diaper is soiled, change it. Is baby hungry? Try to recall the last time you fed it, and even if you don’t recall then try to feed it. If it eats, then it’s hungry, if it doesn’t eat – it’s not hungry. Curious as to how long baby has been sleeping? Well it’s never long enough so don’t even bother keeping track. It’s never consistent either so even if you’ve timed every nap and they’ve all been 45 min. long, the one time that you want to take a long soak in the tub, the kid is only going to sleep for about 10 minutes or as long as it takes for you to get the water run and lower your exhausted ass into the tub and then it’s going to start wailing – guaranteed.

Item #2:

Portable Pacifier Cleanser.
Price: $16.99
Product Description: Dropped pacifiers are magnets for dirt and germs, and that is why Prince Lionheart invented this product! Just place your Baby's dirty pacifier in the spray shield and spritz the dirt away with clean water or antibacterial mouthwash. Unique design keeps clean and dirty water separated. Also great for cleaning Baby's face while you're on the go!

Alternative product(s): Your own mouth, your shirt, your hand/finger, a pacifier leash

Price: free/ .99 -$2.00

Pacifiers can be a breeding ground for germs and bacteria. However, they pale in comparison to shopping cart handles, toilet seats, restaurant floors, and the bottoms of shoes. These are all things that your child will put his/her mouth on once they reach the crawling/walking stage. It’s inevitable. So really it’s a good idea to expose them to as many germs as possible as an infant just to build up their resistance.

If the pacifier does become covered in some sort of visible dirt or other substance you have several options. You can wipe it on your shirt, or if moisture is required simply lick y our finger and then wipe off the nipple. It works like a charm. Remember that the 3 second rule applies to pacifiers as well as dropped food.

If you’re ultra concerned you may want to employ the use of a pacifier leash. A very inexpensive product that attaches the pacifier to the child’s outfit therefore removing the possibility of it falling on the floor. However this does not prevent the dog from licking it or an older sibling from pawing it excessively right after his fingers have taken a thorough and slimey journey through his nasal passages.

If dirt prevention is your aim rather than simple cleanup. Check out item #3 and its alternative.

Item #3

Mam pacifier keeper with nipple cover
Price: $4.99
Product description: The Sassy MAM Pacifier Keeper with Nipple Cover is designed to fit securely around nipple of baby's pacifier to keep it clean. Keeper can be attached to baby's garment making sure pacifier is always within reach.

Alternative product: cleavage
Price: Free/cost of a good plastic surgeon

Let's analyze item #3. That cover is only going to fit over certain brands/sizes of pacifiers and you’re going to lose it within the first 2 days of use anyway. Even if you manage to keep track of it, the inside of the nipple cover is probably going to get dirty and then you’ll just be encasing it in dirt and providing a safe/moist environment for bacteria to grow and breed.

Therefore I recommend my soon to be patented portable pacifier keeper: cleavage (see here for more details). The downside is that you need to have a decent breast size in order to have a sufficient sized cleavage pocket. If you’re only sporting an A or B cup then you’ll have to upgrade before this technique will work for you.

Item #4

Belle Baby Carrier

Price: $89.99
Product description: Adjustable Height, Adjustable Shoulder Straps• Features Waist Belt, Ergonomic Design, 4-Point Harness, Sleek 1-Piece Design, Dual Buckles, Locking Mechanism Indicator• Flexible Design, Reinforced Stitching, Ventilated Fabric, Adjustable Straps, Buckle Closure• Stain Resistant

Alternative product: Any baby carrier besides this one.

Baby carriers are fabulous things. I’m not going to discourage the use of this product in general. A good baby carrier should be comfortable, it should provide support for both you and the baby, and it should be covered in a fabric that does not suggest that the child you carry it in was conceived during a sordid S & M encounter. This thing looks like something you’d get at Frederick’s of Hollywood instead of Babies R’ Us.

Smell-o-rama

2008-05-05T21:50:00.000-07:00

Something I’ve always found fascinating is the link between smells and memories. It’s amazing how one whiff of a particular scent can conjure up such vivid recollections of events, places, people and emotion.

One of my grandmothers used to smoke like a chimney and yet she was a complete OCD neat freak so her house always had a very strong odor of cigarette smoke with a slight twang of cleaning supplies. I spent almost every Thanksgiving and Christmas there as a child so now when I enter a place that smells like it’s been marinating in smoke and lysol it invariably creates an image of my Grandmother in my mind, if even for just a split second. Which is slightly odd because it’s not really normal to be reminded of your grandmother when you enter a bar or the smoking section of a seedy restaurant/lounge.

My grandfather on my father’s side always smells of coffee and Old Spice and I love that combo. My Mother always smells like soap and this particularly lovely musky perfume she wears. She gave me a couple jackets the other day that she no longer wears and when I put them on I was surrounded with the scent of her and it was like I was a little girl snuggled in her arms again.It makes me wonder what fragrant memories I’m making for my children. Will artificial apple scent some day awaken fond memories of bath time with apple scented shampoo? Will the smoky scent of a campfire remind them of our evenings on the patio roasting marshmallows on our little fire pit? Will the scent of Quarter Pounders with cheese remind them of my “home cooking”?

Astin Crush

2008-04-30T22:05:00.000-07:00

I love my husband and he fulfills me in every capacity. That being said, I think every woman still has a 14 year old girl inside of them who’s clipping out pictures of hunky guys from Teen Beat and taping them to her bedroom wall.

I have my share of celebrity crushes – Ewan McGregor being at the very pinnacle of that list. However, coming in at a close second is someone slightly unpredictable. It’s Sean Astin. And no, Goonies is not my favorite movie of all time, though it is a fine piece of cinematic art.

I never really thought much of him when I was younger but he really caught my eye when he played Samwise Gamgee in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Yeah, I’m a little bit of a sci-fi babe but only in the sense that I enjoy some Sci Fi/Fantays books and movies. Nothing major though. I don’t speak Klkingon and I’ve never dressed as Leia in the Jabba the Hut slave scene or anything like that – though that might just be because I can’t find that metal bra in a size 38 DDD.

But anyway . . . Sam is my favorite character from the LOR books and I thought Sean did a wonderful job of portraying him so I’ve had a soft spot for him ever since.

Then there was a particularly juicy 3rd trimester dream (you moms know what I mean) starring him and I found it interesting when I awoke that I was actually disappointed that halfway through he switched into Brad Pitt.

I’m not sure what it is about him. Maybe because he looks so sweet and cuddly. Maybe because he just strikes me as an all around nice guy, but whatever it is, it’s enough to move him into 2nd position behind Ewan on my celebrity lust list and just to show you how much my hubbie loves me and accepts me for who I am I offer this piece of evidence that he got specifically for me while shopping for his sportscard hobby:

Yep, a genuine signed Sean Astin collectable card. Isn’t that fab? I don’t know what I like more – the card or the fact that my hubby got it for me.

Like a chasm of despair in both my tooth and my soul.

2008-04-28T21:21:00.000-07:00

There’s not much about me that’s remarkable. I’m of average height, average intelligence, average abilities, and average attractiveness. The only thing about me that’s above average is my weight, the size of my tits and my astoundingly excellent dental health.

Yes, yes I know that sounds incredibly pathetic. Some people have greater gifts. They’re great speakers, or great motivators and leaders; or they have great physical prowess, they’re Olympic athletes or can put their feet behind their heads and scoot across the floor on their buttocks – but my one small claim to fame was that I hadn’t had a cavity in my entire life.

Whenever anyone spoke of their upcoming root canal or the bane of their semi-annual dental appointment that they were sure would end up involving a drill, I puffed up my chest and proudly proclaimed that I’d never had a cavity in my entire life. Never, not one. I had the teeth of an immortal. Sure they might not be gleaming white or even incredibly straight. But they were healthy and pure and I basked in the wonder of people’s faces and gasps of amazement when they realized the miracle that was my oral health.

But it all came crashing down on me last week at the dentist office. I HAVE A CAVITY. And if that was not enough of a blow, they said they were keeping a close eye on another tooth that looked like it was headed for the same fate. I was, and still am, devastated.

It’s not just a cavity to me. It’s another small detail of my body and my life that’s falling to shit. It’s another blow to my already bruised ego and sense of self worth. It’s not bad enough that I’m so exhausted and tired looking that I don’t recognize my own reflection. Not enough that my hair has been stripped of all it’s natural gleam and is peppered with grey, not enough that I can’t wear any of my pre-pregnancy wardrobe. NO! Fate/life/old age had to steal from me my one small claim to fame.

I suppose I’ll get over it eventually. I’ll fill up that hole in my soul just like they’ll fill in that gaping hole in my tooth. Except I’ll probably try to fill my emotional canyon with oreos and french silk pie instead of dental grade enamel. All that sugar might lead to more cavities though – damn!

Hike up your stockings Granny

2008-04-23T21:23:00.000-07:00

I wear trouser socks 5 days a week. It’s shameful really. I never really thought of myslef as the trouser sock type. However I find them to be the perfect sockware for my work attire. They’re thin enough that my feet don’t get uncomfortable in these god awful work shoes I wear and they don’t fade like a cotton sock would, plus I think they look professional.

But here’s my problem. The damn things keep falling down on me. Maybe it’s because I buy the cheapest ones I can find. Maybe it’s because the girth of my upper calves is more than the nylon can handle. But no matter the reason, by the end of the day I end up feeling like my great Grandmother.

When I was in elementary school my brother and I would spend our afternoons between school and the time Mom got off work at my Great Grandmother’s house. To be honest I don’t remember much about her personality as she wasn’t really a hands-on Grandma and we usually played amongst ourselves. All I remember is that she made the driest cake in the entire world and her support pantyhose were always rolled down. They looked like little life preservers made especially for her ankles. Just mention the woman’s name and that’s the first image that pops in my head - that roll of nylon around her ankle – oh that and she always gave us underwear for our birthdays. Imagine trying to sound grateful for that gift year after year!

So any correlation between myself and my Great Grandmother doesn’t in general make me feel real good about my recently one year older self. So I think next time I hit the store I might try to find some different socks. Maybe something trendy like argyle – argyle is “in” now right? I’m so out of the loop. I might as well order my dentures now.

Excuse me, my bra is ringing.

2008-04-21T19:42:00.000-07:00

I'm notorious for being near impossible to reach by phone. Truth be told I hate phones. Talking on them makes me uncomfortable. I don't know why, perhaps some deep psychoanalysis might some day bring that issue to light.

I cringe when I have to call a business, like an insurance company or the bank or any type of customer service line. I get as nervous as if I was calling in for a job interview. I make Matt phone in all of our take out orders. Those incompetent 16 yr. olds on the other end of the line are just too frightening. (He hates this by the way but I think he's finally just embraced this duty and all I get is a sigh followed by a playfully surly "hand me the phone")

Now that's not to say that I don't like speaking to friends and family via phone - I do - once I'm actually on the phone that is. I just don't like calling. I really wish I could explain why but it's a grand mystery - kind of like the popularity of "Rock of Love" or how so many college girls can convince themselves that it’s cool to be degraded and exploited in a Girls Gone Wild video.

My other problem is that I can never seem to hear my cell phone and this is the very bane of Matt's existence. Not much rivals his temper after he's called my cell phone 20 times in a row only to find out hours later that I left it in the van or on vibrate in the bottom of my purse.

However, recently I've made great strides in my cell phone awareness and have begun carrying it on my person at all times. This way even if it is on vibrate, in theory I should still be able to recognize that someone is trying to reach me. For the most part this newfound dedication is for Matt's benefit alone, but truth be told, it's also because my very great friend is getting closer and closer to her due date and I want to be available should she need me to catch the kid as it falls out of her, and/or to fetch some Hawaiin punch and Bugles and marvel at the disappearance of her belly button (I swear, it's completely gone - it's stretched so far it doesn't even exist anymore!).

My problem in this new phone carrying endeavor is that I don't always have pockets. So I'm often forced to go with the "universal carryall for the ample chested" – the bra. The phone is not quite so discreet as a pacifier though. It's too sleek and slick to be safely housed in the cleavage – there’s too much danger of it slipping through and onto the floor. Therefore I've determined that the best place is near the top of the cup, close to the strap. It creates quite an unsightly lump though but that’s the sacrifice I’m willing to make for my hubby and my friend.

Skeptics Beware

2008-04-19T21:35:00.000-07:00

The package said "Up to 10,000 bubbles per minute" No Way!! Oh yes way!
Check out this awesome bubble maker we got at Target. It's the best 8.99 I've ever spent.

Who knew that a battery operated fan and some rotating bubble wands could cause so much joy. Sure we could blow our own bubbles - and we still do - but can we blow 10,000 per minute - I don't think so!!

I could take a crap without an audience!

2008-04-16T20:38:00.000-07:00

I’ve been relatively brain dead recently. My still lingering 3 week old cold and Mother Nature’s desire to completely piss me off with snow and freezing temperatures has pretty much rendered my brain to a big pile of mush. So in order to gain some sort of inspiration for posting this week I asked my BFF for some ideas. She came up with quite a few but the most intriguing one was: “write about what you would be doing if you didn’t have kids.”

Now my first reaction to that thought was soaring excitement (yeah go ahead and hand me the shitty mother of the year award.) I mean think about it. No breaking up screaming matches between 2 toddlers, no more poopy diapers, no more whining, no more exhaustion, no more dreading the thought of leaving the house by myself with 2 kids in tow, no more countless hours of putting other people’s needs above my own.

Then I began to seriously think about what I would do with all my time. If we didn’t have kids, Matt would have no need to work the night shift. We’d have our evenings together, basking in the glow of all the extra cash we’d have lying around. We could decoupage the coffee table in $5 bills. We could eat out 3 or 4 days a week, we could "GASP" go to a movie, hell we could do almost anything on the spur of the moment. We could have sex without barricading the bedroom door!

I could pursue my writing to an even larger extent. Who knows, maybe I’d get some articles published, my first novel written – JK Rowling would have nothing on me! Perhaps I would have the freedom to pursue another career that actually made me happy. Maybe we’d be able to afford a bigger house and furniture to fill it with that didn’t come from a garage sale or a dead relative.

But here’s the problem. I wouldn’t be happy. I’d be miserable. Because the only thing I’d be doing is what I was doing before we had kids – wishing for kids. Once I knew I was ready to be a Mom that was my only goal and now that I am, while I still fantasize about the freedom of being without them for a day or so, I’d be miserable and aimless without them.

Why would I want a larger house without children to put in it? What would I write without the inspiration those 2 little people give me? Before I had kids I had no idea what I wanted to do. They’ve helped me prioritize my life. Helped me to see what is truly valuable to me. If I do nothing else in my lifetime, at least on my deathbed I can say that I improved the world just one tiny bit by bringing two fabulous, intelligent and loving creatures into it.

Do I smell artificially flavored gum base and corn syrup or is that you?

2008-04-10T15:54:00.000-07:00

I was in the elevator the other morning at work and the gal in front of me smelled exactly like Chiclets (the fruit flavor pack of course). I think it must have been some product in her hair or something but I found it enchanting. And it was at that moment that I realized that I too had a deep desire to smell like my favorite childhood candy coated gum.

Now some of you might not know what Chiclets smell like and if that’s the case then you have my pity. Go out and get yourself a pack (they can be quite difficult to locate so try to find a convenient store that hasn’t added any new items to their inventory for a couple decades). Rip that pack open, shove your nose directly inside it and enjoy. It smells like sunshine mingled with partially hydrogenated artificial fruit flavors.

At this point you might be tempted to actually chew the chiclets and here I would have to advise you not to. The fabulous aroma only translates into fabulous taste for approximately 3.2 seconds and then starts to resemble a stick of juicy fruit gone terribly wrong.

So I shall now commence my search for Chiclet scented hair products so that I can live the dream of smelling like that fabulous shiny candy coated gum. Or perhaps I should put a request in to the folks at Demeter to see if they can add this to their novelty perfume product line along with Grass, Dirt, Play-Doh and Funeral Home.

If I had a million dollars . . .

2008-04-08T20:28:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite songs of all time is “If I had a Million Dollars” by the Barenaked Ladies. Why? Because it’s catchy and it’s campy and it’s just plain fun. My favorite line is “But not a real green dress that’s cruel.” and if you don’t know what song I’m talking about you should feel ashamed of yourself and you should go get it right now and put it on your I pod or your cheap generic MP3 player until you have all the words memorized like I do.

Anyway, the point of this post is that I heard that song the other day, and then as normal, had it rattling in my brain for about 3 days afterwards, intermittently singing out lyrics “maybe a nice Chesterfield or an Ottoman” at random moments like some poor soul with Turrets. And I started thinking – what would I do if I had a million dollars. And not the boring stuff like pay off all my debt and set up trust funds for my kids etc. etc, but the fun stuff like buying a miniature pony so I could name her Buttercup and paint little stars and rainbows on her rump and braid her mane.

Here's what came to the top of my list:
I would buy a gigantic Pinpression thing – you know the things with hundreds of little pins and when you stick your hand in it or your face it leaves the impression of it on there.

I can’t resist sticking my face in these when I see one at the store even though I know it’s likely that some toddler probably pulled his hand out of his diaper and stuck it in there a mere 5 minutes earlier.

They have a huge one at our local science center – it’s like 7 foot by 8 foot and I’d buy one even larger if I had a million dollars. I’d make it span the entire wall and we could spend hours with it every day: “Look, I’m walking like an Egyptian, How about this one, it looks like the guy on the little crosswalk sign, Here, look at this one – (pushing in pins to make a hump on my back) now I look like Quasi Moto – Sanctuary, Sanctuary!”

We could have big parties and instead of playing normal, boring Pictionary we could play Pinpression Pictionary – “it’s your butt, no mooning – the moon - Full moon!” “Yes!”

What would you buy just for fun if you had a million dollars?

How NOT to check for a poopy diaper

2008-04-05T19:05:00.000-07:00

I’ve already related to you some of the horror stories of my travels. Pissy train employees, long layovers, sick kids, family feuds, fatigue etc. So I want you to keep those issues in mind and consider their influence on my state of mind as I relate this next tale to you.

We were sitting in the Chicago train terminal during our 4 hour layover. I still smell like vomit, I’m tired and approximately 300 people have lined up around our little makeshift camp of suitcases, empty Happy Meals and baby paraphernalia to board an earlier train.

I begin to notice the not so subtle odor of human feces. Now there are 3 options as to the source of this smell. It’s either my kid, my niece, or one of the 300 people whose asses are currently at nose level. I ask Matt “who stinks?” which as all mothers know translates into – “hey check our kid’s pants for poop and change them if they’re dirty, please My Love”. Well obviously he needs to brush up on his Mom/Wife-ese because all he did was shrug his shoulders (I’ll admit, it’s a complex language with several dialects, but you’d think after dating for 6 years and being married for almost 8 he’d have a little more mastery of it).

So I haul the kid up off the floor and proceed with the “smell the pants for evidence of crap” maneuver. However, I made a fatal error during this maneuver; I didn’t look first. I don’t’ know where I was looking, perhaps my eyes were glazed over with fatigue, but I didn’t look where my nose was going and it was all too obvious when I felt the sensation of warm goo on the tip of my nose, that it was indeed my child’s diaper that stunk. Yes, she had diarrhea and it had traveled up out of the diaper and onto her back and some of it was now deposited on the tip of my nose. It was a proud moment.

After the panic subsided I tried to calmly assess my options. I was holding a child’s ass in my face and there was feces on my nose, and I’m in the middle of a crowded train station. I do not have a free hand to procure a Kleenex or other substance to wipe my nose off, nor do I want to remove the child and hand her to someone else because then my shitty nose will be exposed for all to see. So I did the only thing I could think of. I wiped it on the back of her shirt. After all it had poop on it in other places already and would need to be changed anyway. After that it was a pretty normal diaper change, except that the other women in the bathroom looked at me a little strangely when I stuck my entire face under the faucet and washed it with enough anti-bacterial soap to disinfect an entire elephant.

Enough Said

2008-04-03T22:09:00.001-07:00

When I say Non-Catholic, you say Meat . . . Go Meat!

2008-04-01T20:46:00.000-07:00

(Warning: Yes I'm still going on and on about my vacation with the in-laws that happened almost 2 weeks ago. Give me a break, it offered me a wealth of subject matter and I've either been in bed, at the Pediatrician's office or on the toilet for the last week and a half and trust me - you don't want more details about that!)

I’m not Catholic. I’m not anything – at least religion wise and quite frankly I’d like it to stay that way. When Matt tells me he would like to get the kids baptized someday I just tell him that I can quote some scripture or something the next time I rinse the shampoo out of their hair. I’m not really one for rituals and rules or organized religion at all really and while I someday might concede for my husband's sake, I currently have no problem with living a very happy, secular life.

However, the majority of my husband’s family is Catholic and the reason for our trip to visit them was to be in attendance at my beloved nephew’s baptism/confirmation/first communion. Don’t ask me what all of those mean. All it meant to me was 3 hours in a church trying to keep one kid from screaming and the other from using his “outside voice” when he repeatedly asked, “Momma, why is that man wearing a dress?” “It’s a robe dear, let’s use our quiet voice now, OK?”

I was happy to do it for my nephew though because I love him and he's a great kid and although I’m not religious myself, I’m not one to stifle anyone else’s religious practices or beliefs. That being the case I don’t like my own non-religious beliefs to be stifled either and so I was very happy to stir the pot on the Friday before Easter “THE HOLIEST DAY OF THE YEAR” by eating meat.

My brother-in-law being the fair and democratic gentleman, went against his strict Catholic grandparent’s suggestion and ordered one pepperoni pizza amongst the cheese pizzas for the consumption of the non-Catholics. And I must confess that sensing the grandparent’s discontent with the mere presence of meat on that holiest of days, I might have gone a little overboard and made sure to repeatedly ask my children if they’d like a slice of pizza with MEAT on it, or if they’d like the plain old soggy cheese one.

When one of the Catholic nephews reached for the pepperoni and was scolded, I loudly announced, “Your Aunt Amy isn’t Catholic so she doesn’t have to worry about such things.” And seeing the look of disgust on Grandpa’s face I really had to fight the urge to stand up, pump my fist in the air and yell out a hearty “GO MEAT” like they do in those Hillshire Farms commercials.

Does that make me a bad person? Probably, but I’m okay with that. What do you expect from the non-baptized?

The Good News

2008-03-31T21:59:00.000-07:00

I've lost 4 pounds.

The Bad News:

It's only because I've spent the last 2 days either sitting on or reluctantly embracing my toilet.

Yes, just as I was starting to feel better I was hit with one hell of a stomach flu. Thankfully the nausea and the backdoor trots have subsided however I still have some lingering muscle aches and weakness. I had to lather my hair in 2 shifts tonight because I didn't have the strength to keep my arms in the air that long.

The other bad news is that I've only lost 4 pounds. I mean seriously. All I've consumed in the last 2 days is an orange and 2 pieces of toast! Hell 3.5 pounds of that is probably water weight that will go right back on. What's a girl got to do - get Malaria?? This doesn't bode well for my new diet plan, if starvations only nets me 4 measely pounds.

It was like being on a reality TV show, but without the cash prize at the end.

2008-03-27T21:14:00.000-07:00

Every family has their ups and downs – their little spats etc. Matt’s family however likes to confront. They argue, they call people out for their “offensive” comments or actions and then the screaming begins, then the tears and that’s just too much drama for me. I’m not used to it.

I don’t see why they can’t be like my family and just swallow the hatred and the pain along with a few pieces of cherry pie and call it good. Sure our insides might slowly rot from bitterness but at least we never make a scene or talk about things like “emotions”. There are no tears at my family gatherings, no screaming matches. Just avoidance and lightly veiled disgust – and quite frankly that’s the way it should be.

I won’t go into specifics about what went down, but something was said, it was misconstrued, feelings were hurt, tears were shed, accusations were yelled and all in all it just wasn’t pretty. Thankfully neither myself nor my husband were involved in this particular dispute but when it happened it was pure chaos. It was like an episode of Survivor or Big Brother or something. The first order of business was to duck and cover so as not to be pulled in. We then gathered info from the sidelines to determine what the dispute was. Then it was all about strategy. We weren’t about to get kicked off the island – oh no.

We determined that our best strategy was to avoid the two main perpetrators, commiserate with the rest of the island on the topic of the dispute but in general to stay completely neutral so as not to bring attention to ourselves.We watched as alliances were made and broken and I think we did a pretty good job of staying out of the crossfire. We’ve survived this episode and hopefully gained immunity from attending the next tribal council.

Tips for train travel

2008-03-27T04:35:00.000-07:00

1. Don’t bring luggage. This is especially true if you’re boarding the train from some Podunk train station that hasn’t been renovated since they put the plumbing in circa 1930, and is manned by one grumpy old lady. From this train station you will not be able to check your luggage and therefore will be forced to carry it all onto the train after trudging several hundred feet along the tracks while simultaneously trying to hold your 1 year old and keep your 4 year old from falling onto the tracks as he lugs his own little “That’s it I’m Going to Grandma’s” suitcase.

2. Dress in layers. You should be able at any point in time to modify your clothing levels from bikini to parka. Temperatures on the train will fluctuate often and without warning.

3. Bring barf bags. It can get quite bumpy and if you’re even the slightest bit prone to motion sickness you will vomit at some point in time. There are bathrooms on board, however there is not enough space between the door and the toilet to comfortably bend over and vomit so you’ll have to leave your ass hanging out the door to properly aim into the bowl.

4. Practice high level yoga before your trip. As described in tip #3 the bathrooms are quite compact (they make a porta-potty seem spacious) so if you’d like the ability to wipe your ass effectively then you’d better limber up before hand.

5. Do not expect to be treated with respect or cordiality. I found that 4 out of 5 Amtrack employees would rather spit in your face than to put forth the effort to be the least bit courteous. The remaining 1 employee who was courteous and friendly was obviously new and had not yet read the employee handbook “Customer dissatisfaction: How to create a degrading and hostile experience for all your passengers.”

Disclaimer: I tend to be a slightly negative person (shocking, I know) so I don’t want this entry to deter anyone from using Amtrack. I found that once the boarding process was over the ride was in general pleasant, and I’m sure the attitudes of the employees can be explained by years of dealing with cranky passengers who constantly complain when the trains are not on time. I might ride the rails again in the future . . . for a short trip perhaps without the kids and/or if I’m heavily sedated.

Travel is fun!

2008-03-25T21:06:00.000-07:00

Snapshot:
2:57 a.m.
Amtrack train station
Cleveland, Ohio

Gwen has been restless for hours, whimpering in her sleep and tossing her head, causing her little blond curls to bob on the back of her neck. Suddenly she wakes up. Looks at me with bleary eyes and reaches for me with shaking hands. Then it hits me. This kid is going to yak, and I’ve got a very small window of opportunity. I bolt for the bathroom but it’s a good 50 feet away and as I reach the halfway point it comes; a wave of warm putrid vomit that splatters directly on my neck and then trickles down my chest.

She starts crying hysterically and all I can do is say “It’s okay, It’s okay” over and over again as I continue my race to the bathroom. I’m not sure if I was saying it to her or to myself.
_______________________________________________________________
That ladies and gentleman is how my Monday started and I spent the rest of the day reeking of vomit and living in constant fear of future vomit. We were traveling by rail and this occurred before we boarded our first train and began our 16 hour journey home.

I have plenty more exciting travel details to share with you but I’m completely exhausted and along with the rest of my little family – sicker than a dog. So right now all I want to do is sleep.

Confession

2008-03-19T04:37:00.000-07:00

When I drove up my driveway this afternoon I realized that my Christmas reindeer are still in the front yard. I think I probably knew this, yet I was able to block it out of my mind or justify it because they were half covered in snow until about a week ago. But now that the snow has melted they're in plain sight, and they've got this confused look on their faces like; "Don't these people know it's the middle of March? This is just damn embarassing. If we could walk ourselves to the garage we would."

I could have probably put them away last night but well, Dancing with the Stars was on! Besides, they go well with the Christmas lights that have been dangling off the gutters since 2006.

I HATE MARCH MADNESS

2008-03-17T18:32:00.000-07:00

Okay, well “hate” is a stong word. Maybe “despise” would be better. I loathe it, I look forward to it like I would look forward to a colonoscopy. Okay, I really do hate it.

The main problem is that I don’t like basketball. That statement is like a dagger through my husband’s heart because he adores basketball. It’s his favorite sport, but I would rather watch championship arm wrestling than to sit through a basketball game. Now I had to analyze my hatred for the game itself first before I could determine the true reasons for my hatred of March Madness in general and I came up with the following reason why I dislike the game itself:

- The shorts are far too baggy. I mean seriously, every other sport has the tightest pants possible – baseball, football – hell even male figure skaters wear tight pants and yet when I’m forced to sit through a bball game all I get for eye candy is what looks like a sheet of mesh wrapped around some guy from waist to calf. What happened to the short shorts of the 70’s? Now that was entertainment. If they had those nowadays I could at least pass the time waiting for an extra ball or two to make an appearance on the court.

- I can see their faces. Now I know that sounds odd but hear me out on this one – and keep in mind that this last fault applies mostly to the NBA rather than College ball. You see basketball players are cocky. They really are and while football and baseball players may be equally cocky, I’m not forced to watch their facial expressions when they score due to the helmets and the hats. See I can’t stand that “Look at me, I’m such a stud, I can do anything, all hail my spectacular greatness” look on their faces after they dunk or whatever. It ticks me off really. It’s the showmanship of the game and that’s what a lot of people find enticing but that I really find distracting. It’s okay to be great. It’s okay to be a superstar, but I guess I can only take so many acts of male egotism. It’s kept to a minimum in other sports but runs rampant in basketball. Besides have you seen the faces of NBA players? No offense but they’re not in general a real attractive group of guys. Being 10 feet tall seems to somehow alter the proportions of their features or something. It’s just no pretty.

And here are the reasons that I don't like March Madness in particular:

- Dick Vitale. Need I say more? Do they just resuscitate this guy every year in March? I mean nobody is that excited. Every time he talks it sounds like he’s just run up 15 flights of stairs to tell you that he won the lottery. Enthusiasm like that is really only meant to last for a few seconds – not for 69 straight years. I’m convinced that if he were left alone with a pack of dogs they would quickly sense that the man was an abomination against nature and the natural rhythm of life and would rip him limb from limb within minutes. Sometimes that’s the only image that gets me through the month. “They’re eating me alive – It’s AWESOME BABY!!!!”

- The Brackets. They’re everywhere. On my kitchen counter, posted up at work, online, on TV, you can’t escape them. The bracket is like a meteorological report. Nobody knows what’s going to happen. Will it rain tomorrow? Will Kentucky beat Kansas? Nobody really knows and yet there are 50 fucking thousand people out there hazarding a guess and I get tired of hearing about it.

- Rushing the court. You know at the end of the game how everyone rushes the court for the big celebration. It’s just a little overdone don’t you think? I mean just a mere decade ago it was unheard of and now they’re doing it at every single game. Pretty soon they’ll be doing it at peewee basketball games. It kind of takes away the significance of it. It’s like being presented with a birthday cake every day of your life.

- I no longer exist. I’d have to say that this is the most annoying part of March Madness. I kid you not people last week as my husband was watching a game – and keep in mind that this was some tournament game BEFORE March Madness actually began, I waved my hands wildly in front of his vacant and blank eyes for a good 5 seconds before he realized that I was standing in front of him and talking to him. When March Madness actually begins I’ll have to light all of my appendages on fire and use one of those air horns to get his attention.

I’m going to close my eyes now and dream of April.

That's what I hate about pantiliners, they're just so impersonal

2008-03-13T22:28:00.001-07:00

Now I don't want to get into any really gross details with you here ladies but I'm a juicer. I mean there's always something leaking down there and while it's not like the Swamp Thing has taken up residence in my vagina, I do feel the need to wear a small pantiliner every day just to avoid having slightly damp panties.

I hope some of you can feel my pain on this one, or perhaps you're right now trying to determine what sort of venereal disease or diseases I may have.

However, the problem with the pantiliner is that well it's just too damn boring. I mean if you're going to wear something everyday shouldn't it express a part of you? Shouldn't it speak to your inner self? And shouldn't it be re-usable in order to make Al Gore proud? I think so and that's why I'm so glad that I found this listing on the Etsy site:

Yes, ladies - you can now make you're very own pantiliners and here's the pattern for sale:

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=10250880

Now you can purchase them premade but to quote the seller, "part of the fun . . . is choosing your own fabric." So you'd be much better off making your own.

I'm hoping to find some fabric wth Ewan McGregor's face on them because that's the closest I'll ever come to fulfilling that fantasy.

Spring Forward

2008-03-13T21:20:00.000-07:00

I picked up this cute little bunch of tulips at the grocery store (here they are in their splendor before the cats decided they needed more leafy greens in their diets) to remind me that spring is just around the corner.

The weather has been lovely here lately, but still a little bit chilly. I think Aaron summed it up yesterday afternoon when I told him it was getting late and cool and we'd have to go inside.

"But Momma . . . I miss the world."

"So do I honey, so do I. We'll get to play out in it again soon."

Those damn kids and their new fangled video games

2008-03-10T21:11:00.000-07:00

We got a Nintendo DS for Aaron the other day. Did he need it? No of course not, but we thought it might help us salvage some of our sanity on an upcoming 12 hour train ride.

Anyway, the thing is really fucking cool. I mean I grew up in the video game generation. I kicked it old school with Colecovision and then moved my way on up to the Nintendo and the super Nintendo etc. However I thought I had left that far behind. After all, here I am a mother of 2 with a full time job and 20 million different side projects and goals. Why the hell would I want to waste my time on a video game?

Because it's got a touch screen and all these really cool functions to use your stylus with - that's why. So here I am with DS number 2. It was the hubbie's idea and I'm sure he'll end up playing it much more often than I but he let me pick the color, the game carrying case and my first game.

If you don't see any posts for a while it's because Princess Peach and I will be kicking some major ass!

Fashion tips from Barbie

2008-03-05T21:02:00.000-08:00

It's been a fairly hectic week for me and I'm quite frankly a little burnt out at the moment so I'm excusing myself from any heavy posting. However, I didn't want to leave you all hanging so I thought I'd share some fasion tips from the Premier issue of the Barbie magazine for girls - circa 1984. For some reason I found this in pristine condition amidst a box of countless love notes that I never had the guts to send. I never subscribed to this Magazine - but this was one of those free issues they would send out to get you hooked. I'd like to think that I didn't subscribe because I was emotionally mature enough to know that I didn't need a D cup blonde plastic doll with a waist the size of my pinkie telling me about fashion and makeup - but obviously there must have been part of me that longed to be a cheerleader - otherwise I'm not sure why I kept it.

Here's a section on the colors that go best with your hair color. Barbie shares this little tidbit about her favorite color - Pink (what a shocker!), "Pink is my favorite color! It's the color of roses, beautiful clouds at sunset, and pretty hair ribbons. Pink makes me think of strawberry ice cream and party lemonade. Pink is a happy color; warm and cheery! So if you're ever feeling blue, think pink!"

Oh look, I've just thrown up - and guess what color it is!? Pink!

Check this out though ladies and purge your wardrobes of any inappropriate colors for your haircolor. That plastic bimbo knows her fashion!

Aye Aye Cap'n

2008-03-02T11:50:00.000-08:00

Life truly is about taking time to enjoy the little things. Like the beauty of a sunset, the smile of a child, pacifiers, dual screen portable dvd players, shipping the kids off to grandma’s, or an afternoon cocktail during Barney.

But today I want to share with you a little guy that makes me smile every day at bath time.

Isn’t he adorable! He came with his own little boat and this incredibly cute hippo life preserver/float.

He kind of reminds me of Hugh Heffner, except that instead of that parrot and periscope, he'd have a platinum blonde on each arm.

Can I get an extra couple bucks for taking out the garbage?

2008-02-27T17:57:00.000-08:00

Like the majority of the middle class, we’re completely broke. It really helps me sleep soundly at night knowing that if one of us were to get laid off or somehow become unable to work that we would almost instantaneously plummet into bankruptcy and foreclosure, doomed to move in with my mother and wallow in a deep, deep ocean of despair.

We’re slowly clawing our way to a more stable financial status, mostly due to my husband. You see when we met, I was the gal who always balanced her checkbook every month and he was the guy 3 months behind on his student loan payments. So it made sense at that time for me to take charge of the finances and things were going peachy keen until the inevitable – marriage, house, minivan and first child and then well there wasn’t as much petty cash left over at month end for the frivolities that we were used to enjoying; mountains of chocolate covered cherries and ringside seats at midget mud wrestling competitions.

Turns out that my theory of "ignorance is bliss" wasn’t so helpful either. So I handed the financial reins over to my, now fiscally responsible husband, who is mercilessly transforming our debt from a raging, rabid tiger to a cute little calendar-worthy kitten. Part of his budget plan is to supply me with a weekly cash allowance. This allows me the luxury of going out for lunch or purchasing my much needed frivolous items like chocolate and scrapbooking supplies, without disrupting the delicate balance of his budget.

It was actually my idea for the cash allowance because I was getting tired of the daily interrogation. "What’s that you’re chewing? Is that gum? Did you buy that gum? How much was it because I didn’t have that factored in to our budget this week? Spit it out, spit it out right now!!" Alright, that might be a slight exaggeration but you get my point.

I find that I’m much more choosey with my purchases now that I have a limited supply of cash. For example, this afternoon I ran to the drug store downtown with the intentions of purchasing some floss to help me dislodge a piece of apple stuck in my teeth. However, when I found that the cheapest generic floss was still a whopping 2 bucks, I determined that I could probably loosen that apple with my tongue and/or a paper clip over the course of a couple hours rather than frivolously waste 2 bucks that could buy me something else. And while there are somedays when I miss the frivolous spending, I think on the whole, this allowance thing has made me the tight wad that I should have been for years and years.

I did buy $2 worth of chocolate though because, well these PMS hormones aren’t going to quell themselves.

I guess if I had to choose an orifice that would have been the one.

2008-02-26T19:52:00.000-08:00

Jessica Simpson and I have a lot in common. We both use Proactiv to control our acne and we both . . . umm . . . Okay, Jessica Simpson and I have one thing in common. I’m a fan of the Proactiv (no unfortunately this is not a paid endorsement) and I find that it works quite well. And yet, as with everything in my life, there is a catch.

You see my skin hates me. It’s almost like it has a mind of its own and it lives to torture me. I like to think of my skin as an angry goddess. Goddess Acnetrius. And for the last few years she and I have been locked in an epic struggle between whiteheads and oil free skin. A battle between oozing pustules and healthy pores.

My skin regime is fairly impenetrable. However, it has its weaknesses and since I can’t apply Proactiv too close to my lips for fear of the benzyl peroxide turning them into strips of fried bacon, I end up getting zits right up against my lip line. Other times they’ll appear right at the hairline or along the jaw and while I’m thankful that I don’t have them all over my face it’s still incredibly annoying.

This week though, during the normal Pre-menstrual siege I was blindsided with a new tactic. A huge pimple inside my ear. I’m not even joking here people. INSIDE MY EAR CANAL. Who knew that was even possible?!

Have you ever tried to pop a throbbing zit inside your ear with a Q tip? Well, unfortunately I have and I can tell you from first hand experience that it’s not a whole lot of fun. Acnetrius, you filthy bitch!

They've been increasing their metacognition all afternoon!

2008-02-25T04:26:00.000-08:00

My kids probably watch more TV than they should. And I used to feel guilty about that but now I’ve reached the point where I'm okay with it. Due to our opposite shifts my husband and I are virtually single parents and if it takes an hour of Diego to get dishes done and dinner on the table then bring on that annoying little South American animal rescuer!

We are persistent though in making sure that our kids watch appropriate programs for their age and hence we take in a lot of Nick Jr. in my house. Now if you’ve ever watched Nick Jr. you’ll have noticed, along with earthworms that are able to morph into parallelograms, that they preface each episode by telling you what your preschooler is getting out of the experience. For example, right before Blue’s Clues the announcement states that, "This program increases your preschoolers’ metacognition." I’m not ashamed to say that I had to look up metacognition just to see what it was. Other shows such as The Wonder Pets are touted as being able to; increase my child’s "phonological awareness".

Now at first I found it utterly ridiculous that they were trying to build up these programs as highly educational by prefacing them with these grandiose descriptions of the skills they teach. Phonological awareness is simply listening to something and figuring out where and what it is. And I was going to do what I’m sure was to be a fabulously funny piece on how my cat increases my phonological awareness on a weekly basis by puking at 5 a.m. causing me to lay in bed and try to gauge where she is retching so that I don’t step in it later.

However, after giving it some thought, and after my 4 yr. old informed me that Jupiter is a gas planet and that Llamas can pull 5 times their weight and have padded hooves, I started to realize that maybe there is something to that after all. Don’t get me wrong, I still think it’s a little silly to make these cartoons sound like college degrees put to animation, however they are certainly a hell of a lot more educational than any cartoon I ever watched as a kid.

What mind widening gems of knowledge did I get from Scooby Doo? That you can manipulate idiots to do ridiculous and dangerous things if you have the right motivation (Scooby snacks). That the smart girl is always a little chubby and wears glasses? That it’s possible to be a criminal mastermind with the use of a rubber mask and a sound effects machine?

How about the Smurfs? What life lessons did I take away from that? That men are truly running the world and the only way you can get noticed, as a woman is to be blonde, and flirtatious? You have to admit that whole Smurfette situation was just weird. One woman to all those men – how did that work?? And talk about stereotypes – Maybe Handy Smurf was a fantastic operatic singer – did he get to pursue anything other than building? No he didn’t. He was pigeonholed! They all were.

So I say bring on the cartoons. Their little shriveled legs might be too weak from lack of use but at least they’ll know everything there is to know about Chinchillas and that’s a useful skill right? Right? I’m sure the exotic pet trade is extremely lucrative.

Letters of apology.

2008-02-22T04:31:00.000-08:00

When your kids are first born, you spend hours and hours in utter awe at the mesmerizing blend of you and your spouse in this perfect little bundle of joy. Then a few short months/years later you start thinking that maybe you should write them a letter of apology for sticking them with certain traits. But then again, on the plus side, you can pass down the knowledge of how to cope with such genetic flaws.

Dearest Aaron,

Let me first stress that your Father and I think that you’re the most handsome young man on the planet. However, being human means possessing certain physical flaws and unfortunately most of yours were passed down through me.

- The cowlick. Don’t ever go for a buzz cut. Trust me, I tried this on you once when you were younger and you’ve got that same swirly cowlick right at the hairline that I have and it’s just not pretty. Thankfully, being a boy you won’t have the terrible bang issues I had as an adolescent, but any career in the military should strictly be avoided.

- The half smile. You have a wonderful smile! However, you should master the skill of the half smile for picture situations, because if you smile fully your eyes will disappear completely just like Momma’s and all that will be visible is teeth, gums and two slits.

- The hairy back. I can’t take full blame for this one personally but it does come from my mother’s side of the family. Let’s just hope that your body hair works like mine and lightens considerably with exposure to the sun so that it’s less noticeable. Otherwise, I’ll be happy to perform some form of hair removal on you whenever you request it.

Love, Momma

My dearest Gwen,

We couldn’t have hoped for a more beautiful daughter, especially considering the family traits working against you and I deeply regret that you inherited:

- My ears. They’re just a tad large and as you age the ear lobe will become even more bulbous and will upturn slightly so that they resemble two large upholstered buttons flopping around on the side of your head. The only way to combat this is to weigh them down with extremely heavy dangle earrings or to cover them with your hair. This will backfire a little if, like me, you also inherit the habit of constantly tucking your hair behind your ears – and why wouldn’t you since they’re so large and enormously capable of such a task.

- My very pale complexion. Several times when you were younger people enquired about the bruises near your temples, only to discover that they weren’t bruises at all but merely the fact that your skin was so thin and pale that the veins were easily viewed through it. Don’t ever plan on getting a tan, unless you consider being covered with 3 million freckles a "tan". I’m hoping that by the time you’re old enough to care – that "pale" will be the new look.

- Your father’s feet. Count out any future plans to model sandal-wear because unfortunately you’ve inherited your father’s toes and while they are certainly not grotesque in any way shape or form, they’re not exactly dainty either. In the future you should go for a peep toe shoe rather than a full open toed option.

All my love, Momma

Now you may notice that most of these traits are mine, and that makes sense since I’m the most conscious about myself, but mostly it’s because Matt’s traits are things that won’t manifest for a little bit longer – like those ghastly chicken legs he had when we first started dating (thankfully they filled out once I fattened him up), his receding hairline or his penchant for gnawing on his fingernails until he bleeds.

And yet despite it all, we’ve made two of the cutest kids I’ve ever seen:

I firmly believe . . .

2008-02-20T21:15:00.000-08:00

That people should not be named after geographic locations: Paris, Sydney etc. Some of them aren’t bad but in general the trend should be avoided . . . "This is our son, Istanbul, but sometimes we call him Constantinople, and this is our daughter, Lake Titicaca."

That automatic flushes should be removed from all toilets. They frighten children (and some adults) they’re prone to malfunction so that they flush repeatedly creating a "Niagara falls" effect in both noise and water consumption, and half the time they don't flush anyway so you're stuck touching the same damn button that 50 million other feces infested hands have touched. At least with a handle you could use your foot!

That what the Greeks and Romans referred to as "the Ambrosia of the Gods" still exists today in the form of Little Debbie crème filling.

That a toddler’s desire to shove his finger up his nose to the 3rd knuckle, greatly increases proportionate to the number of judgmental on-lookers. The same goes for crotch grabbing, temper tantrums and the use of the word "fuck".

That all public restrooms (including the men’s – let’s hear it for the Daddy’s) should be equipped with baby changing stations.

That there is a special level of hell for people who steal and/or vandalize lawn ornaments, jack-o-lanterns and Christmas decorations. Perhaps a hell in which they go to sleep every night secure in the safety of their neighborhood, and the sanctity of respect for our common man only to wake up in the morning to find that their genitalia has been stolen off their body, mutilated and thrown into the middle of the street. Oh and there’s also a special level for door to door salesmen too. They’ll be forced to care for 50 1month olds and then when they’re all finally down for a nap, and they have one small shining moment of peace, before their butt can even hit the couch there will be a knock on the door, signaling an army of beagles to howl for 15 min. straight.

That you get out of life what you put into it.

That there is nothing better than sleeping late on the weekends, snuggled up in bed with your spouse, the kids and the dog.

That there is no such thing as a comfortable g-string.

That it’s never a good idea to reunite a boy band almost 20 years after their heyday. Because curling up with a screen-printed pillowcase of former pop stars pushing 40 and the guy from Boogie nights will be just a little creepy.

I guess I really do have a secret desire to wear a diaper made out of toilet paper and suck mamosas out of a baby bottle.

2008-02-19T15:09:00.000-08:00

A Baby Shower Open House. It seemed almost genius when I received the invitation. I could show up any time between 10 and 2 express my congrats, grab some punch and cake and be on my way. There would be no walking around in toilet paper diapers, no searching for safety pins in a bowl of rice, no memorization of 30 baby items on a platter – it would be pure bliss!

It started out well enough. I was greeted warmly upon arrival by the Guest of Honor. Pleasantries were exchanged, she was genuinely happy I had taken the time and effort to come. I was offered one of the 2 remaining sugar cookies and a glass of luke-warm punch.

However, when I set my gift on the table her mother pounced on it immediately and unceremoniously pawed through the tissue paper in my gift bag to see what I had brought (an underarm thermometer and Diaper Genie II refill – pathetic I know but they were on her registry and she’s only my cousin by marriage). Obviously unimpressed, she then made a show of calling for someone to help her carry some of the "larger" gifts out to the truck. It became a little awkward at that point and I ended up taking my leave without even having to take off my coat.

So in the end it left a bad taste in my mouth and I now refer to it as the Drive Thru Baby Shower. I only wish it had made use of an actual drive thru because it was colder than hell that day and I would have appreciated staying in the car. It’s odd though that I would be offended. After all, wasn’t I celebrating the fact that I could simply show up, drop off my gift and go? Wasn’t I thrilled about the convenience of it all? Deep down was I really longing to guess the circumference of that woman’s belly with a piece of string and earn a free scented candle???

Any type of shower is simply a thinly veiled ploy for gifts. That’s the point really and while I thought I despised the smoke and mirrors (games/activites) that are always employed to make you think it’s an actual celebration rather than a request for free stuff, I’m beginning to see now that people need to shove a balloon up their shirt and try to tie their shoes in the fastest time. Otherwise we just don’t feel that the thought behind that underarm thermometer was truly appreciated.

Life's Little Celebrations/How to properly celebrate your hair growing out.

2008-02-15T21:26:00.003-08:00

Life is full of major events that should be celebrated; marriages, births, anniversaries, losses of virginity etc. But I’m a firm believer that little milestones and events should be celebrated and appreciated also, and that’s just what I’m going to do this weekend.

What momentous event am I celebrating?? My hair has finally grown out enough that I can put it in a ponytail!! And it actually stays too – without clippies or chunks of it slipping out . I think you've all been there ladies. An ill advised haircut, executed very poorly and resulting in the necessary purchase of a bevy of creams and gels and most importantly, hats, to make it halfway tolerable. And now, after months of impatient waiting, the celebration of long hair can begin.
Listed below are the planned activities:

Bonfire: The vast array of headbands; the ugly ones, the pinchy ones, the (ack) tortoiseshell ones, that were a necessary evil during the "growing out" phase will be gathered up, doused with lighter fluid and torched in a ceremonial bonfire.

Whiplash: I shall spend the entire weekend whipping my head and new lengthy locks like a 1980’s video babe or a model in a Pantene commercial, or maybe a little like this gal.

Sore arms: I plan on ponying and unponying my hair excessively this weekend. Up, down, up, down – it will be incessant and extremely gratifying.

Accessorize: For far too long my wrists have been bare, or graced only by a watch or beaded bracelet. I must purchase new hairbands and carry at least three at a time on my wrist for emergency use.

Bring out the razor: Now that the ponytail is back it’s time to re-implement the neck shaving routine. Everyone has neck hair I know but mine is out of control and makes the back of my neck resemble Cousin It when I pull my hair up in a ponytail. It’s an unfortunate family trait but one that can be managed with the use of industrial strength hair trimmers and a steady hand (my husband’s hand to be exact– clear your calendar for Sunday night shaving duty my Love).

How does he love me?

2008-02-14T19:16:00.000-08:00

Let me count the ways:
-New York style
-How the Cookie Crumbles
-Mint condition
-Nutty Girl
-All Razzed Up
-Aloha, You Nutty German
-Parlez Vous Praline
-White in Shining Armor
-Chip Off the Old Choc
-Mad for Manhattan
-Fly Me to Heathrow
-Do the Truffle

He got me a sampler platter from Flarah's (http://www.flarahs.com/) a little Bistro/Catering/Cheesecake shop that enticed me in with it's fabulous decor, and made me a loyal fan with its decadent desserts.

True Love

2008-02-13T20:45:00.000-08:00

It’s Valentines Day ladies and gentlemen and I feel I must indulge in the lovefest. So in honor of the 14th I’ve created a list of 14 things I love about my husband. To be more concise, a list of 14 obscure and offbeat things I love about him, because he should know by now that his love, compassion and faithfulness to me and our children means the entire world to me. But he may not know that the following really turn me on and/or endear him more and more to me every single day:

1. He can do math in his head. Now this might not seem like such a big deal to others with the same ability, but to a gal who can’t add without secretly moving her fingers behind her back, this is a big turn-on.

2. He knows the capitals of all 50 states and can recite them at will. This gets me a little hot actually, "Why don’t you come on over here and whisper the capital of Wisonsin in my ear big boy!"

3. He does this little hop on one leg after he throws a bowling ball, and I don’t know what it is about it but I have a hard time not taking him right there on the waxed hardwood.

4. He looks great in baseball pants.

5. He actually organizes the kitchen cupboards.

6. He leaves a trail of toothpicks wherever he goes and while this is mostly intensely irritating, it’s also sometimes nice to stumble upon one on a lonely night at home and realize that he was there, just a few hours earlier and that he’ll be home and warm in bed next to me soon . . . so that I can wake up and complain about how I almost impaled myself with that toothpick he left on the floor!

7. He has never once, and I mean NEVER, said to me; "I don’t get this whole blogging thing that you do and why you would want to post such random and sometimes personal things for the world to see." And he’s never censored me nor suggested that I should censor myself either and that means more to me than he’ll probably ever know.

8. He’ll often say "whatever makes you happy" and he actually means it.

9. Even though I have enough scrapbooking paper to cover the entire surface of the moon – twice – he never tells me I have too much or stops me from buying even more. Sometimes when he’s out shopping without me he’ll buy me scrapbooking supplies that he thinks I’ll like – all the girls are jealous of that one!

10. Who won the 1972 World Series? What was Gorbachev’s middle name? I don’t know nor do I really care, but my man has vast trivia knowledge and he loves to flaunt it. And I love to watch him flaunt it. Especially when I’m on his Trivial Pursuit team.

11. Whenever we have guests over that have never been to our house before he immediately takes them on a complete tour; top to bottom, refrigerator to toilet, closet to furnace. I can’t say that I get it, but I love how proud he is of the home we’ve made together, and it gives me motivation and reason to clean up the spilled laundry detergent and wads of lint that accumulate on top of the dryer.

12. He’s got this incredible chest of hair and I love to run my fingers through it like they’re little gnomes running happily around in the flora and fauna of his manliness. Okay, that sounds a little weird doesn’t it? The point is that I love that hairy chest of his.

13. He took over litter box cleaning duty when I first became pregnant about 5 years ago, and has never suggested that I should take back that task. He’s so possessive of it that he actually gets upset with me if I clean them before he gets around to it. If that’s not a turn-on then I don’t know what is. Mere physical attraction and love might get you through the first couple years, but it’s things like this that keep the spark alive!

14. When he watches sports at home he yells and cheers like he’s on the sidelines, whereas when we’re actually in attendance at a sporting event, he’s as reserved as a normal person would be just watching it from home. Still haven’t figured this one out but I love it.

Happy Valentine’s day Baby! I love you.

If only she’d worn the pearls instead of the silver locket to that meeting with North Korea; they might have surrendered those nukes.

2008-02-12T21:47:00.000-08:00

I overheard 3 women at work the other day strike up a conversation about Hillary Clinton, and as I was preparing to don my headphones and drown out the political fervor I was sure was about to erupt, I realized that they weren’t really talking about politics, they were just criticizing her jewelry.

One of them made the statement that it bothered her that every time she saw Mrs. Clinton that she seemed to be wearing the same earring and necklace set. The other 2 agreed and said something to the effect of how you’d think she’d have "people" who would be watching out for stuff like that. I mean after all she is a multi-millionaire and is running for the presidency. According to these women it’s quite different that you and I wear the same watch everyday or only own 3 necklaces, but a woman who’s going to be in the public eye and is seeking the presidency should have a vast array of stylish jewelry which she should rotate on a daily basis.

Now first off I was struck by the true absurdity of the conversation. Secondly I was struck with how catty women really are. Thirdly, I was in awe that three highly educated women would even stoop so low as to enter into such a conversation. Have we nothing better to do with our time ladies? Is our genetic need for competition with fellow members of our sex so strong that it manifests in conversations such as this?

Do women sit around and giggle about how silly Obama looked when he wore the exact same tie to the Iowa and North Carolina primaries or how Mitt Romney styles his hair? I don’t think so. I think it’s just natural for us to tear women down. Especially when they’re strong figures like Hillary that have such a polarizing effect on people. Imagine if she did win the presidency. After her inaugural speech there’ll be just as much conversation about what she wore as there is about what she said. It’s not fair, and the sad part is that we do it to ourselves. Men aren’t out there bashing McCain because he’s too short to pull off a double breasted suit, and yet we’re trash talking this strong intelligent woman because we think she should have more jewelry.

What if that earring and necklace set was a gift from Chelsea or an antique passed down from her grandmother? Even if it was a $12.50 set from Avon – who cares? I for one will be happy to place my vote for a woman who has withstood the fire and the shame of public humiliation from an adulteress husband. A woman who continues to hold her head high and stand by her principles; a wife, a mother, a daughter who is intelligent and passionate about this country. And I don’t mind when people say that she’s a power hungry bitch, because quite frankly, that’s what it takes to be president. Look at every other man who’s held the position and tell me that they weren’t power hungry attention seeking type A’s. She wants the power because she is confident that she can make this country a better place if she has it. The only difference is that she’s a woman so she’s labeled as a bitch instead of strong; stubborn instead of determined.

You know there are times when I think I’d make a pretty good fanatical liberal feminist. But most of the time all that angst just gives me a headache so I’ll step down from my soapbox now.

To my fellow cubicle dwellers

2008-02-11T21:49:00.000-08:00

Let's say I'm walking on the sidewalk in front of your house and decide that I want to talk to your neighbor. Do I walk my ass into your backyard and yell over your fence?

No, I don't.

So don't walk your ass into my cubicle so that you can hang over my wall and talk to the person next to me. It's rude, it's disrespectful of my personal space and it's a little bit awkward especially when I have my headphones on and am staring intently at my screen and don't realize you're there until I reach over to open my top desk drawer . . . and find my hand in the top of your drawers instead.

Nostalgia - Part 2

2008-02-08T04:30:00.001-08:00

Along with the diary I shared in my previous entry, I also came home with some other lovely treasures dug up from the vast depths of my Mother’s closet.

Here it is folks. A veritable symbol of the excess of my childhood and my Mother's penchant for expressing her love through gifts; The Barbie motorhome:

Isn’t it glorious? You could fit a veritable army of plastic blond bombshells in this baby. It came complete with living room, kitchen and bath.

Of course, after removing the mouse turds from the floor and wiping it down with an entire container of anti-bacterial wipes, the kids wanted to play with it. Aaron especially. So I dug out the Barbies that Mom had sent home with me months earlier and the memories just came flooding back.

Check this guy out. I call him Tubbs. If you look closely you’ll see that he’s not wearing socks. I don’t know if he came that way or if his socks got lost at some point in time, but you can’t deny that he looks like an authentic Miami Vice action figure.
I like to refer to these two as Madonna and George Michael. Sure they’re not as rough around the edges as the real things were, but every time I look at her the song “Dress you up in my love” plays on a loop in my head, and this guy – well let’s just say I’d get a little suspicious if he and Tubbs wandered into the bathroom of the mobile home together.

Dear Diary

2008-02-06T20:37:00.000-08:00

My mom is going through her house and getting rid of stuff and she came across a diary from my youth. Thankfully there were only about 6 entries in it, none of which were very juicy. I know she cracked it open as soon as she found it, just hoping for some steamy confessions, because that's what I would have done if I was her.

I was only 10 when this entry was written. Ah to be 10 again. Matt Eddlemen was quite cute, in a scrawny geeky sense, and my instincts were right - he turned out to be barely even crush-worthy, especially once we hit high school. I totally kicked ass on that Pizza Hut reading challenge. I was in 'pepperoni and extra cheese personal pan pizza' heaven month after month!

The thing I like best about this is just how random it is. It goes straight from the weather, to pizza, to recess, and then straight on to love interests. Of course when I think back on it, that's pretty much the way my brain worked back then - random. And actually that's kind of how it still works, except I don't care much about the weather, don't have recess, or love interests - except my hubbie of course. Okay, so maybe the only constant is the love of free personal pan pizzas.

Tha Bomb!

2008-02-05T04:32:00.000-08:00

Overheard at work between a white woman in her late 30’s and her very white manager:

"This is Tha Bomb!"

"What?"

"This spreadsheet that they sent over is the bomb, it’s great! It has all the data we need."

"Oh, . . . cool."

Now I’m not sure of the true origin of the phrase "Tha Bomb" but I’m sure its originator never intended for it to be used to describe a spreadsheet. Besides, the use of such terms really confuses the white folks who have never seen MTV. Therefore I’m contemplating routing the following around the office:

MEMO
To: All white employees
RE: Proper use of urban slang

It has come to the attention of management that certain urban slang terms are being used in the office inappropriately and are causing confusion amongst the staff. While we encourage the use of culturally diverse language it’s important to consider both your subject matter and your audience.

For example: If your co-worker thinks that Snoop Dogg is a cute nickname for Charlie Brown’s beagle then you may want to refrain from expressing your admiration of his new Lexus by saying, "That is one sweet ride homeboy, I bet you’re rollin’ in the honies!" (translation: That car is really neat. I assume you are able to garner the attention of attractive females with it.)

It’s also good to keep in mind that terms such as; Tha Bomb, Off the Hizzy, Dope, Fly, and Off the Hook should not be used to refer to data, spreadsheets, your new split screen monitor, the fancy new purple highlighters in supply or the new fax machine, nor should these terms be used by anyone who wears or has ever worn the following: Dockers, penny loafers, a sweater vest or any clothing item purchased at JC Penny.

Thank you for your cooperation and if you should have any further questions regarding the correct usage of urban slang, please contact Human Resources to check out the company video, "Shizzle your Cubizzle; Appropriate Use of Slang in the Corporate Environment" featuring Rob VanWinkle (fka Vanilla Ice).

Goody two shoes

2008-01-30T20:41:00.000-08:00

Someone brought up the subjects of deep dark secrets the other day and how she and her husband were confessing theirs to each other, and to other very close friends and it got me thinking about how I don’t have any deep dark secrets. Not a one!

The closest thing I’ve got is when I kind of sort of stole a coat. I didn’t even steal it, it was in the lost and found and I just kind of claimed it. Okay so it wasn’t actually in a lost and found per se, but I watched it carefully for weeks as it sat on that coat hook at the gym and determined that with the varying hours I arrived and the varying people that were at the gym each time I came that it was obviously left there by someone who had no idea they had left it and would not be coming back to claim it, and I can’t really help that I always wanted a wool peacoat and that it was in my size, now can I? The irony is that I quit that gym shortly thereafter (partly due to laziness and maybe partly due to guilt) and am now fatter and can’t fit in it anymore. Ah Kharma, you cruel bitch!

Sure there are things I’ve done and said that I would regret if they were all laid out before me at the gates of heaven or whatever. But there’s no DEEP DARK SECRET. No gasp-inducing regrettable deed and instead of counting my blessings that I didn’t do something incredibly stupid in my youth, I pretty much feel like a loser. Shouldn’t I have some wild and crazy stuff to look back on and regret? I’m not saying that I wished I’d killed someone and put their body through a wood chipper or anything but why couldn’t I have slept with my best friends boyfriend or done something stupid involving stolen sheep and the high school gym (hey I grew up in a small town, what do you expect?)

The only thing that gives me hope is that I still have a lot of life in front of me to commit that horrible deed and earn that Deep Dark Secret. I just hope it’s something juicy. But not too juicy because I don’t want to cheat on my husband or end up in jail or embarrass my kids. Okay, so I’ll settle for a Shallow Dimly Lit Secret.

Bad Chianti, Good Fun, and Projectile Vomit

2008-01-28T19:41:00.000-08:00

We hosted a game night(board games and Guitar Hero) at our house this weekend. The guest list consisted of my husband’s co-workers, most of whom I had never met, and my 2 best friends. Things went really well, especially for it being one of my parties since they’re notoriously awful.

One of Matt’s friends brought a Chianti from her home town in Italy and even though I’m not much of a wine drinker and the only thing I know about Chianti is what I learned from watching Silence of the Lambs (that cannibalistic psychopaths enjoy it with human liver and fava beans), I thought I’d give it a try. After the first sip I almost wished I had a human liver to chew on just to take the taste of it out of my mouth! I wanted to be a good host though so I proceeded to sip it until I could work my way to the bedroom and stash the cup in my sock drawer.

I genuinely liked the majority of the attendees. One gal in particular caught my eye. She was very nice, chatty but not annoying, interested in the kids, excellent board game player, not too skinny, perfect new friend material and since I’ve only got 2 ½ friends I could use another. I’m really awkward though with friendship beginnings. My strategy is to tell Matt to tell her that I want her to be my new #2 friend. Technically I want her to be my #3 friend but that just doesn’t sound as good as offering her the #2 position so I’d just tell her she was #2 until I knew her well enough that she could perhaps actually knock off my #2 and rightfully earn the title. Maybe I should just do one of those yes or no notes that were oh so helpful in junior high.

One couple though seemed less than thrilled with my company and when I talked to Matt about it afterward he thought it might be due to the fact that they’re bible thumping Baptists and well let’s just say that I, and my 2 best friends didn’t realize we needed to censor our normal witty banter that’s perpetually peppered with mild profanity and plenty of blasphemy. Taking the Lord’s name in vain is pretty much a hobby for me. I’m not quite sure what Matt was thinking inviting them or why he didn’t issue the warning to us beforehand. Inviting a Baptist to my house is pretty much like inviting Jesus to a comedy club on Jesus Joke night:

Why can't Jesus eat M&M's? ---------They keep falling through his hands.

Why did Jesus cross the road? ------- Because he was nailed to the chicken!

Oh come on now, don’t act so shocked (that chicken one was pretty bad though). I'm confident that God doesn’t mind! He has a twisted sense of humor too – how do I know? Because I’ve seen myself naked.

By far, my favorite part of the evening was when Aaron threw up all over one of the guests. He’d been uncharacteristically quiet all day and had actually been sick a little bit that morning but it was during a coughing fit so we didn’t really associate it with any flu like symptoms. However, as my friend Carrie was taking her leave – since she had another function to attend, she bent down to give the boy a kiss and he obliged, and then turned his head and projectile vomited on the pant leg of the nearest guest. I spent the rest of the evening torn between concern for him, embarrassment for having my kid throw up on someone, and trying to stifle my laughter at the hilariousness of it all.

Can’t wait till the next game night!

Single handedly keeping the mustache wax industry alive.

2008-01-27T17:54:00.000-08:00

I couldn’t resist sharing this! The World Beard and Mustache Championship photo gallery.

My favorite thing is how they all dress in costume to coordinate with the style of their mustache. Because well, you’d just look downright silly with a beard/mustache like this in jeans and a t-shirt.

Who doesn't like frozen nostril hair?

2008-01-24T16:43:00.000-08:00

It's so damn cold here today that the snow has crystalized and when you step in it, it makes this terrible mini 'fingernails on a chalkboard' scrunching sound. And even though it's only touching your shoe, every single skin cell recoils as if you've just donned a suit of crusty 1970's polyester shag carpeting

Or maybe it's just me.

Do Over

2008-01-21T15:54:00.000-08:00

There are a lot of things in my life that I’d like to do over. We all have things that we regret, but mostly I’d like to explore and recreate some of the moments in my life that I’d just like to have the opportunity to do over, whether it be a small moment or a large event. Things that I’d love to go back and tackle with the benefit of the learned wisdom I’ve gained throughout the years and the small amount of self respect I’ve managed to amass just in the last few years of my life. This post is about a small moment, but one that has played out in my mind countless times, and always accompanied with a twinge of regret at what I could have said and done, but didn’t.

I wasn’t a popular gal in high school; not very many friends and not even a trace of a boyfriend. I was the smart one, the band president – you get the picture. Well prom rolled around and there I was, dateless of course. So what were my options? I wasn’t so down on life that I wanted to skip the whole thing. I felt I should experience it. After all you’re only in hell – I mean high school once. So I allowed this “friend” of mine to hook me up with this guy that she worked with at the local grocery store. He was my age but from a neighboring town. Seemed like a good idea. He needed a date for his prom, I needed one for mine, and there was the added benefit that we didn’t know each other – no preconceived notions, no caste system/clique expectations from fellow classmates, etc.

I was less than thrilled when I met him but what’s a girl like me to expect? His face was as flat as a pancake and pinched in at the nose so much that I wondered how the kid could breathe properly. He danced like an ape and kissed like a Labrador. I’m not even exaggerating that one. I literally had to wipe my face off with my sleeve. His tongue was like an unattended garden hose with too much water pressure flailing around inside my mouth – ugh, it was awful. I decided not to post his image on here simply because I didn't want to fight off the urge to puke everytime I viewed my own blog.

We did the prom thing. His prom was tolerable since I didn’t know anyone. My prom was barely tolerable. I spent half the night thinking I would have been better off on my own and the other half wishing that I had screwed up the courage to ask the guy who was going with my best friend. I’d always had a little thing for him, and he was being the sweetest geek in the world to her. There were a few moments where I contemplated taking out her knee with a tire iron and then locking my date in the band practice room so that I could try and steal him away. Shameful, I know, but there it is.

Anyway, onto the point of my story. This guy and I kind of sort of dated after the prom. Not that he ever took me out or anything. Just called me or I went over to his house and watched TV or played pool. I don’t think either one of us really liked each other but we were such desperate self-loathing high school cast offs that we clung to each other pitifully. One afternoon he had invited me over and when I arrived found a couple of his friends – whom I had never met before since he never took me anywhere – playing pool in his basement. I waited for an introduction and instead the first thing one of them said to me was this: “Oh is this her? You were right, she’s not fat at all!” and he had this smirk on his face. I can close my eyes right now and see that smirk. If I were ever in a position where it was absolutely necessary for me to kill someone. All I’d have to do is imagine that asshole’s face and that smirk and I’d be able to strike the final blow with such unmerciful accuracy and rage that you’d think I was a trained assassin.

And what do you think that pile of steaming dog shit that I was “dating” did? He kind of smiled his own little mini-smirk, led me into the other room and didn’t say a thing in my defense. Now when I look back on this event of my life, I’m not really mad at him, or even the asshole. I’m mad at myself. Mad that I just stood there and took it and didn’t say a thing. Mad that I didn’t just turn around and walk out. Mad that I subjected myself to such humiliation and that a part of me was convinced that I deserved it or at the very least shouldn’t expect any better.

So what would I do if I could recapture that moment? If I could replay the DVD of my life and skip back to that chapter how would I react? Well I’ve given it a lot of thought over the years and a lot of scenarios have come to mind but I think my favorite is this: Instead of looking down at the floor I’d stare right at prom date boy with a look that said “are you seriously not going to say anything to that”, then I’d clear my throat and say, “Oh is this the friend you were talking about? I don’t think he’s an idiotic asshole at all!” Then I’d turn around triumphantly, walk to the door and say, “Well, it’s been a regrettable experience, why don’t you find someone else to slobber on with that huge cow tongue of yours.” Of course they’d be standing there aghast at my retaliation. A shaft of light would come in through the window and highlight both my inner and outer girl power and beauty, and they’d forever live to regret insulting such a woman. Somehow the stereo would magically turn on and Aretha would be shouting out R E S P E C T as I slammed the door.

What really happened was that I didn’t say a thing, and I stayed there as if nothing had happened. My only form of revenge was never calling him back and he never called me and that was the end of it. Pathetic I know, and that’s why now when it comes back to mind, I just replay my newly improved version and everything is right with the world. If I’m having a particularly bad day and that memory pops up I’ll even add in a good knee to the groin and that always makes me feel better.

Look at me! I was HOT. I’ll never be that young or probably that skinny ever again, and I wasted it on that guy. Ah the regrets of youth. Speaking of regrets, check out the linebacker-esque shoulder pads in that dress. Hey, it was the early 90's - what do you expect.

Toddler Cross-Dressing

2008-01-20T14:18:00.000-08:00

The benefit of having cousins at school fundraising ages and a mother who can’t resist them, is that I get free magazine subscriptions. When the 4th kid shows up with the order form and she’s already ordered every quilting and Family Circle magazine possible, that’ when she thinks of me. This time around she picked out a new parenting magazine for me, Cookie.

I received my first issue this week and it was interesting if not a little snooty. When they’re showcasing kids clothes with average prices around $80 per item I get a little turned off. And even if that onesie was hand made by a malnourished Ethiopian, I can’t afford to pay $139 for it. I would love to help the Ethiopians, but I’ve had a long standing tradition of supporting child labor in China and Taiwan and I can’t very well just up and pull my aid from them so I’ll continue to buy my onesies at Wal-Mart for $3.50.

The issue did have some very funny pieces in it and one that I found quite thought provoking. It was about a 4 yr. old boy who loved anything pink and liked to wear dresses (click here to see the article). The parents had indulged him and let him wear some costume dresses around the house and then one day he declared that he wanted to wear one to preschool. Well Bravo for these parents because after giving it some thought and preparing the kid for the reactions he would receive, they let him go to school in a dress. He got teased of course but all in all the teachers and other children were supportive. They must live in California, or New York.

It got me thinking though about how I would react if my son wanted to wear a dress. While I applaud these parents for allowing their child to express himself, I’m afraid that if it was my kid I would have told him that although it was perfectly all right for him to want to wear a dress, Mommy and Daddy would only allow it at home, with the curtains closed, at least until he went off to college and then he could feel free to frequent any sort of club his little heart desired. He could even feel free to borrow some of Mommy’s jewelry. Until then there would always be plenty of opportunities in the school play or the swing choir to express some of those tendencies.

It’s not that I would want to suppress his true self but we do live in the Midwest and quite frankly I wouldn’t have the courage to send him out to such ridicule and discrimination. Even me just pondering what it might be like if Aaron had some less than boyish characteristics is probably sending my poor husband into convulsions. Although he prides himself on his tolerance he once said to me in a restaurant where two very obviously gay men were having dinner "I don’t understand why they have to act so. . . so GAY in public." The first step in dealing with your homophobia dear is to accept it.

But I’m quite relieved to report that so far Aaron has had no inclination to wear a dress, though he is quite fond of costumes and really if we just added an Indian outfit he would have a costume to represent each member of the Village Boys. . . hmmm. Just kidding dear.

Mani-Pedi Phobia

2008-01-15T21:04:00.000-08:00

I was thinking the other day after I caught a glimpse of my rugged cuticles, that it might be nice to have a Mani/Pedi outing with the girls sometime soon. Then I remembered every nail salon experience I’ve ever had and determined that nobody really looks at my cuticles anyway so perhaps I should skip it.

Now I’m just going to warn you right now that some of the statements I make in this post are going to be racially insensitive. I can’t help it. I don’t consider myself a racist. I think everyone deserves an equal shot in this world and is just as worthy as anyone else regardless of skin color, ethnicity, gender, sexual preference etc. And the statements in this blog stem merely from my own personal insecurities, rather than the hatred or inacceptance of a people.

You see I find it very uncomfortable to go to a place in which people are using sharp instruments and chemicals on me when I can’t understand a word they’re saying. The only thing I can vaguely understand is the "YOU PICK CALLAH" that is shouted out when I walk in the door and then the "YOU WANT FRENCH?" That’s it. That’s all I can understand and the rest of the time I rely on facial gestures and hand signals.

The other thing I can’t stand is how they’re always saying something to each other and laughing. They’re very happy – and why shouldn’t they be. They get to spend their entire day watching soap operas and Jerry Springer and making fun of the white people while they’re sitting right in front of them; "Do you see all the moles on this one? Look, that one on her neck looks like the little dipper! HA HA HA".

They seem determined to break you up too. The whole point of going to the nail salon with a friend is so that you can sit there and talk to each other, or at least help each other translate what it means when the gal is doing what appears to be charades of some sort; two words, one syllable each, umm, what’s that she’s doing with her hand? Circle, ball, square, oh I know, Yeah I want the nails rounded, not square. Then I’m making the "round" hand signal back to her. It’s just awkward.

My theory is that they have the same concern I do. They don’t like it when two or more people sit together and speak in a language they don’t understand and then start laughing. Maybe they think we’re criticizing the tacky plastic dragon on the counter. So they make a pointed effort to break you up and stick you at complete opposite ends of the salon.

I’m always on edge and then I just get defensive and confused. One time the gal just looks up at me in the middle of trimming my cuticles and says, "YOU NEED WAX.’ or at least I thought that’s what she said, and when I looked at her with my pained and pathetic expression of confusion, she points at her eyebrows and says "WAX" I didn’t know what to do. I mean I realize they’re a little untidy but it’s kind of rude to just sit there and suggest that I should wax my eyebrows. What I didn’t realize was that the nail salon also does eyebrow waxing. So I guess I wasn’t really being insulted, the gal just wanted to make a couple extra bucks by taming my caterpillars.

I’m so on edge when I’m in there that it gets to a point where I can’t even think straight even when someone is talking to me in English. When I was pregnant with Gwen I went for a manicure and the customer sitting next to me looked over and said, "Is this your first?" Now I think partly my addled pregnant brain might have been a factor in this as well, but I was so on edge and tuned in to the manicure, trying to anticipate the next step to avoid having another game of charades, that I turned to her and said, "No, I’ve had one before but that was a long time ago." Only when she gave me a weird look, hesitated and then said, "Yeah me too, my firstborn is 14 and my second is 3." Did I realize that she was asking me if this was my first baby, rather than, if this was my first manicure. I was so embarrassed by being so completely stupid. All I could do was hope that she blamed my odd comment on the nail polish fumes.

So mani-pedis are pretty much out until I either learn to speak Vietnamese or scrounge up enough money to go to a spa or salon that doesn’t have something like this on the strip mall window.

Mechanical Slavery and talking nose hair trimmers

2008-01-15T21:01:00.000-08:00

An inordinate amount of my life in the past couple of years has been spent watching cartoons or some sort of children’s programming and I’ve learned a lot from it. For example, did you know that birthday cakes come out of the oven completely decorated – with candles? Pogo sticks are a reliable and viable transportation option and can also be used to reach things when a ladder is unavailable. And very rarely in life does anybody win or lose anything – usually they just tie and even if they do win, they share their prize with everybody!

But the thing that’s really starting to boggle my mind are the rules for object personification. Aaron watches Bob the Builder, which I love, and all of Bob’s machines are alive and they talk and have different personalities etc. Bob also has other tools that he uses and those are just inanimate objects. So it appears that in Bob’s world only vehicles are alive. However, I’ve seen episodes with boats, and airplanes and none of those were alive, only backhoes and dump trucks and cement mixers have become sentient beings for some reason.

Now the thing I don’t get is whether these machines are being exploited in a slavery type situation. I mean it seems that they’re helping Bob freely but there’s never any talk of compensation. There was an episode showing how Bob bought one of them from a dealer –Hello can you say "slave trade"? How can Bob "own" these machines who are obviously capable of independent thought and action. He even won one of them in a contest. How does that work? Indentured service? I don’t get it. What kind of message are we really sending here people? Don’t you think some type of TV rating is needed: "this show is rated M for mature, due to themes of slavery and mechanical life form discrimination".

Then you’ve got a show like Handy Manny in which none of the vehicles are alive but the tools are. Like the hammer and the screwdriver etc. are alive and talk. Now I find this completely irrational. I mean what kind of life can a Philips screwdriver live? All he can do is screw – and not even the fun kind of screwing. My main problem with this concept is where do you draw the line? If hand tools are alive then what about other things? Light bulbs, radios, toasters, nose hair trimmers, conceivably your underwear could be alive. Do you really want your underwear talking to you? I for one don’t want to have conversations with my DVD player especially late at night when I’m watching Pride and Prejudice and replay the foggy moor scene at least 5 times; "Come on, not again! He’s wearing high-waisted pants for God’s sake! You think that is sexy?"

Just don’t put me in the room next to Britney – I need my sleep

2008-01-10T15:05:00.000-08:00

Certain people wonder how it is that I’m able to work full time, watch my children by myself at night, update 3 blogs and a web site and still be my fabulous creative self. Well I’m finally ready to share the secrets with you: Neglect and lack of sleep.

Neglect: Household chores go undone, the pet parakeet goes unfed for days, my own personal hygiene takes a hit (I can’t remember the last time I shaved my legs), the kids spend way too much time in front of the tv or the computer, laundry only gets done when the dresser drawers are empty, dinner usually consists of frozen pizza or mac & cheese and is usually served in front of the tv.

Lack of sleep: since Matt doesn’t get home from work til 2 a.m. and needs to sleep in in the morning I don’t put Aaron to bed until after 9:30 and usually Gwen doesn’t go down until 11 p.m. That leaves me the hours of 11 – 1 a.m. to work on whatever projects I want to accomplish for myself, then I’m up again at 5:45 to prepare to go to a boring, useless, unfulfilling job in which most of the time I have little to no actual work to do and end up spending 8 hours just trying to stay awake and avoid getting fired for sleeping on the job.

Glamorous isn’t it? I spend my entire work day dreaming of projects, things I want to accomplish, stories I want to write, and then get home and have no time or energy to do them. It’s rough people. I spend half my time trying to figure out new strategies to carve out more time for myself and the other half of the time feeling guilty about taking time away from my family and my responsibilities as a mom and wife. Factor in the sense of responsibility I have to my extended family and close friends and it’s a recipe for exhaustion and self loathing.

Averaging 5-6 hours of sleep at night is not doing anything for my mental or physical state though at this point I think my body is pretty well adjusted to it – except for the fact that I’ve been known to blink and then wake up about 10 min. later, pretty much unaware of where I am. Shawna suggested the other day that I might go the way of the celebrity actress/superstar and end up in the hospital for exhaustion. It might be a bad sign that I thought that sounded like a lovely mini vacation.

Why do I do it? Well I love my kids – they’re my life, they really are and most days they’re the only thing that keeps me going. But they can’t be everything for me, I have to continue to make myself happy or else I won’t be able to make them happy. See if I’m not happy then I can’t be the mom they need me to be, I can’t be the wife that Matt deserves and I can’t be the friend, the daughter and the sister that I want to be. So I’m going to continue on this course and take it one day at a time because for right now it’s working. Things will change soon enough as they always do. Aaron will be in school soon, Gwen will be older and more independent, we won’t be working split shifts forever, and until then – well I can sleep when I’m dead.

The fake smile

2008-01-10T15:01:00.000-08:00

I’m a fan of the fake smile. It’s a necessary tool in the work world. The fake smile is the little grin that you use when you meet someone in the hall at work. It’s not genuine, it’s , nothing really except for a reflexive action in the muscles of your face. All in all it’s simply an acknowledgement. The fake smile says "Hi, you’re walking, I’m walking, I see you. I don’t know you or I barely know you but I’m acknowledging that you exist and am showing that I’m a friendly co-worker. After all we’re all in this together." Yes, one fake grin can convey all that.

I always use the fake grin – always. I use it with people I’m barely acquainted with but like, I use it with people I loathe, but who outrank me, hell I even use it on the cleaning lady and the guy who waters the plants. Problems arise however, when the fake smile is not reciprocated. These are the "non-smilers" and they’re inevitably cast as bitches and jerks. Is it too hard for them to flip that smile back at me? It’s really no different than if I had verbally said "hi" and they had ignored it and kept on walking. It’s just downright rude.

Now I’ve recently conquered one "non-smiler" and I’m pretty proud of that. It was this guy, pretty cute actually, who works a few rows down from me and I’d give him the fake smile, as I do to everyone, and he’d never reciprocate – NEVER! I determined after some study that perhaps he thought I was trying to hit on him and that thought might be a little repulsive to him- can’t really blame him there. A 30-something overweight mother isn’t exactly a catch and I’m sure given his good looks and the plethora of slutty straight out of college, laxative eating, size 2 model wannabees that work in the department down the hall, he’s had his fair share of come ons. So I trained myself to ignore him and stopped giving him the fake smile. I replaced the smile with disdain, and indifference and lo and behold, now he throws me the fake smile every time he sees me. I just have to be careful not to smile first, and only reciprocate his or else I might shift the balance back again.

Now you may be wondering why a person would spend so much mental energy on something as trivial as a fake smile. There are 2 answers to that. 1. Most of the time I have very little work to keep me busy so I’ve got the free time for such insane pursuits, 2. It’s not even really something I put a lot of thought into. It’s more like an instinct. I just do it, as do most people. We’re social creatures and there’s something in us that needs to nurture that interaction with others and that pushes us to seek acceptance from those around us.

It’s like a slightly more civilized version of animals gathered around the last remaining water hole in the savannah during the dry season. Sure they stay in their own herds and are cautious but they’ve all got the same goal – survival – and sometimes that involves interaction and acknowledging or at least tolerating others. They’d rather not interact. They’d rather just get their drink and move on but that’s not really possible, they’ve got to work together so when the zebras let the impalas in for a sip, that’s like nature’s version of the fake smile. Sometimes you can even see lions drinking right alongside a herd of wildebeest, that’s like nature’s version of small talk; "Hey how are ya? This dry season is a real bitch eh? Did you see that the Hippos brought bagels?"

That’s why it’s so unnerving when someone doesn’t reciprocate the smile. It completely throws off the social balance. There’s one gal who just simply refuses to do the smile. She won’t even hold the bathroom door open for you if you’re walking in right after her and that’s just a slap in the face right there. I’ve tried being extra nice to her, I’ve tried being extra bitchy to her, nothing phases her. At this point if we were in the savannah I’d offer her a spot to drink only after I saw that croc closing in and then I’d watch with satisfaction when it took off her head.

Unwanted Physical Attention

2008-01-09T04:26:00.000-08:00

I’m going to lunch today with a friend I used to work with at a previous job. We’ve always gotten along great and had a lot in common despite our age difference (she’s about 20 years my elder). We try to keep in touch, which pretty much involves an occasional email update when something major happens in my or her life. We try to have lunch together once every couple months as well.

Now the problem I have is that the woman insists on hugging me every time she sees me now. I like to consider myself a pretty warm and open individual with people I like and if it was a closer friend or perhaps a family member that I hadn’t seen in quite some time I would welcome them freely with a little squeeze. However, with her I feel it’s inappropriate and quite frankly uncomfortable.

But what can I do? I can’t really just hold up my hand, shake my head and say, "No touchy". I mean despite how I may come across here in the written world, in the real one I’m actually fairly reserved. I guess I should look at it as a compliment. I mean she obviously feels that we have some sort of bond. A bond that she must strengthen by touching me every time she sees me since we see each other so rarely.

Perhaps she’s like this with everyone that she only sees occasionally. Who knows, maybe she greets her tax preparer by sticking her tongue in his ear, or her mechanic by giving him a quick little grope. Maybe I’m getting off easy with just a hug.

Multi-tasking

2008-01-03T20:42:00.000-08:00

So my favorite gift this year is one that I requested. My new laptop. I love it. It’s a thing of beauty. See we have a PC downstairs in our furnished basement and it’s in fine working condition and really there was very little justification for the purchase of another computer. However, I convinced myself and Matt that I needed one so that I could write more often. It’s difficult in the evenings when I’m home alone with the kids to get downstairs, or when I do get them downstairs then Aaron whines incessantly about playing Go Diego Go online. If he had his way he’d stare at that Nick Jr. website until the images were permanently burnt onto his retinas.

The theory was that it would be much more convenient to have a laptop that I could slap on the kitchen counter and be able to bang out a few paragraphs here and there in between dinner, bath, and the oft-occurring screaming fit and/or bloody contusion. The other advantage of a laptop would be that I could haul it with me to work and whip it out during lunch in the break room and type to my little heart’s content.

Today is the 2nd day I’ve brought it to work and I find that doing so serves three purposes. 1. it makes me more productive (with my personal goals of course, who really cares about work productivity). 2. It allowed me to remove personal files from my work computer and to discontinue typing up blog entries on there (even though I rarely if ever posted from work, it still wouldn’t look so great to see that I had 20 personal documents on there that were obviously written on company time) 3. It makes me look damn important when I whip this baby out and prop it open on that break room table, or perhaps it makes me look like an idiot for hauling in a computer to work on during my break when I’m already spending 8 hours sitting in front of one anyway. Hmm, well I’m going to go with "makes me look important" and leave it at that.

The best part about this laptop though is I can take it anywhere at home. I can have it on the kithchen counter, then move it into the living room while the kids are watching a video. I can take it to bed with me and type in my daily journal right before I go to sleep, and best of all, this laptop turns previously wasted moments on the toilet into productive and exciting experiences. I mean who doesn’t want to work on a short story while their body excretes waste? Who needs bathroom trivia or magazines when you can sit there and play a rousing game of Mine Sweeper?

The only thing that would be better is a stimulating internet search on the care and feeding of pygmy goats or maybe a good Google for sexy pics of Ewan McGregor. Alright, that pairing of topics sounds a little odd, but I’ve always wanted a cute little pygmy goat to feed and pet and take care of, and who doesn’t like a good Ewan McGregor fantasy? Not that the fantasy would include the goat too – okay I think I might be digging this hole even deeper – let’s move on. The point I’m trying to make is that unfortunately I don’t have a wireless modem yet so I'm unable to get online and do uhm, important research.

But I’m hoping that this laptop will make me a much more proficient writer, both for my blogging and for my personal writing goals. If nothing else though I should at least improve my Solitaire skills.

The greatest gift of all - excess mucus and a high grade fever.

2008-01-02T22:30:00.000-08:00

Yes I am still alive - barely. I managed to write up this entry a week ago and am just now finding the time to actually post it.

We spent Christmas weekend in Kansas with Matt’s family and all in all it was a nice trip. Well aside from the 3 and a half hour church outing and the plethora of made for TV movies. See Matt’s mom is a fan off all things sappy. Josh Grobin and Celine Dion are two of her favorite singers if that helps paint a picture for you, and her favorite TV channel is the Lifetime Movie Network which plays a 24/7 sickeningly sweet dosage of cliché movie plots played out by former sitcom and soap opera actors.

Lifetime wasn’t quite sappy enough for her though and we ended up on the Hallmark channel watching such treasured and time honored Christmas classics as "All I Want for Christmas is a Boyfriend" and "Single Santa Seeks Mrs. Clause". And in case you were sitting around wondering what happened to that great thespian Steve Guttenburg of Police Academy 1-25 fame, well look no further than the Hallmark channel. You’ll be happy to know that his skills are just as blunt as ever.

We got a lot of nice and very thoughtful gifts, but the best gift Aaron and Gwen got was to spend time with their cousins. Staying home all day with Daddy and all night with me pretty much limits their social interaction with other children and they had such a blast with the other kids. However, as most children who are in school or have siblings who are in school they all had colds and the moment my children walked through the door they were dowsed with germs. One kid was coughing on them, the other wiping snot on her hands and then touching their faces. It was inevitable that they would come home and be sicker than dogs and now they are.

One night I ended up on the couch holding one in each arm, mucus oozing out of the majority of their orifices, their foreheads so hot that I could have whipped up 2 eggs over easy and a side of bacon on them. So our living room has now become ground zero. We’ve whipped out the sofa bed to accommodate the ease of non-stop cartoon viewing, there are new and half used tissues in every corner and on every flat surface. A vast array of medication is lined up on the counter. And medication is a major issue, especially with Aaron as he seems to have a mental block against oral medication. It doesn’t matter what form it’s in, or what flavor, this kid just doesn’t like the taste of medicine and he gags and upchucks whatever you try to give him. The only thing we can get down him are grape chewable Tylenol tablets and even then we have to break them into little pieces and he has to take 5 drinks in between each little piece. It takes me 15 minutes to get half the dosage down him.

He’s so funny though even when he’s sick. When he’s couging or when his fever gets high, I must obviously have a concerned look on my face because he’ll turn to me and he’ll say, "I’m okay Momma" in his hoarse little voice. And then he also feels the need to tell me when he’s coughing. Like he’ll be right in the middle of a coughing fit and he’s trying to say, "I’m coughing Momma" or if he just coughs once, he’ll turn to me right afterward and say, "I coughed Momma" in this matter of fact tone, like he just felt I needed to be kept appraised of the situation.

So that’s been the conclusion to my holiday season. I think I need to take a couple days off to recuperate.

Watch her pull a rabbit out of my . . .

2007-12-20T20:19:00.000-08:00

As some of you may be aware, I have a tendency to store things in my cleavage. It’s convenient, I never have to worry about whether or not my pants have pockets, and it’s a rather large space considering that my cleavage pretty much begins at my chin and ends at my belly button.

With a small child, I find that what I mostly carry in there is a pacifier. I can get to it quickly, don’t have to worry about pocket lint getting on it etc. Over time Gwen has discovered this phenomenon and how her beloved binky appears magically out of Mama’s chest. Recently she’s taken to checking for it herself. One of the first things she does when I come home from work is to stick her hand between my tits to see if it’s in there. Even if she has one already in her mouth she likes to check occasionally because I’m sure she’s thinking that if she can get her binky out of there, the possibilities are endless in what else she might be able to pull out – a toy, a puppy, a blanket, a bottle? It’s like the swiss army cleavage! It could conceivably hold a tool for whatever need she might have.

My favorite is when she’s got a pacifier in her mouth and discovers that there’s one in the cleavage also. Then it becomes a game of switch the binky’s. She’ll pop the one out of her mouth and pop in the one that’s freshly warmed from the cleavage, place the original one into the cleavage and then about 30 seconds later switch them again, and then again, and then again.

Recently though I feel she’s taking advantage of the seemingly vast storage area and has tried to place other items in there. One day after being hit in the face/chest about 10 times with her sippy cup full of juice, I finally realized that what she was trying to do was place it in my cleavage so that she could retrieve it later.

And then the other day when I was on the toilet and she came sauntering into the bathroom, I realized that it probably wasn’t the best idea to inadvertently train the child to stick her hands into the crevices of my body, "No dear that’s not a fuzzy cleavage you’re reaching for, and I’m fairly sure there’s no binky in there".

“Projection” or not, I’m at least worthy of pocket pool.

2007-12-11T20:22:00.000-08:00

One of the many downfalls of being insecure and unhappy with yourself is that you tend to take everyday occurrences that are really unrelated to you in any way, and convince yourself that something about your pathetic self has caused them. Or you misinterpret people’s actions or words to mean something completely different than what was intended. I think this phenomenon is referred to as “projection” (“a psychological defense mechanism whereby one "projects" one's own undesirable thoughts, motivations, desires, and feelings onto someone else.” Wikipedia)

For example; the other day an automatic door didn’t open for me and I took it personally. There’s no way that sensor wasn’t tripped by my larger than average frame, so my immediate thought was that the door had somehow gained the capacity for higher thinking and had decided that if anyone needed to exert the extra effort to open a door it was me.

I mean how crazy is that thinking and yet that’s what my mind comes up with. I even contemplated on the damn door’s inner monologue; “That gal should burn some calories pushing something – something besides pushing more food in her mouth, that’s for sure.” There was even a laugh track playing after that in my head!

So now that you’re somewhat familiar with what goes on in my head, let me recount a little something that happened to me yesterday, and I have to apologize to the people who had to listen to me obsess about it then.

I’m walking down the aisle at work and walking towards me is a man. I don’t know who he is, I’ve seen him before but he doesn’t work in my department – just on the same floor. Anyway, as he’s walking towards me he reaches down and does the most obvious rearrangement of his balls that he possibly could have done. I mean there was absolutely no effort to conceal the fact that he was grabbing his package, jostling it and bringing it to rest in what was obviously a more comfortable position. I’ve seen guys be more discreet when whacking themselves off, than this guy was at adjusting his jewels.

Now he wasn’t looking me in the eye or anything as the act was taking place. This wasn’t some overt sexual harassment issue. But he had to have seen me walking towards him, sized me up and determined that he had no qualms about grabbing his genitals in my presence. The man obviously found me so unattractive that he didn’t mind grabbing himself in front of me. If Claudia Schiffer was walking down the aisle towards him I think he would have managed to postpone shifting his rocks at least until she had passed by even if his left testicle was twisted so tightly in his undies that there was a danger of it falling off. But doing it in front of me was no different than scratching his ass in front of a dog. Why conceal such disgusting behavior in front of someone he deemed as equally as disgusting and therefore didn’t care about impressing?

This was the thinking that permeated my entire day yesterday. This isn’t healthy behavior. I mean the man was probably just a pig. Maybe he grabs himself in front of everyone. Maybe he was having a herpes outbreak and needed a good scratch, maybe he’s part of a test group for athletic protective cups, maybe he has a fetish for incredibly tight underwear, who knows! But it’s taken me an entire day to convince myself that I am at least worthy of a pocket pool genital adjustment, and the next time I see him in the hallway I might just tell him that.

Easy target for serial killers and/or genetically mutated homicidal creatures.

2007-12-06T21:07:00.000-08:00

We have 2 vehicles. One is a 2000 Dodge Caravan. In case you ever wondered what the difference is between a Caravan and a Grand Caravan – it’s the size of the back seat. It’s actually possible for an adult to sit in the back seat of a Grand Caravan whereas sitting in the back seat of the smaller Caravan requires folding yourself in half in such a way that you could scratch your ass with your teeth. Just something to keep in mind if you’re ever shopping for mini-vans.

We also have a 1995 Chevy Lumina which we bought used and all in all it’s been a good vehicle. It’s fairly reliable and actually has a pretty powerful engine in it. Sometimes I get a little tingly when I tromp on the gas and it responds so forcefully as I'm passing someone. It makes me feel like Danica Patrick, except I would have actually won a race by now.

The problem with the Lumina is that, well, it’s old, and as we all know way too well, not everything works exactly like it should when you get older. It’s like the automotive version of sagging tits.

The brake lights only work when you pull the turn signal lever slightly towards you, which of course, is the same lever that switches the headlights from low to bright so I’m constantly inadvertently flashing my brights at people. The windshield washer fluid doesn’t work, and the odometer has a habit of failing to function until you give it a little tap and realize that you’re going 65 in a 35 mph zone.

Buy my favorite quirk of all occurs in the winter months; the gearshift sticks. It’s an automatic and the gearshift is mounted on the floor and it’s one of those that you have to grab the handle and push in the button on the side of the lever with your thumb before shifting out of park or into reverse, etc. Well for some reason, when it gets cold out, the car’s not too keen on getting out of Park and it sticks.

So inevitably every morning I’m sitting in the driveway fiddling with the gearshift. Sometimes it likes it gentle and all you have to do is wiggle it around a little to get that button to depress. Other times it likes it rough and I literally have to put one hand on the gear shift and with the other hand punch the button with all the strength I can muster to get the thing to budge. It was so stubborn the other morning that I had to get poor Matt out of bed to get the thing out of Park. Thankfully though once you get it out of Park that first time it doesn’t stick again- well until the next time you try to start the car and it’s been sitting in the cold.

Every time it happens though I feel like one of those pathetic people in those really cliché horror flicks, you know the ones where the only thing standing between them and escape from the immortal masked serial killer is a car with a faulty starter. The only difference is that my car will actually start, it’s just that I can’t get it into gear before a two headed genetically mutated viper snatches me right out of the driver’s seat.

Do you think Jesus likes Tootsie Rolls? Nah, I'd better play it safe and go for a new toothbrush and some floss, Christ seems like someone who'd floss

2007-12-05T20:52:00.000-08:00

As if I don't have enough people to get gifts for this year! Now I have to buy something for the Messiah too.

My grandparents, bless them, sent this Jesus stocking to us for the kids to hang and I guess remind them "of the reason for the season". Which is a lovely sentiment really but as far as my kids know "Jesus" is the guy Momma yells at when she spills something and "Jesus Christ" is the guy she yells at when Daddy does something stupid.

Honk if you’ve got a dead person’s name on your car, or if you're horny, or would rather be fishing.

2007-12-01T06:18:00.000-08:00

I was in a parking lot walking to the mall the first time I saw one. There it was on the bumper of a late model white sedan; a bumper sticker with small doves in the corners and the words “In Loving Memory of Sarah Johnson” followed by the dates of her birth and death. It was the strangest thing I’d ever seen. It made no sense to me but I didn’t think much of it until I saw more of them. One was a decal on the back window of a Chevy F10, another one appeared to be magnetic and was attached to the back door of a minivan. The more I saw them the more they annoyed me.

Now I’m not one to criticize the grieving/coping process of those that have lost a loved one. It’s a personal journey of grief that is different for everyone, but when it’s done with such a small amount of taste and tact, I can’t help but comment on it. What is the point of a memorial bumper sticker? I think people have lost the meaning of the phrase. It should be engraved on something of value, a memorial marker, a park bench in that person’s favorite outdoor setting, a donated seat at a local auditorium or a donated bookshelf or book collection at a local library in memory of an avid reader.

An adhesive piece of paper slapped on the bumper of the same car that your teenager makes out in the backseat of, and that you use to run errands with is not much of a memorial. Why do they have to stick something like that on their car? To prove that they’re grieving? To prove that they’ve lost someone? Everyone has lost someone buddy, that doesn’t mean you should stick their epitaph right next to your “Honk if you’re Horny” bumper sticker.

What is it about the car that is in Loving Memory of this person? Were they run over with the car? If that’s the case I need one for the front fender of mine that says in loving memory of Bambi, or maybe one for that squirrel I hit on 16th street. Is the car their final resting place? Is the body in the trunk?? Did the deceased leave them some money in the will and that’s what these people used to buy the car so they feel a need to acknowledge it?

Where do you get such a thing anyway? Do you think these people had them made up especially just for themselves? Did the family of the deceased hand them out at the funeral like politicians hand them out at parades? What do you do with the extra ones? It would be disgraceful to throw them out. Maybe they could be used as coasters. Hey why not make coasters? How about matchbooks, how about those engraved napkins to use at the wake. Maybe a shot glass or some of those decorative spoons that people collect.

The possibilities are endless. How about pens, pencils, maybe a lovely letterhead on a fancy memo pad? That grocery list or memo to the boss could certainly be in loving memory of Great Aunt Lilly. Grandpa always liked coffee, instead of a headstone let’s just have 500 coffee mugs printed up in memory of the old fart.

It boggles the mind.

Being Supportive

2007-11-30T04:36:00.000-08:00

See below. If you think I'm being supportive now, just wait until she goes into labor! (last names and email addresses have been removed to protect the innocent - I've kept her spelling intact for the sake of authenticity.)

From: Shawna
Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2007 2:56 PM
To: Amy
Subject: Gasp!!

I JUST LIFTED UP MY SHIRT LIKE I DO A THOUSAND TIMES A DAY TO ITCH MY TUMMY AND THERE ARE SMALL RED LINES ALL OVER IT

I ran to Erins cube in emergency situation to have her serve the lines and she thinks they coud be streatch marks. She had lotion I have used the entire tube and they are stil there. My hate for lotion is gone. I hope it is a rash

From: Amy
To: Shawna
Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2007 3:01:20 PM
Subject: Gasp!!

Ooooh! Can I come over tonight and look at them? I bet they are stretch marks! I love it.

That’s what mine looked like – I never got the huge stretch marks just tons and tons of little red lines, and then after you have the kid the redness goes away but the lines don’t and your stomach resembles the texture of cottage cheese wrapped in a fabric bag.

How exciting!
Amy

From: Shawna
Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2007 3:12 PM
To: Amy
Subject: Gasp!!

Just so you know your not helping.

From: Amy
Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2007 3:18 PM
To: Shawna
Subject: Gasp!!

Hey, I’m just soaking in all the exciting aspects of your pregnancy.

Just wait until you’re walking around and you keep feeling like something is on top of your butt- Like a backpack that’s riding too low and smacks on your butt every time you take a step – and then you look back there and realize that there is no backpack – it’s just that your ass is so big that you can actually feel it moving when you walk.

Amy

Turns out it was just a rash that she got from the lube they put on her belly earlier that day to check the heartbeat. How disappointing really.

I'm a mother, it's my job to over-react

2007-11-27T20:42:00.000-08:00

Gwen fell down tonight and let out a blood curdling scream. I rushed over to find her entire bottom lip covered in blood and noticed that she was bleeding from inside her mouth as well. So I did what every responsible, and mature mother would do - I panicked and called my husband.

Now to me it looked like her bottom tooth had punctured her lip. There was blood inside and outside the lip. I could see a gash on both the inside and outside and keep in mind here that the kid was screaming at Banshee decibal levels. Tears and blood and bodily fluids were flying everywhere and most of them belonged to Gwen.

So Matt's on his way home, I call Shawna and ask her if her Matt (Lord, why couldn't we find husbands with different names? From now on I shall refer to Shawna's husband as Freddie - seriously he looks just like Freddie Prinze Jr. except that I think Matt's eyebrows are more niceily manicured, but Matt can never keep his eyes open in a photo so Freddie's got one up on him there.)

Anyway, I ask if Matt (I mean Freddie) can come over and pick up Aaron and take him to their house while I take Gwen to the 24 hour clinic or the ER or something. My Matt is winging his way home from work and all of a sudden the kid is fine. The bleeding has stopped, she's still a little clingy but otherwise seems to be okay. I'm now able to finally get a good look at the wounds and when Freddie gets there he confirms my new theory that she in fact did not puncture her lip with her own tooth. True she does have a nice gash but the tooth did not go through the lip and I've completely over reacted.

Freddie was a complete prince - sorry, couldn't resist that pun - and ran to the store to get some baby orajel to relieve any future pain, and did a fabulous job of putting me at ease. He's going to make a fabulous Daddy, Shawna. He even brought some gummy worms back for Aaron - so sweet!

Matt came home from work, looked over the situation, put me at even more ease and then headed back to work after kissing me on the forehead and shrugging as if to say "you're such an adorable yet simple-minded wife".

So all in all I felt like an idiot, but an idiot with an excellent support system and I'm very grateful for that.

Here are some pics of the wounds. Sure they don't look like much but this is after I cleaned up the gallons of blood!
See the bloodstains on the shirt! And this photo below would be more impressive if it was in focus, but I was lucky to get it at all since the inner lip of a 11 month old is not very photogenic.

Salad Tongs and Prune Juice

2007-11-19T20:49:00.000-08:00

Saturday I noticed Gwen assuming her standard all fours pooping position and as I’m making a mental note to pass this one off on Matt since he’s watching football and I’m doing dishes, my inner musings are interrupted by her sudden crying.

Now as a parent you learn the cries. There’s the “I’m tired but don’t really want to sleep” cry, the “My brother has just taken my toy and/or hit me in the head” cry, the “There’s really nothing wrong with me but I feel like crying” cry (my personal favorite), and then there’s the dreaded: “Something is seriously wrong and I’m freaked out and in a lot of pain” cry, and this was the one I was hearing.

Now she’s been constipated the last week or so and her stools have been pretty solid so I anticipated that perhaps she was having some difficulty – and boy was she. Picture this. We’ve got her on the living room floor. I’m stroking her forehead and cooing in an effort to calm her. Matt’s got the back end and he’s trying everything to get this massive turd out of the poor girl. He’s bicycling her legs, squeezing her butt cheeks, trying to grasp the thing (with a wet wipe on his hand of course). Several scenarios are running through my head – should we take her to the ER? No, too drastic, how about some salad tongs? – if we could just get a hold of it we could pull it out. No too dangerous, plus then I’d have to buy a new pair of salad tongs, and as I’m just deciding that the best option is to run a warm bath and have her soak in it in the hopes it would break up the poop, Matt yells, “Here it comes” and sure enough it was starting to move. I’m holding her hand saying “push, honey push” Matt’s guiding it out, wet wipe in hand and when the entire load was finally out, all three of us shared an exhale of relief and satisfaction.

It’s almost a pity that she’s too young to remember it because if she’s unfortunate enough to have inherited my narrow pelvis and birth canal, it may have been the closest experience to child birth she’ll ever have.