Masked Mom's Media Monday (Special Tuesday Edition): Little House In The Ozarks

In March of my freshman year of high school, I moved from a school in Pennsylvania to one in New Hampshire. Shortly after arriving, I was assigned a speech in English class. It's hard to imagine anything I wanted to do less than give that speech, in front of a room full of total strangers--in addition to being new in school, I was pathologically shy and would've much preferred hiding at the back of the class until the school year was over.

I channeled that anxiety and chose for my topic Laura Ingalls Wilder and the parallels I saw between her childhood and mine: we both moved around a lot, though admittedly, Laura got the rawer end of the deal since her moving involved covered wagons and unsettled territories and occasionally living in a dugout in a hillside. I had been a Laura fan from way back--I read all the Little House books the summer between fourth and fifth grade and read them all again between sixth and seventh grade. Books in general, but these books in particular, were comfortingly familiar when everything else was up in the air. I searched out other books that would let me know what happened to Laura after the end of the last book in my boxed Little House collection, The First Four Years--which was an incomplete manuscript when Laura died in 1957. I found West From Home, which was a collection of letters Laura wrote home to her husband Almanzo while visiting her daughter Rose in 1915 and On The Way Home, which was the diary of the Wilder's trip from South Dakota to Mansfield, Missouri where they would live for the rest of their lives.

Fast forward a few years to the early '90s, I'm working in a small local bookstore (still the best job I ever had and I miss it) and I open a box of new books to find Little House In The Ozarks: The Rediscovered Writings. Needless to say, that copy never made it to the shelf. That's one thing I don't miss about working at the bookstore--even with my 25% employee discount I was spending entirely too much on books.

The book is a collection of short nonfiction pieces that ran in local, regional and national newspapers and magazines between 1911 and 1925. There are glimpses into Laura's life and time--she was a farm wife in a small Missouri community--but the thing that is endlessly fascinating to me is how much her concerns still resonate almost a hundred years later. She talks often and openly about her relationships with her family and friends, about her place in town and in the world at large. It's a little scary, but somehow also comforting that she and her contemporaries faced so many of the same issues that my friends and I face now. Scary because if these amazing women a hundred years ago didn't have it figured out what are the odds that I'll be figuring it all out anytime soon? And comforting because, clearly, they survived not figuring it all out.

I still keep this book next to my bed and dip into it when whatever I'm currently reading isn't holding my attention. The pieces are all short--the longest only a few pages--and can be read in any order or in no order at all. Seems each time I pick it up, I find something that somehow slipped my attention before. For example, this weekend, I found this quote:

 Why should we need extra time to enjoy ourselves? If we expect to enjoy our life, we will have to learn to be joyful in all of it, not just at stated intervals when we can get time or when we have nothing else to do.It may well be that it is not our work that is so hard for us as the dread of it and our often expressed hatred of it. Perhaps it is our spirit and attitude toward life, and its conditions that are giving us trouble instead of a shortage of time. Surely the days and nights are as long as they ever were.*

I had spent the weekend running around trying to do too much and whining (mostly in my own sad, little head but out loud some, too) about how I barely have time to catch my breath let alone enjoy a moment's peace and something definitely needs to change. Yeah, um, maybe what needs to change is my approach--maybe if I'd spent a little less time and energy whining, I'd have had more of both left for the fun stuff. Ah, Laura to the rescue again. And I swear when I read those words, it was like Laura herself was speaking them directly in my ear.

Masked Mom's One-Word Review: Connection.

*From "The Man of the Place," page 65.

Masked Mom's Media Monday: Brain, Child Magazine

There is no shortage of parenting magazines out there--glossy ones full of helpful advice on the pros and cons of breast vs. bottle, age-appropriate activities, maps of milestones and when your child should be hitting each one. There's nothing wrong with those magazines--they can be a real comfort, especially to new moms. But Brain, Child is not that kind of magazine--if those magazines are travel guides to the trip that is motherhood, Brain, Child is more a collection of gritty, real-life stories of the women who have been there and made it back to tell the tale.

Each issue has news snippets, book reviews and a feature-length article on an issue of importance to moms. There's always pages of reader letters which give you glimpses into the lives and thoughts of women around the country (and even outside it) and a section called "Backtalk," in which moms share their stories on a previously announced (and often hysterically funny) subject. But the main attraction, as far as I'm concerned, are the pages and pages of first-person essays on all things motherhood.

No subject is too far "out there." In the current issue there is an honest and oh-so-funny essay on a woman's search for a sperm donor. Another woman's tolerance and protective nature are put to the test when her young son begins wanting to dress in "girl" clothes. "Helpful" advice from strangers is the subject of yet another essay--and as anyone who's ever left the house with a child in tow can attest, there's quite a few parenting "experts" out there willing to selflessly offer you their advice. And, in one of the most heartwrenching essays I've read yet, a woman is forced to decide between her relationship with her sister, who is unstable in a variety of ways, and the safety of her sister's children.

Brain, Child is quarterly--so I have to wait three months between issues and when a new one comes, I snatch it out of the mailbox and hole up somewhere with it. Even when I don't agree with the points of view presented, I feel better for knowing another side to whatever the story is.

Masked-Mom's One-Word Review: Enriching.

How Was Your Weekend?

"Brilliant" observation that occurred to me around midnight last night:

Parenting is being absolutely certain that you would die to protect people whom you regularly have to restrain yourself from killing.

Fireworks

When your anniversary is on the 4th of July (as mine & Hubby's is), you will sooner or later hear some form of the question: "Did you plan it that way so you could have fireworks every year on your anniversary?"

The short answer is no. And, no, we weren't being ultra-patriotic nor were we trying to make an ironic statement by declaring our dependence upon each other on Independence Day. The reason we were married on the 4th of July was much simpler and less creative. My father was in the Army--a recruiter at that time--and it was the only Saturday that summer he was sure he would have off.

Still, there's been no shortage of fireworks over the years of both the pyrotechnic and interpersonal variety--some of them the colorful, celebratory, entertaining kind and some of them just the loud, explosive, migraine-inducing kind.

As I've mentioned before, we were very young when we got married--him 19 1/2 and me not quite 19--and it's tempting to say it's a miracle that we're still together, but crediting it to divine intervention or supernatural accident overlooks the just plain hard work that has gone into our nineteen years together. And it hasn't only been Hubby and I hard at work--there are friends and family members who have seen us, individually and as a couple, through some pretty rough times.

So, yes, it's miraculous but it's a lot more than that, too. To Hubby and all the rest of you--thanks for stickin'.

Masked Mom's Media Monday: Cage of Stars

Jacquelyn Mitchard is the author of The Deep End of the Ocean, an Oprah pick (the first Oprah pick, I believe--though I read it before Oprah picked it so I'm not entirely sure) and the basis for a movie starring Michelle Pfeiffer. I've read most of her stuff--including The Rest of Us: Dispatches From The Mother Ship, which is a collection (now out-of-print, I assume, since it's no longer listed on her website) of her newspaper columns and worth tracking down at the library or online.

Anyway, her newest--Cage of Stars--was released in May. It is the story of Ronnie Swan, who at the age of 12 witnesses the murder of her younger sisters and spends the next decade or so trying to come to terms with that. Mitchard covers matters of faith and forgiveness, revenge and redemption in a non-preachy and wholly entertaining way. I would say that I couldn't put it down, but the truth is I had to put it down--it's been a long time since I've had the peace and freedom to finish a book in one sitting. This is one of those books that I would've read that way, if I did still have that luxury.

Masked Mom's One-Word Review: Breathtaking.

She Said What I Meant To Say: Perfect Post for June

You may or may not remember my perfectly forgettable post of several months ago in which I wondered (not aloud exactly, but in print) about how to be the kind of mom each of my kids needs. Stuntmother, over at I Do All My Own Stunts, hit that nail right on its shiny little head with her post "Follow The Child."

One of the great things about reading in general and about reading blogs in particular is that sometimes, you recognize something of yourself in another person. Sometimes, like earlier this month, you read something that sounds just like something you would say only the other person says it much more smoothly and coherently than you did when you tried to talk about it. But you don't get insanely jealous and depressed that your writing ability is not all it could be, no, instead, you give out a perfect post award.

So here's my button:



And, Stuntmother, it's all yours!

Name-Dropping

For the get your giggles any way you can file:

Had a customer come in yesterday--he's fairly regular, works in an office two doors down, used to be on the county government and was a deputy for a while in the sheriff's department. He's a big guy--6'2" or something and 240, at least. He comes in to order a centerpiece, which he tells me he's going to pick up later that afternoon. Fine, good, I get all the specifics and tell him I'll call him when it's ready.

He says, "Don't you wanna know who it's for?"

Confused, I say, "Oh, do you need us to deliver it?" Because he had already said he was going to pick it up.

He said, "No, but don't you wanna know why I need it?"

Frankly, no, I don't really care. I mean, I don't need to know the information to make the arrangement, right? But, with my polite customer service voice, I say, "Sure, who's it for?"

"It's for Bill Pullman! I'm having dinner with Bill Pullman!" The Bill Pullman, of While You Were Sleeping and Independence Day fame, among others.*

The whole thing would've seemed like a crass episode of name-dropping were it not for the fact that this pillar of the local community--this full-grown, man-sized pillar of the local community--was positively giddy at the prospect of having dinner with Bill Pullman. For the minute and a half that he was giving me the details, he was transformed into a six-year-old boy unwrapping exactly the birthday gift he'd hoped for.

I hope the dinner went well and, Mr. Pullman, if you liked that flower arrangement, call us anytime!



*My personal favorite of his is actually Lake Placid for all its campy goodness--Betty White, who only has a few scenes, is so funny the movie wouldn't need much else.

Masked Mom's Media Monday: Cool Spot

Sometimes having computer geeks (the kind of computer geeks that girls swoon over--it's a whole new world for computer geeks out there these days) for sons really pays off. When they were much younger we had a Sega Genesis game console and on it we had several games that kids and grownups alike loved to play. Of course, the Genesis and all its games has long since been sold off in a yard sale and replaced with bigger, better, badder gaming systems.

Around that time, Mom gave up entirely on video games. The 3-D, first-person games give me vertigo and motion sickness and crippling bouts of frustration. And have you SEEN the paddles/controllers for these games? There's like 87 buttons! And it doesn't help that everyone else in the house (Hubby included) mastered all of it on the first try and sits beside me helpfully shouting out, "No push the Y button and then the Z!" or "If you want to do that kick you have to push Z, B, B, C while holding down the D-pad!" Yeah, okay, if I want things that complicated, I'll just stick to my real life, thanks.

But I'm a nostalgia geek when it comes to video games--I love the old arcade classics like Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man and Rootbeer Tapper (which I don't recall BEING "Rootbeer" Tapper when I played it back in the day, but okay...) and have collected quite a few of them for the Playstation, etc. I still have to use those multi-buttoned controllers, but I only have to use one or two buttons. Very old school.

Anyway, there have been two games conspicuously missing from my geek collection: Cool Spot and Ecco, the Dolphin. Over the weekend, Sons-One and -Two, completely without my prompting, found them both on-line--free downloads that are identical in every way to the original games. We've all been in Way Back When Video Game heaven since then--except for the louder than usual fighting over the computer.

Cool Spot, for those non-geeks among you, is a game in which the red spot from the 7-Up bottle goes on many adventures trying to save his friends who are being held hostage. Along the way, he collects "cool points" for the chance at a truly awesome bonus level INSIDE a bottle of 7-Up. Granted, it's technically a long and not-so-subtle advertisement for a particular brand of soda--in fact, the way to regain health is by drinking big, bubbly glasses full of 7-Up you find along the way--but it's also cute and tons of fun and, especially when played on "difficult", challenging enough to keep even a hard-core gaming geek (Son-Two) interested. There's also an "easy" level, which is how my boys originally learned to play. (Is anyone besides me sick of hearing me talk about how fast time passes? But, jeez, it passes so fast!!! And now not only can they out-play me on just about any game, they can go out in the wilds of the Internet and find games they feel nostalgic about. How the hell do I have kids old enough to be nostalgic?)

Anyway, this was originally produced back before video game "ratings," but I'm sure it would be rated "E for Everyone" and not only because it's not full of gore and bloodshed but because it has a little something for everyone and with the multiple difficultly levels, just about anyone can have a good time with it.

Masked Mom's One-Word Review: Fun!

A Different Breed of Puppy Pic

In the spirit of puppy pics, I dug out a picture of my first "puppy," Son-One, who, completely without my permission, turned 18 last week:

This was taken during a week we spent camping with Hubby's parents; Son-One was fourteen months old and clearly the boss of everything. He's still just as cute, but twice as cocky.

Some stories to make him blush and squirm:

~~He called doughnuts "dungadoos" for a while when he was small, even though "doughnut" is clearly much easier to say than "dungadoo."

~~When he was four and mad at his brother, he would say, "Mom, I'm going to fire Son-Two." This was years and years (and just, way too many years, and how the hell did time pass this fast?!) before Donald Trump was firing apprentices on a regular basis.

~~Once when he was around seven he came into the kitchen to find me making shepherd's pie (AGAIN). He said, "Aw, Mom, are we having that crap for dinner again?" And I said, "When you get bigger and get a job you can make whatever you want for dinner." He said, "I'm never gonna get bigger if you keep making that crap because I'm not going to eat!"

~~When he was eight or so he became obsessed with the fact that the parrot in Disney's Aladdin had teeth and shouldn't. He would mention it to me, completely out of the blue, a couple of times a day until I finally got so exasperated, I said, "What would you like me to do about it? Write Disney?" And he said, "Yeah, and while you're at it, tell them the lobster in The Little Mermaid wouldn't be that red unless he'd been boiled."

~~We've only had two emergency room visits with Son-One. One of them required stitches and was the result of a perfectly respectable accident in the backyard--the other was when he was twelve and banged his shoulder on the diving board while showing off his back flip for a girl.

This eighteenth birthday thing is kinda freaking me out a little--mostly because I really didn't expect it to freak me out at all. I'm of the conserve energy school when it comes to freaking out and I really try not to freak out about things I'm completely powerless to stop. But I think I can make an exception for this.

Pupdate III: An Illustrated Guide

Daughter-Only & Her New Litter-Mates:

Nomi, Olympic Volleyball Player In Training:

Rufus, King of the World:

Rufus Kissing Up To Squidward & Every Girl in the Neighborhood:

Squidward Recovering From An Afternoon Photo Shoot:

Masked Mom's Media Monday: Infomercials

Just when you thought she was down for the count, Masked Mom rallies with a review of Infomercials brought to you by the fact that she couldn't lift a finger to the remote Sunday afternoon. Admittedly, this review won't be long or detailed, nor will it tell you anything you don't already know about infomercials, but some people say it's the thought that counts and not only did I think (this should in no way be construed as any indication or guarantee of the quailty of said thought), I typed it! (Woo-hoo. Dang, I think I pulled something jumping for joy there.)

So here it is: Infomercials suck.

Masked Mom's One-Word Review: Super-special-suckitude.

(This review brought to you by the one-two punch of stomach flu and PMS and TMI*, which this post now contains.)

*Ok, one-two-three punch, but that doesn't have quite the same ring to it, does it?

A Sign You Had a Bad Weekend

You spend Sunday morning actively hoping that your violent vomiting of Saturday night was caused by food poisoning and not a virus because the thought of everyone else in the house getting whatever it is you have is simply too much to bear.*

On a related note, a customer once said, "When we got back from vacation, we had that stomach flu--you know the one where at first you think you're gonna die and then you're afraid you're not?"

Yeah, that. Only keep your fingers crossed for E. coli or salmonella or something, 'kay?


*Sadly, this is not sympathy so much as self-preservation.

Pupdate II: A Few Observations

~~Having the puppies has given me new purpose in life, a new reason to get out of bed in the morning: my ongoing attempt to break the world record for stepping (barefoot, of course) into piddle puddles while still half-asleep. I'm still waiting for the Guinness people to get back to me about what exactly the old record is.

~~Regarding piddle puddles--the secret for piddle on carpet is salt. I'd heard that from one of the women in my book group years ago--years too late for blotting up Sydney's accidents. You cover the puddle--wait ten minutes and the salt sucks out the liquid and its smell, then you just vacuum up the yellow salt. It's AMAZING!!!

~~The name battle continues to rage on--everyone in my family is a gigantic dork about this whole thing and can't settle for something simple and obvious. Son-One wanted to name them Liquid and Solid after characters in his favorite video game (one of whom--Liquid--is currently featured on our computer desktop wallpaper--staring at me accusingly--and I SWEAR his eyes follow me around the room). I vetoed that with, "No that reminds me too much of the kinds of accidents we're going to be dealing with for the next few months." At the moment we are still calling him "Rufus" which is the name the previous owners had been using and her "Nomi" which is a bastardization of "no-name" which is what the previous owners were calling her.

~~I've been reading up on puppy training (big surprise--book geek like me, reading, huh?). And I have to say that anything that makes "sphincter control" a common phrase in your household has got to be a good thing, right?

A Pupdate-- 'Cuz What Else Do You Call An Update Involving Puppies?

When last we left our Masked Heroine, she was caught in a battle to the death with not one, but two opponents, in an attempt to keep her headquarters a doggy-free zone or at least to make a rational, well-thought out decision regarding the presence of doggies in her headquarters...

I'm proud to say I didn't cave. Here's what happened instead:

Saturday Evening: We had the conversation about the puppy/puppies after which I felt the issue was by no means resolved. In fact, I'm pretty sure my last words were, "Let's just watch this movie and we can talk about it later." During that conversation, Hubby had mentioned that he hadn't even seen all the puppies yet and he didn't want to do it after work on a weeknight so I said our neighbors probably wouldn't mind if he went over on Sunday afternoon--they are very anxious to find good homes for these puppies ("good" defined mostly but not exclusively as "homes somewhere else").

Sunday Morning: I wrote the blog post regarding this BIG decision we were trying to make--and how agonizing and, okay, a little funny, it was. Then I went out to lunch with a good friend who I hardly ever get to see and I was gone until...

Sunday Afternoon: I walk in the door, face flushed from sitting in a warm car gossiping way too much, and Hubby says, "Your dogs are in the living room."

My dogs are in the living room?! Yes, because while I was enjoying lunch (and backstabbing bitchy chat about everyone in our sorry little town), Hubby went over to the neighbors where he was told that the puppies were completely weaned, doing well on dry food and he could bring them home if he wanted. The funny thing is that after all the drama with Daughter-Only, she was completely innocent in this sneak attack. She had gone to Six Flags for the day with her uncle (a.k.a. Baby Brother) and was just as surprised to find the puppies here as I was. She was, however, considerably more delighted.

Hubby's defense/explanation was that I hadn't said "no," which to him meant I was going to "come around" sooner or later anyway and this just cut through all the crap.

I'm just grateful that with nine to choose from he only came home with two.

Masked Mom's Media Monday: Funny In Farsi

Considering I read an almost pathological number of books, it's odd and vaguely embarrassing that I'm so often the last to know about so many good books. Apparently, unbeknownst to me, Funny In Farsi , was a national bestseller in 2003. I discovered this only three years late, when I found a paperback copy ("With A New Final Chapter") in the box of books Youngest Sister brought on her last visit home.

Funny In Farsi is subtitled "A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America." Scary word, memoir--with James Frey and Nasdijj so fresh in our memories and the perception that the genre is comprised largely of "poor me, my childhood sucked" stories.*

Funny In Farsi is not that kind of memoir. Written by Firoozeh Dumas, who first came to the United States at the age of seven in 1972, the book is a series of mostly lighthearted essays, each with its own punchline and nugget or two of wisdom. Dumas has a light touch even with heavy topics such as prejudice, politics, personal identity, and religious and cultural differences (including her own "mixed" marriage to a Catholic Frenchman).

As an Army brat, I've always had a soft spot for those who lived migratory childhoods, who dealt with that fish out of water feeling again and again. Not only does Dumas share that experience--on a much grander geographic and cultural scale, but she seems to view it all with a sort of bemused acceptance I can't help but admire.

Thanks to a deft touch, Funny In Farsi, is a quick, light read that I have a feeling will stick with me for a long time.

Masked Mom's One-Word Review: Recommended.

*That's a perception I disagree with, by the way. The vast majority of memoirs I've read seem to be more a blueprint of their respective authors' healing process rather than a wallowing in the past or the celebration of the author's eventual "triumph." Self-pity and the quest for fame seem to me less common motivators than critics of the genre (not to mention recent literary "events" like Frey's Lies, etc) would have us believe.

Pet Peeve

Daughter-Only and I are having The Talk this week--it's an ongoing thing, not a just a single moment in time.

No, not that talk--we've had that talk for years, in fits and starts, as part of normal conversation like the experts recommend, with nary a mention of birds or bees. No, we've been having the conversation that starts out like this:

D-O: Mom, can I get a puppy?
MM: Um, no.
D-O: Well, will you at least consider it?
MM: No, I will not "at least consider it."

Turns out a friend down the street has a mama dog who had nine (count 'em, nine) puppies--speaking of someone (or some dog) who needed to hear That Talk.

I'd like to make it clear that Daughter-Only isn't one of those pet-deprived children who have never had the joy of a "companion animal" and all the lessons about responsibility they can teach a child. (Or, more likely, the lessons they can teach the child's parents when the novelty wears off.) We had a dog for years and years--the first nine years of Daughter-Only's life, in fact.

Daughter-Only's infancy, toddlerhood and most of her childhood were overseen by Sydney, our border collie/Australian shepherd mix. Sydney was twelve years old when she died in March 2003--a sixty-pound lapdog who even now I think of so often that she's almost a physical presence in our lives.

(So much so that my Baby Brother had his dog over here the other day and I casually tossed him (the dog, not the brother) a bit of food from my plate, like I used to do with Sydney. Sydney would catch whatever it was in mid-air even when she seemed not to be paying the slightest bit of attention. Baby Brother's dog, however, merely looked at me like I had completely lost my mind. The tidbit of whatever it was bounced off his doggy nose and landed on the floor where he delicately nibbled it up from the carpet. Poor dog--having to tolerate a demented "aunt.")

So we've been dogless a few years, but not petless--we have six ferrets--only four of whom we actually purchased and two of whom were hand-me-downs from families who couldn't continue to care for them. These ferrets have the run of the house for the most part and though they sleep eighteen to twenty hours a day those other four to six hours are full to the brim with mischief--highly entertaining mischief, but mischief nonetheless. Point being, not only does Daughter-Only already have the joy of a pet she has, and mostly willingly, takes, a share of responsibility for said pet(s), which makes saying "no" both easier and harder.

I'm not concerned that the burden of caring for the puppy will fall on me because, frankly, I'm not that kind of mom. The worst that's going to happen is the burden of nagging them to take care of the puppy is going to fall on me--I'm not one of those moms who will break down and do the work because it's easier than arguing. I'd like to pretend it's some sort of "tough-love-this-is-how-I-teach-them-responsibility" stance, but really? I'm just way too lazy to pick up that slack.

Daughter-Only has really pulled out all the stops on this one. On the way out the door to the grocery store, I said, "Do you want anything?" And she said, "I don't want anything except a puppy." She has tried the high pressure technique of saying she has to have an answer right now because "her" puppy might get taken--because there's such a stampede for free puppies, right? That one was not effective the first time and has only gotten less effective as time passes and "her" puppy--and its eight litter mates--remain unclaimed.

She even interrupted me mid-dart game last Saturday night with, "Can you come outside for a minute?" Frustrated by my refusal to go "at least see" the puppies, she brought some of the puppies to me. Cranky Boss Lady said, "Why is she stressing so much, doesn't she know you're going to cave and let her get a puppy?"

The puppies are old enough to leave their mom this coming Tuesday. Daughter-Only hasn't mentioned it to me in two days--I was breathing a sigh of relief, but just to be sure, I said to Hubby, "Has she mentioned the puppy thing to you?"

He rolled his eyes and said, "Of course."

I said, "Well, she hasn't said anything to me in two days."

He said, "Of course not--she knows who's on her side on this one."

Exasperated, I said, "I just don't think getting a puppy right now is a good idea."

He said, "Me neither. A puppy would be very lonely without a companion."

I said, "A companion!? We're so not getting two puppies!"

So much for a unified front, huh?

Masked Mom's Media Monday:Dixie Chicks

Say what you will about their politics or say nothing about their politics, which is what I'm going to say here--the new Dixie Chicks album, Taking The Long Way is amazing music. These are, and always have been, very talented women.

I heard "Lullaby" on the season finale of "Medium" and couldn't wait to hear the rest of the album. The album is not as consistent as some of their previous work--not every song really grabbed me, but there was enough on there worth listening to that I didn't feel I'd wasted my hard-earned (have I mentioned how cranky my Cranky Boss Lady can be?) dollars. Skip the songs that offend you or don't buy it at all--it's a free country, right? But it's your loss, I promise.

Masked Mom's One-Word Review: Solid.

Thinking Like A Seventh Grader Makes Every Day An Adventure...

As I've previously mentioned, I believe very strongly that you're only young once but you can be immature forever. With that philosophy in mind, even a mundane trip to the grocery story is full of entertainment. For instance, today I saw a big display of these:
As if the shape weren't bad enough, it's called a "Pump Rocket!" And the box at the grocery store says, "Now with THRUST BOOSTER!"

C'mon! At least make me work for it a little!!!



PS--To anyone who might want to purchase a Pump Rocket (heh, heh, heh) with a Thrust Booster (heh!)--because really what's a pump rocket without a thrust booster?--you can do so here.

Perfect Post for May

It's Perfect Post time (yes, again, already--am I the only one obessessed with how fast time passes?!).

As a blogger/writer/mom/daughter/sister/friend/wife, I've always been kind of fascinated by the secrets we keep about ourselves--and increasingly, I've been interested in my own inability to do so as I get older. I used to be a much more reserved and circumspect person than I am now--people used to have to work to find out things about me. I'm not sure when it changed--all at once or gradually--but it's definitely changed and I've suddenly found myself some sort of a Poster Child for Too Much Information Syndrome. It seems no topic is off limits or too outrageous for me to casually chat about with those closest to me (and anyone else within ear shot), not to mention the nameless, faceless audience of the Internet.

Anyway, while wondering the wilds of blogland this month, I came across the post I Think I Have Cancer by Jack's Raging Mommy. She talks about not having a filter--not being able to stop herself from sharing "too much" and about caring too much what others think of her. In my own case, it's not that I care less than I used to about what people think of me--it's more that I've realized that what other people think of me is just as much about them as it is about me. For what it's worth, the post definitely struck a chord with me and got me thinking about that gap between the person we each think we are and the person others might believe us to be.

So here's my button--



And, Jack's Raging Mommy, it's all yours!

Masked Mom's Media Monday: The (Over and Over) List

This one goes out to Crazy MomCat who has no doubt long since forgotten that in my first Media Monday post when I said I wouldn't listen to John Corbett's album over and over, she asked me what albums I do listen to over and over because she hasn't bought new music in ages...

Here, finally, is my over and over list, but I must warn you, MomCat (and anyone else who's interested), not only do I have weird tastes (as mentioned in a previous warning and as is evident from my previous Media Monday reviews), but some of this stuff is not as "new" as others.

P!nk: Especially M!sundaztood and I'm Not Dead. I've never heard her first album (Can't Take Me Home)--it's one of those things I always meant to get around to and the third album, Try This didn't seem to "click" with me the way the other two albums did (though I did like "Trouble" and "God Is A DJ"). I love the girl-power lyrics and her vocal range and I figure anyone who can hold her own with Aerosmith's Steven Tyler ("Misery" from M!s-undaztood) has got something your ordinary "pop princess" lacks.

Train: I got hooked on them with "Drops of Jupiter" from the album of the same name--coming a little late to the party, which sometimes seems to be the story of my life, I didn't hear "Drops of Jupiter" until well after the release of the follow-up album My Private Nation. My Private Nation is my over and over album of theirs. I love every song on it. I like Drops of Jupiter (the album) almost as much, but it's just not the one I reach for time and time again. (I also like "Meet Virginia" which is the only song I've heard from their debut album Train.)

Matchbox 20: Everything of theirs is amazing to me. I know, I know, I'm a geek. And I've read a lot of the mediocre and downright crappy reviews and I understand all about how "watered down" it all is, blah, blah, blah. I don't care. What I know is that when I'm listening to any of their albums--I love each song so much that I'm sad to see it end and I actually think about hitting repeat so I can hear the same song twice in a row but then the next song starts and it's so good and I love it so much that I don't want it to ever end. I love Rob Thomas's voice and I love the lyrics and I love the music. Special favorites: "Damn" from Yourself or Someone Like You (especially the second time he says "damn" in the third verse--turn it up and sit real close...damn.); "Rest Stop," "Black and White People," "If You're Gone," and "Last Beautiful Girl" from Mad Season; "Could I Be You," "All I Need," "Hand Me Down" and "You're So Real" from More Than You Think You Are.

Rob Thomas: It probably comes as no surprise that I pre-ordered Rob's solo album and that the day (April 19, 2005) it came out was an event in my sad little life. Again, I love every track and I think that's just rare and amazing and Rob Thomas is just so...amazing. And isn't it amazing how many times I can squeeze amazing into one post? It's been over a year since this album came out and I still listen to it at least two or three times a week--and perhaps more telling, I listen to it several times in a row each time I listen to it.

Billy Joel: So he isn't aging well and some of the stuff in the news about him in the past few years has been downright distressing and I haven't been able to listen to most of the stuff he's put out since 1986, but...Glass Houses, The Stranger, and Songs in the Attic are still in my over and over pile. (Favorites: "Vienna" from The Stranger, "You're My Home" from Songs in the Attic, and "Sleeping With the Television On" from Glass Houses.)

iTunes: I'd like to say right up front that I don't have an iPod. Can't afford one and even if I could, I'm not sure I'd get one since it's probably way too technologically advanced for me and I find something comforting about CDs you can actually hold in your hands. But the excellent thing about iTunes (and something I'm not sure everyone knows) is that you don't need an iPod to use it and the software is FREE! You can import your CDs you already own, download (for 99 cents!) practically any dang song you can think of, and you can burn your own CDs that are combinations of EXACTLY the songs you want to listen to at that moment. The software is amazing--we haven't had a single problem with it in the three years we've been running it--it's fast and accurate and just cooler than crap.

Anyway--a lot of the "albums" I listen to over and over are self-created. Here's a small sampling of stuff I've purchased from iTunes in the past few months:
Natasha Bedingfield ("Unwritten"), Kelly Clarkson ("Walk Away"), KT Tunstall ("Black Horse & Cherry Tree"), Little Big Town ("Bring It On Home"), Billy Currington ("Must Be Doing Something Right" and "Why, Why, Why"), Sugarland (the whole album Twice The Speed of Life), and on and on and on.

iTunes is the secret--you can see lists of new music, you can preview a song before you buy it, you don't have to buy the whole album (which might suck except for the one song the artist released as a single), you don't have to leave your house, hell, you don't even have to get dressed (but I don't recommend sitting bare-assed on a leather chair--don't ask me how I know). iTunes is why my brother remarked in my dining room on a recent Saturday night, "This is the only place I've ever been where I can hear Tanya Tucker and Eminem* on the same CD."

*Hey, I know Eminmen doesn't have the best reputation among white women in their thirties. He's gotten a real bad rap (rap, ha ha, get it?), some of which he deserves but some of the stuff he's put out in recent years is actually kind of genius in its lyrics and the beat is, well, catchy, as long as you've had a precautionary dose of migraine medication first.

All Hail...

...the Queen of Crap!!!!

A while* ago, Cranky Boss Lady was cleaning out a closet at the back of the shop and found a bunch of truly hideous dried and artificial, um, stuff--you couldn't call it flowers exactly, they were more like twigs and most of them were spray-painted white or black or hot pink or some other shockingly hideous color. They were jagged, pointed, angular in all sorts of threatening-looking configurations.

I joked that it was the stuff of nightmares--you could easily imagine any of it coming to get you! For my efforts and imagination, Cranky Boss Lady said, "You're full of crap! You've never even seen this stuff before [duh! that's the imagination part!!!!]! You're the Queen of Crap!"

So I did what any superheroine would do in a moment like that--I ran with it. We have rhinestone tiaras tucked away in corners around the shop--for prom or weddings or, say, when CBL calls me the Queen of Crap or the Queen of anything else for that matter. I wore that damned tiara every day for two weeks. I made myself a scepter by attaching a plaid bow to a long grabber thingy we use to get things off high shelves. I eventually hung a Squidward figurine from the tiara's rhinestone-studded curlicues like a talisman--something to ward off Everyone Else's Crap ('cuz we know I've got more than enough of my own).

After a while, the tiara had to be put aside for reasons of practicality--the danger of forgetting to take it off when a customer comes in, for example, especially if said customer is coming in to order funeral flowers--but I will occasionally bring it out on days when the Crap (my own and everyone else's) seems deeper than usual.

Prom Week is just such a time. Mix hormonal adolescents with dresses in every shade of the rainbow--and some shades that aren't in the rainbow: magenta, fuschia, puce--listen, if it's not in the Crayola 8-box, I have no idea what color it is--and high school intrigue ("they broke up three days before the prom and now he's taking her best friend and she's goin' with his cousin!") and you've got the recipe for the Perfect Storm of Crap.

Some--like Cranky Boss Lady--see my tiara as useless affectation, just a pointless addition to my wardrobe with no magical powers at all. But I'm here to say it works, it really, really works--because as crappy as Prom Week was, I'm pretty sure if I hadn't been wearing my tiara, it would've been worse.

Someone would've actually rented this tux:

A PS to Youngest Sister and Great White Hunting Brother-in-Law: when it's time to renew your vows, you know where to find me! Maybe we should reserve one now!!

*When my boys were little, they thought of "a while" as a set amount of time--like a minute or an hour. So if you said, "It's time to clean your room." They might say, "I will in a few whiles."**

**Alternate answers would include, "No!" and, "Why?" and, "Awww, Mom!" but none of those seem quite as cute.

Masked Mom's Media Monday: Squidward Tentacles

For the longest time after SpongeBob SquarePants premiered on Nickelodeon, I couldn't stay in the room past the theme song. I did, however, stay in the room long enough to change the words of the theme song--for example, "absorbent and yellow and porous is he" became "especially annoying to people like me," etc.

I'm not sure exactly when my feelings about the show changed--probably around the time Doc upped my meds or switched me over to that new neon pill...um, no, it was actually the episode where SpongeBob is trying to rally everyone in Bikini Bottom around Squidward, who's locked in some battle of one-upmanship with, I think, his long-lost and very successful brother, or maybe an old friend or something...it doesn't really matter. SpongeBob was giving that speech, you know the one you've seen in a hundred corny old movies. Going around to each person in the crowd saying things like, "When you were stuck on your roof, who helped you?" and so on. Of course, in the corny old movie, the answer would've been Squidward. Squidward would've been quietly heroic and richly deserving of SpongeBob's loyalty and the help of everyone else in town. But, thankfully, Squidward is NOT that kind of squid.

No, Squidward is grouchy, cantankerous and antisocial. And I love him. I love him so much I have a Squidward collection--molded plastic figurines from gumball machines; a stamper that came in an Easter egg; a TY Beanie Baby that keeps me company at my computer, when I can find him amid the clutter left behind by three teen boys and a tween girl.

Daughter-Only says, "Why do you like Squidward? He's mean!" There is some evidence for this argument: in his character description on the Nickelodeon site, "mean" is the first word they use. But I would say that "mean" is not exactly accurate. Squidward never goes looking for trouble. He doesn't seek out any of the nitwits in Bikini Bottom, they all find him. His description on the Nickelodeon site makes much of how "annoyed" he is by everyone and everything--I submit that everyone in Bikini Bottom is so annoying that being annoyed isn't a character defect, it's a perfectly logical response. So even though Squidward is a cartoon character and one who would no doubt find me as annoying as he finds everyone else in his life, I love him.

Masked Mom's One-Word Review: Genius.

I'm Pretty Sure This Isn't What The Folks At Hasbro Had In Mind...

Have you seen the Hasbro "Family Game Night" ad campaign? The commercials and print ads in which a cartoon family (which looks drawn by an eight-year-old but I'm sure there are child-labor laws and union rules against that) expound the virtues of setting a date and getting together once a week (or more!) to play (Hasbro) board games as a family.

My family--both the one I was born into and the one I've built--has always been big in the board game department so this campaign was mostly preaching to the choir where we're concerned. We're not excessively competitive--okay, I used to be, but I outgrew it and I hardly ever cheat at Monopoly anymore--we all just like to play.

Saturday night we were playing a new game with the kids called Balderdash. The game, alas, isn't made by Hasbro, but hopefully I still get cool mom points for Family Game Night--you know for following the spirit of the law if not the letter.

In Balderdash, for those non-geeks among us, you are given a word, phrase, etc for which you're supposed to make up a definition in hopes that someone else at the table will fall for your version, thus earning you points. In this particular round, we were supposed to be coming up with definitions for the acronym "D.E.B.E." The actual definition was "Does Everything But Eat," but I'm pretty sure everyone playing will only remember Son-Two's version: "Da Emergency Butthole Enlarger."

Masked Mom's Media Monday: Ghost Hunters

As mentioned in my frighteningly late Halloween post last November, I am a big fan of "Ghost Hunters" on Sci-Fi. I want to admit that up front so we can get rid of even the illusion of impartiality or an unbiased review right from the beginning. I love, love, love, love, love this show.

It's not just because of the possibility in every episode of freaky things caught on tape--though the freaky things they do periodically catch on tape are certainly a draw. It's more about the dynamics between the crew members. Both Jason and Grant, the co-founders of the group TAPS, whose investigations are chronicled on "Ghost Hunters," are very no-nonsense, matter-of-fact sorts and they employ a group of mostly similarly minded people. (The one exception is Brian who's so annoying and just--oh--annoying like you can't even imagine how annoying. And I always find myself wishing they'd get rid of him--which they actually have at least once before--but then I realize they're probably keeping him around for the tension he adds to each episode. Everyone else looks even better and more credible in comparison to Brian's whiny and annoying personality.)

The thing I like most about "Ghost Hunters" is that everyone on the show seems to be a rather reluctant "celebrity." It's likely that Jason and Grant approached the network with the idea or in any case, they were approached by producers to whom they said "yes." But a lot of the time, they seem rather sheepish and uncomfortable with the cameras--even now, well into the second year of filming. It's this every guy vibe that makes anything freaky they do catch on film even more credible.

As far as the freaky stuff--both Jason and Grant are enthusiastic debunkers. If they can find a remotely plausible, non-paranormal explanation for a "haunting" they are thrilled. (In one episode, the thumping a homeowner had attributed to ghostly spirits was discovered to be a drainpipe banging against a beam in the basment every time the sump pump came on--Jason and Grant, Roto-Rooter plumbers by day, were uniquely qualified to debunk that particular "haunting.") Jason, especially, will go to great lengths to avoid using the word "haunted." He even referred to it as the "h- word" in one episode. No matter how compelling the evidence seems to be, he will say all sorts of things like, "Is something going on? Definitely. Can I say that it's 'haunted'? I don't know." And don't even try to get him--or Grant, for that matter--to use the word "ghost." Which brings me to the only bone I can really pick with the show: Why do they call the show "Ghost Hunters" when the two "leading men" so rarely even use the word "ghost?" But I guess "Sump Pump Hunters" wouldn't draw quite the same audience, huh?

As I've told Cranky Boss Lady, and anyone else I can hold hostage long enough to listen, I'm well aware that everything on the show may someday be exposed as having been staged or doctored or whatever, but in the meantime, these seem like normal guys having a little fun chasing (and debunking) paranormal phenomena. And for as long as I'm invited along for the ride, I'm so going to be there.

Masked Mom's One-Word Review: Addictive

New episodes are currently playing on Sci-Fi Wednesdays at 9 p.m. (Eastern). They are running old episodes at 7 & 8 p.m. on Wednesdays as well.

A Mother of A Week

Mother's Day, like Valentine's Day, is a holiday I never really realized the scope of until I started working at the flower shop. At the shop, it's the mother of all holidays--our biggest week of sales all year long. It means 10 or 14 hour days for at least half the week and every one of those hours is go-go-go: arranging flowers, answering the phone, waiting on customers, organizing delivery runs. And this year, as an added bonus we had a wedding* and one of the local high schools had its prom Saturday, too. There's nothing like doing corsage work at 9 p.m. when you've been at work since 8 a.m. Which is why I haven't had time to really catch my breath this week, let alone visit anyone's blog, but it's over now and I spent Sunday resting up. (More than one customer inquired sweetly, "What are you doing for Mother's Day?" and it was all I could do not to say out loud, "Resting up from taking care of all your mothers.")

I literally slept until noon which is the greatest gift ever as far as I'm concerned. Hope all you moms out there had just as great a day as I did.

*Note to anyone out there planning a wedding or anyone who might be in a position to advise anyone planning a wedding--it's a good idea to avoid major floral holidays--especially Valentine's Day and Mother's Day. Despite our good intentions, it's likely you won't be getting our best work.

Masked Mom's Media Monday: Trent Willmon In Concert

A disclaimer: I don't get out much. The last performer I saw in concert was Paul "Everytime You Go Away" Young in 1987 in Providence, Rhode Island. (On the way home from that concert, I got stopped by a New Hampshire State Police cruiser ten feet over the NH state line for "harassing" a limo that we had been following all the way across the state of Massachusetts in hopes it might be Paul Young. It was not. It was Michael Dukakis--governor of Massachusetts & future presidential candidate on his way to Manchester, NH to announce his (doomed) candidacy. The state policeman said to me, "Have you been following that limo?" And I said, "Not on purpose, sir." He didn't give me a ticket, just held us up long enough for the limo to lose us--a car load of teenage girls hyped up on that most dangerous of drugs: adolescent hormones.)

The disclaimer about my inexperience in the world of live performances is necessary because I'm about to gush about seeing Trent Willmon Friday night. Trent is a country singer and not all that well known--but if there's any justice in the world, he will soon be better known. His self-titled debut came out in October 2004 and included the singles "Beer Man" and "Dixie Rose Deluxe's Honky-Tonk, Feed Store, Gun Shop, Used Car, Beer, Bait, Barbecue, Barber Shop, Laundromat." Those songs were cute, bouncy, yee-haw, twangy country songs. I liked them well enough to download them from iTunes, but not enough to seek out the album.

What an idiot I was--or, as I prefer to think, there must've been an idiot in charge of deciding what songs were released as singles from that album. My first clue that Trent Willmon had more range than the first two singles showed was his newest single "On Again Tonight," which is from his forthcoming album (6-13-06). This song was released sometime in March (or at least I downloaded it from iTunes March 22) and I love it, love it, love it. Musically, it's the perfect showcase for Willmon's voice, which is much richer and much less twangy than his first two singles would've had you believe. And lyrically--it's about that kind of relationship that we've probably all had at least once in our lives: the person we just can't leave alone even though we know it's going absolutely nowhere.

Based on this song, when I heard Trent Willmon was coming to town (to our rinky-dink, teeny-tiny, little town), I was definitely interested and when I heard the tickets were only ten dollars and that the proceeds benefited the elementary school playground fund, I plunked down my twenty bucks so Daughter-Only and I could go.

When we got to the high school parking lot, Willmon's bus was parked unassumingly in the corner of the lot. We parked ten or fifteen spaces up from it and sat watching a small group of men practicing roping skills in the corner of the lot. I would've never been able to pick Willmon out from the group if Daughter-Only hadn't pointed him out. (He'd been at the elementary school earlier in the day and performed an impromptu concert of three or four songs for the students.)

He definitely didn't radiate that aloof I'm-a-star (or even a wannabe star) attitude. Which is weird, because onstage? He was definitely star material. Even in our itty-bitty town in front of maybe 200 people in our scaled-down high school auditorium, Willmon and his band really gave it their all. I've always had a theory that the best performers--singers, actors, writers, artists of every stripe--are those who really enjoy what they're doing, who feel compelled to perform whatever the rewards. I would definitely put Willmon in that category--both live and on the album (which Cranky Boss Lady bought and I have repeatedly appropriated and listened to over and over again), Willmon sings every song like he really means it. He's either a really good fake or a sincere man with an amazing voice. (And we all know how I feel about great voices!)

So, the new album's out next month--June 13. I'm marking my calendar.

Masked Mom's One-Word Review: A keeper.*

*So, technically, that's two words, but I'm pretty sure Willmon is worth it.

PS--To MommaCW a.k.a. Blonde Best Friend From High School: remember that game we played on the beach in Maine? R-A-B? Willmon? Was definitely at least a 9. C'mon, isn't it a relief to know that some people (me) never grow all the way up? You're only young once, but you can be immature forever.

What's That Smell?

I've come here today to talk about air pollution. I'm not talking about the certifiably toxic air-polluting chemicals that would have been covered by the Clean Air Act and the Kyoto Accords if our government and the World Trade Organization hadn't worked so hard to reverse important parts of it because, after all, how crucial is breathable air when compared with net profits? I mean if the net profits are high enough, the wealthy will no doubt be able to buy clean air for themselves and their families--the rest of us be damned, but I digress. Worse, I digress in a way that might result in an FBI agent showing up at my door, which reminds me--sometime I'll have to blog about the time an FBI agent actually did show up at our door.

But for now let's talk about smells.

I live in an itty-bitty town tucked into the hills in south western New York State. We don't have smog to contend with or chemical factories belching noxious fumes or anything as drastic as that, so I suppose I should be grateful, but...

There's a restaurant in town whose hot dogs and special sauce are regionally famous. And I would never say a bad word about those hot dogs--especially not the kind of word that might constitute libel. But when they make up a batch of sauce, which I can only assume they make in 50-gallon drums, the smell hangs over town. Despite the deliciousness of the finished product, the pungent smell is not at all pleasant. I've heard it compared to sweaty gym socks, but to me it smells like school lunch leftovers. Every time they whip up a batch of sauce, I'm transported to the days of Mystery Meat with gray gravy served over a glob of instant mashed potatoes the color and consistency of half-hardened flour paste.

Back in the days when ketchup was not yet a vegetable, chicken nuggets hadn't yet been invented, and pizza was a once-a-month treat rather than a menu constant, everything the cafeteria served had that smell. And the smell lingered in the halls nearest the cafeteria in almost visible clouds and was embedded in the laminate table tops, which were almost like those scratch-n-sniff stickers except you didn't have to scratch, the smell just emanated from them in waves. (And, this is totally off subject--if there is, in fact, a discernible subject today, but those table tops were always, always, always sticky--no matter how frequently they were wiped. And they were never sticky in that, oh someone just spilled something on them way--they were sticky in that two decades of built up school lunch fumes way.)

So that smell hangs over that end of town on the days--a few times a week--when they make the sauce. I work right around the corner from the restaurant and on sauce days we shut all the windows and when we have to venture outside, we duck quickly into our vehicles to avoid inhaling any more than absolutely necessary.

At the other end of town, there is a smell from the other end of the scent spectrum--there's a candle factory which makes lovely candles in a variety of scents that individually I'm sure are heavenly. But when you combine random scents willy-nilly and vent those smells to the outside world, aromatherapy becomes aromatorture. I live downwind of the candle factory and on windy days or on humid days when the air doesn't seem to be circulating much at all, the scent reminds me almost but not quite of Avon's Skin-So-Soft original scent by the tanker truckful. Again, a cloying scent that hangs so heavy you can almost see it.

What's great is the days when the candle factory is really pumping it out and the restaurant is making their sauce and somewhere between home and work those two scents merge with the added fried doughy smell from Dunkin' Donuts and a wave of nausea hits that reminds you of the morning-sickness-all-day-long days of pregnancy and then you finally stumble in to work and there are two customers standing in the front room--one is a guy with his cow-doo covered barn boots on and the other is a woman who has apparently been bathing in cologne from the dollar store.

Who says small town life isn't entertaining?

Masked Mom's Media Monday: Mini Review

In spite of my penchant for pointless patter, I'm keeping it short today since the Perfect Post awards sorta kinda count as a review--in my humble (and, since it's my blog, all important) opinion.

I just wanted to say I'm halfway through Son of a Witch and I utterly, truly, truly, utterly heart Gregory Maguire. And I don't usually heart anything even things I really, really, really love. But Gregory Maguire and Wicked and Son of a Witch--I heart you all.

PP for April (And Don't Even Get Me Started on the Where The Hell Did April Go? Thing!)

It's that time of the month again. No, not that time of the month that makes everyone in my family hide in their closets quivering in fear just waiting for Mom's PMS to pass--no, luckily for them, it's just Perfect Post time.

This month, my Perfect Post award goes to Little Miss for her post Humpty Dumpty. Not only did she combine two topics near and dear to any mom's heart--nursery rhymes and migraines--she topped it off with the most wonderful drugged-up picture of herself and made all of us almost jealous about whatever magical drugs she was on when the picture was taken. Too bad we can't get the drugs and the rest in a quiet room without the migraines, huh?

So here's my button--



And, Little Miss, it's all yours!

Masked Mom's Media Monday: John Corbett

Masked Mom, it is probably no surprise to learn, is a fan of alliteration and, as you've also no doubt learned if you've been around much, Masked Mom loves an excuse to babble. If, therefore, Masked Mom were to come up with an idea (say, at 2:34 a.m., when sensible people are otherwise asleep but Masked Mom's brain, for some unknown* reason, has been whirring and buzzing at an alarming rate (and, unfortunately, not in any productive way) ), an idea which combined both her affection for alliteration and her passion for pointless patter, she would have practically no alternative but to inflict it upon you, her faithful reader(s)--all five of you.

And so--the debut of Masked Mom's Media Mondays in which Masked Mom brings to the table a completely unqualified voice on books, magazines, movies and music--some current, some dug out from under a pile of moldering paperbacks in her attic. As the old saying goes, I may not know art but I know what I like and I also know what I don't like and in a fit of generosity (and excitement over the chance to babble MORE) I will share it all with you, my faithful reader(s)--all five of you.

So John Corbett...in the '90s he was Chris Stevens, the smooth-voiced, ever-searching-for-enlightment, hot-as-hell-in-a-whiny-sensitive-but-not-too-whiny-or-sensitive-type-way DJ on Northern Exposure and, more recently, the groom in My Big, Fat Greek Wedding and, even more recently, some love interest of Carrie's on Sex and The City, a show which I've never seen but which has so permeated the public consciousness that I still somehow know the main characters' names...that John Corbett released a self-titled country music CD on April 4th.

I was walking by the TV one morning last month and literally did a double take because there was John Corbett, riding horses and hoisting bales of hay and singing his heart out. I liked the song--"Good to Go"--well enough, but probably wouldn't have bought the whole album without hearing a little more of it. Cranky Boss Lady shows no such restraint, though, and she preordered the album from our local music store. (The owner of the store, R, commented to CBL that he had been told more than once how much he (R) looks like John Corbett, which now that he mentions it, I can kind of see. But I think it's funny that R would mention it--I mean once (two decades ago) someone told me how I looked kinda like Sheena Easton, and I can't imagine that coming up in casual conversation, not least because it opens the opportunity for the other person to go, "Yeah, right!" More recently, I've been compared to Queen Latifah--and while I consider it a compliment (and I'm even reasonably certain it was meant as such), it's a long way from Sheena Easton to Queen Latifah. Ah, the ravages of time...)

I've heard the whole album five or six times and read the customer reviews on Amazon. More than one of the reviews says something along the lines of "If you like country music, you'll like this," which is funny to me because I don't really think this CD is all that country--not in the twangy, yee-haw tradition of country anyway. (For the record, Hubby disagrees and begged off after song 4, complaining he'd had enough "twang" for one day. Twang tolerance is a very subjective thing, I guess.) Of course, in a world where Bon Jovi is at the top of the country music charts, I guess lots of things are up for grabs.

I like the album, but I don't like it like it. I will not be listening to it compulsively the way I have some of the other albums I've bought even recently--I always thought I'd grow out of that playing an album over-and-over thing, but it hasn't happened yet. This album is not that kind of album--it's the perfect background music, not too distracting--but nothing in it really jumps up and grabs your attention, makes you say, "Hey! Let me hear that again." The way I figure it, though, the fact that it's not actively annoying (as some actors' forays into music have been) is a pleasant surprise and worth the ten bucks (especially since those bucks weren't mine).

Masked Mom's One-Word Review: Harmless.



*The reasons (at least some of them) are actually known, but in an effort to avoid foisting my stress, despair, and random freakouts upon my unsuspecting public (all five of you), I've decided (in a rare fit of discretion) to keep the reasons (known & unknown) to myself.

Easter Eggspectations & A Pointless (Musical) Aside About the IRS

As the parents of four (beloved but increasingly loud, large, and hungry) children, Hubby and I can probably be forgiven for casting a wary eye upon a holiday whose symbolism--eggs, bunnies, chickies, lambs--was derived from ancient fertility rites*. Sure, those symbols in our modern world are increasingly commercial and it's unlikely that plastic eggs and synthetic furry bunnies are somehow going to tap into a supernatural stream of fertile energy, but you can't really blame us for not wanting to take any chances.

Luckily for us then, the boys are all well past the age where they care one way or the other about mythical bunnies and baskets of chocolate. We still go through the motions with them--a "basket" (we've never actually done real baskets, preferring instead to give them crates or tubs or something else that will have a use for the whole rest of the year--something for organizing the gababigzillion little metal cars and plastic blocks of practically microscopic size they once amassed, but anyway a "basket") with a gifty or two and a handful of processed sugar products. So cynical and jaded are they that Son-One and Son-Three asked that their gift be subscriptions to an online video game and Son-One actually printed the receipts himself for their baskets. Son-Two asked for the cash.

Daughter-Only, at almost twelve, also doesn't believe in giant, hopping, gift-and-candy-giving bunnies, but nevertheless is reluctant to let go of "Easter traditions"--like coloring and finding eggs and finding their hidden (by Mom) baskets. She gave me a big speech on the subject on Friday, titled "Why Easter is Ruined." She informed me that since she doesn't really like candy very much and since the boys won't color eggs or hunt for them with her and since I won't hide the baskets (on the grounds that there's so much clutter around here we might never find them), Easter is completely pointless** and ruined for her. When I tried to explain that the boys thought they were too "grown up" for that kind of thing and that it was only natural and not something she should take personally, she said, huffily, "Well, if I was the oldest, I would still do all the traditions for the sake of the younger kids."

I have no doubt that she would do those things for a younger sibling if there were one (and please, powers that be, don't misinterpret that as a wish for a younger sibling) because the truth is it's not just about age or maturity but about something in her very nature. She loves holidays and all the traditions associated with them in a way that her brothers (not to mention her parents, poor kid) never really did at any age.

We're talking about a kid who, on the night before Ground Hog Day, when she was six, set her alarm an hour early and then couldn't sleep for fear the alarm would malfunction or she wouldn't hear it and would then (gasp!) miss the live coverage of Punxsutawney Phil deciding whether or not to stay out of his electrically heated burrow. (And, by the way, how can we be sure it's his shadow that scared him and not the glare of the lights and cameras from all the morning news shows covering the "event?")

This enthusiasm is mostly endearing but I do worry about her. Her expectations for these "special" days are just so high and, unfortunately and guilt-inducingly, out of proportion with the reality she's actually living. So often does her non-celebratory family let her down that she has started a holiday tradition of her own: as Son-One pointed out two Christmases ago, "She cries on every holiday!" And not generally tears of joy, either--tears of disappointment and frustration.

Okay maybe she doesn't cry on every holiday, but it's closer to every one than I even want to think about. And guilt aside (where it never stays for long, as any mom can tell you), I think the problem is as much with her as it is with us, her Scroogey family. It's not merely that we're not excited or enthusiastic enough it's that we're not the perfect family--not even for these special days that dot our calendar each year.

I'm a big crusader against unrealistic expectations--I think all sorts of things can be blamed on them from credit card debt (we expect to be able to live like the people on TV even though our budget is decided by real-life economics and not a team of writers and studio execs and we expect the things we buy to provide comfort) to marriages failing (we expect our relationships to be all hearts and flowers and mush and gush or just expect it to be so much less work than it ends up being).

I'll tell you one thing, though, it's a lot harder to crusade against them when they appear in the form of your eleven-year-old daughter's chronically broken heart. So, this year, we struck a compromise--since she said she would keep the traditions alive for younger kids, we invited her youngest cousins over (whose mother, my sister-in-law, says, "I'm not good at any of that.") to color eggs and hide them in the backyard. And, at least for Easter Eve, Daughter-Only was tear free. My second youngest niece, however, bawled her eyes out because her younger sister found more eggs than she did. Isn't it nice when a tradition can be handed down like that?

The Long-Awaited Pointless (Musical) Aside About The IRS (In Honor of Tax Day):

One day last week, I was on hold with the IRS--which isn't on anyone's Top 10 List of Favorite Places To Be. I mean the IRS is no fun and being on hold sucks in any case--so being on hold with the IRS can't help but be a spectacularly ungood time, right?

You'll be happy, but perhaps unsurprised to know that the IRS, in what was clearly an attempt to make an unpleasant situation more so, has provided music to entertain waiting taxpayers. The musical accompaniment during my call was "The Flight of the Bumblebee". I know almost nothing about classical music--it's got no words so as a word geek, it's not of much use to me. I do know "The Flight," though and it's always inspired a clawing anxiety in me.

Have you ever seen someone who is so freaked out by the possibility of being stung that the very sight of a bee sends them screaming in a tizzy just as likely to cause the bee to sting them as to prevent the bee from doing so? That's exactly how I feel about the music in "The Flight of the Bumblebee." I realize that's probably an extreme reaction, but it isn't what most people would consider a soothing piece of music. All I could imagine was the effect it might have on someone who was waiting to hear bad news; someone who was already freaking out just a little might be pushed completely over the edge by the strains of that damned bumblebee.

When I told Cranky Boss Lady that the hold music was "The Flight of the Bumblebee," she said, "Is that because they're gonna sting you?"

So maybe it's not malicious--maybe it's just a friendly warning. Bzzzz.

*Not only are we not interested in any more children of our own, the children we do have are rapidly approaching (or at) the stage where they are physically capable of reproducing themselves and, therefore, fertility is a frightening concept on a whole other level.
**Yes, Daughter-Only and I both know that there is a "point" to Easter (The Resurrection) that doesn't involve food-grade dyes and shredded plastic "grass." For the purposes of our particular conversation, however, that point had little power.

A Letter From the Divine (Little) Miss M--

Dear Masked Mom,
I am supporting the March of Dimes by participating in WalkAmerica. Volunteers like you and me help raise funds that support lifesaving research to prevent premature births and infant mortality. Now in its 34th year, WalkAmerica gives moms and dads, grandmas and grandpas, family members and friends the opportunity to help the March of Dimes fight prematurity.

Premature birth is the leading cause of newborn death in the first month of life. It’s on the rise - up 27% since 1981. And it can happen to any pregnant woman. In nearly half the cases, the causes are unknown. The March of Dimes is leading the way to find answers by supporting research into the causes of premature birth.

We need your help - and so do America’s babies. Won’t you join me in this fight? Please visit my personal Web site to make a donation and learn more about the March of Dimes.

My personal web page address for donations is ...
http://www.walkamerica.org/littlemissfamily
Our mission is to improve the health of babies by preventing birth defects, premature birth, and infant mortality.
Click Now to sponsor me for WalkAmerica!

Thanks for your support! And please visit my website listed below.

Sincerely,Mandi (Little Miss) www.thelifeoflittlemiss.blogspot.com

p.s. please feel free to forward this message to anyone and everyone! Every little bit helps. ; )

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
All I have to add is great cause, great blog so go often, give what you can and pass it on!

Perspective, Courtesy of Goose Poop (or the Lack Thereof)

I was waiting at the bus stop Friday after my nieces and Daughter-Only had been picked up--waiting for Cranky Boss Lady who picks me up every morning even though I would just as soon walk and could invariably get to work earlier (on time!) if I did walk, but that's another whiny story for another whiny day, but while I was waiting a pair of geese flew just fifteen feet over my head. They were bickering in their honking way--probably because she wanted to stop and ask for directions and he kept insisting he wasn't lost so why should he stop?! Anyway, for the few seconds they were directly over my head, I was absolutely certain one of them was going to let loose on my head and I knew exactly the extent to which that would ruin my day. For those seconds, I harbored images of dumping boiling water on my head to rid myself of the ick factor as much as to remove any lingering bacteria. Not only is goose poop poop, it's big gigantic poop, slimy and green with chunks in it. Oh, goose poop is just soooo wrong.

But the important point turns out to be not goose poop but the extent to which I borrow trouble on a regular basis, the habit I have of worrying about things that never happen. Granted, I didn't expend more than a few seconds worth of energy on the goose poop possibilities, but it was a reminder to me of how often I do waste minutes, hours, days worrying about things that never really happen. I think some worry is good and necessary--it helps us prepare and avoid disaster and all that, but there's got to be some way to strike a healthy balance. I, of course, have no idea how to strike that balance, and if anyone does, please feel free to let me know. You can usually find me under my blankets in a quivering mass freaking out over eventualities that will never come to pass.

On a lighter note, when Son-Two was six or seven, a bird actually did poop on him, not on his head, but on his leg. He came running in the house and said, in front of company, "Mom, a bird shat on my leg!"

Now, it's fairly easy for me to figure out where he might've picked up a word like "shit" because well, you know, the occasional four-letter word has slipped out of my mouth over the years. But, to this day, I have no idea where he picked up the little-used past tense of a swear word. I do know it was adorable and hysterically funny to everyone assembled.

And, though I might have worried that such arcane knowledge (and the willingness to use it in public) would doom Son-Two to being a friendless loner--just for a few minutes, mind you--that has so far not come to pass.

That's All, Nothing Else

Falling back may be pointless and annoying, but springing forward is simply inhumane.

It is cruel and unusual punishment.

I heard someone say, "Try explaining to your dog that he's supposed to wait an hour to go." It's been my experience that dogs--and kids--don't really understand this arbitrary tinkering with time and it's not because they're simple-minded or not (yet) mentally astute enough to understand the intricacies of Daylight Saving--it's because it doesn't make a damn bit of sense!

That's all, nothing else.