Perfect Post For October: What Have You Done For Me, Lately?

In the midst of all the economic madness, Jenn over at Breed 'Em and Weep has written a smart and funny post on the economy that really goes to the heart of a lot of the problems we're having--and have been pretending not to have for a long time--in this country.

So for making me laugh--and making me think--and hopefully making others think, here's my button--


And, Jenn, it's all yours.

See other winners at Suburban Turmoil and Petroville.

Why I Love Living In A Small Town

Yes, we have our share of paranoid bigotry. Yes, it can get kind of claustrophobic when it feels like everyone is in your business--even people you barely know. And it does get kind of boring seeing the same faces over and over again. (Seriously...I've lived here so long that even the people I don't know by name I can see from behind and know what they're going to look like when they turn around.) There's a distinct lack of job opportunities and, certainly the medical care options are rather limited, not to mention the shopping options, if you're the kind who likes to shop.

But. There are trade-offs. For example:

Phone rings at the flower shop the other day. I answer and the woman on the other end says, "Hi, this is So-and-So at the Mini Mart. I'm looking for the lady that buys the Diet Dr. Pepper."

"That's me..."

"When you were in here earlier, did you pump your gas? You paid for gas, but did you remember to pump it?"

"Crap. I don't think I did. In fact, I'm pretty sure I didn't."

"Yeah, we didn't think you did either. So we just wanted to let you know your money's here whenever you want to come get your gas."

When you're as dizzy and disorganized as I have become, having other people minding your business makes all the difference in the world.

Because Old Masochists Never Die...

...they just keep coming back for more.

It's National Blog Posting Month again (already! dang!). I've taken the challenge of NaBlo--posting every day for the month of November--two years in a row. The first year, I managed--squeaking by just barely a couple of the days. Last year, I NaBlew it on the last day--with the assistance of a couple of miscommunicating telecommunications company customer service representatives. Never one to turn down the opportunity to torture myself, I'm giving it a try again this year even though I'm still staggering beneath the significant burden of a "hi-speed*" dial-up Internet connection.

Wish me luck.

*By which I mean really-really-slow-28K-on-a-good-day dial-up.

There Oughta Be A Surgeon General's Warning

So there's this site that takes two of my favorite things--blogs and quotations--and smushes them together in a wildly addictive fashion. It's called Blogtations and this week, there's a quote from my blog. But that's not why I'm telling you about Blogtations--I'm not so vain and shallow and approval-seeking as to need to call attention to myself in that fashion (Ha! Like I'd even HAVE a blog if I weren't vain, shallow and approval-seeking).

No, I'm telling you about Blogtations because Blogtations is having a 500th quote party and simply by telling you about Blogtations and showing you my favorite quote from the site, I could win a $50 Amazon gift certificate.

To review: Not vain, shallow and approval-seeking. But greedy, definitely greedy. (Greedy, yes, but generous enough to point out that anyone can play the 500th quote party game. The rules are here.)

So Blogtations. Quotes from blogs. It's pages and pages (almost 500, hence upcoming 500th quote party) of delicious nuggets of brilliance and wisdom and hilarity and I compulsively clicked through the alphabetized categories when I should be doing something more constructive. Picking a favorite is like trying to pick a favorite finger--if you had almost 500 fingers and they all lived on the Internet, independent of you.

After much agonizing deliberation, I settled on this quote:

"The heart makes its own choices, we simply decide whether or not to follow through with them..." from the blog Dragonfly Dreaming (whose post today is about sex addiction so click with caution).

...because it seemed to apply to so many things--including selecting a favorite from almost 500 quotations.

Anyway, whether you play the game or not, you definitely should check out the site. It's a bunch of great stuff from blogs distilled into one compulsively clickable format.

Politics With Fifth Graders

When it comes to politics, I'm pretty much a preach to the choir kind of girl--never unleashing the full fury of my opinions on anyone I'm not reasonably sure agrees with me (or at least is bound, by law or genetics, to tolerate me). It may seem a little chicken-shit, but I've learned the hard way that it preserves important business and personal relationships. Odds are you're not going to change anyone's mind so the frustration level is just not worth it.

The other morning, though, I was lured into a discussion of politics by the unlikeliest of fellow conversationalists: two fifth graders. On Tuesdays, I help a friend cover a child care gap by sitting with two eleven-year-olds (one hers and one her sister's) and two eight-year-olds (one hers, one her sister's) for twenty minutes or so until their bus comes. Somehow during the usual morning stuff, Eleven-Year-Old Boy was talking about some celebrity he didn't like and I said, "Yeah, he's not on my list of favorite people."

Eleven-Year-Old Boy says, "Yeah, there's a lot of people not on my list of favorite people...like the president for example."

Then me: "Yeah, he's definitely not on my list of favorite people..."

We're interrupted by Eleven-Year-Old Girl who says, "You know there's going to be an election soon so we won't have to put up with President Bush much longer." Then, warming to the topic, speaking in that breathless way unique to adolescent (and slightly pre-adolescent) girls. "I guess I don't really care who gets elected except my grandma says if Barack Obama gets elected white people are doomed."

Wow. Just wow. What the hell am I supposed to say to that?

While I'm formulating my reponse--looking for something non-committal that will still somehow convey that I don't agree at all without saying something that might offend her family members should it get back to them (which means not using the words "paranoid bigot" which were actually the first thing to pop into my head)--Eleven-Year-Old Boy slings his backpack over his shoulder, looks me dead in the eye and says with a slightly raised eyebrow, "Hillary Clinton has a penis."

I sputter, "Um...uh...good to know." (I mean what the hell?!)

Eleven-Year-Old Girl, suddenly the voice of wisdom, says, "We really didn't need to hear that."

Eleven-Year-Old Boy says, "Well it's true! I heard it on Family Guy. If you pay really close attention you'll hear it on one of the episodes."

So, from the show featuring a talking baby with a subtle yet inexplicable British accent and an IQ higher than everyone in his family combined but who is still somehow not potty trained and whose companion is a talking dog who's almost as smart as the baby yet still hangs out with this whacked-out family, Eleven-Year-Old Boy has gleaned the apparently inarguable information that Hillary Clinton has a penis.

Before we could get into a discussion about whether or not Hillary actually does have a penis, and in what way that might affect her ability to serve as president (would men be doomed? women? Or, because she's a woman with a penis, neither? Or maybe both?), the bus came.

What really scares me is not eleven-year-olds thinking these things, but the adults--in their lives and elsewhere--who are thinking the same way.

(Dis)Comfort Food

Like many bloggers, I have a meter attached to my blog that measures hits, lets me know where people are logging on from, and, most entertainingly, allows me to see what search may have led them to my blog. Unlike many bloggers, the searches around here are pretty pedestrian, with "neglected husband" and "uvula stuck to tonsil" vying for first position and "Carole Radziwill" coming in a solid third. The Top Ten is rounded out by seemingly random things like "Jill Taylor, meteorologist" and "long-lost boyfriend."

The other day, though, I noticed a hit from Burlington, Ontario, where someone had apparently searched for "hamster instant mashed potatoes."

Let me say that again: hamster instant mashed potatoes*.

WTF** doesn't even begin to cover it.

*You may wonder, as I did, what I had ever written that would lead someone looking for "hamster instant mashed potatoes" to my blog. The answer is I mentioned hamsters in one post and then instant mashed potatoes in two entirely separate posts.

**Daughter-Only's catchphrase of the week: "WTF and a half?!" comes a little closer.

Unattainable

I have a close friend who, like many of us, is juggling a demanding job, husband, children (two teenage daughters and a five-year-old son), plus all the push and pull of her extended family. Unlike me at least, she always seems fairly together:
nicely dressed, appropriately accessorized. Even though she's being yanked in a dozen different directions by the demands of her life and she's always hurrying from one thing to another, she projects an air of confidence and professionalism that I'm sure serves her well in all the different roles of her life.

This, however, is not the story of how she "does it all" in heels and the perfect shade of lipstick. This is the story of what happens when the facade cracks. She's always very together--right up until she's not. I've known her for fourteen years and can count those times on one hand. One of the times she "fell apart" involved sucking her engagement ring into one of those industrial vacuums at a car wash. There followed frantic phone calls and several hours of general hysteria before the ring was retrieved. This is the story of a different time.

As part of her job, she frequently travels within the region to give presentations to various groups. Recently, she was asked to drive to a city about an hour and a half from home to give a forty-five minute presentation on a Saturday. After the presentation, she would be done for the day so she brought along her husband and son, thinking they could have lunch together and maybe see a movie--make a day of it. And, as a bonus, she could drive the company car and not have to pay for gas.

She dropped husband and son off at a nearby mall and went to the hotel where she would be giving her presentation. She told them she would meet them back at the same entrance in an hour or so.

The presentation went smoothly and as she was gathering her things she realized she should probably make a stop in the ladies room before she left for the mall. While in the restroom, she somehow managed to drop the car key in the toilet. This is the key to the company car, mind you.

She's sitting there, contemplating her options. She realizes almost immediately that the only option is reaching in for it. After all, it's the key to the company car, she's stranded an hour and a half from home, not to mention her husband and son stuck at the mall waiting for her, and her cell phone is locked inside the company car because she never brings it in during presentations. So even though it's icky*, she takes a deep breath, stands up and...the toilet is an automatic flusher and the key is gone.

I imagine there was a moment of staring in awe and wonder at the toilet before she went to find the contact woman from the hotel who had helped her with the presentation earlier. While they were waiting for maintenance to see if there was any way to get the key back, it suddenly occurred to my friend that her husband and son were still at the mall, probably on their way to the entrance to meet her so she borrows the hotel lady's phone and calls her husband. She says, "The hotel shuttle is going to pick you guys up."

He says, "Why? What's wrong?"

She says, "Nothing. But the car is locked and the key is...um...unattainable."

"Unattainable? What do you mean unattainable?"

"Uh, it's just, um, unattainable. I'll explain later..."

Give her credit--she did explain later--not only to her husband but to everyone at work, where they all laughed hysterically. And then she told me, so I could laugh hysterically and now I've told you. Laughing hysterically is strictly optional, but she really went to a lot of trouble so it might be nice if you could at least titter politely.

*Doesn't "even though it's icky" strike you as the awesomest motto for parenthood EVER?

A PS to Brunette Best Friend from high school--I know, I know, you have a way better locking something in the car story. But it still (24 YEARS later!) makes me wince to talk about that...

Signs of the Apocalypse

Forget, for a moment, the global economic crisis.

Forget wars and famine and disease.

Forget the upcoming elections which feel like a matter of life and death.

Forget, even, that the Republican party has so little regard for the American public that it nominated someone wholly unqualified (and as we get to know her better, it would seem completely unsuited) as its vice presidential candidate.

John Mellencamp and Stephen King are collaborating on a musical together.

If it gets any scarier than that, I don't want to know about it.

Do You Really, Really Want To Haunt Me?

[We now return you to your regularly scheduled program of ghost stories. The last one was more story than ghost. As you will see, the jury's still out on this one:]

Unlike Daughter-Only, Son-Two has always approached conversations about potential ghostly goings-on with a sort of open-minded skepticism. He believes in "hauntings" generally while viewing reports of specific incidents through a cautious--even dubious--lens. Daughter-Only's breathless exaggerations of her experiences instigated much eye-rolling on Son-Two's part. Even Son-One's much more reserved accounting of flashing lights in the dark hallway was greeted with a shake of the head and Son-Two's standard pronouncement: "Bullshit."

Son-Two also rejects any woo-woo explanations--those involving "lost souls" stuck between the Here and the There, for example--in favor of the likelihood that "ghostly" activity is something perfectly logical and natural that just can't yet be explained by science. (In much the same way that we once experienced the effects of germs without being able to isolate and identify them, Son-Two thinks that these unexplainable activities will one day be attributed to something we can't yet measure or define.)

His scientific approach served him well on the night in question. Someone less scientific might have run screaming from the room.

A little after 11 one night toward the end of summer, Hubby and I were reading in bed when Son-Two knocked on the door. He looked around our room and shook his head.

"Okay. This is really weird. I've been hearing this weird noise and I thought maybe your fan was on and the noise was just carrying into my room in some weird way. But the fan's not on."

He went on to explain that he had been lying in bed in the dark for the last ten minutes listening to what sounded like breathing about two feet from his head. It was like breathing, but he could only hear the puff of the exhale--not panting, just a slow rhythmic "huh." For ten minutes. Next to his head.

At first he thought it was his own fan. Maybe the motor had gone and the blade wasn't turning and the noise he could hear was the straining of the blade...or something. So he checked--his fan was unplugged. Got back in bed--more breathing.

It was too steady and rhythmic to be the wind. So then he thought of the fan in the bathroom. But that wasn't on. And, finally, the fan in our room--also not on.

Hubby--possibly the only person more skeptically open-minded in our house than Son-Two--jumped up to investigate. After a few minutes of dead (ha ha) silence in Son-Two's room, Hubby shrugged and offered this (decidedly unscientific) hypothesis: "The only thing I can think of is that there was some kind of animal out on the porch roof. Maybe it smelled Son-Two and was just curious."

If curious possums panting from the porch roof outside Son-Two's window is the best debunking we can do, I'm thinking we might have to roll out the "h-word" after all.

Intermission II: More Politics, This Time Without The Threat of Poop, Pelican or Otherwise*

During a conversation last weekend with Son-Two (who called from college to discuss politics, of all things), he said he thought Palin was going to "get toasted" in Thursday night's debate.

In response, I said, "Yeah, she's Political Barbie."

Hubby sitting nearby deadpanned, "After Thursday's debate, it's going to be more like Political Barbecue."


*The promised absence of poop in no way implies the absence of crap which is an entirely different thing and seemingly unavoidable in politics.

**Before you cry sexism please note that I am not calling her "Barbie" simply because she's a woman. I am calling her a Barbie because she seems to me to have been chosen for her spunky, perky cute-tough persona rather than anything of any substance whatsoever. I don't believe for one second that women should be judged on a higher standard than men, but neither should we get a pass simply because of our gender. With something as vital as the presidency it's especially important to be sure that no one is so dazzled by the gender of a candidate that they forget to ask the questions that really matter--and actually listen to the answers not be impressed by the kind of one-liners^ Palin dished out at the Republican convention. Stumbling down off the soapbox now...

^One-liners not unlike those that a '90's edition of Barbie said when you pulled a string on her back. The most famous one was something like "Math is hard." or something like that and lots of people got mad then because that was enforcing a stereotype that girls aren't good at math. I didn't really think it was enforcing anything other than that Barbie thought math was hard which only makes sense since she's a friggin' doll, for cryin' out loud.

Intermission: Is This What They Mean By Animated Discussion?

Last night Hubby and I watched Nim's Island immediately followed by the DVR recording of Friday night's presidential debate.

Later I woke in the middle of the night from a dream in which the CGI pelican from the movie, Galileo, had circled over the candidates, chattering and cawing at particularly ridiculous remarks.

At least he signaled his displeasure verbally...because the only thing more unpleasant than politics as usual is politics with pelican poop on it.

Do You Really Want To Haunt Me?

Considering my previously professed passion for Sci-Fi Channel's Ghosthunters, it should come as little surprise that when we were househunting last year, one of the criteria we actually discussed was the likelihood of a given house being haunted. Lacking the equipment of the TAPS team and absent a category on the real estate listings web sites*, we had only the age of the house to go on. We figured the older a place was, the more souls that were likely to have passed through it and, therefore, the more likely it was that one or two of them had hung around.

Ghosty geek that I am, the higher our chance of sharing a place with ghosties, the more ready I was to sign a lease. In fact, on Daughter-Only's first tour of this house as we came to the bottom of the stairs with Hubby right behind us and I said, "And the best part is that it was built in 1900 so it stands a pretty good chance of being haunted."

Daughter-Only had just enough time to roll her eyes at her mother's dorkiness when we heard a long and loud noise from the room above us--a room we had just left and which, as far as we could tell, was empty.

The nature of the noise was a matter of much debate among the three of us. Hubby maintained that it sounded like a pinecone rolling down the roof--theoretically dropped by one of the gazillion squirrels we'd seen outside. Daughter-Only and I argued that it sounded more like someone dragging a dresser or some other heavy piece of furniture across a bare wood floor. It was too long, too loud and too close to have been a pinecone bouncing down the roof. Hubby countered that it must've been a branch scraping the side of the house. Daughter-Only and I put this notion to rest by pointing out that though the house is surrounded by large trees, the closest branches were several feet from the house. We generously granted that a strong wind might bring the smallest branches into contact with the house but it was a calm day outside and the noise we'd heard couldn't have been made by the twig-like branches that were closest to the house.

I've learned from Ghosthunters that it's best not to jump to conclusions--and from Jason in particular--to use the "h word" sparingly (almost grudgingly) so I told the boys not that we were haunted but that we might have some "activity."

The first few weeks we lived here seemed to support my theory with reports coming from all the family members (except of course Hubby, that party pooper)--jiggling doorknobs, a computer that repeatedly connected itself to the (dial-up) Internet, weird noises and, most notably, the shower coming on in the middle of Daughter-Only's bath. Since most of these things could be explained by normal, as opposed to paranormal, explanations, the boys and I continued to withhold judgment--and the "h word."

Daughter-Only was a little less reserved in her assessment. Along with Oldest Niece, she had found a trunk full of keepsakes in the attic. They belonged to a man named Bill--our best guess is that Bill's father built this house. Bill was apparently quite a player--there were photos of several women in a wallet and dates on letters from at least two of the women overlap.

In any case, Oldest Niece and Daugther-Only became convinced (half-jokingly) that Bill was responsible for all the mischief around the house. This despite the fact that there was no evidence whatsoever that Bill was even dead. In fact, based on dates they'd found, Bill was probably around 71 and statistically just as likely to be among the living as to be taunting my family with silly pranks barely worth mentioning.

Daughter-Only rejected that possibility and began telling everyone she knew about our ghost, Bill. Once, she even called home from a friend's house and left a message on our answering machine for Bill.

When it came to preserving Bill's reputation as a bona fide spirit, Daughter-Only was not above helping Bill out a little. A common tactic was to conceal one accomplice (friend or cousin) in a closet while telling a wide-eyed story to the others about all the knocking and tapping she'd heard from Bill. Cue knocking and tapping and, more often that not, screaming and giggling.

Though no one had seemed traumatized, I warned Daughter-Only that she was going to end up really scaring someone someday. Maybe she would've actually paid attention if she'd realized the traumatized person would end up being her.

Early in the spring Daughter-Only was deathly ill and had stayed home from school. She was there alone with the dogs and ferrets. She called me at work, speaking barely above a whisper, clearly terrified. "Mom, um, I was feeling better? And, uh, I put the dogs outside so I could kick my soccer ball down the upstairs hall? And my ball bounced all the way down the stairs and into the dining room and I was going down to get it when Son-Two's bedroom door started rattling really, really hard--like someone was trying to get out of it!"

I asked her if she was okay and where she was. She was on the sofa hiding under a blanket. I asked her what she thought it was--did she think it was an actual human being? She did not. She knew it would've been virtually impossible for someone to get to the second-story bedroom without alerting the dogs.

I told her I'd be right there and that she could bring the dogs in for company and protection if it would help. I even said,

"Remember, whatever it is, it can't hurt you."

She said, "I know, but it's still scary."

I hung up and explained to Cranky Boss Lady that I needed to go home--to my haunted home--because Daughter-Only was (apparently justifiably) completely freaked out.

Just then, it hit me that Son-Two had told me that morning that he had slept with his window open the night before. It was incredibly windy that day so obviously--mystery solved.

Needless to say, Daughter-Only was nowhere near as amused by the episode as I was. It probably didn't help things that the main reason she was so terrified was that she had swallowed her own paranormal propaganda whole.

In the case of Son-Two, who had his own experience a few months after this one, there was no propaganda swallowing, whole or otherwise. Stay tuned next time for that story.

*For example: Bedrooms: 5, Baths: 1 1/2, Lot Size: 1.08 acres, Spooks: 2, but they mostly keep to themselves.

Housepainting With Daughter-Only

D-O: Mom, I was gonna say, "I think you have paint in your hair." but then I realized it was just white hairs.

If there were any justice in the world, she'd have fallen off her step-stool laughing that hard.

What My Daughter Learned From The Olympics*

Was it good sportsmanship?

Geography?

Atheleticism?

The importance of working single-mindedly toward a goal?

No...

"Hey, Mom! If it wasn't for the Olympics, I never would've learned that Asian men don't have eyelashes."

*Masked Mom does not make any representation regarding the accuracy of anything Daughter-Only learned from watching the Olympics or elsewhere for that matter.

Three Wishes, or A Frightening Glimpse At My Current State of Mind

Coming home from work with Son-Three just now. As we pull in the driveway, he says, completely out of the blue, "If you had three wishes, don't you think you'd use one of them to know the words to every song ever written?"

This was seriously out of the blue--the conversation just before that had to do with a chick fight between two girls who just graduated with Son-Two. Nothing to do with songs or lyrics or even wishes. Were this coming out of a normal child's mouth, I might be at least a little concerned with the child's mental health, but this was Son-Three, who has a long history of saying random and completely odd things. (See: "What's the opposite of a moron?...A more off!" "What's the opposite of this nose [while pushing his nose up]?...THIS nose [while pushing his nose down]!") So far, for the most part, the weird and completely random things seem to be merely an indication of his ability and need to say weird and completely random things. So instead of worrying about his mental health at the moment, I'm concerned about mine.

What would my three wishes be? The lyrics of all the songs ever isn't a bad wish. But one of my wishes would, I hate to say it, be an endless supply of just enough money. I don't want to be filthy rich, just to have enough to not worry every single second. And as mentioned previously, I know that money doesn't solve every problem, but it would free up some of my mental resources to solve the other problems (for example, the problem of my third son randomly* saying things like, "Cereal is cereal and cereal is quiet. Cereal is cereal and cereal can't talk.")

I was thinking how great that would be, just to be able to relax a little, to breathe easier. And then it hit me that immediately after I made that wish along with my other two, I'm absolutely certain that the global economy would collapse and money would become an antiquated and worthless concept.

Yeah, things are pretty cheery here in Masked Mom's brain.

*Because random is pretty much the only way you can say something like that.

Twenty-One

Our marriage turned the legal drinking age today.

It intends to celebrate accordingly.

Don't Do The Dew

So Mountain Dew is having this big "Dewmocracy" promotion. They've introduced three new flavors, Dew drinkers are supposed to vote on which one they like best and at the end of the promotion only the most popular will remain.

I made the horrible mistake of taking a sip of the pinkish purple one ("SuperNova").

I was in the car with Son-Three, Son-Two and Daughter-Only. I said, "That tastes like feet!"

Son-Three took a sip (because the smart ones always want a sip of something someone else thinks tastes like feet) and declared it the best of the three. He said,"And it doesn't taste like feet..."

"Yeah," I said just as the medicinal aftertaste hit me. "You're right, it tastes like a cough drop rubbed on feet."

Needless to say, I won't be tasting Voltage or Revolution. And the only way I'm voting is if there's a line for "none of the above."

Evolution

Tonight's junior-senior prom at the boys' high school. Son-Three was unable to attend due to his girlfriend having a dance recital, which he must attend instead. After the recital they will be going to the official post-prom party sponsored by SADD, of which the girlfriend is a member. They've been together since November of last year--in high school years they're not only married but well past the honeymoon stage. The way Son-Three was grumbling about it you just knew the words "ball-and-chain" were right on the tip of his tongue (or they would've been if anyone who isn't hopelessly outdated actually used that phrase anymore).

Son-Two is attending with E.G., who happens to be the girl Son-Three "went out" with in eighth grade. First Son-One goes camping with Son-Two's ex-girlfriend and now this...clearly, high schoolers have really evolved since I was in school. I can't imagine smilingly accepting the fact that my sister was going to the prom (or on a camping trip) with my ex-boyfriend. I've tried to brush it off as a gender difference--girls are notoriously catty about this kind of thing. But it's just as hard for me to imagine Hubby finding out his brother was taking Hubby's ex-girlfriend to the prom.*

Our boys are unfazed by this sort of development and seem baffled by my bafflement. The other day, Son-One**, Son-Three, Daughter-Only and I were in the car after a tennis match, waiting rather impatiently while Son-Two and E.G. stood by the bleachers ironing out pressing prom details. I looked over at Son-Three and said, "Isn't this weird to you at all?"

And he said, "What?"

I said, "Oh, I don't know...first Son-Two goes out with A.C. sophomore year and then Son-One goes camping with her senior year. Then you go out with E.G., albeit in eighth grade, and now Son-Two is taking her to senior prom. But I guess that's just the kind of thing that happens in a small town."

Son-Three said, "Yeah, it's probably way worse in The Next Town Over, which is way smaller."

I smirked, "Yeah, over there, the same thing happens but the girl is their cousin!"

And then, building steam: "And over in The Even Smaller Town Two Towns Over, the same thing happens but the girl is a goat!"

They're apparently not too evolved to snort out loud at a very immature joke.


*I would've asked Hubby his opinion on the subject, but I've been married to him for almost 21 years and I already know that his response would have involved a discourse on how the question is impossible to answer because there is no way that any girl he was willing to go out with would EVER have been willing to go out with his dorky little brother.

**Home from college and pining for his current girlfriend--who, blessedly, is from Westchester County (all the way across the state) and has not yet dated either of his brothers.

Fly Away Home

So when we were first looking at this house last fall, I noticed a few ladybugs in between the glass and the screen in the dining room window. I pointed them out to Hubby and told him that I vaguely remembered that some culture or other (maybe someone in Asia?) considered ladybugs good luck. We took it as a sign--even though I didn't trust my memory 100% (and now that I have dial-up, Googling it is out of the question without tying up the phone for several days...).

Ladybugs may or may not be considered lucky in some Asian (or not) culture but when they're crawling in your ears or up your nose in the middle of the night, you can only wish you were lucky enough to have a gigantic can of Raid next to the bed. When their carcasses litter your bedroom floor after every semi-warm winter afternoon, even after attempts to vacuum out every nest from every nook and cranny, they no longer seem dainty or adorable. When you begin to feel a sense of unbridled glee at sucking up yet another colony of the little buggers, you know things have gone entirely too far. Despite the cutesy ambivalence of their name, when more than, say, ten or so ladybugs gather in the same place they begin to seem a lot less ladylike.

It has gotten better the past week or so--for reasons I don't completely understand--but for a while they were EVERYWHERE. I even found one--a flat one--in a library book I was reading in the bathtub.

But in this, as in all things, perspective is important. I was busy bemoaning our infestation when Cranky Boss Lady called me about an infestation of another sort at Other Kid's house. Other Kid's Mom (who is CBL's daughter) had just called her to say there was a bear in the back of her pickup truck. Apparently OKM had loaded her truck with stuff to take to the dump the next day--she has done this a million times and never had any problems. This time a big black bear crawled right over the side of her brand new pickup truck (scratches down to bare metal), dragged the cans out and up the side of the hill to the edge of the yard, where he proceeded to pick through the contents of each can before going back for the next one.

I imagine that the vacuum, my weapon of choice in the Ladybug War, would have been pretty useless against this particular pest--at the very least, I would've needed a much bigger attachment.

Is Blogging Just Like Riding A Bike? For That Matter, Is Riding A Bike Like Riding A Bike?

It's been a while but I'm just gonna get on, start pedaling and see where I go.

At least with blogging, I don't have to worry about skinned knees...

He's No Simon Cowell...And Maybe He Should Have His Hearing Checked

Whatever the future may hold for Other Kid, he definitely doesn't have what it takes to be a hard-assed judge on a TV talent show.

We were riding in the car together last weekend when Martina McBride's "This One's For The Girls" came on the radio. I was singing along--something I have a pathological compulsion to do when Other Kid piped up from the backseat: "Are you singing?"

Immediately self-conscious, I said, "Um, yes..."

"Well, did you make this song?"

Not sure now where he's going*, I say, hesitantly, "Um, no..."

"Well you sound EXACTLY like the lady on the radio."

(This post is dedicated to Pasta--an old friend from high school, not only because she recently nagged me about posting more often, but because she was there at the start of my belting it out in the car disorder--singing along to Huey Lewis, The Thompson Twins, Duran Duran and a host of other '80s pop stars while driving aimlessly around in the Wilds of New Hampshire.)

*One place he might have been going: the very same week the above exchange took place, Youngest Niece was sitting beside me while I was singing along to a Christina Aguilera song and she said, "Who sings this song?" And I said, "Christina Aguilera..." And she said, "Then let her do it." (This she learned from one of Second Niece's friends, apparently. Other Kid, obviously is less discriminating and doesn't run with quite such a cynical crowd.)

Perfect Post For February: Call Me Frances

Just after the birth of a baby, there's that moment in the hospital where the pen hovers over the birth certificate form and you want to be sure, really sure that the name you've chosen is the "right" one before setting it down in ink for the government wonks and all the world to see. In the case of Hubby and I, as I'm sure in the case of most parents, the names set down on those official pieces of paper were the result of endless hours of debate and not a little bickering--debate and bickering that often begin well before the birth and sometimes even before the pregnancy. Daughter-Only's name, for example, evolved throughout my earlier pregnancies--when we chose a girl's name only to have a boy and another boy and another boy. The name evolved slightly each time until we arrived at the name we gave Daughter-Only.

Years of work for a name that she had rejected twice by her eighth birthday. For a while, around the time she was four, she insisted upon being called Lisa. A perfectly nice name but not the name we had given her after literally years of effort. And we had no idea (nor do we still) where she came up with the name Lisa (the only possible connection I've been able to think of was The Simpsons, but we weren't fans at that point and I'm not at all sure how she could have heard it). All we do know is that for several weeks, she literally wouldn't answer to anything else.

The second name change made even less sense. One morning when she was six or seven, as she was gathering her backpack for school, she said, "I'm Dr. Ashklomash Coco Peppermint." That one lasted only a couple of days--probably because only she could pronounce it...

During both episodes, I couldn't help remembering when I was in fourth grade and decided my name should be "Frances." I didn't go so far as to insist on my family refering to me solely as Frances, but I did orchestrate a playground game in which we pretended to be from the planet Frantasty and everyone had to be named something that started with "Fran." We were a planet full of Franks and Francines and Franceses. I did it and have no logical explanation why my nine-year-old self wanted to be called what I considered an old lady's name even then. All I can say is that's the same year I went through a persistent, annoying and entirely gross phase of chewing on the ends of my hair.

In any case, Nita, over at Advanced Maternal Age is having name issues with Rio at the moment--issues that any parent (or anyone who wanted to be called "Frances" for no known reason) can probably identify with. She generously shares them in her post "My Name Is..." and in a second post "My Gears Are Grinding." So for a giggle and a trip down memory lane, here's my button:



And, Nita, it's all yours!

Browse other winners at Suburban Turmoil and Petroville.

Top Ten Symptoms Of Severe Sleep Deprivation

10. You are disproportionately amused by this 6:40 a.m. announcement on the radio: "Our random drawing name this morning is Harry Beaver of blah blah. Harry Beaver, if you call by 7, you'll receive blah blah blah. Once again, Harry Beaver, we must hear from you by 7 a.m."

9. This line from Steve Martin's Born Standing Up seems not only disproportionately brilliant but an alarmingly apt description of much of your life: "Through the years, I have learned there is no harm in charging oneself up with delusions between moments of valid inspiration."

8. You find Chuck Palahniuk's latest book Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey disproportionately moving and heartwarming despite the fact that practically every character and situation in the book is bizarre and disturbing to a point just this side of repugnant.

7. You find yourself disproportionately fascinated with the word "disproportionately."

6. Your "Top Ten" list is only five items long.

The Price of a Good Hair Day?

Daughter-Only says this morning: "Mom, my hair is the straightest* it's ever been, ever. But now I have a huge zit** and my throat hurts and we're out of hard candies so there isn't even anything to make it feel better."

*Straight constitutes great in Daughter-Only's mind. Like most girls who have a natural wave, she wants her hair straight while all the straight-haired girls are out there frying their hair to get a little curl in it.

**It wasn't huge. It was, in fact, barely noticeable. But I didn't point this fact out to her because I had no interest in hearing her tell me how I must be blind or that I have to say that because I'm the Mom, etc.

Ghosts of Christmas Future?

[I know I'm a little late with the holiday posts, but this slow Internet is kicking my poor blogging ass. Posting takes so long that it is now something that takes strategic planning ahead not something I can do in the ten minutes between when I roll out of bed and we have to get out the door. Anyone who knows me personally or even through the blog can attest that strategic planning ahead is not really in my nature. And, alas, ol' Saint Nick (in the form of a communications company of any sort) didn't come through with any options other than slower-than-death "hi-speed" dial-up. But in any case...here's a Christmas post.]

Christmas night (the night part of Christmas Day, as opposed to Christmas Eve), I am face-down in my pillow "zonked" as my mother used to say--probably snoring, definitely drooling, soundly, soundly asleep--when I'm awakened by a knock on the bedroom door. It is Son-Two coming to tell me, just a little after midnight, how much he loved the movie Failure To Launch which he just finished watching. For those unfamiliar with the movie, Matthew McConaughey's character is a thirty-something man who has lived at home so long that his parents enlist the help of Sarah Jessica Parker's character to trick him into moving out. Of course it ends up being a sappy romantic comedy but I couldn't help wondering if Son-Two was subconsciously trying to tell his mother something--like he has no plans to move out before his thirty-second birthday...?

In other Son-Two news, he continues to not (as the educational professionals are so found of saying) "work up to his potential." This is a subject with endless opportunities (if that's what you'd call them) for nagging on my part. One morning over Christmas break, we were on the way to his volleyball practice and I launched into a speech about how easy it is to get in the habit of expecting too little of yourself and how soon after you learn to accept too little from yourself you start to really doubt your ability to turn things around and it becomes a vicious black hole of low expectations and even lower rewards, making it clear all the while that I was speaking from a vast well of personal experience.

As we pulled up in front of the school, Son-Two deadpans, "Thanks for the pep talk."

I said, "That was no pep talk. It was a cautionary tale. It was a rare opportunity to learn from someone else's mistakes."

If I've learned anything from my own mistakes it's that learning from another's mistakes is as rare as eyebrows on an egg. And if I've learned anything from Hollywood romantic comedies, it's hire Sarah Jessica Parker to lure your adult son out of his cozy nest (even though Zoe Deschanel's character is much more appealing).

So at least I know I've got a plan.

Who Are The People In Your Neighborhood?

The best thing about moving (other than the slow tedious process that is unpacking), is getting to know your new neighborhood. Living five miles from town, we have fewer neighbors than we did before, but we do live in a cluster of four or five houses along the state highway between two towns and what we lack in quantity we seem to be making up for in entertainment value.

The first night in our new house, I was sitting in the living room in front of the yet-to-be curtained picture window when I noticed a flashing light coming from across the road. It seemed to be coming from very near but not actually from inside the neighbor's house--it was like a camera flash but it came every second or so. I looked at Hubby and said, "Do you think our new neighbor is communicating with aliens?"

The next morning, all was explained when I noticed a wooden lighthouse sitting in a flower bed next to the house. But as soon as one question was answered, more arose.

The man has ponies--lots of them. Sometimes there are as many as ten or fifteen in the pasture beside his house and sometimes there are only a few and some days there aren't any to be seen. There is a tiny shedlike structure at the top of the hill and a made-from-a-kit round steel building that looks like a giant metal meatloaf, so I assume that's where the "missing" ponies are, but the weirder thing about the ponies is that even though there are so many of them there are only two color patterns--one is a rich brown with a blondish mane and tail and the other is white with chocolate brown spots.

I'm pretty sure my neighbor is cloning ponies in that shed up on the hill.

In fact, I'm so positive that this is what's going on that I no longer even call them ponies--they're clonies.

And that lighthouse? It's beaming the results of his latest cloning efforts to scientists on some other planet.

I'm pretty sure.

All The Ice Cream He Could Eat And Other Musical Commentary

We were playing cards Saturday night while listening to a mixed CD that included Nickelback's "Rock Star." Now one of my favorite lines in the song has always been "I wanna be great like Elvis without the tassels..."

I mean truly, it's one of the greatest lines in any song ever--clever and funny and what better rhyme for "assholes," which, in the uncensored version, appears in the next line? I thought there was no way the line could be improved upon, until I overheard Next-To-Youngest Niece singing it Saturday night:

"I wanna be great like Elvis without the tonsils..."

It doesn't rhyme quite as well, but you gotta give her points for creativity.

In other musical news, Daughter-Only and her friend R and I were in the car when an Angels and Airwaves song came on the radio. D-O says, "I love his voice, but it's really hard to like their music when the entire band is ugly."

I'm sure they've got a place for her on the Reviews page at Rolling Stone.

Oxymorons, Emphasis On Morons

So, I missed the last day of NaBloPoMo--didn't get out of work before the library closed. And the good news is my head didn't explode.

The bad news is that we still didn't have Internet when I got home that night. Because it turns out the phone company is a big, gigantic liar too (just like the cable company)--the DSL signal that I was assured would be coming to my house was not strong enough to reach our house from their local office. I understand, I guess, that they couldn't have known that instantly in the first phone call, but I'm a little baffled as to why no one could be bothered to let me know that I wouldn't be receiving the service they had promised. When I did finally call on Monday morning, they said, "oh, yes, we tried to send the signal to your house, but you're too far out to receive it" and I said, "And why wasn't I notified of that?" She said, and I quote, "sputter, sputter, spit and mutter..." Whatever. I can't get DSL. So she says, "We do offer dial-up, would you like to sign up for that now."

Uh, no. If I'm getting crappy dial-up service then you can bet your sweet, stupid butt I'm not getting it from your company who couldn't even be bothered to call me back to tell me that all you could offer me was crappy dial-up service.

So there it is.

And the oxymoron? We got dial-up--but we got the upgraded "hi-speed dial-up."

Hi-speed dial-up.

Yeah, but we got it for $12.95/month and it was turned on the exact moment the non-moronic customer service representatives told us it would be.

One More Lame Post From The Library...

...And then it's back to the lame posts from home--with any luck anyway. The Internet is supposed to be on at the house tomorrow, but I believe I've heard that story before.

Pushing The Limits Of The Definition Of The Word Post*

This is a post, right?

*Especially since the title is actually longer than the post itself and this is also being posted by proxy--I have dictated it to poor beleagured Son-One (more academia) over the phone since the library is closed on Wednesdays. I hope the gods of NaBloPoMo appreciate my dedication.

Proudly Prostate Free Since 1968

Son-One was home over Thanksgiving break and I was a little concerned about the trip back into Buffalo on Sunday to return him to the halls of academia*--between potential traffic and potential weather, I figured there was ample opportunity for disaster and the way things have been going lately when there's a chance for disaster, disaster it will be**.

The trip went smoothly though and as Son-Two, Daughter-Only and I were making our way back onto the highway after a stop at Wendy's Drive-Thru, I said, "The traffic is so light I can eat my Frosty with a spoon!"

And from the backseat Daughter-Only says, "Did you just say you had your prostate removed?!"

*From what I've been able to discern from visits to the dorm as well as Son-One's own admissions, activity in those halls seems to consist mainly of gossip, video games and occasional surreptitious imbibing of not-quite-legal beverages. In other words, and probably not surprisingly, very little of an academic nature is actually going on in the halls of academia.

**It occurred to me as I wrote that that, really, considering the fact that we were moving somewhat under duress and that we moved a household of six people and twenty years of accumulated stuff, things have gone remarkably smoothly and really the cable/Internet issue is the only major hurdle we've faced. So, I'm a whiner.

Liar, Liar Pants On Fire (Or, The Story Of How Masked Mom Was Flagged As A Lunatic By The Cable Company)

More tales of woe from the Internetless wonder. We still don't have cable or Internet at the new house and turns out we might be in a gap between two regional offices of Time Warner and unable to get service from EITHER of them. Why no one knew this until today is beyond me--and the only reason they even realized it today is because I called both offices repeatedly until I got some semblance of a straight answer and that answer wasn't even straight enough so I called everyone I know along that stretch of road that I now live on and found who has cable and where their cable is out of and now I'm waiting to hear back from one or both offices at which time I'm probably going to tell either or both of them to stuff it because I'm going to get the package through the phone company and to hell with them. Maybe.

At least I was smart enough to post from the toasty warm library instead of the soon-to-be completely abandoned old house...

Blind Ambition

Daughter-Only was thisclose to winning the middle school spelling bee last year--but a teacher mispronounced/misread a word (totem--she said "tofem" and Daughter-Only was robbed. A number of other teachers who witnessed the robbery informed Daughter-Only how unfair they thought it had been. Why they didn't inform the teachers and other organizing people of the unfairness is beyond me...).

This year, she's determined to snag the win. She's practicing maniacally. And she's extremely upset that I haven't been practicing with her. She has accused me of horrible parenting for not being more interested in practicing with her.

Let's consider the evidence and you can make your own conclusions. She has asked me exactly two times to practice with her. The first time, I was actually elbow-deep in the turkey on Thanksgiving Day and the second time, I was driving the car.

I am a horrible parent, huh?

Monday Is My New Favorite Day of the Week (I Hope)

What was originally scheduled for Wednesday the 21st by the cable company has now been moved to Monday the 26th. So we should have cable/Internet access in our warm, toasty new place then. In the meantime, the gas has been turned off at the old place (where I am now) just in time for the first cold snap of the season so I'm risking frostbite to post--but frostbite is better than head explosion, right?

Too Cold To NaBlo....

Temperature outside: 29F
Temperature inside: 29F
Posting just enough to count: Priceless.

My How Times Have Changed

Many years ago, when I still had time and energy for a book group, a friend gave me a recipe for an appetizer to take to the pot luck night my book group had every September. It was extremely simple and very tasty--Uncle Ben's rice, chopped spinach and shredded Swiss cheese in fillo dough cups (in the grocery store freezer already formed, thanks very much). I was mixing the filling in a big bowl and it was all brown and green and admittedly resembled dog vomit more than anything you'd want for food. Two of the boys (Son-Two and Son-Three, I think) went by and Son-Three peeked over the edge of the bowl and said, "That's not for us to eat is it?!"

When I told him I was taking it for the book group, he said, "You must not like them very much."

Fast forward to last night, Thanksgiving Eve. Son-Three says with evident anticipation, "You are going to make those little spinach cups, aren't you?"

(Happy Thanksgiving!)

Heading Exploding Heads Off At The Pass

Son-Three asked me tonight, "Are you coming into town tomorrow?" (The new house is five miles out of town, which is a huge change for kids used to living a few blocks from basically everything and everyone.)

I said, "Well, I have to at some point because I have to post for the NaBlo thingy."

"What happens if you don't post?"

"Uh, I'm not sure. Maybe my head will explode or something..."

Probably not, but I'm not taking any chances.

Seal of Approval

Youngest Niece, along with her sister, has been hanging out at my new house the past few nights. Last night, she came up to me and said, "I'm trying to think of how to say this to you. I'm not sure exactly how to ask this question but...will you invite me to live with you?"

Guess the new house passes the seven year old's inspection.

I'll Take That Bet

Bet you're all really tired of hearing about my misadventures in moving.

Bet you're not nearly as tired of hearing about it as I am of talking about it, not to mention actually doing it.

"Real"* posts soon.

*"Real" is a strictly subjective and immeasurable, intangible quality. "Real" as it's used here is intended to signify that I will return to my usual, not necessarily "real," posts soon.

Straddling The Here And The There

Still here. Well, still between here and there, but anyway, still kicking.

We got the majority of our really big stuff out today with some odds-and-ends left for the next couple of days. We'll be sleeping there tonight, but some of our stuff--including the computers with the Internet access--will be here at least for a few more days.

In the name of my NaBloPoMo promise, I will be posting from an empty, echoey* house until the Internet/cable is switched to the new place. Now that's dedication.

*Is too a word.

Ten-Toed Sloth

I'm not known by those closest to me as a particularly energetic person largely because I'm not a particularly energetic person. I've never met a chore I couldn't delegate and, in moments of extreme laziness, I've been known to call someone in from another room to ask them to turn off the light. I've tried fighting my, um, laziness over the years but at some point I just kind of accepted it.

I hadn't realized how much everyone around me has had to accept it as well.

The other night, on the second trip to the new house, when I got out of the car and started carrying in boxes, Hubby said in a completely sweet and sincere tone, "Baby, I didn't know you were gonna help."

He was so appreciative--and surprised--and it made me realize what a true bum I actually am most of the time. I don't know if I'll have the energy to do anything about it, but awareness is the first step, right?

With Apologies To The Memory of Shari Lewis

This is the move that never ends,

It goes on and on my friends,

Some people started moving things,

Not knowin' what it was,

And they'll continue movin' 'em forever

Just because...

This is the move that never ends,

It goes on and on my friends,

Some people started moving things,

Not knowin' what it was,

And they'll continue movin' 'em forever

Just because...

This is the move that never ends,

It goes on and on my friends,

Some people started moving things,

Not knowin' what it was,

And they'll continue movin' 'em forever

Just because...

This is the move that never ends,

It goes on and on my friends,

Some people started moving things,

Not knowin' what it was,

And they'll continue movin' 'em forever

Just because...

It's All About Priorities

My mind keeps running over the "moving list"--you know all those things you have to do when you move--gas, electric, cable/Internet, post office, blah, blah, blah. Somehow in the middle of all that I remembered that I needed to be sure to change my address at the library.

I thought of the library several hours before I remembered the DMV.

I'm such a sad, little book geek and I was thisclose to being a sad, little book geek with a current library card and an unupdated driver's license.

The Best Defense

One of the things I really hate is going into stores that are traditionally considered part of the male domain--hardware stores, automotive parts stores. I'm not anyone's idea of a girly girl and still time after time I've been instantly treated as though I were some fainthearted, feeble-minded twit just by virtue of the fact that I'm lacking a particular appendage.

Anyway. Tonight, I had to buy a headlight bulb and I went into the store where I'd bought my last headlight bulb, right to the rack where I found it last time I was there, flipped through the make/model/year guide just to be sure I remembered the right number and just as I reached for it, the twenty-something (male) clerk yelled from the desk across the store, "Anything I can help you with?"

And I said, "No, I'm all set." in a borderline rude voice, so ready was I to be offended by his patronizing tone (even though I'm nowhere near objective enough to determine whether his tone was actually patronizing or whether I was just expecting patronizing so much that I'd have heard it in any tone).

And he shrugged (was that a sarcastic look on his face?), "I could probably find it quicker for you on the computer..." (Not noticing that I have the bulb in my hand...)

And I held the bulb up and waved it in the air a little to make sure he really saw it then walked up to the desk.

I set it down and he said, "Now don't touch the bulb part at all when you're putting it in 'cuz it's a halogen bulb." (Um, it says that right on the package as well as in the instructions in my car's owner's manual, but thank you, you big strong (dorky) man, you.)

Then he says, "Would you like to donate a dollar to St. Jude's Children's Hospital?"

And (still with the bitter bordering on rude tone), I say, "Sure why not?"

Jeez, this punk has reduced me to being flip about St. Jude's. It's pretty bad when a smug little punk can bring out the worst in you in under a minute.

Who Lives In A Pineapple Under The Sea?...

Not me, but it was looking like the only option there for a while.

The source of much of my hinted-at stress for the last few months (all the way back to the Reeses Peanut Butter Cup incident and a little further) was a housing crisis. The house we've been renting for over nine years was put on the market and sold. Finding another place to live with a family as large as ours and an income as small as ours in a town as tiny as ours was not easy--and at times has seemed impossible. Things got increasingly nasty with our current landlord because we were unable to leave as quickly as she would've liked (but she was also incapable of or uneducated about doing the work of a proper eviction and relied instead on nasty phone calls and sporadic threats, which I guess I'm grateful for since it bought us some extra time).

Anyway, we're signing a lease tomorrow and will begin moving in immediately. At the moment, I'm equal parts relieved and terrified. In other words, I'm feeling pretty much normal for the first time in months.

Weirdness

I have been sorting boxes from my attic in an effort to prepare for a move about which I haven't yet found the strength and sanity to blog. Some of the boxes contain things from my paternal grandmother's house. My Nan was Catholic and a kleptomaniac, among many other things, not that those two things--Catholicism and kleptomania are directly related, of course.

In any case, as I'm going through the boxes that contain some of her things, both her kleptomania and her Catholicism are readily apparent. There were something like six pairs of eyeglasses in one box and Daughter-Only's mouth gaped open wider with each pair we found. I kept saying, "Kleptomaniac. I tried to tell you..." Not only were the glasses likely to have been stolen, but each case had odd things tucked into it--fingernail clippers, coupons for free sodas from the nursing home snack bar, salt and pepper and Sweet'n'Low packets that she also probably pilfered.

The Catholicism is a little more subtle--expressed mainly in rosary beads (at least one of the sets was legitimately hers--I bought it for her) and a crucifix, which hung in her bedroom for as long as I can remember. When Daughter-Only saw the crucifix, she said, "Jesus is built like Dad."

I looked at her funny--I mean what the hell other way do you look at someone who has come out with something so random and odd?

And she says, "Or, rather, Dad is built like Jesus since Jesus was here first."

That's so much better.

Crying Wolf

As someone who has gotten into the habit of publicly and pratically perpetually predicting my own impending nervous breakdown without yet producing any significant signs of the breakdown, I've become kind of fascinated by the story of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf."

Sometime last week, I was watching a movie or TV show (I can't remember at all what it might have been) and one of the characters mentioned the story and the other one said, "The moral of that story is that a liar won't be believed."

And he's right--that's no doubt the intended (and universally understood) moral of that story. But I think in clinging to that idea as the story's only relevant lesson, we've lost sight of an important point: There's a less hungry wolf at the end of this story. No matter how many times the boy lied (or joked or exaggerrated--he was really playing a prank that required a little untruth, right?) about being eaten, he was still eaten in the end. So a secondary moral to the story might be "repeatedly lying about getting eaten makes you no less eaten when you finally are telling the truth."

All The World's A Stage

Daughter-Only's a performer from way back. She once burst into song in the library--she was four and we were looking through the videos and she saw Grease and she belted out half the first verse of Hopelessly Devoted before I could subdue her. Once, when she was about ten, she did an impromptu version of the Lollipop Guild part of the Munchkinland song from Wizard of Oz by the gas pumps at the mini mart. So I'm used to spontaneous performances--especially if she has any kind of audience.

Tonight's audience was her friend PH. And the poem went like this, "How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if my mom made us Rice Krispies treats?"

Jeez, even her "subtle" hints have to be performance pieces.

Free Bit Of NaBloPoMo Advice

If it's after 11 p.m. in your time zone and you're feeling uninspired but have promised to post every day, the place to look for inspiration is not your own past posts. You will find a trillion typos and even more clunky turns of phrase. You will not find anything there worth posting about except the fact that there's nothing there to post about.

Conspiracy Theorist

When I got home from work today, Son-Two had a window open on the computer--a pair of shoes that he would like for volleyball, which starts soon. They were on sale for $65, which was "like half-price of what they were on any of the other sites." You know because if you're going to ask for a third pair of sneakers, it helps your case to let Mom know you comparison shopped.

A little while later, I reminded Son-Two that he had left his white hoodie in the car after Son-Three's game last night. This is his "Class of 2008" hoodie, which he wore last night for only the second time. He was jostled at the concession stand and spilled hot cocoa down the front of it. Tonight, I said, "You should get your hoodie out of the car and pre-treat that hot cocoa stain and see if we can get it out."

He went and got it, pre-treated it, started the washer. I came into the kitchen just as he closed the lid. And he said, "By the way, I know exactly why you thought of my hoodie when you did."

Always eager to have my thought processes analyzed by adolescent males, I said, "Oh?"

And he said, "Yeah, I showed you those shoes and you were sitting there thinking about how much money you've been spending on me and listing all the things in your head and you thought, 'I just bought that hoodie and he spilled hot cocoa on it and now it's sitting out in the car.'"

It's clear he thinks he's brilliant. And he is, but in this case, he's also wrong. There was nothing anywhere near that complicated going on in my head (and there very rarely is anything that complicated going on in my head)--what had reminded me of the hoodie was a detergent commercial on TV.

In other news, Son-Three's team fought the good fight, but went down 2-1 in last night's game. Son-Three was wearing a pair of cleats for which I paid $35 (on sale at Dick's Sporting Goods), soccer socks ($6) and the uniform provided by the school (blessedly free as long as he returns it), and had $10 for dinner in his soccer bag (free as a premium from a company I do surveys for) . But who's counting?

Destination: Paetec Park

Tonight's the state qualifier for Son-Three's soccer team--in Rochester's Paetec Park. I may or may not be able to post afterward (two hour drive up, two-plus hours on the field, two hours back in my current mental state--it's not looking good). Keep your fingers and toes crossed!

Outing My Inner Seventh Grader

Over the summer, I read a book called Cabin Pressure, by a very funny man named Josh Wolk. The book is subtitled: One Man's Desperate Attempt to Recapture His Youth as a Camp Counselor. It is the true story of Wolk voluntarily spending a summer trapped in the company of adolescent boys and steeped in memories of his own summers both as camper and counselor. It's snort out loud hilarious--in the ways that seventh grade boys tend to be hilarious--in other words in crude, gross ways that should be appalling to a presumably grown woman but which I nevertheless found myself snorting out loud to.

Anyway, I recently, completely accidentally, stumbled across Wolk's blog and I can't recommend it enough. While I have yet to read a good fart joke over there (or any fart joke for that matter), there's still plenty to keep your inner seventh grader entertained, assuming you want to provide entertainment for the little miscreant.

Amusing? Disturbing? A Little of Both?

Had an older guy in the shop first thing this morning, wanting to send a corsage to a waitress at the diner up the street--her birthday's Wednesday and she'll be working 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. I asked him what kind of flowers he would like us to use and he said, "What do you suggest?"

I said, "I would probably go with a carnation, they hold up the best and she'll be running around in the heat all day."

The guy can barely contain himself, pipes up, "Did you say she's gonna be in heat? You must know something I don't know..."

It's way too early, and on a Monday no less, for this foolishness, but I can't help myself, I offer him one of our complimentary calendars, saying, "You know, that way you can keep track of when anyone might be in heat or whatever."

He was laughing too hard to talk for a second and then he said, "Hmmm, was it three times in '62 or two times in '63? Either way, what I'm trying to say is it's been a long dry spell..."

Phoning It In Four Days In?

I'm posting.

It's not much but that's what I've got today.

It counts, right?

And I promise to do a better job tomorrow.

Maybe promise is too strong a word...

(Hey, it's got a beginning, middle and an end--they're just all really close together.)

GOAL!!!!!!!!!

Son-Three's soccer team won their Sectional Title tonight.

Next up: State Qualifiers.

Too tired and hungover (hangover of the spectator variety--not the alcoholic one--spectator hangover is too a real thing!) to write more.

If It's November, It Must Be NaBlo...

I'm one of those people who has an extraordinarily hard time learning from my mistakes--not that last year's National Blog Posting Month felt like a mistake in the end, but it sure felt like a mistake some of those nights at 11:48 as I sat with my fingers poised impotently over the keyboard without a single remotely blog-worthy thought in my head.

So here we go, ringing in the new NaBlo with a confession: I almost didn't sign up this year because at the moment, I'm neck-deep in crap and the last thing I need is some petty, silly distraction...then it hit me--a silly, petty distraction might be just the thing that gets me through.

Perfect Post For October

When I was in my late teens and early twenties, my mother frequently told me that all she and my father had ever wanted was for their children to be happy*. I didn't think it was as simple as that even then, but especially now, after two decades (!) of parenting, I'm pretty sure it's a lot more complicated than that. Of course, we want our children to be happy children and grow into happy adults, but wouldn't it be nice if they could be happy while only making choices that reflect well upon their parents?

Regular readers of this blog will have no trouble understanding why I chose "Incident" posted by Gretchen at Lifenut as my Perfect Post for October. Irregular readers can read this post for a little insight into why I identified so closely with Gretchen's doubts and discomfort after one of her children got in some trouble at school.

So for having the courage to share messy emotions, here's my button:


And, Gretchen, it's all yours.See other winners at Petroville and Suburban Turmoil.

*The context of my mother's repeated assurances was the turmoil of my late high school and early marriage years during which my parents' disapproval, real and imagined, spoken and unspoken, subtle and not-so, was a source of constant angst for me. Of course, hindsight and two decades (!) of parenting have given me insight not only into my parents' point of view but also into my own reaction to their disapproval. It's likely that my own (subconsciuos) doubts about the choices I was making contributed to my feeling that their disapproval was constant and oppressive.

Shattered

When I was in early high school or late middle school, we had an assembly in the gym featuring some guy talking about, I guess, science. I actually don't remember the stated purpose of the assembly, but I do remember that the guy had liquid nitrogen, into which he dipped a rose and one of those cheap foam rubber balls. He tapped the frozen rose against a table and it shattered into hundreds of tiny pieces. He dropped the ball on the floor, as if to bounce it, and it also shattered, the pieces skittering across the gym floor. The liquid nitrogen was so cold it changed the rose and the ball from something soft and pliable to something brittle and easily shattered.

I haven't been exposed to liquid nitrogen, but I have been exposed to tremendous stress these last few months and I have come to a point where I feel it in every inch of my body, not merely in my head and heart where stress usually lives. I feel stiff and inflexible at a cellular level. I feel the slightest tap, physical or emotional, could break me into a million teeny pieces, pieces sharp enough to cut those around me and do lasting damage.

What I keep wondering, though, is when the break comes, will the pieces of me make that same almost musical tinkling sound the rose made as it shattered all those years ago?

Would This Be A Curveball Or A...Spitball?

Last night, Nomi, our beagle/German shepherd/dork mixed breed dog was climbing all over me with a desperate need to lick me. This despite the fact that I don't approve of the dogs licking me--it's icky. There are few things I'm squeamish about but dog spit is one of them.

Now the dogs, at one and a half years of age, should be well acquainted with the fact that I don't let them lick me, but both of them will occasionally lose their minds with the powerful need to lick me. My response is to hold their heads back while trying to give them a consolation ear-scratch. Last night, Nomi was having a harder than usual time being distracted from the licking and I said to Daughter-Only who was passing through the room, "I've never let them lick me, they know I don't let them lick me and still they try to lick me! I just don't understand it."

And Daughter-Only goes (in a cutesy-wootsie voice), "She wuvs you! She just wants you to know how much she wuvs you!"

And I say, "I'm not sure why dogs can't express affection without spit."

And Daughter-Only says, "Humans can't express affection without spit."*

She was just a teeny bit too pleased with herself.

*Despite Daughter-Only's amusing assertion, there are, of course, ways of expressing human affection that don't involve spit. For instance, one could continue providing food and shelter to a house full of smartasses. That would be very affectionate...and non-spitty.

I Guess This Makes Me "Old Yeller"

Other Kid is on a roll lately--and don't worry, this one doesn't fall into the poopcentric conversation category. We were at the grocery store and he was a little wound up--running in the aisles and scanning his bubblegum while the cashier was distracted with the customer in front of us (it rang up twice--neato--and had to be voided off) and I spoke to him a little more sharply than I usually do, but didn't raise my voice. Even if I were the type prone to raising my voice at other people's children, I would definitely not do it in the grocery store. (Now raising my voice at my own kids, in or out of the grocery store, is a whole other matter...)

Back at the car, I was leaning over him trying to get his seatbelt hooked around his booster seat and he said, "You're squishing me." in this agonized voice.

I poked him on the forehead and said, "I never knew you were such a whiner."

Without hesitation, he poked my forehead right back and said, "I never knew you were such a yeller."

Perfect Post For September: Default Settings

You know that thing that happens when your life is busy and you're trying to do too much for too many with too few resources? You kick into auto pilot, fall back on habit or reflex and jump from one moment to the next without much conscious thought. It can be dangerous in all kinds of ways--you can look up one day and realize you have a life wholly unrelated to the one you set out to have. It can also--and I speak from a great deal of experience here--be hazardous to your waistline not to mention your health.

Pasta Queen is a blogger who has lost a great deal of weight and has about 20 pounds to go to reach her goal weight. Along the way, she's learned that it's not only a matter of eating less and moving more but of changing your entire attitude--of being aware of how established habits and thought (or non-thought) patterns affect your life. She writes about these fall-back positions as they relate to a healthy lifestyle in her post "Default Setting". But as with any brilliant observation, "default settings" can be applied to more than one aspect of life.

So, for reminding us all to check those checked boxes to see if we should uncheck them, here's my button:




And, Pasta Queen, it's all yours!

See other winners at Petroville and Suburban Turmoil, where the awards are hosted every month.