The Irony Of This Post Is Not Lost On Me

The following post is brought to you by Parent Bloggers Network. I mean, I wrote it and all, but they played muse and what not. They do me solid like that, especially after I've been hanging upside down all weekend and can barely come up with ideas for breakfast let alone a blog post. Enjoy!

Ah, Spring!

That time of year
for wee spotted deer,
and new camping gear,
and buds appear,
and kids look forward to the end of the academic year.

Okay, I rhymed “year” twice.

And the scansion gets pretty sloppy toward the end there.

But that’s me. It’s my writing style, part of my charm. It’s why you come here for your blogging entertainment instead of visiting my husband’s blog more often. Sure, he writes in full sentences instead of random clauses and phrases, sure he is loathe to toss around comma splices with my reckless abandon. And sentence fragments that begin with “and” and end in a period. And lots of slang and dialect and rhetorical grunts and giggles and blah-blah-blahs.

Sure his blog is well-written and hilarious and has photos of babies and pandas. Although, it could probably use more baby pandas.

But I’m quirky. And you like quirky, right?

However. (<--See! That’s quirky!) Sometimes reading quirky writing is exhausting. It’s exhausting the way that spending a weekend with your friend who thinks he’s Robin Williams is exhausting. Sometimes, you just want to sit still and have a conversation with someone who's sitting still, and not feel as if you have to be a thankful and willing repository for all their wowzee-wowzee-woo-woo cleverness. Sometimes, you just want a sentence that reads like a 3rd grade Language Arts textbook example on how to write strong declarative sentences.

No, no! Don’t stop me. Don’t tell me that I’m wrong or try to cajole me out of my artistic self-chastisement! Let not this important post in self-discovery become nothing more than me with a fishing pole sitting alongside the compliment pond waiting for all my loyal readers to leap up like so many perch and chub to tell me “Oh, no! We really love your comma splices and your funky way of writing in stops and starts and dramatic, cutesy pauses. Please believe us because we are talking fish!” Really…I do know I’m the bees knees in oh so many ways, so don’t let my sudden onset of grammatical piety lead you to believe that I’m bleeding from a mortal wound in my metaphorical and linguistical hip waders. But do allow me sit with myself for a few minutes and marinade in my own bouillabaisse.

(Mmmm! Perchy!)

For you see, I’ve just read this book - Raised By Wolves, by Christie Mellor - that has, essentially, put me in a room with myself for a weekend.

First off, I do love this book the way I adore every single word I just wrote on this post alone. (Let’s be honest here: writers make their stuff public because somewhere deep down, they think they’re swell.) (And that’s okay.) (Says me.) Raised By Wolves made me laugh. It made me smile and enthusiastically nod my head up and down in that commonly understood gesture for “Yup, right on, you wily goofball!” It made me giggle some more and then sigh out loud in devout admiration of a well-placed non sequitur and the mention of Green Goddess Dressing.

Oh, the stream-of-consciousness writing style! Oh, the conglomeration of divergent topics, from why the only aftershave any man should wear is Creed to why one should own a fat separator! Oh, the pulling together of instructions on the proper and environmentally friendly method of washing dishes, with a mini-lesson on the Bill of Rights, with a “how-to” on dealing with your employer’s peeing-and-talking at the same time…and just really making it all congeal as a thematic concept!

Good golly, but I’m Christie Mellor is swell!

But, good gravy…what an exhausting read.

Really. Reading an entire book of this kind of conversational, herky-jerky, exclamation-strewn style of writing was like being clobbered over the head with my own ellipsis-enamored computer monitor.

Now, to be fair to myself - oh, and Christie Mellor (this review is supposed to be about her book, after all) - reading a few hundred words of giddiness on my blog might actually be more comparable to grabbing a whipped cream canister out of the fridge and squirting it into your mouth, along with a little extra nitrous oxide: in other words it’s fun in blog-sized doses, but you couldn't make a meal out of it unless you wanted to permanently walk sideways with your brain dribbling out your ears. (Obligatory Warning: Nitrous oxide is bad, kids.)

So maybe I did Christie Mellor myself Christie Mellor myself wrong by reading this entire book in one sitting. It’s probably better digested in little bites.

“Hmmmm…how does one poach chicken or make the perfect cup of coffee? Let me consult Ms. Mellor’s fine tome on How To Be A Hip, Young Adult Without Being A Boor, A Bore, or A Brat.”

(Note: This book is geared toward twenty-somethings, but it would work reasonably well for anyone between the ages of 21 and 89 and who still has no idea how to, say, be a gracious house guest or build an Astro Weenie Christmas Tree. After 89, I‘d have to agree that new socialization tricks are a bit harder to learn, so you're off the hook if you’re 92 years old, visiting my home, and you decide to use my new, fluffy white bath towels to clean your car. I'd even say that the book is a good gift for graduating high school students, even though there is a chapter on how to booze responsibly. Hey, you might be European, right?)

“Oh, say! I really don’t want to be the irritating, drunken jackass at my friend’s next party! Tell me how to achieve that goal, Ms. Mellor, and don’t mince words! How can I drink responsibly and with style and not be That Guest, the one who doesn’t pick-up on the host’s cue (e.g. vacuuming around my feet and yanking my vodka-and-cigarette-butt martini out of my hand) that the time to leave was three hours ago.”

“Boy, I just seem to have trouble winning friends and influencing people. I wonder whether Christie Mellor's book Raised By Wolves can provide me with a list of conversation topics to avoid so that I don’t constantly come across as a self-centered and/or shallow and/or dangerously insane. And while she’s at it, could she provide me with illustrated pointers on how to properly shake hands with a woman without appearing to be a leering nipple inspector?”

Although, there are other books of this ilk that do this sort of thing - just head to amazon.com and search on “How To Be A Grown Up" or "Common Skills Everyone Should Possess Like Making A Bed Or Boiling An Egg Or Writing A Thank You Note” or “Commonly Accepted Etiquette That Helps Grease Social Interactions Within Our Greater Culture and Makes People Feel At Ease” or “100 Simple Ways To Not Be A Jerk Starting With Putting Down Your Cell Phone While You Are Making A Transaction At A Cash Register” - Ms. Mellor’s book adds that little extra of kooky, humorous narrative that makes any medicine go down a bit more easily.

Just like…why, just like I do!

Awwwww, see that?

Oh self! I knew we’d make up!

C’mere me, you big silly! Give us a hug!

Look! I brought an ellipses for you.

…

And a bouquet of exclamation points!

!!!!!!!!

Let’s never argue again.

And let’s end the blog post right here...

Before the monitor falls over on your head.

PSA: That Stuff To The Right

That mish-mash of links and ads and buttons and widgets and gadgets to the right of the written test will be cleaned up soon.

(Heh...I wrote "written test" instead of "written text". And I woke up this morning with the song "What I've Been Looking For" from High School Musical stuck in my head. I have no idea what this means. But I sure hope I get a date for the prom.)

Right now, I'm just tossing things up on the right sidebar just to get them tossed up. For now.

Really, I'm not supposed to point out or alert you to some of the ads. That's what the fine print on the ad contracts says, anyways.

But in way of alerting you to some of the ads...what's up with all the sausage ads?

I understand the Discount Hotels in Lithuania since I mentioned my fat Lithuanian-Polish head in my last post, and supposedly there is a little robot that now visits my blog, crawls the text for content, and then posts relevant ads based upon what I'm writing about. Thus the Lithuanian vacation sites.

(The little robots, by the way, make me feel all itchy just thinking about them. Any other time there's been a small anything visiting my content and crawling all over, it's required hours of nit-picking and a dose of permethrin to get rid of it.)

I suppose that posting the word "Polish" did it as far as the sausage ads. "Polish" set off a robotic word-association game that goes something like this:

Polish
Polish Jokes
Stereotype
Bang & Olufsen
Bangers and Mash
Monster Mash
Monster Trucks
State Fair
Pork Product Vendors
Kowalonek's Kielbasy Shop
Easter
Parade
Exercise
My Sweaty Armpits
Smell Like
Sausage

Or something like that.

There is one ad up there right now that I do wholeheartedly and strongly recommend that you take a look at - besides Kowalonek's Kielbasy Shop...seriously, the best kilbo in the world -
and that's the ad for Barefoot Books.

I love these books.

I'm a bookseller (for another book selling establishment, namely the largest retail book selling store in the entire universe) and I know my kids' books. And Barefoot Books rock-a-doodle-doo: stories out of the ordinary, multicultural stories, outstanding illustrations, and all from a mom-and-poppish shop that lovingly handpicks each product for outstanding quality and high OOOOOhhhhhhhhh! AAhhhhhh! factor.

Anyway...more about that later. Eh-hem.

So, before I end this post and begin chasing Terzo to grab the marker from his hand - the marker he's been entertaining himself with while I've been blogging, and the marker that he's been using to draw all over the front of the fridge - I have to clear up one thing....

It seems that there has been some misunderstanding based upon my roundabout and confuzzled ramblings in the post below, and that somehow, some of the commentors - male commentors especially - are wishful thinking under the impression that I will be starting a pole dancing blog.

I regret to say that this is not going to happen. Not in your wildest dreams.

I may start a Polish Dancer blog, but that's something else entirely.

However, as a sort of consolation prize, I will offer you this.

Just don't watch it at work.

And don't tell your wife or girlfriend...or mom...that I showed it to you.

Thnxkbai!


EDIT TO ADD: Well, now the sausage ads are gone. But I swear, there was a big ad covered in meat about ten minutes ago.

ANOTHER EDIT TO ADD: I just clicked on the Kowalanek's link with the computer speakers on. Evidently, there was a song I'd missed before. A song about kielbasy. And that's one way to get any High School Musical song out of your head.

Instead of a cross, this writer's dross....

I must say, that was a thoroughly enjoyable holiday.

Mostly.

For the most part, the holidays were just grand.

Sigh.

Well, actually, there was this…thing…that happened. Not a horrible thing, but still sort of mildly discombobulating. Although, at one point, I will admit to feeling a bit out of sorts. More than a bit out of sorts.

I’m being cryptic, I know.

I can’t help it. I promise you.

I’m one of those partially “outed” bloggers, and in this matter of which I cannot really speak, I’ve been sworn to real life cryptitude so as not to startle the neighbors with the breadth of my...lateral thinking.

Which begs the question “So why write about it if you can’t write about it?”

Because I’ll tell you why:

Because every time I sit down and try to write something fun or funny or funtastic, this thing drops down on my keyboard like an albatross holding a cinder block upon which is scrawled “I AM THE THING FOREMOST IN YOUR MIND AND YOU WILL WRITE ABOUT ME OR ELSE I WILL BRAIN YOUR MUSE WITH THIS HEAVY OBJECT.”

That’s why.

(I really wish I could find a picture of an albatross holding a cinder block, because that would be just the perfect graphic for this entry.)

So now I’ve sort of kind of written about the thing, and I hope the albatross is satisfied and will fly off (very low) to some place else and go harangue mariners or something.

I’ll just say this, because otherwise I know you'll worry:

Everyone here at Chateau Halushki is, knock wood, healthy in mind and body - praise be - and, no, no one in my family was attacked by a tiger, nor were they caught in crossfire in a war zone, nor did they get caught by the paparazzi upon exiting a car while wearing no underpants. (By the way, those horrific events are not listed in any particular order of quantifiable suckitude.)

And finally, the discombobulations of which I am barely speaking of are over and done with and a new day is dawning and it’s all sunbeams and star shine and whipped cream puddings from here on out.

Still too cryptic?

Let’s just say that as a family, we were in a sort of temporary severe cash flow slump. We knew it was going to be temporary (although not quite sure how temporary at one point) but the timing of the whole matter just simply was not the bestest. Two weeks before a major celebration of consumer spending is not a good time for low cash flow, especially when some members of the family still believe the fruits of this consumer spending are actually the result of magic as wielded by a right jolly old elf and not connected in any way to rock solid greenbacks.

Still too cryptic?

Then may I just further say in the way of tantalizing innuendos that I was also temporarily and necessarily engaged as a full-time member of the workforce, the experience of which was in no small way responsible for my giddily arrived at decision to display ads on my blog, as if Google Adsense were my way to a golden ticket.

For, you see, I’m no longer cut out for full-time, 9-to-5 wage earning.

I’ll do it if I must.

But I’m much better suited as a “lady of the manor” type.

You know…up by 11:00 AM, breakfast of bon-bons and champagne spritzers, and then back for a nap until my lady’s maid wakes me in time for me to give direction as to whether to prepare the lamb or the lobster for dinner.

Work is hard.

It’s even more hard when you’re doing it because you have to do it or else someone big and burly will come repossess your car and your heat and stuff. It’s even harder when the work you’re doing pays close to minimum wage and so you have to do a lot of it to make the money you need to allow everyone in your family to take lukewarm showers and without setting a timer in the bathroom. (Although somewhere Al Gore is shedding a tear of bliss after reading that last sentence. Because Al Gore reads my blog, you know. All the presidential hopefuls do.) (Heh-heh.)

After I returned home and had completed my temporary full-time tour of duty in pantyhose, there was of course the consideration of my continuing some full-time work of a more permanent sort and for some pay substantially higher than retail wages. We could become a two income household and make sure for certain that any potential future cash flow slumps were knocked out at the knees and for good and forever, amen. However, after factoring in the eventual cost of summer childcare for three children, gas money, and pantyhose stipend - because I can go through four or five pairs a day easily - I’d have to be earning somewhat more than any job I am currently qualified for would pay. Other than pole dancer at a truck stop. Because, from what I understand, I could bring my kids along with me to a job like that to bus tables and what not.

Certainly, though, there aren’t many well-paying jobs listed in the newspaper for English majors who write sentences for which prepositions are the ending in. So for all my talking in circles, and until Little Terzo is in school full time, we’re most likely going to remain a one-and-a-half income family and continue our rice and bean diet...with lobster and bon-bons only every other Friday.

Although…

I did have this kooky idea.

Naw…it would never work. It’s just this crazy notion I had one evening after painting the bathroom ceiling with Killz paint and forgetting to open the window to vent the fumes.

Well…okay. I'll tell you.

I was thinking that, you know, even though there are something like 78,453 writers out of work right now, and another couple thousand on strike in LA, I was thinking that maybe - just maybe - I could still do some kind of job where I could sit at home in my pajamas and string words together in magical and fantastical arrangements, and then post those words on The Internets - where people don’t care so much about prepositions - and then maybe, somehow, a big genie would occasionally appear from my CPU and hand me a dollar bill. “Occasionally” meaning every five seconds or so.

Wouldn’t that be neat?

And maybe, after a while, I’d turn my magical, fantastical writing site into a dot.com site. Not that I don’t adore Blogger with every fiber of my Granny underpants, but ________.com just flows better on a t-shirt. Or a bumper sticker. Or coffee mug. Or Goodyear balloon.

And maybe, someone who knew something about how to do all this crazy, complicated computer stuff would give me some hints and pointers on how to turn a blog into a .com. Since I know nothing about such things.

And then, someone else would point me in the direction of another someone else who knew things about funky graphics and eye-catching banners and who had a powerfully cool idea for revamping and updating my blog. Because, I have nonesuch.

And THEN I’d go really crazy and start a SECOND blog that was…ooooh, I don’t want to spoil the surprise since I’ve already got my bold soul cryptic on. But it would be a site with a focused theme (unlike this site, where I talk about albatross and cinder blocks in the same sentence) and which offered useful information on a specific topic (other than waterfowl and building supplies) and to which readers would flock (get it? flock?) to hear all the amazing things I had to say about…certain things…and stuff…and the readers would actually be grateful to be put in the way of advertisers who sold that kind of…thing…and stuff.

And no, I’m not starting a cinder block review site.

The thing is that at this point I’m all ideas.

But! And this is an important But! so pay attention:

But! This most recent foray into the out-of-home workplace has energized and motivated me - inspired me, even - to never work full-time outside of the home again if I can help it.

Finally, to all those people who have in the past said,

“You know what you should do as a job? A job that is a cosmic calling but also a job that puts greenbacks in your hand and warm in your shower water and sugar in your coffee? You know what you should do as a job like that kind of job is…

WRITE!

GOL-DAMMIT, YOU SHOULD WRITE AND WRITE AND WRITE!

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU! DON‘T YOU REALIZE YOU CAN AND SHOULD BE MAKING MONEY WITH YOUR WRITING, YOU IDIOT?!!! HOLY HECK, WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO GET IT THROUGH YOUR FAT POLISH-LITHUANIAN HEAD! DON’T MAKE ME CALL UPON THE UNIVERSE TO THREATEN YOUR BANK ACCOUNT THE WEEKEND BEFORE CHRISTMAS IN ORDER TO MAKE YOU UNDERSTAND THAT THE TIME TO DO THIS IS NOW, NOW, NOW! CRIPES, GIRL, JUST DO IT ALREADY! NOW WHERE DID I PUT MY RED BULL?”

To all those people who have in the past said stuff like that, I say

“oh…i get it now.”


Because I’m really e. e. cummings.


Psyche.


So anyway, it’s a new year.

And as I watch the albatross fly into the distance, cinder block skimming off the roofs of cars and setting off alarms as the bird wends its airy way toward the open sea, I feel…buoyed.

And buoyant.

Ebullient!

I’m going to try a few new things with my blog, try to get my writing to earn some money - even if it has to pole dance for a few months while I’m figuring out what size pantyhose it wears - and who knows?

This time next year, I‘ll be writing about my thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyable holiday.

And showering in hot water.

At the same time, even.


Amen.

NaBloPoMoDay 17: Ugly Sister Smackdown

I can't tell you how much it pains me to do this.

But these photos will not be denied.

One word:




Perms.

(I am so in trouble, yous guys.)




ETA: Okay. I don't feel that bad.

NaBloPoMoDay 6: Get To Know Us!

Unfortunately - or maybe fortunately - this is going to be a quick post.

I'm dog tired, and I know for a fact that my Seestor is sick as a goat. I called her today for a quick chat and to coordinate holiday plans, and she sounded like she had a pot of bubbly oatmeal in her lungs. That can't be good. Or appetizing.

So, no matter what you do here, you must go to my Seestor's blog and at least post a get well comment, if not a kudos that she is even dragging her oatmeal infested body to the computer to NaBloPoMo today.

She's hardcore.

------------------------

The gimmick today is that The Ugly Sisters answer a Get To Know Us autobiographical question.

Acting as muse will be the blog To Our Children's Children which just so happens to be the title of a book by the same name by author Bob Greeen. It's a book of questions that are meant to act as a guide and memory jogger when writing your own autobiography.

Which I suppose is redundant. If you were writing someone else's autobiography, you'd be sitting in a more comfy chair, or perhaps wearing larger shoes.

Anyway, the folks on the autobiography blog not only went about answering the questions, but they were every so helpful in listing the questions, too. Now that seems a bit problematic copyright-wise, but I swear, I already bought the book a few years ago. It's...somewhere. In some box, I think. I'll look for it later.

(This was supposed to be short, yes?)

Okay...so a question from chapter three, The House Of Your Growing Up. Then I really need to get to bed or spend time with my husband. Uhhhhh....I mean.....

Question #3

What was your bedroom like? Did you share it with your siblings, or did you have it to yourself? Can you remember the carpeting, the wallpaper , the pictures that hung? What did you do to make it your own? Put pictures up of your favorite stars, paint the walls a certain color?

My bedroom was on the second floor, in the front of the house, overlooking the main drag through town. My room was roughly13' x 10', and when I was about 10 years old, my father covered all four walls with pine-board panneling and stained the boards white. Having thick pine boards covering your walls makes a fabulous room-sized bulletin board, and I had every square inch covered with horse pictures, some from books and some that I had drawn. At one point, there may have been a poster of Elton John or David Cassidy. Maybe a cover from the DYNAMITE magazine with John Travolta as Vinny Barbarino.

The floor were hardwood planking with little wooden button thingies that would pop out and make my mother go nutso trying to keep track of the buttons.


My sister and I each had our own bedroom; however, I hated to sleep by my lonesome. Especially since my bedroom was right next to the attic door. Right now that attic is chock-a-block full of old magazines and books and toys and QVC boxes, but back in the '70s, both Rosemary's Baby and the girl from the Exorcist lived in that attic.

My sister couldn't honestly care less if she slept in the same room as me or if she slept alone in her own room. She had some sort of Demontor-B-Gone spray, and she never shared. However, whenever I was being particularly horrible to her (as older sisters will often be), my Seestor would take me out at the shins by declaring that she would not sleep in my room with me that night, nor would I be welcome in her room.

She would, in effect, feed me to the monsters.

And there was no bargaining with her.

For a child so blond and dimpled, she had an iron spine when it came to doling out logical consequences to her weenie older sister.

However, the following night, I would be back in her good graces, and we'd room together and jump on the brass bed and snort and laugh and pedal our footie-pajamaed feet under the acrylic blankets making static electricity sparks shoot through the darkness like miniature bottle-rockets, until we could hear the THUMP THUMP THUMP of my father stomping meaningfully up the stairs, down the hallway, and then firmly pushing open the door to reprimand us in what was his best attempt at an Angry Dad voice:

"NOW GET TO SLEEP, YOU TWO. AND HEY, THIS TIME I MEAN IT. NO MORE GOOFING OFF. NOW C'MON. GET TO BED. SCHOOL TOMORROW."

Before our dad had even opened the door, my sister and I would plop our heads into the pillows and close our eyes tight and pretend to be asleep. And we'd continue the sleep-charade while he was standing there trying to play the Bad Cop. (Which he did very badly. Our dad could be loud, but he was not very threatening. Sort of like an angry Bill Murray. Give me a break.)

For a few moments after he'd left, my sister and I would still pretend to be asleep even though both of us knew darn tootin' that other was wide awake and trying hard not to snort. We'd hear our dad thump back down the stairs, hear the French doors to the living room squeak open with a few notes of the Hawaii Five-O theme song drifting up to the second floor, and then all would be quiet in the dark bedroom.

Too quiet.

The super-quiet of two girls holding their breath because they both knew that the next sound either of them made - the next gulp, the next sniffle, the next half-syllable - would cause the other sister to bust up laughing and shaking in uncontrollable fits, causing the brass bed to wobble and bang on the hardwood floor, causing even louder lauging and maybe even some peeing, causing a quick repeat of the THUMP THUMP THUMP up the stairs.

So we both lay there, holding our breath.


Holding our breath...


until....

...


...


...


....




"wuzzah"



"BAH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!!!!"


--------------------------------

So there's a bit about my childhood bedroom.

There's more, of course, but I really need to go visit with my husband and watch some television or something. All this writing is making me think too hard all at once, and I don't want to have some sort of reaction like brain hives or something.

Join us tomorrow for the Ugly Sister Best Of Awards.

And go tell my Seestor to feel better. Demand it of her. She'll listen to you.

--------------------------------

LATE NIGHT BONUS! Click here. You won't be sorry.

NaBloPoMoDay 3: Ugly Sister Smackdown!

Wow.

My sister really came out swinging on this one.

Dang.

I was just walking to the center ring to touch gloves, and WHAM, a left to the old 1970s-in-the-basement-posing-as-rock-stars.

The canvas tastes like shoe, but feels so cool upon my bruised ego.

Alright, alright...I know that a lot of you have money riding on me in this smackdown. I'm getting up...I'm wiping the trickle of sweat from my eye…I'm pulling the contact lens from under my eyelid and readjusting it….

So this is the way it's going to go, huh?

Okay. Okay.

Hey! Look over there! Isn’t that Amy wearing a Captain Middleswarth helmet??



BAM!!!!!!

AWWWW YEEEEEAAAAAHHHHH!

HOW DO YOU LIKE ME NOW!

I SAID, HOW DO YOU LIKE ME NOW?!!!

This picture here would be March 7, 1978 and that would be my Seestor's Confirmation Day. That's the initiation day in the Catholic Church where you don't get to wear a pretty white dress, but you do get a doily on you head and a slap on the face from the Bishop. I think I'm wearing about the right expression for someone sporting Carnaby Street's take on a traditional dirndl dress and white knee socks. My Seestor looks way too happy for someone wearing a doily.

The blonde-haired Lithuanian woman with the arms like ham hocks would be my dear grandmother, God Rest Her Soul.

And hey...don't the expressions on that picture look eerily similar to this picture?


Thank goodness Seconda is mercifully doily-free, and my arms just look like kielbasa, not ham hocks. For now.


Okay...doilies are pretty hard hitting, but I think I must concede that my Seestor won this smackdown. I need to call our mom tonight and instruct her to dig around for some more brawl-worthy photos.

In the meantime, don't forget to mail your questions to TheUglySisters@yahoo.com

Tomorrow is Sisterly Advice Day, and really, many people have paid, and paid dearly for this service that we are offering free during NaBloPoMo month. Take advantage of our combined 537 IQ...wait, I think I added wrong...anyway, take advantage of our insight borne of experience and our bouyant good humor borne of 99 bottles of beer on the wall. You won't regret it.

NaBloPoMo

That has to be the worst acronym in, like, forever.

It sounds as if it has something to do with a National Organization of Teletubby Sodomizers.

But, it's not.

No, it's the acronym for National Blog Post Month.

For the entire month of November, bloggers who join the movement (or perhaps it's a cult, mwah-ha-ha-ha-ha) take a blood oath to sit in front of their screen- be it large and flat or tiny and expensive - and once a day, to crack their knuckles thricely, stick the tip of their tongue out of the corner of their mouth, squint their eyes and knit their eyebrows, and then tap, tap, tap away at the keys until they finally click on PUBLISH POST (or SEND, or whatever) and, in effect, post something to their blog EVERY SINGLE DAY FOR THE ENTIRE MONTH OR ELSE!

Don't ask me "or else what?"

You can't HANDLE the "or else what?"

Just think thumb screws and water boards, that's or else what.

Okay, not really.

Just think a big "KICK ME! I DROPPED OUT OF NABLOPOMO!" written on a giant yellow Post-It and stuck to the back of your blog for the entire month of December. It's true. These organizers aren't messing around.

And what if you DO post every day for an entire month?

Well, my friend, you have the satisfaction of a job well done.

And maybe there will be another widget to add to your sidebar. Something like "I NaBloPoMo'ed and all I got was this grayscale widget. And a rash on my Tinky Winkie."

Anyway, I signed up. And I'm forcing my sister to sign up, too. I'm the older sister, and you may think that by the ages of 40-something and 30-something, big sisters would no long wield any bully power over their younger sisters, but you would be so, so very wrong. In fact, watch how easily I can blackmail my younger sister into posting to her blog every day for a month.


"Hey. Hey, Seestor. Hey, c'mere I want to tell you something...

Perrier Water.

That's right...Perrier Water.

Yeah, that's got your attention.

I knew it would.

So. Now. Hows about you buddy-up with me and write something every day on your blog for a month, and that story will go no further. No farther, either."

Of course, the downside to bullying my sister is that my sister not only has an equally and infuriatingly obnoxious story she can tell about me, but she's also much stronger than I am and can hold me down and do that thing where you grab the other person's hand and say, "Why are you punching yourself? Huh? Why are you punching yourself?"

Also, she's a natural blonde. Which is neither here nor there, but bears mentioning as a super power.

SO.

Here's the plan.

NaBloPoMo suggests that to make this endeavor a bit easier so as to not "run out of gas" around day 14, bloggers should blog on a theme. My Summer Vacation or Thirty Ways To Cook Toast or What I Found In My Driveway This Morning.

I, however, had the wildly brilliant idea of co-blogging with my Seestor. And because I'm hyper-organized and a pain in the ass, I came up with a easy-to-follow template for each day of the week with revolving topics and writing prompts. Boy. Am I fun or what.

Anyway, it's going to go like this:

MONDAY: Random Noodlings. A little of this. A little of that. Stray thoughts and scrambled eggs.

TUESDAY: Get to Know The Ugly Sisters! Where we get all autobiographical, tell some Remember When type stories, and reveal which one of us has a peg leg. Just kidding. It's only a peg toe.

(Yes, back in the day when we ran with a group of rock-n-roll hippie yonkos, my sister and I were lovingly dubbed The Ugly Sisters. Our friends told us that they were being ironic. However, there does exist a photo of me and my sister with underwear on our heads and frizzy perms. So, it has crossed my mind that our friends were being ironic when they told us they were being ironic. Anyway, we embraced the name as a good moniker for a rock band at the very least, and yes, The Ugly Sisters is trademarked. Not by us, mind you, but that's not stopping me from using it here.)

WEDNESDAY: Best of Awards. Because everyone likes to give an award.

THURSDAY: Question From My Sister. Where we ask each other questions and answer them. Duh.

FRIDAY: Geek Of The Week. Don't be an idiot, and we'll all get along just fine. Get up in our grills, and, boy oh boy...oh boy...why I just outta...don't get me started. Who will the Geek of the Week be this Friday? Stay tuned!

SATURDAY: Ugly Sister Smackdown. Started here. Ended here. To be continued.

SUNDAY: Sisterly Advice - Our weekly advice column. This is the part where we take questions from the audience and offer you the wisdom of our combined years. Ask us anything! We'll give you a thorough and well thought-out answer. Or not. Maybe we'll just make stuff up after giggling over your dilemma. That said, we have a whopping 27 years of parenting experience between us and can adequately cover (i.e. tap-dance our way through) most topics from diapering babies to homework blues to answering "Band-Aid or stitches?" to teenage drivers, as well as philosophizing over more general questions such as "When should I be supportive, when should I discourage, and when do I pretend she's someone else's kid" and "Glitter! What the hell?!" We've both had encounters with possibly rabid animals, and my sister raises goats and wild horses, so right there, a wealth of information. If you need recommendations for beverage pairings to your favorite entree, or music to whittle by, we can help. Problems with noisy neighbors? Wondering whether to dump that dude? Got bunions? We're your gals. Drop us a line at
TheUglySister@yahoo.com or post your question in the comments section at any time and we'll do our darndest to point you in the right direction. (Your mileage may vary.)

So there! Doesn't this sound promising?

Here's to NaBloPoMo!

It's a dessert topping! It's a floor wax! It's a Peruvian poet!

It's whatever you want it to be!

Now, get thee to the buggery bloggery!

Don't Cry For Me, Schuylkill County!

Yes, it's that time of year again.

Time for the Dead Celebrity Party, to be held at an undisclosed location high in the Pennsylvania Appalachian Mountains.

I didn't go last year.

I forget why.


Oh yeah.


This.




How could I forget the person stapled to my leg. (At the time, to my boobs.)


In holding true to a theme, I once again am dressing as a dead Latino. Or Latina.

There was Che, immortalized here, and on several billion liberal arts student T-shirts.

Then a few years ago there was Frida.




I am once again trying to come up with some celebrity I half-way resemble, but according to this



I don't look like anyone who is yet deceased. Thank goodness.

However, I now understand why chicks and drag queens dig me so much.

Anyway, as far as the dead celebrity I finally decided on, I'll leave you here with a teaser:


Look at the title of this post. Sssssshhhhhhhhh!


In other news relevant to food and all things...uhm...food, here's an entertaining post or two to read while I put on my make-up.

Eggplant, Oh Eggplant

Leeks: Who Knew?

The Veggies Are Here! The Veggies Are Here!

WARNING: The last post contains photos of adults dressed as produce, and an evil smiling tomato, all of which may be disturbing to minors. And pets.

Enjoy!

I'll be back soon with photos of my drunken debauchery.

I mean, my costume.

Shameless

Thanks to everyone who donated to Heidi! What a great birthday gift to ME! As a final push, if Heidi collects $3,000 - that's...oh damn, now I have to do math...anyway, if she gets to $3,000, I will videotape myself singing Chocolate Rain and post it here for your viewing pleasure!

Today is my birthday.

And I’m going to cut right to the chase here:

Today is my birthday, and I want a gift from you.

Yeah you.

No, not some shadowy-grammary, pluralized generalization of “you”. But "you", the flesh-and-blood, singularity "you".

You, yeah, you.

You right here and now reading this blog, inhaling and exhaling, shifting in your seat and chewing on your bottom lip, one foot crossways in your lap picking at that ingrown corner of toenail that’s been bugging you all day, thinking that you could really go for a tall glass of ice cold lime seltzer with a dash of angostura bitters.

Well, maybe the last part was me, not you.

But listen, today is my birthday and today I’m thirty-eleven years old.

That’s 41 in dog years.

Now initially for my 41st birthday, I wasn’t expecting anything all that special. Really, I wasn’t.

Turning forty-one is not like when you’re turning five and you know that you will wake up to yellow balloons and a princess party with all your family and friends, and presents, presents, presents, and a special banana cake with chocolate icing, and the world - which already spins around your tiny wonderfulness - will spin a mite faster just for you on your special day, and green is greener, and pink is pinker, and every pony prances just for you, and you can even possibly throw a tantrum or two even with tears and foot-stomping, and the grown-ups will let you get away with it scot free because it’s Your birthday! Your birthday! Your birthday!

The best day of all!

So much better than even Christmas because all the gifts on the dining room table have your name on them! Only yours! And all the attention is on You! You! You! And Baby Jesus and your older sister will both just have to sit on the sofa with grumpy faces if they can’t be happy that you got a brand new red bike AND a Spirograph AND five dollars from Great-Aunt Millicent because You’re Five! and you look so stinking adorable in your pink chiffon dress and baloney curls on your specialest of special days!

Hooray! Hooray for Five! Hooray!


Yes, I was entirely impossible as a child.


But today I am forty-one.

There is no big birthday party for forty-one.


Even forty, again, is a different story.

When some people turn forty, they might decide to organize a splendidly elegant fete or a frolicking poke-in-the-ribs roast in their own honor upon successfully navigating four decades of life on earth. When other people break Four-Oh, they mark the day by drinking a fifth of clear alcohol and then paging through their high school yearbook, slurring prank calls to the valedictorian and homecoming queen.

However, when I turned forty, I was unceremoniously denied the limelight’s sheen and rollicking-good embarrassment of both aforementioned options all because I got knocked-up, had major abdominal surgery, and instead spent my Big Day limping around the house leaking bodily fluids and challenging a gaseous newborn to a farting contest.

Okay, my kids did draw some lovely cards for me. And we did have a cake. (I think we had cake. I was so sleep deprived and high on Percocet, I may have hallucinated the cake part.)

And alright, I did Google a few old classmates - just for kicks, mind you, and not necessarily to compare and contrast and obsess over what I did or didn’t do with my own life so far, all while hunkered over a bowl of gin and olive stew. And while Googling, I found my ole buddinsky, Ralph Mohutsky, who is now an actor in LA and looks all swarthy and dangerous, which doesn’t at all jibe with my lasting image of him as a clean-cut, goofball kid who played the trumpet in marching band, but whose current success also didn’t threaten to spin me into mid-life crisis because - if nothing else - I have at least come to terms with the fact that I’ll just never be swarthy, no matter how many acting classes I take and no matter how many days I go without waxing my legs.

Anyway….

Today is my forty-first birthday.

And in honor of my forty-first birthday, I’m letting loose both my inner-child and my outer mid-life bitch and I’m asking for presents, gol dammit, presents!

No, I don’t need more hand lotion.

No, no, no, I don’t have time for a massage, and no I’m not going to fool myself that I’ll get out to dinner with my husband anytime in the next eighteen years.

Yes, I’d love a pair of knee-high brown suede boots, but no…well, okay, yeah…if you want to send me some knee-high brown suede boots, I won’t say no.

But what would really make a crabby old diva-princess like myself most happy on this, the most wonderful, splendiferous of all days, is the gift of cold hard cash.

Yeah, you heard right again.

I. Want. Money.

Dinero.

Loot. Moolah. Scratch.

In fives, tens and twenties, if you please.

Pile on the greenbacks and pile’em high.

For my forty-first birthday, I am shamelessly asking that you grab a hunk o’ bucks and mail them to...

this person here:

Heidi Dugan.


Okay, who the hell is Heidi Dugan.

Heidi Dugan is a gal pal of mine who is walking in some 3-Day Breast Cancer Walking Thingy where she is going to walk 60 miles over three days in order to raise money for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation and the National Philanthropic Trust Breast Cancer Fund.

Heidi just sent me a letter - not a birthday card, mind you, but a letter - letting me know that she’s been training for this “amazing event” (although, not as amazing as my forty-first birthday, if anyone’s asking me) by walking, walking, walking, and Heidi says that so far, in training, she’s walked over 250 miles.

And yet, she couldn’t walk to the mailbox to send me some chocolate bars or something thoughtful for my forty-first birthday.

Oh, and it hasn’t just been this one letter, but a bunch of letters and emails all saying the same thing: “Look at me! I’m helping to raise money for breast cancer research! I’ve lost 33 pounds so far just by practicing walking! I’m not forty years old yet! Look at my gorgeous hair! Please sponsor me and make a tax deductible donation to help support breast cancer education, screening and treatment! Aren’t I adorable! Yadda-yada-yadda!”

It’s a pathetic vying for attention on MY birthday.

Well, I’m NOT having it!

I’m NOT sitting on the grumpy chair!

I’m forty-one! And although I may not be able to walk 250 miles or be all CUTE and YOUNG and NATURALLY SELFLESS and INDUSTRIOUS and whatEVAH….

…and okay, Heidi didn’t really say all that stuff about having gorgeous hair and being adorable and not being forty, BUT I BET SHE WAS THINKING IT, JUST TO MOCK ME ON MY FORTY-FIRST BIRTHDAY!


WWWHHHAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!

WWWHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!


sniff sniff


So anyway - sniff - it would make me really happy on my forty-first birthday if everyone who reads my blog could just - sniff, sniff - you know, donate some money to Heidi in support of her walk, in honor of your loved ones who are surviving breast cancer, for the future of our daughters, and for a cure for this horrible disease.

But mostly donate money because it would make me happy on my forty-first birthday.

And that’s what’s really important.


Happy Birthday To Me…Happy Birthday To Me!…Happy Birthday Dear Meeeeeeee!…Happy Birthday To Me!

Click Here To Donate Online To Sponsor Heidi

mah summa vacashun!

Like black rubber bracelets and lace fingerless gloves....

Like the 90's Rat Pack revival and The Macarena....

Like grunge, CB radios, and typing just. like. this. for. emphasis. ....


Once a fad finds its way to me, you know that fad is dead.

Or at least in the throes of death rattle.

(I don't have a MySpace page yet. Teenagers everywhere are heaving sighs of relief.)


And so, without further ado, we bid Adieu! to another meme....

Chincoteague/Assateague, VA Vacation 2007

A swell time was had by all.


Now...onto Crocs and American Idol.

Also, Lily Allen should pay me to not buy her album.

Spring and Ding and Rabid Furry Animals

In spring time, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding a ding;
Sweet lovers love the spring!

Ah Spring! When all the world is mudluscious and puddle-wonderful and the goat-footed balloonMan whistles far and wee, and we poets throw convention to the april winds and begin

free-versing

just scattering

words!

here and there

across the page letting all the capitals

and commas
fall in heaps

like so many

bunny droppings!


So beside Spring, what else has been going on?

Well, Ms. Chicky of Chicky Chicky Baby awarded my Pennsylvania is for Pothole Lover's post a ROFL Award for February.

And I am honored. Truly.

It's nice to know that I'm spreading a little ha-ha around, making someone's day a bit lighter and brighter, perhaps aiding in the much needed nose-irrigation via caffeinated beverages that we all need now and again to remember just why it is we climbed out of the primordial soup in the first place, i.e. liquid in the nose is uncomfortable.

I myself have been lax in awarding my own ROFL Award - well, let's be honest...I've been lax in just about everything - but if I were to award another, then gosh dang, it would have to AGAIN go to my sister.

I know, I know.

I know what you're thinking.

You're thinking, "You know, that new Justin Timberlake song ain't half bad. But it makes me feel so sad for Britney because you know he was just thinking about her when he wrote it - I mean, if you really listen to the words and all, there's a message there within the lyrics that could so apply to what was going on with Britney and K-Fed (What goes around comes around. Get it?) "

No?

You were wondering what that weird twangy instrument in the beginning of the song was? Electric mandolin is my guess.

No?

Oh...you think the song is about Justin and Cameron Diaz.



Whatever.

Anyway.

My sister makes me laugh out loud. "Cats, pan, and tuna." Yonko, please! I know a lot of folks say, "Oh my gosh, that was so funny I wet myself." But really...I'm soaking in it. Do yourself a favor: if you have to read one story this year about a madwoman trying to trap a passel of feral cats, this one is it.

Oh. And the beginning part of the post is good, too.

Although, if you don't want to think about frogs mating, then beware.

Although, really, too late.


In other news....

I often write joshingly about my parenting skills (and/or lack thereof). And how instead of a college savings account, my husband and I are just siphoning money into a therapy fund for our kids along with, possibly, directing other monies to a somewhat larger fund to pay for my face transplant and identity change once our children's tell-all book comes out. It's not like I keep wire hangers or anything. And I occasionally allow sugared breakfast cereal, so it’s not as if I’m an overbearing “No high fructose corn syrup” tyrant. In fact, I rather like the opiate effects a little Captain Crunch can have on antsy-pantsy children. Although coming down off that high can be a bitch.

But, when you are an English major writer type, and your children’s father is also an English major writer type, you figure that sooner or later these children are going to take pen to paper and begin writing their own poetry and fictions.

And then later, later on, you figure they’ll be writing their tell-all non-fictions. (“Later, later on”, of course, meaning sometime off in the waaaaaaayyy waaaaaaay distant future when your kids are ornery teenagers and walk around the house slouching beneath their hairstyles and saying things like “Huh?” and “Muh”, and you realize that it doesn’t matter that you don’t wear those un-hip mom jeans and that you do have Death Cab for Hot Arcade Chip’s latest single on your iPod - or whatever…your iChip Cochlear Implant - it doesn't matter, you’ll just never be cool again.) That during this distant “later, later on“, you figure your children will be jotting down for all posterity their recollections, impressions, and sugar-addled critiques of your parenting style and personality flaws.

But you gotta also figure their rants and more rantings won’t be scribbled down in some cutesy Happy Bunny diary with an aluminum lock and key and then stuffed between the mattress and box spring. And it won’t be some bittersweet Thursday afternoon after they’ve left for college when you’re airing out the bedding that you happen upon the diary, and so you take a moment to sit upon the pink chenille bedspread to leaf through pages filled with exclamation points and underlined opining of just how!!! wrong!!!! you!!!!! were!!!!!! for yelling like a madwoman at them this time, and how embarrassing! it was when you sang!! karaoke Justin Timberlake!!! at the school May Fair!!!! that time. No, it won’t be “Thank goodness at least the whole world doesn’t know what a crazy lady mother I am! I'll just quietly don my Lee Riders and pretend to finish sweeping, and if my kids turn out to be cocktail waitresses or insurgents or poets, I can blame their father.”

Oh no. It won’t be like that at all.

More likely, you gotta assume that whatever your kids will have to say about you will be typed out and immediately published on their blog (or whatever…their iLaser Mega Graffiti System) for everyone in the global neighborhood PTO to read.

And even though you openly and honestly admit to your kids that you’re not perfect and that you make mistakes and sorry for catching your chin in the snowsuit zipper all those times, the illusion that they will forever hail you as Queen Princess Mommy Goddess will be broken sooner or later. Perhaps when they are pre-teens. Perhaps when they are tweens (whichever age that is, but it sounds obnoxious and expensive.)

Or maybe when they are eight years old.

Maybe, they will be entering an animal story writing contest, and they will ask you to read their story, and you will read this:

“The cat was hungry! Don’t you care about hungry animals?” I shouted.

“Prima, I do care about hungry animals, but this one could have been sick! It could have given you rabies!” Mom yelled.

“Mom, it didn’t look sick!” I shouted.

Mom thought for a while. “Okay,” she sighed, “I’ll let you feed it, but if you get rabies, it’s not my fault.”

!!!!!

So, to recap (and with apologies to my writing group who already heard this story, but I felt the need to share it with the class.)

1) My oldest daughter and I communicate mostly through yelling and shouting.

2) I have a thing about rabies (but with good reason, if you ask me), and

3) I’d let my child get rabies to prove a point.


Well, pluck my brow and call me Ms. Crawford.


Of course, I could be this parent. His Hemingway is only six years old. The little scamp.

Anyway, the entire story was very good and well-written. And I did let her keep the cat in the end. (Go me!) And no, even though this story was (supposedly) fiction, I have never, ever, ever, EVAH said anything remotely like “…if you get rabies, it’s not my fault.” On the contrary. More likely, I said something like, “Honey, if you ever go near a rabid cat I will weep every day for a month for not having been a more attentive mommy and for ever allowing you out of the house in the first place without a Kevlar jumpsuit.”

Just kidding. I wouldn’t say that either.


Ah well.

I do suppose that I was due a little karmic comeuppance for using my kids as material for my own writing. (Even though I make them sound mostly adorable. The little scamps.)

I suppose that I already do write about my own madcap adventures and flounderings in parenting and publish them for all to see, so really, what’s the big deal if my daughter jumps on the bandwagon? (Copycat.)

I suppose I do yell more than I should (though I blame our house’s bad acoustics and reverberating hardwood floors. I mean, c’mon, I'm mostly just projecting. The sound goes everywhere.)

I suppose I could chill out with the rabies phobia, especially since we’re all vaccinated against rabies anyway. Eh-hem.

Anyway…

(I was thinking of renaming this blog “Anyway….”)

That’s all that’s going on here.

The loverly Ms. Slouching Mom tagged me a with a meme that I’ll come back to in a bit. I’m up to my eyeballs in Girl Scout cookie deliveries right now. And diapers. And springtime.

That hey ding a ding time.

A ding a ding.

Practical Psychology

Case Study 1: “I Feel (You Are A Weiner)” Messages

Woman: You know all those flattened cardboard boxes behind the trash can?

Man: Uh huh.

Woman: Those are trash, too. I flatten the small boxes so then you can put them in another bigger box and take them out to the curb when you take out the garbage each week.

Man: Mmm.

Woman: Because, you know, those boxes have been there for four weeks now.

Man: Oh.

Woman: And they are trash. I just don’t put them in the trash can because why put cardboard in a plastic garbage bag?

Man:

Woman: Are you listening to me?

Man: Hmm?

Woman: Because sometimes I feel like no one listens to me.

Man: Yes…I was listening.

Woman: And when no one listens to me, I begin to feel powerless.

Man: Yes.

Woman: I start to feel…you know…like no one takes me seriously.

Man: I hear you.

Woman: I don’t feel respected.

Man: I’m listening.

Woman: What did I say?

Man:

Woman: Sigh. Okay, all those flattened cardboard boxes. See them?

Man: Mmm-hmm.

Woman: All those cereal boxes and oatmeal boxes and granola bar boxes?

Man: Yes.

Woman: Those are trash.

Man: Okay.

Woman: So, when you take out the trash tonight, put them in a bigger box.

Man: Oh.

Woman: You know, like when you buy a case of beer and then there is the big empty box? Just fill that beer box with the smaller boxes, and then put it out by the curb, and I will feel happy.

Man:

Woman: So, you got it?

Man: Yes.

Woman: You are hearing what I am telling you? I still don’t feel as if I’m being heard. I feel frustrated when people don’t listen to what I’m saying.

Man: Yes, I am hearing what you are telling me.

Woman: Good.

Man: You told me to buy more beer.


________________________________________


Case Study 2: Haim Ginott Can Bite Me


8-year-old Child: I can’t find my shoes!


Child: Mommy! I SAID I can't FIND my SHOES!

Empathetic Mother: I hear how frustrated you are, Honey.

Child: WHERE ARE MY SHOES!

Mother: I don’t know. The rule is that our shoes should be in the shoe bin or in our bedrooms. If your shoes are not in your room or in the shoe bin, I don’t know where they are.

Child: I CAN NEVER FIND MY SHOES!

Mother: I hear how angry you are, Darling.

Child: I’M GOING TO MISS THE BUS!


Child: I SAID, I’M GOING TO MISS THE BUS!


Child: AHHHHHH! THE BUS JUST WENT BY! I MISSED THE BUS! I MISSED THE BUS!

Mother: Boy, I can really hear how upset you are, Sweetie.

Child: WHHHHAAAAHHH! sob! WHHHAAAAHHHH! sob! sob! WHHH--hhu!-huh-hu!-hu---Whhu!---hu-hu!--!

Mother: Okay, I hear you hyperventilating.

Child: Wuh!--h!-hh!--hHHh!---whuh--huuh--!

Mother: It’s okay. You’ll find your shoes and I will drive you to school.

Child: Buh--but--bu-but everyone--ry--whuh--hu--

Mother: You need to breath. “Everyone” what?

Child: Everyone will st--sttt-st-stare at mmm-huh!--h!-huh!--me. When I wwwww--wwwalk in the rrrr-rrroom….

Mother: I hear how worried you are. It will be okay. Just find your shoes, and I will drive you to school.

Child: Whhuh!..huh!..WWHHHHAAAAAA! WWWHHHAAAAAA! I MISSED THE BUS! I MISSED THE BUS!

Mother: Okay, you need to calm down.

Child: WWHHHHAAAAAA! WWWHHHAAAAAA

Mother: CALM DOWN! RIGHT NOW!

Child: H--huh--hh--hh--

Mother: YOU need to GRAB a PIECE of PERSPECTIVE here!

Child: Sniffle!

Mother: We’re talking about a missed bus and a few of your friends looking at you as you walk into your classroom! You need to GET a GRIP!

Child: Snoof. Snurffle.

Mother: I mean, right now there are kids wandering around barefoot through sewage in the alleys of Kibera. Right now, some little girl in Iraq wishes she could go to school at all if it weren’t so dangerous to walk outside her house. Right now, there’s another little girl waiting in an emergency room about to get a shot or have stitches put in! And your big problem this morning is finding one of your five pairs of comfy shoes and then riding to school in a comfy seat while listening to your favorite music, and then walking into your warm, well-lit classroom without first having to scrape poop and dead rats off your feet or holding your backpack over your head to deflect shrapnel!

Child: Snurf.

Mother: So, you know…chill out. Just a few degrees, okay?

Child: Okay, Mommy.

Mother: A little perspective, right?

Child: Right, Mommy.

Mother: Life is good.

Child: Life is good.

Mother: Good. Give me a hug and let’s find your shoes.

Child: Mommy?

Mother: Yes?

Child: Can I be just a little upset that my hair looks poofy in the front?

Mother: Of course, Dearest. Even people in Kibera have bad hair days.

Aqua Throwdown

I was perusing the latest brochure of swim course offerings from our local high school's Community Aquatics Program.

I was thinking I'd help beat the winter blahs by signing-up the kiddies for some water tot programs, and maybe also, you know, challenge myself with an adult aqua class or two.

Beginning Diving?

Hmmm. Is The Bellyflop a dive?

How about a synchronized swimming class?

I always look so fetching in a rubber skull cap.

But my interest was really piqued when I came to the final listing:

Theory And Confined Water Scuba

Ooh.

This sounded like serious fun.

None of those airy-fairy swan dives or spiraling arabesques with toes pointed and Knox gel in my hair.

I want to gear up big time. I want goggles and flippers and an oh-so-form-fitting Scuba suit in black leather with flames down the side. I want to deep sea dive and poke at sharks with big sticks. I want to explore the wrecks of Spanish galleons and stuff handfuls of gold doubloon into my Aqua Bra.

Yes! Water Scuba! That’s the class for me!

I could do this!

And then I read the class description and prerequisites:


Damn.

200 years?

During my lifeguard training class in 1983, I had to tread water for 30 minutes. I think I got a nosebleed at minute 14.

I’m an Aqua Weinie.

So yeah. Friendly warning not to challenge the Cumberland Valley Scuba Divers to an endurance round. Those guys are hardcore.

Anyway…who wants to dive in a quarry?

All that’s down there is a bunch of stolen Chevelles and a few ex-mobsters.


I think I’ll go for this cap.