Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Broke Bink Mountain


So recently my husband and I tried out a new fun hobby. It's called, break your three-year-old from using a pacifier. Now I know not every kid gets addicted to "the bink", I'm sure there are many mommy nazis out there who say it's a crying shame to even give one to your kid in the first place. Well in my defense I can totally blame a random labor and delivery nurse for introducing a bink to my newborn whilst I was recovering from a C-section. She appeared literally at 2am and whisked the baby away for a check up, shots, and whatever else they needed to do (my guess was just to torture and wake up the tired mommy, but I digress). When my daughter returned she was happily quiet, wrapped up like a burrito, and sucking on a newborn pink bink. She looked content and sleepy so I thought, what the hay.
Flash forward three years later and my little one was still totally addicted to that thing like nobody's buisness. We had tried (unsuccessfully I might add) to rid ourselves of the bink at earlier times, but it never did quite work. After reading up on some parent tips online and watching a few episodes of the super nanny we felt armed enough to try it again.
After a few years, we were left with only three binkies when my hubby started plotting their demise. First he cut the tip off of one and left it where she would find it. She came over with the saddest little face and said, mama, my bink broke and proceeded to immediately throw it away! We looked at each other with surprise... was it going to be this easy?? Should we have done this years ago? Ah not so fast. She instantly found the second bink and popped it in her mouth. A few days go by and we actually lost the seond pink bink... and then there was just one. A few more days pass and we decide this will be it. Snip goes the tip and we give each other the look like, now there's no turning back and we're screwed. About 15 mintues later she finds it, does another sad face (the saddest ever) says, my bink broke, and tosses it away. Now we wait (in panic mode) as night approched, wondering what would happen when she asked for it.
Now I'm not going to lie, that first night she had trouble falling asleep. She recanted the story of her bink breaking and throwing it away, and I think she finally crashed at 2am. But seriously, the next day, she didn't even ask for it. We were so shocked! It's been a week now and she is totally free from the bink. Success! Well sort of. Now that she's off the bink it must of given her extra thinking time to figure out other clever things like how to crawl out of her crib and climb the safety gate to downstairs, unlock the front door... but that's another blog...

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Disaster Updates

So you're probably sitting on the edge of your computer chair, wondering if we ever did manage to get that double blue smurf stain out of the carpet... so I thought I'd give you an update: The short answer is Yes, and Hallelujah. The first stain came out great. The second stain, thanks to the power of prayer, elbow grease, tireless effort, and the miracle wonder that is Oxyclean is also completely gone! Also we've learned to toss an old towel over the new shop vac so any exhaust can still get out, just not back onto the carpets. ALSO, if you are a shop vac company shouldn't there be a very large warning on the box stating that giant exhaust spray might shoot out the back of the machine?? I cringe to think if we had been cleaning up vomit... does that mean a fine 3-foot mist of vomitness would spray out over the carpet? Yikes and yuk. My husband did say in the small print there is a small warning about that, but I think they should opt for a large yellow and orange disaster warning type sticker so at least you know what you're getting into. Do all shop vacs do this? Our is this just a special feature of ours? Looking back so far we are still not to the point to find the blue paint stain hilarious yet, but just yesterday I think I saw my husband smirk when he read my blog about it.
Secondly, the extra tickets... what did I do with them you ask? Well I attempted my first ever Ebay sell. (I buy sometimes, just not sell). To my shock they went for double the starting price! (I listed them at the price I paid for them just hoping to get my money back) Visualize me now waving peace signs with my fingers over my head and in my best Nixon voice saying "I am not a scalper". Plus we know what Jesus does to scalpers. Apparently Hannah freaking Montana is the hottest thing since sliced bread and I just happened to ride her gravy train all the way to the bank by purely random coincidence.
Oh and the room. It turned out so NICE. It has the peaceful crisp/clean look about it. I still have to add some finishing touches, but all in all I am very happy with all the trouble it was to implement such an overambitious project. That's all for now. More later.

Monday, September 24, 2007

Big ambition = Big messes

 So I don't know if you've ever been six months pregnant and you get that crazy urge that some people refer to as "nesting" but I've got it... and I've got it bad. With that said we (and when I say "we" I mean "me", who then eventually talks hubby into it) decided to make over my bedroom. Our new recent obsession is Santorini Greece. The place looks like heaven. Perched high atop a 400 ft mountainous cliff at the rim of a dormant volcano surrounded by the ocean. This Greek white washed village with ocean blue domes can only be reached by gondola or pack mule. We decided to do our room in these colors (ultra white, blue trim, sky blue ceiling with clouds), which is quite ambitious seeing that we have this large room with a high vaulted ceiling, I'm 27 weeks pregnant, and afraid of heights to boot.

Now we're no painting novices. We've done seven other rooms in our house without a minor mishap. Light colors, bold colors, sponge painting, rag painting, you name it. Home Depot could hire us out practically. Now besides being a major decorative challenge we add into the mix a curious cat, a 2 1/2 year old that likes to "help", a climbing 16 month old. Are we CRAZY, you ask? Probably. Plus, you'd think it'd be one of these suspects to be responsible for some kind of a mess causing ruckus, but alas you would be wrong.

So we started with the bright blue trim around the doors and the indented frame in the wall above our bed. The name of the paint was "Mary's Robe" blue, which I thought was a good omen. How could you go wrong painting with the favorite color of the mother of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? The other color we were looking at was called "Filth"... ok actually it was called Firth, but the other made us laugh harder. Most of the trim is done and we are about to move onto the sky blue ceiling. As we move the huge drop cloth over the bed and move the ladder, the entire tray of blue paint unbeknownst to us caught on the edge of the plastic and flipped over like a pancake onto the light beige carpet. We of course didn't discover it for a good 5 minutes when I looked down and gasped in panic. I lifted up the tray to find a GIANT 1 ft radius smurf blue stain on the carpet over 1 inch thick. I felt like throwing up.


Ironically only days before we had talked of buying a shop vac, but at the time had decided to wait. That was the wrong decision. So hubby takes off to buy a shop vac and I try to clean up what I can. Soon he is back and we set up the vac, get out some detergent and oxiclean and turn the bad boy on. To my surprise... the stain starts to come out! As we both watch the blue paint come up we get very excited. Suddenly, hubby says.. I'm getting wet! We turn around to find that there is a huge exhaust spray (blue of course) coming out the top of the shop vac, covering hubby and everything behind him in a 3 foot radius. So now we have stain number 1, which is coming up, and a very large stain number two now soaking in to the carpet. Grrrr. Needless to say it put our paint project on hold for hours as we tried to get the paint up. Two days later the original stain is totally gone, but the secondary stain (which must have gone down into the padding) keeps coming back. At the time I was like, honey, will this be something that's funny later? He's like... I sure hope so. So far we're still waiting.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Covered in Poo, Paste, and Cookie Crumbs...




This blog could also be called, "Jesus doesn't like scalpers". See this gigantic pile o' animal cookies? Well it's from a Costco sized vat (newly opened) that fell from the kitchen table and spread in a 10-foot radius all over my hardwood floor. This is the picture AFTER I had cleaned it up mind you. Who knew over 2000 cookies could make a 1-inch layer of mess over your entire kitchen, with your 2 1/2 year old marching in her bare feet just to hear the terrific crunching sound it makes. All while your 15 month old who has climbed up onto the table, knocked over a cup of water, and is smearing a nice thick paste of smashed cookies all over the table like some paper mache project gone awry. Oh and their both poopy to boot.

How did this happen, you ask? Well technically I could blame that monopoly Ticketmaster. So after the story below where I botched the presale, the sale to the general public was Saturday. My sis had got 2 tickets for the concert by going to an actual location, where I had bombed out again at home. After she noticed how high the tickets were selling on the black market she calls me and suggests the San Antonio concert is about to go on sale in a few minutes, will sell out in minutes, and maybe we should try to buy more tickets because she has "tons" of mom friends that will drive the extra miles to go to a sold out concert.
So I got the girls downstairs all ready for the 5 minutes I'd be strapped to the computer. They had snacks (cookies obviously), sippie cups, their favorite kid songs show in the DVD player and were sitting nicely on the couch whilst I raced upstairs to try and buy the tickets. Bam I got right in and just bought whatever the hell they offered me (crap seats at expensive prices) and wouldn't you know it, but I GOT them?! Sweet. I print out the receipt and call my sis in sweet victory while heading downstairs. When I approached the kitchen the above scenario is what I found. We weren't even planning to sell them on eBay at outrageous prices or anything, just to mom friends dying to go to a sold out concert. When I saw the mess I thought to myself... Jesus doesn't like scalpers. Wow imagine the mess if he ever went after Ticketmaster...

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Ticket Bas$%*ds


Capitalism is alive. Capitalism is well. Capitalism is breaking the hearts of little 9 year old girls everywhere.

So it's been a few years since I had to use Ticketmaster (well call it TM for short - or should that be TB?). Heck most of the concerts I've been to were more of a first come first serve basis where you camp out and the earlier you get there, the better your seat. I was recently drafted for a mission from my dear sis to play the role of "super aunt" and help procure Hannah Montana tickets for my niece. She was a member of the fan club and had a presale password to buy tickets before they went on sale to the general public. Since I'm an online wiz I took her up on the challenge and the second the presale started I was clicking away. The presale tickets sold out in literally seconds, with the only offerings being the nose bleed sections with the most expensive ticket price of $66 per ticket. (tickets were suppose to be $25 - $70). Thinking my sis wouldn't want to pay that much I didn't buy them at the high price and sadly I had failed my cute lil niece. I felt jipped.

I started researching complaints about TM/TB and found they are one GIANT monopoly. They control 90% of all large venues and 79% of smaller ones. If you want to go to ANYTHING you will have to go through TB. They have jacked up the prices but 30-40% after the ticket price with mysterious "fees" like the "convenience fee", the "facility charge", and of course taxes and shipping fees. They offer the worst seats first it seems, and come to find out they sell most of the medium to good tickets to ticket brokers (aka professional scalpers) who then jack up the prices to outrageous levels, with one ticket costing hundreds of dollars.

So the day of the "public" sale comes today and my sis decides to go TO an actual TB store in person to get tickets. I am recruited to try the online version again from another state at the same time to see if one of us can get them. This time we luck out. Well I don't, they offered me the very last row in the very back of the arena for $50 a pop. I think, I'll refresh and try something better. Nope. 20 seconds in they are sold out. My sis calls and says she was able to get 2, and her friend got 2 as well. All the tickets are near each other.. would you think they costs the same?? Well you'd be wrong.

My tickets: nosebleed near last row: $50 
Her friends tickets: nosebleed near the last row $60 
My sis's tickets: nosebleed near the last row $40

Now remember my nosebleed tickets at the presale I didn't buy: $66
Remember people that's the price BEFORE taxes, and about $17 in fees PER ticket

Is there any rhyme or reason to these prices? Wouldn't tickets on the floor be the most expensive around the $70 level and the nosebleeds be at the $25 price? A quick check on eBay and Craigslist shows that even these now crappy seat tickets are selling for $200 a ticket. This is crazy, what 9 year old girl and her mom can afford a $400 concert?

A few popular music bands have tried to sue TB as a monopoly. They have slowly been buying up smaller ticket sellers until there are none left. They can charge what they want, back door sell to scalpers, promise tickets together that when you get them are not together but they are not refundable (even if it is their mistake), and make a HUGE profit in the meantime. Heck I'm not against profit.. I'm against gouging the general public out of their hard earned cash. Even big sports teams have tried to sue them with no success. They cannot be stopped. They say absolute power corrupts absolutely. They ain't kidding.

Here's a link to consumer complaints against TBhttp://www.consumeraffairs.com/entertainment/ticketmaster.htm

Saturday, August 11, 2007

The burning... the itching...




OK, so you know what hurts? A sunburn. You know what itches even more? Hives. You know what really really hurts and itches like a mofo??... A sunburn, COVERED in hives. That's what I've got right now. It is taking all my will power not to stop typing and scratch myself to death.

It started innocently enough. Went to the zoo, got a surprise sunburn around my chest, neck and shoulders. Matter of fact the shirt I was wearing was a scoop neck on both sides so when the burn showed up that night it was like a bright red collar or native-type head dress both front and back. The next day I went over to my parents and my mom recommended a "save a tan" lotion that turned out to be the start of my demise. Shortly after I put it on my skin started to mildly itch. I figured it was part of the sunburn. By the time I got home it was a very intense itch and a rash had started to form.

So then I decided to play "home apothecary detective" to sooth the itch. Um. This turned out to be a bad idea. First I tried Noxzema to cool the burn, but the itch got so intense I decided to try some Gold Bond medicated itch lotion, which dulled the itch long enough to allow me to fall to sleep, but I smelled like the little old lady from Pasadena. At this point I have 3-4 different lotions on my poor skin, and my clever and sarcastic sis thought I should perhaps marinate is some teriyaki as well. At 4am I awaken from a dead sleep with the most painful burning sensation, like I literally want to rip my skin off. One check in the mirror and I've got raised welts and hives all over my sunburn. I had to jump in a freezing cold shower to help relieve the pain, but oh MY it was COLD, so now I'm wide awake. 

Then I decided to call a phone nurse ("nursing consultant" I was informed by the PC hospital operator) to see what I can take (since I'm 20 weeks pregnant to boot). She told me to try white cider vinegar to sooth the itch. That one made me cock my head to the side but she told me not to worry. So downstairs I go to find out that I have only apple cider vinegar. Well heck it's the only vinegar I have so I'll try a little bit.

So now I'm sitting here with welts, red native collar, rash, sunburn, hives, pain, smelling like an old lady who just dyed a butt load of Easter eggs and still not sure what to do. I bid you soothing relief... hope I can find some myself

Friday, August 03, 2007

The scariest 30 feet...


My little 2 1/2 year old is getting so big. Talking up a storm, learning new things every day, makes me think it won't be long before she's out the door for kindergarten, grade school, high school, prom, college, moving out... and I can't even fathom right now sticking her on a bus in a few years and saying "see you at three"... makes me queasy just thinking about it.

So my siblings and I use to live right around the corner from our grade school. We were labeled "walkers" (aka nerds) and the closest we ever got to the inside of the school bus was the occasional field trip. Looking back now we were probably the lucky ones, living so close to home, not having to deal with any extra bully troubles, but at the time we thought we were somehow getting jipped out of something fun. The one plus side to the deal was that we did get giant whiffs of the diesel fumes as the buses zoomed by our house, which I have to admit I still rather like to this day.

Now my sister and I use to walk home together, and from the corner of the school's cyclone fence to the closest corner of my parents yard was literally like 20-30 feet. This mind you was in a quiet little peaceful neighborhood where nothing scary ever really happened. We however thought this the most terrifying stretch of road anywhere in the continental United States. We had been warned as most kids to not talk to strangers, and forced to watch a couple of cheesy after school specials about stranger safety... but with a dad that liked to spook us all the time and caused great panic just for fun made our active little imaginations believe that any car, bike, mail truck, ice cream truck, and especially "rapist vans" were out to get us. (You know, rapist vans, the kind that have no windows or doors except maybe the back that look all beat up - you better run like crazy if you see one of them).

So we would start at the corner gate and would first look in every direction for cars. Then we would book it as fast as our little legs would carry us (in complete terror mind you) to our parents yard, through the tree line, over the bark, leap over the shrubs, to the safety of the front door. This was a daily ritual, I'm sad to report.

It makes my husband laugh so hard now when I tell him of our running, since he's seen the shortness of that stretch of road and it's literally a stone's throw away. Now at first today when I was thinking of how scary it would be to put my future little 5-year-old on a bus and wave goodbye... Now I'm thinking hey maybe it's a very good thing she's not going to be a "walker"

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Which way to the library??


So this little sign always cracks me up whenever we venture over to my husband's home town of Covington. Simple in it's message of course but it made me wonder if it might be a touch too simple?

Now if your looking for that place that holds all dem books with all da learnin' in them, then you've come to the right place. Looky here Ma, there's a person with an open book and an arrow pointing you in the direction of said person or book. In my fourth denominational thinking (as my dad so calls it) I picture a small video in my head where the camera rolls past this sign to three or four people sitting slightly off to the right of the sign holding books in the same pose. But if the average Joe uses their super-sleuthing deducing skills, I believe this sign will lead them to the local public library.

Here's my beef with this sign. If you're on your way to the library, shouldn't you know how to read the words "library"?? Do you really need a picture of someone reading a book to know where you need to go? And if you can't read the word "library" then maybe you shouldn't be going there in the first place.

Then this made me wonder about other signs. What if the restroom door signs with the male and female symbols on them were replaced with pictures that depicted what goes on behind closed doors? Is it only then people would know what to do in there?

I say this library sign is a slap in the face of our collective intellect. They say a picture is worth a thousand words... but in this case a picture is worth just one, the word "library". But it also has a very loud invisible parenthesis following that shouts (DUMB ASS)! It screams: "You're too stupid to read the word library, so we're going to SHOW you". Then hopefully you can follow the arrow to the correct building and get yourself some "edjumacation", you stupid ignorant prick. Hey is that sign yelling at me? Golly I love this country.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

The Plasma Chain Reaction




OK, so hubby's been researching, and prepping, and shopping for plasmas for 6 months now. Finally the one he wanted went on sale and he brought it home. So I'm like plasma.. what's the big deal? But after we got it home and I saw the difference between regular and plasma well it's like night and day. Apparently I'm an HD snob now. LOL

Anyhoo.. he didn't just get any ol' plasma. He had to get a BIG one. This stems back to his childhood when his family always had the newest and biggest technology in the neighborhood. All the kids would come over and watch movies on their 6 foot projection TV in the 70's. They were the first ones to own a VCR on the block.. you get the picture.

Little did he know he would set off a huge chain reaction of events - filling our evenings with painting, moving large furniture, buying new furniture, and basically rearranging our whole lives....

Well this big ol' plasma does not fit in our current entertainment center, designed for lowly regular televisions. Oh did I mention we have 9 remotes? That's because we have 9 different VCR's, DVD's, laser discs, stereo stuff, record player, you name it. We're not super rich or anything.. just things he's collected over the last 20 years. (We work in TV so he loves techy stuff)

So I have this huge wall entertainment center that I have to get rid of.. well I think hey, I will make this an armoire dresser for my room that doesn't have enough storage anyway. The small dresser we have I will repaint for the girls room.... so this is the list of things now we are doing.

1. move and paint old dresser to match nursery
2. disassemble entertainment unit and move piece by piece upstairs
3. reassemble it as a bedroom armoire
4. go through all the closets/clothes and reorganize everything
5. paint all the walls in the family room
6. Buy a new armoire/audio cabinet to hold all the equipment
7. Assemble it and load up all the equipment
8. Hire our electrician friend to hide all the wires in the wall
9. Mount our surround sound speakers and hide wires in the wall
10. Rearrange the bookshelf to new room configuration (and all the stuff on them)
11. Buy plasma wall mount and hook it to the wall
12. Go to the dump to get rid of old machines, equipment, boxes... the works
13. Finally enjoy our new room

(this is all while a 2 year old and a 10 month old "watch" and "help"... YIKES

Anyway, I thought it funny that one purchase would change our whole lives and the look of our house!

Sunday, March 25, 2007

Big belts and crappy hair

What's UP with fashion today? I've never been a trend maven, but I've been noticing the 80's are creeping back into the main stream and it's worrying me a bit. A few months back I was shocked, nay perplexed that stirrup pants and leggings were making a come back. I couldn't help but flash back to my absolute favorite outfit in 7th grade: White stretch pants, white loafers (no socks), over sized hot pink with white polka-dot shirt, with matching earrings and don't forget the banana clip). Another crazed 80's trend making a come back was mini skirts over the top of black leggings. Don't forget to slash up your sweatshirt to wear on top of that and about 50 Madonna bracelets on your left arm...

So I'm not opposed to belts, of course I haven't worn one since maybe the third grade (and it was rainbow, thank you). I've noticed all these wacky belts EVERYWHERE. They're not just for holding up pants anymore, and they are not for wearing around your waist for that matter. No these belts are HUGE, cover up your entire rib cage, start at your hips and sit up under your boobs. WHAT?? They make you look like you've been severed in half and held together with strips of buckles and leather.

  

Then there's the hair. I can't stand it. Technically it's probably more 70's hair than 80's... and MEN are the surprising culprits. It's way too long. Then it flips up on the sides in that ever so metro sexual way. It looks dirty, it looks unkempt, it looks like they rolled out of bed. Spikes I can handle, tousled I can handle, but stringy dirty mops... yuk. Hey I thought Justin Timberlake was gonna bring sexy back... well I'm still waiting JT. My hubby laughs at my solution when I see a gent with ugly tresses... I want to KICK it off their head. 



Oh and don't even get me started on Senjaya from AI, his hair gets girlier every week. I don't want to kick it off as much as I want to pour acid on it and rub it off with an old towel.

That's all for now

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Mine Eyes!


So I don't know if you remember this picture or not... but it's the most hilarious picture ever taken at Disneyland. In all reality it was snapped at the exact time a large fireworks display was going off, however it looks like good ol' Walt and Mickey are leading their followers into an atomic bomb blast for a mass suicide.

I was reminded of this picture this morning when I went into my bathroom. We have one of those double sink counters with large mirror and at the top is a panel of lights. Now for the last three years they've been slowly burning out but we haven't been replacing them. I totally got use to the dimness in there and when I noticed we were down to one bulb I thought well heck, it's time to break down and buy some bulbs. So I went to the store and bought two 3-packs of bulbs and headed home. Well turns out they were 60-watters... EACH. I suppose the old bulbs must of been 40-watters so when I flipped on the switch I wasn't just getting 240 watts, but rather 360 watts! All at once. Coming from a darkened bedroom it was like I had entered the surface of the sun. It took me a full minute to stop squinting! It was like Jesus was coming back. Anyway, I was reminded of the picture where Walt tried to take us to heaven with him and it made me laugh. Thought I'd share.

Friday, February 09, 2007

Get your freaks here...


So here's another great sign from www.engrish.com. Apparently all the freaks in Japan are 75% off now, which I think is a great bargain. Matter of fact now that it's February, the month of Love... or month of "Lub" as my husband calls it, it's time to reminisce about those terms of affection we call our significant other.

If you settle for the mainstream you're probably use to hearing the basic sentiments, like honey, darling, and dear. Then there's the super sweet terms that are mostly reserved for the newlywed set, like sweetie, honey lamb, sugar pie, sweet cakes. If you're marriage is on the rocks you might go with the more gruff "hey you", or "yo jerk" or "hey loser". Or if you're marriage has lasted over 50 years you probably just resort to a series of grunts.

Now hubby and I have two sets of terms of endearment. One is cutesy cutesy and the other is of our own making. OK, so the cutesy one goes like this. I call him honey bunny and he calls me sweetie peetie. (I know, gag). The other sentiment we use is short, practical, and to the point... sort of like a verbal shorthand. I call him freak and he calls me leech. To the outside listener this might sound a bit harsh, but freak has become a term of affection in our house. If you are deemed a "freak" consider yourself in fine company. Our definition of freak is someone who is an original, an evil genius, someone who does something so off the wall, you're impressed. Then there's "leech". Normally a blood sucking worm-like creature but in the hands of a loving relationship it becomes a term that means loyal, steadfast, and "I can't live without you".

It makes me wonder what other couples are calling each other? Feel free to add your own endearments in the comment boxes. I can't wait to hear everyone's nicknames for each other. So enjoy this season of "Lub" (that's lub and not lube), oh wait, maybe it's both...? and, oh yeah... you're a freak!

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Feeling Blue?


They say that January is the month where people are most likely to feel blue. Bills piling up from over spending at Christmas, the lousy weather, the days still being too short, and realizing you haven't been faithful to even one of your New Years resolutions can make some people feel depressed.

January is also a big month for travel, especially around here. Everyone wants to get away from the cold weather and January is the perfect month to jet somewhere tropical... like my friend here. Now it's a known fact that people don't get a lot of sun up in the NW. So if you're going somewhere warm, you might want to get in a few tanning sessions before you go, so you're skin is use to the sun rays and won't fry like a big ol' slab of bacon. Like Conan O'Brien says of his pale Irish skin... "I wear sunblock 50... it actually shoots rays back up to the sun".

This funny pic was sent to my cell phone by my friend... FROM her tanning bed! She had removed her sexy mini eye protectors and exposes her bare corneas to the gamma rays (or whatever rays are used in tanning beds) just for my sole amusement. Quite frightening, don't you agree? For some reason I just can't stop looking at it. I like how her blond hair looks fright white, how the whites of her eyes look pink... she's a cross between Violet from Willie Wonka and a blue man group blow up doll. So after seeing this picture maybe you're just too scared, amused, or distracted now to be depressed. You're welcome.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

The olfactory marking method




So I've noticed something lately... there's more than one way to claim your territory. If you're "the Donald" then you can opt for the super obvious and just name everything after yourself. Trump water, Trump Towers, Trump golf course, Trump; the toilet paper (you know it's coming). But if you're clever, there's a new sneaky way to mark something as yours... using only your nose.

I used to work for a certain maker of airplanes. Everyone there seemed to look the same after a while; the ubiquitous middle aged man, slightly out of shape, balding a bit, wearer of glasses. Most contained no obvious scent (thank goodness). However there was this one engineer who would come update computer programs and GOLLY he smelled good. He smelled exactly like a big ol' pile of super fresh clean laundry. I realized right away that no man would smell like this on his own and I supposed this was his wife's sly way of letting the other ladies he worked with know that he was taken. I quick glanced down at his ring hand confirmed my musings. Wow... what a neat trick.

I didn't have to look much further than my own mother for a confirmation of this tricky trend. It must be something written in the secret grandma handbook, because no matter how clean my children are when they go to grandma's house, they come back smelling different. I could send them in crisp clean clothes, with a diaper bag full of clean replacement clothes, and by the time I get back they've had baths, and everything's been washed. We're talking clothes, blankets, jackets, hats... the works. If she could wash the disposable diapers, she would. Now I'm thinking either this woman really really misses doing laundry for 4 kids, OR, she is secretly marking her grand kids with her own scent...(diabolical). Maybe it's letting the other grandma's know these babies are hers. Maybe she's letting me know she's still the alpha female of the pack. Whatever the case the new scent is there, it's strong, and by golly it's quite deliberate.

So the next time you're not sure who is whose... just take a whiff around. The answer might be right under your nose.

Thursday, January 04, 2007

Small Children and Dogs... a resolution story




Ok, so it's a new year. Happy 2007 by the way. Of course everyone's into those pesky resolutions, which most predict won't last but for two weeks at the most. There's the goal to lose weight, the one to get in shape, the one where you try to be nicer to people (that means you, Rosie and Donald), and the one where you try to be a better person.

One of my hilarious friends (mother of three with a super active sassy four year old son she'd like to possibly return to sender) sent me a most amusing text when I sent her one wishing her a happy new year. It simply said:

Happy New Year.  
My resolution is not to kick small children and dogs.

Ha. Now THAT'S a resolution. None of this world peace or lose weight, but one biting wish that must of come after one very long day of mothering. Matter of fact I locked that text in my inbox, so I could read it whenever I needed a good chuckle. Now of course I could resolve to blog more this year (which I will), and lose weight (which I hope), and resolute not to break these resolutions (ironic), but also maybe to resolve that I don't have to wait until I have some hilarious picture to share and the writing has to perfect before I blog. Maybe I can just lay it all out on the table, as is, imperfect and sometimes painfully funny. So small children and dogs stay out of my way... I'm gonna Blog BIG in 2007!
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