Kira in the car

Kira: What was my first word?

Me:  "Cup" I think.

Kira:  What if my first word was "quote?"

Me:  What? Why?

Kira: Because then when I'm old and dying I could say, (in croaky, dying voice) "Unquote!"

Some weird pictures

Sam had a wild eyebrow hair so we took a picture of it.  I was holding it out and I was no where near the end when I snapped this picture. 

Kira practiced some first-aid last night.  Now she knows just what to do if she ever sprains her face. 

Why I wish it would stop snowing:

1.  I made a snowman for the joy of watching it melt and I hurt my back lifting up the giant balls because I'm so out of shape because...

2. When it snows I would rather be drinking beer or wine until I fall asleep than doing housework, working out, parenting, being a good human being, etc. etc. (anything really).

3.  If I have to scrape ice of my goddamn windshield one more time I will slash my own tires and set my car on fire.

4.  The watery dogshit in the yard is multyplying exponentially with every new snowfall we get.  I can feel it. 

5.  The pure depression of yet another snowfall almost caused me to impulse-buy a baby duck.  Kira was all for it.

6. I'm sick of Mitch telling me how many inches I'll be getting every night.   

This April Sucks

What a shitty week!  Yesterday I neglected to bathe all day and I wallowed in my own filth because we had a snow day because we got two feet of snow (NO SHIT),

My clothesline.  No April-freshness around here this year.

and I was too busy monitoring the MANHUNT! (thanks, ABC) for the Boston bomber.  I'm really really glad they got that guy who did the bombings and that he's still alive.  The whole time I was sucked in to watching a bunch of cops standing around (hours and hours and hours) and listening to media personalities ad lib (hours and hours and hours) I was thinking two things: 1) They shut down an entire metropolitan area for a stupid teenager??? and 2) I REALLY need a shower.

Although I was totally sucked in to the media frenzy surrounding the MANHUNT! I worry that giving awful things like that so much attention encourages more crazies to come out and show how crazy they really are.  Not only "big crazy," like hurting masses of strangers, but also "little crazy."  Take, for instance, Chuck Woolery from the show Love Connection back in the '80s.

Chuck Woolery (on the right)

Yesterday he tweeted:

Okay, crazy.  Thanks, that really helps.  When he's not strangling cats for cameras, he's coming up with inflammatory conspiracy theories.

And this on Facebook from someone related to me:

Huh?  I haven't drunk Kool-Aid in years and years.  Thanks for the memories!  Now, what the hell are you talking about?

So not only was I filthy, wasting an entire day, and learning that beloved '80s icons and relatives are racist jingoists, but now I was really craving Kool-Aid and couldn't go out because of the blizzard!  Arg!

But in my intense research of the Boston Bombings I also learned that the guy from the wheelchair picture on the day of the bombing:

is named Jeff Bauman Jr.  He lost both his legs below the knees in the bombing but when he came-to after his first surgery in the hospital he was able to communicate to his brother that he saw the bomber and could identify him.  His statement helped the FBI figure out who did it.  Incredible.  And the guy in the cowboy hat helped save Jeff's life by wrapping his legs in tourniquets and then pinching off an artery (pictured) on the way to the hospital.  Jeff is in for a lot of medical treatment, rehabilitation, and prosthetics.  One of his friends started a gofundme.com site for him where you can contribute and help pay his medical expenses and write him a note.

So visit the site.  Contribute a few bucks.  Write him a note.

And if you have the time and inclination, tell the Chuck Woolerys and racist relatives of the world to go fuck themselves.

Wha???

I wouldn't call myself a radical feminist by any means, and I'm sometimes disappointed with the stereotypical woman's-world life I've led (so far), but the other night I found myself flipping through the channels on TV and I came across this on America's Top Model:

The contest for the week was to see who could look the most convincingly TAXIDERMIED on film.  The girl in the picture above got an extra point from the judges because her collar bones showed through the hole.  I am not even kidding. 

My mouth was hanging open and I was speechless.  This is the nineties, people!  (it's not? oh.)  We have come too far to pretend we were hunted and our heads are hanging in a den as a trophy!  That is not even a sentence anyone should ever have to write!  The show should be renamed "America's dumbest, most shameless, anti-female, shithead," starring queen of the shitheads, Tyra Banks!

Crazy moron

TruthCam

My dad got a Truthcam 35! wildlife camera for Christmas.  You set it up in the woods and then when something walks by, it snaps a picture.  I think it must be on a motion sensor.  Here's some of his pics:

For some reason I find this picture very funny.  It's deer forehead.  And did you notice the deer in the background biting at his own butt?  Funny.

  

(not a deer)

Did you notice all the goddamn snow we still have?  It has been snowing for days and days.  It is SO ANNOYING.  

Why having a large vocabulary is important

I was reading blogs this morning and came across this one from Kathleen at Brutalism:

Because I'm a teacher and I find the process of learning so innately beautiful, I will walk you through my particular learning process upon seeing this post.

First I read the title of the post and didn't get it.  I didn't know what a merkin was, but I was pretty sure it was a small pickle.  (I have subsequently found out I was thinking of a gherkin.)  Because I thought a merkin was a pickle, I didn't get why a person would donate hair to a charity called "Merkins of Hope."

Moving on.  I then looked at the picture of the sequined bacon and thought to myself, "mmmmmmm..........bacoooooooooonnnnnnn......."  and then saw that it was made by a company called Montabahn Pasties. I know what pasties are. I learned it the hard way. They are BOTH this:

teeny, usually tassled nipple covers mostly used by sex workers, AND ALSO THIS:

A meat pie.

For decades I thought the only noun form of  "pasty" was meat pie so you can imagine my confusion when I heard someone say, "... and then she walked in wearing nothing but pasties!"  Interesting.  

Anyway, back to the Brutalism blog post.  Because the bacon was of the sequined variety, and not the meat-pie variety, I made the assumption that this particular company was selling tiny nipple covers and not meat pies.  But then I thought, "But HOW does one wear this sequined bacon on their nipples?  It isn't exactly nipple-shaped and would look odd."  I was confused.  I totally didn't get it.  Then I looked back to see where I went wrong.  Kathleen gave credit for the title to 30 Rock.  I've seen every episode of 30 Rock and vaguely remember that quote, but didn't get it. I probably thought, "Why would Jenna donate her hair to a pickle company?"  Then I laughed because that would  be ridiculous!  Oh!  That's the joke! I get it!  (I thought).  

Then I saw that although the sequined bacon is made by a company that specializes in pasties (NOT the food kind), but the product is called a bacon MERKIN, not a bacon PASTY.  Perhaps I was wrong in making the assumption that a merkin is a small pickle.  On to Dictionary.com:

And then:

...Ooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhh..........  I get it now!  Now it all makes sense!  The 30 Rock quote was NOT a joke about how ridiculous it would be to donate hair to a pickle factory, The sequined bacon is not meant to oddly hang off the nipples, and the post Kathleen wrote was about how wonderful Etsy is in that you can buy anything! Even bacon merkins!  

Although, mostly what I get out of this whole experience just makes me want this:

Bacon Gherkin

Family Secrets

When I was little my dad had a rabbit hutch in the back yard where he raised New Zealand white rabbits.  I loved it because what little girl doesn't like a big box full of bunnies? 

Our hutch was very much like this except it was painted green. 
The point is there was plenty of room to walk around underneath and get at the rabbit turds.

I loved playing with the baby bunnies and it never really occurred to me that they weren't multiplying like proverbial rabbits.  There always seemed to be enough, but not too many.  I never gave it a second thought.

On a totally different subject: when I was a kid we ate a LOT of chicken. 

And it was always in pieces.  Never a whole chicken like I saw on cartoons.

When I asked my mom why we never had a whole chicken her answer was, "This is a different kind of chicken."  I never thought about it again.  I was too busy having an ideal childhood playing with my baby bunnies and marveling how their turds looked so much like Coco Puffs. 

Then when my sisters and I were grown, we were teasing my mom, telling her about all the times we snuck out of the house, and where we really were when we told her we were at a friend's house, or at a church lock-in, or at "prom."  

She didn't think it was funny. 

Then she said, "Remember all that chicken we ate when you were kids?"  We didn't know where she was going with this.  One of us said, "Way to change the subject, Mom! Yeah, what about it?"  She said, "It wasn't chicken, it was New Zealand white rabbits.  From the back yard."

We were stunned.  In retrospect, it was pretty obvious.  When the rabbits got big enough to scratch and not be so fun anymore, they disappeared.  But still, it was a shocker.  As we sat there with our mouths hanging open, thinking about the fate of all the poor Thumpers, Mom said,  "Want to keep telling secrets?"

We didn't.

Mmmmmmmmmm.....deliciousssssss..........

On another totally different subject, we had a LOT of good luck when we were kids.  I attribute it to the lucky rabbit's feet that were so ubiquitous in the 1970s. 

My son is the best

Sam is in tenth grade and he is taking biology.  He has a classmate who is autistic.  One day when they were having a lecture on geneology, and for some reason it freaked the autistic kid out.  He was really uncomfortable with the subject and asked Sam if they could hold hands so it would be easier to get through it.  So Sam did. 

My son is the best. 

Student of the Month

I teach an intervention reading course to sixth graders.  It is for kids who are slightly behind grade-level in their reading.  My classes are small because it's intense and also because the kids have a lot of behavior issues.  Sometimes it's frustrating, sometimes it's hilarious, and sometimes (but not as often as you'd think) it's rewarding.  Lately it's been mostly frustrating and hilarious.  I asked a kid yesterday to show me what he had written as an answer to the journal question.  All he had written was a girl's name about 500 times, trailing sadly down the page, getting smaller and smaller.  While I was looking at that, another kid came up to me and said, "MEOW!" for no reason whatsoever.  I lost it.  I started laughing and could hardly pull it back together.  The meow kid looked insulted and said, "What are you laughing at?"  I said, "You people are WEIRD."  Meow kid was afronted and said, "No we're NOT!"  I said, "You just went out of your way to walk up to me, get my attention and say 'meow.'  Nobody was even talking about cats or anything.  That is, by definition, weird." 

I pick a kid from each class to be student of the month every month.  They get a poster, a can of pop and some special privileges as a reward.  I was having a really hard time choosing a student of the month for one of my classes because they've been so difficult lately.  Mitch said, "Just pick an inanimate object."  Brilliant.

The kids are going to be so pissed.

Happy April Fools Day, Fools!

Happy April Fool's Day!  I unwittingly pranked myself good by not doing any housework all weekend so this morning I didn't have clean underwear or a clean towel.  HILARIOUS.  I don't usually play April Fool's pranks on purpose because they always backfire.  Here's a post from two years ago:

I STILL don't have internet at home. You know what? Not having internet at home is exactly like being blind. I want to know what a frog eats but can I just google it and find out? NOOOO.... no internet. So I just have to assume that they eat flies and that it doesn't matter if they are dead or not. I want to know if centipedes bite people on the feet when they are sleeping, but can I find out? No, not unless I get up at five o'clock in the morning and drive down the road and steal wifi from a neighbor, but my foot hurts from what I strongly suspect is a centipede bite, and I'm tired from a fitful night of almost no sleep because of bad dreams about shooting off into space, and guess what else is going on? I HAVE ANOTHER TOOTH ACHE. I have the worst teeth in the world. I think they must be only slightly more durable than the peppermints my grandma used to keep in her car, which were hard as rocks, but dissolved with the tiniest bit of saliva (much like my teeth).

On April Fool's day I really wanted to get Kira with some kind of practical joke because she is constantly torturing me. Lately her favorite method is to sneak up on me and pinch the skinny fat on the back of my arms or on my sides or on my thighs (anywhere, really) and say, "I'M PINCHING YOUR TENDERS!" and then laugh maniacally while I try to wriggle out of her iron-like grip. She's going to be stronger than me soon and I am very very worried about that day. So I took this plastic spider:

And taped it to the under-side of the toilet seat so when she lifted it she would get startled and scream. Well, it turns out my girl has a bladder the size of a hot air balloon and only goes to the bathroom about twice a day so she never saw it on the toilet because she used the downstairs bathroom (note to self: next year, booby trap all toilets). I did manage to forget about it and scared myself almost out of my wits when I lifted the toilet seat right before bed, and I slammed the lid back down and the spider broke free of the tape and fell in the toilet. I disgustedly threw it in to the tub, with the idea that I'd disinfect it the next day (by throwing it in the garbage), but I forgot about it again and startled myself when I pulled the shower curtain back to take a shower. That joke totally backfired.

I also put a little rubber snake in Kira's bed. She didn't even notice. The next morning I went in the bathroom to take a shower and saw a little plastic frog on the rug. I thought Kira was trying to get me back for leaving the snake or the spider, so I was just going to pick it up and throw it out of the bathroom, but when I went to pick it up, IT HOPPED AWAY. It is a real live frog! It came to live with me! I have no idea where it came from or how it got in the house, but I love him like a child now. We made him a habitat in a big tupperware tub with a plant, a bunch of leaves, some sticks and a saucer of water. I cover it with a damp towel and I set the whole thing on a heating pad. The problem is what to feed the little guy because he's looking a little thin to me.

Don't you think his hips look a little bony?

All I could think of was flies so Kira trapped some live ones that are still buzzing around between the windows and I threw in some dead ones too for good measure, you know, in case he doesn't feel like hunting. Mitch says he doesn't want to eat dead flies but how does he know? See how important google is? Yesterday morning I spotted a disgusting little centipede walking across the livingroom carpet so Mitch said to put it in with the frog because that would be a good meal. I don't know if frogs like centipedes or if they think they are disgusting, and that is one of the things on my list to find out while I sit here in Mitch's office looking like a professional, and soak up a weekend's worth of wifi. (I just looked up pictures of centipedes and I had to stop because they are so gross. The one in my house was only about an inch long, not the size of an adult human hand, like the ones I just saw. Oh Christ, what if it's just a baby and doubles it's size every day? Shit shit shit!)

I made Kira put the centipede in the habitat because I find centipedes to be one of nature's most horrible jokes, and now I can't stop thinking about it. I keep checking to make sure it is still in the habitat, and didn't somehow get out, but half the time I can't see it because it's hiding, and the other half the time, when I do spot it, it just grosses me out even more. And do they bite? Is it going to hurt my frog? I have to find that out too. I have tiny sore spot on my foot that I noticed at about three in the morning and in my sleep-deprived stupor I convinced myself that the centipede got out of the habitat and came into my bed and bit me. My foot still hurts, so something definitely happened, and if it wasn't a centipede bite then what was it? There is no other explanation, so now, when I go home I'm going to have to search through the habitat and find the centipede and kill it so it doesn't hurt my frog.

I know I'm rambling but I don't know when I will get a chance to blog again without making an effort to haul my computer out of the house. This post is too long but I don't want to stop because I have so much more to tell you! I'm afraid of space! I ate six cupcakes on Saturday! I think I might need another root canal! I only slept 2 hours last night! More later....

Update: HOLY SHIT! I just looked up centipedes and they DO bite, and their bites are venomous! What evil have I brought on my little frog. I better go home. Centipedes have fangs on the underside of their heads much like spider fangs! Gross! I vaguely remember that they are poisonous because once Magnum got bit by a centipede when he was trapped under an airplane fuselage in the jungle and he was majorly tripping.

UPDATE #2: Frogs eat bugs. Captive frogs are supposed to eat meal worms or crickets. There is no way in hell I'm buying crickets because they are only slightly less disgusting than centipedes, and I can just imagine how the car ride home would go with them in their little box and me gagging and writhing just thinking about them. And meal worms, please, like I'm going to pay money for something about as appealing as vomit. Sorry frog! I'll try to attract some moths at night, but until I find something that's not totally gross or poisonous, he'll have to settle for dead flies.

Update #3: I'm now pretty sure I have had a centipede bite. I can feel the poison coursing through my veins.