Robert Loggia won't be my Facebook Friend

The other day Becky at Mommy Wants Vodka wrote a post about how much she thinks John Mayer is a dillweed, how she saw him on a talk show and he had the gall to be funny which really pissed her off.  I don't happen to believe that he is funny, I think Aunt Becky must be mistaken.  He's a douche.  Anyhoo, after her first post about him which was chocked full (or chock full?) of his name, she discovered that when you google John C. Mayer, her blog is number three on the list, which if you know anything about the Google, that's pretty impressive because they give you about 7 million pages to choose from and if you can get to be number three, hey!  That's something!  Apparently people PAY CASH MONEY to be featured high on the Google search list, and she did it just by being obnoxious, which proves that obnoxiousness is not such a bad thing.  So she threw out a challenge to her readers to see if we can pick a target and get in the top of the Google searches for them.  I am taking her up on that challenge because I was going to write a post about this topic anyway. Please forgive the annoying lack of pronouns.  I'm trying to get something accomplished here!

I love Robert Loggia (born Salvatore Loggia in 1930).  I loved moviestar Robert Loggia when he was Grandpa Victor on Malcolm in the Middle, I loved acclaimed actor Robert Loggia when he was the grandfather on Over the Top.  He plays a good mean grandfather.  When I read the Harry Potter books I had him in my head as Voldemort, and then when I saw the first movie, I thought they really did base the head version of Voldemort on Robert Loggia and I was so excited, but sadly, I was wrong.

 You can see how I could be mistaken, right?

Robert Loggia will always be Voldemort to me.  No offense, Ralph Fiennes, you're pretty good, but Robert Loggia would have been bad ass.

When I watch a show and I see that magnificent thespian, Robert Loggia, is a guest star, I feel all warm and fuzzy inside, because you know what?  He can handle it.  He sweats competence.  I've seen Robert Loggia on Frasier, Suspense, Magnum P.I., Rockford Files, Quincy, Big, The Six Million Dollar Man, The Bionic Woman, and Little House on the Prairie.  The only thing that would make actor Robert Loggia's career just a little better would be if he would have been on an episode of Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman. 

mattcarr.com

But here's my problem with Robert Loggia.  I friended Robert Loggia on Facebook a loooooong time ago and he has been ignoring me.  I saw that Robert Loggia had a page, and was so excited because I'm really a big fan, alright?  I'd just like to feel a virtual personal connection with Robert Loggia and make all my other Facebook friends jealous that I am FRIENDS with Robert Loggia, but he won't respond to my friend request.  You know, come to think of it, I don't think that is really his page.  I think someone in Japan made it because his name is spelled wrong (Robert Loggia would never spell his name Robert Logia. That would be stupid) and all of his 146 friends are Japanese.  Robert Loggia would have WAY more than 146 friends, am I right?!  But even if that is true, I would like him to really make a page of his own, that isn't a lame-o fan page and make me his FRIEND.  I want to be Robert Loggia's Facebook friend.  Is that too much to ask?  Huh? 

mattcarr.com

So my question to Robert Loggia is, what gives?  Why can't we be Facebook friends?  Maybe if I can be one of the top searches on Google when a person types in something like,say, for instance, "Robert Loggia is a Facebook Snob" he will finally notice me.  Let's see if this works.  This blog has to be good for something, and if it can't make Robert Loggia my friend, then what the hell is it all for?  HUH?  WHAT THE HELL?

UPDATE:

Okay, it's been ten minutes and here's what's happening on Google.  I typed in "Robert Loggia is a Facebook snob" and TA DA!  First entry!

But then I simplified and typed in "Robert Loggia, Facebook" and this is what I got:

Second.  Not bad.  But when I type in "Robert Loggia" just by itself.  I'm nowhere to be seen.  I clicked through to page 13 and didn't see my blog and then I gave up.  Sad.  You know what might help?  If you work in the words "Robert Loggia" in the comments somehow.  That might give me a little more bang for my buck.

UPDATE #2

It is now about four hours after I originally posted this and I'm still no where near the first page if you type in "Robert Loggia," but if you misspell his name and type in "Robert Logia" like the stupid Japanese person who made the fake Facebook page, I'm NUMBER 2!  

  

Update #3 One day after the original post:

This is what happens when you type in "Robert Loggia snob"

Hello! Here's another one:

Not about the Hospice

Hey, guess what?  This post is NOT about the hospice!  My grandma was moved back to her hometown where she wants to be so that is a good thing.  But what should I write about now if I'm not going to write about the hospice or beloved dying relatives?  I don't really have any rotten tooth issues to speak of, and I know that is also a blog favorite.  I went out last night with some friends and my friend was telling these other friends that I have a blog and it is HILARIOUS and they said, "Oh really?  What do you write about?" and we were all, "Oh you know, my kids, how much I hate dentists, the hospice,"  and they were just looking at me like, "Yeah..... sounds hilarious.  Other people's kids and unpleasant experiences.  Give me the link right now!"  No, they were nicer than that but I could tell that's what they were thinking.  Maybe I'll change the name of the blog to "Other People's Kids and Unpleasant Experiences"  Nah, I like the subtle vagueness of So...What Else.  Leaves me open to write about things other than my kids and rotten teeth and the hospice, not that I'd ever want to. 

So, really now, what else?  Well, I still have this horrible cold that doesn't seem to be going away which makes me think OHMYGODIT'SCAAAANNNNCCCCEEEERRRR! because I think everything is cancer and have ever since I was a little kid.  Except for a little while in college when I thought I had AIDS because having AIDS was all the rage so I was sure I had it.  I don't, by the way, I know this because I had to have an AIDS test after the dentist bled in my mouth.  So I am AIDS free (unless the dentist has AIDS), but probably chock full of cancer.  Is it "chock full" or "chocked full"?  I don't know. My friend Kady wrote a post today called Clamato Jugs and Other Valuables and Mitch got really excited because he thought it said, "Clamato, Jugs and Other Valuables" so he was looking forward to seeing a little boob, but instead all he saw was Kady's dad's garage junk.  At least that's what he told me when I caught him looking at JUGS the website this morning.  (just kidding, he wasn't really.  Well, he might have been but I didn't catch him.) See, the little nuances are important. 

Okay, I am going to stop now because obviously I don't have anything interesting to write about.  I might be back tomorrow with an actual topic because I will be working my glamorous and illustrious career of substitute teaching.  Jealous? 

Nurses Rock

I've been spending a lot of time with my Grandma who is in the hospice ward at the hospital here in Duluth.  Can I just say how great the staff of hospices are?  What a hard job that would be.  Most of the staff we deal with are middle-aged women nurses.  Nurses are the best.  They are so sweet and helpful and always manage to bring a smile, or in the case of my Grandma, a huge laugh. 

My Grandma thinks swears are extremely funny.  Yesterday there was a nurse who helped my Gram with some, (heh hem), personal details and my Gram said she appreciated her help and expertise and the nurse said, "I really know my shit."  Grandma about busted a nut laughing (just kidding, my Grandma doesn't have nuts.)  Also, one day there were lots of visitors in the room.  The adults were talking about something, but I wasn't listening.  I was listening to Kira tell my Grandma a series of stories that were all prefaced with "Okay, I have to swear for this."  Grandma loved those.  And Kira loves to swear.  Win-win. 

Today while I was sitting there with my Grandma, she was sleeping and I was eating a salad I got from the cafeteria.  There were some tomatoes in there that I think they were trying to pass off as cherry tomatoes, but they were huge.  In retrospect,  I should have cut them up but I thought I could handle it.  I put one in my mouth whole.  I didn't want to bite it because they explode when you bite them.  So I shoved the entire thing in and then tried to push it between my molars with the fork but it was too big and hard (that's what she said HA HA HA!).  It was like a gag ball and I started to panic but then I calmed down and took a deep breath around the tomato and worked through it.  I knew that if I did choke, one of those nice hospice ladies would give me the Heimlich, and that was ultimately what saved me from freaking out and sucking it into my windpipe.  I was so confident in those ladies that I ate two tomatoes like that.  They were delicious.

Fun times at the hospice

My sister Amy and I spent the day with our Grandma at the hospital on the hospice floor.  Guess what's depressing?  The hospice wing!  So to keep ourselves from committing suicide and to stretch our legs, we went up to the birthing center to look at the babies.  We saw one really cute little baby who was born yesterday.  Boy was he easy to fool. (ba dum PISH!)  We were going to take a picture of him but you know what's creepy?  Strangers taking a picture of your newborn baby.  So we didn't.  We did take a picture of these weird doors that were in the maternity ward: 

We decided two things when we saw these doors.  1)They must be for the babies, and 2) I should never wear that sweater halfway zipped up again.  

Movie Review: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

I watched the Swedish version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo last night BY MYSELF which was honestly very relaxing and nice.  Besides the fact that I don't speak Swedish and had to read subtitles I still liked it a lot.  It was a perfect adaptation of the book.  Perfect!  Lisbeth Salander looked just like she should look except for one thing.  The dragon tattoo on her back was too big.  In the book it was on her shoulder, but in the movie it covered her entire back and looked like it was scratching and trying to emerge from her body, which is kind of cool, I guess, if you like tattoos, and you know the character, but IT WASN'T THE SAME.  The other main character, Mikael Blomkvist, was good too, but he was a little creepier than the Mikael that I pictured in my head.  The actor had spooky eyes and he reminded me of someone who I could never put my finger on so that was a bit distracting.  (Harvey Keitel?  No. The devil?  No. Maybe if Harvey and the devil had a baby?)

The settings were absolutely perfect.  It was like the set directors were in my head! (or read the books!)  I love when that happens.  Another thing I really liked about the movie was that the older women looked like older women.  In the book they were pretty women in their late 50s and 60s and the actors actually were pretty women in their late 50s and 60s.  No casting a 38 year old freakish bombshell who looks like she's actually 28 to play a woman who is supposed to be 58.

Things I learned about Sweden:  1) Prisons are like college here in the States, 2) Lakes apparently don't freeze even when it's bone-chillingly cold outside.  Maybe they are made from vodka.  No, that's Russia.  I'll have to research. 3) "Jävel" is how you say "motherfucker" in Swedish.    You're welcome!

The dog and the first day of school

Yesterday Kira told me, "Maisy has a little cut on her leg."  I didn't think much of it because she's a dog and she's always running around chasing rabbits and chipmunks.  So she got a little cut.  So what.  Then later that evening I let her in the house and looked at her leg and I almost puked.  It wasn't a little cut, it was a gaping gash.  It didn't seem to bother Maisy at all until I said, "OH SWEET JESUS!"  Then she started limping.  I debated taking her to the emergency vet, but it wasn't bleeding, so I wrapped it up in gauze and decided to wait.  I brought her in today and the doc said that it wasn't as bad as it looked because it just tore through the hide, not to the bone like I thought.  GROSS!  She got patched up and now she's just fine and she looks so cute with her little red bandage.

Here she is scratching...

Here she is walking...

Here she is showing off her bandage...

I'm supposed to give her about a thousand antibiotics over the next few days and it's not going to be easy.  I shoved one in a piece of cheese today and she ate the cheese and spit out the pill.  DAMN YOU, BORDER COLLIES WITH YOUR GIANT BRAINS!

Kira FINALLY started school today so now school has officially started, thank the sweet lord.  We still have to do a little more school shopping for her because on our last trip she narrowed what she is willing to wear down to velour track suits.  She's decided she's done with jeans and every other type of pant unless it is velvety soft and stretchy with an elastic waist.  I did manage to find a pair of jeans that she will wear, but you know where I found them?  In her closet.  Some kid must have left them here years ago and I've been keeping them thinking someday Kira would be able to wear them.  This is the year!  I made her try them on and to test them out.  She put them on and did one of the deepest deep-knee bends I've ever seen and then said, "Okay.  These will do."  Apparently she does a lot of knee bends at school and needs the flexibility.  Now I have to try to figure out where to get more mystery-closet-jeans.  

You'll be happy to know my cold is getting better.  Now the most annoying thing about it is that I'm coughing up stuff that tastes exactly like chicken flavored Rice-a-Roni.  Not altogether unpleasant, but a little disturbing. 

This and that and Happy September!

Today is Sam's first day of school!  He's in eighth grade now.  (Sam, whatever mean things I've ever said about eighth graders does not apply to you, honey.)  He told me when we were school shopping the other day that this year he doesn't want me to be such a "helicopter mom."  What?!!  If I was any more hands off in my parenting I'd be charged with neglect!  I'll show him a helicopter mom!  Guess who is emailing all of Sam's teachers today and telling them to call me if they ever need a sub?  ME, that's who.

  (eight fingers, eighth grade.  Get it?)

Kira is out of town with the grandparents.  She should be back today.  Mitch's parents went to the cabin for their anniversary and Mitch sent Kira along with them.  FUN!  ROMANTIC!  She starts school on Thursday.

I would be ecstatic about the beginning of the school year except that I'm dying of a cold.  I don't know if you know this about me, but I get colds worse than anyone else, ever in the history of the world.  Just ask Mitch, he'll tell you.  Last night I couldn't function without a kleenex stuffed in my nose to stanch the unrelenting flow of snot.  When I'm sick Mitch finds me utterly unbearable, yet oddly attractive.  But mostly unbearable.  He thinks the attraction comes from my weakened state.  He especially likes laryngitis.  Pervert.

My grandma is doing much better. Her breathing isn't as labored as it was a few days ago. She's still here in Duluth, but hopefully this week she will be able to be moved back to her town so she can be with her sisters and brother and all the rels up there.  Keep your fingers crossed for her!

Happy September everybody!  Hey!  It's my birth month.  I'll be forty this year.  FORTY.  I was reminded of this because I got a pamphlet in the mail the other day about scheduling my first mammogram!  See, there are still some firsts in life!  I wonder if I am supposed to take a picture of myself on the day of my first mammogram like I had pictures taken on my first day of school, smiling in my one-piece pant-suit, with my BJ and the Bear lunch box.  No?  People don't do that?  Oh, okay.  (But I might.)

Ancient Rome

I'm reading a book right now called Roman Blood by Steven Saylor.  He has written several books about Ancient Rome and I love them because they are so well researched, and interesting.  If you are interested in learning the history of Ancient Rome, but don't want to read boring history books, read Saylor's book Roma.  It covers the history of Rome from before it was a city to the end of the Republic.  He has another book called Empire that covers the time from the end of the Republic to the end of the empire.  SO GOOD. (Interesting Fact:  Saylor started his career writing erotic gay novels under a pseudonym.  If you're interested in that particular genre check out Flesh Fables or Tag-Team Studs: Wrestling Tales.  I haven't read them (yet) but he's such a good writer I'm sure they are good. [Flesh Fables got five stars on Amazon!])

Anyway, this book I'm reading now, Roman Blood, is the first in a series about an investigator named Gordianus the Finder.  He is kind of like the Sherlock Holmes of Ancient Rome.  People hire him to solve mysteries.  In this particular book Cicero, you know Cicero, has hired him to find out if his client is guilty of patricide or not.  Patricide was a particularly bad crime in Ancient Rome, and the punishment was to be flogged, then a crowd throws excrement at you as you crawl your way across a field and into a water-tight bag, and then they throw a dog and a snake and a rooster in there with you, (not kidding) and then you're thrown in the Tiber river.  Lesson:  Don't kill your dad.  So the main character in the book, Gordianus, is investigating whether Cicero's client is guilty, and he has the help of a slave boy named Tiro who is bright, but naive and innocent.  

You know how when you read a book and you get a picture in your head of what the characters look like?  Maybe it's somebody you know in real life, or maybe it's an actor or something, but you have an idea of what they look like.  Unfortunately (or fortunately) I have involuntarily pictured Gordianus and Tiro as Professor Peabody and his pet boy Sherman from the Rocky and Bullwinkle show.

I can't help it.  I've tried to make them into other people, but it always goes back to the Professor and Sherman.  I wish it would stop because Tiro (Sherman) has some sexual encounters and they are odd and slightly upsetting when I think of him as the pet boy, Sherman.  On the up side, in my head Professor Peabody looks very nice in a toga. 

The Grabber

Kira talked Mitch into buying her a grabber:

Like this

He said he wasn't going to get it for her but she was having so much fun with it in the store, how could he deny her the four dollars of sweet sweet grabber money?

One of the first things she did was say, "If I didn't have arms, and I was Sam's boss I'd say, 'You are THIS close to being fired!'" and then she made the grabber fingers go about an inch apart and shoved them in Sam's face. 

Now she is cleaning up the basement because she makes SUCH A MESS.  Mitch just went to check on her to make sure she's really doing it because she tends to try to weasel out of chores, and he said she has a big leather glove on one hand, with our bird (a cockatiel, leather glove not necessary) on it, and she was picking up solely with the grabber.  It's going to take a long time.

Hey Cancer, Up Yours!

Guess what majorly sucks? Cancer, that's what.  I happen to really hate it.  My grandma was just diagnosed with incurable cancer of the trunk (that's not really a thing, but it's less depressing than listing all the things she has cancer of, all of which happen to be in her trunk.)  She doesn't read this blog, because she's in the 99.9999999999999999% of people who don't read it, so she doesn't know I'm writing this, and I don't usually air private family stuff online (shut up, Mitch), but like I said, 99.9+∞% of people don't read this blog, so this is just between the five of us.

I'm so sad.  Sure, she's ninety two and she's already beaten breast cancer and everybody has to die sometime of something, right?  Yeah sure, but it still stinks.  It's so hard to watch her suffer and to see her upset about the news.  Today I was sitting with her and a nurse came in to give her a shot IN HER STOMACH and she said, "Okay, think of something good," and my poor Grandma said, "I'll think about getting better."  Oh. Hello again, Broken Heart, haven't seen you in a while, how have you been?   

It is hard to watch such a feisty and sharp lady decline the way she is.  She is the person who taught all of us grandkids to play cards.  She taught us the game of Gin when we were at the tender age of about 8 years old and by 9 years old we all knew that Grandma was a hustler and don't be tempted to bet your quarters just because she lost a game, because she's just playing you and you'll be broke by the end of the weekend and when you say, "I want to get a gumball but I don't have any more quarters, Grandma," she'll say "Well, I guess you shouldn't bet all your money on cards." Of course she then went ahead and bought us just about anything we wanted because she's very generous, but still.  Tough-love lessons about gambling that have continued through the decades.  You think you can beat an old lady who's 90 years old because she pretends to be all confused and frail and has to look in the discard pile after every draw?  Think you might win some of those childhood quarters back?  Think again.  She's still a hustler.  On game number two, the money game, she won't have to look in the discard pile anymore and she'll put the pressure on by saying things like, "Are you ever going to discard?" and "NO PAWING THE DECK!" And then while you are flustered, trying to remember if she has been discarding aces or not, she will handily kick your ass and those quarters that you had to prove you had by laying them on the table will disappear before you know it.  When will you learn?

One time in college I dyed my hair red.  She's always very complimentary about how I look, telling me I look like I have lost weight even when I was at my very fattest.  But when I dyed my hair and I said, "How do you like my new color, Grandma?" she said, "You know who has red hair?  Prostitutes."   

Now she's struggling to breathe and there is nothing we can do for her except hold her hand and comb her hair, tell her funny stories, and try not to blubber.  In just a few days she has gotten so much worse.  My sister Beth said she stopped in to see her yesterday and I said, "Did you cry?" because you feel like you shouldn't cry in front of the patient but I guess until you are the one dying, you don't know if you should or not.  Maybe you should go ahead and let it out in front of the patient but what if they then think to themselves, "Really?  I have to watch you cry now, while I'm dying, of cancer?"  but if you're chipper and upbeat maybe they're thinking, "What is that little asshole smiling about, doesn't she know I'm dying?"  Anyway, Beth said she held it together pretty well until Gram said something about how long-winded the chaplain was.  (I told you she was feisty!) And then, like always she said, "Hand me my purse," and she tried to give Beth some cash and Beth was all, "Gram, you don't have to give me any money, really.  I just wanted to be with you for a while."  And then when she was leaving Beth realized she didn't have the two dollars for the parking lot so she had to go back and say, "Hey Gram, can I have two dollars?" No, she didn't do that.  But only because my uncle was there and he did have two dollars. 

The people at the hospital here in Duluth are great.  Although, with news as bad as this I think they should come in with a round of Xanax for everyone, on the house.  I'd pay extra taxes for that.

Freak

I just got home from Walmart which is the modern day version of the Ringling Brothers freak show, and I can't get the freaks out of my head.  I hate Walmart, but I go there because they have cases of Diet Coke for $5.  I know, I know, some 5 year old in a third world country had to stomp the Diet Coke grapes with his stumps for half a cent a day so I could get it this cheap, but I don't care.  I drink a lot of Diet Coke.  I shouldn't say I don't care.  I do.  I just care more about feeding myself cheap Diet Coke.

So anyway, back to Walmart.  To say it is full of freaks is obvious, we've all seen the pictures of the people of Walmart.  My question is, why do they all go to Walmart?  And why can't I ever go there when there aren't at least a couple of people who give me the total heebie jeebies?  Are they on the payroll?  It doesn't make me feel good to be creeped out by my fellow man. But when I see a four foot tall person who I can't tell is male or female, and that little person is made up of legs and a head and seemingly no torso, and he/she is walking along with giant, freakishly long strides, I get a little creeped out in spite of all my liberal, free-to-be-you-and-me beliefs.  I'm sure that person is perfectly nice and it's not his/her fault he/she was born without a torso and no gender-distinguishing characteristics, in fact I bet he/she wishes he/she had a torso and looks at my slightly freakishly long torso longingly and wishes he/she and I could trade a little more leg for a little more torso so we'd both be more normal (I couldn't give him/her enough torso to make him/her normal though.  Sorry.  I'm not giving up that much torso.)

Those of us born in the seventies grew up at a time when freakiness was at its height, thank you very much Sid and Marty Krofft.

Sweet Jesus...

But instead of normalizing freakiness, I think it made some of us more sensitive to it.  My brother in law is a professional, charming, confident man, but if he would have seen the episode of 20/20 that I saw last week, he'd still be crying in the fetal position in his bed.  The episode was about albinos in Africa and how some witch doctors have decided that albino limbs are valuable for potions and such.  They used to rob the graves of albinos, but now the demand has gone up so much that albinos are hunted down and their limbs are hacked off.  Horrifying huh?  Yeah, it's very sad.  They did a story on this albino woman whose arms were chopped off by these hunters so she was totally dependent on her family to take care of her because guess what guys, arms are important!  I'm using mine right this very second.  In fact, I've been using them all day.

Anyway, some western agency heard about her so they decided to set her up with some prostheses.  She was thrilled, of course.  They moved her to the States and she lived with a family while they were doing all the fittings.  There was a lot of footage of this poor legally blind (like a lot of albinos are), tiny, albino, black woman, with her crossed eyes and her white afro and her no arms singing songs in Swahili. She was very sweet and affectionate as well because there was also a lot of footage of her hugging people with her stumps.  I was wrapped up in the story because hey, I have a heart, but watching her rocking and singing, and giving no-armed hugs creeped me out which made me hate myself a little bit.  And then I thought, come on producer, any idiot can see that that is creepy, why so much footage of it?  Is that all she does?  I doubt it.  Those 20/20 producers were trying to make me feel bad and guilty.  NICE!  Mission accomplished, 20/20!

She eventually got her arms and got them fitted correctly so they wouldn't pinch or hurt or anything and she was so happy that she was jumping and screaming and dancing, hook-hands akimbo; and I actually had to change the channel for a few minutes because her unbridled joy and hook-waving was too much for me to handle.  I was simultaneously happy for her and her new found independence, and almost in a panic because of her paleness, and crossed eyes and hooks.  What's wrong with me?  And then I thought of my BIL and about how I was handling it SO much better than he would and I felt a little better about myself, because hey, at least I'm a bigger person than he is.  There is something about all of us that would totally creep somebody out so I think we should all just suck it up and like each other, warts and all (unless they have warts. Ew! Yuck! Warts! Gross!)

My Husband is an Animal! (no seriously, holy crap you guys, I think he might be an actual animal)

I was downstairs doing laundry and I heard the vacuum running upstairs.  I could see just a little bit of Mitch at the top of the stairs and could tell he was vacuuming the heck out of something with the hose.  I called up, "What are you doing?  Did something break?"  He said, "No, I'm vacuuming out my pockets.  They were full of sand and I don't want to put my phone in a sandy pocket."  Oh.  Of course.

The other night Kira and Mitch and Sam were jumping on the trampoline and Kira spotted a deer at the bottom of the hill.  Kira jumped off the tramp and she and the dog chased the deer into the woods.  It took her a while to come back and when Mitch asked where she was she said, "I was marking my territory."  Now you're wondering, what could that possibly mean?  She wasn't actually urinating in little squirts in different spots and on trees around the yard with the idea that it would let the deer and bears and skunks and dogs know who was really the boss around here, was she?   Yes.  She was. 

You know how you hear old stories (Tarzan) about babies who are abandoned in the woods and are adopted and raised by wolves or apes (depending on the continent, I suppose), but always know there is something different about them and they long to be with their own kind?  I think Kira may have been switched at birth with a wolf pup and now my real daughter is out in the woods somewhere thinking that raw meat is totally disgusting and would rather have a Facebook page than sniffing pee on tree trunks for messages from friends.  (Kira was suspiciously furry when she was born.)

But then I look at Mitch who thinks vacuuming out his pockets is a sensible solution to sandy pockets and I think that perhaps a more logical explanation is that Mitch was a wolf pup and was raised by humans and now Kira is peeing on trees and hunting in dog packs purely on instinct.  Now that I think about it there are some signs, aside from the vacuuming of pockets (everyone knows wolves are constantly vacuuming out the pockets of their work clothes) that make me think that yes, Mitch is a wolf, raised by humans:

1.  More often than you'd think, he's come home with a funky smell on his jacket or his shirts and when I ask what it is he jokingly says, "I rolled in something."  (At least I always thought it was a joke.)

2.  The way he kicks the grass with his back legs after he poops.

3.  The incessant howling.

4.  The incessant digging.

5.  His long tail.

Lake Superior Zoo

We went to the zoo today and this is how hot it was:

Also, Lake Superior Zoo isn't the nicest.  That kangaroo might have been dead.

Kira in the Car Part XI

"Mom, do you think you could make a candle out of ear wax and it would work but it would stink?"

Playland Nightmares

My lovely 19 month old niece, Sidney, and Beth are visiting this weekend.  This morning we thought it would be really fun to go shopping.  I can't believe that I forgot what it is like to go out with a toddler.  I swore when I had toddlers that I would never forget, but I did.  One thing I forgot is that toddlers won't let you look at anything for more than one second.  Then you either have to move on or endure some screaming or dismantling of shelves.  Beth managed to get what she needed to get but only because Sam, Kira and I were all trying to keep Sid occupied.

"Call ... the police"

After that we went to the McDonald's Playland.  I also forgot about how McDonald's Playland is Dante's fifth circle of Hell, but as the stay-at-home mother of toddlers, one of the only cheap, socially acceptable places to take your kids in the dead of winter.  You KNOW that when you go there you are going to have to eat disgusting food, put up with noise and other kids, utter filth ("Mom! That kid just puked down the slide!") but it's your only opportunity to go OUT so you get excited!

Every playland I've ever been in so so loud because they are, for some inexplicable reason, built like echo chambers, and it's not just the kids screaming and having fun that is so annoying, there is always at least one parent who is trying to get their kid's attention by saying his/her name 50,000 times.  Today that kid was named Chelsea.  Chelsea (or Chels) wouldn't come out of the tubes that snaked around the ceiling so her big dad had to go up and try to fish her out, but she was way faster than he was so when he got up to the top he rested with his giant exposed butt crack right above Sam's head.  We left.  There's a good chance Chels is still up there somewhere unless her dad finally caught her and strangled her to death. 

Toddlers of any age aren't easy to take anywhere that isn't for the sole purpose of their own fun, but toddlers that are potty trained are the worst.  After Sam was potty trained he was on a world tour of public bathrooms; the grosser, the better.  Mitch actually had to one time utter the sentence, "DON'T LICK THE URINAL!"  I remember (now that I'm thinking back) how whenever I'd take the kids to the playplace, as soon as we'd get our food Sam would say, "I have to poop."  Oh, how I wished he was still in diapers during those times because I'd have to pack baby Kira up and haul all three of us into a stall and then wipe him while she was doing contortions in her carseat so she could touch the walls and bathroom floor with any and every part of her body.  Those were sweaty times.  I am SO GLAD those days are behind us.

Summer vacation is too long.

The kids are driving me nuts.  Today I got into an argument with Sam in front of my mother-in-law because he was going off on one of his "I am thirteen therefore I know everything and I will share my vast stores of knowledge with you in choppy non-sequiturs" rants about how all Apple computer products come with self-cleaning screens.  My MIL just sort of nodded her head like, "whatever you say" but for some inexplicable reason I rose to the bait.  I wanted to say, "You just made that up in your head and now you are spouting it as truth, Sean Hannity." but I didn't.  I made the mistake of actually saying, "No, Sam, they don't."  So then he, in his teenage way, took this as an affront to his intelligence and burgeoning manhood and decided on a full-blown argument.

Sam: "Haven't you ever noticed when you lick your finger and touch the screen, it gets clean in a few seconds?  IT'S SELF CLEANING!" 
Kira: You LICK your iPod?
Sam:  Kira, stay out of it, I said when I LICK MY FINGER!
Me:  No, sorry, you are wrong on this one.  I have an iPod myself and clean the screen manually (like a total sucker.)
Kira: Remind me not to touch his iPod.
Sam: Kira SHUT UP!
Me:  Kira, go play outside.
MIL:  Well, I better head home.....
Sam: I'll prove it!

Sam then marched off to his room and retrieved his iPod to show his grandmother and me what happens when you lick your finger (with a dramatic flourish) and rub the spit on your iPod.  The spit evaporated and he said, "SEE!"

Then the neighbor kid came over to play with Kira.  She has decided she's sick of him and tries to weasel out of playing with him by telling him she has "chores."  I said, "If you don't go outside and play with Kolten, you actually will have endless chores until you go to bed, now please, for the love of god, GO OUTSIDE!"

I really admire women who can do all their mothering and household chores and also have fun activities planned to entertain their children every day.  I don't know how they do it, or how they can put up with the kids' attitude that whatever you planned for them could be just a little bit better if only... (insert complaint here). Like when we took them to Rainy Lake last weekend to spend two fun-filled days with their cousins and uncle swimming, knee boarding, etc. etc. and then they had the GALL to pout about leaving on Sunday instead of Monday.  That striving my kids have for me to do just a little more for them than I actually do is what kills any desire for me to attempt to entertain them toward the end of August, other than to repeatedly offer them ALL OF THE OUTDOORS FOR THEIR PLAYING PLEASURE ALL THE LIVE-LONG DAY.

Another (and hopefully my last in a long time) Dental Disaster

I had to go to the dentist today for my last appointment to fix everything I have been ignoring for the last ten years because of my crippling case of dental-phobia.  This particular dentist is about 16 years old and wants to be called Dr. Stephanie.  (Not her real name, but you get the idea, Doctor + first name).  She did a pretty good job last time.  She was quick, and it was relatively painless so I wasn't dreading today too much.  First she told me what she would be doing;  filling three cavities, one which she said was "deepish" and might be sensitive for a while.  Then we talked about Days of Our Lives for a while and then she got busy.  It wasn't too bad until she cut her finger and bled into my mouth.

yeah, that's right, I said, BLED INTO MY MOUTH!

That kind of sucked for both of us.  Now I have to go to the clinic later and have some blood drawn to prove to her that I don't have HIV or HCV or HBV or an other kind of virus. I wonder what I caught from her?  Probably nothing, I'm not worried about it, but I am so ticked about having to have blood taken (I don't really feel like fainting today) that I didn't reassure her about my virus-free status and instead just said, ".... oh..... no.  I'm so sorry that happened.  To you."

Now I'm sitting at home and the novocaine is wearing off and the tooth she said might be a bit sensitive is hurting like someone was pounding on it with a jackhammer.  Oh well, at least now I don't have to go back to the dentist for another ten years.

Over the Top

This weekend my sister Beth watched the movie Over the Top with Sylvester Stallone.  It's all about arm wrestling and the extreme technical advantage one has if they move their fingers two inches in the middle of a match.  Beth was really into it.  I know because she shushed me and held her finger up to maintain her shush during the big match at the end.  Sly was having a match with a gigantic arm wrestling maniac and his entire career, not to mention his tenuous family life, rested on whether he won or not.  I'm not going to spoil the ending, but let me tell you, Robert Logia was PISSED!

He's wearing an arm warmer to protect his investment.

My dad said that there is a picture of a local boy in a resort and he's with Sly Stallone at the arm wrestling championship in Las Vegas.  Apparently this boy "went all the way" in the arm wrestling world although I don't know if his entire career and family life depended on his success.  Dad says he did really well because he is missing a leg and that puts him in a more favorable weight class.  I laughed and he said, "Well, come on, what does a leg weigh?  75 pounds? That's quite an advantage."  Way to see the silver lining of being one-legged, Dad and the kid-with-one-leg-who-turned-his-lemons-into-lemonade-by-being-in-a-lower-weight-class-in-the-arm-wrestling-championships!

My ankle hurts like a mofo

I woke up this morning and asked Mitch to take me out back and shoot me.  I'm having some ankle problems and apparently that's more physical discomfort than I can take so I'd never be a really good chronic pain sufferer, or cancer patient, okay, Fate?  Just so you know.

I don't know what is wrong with my ankle other than it hurts like a motherfucker if I walk on it.  Mitch immediately said, "It's the gout."  So I looked up the symptoms of gout on Webmd and it's not the gout.  My love of organ meat can live to see another day.  (just kidding.  gross)

This is what happened, prepare to be bored and judgmental of my wieniness:  I was driving along with the kids to the grocery store.  I got out and was walking along in the parking lot and my ankle seized up and now it hurts whenever I bend my foot.  That was the worst grocery shopping trip ever because 1) I hadn't yet learned that if I keep my foot really stiff and walk on my toes it doesn't hurt as much so instead I just walked normally and said, "Ow, mo-ther-fu-cker!" every step.  2) I really REALLY had to pee and I might have even peed my pants a tiny bit because I was concentrating so hard on not falling down and not letting my kids hear me swear, and couldn't concentrate on the intense kegel that was required to get me through the store without wetting myself.  3) The store I went to didn't have a bakery.  DID NOT HAVE A BAKERY.  Needless to say, I'm blaming it all on the store with no bakery.  If I didn't have to go there and see their (lame) remodel my ankle would probably be fine, I wouldn't have had to wash my pants when I got home, and I'd have some good bread. 

I know it's not a sprained ankle because I've already had that so I know what that feels like.  I think it either needs a good cracking to get things back into place or else when I sprained my ankle a few years ago and chipped a bone, the bone chip has moved into someplace that hurts.  Mitch scoffs at this theory because he calls my sprain a "little to no sprain" but let me tell you something, it was one of the worst sprains ever in the history of man.  (I think the sprain may have been on the other leg.  I'm no doctor, but I'm guessing it may be harder for a bone chip to move to the other leg.) I looked up on google what I should do with ankle pain and several of the suggestions were to go see a chiropractor.  I've have made it my business to belittle chiropractors for my entire adult life, and maybe this is fate showing me what's what.  (Why do they need to be called "doctor?"  They aren't doctors.)

I'm going to the cabin this weekend with a bunch of girlfriends and I'm bringing a full bottle of gin and there are a bunch of stairs going down to the lake. None of this bodes well for my ankle, or my friends, or the gin.  Hopefully I can get one of them to try to crack it. (and if they fix it, I guess I'll have to call them "doctor.")

Gay, pill-popping, blogmaster maniac!

I got my first hate-comment!  It was on the post title Eighth Graders, here it is:

It's kind of scary and exciting!  He has left a website from Denmark that I haven't visited because I'm sure it will give me a virus, but that isn't what has interested me.  What interests me is that for one, he thinks I'm a male.  There are pictures of me all over this blog so I'm going to assume the worst and believe that he can't tell I'm female, and instead thinks that I am a highly employable male porn star.  Wouldn't that be just my luck to be the doppelganger of a well-known, male, gay, drug-addicted porn star?

Crap! 

Whoever did it has to be at least a little bit tech savvy because his visit didn't register on my statcounter.  That being said, he has left a message on a post I wrote all the way back in April.  Nobody is reading posts from April, and if he really wanted to besmirch my character, you'd think it would be more effective on a newer post.   Tech savvy, but not craving too much attention, so I have to assume he had a problem with the post itself, but I don't get it because I didn't even write about porn and the first line of his comment is "Porn?"  Yeah, what about it?  I wrote about how mean eighth grade boys are.  Maybe he took offense because he IS an eighth grade boy which would explain the meanness and the bad writing. 

For the record, I haven't been in any gay porn (yet), but if I was I would have to pop at least a few pills in order to "take cock in every hole."  Am I wrong to assume a person needs to be a little bit loose for that?    I think not.

Most importantly, I've got my first "troll" who has "flamed" me and I couldn't be more excited about it!  I'm a blog "master" now!

What if?

Today Mitch asked me:

"What if we were in a horrible accident that rendered us both armless, and you couldn't brush your teeth because you're not flexible enough to reach your mouth with your feet (jab) and I had to brush them for you. With my feet. Would you like that?"

Chipmunk Fun

Today the kids were 1) outside, 2) not crying about being bored, and 3) quiet.  I suspected something was up so I went out to check.  Kira and Kolten, the neighbor kid, are trying to catch chipmunks.  They each have a bucket and they are standing quietly over a pile of seeds, waiting.

Every once in a while I'll hear the buckets slam down and then one of them will say, "DARNIT!" because the chipmunks can see that bucket coming from a mile away.  I wonder what they will do if they catch one?  Probably get bitten hard enough to bleed and then we'll have to try to capture the offending chipmunk to be tested for rabies, and if we can't catch the chipmunk the child who was bitten will be in for a series of rabies shots.  But it's worth it if it keeps them outside, busy and quiet, isn't it?  How many more days of summer vacation are there?

 The chipmunk says, "There's 29 days until school starts.  Actually, 29.5." 

Hey! This is my 502nd post!

I meant to write something special for the 500th post but I forgot and lost track.  I really love blogging because it makes me very cool.  (It's the Dungeons and Dragons of the 21st century!)  Here's the highlights of the first 502 posts worth of blogging:

1.  27 people have decided to "follow" my blog.  That shocks and flatters me.  Thank you, you 27 people who have each given me a little ego boost.  (Actually, it's only 26 because I follow my own blog.) (Lame)

2.  I can tell from my statcounter that I have readers from all over the world.  CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?!  I can't.  Every time I look at my stats and see that people from Jersey City and El Cajon and Weisbaden, Germany have looked at my blog, I get a little thrill.

 from my Statcounter map

Most of the people come here because for some reason the picture of a random bird that I used for one post has somehow gotten linked to my blog and now every time someone looks for a picture of a quaker parrot on google images, they get directed to my blog. Oh well.  I'll take what I can get.

3.  I have made some great new friends.  One of my first blogger friends was Aunt Becky at Mommy Wants Vodka.  She's great.  Also Wendi Aarons who is a big deal in the blogging world, has read my blog and both of them have actually commented!  No, you shut up!  They did! (Those two are like D and D wizards) Also I've re-connected with some real-world friends who I've lost touch with over the years.  (Hi Anne, Kady, Jill, Carrie!)

4.  I've discovered some excellent blogs by other women that I am now addicted to reading every day.

5.  I won an award out of the blue.

6.  I've finally started writing down stories that when I tell people they say, "You should write that down."  Done and done.  And they are organized, and easy to find!  Now I can easily find that funny picture of Sam doing the limbo, or Kira's art projects, and I can brag about my husband.

Thanks to everyone who reads my blog.  I really appreciate you coming here to read the latest silliness I've written about and I love your comments!

Happy 502nd Post!

Close Quarters

Sam and Kira and I came up to Rainy Lake to spend some time together at the cabin.  We've been together almost every minute (especially Kira and I.  Sam goes for long boat rides by himself.  I don't know why.)  Kira LOVES to fish.  She spends hours on the dock casting like this:

or simply gazing into the water looking for fish, like this:

She has caught a few small northern pike.  If you don't know about Northern Minnesota fish, northerns are slimy.  Kira is enthralled with their slime and said she would really like to scrape it off of all the fish she catches and save it in a jar. I think it's one of the stranger requests I've ever had to refuse.

Sam spends most of his time in the boat.  I think it is either because it is the only vehicle he is allowed to drive, or because Kira and I drive him nuts.  Probably both.

He went exploring to Big American island today.  Voyageur's National Park has a pamphlet with a scavenger hunt on it.  You can look for all kinds of neat things from the old gold mining days.  He didn't find any gold.  (I don't think.)

Tonight the three of us went out for burgers and while we were waiting for our food, out of the blue Kira said to us, "I'd like to make a doll and I'd use my real hair and eyelashes and my old baby teeth."  Can you imagine a more horrifying doll?  If it was up to her, her room would be filled with jars of fish slime and dolls made of real human parts and I don't even want to know what else.

While we were at dinner we saw a man with super-human calves.  They were unbelievable.  Here's a picture:

He was just a normal looking man, but then you look down and see those enormous calves.  I noticed because Kira was looking at him like this:

and was about to say something loud and inappropriate, which would make Sam make this face because everything we do is embarrassing.

Thankfully she kept her mouth shut.  

We had a nice dinner and when we got to the car we saw this sitting on the dash:

It's a chunk of Play-Doh Kira molded into a gun shape.  When we got in the car she said, "Hey Sam, hand me my piece."

Angelina Jolie, please eat something.

Mitch and I went to see the movie Salt tonight.  It was okay.  It was a little far fetched and the most unbelievable part of the entire movie was that Angelina Jolie is tough and somehow strong.  She is frighteningly thin.  There was one part where she had to pick up and carry a large-ish fire extinguisher and I am shocked she was able to lift it with such ease.  It must have been fake because if it was real, her brittle little twig fingers would have shattered.  It was probably styrofoam.  She had many scenes where she was fighting full-sized, well nutritioned men and she kicked ass every time.  In reality she was probably too weak from hunger to throw two punches in a row.  Those scenes probably took weeks to film.  There was a scene where she was running through some woods in the winter.  She blends in perfectly with the forest.  She's like a bag of sticks with a beautiful head. 

Today I read in a magazine that Jessica Simpson has "ballooned" up to my goal weight.  I suppose she won't be "ideal" until she is Angelina's size.

I typed "Jessica Simpson fat" on Google images and got this picture.  This jpeg is actually titled "fat+Jessica+Simpson" Does she look fat in this picture? Fuck no.  Does she look fat in any of the pictures?  I guess that's a matter of opinion, but if she is fat, what am I?  How long do magazines and movies and fucking TMZ think they can spout this garbage to women and have us eat it up and feel bad about having bodies with naturally twice as many fat cells as men, and getting "wrecked" by pregnancy (as Jillian Michaels says)?  Why aren't there more riots at places like Ford Modeling Agency and any major women's magazine? Why hasn't someone beheaded Anna Wintour and stuck her skinny head on a stake and marched it around?  Because we're women, that's why.  Civilized, polite, self-conscious women.   

Wow.  What a world.  Angelina, please, eat something.  Jessica, you look beautiful at MY GOAL WEIGHT and anyone who says any different is a dumbass woman-hater.

Nicknames

Do you have a nickname? I think nicknames are hilarious.  Sometimes.  Sometimes they aren't very inspired, but sometimes they are and they crack me up.  It might be funny because of how unlike it is to the person it is naming. For example, my favorite Uncle who we occasionally call "T-bone."  You see, he's not your stereotypical T-bone; all tough, beef-loving, and motorcycle riding;  (he was in an accordion marching band when he was little) and that's why it's funny!  I looked on the internet for funny nicknames and not many of the ones I saw were all that funny except someone wrote in and said he knew someone named "Summer Teeth" but didn't know why he was called that.  For some reason that one just tickles me. 

My sister Beth tells me most of the nicknames I know because she works in a paper mill and a lot of the people she works with have nicknames. She says that a lot of the people don't know about their nicknames because they are usually not very flattering and people don't dare say them to their face, although some people embrace their unflattering nicknames, like a guy she knows named "Pignuts."  I guess that is the only name some people know him by and he's apparently okay with that.  I am torn between wanting and not wanting to know the origin of that particular name.  Another testicle-based nickname she told me about is a guy they call "Left Testicle" because his real name sounds vaguely like "left testicle" in that it has the same number of syllables.  (Hey, so does mine...crap) She knows another guy that they called "High Pockets" because he wears his pants really high.  I think that might be my favorite one because it is so funny in its un-creativeness.  They only call him High Pockets behind his back.   Apparently High Pockets is a little touchy and wouldn't like to be called High Pockets. 

Mitch knew a guy in high school that they called "Water Baby" because he had a big head.   Mitch also worked construction for a while and one of the guys on his crew was called "Skin."  Isn't that disgusting?  Just Skin as in "Hey Skin, take that heroin needle out from between your toes and brace this ladder for me."

There was a mean kid in middle school who was seemingly bulletproof and would relentlessly pick on everyone until they cried and one day he did it to one of my friends and she was ticked off and upset and in a fit of pure genius screamed, "SHUT UP WESSSSSSSSSSS!" as in Wesson Oil because he was kind of greasy.  From then on whenever he'd get mean to anyone, a quiet hissing would start, "wesssss.... wessssss... wessssss... wessssss.... WESSSSSSSS!"  He eventually stopped being such a bastard.  

What are your favorite nicknames?  I'm going to start a nickname page on the blog (see the buttons under the title), so give me some good ones.

Facebook, I love you, and I hate you.

I have a Facebook page and I'm in a love/hate relationship with it.  I love it because, obviously, I get to be in touch with every person I've ever met that has a computer without actually having to see them face to face or talk to anyone on the phone.  But I hate it too because I spend WAY too much time looking at it and trying to think of vacuous update statuses.  Actually I hate it for a lot of reasons.  I'll just make a list:

1.  I waste too much time on it.  Totally wasted time.  Nothing productive coming out of it.

2.  I can't think of status updates.  There are only so many times I can tell people I have to poop before they unfriend me. 

3.  I was talked into (by myself) to make a page for this blog and now I'm in a stupid position of waiting for people to "like" it which is kind of pathetic in a way. No, not in a away, totally.  Totally pathetic.  Thanks, Facebook.  I put a "like" button up and it immediately said that 146 people liked it.  Thanks for making me feel popular, but Facebook, we both know that was a lie, and if we both know, it's a pointless lie. 

Sad

4.  Passive aggressive status updates from friends.  For example: "Why is it that old friends hurt you the most?"  Really?  MUST you post that on a public internet bulletin board?  Can't you just start your old friend's house on fire and be quiet about it?

5.  Vague, secret-y status updates from friends.  "Today could be the day!  Cross your fingers and pray for us!" but when you ask them what they are talking about they say they don't want to talk about it.  TOO LATE.  You posted it on the internet, now you have to talk about it. I want to know because I'm not going to cross my fingers for you because I don't know what I'm crossing my fingers for.  What if you have decided to take up the worship of the ancient god Moloch and today is the day you burn an infant alive?  I'm not really for that.  

6.  Getting unfriended.  I looked at my profile one day and I had 150 friends.  I looked at it later and I had 149.  Somebody dumped me, and I looked through the list and I can't figure out who it was, which obviously means they probably weren't all that important to me, but still.  "Unfriended."  Rejection.  Yuck.

7.  Mitch makes fun of me.  He thinks having a Facebook page is narcissistic.  And that makes me think that if he thinks having a Facebook page is narcissistic, what must he think of me having an entire blog devoted to myself?  Talk about narcissistic!  But he doesn't say anything about that because he retains even more superiority in letting it remain an implication.  Now we both know that he thinks he's just a little bit better than me and that really squeezes my 'roids!

Do you have a Facebook page?   What do you think of Facebook?

(p.s.  Friend me!)
(p.p.s I hate myself)

Beach Day

Like I said before, it is blazing hot today so we went to a beach on Lake Superior.  We met my MIL and nieces and the kids and I swam for hours.  The water wasn't as warm as it was on Sunday, but it still felt so good to get in. There was a lady there that had the biggest, tannest boobs I've ever seen in my life.  Cantaloupes the color of walnuts stuffed into a bikini that was WAY too small.  She was about ten years older than me, which means she could be a member of AARP, so you know, too old to be wearing a teeny weeny bikini.  (They make mom-suits for a reason, lady.)  She had a kid there that spotted a cormorant out in the water fishing.  The kid said, "Mom look!  It's a Loch Ness Monster!"  She looked and said, "Oh my god, I can't believe you think that is a sea monster.  Anyone can tell it's a loon."
What a boob!  (get it?)

Anyway, here's some pictures from today. 

The kids all brought goggles so they could search for treasure.

Kira came up sputtering with excitement once and screamed, "I found a jewel!"  

She found an amethyst in the water under a rock.  Pretty good find!

Handsome!

It was so hot that even Sam got in the water!

The boy formerly known as "Dry Boy"

Cousins hopping on rocks

Lake Superior