LOOK WHAT I GOT!

I came home yesterday and Mitch lured me into the garage to show me something and this was in there.  

I LOVE IT!

It's a girl's bike so I don't have to constantly worry about crushing my crotch on the frame; it's black which totally conveys how cool and mysterious I am, but has pink accents to also convey my sweet feminine side.

Just look at this wheel.  This is the part I love the most.  Pink rims and big whitewall tires.  SO nice looking, don't you think?  Sam and I went on a long ride yesterday and I went through patches of gravel.  Did I skid?  Did I slide AT ALL?  No!  My tires are awesome.  And the fenders kept the little tiny rocks from hitting me in the back because I.  Was.  Flying.

And here's the best part, a wide, cushy, comfortable seat.  On my ride yesterday I saw lots of people on racing bikes and I could tell by their pinched faces that they were dying from having their tiny seats shoved up their bike-short wearing butts.  Not me!

My husband is the best.  He totally gets me.  Thanks, Mitch.

Acorn

Last month my hair was longish, and straggly and driving me nuts, so I cut it myself.  Oh yeah, sometimes I cut my own hair.  I admit it.  I figure I can admit that now that I've owned up to being a redneck.  The reason I started doing it was because when I go to a professional (Brandi at Costcutters), I give her (Brandi) an exhaustive explanation of exactly how I want it cut and while I'm telling her I can practically see her eyes glaze over while she thinks about absolutely anything else, but probably how to best accessorize her new neck tattoo. Then she cuts my hair into the same ugly cut that every single beautician has ever cut my hair into.  There must be something about me that tells people I would look good with this cut:

I don't.  So after I come home I usually end up cutting it myself anyway to fix it so I don't look like such a fool.  Then one day it struck me, why not skip the middle man and save myself seven bucks? (what?)  So anyway, last month I gave myself perhaps the cutest haircut I've ever had.  I was so proud and so adorable.  Yesterday I looked in the mirror and thought that I could use a little trim and was still feeling a little cocky about what a good job I did last time, so I got the scissors out and got down to business.  I felt like I was doing a very good job and it was cute when it was wet, but when it's dry I look like an acorn. Oh well.  When you cut your own hair, you're bound to do a bad job most of the time.  You learn to accept that fact, and then you start wondering what Brandi at Costcutters has been up to.

Then last night I asked Sam to light the grill for me.  I heard him pushing the igniter over and over so I yelled for him to STOP and went out to see what was going on.  He wasn't pushing the igniter hard enough, but I didn't know that when I pushed it and a gigantic fireball encased my head.  Sam was totally freaked out at seeing a grill explode on his mother but I was totally fine. It was scary, but it didn't hurt at all and it was over in a split second. (that's what she said! that's what she said!) No damage done!  Except my acorn hair.  As if it wasn't bad enough already, now the part where my bangs would be if I had bangs is singed and looks like the hair of an old Barbie Doll.

Pretty.  Oh well.  My total lack of eyebrows will hopefully distract people from my old Barbie/acorn hair.

Just kidding.  It would take a nuclear explosion to burn my eyebrows off.  In fact, after the apocalypse all that will be left living on earth will be cockroaches and my eyebrows.

I say "vagina" 23 times in this post!

Mitch likes to tell me wild stories and try to make me think they are true, and when I don't believe him he says he wants to bet on it.  Usually when he goes as far as betting, he's right, no matter how ridiculous the bet.  Did you know that that Neil Diamond song Turn on Your Heartlight is about ET?  It is. No kidding.  I lost five bucks on that one.  Did you also know that the University of Minnesota used to have cows with windows in their sides so you could see their insides?  They did.

Last night we were watching some show that made reference to The Vagina Monologues and Mitch said something in passing about the character "Vagina Bob" from the Vagina Monologues.  I tried to let it go.  I really did.  I've never actually seen or read the Vagina Monologues but I was pretty sure there was no character named Vagina Bob, so I said, "No Mitch, I'm not falling for that.  There is no Vagina Bob!"  He joyfully said, "Wanna bet?"  And so began a midnight Google search for Vagina Bob.

I love Google so much.  I love that they take the first word or two and try to guess what you are searching for based on what other people have searched for.  I really love that I can see what people googled to see my blog too.  Yesterday someone was directed to my July 2010 archives by googling, "fat ugly wiener dogs that are stupid."  Last night, tired and punchy, Mitch was about to type in "Vagina Bob" and got as far as "Vagina" and Google said, "Vagina smells like vinegar?"  No Google!  OMG! LOL!  So then we got silly and totally off track and googled "Vagina smells" and learned that some poor women ask Google why their vaginas smell like a variety of things like turnips, wet garbage, buttered popcorn, Taco Bell meat, "sea creatures," a dead mouse, or ketchup.  Oh ladies, just go to the doctor! (especially you, Turnip Lady)

So anyway, back to Vagina Bob.  There is a character named Bob in the Vagina Monologues, but he is not known specifically as "Vagina Bob," so I declared that I had won the bet.  And then Mitch said, "No fair!  He's a vagina, and his name is Bob, hence: VAGINA BOB"  And then it struck me that OMG, Mitch thinks The Vagina Monologues is a play where the vaginas are the ones doing the talking, so I said, "You do know, vaginas can't talk..."  He said, "In that play they can!" and then he did some puppet-like miming with his hand and said, "I'm Bob, and I'm a vagina!"  in a deep, manly voice.  I didn't even get into the fact that even if vaginas could talk and put on plays, they are most likely female.  We declared a stalemate and went to bed.

I'm Back! (and classier than ever)

I'm back from my little vacation.  It was up at Rainy Lake in International Falls.  My kids have been there for two weeks with their grandma and I was starting to miss them.  Unfortunately for me the weather turned from hotter than Satan's bung to "seasonal" which in Minnesota means cold.

On one of the cold days we went in to town and shopped around the tourist shops.  I found a scented lotion that I loved.  It was super expensive, but I thought it smelled so good, it was worth it.  I put some on my hands from the tester and had Kira smell it.  I said,  "Doesn't that smell great!?"  She said, "Oh yeah." and she sniffed it and thought about it and then said,  "It smells just like an outhouse after Febreeze is sprayed in it."  Which she genuinely thinks is a good smell.  Later I picked up an Enquirer and read all about how great Prince William is at Polo.  Then I went outside to watch Kira swim and she played with a dead perch for about a half hour until a seagull came and stole it from her. Kira put up a good fight and I eventually had to step in and referee the scuffle which mostly consisted of yelling, "IT'S A DEAD FISH, JUST LET HIM HAVE IT!" Then I thought to myself, I bet Prince William has never known the joys of playing with a dead perch, getting in a fight with a seagull, or smelling the wonderful smell of an outhouse after it's been sprayed with Febreeze; and then I thought, "OH MY GOD! WE'RE REDNECKS!" which probably isn't coming as a surprise to some of you (okay, all of you), but I guess I never really thought of us as  rednecks.

Stop laughing.

And I'm the worse kind of redneck.  I'm the redneck who looks at other rednecks and feels superior.  For example, when I saw a woman who looked to be about 50, in a Miller Lite tank top with an especially mullety mullet, drinking a beer at 10:15 in the morning, I snottily thought to myself, "Wow. Nice life, fashion plate." All the while I'm walking around town in mom shorts that nicely showcase the surprisingly long hair, peeling skin and scabbed over mosquito bites that make up my shins this and every summer, while my daughter and her cousin are having farting contests and guessing what each other ate the night before based on the subtle hues and undertones of their intestinal gas.

We need to go to finishing school.  Is there still such a thing as finishing school?  (There is! Yay!  I wonder if they have scholarships because mama don't have the scratch, know what I'm sayin'! I spent all my money on outhouse/Febreeze lotion.)

Oh well.  Being a redneck has it's benefits.  At one point while we were at the lake Kira said, "I'm goin' fishin'," and she grabbed a big tube, tied a minnow bucket to it, slapped on some goggles and spent the next half hour with her head under the water, looking for crayfish under rocks.

Because, Dagum!  Them's good eatin'!

Just kidding.  We didn't eat them.  (she didn't catch enough.)  I think teaching Kira to act like a lady may be a hopeless case.  When I tell her to shape up and mind her manners she puts on a fake British accent and calls me "Mumsie."

I might as well cut her hair into a mullet and get her a Miller Lite tank top.  Why fight it?

Hi Bye

Hi!  I'm posting today to let the three of you know that I am going on a little vay-cay and probably won't be writing anything this week. What do you mean, "What do YOU need a vacation from?"  Shut up!  Be nice!  I have stress!

I actually kind of already started the vacation.  I went up to International Falls over the weekend because it was supposed to be murderously hot all weekend, which it was, but it doesn't really matter how hot it is if you can jump in a lake.  So I went up north, did lots of swimming, went to see the latest Harry Potter, picked (and ate) enough blueberries to give me a good case of the squirts, caught a baby duck etc. etc.  I didn't bring my camera because I forgot it, otherwise I would have had some great pictures.

I took my two year old niece to the lake with me one day and we floated around on a tube for about an hour.  She yelled "AHOY!" to every boat that went past and she kept calling all the other kids "mateys."  At one point on our tube she stuck her face over the side and filled her mouth with water.  Then she wrenched my mouth open by pushing up on my nose and prying my lower teeth down with her mutant baby-strength and iron determination and then she spit her mouthful of water into my mouth.  Why did she do that?  I don't know.  She did it twice.  The second time she lost the water in her mouth in the struggle we had while I tried to prevent her from grabbing my face and forcing my mouth open, but she is determined so she got it open and then discovered she didn't have any water left in her mouth, so she just spit what she had into my mouth.  Patooey.  Delightful.  After that she laid on my legs, repeatedly filled her mouth with water and spent a lot of time spitting it out on my legs.  I kind of liked that.

See you in a few days!

Did I do a cartwheel? Will I do a cartwheel?

Remember yesterday's post when I said that the vertigo I've had for days and days is making my balance better in the long run because of all the over-compensating I'm doing, and that when it's finally gone I will be able to do a cartwheel on a balance beam, and then I wondered if I can still do a cartwheel?  

No, I did not do a cartwheel yesterday because a) I HAVE VERTIGO.  (God, don't you ever listen???) and b) When Mitch read my post he looked at me like a parent looks at a stupid child and said, "Do you remember the last time you did a cartwheel?  Do you remember what happened?  How long did it take you to get better?  Do you think you should do any more cartwheels?  What are you trying to prove?"  He didn't really ask me what I'm trying to prove, but it was implied.  

The last time I did a cartwheel was when Kira was trying to learn how to do them when she was about seven or eight years old.  I demonstrated a perfect cartwheel.  It was fast, it was well-spaced with the hands and feet, straight legs and arms, it was tall and beautiful.  

like this

And I pulled a groin muscle.  Nay, I think I pulled all the groin muscles.  It hurt SO BAD.  I vaguely remember collapsing to the ground after the perfectly executed cartwheel, much like Kerri Strug's gold medal vault when she broke her ankle; and having to be helped into the house.  

Later Mitch picked me up and carried me around the neighborhood to wave and bask in my glory of the perfect cartwheel. So since my last cartwheel was so painful, but also so flawless, I will not be doing any more cartwheels.  Not today anyway.   

Hello, I'm still alive

I haven't had the best week.  The vertigo came back with a vengeance so I called the doctor to see if she could prescribe more anti-nausea medication without seeing me.  She asked how I was managing the nausea now and I told her I was using some patches from the last time I had vertigo, three years ago.  She said, "You're using patches that are three years old?"  Yes.... so?  She said, "Are they working?"  I guess so.  I'm not throwing up.  She said they were expired and might not work how they should.  So maybe the hallucinations and memory loss aren't normal???  You know what, as long as they keep me from throwing up, I don't care.  I'd rather give birth than throw up.  I'd rather go to jail than throw up.  I'd rather kick an adorable puppy right in the face in front of a classroom full of preschoolers than throw up.

This puppy

Get it?  I really really hate throwing up.  I've been trying to self-diagnose the cause of the vertigo and I'm pretty sure it's a viral infection in my left ear.  Or a brain tumor.

Anyway, I also want to get a bike.  I haven't ridden a bike for a long time, but I remember it being kind of fun so I'm looking at bikes like this:

Except I want streamers coming out of the handlebars.  And the basket needs to be more private so everyone I pass on my bike ride doesn't see all my stuff.  It also needs to be a girl's bike because I remember when I was a kid and it wasn't cool to have a girl's bike so everyone had boy's bikes with the bar.  I have vivid memories of smashing my crotch on those bars so hard that now that I think back I may have broken my pubic bone and I definitely lost my hymen to a certain men's Schwinn bike that was way to big for me to ride.  Good thing I'm not part of a religion that checks hymen integrity before a wedding.  I would have been stoned to death.

My new bike also needs a huge, wide, cushy seat.  Back when I was a kid the smaller and sleeker the seat, the cooler the bike.  God, we really didn't care at all about crotch comfort back then.

Mitch pointed out that my new desire for bike riding is strange considering I have shown no interest in bikes for years and years and now that I have vertigo, it's all I can think about.  Whatev.  My balance is getting better and better BECAUSE of the vertigo.  When it finally goes away I'll be able to do a cartwheel on a balance beam because of all the overcompensating I've been doing.  I wonder if I can still do cartwheels?  I'll try one later.

How do I get in touch with Graco to sell my big idea?

Beth facebooked me and...just a minute - Dear Autocorrect, sometimes you are so stupid.  "Facebooked" IS a word!  People use it!  Also, Autocorrect, "autocorrect" is also a word so why don't you stick your squiggly red underlines up your butt and study some modern vocabulary words.  Okay, anyway, Beth facebooked me and told me to update this blog because the picture of Kira jumping off jagged rocks into a river was making her nervous. Fair enough.  Beth has small children and anyone who has had children knows that their mobility outpaces their common sense by years and years, which makes parenting basically about a 7 year suicide watch.

Don't drown, Sweetie!

My kids have both passed the accidental-suicide point and are now more coordinated and stronger than me, and sensible enough to realize, for example, if they launch themselves from the top step of the staircase and yell, "CATCH MEEEEEE!" while flying through the air that they probably won't be caught and they probably will be spending several hours in the emergency room. (Right, Kira?) I think it shouldn't be considered child abuse to shackle small, senseless children until they are smart and responsible enough to be granted access to their full mobility.  I think one of those cannonballs on a chain, connected to their ankle would be a really smart idea.  I looked all over the baby-supply sites and didn't see anything like it so I might have to invent it.  NO STEALING MY IDEA!  Sure, it might seem cruel, but that's only because we aren't used to it.  I think it would be adorable to see my little nieces dragging around their balls-and-chains.

AWWWW!!!! CUTE!!!!

Just think of the fun "I'm-getting-my-ball-and-chain-removed" party!  It's not like old China and foot binding, which was so STUPID because they kids had normal feet and ran around like idiots, and their mothers couldn't even catch them because they are the ones who had tiny bound feet.  It's all a matter of cultural acceptance.

I think it's a great idea.

This post was supposed to be all about how much I love eating Tootsie Rolls I find on the road during a parade, and how I would never in a million years eat road candy if a parade wasn't involved and I also would be kind of upset if a stranger whipped candy at me; but because someone threw it at me and it landed in the road while I was watching a parade, I'm not only okay with it, I'm thrilled about it.  It's all about cultural acceptance, people.

A Summer Day

Today I woke up to a beautiful day and I was feeling good.  No vertigo!  Yay!  The kids and I went to Lester Park to play in the river for the afternoon.

The Lester river runs behind our house and today we drove closer to the mouth of the river to see the waterfalls and swim in the pools.  The picture above is Kira jumping off the rocks into the waterfall pool.  She jumped from higher than this too but I was too scared to take a picture because no mother wants photographic evidence of her baby getting seriously injured "... And this is the picture of the exact moment Kira broke both her legs and knocked out all her front teeth"; but I should have because I have never seen a happier face on a person in my life.  Oh, and no broken legs or teeth.  

She's a daredevil.  Sam and I thought she was nuts.  After that we moved down the river to a quieter spot and  discovered hundreds and hundreds of crayfish.  They were all over the place.  I told the kids that I want to take a camp stove down there and have a crayfish boil.  They think that sounds gross.  

This little guy, and about 40 others just like him kept crawling up to my feet that were soaking in the water.  

Sam caught this teeny guy and put it in Kira's goggles.  Cute huh?

The kids walking down the river.

Kira climbed up this rock and when she got to the top she said, "It's too hot!  It's too hot!
So Sam splashed water on her until she could get down.  What a guy!

It was a great day!  I love Duluth!

Vertigo and Tim the Snake

Have you ever had vertigo?  I'm having it again.  I woke up, took a shower, said to myself,  "Huh, I feel a little dizzy," and then threw up for about ten minutes which seemed like three hours.  Another example of intelligent design being such a STUPID theory is vertigo.  I'm not sick, I've got gunk in my dainty inner ear passages which inhibits the tiny cilia from flowing around like little feathers and telling my brain where it is in space.  My eyes see that I'm walking around, or bending over, or drying my hair, but the cilia are telling my brain, "Nope.  Sorry.  Eyes must be wrong.  We're still lying down."  And the brain's reaction to the conflicting messages is "THROW UP IMMEDIATELY AND DON'T STOP AT ALL." So that is why I was out on my deck in a towel dry heaving this morning, okay neighbors?  I managed to get a scopolamine patch on and took some Sudafed and then I laid on the couch and didn't move my head a millimeter for two hours.  The patch kicked in.  I looked up scopolamine on the internet tonight and it's pretty serious stuff.  It used to be used for mothers in labor to put them into a "twilight sleep" that didn't eliminate any pain, but worked to cause amnesia effects so the mom wouldn't remember the pain.  So I might never remember writing this.  It's also used as a depressant.  If you know me you know I don't need any depressants.  I could sleep 15 hours a day without any help at all.  It doesn't really help the dizziness, but it totally eliminates the nausea which, if you hate throwing up like I do (and who doesn't?!) is a miracle.  I have to go to bed now, but I'm afraid I will wake up in the same condition tomorrow, so I'm avoiding it.

Also, Sam found a snake in the yard.  It's a tiny Red-Bellied snake and Sam named it Tim.  I love him.  I'm going to decorate his terrarium tomorrow.

Tim

The Fourth of July

We had the most incredible night last night.  First we hung out at home, ate and drank and had Happy Birthday, America cake:

Then we went out on Mitch's brother's boat to watch the fireworks on the harbor.  Usually Duluth is cold, and Lake Superior is terrifying, but last night it was perfect!  It was actually warm on the lake, and not "boy, if I wear my parka I'm pretty comfortable!" kind of warm; real warm.  We drove into the Harbor and toured around a little bit.

Captain Mat
Did you know that if you drive a boat on Lake Superior it is the law that you must wear a captain's hat?
It's true.*

This is the light house on the canal that leads to the Harbor.

The girls in the canal.

The Duluth Harbor Lift Bridge

The Great Lakes Aquarium

This is the pavilion at Bayfront Park.  The Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra was playing at the time.
Cool, huh?!

Sam and the Lift Bridge

The Fireworks.  It was pretty cool.  Look at the reflection on the water, it was so calm!

The bridge on the way out, back to the marina.

The night was perfect.  Usually I'm terrified of Lake Superior because, you know, "she never gives up her dead" but last night I almost changed my mind.  About five minutes from the marina fog set in and lightning started.  I was scared.  But I lived.  And it was worth it.  We think we have to make it a tradition, okay Mat?

* It's not.

The eternal question...

Me:  Do you think that frogs count their birthday as when their egg is laid, when they emerge from their egg, or when they turn in to a frog?

Mitch:  What a stupid question.  Obviously they have a birthday - when they emerge from the egg, and then a metamorphosis day.  Kind of like a bar mitzvah.

"Today I am a frog"

Panto-horse Dreams

Kira and her friend in Mitch's home-made panto-horse.  

While watching them gallop through the yard Mitch said, "It's a dream come true."

Mitch needs better dreams.

Cool Blogger

Okay you guys, you got me.  I'm a weirdo.  I admit it.  I thought I would open up to you and tell you a vulnerable truth and then we could have a beautiful moment opening up about the strange things we do, and become best friends, but apparently I'm the only one in the world (who reads this blog, there's probably lots of people who don't read at all that are a lot like me.)  that pretends weeds are drug dealers and pizza-opening is a c-section. Even Jenny the Bloggess said that my pizza fantasy is crazy.  I thought if anyone would understand me she would, but apparently not.  Okay, fair enough!  I over-shared and now I see I'm going to have some trouble getting my "cool blogger" reputation back.   That's fine.  I have all the time in the world to try to convince you that I'm cool.

That all being said, the person who is giving me the hardest time about this whole weeding/drug dealer thing, (Kira) was watching me spray Roundup on the driveway weeds yesterday and she said in her smart-alec way, "So, is that your 'gun' that you use to 'shoot' the 'drug dealers'?"  (Honestly that never crossed my mind, but now it totally is my gun!)  (Oh crap, forget I said that. I'm cool.)  I said, "Yeah, I guess it is!  Freeze, Turkey!" shoot shoot shoot   Kira shook her head and rolled her eyes and looked at me with the disgusted pitying look she is perfecting.  After a while she said, ".....can I try it?"  So HA!  Validation!  And I bet she isn't the only one who will be fighting the war on drugs (weeds) on the mean streets (gardens) in the near future!  YOU'RE WELCOME!

"So tell me punk, do you feel lucky?"

Walter Mitty

I recently found out that something I do that I thought was totally normal and common is actually kind of weird.  But I still don't think I'm weird.  I'm sure other people do this too, but don't admit it so because I'm coming clean, I want you to come clean too, in the comments, so I don't feel so stupid.

When I'm doing something boring, or something I don't like I pretend I'm doing something else that's perhaps dangerous, or heroic or really important.  For instance, when I go for a walk in the winter in the deep snow, and I have to climb the hill in our back yard, I, of course, pretend I'm climbing Mount Everest. That's so obvious, I bet everyone does that!  However, I told Kira about one today and she looked at me like I was a lunatic and won't stop making fun of me.  Yes, you heard right: KIRA making fun of ME. Today I had to weed my landscaping rocks.  But before I go into that, why is it that plants grow so lush and beautiful in the landscaping rocks?  I can't grow gorgeous plants on purpose, but I can't stop weeds from growing out of rocks.  That just doesn't seem fair.

 Anyway, back to my ALLEGED weirdness:  While I weed I pretend that I am a police detective, a "narc," if you will, and I am at the frontline in the war on drugs.  The weeds I pull are drug dealers, and if I'm lucky, my arrest (weed pulling) will lead to the seamy underground of the drug world and I will bust a huge cartel (root system) and clean up the streets for the kids of the future (?).  I love when I pull a tough little tuft of grass and it has a root system that leads to all the other tufts of grass in a large area.  That, my friends, is a good day on the streets.  Makes the days when I can only manage to get punk street dealers (leaves) and they won't give up their suppliers (roots).  Those are frustrating days.  They're why I drink.  Life is tough for a cop on the beat sometimes.

So do you also do this totally normal thing to make a boring or unpleasant task tolerable?  I'm sure you do.  Please tell me about it.  I need some reassurance.

I also pretend I am the six million dollar man (but I'm a woman, of course!) when I'm on the elliptical machine at the gym.  I pretend the people around me are scientists and they are saying things like, "Oh my god, nobody has ever gone for 45 minutes on level 5!  NOBODY!" and then they write things on their clipboards.

Also, when I make frozen pizza, when I cut open the plastic wrapping around the pizza I pretend that I'm a doctor and the plastic wrapping is a woman, and the pizza is a baby and I'm doing an emergency C-section.  "Save her, doctor!  Get the baby out!  You're the only one who can do it!" Then I cut it out and voila, a healthy pepperoni baby.  Then I throw the mother in the garbage and cook the baby.

Conversation overheard outside my bedroom window in the wee hours of the morning

Raccoon:  Hey Bear, how's it going?  Nice place huh?

Bear:  Yeah, I've been living here for a couple years.  I'm thinking about making the move inside.

Raccoon:  Did you know that the stupid bitch who lives here keeps whole garbage cans full of dog food and bird seed?  Right up there next to the house!

Bear:  Oh yeah?  I think I heard her husband tell her that was a stupid idea about a million times but I never checked it out.

Raccoon:  She is a stupid bitch.  I was taking the lids off last night, you know, with my fully functioning opposeable thumbs, and stealing food and she kept trying to catch me at it and finally I thought, you know what?  I'm tired of hiding in the shadows every time she clumps into the kitchen and turns on the lights so I just stayed there and stared her down.

Bear:  No kidding! What did she think of that?

Raccoon:  She almost shit her pants.  It was hilarious!  She waved a broom in the air.  Why do they do that?  It's so weird.

Bear:  I think they think it makes them look bigger.  Idiots.

Raccoon:  So then she let that chicken shit dog out so I had to take off.  Have a look at those cans.  They are still there but now they have cases of Diet Coke on the lids.  I can't lift them off.  Think you could help me out?

Bear:  Nah, not right now.  I'm busy.  I see she got a new hummingbird feeder.  I have to get it down.

Raccoon:  You eat nectar?

Bear:  No, I just want to break it.

Raccoon:  I hear you there!  I wish I was as big as you but still, these tiny hands can do a lot of damage.  See those flowers and veggies she has planted in pots?  I dug them all up.  For no reason at all!

Squirrel:  Hey MothaFuckers!  How's it going?  Did you notice the lady hung the good bird feeder super high? Kind of putting a cramp in my style, but I can still get it.  Stupid bitch.  I started to feel sorry for her but then yesterday when I was puzzling out how to get way the hell up there, she watched and laughed at me every time I missed.

Raccoon:  Yeah, she really thinks she's something.

Squirrel:  I heard from the mice that there's a way to get inside and run through the ceiling.  It really freaks her out.  I think I'm going to do that.  Wanna come with?

Raccoon:  Maybe.  But for now I'm going to continue keeping her up nights by making noise on the deck and wrecking everything.

Bear:  Me too.

Rabbit:  Hey guys, Did you see those pea plants?  Well, they are gone now, but they were fucking delicious!

Raccoon:  Yeah, she planted more, but I dug them all up.

Rabbit:  Asshole, you're interfering with my livelihood!

Bear:  Hey, we should all come here together and freak her out, it would be so hilarious!

Raccoon:  Yeah, that would.  I heard the mosquitoes have been cooking up some West Nile for her too.

Rabbit:  Oh great, here comes that stupid dog.  See you guys later!

Raccoon, Bear, Squirrel:  Yeah, later tonite!

Seven Secrets to a Fabulous Marriage

Mitch says he doesn't like when I write about him on the blog, but I think we all know that's a big fat lie because who doesn't like to see their name in print, am I right?  We have been married for a loooong time, like almost half my life (assuming I'm 26), which surprises and amazes me because before him I was never with anyone longer than a year.  People just get on my nerves after a while, know what I mean?  Not that I didn't mean it when I said, "Til death do us part,"  I totally did, I just assumed one of us would kill the other by now (thank you for not killing me yet, Mitch).  Since I am obviously so incredibly good at being married, I'm going to give you some of the secrets to my amazing success which, in a phrase, is this:  set that bar low.

1.  On your honeymoon, if things start getting too romantic and spectacular, get diarrhea so badly that when you emerge from the bathroom in the teeny tiny cabin you're staying in, you find your new husband holding one of the clove-scented coasters you got for a wedding present against his face to keep himself from gagging.  If he stays with you, that's good, if he stays in the cabin with you, it's true love.

2.  When you are pregnant and miserable and he gets you flowers to try to brighten your day; because that is so out of character for him, and also because you are absolutely mental when you're pregnant, accuse him of stealing the flowers and then look in the checkbook register to see if he actually paid for them.  Don't expect flowers again after that for a long time, but it's worth it because it's important to set mental-health low points early on.

3.  Let your wife know you are the man of the house.  Let her know you are going to be there and provide for and protect her and the little ones.   Mark your territory and don't leave any doubt as to whose territory it is:

Just to be on the safe side, you better use your last name, or at least your last initial,
 in case the little woman is simple-minded.  

4.  In a successful marriage it is understood that as you grow older, you will change physically and probably lose a little of the initial hotness that got you together in the first place.  A good spouse knows that and accepts it.  A really good spouse will morph into a cartoon character to keep things "interesting."

                     

5.  Teach your wife to appreciate things she never in a million years thought she would appreciate.  Say something like, "If I ever poop the bed, tonight will be the night," and then when you don't poop the bed, she will actually be happy!  And grateful!  And all you have to do is NOT poop in your bed!

6.  Laugh together.  When your adolescent boy comes out of his room wearing pants four inches too short because nobody has done laundry in a week and the boy grows out of clothes at an obnoxious rate; purely for the entertainment of your beloved, one of you should say, "Hey, nice pants!  Where's the flood?" which will make the other one laugh hysterically.  Who cares how the boy feels?  He's got to get used to people laughing at him if he's going to wear pants like that anyway.

7.  Support each other's interests.  If she gets obsessed with shoving live plants in jars with rocks until your whole house is full of terrariums and the moss patch in your yard is full of divots SO BE IT. If he gets carried away with installing poles so that your back yard looks like a forest full of leafless yellow-trunked trees, LEARN TO LOVE IT.

That sums up the glue that holds my marriage together.  What are your tips?

The Bear is Back

Well, the bear is back.  I was wandering around the house late last night with a turkey baster, watering all my terrariums and I heard a loud banging that sounded suspiciously like the bird feeder I've brought back from total destruction about five times.  I quickly turned on the outside light and saw... nothing.  But the bird feeder was gone so I knew I wasn't crazy.  So I continued with the terrariums and then when I looked out the window again I saw the little bastard pluck my carefully placed hummingbird feeder from the hook in the eave and then decide he wanted nothing to do with it.  He just broke it to be mean and get sticky.  I yelled to the family to come and see the bear and we all kneeled on the couch and gawked at him out the big front window.  He saw us.  He didn't care.

Then the bear sat down and ate the sunflower seeds he spilled from the bird feeder.  He was kind of cute.  I'd say he was about the equivalent bear-size of a ten year old kid.  Mitch said, "He's not a cub, he's probably a year old." God, he bugs me sometimes, with his biology know-it-allness.  I cherish the memory of the time I told him about the book Beast I read by Peter Benchley about a gigantic octopus (or maybe it was a squid?  (Same diff!)) and the octopus kept attacking boats and people and terrorizing them with his giant beak and Mitch scoffed, as if what I was reading was somehow silly and unrealistic and a total waste of time.  Mitch said that octopuses don't have beaks and even if they did, they wouldn't peck boats to pieces with them.  Okay, Mitch is a fresh-water limnologist  (I don't know) so why would he even pretend to know what a giant octopus would do or wouldn't do with his giant beak?  So I looked up octopuses and it turns out they DO have beaks!  HA! SUCK ON THAT, MITCH!

Money shot

And also, most octopuses (octopods?) don't get big enough to attack ships and they are smart enough to accept their limitations so they stick to small things in shells, but I, along with Peter Benchley, have no doubt in my mind that if they found themselves growing big enough to handle a boat with some delicious humans in it, they wouldn't hesitate.

See?

Anyway, back to the bear. We watched him gorge himself on seeds and molest my lilac bush which is now leaning and broken, and then he sat up like a person and looked so cute that it struck me how much I would like to see him ride a bike and now I understand why people train bears to ride bikes.

Then he ran around a little bit and we noticed his front paw was hurt, and then he shook like a dog and so much water came off of him!  He was really wet.  Kira wanted to lure him into the house and I had to remind her of the utter destruction one single wild pigeon can do, imagine what a bear would do? and she didn't really care.  Then he ran off on three legs.  I still have not gone outside to retrieve the remnants of my bird feeders because a) it's raining and b) THERE'S A BEAR OUT THERE!

Scrabble

The kids took a break from their three month moratorium on the written word long enough to play a game of Scrabble with their mom and pop.  This is what we get when we help Kira.  A freak seven-letter triple word score and endless rubbing it in.  

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to my dad, who has been a great dad, teaching us all kinds of things, like how to drive when I was sixteen:

Dad:  Okay, now watch out because this is a busy intersection and the cross traffic does not stop.  Look for cars.

Me:  Looks clear. (floors it)

Dad:  STOP!  WHAT ARE YOU DOING? THERE'S A CAR COMING!  AAAAAAAHHHHH!  AAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!

Me:  Dad, if you speed up when you get in the road, they don't even get close.  Geez, relax.  When you screamed you sounded just like a girl!

Dad:  PULL. OVER. NOW.

Or last year when he taught my sisters and me all about pop culture from twenty years ago:

Dad:  That man (on the tv) is named L.L. Cool J.  It means "The Ladies Love Cool James."  I looked it up on the internet.

Me and my sisters:  (mouths agape)...........PWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Dad:  What? What's so funny?  Its' true.

But mostly you've taught us how to be the FABULOUS people we turned out to be!  Thanks, Dad!  Have a great Father's Day!

My sister Amy's comment:

There was also the time he was teaching ME to drive and he picked me up at camp in Minneapolis in his Corvette. As we're getting on the freeway, he's explaining that when you are on the ramp, you just have to speed up and the freeway traffic will just let you in.

Dad: "See? You just slowly come up to speed as you're coming around the ramp and the freeway traffic will make room for you...."


Me: (Looking at traffic and apprehensive....)


Dad: "OK, we're coming off the ramp....now this truck should just move over...."


Me: (Looking at truck making sure he is going our exact speed but not moving anywhere....)


Dad: "OK....this guy should be moving over....SHIT!!!!" (Brakes slamming on as we run out of merge lane and have to swerve behind the truck from the shoulder.)


Lesson learned. Twenty year old trucks know the Corvette will move first. Thanks Dad!! I love you!!


Sarah....you also forgot the story about when he taught us to look for rocks when we're in the boat. And then he hit a rock.