School starts and I can't tell you how happy I am about it

Sam started high school yesterday and Kira starts middle school tomorrow.  Tonight we went to her open house and got her schedule and learned where all her classrooms are.  God, I hate open house night.  The kids are stressed because nobody can open their locker (that's the overwhelming source of middle school stress before the first day.  Little do they know there are WAY worse things to worry about in middle school! Just wait, kids! You're gonna hate it!) and the building is huge compared to elementary school blah blah blah.  And it was hot.  Really hot.  Like I-think-they-had-the-heaters-on kind of hot.  I had sweat dripping down my spine and I'm not much of a sweat-er.  And every time I get in a crowd of people I am reminded of what a misanthrope I am.  I hate people so much.  Actually, that's not true.  I really like the idea of people (like internet people that probably aren't even real.  Hello, THE MATRIX), but I hate actual people... So I guess it is true.  Never mind about when I said it's not true.  One lady had a pack of kids with her and she was yelling down the crowded hallway for her littlest to catch up and was screeching at the crowd to get out of his way; she said, "God!  Get out of the way!  My poor baby is getting rambushed!"  Which I assume is a blend of  ram and ambush.  Or rambo and ambush.  You know, now that I write it down, I think it's kind of clever and perfectly descriptive but I don't think she knew she was making up a word and it really annoyed me.  Mostly the yelling-down-the-hall-of-a-thousand-people-while-I was-sweating-and-putting-up-with-a-nervous-and-cranky-11-year-old was making me crabby, but still.  Don't make up words and yell them at me when I'm sweating.

Kira saw a lot of her friends and I overheard one conversation where she told her friend that when she was buying her school supplies she chose the wide ruled paper instead of the college ruled because there are less lines on the paper so she won't have to write as much as the idiots who buy college ruled.  Score one for Kira!

Sam is on the fence about whether he likes high school yet or not.  He will.  What's not to like?  Homework, that's what.  He's had homework both nights already.  But he's very conscientious so he will be fine.  He has a few classes with one of the big bullies from middle school and already, the second day, three of the teachers have told that kid to SHUT UP.  In one of the classes his former victims tittered a bit after the teacher said it and then she said to the bully, "Hear that laughing?  That's all the people you've picked on."  Score one for high school!

Ninth grade, nine fingers, get it?

Mother of the Year

I have kind of liked the song "Pumped Up Kicks" by Foster the People for a while but I never listened to the words.  I thought it they were saying, "something something something, la la la, my bucket."  It's such a happy, lighthearted tune, it even has whistling! I just assumed the lyrics were something happy and lighthearted.  Something to do with a guy's bucket.  When I was driving Sam to his first day of school this morning the song came on and I was singing along with it, and telling him how much I love it, and isn't it great to go to school the first day and hear such a happy song on the radio?  Turn it UP!  What a great day!  I decided I liked it so much that I would download it so when I came back home, that's what I did.  While it was loading I looked up the lyrics to see what could be so interesting about that guy's bucket, but they weren't saying bucket, they were saying bullet.  The song is about a kid who gets a hold of a gun (a six shooter!) and goes after all the mean kids with the "pumped up kicks."  The chorus says:

All the other kids with the pumped up kicks you'd better run, better run, outrun my gun.All the other kids with the pumped up kicks you'd better run, better run, faster than my bullet.
I read that and said, "........ oh."  And then I thought about how I sent my ninth grader off to his first day of high school humming a tune about a kid shooting his peers.  Best. Mothering. Ever.
I still love the song, and I might love it even more because I find the duplicity kind of hilarious.  "Run before I shoot you!  Hee hee! Whistle whistle! *skip skip skip* La la la... BTW nice shoes!"

The Snake has been found!

Remember yesterday when I told you that Sam caught a snake for Kira and she put it in a bucket and then it escaped?  Today we found it.  It was curled up at the bottom of the basement stairs.  So cute!  It was kind of cold down there so he was really easy to catch.  I wonder how he spent his 24 hours of freedom in my house?

I imagine that soon after he got out of the bucket he slithered into the kitchen and got in the fridge and slithered through all the food, pooping in the butter and and peeing on top of all the diet coke cans.  I wouldn't be too terribly surprised to find a disgusting shed skin in the left over baked beans.  I bet he got out of the fridge then and took a little tour through the coffee pot and over all the silverware.  Then I suppose he moseyed into the bathroom and coiled around my toothbrush for a while and then snuggled up and took a nap among my maxi-pads.

When we all went to bed and the house was dark and quiet, I imagine he got a little chilly so he was seeking some heat.  I bet he slithered into my bed when I was asleep and took a little rest in my gaping mouth.  Nice and toasty!  I probably accidentally swallowed him and he slithered through my entire digestive tract, grateful to emerge in the morning.  Best sunrise of his life!  Then he probably slithered over every single surface that I clean.  Now I have to clean the snake germs off every single thing in the house.  You never know how much you don't want snakes loose in your house until there is a snake loose in your house.

A day of crisis

Three things have happened that are making for a tough day for me, as it would any mother:

1) We gave away our swing set because my children are no longer children, but adolescents. The little girl across the road gets it now which is good.  She'll got a lot of use out of it.

2) Both to Kira's and my horror we went shopping to buy her her first bra.

3) Sam caught a snake this morning and gave it to Kira who put it in a bucket and put it in her room.  It escaped the bucket and now we have a loose snake in the house.  

To deal with the first two things, Kira and I drowned our sorrows in ice cream at McDonalds.  While she was eating her sundae she said, "This sundae is so good I want to get its autograph but I already ate its hands, so too bad," which I thought was weird.  Why would you want the autograph of anyone, much less a stupid sundae.

Then we went to Animal Allies to pet cats because sometimes that makes us feel better about things.  Cats are kind of gross.  Did you know they shit in a box right in your house?  Yuck.  But they are fun to pet if you can avert your eyes from the constant flashing-of-anus.  I guess a person who has a snake free-shitting in her house shouldn't throw stones at the people who have cats who admirably limit their shitting to a box.

Then we came home and discovered the snake had escaped.  I told her to FIND IT and she looked really hard for about 4 minutes.  Then she went outside and now she's playing on the bare spot in the yard where her swing set used to be.  I DON'T THINK YOU'RE GOING TO FIND THE SNAKE OUT THERE!

Nora Ephron must be a Dwarf

(I posted this at The Chunkerson's blog today as well.)

Did you guys know that Nora Ephron is only four feet and five inches tall?  Actually I don't know that for sure but I am going to assume she must be comically short because in her book I Feel Bad About My Neck she writes this:

"I go off to college. I weigh 106 pounds.  I come back from college three months later.  I weigh 126 pounds. I was once thin and shapeless.  Now I am fat and, ironically, equally shapeless. Nothing fits except for my wool plaid Pendleton pleated skirt, which makes me look even fatter. It's tragic. My father takes one look at me as I get off the plane and says to my mother, 'Well, maybe someone will marry her for her personality.'"


First of all, in what universe is 126 pounds fat on anyone of average height?  I'm five feet and five inches tall and if I weighed 126 pounds I would look like I'd just gone through chemo during a famine, which leads me to assume that Nora Ephron is dwarf-short. I should explain that this paragraph was NOT part of a bigger chapter about what an asshole her dad was.  Maybe her dad was an asshole.  He probably was but I don't know for sure.  She was telling the story as a hilarious anecdote about how good and cold the milk was in her college cafeteria and how she gained twenty pounds in three months and got "fat."  Okay, I'll admit that it's not good to gain twenty pounds in three months, but to be a "famous" "successful" "woman" and say that the twenty pounds she gained in college was "tragic"?  I can see why we are all so obsessed with the scale.  The stupidest part of the whole story is that she is probably lying about the weights!  She probably started at 126 pounds and got up to a whopping 146 (which, btw, I would LOVE to weigh) but could never allow herself to admit those numbers in writing. Women lie about what the scale says all the time because other women lie about it.  It's stupid, and it's kind of sick but when someone famous like her does it, it is tragic.  Thanks for setting women back a few decades, Nora Ephron!

This is part of the diet cycle that is so frustrating to me.  I'm a feminist.  Our culture is toxic to women.  Pick up a Cosmopolitan magazine and see for yourself.  It's not a magazine for women to be better women, it's a magazine that tells how you can drop unsightly pounds, and wear eyeliner to look hot, and how to please your man in bed.  That's tragic.  Even the milder women's magazines are ridiculous.  Have you seen the plus-sized models?  According to women's magazines the average woman in this country is a fat, disgusting mess.  How dare we take up more than our allotted 120 pounds of space!

But on the other hand, I like to be able to breathe when I tie my shoes.  So I think I need to drop a few pounds.  But then I get into an internal struggle about my motivation for losing weight.  Why am I dropping pounds?  Is it really for health, or is it because I want to look a little more like Sofia Vergara and a little less like Ed O'Neill?

I want to look less like Ed O'Neill

I don't know.  I guess at this point I want to feel good.  I'm never going to look like Sofia Vergara.  I don't even really want to because getting ogled at this point in my life would just make me want to throw up.  I'd like to not wake up with a stomach ache and I'd like to not have the squirts and I'd like to have lots of energy.  All that can be fixed with a good diet.  I suppose if I lose pounds in the process that's just gravy, right?  Make tying the shoes a little easier?

If I ever see Nora Ephron in person I am going to (want to) slap her right across her windsock-like turkey neck.

I got professional

Hi!  It's me again, the professional blogger.  Why am I professional now instead of amateur?  Because I changed the domain name from linda075blog.blogspot.com to sowhatelseblog.com.  See, no more numbers and none of the blogger business. (linda075 was my college password when I took classes a couple of years ago.  Too bad you didn't know that back then!)  Sleek and professional.  So change it in your reader or on your toolbar or whatever.  It should automatically redirect, but I just thought you'd like to know that you are reading the words of a professional, not just some wannabe.  You could also email me at Sarah@sowhatelseblog.com too, but I wouldn't recommend it until I learn how to access it.

New School Year

Sam and I went to his high school orientation last night.  He starts school next Tuesday.  I am so happy and relieved he is out of middle school.  Middle school is the worst place in the world after prison and concentration camps.  I can't believe we send kids there.  Kids that age should not be with other kids that age.  I don't know what the solution to the problem is.  Don't ask me, I just recognize the problem and complain about it.  I don't want to think of solutions.  Why do I have to do everything anyway?  Huh?  Can't you come up with solutions sometimes?  Geez.

So anyway, one of the teachers came up to Sam and said, "And you are?" and he said, "Your worst nightmare."  Yeah, I couldn't believe it either.  Sam is about the mildest, most vanilla person in the world so to hear that come out of his mouth was surprising.  The teacher wasn't even fazed.  She smiled and said, "It's going to be a long year.  For you."

I'm really jealous that Sam is going to high school.  I loved high school.  He gets to take computers in a really nice lab, he gets to take Spanish from a woman who looks incredibly like Peggy Hill, he gets to read Romeo and Juliet in English class.... sigh.  Lucky.

Kira, on the other hand is just starting middle school.  This is the sweet little child who just last week thought "pecker" was a bird's beak and nothing but a bird's beak.  Over the next three years she will learn countless ugly slang words for genitalia; she will either see, experience, (or perpetrate) bullying; she will see, experience (or perpetrate) sexual harassment; she will hear creative swears that she will be compelled to come home and tell me about because one of her favorite things to tell me is, "I have to tell you something but I have to swear for it."  I wish I could just plug information into a Matrix like brain portal on the back of her neck so she would know everything she would need to know to go to high school and then send her to high school instead of subjecting her to middle school.  But I suppose it is a rite of passage?  I have to try to convince myself of that so I don't feel bad for subjecting her to it.

Our weekend and Beth's hidden talents

The kids spent the weekend with their grandparents at the cabin on Rainy Lake.  One day they went to a souvenir shop to buy t-shirts and they were each told to pick their favorite.  Sam casually pointed out to Kira a shirt that said, "I froze my pecker off at Rainy Lake" and it had a picture of a cute bird on it.  Kira loves birds so she wanted it.  My MIL said it was inappropriate and Kira had no idea why.  MIL had to explain the double meaning of pecker to her. She's all grown up now!

My two-year-old niece, Sid, hung out with me all weekend.  She is a riot.  When I was fixing her hair one morning she was staring at herself in the mirror with her finger up her nose.  I said, "Get your finger out of your nose," and she said, "Oh, it's okay, I'm just picking the boogers out."  She also sings a song of nonsense words all the time.  Like, "Oo ah, bee, dang, pleh, pleng...." and on and on and on while she mimes snapping her fingers.  I could NOT get Beth to tell me what this is about but I have a sneaking suspicion Beth is just trying to hide her own weirdness.  Why do I think this?  I'll tell you the history...

One time back in high school my sister Amy came across a home-made cassette tape and didn't know what was on it so she played it.  It was Beth belting out the Cher song "If I Could Turn Back Time" but she changed the lyrics to, "If I could turn back time, I'd give it all to Chri-is!"  Apparently she had a crush on someone named Chris.

Fast forward about six or seven years:  Amy and I were over at Beth's house for dinner.  We were looking at stuff on her computer while she cooked and we saw a home-made sound file on her desktop so we played it.  Remember the hamster song that was so popular in the nineties?  It was almost exactly like that but sooooo much longer and more complex.  It even had a bridge where she said, "Oo ah ah ah Oo ah ah ah" for a long time.  Amy and I were literally speechless and couldn't believe what we had found and we laughed so hard we thought we might have to go to the hospital.  It was amazing.  Beth has hidden talents.

So that is why I think Beth walks around her house singing some wonderful nonsense song that she has made up and Sid is just copying her.  I don't know why she won't share it.  She could bring so much joy to the world.  I might have to put some microphones in Beth's house and steal the joy.

An Open Letter to Nora Ephron

Dear Nora Ephron,

I'm halfway through reading your book I Feel Bad About My Neck for book club.  I wouldn't have chosen this book to read on my own because I never really thought you and I had much in common.  And I'm still kind of mad at you for Sleepless in Seattle.

I never thought about my neck before EVER, except to think how easily it could snap if I participate in any kind of sport, but thanks to you, I found myself looking in the mirror yesterday at my neck to see if it was looking gross, like you think your neck looks.  It looks okay.  It's a neck.  It holds my head up.  Who cares?  What are you going to do about it anyway?  Turtlenecks choke me so I guess I'll just have to go around looking like a turkey.  I googled your neck yesterday on google images and I don't really see the big deal about your neck.  I'm not just saying that to be female-nice either.  What is wrong with your neck?  I think it would be way worse if you woke up one morning and your neck just disappeared.

Not even Angelina Jolie would look good without a neck, turkey or otherwise. Appreciate your neck for what it is and what it does.  Can your turn your head?  Your neck is fine.

Right now I'm on the chapter about maintenance and what you do to maintain your appearance.  Wow.  All I can say is WOW.  I liked how you said that you must maintain a certain level of attractiveness on the off chance that you will see one or two boyfriends from your past and you would rather die than let them see you looking bad.  I understand that.  My sister saw one of her old boyfriends in the dollar store and her teeny cart was full of cans of tuna.  Like, dozens of cans of tuna.  She loves dollar store tuna and she was stocking up.  She said that was kind of embarrassing.  I didn't even think to ask if she had been wearing make-up.  I bet he didn't notice if she had eyeliner and lipstick on, but maybe he did.  Maybe he thought to himself, "OMG, look at all this bargain basement tuna. Is she homeless? Oh, wait, she's wearing eyeliner.  She's not homeless, she's just mysterious and exotic, and might I say, looking  H-O-T.  I can't believe I let her slip through my fingers..."

So I get wanting to look your best, but seriously, I think you should learn how to blowdry your own hair.  It boggles my mind that you go to the beauty salon twice a week to get your hair DRIED.  You are a very talented woman, YOU CAN DO THIS!

I still don't think you and I have a lot in common, but I am enjoying your book.  I'll probably finish it today and then I'll take a shower, wash my future turkey neck, and then I'll dry my own hair like a total sucker.

xxxooo
Sarah

Follow me? (Forget it.)

I love social media, and waste countless hours on it but I can't seem to grow my skin thick enough for the whole "I'm going to follow/friend you, but then someday I'm going to pull the rug out from under you and unfollow/unfriend you and you will never know why!"  And what really bothers me about that is that I CARE.  I would say that if I saw about half the people on my Facebook friend list in the grocery store or somewhere out in the real world, I would hide so they didn't see me and then I wouldn't be forced to have a stop-and-chat. (thank you, Larry David, for that term)  I know, I'm not a nice person.  Or perhaps I'm just kind of shy?  No, I'm not shy.  Part of the reason is that I hate confrontation.  Even fake confrontation.  Especially fake confrontation, like so:

Facebook friend I don't really consider a real friend but keep on my friend list because the drama in her life provides me with endless entertainment: (FFIDRCF):  Hey Girl!  Where've you been hiding?
Me:  Oh you know, I've been busy.
FFIDRCF:  Ha ha!  We're ALL busy!  What have you been "busy" doing?
Me:  I've been busy with the kids...
FFIDRCF:  You only have two kids!  How busy could you be? (jovial, jokey-type laughter)
Me: .....  I think I just got my period. Gotta go!
FFIDRCF:  Call me!  We have to get together!
Me: ... (under my breath)... I'd rather be murdered in my bed.

I guess I am what you might call an introvert and social media fits that so perfectly.  I watched a show last night about some crazy family that has a thousand kids and how great it is because "you never have to be alone!" and I couldn't think of anything worse.  But I love knowing what is going on in people's lives so lurking on Facebook/Twitter/blogs is perfect to satisfy my social needs (that and of course, you know, having a husband and kids.)

I have recently been trying to figure out Twitter, Stumble and Reddit.  Twitter seems to be for people who like to read mini-blogs, but not necessarily write mini-blogs.  Some of the people on Twitter are hilarious, but I only actually know about three of my followers/people I follow.  When I get an email that says I have a new follower on Twitter I get excited and check them out and nine times out of ten it's a woman from the porn industry that follows eight million people in the hopes that they will follow her and read her very unsexy porno tweets.  So, it's entertaining, but like I say, I don't know those people.  I read stuff on Stumble and Reddit, but haven't totally figured it out yet.

Facebook is great because I can pick my friends.  And if a friend gets annoying in their status updates, I can keep them as a friend, but hide them so I don't have to read their millions of dramatic updates about how their ex-husband is a jerk.

It's all so shallow isn't it?  It's perfect for me.  Except when I get unfollowed/unfriended.  I hate that.  I took the follower option off the blog because I was getting obsessed with it and discouraged that more people weren't pushing the "follow" button.  That eliminated a lot of anxiety.

What do you like about social media? How do you deal with getting dumped?

Viola Davis is Fantastic

I just saw the movie The Help which I was dying to see since I read the book, which I loved.  The movie was very VERY good, and I'm not going to write a review because I can't really write reviews about movies that are actually good.  (Not that the X-Men movies aren't good, mind you. They are super, but for some reason, they beg for a review. Hmm, I don't really get the logic. Just go with it.)

What I really want to say here is that Viola Davis is brilliant.  I'm serious.  I don't usually rave about movie stars (unless they are put together like Hugh Jackman, know what I'm sayin'?) but she deserves a rave.
Her character in the movie is named Abilene and she is a maid for a snotty white lady in the sixties in Jackson, Mississippi.  (The perfect storm of bad jobs.)  I don't really know how to put in to words what makes her so great, except to say that when she's on the screen and she's smiling, I'm smiling.  When she's crying, I'm bawling.  When her character feels like she's been defeated and broken, I'm bawling.  When her character finally gets recognized for being brave and wonderful and she feels proud yet humbled, I'm bawling.   I guess what really makes her a great actress is her ability to make me bawl.  Hardly anyone can make me bawl.  (Especially since I've been on my post-partum medication.)  I'm like an emotional robot, except when Viola Davis is on the screen.  Then I'm feeling every single thing her character is feeling.  I hope someday she makes a movie about a woman who feels like being nice to strangers and getting a lot of work done.

Hate your daughter? Buy her this book!

I was reading blogs this morning and I came across a post by Andie at Inspiration Strikes in the Kneecaps about a book on Amazon called Maggie Goes on a Diet.  I thought it was a joke.  It isn't.  It's a book aimed at 4 to 8 year olds about a 14 year old obese girl who wants to fit into a pretty pink dress so she goes on a diet and through hard work and determination she loses all her DISGUSTING FAT and fits into the dress and becomes a soccer star.  I had to look it up.  Here's the cover:

I thought maybe it was written by a person named Maggie who is telling her own story of weight loss when she was a kid and how she thinks it changed her life for the better.  But it was written by a guy named Paul Kramer.  Here are some other potential titles for Mr. Kramer:

Maggie Gives Up Her Virginity to the First Guy Who Gives Her Attention
Maggie Thinks Sexual Harassment Is Flattering
Maggie Hates Her Flat Chest
Maggie Goes to the Plastic Surgeon
Maggie Loves Her Job at Hooters!
Maggie Pays for College (by being a stripper)
Maggie Auditions for The Bachelor
Maggie Makes a Sex Tape with a Famous Basketball/Football/Movie Star
Maggie Gets Her Own Reality Show
Maggie Turns 40, Overdoses, Dies Pretty

Dickies and Roid Rage

Something funny happened last week but I forgot to take the picture that would go with the story, so I'll just have to tell you what happened.  I went to Des Moines to visit my aunt.  Shortly after we arrived, I noticed on her bare feet that only the first two toes on each foot had toe-nail polish on them.  When asked about it she told me that she had a dressy function to go to an had some open-toed shoes to go with her outfit and she couldn't really be bothered to paint ALL TEN toes (who has the time???), so she only painted the toes that showed.  She said it was like a toe-nail polish dickie.  You know, dickies?  Partial shirts?  Like this:

To wear when you can't be bothered to wear a whole shirt under another shirt. (Hopefully under another shirt.) Shoving your arms into one set of sleeves is enough, thankyouverymuch!  The whole world thinks you are wearing a whole green turtleneck under that sweater but you know the truth and it makes you feel kind of naughty.

When I was looking up pictures of dickies on google images there were a lot of pictures of old guys who I can only assume are named Dickie.  I also saw this:

And I immediately thought "Hey, that's not a dickie," and then I thought it was some kind of contest where you could win a free dickie (the partial shirt variety), but then I saw the picture of the guy and I thought his name must be Dickie and you can have him because he's free and nobody else wants him.  Then it occurred to me that maybe Dickie the guy is confined somehow and needs freeing.  Poor Dickie.  I hope he got free.

That got me thinking about other misunderstandings I've had recently.  While in Des Moines I watched that old show News Radio from the nineties.  (It's funny.  It really held up.) and the Dave character says something about the Joe character having "Roid Rage" and I immediately sat up and paid attention because I have always thought that "roid rage" referred to hemorrhoids and I thought I missed some important plot point in the show where Joe's hemorrhoids were introduced.  But you know what? It doesn't mean hemorrhoids.  It means steroids.  I know because I watched carefully after that and there were references to Joe's muscliness but no references to his hemorrhoids.  It seems obvious to me now.  But I always assumed that people with hemorrhoids are angry about having hemorrhoids (obviously) - hence "roid rage."  I wonder how many times while I was pregnant I complained about my own personal case of "roid rage"?  And I wonder why nobody told me that steroids during pregnancy isn't exactly safe?  Thanks for nothing, friends, family and acquaintances!

Some thoughts on songs on my iPod

I took a long trip with my kids last week which involved lots of driving.  I listened to my iPod a LOT.  A while back I downloaded the song Born This Way by Lady GaGa because I love her and the song is so catchy and has a good message (as far as I could tell).  I was listening to it in the car and discovered that I don't really know the words, so I thought I would listen to it line by line, write down what I think the words are, and then look up the lyrics and see if I was close.  I'll put the correct line next to any that I get wrong:

It doesn't matter if you love him
Or capital H-I-M..M..M..M
Just put your paws up
'Cuz you were born this way, baby

My mama told me when I was young
We're all born super stars
She rolled my hair and put my lipstick on
In the glass of her boudoir
There's nothin' wrong with lovin' who you are, she said
'Cuz he made ya perfect, babe
So hold your head up, girl and you'll go far
There's a whole new way to save!                     (Listen to me when I say)

I'm beautiful in a way
'Cuz God makes no mistakes
I'm on the right track, baby
I was born this way
Don't rot yourself and regret                               (Don't hide yourself and regret)
'Cuz love itself ain't upset                                    (Just love yourself and your set)
I'm on the right track, baby
I was born this way

Ooo there ain't no other way
Baby, I was born this way
Baby I was born this way!
(repeat)

Don't be a drag
Just be a queen
Don't be a drag
Just be a queen
Don't be a drag
Scklepp sheel sklep                                     (???)

Give yourself prudence
 And love your friends
Subway can rejoice the truth                        (Subway kid, rejoice your truth)
And the religion of the insecure
I must be myself, respect my youth
But if Renoir is not a sin                                (A different lover is not a sin)
Believe capital H-I-M

O lova lava of this record end                        (I love this life, I love this record)
Me llamo yega yega yam yam                        (Me amore vole fe yah)

(Chorus)

Way
Don't be
Way
Don't be a drag
Just be a queen
Whether your broke
Or evergreen
You're black, white, bass                    (You're black, white, beige)
You're levisant                                    (chola descent)
You're lebanese
You're orient

Whether life's disabilities
Left you outcast, bullied or teased
Rejoice and love yourself today
'Cuz baby, you were born this way
No matter gay, straight or bi
Lesbian, transgender life
I'm on the right track, baby
I was born to survive
No matter black white or beige
Sholat or orient made                                    (chola, or orient made)
I'm on the right track, baby
I was born to be brave

Chorus

That wasn't as funny as I thought it would be.  I was pretty close.  What is "Chola?"  I suppose I could Google it but I don't want to.  I Googled enough today.  Another thing that had me concerned during the ten hours of listening was the story in The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, mainly this:

The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait
When the Gales of November came slashin'.

They had to wait for breakfast because of the terrifying storm.  Ugh, I hate waiting for breakfast, and then...

When suppertime came, the old cook came on deck sayin'.
Fellas, it's too rough to feed ya.
At Seven P.M. a main hatchway caved in, he said
Fellas, it's been good t'know ya

Did they eat lunch?  That cook is a real downer.  Like it's not bad enough to be in a cold, scary storm, but for the cook to refuse to feed you supper because of it?  Especially after not serving breakfast? That sucks!  And then at seven p.m., when the main hatchway caved in, I bet everyone was really depressed and scared (and hungry) and that old bastard rubbed it in by saying, "Fellas, it's been good t'know ya."  Way to think positive, Old Cook!

Roommate

We spent three nights away from home this week and Kira said she wanted to bunk with me.  I thought that was sweet and I want to treasure her while she still likes me but I'm glad we are home now.  She's hard to sleep with.  These are the positions she was in when I came to bed each night:

Night #1

Night #2

Night #3

Iowa State Fair

A couple days ago the kids, my aunt and I went to the Iowa State Fair.  Kira was so excited that on the drive there that she said, "If there are bunnies to hold, can I hold some bunnies???!!!"  The kids were dying to go on enough rides to make them nauseous, and my aunt and I wanted to have some fair food and see farm animals.  After we checked out the fairgrounds for a while the kids headed to the Midway to go on rides and get an eyeful of carnie, (as there were carnies-a-plenty) and Auntie and I went in search of deep fried food on sticks, and animals.  We started the smorgasbord off with corn dogs and then took a stroll through the cow barn.  Normally I would not eat a fried, breaded wiener at all, (yes I would) much less eat it while walking through a barn among livestock; but much like parades make it okay to eat candy off the road, fairs make it okay (and even fun!) to eat carcinogens in a room full of poop.

I had to squeeze through a crowd of people NOT TOUCHING this bull to get this picture. (He didn't look dangerous enough to rate having a sign, but he did have an enormous scrotum which is unfortunately being covered by the sign in this picture.  It was impressive.)

Then we headed to the sheep barn which had a very special kind of stink.  All the sheep were shorn for showing and apparently female sheep are better for showing because everywhere I looked, this is what I saw:

Vaginas here!  Vaginas there!  Vaginas EVERYWHERE!

In order to get out of the sheep barn I had to avert my gaze from the vaginas and concentrate on the sheep that were covered, for "cleanliness."

KKK-Kleanliness

Next we went to the bird and bunny barn and unfortunately there were no bunnies to hold, only pigeons.  And you couldn't hold them.  Pigeon people are touchy about people touching their pigeons.  They had the pigeon show that day and here are some of the winners:

fatass

(Get it?  There's nothing even in there! (That's the joke))
\

This guy didn't win anything, but I liked him and his freaky legs:

"Get ta steppin'!"

Then we met up with the kids and walked through the games because there's nothing a kid likes more than to get financially assaulted by gregarious people with prison tats!

"What?  You mean not one single ring went on one single bottle?  What are the chances?!?"

"I totally think it's worth three dollars for you to try to walk up the rickety ladder to see if you can get a toy worth 50 cents that you don't even want.  Totally."

Then we went to the booths to see if I could get my picture with Michele Bachmann but she wasn't at her booth.  She had other crazies passing out literature for her.  We saw a few minutes of some outhouse races.  I had never heard of this before.  People put outhouses on wheels and push them down the track.  The tricky part is that there has to be a person inside the outhouse and he (or she!) has to be going to the bathroom during the race.*  Pressure!

I also saw Angelica Huston on a rascal scooter, a cow made of butter, and a pretty good one-man-band.

Then it was getting hot so we went home.  It was fun!


*I'm pretty sure that isn't true.

Happy Birthday AMY!

I think a lot of people "unplug" on the weekends and it really affects my Sunday Facebook/Twitter lurking and blog-reading.  Or maybe other people have lives?  I don't know.  Whatever it is, I don't like it.  GET BACK ONLINE AND ENTERTAIN ME.

Last night Mitch brought a carload of kids to the school bus races at the local outdoor racetrack.  (Did you know we are rednecks?)  They all had a great time and I savored my time at home alone because I was feeling a little mentally exhausted from spending the afternoon running errands with Kira .  She asked me, and demanded well-thought-out answers to, ridiculous questions I never wanted to ever think about.  (See Kira in the Car.  Realize that for every funny thing she says, she says ten million exhausting/obnoxious things.) I was worn out.

Today is my lovely sister Amy's birthday,

so I thought I would take this opportunity to retell my favorite story about her.  One time a few years ago she was living in San Diego she was waiting in a park for her friend to get off work, and a man came up to her and said, "Do you need something to eat?" and she thought he was hitting on her or something and she turned around and said, "Uh... No?" and then he said, "Okay, just want to make sure everyone in the park gets something to eat today," and then she realized that he thought she was homeless.  I am still laughing about that.  I mean, it's one thing for someone to mistake you for someone they think looks like you, but to take a good look at you and think you are homeless?  Well, let me tell you, when that happens to your sister, it is HILARIOUS.

Happy Birthday, Amy!

Crazy

I have so much to do today and I'm just sitting here reading blogs and drinking coffee (but to be fair, that was on my list.) The kids and I are going to Iowa to visit rels and go to the state fair next week.  I wonder if we will see the republican candidates for president?  I'd love to get my picture taken with Michele Bachmann.  We could both make this face:

You know, people (my dad) says that this was a cheap shot on the part of Newsweek because everyone takes a bad picture now and then.

exhibit A

But I don't think that it was a cheap shot on the part of Newsweek.  If you're going to be a crazy person, it is not unfair to show a picture where you look like a crazy person.  If Michele Bachmann looked like Janet Reno everyone would be saying openly what a psycho she is, but no, she is very attractive so hey, maybe she's got something important to say!  Like this (thanks Buzzfeed):

"Not all cultures are equal."


"There are hundreds and hundreds of scientists, many of them holding Nobel Prizes who believe in intelligent design."


"What a bizarre time we're in, when a judge will say to little children that you can't say the pledge of allegiance but you must learn that homosexuality is normal and that you should try it."


"Gay marriage is probably the biggest issue that will impact our state and nation in the last, at least, thirty years.  I'm not understating that."


Okay, Crazy.  Whatever you say!  At least you look pretty!

She's getting that awkward stage over early

I'm up North visiting my parents, sister, and nieces.  GOD, they are so cute! (the nieces, not my parents or my sister.) Although my baby niece, who is five months, is going through a bit of an awkward stage.  I'll just write some quotes of things people have said about her since I've been here and then scroll down and look at her picture and see if you think we are being fair:

"I've never seen hair grow into a mullet by itself."
"Brush that crumb off her, it's by her ear.~ No, by her big ear."
"She's looking less and less like Hitler."
"She looks like Ralph from the Simpsons."
"Oh, her tooth is so cute!" "Which one?" "The middle one."
"Boy, she gets greasy fast!"
"Her cheeks are hanging.  Like Droopy Dog."
"No, it's not a rat tail, her hair just grows like that.  I guess."

Poor baby, you have the meanest family in the world.

Movie Review: R of the P of the A

The kids and I went to see Rise of the Planet of the Apes today.  I have wanted to see it since I saw the first preview because it combines a lot of my favorite things:  CGI animals acting like people, a dangerous virus that plagues humanity, Parkour! (chimps invented it), and John Lithgow.

About half the movie was very enjoyable.  (Spoiler alert!)  James Franco is a scientist who is researching a cure for Alzheimer's disease that his father, John Lithgow, suffers from.  He thinks he has done it and the drug has gone through animal testing and they are giving a big meeting with some important people and the test monkey, who is not only not suffering from Alzheimer's, but has shown improved brain function overall and is super smart; goes completely ballistic and tears the hell out of the lab.  This causes the money-grubbing pharmaceutical boss-type character to cut the funding for the project and destroy all the chimp test subjects.  Well, it turns out that the crazy chimp went crazy because she just had a baby that nobody knew about, (apparently nobody looks at them from the shoulders down in captivity because how can anyone in a laboratory, medical-testing facility miss a pregnant primate?)

hardly noticeable

And the mama chimp was just being protective, and also she was probably pissed off because she just gave birth and they wanted her to get out and go to work right away.  She was smart, she knew her rights!  She was just trying to invoke the family/medical leave act!  But she can't talk!  How is she suppose to show displeasure without WORDS?!  Chimps can't talk!          (Or caaaaaaaaan they????????)


So James took the baby chimp to live with him and his dad.  They discover that the chimp is VERY smart and name him Caesar.  Apparently the drug they gave the mother somehow (?), mysteriously (?) passed the genes (?) for smartness (?) down to the baby and he is a super monkey.  He learns sign language, he practices Parkour all over the house, he makes models of the Statue of Liberty, he cheers up John Lithgow and all is fabulous until one day when Caesar spots the douchey neighbor being mean to a bumbling John Lithgow in the street.  Caesar freaks out and bites the neighbor's finger off and then is court ordered to go to the local primate house that is run by a mean guy with a striking resemblance to Colonel Striker from the first X-Men movie, and his sneering son, Draco Malfoy.  


Caesar is way smarter than Malfoy and wants to rally the chimps so they work together to make their lives better, but the chimps, omg, they're so stupid that Caesar finds it frustrating.  We know all this from the sign-language conversations between Caesar and an Orangutan who is constantly ripping on the lacking intelligence of his primate house-mates.  RAAAARRRRRR!!!!  So Caesar does the only thing a super intelligent chimp can do in a situation like this; he steals the drug from the pharmaceutical company and gives it to all the primates in the primate house.  Then they wake up smart, they gel, they train, and they escape.  This is where the movie lost me.  One minute I'm watching Caesar and his 50 or so friends leaving the primate house, and in the very next scene I'm watching hundreds and hundreds of monkeys ravaging the landscape, and they run amok all over San Francisco freeing captive primates to join their monkey army.  San Francisco has a shocking number of chimps, gorillas and orangutans.  Seriously, thousands.


The movie ends with a stand-off between the Parkour-loving monkeys and the gun-wielding humans on the Golden Gate Bridge.  All the monkeys want is to get to Muir Woods so they can practice Parkour in the redwoods, which as everyone knows, is every Parkour enthusiast's dream.  Do they make it?  Of course they do, this is a prequel, you know.  Does a monkey ride a horse?  You'll have to go yourself to see.  Does a monkey develop the power of speech with a deep resonating voice even though that would be stupid, not to mention physiologically impossible considering humans are the only primates with a voice box?*  Again, pay your own hard-earned eight dollars to find out. 


I enjoyed the movie, loved the CGI, really loved Andy Serkis's performance (as CGI Caesar), but the ending was not nearly as good as the beginning.  It's like they gave up about two thirds of the way in and just said, "I'm tired, let's finish this shit," like I do when I paint, and did a really crappy, slapdash job at the end.  






*yes.

More stealing: My trip to Cancun

I still can't think of anything original and wonderful to write about so today I'm going to steal from yet another blogger.  Today I'm stealing from Jane from Jane's Junk and Treasures because she just got back from a vacation to Cancun, Mexico and she can't stop bragging about it wrote a lovely post about her adventures!  Which reminded me of the time I went to Cancun.  It was the summer after I graduated from high school and I went on a school trip with about 20 kids and our Señora.   It sounded like it would be such a fun trip, and it was, but we weren't travelers.  We didn't know how to handle the inconveniences of international travel back then, we were still in high school mode, and it was the eighties so our biggest concern was how to keep our bangs tall in the oppressive jungle humidity, and how to take advantage of the no-drinking-age in Mexico without Señora getting wind of it because she said she would send us home if we broke her leyes (rules).  We were there to absorb the culture and history, and practice our Spanish language skills; not to get drunk and sold into white slavery, apparently.

High humidity, tall bangs.  Harder to accomplish than you would think.

The day we landed we went right from the plane to a bus.  A hotter than ass bus where we spent most of the next several days.  One day we toured the Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza.  To merely say it was hot would be ridiculous.  It was probably 175 degrees with 110% humidity so we weren't appreciating the historical significance of where we were, we just wanted to get the hell out of there and get somewhere air conditioned.

Here is a picture of my friends Jill and Drew looking at stuff in the Great Ball Court where the Mayans would play their crazy ball games that ended in death.  I think the Mayans would have scoffed at our collective wieniness had we somehow been able to travel back in time and meet them.  They'd say, "Hey, you want to run around this enormous ball court in the oppressive heat until one of us dies?"  and we'd say, "No thank you!  It's too hot and Señora said to move slowly and stay hydrated."  

This picture cracks me up.  It's me (on the steps on the right), my friend Jen, and my friend Jonelle.  I think Señora told the two girls standing above us to watch us because they were constantly watching us and told on us when we ordered drinks the night we went to the discoteca.  In retrospect, we probably shouldn't have ordered drinks that were on fire.  That wasn't very low profile.  But we got out of trouble by telling Señora that we ordered in Spanish, you know, for practice, and we must not have said it right.  Like tres llamas azules Jesus, por favor (three Flaming Blue Jesus shots, please) could be confused with tres Coca Colas, por favor.  Oh well, she bought it.  I'm guessing she didn't really buy it but she let it go because she didn't want the hassle of sending us home.  

This is toward the end of the day at Chichen Itza.  The boys slowly got more and more naked.  The guy on the right was my high school boyfriend who I broke up with right before prom.  You know I have a thing for Tom Selleck and he was as close as a girl could get in high school.  What's that?  No, I said it right, I broke up with HIM.  No, YOU shut up!  We still went to prom together.  It was awkward.  

Awkward

Toward the end of the Chichen Itza tour we saw this:

It's the sacred cenote where they would sacrifice virgins. I believe at the time I was thinking, "God, it's hot, I wish I was a virgin."  Just kidding, Mom and Dad!  I was a virgin!  I could have been sacrificed!  omg, yeah right!  Did you see my boyfriend?  Like I wasn't hitting that.*  (They can't see this because of the small print.)   

Señora told us to pack lots of snack food because we wouldn't like the food.  She'd been doing this trip for years and years and knew what she was talking about, but we were teenage girls, we didn't want to seem like pigs so we all packed a candy bar or two and someone had the forethought to pack squeeze cheese and a sleeve of crackers.  We ate all that stuff the first night.  For the rest of the trip we were starving.  We were in the rural Yucatan and there was no McDonalds or anything even close, which, as an adult I think is wonderful and I'd love to go back and try out all the stuff I turned my snotty teenage nose up at.  We ordered tacos at a street stand, expecting something like Taco Johns, but they weren't like Taco Johns.  They were made with goat meat instead of overly processed commercial "beef" of questionable origin, and had no orange cheese, no sour cream, no salsa or anything.  Just goat meat on a tortilla.  I think that was on about day four and Jonelle cried when she saw it.  

One day we were approached by a dapper-looking man on the beach in Cancun who told us for a tidy sum we could be treated to a wonderful day trip on a yacht, where they would take us to a nearby reef to snorkle and see beautiful tropical fish; a delicious lunch included.  How could we pass that up? We got the okay from Señora, and off we went.  The "yacht" was a 15 foot dingy.  The "nearby" reef was about a two hour boat ride out into the open ocean.  The "tropical fish" was a bunch of baracuda ripping the shit out of any cute little Nemo-like fish they could see (traumatic), and the "lunch" was crackers with salsa and one Corona a piece. We were suckers.  

So there, Jane.  You're not the only one who can blog about their trip to Cancun!  So what if mine was 22 years ago!

*That wasn't very nice.  Sorry, old boyfriend.  I didn't mean to sully your teenage reputation.*

*bow chica wow wow!*

*again, I'm so sorry.

Blatant Stealing

I was going to write a post about how my basement flooded the other day, but you know what?  Blog posts about my basement flooding are booooooorrrrrrriiiiiinnnnnnggggg.   So instead, because I can't think of anything else to write about today, I'm going to steal a post from Kady Hexum's blog and feature it here.

which I thought was a cute story so I commented on the funny names my kids called people when they were little:

Thanks, Kady!

Here's to hoping I can think of something to write tomorrow or else I'll just steal from another blog I like.

The Fair

Hi!  Sorry I've been away, but I was out ridin' my bike.  Not the whole time of course.  I went to a county fair for a while and saw two of my favorite things:  The 4H barn and baby animals.  I love the 4H barn because kids can enter ANYTHING and compete with someone else for it, and if it's obscure enough that nobody else entered anything, you win!  There's no, "Oh, nobody else entered anything like that so there's no competition, sorry kid!"  If some kid wants to enter his noodle version of the Millennium Falcon; done.  It's on display in the 4H barn.  The later in the summer the fair is, the better the 4H barn.  Boredom makes for some crazy projects.  I've tried to get Kira to enter some of her art into a fair but they don't have a category called, "half-assed stuff you made in two minutes from garbage you found on the counter."

like this

or this

or especially this

I also love the animal barns at fairs.  There weren't a lot of chickens at this one, but I saw more than my fair share of goats.  There is a new breed of goat on the scene (new to me, anyway) called Lamanche goats and they have no big floppy ears.  It looks like someone ripped their ears off and they look ugly and pathetic until you realize that they are supposed to look like that. And then they just look ugly.

Oh don't bother with the fancy pose.  You don't look nice.

We also saw some baby pygmy goats, better known (to me) as "house goats."

Look what Mitch won't let me get.

Mitch still says no to inviting one into our family and loving it like a child.  I've tried to explain to him how I need to hear the clippity clop of little hooves on the kitchen floor but he isn't fazed.  There is nothing I would love more than taking a bike ride with my mini-goat in the basket.  I hear they can be litter trained, and everyone knows that all goats eat are cans so how could I go wrong?  Could there be a better pet???