Yikes

The kids have been bothering me for years to take them to the haunted ship downtown. The William A. Irvin/William H. Macy gets "haunted" every year for Halloween, but I didn't think the kids could handle having the bejesus scared out of them from a haunted anything. Also, going out at night really cuts into my Dr. Quinn time.

But this year we finally relented and brought them on the tour. Sam is a big tough twelve year old, so I knew he could handle it, but I was still worried about Kira because, after all, she is a nine year old girl, she should be able to be frightened, right? Wrong. The kids weren't even a little bit scared, hardly even startled. Kira was startled by the first ghoul that jumped out at us at the beginning of the tour, but she didn't scream, she just said, "crap," and the ghoul, expecting I'm sure that he was dealing with a normal person, started laughing at her when he realized he wasn't dealing with anything close to normal.

After that, she was expecting people to jump out at us and wasn't scared at all. She just antagonized the people playing the ghouls, and then they would take it out on me just to prove that they really were scary. Who wouldn't be freaked out to have some teenager in stage makeup sneak up on you and invade your personal space? Toward the end, when people would jump out at us, Kira would say, "Get my mom, she's the one who's really scared," and then they would. My throat was sore from screaming.

On the ride home Mitch asked the kids what their favorite part of the tour was and they both said, "How scared Mom was."

Kira is weird

I went to the downstairs freezer today and when I opened it I saw a huge perfectly round piece of ice just sitting there. I said, "...What!?" I couldn't really wrap my mind around what I was seeing or how it got there. How does a sphere of ice materialize in your basement freezer without you even knowing about it?

I asked around and Kira told me that she filled a balloon with water and froze it and then peeled off the balloon after it was solid. Why did she do this, you ask? Why not?

Today she asked me if she could bring some cough drops to school from home because the ones the nurse has at school are gross flavor combinations. I asked what flavors they are and she said, "Honey and corn, or kiwi and beef."

To say this was a lazy Sunday would be a total understatement

I woke up this morning and after getting out of bed, decided it was too cold and rainy to not be under covers, so I went back to bed and read my book. Mitch came up to check on me about 10:30 and told me to get up. I told him the only thing that would get me out of bed was a breakfast that I don't make myself. So he made me eggs.

Fish shaped eggs. He got a cast iron fish shaped muffin pan a while ago and he keeps finding it despite my attempts to hide it long enough for him to forget about it so I can get rid of it. He is trying to prove it's utility. They were pretty good eggs.

Then Kira and Sam and I watched about 12 hours of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. You'd think a person would get sick of Dr. Quinn after 100 hours, but we aren't. It's THAT good! I'm not being sarcastic either. It's a really good show. Now Mitch and I are going to watch Slumdog Millionaire.

I might have developed bed sores today. I'll check later and let you know.

Panhandle

I am 39 years old and I have just realized that what I always thought was the "panhandle" of Florida, isn't really the handle, it's the pan. I always thought the main part of the state, the part that juts down into the ocean was the panhandle. I thought it was called the panhandle and the whole rest of the United States was the pan, and I always thought that was a stupid name, because that's an awfully small handle for such a big pan. But now I learn that the handle is actually the upper part of Florida and the part I thought was the panhandle is the pan.

Now, let's talk about Texas. There is a panhandle on Texas too, but is it the bottom? Or is it the top square part? Is it the side?

Don't get all smug and pretend you have always known what the panhandle of Texas is, because right now you are a little unsure.

If this is the whole pan then I think New England would be a good handle. Florida definitely wouldn't. It would crack right off and, whoa, then you'd be mad! The bottom part of Texas would be a sturdy handle, but I bet if the pan was really hot, you'd burn your hand because it's a little short. You know what would be a good handle? Mexico.

I love you, Cloud Dancing

Last night I was watching disk 16 of 42 of my complete set of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman and one of the series regulars, Cloud Dancing, a Cherokee medicine man and also a good friend of Dr. Quinn and Sully, was on the show. That reminded me of a funny story from a different episode of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman and I related it to Mitch:

Me: I love Cloud Dancing.

Mitch: Oh?

Me: Yeah, a few episodes back he and Dr. Quinn and Sully went to Washington DC to testify before congress about the treatment of the Indians,

Mitch: ..... okay...

Me: And when they were checking in to their fancy schmancy hotel, -only the best for Dr. Quinn- the hotel clerk saw Cloud Dancing and told Sully to tell his friend; NO COOK IN ROOM! and Cloud Dancing said, "Tell him that if the room service is good, I will not have to cook." Ha ha! That crazy Cloud Dancing, gotta love him....

Mitch: (silence)

Me: (smiling and nodding; pleased with my funny anecdote about Cloud Dancing)

Mitch: (getting the saddest look of pity I have ever seen on a human and directing it at ME!)

Me: What? Why are you looking at me like that?

Mitch: Like what? I'm not looking at you like anything!

Me: Yes you are. You are looking at me like you feel sorry for me.

Mitch: No I'm not! I'm just listening to your wonderful story! Please, go on!

Me: No, forget it.

Just for the record; Cloud Dancing is a great character and the actor, Larry Sellers, is a great actor. Nobody needs to feel sorry for me about that.

Petey, the nastiest bird in the world

asshole

I was talking to someone yesterday about my old friend Petey the parrot. He was my pet for a couple years when the kids were really little. He was the most obnoxious, loudest, nastiest pet in the world, yet I miss him. Weird.

I had to get rid of him because he hated Sam, (who was about five years old at the time) and would bite him every time Sam got within five feet of him. (We've since learned that all birds hate Sam.) I decided it was time for Petey to go when I was trying to teach him to show dominance over the stupid little tiny bird by getting him to "step up" on a three foot dowel that Sam was holding, thinking that if he got the bird to follow some commands, Petey would start to not hate Sam with such a bloodthirsty vengeance. I was wrong. Petey did step up on the dowel, but then he ran the length of the dowel and before Sam could drop it, Petey bit him on the hand and it was bleeding. That was the last straw.

I put an ad in the paper and sold him to an old lady who thought Petey was darling. I brought the bird and cage over to her house and set things up, all the while the little old lady was poking her fingers at Petey and he was trying his hardest to bite her. She just laughed and thought it was cute and said, "It will take him a while to get used to me." I never checked back with the lady to see how things were going because I'm so afraid that Petey flew onto her back and pecked her to death and then ate her.

Petey really liked me. I know this because when he was sitting on me he would regurgitate which in bird culture means he thought I was A-Number-1. He was desperate for my attention and would make a piercingly loud shriek to get my attention if he even heard me in the house. I read somewhere that to get them to stop making that obnoxious noise, you have to teach them words and then they will use the words instead, (although, now that I really think about it, I think that was children and not parrots)  He wasn't all that willing to learn words, but Mitch taught him to say the word "squawk." So when he wasn't actually squawking, he was saying "squawk."

He got away a few times which was not the relief you might think it should have been. He really upped the loud obnoxious squawking when he was scared. He was desperately afraid of nature and heights, which was unfortunate because being a bird, he was jumpy and could fly. If he got startled when he was outside, he would fly off in a panic.

One time he flew into a white pine across the road that is about 100 feet tall. He was almost at the very top. He was squawking like crazy for help but there was no way I was going to climb a hundred foot tree for a mean bird that got on my nerves. So I stood under the tree where he could see me and called to him. I think he knew that I wanted him to fly down to me but he looked at me like, "Are you crazy, woman? I'm not flying down! Look how high I am!" I started to walk away and he squawked for me to wait and then he slowly started climbing down. I was not going to wait the five hours it would have taken for him to climb down so I went in the house. In a panic, he flew out of the tree toward the house, looking down at me, squawking the whole time. Then he flew into the tree right next to the house and screamed and screamed. I went in the house. After two hours of climbing down and screaming, I was at the point of getting the bb gun and putting us both out of our misery when he finally climbed all the way down and walked to the door. I let him in and he walked to his cage and was quiet for the rest of the day.

He's probably still alive because he is supposed to live to be 40. He's only 6. He's still got 34 more years of making his owners miserable.

Guess what this is:

I'll give you a hint: It's from a human. A lazy human.

Witchie Poo

Yesterday the kids got their Halloween costumes. Kira is going to be a witch with vampire teeth, (because she wanted to wear vampire teeth and she fell in love with this hat), and Sam is going to be a skeleton. He's so skinny he doesn't really even need a costume, but he got one anyway. He always gets costumes with tight whole-head masks and he's claustrophobic so they drive him nuts. I tried to get him to get the big whoopie cushion costume because it doesn't cover the face, and the whole day would be a farting free-for-all, but he had his heart set on the skeleton costume. When we go out trick or treating Mitch is going to wear hip waders and I'm going to carry a paddle and we are going to be "Row vs. Wade" Get it?

Things I'm learning from Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

I got the box set of every single second of Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman for my birthday. This is what I've learned so far.

1. Every medicine cabinet should be stocked with plenty of laudanum, quinine, and willow-bark tea.

2. Frontier people were hot-heads.

3. Dr. Quinn's mother is actually the person she thinks is her sister who is 15 years older than her. (This has not been substantiated by the show, it's just my own personal theory.)

4. Don't ever let a barber pull out your tooth.

5. Haho means "thank you" in Cheyenne. And also "hello" and also "goodbye."  Kind of like Aloha!

6. Being a whore in a frontier saloon in the 1870s wasn't that great a job after all.

7. Hawks listen to what you say, and if you say something profound, they caw. Every time.

8. If you want to dress up as Dr. Quinn and her children for Halloween, your 12 year old son will ruin it by refusing to have anything to do with your plan.

9. When you eat a bowl of candy corn, what's left after you eat the big parts is just a mess of white tips, and they look like baby teeth, and it's really fun to pretend you are eating baby teeth. (I actually learned this from eating candy corn WHILE watching Dr. Quinn, not from Dr. Quinn herself.)

10. General Custer was very vain, and a real bastard.

11. Dr. Quinn is a naturally talented trapeze artist. Who knew?

12. Wolves make great pets until they get rabies, which they will.

13. Mine cave-ins = no joke

14. You know how you thought that 1870s frontier doctors couldn't perform plastic surgery? Well, you were wrong.

The More You Know

Today I learned (from a source that shall remain nameless lest she (or he!) be embarrassed that I'm telling her (or his!) deep dark secret) how to fart and frame someone else for your fart.

First, in order not to let anyone know you're doing the farting, you have to drop your pencil on the floor, and while you are bending over to pick it up, spread out your butt hocks in order to make your fart silent.

Then, if it is silent but deadly, (as it always seems to be with my source) blame it on a person you don't particularly like sitting in a desk near you. Make a big deal over it so they get really embarrassed.

Kira's glass is half full

Kira got her school pictures back yesterday. They turned out cute and boy is she thrilled with them. On the ride home from school yesterday she was admiring herself in the big 8x10 and said, "I think I look really good in this picture," I agreed. Then, "This picture makes me look like I love the outdoors." I asked how she figures that and she said, "Because the blue background looks like the ocean and you can see that scratch on my neck that I got from a tree." She also says that her freckles are very dark and adorable, and that even the tiny zit on her chin looks good in this picture. We curled her hair that morning before school and she said she is really happy she had gym first thing in the morning before pictures because the sweat made her bangs uncurl until they were perfect; bent, but not too curly. We might have to send a thank-you note to the photographer from her.

Child Abuse Entertainment

I've been seeing ads for the new movie based on the book Where The Wild Things Are.

I am willing to bet my life savings (yeah, I know, ha ha) that in twenty years, this is going to be the movie adults will remember as the freakiest movie they will have ever seen in their entire lives and they will be asking themselves "Why why WHY the HELL did my parents take me to see that horrifying movie?" It will be the equivalent of what H.R. Puffinstuff and the Banana Splits were to my generation. When I see the ads for this new movie it brings back my H.R. Puffinstuff PTSD and I have heart palpitations and want to cover my head and cry.

.... Jesus Christ

AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Kira in the Car Part VII

After a long ride of quiet thinking she said, "I bet worms bump their heads a lot."

I love Milli Vanilli. There, I said it.

I just read a wonderful post by Aunt Becky at Mommy Wants Vodka and she mentioned in passing the band Milli Vanilli which reminds me of how much I LOVED them. I loved them so much that when I was a teenager (I might have been 20), Jonelle, Tonya and I rented a station wagon, drove to the Twin Cities and saw them in concert. We were pretty close to the front. I wanted SO BADLY to be the lucky lucky girl to go up on stage and have Rob (or was it Fab?) *sing* Blame It On The Rain directly to me. That would have been so wonderfully great.

This makes me think of all the times people have told me I have terrible taste in music. Puh-lease. Milli Vanilli, although total frauds, were good. Of course, I mean the people that actually sang the songs were good. They were probably fat middle aged white guys though so, you know, not so nice to look at for the teenage girl audience.

I also love the song Ballroom Blitz by Sweet and if that's wrong, I don't want to be right.

Queen is another favorite mostly because of the music, but also because nobody could pull off a white, chestless unitard quite the way Freddy Mercury could. I'm almost positive it wouldn't look good on anyone I know.

Not many people can pull this look off. Could you?

This brings me to my music nemesis. Tom Waits. Ugh. I hate him because he's supposed to be good and he's not good. I'm convinced he became popular because of a series of dares. Somebody was at a bar one night and heard him *sing* and tried to be pompous for their friend and said, "I like him, he's really good." And the other guy couldn't believe what he was hearing but didn't want to be outdone and said, "Oh, me too, he's wonderful," then the first guy said, "You do not!" and the second guy said, "Yes I do, I'm going to go buy his album right now." and the first guy said, "Oh yeah? Well, I'm going to buy two albums, give one away, and also buy tickets to one of his concerts!" and so on and so forth. Kind of like in the story The Emperor Has No Clothes. Well, I'm that little kid in the crowd that says, "He's not wearing any clothes!"

Not even a white chestless unitard.

1930s hobo? No, Tom Waits

Tomorrow will be better, (I hope)

You are going to be so sorry you read this post, I'm warning you right now. It's about my houseplants, for god's sake. I'm not kidding, scroll down and look, there are pictures. STOP READING THIS.

Okay, you asked for it. Don't say I didn't warn you. I got my plants ready for winter yesterday. I took the ones that were outside that I think can continue to "flourish?" indoors for the winter and now my house looks like a jungle of not-exactly-healthy plants, but they seem to have strong survival skills, having lived months and sometimes years in my care, so the least I can do is not let them freeze.

This one is a hibiscus that I bought a few years ago because it had gorgeous orange blossoms. It is not looking its best right now. I should probably cut it back, but are you supposed to do that in the spring? I don't know. This plant is a drama queen. If I move anywhere but where it is right now (actually it would prefer to be in front of the closet door instead of next to it), all the leaves turn yellow within a few days and fall off. And it hasn't bloomed in a long time. If it was a person it would be an impossible bitch. But it lives on despite its touchiness.

This is a Jerusalem Cherry bush? tree? My mom gave it to me last year for my birthday and I had it outside all summer. The leaves used to be really dark green, but now they are pale green and looking sickly, but it has lots of nice fruit. I aerated the soil today and fed it so hopefully it will start looking better. FYI: Jerusalem cherries look delicious but they are poisonous. I know, I didn't believe it either, so I tasted one once and my mouth got very tingly and then numb.

This is a rubber plant that I got in college. You had one too? No kidding! Everyone did! Is yours still alive though? Mine is still hanging on by a thread. It actually died last year so I cut it way back and then some leaves started sprouting again. I should put it out of its misery but I just can't make myself do it.

Why are you still reading? I can't believe I'm still writing this. It was either write about my plants or my longing for menopause so count yourself lucky I went the boring route instead of the horrifying-you-with-intimate-personal-details-about-my-uterus-that-nobody-wants-to-know route.

Little Tip

If your husband is ever annoyed/disgusted/sick of you, repeatedly saying the word "poontang" will eventually make him smile, even if he's fighting hard not to. Say it with a little flourish.

Mitch is trying to watch a cooking show (booorrriiinnnggg) and he's annoyed because I keep talking to him, but maybe if he would have SHUT UP while I was trying to watch Dr. Quinn earlier, I wouldn't be so compelled to be irritating during America's Test Kitchen ..zzzzzzzz....

Chicks

Mitch and I are sitting here listening to the radio and chatting like married people do. I said, "If it doesn't rain today I think I'll mow the lawn," and he said, "Is that a euphemism for something?" What? What else could that even mean? Anyway, I asked him what I should blog about today and he said, "The time you called for chicks," which I don't think is that funny of a story, but whatev. A couple of years ago in the spring I called Dan's Feed Bin to ask if they had any chicks available for purchase. Here's our conversation:

Dan's Feed Bin: Hello?

Me: Hi, I was wondering if you have any chicks for sale?

Dan's Feed Bin: What?

Me: Chicks? Do you have any for sale?

Dan's Feed Bin: (silence)

Me: Hello? Is this Dan's Feed Bin?

Dan's Feed Bin: Yes, this is Dan's Feed Bin.

Me: Well, do you have any chicks?

Dan's Feed Bin: Yes. We have chicks, but around here we call them "women."

Me: What?

Dan's Feed Bin: We don't think it's nice to call them chicks. They prefer to be called women.

Me: No, I mean chicks as in baby chickens, not women. I don't want to buy women.

Dan's Feed Bin: Good because we don't sell women. I think that's against the law.

Me: .................. So, do you have baby chickens for sale or not?

Dan's Feed Bin: No. We don't sell chicks.

Me: You sold chicks last year

Dan's Feed Bin: No, I think you are mistaken.

Me: Okay..... thanks anyway.

Dan's Feed Bin: (hysterical laughter) This is Mat! (my brother in law)

Me: Why are you at Dan's Feed Bin? And how did you know it was me? Why are they letting you answer the phone?

Mat: (more hysterical laughter) I'm not at Dan's Feed Bin, dummy! I'm at home!

Me: But I didn't call you, I called Dan's Feed Bin!

Mat: I called your house, I must have gotten through before your call got through.

Me: Oh. I have to call Dan's Feed Bin. Bye.

I know, you're thinking, "Well, did she get the chicks?" No. I didn't. See, as a story it's more sad than funny.

The joke is on her (what does that even mean?)

I took this picture last night on my way to bed. Kira went to bed fully dressed, threw a robe on, put a sleep mask on, and covered herself with a skimpy blanket all because I insist she make her bed every day before she does anything fun. The joke's on me!

"Big deal!" you say. Well, it is kind of a big deal because being the never-plan-ahead, incredibly stupid person that I am, I forgot to order heating oil this fall so the house is freezing. (shut up, September was really nice and warm, how was I to know that it would stop being nice and warm?) HA! The joke is on HER!

Kira woke up this morning cold and tired and consequently, incredibly crabby. The joke is back on me again.

Today I'm going to wash sheets so she is going to have to unmake her bed. The joke is back on her.

This joke isn't very funny anymore.

From me to you, with love

I had to go to the grocery store today so this morning I asked the kids what they wanted for dinner. They both yelled out in unison, "SLOP!"

Their two favorite things that I make are things they have lovingly named "slop" and "oil chicken."

Sad, isn't it?

I'm in the middle of making a delicious vat of slop right now. Lucky, lucky kids. Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

Family size box of chicken flavored Rice A Roni

About a third of one of those disgusting sausage shaped things of hamburger

1 can of green beans

1 can of corn

2 cans of cream of mushroom soup

Brown the rice. (Burn it a little, people like that.) Then follow the rest of the directions on the Rice A Roni box. Brown the hamburger, set aside. When rice is done, add hamburger, corn and beans, and cream of mushroom soup. Stir until heated through. Enjoy!

Mmmmmmmmm..... slooooppppppp......

And here is the recipe for oil chicken.

Ingredients:

Box of frozen, individually wrapped shapeless lumps of chicken kiev

Family size box of chicken flavored Rice A Roni

Put chicken in oven for as long as the box tells you to. Cook the rice according to the box it comes in. Serve chicken on a bed of the rice. Important: Gently cut the top of the chicken open so as not to squirt the oil all over your face and give yourself (or your child) third degree oil burns. Let the rice get soaked in the chicken's oil. Enjoy!

This meal is mostly reserved for special occasions because although delicious, the oil probably isn't the healthiest thing you'll ever eat.

This is it for the day, I promise.

Facebook isn't working AGAIN so I am forced to purge myself on my blog instead of on my status bar. Too bad for you, my wonderful readers! Mitch and the kids took me out for my birthday tonite. I went to one of my favorite restaurants and had three of my favorite things: Cheese curds for an appetizer, a quesadilla with delicious chipotle/sour cream sauce, and cheesecake for dessert.

Looks like I will be celebrating my first week of being 39 by not pooping. At all.

After the restaurant we thought we should go somewhere to burn off the calories so we went dancing. Here's me shakin' it:

Just kidding. That's not really me. But I love this picture. Especially the way the guys in the background are looking at this poor poor woman.

OMG!!!!!!!!!

OH MY GOD! Look what I got for my birthday!!!! In case you don't immediately recognize it because you've only ever seen it in a thumbnail picture on your Amazon wishlist, it is the entire series of Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman. Over 120 hours. All six seasons. Two RARE feature-length movies and exclusive bonuses with cast interviews, commentaries AND MORE! And it comes in this beautiful case.

In case you didn't already know this about me, Dr. Quinn is my favorite show EVER. Amy and I were obsessed with it. We taped it and meticulously labeled each tape with the name of each episode, and watched them over and over until we practically had complete psychological profiles on every character. If you ever want to know something about Dr. Quinn, I'm your woman. "Okay, Sarah," you say, "Which Colleen was better?" I say, hands down, the first one. They replaced her because she got too booby. Hard to stuff double D's into a prairie dress. The second Colleen was okay, but her head was distractingly gigantic.

Our favorite things about the show (besides Jane Seymour and all her wonderfulness) was that the Brian character was a little perv; every time someone said something to make a point you'd hear a hawk quietly punctuate the moment with a mournful "Caw...."; and when Dr. Quinn got mad she never yelled, she only whisper yelled, and then dramatically stormed out of the room. Oh, and Sully, hot hot Sully.

Thank you Amy, from the bottom of my heart. I love it and I have already told the kids that this is what we will be watching on movie night for the next two years. They're.... excited?

Happy Birthday to Me!

It's my birthday today. I'm 468 months. Most of the time I feel like I'm still 20 (240 months), but sometimes I feel like I'm 70 (a kabillion months), like whenever I bend over, or try to kneel, or look in a mirror. Up to this point, I was aging pretty well I think, but now my adorably plump cheeks are starting to deflate and I'm beginning to bear a slight resemblance to Joseph Lieberman.

Handsome!

I hope I don't get his turkey neck too.

I got myself some presents, because that's just how I roll.

These are the new shoes I treated myself to. Sensible and can be worn with anything! With age comes wisdom. (I hope they stretch a little bit.)

I got these "skinny" jeans to recapture my youth and to prove to the world that I've still got it! I'm already getting comments. Today some stranger said "Hey Muffin-Top, NICE PANTS!"

Thank you kind sir, for the compliment and the nickname. It's nice to be noticed on your birthday.

My Geekiness Revealed

As some of you may have noticed, I do not always use proper English when writing this blog. I know I know, you're saying, "But Sarah, you're an English major! Surely you know how to conjugate the verb lie as in lie in bed." Of course I do and I just tested myself by taking a quiz on this site and I got a perfect score. I am taking a stand against this irregular verb and using it in the regular fashion. Totally on purpose. I will not lie in a bed when I could much easier lay in a bed. I will not say I have lain anywhere. I simply refuse. It's too stupid. To lie means to tell an untruth, and to confuse it with laying on a bed is just asking for trouble.

Along the same lines, I will write tonite instead of tonight. It's more efficient and just makes more sense. I will not however confuse the words site and sight because they mean different things. See, I have my own rules so I'm not stupid or uneducated. I'm a rebel with a cause. A grammar cause.

So if you see a verb that isn't conjugated in the "proper" fashion, or if you see a more simplistic spelling of a word, know that I'm doing it on purpose to make this a better world for us all.

You're welcome.

Travel Much?

I'm sitting at home today being totally lazy. The most productive thing I've done (so far) aside from reading blogs, is clean out between the keys on my computer with a corn holder. There was a shocking amount of hair stuffed down there. And food.

One of the blogs I read is Kady Hexum's. She is on a trip to Norway right now and I am so jealous!

She has been all over the world. I fancy myself a traveler, although I haven't been anywhere abroad in 12 years. (stupid kids)(just kidding kids! Love you to pieces!) That was a trip to Oxford, England to take a Shakespeare class at Worcestershire College. Fancy huh! I also lived in Australia for a year when I was 12. I told my parents, "I'm out! Gotta see the world!" Just kidding. They came with me.

The thing about traveling is that actual traveling is so much different than the idea of traveling. I watch travel shows and the people are trying new food, and they are bragging about their accommodations, whether it is a hostel or a fancy hotel. The travel shows never talk much about jet lag or how traveling totally screws up your poop schedule, or how the foreign food that at the beginning of your trip was novel and interesting, makes you want to cry at the end of your trip. And they never tell you about the things that most Americans would think are totally fun. Like taking your picture in front of a sign like this:

I'd be willing to bet all the money in my wallet that Rudy Maxa and Rick Steves both have pictures of themselves in front of signs like this. This is Kady on her trip in Norway.

When I went to England I stayed in a beautiful room on the college campus in what they called the "new" building, which was built in the 1700s. The "old" building was built in the 1000s. I always feel like such an ungrateful baby when I travel because I tend to focus on the problems and get homesick for stupid stuff. For instance, although my room at Oxford was beautiful, the bathroom was down one floor. I have to pee during the night every night, so I would have to get up, put on a robe, march down a flight of stairs, pee and then march back up. By the time I got back I was wide awake. That made me very tired and cranky so to solve my problem, I found an empty peanut butter jar (don't ask) and when I'd have to pee in the middle of the night I'd pee in that, and then in the morning I would have to scout out the hallway to make sure nobody was around so I could bring my full-to-the-brim pee-jar down to the bathroom to empty it. Not very glamorous, and at the time, highly stressful. Thankfully, I never got caught.

We took our meals at Oxford in a dining hall that looked just like the dining hall in the Harry Potter movies. So nice, right? But about half way through the second week I was so sick of lamb that every time I saw lamb with gagorific mint sauce I wanted to stab someone's eyeballs out. How many lambs can the English eat? Judging from those three weeks you'd think there should be an international lamb shortage.

See, I'm a total crybaby. I shouldn't be allowed to travel. Now, when I think about that trip, I wish I would have quit being such a baby and just relaxed and enjoyed it more.

But, thanks to Kady, I have the travel bug and I think now, with 12 more years of life experience and 12 years of eating truly disgusting things off my children's plates, or that I've cooked myself, I would be a much more appreciative and mature traveler. I'll just plan ahead and bring a laxative and an empty peanut butter jar, and a bag of candy bars and then I'll be happy, and comfortable. Right?

These are the top five places I want to go:

1. Italy - because I would love to see the Vatican, and the Colosseum, and Venice.

2. Jerusalem - I want to see The Old City: The Dome of the Rock, the Temple Mount; all that jazz.

3. Istanbul - because it's half in Europe and half in Asia! Super cool! I want to see Hagia Sofia, the Hippodrome and take a boat tour of the Bosporus.

4. Oman - I'd like to see huge sand dunes and travel on camels and stay in a real Arabian tent. Think I'd find something to complain about? Oh yeah! But I'd still like to do it. Unless there are scorpions. Then tent-living is OUT.

5. Australia - I'd like to see it now that I'm an adult and I'd like to have a couple of months and tons of money to do it. I want to go to Darwin, Ayers Rock and Sydney.

So, my friends, are you a traveler? Where are the top five places you'd like to go?

My first bald spot

Last month on the girls "camping" weekend, Jonelle noticed that my eyebrows were badly in need of a plucking so she offered up her services. I thought that maybe it was just a long delayed payback for the time I plucked her eyebrows before her brother's wedding and accidentally made them really *angry* (Hey, I never said I was a cosmetologist) but she assured me she had nothing but altruistic intentions. So I laid on my back on the floor and trusted her. It was extremely painful and I can only guess bloody judging from all the times she wiped them off. After a particularly painful pluck I opened my eyes to give her a dirty look and she and Cari Ann both had this look on their faces:

No, they're not cats, but I didn't have an actual picture of them looking surprised, so I just googled "suprised face" and this came up. It was a look that said, "Oops." Jonelle had accidentally plucked a few hairs that, when removed, left a gaping bald spot. I said, "What?" and she said very non-chalantly, "Oh, nothing.... You might have to use an eyebrow pencil for a few weeks."

I was driving around this morning, five weeks after the plucking incident, and at a stoplight I happened to glance into the rear-view mirror and noticed that my eyebrow still has a distinct bald patch. I took a closer look and noticed the hair did grow back in that spot, but it's gray so you can't see it because as it turns out, my skin is also gray. (I feel so pretty!)

I used to have gorgeous, thick eyebrows:

I thought they were a pain in the ass because some stray hairs grew down to my eyelid and up into my hairline. Well, I don't have that problem any more! At the rate I'm going I'm going to be drawing them on soon. Maybe I should give up now, shave them and be done with it. This looks natural and beautiful, doesn't it?

I need a job

This is a picture of the kids getting ready for school in the morning. "Wait a minute!" you say, "It's pitch black outside, it can't possibly be morning!" You're preaching to the choir, internet. I think anything before 7:30 (a.k.a. "crack of dawn") is the middle of the night. The first few days I had to go back to bed after the kids left (don't tell them) but now I'm managing much better. Am I a little princess? Maybe.

Dear Sam's Club, You suck.

Today I decided that I am going to steal something from Sam's Club. "But," you say to me, "Sarah, that's illegal and morally reprehensible! Why would you want to do that? Is that really who you are... deep down?" No. I'm not a stealer. I mean thief. (I'm an English major!) When the people at the grocery store forget to ring up my cases of Diet Coke, I remind them, and if after I remind them, they still don't do it, I go to the service desk and tell what happened, and pay. I'm awesome that way.

The reason I want to steal from Sam's Club is because the lines are always so long and because after you wait 20 minutes in line and pay, you walk a straight line TWENTY FEET to the exit and before you can get the HELL out of there, some lady has to check your slip against everything in your cart and okay it on the receipt with a highlighter.

What the fuck is with that?

And she really checks! She moves things and looks under other things. What could I possibly steal while I walked in a line from the cash register to the door? What happens if they don't check it? Who's checking for the stupid highlighter mark? Why must they waste my time being totally redundant and insulting at the same time? "Just makin' sure nobody steals!" Like it would be hard to steal something if you really wanted to.

Today the anti-theft lady made comments about what I was buying! Ugh! Shut up lady! I don't care if you also use the half-gallon jug of Astro-Glide and it has changed your marriage. I don't care, and I'm already pissed off because I've just waited in TWO long lines.

So the next time I go, I'm taking something. I haven't decided on what yet. Probably something small and cheap because I don't want to commit grand larceny and I don't think I could slip a big screen tv past even the dumbest employee. Any ideas?

Why are big balls so funny?

The neighbor kid got this huge ball that the kids can climb in and roll around in. Sam put it on and ran around the lawn and it made me laugh so hard I had to film it. Why is my family so weird?

Sam's getting a man voice

Sam's voice is changing into a man-voice. Sometimes I can't tell if it's Mitch talking in the next room or if it's Sam. He has to talk really quietly now though, because if he raises his voice it cracks like Peter Brady's voice in the Brady Bunch. It got me thinking nostalgically of back when the kids learned to talk in the first place.

Before the kids could talk they were a lot like pets. Kira didn't speak until she was almost two, and then it was only in one word sentences. She would mostly form her mouth into a perfect O and say "Oooooooooo" and point to what she wanted. The oooing worked for her and was surprisingly effective. One afternoon she was oooing and fussing and bugging me. Her pants were clean. She wasn’t thirsty. She wasn’t hungry. I got some toys and games out and tried to play with her, but she didn’t want to play either. I got frustrated and said, “I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU WANT, YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE TO LEARN TO SPEAK. ”

The next day she pointed at the refrigerator and said, “ooooo c c cup.” Shortly after that she learned to say, “ooooo eat, ooooo done, ooooo light” and “ooooo tape.” All of her words sounded very strained. Imagine a man dying in the desert; think of they way he croaks out the words “water......water.” That’s how she said everything.

Why "Ooooooo tape," you ask? Tape was an important part of her vocabulary because from the age of about ten minutes she had the ability to remove her diaper by herself. The only way to keep her from being naked all the time was to tape her diaper on her tightly. It was only masking tape; and it wasn't like I taped it to her skin or anything, I just wrapped it around her waist five or six times to keep the tabs down. After a while she insisted on being taped. When we would change her she'd say, “tape... ooooooo tape....tape,” and she'd struggle to sit up and point to the industrial roll we kept on her dresser. Like we’d forget.

Sam, on the other hand, was extremely chatty early on. (However, for a long time he wasn't so good with math -- Auntie Beth convinced him there are no numbers after 10.) He had one long-lasting speech impediment and I was sort of sorry to see it go. He couldn't say the “s” in words where the “s” is immediately followed by a consonant. For instance, instead of saying “skunk,” he'd say, “’kunk.” One summer, after playing all afternoon with Uncle Tom, Sam brought me a grasshopper in a jar. He was telling me everything Tom told him about grasshoppers. He said, “You know what it eats, Mom?” I said, “Grass?” He laughed and said, “No Silly, Human flesh!” I said, "uh... what?" He said, “Human flesh, you know, ‘kin and ‘tuff.”

Aunts and Uncles are so important.

The kids still have some language quirks. Sam puts an N in vegetable so it's pronounced "venchtable," and Kira calls buttocks "butt hocks." As in, "I kicked that kid right in the left butt hock!" I'm not correcting them because I think it's cute. Is that mean?

Irrational Fears

I think I may have a touch of OCD and it manifests itself in irrational fears that I worry about and fret over. I have lots of rational fears too, but they aren't very fun to talk about so this is just a list of the most ridiculous things I'm afraid of. Maybe if I shed some light on them, they will stop bothering me.

1. Dropping my iPod into the toilet. I don't even bring it in the bathroom, but I'm pretty sure someday, somehow, it will meet its fate in a toilet.

2. Going bald

3. Becoming a quadriplegic. This would be a rational fear if I ever did anything dangerous, but I don't so it's irrational. And it's also a fear because Mitch asked me one day if I'd ever wear a shirt that said "Jam Out with your Clam Out" on it. I said no, obviously, gross. And he said, "If you're ever a quadriplegic you'll wear that shirt every day."

4. Bears. I watched a documentary about Yellowstone the other day and it re-awakened my irrational fear of bears. They are so fast and bloodthirsty!

yikes!

5. Spiders crawling in my mouth when I sleep.

6. Flesh eating bacteria.

7. Nuclear winter.

8. Sharks.

9. This crab:

So, what are your irrational fears? Public speaking? Dying alone? Peeing your pants at work? (been there, done that; not that scary) Tell me in the comments!

More Old Pictures

I've been scanning old pictures that were taken on film (what the heck is that?) so I thought I'd share a few. I noticed today when I was scanning that there seemed to be a theme in the pictures I randomly chose, so I will call this post Sam and the Fight to Get Him to Eat.

When he was a baby, Sam didn't care if he ever ate or not. I could forget to give him a bottle and he wouldn't cry or anything. He'd just say, "Man, I've got a headache!" and I'd say, "Oh, that's too bad, when's the last time you ate?" and then I'd remember that I was responsible for feeding him and I'd feel terrible. (Oh relax, it was never more than a day!)(Just kidding.) When he started eating solid food I had to tie him tightly to his bouncy seat to keep him from slapping the spoon out of my hand. Then I'd sort of have to hold his head with one hand and shove the spoon in his mouth with the other. It was a constant fight and very messy.

Ironically, he'd put anything unreasonable in his mouth with only the slightest suggestion. We thought that was funny and it made for many funny pictures, like this one where my dad was seeing if he would eat a petunia. He would.

One of my favorite memories was when I had company over for dinner one night and we were eating spaghetti. Without saying anything to my guests I took a HUGE serving spoon and piled it high with spaghetti and pretended to feed it to Sam, who saw it coming and opened his mouth as wide as he could. I wish I had a picture of their faces. I just said, "What?" My sister thought it was funny.

When he was a preschooler, I had to make meals "fresh" and "adventurous" like this time when he wouldn't eat unless it was a picnic lunch outside. Winter picnic. Fun.

This picture has nothing to do with Sam and his history of being finicky, but I liked it so I thought I'd throw it on at the end. Kira, buck naked, potty training in front of the Christmas tree. Talk about "fresh" and "adventurous!"

I'm a much better mother when my kids aren't around

This is the first full week of school for Sam and Kira, and I have gotten so much done and been such a good mother when they've been gone! I've made good food, and all their laundry is done and folded and put away, and the house is nice and clean, and everything is organized and in it's place. Ahhh. So nice. I feel like I'm a step ahead of them instead of two steps behind them.

At the same time I cannot believe how fast they are growing up. Kira got in bed with me the other day and her head was right next to mine and her feet were touching my feet. What! When did she get that big? I still see her like this:

This was the day that she destroyed her crib at the crack of dawn. Mitch and I heard a horrible crash and the sound of wood being split into kindling so we rushed into her room to see this. She was very proud that she finally figured a way out. This is the child I still see when I go to wake her up in the morning, but in reality, she looks like this:

It's like someone took away my baby and gave me a big kid. When did that happen?

This is Sam when he was a baby. This was one of our favorite games. It's called "accident victim." In this particular case I said, "Pretend you are Babe Ruth and you got hit by a car and you're laying in the road."

He was such a good sport. Still is. But now he is almost unrecognizable.

How can he be so big? I don't really see him as a baby anymore, I see him as a five year old. Like this:

Whenever I think of him or talk about him, this is the version of Sam that is in my mind.

I still see the kids as preschoolers who could run under the counters without a thought to hitting their heads, and as people who need help taking baths.

They don't let me help them with their baths anymore. Sam's pretty sure his penis is something I'd be shocked if I saw so he's super private. (Sorry about blogging about your penis, Sam.)

It's kind of bittersweet to look back at these pictures because while I'm so glad they are growing up to be such funny, smart, sweet people, I miss my babies desperately.