Nice Neighbors

To my nice neighbor lady who thought it was so cute that Moose and I were gardening together one morning this summer:

I'll bet you thought the two of us scouting the yard together for dog shit tonight and picking it up together was downright adorable!

Help me out here

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EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT!

WOMAN HAS 19 POUND BABY!!

Stop. Right. There.

There are many reasons why this should not be shouted from every street corner. For starters, pregnant women might hear you! Do you have ANY IDEA what this might do to them?

As if you even need another reason here are two words: Nadya Suleman. Oh, don't think some unmarried woman on welfare won't try to top it now that it is all over the news. [shudder!] Do we really need to be promoting poor pre-natal care? "But Doctor. I want gestational diabetes, a c-section, and 15 minutes of fame tooooo!"

And it is all because there is some marketing person somewhere in the US just drooling over the international opportunities awaiting his/her company if they could only tap the "freakishly large baby" market in Indonesia. They are stuffing the care packages full of free baby stuff right now. You know they are.

My Penchant for Little Old Men has Met its Match

Dear Sir,

You almost had me with the slow driving Lincoln Town Car. Your hands at 10 and 2. Leaning closer to the wheel as you strained to see if the light was red or green. The sun-bleached box of tissues on the back ledge. I'll bet you are wearing loafers today. You are, aren't you? I knew it!

But even I have my limits.

Your haircut looks tidy and well groomed but I think it might be time for you to find a new barber. One with depth perception. Because the handlebar EYEBROWS have got to go. At the red light I could see them both from BEHIND you!! They are wider than your face! And when I passed you in the right turn lane, they stuck out as far as your nose! And that's saying something.

That paranoid feeling you've been having? The one where you feel like you have bugs on your face? It's not Sundowners Syndrome. IT'S YOUR FREAKIN' EYEBROWS!!

Tweeze and trim, Man. Tweeze and trim.

"Masculine he spins a spell...

...I think he'd wear me well.

Amy, Amy, Amy,

Where's my moral parallel?"

Amy Winehouse

I have noticed three things about Amy Butler fabrics:

1) When I see them I automatically sing Amy, Amy, Amy from Ms. Winehouse.

2) When I see them I automatically smile.

3) When I spot someone out in public sporting a little AB fashion sense, I have to say hello. And they are ALWAYS lovely people!

Today it was a super chub baby in a mother-made Amy Butler baby sling. Her mother was lovely too!

Business Idea

What do you think of this one as an alternative, or perhaps a partner to, Dooce's approach to Hate-Comments?

I will track down (not hard to do with the right software) the Trolls and start an incessant insult campaign back against them. My basic package would include comments on their pages calling them every horrid name they have flung around. Add-ons could include: being rude to their friends, threatening their families, and contacting business associates to let them all know just what kind of person they are dealing with. I think multiple messages to employers are in order. I will offer harping on physical flaws they have no control over for free to the first 100 orders. The hunter becomes the hunted.

The beauty of my plan is that I wouldn't have to write a single original thought. I'll just use their own words back against them. Whose boss wouldn't want to read the things being posted during company time? And wouldn't their mothers or children be proud to read the writings of someone so inspired?

Or, imagine this one, people actually engage the part of their brain that reminds them to use the remote control to change channels when something comes on they don't enjoy. Silently. Without harassing anyone. And then go watch/read programming that actually appeals to them. I think this one could, in a Pay It Forward kind of way, bring us all a little closer to World Peace.

Strange Brew

Note to Self: Next time you spill espresso grounds down your sports bra please make a better effort to clean them up. (Yes. I made espresso while half-dressed this morning.) That little shimmy thing over the sink was a pretty half-assed effort. Consider the Lint Roller. A Dustbuster, even, if needed.

The thing is, you KNOW you are a sweaty lady. No getting around it. And the pool of sweat and heat that accumulates inside said sports bra is apparently enough to brew a second cup of coffee.

Hey, Buck-o...

I am ok with you coming up in our yard to eat the crab apples. Truly. And it is a very impressive sight to drive home and see you standing there, all majestic, on my hill with your massive antlers. But the rutting part? Can you take that across the street to the empty lot, please? You see...how do I put this delicately...whatever the hell you spray in the holes you are scratching makes me retch. And my dogs are rolling in your muskiness which means my house has a faint odor of Randy White Tailed Deer this week. (Insert retching noises.) I find this unacceptable. In an effort to work with you on the matter, I am raking up all of the crab apples today and putting them in the empty lot. Your compliance would be appreciated. Shall we review your progress, say...a week after the Autumnal Equinox? It's on my calendar.

Dear Miss Whats-yer-name

My apologies, Victoria, but I don't recall catching your last name.

Why are you tempting me with free panties? I sort of like a couple of your bras but not enough to pay full price for them. But then you go and toss a pair of panties at me like I'm Tom Jones and I'm all, "Oh, it's ok if the wire pinches and my fleshiness pours out of the top of the largest cup size you make. It is worth it for a free matching panty."

Who am I kidding? One round through the laundry around this place and that matching bra and panty will never, ever see each other again. In fact, if your daughter is dating a guy you dislike, send them to my laundry room. In the unlikely event that they ever find each other again one of them will have gotten all stretched out and saggy while the other one will have mildewed under the towels from the pool. Problem solved.

A Letter From Her Younger Self

I ran across something Miss M wrote when she was 9.

I think some toys should be eliminated, then replaced. All vidio games need to be ridded of, along with guns (toy and real). If nobody likes fighting, war will stop!! No offence to anyone out there, but I don't understand fasion models. Girl clubs, or boy clubs, there only point is to leave others out. Couple of questines, Why do I care if I am dressed in fasion? Can I not decide myself? The answer is this: the most popiler person sets the trend. Everyone else copys her. The End.

As if we weren't already in love with that kid!

Super Freak!

In the category of "things you may not want to know about me but I am going to tell you anyway" I am a Super Smeller. After years of sinus treatment and two surgeries my olfactory system not only functions well, it functions too well.

About a month ago, I rounded up all of the shoes on our property, made matches, sorted out the ill-fitting or ill-looking for donations, and doused the ill-smelling remains with an organic odor eliminator and lined them up in the sun to bake. Henceforth our shoes have not been so smelly. But there has been a lingering odor in my house that I could neither identify nor eliminate. It smells like old insoles and wet cardboard simmering on the stove. No amount of candle burning, dusting, vacuuming, or spritzing has gotten rid of it. The curtains have been washed. I have replaced dog beds and scrubbed wood floors. I have vacuumed the underside of my rugs. I have dismantled furniture and cleaned pieces from the inside out. Still smelly.

Only, I am the only one who smells it so no one else has the same sense of urgency I do to solve this mystery. In fact, I think some of them are wondering a little bit about maybe some sort of olfactory tumor that is also pushing against the sane-reasoning-center of my brain.

Abandoning my quest temporarily, I thought I would clean out the storage unit under the south facing picture window.

This space is intended to function as storage for book bags and hats and mittens. It has evolved into a mass catch-all as well. But we each have our own unit that doubles as a window seat and, for the most part, everyone is responsible for his or her contents. I say "for the most part" because, as with all tidying and cleaning around here, nothing happens without some prompting.

Turns out I have been neglecting my prompting duties as of late. So that smell? It actually WAS moldy wet cardboard and several liners intentionally removed from old boots and squirreled away. I am not naming names but, GROSS GIRL, that needs to STOP!! The subtle note I was missing in the odor? 11 dirty socks.

Ahhh, Sunday morning.

Moose is out golfing. I am cleaning the living room. Enough about the boring people in the house. What are those kids doing, you ask? Well, I'm here to tell you.

They are playing Iron Chef with their stuffed animals.

The set up went something like this:

Alton Brown: a parrot (which made me crack up! but you should know my kids adore him).

The Chairman: a green and black furry spider that is hanging over the stadium. (aren't they clever!)

Mario Batali: a penguin that sings "Honey YOU, are my Shining Star...don't you go away."

Kat Cora: a cat. Really, what can you do with that one? At least it is one of the cats Miss M and I sewed wings on while playing Catwings one day. (If you haven't read those books by Ursula K. LeGuin you really must.)

Bobby Flay: a horse because it was the most Southwestern thing they could find in the drawer.

Masahara Morimoto: (my personal fave) is a rabbit that they made pipe cleaner glasses for.

Michael Symon: is a porcupine in some funny sense of irony.

The judges include another winged cat (totally impartial) and a tiger. "Jeffery" is the only judge they know by name and he is a big, blue monster thing with a mouth that opens wide and deep so you can shove your pajamas inside his body. This also cracked me up.

I left them to play a bit and came down to refill my coffee and to keep moving with my own version of Life-Imitating-TV (take your pick of any of those shows where the crew steps into the lives of chronically cluttery people and organizes their entire lives in 30 minutes). I went back upstairs to drop off things that belong up there and to see how the battle was raging. Here is what I was told (please keep in mind that most of this sounded like Miss M and Big C finishing each other's sentences):

Mom! You can't just go challenge an Iron Chef like that. First we are setting up our own restaurant so we can become well-known chefs. The idea at our restaurant is you get a piece of paper with a list of main ingredients and you have to pick just one. And then the chef makes you a surprise dish with that ingredient. (Here, Little C interjects.) But you can also write down things you DON'T like and the chef won't use those. We thought people that like the show would want to eat there and it would be good practice to be on Iron Chef.

And I, being in a clutter-buster kind of mood and buzzed on caffeine, looked around. Two bedrooms and the hallway are all covered in make-shift tables, pretend food, and stuffed animals. Almost everything in me wanted to tell them to contain the mess in one room and sternly remind them that they will have to clean up the mess before bedtime. But, like that little bit of Hope left in Pandora's box, the wiser part of myself forced out a smile and simply asked if they needed anything from the kitchen. "Do we have any fat netting?" one asked. "I'll see what I can find," I answered.

She's gonna need a bigger hill

Is it just me, or does this mother look like she is trying to get away from that child?

It looks like more than just a runny-nose situation. Like maybe rabies. Her only chance is a quick release on the bucket. Think that comes standard?

They're with me.

I have groupies! Nothing along the lines of Heather or Ree. No where even near Winona's crowd. Emi leaves me in the dust. But it is only because my groupies don't know how to type, do not have computer access during the day, and have to go to bed by 9:00.

That's right.

I am the shiz among the 8-10 year old soccer playing nerd boys in our suburb! I have been helping coach Big C's soccer team. And a few times during the season the league has these mass practices (not where they pretend to be priests with Holy Wheat Thins, the kind where there are 48 small boys on one field) and I help there as well. I don't run anything. I don't plan the drills. But I have sort of made "colorful examples" and "thorough explanations" my niche.

And it turns out that the way the male soccer coaches in our league explain things only hits home for boys with a certain learning style. But then there is that subset of players that try to think through everything and want to know why. You know the ones. The ones who tell the team that the trajectory of the ball in the air is a parabola. The same ones who try to explain to the goalie how to utilize sin, cosine, and tangent to best cut off the shot.

This group of boys not only likes to hear how they should approach a goal kick like an upside-down catapult, they kick the ball better when they do. Once they understood vectors and inertia and kinetic energy they really gave those jocks a run for their money. It does help at this age that my little guys know their right from their left and if you tell them the job of the right defender happens in a certain zone they actually stay there, by golly!

If I am explaining anything to another boy there is a good chance that one of my mighty mathematicians will run over and listen. At the start of practice tonight I had (not counting my kid and my adorable neighbor boy) three other kids just standing and looking up at me (they're short, remember) waiting to be told to do something. One of the player's grandmother told me that her grandson didn't want to go to practice until they pulled up in the car and saw I was there.

And after practice, Big C likes to keep playing after everyone goes home. He really prefers if just the two of us practice shots or he goes in goal. But we haven't really had that chance because my groupies want to stay and play too. I love my (loosely defined part time volunteer) job!

Atta girl!

Miss M is completely in love with MIddle School. In an "Up With People" kind of way. It is super cute. One of her assignments last night was to think of three things to tell the class that would teach them something about who she is.

Thing 1: She can build a great campfire and cook lunch over it.

This says she is a self-reliant young lady who is also a caregiver.

Thing 2: She taught herself how to read when she was two.

It's true. Freaky, but true. This tells people that she is a problem solver and isn't afraid of a big project.

Thing 3: She would really like to learn how to hotwire a car.

?

Camera-drama

I have been looking for my camera since May. May 4th to be exact. Because the last pictures I took out of it were from May 3rd when Little C turned 6.

I cleaned every corner of anywhere I might have put it. I looked through every bag in the house. I was running out of places to look. I even resorted to hiring a super sleuth to help me look. (Yes I paid him. And it was a waste of my nickel if you ask me. The kid came up with nothing, even with his Super Scopers turned to full power.)

Today I was walking past my golf bag and decided to look in the pockets so I could officially say I looked everywhere and then just go buy myself a new one. But instead I get to state the obvious and tell you that my little red camera was in the last place I looked!

And just in time for the traditional Second Day of School picture! (Come on. Some of you have done it too. Forgotten on day one so you faked it on day 2. Maybe even day 7. No judgements here.)

The real kicker is, the kid ran and put on his Super Scopers and demanded the agreed-upon doubling of his fee for finding the camera. He feels entitled to this because he was on the porch when I found my camera.

Some serious tort reform needs to happen before this kid figures out how to file suit.

Advice for my Husband

Don't even THINK about trying to cure me of my OCD counting thing while I am trying to keep everything organized for a 4 day camping trip.

That man thinks he is going to find things on my list and just go put them in the car before the entire pile is assembled and triple checked. And counted. A few times. Ok. Several times.

An Early Morning

The patient sits quietly in the exam room. Having gotten dressed again, the cotton robe folded back neatly on the table, she sets her book on the desk top to read while she waits. Being a hard-covered book, and being off medications for the appointment, her hands are still too sore (from a night spent clenched) to hold the book while she reads.

The door of her exam room has been left ajar to indicate she is back in her clothes and ready for the doctor to reenter the room. She looks at her watch and thinks that it is still an hour and a half before she would normally be out of bed. She turns back to reading her book.

Earlier, in the waiting room, she was easily 30 years younger than the other patients. Yet when she got up from the chair after her name was called she hobbled like everyone else.

The Rheumatologist reminds her of her father-in-law: intelligent, patient, thorough. A breed of true gentleman you rarely find anymore. No wonder the woman at her regular clinic got a bit flustered when she was able to schedule an appointment with him. The Referral Lady, for lack of a better title, was near to giddy telling our patient her high opinion of this doctor. She stopped short of wishing Lupus on herself as an excuse to schedule her own appointment.

The doctor gently knocks and steps in the room, a puzzled expression on his face. There is much nodding and reassuring that the more unpleasant explanations for the pain, stiffness, and muscle spasms have been eliminated through testing. Changing pain medication is discussed. The muscle relaxant dose is brought up with a note of surprise: "You seem to tolerate a dose that would put most people to sleep!" he jokes.

And she thinks to herself, "You have no idea the depth of my tolerance."

Lyrical Analyst

The Mama is in the kitchen singing "Don't Stop Believin' " after watching Glee (again). Middle Child enters the kitchen in flannel pajama pants:

Big C: Um. Where was he going?

Mama: Nowhere.

Big C: I thought you said something about South Detroit.

Mama: (belting) Born and raised in South Detroit...

Big C: So...he just got on a train?

Mama: Yup.

Big C: Not knowing where it was going?

Mama: Yup.

Big C: At midnight?

Mama: You got it.

Big C: Well THAT sure wasn't a good idea!

Small boy turns and leaves the kitchen shaking his head.

In Real Time

Olly and Geneva have some small animal trapped under the Air Conditioner just outside the window by my desk. Olly is going round and round with his nose wedged underneath. Geneva keeps running 20 feet away and pointing like a ...um...pointer...and looking around for someone to notice that she is doing her job. Then she bounces back to join Olly's effort to inhale the thing out from under there.

And now Miss M has joined them trying to figure out what the critter is. She brought treats but I am not sure if they are for the critter, the dogs, or herself.

Geneva points.

Olly finishes the treats and is pushing Miss M away with his head.

Geneva bounds back in the fray.

Miss M is being jostled about and laughing about while trying to come off all Alpha to the dogs. Sweetie, Alphas don't laugh with their minions, they laugh at them.

Geneva jumps out again to point. She is staring hard at Miss M, clearly looking for some "Good Dog!"

Miss M gives up trying to look and tries instead to lure the dogs away. Not happening.

Have I mentioned that last time they did this Geneva broke her toe trying to dig through the concrete slab under the AC?

They have cornered baby rabbits, mice, chipmunks, and a baby bird under there before. Today though, my guess is toad.

I am wondering what the chances are that they have trapped the woodpecker that is drilling holes in my redwood siding. Pretty slim, I think. I am not that lucky.