x+y+z

I got the call today.

The call I’ve been dreading my whole life.

While doing her homework, my 8th grade daughter called from the kitchen, “Mawwwwwm! I need your help with this math problem.”

Guh…guh…guh. <—-That was me making that noise. Like my brain had been emptied by terror and no real words, only caveman noises, could come out. Chills swept up and down my spine. My scalp prickled and tightened to the point of pain. My bowels turned to water. I’m not even joking about this. My daughter is in Algebra 1 which is the most horrific x+y+z+WTF=hateful word problem b.s. I have ever been subjected to. SERENITY NOW!

So I go into the kitchen, walking all cocky and singing my Math Mom song. This is a fake-it-til-you-make-it strategy I learned from my tennis pro. Instead of staring across the court thinking, “S##T! I hope the ball doesn’t come to me!,” I’m instead supposed to picture that the ball IS coming to me; that I, in fact, WANT the ball; and that I have a definite plan for where I’m going to PUT the ball after I get it. My pro taught me that about tennis, I’ve translated the approach here for math purposes because trust me when I say, “Ooooh, I’d like to get my sweaty mitts on that Algebra and put it somewhere good, REAAAAAL good.”

The Math Mom song is all about how I love math; x+y+z is gonna go swell; Algebra rules. Yadda yadda yadda.  Clearly my version of: the Algebra is mine.  I want the algebra.  And when I get it, I’m gonna put it where the sun don’t SHINE!

Then I ask Sissy to “bring it” and she replies, “The sum of three numbers is 123. The second number is 9 less than two times the first number. The third number is 6 more than three times the first number. Find the three numbers.”

Whaaaat? What the WHAAAAAT?!?? Oh, snap, nuh-UH!!!

So I shout, “What’s THAT!?” and I point out the back door into the trees.

While Sissy is looking outside, I put my head down on the kitchen table and pretend to go to sleep. I don’t ‘wake up’ even when she pushes my shoulder.

And that’s how I solve for x+y+z.  It’s also how I funny algebra up a bit…because it definitely needs some funnying up.

Baby Carrot

Saturday afternoon, Hubby and I were sitting on the couch in the family room, when the dog – who we thought was sound asleep by the open sliding glass door – began to bark his fool head off.

It was the same sort of bark he gives when he corners a bubonic plague riddled prairie dog in our back yard. Or when he traps a suspicious short/shirt combo in the master bathroom. It was a something’s-not-right-here-but-I-can’t-tell-what-because-I-need-a-haircut-and-can’t-see-past-my-overgrown-bangs variety of bark.

So I walk around the corner of the family room and into the kitchen calling back to Hubby, “What a total dope! The dog’s barking at a baby carrot on the rug by the sliding glass door. But where did that carrot come from…HELP ME! HELP MEEEEEE!!! NO TEDDY! STAY AWAY!!!! NO! NONONONONO!! ALL THE PEOPLE WHO CAN HEAR ME, COME TO ME NOW AND HELP MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!

This is what the dog was actually barking at, which I at first mistook for a baby carrot that someone had randomly discarded on the floor after lunch.  (And yes, in our family, carrots randomly get discarded places, so this being a carrot on the rug was a distinct possibility.  Why do you ask?  Are random carrots NOT happening at your house?!?)

Baby Carrot

I know, RIGHT?! It LOOKS like a baby carrot – right color, right size – until you notice it has EYES!!! Big, freaky EYES!!! And as the dog was growing cojones and creeping closer during his barking session, it started to rear up in such a weird way that I was worried it was gonna start shooting venom at the dog’s face…or my face…or really the dog’s face.

I have NEVER seen anything like it before – unless you count that Discovery Channel special on impossible-to-believe google eyed caterpillars. And I seem to recall those caterpillars all know how to shoot flesh-melting venom out of their eyes when disturbed. (Ok, I may have made the flesh-melting venom thing up, but there WAS something mentioned about their eyes.  And in the heat of the moment, the venom seemed like a distinct possibility because the carrot-with-eyeballs was teetering on its back legs and rocking back and forth like a cobra being piped out of its basket. Why else would it be doing that?! That rocking thing??? If not to spray us with venom. HELP ME! PEOPLE WHO CAN HEAR ME, COME TO ME NOW AND HELP MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!

Hubby, one room over, was the last to arrive fyi. But he saved the day despite his late arrival. He chopped the carrot up* and we had it in a nice salad for dinner.

*PETA, Exotic Caterpillar Lovers and Lepidopterists: Ha, ha, ha.  I am completely kidding about the chopping up thing. Hubby actually had it climb onto his face and ate it directly instead of chopping it up. Ok, ok. Still kidding. He skewered it with a twig and fed it to the dog. Stop. It. Hubby coaxed it onto a stick and then placed it gently in a tree. And that’s the truth, pllllltttttt!

Hair Raising Episode

I got a haircut recently.  Take a look!  Isn’t it fantastic?!

HaircutNo, you’re right, not so much.  Actually, not at all.

WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO MY HAIR?!!?

When Hubby, the Master of Understatement, FINALLY agreed that something “wasn’t right” about it, we tried to recreate the scene of the crime and find out where my haircut had gone horribly, horribly wrong.

Me: “But I went to the place where you always go. And I got the guy-with-the-thinning ponytail you get. So I’m not sure what happened.  Also?  I showed him the picture of Bethany’s new haircut so he knew what I was looking for.”  The Bethany in question here is Bethany Frankel from the Real Housewives of New York.  And in case you don’t watch all my favorite shows (although why you wouldn’t, I don’t know), here’s a pic of what I was looking for in my latest do. And while we can’t see from this picture what the back looks like, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t look like it got caught in the garbage disposal the way mine does.

Bethany Frankel

Hubby: pointing to his completely bald head made that way by his cryptic (and overly math-y) request for a Number Zero, “This is what I get from the guy with the thinning ponytail.  This is what he’s good at.”

Me: “Oh.  Well…I wish I’d known that sooner because this is the WORST haircut I’ve ever gotten!!!”

Hubby: after a big pause and head tilt reminiscent of the dog waiting for some bacon, politely says, “No, it’s not the WORST haircut you’ve ever gotten.  The WORST one was that one you got in Central Pennsylvania at Ricky Roos; the one that made you look like Keith Partridge.”

Me: “First off, the place was called Randy Rick’s and secondly, gaaah that WAS the worst haircut!  I TOTALLY looked like Keith Partridge!!! But that was my own dumb fault because I should’ve known that haircut was gonna go badly. The chick cutting my hair had her OWN wack hairdo which made her look like that red-haired-monster-who-plays-beauty-parlor with Bugs Bunny in that Mad Scientist episode.”

And in case you don’t know who Keith or the Red Haired Monster are because you’re still not watching my fave t.v. shows despite my fair warning above, I’ve included some pictures below for your viewing pleasure.

Keith Partridge

Red Haired Monster

For the record, I did NOT overstate the heinousness of the Keith Partridge/Red Haired Monster haircut. It was all (unfortunately) true.  The.  WORST.  Haircut.  Ever.

The one I just got recently?  The head-in-a-blender one??  Second Worst.

Which brings me to my closing argument: Beware the state of hair of the person GIVING the haircut. It has EVERYTHING to do with how your haircut’s gonna go down.  So beware!  Unless you WANT to look like Keith Partridge, that is.