Wonder Twin Powers…ACTIVATE!

by | Leave a comment

You ever have pasta-in-a-strainer, sitting in the sink and draining…when all of a sudden a kid comes up and washes their hands all over it?!? 

Yeah?  ME TOO! 

TWINS!!!  Twinny twin twin!  Wonder Twin powers ACTIVATE!

You go first.

Form of an iceberg!

Ok, now my turn.

Form of a stay at home mom who just had her dinner plans ruined by dirty hands!

Huhn.  Wait.  How come you got to be the iceberg?  And I got to be that stupid stay at home mom thing?! 

Well – for the record – I always thought the boy twin on the show took the easy way out.  Endlessly turning into some form of water, frozen or otherwise.  Yawn…snoozeville. 

Me?  I’m a go big or go home type a’ gal.  No easy way out for me (nooo, I’m not lookin’ at anyone when I say that.  Why?  Did you think I was lookin’ at YOU?!?).  So I don’t CARE if the stay at home mom thing sounds stupid.  Bring it!  Bring your smarmy iceberg; I’ll see it and raise you a creature-who-does-a lot-of-yelling.

Because really, who WOULDN’T want to turn into that creature??  This is a rhetorical question so SHUT IT!  Not sure why the girl twin-who-could-turn-into-any-creature never turned into THAT creature, but she missed the boat there.  Because there’s an amaaaaaazing amount of power in being the stay at home mom who just had her dinner plans ruined by dirty hands! 

Ahhhh…POWER!  Mwa ha ha!!

The smell of power is in the air!  Can you smell it?  It smells very, very similar to sudsy pasta. 

And wait!  What’s that?  Can you hear it??  To the human ear, the power sounds a little…something…like this:

GET IN THE ^*$#% CAR!   WE’RE GOING OUT TO EAT!!!!! 

ACTIVATE!!!

Why don’t you come up and see me gum time?

by | 2 Comments

We’ve established that bizarre stuff happens to me all of the time.  What you may not know is that this unique talent is not indigenous to Colorado, and in fact follows me wherever I go.

We were in New York City a few weeks ago when it struck.  Correction: we weren’t actually in the city – we were waiting in line to board the ferry which would take us from the Statue of Liberty to Ellis Island – when it struck.  And STUCK.

I was looking at my watch to see if we were “on track” with our sight-seeing.  You do that too, right?  Sight-seeing is stressful and you have to fit it all in in the allotted time.  So you gotta make sure you’re at certain places at certain times.  Otherwise you’ll fall behind in your sight-seeing and you won’t see all the sights.  There may even be yelling.  Hey!  Yew lookin’ at me?  YEW LOOKIN’ AT ME?!  Don’t look at me that way.  You know you do it too.   

Hubby, the kids and I are standing in a sea of humanity, it’s about a million smoggy, muggy degrees and some folks in said sea haven’t discovered the modern miracle of deodorant yet.  In addition, we’re all lined up in the most disorderly, someone’s-gonna-get-shived-any-second-now sort of line.  I’ve got my arm crooked, watch at waist-level.  When from out of nowhere a piece of chewed gum lands on my watch.  It happened so quickly that at first I thought the gum…somehow…SPRANG out of my watch.  Oh look, Kids!  It’s GUM TIME!!!  CONGA!!!  Dun-dun-dun-dun-duhn-DUH! 

Hubby has been expecting Gum Time for our entire married life so wasn’t surprised when it happened and didn’t flinch or look away.  He witnessed the whole thing.  He looks at the gum, looks at me (like it’s MY fault?  ‘Cause it’s NOT!  I was just STANDING here WONDERING WHAT TIME IT WAS!  It’s not like I was shouting, “Hey!  Anyone got gum?!  My watch sure could use some GUM.  So if anyone’s got gray, chewed gum, toss it on over here!!  Because according to my watch, it’s GUM TIME!”  CONGA!!!)

He looks one more time at my watch, shakes his head, then moves away.  Just quietly slips through the crowd away from me.  Sonny is still staring at me open-mouthed-with-gagging-noises-coming-out while Sissy has had the presence of mind to begin looking around for the perpetrator.  (She suspected the culprits were a one-year-old and a three-year-old acting silly in a double stroller.  But I’m not so sure…)  so they missed Hubby moving away from us; I had to tell the kids to hurry and follow Dad!

When we caught up to him (I didn’t care where he went, I just needed the banana peel he was holding to pull the ABC gum off my watch, don’t ask) I wondered aloud why he walked away like that.  His reply?  “In case there was more gum comin’, I didn’t want any part of it.”

Hmmm.  Fair enough. 

The Russian Tea Room

by | 2 Comments

So the same chick who worked full-time while going to grad school full-time celebrated her birthday last week in New York City.  (Hint: It’s me.  Bet you woulduv guessed it right away if I had also mentioned that “she” is funny , pretty and smart; everyone says so.)

And on my birthday in New York City we: toured the United Nations, went to mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, had tea at the Russian Tea room, went for a carriage ride in Central Park, walked through the Plaza Hotel on the way to FAO Schwarz where we played the big piano, had a free coffee (thanks Starbucks!) at Trump Tower, saw the dark comedy Cripple of Inishmaan starring Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) then waited at the stage door so my daughter could get his autograph on her playbill, finished up with a late dinner of NYC pizza complete with cockroach leg.  Who’s yer daddy?!?

Anyway, where I was going with all of this is that I’m pretty sure our waiter at the Russian Tea Room is in Fight Club.

After he seated us in our tilt-a-whirl compartment then closed us in with our table covered with a white cloth, I tried to feel him out about it by making polite conversation.  Soooo…how’s Fight Club?

But he didn’t respond.  Which further proved my point that he was in Fight Club.  Because everyone knows the first rule of First Club is to never talk about Fight Club.

However, I did feel he got overly annoyed at our request to NOT have the PB&J triangle with the kids’ tea because they’re both allergic to peanuts.

Of course, his annoyance may have had nothing to do with my Fight Club suspicions, and everything to do with the fact that as soon as we were seated in our sumptuous red leather booth, we discovered Sonny’s entire right hand was covered in filth from touching EVERYTHING on the way to the restaurant (including construction walkways, subway poles and escalator handrails going in the opposite direction).  And as we piled out of squozed position so Sonny could go wash his hands, somehow he got the tablecloth caught under his leg and basically dragged all of the settings halfway across the world before we clued into what was happening.

But no harm, no foul because he was more careful on his way back into the booth after he disappeared downstairs to the bathroom for a good half-hour.  Nothing says high tea like a nice…rest period…beforehand.

While he was gone, Sissy tasted her tea (a Rooibos Chai), which she discovered was very HOT!  This resulted in a lot of twitching and jerking as she tried her hardest to avoid touching her lips to her hot-tea-glass-placed-in-a-hot-metal-handled-holder.  Just FYI?  Dribbled chai leaves a stain, but is kinda funny to watch.

Despite the inauspicious beginning, the tea party was a success.  And the kids even got to taste caviar!  I gave them each three eggs from my serving which caused them both to shudder and die on the spot.  This made the rest of the tea nice and quiet for Hubby and I as we toasted each other with our complimentary glasses of champagne.  Until I tasted the caviar and shuddered and died my own self.

COME ON!!!!  Who likes caviar?!?  You’re a TOTAL LIAR if you say you like caviar.  LIAR!!!  Because it tastes like fish bait mixed with lox.  Rotten lox.  I mean, why mess up a good blini with that nonsense?!?

But on a positive note, all of the shenanigans in our booth eventually caused Fight Cluber to warm up to us.  Because he was more than happy to take our picture at the end of our tea to commemorate the occasion. 

Or was it simply because that picture got us on our merry way sooner rather than later??  Naw!  I think he likes to see yokels once in a while.  It breaks up the monotony. 

Central Park

by | Leave a comment

While New York City in general is pretty wack, Central Park in particular has its own brand of cray-cray.

First off, I’m pretty darn sure that the smell?  The pee smell that permeates the entire city??!  Originates in Central Park.

Which means the whole time you’re there, you’re wondering what exactly happened before you got there to make it smell like that.  I have my theories, but now I’m GAAAACK! gagging, so I won’t go into them.

Another thing is the garbage.  When we were there recently, we saw one lone Parks & Rec worker (wearing extremely faded Parks & Rec uniform pants with her own top from home) picking up the garbage using a Whole Foods paper bag and NOT wearing gloves.  This all gave the impression she was a volunteer who wasn’t doing a very good job.  But upon closer inspection, she did have a name badge and a walkie-talkie, so I’m assuming she was “official” but overwhelmed and therefore not very effective because we saw families surrounded by garbage having picnics in fields of garbage.  (Did I mention there was a lot of garbage?)  At first you think they’re sitting on oddly shaped blankets and it’s only as you get closer that you realize the “blankets” are actually paper, wrappers, bottles and other sundry trash that they’re plopped right in the midst of.  I’m assuming the Jersey Shore doesn’t extend as far as Central Park and so the picnic quadrants didn’t contain any hypodermic needles or medical waste, but I didn’t look that closely so I don’t know for sure.

And the playgrounds in Central Park?  Are like Alcatraz, only slightly smaller, and in playground format, and land-locked, not in the middle of the ocean.  Ok, nothing like Alcatraz actually, other than they are made completely out of cement and contained by fences (which I’m pretty sure are topped with barbed wire in at least two instances).  It’s like they took a regular playground and coated the entire thing (climbing structures, slides, grass) with a thick layer of cement.  So that any kid who bites it on these playgrounds is pretty much guaranteed a Humpty Dumpty future.

Based on all of this, I always come away from Central Park puzzled by why visitors continue to go there.  The smell, the garbage, the cracked eggshells everywhere, and let’s not even forget “The Central Park Jogger.”  You guys haven’t forgotten about that, right?  ‘Cause I know I haven’t.  Seriously.  Awful.  And granted, that was, like, twenty-five years ago, but it’s not something you can get out of your head.  So I’m endlessly on the lookout for anything that may resemble “wilding” when I’m in Central Park.

As a result, I stumble along its paths mumbling, all shifty-eyed, whipping around every time I hear footsteps behind me.

P.S.  No one ever bothers the lunatics in Central Park.  This, I know.

P.P.S. Parks & Rec Authorities, Lunatics and Egglovers – please do not contact me with complaints.  This blog is all in good fun.  Thank you and carry on wit’ yer bad selves. 

New York, New York. It’s a Wonderful Town!

by | Leave a comment

Did you know that the original lyrics to the song “New York” from the musical called “On the Town” were:  New York, New York.  It’s a HELLUVA town!

But for some reason, they changed the “Helluva” to “Wonderful” when they made the musical into a movie.

Wimps.

But, hey!  Speakin’ of New York heh, heh, heh – see how that works? I was in New York City recently.  And all I can say is that New York City has the biggest hall pass of all time. 

Every bizarre thing that happens there is explained away with a shrug of the shoulders, hands spread wide and, “Eh.  It’s New York City!”

Mom, Mom!  I just saw a man taking plastic bottles out of that garbage can using a pair of spaghetti tongs!  Eh, it’s New York City!

Hubby, don’t you think it’s weird that you’ve finished your entire knish but my bowl of borscht hasn’t even come out yet?  Eh, it’s New York City!

Kids, of all the people on this dark sidewalk, why did that cockroach run RIGHT AT ME while your father yelled, “Get her!  Get her!”  Eh, it’s New York City!

Dad, why does this subway car smell like pee?  Do you think we’re sitting right on top of someone’s “accident?”  Eh, it’s New York City!  And no, but let’s move to that seat over there anyway.

See what I mean?!?  Hall Pass Extraordinaire. 

Also?  I’m not sure why they changed it to “wonderful”…“Helluva” was waaaay more apt.

Comment-ary

by | 3 Comments

I love getting electronic comments to my blog posts.  I get a little thrill when I open up my blogging dashboard to see that I’ve received a comment.  Take for example this latest one…

It’s from someone called Nike Air Jordan.  Nike A.J. writes: Hello there, I found your site by way of Google even as looking for a comparable topic, your site got here up, it appears to be like good. I have bookmarked it in my google bookmarks.

While Nike A.J.’s name seems a little self-promoting, the rest of the post is all very thrilling.  She (I’m assuming ‘she.’  You’ll see why in a sec) says that my post appears to be…like…good.  Hmmm.  A little too…like…Valley Girlish for me, but I’ll take the compliment.  Also?  Me thinkey me have a new follower since Nike A.J. has taken my site (which got here? Up??) and bookmarked it in her google bookmarks.  Score!

Next comes a comment from Oakley Frogskin Sunglasses.  Future’s so bright, gotta wear shades writes that: This website is loading very slow for me. Is anyone else having this problem or is it a problem on my end? I’ll check back later on and see if the problem still exists….

Uh…I think it’s a problem on your end.  No one else has mentioned the loading issue to me.  Because you guys would mention the loading issue to me, right?  And Future’s So Bright??  Please don’t check back because the problem will still exist, because yer not wanted round these here parts.

Or how about this comment from someone called Yves Saint Laurent Bags:  Shop the latest collection of Miu Miu dresses. Find the largest selection of Miu miu women dresses – miu miu women dresses on line sales. Discover Miu Miu’s new-season dresses, miumiu dress 2014 & more on sale. Fast shipping germany, france, usa, cana…

Ok.  Gotta cut ya off right there, Yves.  You’re name seems a little too…familiar.  And I’m not really sure why are you offering the latest Miu Miu dresses (with a variety of capitalization options, by the way) in your precious comment space when you could be saying instead about how my blog appears to be…like…good.  I will call this one spam.  Moving on…

This next comment comes from someone named オメガコピー時計 who writes:ブルガリスーパーコピー(Bvlgari),人気ブルガリコピー時計,ブルガリ偽物時計.ピアジェスーパーコピー(Piaget),人気ピアジェコピー時計,ピアジェ偽物時計：シチズンスーパーコピー(Citizen),人気シチズンコピー時計,シチズン偽物時計.

Er – thanks, オメガコピー時計. May I call you Mr. Robot?  And if you’re sending me secret coded messages in the form of watch brand names, you should probably stop.  Because Homey don’t play coded messages – or watches for sale.  In fact, I’m not really sure what your post is all about, so instead, I’ll assume you’re saying something along the lines of, “Kudos on a witty, insightful blog.”  To which I reply, “Dōmo arigatō, Mr. Roboto.  Dōmo, dōmo.  Dōmo, dōmo.”*

*Why yes, that does mean, “Thank you very much, Mr. Robot,” in Japanese.  And since you brought it up, yes, those ARE the lyrics to the song “Mr. Roboto” by Styx which was recorded in 1982 and released in 1983 on their album, “Kilroy Was Here.”  And now?  Now there’s talk of a lifetime achievement award.  For me.  For RULING in this game that we play called “An 80’s song for every moment in life.”  But don’t worry, I’ll include you in my acceptance speech.  To all the people who played – and played poorly – but who ultimately made this award possible for me, dōmo, dōmo.

Zestfully Clean!

by | Leave a comment

Schools almost out for summer – and everyone’s already rockin’ their summer pedicure.  Right?

For my pedi-for-this-purpose, I chose a color called “Nice Stems.”  Interesting name, but more importantly, it’s that pale aqua color that’s so hot right now.  In fact, I chose it for that reason: because hot ladies (Hey, Lady!) should have hot toes.  Right now.  And also because the color seemed fresh, crisp, SUMMERY.

Well…look what I noticed in the shower this morning.

I now call my pedicure color “Zest Soap” and I spend all day long feeling extraordinarily…clean…in the feet region.

Bring on Summer!

There’s a Fungus Amongus

by | Leave a comment

When you hug your son, and he smells like the dog after it’s just expressed its own anal glands, you know something’s up.

And when the son in question says that he has that SAME smell “stuck in his nose” and it won’t go away?  That’s clue #2.

Finally, when the principal of the son’s school approaches you at a parent brunch you’re hosting to tell you that your son had to leave a school function to go to the nurse’s office because there was pus flowing outta his ear, that should be third time’s a charm, my friends.  And you should clue the frick in, already.

Because everything I’ve mentioned is a SIGN that your son is literally sick in the head – specifically in the ear-ish region.  And that you’ve done absolutely NOTHING about it but sit around wondering what that smell was.

The phone call that starts with, “Hey, Doc!  Remember that ear culture we took….ohhhh…5 weeks ago?  We should probably check it again for signs of dirty fish tank disease, because I think Sea Monkeys are now living in Sonny’s ear and pooping everywhere,” really gets the ball rolling.

And?  Turns out there’s a fungus amongus.  Which one has a fungus? 

Sonny, of course.  In his ear.  And no wonder why he’s been wheezing and coughing all spring.  He’s allergic to his own self.  His fungus has gone systemic and is floating around his body. 

A quick trip to the doctor’s office in which we got to the bottom heh, heh, heh of the mysterious smell also allowed Sonny to get all of the “vanilla pudding” scooped out of his ear while I watched on the Jumbotron.  That was the second most fun moment of the whole thing.  Otherwise it’s just been a smelly, painful, expensive mess.  The first most fun moment was when I asked Hubby to hop up in the chair and get HIS ears scooped out after Sonny was all done.  Because for some reason Hubby can’t hear me when I ask him to do stuff around the house.  The doctor said that there wasn’t gonna be anything IN Hubby’s ears; He just can’t hear me because it’s “a gender thing.”  Mystery solved there as well.  Awwww – wasn’t that fun?!?  So fun.   

So I’m keeping the doctor’s office visit – and that “high” I got when ALL the mysteries were solved – in mind as I run around town looking for jock itch cream (but in liquid form which is completely impossible to find) because I’ll have to start squirting it into my son’s ear for the next 10 days.  And the folks at the pharmacy must think Sonny’s got a…er…bizarre manparts infection to beat the band, what with the 7-day diflucan prescription he’s got comin’ his way.

Not really sure why I’m telling you any of this.  Other than to further underscore the point I’ve been making all along.  Which is that little boys aren’t really human.  They are mostly monkeys.  Who leave you wondering what exactly they’ve been putting in their ears to give themselves a fungus infection in there.  My vote is for all the goofing around with the baseball cup and answering it like a telephone (Yeah, he’s right here.  It’s for you!) that may have gotten fungus in places where fungus shouldn’t be.   But who really knows with monkeys.  

And before we leave here today, I wanted to mention that I’m a helper (and a do-er, but that’s another blog).  And because I’m a helper, I’m gonna help you here with a word to the wise: If your son’s ear smells like a$$, totally check into it…‘kay?   

Bizarre with a capital B

by | Leave a comment

I’m not 100% sure why bizarre stuff happens to me.  But it does. 

Take, for example, this morning.  I was halfway through my Saturday 10k on the treadmill in the basement.  Sonny comes to the top of the stairs wrapped in a blanket with his p.j. pants sticking out from underneath, “Mom, Mom!  Someone’s at the door.”

I too would be embarrassed to open the door wrapped in a blanket, so I trudge upstairs to relieve Sonny of door duty.  I swing wide the door and I SWEAR to you, Mr. Clean is standing on my front porch holding a clipboard.

On closer inspection, the guy is just as bald AS, but slightly smaller THAN, Mr. Clean (and I’m pretty sure I could take him in a hipcheck contest).  He’s not wearing the signature earring (left is right, right is wrong) and he’s not dressed in the slenderizing, color-blocked white.

Ok, pretty darn close, but not Mr. Clean after all.  He confirms it by saying in a Russian accent, “Hello.  I am Marco.  I here from Lifetime Fitness.”

I say, “Uh…Hi, Marco.”  I’m clearly puzzled and am almost convincing myself that Lifetime Fitness is now making random house calls to see if citizens are working out the way they should be.

He states again, “I here!” and spreads one hand wide like a magician would.

Me: “Yes, you are.  Can I help you?”

However, Mr. Clean Marco is stunned into silence as he takes in the fact that I am CLEARLY a sweaty mess and smell like Stank Ho Day Three.  Seriously stunned.  All he can do is point from my once-white-now-dingy-gray headband worn John McEnroe style, past the sweat-bib-staining-my-shirt-almost-to-my-bellybutton, all the way down to my loosely tied running shoes.

That’s fine.  Look your fill.  All that and a bag of chips, right, Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch?  Besides, this moment which has been brought to you by the Sound Of Silence has afforded me the opportunity to glance down at his clipboard and see that my next-door neighbor’s information is written on it.

I reply to his non-verbal cues by saying, “Yes, Marco.  I’m already working out and I don’t need your help.  They need you more next door.”  And I point to his clipboard.

He turns it up, glances at it, then exclaims, “Sorry, sorry!  Me so sorry.”

Yeah, yeah.  You soooo sorry, Marco.  Either way, head out.  It’s not even 10 a.m. and I’m already over it. 

Because once again, this has been bee-zarrr with…how do you say?…a Cabeedull Bee.

Beware of Zombies

by | 1 Comment

Yesterday I was running on the treadmill, reading my bookclub book AND watching the Today Show.  Multitask much?  Hey!  You’re talkin’ to the same chick who went to grad school full-time AND worked full-time.  Or who worked full-time AND chaired the annual school fundraiser THREE YEARS IN A ROW.  So don’t mess with me.  I’ll TELL you I’ll cut you in the parking lot…then I’ll CUT YOU in the parking lot.

While I was running/reading/watching the Today Show, there was a segment warning all of America that they should NOT be putting various bumper stickers on their car. 

For example, those stick figure family decals?  They let criminals know that sharp, thin people live at your house.  And that one of those people might do baseball and the other ballet.  Which means that they might follow you to ballet practice and steal your pink toe-shoes. 

Or those “My student soars at Eaglecrest Middle School” bumper stickers let criminals know where your kid goes to school and when you might be dropping him off.

So they can race over to the school and watch you drop your kid off.  Then steal his lunch.

Yes…it’s all very frightening.  But what the Today Show DIDN’T mention, was the zombies.  In my opinion, not mentioning the zombie activity engendered by these bumper stickers was a real mis-step on their part.  Because it leaves the entire population unaware of all of the negative zombie ramifications.

Can you see this back window decal which I took a picture of during my own investigative reporting stint when I was reporting on bad reporting?  It says, “Zombies Ate My Stick Figure Family – insert bloody zombie hands here – Yours Is Next.”

See?  Zombies are the real problem here.  Why doesn’t anyone ever mention the zombies??