GOAAAAAAAALLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Monthly Archives: May 2011
Intermission
When I was younger I craved change – I would move every time my lease was up, rearrange my furniture every three or four weeks, I would dye my hair all manner of crazy colors. But now that I am older (and I like to believe a little more mature) I like consistency, I like to know what’s coming – that I have a routine, a routine that I can alter and mix it up if I chose, but a routine nonetheless, I like knowing what I’m going to be doing a day a week, a month from now and that when I get up in the morning I’m going to go to a familiar place and do familiar things.
In the face of impending change I am trying to be cool, you know channel my inner Fonz. I mean there is a large part of my personality that is much too lazy to get stressed out over anything. It’s tougher now because now there is a mom part too and the Mom constantly worries about everything – nutrition, education, climate change, economic indicators, severe weather, crime, terrorism – you know, just to name a few. And that part of me is having a complete meltdown – I feel it mostly smack dab in the middle of my stomach
But today it’s Saturday and I’m not going to worry about anything I’m taking a break from stress and taking this one to the zoo.
Fashion advice for the end of the world
When the world does finally come to a screeching halt and we are held accountable for our actions I hope that I am wearing something that requires a crinoline underskirt and a very sparkly headpiece. I mean I have seen a lot of movies and I have a feeling that I’ll be stuck in whatever fashion choice I made for a very very long time. Saturday I was wearing my favorite pair of Old Navy pants and a relatively cute top – but it wasn’t what I would have chosen for all eternity. I was however attending a family BBQ and thought it might be a bit weird if I showed up in my favorite brides maid dress and a tiara from Claire’s.
Needless to say I am pretty glad that current religious zealots were wrong. (Sorry to any religious zealots who frequent this blog – I am sure you are all exceptionally awesome – wrong but awesome). I remember when comet Hale-Bobb was supposed to signify the end of the world in 1997. In 1997 I was single and living alone – I had a lot of time on my hands to obsess about the possibility of judgment day.
So in order to prepare for the end of the world my underage friends (from Spanish class) and I decided that we should get dressed up and head to Tijuana to go drinking – because what’s more significant (and safer) than a late night in Tijuana? We got all dressed up and headed for a night club south of the border.
In order to take the most advantage of underage American’s – you know keeping them drunk and alive – the locals have converted these great big windowless warehouses into all night dance clubs. They would charge you $10 to get in and then serve you all of the watered down tequila sunrises you could drink – served in plastic cups poured out of 5 gallon tubs.
They would pack hundreds of kids into these giant sweat lodges and lock the doors to keep out the criminal element. It would reach 120 degrees in there and there was no way to get out. I don’t want to think about how many fire code violations were broken or how incredibly unsafe it was, but we went nonetheless – at least this way when the rapture came we would be in a big group of our new very best friends. We arrived sometime around 11:00pm and they didn’t opened the doors and let us go until the sun came up the following morning . We stumbled across the boarder, eating churros and bacon wrapped hot dog – restocking our supply of chicklets debating whether or not the rapture came and we had transported to the seventh level of hell or if we were, in fact, still in Tijuana.
Obviously I made it home safe and sound, but I did learn a valuable lesson – when preparing for the rapture you want to wear comfortable shoes – spending eternity in strappy sandals is simply not going to cut it.
Sunday morning at our house
So yesterday we bought a new vacuum and it’s great (it’s mounted on a ball – which is perfect when you live in a house the size of a telephone booth). But the vacuum was nothing compared to the box it came in, which soon became the most awesome tunnel ever…
I am going to open up a toy store that sells nothing but oddly shaped boxes, rolls of wrapping paper, cellophane and old car keys… I’d make a fortune.
Because I’d be really ugly if I didn’t have a nose…
When things start to get extra super annoying here at sticky jam hands I like to stop and reflect on how bad other people have it – so that in relative terms I can feel better about myself, here are some things I like to remind myself:
1.) I am not shoveling coal into a large steel cart 300 feet below the surface of the earth.
2.) I have never been forced to go through the foot binding process
3.) I have never lost my nose to severe frostbite
4.) I have never been stabbed by a shiv in the shower of an all female prison
5.) I do not suffer from Pica
But the most important thing – many people have ugly babies and I’ve got her:
It’s all good
Overwhelmed
I would like to create a t-shirt that says “I’m sorry I’m such a disappointment” and sit at my desk and not even pretend to do any work. Then people would know ahead of time not to ask me for anything. Maybe this would even work at home when my husband asks me things like “Are you going to stop drinking so much wine and do the dishes?” I can sadly shake my head no and point to my shirt.
Sometimes I yearn for my mid 20’s when expectations of me where minimal and simply making it through the day without falling on my head was a major accomplishment. Now, I have to worry about performance goals, and my five year plan. I need to follow the housing market and vote for a new mayor … being a grown up is such a pain.
A vision in blue
Wherin Google connects me to humanity
I have the top ten Google hot trends listed on my iGoogle website – I am all about all things Google. I think any internet browser who spell checks everything for you totally rocks (I love you chrome!). But I am constantly amazed at the random menagerie of searches people perform. This morning when I got to work the #1 search in the United States was “what time is it” and I have to ask myself – if you have the ability to connect to Google than you must, by default, be using a devise that has the capability to give you the time, right? Why would you Google this in the first place,? And why would so many people be googling it that it made it not only to the top ten list, but all the way to number 1?
Also on my iGoogle home page is the “How of the Day” – sometimes this is really really helpful, like the day it taught me how you calculate your GPA (yes, I have three degrees… there are clearly holes in the educational system). Today, however it is teaching people out there (I assume the same people who have no idea what time it is) how not to be afraid of cattle. Is this really a problem? Is there a large portion of our population unable to sleep at night for fear that a rouge Holstein is going to find its way into their bedroom and… what? Lick them to death? Now, there are a lot of things in this world that I am afraid of – guns and squirrels being top of the list (stupid rats with big fluffy tails, able to roam freely throughout the city…) but honestly, I have never ever thought that cows presented a problem, am I wrong?
Playing the piano takes a lot of concentration
A flashback to the single life
I celebrated Mother’s Day all weekend long and part of the celebration was a girl’s night out with my lovely sister on Saturday night. We had a great dinner at our favorite small BYO bistro and then bar hopped our way around Rittenhouse square just like we were ten years younger, childless and able to stumble two blocks home.
While we were having dinner a young good looking guy walked into the restaurant, sat down with his bottle of wine and nervously stared at the door for the rest of our meal… the last of our Chianti… and our round of cappuccinos. I felt so bad for him; all dressed up and so obviously hopeful.
It made me think about the time I was on a date in the restaurant just next to the one we were at. This of course was way before I met my husband and realized I would be a fool to ever let him go, knowing there are only a few good looking, rational men in this world willing to put up with someone like me.
I had become a serial internet dater, mostly because I’m lazy and I just wanted to date people in slippers from the comfort of my own home. I had been chatting with a guy named Jay… Somethingorother. He seemed nice enough and so we had agreed to meet at a restaurant just around the corner from where I was living at the time. I got there early and Jay arrived shortly after – clearly 15 years older, 6 inches shorter and a good 20 pounds heavier than his profile and picture marketed him as. Now, I try not to be shallow but I truly believe that if you’re a 40 year old single man you are just setting yourself up for failure by using your high school graduation picture as your current photo.
But I had already had a cocktail or two so I was willing to ‘give it a go’ so to speak… It didn’t take long before I realized that it just wasn’t going to work out, we clearly had nothing in common, and I think he even made a comment about how much I was drinking… eh hem…
About 45 minutes into our date, I legitimately got something in my contact lens – you know when you are tearing up and your nose is running and the makeup is half sliding down your face – it was obviously not a problem I could fix with a cocktail napkin. I decided that since I lived around the corner the smart thing would be for me to run home, remove my lens and come back – it would take less than 10 minutes.
So – I went home and swapped my lenses for my glasses. I had my hand on my front door knob just ready to hurry back to this unbearable date when I thought “Hm… do I really have to go back?” Jay Somethingorother knew I lived close but not exactly where, I mean wouldn’t I be doing us both a favor if I didn’t encourage it?
So – I stayed home and put on my slippers, poured a glass of wine and sat in the dark, you know just in case. I felt bad, I really did – I mean I do have feelings.
The next morning I was barely awake, still lying in bed when the phone rang and guess who? Jay, bright eyed and cheerful asking if I wanted to meet him for brunch. “Huh?” I groaned into the phone, “But I left you at the bar last night…” Apparently he didn’t care, he wanted to buy me brunch and have me meet his dog.
It took three days of unwanted phone calls before I convinced Jay that it was never going to work out – I had never seen anyone try so hard and it just made me feel like maybe I was being unreasonable, why shouldn’t I date someone I don’t like, I mean if he’s really into me?
Fortunately for my husband, my daughter and my current lifestyle – I’m not that lazy -I decided not to settle. I am hoping that whoever that guy was at our restaurant Saturday wasn’t waiting for someone who changed their mind at the last minute, and if he was he moves on and finds someone awesome, did I mention he was really cute?
Newsletter: Month 9
Tomorrow Lucy turns 9 months, I have decided to take a page from other Mommy blogs, most notably Heather Armstrong and start a monthly newsletter to Lucy, because I’m not sure that I am exploiting her enough already… here goes.
Dear Lucy,
This month you learned so many new things, you cut your first three teeth and I am amazed at the amount you have grown both physically and mentally in the past nine months. The beginning of this month you were flying back from Florida on your first airplane trip – you were so good on the plane, taking everything in stride and being so cute that even when you became really cranky those around you still wondered at how adorable you are.
Once we were back from Florida you perfected your ability to crawl and it wasn’t two weeks later that one Thursday night you grabbed on to your Dad’s belt and pulled yourself right up onto your feet. You didn’t even realized what you were doing, but pretty soon you were doing it all the time. When you see me, or your father, and raise your arms to be picked up it just about breaks my heart.
You say “Mama” all the time, but you say it to me and your Dad and the cat, it’s clear you don’t understand who that is. You have gotten really good at feeding yourself, cheerios and puffs all manage to eventually make it into your mouth, you have also developed a serious fondness for banana yogurt.
You spent a weekend with your cousin Sean and marveled at how big and fast he is, I can’t wait until you are older and able to play with him and all your other cousins you haven’t had a chance to meet yet.
You and your friend Grace rule daycare, you are the two who can stand and get around wherever you want. I can see the younger, smaller kids look at you the way that you look at Sean and that’s pretty cool.
Sure there are some things we are still trying to change, like when you lick the trashcan because you can see your reflection in it- but for the most part you are absolutely perfect just the way you are… you are becoming less of an infant and more and more a toddler everyday.
Your favorite things right now are the 6:58 drawing of the Pennsylvania lottery, “petting” the cat, splashing in the bathtub and eating my car keys.
I love you so much – Mama
Another reason why it’s good I can’t write prescriptions
Every spring I come down with a head cold, runny nose and general stuffiness that seems to last for months, it’s been going on for oh about ten years now… Ten years, the exact amount of time that I’ve been back living on the east coast. I didn’t put this together until a couple years ago. Actually I didn’t put this together at all until I finally decided after almost two decades of avoiding all manner of doctors, to finally find one and get a yearly physical (sixteen year physical?). And my doctor (who isn’t a doctor at all, she’s a nurse practitioner – because I simply couldn’t go all the way) looked at me and said “You know, you have allergies?” And I said “Really? Is that why I’ve been sick for four months?” (I’d like to remind you right now, that I am smart in other ways…)
I never really minded this four month head cold before because it meant Nyquil and Nyquil is one of my most favoritist things of all time. A glass of wine and a big shot of Nyquil is like a warm blanket that bludgeons you over the head and envelopes you in deep uninterrupted sleep for 8-10 hours. And who cares if you wake up slightly hung over, for someone who rarely sleeps straight through any given night, it’s like a little shot of heaven.
So for the past ten years spring has become Nyquil season and I’ve been perfectly content with that. Last spring was super difficult for me because being pregnant I had to skip Nyquil season, and I missed it… I missed it a lot, so much in fact that this year I seem to be subconsciously making up for it. I tried hard to resist, knowing that breastfeeding and Nyquil are probably not the best of friends, but then I thought “how bad could it be? I mean I feed her in the beginning when I was taking 12 percocets a day after the c-section.” And Lucy doesn’t seem to care, she might be a little less active in the morning, but honestly, that just works out in everyone’s favor.
I noticed on my last Target trip that they now sell it alcohol free, um… what the? It’s the alcohol that does the bludgeoning and that, quite frankly, is the best part. So I grabbed the good stuff and as I was having the cashier swipe my drivers license for something like the 8th time this season, I wondered how many more bottles could I buy before someone official looking shows up at my house looking for evidence (more evidence) of a meth lab?
It might be time to start buying it online…
Even the bib knows
Thanks Kate!
Sticky Jam Hands 