Jennifer, Jasmine and I sit at the bar at the Deli, talking about our bad habits. Jennifer doesn't drink or smoke and cites the deep love of good food as her sole Achilles' Heel. Me, well, I've stopped drinking altogether, but I do smoke (occasionally) and drink coffee (like a fiend).

Jasmine says, "I've got all of 'em... Drinking, smoking, coffee -"

" - whoring around," I add (kidding).

"Yeah!" Jasmine laughs. "Yeah, so, I guess I have a lot of bad habits..."

"Well, you don't do white drugs," I add, judiciously.

"Yeah," she replies, "But... I'll give anything the old college try."

[pause]

"Except college," she adds.

Gay laughter around the bar.

Labels: friends, hilarity

I shouldn't have to explain this to anyone who doesn't already remember the video, so I won't:


I always thought nothing in hell could justify how sweaty the hero was at the end of this vid. I mean, I had babies and stuff and didn't sweat that hard.

Labels: hilarity, music, random

Keep fighting the good fight.

Labels: babies, hilarity, random

By the way, I don't care how rich you are, 0:19 is a FAIL because fuzzy toilet seats covers are just loaded with fecal spray from the toilet - which means the TERRORISTS HAVE WON!

Labels: hilarity, random

Starting at 3:30, you'll see the running joke we've had at the Hogabooms these last few days. Nels even referenced this the other night when we made tamales together. One of my favorite things about having children is that they can make me laugh like no one else can.

Labels: film, hilarity

My son is brave, impulsive, good-natured, loving, willful, his energy ramped to 100% for every minute he's awake. I guess in reading the above list I'm a lot like him. A few episodes in our last twenty four hours:

Yesterday I am forced to truncate his dessert in a diner and take him out to the car. He's angry, yelling. I'm gentle but firm. As I straighten from placing him in the carseat and swing the door shut he looks at me with angry tears in his eyes and yells, "Everything out of your mouth is CRAP!" Of course I'm dying laughing, internally, but it's not really funny to talk to someone that way, and it's definitely not okay to laugh at someone when they're angry. The door shutting allows me to keep my smile to myself. When I come back to the car with my purse, coat, other child, etc. Nels is wretched, his face tear-stained. "I'm sorry I said what you said was crap," he mourns. I say, "Thank you for the apology Nels," and reach a hand back to him. He and I forgive one another a hundred percent and move on.

This morning he takes me on a tour of the garden. He shows me the new cucumber, the one bean on the bush (he can spy the very first new growth of anything). He remembers, in our unsorted and untidy yard, where things were planted. "I planted an apple there," he tells me. "The love-in-a-mist is blooming. Look what happened to the snapdragons!" "The tomatoes are having Good Times." (yes, he actually said this). "Sweet peas, calendula..." (both blooming fresh). "The amaranth, and..." he trails off, pointing. "Nicotiana," I remind him (a real success story - so far - as they've come back from near-death via slug).

This evening we play a game I play with my children (one he enjoys more than my daughter), a simple exercise in reverse psychology: I say, "Don't come over and push me off the chair and climb on top of me and kiss me on the lips, I'm really busy right now." He starts laughing right away, head thrown back, runs over, pushes me, and tries to wrestle on top of me. He is strong, with a spry strength in his long-bellied little boy body. What I like, what I couldn't and don't do, is that he devotes all his energy, balls-out, into trying to overcome me. And laughs and laughs and kisses me, finally, and he smells of the pint of raspberries he bought (with his own garden earnings!) from our Farmers Market, and ate almost every one in the car.

Labels: garden, hilarity, Nels, tenderness

I'm a member of ten Yahoo groups (three I really need to leave), but this one sends a precious little bit of cargo my way every now and then:



My family has enjoyed the original - The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra - watching it a couple times a year for a few years now.





In other news, I have been given the honor of distributing an excellent publication, The Practical Pedal. It is one of my goals to spread the love of practical cycling (that is, cycling for everyone) in my little nook of Grays Harbor.

Labels: bike, film, GH, hilarity, HQX

marriedtothesea.com
I don't mean this one exactly, I just mean the work in its entirety.

Labels: hilarity, random potty-mouth

I've been working my way through Hitchcock films and have decided I want to live in a Hitchcockian universe. Especially delicious was my recent viewing of Dial M For Murder. Ray Milland!* I loved him so very much as a villain, maybe more than I've liked any villain. (- note, all trailers are a bit spoiler-ish and I wouldn't watch them if you haven't already seen the films):



Dial M was recommended by a moviephile I met after I told him I'd recently viewed - and re-viewed, and loved - North by Northwest (below trailer is a re-vamp on movie trailer styling, me likey):



Up next for me (I've already seen it, but want to again):



I just want to live in a world where, say, I'm recovering from gallavanting around on clandestine capers and I have beautiful slacks and shirts and patent leather shoes delivered to me in boxes and I whip them on and slip out the window to catch a cab and rescue my love and not only that, but later on I've had the foresight such that I can pull out of my impeccable pockets not only a matchbook and handkerchief with my monogram but also a tiny, useful pencil for dispatching secret messages in a pinch. And yeah, I'm Cary Grant. But also somehow, I get to make out with Cary Grant too. Look, it all works in my mind, see?

* And, um, OMG. I like Ray Milland, and I like Rosey Grier, and until now I had no idea they put their considerable combined prowess together for:



Words simply cannot express.

Labels: film, hilarity, random

http://www.dothetest.co.uk/

Labels: bike, hilarity

Nels and I were featured on NPR / Weekend America yesterday for this photo, taken during a trip to one of our favorite spots in Olympia.

Here's a link to the show. The segment starts at 30:00 and you can hear my interview at 31:55.

Labels: flickr, hilarity, Nels

I've been biting my lip trying not to laugh at things my kids say because they are just so serious when they say them but it is also so funny.

First there's this afternoon as my daughter and I walk to join Nels and Ralph in their photo-shoot at our downtown favorite deli / eatery (Ralph's working on some new menus et cetera for the proprietor).

"Oh man! I forgot to put Harris' ass outside," I exclaim, deliberately using bad language because Sophie loves when I talk that way about the cat.

But she's having no playful banter in this case: "The point is, it's not our fault. It's Harris' fault," she says in clipped, decisive tones. "He should have gone outside when we opened the door."

"The point is ..." ?! Who talks like that in this house?

Then tonight as my son runs through the living room top speed with my quilting ruler (look, there was some reason he was doing this - none of us knows what it was) and suddenly the ruler, only three inches shorter than he, stutters on the ground and scrapes the top of his foot. And he cries. Then he sees some of his skin is gone and he really cries. I mean Nels hardly ever lets life get the best of him; he's either belligerent, angry, or whining but in this case he's actually afraid. His chin lowers and trembles and everything. Ralph is trying to explain to Nels his skin will grow back; patting Nels tenderly on his tiny, bandaged toe.

Sophie steps in: "Nels," she says sagely, "When I lost my toe..."* she goes on reassuringly, with all the veteran wisdom of like, some kind of grizzled old Marine telling combat stories.

Ah yes. Belly up to the bar, young 'un - Ole Stumpy can regale ye with thrilling tales.

Labels: hilarity, Nels, Sophie, verbatim

First of all, the following is NSFW. Now, you don't really need to watch the original:



To laugh yourself until you pee watching the re-imagine:



It's like seeing the evil internal monologue of the twin she ate in utero.

Sara and Stephanie, for some reason I was thinking of you when I was laughing. I miss you ladies, big time.

Labels: hilarity, random potty-mouth

I forgot to mention, Ralph won the toga contest last night. There were around thirty entrants! The toga itself was made absolutely last minute: I (genius-like) tore a queen-size sheet in half and stitched the short ends together to create the length needed. Each contestant was interviewed onstage and then "runway'd" down the stage to show off.


Beside him you see the female counterpart who tied him for first. She's doing the "looking good" version of the toga; Ralph had a different take since he not only cracked wise (the contestants interviewed prior to Ralph claimed spending a mere five or ten minutes on the toga... when asked Ralph cocked his head in mock seriousness and said, "Seven... seven or eight hours?") but he also pointed to his bare nipple during the clap-off to garner more applause.

Yeah, so. I didn't really marry an introvert or anything.

Labels: film, hilarity, Ralph, random

Labels: hilarity

and yes I am sort of sick.

Labels: hilarity, random

A pamphlet was delivered to us for an upcoming religious gathering: a smiling, Aryan Jesus holds his hand up in invitation, his arm draped with a poncho and his coif softly curling. My husband, without a word, cut out a talk-bubble and applied it - "Who's up for some Ultimate Frisbee?" The Son of Man congenially asks - then put it on the fridge where I saw it an hour or so later and spluttered laughter (Ralph went to Evergreen).

Last night I bathed with both my children. My aching body found comfort in the hot, hot water. Sophie sat behind me and poured water on my back, unasked but so appreciated by me. After a few minutes she said, "Let's lay back," which is exactly what I wanted. I held her and we whispered. She got out and into a towel; Nels arrived next. I smelled his salty skin and his hair - I simply can't describe how good his hair smells to me. His little strong body is the brownest of all of us. I hold and kiss him and think it's remarkable how my children allow me to fuss over and touch them - sometimes they enjoy it, leaning in and reciprocating, but often they don't even notice. I thought, how nice for us all that we touch this much.

I told my son, "Nels, you were born in water." He said, "This feels good," and smiled. Sometimes I simply can't believe I'm allowed to spend time with them in my life. I cherish and love almost every minute.

Labels: hilarity, Nels, Sophie, tenderness

We're watching a lot of "He-Man" on YouTube around these parts. Guess what? It's really shitty. Ralph and I were appalled because as children TV viewers* He-Man was heavy, dramatic grist for our idealogical mill.

If He-Man can't entertain Ralph and I with compelling storyline and rich explorations of the dichotomy of good and evil, he sure can deliver an excellent PSA:



Do you think anyone ever had the gall to touch He-Man on his bathing suit area? Perhaps when he was merely a shy, awkward Boy Adam. And I can't help but think the last qualifier is made all the more awkward when it's your rabbi or minister who's doing the inappropriate touching.

* I grew up without a TV; I can only imagine my He-Man viewing was either at the grandparents' or with friends - but I do remember my brother and I watched some. Billy? Do you remember? Was it in the back of that van where that man touched us in the way He-Man is talking about?

Labels: geekery, hilarity, random

Today on IM a friend writes,

"8:49 i dress like a total whore."
"8:49 a homeless one."

Which reminded me of today's clip:


As I type this, a guy across the street jumps down his front steps. He's wearing tight black jeans (w/belt), poofy white sneakers, and is shirtless with a respectable amount of back hair.

I truly love living here, and I'm not being ironic or sarcastic one bit.

Labels: hilarity, HQX, random

This evening I found out that our local take-and-bake pizza place - a place that's been around forever as far as I can tell - is not long for this world. The entire set of buildings on one city block in Aberdeen have been sold and the businesses left to their own devices. My half-assed guess is they were probably paying a very low rent and now that they're forced to go seek leases in the real market, they can't survive and decide to fold tent.

With a lot of whinging I might add, which is what I've been subjected to the few times I've gone in to purchase goods from the shops in the doomed locale. For instance today I'm told I can't get sourdough crust for my pizza. I say, "Oh, you're out?" innocently enough and the proprietor looks at me like I'm, yes, fucktarded, and tells me they're discontinuing items because they won't be around for more than a couple weeks. "It's been all over the papers," he kind of scoffs, clearly disbelieving that I would be so misinformed about matters of such global importance. Now, I love the pizza at this place - it's fresh, tasty, completely unlike Papa Murphy's or any of that franchise crap, inexpensive, and familiar. But the business owner giving me shit right now? He looks like an older, stringier, scarier version of the really bad guy in Fargo (we're talking doppleganger, here). He's also Russian ("or somethin weird"), tends to the surly side, and sometimes wears snug jeans that display his genitalia with too much precision for my taste (right above the counter at eye level since he's on the tall side). So, um... yeah, it's kind of hard to buy pizza from him. Even when he's not treating me like an ass.

When I get home I tried to look the story up on The Daily World for the scoop on the business closures - but as I couldn't find it after five minutes of searching, I gave up.

I'm sad I won't get to have that sourdough crust ever again.

OT - one of the sweetest things about this story is not only the sweetness of this British lad but his teeth as well.

And dear God. If you recognize this, you know what I mean:

Labels: food, hilarity, other haters, random

We have decided we are only going to do fun things this weekend.

This morning I had the zany idea to go out to Ocean Shores' Shilo Inn for breakfast. Years and years ago we had brunch there and it was fancy so maybe I was hoping for something to bring that special feeling back (hopefully without the $16-a-plate prices). As it turned out, the brunch is actually on Sunday, while Saturdays features typical breakfast fare, the most exotic item being a "seasonal" fruit bowl (which included sour grapes and wooden strawberries, the latter of which only my children would eat) but at least we had decent coffee - and decent prices, too.

After breakfast we checked out the rather lovely large saltwater aquarium and rather dreadful (but very titsy) mermaid sculpture. Such a successful set of morning activities got Ralph so fired up he would not take no for an answer on a little enterprise he'd been talking about for years, but I'd been hoping he was kidding. He wasn't.

Now keep in mind a surrey bike looks innocuous (dorky) enough at first but it is in truth, as I found out, both extremely hard work to pedal and also feels very dangerous, as if you are going to tip over any second or fly out of control off the embankment which Ralph came close to many times and would have had not my stentorian voice (Ralph's word: "sharp", said while laughing at me) alerted this crazy man to near-disaster. Ralph mocked me our entire ride for being nervous but I knew what he didn't, that this thing was a death trap. While mid-ride he ran up to the van to get his camera, I gingerly leaned out of my side of the bike (the faggot side that had a steering wheel that steered nothing, and thank God Ralph didn't get the episode on tape where in a panic I attempted to counter his "driving" [careening] by using it) to feel that center-of-balance point. The bike stayed pointedly and solidly on all four wheels, acting like a car. But I knew better.

Of course it goes without saying that our children, ensconced in the basket in front of us, had the time of their lives. Ralph said he didn't realize until he watched his footage that I was laughing the entire time we were out at the beach (that's my mannish voice you hear in every second of that footage). Big Fun Weekend is looking like a good plan afterall.

Now, sadly, a 100% "fun weekend" plan got fucked because I had a prior commitment: see, the minute I felt slightly better after my illness I also knew I had to complete my obligation to finish a quilt for my children's school. This quilt was a sad enterprise because every thread of fabric and bit of composition had been planned out by someone else - namely, our daughter's teacher and a friendly neighborhood quilter. It was left to me (and the very vital efforts of my mother) to finish the quilt and finally, a half-hour before the auction tonight at which the item was due, drag it in, fingers bleeding but all smiles to be done, and done doing a very good job (well, except for a detail or two).

My mother and I sew very well together. I probably tease her too much, or rather talk too much shit about my superior speed in the whip stitch (I'm not kidding, I made a joke about it). But we speak our own foreign language of sewing, developed in no small part together but also refined and practiced in many ventures apart. We work well together and laugh and my dad circles in the background and wishes for our attention and makes jokes when he thinks of them. It was good times today.

This quilt is currently being auctioned off at a fundraiser and I feel a real pang that I'm not there - especially since my lovely friend Jen and her family is.

But Family Fun Weekend calls - onward!

Labels: FOO, friends, hilarity, Ralph, sewing

Billy comes over for lunch and to take some pictures. I wish we had a camera. Scratch that. I wish we'd get off our asses and scrape up the $100 to fix ours.

Small gaffe on Mama's part - so today my brother is taking pictures of Sophie and the latest two shirts I've sewn her and she says, "I want to take pictures of my bottom and punani!" and I say (without thinking), "That's called kiddie porn. And we're not going to do that." She responds crankily, "Well I want kiddie porn!"


Billy and I doubled up in silent laughter. I immediately regretted that whole conversation. But, let's just move on.


Nels, pensive. He's been like that lately. I think he's undergoing a personality change. Since it isn't in the direction of savagery, I'm happy with it.


My room, sunlit. I would say "our room" but as Ralph points out, we are sleeping along gender lines these days. Unless we can trick the kids to sleep together, which we do now and then.

P.S. I found some crystal meth on my walk to my parents' today. Yay!

Labels: birlo, hilarity, random, sewing, Sophie

(I had to watch the original to truly appreciate - I'd never seen it before).

Labels: hilarity, random

I'm in a black mood today. Correction: I was in a black mood.

This morning as my children and I came downstairs, me with a huge pile of laundry on one hip and a wailing Nels holding my other hand, I heard the distinctive sound of my daughter vomitting on the floor. You know, you know what the sound is split seconds before you identify it? For a confused moment you're thinking, Did my child pee her pants? but you already know the answer is "No", so your mind then moves on to ... damnit. Puke.

Luckily we taught Sophtie to be a champion puker long ago so she was straightened out in no time (a quick bath, two pigtails so she could vomit unhindered). And life continued on, badly. It seemed stuffy and unwelcome in the family home - like my parents no longer want us (specifically, me) here; like we all need to get out of the house but they really don't all that much so I do (sick child and all) - a visit to the library, not so bad.

Other lowlights: trouble with Ralph. Making playdough for my children's school. This fucking sucked. My brother - saintly - helped me. It involved a lot of mess and a lot of kneading and I didn't even get anything to eat out of that. Oh, and of course my daughter puking, again and again. This afternoon as I dispassionately hold back her hair, "Yeah, that looks like your ice cream and peanut butter." She pukes in the car while waiting for drive-through coffee - "luckily" in my husband's coat.

On the other hand, this evening my husband, mom, and I watched Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan and during the naked hotel / fight scene my mom and I were laughing so hard, and for so long, it was painful.

Let's hope tomorrow continues on in that vein. Okay?

Labels: family life, film, FOO, Grazdma, hilarity, illness, Sophie

In a few minutes: the family all-out for Sophie's 5th birthday party. Yay Sophie! Yesterday she received a simply lovely birthday package from her friend Olivia (daughter to my friend Abbi):


From left to right: miso pretty gum, picture of Liv, fabulous summer fisherman hat, optical illusion book, small pewter night and dinosaur card.

Thank you, Olivia!

A few minutes ago I overheard my mom turn to my dad and angrily say, "He smells like shit. Check his ass." (referring to the dog who came in for his afternoon outside dump). 10 minutes later and I am still laughing, laughing, laughing.

Labels: birthday, FOO, friends, hilarity, random

Not too timely I know, but there's my Christmas list in its entirety.

Labels: hilarity, random

Last night I asked my children if they wanted a bedtime story or a spooky story. I had never raised that query before and Sophie immediately widened her eyes: "Spooky story." The kids were silent as I ran through a couple I knew (the one with the hook hanging off the car door? I told it badly, but they got the general idea).

I decide to go off-path and tell a story about a scary tree - my hands make the creepy-looking branches and wave in the evil, cold wind. The tree snatches up children, names by request: Nels, Sophie, then Olivia. The children - trapped in the Scary Tree! Alone and frightened! I tell them Mama decides to go confront the tree; Mama gets dressed in clothes (bra, panties, two tee shirts, a long sleeve shirt, a hoodie, pants, socks, big boots, a jacket, mittens, scarf, hat) and marches out to find the tree.

[ smack! ] Sophie removes her thumb from her mouth, raises her eyebrows, and intones simply: "You're going to get yourself killed."

Note to parents: it's tough to tell spooky stories when you're stifling a laugh at the scariest part.

In today's naptime version (Nels especially likes the thought of his friend Olivia being captured and held in the tree; he has a slight crush on her I believe): the method of dispatch for the hideous deciduous villian is that Sophie finds Grandpa and asks him to take his big bus and run the tree down, thereby freeing the children. Nels, up until now completely quiet, can be silent no more:

"AND NELS RIDES THE BUS AND SOPHIE RIDES THE BUS AND OLIVIA RIDES THE BUS AND GRANDPA RIDES THE BUS AND CYNTHIA RIDES THE BUS!"

"Lower your voice!" says Sophie, in the most adult tone her duck-like register can. Ready to hear the rest of the story. Nels' eyes are filled with stars, thinking of riding in the beloved bus with all this loved ones.

Labels: hilarity, Nels, random, Sophie

We decided relatively last-minute to visit my family this week and installed ourselves in their guest room last night at 1:30 in the morning, after a long roadtrip. This morning my husband took the kids out to look at real estate. He returned earlier than we thought and the kids tromped into the living room.

"Oh, did Daddy buy a house?" my mom asks my daughter.

"No, he was teasing me," she says cheerfully. "He said I'd live in the van by myself. And I'd only eat dog biscuits and spiders."

"And then I cried a little bit." She concludes, evenly. (One might assume this is when the teasing stopped).

Ralph entrez, shamefaced we heard her testimony. Earlier this morning he deliberately terrified our son with a giant, creepy, papier-mâché black widow spider.

(Edited to add - two seconds ago, I hear my daughter ask Ralph: "Dad, are these pickles a little bit poisoned?" Should I be worried?)

Labels: hilarity, other haters, Sophie

This series of 70 pictures made my day today.

Here are some of my favorites.

Labels: hilarity, holidays, random

On my way to do bank errands and I forget the van is low on gas. Ridiculous, and I'll tell you why: just to the upper right of the driver's head, there is a cheesy computer readout that keeps you informed on a small selection of driving variables at the touch of a button - including navigational direction headed, outside temperature, gas mileage (average, trip average, and instantaneous), and - yes, miles left on the tank, including the warning, "Lo". In previous vehicles I would get a sputter, I'd look down at my gauge, say, "Shit!" and find a gas station. In this vehicle, my digital readout silently warns me incessantly, yet somehow I miss it; when the vehicle decides it's done, no splutter, no cough - the van DIES and the steering locks up. Inconvenient, no? I have run out of gas once (or less than once) in every vehicle I have owned previously; in my Ass-tro it has happened about a half dozen times. I honestly wonder at the genius of a vehicle that decides when you are out of fuel (mind you, according to the computer, not the actual gas I hear in the tank) it also decides you are not allowed to steer. Sometime someone's going to have to explain the logic to me.

No wait, belay that order. I honestly don't care.

So at the moment my vehicle dies and the steering locks up - WTF! - I grip the wheel and coast over to the shoulder, in front of the old folks' home. A quick sigh of irritation (although I don't care much, really), I grab my kids, pack them in coats, and head the block to the bank where I do my financial errands and phone my husband. He works only a couple blocks away so I ask him if he will fetch us a couple gallons of gas before meeting us for lunch (small-town life is really amazing - everything is within reasonable distance). Even though he'd planned to meet us anyway, I know in his busy schedule he's going to be irritated with this fifteen-minute detour. The kids and I head back to the van, I buckle them in, and we watch as Ralph pulls up to the parking lot across the street, gas can in hand.

"Daddy's mad at Mama," I say to the kids. We watch him get out of the car. He doesn't look mad, but I'm finding this funny.

"Why?" asks my daughter.

"Because I let the van run out of gas and now he has to help us. He's mad. Maybe he'll smack Mama."

I hear the pause in my daughter's thoughts - a mind that usually rattles along at a brisk clip. The possibility of Daddy whacking Mama? A beat, then she says decisively, "No he won't."

Nels: "In the face."

I turn and look. He is smiling.

Labels: family life, hilarity, Nels

I have decided we either need to, Plan A, have one more blond and perfect baby - then sell it. Or, Plan B (because I think Plan A is illegal and I know it's problematic due to my husband's lack of fertility), find a way to downsize our life. And by "downsize our life" I mean get rid of a vehicle (my husband's job requires him to travel so we probably will keep one for now), move into something smaller and out of town (perhaps the family vehicle!), this more modest abode maybe even requiring us to crap in a bucket and collect rainwater (Thanks K and T for your great ideas the other night!), and live like hippie scum.

My reasons are too myriad and tiresome (to me at least) to list here, and are not entirely financial. Although I wonder what it is about us Hogabooms that we can neither spend and live "within our means" like so many virtuous folk seem to do (or at least, like I'm led to believe they do), nor accept a high level of credit card debt like so many less virtuous (but arguably more typical) folk seem to do.

I can do it, though. I can do anything. If I can squat on the floor of my home and push out a baby, if I can convert my toddler and new baby to cloth diapers and be soaked in piss for two weeks as I figure it all out, if I can stop feeling sad I have crappy secondhand clothes and stinky four-year-old dyke martens, if I can accept the transition of working professional engineer to Houswife Nobody, if I can live with going from two incomes and no kids to two kids and one income, than I can surely go through all my stuff, cry real tears to let it go, and move into some goddamn shack. Can I live without a daily shower, without clean laundry, and without, dear God, without my Mac? I don't really see how. But perhaps it is my fate.

I don't know how to do it. I only know I (we) can. Except for thinking of living without my Mac. Anyway, I am this close to outfitting our van as a half-assed camper and parking somewhere.

Tonight my husband and I were gifted with tickets (ala his workplace) for "Dinner and A Murder" - the first annual - a $50 per plate benefit that, yes, involved a murder play "whodunit". Which I'm proud to say I cracked the code for and came up with half the theory, and was only led astray because a member of the cast fucked up and LIED to our sleuthing group, but that's another story. Unfortunately - in front of respected members of my husband's employer, I said something about Ralph's butt looking good in his pants - please understand I had not a drop of alcohol - and although I got some shocked looks, then uproarious laughter, and although I apologized for my random sexual harassment, I couldn't help feeling like the girl I was several years ago had channelled herself through me but at least my tablemates seemed to like her.

Labels: burnout, family life, hilarity, i'm a hater, party animal

Yesterday I invented a game whereby Sophie and I took turns pelting eachother with this horrific-looking and very realistic ape-like stuffed animal (our friend Neil got this for her, inexplicably, for her first birthday). She is laughing so hard she tells me she has to stop so she doesn't pee her pants. She throws the monkey at me as hard as I can yet I catch it; she collapses onto the couch in an astonishingly small bundle. But I nail her with it, everytime. She screams, 90% pure glee, 5% terror, and 5% anger that I am Mama and more powerful and it will be this way for as long as she lives. Her telescoping strategy proving ineffective, she begins throwing the monkey at me then scrambling as fast as she can behind the couch. Where I of course corner her and send the creature missle-like directly down the cave she has sequestered herself in.

After dinner that night the monkey somehow re-emerges and the game starts again. After a few rounds Sophie hightails it downstairs, in fits of nervous giggles. Upstairs the family and our dinner guest settle a bit, while I tuck the monkey into the arm of the chair, fully planning revenge when she comes back upstairs. She stays in the other room and I cajole her to come out. Ten minutes go by and finally I say,

"Sophie... Sophie! Come on. I won't throw the monkey anymore. I promise. I won't throw it."

A pause, then a cautious sing-song:

"Well, it kind of seems like you wi-ill... !"

Labels: hilarity, Sophie

Today I went to our County Library which has a very lovely preschooler story hour. There were so many friends and acquaintances there. Unfortunately for whatever reputation I may have, and for my own piece of mind, my kids were fucking savages while we were there. Nels sat for exactly two minutes, then wandered around fondling Mamas' asses (accidentally, I hope), then found some wooden cars and skateboarded on them (quite well, actually. I may have to buy him a real skateboard). Sophie was great (if a little hyper) until the other parents and kids filed out of the room at the end of the event and she stopped in her tracks and yelled, "They're leaving without me!" and threw her head back and her mouth opened into a big square and she HOWLED at the top of her lungs. I guess she wasn't ready for fun-time to be over.

Hours later while at home I noticed she wasn't wearing panties under her skirt. I wonder how many of the couple dozen PT Mama friends there today got an eyeful of Sophie's punani.

These things made me laugh today:


Whoops!

and Me loves the Steve Carell. So much.

Labels: hilarity, humiliation, random potty-mouth

"Via con Dios, El 'Faggot'!"

Labels: fags, hilarity