Tiny waistlines

Ok, so I'm watching the Disney channel, again, with the sound off and I have ZERO clue what show this is but the chicks in this animated debacle have the fabled "wasp waists." What up wit dat? OH OH! No wait, the nerdy chick group has straight as a plank figures. Apparently they are in high school or somesuch, and what I'm discerning is that the cool chicks have Barbie bods and the losers have Skipper bods. Remember Skipper? She was way too tall for a 10 year old.

Anyway, I've decided that I'm going to review the shorts they play on the Disney channel. No one asked me to, I don't make money off it, but I need to get my biased opinions out somehow so here goes:

Emily Yeung--
Emily is a spot that lasts maybe 3 full minutes. Tomorrow I'll time it. In her spots, Emily, who appears to be 8 or 9, learns lots of things by going on mini field trips. Today she went to a pioneer village and learned how to make bread. Emily is VERY precocious, and asked a lot of adult questions that I'm certain were NOT on flash cards behind the camera. She made whole wheat bread, and pioneer chick made white. They baked together in perfect harmony. Emily also got to meet an elderly Clydesdale who I'm certain was NOT being put to use pulling plows being that he was only one of two horses in the "pioneer village."

I actually really dig these shorts because Emily gives me hope that my super nerdy to be kid won't necessarily get the tar beaten out of her, and in fact might end up being seen every morning on some channel like Discovery Kids.

Redneck Pool Filling

Sleep

Ok, all of you are probably aware that we (meaning me and the child, not DH) are not sleeping. This has gone WAY beyond the time when one expects to not be sleeping with a "newborn." I mean honestly, the kid is practically playing field hockey already.

So she's been waking up every 1/2 hour recently. By recently I mean the prior four nights to last night. Last night I gave up. I rocked her to sleep and was holding her. I needed to scratch my itchy tick bites. I made to scratch. SHRIEK. Ok, fine. I'll sit here in misery, hoping this colossal itch doesn't indicate that the baby tick injected puppy serum into my abdomen and giant wolf hound babies are getting ready to erupt.

She finally got to sleep and I moved her into her travel crib. I went to bed 15 minutes later on the sofa. 2 hours later the fiend awakened. I got her, rocked her back to sleep, put her back in her travel crib. Went back to bed on the sofa after eating a yogurt because that rocking back to sleep? Took ONE FUCKING HOUR.

3 hours later she woke again. Got her out, rocked her back to sleep. Put her back in her travel crib. Went back to sleep on the sofa.

2 hours later, again. By this time it was after 6am and I figured WTF and got up and made coffee. I walked over, handed her the bottle in her crib, and by God went and made coffee and took the dogs out. I walked back into the house to find her lying on her side, drinking formula, watching the Disney channel. And lest anyone imagine otherwise, no, I turned the TV on for her before I walked away. She's only managed to chew on the remote and switch the language to French so far.

I'm back!!!!

So for over a week Safari wouldn't recognize the web address for me to update my blog here. Whatever. It's working now, and so far this is my only bad experience as a Mac owner. I'll take it.

I got bitten by a tick this past week; we bought an inflatable pool that's supposed to be 15x3 ft, but currently due to a sloping yard is only maybe 13x2 ft. Being rednecks in training, in order to keep the pool upright we wedged the lawn mower handle under one side to keep the water in.

OH!!!!! We have DVR now. This is VERY exciting. I actually got to see most of LOST yesterday evening. Until the Diva started shrieking. We'll finish the episode tonight.

What else?

Let's see, I went shopping last weekend with Xris and her cousin Taylor. For makeup. I have no money. I was manic. So I spent Xris's money for her. Let me tell you, for a manic depressive, spending someone else's money is just as good, and in a way I'll get to enjoy the fruit of the shopping spree because I'll get to watch Xris enjoying it. That's a perk. I had a BLAST chucking stuff at her to buy, but alas I couldn't talk her into the $90 Steve Madden Richh pumps just yet. I did spend time froogling them yesterday and found them on sale from $75-$80 in various online locations, and I think she needs them. Yesterday even. I mean, LOOK at them! How hot are those???? EVERY woman needs a hot pair of peeptoe pumps.

A rebuttal (and this is for YOU Xris...)

My best friend recently complained that I used her to test my mother for shortness in my kitchen last week. Granted, I did. I know how tall Xris is, and I couldn't very well stand back to back with my mom and SEE how much bone loss she's experienced. Also, it's easier for me to judge how much larger something is than something else rather than the opposite. Shut up. I know what you're thinking...

In her complaint Xris listed all of the great things about being wee.

She's right. So now I'm going to list the suckass things about being tall.

---As a child my mom almost always cut my head off in photos. There are loads of cute pictures of an adolescent torso in my photo albums.

---Jean shopping sucks. Do you remember the kid's size "slim fit?" They don't make those for adults. And even if they did, they'd be too fucking short.

---Speaking of, in school, due to the rapidity of growth, every shithead short kid asked me when the flood was coming. Har de fucking har.

---Speaking of, at Jr High dances, no one would dance with me because I towered over their Munchkin heads. It had nothing to do with the fact that I was a spaz.

---It SUCKS to always have to get shit down for people. Somedays at the shelter I was tempted to just pick up this itty bitty co-worker I had and just throw her at the upper cabinets to get her own damn sticky notes. No Mondy, not you.

---Speaking of, when you walk past cabinets in the cat room and suddenly a cat that was hiding on TOP of the cabinets reaches down and grabs your head with his claws, that sucks too.

---Tree branches.

There's more, but the kid just woke up.

Time to turn in my ovaries

Especially since I'm done with them.

I was leaving Food Lion today, pushing the kid in the shopping cart, and watched a pickup truck pull in. It was a painting truck, and the bed was full of gear. It was also the most awesome 4-Door Frontier. Ever. I drive a pipsqueak 2-Door Frontier. I approached the driver and said, "What year is that?" He said, "2003." I told him I liked the body style and he agreed that the old style was better than the new. I asked him what his mileage is without payload, and he told me it had been so long he had no clue.

So. I'm turning in my ovaries. Whoever calls dibs can have them.

Time for a drink

You know the world is hopelessly fucked when you witness two crows beating the shit out of a turkey vulture.

I shit you not. I thought the cardinals and sparrows were bad. I chalked it up to males and springtime. This was out of control. I stepped outside in time to see two crows in pursuit of a turkey vulture, pecking at him mid-flight. I assume the issue was whose carrion was whose. I honestly didn't care. What I did care about was that one of them managed to chase the vulture into a tree and start whaling on him. Now, you need to understand that a crow is roughly 8 times smaller than a vulture at full wingspan, and their beaks are probably 15 times smaller. I'm out there screeching, "You pussy! Turn around and snap his head off!" The vulture was standing in a tree like a girl lifting her skirts, shrieking, while this crow whomped his ass. Finally, the vulture attempted escape, and tried a low flight across Six Forks Road. In rush hour. A woman talking on her cell phone looked up at JUST the moment the vulture crossed in front of her windshield and nearly plotzed. I could see her face. She didn't hit him, but she did manage to aid his escape by providing a barrier between the pursuing crow and the vulture.

I finished my cigarette and went inside.

Bubba-

Nothing funny here

Just some observations.

I'm dreading my child becoming mobile. And sure, part of it is because I'll be moving non-stop to keep up with her, but most of it is because she won't be attached to me anymore. My role as momma-monkey with a baby clinging on will end. She's already preferring to feed herself with her bottle, and she already hates being cradled "like a baby," so this will be one more way for her to pull away from me. The moment she takes her first step, which all signs indicate will be fairly soon, will be harder on me than her first day at school I think. She sits in her highchair or stands in her walker eating Cheerios, bottle in front of her, and pretty much ignores me unless she wants to be somewhere else. As soon as she can get there on her own, well, I think I'll go have a drink and flip through the electronic photo album of her wee-ness and sob like a soap star.

That's my girl...

Yesterday Livvie attempted to dive headfirst off of the bed onto the floor. Only my Gatito like reflexes saved her ass. Then, when we were out at lunch, she grabbed a napkin and managed to chew off and swallow a small corner before I could get it away from her. THEN, last night, she was sitting in her swing, swinging her bottle around like a drunken pirate, and she bonked herself in the eyebrow with it, leaving a small bruise. Hysterics ensued. I informed her the mark would fade, but clumsiness lasts a lifetime.

*cough*spraypaintballoon*cough*

This doesn't include the myriad number of times yesterday that she just bonked her head on whatever wasn't moving.

Yep, that's my girl.

The Double Standard

Why is it ok for guys to talk about gross things but they wig when chicks do? That said, if any guys are reading this STOP READING NOW.

So the Today Sponge is back on the market and I loved it in my early 20s so I bought some. I had the opportunity to use one last night (yay me!) and after the nasty is performed you're supposed to leave it in for several hours to be certain all stragglers are dead. This morning I woke up and had 2 cups of coffee, and then eventually the coffee did its job. I went into the bathroom and sat down and unfortunately had my wee'un in the room with me. I have no choice these days. So I'm sitting there, going about my bidness, and know what? After childbirth things really DO change in the Netherlands. The sponge shot out of me and bounced off the toilet rim and then bounced off the bathtub and landed next to my daughter on the floor. I had to lunge for it, ass in the wind, before the kid could grab it and start teething on it. Nowhere in the instructions is it mentioned that this form of birthcontrol can be applied as a projectile weapon.

Also, I'm back on psych meds. I'm on an Anatypical Antipsychotic called Risperdal. In the VERY long list of possible side effects it mentions that it can increase the levels of Prolactin in the blood. Prolactin is the hormone that causes women to lactate. My ever loving husband declared that I'd better not lactate on him, so I keep running around the house squeezing my girls at him making "Skishskishskish" sounds. He finds this disgusting, but it makes me laugh, and hey, that's all that matters at this point.

It's Springtime

When young birds' fancies turn to thoughts of ass-whomping.

Earlier I went on the back deck to smoke and saw three male cardinals engaged in a turf war. It went on for quite some time, and took up most of our back yard. Eventually they flew off in pursuit of each other into the next yard. I thought the excitement was over. Until I saw two male sparrows tumble out of a tree engaged in actual fisticuffs. They landed in a leaf pile, and were pecking and screeching and squeaking like crazy. Feathers were actually flying. I hopped off the deck, walked over, leaned over them and yelled, "HEY!!!!!!!" and they flew to corners.

It was an odd morning.



Wrong Sparrow. Too Bad.....

Thanks a lot, Meth Heads

It's March in North Carolina. Specifically, it's Pollen Time in North Carolina. When I moved here 12 years ago it totally fucked me up. I was a mess for years. 3 or 4 of them. Eventually, I got used to it. Luckily, I had tested as NOT being allergic to pine, because this is pine:



That's the accumulation since yesterday afternoon. However, I really haven't had too much trouble in years. Until today. My face feels like it's about to split open, letting loose that annoying bowler wearing mucus dude from the commercials. My teeth hurt, the pressure is so bad. All I could think was, crap. Do NOT let me get a sinus infection. So off to Kmart I went to buy Claritin-D. Yep, that's right, the only thing left that still contains actual Sudafed. This meant that not only did I have to present my driver's license, but I also had to sign my life away. For sinus meds. As I was signing I said, "This is so retarded." and the lady at the counter said, "yes it is." I said, "the new stuff doesn't work," and she said, "It sucks."

So thanks to a handful of morons, innocent, law abiding people have to record exactly what meds they're buying and when.

Fuckwads.

Shut up You Stupid Twat

Can I use the T word here? I guess we'll find out.

So I was eating a yogurty bar thing and all of a sudden my brain formed the phrase, "Shut up You Stupid Twat." This naturally led me to wonder what kind of a day my best friend is having at work. I got the feeling that since I wasn't engaging in any type of discourse with anyone that she might have been dealing with her moronic co-worker and her internal venom was so overwhelming that it traveled 9 miles down Six Forks Rd and whomped me in the head. THIS led me to decide that each and every one of us should be granted one Shut up You Stupid Twat per year. With this (and you'd have to make sure you used it wisely) all of us would be exempt from any repercussions from using the phrase when dealing with the truly lame. So, best friend is listening once again to complaining, bottom feeding co-worker and can take no more and lets loose. Since she's using the freebie, and would present a card at time of utterance, Bottom Feeder is obliged to look contrite and say, "Okay," and leave. Let's face it, how many of us wouldn't love this?

So after my yogurty bar thing I went outside to smoke and saw a Jeep Wrangler drive past. It's being engaged in the service of the post office, which is a bummer, because while I watched it go by I decided that if I had super powers I'd have launched myself the 200 feet and pulled the driver out and stolen the Jeep for said best friend. I mean, why would anyone press a Jeep into civil service? It's unseemly. Unfortunately because it had sticky letters on it that said, "U.S. MAIL" I would have committed a felony and ended up doing hard time.

So, since I can't steal her a Jeep to make her day better I will take this moment to utter the phrase she so badly wants to use on the Bottom Feeder. "Shut up You Stupid Twat."

Here's my card.

How to lose an argument with your husband

Snark at him, "Yeah? Well I'm not privy to what makes your mind work."

Apparently "privy" isn't used that often these days.

Today was NOT the day

Dear Suave-

Fuck off. That's right, fuck off. You know your new commercial about the percentage of women who "let themselves go" after becoming mothers? It sucks. Do you know why it sucks? It's because you seem to think that a bottle of shampoo that costs a couple of bucks will suddenly turn a haggard and harried 8 month pregnant mother with two children already into a frigging supermodel. Do you know what will turn a mom without a full time childcare staff into a supermodel? Nothing. That's right, not one fucking thing. Know what might get her close? Rozerem. But Rozerem chooses to show chess playing beavers in their ads. I have a bottle of your shampoo in my shower. Know what? I haven't used it in three days. That's right, three fucking days. My pits are growing enough hair to get me into a Phish concert for a flash of the titties and a beer. Here's an idea, maybe I should use that miracle shampoo in my pits. The closest I've gotten to a shower was last night when it was raining and I had to take the dogs out and I had a split second of considering taking the shampoo outside with me.
And since my child is screaming her head off again today, it looks like we'll be approaching day 4 without a shower. So you can bite me.

Proof That Canada Hates Us...

I've managed to keep my child away from PBS because of an overwhelming Barney anxiety that I developed in the 90s when my cousin's son was a toddler and the only way we could get him to eat his salad was to tell him the purple cabbage was Barney and the lettuce was Baby Bop.

So we watch the Disney Channel. Her favorites are The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Little Einsteins. Little Einsteins isn't too offensive. They find themselves in great peril every episode, but through teamwork and a fairly high tech rocket ship for pre-schoolers to pilot, everything always works out well. I'm disturbed that I know all the words to the theme song, but the show keeps Livvie happy, so that's great. (As a matter of fact, as I type this a giant flower just ejected a harpsichord out of itself, so maybe it's more disturbing than originally thought...) However, the Disney Channel is also home to The Doodlebops, which is where Canada comes in. For every Michael J Fox they send us they also dump someone like Priceline's Whore, William Shatner. They've inflicted my home with the Doodlebops. I don't think I've ever encountered a more annoying half hour of television. Here they are in their costumes: I used to be able to change the channel and Livvie never even noticed. However, one day I couldn't get to the remote in time and the kid was fascinated. They're now a daily staple, and I'm even more disturbed to find that I know the lyrics to their songs too. I know when to holler, "Don't pull the rope!" to Moe, the yellow Doodlebop, and I know that he's always hiding at the start of every episode. So. At least it isn't Teletubbies, right?

In retrospect, I have to admit that I had some odd choices of favorite shows as a kid. Absolute favorite of all time was Da Man, Ultraman. I religiously watched every episode. As a four year old my very first crush of all time was on Shin Hayata, the dude who turned into Ultraman. To this day I have a deep love for sexy Asian men, and I think it's Hayata's fault. Bastard. I also loved The Space Giants (are you sensing a theme here?) and watched every episode of this until it got canceled too. So I sit here and wonder if 'tis better to love singing popsicle colored doofuses or giant rubber monsters. And why did it take me 36 years to realize that Japan clearly hates us more than Canada?

Babies Are Not Bling

Ok, it's been enough months now that I think I can get off my ass and start doing this again. Usually the reason I stop writing is because life gives me something metaphorically shiny that distracts me, and in this case the shiny object is my daughter. Which brings me to the title of this entry.



Know what pisses me off? Movie stars (or anyone) having babies and treating them as accessories. My latest pizz is the Jolie-Pitts, because GOD KNOWS they needed another frigging kid to tote around when their own child is only almost a year old. I know they have the money. That's what pisses me off. Having scads of children (or worse, just one) because you have the money for a frigging nanny. An ex-boss of mine got her comeuppance when she squirted out twin daughters with a nanny waiting in the wings, and one child had a birth defect that required she take time off from work anyway to trot said infant to NYC because by all that's holy we certainly don't have any good doctors in the City of Medicine that's located in the adjoining county.

I secretly suspect that the only reason women aren't purchasing oversized diaper bags and toting their infants around in them like chihuahuas is because of that pesky bit where infants can't support their own heads. I also suspect that someone is attempting to invent a harness for the interior of diaper bags which will allow the above to actually happen.

In fact, the reason I resisted "wearing" my daughter while out in public for so long was because I had seen so many granola-bar women doing this and my first thought was always of Ms Hilton and her ratdog. It pains me to say that Livvie loves being worn when we're out shopping, but that was before she discovered the joy of the shopping cart seat.

As far as accessorizing, the fact that I suck at being a girl was driven home this afternoon when I put actual clothing on Livvie. It's an outfit that Rich's mom sent her, and I figured she should wear it at least once. It's black velvet pants and a red peplum shirt with a scotty dog on it. It has black velvet cuffs and collar. And I was wearing....Levi's, a faded brown t-shirt, and 3 year old Tevas. And I left my child barefoot. Screw you, Church Ladies. And you know the type I mean. Nasty old biddies can't mind their own beeswax.....

What a sap...

So yesterday I was out on the deck filling litter boxes and I looked over into the next door neighbor's driveway and saw a small kitten very close to the road. Cars were whizzing past like crazy. I panicked, because the baby was asleep in the house, and I had no idea how I was going to manage this one. I stared a few moments and then ran inside. I grabbed the baby and put her in the bedroom, praying she wouldn't wake up and start screaming. I crated the dogs, and then grabbed every cat I could find and then put them in the back bedroom. I then put on shoes and ran next door, only to be ready and willing to rescue a large pine cone.

That pine cone could have been in serious danger you know.

I think I should start wearing my glasses regularly.

And another piece of my past bites the dust

http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061010/BUSINESS/610100333

I started working at Tower Records in 1990, and worked there until 1992. I helped build this store before it opened. We put racks together, stocked all of the shelves, and told a lady to go away when she walked into the middle of the construction and asked if we sold batteries. Um, hello, do you or do you not hear hammering and see sawdust?

This was the store that said, on all of its printed invoices, that we were open 368 days a year. We always wondered where the other 3 days were. We could account for leap years, but what about the other 2 days?

This was the store where, one night in late December at 11:45pm, a woman approached me and asked me if we would have extended holiday hours. I asked her since we were open until midnight every day anyway, what the fuck did she want?

One day in mid-summer the management team (of which I was a member) bought a bunch of water pistols at Kiddie City next door and ran around the back employee area squirting the daylights out of each other. I thought I would be smart and run into a closet to hide. My general manager locked me in.

We had a kid named Omar Hassan who worked in the classical department, and he was going to school to become an engineer. He brought falafel with him for dinner one night, his mom packed his dinners for him, and I walked in to find him eating a small container of plain yogurt with a spoon. He was making faces, and he told me that for some reason his mom had sent yogurt for dinner. I told him the yogurt was supposed to go on the falafel. He was amazingly embarrassed. I adored Omar. I'll never forget how he had no idea how to use a manual can opener, and how he was so ticklish that you could stand in another room and make tickle motions at the window and he would collapse into giggles.

And this is where my friend Mike, bass player extraordinaire and ex-love of my life, has worked for over 15 years, and I wonder what the hell he'll do now.

A Dingo Ate My Rice Sock

Well, Ginny ate the rice anyway.
I made a rice sock for Livvie's belly today. She's had tummy issues for the past couple of days, and other than the glycerin suppositories, which I'll get to in a minute, all I could think of was to make her a rice sock. I decided to do this in the living room, since that's where the baby was. I naturally got rice all over the floor. And Ginny, who will eat Anything That Is Not Celery, snarfed up every grain she could find. Still is, because I'm too freaking tired to haul out the Dyson.

Back to the suppositories. Yay, right? Poor Livvie was constipated. Constipated infants are NOT happy, and hence NO ONE is happy. I sent my sweet, wonderful husband to the drug store where he purchased infant sized suppositories. He brought them home, and I proceeded to do the hardest thing I've ever done, which was deliberately make my daughter uncomfortable. Granted, the result was wonderful, she's happy, we're happy, everything is quiet now, but for about 3 minutes there I felt like Mengele.