Tuesday, July 29

RIP Pink and Purple Rainbow, aka Floaty the Fish

Yeah, he's floating in that big bowl in the sky.

I am so going to hell, where I will be tossed in a big slotted spoon over a lake of fire.

That is all.

Sunday, July 27

Oh, the horror....

I am the great Satan of the fishbowl.

I may have finally killed Floaty.

Today we went to the Japanese Obon Festival.

My favorite quotes from Little O?

"Mama, why are there so many Japanese people here?"

As the traditional dancers were up on stage, she leans over and says,

"Mama, this is NOTHING like "I survived a Japanese Game show."

Little O actually got the coolest gimmicky prize ever--a fortune telling fish. It's a little red cellophane fish that dances on your hand. I wish they offered those at Chuck E Cheese instead of one more plastic ring I'm going to step on in the middle of the night. This thing is cool!

If only we had stopped there.

The horror came when Little O actually GOT the frigging ping pong ball into the bowl.

Fish in a bag, anyone?

shit...

So I looked it up on line, and it says that goldfish and bettas can peacefully co-exist. Great! I dropped our non-descript silver-white-see thru goldie into the bowl and it seemed fine. For a while. But the goldie started freaking out trying to swim through the glass and THAT excited Floaty, and it became apparent that Goldie was not going to live long and prosper.

We decided to put Floaty into the wee small bowl we use for cleaning until a different bowl could be purchased for Goldie, but the damned fish net had disappeared. I'm sure it will show up at some point as the catapult in some Littlest Pet Shop of Horrors scenario, but Little O swears she has no knowledge of its whereabouts.

Friends, using a slotted spoon to catch a fish is a bad idea even in expert hands.

In the hands of a klutz, it is, apparently, a deadly weapon. My pretty pretty betta flopped right out of the slotted spoon, onto the entertainment center, then onto the floor. In my hysteria, I dropped him/her again on the way up to the temporary housing.

I have stated repeatedly that I'm not much of a pet lover, but sweet lord tiny baby jeebus, I hope this fish lives. The goldfish? meh. But my pretty Pink and Purple Rainbow Floaty, please forgive me for trying to spike you into the berber. Twice.

**************************

To cap off our evening of horror, Little O just ran smack into the back of our breakfast nook, splitting her bottom lip right open and giving her upper lip that nice swollen/bee sting look.

School starts Tuesday.

Sweet.

Saturday, July 26

Amazing stuff.



This is where our money should be going. The money that is going to corrupt contractors and fat cat back room accquaintances of Dubya and Dick.

Go watch the video of this amazing
set up.

Thursday, July 24

I'll buy THAT for a dollar!

Can you tell me what movie that's from?

As the mother of a long haired five year old girl, I gotta tell you, I suck. I don't know how those Mexican mamas get those laser sighted parts in their daughters' hair. My poor girl is the frizzy braided, slightly off center one in the class pictures. I'm sure all of her teachers suspect I'm a drunk. But my one ray of hope has been the dollar store. You kind of have to dig for them, but they have some cute clippies and pins and things, and I can buy enough of them that it's okay when Little O loses them all.

(I kind of picture her on the playground like the witch that chased bugs bunny, hairpins flying. Crows must love her. )


On slow days, I'll wander the REST of the dollar store, and my goal is to someday be able to compose an entire blog post like this:



Easy to be dry after delegating
no peculiar smell
becteria are hard to live.

So very true.....


******************

On a side note, I'm geeked out that Annie left me a comment, because of all the things in the blogosphere that I covet? One of Annie's buttons for the Gaggle of Whiny Whores is at the top. I love that she posts the code and lets you claim it if you want it, but I fear that I just don't have the chops to put one on my blog--Dog knows I've got the whiny thing down, but I think I found her through IT2M, and I was waaaaay too chicken to ever toy with them. I like my paperthin ego intact!

But I think the Gaggle of Whiny Whores is much better suited to me than the Thinking Blogger ever was....

;)

Tuesday, July 22

WTF Wednesday--or why pacifiers are not the worst thing you can do to your kid.

So I belong to an online forum/advice thang with different moms asking for advice in a daily emailed newsletter. It totally paid off when I discovered sunflower-nut butter in place of peanut butter (Allergic) for the Honey. I think giving him back PB&J's in some form or another will ultimately trump his big fat surprise party as the best gift of his fortieth year. He eats one every.single.day. for breakfast.

Now on this forum, moms run the gamut. Some are dumb as a box of rocks, some are literally rocket scientists. I think overall everyone provides supportive comments and that encourages hesitant moms to ask questions that they really need help with.

mmmkay. I've given you my touchy feely supportive spiel. Now let me get down to it.

The question was about weaning her three (almost four) year old from the breast.

I had a miserable time trying to BF Big O. It hurt enough to make me cry and devastated me that I had to give it up at three months because I would sob through the whole feeding--have we met? Because I don't really DO that kind of drama. I wanted what was THE.VERY.BEST. for my beautiful boy. I felt like a failure.

When Little O came along, it was such a breeze I thought someone had replaced my nipples in my sleep. Because these worked MUCH better. As much as I loved nursing her, at about 7 months, when I had to go back to my job, I gradually switched over to the bottle. There was no guilt, because my beautiful boy was fine. So was my beautiful girl. I made the choices that worked the best for me in my life. Really, I think that's the way it should be for us all. Had my schedule and life allowed for a longer time on the breast, I would absolutely have done it--until my kids could ask for it by name. But again, my choice, my life. Whatever floats your nipply boat, man (ma'am).

The email in this forum explained that her husband and his family were mad at her about dragging it out, and so her husband refused to help her in the weaning process, telling her she had made her bed. She had her kid down to the bedtime booby, but it was beginning to hurt her. Oh, did I forget to mention that her milk stopped about three months ago?

Three months ago?

What the fuck?

Am I just completely insensitive to the la leche movement? Can that possibly be standard practice? CRSE, help me out here--will you be seeing this boy in his later years? Of course I mean aside from the dicky daddy who seems a terrible match for granola and homeschool earth momma, but she's been dry for THREE MONTHS!?

Just ew.

********************************

I tried. I really did. I wasn't going to touch it with a ten foot pole. but it's been spinning through my head since it showed up in my email on Monday, and I couldn't blog about anything else until I got it out of my system.

Thursday, July 17

'Member when you were little?

I can remember playing Starsky & Hutch with Kevin Anderson and whoever the boy was with the silky brown prince valiant haircut.  When I got tired of being a dumb girl in need of rescue, I'd make them switch to Wonder Woman so I could rescue them (hey- My mom kicked ass and took names--She gave me the gift of never being the silly helpless female).
 
As yet another Quinceanera practice dragged on yesterday, Little O and her cousin Big A were playing.
 
What were they playing? 
 
Dora and CSI.
 
Awesome.

Tuesday, July 15

***warning** this is a three page pity party. Proceed at your own risk.



I want a vacation. I want out of my own skin.

I am clinging to my computer these days, desperately sending everyone to bed so I can have five minutes of "me" time.

Everybody wants a little piece of me.

The kids are HOME all day. When I get home they are all over me. The Honey wants my attention once he gets home. My sweet elderly landlady flagged me down as I was late to work the other day, had me park and get out and come inside her house--I thought she had some sort of emergency--no, just a present for the Honey. The Honey's family has us going over two or three nights a week for Big O to practice for the Quinceanera, and it lasts ALL NIGHT. We need to take the MIL out on weekends. I can't even hide in the bathroom, Little O will just talk thru the door.

Work is playing a big part in my restlessness. My boon fishbowl companion, Bre, has gotten the lateral job change she has pined for (because she really doesn't like customers, which is rough for a customer service rep). New girl came in, and took her spot.

I am socially retarded on my good days. I can get along with anyone, but finding someone that gets me is rare. Bre was one of those people, and now she's gone to the back office. Kim was another and she moved away (Yay, Kim!), and this is not the first time Bre has gone to a different part of the office. I know that playing the "She's not Bre" game is a losing prospect.

I'll adjust. I will.

However.

You know that sensation of just not connecting? Like you're playing catch, lobbing the silly playground ball back and forth, and all of a sudden you see that giant leather medicine ball coming for you, and you just watch it hit the ground, and rather than picking it up you both just blink and watch it as the uncomfortable silence grows? That's a lot of my day. Oh, except that I'm training new girl, we're short staffed, and several of the jobs that I used to marvel at Bre doing have been *ahem* gifted to me. Due to various IT issues, I am the only one in the office that can do things that are normally available to any CSR, so those are getting dropped in my in box. I'm waiting for the lecture about my cluttered desk. With a new girl parked right next to me? I'm always ON. Sigh.

And Bre is gone. And both of the new girls have more motherfucking internet access than me.

Blogher is this weekend. Several of my bloggy idols are there. It would be fun.

And yet...

The folks I adore and would love to meet? Not gonna be there. None of them have even mentioned Blogher, and aren't really the folks who would. My own lack of social skills would have me lurking behind potted plants the whole time, afraid to move. I am painfully, pathologically shy in situations like that.

But it won't be this close to me again for a long time. I adore the bloggy community as a whole, a group based on words and humor (and frequently their kids). These are all things that are vital and interesting to me. Most of the folks at work or in my life would just blink at me like I'd just dropped a big medicine ball in the middle of the room if I said the word blog. (Except for my brother, who totally ratted me out on the whole ice cream maker thing--thanks, Jeffro!)

Sweet Jeebus, if I weren't playing Scrabulous with my best Jen, I'd have gone postal weeks ago. Did I mention that everyone is going on vacation? yeah, that's why we're short at work. My daddi-o even left for FIJI this morning to go build a church--three weeks of slave labor in exchange for a fourth week of glorious snorkeling, and it's tax deductable! I just wanna go to my mom's for a four day weekend, man, but gas prices suck ass too.

What would the flying spaghetti monster say? Maybe I'll entertain myself tomorrow by trying to throw in a few pirate phrases on the phone. The problem is when I start thinking in pirate speak, I sort of wander into some weird leprechaun on crack accent. Like the lucky charms guy after a three day bender. What can I say? It's a gift...

Monday, July 14

Shut.Up.



So my very dear bloggy sister CRSE and I have noticed a certain cosmic sync in the brainwaves. This may impress you, this may scare the hell out of you--depends on if you have to live with us, I suspect.

I sent her latest stroke of genius over to Blogtations (even though what I reeeeally want is for them to make a category just for her categories--Sheer brilliance, I tell ya). Blogtations, of course, saw the light and posted her quote. Here's where the cosmic tin-can telephone thing comes in.

CRSE was inspired to publish for the bloggy world her second-grade prize winning poem about the noble giraffe. I happen to have a giraffe in my purse. How many times can you say that in your life? I happened to have a giraffe in my purse. It was given to me by a very earnest 8 year old last night.

Frrrrreaky.

Saturday, July 12

Beautiful, Man.



I found this over at The Sir Marco Letters, which is yet another blog found through the one true original blog-stalkee, Jen at Casual Slack.

Still lovin' the Slack.

If the person who made that video has a blog, I'd be lovin them, too,

Wednesday, July 9

I'm not a Doctor,


...But I play one on TV.

Okay, I don't play one on TV either. I don't even play Doctor with the Honey. He doesn't like them--But he's had a sharp pain off and on in his stomach for the last few days. Call a Dr.? Never!

He doesn't even want me to call my parents (nurses, both of 'em).

So I took it upon myself to help him the best I could last night, by singing him to sleep with every "Doctor" song I could think of. If you are going to whine and complain about how you feel but won't do anything about it, I have free reign to annoy the ever living shit out of you until you grow up and do something about it--preferably the pain, not my singing, that is.

So we sang Robert Palmer's "Doctor Doctor", along with the "Witch Dr" song by the Chipmunks, and I thought I was going to sing the doctor line from "Life in the Fast Lane" by the Eagles, but what came out was the line from Hotel California. I ended my serenade of purposeful stupidity and callous indifference with that old Harry Nilsson favorite, "Lime in the Coconut"--Little O, again having spent too much time with her Brother and Guitar Hero, turned that last Doc-tor! into something that would not have been out of place in an Iron Maiden song, complete with air microphone and one hand thrown straight up into the air when she took that note to the canine range. I had to stop at that point because I could in no way top her.

Rock On, Little O. Right in your father's ear.

Monday, July 7

Okay, forget whether or not you wanted to go to war.



This young man was a hero. One of thousands born amidst the shitstorm of chaos that is the Iraq war. He is dead at his own hand, because we did not have the support systems in place to help him come to terms with what he went through.

Vote for the candidates who can SEE the need for serious long term support systems for these young men and women. Because this is going to be bigger than the baby boomers retiring. If you don't give a rat's ass about someone who volunteered to go to war, maybe you'll give a rat's ass that they're going to be the next socio-economic burden on this country--We can be Pro-active and give these HEROES the support they have Earned through blood and misery, or we can be reactive and pay for the traumas as they snap under the pressures. WE owe it to these kids to be pro-active.

Jesus, how sad. How much of his Halliburton money is Dick Cheney going to give for the kids he sent to war?

Sunday, July 6

not quite what I wanted, but it's a start.

If there was a way for me to post his thing directly here, I totally would. but I am sure that would violate all of those blogging rules I am blissfully ignorant about. Not one of us who enjoyed the "free day off" on Friday should be blissfully ignorant about This.

Wednesday, July 2

Thor's brown eyes? cool. but not my favorites.



My brother's crazy-ass pantry raiding dog. Not panty raiding, PANTRY raiding. Sheesh.

Tuesday, July 1

I loooooove Brown eyes. These are my favorites...

Big O at about 2.




Little O at about 3.




The Honey at about 3.
I don't actually have anything significant to say, I'm just so so happy to have internet access again. Which is the only reason for the sherbert colors--just because I can!
Frantically cramming in reading trying to catch up with y'all!
******
Okay, I DO have two Little O stories.
The other night politics were on the news as Miss Priss colored on the living room rug. They flashed to Condaleeza Rice speaking at a news conference. Little O looks up and shouts,
"Wait a minute...Barak Obama is a LADY?!?!?!"
Hey, ten points for political awareness, if not correctness!


And now we move on to the politically correct part of our tale...
Little O wanders into the bedroom as I'm putting laundry away, and says,
"Mama, what are retardeds?"
Ack.
So I launch into a very careful explanation about people who are different and mean names, blah blah blah. Her eyes did NOT get big as saucers, they got narrower, and by the end of my explanation her head was tilted and her eyes were scrunched, and she says,
"Okay, but how do they help the fires?"
Er, that would be retardent, not retardeds. Let me start again--nobody is dropping Corky out of an airplane. I am so screwing up my kids.