Tasty Tuesday

I am dreaming of a Denny's Super Bird Turkey Sandwich.
With onion rings.
I am so Homer Simpson right now.
mmmmm....Super Bird.

I'm not sure that this is entirely accurate...

I am 12% Idiot.

I am not annoying at all. In fact most people come to me for advice. Of course they annoy the hell out of me. But what can I do? I am smarter than most people.

Take the
Idiot Test
@ FualiDotCom

I have cheerfully stolen this from Dick Small. He'll never know.

I think people come to me to vent, not really for advice. But I do find most people to be idiots, so they must be on to something.

Nov 12, 1970

Happy Birthday

to Us.

I am 36.

So is The Slack. We share the day. It's a Jen thing.


I'd make her a cool ad, but I'm lucky if I get a post up with no typos. So the link will have to do. Y'all should go see her. I hear there will be pancakes.

How important is Music in your Life?

I find that it is HUGE in mine.
Much like books. Too long without the escape of a book, and I am bitchier and have a much shorter fuse. It sneaks up on me.
A lack of music makes me blue. I think. It could just be life at the moment, which has certainly been leaving huge steaming piles in every possible direction, but I think I would mind it less if I had music again at work.

I think I've said before that I sing snippets of anything. I am the rainman of jingles and annoying choruses. Well, in my little corner of the trash heap, my radio has died. I have a companion in my corner, and Bre does what she can to keep me sane, but by Friday of last week, I was snapping at HER for singing "It's a grand Old Flag."
ME, snapping at HER, for singing an annoying song.

Truly, if you know me, it boggles the mind.

On a funny note, The supreme power in the office, who orders all of the birthday cakes (along with everything else) had them put the words "Doo-Dah" on my Birthday cake. (Think Camptown Races)

That was outstanding.

My daughter announced in the middle of Target that when she grows up, she would like to be a cheeto. Big O says "Cheetah, like a cheetah girl?" No, she wants to be orange and crunchy (her words). A Cheeto.

I must find a radio for myself (and poor Bre). My girl, I'm stuck for. We are currently having talks about setting our sights a bit higher. She looked longingly at the packaged bacon on Thursday and and asked if she could have it for christmas. The junk cereal, too. Okay, she talks a mile a minute, and pretty much asked for everything that caught her eye at the store, but bacon for christmas? She doesn't even like bacon. On the bright side, I don't think Cheetos require a college fund.

Of course I am!

You are "Excited"

What Japanese Smiley Are You?

Thursday Thirteen #18 13 Circles of Heck.

Thirteen things JEN could have done without this week:

1. Phone message left on my voice mail at work: "this message is for Jennifer, this is blah blah, there was an incident on your son's walk home after school, blah blah blah, the paramedics are here...blah blah blah"

2. Call the school, and it turns out Big O was was bullied by two classmates, and when they began kicking his backpack (the kind on wheels), he threw a book at the bigger one. (This all began with them teasing him for reading a book as he walked home)

3. What should a big boy do, when a book is thrown at him, but knock the other boy to the ground and start kicking him in the face? I mean, really, what other choice did he have?

4. grrrrrrrr. So I come flying up to the school expecting the worst, I mean how can you not? Big O is in the Principal's office, and he has a giant goose egg on his forehead, and this huge dark line across his nose, and his eye looks like he might have a shiner. But you know what? He's fine. I mean, remember, I AM the queen of the worst case scenario, and at this point I am so grateful to see him whole and coherent I'm ready to cry. That is why this post is about the circles of Heck. Not Hell.

5. The School district police officer tells me that I really need to file a report with the City cops, especially if I am planning on pressing charges. He tells me that the PD has been called, but it may take a while.

6. The paramedics have me sign their paperwork and tell me I should still probably take him to the ER to be checked out. (Is this why people use ER's inappropriately? I asked if I couldn't just take him to his primary care physician, and the EMT was flummoxed. It had never occurred to him.) I couldn't get us in until the end of the day, but we were still out of the DR's about ten hours sooner than we would have been out of the ER.


7. Told the school I'd keep Big O home the next day, and waited for the cops. and waited and waited.finally decided that if we'd waited that long, Big O could probably hit the hay, cancelled the request.

8. The next day, called the cops to again have a report taken, and oh, right around 4 pm they finally showed, and then the cop tells me that this is nothing that they can help me with and why didn't I call the school district cops that day? THEY WERE CALLED, and they told me I needed to speak to you. At this point, the officer is climbing into his car. I had to force him to take my report! Big sigh. "All right, what happened." Um, would you like to talk to my son, since he was the one who was there? yeah, okay, go get him. sigh.

9. lovely. Then the school calls to tell me that Big O is being suspended right along with the boys, because HE was the aggressor, by way of throwing the book. The kicking of his backpack was not bodily contact--never mind the two on one. Big O initiated physical contact and escalated the situation. Five days.

10. The mother of the second boy dragged him to our house by the ear, absolutely horrified. He had not participated in the actual assault, and had been trying to get the other boy to stop. Mom wanted to hear from Big O that this was true, and not her son trying to make himself look better, and they wanted to check on Big O.

11. These are boys in Big O's Class. The big thuggy one that kicked him in the face was a guest at Big O's fourth grade birthday.

12. I am so grateful that it was not worse. I mean fall down on my knees, thank you lord baptist revival grateful. I am pissed that Big O is being treated the same as the other boy. and by the school district definition, why did they suspend the second boy at all? If the kicking of the backpack wasn't assault, then why is he involved at all? grrr grr grrr.

13. So I am now fighting with the school district. Guess what? Even after all of the stories in the news, no Bullying policy is in place at our school district. I feel better (still not great) about the suspension, I'm told it's what happens first before they look into expelling certain kids who have had other problems. Big O is totally disgusted that his karate never came into play. I feel bad for him on that score. We're gonna have his shi-fu work with him on that one....

center>Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!


The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

WTF Wednesday

Okay, I admit that I am unfamiliar with online etiquette. But when you
make your photos public on FLICKR, they are available to be used by
anyone unless you copyright it or use creative commons or something.
That was my understanding of the rules. If there is no blog this
button, you cannot use the photo.

so this popped up in my mailbox today:

Hey~ That's MY *sweet* dog! He was actually in the middle of a yawn
here, but I thought it was a hysterical catch. Sign up for a flickr
account & leave me a comment on this photo.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hasfurrychildren/135909230/ It's nice to be informed when my photos are being used. Even nicer to ask me
first. :)

I assume when you make it public and available that you are okay with
it. It's been a rough week already, (more on that later) but WTF? Now
I am not nice for informing them that I used their photo, which was
fully attributed and linked back to flickr, which I thought was the
extent of my responsibility. I am even less nice for not asking
permission. I have photos on Flickr, and they are private. The reason
that they are private is because I do not want them available for the
general public to use. PRI-VATE. (pry-vit) Try it!

I am surly and cranky and all shall be revealed in my TT, but I say
again, WTF?!?!?!?,

Lazy Sunday

Ahh...I love a lazy day.

We went to my brother's yesterday and lit a magnificent bonfire, er birthday cake for my dad. Sixty-four candles make quite a blaze.

I wasn't going to blog today, but Little O just corrected me. Her new passion is grilled cheese sandwiches. I just offered to make one for her brother, and it all became clear.

"No, mama, but you can make him a BOY cheese sandwich."

Apparently they are GIRL cheese sanwiches in her Little O brain.

tee hee.

Love my O's!

Guess what????

Do you have a relative that insists on giving your child whatever they want, despite any protestations from a parental unit?

Sometimes it just happens to be whatever the child has in their hands, not something they are throwing a fit over, or anything they are even particularly pining for.

My mom tells me to just be gracious, sometimes people need to feel like they have something to give. Okay.

 

That is how I got an 18" fake chicken. I like to think of it as a birthday present for Little O. As you can see, it has real feathers. In an effort to keep the feathers from ending up all over the house, I have put the bird in a place of honor that just happens to be high up. But as I blog now, I look up, and I see chicken butt. 

Thursday 13 will not be seen today.

 

But for your viewing pleasure, here is my halloween costume for next year. I just need a cowbell and a fake hairy chest... 

For your reading pleasure I offer you this link, and a word of caution. This man is not a mommy blog. But he is freaking funny. My blogfriends with delicate sensibilities (do I have any of those?) should probably not click. But I would. seriously.

Thank dog I still have a job!

 

 

He is a very cool boss and I am grateful to be gainfully employed.

(He doesn't know my blog exists, but I like to cover my bases.)

I will post the wings when I have recovered from thier brutal rejection by Little O. 

Halloween Jennfactor 5.6

So happy halloween. yeah. whatever.

The fates were messin' with me yesterday.

I could not get my skull cap to fit yesterday morning, finally got it
most of the way on, but had to wear my polo collar up like a bad
eighties gigilo.

Bright side: I won $50 for the craziest costume, boss told me it was my
final paycheck when he handed it to me. Thank dog he has a sense of
humor! (photo to follow once I get home)

My computer crashed in the middle of helping a very pissy customer, and
I have to say, after several calls to the help desk, it STILL is not
right.

Bright side: Boss let us go an hour early to get our little goblins
ready for trick or treat.

So my car ran out of gas and I spent my extra hour waiting for the
Honey to rescue me.

Bright side: I finished the butterfly wings while I waited for my
rescue.

Little O hated it and wanted to wear anything else BUT the wings.

Bright side: After dinner, Little O was more receptive to the costume.

And my camera was at work.

I swear, some otherworldy force was laughing their ass off yesterday.
I could almost hear the "Watch this..."

Big O did hang out with his dad, (it's Ex's week, anyway) but all
things considered, maybe that was for the best.

Death Takes a Holiday

 

 

If I've done this right, here is Big O's interpretation of what death would do on vacation. Bowling and Cotton Candy. 

Confession #68,428,585

Halloween was much easier and more fun when I had one child. Maybe it's the age difference, but these endless nights of Halloween are seeming to go on and on this year. When Big O was small, it was ONE night, Two if we hear about something fun.

We have been trick-or treating to the UOP dorms, which was fun, but Little O was DRAGGIN' by the end, and Big O was ready to go for days more.

We went to Big O's school Family Fun Night, where I felt like Satan for not volunteering like they were begging us to, but what, exactly, am I going to do with my four year old while I flip burgers? Because making her sit for even fifteen minutes is not an option when the carnival is going on.

I still have the actual night to go, which will involve lots of ferrying Little O from one relative to the next so that they can ooh and ah over her. Maybe it was easier with Big O because nobody lived in town and ther were no older siblings to keep up with. This year should be better, though, because the Honey actually has the night off. This year I don't have to try and do it all myself!

Big O will be with his dad, which ought to make it easier, but it doesn't, because I miss him when he's gone, and hate that he and Little O don't get all of their holidays together. Hate it.

Whatcha gonna do, though?

The big reveal....

I do not have a JD bottle tattoo from my shoulder blades to my butt
cheeks. But I frequently tell people that I do in memes.

I won a couple of poetry contests in high school, but I was never
ridiculed and/or traumatized by classmates in the eighth grade over my
poetry (although I probably should have been). It's true that I don't
enjoy poetry at all, though. Except for those Tuesday Work Sucks
Haikus....

I was not the one who superglued the pennies. That was the first bad
boyfriend. But the manager WAS that awful.

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

On a separate note, have you tried the new white chocolate M&M's? They
are like little candy coated balls of Crisco to me.

THe dark chocolate ones are keepers, though!

Men Beware---not your thing...I hope.

I had the strangest experience in the stirrups yesterday...

I have gone for regular pap smears since I turned 16. That's twenty
years of awful paper dresses.

I usually go to an Ob-Gyn, but I was getting a physical anyway, and I
was overdue for an exam, so I killed two birds with one copay. My Dr.
is a nice middle aged Filipino lady. But she kept SHOWING me things.
Like everything. She beamed at me as she showed me the swab, and then
the speculum. UGH. She was so excited, and seemed to want to reassure
me that it was all good.

Lady, I'm trying to block this from my brain and pretend it's not
happening. Admittedly, after twenty years and two kids, it's not nearly
as traumatic as it used to be, but it's not a lot of fun, either.

Was it because she doesn't usually do them? Is this standard practice?
It's always been my experience that they cover it all back up
discreetly under something. Maybe it's the difference between male and
female Doctors?

Does anyone else get the show and tell treatment on this lovely, lovely
day?

Thursday Thirteen #17--2 birds with one stone!

I WAS TAGGED FOR A ME ME BY Jenny In Ca, and I am combining it with my TT. Ten things you didn’t know about me—and three lies.

1. When I was the age that Big O is now, I had a huge waterfight at my house, boys against girls. Girls were inside with bowls and cups and things, boys were outside with hoses—aiming into the house. My mother came home in the middle. And yet I live.
2. I have a black thumb. I better never go into rehab—the rule in the movie 28 days, where you have to keep a plant alive for a year before you get a pet, and have that for a year before you can date? I’d be a lonely, lonely girl surrounded by my dead foliage—and not even a cat for company.
3. I regret my tattoo. At twenty a Jack Daniels Bottle is very rock and roll. At thirty-six it’s feeling a little skank-ish. Plus it’s hard to explain to your O’s.
4. My kids are the third generation where everyone gets the same first initial. But I broke tradition by not giving them the same middle initial.
5. When I was a kid I had an extra tooth in the roof of my mouth and had to have it removed, but they did not believe me when I told them I could feel them working on me. To this day I have an unreasonable fear of dentists. I don’t cry when I see a dentist on TV, but I always find a reason to miss any appointment I set.
6. I won a poetry contest when I was in the eighth grade and had my picture in the paper along with my poem. I was ridiculed in school and it turned out to be the most miserable experience of my life, and that is why I hate poetry to this day.
7. I was a social hermit in high school and went skiing every weekend with my father the winter of my junior year. The night of the Junior prom (when I had been turned down by the boy I FINALLY got the nerve up to ask--he came out two years later but by that time I was SCARRED for life), my dad had to work but arranged for one of his ski patrol buddies to pick me up and go night skiing so I wouldn’t be home dwelling on it.
8. On that note, I was socially retarded and did not have a boyfriend until I was seventeen. He was every parent’s worst nightmare, a divorced twenty-three year old father, working fast food and living with his mother. Oh, and he was a dope smoking heavy metal fan whose wardrobe consisted solely of cut up t-shirts…WINNER! I stayed with him until I was twenty and my parents about peed their pants—I got a trip to Europe, they were so desperate to get me away from him.
9. I lost my virginity at sixteen in a calculated move that made for a hysterical story for another post. Possibly for another blog. And yes, that timeline is accurate.
10. One day after school I decided to show off and take the 1976 Ford f-150 king cab truck for a drive around the block with my girlfriend. The stupid thing was huge and had a first gear that was essentially useless unless you were hauling something up a hill. I got it out of the driveway and around the corner and it just would not move anymore. My brother just happened to be coming over, and drove it home for me and never told my folks.
11. I was onstage with Bill Cosby once. My brother introduced me to him as the family pet in front of the entire audience.
12. I once super glued pennies to the windshield of a very bad manager. She was nasty and vile and had a revolving rubber check that she would have us cash and then take out before the deposit went to the bank. To add insult to injury, she just used the same damned check over and over again.
13. I am closer to forty than thirty now, and I have never plucked my eyebrows. I think I might do it this year for the Christmas Party. I think.

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

Total Mind Blowing Update-- My
TT #4 was thirteen people I wanted to find again. One of them found me BECAUSE of my TT! WOW! I am so excited and now have to figure out how to contact her! Amanda, if you’re reading my blog, email me!

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!


The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants



Time for some more of that sweet, sweet Linky Love!

Bring on the Revolution!

I have a list of people that need to GO!

People are CRANKY lately. Man!

I will be glad when this week is over.

I am a bad mother--Little O keeps asking for Smarshmallows, and I keep giving her a few at a time just so I can hear her say smarshmallows.

:D

Tasty Tuesday--Mmmm...Tri Tip

My blog sistas, I am writing to you today about the most glorious supermarket innovation EVER. I just took it for granted that it was everywhere, like tortillas. My auntie from Tennessee had no idea what we were talking about.

Go ask your butcher for some Tri Tip. When the local market throws some on the grill, my heart goes pitter pat. I will pay their highway robbery prices to take one home already cooked and melt in your mouth tender. Or I will grill one myself. But I don't do it as well as the burly boy from the market.

Costco sells them here, but my auntie says not so in the south. Brisket is hard to find here so I guess it's a regional thing. Tri tip is a good compromise for us because I like it Pink and the Honey likes it overcooked. I am slowly bringing him around. But Don't let anybody put barbecue sauce on it. Ugh. Why ruin a perfectly good piece of meat with that goo? That's okay for ribs. Tri tip deserves better.

This message has been brought to you by the atkins diet and your friendly neighborhood cardiologist.

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

I was trying to put in a Flickr photo, but alas, no luck.

Here's a little more info from our friends at Wiki.

My Honest Child...

Little O had a fabulous birthday, got a Little Mermaid scooter to go with her new helmet and elbow/knee pads. She was dying to to try it all out after school today. We got her into all of her safety gear, and began our circuit of the block.

Halfway through she looks at me and says,

"Mama, this is not a lot of fun, but it is a little fun."

Love my O's.