nice to meet you crazy, i'm dumbass

i used to think that crazy found me no matter where i was. after some healthy reflection, i think i've decided that i have a tendency to not only invite crazy, but also to perpetuate crazy.

often times, i find myself taking conversations so literally that i can get lost in details and miss out on the big picture. please allow me to share the following example: the story of crazy at the dog park.

the setting was a neighborhood dog park in the level opening at the base of a hiking trail. it was february and the snow was deep enough to require some serious footwear, yet not too deep as to trouble the dogs.

an older woman, dressed in a long sleeved tie-dyed shirt, sans jacket but equipped with a pretty hefty scarf, approached my perch on the picnic table. her pen-on-a-string swayed to and fro as her long legs marched deliberately through the snow.

polite chit chat ensued, nice nice blah blah.

then she says 'the good thing about all this snow is how it freezes the biems in the ground, even when they're still hot.'

trying not to show my confusion, i attempt to process this statement. did she just tell me she freezes bagels in the ground? does she reheat them or just eat them frozen? is there some sort of 'end of days' bagel stash outside her house?

you see, when she said biem, i heard bialy, somehow mispronounced. for those of you who might not know, this is a bialy:



a weird bagel with no hole. completely unacceptable if you ask me, but that's not the issue.

only after days of pondering the strange conversation, did i realize that she mean bm, not biem. bm for bowel movement.

she was talking about how nice it was that the snow freezes her dog's poo, thus making it easier to pick up. i, however, was completely unaware of this at the time. i asked her questions about how rapid the freezing process was, depending on the size and other factors. i even went so far as to ask how often she tried that method, and with any other things.

we had this parallel conversation in which we talked about two very different things for close to ten minutes. she was happy to oblige my inquiries and seemed to get more excited the longer we talked.

if my clever little monster hadn't chosen the perfect moment to attack her poor, ragged looking mutt, i might still be there now discussing the energy efficient option of using snow as a freezer.

a day in the life of...

i'm back! and thus ending my self-imposed bloggy hiatus. i thought about giving a recap of my fantastic family birthday week, but then i was bored with that idea about five seconds later. instead, i think i'll share a story with you today that seems to parallel my life in many ways.

it was saturday morning, september 19th. i woke up a thirty year old woman, wife, and mother, yet i felt no different than i had the day before, or the day before that.

by 8:30 the sunshine was bright and warm, yet kind enough to leave a crispness in the air that, to me, defines a typical autumn day. b was officially on toddler time while monster and i were free to enjoy the perfect weather.

that's right, my birthday present to myself was a day in the woods with my dog while my husband stayed home with the kid.

i'll skip the details about monster's severe car anxiety and tendency to puke in my lap or near my lap, and instead i'll just say that we headed north toward a trail dubiously called silver mine. there may or may not be an actual mine in the area, but there definitely is an old lean-to that's creepy enough to pass for the blair witch's vacation home.

leading off from the parking area is a huge open field, often hosting a few canadian geese lucky enough to have found the well-hidden spot. on one side of the field is a small lake. the trail starts towards the back end of the lake and hugs its side for a short distance before delving deep into thick towers of oaks and maples.

monster and i began to navigate the path of basketball-sized boulders, most likely laid down to hold the loose soil around the base of the lake. we proceeded to follow the small yellow rectangle markers painted every so often on a tree at eye level. i don't know much about photography, or lenses, or lighting, but i took a few pictures with my trusty canon in hopes of capturing some of the beauty to take home with me.




as far back into my memory as my mind's eye can see, i have always been drawn to forests. i imagine the trees standing as tall guardians to whatever mystery lies within their fortress of bark and leaves. the temptation to crawl, push, or otherwise break through their defenses is still so irresistible to me. i can't drive on a wooded road without my gaze being drawn like a magnet to the side, wondering what exists there that i'm not seeing.

that morning in silver mine, i was lost, captivated by such sounds as a sole acorn dropping and leaves rustling high above my head. the view of the lake to my left and an ever increasing rise to my right were made of more riveting material than i had seen in a long time.

i wandered off the trail in my distracted state. i couldn't have gone far, i had just passed a marker. as i paused and looked around, monster suddenly dashed about twenty feet to the side and froze. i went to him and sure enough, directly above where he stood was the next trail marker. sometimes he drives me crazy, but in that moment, watching my dog so proud of himself for leading me back to the trail, all the puke piles and ripped furniture were forgotten.

we continued for a while until we reached the part that i knew led to the creep-shack. i turned to head back to the car. b and i had big plans that night and i wanted to make it out of silver mine for my date.

as we emerged from the mouth of the trail, i turned and took one last picture of the path.


the field lay open before us and monster seemed to have an itch he needed some help with.


i laughed watching him roll carefree through the grass. after a few minutes i called him over to put his leash on as i saw a man with his dog approaching. i reached out to grab his collar and was surprised to feel some foreign matter stuck in between the metal rings.

i saw it before i smelled it. monster's neck and collar were covered in shit. i can't tell you if it was from another dog, a small horse, or the blair witch herself, but it sure didn't come from monster.

looking down at my feces covered finger, my ethereal mood vaporized as if it had never been. i cursed my dog's disgusting bad luck to roll around in a giant field and find the only shit spot. i fumed about my lack of proper cleaning materials. but mostly, i marveled at the irony that for the entire twenty-five minute drive back home, it was i who was choking back vomit as my car-sick monster tried repeatedly to climb in my lap with his shit covered neck.

sharing is caring, and i care about you (in that non-threatening, semi-anonymous internet way)

it has arrived, today marks the beginning of a celebration.

as we now find ourselves in the month of september, nine months after the holidays, there are many glorious events about to take place worthy of at least an obligatory nod on these here pages. it's not only my birthday season, but this month will also mark my six month blogoversary as well as my 100th post.

now, i usually don't make a big deal about my own birthday, but this year i'm turning thirty, and i think that's reason enough to party. oh, yeah, and this will also be the first year for family birthday week. that's right, myself, the fuss, and b all have our birthdays in the same week at the end of september. and there's also the big get-together for my nana's eightieth birthday. yes, the same nana responsible for my header pic.

while us yankee/mets loving folk will descend upon the land of the green monster to visit the fam in the cape cod area, there may be some things going on here at my pearl hiding spot.

i still can't believe i haven't quit blogging yet. there have been so many times that i questioned my ability to tell an entertaining story, or doubted that i would ever reach an audience that understood my point of view, yet i still kept going. and mostly to show my appreciation for that momentum from you dear readers, i want to do a little something special.

and also because i never win any bloggy contests so it feels a lot better to give things away than to be sad about being a loser.

so you guessed it, there's a giveaway coming up here soon! unfortunately i don't have the pics ready yet to get you really, officially amped up for it. so this is more of a teaser post about a giveaway than the real thing. but trust me, it will not be crap from my closet or chewed up dog toys, despite the fact that monster's headless blue dino cracks me the fuck up and i can't see how anyone else wouldn't laugh at it:


oh, and i'm not done yet kiddies. i'm working on arranging my all-star lineup of guest bloggers to thrill you with amazingly hilarious and well crafted masterpieces while i'm off getting drunk. i have no idea what they intend to write about, but i do know that they are probably going to be at the very least slightly more fun than me talking to inanimate objects or inventing different personas to talk shit to.

if that isn't enough to entertain you, then you're shit out of luck, because that's the best i could come up with for my fantastic birthday/blogoversary/100th post extravaganza. and if you are intrigued, or even shivering with anticipation about what exactly my fabulous 'thank you for reading my words' gifty gifts are going to be, then i can tell you to relax. take a deep breath. details will be coming soon, with pics to prove i'm not entirely full of it.

golden brown looks good on me

these are my favorite flip flops.


now i know that i'm in between pedicures, so you'll have to excuse the nudie toes. b is a big supporter of my bi-monthly pedicures, mostly because he hates toes in general. he was shocked to learn that in no way is toe-hair removal a part of the process. i could share the story about the time he tweezed my toe hair out because they bother him that much, but he made me promise not to ever, ever tell anyone about it.

me, i'm not worried about it so much. i've had a lifetime to look at my toe hair and i'm ok with it.

back to my flip flops. so i wear these brown babies pretty much every day in the summer. sure i have others, but these always manage to find their way to my feet without me even thinking about it. there is one major downside, however.


every night, as i'm lounged out on the couch, limbs all a-splayed in every direction, b will inevitably burn me up for my ridiculous flip flop tan lines. but that's ok, i can take the heat, i love the sun.

b, on the other hand, for those of you who don't know him, is so white that if you were to put him on a beach he'd glow like a brilliant beacon amongst the pale sand and bright wash of sunlight. his skin may or may not be translucent. he gets sunburn through his clothes and shoes. although, when i'm sixty and wrinkly he'll probably be sixty with soft, supple skin, fresh as a baby's behind.

right, so you know what i have to say about all this mocking of my tan lines?


if you'll pretend you don't see the gigantic big toe on the right side there, you can proceed to be impressed with how i can give you the finger with my toe.

i know, i'm so talented.

oh, and also, because he's currently not annoying the shit out of me, here's monster looking all cute:



finis.

you wish you were here

welcome to hell on earth. or just my house. whichever you want to call it.

mr. c invited himself over for a gawker's gander at my surroundings, and because we're practically neighbors (live in the same state) i couldn't possibly refuse him a tour. so come on in, if you want, no pressure. oh, and don't mind that smell, monster's ass sometimes emits a fishy odor when he gets nervous.

i guess the best place to start would be my bookshelves, a.k.a. toy storage.


here you can see we have our dear doggie's bed nestled in between the two bookshelves. this is precisely where he will remain for the duration of your visit, as he has a tendency to rip houseguests to shreds for the mere offense of walking through the front door. oh, and the painting above his bed might look a little familiar. it's an original oil piece done by my nana of myself and my brother. there's a freaky anecdote that goes with it, if you're interested.

mr. c is curious about my favorite bookshelf and what books it holds. it's so hard to choose only one favorite shelf when you can find any number of randomly interesting things. for example:



a: the toga iced tea bottle that my friend got for me from the dollar store when we were in eleventh grade (k do you still have yours? i don't think t does.)

b: my servsafe manual that proves i really do know how to make food without transmitting any parasites or bacteria

c: baby touch and feel animals

the technical analysis of financial markets is b's book.

mr. c also wants to know about what dvds are on my favorite shelf. i think i might only own about a dozen dvds so this one won't be too hard to answer. i find that most movies or shows i like are on one of the 800 or so tv channels we get, and if not, can be easily ordered through the cable box. as a result, the dvds that we do own are from at least six years ago and were dated even then. but here are some samples:



moving right along, the next stop on the tour is my favorite cookbooks. which again, i'm going to half answer because although i'm a professional chef, and have a jewish grandmother to unload her cookbook stash on me one piece at a time, i pretty much never use cookbooks. my favorite food books are more reference type. you can see them here:



the herb bible and herbs and spices are both excellent resource guides for almost every herb or spice you can think of. i usually don't have the patience to follow a recipe and often will read cookbooks like you would skim a boring magazine article, just enough to get the idea. although, this method frequently bites me in the ass when i make something i love and then try to make it again and have forgotten whatever it was that i did to make myself love it in the first place.

what's that, all that cookbook talk has made you hungry? well, if you're expecting me to cook dinner you have another thing coming. i usually don't like to cook big meals at home for a couple of reasons. one of them is named modesto, or something else similar, and his absence in my house pretty much means that either we're going out to eat or ordering in. we can go to the lovely mexican spot overlooking the river with killer burritos, or if you're daring, i could order one of those naked chicks to come over and let us eat sushi off her body:



on second thought, maybe that's not such a good idea.

ok, so maybe i can throw a few things together. i've been wanting to recreate this seafood ragout that i've seen at work. it's basically some shrimp, scallops, and mussels cooked with rosemary, thyme, white beans, and a saffron tomato broth.

but i'm also a huge fan of duck. so if i were planning a special 'i'm only cooking to impress you' dinner, i'd probably include some duck breasts with a pomegranate sauce.

or maybe a lamb roast with a mint and papaya slaw.

or i could make osso bucco served stew-like style over rice. i can buy the shanks with the bone marrow still inside for an extra treat.

or i could stop rambling already.

yeah, i need a beer too after all that mess.

lucky for you b and i drink beer like it's our job. i tend to prefer an ipa or lager, middle of the road i guess. nothing dark dark like a stout, but not light like that crap that comes in a can that changes color just so the morons who drink it can tell if it's ice-fucking-cold so that their taste buds will be numbed and not notice the obscene lack of flavor.

b's going to pick up a sixer tonight on his way home from work. the beer store down the road keeps dogfish head cold so that's definitely a favorite.

i hope you enjoyed my tour, or at least didn't hate it. and if you did hate it, maybe i'll send my monster after you to convince you how warm and welcoming my home can be.

and the winner is... (there's nothing to win, but nothing to lose either)

i was watching this tv show the other day about a loser. this man is broke, divorced, and lives in a tent in his own backyard. so naturally he attends a seminar on how to employ his natural talents in a profitable way. except that the only innate 'winning tool' this guy could come up with about himself was the fact that he's hung.

right. because the only direction this show can go is for him to become a hooker.

so it got me thinking about what my winning tool was and how i could put it to work for me, without involving prostitution in any way.

the first thing that came to mind is that i'm a decent cook. but then i realized that a million other people can also do that as well. not to mention that i'm lacking both the massive start-up capital and spare hundred hours or so a week needed to ensure that your culinary skills will ultimately become profitable.

i can also knit pretty well. but again, a trillion other people can do that. and i'm way too lazy to maintain an etsy account. besides, i'm also learning that yes, you can have too many throw blankets. and then, maybe i can't knit so well because i can only make things that are square or rectangular. this is what happened when i tried to make a hat for the fuss:



it was a little big.

so what the fuck else am i good at? (besides throwing unnecessary sweary words into sentences)

my moment of clarity has arrived.

i am an awesome negotiator. or i guess you could say i make good bribes. but i like negotiator better, it just sounds slightly more badass.

this is a skill i've had to hone over the years. it wasn't always so sublimely refined as it is today. when i was in college, the power of my skills used to even blow my own mind. like, for example, when i would go out to the bar with a fiver in my pocket and come home wasted and with about thirteen bucks stuffed into my pack of marlboro reds.

there was also the time that my piece of shit nissan sentra exploded on a major interstate, at 11:00 at night, on my birthday, in those dark days before cell phones. somehow i managed to convince the state trooper, who found me crying in a ball fifty feet from my smoldering vehicle, to drive me the forty plus miles to my house instead of following his orders to drop me at the place where they were going to tow my car to. he even let me use the radar thing to clock speeders. it looked like a tv remote from the eighties.

as i matured, so did my ability to reign in my power.

just this morning i successfully convinced the fuss that playing with the maraca i made out of plastic cups, hot pink duct tape, and quinoa is way more entertaining than chewing the nest of wires underneath the desk.



as anyone who's ever had the pleasure of a teething nine-month-old's company can tell you, this is not an easy thing to accomplish.

and if you wanted even more evidence of my winning tool at work, i will now predict that i will become, literally, a winning tool over at yo mama's blog. i'm pretty sure i can convince miss yvonne to send me a care package of insult gum, a handmade card, and maybe some cookies by spreading linky love for all you out there in blogland. i know you want to be a winner too, and you just may be if you head over and check out her contest.

whew. all this talking about myself has tired me out. what about you, dear reader, what's your winning tool*? i ask in part because i care about you and want to get to know you a little better, but also because i want to get some ideas for different ways i can exploit things to make bags of money. alright then, let's hear it.



*please don't creep me out by being perverted. i may be using a dirty pun, but i'm hoping for clean answers.

bambi doesn't want to see your junk, and neither do i

i love to go hiking, whether by myself, with monster by my side, or just with some friends. i have been to many local parks and mountains nearby over the course of my years and have almost always enjoyed the feeling of being close to nature.

there was that one incident at weird mountain, but that's not where i'm going with this today.

no, today i'd like to talk about how hiking can be a pleasant experience, with your clothes on.

this morning, the one article that jumped out of my monitor and slapped me in the face was the one in which i read 'hikers who prefer clothes are not happy.'

now, i'm all about letting people decide whatever lame annual events they want to participate in, but just because there's a naked hiking day, doesn't mean that you can hate on me for wanting to walk through the woods with my clothes on.

i love natural crap as much as the next person, but you'll never find me using the summer solstice as an excuse to pretend i'm chilling with pan or diana, traipsing around in the buff.

and don't even try to pull that whole 'but it's easier to spot deer ticks' argument with me either. i can check for ticks just fine by pulling up my pant leg.

no, you silly nude hikers, you have no grounds to label me. in fact, it is i who can call you names. how about pedophile? do you like that one? because that's what you're going to be known as if someone spies your junk swinging in the breeze if they happen to be out hiking with their children.

if communing with nature was something that made you feel strongly enough to free yourself of your material shell on one specific day, than perhaps you should look into one of those off-the-grid habitats where your blatant disregard for social norms will be more accepted. that way you can go all out, literally i guess, if you wanted to.

and now, because i can, i will show you some pics of hiking + clothes + happiness.






even monster is smiling in these pics. you can't argue with that happiness.

i miss you too!

hi blog! it'sa meeeee, maaaaaaaaaarriiiooooo!!! no, it's not. it's just plain old me, no cartoon plumber in sight.

it's been a while since we've spent some quality time together. i'm starting to feel like you're another kid that i have to take care of and nurture and shit. fuck that, i have enough responsibility in my life. i need to get back to the way things used to be, where we could tell silly stories and just enjoy a few laughs. no pressure.

over the past week there were a few things that i wish i could have shared with you, but for some reason i don't think i could get it together enough to spend more than five minutes at my computer. and when i did manage to find my way to the internet, it was only to play my neverending scrabble battle.

i thought for sure i was going to be able to write a nice cohesive post about safety coffins and those wackos out in arizona who buried themselves alive to see what it would feel like. talking about how bullshit it was that they had flashlights and sleeping bags in the graves would have done all the work for me.

instead, i'll just give you a picture.


then there's also the story about my unfortunate luck to be in the walk-in at work, carefully placing chives and chervil in their appropriate homes, at the exact moment that two of my coworkers decided a giant refrigerator was the perfect place to have a little secret sexy time.

there's no picture of that.

although, the respective spouses of the two in heat might appreciate a little photo evidence should they decide to go ahead with any divorces.

additionally, i think my dog might be spending some time doing things that i don't even want to imagine. $300 for the vet to tell us that his stank ear is caused by a thriving community of yeast feels like a punch in the babymaker. she gave us doggie monistat 7 and sent our little monster packing.

on a lighter note, perhaps the highlight of the week may have been when b came home from the gym, exceptionally proud of himself for his renewed commitment, claiming that 'in two months my muffin-tops are gonna be gone, son!'

and of course i have to throw some bloggy love to beckybecks who made me a lovely pic of her face on a stick body with huge tatas. we all know how i feel an unbridled kinship to any chick with huge tatas, those things are ridiculously hard to corral sometimes, i feel your pain becky! and thanks for the awesome pic!


so there it is, blog. i'll make a little more effort to not neglect you and maybe you could meet me in the middle somehow. i don't really know what that means, so i'm going to give you a day or two to figure it out.

love always,

your mom.

friday fiver

here's a fiver for you. things i can say to my awesome kid:

1. yes honey, mommy can eat brownies for breakfast because i was so good at not cleaning
(i also just told miss yvonne this one over at her awesome super special place yo mama's blog, the best place on the internet for wolverine claw action.)

2. no, monster's butthole is not where our fingers go

3. stop looking so cute when the asshole neighbor walks by, the last thing mommy wants to do is be fake nice any more than she has to

4. yay for blasting some muse instead of napping! (loudloudloud!!)



5. when i get old i'm so going to shit my pants and smile at you and clap while you wipe my ass



finis.

my long weekend didn't do much for my writing skills

i think google is mad at me. i might have pushed it over the edge when i didn't want to look up the proper meaning of sadist vs. masochist.

google feels threatened that i no longer care about finding out the exact meanings of things and that i can live my life happily ever after with unanswered questions floating around in my head.

you know what google, not everyone needs to search things all the time. so stop letting all that shitty junk mail into my inbox to try and make me pay attention to you, or guess what, i'll boycott your ass. i'll start writing real letters and mailing them to people, through the postal service, to read instead of using blogger. i bet that'll make me really popular, and you'll lose all that potential revenue from the ads on my blog. you know, those little unassuming links in my sidebar that usually talk about bed bugs or chinese thongs (thank god we got rid of that one).

and you know what else, google, if that's even your real name, i'm still kinda mad at you for making me have to be invisible every damn day on gchat. marvin's still stalking me. isn't there a setting somewhere that will let me just be invisible to one person? if not, i suggest you get on that piece because it's getting really old having to go through those two extra steps to open a chat window with b while he's at work.

so guess what i'm going to do now, i'm going to do your job for you, stupid google. i'm going to answer some really important and profound questions that were recently posed to me. because everyone knows that if you post questions on your blog i am obsessively compelled to answer, much like a dictionary with tourette's.

my little becky, who hangs out over at i'll go eat worms, was the latest to test this theory. while we haven't been friends for very long, i can say that her poignant probes into the recesses of my mind are truly astounding. and for that, becky, i made you a special present. and also because you love doggies as much as i do. so before i get to the questions, i want to give you this:



thanks becky, for understanding the ups and downs of being a dog owner, and also for making up your own words all the time. i'll completely understand if you don't like my present, and i may or may not steal it back to put on my blog as well.


and off we go:

13. if you were an animal and you couldn't get that eye goop that gets in your eye corners from everyday living or baby zebra killing would that just totally drive you frickin insane? additionally, would you lick the eyegoop out of your cheetah lovah and cheetah baby's eyes because, you know, appearance may not be everything but eyegoop is juss nast? and would you sit butt to face sistee nine style to flick flys off each other with your tails?

eye goop is quite possibly one of the most disgusting things on this planet. i avoid the ones on monster's face at all costs, and leave them to grow and harden to the size of small pebbles until they either fall off from gravity or b sees them and cleans them for me. so no, i will not in any incarnation have anything ever to do with goop.

14. bonus! what is the name of my favorite freckle?

hairy petunia

15. if you had whiskers would you grow them out or would you keep them at a respectable length? can you tell that i'm watching a nature show while writing questions?

what i am starting to think is that you may have confused me with some other cat loving blogger, because i hate cats and all cat things, including whiskers.

16. don't you hate it when t9 is like being a bastard and keeps putting of instead of me or good instead of home? why can't they fix that?

ok, you definitely have me confused with someone else! how could you, becky?! are all my posts about my smelly dog not enough for you to remember me? i mean, i can see how you might make this mistake, kristine is my friend in real land, outside of blogland, and we do sometimes make cross-references to each other. but since we are in fact separate people, when her kid t9 is being a bastard i really don't give a what because he's not mine and i only see him like once a week.


and that shall now conclude this round of 'questions i answer so i don't have to think of something extraordinarily witty to blog about' for today. i will try to bring the clever/originality sometime soon, but no promises.

who's more annoying, me or me?

i realized this morning that i have this whole weekend off from work. i've been working so many weekends lately that i almost don't even know what to do with three days to myself. sometimes i'm so indecisive that it makes my head hurt, or maybe that's just a natural response to my multiple personalities battling it out in my brain.

either way, it dawned on me that i should probably take advantage of my sybil-esque tendencies and see what fruitful results i can elicit from deep within my psyche. this morning i took a very thorough survey of my peeps to see what they had to say about this whole 'free weekend' situation.


me: hey practicality, what do you think about this weekend? got any good ideas?
p: uh, how about vacuuming up this dirthole you live in for starters? then there's always laundry, grocery shopping, dishes, making baby food, more dishes....
me: yeah, ok i get it. you're boring, who's next?


me: what's up free spirit? what would you do with three days to yourself?
fs: oh hi! well let's see, i might take monster out for a really long hike up in silver mine or maybe even minnewaska. oooh, and i'd have to make sure i brought a notebook to capture any reflections i might be stricken with as i'm surrounded by nature's beauty. i might also want to start planting that garden i've been talking about. i could have all organic vegetables and then have some flowers on the edges to bring some harmony.
me: uh, that all sounds like work to me. i'm trying to not do any work here, maybe next time... i think i see paranoia over there, maybe she has something to offer.


me: paranoia, what the hell are you doing with all this foam padding stuff?
p: oh, just a little babyproofing.
me: um, i don't think monster is going to be very happy with padding on his feet. have you thought this through?
p: oh yes. this is exactly what the book said to do, cover ALL sharp objects in the house, and if you haven't noticed he's got some claws there.
me: o..k... you don't think that's a little extreme? i mean, he still has to walk, and it's not like the baby can get up onto his sleeping chair to mess with them.
p: uh-oh. is it too much? am i over-protecting? is little miss never going to learn to have natural boundaries? are other parents going to think she's spoiled? is she going to be able to make friends in kindergarten? is she...
me: that's enough! i gotta go see something, uh, over there. bye.


me: potty-mouth! you ol' bitchass! it's been too long!! maybe you can help me think of something to do this weekend. whattya got for me?
pm: for fuck's sake, enough with this indecisive bullshit. just get your ass out and do something already. b will be here to watch little miss, so you can go get shitfaced in the middle of the day if you want.
me: oooh that sounds fun! you coming?
pm: fuck that! it's supposed to rain. i don't go anywhere in the rain.
me: well, i can't exactly go out drinking in the middle of the day all alone. it's not that fun to get shitty and talk to myself.
pm: and that's so different from this crap you're pulling right now?
me: right. whatever. fuck off. i'm going to talk to laziness.


me: lazy, you have to have something good for me. no one else has been any help. i just don't know what would be the best way to spend my weekend.
l: go to the beer store, get a sixer of something new, put b on baby duty, and park it on the couch alternating between horror movies and super mario galaxy. done.
me: i knew i saved the best for last for a reason! you are so good at understanding me. how do you always have the right thing to say?
l: i'm really just too lazy for this conversation. can i go nap now?


i think laziness is my new best friend. at the very least, i should definitely listen to her a little more often. oh wait, i think i just did. i was going to make up some fun pictures in paint to illustrate this post, but guess what, i'm too lazy! so my words are all you're going to have, i trust you all to create wonderfully funny and appropriate images in your heads for yourselves.

and now if you'll excuse me, i think i need a nice long nap to help me gear up for all the sitting around i plan on doing this weekend.

my work is never done

this weekend i actually worked two shifts. that's a huge step for me, my usual being about one shift every two weeks. i have to say, it definitely is hard work, but sometimes a girl just needs to get out of the house and in front of a hot oven or deep fryer to really appreciate all that life has to offer.

the burning pain in my legs that i've been experiencing since yesterday morning leads me to believe that i've actually been using some muscles, to walk around and stuff, which can never be a bad thing. i've also begun to collect more of the horizontal burn lines on the middle of the inner forearm from hot sheet pans. these lines are almost like the rings of a tree trunk, the amount you have indicates the length of time you've been working. up until this weekend, i only had two.

working for an enormous catering company when i'm not pregnant also means that my appetite will return to that of a normal cook, i.e., nonexistent. spending ten-twelve hours a day handling food, even if it's the most gourmet shit i've ever seen, makes me want to ingest nothing more than an ice cold sam adams summer ale. which, of course, the bartenders are way too stingy with so i have to settle for a few gallons of coffee. so hopefully i'll shed the last 25 pounds of baby weight in no time with my new diet of caffeine and air.

another fun thing about working more is that i get to come home and see what random goings-on b has managed to capture on camera. i don't know about all of you, but this weekend we had another one of those obnoxiously loud thunderstorms that should have lasted only an hour but stuck around for about two days. oh and just a warning for future reference, flip flops plus flooding rains is not a safe combination. right, so i was trying to introduce this lovely photographic evidence of monster's new favorite hiding spot during a thunderstorm. it used to be here, but it seems that sometimes a dog just needs a little more security, and nothing says 'you're safe here buddy' like a bathtub.

(i don't know how to make that writing not blurry so you're just going to have to deal with it)

on that note, i before i go scrub the shit out of my tub, i really would like some input on a question i had not too long ago. i never really got a second opinion about this, and i'm still very curious. if a bathroom cleaner is so strong that it makes me headachy, and the roof of my mouth and the back of my throat burn for about five hours after using it, does that mean that i shouldn't give my baby a bath in a tub that i just cleaned with that cleaner, or does it just work really, really well?

i'm going to use it anyway, i guess i just wanted someone to tell me that it's ok and that little miss won't develop a skin condition from chemical exposure.

from me to you

alright, i'm going to get this out and then drop it: despite the weird tone of my last two posts, i am completely happy (as in not depressed) and not trying to change anything about myself. i've had 29 years to accept that i will always have the wrong thing to say at the wrong time, and that's that. i'm so awkward that even when i was trying to make fun of myself it sounded like i was sad. but thank you to those well-wishers and supporters, i'm here for you guys!

soooooooooo, on a lighter note, the mysteriously modest writer miss.chief has been ever so kind to me for most of my, albeit short, blogging venture. most recently she has supplied me with something to post about today and save all of you from reading another borderline 'does she need a psychological evaluation?' post. and for that miss.chief, i made you a special present. i don't know if i can call it an award because i made it just for you and usually the awards are ones that you pass on to others, but if you did pass it along that would be fun too. behold the magic of paint:

thanks for always getting it, and for never having writer's block.

so the rules of this mini-meme are that i have to answer the five questions that she has written for me. then to pass it on, anyone who wants to be interviewed can write 'interview me' in the comments section. the first five people to do this will get five individual questions from me to post about. so really, this meme is a two-fer. tomorrow i will post the questions and then i'm off the hook til monday.

i'm going to warn you now, i'm in a very chatty mood at the moment.

1. What in the hell does your blog name even mean? (the pearl one)

since i'm exceptionally bad at describing myself (hence the one-liner 'about me'), kristine suggested i use a line from a song i like as my blog title. i usually shy away from discussing what music/movies/tv/etc. i like because you can make a case for or against pretty much everything, and i hate futile arguments. but today i will tell you that the line is from a ryan adams song and goes '...with her father on amphetamines, her mother hides the pearls...' i fucking LOVE me some ryan adams, and that's all i'm going to say about that. (unless someone tells me that it's copyright infringement to use a fragment from a song and then i'll delete this post and deny any connection whatsoever).

2. Has the pancake shirt caused you to vomit yet? Please answer in the form of a question, jeopardy style.

what is, i don't think that's possible. upon receipt of said pancake shirt i promptly washed the cat hairs off so that monster could proceed to cover it with dog hairs and make the shirt feel welcome in my wardrobe. i eat pancakes for dinner sometimes when there's no food left and i'm too lazy to go grocery shopping. pancakes = night off from real cooking, so they make me happy.

3. Have you ever seen the CSI episode where the guys dies from allergies, getting shot with an arrow, drowning, a snake bite, and getting hit in the head with a crowbar but then they have to say he died from a heart attack or something? it's my favorite.

what the...?? i request a new question, that's a rip-off. it's just a yes or no, and therefore leaves me much less opportunity to talk about myself. but anyways, i DID see that ep and it was actually a whole season edited into 43 minutes.

4. Why can humans move their eyes in opposite directions toward their nose but not away from their nose?

actually, some humans can do this. my physics professor in college could do this every day, but i don't think it was intentional. he was big and round and had this cloud-like greyish-whitish beard that connected with his hair and he looked just like santa. we called him professor santa and he really liked it, he would always smile and have this deep, jovial laugh that made you just want to hug him.

5. Don't look this up: what does ROFL mean again?

omg, lol!! i TOTALLY know this one now. it means really old (and) fucking lame. at least that's what i'll say to anyone who uses that crap with me.

i know you want to play now.

and now before i go, it's time for one last teeny weeny present. this one is dedicated to my bestest pal of, holy shit i can't believe it's been that long, 18 years. we go all the way back to mr. stern's math class in seventh grade. thanks kristine, for always being there to help and for always understanding me. this one's for you:

try, try again

i'm going to try really hard here to not look like i'm trying really hard to not sound like a mommy blogger. the point is this, yes i have a kid and yes i spend most days with her as opposed to adult company, but as much as i am immersed in kiddie culture at home i do like to think that i have other things to talk about.

right, so that's when i re-read some of the things i've written and upon realizing that they're about my kid's toys or poop or cute faces, or about my dog's toys or poop because he may as well be a mentally challenged toddler (is that pc?), i got annoyed with myself.

but then the other day i was reading sally's blog and she had some pictures of these fabulous 'alternative lifestyle' barbies. i don't know why but transgender barbie really struck a chord with me (NOT sarcasm, i swear!), heshe looked so pure and happy expressing hisher true self. i was torn between thinking that i must procure one immediately for little miss, and also that i must keep it for myself and let her play with something a little more baby speed and less adult humor-ish. ah well, she's a smart gal, i'm sure she'll let me know which type of barbie (or any other doll, not necessarily that doll) she prefers.

i, one the other hand, have never owned a barbie. not one. ever. i was way more into my little ponies. their flowing manes and tails were so fun to comb, and they all had cute pictures of stuff on their butts. my brother had an endless stash of he-man figurines that he let me play with to ride the ponies, as long as i lent him my ponies to be the cavalry in a massive battle sequence taking place on the stairwell.

so now as i'm sitting here remembering that i never had a barbie, i also remember the smell of the my little pony. each was the same. it was that powdery, rubbery, faintly floral smell that was unique to plastic horse hair and bodies. do they even still make those things? because if they do and someone were to open a brand new one within about 20 feet of my nose, i'd be a little kid again, giving my cousin a funny look when she pulled out a big box of nudie barbies suggesting we dress them for a party.

i definately did work with a guy once who had a really, really long ponytail that actually smelled JUST like my little pony. if he weren't such an asshole i would have asked about his shampoo and explained my dear affection for the plastic horse hair smell. but alas, it wasn't meant to be.

maybe i'll buy some for the fuss just so i can sniff them first before she proceeds to chew them and get them all slimey and gross. she won't mind, cheery little thing, she's always happy to let me play with her toys.

i need to get out more. help...

who, me?

i'm really awkward in person. if you met me, spent half a day with me, and then had a minute to reflect, you'd think i was in need of some chemically induced stability.

i often make jokes when others are serious, and become intensely focused when others are lighthearted. sometimes it takes days for me to even realize the emotional discrepancy, but i do eventually see it. i've never been good at reading people, so i'm usually left playing catch-up.

i've come to accept this, but that doesn't mean that it never bothers me occasionally.

recently, at work, i had an experience where someone said to another co-worker 'i'm scared of her, she NEVER smiles' referring to me, in that jokey-i'm-kinda-serious way. the other co-worker replied 'who, HER? she's always laughing, what are you talking about?'

since both of these people are people that i would consider friendly acquaintances, i was a little surprised at the opposite opinions. now, i've been known to say that i could care less what people think of me and that i just 'do my own thing.' but we all know that everybody cares. even if it's just a little bit, only once every few weeks or so, there comes a time when you do actually care.

today is that day for me. so instead of talking about how nice and sunny it is outside, or how cute monster looks curled up into a ball with his tail around his nose, i'll just leave you with one last tidbit from my sometimes irrational logic:

sometimes i feel the more friends i have the more lonely i am. i'll take my three or four good ones, hold them close, and feel comfortable knowing that i don't have to pretend to make sense to them.

i guess that's not all that irrational, maybe i'm too morose for witticisms today.



ps. i can't stop laughing at the fact that i haven't changed the batteries on one of fuss's singy toys and every five minutes or so i now hear 'if you're happy and you know it clap your hands' in that drawn out, demonic, warble voice.

i need to clean my bathtub again anyway

today i was *thisclose* to posting about monster's many stank orifices, complete with a drawing from none other than paint. thank GOD i read kristine's blog before i sat down to spend five hours making a fish skeleton coming out of my dog's butthole.

just take a look at what she gave me!

isn't it the most AMAZING thing you've ever seen?! finally, the truth shall be known, me and susan boyle are going to enjoy a wondrous, lifelong love affair, in which we tell each other how pretty we are (on the inside).

i know, i know, i have to share this masterpiece with some other folks. but hey, we're all friends here, and who am i to deprive someone of the warm embrace that is kristine's love. so thanks k, for brightening my day!! and also for giving me the day off from having to write something that's only borderline witty using my dog as a prompt.

this is for you, punk!

in our house, punk is a term of endearment. just like the phrase 'do you need a beating?' which translates to 'stop being so cute or i'll have to beat you up'. angry fist shaking is never, EVER angry, it's always about 'how can you be SO CUTE?! i don't understand!!'

with that setting the tone, today is the two year anniversary of b and i getting married (even though it wasn't 100% legal the first time, we like to use this date because it's nicer) so i thought i'd share some of the highlights of our years together. i know i've alluded to that awesome pick-up line that started it all, and i think it's only fitting to begin there.

i'm 24, bartending at a local sports bar, annoyed that i have to make small talk to earn money, although flaunting my enormous tatas helped to reduce the amount of necessary small talk with certain customers. i've heard every line you could ever imagine, and was pretty proficient at the old 'fake smile, that's so funny! i'm rolling my eyes on the inside' move. and then b came in one night, gave me a few smiles for about an hour, and by the time he was sufficiently wasted, he blew my mind with 'hey, so, um, what do think about the property taxes over in sullivan county?'

this was pretty earth shattering because he was absolutely serious. he actually wanted to have a conversation. it was an instant connection, i answered him and then asked how long it took him to come up with a gem like that (which i already knew the answer to because it was on the front cover of the local paper sitting on the bar right next to him). we talked the whole rest of the night, and before he left he drew two stick figures on a scrap of paper, one with a word bubble that had his phone number in it, and gave it to me saying 'we should talk some more.'

i think it was maybe about ten days later, after spending every spare minute with him, that i knew i wanted to talk to him for the rest of my life. without getting all sappy, as i can easily do, i will say that we both feel lucky to have found someone we each love a little bit more every day.

we enjoyed ourselves, we went out partying a lot, and we made some wonderful friends.

we dressed up in costumes.



(b just looked over my shoulder and proclaimed, 'you're lucky it's our anniversary because there's no other way i would let you put that mess online.')

it wasn't long before we got an apartment together and i convinced b that we needed a dog. at first he wasn't so sure. but we went anyway and picked up our little monster at a shelter, putting him in a cardboard box in the back of my car. when he took a massive dump in the box, stepped all in the dump, and then put his shit paws all over b's shoulder, we knew we made the right choice.



then not long after monster showed up, we looked at each other one morning and decided to get married. a few months later we were in antigua, just us. no friends or family, it was perfect. we've never been the most romantic people, and this just felt so right to both of us.



i think it may have been the second that our plane landed back in new york that i became obsessed with having a baby. b was too, he was much more easily persuaded than with the whole 'let's get a dog' issue, as if he only had to fake putting up a fight this time because he thought that's how it was supposed to happen.



i'm so hardcore that i walked myself into the operating room for my c-section. no wheelchairs or gurneys here, thank you very much.



allow me to introduce little miss, also known as 'the fuss'.



she's been known to smile sometimes.

and here we are today, just two people being secretly mushy and in love on the inside, bitter and sarcastic on the outside just so that people don't think we're freaks because who could ever really be that happy, right?

happy anniversary babysnakes!!

*note: for those of you who may not already know, this is my b. that means don't get any ideas ladies, i once punched a chick in the throat... but do feel free to check it out and comment on how hilarious he is.

name games, part two

so here's my secret (which isn't really a secret because i'll tell anyone who'll listen): i want to have another baby, like right now. little miss is seven months old, and i always knew i wanted to pop out the kiddies really closely together for several reasons. not the least of which being that i can finally get the boob job i've always wanted when my body is done incubating my offspring, and by boob job i mean reduction. i want those bad boys downsized, lifted, and tightened so that no matter what i'm doing they always stay in the same place, and also so that i can wear a regular shirt/bathing suit/dress without looking like a porn star/hooker on her way to work.

right, so b's all for this plan (and what husband wouldn't be) except for one thing, we still live in a one bedroom apartment. yes, me, b, little miss, and monster all in one little tiny apartment. adding a new fetus to the mix might make b's head explode. and since i'm not ready to be a single mother i have to just give it some time. although i make it a point to talk to b about babies at least once a day so he doesn't think it was all a phase and i got over it.

moving along, since i can't really talk about baby name stories with b unless i'm currently knocked up, i talk with my cousin who happens to be equally as babybrained as i am. since i'm so intrigued by the fine line between an unusual name and a ridiculous name, i thought i'd share some of the more, um, unique ones we've heard. not to be a hypocrite, because i know i've said before that it's really hard to judge parents for what they name their kids, but sometimes i think that pointing out some of these examples is really just a motivator to help keep myself in check. but i want to say, in all fairness, that i sincerely do feel bad for these kids, and some of the parents.

1. this one came to me courtesy of my mother, a first grade teacher. it's the story of a young, immigrant couple who had a baby girl. the hospital promptly labeled the plastic crib with a pink card that said 'female.' the naive parents thought that in america, the hospitals name your baby for you. so female (pronounced fe-Mal-ay) became the child's legal name.

2. then there's the poor kid who's mom has an awful sense of humor. his real name is something like benjamin mark but she's only taught him that his name is 'beema.' yes, beema, as in short for beemer, as in BMW. so apparently the kid is five years old and doesn't know his real name, and mom insists on using beema. in my opinion, she should have just named him that from the jump and it might not be so bad if there weren't an ordinary name to fall back on.

3. oh yes, my list would not be complete without little 'trezir', as in 'mom doesn't know how/doesn't care how to spell treasure correctly.' trezir seems to be the only one in his (yes, HIS) family who lost the name game, he has two older sisters, nicole and annette.

with all that fresh in my mind, i asked my cousin what she thought about the name barnaby, not barny, just barnaby, for a boy. sure it's not the most common, but it's not like a total joke either, right? i guess i have plenty of time before i really have to go there. my point is that i hope my attraction to different sounding names isn't going to be scarring my kids forever and ever. or at least that they end up in a school where only the adults talk about their weird names and that the other kids don't beat them up because they all have weird names too.

a message to the creepy maintenance man wearing a blue wool sweater in 85 degree weather who has treats in his pants

dear lone english speaking tor view village maintenance man, please stop using your whisper voice to try to lure my dog over to you for treats.

sir, not only does my dog has severe sensitive stomach issues that you cannot possibly be aware of, producing mass amounts of doggie vomit and diarrhea from one single milkbone, but your approach is unsettlingly similar to a child molester hunting for prey.

if you were normal and not in any way scary, i might be nice and bring one of monster's special dietary treats outside and give it to you to give to him. but you'd have to really, really convince me that you're not having sick and unnatural fantasies about my dog, which you are clearly not capable of.

oh sir, i see the gleam in you eye, and the corner of your mouth turn in a sly smile when you see my furry friend walking by. even when we're over a hundred yards away, across the street, you follow him with your eyes, one hand shading them from the sun to get a better view, and slowly start walking in our direction. your false attempts to be disarming 'can i give the doggie a trrreeeeaaaaattt?' send chills up my spine. what's worse is that monster knows you as the 'treat guy' and so gets excited, irregardless of his imminent bowel discomfort. poor little guy has no notion of what you'd really do to him if you could get your hands on him, bribing him with dry, crumbly cookies.

no, my monster is way too innocent to be corrupted by your unbridled desire for doggie rape, and i'd like to keep it that way. so from now on, sir, please keep your treats in your pants for another victim and allow us to enjoy our morning walk without your sinister motives clouding the air.

any given sunday

for lack of anything legitimately interesting to write about today, i'd like to share the conversation b and i had last night, mostly because i think that anything he says is hilarious so it's nice to let him make the funny for me. the following discussion takes part sunday evening, as we were watching the third game in the yankees/red sox series:

b: OH SHIT! did you just see that?

me: what?

b: what'shisname just fucking STOLE home!

me: (looking up from making grocery list) all i see is pettitte's mouth hanging open like he's trying to catch a fly or something.

b: pettitte's so old he needs a cane to get out to the mound. his slow ass was asking for someone to show him up like that.

me: when is youkilis going to give that poor rat he drapes over his chin a break? i mean, i know he shaved it for his kids charity a few years ago, but unless he plans to do that every few months, why is it back? if he's good enough to bat over .600 (even if it is still april) he should know that not one woman alive actually wants to snuggle up to that thing.

b: i know, i need a goatee like i need a second butthole, which is not at all.

____

b: so do you think it's wrong that i hate on twitter even though i might be the only one?

me: no, you should feel free to hate on anything you want. i mean, i tried twitter and within 24 hours realized that it was way too depressing to sit and type about things that i'm doing for no one to read.

b: yeah, sometimes i feel like 'fuck it, there always has to be at least one voice of dissent, right?'

me: i think twitter is like that restaurant where the servers are all mean to you on purpose because you're supposed to think it's witty and original, when that concept is really only entertaining to a specific crowd.

b: what the...? there's a place where the waiters talk shit to you?

me: yeah, not around here, i think it's in like chicago or something. whatever, i just heard about it somewhere.

b: if a waiter ever pulled that shit with me i'd be all 'who the fuck are you calling me fat for eating greasy burgers and cheese fries and twenty gallons of coke? oh, and do you have cheesecake here too?'

____

me: can the guy from the optimum commercials get with the chick from the progressive commercials and go somewhere to annoy each other to death already?

b: i hope they go to the same place that the douchebags who make car and cell phone commercials will end up. those bastards promise you buckets of happiness and bags of gold and then have 300 teeny tiny words and the bottom of the screen explaining how they can legally lie to you.

____

me: monster, barking at nothing will not distract me from the fact that you just dropped a horrendous stink bomb on me.

b: but what about him compulsively licking his junk and then coming up to give you lots of kisses?

finis.