Guess Who's Heading Back to the Dentist's Chair?

Or, should I say, guess who's heading back to the maxillofacial surgeon's chair, then back again after about six weeks, and THEN goes to the dentist's chair?

This guuuuuy! (Waggles thumbs at chest.)

Yeah, baby. My two-time-crown loser, Tooth #30*, is just a wee decayed nub at this point. Think Shane McGowan. Better yet, don't. I'm not that bad. But I do have to have the carcass of this root-canaled mess yanked out of my face. From what they tell me, the jaw bone needs to grow in where the tooth's root used to be, then they implant a post, and stick a fake tooth on top of that. Sounds delightful, no?

I go in on Friday for the extraction. Good way to start the weekend, I think. Or, it'll at least be a good way to start the debates, especially if I'm looped on painkillers.

*Did anyone else think of that joke, Question: What time is the best time to go the dentist? Answer: Two-thirty. Tooth-hurty, get it? No? Just me? Man, it's always just me.

I Was Only a B+ Student in Math, But I'm Pretty Sure that...

Criticizing a woman's politics ≠ sexism.
Criticizing an African-American's politics ≠ racism.
Criticizing a septaugenarian's politics ≠ ageism.
Criticizing a Delawarian's politics ≠ Delawarianism.

Okay, that last one is a stretch. But the others are true. You can legitimately call someone into question without it being all about their composite parts. Kind of like the political version of synechdoche. Maybe. Look, I'm on my second glass of white wine, so even thought I think the use of a five-dollar lit class word is apt, my judgment could be clouded by a sweet riesling with pear notes. Whatever. But I hope you get the point: I can call someone's politics into question without it being about their DNA. Or the age of it. To assume otherwise is an ism in itself. To quote Ferris Bueller, "A person should not believe in an ism, he should just believe in himself."

Ugh. I just remembered that one of Super Ninja's co-workers didn't know who or what Ferris Bueller was. Now THAT is depressing.

P.S.: I just saw the opening sketch of Saturday Night Live. I have a mad girl crush on Tina Fey. THERE. I said it.

Another Thing I'm Not So Fond Of?

The fact that every chick who chooses to wear glasses, has brunette-ish hair, and kind of a snappy personal style will now be compared to Sarah Palin. I'm not saying I'm Tina Fey or anything, but let's just say all I'd need is a jumbo hair clip and a strand of pearls, and I've got my Halloween costume all set...

I Hate People

Not really, but I'm in a hotel room in Mississippi with CNN on in the background, and they're doing a feature on Sarah Palin's glasses.

Yep. Not Sarah Palin. But Sarah Palin's glassess.

So.

Here's why I hate people:

1) CNN is covering the appeal someone's glasses. Unless these glasses saved someone's life, they are not newsworthy. We're not hearing about Biden's ties, are we?

2) Her style of glasses are selling at quadruple the rate they were before Sarah Palin was nominated for Veep. This means women around the country saw the glasses and decided owning them would make them powerful, intelligent women (who also, once upon a time, were beauty queens). Why do I think this is what these women are thinking? Because Peggy Hill has the same glasses, and there wasn't a stampede for Kawasakis when "King of the Hill" premiered eleventy years ago.

3) I watched the segment on Sarah Palin's glasses, so I have to hate me now, too. Thanks a lot, CNN. Thanks a lot.

Things (Like Me) Fall Apart

No, this is not an homage to Chinua Achebe. I need to check my horoscope from yesterday because things, literally, fell apart. And no, this isn't a metaphorical falling apart, so please don't fret that my marriage is in trouble.

I was home with the kiddies yesterday because daycare was closed. We had a lovely time frolicking at the indoor playground at the mall. Don't wince -- I'm not exposing my children to wanton consumerism, well, wantonly. The Boy and the Girl must sound like a dinner bell to mosquitoes of the world, because every time we play outside during balmy months they come home with at least three new bug bites. Have you ever told a four-year-old to stop scratching? Doesn't work.

But here's what happened... Sunday evening, I developed a bit of a headache. Monday morning, the headache turned into a throbbing lower jaw. Tuesday morning, it turned into a blind headache. Canny health expert that I am, I deduced that I had an abscess. My crown, which was the subject of several posts in 2006, fell out a few months ago. A visit to my dentis revealed that the remaining tooth was too nubby for another crown, and that, in fact, I now need an implant in yon gap. And that walking around with a crater in your gum exposes you to awesome possibilities, like abscesses. I'm on antibiotics to kill the infection in the root of the nub. Thus starts the arduous process of glamming up my smile again.

So, what else fell apart? At one point the Girl needed a diaper change, so I trailed her upstairs. I noticed the carpet on the pie-shaped step at the top of the flight seemed to have shifted a bit. Oh, it had. It shifted right off of the tack board. I didn't want the Girl, or the Boy, or any of us to step on that wicked looking thing, so I poked the carpet back down on top of it. Yeah, except I poked my index finger as well. Huzzah.

Next, as I was scrubbing down the grill (it was a bit yicky from our tiny cookout on Sunday), I looked over the deck railing and noticed that wildlife had foraged in my garbage can. Somehow, it (or they?) knocked over the can and got the lid off -- the lid that snaps on and is theoretically locked by the handles. So, cleaning that up was fun.

When I returned to the house, I needed to wash my hands and slap a bandage on the tack board puncture on my finger. So, I scrubbed at the kitchen sink and then reached underneath for my First Aid kit. But I encountered a puddle of water. Huh? I cleared out the rest of the junk under there (bug spray, cleansers, etc.), and found a quarter-inch deep puddle. When I ran the water in the sink, I saw where the hole was coming from: a pea-sized gash in the garbage disposal. I pondered what could have caused that hole -- a fork? a sturdy green bean? a tack board? -- but realized I didn't care, and that I need a sink that doesn't flood. Three hours later, Mr. Plumber replaced the garbage disposal for a tidy sum, but it was money well spent.

Clearly, this is the biggest sign EVER that I should not be a stay-at-home mother, because my house would collapse if I were home with the kids for more than the weekends and an odd day here and there.

UPDATE: Forgot to mention that I also managed to ping off one of the plastic nosepads from my glasses last night. You do not appreciate just how necessary those things are until you have some metal gouging a crater into the bridge of your nose. Thankfully, I had adhesive goo I could use to mend my specs 'til I can find time to get to the optometrist. Likely, though, I will just continue to reapply the goo 'til I go for an exam and new glasses.

Look at Me, I'm Raggedy Ann

While on vacation, my daughter was watching a Baby Einstein video. If you haven't been treated to one of these, let me explain what they are... Basically, someone found a lot of cute and colorful toys, and filmed them doing whatever it is they do. Rolling, hopping, sitting still. I firmly believe that they are actually watched more by kids who are stoned than kids who are teething, but I digress.

Anyway, one of the toys featured on this particular video was a Raggedy Ann doll. When Raggedy Ann's visage popped up on screen, The Girl yelled, "Mommy!" At first I thought she was simply drawing my attention to it, but then I realized that she thinks that I LOOK LIKE RAGGEDY ANN.

This is not the toy that most women would like to resemble. Barbie, Jem, maybe a Bratz doll if you're a hooker... But not Raggedy Freakin' Ann. I mean, look:

I shared my ire with the husband of one of my college roommates, and he looked at the image, then at me, then at the image, then at me, and said, "Well..."

I stopped him right there. Look, I KNOW that I look like R.A. I know it. I don't wear an apron or candy cane stockings, but I have a big moon face and a halo of hair that looks reddish at times. I KNOW THIS. But man, you don't want anyone to TELL you this.

My only consolation in this is that Super Ninja owned and loved a Raggedy Ann doll when he was little. So maybe, at an early age, he already knew his type. Don't know what that says about him, but it kinda makes me feel better about the whole thing.

Unbelievable

You know what? You don't get to request your ex-wife as a Friend on Facebook. Maybe if you're Bruce Willis you do. But not you.

Do you see, people? Do you see why we need to have more than just a "friend" designation on Facebook? For your consideration:

1) Friend
2) Acquaintance
3) Work colleague
4) Met you one time, and I didn't like you then
5) No, no, a thousand times no

PS: I realize that this makes it sound like I have an ex-husband stashed somewhere in my past. I'm just incensed on behalf of a friend. A real friend, not one of those fictional friends that is really a cover for your own wackness.

I'm Going to Bet Ed Robertson Still Doesn't Like Heights So Much

Often when the kids are in the car we'll listen to KidStuff on Sirius. Occasionally I'll flip over to the First Wave, and I'm delighted to report that the Boy really likes the Pretenders.

Anyway, I tell you this to explain why I am overly familiar with the Barenaked Ladies' kids' album, Snacktime. There's a song, "I Don't Like," for which Ed Robertson sings lead vocals. One of the lines of the song is "I don't like heights so much."

So, yeah, if you don't like heights so much, private planes are likely not the best idea.

While I"m at it: it's tough to tell your four-year-old the name of the band he's enjoying when the name of the band is "Barenaked Ladies."

Also while I"m at it: how do you think career children's performers feel about the novelty-ish children's albums released by successful pop groups? I kind of get the sense that members of these groups have children who have reached a certain age and would like to start schooling them on the awesomeness of music. But, they don't want to regale them with tunes about sex and drugs, so they turn to children's music. And they are dissatisfied and think, "Well, I could do better than that." Et voila: children's CDs by Barenaked Ladies, They Might Be Giants, Belle and Sebastian, etc.

Sharks and the Jets, Man. Sharks and the Jets.

After my jaunt to 7-11 to pick up an energy drink (since I am a rock star, I need to drink RockStar), I spied trouble brewing. Imagine a street corner as a capital L. On the long side of the L, a Shred-It truck. On the short side of the L, an Iron Mountain truck. I skedaddled before they could duke it out over what was the more appropriate way to clear stacks of paper from office archives.

Really? Me?

So, I just got a notification that someone I knew in middle and high school has moved me into a Top Friend spot on his Facebook profile. This fella is a nice guy and everything, but do you know how many conversations we've had since that sunny day in 1993 when we collected our diplomas? One. And that was at our five-year reunion. Other than that, I recall getting one kind of bigoted e-mail joke from him (sent through a listserv), and we've had two lovely exchanges on Facebook. (I'm sincere about the 'lovely' -- he's changed a bit since the Listserv E-mail Incident.)

How does this make me a Top Friend? HOW? Are my missives so outrageously witty that I have soared past all other friends? And it's not like there are only 4 friends on his profile or anything. He appears to have found Jesus recently, though, and I think I might give off a churchie vibe. Maybe that has something to do with it?

I know this isn't a Real Problem or anything. Just struck me as odd, is all.

Things You Don't Want to Hear While Waiting for Your Breakfast at the Bagel Shop

Customer, who happens to be a friend of the Food Handler: "I have a friend who's a plastic surgeon, and he said that if the bleeding lasts long than 10 minutes while applying pressure, you need stitches."

Food Handler: "Well, it's been bleeding since 7:00 a.m."

Food Handler was wearing latex gloves and had a bandage over the wound, but still. Yeesh.

It should be noted that I still ate my breakfast sandwich.

Me and the Exercise, We Are Not as One

Not to sound all chick-lit-protagonisty or anything like that, but I could stand to shed a few pounds. Once upon a time, my OB/GYN told me I could stand to lose fifty. I was not pregnant at the time, so I told her that unless she was going to perform some kind of Civil War amputation right there and then in her office, I wouldn't be losing fifty pounds.

I have lost a little flab recently. My co-worker and I have been hoofing around Towson now that it's more walkable*, and I've noticed some changes. Like sore legs. Seriously, though, if nothing else I'm getting out of the flourescent cube of doom (a.k.a, the office).

But I recognize that living a sedentary lifestyle is really not going to allow me to cash in on that sweet 403B plan I've got going on. But man alive, do I hate gyms. And aerobics. And basement exercise. I have attempted all three, and let's just say that things did not go smoothly.

Brilliant lass that I am, I deduced that these exercise shenanigans need to involve something I like doing that won't make me feel like an uncoordinated fool. Oh my God, if I even tried Tae Bo I'd put an eye out. And that, Gentle Reader, is why Super Ninja gave me a shiny new bike for my 33rd birthday (Yeah, I know my profile says I'm 31. See how lazy I am? DO YOU SEE?)

My ride is not pimped. I'm pretty sure Lance Armstrong would pee himself from laughing at me on my Schwinn 26" Comfort Ride. Doesn't matter. After I climbed onto that thing yesterday, I biked, Goonies-style, all over my neighborhood. In all, it was only about 2 miles, but it felt so good to have the wind whipping against my face and arms. Much better than getting the hairy eyeball from someone because I'd been on the stationary bike for too long.

The only thing left to do is to buy one of those little hitches so I can drag (literally) the Boy and the Girl with me on my whirligigs around Laurel. And perhaps some little helmets...

*I think this means that the drivers are now aware that they probably shouldn't run you over while using the crosswalks at the traffic circle.

Happy 4th Birthday to the Boy!

The Boy is four years old today, and in honor of that momentous occasion, I offer a snapshot of who he is at this point in time. I will treasure this when he's thirteen.

Okay, so the Boy is pretty much everything I could hope for in a child. Not that there were high expectations or anything like that. Oh, who am I kidding? Of course there are high expectations. But not in a "you should be a media mogul by now" kind of way. No, my expectations for my kids are that they become self-supporting, productive members of society. And that they are nice to me and their father. And that they stand up for themselves when the occasion calls for it. Everything else is pretty much gravy, right?

Anyway, the Boy is the best. To wit:

• He's friendly, to the extent that he will share his most prized possessions, his vintage 1970's superhero action figures, with children he's only just met. He'll try to get them back a couple of minutes later, but the point is that he doesn't horde them and cry when a kid expresses an interest in his treasure trove.
  
• He's really sweet to his sister. The Girl is cutting a shark's mouthful of teeth right now, and consequently she is not her typical bubble of sunshine. The Boy's reaction? He's been doing his level best to make her laugh. Yesterday (or yestermorn, as the Boy would say), Super Ninja took the kids to the grocery store. The Girl was howling because he wouldn't let her hold the eggs. To lighten up the situation, the Boy would touch things in the store that were cold (freezer doors, milk, etc.), and say, "Yee-owch! That's hot!" Then he'd proceed to waggle his arms and hop around in mock pain, like he was on a vaudeville stage or something. Apparently, the Girl was laughing so hard her giggles could have been mistaken for Jabba the Hutt's.
  
• He's creative AND independent. The whole way back from Connecticut this weekend (for a visit with Super Ninja's best friend from his Stand By Me-ish years), the Boy told himself stories featuring his superheroes. He needed no input from me (who usually is assigned the role of Catwoman) or from Super Ninja (who is typically Batman or the Joker).
  
• He's considerate. When Super Ninja sighed in the car on the way home from Connecticut (it got to be kind of a long trip with a whiny toddler yelling at us from the back seat), the Boy asked, "Dad, are you getting a headache?"
  
• He gets excited by costumes. Like, last night, he saw a Peter Pan costume in his closet and insisted on wearing it and sleeping in it. I heard him come out of his room this morning at about 5:45 a.m., and I hustled to meet him (he has a tendency to wander into the Girl's room and climb into her crib with her, which wakes her up, and the grumpiness goes from zero to sixty in about 2 seconds). He wasn't in his room, and he wasn't in her room when I peeked in. Where was he? Sitting on the steps, resplendent in his Peter Pan attire, and with his feathered cap askew. Is there any better way to start your 4th birthday?
  
• He's cautious. This is one of those personality traits that I can help him work through. Caution isn't inherently a bad thing. But he needs time to adapt to most new things. This one does not bellyflop in the ocean like his sister. He needs to work his way in, one toe at a time, at his own pace. I get that, and I want to help him understand that he needn't approach all things in life this way, 'cause it can really slow you down when it comes to enjoying and experimenting with new things.
  
• He's smart. Oh, how smart this kid is. I'm not talking alphabet-and-counting smart. I'm talking has-a-better-command-of-the-English-language-than-most-adults smart.

Phew. That's all I've got for now. Suffice it to say, I'm enjoying the Boy. So, no sale to the gypsies this year.

Everyone Should Get to Wear a Cape

The Boy is back to full-on superhero worship, to the extent that the first thing he does when he gets home and slings whatever cape-like apparel is available around his neck. His bath towel, a dish towel, anything can be a cape. And sometimes, he has an actual cape. My sister gave me a homemade Robin costume a few years ago, and while the boy has outgrown every other piece of it, the cape, of course, still fits.

My heart explodes with happy whenever I see the three-and-a-half-foot Boy Wonder run by in his yellow cape.

Oh, and the Girl has learned how to make "whoosh" flying noises, so when she chases after her be-caped older brother, she punctuates her actions with "fyooh fyooh" sounds.

I'm Such a Pimp

Due the shard of steel that exploded through my Freestyle's undercarriage, I have been tooling around in a PT Cruiser. Okay, so it's not really the pimpiest of pimpmobiles. I think that honor belongs to the Chevy Impala. Or, at least it belongs to this Impala.

The Boy loved the car because it was all black and we could pretend it was the Batmobile. Me? The gas guzzling nature of the beast didn't really impress me, and it's very necessary to impress me with that statistic since I commute 70-miles round trip every day. If you, Gentle Reader, would only clamor more vigorously for my missives, I might be able to parlay that into a stay-at-home-and-work-in-my-PJs-entertaining-the-masses gig. So get cracking on that, wouldja?

Anyway, I had to stop by the car rental company this morning, and to my wondering eyes a shiny blue Nissan Versa appeared. Serendipitous. Super Ninja's jalopy could give up the ghost any day (I mean, how much past 110,000 miles is a 1998 Chevy Cavalier supposed to go?). Ever the practical one, I've been doing my research on gas mileage vs. monthly payment estimates vs. durability vs. will anyone actually just give me a car? And this particular vee-hicle ranks high on the list.

I smelled an opportunity!

Actually, what I really smelled was FAR too much vanilla air freshener in the PT Cruiser, which made me wonder exactly WHAT the previous car occupants were up to in that car. But I digress.

I used my feminine wiles to get the dude behind the counter to swap out the PT Cruiser for the Nissan Versa. By "feminine wiles," I mean I asked him politely. So, now I'm tooling around in a Nissan Versa, and I'm delighted that it will mean that I have to test drive one less car when the time comes for us to put Ye Olde Chevy out to pasture.

So, THAT Happened

So, I don't really believe in astrology. I mean, I've found the personality description for my little slice of the zodiac to be spot on. But the day-to-day stuff? It didn't seem to jibe with my realities. I'd read the blurb for entertainment value, not so much for guidance. But these past couple of weeks? Yee-ikes! Many, many annoyances. Nothing catastrophic, just frustrating. This sent me running toward the mystical pages on the internets. Apparently, Mercury is in retrograde or some such, which means, "LtW, life will stink on ice 'til July 4."

Okay, there was nothing so specific as that, but that's what it boiled down to. I'll warn you, below is a bullet-pointed list of bellyaching. Having made that disclaimer, let me share with you what's been happening over the course of the past three weeks:

• June 15: I hit a piece of junk in the road and blew a tire. Yippee!
  
• June 16 - 18: The Girl came down with herpangina, which sounds like a total social disease. Turns out it's one of those viruses that kids pluck out of the ether. Joy. My chubby bundle of sunshine and happy was just the 30 lbs. of grumpy for three days. I'd hoped that the pediatrician would be able to prescribe some miracle drug, but alas, it was one of those delightful illnesses that just needs to be waited out. Since she couldn't go to daycare with a fever, Super Ninja and I "split-shifted" her care. I'd stay home in the mornings while he worked a half-day, then he'd tag in and I'd head off to work. I can't tell you how exhausting it is to look after one (or two) sick children and THEN go to work for six hours.
  
• June 17: The Boy also seemed feverish and grumpy, so one day after the Girl went to the pediatrician, it was the Boy's turn. As it happened, he had two ear infections, likely caused by swimming the previous weekend. For that, we could enjoy the benefit of miracle drugs, i.e. antibiotics.
  
• June 20: I got the tire fixed, which further ate into my work schedule. With travel and trainings abounding the following week, I couldn't really take any time off of work. There was just loads of stuff that needed to be completed, and no one that I could really delegate it to. See how much fun it is to be important?
  
• June 21-22: I was horrifically sick. Flat on my back, can't do anything but suck down tea and cough drops sick.
  
• June 23: Training day in King of Prussia, PA. Lost my voice. When I checked the mail when I arrived home, I'd received a notice of jury duty.
  
• June 24: I really lost my voice. No squeaks, no gravelly rasp -- just whispering. This is also the day that I my sister's family and mine had dinner together because we wouldn't see them again before they moved to England for at least three years. Nothing like wishing someone farewell via semaphore.
  
• June 25: I packed up the kids and drove to Pittsburgh. Yep, two kids, under five, four hours in the car, BY MYSELF, while I couldn't really talk to them. Happily, my in-laws had planned to meet us in Pittsburgh since it was not that far away from the town they call home. They helped out considerably during dinner, bedtime, and the next morning. In fact, they drove them to their home. Just them and the kids in the car together, which was a first.
  
• June 26: Training day in Pittsburgh, PA. I'd had to scramble to get someone to come with me to co-present since listening to my voice could be classified as a form of torture. Seriously, I should've just picked up some Hall's stock.
  
• June 26: This date gets TWO entries because of how fabulously awful it was. After the training, the plan was for me to drive to my in-laws and meet up with them, the kids, and Super Ninja, who was flying in to meet us (he wasn't able to drive with us due to a work obligation). Everything was going swimmingly, my mood was lifting, and even though I felt like I was gargling glass, I felt good 'cause I knew that my in-laws house would be this little oasis of calm and child-rearing assistance. You know what pops a good mood bubble really quickly, though? Running over a piece of truck debris in a construction zone. Let me explain...
  
  I saw something in the road that looked like the rubber tread of an exploded truck tire. The stretch of the turnpike that I was on didn't really have any shoulders to it, so I didn't have a lot of swerve room. I did what I could to avoid the debris, but not enough, really. How do I know that? Because of the KA-BOOM! that rocked the car. Oops.
  
  Immediately, I flipped on the blinker to get over, over, over as fast as I could. Once I was in the emergency pull of zone, I got out to look at what I assumed would be a shredded remnant of a tire and rim. I was especially bitter because I JUST HAD THE TIRE REPLACED. But, when I got to the passenger's side of the car, both tires looked fine. Not pristine, of course, but fine. What gives? I looked at the tires on the driver's side, and there were no problems there either. Shrugging, I hopped back in the car. When I put it into gear and drove for about ten meters, there was a strange sound, and I knew something was not right.
  
  I stopped the car, got out again, and knelt down on the hot gritty surface of the shoulder to look under the car. And I thought, "Wait, I don't think I've seen that before." I reached up and grabbed a hunk of steel and extracted it from the undercarriage of my car, much like you'd remove a splinter from a thumb.
  
  Huh.
  
  It was a flat piece of steel, maybe about twenty pounds. And it punched a hole in the floorboards in front of the seat that the Boy normally sits in. Digest that for a minute. It didn't shoot through like a javelin or anything like that, so it may not have injured him if he was in the car. But it ripped up the carpet and the underlay and left a hole in its wake that's about five inches in diameter. Fabulous.
  
  Back in the car, I rooted through my wallet for my insurance card, and the good folks in my agent's office told me that I should file a police report. Okay, I thought, can-do. But I didn't want to linger on the makeshift shoulder of the road as trucks and cars zipped by, so I drove to the closest toll plaza, which happened to be in OHIO. Grumble. I grumble because the folks at the toll plaza who normally help with such things told me that I need to file a report with a Pennsylvania state trooper. Off I went, back to Pennsylvania, to the first toll plaza I found, and the manager on duty called a state trooper for me.
  
  When Trooper Wolff pulled up to my car, he was wearing the big trooper hat, the mirrored Ray-Bans, and was smoking a big old stoagie. I was not expecting sympathy. But when he exited his patrol car and I showed him what I'd hit on the turnpike (which he recognized as a commercial truck's tie leaf), waves of sympathy came off of him. He firmly impressed upon me that I was lucky that no one else was in the car, and that the chunk of steel didn't pop a brake drum, or hit wires, or worse. I agreed with him, and had a half-minute mental breakdown on my drive away from the toll plaza.
  
  Did I mention the monsoon? No? Well, about a half hour before I arrived at my in-laws' house, the firmament opened and dumped all of the water on top of my route. And you know what you don't expect when you hit a lake-size puddle when you are driving through a rainstorm? You don't expect to feel a splash on your neck.
  
• June 29: Seven hour drive home from in-laws'. This trip was fine for the most part, but the Boy got car sick about 10 minutes before we got home.
  
• June 30: Training day in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. I had to drive Super Ninja's car. Ugh. It's a 10-year-old Chevy Cavalier. We're at the point where if it requires a repair of more than about $500, we'll probably just trade it in. You can imagine how fun it is to drive something like that for 300 miles.
  
• June 30 - July 3: The kids' daycare provider is on vacation this week, so Super Ninja and I are split-shifting again.
  
• July 3: Took the car in to the body shop, where they judged it to be unsafe to drive 'cause fumes could come up through the floorboards. Oh. Really? That would've been helpful to know before I'd been driving it around for a week.

But tomorrow, all of this annoyance is supposed to go belly-up. I'll keep you posted.

Enjoy Some Random Thoughts

The crazed schedule I'm keeping of late (busy at work, busy in life) has sincerely reduced my opportunity for deep thought. Obviously my postings are rife with philosophical ponderings, right? Anyway, for your enjoyment, some random thoughts which are not very deep:


1) Recently, in Virginia, there was a criminal who used a hammer to smash into store fronts and grab some loot. The news anchor described him as the "Hammer Burglar," and I giggled, 'cause I thought of the "Hamburglar," and figured that he'd probably fallen on hard times and had to resort to smash-and-grabs.

2) I love that my daughter, at the tender age of 20 months, has a deep and abiding affection for chocolate. She actually danced with joy -- a jig replete with enthusiastic arm wobbles -- when Super Ninja gave her a quarter of a chocolate doughnut for dessert last night.


3) People who ask, "Do you have two seconds?" are lying liars. It is never two seconds. It is never two minutes. It's usually about a half an hour. A half an hour of time I could be spending watching Netflix Instant Play movies.

4) I recently read "The Year of Magical Thinking." Periodically, I'll revisit the events of the book, and I grew curious about Joan Didion's & John Dunne's daughter, Quintana. I was heartbroken to read that she'd died just before the book was published. Joan Didion opted against chainging the book because, according to her, it was finished. Many of you likely knew that already...

5) The Girl gave me a gift last week. A horrific, gelatinous, summertime virus. Tasty. It has caused me to lose my voice. The rest of me is fine, I am simply without words. In a verbal fashion. Anyway, I went on a brief walk to a bookstore with some compatriots of mine during our lunch hour, and I couldn't really talk. And I had the really terrible suspicion that having been struck dumb didn't exactly deprive the world of golden thoughts and revelations.


6) I understand that there are some hate-mongers who are looking to protest the upcoming nuptials of George Takei and Brad Altman. While no one's wedding day should be treated this way, I almost* hope it happens because I would dearly love to see an armada of Star Fleet nerds standing guard at the wedding reception. I mean, come on. Westboro Baptist Church vs. Kling-ons**? No contest, especially when bat'leths are involved.

*Really, just a teensy weensy part of me.
**Undoubtedly, there would be a host of Federation races represented, but when referring to battle, always cite Kling-ons.

Conversations I Never Thought I Would Have

"Mommy,"whispers the Boy. He is perched on the steps. He knows it is very, very late, that he shouldn't be anywhere near the downstairs area, and that Mama just needs to sit and drink her beer* in peace.

"Yes?" I ask, closing my eyes. The laundry I'm folding is warm on my lap. I could just go to sleep right now...

It has been a long day. Father's Day. Which means Mommy Duty times two. The kids woke up at a quarter after six, and we were off to the races. After changing the Girl's diaper, encouraging the Boy to use the potty, brushing one and a half sets of teeth**, getting dressed, going to McDonald's (to get children out of the house and give Super Ninja the morning off), going to my parents' house, going swimming, being incredibly irritated by one of my brothers but stuffing the annoyance down because Father's Day is a nice time to be respectful of the fathers in the family and not start an argument, realizing this is the last full family get-together I'll have in awhile because Big Sister and her family are moving to England in ten days, driving home, and doing both kids' bedtimes because Super Ninja developed a raging migraine while we were at dinner... Yeah. Long day.

"Mommy, I can't go to sleep because I can't find Juggernaut."

The Boy has been playing with some Marvel superheroes and villains of late, and Juggernaut always seems to go missing. I guess he really is unstoppable.

After a hearty sigh, I push myself off of the couch. My visual sweep of the menagerie of action figures on my coffee table does not reveal Juggernaut, so I shuffle to the stairs, and the Boy and I march back to his bedroom. I dig under and around his bed, but to no avail. I tuck the Boy back under his Thomas the Tank Engine sheets, give him a kiss, and tell him we'll find it tomorrow.

Fingers crossed, the full complement of action figures will be found today so that the Boy stays in bed and doesn't cause me to have minor heart failure by materializing when I'm least expecting it.

*The Girl has started calling beer "Mommy Juice." This does not make me feel good.
**The Girl only has seven teeth right now.

I'm Molting

This past weekend was a very swimmable weekend. The air was reminiscent soup. Not the good kind, either. I'm talking Cream of Awful. Sticky, damp, oppressive. And clearly from a can.

Whilst I was wondering what to do with the kiddies all day, my best friend called me to giggle about how she'd just purchased the diametrically opposed Ayn Rand's The Virtue of Selfishness and Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto. Then she made me feel sixteen again by asking me the question that all kids whose parents have a pool hear repeatedly during the dog days of summer: "Hey, are you going swimming today?"

When we were kids, she would come over with a towel and a bathing suit. Just in case.

But I couldn't imagine anything better than going swimming. If I didn't, I would've just puddled. And being surrounded by lovely pool water is way, way better than swimming in your own juices. So, best friend came over, and it was just like old times. Well except that we were squiring my children through the water, both of whom could not have loved swimming more. This is a shock, because in previous years we could only coax the Boy into the water with tales of how much Batman loves swimming.

But this year? He'd been napping when Best Friend and I first dipped into the pool, and upon waking from his slumber, my sister brought him outside so he could see what I was up to. The Boy immediately dropped trou and ran toward the pool, semi-in flagrante. I ushered him back inside where I could slap him in his bathing suit, UV tee, and soaked him from head to toe with sunblock. Same with the Girl. And it was off to the pool!

During this thoroughly enjoyable escapade, I earned a flaming red sunburn. I thought I'd gotten my back with the SPF 45, but, it seems I was wrong. It is flaking and peeling now, and I have a new found sympathy for snakes and what they have to go through when sloughing off skin.

Yet another thing that does not scream professional: angling your arms like an escape artist to claw the dangling strips of flesh from your back.

Retraction

I guess this isn't so much a retraction as it is a correction, but "retraction" always sounds way juicy. And I'm nothing if not juicy. Wait, that doesn't sound right.

Anyway, turns out that I misremembered some of my personal history and it was not by brother-in-law's wife, Playwright, who gave me The Time Traveler's Wife. Nope, 't'was my brother-in-law himself, who has requested this moniker when referenced in this here blog: Indiana Hulk.

Wish granted.

Indiana Hulk christened himself such to annoy Super Ninja. How so? Well, he cherrypicked Super Ninja's nearest and dearest fictional characters. Given that, I think I need to offer Super Ninja the opportunity to create a nickname to annoy Indiana Hulk. Might I suggest Citizen Spidey? Or any other combo that name checks Spider-Man, Orson Welles, The Shadow, Houdini, and Richard Nixon?