I Wouldn’t Want That Nasty Thing In My Mouth Either!

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So, the hubster was asked point blank what I was up to today. He said, “The same old thing.”

(Thanks Parrish.)

I think he meant, “Oh, her. Still taking up space, you know?” Uh… he knew a $25K grant came for my work today and that I may be a bene eligible employee again. What sort of retirement fund hater is he anyway?

(Thanks Todd.)

I shall elaborate on the gist of what the hubster meant. “Yup, she’s hogging all the oxygen.” I did tell him my don’t-tell-anyone-I-taught-you-this mechanic buddy let me use his power tools* and how empowering it was for me.

(Thanks Jesse via Todd.)

Seriously, it was an awesome freaking day filled with awesome freaking stuff and all he can come up with is that I’m doing the same ol’? The note on my morning coffee had better be awesome. You hear that, honey? Awesome.

* Just so you know, this was totally going to be a blog full of innuendo regarding long screws and the hubster ruined that with all his talk like, “Last I checked her heart was still beating.”

Rockin’ the Sweatshop

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Look at this. Look at it because I can’t stop. Honestly! She’s sewing in rose colored glasses. We agreed to help some sister Daisy Girl Scouts by sewing patches on their tunics as a project to break in her new sewing machine from Grammanina. At the same time, she had homework to make a hat for National Hat Day. She’s wearing the mock-up of her hat in this photo. I was never, nevernevernever, as complex as this young lady.
We freed her machine from its Styrofoam prison and she loaded up orange thread to contrast the blue fleece of her hat.

Then she wound the bobbin and snipped the thread. My machine winds the bobbin in a totally different manner, so this was a learning experience for both of us. George then threaded the machine for sewing.
And after a few mangled stitches, she asked if we could go back to my machine. So we did because I’m not about frustrating the kiddos. Well, not at this particular time anyway. Sew, sew, sew.
Lift pressure foot and turn.
Sew, sew, sew.
Sew, sew, sew.
And so! Three Daisy tunics all patched up and after a quick thread change, one hat seamed up and accented in orange. She makes sewing cool. YAY Baby Girl! You rock my world.

Still Not Fine in Aught Nine

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Leggings McGillicuddy and her ununiformed daughter infringed upon my daughter’s cookie selling territory yesterday. I was close to making a stink just to be shitty, but restricted myself to flashing the stink eye. THIS is why I didn’t want to do Girl Scouts. THIS is why I didn’t want to do PTO*. It makes people like me small. Next thing you know, I’ll be scooping up the field mice and bopping them on the head. Kill me now. Send me to hell so the hounds can pick apart my cold black heart.

To emphasize my capacity for smallness, consider my “teaching time” in the 8 YO boy’s class as we discussed social justice and taking action. I discriminated against half the class by denying them a gew gaw that I gave the other half of the class. “Is this fair?” I asked. “Yes, because maybe you didn’t have enough for all of us,” said one do-gooder smarty pants. “We can share,” offered another. “No, no, no, no, no! We we don’t share! There is no sharing!” You know what it was? The gew gaw was STUPID. I should have given half the kids a Wii and then asked if that was fair.

My dear sweet hubster, who knows the darkness deep within my soul and is terrified by it, uhm, I mean who clearly loves me dearly, brought me the most perfect cup of coffee last night about 9 p.m. After a long, busy day, I had just returned home from my last Vestry meeting as a member of that body. I went out approving a deficit budget. What a spirit crusher that was! The deficit budget capped off a fine day of looming dark clouds between my ears.

Back to the coffee – I am currently involved in a project or two. One such effort is a series of on-line computer classes to help me with the Internets and Web site stuff to keep me employable. The hubster fed and put to bed the anklebiters and presented me a quiet environment in which to pursue my learning. The perfectly prepared and snuggly warm coffee by my side was intended to feul me through xHTML Because You are Old 101. Instead, I wasted that time doing, uh… social networking? E-mail? Stalking Whiskey. Whatever. But at 2 a.m., I decided to get some shut eye. At 3 a.m. the eyes still weren’t shut. Shortly thereafter the 6 YO girl crawled into bed with me. Shortly thereafter the alarm went off. I’m tired and hungry and small. So, I’m just saying, maybe, if you see me, you can find some charity for me that I’m quite sure I wouldn’t recriprocate.

* Just to clarify, I love the PTA and all their good work. I just can’t do the PTA.

Not Selling Girl Scout Cookies Online

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Let me start off by saying we are not selling Girl Scout Cookies on-line. No, we are not. We are not because that is clearly against the rules. GSUSA prohibits internet sales of Girl Scout Cookies. This includes on-line auctions, broadcast e-mail messages, and/or council Web sites. Got that? Are we clear? Let’s face it, even if it were allowed, we’d never get to the post office to mail your order to you.

Now that we have covered how we are not selling GSCs on-line, I’d like to point out that many of you who adore the 6 YO girl and do live in Tucson may need of a source for GSCs. Consider contacting her since her personal sales goal is 185 boxes, approximately 1/4th of the goal for her entire troop. Think big baby girl!

GSCs claim no trans fats, but they do have partially hydrogenated oils in them anyway. Perhaps that would be inappropriate ingesta for you, but you would still like to help a sista out. Our church, Grace St. Paul’s, has a food ministry called Joseph’s Pantry. It is an agency of the Tucson Community Food Bank and Association of Arizona Food Banks. George and a Daisy GS sister of hers are taking donations of boxes of cookies to the pantry for their “Gift of Caring”. You could also talk to her about how to donate cookies toward that project.

Yes, I did just return from a GS meeting. At that meeting I picked up two uniforms in need of patch sewing. Some of you may know that in the process of sewing the 6YOs uni, a needle broke and flew at my face so quickly I heard a tiny sonic boom. OUCH! Sewing? Cookie sales? What the? And if you remember correctly I joined the PTO at my son’s school for a t-shirt discount. I drive, and love, a minivan with easy listening on the radio. I’m forcing my kids to eat carrots to help them poo. Fundamental shifts have occurred in my whoaminess. Where are my old lady jeans and hair scrunchies?

Harvest Love

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It’s beet season! I love beets – their earthly taste, their dente bite, the way they turn everything a deep, rich, fuchsia. With the tough personal loss I recently suffered at the hands of the second son of God (thank you very much Mr. Tebow) I needed some comfy food. My grandmother, the one I fondly remember with her tongue out, used to make these for me. She also pickled cucumbers the way Denveater described them. Well, not quite. I’m sure the taste was the same but the presentation was waaaay different since she wasn’t an east coast Jew but a southern Episcopalian.

Anyway, beets are coming down the TCSA pike and into my veggie bin. Using my considerable(ly limited) skills, I created this short homage for your viewing pleasure. I should probably have let the piece speak for itself. Ah, well. Turn up your sound.

I’m also thinking very good thoughts for a friend of mine with potentially very good news that goes along with a local, organic, communal harvest. Sparkles, Molly!

But We’re Happy Now?

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I decided to quit my job. I thought on it for a couple of weeks. I floated it past my buddies. Then I called two “colleagues” with my firm decision. I thought about what I was going to say and I have to admit, it was perfectly positive. There is no way that I would leave with bad feelings. It would be the best quitting EVER.

My boss is without a doubt my favorite boss ever. She’s a muckety muck in her field and has a vision that can’t be beat. Because I like her personally, I care about supporting her in that work. What I like about her as la jefe is that she’s interested in allowing people their own process. I don’t do well being told what to do, when to do it, how to do it (just ask my dad). She’s never even bothered to define my job.

The job has no tangible benefits – no health, no retirement, no nuthin’. There’s no money in the job. There’s no upward mobility. There’s no prestige. It can be frustrating as all get out. In fact, it feels an awful lot like my VISTA days. I’ve been pushing this rock uphill for two years now. My family is the lucky recipient of my lack of ambition and my abundance of vision. It’s time for me to “get a real job.”

The quitting went well. We had a normal meeting. It was all good news. Things are taking a turn for the better with the project. YAY! And then it was time for me to quit. “My working on this project and your paying for it out of pocket is enabling the University to not have to act while simultaneously hurting our families.” Doesn’t that sound great? It’s so much better than some of the lesser charitable things I was thinking.

She looked at me like I kicked her kitten, agreed with me that the University is taking advantage, and complimented my work. My resolve weakend. Did I mention that I admire this woman and she’s been a great boss for seven years (two years on this project and five years in a previous position)? “What would happen if I left?” I said thinking that she would say a position would be created and the University would do a spousal hire as were the whisperings. Instead she said, “Nothing.” We are being noticed for the work we’ve done and money is finally coming in, she pointed out. “But the bones are here for great things and the fun part of fleshing it out comes next,” I said thinking about the board of advisors we’ve hornswaggled into working with us and remembering what fun it is seeing them. Then with less resolve, “I’d be leaving things on good footing and ready for blastoff and the spousal hi….”

So I stayed, releived that I didn’t have to cancel the kids’ music lessons, sell the car, clip coupons. Did you realize the economy is tanking or has tanked? Thank God I have a job – even one with no benefits. We may be in a depression, but we’re happy now. Right? Yes, we’re happy because I have the best job ever.

Resolution 1 – Keep Tongue in Cheek

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My buddy posted a photo of me on Facebook with my tongue sticking out. The hubster has posted a photo on Facebook and My Space of me with my tongue sticking out. All embarrassment aside about why I’d have “My Face” accounts, I really need to examine my tendency to sabotage photos with my tongue.

My mother used to say, “I wouldn’t want that nasty thing in my mouth either.” In today’s parlance, I think that means, “Whatever.” While she found the stuck out tongue offensive, in one of my most memorable photos of her mother, the tongue is out. Apparently, I’m passing the proclivity on to my own progeny.

Tongue Twisters

This is my kids’ favorite:
Unique New York

This is Guinness’s hardest:
The sixth sick sheik’s sixth sheep’s sick.

This is the least appropriate for children:
I’m not the pheasant plucker, I’m the pheasant plucker’s son,
And I’m only plucking pheasants till the pheasant pluckers come!

Are these facts true?

* If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee. Anyone wanna come over for a piping hot brew?

* The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds. That’s sad news for bottom feeders.

* Every person has a unique tongue print, though I am sure the blotters don’t taste all that great.

Great Tongues Behave Alike


Mental Note

Sticking out your tongue isn’t the only way to goof in a photo. In the New Year, I will place my tongue more firmly in my cheek in favor of less bacterial photos.

Recognizing Realities

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  • August 27, 1989 – age 18. Too old for Seventeen Magazine.
  • May 22, 1992 – age 20. I would never be on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.
  • May something, 1995 – age 23. No longer eligible for collegiate athletics.
  • August 27, 1995 – age 24. Too old for The Real World.
  • March 8, 1996 – age 24. I would never be Miss America or any Miss.
  • December 2, 1999 – age 29. I hate school.
  • February 10, 2000 – age 29. I should have worn more bikinis.
  • September 1, 2000 – age 30. Oklahoma may not be the only place in the world.
  • September 9, 2005 – age 34. Some things don’t get fixed, but friends surface like cream.
  • January 3, 2009 – age 37. Listy, sell-out, blog cliché.

New Year’s Kiss Off!

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You see that? THAT is how I feel about the new year thus far. It’s only puke, cleaning up puke, and being flipped off at the In-N-Out on New Year’s Eve. Okay, that latter part is actually quite funny, don’t you think? The hubster is HILARIOUS.

I spent forever on an end of the year photo retrospective. It was going to be awesome and you would have loved it. Sadly, I never saved the project and it was gone in a flash. So, too bad for all of you ’cause it would have been the bome (inside joke – too bad for you again)!

Did I mention the puke? As in clean it up with a dustpan volumes of puke. Puke from every member of the family except the person who had to clean it all up – me. Puke in the minivan, which requires 24/7 open windows. Puke on the carpet, which has had to be shampooed twice in the last two days. Puke that you slip on when you hit the concrete floors. Puke. That reminds me, I’m not feeling so well.

Speaking of bodily functions, I visited Milk Breath today. She posts about Google Analytics and requests key word search information from other bloggers. Overwhelmingly, poop brings people here. My most viewed page is the chocolate chip cookie post. It would be easier to just look at the bag of chips for the recipe. In any event, I hope poop searches have nothing to do with my cookies.

That cookie post is about accepting imperfections. Having recently returned home from home, I am reaquainted with all my imperfections past and present. If I cared about continuity in writing, I’d say it makes me feel “pukey”, but really it feels like shame. Shame, shame, everyone knows your name. I wondered about this today with a friend. I’ve done a thing or two that I can’t be proud of, but overall I’ve worked hard to be honorable. WHY do I have to feel shame and why is the shame illusive and not tied into a particular event? My friend said it’s because people have a fixed frame of reference. It’s the you 20 years ago that they can’t let go because it’s familiar. That past you was still trying to figure out how to be and they don’t know the current you. Perhaps, but that’s their problem. Why do I have to feel the shame?

Two days into the new year and here I am. Spinning wheels, puked on, poop reputed, and shamed. Pluck you 2009! I’m resolving to outlast all 365 damn days of you.