Je suis allee

It is a funny thing, this blogging deal.

My couple of posts last week notwithstanding, I'm not actually here.

I am, if my timing is right and luck is with me, sitting in an Amsterdam cafe sipping a frosty glass of Dutch ale with the lovely Nadine, whose blog never fails to put a happy smile on my face, while our kids (hers are the cute ones) romp in a nearby fountain or park learn bad English swear words from my punks.

All while Blogger and the miracle of the pre-scheduled post do their thing.

(I hope. You are talking, after all, about the person who couldn't figure out how to use a Blackberry to post from abroad, so had to settle for hurriedly writing several fairly crappy posts before she left for her two weeks overseas. It did wonders for my packing, let me tell you. In fact, I probably spent last week walking around Paris with only one pair of underpants, some mismatched socks, and my cat-vomit sweater, doing absolutely nothing to battle the Parisian image of Americans as icons of style.)

Just kidding. I did not bring my cat-vomit sweater. Come ON. I'm not stupid. It's summer there, silly!

But I can't actually tell you what I did bring, because well, in this crazy future post world, I haven't actually packed yet, because, like I said, I am busy future-posting. Keep up, wouldja?

I do know that, in a sad state of affairs, I did have my knitting planned out a month in advance, down to the crappy plastic needles there is no way any flight attendant could find reason to take from me. I am taking the 18 charts of Nefertiti to assist in my valiant efforts to keep my Air France flight aloft through the sheer combined force of distraction and busywork. And some other projects to do while I'm there, sitting in assorted cafes and drinking wine. (But not smoking cigarettes, Jen. I promise.)

The kids and I were also kept company on the flight over by another bloggy friend, who kindly provided us with the fruit of her many, many hours of toil:

Can you even imagine the sheer awe in oneself and utter joy at seeing your name on the front of a book? (Well... I mean, provided it isn't one about you committing securities fraud or being involved in a prostitution ring, of course.)

Anyway, there is really no one more deserving of having her own book than Denise, who is probably one of the strongest women I've ever known, and also one of the kindest. Go buy her book, darn it.

And I'll be back next week to tell you about my adventures in France and the Netherlands. I may actually be back home, now; this future post thing is hard to keep track of.

But if you're looking for something fun to do in the meantime, and know what's good for you, go get Denise's book.

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The folks over at humor-blogs are definitely going to buy Denise's book. 'Cuz it makes a great gift, and because I said so. And I come from the future, so you should listen to me.

Boy 1, Mommy 0, Girl -10

Sometimes you just know something's gone incredibly wrong with your parenting methods and you are at a complete loss to explain just how you were so outmaneuvered.

The other day, I replied to my son's perpetual "Kywchtv?" (Can I watch TV?) with "No... how 'bout you write a thank you/goodbye note to your teacher to give her on the last day of school?"

And he said, with the sincerest little face:

"Thanks, Mom. That's a good option for later. Kywchtv now?"

I'm pretty sure there isn't much worse than having an 8-year-old patronize you so I'm putting him up for adoption.

No. Really. Just let me know in the comments.

Or even just an email.

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On the handy other hand, I have figured out how to best my daughter, and it is such an excellent plan, and so much fun, I've decided to generously share my newfound knowledge with those of you moms who agree public humiliation is a legitimate and even proper parenting method.

For those of you who don't, bite me you simply haven't hit the pre-teen years yet. Come back in a couple, and we'll talk.

Anyway, this has been the most fun I've had all week. I loaded up my Walkman (and definitely, call it a "Walkman," because that only adds to your allure) with HER songs, and then let her have a bunch of her friends over and proceeded to parade through the house wearing my "Walkman" wailing things like "People in the PLACE! What do you want for LUNCH?!" all while incorporating hip hop (-ish - I am, after all 42) gestures into my singing caterwauling.

'Cuz nothing says "cool" quite like white suburban mom trying to do rap. Or hip hop. With her Walkman. And some air guitar. With a bit of air drums because you couldn't resist, even though they didn't really go.

Ah. It's the BEST. The BEST, I tell you. You should have seen their little faces. They ALL just wanted to die. Not even just my own kid. In fact, it's possible I've completely obliterated the need for playdates and sleepovers here altogether.

Feel free to use it:






Just look how well it works!




Boom-boom-POW.

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The folks over at humor-blogs don't raise smart-alecks AND know how to dance.

The Garden Club called...

...they want their membership back.








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The folks over at humor-blogs don't rely on squirrels to do THEIR window boxes.

Do not disturb

Heretofore seen only in captivity, in the controlled habitat of a school classroom, and indeed, thought to be extinct in the wild (if not an entirely mythological creature altogether), A Boy Sitting and Reading was spotted recently in the suburbs outside Boston.



His appearance caused much consternation and a flurry of activity, including a shushing of all other possibly distracting living beings at one nearby home, and a blur of flashbulbs. One particularly crazed witness was heard making desperate phone calls to neighbors and to a nearby school, and yelling into the receiver, "Come see! Come see! Lookit! Lookit! I am too a good mother!"

There was even an ignoring of the need for sunscreen and previously unthinkable offers of lemonade and cookies - before dinner! - were made in hopes of encouraging the beast specimen to settle in longer.

This particular Boy Sitting and Reading, which weighed in at about 70 pounds and measured almost 56 inches in length, is thought to be approximately 8 years old. His stay was reported to be about 45 minutes, though those reports are unreliable because witnesses were in too much shock to be trusted with recalling specific details.

In hopes of attacting him back to the area, his mother went out and bought the sequel.

Even though it was in hardback.

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The folks over at humor-blogs know how to raise boys who like to read. And make cupcakes.

TMI at the HD

If you should happen to be a woman of the single persuasion interested in changing your marital or boyfriendal situation, I would recommend NOT doing so! visiting your local Home Depot, where men abound in such numbers But seriously. I wouldn't. that I began to wonder if women were even allowed in that crazy place.

What I would not so much do, however, is go there to buy a toilet seat.

Or at least perhaps not announce it to the strapping young man at the door who asks if he could help you.

But what exactly was I gonna do, say, "Oh, no thank you. Just browsing?"

In a Home Depot? I don't think so.

So my mind froze and, well... Well, I told the truth.

And then his mind froze - probably because it was busy being assaulted by images of toilet seats and what people do on them that might require replacing them - What I do on them, maybe? Was he thinking that? Oh, dear LORD! - and he drew a blank.

He froze for so long that another guy saw him standing there dumbstruck and came over to help, concerned perhaps I'd broken the floor model greeter. "Is something wrong?" he asked. He looked at me, though, like I was the one who might have done something wrong. Me!

"Uh..." Guy One stammered, sneaking nervous peeks at me. "She... she... she needs a toilet seat." He said the last really, really fast, like that would make it all just go away.

"Well, not to USE!" I exclaimed, slightly defensive.

Because that was helpful information.

"I mean, I mean... It's not for me, I mean. Well, it is, but not NOW. I mean... Oh, you know what? Could you just tell me where they are?"

"Yeah, sure," Guy Two says, but he looks awfully suspicious.

Or maybe like I'm crazy. Probably that was it, now that I think of it. Crazy.

A crazy lady talking way too much - She broke my new guy! Doesn't she know we come here to get away from the wimmens! And here she starts in blabberin' 'bout how someone in her house who shall remain nameless but he doesn't sit down to pee, if you know what I mean, whizzes all over the toilet seat all the livelong day and it's stained something terrible and she's having company so now she needs a new one? Just send your husband next time, lady, like the rest of your folk do! Haven't you noticed there are no other women in here? NONE. Zero. Zip. And all the men are really big and tattooed? I think you all girl-kind are allowed in for one hour every Sunday. That's it. And only in the paint section. You pick out something pretty and all 'Ooooh, pink!' and then you leave. Got it?

"Lar-ry!" his voice booms down the huuuuuge aisle to a man standing way at the other end. "COULD YOU POINT THE TOILET SEATS OUT TO THIS LADY HERE?"

And to the 25 or so guys whose keen interest level I am gauging based on just how fast their heads whipped around, thankyouverymuch.

I try to put a brave face on it. "Hi, boys..." I say brightly, all chipper and friendly-like as I walk past, very matter-o'-fact, like it's no big deal at all that I am about to buy a toilet seat. I hold my head up high and march down that aisle of shame to get my seat. Because I am a grown-up who can buy these things. But I am so going to kill that damn that Boy when I get home! The stuff I am forced to do because of him!

And then...

Do you happen to know just how many toilet seats they sell in the Home Depot?

Rough estimate? 65. All lined up and waiting for you to pick one out.

While assorted men walk past you in the aisle, and you pray little prayers in your head that the right seat is the very first one you see and is right th-... Oh, my God, 50 bucks? 50 bucks for a toilet seat?! NO WAY. Are they smoking crack?!

Sadly, it comes to pass that you said that last part aloud.

Just as someone of that big male and tattooed persuasion is walking by.

"Hm?" he says, looking a tad alarmed that a woman is talking to him. In his sacred place where he comes to be alone. She probably wants my big manly tattoed advice, he thinks, puffing up, and turning to me to solve this toilet seat problem the stupid lady seems to be having.

I am so not going to talk about toilet seats with some random man I don't even know.

Shoo! My hands make the gesture before my head can stop them. I just actually shoo-ed Godzilla in the aisle of Home Depot. "I mean, I mean... I'm good. All set! Yep. That's me. All set. Thank you, though."

He gives me the same exact look the second guy at the door did, and ambles off. I turn my head so I won't see in case he starts doing the spinny-finger-around-the-ear thing. There is only so much humiliation one can take in a day. And I am NOT going to be called crazy by some guy too stupid to even be wearing sleeves in 50 degree weather. (As an aside... Hello, global warming? I want my polar bear donations back!)

I finally grab my new seat, and carry it, in all its HUGE and growing HUGER by the moment glory, All.The.Way.Back to the front of the store.

Past the same 25 guys still standing there - probably in shock, for all I know - ("Hi, Boys!") past the two guys still at the door ("OH, I SEE YOU FOUND THE TOILET SEATS! THAT'S GREAT!") - wondering if I should just sling the sucker around my neck like a life preserver and wear it like some kind of big Scarlet Letter (T?) of shame, and head straight to the self-check out aisle so that there can be absolutely, positively no further discussion about any of this, with anyone. Ever again.

Only now some guy is running at me.

"Hey!" he yells.

Oh, my God, did I STEAL IT? Just kill me now, God. Please. Please! Why? Why me? I would be the only woman in history to go to jail for stealing a toilet seat. Just end it now, God!

But it's just the guy from the toilet seat aisle.

"Hey!" he lands right in front of me. "Ya' wanna go out?" he asks.

Really, God. Same request. Any minute now. I'm waiting.... Please. Just do it! I'll close my eyes. You do it fast.

God is apparently busy today, so I am left to my own devices.

"Huh?" I manage. And I am soooo not going to church on Sunday. Take that, You.

"Yeah. Ya' wanna go out?"

"Oh. I... oh. Oh. Um. Yeah. No. I... I... I, um, don't think so. Gotta go put this in, doncha know," I say, waving my new seat around in the air.

Seriously.

So anyway, like I was saying: If you're interested in a guy, that one might still even be there. Tell him I'm sorry I dropped the seat on his foot when I fled, and I hope he wasn't too badly hurt.

And, um... If you don't mind too much, could you bring the seat back with you if you do go? Cuz there's no way I can manage going in that crazy place again.

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The folks over at humor-blogs must know some good on-line places where you can order these things and have them come in a plain brown paper wrapper.

Things I lie awake at night worrying about...

So.

Last week, faced with the need for three separate batches of cupcakes for different events and something to occupy a certain someone who is already on summer vacation, I thought I had a stroke of genius:

And all was going really well, until suddenly, I had this thought:

Had I really taught her how to fish freed myself up to blog or... to grow up into the one who has to make the cupcakes?

Darn.

I've already messed up, haven't I?

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The folks over at humor-blogs know how to raise good feminists.

Aw... shucks

Aw.... shucks, guys, you are the BEST. Really.

Every comment is like a big fat hug and now I am soooo over the fact that I am old bag who not even the 8-year-old wants to be seen with, and who can't even get cars to stop so she can cross the street anymore, much less cause the traffic accidents of her youth. (OK. Apparently not totally over it, but getting there.)

Blogging can be overwhelming to me sometimes, fueling my already large sense of inadequacy - I have the design skills of a 18-month-old let loose in the living room with a red magic marker and tend to stick my head in the sand about technical updates as well. I don't think half the blogs on my blogroll are still alive, even, and the fact that Google alerts people that I've written a post kinda freaks me out. What if they're busy right now, Google? What if you make them come all the way over here, and I don't really have a decent post? Why can't you leave them alone already? They'll click on me when they want to, is what I say. It's just too much pressure on me if you're going around bothering people, Mr. Google. And Follower? What the heck with that? Now we have to collect pictures of everyone?

It's really just too tiring.

So anyway, I'm very appreciative of all of you who come around despite my bad blogging skills and tendency to talk too much.

Thank you for all your suggestions for getting out of funks, too. Chocolate and wine were the most popular suggestions, followed by exercise of some variety. A couple of people who are clearly on crack suggested having a baby, but... yeah. No. Have you not been paying attention? I think that's what got me into this mess in the first place. (Feel free to send pics of yours, though, because they're awful cute - especially when I'm not the one in charge of taking them to baseball or figuring out how to papier-mache a solar system for them at 9 o'clock at night.)

Obviously, my favorite suggestions were those that claimed to come here to cheer up and I tried my mightiest to make the random generator spew out one of them as the winner, alas, to no avail. Still, I'm pretty happy with the actual winner, though: You gotta love a woman who can work the word "buttular" into a comment, right? So Seanna Lee, email me with your snail mail addy, and I'll send out my latest creation:

a summer scarf out of CEY Silky Alpaca laceweight.

Um... when I finally finish it.

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The folks over at humor-blogs get their summer scarves ready BEFORE they hold the contest.

Ah, family... Can't live with 'em, can't flush 'em

Oh, come ON, now!!!!




Seriously!

Very helpful. Just one extra minute, is all it would take.

And this one musta thought they were being twice as helpful:


Happy weekend, everyone! May there be a little less baseball in yours than there will be in mine. I'll be back Monday (-ish) with contest results and a big thank you for all the awesome bloggy love.
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The folks over at humor-blogs raise families who put the toilet paper rolls ALL the way on the thingies.

Two years

I know, I know. I haven't been around much, of late. Not that anyone asked.

Oh, sure, I've been busy, but who the heck isn't busy in spring, with baseball, lacrosse, end of school cupcake-making.

It's more that I had a little touch of something.

No, not swine flu.

Worse.

See, Mad Mad turned two this weekend, and, as is to be expected, is undergoing a touch of the usual mid-bloglife crisis: Why is she here? What is the point, even? And who really gives a crap about all her silly nonsense anyway? Why doesn't she just email her two readers if she wants to let them know what's going on in her life?

And speaking of life, isn't it about time she got one already?

For some very strange reason, Mad Mad's existentialist crisis coincided with my own. At the ripe old age of 42, I, too, have questions no slick new convertible and young bimbo are going to be able to fix: Why am I here? What is the point, even? Who really gives a crap about all my silly nonsense anyway? And, most important, when exactly is my ass going to get smaller?

Sigh.

There ain't a convertible big enough to ease the pain.

So there has been some moping around.

I tried to shake it off a bit. I even had a couple things I wanted to tell everyone, and went to the effort of finding myself a new photographer. One that wouldn't think taking pics of my butt was quite so funny.

She has her own issues, though:






(Seriously. I truly don't understand how she got herself into private school, that one. )

I went back to my old photographer, and surprise, surprise:



Apparently he's still a little snot. So that didn't help either.

A few death threats later, I got a barely passable shot of my Tangled Yoke in Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool, but then I noticed something else:



And also? Who the hell wears cardigans? In SUMMER?! Little old ladies, that's who. And worse? Little old ladies KNIT cardigans.

There I am, a little old lady knitting my own cardigan in my Carol Brady hair.

I couldn't suck more.

Now just listen: if you happen to be a little old lady, please don't write in about how YOU are even older, or how you are sure I am an awful person who doesn't like old people. I got nothing against old people. It's just the one looking at me in my mirror that is troubling me some lately. She's always wanting to know where all the brown spots came from and why things keep sagging, and I just don't know what to tell her any more. Mostly I avoid eye-contact, brush my teeth and get out quick before there's more questions.

Most days it works. I am lucky enough to live in New England, after all, where usually one can hide many ills in a nice pair of jeans.

(Provided you don't happen to live in a changing room at Lord and Taylor's, where there are mirrors positioned so you can see your butt in those jeans. Because THAT is not pleasant. At all. Ask me how I know. Oh, don't bother. We're getting to that part. I'm not the most short-winded of people, as some of you have kindly pointed out, thankyouverymuch.)

Any-way.

Summer is coming and well, I needed a bathing suit. (That's how I know. See? I get there. You just have to be patient, sometimes.)

I was hoping to find one that made me look 15 years younger and like I had a good body.

Yeah. Apparently they don't sell those.

It wouldn't normally matter, because, Heck who do I know at the beach? And what do I care what they think? But now, see, we made some friends there. And it turns out I actually like them.

So I don't need them to see me in excruciating detail because I don't want them passing out in shock or falling off the boat and drowning.

So I needed a bathing suit that covered pretty much everything, from wrist to ankles, but didn't look too frumpy because these friends are younger and I don't want them to think I'm an old boring lady. (Who knits cardigan sweaters in her Carol Brady hair.)

It took me a long, agonizing, tear-filled while, but I found something that wasn't too bad.

And then I spent $150 on two cover-ups to cover it all up, just to make sure.

So anyway, long story short, if you're looking for me this summer at the beach, this is what I'll look like:



That oughta do it. Doncha think?

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For those of you paying attention, yes, I did say Mad Mad turned two, and she LOVES presents: Tell her how you get out of your funks, and she'll put you in a little drawing to win a little something. Hand-knit, of course. Maybe a wool thong, though, if she's still cranky.

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The folks over at humor-blogs don't pass out when they look at themselves in the mirror.