I just came back from having a cavity filled, and I am proud to report that I conducted myself with dignity. I even refrained from grabbing the dentist's arm while he wielded his drill. Of course, the valium probably helped.
And this just in - my blog is cute and endearing. At least, that's what some of the reviewers over at humor blogs said, and I don't think they meant that in a good way. They were probably just feeling cranky because they had to read a mommy blog. Apparently, we mommy bloggers are serious anathema to the, uh, serious humorists in the blogosphere. They only let us mommies hang around their site so that they'll have someone to laugh at their jokes. Girls are good for that.
Cute and endearing...I guess that beats "bitter, bored, and long-winded," which is how MadMad's blog was categorized. Maybe I should try to get sponsorship from Hallmark - or, even better, My Little Pony.
Now I'm trying to think of something cute to write. My toddler has had these long, ropey boogers hanging out of her nose all day. That's sort of cute, especially when they run into her mouth. Endearing, even. And the 5-year-old has been rubbing her boogers on her sleeve, and then licking it. Awww.....isn't that sweet? I should get a picture, I guess.
My novocaine is wearing off, which isn't doing much for my typically endearing disposition. Time to go...
Friday, February 29, 2008
Thursday, February 28, 2008
War is Hell
I swear, in all the years they have been alive, not one of my children has ever, of his/her own will, turned off a light. I'll go upstairs and find it devoid of people, yet with 3 bedroom lights, one hallway light, and one bathroom light, all on. I think it's all part of their NILE initiative - No Illumination Left Extinguished. Just a few people's effort to make their tiny corner of the world a little brighter....
And in this (bright) corner of the world, what makes the front page of major newspapers (print edition) are school redistricting fights. That's right, there's the war in Iraq; but there are the more important wars here at home, such as whose child gets to go to an AP school versus an IB school. Though these differences seem trivial to outsiders, they spark internecine violence, such as fistfights among parents at school bus stops (please, people, the children! Spare the children!). Irate homeowners storm the offices of local realtors, who made unkeepable promises regarding specific school districts. Longtime friends and neighbors stop speaking to each other. It's brother against brother, the north side of town against the south, angry mobs sniping at each other at neighborhood yard sales...
People wonder why I home school. I tell you, it's because I don't like to take sides. Can't we all just get along? And put something more newsworthy on the front pages of our newspapers? Geez, no wonder print is dead....
I sat next to yet another spinning fanatic at Knit Night yesterday evening. She looked normal, but then she started talking about her spinning wheel that she had bought in Vermont; and the woman on the other side of me chimed in about the wheel that she might just pick up in Poland (apparently the Stradivarius of spinning wheels lives there); and I realized I had entered the Twilight Zone. What's wrong with these people? Don't they realize that we live in way too rushed a society for them to sit there and spin wool into yarn, and then knit a sweater from it? I mean, by the time you're done, you've frozen to death, right?
It's now that point in the afternoon when the sound of my children's voices puts my teeth on edge. Anna is out babysitting (apparently, she is much nicer to other people's children than to ours) and Theo has decided he wants to get all this high school nonsense out of the way and is studying non-stop. David is busy trying to make some sort of astronaut diorama out of those little marshmallow Peeps and some tinfoil. (What is it with that kid, anyway?) But that still leaves Brian, Rachel, and Susie (piping shrilly away on her little plastic recorder) to drive me insane. My only hope is that our next-door neighbor's children come over and distract them. You'll just have to take my word for it, it's way easier to watch 6 kids than just 3. One of those paradoxes of parenthood.
Oh, and I'm starving. Not losing weight, though; just starving. We wouldn't want all this suffering to have a purpose or anything...
And in this (bright) corner of the world, what makes the front page of major newspapers (print edition) are school redistricting fights. That's right, there's the war in Iraq; but there are the more important wars here at home, such as whose child gets to go to an AP school versus an IB school. Though these differences seem trivial to outsiders, they spark internecine violence, such as fistfights among parents at school bus stops (please, people, the children! Spare the children!). Irate homeowners storm the offices of local realtors, who made unkeepable promises regarding specific school districts. Longtime friends and neighbors stop speaking to each other. It's brother against brother, the north side of town against the south, angry mobs sniping at each other at neighborhood yard sales...
People wonder why I home school. I tell you, it's because I don't like to take sides. Can't we all just get along? And put something more newsworthy on the front pages of our newspapers? Geez, no wonder print is dead....
I sat next to yet another spinning fanatic at Knit Night yesterday evening. She looked normal, but then she started talking about her spinning wheel that she had bought in Vermont; and the woman on the other side of me chimed in about the wheel that she might just pick up in Poland (apparently the Stradivarius of spinning wheels lives there); and I realized I had entered the Twilight Zone. What's wrong with these people? Don't they realize that we live in way too rushed a society for them to sit there and spin wool into yarn, and then knit a sweater from it? I mean, by the time you're done, you've frozen to death, right?
It's now that point in the afternoon when the sound of my children's voices puts my teeth on edge. Anna is out babysitting (apparently, she is much nicer to other people's children than to ours) and Theo has decided he wants to get all this high school nonsense out of the way and is studying non-stop. David is busy trying to make some sort of astronaut diorama out of those little marshmallow Peeps and some tinfoil. (What is it with that kid, anyway?) But that still leaves Brian, Rachel, and Susie (piping shrilly away on her little plastic recorder) to drive me insane. My only hope is that our next-door neighbor's children come over and distract them. You'll just have to take my word for it, it's way easier to watch 6 kids than just 3. One of those paradoxes of parenthood.
Oh, and I'm starving. Not losing weight, though; just starving. We wouldn't want all this suffering to have a purpose or anything...
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
I Don't Wanna Grow Up
That's right, you didn't hear from me last night. I had to go to bed early, as my husband apparently thinks I need to be up at the crack of dawn. There's nothing like a dentist appointment to make me wish I weren't a grown-up. I don't want to be mature and take myself to the dentist. I want to be dragged kicking and screaming to the car, and I definitely need a balloon afterwards. And a sticker.
Is that weird?
I made up for my unhappiness this morning by being grouchy towards Larry. I'll give him credit - he didn't take the bait. And he actually heated up the car for me, which was nice. So I forgive him. But I did schedule the next appointment myself.
I needed x-rays today, which I hate, because I have the smallest mouth for an adult (something Larry finds hard to believe); and those squares they stick in your mouth for the x-ray are always too big. The dental hygienist (I guess just for emphasis) (or maybe she didn't like my looks) went into a back room where they apparently store tools left over from medieval torture chambers and came back with some sort of huge device to hold the already too big squares in place; then she shoved it all into my tiny little mouth, probably because she likes to watch people bleed.
So I cried. I have no shame. And she went out and came back in with a small teeny-tiny thing that did the job just fine. What's up with that? Why didn't she use the little thing in the first place?
Don't you love all these technical dentisty terms I'm using? I couldn't ask for the proper names of all the equipment, because there was stuff in my mouth. And this hygienist was definitely nicer than the one I had a couple of cleanings back, who was insisting that my teeth were all going to fall out of my mouth within a week because of premature gum disease. That woman was really fun. She kept going on and on about the importance of flossing, even though I had already told her that I floss every single day (honestly). I almost jumped out of the chair to grab her by her stupid smock and scream, "You callin' me a liar, you Listerine-soused dental tramp?!" Because really, I don't like that.
And, yes, I do feel silly complaining about a dental cleaning appointment, particularly when some people have way bigger problems....
Is that weird?
I made up for my unhappiness this morning by being grouchy towards Larry. I'll give him credit - he didn't take the bait. And he actually heated up the car for me, which was nice. So I forgive him. But I did schedule the next appointment myself.
I needed x-rays today, which I hate, because I have the smallest mouth for an adult (something Larry finds hard to believe); and those squares they stick in your mouth for the x-ray are always too big. The dental hygienist (I guess just for emphasis) (or maybe she didn't like my looks) went into a back room where they apparently store tools left over from medieval torture chambers and came back with some sort of huge device to hold the already too big squares in place; then she shoved it all into my tiny little mouth, probably because she likes to watch people bleed.
So I cried. I have no shame. And she went out and came back in with a small teeny-tiny thing that did the job just fine. What's up with that? Why didn't she use the little thing in the first place?
Don't you love all these technical dentisty terms I'm using? I couldn't ask for the proper names of all the equipment, because there was stuff in my mouth. And this hygienist was definitely nicer than the one I had a couple of cleanings back, who was insisting that my teeth were all going to fall out of my mouth within a week because of premature gum disease. That woman was really fun. She kept going on and on about the importance of flossing, even though I had already told her that I floss every single day (honestly). I almost jumped out of the chair to grab her by her stupid smock and scream, "You callin' me a liar, you Listerine-soused dental tramp?!" Because really, I don't like that.
And, yes, I do feel silly complaining about a dental cleaning appointment, particularly when some people have way bigger problems....
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Handbag Math
The few guys who read this may just want to leave the room now. No, I'm not going to be talking about anything embarrassing like tampons or such; but I'm willing to bet that you could care less about handbags. Go check out The Clay Pigeon - Grundir the Implacable is dispensing work life advice, and there's the scariest bunch of trash-talkin' math wizards you could ever hope to meet. You can come on back for the last 2 paragraphs, where I discuss the mean trick my husband played on me this morning.
Anyway, gals, I went to Target tonight for some Vagisil (ha, ha, just kidding, just wanted to get rid of those interfering men) and I spotted a new handbag. It sort of leapt out at me and asked me to hold it and check out its cellphone pocket (isn't this the first thing you do with purses now, look for where the cellphone goes?). It's fun, it's flirty; in other words, it's totally not me. So I was trying to decide whether or not to take a big leap of faith and buy it and pretend to be fun and flirty. I mean, this isn't just a handbag, it's a statement, right? It's saying that I am not going gently into the dowdiness of middle age; this handbag can let the world know that a few wrinkles doth not an old hag make.
[By the way, Larry wonders why it takes me hours to come out of Target. It's because all these philosophical questions arise. They are very time-consuming.]
Where was I? Oh, yes...at that point I thought, hey, why am I agonizing over this decision? The purse cost 17 dollars. The handbag I bought 2 years ago (2 whole years ago!) was also 17 dollars. At that rate, I cost my husband only $8.50 (plus tax) in handbags a year. You know, there's frugal (which I am, believe it or not), and then there's just plain stupid.
So I bought 6.
No, no, no, I just felt like typing that. But it occurred to me that my husband doesn't understand how expensive handbag-acquisition habits can be, because he has been spoiled all these years by his undemanding wife. I'm totally on board for (with?) keeping to our budget and saving for our retirement; but I need him to realize that things could be much worse, wife-spending-wise, you know what I mean? What's the use of unappreciated sacrifice, anyway?
So whaddaya think? Should I buy lots of stuff at once and bring it home and then say, loudly, "But no, that would be wrong!" and then return all of it (except the handbag, of course). Or is there an easier way to get my point across?
Okay, guys, come back in. Sometimes we just need a little girl talk, you know? Anyway, Larry made sure this morning that I would never, ever bother him at work again. So you menfolks may just want to take notes on this. You see, he asked me for our dentist's phone number so he could confirm a dental appointment for later this week, and I asked him to get me a make-up appointment for a cleaning while he was on the phone with them. He sounded a little annoyed and rushed when I asked, but tough.
So, yeah, he got me the appointment. For 7:30 AM. By my calculations, that means I have to be up, showered, and dressed by 7:15. (I'm spoiled, all right? I haven't managed that all winter.) Think I'll ever ask him to schedule anything for me again? I don't think so. He's diabolically clever, he is.
Anyway, gals, I went to Target tonight for some Vagisil (ha, ha, just kidding, just wanted to get rid of those interfering men) and I spotted a new handbag. It sort of leapt out at me and asked me to hold it and check out its cellphone pocket (isn't this the first thing you do with purses now, look for where the cellphone goes?). It's fun, it's flirty; in other words, it's totally not me. So I was trying to decide whether or not to take a big leap of faith and buy it and pretend to be fun and flirty. I mean, this isn't just a handbag, it's a statement, right? It's saying that I am not going gently into the dowdiness of middle age; this handbag can let the world know that a few wrinkles doth not an old hag make.
[By the way, Larry wonders why it takes me hours to come out of Target. It's because all these philosophical questions arise. They are very time-consuming.]
Where was I? Oh, yes...at that point I thought, hey, why am I agonizing over this decision? The purse cost 17 dollars. The handbag I bought 2 years ago (2 whole years ago!) was also 17 dollars. At that rate, I cost my husband only $8.50 (plus tax) in handbags a year. You know, there's frugal (which I am, believe it or not), and then there's just plain stupid.
So I bought 6.
No, no, no, I just felt like typing that. But it occurred to me that my husband doesn't understand how expensive handbag-acquisition habits can be, because he has been spoiled all these years by his undemanding wife. I'm totally on board for (with?) keeping to our budget and saving for our retirement; but I need him to realize that things could be much worse, wife-spending-wise, you know what I mean? What's the use of unappreciated sacrifice, anyway?
So whaddaya think? Should I buy lots of stuff at once and bring it home and then say, loudly, "But no, that would be wrong!" and then return all of it (except the handbag, of course). Or is there an easier way to get my point across?
Okay, guys, come back in. Sometimes we just need a little girl talk, you know? Anyway, Larry made sure this morning that I would never, ever bother him at work again. So you menfolks may just want to take notes on this. You see, he asked me for our dentist's phone number so he could confirm a dental appointment for later this week, and I asked him to get me a make-up appointment for a cleaning while he was on the phone with them. He sounded a little annoyed and rushed when I asked, but tough.
So, yeah, he got me the appointment. For 7:30 AM. By my calculations, that means I have to be up, showered, and dressed by 7:15. (I'm spoiled, all right? I haven't managed that all winter.) Think I'll ever ask him to schedule anything for me again? I don't think so. He's diabolically clever, he is.
Monday, February 25, 2008
To Google Or Not To Google...
Okay, this may just be the worst sore throat I have ever had. I'm still not letting myself Google "diphtheria." But I spent a good hour and a half last night having panic attacks about it. Hypochondria is a harsh mistress.
Today I went to the commissary to stock up on food for the next 2 weeks, illness be damned. I did okay, though I think I was sort of whimpering by the time I reached the checkout. I came home and went to bed, which my contract definitely doesn't allow; but I don't care. My husband won't fire me, because he wouldn't be able to find anyone else dumb enough to take my job.
Not the best of days, folks; my usual light-hearted wit (ahem) has high-tailed it out of here for the duration. If anyone finds it, please let me know.
Today I went to the commissary to stock up on food for the next 2 weeks, illness be damned. I did okay, though I think I was sort of whimpering by the time I reached the checkout. I came home and went to bed, which my contract definitely doesn't allow; but I don't care. My husband won't fire me, because he wouldn't be able to find anyone else dumb enough to take my job.
Not the best of days, folks; my usual light-hearted wit (ahem) has high-tailed it out of here for the duration. If anyone finds it, please let me know.
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