Consider the Kimpossibilities

I'm baaaa---aaaack.

2010-04-09T00:03:00.004-05:00

Dude. I had to go and have another friggin' baby and now I'm back in the business of drinking box wine and so here I am.

Here's a picture of the baby I had. I actually like this one. The baby, not necessarily the picture, since he's being all DickCheneySerious.

Let me clarify: I loved (love) the other baby I had too, but I wasn't at a point in my life where I could like him. Sorry, but it's true. Now that he's five, it's easier.

It doesn't help that he (the older one) is just so very intense and that other one up there in the blue chair is so easy and laid back.

I paid $81.94 for a woman to follow me out in a field and snap these photos. She hasn't sent all of them to me yet, but I have a feeling it's gonna end up breaking my credit card hiatus.

I mostly did it (hired a professional photographer) on account of my mother bitching about how I don't have any portraits of the children and me. She wanted one of me in a white flowing gown cradling the baby and hugging the big one. She wanted them to be wearing smocked fucking outfits.

Well, this is the best I could do. We just aren't white gown/smocked outfit people. My cousin is. Let her wear the damn gown and embarrass her children.

We are overalls-wearing, outdoorsy types people. Give or take.

So, when my mother saw these, I wasn't surprised that her only comment was, "Oh. Well look at y'all out in the weeds."

I guess they are weeds, but the photographer and I actually liked the idea of long, unruly grass. It's probably a nice parallel to my hair and my parenting style.

Truth be told, I'm not crazy about all this artsy, ain't-that-sweet stuff. I really just wanted to get good close-up shots of the kids, but then I thought maybe I should get in one or two myself ... and look what happened.

I wanted her to capture the sweetness of siblings before they get older and it gets ugly. I am exceedingly happy that my children have siblings. I never had that and wanted it. Now I can watch them have it and probably -- within a couple years -- figure out why it's overrated.

Oh well. What isn't overrated these days? I mean, besides chemotherapy, people have a habit of making most aspects of their lives out to be either overly miserable or beautiful. It's so easy to fashion ourselves into shitty or whole or holy or whatever ... pretty much at will. I mean, as long as your status update on Facebook has a few "LOLs" on it, who cares, right?

LOL!

Seriously though.

This baby has given me a whole new perspective on things and unfortunately it's a whole new ability to fathom the possibility of loss. I know that most moms hover over their babies like fog, checking to see if they're breathing, making sure they don't have any weird stuff in their ears.

But I never could get there with my first baby. I was never able to settle enough to just breathe. Or even sniff his ears for funk. It was all I could do to get through the day and night with him. B would go and check on him and I'd be lying there in the dark thinking that there were two possible and horrible outcomes to all of this incessant checking:

1) He'd wake the fucking baby.
2) He'd discover the baby wasn't breathing.

And in my crazy, hormonal, fucked-up, post-partum mind, I disliked both of these outcomes with an almost equal fervor. I'd lie there thinking, "If he wakes that baby I'll kill him, but if the worst is true, shouldn't we at least get the luxury of facing that fact having had a good night's sleep?"

Sick.

But this baby is different. The caretaking is the same ... I nurse the baby, change the baby, speak Ridiculous-ese to the baby, bathe the baby, swaddle the baby, put the baby to bed ... but somehow ... amidst all that ... I am awash in contentment and gratitude and excessive fear.

Last night, at 3 a.m., I woke up in a sweat, convinced that the house was too hot, the swaddle was too tight, the baby was too dead.

Then he cried out. So I brought him to my bed to nurse but became maddened by the temperature, by the husband who had turned up the thermostat before going to bed, by my desire to have this baby, this precious, perishable treasure. By mortality.

I put the sleeping baby back in his crib and woke husband. He used some shit we learned in marriage counseling several years ago: "I hear you saying that you're really hot, so I believe that you are really hot, but it's cool outside, and it's cool in here."

"But the baby," I say. "He's on his stomach, half swaddled, and the temperature ... it should be between 68 and 72 and it's not. It's 76.8. I checked."

"Kim, I know you're hot. But just take off your clothes and uncover yourself and get a drink of water."

He doesn't know how boobs leak, how I love the weight of covers, how many drinks of water I've already taken. He doesn't get how the baby is in serious danger, four feet away in his crib.

So I get up, fetch a wet washcloth and a cup of ice water. Another cup of ice water. I take off the pajamas, climb into bed, and bathe myself with the washcloth, trying to put out the fires.

And it works. Sleep calls me; the baby doesn't. And that combination lulls me into a dream about a mommy friend ... in the dream she has six pianos (two baby grands) and uses them only to play hide and seek with her three daughters, who have all been baptized.

Neither of my children have been baptized.

What if that shows a lack of gratitude?

The baby calls me and I go. Now it's 6:30 a.m., and the automatic coffee pot is perking. I get the baby and take him with me to grab a cup and, hopefully, a lesson.

Where to find me

2006-07-13T21:51:00.000-05:00

Well, it's been a while. And I have so missed writing here. But life has gotten in the way and I've been relocated to a place called G'bumps. There's no alcohol there, but there are pictures and commentary and sometimes, if you're lucky, attitude.

Maybe you'll come have a look see?

Puss in Boots

2006-03-23T20:53:00.000-06:00

Well it is still March and I am posting again. I have lots of ammo because I have just returned from my parents house where NOTHING IS AS IT SEEMS. While there, I attended a going-away costume party. I wore my red cowgirl boots, some cat ears, and a tail, so I was "Puss in Boots." My friends went as the cast of Brokeback Mountain (complete with stuffed sheep) and won the "Most Creative" award. During their acceptance speech they dedicated it to me because it was my idea. One of the guys had to be tricked into dressing up like a gay cowboy (he thought he was going as "Bud" -- as in "Bud & Sissy" from Urban Cowboy).

ION ...

I am wearing glasses ALL THE TIME now because next week my eye doctor is making a topographical map of my corneas in order to determine whether or not I am a candidate for lasik. I was very disappointed that I had to wear spectacles to a costume party, but, surprisingly, I had fun anyway.

It was the other aspects of my trip home that were ... ummm ... trying. First, The Goose got a cold and coughed all night every night which is what he always does in an attempt to get his grandmothers fired up about bird flu and the fact that we have chickens. Everytime we go to grandmas he coughs and of course I have to deal with all of this grandmotherly concern about his bronchials and allergies and humidity and mold and my mother's best line of the whole weekend, "I'm just gonna HAVE to get a better maid ... this house must be DUSTY."

Second, just before we arrived my dad poured gasoline in a mud puddle in my parents yard and forgot to warn me about this. The Goose of course got in the puddle and it was the biggest mess you have ever seen. Who pours gasoline in mud puddles??? Why would anyone pour gasoline in a mud puddle. This kills me. Besides a grandson, they have a CAT for crying out loud.

And then on Sunday I took him to their church. Lord help us all. I have gotten to where I hate going back to my hometown because I hate the pressure to "go see so and so." My Dad has always liked to show me off and now it's double trouble because of The Goose. So I practically have to go through a receiving line at church and this is so very painful. It is even more painful when you have a writhing 18 month old who is STARVING and anxious and exhausted from coughing all night. When we arrived at the child-care area we were met by approximately 14 women oohing and ahhing about how he was "just too perty to be a boy." And then I happened to have parked by Jill & Daryl Mabry (not their real names). I really was having to ask myself WWJD, because what took place as I was trying to get the heck out of Dodge nearly put me in the hospital. Here's how the conversation went:

Jill: Well look what the cat drug up and she's got that perty baby.

Kim: Yes, he's 18 months now, and quite the handful, as you can see. (Picture The Goose writhing and screaming in my arms as I try to carefully walk in my open-toed two-inch heels with FROZEN feet -- my mother was quite disappointed that I had to wear my glasses and asked that apply a little extra blush and lipstick to make up for it.)

Jill: Do y'all still live in Xville? You know who used to live there, right? She went to that big Baptist church over on X Parkway. Did you see my grandbabies here in the back of the van? (Picture me straining to hear any of this because The Goose has now ripped my glasses off my face and flung them. They land underneath the Mabry's front passenger tire just as Darryl puts the van in reverse. I am legally blind without my glasses and was suffering from temporary deafness due to the screaming.)

Darryl: Do y'all still live on that plantation?Isn't that off of X Road?

Kim: Ummm ... I can't, ummm, really talk because of ... well, as you can see, I sorta have my hands full. The Goose has now head butted me by using his back-arch move in an attempt to get down and carouse the parking lot. My blood pressure is skyrocketting. My mother is standing there smiling and nodding, smiling and nodding, smiling and nodding.

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Maybe that doesn't really sound as annoying as it really was. It was really really annoying to have someone trying to talk to me while I have this screaming baby. I cannot stand crying. I just cannot stand it. I can't function when there is crying going on. I am getting an IUD because of this.

Y'all, I grew up there but that place is insane. They don't even have leash laws. You walk down the road and all these dogs come out and follow you around. It's insane. It's totally insane. And then there's the Mabry's. And it's a dry county and the liquor stores are not open on Sunday and so I couldn't just go get a drink and anyway I had to drive back here after church and I seriously thought I was going to disintegrate into a big heap of Sinaberry hair with a pair of glasses poised precariously on top. Luckily The Goose slept for an enormous time period on the way home. I drove 90 in the rain just to get out of there faster. Do y'all think that's healthy? Safe? Sane?

I do not care.

Here is a cheesorama picture of The Goose. Delicious.

That's all for now. See you next month.

March ...

2006-03-09T21:47:00.000-06:00

... 2006.

... into battle. (Left, left, left, right, left.)

... madness.

The latter seems most appropriate ... let's go with it ...

Thank GOD our ports are safe from those damn UAE entrepreneurs. I can finally sleep.
Why is white rice with butter so good?
Why is BUTTER so good?
Butter is good.
Durn Laurie Berkner's hide for putting out a kid's CD with all those stick-in-my-brain songs. It's keeping me up at night.
I got a new fancy printer last weekend and have already used up all the ink printing out photos of my kid to send to people who may or may not care.
I still think it's really hard to raise a kid ... even just ONE kid.
My goal is ten.
Only one more.
See ya in April.
I'm totally Lame and you can berate me publicly if you want.

Happy St. Paddy's Day,

Kim

February Post

2006-02-16T21:29:00.000-06:00

Title explanation: Just in case I never post again this month (hey ... give me a break ... it's a short month).

Can I please just start out by bitching a little? And let me preface my bitching with a sidenote about my church attendance. Of late, I have discovered that church really does help me to be a better person and to think about WWJD. Of particular importance has been my reacquaintance with a Jesus quote about how you should not pick out the SPECK in your brother's eye when you have a LOG in your own eye.

See, I am really good at finding specks! Y'all: There are so many fun specks to point out!!! Nevermind the fact that my logs are so big that it's surprising that I can even SEE the specks ...

Recently it has been drawn to my attention that educational multimedia for toddlers -- as in BABY EINSTEIN VIDEOS (aka digital board books) -- are suspected to cause ADD/ADHD when viewed by children under 24 months of age. So of course if you point this out to me 714 times then I will eventually acquiesce and agree not to allow my 17-month old to EVER watch anything so satanic. But allow me to put out there how I really feel about this whole situation:

There are SO many other really important issues in the world that should attract our attention (namely, about six million crises in Africa and the growing anti-American/European sentiments of Muslims around the world).
There are SO many other really important issues related to raising children ... like the fact that the World Health Organization recommends breastfeeding until AT LEAST 24 months. Research has proven so many benefits of nursing and yet no one is up-at-arms when people wean their kids early or never breastfeed at all. (Seriously y'all: I DON'T CARE ... there's more than one way to be a good mom, I'm just pointing out the double standard). The American Academy of Pediatrics (which recommends nursing exclusively for six months and then supplementally for at least 12 months) has reported that only 21.6 percent of mothers breastfeed past 6 months. Should we blame these Formula Moms for the increase in obesity, asthma, and diabetes that is plaguing our nation?
There are so many other important issues in the day-to-day life of parenting than whether or not your toddler watches approximately 15 minutes of a video PER DAY. The first is that allowing a toddler to watch a video might allow you, as a parent, to do something really good for your family, such as cooking a nutritious meal rather than just something else processed. The second is that if you don't show a video, then you have to find something else for this kid to do while you get something -- any number of things, really -- done (Oh, you're bored ... here, hold this steak knife!). The third is that likely the children whose ADD/ADHD is caused by some aspect of their exposure to multimedia are watching countless hours of videos and -- gasp! -- TV! per day rather than your toddler's average of 15 minutes of halfhearted attention.

Sorry, but I needed to vent.

ION ...

I don't have any time to write, but below is something I wrote about six weeks ago, just before I started working five days a week. And it's still dead on, so I've finally decided to be brave and put it out there:

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TITLE: WHY DON'T I KNOW MYSELF BETTER?

Lately this question has become forefront in my mind. You see, I can't seem to stop getting myself into situations which call for a self-proclaimed, "I told you so," afterwards. Not small things like buying saltine crackers after making a New Year's resolution to stop eating so many of them, but BIG things. Life-size things. Case in point: My decision to stay home and be a full-time mom. All my life I have spent saying that I would go INSANE if I stayed home with a kid. And then I got pregnant. And I decided that of course it is RIGHT and TRUE that I should do what's best for him ... like ... staying home despite the fact that I haven't been really happy at it ever, or continuing to breastfeed despite the fact that my left nipple looked like "a piece of ground meat" (you can thank my mother-in-law for that lovely analogy) ... despite the fact that I got mastitis twice and once landed in the hospital because of it ...
despite the fact that I have been feeling the sanity slowly oozing out of me like runny poop from a leaky diaper.

It has taken me nearly 16 months to realize something that everyone who knows me has likely been whispering: SHE WOULD PROBABLY BE HAPPIER WORKING OUTSIDE THE HOME DURING THE DAY WHILE SOMEONE ELSE TAKES CARE OF HER SON. And that, dear reader, can be attributed to my lovely little knack for

P E R F E C T I O N I S M.

Not a small dose of the aforementioned malady, but rather, a deadly one. It has helped that I've been teaching a little at night, but the truth is that I have been afraid to admit how much time I need away from this house. I'm not sure why I'm using the word "afraid," except that now, all of a sudden, I'm going to be working five days a week (admittedly, only for two official student-teacher contact hours), and I'm alternately feeling Completely Guilty and Completely Elated. I'm not feeling guilty about having my son in childcare or not being his sole caretaker; rather, I'm feeling guilty about not recognizing sooner that I could be a better mom if I did this. Note to self: You may be eating these words by the end of this workweek.

Likewise, I'm not feeling elated about having my son in childcare or not being his sole caretaker; rather, I'm feeling elated about finally recognizing and acting on the fact that I think I can be a better mom if I do this. Self: see previous note.

Because, you see, if caring for a child becomes your CAREER ... and you just happen to be a P E R F E C T I O N I S T, then go tell your doctor to write you a prescription for Prozac because you are in for a long, long haul. You can't be perfect at parenting. My students in the Delta used to ask me, "Mih Pay, what are you gon' do when you have some kids of yo' own?" And I would haughtily think, "My children probably won't push me to this point of near-9th-grader abuse." It's so true that our students (and our children) teach us so much more than we can ever hope to teach them.

My dad has been asking me since Goose was born, "When are you gon' start thinkin' of goin' back to work?" And I would haughtily say, "Dad, I do work ... a lot harder than I ever have before." And then I would quote some statistic at him about how much stay-at-home moms are worth (an estimated $70,000 per year on average in the U.S.). Our parents do know us ... even if we don't share very many of their political beliefs. And this is not the first time this has happened. I have done this over and over in my life ... but it's useless to make a list since the past is, well, past.

So in this new year of 2006, I am resolving to NOT BE AFRAID to admit to myself that I am in over my head with certain things. I am resolving to NOT BE AFRAID to admit to other people that I am in over my head with certain things ... such as the fact that I can no longer bring myself to get out of bed, get Goose up, change his diaper while he writhes and screams as if I'm torturing him, fix breakfast for us, hose him off after breakfast, and then pick up an average of 10.5 crushed cheerios off the floor while simultaneously running to and from the living to monitor climbing on furniture, destruction of inkjet printers, swallowing of pieces of plants which may or may not be poisonous. And that's just until about 8:30 a.m. It's just exhausting. And no matter how much I say, "I'm going to do better about getting out of the house once Husband comes home from work. I'm going to make a habit of going to the bookstore or seeing movies or ... or ... or ..." I don't do it until I'm at the point of breaking down out of sheer exhaustion and frustration and then I'm too tired to enjoy it.

So I am starting a new job tomorrow where I leave the house at prime Goose waking hours, work a little, and then come home after having had several cups of coffee and some time to myself. I guess that wouldn't be true if I didn't love what I do, but since I have a nifty little dream job, then it all works out real nice like that . Note to self: Again, see previous note. This forces me to get out of the house and get some time away doing other things (at a time when The Goose is awake, which is key). I am too much of a P E R F E C T I O N I S T to have it any other way ... I convince myself that I CAN do it better next time if I just have lots of patience ... but every single next time leads to a bigger meltdown. I think this is a self revelation beyond any other. I'm just sorry it took me nearly a year and a half to figure that out. And I'm sorry for my Husband and other friends/family members had to deal with me bitching in the meantime.

And I'm sure that after this change I will still have some mental breakdowns and some days of feeling completely unsuccessful at my jobs. But I owe it to Goose to admit that I'm just the kind of person who needs a lot of breaks from him. I'm just the kind of person who needs an outside challenge. Lord knows that it's challenging enough at home with him. But the staying home challenge is one that I haven't made progress with. I haven't gotten better at it at all. Of course I'm not doing that weepy post-partum semi-depression stuff anymore, but I am having weekly battles with myself. Battles where I let my snotty, "You're just not very good at this" voice win.

Tomorrow I will get up and go to work. Husband will take care of Goose from the time he wakes up until the time I get home after lunch. And on the days that Husband can't do this, I will take him to school. And he will still know that I am his mama and that I love him. And I will come home ready to be a mom, having put my perfectionist drive to work in some less-important, less-consequential field where, at the end of the day, if I have tried and tried and sucked and sucked, then I don't feel like the future of the love of my life is at stake. Instead, some poor Asian kid just won't understand the difference between direct and indirect objects.
Maybe now I'll no longer be "The Bitch in the House," I'll be "The Bitch Working Outside the House Part-time During the Hours that Her Goose is Awake." We shall see.

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And now we HAVE seen but have yet to have time to think about it or analyze it closely enough to make heads or tails of it. But there it is, anyway.

Happy February,

Kim

Let's Get a Few Things Straight

2006-01-26T20:33:00.000-06:00

What happens ... if ... ???

If your toddler gets dog poop on his shoes, just let him splash through a waist-deep mud puddle and that shit'll come right off.
If you got your left leg blown off by American-dropped bombs in Somalia and then you move here with a regugee relocation program and then you get a job as a taxi driver and then you enroll in my writing class at the community college and then you write your diagnostic essay about how you want to learn how to write better so that you can inspire young people to "take up pens instead of guns" ... then chances are good that you will get an "A" in my class and make me feel so lucky. Too lucky.
If you ask me if I am a good mom, I think I would, finally, answer "maybe" (rather than an emphatic "no") ... because now that I'm working, I'm better able to treasure each moment (even the bad ones). I only have so many of them left: between 1:00 p.m. and bedtime everyday I have to get in all the good stuff. There have been fewer tantrums in our house (not from The Goose, his are still Serious Competition for the World Record Number of Tantrums in One Day) ... MINE. I am no longer screaming, "This is all YOUR fault" at Husband at totally inappropriate times. I'm more patient, more compassionate, more motherly. And I'm happy about it.
If, when asked to write a paragraph describing one person in the classroom (without giving his/her name), you write a paragraph about ME (teacher) that includes the phrases, "She has sexy, wavy hair" and "She wears really tight pants" then you are NOT likely to get an "A" despite your pathetic attempts at flattery.
If you have some cute, big, teacherly pants for sale, I'll buy them.

Chiao.

Snippets

2006-01-20T22:05:00.000-06:00

Y'all made me feel bad, so here I am back again after just having written that I was on hiatus. I'm such a pleaser. Snippets people. That's all you're getting:

Star Spotting: Husband spotted Nicole Kidman running on the trails. He says she is stalking him. Her bodyguard parks at one of the other ranger's houses and watches her with binoculars from his car. I wonder if his binocs are strong enough to see me peeing in our backyard because I do that when it seems easier than trying to convince Cheese Man (to your right there) that we should go inside so Mama can use the toilet.
Karate Chop Update: Some of you know about the recent incident wherein I nearly got karate chopped by a student. I'm not exactly sure he was about to karate chop me, but his body language (a startle, stiffening, an immediate rise to the feet, squatting, arms up with fingers extended, etc.) indicated that there may have been some martial arts training in his background. Dreadmouse, maybe you can advise? Anyway, he and I have moved passed the problem ... talked about it, analyzed listener interpretation against speaker intention, worked it out, and finally, there is peace in grammar class. We are now happily conjugating verbs everyday between 10 and 10:50 a.m. And just so everyone is clear, "chop" is a regular verb, which means it has the same past tense and past participle forms. Next week count vs. noncount nouns. Karate = noncount. We make it plural with a measuring word.
Personal Goal: I really need to stop buying box wine.
Movie Picks: Do not rent the movie MONSTER just because Charlize Theron got an Oscar for her role. If a gorgeous actress takes a role where she gains weight and acts/looks a little disgusting, vulgar, revolting, or just weird, then hands down she'll get an oscar ... think of it: Sally Field in that go-go unions movie from the 70s, Julia Roberts in Ellen Brokovitch, Nicole Kidman in that Virginia Woolfe thing, Renee Zellweger in Cold Mountain, and now this. I didn't make it through Monster because if I wanna see a really ugly person chop up some truck drivers I'd rather just rent some awful horror movie and pretend that it's all made up and not based on a true story.
Personal Admission: Tomorrow is my birthday.
Shout Out: Today is my friend Master of None's birthday. Happy Birthday out in Vegas!

That's all I've got right now. Oh! One more thing: one of Husband's co-workers is getting married Memorial Day Weekend and her husband works for a major country music label. They're having karaoke at the wedding reception and since I invited myself to the wedding, THIS IS MY BIG CHANCE. Now, I need y'all to vote on what song(s) I should sing. Here are my specialties:

Killing Me Softly (Roberta Flack version)
Anything by the Dixie Chicks
It Matters to Me (Faith Hill)
Jesus, Take the Wheel (Carrie Underwood) -- actually I've never done this one in public, but in the car I can totally rock the house.
I Touch Myself
Hit Me with your Best Shot
Fame
What a Feeling
Anything from the Sound of Music (except that Mother Superior song about fjording rivers)
Fancy (Reba) ... you know! "Just be nice to the gentlemen, Fancy, and they'll be nice to you!"

Vote! Vote! It's your RIGHT!

Hmmm ... let's see ... what else?

Nothing. Nothing else.

Happy Birthday to Me! 1-21-77

Notice of Hiatus

2006-01-19T21:35:00.000-06:00

This is to inform you that Kimpossible will be on hiatus indefinitely while she deals with her newfound interest in Working Outside the Home. Lord, help us all.

Clarification

2006-01-06T10:35:00.000-06:00

MORE DELICIOUSNESS
Originally uploaded by Kimpossible, HEM, PWTPI.

Seriously y'all: I am so in love with my husband. He is my truest friend and so much more of a kind, compassionate, patient person than I am. I mean, I think he's like The Buddha or Jesus or something.

I just have this theory that marriage is really about just CONSTANT COMPROMISE ... because everyone brings such baggage and even if someone is perfect for you, they still have their baggage (i.e., the "shit" in my previous post). Whenever I hear people talking about how they want out of their marriages I just think about how they'll get married again and discover the same thing in a different form.

I have only been married 4.5 years, but I have learned a lot about the nature of love in those years: It's WORK, it's a VERB, it's HARD sometimes. But it's always worth it.

ION ... above is a picture of my son, Buddy Snickums, aka Snickerdoodle Coochy Coodle. I know I've said it before, but it begs to be said again: DELICIOUS.

Post-Holiday Thoughts

2006-01-05T20:55:00.000-06:00

Is there any excuse for the outfits that The Goose & I have on in this picture? Good Lord.

Can I please just share with y'all some of the conversations held between my parents and me during my parents' New Year's visit? Yes, let me:

Mom: You know you should really have that laser eye surgery. Sheryl and Addy have both had it and they swear by it. Not that it helps Addy. She is still gone from work half the week for her hemmorhoids or her sinuses or something. (Writer's note: Addy's name is Addy Earl Hamm and she dated a man named Junior who left her for his 20-year-old secretary. After this happened my mother said, "I could just skin him.")

Me: I'm not eligible for that surgery because I have a scar on my cornea due to getting a piece of lead in my eye in first grade.

Mom: I know, and I still feel bad about that ... we treated you for pinkeye for nearly a week before we figured out it wasn't working. And then that opthamologist sucked it out with a magnet. With a refrigerator magnet!

My dad: Huh?

Mom: We were just talking about her eyes.

Dad: What about 'em?

Mom: We were just wondering if she's eligible for laser eye surgery.

Me: I just told you that I'm NOT eligible because of that scar.

Dad: Remember the time you got that piece a lead in there? That scared the devil outta me when you had that lead in there. They were tossin' around the idea of surgery and all I could see was havin' a blind girl who could never be Miss Mississippi.

Me: Instead you got a seeing girl who could have been Miss Mississippi but chose to be liberal instead.

Dad: Huh?

Mom: Quit doin' that to him. You know his heart is bad.

Me: Mom, he can't hear anyway.

Mom: Well, he can hear a lot more than you think.

Me: Really? Watch this ... Daddy! George Bush sucks!

Mom: Don't say "sucks." It reminds of that New Kids on the Block concert that you made me chaperone when you were in 7th grade.

Dad: Huh?

Mom: Now she's talkin' about New Kids on the Block.

Me: I am?

Mom: Remember when they encouraged the whole audience to chant "DRUGS SUCK!"?

Me: Yes, I remember very clearly. I remember you leaning over two other moms to say, "We're leavin' soon and I better not catch you using language like that."

Dad: Huh?

Yeah. And when "Wheel of Fortune" is on, you can say just about anything to anybody and get away with it. You can even say things like ISN'T IT JUST TOO BAD THAT THAT SOUTHERN BAPTIST PREACHER GOT CAUGHT PROPOSITIONING AN UNDERCOVER POLICE OFFICER and no one will even notice.

Husband just came in and said, "With that cough, Kim, you really shouldn't be drinkin' wine. You should be drinkin' water."

Then the "f" word was exchanged a few times. Why is the "f" word so effective in expressing what we mean?

Anyway ... I don't listen to him a whole lot.

Can I just be real honest about marriage for a minute?

Marriage is really just about putting up with someone else's shit. So you better pick your shit carefully. I did pretty good at picking a minimalist who, by nature, has very little shit, so I'm proud of myself. But some of y'all who read this really have some SHIT to deal with. And I'm sorry about that. I'm thinking about going back to school to become a therapist and one of my ploys to get patients is to give discounts to self-proclaimed husband eaters. Because likely if you're tempted to eat him, then he deserves it.

I mean, really, I'm totally not complaining. Because Husband irons my clothes and shops for groceries and cooks most of the time. Not that that's ALL ... I mean, I like to hang out with him too ... I'm just sayin'.

Happy New Year y'all.

Snapshot of My Mind

2005-12-29T22:05:00.000-06:00

I really should not be sitting here eating the rest of this lentil pilaf and brussels sprouts and drinking Husband's Kirin Ichiban but damn if it isn't all really good and anyway I've been instructed to stay up until he returns from the grocery store seeing as how we arrived home from the Northland last night to a house empty of ALL items that would be considered even remotely edible by even the lowest standards and then spent today in the doctor's office/hospital tending to The Goose's reactive airway issue.

I do this every Thursday night ... drink a few too many beers, finish off the leftovers from dinner, write something ridiculous, and then post it to the web. It's really something that should be on my New Year's resolution list of Things to Stop Doing ... along with fibbing about my credit card bills and handing The Goose grossly inappropriate items to fondle while I change his diapers. He has got to potty train himself soon or I'm going to go insane. Poor little diddums ... he's up there now sound asleep but barking like a seal with his Reactive Airway Cough: A fresh diagnosis from our beloved pediatrician who manages to always be at work despite the fact that she has four children under the age of six.

That's a lie. I have no idea how old her kids are. So there's another thing on the New Year's list to stop doing: Exaggeration for Effect.

Something is wrong with our printer. I hate it when something goes wrong with our computer or its relatives because there are always Things I Need to Do for which these items are required. Like tonight ... instead of unpacking all of our holiday shit, I am sitting here attempting to print up some "Happy New Year" cards for all the people who didn't get Christmas cards from us because either I ran out of stamps or didn't have their address or totally forgot about them and then got a Christmas card from them and was like, "Whoa! We forgot so and so."

And speaking of the holidays ... I am NEVER driving to my in-laws again. The trip back was bad enough what with the baby's fever shotting up to 103 degrees, and the rain, but the trip there ... on Christmas Eve ... we were supposed to leave for the 11-hour trip at 5:30 p.m., right after Husband got off work ... but at noon, his boss called and said, "Kee-um, I'm lettin' Brine off at 2:30 but don't you go be tellin' him. I just called you so you could be gettin' ready."

Enter Kim stage left ... neurotic and totally disorganized. having spent the morning doing things which should've been LOW on the priority list of things to do before you leave for a trip: Watching The Sound of Music in Spanish ... mopping the floor ... attempting to make cutesy bows for all the gifts ... calling my mom to report mindless chitchat. So then I realized that oh my lord the baby hasn't been outside all day and he can't possibly make this drive without having burnt off some energy splashing in mud puddles so off we go to do that and then he's filthy and needs a bath and all I have packed so far is my red cowgirl boots which I didn't even freakin' wear.

And then I started burning copies of one of The Goose's new kids CDs as a gift to send his friend Babybird, my boyfriend. And then I decided that I really needed to back up all of our .mpg files of The Goose ... and what I really need is some sleep.

Do y'all do stuff like that? Just ridiculous stuff that you can't believe you'd do and then sit around writing about? No, you don't. But look at you sitting there reading about how I do it. That's worse, people, so there. Kirin Ichiban is not even that good and now the baby's screaming and I've gotta go.

Happy New Year.

Things I need to say about the holidays

2005-12-22T20:11:00.000-06:00

First of all, before I forget, let me just add a note about my last post: after all that shit with the ink cartridges, I failed to mention that I DROPPED the damn thing on my favorite cords and ruined them. Then I got in a huff and dumped an ENTIRE bottle of bleach into the washer with the pants thinking I could just bleach the shit out of them. Didn't work. Ink spots still there along with big patches of white.

And now, on with the show ...

I made those cookies up there in that picture. Please stop reading right now and look again at that picture and say this out loud: SHE MADE THOSE COOKIES! Then say this: I BET SHE WILL NEVER DO THAT SHIT AGAIN SINCE IT TOOK ALL FREAKIN' DAY AND THEN SHE DROPPED THEM ON THE WAY TO DELIVER THEM TO HUSBAND'S CO-WORKERS.

ION ...

I'd like to send a shout-out to B's boss for allowing him to work until 5:30 p.m. on CHRISTMAS EVE since we have an 11-hour drive ahead of us. Merry Christmas to you too and I hope you don't get the shits even though I dumped some ex-lax into your Christmas cookies this year.

I'd also like to send a shout-out to my friends who have sent photo Christmas cards in the mail. In fact, this year, I'm giving awards (not prizes, mind you, just awards):

4th place: My friend Rene who dressed her ENTIRE family (herself, her husband and two kids) in matching green and red striped pajamas and got them to all smile beautifully while sitting in front of her department-store perfect Christmas tree. And even though her husband is in a VERY FAMOUS COUNTRY BAND WHO SHALL REMAIN NAMELESS, I am not going to attempt to sell it on e-bay.

3rd place: My friend Caleigh for the photo card from her dog, Gidget Ann ... Gidget Ann's eyes were weirdly possessed looking, but damn! she's a good-looking Jack Russell. And how cute to write, "Happy Holidays, from Gidget Ann (and Caleigh & Scott)."

2nd place: My friend Catherine for the photo card from her and her dog, Gidget Ann ... again, we have the possessed eyes, but since Catherine is there with her ni the picture looking SOOOOOOOO cute, this one just had to get kudos.

How the F did I manage to get two Christmas cards from dogs named GIDGET ANN?

And now ... the big winner is ...

1st place: My friend The Queen, for her photo card of a toilet out in her yard with a poinsettia in the bowl, and the quote, "Wishing you a shitty Christmas!!!" Delightful.

Other things I need to say about the holidays:

There are people driving around this town with wreaths on their automobiles that are nicer than the two I have on my house.
I am perfectly OK with the fact that we did not buy The Goose any Christmas gifts (except for that damn Peek-a-zoo and a $1 dog on wheels -- have y'all seen Targets ONE SPOT section? Wow. It's too much ... and everything is $1. Too much). He is one and he doesn't know it's Christmas and I will spend the rest of my life providing his Santa Claus crap so there's no need to rush it. Plus, we're poor because I just had to have a new car last May. Even though I STILL miss Rhonda the Honda in a devastating sort of way.
All I asked for for Christmas was a set of measuring spoons with a 1/8 teaspoon. So far I have gotten an apron, a tacky picture frame, an anniversary edition of The Sound of Music (and y 'all: it has karaoke in three different languages -- oh yeah ... that's what I did all day today while simultaneously vacuuming and stuffing veggie snackin' crackers into Goose's piehole), a bag of gourmet coffee, and some men's socks. I can't wait to see what else is in store.

This is my last post before we take off to the northland. I hope all of you have lovely holidays filled with non-psychotic relatives and lots of eggnogg or whatever else you like to numb it with.

Feliz Navidad.

Things I Learned Today

2005-12-15T21:39:00.000-06:00

Another list ... you know I can't resist a good bulleted or numbered list:

If you jab four needles into a Toddler Goose's legs, then he will hurt so badly that he won't even be able to put weight on them when you get home ... for the rest of the day.
If your previously walking-all-over-the-place toddler becomes temporarily immobilized, you harbor secret happiness and put "Jay-Jay the Airplane" on repeat play in the DVD player.
It does not save time or money to MAKE your own Christmas cards. It also does not save time or money if you MAKE half of your Christmas cards and then BUY half of those photo-slot cards at Target IF prior to these two events you have done the following: First, you attempted to refill your printer's color cartridge rather than buying a new one. Second, even though you had done this before, you read all of the directions ever so carefully and STILL managed to crack the cartridge's "easy to remove" top. Next, you put the magenta in the turquoise slot and vice versa and print out a whole bunch brown Christmas prints of The Goose. Then, you go to OFFICE MAX and deal with a hot but stupid red head who wants to sell you an expensive PHOTO cartridge for your Lexmark Z42 Inkjet printer rather than you just using your brain and buying the much more affordable and practical COLOR cartridge (since you have screwed up the other one and lost money on the refill thing). When you get home, you discover that if you have the PHOTO cartridge you STILL NEED THE COLOR CARTRIDGE so you go back to a different Office Max with your sob story about the dumb red head and no receipt because you have lost the receipt amongst all the CRAPOLA floating about your hosue ... but ALAS they are fresh out of #20 Lexmark COLOR inkjet cartridges that go in Z42 printers and so you then have to go to OFFICE DEPOT and get one, which is what you should've done in the first place rather than trying to save a dime. I stayed up all night aligning those damn cartridges, printing out cheesy Christmas pictures and pasting them onto or into cards. And then Husband wakes up this morning and says, "I never have liked that picture." TIMING, people, timing!
I love Reba McEntire. I know y'all knew this, but the same guy who gave us that huge stack of CDs a while back just gave me Reba's 50 #1s album. I have listened to it nonstop for approximately 37 hours now.
Country music is going to hell. There is a song out now that is called "What I Love About Sundays." It has cute lines about the choir singing "Amazing Grace" and naps and ballgames and fried chicken and then it says, "59 cents offa ground round, baby CUT THAT COUPON OUT ... that's what I love about Sundays!"

I do not have time for this blog anymore. I'll still try, but lordy!

Me & Goose, 30 Turkeys, Julie Aigner Clark, & WHERE I'M HEADED in 2006

2005-12-08T19:49:00.000-06:00

Yep. That about sums up my day.

Do you see that Delicious Diddums, Boo-Snickums, Silly Goat, Goosey Guy right there in the pic with me? Have I ever said before that one day I might eat the cheeks off his face?

Sometimes I want to slap the cheeks off his face (brutal honesty has always been one of my attributes), but mostly I want to just eat him up with some salsa (America's #1 condiment).

Right now I am listening to the Housewives on Prozac's Christmas album. I am neither a housewive nor on Prozac, and mostly I hate all of their songs except for "Eat Your Damn Spaghetti" and "Naughty Santa." Here are the lyrics from the latter, just so you can get an idea ...

It was a quarter after midnight
Late on Christmas Eve
I finished wrapping the presents
And put them under the tree

Well I was getting comfortable
And then what did I see?

I must’ve been mistaken
I must’ve been confused
I saw Santa, slidin’ down the chimney
Wearin’ his underoos.

I left the fire burnin’.
I feel it burnin’ inside.
Well a big fat man
In a cute red suit …
C’mon and take me for a fire ride.

CHORUS
SANTA CLAUS
SANTA CLAUS
Did you come all this way just to give me lovin'?
It's a good thing I got some cookies in the oven.
Santa Claus, thanks a lot for comin'.
Would you like to have

Some

MILK?

Now don’t take Santa for granted
I never will again
He told me things I can’t talk about
Unless the kids are tucked into bed

Well it’s a long way from Who-ville
We’re gonna deck the halls
Take off your hat
Open your sack
Let’s play Jingle Balls.

Repeat Chorus.

I love it.

I mean, playing "jingle balls" with Santa is a little gross, but it's still funny.

ION ... (i.e., TRANSITION?)

If you have kids, you inevitably know about Julie Aigner Clark, founder of the Baby Einstein Company. Well, I checked out an older one of their videos from the library and at the end of it is Julie herself, explaining the thoughts behind the company (the part that doesn't include money. Money. MONEY BABY! Send it in to babyeinstein.com).

She is sitting there with her daughter and there is enough blonde hair to kill a man. Her hair alone could make twenty-five thousand Barbies and her daughter could also contribute to some non-profit doll endeavor funded by Oprah Winfrey for poor children in Africa or something. And they are just sitting there reading a story about sunflowers and there is Bach playing in the background and some impressionist paintings flashing on and off the screen among National Geographic video clips of the savannas in Africa and a croton plant beside their rocking chair and y'all: Julie probably has One Zillion Dollars in her pocket just from making some cheap videos of toys and playing the 2nd movement Dvorak's New World Symphony while giraffes lick each other.

In the credits of the video it reads, "Puppeteers: Julie Aigner Clark & John Jones."

WHY CAN I NOT BE THAT INGENIOUS? ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS PLAY SOME CLASSICAL MUSIC AND STICK YOUR HAND UP A PUPPET'S ASS TO MAKE ONE ZILLION DOLLARS.

Not that money is everything, of course. It's just that here I am teaching my heart out about grammar and politeness rules in English and there she is sticking her hand up a puppet's ass and making One. Zillion. Dolares. That's Spanish for "dollars," in case you were wondering who has STUDIED IN SPAIN AND ONLY REMEMBERS ENOUGH WORDS TO COUNT ON YOUR HANDS.

ION ...

Earlier today while The Goose was napping, there were 30 (count 'em) THIRTY turkeys in my driveway:

And speaking of white meat ... (WARNING: DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU ARE ONE OF THOSE SQUEAMISH ANIMAL LOVERS WHO likes the fact that aliens look down on Earth and think DOGS are in charge and who SUPPORTS NO-KILL SHELTERS):

We had to kill one of our chickens. One of them had gone practically bald and was prancing around BACKWARDS while grinding her beak into the ground, and so Husband shot her with a shotgun. She died honorably in the backyard, while her sisters watched. Yes, I know. I did tear up when I heard that part.

But y'all: WE DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH MONEY (or time) TO TAKE A DAMN CHICKEN TO THE VET.

So now we need a couple more to keep the others' company. We never should've had an odd number of them anyway. They peck on each other and really, even numbers are better when it comes to chickens (although NOT when it comes to other things).

ION ...

I am wrapping up the semester and am getting ready to start a new job. It's at the a school where one of the co-owners was once fired from a local private college for sexual harrassment, but HEY, it's gotta be better than working THREE NIGHTS a week teaching really sweet and respectful refugees, most of whom fled Kurdistan after Saddam Hussein dropped chemical bombs on their friends and family, right?

Right.

So I'll be working five days a week from 10 a.m. to 12 noon p.m. and The Goose will start going to "school" two days a week. On the other days The Dad will watch him and lord help us all. I am about to gain a comrade in this parenting business.

I am still planning to teach one night a week at the CC with the refugees just so that I can be near some Sudanese Lost Boys, whom I would totally invite to LIVE WITH US (all of them) if I ever went to teach class after a few toddies.

ION ...

I like that "Jesus, Take the Wheel" song and I am thinking about getting out my guitar as a New Year's Resolution. This is mostly stemming from the fact that I think I could've done a much better job as June Carter Cash in Walk the Line than Reese Witherspoon (don't get me wrong, I love me some Reese -- especially in Legally Blonde). I mean, I can say, "Quit clutchin' on me" and sing "JACKSON" with just as much cutesy tutesy as her and I am a natural brunette anyways. And plus, when we lived here in Nashvegas the first time (pre-grad-school-in-the-wild-west days) I took guitar lessons from the same man who taught Johnny Cash's son to play. So there. Hopefully that teacher has some openings for 2006, since getting back into MUSIC is one of my NYRs.

ION ...

This is what The Goose came home from school with this week:

And up to now I have refused to take him to get professional photos, but y'all, that greasy, cheesy man who snapped these little gems is now right up there with The Buddha, in my mind. I don't care that they're posed. I don't care that that all those presents are fake or that the little girl in line in front of us (who was in the throws of Terrible Twoness and was REFUSING ADAMANTLY to smile and stand sweetly by her 7-week-old-baby-brother-wannabe-Jesus (in a fake manger writhing around with fake hay and all)) made a huge scene while her mother and the photographer crooned, "KISS BABY JESUS!"

That LITTLE BOY in those pictures is MINE and I will spend all of our Saved and Reserved Money for Emergencies (such as ALL FOUR NEW TIRES ON SUSIE Q SUBARU) on copies of these photos because they stole my heart and put it in the witness protection program somewhere in the Australian outback.

I love that he has on that striped sweater and that a wrapped-up empty box is balancing precariously on his knee. I love the fontina background and I even love the "Cherish life's every moment" quote.

Forgive me. It's the last few weeks of 2005 and I am a proud mom. Let's see ... what else am I?

I am hungry a lot (albeit psychological).

I am trying to just live life fully. It's harder than just saying that you are trying to live life as best you can. It really is just about taking battles one at a time and, for me, doing yoga and hiking.

I am about to be an aunt (in May of 2006).

I am trying to get over the fact that the best person in my extended family is gone.

I am not the person who is typing.

I am the silent one inside.

I am ...

Thanks for asking

2005-12-04T12:20:00.000-06:00

Long time no post. This one will be short. I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has written to ask where I am. What an ego boost! Life got a little crazy ... here's what has kept me away:

1. Pappaw died.
2. Lightning hit our computer monitor.
3. Thanksgiving.

Now I'm back, hopefully. I usually post on Thursdays while Husband is working late and while I'm home alone drinking wine. That might explain some things.

I've gotta run now. Goose is awake from his nap and there is a whole lot of end-of-the-schoolyear work for me to do while he picks off all the Christmas tree ornaments.

Quote of the week:

"You need a fucking Ph.D. in Christmaslightology to decorate a damn tree." ~ Husband

Tammy Wynette, Plumbers' Cracks, Turkey Candles from Goodwill, Johnny (Depp), Spanish, The Marine Corps Ball, Pappaw, & The Park

2005-11-10T19:35:00.000-06:00

Right now I am listening to my Tammy Wynette Remembered album, which features Elton John singing "Stand by Your Man." Tammy was my favorite back in the days of family vacations driving across country with me as a four-year-old standing in the middle of the front seat belting out country music (ha ha! "belting out" -- withOUT a seatbelt, that is). Eventually, when I became a tween, I moved into my closet with some Reba tapes and a mirror. Now I'm more into the Dixie Chicks.

Last night we noticed that the rug in front of the sink in the kitchen was soaked. Husband got out the chainsaw and started to rip out the cabinets to find the source, but I finally convinced him that it was worth it to wait for a plumber. Husband likes chainsaws. But not in a scary serial killer kind of way. He just really enjoys climbing and trimming trees. Anyway ... the plumber arrived today and after four hours, he called in backup. Then I overheard the backup asking Husband, "Is there somewheres else y'all could move to 'til we get it taken care of?"

Yeah.

I mean, NO there is nowheres else we can go, but yeah, it might be bad. So tomorrow they're coming back to stick a camera down a pipe to view how much real damage there is. In the meantime of all the plumbing issues, The Goose and I took off to the Goodwill Store where lord help us all, they had all manner of fat Christmas lights and cookie tins. I came home with $7 worth of the aforementioned CRAP and a half-burned turkey candle. If you have a Goodwill Store in your area and you have not checked it out then by ALL MEANS ... get yourself down there ASAP.

When we got home there was a Netflick waiting ... Charley and the Chocolate Factory. Ahhhh, Johnny. My first Johnny-love. Do y'all think Johnny would like me if he knew me?

ION ...

There's really nothing to say and I'm totally bored with this blog. If anyone has any suggestions about topics on which I could rant, please post a comment.

Tomorrow I am meeting my Spanish conversation partner (a former student from Puerto Rico). In preparation for this week's discussion, I have been watching all of The Goose's Baby Einstein videos in Spanish. And also I have rented about one point two million Spanish DVDs ... like Talk to Her, Y Tu Mama Tambien, etc. This is what I imagine our conversation being like (sorry if you don't speak ANY Spanish):

Kim: Hola. Que tal?

SCP: Bien. Y tu?

Kim: Bien. Me gusta la pelicula "Habla con Ella."

SCP: Yo tambien!

Kim: Que dice la vaca?

SCP: Que?

Kim: Que dice la vaca? ... como "El viejo McDonald tiene una granja. Eee Eye Eee Eye Oh. Moo moo aqui! Moo moo alla!" HA HA HA! OK! Now let's talk about animales del barrio! Como, la nutria! El perro! El gato! El gato dice MEEEEOWWWW!

Pitiful.

ION ...

I can't find any flu vaccine and it's killing me. I have called around all over town and nobody has any left. How did I miss the big rush? ALWAYS I get a flu shot. And ALWAYS I get the flu. Every year.

Let's see ... what else?

Today is the 230th birthday of the Marine Corps. I used to date a Marine. I used to go to the Marine Corps Ball every year in a rented dress. Except one year my mom bought me a red, beaded gown. The beads were in a spiderweb pattern all over. I wish I had a picture of this. Him in that uniform and me in that Vanna White dress. And I'm not kidding about Vanna White, because about a week after the ball we actually saw Vanna in the EXACT SAME (redundancy is necessary in some cases) red spiderweb gown on "Wheel of Fortune." My parents and my Pappaw love Wheel of Fortune.

And speaking of Pappaw ...

He is finally home from the hospital. While there, he was quite a character (during the times when he was lucid, which were few and far between). He tried to frisk the nurses (said he was looking for money) and he told one of the doctors (in response to a comment about how his ear light wasn't working): "Well, your light may not be working good, but your mouth sure is." This doctor also happens to be an ex-boyfriend of my cousin who is married to Satan. I rest my case about how she could've done better. I've said a real goodbye to Pappaw every single time I've been home for the last year , and still he's ticking. But the times when he's really like my Pappaw are few and far between now.

OK, now I'm sad.

Let's see ... what else is new? It's been a week and I'm struggling to keep this going. And you are probably thinking: SOMEONE PLEASE PUT HER OUT OF HER MISERY.

Ah yes. Online shopping. There should be an 11th commandment: "Thou shalt not allow it to be so easy to complete transactions for J. Crew vintage sweat pants online." In lagoon. Or papaya. Or any of the other scrumptuous colors that I might find.

Today at the park (I could have an entire blog devoted to that topic), I met a woman whose 7-month old is waking up every hour to nurse from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. This poor, poor woman. I'm always like, "WOW. And I thought Goose's sleeping issues were weird. THAT is weird!" Wouldn't you like to meet me on the playground? Meanwhile, The Goose found Every Single Hackberry within a .25 mile radius and stuffed them all into his mouth while I yik yakked about Ferberization and making your own babyfood. He threw up lasagna tonight, so I hope the hackberries aren't the reason.

But anyway ... there was also a man there with a kid Goose's age (14 months!) who was adopted from an American orphanage. OK, now I was adopted myself and apparently I am so dumb about these things, because I didn't even know that there really WERE anymore real orphanages in America. Is that so naive or what? I guess I thought that our foster system eliminated the need for orphanages or something. But his story was amazing and now I'm like, "We should really do this ... we have ALL THIS ROOM for lots of kids" and then two seconds later I'm all, "DON'T GET ME ANYWHERE NEAR A FREAKIN' ORPHANAGE."

Truthfully, though, I just cannot even bear to think about orphanages. All those babies lying alone in cribs. It's unbearable. I'm in a total stage of Everyone is Someone's Baby. And now every single gross person I see is NEW in my eyes. For a second, at least. I'm all, "Wow, that disgusting poochy-stomach guy in a wife-beater shirt was once someone's sweet sweet baby with delicious cheeks." And then he sees me looking and starts smiling (or worse) and I'm like, "OMG, how disgusting is he?" See, that's why I need to go to church. Because, unlike Husband, I need to be reminded that some greater power could strike me dead at any point.

OK, gotta go call J. Crew. They screwed up my online order.

Musings on Vivid Leaves, Delicious Diddums, & Me

2005-11-03T19:57:00.000-06:00

It's so autumn! I nearly crash Suzie Q. Subaru every time I drive down from our haven and into the Real World because the leaves! The LEAVES! They are calling me to stop the car, get out and be like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music when she goes to the top of that mountain, holds her arms out, and sings while spinning. I want to do that in some unwitting neighbor's yard. But there are too many construction workers around.

Do you see that Delicious Diddums in the picture at left? I could make it be at right, but I'm too lazy. I know how to though, just so you know. Anyway ... back to DD. Is he ever Delicious these days! OK, so he was Delicious today. He called me "Mama" all day today. And he giggled when I cracked jokes and blew bubbles in the tub (with my mouth, not my butt) and every time I ground coffee he pointed and said "AH!" I grind coffee several times a day. I love TOASTED ALMOND COFFEEMATE, and DD loves the coffee grinder but don't get him anywhere near the Cuisinart food chopper.

I have been doing well these days. That just means that I haven't been plucking my eyebrows obsessively, or counting the number of boards in our living room floor, or wondering whether the end of the world is coming if six socks, six hand towels, and six pairs of panties come out of the dryer all from one load. And Husband said yesterday that he was giving me a pedicure FOR NO REASON. Not him administering, actually. He's just paying for it (the last time he gave me a pedicure I was 8 months pregnant and we were living in a hotel owned (and lived in) by people who had 14 chickens and a goat and my right foot ended up purple and my left foot ended up orange). I had the choice between a pedicure or a massage and I am just vain enough to know that red toenails are SO much more important than any old relaxed back.

I don't have much to say, but I did want to write down a story about my term as a freshman composition instructor at Northern Arizona University. The program required that the students write five short papers and one long one, and the long one required some sort of visual prop as well as an oral presentation.

So I had this major crush on one of my students. Let's call him Michael just for funsies. He was just too cute and smart. And this was an 8:00 a.m. class and they were all pretty awesome and this was when I was biking to work everyday and living in the mountains and breathing that fresh, fresh air. And he was so cute. Did I mention that he was cute?

His argument paper was on the issue of binge drinking in American universities. Everyone else was writing on abortion or evolution vs. creationism or drilling for oil in the AWR or some shit and here he is with this really relevant paper which was worth every inch of the A that I gave him. And so everyone has been bringing in these posters with charts, graphs, photos downloaded from the Internet and they've been giving presentations all week and bullshitting right and left and acting like they know how to really avoid using logical fallacies and here he is just standing up in front of the class with no poster. And up to now he's been writing steal-your-heart papers about autumn leaves in New Hampshire and hikes with his family and I've had two dreams in which we've kissed. Two! Not just one, but two and I can hardly look at him anymore. And so he gets up in front of the class and gives his speech and then, for his visual prop, he passes around photos of him and his buddies binge drinking. And at first I'm like, "What? What are you passing around?" And then I'm like, "OMG. Those are real pictures of binge drinking. And that's you and some other girl who is not your sicko English teacher kissing and holding tequila bottles." I mean I didn't really say that, but can you believe that he actually passed around photos? This is brilliant. Brilliant! Because of course I had to KEEP a copy of the paper and the visual props. Brilliant.

And then came May and the end of the semester and he went back to New Hampshire and anyway I AM MARRIED. And then in the summer one day I get this email from him. He needs a recommendation form filled out so that he can study abroad in Costa Rica. And it's not like, "Hey can you fill out the form and maybe come with me?" It's more like, "Dear Ms. Becker, Would you consider recommending me for this study abroad program?" And I am devastated. Still.

But Husband is cute too. And anyway, he's the one. And he is paying for me to get my toenails painted soon. And plus, he vacuumed the upstairs on his lunch hour yesterday.

But I do still think of Michael every time I binge drink. Not that it's that much, I mean, really. It's not.

Gotta go.

Roots wear, Chickens, and 24 is now a good number

2005-10-26T20:18:00.000-05:00

Frankly, I'm sick to the death of those damn chickens. But they can keep The Goose occupied for quite some time. Here he is in his Canadian ROOTS hooded sweatshirt. We're leaving for Austin tomorrow and if we weren't then I might be headed south to Costa Rica to work at a petting zoo (where at least there I know everyone's name). This mommy stuff is hard, hard work folks. Don't let those playground mommies fool you. They go home and they collapse into heaps of running eye make-up and Target mommy clothes, just like me. They yell ridiculous things at their Husbands ... like, "THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT. ALL OF IT!" But they put on that pretty park face and say, "Isn't it great when they're toddling around and not crawling anymore?!??!"

And they're right.

Sometimes.

I just wrote a Goose Bumps post that included the line, "The Devil Wears Gymboree," in case you're interested in reading more about happenings at public parks with playgrounds.

This morning we awakened to find sack of 24, count 'em, twenty-four, veinte cuatro CDs outside our front door. One of the other rangers has a Husband who works at a record label. He knows Reba, people. He's met her. He put one of her CDs in the mix, but did you read what I wrote? TWENTY FOUR CDs! In a sack on our front porch. I was just saying the other day that we need to get some new CDs and LO! THE LORD GOD HATH PROVIDETH. Ask and you shall receive!

Previously I viewed the number 24 as a "bad" number, given that it is four sixes. And everyone knows that three sixes is the mark of the beast. But now I've had a REVELATION. HA HA HA. If you got that, then yay for you ... you must have been Baptist at some point in this life or another.

We're off to Texas tomorrow. Pappaw is in the hospital. I don't have anything else to say.

On the matter of endorphins

2005-10-21T11:27:00.000-05:00

Can you buy some in a bottle and pop them like pills? They do wonders, these little natural things. Today I was all in a funk and then went on a hike and all of a sudden life was so beautiful and the leaves! Red, orange, yellow! And there was all this peace and calm in my mind instead of what I woke up with. I may have to start hiking several times a day. I just wanted you to know that today is good and I am enjoying hanging out with the Little Tyrant Goose Creature. Not everyday is like yesterday, thank the good lord.

Happy Friday!

In Which Kim Complains About Things

2005-10-20T20:23:00.000-05:00

I have ANOTHER bacterial throat infection. This time I am boycotting antibiotics because I know that the more I take them, the less they will work for me and that avian flu virus is coming, y'all. It's on its way. Not that antibiotics would work for that anyway, since it's a virus. But still. It's just that whole antibacterial, antibiotic, antiseptic antagonism that I harbor. I think it may be getting just an eensy bit worse, along with my commitment to cleaning the sink with baking soda every other day. Yeah. And then today after my discussion with the doctor about All Things Unrelated to My Bacterial Throat Infection (which included, but is not limited to, Johns Hopkins University's program for “gifted” kids, corpus linguistics, the novel Tom Jones by Henry Fielding, and how it’s important for kids to build up their immunity by being around other kids so that they don’t miss too much of their elementary school experience), I got lost trying to leave the building. Just follow the damn EXIT signs, stupid.

Anyway …

The Goose took a long afternoon nap today and instead of resting like any normal Person with a Bacterial Throat Infection would do, I sat right here in this desk chair and googled ridiculous things and read the online articles in Yoga Journal. One such article was all about how to bring intention and caring and focus to your everyday duties (such as laundry, diaper changing, plotting against your Husband, etc.) and how this would bring calm and tranquility to your otherwise angst-filled life. Picture Kim having self-revelations and nodding in agreement and committing herself to practicing yogic principles in all aspects of her life. And then picture Master JEB The Goose awakening from his nap and relentlessly tormenting her ALL AFTERNOON LONG. And then picture Kim losing her patience and forgetting to breathe and RANTING and RAVING while the prosciutto and green pea linguine turned into corn starch mush. And then picture Husband walking in to see this Award Winning Mess of a Kitchen and a Wife and innocently saying, “What’s going on?”

So I started going off. I went off for quite a while (surprisingly, it is possible to speak really loudly when you have a Bacterial Throat Infection). And then when I finished listing all the annoying things that my child had done (none of which he EVER does when anyone else is present), The Goose rolled into the room on his cart, looked up at his father, and (I swear to God), said, “I did not.”

Husband looked at me and said, “Did he just say, “I did not”?

I’m not kidding. I am serious. He will never say it again, but he said it tonight, and he meant it, and I know that he is out to get me.

Of late, I have been thinking (ok, obsessing) about how difficult it is for me, this job of mothering. I said to my mother-in-law the other day that, “It just sucks” to have to do things like pick up individual rice pieces off of the floor because have you ever tried to sweep up cooked rice? And she said, “Well, it’s not so much that it sucks, it’s just really hard work and no one can really prepare you for it.” But still I think that in my mind, IT REALLY JUST SUCKS. It sucks to have to clean up the entire high chair (seat, back, bottom, straps, tray) and the floor around it multiple times a day and to have to wipe a butt attached to a writhing, screaming creature who one day will be unaware of all of my sacrifice. And PEOPLE, I have it good. I am lucky … he has no physical disabilities that we know of, no developmental delays, NOTHING. And in addition to that, Husband is here ALL THE TIME. We live at his job, so he’s here for breaks and lunch and often he goes in to work really early and is home by 2:30 p.m. What am I complaining about? This is the torment of my mind. It’s like I have a little angel on one shoulder saying, “Ah yes, how lucky, how blessed, how beautiful is your life, Kim.” And on the other shoulder is the red, horned devil saying, “You are not fit to be a mother because you complain about asinine things like ground-into-the-carpet cheerios and sticky apple-juice fingerprints on everything.”

WHY CAN'T I JUST BRING ATTENTION TO MY BREATH AND TO MY HEART WHERE IT IS QUIET AND CHANT SOMETHING ABOUT OM SHIVA AND THEN SAY NAMASTE AND HAVE IT ALL BE OK???

And so while I was at my stroller fitness class the other day (Mommies in Motion!), I was yik yakking about this topic and saying how I am bowled over daily by the level of difficulty I have in simple tasks such as putting on pajamas while simultaneously trying to prevent a major fall off of the changing table or my lap or attempting to perform stand-up baby diaper changes to avoid the CHANGING-TABLE FURY of my child. And none of the other moms said anything. They all just kept power walking and singing the hokey pokey and stuffing more cheese crackers into their kids’ pie holes. So to get their attention, I acted all dramatic (I know that’s hard to believe) and said, “Ummm, does anybody ELSE think it’s really hard … or is it just me?” One woman said, “Well, I feel like I can’t complain, because I only have one, and I just can’t imagine how hard it must be with two.” Another woman said, “Yeah, having two was a big life change for us.” Another said, “Well, I have a lot of help.” And come to find out, help means full-time enrollment for both kids in the Montessori school and a housekeeper, and we definitely don't have ANY of that.

I don’t know where I’m going with this. But I just needed to say, yet again, that I think this mommy business is VERY HARD and sometimes it SUCKS. Even though it involves a whole lotta great lovin’ and so much laughter and happiness and open-mouth kisses and all of that … the logistics of it is HARD. So there.

ION …

My favorite country song right now is called “Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off.”
I just saw the movie Proof and it is fantastic.
My parents are visiting next week.
We are going to Austin next week.
I am reading Stories of God by Rainer Maria Rilke.
Husband is reading Exodus by Leon Uris.
The Goose is reading various things ... Mallard Duck at Walden Pond, Everyone Poops, Where's My Teddy, Otters Underwater, Goodnight Moon, Where is Baby's Bellybutton? Corduroy's Halloween, Is your Mama a Llama? He loves anything with flaps or other tactile paraphrenalia. And every night Husband reads The Midnight Farm to him. It’s a good night book and also a counting book and so they count the farm animals in English, then Spanish, then German. I try to replicate this but my German is muy muy mal. Also I get distracted by the fact that not all of the lines rhyme (like "glove" and "stove") and then I start thinking about pronunciation and the American Phonetic Alphabet and vowels and consonants and how the mouth forms all of these sounds and then I think back to my lesson on primary and secondary syllable stress in academic vocabulary and ... and ... and ... then I try to see how much of it I could read entirely in Spanish (verdict: only the animal names) and then I start wondering how I managed to forget Every Single Spanish Verb I Ever Knew and by then The Goose has found his way into my shirt and the book is on the floor. Pitiful. And I wonder why he thinks The Dad is more fun.

And now I must go rest and allow the bacteria to rejuvenate themselves in my throat while I sleep.

#101

2005-10-13T21:46:00.000-05:00

# 101.

Thank GOD this 100 Things About Me list is over. I feel like that damn list should've earned me a Ph.D. in blogging. Or at least a master's. At the very least, another B.A. in B.S.

71-100

2005-10-13T21:38:00.000-05:00

I've had it. This is the 3rd time I've had to post this because BLOGGER keeps logging me out. I'm about to do something rash like SWITCH TO TYPEPAD OR OR OR SOMETHING.

For numbers 1-70, see previous two posts. I may combine them at some point, but tonight I'm too lazy. I have to list the previous numbers in order to utilize the "numbered list" option. It's not possible to select a "start with" number, as far as I can tell. If you know how to do this in BLOGGER, please let me know. I love numbered lists, so I hit enter and the space bar 70 times in order to keep the list going. That is neurotic, but this is my blog and dammit, I can do whatever the hell I want with it.

I like Lauryn Hill. She's playing on my CD player right now -- The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.
When you put lime in Corona Light, it's almost like being on the beach in Mexico. Almost. Except really you're at home in your living room surrounded by abandoned toys and a baby monitor screeching out the white noise of a HEPA air filter.
I love HEPA air filters ... but only with the "ionizer" button turned OFF. When that button is on, then that thing is basically putting out ozone, people ... we had a mold guy out here today and he immediately walked in and said, "I smell mold and ozone -- where's the ozone coming from?" It was the ionizer from the air filter. I thought maybe it was the Ultimate Advanced Technology Pest Repeller (ultrasonic, electro-vibrawave, ionic, night light with AC pass-through), but alas, that's only soundwaves, not "oxygen on steroids" as the mold guy said. Scary stuff. His advice was ultimately that we should build a unit in which to let The Goose sleep. The Bubble Boy? I don't think so.
I now believe in "energy work." Remember that crazy "I do energy work" woman? Well ... let me tell you ... she has reappeared in a big way. I was casually talking to one of Husband's co-workers, the receptionist at the Visitor Center, and she said, "Oh, my friend Lisa told me that she met you." I said, "Oh. Really? Well." Then she said, "Yeah, she said that you told her The Goose was sick but that he really wasn't and that she doesn't know why you would've said that." Yeah. Now, I believe.
I like Georgia O'Keefe, but not just because she and I were both Kappa Deltas.
I also like art from the pre-Raphaelite period (painting and poetry, specifically) . If you know offhand what that is, then email me, because I like dorks. We should plan a playdate so my kid and your kid can put inappropriate things in their mouths while we guzzle wine and discuss "The Lady of Shallott." I'm not sure if that's how you spell "Shalott" ... "Shalotte?" I'm pretty sure it has two Ts. Do tell.
I am terrified of the ocean.
I'm starting to get grossed out by the chickens. One of them has had poop stuck on her butt for 2.5 weeks. Also, that frog-eating episode ... gross. So much for vegetarian-fed hens.
I vaccuum my baseboards. I used to clean them with a toothbrush, but c'mon, that's a little much.
I'm not a clean freak ... really.
I'm not in denial, really.
I finally started my period for real! YAY! No more babies for now.
For our 5th anniversary (2006), we are going to Alaska. I have wanted to go to Alaska since the 4th grade, where my teacher Mrs. Liddell (who used to say, "gosh lee") went on her honeymoon, the summer before 4th grade started. I vomited outside the 4th grade classroom on the first day of school, but when I came back in, there was a slide show playing of a moose in Alaska.
For my 30th birthday in 2007, I want to spend a weekend at a yoga retreat out West.
For Husband's 40th birthday in 2012, we are going to Wales, where his maternal family is from.
For my 40th birthday in 2017, I want to go back to Portugal.
I like to plan way in advance.
I don't want Pappaw to die, but the other day he asked my mom when I was coming home, and after she said, "Not 'til Thanksgiving," he said, "Well then, I reckon I'll see her in heaven."
I want to buy a plant nursery when I retire and spend my days advising people about which flowers to plant in shade and which to plant in full sun.
I am annoyed at this certain Mississippi artist named Gail Eastland because I once purchased one of her oild paintings for $92 from a gift shop in Oxford, Mississippi (during the time that I was a public school teacher in Mississippi, at which time they were 49th in the nation for teacher pay). The painting is of six little black angels in white gowns. Around the edges of the canvas are the words to "You are My Sunshine." HOWEVER, the last line says, "You make me happy when skies are blue." THIS IS WRONG! You don't need someone to make you happy when skies are blue! You need someone to "make you happy when skies are GRAY ... so please don't take my sunshine AWAY." Duh. I cannot believe I purchased this painting with such a glaring lyrical error. Husband had to put the painting in a remote area of the house because everytime I go near it, I get irate. $92!!!
I am in awe of this certain Mississippi artist named Walter Anderson, who once tied himself to a tree during a hurricane. I once spent a night camping on Horn Island (where the aforementioned tree-tying incident occurred). We took our friend Deslonde's daddy's boat out there during a storm and camped and Husband and I were in a huge fight and as a result, we didn't realize that Frenchy and Deslonde's tent had leaked. We didn't even help them. Now I am mortified at our manners, but at the time, I was too mad to notice anything except my own anger. On the land side of that island (is there a more scientific name for "land side" of an island?), I wasn't scared of the ocean, because it was calm and clear. I don't own any original art by Walter Anderson, but I do have a few prints and a mouse pad.
One time I guessed how many jelly beans were in a jar and I won a contest. Another time I won a home security system.
A girl I used to know got stabbed to death by a serial killer in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in 2002. I think about her everytime I pick up a knife.
I like to drink freshly ground coffee. Especially if it's medium-roast, shade-grown, organic, and free-trade certified.
I never start the day without fiber or protein. It gets my heart rate up too high. You should always pair a sugary food with some protein or fiber.
Boiled eggs are an excellent source of protein.
The best way to get a perfect boiled egg is either the 7-7-7 rule (7 minutes boiling, 7 minutes setting, 7 minutes in the fridge) or the boil-and-set-21 rule (bring to a boil, remove from heat, cover and let set for 21 minutes). But remember that you can't boil a freshly laid egg because you won't be able to peel it if it's too fresh. It needs to set in the fridge for a few weeks before it's OK to boil it. And p.s., brown eggs come from dark chickens and white eggs come from white chickens. There's not nutritional difference between the two. And p.p.s., chickens are disgusting.
I crave salt a lot.
I like to listen to Car Talk on NPR on Saturday mornings because whenever someone calls in, they always ask how the caller's name is spelled.
And now all of this and look at that "100" ... it doesn't even have a "one," just two zeros. What's up with that? That is the third SUPER annoying thing about BLOGGER if you ask me ... BESIDES the "let's log out Kimpossible when she's trying to publish" problem, they have that GLARING grammatical error on the "publishing post in progress" page (it says, "This may take a few minutes, if you have a large blog" -- clearly, the "if" subordinate clause cannot be separated by a comma if it's in FINAL position (only if in intial position) and now THIS. I cannot believe I have come so far only to be let down by the "numbered list" option. And I have been so loyal, so devoted to the lists and to bullets and throughout my life ... in other programs, in notes, in my dayplanners. This is too much.

28 - 70

2005-10-09T14:58:00.000-05:00

The rest ...

For #s 1-28, see previous post. I had to do actually list all of these numbers in order to use the "numbering" option, which was a must.
I think I have found a church that I like (finally). They have a gigantic organ and a good choir and they hold lectures in conjunction with the Vanderbilt Divinity program. Yahoo.
I am never constipated.
I had a baby without an epidural or pain medication.
I will never do that again.
I breastfed a baby through cracked nipples, under-average weight gain, and two bouts of mastitis.
I will never do that again.
This morning I bought a book called Why Do Men Have Nipples? I've already read half of it and it's only 2:21 p.m.
I like reading. My favorite author is Barbara Kingsolver and then behind her are Eudora Welty and Ellen Gilchrist.
I have to stop everything when the baby wakes up from his nap.
I wanted to be a landscape architect but I didn't want to go to school for three years to be one. Really, I just wanted to plant flowers and you can do that without three years at LSU.
My life changed when I studied abroad in Spain. My dad thinks this is a bad thing.
When I get upset or anxious, I read the Tao Te Ching as translated by Stephen Mitchell.
When my back hurts, I do yoga.
When I'm angry, I hike up hills, ridges, mountains. The biggest one I ever climbed was 12,000 feet.
When I'm happy enough to act happy, it's usually because I've had a lot of coffee or alcohol.
When I've had a lot of coffee, my gums tingle.
When I've had a lot of alcohol, I start confessing my love to people. Look out. I also tend to ask the band if I can come onstage with them and sing backup with a tambourine. I have found that if you wear enough red lipstick and the band has a tambourine, then they will almost always let you get up there with them.
I was adopted. I don't know any of my biological family. The Goose is the only blood relative that I know.
I do not want to find my biological family because my life is just fine as is, thank you very much. I do not want to open a can of worms.
When I was little, I had an imaginary friend named Beebobba who wore plaid pants and no shirt.
When I was little, I made clothes for rocks and pretended like my Barbies were doing it.
When I was little, I thought the way to get a baby was to pray for one. Once I accidentally prayed for a baby and thought I was pregnant for a week. I finally broke down and confessed this to my Sunday School teacher. Later that week my mom came home with a book called Where Do Babies Come From?
When I was 13, I moved into my closet with nothing but a jambox, some Reba McEntire tapes, a case of my mom's old make-up and a mirror. I slept on the floor in a Barbie sleeping bag.
I am obsessed with spelling and grammar. I was in a fund-raiser spelling bee while I was pregnant and we came in 2nd place. The only reason we won is because my two teammates were Ph.D. students in applied linguistics. A bunch of ER doctors beat us on the word "graphorrhea". Our theme was 70s and this is what I looked like, pregnant and all: From right to left, it's Camilla (now a professor in Florida), Jim (not sure what happened to Jim, but during a practice session, he told me that pregnant people grossed him out ... I can't believe he let me touch his arm), and me (about four months pregnant).
My favorite singer/songwriter is Patty Griffin. NOT Patty Griffith. Patty Griffin.
I really don't like live music all that much. You can always tell when they're a tad under pitch and I cannot bear anything that is a tad under pitch.
I do not have perfect pitch.
I took 14 years of piano lessons, got a minor in piano performance, and then I taught high school music for two years. I haven't really played since I quit that job.
I hated my job teaching high school music. I wanted to make a difference in those kids lives but I just couldn't deal with how different I was from them. And how much the same. And how we came from the same state but had such different realities.
I grew up believing that people who drank were going to hell.
I drink a lot now.
I could never get the hang of smoking even though I tried in college. Catherine would always coach me: "Breathe in and then say 'Mom's coming!' and then blow out." I didn't work. I always had a coughing fit.
I like going to psychotherapists. I would go all the time if it were free.
I like people watching. If there are interesting people around, then my child is not safe, because I get so caught up in watching them that I forget to watch him.
In graduate school, I worked for an environmental clean-up company. I investigated buildings for lead paint, mold, and asbestos and then typed up reports about the contaminants. I learned a lot at this job. Like, for instance, you don't want to go anywhere near asbestos because of what it can do to your lungs over time and you can clean up mold best by applying a 10% bleach solution. Any more than 10% bleach causes an imbalance in PH and can cause the mold to grow back more viciously.
I am obsessed with organic food and products. I am not a germaphobe, but I do believe that chemicals are the cause of most cancers and many other physical ailments (although we don't have proof yet). My most recent knowledge on this topic was finding out which synthetic ingredients are the worst: phthalates, parabens, and petrolatum. If you do research on these products then you will want to avoid them like the plague. I'm sure you have more products WITH these ingredients than without these things.
I am also obsessed with this bird flu pandemic that is possible. Yesterday I took The Goose to a park and he went wild over the ducks. When we got home, I told Husband about this reaction. Husband's reply: "Kim! You know that ducks are the worst spreaders of disease. Do you know why? It's because when chickens get diseased, they die; when ducks get diseased, they live on and spread it." Like mother like son, but don't tell either of them that I said that.
Autumn is my favorite season.
I like striped socks.
One time we lived next door to Walter Mondale.
One time we lived next door to a chanting Buddhist woman who ended up being the best yoga teacher I've ever had. Even better than Rodney "hot cheeks" Yee.
The aforementioned yoga teacher taught me a very important life principle: The universe is perfect, just the way it is.
The baby just woke up.

Moonlighting & 100 Things

2005-10-06T21:20:00.000-05:00

This is my day job. Clearly, I'm slacking a little. But at night, I'm really a professional teacher. I have a master's degree and everything. I drive 20 minutes to the community college and attempt to teach English to international students who are mostly refugees from various Middle Eastern countries and Africa. I learn so much more from them than they do from me. I haven't written about this job much because my day job sort of overshadows EVERYTHING in my life right now. But last night there was a priceless moment of Kimpossibleness that I must share:

It's Ramadan, so my Muslim students have been fasting all day by the time they arrive at 6:00 p.m. On Tuesday night, I have four Muslim students in my class, and they all called a private meeting with me (in the middle of mid-term exam review time) to ask if they could take a break and eat. Of course I say yes, proud that they feel comfortable enough to ask me. You see, my relationship with them is shaky at times. They are all about my age (or older), and so I'm always totally shocked at the level of respect. Plus, I used to teach 9th grade, which is like saying that you used to teach DRUNK ALIENS. Anyway, it's clear that the relationship between teachers and students in other countries is not anything like that of American Ts and Ss. The first night of class, Neda from Iran stood up as I entered the room and looked around at everyone else in shock because they stayed seated. She finally sat down after about five minutes, and after class she came to me and apologized for the other students' disrespectful behavior: They didn't stand up when I came into the room! The nerve! Just guess what kind of grades she's getting ... I'm not at all prejudiced, but flattery cannot be ignored. Anyway ... back to Ramadan ...

So, Parwin, from Iraq, all wrapped up in her head scarf, stays after class to inform me that it's Ramadan and that she needs to pray between 6:30 and 7:15 p.m. This is smack dab in the middle of class. So I said, "Well, Parwin, this is college, so you can just get up and walk out (quietly) whenever you need to."

She replies, "Yes, Ms. Kim, but I need to know WHEN I should leave to pray."

I say, "Why don't you leave at around 7:10 p.m., because that gives you 10 minutes before class is over at 7:20 and then you can come back after class to find out what you missed."

She says, "OK, Ms. Kim, but WHERE can I pray -- are there any available classrooms?"

ASIDE: I have TRIED to get them to STOP calling me Ms. Kim, but it's either that or "Teacher" (which is what Ibrahim from Ethiopia STILL calls me) . I really like BOLD, ITALICIZED TEXT (and Corona Light).

And I say -- are you ready for this -- "Well, I'm really not sure about open classrooms, but you could go to the dressing room in the bathroom (cue furrowed brow from Parwin) ... you know, the room that you walk into right before you get to the room with the toilets."

And she says (while looking at me like I am The Devil Herself), "Ms. Kim, it is NOT appropriate to pray in a bathroom."

Oh! Right! I NEVER pray in bathrooms. What in the world was I thinking? I would say, "Lord, help me." But I think "Allah, help me," is more appropriate.

So that's what my week has been like. I am not at all fit to be a mother or teacher, but somehow I have managed to snag both of these wonderful jobs. You can read more about my day job here.

So that's about it for now. I really want to participate in a blogger fad, which is to list 100 things about yourself, but I'm not sure at this point that I'll make it to 100 ... if not, GOOD NIGHT!

I like 'Nilla Wafers and I eat about eight per day because the side of the box says that eight is a serving.
I count things. I count stairs, walls, pumps up and down from the paper towel dispenser in the pbulic bathroom at work, socks coming out of the drier, etc. (I don't like the number six (or 12, or 18 -- in fact, 18 is the worst, because it is three sixes, the mark of the beast), and so if something counts up to that then I FIND A WAY to make it not be that number ... like if it's stairs, I'll count the ground level or the 2nd floor level in order to get to a better number.)
My worst fear is being attacked by wasps.
I like to drink wine and eat cheese (individually or collectively).
I am shamelessly addicted to every tooth-staining substance on P.E. (blueberries, coffee)
I obsessed with having clear urine. I drink water and I measure how much I drink and if my pee is yellow at all then I feel ashamed. Like today at The Goose's pediatrician's office, when I said, "He's been nursing a lot and I skipped a period." And she said, "Hmmm ... you know, marathon nursing is a BIG SIGN of pregnanc, because your milk changes when you're pregnant and they want to nurse more ... do you want me to do a pee test?" And I said, "Well, I took a Walgreen's brand test the other day, and it was negative." And she said, "Well, I've had four babies and I've gotten pregnant each time while I was nursing, and I'm not saying, I'm just saying." And I said, "Where's the cup?" But it was early and we had been at the doctor and all I had been drinking was coffee and it wasn't even yellow people, it was ORANGE and I was MORTIFIED. But it was negative, so I forgot about my embarrassment.
I secretly want to be Mrs. America. I have all the credentials: evening gowns (got it! I bought lots of dresses for various events in high school ... even one red one with beads in the shape of spider webs which we caught Vanna White wearing on "Wheel of Fortune" one night), talent (got it! I can sing and/or play the piano, OR tap dance, or do lyrical ballet to Christian Rock Favorites), interview (got it! hello? I am an A, #1 BULLSHITTER), answering questions onstage after being enclosed in a sound-proof booth (got it! OK, so I maybe don't have any booth experience, but I was in Jr. Miss when I was a senior in high school and at the time I remember insisting to people that it wasn't a pageant, but rather, a scholarship program, and I got in the top ten at the program, people, and while there, I met a girl who said, "Prepare to win; expect to lose. That way, you're not disappointed." And that has been my motto ever since.
I like dayplanners. I like to color code my to-do lists and use a symbols system to designate items as "done," "forwarded," or "deleted."
I can type super fast. Super fast. Grown men in the shared "adjunct office" ask me how fast I can type. They are secretly turned on by my teacher clothes and streaked hair. I know it.
I have dreams about whether or not Johnny Depp would like me in real life. I really like Johnny Depp.
I think it is gross when male country singers (like Kenny Chesney) wear those really tight blue jeans.
I like the Dixie Chicks.
I want to be a Dixie Chick.
I LOVE karaoke. I have routines. Like "Killing Me Softly" (the "softly" is always "whispered" -- if you do this enough times, then the crowd really gets into it, and if you stop singing the word "softly" then after a while the crowd will actually start WHISPERING it too!)
I secretly wish I had majored in anthropology. Or psychology. I think I should've maybe been a psychologist so I could tell people who date CROOKS to DUMP THEM.
I like funny foreign movies.
I like funny foreign people.
I hate the number 18 the most.
I like odd numbers, except when it comes to the number of children that we might have ... I don't want JEB to be like me (the only one) or one of more than two. If you have more than two, then you're outnumbered.
I don't like body hair on anybody.
I've always wanted blue eyes.
I think that the lack of attention to environmental issues might drive us into another economic depression.
I hope I never go through depression again. I was depressed for two years once. I took Zoloft and saw a psychologist. I thought trains were going to come through my bedroom windows in the middle of the night. I thought I was going crazy. I think depression (and any other mental illness) is one of the worst things that can happen to a person).
I would LOVE to write a book but I just can't ever pull myself together enough.
I may go back to school and get a Ph.D. in applied linguistics.
I've never been jealous in my life. Really.
I have to stop after completing only a little over 25% of this project because Husband just came home at 10:17 p.m. with some flowers and a bottle of wine called "Foxy: Alluring, sensual and flirtatious ... That's Foxy." Foxy? That's KIMMY.

Onward and Upward ...

Sunday Special

2005-10-02T19:35:00.000-05:00

Every Sunday night, while Husband is out patrolling the park (the other night they caught some people doin' it in the parking lot -- totally naked!), I drink lots of wine and post ridiculous things here on the WWW. I also sit and read lots of other blogs obsessively. And one such blog is that of my friend, The Queen, who posted this really cool picture of a baby mandrill and mother. The baby is nursing, and the mom's nipple is elongated like a gummy worm that you stretch to oblivion and I really wanted to post it but am too technologically illiterate to figure out how, so if you want to see it then you have to click here.

And speaking of nursing, our friends Mohammed & Judy just had a baby and we went to see it last night and take them some food and I SO do not miss that newborn time. It is so hard. Harder than you can imagine. Just imagine hard and then multiply that times 3,000,000,000,000 and then imagine that what you've imagined is only about one quarter of how hard it really is. And maybe this is more news than you want to know, but I just got over a "I might be pregnant" scare. Remember how I had all that angst back in August? Angst which I thought was a pitta imbalance but really turned out to just be PMS for the first time in nearly two years? Well then the September period never came. And then I threw up breakfast two days in a row. So this morning I took a test and it was negativo thank The Good Lord in Heaven. We are not ready financially or emotionally for another baby. My vag will never be ready for another baby, but that is probably TMI. Phew. Conclusion: The Goose has started nursing more due to his separation anxiety issues and my period went away again.

Anyway, while we were at Mo & Judy's dropping off a delicious dinner (of angel hair tossed with a basil-tomato sauce and hand-torn green leaf and spinach salad with home-made caesar dressing and bread and wine), I managed to break one of Mohammed's family heirlooms. It was a hand-carved camel (Mohammed is from Egypt). Mo had given it to The Goose to suck on since he was in DIRE NEED of a toy and I said, "No, just give him some tupperware or something instead because he might break it." Mo said it was no big deal for him to play with it, but then I sat on it in the middle of the baby screaming and The Goose climbing on top of their stereo system. And yet again I am left pondering the philosophical question of the century: WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?

ION ...

I have been reading this parenting book that my mother brought last weekend (note to reader: beware of parenting books given to you by your mother). It is nearly 700 pages long and is one of those Q/A-type books where the author answers the questions of some poor mom who supposedly wrote in to ask a question whose answer can benefit everyone. Don't they know that we know that they make those questions up? Anyway, I'm now on a non-spoiling mission and am further convinced that TVs are the scourge of our nation.

We don't watch TV (we just use ours as a movie machine), so that's not a problem. But the spoiling issue is scary. The book said to write down everything that you would want (material stuff). It said to write down EVERYTHING (even the stuff you're embarrassed about like authentic Miss America Pageant dresses from the 1980s and obscene amounts of eye make-up). Then it said to cross out everything EXCEPT what you think you could actually attain in five years. For most of us, this reduces the list significantly ... like to just a couple of items. Then it said to list all of your kid's wants/desires and to cross out all of the ones that they would not be able to attain (either from you or from their grandparents and other friends/family members) within the next five years. And that's the clencher. When you satisfy ALL of your kid's desires (which is tempting as a parent, let me tell you ... hello? I gave mine a friggin' razor to play with), then they do not learn how to work for things, how to start small, how to save, how to sacrifice, etc. Yadda, yadda, yadda. Why am I paraphrasing all of this here? Anyway, with you, reader, as my witness, I WILL DO BETTER.

ION ...

The .22 I mentioned in my previous post is not really loaded. It's upstairs behind the bed, but it's unloaded. I woke up at 3 a.m. thinking "WTF? WE HAVE A LOADED GUN AND A BABY IN THE SAME HOUSE???!!!" and I woke up Husband and demanded to know why he was so stupid as to keep a loaded gun in the house with a 12-month-old and he just rolled over and sweetly replied, "It's not loaded, Kim. Please go to sleep." I'm not sure how I've managed to stay married for four years.

Oh, and one more tidbit ...

The Goose is practically walking. Which means that he CAN walk but just WON'T indulge us all the time. You know what this means right? It's like that old adage: You spend the first year trying to get them to talk and walk and the next 18 telling them to shut up and sit down.

It's Friday night and Husband's asleep: HELLO, Mr. Pinot G!

2005-09-30T22:07:00.000-05:00

This morning I was reading Babytalk magazine, which I get each month because I filled out a whole bunch of GET THIS FREE cards at the pediatrician's office one time. This month's issue had two things that I MUST share. The first is a "how to prepare for nursing" spoof. Here are a few of my favorites:

Gently rub your nipples with sandpaper.
At bedtime, set your alarm clock to go off every two hours. Each time it rings, spend 20 minutes sitting in a rocking chair with your nipples clamped in a pair of chip clips.
Draw branching ilnes all over your chest with a blue-green marker, then stand in front of your bathroom mirror and sing "I Feel Pretty."
Fit the hose of a vacuum cleaner over one breast and set on "medium pile." Turn off vacuum when nipple is three inches long. Switch.
Obtain "CAUTION" tape from your local police station, then wrap firmly around your chest. When your spouse asks about it, say, "Get used to it."
Record your mother proclaiming, "Just give the baby some cereal like God intended, and he'll sleep right through the night." Play in an endless loop at 1 a.m., 3 a.m., and 5 a.m.
Slather your breasts with peanut butter, top with birdseed, and stand very still in your backyard.

And my personal favorite:

Suckle a wolverine.

I love it. Why can't I think of funny stuff like that and make money getting it published in magazines? Hmph.

The other great thing I read was about germy strangers trying to touch your baby. The advice was to say, "Oh, you might not want to touch him, he's got a little cold," rather than something like, "Keep your viral paws off my baby." So today while The Goose and I were out for our morning hike (he was in the backpack carrier), we happened upon one such germy individual and I tried the advice. Here's the conversation that followed:

Happily Hiking Female Virus Carrier (heretoafter HHFVC): Oh, look at him. Hi little fella ... oh, you wanna shake my hand?

Kim: Oh, you might not want to touch him, he's got a little cold.

HHFVC: Oh, don't worry about it. I don't get sick. I do energy work.

Kim: Oh. Well. Ummm.

(uncomfortable silence)

HHFVC: Yeah, my nine-year-old son gets those throwing-up-on-the-living-room-floor viruses and I take care of him and I never get sick because of my energy and frequencies.

Kim: Oh. Well. Ummm.

HHFVC: Do you know what I'm talking about?

Kim: Ummm. Well.

(uncomfortable silence)

Kim: I guess not.

HHFVC: I work with the energy fields in my body to allay sickness and disease. I never get sick. I just tap into a frequency and channel energy into the part of me that is diseased, and the energy frees my blockages and cures me.

Kim: Oh. Well. Ummm.

(uncomfortable silence)

Kim: Do you do that to your son when he's got the throw-up viruses?

HHFVC: I don't have to ... he has the energy too. I gave it to him.

Kim: Oh. Well. Ummm, so why does he get sick then?

HHFVC: Do you want to try it?

Kim: Oh. Well. Ummm, I'm not sick.

HHFVC: It doesn't matter. But I don't want to scare you. I mean, what's your background?

(Writer's note: How the hell was I supposed to answer this question? I thought of several options, since I had plenty of time to think, since uncomfortable silences were starting to get more and more comfortable. I considered, "Well, I grew up Baptist but then went to a Methodist college and now I read a lot about Taoism (but don't tell my parents) and do yoga." What would YOU have said? I asked Husband this same question and he answered, "Kim, I wouldn't have made it that far into the conversation.")

Kim: Well, ummm ... I do yoga?

HHFVC: Oh, OK, so your energy fields are probably open a little already. Hold out your hand.

(Kim holds out hand. HHFVC puts one hand above and one hand below (hovering above my hands) and begins moving them in a circular pattern.)

HHFVC: Can you feel that?

Kim: Oh. Well. Ummm.

(uncomfortable silence)

Kim: Yes?

HHFVC: See ... that's what it's like. I do workshops. Here's my card. Have a great hike.

Lord God in Heaven! How do I manage to get into these conversations with crazies? Every crazy in the city limits will eventually find me, I'm sure of it. It does make for good stories, but I just hope I don't catch some disgusting virus from them.

Later today, I turned The Goose loose in the backyard with his push cart (looks like this:)
and freed the chickens from their coop. I fed them some leftover capellini pomodora (sp?) and then sat there drinking wine and watching him chase them around and cackling sadistically each time he got close to a tailfeather bump. Then he fell over and I had to go attend to him and one of the chickens ran up to me (everytime you move from a stationary position, they think you're bringing scraps to dump into the yard for them to feast on). I wasn't really paying attention to the chicken because I was trying to upright The Goose when all of a sudden that blasted chicken pecked my left ring toe and drew blood.

Prior to this event, I have never been unkind to animals, even when dogs play bite or cats claw gashes into my arms. I've never lashed out. But today I lost all control and I kicked that damn chicken across the yard.

Now before you get all uppity and start calling the Humane Society, please go to your nearest library or bookstore and read the article on bird flu from the latest issue of National Geographic. This article explains how some Thai people suck the wounds of their prize fighting cocks and thus get infected with the virus and then pass it on to other humans and then people die and then one day one of them is going to get on a plane and bring it over here to us. Or either some infected bird will stow away on a ship or a plane and will infect the U.S. wild bird population, which will, in turn infect free-range poultry like our girls and then PECK, Kim gets pecked (and it draws blood!) and then BAM, Kim gets bird flu. However, it probably won't matter because by that time I will have already contracted Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (Mad Cow Disease) and will be gnawing on my own fingers somewhere in a middle Tennessee mental hospital.

So that's why I kicked that stupid chicken. She had poop caked on her tailfeathers anyway and the blow knocked it loose, so she should be happy that I helped her out. And if anyone of those bitches goes anywhere near my Goose then I will ring their necks like Renee Zellweger's character, Ruby, in Cold Mountain. Don't think I won't. Don't think I can't. Even if I couldn't, there's a loaded .22 in the closet upstairs.

Have a good weekend.

It's Thursday night & Husband's working: HELLO, Mr. Red Stripe!

2005-09-29T20:21:00.000-05:00

Tonight I'm just sitting here drinking red stripe and listening to the baby cough in his sleep through the monitor. What's new?

The big news is that we are now minus one wedding ring. Don't worry, it's not my antique engagement ring. It's the one that I gave to Husband. The one with "put it back on" engraved on the inside. The one I spent my hard-earned Delta teaching money on.

It all started with this Tuesday-morning basketball obsession that he has. He makes the trek down south to Williamson County to play ball at this rec center where he gets in for $3 even though he should pay $5 since he is not a Williamson County resident. To avoid this fee, he always pays cash. He's sneaky like that. While he's down there in Suburbia, he does our grocery shopping and picks up the chicken feed at the Co-op. Lovely little ritual.

Well last Tuesday he broke his finger during some ball exchange with a big red-headed fella. The ring was already too tight ("but not in the winter" he says), and of course when you break a finger, it swells. He said he was getting claustrophobic about the ring. I know first-hand that this ring claustrophobia stuff really does happen to people (normal people, I mean) because one time when I was teaching music history at T.L. Weston High School in Greenville, MS, my student Romelda Robinson had a nervous breakdown in the middle of a class on Medieval monophonic Gregorian chanting because her ring wouldn't come off.

So Husband dealt with it for a couple of days but then came home yesterday with the ring in his hand, not on his finger. He said, "I'm really sorry, Kim, but it was getting to me. I was in the shop and I realized I couldn't even turn the ring around anymore and then I looked over and saw the grinder and I just had to do it." He cut most of it off with this thing he calls a "grinder" and then used pliers for the rest. So now I guess I'm expected to get another one ... anyone please feel free to advise on the protocol here.

He says that he wants to get a ring tatooed on his finger. I have already vetoed this idea once, during our engagement, at which time he was convinced that he didn't really need to wear a ring at all. It didn't take long for him to figure out that if he wanted me to change my name, he would be wearing a ring on his left hand. He didn't want to wear a ring. I didn't want to change my name. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what you call compromise. It is the only case of such a glorious accomplishment in the history of my relationship with this man. We are both Aquarians, if that means anything to you.

ION ...

I have been getting better in my nasty little give-the-baby-inappropriate-items-so-he-will-shut-his-mouth syndrome. Today I only gave him one dangerous thing: A Schick Intuition razor. I love Schick Intuition razors. Do y'all know about these beauties? It's a razor with a bar of shaving cream surrounding the blades ... so you don't have to use any foam or gel ... just take the cap off and glide. In my opinion, this is one of the better inventions of the 21st century. It is such a beautiful, beautiful device that it can make even the crunchiest of granola girls want to be slick and hair free. But I have a devil of a time getting the cap off the damn thing, so I figured it would be OK for him to play with it. And indeed, nothing bad happened. He abandoned it after spotting the toilet paper, which he dropped into the toilet. Then he banged the lid down onto his hand. Then I had to get outta the tub and actually take care of him. Can you guess my method of consolation? Yep, breastmilk available in two convenient locations near you.

ION ...

We have just finished painting the top portion of our bedroom (we have a chair rail). We chose a nice medium khaki color last October and have just now gotten around to it. We're hoping to have the bottom half done in a darker khaki by Easter.

Painting is so very therapeutic that I just might paint my entire house in the near future. Husband's boss, the park manager, has recently announced that he hates the color of the outside of our house (bricks painted gray with kelly-green shutters -- I like it) and so it will be painted a tannish-green color pretty soon (I'm hoping to at least choose the shutter color ... suggestions?). But for the inside, I'm thinking bold: mustard and brick for the living room, eggplant in the foyer, and one turqoise wall in the guest bedroom (we have a southwest theme in there).

Lord have mercy, is this ever a boring post! At least it doesn't involve musing about the texture of turtle eggs or a diatribe about the importance of avoiding produce from Mexico. Especially strawberries ... have y'all read about the stuff they put on strawberries?

Let's see, what else boring information can pour forth from my brain?

Right now I'm simultaneously reading Courts of Love by Ellen Gilchrist and Sin Killer by Larry McMurtry. The latter book was a gift from Husband, who says that the main character, Tasmin (the daughter of an English nobleman who brings his entire family to America in the early 19th century to hunt large game), is just like me. Tasmin is hot-tempered and impetuous and she ends up married to a missionary-like thing of a man who has two Indian wives and hardly speaks at all except to call forth the Holy Spirit to scare away hostile Indians. Now what does that say about me? Better yet, what does that say about Husband? He's reading some book about a South American shaman and we just got the most recent National Geographic in the mail. Feature story: Bird Flu H5N1. This is not good news, people ... we have chickens. People in Asia who have chickens are DYING from this awful stuff. I'm convinced it is all related to Americans' obsession with antibacterial products. Doesn't everyone know that that shit breeds supergerms?!?!?! I mean, I'm not innocent. When I was in Spain I got stuck in a really narrow stairwell of a castle with some germy-looking Europeans and I wasn't too shy to spray a little on them when they weren't looking. But come on! Now that I'm older and wiser I avoid that stuff like the plague. The plague. That's not funny at all is it?

Enough of this nonsense. I'm off to eat peas. Purple-hull peas. Mixed in with some butterbeans and a couple stalks of okra. Yum, yum. And then I'm after the Nilla wafers (anytime my parents come they bring a Sam's Club box of Nilla wafers. They're intended for The Goose but I just cannot help myself when there's some hormone-and-antibiotic-free 1% milk in the fridge.

The Party & Life as a MoaT

2005-09-27T06:09:00.000-05:00

Other than the refusal to nap and the subsequent fussiness prior to the festivities, The Goose was an angelic mess during his party. The candle was lit, the song was sung, and the cake was destroyed while I was in the other room, so I missed a good bit of the important parts and got no pictures or video not that I'm bitter. So we reenacted the whole thing the day after the party (sans guests) so that I could take some pictures, make a video, and get outta my funk about missing it the first time.

The best part about the party was actually after all of the caking and singing ... we let the Birthday Boy loose in the backyard with the chickens. He went ballistic, chasing them all over the yard and even smacking them in the butt a few times with his "walker"(they are beggars and view any human in the backyard -- no matter how small -- as a potential giver-outter of leftovers, so this was not all that difficult to accomplish). Then, to everyone's horror, the cutest little frog hopped across the backyard and was spotted by one of the chickens. I had just said, "Look at that cute, hippety hop frog" when the girls surged toward the poor creature, pecking at it fiendishly, and finally beaking it by the leg. Then they tore off into the frontyard to partake of their prey. However, chickens are not all that great in their predatory skills and as a result, the frog didn't die immediately; rather, it kept getting loose again and into the beak of another chicken time after time before one of them finally decapitated it in front of all the party guests.

So that was that.

John's brilliant babysitter (and her entire family -- they are all family friends) came for the festivities, and this conversation (regarding the fact that the babysitter's brother is taking Latin at his shee-shee prep school)was overheard not long after they arrived:

Babysitter's Mom: Andrew is taking Latin this semester.

My M-i-L: I think it's so ridiculous that they still teach that.

Babysitter's Mom: Well, it's a classical education system there and they've got the good test scores to prove that it works.

Babysitter: Yes, but I think that they would see the same results if they taught a Germanic-based language.

Yeah. This is the same girl that saw me in the low-cut shirt attempting to have a conversation about a movie I had not seen after quite a few "To Godiva For" martinis.

Otherwise, I am just my usual neurotic self these days. My mindset alternates between the following two options:

Staying home with this darling child forever
Going back to work full-time (in other states or countries that aren't accepting families, just single, working women)

The infant days are over and the toddler days are in full swing (hence the term "MoaT" in my title -- Mother of a Toddler). Even though he is not yet walking without help, I can already tell that it's just going to get worse. But it's not the systematic destruction of prized household possessions that gets to me. It's the fits, the nap boycotts, and just the general upkeep of him that makes me nuts.

For example, yesterday when he had a dirty diaper, I said, as always, "Goosey, you stink. Mommy needs to change you. Let's go upstairs." I then picked him up to go upstairs and The War of the Worlds was enacted in the living room (to the tune of "Old McDonald Had a Farm" blaring from the DVD player). It takes all my strength to wrangle him upstairs and onto the changing table where I have to strap him down (literally) while singing happy songs and pretending this doesn't make me want to apply for that job I found on the Internet that asks for a single, female teacher in Egypt. I frequently go into the garage and SCREAM at the top of my lungs, or wait until Husband returns from work and then run down the road at full speed until I get shin splints from pounding the pavement so hard. Or I power-hike up to the top of Ganier Ridge and sit on a bench in the pouring rain, watching the chickadees stare down at me from the branch above my head. They turn their heads sideways and cock their eyes downward to watch me sitting there, heart pounding. Endorphins can make it all go away (so can cheap wine, but I'm trying to stop doing that so much).

I have never overcome my inability to deal with the crying. That is the #1 reason why I have nursed him for so long and will continue to do so indefinitely. Forget the health benefits -- it stops the crying immediately. Husband doesn't seem to have this problem. He can endure the crying and whining and repeated attempts to climb out of the high chair while smearing food all over everything and whining (did I mention the whining?). He deals beautifully when The Goose lays down on the floor in a kicking tantrum whenever you prohibit his access to the ketchup bottle in the refrigerator door. But I still have some instinct leftover from the Pleistocene Period wherein my body reacts to the crying as if there is a predator lurking just outside the cave and I must quiet the baby immediately so as not to provoke attack. To that end, I will give him all manner of totally inappropriate items to quell his cries. Dangerous items. Items that could blind him (or me) or poison him. I tell myself it's OK because it's "supervised and temporary," but I realize that THIS IS NOT OK!!! But it does stop the crying at important times (like for the few seconds it takes to change a diaper). Other times it doesn't and so I whip out the boob. The boob always works. Wean him? I wouldn't dare? I couldn't cope.

The inappropriate-object-giving habit that I have developed has raised concerns from those around me, but I seriously cannot stop. If he will stop writhing around and screaming on the changing table, then I will give him anything within my reach: A bottle of Shout, an emery board, beer bottles, ink pens, a tube of toothpaste, his cough medicine, ANYTHING. It makes no sense, this habit. And sometimes, I'll take away one dangerous thing just to turn around and hand him another. The other day I took a sharpened pencil out of his hand and then allowed him to play with the space heater (it was off, but still!) just so I could go to the bathroom in peace.

I know this is most counterintuitive. But I really cannot stand to hear him cry. I know that no one wants to hear their child cry, but I think that I really have a problem. Clearly, it's one of many. Yesterday he wouldn't eat breakfast and kept trying to jail-break out of the high chair. I was making him some oatmeal and turned around to sing a song and just happened to notice that he was standing on top of the high chair tray, holding on to the back of the seat and bouncing his butt up and down in the air. So I put him back in the chair and tightened the restraining belt, only to endure more cries for freedom. Here's the crazy part: Likely he's just hungry, right? Because it's morning and he hasn't eaten in 13 hours, right? But I can't stand even the one minute of fussing he is going to do during the oatmeal preparation, so I take him out of the highchair altogether and let him play on the floor with an empty wine bottle. See what I mean about counterintuitive?

OK, I'll stop. Please don't turn me in to DHS.

On a happier note, our friends Mo & Ju-Ju are going into the hospital to be induced today. Yay for them! I hope they are blessed with a healthy baby and an intense talent for dealing with crying.

Oh, and I almost forgot: SUMMER IS OFFICIALLY OVER, so ...

"Happy Fall, y'all!"

Note-writing Pie Tins & Gobbling Snails

2005-09-22T21:01:00.000-05:00

I don't have much to say, but I had to share a couple photos. I woke up to this one morning this week. It was sitting on the counter by the coffee pot.

Additionally, I wanted to moan a little about this damn gobbling snail that is JEB's best pal. It seriously gobbles like a turkey and then it sings "This Little Light of Mine" with a rhythmic beat that is more fitting for "Copa Cabana." Don't get me wrong, I do love me some Barry Manilow ... it's just the ad infinitum part that is a bugger.

Tomorrow the family is arriving for the first birthday party of The Goose. While the guests partake of the soccer ball cake, sausage balls, veggies, chips, dip, softdrinks, beer, wine, and party hats, I will be in the bathroom popping pills. Don't worry, I'm going to drink white wine so that it won't stain anything if I spill. The combination of inlaws, parents, and alcohol requires the combination of pills, prayers, and liquor for me.

Well, I better go mop the floor and suck up the dust offa the base boards. I'll check back in on Sunday night after the coast is clear.

Parents, Whitewater, Balloons, Ducks, Methodists, & Free Gifts

2005-09-18T13:41:00.000-05:00

They're gone. No major breakdowns on my part, no major political tirades from my dad (or me), no crying episodes upon departure (mostly because next weekend is The Goose's party and they'll probably be back -- unless my aunt goes out of town and then in that case they'll stay to take care of Pappaw). So anyway, it was good and that's always a relief because there is potential for DISASTROUS family interactions every time we meet.

Husband is away this weekend doing Swiftwater Rescue Training. The state pays for him to go to the Ocoee River in east Tennessee where all the trainees practice saving each other by willingly jumping into gigantic rapids. Before we moved to Arizona, when we were living here the first time, we took a rafting trip down this same river.

Now don't get me wrong, I am not all that scared of water (except the ocean, which my mama said would suck me out to Cuba), but this is where the Olympic whitewater team trains and I had on open-toed shoes and you have to lodge your foot up under the seat of the person in front of you and and if you do this while wearing open-toed shoes then the seat in front of you will rip off your toenail but if you don't then you will fall out into the rapids and likely DIE from getting bashed against a rock. And do you see that man on the back of our raft? He was scaring the everloving shit out of me. We got in the raft, practiced a little and he said, "That's not good enough!!!" and then pushed us off into the water. Then he continued to narrate the whole trip ... "That there's Big Mama Rock -- she's killed 97 % of the people who've floated down this river. And the next one coming up is where my cousin Norma Rae got her head bashed up. Looked like she had run headfirst into a barbed wire ball, fought a good fight, and then lost."

That's me with the sunglasses in the middle row on the right. Also in there from left to right starting in the back are my friends Hot Frenchy & DP, then beside me is Ayurvedic Ann. In front is Ann's husband Real Estate Dave and, of course, Husband. Look at Hot Frenchy (AKA wannabedean) and Ann: they are actually SMILING. If you blow up the picture and examine my face, you will see big, real Tears of Terror making their trek down into the Ocoee.

I will never, ever, ever do that again. But if I do, I will definitely wear an old pair of tennis shoes instead of my $85 Chacos, which I should've gotten in a fun, bright-color instead of black, but I am boring sometimes and make bad decisions because black matches everything. You don't need your Chacos to match everything. Nobody cares whether you match when you're hurling yourself down a river in an inflatable device with nothing but a flimsy piece of plastic protecting your brain.

And another thing that guide did that really annoyed me was that everytime we made it through a rapid successfully, he would yell, "Everybody high-five!" which meant that we were supposed to hold up our paddles and slap them in the air above the raft. I never once participated in that bullshit. I was too busy mourning the loss of my toenail and life as we knew it.

So anyway, Husband is there ENJOYING this and called last night to report that all was going well and that he was learning a lot and that next time a hurricane hits he will likely be headed down to rescue people on account of his new skills.

TRANSITION???

The Goose scored big on his birthday even though we told people not to send gifts. His favorite so far is a friggin' 99 cent balloon with Thomas the Tank Engine on it even though there are all manner of bright plastic toys with speakers and buttons and annoying, really loud voices screeching out off-key songs. I hate loud, plastic toys, but if you sent one then we sincerely thank you from the bottom of our hearts because we know that not everyone is as lucky as we are.

TRANSITION???

They still have not found that owl but two white ducks have shown up on the lake. Husband suspects that they escaped from the Greek Festival at the Orthodox Church up the road. The rangers have all taken turns going out into the lake wearing waders to attempt to rid the natural area of these damn domesticated ducks. Have you ever seen someone in waders in a lake full of leeches trying to trap two white ducks in a net? Funny, funny stuff.

ION ...

This morning I tried another church. I'm in the process of looking for a church because that's the way I grew up and I like the ritual of church even if I don't believe a lot of the things I was taught to believe as a child. So today I went to a Methodist church near our house and it was relatively uneventful except for the passing of the visitor sign-in book. The woman beside me, Petunia, who must've been old as Methuselah, had on a lovely purple dress with gold sequined belt and hat and at first I thought I had found a soul sister because, apparently, she too likes Almay's i-color series! However, I think she had attempted to apply ALL the colors at once. So anyway, I signed the book and passed it on to her and then she passed it back and the man to my left, who was on the end of the pew, just stuck it down behind the hymnal. On we go with the service.

Then, in the middle of "You Don't Need a Phone to Call Jesus (and you'll never get a busy signal if you do)" by the Seraphim Choir of middle school girls wearing jeans and white t-shirts (except for one poorly-informed, little pink-clad thing), Purple Petunia decided that it was appropriate to tell me to tell the man next to me to please put the book "up where they can come by and get it." Now, would you know what that meant? I was raised in church, people, I understand the lingo ... I can recite all the books of the Bible OT and NT and I can find any Bible verse in less than 10 seconds due to my Bible Drill training in 4th-6th grades. I was the state champion in Bible Drill during my 6th grade year and if you quote a famous Bible excerpt I can likely tell you what book, chapter, and verse it came from even though I haven't attended church regularly in about 10 years. But I was clueless about this one.

She just kept saying, "Tell him to stick it up where they can come by and get it." I didn't know what to do, he didn't know what to do, and she was being really loud and parents of the members of the Seraphim Choir were starting to turn around and give us dirty looks. Finally I just grabbed the book and handed it to her, hoping that she could just do whatever needed to be done. But lord have mercy that was the worst idea I have ever had. She then stood up and started pointing to the end of the pew and saying, "Look, look how the other people have got there's up where they can come by and get it." But I still didn't understand because I couldn't see any other books. Finally the person in front of us grabbed the book and saved the day by placing it in its rightful place on the edge of the pew. The choir finished their song, AMENS were muttered all around, and PHEW! the deacons got the sign-in book. I thought it had passed.

After the service, after the holding of hands and swaying back and forth and singing of "Let There Be Peace on Earth," she caught my arm and said, "I'm so sorry you didn't understand ... I didn't know how else to say it." Then she turned around to the man behind her and said, "Billy, how would you have told her what to do? I didn't know how to say it!" Billy and I both tried to ignore her and move on but by now she had moved over in the pew in front of my purse (I had shifted down during the hand-holding event and as a result was at least four feet from my personal belongings) and she was holding onto both me and Billy trying to figure out what went wrong. Then the preacher saw me.

Now, not to brag, but I am PRIME scarfing up material for any good Bible Belt church. Not only am I well-versed in evangelical theology, but also I can sing and play the piano, I have a relatively stable family life, and, let's face it, I am capable of cleaning myself up to look cute and bubbly and conservative. Whenever I visit a church I have to BOLT and RUN to keep from being accosted by all manner of preachers and deacons and welcome committees and blue-haired women wearing peacock brooches. Petunia had ruined my escape plan.

"Are you new to the area?" the minister says.

"Oh, yeah ... I mean, uh, we've been here for almost a year now but we used to live here before and then I went to grad school in Arizona and then I got pregnant ... I mean, I was married and all, I mean, I'm still married, and then we were homeless and jobless for a while but finally got a job back here after living with relatives and having the baby up in Wisconsin and being on Medicaid and so yes, now we live here and thanks for having me but I've got visitors in town and need to get back home to fix lunch, but I loved your sermon on being in the boat with Jesus! See you next week!"

Eloquence and composure just drip offa me like water from a freshly dunked convert in the baptismal tub. I made a dash for my car and screeched out of the parking lot before I gave away any other Kimmy secrets ... these people know how to ask all the right questions and they can figure out that you can play the piano without even bringing up the subject of music. They are sneaky sneaky sneaky, these people.

Next week: a Methodist church near a local university where there might be an academic or two in the congregation who may appreciate or even share my concern about historical inaccuracies and missionary work. I'll keep you posted, as always.

Until then, remember that you don't need a phone to call Jesus, he answers knee-mail instead.

And p.s. don't go anywhere near Dillard's because lord help us all they have got a free gift at the Estee Lauder counter and they take credit cards.

And p.p.s. "free gift" is redundant and anyway the gift is not really free.

Grammar Alert

2005-09-16T21:44:00.000-05:00

Ummmmmm, how come no one told me there was a grammar error in my birth story post? People, the use of the first person "I" as the object of a preposition is an overcompensation tactic. One I pride myself in NEVER failing to edit out of my writing. And as I read back through my post, there it was, sitting there glaring at me just like a big ugly mean English teacher. Just like Mrs. Risher, my first grade teacher who, when I asked the meaning of the word spelled "b-e-t-w-e-e-n," which I read and pronounced in my little six-year-old head as "BETT-ween." The question was on a Red-level Concepts card ... the reading was about the Earl of Sandwich:

What did the Earl of sandwich have in the middle of his bread?
(a) ham
(b) between
(c) crust
(d) fur

Sweet little Kimmy, pointing to letter (b): "Mrs. Risher, I think the answer is (b), but what does that word mean?"

Big ugly mean teacher: "Buh-twEEn? You mean buh-twEEn? You think the Earl of Sandwich put buh-twEEn in the middle of his bread?"

Sweet Kimmy: "Oh, no ma'am. I understand now."

Where are my big ugly mean READERS when I need you? My reputation is at stake, people!

And p.s. I have fixed the problem.

and p.p.s. My parents are here. And my dad has already cleared the room twice not from farting; rather, from announcing his opinions on how the President is going to save New Orleans and how they needed this to clean up the politicians there and get some good decent republicans in that Catholic state! And my mom has been going on and on about how Goose is now a year old and how that is entirely too old to get that picture made that she wanted me to get made when we were home last but it was just too hectic and now none of those white gowns that Kathy Stevens has in her photography studio will fit him anymore because you have to do those mother/child, everybody's-wearing-white pictures done BEFORE they get into size 18-month clothes.

Some Reminiscing

2005-09-16T11:30:00.000-05:00

December 31, 2003, Austin, TX
B and I are at his sister’s house for New Year’s and I’m late. I’m never late, so we do the pee test and oh yes, this will be a boring New Year’s Eve for the Kimster.

There’s a party, but I’m totally sober and am starting to realize that no one is as funny as they think they are, so I say, “Who wants to learn a cheerleader dance?”

There’s an outpouring of affection something akin to Beatle mania as I turn on “How Do I Know?” from Whitney Houston’s best album ever (as far as I’m concerned). Five, Six, Seven, Eight … these girls are really bad at learning this cheerleader dance that was choreographed for an ACDC song but is also great with Whitney Houston.

Most of the time I was pregnant we were jobless and homeless, floating around amongst relatives who all had to endure my crying spells, incessant nesting, and heartburn. Between May and July of 2004 we moved from Flagstaff, AZ to Austin, TX, then to Milwaukee, WI, and then to St. Croix Falls, WI. But despite our instability, Great Grandma Ellie (after whom JEB would've been named had he been a girl) kept saying to us, "Your luck will change as soon as the baby's born ... you'll see."

Indeed, we had been sent other signs that we had a lucky baby. For our first pre-natal visit, we walked to the doctor’s office, and on the way there, a crow pooped from a tree branch. The poop hit a lower branch, ricocheted, and splatted all over Husband and me. We went to the doctor covered in poop. Later that day, I went to class and told my friends that I was pregnant and about the bird poop. My friend Lindsey, who had been a Peace Corps volunteer in Namibia for two years, said, “OMG! In Africa that is the best sign of luck EVER.”

But then I graduated and didn’t want to get a full-time job with a baby on the way, and no jobs had turned up for B. So we started the moving party, and although we weren't jobless and homeless when he finally arrived, we didn't have a permanent home or job and were waiting to hear about the position that Husband has now. At the time, we were living on the border of Wisconsin and Minnesota where Husband was a National Park Ranger at the St. Croix Scenic Riverway (and I was a regular at the public library and the Holiday Inn swimming pool). Husband had an interview scheduled for the Tennessee permanent job—a job he had waited on for MONTHS—on the very day that Goose was born, and so he had to reschedule it. Then, when Goose was less than 24 hours old, Husband left the hospital to go home and shower, and in the middle of his shower, he got the phone interview call ... so he interviewed for this job standing in the middle of our dining room with a towel around his waist, dripping water everywhere and soaking the floor. But he got the job! And then he started saying that The Goose’s Indian name was going to be "Little No Worries." Great Grandma and the crow were right.

The details of The Goose’s birth follow, so if you’re squeamish, be forewarned:

September 15, 2004, St. Croix Falls, WI

9 .

So The Goose is 9 days late and I am going out of my mind. I'm desperate. I've OD'ed on prune juice, had lots of sex, and have been walking several miles a day when it suddenly occurs to me that we should just begin talking directly to the uterus. So B gets us a translator, called 2 ounces of castor oil mixed with OJ (supposedly it's a "mid-wife's cocktail" which, as it causes the bowel to contract, also causes the uterus to do the same) and about one hour later I am on the toilet (and didn't get up for 3 hours). We went to bed (thinking the castor oil didn't work), and I woke up at 5 a.m. in a pool of amniotic fluid.

We went straight to the hospital and got a fabulous room with two bay windows. There I was hooked up to the monitor and a bag of antibiotics to ward off my strep infection (harmless to me but serious for babies passing through canals). I have not felt any contractions yet, although according to the monitor, I am having them and the nurses are going, "Don't you feel that?"

At about 10 a.m., my labor had not progressed and the doctor suggested I begin nipple stimulation, which causes the release of oxytocin -- the hormone which causes the uterus to contract. So I sat in the bed rubbing my nipples (while nurses came in and out -- quite embarrassing) to no avail. Finally at noon the doctor said she wanted to start giving me pitocin, the synthetic oxytocin which DEFINITELY starts labor. I cried a little (I was afraid that my contractions would be unbearable and that it would cause me to have to have some pain medicine and thus didn't want to go this route) and then finally gave in when she told me that otherwise I might be in labor all night. So I took a nap and at 2 p.m. they started the drug.

My contractions picked up almost immediately but they still had to double the level of the hormone three times before I really got going. It felt like bad menstrual cramps for several hours and about 5 p.m. I got in the Jacuzzi tub. The nurse was coming in periodically to ask if my contractions were getting longer or louder and it was at this point that I was really starting to feel them in waves of strong pain throughout my pelvis. She stuck her head in the bathroom and asked how I was doing and I replied, "They're getting badder. I said 'badder'. Don't tell anyone I said that, I'm an English teacher." To which she replied, "I'll call the doctor and tell her they're getting worser."

I stayed in the tub until I couldn't stand it anymore and got out and got on a birthing ball (looks like those exercise balls but larger and you straddle it and hold on to something in front of you). B made sure I got a red ball to match my red toenails, which were being touted as the best in the unit. At this point I am really starting to use the breathing, visualizations, etc., and B is coaching me like mad. The nurses were so impressed with him that they were asking my mother-in-law (who was waiting outside) if we had taken some special class. Nevermind the laboring mother, it's the husband they're impressed with. Figures.

So it's about 6 p.m. and I feel like I'm going to die and am begging for drugs. And B keeps saying, "Just make it through one more ... I know you can just get through one more and then the doctor will be here and you can ask her for drugs." I totally fell for this crap even though it was a while before the doctor came back in, checked me, and said, "During the next contraction I want you to push." For some reason, I really thought that the pushing was practice for when I was really ready. So I said, "How long until I can really push?" She said, "You're fully dilated now -- PUSH!" It was about 7 p.m. And the whole time I really thought she was lying and that the nurses had all been lying the ENTIRE time they were telling me about my dilatory progress. I was convinced they were all liars ... even B, but I was so out of it that he was having to hold my face toward his and almost yell at me to keep breathing. He was a total star.

So I pushed for 45 minutes, which I consider to be the worst part of the whole thing, even though most women find it to be a relief after all of the hard contractions. Finally the doctor said, "There's the head ... do you want to feel it?" My eyes were rolling back into my head ... feeling the head was the last thing I ever wanted to do. The doctor said, "The next thing you're going to feel is stinging pain ... like burning." I didn't know what this meant, but apparently that was her way of warning me that I was about to split open. Which I did. Then, she and B switched places (she by my side and Brian at the foot of the bed) and The Goose popped out into his arms and emitted only one cry. B said it was almost as if he were thinking, "They're expecting me to cry, so here it is." And then he got very calm.

It felt exactly like you would think it would feel to push out a baby: slimy and squirmy and the biggest relief. Then I grabbed him and yanked him toward me and nearly cut off his oxygen because the cord wasn't very long. The nurse is yelling, "Stop pulling! His cord's not very long!" and B is saying, "Look at his balls ... they're as big as mine!" (boy babies are born with swollen testicles due to high hormone levels.) And I'm saying, "He has hair! He's not bald! Look at his hair!"

Then B cuts the cord so that I can hold him closer and after just a few minutes, the doctor says it's time to push out the placenta. So Brian and the nurse take John over to the incubator to be weighed and measured (it's in our room ... he never left the room) while I push out the placenta ... easy as pie.

By then I'm totally a mess ... I'm soaked in sweat and blood and amniotic fluid and have now gotten so cold that I'm shaking violently. The doctor is injecting my "area" with numbing medication so that she can repair the tears and I feel like I'm going to die of shock. They kept trying to put the baby back on my tummy but I just couldn't even deal with holding him because I was shaking so badly and felt like road kill. The doctor was assuring me that that is normal.

B is holding the baby and standing beside me trying to calm me down and I'm having a total guilt trip because I'm not nursing him immediately like all the books said to do. It took the doctor almost an hour to sew me up and that was not fun. Then I had to pee, which was scary, and no one told me how much blood comes out of you post-partum. While I'm trying to pee (a huge effort), they changed the sheets and cleaned up the room and then I was back in bed with the baby trying to nurse him ... toe-curling pain there (until your nipples harden up -- which takes several weeks even though they say it's not supposed to hurt) ... and B is flying high.

I kept saying, "I did it ... I pushed him out." And I'm still saying that to myself every time I look at him. It is such an amazing, unique experience and yet it happens millions of times every day. The most striking part about it was just that: the contrast of how globally common and at the same time individually uncommon and life-changing it all is. And you think that you will be filled with this gentle, loving feeling toward the child but really what I felt was anything but sweet. I was overwhelmed by an almost vicious feeling of being his protector and thinking that I would never let anyone hurt him.

And then there were months of absolutely NO SLEEP, numerous breakdowns, two bouts of mastitis, cracked nipples, and a cross-country move. But finally ... just as we were thinking that we couldn't deal with the little alien anymore, he started sleeping longer and smiling. And I know those two things are survival tactics because it's just in the nick of time that they both happen to almost every baby.

The fastest year of my life just went by, and baby, look at us now!

Wishy Washy

2005-09-13T07:21:00.000-05:00

I just couldn't part with the pink theme. It was just so feminine, so sweet, so ME! I mean, I think red would've been PERFECT, but alas, Blogger doesn't have a red template and lord knows I cannot configure any html coding to rig it up. I do like green (nature, envy, spring), but somehow pink (roses, salmon, baby lips) is just better here. Also, I've added my links again, so you can all rest easy.

Yesterday was eventful ... I had a blind date with a mommy friend, I taught a class totally unprepared, and had some very insightful conversations with colleagues at work about various issues integral to the world: plagiarism, homosexuality, Methodists, terrorists, standard deviations, and poop.

Happy Tuesday ... here's the ad I wrote about earlier:

BOO!

2005-09-11T21:41:00.000-05:00

I decided to be green for awhile ... let me know how you like it ... pink just really isn't my color all although it seemed to fit for a while. Now, I'm changing. Hair color. Blog color. And if I'm lucky like Michael Jackson, skin color as well.

WARNING: This is what happens when you drink too much red wine with leftover lasagna and then watch sad Dustin Hoffman movies from the 70s while Husband is at his boss's house watching football on a 52-inch TV.

Ah, the good ole days: Northern Arizona. Mountains. Biking everywhere. Size 4 shorts. Now it's babies and big bluejeans and Budweiser.

I was reminiscing about my old life today and found this picture. It's when Husband and I climbed the highest mountain in Arizona (and nearly died at the top ... thank GOD for PBJ sandwiches). I fell on my butt four times on the way down. Later this same year I got pregnant.

I miss the Wild West and my friends and grad school and easy street. I don't miss our 400-square-foot married student housing apartment, or snow in April/May, or morning sickness in Second Language Acquisition class. But I miss Flagstaff, and I miss hiking in Sedona, and I miss yoga classes and teaching freshman composition and Beaver Street Brewery.

I have yet to look back in my life and wish to be be in some past time. And I hope I never do. But I still miss it, and I think that's OK.

Just call me a MOP

2005-09-10T20:57:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I woke up and realized that I have only ONE friend my age in the Nashvegas area and she doesn't have kids. I love her, don't get me wrong, but I need some close mommy friends. So I got online and started researching mom's groups. I discovered that one was actually meeting in just a few hours, so I girded my loins and went.

I'm not sure how cool it is to associate myself with a group whose name is the same as the house cleaning implement that I hate the most, but at least I made an effort. I went to a mom's group called MOPS (moms of pre-schoolers) which meets at a local Baptist church. Unbeknownst to me, MOPS is a Christian group, which is fine ... I just didn't know that ahead of time and wasn't expecting the devotional time and the Bible verses and whatnot. And because I may go back, and because I may make some friends there (instead of staying home and blogging and being a scary internet mom stalker -- sorry to all those people who are victims of this -- now you know why), I will resist the urge to make fun of the meeting.

OK, I can't stand it. Following are quotes that entertained me:

"In the battle of David and Goliath, David succeeded and Goliath failed because while Goliath was focused on the battle, David was focused on the strength of Jesus Christ."

At this point I was really tempted to raise my hand and say something like, "I hate to play Devil's Advocate, but wasn't the story of David and Goliath in the OLD Testament ... and wasn't that before the birth of Jesus Christ?" I'm just not sure how welcome that would've made me.

"Hey y'all, my name is Krista and I have two kids-- both boys--and one on the way. This one is our last. My husband would like to just keep having them until I'm blue, but I have finally put my foot down because he's not the one that has to take care of them all the time and it is just exhausting."

Ummmmmm ... no shit. And which part of you is it that would turn blue if you kept having kids?

"The thing that I like about quilting is that you can be as 'by-the-book' or as 'off-the-wall' as you want and IT'S ALL OK. It really is OK to do it the easy way and use a sewing machine or use NO PATTERN AT ALL. I know that sounds crazy, but it really is OK. You can even use BLACK fabric."

This is just classic. I just nodded and nodded and added "sewing machine" to the Christmas list that my mom makes me give her in October of every year.

I really may go back even though it is horribly mean that I have made fun of this group here on the WWW. I have never claimed to be that great of a person. Maybe that's why I have no friends here. Note to self.

ION ...

One of my old officemates from NAU has accepted a professorship at Middle Tennessee State University and has moved to Murfreesboro (30 minutes from us) with his 37-weeks-pregnant-with-stripped-membranes wife. We had them over for dinner tonight and Husband and I managed to finish off most of two bottles of wine BY OURSELVES while congenially chatting about epidurals, electric breast pumps (can you believe that I didn't even tell the NWA story??), cribs, co-sleeping, etc. Luckily, I did not say anything embarrassing about how I can shoot milk across the room from my right nipple (the left one can only go a few feet), or ask if they wanted to see the pictures of the Goose's placenta, or tell them about how long it took my vagina to heal after labor, which is what I have done in the past during our dinner parties involving wine. That's what happens when you stay home all day with no one to talk to but a whiney baby ... WHO, by the way, has again won over my heart by discovering my toes and laughing everytime I wiggle them or say, "Whooo-wheee--you stink!" while wiping his butt.

I wish that I had a funny country or rap lyric to leave you with but due to this Katrina stuff, I have been glued on NPR. However, I do have a story that you might enjoy ...

My mother's gynecologist ...

You know it's going to be good when it starts like that!

... just recently retired and she had to get a new one after some 40 years of seeing the same doctor. She was VERY nervous about the change because the only doctor who had openings for new patients was rumored to have had an affair with one of his nurses. She had been telling me that the first visit with the new doctor was impending and I had been trying to reassure her that everything was pretty standard amongst gynecologists and that it probably wouldn't be that different than the old one. To this, she replied, "Yes, Dorcas (a colleague at her work) has been to him and has told me that, but it doesn't make any difference, I'm still nervous. Dorcas said that he was very charming and gentle, which makes sense, given his track record. Also, she said that it was better than Dr. Lindley because at this new doctor you don't have to take off all your clothes and sit on the table totally naked while waiting for him to come in ... they give you a sheet or something to cover up with."

At this point, I interrupt her and say, "Dr. Lindley had you sit on the table with NO CLOTHES ON while waiting for him to come in?"

"Of course," she says, "Sometimes for more than an hour, and it's really cold!"

OK, so her old doctor made her sit naked on the examining table while waiting for long periods of time and she's worried about the new doctor because he supposedly had an affair with a nurse? Am I the only one out there who thinks that's weird? I have never had to sit on a table naked at ANY doctor's office, and I've been to quite a few. Even the ones who have to walk you out to your car with a loaded gun (like my psychologist in Greenville, MS) definitely don't do anything that weird. I used to call him my mental masseuse (sp?).

One more thing that I must say, which is positive, and thus important (because there are so FEW positive things here):

AUTUMN IS HERE! It's cool at night and in the mornings and yay yaya yayayyayay AMERICA!

Also, one last funny thing:

I saw an ad in a coupon clipper magazine for a hot-air balloon ride that said, "FALL IN MIDDLE TENNESSEE." They meant like the season, like "autumn," but chose this unfortunate word instead. I'm sending it in to Jay Leno.

Tah-tah.

Antibiotics, Probiotics, & Prozac

2005-09-08T19:20:00.000-05:00

Warning: This post contains highly NEGATIVE energy.

I have been diagnosed with a bacterial infection in my left tonsil. According to my doctor, I probably got Goose's croup virus, which then turned into a bacterial infection. So now I'm on antibiotics. And probiotics. And I think I'm in need of some Prozac as well because this baby is about to make me jump off a high bridge.

All he does is whine. He just whines and whines and whines. And that's it. Occasionally he laughs at something. Sometimes he'll watch a video or read a book or stack the rings or play with a puzzle. But mostly he just whines. We have to avoid opening the refrigerator or dishwasher when he is in the kitchen because he has a back-arching temper tantrum unless allowed to plunder through the appliances and pluck out everything. He especially likes the ketchup bottle, spoons, and bottle nipples.

Everyday I say to myself, "OK, today I'm going to interact with him in such a patient, loving way that he won't get bored and whiney." But at about 4:00 p.m. I'm out of ideas and convinced that he must be hurting somewhere since nothing else works to quell his dissatisfaction, and I give him a dose of Tylenol. I don't know what else to do. I am considering getting a second job just to pay for him to be in daycare because I cannot deal with his whining. Is this normal? Him, not me ... I know that I am not normal. Moms out there, please give me some advice!

ION ...

Well, there IS no other news. Happy freakin' Thursday.

At a Kimpasse

2005-09-04T19:34:00.000-05:00

I think I'm taking the prefix "-im" + "K" thing a little too far, but just indulge me here because I am on a tirade: Husband has suggested that I limit trips to Target (and Walgreens and the DSW Shoe Warehouse -- why do they add the "shoe warehouse" on the end ... isn't that what the "SW" stands for? That's like saying the SAT test. Ugh!) on account of the price of gas. What did you say? No, no, no, of course I don't have to actually do what he says. But he's right, because I HAVE NO MONEY (i.e., I'm "Kimpecunious") to pay for gas (or eye makeup or bondini or Absorbine, Jr.). But my lack of funding and the price of gas or my striped hair or any of my other nonsense is definitely not what I'm on a tirade about.

I'm on a tirade because I'm at a Kimpasse: WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS COUNTRY? We ignore the poor until we are forced by nature to deal with their plight, and then we gasp and gasp and oh what misfortune! how horrible! what will they do?

Disasters are happening all over the world all the time but if it happens in the U.S. then God bless America, let's hang out our flag. Hello? Did y'all hear about the famine in Niger last month? Or the stampede in Iraq that killed a thousand people and wasn't even directly related to all the bombs that we've been dropping there? Or that little epidemic they've got going on in Africa ... what's the acronym? DISA? SIDA? ASID? Oh yeah, AIDS.

I have been hearing about the poverty in New Orleans for several years now, ever since I became friends with people who teach there through the Teach for America program. As you may or may not know, I was a corps member in the Mississippi Delta for two years and never missed a day of marvelling at the fact that I grew up in that same state, but in a very different kind of place. The poverty there and in New Orleans has always been unbelievably stupendous. And guess what! Believe it or not, it's horrible even when we don't hear about it because of a hurricane. The "poor victims," of Hurricane Katrina (the ones who couldn't evacuate) were "poor" WAY before and will likely be poor WAY after this is all said and done. The fact that it took a monstrous act of nature to bring this to our attention is (now sing this to the tune of that song, "D-I-V-O-R-C-E" by Tammy Wynette) T-Y-P-I-C-A-L.

The only glimmer of hope I have been able to find in this whole situation is from the fact that these people are being taken away to other places. Maybe it's naive of me to think that they will be shipped off to somewhere better (hell, Texas is already saying NO MORE REFUGEES). But isn't it possible that getting out could be a really good thing for them? Isn't it possible that wherever these people end up, it could look something like this: the kids could be placed in good school districts, the adults could be enrolled in job training programs, and the elderly/disabled could be taken care of through well-run state programs? Or is that just wishful thinking? I hope not.

Enough.

ION ...

I broke my right pinky toe trying to jump over the Goose and his "cart" (see below):

OK. So maybe it was just my toenail, but it seems like a major injury and has prevented lots of things today (mainly cleaning up, but other things too like exercising, cooking, etc.). Why do little concentrated things like that hurt so much worse than say, LABOR? Four weeks after The Goose was born (sans epidural, sans demerol, au naturale in other words -- not that I'm bragging or anything ... I had a really short labor and a fantastic coach (Husband) who kept saying tremendously encouraging things like, "Kim, your red toenails are being touted as the best on the L/D wing!), I had to be hospitalized for mastitis and while I was there they discovered that I was also low on potassium. I had to have an IV potassium drip and Jesus H. Christ on a popsicle stick! I was skuh-reaming and writhing around and Husband was yelling for the nurses and finally one came in and turned off the drip. This is the same nurse who, prior to hanging the potassium bag, said, "It may sting a little." Just a titch. A teensy little sting.

I remember saying, "Isn't potassium what Dr. Kervorkian used to kill those people?"

She said, "I'm not sure" and left. When she returned, I was not in good shape. She kept saying, "Hon, I cain't suck it back up outta there, you're just goin' to have to wait 'til it runs through a little." When it finally stopped, I asked if there was any other way I could supplement my potassium stores (a crate of bananas?) and she left to go ask the doctor. A few minutes later she came back in with some orange liquid for me to drink. Oh, OK. Next time can I have the option of DEATH by POTASSIUM IV or kool-aid? Thanks.

My toe doesn't hurt quite as bad as the potassium drip or the baby delivery thingy, but it's getting close. Especially when I wear high heels like I did last night when we went OUT ON THE TOWN!!! Can you say Babysitter?!?!?!?!!? Can you say TO GODIVA FOR chocolate martinis? I CAN!!!

p.s. Am I starting to look (and/or sound) like Maureen Dowd?

STRIPES

2005-09-03T10:15:00.000-05:00

STRIPES
Originally uploaded by Kimpossible, HEM, PWTPI.

Here's something to laugh at in the midst of all this devastation of the hurricane. I'm too absorbed in the news to write much. I'm trying not to be sad. I couldn't sleep last night. I can't stop looking at photos online and then when I get to the ones with the babies and old people I have to stop and find a distraction.

"Subtle Highlights" = "Platinum Streaks" at Lyle's School of Hair Design

2005-08-31T20:01:00.000-05:00

In the wake of the hurricane, I'm not sure it is appropriate to write about ridiculous things like the fact that you had someone at Lyle's School of Hair Design give you "subtle highlights" which turned out to be platinum streaks, but there you have it anyway. I should've known this was a bad idea when I arrived and saw the sign on the door, "We are no longer accepting checks because of the high number of returned ones." The clientele was not exactly upscale (me included). And of course all I HAD was a check because, as you know, I lost my wallet and even though I had found the wallet by the time I had the stripes added to my sinaberry, I had cancelled all my cards. And because we don't have a local bank (we only do online banking), it takes a couple days to get a new card in the mail. Now just try to explain all of that to the woman behind the desk who is about 117 years old and not in a friendly mood. Her response: "I don't know nothin' about no internet bank."

But I am a sweet talker and finally after much persuasion, she agreed, stripes were added (and some longish bang-like things) and I emerged from Lyle's feeling like a new woman. I'll post a picture whenever I work up the nerve to look at myself on film. The girl who did my hair is a friend of a friend and needed the hours to get her certificate. At least it was cheap. Actually, I'm being so melodramatic about the whole thing. I know that's REALLY unlike me to be melodramatic, but truthfully, I sorta like the stripes and the bangs. But I don't own one of those $100 straightening irons, so my version of fixing it is WAY different from the stylist's. In fact, I liked her a lot and will likely continue to go back to her since she is DIRT cheap and doesn't try to make awkward small talk.

ION (you know that I have to have at least one bulleted list in all of my posts) ...

The Goose's croup is better but there is still lots of snot and he missed school this week.
The class reunion is cancelled, as is my entire trip south. My parents and many friends are without power (some are without homes altogether) and so I am again reminded of the simple comforts of my life. If you are in the hurricane-affected area, please write or call so that I know you're OK!
I LOVE my classes and the job in general. I have students from all over -- Kurdistan, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Mexico, El Salvador, Russia, Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, Bangladesh, and more. They're everything that you want your students to be: eager, polite, respectful, etc. I don't know how I got so lucky.

That's about it for now. More mindlessness to come, don't worry.

Croup, Poop, Hurricanes, Neuroticism, etc.

2005-08-30T09:45:00.000-05:00

Goose has croup and is making me want to contact an adoption agency. Imagine constant screaming and whining, lots of snot, and a seal-like bark. AROUND THE CLOCK. Finally today the barking has been replaced by a "junkie, smoker's cough" but the snot and the whining/screaming continue. Lord help us all. The night before he developed it he was crawling around in his room without a diaper on, "airing it out," and pooped on the floor. He has done this so many times before that it's not even funny (and he always does it in the same spot) and STILL we continue to let him air it out to prevent diaper rash. This time, however, we didn't realize that he had pooped until it was too late. He was thus given the opportunity to paint himself and many other items with the poop. It got down into the cracks in the wood floor. Then when I finally looked around and noticed what was going on, I just stood there and screamed for Husband to come help because what do you do in that situation? There was poop EVERYWHERE and there were no good options. So I finally just picked him up and put him in the tub without water thinking that he could just play nicely in there for a minute while I went to the top of the stairs to yell "HELP" a few more times because Husband had not heard me screaming and was still unaware of the disaster. In that split second, The Goose slipped in the tub and bonked his head and started screaming. By the time the night was over we were all covered in poop as was the bathtub, several books, and three rubber ducks. Nobody ever tells you how really dirty you get in just the routine of baby life or how hard it is when they scream a whole lot and you can't make them stop. It's hard. It makes you nearly insane, as if you needed any help.
Hurricane Katrina has struck and most of my family/friends in Mississippi are without power. I'm sure the class reunion and my trip down south will be cancelled. And I thought that the Poop & Croup were disastrous ... have you seen footage of the Gulf area? It's awful. Total devastation. There's nothing else to say about that.
I lost my wallet but then found it again four days later. NIGHTMARE. Stop what you are doing right now and go through your wallet and make a list of everything you would need to replace if you lost it. I, being the over-organized, neurotic type A that I am, had done this and it was a life saver.
Started teaching last night. I arrived to total chaos ... the tropical storm was hitting Nashville just as class started. We had no classroom and there were students everywhere who didn't speak English and were freaking out. I have ten students in my academic listening/speaking class and will meet my Literacy II students tonight.
I am getting my hair cut today and highlighted (for the first time ever) by a new girl who is still in school for hair design. What in the world is wrong with me? I take chances like there is nothing to lose.

In sum, there are LOTS of seeming catastrophes in my life right now. I'm trying to remind myself that in reality none of these events are TRULY disastrous and that we are still lucky beyond belief even though I don't know why. What if it runs out, our luck? I hate the whatiffing but also I can't stop. There's too much at stake. This whiny, poopy, croopy baby has brought too much love into my life and now I'm nothing but a blob of worry and Almay.

I hope all is well with the readers. Stay dry and if you're bored, take heart! There are always babies to be taken care of ... come on down.

Progress Report

2005-08-25T21:45:00.000-05:00

Here's a report about my progress in various areas:

Dieting for 10-year high school reunion: BUST! (As in bust a whole in your jeans because you ate too many sweet rolls at your in-laws house last week.) My failures are exacerbated by my hatred for Tammilee (of the Arms/Abs of Steel videos). Today I was trying to just lift my stupid five pounders and she was going on and on about how water and rubber bands or tubing are bearable weights and that weight-weights are not. And how we don’t know how much weight we're "bearing" with water, but with a weight, we know. Then she says, “Like this weight I have here is five pounds. It tells me it's five pounds.” My question: If water/tubing/bands are bearable, then what’s the name for other types of weights … UNbearable? In my opinion, yes.
Being Mother Goose: OK. I didn't sneak into the school. Rather, I marched proudly to the door and peeked through the window like any normal overprotective parent. Tonight I went to open house and met the teacher, Miss Sarah, who was just a titch unfriendly yesterday when we first met her (she was running late and all four of the kids in her class were SCREAMING). But tonight she was better and I found out that she is studying at the community college where I teach. A community college, I might add, that has an entire degree program in Early Childhood Education. Interestingly enough, she opted for photography. Whatever. She is certified in infant CPR and she is brave enough to attempt projects with them that involve glue/paint (they're 10-13 months old!).
Keeping up with current events: GREAT! Next to internet stalking, this is my second-favorite hobby. Today I read two fascinating articles in the NYT online. The first was about how maggots and leeches are coming back into vogue in the medical world. Yeah. The second was about a robotic baby doll named Amazing Amanda (does that sound creepily like a porn star to anyone else?). Amanda can respond to certain voice commands and can also interract with her accoutrements. For example, if she asks for peas, and you give her a cookie, she'll respond by saying something like, "I asked for peas and this is a cookie. Cookies and peas are very different." Now, what are we teaching little kids by having polite dolls? That actual children are polite? First of all, I've never heard a kid ask for peas. Secondly, I've never heard a kid, when given a cookie, protest. And third, I think a more natural response would be something like, "COOKIECOOKIECOOKIECOOKIE!!! NOW!" rather than some overpolite robot crap. She probably also says, “I just had a BM” rather than “Oh no, I just shit my pants again. Didn’t I just do that like twenty minutes ago?” Which is probably what my child will say, given his input.
Killing BRs: So-So. We had an exterminator come and check us out and his recommendation was NOT to spray due to the sucking-on-everything baby but instead to put out glue traps. The glue traps are to be placed under things (ideally so that the baby cannot get to them). The traps are covered with a BONDINI-like adhesive which can catch all manner of varmints, including huge beetles and even MICE. However, we have caught relatively few WHOLE adult BRs. They seem to be good at getting away (minus a couple legs here and there). The babies get caught, but the adults, apparently, are stronger than mice. Am I just being a worry wart, or does that bother anyone else? The babies are actually harmless because they're not strong enough to penetrate the epidermis (or rip their legs off trying to escape from a glue trap). But the adults, which look like this: can cause wounds that look like this (WARNING: Do not click on the previous link if you are squeamish). p.s. We found one in our bed and on The Goose's changing table.
Preparing my will: NOT SO GOOD. I just can't decide who to give all my stuff to! I mean there is really a lot of really really very really good stuff around here. Like the cardboard entertainment center on top of which sits the 13-inch, circa 1993 TV! And the Barbra Streisand records! And the bulk-sized box of Absorbine Junior! And the broken breast pump! And then there's George the Lizard and the girls! Do we have to set a custodian for them? This is important stuff, I know. Not the kind of stuff you can just die and leave unattended.

ION ...

I am teaching TWO classes this semester: Communication Skills (advanced academic listening/speaking) and Literacy II (beginning reading and writing). With that plus my Spanish conversation partner and the creepy-crawly baby, I know I say this a lot, but Lord Help Us All. This is looking like one helluva fall (pun intended).

Angst Explained & a Story about Pumpkin Barf

2005-08-24T06:29:00.000-05:00

Aha! The source of the Kimbalance has revealed itself in the form of a returned menstrual cycle. Is that TMI? Well too bad. The angst and the pizza face and the falling asleep last night at 7:30 p.m. all has a good explanation ... it's the first period I've had since November 2003. We're all so proud.

ION ...

Yesterday we decided it was a good idea to feed The Goose some pumpkin pie and then go swimming. Yeah. On the way home he barfed it all up (mixed with some Yo Baby! vanilla yogurt) into a pool in his car seat. Then, upon entering the park, we discovered that the governor was filming a commercial at the trailhead near our house. Here we are driving by waving ... I'm premenstrual and in a soaked swimsuit with zits and wet, messy hair (and no eye make-up), Husband is also wet and is shirtless in his swimtrunks, and The Goose is covered in pumpkin barf. "Hi Gov! Wanna kiss the baby?"

Today is Start School Day. Now what is the likelihood of me starting my period and The Goose starting school ON THE SAME DAY? This is not looking good. I'm going to go to MY school and sign my contract and then attempt to distract myself in some other productive ways so that I'm not tempted to go check up on him by scaling the brick wall and tiptoeing through the backyard of the school to peep through the windows. Not that I've planned how to do that or anything. I mean, it makes perfect sense for me to take my morning walk through the surrounding neighborhoods and then OOPS where does this trail through the woods lead? --- GASP! --- to the back of a church! And LOOK! It's the same church where Goose is enrolled in preschool! The coincidence is astonishing! What are the odds?!?!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I've been musing lately on luck, good fortune, destiny, providence … call it what you may, and wondering when my streak is going to run out. And even though my wannabe-zen mind knows that I should just enjoy the good parts of life and focus on the present and all of that crap, my inner Anxiety Demon takes over and I start whatiffing. A time of really good luck and happiness can't last forever, right?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That's about all I have now. Happy Hump Day to all.

Googling Yourself

2005-08-23T07:51:00.000-05:00

Here's what you might find if you search for my name on the internet:

http://www.herbiceps.com/menu/videoclippics/kimbeckerpics.htm

The internet is a scary, scary thing people. And here I am uploading my son's pictures like mad and making cutesy comments as if PREDATORS are not standing by waiting for me to make a wrong move. Ugh.

Quotes of the Week
"I think there can be a happy medium between punishment styles: smack 'em while you talk to 'em." --Husband

"Someone asked me if I was worried about turning 29. Turning 29? Once you have kids you just become 38." --Hottie J

Kimbalance (and a small note about tiddies and killer bees)

2005-08-21T19:58:00.000-05:00

Tiddy Rat .

WARNING: This post contains adult language because I am kimbalanced.

Photo explanation: I'm still nursing this baby. Actually, I think he would almost wean himself if I weren't too cheap to buy formula and forcing him to do this at least four times a day in order to get his dairy. Isn't that weird that I am his source of DAIRY?

He has eight teeth people. Think about that.

Now, I hate to be crude, but it is so fucking hot that I just about cannot stand it. My friend Ann, a devotee of Ayurvedic medicine, says that I have an imbalance of pitta and that I need to do curled-tongue breathing exercises and forward-bending yogic postures, in addition to eating cooling foods to straighten myself out again. You see, my primary dosha (body/personality type) is pitta (fire), so I am already a hot, anxious person. During the late summer, the heat makes me even more hot and anxious, creating a kimbalance. Add to that my addiction to coffee and you have a recipe for disaster. I hate fucking August.

This morning I woke up and went out for my morning walk. I decided not to take the trails today because frankly I am sick to death of getting caught in spider webs and trying to avoid poison ivy and chiggers. I have had just about enough of everything related to summer. So instead of hiking, I walked down the road out of the park. On the way down the Big Hill, I passed a seasonal ranger, who had set up camp in the driveway of another ranger and was videotaping the road. Come to find out, he was doing a traffic study. This is new. We have had deer studies, turtle studies, and ornithologist meetings, but a TRAFFIC study? Anyway, "Hi Mike. Isn't it hot?"

"Yep, it's a scorcher."

So then I'm just walking walking walking and thinking about how it's just too bad that the Shirley Zeitlin Realty company has bought a huge plot of land adjacent to the park and is now BULLDOZING all manner of habitats in order to sell houses at exorbitant rates when all of a sudden cicadas started falling out of the trees and dying dramatically all around me. This wouldn't have been a problem except that their dying is apparently some signal to yellowjackets that it is now FEASTING TIME. I was caught in some weird symbiotic life and death show and I was not pleased to be in the audience. I should've just taken the damn trail.

Just then, as always, a yellowjacket senses my presence and attacks. I begin running and squealing, arms flailing about wildly. My hat falls off because I am shaking my ponytail back and forth in order to protect my face from the attacker.

As an aside, I would just like to inform you about the habits of killer bees ... did you know that they can sense your orifices as you exhale carbon dioxide? They are drawn to the CO2 and will actually crawl inside your nose and mouth. Many killer bee victims die from strangulation, not the stings. If you encounter killer bees, you should run through high brush and try not to breathe at all (as if that's fucking possible when you're running through brush and being chased by killer bees).

You know that Madonna song that goes, "Erotic, Erotic ... put your hands all over my body"? Well, I've changed the words to "Neurotic, neurotic ... now I have to go to the potty."

ANYWAY ...

As I stooped to pick up my hat, I noticed two men on bikes, stopped behind me, watching the display. You know these kind of men. They have on numbered biking shirts and those really tight shorts that cannot be healthy for their reproductive organs considering they are also riding LONG DISTANCES on hard bike seats. Annoyed, I just turned around and snapped, "I AM NOT CRAZY ... IT'S JUST THESE DAMN BEES."

"Right," one of them says.

Jackass. He probably doesn't even know what to do if swarmed by killer bees, which is likely, considering they are moving increasingly north from South America through Mexico and will eventually end up here.

Finally, I made it to my turnaround spot and headed back up the Big Hill. Just as I get in view of Mike of the Traffic Study, a horsefly begins dive bombing my head. I begin the arm-flailing, ponytail-shaking routine. Then, I twist my ankle and fall off the side of the newly paved road into a freaking bed of poison ivy, ants, chiggers, and you name it, I was in it.

Now my fire is really burning. So I just sat there doing the curled-tongue breathing technique that Ann showed me. Approacheth Mike of the Traffic Study (remember? He's been VIDEOING THE ROAD):

"Uh ... are you OK?"

"Yes, I'm fine, it's just these damn horseflies."

"Well, you know only the females can sting you."

"That's fabulous information, Mike. Thank you. Please do not use the video footage of my ridiculously neurotic behavior at any staff meetings."

"Oh, OK. It's not for the park anyway, it's for the state commissioner."

Great.

WHERE IS AUTUMN?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?

They are STRIKING & I am SMIRKING

2005-08-20T16:41:00.000-05:00

As predicted, NWA's mechanics are STRIKING! You can read about it in the NYT online by clicking here.

SSSSSSSSSSmmmmmmmiiiiiiiiiiirrrrrrrrrrkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk!

More Praising Jesus, Cattiness, & Evolution

2005-08-18T21:57:00.000-05:00

We just returned from Milwaukee. It was a trip. The zoo, the mall, an Irish music festival with lots of ragweed, and some purple, fluffy socks. Thank God (or should we say, "Praise Jesus" for these socks. The Goose opened up his Great Grandma's sock drawer, pulled out this pair, and proceeded to crawl around her house doing this weird sort of aboriginal dance where he'd squeal and then throw it, go get it, squeal, praise jesus, throw it. Repeat. Then when we got home today he discovered my own underwear drawer and proceeded to throw several pairs of my panties into the bathtub (with water in it).

Husband is still recovering from the ragweed but is able to work. And, coincidentally, has been featured (featured, people!) in the Tennessean. To view the article, click here.

Did you read it? The article? Did you see the picture of the hand holding the duckweed? That's Husband! My hero.

While in Milwaukee, I saw that really popular movie about penguins (can't remember the title). You know, it's the one that really should've just been kept to the National Geographic channel but somehow made it's way to the big screen. I thought it was a sweet, sweet story, but come on ... more than an hour of the arctic tundra is too much for anybody. Unlike seahorses, penguins are NOT on my list of things to be when I'm reincarnated. Breastfeeding is hard enough. Hiking 70 miles through Antarctica in the winter to mate, lay an egg, and leave it with a man just so I can hike the 70 miles back to the ocean to gorge on fish and then hike back the same 70 miles back (except OOPS the glaciers have shifted and where's the trail?) so that I can cough it up into a baby's mouth is just not my idea of mothering. But God bless the emperor penguins.

The only other thing we did that was interesting was sneaking into the Milwaukee Zoo with an illegally obtained zoo pass. We let John get in his morning nap before we went, but since he had gone to bed so late the night before, he napped for nearly 3 hours, which put us at a noon departure time, the hottest part of the day, and one hour away from his second nap time. It probably is important to admit here that I am The Nap Nazi. So when we got in the car at 12:30 p.m. and The Goose was already rubbing his eyes, I lapsed into a classic Nap Nazi Tirade, warning everyone about how miserable and short this zoo trip was going to be and citing numerous previous occasions as evidence that he would NEVER be able to withstand such heat, excitement, exhaustion, and non-organic/free-range hot dogs. (Note to reader: In the midwest, they don't sell Tofu Pups at the zoo. Or felafel. And apparently they also don't sell sunless tanner or Almay's i-color trios at the Wal-Marts. I'm sorry. Was that catty? Did y'all not know that about me? Sometimes I can be just a smidgen (which is a teensy bit more than a titch) catty. It's ingrained. I mean, as you probably can tell, I do have a serious side. For example, I want the U.S. to reduce our reliance on foreign oil (or ALL oil for that matter), but I also want everyone to reach their potential ... find their one best feature and flaunt it ... be happy ... and use Almay's i-color trios and self-tanner as needed. Which reminds me ...

I, Kimpossible, HEM, PWTPI, Hottie, aka Bob, being of sound and disposing mind and memory will, give, and bequeath unto The Women of Wisconsin the Property described below:

All of my make up (Almay or otherwise) and my self tanners (sprays, gels, and lotions). If they don't want it, then MoN can have the eye make-up (since he is amused by it) and TAH's mom can have the red lipsticks.

OK, so back to the zoo ...

Goose made it fine. I, on the other hand, was in need of Kimprovement. I disintegrated into a mound of wilted, sweaty flesh, runny eye makeup, and frizzy hair. After living in the mountains of northern Arizona at 8,000 feet, I just cannot take the heat and humidity. So mostly I just scurried from one building to the next (e.g., the cat exhibit -- appropriately, all the big cats except for the snow leopard were INSIDE an air-conditioned building).

I was most fascinated, however, by the ape/monkey/gorilla exhibits (also air conditioned). Since I grew up in the Bible Belt and was taught that evolution was, as our president would say, a theory on which the jury is still out, I didn't know that ANYONE who was moral or otherwise decent believed in evolution until I was 18.5 and attending college. I was not taught evolution in public school. I don't remember what I was taught, but it certainly was not anything about Darwin or natural selection or survival of the fittest or any of that other scientific hoo-hah.

So now I find myself reading articles about evolution or the Earth's Children Series of books or simply standing at the Milwaukee Zoo gasping at the gigantic HOLE in my education. THEY ARE FASCINATING, these creatures ... the knuckle-dragging arms, the opposable thumbs (even on their feet!), the picking stuff off of each other and eating it ... it just hits so close to home.

At the gorilla cage, I watched a couple attempt to use American Sign Language with one of the inhabitants. She first signed, "Hi, my name is Tracy," and then she tried to ask the gorilla some simple questions (like, "Do you like bananas?"). After he stood up, picked his butt and sniffed it, she stopped trying, and her partner said, reassuringly, "Maybe they know a different form of sign language."

Right. And Rafael Palmero had NO IDEA that his supplements were laced with steroids. Right.

I was thinking about good ol’ Rafael the other day. And was wondering whether or not he and Tom Cruise have ever met. Because, as you know, Tom Cruise (that short little sack of scientology $#!T), is a big advocator of VITAMINS and EXERCISE (especially for post-partum depression). Wonder if he approves of Rafael’s little supplements?

Rafael: I have never taken steroids. PERIOD. NEVER.” (later he added an "intentionally" into this same quote, after the first "never")

Tom: I have never been taller than any woman I’ve ever dated or married. Period. Never.”

Oh, there I go again … not only digression, but catty digression at that.

In other news (heretoafter abbreviated as ION …) We came home to find a dead mouse in one of the glue traps intended for the BRs. And a message on the machine that ...

THE COMMUNITY COLLEGE WANTS TO RENEW MY CONTRACT FOR THE FALL!

This is major news. I was already arranging alternative activities to keep me sane. I have a Spanish conversation partner which starts tomorrow afternoon (Hola Luisa que tal? Donde esta la biblioteca?). Lord help us all. And I had also planned to sign up for a quilting class at Michael’s. The Goose starts school next week so you may have to endure a few really really awful posts where I just weep and weep and wonder why I have turned him over to the Baptists (his program is at a Baptist church) while I sit at the bookstore reading up on THE MASK OF MOTHERHOOD, landscape architecture, and evolution. It's only from 9-2 on Wednesdays, but it feels like infinity already.

Happy Friday!

The End.

A New Day Has Dawned with Cake

2005-08-14T07:38:00.000-05:00

Thanks, MoN, for this idea ...

I, Kimpossible, HEM, PWTPI, Hottie, aka Bob, being of sound and disposing mind and memory ... (OK, who are we kidding here?) ...

will, give, and bequeath unto Doug Steenland, CEO of Northworst Airlines, if he survives me as their CEO (which is unlikely since they are about to have a mechanics strike and then go bankrupt, the Property described below and pictured above:

Authentic, size 11, Celine Dion houseslippers from her Vegas show, "A New Day."

My SiL recently sent these to me from Vegas, and originally I was like, hmm, that's really ugly and weird (though hilarious) and I'll put these in the closet until I get myself together enough to auction them off on Ebay. But then yesterday I found them again and decided to start wearing them. Husband took one look at me and said, "Kim, what is that? Those look like skis ... I could stand on the back of those with you and shuffle around the house." So truly, these are a fantastic gift upon my death.

Yesterday The God of Cake sent a glorious manna-like, aluminum-foil encased chocolate bundt cake. I found it in a Kroger sack tied to the top of Suzie Q. Subaru and I had eaten 1/4 of it before 9:30 a.m. Yes, I eat anonymous cake. I also ate a driedup pickle out of The Goose's car seat (he hasn't had pickles since our trip to the Ozarks in early July), so anonymous, left-on-top-of-your-car-like-a-Tony-Alamo-ministries-world-newsletter cake is really not that bad. Later I found out that the God of Cake is actually a park regular named Ernie, whose name I remember only because one day, while Goose and I were taking our morning hike, I came upon a happy retired couple who immediately said, "Oh, you must be Ranger B's wife. He has told us all about you and The Goose. I'm Ernie and this is Joanne. You know, like Burt and Ernie."

"Oh yes," I said, in my most polite and sweet ranger's wife voice, "Except that she's not 'Burt.'"

"Right, but I'm Ernie," he said.

Right!

And Ernie, apparently, makes divine chocolate cake which, if Husband hadn't come home and fed to the chickens, I would've crawled up inside and taken up residence. God bless Cakeman Ernie. I used to know a guy in college called Cake Boy. I believe he got his name from getting high and tearing into some cake. That is totally unrelated to this story, but I always think of him when there's cake around ...

In other news, my mom's co-workers have gotten such a kick out of the Northworst Airlines/broken breastpump story, that they are writing a letter to the airline. The letter, whose draft I was asked to edit, includes various tidbits about how none of them have EVER had such an unfair experience in court, even though they have tried cases in front of Marcus Gordon. Now, in case you are totally ignorant about the recent Edgar Ray Killen case in Philadelphia, Mississippi (even though it has been covered on most national news syndicates), let me bring you up to date ...

Back in June, Edgar Ray Killen, former klansmen and organizer of a church burning that killed several civil rights workers, was sentenced to life in prison (even though he's in his 80s) for his crime (after about 40 years of scott-free living). Guess who was the judge? Yep, you got it: Marcus Gordon. Maybe if Marcus had been MY judge, then they would've got what was coming to them. I guess we'll never know. And p.s., Edgar Ray is now out because a Mississippi law allows Marcus to let him out on bond due to his appeal of the case.

I love that this is all covered in the New York Times, because every morning I sit down to read the update online and I have the clearest picture of these people in my mind. I can just see Edgar Ray's buddies putting up their plots of Neshoba County land in order to come up with the $600,000 bond. Poor Edgar Ray. Now that he's out, he's telling the world about how awful it was for six weeks in prison. He didn't even get a pillow! He had to bribe another inmate for one. Edgar, dear, just take off your pants and wrap them around your oxygen tank and curl up. I'm sure the warden wouldn't mind rubbing your greasy head while you drift off into geriatric prison dreamland. Or maybe you could get your buddies to bring by your old klan robe. You could wad it up and stick that under your head. Oh, but nevermind, you're out anyway. It's just too bad you were a couple weeks too late for the the Neshoba County Fair.

OK, enough.

We're leaving later today (sing: I'M LEAVIN' ON A JET PLANE!) for my in-laws house in Milwaukee where The Goose will likely spend four days boycotting sleep, causing me to have a complete breakdown which may or may not result in my taking up permanent residence in a brewery. Nevertheless, away we go ... and in the words of Laverne & Shirley ...

Give us any chance we'll take it,
Read us any rule we'll break it,
We're gonna make our dreams come true!
DOING IT OUR WAY!
Nothing's gonna turn us back now,
Straight ahead and on the track now,
We're gonna make our dream come true!
DOING IT OUR WAY!
There is nothing we won't try,
Never heard the word
KIMPOSSIBLE
This time, there's no stopping us ...
(CROON IT!)
Yeah we'll do it OUR WAY, YES OUR WAY,
MAKE ALL OUR DREEEEEAAAAMMMMS
COME TRUE ...
Just me and you.

Warning: This is Boring

2005-08-11T20:27:00.000-05:00

Chickens. Did you forget I have three? Well of all things to forget! Here they are working their tails off to provide me with protein and there you are forgetting all about them.

They like whole wheat spaghetti mixed with spinach and carrot baby food (all organic, of course).

They also like corn:

And dead mice (I'll spare you).

Kim likes ...

Coffee with "Special Edition Coffeemate Toffee Nut Creamer" (even though it's not organic).
Vanilla Wafers with peanut butter
Butterbeans
Saltines
Avocado slices on top of All-Natural Doritos
Better Cheddars
Bullets (not to eat, silly--like all of these bulleted lists -- I love them!)

I don't have a damn thing to say, but what's new? Here's what's going on in my life ...

I'm reading a biography of Eudora Welty written by my professor at Millsaps who advised my honors project which I stupidly chose to write on Kate Chopin rather than Eudora even though I had the only Eudora-approved biographer right there to direct me. Slowly, she learns that she's really not all that bright.
I'm preparing for a visit to see my in-laws in Milwaukee for most of next week.
I'm trying to make my child's 1st birthday invitations.
I'm trying to write a Last Will & Testament (does anybody want any of my stuff, because now's the time to drop hints ... I mean, really, don't be afraid to speak up -- we have got some GEMS).
I'm trying to get in shape for my 10-year high school reunion. Sort of. I mean, I have cut out saltines altogether and I only have the organic version of Better Cheddars if they're baked not fried.

*****************************************************

R&B Lyric of the Week

How could you teach him all the things I taught you?

How could you show him 'bout the ghetto kama sutra?

*****************************************************

GHETTO KAMA SUTRA!! I love it.

Hmmm ... what can I write about? Hmmm ...

NOTHING is going on around here that I can investigate. Admit it, we all know that that owl is dead--I've clearly established that there are dangerous baby/owl-snatching predators. The PWTPI work is SLOW SLOW SLOW. I have not been involved in the only happenings worth investigating, such as ...

Earlier today the park secretary's daughter (remember McKutie -- not her real name?) ingested some pepper spray but is fine. I did that in college ... used my keychain as an ice pick, Hottie M called 9-1-1 and when they asked if I was on any medication, she said, "Birth Control" out loud at a party in front of everyone.

A few days ago a family got stranded at the top of the ridge down which I fell --- they were a father, mother, and toddler. The woman was 3 months preggo and having complications. There were police helicopters and everything. When the rangers finally found them, she refused medical treatment from them because they were all male. I'm so sharp that I drove right through the park, past the trailhead right in the middle of the search, and missed the whole thing.

Husband & company discovered a green tree frog ... the first spotting in this county. Woo-hoo. It took three rangers, a biologist, and his research assistant to finally spot it with a telescopic lens.

I can't even believe I'm about to hit the "Publish Post" button. This is awful. Awful. Reader, don't abandon me even though I'm pathetic tonight. You know you've been pathetic before. You know it.

The "How Not To" Series Begins ...

2005-08-09T07:45:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago an old friend of mine from high school saw this blog and commented about how much I have changed since then. She wrote something about how I was always the one who did the "How Not to Try Out for Cheerleader" during the camp that the varsity cheerleaders held for all the candidates during the week before tryouts. This involved me running around on the stage doing the banana jump (which is NOT a real cheerleading jump, as everybody knows) and saying, "Woooooooo" like a derailing Amtrak. It was supposed to be a humorous attempt to keep people from embarrassing themselves, but it never worked. Inevitably, girls would get up there and replicate my entire routine. I was chosen to do this because I spent my 7th, 8th, and 9th grade year perfecting my ability to not make cheerleader during tryouts. For some reason, in 10th grade it must have just clicked, because I finally made it that year and by senior year I was a co-captain and the "How Not to Try Out for Cheerleader" spokesperson.

Just for the record, I hated every minute of cheerleading and I only did it to hide the fact that I should've been in the band like the rest of the dorks. At that point in my life, I was not as comfortable with my dorkiness as I am now. The only reason I was elected co-captain was because the other girls knew that I hated it and were smart enough to figure out that if I were in charge then we wouldn't have to practice all that much. Majority rules.

I was pondering this idea of "How Not To ..." today and was thinking of all the other things in my life that I could demonstrate in that manner. I think I'll start a series on this, so be on the lookout for my upcoming "How Not To ..." posts. Like yesterday, for example, I could've written about "How Not To Win Against a Major Corporation in Small Claims Court."

On Sunday night, as usual, I sat down to write a long post about nothing, but after I hit "Publish Post," the whole thing disappeared. Of course I did not do anything silly like throw the baby monitor into the fireplace, because I believe strongly in what my yoga teacher in Flagstaff used to say at the end of every practice: "The Universe is Perfect JUST THE WAY IT IS."

So this is what I would've written on Sunday night, which was before the day that I LOST MISERABLY in a battle against Northworst Airlines ...

Today I got up late (it was Mom Gets to Sleep In Day) and went down to the yoga room to do my morning routine. Just as I got to the part where I had my feet over my head with my butt in the air, I heard women's voices. I looked out the window to see two women walking their dogs right up to my front door. Now, as you know, we live in a state park, so this isn't all that abnormal, but usually I am awake enough to say, "This is a residence; we don't have a public bathroom" and go on with my life. I may or may not have to define "residence," but they typically understand the part about the bathroom.

Today, however, the women were just a teensie eensie bit slower than usual in figuring it out, and so one of them approached the window with her dog (who was sniffing about my ferns looking for his own bathroom spot). I could already hear every word she was saying, but instead of just maintaining her normal voice level, she tapped on the glass, peered in, saw me, and then mouthed dramatically, "IS THIS A RES-I-DENCE?"

Wonder what gave it away? The tropical print pajama bottoms? The room full of toys? The wreath on the door? The sign in the driveway that reads, "Ranger Residence"?

By the time I got to the door to explain where there is a public bathroom (I ALWAYS take pity on people who need to pee because I have had my share of need-to-pee moments), they were gone and the dog had already found his bathroom.

Later in the day, we decided to go for a bike ride, which is something I miss TERRIBLY about Flagstaff (I never drove my car anywhere there). The Goose had won a bid on Ebay for a bike seat and helmet, so we dug our bikes out of the garage (after you have a baby, you don't want to ride a bike for quite a while) and in the process discovered that we house not only BRs, but BWs. So that means we have BOTH of the only two poisonous spiders in North America. Black Widows, people. Do you know what happens when you get bitten by a BW? Within two hours you have SEVERE abdominal cramping with vomiting and you must be taken to a hospital. Plus, you feel the bite. With BRs, you may or may not feel the bite, but then your skin starts to rot off.

Instead of bashing the BW with a shoe or a kayak paddle or wrench, Husband decided to spray it down with Foaming Wasp & Hornet Spray (forgetting that he had already used up most of the bottle attacking a nest of wasps inside the screen of our bedroom window and still managing to miss the queen). As a result, there was not enough spray to kill the BW and she ran into a groove in my helmet, which was sitting next to her web. In the process of killing the spider, I put a huge crack in the helmet, so now it looks as if I have endured some awful bike crash. Here is a picture of me and The Goose in our dorky helmets:This is also the pose that I struck at Costco last week during my Photo ID session. The Costco employee was not even phased by the fact that I posed for my picture and then proceeded to crop out all but my face even though I requested a full-body shot. I am slowly learning that The Customer is NOT Always Right.

TRANSITION?

Finally, I must tell the recent story of our phone line being crossed with one Jennifer Who Has Just Recently Left Her Husband (JWHJRLHH). One day last week we noticed that our phone was acting weird. The next day we got a call from JWHJRLHH, who informed us that our line was crossed with hers and that she had already called Bellsouth to report the problem. Within two hours, JWHJRLHH's Mother called to check on her. She thought I was JWHJRLHH and it took me a few minutes to explain the whole situation. Then she proceeded to tell me that JWHJRLHH had just recently left her husband and moved into a house near the ag center. She always knew that it wouldn't work out, but she kept her big mouth shut because "you cain't tell these kids nothin'." Especially when he broke off their engagement and broke JWHJRLHH's heart so badly that she burned all her bridal magazines in a pyre in front of his mama's house (where he was living at the time).

You just cannot make this stuff up.

Today I'm being taken out for sushi to celebrate my valiant attempt to claim what was owed to me by Northworst Airlines. I hope you all have a happy Tuesday filled with winning battles, nonpoisonous spiders, and uncrossed phone lines. And remember ...

The Universe is perfect, JUST THE WAY IT IS.

The Court Finds For ...

2005-08-08T10:53:00.000-05:00

Bob & The Pump
Originally uploaded by Kimpossible, HEM, PWTPI.

In the case of Kimpossible, HEM, PWTPI, Hottie, a.k.a., Bob

vs.

Northworst Airlines

Case #05GC11429, General Sessions Court, (Honorable William Holden presiding) the court finds for the defendant, Northworst Airlines, payer of WAY more money to their attorney in this case than they could've paid the plaintiff to shut her mouth and not bring attention to their awful airline in a public court where everyone was obviously siding with her from the get-go.

As the ruling is announced, there were GASPS ALL AROUND.

Yes, the court found in favor of the defendant EVEN THOUGH ...

The plaintiff looked really lawyerly in her AT suit with the hazel eyes Almay i-color trio, and
The Judge really wanted to side with her (as was evidenced by his personal testimony in dealing with damaged luggage), and
The plaintiff gave a demonstration of the inner workings of breast pumps in court, while standing proud, and

EVEN THOUGH ...

The defendant's attorney really needed some Almay i-color trio (I would recommend the brown or hazel for her too), and
The plain-eyed attorney (heretoafter referred to as PEA) was CLEARLY nervous, and had to be asked to speak up several times, and The Judge was otherwise mean to her on two occasions, and
PEA called a witness, a Northworst Airlines flight attendant who looked as if she would rather have been serving peanuts to terrorists, and
PEA introduced two 500-page documents as evidence, and used said documents to prove that Kimpossible NEVER REALLY HAD A CASE TO BEGIN WITH.

Yes, EVEN THOUGH all of that happened, the court, astonishingly, STILL found for the fourth largest airline in the world.

Exeunt Kimpossible with head held high. To her car. Where she melted down into a puddle of tears, outrage, and defeat.

No, not really. Actually I just swung through the McDonald's drive-in and ordered large fries and a milkshake at 9:30 in the morning.

Oh well. Thanks to everyone for your support in this endeavor. I'd especially like to send a shout out of gratitude to my legal team, Bruce the F-i-L, bigshot DA, hottie M and her Husband, Bobby. And of course to Husband and The Goose, the source of all my inspiration.

Gavel.

In the Matter of Bob v. NWA ...

2005-08-01T11:42:00.000-05:00

Since I'm sure you have been checking this site furiously trying to find out how the court case came out, here's your answer: NWA sent an attorney (Talbot's suit, briefcase, high heels, hair pulled back) who asked for a continuance to which Bob the Brilliant agreed. Even as I type, ivy league law schools are getting the news about my phenomenal legal mind and are preparing to offer me positions in their next class. Now we'll all meet back cheerily next week after the defendant has had more time to prepare and Bob has had more time to get nervous and wonder why on earth she is taking on the fourth largest airline in the world in a matter of less than $500. I have asked this question before, but it begs to be asked again: If you know what in the world is wrong with me, please post a comment.

Then, after agreeing to the continuance, I met with her to ask if this matter could be settled "right here and now." She said that Northworst Airlines gets a lot of these "little matters of fragile items" and that they are stubborn about protecting their interests. Then she said that if I was willing to take less than what I've asked for (which is only the amount of the pump, plus the rental of another one and totals about $400) then she would certainly pass that information on to her client and get back to me. I just stared in disbelief and then informed her that anything less wasn't worth my time. She then conceded that I had been "quite diligent" and said, "I'll see you in a week." At this point, why shouldn't I be hell bent?

In case anyone is interested in forming a pep squad to back me up, I'll be in courtroom 2 at the Metro Courts next Monday at 8:45 a.m. wearing the same thing I wore today.

Just Call Me Bob

2005-07-31T20:52:00.000-05:00

My Tuna Pot Pie
Originally uploaded by Kimpossible, HEM, PWTPI.

This picture is of a tuna pot pie that I made with WIC-approved tuna and frozen vegetables. I MADE THE CRUST, PEOPLE, BE IMPRESSED. The tongue of the smiley face is a result of me testing the crust just to be sure it was OK since the recipe actually called for LARD and I substituted shortening. Even my mother was shocked that there was a cookbook still in publication that uses that four-letter word. And just for the record, we are not enrolled in WIC, but we could probably qualify.

I spent the day recovering from some awful disease which struck me yesterday. It was one of those sicknesses where everything hurts, even your hair, and you find yourself wishing you could throw up because during the time that you are throwing up, your stomach stops hurting just for a minute and you get some relief. Husband, who had to come home from work yesterday to take care of The Goose while I writhed in pain and who also is not a doctor, says it was a 24-hour virus. I maintain that it was food poisoning that I contracted at an opening night reception for a play called Kimberly Akimbo (rating: decent) which I attended on Friday night. At the reception they served wine in clear plastic cups, cubed cheese, spinach dip, and those pinwheel thingies that are made with tortillas, deli meat, and sliced swiss cheese (and which were likely from the frozen section of Sam's). I hate Sam's, and so this CERTAINLY the cause of my illness. I am better now, but have mostly spent the day eating saltines and baked potatoes just in case. Next to Husband's carrot cake and homegrown 'mater sandwiches with mayo, salt, and pepper, CRACKERS are my favorite food on earth.

So ... about the title ...

My child has his "Ms" and "Bs" confused. He used to say MAMAMAMAMAMAMA all the time, and now all of a sudden he's calling me Bob. Just last week he said "Mom" on cue for Husband's co-workers, and now when I ask him "What's my name? Who is this?" (while pointing to my chest area), he says, with authority, "Bob." If you point to his dad and ask the same, he always says, "Dah-Dah." If you point to a ball, he says, "Bah." If you pick up the phone, he says, "Bye-Bye." If you try to put a bib or hat on him, he says, "NO NO NO NO NO." So it's clear that this is not just a little mistake. He wants me to be called Bob. And I'm starting to like it ... for one thing, it's one of those words that are spelled the same backwards and forwards ... what are those called? Anagrams? Somebody correct me please. Anyway, it's that. AND it's an acronym for Big Ole Butt, which is quite fitting these days.

Today while we were in Kroger, the checkout guy (who, by the way, forgot to scan my Kroger card and ended up charging me $5.99 for a sippy cup that was on sale for $2.62) gave The Goose a sticker that said, "Great Meals Start at Kroger" and then something about and cost cutting and discounts (HA! -- what a scam). Across the bottom of the sticker is the phrase, "Have You Seen B.O.B.?" I have no idea what that means, but I'm sure it's something they want you to ask about just so they can con you into filling out a form for a Kroger credit card. Who needs that? I do just fine charging $40 minimum to my Mastercard each time I'm in there even when I leave the list in the car and forget everything on it. Here is a picture of The Goose wearing his sticker proudly:

At our Kroger they have an announcement that plays over the P.A. system that says, "Attention Kroger shoppers! A woman in the deli section has just lost something. She's lost INCHES FROM HER WAIST!" Without fail I hear this in the ice cream section. Today I heard it in the ice cream section while unknowingly bending over in front of three cute fire fighters who had just watched me ram the race car shopping cart (with a Goose-sized steering wheel) into a display of carefully layered boxes of waffle cones. Grace just oozes from me.

Now watch, this is a good transition ...

One of the things on my left-in-the-car list was manilla file folders, because I have court tomorrow (Kimpossible vs. NorthWORST Airlines) and I don't have anything in which to put my evidence. It is entirely too much trouble to go back out to the car with a Prize Baby (who has now unfastened the race car seatbelt and is standing up chanting "BobBobBob!") to get your list (or, god forbid, going back into Kroger after reading over your list in the car just before you pull out of the parking lot (while smacking yourself in the head because you are dumber than a rock)), SO, after returning home, I made my way back to the south wing of the house, where there is a TINY Tiny tiny room that was once used to house that kidnapped owl. Yes, I know that's weird. This house used to be the park's education center, so we have lots of weird stuff going on around here. Before the carpet people came back in January, the floor in the Tiny Room was covered in owl poop. Now it's covered in a lovely vanilla-colored, state-approved Berber. We just use the room for storage. So anyway, I was back there looking through my grad school stuff for an empty manilla folder when I discovered that our secondary air conditioning unit (which is housed in the owlery) was leaking profusely. So much so that mushrooms have started growing from our carpet.

You think I'm kidding?

Will somebody please just put me out of my misery? Let's stop and think for a minute about the features of my home ...

Owlery with Mushrooms (and BRs)
Science Lab/Weight Room with 32 electrical outlets (and BRs)
Chicken Coop/Room with Ceiling Fan (with BRs)
Yoga Room/Playroom (with BRs)
Smokehouse (with BRs)
Frequent Predators (including, but not limited to BRs, a baby-snatching bobcat, raccoons, snakes, mice, WASPS, and deer)

I should really keep all of that a secret because someone is likely to read this and contact the state ASAP about purchasing this enticing piece of property. But just between you and me ... we get this baby RENT FREE! Sssshhhh. Don't tell anyone.

Well, I gotta go. Husband just came home from work and said, "Pimpin' ain't easy. Now get off the computer and do your yoga so I can live with you." C U L8ter.

Court, Costco, Predators, Nonprofit Scams, & Cicada Onomatopoeias

2005-07-28T21:04:00.000-05:00

Monday at 8:45 a.m. I will be appearing in small claims court against NorthWORST Airlines and their hotshot corporate attorney. I am thinking of wearing the Almay hazel eyes intense i-color trio and my six-year-old black suit. But then again, it is from Ann Taylor and I wouldn't want to appear uppity. Maybe I'll opt for one of my banana-stained tank tops and a pair of shorts. Or better yet, one of Husband's Wife Beater undershirts. I hate those damn things but they might look cuter on me than him. It's all for that little guy above.

On Tuesday we will be joining Costco. In general I am against the entire idea of wholesale, but Costco pays their employees 42% more than Sam's Club, and they have great deals on tires. Plus, you can't beat their prices on the other necessary items in my life ... diapers, wipes, Absorbine, Jr., Bondini, foaming wasp and hornet spray, etc.

And here's an update on predators in our vicinity ...

I have failed to mention this previously, but soon after our recovery from the tumble down the the ridge, I hiked it again to see if I could figure out how I tripped. It was during this hike that I came across one of the most heartstopping things I've ever seen: Someone had taken a Sharpie and written, "GROUND HORNETS" on a rock. They even included arrows. There were actually two signs, one above and one below a hole in the ground. That is simply a RECIPE for a Kimpossible swan dive off the edge of the trail with a Prize Baby on her back. No wonder I tripped.

More recently, I hiked it yet again, and noticed that now the HORNETS sign is crossed out and next to it is a note from a ranger (not Husband, mind you) that reads, "Try harmless digger bees."

Is it just me, or is that just a smidgen over the top? I mean, do we really need to show up people who hike with Sharpies and choose to write on rocks in a natural area?

AND, as if Harmless Digger Bees (which in my mind translates to KILLER WASPS) weren't enough, Husband came home last night and announced that a bobcat was indeed spotted just a few feet away from our house and that he thinks the footstep-like noises we've been hearing on our roof may be linked to this recent sighting. Then he mentioned that this house used to have an in-ground swimming pool beside which this predatory animal enjoyed spending lazy summer afternoons. The pool is now gone, but the cat is not.

Last night while I was happily teaching the vocabulary of underwear, Husband was napping on the floor outside The Goose's bedroom, trying to see if he could catch a glimpse of this feline baby snatcher. I'm sure it will be one of the highlights of his life if he does see it, but what he doesn't know is that I've got the .22 cocked and loaded in case I see it first. I don't care if it's the only bobcat in the state of Tennessee, if it's been prowling around on my roof sniffing out Prize Babies then it better be prepared to meet its maker. I don't give a shit if it's endangered or beautiful or harmless. It has no business on my roof.

This is the point in my students' essays where I write "TRANSITION???" out in the margin.

Besides spending all of our money on eye makeup, I have recently become the victim of a non-profit organizational scam. It's the one where they send you cute address labels and simply ask for $6. And because you're not sure if glossy adhesive is recyclable, and because you can't possibly bring yourself to use them without giving the March of Dimes six measly bucks, you send in a little cash. And then you get a personalized notepad and a request for $10. So, using the same principle mentioned above, you send in a ten spot and lo and behold the Nature Conservancy sends you set of address labels with the Karner Blue Butterfly on them. And because you once taught a fourth grade science lesson on this endangered species, you feel nostalgic, and you send out more money. And then you receive a Gardner's Tote Bag with the same butterfly embroidered on it and a subscription to a tree hugger magazine with lots of pictures of the Wild West, which makes Husband nostalgic (as if National Geographic weren't bad enough), and then he starts dreaming about quitting his fantastic job here in the park with the predators and the missing owl and the BRs to move back out west where neither of you have jobs but it sure is breathtakingly beautiful with no humidity.

Transition???

And finally, I have to ask, why is there no onomatopoeia for the sound that cicadas make? One of the hotties has gotten me thinking about soundwords with her recent line, "Blog is an onomatopoeia for barf." I am the queen of onomatopoeias and I can't figure out how to even make the cicada sound, much less a word that represents it. As a child, I used to instinctively make up words for sounds. For example ...

An '88 Oldsmobile: tronnitee-shudden-wudden-wudden-wudden
A toilet flushing: flon-shou-wow-wow-wow ... tut-tut-tut-tut.
A trans-am: wohmmmmmm-wohmmmm (this led to the term, wom-wom wheels)

While I was in Mississippi, I found my 3rd grade diary and these words were listed, along with a note that said, "My best friend is Emily Rives. She weighs 80 pounds and we are only in the third grade." Even though I was weird, at least I was loving.

Conclusion?

Buh-dee-buh-dee-buh-dee ... That's all folks!

White (& Black) Trash

2005-07-27T12:13:00.000-05:00

Ebony & Ivory
Originally uploaded by Kimpossible, HEM, PWTPI.

Tuesdays are our Saturdays ... Husband and I are both off. Yesterday was an especially fun day because we scheduled a playdate with The Goose's best bud, Little Ricky. It was unbearably hot, so we blew up the pool and popped a top. They both drank a whole lot of hose water, ate some grass, and attempted to pull each other's hair. The picture above is what husband calls "Charlie's Angels: The Ebony & Ivory."

Here is what we were doing while they played (note: we are in the pool with them in the backyard -- the chickens were pecking the ground all around us -- in other words, the only thing missing from this picture is a dishwasher out in the yard with us):

You know that Garth Brook’s song, “Shameless”? Well if that was about trashiness rather than some love interest of his, then he could’ve made the video in our backyard yesterday.

In other news, I am still teaching on Monday & Wednesday nights and loving it. Last Monday night was a Peer Editing Session (where they all brought essay drafts and we devoted the entire class to workshopping with the essays). One of my students had written an essay about school uniforms and had used the word “panties” for “pants” in every single instance of that word in her essay (which was a lot, given the topic). I know you’re not supposed to laugh at your students, but I just couldn’t help this one. We all just had to stop the editing session and talk about vocabulary for a while. All the words for underwear were discussed, including, but not limited to the following: briefs, boxers, tighty whities, bras, thongs, granny panties, skivvies (sp?), step-ins (that’s Pappaw’s word for underwear), long johns, weenie bikinis, and wife-beaters. Then I left the classroom and realized that, after writing all of this on the board, I had forgotten to erase it before I left. Lovely way to impress your supervisor. Tonight’s Lesson: Genitalia.

The Final Chapter

2005-07-25T13:17:00.000-05:00

Glen, P.I. & The Apprentice
Originally uploaded by Kimpossible, HEM, PWTPI.

Well we made it home unscathed. The party went off without a hitch. The Apprentice was apparently playing the quiet game with himself (he should've been playing it with his kids, but that's another post altogether). Here he is with my dad (aka Glen, P.I.) watching a ballgame on TV while the women bustled around preparing the cake, ice cream, and gifts. If you click on the picture, you can see some other photos from the trip and also a really bitchy comment about that shirt that The Apprentice is wearing.

Pappaw didn't quite understand what it meant to blow out the candles, so instead he carved out a big piece of icing and licked it right off the knife. My kinda guy. The kids blew out the candles for him.

Believe it or not, the story of The Apprentice and His Bad Karma continues ...

As you know, on the way down south, they had a blowout in their Large Vehicle, and had to get four new tires in Kentucky. Apparently The Apprentice was driving his Ilovemywifemobile, which he deposited at his office in Nashville (who knew that chandelier companies need branch offices?). From there, he got into the Large Vehicle with my cousin and the kids and they continued southward. While in Mississippi, the kids fished a lot and The Apprentice took lots of “naps” in my aunt’s basement and went “running” several times a day (translation: AVOIDANCE OF YOUR INLAWS). Sunday morning they left Mississippi heading back north to Nashville where they will be spending the week (he’s working here and she and the kids are playing at the hotel pool — they’re not sure whether they’ll have time to see us again but took down our number just in case). Once they arrived in Nashville on Sunday, they went to pick up the Ilovemywifemobile, and lo and behold, his car keys were not in his pants pocket. I swear I did not steal them, but they called me at my parents’ house to find out if I had seen them. I really did not take them, although in retrospect, that would’ve been a fabulous idea.

Otherwise, the trip was uneventful. I only had one breakdown and it was shortlived. The other funny picture I wanted to share was of The Goose’s dining area at my mom’s house. I asked her to please set up a place where he could fling food onto cleanable surfaces, and this is what she came up with:

I got to meet lots of interesting people at Pappaw’s home. Pappaw’s roommate is quite a character. He is a retired chemistry professor with a physical disability that prevents him from living alone. He dutifully reads his Bible and cleans their room everyday and on Sundays he attends FBC Newton, which is where my parents are members. At FBC Newton, no one claps ever. Even if the choir sings in tune and the pianist plays “Bring Back the Glory” like Vladimir Horowitz, no one claps. Except for Pappaw’s roommate. He sits alone in the front row and roars his applause after every impressive choral arrangement, organ accompaniment, or, god forbid, solo by the preacher’s wife. I want some faith like that.

This past Sunday, the preacher’s sermon was on “My Three Wishes for the FBC Newton.” (He is their interim minister … they have “run off” the last two or three for various reasons.) These were his three wishes:

1. That everybody there would find a good Christian husband or wife. This prompted a story about his courtship with his own wife and how he just “swang by her house on the way to seminary in New Orleans and took her without even asking.”

2. That everybody there would have some good Christian children. This wish (and he clarified the word “wish” by saying that he was using it as if it were a synonym of the word “prayer”) of course necessitated a story about his own kids, which included some discussion of their births. Somehow, the following story was also deemed important to tell the congregation: When his daughter was born, she didn’t look anything like him and so he made sure to ask the hospital staff if they were positive that she was their baby. While he was in the nursery discussing this with the nurses, a black man walked in and pointed to his new baby girl and said, “Well, you may not be sure of yourn, but that one over there is mine for sho – my wife burns everything.”

3. That everybody there would have some good Christian grandchildren. I don’t remember any particular story that went with this wish/prayer.

4. That the church would find a new preacher so that he could finally retire.

Quite a character.

The Goose stayed in the nursery with my aunt (The Apprentice’s mother-in-law) and did relatively well. Right after church we hit the road headed east then north and finally made it home last night around 7 p.m. Whew.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this series of ramblings as much as I have. I’ll be returning home to Mississippi in September for my class reunion and that is sure to inspire another round of people watching, stories and pictures, and more bitchiness.

Thanks for all your comments!

The End.

This Post Coming to You Live

2005-07-23T14:43:00.000-05:00

It's one hour and 17 minutes until the party and I'm sitting here eating Peter Pan Creamy Peanut Butter directly from the jar. My mother squashed Pappaw's cake en route from
Elaine Sessum's house, so now it reads, "Hap Birthda Pappa." Oh well. It is girly and has yellow roses all over it. I guess Elaine doesn't have that many options. His gifts include lots of clothing and a ride through the newly installed GALE FORCE carwash out by the Superwalmart. He loves the automatic carwash.

Yesterday I went to my aunt's house and said hello to Satan & Company. Husband informed me that "Satan" was going a little too far and that maybe we should use Satan's Apprentice. All the Apprentice said to me yesterday was, "Where's Glen (my dad)? I've got a bone to pick with him about Eli Manning." My dad and Satan have had several altercations in the past ... mostly related to the Ole Miss vs. Mississippi State argument, which for those of you not from around here is about 49% of my dad's life. The other 51% involves mowing yards, counting the money at the church, and "restin' his eyes, which is differnt [sic] from sleepin'."

The three kids were running around wildly ... the oldest boy playing a videogame and asking his mother to "rent" him a cousin since he has none to play with and is bored ... the girl contorting her body into all sorts of bizarre positions and then demanding to know (and see) whether or not I could do any of it (I could, by the way, I do yoga and used to be a cheerleader, so HA!) ... and the younger one slamming into walls and barking like a seal while clapping his hands in front of his chin. They are 10.25, 6.75, and 4.75, respectively. Yes, they mark birthdays by quarters, which is just fine because I always celebrate my half birthday (July 21st). This year I ate the Cracker Barrell Big Boy breakfast on my half b/d.

JEB has been a total nightmare ... biting, waking up at 3:30 a.m. to play and poop and SCREAM, and demanding to get into the dishwasher all the time. Thank goodness we are returning home tomorrow. But first we will be making an appearance at the FBC Newton. I refuse to go to Sunday School, so I only have to endure one hour. Hopefully JEB will be in the nursery, but if he has a BMSF then my mother has assured me I will know because the nursery workers will notify me by way of "one of those little things like they have at the Olive Garden that buzz and light up to let you know when your table's ready." The Baptists have found technology and have not banned it (yet).

Well, I better go apply some extreme i-color (brown eyes version), lipstick, and blush so that my mother will not tell me I look pale upon arrival at the party. Toodles ...

Just call me ...

2005-07-21T20:54:00.000-05:00

a bitch:

Premium Exxon Fuel for the 350 mile trip south ... about $30
The Big Boy Breakfast at Cracker Barrell ... $6.95
Finding out that Satan and Company had a blowout in Kentucky and had to get four new tires and probably won't get here until after midnight and may even miss the birthday party ...

PRICELESS.

I've got one little word for you Satan: KARMA.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now that I'm here, I understand why Pappaw only eats milkshakes and 'maters. Homegrown Mississippi tomatoes are so good that I want to crawl up in one and slosh around.

So far, so good on the homefront. My parents are ignoring me because of JEB and I am just fine with that.

We went to see Pappaw in the home and that was difficult. The "Support the Troops" man had on the pajama bottoms and the t-shirt as usual, but had also put on a belt over the t-shirt. He met us at the door, which they keep dead bolted because one day he went missing and turned up at the Sonic. Pappaw is frail and it's hard to see him like that. However, his namesake, our Goose, was a hit amongst the residents. He made himself right at home by investigating everyone's walkers and wheelchairs (he's obsessed with wheels).

My dad has taken over what used to be my bathroom (imagine a large, wallpapered bathroom with old photos of me hugging youth group friends on sandy beaches, 14 bottles of Bath & Body works lotions which are leftover gifts from my graduation party (from high school), and lots of random seashells). The takeover could also be dubbed Old Man Invasion, as my bathtub now has a hospital-grade stool to sit on whilst one showers, a bottle of Selsun Blue with Menthol, three Sams-club size bottles of Dial Tropical Escape Antibacterial Foaming Shower Wash, and some sort of scrubber tool that looks like a horse brush. I dutifully removed the stool and made room for my Aveda products tonight so that I could bathe away the stress of the drive and the relatives.

Tomorrow we're making the rounds to show off the baby around town. If you can figure out how to sneak me something a little harder than sweet tea, then please let me know and I'll meet you out on Hwy 80 by the SuperWalmart.

The HEM is Back

2005-07-20T06:30:00.000-05:00

And just when you thought my Monster Days were over. This story has a twist though: It's not MY husband.

So, as you know, I'm headed down to my parent's house in Mississippi this weekend for my Pappaw's 90th birthday party. Pappaw has just recently been moved to a home and his health is rapidly degenerating. Pappaw is like my saving grace in the family because somehow amidst a whole bunch of pretentious women, he blossomed into what I want to call a Dirty Old Man, which is a fitting title, but somehow seems too negative for someone after whom you named your child. I mean Dirty Old Man like Sweet and Dirty, and only Dirty when it's funny and it involves nurses in the hospital where you are having part of your stomach removed and your two pretentious daughters are standing around with their heads in their hands, too mortified to even look up as you say to your 24-year-old nurse, "Are you gon' sleep here in the bed with me?"

I'm NOT talking about the kind of Dirty Old Man who gets dirty after he's had too much morphine for his knee replacement surgery (no, that's my dad) ... I'm talking about the kind of Dirty where you're asking for whiskey from the Baptist preacher who comes to visit you in the hospital because you know it embarrasses your daughters. Dirty like cantankerous and quirky and someone you'd dub "The Bald-Headed Hippy" when you're three. Dirty like someone who refuses to go to church in the Bible Belt, who won't eat anything but milkshakes and 'maters, and who cheers on his roommate at the home whenever he gets into fights with the man who only wears pajama bottoms and a "Support the Troops" t-shirt. Someone who shuffles around behind a walker with tennis balls on the legs, asking each little old lady resident, in turn, if they want to spend the night with him.

Just fun Dirty.

So my mom and her sister have this party planned (at the home) and a cake made by Elaine Sessums (pronounced EEE-lane) and my cousin (who lives in Cincinnati and has three kids and a husband (let's call him Satan just for funsies)) and I are making the trip down for the celebration.

My cousin is the kind of person who quit her job as a CPA as soon as she got pregnant and moved to the suburbs into one of those subdivisions that clears down all the trees and then replants non-native species and where the houses look so much alike that you get lost trying to find your way back outta there and onto the main street. They also own a Large Vehicle and attend a Large Church. The kind of church that puts orange cones on the street in front of their parking lot and has the deacons out there directing traffic for the 11 a.m. service.

Every year she dresses up her whole family in khakis and navy polo shirts and hires a professional photographer to follow them around a park while they play with their golden retriever. The kids play t-ball and take karate and have birthday parties for Jesus on December 24th. And this makes my mother think that I should also be doing this.

Because they have to drive DIRECTLY THROUGH NASHVILLE to get to the party, I invited them to break up the long trip and stay here for a night. I also asked if I could catch a ride since they have such a large vehicle and Satan wasn't planning to attend so there would be room. "Oh yes yes yes, what a great idea," she says, "the kids love air mattresses."

But then Satan decided that he should possibly attend this event since he has been avoiding a visit now for FOUR YEARS. Oh, another reason I think he's satan is because when I was 14 and he and my cousin were just dating, we were all out riding four wheelers in the cow pasture and he decided it would be fun to drive the one we were on (he was driving and I was holding onto to the mesh railing thingy in the back) into my dad's pine tree forest and then stop, turn around, and say, "When I was a kid I always used to be terrified that I'd drive out into a forest like this and find something really scary."

"Like what?" I said (sooo innocent, soooooo sweet, soooooooooo much eye make up).

"Like ...

A DEAD BODY" he says, and then chuckles.

Then they had a blush and bashful wedding, just like Steel Magnolias, complete with shooting birds out of trees, except not by her daddy, but by her brothers, Earl & Doug. I was a bridesmaid even though I look totally putrid in both blush and bashful. Pappaw was a groomsman.

So anyway, I sorta expected he was weird from the very beginning, but now he's Satan, and he's going to attend Pappaw's party, and because his job as an executive at a chandelier company is SO important, they have to make the trip all in one day and the kids can't come and play on my air mattress.

"OK, that's fine. So can I meet y'all out on the interstate and follow you down there so that if I have to stop and pee and JEB is asleep then I won't have to wake him up because I absolutely cannot hold my pee anymore because labor and delivery has destroyed my urinary tract?" I asked my cuz, when she called to report the change in plans.

"That sounds like a plan," she said, "but let me check with Satan to see if he's OK with it."

Oh, another thing about Satan ... he has one of those "I Love My Wife" bumper stickers on his company Taurus because he is a member of the Promise Keepers. (*SHIVER*)

The next day I got an email from her that said, "After talking it over with Satan, we have decided that we cannot possibly extend our trip by travelling with you. It would just be too much stress to put on our kids. I hope you understand. Adding even two hours to an 11-hour trip is more than they can handle."

I thought it must have a been a misunderstanding, since they have to drive DIRECTLY THROUGH NASHVILLE anyway, and how could anyone possibly do that to their only female first cousin? Well, after much pondering on this topic, I have finally decided that the only answer is that

The Devil Made Her Do It.

That's really fine. My feelings are just the teensiest bit hurt, but it's really not a big deal at all. And it's also not a big deal that your kids never sent me a thank you card for any of the following gifts I have sent:

The BOOK I wrote them for Christmas in 2003 (entitled, Pokey-Mae-Whoopin'-Dasher-Pace: A Story About Dog Families with Hyphenated Last Names) -- you know, the one that I printed out on high-gloss, really thick card stock and then took to Kinko's to have bound;
The Ken Griffey, Jr. rookie card that Husband sent when your oldest son was obsessed with KGJ, which we could've sold on ebay for lots of money;
The second BOOK that I wrote for your kids (entitled, I Like Cold Spaghetti: A Story about Human Families with Alternative Food Preferences).

Yes I completely understand.

What I DON'T understand is how it would be even humanly possible for me and The Goose to add two hours to your trip since he, unlike your kids, doesn't need to stop to shit and he, unlike your kids, doesn't need to stretch his legs, and he, unlike your kids, can entertain himself simply with a biter biscuit.

Another thing I DON'T understand is what promises, exactly, your husband is keeping ...

A promise to be a jackass?
A promise to convince you that it's OK if he's a jackass because he has an "I LOVE MY WIFE" bumper sticker on the Taurus?
A promise to earn the nickname SATAN?

Yes, I understand perfectly. The next gift I send your kids will not be a story, it will be a self-help book entitled, "What to do when your Daddy's Nickname is Satan."

Thanks for the love, cuz, I'll see you this weekend. Happy Birthday Pappaw!

Something

2005-07-17T20:24:00.000-05:00

Mexican Restaurant Art
Originally uploaded by Kimpossible, HEM, PWTPI.

Yesterday was JEB's 10-month birthday and Husband came home from work and said that he could tell that I needed to go out and celebrate. Wonder what was the clue … the red lipstick at 3 p.m. (Clinique: Vintage Wine), the toddy in hand, or the sippy cup being used as a microphone to sing Indigo Girls songs? So we packed the car (and for those of you who don't have kids, I really mean that we PACKED THE CAR) and headed downtown with the intention of hitting the honky tonks. If you are trying to get pregnant, then WARNING WARNING WARNING DO NOT READ DO NOT READ, I REPEAT, DO NOT READ THE REST OF THIS ...

Instead, we ended up in a van down by the river.

OK, so we weren't in a van, but we were down by the river. We tried to have drinks, but Our Little Prince decided that he preferred climbing out of the highchair and onto the top of the table, sucking on imitation sugar packets, and submerging his dirty hands into our ice water all while whining continuously for half an hour. We only got one beer down before we retreated. The people around us were giving us dirty looks as if we had any control over the situation. As if children should be seen and not heard. As if, in this case, they should not even be seen. (Except I could tell that they all thought he was cute, because seriously, no matter how damn unbearable he is, he is still so friggin' cute that we always take him home with us even when we have to leave a watering hole because of his behavior and even when we pass a homeless woman on the street who is saying "oh baby sweet baby" and it crosses my mind to ask if she wants him, but even then, even when there are other viable options, we always take him back home with us.)

On the way down to the river, I had time to do some people watching and let me tell you, downtown Nashvegas is RIPE for people watching. If you want to see rednecks then go to a Nascar track (which I have done by the way). If you want to see Rednecks On Vacation, then come to Nashville. They are always in better form when they're on vacation, and it wasn’t even Fanfare. Do y’all know about Fanfare? It’s a springtime event where the country stars sit at folding tables in a big park and sign various items for their fans. Anyway, despite the fact that it was just an Ordinary Saturday Afternoon, here are a few things I noticed...

First, there were numerous ball teams (in uniform) with mom-like chaperones wearing Keds and white pleated shorts with their purses dead bolted to their bodies in fear of mugging. In these groups there's always a "T.J."

Next there's the middle-aged, our-kids-are-out-of-the-house (although not away at college, mind you) group. The women are leather from the tanning bed and are window shopping at "Tootsie's Boots and Taffy." The men are tagging along behind, trying to entertain their wives by finding fun things to do like ride in the horse-drawn carriages that stink up Broadway Avenue. I saw one group trying to convince a woman with a broken arm that she could indeed take their picture despite her injury and here, here, here's the camera (a disposable waterproof variety) and then after the shot (which stopped us dead in our tracks on the sidewalk) saying, "See there hun, you did it, broke arm and all."

There's also the 14-year-old, wannabe-the-next-Leann-Rimes karaoke queen, with her parents, dressed up in an entire outfit from the J.C. Penney's juniors department (not that there's anything wrong with that ... mind you, I have my share of junior's department, slutty tank tops). Her image prevents her from even carrying a purse and the whole family is standing in line to get into the karaoke bar so that she can be the first on the list. Her mama is chewing gum and wearing enough lipstick for a glamour shot (not that there's anything wrong with that ... mind you, I have had my nights of Entirely Too Much Lipstick). Her daddy has on some home-made cutoff bluejeans and some of those brown sandals that were popular with socks in the early 90s (now there IS something wrong with that). Her overweight younger brother is just along for the ride. They ate dinner at 3 p.m. at the Crab Shack just so they could be in line at the karaoke place by 4:30 p.m. because it opens at seven o’clock sharp and there might be talent scouts.

And then of course there are the old people exiting vans that have taken them around the city to look at the country stars’ homes (most of which are dangerously close to our house, I might add). They are sweet and smiley and oh look at the cherub-like baby in the stroller with his church-attending parents. They don’t notice that we are about to commit child abuse.

I’ve already told you about the homeless, so that about sums up downtown Nashville.

We never made it to the honky tonks.

Down by the river ended up being fun, and if you click on the picture above (which is going to be explained if you will just be patient) then you can see how absurd we are.

After rolling around in the chemically-treated grass for a while and taking idiotic pictures of ourselves, we got hungry and decided that JEB was going to have to endure a restaurant whether he liked it or not. So we headed to our favorite Mexican place from The First Time We Lived in Nashville (back in '01-'02 -- kidless newlyweds, ah, the memories ... several near-divorce-level fights and lots of drinking). Luckily, the restaurant was almost empty and they sold margaritas by the pitcher.

It was here that I took the photo that adorns the top of this post. I took it because Husband had just said, “I really like the art here. We should get some like this.”

Lord God in Heaven, bless his heart. Could it have been the fruit-covered booths or the bull knick-knacks or those tall, Catholic cylindrical candles with Jesus all over them that they sell at Kroger? (Why do they sell those at Kroger?) At any rate, I couldn’t resist documenting at least part of the décor. And then he said, “You know that guy, Ross, from ‘Friends’ – the one that was the voice of the hypochondriac giraffe in the movie, 'Madagascar'? I used to live by him in Chicago.”

How did I find such a gem? People, I found My Dream Man. Could life get any better than living in a park with an anti-honky-tonk-even-though-you-live-in-Nashville baby, and a house decked out in Mexican Restaurant Art married to Husband?

The answer is no, by the way. You know you’re jealous.

So there is a happy ending to the story. We didn’t get home until 7:30 p.m. and as a result, The Tiddy Rat missed his usual bedtime and slept in until 8 a.m. and that That THAT is why we continue to bring him home with us (unexpected extra sleep).

So there. This post was not about nothing. It was about something. Something "everyday." Something you may think is boring and weird. But "something" nonetheless.

Toodles.

Nothing

2005-07-16T06:29:00.000-05:00

In case any of you don't keep up with my other blog, here is a quick update since really I have nothing to say as Kimpossible: JEB can ...

say "ball";
put the ball in a cup on command;
stand by himself;
say "Mama";
give me zerberts on my stomach;
imitate me saying "bye-bye."

Now whenever I pick up a phone he says "bye-bye." But I'm not really sure if he means it or if he just uses the bilabial stop "b" for any object. He use to say "AHBUH" whenever he held anything in his hand, and now he's taken away the initial vowel sound, but these kids are tricky. You never know what they do and do not know until you try to get them to show out and they act like you're the biggest liar on PE.

Notice the HUGE smile: Mom's disastrous post-partum belly makes funny noises!

These two pictures of him are my latest favorites. The one above is just after the first-ever zerbert occurred, while we were in the tub. Yes, I get in there with him. Trust me, it's easier on the back. In this next picture, he's just smiling because he likes me. Which is good, 'cause like him (most of the time) too.

Actually, today is his 10-month birthday, so tonight we're going downtown to the honky tonks in celebration. Happy b/d Diddums! You can click on either picture to go to my Flickr photostream to get a glimpse of how I spend my day (read: obsessively taking photos and spending entirely too much time cropping them, reducing red eyes, and then trying to find something relatively interesting to say about them in one of my blogs while concurrently attempting to keep JEB from turning off the computer (another new trick). Are there prizes for creativity in neglecting your child?

In other news, I am taking a trip to my parents' house next week to celebrate Pappaw's 90th birthday. In preparation, I have made lots of appointments with various kinds of doctors (a psychiatrist, a gastroenterologist, and an ayurvedic doctor/massage therapist) and may not have much time for blogging.

Nothing of interest has happened since our Ozarks Adventure. You are probably thinking that nothing has happened since I started this little project back in March, but at least now you know why I was so good at getting a B.A. in B.S. and otherwise do well on essay exams: I have an uncanny penchant for going on and on about nothing.

See there, I have a nothing inserted in initial, medial, and final position in that last paragraph. Admit it, I'm good.

Vacationing with Ticks, Chiggers, and In-Laws

2005-07-12T06:51:00.000-05:00

We have returned from the Ozark Adventure. There were Four Thousand Ticks, Four Million Chiggers, and Four Generations of Beckers. Next year we're going to Seattle & Alaska.

Click on the photo for more shots of the trip.

The funniest thing that happened was that The Goose, while playing naked amongst three dogs on the front porch (you can do this in Arkansas), used the picnic table to pull himself up to a standing position, pooped, and then rocked back and forth until the log dropped from his bottom ... all while looking back at us and grinning. He is relatively tick and chigger free, although the same cannot be said for the rest of us and our wobbly bits.

I returned to find a Brown Recluse (heretoafter referred to as BR) in the upstairs shower and an email stating that ALL of my final evaluations for my online students are inappropriately formatted, written in the wrong tense, and attached as individual files rather than together in one document. Those evaluations are the equivalent of a ten-page paper, so this is just a little disheartening. Also, our housesitter did not collect her pay (a dozen fresh eggs), so now we're wondering if she's actually going to expect some other form of compensation. The nerve. Who wouldn't want fresh eggs for staying in a BR-ridden house? I love eggs. Especially with tomato paste.

This is boring, so go read some of the new additions to my "Links" sidebar.

p.s. You might be interested to know that the housesitter was Ann Dos from the abandoned story of the Owlnapping.

p.p.s. Ironically, last night I taught a lesson on the differences between the participles "bored" and "boring," which ESL students often confuse. At some point I said, "Usually we don't refer to ourselves as boring." However, this is clearly evidence that one can be both "bored" and "boring" at the same time.

Just call me a lusciously luscious lush

2005-07-05T06:12:00.000-05:00

Unrelated note: If you'd like to make an appointment to have your own child's portrait taken, please let me know. Otherwise, on with the show ...

In the spirit of the hotties, I took some Lynchburg Lemonade to a cookout with Husband's co-workers last night. I wore my green and white striped halter top and the Green Eyes Almay i-color series. Everyone else drank Sprite, but I am not ashamed. As we were leaving, I thought, "Hmmm, should I leave the leftover lemonade or take it home -- these people don't drink, so why leave it and let it go to waste?"

I went inside, grabbed it out of the fridge, and noticed that the one bottle I had finished was inside the container (note my moderation). I guess B put the empty bottle back in the case so that we could take it home to recycle it. He's a recycling fanatic.

As I was saying my goodbyes and thank yous, B's boss walked past me and grabbed something out of the four-pack. He is also a dig-stuff-outta-the-trash-to-recycle-it maniac, so I assumed it was the empty bottle. Later, while on my way to our car, I noticed that the empty bottle was still there, and one of my lemonades was GONE. Apparently The Bossman (picture an ex-marine, Church-of-Christ-member with six beagles) doesn't have any idea how far my PWTPI abilities have taken me. Even before I became the founder and operator of the #1 PWT Detective Agency, I always noticed when someone swiped my toddies.

Husband couldn't resist making a comment about this, so we both went back inside to ask his boss if he wanted the rest of the four pack. While there, the Boss's friend (picture ex-mullet-wearer with a huge affinity for my sans-raisin oatmeal cookies) answered for him, saying, "No, he never drinks. Ever. He's like a Mormon."

I said, "Me too."

Then the friend said (read this in your best TN accent), "Yeah, we've all heard you can throw 'em back with the big boys, but at least you can make some damn good oatmeal cookies."

OK, so now that I've been labelled a lush, I must contemplate the other word families that can be associated with this label. Clearly, our only choices are the following noun, adjective, and adverb, respectively: lusciousness, luscious, lusciously. Personally, I like it. So fitting.

Do y'all like this "Just call me ..." series? I'll have to do more with that.

On Friday (7/8/05), we will be embarking on a family vacation adventure with Husband's family. The Goose's Paternal Grandparents (even The Great Grandpa B) and his only aunt and uncle (I'm an only child) are meeting us in the Ozarks (of Arkansas) for a long weekend spent in a pet-friendly cabin with a whiny baby and two people (Husband & his mom) who are highly allergic to pet dander of any kind. This promises to be delightful. As a result, I may be on sabbatical for a while, because it is so incredibly difficult to plan and pack for any trips with The Goose that it will likely take me the rest of the week to finish.

In addition, I am finishing up my final evaluations of my online students. We don't give them grades, so I have to write one ENTIRE page for each of them, quoting their writing and interspersing constructive criticism with praise. These kids are usually brilliant (it's a "gifted" distance education program through a very prestigious university) and they (and their doctor/lawyer/corporate-executive parents) are scary in my opinion. They all live on the East coast except for the few California kids. They email me questions about grammatical concepts such as raising in "if-then" statements, how to tell the difference between noun complement and relative clauses, and subordinate adjectival clauses which may or may not be restrictive. Yeah. They're in 5th - 7th grades. Now, if you knew that there was such a thing called "raising" in grammar, then please email me because unless you have a degree in applied linguistics, then you are a total grammar dork and we need to swap stories.

Most of my student evaluations include this line: "Student Name, your writing is quite vivid and detailed; however, it's regrettable that you cannot operate your word processor's spellchecker even though you can program computers in five languages."

I have to finish 10 of those before we leave on Friday, so that's another reason I may be gone for a while.

Finally, I hope everyone had a happy and safe holiday and that you did not find any brown recluse spiders in your bathtub when you returned home from your burgers-and-fireworks celebration. And p.s. if you ate burgers then obviously you have not been keeping up with the news about the latest case of Mad Cow Disease, otherwise known as Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy. Personally, I would rather not develop holes in my brain, so I ALWAYS eat free-range, vegetarian-fed beef and I suggest that you do the same, along with making a committment to spend the extra buck and get organic strawberries rather than the PESTICIDE-RIDDEN kind that are grown in Mexico and commonly found on sale in Kroger at this time of year. The pesticides used on strawberry plants are some of the worst on the planet (both in terms of environmental and physiological effects). Hotties, if you're reading this, don't worry! Those daiquiris I made while you were visiting were all organic, right down to the high-fructose-corn-syrup-based mixer. Do I use too many compound, constructed-with-hyphens adjectives?

Country Lyric of the Week
"I'm not as good as I once was,
but I'm as good once as I ever was."

Just call me the mop queen

2005-07-03T20:38:00.000-05:00

OK, I had to post this really sweet picture of The Goose in order to get my mind off of how he treated me tonight. I nearly took him to the neighbor's house. For good. But then I put him to bed (at 6:45 p.m.), mopped the floor for the fourth time today, uploaded all of my photos from the day (my nightly ritual), and was reminded that I would be difficult too if I couldn't talk and anyway, look how beautiful he is! If you want to see more pictures, you can click on this one to go to my photostream.

I don't have much to say tonight and I'm mad about that. I always have things to say on Sunday nights, but for some reason, tonight I'm just yuck. I look forward to having things to say on Sunday nights whether or not anyone else thinks the things that I say (write) are really worth saying. I'm not offended by comments that this blog is like Seinfeld -- a show about nothing -- but to me, it's not NOTHING, people! It's all very real and not at all overly dramatized and serious and important. And speaking of redundancy ...

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"This will really work. These exercises are safe, effective, and they work!"
-- spandex-shorts guy from the "8 Minutes Abs" video

In the future I plan to do an entire post on the ridiculosity of workout videos. WHY DO THEY TREAT THE ENTIRE VIDEO AS IF IT'S THE FIRST TIME YOU'VE EVER WATCHED IT OR WORKED OUT AT ALL?!?!?!? The only ones I like are my Gaiam/Yoga Journal ones (especially those with Hot Rod -- Rodney Yee). If you need to be told which ones to avoid, here is a list:

8-Minute Abs with Bonus 8-min. Arms (not only does the talking guy annoy me in his zebra-striped unitard, but also the "experienced" model looks like a blond Joey Tribiani and is always behind both the beat of the music and the other people in the video. This makes me insane and I can't even look at him. Sometimes I have to just put down my handweights--"or tomato cans!"--in frustration).
Arms & Abs of Steel (a Tammilee! video series -- she REALLY gets me going because she has just a portion of hair pulled up into a ponytail on the top of her head and she wears workout bikinis, and she discusses body types as fruit--and clearly I'm the pear and she's the hard, sculpted apple--and in general I just don't think she is that bright and why in the world does she sign her name all over the video box with an exclamation point at the end?)
Hot Yoga with Barone Baptiste (Good Lord. This guy has spent entirely too much time in California and all the people in his videos are like extras in a porn flick. How am I supposed to accomplish ujayii (sp?) breathing in downward dog pose while he walks around adjusting the models buttox placement? Is buttox a count noun? I'm not sure I would know the answer to that if my students happen to ask in class this Wednesday. Can you say "buttoxes" ... or is it like "moose"? What about three mooses' buttoxes? Oh my goodness, this is as bad as the turtle ramblings from several weeks ago. Is anyone still reading? Bless your hearts.

I better just go to bed. But first, I have to do "P.M. Yoga with Patricia Walden," my Sunday night ritual. She isn't redundant or dressed inappropriately or stupid. But I do have to wonder how she got into the middle of that desert without making any footprints in the sand.

BANGS

2005-07-01T08:44:00.000-05:00

In order to live up to my promise, here's a blast from the past:

If you want a hard copy to frame, just let me know.

p.s. My sitemeter tells me that an average of 20 people visit this site everyday. I have GOT to know who you are, so please post a comment ... even if you do it anonymously and just give a hint (I consider anonymous posts as work for the #1 PWT Detective Agency).

Things about which you may need an update ...

2005-06-30T20:57:00.000-05:00

This is what I have to clean up several times a day. That's why I haven't had time to follow through on any official #1 PWT Detective Agency business.

I finally got a new camera with a four-year warranty. It is shiny.

I finally filed the complaint about NWA in court. Lord help us all.

I finally called about getting my child enrolled in a Mommy's Day Out program. Lord help the teachers.

I had just finished my afternoon toddy when the lady from a certain Baptist church near my house called to discuss the waiting list and setting up a tour date. This was how our conversation went (I like to write out conversations in case you haven't noticed):

Lady: Let me tell you a little bit about our program ... we have a Christian-based curriculum where we use every teachable moment to talk about the love of Jesus. We do lots of hands-on activities and kissing and hugging.

Kim (laughing hysterically): OMG, does Michael Jackson work there?!?!?

Lady: What?

Kim: Nevermind.

Lady: Anyway, your baby can stay on his own schedule and can come up to two days a week for 5 hours a day. We don't have availability for the 12-18 month class in the fall, but would you like to set up a tour and interview?

Kim: So you don't have availability for the fall?

Lady: No, but we can put you on our waiting list and sign you up for a tour and interview.

Kim: Sure, but can I ask you more questions first?

Lady: Yes, of course.

Kim: What are your teachers' credentials?

Lady: We hire only people that I know personally. I have been here for 30 years. The Lord has blessed us with longevity in this ministry under my direction, praise Jesus. We only hire people that I know personally. Like one time my daughter had a friend whose sister needed a job, and she was considered. I know that this method may cause us to miss a lot of good teachers, but I feel that it's very important for us to know them personally or through someone else.

Kim: What if your daughter knew Michael Jackson?

Lady: What?

Kim: Nevermind. Let me discuss this with my husband and call you back on Monday.

Lady: OK, but let me get your son's name.

Kim: It's Goose.

Lady: What?

Kim: It's Goose. Like Silly Goose. Like Tom Cruise's buddy in that flying movie ... what was the name of it? You know, the one where ...

Lady: "Top Gun"?

Kim: YEAH! Top Gun. Like that.

Lady: OK, why don't you just call me back?

Kim: OK, later tater!

Do you think they'll reserve me a spot?

Question(s) of the Day
Why do chiggers inevitably find the wobbliest wobbly bits on your body to secrete their saliva, let it set while it dissolves the tiptop portion of your epidermis, and then suck it all back up and jump off? How do they find their way outta there? (My husband probably wants to know how they found their way in.) TMI TMI TMI

Weekend Update Part Two: Partying with Hotties

2005-06-28T07:18:00.000-05:00

As promised, here's the latest Saturday night recap. Since I've been teaching the art of writing an essay, this post will be an attempt to make my thesis and supporting details very coherent and unified, even though in reality I am struggling. My thesis is to give the second installment of the weekend update, but there are three major sub-points, as follows:

1. I'm totally addicted to blogging and digital photos, and have recently identified this as another cause of morphing into not only an HEM, but also an annoying friend.

2. After racking my brain and the brain's of the hotties involved in this escapade, it seems that we are either (a) not as fun as we used to be, (b) just old, or (c) both.

3. I am shameless when it comes to embarrassing myself and other people via this blog.

First, the addiction (to blogging and digital photos) and its relation to HEing and badfriendliness became clear this morning when I finally sat down at 5:00 a.m. to write this entry. I had been waiting on my friends to send me their digital photos of the weekend (since my camera is STILL broken, and I wasn't smart enough to keep the paperwork on my warranty, and there's no one I can sue, and we have to wait until after payday to get a new one). I spent the beginning of the week sending annoying emails to Molls & Kells asking them to expedite the process of uploading. (Apparently, it wasn't enough that they missed an entire day of work to come visit me.) Anyway, because I had rushed them, I was feeling the need to rush up myself as I finally sat down to write at the BUTT CRACK of dawn. And then The Goose awakened and REFUSED to go back to sleep. Husband was unable to console him, so I had to log out and drag myself upstairs to tend to him (the drudgery!). While there, I proceeded to use several naughty words to express to Husband how frustrated I was and how this was undoubtedly his fault. Then he pointed out that I was using naughty words to express myself and that I had been telling him NOT to do this in front of the baby, and I said (are you ready, this is awful): "Please do as I say and not as I do." I am such a good person.

Second, and more to the point of the title, I had a FABULOUS time spending the weekend with my friends, but going out just isn't as fun as it used to be. The night began with a huge getting-ready production, complete with make-up application (Almay's i-color shadow trios and liners of course), chicken imitation (see below), hair rolling, and mojito drinking. The hotties donned their getchasomes and headed downtown for dinner and partying. Basically, the night can be summed up in the following sentence: A bunch of old sorority girls try to relive the glory days and fail miserably. The following quotes and pictures will try to demonstrate this point:

During the car ride to the bars, the conversation switched (as all hottie conversations will do at some point) to breastfeeding ...

Molls: "Can we please not talk about breastfeeding anymore?"

Kims: "OK, let's change the topic."

Molls: "OK."

Kims: "I used to be really bad about inserting the topic of breastfeeding into every conversation. Like when Goose was a newborn I talked about it ALL the time. I'm better now."

Alls: "Yeah, me too."

Kims: "I'm much better now about not talking about breastfeeding."

Alls: "Me too ... when my kids were little bitty it's all I could talk about."

Molls: "Ummm..."

Kims: "OH NO! We're still talking about it! Let's stop."

Alls: "OK, let's turn on some music."

Molls: "I'm glad we finally stopped talking about it."

Kims: "Yeah, me too. There are plenty of other things to discuss."

Silence.

As further proof of our degenerative ability to party, here are some photos from the night:

Alls: Our Mascot and The Original Hottie ... mother of 3 (including twins) all under the age of 2 and a half. The only one of us who was offered a drink by someone at the bar.

Kims & the "Will Work for Sex" guy. In the first picture, I believe we were discussing his recent trip to Vegas. I remember saying something about how terrible it is that they use so much water for all those hotel/casinos in the middle of the desert (sort of like all the golf courses in Phoenix) and that the only time I've ever been there was just after the second war broke out in Iraq and how I spent most of my time alternately watching CNN and riding the roller coaster inside our hotel with all the tweenagers and how they kept saying, "Look, that woman is riding AGAIN." Wouldn't you love to talk to me in a bar?

Alls, Kims, Janes, Molls: This is a group of hotties standing under a fan at a bar trying to look like they're in a rock video.

Kims, Janes, Alls: See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. After you wait and wait for people to offer to buy you drinks (to no avail), you buy yourself a few shots and resort to this.

Molls & Kells: This picture was taken just after Kells threw up in the bushes outside the bar (not from drinking, mind you). I was planning to be the DD, but after she threw up, the sicky stopped drinking and then I started drinking again because who needs TWO DDs?

This is what happens when five hotties try to watch a baby ... he ends up with a Lynchburg Lemonade bottle and a busted head.

Other fun quotes from the night (which you may or may not understand) ...

Molls: "Oh, I remember her, she always had Rankin County Hair."

Janes: "My next publication is going to be called The Lament of the Irishman & the Cell Phone."

Molls (to a cute Irish guy who offered to buy Alls a drink) : "Are you a foreign exchange student?"
Irishman: "No, I'm 24. I'm a horsetrainer."

On to my third sub-point ... With regard to my shamelessness in attempting to embarrass people, here are a few shots from the real hottie days. The first two are intended to embarrass the hotties who couldn't make it for the reunion. The third is to show you just how far Alls has come. Girls, forgive me. If you have a digital shot of me during these days with my start-at-the-back-of-your-head bangs, my vintage-wine lipstick, and my way-too-much-mascara-on-the-bottom-lashes eyes, then please feel free to send it along and I will post it here for all to laugh at.

The Cat

Jens

And now we're back to the original Hottie: Alls.

In conclusion, I may need forgiveness for all of my three sub-points:

I am still addicted to blogging and digital photos (perhaps moreso now than ever);
I firmly believe we are BOTH less fun and old; and
I don't have much will power not to embarrass myself and others and may continue to do so on a regular basis.

BUT AT LEAST I'M A HOTTIE!

Weekend Update Part One: Blood, Blacktop, & Bacardi

2005-06-26T20:03:00.000-05:00

Here's my Sunday night usual. We had yet another action-filled weekend. This post is going to chronicle only Friday, and then tomorrow I'll follow up with another post. The upcoming post is much more upbeat than this one, and will include photos of me posing with a man wearing a "WILL WORK FOR SEX" shirt. Stay tuned.

So, on Friday morning, The Goose & I set out to hike a strenuous trail here in the park which goes up a ridge. He was in his backpack carrier which looks like this:

It was about 7:00 a.m. when we left and the trail takes about an hour and a half to complete. I was in somewhat of a hurry to get back since I had four of my best friends from college coming to spend the weekend for a Girls' Reunion and I really needed to mop up my FILTHY kitchen floor and cook a gourmet meal. Reader, let this be a lesson: Don't be in a hurry when you're hiking down a ridge, because you just might trip and fall on your face and then proceed to roll partway down the ridge, scraping up your head, your knee, and causing your baby to get a gash in his head. Yeah.

So I sat there and screamed "HELP!!!!!!!!!" for a while and then I decided that I might as well get up and start walking. I cleaned up the blood with my shirt and held The Goose cradle style for our hike out. He was alternately sleeping and screaming at this point. I was shockingly calm and trying to take every step with extreme caution. Reader, let this be a lesson: Don't ever expect other hikers to notice that you and your baby are bloody and NOT IN THE LEAST BIT OK. We passed several people (none of whom noticed the blood, the limping, or the panicked expression on my face), all of whom greeted us with a happy "Good morning!" or "How ya doin'?"

"Oh, I'm just fine and dandy and by the way, watch out for that guy with the ax up there."

I finally made it out of the woods and onto the road, only to discover that it was being paved. There were about 10 pavers hard at work with three dump trucks and some other sorts of machinery, blocking the road, and making LOTS of noise. Still, no park visitors had noticed my condition.

I flagged down one of the pavers and used his cell phone to call the visitor center at the park. I was planning to have the clerk radio Husband to come pick us up, but coincidentally, Husband answered the phone and and was on his way in a flash. We hurried down to the ER and didn't even have to wait at all before being admitted.

Reader, let this be a lesson: Don't expect the people at the ER to be as concerned as you are about your bloody baby. They will likely remain very calm and ask you all sorts of asinine questions such as, "I see that there is some dried blood on his head. Do you suspect that he has a laceration underneath there?"

YES, CONSIDERING HE AND I ROLLED DOWN A HILL AND LANDED HEADFIRST ON A LANDSCAPE TIMBER. NOW CAN YOU PLEASE JUST SKIP TO THE PART WHERE YOU TELL US WHETHER OR NOT HE HAS SOME BRAIN DAMAGE?!?!?!?!

Then comes the realization that you have come to a teaching hospital and they have sent you a medical student who, apparently, has never set foot in a hospital room. Student evaluated The Goose, said that he thought it might need one stitch, and then sent for the attending physician. The attending physician came, looked him over, and announced that since the gash was small, he would like to use something called Dermabond to close up the wound. For those of you who haven't had the occasion to bust open your head recently, you will be excited to learn that hospitals are now using the equivalent of BONDINI to glue people's heads back together, rather then stitching them up. My dad would be proud.

Oh and I forgot to mention that this all took an extremely long period of time to accomplish and at one point while we were in the room alone, Husband broke into the cabinet and borrowed some stuff to clean up my head and knee. Peroxide is the devil.

Finally, the medical student numbed The Goose's head, flushed out the wound, and began the Dermabondini application while Husband and I attempted to hold him down on the table. During this scene, the attending physician was watching over the med student's shoulder and saying, "NO, NO, NO, don't drip it ... just spread it on like mayonnaise so that it doesn't glue his eyelids shut or goop up his hair." Ummm ... yeah.

So finally the ordeal was over and we headed home only to find that the pavers were still working and that we couldn't drive up to our house, but rather, had to park and walk up the freshly blacktopped drive ... UPHILL in the midday heat, still wearing our bloody clothes. By now it was after noon and my friends were going to arrive in just a couple hours and I was just a tad put out.

The Goose went down for a nap and I took lots of ibuprofen and coffee and started cleaning and cooking madly. Then the friends arrived and they also had to hike up the hill dragging their luggage (and an excessive amount of liquor) up the driveway. I'm sure it was a sight: Banged-up mom and baby in stroller with Bacardi and wine bottles underneath, followed by four hot chicks pulling coolers and luggage as if we were all headed for some weird summer camp.

So that's Friday. As I said, tomorrow I'm going to follow up with Saturday's story, which includes some fantastic pictures of our barhopping expedition. Get excited.

And by the way, The Goose is FINE and has been acting like nothing ever happened. Today we got back on that horse and hiked another trail and we both handled it beautifully.

Until tomorrow ...

Chickens Can Help You Learn English

2005-06-21T10:15:00.000-05:00

This is what it's like to teach ESL. Here's a conversational excerpt from last night's class:

Kim: OK, let's talk about vocabulary ... what words from your reading were confusing?

Student1: What is a kuh-nick kuh-nack?

Kim: Ummm, a what?

S2: Yes, I no understand that word too.

Kim: How do you spell this word?

S1: k-n-i-c-k ...

Kim: Oh, a knick-knack ... we don't pronounce the "k" sound. Knick-knacks are small objects in your house that may or may not have some particular theme ... like I collect chicken knick-knacks because I like chickens.

S3: What's "particular"?

S4: Why you like chickens?

Kim: Ummm ... OK, "particular" means, like "specific." I like chickens because we have three chickens and I like to eat eggs.

S4: I like eggs too ... especially with tomato paste.

Kim: Mmmm, that sounds good, you'll have to give me your recipe. So, back to vocabulary ... what other words were difficult?

S2: I no understand this word, "vivid."

S4: Do you fry your eggs or boil them?

Kim: Both. "Vivid" is an adjective that means extremely clear or bright. When you write vivid details then your reader understands well. Other words?

S3: Eggs ... quite ... I can't pronounce it.

Kim: Show me in the book.

S3: Here, on page 63. Oh, exquisite? "Exquisite" is like better than beautiful. It's a VERY vivid adjective that is more specific than words such as "lovely" or "pretty."

S4: I think fried eggs with tomato paste are exquisite. Do you like eggs like that, Kim or do you just like them plain?

Kim: Both. Now, let's move on from eggs to another topic ...

S3: What about this word "skeepreenic"?

Kim: I'm not sure, show me ... Oh, "schizophrenic." That's a mental condition where a person sees or hears things or people that aren't really there.

S4: I think I had that. Aren't these people paranoid too? Or do they just see things that are not there?

Kim: Both. OK, well that's enough vocabulary for today.

S4: Kim, do you really have chickens, or are you schizophrenic?

Kim: Both.

To Godiva For

2005-06-19T20:29:00.000-05:00

Last night we got a sitter. What a sweet job for her: we put The Goose to bed and then she just sat here watching movies and getting paid $10/hour. She's 17. Were you making $10/hour at 17? Even if you count inflation, I think that's pretty darn good for just sitting here watching movies. Did I mention that all she had to do was just sit here and watch movies?

As I was getting dressed I thought, "Hmmm, should I wear this really low-cut tank top in front of the babysitter, or just wear a t-shirt and change in the car?" Then I decided that I was not ashamed of who I am (PWT) and marched downstairs proudly wearing it along with my getchasome pants and red cowgirl boots (also you should know that I chose the hazel eyes Almay shadow trio and liner and my standard red lipstick).

As I was giving her the emergency phone numbers, she looked directly at my chest. Then she looked back up at me with eyes that said, "You are WAY too old to be wearing such a slutty tank top." I ignored it even though I wanted to slink back upstairs and change into a denim jumper.

But once we were in the car I felt like I was definitely NOT too old to be wearing that top or the getchasomes or the boots. This overconfident attitude is likely what inspired the night and I must say that it was SO GOOD to be out dancing like a real human being on a Saturday night! It was one of those nights that starts out with a chocolate martini called "To Godiva For" and ends with me on stage, shaking a tambourine, while participating in a song called "Dirty Old Man."

There were also some fun in-between moments ... like the conversation I had at the bar with what must have been a teenager wearing a crooked maroon baseball cap, who said, "Wouldn't it be nice if there was a urinal under the bar where you could just pee it out as it goes in?" That was my first trip to the bar.

On my second trip, I was waiting for the bartender and decided it would be fun to bet the people around me that if I applied red lipstick I would get a drink faster than them even though they had been there longer. They agreed to the bet. As usual, the red lipstick got me a really fast drink and saved me a few bucks. Then I told them about how it also works for high patrolmen who otherwise might give you a speeding ticket.

On my third trip, I took out all of my wallet-sized pictures of The Goose, spread them across the bar, and started telling everyone all about how I really shouldn't be drinking so much because of my inability to pump-n-dump as a result of the Northwest Airlines breast pump debacle. Gasps were heard and cries of revenge rang out.

When we got home, I didn't have the decency to sneak upstairs, but instead decided to plop down on the couch with the half-asleep babysitter and attempt to make conversation about "The Bourne Identity." She, of course, looked at me with eyes that said, "You are WAY too old to be that tipsy."

Maybe I am, but it sure was fun. And anyway, I don't think I should be embarrassed about my clothing or behavior since anyone who values her child enough to pay a babysitter $10/hour to do nothing but sit here and watch movies may be PWT, but must also be a PTGF.

Have you gotten it yet?

Still thinking?

Come on, at least look back at the title and THINK before you just lazily scroll down and cheat.

Give up?

It's Parent To Godiva For. I am cracking myself up!

So long, farewell, alveederzane (sp?), goodbye from Kimpossible, HEM, PWTPI, & PTGF.

Automated Answerers

2005-06-17T21:24:00.000-05:00

Have you ever called a company (let's call it SONY, just for fun) to ask what to do about your broken digital camera (which of course had nothing to do with your baby banging it on the table repeatedly into a pile of mashed peas) only to find that they have an automated voice named Max who, despite his sincerest attempts to understand you, cannot possibly be even remotely helpful, and causes you to have a near nervous breakdown?

Here is my most recent conversation with Max:

Max: Hello and welcome to Sony's help line. This call may be recorded to ensure the quality of your service. My name is Max and I'm here to make you feel welcome. You can answer my questions out loud by saying "yes" or "no." If you're ready to begin, say "yes."

Kim: Yes.

Max: OK, if you have an existing work order number, then say that number now. If not, then say "no."

Kim: No.

Max: I'm sorry, we don't have that number recorded in our system. Please repeat the number.

Kim: I don't have a number.

Max: I'm afraid I still didn't understand. If you have an existing work order number, then say that number now. If not, say "no."

Kim: No!

Max: I still am having trouble finding that number. Please repeat your number.

Kim: I DON'T HAVE A NUMBER.

Max: We don't have a record of that number in our sys...

Kim: I DON'T HAVE A *&^%$#@ NUMBER AND YOU CAN'T UNDERSTAND ME BECAUSE YOU'RE NOT A @!)*#^& HUMAN BEING!!!!!!!!!!!!

Max: Hmmm, I'll have to get a customer service representative on the line. Please hold.

Poor Max.

Sacajawea, meet Kimpossible

2005-06-15T06:54:00.000-05:00

Who else do you know, besides Sacajawea, who can kayak through a river rapid while nursing a baby? Are you thinking? Is nothing coming to mind? OK, here's a little hint: It's me, silly!

Yesterday was The Goose's first trip down a river and it was about 70% successful. And since the 30% unsuccessful parts simply involved some whining and repeated attempts to remove the lifejacket (rather than anything REALLY unsuccessful such as, oh, say, tumbling into the river), we were pleased. And also I should add that the phrase "river rapid" is a little bit of an exaggeration, so don't be calling the DHS on me.

The picture above is what Goose looked like after the trip. As you can see, the humidity had taken a toll.

While we were at the take-out point relaxing on the "beach," we met some quite interesting characters. Husband was acting like a kid -- climbing trees to jump into the water and swing off of a rope -- and I was yakking my mouth with the locals.

There were several VERY interesting people at this "Camp & Canoe Rental" place (picture life jackets hanging off of clotheslines attached to satellite dishes on the side of double-wide trailers, lawn chairs around abandoned campfire pits, and signs up everywhere that said, "DO NOT BURN YOUR GARBAGE or use profanity!"). But one girl in particular stands out in my mind.

She was about 14 and was sunning herself on the "beach" when we pulled in. She and I were watching Husband flail about in the water, and she was giving me a play-by-play of all the things he was doing wrong: walking up the wrong side of the bank and thus being in danger of cutting his feet on the rocks, jumping out of the wrong side of the tree, holding on to the wrong knot in the rope, etc.

Then she said, "I used to swing from that rope all the time, until I got scared after my boyfriend drowned."

OK sweetie, you have my attention now.

I said, "Oh my goodness."

She said, "Yeah, you didn't hear about it? It was the boy from down at Vernon Creek. It was on Tuesday."

I said, "Well, we're not really from around here, so I hadn't heard. But I am sorry."

She said, "That's OK, he was going to break up with me anyway. Plus, he was black."

I said, "Oh, OK," or something just as profound and then walked away to yank the husband out of the perilous water.

Wow. And here I was thinking I was going to go to hell for making fun of well-meaning people who, for example, choose to eat non-organic strawberries or live on the side of a river in a trailer with a campground in their backyard, and then I discover that there's someone else out there who can totally outdo me at my absolute worst.

Well I'll be.

A new picture of me & the prize baby

2005-06-13T14:11:00.000-05:00

It's me and the prize baby!,
originally uploaded by Kimmy Crack Corn.

This is me (sin-a-berry hair and all) with my river shoes and backpack baby. I found this at a local independent bookstore amidst some barnyard figurines and dinosaurs and had to have it.

I do have a shirt that color that is almost identical, and I'm looking to buy the pants, so if you see some and they're on sale, BUY THEM and I'll pay you back.

Eye makeup, turtles, and lawsuits

2005-06-12T20:50:00.000-05:00

Today was a bad day. It rained and there was nothing to do but go to Walgreens where lord help us all they had eye make-up on sale for buy one get one free. Now I own Almay's complete line of make-up for various eye colors (except blue, because I can never pull off blue eye makeup unless I'm wearing my 70s dress).

Several weeks ago I bought the brown eyes version. Then today I bought the green eyes version because sometimes my eyes look a little green so I thought all I really need is just a titch of help to really bring out the color. Then because I bought the green I got the hazel for free. It's really just too bad that I never even wear eye makeup because I never go out anymore. But we do have a sitter for this weekend and she is brilliant and will likely go to Harvard after her senior year and I'm sure this will have a profound effect on The Goose. Speaking of ... if you're interested, you can see some recent pictures of him on his blog: Goose Bumps.

A turtle came into our yard today and snooped around to see if it was good enough for egg laying (verdict: negative). A turkey had already done this a couple weeks back. We try to prevent them from using our yard, but it's not always possible considering the fact that we are surrounded by 1,100 acres of natural area. One day Husband found a TINY tiny tiny baby turtle headed toward our screen door. He tried to save the turtleroni by pointing him toward the lake, but I'm sure he ended up as raccoon food. Only 30% of baby turtles hatch, and then a huge number of those don't make it for very long. On my walk today I noticed a huge nest of eggs that had been dug up and pilfered. The eggs are have leathery shells by the way, and you should always wash your hands after handling them, instead of letting your prize baby bite on your finger because he won't stop whining in the stroller. Why am I writing about turtles?

Tomorrow I am filing the complaint about the demolished breast pump and then the court date will be set for one month from the time it's filed. The clerk at the court said, "You know that this airline is going to have an attorney, right?" I just replied, "Yes, I know. I'm brave." What in the world am I going to do if I actually have to go to court and attempt to be articulate? If I have to get a sitter for that then I'm going to increase my asking price.

If you're still reading then pat yourself on the back because this one was not only boooooooooooring but likely incomprehensible. Yes I do teach writing. But, as our most recent house guest told me, my students are all "foreigners" so who really cares?

I LOVE BALD YANKEES

2005-06-09T21:43:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I awakened to the chickens clucking hysterically. It woke me and the prize baby up around 7:30 a.m. Apparently Husband had been awake for quite awhile and had already made some muffins, plucked a couple of eggs, watered the plants, and gotten in a little target practice.

As I walked past the window in the hallway on my way to get the Goose up, I noticed a man standing on the roof of the garage (which is about eye level if you're upstairs ... the second floor doesn't extend the entire length of the house, so there's a good view of the roof).

This person looked like Husband, but I just kept thinking (in my early-morning haze) that B doesn't own any red shorts. I didn't have my glasses on, but I could definitely see the red shorts and I could also tell that whoever it was had a rifle. I quickly set down the baby and grabbed my glasses to run back to the window and check this out and lo and behold there stood Husband in his red boxer shorts (with meese all over them -- see, you just thought that "moose" was a noncount noun) with no shirt on, aiming a .22 rifle at a feral cat who was eyeing the chickens. And what's even better is that his boss was driving by just at the right time and got pictures of this lovely event (I haven't obtained copies yet). The cat survived the incident but, sadly, was later gunned down with a shotgun. You gotta love a man who protects his chickens and the songbirds with such abandon.

In fact, this whole scenario has gotten me thinking about why I love B, and here are just a few random stories and quotes to give you a taste of what my life is like with him:

Before we became teachers in the Mississippi Delta (that's how we met), I was in college being relatively normal while Husband was living in Los Angeles working for Federal Express. He had a route that was mostly business deliveries, but on some days he got the distinct honor of delivering Fed Ex packages to the stars (including, but not limited to Heather Locklear, Will Smith, and the man who plays Frasier on the show by the same name).

On one very special occasion, Heather Locklear herself came to the door. He says she was about as tall as his waist and perfectly polite (but that Will Smith could use some manners). Husband was so flustered by the interaction with the blonde bombshell that he drove the Fed Ex truck into the security gate that surrounds her house. Luckily, Fed Ex took care of it.

Stories of L.A. live on in his mind and come up at unexpected times in our lives. For example, the other day as we were driving around running errands and listening to hip hop music (it's all for The Goose), a Busta Rhymes (sp?) song came on, and Husband said, "You gotta love Busta Rhymes. He's been around forever. One time I saw him in a Denny's in L.A."

Now, dear reader, do you think you would recognize Busta Rhymes if you saw him in a Denny's in L.A.? Would you even go to a Denny's in L.A.?

I didn't think so.

Point: Husband is very hip (or should we say, "hip-hop"?).

Other recent stories of interest include his proclivity for trapping mice and putting them in the freezer in our garage (right next to the breast milk) so that he can feed them to the as yet un-kidnapped, captive birds of prey. Now, dear reader, does your freezer contain anything as remotely interesting as bags of breast milk with cutesy sayings on them (e.g., "LEFT BOOB, 4 OUNCES IN 15 MINUTES FLAT" or "This Boob's for You") or mice in ziploc freezer bags with glazed-over eyes?

I didn't think so.

Point: Husband finds uses for everything (and is married to a total lunatic).

Finally, I would like to leave you with a few of my favorite Husbandisms:

"I think any movie with Tooth Face [Julia Roberts] or Leonardo DiCRAPio should be banned from this house."

"Kim, you may have WILL and you may have POWER, but you do not have the two together."

"Itch cream, the patch [AJ], and the Newton Tigers blue pajamas ... I might as well go sleep downstairs."

"I just put on my khaki shorts and a brown recluse ran out of them and scurried down my leg. Now I've gotta worry that my penis is gonna rot off. I think I should start wearing underwear."

I love you BB!

Sponge Kim Square Boobs

2005-06-07T05:16:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was eventful. First, I finally made it to the doctor about my shoulder injury. This trip was relatively boring other than the for-sale items in the waiting area (home-made jams & chess pie, cancer awareness bracelets, some embroidered burp cloths, wooden jar openers, etc. -- you know, normal stuff for a doctor's office) and the discussion with the doctor and nurse about my chickens and eggs and whether or not my cholesterol might be high (decision: wait until The Goose is weaned before getting it checked). The diagnosis was also boring: picking up 20-pound prize baby has caused repetitive motion injury ... keep taking ibuprofen and do some stretch-band exercises since you're nursing and can't take any of the good stuff.

I came home and went for a hike with the fam, checked my email, and then ladies and gentlemen ...

drum roll ...

I returned to the working world.

I basically got my dream job as an adjunct instructor at the community college where I worked as an advisor prior to moving to the Wild West for graduate school. I really can't believe how lucky I am to have happened upon this job (even though it was VERY last minute), since it is everything that I could possibly ask for ... part time, small class size (five students), and at a familiar school. I am teaching an intermediate level, ESL (English as a second language) writing class with students from Puerto Rico, Egypt, Togo, Afganistan, and Sudan. They are all refugees, all in their 20s, and all very eager to learn.

During our discussion about plagiarism, I was reminded why I love ESL students so much when the student from Afganistan said, "But why would these people copy another person's writing ... doesn't that miss the whole point of coming to school to learn?" I didn't really know how to respond, so I just said, "Well, I could give you a short lesson on contrastive rhetoric, but since we don't really have time, I'll just sum it up for you like this: There are some exceptions, but mostly these plagiarists are American." He seemed to understand after that.

The class went well considering I only found out about it two days before, didn't have the textbook until two hours before, and the fact that by the time the class was over I was so engorged that my boobs were square (thank you very much Northwest Airlines). As I was walking out of the house and saying goodbye to Husband, he said, "Good luck. I hope your boobs don't explode." Small claims court, here I come. I'm getting a new breast pump outta that airline if it absolutely kills me.

So now I must go and begin attempting to manage my new lifestyle. There's just not enough time for everything ... I mean, I still haven't made it to the Opry for that alibi interview, or re-applied the sunless facial tanner, or even wiped down all the doors with clorox (MoN: your mother is inspirational). But don't worry, I'll always be sure to make time for the really important stuff like this.

The Moat, Episcopal Bread, Suburban Soup, Cheese Cubes, & Movie Reviews

2005-06-05T14:03:00.000-05:00

Here is our lovely moat, which surrounds the Yoga Room. A water lily bloomed and just before I took this picture there was a bull frog sitting on a lily pad staring at it. We also have red-eared sliders (turtles) and some sick-looking goldfish.

Today I went to an Episcopal church and boy do they have good bread. The priest yanked the chalice away before I got a good slug of the wine, but the bread was enough to make up for it. It was like bakery-fresh, still warm, multi-grain sourdough with butter all over it. Yum, yum. And the body of Christ to boot. I do feel redeemed.

After church I began cooking a pot roast and then took the Goose to the YMCA's Splash Bash. This was a free pool party where they had one of those rented rock-climbing walls and all sorts of germy children running around followed by their moms in tankinis with matching wrap skirts. The Goose and I did not look very cute (I had forgotten that dressing up might be necessary given the location of the Y). He had on a pajama top and some shorts with dried biter biscuit and his swim diaper hanging out; I wore some linen capri pants and my swimsuit top without a shirt. After I saw the state of the pool, I whipped that stroller around and went straight back to the parking lot. It was like suburban soup in there. But it is such an ordeal to get out of the house that I was bound and determined to have fun while we were out. There was a library close by, so we just walked there.

When I first put The Goose in the stroller I failed to strap him in because it was just a short walk from the car to the pool and can you tell where this is going? It was really sunny, so I had the sun shading device pulled down over his head and even though there's a mommy peep hole in the back, you still can't really see anything that's going on up there. Just as we pulled up to the library door, I saw this Asian man waving his arms wildly and saying, "STAND UP BABY! STAND UP BABY!" I pulled down the sun shade to look and sure enough, there he was standing up facing me grinning like a cheshire cat.

Then when we got inside I realized that we were yet again underdressed as there was an art show going on and to get to the children's section we had to stroll right through the middle of it. We got some dirty looks as I snagged a cheese cube off the buffet table, but at this point in my life I do not care about dirty looks anymore. This library is so snotty that it costs $45 per year to get a card. But they did have some lovely fake oak trees and an entire Thomas the Tank Engine train track system.

While I watched the prize baby crawl around and suck on trains with first names, I was thinking about the movies I have seen lately and here are my thoughts:

The Aviator
Synopsis: Leo Decaprio = Howard Hughes, a rich movie maker and airplane designer who also could have been an extra in Girl, Interrupted.
Review: Boooooooooooooooooring! Cate Blanchett does a great Kathryn Hepburn, and Leo will make you feel better about your minor mental illnesses, but overall I'm sorry that I wasted the 3 hours.

Madagascar
Synopsis: NYC zoo animals break free and accidentally end up in Madagascar where they meet a band of monkey-like creatures who like to have dance parties and conk each other on the head. They are eventually rescued by penguins and return to their zoo life changed forever. David Schwimmer is the hypochondriac giraffe and I'm not sure about the other characters ... a lion, a hippo (Beyonce?), and a zebra.
Review: Mildly amusing at best--definitely not as good as Monsters, Inc. or Shrek.

Star Wars III
Synopsis: The middle link in the epic ... this is where you find out why Darth Vader becomes a part of the Dark Side.
Review: Cheesy it is. Good cast but bad acting it has.

Spanglish
Synopsis: Through the narration of a Mexican-American girl's (Christina) college entrance essay, we hear the story of Flor (gorgeous actress with last name Paz?) and her daughter Christina, who immigrate to the U.S. -- Los Angeles. Flor takes a job as a housekeeper for Tea Leoni and Adam Sandler and their two kids. The families collide in good and bad ways.
Review: Ok, I have many problems with this movie ... first, there is NO WAY Flor could've learned English as fast as she did. Second, Christina looks East Indian, not Mexican. Third, Tea Leoni is not funny. I mean, I think she is supposed to be funny, but I just found her character to be a sad reflection of suburban women. Fourth, I hate that at the end Christina decides that the most important thing for her is to be true to her roots for her mother's sake. I have a problem with the fact that so many parents seek validation for their own lives by wanting their children to be like them. Finally, I just like Adam Sandler better when he's being funny and singing that Hannukah song.

That's about all I can muster right now. It's time for my Sunday night ritual: P.M. Yoga with Patricia Walden. As my friend Mamabird would say, "Namaste y'all. But not in an 'I love satan' kinda way."

I LOVE ABSORBINE, JR.

2005-06-04T10:56:00.000-05:00

How to know if you're really an old woman inhabiting the body of a late-twenties mental patient:

First, you wake up one morning with a shoulder injury (could it be that you've been attempting yogic handstands without instruction?).

Second, you buy some Absorbine, Jr. pads and walk around the house with them on while wearing tank tops.

Third, you begin re-using the pads so that you won't have to go back to Walgreens more than once a day because everytime you go, you end up buying more blue eye make-up.

Fourth, you begin cutting up the Absorbine, Jr. pads into small strips so that you can get more use out of them.

Fifth, you write a letter to the Absorbine, Jr. people requesting that they use better adhesive so that the pads can be re-used and people can start getting their money's worth.

The Great Bondini is Back

2005-06-03T18:53:00.000-05:00

Well, we survived the holiday weekend with Husband's in-laws. In fact, it was actually fun. I can't believe I just wrote that, but it's true. And by the way, nothing in this particular post is a lie or even an exaggeration. Really. There've been some comments about how disappointing it is that some of this isn't true -- but take heart! It would even less interesting if I didn't exaggerate a little every now and then.

So, here's the story of the recent parental visit:

As we sat down to dinner on Saturday night--a lovely take-out meal from an Asian fusion restaurant nearby--the conversation turned to the availability of good Asian food in Mississippi, which to my daddy means the Chinese buffet place. He announced that the next time we visit, we will have to check out the China Buffet 2 (#1 burned to the ground a few years back). Then from that topic, the conversation went to other issues from "home": who is getting divorced and married and pregnant, who has died or been born, who is just DYING to see the prize baby, and, oh speaking of that, when are we coming to visit again?

Now it's important to add, at this point, that my daddy is 70 and hard of hearing, because otherwise you don't get the full picture of what conversation is like when he's around. Matter of fact, "hard of hearing" is an underestimation, because I remember making fun of him 15 years ago for this problem. You see, the beautiful thing about his being half deaf is that his ears themselves are GIGANTIC. When I was in middle school, I used to get in trouble for laughing at him in the afternoons when he sat in his la-z-boy chair in front of a west-facing window with his ears lit up like an adult bookstore. The contrast between the large ears and the hearing loss was just too much for me to handle as an adolescent (or now). It's just freaking hilarious to me. So because he misses much of what is said, it has always been a major temptation for me to make fun of him since he hardly ever catches on.

Due to the hearing problem, he often blurts out unrelated snippets of information (usually about whose yard he has recently mowed, how many times Pappaw has asked where I live, or who's not tithing appropriately -- he's the money counter at the church). Other times he catches certain words or phrases that interest him more than his food and sweet tea and yells out, "Huh?" repeatedly until my mother acknowledges him and repeats everything in excruciating detail.

There are some other things you should know about my daddy, as well. And this is why I wrote earlier that none of this is a lie or even exaggeration: He really was a P.I. when I was in high school. After he retired from the highway patrol, he filled in at the police department in our tiny little town as the detective.

OK, so back to Chinese food and the news from home. At some point in the conversation, my daddy looks up from his food, raises his butt up off the chair and begins digging around frantically in his back pocket while announcing: "Oh yeah, I brought y'all some more Bondini. It took me forever to find it up in that new Wal-Mart they built, but finally I found over in the light bulb section." Nothing gets past this P.I.

Now, for those of you who don't know, Bondini Magic Gel ("AS SEEN ON TV") is basically super glue, but it will bond anything, including wood, ceramic, rubber, metal, leather, oily & dirty surfaces, uneven surfaces, hair, fingernails, and even eyelids. There's a note on the package that says, "Caution: Eye Irritant. Bonds skin & eyes in seconds." You've gotta wonder about the situation that prompted that disclaimer.

When Husband and I first got married, my daddy would bring up the topic of Bondini nearly every time we saw my parents and of course, it became the butt of many jokes: lost your fingernail? Here's some Bondini. Broke the antique ceramic vase passed down through four generations? Get the Bondini. Wanna glue my daddy's mouth shut so he'll stop telling real life stories of the highway patrol and talking about Bondini? Well, we've tried, and even the MAGIC GEL can't fix that problem.

I guess he forgot about it for a while, but WHEW!! he brought some more for this visit and now we have a brand new bottle.

So in case you're wondering how to fix the many problems in your life, I'm guessing that this right here is the answer to several of them. I just hope my daddy doesn't discover that only a few miles from my house is a real-live, "As Seen on TV" store where you can get Bondini (or magnetic vibrawave pest repellent) in bulk.

Four Years of Husband Eating

2005-06-02T20:14:00.000-05:00

Well I thought I'd just post and at least say that I made it through the parental visit just fine. I'm working on a long version of the weekend which details our conversations about Chinese Buffet, Bondini superglue, and how much I could make if I sold the hand-crank ice cream maker we found in the garage (about $140 by the way). They brought deer sausage and frozen biscuits and cake and they should've brought me some bigger bluejeans.

I got a massage today by a too-tanned boy with spiky hair and an earring. It was fabulous though and he covered up my eyes with something delightful so I didn't have to look at his nose hair while he worked the kinks outta my neck. I have an awful shoulder injury but the main reason for the massage was that today is our 4-year anniversary. I gave Husband a new bottle of expensive whiskey but he hasn't opened it yet, so I haven't been able to sneak any.

Besides the shoulder problem, I have started sleeping as much as the baby at night -- crashing at 8:30 p.m. and getting up around 7:00 a.m. I like to say that I've been bitten by a bed bug or that I've acquired a bed bug and then laugh maniacally. Other than entertaining myself by being ridiculous, I'm trying to alternate coffee days with green tea days because I saw a man on Oprah who swears you can lose seven pounds in three months just by making the green tea switch and eating blueberries, which I already do excessively.

Hmmmm ... what other news is there ... Oh yes, the sin-a-berry is almost gone outta my hair but the humidity is killing me. I look like an older version of Curly Sue. The chickens are doing well and have started begging for table scraps at the back door. Today they ate an entire bag of potato chips (sorry Mamabird, we were trying to clean out the fridge), some leftover green beans, and a pretty big chunk of a veggie patty. We hung some Christmas lights on their coop just for funsies but then decided that that was taking the PWT thing a little too far.

That's about all folks. I'll leave you with some interesting things I've thought about this week:

Rap Lyric of the Week

Lookout for my diamonds
They're gettin' kinda reckless
I feel like I got a midget
Hanging off my necklace.

*NOTE: I have become quite interested in rap lyrics of late after our discovery that only R&B or rap soothes The Goose to sleep in the car.

Conversation Excerpt of the Week
(from many years ago when I still lived with my parents)

Me: I want a polar bear. (after watching that Coke commercial)

My mom: OK, we'll get you one for Easter this year along with a chicken and a blue duck. (see ... I always wanted a chicken)

My dad: Whad she say?

My mom: She said that she wanted a polar bear, and I told her she would likely get one this year for Easter, along with a chicken and a blue duck.

My dad: Well if I cain't have no dog out back, then she ain't gettin' no damn bear.

Chapter 3: An Unexpected Development

2005-05-27T12:10:00.000-05:00

Just returned from the park with the Tiddy Diddy ('diddy' is short for 'diddums' for those of you who don't speak the language Ridiculous), where I met a MOMMY FRIEND! Yay for MFs. This particular MF was so friendly, in fact, that I almost made her an assistant detective in the #1 P.W.T. Detective Agency. Except I don't think she's P.W.T. What gave it away you ask? Maybe it was the big Lexus SUV, but it could've been any number of things: her stroller, which I just saw in BabyTalk magazine for about $450, the designer-clad kids, or simply the statement, "I'm not a snob, but ..."

It started with me oohing and ahhing over her three-week old, who is suffering from acid reflux disorder (and a bad case of baby acne, I might add). I resisted the urge to say that maybe if she were breastfed this would not be an issue (yes, I asked if she was breastfed and I don't care if that's a nosy question to ask someone you just met). Anyway ... the MFAAPI (mommy friend almost assistant P.I.) was also trying to reign in her 2.5 year old, who was running around eating ashes from the barbeque grills while she said, "Shew-wee, yuck! No eat! That's gross and dangerous! Shew-wee, yuck!" all while describing the various childcare options in the area (seems daycares even in the ritzy suburbs are "scary places where the help's hair is always at least three different colors and they don't pull their pants up high enough so they can show off their tattoos."). It's a good thing I had on a hat and was standing behind the stroller.

Then the MFAAPI started talking about how her husband has pneumonia and is home sick from work and how it's just awful having him there while she's trying to live her life and how she can't wait until her maternity leave is over and how this is the first day they've ventured out of the house and "SHEW-WEE AUSTIN, GET THAT OUTTA YOUR MOUTH!" and how she's definitely waiting the full six weeks to start back on her diet and walking program and isn't it just too bad about my son's eczema and look at his cute little Gap outfit from last year's summer collection and then she took a breath and asked about me.

I mentioned that we live in the park, husband's a ranger, just got chickens, I'm a blog whore & P.I., etc.--you know, normal playground conversation. She replied, "Oh yeah, I used to walk at that park when I was pregnant and trying to go into labor and once we saw an owl there, isn't that right Austin?" Cue 2.5 year old wildabeast to begin mimicking an owl call and flapping his wings wildly. "And," she continued, "then we saw another owl at the baseball game the other night didn't we sweety pie?" Repeat scene with loud hooting and flapping but this time on top of the picnic table.

Now at this point, I am trying to remain composed and be subtle: "Oh really?" I said leisurely, "Was it a barred owl, brown with white bars, brown eyes, approximately 15-years old, about 1'2" and 11.7 lbs., with a hurt right wing, a yellow band around it's left foot, and covered in panty-nesting, human-attack mites?" Understatement and restraint are the keys to undercover work.

But before she could answer, she noticed that Austin had hitched their dog to his baby sister's stroller and was attempting to chariot-ride up the slide. I thought the interrogation would be cut short before she could make a positive I.D., but don't you dare underestimate the multi-tasking abilities of my MFAAPI. She never missed a beat: "Yeah, the lady said it was a barred owl."

I am now attempting to cover up my hyperventilation by doing the fake sneeze and hiccup which gets Big Laughs from The Goose but can also mask embarrassing public problems such as hyperventilation from various causes (usually wasp encounters, but this time from sheer disbelief at the serendipitous events unfolding before me).

"What lady?" I asked.

"The lady who had the owl there at the game."

"What did she look like?"

"Well, she was about your age, sorta nondescript, auburnish hair ... LET GO OF THE DOGGY AUSTIN ... actually, she sorta looked like you."

And then ladies and gentlemen, I was speechless for the very first time in my entire life. I had NOTHING to say, because not only did this totally undermine my original theory (which was that Ann Uno was the owlnapper), but also I was appalled that someone thought I resembled the alleged thief.

I thought and thought while I watched the MFAAPI coax the dog down from the top of the slide and Austin ran around yelling, "TEDDY GRAHAMS NOW TEDDY GRAHAMS NOW NOWNOW NOWNOWNOW!!!!!!!!!" It couldn't have been Ann Uno at that game because she CERTAINLY does not look like me. I mean, my hair may be coarse, but I use Aveda products to tame it, and I simply refuse to believe that I'm nondescript. Not knowing what else to do, I exited (gracefully of course) and wished her luck with the acid reflux acne baby and the wildabeast.

OK, so now I need your help dear reader, because not only am I at a loss about how to proceed with the investigation, but more importantly, there is the issue of what we can only call a KIMPOSTER on the loose.

If you have any advice or clues related to the Kimposter or the owlnapper, please contact the #1 P.W.T. Detective Agency immediately.

Get Eggcited about PWT Poultry

2005-05-27T06:16:00.000-05:00

CHICKENS 005.JPG...,
originally uploaded by Kimmy Crack Corn.

As if we needed something to make us official, here is a shot of a section of our backyard, complete with the unfinished coop and ramp going into the chickens' room (which has a freakin' ceiling fan for crying out loud so don't be gettin' all uppity and thinkin' you're better than me -- MY chickens have a ceiling fan ... do yours?)

They are filthy but they have popped out six eggs in three days so I forgive the mess. Each time they lay an egg, they dance around clucking wildly. Actually, so do me & Husband. It's very eggciting, this egg laying.

Surpisingly, the eggs themselves are not filthy; rather, they are light brown and beautiful. And for those of you who didn't major in biology, you don't have to have a rooster to get eggs. You only have to have a rooster to get eggs with baby chicks inside.

FYI: My parents are coming this weekend, so I may be on hiatus for a while. But I'm sure everything out of my dad's mouth will be fodder for a post. In case I'm not back for a while, have a great long weekend and be on the lookout for Ophelia.