Halushki

More Importantly, How Does This Affect Jozet?

2009-06-26T23:30:00.016-04:00

Where Jozet was when she heard Elvis had died:

At home in Frackville, watching the big tube console television.

What it meant to her:

I had me some very sad relatives, including two boy cousins who were completely devastated. Elvis was Teh Coolest, even Fat Drugged-Out Elvis. I’m pretty sure that one cousin had every single Elvis album, even the gospel and budget releases. I especially loved this cover for some reason. Very “Two highways diverged beneath my hunk o‘ burnin‘ love, and you know you took them both, Honey.”

Did she cry?

No, I did not.

Then what?

Probably had some ice cream with pretzel sticks. It was the day before my mom’s birthday, and there was ice cream to be had.

------------------------------------------

Where Jozet was when she heard John Lennon had died:

Getting ready for high school, Freshman year.

What it meant to her:

My world came crashing down. All of it. Entirely. My best friend and I had just made plans to travel to New York City to stand outside the Dakota Apartments and…I don’t know…wait until he invited us in to have tea with him, Yoko, and Sean. Instead, I stood on the northwest corner of 72nd Street, and for the very first time in my conscious life, I truly wondered whatever the hell was wrong with some people.

Did she cry?

For days. Years.

Then what?

I went to school that day. I seem to remember even the teachers were somber, maybe sad. Even the nuns. Even the bitchy nuns. For days, we all wore black arm bands. For the rest of our lives, some of us continued to wonder what the hell was wrong with some people. Giving peace a chance aside, that's all I am saying.

------------------------------------------

Where Jozet was when she heard Kurt Cobain had died:

Driving down Columbus Boulevard/Delaware Avenue in Philadelphia.

What it meant to her:

Hearing a lot of Nirvana on the radio, for once.

Did she cry?

No.

Then what?

I called my husband (then boyfriend) and reminded him about the time I wanted to go see an up-and-coming band from Seattle called "Nirvana" play a gig at a small club on South Street. And then I reminded him of how he scoffed at me and told me they’d never amount to anything. And then I reminded him of how he talked me into not going to the small club to see that nothing band, Nirvana, play live.

I reminded him of that.

------------------------------------------

Where Jozet was when she heard Jerry Garcia had died:

In the supply closet at SmithKline Beechan Phamaceuticals, arranging paper products, listening to WMMR.

What it meant to her:

Ah hell. Thirteen Dead shows with Jerry was just not enough.

Riding to distant outdoor venues with carloads of friends. Tail-gaiting and partying in the parking lots. Buying cool handmade tie dyes and...stuff. Hours of dancing. Dressing like Jesters. There would be no more mystical wanderings through crowds of music heavy with technicolor patchouli, no more hundred-thousand impromptu friends, and no more living postcards from a decade most people thought had gone the way of the IRL (In Real Life) protest march.

And no, Phish concerts are not the same thing.

Did she cry?

No. I may have gotten drunk, though.

Then what?

Around that time, I went on to live a life more grown-up. And ordinary. However, just thinking about it all, I’m right now feeling the urge to…er…tie dye some pillowcases. Ehem.

------------------------------------------

Where Jozet was when she heard Princess Diana had died:

Late at night, at home, after clubbing. I was watching the television in the spare bedroom.

What it meant to her:

Felt very, very bad for Diana's children.

Also reckoned that I had never heard the name "Dodi" before.

Did Jozet cry?

No. Not even during Elton John singing "Goodbye English Rose".

Then what?

I got my hair cut like Princess Diana's, but it was unintentional, I swear. Of course, everyone thought I had it cut because I must be such a big Princess Di admirer. And then a few people said I actually did look like Princess Di, which was entirely inaccurate: Princess Di was about five feet taller than I am, and I can’t wear sleeveless dresses. All in all, it was a very difficult time for me.

------------------------------------------

Where Jozet was when she heard Michael Jackson had died:

At work at the bookstore.

What it meant to her:

Having Can’t Stop Till You Get Enough running through my head for the rest of the evening. Also, seeing several employees break out in their best moonwalk.

Did she cry?

I got a little teary-eyed the next day hearing Man In The Mirror on the radio.

Then what?

A fairly involved discussion with my perceptive daughters over just how/why some people can/would change their appearance so drastically. Then a thoughtful gleaning from my eldest daughter as to what it must have been like to live in the 1980s:

“Whenever you talk about the 80s, Mom, I always imagine everyone wearing a lot of neon green.”

Just the one glove, Darling.

Just the one glove.

---------------------------------------------------

People want to know my deep thoughts and stuff.

All Lost In The Big Box Toy Store

2009-06-24T01:50:00.011-04:00

Dear Toy Store Coupon,

Since there is already enough dishonesty and subterfuge in the world, I’m going to cut to the chase here like a good 3-minute punk rock song:

I don’t like you.

That’s difficult for me to say.

I don’t generally put effort into telling people…coupons…when I feel less than brotherly love toward them.

I’d rather be all about the good vibes; all about being a positive force in the world.

But you come into my house, an interloper hidden within the Trojan Horse that is a birthday card to my child from the large cartoon giraffe that is your spokesperson…spokesungulate…

And you offer us a seemingly generous $3.00 off any store purchase of more than $3.00.

You make it sound almost free. A “free gift”!

But you know, oh conniving coupon.

You know that my children will be lured by your cheerful cherry-colored graphics, lured like…well…like children! Like children are lured into slow-passing vans with candy and puppies and the come-hither of Curlz MT font.

Stay away from my kids, you back-alley coupon!

Stop grooming them with personalized birthday cards! Stop manipulating my kids! Stop exploiting lovable savanna creatures by dressing them in red sweatshirts and parading them around with their big googly eyes, begging to be saved from economic extinction!

Just stop it!

And still...I feel guilty, damn you.

I feel guilty that there on my kitchen counter is a golden ticket to $3.00 free merchandise. Am I so wealthy, so well-off that I can turn up my proletariat nose to a free $3.00 in any form? If I saw three bucks sitting on a park bench all by itself, would I cross the street to ask whether it was okay? Whether perhaps it needed a ride somewhere, perhaps in my wallet?

I would.

Yet, where in your store is any single item that costs a mere $3.01?

(I mean besides the gargantuan lollipops or ladybug stickers that will end up all over my kitchen cabinets.)

You know, oh shifty coupon. You know as well as I do that this isn’t about you getting my shiny copper penny or a jovial giraffe who wants the best for my children.

It’s about me being hounded to death by the birthday girl via “WhencanwegocanwegotodaywhencanwegotodaywhendaddygetshomeIwanttousemy
birthdaycouponyousaidwedgotoday!” You know it’s about me entering your labyrinth of shiny-buy-me with good intentions to teach the worth of a cent and practice the discipline of discerning want from need, only to exit hours later a broken woman, $22.00 poorer, my birthday girl prancing beside me swinging her bag of purple-glitter, spinning-whirring Make Me Happy.

Does no one listen to The Clash anymore? Whenceforth the guaranteed personality?!

And what’s almost worse -

Even if I never, ever use you; even if I withstood the slings and arrows which will be flung my way via a small determined child crazed on Toy Store Coupon crack; even if I stood my ground and pointed out quite reasonably that the fuel alone needed to drive to the toy store would cost as much as the coupon would save us; even if all that -

Because you are a coupon with an expiration date, I won’t be able to bring myself to throw you away before June 30, 2009.

On top of everything else, coupon, you’re clutter.

Bite me, coupon.

In closing, bite me hard.

I hope that you appreciate my candor even when you offer me none of the same.

You are a filthy, rotten piece of paper.

Sincerely,

Madame Halushki

"Gimme some cake, punk.
Joe Strummer doesn't want his piece."

When Mommy Has To Clean Your Mess...

2009-06-17T09:58:00.003-04:00

Mommy gets to decide when and if she feels like cleaning more of your messes.

The designated Arts and Crafts Room is heaving a sigh of relief.

Mobius Parenting

2009-06-11T22:28:00.003-04:00

Child: I have something to ask you...

Mother: Okay.

Child: ...but you're going to get angry and freak out.

Mother: Hmmm. Well, why don't you ask me, and I'll promise not to freak out.

Child: Okay.

Mother: Take a deep breath.

Child: *sigh*

Mother: Now go ahead.

Child: When I'm a teenager, will you be more angry with me if I dye my hair pink...

Mother: Hmmm.

Child: ...or black?

Mother: Hmmmmmm.

Child: See! You're angry! And freaking out!

Mother: Honestly, I really wouldn't be angry at all if you did either.

Child: Oh.

Mother: What?

Child: Nothing.

Mother: Do you want me to be angry? Wait...am I supposed to get angry? If I get angry about your hair, will it keep you from rebelling and doing something really crazy?

Child: No.

Mother:

Child: Well...I guess I'll dye it pink then.

Mother: Okay...but I might get angry and freak out.

I promise I will not fret over
your beautiful blond and chestnut locks.
At least not out loud.

Wooooooooooordllleeessss WednesdAAAAAAAAY!

2009-06-10T00:01:00.003-04:00

Summer!

The Phoenix
Knoebels Amusement Park, Elysburg, PA

Are You A Mean Mommy?

2009-06-03T09:18:00.039-04:00

Take our quick and easy 5 question test and find out!

Question 1

Your eldest child has begged and pleaded for four weeks straight to take trumpet lessons. You ask around but can’t find a loaner trumpet. Your eldest child tells you that the school music teacher has given him the phone numbers of local music stores that will lease trumpets. You hesitate. Eldest child swears that the only thing he can think of day and night, night and day, with every waking breath and even in his dreams is learning to play the trumpet. You finally agree on the condition that if you’re going to dedicate an hour of your valuable time driving to the music store and signing paperwork to lease a trumpet for which you have to pay forward the $75.00 three months fee (after which time you can cancel the lease), that said child will exercise dedication and persistence and continue trumpet lessons for at least three months. And, so that the paid lessons aren’t an absolute waste of time, child will also agree to practice every day for a measly 15 minutes. Child agrees.

After two weeks of trumpet lessons, eldest child announces that he’s frustrated and wants to quit playing the trumpet, that practice time is cutting into his farting-around time, and that - furthermore! - he never ever wants to hear another Miles Davis recording again. Ever.

Do you...

A. Allow him to quit. What’s $75.00? You can earn that in an afternoon digging ditches and picking corn. So he doesn’t like playing the trumpet? So what?

B. Explain that sometimes the beginning stages of learning any new skill can be challenging, and that he should try a bit longer, give it a fair chance, and he’s even likely to see improvement.

C. Empathize with his feelings while at the same time being very clear that a deal is a deal, and that in the future he should be very clear on the terms before entering into a contract.

D. Tell him to get upstairs and play the god-damned trumpet or else go out and dig ditches and pick corn until he can pay you back the $75.00.

Answer: If you chose anything other than A, you are a Mean Mommy. It doesn’t matter that you’re reflecting and validating his feelings, nor that you are rationally and reasonably teaching a valuable life lesson. You might as well tell him off the bat that his choices are to dig ditches or play the trumpet. Because that’s how it will all translate.

Question 2

Some of the girls in 4th grade are reading the latest quasi-sexual teen novel in which an intelligent and strongly independent high school girl meets a really hot but coolly cruel teenage vampire, and then over the next 400 pages the intelligent and strongly independent girl decides that the vampire dude is so awesomely cute and mysterious that she'd be willing to die for him - literally - to be with the cute guy forever and ever and ever.

Your precocious 10-year-old daughter is begging to read the book. Do you...

A. Let her read the book. What’s one more story about an intelligent and strongly independent teen girl willing to make the choice to kill herself for a guy who is, like, really really cute? You played with Barbie and Vampire Ken when you were her age and you turned out okay.

B. Explain that you’re okay with her reading this book but won’t allow her to read further into the series until you are convinced that she’s emotionally ready to handle the scene in book three where the teen girl and the vampire engage in violent, black-and-blue sex using live bats as bedroom toys.

C. Reflect and validate her feelings, and then offer to read the book at the same time so that you both can analyze and discuss the characters and their choices.

D. Reflect and validate her feelings, and then hand her a copy of Hippolyta and the Curse of the Amazons because no way in hell is she reading a teen-death-drama-of-cute-boys book yet.

Answer: Any attempt to stand between, moderate, mitigate, or critique the awesome cuteness of a seriously awesome and cute guy will most likely earn you at the very least a “You’re a Mean Mommy” sigh of disdain...even if your 10 year old is secretly happy that you won’t allow her to read the book because, really, she didn’t want to read the book and now she has a handy get-off-the-hook answer in response to any peer pressure from other girls (i.e., “My Mean Mommy won’t let me read the book.”)

Question 3

All the kids in the neighborhood go to Jimmy John’s house after school to jump on his trampoline. All the kids jump on the trampoline at the same time. All the kids jump on the trampoline, and Jimmy John’s parents aren’t home. Everyone has been jumping all year while Jimmy John’s parents weren't home, and no one has gotten hurt, and everyone has turned out “okay”.

Your kids ask if they can go to Jimmy John’s house after school to jump on his trampoline while his parents aren't home. Your answer is...

A. Yes!

B. No

C. Hell no

D. No way in hell no

Answer: I think you’re getting the gist of this by now.

Question 4

Your almost-3 year old toddler, Little Clive, is playing with the trains at the Thomas The Tank Engine table at a local bookstore. Because customers often walk off with the trains like they think they are free party favors or something, there are only five trains left for kids to play with. And your toddler, Little Clive, has all five of them. Another young child walks up to the table and stands patiently waiting to play with a train. Then his mommy shows up and helps the young child to “ask politely” to play with one of the trains.

Your almost-3 year old, Little Clive, is not good at sharing and all past attempts to cajole him into sharing have resulted in an hour-long, 156 decibel, tooth and nails tantrum.

What do you do?

A. Apologize profusely, but then explain to the other child that Little Clive is not quite three years old and doesn’t know how to share yet, but that you’re certain he’ll be ready to learn to share within the next three to six months and at that time he’ll be happy to let him play with the trains.

B. Apologize profusely, but then explain to the other mother that from what you've read in the newly published book on toddler development, some almost-3-year-olds aren’t developmentally ready to share, and that really, Little Clive psychologically equates removing a toy with removing an arm or a lung - his identity is that connected to the objects he possesses - and that the resulting separation anxiety from forced toy-removal could have long-lasting effects even into next month, and that you’re certain he’s showing signs that he’ll be ready to learn to share within the next three to six months and at that time he’ll be happy to give her son a train to play with.

C. Pretend that you’re deaf and blind and from a non-English speaking country and can’t understand sign-language and that you're in a Teflon bubble.

D. With a happy face and a kind tone and sincere joy in your heart, announce to Little Clive that another child is here to play. You can say things that will help Little Clive problem solve, like, “You have five trains, and he has no trains to play with; what can you do to help him have fun and play with the trains, too?” Or you can say things to help Little Clive begin to learn to be aware of other people’s expression of emotion, like “Uh-oh! The other little boy looks sad. He is not smiling. He is looking down. He is sad because he has no train to play with. I bet you could help make him happy by letting him play with a train.” You can add a twist of controlled autonomy: “Little Clive, which train would like to share with the little boy - the blue train or the red train?” God help me, you can even sweeten the trade with a bribe just to get Little Clive past the point of thinking that his toys are valuable organs or appendages: “Little Clive, if you give that little boy a train, I’ll go to the café and get four packets of sugar for you to eat.” But at the end of the day, Little Clive will give up one of the trains, even if it means carrying a scratching-biting-screaming almost-3 year old through the store, to the exit, your five-dollar venti latte left behind at the train table.

Answer: If you chose D, your child will think you’re a Mean Mommy. If you chose A, B, or C, most other parents will think you’re a Mean Mommy. There is also the possibility that some customers will think that you’re a Mean Mommy for even bringing kids into the store, but in that case I say screw’em.

Question 5

It’s summer! Hurrah Hooray ! Calloo Callay! After eight months of needing to kick kids out of bed with air horns and sirens, you wake to find all three of your lovelies up at dawn, already having fed themselves (from the look of the dishes all over the table and the open milk carton on the floor), already dressed (from the tell-tale sign of the pajamas scattered all over the floor and the over-turned basket of clean laundry) and already planted in front of the television watching Nick Jr. for some time (from their slack-jawed appearance and first digs into mid-morning snacks.)

What do you do?

A. Nothing! Ah summer! Ah youth! Ah blissful days of innocence and free-wheeling freeness! There will be time enough for “have-to” and “must” and “do this, or else”. There will be time for studying and then jobs and then being beholden to mortgages and other debts. There will be time for days spent in worry and pain and the hard emotional labor of caring for every other person's needs before your own. There will be time for all the works and days of hands that lift and drop a question on your plate. And indeed there will be time to wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?” Time to turn back and descend the stair, with a bald spot in the middle of their hair…. (Thanks to T.S.Eliot for this parenting tip.)

B. Immediately call a family meeting. Discuss expectations, put forth that television time will be reserved for rainy days, ask them to outline their plans for getting their butts out-of-doors each day, draft a chore chart which includes laundry and dishes, and be explicit that unpleasant consequence will follow swiftly and consistently anytime you find an open carton of milk on the floor. Etc.

C. Let them have a day of debauchery. The next day, call a family meeting, discuss expectations, put forth that television time will be reserved for rainy days, ask them to outline their plans for getting their butts out-of-doors each day, draft a chore chart which includes laundry and dishes, and be explicit that unpleasant consequence will follow swiftly and consistently anytime you find an open carton of milk on the floor. Etc.

D. Let them have a week of debauchery, after which you’ll call a family meeting… (see answers B and C). Etc.

Answer: A - You may very well raise a household of slacker poets who will never leave your house and who will consign you to a life of paying for and then picking up open milk cartons from your floor when you should be spending your retirement time and money in Aruba. However, they will write glowing odes singing your praise which will, unfortunately, probably never be published.

B, C, D - You will spend the summer in a clean-ish house with grumbling but physically fit children. At some point, you will most likely happen upon some “intentionally” stray papers scrawled with lines of angry, self-indulgent free verse describing the unfairness and stupidness of life. Make sure to buy a good thesaurus and leave it somewhere the kids will stumble upon it - maybe next to the milk carton on the floor. (You might even want to be helpful and highlight the pages that include “servitude” and “insipid”.) Prepare yourself for the day when your hard-working and disciplined children announce that selections from their collection of sonnets entitled Mean Mommy will be published in next month’s Poetry magazine.

Congratulations! If even one of your answers put you in line with the Mean Mommies, then yuppers! YOU are a Mean Mommy. Your children may still grow-up to be self-centered, lazy, inconsiderate boobs who don’t exercise good discretion when making choices (and it can happen to the best of them during the hormonal onslaughts of pre-teen and teen years), but at least you can say you've tried your darndest. Chalk-up any personality glitches to recessive genes, and just shrug your shoulders and grab a beer when any Nature-Nurture debates come up.

In fact, grab one for me, too.

nataliedee.com

And look! There's even a blog entitled Mean Mommy! And blogger sans pareil, Slouching Mom, recently revealed that she, too, is a Mean Mommy. And another from Heidi Hess Saxton via Extraordinary Moms Network, RIP, Mean Mommy. So worry not, Mean Mommies. Stand tall and proud! You are in good company! Give your kids ice cream for dinner once in a while, just to keep them guessing.

weIRdLess WEdneSdaY

2009-05-20T13:08:00.003-04:00

Created by one of my children at the
Tim Burton School of Crafting with Socks

Click on the photo to get the full impact
of the creeptastic unique-itude.

Brought to you by Wordless Wednesday

Gone With Some Fish

2009-05-17T10:38:00.016-04:00

Child 1: How was work last night?

Mother: Good. Busy. How was movie night last night?

Child 1: Good! We watched Gone With The Wind.

Mother: You did! Wow!

Child 1: Yup.

Mother: Well, what did you think? I know it wasn't Little Mermaid or Pixar, but I think it's time we start watching some...other classics, you know? Really get into some great films together as a family, things we can talk about and all enjoy together.

Child1: Except you were at work.

Mother: That's right. Well. Hmmm. You know Gone With The Wind is pretty long. You watched the whole thing last night?

Child 1: Yup.

Mother: Really?

Child 2: Yes. It was weird.

Mother: Weird how?

Child 2: Did that little girl, Bonnie, die?

Mother: Oh...yes. She did. Did that upset....

Child 1: And why was that one guy called "Ashley"? That was ridiculous. Ashley is a girl's name.

Mother: Well, not really in all cases....

Child 2: I liked Scarlett.

Child 1: Yeah, I liked her.

Child 2: She was weird.

Mother: Weird in a...good way?

Child 1: And there was a bad word at the end.

Mother: It's a very famous movie line.

Child 2: We know. We know. That's what Daddy told us. We know.

Mother: So, what did you think of the story?

Child 2: It was confusing.

Child 1: It was great. I liked it a lot.

Mother: Oh yes? Wonderful! Tell me some of the things you liked.

Child 2: All the costumes!

Child 1: And the horses!

Child 2: And the people!

Child 1: I really liked that guy Fred.

Child 2: I liked Scarlett, but she was weird.

Mother: Hold on, hold on.

Child 1 : What?

Mother: Fred? I don't remember a Fred.

Child 1: You know, Fred Butler. The main guy. The guy who says the bad word at the end.

Mother:

Child 2: Yeah, he said the D word.

Mother: Wait. You mean to tell me that you watched umpteen hours of one of the greatest and most romantic movies of all time, and the entire time you thought the lead male character was named "Fred"?

Child 1: Fred Butler.

Mother:

Child 2: It was a weird movie.

Child 1: But we liked it! Really, Mommy!

Mother:

Child 1 and 2: We're going to go play now.

(Children exit.)

Mother:

Father: Hey.

Mother: Do you know that when they watched Gone With The Wind last night, the entire time they thought that Rhett Butler's name was "Fred"?

Father: Well....

Mother: What?

Father: I don't think they watched the whole movie.

Mother: Then how did they know the ending?

Father: I think they only watched the second side of the disc.

Mother:

Father: I don't know. It did seem kind of brief.

Mother: Well, did the war last longer or shorter than a weekend?

Father:

(Father exits.)

Mother: Fred Butler.

First Comes Love, Then Come Marriage...

2009-05-11T21:19:00.002-04:00

Then comes

laundry, laundry, laundry, laundry
work, work, work, work
up at 6 AM for skating
Monday, Tuesday, Friday, then it's
didja get your homework done? why not? why not? just get it done!
just do it now, c'mon don't you get it?
just do it now and get it done
you'll have the whole night free and easy
with nothing else to do but play....

DID ANYBODY FEED THESE CATS? THESE CATS ARE
NIBBLING ON MY CALVES!
JUST FEED THESE CATS YOU WANTED CATS THEY'RE NOT MY CATS
JUST FEED YOUR CATS

what's this paper? where'd it come from?
this paper here was due last week
with fifteen dollars
and my signature
under the other paper? another paper?
paperspaperspaperspaperspaperspaperspaperspaperspapers
Okay, I'll give you each five dollars
for the jump-a-thon at school THAT'S IT
go bug the neighbors, pound the pavement, whaddaya think? I'm made of money?

who dumped a whole entire box
of fish food in the goldfish tank?
I'm asking WHO?
I'm asking WHY?
I'm asking...
I'm not even going to deal with this right now.

It's off to
gymnastics, soccer, gymnastics, soccer, gymnastics, soccer, gymnastics, soccer
it's 41 degrees and sleeting, they'll call the game off,
it has to be
surely they won't expect seven year olds
to play a full game in the sleet
I can't believe I spent the afternoon
standing in the cold and sleet
and it's
twenty dollars for the tournament,
ninety dollars for the camp,
eleven dollars every forty-five minutes on the ice and in the rink

swing by the school to drop off cupcakes
swing by the school to volunteer
swing by the school to pick-up fundraisers
swing by the school to...I forget

now Girl Scouts, Girl Scouts, Girl Scouts, Girl Scouts
filling forms and forms and forms
meetings, meetings, meetings, meetings,
camping outside in the woods!

holy crap!

I FORGOT I HAVE A TODDLER!
WHERE'S THE TODDLER?!!
WHO LEFT THE BACK DOOR OPEN?!!
HAS ANYONE FED THE CATS?
DID THE CATS EAT HIM?!!!

phew. found him.
playing in the bathroom
stuffing the toilet with
a cat.

Now school recital, dance recital, skating recital, all at once.
Year end class party, May Fair party, track and field day, all at once.
Don't forget to practice piano!
Ten more minutes on violin!
You owe me when you skipped last Saturday
and pay it forward for next week.

Five more minutes on the computer.
Five more minutes reading books.
Five more minutes, get your teeth brushed
It's orthodontistopthamologistdentistpediatrician
bright and early before school

NOW LIGHTS OUT!

No. No. No. No.
Go to bed. Go to sleep.
No. No.
Yes, one glass of water.
No, whaddaya think this is an all-night diner?
Kitchen closed an hour ago.
Oh yeah? Well, I double-dog dare you to starve in your sleep.
Go to bed. Go to sleep.
I love you.
Good night.

Yes, I love you.
I'll prove it to you

someday.

Now laundry, laundry, laundry, laundry,
dishes, dishes, dishes, dishes,
feed the cat and feed the other cat,
crawl to bed and dream about
waking up.

FIle Under: Ten Things I Do Instead Of Blogging

2009-04-28T21:35:00.004-04:00

1. Playing with knock-off Photoshop.

2. Watching world-turned-upside-down singing sensations on Britain's Got Talent.

3. Climbing down 25 foot ravines with Girl Scouts, clambering through creeks and over four waterfalls, teaching them to form a human chain to get back out again, and then panicking when they all start cheering and saying "LET'S DO THAT AGAIN" because my 42-year-old calf muscles are already seizing and maybe weaving potholders isn't such a bad idea after all.

4. Looking up the definition of "thaumaturgy".

5. Still watching The Office.

6. Wondering whether bleaching a mauve Christmas dress will do for a First Communion dress since I waited until the last minute to buy one and the only sizes left were evidently for European kids who walk to school and never eat bacon double cheeseburgers.

7. Cursing stink bugs.

8. Learning every dance in the History of Dance YouTube video (I'm up to Watusi).

9. Scaring Amish people by inadvertently driving through their cow pasture after the detour signs just ended and I figured that the road listed on the driving atlas was really a road and not some cartographers practical joke.

10. Stockpiling water. And barbecue sauce.

Watch This Space

2009-04-14T15:20:00.004-04:00

If nothing happens here in the next week, you have my permission to take up book reading instead.

I'm busy...you know...eating bon-bons.

ETA: I have also downloaded and am watching every single episode of The Office (American version.) I'll tell you with character I identify with. Early indications say it will be either Pam or Jim...like everyone else. However, I do see a bit of Michael Scott in me. I'm simultaneously frightened and thrilled.

Happy Birthday, KK!

2009-04-01T09:34:00.018-04:00

Protecting (sort of) KK's identity for that day when her eldest child gets unfettered access to Teh Interwebs.

Today is our good friend KK's birthday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KK!

Since I've been so very busy these past few weeks and months what with the head parasites and then the stomach demons followed immediately by the mucilage-up-the-nose virus, and all that preceded by the most dreadful of all PSAD syndrome (political-seasonal-affective-disorder) which had left me in a funk of nihilism and self-righteous binging on high-fat foods -

not to mention trying to plan a Girl Scout camping trip -

I have sadly (and without any real good excuse) not tended well my friendship with my Dear KK.

It's my own fault.

I've been miserable and also highly-contagious. And frankly, since there are wide varieties of pharmaceuticals which can both alleviate symptoms and provide protective barriers between the funk and the funk-free (although, not phunk free), any really good and creative excuses (i.e. lies) are instantly done away with.

So how to make it up?

Well, I thought I'd go back to the beginning. Relive and retell the herstory of me and KK, and in doing so, prove that although I may seem to have drifted from our friendship, I still have the hull in site and am willing to paddle back through the flotsam and jetsam of everyday distractions to re-board, swab the decks, fire the engines, and sail off into the deep blue sea where we will pour buckets of gin and limes over each other as we enter the realm of King Neptune and leave our polliwog ways behind.

Gentle Reader...

I first met KK on the deck of a party boat in New Orleans on the night before her debutante ball.

I had just graduated college and was road-tripping across the United States in my 1984 Dodge Colt. At a truck stop outside of Baton Rouge, I met up with a migrant cocktail waiter who told me about some quick-cash job opportunities working the deb party circuit from Louisiana through to Texas, and he promised to help me find work if I pretended to be his valet.

The night I first saw KK, she was in full blossom on the deck of a hired steamboat, dressed in a strapless plum gown, holding court with a Manhattan in one hand and a bowl of penne with homemade ragu in the other. Hailing from the Little Italy Eighth of the French Quarter, her parents were self-made noodle-makers who made most of their dough when Emeril Lagasse commissioned them to produce a Cajun ditalini for use in his gumbos. The night of the party, KK - the Dolce Praline - was regaling her guests with tales of her recent trip to Monaco where she worked with a charity for the homeless of Monte Carlo and, mostly, did a lot of "free-for-all" sunbathing to even out her tan.

KK and escort at her debutante ball

She didn't speak to me that evening, but I did later hold her hair back as she graciously fed the fish of the mighty Mississippi with the contents of her stomach. This would not be the last time I would perform such a service, and many a ouzo-fueled evening later along many a European river, she would do the same for me.

It wasn't until years later in a basement bar in Prague that I would meet KK again. She was on stage under a single flickering light bulb, strumming a banged-up red guitar and singing throaty French chansons. When she called to the audience for "a real cigarette, no more stinking Gauloise!", it was my good fortune to have one last Marlboro Light smuggled in my backpack between the pages of a week-old copy of Le Monde. After her set, we sat at a small corner table and drank skunky pilsners all night, talking about life at home in the United States and braiding friendship bracelets with the beer bottle labels.

We busked our way back to Paris, stopping here and there in one town or another to take on extra work in a salt mine or as artists models, and finally parted ways when I headed back to Pennsylvania with plans to ride the crest of a new London dance fad and teach Macarena classes to awaiting club kids, while KK flew to Brazil to train as an aerial acrobat with the upcoming Cirque Du Soleil show, Nabos!

Madame Halushki at The Bank dance club on Spring Garden Street

Fifteen years passed before KK and I again crossed paths, this time on an Internet message board for hysterical mothers-to-be. Both otherwise subdued and domesticated via household ritual and the demands of worrying about whether or not the soft cheese or lunch meat we just ate would rot our fetus' mind-to-be, we found and renewed our mutual creative outlet in typing long posts which outlined our Doomsday peanut butter stockpile program and imagined scenarios in which either A) a jet airliner nose-dived into Three Mile Island and I'd be forced to flee westward with my family to live in KK's root cellar or B) the "detainees" at Area 51 escaped and KK would need to hightail eastbound to hole-up in my laundry room until the advancing war machines were brought down by an uploaded man-made computer virus, or the aliens themselves succumbed mortally to an otherwise benign human virus, probably Roseola or Hand-Foot-Mouth Disease.

Our friendship this time was fast and firm and one that could not be severed again by distance or time.

Although, lice and screaming children have tested its warp and woof, let me tell you.

And so! Happy Birthday to my friend and yours, KK!

Here's to many more years together - though across the miles - and maybe if you're real good, KK, I'll post that photo of you being painted déshabillé in Bad Durrnberg.

-------------

And now, friends, please feel free to post in the comments your "How I Met KK" story or favorite reminiscence of KK. Let's make this a ~~April Fools Day~~ birthday to remember!

nataliedee.com

wyrdless wednesday

2009-03-25T12:17:00.008-04:00

2009 St. Patrick's Day Parade
Girardville, PA

PSA: People! Please, please, please!

2009-03-18T14:17:00.021-04:00

www.nataliedee.com

When I was growing up, kids didn't wear bike helmets.

When I was growing up, we kids rode around in the back of a pick-up truck, ate Tastykakes for dinner, and watched after-school television until our eyeballs swelled to the size of melons and our brains shrank to the shape of a well-weathered walnut.

It was all good.

We all turned out okay.

(I'll pause while you wipe clean the image of your childhood friend, Gary, now in lock-up. Also, my apologies to all those kids who actually did fall out of the backs of pick-up trucks and thus aren't around to post a comment that, actually, they didn't turn out okay, thankyouverymuch.)

Oh sure, there was that one overweight girl in the fifth grade. And the middle-school boy who went bumper-hopping (see: hooky-bobbing) and now lives on immortalized in the Darwin Award annals. But generally, life was simple and the big no-nos were reserved for sitting inside the house on any day when the temperature was above 12 degrees, smacking your sister in the head, and eating meat on Fridays.

And the worst thing that could ever happen to a kid - from a kid's perspective anyway- would be to "have cooties".

Frankly, back then I had no idea what a "cooty" even was. I just knew that if you had 'em, you got picked last for kickball and weren't asked to share anyone's Tatstykakes at lunch.

Ah, my idyllic childhood!

Nowadays, we know better. About a lot of things.

Most importantly, we know that kids don't turn out okay unless they are the recipients of a lot of hands-on parenting. We also more clearly understand that huge amounts of Kevlar are required to safely escort most children through the bike riding/roller skating/baseball playing stages, and that only the most foolhardy parent would allow their child to engage in higher-risk activities such as horseback riding, ice hockey, or walking three blocks to visit their friend without first implanting a GPS tracking advice in the skin behind their ear and/or wrapping them in the same titanium as airplane black boxes.

Also, we now know that boob tube is at the heart of most every childhood problem - from ricketts to gingivitis to the sustained implulse to smack your sister in the head - and so televisions are rarely seen in homes these days, and what television there is, is strictly monitored and used for educational purposes only.

And yes, this post is so far dripping with honey-coated sarcasm.

Just having some fun.

:-D

Ehem. I'll get to my point....

Frankly, I think most parents are not so extreme. Frankly, I think most parents these days fall in the happy medium of being relatively sane - if not having their own pet parenting quirks that a child can easily overcome with a session or two of talk therapy, usually during the summer between high school and college - and that moderation, if not the panacea for most problems, at least will allow our children to turn out as "okay" as most of us have.

You're mostly happy, right? Right.

We don't want to parent too perfectly, do we? Think of all the great blogs you'd miss out on in 18 years or so.

However, with all this happy-to-be-good-enough parenting mixed with benign neglect and the push to help kids feel more self-actualized and emotionally-validated young human animals even as their leashes get shorter, I find one hold-over from the ridiculous good-ole-days of Clackers and lead-flavored teething rings:

Cooties.

Cooties are where past and present collide. Cooties are where emotionally supporting our children and lessons in anti-bigotry suddenly compete and collide with our own repressed traumatic memories of having the dodge ball thrown directly at the bridge of our Coke-bottle glasses because we couldn't stumble out of the way quickly enough in our orthopedic shoes.

Cooties are where we didn't turn out "okay".

Now, I'll be the first to admit that, as a parent, I dislike cooties. "Cooties", I've come to find out, are parasites. Bugs. Lice, scabies, ticks...you got it crawling on you and living off your life blood, and you got yourself a cooty.

Cooties make you itch.

Cooties make you scratch.

I bet you're scratching right now just thinking about cooties.

But here's where I need to part ways with the cooty paranoia and politically incorrect cooty-ism of the 1970s, especially as it pertains to hair cooties.

Having hair cooties, as it turns out, doesn't mean that you don't bathe enough. Cooties don’t mean you’re a hippy lovechild. Why, I’ve been to thirteen Grateful Dead shows and left each and every one without any living hair ornaments. Well…beyond the hallucinated raccoon on my head.

Hair cooties actually like to have clean hair to hang onto and clean heads to lay their eggs. Brushing often might keep a cooty from latching on (which now I understand some grandmothers’ admonitions to brush your tresses 100 strokes every night), but once it’s on, it’s the greaseless, uncoated hair a cooty loves best. Cooties like when you shampoo every night. Cooties do not like complicated beehive four-day hairdos held high and proud with backcombing and Aquanet .

Hair cooties do not hop. They don’t have jumping legs.

Hair cooties do not fly. They don’t have wings.

Hair cooties have to crawl onto your head, generally from another head, and they have to have a good reason to do so. Pressing your head next to another person’s head seems to be a good reason for a cooty to travel. Getting shaken off in a hat and then finding a new head inside the hat is a fine reason for relocating. One nit (cooty egg) does not a cootie infestation make. You need a full-grown female laying eggs on your head, or a male and female cooty having cooty sex on your head for more cooties to abound.

It does, in fact, take a concerted effort to get a cooty on your head, let alone keep it there to raise a family. Lots of shampooing. Lots of head-to-head contact. Free-flowing locks and being invited to a lot of sleepovers will do it. Thinking of it this way, one might reckon that it would be the popular grade school girls (ironically) most likely to get cooties.

And yet, so much cooty hate. So much turning back to the bygone days of maliciously pointing out the cooty-kid to other parents, other children. So many dodge balls to the crotch of the cooty-boy in gym class.

People. People. We are not turning out okay.

I understand. I do. No one likes the thought of bugs taking up residence on their head. No one likes the itchy-scratchy feeling they get just thinking of the word “cooty”.

But the silence must stop. Or maybe the talking must stop. I've confused myself.

Nonetheless! For the silence and/or the talking to stop, the hatred and public expressions of parasitic grossed-outness must end as surely as we no longer publicly okay kids eating sugary cereals or parents missing preschool graduation because it was the final season episode of Lost.

Because, I’ll tell you what.

More than skeeving at the thought of critters nesting in a scalp, I absolutely hate the thought of having to vacuum more than I have to. I detest bagging up all the stuffed animals for two weeks and spending my Saturday doing 3,452 loads of laundry. I do not thrill to sitting with a screaming child as they I go through her hair with a literal fine-toothed comb for 1-2 hours every night over 10 days to make sure that I caught every cooty, every cooty baby, every speck-sized cooty egg glued to a shaft of hair.

And why did I have to do all this? Why?

Because of the continued social stigma of cooties.

Because of “Eeeewwww” faces at the school lunch table and book club wine debauch.

Because one of my acquaintances was too embarrassed, too mortified to let me know that her family had been struggling for weeks to oust the little critters, even after my kids had spent a weekend at their house, all this kids pressing their darling heads together.

I feel bad. I feel bad for her, for her kids, for my kids…for the anxiety of being found out as the cooty girl.

But most of all, I feel bad that when it comes to cooties, we have failed.

We have not turned out “okay”.

We have not overcome with knowledge and compassion.

We are living in the dark ages of pouring kerosene on heads to illuminate - not only our ignorance - but, more sadly, our fears. (Ugh.)

So please, people. Please, please, please.

Be gentle with the cooty kids.

And when you get the phone call from another parent, take a deep breath and graciously thank them for alerting you as soon as possible, so that one potential bug need not turn into a three-ring circus.

Then immediately set up a non-dodgeball playdate with your friend's child. Skating or hiking are lovely non head-pressed-together activities.

And for heaven’s sake, no matter what you think about my “moderation in parenting” rant in the beginning of this post, if you go biking, please also wear a helmet. No matter how “okay” you turned out.

(Just decline any offers to share one. Politely.)

Best mainstream information on cooties.

Best alternative info on cooties.

Cooties are becoming resistant to pesticides.

The Meaning of Lice

WordLESS WEndesDAY Brings Da Phunk!

2009-03-11T02:03:00.005-04:00

Via Parliament

Sellin' it!

Such A Thing As Too Much Imagination

2009-03-04T13:44:00.007-05:00

You know you have an overactive imagination - or watch too many movies, or visit too many conspiracy theory blogs - when...

One sunny afternoon, you are in the Wegman's supermarket parking lot, loading your car with elite groceries, strapping your toddler into his car seat.

As you're wrestling puffy coat arms and concentrating on trying to snap all the plastic latches without catching a chubby hunk of neck, your toddler is suddenly very still, rapt by something up in the sky, something high over your left shoulder.

"LOOK! MOMMY! SOMETHING UP IN SKY!" he yells, a look of glee and awestruck wonder on his face.

And instead of thinking "Bird, balloon, rainbow...", your first thoughts are, of course.

(in descending order):

Because the best way to terrorize a medium-sized suburb of a podunk capital city is absolutely to send a squadron of 1941 Messerschmitt's over a strip mall parking lot and fire at grocery carts filled with whole grain bread, squash soup, and organic escarole.

And no, I don't as a rule eat mushrooms that I find in the woods.

(P.S. What was my toddler actually pointing to? A cloud. Unless there was a pterodactyl there seconds before. It could happen.)

Retail Book Store PASS-FAIL

2009-02-19T00:35:00.022-05:00

(The following examples all taken from the real life adventures of Yours Truly, Bookseller Extraordinaire.)

Inquiries

“Uhm, I’m looking for a book, but I don’t know the author. I don’t know the title either. I think it’s fiction, but come to think of it, it might be non-fiction. I do know that it has a brownish cover. Or maybe it’s blue.”

FAIL

“Do you have a copy machine? I don’t want to buy this whole book. I just need a copy of the first chapter and a few graphs.”

FAIL

“Could you tell me what books you have in the store about overcoming procrastination? I’m thinking about coming in next week to buy one.”

FAIL

“Do you have any books on the topic of pig farming between the years 1790 and 1791 in France and how the ambient stress from living during the Revolution affected the reproductive cycles of swine? Oh, and I need it today to finish a term paper for college.”

FAIL

“Does your manager only hire extremely good-looking people at this store, or can anyone get a job here?”

PASS

Complaints

“I find the exposed breasts on this book cover (The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding) to be offensive! You should take this off the display!”

FAIL

“Uh, there’s a table full of Kama Sutra books right near the only open cash register and right at my seven year old’s eye level. I‘d really rather start with the basics for our first birds and bees talk; not start by fielding questions about The Pair of Tongs position.”

PASS

“Your store carries way more books on left wing politics than right wing politics! What are you, a bunch of fascists?!”

FAIL

“Your store carries way more books on right wing politics than left wing politics! What are you, a bunch of fascists?!”

FAIL

“Why does your manager only hire exceptionally good-looking people? My self-esteem dips every time I shop here.”

PASS

Behavior

Inserting your church’s evangelical Bible tract pamphlets between the pages of the sex/addiction/death-and-dying books.

FAIL

Inserting your Army recruiting cards between the pages of every GED study guide.

FAIL

Taking porn magazines to the gardening section to read, and then leaving copies of Long Schlongs next to the books on hostas and shade gardening.

FAIL

Taking porn magazines to the children's section to read, and then leaving copies of Extreme Thong Wedgies next to the Backyardigans sticker books.

EPIC FAIL

Falling asleep on the comfy chairs for five hours, and then becoming irate when an employee gently nudges you to see whether or not you are dead.

FAIL

Sitting in the Psychology section and reading through every book on the topic of overcoming obsessive-compulsive disorder….

FAIL

And then not putting the books back on the shelf.

PASS

Cash Register Etiquette

Talking on your cell phone the entire time you are making a transaction, but none of your phone conversation includes the words “…now apply a tourniquet right above the severed joint!”

FAIL

After completing your transaction, moving away from the register to reconfigure the entire contents of your purse/backpack/valise.

PASS

Quipping “I guess it’s free!” if your book doesn’t immediately scan at the register.

FAIL

People below the age of twelve making a purchase entirely with pennies.

PASS

Miscellaneous

Your three year old toddler accidentally peeing in the kids department.

PASS

Your twenty-three year old drunk boyfriend accidentally peeing all over the mens room floor.

FAIL

Stalking the teenage baristas because you’re a lonely old bastard who can’t afford cable television.

FAIL

Getting loud and angry with a minimum-wage retail bookseller because
a) corporate management made the decision not to carry your best friend’s first novel, or
b) you don’t like the color scheme inside the store, or
c) customers are reading the books before buying them and you think that this is unjust, or
d) the book you want costs more than you think it should, or
e) the bookseller is so abundantly good-looking,

FAIL

Telling a bookseller that you love her after she finds the last copy of Julius Caesar Spark Notes the night before your final exam.

SLIM PASS

Telling the bookseller that she is also preternaturally good-looking.

FULL PASS

WordLEss wedNEsdAY

2009-02-04T16:04:00.006-05:00

The world beneath my furniture...

...where dust mops fear to tread.

Wordless Wednesday

Hello. I'm 42 Years Old. Pass The Geritol.

2009-01-31T16:14:00.006-05:00

Way Cool Daughter: Whoa. Who is this singing?

Way Hip Mother: This? It's Amy Winehouse.

Way Cool Daughter: Pfft.

Way Hip Mom: What?

Way Cool Daughter: Someone should buy her some singing lessons.

Way Hip Mom: Uh, actually, she's generally considered to be a very good singer. One of the best of her generation...some say.

Way Cool Daughter: Well, she's singing all over the place. She's all warbley.

Way Thought-She-Was Hip Mom:

Way Cool Daughter: You can still like her. I'm just saying she's not very good.

Remember! There's still time for you to be a fan of a has-been too! If your blog reader has had the good sense to drop me from your line-up, you can be way un-hip and add me back on! Presto!

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Edit To Add: I suppose that one of the bad things about not having comments open is that now instead of a gentle reader discreetly alerting me to my spelling errors, it's my husband prancing gleefully into the room to disingenuously wonder whether I had meant to spell "cool" as "cook". Erem.

If I'm Not Blogging, I Must Be....

2009-01-29T23:55:00.016-05:00

I was messing with my blog and did something funky with my feed. If my blog suddenly isn't coming up in your readers, try this...again.

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If I'm Not Blogging, I Must Be....

1. Working at my part-time bookseller job and trying not to give smart-alecky answers whenever anyone calls the store and asks "I'm wondering if you have a book?"

2. Filling out the reams of paperwork necessary to embark on any Girl Scout event and then bandaging the bloody stumps that are now my fingers.

3. Driving to Philadelphia with a carload of scouts who sing "Jingle Bells, Batman Smells" for two hours straight.

4. Nailing shut the medicine cabinet after the toddler manages to climb on the counter, retrieve a bottle of gummie thank-god-no-iron vitamins, open the childproof cap, and eat a handful of said gummies, and then do it again after I went down to the basement to retrieve laundry.

5. Calling roofers, comparing estimates, and then wondering how hard it could be to thatch the roof myself.

6. Sitting in a freezing cold ice skating rink because a week's worth of outside temperatures in the teens is just too balmy, if you ask me.

7. Attending the state farm show twice: once to walk up and down aisles and admire 2,000 cow buttocks; the second time to admire 2,000 tractors and other various farming equipment, and to photograph a two-year-old sitting on 1,975 of those tractors and other various farming equipment before his melting down at not being able to take home a large orange backhoe, I don't care how cool it is.

8. Not sleeping.

9. Still not packing the Christmas decorations and putting them in the basement.

10. Cleaning up cat vomit and hairballs.

11. Staring into the fridge and wondering what the thick layer of shiny purple and gray goo covering the middle shelf could be.

12. Yelling things like "Just give him the screwdriver so he'll stop screaming!" and "We can fit boarding school into our budget if need be!"

13. Pairing socks.

14. Eating whole grains.

15. Driving slowly past Powerball vendors and imagining myself using hundred-dollar bills to hotwax my legs.

16. Listening to a toddler gasp through croup and not even considering alternative or holistic remedies, just hand me the the steroids and a Bam Bam diaper cover. (This after previous episodes where child turned blue around lips, etc. I'm not about the drugs in most cases, but in this case, I'm all about the drugs if it keeps him breathing and out of the hospital. End of story.)

17. Wondering.

18. Arranging my bangs to lie (lay? So revoke my English degree....) fetchingly over my right eye and then pretending I'm a '60s soul singer.

19. Reading about men in kilts and the women who love them and oatcakes and way too much with the sado-homo-erotic torture scenes and the Loch Ness Monster.

20. Hemming pants.

21. Celebrating a 10th birthday.

22. Contributing to our national obesity epidemic, one box of Thin Mints at a time.

23. Watching the BBC production of Bleak House and wondering how to incorporate "Shake me up, Judy!" into everyday conversations.

24. Meandering through versions of Dark Eyes.

25. Making the decision to turn off comments for a while and seeing whether what I write is affected by not wondering whether what I am writing will get more or less response than something else I could be writing.

Write?

Write.

Wordless Wednesday: Not Being Teh Awesome

2009-01-21T23:50:00.008-05:00

"What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility —
a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves,
our nation, and the world..."

~ Barack Obama, Inauguration Address

National Mall After Inauguration

I can haz some personal responsibility
for the environment?

Pack it in, pack it out.

Leave no trace.

Be more Teh Awesome.

New Year's Resolution #2: Be More Teh Awesome!

2009-01-18T23:47:00.033-05:00

This post was written for Parent Bloggers Network as part of a sweepstakes sponsored by The Quaker Oats Company.

My second New Year's Resolution post is inspired by The Parent Blogger Network’s challenge to come clean publicly on some of the promises I’ve made to myself to be more Teh Awesome in 2009.

And I have to honest:

This is going to be a tough one to write about.

Like most bloggers who journal out-loud on The Internets about their every stray thought, involuntary bodily reflex, and lunch selections for each day of the week, I too am painfully shy, have a strong sense of privacy, and am in possession of a humble and undemanding ego.

And as such, it’s a bit embarrassing and uncomfortable when someone asks me to…well…to toot my own horn.

I mean, as someone who has published four years’ worth of ramblings, rantings, and general brain detritus - oh…and stories about poo - you can surely understand that I’d now feel more then a little self-conscious when asked to further blather-on about how swell I am.

But what the hell. I’ll give it a whirl.

The Challenge (via www.startwithsubstance.com and Parent Bloggers Network ):

Tell us how you and your family already help others,
or how you plan to add that to your list for 2009.

Whew. This is going to be tough.

I’ll limit my awesomeness to three current examples and three objectives for the coming weeks and months.

How I Already Help Others By Being Teh Awesome, by Madame Halushki

1. Good hygiene and personal maintenance.

I try to keep my fingernails neatly trimmed and the hairs between my eyebrows plucked. You see, along with such stressful situations as living in an active war zone or landing an airbus on the Hudson River, trying to engage in polite conversation with someone when all you can do is stare at the bridge of their nose and think, “Tweezers…tweezers…tweezers…GOL-DAMMIT TWEEZERS!” is proven to dangerously elevate cortisol levels and also cause life-threatening muscle atrophy as you forcibly restrain your hand from leaping toward the other person with a hot wax strip. Ditto raggity fingernails, except with an emery board.

2. My astounding lack of athleticism makes everyone else feel like an Olympic champion.

I run like a chicken. I throw like a soup bowl. I jump like a cement parking barrier. Instead of making your own resolution to get fit and take more exercise, just sign up for the aerobics class I’m enrolled in, and then while I’m tripping over my feet to the Night Fever Power Dance Mix, you just sit next to me and have a slice of cheesecake or read a book.

Even without moving a glute, you’ll still lose weight, increase your stamina, and attain those buns of steel. I don’t know how. It’s a mystery of physics. But, you’re welcome.

3. I am a Girl Scout Leader.

As a Girl Scout Leader, I mostly bitch a lot about the colossal amounts of tedious paperwork we have to fill out and hand in every time we request to walk the troop across a street. And then I whine to Council that the numerous Leader Training sessions are too involved and/or too time consuming and/or redundant and/or always end with me calling my doctor for a refill of muscle relaxers. My bitching and griping, however, releases the burden of being Oh Boy It’s THAT Leader from all the other leaders so that they can then congratulate themselves on being quite sane and reasonable and grown-up in comparison to my tantruming.

I also say things to my scouts like, “I’m warning you, if you plan on bringing gorp into the tent at night after all I’ve told you about carnivorous animals sniffing out granola and M&Ms from a valley away, then at least pack a set of your dental records next to your sit-upon so we can identify your remains among the bear scat.”

Along with instilling a healthy respect for nature, I think it’s important for children to learn early how to tease out the truth from the neurotic paranoia, as well as how to time their eye-rolling so that the adults in charge don’t catch them doing it.

And now,

My Awesomeness-To-Others Goals For 2009, by Madame Halushki

Be more hilarious to more people around the globe.

I think I’m pretty hilarious now. But I think I can do better and spread the hilarity to more people in all corners of the world. Even though the world is round and has no corners.

To achieve this ambitious goal, I plan to 1) buy a globe; 2) learn the words for “Polish”, “mother-in-law”, and “double-knit polyester” in Mandarin, Hindustani, and Farsi; and 3) change the name of my blog to “WikipediaGoogleParisHiltonSex”.

Find more and better ways to be a totally perfect parent.

I take my job raising the next generation real serious. After all, at some point I’ll be sending these kids out into the world as my gift to humanity, and I would get endless hate mail and requests for store credit on returned goods if I gave the world a gift of self-centered, do-nothing, can’t-take-a-jokesters, even if my kids were also super geniuses and exceptionally good looking. Which they are.

To that end, I’ve again broken down my main goal into smaller manageable goals and workable action plans:

1. Get my kids to think more about the needs and feelings of others. I will do this by constantly complaining to them that if it weren’t for their Sysiphean laundry piles, I’d be able to write more and be more self-actualized as a person, and plus I’d have more time to fart around on Twitter.

2. Instill a solid work ethic. I will do this by a) making them do chores to earn their own spending money; b) requiring that all chores and homework are completed before they can use the computer or television; and c) by never offering empty praise or easy self-esteem builders like

“Good job on that test, sweetie!”

or

“Oh, what a pretty picture you drew for Mommy!”

and instead encourage educational rigor and sustained effort through more motivational and constructive feedback, such as

“Your hard work really paid off; but, I bet if you put in a few more hours with the Magic Eye book every night, you’ll get a 20/15 at your next ophthalmologist appointment”

and

“You call that a picture of a duckie on a pond? Your perspective is abysmal and the palette you chose is completely wrong for the emotion I think you’re trying to evoke. Try again and don’t be afraid to use the Goofy Grape crayon. And for gol’s sake, is it too much to ask for a vanishing point?”

3. Preserve my children’s youthful joie de vivre and appreciation for the absurd by documenting the minutia of their lives on my blog so that they can refer back eternally to all those silly-willy things they said and did. I will also continue to insist that I can sing and dress like Christina Aguilera, well into my 80s.

Constantly assess whether the consequences of my immediate and impending private and public actions will also enable - or at least not substantially impede - other human beings on their own pursuit to enjoy the luxury of living long enough and well enough to complain about the kinds of piddly crap I complain about.

I’m still figuring this one out.

I think it has something to do with Living Simply So That Others Can Simply Live and calling my local and state representatives so often that they sweat a little right along their hairline when they hear my name.

Oh, and also eating more whole grains and installing low flush toilets.

-------------------

Now, if you want to read how other bloggers are seriously going to change the world in 2009 and spread their own brands of Teh Awesome, click on this here link

Teh Awesome Is Everywhere!

and scroll down to read all the do-goodness there is out there. There's a lot. And I'm not even being at all hilarious when I say that it's people like these who keep the world spinning smoothly even on days when the planet is threatening to just shake us all off, take its remaining polar ice caps, and drift into the silent void.

It thinks that some time.

It needs more hugs.

And Teh Awesome.

You're welcome again.

nataliedee.com

New Year's Resolution #1: No More Crafting As Penance

2009-01-10T01:51:00.008-05:00

I’m back.

I was gone so long because…because….

Because I was...uh...in traction.

That’s right, I was in traction. I was all trussed up with ropes and pulleys and a long clear drip tube running from my hoodeehoo to a whatsit bag attached to the side of my bed.

There was this, oh this just horrible...accident...thing.

It was…it was awful.

Really, truly, and desperately terrifying.

You see...I ran into a creative wall.

Well, okay, technically it wasn’t even a creative wall. More like a wall shaped like a series of New Year’s Eve gin and tonics that clocked in at about ninety-nine parts gin to one part quinine juice.

I don’t know who taught my neighbor to make gin and tonics, but these things would have killed James Bond.

And so, I began my New Year 2009 with a hangover that caused hallucinations of Linda Blair standing over my bed with a bowl of pea soup and me promising Jesus, Mary and The Carpenter that I’d repent, stop using too much pure vanilla extract in pancakes, throw away my Nyquil, and become a proper, sober, suburban mother. A mother who scrapbooked her children’s memories properly on acid-free pages decorated with die-cut soccer balls and Mrs. Grossman’s flower stickers instead of being a madwoman who transcribed and electronically published in detail all the madness inherent in trying to civilize three small humans who fought their mother's civilization hazing with tooth and nail and an entire repertoire of shrugs and sighs and the occasional throwing of Matchbox cars. A woman who pushed away the dessert cart as well as the cocktail tray and instead happily nibbled on lentils and whole grain omelets and sipped spring water with a slice of organic lemon. A lady who showered more regularly and used an eyebrow tweezer on her unibrow for god’s sake not to mention also on attacking that two-inch long black hair that began sprouting on her chin when she turned forty.

For, you understand, a good strong hangover administered when you no longer have youth and long lazy child-free mornings on your side is enough to send one willingly and achingly into the arms of one‘s confessor. Or to the “Inspiration and Rededicating One's Life For the New Year” book display at Barnes and Noble. Or to the nearest A.C. Moore craft store.

And so, I spent the first week of the 2009 in a sort of reading, crafting, exfoliation frenzy.

(It would be really handy if The Secret just included an Appendix with instructions on the later two.)

And then I found the Alka Seltzer.

And then Rimarama kicked me in the buttocks.

So, while feeling a bit chastened by my queasy entrance into the new year, I feel as if I’ve finally shaken off the worst bits of my frenzy of mundane enlightenment.

Nothing against crafting, by the way. If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll remember that I fashioned a quite lovely little Christmas wreath out of beer tabs and overdue library notices.

Heh. It was actually created from scraps of recycled and felted wool. Lovely that! I’d never felt so wholesome. Get it?! Felt…so…

Anyway…I apologize for the unannounced hiatus.

And for offending any crafters by condescending to reduce their art to nothing more than a cheap attempt to regain my soul.

I also apologize to all those people who don't use a few stiff drinks as an excuse to not publicly humiliate their family for two weeks.

That's a bit assbackwards, isn't it?

Well, for what it's worth, I’ll try to be a better artist in the future and stick to what I know. I'll also not let a few measly juniper berries come between me and my public.

So without any further adieu…

Halushki!

The 2009 Version!

Now with more Lead-free Bali-Style Spacer Beads!

A Yonko Christmas Card

2008-12-30T11:00:00.009-05:00

From our extended family to yours.
Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and a Worldwide Epiphany.

Holy Ascension Orthodox Church - Frackville, PA

Daddy and Terzo on top of mountain, on hunt for wind turbines
(or "Big Windmills")

Shed, Lone Pine Farm

Yonko Sisters

Ghost of Christmas Past

iPod hat

Dozer, rescued friend

Generations

Enough is enough

Halushki will be back in the new year, with extra butter and onions.

And even more unique. If you can believe it.

Semi-Wordless Wednesday

2008-12-17T10:53:00.002-05:00