I might not have had Bob Ross's painting abilities, but I did have his hairstyle...

Those of you who are of increasingly advanced age, as I am, may remember the artist Bob Ross from the back-in-the-day PBS show The Joy of Painting.  

Bob used to talk in an extremely mellow and calm voice, all about the "happy clouds" and "happy trees" and how you didn't make a mistake, just a "happy little accident" and in the span of one half hour TV show, he managed to produce a pretty darn decent painting, usually a landscape, and make it look easy to boot.


Well, back in the day when the Husband was just the Boyfriend and we were poor college student types, we decided that we too could paint like Bob Ross.  Well, "we" in this scenario was actually the Boyfriend, as I've never held the faintest illusion that I could actually paint (or draw, or sketch, or pastel, or sculpt or do anything artistic that involves me using my hands and brain to reproduce something that another human being can readily identify) and this is an opinion with which many unfortunate art teachers from the early 70s through the late 80s would wholeheartedly concur.  I am most pathetically Artistically Ungifted, y'all.  But, I was swept up in his enthusiasm and agreed that this would be a fun weekend activity, so we went to the art supply store and picked up some Bob Ross painting kits.


After doing an exhaustive internet search (read: fifteen seconds with my good friend Google and then five minutes of making Hubby stop the gargantuan computer project he's been working on all weekend to turn around and look at link after link as I hollered at him "Hey, do you think this is it?  This must be it, right?  Oh, no, wait, isn't this the one?  What about this one?"), I'm fairly certain that this was the kit we bought, or it was from the same series at least, although the canvas that came with ours was much smaller (again, poor college students - we didn't have the cash to spend on a deluxe canvas set) and of "landscape" instead of "portrait" orientation.  (Well, that's the way we painted them, anyhow.)  We went back to Hubby Boyfriend's apartment and set up our project.  We worked on our canvases intently and diligently for the better part of the afternoon, finally getting to step 10 (signing our paintings with pride!) and left them to dry.  I'd like to tell you that our painting experience was as mellow and fluffy as Bob and his hair, but it wasn't.  Not even the magic of Bob Ross could turn me into a decent artist.  What should have been a glorious, snowcapped Mystic Mountain, rising up above a lake and river into a happy-little-cloud-speckled sky looked more like a hunk of moldy cheese, smoldering on a shiny salad plate.  Oh well.

Shortly after our Wild Weekend of Art, the Boyfriend upgraded to the Fiancé and shortly after that, we began living together.  I began the practice of proudly displaying our masterpieces side by side in our first apartment and kept the tradition up for many residences over the years, until the paintings got packed away for a move and lost to the set of Boxes One Never Actually Unpacks, but Still Moves from House to House Where They Reside in a Forgotten Corner of the Basement.  Periodically, I'd think "Hmmm, I wonder what happened to those Bob Ross paintings we did?" and even attempt a search of the BONAU,bSMfHtHWTRinFCotB but no matter how many of those dang Mystery Boxes I would paw through, it was always in vain.


Until last month, that is, when I was helping Kiddo gather materials for school project and opened up the trunk in which I have stored copies of just about every photo we've ever taken of her in the past 7.75 years.  This trunk also contains several other odds and ends in the "memento" realm, like the lock of hair from Kiddo's first haircut, copies of her birth announcements (along with approximately 200 extra prints of the photo we sent out with her birth announcement - um, what the heck were we thinking?) and many miscellaneous photos of ours taken well before Kiddo arrived on the scene.  And there, in the trunk, I found them.  The Bob Ross paintings.  Both of them, tucked away in the bottom of the trunk (which, in hindsight, seems a perfectly logical repository for them, and one I should've therefore thought of instead of one of the basement boxes), in all their technicolor glory.

I haven't hung them up again, though I just might.  I think I'd want to frame them first, which is something we couldn't afford to do back when they were created and something I never got around to in subsequent years.  We'll see if they make it up onto the wall or if they languish on top of the scanner where they've been since last month when I unearthed them.  In the meantime, however, I proudly present the Internet Unveiling of the Smiths' Mystic Mountains:


Mr. Smith's (not too bad, really):

and mine:

I'd like to remind you that theoretically, these should have looked identical to each other as well as pretty darn close to Bob's original:

But hey, if I never did quite match Bob's painting talent, at least I did once rock his hairstyle:

 (image borrowed from the Bob Ross Wikipedia entry)

(me, circa 1987)

Last but not least, I'd like to dedicate this post to my dear Aunt Becky, because she hears Bob Ross's voice in her head (along with Billy Mays, but that's neither here nor there) and because I once promised her that if I ever found the paintings, I'd share them with her.  So, this one's for you, AB!

Heather vs. Potted Plant: Possibly too close to call.

So, back in the day when I was barely a grown-up, having just entered my very earliest 30s and all, I was a contestant on a little game show known as Jeopardy!.  I became a contestant on the show because some of my coworkers, who knew me very well and spent lots of time with me on a daily basis, thought I was smart and had a crazily good memory.  Which was, and I don't mean to brag, pretty much the truth................ back then.  So, these coworkers of mine signed me up to try out for the show, I went down to NYC, passed the contestant exam, did the audition, and a few months later, got the call and flew out to LA for the taping.

But, now, many years later, I'm closing in on 40 in a matter of months and it's all turning to mush.  My memory, that is.  Oh, the long-term memory still seems relatively intact, but short term? Not so much.  Also more mushy than back a decade or so ago?  No, not my midsection, though yeah, that'd be accurate too, but I'm referring to my actual brain itself.  I mean, it never really seems to have recovered 100% from those days of early parenthood when having a young infant in the house = perpetual sleep deprivation.

Case in point: Lately, I seem to lose my car.  A lot.  Like, in a parking spot, of my own choosing, where I parked it.

Take, for example, earlier today.  I had to stop in at the grocery store after church to pick up a few things.  I was inside the store for 10 minutes, tops.  I came back out into the parking lot and............................

Dude, where's my car???

I did that thing that I'd like to think we all do every once in a while.  That "aimlessly wandering with a simultaneously hopeful, sheepish and frustrated look" thing.  I scanned the lanes for my vehicle.  Granted, colors on automobiles are hard to see this time of year in my neck of the woods - they all turn the same shade of "road salt grayish white" - but still, I should've been able to find it in under 10 minutes.  I mean, the parking lot isn't *that* big.

Now, I have strategies I use to combat this problem.  I tend to have "my" spot in any parking lot I visit regularly.  I choose an area and try to find a spot within a couple of spaces of that landmark (a cart return or light pole, for example).  I've thought about getting one of those antenna toppers -

Or I could go more "thematic" -

Or even patriotic, while I'm at it..........

 

 But I fear that short of a flashing, neon sign directly above my vehicle

 

I'd still be wandering around the parking lot with that expression on my face for hours.  Okay, minutes, but enough minutes to feel like a thoroughly doddering fool.  (Oh, and the fact that I was looking for my minivan when I'd actually driven Hubby's car to the store? Double bonus points for my brain, right?!)

Now, fine, perhaps we all get a little Ashton Kutcher and lose our cars temporarily in the parking lot every now and again.  Heck, Seinfeld did a whole episode about losing a car in a parking garage and it was hilarious.  I have further proof that my mind is more scrambled egg than spring chicken.

The week before last, I was browsing through a recipe website because I thought I'd make something new and different.  I was bored of my go-to weekday menus using ground beef, which I had on hand and needed to cook.  So, I came across this recipe for "pizza casserole" and thought "Ooooh, *that* sounds good!" and decided I'd make it for dinner.

Hubby gets home while I'm in the midst of browning the ground beef and boiling the pasta and asks what I'm making.  "Pizza casserole!" I reply, "It's a new recipe!"  He picks up the page I'd printed out and skims over it, and then says "Um, isn't this just baked ziti?"  

.........Yes, yes it was.  Baked ziti, that I make on a fairly regular basis.  The only difference was that I was making it, as the "new" recipe instructed, in a deep casserole dish instead of my lasagna pan.

D'oh!

Want another example of how mushy my old gray matter is these days?  Hubby and I recently got brand-spankin'-new iPhones.  (Cue chorus of angels singing alleluias.)  We'd been eagerly awaiting their release on Verizon for ages and were giddy with glee when they arrived.  Shortly after my iPhone hit my hot, little hand, I texted my dear friend J something to the effect of "OMG This is my first ever text message on my new iPhone! It's so cool!  Woot!  Is this working??" because J is generally pretty quick with responding to texts.  Sure enough, mere moments later, my iPhone dinged (side note: why do all the text notification sounds suck, why are they so long and why can't you do a customized text sound like you can ringtone?  I want answers, Steve Jobs, answers!!) and lo and behold, there was her text:

I just got something in Arabic from you.  Is that you being funny? I don't get it. LOL.

OH NOES!  I promptly freaked out and sent her another text, which I intended to read "Wait, Arabic? Nooooooo!" but which the iPhone's autocorrect changed to "Wait, Arabic? Nippon!"  and then immediately after that, "Is *this* in English?"  after which my phone rang and it was J calling to gently point out that she was yanking my chain and that I was not, in fact, inadvertently texting in Arabic.

Double d'oh!  Also, well played, J.  She said her entire family were all doubled over in laughter because they were sure I'd realize that she was kidding.  Only, I hadn't realized.  Honestly, the thought never occurred to me.

In conclusion, if this is what life is going to be like as I head into middle age, I'd better get one of those Life Alert buzzer necklaces asap, because it can't be that much longer before I've fallen and I can't get up..............

In the meantime, you can now watch my episode of Jeopardy! on YouTube so you can get the reference I made to being smarter than a potted plant in the title up there.  You see, Alex Trebek himself questioned which would be smarter, me or the plant.  In my defense, I don't think my multivitamins have the same oomph as a good dose of Miracle Gro.

Part one of my episode is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFWneTg-VkI

and part two is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kt2i7TCEeoU

Just please, pretend you're laughing with me and not at me, okay?

One way to cure the blahs

So, I've been having a bit of a blah day.  It started out with not wanting to get out of my toasty, snuggly bed while it was still dark outside, but I had to get up and get Kiddo up and at 'em and off to school, so up I got, while Hubby rolled over and went back to sleep for a few more minutes.  *grumble*  While walking through the still-dark house to get to the living room light, I stepped in something cold, wet and oozy - cat hairball.  *grumble grumble*  Kiddo was spectacularly grouchy and griped about every.  Single.  Thing.  From her breakfast to her clothes to her hair, she moaned and dragged, requiring me to have to prod and cajole and, okay, nag to get her rear in gear and out to the bus.  *grumble grumble grumble*  Then, due to my Man Hands With Sausage Fingers, I apparently had entered the wrong time on my iPod Touch (darn that little scrolly-wheel thingy!) when I got the email with the shift assignments and thus, showed up an hour late for my volunteer shift at class pictures, missing Kiddo's class's turn in the process.  *grumble grumble grumble grumble*  Top that all off with the weather, which is gray and rainy, and by midafternoon I was ready to just crawl back into bed and try for a do-over on today, or just sleep through until tomorrow, whichever occurred first.  Seeing as how neither of those options were practical or possible, I went another route.

I did this:

and then, when Kiddo got home from school

I had this ready to go:

(Side note: Great Value brand marshmallows, which are Walmart's generic brand, are the only marshmallows I can find that do not contain artificial food coloring.  Isn't that nuts?  Seriously, every other white marshmallows, from store generic to fancy-pants brand, contain blue food dye.)

Once we had all the elements in place

we got to work -

and then partook of the deliciousness..........

And that?  Cures the blahs just about as well as anything else I could think of (short of crawling back into bed and/or having Hugh Jackman and George Clooney show up on my doorstep to engage in a serenade duel while bearing flowers and chocolate) today.  Plus, I've got a pot roast in the crock pot, so no fussing at the stove for dinner.  I have to go to a PTSA meeting over at Kiddo's school tonight, but I won't think about heading out into the cold and wet again just yet.  I think I'll toast myself just one more marshmallow first...

Should I cue up the Chicken Dance or hit publish?

So as I mentioned in my previous post, something bad did happen while we were on vacation last month.  I've been pondering whether I have the guts to post this, but now that I've actually been called out as a chicken by my friend Andy, who begged me to blog about this once she'd finished laughing her head off at me as I told her the story (really now, I share my deepest, darkest vacation horror story and she just flails about laughing.  Not a dollop of sympathy for my plight), I feel that I have no choice.

I'm warning you up front, any men who might read my blog regularly, occasionally or who accidentally stumble upon this whilst doing some creepo pervy Google search: this is NOT what you want to be reading.  Promise.  If you have never owned your own set of ovaries, do yourself a favor and move on.  Seriously.

Now that it's just us girls in here, I shall begin my Tale of Horror and Woe.

A few days before vacation, Kiddo, her grandma and I hit the outlet mall for some back to school shopping.  This was necessary because Kiddo decided to outgrow the sneakers we'd gotten for her in April, going through just one size in a year apparently not being good enough for her.  Annnnyhow, while we were there, I popped into the Jockey outlet, because I needed new undies and the outlet is my favorite (read: cheapest) place to get them.  I've worn plain, cotton, Jockey for Her undies for years now.  Decades, even.  So, we ducked into the shop, Kiddo on the verge of totally losing her shizzle, all of us low on shopping energy and motivation and hungry for lunch and I just wanted to grab what I needed and go.  I made my way back to the large display area where row after row of multipack Jockey for Hers can be found.  I paused briefly, trying to remember exactly which style it is I prefer.  (I once bought the wrong style and spent the next several months always feeling like the lower-riding-than-my-usual-kind-of-undies were falling down.  Way uncomfortable.)  My eye finally fell upon the kind I prefer, so I grabbed two boxes from the row with my size and headed to the register.  The next day, Hubby did all the pre-trip laundry (yes, I have that awesome a husband, y'all - he does the laundry all the time!) and when I went to pack, I found my new undies (including some colored ones for a change of pace - red!  Blue!  Red and blue paisley!) neatly folded and awaiting me.  I promptly packed those along with a couple other, older pairs out of my drawer and thought that was that.

Then I woke up that first morning of vacation in the hotel and grabbed a pair of my new undies out of the drawer.  "Hmmmmm," I thought to myself, "these seem a big bigger than usual."  I chalked it up to their being new and therefore not shrunken from being washed a thousand and ten times and hopped into the shower.  When it came time to get dressed, I stepped into them.  They were definitely...............roomier than I recalled.  Uh-oh.  I pulled on my shorts and discovered that once I'd fastened them, my new undies were showing above the waistband.  Well, not so much showing as billowing above the waistband of my shorts.  As in a few good inches of underwear material.  Ack.  I found myself tucking my underwear back into my shorts (because what is more comfortable in the heat of late summer Florida, not to mention more slimming, than having a few extra inches of fabric jammed about your midsection?) and trying to get on with my day.

Okay, menfolk, if you ignored me before and are still reading, seriously, you may want to check out for the rest of this.  It's not for you.  This is your last chance to bail out.

So, ladies, it turned out our trip coincided with that certain time of the month and as such, I had to utilize certain items in these voluminous drawers of mine.  Now, I prefer the external, winged variety of such items.  I had attempted to affix one of such items securely to the pertinent section of my, okay, I'm just gonna say it, my granny bloomers.  Off we went to the parks for a day of fun and excitement.  As we were walking from one thing to the next, I felt an odd sensation.  As though something had............. shifted.  Come unstuck, as it were.  And it had.  It had, I mean.  Unfortunately, it only came unstuck for the briefest of moments before resticking itself, backwards.

I'm going to give you a moment here to envision exactly to what the resticking occurred.  You with me?  Yep, I'm going to guess you are.

I shifted about as discreetly as possible, but no amount of shifting was going to help and in fact any and all movement was further complicating the situation.  I told Hubby I had to utilize the facilities, insisted on leaving Kiddo with him (as she normally accompanies me not only into the bathroom whenever we're out someplace in public, but also into the stall with me), and made my way as gingerly and speedily as I could to the nearest ladies' room. Yes, walking was trickier than usual in this situation.  In the stall, I discovered that what I had suspected was correct.  Egads.  I proceeded to cowboy up (no need to put on my big girl panties - already had that taken care of, now didn't I?) and rectify the situation as quickly and quietly as possible.

You know how painful it is to wax your eyebrows, or perhaps your upper lip?  This?  A thousand times worse.  If ever I had contemplated waxing anything below my chin (which I haven't, for the record), I am now soundly convinced not to, ever ever ever.  

When we got home, I pulled out a pair of the same style undies and checked the tags.  Turned out the granny bloomers I'd inadvertently bought were three sizes larger than my normal size.

(The black pair actually fit me.  The paisleys?  Not so much.)

Of course now that they'd been opened, washed and some worn, I can't exactly return them.  So now I know I'll be all set if I ever want to, say, go hang gliding or parasailing or if Kiddo wants a new swing for the backyard... and thus concludes my Tale of Vacation Woe, also known as How to Achieve a Partial Brazilian While Wearing a Ginormous Pair of Drawers. 

Call me Fred. Or Barry.

This afternoon, I went out to tackle the green beast that is also known as our lawn in late summer.  (This would be the second time this week I've had to mow, for those of you keeping score at home.)  I geared up appropriately for the chore with my iPod and headphones and got to cutting.  I did the front and side yards to the strains of my Leonard Cohen playlist, but by the time I got around to the back, I needed something a bit more.... peppy.  Now, Kiddo has recently become enamored of a certain tune on Mommy's iPod, and it is a tune that is near and dear to Mommy's heart.  I first heard it when I was her age or a little bit younger, and I loved it from the very first bongo thump.  It's one that she has been requesting repeatedly for the past few weeks, so it instantly sprang to mind as I scrolled through my playlists.  Perfect choice!

The song of which I speak, of course, is that 70s classic Copacabana by none other than Barry Manilow.  I adored the song as a kid and still do now.  As a child, I was instantly smitten by the drama of the song (not to mention those bongos) and choreographed a dance routine to go with it.  Now, I'm teaching Kiddo the dance moves (and she is embellishing them with lots of added jazz hands.  Kiddo is a big believer in jazz hands) and she and I belt it out when we're driving around town, sitting at the breakfast table, hanging out on the lanai... it's an all-occasion bit of groovy joy.

Anyhow, there I was in the back yard.  Hubby had taken Kiddo up to the playground to burn off some energy, so I had the yard to myself (well, except for the squirrels and bunnies and jays and cardinals, oh and the bees - lots of bees).  I dialed up the Copa and pulled the starter cord on the mower.  (Incidentally, I always feel so.......... macho when I'm pulling the starter cord on the mower.  Especially when it takes a couple of tries before the engine actually catches.  Is that just me?)  I began merrily cutting my way up and down the back .40 and when the disco violins soared above the bongos, I started singing too.  Singing *and* dancing, actually.  Air bongos are pretty much mandated with the Copa, and that dance routine I've been doing for over 30 years now lives in my very marrow (plus Kiddo's jazz hands - she really is right about how jazz hands make anything better).  I think by now it is physically impossible for me to remain silent and still when the Copa is playing.  I've sung and shimmied to it in any form, including Muzak.  (I'm killer in an elevator - the acoustics are fantabulous, you know.) 

So, there I was, just like Fred and his hat rack

See the whole routine right here!

except instead of a jaunty neckerchief with matching red belt and socks, I was wearing a paint-spattered, 10 year old t-shirt over a boob-squashing sports bra and grass-stained sneakers, and instead of a hat rack, I had an old and decrepit lawn mower.  And jazz hands - Fred may've been a great dancer, but he really underutilized the jazz hands.  But other than those tiny details, I was exactly like Fred Astaire.

Naturally, it wasn't until after the last refrain "Copa.....Copacabana" had faded into silence and I was left with naught but the sound of my mower that I happened to catch sight of one of our neighbors.  Specifically, the lovely, older lady whose property backs up to ours, and who had apparently decided to take advantage of the cooler temperatures and breeze today to do a bit of gardening in her back flower beds.  The ones that are right at the property line, which means she had a front row seat for Heather-Fred-Barry and my dance partner, the lawn mower.  Totally busted.  Yeek.  I did what any self-respecting Fanilow would do in such a situation.  I waited for the next song to cue up and then treated her to a little Bandstand Boogie.  With plenty of jazz hands, of course.

Not *exactly* a bee in my bonnet

So last night I had a Girls' Night Out with my BFF.  We started the evening by swinging by Sugar Mountain Bakery Shoppe, where we had some delicious cupcakes as a pre-show snack.  The show was Estrofest, which stars one of my dear friends (who also is the mom of Kiddo's BFF - we met at a Gymboree class when the girls were still in diapers) and which I'd somehow not ever seen before.  The night concluded with a late dinner at The Winfield Grill with some of the cast and other assorted entourage members and then a drive home later than I've been out in aeons with a glimpse of a shooting star thanks to the Perseid Meteor Shower.  All in all, a perfectly wonderful night.  Good friends, good food and a lot of good laughs (seriously, if you're local enough to my corner of upstate NY, go to the Blackfriars Theatre and see Estrofest while you still can this summer, and then go see them again this winter.  Hilarious, hilarious, hilarious!  Norma Holland especially is a comedic wonder).

I could rave on and on about any or all of the above - the deliciousness that is an SMBS cupcake, the hilarity that is Estrofest, but none of that is the point of this post.  What I actually want to share with you is this:

During the show's intermission, my BFF, my Estrofest friend's husband (who is also my friend) and I stepped outside as the lobby was quite crowded and warm.  As we stood on the sidewalk chatting, I felt something land on my chest.  Now, I'd gussied myself up a bit for my big GNO, putting on a "fancy" top I haven't worn in years (bought it a few years ago because it caught my eye in a shop; got it home and wore it once to church but then decided it made me look pregnant and thus, developed a complex about it and put it away for like three years before deciding that I didn't care if it makes me look pregnant and pulled it out and wore it last night) with some linen pants and higher-heeled sandals and even slapped on some eyeliner and tinted lip gloss.  Now, wearing the fancy top meant putting on appropriate undergarments, in this case a Very Serious Bra.  We're talking plunging and décolletage-enhancing cups, padding, major underwire.  In this VSB, my bosoms are spectacular, if I do say so myself.  (Let me also point out that I encase them in the VSB only once in a blue moon, because the very seriousness of it lends itself to a fair amount of discomfort in short order.  This is no Playtex 18 hour comfy support type undergarment, to be sure.)

So, there the three of us stood chatting, out in the summer evening, when something landed on my chest, just north of the scoop-neck,  low-cut (at least for me) neckline of my fancy top, dangerously close to my spectacular bosoms.  I glanced down and swept a hand as discreetly as possible across my chest because, after all, one doesn't want to be seen out on a city sidewalk groping at one's own boob, spectacular as it may be.  I didn't catch sight of whatever it was that had landed on me, but as we were standing under some trees, I figured it was a bit of twig or leaf or berry and left it at that.  A few moments later, intermission ended and we filed back into the theater for the second half of the show.  The lights dimmed, the cast returned, hilarity ensued and................ I felt something move on my chest.  Well, not on my chest so much as inside my Very Serious Bra.

Eep!

I shifted a bit in my seat, thinking that the bit of twig or leaf or whatever had landed on me must've plunged into my plunging brassiere instead of being dislodged when I'd swept my hand across the shirt, and then whatever it was inside my bra  moved.  As in crawled.  Inside my bra.  Across my left boob.

Oh.  My.

Here I was, in the middle of a row in a not terribly big theater, where they were picking volunteers from the audience for different things, with something crawling in my bra.  I didn't want to get up, excuse-me-pardon-me-oh-sorry-was-that-your-foot-excuse-me my way down the row and out to the lobby and restroom because given the dimensions of the theater and my proximity to the stage (and the exit to the lobby's proximity to the stage), that seemed to be a dangerous and disruptive thing to do (not to mention that I'd be faced with the eternal dilemma - does one exit the row with one's derrière facing the other seated patrons at close range or facing out, which in this case would've meant one's derrière facing the rest of the theater and actors).  I shifted about a bit and hoped that whatever it was would either crawl the heck out of my underthings or become fatally smothered between the padding and my skin.  The movement, after a few, terrible seconds, stopped.  Whew.  And then, a few moments later, it began again.  Crawling lower.  The lights went down, briefly, at the end of the sketch.  I took the opportunity to try to genteelly and discreetly swipe a hand into the edge of my top.  Nope, whatever it was that was crawling in there was far to low for any polite public squashing or removal.  Mind you, I'm not a Squasher of Living Things when they're crawling on the floor or wall or ceiling, much less when they're on my actual person.  But desperate times and all that - the crawling paused and continued, paused and continued.  Throughout the entire second act, I'd feel whatever it was crawling ever so slowly further south.  Now, I was fairly certain that no matter what the critter, it wasn't going to get any lower than the Formidable Underwire that ran along the southern border of the VSB.  However, I was also increasingly nervous that the critter might be of the burrowing or biting sort.  So, while I was laughing my head off through the second act, a small part of my brain was conjuring up images of deer ticks or tiny, poisonous spiders milliseconds away from deciding the underside of my left bosom was the perfect place to grab a meal or dig in some fangs.  I kept shifting and crossing my arms across my chest, trying to both be unobtrusive and get whatever it was that was crawling around my unmentionables to either evacuate or perish, with no such luck.

The second the show ended (conveniently enough with a standing ovation, so everyone was up out of their seats), I mumbled something about needing the rest room to my companions and took off for the lobby.  I got into the ladies' room, locked the door and whipped my shirt up to take a look.

It was just a bug.  A little, black, beetle-y bug.  Innocuous and non-lethal, it was nestled there where it had become caught by the Underwire Border.  I rescued it with a kleenex and then promptly smooshed it out of existence and inspected my chest for signs of trauma in the mirror.  Finding none, I readjusted my spectacular bosoms in the VSB, made sure my fancy top was back in its proper place and then fake-flushed the toilet and washed my hands, then rejoined my friends in the lobby.  (Side note: why did I feel compelled to pretend I'd been peeing when I hadn't?  Because I did feel compelled.  So strange.)  When my BFF and I left the theater and were driving to the restaurant, I told her about the Bosoms-Bug Encounter and she was equal parts amused and horrified.  So, of course I had to share it with you, my dear readers and whatever weirdos are googling the words "boobs" and "bra" or even stranger, "bosoms" ...

In conclusion, apparently you can dress me up, but you can't take me anywhere.  At least I looked spectacular for the occasion, though. 

Ah, the tortured angst of youth

My brother-in-law has been reading the Chronic(what?)cles of Narnia with my six year old nephew.  Specifically, he's been reading the boxed set that belonged first to my older cousins, then to me.  I discovered them around age 9, on a shelf in my grandparents' house, and read the series through a few times over the next several years, leaving the books behind at my parents' house when I went off to college.  Well, that set found its way to my sister's house, and thus, a new generation has begun to enjoy the stories.

One night, while reading one of the Narnia books to my nephew, my brother-in-law turned the page and out fell two sheets of paper.  Technically, they're not paper paper, but computer punch cards for the NYSE, which came in books and which my grandparents had in abundant supply, as my grandfather was a vice president at the NYSE back in the day.  The one side has lots of different boxes for bid size, ask size, sold, cash, close quote, etc, and the reverse was blank, that side being the one my family used for note pads.

Well, two such sheets fell out, and my brother-in-law immediately called for my sister, as he had no idea what in the heck he'd found.  Turns out what he discovered was a poem that my sister quickly identified by the chicken-scratch handwriting as being a Heather original creation.  She called me the following morning, giggling like a fiend, and told me of the discovery.  She promised to send up the poem to me, but as life tends to get in the way of such things, she didn't have the chance to, until I saw her in person earlier this week while the kid and I were on our annual summer trek to New Jersey.  (More on that later.)  There we stood with our kids on a blindingly sunny, hot beach and she handed over to me this relic of my youth.

And what a tortured youth it was, apparently.  Now, bear in mind that I've always fancied myself something of a writer and poet (also a lyricist and composer - oh, to have properly transcribed the melody lines of the songs I wrote as a teenager... alas, I have naught but the occasional fragment of verse and chord notations from which to recreate my attempts at emo 80s pop).  Obviously, one is never more Angsty and Tormented than when one is going through the hell that is puberty and adolescence, and I was never one to suffer from a lack of an overactive imagination or delusions of grandeur.  It was the pitfall of being a kid whose nose, more often than not, was stuck in a book and whose ears were typically covered with headphones through which music, that food of love, played on and on and on.  What I'm trying to say, basically, is that I tended to the dramatic and the melodramatic.  In my mind, I was Catherine on the moors, Scarlett in Atlanta, Anne in Avonlea and the leading lady of every Shakespearian drama, Eva Peron and Grizabella and Sally Bowles and Cosette, Katie in The Way We Were, the Baroness in Out of Africa, Etta Place hanging out with Butch and Sundance and Sophie with her horrific choice......

This is all a means to attempt to explain - justify? - what I'm about to transcribe.  Yes, dear readers, I'm about to give a Lost Work of Staggering Genius its decades-belated, long overdue public debut.  I'd save myself the transcription effort and scan them in, but my handwriting has never been beautiful and was even less so as a Tortured Teenage Artiste.  Go ahead, laugh, I sure did.  I think, reflecting back on this piece of what surely can only be rightfully termed dreck of the greatest magnitude, that it is eminently clear why I never became the Next Great American Writer, the female Jay McInerny, the 80s Sylvia Plath that I once aspired to be............

*deep breath* Here goes.  The poem is untitled, and I honestly do not remember what traumatic event caused me to write this in response.  More likely than not, it was some fight with my parents.  Perhaps my mom had gone into my room (as she was wont to do) and gone through my belongings, finding something I didn't want her to find.  I'm transcribing this verbatim, mightily resisting the urge to edit as I do:

Walking down a winding path

of darkness patched with silver

sewn into the shadow-filled

billowing

darkness by the

far off

distant moon

High above this forest-topped hill

Bravely gleaming all alone

for the host of stars are very faint

The ground below my feet dips and swerves

it is foreign to me, and evil

I yearn for a friendlier path

One through a meadow I have walked before 

worn smooth over years of travel

But somehow

I have entered this

secluded wood

full of unknown dangers and challenges

I fear I am not

experienced enough a traveller

but now

I have no choice

Gone are the easy days, days

when the path was wide and clear

and home was waiting

at the end of the lane.

The wind blows

sharp and icy cold

The old door is barred.  It stands welcoming

ajar

no more for me.

It is no longer the end

no longer my destination.

This path

leads not to what once was my Home

Now I must press forward, through the black,

the unknown

I must safely make my way,

alone and unguided

to a clearing in this strange, new wood

And with no background, no past

Nothing of old to call my own

I must build myself

a new Home

in the shadows of these trees

Send down my own roots, create

my own history

build up new walls, as these old crumble down

And protect myself from the past, from the future and its 

unknown frights

Make my own hearth and lay my own fire

to warm myself by.

What I once thought was my own

is no more.

Now I am alone, to begin

here

in the darkness

When I do build my new Home

will you share it with me?

 
I'm suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to find a better example of my teenage writing, to prove I wasn't always as horrible a writer as this would lead you to think.......

A little advice (also known as I am so smart)

Say you have an iPod Touch that your kind and thoughtful, wonderful husband gave you for your 15th wedding anniversary back in January.  (Thanks again, honey!)

And say that a kind and thoughtful, wonderful friend who also owns an iPod Touch gave you a super-cool, hot pink, silicone skin for your Touch.  (Thanks again, Kristin!)

And say that your six year old owns a little, red egg full of Silly Putty that she leaves on the end table in the family room right next to your favorite spot for curling up and watching TV at night.

Sure, go right ahead, play with that Silly Putty while you're watching TV.  It's fun, after all, I mean, it's Silly Putty - go crazy, stretch it out, roll it up, flatten it on the table to make it all smooth...

Just don't.  Do.  This.

You will not wind up with a cool, funky, line-y print from the back of your iPod skin on your flattened blob of Silly Putty.  You will wind up with some sort of chemical reaction that bonds the Silly Putty to the silicone skin with a vengeance and will not come off.

Oh, and if you do decide to stick the rolled out, flattened circle of Silly Putty onto your iPod Touch skin and then spend the next forty-five minutes scraping it off molecule by molecule?  Don't decide to try to get the last blob off by resticking the Silly Putty to the spot because then you've just wasted forty-five minutes, you complete and utter idiot.

Oh yes, I am so smart.  S-M-R-T.

I'm just glad I didn't try to, say, get a print of my eyeball with my contact lenses in or something equally clever.

UPDATE: I put the skin in the freezer overnight, then scraped off what I could with a butter knife and followed that up with some rubbing alcohol on a q-tip and a warm water bath with plenty of dish soap, and voila!  Good as new!  Or, at least as good as if it hadn't had Silly Putty stuck to its back, twice.....

(And in case you're wondering, no one yet has posted *anything* on the internet about "how to remove Silly Putty from a silicone iPod skin" - yes, I managed to stump Google!  I used various methods recommended for other things to which folks have stuck Silly Putty in the past to come up with what I finally did.  Now, I suppose, any future such Google searches will come to..............me!  Hee!)

In which I utterly blow any last remnants of my ladylike reputation clear to Heck

I've been debating whether or not I should relate the following anecdote. I mean, I do have a reputation to uphold, that of a dainty, delicate, utterly ladylike and genteel chick, of course...

At first, I was going to keep this to myself. Then, my dear friend Givinya de Elba posted something on her blog which spurred me into replying, via comment, about what had transpired despite my decision to keep this one in the vault and uphold my rep and all.

Furthermore, I was not, not, not going to share this with Hubby. I was firm on that one. I mean, it is true that over the past 16 and a half years we've been together, the bloom has somewhat come off the rose. The air of mystery surrounding All Things Feminine has long since whooshed out the window opened in the House Where Chicks Outnumber Dude. But, despite my resolve to not tell him, of course I did. Last night. Well, mostly - I was having a hard time getting to the crux of the matter given that I was giggling like a fool with tears streaming down my face. But he got the gist of my tale and then provided me with the perfect ending line, so now I am feeling compelled to blog it after all.

Here goes.... and if, by some slim chance, you're still subscribing to my Cheerful Delusion that I am a Dainty-n-Delicate Gal, you might want to stop reading now and go about your business.

So, I'm nearsighted. Really, really, reaaaaaally nearsighted. This is an accurate representation of Heather Without Her Corrective Lenses:



Seriously, I'm Squinty McWhatisthat without my specs. As one who has required glasses for more than one score and ten years (NB to Creative Junkie - I double checked and a score is twenty years. Apparently the brain cells aren't all pudding!) I have grown used to having to guesstimate what it is in front of my face at certain crucial times over the course of my day. The clock with extra-large, illuminated numbers that is over on Hubby's side of the bed (as he is the one who requires Control of the Alarm)? Perfectly used to squinting as hard as I can to determine if the number before the colon is one or two digits, and completely comfortable with the fact that unless it is 11:11, I'm not going to be able to tell what any of the numbers are beyond a glowing, green fuzz.

The tasks associated with showering are another set of things with which I am generally comfortable doing without being able to see them. (Goodness knows, the amorphous, jiggly, white mass that exists below my eyeballs is better left viewed in Extremely Soft Focus, anyhow.) Scrubbing, rinsing and that trickiest of all shower-related jobs: shaving, all are second nature to Magoo Me. Now, in order to shave my lower legs (and my big toes, if I am telling the complete truth, but what woman is going to admit to shaving her big toes? Let's just say it was a horrible mistake I first made back in my foolhardy teenage years that now requires regular maintenance, lest Sasquatch think I've robbed him of some digits in a weird, inter-species transplant situation) I have long since perfected a maneuver in which I prop my leg up against the side of the shower wall, kind of like this:



only slightly less dressed and graceful and also always solo. Oh, and I don't shave my armpits and legs simultaneously, so without the arm extension, too. Yes, for a big girl, I'm surprisingly flexible, and am able to effect the above position for better squinting proximity to shave.

Now, I must digress for a moment. It's actually relevant to the story, as you will see. I love prunes. Oh, I'm sorry, "dried plums" - thanks, Marketing Gurus! I love dried plums. Every once in a while, I'll be overcome while grocery shopping and buy a container of dried plums. (It does sound classier, I'll grant you that.) A few weeks ago, I was overcome in such a manner and thus, a large container of dried plums has recently been residing in our fridge. Dried plums that no one else in my family ever, ever eats, besides me. We've been frantically trying to eat down all the contents of our pantry, fridge, freezer and chest freezer with some decent amount of success, but it's taken effort. (We're down to about 1/3 of a case of frozen pizza dough balls, a Sam's Club sized box of Italian ices, and several bags of frozen veggies. Oh, and a large container of old-fashioned oatmeal. And Cheez-its, for Kiddo's lunches.) As I said, no one else in my family eats prunes dried plums, so it's been me giving a dedicated yet solo effort to finish off the container before Thursday, when we move. As I *big, red, puffy heart* them, this hasn't been a hardship. (And I should further note for the record that while I adore Jamie Lee Curtis - A Fish Called Wanda and True Lies were both performances of comedic perfection - I do not have a need for her in her new guise as the Activia Lady. Regularity has never been an issue for me, is what I'm saying.) I've been popping them down by the handful (as in four or five at a time) a few times a day, like when I'm making Kiddo's lunch for school or emptying the dishwasher or cooking dinner or walking by the fridge. They're so, so delicious. Mmmmm, prunetastic.

So, back to my original story. The other morning, I was in the shower and up to the deforestation portion of events. I was taking care of business in my usual Big Girl Ballet pose, and when I was through, I turned around to put the razor back up on the top shelf of the shower caddy that dangles from the showerhead. It was at this point that I noticed something on the floor of the tub.

That something, to be specific, was two somethings. Two small, dark brown, blobular somethings there behind me on the tub floor. Now, I suppose I must confess that while regularity isn't a problem for me in any event, my present Extra-Prunetastic diet has led to the occasional gaseous emission. And, while I was Leg Up on the Wall and shaving, I had a few such emissions. Whatever, I was home alone (well, besides the cat and frankly there is nothing I could bodily emit that could touch her post-bologna-consumption farts.) (NB to Crazy Sister - I amend my comment on your post earlier today. My cat's post-bologna-consumption gas might be the Worst Smell, Ever.) So, I froze at the sight of these two, small, dark brown, blobular somethings fuzzily peering up at me through the steam and myopia.

I will confess that I pondered for a moment or two if any of my recent gaseous emissions might've been a bit more... strenuous than I'd thought at the time. I mean, I was distracted by my Shaving By Braille method and the whole Trying Not to Slice My Legs or Feet Open business. But could I have been that distracted? Paraphrasing what Givinya said in her related blog post, getting up close and personal to such a potential biohazard in order to see it clearly is not something one wants to do. I bent over and squinted for all I was worth, but didn't dare actually get down onto the floor of the tub and poke my nose into it to see for sure. I hopped out of the shower and grabbed for my glasses and then turned back around to face the music.

This is what I found:
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That's Don Diego and Brownie, aka two of Kiddo's Teeny Tiny Guys, Dog Pack Division. (She has a multitude of TTGs, from dogs and cats to farm and zoo animals to two Teeny Tiny T. Rexes. Hubby and I have stepped on every single one of them over the years, too.) She's taken to bringing the TTG Dog Pack into the tub with her, as the dinosaurs in there were apparently getting dull. (They are getting rather icky from dwelling permanently on the ledge of the tub and may stay behind when we move...) I guess I didn't hear the clatter of Don Diego and Brownie as they slipped from their ledgeside perch to the floor of the tub, singing heartily as I was as per usual while going about my Showery Business.

Whew.

So, in conclusion, I told Hubby about this last night. He rolled his eyes at me, rolled over and began drifting off to sleep (a sleep that was full of dreams of loading U-Hauls and hoping that everything would fit, apparently). A few moments later, he rolled back over towards me, opened one eye and said "You know, the moral of that story is that you should never, ever eat anything without your glasses on."

He's probably right, too.





* Don Diego and Brownie's actual size is less than one inch, each. They come from that vending machine in the row of nasty gumballs and You're Never Going to Be Allowed to Get That candy in the front of the supermarket. So, they are in fact quite small.

Edited: A public restroom nightmare

(I have decided, upon hearing that folks might be linking to this tale of woe, to break out the two very different topics into two separate posts. 'Cause I'm guessing the folks that might want to actually - oh dear me - read this bit might not be so interested in the goings-on of our fight with the school district. That portion will now be in its own post below this one.)

In other news, that norovirus? So not good for being out in public. (WARNING: THIS IS ABOUT TO GET GORY. CONSIDER YOURSELVES WARNED - THOSE WITH MORE DELICATE SENSIBILITIES MAY WANT TO STOP READING RIGHT ABOUT NOW.) You see, I had to make a quick stop at the grocery store on my way home from the meeting, to restock on bananas, saltines, chicken broth and ginger ale. Kiddo's only in-town grandma had come over to watch her so we could go to the meeting, and I wanted to take advantage and not have to take Kiddo out with her fever - especially in the ridiculous snow showers we had this morning - for supplies later on in the day.

So there I was, attempting to zip quickly through the store for those few items I needed, none of which, of course, are located anywhere near each other. (They need to rethink how they stock grocery stores: the Stomach Bug Aisle, for example, with the ginger ale, saltines and broth, and the Head Cold aisle, with the Puffs Plus and the Nyquil and the Throat Coat tea, oh and then the PMS aisle, with the Midol and the chocolate and the Cheez Doodles... THAT would be a dream shopping scenario, dontcha think?) It was hard to "zip" when I was being bent double by abdominal cramping every thirty seconds or so. Eventually, and of course while I was at the furthest possible point from the bathrooms, I had to make a call: Can I make it home to the sanctity of my own bathroom, or should I make a run for the bathrooms in the store? Not wanting to explode in my car on the way home (as I wasn't wearing my Oops, I Crapped my Pants undies today*), I decided to take a quick stroll up to the public bathrooms.

Now, I am pretty sure we've all been there - when you have to make a visit to the restroom even though you'd really rather save such business for the privacy of your own home. (We all have been there, haven't we? Tell me I'm not the only one who's had to face this horrible situation...) I had my fingers crossed that the bathroom would be devoid of other women. I lucked out in that regard. Alas, this was just a three-seater, not the more preferable many stalled, easier-to-hide sized bathroom. I thought for a fleeting second of using the family bathroom, but having been in need of that room for changing a squirmy baby myself in days gone by and having been stymied by a non-family-type-person using it, forcing me to have to change the squirming baby elsewhere, I opted to suck it up and deal with the more public women's room. (Okay, I lied. I only didn't use it because it was already occupied. I would totally have used that one if it had been open. Not only for the privacy, but I figured I could at least blame any soon-to-be-happening funk on the diapers in the trash can. Sue me.) I shut myself in a stall and began praying that I would finish with my funking before any other wayward woman wandered in for a hand-washing or something.

And funk it up I did. It was one of those terrible, horrible, no-way-to-disguise-what-was-transpiring sort of funkings. There was noise, there was odor. Sweet fancy Moses, was there odor. There were not enough courtesy flushes in the world to stop or even sufficiently quash the odor or sounds blasting forth. Unfortunately, my bowels had apparently decided to open up some portal of Hell, and things went on in this loud and odoriferous way for waaaay longer than I'd hoped. It seemed like hours, though in actuality it was less than ten minutes. Once, I heard the door to the restroom squeak open, but apparently that woman took one whiff and opted to hold it 'til she got home. Then, a few moments later, the door opened again. This time, someone dared enter. She used the stall next to me, and then took her time with washing her hands and fluffing her hair in the mirror. I could see a teensy sliver of her through the crack in the door - she was an older woman, and so I hoped she was hard of both hearing and smelling. As she tossed her paper towel into the trash and secured her plastic head kerchief under her chin, she muttered "Whew, that's bad." and then made her escape. Great. Now I had to deal with Walking Out of the Bathroom Post-Funking. I, the Funker. As soon as it seemed safe to stand and move on with the Walk of Shame, I did so. As I flushed for the last time, another person walked in to the bathroom. Great - now what? Stay hiding in the stall and wait her out, or just walk out of the stall and pretend that the smell preceded my arrival? I opted to wait for her to enter a stall, then zipped out, washed my hands and BOLTED from the bathroom.

I think I'm going to start carrying one of these around in my purse at all times... though today's Funking probably would've laughed at the tiny cloud emitted by a one ounce spray can. I'd probably need the jumbo size - gonna have to get myself a bigger purse! In the meantime, I'm just glad there are other grocery stores in near enough proximity to my house. I figure in another year or so, I'll be brave enough to return to shop at the one I Funked today.

In less disgustingly detailed news, I was wiped out when I got home from the meeting and the shopping/funking trip. So wiped out that I let Kiddo watch the new Tinkerbell DVD (thanks Redbox!) twice in a row so I could curl up on the couch under a couple of fleece throw blankets and the cat and moan quietly. So wiped out that Kiddo and I both fell asleep for about 40 minutes this afternoon. So wiped out that I don't know if I'll make it until 9pm to watch Heroes tonight... But I sure darn well am going to try! (Kiddo, on the other hand, was miraculously rejuvenated by her 40ish minute nap and is still awake in her room, an hour after her bedtime, and apparently arranging some sort of birthday party for one of her stuffed animals by flashlight...)

So, that's the update from here. I swear to you (anyone who may still be reading at this point, that is) that starting tomorrow, this blog will go back to being bodily-explosion-description FREE. Promise!






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