This?
Is SNOW.
Coming down fast and furious outside right now.
On April 27th.
What the hey, Mother Nature?!?!
Showing posts with label winter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label winter. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Monday, March 8, 2010
Monday Musings
I know there is a "thing" out there on the blogosphere to post Random Thoughts Tuesdays. One of my favorite people to stalk bloggy friends, Cristin, does this pretty regularly and I always enjoy reading her posts. Well, I always enjoy reading any of her posts, but you know what I mean. (Or maybe you don't. It is quite possible that I'm not making any sense whatsoever this morning as I am functioning on a caffeine hangover and less than 4 hours of sleep thanks to last night's Oscars telecast and my decision to majorly overcaffeinate in order to stay up late enough to watch every, last moment. My brain is so foggy, it's San Francisco. Or London. Or that John Carpenter movie. Or its remake. Okay, okay, I'll stop.)
So, as this is Monday and not Tuesday, but the best I can do is throw out some random things that are clattering around quite loudly in my aching, befogged brain, this is my stab at a Random Thoughts Tuesday but I'm calling it Monday Musings instead.
***
The flowers that bloom in the spring, tra-la! Look what four days of sunshine and a few-degrees-above-freezing temperatures have wrought in our front yard (along with a rapidly shrinking snowman):
Crocipetti!! (Or crocuses, for the non-Beat Cats in the audience)
Daffodils!
Daffodils and also possibly a hyacinth!
I planted about 150 or so bulbs in front of the house and around our light post last fall. I did a mixture of crocuses, daffodils and hyacinths because those were the three bulbs I was assured by many an online gardening site would be least tempting to the seventy squillion squirrels and chipmunks that call our silver maples and pine tree home. I know that some of those furry critters still felt the need to sample what I'd planted because I came across several bulbs that had been dug up and had a little nibble taken out of them before being rejected and tossed aside. I replanted those and hopefully they weren't too taste-tested to bloom. I'm just glad *anything* is coming up. I'm glad we've had sunshine. I'm glad I can see something other than white, liberally splotched with yellow. (Think I'm kidding? I'm not...............)
That was taken the weekend before last. There are no dog or cat footprints leading up to any of those spots, either. Ewwwwwwwww.
***
With the recent thaw, it's a good thing we got outside the weekend before last and accomplished a few of Kiddo's Most Desired Winter Weekend Family Outdoor activities:
- building a snowman bigger than Kiddo...
- and building a snow fort from which to have a snowball fight.
Ed, the snowman - or rather, person of snow that we built, has suffered mightily with the sun that decided to come out and stay out in the days immediately following his creation. We have had to pick up the various bits of his face and reattach them several times in the past week, most recently this morning as we were waiting for Kiddo's bus to make its way up the street. Ed is now a little person of snow with basically just his bottom snowball still vertical and present.
If I'd realized that constructing things out of snow in the yard was all it would take to bring on the spring thaw and sunshine, I'd have been outside at 12:01am on January 1st! Let's hope it lasts............
***
So, the Oscars were on last night, which reaffirmed my deep and everlasting desire to one day be a seat filler for the Academy Awards. At least twice during last night's telecast, I saw a seat filler sitting right next to George Clooney. Can you imagine?! Of course, I'll need to get a whole lot more attractive before they'd plunk me next to any celebrity, much less one in the front row. With my luck, I'd get to seat fill next to the guy who was sitting behind Quentin Tarantino last night... (not that I have anything against Gandalf, of course...)
I've said I really want to do this for my 40th birthday, so I still have another year plus to figure out the wheres, hows, and if it's really possibles since Seat Filling at the Oscars is totally the number one item on my bucket list!
***
Words Kiddo asked me to define for her over the past three days:
murder
distended
slipshod
Each time, the question came out of the blue, and each time, I asked her where she'd heard/read it. Murder came from a book she had to read about Abraham Lincoln for homework, distended from the movie Bolt and slipshod from a Kim Possible book she was reading. It's like living with a pop vocabulary quiz around here all of a sudden.
***
Are you watching Modern Family? It is, hands down, my favorite new show of the season. I like that not only is it side-splittingly, spit-takingly funny, but that the characters actually seem to be fond of each other. Yes, there is snark, but it isn't mean-spirited the way it tends to be on sitcoms of recent memory (well, even further back than recent memory - all the way back to Roseanne). Every character gets great lines and great scenes, from Ed O'Neill's Jay on down to baby Lily, who had her first lines last week. Modern Family is the reason why our family's band name for Rock Band/Guitar Hero is Why the Face...
Speaking of television, I'm just not as into American Idol this year as I've been in years past. I haven't even re-upped for the annual AI pool in which I've eagerly and intently participated for years. I don't know if Adam ruined it for me with his utter perfection last year or what, but despite being a huge Ellen DeGeneres fan (and enjoying her participation in the show this year a lot too), I'm just not that into it. Anyone else with me? I don't know if it is that none of the performers have grabbed me (yet?) the way that Adam did last year, that the song choices have felt tired and the performances for the most part ho-hum, or that the judges other than Ellen seem to be trotting out a lot of the same, exact comments that they have made in previous seasons or what, but I'm not feeling it. Out of the current group of contestants, I'd have to say my favorite is Crystal Bowersox, and I am hoping I get more sucked in as we get closer to the top 12, but right now, it isn't Much Watch Live TV, but more Watch it off the DVR at Some Point TV instead.
Also speaking of TV, how about that final season of Lost?! Whoa nelly! Now *that* is Must Watch Live TV, along with Modern Family and The Amazing Race (though I really do still miss the Globetrotters from last season). I'd watch Project Runway live too, if it weren't on so late. That falls into the Must Watch off the DVR Because it is on Way Past My Bedtime category. (Speaking of Project Runway, did you hear that Meryl Streep's Oscar outfit last night was designed by PR alum Chris March? WOOHOO!)
What TV shows are on your Must List this season?
***
Conversation with Kiddo the other day:
Kiddo: Mommy, I think it would be fun if you played Littlest Pet Shop with me.
Me: You know what would be even more fun than that?
Kiddo: What?
Me: Doing your homework!
Kiddo: Ha. Ha. Ha.
*pause*
Kiddo: That? Was me laughing sarcastically.
(Yes, she has a ways to go yet before she realizes that sarcasm is diluted quite a bit by pointing it out immediately after using it...)
***
If you're looking for a good book to read, in terms of being laugh-out-loud funny as well as extremely well written, I recommend picking up a copy of Notes from the Underwire by Quinn Cummings. I've been reading her equally well written blog, The QC Report, for a while, and after languishing on the library's hold list for what felt like an eternity, I finally got my hands on a copy of the book last Friday. Now that I read and enjoyed the book, I'm sad that I got it from the library because that means I have to return it. This might be one of the rare times when I go out and buy a book after I've read it courtesy of the public library, because there are so many bits that I'd like to be able to reread whenever I want to, without languishing on the hold list all over again.
For example..............
What I want to be is a strong, resolute figure leading my daughter through the primeval forest of childhood, hacking out a clear, bright path of expectations for her. What I usually end up being is a person swatting at bugs, squinting at the sun and saying nervously, "Wait. I know I have the map here somewhere."
There also was an entire chapter about organizing summertime activities for kids (as in camps) that struck a huge chord as I'm presently squinting through the reemerging sun and noticing the long, long stretch of no school that is suddenly looming much closer on the horizon. She had me rolling in that "It's funny because it's true" sort of way through this whole chapter. It also had me checking the town's recreation department website for the opening of registration for the "summer fun" program and sending an email out to all the other parents in Kiddo's class and our Daisy troop to find out whether any of her friends are going to be attending Summer Fun and if so, when. Kiddo loved Summer Fun last year, when she didn't know a soul in town and it didn't matter therefore which weeks she went. This year, there are more field trips as she's now a going-into-second-grader which puts her into an older group (2-4 instead of K-1) and she knows lots of kids, obviously, now that she's in school here, so the timing of Summer Fun scheduling is more complex. The cost has gone up a bit as well, but it still is the most reasonably priced summer day camp type program around, for which I'm grateful that Kiddo enjoys it so much!
Whoops, I'm digressing again. I think that's a sign I need to walk away from the computer and tend to either the grocery shopping or the sink full of dishes from last night and this morning. I'd much prefer curling up in a sunny spot on the floor like our cat and taking a nap, but I've squandered any potential nap time by blogging instead. Think I might ingest some hair of the dog before I attempt anything else...
***
Last but not least, it's almost March Madness time again, so allow me to display a bit of Hubby's and my school spirit and end with a hearty
LET'S GO, ORANGE!!!
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Not with a bang, but a whimper. Well, actually, with kind of a rather resounding bang, now that I think about it...
Today is my last day of being 37, or being in my "mid-thirties" as I've been saying for the past 364 days. Let me just say that if today is indicative of how 38 is going to go down, I'm in trouble.
The day started out well enough. We've been checking out different churches in our new town, trying to find one that feels right for us. We weren't overly enamored of the United Methodist church we attended last week, so we'd decided to try the Presbyterian church right in the middle of town. We all were fed, showered and dressed appropriately with plenty of time to make the five minute drive over to the church. Hubby and Kiddo were waiting in the minivan, which Hubby had already backed out into the driveway, when I headed out the door.
And here is where things started going south in a hurry. I was putting the bag with our shoes in it (as we were wearing our sensible winter boots due to the weather) in the back next to Kiddo when Hubby, noting the freezing rain pelting down, suggested I grab the large umbrella out of the back seat of his car so we'd have enough coverage for the walk to church (Kiddo is a bit of an umbrella hog). We'd read about the parking situation at this particular church - that being that they don't really have any - and knew we were in for a bit of a walk. I turned around and started back into the garage to grab that umbrella.
The next thing I knew, I was sprawled on the icy, icy driveway. Did I mention it was icy? It wasn't actually the "next thing" I knew, for as always seems to happen when I fall, time freezes into super-slow-motion and it feels like it is taking an eternity for my body to meet the ground. (Hubby disputed this over lunch, saying that no, one second I was standing by the front of the van and the next I wasn't. He swears it was a "blink of an eye" sort of thing.)
Now, traditionally I have One Big Fall each winter season. (The length of said season depends on where we're living - sometimes it is just January-March, nowadays it's more November-April.) It is an accepted fact among those who know me that I will fall, spectacularly, once each year. I generally breathe a sigh of relief once the One Big Fall has happened, as I know I'll be safe from there on out, and I dread those years when the OBF doesn't occur until March or April. Now, there has been the occasional season when I do fall more than once, and there is even the rare year that I don't fall at all. But generally speaking, there's One Big Fall each winter.
So, it was today. I landed rather heavily on my left hand/arm. Not in any conscious "I shall stop myself from falling by breaking said fall with my left hand" sort of way, because my Spectacular Falling Method does not employ any such choreography. It's much more pratfall than graceful sinking to the ground. My best OBF ever occurred back in 1997, when I was working at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH - aka The Land of Neverending Winter (followed by the Inexplicable yet Quite Accurately Named "Mud Season"). One February morning that year, as I was heading in from the parking lot to the building that housed my office along a very slippery sidewalk, I did one of those both-feet-out-from-under-me moves typified by the expression "ass over teakettle" (though Dame Helen Mirren used a more colorful, British variant of the same euphemism quite famously at the Emmy Awards a few years back). My bagged lunch and bag of shoes, which I had in my right hand, and my purse, which I had on my left shoulder, went sailing off into the bushes and snow all around me and I even managed to lose one of my gloves (which I'd been, you know, wearing) in what Dane Cook would call a fit of joy. Of course there were several witnesses of the Snooty Ivy League Graduate Student variety, which meant far more in the way of pointing and snickering in my general direction than any offers of help or inquiries as to the state of my extremely prone body. That added note of humiliation, coupled with the incredible amount of hangtime my suddenly horizontal body had whilst in midair, definitely qualified that as the Best. OBF. Ever.
But I digress. Back to this year's edition of my OBF. There I was, sprawled upon the icy, icy driveway. I managed to get up without falling again and limped into the house for a wound check. Hubby and Kiddo were quite concerned, but I determined I was all right once I'd washed the grit and stones out of my palm and wrist. (Kiddo did pipe up with the helpful tip that if I'd been wearing my gloves when I fell, my hand would've been protected. Thanks.) I grabbed an icepack for the road and away we headed to church.
It turns out that more than our driveway was really, really icy. Our neighborhood is in a very hilly area, and the main road into the village is in and of itself a large, large hill. The road out of our subdivision empties out about 2/3 of the way up one side of this hill, and the most direct way to the church means turning onto and going up the rest of the way and then down again. Well, the minivan wasn't so sure about the whole "going up" bit, and when we'd gotten to the top, we came upon an accident involving at least two cars and a street sign, along with a fireman who was waving us off to turn around. So, we did, opting to carefully make our way down the hill the other way and take the other route into the village. (Kiddo: "Is this a shortcut?" Hubby: "No, this is actually a longcut.")
So now we're pushing it in terms of getting to church on time. (Oooh, brief musical interlude here.....) We carefully make our way to the church without further incident and Hubby lets Kiddo and me out right in front before driving off to find parking. By the time he finds a spot and makes his way back to the church, the service is well underway. I think we were about 12 minutes late by the time we walked into the sanctuary, though we were not, I'd like to note, the latest people to arrive.
No, we weren't the latest but still, turning up late at a new church doesn't make a very good impression. In my haste to get Kiddo to pipe down as we entered the sanctuary, I completely missed the usher who was attempting to hand me a bulletin, so that plus the distraction of being late, keeping Kiddo in line (she's had serious ants in the pants going on all day) and the relatively searing pain that occurred every time I tried to straighten out my left arm, it didn't make for a peaceful and satisfying worship experience. Add to that the fact that this was a Presbyterian church so there were bits of it that differed from the UM service we are used to, and bleargh. (Case in point: The Lord's Prayer found Hubby and I saying, as we are accustomed, "forgive us our TRESPASSES as we forgive those who TRESPASS against us" while the rest of the congregation all was saying "Forgive us our DEBTS as we forgive our DEBTORS" and let me tell you, of all the things to be saying fervently yet incorrectly aloud, something chock full of sibilance is really going to stand out.)
So, the service concluded and we went off to collect Kiddo from Sunday School, to which she'd happily gone off with a girl she knew from school who'd also gone up front for the Children's Moment. We arrived at the classroom to find Kiddo wearing an angel's costume, having secured herself a part in their upcoming Christmas pageant. We were introduced to and spoke at length with the Director of Christian Education, who assured us Kiddo was most welcome to be in their pageant and that they'd be rehearsing from 11 until 12:30 today so we could come back and pick her up then. We talked it over with Kiddo and she assured us she really, really wanted to be in the pageant and off she skipped with nary a backward glance to the sanctuary to rehearse with the rest of the children.
We wandered about the very crowded Fellowship Hall for coffee hour for a bit, then headed past the sanctuary and went home to change and for me to strap an ice wrap on my now throbbing and swollen left elbow. I took a few Advil for good measure, since I'm certainly not getting any younger so I don't bounce back as quickly as I might've from my OBFs of years past. When we returned to the church around 12:20, one of the Sunday School teachers was sitting with a de-costumed Kiddo in the front pew. Uh-oh. She then explained to us that Kiddo had changed her mind about being in the pageant as the rehearsal got underway and had proceeded instead to sit in the front pew, crying. Not crying about the pageant, mind you, but because she'd eaten a doughnut with the other Sunday School children right before the practice started and, having eaten a doughnut at home for breakfast, was suddenly stricken with remorse that Mommy might not have wanted her to eat a second doughnut and that she might get in trouble for eating too much sugar. (Which: did I mention the ants in the pants? Sigh.) She had explained all of this at length to the Sunday School teacher, about how Mommy would be so, so mad about her eating that doughnut and how that was why she was crying, because she knew that Mommy would be so, so mad.
Ugh. To sum up the first impression this church has of us: We arrive late, foist our child upon them and then leave (though, as Hubby rightly pointed out, the other parents all left as well) so that our child could whip herself up into a hissy fit about having eaten a doughnut (um, guilty conscience there much, Kiddo? Getting that general sense of "knowing better" and the subsequent guilt that comes with doing it anyway? Fanfreakingtastic, but next time, let's try to keep the histrionics display for family only, mmmkay?), turn on the waterworks and quit the pageant, while also demonstrating what appeared to be a significant amount of fear at the pending Wrath of her Wacko Mother over the minor transgression of eating a doughnut. I mean, Kiddo turned it on as she is wont to do, being a junior Meryl Streep and all. I'm sure they were expecting me to whip out a switch and flay her alive right there in the sanctuary or something. Yeesh.
On that note, we made our way back out into the sleety rain and headed off to my birthday lunch, with a now sulky and petulant Kiddo in the back seat. Happy, happy, joy, joy. We arrive at the restaurant, Macaroni Grill, where we've gone to eat for my birthday for the last several years (um, okay, over a decade). I do adore their food and they make a "dessert ravioli" that is to die for.
Well, they *used* to make a dessert ravioli that is to die for, anyhow. Turns out they changed the menu since last December and the dessert ravioli is gone. Bummer. The rest of our lunch was fairly delightful and the chocolate cake covered with chocolate ganache and crumbled pecans, surrounded by dollops of fresh whipped cream was almost an acceptable substitute for the dessert ravioli. It would've been better if Kiddo, aka Ants in the Pants Annie, hadn't decided to end her two year aversion to all things chocolate (which yes, I never fully understood, or even partially understood. I mean, to suddenly go from loving to refusing CHOCOLATE? What the heck?!) and grabbed a fork to join in on the piece Hubby and I were sharing. In doing so, she managed to scoop up all the dollops of fresh whipped cream, which took the delightfulness factor down a notch or two.
On that note, we headed home again, home again, jiggety jig. I went upstairs to change out of Clothes That Require Things Like Zippers and Brassieres and into Comfy Clothes, aka my jammies. In the bathroom, I was taking out my earrings when my left arm - you know, the one I landed on mere hours ago? - decided to suddenly send a searing pain up to my left hand and kerplink, kerplank, kerplunk, I dropped the earring I was holding. The toilet lid was down and I wasn't right over the sink (which, granted, pretty much anywhere in our master bath is basically "right over the sink" unless you're in the Pepto-Bismol stall shower), so I didn't fret about it too much. However, I couldn't find it anywhere, which befuddled me and led me to believe that it must've fallen into the mostly full garbage can that sits between the toilet and sink (because the dang bathroom's too small to put it anywhere else, including under the ridonkulously small vanity). Now, this wasn't an expensive earring, just a $5 faux-diamond stud, so I decided that I was not about to go dumpster diving in my own bathroom just to retrieve it. With my luck, it didn't fall in there anyhow and I'll find it by stepping on it in the middle of the night when I get up for a drink of water without putting my glasses on...........
So, there you have me today. Bruised, swollen, probably banned from the new church, unstuffed by dessert ravioli and missing an earring. The cat is presently perched in the windowsill just behind my computer monitor, and I'm fully expecting her little, kitty head to whip around a la Linda Blair in The Exorcist and spew forth furballs upon me and/or my computer. (No, I'm not linking to that particular film clip. You're welcome.) Ants in her Pants Annie is whinging away in the next room wanting me to play with her, and at my refusals (because, ahem, I'm working on the Christmas presents for the grandparents right now...) is whinily asking the Magic 8 Ball "Oh Magic 8 Ball, tell me true, will Mommy finish doing her boring work and play with her kid?" And I do have to finish the project, which I can't get into as certain of the grandparents have been known to read my blog and I can't spill the beans, but let's just say there is a lot of creative input and uploading type work involved as well as completion deadlines for shipping in time for Christmas and if my kid is Ants in her Pants Annie, well I might as well confess that my own mother has called me Last Minute Annie for the past 37 years and 364 days... so I'd better get to it.
At least tomorrow I have this to look forward to...
Maybe hitting my late thirties won't be so bad after all...
The day started out well enough. We've been checking out different churches in our new town, trying to find one that feels right for us. We weren't overly enamored of the United Methodist church we attended last week, so we'd decided to try the Presbyterian church right in the middle of town. We all were fed, showered and dressed appropriately with plenty of time to make the five minute drive over to the church. Hubby and Kiddo were waiting in the minivan, which Hubby had already backed out into the driveway, when I headed out the door.
And here is where things started going south in a hurry. I was putting the bag with our shoes in it (as we were wearing our sensible winter boots due to the weather) in the back next to Kiddo when Hubby, noting the freezing rain pelting down, suggested I grab the large umbrella out of the back seat of his car so we'd have enough coverage for the walk to church (Kiddo is a bit of an umbrella hog). We'd read about the parking situation at this particular church - that being that they don't really have any - and knew we were in for a bit of a walk. I turned around and started back into the garage to grab that umbrella.
The next thing I knew, I was sprawled on the icy, icy driveway. Did I mention it was icy? It wasn't actually the "next thing" I knew, for as always seems to happen when I fall, time freezes into super-slow-motion and it feels like it is taking an eternity for my body to meet the ground. (Hubby disputed this over lunch, saying that no, one second I was standing by the front of the van and the next I wasn't. He swears it was a "blink of an eye" sort of thing.)
Now, traditionally I have One Big Fall each winter season. (The length of said season depends on where we're living - sometimes it is just January-March, nowadays it's more November-April.) It is an accepted fact among those who know me that I will fall, spectacularly, once each year. I generally breathe a sigh of relief once the One Big Fall has happened, as I know I'll be safe from there on out, and I dread those years when the OBF doesn't occur until March or April. Now, there has been the occasional season when I do fall more than once, and there is even the rare year that I don't fall at all. But generally speaking, there's One Big Fall each winter.
So, it was today. I landed rather heavily on my left hand/arm. Not in any conscious "I shall stop myself from falling by breaking said fall with my left hand" sort of way, because my Spectacular Falling Method does not employ any such choreography. It's much more pratfall than graceful sinking to the ground. My best OBF ever occurred back in 1997, when I was working at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH - aka The Land of Neverending Winter (followed by the Inexplicable yet Quite Accurately Named "Mud Season"). One February morning that year, as I was heading in from the parking lot to the building that housed my office along a very slippery sidewalk, I did one of those both-feet-out-from-under-me moves typified by the expression "ass over teakettle" (though Dame Helen Mirren used a more colorful, British variant of the same euphemism quite famously at the Emmy Awards a few years back). My bagged lunch and bag of shoes, which I had in my right hand, and my purse, which I had on my left shoulder, went sailing off into the bushes and snow all around me and I even managed to lose one of my gloves (which I'd been, you know, wearing) in what Dane Cook would call a fit of joy. Of course there were several witnesses of the Snooty Ivy League Graduate Student variety, which meant far more in the way of pointing and snickering in my general direction than any offers of help or inquiries as to the state of my extremely prone body. That added note of humiliation, coupled with the incredible amount of hangtime my suddenly horizontal body had whilst in midair, definitely qualified that as the Best. OBF. Ever.
But I digress. Back to this year's edition of my OBF. There I was, sprawled upon the icy, icy driveway. I managed to get up without falling again and limped into the house for a wound check. Hubby and Kiddo were quite concerned, but I determined I was all right once I'd washed the grit and stones out of my palm and wrist. (Kiddo did pipe up with the helpful tip that if I'd been wearing my gloves when I fell, my hand would've been protected. Thanks.) I grabbed an icepack for the road and away we headed to church.
It turns out that more than our driveway was really, really icy. Our neighborhood is in a very hilly area, and the main road into the village is in and of itself a large, large hill. The road out of our subdivision empties out about 2/3 of the way up one side of this hill, and the most direct way to the church means turning onto and going up the rest of the way and then down again. Well, the minivan wasn't so sure about the whole "going up" bit, and when we'd gotten to the top, we came upon an accident involving at least two cars and a street sign, along with a fireman who was waving us off to turn around. So, we did, opting to carefully make our way down the hill the other way and take the other route into the village. (Kiddo: "Is this a shortcut?" Hubby: "No, this is actually a longcut.")
So now we're pushing it in terms of getting to church on time. (Oooh, brief musical interlude here.....) We carefully make our way to the church without further incident and Hubby lets Kiddo and me out right in front before driving off to find parking. By the time he finds a spot and makes his way back to the church, the service is well underway. I think we were about 12 minutes late by the time we walked into the sanctuary, though we were not, I'd like to note, the latest people to arrive.
No, we weren't the latest but still, turning up late at a new church doesn't make a very good impression. In my haste to get Kiddo to pipe down as we entered the sanctuary, I completely missed the usher who was attempting to hand me a bulletin, so that plus the distraction of being late, keeping Kiddo in line (she's had serious ants in the pants going on all day) and the relatively searing pain that occurred every time I tried to straighten out my left arm, it didn't make for a peaceful and satisfying worship experience. Add to that the fact that this was a Presbyterian church so there were bits of it that differed from the UM service we are used to, and bleargh. (Case in point: The Lord's Prayer found Hubby and I saying, as we are accustomed, "forgive us our TRESPASSES as we forgive those who TRESPASS against us" while the rest of the congregation all was saying "Forgive us our DEBTS as we forgive our DEBTORS" and let me tell you, of all the things to be saying fervently yet incorrectly aloud, something chock full of sibilance is really going to stand out.)
So, the service concluded and we went off to collect Kiddo from Sunday School, to which she'd happily gone off with a girl she knew from school who'd also gone up front for the Children's Moment. We arrived at the classroom to find Kiddo wearing an angel's costume, having secured herself a part in their upcoming Christmas pageant. We were introduced to and spoke at length with the Director of Christian Education, who assured us Kiddo was most welcome to be in their pageant and that they'd be rehearsing from 11 until 12:30 today so we could come back and pick her up then. We talked it over with Kiddo and she assured us she really, really wanted to be in the pageant and off she skipped with nary a backward glance to the sanctuary to rehearse with the rest of the children.
We wandered about the very crowded Fellowship Hall for coffee hour for a bit, then headed past the sanctuary and went home to change and for me to strap an ice wrap on my now throbbing and swollen left elbow. I took a few Advil for good measure, since I'm certainly not getting any younger so I don't bounce back as quickly as I might've from my OBFs of years past. When we returned to the church around 12:20, one of the Sunday School teachers was sitting with a de-costumed Kiddo in the front pew. Uh-oh. She then explained to us that Kiddo had changed her mind about being in the pageant as the rehearsal got underway and had proceeded instead to sit in the front pew, crying. Not crying about the pageant, mind you, but because she'd eaten a doughnut with the other Sunday School children right before the practice started and, having eaten a doughnut at home for breakfast, was suddenly stricken with remorse that Mommy might not have wanted her to eat a second doughnut and that she might get in trouble for eating too much sugar. (Which: did I mention the ants in the pants? Sigh.) She had explained all of this at length to the Sunday School teacher, about how Mommy would be so, so mad about her eating that doughnut and how that was why she was crying, because she knew that Mommy would be so, so mad.
Ugh. To sum up the first impression this church has of us: We arrive late, foist our child upon them and then leave (though, as Hubby rightly pointed out, the other parents all left as well) so that our child could whip herself up into a hissy fit about having eaten a doughnut (um, guilty conscience there much, Kiddo? Getting that general sense of "knowing better" and the subsequent guilt that comes with doing it anyway? Fanfreakingtastic, but next time, let's try to keep the histrionics display for family only, mmmkay?), turn on the waterworks and quit the pageant, while also demonstrating what appeared to be a significant amount of fear at the pending Wrath of her Wacko Mother over the minor transgression of eating a doughnut. I mean, Kiddo turned it on as she is wont to do, being a junior Meryl Streep and all. I'm sure they were expecting me to whip out a switch and flay her alive right there in the sanctuary or something. Yeesh.
On that note, we made our way back out into the sleety rain and headed off to my birthday lunch, with a now sulky and petulant Kiddo in the back seat. Happy, happy, joy, joy. We arrive at the restaurant, Macaroni Grill, where we've gone to eat for my birthday for the last several years (um, okay, over a decade). I do adore their food and they make a "dessert ravioli" that is to die for.
Well, they *used* to make a dessert ravioli that is to die for, anyhow. Turns out they changed the menu since last December and the dessert ravioli is gone. Bummer. The rest of our lunch was fairly delightful and the chocolate cake covered with chocolate ganache and crumbled pecans, surrounded by dollops of fresh whipped cream was almost an acceptable substitute for the dessert ravioli. It would've been better if Kiddo, aka Ants in the Pants Annie, hadn't decided to end her two year aversion to all things chocolate (which yes, I never fully understood, or even partially understood. I mean, to suddenly go from loving to refusing CHOCOLATE? What the heck?!) and grabbed a fork to join in on the piece Hubby and I were sharing. In doing so, she managed to scoop up all the dollops of fresh whipped cream, which took the delightfulness factor down a notch or two.
On that note, we headed home again, home again, jiggety jig. I went upstairs to change out of Clothes That Require Things Like Zippers and Brassieres and into Comfy Clothes, aka my jammies. In the bathroom, I was taking out my earrings when my left arm - you know, the one I landed on mere hours ago? - decided to suddenly send a searing pain up to my left hand and kerplink, kerplank, kerplunk, I dropped the earring I was holding. The toilet lid was down and I wasn't right over the sink (which, granted, pretty much anywhere in our master bath is basically "right over the sink" unless you're in the Pepto-Bismol stall shower), so I didn't fret about it too much. However, I couldn't find it anywhere, which befuddled me and led me to believe that it must've fallen into the mostly full garbage can that sits between the toilet and sink (because the dang bathroom's too small to put it anywhere else, including under the ridonkulously small vanity). Now, this wasn't an expensive earring, just a $5 faux-diamond stud, so I decided that I was not about to go dumpster diving in my own bathroom just to retrieve it. With my luck, it didn't fall in there anyhow and I'll find it by stepping on it in the middle of the night when I get up for a drink of water without putting my glasses on...........
So, there you have me today. Bruised, swollen, probably banned from the new church, unstuffed by dessert ravioli and missing an earring. The cat is presently perched in the windowsill just behind my computer monitor, and I'm fully expecting her little, kitty head to whip around a la Linda Blair in The Exorcist and spew forth furballs upon me and/or my computer. (No, I'm not linking to that particular film clip. You're welcome.) Ants in her Pants Annie is whinging away in the next room wanting me to play with her, and at my refusals (because, ahem, I'm working on the Christmas presents for the grandparents right now...) is whinily asking the Magic 8 Ball "Oh Magic 8 Ball, tell me true, will Mommy finish doing her boring work and play with her kid?" And I do have to finish the project, which I can't get into as certain of the grandparents have been known to read my blog and I can't spill the beans, but let's just say there is a lot of creative input and uploading type work involved as well as completion deadlines for shipping in time for Christmas and if my kid is Ants in her Pants Annie, well I might as well confess that my own mother has called me Last Minute Annie for the past 37 years and 364 days... so I'd better get to it.
At least tomorrow I have this to look forward to...
Maybe hitting my late thirties won't be so bad after all...
Monday, September 29, 2008
Step off, Jose Feliciano!
Earlier today, I was shopping at a discount store that shall remain nameless (but hint hint: its name rhymes with MallWart) and while heading over to the bath-n-beauty aisle where I was hoping to find a more inspiring toothbrush for Kiddo (more on that later), what to my wondering eyes did appear but an ENTIRE WALL of Christmas decorations. Let me say that again: Christmas decorations. Ornaments. Santas. Snowmen. Reindeer.
Seriously, MallWart, what the HECK? It isn't even OCTOBER yet. I shook my head in disgust and turned away from the display, heading into Land O' Dental Accoutrements. After finding, totally amazingly, a musical toothbrush that not only features Simba, Kiddo's most favoritest Disney character of ALL, but that plays her most favoritest song of all time from The Lion King and calling Hubby from the middle of the aisle to screech with glee over my discovery, I headed out the other end of the aisle - away from the ridonkulously early Christmas display - over towards the cat food aisle. Then, I heard it. Somewhere in that RECD, some animatronic Christmas Critter was having his button pressed and was dutifully belting out Feliz Navidad. Over and over again - clearly, some mother was letting her child repeatedly start Animatronic Christmas Critter's singing.
Now, I am a Christmas nut. Seriously. I *heart* Christmastime. I also love the more generically "winter" snowmen - I have a collection of various snowmen figurines, ornaments, mugs and assorted tchotchkes. I absolutely adore Christmas music (and am doing my darndest to ingrain a love for Christmas music in Kiddo, as well).
But.
First of all, let's skip over the fact that it was ANY Christmas song playing in SEPTEMBER, okay? I am pretty sure that even those other Christmas nuts out there like me will agree that SEPTEMBER is just way, way too early for Christmas stuff. Unless you live at the North Pole, which, while it may feel that way weather-wise here sometimes, we don't. I mean, the leaves are just starting to turn and the weather is juuuust starting to feel crisp. Let's further overlook the fact that a mere two aisles away from the Land o' Crazy Early Christmas, witches were cackling and black cat eyes were blinking and ghosts were wooooo-ing and Frankensteins were moaning from their rightful spot in Halloween World. Monster Mash and Thriller only have a limited window for airing each fall, so to hear them competing against the jingling bells and cheery strains of Christmas music was just dissonant and weird and wrong.
What I really want to get to here, however, is the song selection. You see, there are very few Christmas songs I dislike. I even have a certain fondness for Dominick the Christmas Donkey and Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer (which I hold dear more for the nostalgia factor, remembering the time my friend Da Nator and I translated the entire song into Spanish for a class assignment back in high school. Abuela fue aplastado por un ciervo..... Good times!) There actually are exactly two songs in the Christmas genre that I cannot stand. One of them is that piece of inexcusable dreck (complete with children's chorus) called The Christmas Shoes. (I want to barf just typing the name. I refuse to link to it. Google it if you want to expose yourself to the horror. I'm sure there is at least one treacly video someplace on YouTube. *shudder*)
The other song that, though it doesn't make me want to barf, does drive me utterly crazy? Yep, you guessed it - Feliz Navidad. The reason I can't stand it and that it drives me so crazy is that once I hear it, even the teensiest snippet, it embeds itself in my brain and won't. Get. OUT. I will wake up at night hearing it playing in my dreams. I will catch myself humming it without even realizing it. It is insidious and that makes it eeeeevil.
Every year, Hubby and I keep track of how close to Christmas we get before hearing Jose's little ditty of doom. Typically, it is sometime around the week of Thanksgiving, usually heard in a shopping mall or on a commercial someplace. (We have a "ban" on Christmas music in our house - Hubby long ago decreed that it may only be played between the day after Thanksgiving and New Year's Day. Kiddo and I have subsequently modified that rule to "may only be played in Hubby's hearing" and usually start listening to Christmas tunes shortly after Halloween.)
I cannot freaking believe that this year, I heard it on September freaking 29th.
Oh, and clearly, I am not the only one for whom this song works an insidious and evil magic, because over the next 20 or so minutes that I was wandering the aisles of MallWart, I passed no less than three people who were whistling Feliz Navidad as they shopped.
Nooooooooooooooo! Stop the madness! At least until November 1! Aieeeeee!
(You think I'm going crazy over nothing? Really? Then I dare you to click below. Go ahead. See if it doesn't get stuck in your head for the next three months. Mwah-ha-ha-ha-haaaaa!)
Seriously, MallWart, what the HECK? It isn't even OCTOBER yet. I shook my head in disgust and turned away from the display, heading into Land O' Dental Accoutrements. After finding, totally amazingly, a musical toothbrush that not only features Simba, Kiddo's most favoritest Disney character of ALL, but that plays her most favoritest song of all time from The Lion King and calling Hubby from the middle of the aisle to screech with glee over my discovery, I headed out the other end of the aisle - away from the ridonkulously early Christmas display - over towards the cat food aisle. Then, I heard it. Somewhere in that RECD, some animatronic Christmas Critter was having his button pressed and was dutifully belting out Feliz Navidad. Over and over again - clearly, some mother was letting her child repeatedly start Animatronic Christmas Critter's singing.
Now, I am a Christmas nut. Seriously. I *heart* Christmastime. I also love the more generically "winter" snowmen - I have a collection of various snowmen figurines, ornaments, mugs and assorted tchotchkes. I absolutely adore Christmas music (and am doing my darndest to ingrain a love for Christmas music in Kiddo, as well).
But.
First of all, let's skip over the fact that it was ANY Christmas song playing in SEPTEMBER, okay? I am pretty sure that even those other Christmas nuts out there like me will agree that SEPTEMBER is just way, way too early for Christmas stuff. Unless you live at the North Pole, which, while it may feel that way weather-wise here sometimes, we don't. I mean, the leaves are just starting to turn and the weather is juuuust starting to feel crisp. Let's further overlook the fact that a mere two aisles away from the Land o' Crazy Early Christmas, witches were cackling and black cat eyes were blinking and ghosts were wooooo-ing and Frankensteins were moaning from their rightful spot in Halloween World. Monster Mash and Thriller only have a limited window for airing each fall, so to hear them competing against the jingling bells and cheery strains of Christmas music was just dissonant and weird and wrong.
What I really want to get to here, however, is the song selection. You see, there are very few Christmas songs I dislike. I even have a certain fondness for Dominick the Christmas Donkey and Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer (which I hold dear more for the nostalgia factor, remembering the time my friend Da Nator and I translated the entire song into Spanish for a class assignment back in high school. Abuela fue aplastado por un ciervo..... Good times!) There actually are exactly two songs in the Christmas genre that I cannot stand. One of them is that piece of inexcusable dreck (complete with children's chorus) called The Christmas Shoes. (I want to barf just typing the name. I refuse to link to it. Google it if you want to expose yourself to the horror. I'm sure there is at least one treacly video someplace on YouTube. *shudder*)
The other song that, though it doesn't make me want to barf, does drive me utterly crazy? Yep, you guessed it - Feliz Navidad. The reason I can't stand it and that it drives me so crazy is that once I hear it, even the teensiest snippet, it embeds itself in my brain and won't. Get. OUT. I will wake up at night hearing it playing in my dreams. I will catch myself humming it without even realizing it. It is insidious and that makes it eeeeevil.
Every year, Hubby and I keep track of how close to Christmas we get before hearing Jose's little ditty of doom. Typically, it is sometime around the week of Thanksgiving, usually heard in a shopping mall or on a commercial someplace. (We have a "ban" on Christmas music in our house - Hubby long ago decreed that it may only be played between the day after Thanksgiving and New Year's Day. Kiddo and I have subsequently modified that rule to "may only be played in Hubby's hearing" and usually start listening to Christmas tunes shortly after Halloween.)
I cannot freaking believe that this year, I heard it on September freaking 29th.
Oh, and clearly, I am not the only one for whom this song works an insidious and evil magic, because over the next 20 or so minutes that I was wandering the aisles of MallWart, I passed no less than three people who were whistling Feliz Navidad as they shopped.
Nooooooooooooooo! Stop the madness! At least until November 1! Aieeeeee!
(You think I'm going crazy over nothing? Really? Then I dare you to click below. Go ahead. See if it doesn't get stuck in your head for the next three months. Mwah-ha-ha-ha-haaaaa!)
Friday, March 28, 2008
Hardy har har, Mother Nature
Guess I shouldn't have posted about how I can't wait for spring to hurry up and get here! This was the view out the back door of our house at 7:00 this morning:
Our house was in the 3-6 inch total snowfall color band on the morning weather report, so I guess it could've been worse, as some of the higher elevations a bit further out were in the 12 inch total snowfall color band. There even were some delayed openings and school closings listed on the bottom of the screen for some of the heavier-hit areas. We did have enough snow in this part of town that I got stuck behind a plow both on the way to and from dropping the kiddo off at school though, grrrr.
Since whinging on about the nasty, snowy weather when it is supposed to be spring and sunshiny isn't getting me anywhere, I'm going to try instead for a bit of reverse psychology and see if that helps.....
Our house was in the 3-6 inch total snowfall color band on the morning weather report, so I guess it could've been worse, as some of the higher elevations a bit further out were in the 12 inch total snowfall color band. There even were some delayed openings and school closings listed on the bottom of the screen for some of the heavier-hit areas. We did have enough snow in this part of town that I got stuck behind a plow both on the way to and from dropping the kiddo off at school though, grrrr.
Since whinging on about the nasty, snowy weather when it is supposed to be spring and sunshiny isn't getting me anywhere, I'm going to try instead for a bit of reverse psychology and see if that helps.....
Woo-hoo, snow! Yippie! Can't wait to go make snow angels and snowmen and get in another sledding run! Yee-ha! I looooove having to brush my car off after going to the grocery store, mmmm-hmmm! Oh, and having a big, slushy pile of snow fall out of the trees overhead as I walked out of preschool this morning and land with a plop right down the back of my neck? Twice? Positively delightful! I just hope it snows even more this weekend! Oh yeah!! Global warming, my foot! I hope I can keep cramming hats and mittens onto the squirmy and protesting kiddo until at least May or June! Whee!
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