Category Archives: Uncategorized

by

Bloggess Envy

I was having an argument with myself this morning. My Conscience and Ugly Thoughts were going at it like alley cats. This isn’t an unusual occurrence. Sometimes I need couples counseling for the interior of my skull.

A self-portrait of the Bloggess, also known as...

A self-portrait of the Bloggess, also known as Jenny Lawson, an Internet blogger. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You see, I discovered the humorist/blogger, The Bloggess, who is brilliant! She can drop f-bombs and talk about baby zombies and dead kitten mittens for the homeless with such finesse that even Stephanie Meyer stopped writing about sparkly vampires long enough to fly her Twigh-self to one of the Bloggess’s book signings.

Stephanie My-Characters-Wait-Until-Marriage-To-Have-Sex Meyer!

That is talent. In the hands of a lesser writer those subjects would just be offensive and alienate God-fearing people, such as Ms. Meyer.

Ugly Thoughts immediately reared its unattractive little head and said, “you need to loosen up and use more f-bombs. Make your writing more edgy,” to which My Conscience responded,

“yes, but the f-bombs aren’t what make her funny. You’re just looking for a short cut to funny, which is a cop out.”

“Shut up! You’re so judgmental!” Ugly Thoughts replied.

“That’s my job.”

“I hope you get laid off.”

I had to give Ugly Thoughts a time-out so it could think about cooperating and playing nice with others while I read some more of the Bloggess’s posts. As I read, I discovered that the Bloggess battles rheumatoid arthritis and takes copious amounts of Xanax for anxiety. These are both serious afflictions, My Conscience reminded me, deserving of some empathy (’cause that’s what civilized folk feel) and also admiration due to the fact that she can carve quite a bit of humor out of her situation.

Ugly Thoughts emerged from its time out and said wistfully, “If only you had a debilitating disease and took more meds, you’d be funnier,” to which My Conscience retorted,

“Don’t wish for a debilitating disease. No one wishes for a debilitating disease but a complete a-hole.”

“Asshole! You can’t even say asshole! That’s why you’re not funny!”

And then My Conscience and Ugly Thoughts got into a fist fight and I had to break it up.

It’s a full-time job dealing with those two. I barely have time to raise my children.

So then I wrote about my inner struggle on Facebook, which I use in place of therapy, only I misspelled debilitating as depilitating, which restarted the bickering.

“You can’t even spell your inappropriate thoughts correctly, which just goes to show you how wrong they are,” said My Conscience.

“Pipe down, it was funny.”

“It was funny until you misspelled it. ‘Depilitating’ disease. Now it’s just tragic.”

“Heh heh heh. Depilitating. Like depilatory.”

“What is that, a disease that makes your leg hair fall out?”

“Yeah, I wish I had that disease!”

And then they went off to share a beer and bond again.

“No actually it was the morning and drinking beer would’ve been inappropriate.”

“Suck it! I’ll ‘inappropriate’ you in the head!”

ANYWAY, that is why envy is dangerous. So is mental illness. But you can’t medicate envy, so avoid it even more.

 

***In the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you that I’ve read all of the sparkly vampire books and may have even picked a team but that’s a-whole-nother ball of shame.

 

Gallery by

Saturday With The Redicans

This gallery contains 10 photos.

It was a lovely Saturday. We kidnapped Riley’s best friend, Isabelle, and took her into the wilderness wearing a dress and flip flops. ‘Cause that’s how we roll. You just never know when we’re going to go rogue. You gots to be ready. The kids brought their pets along for our adventure. Animals love to […]

by

Bully For You

Hubs hates bullies. Essentially they are why he became a cop. I’m in complete agreement. There is no lower life form than someone who victimizes those who can’t defend themselves.

Hubs grew up in Massachusetts on the cusp of a tough neighborhood. Did you see The Fighter? That’s the neighborhood. Lowell. Or as the locals like to call it, Low Hell. Jack Kerouac lived there at one point. It has churned out many fighters, drug addicts and public servants–sometimes combinations of the three.

Hubs was a late bloomer with a quick temper and bright red hair growing up in a tough, working class neighborhood. You best believe that he had to fight on a regular basis. He became good at it. So good that some people were shocked when he became a cop and not a professional bouncer. His secret? God-given orneriness and a willingness to fight dirty. As Hubs has told me on more than a few occasions, sometimes you have to be willing to stick your finger in a guy’s nose or squeeze his testicle if things are looking bad. Many people aren’t will to do this. Hubs is.

I also grew up in a tough neighborhood but it was a tough neighborhood in Oregon. In between the fights and bullying we hugged trees under a cloud of patchouli oil. My mother was a bit of a hippie and my dad was hopelessly cerebral and fair-minded. I was raised to be strong but not aggressive.

Needless to say, Hubs and I have a very different approach to conflict resolution when it comes to bullies. Hubs is quick to label it as such and meet the problem head on with aggression. I’m more likely to take my time in labeling the situation and look for a diplomatic solution.

Here are some examples of actual conversations in our home:

Riley: Heather told me that I couldn’t wear my visor for Hat Day at school so I took it off.

Me: Honey, Heather might think she knows the rules but she’s not the one in charge. Only your teacher can tell you that. Sometimes your friends are wrong.

Hubs: You tell Heather, “Shut up and get away from me!”

Riley: But Dad, she’s my friend!

Hubs: She’s not your friend if she hurts your feelings. You tell her to shut up!

——

Riley: Conor hit me!

Me: Conor, you don’t hit. It’s not nice.

Hubs: You don’t hit girls. You can hit someone to defend yourself.

——-

Conor: My friend punched me at school cuz he was mad.

Me: Why was he mad?

Conor: I ruined his tower.

Me: Did you say sorry?

Conor: Yeah, but he punched me anyway.

Hubs: You only have to say sorry once. If he hits you again, hit him back!

—–

Riley: Sometimes the 3rd graders make us leave the lunch tables before we’re done.

Me: Tell one of the Yard Duty ladies or a teacher, sweetie.

Hubs: You let me know if someone is being mean to you and I’ll punch them in the nose.

—

I fully expect a call from the school at some point when one of the kids decides to try out Daddy’s advice. I’ve already let Hubs know that I’m referring that phone call straight to him.

And whereas I don’t think that any of these situations required quite the level of aggression for which Hubs was lobbying, I do understand his reaction. He’s protecting what is dear to him by teaching the kids to stick up for themselves and I think it’s a valuable lesson. I’ll just try to balance it out by teaching them diplomacy too. After all, there’s nothing wrong with sticking to your guns if someone is pushing you around, but it never hurts to stop and hug a tree either.

Because trees never bully. I’ve hugged enough to know.

This post was in support of findinggravity’s Anti-bullying campaign. Children shouldn’t be victimized because they’re different or just vulnerable–not by adults and not by other children.

 

by

Hollywood Armchair Detective Part I

I have a guilty pleasure: dramatized police procedurals.  Love them! I love mystery and witty banter and forensic stuff. I love trying to figure out who did it. And I don’t mean to brag but I’m one heck of an armchair detective. It’s a gift really.

However, being married to a cop has almost ruined it all for me. See, Hubs is a slave to silly things like occupational accuracy and the laws of physics. These shows are painful for him to watch and his pain sucks the marrow out of my enjoyment. As a result, I mostly watch these shows on my own, although occasionally I will put one of them on while Hubs is in the room just so that I can hear him groan and leave the room like he’s about to pass a kidney stone.

Hubs doesn’t know what he’s missing. I learn so much watching these shows. If Hollywood hadn’t had the fantastic notion of chronicling the goings on of abnormally attractive detectives, coroners and lab technicians, I would still be in the dark. I’m passing this knowledge on to you because I’m a giver. Like Typhoid Mary.

Because Hollywood has taught me so much, I’ve split this post into two parts so as not to overwhelm. In the words of Sir Francis Bacon, knowledge is power and too much power given all at once can make your head explode (I added the last part.) Here is the first generous helping of Hollywood knowledge. Use it wisely.

  • Coroners and lab technicians spend their days diligently solving crime and apprehending criminals in expensive designer clothes. I thought they mostly did autopsies and processed DNA but I was so wrong. I also had no idea that public servants and government workers made boat loads of cash and had incredible cutting edge tastes in fashion. That is until Hollywood educated me. Now I know that standing on the unforgivingly hard floors of morgues and labs just feels better in stilettos.

She wears the same shoes to cut up dead bodies (image via dreamstime)

  • Good looking coroners like to hang out with good-looking detectives. And when they do, hi-jinx and crime solving ensue. I don’t know why Hubs never invites coroners over for dinners and family cookouts. Then again, I don’t think I want Hubs spending all of his time with a hot coroner. Watching Hubs exchange witty banter and solving murders with some good-looking smarty-pants just might make me want to kick a coroner’s @ss. If Hubs is going to take some unarmed chica in impractical shoes to a dangerous crime scene, it’s going to be me.

She best stay away from my husband's crime scenes! (image via dreamstime)

  • Detectives often cry in the interview room while divulging painful personal facts to hardened criminals in order to obtain a confession. This strategy always works, probably because hardened criminals are notoriously empathetic, which makes total sense when you think about the painful childhoods the criminals must have had. What allows this technique to work so well is that criminals hardly ever ask for a lawyer and when they do, the lawyers sit silently in dismay while the detectives manipulate the hardened criminals into a confession. Nobody wants to interrupt a hot, crying detective. It’s just not done. Hubs seems to be ignoring my suggestion that he cry more at work, which might be why he’s not a detective.

This detective cried at least once an episode (image via dreamstime)

  • Crime labs investigate every death with the same amount of time and resources. Vagrants who seemingly died of natural causes get the same exhaustive efforts that high-profile murders do. And they are all investigated with state of the art equipment not seen outside of secret squirrel government agencies. Crime labs can be this thorough because they never have a backlog of lab work to catch up on. Nor do they have bureaucrats breathing down their necks about overtime hours and the super fancy hologram machine they used to recreate an image of the vagrant’s butt. This is very good news for the residents of Vegas, New York and Miami, because it means that there is hardly any crime and the city governments have plenty of money. So head on down to City Hall to get your free handout and don’t be afraid to carry it around in an open fanny pack.

*I am kidding. In no way do I condone the use of fanny packs.

"Oh sure, now you tell me." (image via dreamstime)

 

There you have it. You are half way to earning your Masters in Armchair Detectivery from Hollywood University. You should totally hit the campus pub. You’ve earned it.

by

Toe Up

As those of you who have been reading this blog already know, I have a broken toe earned from a fun-filled date night at REI (see titillating details here).  A broken toe isn’t too bad, as far as injuries go. I broke one of the little toes and word has it that those are practically expendable. It’s more of an annoyance injury.

That being the case, I thought I’d make a list of the annoying inconveniences of having a broken toe, you know, just in case I’ve glamorized it and you are feeling compelled to run right out and get one for yourself. I even put my thoughts into bullet points in the event that I’m called upon to give a Power Point presentation on the subject in order to receive government grant money for my research.

It could happen.

The government has been known to spend money on things such as a study proving that strippers make more tips during ovulation and a study on the outcomes of concurrent and separate uses of malt liquor and marijuana. (They spent $389,357 on the latter. It didn’t cost me nearly that much to complete the same study in high school and not a drop of it came from the government. You’re welcome, tax payers!) I think our government is primed to look into the effects of broken toes on 40-something mothers.

So here is my carefully researched and thought-provoking presentation (lights, please!):

Effects of Fractured Metatarsals On Female Homo sapiens or A Girl’s Eye View Into Things That Suck About A Broken Toe

  • Taping is hard. It looks so easy in the Rocky movies, but it’s a skill set that I apparently don’t possess. This probably won’t surprise those who’ve read this post. My toes look better than my Christmas presents but I have to wrap my toes after the kids go to sleep as there is some cussing involved.
  • My toes are tired of being strapped together. They’re becoming claustrophobic and co-dependent. They need time apart to remember who they are as individuals.

Their desperation is palpable.

  • Tape attracts dirt and dirty tape does not look pretty in sandals. ‘Nuff said.
  • Walking through the living room barefoot after turning off the lights is SCARY and not because I’m afraid of clowns hiding under the couch. The kids like to rearrange the furniture and my toe feels so vulnerable in the dark, like a baby bunny.

"You wouldn't let that mean old chair leg hurt me, would you?" (image via dreamstime)

  • Tennis shoes don’t go with everything, despite what my mother told me. I suspect she was merely trying to get out of purchasing a second pair of super market shoes with that claim.
  • My impractical high-heeled shoes miss me. I think I heard my boots crying softly in the corner last night. And my platforms are clearly depressed.

They're starting a support group. Do you sense their loneliness?

  • You can’t walk sexily with a gimpy foot. I mean, if I had cause to walk sexily and could remember how, I’m pretty sure that it would hurt.
  • My Barre workout is extra challenging. It’s hard to pretend that I’m a prima ballerina when one foot won’t point. It’s ugly. Then I overcompensate with the other foot and end up with cramping toes. Also ugly. However, I think my taped toes led the teacher to assume that I was a dancer, which is cool.

Or maybe it was the fact that I came dressed like this (image via flickr and tibchris)

  • Bedtime comfort is compromised. Covers are deceptively heavy. Especially at the bottom of the bed where they are tucked in. If I don’t tuck the covers in, I wake halfway through the night with icicle toes and a bedspread turban. And I like to sleep on my back to prevent puffy eyes and face creases so that I don’t look like a disheveled alcoholic when I drop my daughter off for school. So I’m left sleeping with a ballerina turnout, which would be more comfortable if I were an actual ballerina.
  • Children aren’t gentle with their love. Mine think of Hubs and I as parental jungle gyms. This isn’t normally a problem because I’m pretty durable as far as mommies go. But lately I find that when they run toward me to give me a hug, I flinch and assume an awkward protective posture like I have a nervous disorder.

Ahem. So in closing, I believe the evidence I’ve amassed can only point to one conclusion: it is better for females, especially those of child-bearing years, to have unbroken toes rather than broken ones. Please send government checks to Fathead University, Department of Research c/o Kelly. Thank you.

Image by

Spell Check

I smell trouble for this business.

On the upside, they’re making a product that people want. If they were making “Sofas U Loathe” or “Sofas About Which U Feel Ambivalent” they would really be in trouble. But they’re making Sofas U Love. It says so right there on their sign. And who doesn’t want to love their sofa?

Hubs loves our sofa so much that he’s made a butt imprint in his favorite spot. Conor has lovingly smeared it with all kinds of substances to show his devotion. Our sofa is an integral part of our family.

However, the first hint of trouble lies in the fact that they didn’t spell out “you”, opting instead for the alphabet letter with the same sound.  This seems clever until it’s sitting next to the big sign printed with the word “CLEARENCE”. Now they kind of look like ignorant sofa makers. And don’t you want a smart sofa on which to place your fanny while you’re staring blankly at your boob tube?

Now I’m no spelling genius. I’ll admit to relying heavily on Spell Check. But wouldn’t you think that if you were going to the expense of having two giant signs made, you would double-check the spelling? Sure they only missed one word out of five, which is an 80% success rate, if you’re a glass half full person. However, I feel the need to step into my role as Captain Buzz Kill and point out that the word they misspelled is the biggest, most eye-catching word on the sign. Though spelling isn’t a required skill when building a sofa, attention to detail is and they’ve got two giant details hanging from their store which seem to have escaped attention.

Things don’t look good for this business, UNLESS…

…They’re going for the sympathy factor. Sort of a “We’re struggling so hard that we’ve lost the will to spell” slant. Or even: “We need to sell some sofas in order to afford to educate ourselves.” If that’s their angle, I take back everything I’ve said here. They’re marketing GENIUSES! The Grifters of Furniture Design. Bleeding heart liberals like myself will rush to buy up their sofas in the name of giving back to the community, while furnishing our eco-friendly, equality loving homes. Sales will go through the roof. They’ll be able to afford a luxurious second home in a tropical local and fill it with expensive misspelled signs.

Well played, sirs. Well played.

by

Liar, Liar Easter Bunny On Fire

"Easter bunny, are you real?" "Sure, kid. Now get in my van." (image via dreamstime)

Last year while walking down to school, my daughter, Riley and I were talking about inconsequential things, as we usually did in the morning, when without warning, she segued into:

 

“Debbie told me there’s no Tooth Fairy. Debbie’s brother told her that it’s really our parents only you will never ever ever admit it. Are you the Tooth Fairy?”

 

“Uh…”

 

Keep in mind that I was still in the sweatpants in which I’d slept, my hair unbrushed and thrown into a sloppy ponytail. I might have been prepared for discussions about breakfast cereal at that hour, but I was totally and completely unprepared for a discussion entailing the loss of childhood fantasy. It hadn’t even occurred to me that I would be having the conversation with my innocent, fairy-loving daughter in the first grade so I was caught flat-footed between my commitment to honesty and my love of childhood innocence.

 

Why didn’t Riley want to discuss something easy, like where babies come from? I’d spent numerous hours preparing for that question. I would’ve hit that one out of the park. But Debbie Downer had stolen my opportunity for parental success.

Waa Waa. (image via Wikipedia)

 

 

Who was this Debbie? And why was she heading a massive conspiracy aimed at undermining  my parental acuity? I felt the powerful urge to kick her first grade butt. She was ruining my morning.

 

Thanks to Debbie, I was under the gun with no time to Facebook my friends and set up some sort of parental poll regarding effective ways of navigating this crisis. I had to handle it on my own. Like an adult. I need to be warned before I’m asked to do that. Or at least caffeinated.

 

I longed desperately for someone to run out of their house at that moment and yell “I have something really important that precludes all deep family conversations!” but our neighbors were seemingly oblivious to my predicament. Unlike dogs, my neighbors can’t smell fear and desperation. I scrambled to buy myself some time while I wrestled with my moral dilemma.

*Hey do you smell that? Smells like a cornered rabbit." "Mmm, cornered rabbit is my favorite."

 

“Wow. Really? She said that? Huh. What’s Debbie’s deal? She sounds like a very unhappy and possibly unstable girl. And what’s up with her brother?” (When in doubt, undercut the credibility of the source.) “Can you imagine me in a tooth fairy get-up flying around, and getting stuck in your hair while trying to wrestle your tooth out from under your pillow?” (Then deflect with humor.)

 

I added a visual demonstration of myself as a fairy struggling through Riley’s hair to sell the absurdity of the thought but Riley was unswayed by my comedic genius.

 

“Are you the Tooth Fairy, Mom?”

 

In that moment I was reminded of a conversation I’d had as a child with my own mother about Santa’s existence. A boy in my school had unloaded the “Santa is actually your parents” bomb on the whole 4th grade class and I felt the need to get reassurance from my mom. Her answer: “The spirit of Santa is real.” Not the definitive answer I wanted. I asked her about 50 more times and received the same answer on loop. I desperately wanted my mom to tell me outright that Santa was real. I looked into my daughter’s trusting blue eyes and remembered my own desire to keep believing.

"I'm what you call a Christmas poltergeist." (image via dreamstime)

 

“No, I’m not the Tooth Fairy, Sweetie.”

 

There it was. Bald faced lie.

 

I felt the weight of guilt crushing my skull and I realized that my mom probably had the right approach. She didn’t lie. She gave a nebulous answer that, while unsatisfying, did afford me the opportunity to decide for myself whether or not I was ready to let go of my childhood fantasies.

I hate it when my moments of clarity come just after I actually need them. It’s seriously inconvenient.

 

I tried to make up for my misgivings and feelings of guilt with a long, rambling speech about how different people believe different things and some people just don’t believe in magic and magic is important in childhood…yadda, yadda, yadda. I can’t remember the whole speech but frankly it was embarrassing. I think I included a whole theological discourse on the differences between Paganism and Christianity. I was in the midst of a shame spiral and could not stop talking. By the time we got to Riley’s school her ears were bleeding from my verbal onslaught. She ran onto the school grounds screaming “Please stop the madness!”

 

That last part might have happened only in my imagination.

 

Flash forward to this year’s Easter. The kids discovered their Easter baskets, which I had packed full of things specific to each of their tastes and needs. Riley pulled out a box of Altoids from her basket and said with a disturbing lack of incredulity,

 

“The Easter bunny must know I like mints.”

 

Translation: I’m onto you and your little bag of tricks, you bald-faced liar.

"My mom's a big fat fibber."

 

Cue shame spiral. Somebody please get me a muzzle.

 

by

Slacker Mom Confessional – Spirit Week

This morning we all woke up late. Well the kids woke up late and I uncharacteristically decided to shower as soon as I got out of bed due to the fact that my hair had molded into some sort of 4th grade art project during the night. The shower put me behind schedule.

Personal hygiene is my nemesis.

So we were all running behind when I realized that it was Crazy Hair day at my daughter’s school. This is spirit week and Crazy Hair day was the day to which Riley had been looking forward all week. She had big plans for Crazy Hair day, namely to dye her hair the color of the rainbow. All week long I told myself to prepare and all week long preparation was preempted by other, more pressing things on my to-do list, so this morning found me woefully unprepared.

However, Riley hasn’t had the best week. She’s been stressed out about learning multiplication and the upcoming state testing and bummed about a hundred other little things.  Being a sensitive, dyslexic seven-year-old ain’t easy some days. Because of that, I wouldn’t even consider scrapping the rainbow hair plan despite having insufficient time and preparation. Desperate mothers aren’t ruled by logic.

I'd dye my butt rainbow colors for my daughter if it wouldn't simply traumatize her.

I grabbed our food coloring, my creme brulee ramekins, some conditioner, a toothpick and a sandwich baggie in a rush and went to work.

Okay, so my organizational skills are suspect even when I’m not under duress. My manual dexterity is sub par. And I multitask like a drunken bachelor. This partially explains why I grabbed such nonsensical items.

You know what you can accomplish with a toothpick, a baggie and a lot of food coloring in a tiny white bathroom? Complete multicolored chaos. Like a mac truck and the Easter bunny collided.

Jackson Pollock bathes here.

The only thing that really didn’t take color was Riley’s hair, which sent me into a panic, because I just couldn’t accept the look of disappointment on her face after all the carnage. I made a last minute decision to stop rinsing the colored conditioner from Riley’s hair in an effort to keep at least a hint of rainbow on her head. Then we ran out of time before I could thoroughly blow dry Riley’s hair so I sent her to school with wet, slightly slimy, mildly tinted hair, a bright blue ear and random smudges and smears everywhere else. She was shivering when I dropped her off at the gate and well on her way to developing Spirit Week pneumonia. But she was happy about having colored hair and that’s what’s important, right? Right?? Right!

I took this picture after school. Greasy, colored hair makes Riley feel edgy like a 7-year-old runaway or a Calvin Klein model.

When Conor and I triumphantly returned home I remembered that both the rent and preschool payment were due…five days ago. Those two items were also preempted by other items on my to-do list. Understandable. It’s not like housing and education are important, right? Ask any politician.

I threw a check and one of Riley’s drawings into an envelope (my little way of reminding our landlords that we have adorable children who make up for my delinquent rent payments) and hustled Conor out to the car. We dropped the rent at the same post office that houses our landlords’ p.o. box to speed delivery. I briefly lamented about the waste of another stamp but since I can’t even remember what current postage is it’s hard to really get indignant.

We're happy even on the verge of being incinerated by the giant sun--who wouldn't want us as renters?

Then we headed to the credit union, conveniently located nowhere near our home. I like to pay our preschool in cash because they are extremely relaxed about cashing checks and Hubs tends to get excited upon finding extra money in our account. When Hubs gets excited, he celebrates by purchasing something. The preschool inevitably cashes the check right after Hubs’s celebratory purchase. And then Mama can’t go to Vegas…I mean the grocery store.

On a side note: I only refer to myself as Mama when I’m gambling or experiencing a financial windfall which is exactly never.

Now at that point I hadn’t eaten yet, which is not a good thing. Important parts of me shut down when I don’t eat: patience, empathy, motor skills, cognitive function. And Conor was overdue for his every-15-minute fuel intake as well. The inside of my car sounded like a road trip with the Bickersons of Bickerville. Conor loudly expressed his disdain for the post office, the road we were on, all roads around us, going uphill, going downhill, “pleases” officers, banks, cars, air, you name it, he hated it and I was only slightly more pleasant.

I had to carry Conor into the credit union due to his sudden attack of “pleases”officer-phobia and that took a little longer than usual because, in my low blood sugar state I couldn’t remember how to get to the front door. Afterward I couldn’t remember where the freeway on-ramp was and ended up on the wrong freeway headed to no place in particular. I should have picked up a souvenir and some breakfast.

Oh look, we're here. (image via dreamstime)

When we were finally home and I was dancing around in the hallway, waiting for my son to get done with the bathroom, so that I could relieve myself and then eat before ending up in a puddle of my own tears and urine, I remembered that I had missed the play date I’d scheduled for Conor by an hour and a half. What else could I do but light my to-do list on fire and sit down here to write my confession?

You see I’m not a slacker mom because I don’t care. I’m a slacker mom because I don’t possess the mental faculties to be super efficient and still sane. God made me mildly funny and then got distracted and left the room before he added organizational tools. I’m okay with this. I love myself and all of my deficiencies. My kids seem to be okay–I don’t think disorganized parenting caused Riley’s dyslexia or stunted their growth.

Disorganized parenting is the leading cause of messy hair and extended pajama wearing according to the Surgeon General's office.

However if you were thinking of putting me on some sort of important committee for the future of society, you might want to rethink that choice. Maybe Gwyneth Paltrow is available.

by

Crossroads: Not Just A Bad Britney Spears Movie

Hubs is bummed out.

It’s a rare occurrence, like a total solar eclipse or sitting next to Leonardo DiCaprio at IHOP. Hubs isn’t the type of person to usually get melancholy and introspective. You won’t find him sitting in bed with a pint of Haagen Daz wondering why someone doesn’t like him or worrying if he really did the right thing. He acts with no regrets, addresses problems and conflicts face to face as soon as they arise, and never frets over being liked or disliked. If he feels like he did the wrong thing then he steps right up to remedy the situation. I envy him because, well, let’s just say that there are some sizable Haagen Daz stains on my side of the bed.

An ancient photo but it captures his approach: show up loaded for bear and wreaking of confidence.

Hubs is suffering from job dissatisfaction, which is highly unusual for him because he loves what he does. From chasing a gangster with a gun to comforting little old ladies–Hubs loves it all. What other occupation could combine so many of his favorite things: fast cars, dangerous toys, problem solving, variety and the constant threat of danger? It would be like giving me a job that combines telling stories, eating and getting massaged. And what’s more? He’s good at it. Really good.

Colors! Colors! Colors!

You probably think I’m biased because he’s my husband and he looks so cute in a gas mask. That’s a logical conclusion but I assure you that I’m pretty honest about my husband’s strengths and weaknesses. If you ask me whether he’s good at washing dishes I’ll tell you straight up. He isn’t. Is he a dandy dresser? Not so much. Would I let him decorate my living room? Now you’re just talking crazy. But law enforcement? He might as well have been born with a badge.

He's hiding his badge in his diaper.

I’ve met plenty of good police officers, but most are good at certain aspects of the job and not as good at others. Some officers are very proficient at dealing with hardened criminals but hate talking with the public. Some are great at dealing with regular citizens but not as good in a life and death situation. Some guys can write a gazillion tickets. Some are gifted at polishing their desk chair with their backside. Everybody has their strengths.

How do you know that your undercover guise is effective? When you get a fist bump and a free coffee from the white supremacist in the Starbucks.

Not many officers can become “STEP INTO A SLIM JIM” scary when needed then flip the switch to transform into Officer Cuddles, community liaison. Hubs can. He will pull over to change someone’s flat tire in the rain. He will wrestle a 200 pound, gun-toting victim of society. He will also get out and dance at a Martin Luther King Jr. parade (but he would advise you against checking that out on YouTube under “Martin Luther King Parade-Cop dancing!” –I’ve already said too much.) And he has an uncanny knack for spotting felonious intent. He’s a complete law enforcement package with a cute butt. I will admit that the cute butt has no impact on job performance–it’s just a personal preference.

Officer Cuddles in the house

Here’s the thing: some bureaucratic organizations, as well as many large businesses don’t necessarily appreciate super efficiency. I know, it is shocking, like discovering politicians don’t always tell the truth. People hate over-achievers. They ruin the curve and make everyone else look bad. They set a pace with which it’s hard to keep up and people resent that.

Head-shots are strongly discouraged unless dealing with a suicide bomber or zombies.

If you come into a detective squad and close a bunch of cases all at once, everyone else looks like they’ve just been sitting around playing computer solitaire every day.  If you arrest too many violent offenders, you get a lot of “uses of force” in your career file and Risk Management sends you to sensitivity training to learn how to hug homicidal maniacs. Career-savvy workers keep a low profile, play the political game and pace themselves, doing just enough to tow the line but not enough to ruffle feathers.

Give me a hug...and your wallet!

Hubs doesn’t operate that way. He goes all out to the finish line, pukes, tapes up his injuries, sleeps like the dead and then does it all again. That’s just how he rolls.

work hard, play hard, sleep hard: that's his motto.

The criminals are holding up their end of the bargain: breaking the law and trying to get away with it, running away, lying, throwing guns and narcotics in bushes, wetting their pants…you know, the stuff they’re supposed to do. That’s heartening. However Hubs has grown weary of watching peers (not all, but some) coast along doing the bare minimum and cutting corners that affect officer safety. And he’s tired of being penalized by superiors (again, not all, but some) for being outspoken and proactive, especially when the superiors doing the penalizing are more skilled at climbing the career ladder than actually doing the job. See, not every skill will get you a big high-five from your co-workers.

Just an early morning criminal courtesy call to say, "hi! you've violated parole!"

So what do you do when you’ve become disillusioned with the job you always wanted to do? Do you grit your teeth and stick it out until retirement? Do you find an alternative and redefine yourself? How do you find something as fulfilling as cracking skulls for the good of society and still receive good health care and a retirement package? Can you get a job doing Mixed Martial Arts in retirement communities? Become a professional surfer and shark wrestler? Maybe a rodeo clown?

They don't like my suggestions. I can tell.

These are some of the questions Hubs is asking himself and frankly I don’t blame him for feeling down about it. Crossroads typically aren’t fun road trips in a Britney Spears movie, though they can be as painful to watch. More often they feel like bald-headed Britney taking an umbrella to a SUV.

"You're parked in the middle of my crossroads!" (image via Hollywood Grind)

But you always come out the other side. And if you play your cards right, you come out a better person with a cute butt. Okay, again the cute butt is not required to be a better person, but Hubs does have one and I feel compelled to point it out.  I just wouldn’t feel right if I wrote a whole blog post about him and didn’t objectify him a little. He’d do the same for me.

Inappropriate? Maybe, but I felt the need to prove that my posts are factually correct. His butt is indeed cute.

by

Reality Bites

Last night Hubs and I were sitting on the couch, basking in the glow of suburban satisfaction when Hubs, in the midst of his nightly tour of cable channels, chanced upon a show called Repo Games. The premise of this show is that a repo team and a television crew come to people’s homes and give them an opportunity to win back their nearly repossessed vehicles by playing a trivia game. From the five minutes I saw, which clearly makes me an expert, it appears as though the people are carefully selected for their probable inability to answer any trivia at all unrelated to soap operas and Nascar. I watched in horror as a man, who didn’t want his treasured truck repossessed, grabbed what looked suspiciously like an Uzi replica and pointed it at the repo man. After a tense stand-off full of manufactured danger, the fake-gun-wielding genius informed the repo man with an air of bravado that he only intended to maim the repo man so as to avoid jail time.

I'm pretty sure the right to bear fake-arms in the defense of property you don't actually own is covered under the 28th amendment. (image via dreamstime)

If this had been a scene from Reno 911 I would’ve slapped my knee and howled with laughter. However, when executed with real people, I had to run from the room and rinse the horror from my eyes. I can only enjoy a scene like that when it’s completely scripted (and I mean the type of scripted where the writer gets a screen credit.) Then I can laugh while still secretly harboring the belief that real life people aren’t actually that stupid, a belief that I harbor in the same sacred place as my belief that I still look 21. And that is a sacred place indeed.

"Yes it is, honey. Yes it is." (image via Steve Rhodes)

There seems to be a phenomenon that causes people to do really stupid and sometimes painful things on camera for the purpose of gaining a little notoriety after which a very large section of society lines up eagerly to watch the fruits of their labor. I understand this phenomenon about as much as I understand crop circles. I’ve heard the argument that watching people behave poorly makes viewers feel better about themselves–“I’m not that stupid” “I’m not that alcoholic,” “my mullet looks better than that.” (and by the way, it totally does). I’ve also heard that sometimes people use the extremes shown in these programs to inspire themselves to alter their not-quite-as-extreme-but-similar behavior. And these sound like reasonable ideas, which would mean that I’m unreasonable, something my father suggested many times growing up.

"You do strike me as unreasonable." (image via flickr and Indiepics!)

Be that as it may, watching some teenager take off his own nipple with a weed whacker and then chug a beer doesn’t make me feel better about myself. It does make me feel like locking my children in the closet until their thirties and abandoning all lawn care. Likewise, watching hoarders doesn’t make me want to clean my living room. Instead it leaves me with a strong desire to douse all of my possessions with gasoline, set them on fire and move to the Blue Ridge Mountains where I would live off of bear meat. Incidentally a bear would never take off his own nipple with a weed whacker or live under a pile of old garbage, which puts them ahead of us on the evolutionary scale.

"It's true. I don't even own a weed whacker. And I recycle." (image via dreamstime)

I could climb up on my high horse and declare that we shouldn’t reward people who behave badly with fame and fortune, but I got rid of the nag due to the fact that it kept leaving really big piles of horse poo in my living room. And also it would be a little hypocritical to wax moralistic since I enjoy comedians like Chelsea Handler, who revels in her own bad behavior and love of vodka.  Does Chelsea not offend me because she has the ability to craft her antics into amusing anecdotes (and also because we’re on a first name basis)? Probably. I feel okay padding her pockets because she is in on the joke. In fact, she wrote the joke. And the joke is funny. Unlike the guy with the toy Uzi who is the last to know that he is a horse’s arse.

Chelsea Handler: a hot mess but funny. And that makes it okay.

If I’m going to watch something unscripted, I want to see people doing amazing and inspiring things–things that make me want to go out and chest bump some random guy outside of a Starbucks in a celebratory salute to the awesomeness of the human race. For instance, I saw a story on Bethany Hamilton, the girl whose arm was mistaken for a cocktail weenie by a shark. She came back to surf competitively with one arm. With one arm, people!  And the girl has a great attitude. I became surly and nihilistic when I couldn’t find the breadcrumbs in my freezer last night. If I tune in to any television show involving Navy SEALs, I start to think I can eat bugs, suture my own wounds and rescue hostages from African warlords. Television like this makes me want to challenge myself–be a better human being and less of a whiner. God hates a whiner. So do Navy SEALs.

I like to wear this outfit when I walk my daughter to school. (image via flickr and Jamiecat)

I need to focus on one-armed surfers and Navy SEALs so that I can continue to have faith in my fellow man, because living in the Blue Ridge mountains removed from society is probably a really bad idea. I’m pretty sure I’d make a terrible hunter, I don’t know how to prepare bear meat anyway, I’m not into log cabin chic and I’d never be able to find impractical high-heeled boots or another Chelsea Handler book.  So I guess I’m left with no other feasible solution other than setting our television on fire, throwing it out the window and camping out in the Inspirational Biography section of Barnes & Noble.

See Dad, I can be reasonable.