Monday, January 31, 2011

On Snow Monkeys and Flings

Pop Quiz Monday!

In honor or Snowmageddon, I googled snow and quiz and this one looked liked it fit the bill.

If we get to much snow I suppose it is possible that our shelters and societal infrastructures might start to fail. If that happens society itself might devolve into our pre-human, primate state.

Ahhhh! I wasn't worried, but now I am.

How will you survive? Will you know which bark to eat? Do monkeys even eat bark?

This quiz will help you out:

Do you have the social skills that every snow monkey needs to survive?

If you fail this quiz I suggest you study up. You never know when we might devolve.

Just don't start to fling your poop too soon. If it turns out we aren't devolving everyone will laugh at you and you will forever be know as the asshole that throws poop at people.

Friday, January 28, 2011

On Quick Take Friday- January 28th Edition

7 Random Thoughts

1. Dehydrated pineapple is delicious and tastes like candy.

2. I learned how to play Super Mario Galaxy 2 to amuse my son. Now I am stuck on 90 stars and I am annoyed.

3. I am attempting to potty train my daughter. Again. I swear it is the worst part of parenting a preschooler. I have no idea how to explain how pee and poop comes out of your ass. It just does. And before it does sit on the potty please. Pretty please? How about if I buy you a toy?

4. None of the underwear I bought her from the first time I tried to train her will fit her anymore. So now I have a pile of 2T underwear that was never worn. The packages were open though so I can't just donate them. Ten dollars worth of underwear down the drain. A casualty of my inability to potty train my kid.

5. I really hate band wagons.

6. I also dislike kool-aid.

7. The Ben Folds concert I went to Tuesday was really good. He played pretty much all of my favorites. The only downside were the dudes that sat in front of us. They smelled like pot and BO. And one of them seemed to have intermittent gas. Mr. Folds playing Bitches Ain't Shit made up for it though.

Here is video from the concert. He is doing some sort of a capella project and we all got to participate. :P

Monday, January 24, 2011

On Preparedness and Raptor Balls

Pop Quiz Monday!

Since it has recently come to my attention that dinosaurs may, in fact, be living somewhere nearby we need to be prepared.

This really can't end well.

I have seen at least 2 of the Jurassic Park movies. (Something tells me I have seen 3, but for the life of me I can' recall the plot. I bet there was dinosaurs in it though.)

First, I guess I will need to give everyone their guns back. Sorry for taking them away. I didn't realize dinosaurs were making a comeback. We will definitely need weapons to fight these dinos. Although, instead of simple rifles I think we should all have rocket launchers. What could possibly go wrong if every citizen was armed with a rocket launcher? Not much!

Second, we need to learn to recognize dinosaurs when we see them. The dinos that are out there now are stealthy. They have been hiding for like, 65 million years. That probably means they are probably dressing up like us and hiding in plain sight. Your neighbor could be a fricking T Rex and you haven't even noticed. Get to know your neighbors and if they are a dinosaur call the police. Let the experts handle this. (Rocket launcher are not safe for neighborhood use.)

Lastly, take this quiz to learn how ready you are for hand to claw combat. At my current preparedness rate I am projected to last less then a minute. That is not even enough time for me to set the scope on my rocket launcher. It appears the key to defeating raptors according to this quiz is to take up wrestling, martial arts, and ball kicking.

I think there might be a flaw in this recipe for raptor defeat though, in that I am not sure if raptors have a ball sac to kick. I have never seen a bird or a reptile with a ball sac so I think dinosaurs might not. I have never really checked though.

I am 99% sure female raptors also lack a sac so ball kicking will probably do nothing against them.

Hopefully following these steps will help us all get a little better prepared for the upcoming rapt(or)ure. Good luck everyone.

How long could you survive chained to a bunk bed with a velociraptor?

Created by Oatmeal

Friday, January 21, 2011

On Quick Take Friday- January 21th Edition

7 Random Thoughts...

1. It is like -4 outside right now. This makes no difference to me because my house is 69 degrees. Plus, once it gets colder then, like 9 degrees, all cold feels the same. At least it feels the same while running from the car to the grocery store. I might sing a different tune if I was living in an igloo.

2. If I lived in a igloo I would be sad.

3. It is not that igloos aren't cool looking, I just think i would have a hard time heating it to almost 70 degrees.

4. Plus, I hate wearing layers. Wearing layers in an igloo seems like it would be a necessity.

5. Why doesn't Mickey Mouse and the Gang chase Pete out of the Clubhouse? He is such a dick. The gang has a monopoly on the area. Clarabelle owns the store, hence controlling the food source. Why not refuse to serve Pete? Is Clarabelle that greedy that she can't refuse a sale? What a cow.

6. Watching my daughter dance is the cutest thing ever. However, if an adult danced like her I might think there was something wrong with them.

7. I wonder how nail biting starts. I don't remember ever not biting my nails.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

On Music Videos and Youtube

Song Prompt Wednesday!

This is more like video prompt Wednesday.



I love this video. It is one of my all time favorites. I used to love almost all music videos.

I miss them. Remember when even Nickelodeon had a music video program? It was on around dinner time and it was around teh time Madonna released True Blue.

I know I am not is MTV's target demographic any longer, and they don't give a crap about my opinion, but it still makes me sad that they no longer play videos. Even VH1 has forsaken me.

It is not that I don't like trashy reality tv. In fact, I accept my responsibility for helping bring about the beginning of videos' demise. I was a fan of The Real World in the early 90's.

I also liked Sfil and Olly, Beavis and Butthead, Daria, The Tom Green Show. All shows which slowly helped kill the videos also.

So now all we have left is the youtube graveyard.

Classic videos sandwiched between farting cats and 7th graders covering Justin Bieber songs. Sadness

*Imagine Taps in the background*

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

On Letter Writing and a Fourth Grade Me

Recently a friend of mine was sent an anonymous mean letter.

It was nasty and immature, and really, showed more how crappy the person writing it was.

I should know because I am a recovered nasty letter writer.

I was not always the mature bastion of wisdom and benevolence I am today.

Hard to believe, I know.

In fourth grade I went on, what can only be described as, a nasty letter writing spree.

My first foray to the darkside of nasty letter writing was writing a horrid note to a friend when I was worried she was mad at me. This was probably the worst one I wrote. I am still embarrassed by it and sorry for it to this day. Luckily we got to be friends again.

My next trip down letter road involved me convincing half the girls in my class to write a mean note to a poor girl who was not well liked. We all got called out into the hallway by our teacher when she reported us and were told if we kept it up they would call our parents. That was enough to set me straight at school.

Finally (and perhaps the most funny) was a note I wrote to an older neighbor girl after she did something I didn't like. Ironically enough, my partner in crime in writing this letter was the friend who I wrote the first letter to.

One day my friend and I were playing in the front yard with my brother and a neighbor girl.

We were playing happily enough when who approached us but our friendly neighborhood thief/bad news bear/arsonist (he really was arrested and convicted of arson a few years after this).

We told him to go away, but he refused and continued to ride his bike back and forth in front of our house. He really was doing nothing but annoying us. No threats were made.

Neighbor girl's parents were not home, but she was being watched by her older sister. My mom, however, was home. In retrospect, the smart thing to do would have been to call my mom and have her tell this kid to go away.

Hindsight is always 20/20. Instead, our 4th grade minds thought it would be a good idea to scare him away with baseball bats.

So armed with our bats we chase Bad News Bear around our yard and the neighbors yard with baseball bats attempting to hit his tires. Lord of the flies I tell ya.

Eventually neighbor girl's bat made purchase with the tire and Bad News Bear skidded on his bike and skinned his knee.

At this point, neighbor girl's sister came out and yelled at us. I can't imagine why we would deserved such a scolding. Neighbor girl was made to come inside and our pre-bad news bear fun was ended.

Now, this should have ended here right?

Nope. Friend and I decided to express our anger at neighbor girl's sister at having our play date cut short. How could we do this?

We decided the best route was an anonymous nasty letter.

We went to work. We decided that while we wanted to use swear words, we were not sure if wanted to commit the full sin of actually spelling them out. So we used dashes to edit the swear words a bit. Therefore the letter was written it looked something like this:

Dear So-and-So,
You are ugly. We think you smell like sh-t. Dog cr-p smells better then you.
Love, Anonymous


Super mature and nice right? There could not possibly be repercussions for that letter. Who would ever trace it back to us?

We ding dong ditched the letter at their door and went about playing Barbies.

Later that day my friend looked out the window and saw a horrific sight. The mother of the girl we had written the letter to was marching over to my house! And she did not look happy.

Thinking fast, my friend and I decided to barricade ourselves in my mom's bathroom. We were not coming out without a fight! This did keep us from having to face the mad mother of the neighbor girl, but it did not help us from escaping my mom.

Our punishment was the cancellation of our sleepover.

And so ended my nasty letter writing campaign.

When sleepovers are at stake, it is just not worth it.

Monday, January 17, 2011

On Dinosaurs and Young Earth Creation

Pop Quiz Monday!

Okay. So if you read my facebook page you know that lately I have been freaking out over people that truly believe the earth is only like 6,000 years old. Private secular studies estimate 10% of Americans believe this and biased studies estimate 40% of Americans believe this.

Trying to wrap my mind around how people believe this hurts my head. Seriously. To me, these people might as well believe the earth is flat and leaches suck diseases out of people.

My freaking out started out when a group from a local church handed me a pamphlet on a near by private school. Since I like to know all my options for my childrens' education I read the brochure. The first thing that struck me was that they only let girls participate in home ec. The brochure indicated it was taught from a Godly homemaker prospective. Um. That right there crossed them off my list. I don't need my daughter thinking woman can't work if they want to, and I don't need my son thinking woman are his servants.

There was more that knocked the school further and further from my list, but the nail in the coffin was that the school teaches from a young earth creation"science".

Sorry that is not science. Science is not a series of myths made up to explain your world. That is pretty much the definition of religion. Science is not forcing made up evidence to kinda sorta fit your ideas. If you want to teach young earth creation that is fine, but please call it religion or myth, not science.

To quote They Might Be Giants, "A scientific theory isn't just a hunch or guess. It is more like a question that's been put through a lot of tests. When a theory emerges, consistent with the facts, the facts are with science."

Young earth creation? Not consistent with the facts. Like at all. Or even a little.

So for pop quiz Monday we are all going to take a Young Earth Creation Quiz.

Here is a young earth creation point you might want to remember before you take the quiz: Dinosaurs were on the earth the same time as humans (and may perhaps still be hidden around somewhere).

Therefore, if you fail this quiz dinosaurs will probably come to your house and eat you.

Friday, January 14, 2011

On Quick Take Friday- January 14th Edition

7 Random Thoughts on Cake

1. I like making cakes. My dream job is to work at a cake shop. :P

2. My favorite cake is cherry chip with old school funfetti frosting. The kind with colored chips in it, not sprinkles. Sadly, I don't think this frosting exists anymore.

3. Cake is kind of hard to make without eggs. There are lots of substitutes, but the best one for cakes really is enerG Egg replacer. Even if one box is 6 bucks, it will last you forever.

4. Carrot cake is gross, but I eat it if it is served because I love cream cheese frosting. Vegetables do not belong in cake. Or brownies. (I'm looking at you spinach.)

5. I love the band Cake even if my husband hates them and the lead singer only really speak-sings.

6. Tea cakes always make me sad because they are just a tiny bite of cake. I want more damn it.

7. Even though I like making cakes and like reality television, I really dislike all the cake shows on tv. Booo Cake Boss.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

On Girl Code and Stalking

Song Prompt Wednesday!

"The bitch went nuts.
She photoshopped my face
Onto every boy who'd done her wrong
And then she burned them telepathically
To the brains of all her embittered drones"- Ben Folds, The Bitch Went Nuts.

Girl code is complicated.

If your friend comes to you with a complaint about a boyfriend/husband/dude she dated twice. It is your job as her friend to sympathize.

Even if you don't agree.

That doesn't mean you have to lie exactly, but your obligation is sympathy.

Say you have a friend who stalked Robert Patterson (a la Twilight). You don't like Twilight. You think vampires are silly. But your poor friend is obsessed. She recently was sent a cease and desist letter from Mr. Patterson after sending him a collection of her toe nails as tokens of her undying love.

She complains to you about the injustice of not being able to stalk the love of her existence.

Since you have no ties to Mr. Patterson, your job is to agree that Robert Patterson is an a-hole.

And perhaps suggest a new obsession, like knitting.

Warning, song not safe for work. :P Also includes the c-word if that offends you.

Monday, January 10, 2011

On Guns and Opinions

Pop quiz Monday.

Todays quiz is here.

Know your state's gun laws.

I scored a 70%.

The questions I got wrong were the answers I over estimated the state's common sense and desire for its citizens to be safe.

Since everyone is talking gun laws this and gun laws that today I figured I would throw my 2 cents in.

I am all for taking everyone's guns away.

Gun culture begets gun violence.

I know it is your second amendment right to bare arms, and I know that banning guns will never happen, but I would not shed a tear if our country banned them all.

I can think of absolutely no reason for any civilian Joe Schmo accountant to truly NEED a hand gun. You want a rifle for hunting? Eh. I guess, but really I am fine with taking those away too. Go get your meat at Walmart.

Honestly, this is a gut opinion. I know there are some valid arguments against it. I haven't studied forestry to know what would happen with over population of deer. I haven't studied criminology to know how this would effect organized crime.

But if I truly was Queen of teh World I would totally melt down everyone's guns and make a big statue of myself from the metal as a tribute to my awesome leadership.

Saturday, January 8, 2011

On Weaners and a Public Thank You Note

I think it is official. I have a weaner. As in wean-er. A child who has weaned. :P

This could have been a way more scandalizing post if it was about me having a weenier.

We nursed for 37 months. 18 months of that I was dairy free for her and 31 months I was egg free. It sucked a little, but honestly, it wasn't that hard. It sounds harder to do then it is.

In total I have nursed both of my children 45 months. So, for over 4 and a half years I have nursed. Nearly 15% of my life.

Hopefully this gift I have given to my kids will help them to be smarter, healthier people.

I am right now giving myself a huge, self satisfied pat on the back.

I am awesome.

It was not easy in the beginning. I almost quit multiple times during the first 6 months with my son. It hurt. It sucked. I bled. I added it up and I spent at least about 400 dollars on lactation aids and consultants. Both of my children used nipple shields for abut the first 8-9 months of nursing. It was not always sunshine and roses. Far from it.

But motherhood is about sacrifice and it was worth it.

I was also lucky to have supportive local friends to guide me. Only in a group of lacating mothers is it not considered weird to ask someone to look at your nipple to see if your duct looks clogged. Thank you to all of you. Even if some of us are no longer close.

I was lucky to have a mother who had nursed and could provide first hand support and knowledge. We live in a society where that is becoming more and more rare. Thank you to my mom.

I was lucky to have a supportive husband. Lucky that he was able to support our family allowing me to stay home. If I had had to go back to work when my son was 8 weeks I can guarantee I would have nursed less then 6 months. Thank you to my husband.

It is a little bittersweet, but I was really ready to be done.

My "baby" is growing up.

Friday, January 7, 2011

On My Grandpa's Birthday and What Was Read at His Funeral

In honor of today being my grandpa's birthday, I decided to post the eulogy I wrote for him the night he died a year and a half ago. My aunt read it for me at his funeral.

Here it is:

Although it has been years since I have heard my grandpa sing, I can still clearly hear in my mind his strong, clear, resonating baritone voice. In fact, a good portion of my many memories of him are intertwined with the music he sang. I can picture him belting out “Jimmy Crack Corn” or the first few lines of “When the saints go marching in” as he made me ovaltine during one of my many sleepovers at my grandparents’ house.

I can hear him singing “The Man on the Flying Trapeze” or “This Little light of mine” in the car on the way home from the YWCA where he took my brother and sister and I swimming every Friday for much of our childhood.

If I try, I can hear him sing God Rest ye Merry Gentlemen as he cooked bacon and pancakes in a small condo kitchen during our yearly Christmas vacations to South Padre Island.

When he didn’t know or want to sing the right words he would sub in “do do do’s” sang with such earnestness that it almost seemed like they could truly be the correct lyrics.

He was also known to sub in his own lyrics from time to time. He had his own special version of Jesus Loved the Little Children which paid tribute to the red, and yellow, pink, and green among us. His made up songs were never bawdy, just silly and witty. A gift in and of itself, the talent for being funny and witty without being biting or unkind.

This brings me to perhaps the most outstanding quality my grandpa possessed. He was genuinely kind and giving. Probably the kindest person I have known. He helped people not to make himself look better, or to gain favor in anyone’s eyes, but simply because it was the right thing to do. He demonstrated charity by being cheerfully, quietly, charitable. This charitableness was no doubt directly related to his faith. He had an unshakable belief in God that was peacefully moving and he shared his Christianity with the world through his actions.

It seems hard and somehow kind of impossible to pay tribute to such a great man with a few short words. Especially being that he was much more a man of action then a man of words. I think, maybe, the best homage I could pay him would be to try to pass on his gift of quiet charity and kindness to my children.

I want to end this tribute with a little exercise, if everyone here would humor me. If you can, picture my grandpa’s singing voice in your head. Now I want you to picture him singing these words to one of his favorite old stand-bys. I never knew if the “do do’s” he inserted in this song were there because he never knew the lyrics or because he just plain liked “do’s” better. It’s funny, but I don’t think I have ever heard the “right” words. It was always one of my favorites to hear him sing, and I sometimes find myself singing his version as I do dishes or play with my children.

“Come and sit by my side little darlin’,
Do, do, do, do, do, do, and sweet smiles.
Oh remember the Red River valley.
Up in heaven when life’s race is done.”

Thursday, January 6, 2011

On Quick Take Almost Friday- January 6 Edition

Quick Take Almost Friday!

7 Random Thoughts

1. I have an idea for tomorrow's post so I am doing quick takes today.

2. I get annoyed that my kids don't ever eat the same things. I think they pattern their tastes to be opposite on purpose.

3. My husband is in L.A. all week. When people ask me why he is there I have no idea how to describe what he does. I know what he does, I just have no idea how to describe it to other people.

4. I recently got 3 free coupons for Excedrin Migraine. Free things make me happy.

5. I have not cooked a "real dinner" in the week that my husband has been gone. Unless you count microwaved baked potatoes and pita pizzas as real dinner. Honestly my kids prefer simple (i.e. not mixed together) food so I don't feel like making a complicated dinner for just me.

6. That said, I have stuck with my weight watchers points all week fairly easily. Go me.

7. My son got his first invitation to a birthday party that was not through one of of my friends. This makes me a little verkempt because it means he is growing up and making his own friends. Sadly for my son, his friend's party is on my son's birthday so I think he will miss it.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

On What My Sims Did This Week and Why I am a Dork :P

My life is boring this week so instead of telling you about me, I thought I would tell you about my Sims.

Sadly, my first Sim died this week. She was a vampire and spent too much time out in the sun. Sims are not very smart. She was a movie star with a 5 star celebrity rating so I am sure all the other Sims around town miss her. She left behind 2 grown twin vampire females and a fiance who crashed my game every time I would try to get him to marry her. He had commitment issues.

RIP.

However, her twin daughters are doing well. They recently joined a band and are starting to play gigs at dive bars. They are vampires as well. Hopefully they have learned from their mother's mistake.

One of the twins recently gave birth. She ended up having an unassisted home birth because her boyfriend left the house as soon as she went into labor. Luckily all went well. Mom and baby seem to be doing fine.

So ends my brief synopsis of my Sims' week.

Hopefully I will think of something better to write about tomorrow. :P

Monday, January 3, 2011

On Being AP vs. Being Crunchy

Pop Quiz Monday!

Parenting is a competitive sport. In almost any group of moms there is nearly always an undercurrent of contest.

When did your child talk? When did they read? How long did you nurse? How well do they eat? and on and on...

In honor of such contest, for pop quiz Monday I took the quiz, "How Crunchy Are You."

To be honest I was looking for a quiz that rated how "AP Are You?" Because that is my favorite competition evah. All the quizzes I found on this subject, however, were not really a rating of AP-ness, but rather how alternative you parented. As soon as you start asking about vax schedules, cloth diapering, and homeschooling you are no longer rating ap-edness.

Attachment Parenting has 8 ideals and not one of them is about whether you cloth or paper diaper, whether you use Hyland Teething tablets vs Tylenol, or whether you send your kid to preschool vs. homeschool them.

It is a personal pet peeve of mine when people relate all the above issues to being core to attachment parenting.

As it turns out I scored a solid 92 on the crunchy quiz, putting me in the "129-90 Mmm! Love that whole-grain crunch!" category. Which basically means I attachment parent, but am not a dirty hippie. (By the way I love some of my friends who are dirty hippies so this is said in the nicest way possible.)

I think I will save my non-vaxing rant for another day.

And in honor of competing moms, here is a video I created a few months ago on competitive birth.

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/7179353