Passenger status: Lawless dork
I am home from my trip to Texas, and if there’s anything I’ve learned in my half-dozen years of blogging, it’s that the crappy and embarrassing experiences are far more interesting than the good ones, for the most part. So although it was a fabulous trip and I got to hang out with people I love and met a slew of new, cool folks, you don’t care about any of that, right? (Although: How much do I love Karen Walrond? SO MUCH. She worked her camera magic, and when I saw my own face looking back at me in her Beautiful Faces of Mom 2.0 post I gasped. Karen is lovely inside and out, and I feel and am prettier when I’m with her. LOVE.)
More importantly, though:
1) Now that I’m home, I’m sick as a dog. OF COURSE.
2) I remembered why I sort of hate flying.
and
3) I am waiting for the TSA to come arrest me. So that’s fun. read more…
Ohbidet, ohbadah
So I’m staying at the Four Seasons hotel in Houston this weekend (wooo Mom 2.0 Summit!), and it’s all swanky and stuff. Which I expected. Though through a mixture of circumstances and pure luck, my roommate and I were upgraded from the fancy room we were supposed to have to an entire fancy corporate apartment, which is utterly CRAYZEE. I mean, this apartment has a nicer kitchen than my house. (Not that that’s hard, but still….)
Anyway, we each have our own bedrooms, and our own bathrooms, and probably our own butlers, though I’ve not spent enough time in the apartment to find out.
The part that tickles me most, though, is that my (ginormous) bathroom has a bidet. I’m just curious: At what income level does it become too onerous to clean one’s lady bits without a dedicated piece of plumbing specifically targeted as such? I just want to be prepared, you know. Right now I am just using it as a place to hang my shower cap.
Shhh, I’m working
I’m not here right now; I’m at Mom 2.0, about to go sit on a panel about Business Strategy. (I know, I know… I’m not sure how that happened, either.)
In the meantime, I’ve finally unveiled the key to my success over at Five Full Plates, and you might be surprised to find out what it is. I know I was. But hey, I’m not arguing. Yesterday I took off my jeans without unbuttoning them—hard to not love THAT.
My business plan
Otto and I were discussing work, and somehow the conversation worked around to the sorts of things I talk about when I go give guest lectures or speak on a panel or whatever. My darling daughter—who probably wonders why anyone would VOLUNTARILY subject themselves to me droning on and on—asked what people usually want from me when I’m asked to speak somewhere.
“Well,” I said, “it usually boils down to them wanting to know how to start a blog that people will actually want to read.”
“That’s EASY!” she said, throwing her hands in the air with the absurdity of it all. “You just tell them to get divorced, make their kids miserable, and go get on the Internet. Right?”
(I’m revamping all of my PowerPoint presentations now.)
A true Olympic event
The Olympics are pretty exciting stuff, right? Our whole family got pretty jazzed at the prospect of nights spent watching together, seeing the spirit of cooperation and competition, international goodwill, the whole shebang.
Now, it’s our family tradition to watch a recorded episode of Mythbusters on Friday nights while we eat dinner. The rest of the week, we eat at the table like semi-civilized humans, so this is a big treat for the kids, to eat in front of the TV. Last Friday night, we were all “Okay! Tonight we watch the Olympics opening ceremonies instead!” And we were all buzzing with anticipation.
So we sat down with dinner at about 6:30 or so, as we do. But the ceremonies didn’t start until 7:30. So we watched something else for a while. (Actually, I think we watched Man vs. Food which is a truly disgusting show, and therefore highly entertaining.)
We finished eating. Eventually, the Olympics began. read more…
My funny Valentine’s
I’m pretty sure I have covered here before how I am not a particularly romantic or sentimental person. Part of me would like to be, but that part has been beaten into submission by the practical part of me that doesn’t have the time or the brain space to actually care. So.
On Friday I realized that Valentine’s Day was this weekend, and I drew close to my beloved and stared deeply into his eyes and said, “I love you. Can we please not do anything for Valentine’s this year? Can we just… not?”
Otto immediately took on the look of a caged animal. I could almost HEAR the opposing arguments in his head. (“Woohoo!” “Wait, is this a trick?” “I’m off the hook!” “Hang on, I think I’m supposed to do this no matter what she says.”)
I tried not to laugh. “I’m serious, I just don’t think we arbitrarily need to make this a big deal.” And then ANOTHER look crossed his face and it dawned on me. “You already got me something!”
“Just something LITTLE,” he confessed. read more…
Attack of the skinny jeans
It’s Friday, and that means it’s my day to get my body dysmorphia on at Five Full Plates. This week’s post has something to do with skinny jeans, and suddenly I’m having flashbacks to the 80s.
(Trippy, man. Very, very trippy. Hey, are you using those safety pins…? Because I could really use them to peg my pants….)
In other news, my town is slated to receive AN ENTIRE INCH of snow today, so naturally, chaos has ensued. Oh how I love southerners. BLESS THEIR HEARTS!
Love is sweet
My children were born a little over eighteen months apart, which means that it has been very easy for most of their lives to treat them similarly. I mean, those early days were the most different, I suppose, when Monkey wanted nothing more than to nurse while Chickadee wanted nothing more than to be read that same book againagainAGAINMAMAAGAIN! But for the most part, they’re nearly the same age, right? They’ve always had the same bedtime. They get the same allowance.
Obviously there are differences: Because they’re not the same gender, because they have different classes and different friends and different interests and different personalities. I’ve never been one of those “I treat both of my children exactly the same” sorts of people, because I think that can only possibly have a prayer of working if both children are, in fact, exactly the same. And they’re not.
This year has been, for me, a stark study in divergence. This is where “same” gives way to “different,” over and over. read more…
Groundhog dinner
The setting: Our kitchen table.
The time: Any given night around 6:15 or so.
The preset: Food on table, I open my mouth and yell “DINNER!” because I’m classy and stuff.
And… begin scene.
“Where is Monkey?”
“Bathroom.”
“Didn’t he hear me call dinner?”
“Yeah, that’s why he went to the bathroom.”
“Do you think that he’ll ever go BEFORE I call dinner?”
“Do you really want me to answer that?”
“No, nevermind.”
“Whose book is this?”
“It’s mine.”
“Why is it here?”
“Because I didn’t take it upstairs yet. BECAUSE I CAME WHEN YOU CALLED DINNER. LIKE A GOOD CHILD.”
“Uh huh. Please take it up after dinner.”
“Okay.” read more…
Dance, puppet, dance!
Chickadee is taking Licorice through the same training class I did with her when we first brought her home. This is good for Licorice (more training) and good for Chickadee (more responsibility) but slightly inconvenient for me and Otto (have to take her to a two-hour class every week) and downright annoying for Monkey (with Chickadee now asserting dominance over the dog, Monkey is the last low puppy on the pack totem pole). Nevertheless, on the whole we think it’s a good thing.
Licorice is a completely different dog than the one we met all those months ago; she seems to enjoy class, now, whereas when I was doing training with her she often seemed to feel she was being punished or tortured by having to spend time with those other dogs. Also, we had days back then when she didn’t seem to understand what I wanted her to do. Now, she completely understands what Chickadee wants her to do… and often does the canine equivalent of thumbing her nose at her and singing, “Make me!”
Not that I enjoy watching my daughter deal with The Stubborn, or anything. Oh no. AHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAhem. read more…