Happy still-full-from-yesterday day
Hello! I ate my weight in fat and sugar yesterday. Today I shall repent by… going to another Festival of Eating. Ack. People, I do not recommend hiring Otto as your cruise director. I go where he tells me to, and where he takes me always seems to involve a lot of calories. I think he’s trying to fatten me up. I shall have to start poking a chicken bone out of my cage when he asks to see how fat my fingers have gotten.
Anyway, mostly I want to report that flying on Thanksgiving Day is absolutely the way to go. Never in my life have I had a less eventful, more pleasant day of travel. All of my trips henceforth shall start on Thanksgiving. That won’t be restrictive in the least, I’m sure. Oh, well. A small price to pay for having skipped out on serving dinner to the homeless yesterday. Oops. read more…
Love is the best bargain ever
But the last-minute deals on flights aren’t bad, either.
Thanks for traveling with Orbitz. This e-mail confirms the ticket number(s) issued for the “Atlanta 11/23/06” trip.
This year, thankful doesn’t even begin to cover it. But right now I have to go pack.
Happy Thanksgiving, and happy Love Thursday.
Still got it
Today Chickadee snarled and grumped her way through the morning, moving at top glacial speed and crying at any and all of the following suggestions: That she get out of bed, that she get dressed, that she move a little faster, that she select a food for breakfast, that she join us for breakfast, that she remember to take her backpack upon leaving the house.
It was a really splendid way to start out the day. My favorite was when I called up the stairs to see if she was on her way down and she screamed back “I’m brushing my hair! Do you WANT me to look like it has birds’ nests in it??”
I sort of wanted to see that, but I didn’t think she’d appreciate me saying so. read more…
Reckless in rules and chair mats
First of all, Otto and I had already picked the category winners from yesterday’s post well before midnight. Because we’re wild like that. And because Otto had to get to bed because he needs to be up early. (I also have to be up early, but I have given up sleeping for Advent.) (What, you think that’s weird? Sometimes I give up guilt for Lent. But then I feel bad about it.)
Next, I believe one of the signs of the Apocalypse has come to pass, and it’s my civic duty to alert you to our collective impending doom. read more…
Let’s make it a contest
Today I am obsessing over Matters Largely Unbloggable™, which leaves me precious little to offer. Not that that’s ever stopped me before. Ahem.
In lieu of anything even smacking of cohesion, I give you the following unrelated bits and also a chance to win a fabulous mystery prize:
Thing the first: We didn’t go to the movies this weekend. The children elected not to finish cleaning the playroom on Saturday, and by the time we got through church and grocery shopping and eating lunch today and I had the AUDACITY to suggest they take another crack at it, their anguished wailing made it clear that tap-dancing penguins are not, it turns out, a very good motivator. Perhaps if they were both tapping AND farting. Who knows. read more…
Scrub the floors with a toothbrush
I’m taking a break from yelling at my children to sit down and breathe deeply and count to ten. Or maybe ten million.
Last night I came up with a shockingly simple premise, and I even laid it out for them before bed so that there would be no surprises today: If the playroom gets picked up in the morning so that a person can actually, I don’t know, WALK IN THERE without tripping on or otherwise stomping and breaking things, we will go see Happy Feet at the theater this afternoon. I may have even offered to buy popcorn.
I will give you three guesses—though the first two don’t count—as to how the cleaning is going. read more…
If deja vu and irony had a baby
Today Otto and I were talking and he told me about a friend of his who’d just broken up with his girlfriend. They were in a long-distance relationship and we all know how much those can suck. Apparently the woman is ready to commit, and the man is… less so. But—as often happens—the man is now wracked with ambivalence, and turned to Otto for advice.
I was about to crack the obvious joke about someone coming to him for relationship advice, but he beat me to it. After some kidding around, he told me he’d really had to think long and hard about what to say. His friend was struggling and Otto wanted to help, if he could. read more…
Love Thursday: Angels
I think there are some people who come into our lives to test us (sometimes to the very limits of our endurance), and some people who come into our lives to love us in a way that humbles us as nothing else can. Both of these are important lessons.
Sometimes, you get both in the same person. (Most often in our offspring. Heh.)
In the spirit of the new Kind Blog, I’ve been thinking a lot about who people are to me in my life, and who I want to be to others. read more…
Halfway to triumph
You know, I am positively kicking myself for not grabbing the Post-It on which the dipstick was scribbled. I should’ve said, “Can I take that with me? You know, to refer to it later?” A golden opportunity, missed. I hang my head in shame.
I also wish I’d brought all of you with me, as you were much more out for blood than I was. You could’ve made them cry, I think. My stance was more or less one of confused incredulity, where everything they said to me just pushed me further into wondering if there were hidden cameras around, or perhaps I’d stumbled into an episode of The Twilight Zone. “But… I should HAVE an oil gasket, yes?” (“THERE’S SOMEONE ON THE WING OF THE PLANE!”) Like that. read more…
Otto said perhaps it was a self-portrait
I had this completely insane but good and productive day, but right now I need to sleep more than I need to write.
I just have to tell you this one thing.
When I went to the oil change place today to explain to them about my transmission fluid being low and my oil gasket having run off and why that meant that they should pay for the repairs I had to have done at the dealership, the assistant manager (while we waited for the manager) tried to explain to me how they check the fluid.
He drew me a picture of a dipstick.
A picture. Of a dipstick. In case I didn’t understand. See?
It took everything I have not to make a Sad Barbie Pout at him and wail, “Math is haaaaard!”