If you were a comic strip character, who would you be and why?

I’ve decided that I’m going to try harder with this blog.  Why?  Because it’s easier than cleaning the house, which is the other thing I do poorly.  My problem of late has been that I just don’t know what to write about.  Current events are either a) depressing or b) need no further comment or c) both a and b.  Seriously, what can you say about Ft. Hood?  It’s tragic, and how, exactly, was it not prevented?  It’s not like the guy didn’t give folks plenty of warning that he was psychotic and/or evil.  I don’t get it.  Okay, you see what I mean.  That’s not very interesting, is it?  If you want to read about stuff like that, you’ll read the news, won’t you?

So what do you want to read about?  Answer:  Wait, what do I care?  I started this blog so I could write about whatever I felt like writing about, and if I don’t feel like writing about anything, maybe I should just stop writing.  But wait!  If I did that, I’d have to start cleaning the house and paying attention to the children.  Now you see why the blog must go on.  And yet, I still have nothing to write about.  So what do I do?  I decide to look up some ice breaker questions on the interwebs–because, you know, I’ve been here for five and a half years, but I still feel like you all don’t really know me that well.  Ha ha, that was a joke.  But seriously, this is all I’ve got, so I’m just going to go with it.

The ice breaker question of the day is this:  “If you were a comic strip character, who would you be and why?”

At first I read this as “If you could be a comic strip character, who would you be and why?” and I thought, “That’s easy.  I’d be Snoopy because he’s cool and he does whatever he wants.”  But the question isn’t about which comic strip character you’d like to be, but which comic strip character you are (metaphorically speaking).  That is a bit harder for me to answer because I like to think I’m a bit more complicated than a comic strip character.  Ha ha, that was another joke.  No, the reason it’s a harder question, of course, is that I don’t think I’m going to like the answer.  I mean, one thing’s for sure:  I’m NOT Snoopy.  Number one, I’m not cool.  Number two, I only try to do what I want sometimes and usually fail, and most of the time I don’t even try because I think I’m probably going to fail.  Say what you will about Snoopy’s moral deficits, but he is not plagued by similar concerns.

You probably think you know where I’m going with this.  You think I’m going to say I’m Charlie Brown, because Charlie Brown is a loser.  But Charlie Brown is an optimistic loser.  You’ve got to hand it to him.  He doesn’t have much in the way of self-confidence, but he still goes out there and does stuff.  He doesn’t give up hope, even though he knows he’s a loser.  Part of him, deep down inside, thinks that someday things are going to be different, that someday he’ll win.  He never learns, that Charlie Brown.  He’s kind of like me that way.  Crap. I really don’t want to be Charlie Brown.

You know who I wish I was?  Linus.  Linus is my favorite (of the human Peanuts characters).  Yeah, he walks around with a blanket and sucks his thumb, which I’m not saying I want to do, particularly (although it has a certain appeal, some days), but he’s really the moral anchor of the strip.  He’s the only one who knows what Christmas is all about, if you dig my meaning.  I admire Linus.  Even his faith in the Great Pumpkin is admirable, from my perspective.  Faith saves the intellectual from nihilism.  Yeah, it’s delusional, but it’s not dangerous-delusional.  (Aside from cheating Sally out of tricks or treats, which, if you think about it, was really her own fault.  You want to sit in the pumpkin patch with your boyfriend all night, at least be woman enough to own that choice.  I’d like to think I’m not like Sally.)

All this reminds me that I took a Facebook quiz that told me what Peanuts character I was, and you know what the result was?  Woodstock.  Which is really the best possible result because who is Woodstock?  What does he stand for?  Nobody knows.  He only speaks bird language.  And he looks exactly like all the other birds in the strip.  Which one is the real Woodstock?  Are they all Woodstock?  Was Woodstock cloned at some point?  I don’t know.  What I do know is that Woodstock is whatever you want him to be.  That’s what I’d like to be, too.

No, wait, it’s not.  But apparently it’s what I am because the Facebook quiz said so, and you know those quizzes are SCARILY ACCURATE.

And now it’s your turn, gentle readers.  Which comic strip character are you?  Which would you like to be?

Phoning it in

I found a spoon in my washing machine yesterday.  Yes, amigos, I am laundering the flatware now.  Impressed?

Today the kids have no school.  Elvis has been out of school since Wednesday because of parent-teacher conferences.  We had his conference yesterday.  Apparently he is doing well enough.  The teacher did mention that he has a penchant for inappropriate outbursts, including the phrase “Poop in a bucket!”  (Which, in case you’re wondering, the other 6- and 7-year-olds find hilarious.)

On Wednesday the kids have no school again because of Veterans Day.  I am wondering how Veterans Day observance has managed to survive all these years on November 11 without being relegated to a Monday or Friday to accommodate the insatiable American appetite for long weekends.  It must be right up there with Christmas and New Year’s.  Good for them!

This morning instead of sleeping in, I just stayed in bed pretending to sleep while Elvis demanded that I count all the days of the month of every month of the year on the 2009 calendar (plus four months in 2008).  This was very difficult to pull off.  I’m not saying I succeeded or anything.

I had a somewhat disheartening tap class on Wednesday.  Last week I was under the impression that I had finally mastered pull-backs (single, off the heel), which was awesome because I’ve only been trying to do them for the last three years with little to no success, and I had mostly decided that I was just too old to learn some tricks, but when I was finally doing them with consistency last Wednesday, it was like I wasn’t too old and a whole new world of tap-ability awesomeness was opening up to me.  Then I went to class this last Wednesday and darn it all to hell if pull-backs weren’t just as difficult as they always have been.  I did manage to do a couple of them (rather weak ones), so I suppose I just need to practice more.  (Exaggerated eye-roll with tongue hanging out.)  Where was I going with this?  Oh yeah.  I did find comfort in the fact that I can still do the type where you clip the toe and land on the opposite foot, but big deal, any trained monkey can do that.  (Mild eye roll, no tongue.)  My instructor also had us attempting to do double pull-backs and pull-backs off the toe, which ushered in a new era of suckitude for me.  I was quite relieved when she told us it was time to work on turns instead.  And I hate turns!  On the other hand, once the turns were over, I was able to enjoy the rest of the class.

See how awesome this blog is when I talk about the stuff that matters to me?  Tap dancing and monkey pull-backs?  Does it get better than this?  You’d better pray it does.

Actually, I have to go now because I’m expecting some friends to come over and I should probably pick some stuff up off the floor so the kids have more room to make a mess.  Or something.  I’m going to leave you with this gift of pure awesome that a friend gave me yesterday.

Enjoy the weekend, gentle readers.  Adieu.

P.S.  Girlfriend, having been unceremoniously awakened by her brother’s calendar shennanigans this morning, is now attempting to take a nap on the couch with her feet in a garbage can.  Yes, the garbage can is also on the couch.  No, there’s nothing in the garbage can besides Girlfriend’s feet.  What kind of people do you think we are?

Dear Madhousehold:

Until you get rid of about 80 percent of your belongings, you have some choices to make.

Pick one:

1.  Clean house OR clean garage.  (NO!  You cannot have both.  You must CHOOSE!)

2.  Clean rooms OR clean closets.  (NO!  You cannot have both.  You must CHOOSE!)

X’s & O’s,
The Reality Fairy

P.S.  What the hell is all this stuff and why do you have it?  What’s the matter with you people???

Today’s bumper sticker


“If you get any closer, I’ll [FLATULATE]!”

Two questions:

1.  Since when do they let fourth graders drive?

2.  Seriously, who are these people?

That’s entertainment!

Sugar Daddy:  So they’re making a movie based on Milton Bradley’s Battleship.

Madhousewife (after mentally counting to 10):  Why?

SD:  [shrugs or otherwise vaguely indicates that it is a surprisingly stupid question on my part]

Mad:  How would they even do that?

SD:  They’re making a movie based on Candyland, too.

Mad:  Well, at least that makes some kind of sense.  I mean, it’s stupid, but at least there are characters to work with–

SD:  Stupid characters–”Queen Frostine.”  “Melty.”

Mad:  “Melty”?

SD:  Or whatever that guy’s name is.  “Gloppy”?

Mad (giggling uncontrollably):  “Melty”?

SD:  The thing about Battleship, though, is what’s the plot going to be?  “There are some ships out there–let’s randomly fire missiles and see if we can hit one!”

Mad:  “Oh, crap, we missed again!”

SD:  “Oh, good, we hit one–let’s fire another missile in the same general direction!”

Mad:  You know what would be awesome, though, is if at some point some character says, “You sunk my battleship!” and everyone in the theater would cheer.

SD:  I don’t get it.

Mad:  It would make more sense to make a movie based on Stratego.

SD:  They should make a movie based on Connect 4.  Or checkers.

Mad:  Right.

SD:  Checkers would be cool, because you could pan up on, say, Matt Damon going, “King me.”  And then another Matt Damon would jump on his back and he’d become a supersoldier.

Mad:  That would be cool.

Later…

SD:  I hope they make a movie based on Yahtzee.

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Take my poll, suckahs!

 

I would call this post “To sleep–perchance to dream,” except that it’s too pretentious even for me

Did you ever have a dream you were ashamed to talk about?

I’ve had some pretty wigged-out dreams in my day.  Or rather, my night.  I don’t often dream when I sleep during the day.  Hey, science people–does dreamless sleep mean you’re sleeping deeply?  I have a lot of deep-feeling sleep during the day.  You know, when I sleep during the day.  Not like I habitually sleep during the day, though I wouldn’t have a problem admitting it if I did–because sleeping isn’t shameful; it’s the dreams that weird other folks out.

My husband and I often share our dreams.  Not in the aspirations sense–outside of taking our meals out, we don’t have that many common goals–but in the REM-sense.  He’s shared some dreams with me that I kind of wish he hadn’t.  I’ve also shared some dreams with him that I kind of wish I hadn’t.  Like that dream I had shortly after we got married, where I dreamed that he was pimping me out to a mutual acquaintance of ours.  To make matters worse, it was a mutual acquaintance that I really didn’t care for, but that’s actually beside the point.  In the dream, the mutual acquaintance was all, “Dude, I really appreciate this,” and I was like, “Hey, I’m really not comfortable with this AT ALL,” and my husband was like, “What’s your problem?”

Anyway, I don’t know why I would have dreamed something like this…well, no, on second thought, I have an idea…but don’t worry, I won’t share it with you.  Why not?  Because my husband reads this blog, and if this experience of dream-sharing has taught me anything, it’s that you don’t share sensitive material with the husband.  Because he’s spent the last eleven-plus years teasing me about having sex with this person that I wouldn’t have sex with if he were the last person on earth, that’s why!

Sex dreams don’t necessarily have sexual meaning, of course.  At least that’s what I hope.  I mean, how would it be if you had a dream that you were watching a TV show and the TV show was all about how Steve Sanders from 90210 had been reduced to making pornos?  Wouldn’t that disturb you?  It disturbs me.  I mean, it would disturb me, if I were to have a dream like that, because no offense to Steve Sanders and his kinky-haired glory, but where the hell does that come from?  I always thought that if I had a sex dream involving a 90210 character, Brenda would figure more prominently.  I mean, not that I mean anything by that, but doesn’t it make sense?

Anyway.  I had a dream once that I was married to Liam Neeson, but oddly, there was no sex in that dream.  And by “oddly,” I think you know what I mean.

I’m just not saying.

Random bits for Wednesday

Girlfriend was watching Charlotte’s Web and informed me that she wants a pig. Not any fool stuffed pig, either, but a real pig.

Has anyone figured out a reasonable solution for storing cookie sheets, wire racks, muffin tins, etc.? Or does everyone just shove them into a cupboard and slam the door and hope to never need one again?

My mother-in-law is visiting, which is why I have limited time to blog. No mother-in-law jokes, please. Also, I don’t have anything to talk about.

Sugar Daddy got free tickets to the Fright Town haunted house thingamajig at the Memorial Coliseum, so we went there last night. The usual stuff happened. I screamed, he laughed. (At me.) That’s why we go to these things. It’s not for my benefit, that’s for darn sure. To his credit, SD always thanks me for “indulging” him. I wonder if he notices that I don’t ever say, “You’re welcome.” Just doing my wifely duty, sir. (And he didn’t even buy me dinner–apparently, we’ve been married far too long.)

When we were coming out of Fright Town, we met a homeless guy who wanted a cigarette. We didn’t have any cigarettes on us, so he asked if we had any change. He wanted to get something to eat, and also a beer. I’ve noticed that homeless people are being very upfront lately about their intentions to buy beer. I think they think we appreciate their honesty. I actually couldn’t care less. The cat’s homeless–who am I to micromanage his beverage choices? So we gave him some money, and then he said, “How about a hug?” Uh…okay, then. So he hugged both of us. Then he asked us to pray for him. You can pray for him, too. His name is Todd.

That’s about all I have for today. I wish there were more, but there isn’t. Happy Wednesday, amigos.

Mister Bubby Fun Facts!

1.  He loves to play Empire at War.  Technically, he bought it for his father’s birthday, but he’s gotten a lot more use out of it.

2.  He’s going to dress up as Tyber Zann for Halloween.

3.  He’s writing a Star Wars comic book.  (Anyone sensing a theme here?)  This is how it starts:

[click to enlarge]

4.  He loves animals.  His favorite animal used to be the panda.  Then it was the red panda.  When he was reading the Warriors series, it was cats.  Now his favorite animal is a horse, specifically a gray Arabian.  He asked for a horse a few weeks ago.  I explained to him that it was out of the question.  Now he wants a fish.

5.  He is not a morning person.  In this he takes after his mother.

6.  He was very proud of himself for learning how to play the mini-harp.  He was excited about taking piano lessons, but five months later, that enthusiasm has evaporated completely.

7.  He and his best friend made up this song, “Evil Bunnies.”  It goes like this

Evil bunnies–oh yeah
Devilish bunnies–oh yeah
Fol-low-ers of Lu-ci-fer
Evil bunnies–oh yeah

It goes on a bit more, but I don’t remember the rest of the words.

8.  He thinks it’s hilarious to slap his own butt while dancing.  He’s correct about that.

9.  HE IS NINE YEARS OLD TODAY!!!

And now for the nostalgia portion of the program…

When I started this blog, he was three.  I started out calling him just “Bubby,” but as I wrote in May 2004:

Bubby must henceforth be called Mister Bubby, as he has taken up hairstyling as his new hobby.  Last night before bed, as he was brushing and combing (you need both, you know), he told me, “This is just to make your curwy hair vewy smoov.  And then I will make it vewy long.”  I said, “That’s good, Mister Bubby.  You sure know a lot about hair.”  “I do,” he replied.  This morning he brushed and combed my hair with water (from a spray bottle, of course–tools of the trade) and asked when he could get some scissors to cut it.  I told him he had to go to beauty school first.

Here is another post about him from June 2004:

What has really made my day thusfar is that I had an opportunity (while Elvis was napping and PZ was sending Disney e-cards to imaginary e-mail accounts) to play dolls with Mister Bubby.

MB has always been more in touch with his nurturing side than his sister has.  PZ’s baby doll phase lasted about a week.  MB, on the other hand, got plenty of use out of the pink dolly stroller with the flowers on it.  It was really cute to watch him push his Ernie doll around the neighborhood while he made “vroom vroom” noises.

Likewise, he has gotten a lot of pleasure out of our dollhouse.  Like many other Americans, we own the Fisher Price Loving Family dollhouse, because I don’t think toy stores are allowed to sell any other kind (unless they’re one of those hoity-toity toy stores that only sell hand-carved wooden toys too expensive for children to play with).  The mommy and daddy dolls that came with it have these odd mechanical features.  If you pinch her legs together (there’s really no good way to phrase that, is there?), the mommy doll’s torso will sway side to side, so she can rock the baby. When you pinch the daddy doll’s legs, he raises his arms–supposedly so he can pick up the baby, but it doesn’t work very well (unless catapulting the baby could be considered a form of picking it up), and it looks more like he’s making an obscene gesture.  Which actually has made the dollhouse a lot more fun than it would be otherwise.  For my husband, anyway.

This morning I noticed that the mommy doll was missing.  When I asked MB where Mommy was, he said, “Mommy went out the window.  Mommy’s dead.”  (I tried not to take that personally.)  So the first thing we did was have an earthquake, wherein each member of the family, including infants and pets, got thrown around the house, had furniture fall on them and eventually jumped off the balcony.  Mommy doll was eventually found and got into a brawl with Daddy doll in the living room.  (I swear I don’t know where he gets this stuff.)  Mister Bubby’s sensitive side reared its head when the family cat got thrown through the second story window and he couldn’t find him again.  He got this concerned look on his face and asked, “Did my kitty get kiwled?”  As it turned out, the kitty was not mortally wounded but lived to fight with the teddy bear and later take a dump on the family room floor.

We did play out one typical domestic scene when Daddy doll ran around the house making obscene gestures and shouting, “I HAVE TO MAKE DINNER!  I HAVE TO MAKE DINNER!  AAAUUGHHH!”  I can’t wait until he discovers tea parties.

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MISTER BUBBY!

I have to go to swim class this morning–aaaauuuuuughhhh!!!

I hate going to swim class.  So does Girlfriend, incidentally, which is why it’s so very easy to stay home instead.

Speaking of Girlfriend, I have Mister Bubby to thank for teaching his baby sister the word “crotch.”  It’s not like it’s a bad word or anything…exactly…but it’s still disconcerting to be changing a diaper and hear this sweet little-girl voice protesting, “No!  Not my crotch!”

It’s kind of funny, sure, but at the same time, disturbing.

Seriously, how many words out there are grosser than “crotch”?  Insert disgusted emoticon here.

As long as I’m being disgusting, I’m going to say that I’m losing my patience with Elvis’s joke-of-the-last-six-weeks-or-so, which is him saying that he’s going to poop in various places or on various items.  This is partly my fault, I’m sure, because in an effort to stop saying, “Crap!” so much around the children, I started saying, “Poop!” instead–which is not, technically, much better, except that it sounds better to hear a kid repeat the word “poop” than it is to hear him or her repeat the word “crap”–but because it’s not remotely satisfying to say, “Poop!” when I’m upset, I had to embellish it somehow, and I ended up saying, “Poop in a bucket!”–because “poop in a bucket!” is much worse than just regular old poop, thus conveying the serious nature of my annoyance.  Anyway.

So Elvis started repeating “poop in a bucket,” which was…not as bad as him repeating the “crap!” thing, but still not good, especially when he would say it out loud in church while the sacrament was being administered.  So, okay, I have stopped saying, “poop in a bucket,” but Elvis has not.  More to the point, that is not his only catch phrase–and here is where I take some of the blame off of me and spread it around to Mister Bubby and also Sugar Daddy, for that matter, because they are always talking about poop in places where it ought not to be.  Thus Elvis walks around all day, threatening to poop in the trash can, poop on the floor, poop on the toys, poop on the paper, poop on the tricycle, poop on the telephone, poop on the computer, poop in the bookcase, poop on the piano, poop on the spaghetti, poop on the magazine rack, etc., etc., usw.

The other night he woke up wet because his pull-up had leaked, and the whole time I was changing his bed, he would just lazily murmur, “Poop on the sheets…poop on the training pants…poop on the shoes…” even though there was no poop on any of those things.  It was all just talk.

“That’s enough,” I said, as I tucked him back in to his dry, never-pooped-on bed.

“Poop on the enough,” he said.

Yeah.  Whatever.

Now I really have to go to the swimming pool.  Which I originally typed as “poop,” just so you know.  That’s what my life’s about, kids.  You should be grateful I don’t blog more often.

If it’s Monday, it must be funerals

Madhousewife:  I haven’t been to that many funerals.  I think I’ve only been to…four funerals in my life.

Sugar Daddy:  I went to a funeral while I was a missionary, and I went to your mom’s funeral.  Did your grandpa have a funeral?

Mad:  No.

SD:  I don’t think I want a funeral.

Mad:  I want a funeral.  I want lots of crying, too.  I think I’m going to go before you, incidentally.

SD:  Can I bring a date?

Mad:  Sure.  Can’t say the children would approve, of course.

SD:  Well, it’s not about them, is it?

Mad:  True.

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Have you planned your funeral yet?