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I am trying to get myself in the mood for Christmas by listening to Christmas music. I like Christmas music, but only when it’s Christmas time. When they start playing Christmas music in October, I want to punch someone in the head. I don’t know why I have such a violent reaction to it. I guess, as I get older, that I’m very aware of the passage of time, and I don’t like people rushing me into Christmas and the end of the year before it’s time. Let me enjoy autumn, people! Of course, one could also argue that life is too short not to listen to Christmas music any time you feel like it. I’ll buy that. But only so long as you listen to your Christmas music in the privacy of your own home or car or earbuds and are not inflicting your out-of-season musical choices on others. Not everyone likes to rock around the Christmas tree on Labor Day weekend.
Personally, I don’t like to rock around the Christmas tree even when it’s Christmas. I also do not like to jingle-bell rock any time of year. Basically, I eschew all Christmas-themed rocking. Unless it’s Christopher Lee’s metal Christmas album, which I feel compelled to respect on principle.
A regular heavy-metal Christmas album, okay. Maybe I’d like it, maybe I wouldn’t. But heavy metal + Christopher Lee? What’s the point of living in the twenty-first century if you don’t take advantage of these modern innovations?
Do you know that Christopher Lee is 92 years old? That’s about eight years older than I thought he was. Amazing.
Anyway, back to my original topic. I’m trying to get into the Christmas spirit because Christmas is, in fact, my favorite holiday, except for all the stress. Even when I was growing up, I hated the stress of Christmas because I absorbed my mother’s stress. But I also loved Christmas, so what could I do? As an adult, though, I feel like I can’t enjoy the Christmas season until I am prepared for Christmas. Because that’s what everyone is talking about at Christmastime: have you done all your shopping? are you ready? I hate listening to other people talk about their Christmas shopping–because usually people who talk about their Christmas shopping are the kind who get it done early and like to brag about it. Frankly, I might brag too, if I had it together enough to finish Christmas shopping before December even starts. But hearing about how much farther ahead of me everyone else is just adds to my stress. Not that it’s a competition or anything, but it just reminds me there are only so many shopping days until Christmas, especially if you don’t want to end up wandering aimlessly around the mall on Dec. 23.
One thing that is easing my stress this year is that my mother-in-law will be visiting one of her other sons on Christmas. Not that I don’t enjoy my mother-in-law’s company, but the Christmas shopping deadline is more flexible because we won’t give her any gifts until she gets back. So at least I don’t have to worry about that.
The worrisome gift recipients this year are Mister Bubby and Elvis. They both really like football, but you can only give someone so many footballs. You can only give them so many Ducks jerseys. You can only give them so many DVDs of the 2012 Rose Bowl. You kind of want to encourage their other interests, if they have any. Elvis really doesn’t. Mister Bubby is very into trombone and jazz (especially as it relates to the trombone), but you can only give your son so many trombones. When he wants to listen to music, he turns on YouTube while he plays Elder Scrolls, or whatever. He likes clever t-shirts, so while I was surfing the web looking for clever t-shirts related to his geek interests, I looked for trombone-themed shirts. Let me tell you, the trombone-themed t-shirt market is about what you’d expect. There’s not much clever that doesn’t involve puns on boning and doing it in seven positions. I may be the woman who stood idly by while her husband bought their eleven-year-old son a “Get Porked at Billy’s” shirt at the barbecue place, but I have to draw the line somewhere.
Anyway, last Christmas was dubbed “Year of the Clothes” by MB, so we’re trying not to repeat that error.
On the plus side, the Christmas tree is up and decorated. It looks pretty, which is good since it will be there until February.
In non-Christmas news, I made a hair appointment for Monday at 11:30. I have clogging until 10:30, and the dance studio is on the way to the hair salon, which would be convenient except that I’d really rather have a shower before going to the salon, so I will have to rush home, take a shower, and rush to the hair appointment. I probably should have made an appointment for another day, but I just accepted the first date she offered me because I guess I didn’t want to seem hard to please. In retrospect I have no idea why I didn’t ask for a different date. It took all of my psychological strength to overcome my fear of making telephone calls to make the telephone call, so once I was in the telephone call, I had nothing left for negotiations.
I’m going to quit writing now because I’ve been on this computer forever, trying to do all my Christmas shopping online because the thought of going to an actual store fills me with dread.
I am a woman of many contrasts. Or perhaps only two.
I just got back from the grocery store. Perhaps the only thing worse than going grocery shopping three days before Thanksgiving in the pouring rain and realizing that you left your grocery list at home is going grocery shopping three days before Thanksgiving in the pouring rain, realizing you left your grocery list at home and after buying all the groceries you could remember you needed, forgetting where the hell you parked the car.
On the plus side, I spent two hours clogging this morning and now I don’t need to take a shower.
Here’s another thing: Most of the time it is kind of a pain having a car where none of the windows roll down. On the plus side, it does keep you from going through fast-food drive-thrus for purely emotional reasons.
I’m still trying to decide what this day requires as far as lunch goes. Emotionally, I need a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. But what I’m really craving is a grilled cheese sandwich. I just don’t know what I’m going to do. I really don’t.
On a semi-related note, my laptop is unfortunately at the shop again. On the plus side, it has given me the perfect excuse not to participate in NaNoWriMo this year. Like I was going to anyway. I know! But now I have a an excuse. I never let excuses go to waste if I can possibly help it.
I have strong feelings about people who put up Christmas decorations and start playing Christmas music before Thanksgiving. I think they’re going to hell. No offense to any of you gentle readers who may be going to hell. I still like you, and you are welcome here until Satan claims you as his own.
I don’t have anything against people who do their Christmas shopping before Thanksgiving, as long as they keep it to their damn selves.
I just can’t think about Christmas yet. Thanksgiving is not really such a stressful holiday for me, aside from the shopping, because (on the plus side!) I don’t have to do any of the cooking. (That’s my husband’s domain. I do have to put up with his diva-like kitchen persona for about 18 hours, but again, on the plus side, he makes a really good Thanksgiving dinner.) But Girlfriend’s birthday falls right around Thanksgiving, and I am constitutionally incapable of thinking about Christmas until everyone’s birthdays are over. Thank goodness I don’t have any December birthdays to worry about. (Except my sister’s. Doh! Like I was going to remember it before Christmas anyway. I know! But still, doh.)
Anyway, Girlfriend’s birthday is on Friday, but her birthday party is on Wednesday. Wednesday morning, in fact, because there’s no school on Wednesday due to budget cuts. That’s what they put in the school calendar this year: NO SCHOOL BECAUSE OF BUDGET CUTS. Really pretty heavy-handed, if you ask me. Actually, if they had asked me, I would have suggested NO SCHOOL BECAUSE OF *NEW* BUDGET CUTS, but that’s just me. I digress. How many kids, you might be wondering, are going to be in town the day before Thanksgiving when there’s no school? Well, you might be surprised. Or you might not. People still have to work, after all, even if their kids are off school. How many kids whose parents have to work the day before Thanksgiving, you might wonder, are able to come to a birthday party at 10 a.m. that day? Well, I don’t know. I’m only aware of one whose parents’ work schedules are preventing her from attending. We got enough “no” responses initially that we started inviting the second-tier guests (not that any of them are “second-tier” people, but…forget it, I don’t have to justify myself to you) in order to avoid having the world’s saddest birthday party. On the other hand, I have about 6-8 people who just haven’t RSVP’d at all yet, and I don’t know what to make of that. We are allowed 14 kids before we have to start paying the $10 per extra kid charge, and according to my calculations, we will either have 14 kids or 21 kids. Who knows??? But that’s not why I started talking about this.
The real stress is not so much the party as the fact that a) I haven’t bought her a gift yet (I know! I know! how hard is it? I don’t know!) and b) I have to make her a Scooby-Doo cake before Wednesday morning. How hard is it, you might be wondering, to find a bakery that will make a Scooby-Doo cake for you? Well, I don’t know. I really don’t. I haven’t had the emotional or mental energy to go to every bakery in town and find out their positions on Scooby-Doo cakes. All I know is that if I can’t get it at the Safeway, that’s it, never mind, I’m just doing it myself. Because baking cakes is not actually that stressful for me. I kind of enjoy baking cakes. Our old babysitter, Gertrude, said that she had all of these Scooby-Doo items wherewith to decorate a Scooby-Doo cake, so I said, great, let’s bake her a Scooby-Doo cake. But Gertrude also has this vision of how the cake should look, ideally, and she would like to help me with it. I would actually rather not have her help, which is a terrible thing to say about a person who has given so much to your family and has been sort of inevitably squeezed out of your kids’ lives by virtue of the fact that you no longer need a part-time nanny anymore due to Grandma living in town and the kids being a lot older than they once were and so, not being forced to see her by virtue of the fact that you’re paying her to show up at your house, you don’t see her any more than you see anybody else who isn’t related to you by birth or marriage, even though you still consider her a friend. Did you follow all of that? I think I did, but I’m a little punch drunk, not to mention soaking wet and a little bit hungry, with only fifteen minutes to decide what I’m going to eat before I go pick Princess Zurg up from school. Also, my back hurts right now. That’s a propos nothing, but it’s true–in addition to the fact that when I bake a cake for my kid’s birthday, I would rather just do it myself. But really, not so much because I don’t want Gertrude’s help or think her ideas are worse than mine, but I think the only time I will have to bake and decorate this cake will be Tuesday night after everyone’s gone to bed, and I don’t want Gertrude over then, because then she will be here until midnight.
But it’s too late. It’s decided! She’s going to help me decorate a cake sometime tomorrow, and that’s that. I just have to accept it and decide what’s for lunch now.
Just two more things: My husband asked me to buy fresh cranberries, which I remembered, but I couldn’t find any. I didn’t even know where to look, frankly, but that didn’t stop me from looking in a myriad of what I thought were likely places before giving up. I think that means I will have to go out again later. Also, I hate the song “Silver Bells.” Also, third thing: I may need to see a neurologist because I spent a half-hour driving aimlessly about a western-Portland suburb because I couldn’t remember where the grocery store was in relation to any of the streets I was driving on when I left my clogging class, and I have lived here for nine years, people. Nine years. I need to eat lunch now. I have ten minutes to sort out my emotional food needs.
Of course, that’s pretty much what I do every day. Perhaps to make today special, I should blog about whatever YOU want. But you’re not here in my private editor telling me what you want me to blog about, so I’m afraid I’m going to have to go with my original plan.
Did anyone else read “my private editor” and immediately think “My Private Idaho”? No?
I’m livin’ in my own private editor…
Like I said, it’s my birthday. I’m forty-one. FORTY-ONE AND STILL HERE. So far the birthday festivities have included a shower (woo-hoo!), a bowl of my favorite breakfast cereal which happened to be on sale yesterday (COINCIDENCE?), an hour and a half playing puppies with Girlfriend before kindergarten, lunch at the Indian buffet with Sugar Daddy, who then took me to the DSW and bought me three pairs of shoes, and…well, I also have this t-shirt with a picture of a couple octopi in a takoyaki food cart with the caption, “It’s not a Taco. It’s a Tako!” I was going to take a picture of it for you, but I just realized that I have no idea how to access the webcam on this new laptop. Which I guess is an improvement on my old laptop, which had the webcam accidentally accessible at all times. (I am too lazy to take a picture with the digital camera and upload/download it. It’s my birthday and I shouldn’t have to work that hard.) Anyway, SD bought it for me for sentimental reasons–in memory of our trip to Japan, where we ate takoyaki. Also, he wanted me to have a shirt that said “Octopus Balls” on it.
I wish I had taken a picture of me at the DSW trying on these pink glitter platform shoes. I don’t buy a lot of shoes because I’m too practical. The three pairs of shoes I bought today, that’s not my usual thing. One pair was for necessity, one pair was practical, and the third pair was arguably frivolous but also on clearance. I almost wanted to buy those pink glitter platform shoes just on principle–the principle of awesome–but I wasn’t feeling that frivolous (despite the fact they were also on clearance). I understand why women wear those shoes, despite the fact that they’re extraordinarily uncomfortable and you feel like you’re going to tip over any second. It’s like being on stilts–you get an entirely new perspective on the world. LIKE YOU’RE THE SUPREME RULER OF EVERYONE ELSE. Also, your feet look tiny because they’re in the Barbie position.
But no, I just bought some very practical, comfortable and attractive shoes. I forgot where I was going with that last paragraph. I said I don’t buy a lot of shoes because I’m too practical, but I love shoes. If I bought every pair of shoes I wanted, I’d have about a thousand pair of shoes by now, and that’s about 980 too many. I’m not sure how many shoes I have right now. A couple of them are missing, unfortunately. But now is not the time for sad stories.
Speaking of sad stories, I’m going to save my Donna Summer Tribute Post for tomorrow. Not to make everything about me (even though it is), but a birthday just doesn’t seem an appropriate occasion for a wake, even a Disco Wake.
My son is complaining about where I want to go for dinner tonight. Can you believe the nerve of him?
Here are some things I need to do in the next hour and a half: help Elvis with his homework, take Elvis and Girlfriend to the library, do a load of laundry. That’s, like, nothing. But I should get started on it, or I won’t succeed, and to fail at doing nothing on your 41st natal anniversary is just depressing. Happy My Birthday, gentle readers!
So my iPod is officially dead. Dead as a doornail. What does that mean, anyway? Is anything deader than a doornail? Is a doornail deader than other things that aren’t alive? Gentle readers who are historians of the English language, please advise. Anyway. The iPod is dead as a doornail, as dead as an electronic device that has been dropped in a toilet. That means I have a general idea of what I’m getting for my birthday. I just have to decide if I want to replace the toilet-murdered iPod with a new iPod nano or an iPod touch or a refurbished iPod nano that is just like my old one.
I was happy with my old iPod, before it stopped working. I’m not a big fan of the new iPod nano. It looks too small. And the smallness maybe wouldn’t be a problem except for the touch screen. Smallness + touch screen does not seem like a good combo to me. And it’s not like I have freakishly meaty fingers or something–yeah, I know, as soon as I say that, you’re thinking “she’s got freakishly meaty fingers”–but I don’t! I just don’t have a delicate touch. Anything that requires precision, I’m not very good with that. So there’s the iPod touch–which looks too big. It also seems like way more technology than I really need. I’m not going to start playing Angry Birds any time soon. On the other hand, if it has all these awesome capabilities, it will be one more tool to distract my bored and/or fussy children when I’m out and about. On the other hand, do I really want my children to become even more reliant on electronic distraction than they already are? On the other hand, is it possible for them to become more reliant on electronic distraction? Has that ship not already sailed? On the other hand, won’t they always be “borrowing” my iPod touch so that I’ll never be able to use it myself? On the other hand, wouldn’t it be cool?
On the other hand, if I got an iPod touch, I would want to have the 32GB and not the 8GB. What good is 8GB? Please. But a 32GB iPod touch is twice as much as a new 16GB iPod nano and almost $200 more than a refurbished 16GB iPod nano 4g, which I’ve already said I was perfectly content with. Is it lame to get the exact same thing? Answer: kind of. I mean, my children will be incredibly disappointed in me. On the other hand, when have they not been disappointed in me? Also, whose birthday is it anyway?
On the other hand, the iPod touch looks very cool. On the other hand, it’s basically an iPhone without the phone. Is it lame to get an iPhone without a phone? I’m not going to get an iPhone. That’s out of the question. I’m just thinking out loud.
And now the time for thinking is over, as I must go to clogging class. Continue my thinking for me in the comments section.
Remember that old board game, Aggravation? I think we used to have that game. I don’t remember enjoying it.
You know what aggravates me? PayPal. I know PayPal is the safe, secure way to pay. Once upon a time–a very long time ago, I’m sure–I set up a PayPal account. I even remember the e-mail account and password I used. I can log in to my PayPal account, but I can’t use it because every time I try, it tells me my credit card is no good. It doesn’t matter which credit card I use; it hates all of them. (To be fair, I don’t have an unlimited number of credit cards, so I’ve only tried a couple.) Which is fine, you know–I use my credit card online all the time. It hasn’t been stolen yet, and when it finally is, I’ll probably say, “Well, it’s about time, I guess.” Between the grocery store club cards and the Facebook I’ve pretty much given up on keeping my personal information private. I’m at peace with the fact that someday my identity will be stolen. Maybe that’s why I have this blog, to warn potential identity thieves that being me isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. But I digress. My point is that I’m okay with PayPal rejecting me; I don’t need PayPal. That part doesn’t aggravate me.
What aggravates me is when I pay with my credit card and PayPal pops up and says, “We see you already have a PayPal account. Would you like to use it?” No, melon-farmers, I would not like to use it. I already tried using it and you wouldn’t let me. Maybe you don’t remember–IT WAS TWO WHOLE SECONDS AGO. Privacy-pimping bastards.
That’s really all I had to say about that.
I just bought some clogging shoes online WITH MY CREDIT CARD. (Bring it, identity-nappers!) My performance on Saturday went reasonably well. Better than I had feared it would. I practiced very hard. It more or less paid off. So I figure I’ve earned myself some proper clogging shoes. Actually, I already felt like I deserved them. It’s just that after Saturday I decided that I’m tired of being the only one in the group without them. Mainly because my tap shoes are black and everyone else’s clogging shoes are white. They make black clogging shoes–they make red ones, too–but apparently no one uses black (or red) clogging shoes. Only white clogging shoes. All the used clogging shoes I see on the eBay are also white. So yeah, I’m tired of not matching. If I’m going to stand out in the crowd, I don’t want people saying, “Why is that lady wearing black shoes? Is it because she dances so poorly? Are they the dunce cap of the clogging world?” when the truth is that I’m just too cheap to buy real clogging shoes.
Except I’m not because I just bought myself clogging shoes. And risked my identity to do so.
Elvis’s birthday party went well. I don’t know why it was stressing me out so much. Parties hosted by third parties are inherently less stressful than parties one hosts at one’s own home. They’re spendier but worth every penny. You have a party, then you just WALK AWAY. It’s that simple. It’s a good feeling. My husband took charge of the party favour situation. I think he volunteered once it became plain that I wasn’t going to do a darn thing. And I really wasn’t. The guests all would have gone home favourless. Why am I insisting on spelling “favour” the British way? Sometimes I just do. Same reason I insist on saying “grey” instead of “gray.” Not consistently. Just sometimes. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah. My husband. Party favours. He just handed out a bunch of candy. Like, a lot. But I had nothing to do with it.
I think it’s amazing that with all the autistic children I’ve invited to parties, I’ve never had a guest who was GF/CF. Maybe all the GF/CF kids just stay away because they don’t want to watch everyone else eat cake and ice cream. Last year we had invited a boy who I knew was GF/CF because he’d come to another classmate’s party and had to watch everyone else eat pizza and cake and I thought it was the saddest thing I’d ever seen. (He didn’t seem too happy about abstaining.) I was all prepared to make a gluten-free cake for Elvis’s party, but the GF/CF boy never RSVP’d, so I gave up the project and went with the chock full o’ gluten option, which was a lot less trouble. I wonder if the GF/CF boy’s mother finally said, “Screw it, we’re not doing this again.” Maybe next year I will explicitly state on the invitation, “WILL HAPPILY ACCOMMODATE ALL DIETS.” Except that would be a lie. I might not happily accommodate all diets, but I would still accommodate and act like I was happy to do it because that’s the neighborly thing to do.
Or maybe I should just stop trying to feed our guests at all. Our culture has become too food-centered. No wonder we’re all obese. Maybe next year I’ll say, “Instead of a party favour, do yourself a favour–thirty minutes on the treadmill! Go!”
I’m just kidding.
I’ve decided that I’m going to find Princess Zurg another sewing mentor. I just haven’t broken the news to her yet.
What else is stressing me out these days? The laundry. The laundry is out of control again. It’s stressing me out a little bit.
Saturday is PZ’s birthday and I haven’t bought her a present yet. Mister Bubby and Girlfriend have bought her presents, but they’re kind of…frivolous. So the pressure’s on to buy something that won’t make her say, “What the crap…?” She told me some things she wanted that I could only get on the internet, and now it’s too late to do the internet shopping. I didn’t really want to get her those things anyway. I don’t know what I want to get her. It’s impossible to buy my child’s love! Why do I continue to try? Why haven’t I taught her how to sew yet? I’m just a selfish, sad excuse for a human being!
Okay, I’m done with that. Moving on.
My MIL goes back to California next week. That’s stressing me out because I’ve gotten used to having her here. I haven’t seen hide nor hair of Gertrude, our regular babysitter, for about a month. Gertrude is going to have to find a new position once my MIL is up here full-time. I feel obligated to find her something. I know I’m not, but I still feel it. So that’s stressful.
Oh, I forgot about all the other birthday-related stress. So PZ’s friend’s birthday is two days before hers, but she’s having her party on PZ’s birthday. So PZ is going to have her party the day before, we think, provided her other friend is able to attend that day. PZ’s birthday party always stresses me out because her two BFF’s are so…ADHD. They’re dear, sweet girls but they fray my nerves. The experience of having them around is somewhere between an obnoxious neighbor cranking up his bass and a colicky baby screaming non-stop for several hours. That’s stressing me out.
Also, Mister Bubby’s class was supposed to elect a mayor for some…school-related…thing…and he just lost the election and is sorely disappointed and hasn’t moved beyond the anger/denial stage. That’s stressing me out, too.
I just remembered I forgot to take my happy pills today. And now it’s time to unload the dishwasher.
This post wasn’t that creative.
I am using “thither” as an adverb–as in “that’s where Thursday went.” You don’t hear a lot of people using “thither” anymore, as an adverb or otherwise. It’s pretty much a dead word. I don’t know that it needs to be revived, either. But it’s alliterative, and I’m feeling that today.
Why am I feeling alliterative? Because I can’t think up a title for this post. It’s pretty much going to be about nothing.
This morning I spent three hours cleaning out the refrigerator. Just so you understand, I did a really good job. I won’t tell you about all the moldy stuff I found. Except I will tell you about the moldy Foitella that I bought for Sugar Daddy as a Christmas gift. It cost $22 for a wee jar, and I think I dumped at least $18 worth of it down the garbage disposal. I think my husband is congenitally incapable of eating perishable food in a timely fashion. I will probably not buy him another jar of Foitella…until Christmas rolls around again and I can’t think of anything else to buy him.
Three hours still seems like an awful lot of time to spend cleaning a refrigerator. Well, it was really filthy. Disgustingly filthy. I deserve an award.
As it happens, I did get an award. My sweet husband–he of Foitella fame–called me on the phone this afternoon and asked if I’d meet him at the Banana Republic so I could try on this dress he thought would look good on me. So being the obedient wife that I am, I did as he requested, and now I have a new dress. How does it look on me? Awesome. Thanks for asking. Trust me, that one word is more accurate than any photo could be. (I don’t photograph well.)
It looks better on me than it does on her!
And the best part is that he didn’t even know that I’d cleaned out the fridge. He just sensed that I deserved an award. Actually, he’s not that sensitive. He’s just a nice husband who occasionally gives me things that I don’t deserve, and it’s just a coincidence that today I did deserve it.
You know what’s better than first-world problems? First-world benefits!
He’s not coming home tonight, which means I can get away with feeding the kids crap for dinner. Which reminds me, I have seen these news ads for Carl’s Jr.’s hand-breaded chicken tenders and whatnot on public benches. Yeah, public benches. You know what I mean, right? Those benches that are just out there in public, like at bus stops? Why does “public bench” not sound like a real thing? I don’t know. But I assure you, it is. And there are ads on such things, which is where I’m seeing the Carl’s Jr. ads that I’m talking about. One of the ads says, “Because machines make terrible chefs,” and another of the ads says, “Because machines make crappy co-workers.” Two things:
1) I don’t know that machines make crappy co-workers. I mean, certainly some machines do, but the majority of machines I work with do a very good job, and there is little in the way of “office politics” with machines. At least that is my experience. I’m sure there are many of you out there who would gladly trade at least one of your co-workers for a nice robot.
2) Since when is “crappy” appropriate copy for an advertisement that appears in the public space? I guess Carl’s Jr. is supposed to be the “edgy” fast-food place, and I suppose they don’t have a history of genteel advertising–and who am I to talk, when I use the word crap all the time? But like I tell my kids, just because I say it doesn’t make it okay. I don’t know. It just seems like another symptom of our society’s decaying moral fiber. No class, I tell you. No. Class.
I guess there might be a third thing: 3) Machines don’t necessarily make terrible chefs. My waffler makes a much better waffle than I ever could by hand. Machines get a bad rap, all in all. Except for those evil Cylons on Battlestar Galactica. But even some of them might have been good chefs. It’s hard to say, as the show didn’t really focus that much on its characters’ culinary lives. But I digress.
Getting back to my original point, I still don’t know what I’m going to make for dinner tonight. I will probably have to go to the store and buy some food. I will have to take Elvis with me, and that promises to be more trouble than it’s worth. Elvis has a new obsession with the automatic doors. He wants them to open just for him. So he will stand there, several feet away from the door, and wait as long as it takes for them to close again so that he can run up and make them open just for him. Of course, the more people going in and out of the store, the longer it takes for the automatic doors to shut. They may start to shut, but as soon as someone trips the sensor, they’re going to open right back up again. Elvis finds this very frustrating. Do you know how many people go in and out of a grocery store on your average afternoon? A lot. The doors stay open most of the time because people are always going in and out. It’s a problem, if you’re autistic and crazy.
Talking of which, I have one of Princess Zurg’s friends over at the house this afternoon. She’s staying for dinner. I hope she likes crap. In any case, it will be crap prepared by a real human, so I guess I’d better get on the stick if we’re going to eat before midnight. Gentle readers, adieu.
Here’s a thing:
"I will go home on the bus for all"
I don’t know what it means, but I find it vaguely inspiring.
This may be the start of a new series, “Wisdom from Elvis’s Whiteboard.”
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So I have this new washer and dryer. It’s pretty exciting. The most exciting thing about getting them is that we ended up cleaning the floor underneath the old washer and dryer. Not terribly thoroughly, since we only had the time between the moment the delivery guys took out the old appliances and the moment the delivery guys installed the new appliances, but close enough for horseshoes. (That is an expression. We don’t usually play horseshoes in the laundry room, or anywhere on the premises. Don’t ask me what the expression means. I just say it.)
Girlfriend, upon seeing the new appliances, exclaimed, “Mommy, these are great!” Elvis, who has been my laundry wing-man for a few months now, has not shown much interest in the new washer and dryer, which I find odd. Maybe he finds the abundance of settings overwhelming. Here’s the thing about buying a new washer and dryer these days–as I was telling Susan M, you can’t really find a large-capacity washer or dryer that is not all fancy with electronic gadgetry and all kinds of bells and whistles that our mother’s generation somehow managed to clean clothes without. I’m a simple girl; I like simple appliances. When we were shopping for appliances last Friday, I kept rejecting the ones with electronic panels, until I realized that if I wanted a washer/dryer large enough to handle six people worth of dirty clothes, and not a small washer/dryer suitable for apartment living, I was going to be stuck with an electronic panel. To me, an electronic panel is just one more thing to go wrong; more specifically, it is THE thing to go wrong, if something will go wrong. I never met an electronic panel that didn’t want to go wrong in some way. That is how you end up with appliances that don’t work when you need them to. Those are the kinds of appliances I don’t want. But it appears that I shall be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century, after all, because I am also not wanting to buy a washer that will only hold three bath towels. (I had one of those once. I won’t go back.)
Anyway, we bought a middle-of-the-line washer and dryer with a more minimalist approach to bells and whistles. Some of the washers and dryers we looked at, I kid you not, they had, like, thirty-five settings on them. I can’t imagine how one gets any laundry done with that many choices. All I want are some dials and maybe a button to push. I don’t want to have to program my washer. Why would I want my washer to be more like my VCR? But I guess I am in the minority. Anyway, we bought a very nice set–they’re Samsungs, which disturbed Sugar Daddy a little bit, because in his world Samsung makes TVs, not washers and dryers. But as the salesperson told us, just in case we missed the big sign on the unit itself, Samsung has been the top-rated choice of consumers for the past two years. Who knew? Probably people who have bought washing machines and dryers more recently than we have. But anyway, they’re a very nice set, and they’re reasonably intuitive from a user-interface standpoint, which I like. The washer plays a little tune after it finishes the final spin cycle, which I think is odd, and I don’t doubt that later I will be scouring the house for the owner’s manual so I can look up how to disable that feature, but I’ve decided to find it charming for the time being.
SD said he was talking with a co-worker about his new laundry machine, and the co-worker said, “Is it one of those front-loaders? We got one of those a couple years ago. It changed my wife’s life.” And I thought, “Changed her life? That’s hardcore.” It made me wonder what she was using for a washing machine before–a scrub board and a creek? But I will admit, the Samsung is a fine machine. SD called from California yesterday and asked me how it was working out. I told him it changed my life. But I was mostly just messing with him.
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A conversation in the car
Girlfriend:Â Mama, which one is for going and which one is for stopping?
Mad:Â What are you talking about?
Girlfriend (in her DUH MOM voice): Argh! Those things where your feet go!
Mad (realizing she means the brake and gas pedals): Oh! This one’s go and this one’s stop.
Girlfriend: Okay, Mama. I’ll remember that when I get older.
No, they are not related. At least…not that we know of.
I just have a quick question for all you domestic goddesses out there–and just so you know, I’m using the word “goddess” lightly in order to flatter you. You only have to be more domestically inclined than I am to qualify for goddess status, as far as I’m concerned. That doesn’t render the title less meaningful to you, does it? Should I have been less transparent? I just wanted to make sure I was reaching my intended audience, which is Anyone Who Sews With A Sewing Machine At All.
You see, Princess Zurg is very interested in fashion and stuff, and she’d like to learn to do machine-sewing. She already knows how to do basic hand-sewing. I taught her how to do that much because I came of age during a time when Mormon girls were forced to learn a certain amount of needlework if they wanted to go to heaven. I have very limited experience with sewing machines. I used a sewing machine in home ec in the eighth grade, and in 1996 I attempted to sew my own temple dress under my mother’s supervision, and I got half the bodice done before I had to go to an appointment or something, and when I got back, my mother had mercifully finished the whole dress for me. That was the last time I touched a sewing machine. I don’t think I’ve ever had to thread a bobbin, or whatever that procedure is called. I’ve heard horror stories about bobbins. They make me a little nervous.
So I don’t own a sewing machine. What sort of woman am I? I’m not fit to wear the uniform. But the point is moot because even if I were fit to wear the uniform, I don’t have a machine to sew one with. Actually, that’s not a moot point. It’s a very relevant point. I’m right back where I started, in fact. Let’s move on, shall we?
I’d like to get PZ a sewing machine for Christmas, but I have no idea where to start. She’s twelve. She’s easily frustrated. I’m not very bright. We need a machine that will be (relatively) easy to use and not cost too much money (and by “too much money” I mean “more money than you would spend on a twelve-year-old’s very first sewing machine that her 39-year-old mother will only use to the extent that she needs to help her twelve-year-old daughter learn to use it”). It doesn’t need to do anything particularly fancy. (I don’t even know what I mean by “fancy.” I have no idea what kind of fancy things sewing machines can do. But I’m pretty sure we won’t need to do any of them.)
Any suggestions? Advice? Commentary? Criticism? I eagerly await the receipt of your wisdom.
And now I will abruptly shift gears. How about those terrorists, eh? This is just what’s on my mind this morning–sewing machines and all these enhanced security measures at the airports. I don’t fly very often. I fly maybe once a year. Maybe. And generally I don’t get outraged. I only get outraged maybe…three times a year. Miffed and eye-rolly, sure–way more often. But genuinely outraged, that is more rare. But I find this business with the TSA and the pat-downs deeply disturbing.
So these super-fancy full-body scanners–I’m kind of “whatever” on that, personally, because I tend not to worry about things that maybe can give you cancer because the list of things that maybe can give you cancer is so long that worrying about all of them would just paralyze me. As for the modesty issue, I don’t know–my sense of modesty took a serious beating with the birth of my first child, and it’s never fully recovered. But I understand how it would seem invasive to some people–many people, in fact. I can understand people being wary of anything involving radiation and crap. And when the alternative is getting molested by a TSA agent, that just strikes me as basically creepy. Not very American, if you don’t mind my saying so.
As freedom- and privacy-loving as I like to think I am, it’s possible that I could be persuaded to think these were necessary precautions to protect all of us from the terrorists–I don’t like planes blowing up any more than the next person–if it weren’t so blatantly obvious that this crap is just for show. Yeah, a terrorist could be anyone, so I’m not going to argue for patting down a Middle Eastern dude and waving Grandma through. Whoever a terrorist might be, it’s going to be pretty easy for him or her to evade these enhanced security measures. Do we think terrorists are stupid or something? How hard is it to figure out that if you don’t want your bomb detected by a full-body scanner, you either go to an airport that doesn’t have a full-body scanner, or you opt out of the full-body scanner and hide the bomb inside your body, where the TSA is not (yet) allowed to go? Or is the TSA eventually going to start doing random cavity searches? I mean, why not? Better safe than sorry.
And if these enhanced measures are so necessary, why aren’t they being implemented everywhere? You can’t put the new-fangled machines in every airport all at once, but absent the ability to see through people’s clothing, why shouldn’t the TSA conduct random pat-downs at airports that don’t have the scanners? Unless the pat-down is more a punishment for not submitting to a full-body scan than it is an actually-necessary security measure.
Also, with the randomness–it seems to me that if I were a suicide bomber, I wouldn’t be too nervous about being subject to a random security check. If I’m planning to blow myself up anyway, I might be inclined to just take my chances. If they tap me on the shoulder for a full-body scan, so be it. But there’s a pretty good chance they won’t. So why not just go for it? It’s not like I’m sane or anything.
Anyway, that’s what’s on my mind today. Let me know about the sewing machine. Christmas is coming, and so are the terrorists. (I don’t know, I just felt like I needed to tie it all in.)
Mad: You buy shoes at least twice a year. You have more shoes than anyone in this family.
Sugar Daddy: I think what I like about shoes is that it’s the one area of men’s fashion you can have a little fun with. I try not to be too gay about shoes, though.
Mad:Â Gay-for-shoes is not a “thing,” SD.
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My husband and I went shoe shopping last night. We had to buy new shoes for Japan. Even though I was pretty sure you weren’t supposed to wear shoes in Japan! Shows what I know. But seriously, we had to buy new shoes because we’re going hiking while we’re in Japan–both Japan and Madhousewife being known for their great hiking–and SD had no suitable hiking shoes. I, as it turned out, had suitable hiking shoes, because in 2000 I actually bought a pair of athletic shoes (for the purpose of athletic activities!) which I have since worn perhaps a grand total of 47 times, which is not actually that much in shoe years. So there was that. But the shoe store was having a BOGO 1/2 off sale, so someone else besides SD had to get shoes, and that someone else may as well have been me.
I happen to love shoes, but I don’t buy a lot of them because a) I’m picky and b) I’m cheap. (I was going to say I was speaking financially there, but then I realized, huh! yeah, right.) I do enjoy just looking at shoes. I appreciate shoe design in a way that not everyone else does. For example, my daughter hates to go into shoe stores with me because I am constantly holding up shoes and saying, “Look at this, Princess Zurg! Is this not the most adorable footwear you have ever seen?” And she’s like, “Yeah, it’s fine. Can we go now?” I have somewhat of a heel fetish. I do love a unique heel. But I digress.
I was shopping for shoes of a more practical nature last night, as I have plenty of the less-practical nature. My favorite shoes of the practical nature are wearing out. I recently got another pair that is exactly like them except for the color, which is white, which was the only color they had them in or I might not have bought them, but they are just so comfortable, you see. Anyway, I don’t mind the white shoes, but white shoes cannot be for all occasions, not even practical ones. So I was searching for darker shoes of the more practical nature. I was torn between the adorable Nikes of great comfort but not-so-dark color and the not-quite-as-adorable-but-still-attractive Pumas of similar comfort but superior darkness.
In the end I opted for slightly-less-adorable-but-darker shoes, and I am not sorry I did. I tried them on several times in the store–Nike, Pumas, Nikes, Pumas–and I believe I made the correct choice. But today as I am breaking them in I am noticing a discrepancy between in-store comfort and out-of-store comfort. Perhaps I am wearing the wrong socks. I will tell you more of my sock fetish another time.
So today is St. Patrick’s Day. I’m not really into St. Patrick’s Day as a holiday. I do happen to own a leprechaun Snoopy t-shirt, so sue me. But that’s not the story I was going to tell you. Elvis has been really into calendars for the last year or so. He has to X off all the days that have transpired and write down all the days that school is out. He goes into the church library with me and X’s out the days on the library calendar and writes down the days there are no school. Last month he wrote down my sister’s birthday on the library calendar. Fortunately, there is nothing that actually goes on the church library calendar, so I don’t think anybody minds that Elvis has co-opted it for his own purposes. (I don’t believe anyone in my ward sent foo4luv a gift, though.) Anyway, Elvis is really into calendars and he’s been looking forward to St. Patrick’s Day ever since Valentine’s Day ended. He taped a gold coin to the 17th on our calendar at home.
Yesterday he came home from school and started talking about St. Patrick’s Day. “It’s Patrick’s Day tomorrow!” he said.
“Yes,” I said, “tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day. Very exciting.”
“It’s Patrick’s Day!” he said more urgently. Over and over he kept saying, “Patrick’s Day!” and “I need to write the names!” and finally he said, “I need Very Hungry Caterpillar!” Well, we made Very Hungry Caterpillar cards for Valentine’s Day. (Previously, on I am the Giraffe…) So I said, “You want to make cards for St. Patrick’s Day?” (Mother is quick on the uptake, let me tell you.)
“Make cards!” he said, greatly relieved that he did not have to draw me a picture. So I printed out some Very Hungry Caterpillar pictures for him to make St. Patrick’s Day cards (which, as far as I know, is also not a “thing,” but I wasn’t about to try to tell him that at that point). So he made cards and wrote all the names of his classmates on them, and then he decided he needed to give them something more. And for reasons I still don’t understand, he decided that the something more should be Ziploc bags filled with decorative candy sprinkles. By the time I figured out what the heck he was doing, he had already made a dozen bags and was really super-proud of himself. Because I’ve had these sprinkles in my cupboard for years, I wasn’t particularly sorry to part with them, but I could just imagine the look on a first grader’s face when his classmate hands him a bag of sprinkles and wishes him a happy St. Patrick’s Day. (Not to mention the look on any neighboring adult’s face when she sees fourteen seven-year-olds armed with bagfuls of candy sprinkles. It could be a problem.) At the time I couldn’t think of any way to talk him out of the scheme, so I did what I do best, which was leave it for his father to deal with when he got home.
So SD was able to talk Elvis into giving his friends some actual candy with their St. Patrick’s Day cards, which seemed a little less random, but he was not able to talk Elvis out of the candy sprinkles. It was, apparently, a dream that he could not let die. So I sent him to school today with Pez taped to St. Patrick’s Day cards taped to Ziploc bags of candy sprinkles and a note to his teacher saying, essentially, “I’m…sorry?” Because what else could I do?
The comments section is where you write your shoe- and St. Patrick’s Day- and random childhood behavior-related anecdotes, should you feel like sharing. A comment combining all three elements–shoes, St. Patrick’s Day, and random childhood behavior–gets the most points. Points counting toward what, you might ask. Well, that just shows you haven’t been reading the blog for very long. This is all for my own amusement. The only thing you get out of it is ten seconds of fame on a web site visited by approximately 12-16 people per day. If you think you can do better elsewhere, go ahead and try. And now, gentle readers, I must adieu.
I am the giraffe 
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