Complaining: It's what's for Dinner

All three of my children are picky eaters. This doesn't completely surprise me considering both my Mr. Farklepants and I were picky eaters when we were children. Mr. Farklepants still has food issues. So clearly it is some kind of gene that is passed on and I imagine upon close inspection beneath a microscope this gene closely resembles that of a mother's head exploding. I recall looking on in envy when my girlfriend's toddlers would readily and eagerly devour anything that was placed before them, sometimes asking for seconds. While I fished a stale Ritz cracker out of the bottom of the diaper bag because the grilled cheese sandwich I'd ordered for them in the restaurant was met with UNCONTROLLABLE CROCODILE TEARS. This is why Boy-Child#1 ate jarred baby food until he was three and a half years old in addition to the waffles and buttered toast that he wanted for every meal because it was the only way I could get a vegetable passed his pursed lips -which prompted a distant relative to pooh-pooh my technique and try to school me on the importance of introducing grown-up food to my child; which, duh. Of course I was doing but he had a thing about textures and frankly she didn't have to see me turn into General Patton FOR EVERY FREAKIN MEAL on a daily basis.

But as they've gotten older, they've grown more bold in their food adventure. They will pretty much eat anything I serve them and if they really don't like it, they'll at least try it. My boys do, that is. Boy-Child#1 will even suggest I add something new to the repertoire. Girl-Child? Not so much. That girl would live on buttered noodles, mac and cheese, cereal, bananas, apples, peanut butter sandwiches, and yogurt if I let her. I regularly serve her whatever it is I've made for dinner and she regularly pushes it around on her plate. We've reached a point where I'm all, dude, you're six years old and if you're hungry you'll eat. If you don't? You go to bed hungry because the kitchen is closed. She is learning that her mom? Isn't even joking about that.

Are We the Only Couple Waiting for Their Tax Returns to Pay Off Christmas?

Why does every holiday have to be some grand, gift-giving extravaganza? It seems like they all revolve around buying a present for your loved ones. When I was a kid, Easter meant coloring eggs the day before and leaving them for the Easter Bunny to hide for the hunt. He'd leave us a basket filled with a skewed candy to plastic shredded grass ratio. Heavy on the grass. Nowadays, many (most?) kids that I know get presents for Easter. EASTER! It's like the year's first quarter Christmas.

Don't even get me started on the Tooth Fairy. Someone needs to reel that bitch in. When my kids find out from their friends and classmates that the Tooth Fairy is leaving books, toys, stuffed animals, and significant amounts of cash under their pillows? I'm met with the look of utter disappointment when my children find the four quarters that were placed lovingly beneath theirs. Tooth Fairies of the world? You all need to have a summit and come to some kind of standard agreement and chisel it in stone. Pronto.

Valentine's Day used to mean flowers, chocolate, and romantic dinners. Now it's the gift of... cellphone service? It was bad enough when retailer's marketing departments implied that you were a slouch of a husband or boyfriend if you didn't lavish your wife or girlfriend in overpriced flowers and tacky matching earring/necklace/ring combinations, but now if you A) don't buy her cell phone for her, and B) provide an inferior range of service - she will leave your ass.

And frankly, I've never really "got" Valentine's Day. I don't even know what the original premise of the holiday is nor do I care enough to exhaust Wikipedia to find out; whatever it was it got lost along the way and became a stress factor. If you're in a new relationship, you freak out over what to get the other person because you don't want to come on too strong, or too light, or outdo the other person, or scare the other person away, or appear too desperate, or cheap, or trying too hard, or too blasé. If you're married you don't want to live with the silent treatment if you screw it up. I think flowers are a big fat waste of money and I'd rather have a new article of clothing. Or shoes. Or a purse. And the last thing I want to do is go out to eat in a crowded restaurant charging inflated prices for moderate food in the name of ...romance? Eff that noise.

You want to know what one of the most romantic things Mr. Farklepants ever did? Honestly, it was one of those scenarios where I was genuinely touched and flattered. Are you ready? Okay, here it is: he made babysitting arrangements so he could take me out. That's it right there - CONSIDERATION. If we were to go out we would need someone to look after the kids and he knew I would have to start making the phone calls and he took it upon himself to save me that stress. And it is random acts such as these that I find romantic and make me want to take off my clothes and roll around on him.

*photo by DorothyZ.

Tootsie Farkle-Crocker

I got the bug to try out some recipes and bake the other day. I very much enjoy cooking except when it's on a daily basis because then it's just another thing I have to do. But if I've got time on the weekend or if it's for entertaining purposes (i.e. Thanksgiving), I dive right in and lose myself in it. My dilemma is that my oven? Is the worst. It was brand new when it came with the house but you know those developers; bottom of the line appliances are how they roll. My oven has always been a piece of la merde. Especially for baking. If a cookie recipe calls for them to bake for 9 to 11 minutes, the cookies are burned on the bottom and around the edges at 5 minutes, but raw in the middle. When it comes to baking in my oven, I have to adjust the temperature, minimize the cooking time, and generally babysit. It can handle cakes and brownies but anything delicate is just wasting my time.

So, I called my sisters to enlist their help and company to make a day of baking; I gathered up my supplies, any ingredients I already had on hand, made a quick stop at the market for those I didn't, and went to my mommy's house. Because her oven is far superior. Our first order of business was familiarizing ourselves with the recipe...



And prep work...


If you're old and wise you've mastered the art of having your younger siblings do the hard labor - like peeling potatoes, grating cheese that sort of thing but eventually they're on to you and are all chop your own veggies. My sister thought coring the apples was fun, so, yeah go for it. But she's hip to my jive and she was all, you peel. I did have her slice them because she likes to play with knives wanted to. She was last seen running with scissors. Now we could have used canned apple pie filling but that's for punks. We wanted to create. We wanted the risk factor that comes with working with fruit. It's either delicious awesome or an absolute tasteless failure. And we like to gamble. Into the pan the apples, brown sugar, cornstarch, and other ingredients like heaven and nirvana, went. It took a bit longer than was called for to thicken up... and we also skipped the step where they wanted us to soak the sliced apples in water and lemon juice to keep them from turning brown because, brown sugar equals brown apples ANYWAY I mean, what's the point.



Then we had to sit around for a few minutes to wait for the pastry dough to finish thawing out...but not too thawed. Now I know we should have made our own pastry dough but the recipe specifically called for the frozen variety, so, there. Once the apple turnovers were in the oven we got to work on the cheese crowns...



Which was supposed to yield 12 individual pastries but this jerk misread the part that called for one and a HALF packages of pastry dough and only bought ONE. So we only made 8 and considering there were 9 people total that were going to partake? Well, you can see the math conundrum. The bottom of these are lined with brown sugar, cinnamon, butter, and pecans. The rest is filled with a mixture of cream cheese, sugar, eggs, and vanilla. And once these things have had a chance to chill overnight? There are no words. And the glaze that finished off the turnovers was out of this world.





*photos by DorothyZ.

It Depends on Your Definition of Leisure Time

The oh-so-fabulous Undomestic Diva posted on her blog yesterday about a study that concludes that stay at home and working mothers alike have thirty or more hours of leisure time per week. She also included a link to the study and I urge you to visit her blog and follow the link (I could do it here but she did all the leg work and I don't want to steal her thunder, as it were). Now that all of my children are in school full time, with the earliest of the dismissals at 2:15pm, I do have a great deal more time that is JUST MINE than when they were preschool aged and younger. But THIRTY HOURS? That sounded like an awful lot of leisure time to me so today I decided to document my time. My life is not crazy, out of control hectic and my schedule is mostly on my terms. I'm a stay at home mom and I can ignore many of the chores on my to-do list to create more "me time", but all that will do is create more work for myself because eventually, this crap needs to get done. Kind of like when you call in sick to work and all you do is shoot yourself in the foot because no one was there to pick up your slack. My documented time went as follows and please make yourself a cup of coffee to stay awake because it's just all kinds of exciting!

• 6:25am - Up and out of bed go downstairs, let the dog out, pour coffee (Dear Lord, I would like to give thanks for programmable coffee makers, amen), make the kids' lunches and pack them in their backpacks.
• 6:45am - wake up oldest son and get him in the shower, go back downstairs and make breakfast.
• 7:00am - wake up other two children and have them eat their breakfast, make husband's protein shake and pack his lunch.
• 7:05am - go rap on bathroom door to get oldest son out of the shower, go back downstairs and finish packing husband's lunch, and plate oldest son's breakfast
• 7:15am - get youngest children dressed, brushed, cleaned, shoed, ready for school.
• 7:25am - brush my teeth, put on pants.
  
• 7:30am - drive two youngest children to school to avoid school drop off congestion.
• 7:40am - make husband's breakfast, bus money for oldest son for ride home, double check he has everything packed that he needs for classes.
• 7:45am - take sheets off master bed and put in the washing machine.
  
• 7:50am - drive oldest son and neighbor child from across the street to school.
• 8:25am - finally home, drink 2nd cup of coffee, check email, let dog out, Twitter, check Facebook, let dog in.
• 8:45am - remove previous days laundry from dryer, put sheets in dryer, collect towels from bathrooms and put in the washer, fold previous days laundry and put away, gather husband's clothes to be dry cleaned, make kids' beds, pick up clothes from bedroom floors.
• 9:00am - straighten up downstairs, load and start dishwasher, let dog out, feed dog, do light dusting with the Swiffer, run vacuum around downstairs, clean downstairs bathroom, clean kids' bathroom, make mental note to clean bathroom floors tomorrow because this jerk forgot to get more Lysol, take sheets out of dryer, transfer towels to dryer, put sheets on and make my bed, vacuum dog hair off the comforter of my bed because yours truly has a very spoiled and sheddy dog.
• 11:30am - make a sandwich before I pass out from hunger, check email, Twitter, Facebook, watch an episode of "Roseanne", return a phone call that I missed while vacuuming.
• 12:10pm - empty all trash cans, empty vacuum canister, take out trash, vacuum stairs, break a thumb nail and curse loudly.
• 12:30pm - let dog out, take a shower, skip hair washing because there's not enough time to dry and style it AND make it to the grocery store and back before picking up daughter, groom, put hair in a #%$!$# ponytail, remove and fold towels from dryer.
• 1:15pm - make grocery list, grab dry cleaning, go to the grocery store and dry cleaners.
• 2:05pm - unload groceries and put away frozen and perishable items
• 2:15pm - pick up daughter from school.
• 2:30 - finish putting groceries away, make daughter a snack.
• 2:50pm - check email, Twitter, and Facebook, make witty comments.
• 3:05pm - pick up youngest son and friend from school, take friend home first, make youngest son a snack, oldest son arrives home, make him a snack, let dog out, let dog in, eat 3 chocolate covered graham crackers, experience guilt over eating aforementioned chocolate covered graham crackers.
  
• 4:00pm - kids play outside, check email, Twitter, and Facebook, and SnapGrades then remind oldest son of homework assignments.
• 5:00pm - youngest kids start homework, help daughter with her homework, make a pot of coffee, return my mom's phone call, redirect youngest son's attention to his homework
• 6:00pm - get the mail out of the mailbox, sort mail, go through pile of papers on the island in the kitchen, check on oldest son to see how homework is coming along, watch tv with two youngest children.
• 6:40pm - check email, Facebook, and Tweet that it's time to make dinner.
• 6:45pm - make dinner
• 7:15pm - feed kids dinner, I skip dinner on a count of the guilt from the chocolate covered graham crackers.
  
• 7:35pm - clean up after dinner, fix a plate for Mr. Farklepants and set aside.
• 7:45pm - start this blog post.
  

It is now 7:45pm and I still have to feed Mr. Farklepants when he comes home, get the two youngest in the bath/shower, watch a little television with them, bedtime, finish cleaning up the kitchen, straighten up any messes, get backpacks ready for tomorrow, prep coffee maker and anything else that can be squeezed in before 10:00pm. From 10:00pm to 11:00pm is my time to chill with my husband, surf the net, finish this blog post, and generally relax. Bedtime is between 11:00 and 11:30pm.

I consider leisure time something that I WANT to do, a luxury, if you will, and not something I HAVE to do. I've italicized what I would consider leisure time during my day and I count about 3 hours. Multiplied by 5 weekdays that's 15 hours. Obviously weekends wouldn't include the school schedule but it is simply replaced by other activities so I will count the generous 3 hours per day for the weekends as well which brings us to a grand total of 21 hours of leisure time per week.

I want my other 9+ hours. And we haven't even discussed the projects closet organization, window cleaning, window blinds, ceiling fans, moving and cleaning under furniture, the horror under the stove and refrigerator, ohmygod the catch all office that have been neglected just to get the 21 accounted leisure hours.

And if I had to throw going to work in there I would burst into flames.

The Title of this Post is.................Coming Up After These Messages!

There's a trend in television game shows... And reality television shows, which, in my opinion, are just game shows themselves with LOTS OF DRAMA and the same characters every week, eliminated one by one. I mean, come on...Survivor? Contestants. Boom! Game show. Like Who Wants to be a Millionaire only with swim suits, hairy armpits, man-boobs, exercise, bugs, poor hygiene, malnutrition, and brightly colored bandanas. The Bachelor? Contestants. BAM! Game show. Biggest Loser, Big Brother, American Idol, So You Think You Can Dance, The Amazing Race, America's Next Top Model, The Apprentice = gameshowgameshowgameshow very long, drawn out, drama filled, game shows. And all of these hour long programs? Could easily fill a half hour time slot if it weren't for the DRAMATIC PAUSE before each reveal of information, no matter how insignificant aforementioned information is, like, Tyra Banks' resume - fierce as it may be.

My research -where research equals, not a Google search, but my recollection which, you know grain of salt- indicates that this DRAMATIC PAUSE that is everywhere started with Regis Philbin and his Who Wants to be a Millionaire? and his "is that your final answer?" and then long DRAMATIC PAUSE and finally, "after this commercial!". And now that is the standard for every single game show. Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? ..."your answer is.....coming up when we come back!" (Jeff Foxworthy). Biggest Loser? "You've lost a total of .....BAM cut to commercial but not before the tease of shocked reactions from the contestants! DUHM DUUUHHHH DUUUMMMMMM!!! GASP SHOCK HORROR TEARS!

OMG, producers. Thirty minutes. This program can be accomplished in thirty minutes. Just ask Bob Barker. Can you imagine pausing before each reveal of the actual cost of the item on The Price is Right? Bob would lose his shit and start beating the audience with his super seventies long skinny microphone just before throwing himself into the nearest prize oven or under the brand new motorhooooommme complete with kitchenette and popout windooooows.

She Didn't Inherit Her Mother's Adrenaline Junkie Gene, That is for Certain

Over the winter break we took a family trip to Six Flags Magic Mountain. What with it being a stones throw from our house and about a third of the total cost as that of Disneyland, it is fun and affordable way to spend an adrenaline filled day with the family. [Editor's note and cost saving tip: If you don't already have a season pass which is only $54.99 dollars or don't plan to go often enough for that to pay for itself, buy your admission tickets online for only $29.99 instead of the $54.99 that they would charge at the park. Also? Disneyland doesn't offer an online deal for single park-one day passes NOR do they offer an option to buy one PERIOD online. You would have to wait in line at the park to purchase your tickets].

While our boys love the rush that roller coasters can bring; Girl-Child is not much for the things that create the illusion of danger. Or one for speed. Or for anything that moves, really, for that matter. She was at least five years old before she would let me put a quarter in one of those little wonky rides at the mall. And even then she would grip the contraption for dear life with an expression of total fear plastered across her face. It wasn't until she was six before she went anywhere near the merry-go-round. So imagine our surprise when we were able to talk her into riding The Gold Rusher [one of the more seemingly harmless rides and an excellent choice for one's first roller coaster] with Mr. Farklepants. And it wasn't until it was our turn to board the train that she worked up the courage to take a ride with dad. Would you like to see how that went? A girl's first roller coaster ride: A pictorial:

"I can do this! I'm here with my daddy...he said it doesn't go really fast. I trust my daddy. My daddy will save me!"

"Wait a minute...WTF?!?"

"Daddy, YOU lied to me"

This is more her speed.

Clearly, nothing like her mother (an oldie but a goodie from last summer):



**photos from Mr. Farklepants and his bitchen mistress, the Canon 5D Mark II

Reason Number One and Counting Why I Will Never Have a Yard Sale

Oh my God, you guys. I can't believe I haven't told this story already - and just when I was starting to think I'd run out of stories to tell. Okay, well, so today I went to the bank which I almost never have to do thanks to that beautiful invention - direct deposit. But I had a handful of checks the kids had received for Christmas and I figured it was high time to cash those suckers. That is all really here nor there except that it explains where I was and why I was parked in a spot that had a lot of cross traffic happening behind me; besides which, it is a better set up than today I was backing out of a parking space. Maybe. I dunno, whatever. Welcome to my stream of consciousness.

Anyway, so I'm backing out -real slow like- because it's busy and the black Toyota Sequoia parked next to me has the blackest tinted windows on earth and I quite literally could not see through them to determine if a car was coming. Or pedestrians. I get just far out enough to see a woman with a shopping cart waiting for me. So I halt to let her go what with that whole pedestrians have the right of way thingy and we do that whole she waves me on and I'm all no, no, after you wave to her and she's like, no really just go so I start to go at the same time she decides to stop waiting for me and we both do that immediate halt thing and she is all PISSED. And by this time I really do have to wait because there is a car speeding by but she thinks I'm still waiting for her and her teeth are all clenched but she still mouths the words just go lady or something because whatever she was muttering under her breath it was said with plenty of seething. So I just GO and I'm kind of hoping I take out her cart with my SUV on the way because I hate her a little bit at that moment and -what the hell? I was just trying to be nice and all law abiding. Screw that chick. And she reminds me of this lady who came to my door once.

Is she finally getting to the story? Yes, I believe she is. And you know what? I think she's realizing it's not really that great of a story. I hope she tells it anyway because I've gone this far. Oh, look...we're taking a trip in the way-back machine! Yay the way-back machine! I LOVE the way-back machine.

It's early summer of 1997, and Mr. Farklepants, a nine month old Boy-Child#1, and I are about thirty days away from our escrow closing on the house in which we currently live. During that time we lived in his mother's house and paid her mortgage and property tax while she lived in another location. We had a great deal with her and it was a perfect arrangement. Except that it was her house and it was always her house and that part was a little hard for a new wife to live with but...hence, the waiting for the closing of escrow on the current house.

Before moving we had a giant three day estate sale. I say "estate sale" because we pretty much sold anything that wasn't nailed down. That included a car. Much of the stuff belonged to my mother in law but the rest of it was what happens when two single people come to live together: a mash up of two separate dwellings, mismatched, mishmash, much of it second hand, most of it HATED. And none of that was coming into our brand new house, save for Boy-Child#1's nursery furniture and our bedroom furniture. Everything else went. And if that meant we had to live with a metal picnic table and folding lawn chairs in the dining room, so be it -but that is what happened- and totally a story for another day.

The estate sale was a success, except for not selling the car, haggling with some woman over a quarter for the dress I was selling FOR A DOLLAR, and getting conned out of ninety dollars. [Editor's note: That was the most authentic looking counterfeit one hundred dollar bill I have ever seen. Lesson learned, no bills over twenty dollars will be accepted, that is if there was ever going to be another yard sale, which there isn't] The following Friday the relatives are all gone, Mr. Farklepants is at work and it is just Boy-Child#1 and I at home when there is a knock at my front door. I answer, and on the other side is a pleasant looking woman...there for the estate sale. I explain that it was the previous weekend thinking maybe she had seen the ad my mother in law had placed and got the dates confused. And she? Was PISSED. Her pleasant demeanor fell away quicker than a drunk cheerleader's underpants at a frat party. "I READ YOUR SIGN" she yelled at me. My sign? "THE SIGN OVER ON THE CORNER OF BLAH BLAH AND BLAH BLAH BLAH". Oh, I'm sorry. My mother in law and her friends took the signs down but I'm guessing they missed one. Well, it was last weekend. "I DROVE ALL THE WAY OVER HERE AND TOOK TIME OUT OF MY DAY BECAUSE OF YOUR SIGN".

By now you'd think I'd be a little afraid and worried about this obviously crazy person on my front porch but the whole time I'm starting to get mad and I'm thinking, I've got a good twenty pounds and four inches on this bitch. I can take her.

BRING IT. I was kind of done being nice and all soft spoken and she actually flinched when I finally lost my shit "SO WHAT EXACTLY DO YOU WANT ME TO DO ABOUT IT LADY" screaming with flecks of spittle flying over my threshold. And she just looked at me. So I continued "THIS IS MY HOME NOT A STORE I DON'T HAVE ANYTHING TO SELL TO YOU WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME".

She looks right at me and screams "I WANT YOU TO TAKE YOUR SIGN DOWN SO NO ONE ELSE WASTES THEIR TIME".

And I finish with: SO FAR YOU'RE THE ONLY IDIOT WHO THINKS IT'S THIS WEEKEND SO GO TO HELL. And with that? I slammed the door in her face.

The end.

Speaking of My Facebook Addiction...

This week there is a Facebook meme making the rounds asking you to post a profile picture of the celebrity you've been told you resemble or have been mistaken for. Marcy over at The Glamorous Life discovered that she looks like Faith Prince. I wish I could post the pictures of my friends who look like Phoebe Cates [omg, uncanny, so much so], Jennifer Aniston [yep, totally], and Ron Jeremy [I don't know exactly what it is he is trying to suggest but more importantly, I don't want to know]...but since I don't have their permission, I won't. But I will show you mine:



I get Jennie Garth. A lot. I've even been mistaken for her, and living here in Los Angeles, it would make sense that she would be in a Starbucks, or Coffee Bean, or wherever the hell I was when it happened.

Who's your celebrity twin-ish?

Twitter the Gateway Drug and its Hardcore Addiction Cousin: Facebook

Quite some time ago I, like Demi Moore, Ashton Kutcher, and Discopickles** created a Twitter account. There was a time, you know, when I used to actually write on my blog regularly, when I would think in terms of blog posts. It wasn't long after signing up with Twitter that I found myself thinking in 140 characters or less and by the power invested in me so help me God I will use "its" for "it's" if I'm one character over the limit. At first I would try to limit my tweets and discern what might be tweet-worthy. Because I didn't want to answer Twitter's "What's Happening?" and be all: Just took out the trash or first load of laundry for the day complete zzzzzzzzzzzzz....It didn't take much time to decide that things like: "When did James Cameron turn into Bea Arthur?" or "When my dog leaps onto the couch, she farts. Audibly and impressively. You're welcome." - were important updates for the world to know. Because I'm helpful with information like that.

About a year ago my college aged sister talked me into joining Facebook. And I was all, I already have a blog, I have a Twitter, I'll sign up but don't expect me to frequent that little corner of the internet - much. And she was all, yeah, we'll see about that sucker. Most of our family, adults and children alike, and our friends are there. It's a great way for us to keep an eye on our teenage son and his friends share photos, family updates, plan a get together, and communicate with those closest to us. But then there is the political aspect to contend with. If you want to keep something one on one or between a chosen few, you take your conversation to the inbox...away from prying eyes. And when I say prying eyes I'm talking about that person who's on your friends list simply because you went to the same high school. And then you start to realize that the politics of Facebook are very similar to that of planning a wedding.

If you invite Auntie Gertie then you have to invite her offspring, your cousin, the one who used to pour sand in your hair and stole your boyfriend when you were in sixth grade and you don't really like her, in fact, you kind of hate her guts and don't want her anywhere near you on the happiest day of your life, because wtf? It's YOUR wedding. This is Facebook. You get a friend request from someone you genuienly adore or did once and would like to reconnect. Then because of that connection it turns out someone from their friend list remembers you or went to the same school as you or maybe worked with you briefly at some point, or likes your profile picture and would like to see more of you. Whatever the case may be, now you've got a dilemma on your hands in the form of a friend request pending on your homepage. And you sit on it for a spell. Because you don't want to be rude or hurt their feelings by hitting that "ignore" button. But then you don't really want them keeping up with the witty banter on your wall and the pictures of your friends, family, and your kids in your albums. In other words: I want my Facebook to be a private, intimate affair and I don't want them at my wedding.

And I try to limit my status updates on Facebook because I'm hiding my addiction from the people closest to me. I don't need to come home to some kind of Facebook intervention with far flung relatives from around the globe. Because I've got it under control. Really. Really I do. No, really.


**In fact, not a Twitter name I checked. It's yours if you want it.

Tootsie Takes a Long Hard Look in the Mirror and Faces the Facts

I find myself, lately, uttering the phrase Oh my God I'm getting so old! I mean, it's true, I am. That is the way life goes. You get older. Fortunately, it's a gradual process. But sometimes events arise that smack that fact right straight across your face like a bitch. And certain events include but are not limited to the following:

• Tootsie's youngest sister graduated from high school last June and is in her first year of college. And when Tootsie says youngest sister she means the sister who is twenty years younger. What. Ever.
• Tootsie's other younger sister is turning 21 in just two months. It seems like yesterday Tootsie was changing her cloth diapers and ramming herself in the thumb with those fooking diaper pins. Hello, Mom? One word: Pampers.
• Tootsie's oldest son is 13 - A TEENAGER - and it dawned on Tootsie that hiring a 15 year old babysitter to watch the kids when she has her very own teenager right there in her own home seemed like a waste of five dollars an hour (who is Tootsie kidding? See following gripe)
  
• Babysitters in 2010 are at least ten dollars an hour. Tootsie used to make two dollars an hour babysitting. But that's okay because Tootsie didn't really like your kids anyway she just needed cigarette money.
• Tootsie's twenty year high school reunion was LAST YEAR.
• Tootsie's niece became engaged to be married over winter break**
• Tootsie's oldest son shaves will start high school in the fall.
• Tootsie can't remember the last time she went to a bridal or baby shower but does remember the last funeral she went to.
• Tootsie's flower girl from her own wedding just turned twenty-two.
• Tootsie knows when it's humid before setting foot outside because she is unable to remove the rings from her fingers.
• ETC...

**Congratulations to my niece on her engagement. And for becoming engaged and not being pregnant - way to break the cycle.

P.s. No one likes a showoff.

The Family that Parties Together Travels Back in Time Together

Tootsie and family attended a 1970's themed New Years Eve party to ring in 2010. With the movie Boogie Nights in mind, they hit the thrift store on Ventura Blvd to secure their vintage clothing. They left with two shirts and a dress. The dress is the only thing Tootsie had to purchase for herself. This means that Tootsie already had blue eyeshadow, gold strappy shoes with cork heels, a hair comb, a gold sequined purse, suntan pantyhose, and sundry costume jewelry at her disposal: which means that Tootsie either has some really cool treasures in her closet or some really tacky shit. Tootsie's oldest son looks like he fell right out of 1975 on a daily basis so not much effort was needed to achieve his look. Even Mr. Farklepants is wearing Tootsie's own belt. He IS wearing a wig but the douchestache and mutton chops are all his - which made it all the sweeter when it wasn't until AFTER he'd made a trip OUT IN PUBLIC to replace the flat tire on his car that he realized he still hadn't shaved. That, dear friends, is made of AWESOME.

LAX is not Even Kidding About Being There Two Hours Before Your Flight

The airport. I almost always try to fly out of Burbank airport whenever possible [side note: I know it's Bob Hope Airport, or "Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport" but no one ever EVER calls it that...just "Burbank", because? It's in Burbank]. I do this because it is small, and quaint, and you kind of don't mind being there. I mean, there's only one baggage claim! You can't get lost. You don't get tired walking from your car to the building. Or from the ticket counter to your gate. You get what I'm saying. But! Airfare being what it is (or was), my recent trip to visit family back east meant if I could afford to fly, I was flying out of LAX. And I hate just about everything there is to hate about LAX.

Exhibit A) American Airlines is located in the international terminal and I couldn't believe my luck when I found a parking spot at the mouth of the bridge that would take me exactly where I needed to be! Except that it wasn't until I reached the other side that I learned the ticket counters and baggage check were DOWNSTAIRS. The only elevator in sight was equipped with a keyhole and not a single button. There were escalators! Except I had to go down a mid sized flight of stairs to reach them. With my very heavy and equally awkward suitcase.

Exhibit B) At the ticket counter there is First Class check in, Priority, some special "I paid too much for my ticket" club, and self-check. The self-checkers make up about 90% of the travelers and not all of them can operate a credit card swipey machine at the grocery store let alone a "print your own ticket" kiosk. So this involves a lot of patience and waiting, and wanting to rip their itinerary out of their hands and JUST DO IT FOR THEM FOR THE LOVE OF GOD GET ME OUT OF HERE AND TO THE SECURITY CHECK POINT.

Exhibit C) It is the international terminal so I understand that in many cases there is going to be a language barrier. But I imagine that a line looks like a line in just about every country and if you see one that you are pretty sure you need to be in? You go to the end. Not wander to the front and try to be next....I'm looking at you little old Asian woman. And if you weren't about one hundred and twelve years old and look as if you might turn into dust right on the spot from the wind streaming from my lungs as I spoke to you, I might have said something. And because I'd been standing in line for a half an hour and only moved fifteen feet, I was cranky and anxious with nothing but time to think of reasons why you don't recognize a line when you see it and I decided that you use your age an frailty to your advantage and you're just a manipulative old lady. And I don't want to think like that...SEE WHAT LAX DOES TO PEOPLE?

Exhibit D) Finding your gate. Mine was gate 47A. I follow the sign for gates 40 through 49. And I'm walking....Gate 40. And walking...Gate 41...42...43. And walking...Gate 44...45. And walking...Gate 46...and then? Gate 49. W. T. F? Which stopped me dead in my tracks. How could I have fucked this up? Oh. I didn't. There was 47A, tucked away in the far right of the cul de sac at the end of the terminal...like an afterthought.

Exhibit E) People who insist on standing in line to board the plane even if their group number hasn't been called. They stand at the ready. In the line. Except they don't move. Waiting for their number to be announced. And it's a full flight.

Exhibit F) There is always that one person on the plane...or in my case: that one couple. Their seats were not together and none of y'all will mind IF WE JUST SHOUT TO EACH OTHER DO YOU? UNTIL ONE OF Y'ALL CAN'T STAND IT AND GIVE US SOME SEATS TOGETHER? Obnoxious and obvious and the wife even louder than her thundering yeehaw husband. He was enormous and she was a twig. A twig with a beak like nose and exactly zero lips. And dressed in red jeans and a turtle neck, long sleeve t-shirt covered in a pattern of little reindeer. And I would bet my very last dollar that an identical outfit exists in the girls department in a size 6x.