Swag Did Not Include Beer Cozy

Mr. Farklepants went out and got himself the Canon D40 which can only mean one thing:


I've inherited the D20. The pictures around here might not improve but they'll be captured with a camera that is superior to my current Pentax Optio 550. My "new" camera has so many features on it I'm pretty sure it will make me breakfast in the morning [I'm thinking: Belgian waffles]. Also, I'm gonna need a bigger purse. There's only one thing that would have made this better: If Mr. Farklepants needed a new laptop.

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At the last minute on Saturday, Mr. Farklepants scored three tickets for Sunday's NASCAR race and took the boys. They were no ordinary tickets. They were kind of like backstage all access passes which included a luxury box and groupies, headsets to listen to the cockpit in your car of choice and playing Rock Band while you watched the race. Also there was NASCAR swag:



Most interesting fashion related question ever:

Mr. Farklepants: Am I dressed alright for NASCAR?

Well, Honey, you're a little pressed for time to grow out a mullet and get a tattoo but I could cut your Levis off just above the knee. Also, are you opposed to painting your face? Shirts are optional.

Your Commentary Please

I was going through some old photos that Mr. Farklepants has been scanning and uploading (downloading? whatever) onto the computer and came across this atrocious moment that was captured for blackmail posterity:



Her royal fatness (note: not phatness) on the right is yours truly. Shut up. I had just given birth to Boy-Child#2 five weeks prior and plus I was still nursing...and friends? My breasteses were enormous. That doesn't explain my closed eyes except that maybe I was all, "I can't look at these things anymore". The other two ladies are two of my sisters in law.

Because it's Labor Day weekend and apparently that means everyone has taken a break from visiting blogs [seriously, my Sitemeter is all, is this thing on?]; today's post (and perhaps tomorrow's post as well) is easy. Caption this photo!

Someone, Please, Help a Sister Out

This is Dorothy Z. She is my little sis. What you cannot tell from this photo is that I'm old enough to be her mother she has the coveted SJP [that would be Sarah Jessica Parker for those of you who don't speak Sex and the City-ease] hair. Thick and spiral curly. She is considering bangs. The photo on the left is her current look. The photo on the right is a photoshopped rendering brought to you by Mr. Farklepants of what she may (probably? will? possibly? not at all?) look like. It's a pretend "after" photo.

What do you think? Should she go for it? Or leave well enough alone? I'll withhold my opinion. Please vote in the poll below, if you would be so inclined. The poll is scheduled to close August 31st.



*I hope the poll shows up when published because Blogger isn't showing it to me in the preview which of course makes me wonder if it either isn't working at all or just doesn't show up in the preview. Which makes Blogger kind of useless in that regard. At the moment. I give it the raspberries.

****Edited to add: YAY!! It showed up! But, uhhhh...ignore that "answer 4 and 5" because, what? Clearly, I goofed.

Then I Hurled Myself Off the Nearest Skyscraper

When I picked Girl-Child up from school yesterday the sun was shining, it was one hundred degrees outside, birds chirped and molted, groups of women chatted in sparse patches of shade. One lone father tried to blend in with a tree. The children were released and the air was filled with giggles, and squees, the sounds of running, and a few Hey, Mom hold my backpack wouldya's. All appeared so innocent. All was as it should be.

Once home, I set about my daily routine of checking Girl-Child's kindergarten folder and the first thing that caught my eye were the words "Dear Parents, Recently we have had a case...", and I thought oh dear God please! It's Strep. I just know it and dammit this is how we started school off last year when a particularly stubborn case kept looping itself around Boy-Child#1's classroom. So bad, in fact, that his classroom had to be DISINFECTED. Boy-Child#1? Totally got it. Twice.

At least strep throat is something that can be handled with a trip to the doctor, an antibiotic [even if it does taste like a trip to hell twice a day for ten days], some motrin, a couple of days off from school eating a few popsicles, and some comforting hugs from Mom for good measure.

But then I read the note further. And I can't even believe that I am here to tell you, because friends? This note sent me right over the edge... this note was far more sinister. It brought ominous news. In fact, Vincent Price was the narrator. It conveyed information that had me debating the quickest way to burn my house and all of its contents to the ground. Even my new couch that I'm still in the groping inappropriately and making out with phase. I grieved for my poor car that was surely going to have to be driven off a cliff.

I continued to read; {hatch} the note shaking in my hands. {small eggs} The words! Those awful evil words. I began to scratch involuntarily. {multiply rapidly} I couldn't stop. {not fly or jump but can crawl very fast} I was getting all twitchy. {nits} I ran to my daughter and started scrupulously inspecting her scalp. {signs of head lice infestation...} and to my relief (???) Girl-Child says, "Mommy, the lady at school already did this today". To which I asked, and did she say you were fine? "Yes".

LICE. FORTHELOVEOFGODNOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooo. Do you know what else this note of doom had the audacity to say? "Head lice is a rather misunderstood nuisance". Oh. Well. The poor dear. Hopefully its health insurance will cover its therapy bills. And who will help this family? Because sohelpmegod if even ONE of those parasites makes an appearance, this family will be homeless, without car, and bald.

Amen.

A Glimpse of My Neurosis

I once responded to a request for guest bloggers for a popular fashion magazine [I won't say the name out loud but it rhymes with "hammer"]. I sent the editor my contact information and a link to my blog and within the week, her assistant replied positively that I was chosen. She and I corresponded back and forth and I sent my post as instructed. I have no idea if there were just a couple of us who were selected or if everyone who responded was. What I do know is that was several months ago and my article never saw the light of day. To this day I check to see if it's been posted even though I know that what I wrote is no longer topical when it comes to fashion; they're not likely to highlight a piece about spring wardrobe with fall fast approaching. I'll never know if it simply wasn't what they were looking for, if they had enough fodder of their own and no room for mine, or if they thought it sucked boobies. Of course, because I'm me, I cling to the latter.

So, when Allison Worthington (aka Mrs. Fussypants) contacted me recently to invite me to be a contributor for The Buzz section of the Lifestyle Channel on the soon to be launched, and re-vamped online magazine, Blissfully Domestic, I?....freaked the hell out. As I am wont to do. And as honored and flattered as I was (and still am!), the flattery didn't prohibit me from retreating into my shell and sit on her email for a couple of days. I've mentioned before that I'm a worrywart and shy. So while I rocked back and forth and drooled a little during my anxiety attack, I criticized my own skills as a writer. Have you met my grammar's atrociousness?

I've never written for anyone or anything other than my own blog(s). It's one thing for me to write here and readers come of their own volition, but to write when someone is expecting something from me? Where I'm the creator of the piece and there are no right or wrong answers? I tend to freeze, flip out, and obsess. It's like when I was in school. I was not a math wizard but I could do it and it was easy because there were formulas and only one correct answer. If I made a mistake I could check it and see where I went wrong. In classes that were more creative where there were no right or wrong answers are where I had the most difficulty. Because I have this habit of over analyzing every detail. I make the simple, excruciatingly difficult.

Creative writing has always been easy for me, but because it came easy, I assumed there was something fundamentally wrong with the finished piece; because, why wasn't it harder? That was too easy. It must be wrong.

I accepted her invitation! But not before sitting on my hands to prevent myself from biting off all of my nails. Basket case, who?

Somewhere Between Tortoise and Hare

Last Thursday I guess it was, I had the television on for background noise and because there's clearly nothing else airing right now, the Olympics were on. I assumed what I saw on the screen was a marathon but it was pouring down rain (in China) and, truthfully, I wasn't really paying that much attention. Then I was like, they're walking. Walking really fast. Then I thought maybe it was because of the blinding rain that they slowed down for caution but then I was like, these are the mother effing Olympics! There's no slowing down in the Olympics! You're there to win, dammit! To hell with caution and weather. Then I completely lost interest.

Later, during dinner at my parents house, my father was talking about the Olympics because there is nothing else going on in the world right now. I mentioned how I had watched a few moments of what appeared to a marathon in the rain. My aunt asked if it was men or women. I was all, can you tell the difference? Because seriously they all look like malnourished crack addicts wearing patriotic speedos and visors. I mean, not really the athletic physique I aspire to achieve. Anyway, my father pipes up with "It's racewalking". And we all lauuuughed and lauuughed. Then he was like, "No, I'm serious. Racewalking is an Olympic sport". He was serious.

Are you kidding me?! W-A-L-K-I-N-G? Walking, albeit at a fast pace, is an Olympic sport? Walking isn't a sport! It's a natural basic instinct. Let's try a little experiment: Right now, go grab an infant that is just a couple of weeks old.

Go ahead, I'll wait. Did you locate one? Okay...

Now hold that infant up by the armpits and let his or her feet touch the ground. Aha! They're making a walking motion aren't they? One foot up then down. Then the other. That's what people do! They walk! Upright, in fact. It's what separates us from other mammals. [Well, one of the things and please don't come back to me flaunting your meerkats and circus bears in my face you get what I'm saying] And we're very proud of it!

Gymnastics? Not an instinctual discipline. You have to learn how to flip through the air. It takes practice to fling yourself over a vault and stick it. People were not meant to mount a four inch wide piece of wood [believe me, I know how that sounds and I really am talking about gymnastics], hence the difficulty of the balance beam; let alone do a few cartwheels and backflips. Did you have the desire to swivel your hips around on a pommel horse when you were like ten months old? Probably not but you most likely wanted to walk and figured it out by the time you reached your first birthday.

Once a child learns to walk they've pretty much got it mastered in a couple of days. Toddlers, as the name would indicate, can walk. And sometimes very fast. Have you ever taken your eyes off a toddler then turned around to find they'd eluded you? And you're like, how did they get away from me so fast? That's right. Speedwalkers. Or ninjas.

How did synchronized swimming get such a bad rap? At least it involves choreography. And breath holding.

That's it. I'm going to the next Olympics. 2012 here I come! I smell Olympic gold in my future.

It Smelled Exactly Like Ass

Have you ever walked into your garage to inspect an odor that is emitting into your home and appears to be coming from that location? Because after searching your house by nose, and after extrapolation and triangulation, you've determined that it's coming from behind that door and not, as previously thought, that the dog had crapped a soupy mess in some mystery location and you're kind of surprised that you even suspected her because she never does that? Then you open said door and are slapped in the face with pure evil? And the first thing out of your mouth is [no, not vomit] "Holy shit! Is that the water heater?!". Because what else in your garage would smell like sulfur and rotten eggs? And so suddenly? If this had been a horror movie this would be right around the time you'd scream at the screen to get out of the house! It has gone bad! Leave everything grab your children and run like hell! Dammit! Go GO GOOO!!!

Well, you'll be happy to know that it wasn't the water heater. Thank God because it costs like half a million dollars to have someone come out and fix that shit. And it wasn't a poltergeist. No. It was one of these:



Which had been slipped under the garage door through a space where the weather stripping has disintegrated. It was put there by a little 8 year old jerk boy who lives down the street. A little boy that my children have been forbidden to play with. Because that little boy beat the hell out of Boy-Child#2's face a couple of weeks ago; leaving him with 2 black eyes and a bruise across his forehead which fortunately mostly cleared up before school started. To which that boys mother handled said situation by doing...absolutely nothing*.

And now that mother and I act like grownups and flat out ignore each other. Because it's so much fun to live on our street! The coup de grâce in all this is that now I have the upper hand because her son has broken the no contact rule that is still in play. Not only is Boy-Child#2 not allowed to play with her son as instructed by me; her son is not allowed to play with Boy-Child#2, as instructed by her. It gave me great pleasure to walk down my street and up to her front door with a fart bomb loosely clutched in my upper hand and tattle on her son. Her son who was playing in their driveway. With several packets of these things littering their front yard.

Wow. He was so totally not expecting me. The look on his mug was priceless!

It's like a fart bomb went off in the proverbial cookie jar.

P.S. He apparently bought these from the ice cream man which just begs the question: WTF, ice cream man?

*P.P.S. The hell? He was allowed to buy something from the ice cream truck? If my son punched another kid in the face REPEATEDLY he wouldn't see an ice cream truck until he was twenty five.

Load Up on Caffeine so You Don't Fall Asleep Before #6

What? Me quirky?!?

Sunangel tagged me with a six uninteresting things about me meme. Just in time too because I can't put two words together this weekend to create a decent blog post. Fortunately I've already got something in the queue for Monday. This was just the boost I needed to pry myself off the couch because seriously I'm about over the Olympics already yet still curiously drawn to them.

The rules:

• Link the person who tagged you
  
• Mention the rules on your blog
  
• Tell about 6 unspectacular quirks of yours
  
• Tag 6 bloggers by linking them & leave a comment on each of the tagged blogger’s blogs letting them know they have been tagged.

1. I have to clean up the kitchen after a meal. I cannot stand for there to be dirty dishes and pots and pans. Or even a glass on the counter. My dishwasher is always full of either clean or dirty dishes. It's rarely empty. In contrast...
2. There are several piles of papers in various parts of my house. The island in the kitchen is a popular place for catching mail and school related memos. And the kids drawings. And things to be shredded. Seriously, if banks would stop sending 3 to 5 credit card offers to us a day (EACH DAY!) they would save themselves so much money.
3. I don't read credit card offers. I don't even open them. They are destroyed and discarded. Usually months after they're received; hence the piles of papers.
4. I rock back and forth when applying my makeup. This probably counts more as "quirky" rather than "uninteresting". No. It's both. I lean towards the mirror to apply. I lean back to inspect. Lean forward for closer inspection. I'm sure it would appear odd to anyone who might be studying my makeup application rituals. At least I don't open my mouth in that "O" shape during the mascara process.
5. My right leg is longer than my left. By about 1/2 and inch. Which isn't noticeable until I wear long pants. It's the main reason I avoid jeans that hit at the ankle and kiss the ground that boot cut jeans walk on. They're notoriously long.
6. My knees grind when I walk up stairs. And when it is very quiet in the house they are very loud. And creaky. And freak people out (I'm looking at you my two sisters!).

Now, I'm supposed to tag six others with this meme but I've seen this particular one going around quite a bit this week. So I'm not tagging anyone in particular. If you're like me and clogged for fodder, have at it and tell people I tagged you. I'll vouch for ya.

In other news:



MEKHISMOM from Cutie Booty Cakes passed on this Brillante Blogger award to me! Since I just recently passed this award on to others, I will selfishly simply accept it and shout out: Thank you, Renee!!

Enjoy what's left of your weekend peeps! Peace out.

*photo by Dorothy Z.

When No One was Looking, Of Course

These are my free weights. There are many like them but these are mine. My free weights are my bingo arm's best friend.

Yesterday during a flickering moment of ambition I took my weights on a walk. A walk that involves many hills. When I reached the beginning of the first hill I doubted my decision to bring them along. But I soldiered through the pain radiating up my neck and nestling on the back of my head. Where nestle equals gripping. By the time I peaked the first hill my shoulders were hurling obscenities in my general direction.

When I finally crested the top of the second hill where the elementary school is located I did what any self respecting woman in her death throes would; I ditched them in the bushes and finished my walk. I reclaimed them at noon when I fetched Girl-Child. In my car.

This confirms my belief that I would have never made it out of boot camp. Alive.

You Should at Least Have Facial Hair if You're Going to Take that Tone With Me

We're only one week into the new junior high school year here in the Farklpants household and already our vocabulary has been expanded to include such vernacular (being the normal spoken language for a little segment of society known as the PRE-TEEN) as:

1. MySpace
2. Text messaging
3. Parents prohibited
4. Attitude (not a word so much as it is symbolic speech and when I say symbolic speech I mean: eye-rolling and sucking breath through teeth)
   

Never fear, however, because we've introduced a few words of our own into Boy-Child#1's vocabulary as well [that being the normal spoken language for that large section of society known as PARENTS OF PRE-TEENS] and they are:

(Please note that the following numbered responses correspond with the above and also note that I would make a chart but that sounds like it would involve work)

1. Parental access to your page in the form of your password so that we can monitor you.
2. Prepaid phone (when it runs out that's just tough titties)
3. Dream on
4. That will cost you your MySpace and prepaid phone so you may want to find your happy place. Son. Capice?

It all started with this conversation:

Boy-Child#1: So-N-So has a MySpace page. I can't wait to go home and set up mine.

Tootsie: (double take and that eyeiiieyeiiiieyeiii sound from the Scooby Doo cartoons) Whoa now. Who said anything about a MySpace page? We'll have to talk about this.

Boy-Child#1: WHY?!? Fine. Whatever.

Then yesterday with this:

Boy-Child#1: How come So-N-So gets to go to Magic Mountain with friends and not his parents? You said I wasn't old enough to do that and he's my same age! (so indignant too!)

Tootsie: Good for So-N-So. I'm not his mother.

Boy-Child#1: So then I can't go with him if they go?

Tootsie: You barely make the weight requirement to be sitting in the front seat! You're ELEVEN! Like I'm gonna turn you loose in an amusement park without supervision.

And he didn't say it out loud but I'm sure that I suck. His face said as much.

It also got me to thinking that things are so different now than when I was his age. I mean, you know you're a child of the 70's when you remember things like seatbelts were an option at the dealership. You rode your bike barefoot and helmetless. An infant car seat equaled your mother's lap. You walked to school in kindergarten. You played outside unsupervised until it got dark. Hell, my brother and I were home alone while my mom worked and I was in charge...and NINE! I rode the city bus on weekends to go to the Galleria when I was not much older than Boy-Child#1. But I clearly remember my first non-chaperoned trip to Magic Mountain and I was fourteen. And if my mother felt, in those lackadaisical days of yesteryear, that fourteen was the appropriate age, then by golly eleven is too damn young. So dream on sport.

Yeah, It's Like That

Do you ever have one of those "OHMAHGAH that's so cool!!!" moments? But really no one to share it with? Okay, then you'll totally understand what freakin' happened on Monday during a routine pedicure. So, like I show up at the nail salon without an appointment because, for reals no one is ever in there; I don't know how they stay in business, plus? They have brand new massage chairs that have a "kneading" feature that's just like, wow. I was all, "Do you have time for a pedicure?" and you know, obviously they do but what else am I supposed to say? Bitch! Chair! Make this thing happen!....? No, probably not.

I pick out my color [plumby red!] and skim through the magazines looking for some celebrity gossip. None. Not one. That's just shameful. How can they call themselves a nail salon? I was so disappointed and even wishing for at least an outdated issue announcing that Britney and Federline were expecting their first son! In my disheartened state I grabbed the first magazine off the top and climbed in my chair, set my massage settings to "knead", thus beginning my trip to nirvana. In my lap lay the magazine that opened of its own accord. And who's picture do I see smiling back at me? Mir from Woulda Coulda Shoulda! I knew she had an article in Redbook because she said as much on her blog recently, but there she was! And I know her. Well, I don't KNOW her, but I "Internet know" her. Which for us blog stalkers bloggers is basically the exact same thing. I had just wished her a happy birthday via Twitter the previous day and she had direct messaged me back, thank you. See? Practically bffs.

I say out loud from my chair to the lady with my feet in her hands, "Heh. I know her", and I point for emphasis. She reacted as if I had just informed her that peas come out of pods. Or that paint is wet when first applied to a wall. Her exact words if, now let me see if I can recall... oh yes, were "oh" and then resumed her BlueTooth conversation. Not even an interested "ohhh??". So I thought, screw her then this is cool what does she know?

I just thought it was kind of awesome. How the Internet connects us. And maybe someday someone will be sitting in their pedicure chair looking at a picture of me. And telling their disinterested footatician.

Teaching My Kids Through Others Lack of Compassion

The following offensive statement, by a father to his son, was overheard in the shoe store:

Random Father (aka The Prick): Those shoes make you look mentally challenged. Like you're riding the short bus.

Oh yes he did! The boy, probably about 8 years old, laughed. I guess this is what constitutes comedy in their household. But this was said, not in the privacy of their own home (which is no better by any means), but out in public. In a crowded shoe store on a Sunday morning. Where any number of their fellow shoppers may have a child of their own born into this world with challenges that most children do not face. And just what kind of values is this man teaching his son? Clearly compassion, empathy, and respect are not on that list. It's little wonder why there are so many people out there that lack these attributes what with the stellar role models and all [That tremor you just felt were my eyes rolling]. After my audible "Oh, good grief" and giving him the dirtiest look of disapproval I could muster [seriously, been working on that one all my life, it's a good one. Fear it] I took the opportunity to explain to my own children why I was so offended; and they were given another lesson in compassion, empathy, and respect. People make me sick.

Oh, why were we at the shoe store? Well, thanksforasking that would be because after wearing his new school shoes for three days, Boy-Child#2 admitted that his new Nikes were crushing the life out of his pinkie toes. Of course, now they're slightly dirty and worn looking; the box they came in and the receipt long gone. This is what I get for trusting that he knows what he's talking about when he says that they fit just fine. This is what we all get now that things like knowledgeable shoe store clerks are a thing of the past. Since most stores now carry their inventory on the showroom floor and you're left to your own devices to properly measure your child's foot and select the right size. Unless you go somewhere like Stride Rite. Except the last time I went to Stride Rite, the saleslady [I'm sorry, I mean teenager] tried to sell me shoes that were two sizes too big for my oldest son and then proceeded to argue with me when I disagreed that buying shoes that he will eventually grow into; shoes that were literally falling off his foot when he walked, was not the proper way to spend my money. If you're fresh out of high school it stands to reason that mothers know more about children's feet and shoes than you do [p.s. rule #1 in sales: the customer is always right and even if they aren't; humor them but never outright argue].

I've never gone back to Stride Rite. I will, however, give a shout out to the Vans stores. Very helpful and friendly service and the dudes are kinda hot; all valid reasons for shopping there.

On a final note in lessons learned: Watch what you say and do in public. I may hear you and blog about it. Especially if you're being an ass.