Three stupid things, and one really good giveaway

February 8, 2010 · Filed under free shtuff, reality check · Tagged , ,

Since it’s Monday, let’s get the stupid out of the way, okay? Okay. (If you’re one of those annoyingly sunny Monday people, feel free to skip to the bottom. But then you’re a bottom-feeder. Get it? Bottom-fee….oh, forget it.)

Three Stupid Things That Came to My Attention This Weekend

Stupid Thing#1: My Chocolate Boycott

So, this giving up chocolate thing. It was just about as smart as swearing off turkey in November, or deciding to really, really hate bunnies right around Easter. Maybe next time I could NOT give it up immediately before Valentine’s Day. You know, the holiday when every single thing you see is made of chocolate. While running errands this weekend, I witnessed chocolate lollipops, chocolate roses, chocolate puppies. I tell you, if I see one more piece of chocolate, I’m going to eat a real puppy. But first I’ll squirt some chocolate sauce on him.

Stupid Thing #2: Unnecessary Instructions

The warnings and useless instructions that many manufacturers put on their products to cover their butts often kill me. For example, a couple of months ago, Adam noticed the following boldface sentence in our new car seat’s instruction manual: “This child-restraint system is to be installed by adults ONLY.“ 

I wonder. Do you think there are families out there who send their three-year-old down to the garage with a 40-pound car seat and a brief lecture on the LATCH system, only to stumble upon this warning while their child is at work? “Hell’s bells, Martha! Get down there! WE’RE supposed to be installing that sucker, not Junior!”

Here’s another one, from this weekend. My dry-hands situation only continues to worsen, so I finally consulted a dermatologist, who prescribed the following steroid ointment.

I really can’t imagine looking at that tube, applying some steroid cream to my hands, and then thinking, “My eyes! I should inject this into my eyes! It will make them so STRONG and MOIST and NON-DRY.” But apparently someone did. Someone stupid.

Stupid Thing #3: The English Language

Lately, Aura has begun expressing more of an interest in learning to read and spell. As I try to help her weave her way through the thorny world of phonics, I am beginning to realize just how much of the English language is  imbecilic. How am I supposed to justify the existence of irregular verbs, never mind the fact that yes, the Moon in Goodnight Moon makes a long double-consonant sound, while book itself has a short double-consonant sound? Or cough versus enough? Diphthongs? IT GOES ON AND ON.

You know the English language had to be invented by a man. Some German tribal guy, back in the fifth century, freshly arrived on the continent that would become Britain. He was probably looking for Plaque Street, got lost, and being too stubborn to ask for directions, made up a new road and called it Plague Street, changing the vowel sound for good measure. And so it began, all because the GPS industry took about fifteen centuries too many to get with it.

The Giveaway!

Remember that cute hair clip Aura was wearing a few blog posts ago?  Well, how would your favorite little girl like three of her own—or, alternatively, how would you like a key wristlet? Jen of Linaloos.com has generously offered you all those very options. All you have to do to enter is go to her site, find three clips or one wristlet you would like, and list them in a comment here on my blog. The winner will be chosen at random next Tuesday, February 16.

Really, you should do it.  Jen makes a great product, repurposing vintage sweaters to make her felted creations. Her designs are superb (cupcake pigtail clips, anyone?) and she gives back ten percent of every purchase to various,   well-deserving charities.

So, DO IT. 

Thank you, and have a very non-stupid day.

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Well, at least we’ll go down smelling nice.

February 4, 2010 · Filed under me me me, nutrition schmunition · Tagged , ,

As far as vices go, I’m not exactly overloaded, at least in terms of wild vices that will lead to my downfall and eventually a heartwrenching yet ultimately inspiring true-story movie. I do drink what has to be an unhealthy amount of Diet Coke. Yet somehow I don’t see that translating into an award-winning screenplay. I mean, would you watch How I Said No to Aspartame: The Kate House Story? Nah. Neither would I. Unless the studio cast Philip Seymour Hoffman for it, perhaps as my soda-abuse counselor. That guy is like cinema GOLD.

All joking aside, I really should try to wean myself from Diet Coke. I did go cold turkey when I was pregnant and nursing. But the day Aura wiped the last drop of breastmilk from her mouth, I had a can in my hand. I don’t drink coffee, I don’t like coffee. So I justify my soda habit as “my coffee,” the way I get my caffeine fix.

I’m not kidding myself, though. I’ve read enough about aspartame and other artificial sweeteners to know that they can’t be helping my health. And whenever Aura edges my glass toward her and asks if she can have a taste, I answer with an unequivocal “No!”

“Why not, Mommy?” Aura will ask, having been allowed to sample other carbonated beverages on occasion, including root beer, which she now believes is the nectar of the gods and potentially almost as good as chocolate milk.

“Diet Coke’s not good for kids,” I explain, passing her a bowl of organic broccoli and a plate of free-range, antibiotic-and-hormone-free chicken.

“But is it good for grown-ups?” she returns.

“Well…it depends…hmmmm. Maybe not,” I stutter, disgusted that kids these days are so LOGICAL. I tell you, it’s this focus on critical-thinking skills in American education. The U.S. school system will soon be the ruin of the good old-fashioned parental lie.

Yet I’m just not ready. There are some afternoons when only a swing through the drive-thru for a large Diet Coke, so bubbly and delicious in its fountain-drink form, gets me through the rest of the day. I have a sip and I’m better in so many ways. A better parent! A better wife! A better friend! (I believe Meg Ryan presented this exact same argument in When a Man Loves a Woman. Or maybe it was Ewan McGregor in Trainspotting. Someone said something, I know that.)

But I do need to make some changes to my diet. As a first step, I gave up chocolate this week. There’s no specific reason, except that I eat way too much sweet stuff and most of it seems to have chocolate in it. Sometime last weekend, I decided that if I cut out chocolate for a little while, then it would follow that I would also cut down on snacking and desserts.

Four days in, I’m on the fence as to the success of this plan. Turns out you can bake and buy all kinds of yummy stuff that does not include chocolate! Macaroons, for one. Large bags of toffee bits, for another. (Do not be fooled by the toffee-bit manufacturer’s claim that they are for baking. After all, baking is a state of mind. You put yours in your cookie dough, I put mine straight into my mouth. Que sera sera.)

It’s not easy, though. Everywhere I look, there’s chocolate. The grocery store is obviously a minefield. The restaurant at the children’s museum is teeming with cacao-based treats. Even the mall! You walk into a candle store, you’re immediately surrounded by Chocolate Chip Cookie candles and Chocolate Cream Pie candles and Triple Chocolate Candied Chocolate Drop candles. I will never again be shocked by the American obesity rate. I now see that it’s a miracle the United States still has a population at all. With all these candles burning, tempting us to hit up the cookie jar, it’s a miracle we haven’t keeled over collectively, the resulting THUMP! softened by our sweet-scented rolls of fat.

You know what? I kind of like it up here on my new, chocolate-free soapbox. If you bring a Diet Coke with you, it really does feel just like home.

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Maybe I just need practice, darn it.

February 1, 2010 · Filed under language love, parenthood · Tagged ,

This afternoon, Aura and I were running late for some appointment or other when we had to stop at a traffic light. Once the light turned green, the car in front of me still didn’t move. “Motherfucker!” I exclaimed, smacking the steering wheel with my palm.

Then I realized what I had said. And I waited.

We hadn’t gone more than a tenth of a mile before it came. ”Mommy?” Aura asked from the backseat. “What’s a fucker?”

“Oh!” I answered. “Oh, ho!” Then I bought a little time pretending to adjust a mirror. I think I put the window up and down a few times, too. Finally, I said,  “Nothing, honey. I was just saying that the man in front of us was a really bad driver.”

This, my friends, is the main problem with being bad at swearing. After years of experimenting, I have accepted that I am a poor curser and therefore hardly ever swear at all, minus an occasional damn after stubbing a toe or a hissed shit when Adam has let the TiVo override Desperate Housewives in favor of Iron Chef or women’s surfing or who the heck (see?) knows what.

As far as I can tell, there’s neither a deep psychological reason nor a superficial snobbery associated with my inability to let ‘em rip. It all seems to boil down to the fact that I sound completely stupid when I try. And it’s not like I don’t try. Whenever Adam and I have an argument that escalates into yelling, I’ll throw in an “ASSHOLE!” or even a “BASTARD!” just to hear if I’ve gotten any better. But I never have, plus Adam just stops screaming back and instead cries with laughter and that’s just infuriating.

I don’t think there’s a solution, really. And I’m pretty much fine with not being able to swear well. It’s not as if it’s one of the finer points of womanhood, anyhow. But still: It seems like it should be easier.

Oh, well.

In the meantime, I implore all of you: Be careful driving. Roads these days are fraught with fuckers.

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