10.21.08
Posted in food, general nonsense
at 5:37 pm
My family was relatively well-off for most of my childhood. However, my parents were fairly tight-fisted when it came to buying kid-friendly foods such as Squeezables, Fruit Roll-ups and Quik. However, my parents would buy us hot chocolate mix in the packets. Now I love(d) chocolate milk, so much so that I would drink my mom’s Slim-Fast shakes just to get something resembling it in my mouth. One night, I was really craving some chocolate milk, so I took a packet of Nestle’s hot chocolate, and mixed it with milk.
Interesting fact: Hot chocolate powder and milk, do not mix!
The hot chocolate powder developed into globules that floated on top of the milk. The globules were moist on the outside, and dry on the inside. If I took your spoon and stirred the milk really fast, I would get smaller hot chocolate globules, and a good deal of powder on the kitchen counter. Then Mom yelled at me for making a mess, so I stopped doing that. I found then that smooshing the globules against the side of the glass with the back of my spoon was the best way to kind of, sort of, get the hot chocolate mix and the milk to get along.
The next step of course was to drink this concoction a spoonful at a time. All the time, I ensured that I the right number of tiny hot chocolate globules in my milk=filled spoon to somewhat approximate chocolate milk.
I am sure this all sound really weird and morally questionable, but here is probably the strangest part of the story.
I still do it.
Permalink
05.07.07
Posted in daughter, general nonsense
at 8:22 pm
Mi familia y yo went to see Spider-man 3 this weekend at the super-cheap theater this weekend. ($7.50 for all three of us!) It was hella fun to be there with Daughter. She absolutely loves Spider-man and Tobey Maguire, much in the way her old lady had a crush on Christopher Reeve back in the day.
The movie was just okay. It was about three hours long, and while I understand why it needed to be longer than the first two in order to set up the Venom villian, the pacing was just sloooow. I can think of at least three areas that the filmmakers could have and should have cut. Namely, almost everything to do with Sandman, Mary-Jane’s celebrity angst, and the dance scene *mild shudder* About two hours into the show, Daughter was nudging me with her empty Sour Patch Kids box and saying, “I want to go home!”
What redeems the movie for me (yes, I get cheap thrills out of stuff like this), Aunt May has my dishes! If you go to see the movie, pay close attention in the scene where Peter visits Aunt May’s apartment. She serves him coffee in Kensington Balmoral cups. If you look carefully, as I did since I was stoked and all, you can see a plate with pill bottles on it, and the sugar bowl too.
I originally inherited these dishes after my grandmother died. She had them as long as I can remember, and just like her I use them every day. And apparently, so does Aunt May!
Permalink
03.16.07
Posted in daughter, general nonsense, husband
at 2:48 pm
Last night, Husband and I attended a local meeting to elect officers for our neighborhood crime watch. We have been very active in setting up the crime watch, including starting the new website, designing and printing survey cards, and offering ideas and suggestions to our neighbors. The meeting last night was a great success. Over 80 residents attended and they seemed pleased with our efforts.
At about 5:00 p.m. yesterday afternoon, shortly before the meeting, I received a phone call from my neighbor. She said that Live 5 News was coming to her house in a few minutes and wanted to interview local residents about the crime watch and the problems in our neighborhoods. My neighbor is sick with the flu and there was no way she could appear on camera. Would I be willing to be interviewed? Oh, why the hell not!
First problem, I had been working on Sangaree Connection since 9 o’ clock that morning. When I am in full web development mode, I don’t eat, I don’t bathe, I don’t brush my teeth. The only breaks I allow myself is sucking down cigarettes while trying to figure out why Internet Explorer is such a piece of crap.
Fortunately, because of the meeting, I had stopped working and I had just stepped out of the shower when my neighbor called. Unfortunately, my hair was soaking wet, my legs unshaved, and I had no idea what I was going to wear to the meeting. I went to the bathroom and busted out the good makeup that I normally reserve for receiving the Queen and attending movie premieres. I slathered that shit on thick! I raced around the house collecting the materials for the meeting and tried to figure out what I was going to wear. I settled on a pink button-down shirt, blue jeans, and my cutest (and therefore most uncomfortable) shoes. I would regret the shoe choice about two hours later.
Husband had come home from work while I was getting ready. He has immediately pummeled with a barrage of “Do I look okays?” and “Are you sures?” and “You didn’t even look at mes!” as I hurdled past him to find my camera and my binder and my purse and my keys and my survey cards. We left the house as quickly as possible and naturally as soon as we reached my Daughter’s daycare to pick her up I realized that I still hadn’t brushed my teeth. Oh well, I hadn’t eaten so far that day, how dirty could my teeth be?
We met with the reporter, Katie, and she asked us some background information regarding how long we lived in the neighborhood, were we scared to live here now, and why we were involved in the crime watch. Daughter supplied her own background information to Katie:
When I was a baby, I had a birthday when I was one! And I ate the wrapping paper! *giggle* Then I had another birthday when I was two. That was my second birthday. Then I had a birthday when I was three. And then I had my fourth birthday when I turned four!
Katie looked perplexed and asked Daughter, “So how old are you now?” In unison, Daughter and I told the reporter that she was now four years old. I then pulled out of my arsenal of Parental Distractions the permission for Daughter to play with my neighbor’s cats. She raced on pudgy legs into the house.
Time was running short, so with our neighbors’ help, we all agreed that Katie would interview me near a fence that was vandalized. Initially, Katie wanted to interview Husband, but he declined (coward!) some lame comment about how he was so over being on TV when he was a kid. Over at the fence, the cameraman handed me a mini microphone. As instructed, I threaded it up under my shirt and attached it to my jacket. After finding suitable lighting, the camera began rolling. Katie asked me a series of intelligent questions and my mouth began issuing forth noises.
My mind was racing ten thousand miles per hour and for the most part I was thinking deep thoughts such as “Shit, my glasses are sliding down my nose! Shit! I was gonna take my glasses off for this! Oh crap, she asked another question, what was I gonna say?”
When we were done filming, Katie assured me that I had done well and provided her with lots of good soundbites. She practically did a little dance in her sharply tailored pink suit when she thought of my fantastic soundbites.
The video is now online and I have to admit, I didn’t come off like a complete asshat. If I were to critique myself (like I ever stop doing that) I would say that I need to stand up straighter, stop weaving my head and neck like I am a hungry chicken, and find a method of digging facts and figures out of my brain that doesn’t involve rolling my eyes.
My favorite part of the video is definately the last soundbite where I was talking about the vandals who destroyed $25,000 worth of equipment in our new library, “And these people come in here and they destroy it! And for what purpose?”
That’s right, feel my outrage! Boo-yah!
Permalink
10.12.06
Posted in depression, general nonsense, hailie, husband
at 4:51 pm
If I have just one problem with my Husband, it is that the boy can not remember to flush the damned toilet. He insists that when he was a child, California was going through a drought, and he was taught by his parents not to flush. While this may or may not be true, I would submit to you, dear reader, that if the three year old child of his loins is calling him out on this disgusting habit, the time to re-think his parents teaching has come.
If I have one problem with my cat, it is her disturbing boundary issues. Ever had a cat jump in your lap while taking a dump — and then snuggle down next to your belly? I have…
Last night, I went into the bathroom to take a bath and the problems came to a head. So to speak…
FADE IN
INT. SMALL WELL-LIT BATHROOM WITH BEAUTIFUL PINK MARBLE TILE ON THE FLOOR. NIGHT
A beautiful woman in her late-20’s, APRIL, walks into the bathroom wearing a bathrobe. She approaches the bathrub and turns on the water. As she turns away from the bathtub, she notices that the contents of the toilet resemble the Missouri River after the Dave Matthews Band tour bus has driven through it.
APRIL
(looks disgusted)
Oh c’mon! What the fuck?!
April charges out of the bathroom.
INT. SMALL HOME OFFICE WITH TWO OAK DESKS AT OPPOSITE ENDS OF THE ROOM. NEXT TO EACH DESK IS A TALL OAK BOOKCASE FILLED WITH BOOKS. ONE DESK HAS A STATE-OF-THE-ART LAPTOP COMPUTER AND SIX (EMPTY) DR PEPPER CANS NEXT TO IT. NIGHT
A man in his early-30’s with short dishevaled hair, SCOTT, is seated at the desk in front of the laptop. He is wearing a headset and is playing “World of Warcraft.” Scott is dressed in a pair of ill-fitting sweatpants, sweat socks, and April’s slippers.
Voices from the computer speaker are audible.
April enters and approaches Scott from behind.
APRIL
(angrily)
Hey! If you are going to do that, could you at least flush?
SCOTT
(swivels in the office chair to face April, sheepish)
I did.
APRIL
(disgusted)
Oh God! Well, you need to flush the toilet.. now! And then you need to scrub it. It’s so nasty. I was gonna take a bath…
SCOTT
(apologetic)
I’m sorry hun, are you going to bed soon?
APRIL
(ameliorated somewhat)
Yah… after my bath.
SCOTT
(turns back to the computer, and presses a key on the computer which activates the microphone on his headset.)
Hey guys, I gotta head to bed now…
APRIL
(loudly, to embarrass Scott)
No, what you gotta do now is flush!
Several voices are heard from the computer laughing. One voice is heard saying, “Owned!”
SCOTT
(embarrassed, but in good humor)
Uhm yeah… I gotta go now.
Scott rises from his seat and exits the OFFICE. April follows him.
INT. BATHROOM NIGHT
April is running the water in the bathtub, and Scott is scrubbing the toilet with a toilet brush…
APRIL
Can you wash the brush when your done? (pause) And then wash whatever you used to wash the toilet brush with?
SCOTT
(sigh)
You are impossible.
APRIL
(laughs)
Yeah, but you still love me… (under her breath) probably ’cause I flush the toilet daily on your behalf.
SCOTT
Yeah, I do… psycho!
April laughs.
Scott continues to scrub the toilet. April exits the room and returns a few moments later naked. April stands in front of the sink and considers her reflection in the mirror above the sink.
APRIL
(to Scott)
Do you think I need new boobies?
Scott stops scrubbing the toilet and places the toilet brush in the toilet brush holder-thing between the toilet and the sink. He stands up and turns to April.
SCOTT
(obviously, he’s had this conversation with her before)
No… you don’t!
APRIL
(incredulous, turns to Scott)
Please! It looks like I have two decapitated and dismembered beanie babies stapled to my chest!
A small, tabby CAT enters the room and starts plaintively meow-ing. April and Scott ignore the cat.
SCOTT
April, you look fine!
APRIL
So I don’t need new boobies?
SCOTT
No!
Scott faces the toilet and whips “it” out and starts urinating into the toilet.
APRIL
(lovingly caresses Scott’s butt with her hand.)
Aww… you are so sweet to me.
SCOTT
(amused)
You saw what I did in the toilet. Are you sure you want to be rubbing that?
APRIL
(annoyed, sniffs her hand)
Eww! Hey! Those are my sweatpants! And you’re going commando aren’t you!?
Scott laughs.
The cat jumps on the edge of the toilet, pauses, and walks under Scott’s urine stream.
SCOTT
(shouts)
Dude!
APRIL
What the fuck? Hailie, no!
Scott! You pee’d on my cat!
April swats at the cat, who jumps off the toilet. The cat meows at Scott and April and bounces out of the room.
SCOTT
(loudly)
She fucking walked into it! How the hell was I supposed to know she’d do that?
APRIL
(turns off the bathtub faucet and climbs in.)
Well, I think you should wash Hailie. That’s so gross, what is wrong with her? She is so totally your cat!
SCOTT
(indignant)
Oh! So when she needs to have a bath, she’s my cat!
APRIL
(laughing)
Exactly. Oh hey, what were we talking about… oh yeah, do I need new boobies?
The cat returns. She hops up on the sink and meows once.
APRIL
Hey Husband, Hailie’s thirsty.
Scott rolls his eyes at the insanity surrounding him and turns on the water in the sink slowly. The cat begins drinking from the thin stream of water, as if it were her personal water fountain. Scott EXITS.
FADE OUT
Permalink
10.11.06
Posted in general nonsense
at 3:42 am
Thank you Wikipedia, for daring to go where Encyclopedia Britannica would never dare. We salute you.
Permalink
09.21.06
Posted in daughter, depression, general nonsense, hailie, husband
at 3:04 am
I haven’t been blogging as much recently, and that is primarily because of my new job. My blog entries are primarily about my daily life, and as I have a self-imposed ban on blogging about my work, blog topics are running thin. (Anyone want to buy me this book?)
Also, Husband and I are dealing with some behavioral problems with Daughter. This is probably the first time in her life that we are at loss as to what to do about it. She has out-grown all of the parenting books that we own! Our problem is that she is becoming hugely defiant and stubborn. A simple request like, “Please stop bothering the cat or Hailie will scratch you,” is turning into an hour-long ordeal. The first problem begins when Daughter insists that she is not, in fact, bothering the cat. The wisdom of her parents, not to mention the cat and her bared and very sharp claws, are apparently unconvincing arguments.
Imagining that we have some sort of role in disciplining our own child, we insist that she step away from the cat. Daughter counters with “I can’t.” The girl is literally tries to convince us that she is incapable of standing up and walking away from Hailie. These tactics are immediately infuriating to someone like myself who was raised by strict parents. One, the girl is lying to us. Two, she is being defiant.
This particular evening, Husband finally had enough and he scooped Daughter up to get her away from the cat. She immediately began screeching and flailing in his arms like Michael Stipe on acid. He dropped her into our recliner, where she continued to lose her religion.
Maybe five or ten minutes later, she calmed down the point where she was just sniffling and whining. Her whole body was laying flat on the seat of the recliner, with her legs hanging off the edge. Daughter then began acting like she couldn’t get up. No, really. She would act like she was trying to sit up, or maybe roll off the seat onto the floor, but couldn’t. For FORTY-FIVE minutes she put on this whiny, shreaky and sniffly one-woman play. At one point I turned to Husband and ruefully quipped, “Who knew that Montgomery Ward’s sold recliners equipped with black holes?”
This story is presented to you for entertainment value, but bear in mind that this is just one example of Daughter’s defiance and we are reaching our wits’ ends. Other prime situations for her to test her limits are naptime, bedtime, lunchtime, dinnertime, bathtime, and primetime. It is getting to be really exhausting having to deal with a conflict over every single thing we ask of her.
Husband and I have different theories on why Daughter is acting out so much. He believes that she is testing her limits. I think perhaps she is trying to get our attention. We definitely need to figure out how to handle this though.
Permalink
08.29.06
Posted in blogging, daughter, depression, general nonsense, hailie, husband
at 2:46 am
I received the call at about 11:30am from Husband.
“Guess what your daughter did?”
In my typical hyperbolic fashion, I replied, “Ripped the microwave off the wall?”
“Worse!”
“Worse?! Is she okay? What did she do?”
“She got into the scissors.”
My heart sank and began to fraternize with my lower intestine. “Ooooh… noooo! What happened?”
“Well, I’ve known about this for several hours, but I didn’t know how to tell you.”
“Husband, just tell me what she did.”
“She, uh… gave herself a haircut.”
She knows she done wrong. Note the utter lack of bangs and the weird feathering on the right.
“She what?!“
“Yah, she cut off her bangs, and a bunch of hair on the sides. And when I found her, she was trying to give the cat a haircut too!”
Hailie: “Geez woman, thank God I’m a short-haired cat! Imagine the carnage!”
“Oh my God, how does she look?”
“Horrible.”
“Horrible?”
At that point, I didn’t know what to think. I think Daughter looks “horrible” if her socks don’t match or the pudding stain didn’t wash out of her shirt. Husband, on the other hand, thinks she looks ready for the Sears Portrait Studio wearing a party dress over her jeans. If Daughter’s cosmetology experiment descended her appearance level to “horrible” in Husband’s eyes… oh dear God.
What if George Clooney and Billy Ray Cyrus had a kid?
I forced myself to sound hopeful and asked Husband, “Well, I guess we’ll just take her to the barber and have them fix it.”
“Honey, I don’t know if they can. She literally cut her bangs off. There is almost nothing left on the top of her head.”
“Oh… well, I guess there’s only one thing to do then…”
“Blog it?”
“Yep.”
I think she knows these pictures are part of her punishment.
Permalink
07.16.06
Posted in depression, general nonsense, hailie, rant
at 1:03 am
To: Hailie
From: April, your theoretical owner
Subject: Your needs for attention
The purpose of this memo is to discuss the oral warning issued to you this morning due to unacceptable behavior.
It has come to my attention that you are under the impression that the sound of fingers on a keyboard is an invitation to hop into my lap and to rub yourself against my face. While completely adorable, this is unacceptable behavior. I can’t see the screen on my laptop computer when you do this. It leads to embarrassing spellimg mistakes in blog posts, as well as hindering my ability and willingness to get my ass off of the coach.
Management wishes to inform you that we expect a correction to this behavior and we will be scheduling a follow-up meeting in 30 days to discuss your progress.
If you have any questions regarding this meeting or memo, please contact me during normal office hours. As we discussed last week, my office is not the edge of the bathtub when I am trying to shave my legs. Nor do office hours begin at 4am, no matter how fervently you rub your face on mine.
Thank you for your attention to these matters.
Sincerely,
April
Permalink
06.06.06
Posted in depression, general nonsense, hailie
at 4:34 am
When we adopted Hailie, the adoption agency made us sign a contract agreeing to certain stipulations such as:
- We can never de-claw her.
- She must be an indoor cat.
- If we ever decide to kick her out, we must return her to the adoption agency where we got her and pay a nominal cat support fee until she turns 18 (or if she goes to college, 23)
- We must never let her know that she is, in fact, a cat.
Husband and I signed the contract, although we wondered how exactly the adoption agency planned to enforce these stipulations. Will CPS (Cat Protection Services) make periodic visits to our home to inspect her paws and conduct secret interviews with her regarding her treatment? We still aren’t sure.
Whatever the case is, it is very apparent that the adoption agency didn’t bother to tell Hailie that she must remain inside her new domicile 24-7. Hailie definitely has her own ideas. Over the past few weeks, Husband and I have attempted to master the art of opening our sticky front door, with a childproofing latch, sneak through it and slam it shut before our little Hailie can dash between our legs and on to sweet freedom. The first few times it happened, I completely freaked out. I was afraid that she was not happy with us and was determined to hit the road and find a family who could appreciate her for who she is, a cat.
Fortunately, Hailie does seem to have bonded with us. Usually within a half hour or so, she proudly struts back through the front door, having satiated her need to make sure we don’t take her for granted. Unfortunately, we don’t have a cat door. Therefore, we must leave the front door open while Hailie is on her sojourns. Lots of other critters, mostly bugs, who would like a taste of domestic life, strut in as well.
Very late last night, Hailie managed to sneak out again. I left the door open for her. In gratitude for our hospitality, when Hailie returned, she brought me a present.
Yes, she brought into the house a small lizard. We have spotted these beautiful creatures before in our front yard. They are a gorgeous shade of bright green, and occasionally they inflate their bright red waddle.
Hailie walked back into the house with one of these lizards in her mouth. She dropped it at my feet. The lizard, seeing an opportunity to escape, took off running around my living room. Hailie took off in hot pursuit. I yelled for Husband and grabbed the camera. Obviously, this was a blog worthy event.
The lizard continued scurrying willy nilly around my living room and kitchen looking for a way out. Hailie would occasionally pounce on the poor creature and then look up at me for approval.
I began scurrying willy nilly around my living room and kitchen, both snapping photos and yelling for Husband to grab the damn lizard. Husband managed to get a hold of the lizard. He inspected it for damage and determined that it should be okay once it was firmly outside of feline range. I scooped up Hailie (no more escapes for that night, thank you) while Husband opened our front door and deposited the poor reptile somewhere far away from our house.
Update: Brilliant commenter, the_hittman, pointed out that our little lizard friend is actually a chameleon. I agreed with his assessment, and so I found out a little more information about them.
The chameleon in question is called a Green Anole and they are natives to the southeastern U.S., including South Carolina. You can read more about them here and here.
Permalink
