Wordless Wednesday (Bluntcard Favorites)*

*Bluntcard.com.  Thanks, Colleen!

The Fruit of Thy Womb: CANDY! (And I Get All Feminist on You)

My new "favorite" entertainment website:  Regretsy.com

For those of you who don't know about "Etsy.com," it is a website where people can sell their home-made art, crafts, antiques, etc.  

Most of it is really interesting.   

However some things....well....some things have apparently caused so many  "WTH" moments as to inspire the website "Regretsy."  

The following is my favorite "Regretsy" submission so far.  

Perhaps there is a cultural thing that is lost in translation for me...but what you see is a pinata shaped as a uterus.     

I can just see inviting the neighborhood kids over for a party when Maggie has her first period and whipping this bad boy out.   

Do you think that there would be some hard feelings for not having the  Spongebob pinata, but instead, having a giant uterus?  

Do you think that the next Monday at school, she would be known at her junior high as the "girl whose mother bought her the pinata shaped as a uterus for her party?"  

Perhaps more interesting, however, is the psychology behind taking a baseball bat to the uterus.   

Is it a kids' game?  Or aggressive attitude against women?  

See?  I can get all feminist sometimes.

"Hey Jimmy!  Here's the bat, hit the uterus!"  

Bam, bam.

"Harder, Jimmy!  Harder!"

Bam, bam bam!

"Dagnabbit, Jimmy!   Beat the smithereens out of that uterus.  I want me some Laffy Taffy and freaking Airheads Extremes!"

Bambambambambambambambam!!!!!

Bucky and Dick

It began with a few goals that Wesley intended to accomplish.

One of those goals was keeping his room clean  (although it is really hard to push that request on a nine year old boy when mom is a slob herself).

Mom is trying, though.  Kind of.

Another one of Wesley's goals was to not whine when asked help out around the house.

So, on Saturday, "just for fun," we headed up to St. Augustine to a pet store to look at the ball pythons.

Oh, did I mention that Wesley's reward for accomplishing his goals was that he would receive a ball python?

It is the only thing we have been hearing about for weeks.

He bought a book on ball pythons.  He searched the internet.  He talked about ball pythons every waking moment.  He was dreaming about them, and as a result...so was I.

And I was all like, "absolutely freaking not."

Fast forward to Saturday in St. Augustine and the pet store.

Pet stores are our downfalls.  Always.  We should just stay out of them.

Like an obese person should stay out of bakeries, and an alcoholic should stay out of a bars.  We make terrible choices in pet stores.

We bought a cockatiel once before when we were first married that ended up despising us.    

I don't know if it was a bad apple in general, or if we made it that way.

It probably wasn't the wisest choice introducing two cats, a Cairn Terrier, moving it twice and then introducing a baby within the first year of its existence in our house.   It made US a little crazy ...let alone a bird with already nervous tendencies and the brain the size of a pea.

It ended up living with my mother-in-law, where it was still crazy, but she loved it.  It's wings weren't  clipped on such a regular basis, however, so when Calvin opened the door one winter day, it flew out into the Midwest's frigid climate and into a tree.  We never saw him again.

Wesley was in the pet store for about ten minutes before he was holding the snake.  Then Chris held the snake.  It didn't respond to either of them.  Then, they asked if I wanted to hold him.

I hesitated, then Chris placed the 9 month old reptile in my hands.  And, I kid you not, the thing perked up.

It liked me so much better than Chris or Wesley.

It tried to slide up my arms and into my hair.  Maybe it liked how I smelled.

(I was, of course, wearing  my FABULOUS Viktor and Rolf's Flowerbomb perfume.)

This is me.   Holding him.

More likely, however, I am always warm....a side effect of my blood pressure.   Either way, it liked me best.

And it had a reptilian cuteness to it.

We put the little guy on hold and picked him up later.  We began discussing names.

And the discussion hovered around "Dick."   We were going to name Ragnar, "Dick," but obviously he ended up with the Minnesota Viking mascot's name, instead.

So, for thirty whole minutes the ball python was named "Dick."   A righteous dude name for a snake, I think.

Oh, small fact about our family:  we sing to our animals.  So, when Wes began singing  "You're a good Dick, yes you're a good Dick, oh yeeaaaaaaaaaaaaa," to the snake, we decided that the name needed to be changed.       Pronto-ish.

The snake's name is now Bucky.  As in Wisconsin Badgers.

And Wesley's room isn't clean.   And I'm wondering if we made a mistake.

But "Bucky" still likes me best.

Did I also mention they have a life-span of 20-30 years?

Yup.

You're Selling a What?

I was perusing Craigslist tonight and came across this.     

How can you put something like this up for sale and not be concerned about appearing a wee bit like a pervert (although I'm sure it is a very nice person...)?  

ANTIQUE OAK FOLDING GYNECOLOGICAL TABLE

The stirrups aren't included???  DAMMIT!

 

Whose Butt is This?

I was looking over old photos tonight and I came across this gem.  Check it out.

I took a picture of this beeyotch's butt before many of you decided that you hated her "I see Russia down yonder's" guts.

Some of us think she is sort of bad-ass, even if she talks funny, and the other few don't give a rip. 


I think many are just jealous that their butts don't look that good in a mini-skirt and they can't pull off hooker boots and still manage to look GOP conservative-ish enough and run with those crusty old farts.    

And....I'm also certain that none of you have a picture of her butt, circa three years ago, when there was only love.  Not the cluster-foogaysie that is today.

(Which I suppose could be described as our  entire political spectrum....but I try to stay away from that quagmire.)

No commentaries, just pictures.  Of Sarah Palin's butt.


This is a classy blog, y'all.

Big, Fat Fails

As bad as I perceive my parenting skills to be sometimes,  at least it hasn't come to this.  

I'm a winner.

Oh Yes, I Did.

And it was sort of by accident, because I didn't know what Tumblr was.  But hey...it's another blog site.

Imagine that:  another way to share information!  

So, I went ahead and signed up.  I mean, what more could I possibly have to add to enrich y'all's lives.

I have decided that the Tumblr blog is going to be dedicated to the beauty I see around me.

(And, coincidentally, there are so many new photo applications that I can use to make my pictures look a tad bit professional...so I am going to use them upload them to my Tumblr site.)

It is mainly going to be scenery.  Different things...unusual things, things that strike me as fun.

So knock yourself out:  Today we took a drive along A1A and we stopped hoping to see some whales (we didn't) and I took some pictures of the natural plant life along the dunes.  Most interesting to me were the Spanish Bayonets, a plant introduced to me by my French friend,  Isabelle.

They are both beautiful and can rip your skin apart if you touch them.   Their points and edges are as sharp as daggers.  People who are concerned about safety supposedly  plant them beneath their first-floor windows as a deterrent to burglars.

So, check out my link to today's entries:  A1A FLAGLER COUNTY DRIVE

You can also add me as a friend on Tumblr.  My direct link is:  http://mags3333.tumblr.com/

Adventures at the Dog Park. Or Rather, Ragnar Getting his Ass Kicked

Today we went to the park.

We took all of the children, both human and canine.

It was a first for us.   We have never been to the dog park before.  I didn't know what to expect.

It was a beautiful day and the park was packed.  Because Chris still felt like a chewed up and crapped out piece of offal from his nose surgery earlier this week (a topic of which I will surely discuss at a future time),  he watched Maggie as she surfed the playground equipment available to her.

I took Ragnar to the pen.

Ragnar was very much the most puppy-ish of all the dogs there.  I took off his leash and he gazed at me with a look of delight before he dashed off to join the others.

Being a newbie, I made a couple mistakes today when I  visited the dog park.

Mistake number one:  I wore a white sweater.

I had no way of knowing that the entire enclosed area was dirt and sand.  And there were spickets placed strategically around the play area with buckets underneath to catch the water so the dogs could swap spit to quench their thirst.   The immediate areas surrounding the buckets were, predictably, mud.

Which leads me to...

Mistake number two:  I brought treats.

Ragnar doesn't listen to me very often unless I have a bacon flavored item in my hand.  Sort of like my husband.  So I thought it would be wise of me to bring the value size bag of bacon treats along to the dog park.   When I thought that  Ragnar wasn't listening to me, I called to him with a treat in my hand.

No less than seven large dogs came bounding towards me and jumped on me, smearing mud all over my sweater.

I smiled and chuckled, petting the least offensive dog.   I  tried to appear good natured and not bitchy.

Since I didn't know anyone, I didn't want them to let them in on the fact that I am actually a royal bitch.   Only my husband and kids are privy to that little factoid about me.

We had been there for about five minutes and Ragnar had been having a fine time, when suddenly he was t-boned from the side and tackled by a bullish female named Kaia.   She was an alpha female and identified Ragnar as a gerbil-ish, weak little wiener who needed to be taken out and eaten alive.

Ragnar was passively trying to right himself, but she had him down in the dirt and he looked pretty helpless.  In the meantime, several other dogs had noticed the scuffle and had jumped in.  Of course, there was a scrappy little Jack Russell,  a Doberman, a mutt and a Daschund joining in on the whupping.

Kaia was obviously in charge and the others were her minions.  It wasn't wholly unlike millions of junior high lunchrooms across America...there were mean girls even in the dog world.  And the dog park was their lunchroom.

The owners were scrambling to pull their dogs off of Ragnar, and Ragnar was doing a belly crawl under the nearest picnic table to hide from the mean kids.

This scenario occurred again at least twice, so Ragnar and I left soon thereafter.

I took Ragnar and we sat on a bench.  We watched Maggie slide down the playground equipment with the large penis drawn on it by some joker with a Sharpie.  Luckily, she is too young to recognize vulgarity when she sees it.

We left when we felt we had sufficiently tired them all out.

What we did, however,  was brought on the melt-downs on an entire hour early.  A whole HOUR before we could even consider putting them to bed.  

So we screwed ourselves  big time.  

At least one of them is quiet.  

Louis CK and The Case of the Crawling Skin

I was banished to my room last night for being a hag.

My energy spurt day of the week turned out being yesterday.

Although I was tired in the morning, I was motivated.  I think it was the super filthy floors, and the carpets that hadn't been vacuumed in, uh, over a week.  

And the stink of mildew coming from my fantastical front load washing machine that I just HAD to have in 2008.   Fast forward almost three years, and that front loader has been added to my long list  I have entitled "Banes of my Existence."

Yes, they use less water.  Yes, they use less soap.  But do you know you have to wipe those suckers' seals out almost every time you use them?  Um, neither did I.  So, I haven't done it.

Now there is this perpetual stench coming from my washing machine that is reminescent of the dark pits of a person's bowels who has existed solely on McDonald's for much of his life.  

If I could do it over again, I would have bought that top loader that you can stuff, like, 25 pairs of jeans into.  That is pretty impressive.

So, I got down on my hands and knees and scrubbed my little heart out of the tile on the first floor of our house.    Afterwards I dragged my sore, sweaty, and stiff butt off of the floor and vowed to buy a steam mop in the near future.

Maggie cried all day because she has a yeast infection.  I knew this was possible with little girls, but it has proved ridiculously difficult to get rid of and despite my efforts, has spread.  The pediatrician, a man, does not share my sense of urgency.

I cleaned.  Maggie cried.  The dog was disturbed by the moving of furniture and activity which cut into his naps.  He paced.

Then Wes came home and, like a whirlwind, whipped up the dog, Maggie and me into a frenzy that he is so good at producing...being the expert button pusher that he is.

Predictably, I was exhausted and a complete bitch after dinner last night.  

Chris told me to go cool off in the bedroom .

My skin was crawling.   I was tired ~ physically, and emotionally ~ and I swear to freaking Yoda, if I heard one more scream or screech, I think there would be something baaaaaad going down in our house.

Alone in my bedroom (aside from the two year old directly outside my door screaming "Mammmmma!  Mammmmma!"), I decided to watch some comedy on my laptop to remind myself that I am not alone.

There is another who is so frustrated with his four-year-old that he will stand up in front of millions and call her a "f-ing jerk."

It was a stand up act we watched the other night on Netflix.

 I love Louis CK.   He has a mouth on him, though, just a heads up.   These were my favorite clips from the show:

I needed a little comedy to make my head feel a little less explosive.   I had a date with Louis and my laptop.   It was just what I needed.

Complimenting Strangers and A Challenge for YOU!

Today, I crossed the vile threshold of the evil empire (i.e. Walmart).

I had just come from my appointment with my new counselor,  of which I showed up an entire half hour late for (kinda sorta not my fault.  I had  9:00 a.m. written down on my calendar, but I SWEAR the reminder call said 9:30. I should have called to verify, though).

But actually, I showed up an entire day early.   Truly, I did.

 I walked in yesterday morning at 9 a.m., bright eyed and ready to spill my guts to the unwittingly, poor gal who had agreed to take me on as a patient.  It wasn't until I saw the confused look on the face of the receptionist that I realized that it was Tuesday, not Wednesday.

So, since I had actually gotten dressed and put my face on, I decided to show it around town.  I dragged a constipated Maggie to several thrift stores, discount stores and hobby stores.

"Oooh, you have a shopping companion," said a little old lady at the Salvation Army in Daytona Beach, where I found some freaking adorable Children's Place skirts and Gymboree shirts for $1.50 each.

"An uncooperative one, yes," I said, as Maggie ~ as if on cue ~  dramatically crumpled and laid down on the sidewalk in front of the woman and refused to move.

So today, as I was wondering the aisles of the evil empire, picking out the Miralax for Maggie, I saw a girl who was wearing a fantastic cardigan.

It was hard to miss.  It was white, with a toile-ish, black pattern.  Oh, my.  It was my style.  I had to know where she got it.

I passed her in another aisle.

"Excuse me," I said.  She startled.  "I love your sweater, where did you get it?"

I do this a lot; I scare the crap out of people.

My most notable example was in a local Publix, but I think that this had to do more that I hadn't showered in several days and I looked like a homeless person.

I was also suffering from that chronic cough I had for six months this past summer, so I was on the cough medicine that made me extremely chatty and obnoxious.

I had taken several French showers to mask my stench, and I was wearing a baseball cat to hide the greasy hair.   But the clothes had been worn for several days, as I do often because....well....sometimes things are just comfortable after a day or two.  Or four.

And I wasn't expecting to walk by someone who smelled delightful.

She was an older woman and she was deep in concentration.  I should have noted that.  I walked past her and got a whiff.  I smelled a note of patchouli, and flowers, and something else.

I loved it.

I stopped my cart and backed that ass up.

"You smell wonderful,"  I exclaimed.

Seriously, I thought she was going to have a heart attack.  She nearly dropped her coupons and she made one of those faces that only are made when someone probably leaked a bit of urine in her Serenity pad.  I felt bad.  I should have apologized, but I didn't.

Instead, I continued.

"Are you wearing lotion?  Or is it your perfume?  I just love it!"

Her mouth moved for a moment and nothing came out.  When she finally spoke, she muttered something that sounded like "Angel," a perfume that I am quite familiar with, being a fan of the designer.

"Oh,"  I exclaimed.  "Thierry Mugler?"

She nodded.

"I love him!  I have "Alien."   I'll have to check "Angel" out.  It smells really nice!  Have a nice day!

I left her, recovering, in the middle of the frozen vegetable and pizza aisle.

I saw her several more times during that shopping trip, but she made beelines to move away from me, so I didn't have a chance to apologize for frightening her.

I like complimenting people, though.

If someone is wearing something that I think is pretty, I will tell her.  I also will  ask where she got it.   If someone I know looks particularly nice, I will tell her.  If a color looks nice on someone, I let her know.

I especially like doing this to strangers, even if it does scare them a little bit.  

You expect compliments from your husband, or your kids, or your family.   You don't expect them from a fellow shopper; therefore I think it makes it a little more special.

I challenge you to do it.

No, seriously.

Find something special or unique about someone.  

Don't be disingenuous...wait until you actually see something about someone that catches your eye.  Is someone wearing a broach, necklace or earrings that are particularly pretty?  Let them know!

It will probably make their day, and I guarantee that it will make you feel good, too.

Just don't do it when you haven't showered for days and look like you just ventured out of the dumpster behind the building, or are jazzed on any sort of stimulant that could be misconstrued as an illegal substance.  That is pretty much guaranteed to creep them out.

I speak from experience.

New Year's Resolutions and Eating Toilet Paper

I quit making New Year's Resolutions a long time ago.

This year, however, I have made a simple vow:  not to run out of toilet paper in my house.

I vow that no one will have to use paper towels, napkins ripped off from the last fast food restaurant we visited, or dried out baby wipes.    It seems simple enough, right?

I actually thought about making a resolution to keep my house clean.   But...that was sort of a joke.  I look around and am not sure when the last time the carpet was vacuumed.  I'm sure Chris was the one who did it because I have been in a mood lately....a laissez-faire mood.

My weeks have generally consisted of one day that have had one unusual burst of energy and I get a lot of things done.  Then.....nothing.   Nada.

At least I pretty much kicked that nasty habit of taking a nap every day.

It wasn't because I wanted to; it was out of necessity.

One can't really take naps when she has a child who will wreck shit if left alone.    And I really MISS those naps, because things have been a little more stressful around here.

About a month ago, Maggie stopped taking dumps.    She has started killing herself trying to hold those bad boys in.

I will glance at her and she will be fiercely squeezing her butt cheeks together,  face purple, with a look of blind exertion that appears to be causing her eyeballs to practically pop out of her head.

On  another note, I started seeing a new doctor this week who seems decent.  I am thrilled that she is tall, sort of homely and most importantly ~ chubby.

I hate going to pretty and skinny female doctors.

There's something about them that makes me feel like a complete and utter loser...like I could have been them if I would have tried just a little bit harder and the pharmaceutical companies would have released certain types of medications to straighten my imbalances out just a few years sooner.

Instead, I flailed around internally and banged my head against the wall ~figuratively speaking~ for years.  By that time, I was pudgy and was already sort of a screw up.

Looking at "together" female doctors reminds me of this.  And I secretly hate them.

So when my new doctor walked in, I was happy to see she probably weighs more than I do.

She wasn't happy, however, about my Xanax usage.

"You take this every day," she asked.

"Um.  Mostly.  Yes?"

"Because it is habit forming."

"Oh, okay."

In my mind, I was saying, "So what?"

Everything I do has a propensity of being habit forming.

I was watching this new show on bizarre addictions on TLC this week and this girl was addicted to body building.  Another was addicted to sucking her thumb.  Yet another was addicted to eating toilet paper.

Yeah, the toilet paper one was really bizarre...and probably was pretty harmful.  Can you imagine?

But my point is that anything can be habit forming if you let it.

I'm addicted to coffee and caffeine.  I'm addicted to Chapstick.   I'm addicted to going to thrift stores.  I'm addicted to putting cayenne pepper on my food.  I'm addicted to needing to check myself out in the mirror every time I get in the car.   I could go on and on.

Add Xanax to the list.  No, really.  Please do.   At least I'm not addicted to eating two ply toilet paper, or licking doorknobs.  Or doing something so horrifically anti-social which causes my family to cringe, mortified and unwilling to claim me as their own.

Anyway, the toilet paper I buy is one-ply.  It's the cheap crap.   The family used to complain but they finally got over it.

I bought the good stuff one time and I spent the entire two stupid weeks it took to use up that 24 pack plunging toilets because the morons didn't understand the usage rules of two-ply toilet paper (i.e. less is more).

So, my new years resolution is not to run out of toilet paper, and not eat it.  And not to worry about habit forming medication, because I don't give a flying foogaysie, because we're all going to die anyway.  I'll just be a little more relaxed, and a little less of a weirdo on my way out.