Mysterious Object

I found this in the house today. As I blew off the years of dust, I turned it in my fingers, wondering what such an object could have been used for in the olden days? I just love discovering antique treasures.

Crust

Sunday we picked up E and A. We drove A to her softball or soccer practice or somewhere. We left her with Christian's cell phone. We drove to a restaurant. We were seated. We were famished. We were crabby. (As usual.)

*brrrring* *brrrrrring*

me: "Hellooooo?"

A: "Hi. My practice isn't here, it's at this other park - eight thousand billion trillion miles away from where you dropped me off."

me: "Okay, we'll come pick you up.
Then to Christian: "We gotta go get A; she's at the wrong park."

Everyone gets up from the table and we hurry out of the restaurant all dejected and stoopid. Halfway to the car, Christian realizes he's brought his rolled-up flatware with him.


1. The mysterious, rolled log that promises a restaurant adventure is about to unfold. Methinks the rolled napkin is something of a metaphor, no?


2. Oh my sweet lord, what could the future hold?



3. Three perfectly clean, sturdy pieces of stainless steel with which to enjoy our upcoming feast.
4. This is like one of those movies with different endings based on a sudden turn of events. What if we had stayed at the restaurant? What if Christian had unrolled his flatware, taken up his forkful of savory tasties into his unsuspecting mouth, and was met with this crusted-on mac 'n cheese that little Timmy was rolling around in his nasty little 6 year old mouth after picking his nose and eating many, many boogers? How would life had changed for us had we not been swept up in a storm of sports and children? I, for one, like to think that despite a postponed meal, our lives could have taken a devastating turn if left to unfold in the anticipated manner.

True Story

Sometimes we lose things and spend hours looking for them, to no avail. Then our wife looks for them and finds them because she is brilliant and resourceful and amazing. She hopes that her husband will bring her presents now. Lots of baubles and puppies and champagnes.

Collages

Making things is fun. The other night, Christian, F and I created collages for about 2 1/2 hours.

You know how sometimes you just lose yourself in an activity and afterwards, you realize you may have imploded had you not lost yourself in that activity? Try this: Get some magazines and gluesticks and scissors and newspaper circulars, sit your ass down and cut shit out and collage it until you pass out from collaging exhaustion.

DO IT.

Antics and Stepkids

Christian and I find it infinitely vexing and, at times perversely amusing how over scheduled his kids are. They are poster children for today's over-achieving youngsters. We try to be the balance of peace to the chaos. We are both very much creative, sensitive, fragile butterfly souls. Well, maybe not, but we understand the importance of down time - using your imagination.

I just read this article on over scheduled kids and agree with it 100 million birzillion percentile: http://life.familyeducation.com/stress/extracurricular-activities/36538.html

Anyhoodle, based on that rant, I will now regale you with how we entertained ourselves today during A and E's team sports picture sessions. Actually, let's start at the restaurant before the pictures. Actually, in between E and A's pictures. After E ate french fries smothered in chili and cheese. MMMMMM healthy.

They returned to the restaurant where F and I waited, and E, upon finding a wee piece of dried meat from his chili, rolled it around in between his fingers and asked me if I thought he should eat it.

"Sure," I said, "I'll give you a whole nickel if you eat it. "

E: "How about a dollar?"

Me: "Okay." (anything for entertainment)

E looks at it carefully, then pops it into his mouth. I think he had psyched himself out at this point, because he gagged twice before holding out his hand to collect his dollar.

Flash forward to us all sitting in a random school gym, waiting for A to have her pics taken.

Me: "Hey E, look at that tiny ant. I'll give you a dollar if you eat it.

E: "Okay."

So he starts to squash it.

Me: "You can't kill it, though."

E: "I have to eat it alive? Okay."

He didn't even gag at the ant.

E: "I'll do anything for a dollar except kill myself."

high standards, boy.

Bubble Head

I have sooooo much blogging time to make up. I'm sorry, my pets, as I know you all rely on my blog posts to help you through your dreadful days.

Here's a pic of my kid. NAKED! She looks very much a part of a strange synchronized swimming team here. This might be the beginning of synchronized performance art.

Wee Tiny Books

Christian's folks gave us some miniature books the other day, with the intention of us selling them to help fund our upcoming family trip to Cape Cod.

We're not going to sell them because they are waaaaay coooool. Plus, Christian grew up with them, so they have nostalgic significance for him. I think they were his only playmates - a comfort as it were, during his lonely childhood. WAAAH. I'm going to sell those bitches so fast and buy new clothes!!!!!! He'll never notice they're missing, because I am going to hand craft new mini books and prop them in the little book box, and he will never know.



This was the funniest thing I ever read on the whole internets as we were looking up some of the books:

"To stay in touch with miniature book people online..."

Wheeeeeeee! Good times. Miniature book people running everywhere and reading out loud in tiny, squeaky voices.

Spit Water Out Your Nose

Oh lordy, Christian just had me watch this video and I laughed so hard I almost ruined my computer.


She Has A Boyfriend - Watch more free videos

My Sage Advice

1. Do not see Horton Hears a Who.

2. Don't buy a house without figuring out if:
A. Both of the showers work.
B. The previous owners did or did not befriend a squirrel and feed it from their hands on their back deck everyday, because boy fucking howdy will you be in for a surprise when you come home and a squirrel meets you at the back door with big, round hungry eyes.

3. Don't forget to thoroughly wash your palms of tanning lotion after applying it to your lily white skin.

4. Vote Obama.

5. Go ahead and wear thong underwear, because panty lines are tacky.

6. If you take a walk with your sister on the first beautiful Sunday after the longest, most painful winter ever, and you walk for 5 short minutes through the "forest preserve", anticipate that the mosquitoes will be ravenous and highly venomous. They will stop at nothing to ravage your pasty winter flesh and you will be scratching uncontrollably for nearly a week after. Don't expect to be able to sleep or concentrate on anything and you'll want to take a coarse grit sandpaper to your skin for hours on end.

I don't know how to break this to Christian

So I'll just come out and show him in pictures. And you can be privy to this most horrible of heartaches.

Here is the bird feeder he made with F a while back:



It's cool because it's very DIY, robotic, yet highly utilitarian, complete with perches for our winged friends.

It even looks good blurry:


Christian hung it from a flimsy, squirrel-proof branch Sunday, complete with peanut butter and Cheerios. We've been waiting for hoards of hungry birds to visit, and then today, this happens:




I don't understand how the rodent can hang from those little toes.

Our New Family Member

I would like to introduce our new little buddy, Penelephant.



We decided that Elephant was a lonely boy and needed some love. We traipsed on down to ye olde pet store and bought him a mail order bride.

We baked cupcakes in honor of their union, but so far the coy little minx is hiding in a big twisty stick. She's such a little cutie button and Elephant is like twice her size and mangled looking. I feel like it's our own version of Beauty and the Beast - Broadway style - right here in Oak Park. I can't wait to hear them belt out the tunes and dance their ways into our hearts.

Doesn't this sea of frosting make you want to hurl?

Poor, poor Elephant

Our wee little green anole, Elephant, is the darlingest lizard ever. He is debonair and witty, charming and quite eloquent.

"Hello."

See what I mean? Simply brilliant.


Anyway, Christian had a green anole when he was a lad and regaled us with stories of "Bud the Stunt Lizard", who used to perch atop Christian's shoulder while Christian watched t.v. (I think Christian was probably a big Magnum P.I. fan) Maybe Bud quietly sang ballads in his ear.

Who wouldn't want a green anole after this buildup? Being the internet researching asshole that I am, upon looking up anoles, I discovered how much they loathe being handled. That sums up the differences between my generation and the next. Besides kids not rolling around in the backs of the station wagons on family vacations, we now know that we shouldn't treat our pets like Barbies.

This doesn't stop the kids from dreaming. Today I took them to my favorite Mexican food restaurant ever: Tecalitlan

Throughout the entire meal, the kids invented new ways to kill Elephant. Here's a smattering of the best:

• Cut him in half
• Have Dad stick a fork in him so vampires could get him
• Tiny noose from which he could hang
• Tie him onto a helium balloon
• Small guillotine
• Shoot him with a tiny pistol
• Hide him in Farmer's food bowl with her dinner
• Hit him with a walnut
• A gorilla could attack him (my favorite)
• Blow him through a straw
• Give him a peanut to eat, because maybe he's allergic
• He could fall off the Sears tower
• Put a little cowboy hat on his head and make him ride a bull
• Put a stick in his way on the sidewalk so he trips over it and dies
• Smash him with a stop sign
• Put his head in an outlet
• Throw him onto the third rail

The Find of a Century

Oh my effing god. I knew there was a good reason to scour garbage cans, and I hit the mother load today. My little child and I met my little child's little friend and my little child's little friend's mother, who coincidentally happens to be my little friend.

So we met at MONKEY ISLAND, Savior to many stay at home moms and nannies who hate the kids they are watching. This place is full of every blow-up jumping and sliding apparatus available, and pretty much anything goes. Except that I was reprimanded by a very concerned grandmother for carrying around my diet coke can. Apparently if you walk around with a diet coke can, you could get bumped by a child, thereby setting off a series of chaotic events that would most certainly lead to the demise of the human race as we know it. Being the pansy-assed rule follower that I am, I promptly put my can on our table of goods and referred back to it as convenience dictated.

Anyhoodle, this is what I found sticking right out of the garbage can, and absolutely NONE of the other mothers/nannies/stupid self-righteous grandmothers had found it first. Strangely, nobody seemed to be as excited at this find as I.

Brace yourselves...

LITTLE FOOSBALL MAN!!!!!!

Swoon

(Betsey is so happy she's moving far away to Boston in a month.)

Sneak Peeks and Bad Smells

Since it's fun to look in peoples' medicine cabinets, here are ours-



The tampons are disguised, so people don't think we partake in such crass deeds.

Upstairs, we have lockers and it looks like Gene used to call one of these lockers his own. I think he used to stash his porn mags here for use during his lunch break.





Please feel free to email me your medicine cabinet pictures; I'm feeling rather voyeuristic. Now excuse me while I go vomit from the smell that seems to constantly emanate from Farmer. Sweet Jesus, how can a dog smell so foul all the time?