Ahhh, summertime. That time when you should allow your kids to rest, yet enrich their minds. OR if you live with me, a time to stay up late, eat junk food and play games when we are not out in the sun and fun. (Seeing as there has been very little sun, we are doing a lot more inside “fun” here.) And what is the power game of choice? Wii! (And, no, I do not work for them, am not being paid by them and am gaining nothing by telling you how much I enjoy the Wii we have. Just in case someone decides they want to get all up in my grill about it. I’m just saying, I like it. Mikey likey!)
Here is the Queen of Our Wii holding court.
I have to admit, there are times I kick the kids off to play myself. I have fun with the Wii Sports and the Wii Play. In fact, here are some pictures of the whole family playing at the beach when it was either raining or everyone was too sunburned to go back out into the blazing Florida sun. Do you Wii? What is your favorite game?
I am just going to link to the WiiFit in action. I TRIED to embed it, but it keeps screwing up my template. Hello? WordPress? Not making me happy. Anyway, here is the link: Wii Fit at E3.
I think I am in love with a new game coming out soon. I learned about it from E3 and found this video of it from the conference at Gametrailers. I am so going to get my hands on this one: Wii Fit. Check out that yoga, baby. Now that will be worth all of the YouTube payback videos that my sons post of me. Because trust me when I say both of my boys will love getting even that way. Take a look for yourself and tell me what you think. I think it is going to be a lot of Fit Fun!
[Editor note: The following is a review of a book I received complimentary and was asked to review. In the future, all reviews will be handled on a separate page of my blog. Thanks.]
I recently joined the great ladies at MotherTalk and I
There is a new baby in my house. Clint brought her home to me. Talk about shocked. I never in a million years expected it. He came home a week ago and told me he needed me to help him get something out of his car. I was oblivious to his game, so I hop up and go out to help. He hands me a box and tells me to carry it in because it is mine. Me? Still clueless just stare at the box.
Huh? What is it?
Clint tells me to look closer.
“It looks like a laptop box. What’s in it?” (I am so smart…S-M-R-T)
He just stares at me blankly. (As I AM so well known for being the queen of stupid questions.)
“Well, I hope it is the laptop I just got you.”
“Wha…? I mean….. Huh? You got a ….. It’s a….. The hell?” (I am also quite an eloquent speaker when I am stunned.) “What do you mean a laptop? What for? Who is it for? What? Huh?” All while I am hugging it to my chest in case he is telling the truth and then someone dares to take it from me.
I must’ve hugged that box for 15 minutes stating and restating the above. Finally, he asked if I was going to open it.
OHHHHH OPEN IT! It is more than a BOX! That is so cool.
Want to look at my new baby? Her name is Avery. She is so beautiful and fast and has a lot of space and is fast and is beautiful.
So, I can work and be blissful as I work. And, if I want to, I can even watch a DVD. AND I can lick her and rub my breasts on her and not be kicked out of Fry’s for doing that!
Want to know what else she can do? Do you? Do you? She can do this:
Oh, yes, people! I can play World of Warcraft on my freakin laptop. The world is sweet. Which means Aggroqueen, she can start kicking some blogging butt, baby! (Which, by the way, you are going over there to check it out, right? And you are leaving comments, right? And you still love me, right? I really don’t want to have to SHOW you why I chose the name AGGRO-queen, my friends. Okay, I am all talk. But really, I am lonely without you over there!)
I do so love Avery! Email me. Msg me. Game me. I want to play with her all day long and there is only so much “I am working” that I can do before I want to play, play, play!
Ayun and the Mamalama Ding Dong tour bus pull up for some coffee
August 19, 2006
It is not often that I will find a person, place or thing to gush about. Okay, I gush alot, but you totally need to understand that this particular gushfest involves a role model, a person I admire more than coffee (yes, that much) and a woman who took time out of a hectic publishing schedule to answer the questions of a wanna-be, naive author who had nothing to lose by bombarding her with questions. Who am I talking about? Why the amazing, cooler than cool, badder than bad Ayun Halliday. (Ayun as is rhymes with ray gun, just so you know.) I will admit that I pretended to be all cool when she asked me to be on her virtual bok tour, but that lasted about 5 seconds before I fainted, came to and emailed her back an emphatic YES. I have admired her for years, so it was a no brainer.
To celebrate the UK release of her book Mama Lama Ding Dong: A Mother’s Tales From the Trenches (The Big Rumpus in the United States) she called upon several bloggers to host her tour bus for a day. Today is my day, so pull up a cozy chair, grab a drink and sit back while I completely gush about this amazing woman and her writing. (If you are not familiar with her, check out this interview to get to know her a bit better and then check out her website. While you are there, sign up for The East Village Inky. You will thank yourself (and me!) if you do! We’ll wait here and braid each other’s hair until you get back.)
Back? Good. Now, let each of us Dare to be Heinies and dish about the book.
When I first read this description of motherhood in the chapter, “The Daily Grind”, I nearly wept with the realization that someone else not only felt this but ADMITTED it :
The pain of childbirth is a white hot constellation of torture, almost impossible to describe, remember impressionistically at best. It inspires respect.Taking care of the little criminals day in and day out is another matter. Cutting their food into crouton-size cubes, wiping their spills and their heinies, washing their hair, forcing them to give the ball back, maneuvering them through the grocery store, clearing their mouths of golf balls, dice and Monopoly houses, goading them to pick up their toys, strapping them into the car seats they loathe, reading those hideous Richard Scarry books incessently…that’s like being eaten alive by ants. Not even red ants, just the regular ones.
I fell in love as I read that passage and realized someone “got it” and was brave enough to put it out there. I cheered her on while pretending silently that I loved the daily drudgery and didn’t feel frustration because that is what you do in Stepford. In the coolness that is her New York neighborhood, you can say things like that.
However, when I read her exerpt on lice–the FIRST time–I laughed. Oh, how horrible! That is hysterical! I cannot imagine! That was before my daughter had brought home lice. When I came to that point in mamalama dingdong, there was no laughing. I screamed, threw the book and began to weep before I remember that at one point I laughed. Obviously if Ayun can laugh about the horror, I could try.
She writes:
“Head lice were outed on the children’s program Arthur this year in an effort to de-stigmatize the problem. I guess I’m glad that lice have hit the mainstream, thought what’s next for Arthur and his pals? Heroin addiction?”
I for one was thrilled to read of the horror she described just to know that a bad-ass mom like Ayun could be infected with the dreaded lice, then a Stepford mom like myself, surely would not be immune.
I wish I could quote this whole book to you, but that would be silly (and plagarism!). I mean, you WANT your own copy. You really do! I have a copy if both The Big Rumpus (so dog eared it needs tape to hold it together) and Mama Lama Ding Dong. I love them both! (Okay, they are the same book with different names and different colors, but it feels so new and fresh to pretend that I am just now discovering the amazing Ayun Halliday.
Ayun is the kind of author who makes you feel as if you are sitting there with her sharing stories over a cup of coffee. A woman you want to make your personal friend. By simply reading her books, your cool factor is bumped up at least a notch or two. She is just that good! But don’t take my word for it, go get a copy of Mama Lama Ding Dong: A Mother’s Tales From the Trenches (The Big Rumpus title=”The Big Rumpus”>The Big Rumpus in the United States) and laugh yourself into a new friendship with an amazing woman and mom!
I have a confession to make. Even though I am in my mid-thirties and even though I grew up in the age of Star Wars and even though I can make Star Wars references and quote the most famous lines (Luke, I am your father. May the force be with you. I feel a great disturbance in the force.), until a couple of weeks ago I had never seen a Star Wars movie. Ever. At least not completely. I would have to live under a rock to not see at least a moment or two or ten thousand in my lifetime.
At the very tender age of young, I planned to go to Star Wars with my friends. It would be a big deal to go with just my friends. There we were at the movie theater ready to see it. We were early, but opened the door to the theater anyway. “What did you see?” you might ask yourself. I’ll tell you. I saw STORM TROOPERS.
HUGE GUYS WITH BIG GUNS. RUNNING. SHOOTING. AT ME!
Let me just say, it scared the ever loving bejeezus out of me. We chose (or rather I insisted) that we see a different movie. ANYTHING but the STORM TROOPERS. That night and many, many, many nights following, I had nightmares about those damn Storm Troopers. Never, ever about Darth Vader. He didn’t scare me in the least. I mean, come on! With James Earl Jones doing the voice? Who could be scared of him? I mean, we all know people watch CNN for a reason. It is the amazing “This is CNN” voiced by Mr. Vader.
I would love to tell you that as I aged, I grew out of it. Nuh-uh. Nope. In fact, just a couple of months ago Brandon and Clint were watching Star Wars on TV when I walked by and saw STORM TROOPERS! I raced off to do laundry or something, anything, in a different part of the house. You know what? I had a nightmare that night. No kidding.
My kids know this about me. They roll their eyes and accept it. But barely. They prefer I not tell anyone this horrific factoid, but I still do. I was telling a friend of Zarek’s that I had never seen the movies. He was extremely appalled at me.
I explained, “You see, I saw the first one and it scared me, so I just don’t watch them.”
“You mean Episode I or Episode IV?” he asked.
“Uhhh, the first one. The one that came out in the 70’s.”
“That is Episode IV, actually, not the first one. Episode I is really the first in the series, but Episode IV was released first.” He saw that my eyes were glazing over.
“So, the first one is the fourth one and the fourth one is the first one so the numbers tell you the order of the story, but not the order in which it came out. Right? So, do you watch it from I-VI or do you watch it IV-VI and then I-III? What is the proper Star Wars etiquette here?” I questioned.
He just looked at me as if I sprouted another head, then ran off to find Zarek. (I never got my answer, by the way.)
BUT (you knew there would be a ‘but’, right?) I now have two boys who are very into the whole Star Wars thing. They love it. We own all of the movies that are out on DVD. Now, since Episode III (*which is really VI, but we are all pretending to be ignorant of this) came out in theaters, the guys in my family decided a Star Wars marathon was in order.
I decided to give it a try. I can do this. I can watch Star Wars. I am, after all, an adult. I have seen worse in my lifetime than a STORM TROOPER! I mean, they miss their shots the majority of the time anyway.
So we watched. We started with the original (you figure out the number). I watched through my fingers when the STORM TROOPERS came on. My stomach knotted. My butt clenched. My hands sweat. They still had that effect of me. BUT I WATCHED THE ENTIRE THING. In fact, I have seen every episode except the one in theaters now. (Please tell me you are proud. It was not easy!) I even have plans to see that one in a real live theater. (Even though I hear it is more violent.) I just might even get myself a nifty little light-saber. I am so going to be tre’chic in my Princess Leia gold bikini next summer!
Clint learned this past week that it might be a good idea for him to create a living will. No, nothing tragic happened. At least not to him or someone we know.
You see, last week or so one of my ubercool Mom friends called me to see if I wanted to get together for a playdate. (And by playdate, of course I mean an excuse to get the kids together so that we can share gossip and cocktails by the pool.) Not being one to turn down a “playdate”, I forced the children into their swim suits while gleefully shouting, “Mommy has a playdate! Hurry! Hurry! Mommy has a playdate!”
Have you ever noticed how ladies’ swim suits don’t have pockets? What is a gal to do when she needs to grab her cell phone and has no where to carry it? Well, if you have enough cleavage, you can slip that badboy in the top of your swim suit and rush out the door. (An important thing to note here is that you must remember that you did this. That is like really a very important part of it.)
After great gossip and a cocktail or so, I am happy, relaxed and enjoying the day out. Which is about the time Gabriella insisted she just HAD to have her goggles RIGHT THEN or really bad things would happen. Being the nice (and now happy and relaxed) mom that I am, I leaned over to hand them to her from the side of the pool.
*splash* There went the phone. I mean, I probably could have saved it, but that would have meant I spilled my drink. I mean, come on people, the phone never had a chance under those conditions! I grabbed it up before it was even fully submerged and raced to a table to dry it off. I took it apart and shook out any water that may be in it. I begged it to work.
It took about 24 hours, but she began to work again. (Yes, I called my phone “she.” Problems?) I clapped and giggled and kissed my phone thanking the gods of cell phone technology that I did not kill her. Yet.
Two days later I am doing housework and slip the phone into my pocket. After a couple of hours, I realize I had not heard it ring. (You must understand that is very rare for my phone.) I took her out of my pocket and saw blankness staring back at me. Surely, I must’ve turned her off. I tried to power her back on. Nothing. Nothing at all. No flicker. No flash. No illuminated keys. No sign of life.
Noooooooooooo! I wailed. Come back to me! I decided the battery was just dead and tried to charge her up. Hours later…nothing. When Clint walked in I shoved the phone at him and wailed, “Fix her! Bring her back to me!” It was even beyond his skill.
“I think it might be dead. I mean, really dead.”
“No, she is not, “ I insisted. “She worked. Remember, she fought through the water and was ALIVE! It is just a glitch. She’ll be okay. Right? She’ll be okay. She has to be. All of my phone numbers and pictures and information are stored in her brain. She HAS TO BE OKAY!”
Every few hours or so for the next couple of days I would pick her up and try to turn her on. Nothing. Until late one night while I was working alone in the office I glanced over at her with sadness. I’ll try one more time I thought.
I reached over and tried to power her up. First, the number 5 became illuminated. Then the bottom 2 rows of numbers lit up. And then…then…I hear those beautiful words: “Hello Moto”
“HELLO! HELLO MOTO! Ohhh, MOTO!” I excitedly exclaimed as I watched her message my Word Up greeting.
And then she flickered.
And then she faded.
And then….then she went black. Dark. Nothing.
“MOTO! Noooooooooooooo!! Come back! Come back to me!”
Brandon walked in from the family room where he was watching a movie and asked, “What in the world is going on in here?”
“She was alive. She showed life! She said ‘Hello Moto’ to me. I swear, she was alive.”
Brandon just shook his head and walked away.
Since that night, there has been no sign of life at all. Not one flickering key. No illuminated 5. Silence. Darkness. Emptiness.
Clint continues to tell me to give it up and accept my phone is dead. I tell him it might just need some more time to heal. Maybe she will come back to me.
Brandon tells me it is past time to call the time of death on her. I tell him he is just a cruel quitter.
I refuse! Every so often, I still will try to power her on. Willing her to show me some sign of life. I am not ready to let her go. Not my phone with EVERY PHONE NUMBER I HAVE IN THE WORLD on it.
I’m pretty sure that my refusal to let my phone go and insisting that maybe, just maybe she might actually speak those two words again has frightened Clint to the point where I know he was up late last night with a pen, paper and flashlight hastily scribbling out his own living will to ensure he does not get the Cell Phone Treatment should something happen to him.
Please. Like I would get that excited over him saying “Hello Moto.” I mean, that would just be WEIRD!
If you have a pillow- especially one of those really mushy Moshi ones that has about a billion trillion umpteen million tiny beads in it- that has cleaning instructions that say “Spot Clean Only”, THEY ARE NOT KIDDING. It is not a suggestion or a recommendation. It is a proclamation by God himself telling you not to put the fucking things in the washing machine.
When the geek movement first arrived in my life, I did try to resist it. When my husband Clint had a BBS before we got married, I still vowed to love him in spite of the geek factor being blown off the scale.
I resisted becoming a geek.
Oh sure, I logged on, got a great user name and chatted with the other users, but I was NOT a geek. Honest. And yes, I did go with him to the sysop get togethers. (But man, those geeks can drink!)
Yet, I resisited becoming a geek.
After Zarek was born in 1995 I became a full fledged insomniac. Clint’s answer? Show me the internet. Teach me how to navigate the World Wide Web. Our conversations went something like this:
Me: What do you mean I can find a website on anything I want?”
Clint: “Just type anything you want to know in that box and it will take you to that website.”
Me: *typing* ‘anything I want to know’ *SMACK to the forehead* “Ohhh, you mean type the TOPIC of what I want to know?? Like if I type ‘coffee’ I can read all about the different brews?”
Not only did I find coffee related sites, I found PARENTING sites! And JOURNALS! And CHAT sites! (I could suddenly chat with anyone, anytime!) I really did have something new to do with those middle of the night sleepless hours. I was going to like this new Internet thing. (Thanks so much, Al Gore. I heart the Internet!)
Yet, I resisted becoming a geek.
Years passed. I set up a few different websites of my own. I discovered IRC and went to real live get- togethers with these people that I met in *gasp* a chat room. I joined an awesome online Moms groups when Gabriella was a newborn. Even starting my very own blog in 2003 didn’t bring me to the realm of full fledged geek. It didn’t matter that I wrote on the internet. Or that I actually learned HTML. Even the fact that I knew what people were talking about when they spoke geek. I wasn’t there yet.
That moment arrived a week or so ago. It was in that moment that I realized not only had I arrived in the World of Geek, I just may have to try to be their queen.
Clint was in the family room with his laptop doing something geeky online. I was in the bedroom getting ready to call it a night when I had a moment of inspiration. I grabbed my laptop and (giggling like I am being a bad girl) sent him a very suggestive instant message asking him to meet me in the bedroom.
I struck a pose and waited…
…and waited
…and waited.
Perhaps my IM was too suggestive and not blunt enough. Fine. I can do blunt. So, I decide to send him a steamy IM that was in no way shape or form questionable about what I was talking about. Dirty words and all.
I struck a pose and waited…
…and waited
…and waited.
Nothing.
My first thought is, ‘Oh my god! What if I IM’ed that to a friend or worse my Dad?!’ In a panic I double checked and was relived to see that I had not propositioned either.
Then I got pissed. What the hell is wrong with me that my own husband isn’t responding to a very blatant invitation? It then dawned on me that maybe it wasn’t his fault.
I grabbed a robe, stormed into the family room hand on my hips and demanded, “Do you or do you not have porn blocking on your instant messenger?”
Stammering, he replied that he did and then proceeded to try to figure out why he was in trouble for NOT having porn on his laptop.
“Nevermind,” I sighed turning on my heal and leaving with a pout.
Back in the bedroom, I gave it one more shot. This time it worked.
Can I just share something with you about propositioning someone through IM, though? It really does lose something when all of the “dirty” words are spelled with an asterick smack in the mid*dle of them.
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Everywhere you go. Tra lalalalalalala lalalalalalala etc
I do realize that Christmas is only a month3 weeks2 weeks 10 days away, but for me, to be as close to finished with my Christmas shopping as well as have the house decorated, the “Christmas outfits” purchased, and cards bought and ready to go out, well, it is miraculous. Seriously.
Back in 1995 when I was pregnant with Zarek, I put off Christmas shopping until AFTER he was born. He was born on the 12th of December. You do the math. Short stay in the hospital, a few days to recover from the “what the hell just happened here” effect to my body and all company to leave. That did not leave me a lot of time to shop. But I did! And I got it all finished in time for everyone to get their presents BEFORE Christmas. As well as birth announcements.
I work well under pressure.
I AM that person out on Christmas Eve praying to the gods of mass marketing and commercialism that there is still something good out there for a last minute gift for that one person that I kept putting off buying for. Every. Year.
But not this year. This year I have allowed people to play Christmas music for a while now. I have enjoyed humming along and getting stuff done early and without the “oh dear god will I ever get this done in time” panic attacks. Is this how organized people live? I could get used to this (if someone would plan it all out for me or something).
So, with all of that said, the only reason I really even wanted to post was so that I could post one of my favorite Christmas songs. Forget the classics everyone sings. This one makes me giggle. I hope you enjoy it!
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It is not often that I will find a person, place or thing to gush about. Okay, I gush alot, but you totally need to understand that this particular gushfest involves a role model, a person I admire more than coffee (yes, that much) and a woman who took time out of a hectic publishing schedule to answer the questions of a wanna-be, naive author who had nothing to lose by bombarding her with questions. Who am I talking about? Why the amazing, cooler than cool, badder than bad Ayun Halliday. (Ayun as is rhymes with ray gun, just so you know.) I will admit that I pretended to be all cool when she asked me to be on her virtual bok tour, but that lasted about 5 seconds before I fainted, came to and emailed her back an emphatic YES. I have admired her for years, so it was a no brainer.
However, when I read her exerpt on lice–the FIRST time–I laughed. Oh, how horrible! That is hysterical! I cannot imagine! That was before my daughter had brought home lice. When I came to that point in mamalama dingdong, there was no laughing. I screamed, threw the book and began to weep before I remember that at one point I laughed. Obviously if Ayun can laugh about the horror, I could try.
