What Happens When I Start Living (Part Time) at McDonald's

I've been spending several hours a week at a McDonald's--hold on, it gets better, a McDonald's attached to a gas station. My oldest has a tutor that's helping him with some school work and the WiFi to use while I'm waiting those hours is at the McDonald's down the street. I order a drink and find a seat to get in a little bit of work. The drink is usually caffeine because I have to drive home eventually and everyone gets upset these days when you fall asleep at the wheel. I remember the old days when you could take a twenty minute nap behind the wheel of your Crown Vic and everyone minded their own freaking business. America is going to nanny state hell, I tell you.

Sometimes I get annoyed at the people in this McDonald's, like when they hold the door open to have a conversation and it's 5 degrees outside. That isn't an exaggeration, it really is 5 degrees outside. I'm trying to enjoy a dining experience in this McCafe, because any time you are putting things in your pie hole and you don't also have to make sure small people put things in their pie hole, it's an experience. There are many other times I get annoyed at the people in the McDonald's, but then we have to remember, I am also a person in McDonald's, so pass the sweet and sour.

I should be used to the cold, experience or no experience, because my house is only partially insulated (thanks, 1979.) The geniuses who built our house didn't insulate exterior-facing walls in places like closets. Every time you open the door to the coat closet a blast of Saskatchewan's finest air hits you in the face like the broad side of the moose. The worst is the garage, which means that the uninsulated floor of the bonus room, which houses the laundry and the playroom, is over an unheated space.

It's so cold I've set up a side business in cryogenics. The kids get a kick out of moving the disembodied heads over to play Legos, and I haven't had to buy any giant plastic Lego man heads for storage. It's a win-win (that's a fancy business term from the 1990s that I'm applying to parenting, keep up.) I like folding laundry in that room because it's chic and sophisticated not to feel my fingers--like I took one of those designer drugs everyone talked about in the 1990s. I dream sometimes about having insulation blown into the garage ceiling/bonus room floor, or the closets, or everywhere. It's just too bad that I'm blowing all that insulation cash on medium Diet Cokes at McDonald's.

Housewives in the Time of Cholera

I should have been in bed hours ago, but I can't bear to sleep while the house is so quiet and I'm alone, so why don't you and I talk?

I asked a friend if she watched the TV show Breaking Bad. No, she responded, she can't handle dark shows, they make her too depressed. She liked the Real Housewives on Bravo. I laughed because my friends are always trying to make me watch the Real Housewives series, but they make me too depressed; I weep for the future of America when I watch the Housewives (sorry, Susie and Noelle.) I'm not sure why shows that are clearly meant to be campy and ridiculous, like the Housewives, sometimes make me sad, and the intense shows, like Breaking Bad, are like Lisa Frank unicorns dancing around my heart, but that's how I feel. When every element of a program is perfection, like it is on Breaking Bad, it's a joy to watch. It's the culmination of an extraordinarily talented group of people producing the best work of their lives. Everything from the performances, the writing, the acting, the production design, even down to the art direction, is masterful.

Take the lighting: when Walter White and his wife Skyler are being open and honest with each other, the lighting in their house is bright and cheerful. When they are lying, or things are complicated, or they simply aren't speaking, the lighting isn't just dark, it's oppressive.

It's a relief to experience a piece of art like Breaking Bad. It's the same feeling you get when you see a Van Gogh in real life, or a Mahler symphony, or the first time you heard The Joshua Tree. When you connect with a piece of art it's almost hard to handle how it vibrates through you. Kinda like meth, right? (I'm guessing. Never tried meth, but I did drink a lot of Diet Cokes in a row this week. Totally the same.)

Love in the Time of Cholera is supposed to be my favorite book, but it's been years since I'd thoroughly read it. When Christy challenged me to discuss it with her (she did not like the book) I decided it was time for a re-read. What if I've read too much in the meantime and it's no longer even in my top 10? Thanks to a cross country flight I'm about 2/3 of the way through Cholera. I'd forgotten how Gabriel Garcia Marquez jolts me. Makes me question everything I've ever written (discarding it all, immediately.) The simultaneous thrill of beauty and connection, tangled with the despair of knowing you'll never make anything like it, not if you, or your band of monkeys, banged at a typewriter for a million years.

The truth is that the first time I read Love in the Time of Cholera I couldn't finish it. Not because I was bored, or got distracted, but because I couldn't bear to finish it. I wanted to keep reading it for the first time. I wanted it to last for the rest of my life. Probably the same reason that I've never watched the last episode of Firefly, even though I own the DVDs. Someday I'll watch the last episode and it will be finished and I won't be able to live in it anymore. After I read Gone With the Wind I tried to read Scarlett, the sequel penned by another author. I got about three pages in and dropped the book. Margaret Mitchell's prose is extraordinary (rising above even the ugly early 20th Century racial stereotypes, characterizations, and anachronisms,) and the sequel's simply isn't. The connection broke.

So now it really is time for bed, which is not a piece of art, nor anything I'd watch over and over, but it is a nice place to rest until I have time to read, watch, or listen again. Maybe I'll dream something beautiful.

The People Magazine

Cheers from the Sunshine State!

Last week I braved the fear of the titans and flew across the country with all three kids by myself.

It was mostly OK, until I lost my temper somewhere over Kentucky when E.G. refused to listen to my instructions to stay buckled-in on take-off; I batted at him with my three-week-old People magazine with Steve Jobs on the cover.

Steve Jobs! Still abusive after death!

Speaking of People, it's not normally a magazine I buy. I didn't even buy this instrument of child torture, Allison did and then gave it to me (obviously her fault.) I did, however, buy one copy of the Toddlers and Tiaras Double Issue Special People for the flight I took to Hawaii two months ago. I needed a magazine to read while holding the baby on my lap, something to occupy my brain and yet light enough to easily handle. I opened the People to a really large section on fashion. OK. Sure. Lots of pictures of women in party dresses. Too many pictures of women in party dresses. An annoying number of women in party dresses. Articles that were sneeze-length. By that time I was on to the cover story, which took up about 2 paragraphs, I nearly threw the magazine down the aisle. I plowed through that People in about 15 minutes, reading it cover-to-cover, and then had the rest of the 5 hour flight to get angry about not having anything else accessible to read. I don't know why I thought I could get a People and be set. People is a dentist office magazine (US Weekly is for pedicures, US News and World Report is for doctors offices.*)

I don't know what I was expecting, that every magazine is like the New Yorker? Where articles are 17 you better believe it pages, interrupted only by pithy cartoons and intellectual poetry? It's my own fault. I can't expect People to be what I want it to be, I'm not their target market. Wait, yes, I am. I still reject their publication. I need tiny, tiny type that's been stuffed and kerned into a dozen columns on a quarter page. There are never enough words to jam into my needy brain.

Breakthrough! Perhaps I wasn't just angry at E.G. for disobeying as I was at myself for oh I'm bored with this post now that the 1/2 cup of Coke I drank earlier has worn off.

Goodbye and goodnight from the Sunshine State.



*Magazines By Location of Optimal Perusal:

Dentist Magazines:
People
Money
Newsweek

Pedicures:
US Weekly
Lucky
InStyle
InTouch/Hello

Doctor's Offices:
US News and World Report
The Economist
Time


Planes and Traveling:
New Yorker
Vanity Fair
Entertainment Weekly

Do you have a magazine location list?

How I Used to Be a Better Blogger

Searching my archive tonight for a specific post led to me reading a bunch of old posts. The internal reflective consensus is that I used to be a better/more interesting blogger. It's been a slow, inevitable, Romanesque decline. I expect the Visigoths to knock on my door sometime in the next week. Visigoths look like pest control salesmen these days.

I like to blame Twitter. If I had an observation or a joke I was trying to work out, I stored it and worked it into a blog later. Now I can just slide my phone open and throw it out there. Lazy. (Not lazy for those of you who follow me on the Twitters; all kinds of convenient for you.)

I suppose you could also blame my work. Since I started writing this blog, my work went from writing occasionally, to being the focus of my career. While it's still fun to try voices out on this here blog (Appalachian!?) I use most of my creative inclinations for paying clients.

I can't help but think over the past year's complete uncertainty and roiling personal waters as stealing some of my mojo. The personal reflective time I used to spend blogging is now often spent in my head, trying to make sense of all the miracles and disasters that surround me. My head feels so full I can hardly hold it up, but I can't find the words to empty it. The fear of developing a bitter bite encroaches. I like writing for you, but the posts can't all be good. Most of them are barely passable. Every once in a while I write something I really love.

The clock says it's fast rounding the corner of 1am, and I am fast losing my admiration for Ben Stein's recommendations. Maybe I can distract myself with a new project! Reorganize the laundry system! Do a closet purge! Perform a used car search to research buying a car we couldn't possibly afford! Learn how to change the oil and filter on a lawn mower! Worry! Excessively and without reason!

So, to tie it all up into a bow: nothing is like it used to be and that is scary.

Winter Madness!

I think I have Winter Madness with a terrible case of Spinning.

It's not the snow thing. I like snow. I think snow is delightful. I can even tell the days are staying lighter later, driving home in an icy-rosy glow should make me happy. Could it be the doldrums? No. I am not a ship on the ocean, no matter what kind of analogy you wish to employ.

Is it latent hibernation? I find myself reluctant to crawl out of bed, truculent if I have to abandon the couch, difficult if I have to leave my house, desirous of blankets to wrap around me at all times, and a serious case of the "No, I don't want to"s. I don't want to talk, I don't want to leave, I don't want to eat that, I don't want to go to there.

My DVR is 92% full. This is ridiculous. I have to delete shows before watching them. What kind of Winter Madness does not allow for TV consumption? That's grounds for investigation right there, Exhibit D.

The Supreme Court ruled today that corporations have the same rights as a person. This makes sense. Afterall, I broke up with AT&T, TJ Maxx is my secret lover, Apple and I have a love-hate relationship, I belong to Google, I have a crush on Ford, I'm in bed with OrangeSoda, and NBC is my mortal enemy. What could be wrong with all that? Wait, unless someone forgot to attend the Difference Between Personification and PEOPLE Symposium at the law school. Oops! Maybe they were too busy making crafts with the wives' club.

Speaking of stupid decisions, I've been meaning to get a pedicure for two months and keep putting off nail trimming until my theoretical appointment. My toe nails are obscenely long.

(Oversharing.)

(Winter Madness.)

(Send help.)

(And soup.)

(With a maid.)

(The soup has the right to vote now, right?)

(Let's bring back poll taxes.)

(MADNESS.)

2009 Madcap Recap

Today's Mama asked me to give them a Recap of 2009. (SPOILER ALERT: I did.)

That's the most recap you're going to get out of me, gang.

Well, maybe a little more:

1. Posts: 116.
2. Babies: 0 new (phew.)
3. Pounds gained/lost: It's probably a wash.
4. Cell phone: 1, the whole year, the same one, even though it spent a night in a snow bank two weeks ago.
5. People Offended: I've lost count.
6. People Loved: I've lost count.
7. Houses: 1 new.
8. Cars: 0 new.
9. Tweets: A quadrillion.
10. Facebook: Joined. Thanks to you people.
11. Social Media Anxiety: NONE
12. Haircuts: 2 (We haven't talked about how I tried to grow my hair out this year, have we? Well that was an exercise in both futility and horror.)
13. Love matches made: 0 (I suck.)
14. Skullcandy headphones: 4.
15. Baby and wedding showers: Sometimes I wish I drank.
16. Glasses of water: 2920
17. Toddlers weaned: 1.
18. School-age children: 1.
19. Burgers eaten: Wow, more than every other year added together thanks to The Project and the boys I work with everyday (who must eat meat or faint like delicate lilies.)
20. Voice mails answered: None, as of 12/5/09, and no more going forward.
21. Rock Band: Conquered.

Spinning

Based on a hastily conducted and incomplete survey, all creative people get spinning days. There are lots of days: bad days, good days, miserable days, I-just-can't-believe-it days, but the strangest of all are the spinning days.

The thoughts come so fast, spilling into one another, that you feel light-headed. Even though you try to get a grip on your brain, it doesn't work, and you keep spinning, spinning, spinning. You try to narrow your eyes to focus, but it doesn't work like that; your vision doesn't need to focus, it's your brain.

You can't pick a task, you certainly can't finish a task, as soon as you decide on one thing your thoughts move to the next, and the next, and the next. Holding a conversation becomes nearly impossible. A person is talking and you can't respond to the last thing they said because you've already moved 9 steps ahead. You say words and then stop in the middle of sentence, trying to retrace where you were when the thought went skipping beyond your grasp only to have it replaced by 18 more thoughts. The deluge is too much.

Do spinning days happen before creatively productive periods, or after? Are they the precursor to clever ideas, or the fall out from highly concentrated brainstorming? Can a pattern be found? A friend wrote once that there are idea people and execution people. Idea people divine brilliant ideas but won't see them to fruition. Execution people don't often have ideas, but they know a good one and can take an idea to unprecedented places. Do you know which you are? I love execution people because my rush of ideas can't go anywhere without their measured steps. Execution people don't have spinning days, do they? I doubt it, their mental organization is too regimented. Meanwhile, here I sit, moving faster than light.

Sometimes I can control the spinning with noise-canceling headphones and loud music aimed through my ears to the firing synapses; neural counter-pressure. Other days focus eludes me no matter what I do. I hopelessly blink while the whirl speeds images and ideas through my consciousness. Whiz-bang-flash.

Do you spin?

Are you?

Have you?

Nice Neighborhood

My new house is in a nice neighborhood. It's a neighborhood that without the significant downturn in the housing market we would never have been able to afford (thanks, Giant Pool of Money and Credit Default Swaps!) The manse is not a small house and is in need of some updating. We will be doing this updating in tiny increments so as not to interfere with our giant string cheese budget.

The funny thing is, people assume all kinds of things about us and our neighborhood. All kinds of solicitors try to get us to do stupid stuff. There was a dude yesterday who was selling a service of moving pictures from film to CDs. Really? I can't even express this problem without my brain growing an aneurysm. You want us to pay you to do something that we could easily do ourselves? And you want us to pay you to move a format that we no longer use to a format that we no longer use? GOBSMACKED. When Other Half got after the solicitor, the dude responded with, "Well, everyone is selling something."
Other Half removed that notion from the dude's cranium using lots of fancy mean words and some growling. He'll turn this place into the 'hood, like his native Florida, before we know it. Just kidding. Other Half didn't live in the 'hood (but Florida is still a hole with no mountains and lots of insane people.)

Can we talk about the fliers rubber-banded to our door? We have a few every day. I wish I could count the number of fliers pitching plastic surgery that are attached to the handles. REALLY? I know I live in a fancy neighborhood, but come on. If your idea of marketing technology involves advertising by neon rubber-band fliers, I would never, not in a million years, use your plastic surgery skillz.

A rumor has floated around for years, I even heard it when I was a child, that our neighborhood hands out full-size candy bars. THIS IS NOT TRUE. Even if it was, we will not be handing out full-size candy bars, not even the gross ones. I think we are going the individual M&M route this holiday, maybe it will confuse the hordes of strangers (honestly, they unload by the van-full) who descend on our streets in search of a full-sized Kit-Kat. NEWSFLASH: Put three fun-sized Kit-Kats together and it's THE SAME as a full-size bar. Do the math, or knock on our door and ask Other Half to do the math for you.

On that note, I'm going to bed, before midnight, because Hell called and they saw flurries.

Help with a Shower?

I need to help throwing a baby shower; it seems I'm fresh out of great ideas lately.

The shower is at work, this Wednesday, and I can't spend too much money. Yes, it's in a conference room, so we need to make it not look so much like a conference room. Do you have ideas on cute decorations that wouldn't cost too much, but yet look classy and awesome? I do have rubber ducky cake pins pictured above from Darlybird.com, should I use or not use? Our showerette is having a girl, their first baby, and this might possibly be their ONLY shower, so I'd like to make it special.

Somedays I got the party mojo, and somedays I don't. Help me Internets!


Oh, and catch me and just one of my selfish obsessions over at Segullah today.

This is What I’m Doing Instead of Blogging: Reading Your Blog

Probably the most boring thing I could write about is how the sale of my condo and purchase of my house is going. The shortest thing I can say is that we’re currently engaged in NASA-level nail biting and professional finger crossing at the same time (which is killing my manicure, believe me.) We closed on the house today, but it’s not over yet, and we aren’t going to have news until Friday.

We had an hour this morning between 11am and 12pm that was one of the most stressful periods of my life, and that includes the time that we fought over whether or not our month-old family would be one of “those” families that had Christmas trees (His argument: Couldn’t we just drive around and look at lights? My argument: I WANT A DIVORCE.)

The next most boring thing I could write is how cute and awesome my kids are. But they just are, and you need to deal with that or stop reading this blog. Like how E.G. asked me tonight as we were walking up the stairs, “Do you hear the wind, mom?”
“Yes.”
“Those are just the words coming in from another state.”

DID YOU DIE? BECAUSE I TOTALLY DIED. And then I decided that he can also be a poet-philosopher along with an architect, physicist, engineer, neurosurgeon, and, if he has time, an ambassador.

I could also tell your bored self about how I made a fool of myself at Book Club 2 last night, including inappropriate references to an email forward I once received that had a picture of a fairy and a certain religious figure. Not Mohammad. And then how I tried to tell a story of something that happened at church the other week and instead of it coming out respectful, yet conscious of the inherent humor, it came out mean and nasty (which of course I am, but who wants to show that side to people?)

The last most boring thing I could write is how Other Half is watching Point Break, again.

It turns out that I’m flat-out boring.

You should probably just go find a chore chart instead of reading this.

I Feel Like Phoning Into This Blog Today

“Hey blog, so uhm, how’s it going?”

“Good. It’s good. Yeah…good.”

“I guess that’s good.”

“Listen, uh, it’s been like over a week since you last posted something.”

“Oh really, it doesn’t really seem like a week.”

“Over a week.”

“Right, well, who’s counting?”

“I am. Look, do you remember back in the day before you used Google Reader?”

“I think so, gosh it’s been years.”

“Do you remember refreshing people’s blog pages and checking constantly for them to update?”

“I didn’t really have a lot to do at work back then, so I vaguely remember that.”

“Well you were all, 'I hate when people go a week without updating, I mean seriously, is it that hard to just write something?'”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, nice Judgey McJudgerson. Guess the stiletto is on the other foot now, isn’t it?”

“I meant to write something, really, I did.”

“Right.”

“No seriously. I had this whole post planned the other night about how I hate red roses with baby’s breath and how my husband gets them every year for me. And how he called me on the phone as I was leaving work to suggest something…”

“Go on.”

“Well, I have to save what he suggested, because it was pretty good. And by pretty good I mean it made me so angry I couldn’t see straight. I fumed as I drove to the grocery store. A lesser writer would have told you that they ‘literally’ fumed to emphasize how upset they were, but I am not and have never been in danger of spontaneous combustion, nor am I on fire.”

“Oh yeah, we all know what a ‘great’ writer you are.”

“Shut it. Like I was saying, as soon as I walked into the store there were 30 arrangements of red roses and baby’s breath and it was like ZEUS HIMSELF WAS IN LEAGUE WITH MY HUSBAND TO CAUSE ME ANGUISH and frustration at the general lack of floral integrity in this world.“

“And…”

“I went to Cooking Club and got all the rage out in front of them instead.”

“They don't want to hear your narcissistic take on flowers. What else did they say?”

“I think they were generally shocked at my level of outrage. It probably seemed a little over the line. But then Nemesis made a rape of Nanking joke and I collapsed into giggles.”

“Hardly seems a joking matter.”

“Guess you had to be there.”

"Clearly."

One More Clip Ought to Do it

I know it’s popular to cheer for the underdogs at the Olympics and much of my participation over the years falls right in line with the Olympic spirit. Not this year. It’s not that I’m simply cheering for the USA, the underdog, or for the last competitor to finish the race; it’s that I’m actively jeering other competitors.
There’s something about the Chinese women’s gymnastics team that just brings out my gym-nasties.

Maybe it’s that they’ve sent toddlers to do the job of teenagers, maybe it’s that they’re wearing a hair clip for every person in China, but I cannot countenance it.

“Fall, fall, fall!” I chanted at the TV during every the individual event. I know that one shouldn’t abuse the power of The Secret, but I did. And then the Polly Pockets did fall. Ha. You suck at the balance beam! All that training, those years (all two of them) when you were ripped away from your family, and now you have failed your country. That’s what you get when Mrs. Xian’s fourth grade class is your national gymnastics team.

I felt a little bad when the one miniature gymnast let a tear roll down her cheek, but what’s done is done, I let the energy out in the universe and she paid the price. Someone hand her a pacifier.

It all came back to me (thanks, The Secret!) when my very own toddler informed me, “Oh no, when you put me to bed it was just a NAP and even though it’s 1am it’s time to play!” He insisted it was time to rock ‘n roll again at 2, and then from 3 to 4:30am. El Guille, the preschooler, decided to pick a fight with me because he also wanted to sleep in our bed. Uh-uh, I could see that train coming a mile away. We’re all in the queen size bed. The baby decides he wants to play, El Guille decides since the baby is playing he can start playing too, I’m trying to keep everyone quiet while trying to sleep (impossible?) and my spouse decides to smother us all because he has to wake up in just three hours to teach the Future of America.

The giant amount of sleep that I got results in this type of action: I’m looking around my desk, trying to find where I put my phone, while I’m ON A PHONE CALL.

Overall Results:
Degree of Difficulty yelling at the Chinese Gymnasts: 7.5
Execution: 9.00
(Highest possible score: 16.5)
Deductions--Toddler in play mode, preschooler in beg/whine mode, amount of sleep, required ounces of caffeine to function, equals total score:

14.80

Ouch.

More Things the Internets Have Taught Me

I pride myself in not being squeamish. Sure, artificial food colors gross me out, but really, it’s not like I have to cover my head with newspaper and chant a mantra (baby steps, baby steps, baby steps,) when faced with red 40.

All of this goes double for phobias; I don’t think I have any genuine phobias. Well, I didn’t have any phobias. As with most things (shoes, music, metastatic brain cancer,) the Internet lets you find new phobias that you didn’t know existed but you know that you must have:

German woman claims phobia of official letters

BERLIN - A German court has ruled against a woman who claimed a phobia of official letters in her appeal against authorities' decision to cut off child support benefits.

The finance court in western Rhineland-Palatinate state said Wednesday that the woman was sent a letter in May 2007 asking that she supply evidence to support continued payments for her daughter.

After she failed to respond, she was notified in July 2007 that the money was being cut off and given a month to appeal. Only in September did she reply and supply the requested documents — telling authorities, who threw out her appeal because it was too late, that she had a phobia of official correspondence. source.

You guys, I totally have that phobia! I hate opening my mail; it’s so boring, and apparently incredibly frightening. Sometimes I go weeks without opening my mail, other weeks I don’t even know where I put my mail (unconscious self-protection device?) What I thought was just sloth and laziness is actually a debilitating condition that might require years of therapy and intense introspection. I’m so excited!

Nope, Can't Write About That

I was on such a blogging high a couple weeks ago, I had so much to write about and so little time! And then, through a combination of work, sore wrists and the need to sleep occasionally, I took a small break from the computer.

Oh, the horror! I lost my writing mojo! I'm in a slump, can't find a thing to write about.

Besides being sterile (day 5 of 15) El Guille has been remarkably good. When he comes to wake me in the morning he stands next to my bed and hands me my glasses. "Time to get out of bed. Here you go, put on your glasses so you can see." I feel almost like I'm being taken care of, or at the very least conned into getting out of bed. Nothing much to write about there.

Proximo is crawling and being adorable. More adorable than your babies (maybe stirring up baby rivalries will work?)

I can't complain. I'm trying to, but I can't. I've been treated well, or at least passably, at every store and location of business.

My watch gave up the ghost, but writing about my dead watch could possible be the.most.boring.blog.ever.

Dear Watch,
You were so great. Remember that time I put you on? And that other time? Remember when I scratched you? Or all those times I took you to get your battery changed? Remember how one of my ex-boyfriends gave you to me and my husband doesn't know that I still wore you because, blast it, you're a really nice expensive watch?
So long, Watch.

See? Snoozeville.

I could get angry at the Writer's Guild of America because all of our new programs are about to stop. Yeah, let me try that.

Dear Writers,
What's with you trying to get more money for the stuff that you wrote? You capitalist pigs! We should collectivize the entire Metro L.A. area! You know that the intellectuals are always the first to go! I'm going to get really angry with you again in 12-18 months when there are marginally less movies to see!

Your friend,
Azucar


That's not really going to fly.

I haven't cooked anything interesting lately either. I hardly think that last Sunday, when I added water to tomato paste because we were out of marinara of any type, qualifies as excitement. Wait! The can of paste I only half-used had no expiration date--that's interesting, right? Then again, we're all still alive (as of Tuesday) so that's boring, too.

I have yet to get wound up politically (don't worry, that day is coming.) I did find out this juicy little tidbit from my mom tonight: "I went to school with Mitt Romney. We lived in Boston at the same time. We knew each other. I'm NOT voting for Mitt." Oooooh, snap! Hmm. Maybe drumming up an non-existent feud between my mom and Mitt Romney would be fun.

I don't even have that pessimistic sense of dread (horribilization) that causes me to shake my fist at the good times in preparation and fear of impending doom. I kind of miss that sense of doom, at least it gives you a good adrenaline rush.

Could I be content? Is this what content and thankful are like? It's so anticlimactic.

Dulce de Leche

I tried to make dulce de leche the other night. Normally, this involves boiling a can of sweetened condensed milk in a pot of water for three hours. It says right on the can not to boil it in the can. Yeah, right, nobody puts baby in a corner. I’ve never had a can blow up on me; sending shrapnel into my head and the cottage cheese ceiling in some glorious jihad for caramel. Of course, since my dad warned me this could happen, I've been super careful (and/or paranoid) about it for years.

That was before I had Proximo and lost my mind.

I put a can on to boil last week. You must check the pot often to make sure it has water inside it—you know, because when you boil water it evaporates. Still with me?

So I’d put a can on to boil and promptly forgot about it. Time for some relaxing on the couch with the babies. I started recalling all the good crème brulees I’ve had, including the one I shared with Sarah K. in April and one from years ago at Restaurant Roy. It was like I could taste AND smell them. Curiously, I could also hear some strange pops and other noises coming from the kitchen.

Oh, yeah, I left a can with contents under pressure on direct heat. I am awesome.

I was terrified to even go into the kitchen—what if it exploded right then? So I held up my arm to my eyes…I don’t need that right arm anyway. On the stove the can was weeping burnt sugar and the seams were twisted metal. I took it off the heat, thanking my lucky stars I had gotten it off the stove in time. I should have asked my lucky stars why they weren’t reminding me to put water in the pot, like I’ve been doing for 25 years.

Last night, I decided to try another method I’d read about: microwaving the sweetened condensed milk. Relax, I poured it out of the can first, I’m not that far gone. Even with the micro on half power, it bubbled over the glass bowl several times. I kept stopping the micro and stirring with my spatula to prevent more boiling over.

On about the 8^th stir, I pulled the spatula out and noticed that half of the spatula was no longer there. What? I grabbed the bowl out of the micro and set it on the counter. I fished out several large pieces of plastic, but noticed other pieces disintegrating in front of my eyes. Yes, I had melted plastic into the dulce de leche. It smelled weird. It had an oddly non stick quality. I briefly considered feeding it to my family anyway. I said briefly, right?

If you can stand the adventure, have some dulce de leche. It's delicious with apples, on bread, and uhm, straight from a spoon for you die hards. I don't happen to have any at my house right now.

You can always wimp out and buy it at your local latin market if you're not into X-Treme Kitchen Sports.

I don’t like to unnecessarily toot my horn, but I’m really good at talking on the phone. You could call me at any time and I’m likely to pick up, sound welcoming, and engage in witty repartee.

I’ve joked about it, but sometimes, I really want to charge people for phone calls. Why? Because I am the answer service. Lucky likes to call me to get directions. She also calls to ask on which aisle of ‘X’ store can you find product ‘Y’ (don’t let the x & y thing throw you algebra phobs; now that I’m married to a math teacher I have license to throw ‘stuff you can solve for’ into regular conversation.) I get emergency baking calls, recipe dialers, trivia questioners, and all sorts of other folks just dropping me a line.

Sadly, we have fallen on rough times. A curious side effect of these baby blues is fear…

Fear of the phone.

I don’t want to answer it. I don’t want to talk. I don't want to make a call. I’m no Clark, but now I know how they feel. I just can’t keep up the user experience that my callers deserve.

My verbal skills have taken a dive. That’s the first thing to go when I am tired. I can’t talk. The words are right there, like a teletype in my head, but they just don’t come out. Inside I want to say, “Will you please fix the overturned chair?” but I look at Other Half and stutter, “Uhm…you….uh…chair?” Like a MONKEY, or someone from Levan.

I’ve been crummy company at two social events this week. I tried to speak as I do normally (with some verbal acuity, trust me) and I ended up sounding conventional, maybe even boring. There were some serious lags in convo—this from a chick who was once offered a job (it was only slightly facetious) to come to dinner parties and cocktail events to spark debate and lively discourse. I’m pretty sure the invitations are going to cease, which is just as well. There’s no need to inflict another run of the mill conversationalist on the world.

Now when the phone rings I just feel a sense of dread.

I am going to have to talk to someone.

Can’t I just text you?

Drop an email?

Don't make my tongue put one word in front of another.

It did not happen in Ream's Frozen Foods department.

I was at Target tonight at closing and my water broke on the shower curtain aisle!

Just kidding. Wouldn't that have been awesome? I really thought about how apropos that would have been as I picked up a new mosaic patterned shower curtain. The truth is I'm in a bit of a blog stupor lately. Hmm, what? Ok, ok, I'm just in a stupor; the blog is just part of it.

The stupor does not allow me to remember dates and event lineally, but it does work just fine with nesting. I have a great new shower curtain (I even took down the shower rod and scrubbed it clean.) Tons of projects have been completed around the house, although the housekeeping is slipping. Anyone can do the dishes; I’m the only one I trust to hang a new piece of wall art. The dishes may be still in the sink, but the hallway is looking spiffy!

People ask me (ALL THE TIME) if I’m tired of being pregnant. Not per say, I’m just tired of my maternity clothes. All of my stuff is fall/winter oriented and seeing all the great spring items makes me jealous. It doesn’t help that I’m about to enter the weird body zone. I want some new clothes, but I don’t know what size I’m going to be.

Preggos tell each other all the time that by X date they’ll either be back to normal or even smaller than they were before. The reality is a little more fluid. I remember going shopping with Tiff-fay-fay when she was 9 months pregnant with her first. At the beginning of November, she picked out a TINY pair of pants for herself to wear New Years Eve. “Don’t you think I’ll be at least back to that size by then?” she asked. Bowler Girl and I looked at each other. I said, tentatively, “Maybe you’ll want to give yourself a little more time…”

We all know the ladies that are back in their pre-preg clothes two weeks after baby. I am not that girl. Instead, I have a couple pieces that serve as bridge items until I can fit the upper end of my fat wardrobe. It’s hard to invest in clothes that you may only wear for a month or two. Since I’ll probably be working, again, after 6 weeks off, just slumming in sweats and forgivable clothes won’t be an option. The problem is two pronged: no money and a bad case of vanity. I guess I could do something about the vanity, but who wants that?!

In the meantime I can be patient. I guess this time around, the price of vanity is to learn patience. Patience about everything: work, clothes, house, housekeeping, and the baby that will not come to the amazement, amusement, and incredulity of the medical community.



p.s. if you have a minute, wander over to my friend manderate's blog to be one of "A Hundred People Surveyed..."