Dry Ice

So I went to Baskin Robbins to pick up an ice cream cake for my co-worker’s twenty-eighth birthday. The woman behind the counter asked, “Are you going to deposit this in a freezer in no more than ten to fifteen minutes?”

I glanced at the clock. “No, I was hoping to eat it before then. That might not happen, though.”

She gave me a look and told me that she could cover the cake in dry ice to keep it cool for a little while longer.

“Great!” I said. You can put dry ice on food? I thought. I didn’t know a lot about dry ice. I still don’t.

“Don’t touch it with your hands and put it directly in the sink,” she told me. For some odd reason, I instantly wanted to put my tongue on some dry ice, and that scared me. I tried not to look too worried. “Okay.”

When I got to the office I opened the box and looked inside. A wee bit of smoke curled up. Cool. But even as I marveled, I knew I had to get rid of that stuff quick. Who knew what I would manage to do with it? Eat it, touch it, whatever you AREN’T supposed to do with dry ice, that’s what I would do. So I grabbed a huge stack of napkins and awkwardly picked up a large chunk to deposit in a coffee mug. All of a sudden there was a ton of smoke coming off of it, a la Tales From the Crypt.  I dropped it back on the cake. I took a deep breath and tried again. I managed to get two chunks in the mug without freaking out. Then the ice started shaking a bit and making a weird noise inside the mug – a high pitched squeak. I yelped.  I found a pair of tongs in the silverware drawer and took the dry ice out of the mug and plopped it back on the cake. I finally decided to deposit the dry ice into a stack of coffee filters and then onto a basket plate. You know, protective layers. I grabbed the basket plate with the tongs and proceeded to walk through the office, out the door, and down the hall to the bathroom making sure to look very casual about my smoking plate of hellfire.

Once I got in the bathroom, I debated putting the dry ice in the toilet and flushing but I kept having images of some unlucky soul with a freezer-burned anus so I scrapped that idea. I decided to put it in the sink. I ran water over the ice to get it to melt quicker. Sooner or later the entire sink was filled with smoke, and the dry ice was vibrating again.  “Yikes!” I scooped it up with my tongs and piled it all back on my basket plate. I stared at it for a second. It wouldn’t stop smoking! I’d throw it outside, that’s what I would do. So I walked for the second time past inquisitive eyes to the trash can out in front of the building. I stuck the plate through the top of the trashcan and tilted it slightly. GOAL. Then I promptly went inside and googled how to properly dispose of dry ice. DO NOT THROW AWAY stared back at me. Whoops. I called up Housekeeping and cautioned them about smoking bags of trash.

Ken dolls and teddy bears

My dream last night:

I was at Rite Aid, shopping for who knows what. There was a mother and a daughter there, shopping for underwear. I remember thinking that the mother looked younger than the daughter although her hair was graying. It was in ringlets and hung to her shoulders. She was beautiful. She was telling her daughter that only prison parolees got underwear from Rite Aid. Her daughter laughed. They continued talking – about men, I think. I remember getting out a small notebook and taking notes on their conversation. They didn’t notice. At some point though, I felt the need to talk to them. By the time I did, the mother was gone and the daughter was replaced with an overweight, bald woman. I told her that her mother was beautiful and that “She looks so young!” but as I said it, I thought, I think I have the wrong mother-daughter duo. The daughter was ecstatic. “You should tell her that,” she said. “She’s got a bad body image. It’s her fault – she sleeps with a Ken doll every night. I sleep with a teddy bear. You shouldn’t surround yourself with six packs. A teddy bear has a gut, you know?” I nodded, because even though I thought she sounded crazy, she made a bit of sense.

Malibu Ken needs to give the tanning a rest.

29

My birthday is tomorrow. We’re getting a sitter on Saturday so that we can eat a meal without pausing to take the salt and pepper shakers away from Z, or to shift Mad to the other knee. Maybe then we can enjoy the food we eat instead of shoving it mercilessly into our mouths and down our throats? Good times.  I will miss my little mad men though.

Speaking of which – Z is such a good little mimic, but now he’s also blurting out his own little sentences, mostly commands: Mama sit down on couch, Mama read to yoooooooouuuu, Mama come back. It’s so precious. He also sings! Actual lyrics! But just the catchy ones: he loves the lines “beating like a hammer” (Metric) and “tell me something, tell me something” (David Gray), and “Baby Baby don’t look back” (Fine Young Cannibals, but he says baby baby bo boo back). This is amazing. He must know it too, because whenever we try to capture it on film, he clams up. And Mad Miles – he is a twisting, sitting, scooting, grabbing fool! He is EVERYWHERE. He’ll be crawling any day now, I know it.

Bday presents – Andy got me guitar lessons. I had my first one on Tuesday! It’s slow going, but I am excited.

I got myself this dress:

LOVE

Augh, I can’t wait to wear it. I think my Frye boots and tights would look good with it in the winter, not sure which shoes I should wear with it now. Maybe my black mary janes?  My cream peep toes?

I watched the preview for The Lovely Bones and for the most part it looks really good. But I have two issues with casting: Mark Wahlberg and Reece Ritchie. I don’t think Mark Wahlberg is a bad actor or anything, but now every time I hear him speak I see him talking to animals. Plus, his intonation is off : when he says, “Susie would never go off with a stranger, it had to be someone she knew” – it sounds…sing-songy. Stop it, Mark. Stop talking and just look pretty.

Reece Ritchie as Ray Singh? NO. First of all, when I read the book I envisioned a dark skinned Indian boy. Why? Gee, I don’t know: “he had an accent and was dark…”, “They were fueled by the guilt they read into Ray’s dark skin.”, but apparently dark = gently tanned. Silly me. And the “You are beautiful Susie Salmon” line comes across as creepy based on the fact that he is WELL INTO HIS TWENTIES AND LOOKS IT, and she is a baby faced 15 year old. I get that Ray has to age while Susie stays the same, but couldn’t they have hired a younger actor like they did in The Reader and stuck a bushy beard on him later?

I want this on a shirt:

Make Whoopi

The End.

All I wanted to do was go to the effing movies

Every time someone babysits my kids I kind of freak out a little. I can count the amount of times Andy and I have left the boys in the care of someone else (not counting daycare) on one hand because we’d rather miss out on date night than worry about one of them freaking out and me/us not being there to soothe him/them. Fun with pronouns! Anyway, when Zain was three months old, Andy’s parents were in town and had agreed to babysit while we went to Andy’s company party. I told my father-in-law to hold Z facing outwards if he got upset and he’d immediately calm down. That little tidbit of information, I explained, was really all he needed. Cut to two hours later when my fil calls us at the party, little Z screaming in the background.

“He’s been crying for an hour nonstop!” my fil said. “I really think something’s wrong with him.”

“TURN HIM AROUND.” Andy coached.

“Oh, hey, it’s working!” my fil yelled (he yells a lot). “Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?” ARGH. The evening was shot. I kept hearing Z cry in my head long after Andy hung up the phone. My baby was crying for an HOUR?! Poor little guy. We left the party. Did we overreact? Sure. But we were new parents! You know how it is.

So now every time someone babysits for us, I immediately plan for the worst. “If Zain completely flips out you can try A, B, and C…” I basically freak the babysitter the fuck out before the night’s even begun. You know, start the night off on the right foot and all that. Just trying to do my part. Of course, wouldn’t you know it, Z and Mad were perfect angels. I like to think it was the 2 mile walk that I forced us all to take beforehand that left Z tuckered out and complaisant.

So Andy and I made our way to the theatre sweaty and anxious. Our first roadblock, literally, was that the 405-S was closed that day. We kind of knew this, but we hoped that roadwork had finished the day before and decided to take a chance. Which is probably not the best course of action when you’ve only got ten minutes to spare. YEP. We doubled back the way we came and took the super annoying detour route to our destination. I checked my watch. We were going to miss the previews. Meh. I could live with that, since I watch them all on apple.com anyway. We park.  We figure that since it’s Sunday, we don’t have to pay for a parking sticker. NOPE. As of July 31st or somesuch nonsense, the city of Portland decided to bend us all over and … you get the idea. But HUH? We have to pay for parking on Sundays now? WHAT?! Way to suck Portland. So we go to the machine to buy said sticker. It is broken. We go across the street. It too is broken. We go a block over. The sad song continues, until we finally manage to track down a working machine what felt like ten minutes later. Then we book it to the theatre. THE MOVIE HAD ALREADY STARTED. This irritated me to no end. But I moved on and laughed and cringed and laughed some more.

Got back to the car and guess what? A lovely yellow envelope lay beneath our windshield wipers. Every car on the car sported one, their owners having decided that a broken machine meant they got a free pass. NOPE. And when we pulled the ticket from the envelope? We noticed that we weren’t even ticketed for going over our time limit. One of our tags had fallen off. So basically, Mr/s Douchebag  had to have a full set. Can’t have one car without a ticket!

So many shades of lame!

Compiled random thoughts

Preggo brain is so intense that it sticks around for like a year after the fact. My ability to retain memory is shot. “Oh right!” is a constant refrain for me lately. I’ve also been thinking out loud a lot, which can make things awkward. More fun stuff: My hair has been falling out in handfuls at a time -almost forgot how fun this was last time! Our bathroom floor is always covered with it, no matter what I do. And these last ten pounds aren’t taking a fucking hike. Granted, I’ve slowed down my workout regimen (although I still try for 2-3 times a week). And I continue to eat sugar. It’s just so…GOOD. I’m back to my pre-pregnancy weight, so at least I’ve got that going for me.

But otherwise, life has been pretty good. Andy and I might be zombies but we’ve gotten pretty good at sleepwalking. It’s intense, but worth it. My boys are both changing so much lately, in these really amazing ways that make me want to pause everything for a moment, lest they grow up too fast. Mad is rolling over and scooting around and Zain is mimicking every.single.thing. that Andy and I say. You can imagine. And sometimes, he says other things, things that are completely his own thoughts. It’s cuckoo.Everything is big. That truck? BIG truck. The baby I’m holding? BIG baby!

*is distracted* What is up with the intense heat/chilling cold switcheroos round these parts?  I mean, choose one and go with it, Portland.

Um, what else?

Hey, this skirt is pretty:

I want to buy it and wear it with my current pair of favorite shoes:

Happy Feet

Still haven’t seen 500 Days of Summer, but I will do my darndest to make that happen. Every screenshot I see makes me crave Zooey’s wardrobe. I’m especially drawn to the top (or is it a dress?) below. The “Love will tear us apart” shirt (I see what you did there) is also awesomesauce.

I’m starting a class the end of this month. It’s a short story workshop. I’m equal parts nervous and excited. I haven’t taken a class in almost 9 years (!), I hope I can get back on that bicycle and ride it into the sunset. Am I crazy for adding one more thing to my already heaping plate of responsibilities?

Work it harder make it better

This DVD has been kicking my ass. I’m slowly making my way to completing the full workout but. WOW. It’s  physically impossible really hard. I never knew I could sweat (or grunt) so much. Crazy beans.

The last month or so I have been trying to eat right and exercise several times a week. I’m two pounds away from my pre-pregnancy weight and I want to be 10 pounds less than that as well. I feel like I can notice a difference when I look in the mirror, but for now it just seems like a lot of thankless work (I was asked if I was pregnant again! Wah). These last ten pounds are not coming off without a fight! I try to drink mostly water and a LOT of it. No juice or soda (hardly ever drank it anyway) but I do occasionally have an Izze (which is simply nectar from the gods). I’ve switched to whole grain pastas and cereals. The only change to my diet that really gets to me is the chocolate ban  (Chocolate+Madrox=Fartbox). It doesn’t make it any easier to come to work and find a shit load of chocolate filled goodness in the back room: donuts, cheesecake, tootsie rolls. Kill me now. *drools*

I alternate between the Hot Mamas workout, Pilates for Dummies and Pilates Abs Workout DVDs. The last two are quick 30 minute workouts (grunt-lite), so I do those on the nights that I’m feeling lazy. Both Ana Caban and Tracey Thompson have some crazy toe pointing skills. I have a hard enough time lunging and squatting without breaking something. One day, though. ONE DAY.

I try to go to the gym on campus at lunch once or twice a week -I usually do the elliptical machines. I get really self conscious at the gym though, I prefer to sweat at home.

I’m pretty exhausted, but by life in general. There’s never enough time to do everything! But I’m going to keep this up.

Vampires kind of suck

New Moon.

So many things bother me about the trailer for New Moon. KRISTEN STEWART being the main thing. Blinkety blink blink. BLINK. Not feeling the love. And why is her mouth always open? Didn’t anyone ever tell her that a closed mouth catches no flies? No? What I don’t get is that her mouth is closed like a steel trap while “passionately” kissing Edward/Robert (this is also true in Twilight)?! I’m so confused. Ya’ll are supposed to be really into each other right? Like star crossed lovers? You open your mouth when he kisses you young lady!

So I’ve watched Twilight, and while I think the movie is pretty overwhelmingly bad I can’t help but love Robert Pattinson. I feel bad for him, in a way, having to do so many things that are so completely laughable with a straight face-that must be hard! But then he’s probably laughing all the way to the bank, so there’s that.

And then there’s True Blood (Andy and I finished the first season a couple of weeks ago). Don’t get me wrong: the show is right entertaining.  But REALLY?? Sookie Stackhouse can’t beat the men off of her fast enough?  Um, no. Anna Paquin is cute, okay?  But she makes me laugh with her unnecessary intense facial expressions (complete with labored breathing, deep swallows, and if we’re really lucky: a curled lip!) and stilted walk. Not sexy. I especially love how Sookie’s BBFF Tara (Rutina Wesley) has to desperately grab at her sloppy seconds to even get some(!).

My main issue with Paquin is that she can’t really act to save her life (I don’t care that she won an Oscar… when she was ELEVEN).  I mostly kept watching because of Lafayette and Tara, who kept me laughing even when the storyline made me want to scream (Arlene and Terry aren’t so bad either). Andy has already said all of the following before – but there was little to no continuity. Sookie reads minds! Except for now, when it would really come in handy. Right!  That makes total sense. And vampire blood affects everyone differently: Jason drinks a vial and has to have blood drained from his penis, while Sookie drinks that much or more and is just peachy. Kay. I do love that theme song though… I wanna do bad things to you. Hopefully the second season is better.

I sometimes run and chase the moon

Andy’s post on “No Surrender” inspired me to post one of my favorite songs: “Dreamer” by Toni Childs (this post is in no way an answer to his question, btw). I would say “try listening to this without loving it” but Andy actually doesn’t, which leads me to believe that he might not possess a soul. Hope he does though, because that would suck.

I first heard this song when I caught the tail end of The Last Word with Timothy Hutton in the late 90s. The movie had been looping on either HBO or Showtime, so I managed to catch it again and tape the end of the movie and the credits, basically just the part when the song was playing. Who cares about the actual movie right? The funny thing is: I stopped taping before the song information so I didn’t find out what the song was until it popped up again in Moonlight and Valentino. I immediately thought that Whoopi (who was in the movie) was singing for some reason (odd, I know). I did not think the singer looked even remotely like this:

real Toni Childs

but more like this:

played Toni Childs on TV

HA. I crack myself up.

Anyway, I was so excited to finally find out who was singing the song that moved me enough to wait until the end of a movie to tape the credits. I bought the album and although I enjoyed some of her other songs, nothing will ever come close to moving me the way that this one does. I don’t think I’ll ever tire of it. It’s got this other-worldly kind of sound, so achingly beautiful…I just love it.

Trying not to freak out

I dropped the boys off at daycare this morning and I feel incredibly agitated. It’s weird to be in an empty house after 3 months of (mostly) alone time together. I want to relax but I can’t. Argh! This is hard. I have to get back to that place where I can trust someone else to keep my kid(s!) alive/fed/safe. I feel like my spidey senses are working overtime, I’m fighting the urge to drive back over there and check in on them.

Z didn’t even care that I left. He chirped “Buh-bye!” and went back to playing with his cars. I should be relieved that he didn’t kick and scream for me not to leave him, and I guess I am. A little. I want for him to enjoy his time there, I do. But I also want him to miss me. I’m mostly concerned about little Mad since he hasn’t been taking the bottle so well. The center is close enough to the university that I can drop by and breastfeed him if there is ever an emergency, so why can’t I stop worrying? *sigh*

LOVE

When I grow up

I want to be a mechanic like Megan Fox in Transformers.

That's totes how you look under the hood of a car

No one will really care that I don’t actually know how to fix anything as long as I do stuff like this:

I love getting my hands dirty

Yeeeeeeeeeeeah.

In “Revenge,” you flee evil Decepticons for just about the entire movie. At least your male co-stars hauled butt in comfy sneakers — you were in heels!
Megan: Stilettos — and for the last part of the film, motorcycle boots. I had major shinsplints and threw out my back a couple times. Beyond that, Michael likes everyone freakishly tan, so we were painted maroon, like in the old Westerns when they hired Caucasians to play Native Americans. I had on fake eyelashes, running through the desert with sand stuck in them, and I’m sweating off all the makeup. It looked like we were making a tragedy.

For serious???!!! Is that supposed to be a funny anecdote? Because it sounds like a nightmare. But this is just accepted as part of the “Michael Bay experience”. Haha, you know how Bay is! Good times… Argh! I thought she looked dirty in the first film. WTF? So many, many shades of lame.

Here’s an interview with Gabrielle Union re: Bad Boys 2:

UGO:: In that one scene with your wire on that tiny dress – how did that work?

GU: You know, that wire also functioned as my mic for the scene, so it had to work, and we had to make that work. It was very tricky, I will say. Where the pack was…was not the most comfortable of places. You can use your imagination on that one.

UGO:: How are you able to wear those heels?

GU: The Jimmy Choos? They had to go. They cut out this scene where once they save me at the mansion, I have to sprint down the steps, sprint outside, we are running through the thing, jumping into the lagoon, and I am dipping in the grass. They are like, “OK, you look ridiculous.” We had to add this little shot where you see me throwing off my shoes to make it a little more believable, because I was falling down the steps. I was just watching behind-the-scenes footage of the day that we blew up the house, and I’m running down the steps, and you see me falling the whole way down. I don’t know how they cut that together but I was falling the whole way down the steps. It was terrible. Jimmy Choos are made to prance in, not do action movies.

YA THINK???!!!

I hate you Michael Bay.