Hey there

It’s been a while. I’ve been a little busy. I took two classes this past couple of months, a fiction workshop at the university where I work, and guitar lessons. Both are done for now, I might resume the guitar lessons in January. Re: the fiction class, I feel like I accomplished what I set out to. I had to write, so I did. AND I let other people read and critique what I wrote without curling into a ball whilst I screamed bloody murder. I wanted to, though. Every class session my stomach would get agitated and would grumblegrumblegrumble as loud as embarrassingly possible. Every. class. session. One time people actually commented on it.  I die. So now I am enjoying some down time, which isn’t much with work and parenthood. But still! There is a sliver.

The boys are both changing in leaps and bounds. Mad Miles is almost walking, he’s pulling himself up and crawling and sitting down on his own. He just cut his first tooth, 3 months before Z got his! He loves to yank my and Andy’s hair, he actually pushes my head to the side while he’s breastfeeding to get a better grip. He pulls DVDs out on the floor, and is really good at dumping my cereal all over my lap. He also is fascinated by any room that he’s not allowed to crawl in (kitchen, bathroom).

Z’s vocabulary has doubled. He’s talking in complete sentences. He blesses me when I sneeze and tells Mad that everything is okay when he screams and cries.  He mimics everything! He actually tried to say Pachycephalosaurus yesterday. Both are incredibly needy, and they only seem to need ME. This is very stressful, because I can’t even go to the bathroom without either of them freaking out. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

I bought a new skirt at Anthropologie. It has pockets. POCKETS! I would never have noticed it on the website, but I saw it in the store and LOVED it. The material is thick and warm and lovely.

I also got a new pair of rain/snow boots since my awesome pair from JCrew are far too big. They’re Tretorns and green and basically the most comfy things evar.

I recently saw the thing that is New Moon with Meg and Sara. I had to cover my face several times during the movie. It was all kinds of ridiculous. The hungry kissing, the excessive pecs, and Kristen Stewart’s FACE were just too embarrassing. Oh and Edward’s slow motion walk from his Volvo at the beginning. O_O FOR REAL TWIHARDS? I’m also trying to understand why Graham Greene thought it necessary to take on “Drunken friend who dies so that Edward could mistake his death for Bella’s and do something completely cheesy and dramatic in Italy”. There’s GOT to be something better out there for Native actors, right? RIGHT? *looks around* Oh, right. And back to KS: I swear. to God. Probably the most irritating actress ever. Keeps the hair mussing, lip biting schtick on repeat and it has got to stop!

Andy and I are watching the rest of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince tonight. I’m not feeling it just yet, maybe the last half will win me over. The problem could be that I couldn’t understand a fucking word anyone said. British people! Open your mouths and enunciate!!

The End

For next time: the glory of The Room!

//<—I hate you WordPress.

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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.

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!

What’s in a name?

This book sucks

Z is obsessed with the alphabet. OBSESSED. He knows at least half of the letters so far (if not more), genius that he is. And you can’t read a book to him without him either cutting you off and insisting that you tell him exactly what EVERYTHING is (even things that I can’t really define….what is that? A thingamajig? Ummm…that’s a shadow.) or incessantly repeating a word until you echo it, even though you thought you’d already moved on. He will not move on unless he’s damn good and ready, and with each utterance of the word his pronunciation gets even more adorable.

“Apple! A-pple! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaapple! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPLE!”

“Yes! Apple. That’s good sweetie. Okay, B is for bus…”

He’s having a hard time with Q since it looks like an O, but I could have sworn I heard something resembling a Q today. YES! I’m thinking of buying some alphabet cards to put on the wall in his room, he’ll love that.

He’s also getting better about calling animals by their names and not simply calling anything and everything a dog. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves: most things are still dogs. Everything in a Dr. Seuss book is probably a dog, since there literally is the lack of a better word. Or it might be a bird. He likes birds. One day when we were on a walk around the neighborhood (FINALLY got a double stroller – I love it!) We had to stop and stare for about five minutes at a crow collecting twigs and stuff for it’s nest while Z screeched “Birrrrd. BIIIIIRD.” The thing finally flew away and Z kept twisting around to look for it so I said, “Bye bye birdie.” to signal that it was time to move on. Now every time he sees a bird he says, “Buh-bye. Buh-bye birdie. Buh-bye.” Precious? Indubitably.

Watch me segue:

Speaking of proper names, I would never have thought Madrox would be so darn hard for everyone to pronounce. Really people? This was an honest to God exchange between me and my step-mil:

MIL: So it’s….Mad Rocks?

Me: Ma-drox.

MIL: Mad Rocks?

Me: Madrox.

MIL: Mad Rocks?

Me: *sigh* Just call him Mad.

FIL: *barks out a laugh* Mad?! Really! Mad? That’s CRAZY TALK.

Um. Yeeeeeeah. I hope he never has a friend named Richard.

Little Miss Preggers

I CAN’T BELIEVE THAT I’M STILL PREGNANT!

I had a dream last night that I just reached up inside of my uterus and pulled little Madrox out. *sigh* It was a good dream.

I’m not even technically late yet, but I’m anxious. This is the most pregnant I have ever been people! I just want my body back. I want to meet little Mad and smell his sweet baby smell. I want to wear cute clothes again. I want to be able to hug Andy close. I’m so not good at delayed gratification. You should call me Veruca Salt because I WANT IT NOW!

*ahem*

I really wish I could justify paying almost 50 bucks for this:

AWESOME

The brand is Kids Ink, and pretty much everything in the entire catalog is around that price unless it’s on sale. It’s also all crazy cute stuff. WANT.

Yeah, hi.

Who doesn’t love a ninja baby????

Hey, can someone custom make this outfit for Mad?

This is me being a geek.

Thanks…

You’re welcome

My coworker Kerrie and I got some delicious Thai food for lunch today at a place called Tsunami Thai (the sticky rice sucked though). A lot of people have commented on how inappropriate the name of the restaurant is due to the tsunami that ravaged Thailand four years ago, so I came up with some other names that might work better:

Snowstorm Thai

Neat and Thaidy

Thaired of Thai?

All Thaid Up

and the bestest name EVAR: Thaifood fever (GEDDIT???)

Yeah…you’re welcome.

We love to see you grimace

There’s a McDonalds commercial that comes on the radio every morning when I’m driving to work (one of the many reasons I hate the radio):

Woman (thinking): Oh I know she did not just cut ahead of me in line…(speaks aloud) Excuse me, I know you saw me standing here. You better be glad I already had my <disgusting McDonalds meal of some name or another> or it would be on! Whoooo! *cackling laughter*

Hey drivers/pedestrians? Don’t mind me and my violently swerving vehicle. I’m not actually trying to kill you, my mind just melted. Are there really people out there who listen to that and think, “I’ve been in her shoes! Where’s the nearest McDonalds?”

And speaking of fast food, all free food is not created equal. I’ll get rid of 10 Facebook friends for something delicious, but a Whopper? SICK. My dad used to take advantage of the “whopper for a dollar” thing when I was in grade school/junior high and when picking me and my siblings up, would toss one to each of us with gusto. We’d get excited because we never got to eat out that much. But I’d always eat about a quarter of it and then chuck it. Nevermind the fact that mayo was slathered over every inch of the thing, it just tasted like ass. It’s been well over a decade since I ate a whopper and who knows? They might’ve improved it. But it’s Burger King so I doubt it.

Goodbye 2008

Some Christmas shots.

Okay, two things:

1. Forgetting Sarah Marshall is a horrible movie. HORRIBLE. Who are these people that think it’s “outrageously funny”??? Because that’s what all the reviews said. Are they on crack? They must be on crack. The funniest thing about the movie was Jason Segel’s penis and even that was only sort of funny because…it was right there. Ya know, out in the open. Everything just seemed so forced. The jokes, the conversation, the connection between Mila Kunis and Segel…and the Dracula puppet opera? NO. NOT COOL. Not even Bill Hader could save it for me. Segel is so much better as the sidekick, the greasy creepy friend who says things like, “You know who I wanna bang? Felicity Huffman. After Transamerica I just can’t get her out of my mind.”

I can’t take him seriously romancing a girl, I just can’t. I keep picturing him singing “Lady” to Lindsay and thinking, “You’re so fucking corny!” Maybe he should just be the magical caucasian who has no other duty in life but to prop up his friends and bail them out when necessary. Harsh?

2. Runaways is the shit. Why did it take me so long to read it? Andy has been pressuring me for a while to crack it open. I should’ve known I’d love it since it’s written by Brian K Vaughan (who also wrote Y:The Last Man). It’s the story of these kids who find out a terrible truth about their parents (they’re a part of an evil organization called The Pride…DUNDUNDUN) and then they…run away. No but seriously, action/romance/hilarity ensues. Some kids find out they have powers, others get really cool toys to play with. I’m such a girl but Gert and Chase really make me all warm and fuzzy inside. The sucky thing is, Vaughan is just like Whedon in that he kills off the brightest and the best (even though it’s hard to say that because all of the characters rock) so that your heartstrings get ripped the fuck out. It’s the best.

Since I have been holed up in this house for so long (not anymore…the snow has melted! YES!), I’ve been reading a lot of graphic novels/comics: Watchmen, The House of M, Son of M, and am now reading Madrox. I’m sure Andy is pleased. 🙂

This post had nothing to do with 2008. Ah well.

Oh! uh…I was 31 weeks yesterday. It’s getting closer…

Hamsters is nice

Oh Anthropologie. Why must you tempt me so? Too bad they’re three hundred bucks and some change.

And here are some shoes of the cheaper but still insanely cute variety: Frill and Mad by Jeffrey Campbell. Soon. SOON.

It’s colder than it looks outside. Although it snowed this weekend, the sun is shining and I keep thinking that it won’t be so bad when I open the door but then a cold breeze of death hits my face and I feel like shouting, “FRICK!” really loudly. So. Staying inside at all times sounds about right. Except for the whole work thing.

This weekend I was curled up on the couch a good 99.9% of the time. When I wasn’t watching Z (i.e. letting him crawl all over me) I was watching episodes of Firefly. The fact that there’s only 14 episodes still burns me up inside. Soooo good. Current favorites: Jaynestown, Out of Gas, Objects in Space, and Shindig. Although Wash is  “space Xander” he’s 10 times more hilarious. His reaction in Jaynestown when the mudders start singing “The Hero of Cantan”? “Wacky fun…”??? Kills. me. I still want to throttle Joss Whedon every time I watch the show or the movie, the jerk. God, it would be a dream of mine to be able to go to a Firefly/Serenity convention. *looks at Andy*

Here are some shots of me with child:

26 wks

28 wks

29 weeks tomorrow! Not even to the 30 week mark and I’m already insanely uncomfortable!

A week left of work and then a week and a half of glorious vacation! Unfortunately Andy will still be working so I won’t get to enjoy it that much. Next year I hope to spend that time in California with our families instead.

Book Review: 10 Little Monkeys

I haven’t had time to pick up that many books lately, but I managed to read this book about 300 times in the last year. Go figure. And what I’ve found after even the first read was this: this book is repetitive. Almost too repetitive. The “author” uses pretty much the same words on every page but for one or two exceptions. There is no pretense that this book is going to be anything more than monkeys jumping on a bed, it’s direct and to the point.

The book left a bad taste in my mouth. The mother character was so neglectful that each of her 10 children (where is the father??) ends up with massive head injuries by the end. She is also CRAZY intrusive, busting in on the doctor at home and at his other appointments with no regard for his privacy. And each and every time he gives her his advice, she decides not to take it!

If you’re looking for substance, keep looking. But if you like monkeys, you might like this.

No stars.