July 31, 2007

take that, work life balance!

Due to some creative summertime childcare arrangements (read: we don't really have any!), my husband and I are working split-shifts during the day and then logging on again at night after the kids are both in bed. In the mornings, I drop the Bean off at his half-day camp then squeeze in a quick workout before coming home to cram in as much communications directing as I can before taking over care of the Miss from my husband so he can work in the afternoon. As a result, I am channeling my Inner Housewife during my newly "free" afternoons, cheerfully announcing to the children that I'll be cleaning the kitchen! Doing laundry! "Let's get in the car, guys, we have to go to the bank AND the post office today!"

This is amusing to me because in reality, I am a miserable housekeeper and chronically stressed out about real and imagined wifely duties such as grocery shopping, sheet folding and I dunno, bills? I am much happier when trying to figure out whether potential web application users would prefer contractions or not. Would they or wouldn't they? For the first time since this breeding thing happened, I am feeling the ass-kickingness of too much to do with inadequate childcare coverage. In September things will calm down a bit, when the Bean's weekday Montessori program will once again click quietly along like beads on an abacus, and our new "parent's helper" who drives a car 10,000 times nicer than anything we'll ever own starts helping with the Miss. Note to future nannies: when arriving to haggle over your proposed rate of pay, do not come driving a silver 2007 Mercedes Something-or-Rather.

Somewhere in the tumult that is this summer, the Bean turned four, I'm throwing a sixtieth birthday party for my mother, my husband's birthday is Friday and oh yeah, our company got accepted into a big conference this fall that means we are all working our butts off for the next two months . Easy breezy! Want to organize the craft cabinet with me?

Posted by Max at 07:19 PM | Comments (0)

June 05, 2007

surplus junk in our hippy trunk

I am a big fan of Peapod, the grocery home delivery service. Sure, there are some limitations with product selection and their website is less than slick, but we've been ordering from them for over a year now and it's become a habit. One of the best features is the ability to "Shop Lists", which means you get a long list of all the stuff you've ever bought there and unimaginative culinary slackers like myself can go through and select the same frozen and/or pre-packed crap they always buy. Presto, the family somehow survives for yet another week.

So last night at around 11 p.m. AND ADMITTEDLY AFTER SOME TEQUILA, I blasted through our weekly order, gave it a quick review, hit the "submit" button and went to bed.

Now, I should back up and say that due to our growing concern about our carbon footprint and in an effort to buy local and just generally trying not to personally fuck up the world so much, I've sworn off grocery stores for several whole categories of items. Such as produce. And fish. Rhode Island has a surprising amount of farmland for such a teeny state and certainly a number of small, local fish markets, including a recently discovered CLAM SHACK that sells seafood so fresh it's booty-popping as it slides deliciously down your craw.

I perhaps should have noticed that the final dollar amount for last night's order, while about what it's been in the past, seemed high for an order that had no meat, seafood, or produce. However, we had just purchased HBO yesterday for the sole purpose of having a Sopranos marathon and to my husband and me, that means drinks. So I didn't.

Imagine my surprise when I unloaded said groceries to discover not one but ELEVEN boxes of false sausage. Coco spun around the kitchen gleefully. He loves those things! He will eat them every day! And then, after unpacking like, one box of craisins and a bottle of salad dressing, I discovered the other six bags contained boxes and boxes of granola bars. Peanut butter -- Coco can't even bring them to school!

That my friends is a little story about how when you are designing a web application, you should have some helpful text that pops up and says "Um, are you sure?" or some such thing when you enter "11" into the quantity field instead of "1", especially when everything else on your order is quantity of "1" and WTF Peapod people, who orders that much of one thing?! It could also be interpreted as a story about a person who spent $76.82 on fake sausage and granola.

At least, as my husband pointed out, if the world does end soon*, we've got some fricking granola bars to see us through a week or two. You can come over, provided you are not allergic to tree nuts.

* Thanks Mimi Smartypants for the link, from the bottom of my plasticine heart.

Posted by Max at 10:37 PM | Comments (2)

April 08, 2007

and then there were two

I feel as unfunny as lox. So much so that I have said “Hoppy Easter!” about fifty times today to various people, including the teenage girls at Dunkin Donuts who like, so didn’t have time for my dumb cheery crap. Good thing the Bean was with me, putting his mouth all over the edge of the counter and yelling that he couldn’t wait to go home to eat a donut he wanted one NOW. The teens found this adorable. I asked if they wanted him for a week, but I guess he wasn’t that adorable.

While I was attempting to give the Bean away to donutfolk, his dad and sister slept in, unhinged by work (dad) and each other (both. Actually, all of us, to an extent.) Preliminary second baby report: overall, Miss Missy is a good girl, a champ eater, a solid sleeper and an enthusiastic if noisy snuggler. Interesting baby fact: they use their heads to hitch themselves around. When Miss is lying on your chest, if you have not positioned her just so, she heads her way higher up your torso until she can jam her unformed cranium into your throat, then croaks out a series of high-pitched, drawn-out squawks until she falls asleep. We call this move The Pterodactyl.

In husband news, he has a new fitness regime planned that involves a thick-handled metal medicine ball from Russia – a kettlebell! Now that the weather is getting warmer, he intends to heave kettlebell around in the backyard while yelling “Comrade!” just like the man in the (included) instructional video. I blame the movie 300, which he has forbidden me to see as he fears I would find the men a little too wahka-wahka with their thick, kettlebelled torsos and their fighting. So far the kettlebell has rested stoically on the floor of our bedroom, where I’ve kicked and cursed it 300 times, easy.

Shot through with hormones, I’m still sorting through my feelings of motherhood redux. I’ve been told that when you have a second child, you suddenly find more room in your heart to love them both the same. But I’ve found this to be untrue. I described it to my husband as, while I love Missy in all the ways you love a baby (because she is small and defenseless and smells newborn etc.), I am in love with the Bean because of his sense of humor, his weirdly husky voice pronouncing usually “oosually” and something “humpthing” and his ass-kickingly long eyelashes that he flutters against mine when I pin him down for butterfly kisses. The love is there and it may be equal, but there is nothing similar about it. It’s as separate as these two little faces, as limitless and all defining.

Posted by Max at 10:07 PM | Comments (2)

February 26, 2007

big babies and little skates

Just a quick update to say that once again, I am relying on my pal science to get a baby out of me. Barring any natural intervention, I'll be getting induced Thursday morning. Why, you may ask? Well, the baby is already pushing ten pounds, I can barely hoist myself around, and my eyeballs are pounding around inside my head due to weirdly spiking and falling blood pressure. In short, you can put a fork in my baby and me because we're done!

Also, I wanted to post this picture of little ice skates because they are cute. We went skating last weekend (well, the boys skated and I watched), one of the few winter activities we've been able to enjoy thanks to Global Warming Winter 2007 and it was lots of fun. The Bean rocked some cute double-blades, which unbeknownst to me are somewhat hard to find. Apparently "blade technology" has come a long way since I was a kid and the new skates are all aerodynamic, single-blade, molded plastic in futuristic colors like Pink Pearl and Turbo Teal. We were happy to find these Old Timey Skates for rent at the little outdoor rink in Newport.

See you on the other side!

Posted by Max at 11:19 AM | Comments (2)

February 01, 2007

post-partum crotch care 101

Over the years, my friend Mrs. Defective Yeti (a.k.a. The Queen) and I have enjoyed a very uncomplicated, straight-shootin’ relationship. She is a scientist; I am a fan of The Sciences. My husband has been known to pee in the streets; she considers this to be an endearing quality. I sing my one Madonna song at karaoke bars; she does not throw drinks at me or write bad words on napkins and hold them up during my performance.

Three and a half years ago, I gave birth to my first child just a few months before she was due to give birth to hers. Being a scientist, she was wisely conducting some research into the whole “motherhood” thing. What I told her at the time was basically this: “Listen sister, screw the pastel teddy bears and the duckie onesies. You can live without them. What you are going to need and need hard is a Crotch Care kit.” Somehow, in all of my own pregnancy/birth/baby research, I never saw any mention of “Oh by the way, your crotch will get totally blown out and you’ll be unable to sit, lie down, pee, or take a bath without fainting from pain because babies? They are pretty big and crotches? Not so much. DO THE MATH, LADIES.” I felt it my duty to warn her.

Fortunately, my mother was with us after we brought the Bean home from the hospital and, after scooping my shaking body off the floor and depositing me in two inches of tepid bathwater while I sobbed and bled, she sped to Walgreens to assemble a last-minute Crotch Care kit.

For those of you with babies in you that will soon need to come out, I heartily recommend purchasing the following items prior to the Big Event:

Crotch Care Kit
• Ice pack
• Frozen peas (very moldable and afterwards; a nutritious snack! Just kidding about the snack part. I think, I can’t remember.)
• Heating pad
• Aloe vera gel with Lidocaine (Best stuff ever)
• Cotton squares to apply above-mentioned magic gel (not balls, squares! They hold their form better. Unlike your crotch.)
• Dermoplast Pain Relieving spray (Also good. So squirty! So instantaneous!)
• Peri-bottle (the hospital will give you this as a parting gift)
• Witch hazel (um, what is witch hazel, anyway? Weird. Cool name, though)
• Waterproof donut-shaped pillow (for the bath; they have them at drugstores. Now you know: congratulations!)
• Medicated pre-moistened wipes (you can guess what these are for)
• Boppy (for your bum when sitting, not for the babe)
• The most gigantic maxi pads you can find. Maaaaxxxiiii Padzzzz
• Your pain meds. The Queen wanted me to mention that she forgot hers at the hospital and in the relentless and bleary fog of new parenthood, it slipped her mind that the very science she holds so dear to her heart could help her with her maladies. With drugs.

There you have it, one more crotch-related post for the people.

I began writing this post with the intention of mentioning the delightful (and practical!) gifties that the Queen sent via mail, but already it's too long and now The Office is on TV. You have this, then, to look forward to (or not) within upcoming days: Intro to Boobs as Food. And I don’t mean these.

Posted by Max at 08:58 PM | Comments (3)

January 25, 2007

The soup it was tomato

Somehow I got on a personal mailing list from our next-door neighbors (the only ones we’ve met here...STILL). The man works in television, the woman is a real estate agent and their house is very Fancy Pantsy, so they are always filming cooking shows and whatnot over there. She’ll send an email to her list saying “Don’t forget to watch us on the Food Network next week, we’re making flambé for fifty!” The other day, I got an email that said their house was being featured on an upcoming HGTV show "What You Get for Your Money" with the topic being: what you can buy for $700,000! I said to my husband that the next time I bump into them, I’m telling them our house is being featured on “What You Can Get for a Plate of Nachos and a Six Pack of Narragansett Beer”. I wonder how hard the film crew had to work to keep our house out of the shots. "Hey Steve, can you zoom in a bit? We're still getting a corner of that shed in the next lot." Whatever, we could have a big fancy, flambé-worthy house too. If we made a lot of money and then, you know. Saved it.

Today I had lunch with the charming owner of this charming shop. To my husband’s annoyance, I had been squealing over how cute her new little store was every time we drove by it (there is a dearth of cute in my area) and then lo! She appeared in my pre-natal yoga class, which I have gone to exactly three times. It was like we were destined to eat soup together.

We discussed how, in our first class, we had a yoga instructor who just sort of disappeared. She was a rather kooky, maybe 50-ish lady, who surveyed the class and announced, “Your vaginas are factories, mine is a playground!” and then chuckled delightedly to herself, which simultaneously impressed me and weirded me out. I don’t know if someone complained or if she decided her body was a wonderland that could not be ignored even for an hour a week or what, but she never showed up to teach again.

Speaking of vaginal playgrounds, I think I am leaving the offices of Dr. Hotshot, Dr. Ear Hairs, Dr.Old and Icky, and Dr. Lone and Therefore Unavailable Female to the gentler, more feminine embrace of a midwifery practice. I realize it is kind of late in the game to be changing things up (um, five weeks to go!?), but I am really not digging on the Creeptastic vibe I get from my current ob-gyn practitioners, and I just got a referral to this heretofore unknown (by me) mystical place of Female Birthing Power, Womb Enchantment and Crotch-Healing Crystals. I think I am up for the change, providing those soul sistas have got epidurals at the ready. My consultation with them is Monday, or should I say “moonday”. We shall see how it goes.

Posted by Max at 07:15 PM | Comments (0)

January 18, 2007

velociraptor

I’ve been thinking it was January 7th for about two weeks now. Imagine my surprise to learn that January is nearly over, taking with it my ability to stay up past ten, walk up a flight of stairs without losing my breath, or eat something without getting heartburn like a flaming sucker punch to the sternum. She is so WIGGLY this one, and dumbly strong for a fetus. It’s like having a super-heated octopus twisting and twisting around inside your torso, and occasionally a lava-covered tentacle shoots up your chest into your throat to wave hello. My husband can’t even bear to watch when she is in full twist’n’writhe mode, claiming it’s like watching Alien without the popcorn.

At least her ability to force limbs between my ribs has meant that I am no longer in denial about her imminent arrival. My niece and sis-in-law came down from Vermont this past weekend to help me wash, fold, sort and organize legions of pink garments and generally get the ball rolling with converting my office to a nursery. Here are a few pictures of the results. I still have a ways to go but at least we have the basics ready, like socks and a few diapers, since I am convinced she could drop out of me at any moment. And by “drop out of me” I mean send me into 40+ hours of labor like her brother did.

This time, though, the Blue Angels (DUDES TURN THE VOLUME UP TO ELEVEN BEFORE YOU CLICK THE LINK! It will totally make for a multi-media experience!) won’t be flying around the hospital. There was something awesome and surreal about having massive contractions with fighter jets screaming past the windows, splitting the air open and sonic booming all over the place. In fact, that sort of sums up my first birth experience right there, if you add a few gallons of blood and a couple of highly disengaged doctors. Maybe this time I could request that lobsters and clams be strewn about the delivery room. Their soft clickings and scrapings would make for a subtler birthing experience while still imparting a local flavor.

I feel like the above is revealing me to be insane. The end.

But wait! In coming up for a name for this post, I found this picture. That's it--dinosaur not octopus! Next month's ultrasound should confirm it.

Posted by Max at 09:01 AM | Comments (0)

January 10, 2007

it's 2007 and so am I

What endearing nickname shall I give to the unborn child who claws at my midsection like a hyperkinetic iguana? Kicky McBurst? Lossy VonSavingsdrainer? I dunno, those just don’t seem catchy enough. At any rate, she is due to arrive here in a matter of weeks. I’ve moved from a state of denial to one of I guess I better buy a bunch of pink crap. She’ll be bunking in my home office for now since our product is launching the week she is due and mama gots to earn her monies. Perhaps I will just line a file drawer with some pink polar fleece. I wonder if she’ll know HTML, she could do a little work when she shows up, that would be helpful. It seems like the kids being born these days should come to the world knowing that stuff, beings how they are sort of from the future and all.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted, so naturally I have a few things to share. First, we’ve been having mild plumbing issues, resulting in an occasional back-up of our toilet. One week it seemed worse than usual, so we called Roto-Rooter to see if they could come snake the pipes. They did, charging us a cool $120 for their service. Not an hour later, the toilet backed up again, so I called them back and they said they would send someone over to take another look. I left my husband to deal with the second plumber and took off to buy some pink crap.

When I came home, I went into the bathroom and was hit by such a foul stench that I actually took a step back. “Jesus God!” I yelled to my husband, “What happened in here?” I imagined they had to open up some pipes or something, releasing long-trapped septic gases into the atmosphere. My husband sauntered in. “Oh, the plumber wanted to see if he could repro the problem, so he used the toilet.” I was smelling plumber poop!! I guess my husband didn’t really consider this out of the ordinary until I started grilling him. How did this “solution” come up? How long did it take? Could he HEAR him in there?! So we paid Roto-Rooter $120 to have a plumber come poop in our toilet. And the frigging thing still has the same problem.

One of the things I love about my husband, in addition to his cavalier attitude toward letting servicefolk poop in our toilet, is his occasional, broad declaration about some random thing. We were driving along the other day and out of nowhere he says “You know, if you were to get hit by a car and were obviously dead in the middle of the road, I’m not the type of husband that would rush out and scoop up your broken body in my arms and hold you until the paramedics came.” While some wives might have been offended, I was merely intrigued. “What would you do, sit on the curb and have a Coke Zero*?” I also wasn’t sure there were ‘types’ of husbands in this particular scenario.

He went on to clarify that he would be too upset to see me all smashed and couldn't handle it, much in the same way he could barely handle having to scoop up our beloved cat’s remains from in front of our house after he was hit by a car this fall. Thankfully, I was out of town for that. He confessed he had to use a cookie sheet because he couldn’t bear to touch/look at our poor kitty. He’s not squeamish at all; it’s just the personal association that does him in. “Of course,” he added, “You would have to be really dead and not just hurt.” I mulled this over. I knew what he was saying was, in its own way, sweet, for I know my husband well. But knowing him well also prompted my next question “Um, honey? What did you do with the cookie sheet…?”

* My husband loves Coke Zero so much that if a can of it were lying smashed and broken in the road, I’m pretty sure he would cradle it in his arms and weep until the recycling truck came.

Posted by Max at 09:24 AM | Comments (1)

September 28, 2006

crotchety

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming of crotches, hot guys and television.

crotches
When you are an elderly pregnant lady, you get to go the OB/GYN every month or so, especially when there are red flags all over your file concerning Gigantor Baby #1. One of the many things that I find annoying about our medical system is how the pharmaceutical companies and doctors are so in bed with each other, they don’t even flinch when you walk in and catch them. They just smile, take another drag off their cigarettes and stroke each other’s hair fondly.

Growing up, we had weird crap all over our house that the pharmaceutical companies had shilled onto my doctor father: stress balls with ads for blood pressure medicines; giant rubber noses (paperweights?) with ads for allergy medicine; clear plastic torsos with visible guts advertising various products to treat liver disease, indigestion, colon cancer, etc. I was in the waiting room on my first visit to the OB's when a smoking hot pharmaceutical rep* came in with her briefcase to dole out samples of meds like candy. They are still out there, like freakishly attractive sharks.

* There is some rule about pharmaceutical reps needing to be smoking hot. I saw a documentary on it or something, but apparently they recruit these folks from the same pool where they get tradeshow spokes models. They are also one of the few remaining professional groups to use a briefcase.

In the exam room, the stirrups on the exam table were covered with little purple felt booties. Written on these booties were, you guessed it, ads! The text of the ads was helpfully aligned so that you, the patient who was about to have her crotch examined, could read it. Alas, I didn’t recognize the name of the product they were selling, which I really felt was a missed marketing opportunity. Imagine the possibilities: “Not feeling so fresh?” the left bootie could read “Try Femu-IckBegone!” the right could helpfully suggest. This would be especially useful when to your extreme dismay you find out your OB/GYN is a…

hot guy
I don’t go to male doctors. To me, it makes more sense to have someone with the same parts inspecting your parts, especially because, um, traditionally, when a man is “down yonder”, it’s for other, less medical reasons if you know what I’m saying. It just seems really odd to be talking to some dude about the weather or the Red Sox or whatever and then two minutes later have him peering at your nether regions with a cool and clinical eye while you pretend there’s nothing weird about the situation. Because YEAH, THERE IS!

My OB's office has four doctors and only two are female. Although I requested to have a female as my primary, the last time I went in who popped through the door but a Hot’n’Flirty twenty-nine year old with a clipboard and a crooked smile? Thankfully, it wasn’t an exam visit but more a “Howyoudoin’?” visit, which meant no purple bootie usage for me. My next visit is an exam and somehow I got scheduled with Dr. Hot Crotchlooker. Actually, I don’t know what would be worse, a hot guy or some 80 year old Grandpa-type.

While I freaking out about all this to my husband, he attempted to use what I feel to be very flawed logic to calm me down. His first point was “Men don’t really even like looking at crotches”, so I had to bust out my 274,323,3423,003 back issues of Lady Crotch magazine to show him that in fact, they do. Then he pointed out that the loveable Dr. Cliff Huxtable was an OB/GYN and I said, “Dude, would you want fricking Bill Cosby looking at your crotch?!” Nice try, honey.

Posted by Max at 02:07 PM | Comments (0)

September 10, 2006

I remember Lt. Charles William Garbarini

This entry is part of the 2,996 project, which honors the victims of 9/11 on the fifth anniversary of the attack. If any of the information is incorrect or in need of editing, please leave a comment or write me and let me know.

The city of New York lost 343 firefighters on September 11, 2001, and Lt. Charles William Garbarini was one of them. Just 44 years old, Charley left behind a wife and two young sons, as well as a legacy as a sweet, fun-loving man who loved his family and his job and brought much joy to all who knew him.

Born in the middle of nine children, Charley was the boisterous center of a boisterous family. As a child, he would dance on the coffee table to make his siblings laugh, and often tricked his sisters into doing the dishes for him. He and his future wife, Andrea DeGeorge, both attended Cardinal Spellman High School in the Bronx. After a decade-long engagement, they eventually made their home in Pleasantville, NY, and had two boys, Dylan and Phillip. There’s was a love affair that spanned over twenty years. Charley still surprised his wife with flowers now and then, perhaps to make up for the gentle teasing she endured from her wisecracking husband.

Charley became a firefighter in 1986. Nick-named “The Comedian”, his business card read “Firefighter Charley Garbarini. You light ‘em, we fight ‘em.” Battalion 9, Unit 3 was one of the first teams to arrive on the scene on the morning of September 11th. His truck, Engine 23, lost five other men that day as they rushed into the Towers to aid others even without fully knowing the magnitude of what had happened. Communications that day were spotty, with cell phones down and chaos reigning, but Charley and his fellow firefighters remained calm and professional and did what they had been trained to do: rescue people. Less than two hours after the first plane hit the South Tower it collapsed, taking down with it the very people who had first arrived to help those trapped and in peril.

A memorial service for Lt.Garbarini was held on October 6th, 2001, which was led by a bagpipe procession and attended by hundreds fellow firefighters, EMTs and police officers. Friends who attended said that although there were many tears, there was also a lot of laughter as they shared stories and celebrated Charley’s life. “Charley wouldn’t have wanted it any other way,” remarked one friend.

Charley’s vibrant presence lives on in the hearts of his many friends and family members. A charity golf event is held in his honor by the Milltown Fire Department every year in New Jersey. And Engine 23 was recently refurbished as a training rig, with Charley’s and the five other fallen firefighters’ names proudly displayed on a plaque on the side. I hope by sharing a little of Lt. Charles William Garbarini’s life, he will remain in your memory as he will in mine. Love and sorrow to his wife and to his boys. It was an honor to get to know your big-hearted Charley.

Posted by Max at 11:19 PM | Comments (11)

June 29, 2006

the visual display of quantitive information

The best thing about working from home is that when someone says the word “edutainment” in a kick-off meeting, you can mime hitting yourself in the face with the receiver for the remainder of the call and no one is the wiser. It’s not that I’m against entertainment or education or even combining the two it’s just, do we really need to make up words? There’s plenty of terrific words already out there, folks. Let’s choose ‘em wisely.

Speaking of using words to effectively communicate your goals and intentions, I like this from our friends at the Onion. I especially like: "After everyone left the room, I sat down and went through Ron's final presentation in slide-sorter view," Williams said. "Man, I gotta tell you, it blew me away. That presentation really utilized the full multimedia capabilities of Microsoft's PowerPoint application." For anyone who has gone to see Edward Tufte’s excellent presentation on visually displaying data and yet still needs to use PowerPoint on a regular basis, you will perhaps share my enjoyment. If you haven’t seen Mr. Tufte, suffice to say that he's not a huge fan. I just got a new consulting gig and I am going to do my darnedest to try and incorporate lasers, a fog machine, and rock kicks into the final presentation just to spice things up.

I have the quasi-secret goal of getting someone to pay me to blog for work. In project meetings, I tend to say things like “The importance of two-way communication and viral marketing and customer-centricity and yam yammerdoo and…heyyyyy, I know! I could write a blog!” I succeeded once with a blog about communications that was up two weeks and had at least one loyal fan. I consider that a success in much the same way I consider son of max a success because my sister-in-law laughs when she reads it, especially when I make fun of my brother (Hi Pea!) Although I’ve been writing this blog, um, considerably longer.

Thus concludes the entry where I attempt to not mention the fact that a giant baby came out of my crotch three years ago. This offspring referral avoidance is somewhat in reaction to a friend recently telling me he didn’t read “mommyblogs” and therefore didn’t ever visit my site. Boy howdy did that twist my panties! I’ve thought about why that term bothers me and I think it's because I find it both reductive and borderline sexist. Just because you are female, have a child and write a blog doesn’t mean that’s all you do or write about. I eat sandwiches, am I a sandwichblogger? I have a hound dog, should I start hounddogblog.com? Shall we refer to male blog writers as “penisbloggers”?

All right, that’s enough of that. I am now going to pour myself a delicious drink and go outside to look for fireflies. Rumor has it they have arrived here on the EC.

Posted by Max at 09:24 PM | Comments (1)

May 26, 2006

enough with the frickin' birds, already!

OK this will be the last one and then I will save it up for me NEW blog, because what I really need is another reason to spend hours online looking at things and letting the world spin around without me.

I did a quick inventory of my bird-themed stuff and it's not as bad as I had imagined, though still enough to be a possibly alarming trend. In our youth, my brother Ruby and I somehow both got tagged as Lovers of Stuff We Didn't Actually Give Two Craps About. When I was around twelve, someone (MOM!) got it in her head that I loved unicorns and circulated this myth around the family for purposes of gift-giving ideas. I began to receive unicorn throw pillows, t-shirts, stuffed animals, you name it. This was right around the time my parents were splitting up, so I guess my dad wanted to compensate for ditching his family by giving me a really good birthday present that year. What says "I'm sorry I'm walking out of your life pretty much forever but have a great thirteenth birthday!" better than a scrimshaw pendant with a unicorn and a rainbow on it? Nothing, that's what. Man I wish I still had that thing.

My brother's albatross was Peanuts-themed items. Each year for Christmas he would receive a thick comic book chock full of the wacky adventures off that lovable Snoopy and gang. As he got older, it grew to include t-shirts with Joe Cool Snoopy, Snoopy hats, all sorts of stuff. Oh how it pained Ruby on Christmas morning to open up a gift and find some version of Snoopy staring up at him, and oh how it delighted me as I sat holding my third pair of unicorn pajamas.

So when we went up to my mom's house the other weekend and she whipped out a sweet brown t-shirt with the Snoopster on it, giving thumbs up below the words "Cool Dad", I was so freaking happy I almost couldn't breathe. She wasn't sure that Ruby would like it, but I convinced her it was the perfect gift for someone who was both a Snoopy fan and a Cool Dad.

Now that I think of it, every gift I give Ruby from now on is going to have a Peanuts theme. Screw Snoopy, though, I'm pulling out the big guns and going straight to Peppermint Patty. I'm gonna go mother-lovin' FRANKLIN on that kid's ass. RUBY YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Posted by Max at 09:34 AM | Comments (2)

May 16, 2006

getting jiggy, but not necessarily with it

When we heard about the unending rain in Seattle this past winter, we were like “Ooo, it’s a good thing we got out of there before all that nasty water came out of sky for a billion days in a row causing everyone to get all sad and twitchy.” Now, the joke is on us as we are currently in the midst of a weeks-long deluge. Just when you think the rain is about to taper off and the sun peek out…KERSPLASHO along comes some more rain to fall on your foolish head.

That is a clumsy segue into this morning’s events, which, though off to an interesting start, ended in a washout. I’ve recently concluded that I need a hobby other than the endless creation and consumption of words, thoughts, theories, strategies, best practices, yammer yammer yammer having to do with communication and technology. Don’t get me wrong, I love all that stuff but I am really starting to feel disconnected from other, more life-affirming fare. You know, like nature.

For a long time, I’ve been buying crap with birds on it. Address books, jewelry, art, t-shirts. Even little wooden birds on sticks that you place on shelves etc. to spruce up the place. I’ve long threatened my fly-fishman husband that I was going to take up birding in my old age so that when he was out standing in some freezing water, I could be tottering around a bog looking at birds and taking notes in little weird notebooks. But the real birds have already been catching my eye. How can they not? Our backyard is like a fricking bird three-ring circus. Every morning there are about sixteen robins, a half a dozen cardinals, mourning doves, red-winged blackbirds, wrens, warblers, finches, orioles and woodpeckers ripping it up out there with songs, games, and laughter. Those guys are having such a great time – they love spring! that I am finding myself wanting in on their simple, avian joy.

My Mother’s day gift this year is a Nikon D50. My husband is being very sweet and supportive of my burgeoning, elderly interest in birding, I think primarily because fly-fishing and birding go together like S&M. Where the birds are is where the fish are and vice versa, so my new hobby would guarantee him decades of fishing vacations. For another thing, I will no longer be able to make fun of him for getting giddy over tiny, googly doll eyes and chartreuse and hot pink feathers. My nature-peeping pot will be way dorkier than his fly-tying kettle.

This morning was going to be my first attempt at looking at birds as a hobby. It started off promising: some orange bird I hadn’t seen before totally sang the American Top Forty from a tree as I was loading the Bean in the car. But after I dropped Bean off at daycare, got my coffee, and drove to the bird sanctuary just a few miles from our house, the light “birder-friendly” sprinkle had turned into a veritable monsoon. I tried to wait it out in the birdy gift shop, where I picked up a copy of Sibley’s Birding Basics, a reference chart of Rhode Island birds, and a copy of this very cool magazine. I had never seen this magazine before but seriously any magazine that has an article beginning like this is a friend o'mine:

The most common words I hear spoken by any environmentalist anywhere are, We’re fucked. -- Derrick Jensen

I'd like to know what we can do because there’s a lot of birdies in the world that I want my son to be able to look at one day when he is ancient like me. Even the rain, which sent me home instead of into the woods, feels like an omen that things are not right in the world.

Posted by Max at 11:11 AM | Comments (0)

May 08, 2006

ice ice baby

Man that blink tag is annoying. No wonder the internet kicked that one to the curb. Still, I have to admit that it does capture a certain excitement that I was hoping to convey.

I've recently been enjoying some new (for me) blogs. I kind of feel like I want to break up with some of the other blogs I've been linking to and go for something, I dunno. Younger. Fresher. More virile. However, I would still keep Defective Yeti because he's my pal plus funny, and Sweetney because that girl knows how to keep it real and of course Mimi Smartypants because she is the best ever and I wish she lived near me so I could buy her a beer and punch her on the arm. She said I could once!

So. Here's some new cool chicks. My heart is all aflutter with the promise of new blog love. You know, for spring. Please to check them out etc.

• supafine! I'm a fan of her brand of righteouness as well as her blog name. She enjoys "maxing out" about stuff, as I do.
• Mother May I She's cute and seems nice and plus our toddlers may be dating in the next two decades or so.
• ashaland Asha is very cool. She seems to have a hundred things going on, all of them interesting.
• Breed 'em and Weep She has ghosts. For reals.

As a farewell gift, I'd like to leave you with a photograph of my son's current love. This one has stolen his heart so completely I am unsure that he will ever recover. This is drive-around-the-block-again, flailing tantrum of it's not there kinda love. You know what I mean. For do you ever really get over your first love? I think not, especially when that love is so frosty.

Posted by Max at 10:15 PM | Comments (0)

April 28, 2006

i am lobster hear me click

Snap snap snap went the mandibles! Crunch crunch crunch went the claws! What is that sound you hear? That is the sound of a lobster, totally shredding the crap out of a shamrock and eating it. The potential move to Ireland has been cast-off like the too-small shell of a recently molted crustacean. Now the creature, timorous in this, his most vulnerable state, hugs the rocky coast of the Eastern seaboard with brave hopes for the future despite the sucking vastness of the sea and all that wish to consume him therein.

I love how when I use a metaphor of myself as a lobster, it’s got to be a BOY lobster. The same is true when I do cartoon voices (which is, um, probably too often), they are always men, at least in my head. Imitate the cartoon lobster, unleash the male within!

We are officially taking the month of May off from thinking about stupid shit like where we’re gonna live and instead we’re going to enjoy Spring Fling 2006. I really want to use a blink tag for that, do those still work? Yes, they do! Spring Fling 2006 is going to rule: it involves lots of fishing (husband), buying ocean-themed tchotchkes and doodads (me) and consuming many jellybeans for using the potty (everyone). Also, I am once again determined to have fun in this frigging uptight, moneyed sinkhole of a bedroom community and thus Spring Fling 2006 also involves inviting all of the kids at the Bean’s grim daycare for a Backyard Party X-travaganza. My husband pointed out that most likely, no one will come. But we can try - we simply will not go down without face-painting and water balloons, people!

In other news, I had coffee in Seekonk yesterday with the lovely Jen from jenville.com, which proved that coolness is alive and well in the greater Rhode Island area. She informed me that Seekonk means "black goose" and lo! It is true. This gives even more meaning to one of our favorite family games "Seekonk/Cranston", where one person says "Seekonk" in the most nasal voice possible and someone else says "Cranston" equally nasally and then everyone laughs and eats a lobster.

Viva spring! Viva Seekonk!

Posted by Max at 10:14 PM | Comments (4)

April 06, 2006

slim pickings

Another day, another chance to tell a stranger over the phone that I’m innovative, bold, and customer-centric. Because I am! That ain’t gonna change, no matter how many people ask me! If nothing else, I’m sure my growing application file says, “She’s remarkably consistent.” So, no news yet on whether or not we’re trading quahogs for tam o’shanters. I like both equally, so things could truly go either way. We shall see.

In South Beach news, I’ve lost about ten pounds, whereas my “Rules Rules Rules McKenzie” husband has lost twenty-five. The guy is quite simply: a freak. He goes to the gym five days a week, he doesn’t eat bread or pasta anymore, he says his body feels wrong if he doesn’t get exercise every FRIPPIN day. Is this the guy I married? No, it’s not. The guy I married called me once, early on in our courtship, drunk and passed out in his own front lawn, yelling about imaginary lesbian monkeys hassling him from the street. The guy I married was burly and could drink twelve beers in a sitting. This new guy I’m now married to swishes around our home in checking the carb content of granola.

We’re not so much on a “diet” anymore as a “participating” in a “lifestyle”. I remember being a kid and opening up one of my friend’s parents’ fridges and seeing low carb this, no fat that and thinking “That my friend ain’t living.” Now I am older, fatter, and wiser and it is my fridge that is stocked with the diet sodas and the sparkling waters. It happens, kids, it happens. It will happen to you, if you're are not careful. Or maybe, if you are.

Posted by Max at 10:23 PM | Comments (0)

March 14, 2006

magically delicious

Shimm shimma umm interviews ahem sumpthin sumpthin Ireland *cough* computers shamrocks Dublin. That's all I'm saying.

Since I've already succeeded in succumbing to my primary blogging pet peeve, I figure why not check off number two by writing about something that I can't really write about? OK! That's off the list, what's next pictures of my cat and bible quotes? Actually, those aren't pet peeves they are just, um, dumb. Maybe not if the cats are cute.

Speaking of dumb things, how badly does this suck? I mean, thanks for the coupons and the fricking god quotes, but I HAVE WORK TO DO and a CHILD TO RAISE. I was hoping that they would have trusted the Lord to keep the domain name sacred and thus didn't have dibs on the URL for long but no. Somebody put down the god juice long enough to register it for the next decade. Anyway, I am hopeful that very soon, somebody somewhere will come up for a term other than "working mom" or "mom who works outside of the home" or "forsaker of all that is sacred in pursuit of the mighty dollar". Actually, maybe that domain name is available. But listen people; "working mom" is for the fricking oysters. Meaning that that term sucks bilge water through little hairs on its lips.

Wow, I am all fired up tonight! Perhaps it was the gardenia body butter I rubbed on my hands just before starting this entry. Nothing says atheistic ex-pat feminist revolution like floral hand cream.

So my friend, ah, Martha, is being recruited by an overseas company and while this is exciting and great and everything, especially because the place where she lives now is like Stepford without the cute outfits, the concept of uprooting her family YET AGAIN to schlep them over into an actual foreign culture while starting a new job that invariably is going to stomp a mud hole in her ass with its "internationalabilty" is kind of making her freak right on out.

If anyone lives in Dublin or has lived in Dublin or has thoughts about Dublin or listens to U2 who I think are from Dublin, please drop a line. At this point, advice from virtual strangers is as good as anything else. Literally.

Posted by Max at 11:15 PM | Comments (0)

March 01, 2006

these links are made for clickin'

When I was but a wee lass, my beloved grandmother took my brother and me to see a little sci-fi film called "Star Wars". I don't remember exactly how old I was, but I was old enough to get crushes because after that film, boy did I have one. I found one of the characters so compelling, so fearless and strong, that I loved him from the minute he came on the screen. Did I want him as a protector? A father? A lover? I was a confused pre-teen so I wasn't quite sure what my feelings meant. I just knew I wanted him in my life. Therefore, this blog makes me insanely happy.

I am frigging grouchy. I am currently on the South Beach diet, which I agreed to go on only with the stipulation that my husband cook everything and just hand the food to me so I didn't have to think about it. He's been amazing: hand-grinding pistachios to make pistachio-encrusted seared tuna, bringing me green pepper and egg white omelettes in bed etc. However, I am a girl who likes me some cupcakes. And scones. And YOGURT, FRUIT, and GRANOLA etc. The fact that I can't have any of these things right now makes my body so sad and confused that I've turned into Miserable Millie. Yet it also makes me lose weight, which is a good thing. Perhaps I can have my husband make me a cupcake out of turkey and cheese.

So last night I went out to dinner with a woman from town and guess what? I liked her! She was cool! She drank Pimtinis*! I tried to stick to the principles of the diet while at the central hub of deliciousness in our immediate area but it was hard what with the drinking, which you are not supposed to do. Plus, I felt like an asshole for being all "Oh no, I mustn't have any of that four-layer chocolate cake you ordered for dessert because I'm on a D-I-E-T." I don't want her to think I'm one of those ladies who orders a wine spritzer and side salad and nibbles on a celery stick and then goes home and throws it up. I am traditionally one of those ladies who say "Is it cool if we get two appetizers, an entree, and a dessert while enjoying thirteen delicious cocktails?" Hence my problem, I guess.

* Please consider this my official announcement of the Pimmtini as my spring cocktail of choice. It's Tanquray gin, Pimms and sweet vermouth, shaken and served straight up, garnished with a flamed slice of orange. It kind of tastes like a less sweet Shirley Temple but with fizz and booze. Normally I am not a fan of "fancy" martinis, instead prefering to drink them "dirty", however I am willing to make an exception in this case.

Tomorrow I'm going to North Carolina for my aunt's 50th birthday party. I've never been to North Carolina, but I've been to me.

UPDATE: Jesus, is that song depressing!

Posted by Max at 09:09 AM | Comments (3)

February 06, 2006

buddy can you spare some sauce?

Is your city’s former mayor in prison? Well, ok, but does he have his own marinara sauce? I didn’t think so. Our friend and native Providencian KP came by for our massive yet ultimately disappointing due to some Seahawk butt-crushing Superbowl party. She kindly brought with her the gift of mayoral tomato sauce. Sadly, the label was somewhat torn, thus limiting its potential resale value on eBay. Looks like it is eggplant parmigiana ala Cianci for us this week!

In case your wondering what’s new in the world of things I hate, I’m here to provide an update. Numbers one and two on the list are some recent commercials. Number one: a Pizza Hut ad with Jessica Simpson singing “These nuggets are made for snacking” or something along those lines to the tune of you-know-what song and she is referring to some nasty, tricked out pizza with cheese-filled tumors around its perimeter. When I think of what the creative meeting(s) must have been like to put that ad together, I want to lie on the floor and have buckets of marinara cover me until I myself turn into a tumor-riddled pizza. The other ad also involves a re-written pop song, but this one is for cold sore medication and now I can’t frigging remember the song but let’s just say it was “Good Vibrations” and a cartoon mouth has a big cartoon cold sore and is singing “Oooo stop stop” at the chorus and the future of humanity crumbles before my eyes and lays in smoking ruins.

Another medicinal-related peeve is when products are named really specifically for whatever ailment it is they treat but also made to seem vaguely Latin. Like “Varicose Veinatracin” or “Moistenex”. If you’re going to produce an ointment, just call it what it is and be done with it.

With Valentine’s Day coming up, I should also probably mention some things that I love. I am oddly transfixed by the show “The Girls Next Door”. Recently, my husband was on the computer looking up Hints from Heloise about stain removal while I was monologuing about which of Hef’s girlfriends was the best*. Our Stepford induction is obviously still in progress.

* I really can’t decide! They all have different strengths.

I’m taking voice lessons, which I am enjoying quite a bit. My teacher is a little bit younger than me and a trained opera singer. She’s promised me that she’s planning on taking some of her students out for karaoke. One thing I’ve noticed that doesn’t go over really well here on the EC: self-effacing humor. For instance, when the 50ish fellow voice student comes in for her lesson, which is right after yours, don’t liken the situation to American Idol and say that you feel sorry for the teacher having to listen to all the bad singers. Because it kind of comes out like, maybe she has a bad voice when what you meant was YOU did! That lady will get so miffed! Even though you have never heard her sing, so what the hell?

Lastly, we are going to Seattle in three days for our friends' wedding. This fact I love.

Posted by Max at 09:12 AM | Comments (0)

January 26, 2006

cold snap

This past weekend our friends from CT came up for a visit. Our lives are eerily similar in that our friends are originally from the East coast, moved out to Seattle, lived there happily for many years, then moved back East. Now we are all dying a slow and uninteresting death from re-entry culture shock.

“I feel like all the air has been sucked out of our days!” I yelled to my friend Rock, drinking my 18th beer and clutching my throat for emphasis. “I feel like everything is made of glass!” he drunkenly countered, gesticulating wildly around him. We then gathered our loved ones near and played a smokin’ hot game of states and monsters (pictures coming!).

I myself feel like a monster in this state, or at least, town. None of our neighbors came over to introduce themselves when we moved in. When we see them now, getting in and out of their cars, they duck their heads. No one says hello, no one smiles at strangers, no one says Have a Nice Day during regular transactions of commerce. About 80% of the time I find the situation to be fascinating, and get some pleasure from not washing my hair, pinning it up with bejeweled beetle hairclips, wearing a giant fake fur coat, and going to the grocery store to mouth-kiss my child and buy tofu. It’s like I’m getting a second chance to be the quirky Molly Ringwald character in an 80’s high school movie, only all the jocks have grown up, become businessmen and married the cheerleaders who are now home raising clones of themselves. The rest of the time I am wondering what the hell I did, moving my family across the country to a place where we are so viscerally unhappy that it borders on performance art.

Thankfully, my little family enjoys each other’s company a great deal. The other day I was driving with the Bean and flipping around radio stations. I finally stopped on one station because it was playing music not ads. The Bean listened for a minute and then we had the following conversation:

Bean:Hip-hop, mommy?
Me: No baby, I think that’s salsa.
Bean: Oh.
Me: It’s fun to dance to.
Bean: Yes!
Me: But so is hip-hop.
Bean: Umm-hmm.
Me: But they’re different.
(long pause)
Bean: Yes.

I’m no ethnomusicologist, but I’ll do what I can to keep him in touch with his urban roots while the climate and the residents conspire to freeze us right the funk out of here.

Posted by Max at 09:39 PM | Comments (0)

January 19, 2006

throgsneck

Note to weird guys in drug stores: when you are staring at toddlers in such a creepy fashion that the ordinarily completely disinterested sales clerk comes over and asks if he can help you find something, causing you to stammer out a reply while so obviously nervous that your comb-over is shaking and yet your beady eyes still cannot remove themselves from the adorable child the next aisle over, do not say you are looking for RUBBER GLOVES because that just makes you 10,000 times creepier! Mothers everywhere are wise to you, creepo.

One of the many differences between our old hometown and new is that, back in Seattle, when weather was happening it got a name: Windstorm 2005; Spring Snow Flurry X-treme; Cloud Clave No. 9. At the time, it was something we mocked. But now that we live in a place that actually has weather, I kind of miss the names. It gives "weather events" a sense of unfolding drama as well as a narrative arc that I can appreciate. Were it that this region named its weather, yesterday would have been Horizontal Rain/Wind PhreakPhest. It was so mighty that mid-conference call - KABLAMMO! Out goes the power.

With my typical emergency grace and smart thinking, I ran into my husband's office gibbering about batteries and weather clocks and power bars, none of which we had. I left him calmly reading a book about woodworking while I dashed to the aforementioned drug store to stock up on supplies, heart racing as I imagined fighting the hordes of people doing the same. But it was pretty much just the creepy guy and me. When I returned home, the power was back on already but dammit! We can listen to the weather channel now electricity, catchy names, or not.

I like how things sometimes catch us off guard here, such as last weekend while my husband was back in Seattle, it was so butt cold here that our car froze. I managed to get the Bean loaded into his car seat and open the driver's side door to start the engine, but the hatchback where the ice scraper was had completely frozen shut. I had no idea what to do, so I began kicking the car really hard, employing long-dormant pre-baby sidekick skills honed from months of K-force* with my hot hot trainer Cliff. With each kick I grew giddier, imagining our neighbors peering out the windows of their mansions and wondering just what the fuck the broke hillbillies from Seattle were doing now.

*K-force is sort of like karate-lite, albeit with no opponent. I tried to take Cliff's actual karate class at one point with the belts and the robes and the fighting etc., but alas, it also involved grappling. Grappling meant rolling around on the floor hugging and giggling with Cliff, and at one point he pinned me by placing his (ample) crotch on my throat. This felt too much like cheating on my husband. When someone's crotch comes that close to your face, you should at least have gone to the movies a couple of times first.

Posted by Max at 08:12 AM | Comments (0)

January 10, 2006

old salty

Today I was quite literally faced with a boob conundrum. The Bean and I were at the pediatrician’s office getting a belated though hopefully still effective flu shot. In the waiting room with us was a full-figured teenage fly-girl with a tiny baby. When the girl rose to bring the baby into the doctor, her gigantic mama mias, already busting out of her tight V-neck t-shirt, somehow spilled up and out of her shirt entirely and exposed her right baby feeder to the waiting room. She was so exhausted she didn't notice and gave me such a sweet, tired smile as she passed me that I wanted to grab her and say, “Excuse me young miss, your shoshana is out and about, there!” but I didn’t. How would one even tactfully do that? So I just smiled back and let her pass, flesh flag a-flying.

In retrospect, I guess it probably doesn’t matter since she’ll likely be sticking her Sister Christians into the kid’s maw about 12,000 times a day soon enough, general public be damned.

In other, non-boob related news (although, is there really any other kind worth noting?) for about fifteen years or so, I’ve been ending most of my sentences with an extemporaneous little flourish of punctuation that I like to call a period. Then, as a reflex, I hit “space space”. Twice. Two spaces. Along comes the new tech writer guy at work, who is working with me on a project. The guy and I are like the oil and vinegar of writing. Whereas I am all yammer yammer yammer adverbs misspelling fluff fluff!! He is like “Communication. Is. Useful.” He’s a great asset to the project in many ways, but he rocked my world by sending me some edits that I um, disagreed with (“I see you are attempting humor here. Please note that humor cannot be quantified.”) He also broke the news that apparently since the time the dominatrix who taught my ninth grade typing class lorded over her collection of Underwoods, some rules have changed. Specifically: the kids aren’t using two spaces anymore after a period. They are using one.

Telling me to start using one space instead of two after all these years is like asking someone to suddenly begin exhaling twice before inhaling once. I think I might have earned a little salt in my shaker over this one, since I was like ”You don’t say,” with audible nose whistling, tea slurping, bone creaking, and little or no intention of changing my ways. Call me a codger – I don’t care. Some habits are too hard to break, by gum.

Posted by Max at 10:58 PM | Comments (3)

December 14, 2005

winter? I don't even know her

The seashells say sure!, the window says no way. The seashells order a side of fries, the window gets a Diet coke. The seashells hit a two-out triple, the window's swinging strikes. The seashells wanna make out, the window has a headache. And on like that.

This is our bedroom window. Can you see the plastic sheeting my husband and I sealed on with a hair dryer in an effort to stay alive? It's not working. The frost is taking over. Soon we shall be made of ice entirely.

Posted by Max at 10:13 PM | Comments (0)

December 07, 2005

itchy owie

These little kitties are peering out of their gift bag as if to say "You didn't wrap the presents for the cousins yesterday like you told your son you would and now you will both be inflicted by a weird-ass rash while working on this evening's festivus activity of planting hyacinth bulbs!"

Yes, I am famously (among four) bad for handling urgent situations and tonight was no exception.

The Bean and I were planting a little bulb kit and gamely watching the peat moss suck up a cup of warm water before we planted the bulbs. I was thinking, this is great! Science and festivus all at once! Suddenly my neck became SO FRIGGING ITCHY and felt like it was on fire. Simultaneously, the Bean began clawing at his cheeks and trying to pull his reddening ears off his head.

To my husband I said "Something's wrong! We're so itchy! We're SO ITCHY" and frantically showed him our red marks. He suggested we get in the shower to rinse off whatever the hell it was (so logical - I love it!)

Apparently there is something called a hyacinth allergy? Which we have, I guess? Or you can be allergic to peat moss, too. Whatever it was, it was the weirdest holiday event ever. Here's the calm before the storm, with the peering and the water and the science.

Posted by Max at 10:31 PM | Comments (1)

November 30, 2005

demented and sad, but social

A friend of mine, who at the time was a little soft around the middle and very self-conscious about it, used to describe his personal Faustian bargain as being married to Uma Thurman, but not being able to wear a shirt for the rest of his life. That's kind of how I feel about where we live.

I've been trying hard to understand why I'm so freaked out by the people here. Am I secretly jealous of the stay-at-homes and their SUVs, big diamonds and golfing husbands? Does it bring back feelings of inadequacy from my own childhood, where we were certainly well off but by no means rich? Is my friend too sexy for his shirt, so sexy it hurts?

A couple of weeks after we moved, I got an invitation to come to a "welcome coffee" sponsored by some of The Ladies in town. I like coffee and usually I like the ladies so I went. The event itself was fine, just a few women in various states of frazzledness that comes from trying to wedge adult social activity into your otherwise child-centric day. While there, I was recruited to help The Ladies social committee plan some upcoming events. Since I have an event planning background and an almost freakish need to be social, I agreed to help.

Next thing you know, the woman who recruited me disappears into the ether and suddenly I am responsible for throwing a cocktail party for 50+ people at some other woman's house. I managed to get the invites done and out in a record two days and I thought they came out pretty cute, but they were met with a rather lackluster reception from The Ladies.

With the date fast approaching (it's this Saturday!), decisions needed to be made. It's gonna be a vintage-y, Asian-themed cocktail party with cranberry cocktails and sushi. As my husband pointed out, if I have to throw this frigging thing I should just do what I want. Now all I need to do is get a black taffeta cocktail dress that says "Fuck" in rhinestones across the chest, get drunk at the party, and make out with some golfers in the coat closet.

Posted by Max at 03:04 PM | Comments (3)

November 15, 2005

poopship

You go out, you do some stuff, you make a few cookies with your kid, watch a little TV and the next thing you know, Ms. Dooce links to a picture you took of a farm animal poop game and you become L'Enfant Terrible de Internet Poop. Listen, she likes the poop, she likes the poop!! I like other things, like sea horses and I dunno, glitter.

My husband has been away for what feels like four decades. Last night I was in bed thumbing through my not one but two recently-delivered issues of Cottage Living (It's OK that your house is small, it's a cottage! Get into it, or at least, put a picket fence around it and fill it with throw pillows!) I developed a splitting headache and I'd also been feeling slightly nauseated. For me headache + nausea + steam heat = carbon monoxide death about to happen.

The Bean and I had recently performed a non-too-thorough inspection of our smoke alarms, whereby I would press the test button and we would both fall to the ground yelling if it went off. We did replace some batteries but in the hilarity of the falling and the yelling, I couldn't remember if we had tested the carbon monoxide detecting one or not.

So last night I weighed my options, which broke down like this:
1. Re-test monoxide alarm and wake up the Bean since it was right outside his door.
2. Open window in my room and in Bean's room even though it was butt cold to allow fresh air to mingle with (possibly) tainted air thus freezing but saving us both.
3. Do nothing.

Which do think I did? Well, if you guessed option three you would be right, but only partially so! Because I also looked up symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning on my laptop, then strategically left the laptop next to the bed so that if I did die, at least everyone would know I was wise to carbon monoxide's little game. Take that, noxious gas!

I consider myself a fairly self-sufficient gal. However, there is nothing like having a husband around to help seal the lid on the ole crazy box at times, if you know what I mean. And I think you do.

Posted by Max at 08:46 PM | Comments (1)

November 09, 2005

suburban jungle bells

I'm subscribed to Yahoo's "Most Emailed Photos" RSS feed, and what my month's worth of research in this area has concluded is that we Internet people love us some boobs, booty, baby animals and giant art. If it weren't for the giant art and the boobs, I would have to unsubscribe. But seriously, it is a bit depressing to see some half-dressed catwalker or fricking baby something-or-rather replace the catwalker/baby thing from the week before. Let's mix it up out there!

Of course the week my husband goes back to Seattle, the Bean spikes a 101 degree fever within three hours of his departure and is sent home from daycare all red-eyed and clingy. He's been achy and cranky and terrible for the past two days. This morning I was preparing for a project status meeting and optimistically set up a little mise-en-scene with some of his favorite plastic animals to distract him. I even created a tempting animal trail, which led from one end of the couch to the animals. He did not take the bait but instead flopped around the couch asking for a series of things so rapidly that I felt like I was in Toddler Boot camp. Water! No...juice! No, water with ice (spilled)! MORE ICE WATER! Orange (not touched though lovingly peeled by yours truly)! Coffee (well, that was mine but he spilled it all over his two favorite blankets when I fricking needed it way more than they did)! I eventually had to move my meeting to an hour later so I could get the creep down for a nap.

I've yet to finish hand-crafting the eighty holiday party invitations for the SOCIAL CLUB I'm somehow now a part of so now I must go do that. If there's any way to win over a stodgy New England township, it's with glitter-glued snowmen scotch-taped to cardstock. Townspeople; love me, love my crafts.

Posted by Max at 02:00 AM | Comments (1)

October 27, 2005

steam heat

In this our new East coast home, we have steam heat. Or should I say sssssteam heat, hissing at us like serpents from behind thin sheets of decorative and hammered tin. The walls, they are ALIVE! Although we had a man come round to be sure that the entire system wasn't going to blow the first time we turned it on, it did blow up or at least in two of the rooms it did. Oops! At least no toddlers were in the vicinity when the scalding sulfur geysers did erupt.

My husband, a man known for his all-consuming yet short-lived obsessions (the WWF, velour track suits, WWII-themed Playstation games) is currently transfixed by the heating system. He bleeds air from the radiators daily. He disappears to the basement. He travels to hardware stores near and far to replace hard-to-find parts. The other night, we were lying in bed and, apropos of nothing, he whispered "I love the steam heat." Cold-weather folk everywhere agree: steam does make a nice heat.

Today a woman from California Closets told me the closet in our bedroom was too crappy to make into a fancy, with drawers and shelves and so forth type of a closet. "To be honest with ya, you should save ya money and go ta Tahget." It was refreshing to have a salesperson be so brutally honest, especially since she had driven in from another state (Massachusetts - fifteen minutes away but still). But now aforementioned husband wants to buy a table saw and rebuild the closet, perhaps outfitting it with steam heat so our clothes will stay warm for winter.

Speaking of things that hiss like demons and then blow up, the Bean had a very impressive meltdown the other night. It's surreal having a toddler because you find yourself saying stuff like "It is NOT okay for you to hit Mommy with your huggy monster OR throw raisins at the kitties." Then you have to try and not laugh as you dole out whatever punishment that particular crime merits. Bean hadn't had his nap on this one day and was so toddler tired that he began furiously sobbing and then couldn't remember why he was mad, which made him cry even more. We tried putting him in his room so he could have alone time, which sometimes works, but he was too upset for that. Instead, he lay down next to the dinner table and sobbed facedown into the rug while my husband and I ate dinner. I felt bad that he was so upset, but still I ate his spinach. I can't help it, I love me some leafy green veggies, especially when they're steamed.

Posted by Max at 12:56 AM | Comments (1)

October 15, 2005

this entire verse was replaced by a banjo solo

It's fall and you're two. What are you doing? You're learning about pooping in the potty, and you're pumped up about wearing your Halloween costume. Sometimes, little friend, the two events meet and what a happy time it is for you. Praise be to Grandma that she had a camera at the ready. I am sure some future day you will love her for it.

Speaking of happy times, who here loves train systems? Um, me! The other day I discovered that six bucks and about an hour will magically transport me from Providence to Boston, where my good friend and former Seattle colleague P-OK was waiting for me to come and drink drinks with her and hang out and make lists and invent things that will make us fabulously wealthy. P-OK is the best and if you ever need someone to invent things or drink with I highly recommend her.

She was there for the UIE conference, which I've been to before and it made me get all fired up about the technologies and the superhighways etc. etc. Because I love those things, I really do. However, both of us are terrible networkers, the worst ever, and when alone in networky situations we sputter and flail and end up watching bad TV alone in our hotel rooms. I felt it was my duty to spare her from that.

We went out drinking and had planned on maybe playing a little hooky from her conference the next day to go to the Boston Museum of Science, which is one of my fave places in the land BUT NO we are such geeks that instead I looked at her conference agenda and said "Huh. Some of this sounds pretty cool..." So I put on my false moustache and listened to a guy speak about The Future and folks, the future sounds pretty great from a web perspective. I really hope we don't get blown or bombed or shaken or drowned so that we can stick around to enjoy it, together.

And P-OK, I'm telling you that song is real and damned catchy.

Posted by Max at 03:51 AM | Comments (1)

October 07, 2005

grantastic

One of the many benefits of working from home is being able to go to the gym on your lunch hour. Where I live, when I say "gym" I mean the Y and when I say "being able" I mean that if you are at the Y in the middle of the day, you are at least 150 years old.

Today was my first experiment with cramming a little lunchtime fitness into my busy day. The last few times I've gone has been in the evening, when the place is full of gangly teenaged boys checking themselves out in the mirror, thickening middle-aged men checking out The Ladies, and snack-lovin' moms like me checking out Entertainment Tonight on the tee-vee. Mid-day is a whole 'nother story, my friends. Mid-day the oldies are there and they are sweating.

Next to me was a woman, at least eighty years old, going to town on the ROWING machine. Row row row, did she, looking a bit frail but otherwise fabulous, even giving me a wide, pearly lipstick grin as I hopped up onto the elliptical machine. I tried to chat her up in the locker room later, but I think she was hard of hearing so she just sort of smiled and backed away as I went on about my glasses steaming up and needing to get contacts. You know what? She didn't even have glasses! A POX ON YOU, MINE EYES.

Is it inspirational to totally go a billion times faster on the elliptical than the seventy-five year old guy next to you? Not really. In fact, I found myself getting inappropriately nervous, this time about being young-ish compared to this gentlemen, wondering if he was lamenting the decline of his abilties etc. etc. Seriously sir, if I am in 1/10th of the shape you are even next year, I will consider it an accomplishment.

This one is going out to exercising seniors. I pour a little prune juice on my stick-filled yard* for you.

* Sticks are everywhere on the East coast. A whole seaboard of blown and broken nature litter. The Bean and I have a new hobby and that is picking them up, putting them in bags, and sometimes pretending they are fishing poles, if they are long.

Posted by Max at 02:06 AM | Comments (1)

September 25, 2005

in the sequel, there will be cops

The other night we went and done saw a movie starring Jodie Foster's cute hairdos and her liquid eyeliner. The movie was enjoyable in a sure-it's-great-to-watch-movies-about-missing-kids and oh-the-plane's-gonna-crash kind of way. At this point, my husband and I would watch a movie about moss growing on a shed, it's such a luxury to go out at all.

The previews rolled along as we enjoyed delicious popped corn and criminally over-priced candy. We were comfortably surrounded by chattery, grandparenty couples who were clinking their bracelets, adjusting their bi-focals and settling their big booties in for the film.

At one point, a beautiful Western vista filled the screen ala "A River Runs Through It". Two heroic, chisled men stared into the sunset, the music swelled, I think there were cows. I was only half paying attention since there had been about thirty previews. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the cowboys were dry-humping in a tent! Then they were soul kissing! And smelling each other's shirts! Yeeeow! A collective intake of breath was the only sound for the next thirty seconds as the seniors tried to reconcile what they were seeing on the screen with what they knew previously about cowboys.

I suppressed ten thousand giggles and the urge the yell GAY COWBOYS!! at the end of the clip. When the title of the film, which had been coyly hidden, finally flashed on the screen, I at first glance thought it said "Broken Moustache". My husband thought the name was going to be "Ride 'em Cowboys". Turns out it was this.

Good thing they put another trailer right after with Heath Ledger playing a straight guy or the whole audience would have passed out from lack of breathing.

Baby-sitter: $20
Tickets: $25
Snacks: $12
Making mainstream America pretty darn nervous: priceless

Posted by Max at 02:45 AM | Comments (0)

September 20, 2005

rock crusher

For the past week, it's been all about the stones. The stones in my husband's kidneys, that is. For someone as young and foxy as he is, the guy is uncannily prone to getting the diseases of the old and decrepit. We've spent a total of almost twenty hours over the past week in various ERs, waiting rooms, urological clinics, and stone zapatoriums.

It started with a pain in his gut that grew steadily worse, resulting in us rather leisurely getting our things together and heading to the Urgent Care clinic. The crap-ass doctor there thought he had appendicitis, so she did what any Urgent Care clinic would do and, um, called 911. Thanks, lady! She then sent us to the Worst Hospital in Rhode Island, a good forty minutes away. The ambulance drivers actually guffawed and said to my husband "You know, you don't HAVE to go there..." At this point, my husband was on a morphine drip and not up for debating the pros and cons of various medical establishments so he just sort of rolled his eyes and drooled in approval.

Since I had no freaking clue where we were going, I was told to follow the ambulance. I also didn't know what was wrong at that point. For an endless and heart-stopping ride, I followed the ambulance; running red-lights, driving sixty in twenty mile an hour a zone, and flashing on images of life without my husband while our two-year old sat strapped in the backseat. I was acutely aware through my shock how unsafe it was to be driving like that with the baby in the car, so I started blowing my horn every time I was about to do something dangerous. Running a light? TOOT! Passing cars on the left? BEEP BEEP! Swerving around a semi? HONK!!! The Bean, punk rocker that he is, actually fell asleep on this ride from reality TV that somehow became our reality.

Once there, my husband was eventually diagnosed with good old-fashioned kidney stones, which he has had before so I knew it wasn't fatal. What was almost fatal was keeping a toddler entertained in an ER waiting room for seven hours. The ER was (barely) staffed by harried nurses and doctors who were fiercely protective of both information and painkillers. Inside, gurneys filled with sad and broken people lined the hallways. Outside, it was ninety-five degrees and the liquor stores and halfway homes nearby provided neither shade nor appropriate toddler diversion. The Bean and I did laps around the hospital hallways, crashed the employee cafeteria, chilled out in the hospital chapel and bought matching stuffed dogs at the gift shop. Note to self: GRAB PORTABLE DVD PLAYER WHEN FACING MEDICAL EMERGENCIES. The healing powers of Elmo have proven to be unrivalled.

Today said stones were zapped using incredible, non-invasive technologies and techniques. I've said it before and I'll say it again: SCIENCE! We somehow ended up with the best urologist ever, karmically making up for our horrific ER experience. We were in the recovery area waiting for the heavy drugs to wear off (my husband, not me - sheesh!), and the doctor came over to talk to us. While explaining how to use a paper filter to collect the now-shattered stone fragments for analysis, the earnest and sweet doctor mimed taking out his own John Thomas and peeing into the filter. My husband doesn't remember this due to the drugs, but I for one shan't forget it.

Thanks Dr. Pee Pee for making this home a healthy one once more.

Posted by Max at 01:12 AM | Comments (0)

September 09, 2005

helmet head

Here in Rhode Island, we do things we have never done before. We take family bike rides! We chitchat with neighbors over the fence, like on sitcoms! We go to sailing mixers! Well, we haven't yet but we are going to.

I've already worn a pair of Nantucket red pedal pushers and sashayed around town like L.L. Cool Bean. My plan is to go to the above-mentioned mixer in full-on quahog drag: sweater set, pearls, maybe pants with whales on them WHO KNOWS? I could be anyone. And the husband wants to wear seersucker, which is a fine choice although to be honest it is a bit late in the season.

Yesterday, we got strong-armed into having our yard mowed in that some guys just started mowing it. It turns out that I get a bit swoony around thick-necked, flat-accented tough guys because they are JUST SO MANLY and I am weirded out by their whole scene. So sending me out into the yard as negotiator was probably not the best move, especially since I was packing the pedal pushers. I think I may have agreed to a once-a-week-service, which my own tough guy will have to re-negotiate since we are so freaking broke. Sorry about that sweetie!

Speaking of being broke, we are the only ones in town not driving a MercedesBMWHummerSUV. But it's cool because I think once the husband and I get the diamond-encrusted gold caps, folks will see that we prefer to put our money where our mouths are.

Our dear friends and fellow ex-West coasters arrive tomorrow from yet another bastion of alternative lifestyles...Connecticut! This should bring a blessed weekend of normalacy to an otherwise pretty surreal time.

Posted by Max at 01:44 AM | Comments (0)

August 04, 2005

Something new to wrinkle your nose at

Son of Max recently received feedback that postings are too infrequent. I agree that posts have been spotty at best. However, Son of Max has also recently learned that everyone from the President of Chile to the Pope of Greenwich Village is reading this little homage to maternal minutia and therefore subject material has grown a bit…limited. I can only safely write about three things without risking offending something or someone: broccoli, windsurfing and aardvarks. Then again, I can be pretty offensive in person so I guess one should expect the same of an electronic version of me. Son of Max: all of the bad attitude with none of the pesky eye-rolling!

Man, I am a blogging cliché. See for yourself...

A History of Blogging

1. Hear about blogging from wildly successful blogging friend. Like a big dork, ask “So what is blogging, anyway?” Feel like an ass a few months later when you clue in on how famous said friend is in the BC (that’s blogging community, yo!)
2. Start stalking and lurking around other blogs, but never post because people try too hard to be funny in the comments section and you feel that when it comes to the comedic arts, brevity is not your strong suit anyway.
3. Debut your own site: offend friends with very first post!
4. Write about some crap
5. Want readers, but only if they are not related to, working with, or considering hiring you. Find out this is not the case.
6. Don’t write about some other crap. Have tedious, perpetual, and also cliché internal debate about Why You Blog if you can't write about things you want to write about
7. Apologize for not writing more (live your own blogging pet peeve!!)
8. Allude to the fact that you may quit blogging
9. Keep blogging
10. Quit blogging, take up windsurfing

There you go. Now you know how it all shakes out. I should get ahead of the curve on 2006’s trend and just start windsurfing now.

The Bean and I leave on Monday. Or, as we’ve been discussing it:

Mama: Who’s going on an airplane?
Bean: Mama
Mama: Who else?
Bean: Coco*
Mama: Where do airplanes go?
Bean: Up in the sky
Mama: Who are we going to see?
Bean: Baby Miles
Mama: And what does Baby Miles do?
Bean pretending to cry: Crying
Mama: And what do we do when Baby Miles cries?
Bean: Kisses
Mama: And what else?
Bean hugs self: Hugs

*His other nickname. Well, one of them.
**7-week old cousin, also colicky. Sorry, sis!

I think I just demonstrated why I blog: to bore you. Oh, and to show I'm a woman of my word AND that we've been busy, here's my leaving Seattle shots of the Bean.

Posted by Max at 10:53 PM | Comments (0)

July 18, 2005

Limbo akimbo

This morning I did a full-on pratfall on the way to work, complete with windmilling arms, broken shoe, and traffic blockage. I was on my cell phone with my mother discussing the latest in the cross-country move saga when my heel caught in a grate. The full force of me continued charging uphill with my foot caught in a vise-like grip and I biffed. I felt like I was in the movies! Now I am all achy and my very cute sandal is being held together with staples and will have to be discarded. This confirms that talking on the damn cell phone is dangerous when you are mobile. One should only use them while lying prone in your yard on sunny, windless days.

We had our open house yesterday, which went fairly well although the daily stress of picking pieces of lint off the stairs, collecting mashed plums from our patio, setting our throw pillows at right angles and encasing our toddler in stain-free plastic sheeting is getting to us. We have confirmed open house snoopage by our sour-faced cat-loving neighbor, who sits on her darkened porch at night smoking, staring at our house with narrowed, hateful eyes. She hates us because our cat is mean to her cat and also because we have a certain joyfulness in our family life that she seems to loathe. We laugh! We sing! We kiss each other on the mouth! Take that, sour cat lady!

On the other coast, the owners of our potential future home were apparently so freaked out as a result their house inspection that they had to go to the Jersey shore. How this will help, I do not know. All that hair and gold jewelry would send me over the edge. If our inspection report comes back with any alarming findings, we may have to go to Tukwila.

Posted by Max at 10:12 PM | Comments (1)

July 12, 2005

Wax on, wax off

I’m sitting in a house that is just about as tidy as a house can be. I should like to twirl around in it from happiness because messy houses make for a crazy, panic-filled, hyperventilating me, however I’m afraid I would bump into something and it would break, thus messing everything up. My husband is worse: he is in charge of “exterior home repairs and processes” and has spent the last three days shop-vac’ing dirt off of our sidewalk. Please note that he is not generally like this, but when there is a deadline and vast sums of money involved, that man really puts eater to weed.

Our house goes on the market in FIVE DAYS. An army of realtors is driving over tomorrow to inspect and appraise and review and critique. Those are my earth-toned bathrooms soaps, do you like them? That is my artfully arranged tableaux of books on decorating. You can tell I have read and studied them all. That is my basket of unmentionables. Please do not touch them or I will gross out.

We also have to have an open house, which around here means every freaking neighbor from a ten-block radius comes over to look at your shit while you are not there. Creepy VonCreepinsticks. This creeps me out to the nth degree, as I know someone who had a jar of pennies stolen from an open house, and I know someone else who’s ex-wife was one of those pill-popper types who go to open houses to steal prescription drugs. We have no pennies, we have no drugs! Buy my house and be off with you then!

Also, as a precaution, please be warned that window salesmen are sleazy beyond belief. I was completely unaware of the old-fashioned hucksterism of the whole “window industry” until we had to replace our windows right after we moved in. Those guys will seduce you with their briefcase samples, their desiccant-filled spacers, and their dollar sign lit flashing eyeballs. But then when you buy their crappy vinyl windows and one of them is discovered to have a huge stress crack not a year later, they treat you like the two-dollar ho you are. They won’t even return your calls! Too bad for them this ho spent her two dollars on gas so she’ll be driving up to their office (I mean “showroom”) wanting breakfast or at least, a cigarette.

My metaphors, they’re better than yours. I’d teach you but I’d have to charge.

Posted by Max at 01:01 AM | Comments (0)

June 30, 2005

Frontier Psychiatry

I recently went to a conference for corporate communicators because it was in Vegas and because my company was paying for it, and frankly one would be an ass to turn down a free trip to Vegas. However, Vegas is not so much fun if you don't have anyone to play with. I always think you are going to meet someone cool at a conference and it turns out that most people there have, you know, outfits and nail-dos and take corporate communications VERY FRICKING SERIOUSLY. Fortunately, my best friend's brother was also in town for some other thing. He is the head of a fancy pantsy tech company and like a gongillionaire, so I had a good time eating sushi with them and making fun of him in front of his staff. They might not have known that his version of "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" at his sister's wedding is one of the best performances in the whole history of karaoke, but they do now!

Much to my surprise and delight, one of the seminars was being given by The Wonkette. By the second day, I was in dire need of some relief from the metrics and the retention and the corporate transparency. I just wanted to find a shred of something, anything, cool besides the rap stars of nebulous origin playing craps at 7:30 a.m. whom I passed on my way through the Caesar’s Palace lobby. Rappers! I'm gonna go network with some CEO speechwriters! Who's with me? MC Executive Presentations, are you down?

The Wonkette was indeed cool. As both she and her bio will tell you, she is an "A-list blogger" meaning I guess she gets an A for blogging so well. She is a funny lady and gets mad props for cursing, saying "whores" and just generally being conference inappropriate. What was she even doing there? (For what is worth, I would like to give Mimi Smartypants a triple A plus plus because I love me some Mimi oh yes I do. I would also give the Yeti an A because he is coming over here this weekend and his kid is very tough and might kick the be-diapered booty of my kid if I didn't. Son of Max would get a C- and that's primarily because I have a cute banner made by my cute husband.)

Pishaw. Tonight's post was going to be about how our realtor is like the Eyeore of real estate and how I am having to be a cheerleader for our house ("Come on, it's cute! 2, 4, 6, 8, you know it did appreciate!") while she mopes in her caftan and drives me around in her BMW to all the houses that are better than ours and still sitting unsold on the market. Frink and frank and frunk.

Per her doom and gloom suggestion, we are transforming a third bedroom that we are currently using as an office/den into a dining room just in case people can't think of that themselves when they are looking at the house. I told her I would spray-paint my body gold and pose as a centerpiece if it will help sell the house considering we KIND OF JUST BOUGHT A DIFFERENT HOUSE someplace else.

You've got to love the Seattle housing market. It's crazy in the coconut.

Posted by Max at 05:48 AM | Comments (0)

June 27, 2005

step one

This weekend was a bit of a blur, but a few interesting things stand out. At a salad bar where I was attempting to grab some quick 'n' healthy vittles prior to signing my life away, I overhead two tan, bikini-top clad teenage girls debating whether or not chick peas were really "cow stomach glands". These are the sort of girls that the Bean will one day be groping in the backs of their daddies' BMWs. I'm so going to play an endless loop whispering "band camp" into his room every night from now on. Band girls are cool.

On the airplane back, during dinner, the man next to me dropped a large quantity of something soft and slippery into my shoe, and I couldn't attend to it for a while because our trays were down, trapping us in our seats. The only thing that got me through it was thinking how much more my friend Rocky would have been freaking out than I was.

And I think we bought a house.

Posted by Max at 09:17 PM | Comments (2)

June 24, 2005

Midnight, and not at the oasis

After 45 delightful minutes on the phone with a patient man in India, I am posting from a hotel in Seekonk, MA. From the sounds of it, legless nocturnal monsters are dragging themselves up and down the hall in front of my door. The overall situation is very "mockumentary of a small-town serial killer", where the hapless female traveler checks in solo to a seedy roadside place and never shows up for the free continental breakfast, if you know what I'm saying.

Tomorrow I am looking at houses with a loud woman named Louise. The jury is out whether Louise and I are going to hit it off, but what we are going to is spend some intense time together traipsing through strangers' homes and deciding if they are worthy of me uprooting our entire lives for.

On the plane ride here, I had the pleasure of sitting next to the National Handwashing Expert. At first, I was skeptical of such a claim but it turns out she has degrees in microbiology, cognitive behavioral studies, and food safety. Guess what, people? You aren't washing your hands enough, and the bird flu is going to kill us all because of it! Thanks a lot! She said research shows that almost 50% of all deaths in hospitals were preventable, caused by viruses and bacteria introduced AFTER the person had checked in for something else like rat bites, and that over 60% of hospital staff don't wash their hands often or well enough.

You can read all about her very cool project, Germ City, that educates people about this stuff here.

If you learn nothing else from this blog, please remember this: wash your cantaloupe. E.coli thrives in their textured skins, which rest on the dirty, dirty ground, and then you cut them with knives and it gets on the flesh of the fruit and then you eat it and die.

More tomorrow, with pictures of houses posted by very clean hands.

Posted by Max at 05:26 AM | Comments (1)

June 16, 2005

Hey, where've you been?

Someone did smote my former site. A pox on him and his down dirty database deleting ways! That means I’ve been unable to tell you about the little things that have been going on in my life such as: my sis had a baby boy, our trip with my brother and his family to Cape Cod, the conference I went to in Vegas, how a crazy girl at work tried to take me down with lawsuits and lies, and OH YEAH how we are moving across the country. In two months. To Rhode Island. Word to the mothership.

I need beers, maybe ten thousand of them. My husband just called to inform me that he is drinking whiskey tonight and that I shouldn’t wait up. As far as I’m concerned, he can sail his boat down Whiskey River every evening from now until September because after five years of my pouting, pleading, threatening, cajoling, gibbering and yearning, he has agreed to move back East with me, his loving loving East coast wifey. This from a boy who is from Alaska and hates the snow, a boy who has never lived more than fifty miles from the Pacific ocean, a boy who’s own family is scattered up and down the West coast.

Not only has he agreed to move, he is fired up! He’s sending me links to beach houses! He’s discussing what I should serve at the café I want to open! He’s installing new sod lawns where before there were weeds so we can sell our house for mo’monies! I’m swoony with love for him!

So in spite of the fact that said crazy girl is out to get me, things are going pretty goddamn great. I’m quite giddy with possibility myself, in fact. I’ve lived in on the West coast for a mighty long time and am ready to return to the fold, where the men wear madras and the locals eat lobstahs. I fly out next week to look at houses…

Thanks to my husband for fixing both my website and my heart, which has never set quite right since I’ve been away. More as we know it.

Posted by Max at 04:45 AM | Comments (1)

April 17, 2005

Comment dit on

I blew up my comments, somehow. I am hoping that my husband will assist me turn them back on but at the moment he is smeared in grout and sealant fluids due to the reconstruction of our shower facility*. We were up until past midnight last night with the spackle spackle and the press press of the milky white tiles. When we were done my husband said the overall effect was sort of '80's, which I did not agree with but it still made me regret that we didn't do a black tile portrait of Cindy Lauper right in the middle. Actually it is more A Clockwork Orange, but I am thinking a nice throw rug and some potpourri will cozy that "just got out of the asylum and boy are my fingers bloody from trying to claw my way out" look right up.

* We're slowly but surely tiling every exposed surface in our home. It's a good thing the Bean moves as quick as he does.

Recently, we went to San Diego to visit my husband's dad and his family and as a bonus we got to take the Bean to Sea motherlovin' World, which I had never been to. It was totally awesome, there were things flipping and swimming and replicated in purchasable miniature all over the place. We were lucky to escape with just one tiny plush penguin, purchased in a chilly, artic-themed gift shop and lost not one hour later. We also got to touch some manta rays in a huge, shallow pool. For those of you who have never "petted the m-ray", I must mention how surprisingly slimy and muscular they are. My father-in-law, who was holding the Bean up for a closer look, decided that he would try and scoop a ray up in his other arm so the Bean could touch it. Understandably, the thing freaked out and WAP! WAP! WAP!ed the Bean in the face with his, um, wing. Is it a wing? Whatever it is, it is like a freaking oil covered He-Man bicep and overall, not something you want your kid to be hit in the face with.

After a brief period of comforting the Bean and the angry manta ray, my husband and I left him with his grandpa at tidepool exhibit so we could enjoy a water flume ride. Visions of returning to a lobster-covered toddler and a shrugging father-in-law (I dunno! They just attacked him!) danced in my head but only for a moment as the husband and I enjoyed maybe our fourth baby-free half hour since I birthed the adorable little so-and-so.

Also in San Diego, it was pointed out to me by husband that I am OLD due to the fact that I didn't know it was cool for guys to have their butts literally hanging out of the backs of their shorts, that this trend has a fashion name ("male butt cleavage"), and that it has been cool for at least three years. I'm like, if that is cool pass me the freaking Geritol, I've got some Pax to watch.

Now we are back in the butt cleavage-free (I think) zone of Seattle, where I find that I am infinitely more tired after three consecutive days with toddler than I am after four days with a corporation full of Blackberry-wielding, action item assigning adults. By this afternoon, toddler-themed stand-up comedy shows were swirling through my sleep-deprived brain (BECAUSE WHO DOESN'T LIKE TO WAKE UP AT 6 AM ON A SUNDAY?). I'll spare the details, but the punchline centered around toddlers and their constant snacking. Yeah...see?

Veggie Bootylicious,
~Max

Posted by Max at 12:24 AM | Comments (0)

March 07, 2005

An appointment with elegance

We are thinking about getting a sedan. Specifically, this one. Chim chiminey, do I love me this sedan. Aooga ooga ooga*. This car passed us on the highway the other day and I practically jumped out of our car and onto it, pried the roof back with superhuman strength and inserted myself into the driver's seat. Too bad for the Bean there was no car seat in the back or believe me, I would have.

The husband and I are prone to making impulsive and expensive decisions, so we are trying to temper our sudden, inexplicable sedan lust with facts and logic. Such as, we don't need a sedan. We have a perfectly fine car already. It's a freaking sedan. Sedances with wolves. But here are some counter-facts: it is relatively inexpensive, as far as sedans go. It has anti-lock brakes and side-impact airbags, which our current family car does not. It gets better gas mileage than our car. It's hot. Sedance fever!

We will of course not be buying a brand new one, oh no we are not That Crazy. The conclusion drawn after a brief but serious discussion was that we will wait for the month of May, when bonuses will be bestowed and stocks will vest and new jobs may start and vacations will be taken and all sorts of other stuff. In the meantime, I must resist the urge to go test drive one because the last time we did that, well we bought ourselves a car that same day.

I wish we could be impulsive about things like "Let's buy a pack of gum!" or how about "Hey, everyone should wear false mustaches today!" I think the Bean would look very cute with a false mustache actually. Maybe we will all wear them to go test drive the sedan (cue villainous laughter here...)

* In a very lackluster attempt at defending myself, I am a bit of a sucker for design when it comes to some certain things, generally involving chrome. There's a new vintage travel store (!) that I walked past this morning on the way to work and I pressed my nose to the storefront glass like a kid drooling at candy. One of my favorite museums is the Henry Ford Museum, and I can almost guarantee that we'll have an Airstream within two years. At least I'm consistent!

Posted by Max at 12:29 AM | Comments (0)

March 03, 2005

Homeward bound

The Bean's Big Thing these days is to wake up at four a.m. and be ready to party down, which in his mind involves reading books, drinking bottles and watching Elmo. As you might imagine, none of this is very appealing to us at that time of day. So this morning, my husband went downstairs for the usual round of shushing, diaper changing, bottle administering and Elmo avoiding, but the Bean would not be silenced. After an hour and a half, we opted for the Cry It Out method, which we never do but hey, sometimes you simply run out of options. So the Bean howled in his crib for fifteen minutes or so, then abruptly stopped. I of course had to hold the baby monitor up to my ear in order to make sure I could still hear his breathing, which I could. Then, after about five minutes of silence, he started LAUGHING. Paging Dr.Creepy, we've got a patient for you!

This weekend I was on the East coast to celebrate the 80th birthday of my beloved grandmother, G. Bear. My family and I worked up a little play in her honor that involved live crabs, Emeril, and scrimshaw. With a script like that, success was inevitable.

As a parting gift, while driving me to the airport my mother announced that she didn't like visiting Seattle because it was "old, arid, and dirty". I'm like, um, what? If you are going to insult the city in which I have made my home for the last decade, at least be accurate and call it something like "mild, mountainous, and overcaffeinated yet oddly unambitious".

Posted by Max at 12:30 AM | Comments (0)

February 20, 2005

When animals amuse

My husband and I have a friend, J., and between the two of them, they have the most insane animal-related stories. So insane, in fact, that I would buy them this, if the CEO of Vermont Teddy Bear didn't have to quit making them and resign.

Here's some of the top stories, recently revisited over homemade mac'n'cheese and ale:

1. Dad's fishing in a small boat, a killer whale bites salmon that's just been hooked, pulls Dad's rowboat on a mad, aquatic spree and almost under water until Dad somehow manages to cut line free. Dad also manages to videotape entire incident.

2. Hibernating bear discovered in the basement of friends' cabin while friend is fumbling around in the dark for circuit breaker. Bear is huge, smelly, and fortunately, a sound sleeper.

3. Drunk friend passes out in yard, awakened by a beaver eating his boot.

4. Drunk husband-to-be walking home from Halloween party dressed as Jerry Lee Lewis. Opossum chases sequined husband-to-be down road, bites heel. Husband-to-be shrieks like a girl in love with her cousin.

5. Dog dressed as hobo discovered in backyard. Dog is rumpled, slyly grinning, and wearing pink fingerless gloves. Backyard searched for empty Dinty Moore cans, none discovered.

Speaking of animals, the Bean and I froze our baboonies off today and went to the zoo for an hour or so, since his new thing is to make the baby sign for monkey at me all the time and I thought he might want to see some real ones. The gorillas looked bored and sad and beautiful and the Bean couldn't stop looking at them.

As far as zoos go, the Woodland Park Zoo is a pretty good one in that they try and make the habitats as natural as possible, they have a breeding program to help endangered animals, and they do lots of fundraising and outreach for animals. The Bean loves going there and seeing all the animals from his books in real life, but it is still pretty heartbreaking to watch three elephants pacing around a dirt cage and looking almost frantic with boredom.

I didn't mean for that to end on a bummer note, so I will close by saying that the Bean is cutely, unnaturally obsessed with...owls. Owl, owl, owl. What kid, I ask you, cares about an owl? The Bean does, that's whooooo.

Posted by Max at 12:31 AM

January 25, 2005

The Flotsam and Offal of Sad Young Lives

We got my husband's car back. It is crunched and battered and currently not running, but we didn't have to pay any impound fees due to at last admitted clerical errors. My superhero power is that when I need to, I can wield a phone like a weapon.

Here's what was in it. Note the significant lack of fly-fishing equipment:

1. generic packs of cigarettes (2)
2. Blink 182, U2, Lauren Hill, Natural Born Killer soundtrack cds

3. note from Tanya to Thomas explaining how she never came back to meet him because she had to meet Rob to move some speakers and shit, and that she wasn't driving right now because she had to wait until her trial

4. blank visitor application form for the King County Juvenile Detention Center

5. handwritten schedules of visitation hours for Jeff and Brian

6. scratched out, non-winning Lotto tickets (4)

7. pee smell

8. cigarette butts (lots)

9. Covergirl face powder

10. baby stroller

Sometimes, you don't even need to wait for karma to get someone. They've already been jinxed.

AND BY THE WAY, DUMBASSES, NEXT TIME YOU STEAL A CAR DON'T LEAVE YOUR CDS WITH YOUR LAST NAME WRITTEN ON THEM IN THE CAR WHEN YOU DITCH IT.

Posted by Max at 12:35 AM | Comments (0)

January 16, 2005

Work 1, Life 2

This past week held a series of exciting events, as weeks often do. There was so much drama at work and I guess because I'm a mama, people saved it for me. Without going into it, I will just say that for any young impressionable types who may be reading and thinking about growing up to become managers in corporate environments: DON'T DO IT! Become veterinarians, like my mom always suggested to me. Or beekeepers, bees will sting you at times but at least you get some honey out of the deal. How about owners of small yarn shops? That seems like a nice job.

In other news, two great things also happened: my husband's car was recovered and I discovered that Target is now selling boxed wine *.

On Friday night, my husband and I went on a date, which would have been newsworthy enough. Our Texan neighbors have a boy a few months younger than The Bean and we've recently worked out a system of baby-sitting swapping that means we now have mutual Date Nights once a month...YEEHAW!

So Friday, my husband and I planned on paying homage to my New Wave roots by going to see the Psychedelic Furs, but they weren't slated to take the stage until like two o'clock in the morning. Since we are fast approaching ancient, we decided to bag the rock show in favor of finishing our fancy seafood dinner and going home to bed.

When we got home at around 10:30, the phone rang. It was the polic