Best Answer to "How Was School Today?"

Mommy who?

We are now two months into preschool and the girls run off into the building gleefully like I am yesterday's news. I have a long history of being treated like that by men, but my own children? I don't think so! I am a vengeful sort so I started plotting how to get back at them for disposing of me so easily. "If you can so callously be without me for 2 hours and 45 minutes," I thought, "then let's see how you do if I go back to work full time and you only see me two hours TOTAL per day! Maybe you'll miss me then!" Of course that would require me to actually work and we all know how against that I am. Alas, I am still scheming. Preferably I'll come upon a plan that punishes them but doesn't at all negatively impact me.  I'm not even sure I'm still employable as I have trouble making pleasant conversation with other adults. Unpleasant, certainly. But from what I vaguely recall that doesn't fly in the workplace.

So every day I ask the same tired question I assume all mothers across the world ask: "How was school today?" Usually I get mish mash of toddler gossip like someone wet their pants or another bit an unsuspecting fellow pupil who dared to grab a purple crayon or similar. But one day. Ah, one day I got this courtesy of Lulu:

"I was afraid to ask the teacher for a tissue so I wiped boogers all over my dress."

I'm so against the word boogers that I didn't even know how to spell it. I had to look it up. So you can imagine if I don't like writing it how I felt about knowing my daughter's dress was covered in them.

In other news, my mother came to visit as she does quite often and we took a pleasant sojourn to the park where we overheard a father tell his daughter that if she didn't put on her shoes the police would come and take her away to jail. That was two months ago and my mother was so horrified she's still not over it. Whenever she calls, she'll ask, "Have you seen that no-good father who threatens his three-year-old with jail?" I got sick of saying no so last time she asked that question I said, why yes, in fact I saw social services hauling the kid away as she exclaimed happily, "Thank you for saving me from my awful mean father!" I think mom can now sleep at night.

During that same park excursion, there was some dumb kid sitting right under the monkey bars where he could get hit by swinging feet as his dumber mother stood there saying things like, "You have two choices. You can get out of the way or you can get hit in the head." After several minutes of this, I told Moxley she could go ahead and swing on over him and if he got a concussion so be it. Shortly thereafter, another dumb kid wouldn't give Lulu a turn on the slide and he just sat there blocking it. I told him to move it and he tried to give me an explanation, one that started with, "Well, I am waiting for my sister blah blah blah" to which I replied, "I don't care if you're waiting for God himself. Move it!" at which point my mother said to me: "You seem awfully angry. Why are you so angry?" My question is why did it take her 40+ years and a jaunt to a park filled with annoying children for her to notice this about my personality?

Speaking of God, my kids are beginning to ask questions about him. Except they think his name is Ga-Gon for some reason. "Why does Ga-Gon live in the clouds?" they asked. "Who?" I replied. "Ga-Gon. He is really nice and lives in the sky." "Oh," I said, "you mean God?" "No, Ga-Gon!" Then last night Lulu asked if Ga-Gon lived in a castle or if he got wet when it rained. Which, when you think about it, is  actually a very good question.

I also have some deep thoughts on the CMAs: Did the country music powers that be think that by putting Lionel Richie up on stage with Darius Rucker thereby having the only two African American people in the entire room in one place under one roof it would debunk the theory that country music is racist? "Look here!" the producers must have said patting themselves on the back. "Two black performers on stage AT THE SAME TIME! Who are they calling racist???" Dancing on the ceiling indeed. And while we're discussing dancing, might I point out that Faith Hill has no rhythm? Did you see her hop around the stage to her new song as though there was an entirely DIFFERENT song being played? Sheesh. Ask Tim to cough up some money for dance lessons, sweetheart! And get a new hairdresser while you're at it.

One more thing: I just came from Traders Joe's which I normally delegate to my husband because making undesirable small talk with the cashiers deeply upsets me. I by far prefer the surly rudeness of the  Jewel staff. But I think I finally figured out how the interview process works at Trader Joes. The first phase involves weeding out anyone who seems remotely normal. The second phase requires giving the applicant one simple command in the interview: "Tell us about yourself." If the person can talk nonstop for 30 minutes straight without coming up for air they get the job. Bonus points with a direct line to a managerial position if they somehow work in a story about their pet ferret.

I am going to start posting more. Really. This time I mean it.

The Preschool Blues

We now have three days of preschool under our belts and each day my children acted like I was sending them off to slaughter at drop off time. Crying. Screaming. Holding onto me for dear life. And then, at the moment they know I must leave, pleading with me, "Mommy! Please don't go! I love you!" And then these heartbreaking words from Lulu: "Please take me home with you, Mommy! I promise I'll be good!" Like I am doing this to punish them for something.  I don't have the mental constitution for this. I might be destined to become one of those home-schooling freaks.

In wardrobe news, we are going on seven months that Moxley has worn her beloved "flower pants." I am down to one pair of 4T's that don't have a hole in the knees. Target is now out of stock, thanks in large part to this household buying them in bulk. When this last pair is in tatters, I'm not sure what's going to go down. She may need to be medicated. Or possibly hospitalized. I was encouraged recently when she declared she wanted to wear a suit to school when her last pair of flower pants finally ripped.  When I pointed out it would be hard to play in a suit she countered, and rightfully so, that Father Bear plays in his... My child's fashion muse is a middle-aged bear who wears a three-piece suit -- even to bed.

Our "flower pants problem" may rapidly turn into a "Chaz Bono problem." But wanting to dress like a boy (or even be one) isn't the upsetting part. The part that disturbed me is when she said she wanted to wear a bow tie in lieu of a regular tie. Ever meet that guy at work whose shtick is to wear a bow tie every day instead of a regular one? They're all weird, and there's usually one at every company. I would sit in meetings just staring at these oddballs trying to figure out their psyche and wondering what motivated them to unilaterally decide one day that their corporate identity would revolve around donning a bow tie day in and day out.

One evening, circa 2001, one such fellow approached me at a company happy hour and said something along the line of, "Would you like to grab dinner one night?" I was horrified. He must have mistaken my staring at him in the board room as romantic interest rather than a perverse need to know what motivates a grown man to buy 30 different bow ties so he never wore the same one all month. (I kept track.) This was my opportunity to get to the bottom of this. I ignored his advance and replied, not unkindly: "Let me ask you something. What's with the bow ties?" He turned on his heels and never spoke to me again unless it was absolutely necessary for work purposes. The bow-tied gentleman didn't even give me a chance to float my theory that he had a deep-seated emotional need to differentiate himself due to feeling invisible during his formative years.

In other news, we have a bunch of large insects with about a million legs running around our house. They freak me out. I usually attack them with a whole roll of paper towels so their guts don't seep through and possibly leak on me like they might if I used only one sheet. Yesterday one crawled by my bed and I had no paper towels handy and was too afraid to get off the bed so I dropped a book on it and then left the book in place for my husband to deal with when he returned from work. This seemed like a completely reasonable reaction on my part but he seemed perturbed by it. At first I thought he was annoyed by my choice of book (Sh-- My Dad Says) but upon further reflection I learned he didn't like to be greeted with a demand to remove a smashed insect carcass immediately after a hard day at the office. I stand by my actions. If I wanted to clean up murder scenes I'd work for one of those firms CSI calls in to mop up blood after all the fingerprints and DNA samples are taken.

So how many days until my kids stop going ballistic before school? I come home every day and cry for the 2 hours and half hours before I have to turn around and pick them up. It's highly unproductive.

Mid-Life Crisis

I feel a mid-life crisis coming on. Oh, I've had them before. But the beauty of this one is I sense it's coming. Which means I can proactively plan how it will manifest itself. So much better than impulsively driving off the lot in a canary yellow 911 convertible Porsche one can't afford then regretfully looking back when the first bill arrives and telling one's husband, "Sorry, it's a mid-life crisis!"  Or boinking the 24-year-old hot gardener ala Desperate Housewives. Luckily (for unsuspecting hot gardeners everywhere) we don't have a garden. And, truth be told, if I was going to impulsively buy a vehicle I can't afford it would be a 2011 black Audi Q7 with a fancy entertainment center so the girls would watch non-stop episodes of Dora and stop barking orders at me while I drive. Such a purchase doesn't scream MID-LIFE CRISIS! as much as it screams SOCCER MOM!

So the big decision is how will I choose to play out this particular mid-life crisis. I think I have an idea: I will become a vegan. Wait, stop. I know it's not very mid-life crisis-y. But it kind of is if you know me. Mid-life crises are supposed to be about engaging in uncharacteristic behaviors, right? Well, there is no group of humans I am more unlike than vegans. What is a vegan anyway? I suspect it's a vegetarian who no longer felt they were getting the proper accolades for selflessly saving the animals and decide to step up their annoying eating habits a notch. (Not fish, though. Fish are fair game for vegetarians. Why are cows worth saving when it comes to a species to slaughter for one's own consumption but not fish, one wonders?)

I don't see myself ever being friends with a vegan. What would we do? Where would we go out to eat? What would we talk about? Yoga? I bet vegans are too spiritually cleansed to watch the Bachelorette. They are probably munching on some tofu right now blissfully unaware that the worst Bachelorette in the history of the franchise chose boring JP over adorable Ben. Gwyneth Paltrow is a vegan. Need I say more?

If I fully commit to becoming a vegan I suppose I'll have to look up exactly what I'm not supposed to eat.  I consume about one whole cow per week so instead of evolving into a vegan I might become one of those people who only eat what cavemen could eat. Cavemen liked cows, or at least the prehistoric version of cows. That might suit me better. That seems easier as before you put anything into your mouth you need only ponder, "Could a caveman have eaten this?" Take a Twinkie for example. I don't think Hostess was invented in the Paleozoic era so the answer would (sadly) be no. I'm not sure when pinot noir came about but I have to believe an ambitious caveman (or cavewoman, no sexism here) who was hulking about the region that is now Sonoma, California accidentally stomped on some grapes, brought them back to the cave and discovered the mixture went nicely on the palate with the beast they clubbed earlier that day. So red wine is in.

I am open to ideas about this midlife crisis by the way. My only criteria is it can't be bad for my family or children. So schmooping the gardener, if we in fact had a garden, would not pass the "no harm to the family" criteria. Running off to Italy for five months with a man I meet on the Internet to retrace Elizabeth Gilbert's tracks in Eat, Pray, Love is similarly disqualified.  Plus I think women who aspire to do that are unoriginal harpies (the tracing of Gilbert's tracks part at least). I mean, really? The world is a big place -- make up your own damn itinerary, people!

On another note, I always thought my little crush on Daniel Craig was a joke. But when I learned he married Rachel Weisz I was actually ever-so-slightly disturbed. Not crying disturbed. More mildly irked. It was at that point, as I experienced my mild irk-ness, that I'd wished I had a therapist. What a great session that would be! I pictured myself sitting across from Gabriel Byrne from In Treatment (I totally would pick a therapist I slightly wanted to sleep with so he could diagnose that transference thing) and he would lean in, adorably engaged as I described my angst.

I'd play it up. In the session I wouldn't convey "mildly irked" but instead feign "extreme distress." He'd perhaps ask probing questions like, "Do you often have unrealistic fantasies about unattainable men you don't know?" I'd end the session bawling on the couch in a fetal position as Gabriel tried to talk me down while prescribing some anti-psychotic drugs. Oh, have I mentioned I don't believe in therapy? It's mainly because I think most therapists are even more f---ed up than the rest of us and they are simply trying to work out their own mental health issues ON OUR DIME. If you are a therapist reading this, no offense. But I'm right, right?

In conclusion, I am assuming if you are a vegan, a vegetarian, a therapist, a woman who wants to take an excursion to Italy, India and Bali in that order, or perhaps even a gardener, I've offended you.  Why so sensitive!?!

Sh*t That PIsses Me Off

See, this is the kind of crap that makes me crazy pissed off. The other day we go to this park that has some nifty water features and two benches in the shade for about 100 asses that would like to sit. So some entitled mother decides to take one of those two benches in the shade all for herself and her rotten kids,  one of whom hit Moxley over the head with a bucket and when I told him he better stop the mom called him over and whispered something to him. Probably something like, "Don't mind that mean lady, she has nowhere to even sit!" followed by a maniacal laugh. Her Mark Shale bag apparently also needed to sit all day on this coveted bench space and her double stroller was conveniently parked right in front of part of the bench so if someone should have dared to sit on HER bench they would have had to move it.

These are the same types of people who fly Southwest and even on full flights leave their carry on in the middle seat hoping to deter someone -- ANOTHER PAYING PASSENGER -- from sitting there. They are also the type of people who get a wake-up call at a resort for 7:00 am so they can save eight chairs with towels for a family of four (beach bags need chairs too ya know!) and then mosey on down to the pool at 1:00 pm.

When I called my husband to bitch about this ad nauseam (I texted him the above photo as evidence), he calmly asked, "Why didn't you just move that blanket or towel or whatever it is and sit?" BECAUSE THAT MIGHT SOLVE THE PROBLEM AND LET'S FACE IT I'D RATHER POST PHOTOS AND BITCH ABOUT IN ONLINE. That's why.

If you are one of these people I am talking about, please know that others hate you. I mean really hate you. And feel free to explain to the rest of us why inanimate objects need their own seat. And please see below that my adorable daughter (who might get a sunburn unlike a Mark Shale bag) had to sit on the concrete in direct sunlight while you chased around your deranged son who thinks a bucket is a weapon.

Vacation 2011: The Ups, the Downs and the Iguanas

There were many portents (yes, I am comparing my life to a Shakespearean tragedy) that our vacation in Puerto Rico might not meet my vision of the relaxing, fun-filled days of frolicking on the beach by day, watching the sunset by night as my two angels are on best behavior out of gratitude that their parents got them the hell out of this miserable Chicago weather. It became brutally clear to me that being a mother on vacation is eerily similar to being one every other day of the year. Except you are spending a lot more money causing a heightened level of annoyance when your children are not behaving and obsessing over whether they have enough sunscreen on. My children were deliciously delightful half the time during our sojourn, and complete miserable freaks the other half, leading me to believe they are Cybill with slightly fewer personalities.

Before this getaway even started, the following occurred:

Portent Number One: We were required to send a cashier's check via Priority US Mail to the condo we rented. Said check, per the USPS, arrived on a certain date, but the recipients confirmed it did not. I traced it, with the USPS insisting it had been delivered. It had, in fact, not. We cancelled the check, and I initiated an investigation with USPS. They said they would get back to me "within two business days." That was 47 business days ago.

Portent Number Two: We booked award tickets on United Airlines  (a company which incidentally can bite me) but could not get a direct flight for our return. I reluctantly booked a connection through DC. Exactly three hours after booking it, the direct opened up. I called United but was told I'd be charged $150 per ticket ($600 total for the mathematically challenged out there) because it was a "change of route." How exactly does our changing the route using miles cost United ANYTHING let alone $600? And kindly don't get me started on their baggage fees. I'd make a Friendly Skies witticism here but it's probably already been done ad nauseam.

Portent Number Three: I have never had a spray tan, but because I could have potentially starred in Powder II, I decided to try it. The gal with the hose asked whether I'd like light, medium-light, medium-dark or dark. Having never had a spray tan, I left it up to her discretion, directing only, "Just don't make me look ridiculous." Let's just say "ridiculous" must be subjective because I emerged from my session looking like the love child of a female oompa loompa and C. Thomas Howell in Soul Man.

 A few highlights of the trip:

There was a large, functional gong on each floor of the resort. This puzzled me deeply. It's as if the designer thought to himself (it wasn't a female I can tell you that), "Hmm... you know what's missing from this kid-infested venue? There simply isn't enough noise!" The gong just so happened to be right outside our door. What a pleasure it was for every passerby under the age of 14 to take a whack during all hours! So enjoyable was it I might go buy myself a gong as I miss the gonging disrupting my REM sleep on a regular basis since our return.

Puerto Rico might soon be taken over by iguanas in a mass revolt reminiscent of a B horror flick. The place is crawling (literally) with them: they are the size of large cats and seemingly have no fear of humans. I like an animal that is terrified of superior species as nature intended. But the iguana, in its ruthless quest for french fries and other food eaten by tiny tourists, JUMPED ONTO OUR LOUNGE CHAIR and perched itself atop our beach bag. (Interesting iguana trivia: they don't respond to the command "shoo shoo!" like a bird might.) The fact my husband missed that photo opp might be grounds for divorce. I wonder if anyone ever listed as the reason on a  divorce decree "Iguana dove onto our bag and my now estranged husband missed the shot." He did manage to get this one of Moxley about to possibly lose a nose or other facial extremity:



Halfway through the trip, Lulu informed me she wants her name to henceforth be "Flower." This is troubling on many levels, least of which is that there are only three possible destinies for a person with an affinity for the name Flower: a dope-smoking slacker, a cult member, and worst of all, a tree hugger. I don't need some smart ass teenager lecturing me about my carbon footprint and pestering me to buy locally grown organic food while living rent free in my home. At least if they are dope smokers they will be too busy stuffing their faces with Pringles and onion dip in a fit of the munchies to bother me too much and a cult member probably won't be in touch at all, rendering them fairly low maintenance. The Flower thing may or may not be related to fact the girls now only want to wear clothing items besieged by flowers.



I used to think parents who stuck their children in the Kids Club on vacation were assholes. Now my first and foremost concern when planning our next getaway is that they have one, preferably one that operates all day every day.

I suppose I could write about our joyous moments as well, but if I wanted to write joyous crap I'd be published in one of those Chicken Soup books or similar. I'll let some photos speak for that side of the trip:

If It's Okay for a Princess...

At first glance, you might think the disturbing part of this photo is that my daughter is drinking out of a bowl. Really, that's the least of the problems depicted in this photo. First and foremost, it is WHAT she is drinking. Are you ready? Green bean juice. Or more accurately, the watery remnants of what canned Del Monte no salt green beans come packed in. (Good thing I keep "shit loads" on hand...) The girls recently decided they like their green beans "juicy" which means they don't want me to drain the watery crap out. These are the same girls who won't take a bite of hamburger or chicken nuggets or macaroni and cheese or anything else normal children actually eat. But green bean run-off? Yes please may I have another!

The second most disturbing part is that when I told her not to drink from the bowl (does one use a spoon to eat green bean water like a soup one wonders?), Lulu indignantly replied, "That's how Belle ate when she had dinner with the Beast!" Oh, well then, carry on.

CINDERELLA ATE MY DAUGHTER INDEED.

The Case of the Vacuum and Broken Lollipop

I prefer not to make myself look pathetic on the World Wide Web, but I think this story deserves telling, if only to shame myself into being a more responsible member of my own household. I recently bribed the girls for doing something or other, I can't recall (one can't be expected to keep track of all forms of bribing when one's main parenting technique is bribing) and as a result we marched back home from the drug store with those obnoxious lollipops as big as one's head. As an aside, just out of curiosity, I read the "nutritional" information on the back and each lollipop is 550 calories of pure sugar.  But a half thousand empty calories were fine with me if these two WOULD JUST SHUT UP. We were having a rough day.

So anyway, Moxley still had some plastic wrapper on her stick and was hemming and hawing about it and I was on the phone with my mother trying to explain that I could at any moment plunge my head into a vat of boiling oil and while I'm wondering aloud how one might obtain a firearm in Chicago I'm trying to get the damn wrapper clinging onto the lollipop stick off and I drop it and it shatters like glass all over the kitchen. It's like shrapnels of blue sugar attacking my floor and if I had wanted to shoot myself before this happened how do you think I felt afterward with 550 calories of blue sugar covering my floor and a three-year-old shrieking hysterically over a lost lolly while her twin gloats and licks her still-intact pink one? Right.

I calm Moxley down by offering her a piece of cake that she can decorate with blue icing ("The lolly was blue and the icing is blue!" I sang merrily and somewhat desperately.)  I get the girls up at the table up to their eyeballs in cake and icing and look at the kitchen floor. I have absolutely no idea how to clean it and had I been in a better frame of mind I would have taken a photo for illustrative purposes. So I do what I normally do in such situations: I call my husband at work and start yelling at him.

Yes, I realize he was not there, did not drop the lollipop and in fact does not approve of the girls eating lollipops the size of a helium balloon. However, I could think of no other blameless person to yell at who might still talk to me later.

"Where's the f@#$ing dust pan!" I screamed. When I was informed we didn't own a dust pan (who doesn't own a dust pan???) I demanded to know how the hell I was expected to clean up this mess without a f@#$ing dust pan. "Get the vacuum cleaner," he calmly replied. His nonchalant demeanor only infuriated me more. I pictured him sitting in his office, only half listening to me, perhaps mocking me with obnoxious faces to his co-workers as I went nutso over a broken lollipop.

"Fine, where's the f@#$ing vacuum cleaner then???!!!" I demanded.

"In the downstairs closet where the water heater is," he replied pleasantly.

"F@#$ you!" I yelled and hung up. Just for the record, I did not yell this in front of the girls, who were happily drawing blue icing on each other and watching Wow! Wow! Wubzy! upstairs. So, as directed, I retrieved the vacuum cleaner and observed to myself that it is heavier than it looked. I briefly pondered leaving the mess for my husband to clean when he got home but that wasn't for four hours and I didn't think I could keep the girls out of the kitchen that long.

I dragged the vacuum upstairs and plugged it in. Then searched for the "on" button. I couldn't find it. I have very little pride, but enough not to call my husband back and ask where I might find the on switch to the vacuum cleaner. No, instead I turned to my three-year-old twins and asked them, given they like to help Daddy vacuum. They enthusiastically showed me how to turn it on.

And that's when it hit me. I've lived in my home more than six years AND HAD NO IDEA WHERE THE VACUUM WAS KEPT OR HOW IT WORKED. And HAD TO ASK MY THREE-YEAR-OLDS HOW TO TURN IT ON.

It was the first time the following thought ever crossed my mind: "Shit, I hope he (my husband) never leaves me." I'd be like one of those hoarder people found buried under a pile of their own rubble except I'd be buried in broken lollipops or similar.  But the good news is I now know where in fact to find the vacuum cleaner and how in fact to turn it on. Hopefully, I can avoid doing so for another six years.


--Incidentally, blogger will not allow me to upload photos recently and I even had a nifty graphic of a vacuum cleaner with a line through it like "No vacuum cleaning." WHY CAN'T I UPLOAD PHOTOS?

A Sh** Load of Green Beans

I haven't the energy to do a coherent post. Not that any of my posts are ever coherent. Here are snippets of my week:

--I was going to the grocery store the other day and asked my husband if there is anything he wanted. He thought for a second and then said, and I quote: "Yeah, get a shit load of green beans." This brings up all kinds of questions, none of which I bothered to ask. What constitutes a "shit load" of green beans? Why do we need a "shit load" of green beans and not just several cans? Or are several cans a "shit load?" Doesn't this strike you as something an unemployed man wearing a wife beater with a huge belly would say to his bitch? I mean, isn't there something vaguely demeaning about being asked to get a "shit load" of green beans at the store? In case you're curious, this was on Monday. I bought six cans. He hasn't had any. So I'm waiting to see if he's preparing some green bean extravaganza of a meal this weekend wherein the appetizer, main course and dessert include green beans.

--And I think weird requests before grocery runs must be genetic. I don't buy much at Whole Foods. Not only because of the prices, but also the checkout people think they're so cool and "green." Piercings don't make you an Earth-lover!!  Anyway, I go to buy this Earth's Best stuff Lulu likes that I can't get at Jewel. So when I told the girls where I was going, Moxley says, "Can you get us Walden and Widget costumes while you're there? And make sure the Walden costume comes with glasses!" "Yes," I told them very earnestly. "I'll check if the grocery store carries Wow Wow Wubzy costumes and accessories."

--I'm back into my weird baking / making things from scratch phase. Worry not, it won't last long. This was precipitated by my worry that the girls aren't eating healthy enough. So I'm making our own popsicles and desserts like pumpkin bread cupcakes. I'm doing annoying things like substituting apple sauce for some of the butter and using half whole wheat flour and more brown sugar than white sugar. You know, sort of like what Jessica Seinfeld's chef does when making meals for Jerry's children and then Jessica tells Oprah she does it all herself.  Everything tastes like crap by the way. Speaking of a "shit load" of something, I put a "shit load" of canned vanilla icing on mine when the girls aren't looking...

--So now that I'm back to baking, nothing amuses me more than those recipe sites where people try the recipe (like allrecipe.com) and then make comments about the recipe and how they changed it. "Well,  instead of adding a teaspoon of nutmeg I used extra cinnamon and I don't like cloves so I skipped that altogether!" Really? You have that much time to find a recipe, not follow it and then post how you altered it online? And isn't it sort of inconsiderate to the person who invented the recipe in the first place? If I was the originator I'd reply, "I said use NUTMEG AND CLOVES dammit!" I substituted some applesauce for butter, but I didn't feel the need to inform the whole recipe-searching community that is in fact what I did. I guess I'm not a true baker at heart or I'd enjoy being regaled with tales of how pumpkin bread tastes minus the nutmeg. (And it's not lost on me that I have the time and inclination to take pictures and post them of the bread I baked and green beans I bought so I'm not one to make fun...)

--I am teaching an online PR course next month. I think I'll enjoy the relative anonymity of it and the fact I don't have to take a shower beforehand like I did when I taught in person. Maybe I'll even do it from bed. I need more opportunities where I can work from bed. That's my motto for 2011: "Willing to work from bed!" I should do a YouTube video of me from bed. Maybe it will get me all kinds of offers like that homeless Golden Voice guy who Dr. Phil made go to rehab.

--Moxley has been a real downer lately. She's like that person who can ruin a good party just by showing up.  I think the potty training thing has hit her hard. She pees in the potty but then basically waits all day until I put on her night diaper to do her other business. This seems to put her in a foul mood every waking moment. She's been throwing temper tantrums about crazy shit, usually clothes. Then later she'll explain it to me very rationally: "Well, you know mama, it hurts my feelings when you don't let me wear purple." She's talking about an outfit consisting of purple pants with an ill-fitting blue-striped top with decorative crystals on it. She wants to wear the same thing every day. An ensemble, frankly, that is as mismatched as it is oversized. Also, mama don't like doing laundry every day, which makes it hard to wear the same thing day after day after day.  I feel like I need to do something extreme about her fashion sense. Send her Priority Fed Ex to Anna Wintour's house for example. I bet Anna's good with kids.  Here is the shirt but you can't see the pants that don't match. Yes, she's eating icing from the container. It was when we were stuck inside for 48 hours in a blizzard and we were making sugar cookies so bite me. (Did I mention I make my own healthy popsicles?)

--The girls have their three-year pediatrics appointment Saturday. If it goes anything like their second-year, I'm in for a really delightful afternoon. The doctor couldn't measure them, weigh them, examine them or even look at them. It was like the Diana Ross of two-year wellness visits.The nurses managed to stab them with the required vaccines while they were held down like wild animals. I had nightmares for weeks. We haven't been back since. My sister, who is a pediatric nurse, told me there is probably a note in our file marking us as "difficult." Difficult is putting it politely so that doesn't remotely bother me.

Anyway, if you know of any jobs where I can work from bed (aside, from you know working from bed -- ain't nobody gonna pay me for that the way I look these days) let me know.

Safe Haven

Guess what my kids WON'T be getting next Christmas...

Here in Illinois, and I'm pretty sure every other state, we have a "safe haven" law which means you can drop a baby off, no questions asked and you won't be prosecuted for baby abandonment and you know the baby will be cared for. It's usually at a hospital or fire / police station. Depending on the law in your state, parents have to do this I think within the first month or so of birth.

I don't mean to make light of a law that has certainly saved the lives of many infants, but isn't it kind of restrictive? Just 30 days? What about when you realize you might not be able to care for a child after the one-month window has closed? Or JUST DON'T WANT TO? Something happened yesterday that makes me question whether I am in fact the right person to be raising my twins. Something I couldn't have possibly known 30 days in. Surely there is another mother out there who can deal with certain aspects of their personality (terrible, gut-wrenching, uncorrectable flaws) better than I. Embrace them even! Let me be clear: I just found out my children love John Mayer music.

When we travel by car, the girls dictate what we listen to on the radio, much like they dictate every other aspect of my life. Normally, we either listen to a country mix and they insist we listen to John Michael Montgomery (does that guy even still make music?) ad nauseam, and will only concede me one or two Keith Urban songs along the way. They are partial to Kenny Chesney's "We Went Out Last Night" and will tolerate "Outta Here" if I really beg. They've been known to request Alan Jackson's "It Must Be Love" 15 times in a row. Their country music taste is fairly sexist although Carrie Underwood is growing on them. I wonder what they would think of SugarLand but I'm pretty sure subjecting youngsters to that woman's god-awful twang is legally classified as felony child abuse.

So yesterday I couldn't get the country mix to work for some reason, and they began demanding LOUDLY while I'm trying to drive in the snow that I play "Grundee County Auction" (not one of John Michael Montgomery's finest) but it wouldn't go on so I turned on the radio and started searching around. I made it into a game where they could tell me to stop and we'd listen to any song they liked.  Suddenly, without warning, they start howling for me to stop.  "I love this song!" one shouted. "I want this song for Christmas!" the other added gleefully. It took me a moment to place it. Then the horror crept in. It was that number where John wants to "run through the halls of his high school" and he wants to "scream at the top of his lungs" and I knew exactly how he felt. Not the running through the high school thing but the screaming really loud thing BECAUSE MY CHILDREN LOVE JOHN MAYER. 

I am about to research Illinois' safe haven law. Perhaps there is language in there specific to my situation. I wouldn't be surprised if it even mentions John Mayer by name. "You may leave an infant who is 30 days or younger or any child above that age with a known liking for John Mayer."

I will simply pin a note on the back of each of their shirts saying, "Likes John Mayer. Sorry, can't raise." I'm pretty sure the state will understand.

Pulling a Boner

The guys in my high school had an expression for when you screwed someone over. "You really pulled a boner!" they would say, for example, if you promised to pick someone up for a party and forgot. I have no clue if that is a crude reference to an erection?  I haven't thought about that saying since the late 80s, but the expression suddenly popped into my mind when the epic Chicago snowstorm hit and my husband was laid up in bed from an ill-timed surgery. "You really pulled a boner this time!" I wanted to scream at him. Who has surgery a few days before a snowstorm hits, making their spouse fully responsible for their children in time of crisis? Oh sure, he didn't know the third-biggest snow fall in history was heading toward Chicago, but still.

He was due at the hospital last Friday around 10:30 am and I was responsible for driving him, waiting for him and then taking his drugged-up ass home. Oh, and picking up his prescriptions and buying some nursing home food such as Jello and vanilla pudding. Notice how sick people always want to inconvenience everyone else? Sheesh, it's not my problem the guy has a bum ear. But anyway, I agreed to do it, because I'm fairly selfless like that. When I woke up that morning, I had a zit on my chin the size of Jennifer Lopez's ass. It wasn't pretty. I don't like to go out of the house when one of those sprouts up, it frightens innocent people.

"Can't you take a cab?" I asked as I delved into my coffee and bagel dripping with butter, offering him a bite. I knew he couldn't have any food or drink before surgery so I thought it'd be fun to rub it in. "You look fine," he said not completely convincingly.  "Plus you won't have to talk to anyone beside the doctor."

Me: Is he hot?
Him: Who?
Me: The doctor!
Him: Is my doctor hot???
Me: Yeah, like am I going to have to have a conversation with a McDreamy or a McSteamy or even a George Clooney circa ER looking like this?
Him: (now slightly exasperated for reasons unbeknownst to me) He's like 60!

There are sad, disheartening times when you realize your mate doesn't really know you. I mean, really know you. This was one of those times. I didn't ask if the guy was OLD, I asked if he was HOT. I know my husband prior to this surgery was half deaf, but even a fully deaf person who lived with me would find it hard to escape the fact I'm in love with Jeff Bridges. And he's pushing 60.

Anyway, fast forward and I'm sitting in the waiting room and they have wireless Internet in the lobby and ginormous donuts dripping with glaze in the dining hall so I'm content. I settle into a comfy seat in the lounge where a bunch of other people are waiting for patients to get out of surgery. Most are yapping to each other. Why do strangers feel the need to make conversation with people they will never see again? It occurred to me that maybe some people are actually interested in what other humans have to say. It's fascinating, really. A harlot of a woman and some guy veer dangerously into flirting territory after debating Illinois politics for a while. "Rahm Emanuel MAILED SOMEONE A DEAD FISH!" the harpie yelled to draw attention to herself. "What kind of a person mails a DEAD FISH to another person*??! I'd slap him if I saw him!" (Rahm, consider yourself warned.) She was a Republican and he was a Democrat and it became evident after a while they wanted to find an abandoned broom closet and conceive an Independent. Or Libertarian. Or whatever offspring would be half-Democrat and half-Republican. Thank God the guy's wife was finally in post-op so they called him away before someone stuck their tongue down the other's throat.

The woman, defeated, set her sights on finding someone else to listen to her yammer on and began chatting up another guy, albeit she seemed to just want to chat, not fornicate. Suddenly on television comes a show that is so preposterously bad you can't believe it even exists. It's like a karaoke show where contestants win money for getting the words right and they put on a big performance like they are American Idol finalists. I'm pretty sure the host was Mark McGrath. I sunk lower and lower into my chair out of extreme embarrassment as one of the contestants began belting out "Don't You Want Me" by the Human League. Then, like out of a horror film, the woman who doesn't want a fish-mailing candidate for mayor BEGINS SINGING ALONG. "You better take me back or we will BOTH BE SORRY!" That was it. I slammed shut my computer and went back to the cafeteria where I ate another absurdly large donut (creme filled with chocolate icing) and began eavesdropping on some disgruntled nurses.

Today is one-week post-op. My  husband is fine if a bit annoyingly gimpy. I'd give details on what he had done but really if he wants a place to whine about various ailments he can start his own damn blog. The good thing about this incident is I learned a few things:

--The Human League sucks.
--A person can gain 5 pounds in one day eating hospital cafeteria food.
--Mark McGrath's music career has evidently stalled.
--It's possible to pick somebody up in a hospital waiting room while both of your spouses are sedated.

*I never mailed a dead fish to anyone, but I almost left one in the jeep of the guy who lives behind me to let it swelter in the hot sun all day. This was the summer after giving birth to the girls -- I can't remember now what he did. It probably involved waking my babies up. I had a very serious conversation where I tried to talk my husband into it (why should I get arrested?) and he somehow convinced me we couldn't do it. Spoilsport! Postpartum manifests itself in various ways, one apparently, involves the desire to stink up a neighbor's car with rotting fillet of sole.

Amateur Hour at The Sag Awards: Ricky Gervais, I Missed you!

This statue is about to get molested by Betty White... and like it.

Can the Screen Actors Guild not afford to hire a host? What's an award show if you don't have a host mocking the very people they are there to honor? The SAG Awards were so boring, however, it would have taken more than outing John Travolta to make it remotely entertaining. Here are my (equally boring) thoughts:

Hey you. Yeah you. The one who thought it would be a quirky unique little way to start the SAG Awards by having actors who looked pained in a manner like they were having an appendectomy with no anesthesia to give a cute anecdote about being an actor. Are you still employed? You might not be by 5:00 pm this evening. In my (vast) experience with termination etiquette, seems they always fire people at the end of the day. Clean out your desk and start downloading some secret files now just in case.

Do the SAG people think us normal people who just tune in to mock actors give a rat's ass about the power struggles and internal politics between their various professional societies? I mean, do I care if the Saggers merge with some other competing actor-y group and when and how and what that will mean? And who was that fat guy who informed us of this potential merger? Was that the white guy who lived upstairs from the Jeffersons?

Don't you think the Golden Globe executives are a bit miffed at Annette Bening? What does she have against the Golden Globes anyway? Why did she look like a cross between Ed Asner's character from Up and the wife from the Addams Family at the Golden Globes, and like a goddess at the SAGs? Whose that really old guy with her anyway?



Good chance Steve Buscemi will never receive an award again no matter how deserving. I mean, you're best actor and you can't get through two 1-minute speeches without making dumb excuses? "I didn't know Best Actor category was up first!" and then later "I wrote my notes for Best Ensemble Cast on my Best Actor note card!" And why didn't the ensemble cast people do a last-minute vote and rescind their offer to let Buscemi talk on their behalf after he messed up the first speech? Steve baby, you shouldn't have reminded us you even had notes guiding you through the first speech. Sheesh. How hard is it to accept a freakin' award?  Not that I'd know...

I think the same person who had the bright idea for the opening montage was responsible for the Ernest "Ernie" Borgnine Lifetime Achievement Award. Didn't the guy (he's 94 for the love of God!) deserve a tribute that didn't look like it was strung together by some intern flunky? And on the off chance my place in hell isn't already etched into the reservations page, did you see Ernie's wife? I'll just leave it at that. If you saw it, you know what I'm talking about. If you didn't, words can't describe. And Tim Conway. You're awesome. But would it have killed you to wear some reading glasses so you could get through the script? Annette wasn't wearing hers, so I'm sure she would have let you borrow them.

Is Claire Danes really that big of a moron? I mean, really? Plus, I thought she was with that guy who left Mary Louise Parker high and dry seven months pregnant? When did they break up? And she has since gotten married? What the hell? People, keep me informed, would you?

Christian Bale. Still drunk. Still bearded. Still English. WHY CAN I NEVER REMEMBER THAT? But thanks for the lesson on how to get in the biz! I am endlessly fascinated by people too! Sign me up to star in a major feature film! Since I'm going to hell anyway, his wife is a bit too gummy for my taste. (Oh c'mon! She can take it! She's married to Christian Bale!)

Just in case I haven't been clear enough about this, I love love love Jeff Bridges. Love. And, I think it's best I go ahead and admit it: He's overtaken Daniel Craig as Number 1 on my list. Granted, I'd prefer it be from the Fabulous Baker Boys era. But that's not how the list works. You can't say, for example, "Warren Beatty, but before the chicken neck." No, there's not a time traveling element to the Top Five List. Take it as it is or leave it. And Jeff Bridges, I take it!

Why did it look like Nicole Kidman just got back from the gym and threw on an (ugly) outfit and then grabbed some (tacky) jewelry and sprung Keith Urban from the crate she keeps him in down in the basement and ordered him to put more gel in his hair and off they went? I'm not so sure Nicole and Keith have a marriage certificate or she has whatever paperwork one needs to prove a pet is indeed theirs.

Last night I decided I don't like Julianna Margulies. No reason in particular. Just don't.

I am actually quite upset Helena Bonham Carter wore matching shoes. Again, the Golden Globes people must be pissed. Why do celebs clean up so much more for the SAGS (besides Nicole Kidman)?

Don't you get the feeling Natalie Portman is a nerd. I mean, like a complete dork? And her way of trying to convince people she's not a geek is by using the word "asshole" during a television broadcast when she's about to give birth to god only knows whose baby? Nat, sweetheart, using a naughty word while knocked up doesn't make you cool. And by declaring you're never an asshole while in fact being an asshole is sort of being a a double asshole. (Isn't saying "asshole" on live network tv the definition of BEING an asshole?)

That's all I got. The whole thing left me uninspired.

An Important Announcement Part Duh

Potty seats make interesting if unsanitary head gear.

When one announces one's children are potty trained, one's children should in fact be potty trained. Because soon after I pressed "publish post" with an air of mild smugness (the "mild" is because when children are over 3 and just getting potty trained perhaps immense smugness is overkill) Lulu announced she "had an accident" which was actually no accident because I caught her purposely squatting in a closet defecating in her Hello Kitty undies. I have no problems with the accident part of course. The part I have a problem with is my husband was out of town and normally when a task like scraping shit out of cotton undergarments arises, I delegate it to him.

Partially potty trained doesn't really work for me. I don't like uncertainty. The constant vaguely anxious feeling reminded me of having a partially monogamous boyfriend throughout college. Is he out sleeping around on me right this very moment? Will we be out in public and she'll crap her pants? See, the unease of both are similarly disquieting. Although at least my angst over the potty training lasted less then a week. Try four years of wondering if your alleged boyfriend was cheating, with the answer 9 times out of 10 being a big Hell Yes. My favorite was when he was humping his high school co-worker from TCBY. The Country's Best Yogurt indeed! I grew suspicious as she began interrogating me when I went in for a peanut butter shake on a day he wasn't working. He scoffed when I confronted him, noting that she was still in high school for Christ's sake! What kind of person did I think he was? Well, it turns out the kind who contracts crabs from an underage high school girl. (I feel the need to confirm here I was not infected, because by the grace of God he was too busy screwing jail bait on a frozen yogurt-making device to be intimate with me during this unfortunate time in my life).


And while I'm on the topic, I might as well mention this particular boyfriend lavaliered me for some reason still unbeknownst to me and proceeded to sleep with a freshman the night of my sorority candle light ceremony. (If you are unfamiliar with the antiquated customs of sorority life, consider yourself lucky.) And, because my best friend from high school thinks no conversation about this person is complete without the following anecdote, she came to visit me in college for a week during her school's spring break and he uttered exactly one word to her the entire time: "Cups." (Why that was the particular word he chose is not the point. The point is she was my best friend and he couldn't be bothered to say more than one word to her the entire week.)


What am I getting at? Good question. I think I was saying I prematurely announced the girls were potty trained and it's been a rough few days but they are in fact now potty trained. Pretty much. They still wear  diapers at night but I don't particularly care if they do that until they leave for college, where hopefully they will have better taste in men than I. 


PS -- I don't know the ethics (or good taste?) of combining a post on potty training with that of an STD-laden ex, but well, too late.


PPS -- You know the DUH in the title was purposeful and I don't think that's how two is spelled in French, right?


PPPS -- Speaking of French, I have mentioned that I took like 14 years of French and yet all I know how to say is "Centre de plounge" (spelling not so sure) which means scuba diving shop, correct?

PPPPS -- Okay, just one more thing. Really. I must say I have no hard feelings, actually I have fond ones, for my philandering college boyfriend. He meant well. He just liked the ladies. A lot. You might suspect as much, but I was no angel... Although I did keep my dalliances to those of the legal variety.

What's In a Name?

So a very lovely woman asked me to do a guest post at a blog that specializes in baby names. That was back maybe in the fall and I just got around to it yesterday. Keep in mind that people go to that site LOOKING FOR A BABY NAME. You know that old expression -- know your audience? Well, if you went to a site looking for advice on baby names, would you want to be insulted by a bitch who thinks it's funny that she would have named her twins Lulu and Moxley if she was famous? Probably not. So after I submitted the piece (below), she very kindly told me perhaps this wasn't up their alley given that, among other things, 15,000 people named their daughters Madison last year and a large majority of women who visit the site meet my definition of "unstable." Well, I spent a whole 10 minutes on it so I didn't want to put it to waste. Here are some tips on naming your baby. Don't read this if you have a child named Madison. Or one named Buddy Bear Maurice Oliver for that matter. Or if you name your babies before they are even conceived and then accuse other people who have real, non-fictional babies of stealing YOUR baby name. Or if you are Nicole Kidman, Gwyneth Paltrow or ... you know what? Maybe nobody should read it.

Eight Tips on Picking Out a Name

I assume you are over here at (the blog's name) because you are expecting a bundle of joy and are debating monikers for your impending little one. Either that, or you are one of those unstable women who name their children years before said children are conceived and are here to see if other people are “stealing” your name.  I say “women” because men almost never think up names for children that don’t exist.  It’s the one and only way in which they are the superior gender.

So if you are in fact perusing for a name, I have some helpful tips for you:

1. It’s always a good idea to name a child after a cherished relative. Or better yet, a rich one. One of my twin daughters is named after my maternal grandmother, unfortunately not for the latter reason.

2. If you’re going to stick a child with a bizarre name, after a day of the week for example, give their siblings an equally tortuous name. This brings to mind Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban. Their first daughter is “Sunday.” They just had a second daughter born on Tuesday, December 28. Instead of naming her “Tuesday,” they chose “Faith.” Don’t they think someday Sunday is going to wonder why she got stuck with the weird name and her sister got off so easy?

3. Speaking of celebrities, unless you are one, don’t name your child after a fruit.

4. And even if you are a celebrity, have some compassion. I’m talkin’ to you Katie Price and Jermaine Jackson. No child deserves to be emblazoned with Princess Tiaamii Crystal Esther Andre or Jermajersty Jermaine Jackson.

4. People will not think you are creative if you spell your child’s name in a funky way. They will think you are illiterate. Think Jaycub instead of Jacob, Brittni instead of Brittany, Jourdynn instead of Jordan, and J’son instead of Jason. (Yes, people have done it.)

5. The name Madison should have remained nothing more than a mermaid in the movie Splash. Unfortunately, every elementary class in the United States is filled with them. On behalf of Darryl Hannah, don’t perpetuate the trend. She probably feels guilty enough as it is.

6. Consider how much money and power you have when naming a child. The more money and power, the more leeway you have with names. When the kid is teased on the playground, will he be able to retort, “My daddy can buy your daddy’s company and fire him!” and actually mean it? Well, then, knock yourself out and name your son something like Buddy Bear Maurice Oliver like that overrated famous chef Jamie Oliver did. 

7. Be careful with nicknames. Oh sure, he may be your little “Mikey” when he’s three months old, but nicknames have a way of sticking. And a 23-year-old Mikey (or even an 8-year-old one) isn’t quite as cute.

8. Remember this is your child’s name. Forever! Give them a lovely name, a creative name if you must, but one that they will be proud of as a child AND an adult. I am no expert on names. I spent all of three seconds deciding what to call my girls. One is (Lulu's real name), after my awesome grandmother. The other is (Moxley's real name), just because I think the name is so pretty. It wasn’t until I noticed every third child on the playground is (Moxley's real name) that I realized it was so popular. But the name suits her perfectly and I wouldn’t change a thing. So go with your heart like I did and you can’t go wrong. Good luck!

No doubt this is not my best work, and as I said to the woman, I certainly don't want to offend her readers. But I don't mind insulting mine. Okay, I kind of do. I like the name Madison, okay? Mermaids are awesome. I like the name Ariel too. Got nothing against mermaids. Sorry to offend. Sheesh, why so touchy? And if it makes you feel any better Lulu's nickname is the same name as a famous movie star and everyone always asks if she was named after this movie star to which I diplomatically reply, "No, bite me." 

PS -- I lost a follower yesterday. Perhaps they were upset I got the girls potty trained? If I lose some more today, I will assume they have a child named Madison. Or hate mermaids. No hard feelings.


PPS -- I want you to know that I'm going to sit here and pick worriedly at my cuticles hoping I didn't offend anyone. Mermaids, Madisons or otherwise. 

An Important Announcement

People, I think you might want to sit down for this. As you may know, I have many failings as a mother. My children still drink milk from a bottle. They still use pacis at night (and occasionally at other points in the day just so I can confuse them with inconsistent rules). They are still vegetarians in a very annoying Gwyneth Paltrow kind of way. They might even be vegans except I'm not sure what that means exactly. But THEY ARE NOW POTTY TRAINED. Well, sort of. Accidents are occurring (our couch now has the faint scent of cat urine and we don't own a cat but whatevs) but for the most part, they are using the potty.

This of course occurred BECAUSE of my failing as a mother. I accidentally ran out of diapers. I may write a potty training book. It will go something like this. "Wait until they are embarrassingly old to be crapping their pants. Forget to buy diapers. The End." It will be the shortest best-seller in the history of publishing. Oprah will beg me to come on her show, despite my having broken the publishing world's cardinal rule -- never bash The Opes! I will comply only if she promises -- in writing -- that Jenny McCarthy will not be on the same program. I will be hailed as an international potty training expert and parenting forums will pay me absurd amounts of money to give (very brief) talks on potty training which will consist of "Hello mothers and fathers out there. Forget to buy diapers! Thank you very much! I love you too!"

As seen above, my children are being rewarded with treats as big as their heads. This weekend we have to go pick out bikes. It's the middle of winter in Chicago so I have no idea where they'll ride them but we promised them bikes when they got potty trained. Perhaps I should add in a chapter about bribing in the book -- or better yet, I'll save that as my follow-up parenting masterpiece. So, I'm not sure if there is a Mother of the Year award floating around out there, but feel free to nominate me. My children are almost 39 months old and (pretty much) potty trained. Surely that should garner me something?

Just out of curiosity, when do they start wiping their own butts? When you answer, add on two years past the time most kids do it as that's when it's likely to happen around here.

2011 Golden Globes: The Scientologists Have a Hit Out on Ricky Gervais

All day I kept saying I was excited to watch the Emmys. I'm not sure what the difference is, but it was the GOLDEN GLOBES, not the Emmys on tonight. But really, who cares? I just watch to see rich famous people make asses of themselves. And asses they did make. Yippee for me!

--Ricky Gervais is my new favorite person. He called Tom Cruise and John Travolta gay on national television. In front of all of their peers. Travolta has a new baby for crying out loud. One should wait at least two months before calling a closeted new father gay. It's just common courtesy.

--Christian Bale, what were you drinking? And / or smoking? Normally I want to immediately sleep with someone who has an English accent. I actually forgot he was English until he opened his (inebriated) mouth. I thought the British had a way with words, but at last count Bale used the word "fantastic" 2,342 times in a five-minute speech. A speech that was cut off by the guy who's in charge of putting on the music when drunk winners blather on too long. That said, who are we kidding. I still kind of want to sleep with him. Just not as much as I used to. Which was a lot.

--If you didn't know bald was beautiful, enter Bruce Willis. Dear God, from Bruce Willis to ASHTON KUTCHER? Do you think Demi Moore bashes her head into her bathroom mirror every night before she goes to bed ? No, probably not. That might knock some of her Botox out of place. But she wants to.

--Michelle Pfieffer, you will go straight to hell if you don't share with the rest of the world what you are doing to yourself. Botox? Fillers? Invasive surgery? A combination thereof?  You don't have a whole lotta spunk left, so I wonder if David A. Kelley had you killed and stuffed like a prize deer. If so, that's one hell of a taxidermy job. I want to be you. Even if that means having to have sex with David A. Kelley, the idea of which doesn't appeal to me.

--Is it safe to say Justin Bieber has peaked? I don't like to encourage underage promiscuity, but he might want to start nailing everything that moves  now. His options may wane and then completely peter out over the next few years.

--Jennifer Love Hewitt looks like the orange twin with a bouffant. She either needs to stop eating carrots or needs to find a new spray tanning facility.  And whether or not she does either one of those things, she must never allow the same person to touch her hair again.

--Notice Angie laying on Brad at their table? I mean c'mon. Don't you get the feeling she does that just in case Jennifer Aniston is watching? Isn't stealing Jennifer's husband and having six children with him enough while Jen resorted to dating John Mayer? YOU WIN ANGIE! YOU WIN!  Why does Angie always dress like shit? I wore a dress eerily similar to this for my final sorority rush party in college. I got dung from several sororities (eff you Delta Delta Delta) just because of that dress. (It couldn't have been my personality could it have?)

--Did you see Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban on the red carpet? Would it have killed her to wear flats? Poor Keith came off looking like her pet chihuahua.

--If you don't believe in aliens, rewind and look at Tilda Swanson. Human? Please.

--Did anyone tell Annette Bening she was going to an award show, a show that will be televised and she actually might win an award? Or did Warren Beatty steal the mail postmarked from The Golden Globes Nominating Committee and sprang the news on her last minute? Regardless, I'll say this about Annette Bening. She is secure aging without pesky little treatments. And she still looks beautiful. I just think she could have showered before the awards out of politeness for her table mates and lost the blind-old-man glasses which resembled the ones Ed Asner wore in Up.

--Speaking of table mates, have you ever seen an award ceremony where winners thank the people SITTING AT THEIR TABLE? ("Shout out to Table #149! You rock!") I mean, why not thank the Golden Globe seating chart committee while you're at it?

--Sandy... bangs? Whose idea was that? Fire them. (although I love you and hope the rumors about you and Ryan Reynolds are true. Yum.) BTW, did you watch that Celebrity Apprentice episode where Donald Trump said you "couldn't have married" him? I bet you actually could have. Not that you wanted to. Although your taste in men proved to be such that I can't really predict whom you might marry.

--Why does Robert Pattinson look better as a vampire than he does as a human? Maybe he could hire a personal makeup artist to make him look like a vampire every day?

--Me so very much likey that Hung guy. Whether he is or not.

--I love Alec Baldwin. He's hilarious. Except when he's calling his daughter a "rude, thoughtless little pig." He's pretty funny other than when he's doing that. But is he starting to look a bit like Liberace? Incidentally when I searched Google Images for a picture of Liberace a bunch of photos of Michael Douglas came up.

--I am currently so enamored with Jeff Bridges it's hard to put into words. Plus if I put it into words it might hurt Daniel Craig's feelings. If you can name someone hotter than Jeff Bridges (besides Daniel Craig) knock yourselves out. I'm all ears.

--Is it required that one give an amateur stand-up comedy routine when one is given a Golden Globe lifetime achievement award? Holy crap what was Robert DeNiro on / thinking / not thinking?

--Why did the top of Halle Berry's dress look like a one-piece swim suit? Don't get me wrong, she looked great. But she looked like she was wearing a bathing suit with a long cover-up skirt. Whatever. She procreated with the hottest man on Earth (other than Daniel Craig) so I'm not one to be critical. But was that a bathing suit? Weird. Not as weird as Robert DeNiro's stand-up comedy routine, but weird nonetheless.

--I've never seen Glee. Ever. And given I have no other New Years resolutions I think never seeing Glee will be mine. I hear it's good. I love that woman who plays Sue. I just have to resolve to do something this year and it might as well be to never see Glee.

That's it. I must now watch Big Love. I sort of forget who was burned alive, who was implanted with incestual embryos and why Bill's mother lopped off the arm of that man married to the cross-dresser. But I'm excited nonetheless. Plus, I heard they got rid of Teeny #2. Thank you Big Love powers that be!

We Are Unlikely To Be Friends If...

This cat is more potty-trained than we are or ever will be...

You don't think my kids are cute. Or at least pretend to.

You breastfeed your six-year-old son. In fact, not only would we not be friends I might try to have you arrested.

You are a prescription drug addict. This is not a moral judgement on you. This is a moral judgement on me. You are more ambitious, creative and have a lot more money than I do. I can't even manage to find a way to get my hands on a non-addictive pill that eliminates water weight while you are probably rocking out on vicodin or xanax or a lovely combination thereof. Plus my husband notices when I spend $75. Something tells me if thousands in cash mysteriously disappeared he'd catch on. Before I even had a chance to get a buzz or two.

You inform me either verbally or in written form that you "work hard and play hard." If you say that, chances are you do neither. Plus, you're a moron.

You don't understand the genius that is Barry Manilow.

You are sleeping with Daniel Craig.

You are married to Keith Urban.

Or Tom Cruise for that matter, but for very different reasons.

You, without irony, use use the term "vis a vis."

You forward to me more than two unfunny e-mails that you preface with a note which includes the acronym "LOL!!!!!"  If you write "LOL!!!!!!" I better in fact f***ing laugh out loud.

You do something on your iPhone more than three times during the course of dinner. Unless I am involved and dictating psychotic, threatening text messages to the guy who just dumped you.

You post unflattering photos of me on Facebook. (Note to Facebook friends: I find all photos of me unflattering.)

Four of us go out to lunch and you ask the waitress for four separate checks. The woman isn't a mathematician for the love of god. Plus, you're cheap.

You don't want to engage in discussions such as whether a boring person can in fact bore someone else to death. (I say yes, but unfortunately there is no conclusive test a coroner can conduct so we'll never know for sure.) Once I convince you that a person CAN be bored to death by another person, you're unwilling to discuss whether that person should be charged with first degree murder or a lesser charge.

So how are you peeps? (I should use the singular "peep" given one person -- my mother -- probably still reads this blog.) Happy New Year! I'd like to say I haven't posted in a month because I've been super productive and spent the time potty training and getting my THREE YEAR OLDS off the bottle but alas, no. We're still rolling with poop in our pants and bottles in our mouths. It's starting to get slightly embarrassing. Like when Lulu squatted in the middle of Little Gym class and screamed to me proudly from across the room, "I'm pooping Mommy! Did you bring the diaper bag!?" The thin, blonde bitchy nanny in there I can't stand (her charge hates her too) looked down at me smugly and I almost popped her one. But that would make me no better than Teresa Giudice. And everyone knows I am slightly better than Teresa Giudice.