The best blogger in the history of blogging

Hi. You may have noticed that I took a bit of a hiatus. Or not. I just looked at my own blog for the very first time since July. I wish I had some dramatic account of where I have been and what has kept me away from the blog. Almost. I almost wish that. But the truth is that I was bored of myself and felt like I had nothing to say, so I decided to shut up and walk away. I figured when the time was right I would come back.

Around the beginning of September when I was all "back to school" and trying to practice self-discipline, part of my plan was to get into the daily writing habit. That might have happened, but instead I got myself on a full-time MOM schedule of asinine toddler activities and spent any free time I could get trying to clear my head of nursery rhymes. Then I got a nasty little cold and spent my free time napping. Then all of a sudden it was October.

So, what's new. We're in a pretty good little groove.  I can tell that we've found our groove because now it's time for us to make a serious effort at another baby. That's the way it always works, right? You find some sort of equilibrium and then you shake it all up again.

I will try to be here. I will try to think of interesting things to say. Hopefully I get myself knocked up again soon; there's a wealth of material to be had there. Best reason to have a baby, right? Blog material?

There was some summer, but I missed it

I've officially ignored my blog so long that it disappeared off of the "top sites" page in Safari. I haven't been doing anything that interesting, really. We spent last week in New Hampshire with Mo's parents. I gave myself permission to have as many sodas and ice cream cones as I wanted. I had three cokes (one cherry!) and one soft serve twist as big as my face.  I haven't quite decided if I am proud of my restraint or disappointed that I didn't take full advantage.

I really like summer in New England, so it's a shame our time there has to be spent in my in-laws' house. "Our" bedroom is in the upstairs southeast corner and is approximately as hot as the innermost circle of hell. Did I mention the freight train that rolls past at five minutes to four every morning? Or the futon? The only way to sleep is to pass out drunk, which is not really that viable of a plan for the duration of a week's visit.

I didn't have a lobster. Not even a lobster roll. I didn't buy any cheap(er) maple syrup. I didn't pack home any New England style hot dog buns. I deserve to be fired.

Meanwhile, it's still not summer here back at the ranch. I'm staring out at overcast skies and thinking we might as well pack it in and just get on with the inevitable winter. But then I remember that Anchorage is yet to get any higher than 63 this summer and that the rest of the country is burning alive, and I think, we're good, thanks.

Firstworld problems

I think that twitter is breaking my brain. No, I know that twitter is breaking my brain because the first time I wrote that, I wrote "brian." I'm totally obsessed and I get all pissed off and frustrated if the people I follow don't tweet enough. I'm all like HOW CAN IT BE POSSIBLE THAT NOT ONE OF THE 133 PEOPLE I FOLLOW HAS HAD SOMETHING TO SAY IN THE LAST TWO MINUTES?!?!?! I NEED TO FOLLOW MORE PEOPLE TO MAKE THE FLOW OF USELESS INFORMATION MORE CONSISTENT. It's really pretty sad and proves that the end is nigh, at least for intelligent thought.

I'm blaming twitter for my lack of blog posts. Twitter and a two-year old child. One for ruining my attention span and the other for driving me to drink away my free time. It's so much nicer to find a comfortable spot to pin blame rather than to confront myself over my total lack of self-discipline.

So welcome to my blog, where the only consistent theme seems to be the inconsistency of my posts. Now appearing biannually!

I just googled "biannually" to make sure that's what I meant.

Are you as surprised as I am they're still a band?

"If you want to succeed and not hit a glitch, what you must do is --"

Is it wrong that my automatic completion of that couplet is "smack a bitch?" Does it change your answer if I tell you that it comes from Abby's Flying Fairy School on Sesame Street? Maybe The Prodigy warped my brain. I think the real completion is "change your pitch." It was a lesson about music. Really I like to think it was meant to be subversive and drag that song up from mommy's subconscious and everybody had the same thought as me. Just let me believe it.

I promise I don't waste *that* much

You know what makes me feel like a repressed 50's housewife? The fact that I wait until my husband is at work to sneak the vegetables we're never going to eat into the compost bin. Well, that and pre-treating the ring around the collar on his dress shirts. I die a little bit inside every time I do that.

But back to the food wasting. It's not like he would be angry with me. It's not like I don't have carte blanche to do whatever the eff I want around here. It's just that if the hubs sees me trying to throw away some turnips that have already languished in the crisper for a month, he tells me not to throw them away, he'll eat them. He will then proceed to attempt some nastiness like scrambled eggs and turnips, and I end up throwing out the remaining (majority) liquified turnips two weeks later. It's better my way, starving children in China or no.

Part of the problem is, no matter how much I actually enjoy eating kale or swiss chard, they are not exactly my "go-to" vegetables. Like any other good American, my staples are frozen peas and corn. Maybe green beans. MAYBE. Spinach? Even that is getting a little fancy. I grew up with frozen spinach served mostly in a hollowed out sourdough loaf as spinach dip. Oh and salad. We also had a lot of salad. And we have a lot of salad now in my Family, v. 2.0.

We also have about ten thousand apples in the fridge, because nobody really wants pears or persimmons or whatever else the CSA tries to pass off as acceptable fruits. So I always default to apples, but never actually eat them. Any time I do, I think "my, what a lovely little snack an apple makes," but then the next time I'm hungry I go right back to the M&Ms. Old habits. You know.

The big door busting bust

Gather 'round children and you shall hear, of the one time I tried to go door busting and then decided it wasn't worth it and went home and went to bed.

So my sister and I were sitting around after Thanksgiving dinner,  looking at the Black Friday ads and generally avoiding doing the dishes. I was flipping through the Toys R Us ad when suddenly I was overwhelmed with the urge to go bust some doors. It seemed like the perfect plan. A victimless crime. It was nine - the store was already open! The store was only 5 minutes from my parents' house! They had at least two big ticket items I wanted to get on sale for 75% off! My judgment obviously impaired by wine, I thought that we would just saunter on in, make our purchases, and return home in a timely fashion.


Umm, no. We pulled up to the strip mall. The first thing we noticed was that the parking lot at the Petsmart next door seemed awfully full. We wondered aloud at what sort of door busters sale they were having on pet food, and continued down the block to the Toys R Us. Complete. Mayhem. They had a bouncer at the door. The line went out the door, around the corner AND THEN back around the block. All I could think looking at it was who needs stuff this bad? It was out of control. We circled through the lot and retreated home.

I feel a very strange mix of feelings whenever I think about this experience. I feel at once ashamed at my naivete, amused by the absurdity of the scene, and disappointed that I didn't actually get to door bust. But overall, I think this experience will hold me. I don't actually need to get in that fray. Maybe it will be a new tradition, like driving around Christmas eve looking at Christmas lights. On Thanksgiving night after dinner, we can drive around the strip malls and look at all the batshit crazy people.

And Alexis is the interesting one

I wish I had more interesting things to share with you, but basically I've got working out and eating and taking care of the kid. Any of that sound fascinating? No? Okay then.

I appreciate the fact that Patricia Arquette never fixed her teeth, but then again I find that her teeth are all that I think about when I see her. I'm sure a cursory google search would inform me all about her teeth and the stand she took or did not take by not going for the caps, but really I feel like I've spent too much time thinking about Patricia Arquette today already. Rosanna didn't fix her snaggle tooth either, and she got at least two songs written about her. That's all I think about when I hear "In Your Eyes" on the radio - what a slut Rosanna Arquette must have been in the eighties. Which is really too bad, for such a pretty song.

So there you have it - I spend a disproportionate amount of time thinking about the Arquette sisters. The end.

Indulge me if you will

I went to the gym this morning. WAIT. Before you go clicking on to what you hope will be a more interesting blog, hear me out. It was kind of a big deal for me, because it was a new gym, a new class (spin), and a new leaving Marlo in childcare. Spoiler alert: I got through half my class before they had to page me.

Here's the thing about me. I am absolutely terrible about getting outside of my comfort zone. I hate going into new situations where I don't know where I am or what I'm doing. I know that some people live for that shit, but I am not one of them. Yet. Maybe I can learn. But so far, not so good, seeing as I just came across an essay from high school in which I described how much I hate going into situations where I don't know where I am or what I'm doing.

So it was kind of a big deal for me to get in the car, drive to a place I had never been before, get Marlo checked in with some lady, run around the building looking for my classroom (which was unfortunately located in the basement with the men's locker room), introduce myself to the teacher and get on the bike and ride. For those keeping score, that means the unknowns included 4 destinations, one stressful mom/baby situation and one stressful new girl of questionable cardiovascular fitness situation.

It turned out I really needn't have worried about the spin class itself. I think I was the youngest person in there by at least 15 years, judging by the Bachman-Turner Overdrive and the fact that one lady asked the instructor to please turn down the music because that electric guitar was just killing her ears. One lady said "ooh, look! I'm doing 450 rpms!" Not exactly an advanced cycling group.

What I should have worried more about was poor Marlo, who I pretty much unceremoniously dumped in the daycare because I was running late- and what is worse than being new but also late? Nothing. Except maybe, I don't know, traumatizing your poor baby for life. I'm going to try and rectify the situation by taking her in there for little baby step visits, and hopefully I'll be able to get through an entire class eventually.

But, credit where credit is due - I did something that I've been wanting to do for the past two weeks (since we joined the gym) but hadn't had the courage to do. I overcame my weird head trip. Yeay me.

to be continued.

You probably noticed that I couldn't help myself and messed with the blog template again. What can I say, I exert control upon my universe any which way I can.

I have more to say about the mom thing eventually. I want to tell you all about the Herbfarm and how I am restructuring the household budget in order to be able to eat there again soon. I want to talk about how every time my husband wears this one 5k t-shirt it makes me feel like a failure because he ran it on  whim out drinking one night (it was a midnight run) and I don't think I could up and run a 5k if I had a gun to my head.

But right now the baby wants grapes. She always wants grapes. I was putting her in her car seat the other day and noticed her hair was in her eyes. I asked her if she wanted me to go get her a clip.

"Yes." she said. "And grapes."

But at least it's not raining

I kinda hate this new "daylight savings time ending so late" thing, because it just dumps you into extreme early darkness. It's very abrupt all the way up here in practically Canada. Like, it's four in the afternoon and I need to start turning on lights. Oh well, six more weeks of darkness and it will start to get lighter again. Just trying to channel my inner Pollyanna!

Actually, eight weeks from now and yours truly will be in full blown summer. Take that, Northern Hemisphere inhabitants! I'm spending most of January 2012 in New Zealand - which should be one of the best months out of the entire year to not be in Seattle. The only downside to this trip, as far as I can see, is that I have to fly with Marlo all by myself. I know people who have done it, and I know it can be done, but two 15 hour flights (there and back) without my husband there to have the teeny bathroom poopy diaper changes pawned upon sounds just slightly more fun than staying home alone with her for three weeks. I actually read a blog that recommended getting the kid slightly constipated before the flight. I think I may follow that advice.

I need to watch more MTV

It was my birthday on Thursday, and I have celebrated by doing and liking more old lady stuff. For instance, there was quite a flurry of activity on my facebook page when I called attention to myself for liking clothing items from Coldwater Creek and Talbot's. I also threatened to kill myself over it, and my facebook "friends" pretty much just offered suggestions on how to carry that out.


Now to further the theme I am starting a quilting project. Never mind the fact that I can barely sew and I haven't operated a sewing machine in probably 15 years. A quilt, at least, is a big flat thing, it's not like I'm trying to sew myself a wedding dress or a pair of pants or whatever. Although it IS my dream to be able to make all my own clothes. At least while I'm watching an episode of Project Runway.

Anyway, this project is enough of a way-over-my-head endeavor that it should keep me out of trouble for a while. Either that or it will cause me to become immediately frustrated and I will lose interest within the week. I'll let you know the over/under and where to place your bets.

If I never saw another Elmo's World, it would be too soon

Hi neglected blog! How many of my posts this year start out this way, anyway.

So I've been all participating in my sister's wedding followed directly by spending a week with my in-laws and drinking boxed wine to cope, so you might accurately assume  I haven't started any of my crazy diet experiments. I did however learn the perfect way to prevent anybody from taking the third seat in our row on a Southwest flight. It goes as follows:

1. Feed baby a banana during boarding, so that she gets good and sticky
2. Periodically withhold banana as to elicit shrieks of displeasure from said baby
3. If possible, a phlegmy cough or two

And blam! A free seat for baby on your cross country flight!

In other news, Marlo is totally obsessed with Sesame Street. The other day she managed to get it playing off the TiVo all by her own self. This has me convinced that TV is not rotting her brain, but in fact making her even more of a genius. I am especially proud of the fact that while she does love Elmo, she is also a big fan of Cookie Monster and Grover. She appreciates the classics. She calls Grover "Ca-Ca," which I didn't know the first time she ran through the house pointing and screaming "Ca-Ca! Ca-Ca!" I was really confused.

I just saw the Dixie Chicks singing "Sing a Song" on an old episode. They tried to make the short stumpy one look less short and stumpy by making her stand on a stool or something behind the Muppeteers. Let's just say it didn't work.

I'll name drop the hell out of this one

Did I tell you about how I got an email telling me to click here to win a chance to meet Oprah, so I did? That doesn't even sound like me, but it's true. I guess now I'm the sort of person who tries to win a trip to meet Oprah.

It's not exactly like I'm trying to win, though. I mean, it's pretty hard to call it trying when all that was involved was volunteering my email address, for what is sure to be sale to the next 14 highest bidders who want to sell me maxi pads and dish soap or whatever.

Really, my thought process was basically something along the lines of this: if Oprah wants to buy me a plane ticket and put me up in a hotel, feed me three meals a day and shake my hand, who am I to say no to that? It would be sort of like turning down a free trip to meet Santa or Elvis or something. Why not do it, just to have an anecdote for one of those awkward moments when you're asked to share something interesting about yourself, and your mind goes completely blank?

Of course there was this one time in high school when I turned down meeting William Shatner, but I still think that was the right call on that one. Have you seen Shatner's Raw Nerve? It's like the most awkward horrible train wreck you could ever imagine. I kind of love it.

On sleep

I am really beginning to daydream about the day that Marlo's sleep habits are no longer any of my concern. I wonder what I used to even think about with all this brain space that is now used to calculate naps and bedtimes and wake up times for another person.

Since she was old enough to have a bedtime and wasn't just on the infant sleep-eat-poop-repeat cycle, her bedtime has been seven. And she has always been ready for it and gone down happily anywhere from 6:50 to 7:20. But lately, we've been pushing it, and putting her to bed anywhere from 7:30 to 8:30. Huh, funny, but lately she's been an out of sorts trainwreck who refuses to nap, I wonder if the two could possibly be related. Last night I put her down at 6:50 and never heard a peep from her. She slept like a brick through my check-in at 11:30, and didn't wake up until eight. 

Life is amazing and wonderful when she sleeps until eight. At least that's what I thought at eight this morning when she woke me up.  It seems like it has the potential to be really great when she's ready to drop the morning nap. But as of right now, she still mostly needs it. And personally I don't know why any stay at home mom in her right mind would actually exert energy to try and get rid of that nap sooner. She's a girl who loves to sleep and I should shut up and enjoy it before I am cursed with a never-sleeper the next time.

With apologies to my reader(s)

It is my personal opinion that it blows that moms don't get sick days. I mean, I'm not very sick. Not sick enough that I would stay home from a "real job," but still. Why do I got to get up and deal with somebody else's day when I don't even feel like getting up to deal with my own?

I have the kind of annoying head congestion where when it's through with giving me sinus pain, it's draining slowly down the back of my throat, feeling somewhat akin to what I imagine it would feel like if somebody was playing that game where you can't let the marble drop with all the little plastic skewers using your throat as the plastic cylinder.  Sore throats are maybe my least favorite symptom, because they interfere with so many useful life activities (i.e., talking, eating).

Well crap - this has turned into a bunch of self indulgent horse shit, hasn't it? Anyway, I wish I had something better to post, but since I don't I'm going for quantity over quality.

It is my fervent hope that someday chocolate chip cookies will be deemed the cure for the common cold.

I hope she doesn't come after me next

I spent like 45 minutes this morning reading up on the whole feud between that one chick and Dooce. That is time I will never get back, especially since Marlo slept over at Gangee and Pop-Pop's and I was free to luxuriate. Seems like a waste, but really it's exactly the sort of thing one is apt to do when one is free from the burden of monitoring the personal hygiene, caloric intake and gross motor development of another for a few hours.

I will summarize my learnings thusly: I get why Dooce is pissed, but she seems a little extra pissed. Like barometer pointing slightly toward "unhinged." The other chick just seems like a mean bitch. I think the whole thing is a little bit acting out high school all over again - Dooce feels all nerdy and picked on and the other one is just an insecure mean girl and really, why am I still thinking about this again? Geez.

I saw an old friend from high school last night, and when he asked me what I'm doing these days I said staying home with the baby all-apologetic like. I need to quit that.

It's like wishing summer vacation would end

One of my besties is going back to work after four years staying at home with the kids. "Going back to work" is kind of a euphemism in this case, for "getting the eff out of Dodge." She is so ready to re-enter the rat race that she was touring the daycare centers before she even got the interviews.

All of this fills me with a sort of weird self-loathing- envy- anxiety- insecurity- stew that has led to much wringing of the hands and drinking of the alcoholic beverages. It's another example of how I don't measure up. She has passed the judgment that staying at home sucks and the right thing to do is work outside the home, so therefore I am wrong and stupid.

For a couple of days I thought about how I could make it happen. I thought about where I could go and what I could do. I thought about how good it would feel to sit at a desk and answer emails about BUSINESS, and go to meetings and wear pencil skirts and heels.

Then I remembered all that shit sucks.

I bet you didn't realize you were in the presence of such sheer genius

Did you know they changed the scoring on the SAT? That's why that teenager laughed at you when you humblebragged your score. Now there is a writing section and the score is out of 2400 instead of 1600. I took the SAT II writing test back when it was optional and aced it, thank you very much. Got a 770. That's not a humblebrag, that's just a real brag.* It's not quite "I was head cheerleader back in the day," but it's all I got.

My poor blog is so neglected, and probably completely unsatisfactory to all (six and counting) readers. Not enough baby for some, not enough world view for others. Still again not enough tales of mommy shenanigans to make insecure moms feel better/drunkard moms feel enabled.

I have to find a new shtick, something that will force me to blog every day. Now that it has become quite obvious to me that I cannot eat as though I am still pregnant fifty-five weeks after giving birth, maybe I could blog about the carrot sticks and plain tuna I am eating for lunch. Boy, won't that be fun for everybody?

Speaking of diets, do you know that in the course of an hour yesterday I found SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE all over the internet that each and every kind of food will eventually cause you to die horribly of cancer and/or old age? Yes, it turns out no matter what you eat you will eventually die, and there is nothing you can do to control this. Scares the shit out of people, apparently.

*I feel like I may have stolen this line from a certain someone.  Or perhaps I'm crazy. I  am sorry if I am a plagarist instead of a genius.

In which I fantasize about telling Portland to suck it

You guys, somebody get a thermometer - I think I'm sick! I have become bored with Teen Mom 2 and I'm surfing garden supply websites! What is going on?

I am months, even years behind in my gardening. I have no idea how to do anything related to plants. My father spent his childhood as the live-in landscaper and hates everything to do with a backyard, except for maybe sitting on a deck with a cocktail or riding a small mowing tractor over acreage in a cowboy hat. As a result, he starting paying a gardener as soon as he could afford one and has never looked back. Thus, my little sister and I were saved ever learning anything about dirt, plants, weeds, and whatnot. I think it was my responsibility to water the houseplants once, and I think everything died.

Yet still I dream of my farm life. I am lucky to have cool neighbors, even though we live in very Burby 'burbs. There is a school in our neighborhood that is up for renovation, and a few of my neighbors are petitioning the city to swap properties with the school district and turn it into a park instead, a park with a community garden! It won't happen, but how cool is it that they even want it to happen? What if there could be a community chicken coop, or a community goat...house? What if we could have a little farm and be featured in national publications as the Just So Of The Moment-est Neighborhood Ever!?

If it happened, I'd drive down to Portland just to flip them all off and tell 'em to suck it.

I swear I'm not a stalker

In my ongoing attempts to Be Exactly Like Dooce, I had an ultrasound on my left ovary yesterday. It had recently popped, so may have been the source of the pain I had been having, but has no current cyst/tumor/fetal twin arm growing out the side of it to explain anything conclusively. So we wait and see if I still have said pains and go from there. I have my own suspicions about the cause, but superstition requires I not say anything yet. And no, I'm not pregnant.

I have been writing about myself an awful lot on here, and not so much about the baby. Marlo is eleven months old now, and currently in that sort of Baby Frankenstein phase where she staggers a little on her feet and says DAH! pointing with her whole arm, and then falls down. She spent some time this morning waving at the Royal Couple on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, which was almost unbearably cute.

Speaking of the Royal Wedding, was anybody else looking at Pippa and wondering if Prince Harry has been tappin' that, or is that just me?

PREDICTION: Billions of babies named Pippa this year.