I Normally Wouldn't Bring This Up, But...

I'm confused. Someone whom I do not know left a comment on my last post, telling me about the nice leaves in New England, and then saying I had a wonderful family and hoped I was paying attention to what was going on, and that from some of my posts I seemed rather conservative. This person was trying to tell me that John McCain would lead us down the wrong path.

WTF????

I don't talk about politics on my blog, mostly because it usually raises my blood pressure. It frustrates me when things that seem so obvious to me are not quite so clear to other people. I'm not saying people who disagree with me are wrong, just that we have different opinions. And that's ok. I have friends who don't agree with my views, and we can still be friends. Hell, my parents and I are polar opposites, politically. They are ultra-conservative, and have become more so each day they age. I can't talk politics with them, because it ends in a argument, and I don't like to argue with my 70 year-old parents. I have too much respect for them to argue with them, so I say nothing.

But, just in case there was any doubt, let me set the record straight. I am a Democrat. I am a liberal. My husband likes to refer to me as a 'bleeding heart liberal', and he doesn't mean it as a compliment. He and I can't talk politics too much either. In fact, there aren't too many people in my real life that I can talk politics with. I don't like to argue, so I don't.

John McCain has been a senator here in Arizona since I was in high school. That's a long time. In each election, I have tried to unseat him, but since I'm just one person, that's never worked out too well. I'm not real fond of the guy. Each time he was up for re-election, he played the "P.O.W. card". I got really sick of hearing about it in every campaign he ran from 1982 until now. I'm not making light of his military service or what he went through, and I have enormous respect for his service to our country. That being said, I don't think that having been a prisoner of war qualifies you to be a senator. Or a president.

And now we've got this "Oooo, I'm such a maverick" nonsense. You know when words get over-used and they start to sound stupid? Every time I hear "maverick", I think of Tom Cruise in Top Gun. Then my brain goes off on a tangent about what a tool that guy is.

I also know that McCain is rather...um...aged, and if the idea of a President Palin isn't enough to scare you out of voting for that ticket, I don't know what would.

I guess I don't talk politics here because I don't want to offend anyone. I want people to like me. But let me just go ahead and say that I have been an Obama fan since his speech at the 2004 Dem Convention. And I will be voting for him, even though my vote in Arizona won't mean much. Damn Electoral College. But I'll vote anyway, and then I'll watch our 10 electoral votes go to John McCain. Luckily, New York and California have a lot more votes than we do.

Which of my posts gives the impression that I'm conservative? I'd really like to know. Was it the one where I wanted people to search "Palin, boobs" so I'd get more hits? (And they did, by the way.) I know...it was the one where I was offended by the skanky My Scene toys in the Happy Meals. Or the one where I said that the kids who work at Hollister have snotty attitudes. Is it because I make fun of 'helicopter moms'? Or... or... I don't know, I got nothin'. I'm baffled on this one.

The First Day of Fall

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Hooo heeee ha ha ha. Ho ho hahahahahahahahaha. Ahem. So, today is the first day of fall. Every year, this sends me into a giggling fit. Why? Today's high will be 101 degrees. Yay, Fall! *sob*

Here's what fall should look like. Cool breezes, beautiful leaves, hot soup on the stove, the smell of pumpkins and spice in the air.

Reality blows.

Adventures With Twink, Part I

The conversations that go on on my side of the office are...interesting, to say the least. I started to write a post yesterday about Twink, and a discussion that went on yesterday. As I was writing it, it became so ridiculous that it didn't even make sense to me.

It started with Twink asking trivia questions from some website out loud, then her asking the age-old question "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there, does it make a sound?" I have no idea why she decided to ask that.

This prompted my co-worker, Bob, to start messing with her, asking her if a tree fell in a vacuum, would it make a sound? Twink did not understand how a tree could fall into a vacuum. I had to explain to her that he wasn't talking about a Hoover.

It just went on from there, with Bob asking if she shot a gun into a vacuum, would that make a sound, and she said if it went out the other side and hit someone, it would. I think it ended with me promising to put a bullet through my Kirby when I got home. It's past its prime, anyway.

So today, the discussion was the state fair. The other trainee was talking about which concerts were going to be at the fair this year, and someone mentioned Meatloaf.

Supervisor - "Dang, is he even still alive? And touring? Wow."

Other Trainee - "Yeah, he acts too, he was in Fight Club. He was Bob! With the boobs!" (?)

Me - "Really? I've never seen Fight Club."

Other Trainee - "Oh, you have to see it...it's a good movie."

Me - "I just don't really care for movies with gratuitous violence."

Twink, looking at me - "Quit using big words!!"

Yes, she was serious.

Breaking My Own Helicopter Mom Rule

I broke one of my own rules. You know that little thing I have about avoiding volunteering for...well, pretty much anything? Ok, first some background.

Danni is still recovering from mono. Most days, she feels pretty good. Those days are dangerous, because she thinks she's fine, and then she tries to do too much and makes herself sick again. Last Monday was one of those days.

She decided to go to early morning marching band rehearsal at 5:45am. On Mondays, the band also has an evening marching rehearsal from 5 - 7:30pm. Don't ask me why they have two practices on Mondays...I have no idea. They do Wednesday evenings and then Thursday and Friday mornings, but for some reason on Mondays they do both.

Well, since the beginning of the year she's pretty much been excused from the early morning rehearsals because of the mono. Which is no big deal. She's a fast learner and she has the flag routine down for the part of the performance that they're doing.

However, this past Monday, she was feeling good, so she decided to go to the morning rehearsal and the evening rehearsal. Then in between that, she had school, which includes her company dance class, plus she's a teacher's aide for beginning dance, and she was working out in that class too. By the time she got home Monday night she was feeling sick and exhausted.

In her dance company, she is also on the committee that is putting together the program, the flyers and the tickets for their first show in November. Actually, as far as I can tell, she is the committee, because she seems to be doing all this herself.

On Monday night, she was having a nervous breakdown because she felt horrible, and the layout for the program and flyer were due the next day. Since she was about to lose her shit about it, I helped her with the layout of the program, and ran her to Kinko's at 9pm to make one copy she could turn in the next day. In case you're wondering why she hadn't started on it earlier, it's because the rest of the girls were supposed to turn in their information about their particular dances to her so she could put them in the program, and she hadn't gotten all the info until that day. Now, could she have started on the layout earlier? Of course...but...yeah. She's a teenager. Anyway.

So, Tuesday morning she can't get out of bed because she's still exhausted and feeling sick. So I call her in sick to school, and I go to work and let her stay home and sleep. Now, the nurse, her counselor, and all her teachers are aware of the mono issue, and she has special permission to miss extra days of school. She is keeping up with the work in all her classes.

At around 10am Tuesday morning, I'm at work. I get a frantic phone call from Danni. Apparently one of her friends in dance company with her has texted her saying that the teacher is really mad that Danni missed the deadline for the program, yadda yadda yadda. She's on the phone telling me this, and the poor child is coming completely unglued. I mean, she was flipping out, big time. So I'm trying to calm her down. I told her that she needs to pull herself together, get dressed, and go over to school and talk to her dance teacher. This is a teacher that Danni really loves and respects, by the way, and I think most of this freak-out was due to the fact that she was afraid she was disappointing the teacher and letting her down.

I had a feeling that there may have been some miscommunication somewhere between the teacher and the friend's text message, but I couldn't stand hearing my child so upset. I did something I don't ever do. I called her teacher. Normally, I do not call or email teachers on my children's behalf. I want them to take care of things themselves. I try to stay out of things. I want them to be responsible and deal with things on their own. But on this occasion, I think Danni truly wasn't thinking straight and she was so upset that I felt I had to do something.

By the time the teacher called me back a couple of hours later, I guess Danni had already talked to her. They had discussed the program and flyer, the teacher had given her some extra time and talked her through a couple of things that Danni hadn't really understood about paper weight and dealing with the copy shop.

While talking with the teacher, I realized that she too, was under a lot of stress. She has several different dance classes, she's trying to put together this show, and she's just been informed that her T.A.'s are no longer allowed to grade papers. I don't know why, but that's what she said. She was telling me all this, and I really wanted to help first of all, my daughter, and secondly, I wanted to help this lady that my daughter loves so much. So before I knew it, I heard myself say,

"You know, I'm off work on Fridays, so if there's anything I can do to help you, just let me know."

Clunk.

You know what happened next. I got an email a couple of hours later saying that she would love to have me come in and help between say...9am - 10:30. Which is fine, actually... I just moved the weekly Sit and Bitch to lunch instead of breakfast. Also, to Friday instead of Thursday, since I now work Thursdays. I'm so lucky to have such nice and accommodating friends. Thanks Jen and K...Love ya!

Anyway, I go to help the dance teacher Friday morning. Don't worry, I wasn't actually helping her with dance class, because while I'd look great in a leotard *cough*, my pirouettes aren't what they used to be. Ok, I never took dance and I don't even know what a pirouette is. I even had to spell-check it, because I wasn't sure of the spelling. That's how much I know about dance.

What I did was set up a calendar of special mandatory rehearsals for her, and any conflicts any of the 100 or so girls had, and graded some quizzes. I know, I had no idea there were quizzes in dance class. But I now know 10 ways to change a motif in dance. And no girls, spacing is not one of them. Sheesh, I can't believe how many of you got that wrong.

Where was I? Oh yeah, so I did this paperwork for her, and there was another mom in there helping out too, whom I happened to know because our daughters went to elementary school together and it was really nice to see her. So I was finished and it was time for me to leave so I could get to my Sit and Bitch on time. The dance teacher was grateful for my help, and thanked me profusely. Then she said,

"So, next Friday morning?"

And while about 100 things went through my head, the only thing that came out of my mouth was,

"Um...sure!"

I'm telling you, no good deed ever goes unpunished. Ever.


*Disclaimer - I really do not mind going in on Fridays and helping this teacher out. It's just that Fridays are my only weekdays off, and I'm a little selfish with my Fridays. But in case anyone that reads this happens to know my daughter and the teacher I'm talking about... really, I don't mind! :) Much.

Happy Birthday, Dad

A while back, before 7 years ago, when someone would mention Sept. 11th, I would think, "Hey, that's my dad's birthday."

Sadly, that's not the first thing that comes to my mind anymore on this date.

My dad is 72 years old today. He has had prostate cancer, a mild heart attack, and has been living with type 2 diabetes for over 20 years. He's a grouchy old fart sometimes. And I love him.

He always tells us he won't be around "next year." Well Dad...look, another year has gone by, and here you still are. :)

This picture is Kylie, I think...taken when she was about 3 months old. I'm so lucky to still have both my parents in my life, and in my kids' lives. They are the best grandparents ever.

Happy Birthday Dad. I love you.

I Want a Magerating Friend

You know how kids sometimes have these really cute pronunciations of words, and you know you're going to be really sad when they can finally pronounce something correctly?

Kylie has an imaginary friend named Madison. She refers to Madison as her "magerating" friend. In fact, she is so in love with the name Madison that she always wants to know why we didn't name her Madison. That conversation goes like this:

Ky: "Mom, when I was borned, why didn't you name me Madison?"

Me: "I didn't know you liked that name. If you would have told me you wanted to be named Madison, then that's what I would have named you."

Ky: "Mooooommm....I couldn't talk when I was first borned."

Me: "Well, there you go. You didn't speak up, so I had to make a decision."

Also, whenever she does something she's not supposed to do, or makes a mess, she always blames Madison.

"It wasn't me, it was my magerating friend!"

I want one of these magerating friends. It seems like they get all the fun, and none of the consequences. I wonder if they can clean up messes as well as they seem to be able to make them?

I told Kylie today that I had my own magerating friend. So then she asks me,

"Where is she?"

I replied,

"How do you know it's a she?"

"Mommm...you're a girl, so your magerating friend has to be a girl!"

Oh. Well. Darn. I wasn't aware of this rule.

"What's her name?"

"Ummm...I don't know, she hasn't told me yet."

"Mooommmmm!! You have to give your magerating friend a name, she can't tell you!"

Clearly, I'm not very good at this whole magerating thing.

If I had a magerating friend, I'm just thinking of all the different things I could blame on him/her/it. No one made dinner? Well...I swore I told my magerating friend to take care of that. I'm not sure what happened...

What do you mean you don't have any clean underwear? My magerating friend was totally supposed to do the laundry today. That lazy fink.

Hey, who drank all my wine? It certainly couldn't have been me, because there's no way I could go through that whole bottle in two days. It must have been my magerating friend. She's gonna be magerating her ass to the store to get me some more.

I think I'm going to name mine Twink.

Boobs

The other day, I inserted Google Analytics into my template where Google told me it should go. I like to read other people's posts about the totally weird Google searches that lead to their blogs, and I couldn't wait to read what totally weird random search words would lead people to my blog.

Well, it's been 3 or 4 days, and I've had 150 hits or so, but only two of them are from Google searches. And they were both totally boring. One of them was something like "age to work at Hollister," and the other one was "sick for jury duty", or perhaps "sick of jury duty." I'm not sure how that happened because while I did write one post about my jury duty experience, I did NOT call in sick. No, I didn't. I DID NOT. Actually it was one of those cool jury duties (ha, I said duties) where you call in the night before and they tell you your group is dismissed.

So, I decided to write a post with a title of "Boobs" and see if that helps me in the weird Google search department. However, you can't just title a post "Boobs" for no reason. Well, you could, but it doesn't seem right.

Here, for your reading enjoyment, is my list of things I have in common with the Republican vice presidential nominee, Sarah Palin:

1) Boobs. As in, she has them, and so do I. Except hers are better. Actually, I'm sure there are other female body parts we have in common, such as eyes, ears, feet and elbows. And other things that I won't mention, because this is a family blog. Sort of.

2) I shot a moose once. Ok, I totally made that up. I've never fired a gun. Come to think of it, I've never even held a gun. Unless you count my brother's G.I. Joe Tactical Weapon Artillery Bazooka.

3) I live in a state that starts and ends with the letter A. No, not that one. The other one. Have you ever noticed that three of the four states that start with the letter A also end with the letter A? I think we should make up some more. How about Astromonia? Abelakana? Aboobnia?

See, now if anyone searches "Sarah Palin boobs", they should be led straight to my blog. I'm not sure why anyone would search that, but I'll bet they will. I'll let you know.

Birthday Girl

Happy Birthday, baby! How old are they when you have to stop calling them "baby"? Especially if they are the youngest.

Six years ago today, we had this:

And now, look at you...a big grown-up girl. Well, sort of. Be my baby for a while longer, ok?

Please? Don't grow up too fast...

How old are you today, Kylie?

Oh, that's right...how could I forget?

A Year in the Life of My Blog

September 1st, 2007. Inspired by my friends Jen and Pam, I started a blog of my own. It seemed like a fun thing to do.

I went back to the beginning, and read my very first post, which made me laugh. Not because it was all that funny, but because I admitted to being a slacker mom, or a beta mom, if you will, before I even knew what that meant.

It's been an interesting year. I've made some friends, discovered a whole bunch of funny people, and learned a little about myself along the way.

In honor of my one-year blogiversary (I know that will be a word according to Webster soon, like ginormous), I decided I needed a new picture of the kids. One that wasn't so formal, and that truly reflected their personalities.

Last night, I told them I wanted a new picture of them for my blog, and I wanted it to be silly and fun. They wanted to know why. So I told them it was the one-year anniversary of my blog. After they laughed at me and called me a total dork, they agreed to a little photo shoot. It was...well, it'd probably be better if I just showed you.

I thought this one was cute, except that Danni didn't look particularly thrilled.

This is one of the ones I was considering using. I like this one. See, I knew you all had good taste. I'm using this one instead. It's just the right amount of silly.

This one...not so much. Danni looks like a deer in headlights, and Shannon...well, actually that's pretty much her normal, everyday expression. You know, like she wants to kill you.

This is the one I decided to use. I like how Danni's looking at Kylie like she's a little nuts, and Shannon's just laughing.

I'm not even sure what was so funny, except that they really think I'm a dork.

Hold it, stop everything. Shannon got a text message. Don't worry...I'll wait.

That's a nice one of the back of Shannon's head. Would you believe she has curly hair? Her straightening iron is her life.

I like this one too, because it's so representative of what actually goes on in my house. Kylie and Shannon bugging each other and Danni looking on in amusement. Unfortunately, you can't really see Kylie's face.

This one was in the finals too. Shannon nixed it because she said she looked like a monkey. But I like it.

Trying to get these three all looking at the camera at the same time is challenging.

This was also one of the finalists, but I was kind of creeped out by Shannon's huge smile as she points her finger-gun at her sister's head.

Another finalist, but again with the finger gun, and Danni said she looked like a beaver. I have no idea what that means.

So, that was our impromptu photo shoot. Which one is your favorite? I need to know if I picked the right one.

I know a lot of people mark this milestone with "100 Things About Me", or something like that. I may write some things about me (probably not 100) a bit later in the day.

Also, I just have one request. After 1 year, I have approximately 15,000 hits on this blog. I did some math (with Danni's new calculator, thank goodness I bought that!), and discovered that it averages out to about 40 hits a day, more or less. And I know it wasn't that many in the beginning, so it's actually more than that per day now.

I think the most comments I've ever had on one post is 13. So what I want to know is, who are you people? I know the people that comment, but who are the rest of you? I wanted to have a contest and give something away, entering everyone who comments in the contest, but unfortunately, that's not in the budget right now.

So come on now, be a pal. If you normally sometimes ever read my blog but never comment, just say hi! If you normally read my blog and do comment, please do so again. Even if you've never been here before and just happened by somehow, you say hi too! Please? Then I'll come say hi to you on your blog. It'll be fun! Some day I'll have a contest, I promise. I just need something to give away. Hey, how about a kid? Anyone want a moody 13 year-old? Just kidding! Sort of. No, I'm really kidding. I promise I won't make you take her if you leave a comment.