Runner's World? Really?

I just canceled my subscription to Parents Magazine. I did it online, and I wish they would have had a little text box and asked me why. Because I would have told them. I think they should just call it "Parents of Babies and Toddlers Magazine", because that's basically what it is.

I was not happy when they got rid of their "As They Grow" section for 9-12 year olds, and I have in fact emailed them several times to request that they add that back in, along with maybe a section on teenagers. But my emails are ignored, of course. I'm tired of reading 843 articles on breastfeeding, childproofing your house and whether or not crawling is an actual developmental milestone.

Here's a good example in the January 2008 issue. The title of the article is "The Age of Insolence", and the subtitle is "Is your kid's bad attitude driving you crazy? Find out how to rein in back talk at every age." Yes, they said EVERY AGE. Except they stop at age 6. Because kids all stop back-talking at age 6, right? Tell that to my 12 year-old and my 15 year-old. Got any suggestions for their attitudes, Parents?

How about some articles on dealing with your teenager starting to drive, having a boyfriend, hormonal adolescents, sports, starting jr high, applying to college, etc. Aren't those also "Parents" issues? No, according to Parents Magazine, apparently we stop parenting around age 8. So I'm done paying them.

I don't really care about this, but the reason for the post is this: Right after I canceled my subscription, all of a sudden an offer to subscribe to Runner's World appeared in my email. Are they owned by the same publishing company? Have these people ever SEEN me? Like my fat ass would be interested in reading Runner's World. Just in case they are interested, here are some magazines I would enjoy:

Having Your Cake and Eating it Too
People Who Stroll Leisurely Around the Mall
Target Addicts
Laundry, Dishes, and How to Avoid Them
Pictures of Hot Men Weekly

Feel free to add your own titles of magazines you would like to subscribe to. To which you would like to subscribe? That little preposition at the end of the sentence tends to bother me much more than it should. Oh, I have another one to add.

Grammar and Spelling Digest

It's a sickness, I know.

Christmas Boat Parade at Tempe Town Lake

As I mentioned in my previous post, one of the holiday events 'round these parts is the boat parade on Tempe Town Lake. They have activities starting at 4pm - snow pile, arts and crafts, Radio Disney stage, and various other stages with music, including Tuba Christmas. Plus all the vendors who come to hawk their wares, including some "buy a toy for charity" thing, which Kylie somehow knew about telepathically.

I took Kylie, Shannon, Danni, and Danni's boyfriend. Steve stayed home, because earlier in the day he had fallen down in the bedroom (?) and wrenched his left knee, which is the fake one. It swelled up and he could barely walk, and since this venture requires quite a bit of walking, I told him to stay home. Is it bad that at one point Danni pointed out to me that it was a lot more relaxing and fun without him there? Sad perhaps, but also true.

You'll notice I have pictures of boats, Kylie and Shannon. Danni and Boyfriend kind of went off and did their own thing, which is fine, because really what are they going to do in the middle of 30,000 people? Oh...go to the top of a parking garage and watch the parade from there, that's what. Hmmmm.

So anyway, on to the pictures.

Here are Kylie and Shannon in one of the two snow piles. Well, snow isn't exactly the right word, and no, it doesn't snow here. You see, they truck in some snow from somewhere where they've manufactured it at about 3pm. When it's like 63 degrees. So of course the stuff immediately starts to melt. Then when the sun goes down it gets a bit cooler...but basically what you end up with is a mound of ice that's hard to walk on without falling on your butt, with a lot of watery-slush around the outsides of the ice pile. Fun stuff!



This is Kylie while we are waiting in line for hot chocolate. Hot chocolate is absolutely necessary while watching the boat parade. Two larges and one small, $13.75! And it's not even Starbucks!



Yay, lighted boats!



Kylie and Shannon sitting on the wall that separates the walkway from the lake. Pretty much everyone sits on the wall to watch the parade. As far as I know, no one fell in the lake last night.

I don't know if you can tell, but there's a Grinch on that boat!

The guys on this boat were so drunk. They kept punching the top of the inside of the roof of their boat, so that bear was dancing and hopping all around. It was quite entertaining.

I know you can't see the people on this boat, but there were many, many old ladies, wearing Santa hats and trying to sing Christmas carols.

I think this one is my favorite, it's pretty.

Kylie playing with the spinning light toy thing she just had to have. Hey $5 for charity is a good thing, right? I just tell myself that as I tune out the whining.

So after the parade is over, they end with a nice fireworks display. Then I call Danni to find out where she and Boyfriend are. They meet us down by the lake, and since it's still early, we decide to go to this one street we go to every year, where every single house in a cul-de-sac is done up quite elaborately in lights. However, at this point Shannon starting whining that she didn't want to go because she was STARVING. I have to mention right here that I made a nice spaghetti dinner before we left, and told everyone to fill up, because I wasn't going to buy any over-priced food at the parade. I had to save my money for, you know, toys and over-priced hot chocolate, and parking.

And it's not that she didn't eat dinner, but she doesn't eat a lot at a time, and she seems to burn it off quite quickly. Fast metabolism...I hate her. Anyway, so I made a detour to grab a couple of cheeseburgers at Burger King. I mention that I made a detour, because I want to make it clear that had she not been whining about being hungry, I would have taken a different route. But, I went the way where I knew there was a B.K.

What I was not aware of, since I don't live in Tempe, is that the city of Tempe has recently installed red light cameras at certain intersections. My detour happened to carry me through one of those intersections. I was making a left turn at said intersection, and going through on a yellow arrow (yes, I swear it was YELLOW!) when a camera flashed in my face, nearly blinding me, and causing me to hit the brake briefly, followed by another flash taking a picture of my rear license plate. Ok, yeah...that's safe, blind me with a damn flash. Plus, the fucking arrow was YELLOW, and last time I checked, it was legal to enter the intersection on a yellow.

When I got home, I checked the city of Tempe website, and found out that there had been a 30 day grace period between the time they installed these insidious cameras, and the time they would begin sending out your by-mail ticket. The grace period was from Nov. 1st to Nov. 30th. So yeah, this was Dec. 8th. We already have these cameras in the city where I live, but I wasn't aware of these new ones in Tempe. Yes, I probably should have stopped, but I didn't, so there you go. According to the website, the fine is $160. I'll be sure to watch the mail for the ticket. That was one expensive cheeseburger Shannon...I hope you enjoyed it.

On a lighter note, as I was driving Boyfriend home, I had the radio on a station that insisted on playing nothing but commercials, prompting a shout from the backseat:

"Hey, can you put on some music?"

The first station I turned to happened to be an "oldies" station, and they just happened to be playing Barry Manilow's cheese-tacular hit, "Copacabana". If you ever want to make a car full of kids laugh hysterically, dance in your seat and sing along to this song while driving.

"She lost her youth and she lost her Tony, now she's lost! her! mind! At the Copa...Copacabana...the hottest spot north of Havana..."

Oh yeah, I'm cool.

The Dog Just Puked Orange Frosting

What does the title have to do with this post? Not much really, except that yesterday when I was in kind of a foul mood, I thought of two blog post titles that made me laugh. "The Dog Just Puked Orange Frosting" was one of them, and the other one was "That Stuff is Worse Than Government Cheese!"

Unfortunately, I think the titles are funnier than either of the stories that went along with them. As far as the title of this particular post, Shannon and Kylie decided to make sugar cookies yesterday, and they found some orange frosting that I bought at Target on clearance after Halloween. I can't ever pass up stuff that's 90% off, even if it is orange frosting. Unfortunately, somehow the dog got a hold of some of the said frosting, and hence the title.

I was going to make this post about the lighted boat parade we went to last night. We have a man-made lake in the middle of town here, and every year they have a bunch of people that light up their boats with hordes of Christmas lights and drive them down the lake. It's actually pretty cool. But, I'll have to do that one tomorrow, because I left the pictures I took last night at work.

So, today's topic is what I think is the best thing about being the mother of teenaged daughters. I'm pluralizing this now, because Shannon will be 13 in one month, and I need practice saying I have two teenagers without fainting, or overdosing on Xanax.

There are some fun things about being the mother of teenaged girls. You can share some inside jokes, you can actually (sometimes) have meaningful and heart-warming conversations with them. We like some of the same music. Danni and I both think Johnny Depp and Matthew McConaughey are hot. Right now, Shannon is reading The Outsiders for English class, and I'm enjoying reliving that. Did you all realize that Patrick Swayze is FIFTY FIVE years old?? We were watching the movie, and Shannon said "THAT'S Tom Cruise???" Hee. They also both commented on how cute Rob Lowe was. I was thinking, "You should see him in St. Elmo's Fire!" *drool*

Where was I?

Oh yes, the best thing. There are all those nice things, and then there's this:
When they are being hormonal, on the rag (well, not Shannon on that one yet), having little spats with their friends, or otherwise just going through normal teenage stuff (mainly being hormonal though), guess who gets to take the brunt of the snippy little comments muttered under the breath, the snotty attitude, the comments that sound as if they're about to bite your head off, and then the insistance that NOTHING IS WRONG???? Oh yeah, it's Mom. Remember me? The one who carried you in my body for 9 months, and then had you unceremoniously and surgically ripped from my womb? Fed you at 1am, 3am and 5am, changed umpteen diapers, and kissed all your boo-boos better? Yeah, that's me. I love being treated as if I've done something wrong when I've done nothing, and in fact was gone at work until 2:30pm. They don't snip and snarl at their dad like they do me. Did I mention I've done absolutely nothing to deserve this? Things you have no control over somehow become your fault. And if you dare say something like,

"Um, it's not my fault that ___________" (fill in your own little teenage angsty problem here), they become extremely indignant and begin sniping away:

"I didn't SAY it was your fault!!! Did I SAY it was your fault?? Stop ACCUSING ME of things!!! GOD!!!" Stomp stomp stomp stomp SLAM!!

No, it's not constant or even frequent. But those few days once a month are more than enough. Wow, I can't wait until BOTH of them have their periods. Maybe they'll even do it at the same time. Doesn't that sound fun?

Hey Honey? Anytime you'd like to step in here, I'd be glad to clean up the orange frosting barf.

If You Give a Mom a Margarita

With my humblest apologies to Laura Joffe Numeroff, the author of the wonderful book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie



If You Give a Mom a Margarita



If you give a mom a margarita,

She’s going to ask for some chips.



When you give her the chips, she’ll probably ask for some salsa.



When she’s finished with her drink, she’ll ask for a refill.




Then she’ll want to go to the bathroom, because tequila makes you have to pee.



When she looks in the bathroom mirror, she’ll probably notice that her makeup is wearing off, and ask you for a compact.

When she’s done fixing her makeup, she’ll head back to the table. She’ll sit down and finish her second margarita, then decide that the table needs a round of tequila shots.



She’ll ask the waiter for some salt and limes.



Her best friend will offer to buy the next round. The mom will offer to lick the salt off the bartender’s shoulder.




She’ll probably ask the guy at the next table to dance. When she sees him dance, she’ll get so excited that she’ll do a dance of her own.




She will order a third round of shots, and dance some more. On the tables.



When the dance is finished, she’ll want a pen to write his phone number on her arm.

Then she’s going to want to go home and pass out, so she’ll need...a designated driver.




Thinking about going home is going to remind her that there are kids at home, and she’ll order another margarita.



And chances are, if she has another margarita, she’s going to want a tequila shot to go with it.

The Great Scotch Tape Mystery

A few weeks ago, I bought one of those four packs of rolls of Scotch tape. I figured, when I get around to wrapping presents, I will need tape. I HID the tape. I put it in the cabinet where my cookbooks are, on the top shelf. I need a chair to reach that shelf. I figured no one would possibly see the tape there. Oh, how wrong I was.

Yesterday, I started wrapping a few presents. The box of rolls of tape was still up there, but somehow, the four rolls had mysteriously condensed themselves into just one roll. Three rolls missing. I have not seen anyone tape anything around here, so this is a completely mystery to me, where the tape goes. So anyway, I took my one remaining roll of tape and wrapped a few presents. Then I put it...somewhere, along with a pair of scissors. Today, I go to wrap something else, and the tape and scissors are both missing. Seriously, I have NO EFFING TAPE. What in the name of Scotch (mmmm, Scotch) do these kids do with all this tape?

1) They hide it somewhere just to watch me lose it (my mind, not the tape).

2) They tape up everything in the house, but by the time I get home, they've untaped everything and thrown away all the tape. HAHAHAHAHA! Ok, I know that's not it, they never throw away anything. That's MOM's job.

I have no idea. But what I do know is that I have stuff to wrap, and I have NO TAPE. The tape, like my sanity, vanishes into thin air. I'm really trying to figure out what the hell they do with it. It's just GONE. Is it ridiculous that I'm really, really pissed about tape? I know it costs all of $1.29 a roll. But really, right now I'd like to kill someone. By strangulating them with tape. If I had any.

Edited to add:
I just went to the junk drawer, where I have looked for the tape at least 4 times in the past 15 minutes. However, this time there were not one, but TWO rolls of tape sitting in the drawer. Ok, they were NOT there 5 minutes ago. They really weren't, I swear, I looked in there 4 times!! I'm not crazy! Really, I'M NOT CRAZY!!
Do crazy people go around screaming that they're not crazy?

Wordless Wednesday

I Am a Sun Devil

This morning Danni and I braved the wind and the sporadic sprinkles to go to a local high school and watch the annual Battle of the Bands. ASU's band and U of A's band both play their shows, and believe it or not the stands on the one side of the field were pretty much full. It was fun and set the tone for the game tonight.
ASU WINS! No pity for the kitty! Arizona goes down again! WOOHOO!



Ok, so it wasn't really pretty, but in this game it doesn't even matter. We won, period. Did you know that this rivalry game is the oldest longest one in college football, dating back to 1899? Well, you do now.

Here's a quick joke I read on someone else's blog, and I am so stealing it:

Q: How do you make Arizona Wildcat cookies?
A: It's a trick question...you can't! You can't get Arizona into a bowl. BAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Do you like how I do all my trash-talking AFTER the game is over?

So we're not sure yet where ASU goes post-season...could be the Fiesta Bowl, or the Holiday Bowl. Either way, the Territorial Cup is in its rightful place, in Tempe.

As you know, I went to a few games this year, the last one being the Homecoming game against Cal where I went and played in the alumni marching band. Because I AM A SUN DEVIL. And just because I love this so much, I'm putting it on here. This is what they play on the big screen every game before the team comes out. For the Cal game, I actually got to stand on the field and watch it up on the screen. Awesome.

I AM A SUN DEVIL


Congratulations on a great season, guys!