Not Inadequate

One time, when Jim and I were dating, he came over to see me.

My parents weren’t home, but my sister was, and while I was innocently minding my own business they ganged up on me in a gigantic water fight.

In the house.

At one point, I ran into the bathroom and used the handheld sprayer to soak them through the cracked door. My sister yanked the door shut and tied it closed with a coat hanger so I couldn’t get out.

Then they went outside and sprayed me through the open bathroom window with the water hose.

To be clear, they turned on the the water hose and aimed it into the open bathroom window. In the house.

The handheld shower sprayer wouldn’t reach out the window, so I decided I had to escape and get to the other hose if I was going to exact my revenge. As I was half in and half out of the bathroom window, with my sister and my boyfriend aiming the hose - which was on full blast – right at me, and cackling their little heads off….

my mother drove up.

My mother was not a fan of the water fight. Especially ones that took place in the house.

~~~~~~

I was reminded of this story because just this morning, Big was hassling me and I dumped a whole glass of water on his head. He was absolutely shocked. And very indignant.

It was hilarious.

After he changed his shirt, he started right back up, teasing and laughing and harassing me.

So I dragged him into the kitchen and was soaking him head to toe with the kitchen sprayer.

While I was doing this, Jim came up the stairs.

And then all three of them ganged up on me and somehow shoved me into the shower and turned it on.

Isn’t that rude?

Probably I should write a parenting book.

Actual email I sent my husband today:

Dear Sir -

I have been wrangled into doctoring little boy foot-warts, I refuse to be in charge of making sure his poop has gone down the toilet drain right.

Yer Loving Wife

I send messages like that all day long.

Probably you wish I was your wife.

• Go back and wash your hands better than that.

• Lower your voice.

• Quit making that noise.

• BUTTON YOUR PANTS! YOU ARE SEVEN YEARS OLD!

• That one. THAT noise. QUIT MAKING IT.

• Lower your voice!

• People! Quit yammering and just EAT!

• OH MY GOSH PEOPLE! QUIT YELLING BEFORE I GO INSANE!

• People! Quit hopping around! Just sit on your butt and eat!

• Flush please.

• Did you flush?

• Go flush.

• People! Lunch does not need to take 45 minutes! JUST EAT!

• QUIT MAKING THAT NOISE.

• What, are you kidding me right now? You were only in there five seconds. Go wash your hands again.

** I call my kids People! and Dudes! when I address them collectively. When Jim and I are talking about them, we call them The People. Like, “how are The People today?”

It occurs to me that we are quite weird.

What do you call your kids?

If you call them “my lovely darling children” or “mummy’s preciousnessesssss” I will vomit.

The other day I had a not-too-bad hair day, and with some “you should have a picture of yourself on your blog!” advice ringing in my ears, decided not to let it go to waste. I slathered on the ol’ makeup and camped out in the bathroom.

Because who doesn’t want the bathroom door in their self-portrait?

Grainy!

It occurs to me that maybe I should look into under-eye concealer.

Or work a little harder to figure out Photshop’s editing features.

Black and White, that’s better.

How do people do this without it looking like a mug shot? I tried making faces at myself so I would laugh, but I was laughing out of pity because I looked like an idiot. Besides, who smiles coyly at themselves in the bathroom mirror?

Bloggers, that’s who.

I got distracted by my gray and started taking investigatory pictures.

Apparently the top of my head is striped.

Gray, Gray! Gray! Gray, Gray Gray!

Who needs highlights when nature is doing it for me?

I had a lot of help during all this, which was super helpful.

“Mom! What are you doing?”

“Mom! Why are you taking pictures in the bathroom?”

“Mom! Let me help!”

“Mom! When are you gonna come out of there?”

Maybe Natural Light is the key. Isn’t that what They always say?

Ick.  NO.

Draw on a little more eye-liner, why don’t you? And would it kill you to make the bed once in a while? Pasty-skinned heathen.

Eventually, I had to go to the grocery store, which I took as a sign to take a picture of myself in the rear view mirror.

Don’t worry, I wasn’t driving.

I was holding up traffic at a stop sign and garnering a lot of dirty looks.

Last night, Jim and I were watching television, and a character on Castle had recorded someone’s confession on his phone.

I was all, “how do they do that? can you really just go around recording people on your phone?” and he rolled his eyes and said “you’re phone probably does that.”

(He’s jealous of my phone because he only has some lame Blackberry for work and can’t play Angry Birds. It makes him bitter.)

So I checked my phone, and whaddaya know! I CAN record stuff!

Obviously, I spent the rest of the evening recording myself and following him around asking him if that’s what my voice really sounds like.

Recorded at 9:35pm

Me: okay. okay. this is my real voice. wait – the needles not moving. oh, okay. Oh! I know! I love the Real Housewives. I love Mob Wives. I love Trash and Crap. Now you -

Jim: I love cookies and silence. And Starbucks.

Me: Yeah, real Starbucks, not lame-ass Starbucks. Oooh! Let’s do cursing! (insert cursing)

Jim: I never swear.

Me: Right. I wanna know what I sound like when I curse. Do I sound cool or do I sound like I’m trying to hard?

Me (gangster whisper): you sonofabeeeeech!

Recorded at 9:42pm

Me: Okay. Here is my Great Idea! I will take blog notes into my phone. Oooh! Plus I can see if I’m funny when I’m telling a story. I mean, HOW funny I am, not IF I’m funny. I can measure the funnyness. Okay, First Idea. Blog about how crabby Jim got when I discovered the voice record feature and how he refused to curse with me because he is hoity-toity. Do you wanna say something? Do you want to pull the stick out? Come on. Say something. Tell that joke about the leprechaun.

Jim: I don’t know what you are talking about.

Me: It’s not like it’s going to the CIA or something. What are you afraid of?

Jim: I’m not afraid of anything, I’m watching tv.

Me: Say something highbrow then.

Jim: Get your (insert cursing) phone out of my face.

Me: Oooh! We can play reporter! (serious voice) Do you have any comment?

He grabs at the phone

Me: Don’t touch it!

Us, Simultaneously: That’s what she said!

Recorded at 10:54pm

Me: Okay. Here’s my note. Do I have to preface it like that? It’s kind of obvious I’m leaving a note. Okay. I think I sound like a cross between a Kardashian and a chipmunk. A poor Kardashian.

Jim: I love how I get to listen to everything you say twice now.

Me: This is my process. I have a process now. Like a writer. Do you want to say anything? Look at the microphone. Doesn’t that inspire you?

Jim: Be quiet.

Me: NO! Try again.

Jim: Be very quiet?

Obviously, I was tweeting about this last night while it was happening.

And then this morning when I got up, I noticed that someone had Unfollowed me. Apparently even the mere suggestion of swearing was unpalatable for somebody. I’m trying to be sorry about that. Sort of.

Anyway. If you want to hear my real voice, here it is. DO NOT click on the links if you think I am kidding about the cursing! I swear like a sailor. It’s true. Especially after the kids are in bed. I save it up all day. It’s Jim’s fault. I never swore until I met him.

9:42pm

9:54pm

Jim says he does not understand why there are not more comments on this post. He is wondering if you guys are just all way more mature than we are. This is a distinct possibility, I think. Do you not all hassle your husbands mercilessly? Do you not swear into your phone’s voice memo feature? Probably everyone spends their evenings singing hymns and talking about World Events and stuff; while I am scouring the TV Guide for the latest episode of The Real Housewives and badgering my spouse to go make cookies. Or perhaps the chipmunk quality of my voice has frightened everyone off…? It’s too bad, really. Now I have no incentive to tell the leprechaun joke.

Or wait – I shouldn’t use the word “stupid.”

The New York City Department of Education is seeking to have words they deem upsetting removed from standardized tests.

Lookit. I don’t think that certain topics should be discussed in school. And I think standardized tests are stupid and pointless.

But banning a whole list of words because someone MIGHT be offended?

Here’s a list:

• Dinosaur
Really? dinosaur? That’s offensive? Seems like a reach to me.

• Children dealing with Serious Issues
That seems more like a concept than a word, but whatever. And who decides what is a Serious Issue? Because we’ve had a lot of discussions around here about whether Mom putting the cheese in the wrong place on a taco constitutes a Serious Issue.

• Computers in the Home - note: it is acceptable to talk about computers in the library
Because people will become jealous if they don’t have a computer at home? Feeling jealous is not the same as feeling offended, so maybe I’m wrong on that one. BUT if I’m right, then I also want to ban all talk of iPods and iPads, because I have neither and cannot bear being reminded of the horrible, iPad-shaped hole in my heart. Also knee-high boots, which I don’t have, but want desperately.

• Homes with swimming pools
See above. Although… I DO hate people who have pools. Who do they think they are?

• Junk food
I’m an unfit teacher by this measure. I turn all math problems into cookies – “if you have SEVEN cookies, and I steal THREE cookies…?

• Bodily Functions
Okay. Here’s what I’m wondering at this point. Is it REALLY necessary to ban talk of BODILY FUNCTIONS on a New York City Standardized Test? What kind of questions did they have BEFORE the ban?

The whole list has something like 50 words on it. I don’t see how they narrowed it down, frankly.

You know what’s offensive? The price of gas, that’s offensive. And how loud my children smack when they eat. And people who don’t know the difference between knitting and crocheting. And people who mix up lose and loose. And people who mispronounce the word realtor.

And this. This has to be the most offensive commercial I’ve ever seen:

Firstly, everyone who is in a position to need to buy diapers knows what happens in them and they’d just as soon not think about it more than is absolutely necessary. Secondly, people who DON’T need to buy diapers don’t want to think about it either.

So there you go. I somehow got from a word ban to a diaper commercial. Interpret as you will.

This Is Just To Say

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold

~ William Carlos Williams

I know y’all just can’t get enough geoduck talk, so one more thing…

It’s the mascot of Evergreen State College.

Yep. Uh-Huh.

And there’s also a fight song.

The Geoduck Fight Song

words and music by Malcolm Stilson, 1971

Go, Geoducks go,
Through the mud and the sand,  let’s go.
Siphon high, squirt it out,
swivel all about,
let it all hang out.

Go, Geoducks go,
Stretch your necks when the tide is low
Siphon high, squirt it out,
swivel all about,
let it all hang out.

I totally sang that to my husband when Kirsten tweeted the link to me.

You’re Welcome.

Go Geoducks, Go.

Now that I am the proud new owner of a Kindle, I am busy loading it up with books.

Generally, I am drawn to the literature genres known as Trash and Crap.

I like a little romance, knowing that it will end with happily ever after. I love mysteries, but nothing too gory. I shy away from anything that’ll make me sad or books that feel too much like Quality Literature.

Also – and get ready, this could change everything about our relationship – I hate animal stories. Especially if they are labeled as “heartwarming.”

Heartwarming = Gag

I have been known to go to the bookstore, settle in the coffee shop with a stack of celebrity biographies – Martha Stewart, Tori Spelling, and even (heaven help me) Kendra Wilkinson - and greedily gobble up the highlights; I am definitely not an elitist, but I can’t bring myself to pay money for swill.

Yummy, illicit, swill.

So I don’t usually have a lot to add to book conversations, lest I reveal the true shallowness of my preferences. The delicious, nutrient-free, candy-coated shallowness.

I have, on occasion, inadvertantly read more Important Books. Books that are sometimes thick and called novels. Here is what the word novel means to me: there is no happily ever after, and there is no murderer handed to the reader on a silver platter. Instead the story seems to stop when the author reaches his word limit.

Okay, not really. But you have to admit, novels rarely have a neat tidy ending. I am usually left thinking, “wait – what? that’s it? what happens next?” and feeling vaguely dissatisfied.

Here are a few of the real books that have stuck with me over the years:

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender. About a girl who discovers she can literally taste the emotions of the person who prepares her food. Interesting premise, and I didn’t mind the odd writing style (there are no quotation marks in the whole book); but the ending left me going “wait – that’s it? I still don’t understand the chair…” Nevertheless, I quite liked it. It was lovely and weird.

We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver. Disturbing and brilliantly written in the form of letters from Kevin’s mother, Eva, to her husband. Kevin is in prison for killing his classmates in a Columbine-esque spree. The letters recount the entire story of the family as Eva tries to understand what went wrong. The ending is a complete surprise and absolutely shocking - as well as unrelated to the school shooting I was steeling myself for from the beginning. Haunting. I read it years ago and sometimes think of it even now.

Loving Frank by Nancy Horan. The story of Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Cheney, the woman he left his family for (and she left hers for him). Firstly, I was completely unaware that that Frank Lloyd Wright was a cheating bastard, and could not believe Mamah abandoned her young children to be with him. It was the end of the story, though, that kept me up until 3 in the morning, sobbing. I was not expecting such a shocking and horrifying ending. The book was sad all along, but the ending! I was heartbroken for days.

Ok – now you. What should I add to my Kindle? Bear in mind my affection for trash, so no pushing the classics at me, okay?

(oh, and no vampires! good grief, will all the vampires please DIE already? gah.)