not that you asked...

More unrelated nonsense because I suck at posting anything else

One: The other night, Dave politely pointed out to me that lately, instead of speaking directly to him when I'm bothered by something, I've taken to blaming “someone” or “no one.” As in, “Why is no one doing the dishes?” or “I wish someone would take out the trash.” And my personal favorite, “WHY ISN'T ANYONE HELPING ME?” He pointed out that there's only one person in the house I could POSSIBLY be talking to, unless I know something he doesn't, like maybe that Lucy is capable of dragging our 50-pound trash can around the side of the house, or that Asher can unload the dishwasher. Unfortunately, Lucy still craps up her back every morning and Asher often refuses to lift his own spoon to his mouth, so it turns out I AM talking to him, in this ridiculous nonsensical way. Why can't I just say, “Why aren't you doing the dishes?” or “Why didn't you take out the trash?” I DON'T KNOW. I can't explain it! It's like I want to complain about him right to his face but I also don't really want to hurt his feelings, so I've given him the option to decide if I really is him I'm talking about. (It is.)

Two: Lucy got her six-month shots yesterday. The nurse was nice enough to encourage me get her head and arms threaded through her one-piece outfit before she plunged two needles into her chubby thighs, but it didn't matter, because do you know what? I am more naturally inclined at efficiency than I am at motherhood. Poor kid was lying there sobbing on the exam table, and I BUTTONED UP THE LEGS OF HER OUTFIT before I picked her up to soothe her. My brain worked fast enough in those few seconds for me to realize that if I dressed her before I picked her up, I wouldn't have to lay her back down and WASTE TIME AND ENERGY DOING IT.

Three: So my mom took my cat to get a haircut last week. (Long-time readers might remember my cat, who went to live with my parents when Asher was born and she no longer had a room all to herself to hide in from my husband. To say they that Dave and the cat “didn't get along” would be a big fat lie. They absolutely DETEST each other.) Anyway, she's a long-haired cat, but she's old, and she likes to lay in one place all the time, so she gets these big mats in her fur because she can't take care of herself as well anymore. Anyway, the groomer always asks if she should comb them out, but that would be absolute TORTURE, so we usually just have them shave them off. I mean, she's 14 years old, she ain't entering any Miss Feline Virginia contests any time soon or anything – no one seems to mind if she looks a little patchy hobo kitty. Except this time, I guess she was extra matted, because they went ahead and SHAVED HER ENTIRE BODY. Except for her head and a little poofy fuzzball at the tip of her tail. My mom told me they call this a “lion cut.” A LION CUT. I was going to take pictures and post them here but then I actually saw the Lion Cut in person and I just... I just can't. It's horrifying. She actually stopped eating for about four days after the procedure and I'm pretty sure it's because she saw herself in the mirror and WANTED TO DIE.

Four: Lucy poops without fail every time I put her in the car seat, so I've changed her in more retail locations than I care to count. It surprises me, though, that the best place I've ever changed a diaper is PetSmart. It's clean and the changing table is always stocked with liners and no one is ever in it, probably because no one hangs out there for hours like we do. The worst is a restaurant called Glory Days in Herndon, Virginia, where the little plastic changing table was installed THREE FEET ABOVE THE TOILET. And I had to change Asher there, when I was hugely pregnant with Lucy (two days before I gave birth, actually) and it was the most awkward diaper change ever, since his butt was at SHOULDER HEIGHT. I can't imagine I was very thorough.

Five: I threw away my scale. Not because I was developing obsessive and unhealthy habits or anything; more because moving it ½ an inch could result in the immediate loss or gain of up to 10 pounds. I consistently weighed more standing to the left of the toilet than I did on the right, and if I ever found that I didn't like the readout, all I had to do was shuffle it a little closer to the sink and hop on again. I started to get this feeling it wasn't particularly accurate, and then one time just for kicks I moved it onto the carpet and watched the needle settle happily at 230 pounds. TWO HUNDRED AND THIRTY POUNDS. I'm really glad I had a general idea of what I weighed before I bought that scale in the first place, otherwise the world would be a really, really depressing place. Should I be surprised since that scale cost me $7? I mean, what do I have to spend to get a relatively accurate reading? Or at least a CONSISTENT one? And don't tell me more than $7. I FIGURED THAT OUT ON MY OWN.

Six: So the butt-wiping bears are out, and now we have to eliminate Kleenex Cottonelle from our toilet paper rotation too. I just can't think of any reason to support a brand whose website asks you to take a pledge to be kind to your behind. TAKE A PLEDGE. And! And! Then you're supposed to SUBMIT your Summer Butt Pledge to the website, so everyone else who goes there (how many people can that POSSIBLY be, EXCLUDING BLOGGERS) can vote on whether your butt is going to have a great time this summer. I would be ALL OVER THIS if it was supposed to be funny, but it is not supposed to be funny. Not when people are pledging things like, “Walk more to relieve backside pressure.” (OMG are 90-year-olds supposed to be using the Internet?) “Don't eat so much chocolate.” (Don't use such crappy grammar, either.) And my personal favorite: “Lotion for my cheeks, then Cottonelle for private parts, with a follow up Cottonelle wipes for extra cleanness.” (I... I don't even know what to say, except PLEASE IS THERE SOMETHING BETTER YOU CAN DO WITH YOUR TIME.) (As in, are you really spending that much time on a toilet paper website? And also, LOTION ON THE CHEEKS? I'm MYSTIFIED.) I read through these for a while before I finally saw one that made me laugh, and in a Finally, Someone Gets How BIZARRE This Is kind of way. Thank you, anonymous Cottonelle commenter from Oregon: “I will switch to taking my temperature orally.” GENIUS!

Seven: Ok, fine, here's a picture of the cat.

Seven Quick Takes two whole hours early

Dudes, I am rusty at this blogging thing. RUSTY, I tell you. I feel uninspired, unenthusiastic, incapable... all things that are easily remedied by just throwing myself back into the thick of things and writing more than once every two weeks. In my defense, life is starting to normalize. I can't believe it took SIX WHOLE MONTHS with two offspring before I finally started feeling like everything wasn't going to spiral out of control at ANY MOMENT, but AT LAST, here we are. Lucy is now sleeping at night (I don't expect it to last, but I do expect to use this time to catch up on my enormous sleep deficit, and for the most part, our days are predictable and routine and I know how to cope. We even finally got around to being the last people in the free world to see Slumdog Millionaire a couple of weeks ago. In other words, I don't have any more excuses. But to ease myself back in, I've decided to jump on the Seven Quick Takes bandwagon (which started here) and post seven completely unrelated paragraphs of utter ridiculous random nonsense every Friday.

One: Have you seen that Smirnoff Ice commercial where all the hot, young adults are sliding down a giant industrial slip n slide in their underwear and making what the voiceover guy insists are “awesome memories” or something? It makes me bitter. I don't have any slip n slide memories. Because when we were kids we never got to use the slip n slide because, according to my parents, “it killed the grass.” Thanks, mom and dad, for choosing your LAWN over your CHILDREN.

Two: Hambone and I are stuck in this terrible Catch-22 where he really needs to exercise because he's fat but he's too fat to exercise with me. When I take him on a run, he ends up behind me at the very end of his 20-foot retractable leash, looking for any excuse to stop and catch his breath. And inevitably, so I don't hurt his feelings what with the whole 20-feet-behind-me thing, I end up running slower, and slower, and s l o w e r until I'm running all Chariots of Fire-style, in SLOW MOTION which means I'm pretty much actually GAINING WEIGHT while working out. Also, he needs to stop eating Asher's leftover breakfast, lunch and dinner, but that is a useless paragraph for another time.

Three: Television is so utterly craptastic in the summer that we are actually watching some show where giant catfish eat people in a river in India. It's not actually very interesting; in fact, we've spent zero time discussing the giant catfish and 15 minutes discussing why mustaches seem to be so popular among Indian men.

Four: New butt-wiping bears commercial insists that you only need seven sheets of Charmin to do what it would take 28 sheets of the other leading brand to do. I'm sorry, WHAT NOW? Who needs 28 sheets of ANY BRAND of toilet paper to do ANYTHING? Let me tell you something, people, if you need 28 sheets of toilet paper to get the job done, then you might want to consider seeking MEDICAL ADVICE. Or Brawny. Also, Dave very helpfully pointed out that in the demonstration, they squirt the infamous Blue Testing Water directly onto the roll and then unroll it to show us how many sheets it leaks through. Which, according to Dave, is stupid and annoying because no one is actually wiping with the roll. And if you are, well, please stop doing that. We unroll and THEN we wipe. Amateurs. (I just went to the bathroom and used four sheets of toilet paper. Does that seem like a lot or a little to you?)

Five: Now that we've had an explosively funny pee post, don't you think it's time we move on to Number Two? Good! Because DO I HAVE A STORY FOR YOU. Things it involves: Rottweilers, unsafe drinking water, Davy Crockett (the old Disney movie), and a bathroom with a toilet and a bathtub that are VERY VERY FAR APART. (See where you can get with THAT.)

Six: I was at Target a few weeks ago and was standing in the baby section holding up a little one-piece outfit for Lucy and a woman with two young kids in her cart stopped next to me and said, “Oh, I can't stand outfits like that for babies; I think it shows too much skin and that skin is just for Mommy and Daddy, you know?” I mean, LADY. It's a ONESIE, not a lace teddy. God knows what that woman does whenever a Pampers commercial comes on and someone is gently stroking a naked baby butt to indicate how gentle the product is to sensitive skin, but my guess is that she calls the authorities. This is the same woman who went on to say, “Oh, your baby has such pretty blue eyes. I guess she got them from her father?” And I said, “Actually, no, we both have brown eyes,” and she said, “Ohhhhhhh,” and gave me a look that clearly conveyed her disappointment in me for having relations with the mailman. And then I left. BUT NOT BEFORE I BOUGHT LUCY A SLUTTY OUTFIT.

(AFOREMENTIONED SLUTTY OUTFIT)

Seven: It was a three-plus-year hiatus, but last weekend Dave and I were finally able to catch Todd Snider live again. If you ever get the opportunity, seeing him perform in person is worth every single penny you pay. And truth be told, it's never very many pennies anyway, since he's a FOLK SINGER, who sings with a guitar and without shoes, but it's the most enjoyable two hours you'll ever, ever have. The man is brilliant and wonderful and amazing and very possibly high and also totally Number One on my freebie laminated card and has been for YEARS. Trust me on this.

And the winner is!

Dude. DUDE.

Just... DUUUUUDE.

Reading through 122 comments about urination can get to you. Not in a bad way, more in a way where everywhere I go, I can't help but imagine that someone has probably peed there. Parking lots, grocery stores, playgrounds, THE CAR STOPPED NEXT TO ME AT A RED LIGHT... someone has already peed there or is currently peeing there, and it's entirely possible that the peeing they're doing is into a cup or a diaper or a jagged tin can.

Dumpsters? You peed there! Train tracks? Yes, there too! Off boats and porches and mountainsides? Uh huh! In the subway station? OF COURSE YOU DID.

My original intent was just to select a winner using a random number generator. Which I did, and which I can't figure out how to get a screenshot of (am very bad with technology can only type and press PUBLISH) but that is all to tell you that you'll just have to TRUST ME that the person who wins the three-pack of Go Girl devices fair and square is Parsing Nonsense! Erika, just email me and we'll figure something out. (That's code for “I'll get your mailing address and will use it in a responsible way.”)

But then I thought, GOODNESS, there were SO MANY OTHER GOOD PEE STORIES, so I decided we need to award someone a Go Girl for Best Pee. But how do we choose? I loved Heidi's story about her mom sliding down a highway on a frozen pee river, and MKate, who peed in a SUBWAY STATION, in the presence of ANOTHER PERSON (MKate, you are a brave one), and of course Nichole, whose drunken refusal to pee in a pool cost her her two front teeth and the subsequent $4500 required to fix them. But wait! There was also L in Texas, who has Medically Necessary pee emergencies and who once spent $59 for the privilege of using a toilet and Becky, whose pee dripped through her parents' ceiling, and daysgoby who peed in a field in the dead of night and was subsequently inappropriately touched by a cow.

And of course, Karen, if we do this again and have poop stories, I THINK YOU MAY BE A CONTENDER.

I thought about holding a vote, but it was mentioned so many times by other commenters that I have to assume that if we held one, Heidi T would win it. So Heidi T? Email me! I'm sending you a Go Girl, too. You may keep it or give it to your mom. Send me a photo of that touching moment should it occur.

Thanks for participating, everyone. That was a really entertaining week. We'll do it again as soon as I find another product that's worthwhile enough! (Suggestions always welcomed, just email me.)