And We Thought the Insanity Would End...

I saw my kids off to school yesterday after several days of frenetic supply shopping, arguing over summer assignment completion deadlines, and general lousy moods over the end of their freedom.

For some reason I thought this would leave me with time to, oh... I don't know, write in our blog or something. I was delusional. I have done nothing but try to repair the damage done by having three children home for two and a half months. We had no food in the house. Laundry has progressed to the point where climbing gear is required to scale the piles of clothes. I'd tell you about the Dust Bunnies, but they are so big I'm afraid they'll ambush me if they catch wind of my plan to eradicate them.

I hope that by next week I will be able to find my way over to Ethel's and make sure she is properly untied. Somehow I expect she'll have something to say over Fred Thompson announcing his presidential intentions on Jay Leno, don't you?

I'm onto you, Oprah!

Oprah, all powerful media goddess, is up to something.... And I think it's a hidden agenda and alliance with the Pharmaceutical industry. She has gone to great lengths to encourage us to read The Road by Cormac McCarthy, which she has said she is "passionate" about. I heard she told Larry King that it was an "inspirational father-son story" and like nothing she has ever read before.

If "inspiration" is what I was supposed to find, I must have gotten a bum copy. I read the The Road, and by the end of this bleak, depressing saga I was onto Oprah's tricks. In what must be a covert deal with drug companies, Oprah is choosing the most depressing books she can get her hands on. As readers sink into despair, they will seek out the help of antidepressant drugs from their physicians. Ah, how I love a good conspiracy theory.

Just watch... Future editions of many of Oprah's picks (see The Road, The Book of Ruth, Map of the World, etc.) will come with a special edition Prozac trial prescription bookmark in every copy and mini-therapy sessions with Dr. Phil in the "afterwords".

I'm onto you, Oprah....

Lucy

Standing By His Man : The Story of Dubya and Gonzo

Dubya and Gonzo were breaking camp under a blazing Texas sunrise, preparing for another long day of clearing brush. Peeking out at Dubya from under lowered lashes Gonzo quietly asked,"You still angry?"

Dubya strolled over to Gonzo gently cuffing him on the chin."You know I can't stay mad at you for long. There aren't very many who truly understand me the way that you do. Not even Laura."

Reassured for the moment, Gonzo began to pack the bedroll with the rest of his gear. Turning slightly away as he strapped his supplies to his pony, Gonzo inquired hesitatingly,"But what are you going to do if they keep pushing for you to fire me?"

Dubya threw an arm around Gonzo, "Don't you worry 'bout that", he drawled. "You know I can't quit you!"

The men quickly finished their packing, eager to get on with the day's work. They swung on to their mounts, Dubya's a golden palomino and Gonzo's a sprightly paint, and began the long ride to the next area of brush to be cleared. Lulled by the gentle swaying beneath him, Gonzo asked,"But what if HE wants me to go?"

Just then Cowboy Karl appeared on the horizon astride his faithful mule, Sugarplum. Dubya began to smile,"Don't you fret Gonzo, you're doing a heckuva job!" He gazed fondly at Karl as he continued his approach. "You know Gonzo, like him or not, you've gotta admit, Karl's got one mighty fine ass."




Special thanks to Lucy for working a bit of Photo-shop magic in the creation of the graphic for this post!


Ethel

Spring Fever: The Tale of the Mutant Frog

This past weekend was the first warm bout of weather we've had after a seemingly endless winter in upstate New York. My daughters, along with a small cadre of other children, armed with buckets and nets spent both days capturing and releasing bullfrogs, leopard frogs, assorted tadpoles, painted turtles and blandings turtles. At one point, after hearing frantic shrieking, I made a mad dash to the pond to release a snapping turtle that had been inadvertently netted.

Unlike most of the nearby moms, I love watching the kids knee-deep in muck. No doubt my love of nature was inherited from my father and nurtured by growing up in a rural area and watching Hodge Podge Lodge on PBS until I was bleary-eyed.

Known to my immediate neighbors as "The Environmentalist", I am the mom who will pick up a snake, wade in the creek to catch crayfish, compare and contrast the characteristics of toads and frogs, and will explain to the children that the giant bird they spotted by the edge of the creek was a great blue heron, not a crane.

Needless to say, when I heard cries of "mutant frog" coming from the creek I was concerned. If there were frogs in the creek displaying genetic mutations I wanted to know about it for obvious reasons. Bordering on hysteria, the children ran up to me speaking over one another about the frog they'd seen with two heads. Urging me to hurry, they grabbed my hand eager to show me the spot where the beast had last been seen.

On our way a mom called out to ask me if the kids were showing me the mutated frog. She shuddered as she described a frog with a head that appeared to have grown another head above it. With growing horror I began to wonder what toxins the kids had been exposed to during their explorations of the creek and adjacent pond. I began to mentally review the list of authorities who would need to be contacted in order to determine how contaminated our previously pristine creek water had become.

We quickly reached the spot and the children pointed at a large rock inhabited by what appeared to be a two-headed toad, not frog. Jumping across the creek boulders, I knelt to examine the creature. It appeared that rather than having two heads, it was as if two toads had been melded together. As I picked it up the children gave shouts of horrified disgust. I turned the toad over and began gently moving its legs. Sure enough, I found small feet tightly gripping underneath the leg joints of the bottom toad. I smiled and carefully placed the breeding pair back onto their boulder. After assuring the kids that the toads were not mutated but were instead making baby toads, I began to walk home.

On the way back I passed by the mom I'd seen a few minutes earlier. She called out to ask if I'd seen the mutated monstrosity. "Yep", I answered. " My guess is that it was caused by spring fever. It'll be just fine if it gets a bottle of wine, a bit of privacy, and a heart-shaped bed in the Poconos."



Ethel

Iraq/ Iran... Tomato/ Tomoto

You Go Girl!

A float depicting U.S. President George W. Bush being spanked by the Statue Of Liberty passes by during the Rose Monday carnival parade in Mainz, Germany...hmmm, I wonder if he'd be smiling if it had been Condi? (AP Photo Bernd Kammerer)



E

Pets On The Verge: Part Two

After my initial fish episode, one would think I had learned my lesson...

About seven years ago, my husband was traveling out of the country a lot for work and it always threw the kids into a tailspin. This particular trip's goodbye evoked hysteria and running down the street behind his car in tears. The usual medicine, a movie with a huge popcorn covered in butteroid with sugary soda, did nothing to assuage the pain. On the way home, the tears started again, accompanied by the whimpered pleas for a pet.

I had resisted for years, knowing that I just don't have time for walking, feeding, poop scooping, and whatever else. I already had 5 people's needs to meet and adding a pet just didn't do it for me. But... we stopped at the pet store. One small bowl and two goldfish later, we came home. Note that I wasn't going for a full tank and tropical-potentially-cannibal fish this time.

As you can imagine, Gumby and Pokey were the highlight of the house... for about a week. But hey, they don't require a lot of care and how long do goldfish live, anyway? Yeah. The fish are still here.

In their too small bowl with rocks and a replica of the Parthenon, they continue to swim in circles. It's my fault. I let the bowl deteriorate until it resembles Lake Ontario before I clean it. I think I have boosted their resistance. Gumby has cataracts and Pokey is no longer gold - apparently even goldfish go gray in old age, but they continue to be quite spry, splashing constantly.

One morning recently, my husband discovered Gumby on the floor. He had made an escape attempt! Once deposited back into "the Lake" he was fine, but we have to keep the bowl covered with the sandbox sand strainer to deter any more jailbreaks. Was it a "Finding Nemo" moment or a suicide attempt? I'm not sure, but I cleaned the bowl and replaced the Parthenon with the Rocky Mountains. Hey, even I get crazy when I need a vacation...

L

Pets on the Verge, Part One

I have nothing against pets. I grew up with cats and dogs and loved them. As an adult, before kids, I was working and didn't want to take on the responsibility of a pet. Once I had kids... well, I had kids. Who needs a pet when you have three little boys running around in various stages of potty training (which often evolves into potty mouth - a topic for another day)?

When my kids were very little they saved their birthday money for an aquarium. We went to the pet store and came home with a ten gallon tank and all the requisite paraphenalia, along with ten tropical fish.

Shortly thereafter, we found ourselves in a situation that required us to move to Boston for the summer. I dutifully asked the pet store what to do and triumphantly purchased several vacation feeders and handed them to my neighbor.

My neighbor did as instructed and dropped a feeder into the tank once a week. She told me that it was getting green in there, but I knew she had three kids and I was NOT going to ask her to do anything more than she was already doing.

Upon arrival home, I discovered long, flowing moss and algae. It was really disgusting. I could only locate two fish in the mess. I scooped them out into a plastic container and took the tank outside where I proceded to scrub and scrub and scrub and scrub... you get the idea. When I came inside for some more paper towels, I found the two survivors on the counter next to bowl I had placed them in. With a sigh of disappointment tainted with relief, I flushed them.

That's when the little black one started to swim. Against the current. Suddenly it was all clear. This little bugger had killed and eaten his roommates! That's why I couldn't find any other remains! And on the counter, the other fish was trying to escape a similar fate and the black one followed him over the edge in a homicidal, carnivorous rage! Oh, he was a devil fish, no doubt. So I flushed again.

Maybe it was a little cruel, but I was not taking that evil deviant fish back into my home... besides, he'd been in the toilet... ewwwwwwwwww! So I flushed again, and that damn malignant beast kept swimming against the current! I was getting really creeped out.

It took four or five flushes to send him away. I felt a little guilty at the time, but justified it as the death penalty for a fish who had obviously killed nine others, and most likely cannibalized eight of them. The guilt eased over time, but I continued to have a twinge now and then. Thank God for Finding Nemo. Thanks, Walt Disney, for telling me that "all drains lead to the ocean".

The only problem is that if that fish is in the ocean... Jaws doesn't seem all that scary anymore.








L

Is the White House Really Just a Hologram?

I’m beginning to feel as if we’ve all been tricked into believing that the White House is in Washington, DC. I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s actually located in Miami and we’re all living in a Carl Hiassen novel (for those of you unfamiliar with Hiassen’s work, he depicts the inane and bizarre in south central Florida).

There have been several recent releases that have led me to this conclusion:

1. Tim Russert testified this week at “Scooter” Libby’s trial that Libby had not called him to “out” Joe Wilson’s wife, but to complain that White House “tool” Chris Matthews was being too tough on the administration. Too tough on the administration????? When Matthews questions members of the Bush administration it’s certainly not “Hardball with Chris Matthews”, it’s not even “softball”… I say it’s more like “t-ball”.

2. According to recent reports, our government, in its infinite wisdom, sent approximately 312 tons of shrink-wrapped $100 dollar bills in a cargo plane to Iraq… purportedly for reconstruction. As my daughters would say, “Duh”. Even the post office discourages sending cash through the mail… Now I’m no rocket scientist, but do you think this just might help to explain why some of the money we’ve spent there can’t be accounted for??

3. Before his scandal broke, the formerly fabulous Reverend Ted Haggard held weekly “prayer” meetings with President Bush. Ummmm, is that code for something that might involve leather and nipple-rings?

If I’m wrong, I guess this proves that truth actually can be stranger than fiction, and if I’m right, I only have one thing to say-- Mr. Hiassen, if you’re listening, “Heeeeellllllppppp!”




E

A Winning Strategy

The following was written by Andy Borowitz... enjoy!!!!!


February 6, 2007

Biden Returns to Campaign Trail With Duct Tape Over Mouth

New Strategy to Keep Candidate On Message

In a bold new strategy to keep his candidacy for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination on message, Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del) returned to the campaign trail today with a strip of duct tape over his mouth.

Political veterans were hard-pressed to think of a candidate who made a successful bid for his party’s nomination with a piece of duct tape sealing his mouth, an orifice generally considered necessary to emit human speech.But after their candidate stumbled out of the gate by making seemingly condescending remarks about a fellow candidate, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill), advisors to Mr. Biden seized on the duct-tape solution as the best way to hit the campaign’s reset button.“Every time Joe opens his mouth, he gets in the way of his message,” said Carol Foyler, a media advisor to the Biden campaign. “Duct-taping his mouth shut is the best way to get his message out there to the American people.”

At a town hall meeting in Davenport, Iowa, Mr. Biden seemed upbeat, offering this response to a voter’s question about Social Security: “Mmmmghfffmmmggh.”

According to Ms. Foyler, for the remainder of the 2008 campaign Mr. Biden will be relying heavily on hand gestures and the art of mime to make his case to the voters.“Biden ’08 is going to be a cross between a political campaign and Cirque du Soleil,” she said.



E

Snow Daze

In case you don’t live in the northeast portion of the United States, it’s RI-DIC-U-LOUSLY cold here! How cold you ask? So cold that the only happy residents of our fair land are the polar bears at the local zoo, even the penguins are hiding deep within their rookery… they’re from Africa. So cold that not one of the entire fleet of busses our school district uses could be started yesterday… hence, every child’s dream… and the scourge of all parents… the dreaded SNOW DAY!

First, let me make myself perfectly clear. I love my daughters and thoroughly enjoy having them home. Weekends are a happy blur of activity, and I’m probably the only mother on the planet who actually looks forward to summer vacation. Why then does the thought of this extra opportunity for family togetherness make me cringe?

Personally, I think that snow days have a magical connotation for most kids similar to that of Christmas… only without the tree and presents… maybe even better because you never really know when, or if, it will come. This rare gem courtesy of snow and ice has a high price tag though. Normally well-behaved children act like crazed lunatics on a sugar high. What’s a mother to do? You can’t send them outside when the wind chill brings the temperature to a frigid 20 below zero… it’s too hard thawing out kid-sicles.

But the thing that really strikes horror into this mother’s soul is what usually happens sometime between late morning and early afternoon… the plaintive cry of, ”There’s nothing to do, we’re BORED!” When gently reminded of the mountain of Christmas booty- board games, science experiments, crafts, and kits galore- a veritable Everest waiting to be conquered, they wrinkle their noses responding with, “Yeah, but we want to do something FUN!” If you’ve ever been in this situation, you’ll know that nothing short of a trip on the space shuttle will fulfill their desire for “fun”.

It’s at times like these when I need to remind myself that snow days are a gift not meant to be squandered on the mundane. So while I wait for the snow to stop, I’ll put on my crash helmet and snow pants and try to weather out the storm.



E

Parenting on the Verge

I was in the midst of the final fifteen minutes of my morning countdown until the time I needed to drive my youngest daughter to the bus-stop. As I was brushing through her night-time tangles, my dimple-cheeked cherub looked up at me in wide-eyed innocence and asked, “Mom, what’s a ‘har’?” Barely breaking with my rhythmic brush-strokes, I responded, “Har? Well, that’s one of the words I use when I meditate during yoga.”

I could see the frustration flash across her face. In addition to her dyslexia, she also has some central auditory processing issues that prevent her brain from catching the subtle differences of sounds within a word. Squinting her eyes and wrinkling her nose, she vigorously shook her head. “No, no, not ‘har’… I mean ‘whore’.”

Rule #1 of parenting: Never let them see you sweat.

My mind raced as I quickly took a moment to catch my breath. “Where’d you hear that?” I casually asked.

She rushed to assure me, “It’s not a swear word, mom”.

I assured her that while I understood it didn’t strictly fall within the category of a swear word, it still wasn’t a particularly nice word to use either.

Apparently, a third grade boy at her school had felt it necessary to announce that “whores are bad”. My daughter’s voracious appetite for information compelled her to ask one of the other students what precisely a whore was. The child she chose was a veritable fount of information. She shared with my daughter that “a whore is someone who wears really short skirts, shirts that show their belly-button, and they always wear their hair up”.

Still mindful of the minutes ticking by, it was at this moment that I innocently asked if she’d like her hair in a French braid. The rolled eyes, and the fact that her working definition of the word “whore” would include a high percentage of the female population during the summer months clued me in that I’d need to quickly come up with a definition I deemed appropriate, and that she would feel was acceptable.

My eye on the clock, I explained that a whore was someone who typically didn’t feel very good about herself and, as a result, would engage in negative behaviors to try to attract male attention. I knew I was giving a very broad definition, but it was 6:45 in the morning and how explicit do you really want to get with a precocious nine year old?

I was relieved to see an expression of understanding dawn on her face as she began to slowly nod her head. “Oh, I get it… you mean like a stripper?”

Rule #2 of parenting: When in doubt…PASS!!

I did the only thing I could…I said, “We’ve got to go… you can ask your dad later…”

E

Bloggers Beware

AT&T has promised to preserve net neutrality...for the next 24 months... after that... money truly will be the only thing talking.

Breaking news... posted 1/5/07 www.computerworld.com/blogs/node/4281... FCC Chairman Kevin Martin believes net neutrality is a bad idea and states that the FCC " will oppose such policies going forward".

E

Time Warner or Big Brother?

I might be becoming paranoid. Now before you jump to the conclusion that I’m just paranoid about being paranoid, hear me out.

Lately I have been having problems signing on to the internet. My modem just can’t initialize… In fact, my computer can’t even find my modem! I have to unplug the whole mess and reboot the computer and then plug it all back in and then maybe I will be able to connect. I struggled with this for a week before finally coming to the conclusion that I was going to have to call the *cue ominous music* cable company!

With trembling fingers, I dialed the number on my exorbitant bill. After a severe warning that they were experiencing a larger than normal amount of traffic (did I call for the traffic report?) I was goaded through several hundred prompts where I was required to press 1, 2, 3 or 4. None of these numbers led me to a real, actual human being, of course, and god forbid I press the wrong number because I could end up listening to a recording informing me to hang up and dial again (in Spanish). After refusing to conform to their evil menus, I pressed “O” repeatedly, allowing me a momentary rush of satisfaction at the sound of ringing before I was placed on hold again.

When at last I spoke to a customer service representative, I was surprised to find him so happy. I guess I was the only person who found their way through the Maze of Menus so I was relieving his loneliness and monotony. I explained my problem and he pleasantly informed me that, while he empathized with my plight, he could not help me. He could, however, transfer me to someone who could. Yep, you got it. More holding.

The next customer service agent was not quite as content as the previous one. Perhaps he was unable to escape outside calls and was jealous of those protected by the Horrible Menu of Death by Boredom and Frustration. At any rate, he listened to my dilemma and… pay close attention, now, I’m getting to the paranoid part… he said, “Let me just check on your hook up.” At first I thought that sounded a little personal, but before I could point out that we hardly knew each other, he said, “Hmm… yes… Your modem signal is weak coming in and going out.”

I was struck by two things. First of all, I was insulted on behalf of my modem, because I am certain it tries very hard and could improve given the chance. Second, how the hell could that guy tell what my modem was doing?

Mechanically I set up the service appointment, but my mind was otherwise engaged. I couldn’t get past the fact that, within seconds, a stranger from the cable company could reach out with wireless fingers and insult my modem. What else was Time Warner checking on? Could they see the condition of my hard drive? I would hate to think that they were all sitting there laughing at the mediocre imaging package I was using; snickering at the variety of children’s educational software installed but rarely used; guffawing at my inferior processor. What if they were checking out what web sites I had visited? Really, it was my youngest son who clicked on the “You are the one millionth visitor” banner!

This same cable company is probably monitoring what I watch on television too! Honestly, I only watched about 15 minutes of that sappy Life Time move and I accidentally left the TV on when that reality show about Hulk Hogan’s family was airing. South Park?! Okay, well, yeah, that was me.

By now you get it. I’m concerned. I hate to rush off but you will have to excuse me while I run out to make a few purchases. I will obviously have to sweep the cable guy for bugs when he comes over. Paranoid? Riiiight. That’s what they want you to think.

L