My cat's breath smells like cat food!

one of many relatives on facebook posts shit like:

Well, this might be a little vague but in psychoanalysis there is a long-standing distrust of the "golden rule" (glossing Dr. Tyler) of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Speaking with my therapist, (he. he.) there is the "platinum rule": do unto others as THEY would LIKE to have done unto them. This is to say that to presume to ... Read Moreknow what your sometimes inscrutable Neighbor wants is nothing less than to narcissistically project yourself onto them. Moreover, it is to "domesticate" or colonize this other person in a way that is illiberal or extremely dictatorial. Dr. Tyler also uses this as a talking point for Kant and the "categorical imperative." . .

Should I feel dumb? Irritated? Dunno, but I do feel a burning need to comment on each and every one with "lol your funny!!!11!!"

you know, just to bring it down a notch. because COME ON.

Another One Bites the Dust

kid: Bumblebee go outside. Julian help me widda shovel.
me: uh oh.
kid: Bumblebee got all dry. Inna shell.
me: ew?
kid: He died. I'm sorry. [gives me side-hug]

note to preschools everywhere: maybe more robust pets are in order.
note to remaining turtle: watch your back.

The Saga of Pork Chop

OD comes home telling me that the kid's class has three turtles as pets.

me: tell me about your turtles
kid: pochapgoousiiiiide
me: what? something outside?
kid: pochapgooSIIIIIDE
me: how about the turtle's names. Tell me their names.
kid: simba, bumblebee, PORK CHOP
me: ohhhhhh. Pork Chop go outside. I get it now. Wait, why was Pork Chop outside anyway?
kid: Pork Chop go outside. I getta shovel.
me: uh. I hope you are making up stuff again.

I'm sure they're keeping them in the back. Just for you.

kid: Where going?
me: We're going to the pet store. To get cat litter. You can see some animals.
kid: want see fish.
me: sure, you can see fish.
kid: and elephants.
me: I don't think they have elephants. It's a pet store.
kid: Maybe ask.

WWYD?

Would you un-friend someone who thumbs-upped the following image on Facebook:
how about if the idiot in question were a 16 year old cousin who may just not know any better?

the hell is wrong with that child?

Lessons Learned

I did something completely stupid parenting-wise recently, and it is going to haunt me for the next two and a half months.
We're going on a trip, really our first all together, in June, and I am out of control excited. Really disproportionately so. I know other people fly to australia and whatever all the time, every weekend, blah blah, but WE don't. And I'm EXCITED.

So. Even though I should have known better, and as the words were leaving my mouth I was already regretting it, I told the kid, who has no concept of time or calendars, that we were going on a plane. In June.

Every single day, "we go onna plane? we go tomorrow? I wanna go NOW."
And now he's begun telling his friends at school that he's going on a plane to Barack Obama's house.

I still think I may be more excited than him though.

Pachycephalosaurus speaks

I just want to set the record straight here, because a lot of talk has been going about how Maiasaura is some kind of maternal hero. Just because someone is named "good mother lizard" doesn't mean she is, you know what I mean? Look, I'm not saying she was the worst or anything, because we all know about the time Baryonyx's kids were in the car when she got stopped driving home from her three-martini book group, but seriously, it's pretty rich to give ALL the credit to Ms. Sits-on-a-nest when Triceratops fought Tyrannosaurus for her kids. I know I can't compete with that. And Spinosaurus endured for twenty-five million years, I mean you can't do that without doing something right, parenting-wise, right? I just don't want anyone getting the idea that whatsherface is some kind of supermom just because she brought those cupcakes with the butterflies on them (god it gave me carpal tunnel just looking at those) or just because she happened to get fossilized near a nest, ok?

yes, virginia

OD brought home 7th grade "anonymous questions" from biology class. Sex educators, you had better step it UP. To wit:

"Is it possible that when a boys sperm and a girls egg join together that the child might have a penious and a virginia?"

how do teachers keep from snorting out loud, I ask?

"What did he see?" my mom said

My child just insisted I call up Gramma and Mustache to tell them,

"I SEE PENIS INNA SKY!!!"


It's clouding up now, so I think ya missed your chance to see it. PS I totally stole this photo from the internets.

let this be a beacon in the googlewilderness

Did you know that (until I hit Publish) there are no google results for I Hate My Alumnae Magazine? Nor, believe it or not, for the more universal I Hate My Alumni Magazine.

Yet I truly cannot believe that I am the only one who does in fact, hate and revile her alumnae magazine. Of which we receive two per quarter. That's two more than I require.

I just...hate everything about it. It is a glossy, thick, expensive looking thorn in my side. I'm just waiting until my year's Class Notes section stops being IN-FUCKING-SUFFERABLE and starts being about who is merely Not Dead Yet.

Yeah, fuck you, alumnae magazine.

And if you've landed here because this was the only google hit for I Hate My Alumnae Magazine, then know that you are not alone.

Go On, Point and Laugh!

Would you like to see a picture from before I owned a hair dryer? Really? Come on, it's hilarious!





This photo is ten years old. Ten! As you can see my hair is embarrassed to be associated with me and is trying to flee in all directions. Now I beat it into submission daily with red-hot instruments.

This is all by way of introducing the inhabitants of this photo, of course. One of whom I am married to, and two who live sadly, maddeningly far away now. In college we were nearly always within shouting distance of one another, but I haven't seen one of these ladies for three whole years, and we haven't all been together for FIVE WHOLE YEARS. And tomorrow night, we will all be together in my very own house! Huzzah! I am excited! And worried, because the house, she is a mess. But excited!!

(Oh my god that hair though. What was I THINKing?)

Sadly, No

The boy demanded to SEE BOCK BAMA 'GAIN after dinner and who am I to deny him? He sat mostly still for quite a while during the speech, but finally turned and said,

"Obama gonna sing?"

Sorry to disappoint, kid. You must be thinking of John Ashcroft.

The Day

I can do many things well enough, but few things outstandingly. One talent in particular that I lack is the fancy-talking. So I can't write about all the layers of emotion I feel today and all the big thoughts that are going through my mind. Luckily, I know you're all right there with me, and I don't have to explain. And I'll let a picture do some of the talking.

so

my mother is twittering.

Pointless complaint

The guy upstairs, despite being very normal and friendly in person, is an email jerk. I bet he doesn't even realize. But every email he sends is bossy and curt. A couple months ago he sent around this email saying "whoever has been using the trash cans please put them out on trash night." Whoever has been using the trash cans? Do someone people not produce trash? Do YOU not produce trash, dude? Really? Kudos, buddy. Whay to be green but seriously. CHILL. Last month he was really irritable because some tradesperson still had his phone number and not mine (I am currently serving out my sentence as building president) and kept sending increasingly short and snippy messages about it; like, whatever, dude, I have given them my number and honestly is it that big a deal if they call occasionally? Just tell them sorry wrong number, right? And now today he is emailing me telling me I need to thank the snowblower guy. Ok, on the face of it that's reasonable but then wait hold on a second--if you feel grateful to the fellow just say thank you. Don't email someone else to do it for you. You're going to leave it up to me? And anyway it just seems bossy. Tellin' me what to do. I am not a fan.

He's a nice guy in person though, like I said, so I find this baffling.

Facebook continues to jump shark

I've mentioned before that facebook is not as cutting edge as I once thought
but seriously
my grandmother just friended me

The real reason the churches resent Darwin

On Sunday mornings before noon, the Harvard museums are all free. Free I tell you! So that is where you find us, along with half the toddler population of Cambridge, at the Natural History/Peabody complex.

Harvard's Museum of Natural History galleries (and the upper floors of the Ethnography museum) have been largely untouched by modern museum practices. They do not have carefully curated, minimalist exhibits with guided learning. They have huge glass cases stuffed to the gills with dusty, musty, sawdust-leaking taxidermy surrounded by mothballs. And it is fabulous. It is like a big, indoor, dimly-lit zoo where the animals all hold still to be observed instead of hiding behind trees. The hippopotamus is cracked at the seams but it doesn't keep a certain someone from sprinting toward it yelling EPPAPAMUS!

There are some corners which have been slightly updated, though, including the Hall of Vertebrate Paleontology (DINOSAURS! RAR!), and they have a jolly crew of volunteer interpreters--elderly people and teenagers--who follow you around eager to share their knowledge. It's the same folks every week and by now they recognize us. They know that I will stand about five feet back from the Pet A Live Giant Millipede table while Mr. Fearless will elbow aside four 8-year-olds in order to get a front-row seat. They read nature stories at 11 and they have dinosaur teeth you can touch.

I don't think that much of the educational bit is sinking in with the boy at this point; he's just as interested in sitting on the benches in the hall of birds to watch big kids go by as he is in looking at the specimens. He has his favorites though--the aforementioned hippo; the moose; the yak; and of course the monkeys. He seems to like pretending to be scared a little; he kept insisting that a monk seal (whose glass eyes actually give him a goofy aspect) was going to bite off his arm. Whatever dude, that seal has been dead since 1911.

If you're looking for a place to go on Sunday mornings that isn't a religious place, can't get much better than this free, fun, and mildly creepy joint.

junk solution

If you have junk to be rid in a great hurry of may I recommend the Free listings on craigslist. Last night I posted this and within ten minutes someone had claimed it. Faster than leaving it on the street on trash night! Less fussy than Freecycle! I also received twenty other inquiries, one "WTF?" and one "Don't lose heart, Jesus loves you."

To sum up, craigslist is hungry for junk.

Where to even begin

Hey! As these children are warehoused in residential facilities and group homes and/or shuffled from one overcrowded foster home to another I'm sure they'll be thinking "Thank Jeebus at least I'm not being cared for by a single person or a gay couple!!! And thank the Invisible Pink Unicorn my abusers voted to keep it that way!!!"

I effed up

forgetfulness and 'someone else will do it' disease have conspired to leave me newspaperless today. I've been to all the all night drugstores and grocery stores and all the street boxes, obviously they are all gone. do you think people will sell them on ebay??