More Ewoks, Please

A couple of badasses

My husband was nostalgic for his first trip to the theater, seeing Star Wars Return of The Jedi. He said, "I really want to take Kiki to see the new Star Wars because it will be like when my dad took me, but she'll get scared and freak out."
He took her to watch The Good Dinosaur, and Kiki flipped out after the dinosaur was swept away by a river, separated from his family, and she cried, clawing her way up his body to perch on top of his head, and wouldn't stop screaming till they left the theater.
I told him the height of visual effects when he saw Return of the Jedi at four years old was foul mouthed muppets holding super soakers, and maybe thats why he handled it so well.
Not to be deterred in his effort to gain insight into a four year old's mind as they watch Star Wars for the first time, he put on Star Wars Return of The Jedi tonight while we ate dinner.
I haven't seen the movie since I was a kid. I'm pretty sure it made my guts queasy, and my parents probably turned my back to the screen so I wouldn't barf on the coffee table as they all cheered on the grotesque monster types while they shot each other.
The movie starts out right where I want to exit stage right because Jaba The Hut is the opening act. I tried to eat my deliciously prepared take-out while watching the giant turd slobber all over himself. It reminded me of eating lunch in the break room with my friend Pam whose love of Animal Planet had no bounds; watching a chimpanzee pick at it's hair, then parade its butthole around, quickly made my burrito go from delightful to dookie.
While Jaba's people jammed on clarinets and danced around, Kiki worried about the woman with the black tail who Jaba pulls into an underground dungeon where she is eaten (this is learned through a loud growling noise, and not actually shown.) I side whispered, "This is a terrible idea."
Kiki jumped around screaming, "Where is the woman with the black tail?"
She must have heard me refer to Jaba as The Turd Monster because she asked a follow up question, "Did The Turd Monster eat her?"
I comforted her, at this point she was cradled in my arms, and said, "No. No. No. She just went for a walk."
Had Princess Leia not shown up, and Kiki felt relief from a woman's presence, in a bikini for added reassurance, then she might have insisted we throw the TV in the garage and set fire to it.
When Lando Calrissian was almost eaten by the gigantic sand vagina, she started crying, and I said, "Enough is enough."
"She will be okay. Look at me, I saw this at four years old, and I turned out fine." He said.
"Well, you don't want my opinion on that."
Surprisingly the lack of graphics did not ease her frantic mind. When C-3PO and the beeping Oscar the Grouch robot, flew off the side of the convertible space ship, she reacted as if they fell into an active volcano.
George was busy playing with his toys on the floor, and he seemed unfazed by the film. I put him to bed and came back to the living room where they were watching Princess Leia give an Ewok a cracker, or some futuristic space cake. Oh, how I loved the Ewoks! They are so cute and cuddly, reminding me of my childhood best friend, Mr. Bear.
I told this to people last week, "I don't really remember Star Wars from my childhood, but I watched Ewoks: The Battle for Endor like a thousand times."
They both shook their heads, lamenting on what a travesty that film was. I think they said, "That was the beginning of the end, a made for TV movie with the Ewoks! Shameless."
"I don't know about that. It was such a nice story, aside from the curly haired girl learning her family members die from blinking lights on her bracelet, but how fabulous was that fast little rabbit thing who ate biscuits like crazy!"
Their opinion didn't change.
I put Kiki to bed an hour ago, but I'm expecting to hear her running feet any moment. Her dramatics were in fine form tonight as she was getting drowsy and whining, "Don't leave after I fall asleep. It's so sad when I wake up alone." I reminded her that I have shit to do, like write a blog and catch up on RHOBH.
If were going to give Star Wars another go, I think we better try it during the day rather than bedtime. Even though 1983 graphics aren't as spectacular, they're just as frightening. Putting prosthetic lumps all over actual humans, rather than a blue-screen-Gollum-looking-monster, who seems more animated than real life, makes the bridge from reality to fake much shorter. Thank goodness for the Ewoks, comforting young children that scare easily and adults with queasy stomachs.

Sports Butt Bra

Give the Grinches the biggest tree!

I'm spending Christmas at a posh resort in Scottsdale, Arizona. It's been pretty relaxing. Of course, I have a gripe; the other guests are terribly unfriendly people who seem to have forgotten to take their butt plugs out. I was explaining this to somebody, the cold disposition of the guests with their noses in the air, "You would think being so damn rich would make these fucking people a tad bit happier."

Who knows though, they are spending Christmas at a resort which could mean they have been excommunicated from great big holiday functions, so perhaps the group was predisposed to being the unlikable, miserable people.

I do love the fitness center. Each treadmill has its own TV with working cable. This morning I listened to music and watched the movie He's Just Not Into You. The movie is grade-F terrible, steaming pile of dog doo doo, but it's not so bad when it's on mute because it becomes less obvious that Kate Hudson is the villain, a woman who gets her freak on and drinks cocktails to the point where she's spewing out truths no one wants to hear. And Jennifer Goodwin is much less likable, with her puppy dog eyes, always crying because she doesn't have the balls to tell the guy she loves, "Lets fuck!"

As I was pounding away on the treadmill, I felt the effects of eating close the three pounds of See's Chocolates last week, my ass was jiggling, filling in the void for the ambrosia salad thats extinct from holiday feasts. I looked in the mirror next to me and noticed the bikes behind me were filled with a couple grandpas, whose eyes were locked in on my butt. This is when I thought of the butt sports bra. It'd be like for tits, but for ass. Keeping it from bouncing around like I'm trying to get tips.
After the workout, I hauled my ass back to the hotel to get ready for the day. I think I did my part in helping morale around this place, although it wasn't the Grinch's heart that grew three sizes.

The sprites

Happy Halloween

George has figured out the easiest way to piss Kiki off, and it makes him absolutely giddy. This morning when she stumbled from bed to the living room to meet us. She climbed on top of me, half awake, and George smiled a delivilish ear-to-ear grin, and said, "Happy Halloween!"
And Kiki jumped to sitting position and through a tightened jaw, baring her teeth, she growled, "It's Christmas!" Then George smiled more, and said, "Happy Halloween!"
Then Kiki screamed, "I hate Halloween!"
George grew so happy from her increasing anger, and kept say, "Happy Halloween!" He's been doing this all week.

She does not hesitate

Toothbrushin

Not relaxing with TV

I use a manual toothbrush at bedtime because my electric toothbrush sounds like a jackhammer in my mouth, messing with my bedtime chi. Sometimes I watch TV before bed, and follow up my soothing toothbrushing with Dateline specials on... Muuuuurder.
I send myself off to sleep watching an hour episode, delivering four minutes of repetitive content, spread so thin it can be wall-punching frustrating. The most important piece of information, who-dun-it and why, is saved for the last ten minutes.
Each commercial break I watched an ad for a new TLC show called Married By Mom and Dad. In the preview, dad and mom are sitting at a dining table with a potential new wife for their son, and the dad asks with a perverse grin on his face, "What are your sexual expectations with my son?"
Then it cuts to an interview with the potential bride who says, "How do I answer that?" giggling and flipping her hair like a fucking moron.
My reaction was to throw the remote at the TV and shout, "You don't answer it, ass face! You punch his nose in." Getting riled up right before bed and yelling at a non receptive screen is really bad for my bedtime chi, but I had to make it to the last ten minutes of the show, so I could learn it was the husband who hired a hit man to murder his wife because murdering her made more sense to him than paying alimony.
TLC creates TV with the intention of turning the word "disturbing" around. There is 19 kids and counting, which has turned out to be especially sad, since the older son was exposed as having molested two of his younger sisters. Then there is Honey Boo Boo which seemed intent on making the word "poor" synonymous with "stupid." The show imploded on itself after it was discovered the mom was having an affair with a man who was caught molesting one of her older daughters. There is also Sister Wives, the show about a polygamist family defying expectations of being fucking miserable by smiling for the camera as their husband rotates beds each night.
The reality content on TLC glamorizes male privilege. It tells the predominately female audience, "Men molest, rape, dominate and own women, and it's okay. It's actually funny, and great television!"
TLC reinforces and normalizes patriarchy through television shows where women are happily powerless, or happily lack desire to attain any power, and it's all under the false guise that these shows have a new take on acceptance.
After I turn off the TV and my bedside lamp, a thousand thoughts swirl in my mind. So much for relaxing with TV. I really should stop denying myself the electric toothbrush at night.

Pat The Puss

Last night we got to know the newest lady of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Erika Jayne. From what we've seen, she's awesome. She went from happy poor person to happy rich person, and also became an under-the-radar pop sensation. They exist, I think mainly due to Japan. She was filmed during rehearsal and her choreographer was shouting out her dance moves as she performed them. Her dance starts out with "Pat the puss! Pat the puss! Pat the puss!" Three swift circular motions where, you guessed it, she pats the puss.
I learned this new dance move just in time for the office Christmas party. Or maybe I'll save it for our next kiki. I need to work on finding the right Erika Jayne dance costume, a see-through body suit, with a nice fuzzy patch over the crotch, giving the illusion of a thick and lustrous bush.
My projection for Erika's role in this season of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, she is going to defend Yolanda's honor, and bust anyone's implant who accuses Yolanda of faking Lyme's disease. After she busts her move she should shout, "Pat the puss!" It could be her super hero catch phrase.

Riding A Bike

Taming the mane is like riding a bike; a pain in the ass

I was thinking of curse words in Spanish, and after coming up with a couple I remembered who I should thank for expanding my foul mouth vocabulary. Pam, the security officer at my high school. She roamed the campus, well actually rode around campus on a bike, chasing down kids who were escaping school to pick up Taco Bell and spend their afternoon smoking weed while watching Golden Girls. Pam was renowned for talking shit with the Mexicans, and she'd make crowds of people laugh while telling everyone off in an alcohol induced, Spanglish ranting of curse words.

Pam had a partner named Mr. Rich. He did not ride a bike, but strolled. He looked like Charles Bukowski except six and a half feet tall. They were both frightening as hell because if they caught you ditching school, well, there'd be hell to pay.
I remember running down the side of the high school mountain, to jump into a getaway car on the road below, and seeing Pam on her wheels then hearing her yell, "Stop." I ran faster, certain she'd catch a trench coat mafia kid before she'd get to me. The trench coat kids were getting serious shit at the time because of Columbine. She'd snatch up one of them, as they were talking about Dungeons and Dragons, or computers, and forget all about the kids that got away. As long as the forged absence note was in the attendance office by next morning, no one gave two shits.

Pam made riding a bike look easy. I was never good at riding a bike. My little brother's training wheels were off before mine, and at 8 years old, I finally worked up the courage to take them off, screaming the entire ride that I was on a death trap, until I finally toppled over, from trying to balance on a bike while riding at 4 miles per hour. Once on vacation in Belize, I rode a bike right into a moving truck and fell on the ground, stoping traffic and my heart. Had I not been completely embarrassed, I'd have realized how close I came to killing myself, and wet my chonies.
So the phrase, "It's like riding a bike," doesn't make sense to me, since it really means, "It's horribly difficult, requiring mental aerobics and olympic athletic ability."
I had a job interview today for a position requiring SQL experience. I worried that my SQL whizkid status might have faded since I haven't used that part of my brain in almost ten years (already!?). After doing a SQL refresher, online quizzes, I think I refurbished my old memories enough to get me through the interview. I was pretty nervous beforehand because "panel interview" made me think of parole boards; me in a folding chair opposite a boardroom table of stern looking people who want me to eat a bowl of hot doo. It turned out to be a rather friendly environment, it was almost fun.
The position sounds cool. It's not my ideal, which is working East Coast hours from my home office, being a Statistics Professor at the community college, working as a janitor at Country Day so my kids can go to school with the elite, or doing statistical studies on super natural phenomena, like winning the lotto or effects of excessive masturbation. It's not asking too much, should be like riding a bike, err, um, I mean riding a, umm, never mind. Pinche pendeja callate tu boca. Regardless, it will be great to use my statistics skills again. I'll be better prepared when all that masturbation data falls in my lap.

Lady, you're bonkers

The Mixer

Watch out for the mixer

All day yesterday, my toilet was not flushing properly. I thought it might be tree roots growing into the pipes. Hoping that I could avoid calling a plumber, I tried some recon. I used the plunger, but it wasn't clearing the toilet to flush. I put on a yellow kitchen glove and stuck my hand down the toilet drain, where I found a deodorant stick.
"George!" I said to myself, more ecstatic than pissed, since fishing out deodorant saved us $400.
I saw George walking around that morning with the deodorant, and I found the cap to it. I put the cap on my dresser and asked him, "Hey, buddy, where did you put the deodorant?" He didn't answer me, and I forgot about it.
George has a bit of a sneaky streak, that he gets from me. He gets other things from me, like having an emotional range that is ten miles wide, ranging from tear soaked, quivering sympathy to wall-punching anger.
George has been finding himself in time-out frequently because he has a problem hitting. He hits when he is upset, or when he feels like he is misunderstood, and sometimes he hits when he is overcome with happiness, and wants the moment to end. Like when were snuggling and laughing, and he feels flooded with emotion, he will be super happy and then his face freezes up, and he pulls back his hand to throw the fist. Maybe it's the vulnerability that makes him act defensive.
Because time-outs aren't working, we have to take TV away. Yesterday morning he woke up in a shitty mood, and hit my husband, who then said, "No TV all day!"
I was actually very surprised by how much better we function without TV. It integrated itself in our life, and I leaned on it as a support mechanism that allows me to get a lot of work done around the house, calming and engaging the kids. The lack of television had the kids playing with all their toys, and playing together. Personally, I found I didn't sink into the couch with the kids and waste time online. We cleaned the house and did various other things, like make chocolate chip cookies.
The mixer is out, and taking up 75% of our counter space, so I figured we should use it. Save ourselves the arm strength. However, as the kids stood on their chairs at the counter and I turned it on, I realized this has potential for a 9-1-1 phone call. One kid reaches in for a chocolate chip, and all their fingers will snap into a mangled wreck when the handle starts turning it along with the dough.
I don't know the safety features on this machine, so I assumed the worse, and said, "Don't touch it, or it will rip your hand off. "
Kiki freaked out and hugged George like a saving grace, worried sick he would put his hand in the food mixer. Kiki is not the type of older sister who Shepards her brother around, feeding him, cuddling him, or looking out for his well-being. Or so I thought. She does show tremendous concern that we will leave him places. When George starts throwing a baby fit at a store, and I have to walk away saying, "OK, George were leaving. See you later!!"
Kiki always panics, "We can't leave him!"
I assure her that we won't leave him, wasting the entire psychological effort.
Kiki held George in a bear hug while the mixer turned, and I looked lovingly on the two of them. We put the cookies on the baking sheets, and slid them into the oven. I pulled them out, like I always do. I get into a basketball defense position, with an arm outreached to block any running child from coming into the vicinity of the scorching oven area. I shout, "Hot, Hot, Stay Away!" Until the cookie sheet had been lifted from the oven to the stove top.
After they cooled we ate cookies and wrote Christmas cards. They scribbled on the card, and I translated the hieroglyphics into English. It ended in a yelling match over a purple glitter pen, but it was still a very nice time.

Doing My Hair

Not Joe Dirt

My hair is starting to look like Joe Dirt's mullet. After a year of bleaching, my hair started to rip off with the slightest tug. So I decided the bleaching must come to an end. My hair is growing back in, which is making the first couple inches from the scalp, super thick, and the ends thin.

Wednesday I have a job interview. Back to putting up with the soup. This entails doing something with my wild mane of hair, so my outside reflects my inside. I need it to say, I am a woman who cares about how I look, at least Monday thru Friday, 8 am to 5 pm.

Not only do I color my own hair, but I cut it too. How can you tell if I'm in a highly reflective state, and feel like the weight of the world is about to squash me, I usually grab a pair of scissors, and give myself a nice modern haircut, that makes no sense to anyone but me. "Why did you cut a nice duck tuft on your head, Alicia?"
"Oh, this?! I call it reverse bangs. It represents having eyes in the back of my head, or seeing too much. Do you like it?" I say, too proudly.
"Oh, um, well, yes. It's fabulous. You're fabulous." They say, tugging their kid gloves up to their elbows.

I am going to give myself a sensible trim, and an all-over color job tonight. My mom remarks that my unkept hair is an indication that I don't make myself a priority. I don't like to point out to her that I carve out plenty of "me time," seeing as how I maintain an active blog, run a lot of miles in a week, and spend at least five hours working on other writing projects. But to my mom, it is the presentation thats most important. She sees my legs, that look like I've been camping for three weeks, and she says, "Oh wow, you're depressed. You've let yourself go."
Then, I have to do something to show her there are different paths for people, and mine does not entail doing my hair for an hour each morning. So I grab a steak knife out of the cutlery drawer and grab a chunk of hair in front of my face and swiftly chop it. Then I say, "You reminded me, I want to cut bangs, but just half a face worth. Wow, mom, you're right. I haven't felt this good in ages!"

Similar aversion to hair care

Pee Flight

Anxiety from not getting aisle seat... 

I was laying in bed and felt like I had to pee. I didn't really have an urge to pee, more like an urge that I should pee. I went to the bathroom, but no pee came. I went back to bed, and still felt like should pee, so I went back to the toilet, hoping to get this pee taken care of. Again, my attempt was unsuccessful. I decided to try again before falling asleep.
This was what all my pee attempts were trying to prevent, though. I didn't want to have to get up to pee, as I was nodding off to sleep while reading my book. Without having concern about peeing, I'd be able to drift off to sleep, so soundly. But, by not peeing, I was nagged that my sleep had potential to be disturbed.
I'm Werner Erhard's perfect example of a person who lets their bladder dictate their state of mind. An entire plane ride is a mental discussion on if I have to pee, and when I should do it, only if I'm not sitting in an aisle seat. When I'm sitting in the window seat, I feel trapped as the other passengers in my row sit down, and my mind begins talking to me, "I think I have to pee..."
I talk back, "Well, were going to need to wait awhile because there are three adults next to me, and it is a huge inconvenience to get up to use the bathroom."
Here comes the voice again, "umm, yes I definitely have to pee. You better go to the bathroom before these people next to you all pull out laptops and order rum and cokes."
"I don't have to pee, you're just being difficult." I retort.
"Were going to be taking off soon. Go pee because it could be 45 minutes till the "fasten seat belt" light comes off." The voice presses.
"then there will be a line of ten people, and the first one in line will take a stinky dump and then stand up to pee all over the toilet seat." I get on board with the voice.
"See, I told you, You have to pee." The pesky voice.
"Alright, you're right. You're always right." I concede.
"I know. You shouldn't make things so hard on us."

After reading my book for another twenty minutes, I was able to go pee, and then fell asleep. Well, first I had to go check on George because I knew the voice wouldn't leave me alone till I went and made sure he was sleeping soundly.
I looked at him, snoring under the nightlight, "Just as I thought, safe and sound."
"Well, now you can be sure. Aren't you glad you checked on him?"
"Yes, now it's time for bed."
"Good night." I'm happy this voice lets me get any sleep at all.

Broken Baby Monitor

A Yeasty Extremist

Breaking the mold

Last night I was laying in bed, reading to get sleepy. I drank too much coffee during the day, but it was unavoidable, since it's the perfect pair to pan au chocolat. I ate seven delicious homemade pastries, and felt guilty for living in excess.
I can't drink, because I like to have 12 beers instead of two. Plus, a 12 beer hangover makes life unbearable, the only happy thought existing in my pickled brain, being squeezed by an invisible vice, is that I didn't fall over during the night, hit my head and die from a brain injury. So, there's that; barfing bile in the toilet is better than being dead.
Even exercising has to be done in extremes, eight mile daily runs or I'm completely dormant, like a hibernating bear. Foods another complicated situation. I don't like to keep ice cream in the house because it's relentless, calling to me from the freezer, even at 7 am, I stir it into my coffee. Oh, and there's coffee; I can't just have a couple cups, I need a minimum of 8.
I am starting to accept myself as an extremist, and have to stop giving myself so much shit for being the way I am. (Just thought of a great New Years resolution)

I remembered a time in high school, I was at work, and my boss came into the store, returning from her gynecologist appointment. She told me that her doctor was able to identify my boss drinks a lot of beer because of high yeast levels in her vagina.
My high school boss came to mind because I'm reading Kitchens of The Great Midwest. The book is like The Corrections, in that each chapter is a continuation of a story, told in a new person's point of view. Eva reminds me of my old boss, a punk rocker from England. I thought she was as cool as cool gets. I once watched in awe as she ate an egg McMuffin with a knife and fork. I was blown away looking at a portrait of Jimi Hendrix she painted. My boss was a legitimate artist, heading up souvenir shops in Lake Tahoe, when she should be making art installations for The Louvre.
My childhood best friend can also draw. At eight years old, when most kids are perfecting drawing a circle, she was able to beautifully draw whatever the hell she imagined in her mind. Being artistic in this way is not in my lineage, out of my forty cousins there is only one person who can draw, and he uses that talent to draw marajuana leaves or dragons toking on a hookah, so I find anyone with drawing capabilities to be alien, or having an elite state of mind.
I read about forty children's books a day and one evening, I proclaimed to my husband, "The illustrator should get priority in the credits for these books. These elaborate drawings must take months, whereas the clever poem or juvinille story took the writer a night to come up with. They were probably drifting off to sleep, and then the story popped into their mind, and they quickly transcribed it to paper, thirty minutes of work."
He said that was a biased assumption, and totally false. I figured I was acting like my mom, attributing my strengths and weaknesses to the entire population.

Back to the yeasty diagnosis, after I remembered about my boss, and her doctor's appointment, I thought, "Oh great, I'm surely going to get a yeast infection from eating eight croissants today!" There wasn't much else to that thought because a yeast infection is a quick fix. This morning I looked at the last croissant, under plastic wrap, sitting alone on a plate littered with cracked croissant crumbs. I poured the first of my many coffees, and reached for the croissant, saying, "I'm so happy I didn't eat you last night because I get to eat you now."

Croissants and Dragons

Don't call up Le Cordon Bleu, just yet. I'd say my plain croissants were a tad burnt on the bottom. What started as a naive idea to bake a croissant turned into a two day project, and in the end I made delicious, flakey, buttery croissants, and pan au chocolat.

I'd say the effort I put into these beauties make them taste like liquid gold, so its understandable that I've already consumed 5 pan au chocolate and 1 plain. 

I might have only eaten three by now if it weren't for the kids abandoning theirs after taking a tiny nibble. They had an urgent calling to make a raft (out of pillows) and float on the lake (our blue carpet) looking at the clouds (recessed lights). 

When we started breakfast, we sat around their plastic picnic table. An airplane flew overhead, and we stopped chewing to listen. I said in a hushed voice, "Do you guys hear that?"

And George whispered, "Theres a dragon coming."
I burst out laughing. After they got up to play, I watched them while sipping coffee and eating croissants. I thought of this as a croissant moment, Golden, solid gold.

Croissant Recipe  

Watering My Flower

A Goal Garden

Tyler Perry gave some great advice, he said something like, Instead of having a bunch of projects, just choose one and focus on that until it's a success. He compared this to a garden, he says instead of watering every flower, just focus on the most important flower, and that will prove to be the fastest way to get all your flowers watered.
I'm constantly referencing Perry's idea because I have around five things floating on the top of my goals list, and it could easily explode to twenty if I didn't have some project self control. When I get carried away signing up for different adult education classes, I have to take a step back and say, "Alicia, is this the flower you want to water? Sure, ukulele lessons sound fun, but those hours could be spent on the screenplay you wrote and need to edit and reedit."
This morning I woke up thinking about chocolate croissants. I don't feel like witnessing bum fights downtown, so I decided to make them at home. I should have read the instructions all the way through before committing to this project, because after mixing the ingredients, I found out making croissants is a laborious process. Throughout the day I have been tending to my croissants; the butter layer is inserted, but I have a couple more steps of rolling out and folding back up.
I'm also working on a short story. I was writing and watching Sleater-Kinney music videos while George watched cartoons, and played with toys on the living room carpet. The story plays out in entirety in my head, like examining a sphere, and the most challenging part is getting it into linear form. Like most flowers, it needs time to grow.
As I watched Sleater-Kinney rock out, I was thinking of my daughter and her upcoming Suzuki guitar courses. Our days in group music classes are coming to an end since there is a drastic difference between how my 4 year old reacts to a song and how a 12 month old. Kiki is like a bull in a China shop. She beats on her instruments with reckless abandon, and other moms look on thinking, "Oh shit, if Kiki's maraca goes flying into my baby's eye, my kid will suffer a lifelong injury."

I don't want to try and tame the rock, so it's time for us to move onto an environment where she can let loose. Thats why I'm choosing a rigorously structured music curriculum. I know, it doesn't make sense. The first eight weeks of the course involves me meeting with the teacher, and then taking the information home, and working with my daughter daily, and after we have accomplished certain goals, she enters into one-on-one lessons with the teacher.
My 2016 activities are starting to stack up, along with weekly Suzuki lessons, I have playwriting class at the community college, and I need to put more time into conversational German. I was day dreaming about jamming on the guitar with my daughter, while exploring Dusseldorf as a native speaker, finding a Bakers Mann to discuss perfecting the Shokolade Croissant.
George grew bored of his cartoon, and employed his most common method to get my attention, doing something that gets him a time-out. He ran up and pinched me hard, time out. He ripped a Christmas ornament from the tree and screamed, "Oh no, we lost a core memory!" Time out.
This guy is a good talker, and there is something I should not have shouted 6 months ago in a moment of road rage, but how was I to know my 18 month old would adopt it into his vocabulary, and pull it out from memory to get an immediate reaction. George's last resort to get my attention, even after the time outs and redirecting his attention, was to scream, "Move your fucking car!"
I yelled, "Time out!!!" and put him in his room.
After George pulled the Fuck card, I had to flip my laptop shut and take him to the park. He was letting me know that I was neglecting him, by writing and surfing the web, but mostly surfing the web. We walked around the park for an hour and went out to lunch before picking up Kiki from school.
I haven't had the chance to dive back into my story, but maybe tonight I can resume watering my most important flower, that is, if I don't get the urge to water my other flower. My garden has urges. Eventually, I will get better at this one flower at a time thing. I'm going to make that a flower.

RHOBH Yolanda

TV Dinner

I admit it, I watch The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Last week's episode Yolanda Foster's "friends" talked shit on her because she braved the Beverly Hills social scene, and didn't feel up to slapping some makeup on. It shows how stupid most of the people on the show are. Its all for naught since Yolanda is more beautiful than the rest of the cast, especially without makeup.

If you think of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills as a Wizard of Oz troupe, then Kyle Richards would be the scarecrow; there is, without a doubt, no brain in that woman's head. She spends majority of the show lamenting over how her sister is an alcoholic, and she is liberated by not having to keep it a secret anymore. The ability to confide about an agonizing family problem must be freeing, but to share it to the entire country, over cable television, well, she must be soaring.
Lisa Remi can be the lion because she laughs after everything she says, it is almost impossible to take her seriously, plus her endless self deprecation comes off a bit cowardly.
Lisa Vanderpump is Tin Man, because she seems most likely to be exposed as beating her servants, or stealing their passports and paying them in peanuts. She is the calculating "Bobby Fischer" of the pose, so I imagine her walk to the top involved a lot of stepping over people.
Yolanda would be Oz, of course.

Yolanda is going through a divorce which seems especially hard since she is fighting an immune disease, but she seems like the kind of person who doesn't let those things take her down. Yolanda is not perfect, she did get an antifeminist sentiment rolling around when she rattled on about how a woman should be submissive to their husband, and she also has said my least favorite quote of all time, "there is nothing worse than a drunk woman." Really? Reeeeeally?
She is pointed though, and I appreciate that. She said, "You have to keep a watch on your man, because any hussy will fuck him for a Channel bag," more or less. It is also very endearing how Yolanda obsesses over her kids. Yes, Yolanda is smart, so smart she should probably be promoted to the advanced students, Real Housewives of New York.
I will catch the new episode tomorrow night, so opinions are subject to change, but after having watched for five years, I think I have a pretty good pulse on this group. It is the modern soap opera, after all!

Kids' Soap Opera

Juice Cleanse

I'm on a juice cleanse which was not so bad, but then I went to the mall, and sat in the food court as the kids ran around the play area. I spent most of the time gazing upon a wall size picture of a ColdStone Ice Cream Cone. This evening, after feeding the kids, I felt hungry. It's nice to feel hunger, a rare feeling. Maybe it's because I work from home, so I'm a victim to continuous snacking. I'd hardly call this cleanse starvation based, since there is a juice every two hours, but I'm glad it's only one day long.
Last night, I finished the book To Live by Yu Hua. It is a steep decline into tragedy. After finishing the book, I closed it and thought, "Well, that was likely the most depressing life story I could ever think up." The book is amazing, and after finishing, I was overcome with dread thinking of how awful things could be. I was worried to have these thoughts on my mind, and I wished to wipe them away. Since I don't have the Men In Black mind eraser laser, I  resolved the greatest thing to take from the book is tremendous gratitude for my life.
Someone once told me they were worried about their wife turning fat because after seeing his mom-in-law he feared her gigantic size was genetic. Naturally, I felt uncomfortable, and I didn't know how to comfort him. I said, "Everyone gets fat. You can either beat yourself up over it, or choose to be happy."After reading To Live, and the accounts of barely surviving starvation, its a lesson on how much stupidity there is in obsessing over ten pounds. Really, being ten pounds overweight is something to celebrate.
Perhaps it's the clarity from not having gobs of processed sugar and caffeine pumping through my veins by this time in the evening, but I'm certain my desire to drink juice today in an attempt to loose five pounds was stupid. Since I have so much to grateful for, I'm planning a breakfast to celebrate; pancakes with loads of cream and berries covered in a heavy pour of maple syrup and a side of delicious, slightly crispy, bacon, with a giant mug of black coffee. It will be glorious, maybe we'll wear party hats*, and unbutton the top button of our pants.

*Side Note: Last night Kiki started talking in her sleep. She said, "Are you wearing a party hat?" Her eyes flittered open, I replied, "Yes, I have on a party hat."
Then, half asleep, she patted the top of my head, and said, "Your head is your hat."
I snorted, so amused by her half asleep chatter, and it snapped her fully awake for a moment. She became embarrassed and pulled the blanket up over her smiling mouth. I turned my back to her and closed my eyes, so she'd fall back to sleep instantly.

Fish Dream

This morning I woke up from a dream thats had me giggling for hours. In the dream I was in George's room, with the whole gang, and we were lounging about, playing with toys. There was a big red fish floating around the room, swimming through the air, just like it was swimming in water. The fish kept swimming to my face, and kissing me on the lips. I was laughing, and pushing it away, but it would come back to kiss me. It was awesome.

Dog Food

Chowing Down

When George was a baby and starting to eat solids, we'd prop him up in his high chair and dump a handful of Cheerio's on the tray. He'd pick the O up with his finger and thumb, and then start to bring it to his mouth. His trajectory was always off, and he'd end up pinging his hand pinching a Cheerio, off his cheek, or chin or maybe his ear or eye. He'd push the O to whatever area of his face he landed at, and let go.
I'm not sure when he mastered getting the food into his mouth, but George was never big on eating. If he had his way, all his calories would come from milk.
Thats why I'm not surprised to catch him eating his food face deep, like a little doggy.

Banana Mamma

Snowballs!

This morning Kiki told me she was worried about someone casting a spell on her, and turning her to stone. I told her not to worry, she will be safe. I didn't feel like telling her what I worry about; that we'll wander into a public space where some fucking nut job goes off on everyone with a semi automatic.
My husband took her to the movies last week, to watch The Good Dinosaur, and I had to give him a warrior pep talk; he must barricade her from any gunmen, and don't get too brave and try to carryout a challenging escape route. Basically, I had to tell him, sacrifice yourself. He rolled his eyes at me, like a teenager, saying, "Totes Obs!"
They left and I watched House Hunters International for three hours.

The other night I was sleeping in George's bed, and Kiki called out "mamma, mamma!" She must have been shouting for a while because I woke up from a dream where someone was passing out bananas, shouting, "bananas, bananas!" Now that I think about it, they must have been speaking in a British accent. I crawled out of George's bed, and stumbled into Kiki's.
Laying next to her, I noticed how much she has grown. I sense there could be a time soon, where I tell her, "I can't carry you anymore," which would be terribly sad because she loves it when I cradle her in my arms and walk around pretending she is a new baby.
I devised a great plan to make sure I can keep carrying her around. Every morning, I will go into her room, pick her up and then do a lap around the house. The incremental growth will be unnoticed by our daily routine, so I will be able to carry her into my fifties, as she goes into her twenties. I am not sure what we'll do when she goes off to college, but maybe she will go to a commuter school.

Kiki might think my training to carry her around as an adult is a great idea now, as a four year old, but maybe when she is twenty she will find my desire to cradle her like a baby and carry her around the house deeply disturbing. As we grow older, our worries change. I wonder what I'll worry about when I'm fifty. Maybe that my daughter will have to carry me around... And gunmen, Obs.

Suspicious Minds

Crazy Hair, Crazy Head

It's a bad idea to tell someone with paranoia to, "Trust your gut," or "Listen to your intuition," because there is always a whack ass scenario playing out in their head. I'm a paranoid person, and spend a lot of time talking myself out of assuming crazy plots involving me. But, sometimes the evidence is too much. Just the other day, I spent an hour considering how my neighbor has possibly bugged my house, gaining an inside earful of my home life.

There is one incident that makes me believe he is listening to conversations in my house, or maybe he is psychic, in which case he has read my mind, and sees that behind my smile and neighborly wave, I am thinking, "You're creepy, dude!"
My husband was out of town for a week, and I was leaving town also, to go to my parents. Garbage day was in a couple days, and because George is still in diapers (we're working on this) we have to be sure the trash gets picked up weekly, since the turd diapers make the garage stink to high heavens.
The day I was leaving town, I rolled the trash to the street, and my neighbor strolled over to say hi and wave at the kids. He asked me why I was taking the trash out three days early, and I told him I am going to stay with my parents for a couple days. He's said, "Why not leave the trash for your husband to take out?"
"He will never remember!" I lied, so he wouldn't know our house would be empty for the week. His grandkid is a certifiable psychopath, and I don't want him to break into my house and steal all my worthless junk with high sentimental value.
I returned from my parents house the morning the trash was collected, Friday. That afternoon, the kids and I planned to pick up their dad from the airport. As we were loading in the car, my neighbor sauntered over, "You picking Guy up from the airport?"
I was kind of shocked, and froze up realizing he knew where we were going, and caught on to the fact that I lied to him three days earlier, so I decided to lie some more, "Oh, yeah. He had to leave town unexpectedly, yesterday morning, for work."
"Oh, really? Where did he go?"
In my head I was thinking, "Jeez, get the fuck off my jock, dude," but I lied more, and said the first place that popped into my mind, "San Diego."
After he stopped interrogating me, we pulled out of the driveway, and headed toward the airport,  cursing the neighbor for being nosy, and somehow, all-knowing. After I picked up my husband at the airport I said, "So I sort of spun a big web of lies to the neighbor. Sorry, I don't know how things got so complicated, but if he asks, you left Thursday morning, and went to San Diego."
He didn't care I lied to the neighbor because he also thought it was odd how the old man knew where I was going, or was probing me about Guy being out of town, and that the psychopath grandson is a threat to our worthless junk with high sentimental value. He said, "It's good to trust your gut. Who cares if he thinks you lied?"

If my neighbor is listening to the ongoings inside my house, then he has been sorely disappointed this week since I've listened to Mariah Carey sing All I Want For Christmas on repeat, and am not holding back as I sing along. It sounds like nails on a chalkboard. That will teach him. I also like to occasionally say, "Get a life, Creep!" when I sporadically think of him listening in from his lazy boy recliner.

Goose

Dead Animal For Dinner. Not Roadkill.

My dad brought home a goose for Thanksgiving. It was a gift from his friend who recently returned from a hunting trip. I first saw the goose in the kitchen sink, wrapped up in a garbage bag, it's wet body sticking to the plastic. 

I told my dad, "No one is going to eat that. It's terrifying, in it's plastic bag. Do you even know where it came from?"
"It's from Sacramento." He said.
"That makes it worse. If it were from Nevada, I'd assume it had a normal goose diet, now I'm imagining it at McKinley park, eating dried squirrel poop and day-old bagels."
"There is nothing wrong with day old bagels!" He replied.

Kiki pulled up a chair as my dad brined the goose, and kept asking, "How can we bring the goose back to life?"
I suggested a walk, fresh air always rejuvenates. She didn't get the joke, and as usual, I was laughing all by myself. Hearing the family talk about the dead goose made Kiki curious about death, and she started asking about our deaths, with most concern on when it would happen. We were all stumped, and feeling unequipped at answering the question, we told her, never.

The goose didn't fit in the overflowing fridge so it got a seat with a view, on the back porch, in the frigid temperatures. That night, it was moved to the garage to keep it safe from coyotes.

Brining with a view

The next day, my dad and Kiki made a seasoning for the bird, and it roasted in the oven. I was very surprised to find it looks more like beef than chicken. My dad was weary of anyone willingly serving themselves a piece of the goose, so he put a slice on everyone's plate.
I tasted it, and had it not been in brine for 24 hours, and dosed in a salty layer of seasoning, it would have tasted foul (get it, fowl.) I could not mentally hurdle the image of the dead animal's body in the sink, so the one bite was plenty.
Kiki ate the most out of everyone. This made my dad beyond pleased, and left the rest of us feeling a tad inferior. Whatever concerns Kiki had for the goose's life didn't seem to deter her from eating it.
Since Thanksgiving, Kiki has been hung up on the idea of death. I've given her better answers to her questions, that will help her shape a definition of life.
She hasn't asked any questions about eating the dead. Maybe it's evidence of human instinct to be carnivorous. A natural superiority complex, overlording all animals. Either way, her lack of inhibition toward eating the goose makes me think she'd have been an excellent leader of the Donner Party, and my dad could join her, as the head chef.