British Invasion

I was doing my best to get some editing work done this evening while I waited for dinner to cook so, being the fantastic mother that I am, I sat my kids down in front of the TV, turned it to PBS and went to park my arse in front of the computer. About 20 minutes later, I kept hearing uproarious laughter coming from my son and a few giggles from my daughter. Excellent, I thought, PBS must really know what kids like. A couple minutes later my son ran into the kitchen (where my desktop is) and said, "Mommy. You have got to see this hilarious movie we are watching." I went in to find my kids mesmerized by Are You Being Served?

I guess we've got a backup show when the cartoons run out. I wonder when the appropriate time to introduce, Keeping Up Appearances to the kiddos is.

Status Quo

Julianne has a little problem with Facebook. She's hooked on it and has, as a result, begun thinking in terms of her Facebook status which, for those of you unfamiliar with Facebook, always starts out with the word, "Julianne" and must be confined to 160 characters or less.

Julianne now thinks in the third person. She worries this may be a tad narcissistic.

Julianne likes for her Facebook status to either be clever, poignant, humorous or some combination of the three. This is difficult for her to accomplish in less than 160 characters.

Julianne hopes that this thinking in terms of Facebook status condition of hers doesn't seep into her everyday life. She may hear herself say things such as this:

Julianne wants her daughter to stop asking for a snack and start eating her meals. If this doesn't happen, her daughter will be placed in time out.

Julianne does not want to ask her son to turn off the Wii again. If she does, she will take his privileges away tomorrow.

Julianne is trying to talk on the phone. She wishes her two children would stop making requests long enough for her to change her doctor's appointment. If they don't, Julianne will be forced to lock herself in the closet.

Julianne is now locked in the closet. Thankfully, she remembered to bring her laptop.

 

 

Monday’s Rant

Be forewarned I'm feuding with my husband over something about which he has no control and I'm feeling the urge to scratch my own eyes out with a rusty knife. It's been a great day. Suffice it to say this post may seem, hmmm…, a tad bit angry.

For those of you who are unaware, I have lupus. I realize this may seem like a random statement but it becomes relevant later. I have lupus and so do 1.5 million other Americans yet very few people even know what the disease is. There is no celebrity spokesperson for the disease even though it is statistically impossible that a celebrity or five does not have the disease. The only press it ever gets is when one of the staff members on House throws it out as a possible diagnosis every week. I'm not kidding. EVERY week. Pay attention. This lack of awareness drives me nuts. Fret not, all of this will make sense in a few minutes.

Anyone watch The Shield out there in cyberland? My husband and I have been fans of it since the first episode and have watched it faithfully until its painful conclusion last week. For those of you unfamiliar with the show, it is a gritty (that might be the understatement of the century) cop drama about police corruption and the activities of one particular group of cops in L.A. It's violent and thought provoking and shocking at times. It's the kind of show that I love. I was so pleased last season when one of the show's primary characters came out of the closet with a lupus diagnosis. She's a smart, successful, highly capable woman and I was thrilled that lupus was finally going to get some serious treatment on a relatively high profile show. My pleasure turned to shock when it was revealed that the reason for the revelation about the character's diagnosis was that she was going completely insane. She was losing perspective, unable to perform the functions of her job, getting irrationally emotional and had even let her house get so filthy that it could have been condemned, all of this from a woman who, prior to her lupus diagnosis, had been an exceptionally successful woman in every aspect of her life. Are you kidding me?

So the character she came clean to took it upon himself to shelter and protect her from those who might discover her illness and subsequent meltdown. Being the gentlemen that he is, he talked her down when she was overly emotional, over compensated for her rash behavior, and hired someone to clean her house. What a gent!

The final few episodes revealed that it was her medication, not her disease, which was making her crazy. This left her with a difficult choice: continue to take the medication and remain a crazy person or stop taking it, get some normalcy in her life, and die a slow painful death from a relentless disease. She chose the latter. Nice. My heart swells with pride at this oh-so-accurate portrayal of a relatively common and treatable disease that affects many intelligent, successful, capable-of-keeping-our-homes-clean women who take their medication regularly without going crazy. Come on!

Wary Googlers

A friend of mine is starting a blog and I was helping her with it today (it was a paid service so I did my best to be professional). I used my own blog as an example and showed her the stats section where I can check where the visits to my blog are coming from. I clicked on the first search engine hit to illustrate the nifty feature that allows you to see what people are searching to arrive at your blog. What were the search words you ask? In the past I've had such gems as Bret Michael's hair, Furries, and many others. This one, though, takes the cake: Hugh Hefner STD. Thank goodness she is a friend or I would have been mortified. We both had a hearty laugh about that and moved on. Just remember, if the urge to uncover Hef's seedy medical history strikes you, have no fear. Just do a google search and Another Gray Hair will be the 9^th entry. I'm here to please and provide massive amounts of useless information.

Since my post about Hef did not actually answer the question as to whether or not he has an STD, I thought I should address that now for wary Googlers looking for answers. According to the ever-reputable Wiki Answers, yes, Hef did have an STD, syphilis, in 1991 from an unknown partner. We can all rest easy tonight knowing that this question is answered and that Hef has recovered from syphilis to live a long happy life full of pure American debauchery. Go Hef!

In completely unrelated news the Wii has become a major source of contention in my home. I feel like we should be interviewed for the next E! "Curse of the Lottery" special where we could serve as a cautionary tale for families who win small household luxuries in Bingo games. Sure, you think you're lucky now. Just wait! WAIT! Ever since I purchased the Legos Star Wars game for $19.99 (that's the only reason I bought it!), my son has become completely obsessed with it. He dreams about it, talks about it, and collapses into a ball of desperation when I deny him the privilege. This week is not going well for him. Due to his unpleasant attitude when asked to complete simple household chores (I insist that my kids do these things with a "willing spirit"—think that's a bit of a stretch?), he has lost his Wii privileges for two days. His response to this punishment was similar to that of a rabid, Ferrell cat trapped in a small space. I confined him in his room and shut the door but I never, ever want to hear those noises again.

To add insult to injury, my husband, who knows that my son's Wii privileges have been revoked is, at this very moment, attached to the Wii remote giving Darth Vader a run for his Lego money. He's got the volume down to conceal his illicit game play from my son. What a gent.

Scrooge

No matter which candidate you were rooting for, I think we can all breath a collective sigh of relief that the election is over. The madness is through. I may go into a little CNN Ticker withdrawal but I'll be alright. And you will too.

Moving on. Let's talk about Christmas, shall we? My good friend Jacquelyn and her lovely troop of Daisy Girl Scouts are participating in a Christmas parade. The parade takes place in the perimeter of the local mall and is meant to welcome Santa Claus and his elves to the celebratory world of consumerism. What's the big deal, you ask? Why does this event even qualify for blog fodder? Well, the answer to this question has much less to do with the event itself than it does with the date of the event. The parade, you know, the one to welcome Santa Claus into his cardboard house in the climate controlled "North Pole" of the mall, is tomorrow night. Tomorrow is NOV. 6, a full 50 days before Christmas! That's 7 weeks people! Absurd.

Maybe I'm a closeted Ebenezer Scrooge but I feel like this tradition is ridiculous and should be changed. Maybe they can replace Santa and his sleigh with a perfectly prepared turkey dinner or some pilgrims, something, anything that represents a holiday within a reasonable proximity to November 6. Jacquelyn and the Daisy Girl Scouts of Troop 507, I love you all dearly but I must, on sheer principle, boycott this parade and all it stands for. Have fun ushering a fake Santa into consumer hell tomorrow night. I'll be thinking about you while I make my lowly assistant shovel coal into the wood burning stove.

STD’s

The stress in my life melted away yesterday when my OB's nurse called me to inform me that I did not have gonorrhea. Phew. Thank goodness. That was keeping me up at night. When it comes to my list of stressors, "Fear of STD's" is at the very top, above "In 5 months the children will outnumber the adults in my household" and "Holy crap what is my stomach going to look like after this?" I guess I should be thankful for the small things, right?

Speaking of STD's, I read today on CNN.com that Holly Madison and Hugh Hefner are splitting. This upsets me a great deal. What will poor Hugh do without his beloved Puffin? Word on the street is he's got a set of 19-year-old twins chomping at the bit to take her place. If this relationship comes to fruition, Hef's new gal pals will be 63 years his junior. My question is this: what do their parents think? I would be mortified. That gives me two primary goals for my daughter(s):

1. Keep them off of the pole (thank you Chris Rock)
   
2. Keep them out of Hugh Hefner's bed.
   

Sure, I'd also like them to be happy, well-adjusted, successful women but I'm thinking right now in terms of concrete objectives and these, my friends, are two of them.

Pluggity Plug Plug Plug

I'm all about supporting other moms trying to get their feet wet in the world of business and Gloria Moser is one such Mom. She works full time, has two kids under 4, and has recently started a local website geared at parents in the Cleveland, Tennessee area. The website is www.funandfrugal.com and it lists upcoming events, coupons, sales and contests that would be useful for area moms and dads in the Cleveland (and Chattanooga for that matter) area. Go check her out and if you live in East Tennessee, subscribe to her feed for updates on local family-friendly happenings that won't break the bank.

Stranger Than Fiction

Long after my college days of devouring Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan and participating in "Take Back the Night" marches, I have finally come to appreciate what the feminist movement has done for me, for my daughter, for every generation of women to come. This appreciation came from a most unlikely source: a television show. After reading about all of the award nominations that the AMC show, Mad Men, has garnished, I had to see the show for myself. I moved it to the top of my Netflix que and have been watching Season 1, one disc at a time, for the past few weeks. For anyone who hasn't watched the show, it depicts the professional and personal lives of New York Advertising execs in the 1960's. Let's just say the glass ceiling was in another galaxy and sexual harassment was not only legal, it was a freakin' expectation. This is the work environment that my parent's generation began their professional lives in. It blows my mind.

On a recent episode, one of the men in the office was describing his experience while brainstorming with the secretaries (lovingly referred to as the "hens") in which he was astounded to find that one of the women actually had some pretty good ideas. He described the scene, "It was like watching a dog play the piano." This is so foreign and offensive to me that I cannot fathom behavior like this ever being tolerated. My daughter will be even more astounded and baffled by this type of talk. You know what that is called people? Progress. So, thank you Mad Men for giving today's generation a real glimpse of what it was that the women of the sixties and seventies were fighting for. And thank you bra-burnin', protestin' women of generations past for making such behavior seem stranger than fiction to me.

Abracadabra

Siegfried and Roy watch out! My son is only five years old and well on his way to becoming the next hot magician. I'm going to encourage him to stay away from sequins and albino tigers but, other than that, I'm all about him making his mark on the magic scene.

Today, for instance, he put on a dynamo magic show. The first couple of tricks were standard fare involving cards and pennies but the last one was a doozy. He walked into the room and stood on his "stage" in front of the coffee table, waving his magic wand in dramatic circles,

Son: Would you believe that I can turn myself into a metal robot?

Me: No way. I'll believe it when I see it.

Son: Close your eyes. Don't open them until I tell you that you can.

Me: OK

Lots of rustling takes place at this time, and I can hear him walk from the living room to his room and then back. There's some additional rustling and then some footsteps into the kitchen.

Son: You can open your eyes now

I look around and try to figure out what is going on. There, on the coffee table directly in front of where my son's "stage" was, is a little silver plastic robot, an Ironman Kid's Meal toy. I hear a voice from the kitchen,

Son (in best monosyllabic robot voice): I'm a robot. Would you like me to bring back the magician?

I did my best not to laugh and oohed and aahhed in amazement at my son's trick.

Me: Yes, please bring him back.

We went through the same process, lots of rustling and footsteps and the next time I opened my eyes my son was standing there with a proud grin on his face. I could have smeared him with butter and swallowed him whole, he was so adorable. Maybe I should take him on, "America's Got Talent" and let him perform his trick for David Hasselhoff in the hopes of becoming someone that won a show once and now does weddings and bah mitzvahs. Vegas, here we come!

Claiming My Summer…

I took the kids to my parent's house last night and my husband and I are off to Atlanta today for the Jimmy Buffett concert with some friends. We've got big tailgating plans and I cannot wait to immerse myself in the
Buffett culture. Our friends, Jacquelyn and Michael, are weathered parrotheads. This is their 18^th concert. It's my second and my husband's first. Jacquelyn tried her best to get me to wear a coconut bra but that is simply not happening. No way in hell. I'm wearing a lei and a Hawaiian shirt. That's the best I can do. We'll be drinking lots of margaritas and cold beer and grilling some cheeseburgers in the paradise of the parking lot. I fully plan on waking up in the morning with a brand new tattoo and no clue how it got there.

Little League Heckler

Can someone please tell me why my ground turkey is, "flavored with natural ingredients"? Shouldn't ground turkey be flavored with, say, ground turkey? And what, pray tell, are these supposed natural ingredients? If you know the answer to this, please enlighten me. I'm cooking that bad boy tonight.

In other news, my son has taken on a new role on his baseball team. He's the official team heckler. He stands at his post as catcher behind the batter and heckles each kid as they swing the ball and miss (9 times out of ten—this is 5 & 6 year-olds). Right after he haphazardly throws the ball back to the pitcher, he yells the player's status, S-trike 1!, and then proceeds to laugh uncontrollably. It just started at tonight's game. I'm mystified. I don't think he even knew what a strike was prior to this evening's game. The only explanation that I can think of for this bizarre, yet humorous, behavior is that the coaches, in an effort to get some manner of enthusiasm out of him, advised my son to yell out the strikes as they happen. Who can blame them? This is a kid who we have to cajole into getting the ball each time a batter gets a strike. Baseball, for him, is all about hecklin' and dirt playin'. No wonder he loves it so much.

 

Yoda One For Me

We had a major milestone in the Hale house recently when we introduced our son to the Star Wars franchise. We decided to try episode IV out first. It's practically G-rated by today's standards and we figured that the space travel/sci-fi thing would catch his attention. Much to our delight, he loved it and has been begging to watch The Empire Strikes Back ever since, my least favorite of the trilogy. It's so long and boring (sorry hardcore Star Wars fans who vehemently defend this one as the best) but I know he'll like it. My husband is pleased and so am I. We can't wait to introduce him to all manner of made-in-China, lead laden Star Wars merchandise. 

We brought our Star Wars box set on vacation with us thinking we could take advantage of the home theater system and watch Empire on the mac-daddy screen. Imagine our surprise when the house was not equipped with a VCR. The humanity! When my mother-in-law heard about my son's interest in Star Wars she told me that she had a twin sized Star Wars sheet that used to be my husband's. She offered to give it to my son. I knew the sheets she was talking about (light blue—every child of the seventies had a set) and wasn't exactly thrilled about the prospect of those sheets gracing the mattress in my son's very non-Star Wars room.

My daughter's birthday is this Sunday and a package from my in-laws was waiting on the porch when we got home today. Inside was a gift for my daughter and a small gift bag for my son. I gave the bag to him thinking he'd open it and cast it aside as the frivolous non-toy that it was but it did not go that way. My son opened up the bag, smiled a shy smile and asked if this used to be his Daddy's. I told him it was and he quietly unfolded it, wrapped it around himself and laid on the couch smiling. He's been in that position ever since.

 

Schmarney

Three years ago my husband did a favor for our
friends, Alyson and Chase, when he donned an Elmo suit and performed (I use
this term loosely) for a wild bunch of toddlers at their son’s second birthday
party. The costume was a rental and was clearly not licensed by Sesame Street.
It looked more like Elmo’s shady cousin than Elmo himself and was thus dubbed,
“Schmelmo.” The Schmelmo incident will not soon be forgotten. All I have to do
is conjure up the mental image of my husband in the jacked-up red suit walking
down the hallway and I will be laughing out loud in a matter of seconds.

I was reminded of Schmelmo last Thursday after
having lunch with my friend Jacquelyn. We pulled into the Pizza Hut parking lot
after taking the kids to play and noticed a large purple and green furry blob
standing by a car. Inside the blob was a 20-something kid and there was a
couple close by doing their best to zip up the Barney suit. We caught the tail
end of this process and, even though we both had places to be, we decided
pretty quickly that this scene was not one we could leave. We had to wait it
out. It took a while to get the Barney head on but they did it and we decided,
at that moment, to open up the sliding doors on my van so the kids could check
out the purple dinosaur (they were too busy talking to notice). Jacquelyn and I
got out of the car and waved at Barney. I asked if he would come over and say
hi to my kids. He politely obliged. Upon closer inspection it was clear that
this costume was also not licensed by Barney or any of his cohorts. It was
Schmarney, Barney’s sleazy uncle.

We asked the woman with Barney for an explanation
and she informed us that her child was in preschool across the street and they
were having Barney (her favorite character) personally deliver her valentine’s
gift. OK. That’s pretty sweet. The preschool, like I said, was across the
street and thus begged the question that Jacquelyn asked, “So, is he just going
to walk across the street in costume?”

“No,” nice Mama said, “We’re going to drive him over
there.”

Jacquelyn and I watched as they tried to squeeze
Barney into the backseat of their Escalade to no avail. Our kids watched in
horror as Barney jumped in the back like a dog and spread out on the floor. We both
wished that we had brought a camera to document this bizarre scene. My son
piped in and said matter-of-factly, “Mommy, Barney is not wearing a seatbelt.” Touché.
Miley Cyrus and Achy Breaky are in good company now.

Tender Tennessee Redneck Weddings

East Tennessee is on my mind today, mostly because the area surrounds me with natural beauty, homegrown folks and very odd wildlife. I was driving on the Interstate today about a mile from my exit and noticed what I thought was a black cat. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a wild hog. It was just grazing along the interstate as if this was a perfectly natural thing for it to do.

East Tennessee has also been on the television screens of CMT viewers across the country. With the writer's strike still threatening the quality of our television choices, many of us (myself included) have turned to reality TV for our viewing pleasure. CMT premiered a new program a couple of weeks ago entitled, My Big Redneck Wedding. It's sure to be a classic: 30 minutes of pure redneck glory, interjected with random comments from Tom Arnold that make me want to beat my head against a wall. Seriously, it's like nails on a chalkboard and completely unnecessary. Trust me, the content of this show requires no narrative. It is totally self-explanatory.

The most recent episode features a young (18 & 19) couple from Copper Basin, Tennessee, just up the road from yours truly. They got married outside. The bride wore a green dress. The groom wore a camo suit and the entire bridal party wore camo. The bride arrived on a tractor and the reception featured beans and cornbread. It was Southern to the core. The groom's gift to the bride on the wedding day was a pink rifle. Her gift to him? A skink. Classic. I enjoy this show a great deal for two reasons:

1. The couple on the second episode lived in California. Ha! There really are country folks in California. I thought this was a myth.
   



2. I see these people every day in my community at the stores, on the road, on my street. I wouldn't be surprised if they filmed an episode of MBRW on my street. They are unapologetically country and cross all socio-economic lines in the great state of Tennessee. As long as they aren't waiving a rebel flag the size of Texas from a flagpole in their front yard, I find them to be good people, good friends and good neighbors.
   

The episode failed to shock or surprise me except for one thing.  The minister said and the bride promised to honor her, "commitment to be submissive to his leadership" while all the groom had to promise was to, "love and care for her." I was a little stunned that the bride was willing to make such an antiquated promise, especially with zero reciprocation from the groom. To each his own, though. Who knows what I would have said if I had fallen in love and married at age 19?

Cruise Gone Bad

http://gawker.com/5002269/the-cruise-indoctrination-video-scientology-tried-to-suppress

I am all about religious tolerance but I will not be joining the church of Tom Cruise fans anytime soon. This begs, BEGS to be discussed. What, with the secretive, unexplained acronyms and the pretentious laughter. I can hardly sit through it. It gives me the willies. Remember that scene in LOST where the kid from the others was tied up and forced to watch a psycho video loop? This video is the perfect candidate for that brand of torture.  Yikes.

She Got Game

I rarely use my portable DVD player. I see moms picking up their kids from school and flipping down the screen as soon as their kids are in the car but I refuse to do this for many reasons, not the least of which is that my DVD player is not one of those handy dandy in dash numbers that is super easy to operate. It involves wires, some complicated button pushing and generally too much effort for my lazy arse. I'd love to get on my high horse and say that my kids don't watch the TV very often because I want to ensure optimum communication time in the car but, while I agree with that
platform, it just wouldn't be honest. It all boils down to convenience for me. Of all mothers in the world, I have the most motivation to keep my TV on. My son expects full participation in vehicle "games" while we are riding, even if it is just to the CVS on the corner to get a gallon of milk. My daughter is, I'm sorry to say, following suit with this expectation.

Before I am able to put the van in Drive in the morning, my son says, "Mommy, can we play a game?" This question is as reliable as the sunrise but I still cringe a little whenever he asks it, especially if I'm in a hurry or flustered. I always concede though because, really, what else am I going to do? Listen to some music? Gather my thoughts? Create a mental grocery list? Come on! Those are things that only people without children can do, right? So I play the game. We have a variety of games we play, including Construction Site, DisneyWorld, DollyWood, Train, Family and Baby, but they all boil down to the same theme: my son is some type of authority figure and my daughter and I are merely spectators, patrons or some type of subordinate. My son's voice gets about three octaves lower and I am given a series of lines to recite. My daughter and I also have to act out minor things like opening doors, fastening seat belts and giving money. My son refuses to move on to the next activity until we do. I am just resigned to doing what I'm told. Its easier that way.

Until the Christmas break things were simple and went according to my master plan. I'd play the game until my son got out of the car and went to school and then I'd turn on my favorite radio station and rock out a little while my daughter and I drove home. Things have changed. My rockin' out days are numbered. Today, as we were pulling out of my son's school parking lot, my daughter said, "Mommy, can we play a game?"

My heart stopped. I had just turned on the radio and was singing Alicia Key's No one at the top of my lungs. I love that song and would have taken great pleasure in finishing it out but I turned the radio off, did my best to sound chipper and said, "Sure. What game do you want to play?"

Baby Daddy

Just when you thought your small Tennessee town couldn't get any lamer, you get news that knocks your socks off. News that could change the face of your sleepy, little town. News that could bring the
Paparazzi. That's right, folks, Jamie Lynn Spears (Brit's 16-year-old sister) is knocked up. What does this have to do with Cleveland, Tennessee you ask? Well, it turns out that the Baby Daddy works at a paper mill here in town.

Why does this please me so? I guess the prospect of seeing my little town on the pages of In Touch Weekly excites me more than I care to admit. I can just see the new welcome signs on the edges of town:

Welcome to Cleveland, Tennessee: Home of Britney Spear's sister's Baby Daddy.

The tourism industry is bound to explode.

***CORRECTION: My friend Alyson has informed me that The Baby Daddy's Father lives in Cleveland, TN; not the Baby Daddy himself. Bummer. I guess the sign would actually read:

Welcome to Cleveland, Tennessee: Home of Britney Spear's sister's Baby Daddy's Daddy.

Not quite as good, but I'll take it.

Quick Quiz

How many pounds of candy would you expect to receive at a small town Christmas parade?

Perhaps you think even one pound is a ridiculous estimate.

What if said town was home to an M&M Mars plant? Would that change your answer? Maybe not, but it would probably change the quality of the candy.

My children came home with two plastic grocery bags full of candy. Good candy. We're not talking candy canes and Bit O' Honey's here. We're talking Twix bars, M&M mini bags, Smarties, Skittles and Starburst. The bags were so heavy and full that my husband decided to weigh them. He hopped on the scale holding the bags and then jumped on bag-free. The difference? Eight pounds. Eight pounds of high-fructose corn syrup delight. Eight pounds of preschool crack. Eight pounds of, well, pounds on the hips and guts of my growing family. My kids think its Halloween again, only all they did was sit on the side of the road with cow-eyed looks and open grocery bags.

The parade may have encouraged sugar-induced comas and tooth decay but all was not lost. One of the last floats was sponsored by a local gym. Floating atop the sea of candy, just below the handles of the grocery bag, were several 14-day gym passes. I won't tell you where those ended up.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Hugh Heffner

 

Our little east Tennessee town has a mall. I use the term "mall" loosely as it has neither a GAP nor a Spencers. We used to have a Spencers but it went out of business. That coupled with the fact that Kmart serves as one of the anchor stores may clue you in on the quality of our shopping center. I was listening to the radio this morning and heard that Santa was arriving at the mall this evening. It was slated to be a big event: Santa would arrive in a horse-drawn carriage and a Christmas dance recital would
follow shortly afterwards in the food court. I was optimistic. It sounded fun. And it probably won't be crowded since this is the first I'd heard of it (this is the kind of ego-centric world I live in—If I haven't heard of it, how could it possibly be crowded?).

I called a few friends. We made some plans. I told the kids. Santa? Yay! The Christmas spirit was alive in our house tonight and I was pumped. The temperatures have recently dropped, Thanksgiving is fast approaching and I'm ready to start this holiday season.

How was the event you ask? Here's some things I overheard at the so-crowded-it-made-me-sweat mall festivities.

 

Kid: Mommy. Look! There's Santa. Why's he so skinny?

Friend: Yeah, what's up with the anorexic Santa?

 

Kid: Mommy. Who is that? (points to a person in an odd looking deer suit wearing pin stripe pajamas with antlers that hung like hair in his face and a microscopic red nose)

Me: It's Rudolph. (In friend's ear): That's the jankiest Rudolph I've ever seen.

 

Friend: Did you see that guy with the afro in line to see Santa? Holy smokes. That's a big afro.

Me: I did. I can't stop staring at it.

Friend: It's a woman.

Me: You're right. It is a woman. Wow.

Friend: Ever heard of hair gel?

 

We left early, right after hitting the Super K for some toilet paper and milk. I guess having a Kmart in the mall is really a blessing in disguise.

Po Po Zow!

It’s official. Britney lost custody of her kids. They will
now be placed in the capable hands of Kevin Federline. Here’s a man who has
fathered four children (that we know of) with two different women (that we know
of). He frequents strip clubs and wears a fedora on a regular basis. What is
the world coming to?

We can all learn something from Britney’s mistakes:

1. Don’t marry a man whose ex-girlfriend is seven months pregnant with his second child.



2. Don’t immediately have children with said man.



3. Never add the name, “Paris Hilton” to your list of friends. If you do, seek counseling immediately.



4. Never talk to a man in a fedora. Really, what good can come of it?



5. Listen to your Mama.



6. If the man you are slated to marry shows up at the rehearsal in a shirt with the word, “PIMP” embroidered on it, call off the wedding immediately.



7. Stay away from the Hennessy and wacky weed after you pop out your first kid.



8. Always wear panties. No exceptions.

This is, by the way, the speech that I plan to give my
daughter when she reaches adulthood. I should probably copyright it but I have
decided, out of the goodness of my heart, to offer it to each of you. Feel free
to copy and paste it and use it for your own family’s needs.