It is finished

We got the call at 7:30 this morning that Big K's stepfather had just passed away.

We went over there right away to say goodbye to him before they took his body. To me, he looked exactly like a baby bird that had fallen out of the nest. Very tiny. Just skin and bones. Big eyes. Head at that odd angle. And gone.

I pray he finds the peace and painlessness in death that he did not have in life.

Things I won't be writing about

So I've been sitting here staring at my computer screen for an hour, intermittently stalking people from my old college online but largely just staring slack-jawed at the TV watching the Packers getting their asses kicked by the Cowboys. I have nothing I feel like writing about. Nothing. So I am now going to list some topic ideas for posts I am not going to write, at least not tonight. That's gonna be it.

1. Why are the Packers losing?
2. An exhaustive discussion of my plans for Christmas cookies
3. Uncle Growler is an excellent foot warmer
4. The hospice nurse said Big K's stepdad would not live through last night...and he is still going
5. Yes, I have those Christmas light deer in my yard, and yes there is a mom, a dad, and a baby
6. Why are the Packers losing?
7. Swiss Cake Rolls and other reasons I remain pudgy
8. Anderson Cooper and other gay men I want to make out with
9. Lovely things about my husband (as if he is not already appropriately lauded on this blog) so as to prevent further flaming from my own friends
10. Movie theater popcorn and other things I like more than humans
11. A lengthy and offensive discussion of the personally horrifying medical mysteries I have been handling of late
12. Fictional stories further detailing Uncle Growler's exploits as an au pair
13. An exhaustive list of the animals I will have as pets on my hobby farm once I win the lottery
14. Why are the Packers losing?
15. Reasons I look forward to putting Phook's hair in a ponytail at the epicenter of her head when it gets a little longer
16. Deep thoughts on why I should discontinue blogging
17. The fucking Packers finally scored
18. I'd really like to get a facial and/or have my facial skin removed, because it is not enjoying the season
19. A taco salad and other things I wish I was currently eating
20. Why are the Packers losing? It's halftime now. Bastards.

Now I'm going to sit here some more and stew about various things. And wish I had a taco salad.

Big K has not been on his best behavior

In the hours since I wrote yesterday's post, my husband has also exhibited some undesirable behaviors that are blogworthy. Perhaps there is something in the water in The Woods causing my loved ones to act up.

Last night, I went for a long walk in approximately 20 degree weather. I had on a reasonable coat, hat, scarf, and mittens, but I just went out in the loungewear I had on all day underneath that. This consisted of a thin cotton long-sleeved t-shirt and thin cotton pants. (Are you surprised?) So a few minutes after I started out, my thighs were two frozen hams. I considered turning back, but decided to motivate and just do the whole route. It was fine, I made some snotsicles, whatever. I'll consider long johns next time though, I will. When I got home, I was seriously chilled. I sat down and wrote my blog post. Halfway through that endeavor, I decided I must have some ice cream. Big K, still behaving, got us both a dish. (I know, exercise + ice cream = why bother.) I ate it, shivering like a bastard the entire time. The combination of the cold in my belly and the cold dish on my hands and my prefrozen carcass just really did me in. Perhaps I should have asked for tea, but that's neither here nor there.

So I rebound slightly, we watch a show on the DVR, and then I want to go to bed. Big K does not yet want to retire, as is his pesky habit. However, I was still really cold and the thought of crawling into cold sheets kind of made me get weepy. I just did not want to go up there and be responsible for self-warming and suffer through those first few minutes of freezing. So I begged Big K to please come up and toast me up and then come back down and attend to his man-business. After some idle threats, he gave in. So he accompanies me upstairs and hauls his giant furnace-like self into bed with me and I cling to him like a barnacle for about five minutes until I feel that it is safe to release him. Before leaving, he picks up a fleece Raider blanket and tucks me in with it over the covers. We exchange pleasantries, I pull it up under my chin, and then I go to sleep.

Fast forward to a couple minutes or hours or whatever later. I'm in bed in a light-ish sleep, and I hear Big K come up to bed. I hear him rooting around in his closet for a couple minutes, but I maintain my quietude and nestled position. He finishes his noisemaking and crawls into bed. And then he does it. He reaches over stealthily and his dirty little paw gingerly grabs the Raider blanket, which is wrapped over my entire body and which I have pulled up completely under my chin in a classic pose of sleeping, comfort, and warmth. He starts to very slowly pull the thing out from under my chin. At this point, I see fit to alert him to my conscious state. I say, "You've got to be fucking kidding me."

He is silent for a moment, trying to figure out how he could be busted. Then he says, "Well, it's my blanket." I say, "There are 4 more on the bench at the end of the bed." He then tries another tactic, saying, "You looked like you were warm enough and that you didn't need it. You're all wrapped up like a burrito already." In my most heartless, emotionless voice, I replied, "Big K, the blanket was pulled up under my chin...it was very clearly in use." He falls silent for a few moments, knowing he is so totally busted doing something completely awful in a stealing candy from a baby kind of way. He then quietly says, "Rats." At this point I took the opportunity to kick him in the shins, swear at him repeatedly, and confirm for him, as if he didn't already know, that I am always watching.

Fast forward to this morning. Now, before I retired last night, I made the request that he do the dishes before coming to bed. We have no dishwasher, so I do dishes constantly. Or at least it feels like it. Big K hates doing dishes and I generally respect that. (What I don't respect is his little joke, whenever I mention that we don't have a dishwasher, in which he snarkily replies, "Well, actually, I do. Ha ha ha.") And you know, I absolutely love dishes, so it works out. (Wait, actually, that's a complete lie. I just do the dishes to avoid the need for marital counseling.) Anyhow, once every couple weeks or something I'll ask the man to do the dishes, and he generally begrudgingly does them, knowing that having to do the dishes monthly is not something he could ever really make a legitimate fuss about. So this morning, I come down the stairs and see, of course, the dishes piled up in the sink. I say to the man, "I see you didn't get to the dishes." His response was a stern, "Well, I didn't come into the kitchen after I came back downstairs last night." Now, here's the thing. You come down the stairs from our second story and you are standing in our dining room. If you put your foot one inch to your right, you are on the kitchen tile. If you walk twenty feet to the left, you are in the living room. It's not as if the kitchen is off in the west wing or something. And I guarantee he took the opportunity to urinate before coming to bed, which means he had to walk through the kitchen at least once. And I guarantee he at least browsed for snacks, which means he had to enter twice. Regardless, I found it absolutely earth-shattering that a new excuse for not doing a chore is that you just didn't happen to enter the room in which the chore resides, as if you aren't in control of the body parts that would allow you to get to the room with the kitchen sink. So, husbands, FYI, from now on you get a free pass if you do not happen to spontaneously enter the room in which your wife asked you to do something.

A few minutes later after Big K got out of the shower, I said, "Well I see our ice cream bowls made it into the kitchen." He replied that he had done that this morning while cleaning up Phook's toys, and was very proud of himself that I hadn't busted him in a lie. And then he really dropped a stunning argument. He looks me right in the face and matter-of-factly says, "Big W, I didn't come back downstairs last night to do work. I came back downstairs to watch TV." That's another winning argument, fellas. After you tell your wife you will do the dishes and then default, inform her that your agenda items simply did not include her assigned task, and she's really rather silly for suggesting anything to the contrary. At this point I am laughing pretty hard, because my husband's ridiculousness was just out of the park. Sometimes we have real fights and he makes good arguments and I am pissed for being bested. But sometimes he is just a complete idiot, and we both know it. I believe this is such a case.

At this point, he launches into a festive song about how he pays me $140K per year to sit around and eat bonbons while I employ an orange au pair to do all my work. I guess I should explain that "orange au pair" reference. I sort of kind of have this tendency to assign human storylines to the lives of my cats. A current theme I am embellishing regularly is that our cat, Uncle Growler, is serving our family as an au pair. And that he is responsible for Phook's meals and takes a lot of care developing elaborate menus for her based wholly on organic ingredients. And that he needs to stop working so hard and take a rest in the evenings because he's so busy during the day teaching Phook world languages. That sort of thing. You know, standard issue imaginings for a 28-year-old woman. So anyhow, yeah, Big K is chirping around singing this song about my laziness as the dishes rot in the background and as Phook two-steps on the kitchen floor to his tune. Truly a lovely family morning.

So there you go, Big K is up to no good. Don't get me wrong, people, the man is a good guy. He is generally helpful and definitely respectful of my role in our family. I wouldn't want any potential new readers to read this post only and run off thinking I'm married to a misogynistic bastard or something. We all loves us some Big K here. I just thought that you might all want to know that the man is up to some tricks, and that he probably deserves at least a mild kick in the beanbag if you see him in your comings and goings.

I am kinda screwed

This is probably an unpopular thing for me to admit, but in my first year or so of parenting Phook, I never really felt that inept, "I don't know what to do with my kid" feeling that new parents always talk about. I don't remember crying out in the dead of the night for someone to give me an answer to this mystery of handling a baby. I'm not saying it always went smoothly, but I did just generally decide what I was going to do and then do it. I felt pretty comfortable with things and that my mom skin came in the right size.

The thing is, the last couple months have thrown me off my game. I'm feeling a bit out of control and worried and shaky and shitty and helpless. The thing is, Phook is a little person, and she is a willful S.O.B. And she is doing some shit that I am not liking. Now, those of you with 2 or 3 year olds or 16 year olds or whatever are probably gonna chuckle yourself into the fetal position when you read this, and will correctly think, "Bitch, you ain't seen nuthin' yet," but bear with me. I am where I am.

Now, I don't think she is a "difficult" child as these are usually defined. She sleeps at night like a machine and her naps are pretty decent too. She scarfs down broccoli and carrots and peas with the vigor and joy I reserve for peanut butter cups and donuts. She has never been to the doctor except for her well-baby visits. She is meeting developmental milestones. We can take her wherever we want to go and she adapts to and enjoys new situations. She sits in the shopping cart like a model kid, happily looking for deals on diapers. She is a jovial little chap the vast majority of the time.

The thing is, she is doing some crap that I think is bratty. Or maybe it's pre-bratty, because I don't know if you can really be a brat at 14 months of age. Perhaps we should just call these behaviors undesirable. But, whatever, it's pissing me off. I do not want a bratty kid. Specifically, she chucks a lot of stuff. She takes a big slam out of her sippy cup and then chucks it to the ground. She picks up a book and then throws it on the ground for no particular reason. When she's had enough to eat, she throws food over the side of the tray onto the ground. When you extract the cell phone she just used to call Bali from her deadly little grip, she throws herself onto the ground on her back and thrashes in classic tantrum style. She yells like a madman if you remove her from a situation she wants to be in or if you try to diaper her when she's not in the mood for that nonsense. I hate this shit. For reals.

I'm not saying that she is abnormal or a bad kid or anything like that. I'm not whining about how difficult a child I have. I'm guessing these behaviors are probably pretty common. My problem is that I really feel at a loss as to how to teach her to knock it off. She certainly does have some receptive language skills and understands and selectively chooses to listen when we say simple things like, "Not a toy" or "Yucky." But teaching her to set her cup down on the table doesn't seem to have a simple handy phrase. I tell her "no" and show her what to do and give the slightly longer-winded version of what is correct when she chucks the cup, but it just seems pathetic. When she throws herself on the floor in anger, we ignore her entirely. (As an aside, it's actually kind of funny that when she started doing this, she would actually crack her head on the floor, but now she's figured out that that hurts, so she has this move where she lands on her elbows and then lowers her head more gracefully. A self-preserving tantrum.) When she throws her food, we've started leaving the room and letting her sit in the chair for a minute or two, since getting her immediately out of the chair is her desired response from us and just seemed to reinforce her cheese throwing.

So, yeah, we're doing what seems reasonable to us at this time. It may not seem reasonable to you. I have no idea if it is reasonable. I just feel helpless because we're at this place where she has the physical capabilities to do pretty much whatever she wants but doesn't have the language capabilities for me to tell her to knock it off with much success. And it's not like she has a video game or a TV show I can take away. And even though I am the parent and I am very conscious of not letting her become the one in control, she does have some control I absolutely cannot take away, in that only she can decide whether her arm will throw food. Obviously that is not a bad thing, since she is a real live human and all, but this is the start of a dance that I am not altogether comfortable with. I just want her to turn out right. I don't want her to be difficult for her teachers. I don't want people to talk about the K brat. I don't want her to have to face unnecessary hurdles in life because she can't manage her anger appropriately.

I know I have to pick my battles, and that's why I'm letting her climb on shit if it doesn't look like there is anything terribly deadly nearby. I'm comfortable with physical exploration. I am not comfortable with brat-like behaviors. I just really, really, really do not want this to be the start of something that in a couple years will result in me staring glassy-eyed into the parenting magazines I hate looking for solutions for my child who knocks down store displays and smears feces all over the cats.

Oh, and the other thing. This is exhausting. The constant correcting and redirecting is very exhausting for me. Because there are plenty of times when I'm happily occupied in some endeavor and I see Phook doing something naughty that on an immediate level just really does not matter. But if she gets away with the crap one time and I go postal the next time, I'm really gonna mess her up. So it is hard and tiring to be constantly diligent when I know that no world will end if she pulls a picture frame off of a table just one time. It's like, "Man, could you just not be naughty right now...cause I am too tired to parent you appropriately." And then I feel guilty and assholish.

So, there you go. I am not a big fan of advice, and I really hate assvice, but I guess that if you have something to say, I'm in no position to get all uppity about it. I'm just a desperate loser who, it turns out, doesn't know how to parent.

Step off

(Firstly, I just want to mention that I'm going to be returning to regularly scheduled programming here, since I don't think I can write much more about the topic of my previous post without having a meltdown. Thank you all for your good wishes...I will keep you posted.)

What I would like to discuss today is my holiday rage. I know that this isn't the most original idea and that you can find essays in every conceivable publication complaining about the increasingly early onset of the holiday season, but that still doesn't change the fact that I am going to complain about it here and now.

Seriously. Today, I believe, is November 26, nearly a full month before the big day. Today I received not one but three catalogs screaming, "It's not too late!!!" on the front cover. This infuriated me. I know it is not too late, jackasses. I have a month to get my act all the way together. Man. The last couple days, I've been feeling this odd stress about everything I have to do before Christmas, thinking I can't possibly get it done in time. Then today, I checked myself. I have plans to make about 8 more kinds of cookies/candies. I have to either pick a photo of Phook or have one taken and turned into Christmas cards. I have to write a long-winded Christmas letter. I have to finish my Christmas shopping, which is about 50% done, and wrap the loot. I have to get and put up a tree. I'm pretty sure that is it. I guess it's kind of a long list, but not really, given that a) it is self-imposed and b) I have an entire twelfth of a year to finish it. I should not be in panic mode at this time. I don't have a whole lot going on other than whatever the hell I want to do, so there is ample time to complete these tasks at a leisurely and non-stressful pace.

Because I know the above to be true, I am seriously pissed at all the retailers who are bombarding me with warnings that I have 46 seconds left in order to ensure delivery by Christmas Eve. And then there is the sheer volume of shit from these asshats. I'm not going to name names, but JCPenn@ys is seriously getting on my nerves. I think I am receiving catalogs from them at a rate of more than one per day. And they haven't introduced a single new item since their fall/winter catalog came out in like June, as far as I can tell. There is a cooks catalog, a jewelry one, gift guides, luggage guides, kids, housewares. Get off my back, dudes. Trust me that I know all your shit is on sale and I know I can get free shipping. That is a fundamental truth and I will never doubt it...you do not need to notify me hourly. My honest estimate is that I am receiving 7 catalogs per day from various establishments and 25 retail e-mails. I have indeed bought items from many of these places over the years, but once they taste blood, they just don't let go. I can't believe how intent they are on reclaiming my business when I bought something from them in 1999 for $14.95. I guarantee they have spent more than that in mailings trying to get me to drop another couple bucks. It takes a serious paper management system and intense diligence in order to prevent one's home from becoming one of those hoarder houses where all the hallways are lined with stacks of magazines and stuff. I can't even think about the environmental impact of all this propaganda, because my head will explode.

The thing that really gets me about this trend is that I am not a scrooge. I am a lover of the Christmas season. I like dicking around with candy coating and putting up a little manger scene in my dining room. I piss myself throughout the month of December in anticipation of people opening the gifts I picked out for them. But this whole scenario where Christmas starts rearing its ugly head in October and officially explodes onto the scene before the Halloween candy can rot a single little tooth is just too much. Is poor little Thanksgiving even allowed to happen anymore? I'm not even going to go off about the revolting nature of the commercialization of something that is supposed to be a sacred Christian holiday. That is well established.

My primary problem is with the dilution of the feeling I am supposed to get around Christmas. Some intrinsic force is supposed to wake up inside of me at some point in December and fill me with the Christmas spirit. This has always happened for me spontaneously since I was a child. I got that Christmas feeling of happiness and an overwhelming desire to cut my fellow man some slack. I was filled with perpetual happiness. But as of last year, I've started to struggle. Last year I was mystified by my melancholy, but this year I think I know why. I feel like some dickhead is trying to kick my ass into Christmas mode, and I don't appreciate it. The feelings of Christmas need to happen within me...they cannot be activated by catalogs and 24-hour sales and warnings of how limited my time to shop is. So that's why I'm pissed. By accelerating the whole process artificially, the real process is not happening. And that sucks. I know there are some people who always have a hard time with Christmas, exclusive of the retail environment, and I respect that and don't wish to try and strangle them into happiness with garland. But I really, truly wish that Christmas could proceed at a realistic pace for those of us who generally look forward to our enjoyment of the season. A season that should be measured in weeks or even days rather than these long fraught months.

So I have decided I am going to slow it down as best I can in my own little world, and I really hope that helps. I am not going to panic when there is no need to panic. I am not going to rush when there is no need to rush. I am going to try my best to let that intrinsic little Christmas spirit bubble up inside of me, instead of succumbing to the message that I should be in full blown "rush that order" mode. And I will not (and this is the worst part) feel guilty for not feeling Christmasy when you assholes are faking the funk by telling me that it is Christmas when it is not.

So I was randomly fuming about this issue tonite as I was on my evening walk through The Woods, when I noticed quite a few people had Christmas decorations up. Lots of crooked candy canes in yards and blinking bullshit. At first I found myself angrily thinking about my pile of catalogs as I stalked around, but then I felt myself becoming calmer as I saw more and more tacky plastic decor. I found it undeniable that drunken Woodsians who take the time to put out their icicle lights are what make me feel the way I'm supposed to feel this time of year. So take that, Mr. Free Shipping. I'm going to be picking out my holiday cheer from a different catalog this year.

Please pray

I have been avoiding blogging about this big looming thing that is hanging over the House of K. But I'm out of stupid anecdotes and other random ideas and now the only thing left to blog about is IT. The thing.

The thing is, Big K's stepdad is dying. I don't mean he has been diagnosed with a terminal illness and given 6 months to live. I mean he is actively in the process of dying as I write this. He's been at it for about 9 days now. I have seen life. I have seen sickness. I have seen death. But never before have I really seen dying. And it is so, so awful.

Big K's stepdad has a bad heart and had a valve replaced about a decade ago. He's also got a terrible back and had a botched operation on that, so at various times he has walked with a cane or walker. He had encephalitis a few years ago, and that was a big scare, but he made it. But he's been a sick guy for the entirety of my relationship with Big K.

About two weeks ago, he went in the hospital and was told he had meningitis, but that it came from a ghastly infection on the replaced heart valve which was actually causing an abscess on the heart. And a bunch of other medical crap I won't detail. His only hope was having the valve replaced, but they only gave him a 20% chance of making it through the surgery. He came home last Friday.

There were a couple days where I thought he looked the worst I'd ever seen anyone look. But then I saw him today. I'm not going to do him the disservice of spreading the details of his suffering all over the internet, but I will say that it appears that every single part of you has to individually die before your body actually quits. And that process is the ugliest thing I have ever seen. And the sounds of death. I didn't know humans could make those sounds.

This man has been Big K's stepdad for somewhere on the order of 17 years. Big K didn't have a lovely childhood filled with fishing trips and little league games sponsored by this guy. But he has been in his life for the majority of it, and there is no mistaking that this is a significant and painful loss for my husband.

And my mother-in-law. She is providing end of life care to her husband. She hasn't slept in days and she is caring for him with such love. Holding him through seizures and telling him it will be okay and that she is right there, and then jokingly calling him a "stubborn old cuss" as he rips off his blankets. Seeing someone behave so strongly and admirably in that unbearable role makes me want to shed my own body and give it to her, just to give her another set of muscles to hold him up with. Jesus Lord that woman is going through hell.

Big K is spending the night over there to help his mom. He will be providing the kind of care that trained medical professionals usually handle. They have done this all with no medical or hospice support since he left the hospital, since there was some nonsense surrounding his exit from the hospital and some misunderstanding of his prognosis and people weren't making the best decisions for the first few days. I guess hospice will be coming at 9 a.m. tomorrow. I hope my mother-in-law can finally go to sleep.

This little window into what the end of life can look like has very clearly shown me one thing. If you ever see a man matching Big K's description on the news defending himself for having expedited my exit from this earth when I was in a near death situation, please show the judge this blog entry in which I grant him my blessing, and then invite him over, feed him dinner, and give him a hug. That is all. Because from what my eyes have seen today, I firmly believe that the veterinarians are the ones who treat their terminal patients right. Please don't flame me for that, please. I'm just telling you what it looks like from my angle.

So I guess I will close by asking you to please send up a prayer for peace for a guy you don't know who is suffering terribly in The Woods tonight. A guy whose time on this earth is measured now only in terribly painful minutes. A guy who is headed home, but is taking the long way to get there. A guy who has forever been the most ancient person I've known, but is only 49 years old.

A public service announcement

I want to tell you about something that totally rocks. My former coworker and good bud Weird Al gave me a heads up on this sweet thing awhile back, and I want to share it with you. Interestingly, what I want to share is called SHARE. It is a food buying club that serves Wisconsin, Northern Illinois, and Upper Michigan. There are no income requirements to be a part of it; any old schmo can join. They have food pickup sites everywhere. And I do mean everywhere, since there is one less than 15 minutes away from me, and I live in the middle of The Woods.

Basically, you order food once a month and then pick it up a couple weeks later. You can order this thing called the "traditional SHARE package" or something like that for $18. It always includes a couple of meat items such as chicken, hamburger, pork chops, fish, etc. Then it includes a couple of grocery items like spaghetti sauce or canned peaches or whatever. It includes a produce assortment including at least 5 things. Basically, it's enough food for several meals and many sub-meals for $18. Then there are other offerings monthly such as additional meat selections, an entire holiday meal package, or kid-friendly type stuff such as french toast sticks. And my favorite thing is that they offer a selection of 10+ pounds of organic produce for $15. That is sweet. $1.50/lb. for organic anything is just an amazing bargain.

So I have gotten SHARE food the past two months. It is saving me an absolute ton of money. By getting the regular SHARE package plus the organic produce, I get just about enough produce to last the entire month. They don't specify what will be in those packages, but last month the regular SHARE included apples, oranges, potatoes, a squash, celery, and onions. And the organic selection included celery, onions, potatoes, cranberries, plum tomatoes, apples, pears, and probably some other stuff I'm forgetting. It is truly lovely.

I am slightly less enthusiastic about the meat products, as they tend to be a bit smaller than what I would normally cook for us, but they still fill the belly. We got some already cooked boneless chicken breasts last month and they have come in very handy for various recipes. And they had a steak selection last month that we got, and they look great, although they're still in the freezer. The grocery items are brands you have never heard of, but they do the trick. Canned peaches are canned peaches (unless of course I canned them :) ).

So, yeah, I am ordering a SHARE, the organic produce, and a couple other items each month, spending an average of probably $60 monthly so far. It is enough food to feed us for probably half of our meals each month, between times when it is the full meal and times when it is part of the meal.

This is a financial windfall for us. After our bills are paid, we have a couple hundred dollars each month to spend on groceries, gas, unexpected bills and expenses, diapers, and, well, everything. Given that only one unrealistic tank of gas per vehicle per month is already over $100, and diapers are a shitload too (although my new game plan involving diapers.com is going to trim that expense a bit), it is incredibly hard to make it. We're not making it, actually. I think I've dipped into the savings each month I've been unemployed (hence my insane foray into daycare work). I just keep praying I'm going to get better at budgeting and at paring down our financial lives further and further until the ends meet, and I'm hoping that happens before we're bankrupt. I'm also hoping some people call my husband to fix their computers. But in the meantime, this is really helping. I have had a very hard time trimming the grocery budget. I love to cook and I love great food. I have traditionally been the kind of cat who gets a wild hair and decides to make a certain dish, despite not having any of the ingredients. I then go to the store, get the ingredients, buy $50 of other crap, and come home. In order to make things work in the current K economic climate, I need to prepare what is already in the freezer/pantry until there is nothing left. If we have some fish and I don't feel like fish, we need to eat the fish anyhow. So that is what I am really working on right now. We are eating the SHARE food whether I want it or not, stretching it out like crazy. Last month I think I only went to the grocery store one time other than Phook milk trips.

So I wanted to let you know, in case you live in the general vicinity and wanted to look into this. And I'm guessing that even if you do not live in the general vicinity, there are opportunities like this in other areas.

And thank you Weird Al for throwing me this incredibly valuable bone. Figuring out the tricks of frugality is an ongoing project here, and you are responsible for our #1 achievement.

Happy Thanksgiving

I am bloated, purple, dead on a toilet Elvis. I have eaten my Thanksgiving meals. I am about to watch a movie with my husband. I will not be awake at the end of it, and then I'm going to drag my carcass up the stairs when I wake up all crusty at 2 a.m.

I am thankful for many, many things today. If I can't think of anything else to say tomorrow, I might tell you all about them as some sort of Thanksgiving retrospective.

But for today, for sweet bloated today, I am just going to say that I am thankful for the endless wonders of Phook. She made appearances at 3 different homes today and after warming up to the crowds, managed to charm the pants off of about 40 individuals. She was high fiving, dancing, giving kisses, throwing her hands up for touchdowns, playing chase, and generally just being a jovial little chap to all parties. Sometimes in my isolated little mom-n-phook world, I worry that I'm raising a socially stunted hermit child who tries to crawl back in my uterus at the very sight of a stranger. But she loved it today, loved everyone, naps be damned. So I thank God for my charming awesome kid. I love that sweet little sweater vest wearing butterball so much it hurts.

Phook's a sherpa

Seriously, cats, I've got a climber on my hands. Phook has spent the last few weeks climbing everything. And I do mean everything. She tries to climb up and stand on her box of diaper wipes. She tries to stand on this little decorative bench Grandma J has that is about 5 inches in diameter. She is very, very climby. Here we have her summitting her little play bench, a feat which she is clearly not proud of:

She does this constantly. And I let her. I let her wipe out off the thing too. Maybe that's dumb, but I think that if she's climbing, it's probably a good idea for her to learn about falling. Call me crazy, but we're having some mom-sponsored wipeouts in the House of K.

And here we have the little devil on a cooler that we were unloading. She had tried unsuccessfully the previous night to get on this thing. So imagine my surprise when I turned around from doing dishes and found her just hanging out on it like it was no big deal.

I mean, this is normal, right? Am I supposed to panic? I'm not really panicking. Am I supposed to discourage her? I'm not really discouraging her. I'm pretty much just amused. And grateful that our closest health care facility (25 miles away) just opened an Urgent Care. So, yeah, look forward to upcoming posts about stitches.

I would really like a definitive answer on this

I have one question, and I can't get a solid answer on it. What I want to know, people, is whether Oprah is good or evil. If you could let me know, that would really help me a lot. Cause I just can't figure this out.

You see, when Phook was permanently affixed to my teets last fall/winter, I generally watched Oprah. I once got really pissed at her, and told you about it. I then went on a long hiatus from the majority of television watching, Oprah included. Now, I'm recommitting to a sedentary lifestyle, and in that vein, Big K and I got a DVR for an extra $5/month, since we're reckless cash burners. So a few weeks ago, I happened to see that there was going to be some Oprah show on that I thought looked interesting. So I set up my DVR to record it. And then there was this odd moment where I found myself telling the magic equipment to record all new episodes of the show. So these Oprah episodes were piling up, and Big K felt his balls shriveling, and he started giving me the business about watching them or deleting them or whatever. Since I'm a good wife, I obliged by going on several major Oprah benders over the past few weeks. And I still don't know what the fuck is up. Is this woman playing for Uncle Lucifer or is Oprah's Angel Network the real deal?

You see, she is clearly not dicking around in terms of charitable contributions, big and small. I know she got a lot of flack over the luxuries at the school she built in South Africa, but the way I look at it, if she's making that kind of investment in people, she can buy them nice sheets if she feels like it. And she seems to have handled the recent scandal at the school as best as she could. I'm not big on critiquing others' use of their own charitable dollars. She is clearly dumping truckloads of cash in all kinds of good places. So she gets some major points for that.

The thing is, there are moments in her show when she seems to really be a dick. A few weeks ago on this "gay around the world" show, there was a lesbian woman from Jamaica talking about how she had been sexually assaulted and she said something along the lines of sometimes feeling as if it had been her fault. Oprah snapped at her dismissively that "she was smarter than that" or something similar to that. Now, Oprah was probably trying to empower this woman in her Oprah-tastic way, but isn't it sort of a common emotion for victims of sexual abuse to sometimes ask themselves that question, however irrational? I don't know, it cheesed me off in a bad way. She just sometimes seems to murder her guests, asking the insensitive questions and making the insensitive comments.

I think she appeals to her bonbon eating mom audience because she seems accessible and everywomanish and shit. But then she reveals that she can't stand to sleep in sheets that are no longer crisp, so hers are changed daily. Bitch, Big K and I are sleeping on 2002 mold. And there was the time she said she thinks the most disgusting thing in the world is when you go to someone's house and they don't put out new soap for you, because using the soap of others is repulsive. Now, when I really think about it, I guess it kind of is repulsive. But that doesn't change the fact that I've never put out new soap for anyone. Oops. I guess what I'm saying is that she is rich and she has people who change her sheets for her and she doesn't quite get it that the rest of us do not. It's not that she employs sheet changers, because she has undeniably earned her money and can do such a thing if she likes, it's that she sometimes slips and makes comments that reveal she doesn't get it. Doesn't get it at all. So that cheeses me off.

This post is pretty dumb I guess, but I find it interesting that this woman is such a polarizing figure. I mean, I think she's a megalomaniac, but is she really a megalomaniac if her "delusions of grandeur" aren't really all that delusional in her particular case? Does she really want to relate to and help the common jackass, or is it just a ploy in a larger scheme to rule the universe?

I don't like it if I can't figure someone out. And Oprah has me stumped. Good or evil, people, good evil?

Definitely in the running for sappiest human on earth

Me, of course. Today I was grocery shopping in a nearby town. Despite it being midday Monday, the store was busy, presumably with Thanksgiving shoppers. Phook and I were cruising around minding our own business, and I was in a pleasant mood. Nothing had me feeling even remotely sappy. And then I saw her.

She was an elderly woman, probably about 80 or so. She had on a very attractive pistachio colored cable knit sweater. Her white hair was perfectly coiffed; she had the look of a lady who goes to the beauty shop once a week to have her hair washed and set. She wore glasses. She had on some makeup that flattered her. She just had the look of a woman who doesn't go out of the house without looking her best, and she probably hasn't in 70 years or so. Although I debate the merits of this philosophy for myself, I find it so heartwarming when I see much older women who have this look. I always imagine them as total foxes in their heyday, wearing a red dress and matching red lipstick, going out dancing with their sailors who just got back from the war. She can probably still dance, I betcha.

So anyhow, she caught my eye. She was standing over the freezer case full of turkeys. She was touching various birds and she was clearly trying to choose. As I got closer, I saw more details. The one that caught me was her hands. They looked like your typical 80-year-old's hands. Nothing much left of them...just the bones and dark veins. And as she touched the turkeys, I noticed they were shaking. Not with real tremors or anything, just with age. She looked closely at one turkey, turning it with her shaky hands, and then she put her right hand to the top of her head in a gesture of thinking, calculating whether or not this was a big enough turkey for her family, I'm sure.

And something about witnessing that simple gesture made me burst into tears. I just saw the care in her thoughts as she looked at that turkey. I thought about the family she must have and how many Thanksgivings she has cooked for them. I thought about how it must be getting harder and harder every year to make that big meal with those delicate shaky hands. Those hands. They have done it all. They have diapered her babies, soothed hurt children, wiped her own tears, done so much work. I wondered if she was a widow and guessed that she was. I imagined that she had a huge number of children, and how tired she must have been getting up and putting that turkey in the oven when they were little. I just imagined her whole life and I wanted to hug her and tell her she should be so proud of how much she has loved her family her entire life, since the days when those hands were smooth like porcelain. I wanted to tell her she was beautiful. I wanted to tell her that I'd come over and peel the potatoes this year.

I didn't. I just kept rolling with my cart, choking back tears and not breathing appropriately and being a complete freak over something I completely invented.

But she caught me, she really did. I like when that happens. I like when you really see another human in a human moment and you are forced to stop and think about what it means to be one of us. And it is good to be reminded that in the blink of an eye, you will be the one with the shaky hands.

Check out these table manners

I would like to share with you one of Phook's most amazing skillz...pig snorting. First, you must understand that this is a multi-generational talent. When my sister and I were babies, my Dad taught us both to pig snort. When Phook showed up on the scene, he started teaching her too. And she picked up on it right quick. She now snorts with and without prompting. Sometimes she just goes wild with the snorting as in this video. It's really quite remarkable. So I hope you enjoy this video showcasing my child's table manners.

Elmo was not expecting this kind of treatment

This past weekend, my parents went shopping. When that happens, they usually bring back some gems for Phook. She's an only grandchild. Enough said. So this time, my Dad calls and informs me that he is bringing something for Phook he could not resist, and warns me it is "bigger than a bread box," this being his standard description for large things.

So they roll up, and Dad struts in holding a child-sized Elmo chair. My Dad is a recliner kind of guy, and he's hoping Phook becomes a recliner kind of girl. Unfortunately for all of us, Phook is more inclined to sprout a second head than she is to sit down. But it still is a lovely chair. She enjoys throwing herself into it, because this activates its special feature of vibrating and singing a song. (This also activates my primal desire to kill, but I digress.) Anyhow, our living room is now housing this chair.

The other day, I came into the room and discovered, of course, the following:

Of course the damned thing is an Uncle Growler-sized Barcalounger. Seriously, this was inevitable, but it hadn't occurred to me in advance, so I was charmed. Phook then discovered the interloper and was all like, "Somebody awfully orange has been sleeping in my chair!" She then pummeled and attacked the animal for several minutes. He attempted to stay comfortable, adjusting himself around her blows as he is accustomed to them and quite genial about them, but eventually she kicked his ass right out of the chair. An action shot:


This scene has repeated itself approximately 96 times since these photos were taken. Everyone is happy with the arrangement.

All systems go for launch

Since I had a rough one yesterday with Phook, this one is gonna be real nice.

You kind of get used to your baby and his/her/its limited capabilities. They come out of you and then just behave like unseeing, unhearing balls of occasionally wailing silly putty. Then of course they roll over, sit up, push up, crawl, cruise, walk, etc. You can see these things happen and you celebrate them. What creeps up on you is that your kid is also developing between the ears. Surely you notice that they begin to respond to you and start doing little person-like things, but you can never really tell what is going on in your baby's mind, if anything at all.

So it is with shock and awe that I report the following:

1) After I comb Phook's hair, she combs mine. If I put a hat on Phook's head, she takes it off and puts it on mine.

2) When I say, "Do you want to go outside for a walk?" Phook marches directly to the back door and starts twisting the doorknob.

3) The other day at my parents' house, Phook was doing some inventory control on my mom's canned goods cupboard, and she came out of the kitchen holding a can of cat food, which happens to be the same brand we feed our cats at home. She then said "Kitty" (which in Phook-speak is basically just "Keeeee!!!!") and handed it to me.

Phook is online. Fully. If she can identify cat food as something to be fed to cats just by spying on me from 15 feet away from her high chair every morning as I feed our cats, there is no telling what this child is understanding. My parents taught her to throw her hands in the air when they yell "Touchdown!" this past weekend. She brought me a folded up Cheerio box from the recycling container the other day and started whining until I got her some damned Cheerios. She gets me her shoes when I say it is time to put them on. Like, hello. She's really starting to freak me out with all this learning and shit.

It is so weird to see her start to, well, get it. At her first birthday party I kind of had the secret thought that the following years would surely suck compared to the first year, since the unimaginable growth of that first year could never be matched. But I am quite sure I was wrong there. As amazing as it is to watch your child triple in size and become a mobile creature, I think this next year of her language development and general gains towards personhood is just going to rule. She's funny, man. This kid is funny. I cannot wait to see the nonsense that is to come.

I've put down my weapon

So after a few more hours on the shit trajectory documented in my previous post, I found myself weeping modestly into my dinner. At this point I informed Big K that I would be exiting the household immediately without finishing said dinner. He would be charged with finishing up Phook's dinner with her and getting her hosed off in the tub. I would be out of doors, searching for my sanity in a cold Wisconsin night. It was a good call.

First off, I noted that it was 30 degrees out, so I got my parka out of the closet for the first time this year. As a well-insulated lifelong Wisconsinite, I'm still in just a fleece or sweatshirt when it is in the 40s and the sun is out and whatnot. But 30 windy degrees after the sun has set is a tad chilly. So I break this thing out of hibernation and do my standard pocket-diving thing in the hopes of finding a long lost five spot. I found about 74 cents. But I also found these items:


Tiny Phook baby mittens and a pacifier from last winter! (Clearly I had packed my pockets during the two-week period when she was around 4 months old during which she accepted a pacifier rather than her mother's poor abused flesh.) Anyhow, I was wholly charmed by this find, to say the least. We all know how I get about Phook's babyhood.

So then I bid the family adieu and I ventured out into the cold dark night, told myself that my back pain was just an imagined personal failing, and proceeded to walk 4 miles in about 50 minutes. It felt so odd to walk with my arms swinging instead of pushing a stroller. It felt so odd to be slinking around town under the cover of night instead of taking my daily tour through the town in which I know everyone, and which ultimately results in me waving the whole time like I'm a politician in a fucking motorcade. So, yeah, I kind of liked sneaking around like a hoodlum window peeping, even if it was only dinnertime. There is nothing like freezing air and continued movement to clear the weary mind and cleanse the soul. That and the quiet. The alone. Oh, the alone. When you're a regular person, you can pretty much count on some alone every day. I used to commute 3-4 hours per day, so I got plenty of it. Now I get it, oh, quarterly. Sure, there are times when I am downstairs and Big K is at work and Phook is napping, but that doesn't feel like being alone to me, because I am still monitoring another person...I am still on duty. I don't get the real alone very much. But it is so lovely when I do. Even just a drive to my parents' house by myself (they live less than a mile away) feels good to me. I think I might take to evening walks after Big K is home for the night. That way I won't have to sit around fretting about how I'm going to get the poster child for Mitten Hate to wear mittens on our walks as the weather gets increasingly conducive to frostbite. That's an idea, right there.

So then I came home and took the oft-considered but rarely executed bath in the whirlpool tub. I read a magazine in there. I had bubbles. I luxuriated in my highly offensive nudity, my magazine pages illuminated by the technicolor glow of my stretch marks. I got out and applied moisturizer to my sadly cracked skin. I then watched Grey's and largely enjoyed it, particularly Sloan's childish antics. Now I am blogging. I don't feel 100% great and my back is still being a pretty major asshat, but I do feel a bit better. Moderately proud of myself for actually walking out of the house when I needed to and for taking what I needed rather than asking for it as if a moment of personal time is something that requires advanced written approval from multiple heads of state. That's right, fear me, for I am fierce.

So I still don't want you to come over, but I would no longer shoot you if you did. Just thought I'd let you know. And I think I should get some major points for this double post day, given the way in which I am already slaying this NaBloPoMo gig.

I'll shoot on sight

Seriously, if anyone shows up at my door, I'll shoot them. Today is bad. I have a bad back. I had a disc and some vertebrae surgically removed from my low back in 2002 after an injury caused in a car accident, but I still struggle with a lot of back pain. Sometimes it's annoying and sometimes it is debilitating. Today it is debilitating. Those of you with back pain can probably attest to the fact that whenever you move any other body part, you are moving your back. Your back feels it all. So today when I picked up Phook from her crib, I had tears spring to my eyes. I got her downstairs and got her some food and then sat very still in the chair until I got up the strength to go get Big K. I had him rub some of that flaming hot cream (capsaicin) on my back. Then I crashed on the couch and commenced taking care of my daughter for the day while in seriously bad shape. This is fun, if you're interested in hell.

Of course, Phook has had a shitty day. For both her morning and afternoon nap, it took her about an hour of screaming with me trudging back up and down the stairs in order to calm her down until she fell asleep. This is highly abnormal for her, but of course today is the day. The house has been utterly puked upon by brightly colored tripping hazards. She likes to throw food off of her tray when she's being a dick at meals, and today was an extra special dose of that. She robbed a package of chocolate chips from the cupboard and brought them to me. Being desperate and pathetic, I fed her a few. I then determined it was lunch time rather than chocolate chip snack time, which pissed her off quite royally. She then grabbed 3 spit-soaked chocolate chips from in her mouth and threw them on the ground, but not before leaving a spit/chocolate trail on both her clothing and mine. The sullied clothes in question in both cases were pajamas, which we were both still in at noon. We have now both upgraded to sweatpants and t-shirts, but not a hair or tooth has been brushed. I am dirty; my kid is dirty.

If I could eradicate phones from this earth, I would. They always ring when you don't want them to. I thought the afternoon nap was going to go okay, because at about 15 minutes in she was still quiet on the monitor. But then Big K called to tell me there was a massive traffic jam downtown (a hilarious concept in The Woods and definitely worth calling about) because people were picking up their charity turkeys from the food bank. This set off the beginning of a 55-minute siege of nap resistance, which was not helped by a large, noisy delivery of diapers from the UPS man as well as a knock on the door from a postal worker announcing another package. My broken ass and I went up and down the stairs about 32 times during this period in an attempt to restore order. She is now sleeping. Please Lord let her remain in that state for at least another few minutes.

Why is it that when you need your child to nap well and behave at least reasonably, they pick that day to seriously set new records in assheadishness? Perhaps this is a chicken or the egg question. I am not behaving normally towards my kid and she picks up on that. She is used to a mom who treats our days like a busy work day, with her being a free range kid tooling along for the ride and generally getting to mess around in a number of different situations. Today I am an immobile bastard leaking pain into the room while watching horrible recorded television shows over her head and getting frustrated when she leaves the room and goes and closes herself into the bathroom and gets herself stuck. In return, she half melts 3 chocolate chips in her mouth and then slimes me with them. I guess it's good she didn't have a whole brownie to grind into my hair or something.

There are some days people, there really are. I would really like to hit the "easy" button or at least have a minute to return to my corner and have someone sponge some cool water on my forehead. Or at least bring me a piece of licorice or something, because that would be great.

If you were planning on coming over today, please adjust your plans accordingly. Because if you show up here I'll shoot you. I really will.

You have an appointment with a divine power...

...if you make this famous awesomeness that is french toast. Perhaps my depressing anti-breakfast post of yesteryear inspired me. Perhaps I'm just a swine. But this is what we had for dinner last night, and oh lordy was it marvelous. If you have never taken the opportunity to make french toast on french bread, you are missing something. Do it now. Other things you must do are as follows:

1) add some nice vanilla to your egg mixture

2) put some pumpkin pie spice on it while it's on the griddle (thank you to my BFF KMC for this life-changing advice).

Then eat the following:

Then laze around and listen to yourself getting fatter.

The end.

I would like to have green drinks for breakfast

I have a serious problem with one aspect of my personal welfare. I kind of eat like crap. Although I don't always make the best food choices, my problem is actually more centered around lack of a good eating pattern. I skip meals a lot. Daily, actually. You can count on me to be sitting down with the family and actually eating a good dinner, but breakfast and lunch are really hit or miss. I'd like to blame Phook, but I can't really heap this one all on her. While it is true that her time confined to the high chair blissfully cramming cheese into her mug is time that I use to do dishes (we have no dishwasher, so this is a pretty big daily task for me) and sweep and tidy the kitchen, my problems with sticking to good solid daily meals predate her. And this is a shitty thing about me that I need to correct. Why is it that I can intellectually know this but feel incapable of changing it in real life?

While I like breakfast as a concept, I don't like mornings. Back when my alarm wasn't a human, I hit the snooze until the last possible moment. I would rush out the door without eating anything, and generally spent the morning at work with a gut ache. Now I cut up fruit for Phook and give her a cereal bar or whatever she's having, and I eat the scraps if there are any. I rarely assign an actual food item for myself in the morning. This is just dumb. Breakfast really is the most important meal of the day. One problem is utter boredom with standard breakfast foods. I have in my life gone through periods of Special K w/ Red Berries appreciation and Grape Nuts affinity, but they usually only happen for a week every couple of years. Otherwise I'd rather burn in hell than eat cereal. I like a nice wheat bagel with light veggie cream cheese on it, but I'm too tired to chew the chewy bastards in the morning and it just seems like so much effort to gnaw through a bagel. Cereal bars are fine, but I don't really want them. I like fruit, but I've already efforted getting a piece into mini-bites for Phook. I like smoothies and I have a nice blender, but I never seem to have the kind of stuff I want in them, and they occasionally make me gag anyhow. I do like classic breakfast foods, most especially bacon and potatoes and that sort of thing, but those aren't options because a) you have to cook them and b) I'm going to die young of heart disease anyhow thanks to being a dealt a genetic hand that is truly impressive, and a gut full of grease every morning is probably not in my best interest. Honestly, the most appetizing breakfast food to me is leftover cold pizza. That's rarely available, so it's kind of pointless to even mention it. So I don't know, since I feel a lot of anger just thinking about breakfast foods that are not omelets with a side of American fries, I thumb my nose at the concept altogether. Dumbness.

So then Phook goes down for a nap a while later, and although I am pretty starving at this point, it's my opportunity to get shit done around the homestead, so I tell myself I will eat once I get X,Y, and Z done. But then she's awake and I added alpha-numeric characters to my to-do list anyhow, so I have not eaten. Now it is pushing like 11:00 a.m. and I'm on the verge of falling over. At this point I usually have to eat something. Perhaps it is fruit or something good. A lot of times it's a plate of dinner leftovers. Sometimes my blood sugar is telling me the only option is to make a pot of nice starchy elbow macaroni and eat a vat of it with a nice plop of butter on top.

Then it's Phook's lunchtime, and again I do a little scrap-diving if it works out. But I rarely eat an actual lunch. Dumbness. Sandwiches seem like the answer, but I don't like sandwiches unless they're elaborate, and I don't make the time for elaborate. Sometimes I'll eat something in the mid-afternoon, but I usually go until dinner. Dinner is most often home-cooked, well-balanced, and good. I eat a regular/large meal. Phook goes to bed, and I usually feel like a snack at some point. But we don't really have much around in the way of snacks, so I most often don't have anything else. Sometimes microwave popcorn.

I'm also not consuming enough appropriate liquids. Not even close. I hate drinking water. Hate it. I think there have been entire weeks of my life when I have consumed no water at all. I stopped buying juice a long time ago, and we rarely have pop around either. I usually have a pitcher of generic sugar-free drink mix of some variety in the fridge, so I drink a decent amount of that. I hate milk, too. So there's that little issue. And given my fun with kidney stones, it's not exactly a little issue.

Having written this, it doesn't seem possible for me to maintain my weight eating 1.5 meals/day. Despite being a six footer, I should weigh like 97 pounds. And I do, plus or minus 100. I think I make it up on the weekends when I go to my parents' house and hang out and they feed me. My Mom cooks for an army, regardless of actual attendance. My Dad makes like 3/4 pound hamburgers when he grills out. There is a lot of butter and/or butter-like spread on/in/around things. There is red meat in abundance. There are breakfast foods of my preferred variety, if I happen to be there in the a.m. Hershey's kisses in a jar. A lot of shit to graze on. I hang out at my parents' place very consistently on the weekends, and my honest estimate is that I eat six times more in a day there than I do at home. It's incredible, really.

I also am not one to thumb my nose at the occasional meal o' shit. If I go on a major grocery shopping endeavor with Phook to a nearby town (meaning a 60 mile roundtrip) and we both live through it and I know that I will be hauling the 600 pounds of kitty litter and 400 pounds of laundry detergent into my house after already lifting them 26 times and therefore will be utterly exhausted and literally aching and sore from the effort of grocing, I consider it my well-earned treat to go through a drive-thru and get some crappy meal and eat it on the way home. So that helps balance out the days in which I consume 80 calories. The occasional chalupa slips through the cracks. There, I admitted it.

So this is all clearly very bad. I'm not one of these morons who has missed the memo on what food is good for you. That is not my problem. I know what those foods are and I actually like most of them and make an effort to purchase them. I have flax seed in my cupboard, for heaven's sake. I am on the bandwagon, people. I know what a major impact dietary habits have on my lifelong health. I know that foods can heal. Hell, I have a friend who has significantly prolonged her terminally ill dog's life well beyond her vet's best hopes based almost exclusively on a special, well-researched diet.

I exercise almost daily and I am not ambivalent about my health. I have been on blood pressure meds since I was 17. I bear the curse (both in terms of health and in terms of pants) of carrying any excess weight in my midsection; there have been some unsavory times in my life when you could bounce a quarter off my ass but not be able to find my navel without a search team. Everyone in my family dies of heart attacks, strokes, etc. I want to live a long and healthy life, and not be a typical American who bitches about all the pills they have to take but does nothing to help themselves out. I want to put a lot of leafy green vegetables in a blender and drink them for breakfast. (Warning: That link involves Oprah.) Why, then, do I find it nearly impossible to take care of myself as far as this is concerned?

I'm sure this all goes back to making oneself a priority, and I pretty clearly do not. I currently put feeding myself below 1) dusting under the stove 2) manually picking up cat fur balls from the carpet between vacuumings and 3) removing dead leaves from houseplants. WTF? No, really...WTF? I find it so odd that I can be so aware of what is going on here but still know that tomorrow morning it's going to be pear peelings for mommy.

I guess I'm hoping that by actually fully admitting to the whole world (or the 9 or 900 of you who read my blog) the true depths of my food-based idiocy, I will be able to take this issue more seriously for myself. You can kick my ass in the comments for good measure if you like too.

So there it is. Momma is a moron.

Welcome to my world

So I was feeling very much like calling in sick to NaBloPoMo today. I was just going to post and tell you that, so that I could post but not really post. But then I had the good fortune of discovering this sign a mere stone's throw away from my front door:

At first, I couldn't figure out what it was even supposed to say. I was trying to figure out what a "Lit Racy" was. I thought it was possibly a contest or something, probably involving snowmobiles and lingerie or something. That would be par for the course. But it gets even better. The following sign is about 6 feet from the above sign:

Note the slogan. Note it. Why is it so hard for people on this earth to figure out proper usage of that godforsaken apostrophe when it's the bride of those three little letters? Why? But more than that, why would you spend the cash on your sweet tits new restaurant sign and not double check with someone? And if you were in the business of signage, wouldn't you call these idiots up and mention the wee grammatical error? Why did someone not prevent this violation of my delicate sensibilities? Hey, I know that when I'm typing fast I sometimes mess this up myself...but you'd think that there would just be some proofreading involved when the stakes are this high. I mean, there are like 3 restaurants in The Woods...don't you want to be the best?

I am thinking about logging off of this computer, walking up to this restaurant, and violating this sign with spray paint. It will read: IDIOCY FOR ALL.

There is a person in my cabinet

I have followed the advice of the baby wizards who recommend you have an unsecured kid-friendly cabinet in your home to keep your little devil happy when they must be in the kitchen with you. I don't know if those experts intend that the child will actually crawl into the cabinet to ensure every last piece of plastic paraphernalia has been exorcised from its depths, but that is what happens in the House of K:

Phook has the spirit of an explorer, of course. And a hearty dose of self esteem. She takes so much pride in her work:

She's rad. That's all today.

Another major surgery

I do not do well when my home is in disrepair. This we know. People, I do not handle home renovations gracefully. Of all my tendencies, this is probably the thing that makes me most strongly suspect I'm rocking a touch of OCD. When some part of my house is ripped apart, I experience it as an acute violation of my person. I don't sleep as well. I'm jittery. I'm on edge. I am incapable of true relaxation. Joy is elusive. So, friends, it is with a strong desire to vomit that I present to you the following:

This is the current state of one of our bedrooms. This room was formerly (and I guess might always be) referred to as "The Lodge." Up until a couple weeks ago, this room had dark wood paneling, rainbow shag carpet, and two twin beds built into the walls. When we gave people a tour of our home, it always ended with this as the grand finale. Shock and awe, buddies. It did have its charms. But they kind of started and ended with the cat piss funk introduced by the former owners and then perfected by our own cats. We've pretty much had the door to this room shut for 3 years. But it is time to handle it. Phook wants to move in here someday to get away from her as yet unspecified younger sibling. We had access to a dumpster via Big K's mom, so we randomly ripped up the carpet one night. And then it became inevitable.

Now, our financial situation is well publicized on this blog. There are no monies to hire skilled labor. We received a small cash benefit from that insurer made popular by an obnoxious duck thanks to Big K's most recent knee surgery, so there is some blood money available for cheap carpeting and sheetrock. The rest will be done by Big K. Big K's skillz in the home improvement arena can be summed up in one word: caulk. If there is a problem, yo he'll caulk it. And he'll be pissed if I don't admit that his caulk fixes usually work. They generally do. But you cannot caulk an entire room back together. (Although I bet when he reads this he will consider it possible.) He's never so much as sniffed drywall before, and this room is not exactly a square box. There are little pop out areas and closets on the sides that aren't even included in the picture above. And we're lowering the mid part of the ceiling a bit and installing heaters in there, since this room was converted from an attic space after the rest of the house was built, and had separate electric baseboard heating that we want to be rid of. So it is not a simple project. And this is just the drywall.

He has some dudes coming over to help him hang drywall. He still has to finish removing the glue that held the paneling on (those are the artful swirls seen in the pic above). And he has to move some wires around for the aforementioned heaters. And he has to put that board back in the floor that we ripped out as it was the epicenter of the cat piss. This will all be happening in the wee hours, because as my sister said, "Big K works best unsupervised and half naked." Not a joke there. Big K is the kind of guy who sloths around playing computer games, no matter how big and how time intensive the job looming might be, until the last possible moment. Then he drinks 3 pots of double strength coffee, takes off his shirt, puts on athletic shorts and a stocking cap, and gets to it. I'm not kidding. This is how he operates. Barely clad and manic only when everyone else would have already been done. I think I'm having a panic attack.

And let's not forget that the former contents of this room have been puked into the rest of my home, so I'm tap dancing around table leaves and luggage and my childhood stuffed animal collection. Oh, woe, woe, woe.

Let us pray to the gods of Home Renovation that Big K is blessed with the brain capacity to know when to shut off the breaker, among other things. I am hoping to have this wrapped up by Christmas, so look forward to my 4th of July post in which I declare it done. Shoot me.

Someone has to pay...

...for this motherfucking time change. Seriously. I don't know if it is now daylight savings time or if it is no longer daylight savings time or if we are springing forward or falling back or what the hell is happening. What I do know is that my kid is not having it. Which means things suck.

For the last several months, we had this sweet thing rocking where the whole family would, with fairly little mayhem, roll out of bed around 7:20 when Big K's alarm clock sounded. I suspect Phook was up in her crib earlier, but she wasn't yelling or anything, and she hadn't been up for long. Compared to her days of thinking 4:40 was a sweet time to start the day (just like Grandma J), rolling out of bed at 7:20 became the parenting equivalent of sleeping all day. Now some clown went and did something to my clocks and Phook is messed up. Yesterday she rose prior to 6 a.m. Big K went in and tried to coax her back to sleep about 9 times, and then we finally got up with her a little before 7:00. Compared to some of the nightmarish childhood sleeping stories that are wildly available for your consumption, it perhaps doesn't seem like much to bitch about. But it is fucking up my qi. And for whatever reason, moving back the bedtime does not extend the morning sleeping time, so please do not dare suggest this asinine plan.

Do you know what follows from a messed up morning? A messed up day. Phook's morning nap had been transpiring around 10:00 or so, and she was taking pretty sweet morning naps. Now she's a screeching harpy by 8:30, howling for lunch by 11:00, and passing out for another nap by 12:30. Which results in early rising and a long, long stretch of throwing herself on the floor before bedtime, which used to comfortably fall between 7:00-7:30 but is now seeming like a good idea around 5:30. She is all messed up. I'm not particularly militant on the actual rising and sleeping times, provided they are within a basic window of reason. It's the BAD ATTITUDE that this clusterfuck produces that I'm really not cool with. Phook's two speeds are generally ludicrous speed and coma. A third speed, the overtired, throwing oneself backwards onto the floor while screaming speed, yeah, that's not welcome. The other day we went for our walk, which she usually tolerates fairly amicably when dosed with Cheerios, and she just lost her shit. At first I thought she was just being a brat and so I kept walking, but then she convinced me that something was wrong, her howling was so incessant. I loosened the stroller straps. Sang. Applied mittens for the 9,000th time and watched her chuck them onto the ground. Checked for bullet wounds. Finally I let her out of the stroller, and she just walked next to me. That seemed to send the rage out to sea. But the rage. Oh, the rage.

So, anyhow, yes, thank you assclowns who are in charge of these matters. Not only is it getting dark here at like noon now, but you have bulldozed my happy place. Please send me your address so I can light some poop on fire on your porch.

My baby is a thug

Here's a fun fact about why Big K loves me. We went to an Oakland Raiders football game, in Oakland, for our honeymoon. Yes, friends, we centered our most romantic of romantic getaways around hanging out with people such as this:

We had a really great time, honestly. We spray painted cheeseheads black and made a sign that said "Real Cheeseheads Wear Black," as the team's slogan is "Real Men Wear Black." And we attached a veil to my cheesehead, and made another sign that said, "Just Married Baby," as they also have some "Just Win Baby" thing they say. We did it up good. People were in shock and awe of us at that stadium. We had great seats. We think we were on TV. They lost. Big K was pissed.

But that's not the point. The point is that we are Wisconsinites. Have you ever been to Wisconsin? Do you know anyone from Wisconsin? Are you aware of the devotion this state holds for its Green Baby Packers? It is not frowned upon to wear Packer jerseys to conservative Christian churches on Sundays. When they lose, you can pretty much guarantee a statewide depression on Monday. Brett Favre is The Jesus. It is pure madness. You have never seen anything like it, I promise. And my family is the proud holder of 4 season tickets. My Dad was at the freaking Ice Bowl. My family has no great wealth (and not even any small wealth), but we have this, courtesy of my late grandfather, who had the foresight to get in early (apparently he did not have the foresight to get in early on the baby food trend, as he was offered the opportunity to be a very early investor in a little company called Gerber, but opted not to get involved, since "women can just make babyfood themselves." That's a bitch.). Anyhow, I guarantee you that blood has been shed in this state over Packer ticket battles. Divorces that have otherwise gone amicably have been bitterly held up in courts for years over Packer tickets. Sibling relationships gone in the shitter when the will is read and the ownership of the tickets revealed. According to the Packers website, "The season ticket waiting list has more than 57,000 names. The Packers tell fans adding their names that the average wait is 30 years." I'm pretty sure that both my sister and I were dated by people solely because they knew we had tickets and might eventually get to come to a game with us. So there's that.

And I married the world's biggest Raider fan. I don't know how Big K, native of central Wisconsin, ended up part of Raider Nation, but he claims the 1984 Super Bowl was involved. At the tender age of 7, he apparently decided he didn't want to be a sheep and follow all the other sorry Wisconsinites into blind Packer devotion. No matter how you slice it, his love for the Raiders is longstanding and true. He doesn't dislike the Packers. In fact, the longer I've known him and the more Lambeau Field hot dogs he's crammed into his maw, the more of a Packer fan he has become. But the Raider love remains. And my love for him is such that a Raider-centric honeymoon seemed like a good idea even to me, what with him having to endure a year of wedding planning. Plus, we were really staying in San Francisco, and riding a trolley and seeing that Rice-a-Roni hill really are romantic. So, we married and created a little pocket of Raider right here in the middle of Vince Lombardi's holy ground.

Now that you know all that, it's probably easy to see why having this on our house gets us heckled:

People actually ask my parents why we have that flag out. All conspiratorially, as if they've seen us smoking crack through the front window. It's kinda funny. And, well, the Raiders do suck.

But here's the thing. We have a baby now. And sometimes one of her uncles buys her something like this to commemorate her first birthday. Not a princess outfit, not a ballerina suit, not even a Packer sweat suit (although Grandpa J came through with that), but this:


This about enough to get me thrown clean out of Wisconsin on my ass by the parties who monitor everyone's cheeseheadedness to ensure it doesn't dip into the territory of rooting for another football team, which is almost as big of an offense as daring to draw a single sober breath. But I'm risking it. My baby is thugged out in Raiderwear. Ah, yes, you gotta love it.

The post in which I risk divorce (and alienation of all readers)

I mentioned in my last post that there are a couple things I occasionally watch on TV other than network programming. One of these things that I stumbled upon was this show called Kids by the Dozen on TLC. It's about people who have a dozen or more kids. This comes on the heels, I think, of some very popular shows that were on the Discovery Channel about the Duggar Family who have 17 children and are quite, well, odd. I am absolutely fascinated by this. Honestly, the most fascinating stuff to me is the logistical stuff. Given that I feel busy operating a family of three, I do not know how you get shit done for a herd. I really don't. Watching these people grocery shop is like watching the secrets of the universe revealed to me. The laundry operations? Whoa. Balls.

As far as I can tell, the majority of the people are believers in this quiver full thing, a religious belief that you should just let kids show up whenever they want to. A lot of folks make fun of the Duggars, and I believe I've casually maligned them on this blog once or twice. I mean, they name all their kids "J" names (not unlike my husband's family, but there are only 3 of them), and include the name "Jinger." The mom's "bangs" are the sort of things that make angels fall from heaven and crash onto windshields. The mom seems involved with the children only to the extent that she is nursing the youngest one, and then her army of teenagers does the rest. So these people do kind of give me the creeps. I'm not going to deny that.

The thing is, some of these other families featured on Kids by the Dozen seem pretty normal. The family that dresses "plain" (a.k.a. Amish) and eschews modern comforts but finances their teenage son's pilot lessons...I don't exactly get how that whole life philosophy came together. But other than that, I think the families are pretty cool. I think they have it closer to right than the majority of Americans. They seem to put their families first and possessions second. They seem to genuinely love each other. The moms have very wide asses and very deep undereye bags, but other than that they seem pleased with their lot, at least for the cameras.

So here's the part where I risk divorce. I think I would be one of these assholes if Big K would let me. That's a pretty bold statement for a mother of one, but the idea of stopping having kids is a really painful thought for me. I know that sounds ridiculous. But the last baby? God does that idea break my heart. I would just love to have a house absolutely teeming with children. I mean, I kind of hate other people's children, as evidenced by my brief daycare career, but I would love to have a ton of my own. Maybe Phook is a fluke and the next one will suck and I'll change my mind, but I could honestly see myself as very happy with a dozen kids running around. Oh man, I feel kind of ashamed for that confession. You're all staring slack-jawed at your screens right now, thinking of how you can find my address and send me sanity through mail-order antipsychotic meds, but in this month of constant posting, you're gonna get some crazy out of Big W. And that's probably it, my craziest serious thought. Perpetual breeding. Ooof.

Now, don't worry, people. This isn't going to happen. Big K and his twin bros were raised in true poverty by a single mother and he never had enough food/attention/anything. That being his background, he wants his kids to have enough of things, particularly attention. So this whole litter thing is not even remotely feasible here. I have to admit that our resources of all kinds are limited (although I secretly feel I could successfully pull it all off, of course). Then there is the environmental impact of additional humans in an overcrowded world, although despite my modest environmentalist leanings, I can't make myself take this one seriously. I know that is probably reckless, but I feel like humans I produce would create enough good in the world to outweigh the impact of their carbon footprint. Pure hubris, I know. And I can't really speak for my grandchildren and beyond. But I just can't get on the bandwagon with that consideration. So I don't know, in my little goat-brained utopia, I'd have a herd of children. We'd farm our own food. It'd be like a compound full of brown chickens and my barefooted children who all like to yell a lot, and who are allowed to swear as soon as they turn six.

Maybe it's my overachiever syndrome translating the fact that I am a SAHM into some kind of impossible mission...just some advanced mom-ing that other people can't do to somehow translate this unpaid, unappreciated gig into a quantitative achievement. But you know, I really don't think so. I just think I'm a crazy bastard who would, in a world without marital checks and balances, incessantly breed.

Oh shit, now you all hate me. It's been nice having you as readers. I promise to never post about this again, if that makes you feel any better...

Real Slim Phookie

Feels good to be a Phookstar

Allright, so the Blogger version of the videos doesn't appear to be working, so I put them on YouTube...the formatting is a little weird but I didn't want you to miss this...

Phook is a Fly Girl

I don't know if I've really ever mentioned Phook's dancing capabilities. Right after she started to crawl at six months, she started doing this thing where she'd be up on her hands and knees and she would rock. I know this is a pretty standard learning to crawl move, but Phook did it to the beat of music. She'd kind of rock back on her haunches and bump her butt on her calves to the beat. It ruled.

Well, now she is an upright creature with enough balance to shake it like a biped. And here in the House of K, there is no shortage of really bad tunes to work it out to. The child doesn't even need tunes a lot of the time, she just does a lot of dancing.

People occasionally refer to Big K as "white chocolate" on account of his mad dancing skillz. I suspect Phook has the gene.

Here we have her personal tribute to Office Space. Yeah, we let our baby listen to songs with dirty words. Not big fans of musical censorship here in the House of K, at least until she's 18 months or something.

And here we have her kicking into gear with just impeccable timing:

,

You know you all love her more now that you saw that. We do.

My select thoughts on available television programming

As mentioned here, I have committed myself to laziness. Oh, I'm still exercising and cleaning and all that shit, but I've decided to take it down a notch in the hours after Phook goes to bed. You just can't bust it from the moment you wake up until the moment your head hits the pillow. Well, you can, since I've been doing it for as long as I can remember. But I'm trying to incorporate sloth into my life, because it's bad for my blood pressure and mental health to be, well, insane. So I decided to actually watch all the TV shows whose previews interested me this year. I should definitely be reading instead. I've always been an avid reader, but for some reason I haven't been feeling much more than magazines since I had Phook. I've gotten through a few novels and whatnot, but I'm not devouring them. So, for whatever reason, the books aren't doing it for me at this particular juncture, and I'm heavily involved in several shows, many of which suck. Let's talk about them.

Dancing with the Stars. In seasons past, I was always annoyed when the players on this show ended up getting coverage in my US Weekly, because I thought the whole concept was lame. But this year I thought I'd give it a go. When it's on two nights per week, that really helps contribute to my sloth, so I considered it a noble endeavor. And hey, I like this show. The hosts blow goats, but other than that I feel good about it. I am rooting for Helio, the Indy car driver. He just seems so nice and charming. These people bust their asses. There are falls. Marie Osmond passes clean out on live television. What's not to love? Plus, I believe it is life-affirming to watch dancers dance. It is a great expression of humanity. I don't mean to glorify tacky TV, but it is just neat to watch people shake it.

The Bachelor. I was addicted to this show in college and shortly thereafter. I was in love with that Aaron bachelor, but I guess he turned out to be kind of a dick. I lost interest a few years back, but since it's on after DWTS and I'm committed to not moving between the hours of 7 and 10 p.m., I'm in it. I don't know. This bachelor is decidedly hot, I'll give him that. He seems kind of lame though in his interactions with the women. In the little commentary parts where he tells you what he was really thinking he seems funnier than in the regular action. So I don't know. And I kind of hate all the girls. I liked Sheena, but he ditched her this last week. I guess I'm not atwitter about the results on this one. They're probably already broken up in real life anyhow.

Samantha Who? This just started a couple weeks ago, and it's getting rave reviews. It's pretty good, and it's only a half hour show, so not a huge commitment. It is funny. The concept, although probably medically unsound, does make for some enjoyable hijinx. I'm staying tuned, at least for awhile.

Private Practice. This is the Addison spin-off of Grey's. At first I was gagging through it, but felt like I owed Addison something. Then I got a little hooked. And now I'm kind of gagging again. That whole shower head episode made my head spin around until I vomited pea soup. I don't know, there is just forced sexuality in this show that I'm not really feeling. It's like they want the steamy elevator of Grey's but are instead just making me feel like I'm wearing a lot of itchy wool and I'm walking around in the rain. I don't know. I'm staying involved for a little longer, since I do like the patient stories they come up with, and I like Taye Diggs' shiny bald dome.

Dirty Sexy Money. They are obviously going for caricatures of rich people on this show...the Paris Hilton knockoff, the politician embroiled in scandal, etc. The thing is, they're not very good caricatures. They're kind of forced. And the Paris Hilton character doesn't even have good hair. She looks like she has 19 strands of stringy bleached hair. They should at least make the investment in this actress' head to make her hair look like she pays more than $6 at the cosmetology college to get it cut. Donald Sutherland's face makes me feel like I need a bath. The main character is weird. His wife is too agreeable for the circumstances. The underlying mystery is cheesy and not captivating. I'm not sure why I'm still watching this. I like the matriarch character, Tish. She's believable and seems like she might be able to act. I like the son who is a minister but has an illegitimate kid and kicks cabs and swears and stuff. So, yeah, there you go. The concept is good, the execution bad.

Grey's Anatomy. There has been some pretty unanimous disappointment with this show over the past year or so, and I've been feeling it too. But I have to say I think the last few episodes have been pretty good. The guy severing his foot with the chainsaw...that was pure gold. However, I would like to register my most severe displeasure with the George/Izzy romance. If this was a passionate love story in which Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen were playing the lovers in question, I could not be more disgusted. What I am saying is that it feels somehow, and by somehow I do mean completely, incestuous and wrong. It is totally unbelievable and I'd rather see both characters run over by a city bus, never to be seen again, than have to watch them in even the mildest moment of affection. I think Callie has had work done. Her face looked weird last week. Even Big K commented on her eyebrows, without my prompting. Meredith needs to heal and just embrace Dreamy once and for all. Despite those complaints, I'm overall feeling pretty good about things right now. I think they're on the upswing.

Big Shots. This is a show about four rich dudes that showcases some pretty bad acting. But I like it. Other than my disgust at watching Dylan McDermott make strange pederast faces whenever doing some kind of love scene, I'm pretty much a fan. It's a ridiculous show, it is, but I it is entertaining me right now. I particularly like the dork guy (Carl?) whose former mistress has moved into his life by becoming his wife's best friend, and is currently wanting to be the surrogate for their child. It's uncomfortable in a good TV kind of way. This is decent.

Desperate Housewives. I'm happy with the season. Can't complain at all, actually. I think it is revitalized. This year's mystery with the former resident moved back shrouded in darkness is working out better than the disabled kid locked in the basement thing they did. I like where all the characters are going. There is amusement. There is witty banter. There is cat fighting. I like.

Brothers & Sisters. Well, I've been falling deeper and deeper in love with this one all along. I just love this show. I want to watch the characters on live-action camera all day long and view their comings and goings. I dig all the storylines they are working right now, with the possible exception of the Justin on drugs thing. But, yeah, otherwise I'm digging it. I love Sally Field in this show. I want to hang out with her. I'll probably be crazy like that when my kids are old. If you don't watch this show, you should.

So, there you go. I think those are the roughly 9 hours of mandatory viewing I am subscribing to on a weekly basis. Well, actually there are a couple more things that occasionally pop up, but I think they qualify for separate posts, and I'm gonna need them this month, so no more about that. I wouldn't be able to make this kind of a commitment without my DVR...recording, pausing, fast forwarding, oh man why did I not invent this device? I'd like to thank the inventor of this technology for facilitating my sloth. I couldn't do it without you, guy. I don't know how long this experiment in sloth is going to last, since as I reflect back on this post I realize I kind of hate a lot of what I'm watching. I think perhaps it will soon be time to bust out my pathetic old hobby of doing puzzles. Or perhaps I should take up crossword or cross stitch or playing backgammon naked. But for now, I'm in it. Must see TV.

Last Supper

So the other night I was reading an article in Time magazine about famous chefs and what they would choose as their last meal. Other than the swine Mario Batali, who would pretty much just eat everything, almost all the chefs chose something simple and very close to home. Fried chicken, Sunday roasts, that sort of thing. It basically says that food isn't just about taste...it is tied to our memories and means so much more than the taste. That's not the most profound point ever made, but it is kind of fun to think about. It's why I love food. It's why I cook. I want to make memories for people. I don't know that I've been cooking long enough or had a family long enough to become a cooking matriarch type person, but I hope some day I am one. With this in mind, I am going to share some of my own food memories.

My mom has always made homemade meals. Family meal time is basically the central tenet of her belief system, and now that I think about it, I guess I share that too. Now, mom would provide a complete, home cooked meal every night of the week. Except Fridays. She has taken Fridays off for as long as I can remember. Just lays down the gauntlet and does not cook on Fridays. Now that I'm older, we do get together with my parents pretty often for Friday meals, and this usually means going out for a fish fry or getting a pizza or something like that. But when I was a little kid, it always meant we were making a store bought frozen pizza. That is my first food memory, right there. Friday night pizza. Of course I loved it. I still love it.

Sundays also had a specific game plan as well. We always had a big Sunday dinner after church, but usually mid-afternoon. And then at night my Dad would pop us popcorn and that would be our supper. Real popcorn, on the stove, man. I have a lot of memories of watching Andy Rooney on 60 Minutes while cramming greasy popcorn in my maw. They still do this, and we participate pretty often. Popcorn for supper. That is the shit, right there.

We had a specific food on Christmas morning too. We lived right down the street from my grandma, mom's mom, and after opening our own presents, we'd go down there to open presents from her. And we always had this thing called breakfast bake. It basically involves wheat bread, eggs, bacon, and cheese, cooked together into a magnificent, beautiful, heaven-sent breakfast. Mmmm. Love it.

On New Year's Eve, my mom would make it a little festive for us. She'd slice up a little tray of food that involved venison sausage (don't knock it 'till you tried it), cheese, and crackers. It seemed so fancy to have a little appetizer tray in the living room.

When it firsts start to feel like the cold weather is here to stay, it is time for my mom's chili. It isn't fancy and it wouldn't win a cook-off. But that's the chili I want.

One of the only foods my mom made that was in the "kid food" department was this thing involving hot dogs wrapped in bread and I think bacon, and then thrown in the oven for a bit. Sounds like kind of a nightmare, but I always thought it was the cat's ass when we got these things. They were held together with toothpicks. Awesomeness.

Flat 7-Up. Who among us was not dosed with flat 7-Up when a stomach ailment struck? It is even written in my baby book that I got flat 7-Up as an infant when I had stomach troubles. For some reason, getting flat 7-Up was almost worth the barfing. When I was only allowed a sip every 15 minutes, I'd sneak more when mom left the room. I'd barf more than necessary too, but that shit was like a drug.

My mom went back to work when I went to kindergarten, and I was babysat in the summers by the most awesome human on this earth, my Aunt P. She had 4 girls of her own, my sister and I, and somewhere between 3 and 30 other neighborhood kids that she babysat. Lunchtime was like feeding time at the zoo. To stretch a box of mac 'n cheese, she always added extra elbow macaroni. I always thought it was better that way. She would also frequently make a variety of sandwiches, including "big bologna," PB & J, and venison sausage, and then quarter them and stack them on a plate in the middle of the table. Those were awesome. We also got an afternoon snack every day, and it was often ice cream cones. My mom never had actual cones, so it was amazingly cool that she would actually scoop cones for all 900 of us every day. Man did I love that.

Freaking Swiss Cake Rolls. These bastards still occasionally find their way into my cart, despite my better judgment. My neighbor and partner in crime, who as a youth was referred to as Carlotta Compton by the neighborhood boys we stalked, always had Swiss Cake Rolls in her snack cupboard. Christ, her mom bought them just for me. Every day of my life I housed a package of those dandies. I want some now.

I went to a parochial school as a kid with only about 80 students grades K-8. Such a student body made the mere mention of a hot lunch program laughable, and I ate a packed lunch every day through age 13. We ate shit like liverwurst sandwiches. Holy balls, man. You couldn't pay me to look at liverwurst right now. But my mom did a good job packing pretty good lunches most of the time. And she was a note writer. Almost every day there was a note in that lunch box. I taped them all to the inside of my desk. My mom is really funny, and a lot of times they'd be really random funny crap. Or just a little love note. That was the best.

So those are some of my strong food memories. And my own last supper? Well, of course it is a mom special. Spaghetti with her homemade sauce, garlic bread, and a salad. I still request this for every birthday. My favorite meal on earth. That'd be going out in style.

What would your last supper be?

Uncle Growler, You Crazy SOB

I love this animal. He is the dumbest, most charming brain stem/fur combo to ever walk the earth. And now he's found another special way to exhibit his lack of good sense:


Nothing like greasing up your fur with a nice sheen of pulverized banana, cereal bar, and carrot. This isn't a once in a lifetime shot either. It's becoming something of a habit. Let's pour one out for all of the furry charming idiots in our lives, shall we?

In which Big W hates on herself (and deserves it)

Perhaps some of you are wondering where I am at with this whole daycare thing. Basically, I have been working there 2-3 afternoons per week since the beginning of August, and bringing home a bit shy of $300/month for my efforts. During the vast majority of these afternoons, there has been at least one moment, if not an hour, if not the entire afternoon, during which I have had the thought, "This is the worst moment/hour/afternoon of my life." I'm not saying that to myself with a chuckle either. I am honestly there, at daycare, elbow deep in an unpottytrained 4-year-old's giant horrifying crap, with Phook clinging to my leg crying to be picked up, with two children beating each other with a filthy toy behind me, with a neglected six year-old asking me for the ten thousandth time what my baby's name is, with two snot-soaked, smoke-smelling children fighting over who gets to be first in line to go outside, with my co-worker (if I happen to even have one, as I usually am alone) blissfully sanitizing toys in the kitchen, and I really truly feel that that moment is the worst of my life. Even if it is a carbon copy of the previous day. There's that cumulative effect. I feel helpless, horrible, and on the verge of tears. Sometimes I actually do cry at daycare. Like on Phook's birthday, actually, when essentially the same picture I just painted was occurring, and I had to change like five consecutive diapers (which includes a two-step sanitizing process between kids, helping them wash their hands, washing my own hands, putting the potty-trainers on the potty, etc.) and she was clinging to my leg crying the entire time. And it was her birthday. And I just had tears falling down my cheeks as I ignored my child on her birthday to deal with feces formed solely of nutritionally abominable food for $7.40/hour. So it's been rough.

However, there have been some moments, and some strange days where things go okay. No one hits Phook. The really bad kids aren't there. Kids get picked up early. A kid hands Phook a toy and she is happy to have another shorty to interact with. And I think, "This isn't so bad. Phook is enjoying herself and I'm even making a little money." So there had been just enough of those days to keep me going back in. Just barely.

The other day, however, I snapped. Not kind of. Really. It was our wedding anniversary, actually, October 18. I was trying to put Phook down for a nap, and it wasn't going well. Now, I don't remember if I went into this in my previous post and I don't care to look back and check, but Phook's naps there are a nightmare. There is a separate baby sleeping room in which she is to sleep, but there is always so much going on there, and the door to the sleeping room is just a half door, so there is no opportunity for creating a sensory deprivation tank. Despite being a relatively good napper at home, while tent camping, and while visiting friends and relatives, she has been a nightmare at daycare. Quite often, she screams bloody murder when we get to the door of the sleeping room. Perhaps she can smell the evil, I don't know. If we were at home and she did this, I'd show her who was boss and I'd keep her in the crib, going in intermittently to calm her down or whatever. But when you have several volatile children mid-nap in the next room, and they are subject to waking up and making everything exponentially shittier if they do not get enough sleep, you don't really have that option. So I try my best to calm her down for as long as I can possibly stretch it out, and when too many kids start waking up on account of her mayhem, she wins. Which is completely against my parenting philosophy, completely bad for her, and completely bad for me. I will then try again to put her down later, but by then she is rabidly overtired, there are many awake children making even more distracting distractingness that I am supposed to be keeping from running outside and killing a nearby dog, and it's going on something like 4 p.m. A true nightmare. So she has missed a lot of naps. Any parent can tell you that this is second only to, well, nothing, in terms of a doomsday scenario. Children who need naps cannot miss them without consequences for themselves, their parents, and national security.

So, anyhow, it's our anniversary, I am having a day of intensely bad hormones in the female sense of things, and this is happening. She is screaming in the crib while the rest of the kids/demons are purportedly asleep, and I am standing there trying to get her calm. I am trying to get her sort of wrapped up in a blanket on her back, but she is physically fighting me and will not lie down. Every time I turn her she twists like a snake to get away and she is just screaming that horrible bratty scream that babies can't make but kids can. And I am losing my shit. I leave the room, hoping she (and I) will calm down. She screams louder. She is bouncing so hard in the crib that it is bashing into the walls and making a terrible racket around the whole center. I am furious. At her. I go back in the room, she twists and screams and writhes away from me. I am ten thousand degrees. And I spank her. Not hard, but I swatted my child's butt out of anger. I lost control. I violated myself. I violated her. I was never going to spank my children. And regardless of whether or not you think spanking is a good idea, it is never right when done as an expression of the parent's anger. It is pretty much the wrongest thing you can do. And I knew it as soon as I did it. She took her already insane wailing to just this most pitiful horrible level, and the look in her eyes, well, no words for that. Well, there are words, but I can't write them because I can't go there again. I picked her up and I took her outside and sat down on the playground sand with her and I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. This really was the worst moment of my life. I had reached a point of frustration where I could not control myself. And I directed my lack of control towards my innocent child because she cannot sleep in a stinky, noisy, unfamiliar room in a crib made out of glorified popsicle sticks with a mattress an inch thick. I went back inside and wrote my resignation letter on a piece of scratch paper. I knew that if I walked away and let it cool down I would convince myself it was a fluke. I would make it through Christmas like I was trying to. I could probably make it forever if I made myself numb enough, because it's easy to convince yourself something is worth it when you're martyring yourself for your family.

So I took the rage I was feeling at that moment and ended it there. I don't need to be a martyr. No one is really better off when the baby isn't sleeping, is getting shoved and hit and kicked every day. When she is being exposed to children who for reasons I could never explain to her wail and wail and wail when their parents come to get them at the end of the day. When mom is so exhausted and upset at the end of a four hour shift that she is an asshole to the dad who is the real financial supporter of the family and who spends his own days investigating child abuse. What took me so long? This really is a sad, shitty story. This is me at my shittiest. I'm over the acute pain of the incident, but I won't be forgetting it anytime this century.

So there really is no plan right now. There is still a little savings account and my kid has a lot of hand-me-downs. Big K fixes and builds computers for people in his "spare time," and he's probably going to put an ad in the paper to try to drum up a little more business, since he can probably make my monthly income with just a couple of jobs. I'm trying to speed up what has been the painstaking process for me of going from a person who went to the grocery store and bought shrimp because she felt like it (and probably stopped at the mall and got a sweater on the way) to being a person who must stretch what is left in the pantry into a few more meals, praying that a rebate check we've been waiting on for 3 months picks today to magically show up in the mail. Giving up over 60% of your family's income is more than a math problem. It requires a complete change of the way you operate in the world. Giving up dinners out isn't difficult...that's just the wallpaper. Watering down your shampoo and feeding the cats a little less and walking past the Desitin because you know you've got some Vaseline at home...that's getting closer. But it's even deeper than that, really, taking a nosedive in socioeconomic status. It's intensely personal to go from being one of the people who sends a large check for Thanksgiving dinners to the food bank to being a family that could probably qualify for one if we asked. It makes you think $300 is worth it, makes you a little crazy. Makes me realize how the cycle of poverty turns people into assholes. I am really still learning how to do this. I am learning how to be this person, with these means. I'm not hosting a pity party here. The thing is, this is a choice for my family. I am an educated person who is employable, even here in The Woods. If I ever decided to do my student teaching semester, I could get a teaching gig and earn a salary in the ballpark of my husband's, and we'd be rich. Not real world rich, but Woods rich. You see, here in The Woods, families supported by a teacher and a social worker are the kind of families that build new houses and drive pretty nice cars. The doctors, lawyers, other professionals...you won't find them here...with few exceptions, teachers and social workers are the top of the ladder. That's the height of our economy. But I digress. I could try to really make money writing. I could commute to somewhere. I could do a lot of things to change our financial situation, and I will do those things when it is right for us. What's really sad is that there are so many people for whom this is not a choice. That's true poverty...not having a choice. I am choosing this because I am so blissed out on my kid it's probably a diagnosable psychological disorder. Big K and I are choosing this because this is how we want to raise our family. Other people are not choosing this. God help us all. Things can just be so hard.

So, yes, there you go. There we are. Yesterday was my last day of daycare. Phook is no longer in danger of being hit. Not by a 3-year-old. Not by me. God forgive me.

Blog on blogs

To kick off this November of constant posting, this month in which I will bore countless passersby, I am just going to blog about blogging. Lame, I know, but get used to it. I will tell you my thoughts on blogging and my general blog consumption behaviors.

First, my innermost thoughts on my own blog. I've got to say that when I started this thing, I thought it would just be an outlet to keep friends and family in the loop on Phook's life. And it does serve that purpose. But really, this blog is about my life. It is a crucial outlet for me as a SAHM and as a person who has been writing for a purpose since the beginning of Big W time. There would be a hole in me if there was no place to write. And as silly as some of my posts are, they are all a creative exercise for me, a chance to use big words and profanity and turns of phrase and random movie quotes that no one picks up on (presumably). If I didn't blog, something important would be shriveling.

Now, I don't know much about blog culture or blog lingo or blog shit that bigtime bloggers know about. There is a blog language and I don't really get it. I do not undertake academic study of blogging. However, it is my understanding that there are bloggers who sort of create a persona that they express through their blogs. So perhaps they are a dweeb in real life but on their blog they are a sassy ladies' man. Or something like that. As a blogger, you certainly get to decide what percentage of your real identity is expressed on your blog. You can create an alternate identity and play that out as a blogger. Me, well, I'm out there. Big W, blogger, is Big W, human. Every reader who knows me in, I believe you nerds refer to it as "meatspace," well, they all surely recognize my real true speaking voice in this blog. It is written almost exactly as I talk. Its tone is my real tone in my real life. There is no persona. There is no veil behind which I hide. The only person who wouldn't recognize me in these words is probably my pastor, because I generally don't say "sonofabitch" on my way out of church. Very few topics are off-limits to me on this blog. I don't hold a lot back. Medical issues, deeply personal feelings that expose all my weaknesses, things that reveal me as a psycho, mockery of my husband/avid reader, they're all here. I'd say that the only things that are off-limits as far as this blog goes are the deepest parts of my marriage, good and bad, which are sacred to me and which are not to be shared by anyone other than Big K and I, and the slandering of individuals who live in The Woods. I don't know how far this virus of my blog has spread among Woodsians, but since it is a small town, I fear (perhaps vainly) that it has spread far. So I do occasionally censor myself when I feel like maligning people I actually know in real life, since they could conceivably read this. So I keep my hate generalized whenever possible. But those two things aside, I'm pretty much putting it out there. If you have read this blog, you know me. It's as simple as that.

This brings me to another point. Since there is no real difference between Big W the blogger and Big W the flesh and blood me, I spend a fair amount of time pondering how my blog is received. I wonder if people will like a post, if it'll get a lot of comments, if it will piss someone off enough to garner a mean comment. I basically wonder if there are an army of readers out there who are tuning in just to hate on me. Like the car crash you can't turn away from. Am I the car crash for anyone? Because if this blog is being read by anyone who is hating on its content, well, they hate me. The blog is me. So that makes me feel kind of nauseous. I have grown a lot over the years, but I'm not quite to the point where I can say I don't care what others think. I do. One of my lifetime goals is to overcome that, and to truly never ever care what others think. But, alas, that goal will not be met today. So I worry a lot about whether or not you like me. Sometimes I think a post is just the cat's ass, and then I only get 4 comments on it and I feel like a dickhead. I really wish you'd comment, readers, even if only anonymously.

And that's another thing. I employ no fancy tracking tools to figure out who is reading this or how many are reading it. I don't know how you found my blog. I don't know who you are. For all I know, this blog is being read by my husband, sister, cousin, mom, and the 9 or so other clowns who occasionally comment. But something tells me it is more. I probably know 100 or so people in real life who are actively reading this, because they tell me they are. So how many of you are there out there? God, this keeps me up at night.

And speaking of being up at night, that's when I generally think of new posts. I'll be just ready to drift off, and all of a sudden an idea for a post pops into my mind. And then I lie there writing the whole post in my mind for hours and hours. This is exactly how I used to operate when I wrote poetry, or big papers, or angst-filled letters to ex-boyfriends. I write in my head first, always. Hell, I started thinking about this post six weeks ago, minimum. So, yeah, there is some sacrifice of sleep involved in this blogging thing.

Sometimes I feel utterly devoid of things to say, sometimes I have so many post ideas that my head is almost exploding. I feel stress when I can't think of anything good to blog about. I feel like I'm disappointing my 9 or 900 readers. Sometimes I intend to post about something I feel passionate and fiery about, but by the time I have time to post, all the venom is gone and it wouldn't be very good anymore. I hate when that happens. But you can't fake the funk.

Sometimes I worry that this blog will come back to haunt me. I have revealed my real first name, my general coordinates within the state of Wisconsin, my alma mater, a description of my previous employer that really only applies to a few companies, and many other details. I'm about .5% anonymous, really. Will some future employer stumble upon this blog and conclude I'm a worthless dick? Will someone I have disparaged, however anonymously, stumble upon this and see themselves and come piss in my yard? Will some sick wacko find pictures of Phook and either a) decide to steal her or b) misuse her images in ways I don't even want to think about? I guess that the Phook-related concerns are far more significant than the future employer scenario, but I do occasionally worry that I'm a moron for publicizing my life and my daughter's life like this. Sometimes I want to copy and paste all these entries into some private archive and shut this thing down, but for now I am going to continue to hope that this blog and all its contents are being used for good rather than evil, and that no harm will come to me or mine as a result of it.

So that's what I think about my blog.

Other blogs. Now, I like other blogs. I first started reading a few a couple years back that friends pointed me to. But I didn't really get into the consumption of others' blogs until I started this one. I, unsurprisingly, trend towards mom blogs. This awesome one is practically my freaking home page. Never a dull post. Hell, never a dull word. A great blog. I like mom blogs by moms who are just like, "fuck." Because, well, fuck. I like reading other people's posts that basically say "fuck." Being occasionally isolated here in mom-town, it's nice to feel like you're in cahoots with people even when you don't know them. So, yeah, I'm into mom blogs.

Now, that is not to say I am a lover of all mom blogs. There are many mom blogs which are utterly terrible. I do not like mom blogs in which moms assert that they rule and I drool. I do not like mom blogs that are simply poorly-written recountings of junior's victory in the spelling bee. But I most especially do not like materialistic mom blogs. Those of you without children may not be aware of the marketing juggernaut that is aimed at us parents, particularly new parents, but let me tell you that I have never been marketed to like I have been marketed to since the world figured out that I had a kid. Even for us fools who are seriously in a financial position where we are considering making roadkill in a crockpot, it is difficult to resist the variety of products out there for our children...to make them smarter or cuter and to make our lives easier and specialer. And there are some legitimately good products out there. And Phook has some of them. But I cannot stand mom blogs that are basically advertisements for product, where mom talks about the necessities her spawn necessitates and doesn't realize she sounds like a complete asshole.

When I stumble onto a blog I hate, I generally just move on. But every once in awhile, I slow down for the train wreck. For awhile I was obsessed with a materialistic mom blog until she got flamed for being materialistic and shut herself down. I read it all the time to read about the new SUV, the new house, the new everything that became necessary upon the arrival of her kid. It made me so angry but I still read it. Not sure why that happened. Is that normal? Do people often read blogs they hate?

Via the mom blog reading, I have stumbled upon a number of blogs from the infertility community. I read them regularly...many who have had children, many who are still trying, many who have a child and are trying again. I feel like a bit of a voyeur as I read these, and I've never commented on any of them. But I find them dramatic and moving and I'm addicted. Part of it is that although I never had a (known) miscarriage and I never got to the land of fertility doctors, it did take 15 months of mandatory sex acts to conceive Phook. I realize that gives me zero credentials in the infertility community, but I definitely felt an intense amount of worry that I would never be a mother, that something was wrong, that I was going to be faced only with options I could never afford. I hated a lot of my friends at their baby showers. I nearly killed a lot of relatives and strangers with a ballpoint pen as they chided me about my lack of children a few years into my marriage. So I root for these women, and I find their strength inspiring. There is nothing like the desire to have a baby, that I know. So I'm reading them and hoping for the best. Once I read a post by an infertile raging about the "fertiles" lurking on infertility sites, and I felt really guilty. But I'm still reading them. Infertiles seem to share a hatred of Target, as it is teeming with hugely pregnant women who already have twins in the cart...infertility hell. I never really realized that before, but now when I go to Target, I realize I might be getting pregnant just off the fumes. So they make a sound point there. Just that kind of observation is worth reading.

To be honest, I don't read a lot of blogs that aren't mom blogs. A few of my friends and a few random really good ones I've stumbled onto, but I just can't pay attention to people talking about their life in the dating scene or the job market or whatever their particular shit may be. Perhaps that will wear off as my parenthood gets older, but for now that's where I'm at. I know it's self-righteous of me, but I sometimes find myself chuckling about how writers inflate their stupid comings and goings when I am busy RAISING A PERSON. And then I remember that although it is easy to laugh at yourself as a 7th grader for all the ridiculous stuff that stressed you out, that shit was pretty frighteningly real when you were a 7th grader. I don't mean to equate people in other life phases to 7th graders, but you know how easy it is to brush off a phase of life you have already made it through? Planning a wedding? Hell, I hardly even recall that once sacred and sleepless year of my life. That's my point. Where you are and where you are headed is a lot more interesting than roads you have already traveled. So I guess I seek that out in my blog consumption. I really do try my best not to get too uppity about people who are merely curing cancer and serving in the Peace Corps and that sort of nonsense when I am busy making sure the most important person in the world is eating her vegetables.

So I guess that's where I'm at with this whole scene, and now you know. Blog on, bloggers. Send me good vibes for this NaBloPoMo shit, as I'm getting kinda nervous.