The Goddess Rambles

24 OctSunshiny Fortified Enriched Goodness

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Sorry for the long hiatus, Folkses. I really have no excuses for you. Well, I actually have plenty, but they’re lame. Anyhoo, I’m back. You may all now applaud. I know you all must have missed me just terribly and are anxious to get on with your daily (ha!) dose of sheer awesome. Also, I am the most humble person I know.

On with it, then, shall we?

So, a very well cared for pet peeve of mine reared its ugly head again, this past weekend (and I can’t use that phrase anymore without thinking of Vladimir Putin). I overheard a conversation in which someone was ranting about all The Sex, The Violence and The Profanity in “today’s entertainment”, and because of this, will only allow her children to read Classic Literature. And the Bible.

Let me repeat that in case you didn’t catch it the first time:

Classic Literature. And the Bible.

Um.

A favorite pass time of my media-sheltered youth in Christian School was for me and my friends to look up and titter at various Bible passages. Points were given for archaic profanities, bizarre acts of violence and anything featuring The Sex, in ascending order. The book of Judges was an outright favorite. Dude, there was some CRAZY shiznit went down in the book of Judges. Actually the whole Old Testament (or Hebrew Bible as I now so sensitively refer to it) was one fun ride.

Here are some fun examples presented for your enlightenment and edification:

“There were two women, the daughters of one mother; and they played the harlot in Egypt. They played the harlot in their youth; there their breasts were pressed, and there their virgin bosom was handled…. she lusted after her lovers… and she bestowed her harlotries on them, all of whom were the choicest men of Assyria…. for in her youth men had lain with her, and they handled her virgin bosom and poured out their lust on her…. And she lusted after their paramours, whose flesh is like the flesh of donkeys and whose issue is like the issue of horses.”

Ezekiel 23:1-20

Goodness. It’s like a wholesomeness overload! More from the First Half:

“Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, as a long hind and a graceful doe, let her breasts satisfy you at all times.”

Proverbs 5:18-19

“Your stature is like a palm tree, and your breasts are like its clusters. I said, ‘I will climb the palm tree. I will take hold of its fruit stalks.’ Oh may your breasts be like clusters of the vine and the fragrance of your breath like apples.”

Song of Solomon 7:7-8

Nice sentiment, but I think I’d be concerned if my breasts looked like clusters of the vine. That doesn’t sound healthy.

But it’s not all fun and games, kids. Observe:

“And it came about when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him… Then the Lord said to Cain, ‘Where is Abel your brother?’ And he said, ‘I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?’ And He said, ‘What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to Me from the ground. And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand.’”

Genesis 4:8-11

Oh, The Violence! Think of the children! But lest ye think it all pre-Christian, here’s some good stuff from The Other Part:

“And when Herod saw that he had been tricked by the magi, he became very enraged, and sent and slew all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its environs, from two years old and under….”

Matthew 2:16

“And behold, one of those where were with Jesus reached and drew out his sword, and struck the slave of the high priest, and cut off his ear.”

Matthew 26:51

I’m thinking this book needs some Parental Controls or something.

And then there’s the issue of The Classics. Oh, The Classics. Wholesome works of such Sunshine and Goodness as… Titus Andronicus, by The Bard himself! A gay romp through Roman politics in which a young girl is raped and mutilated and later avenged when her father bakes her attackers into meat pies to be unwittingly consumed by their mother! Cheerful!

There is, of course, the utterly wholesome tale of Oedipus Rex. Nah, leave the baby out to die. I mean, it’s not like he’s gonna live only to come back and have an incestuous relationship with Mommy Dearest and then stab out his eyes with her jewelry…

Or how about something from the staid and civilized Victorian Era, a time so wholesome that women were secluded during pregnancy because they reminded people of how they got that way (darn those voluptuous, enticing table legs)? I give you Bram Stoker’s Dracula. A venerated classic if ever there was one. Guaranteed to be found on any and every self-respecting bookstore “classics” shelf, right there next to A Tale of Two Cities and Tess of the d’Urbervilles. Standard curriculum Classic Literature.

And a very, very, I’m talking gossamer-veiled Victorian Penthouse Letters. This book should’ve been titled Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sex, Ever, In Metaphors So Thin I Can’t Freaking Believe the Censors Missed Them (They Must Be Dumb As a Box of Rocks).

The same argument (“older is cleaner and better”) is constantly applied to music, as well. Those crazy kids and their dirty rap music! Back in MY day, we only had songs about cookies and puppies and rainbows! And not The Gay rainbows, either!

(Warning: not for the easily offended or the faint of heart) Ever heard a little ditty called Shave ‘Em Dry? Made popular by Lucille Bogan in… oh… 1935, although I think there might be earlier recordings of it. Officially, without question, the filthiest song I’ve ever heard. I’m not sayin’ go look it up right now. I’m just… sayin’.

But for those who would choose to go the path of “well, of course, that blues music” with all the unpleasant and even bigoted ramifications of such a statement, I point you to the whitest music ever, bluegrass. Or American folk music. Whichever you’d like to call it. Here’s a fun and sweet little excerpt from a 19th century ditty called Banks of the Ohio. Pretty! A song about a river!

I asked her if she’d marry me
And my wife forever be
She only turned her head away
And had no other words to say

I plunged a knife into her breast
And told her she was going to rest
She cried “Oh Willy, don’t murder me
I’m not prepared for eternity.”

I took her by her golden curls
I drug her down to the river-side
An I there threw her into drown
And I watched her as she floated down

Um.

‘Kay.

Now that I’ve thrown all of this sunshiny fortified enriched goodness your way, allow me to come to my point. I do actually have one (hush). I am not making a case for or against modern entertainment and its content, nor for or against classic entertainment and its content. I’m not making a case for censorship, certainly. I don’t think the Bible should be V-Chipped or Dracula removed from school libraries or Shakespeare taken out of English-class curriculum. I also don’t think parents should just up and allow their 6 year olds to brush up on their Chuck Palahniuk while watching Saw V. As a parent, it’s your job (and an admittedly fine line to walk) to both disseminate and moderate information, and to know what your child can handle and when, all the while judging the context and the delivery of the information according to your personal beliefs and values.

My point is that I’m really quite tired of hearing people who’ve obviously not bothered to do their own homework tout anything and everything Old Fashioned or Classic as wholesome. Yes, including the scriptures. Sex, violence and profanity are not modern themes. They’re human themes. They exist in the song and literature and artwork of every age and every culture since the beginning of recorded history. There is nothing new under the sun. (Cookies to the first person to identify that quote).

Category(s): Back In the Day, Miscellanea, Must Kill With Death!, Why So Serious?

11 SepThings I Love (or Sorry I’ve Been Such a Hater), Part 1

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I realize I left you for quite a while, Dear Reader, with naught but my wrath to sustain you. My bad. It’s been… weird. A weird last couple of weeks. A fortnight (or so) culminating in the realization that my BABY is ready to move out of her crib and into a BED and my OTHER BABY has a CRUSH on a BOY. *head asplode*

But I’m all better now. I really am. I’ve dealt with it and am ready to let my children grow up and move into different phases of their lives. I’m also a terrific liar.

Anyhow, I thought I’d make up for my recent hate-fest by telling you about some of the things I actually like. Love, even. Things that manage to pierce the scales of my general cynicism and make me happy. I see you yawning and yes, I realize that conflict and sorrow are essential not only the human soul but to decent storytelling, but I promise, you won’t be bored. Because while I do dearly and passionately love a lot of things, I am still not a rainbows ‘n sunshine kinda girl. BTW, this list does not include people, because *obviously* I love the people in my life. This is a list for things.

So, here you go. Most of these will be in no particular order, but just FYI, the last one’s the kicker. Knock yourself out:

Coffee. Thank the lord for the inherent sinful nature of man or I wouldn’t be drinking this precious elixir today. Thieves and smugglers are why I can drink it. Ruthless, greedy cutthroats are the reason I can fire up the ol’ De Longhi in the morning. While I understand the Arabs of history wanting to keep this amazing, magical discovery all to themselves, I’m eternally grateful that they failed. Because I love coffee. I love opening a new package of it and sticking my nose into that first waft of scent, I love looking down at the essential oils coating the lovely little beans, I love the sound of them in the grinder, the gurgle of the machine that brews them, and that happy gasping, choking sound the machine makes that signals that the brew is ready. I love putting my cream in the cup first so I can see the agitation and the rapid color change as I pour the coffee over it. Most of all, I love the feeling I get somewhere in the middle of the second cup. I think most people refer to it as “waking up” or some such. Love that.

Diner breakfasts. Diners were created for the express purpose of breakfast. Mmmmm breakfast. There really is nothing like going out in your PJs and house slippers, slipping into an old cracked booth with a formica table, and having Joleen come by with a thick white mug full of steaming coffee, a couple of plastic tri-fold menus, and a smile. You may be an egg-white omelette kind of person at home. You may be a Kashi cereal muncher or a Nutrigrain bar type or even a nothing-till-lunch-er. But that formica table stands for one thing, my friends: licentiousness. Well, that and decadence. For from that table you may freely, nay, merrily order yourself 3 pancakes, 2 eggs over medium, 2 sausage patties, a side of buttered grits and toast with jam! You may exclaim over it and add butter and maple syrup to various parts of it and stuff it into your face until all that’s left is a toasty crust bearing egg yolk remnants. And you know what? It’s okay! It’s expected! No one will judge you! Because lying within the walls of the Diner, my friends, is a glimpse of Heaven itself. But only before 11 am.

New notebooks. Is there anything more full of potential and possibility than a brand new notebook? Sometimes when I buy one, I like to take it out of the bag, put it on the table and just stare at it for a minute. Wonder what I’ll put in there. What thoughts, projects, random information it will hold. It could wind up holding grocery lists or the spark for that best-selling novel I’ll write someday. Even I don’t know, and that’s the beauty of it. Every time a pen is put to fresh paper, the possibility exists for amazing things.

Escapist fiction. I’ve read a lot of important books. A lot. I’ve been an avid reader and a history buff my entire life and I have read a LOT of classic novels, poetry anthologies that epitomize eras and movements, histories, books of philosophy, religious texts and their commentaries, groundbreaking plays, political and ethical treatises, etc. And now I’m tired. And I want some Anne Rice and JK Rowling, thank you. Not that their books are light and fluffy, but they certainly allow me to mentally check out of my own world and into someone else’s, which is all I ask. No, I don’t want to borrow your copy of My Sister’s Keeper, I don’t want to read the new book about American retail and its ethical failures, I don’t want to check out the latest tomes praising or decrying the current state of world politics and arguing about who’s at fault for what. I want to curl up on my sofa and read about wizards and vampires, thank you very much. Now leave me alone.

Writing. Not as in composing poetry or prose, but as in the physical act itself. The application of a good, smooth pen to a fresh sheet of paper and gliding it along to form words. It’s nice. It’s old-fashioned. It just feels good. And it helps me remember things. I don’t remember things nearly as well when I type them as when I bother to write them down. This is why, despite the rantings of my IT-brained hubby, I have to have a paper calender and to-do list. I also like writing letters and signing cards. It’s a bit more, oh, I dunno, personal. Email is for getting things done. Letters are for expressing personal thoughts. Ah, the art of letter-writing… One I fear is all but lost in this ever-increasing world of keyboards and thumbpads. Plus, writing something down reduces the temptation to use text-speak as if it were actual, valid language. Try writing “OMG, LOL!!” in the next birthday card you sign and see how ridiculous it feels. And I am absolutely for anything that reduces the amount of text-speak I have to endure. English is a beautiful language with a storied history. If it’s your first language, LEARN IT.

There you have it: part 1. Many more to come, I assure you. Because as everyone can clearly see, what’s important to the peoples of the Interwebs is knowing my personal likes and dislikes.

Category(s): Miscellanea

31 AugThings I Hate, Part 2: Assorted and Various

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It’s like a Things I Hate grab-bag! Woo!

So, here I go, in no particular order:

The 80’s Fashion Revival. Really, Fashion Industry? The 70’s Revival wasn’t bad enough? Now you have to bombard me with leotards and leg warmers and SCRUNCHIES (!!!) every time I want to read Texts From Last Night? Apparently so, for you are unrelenting in your evil plan. Travesty upon travesty is foisted upon my innocent and unwanting eyes everywhere I go. I am powerless to stop you. You have pulled the day-glo wool over the eyes of the Trendy and Beautiful, for they appear in public spaces clad like Pat Benetar-meets-8th-grade combo meals. They flounce about in their two-toned tights, gold miniskirts and purple ankle boots, their hair large and their eyes painted brilliant azure, with obvious pride. And complete obliviousness to the fact that they look STUPID.

I don’t mind the onslaught of 80’s movies on TV (Breakfast Club and Real Genius RULE), nor the proliferation of 80’s music on my radio (Tainted Love, anyone? What sums up the 80’s like synthesizers and VD?!). But I do mind going shopping and not being able to find anything not made popular by Debbie Gibson. Enough.

Yo Gabba Gabba. The only explanation I can think of for this show is… hallucinogens. Lots and lots of hallucinogens. With a couple of psychotics thrown in. And maybe some Nyquil for good measure. It is MESSED. UP. It makes me want to claw my eyes out with a pasta fork. And my kid loves it. Sigh…

Pretentious Food. I like good food. Heck, sometimes I even like gourmet food. I can appreciate a well-crafted meal by a talented chef using hard earned technique and years of intensive training. I like it when that food is paired with the perfect glass of wine or classic cocktail and I like it when really great ingredients are used. But I HATE pretentious food. How do you know food is pretentious instead of just good, if a little pricey? Portion sizes, capers, and references to infancy. Your portion size will be roughly the amount your hamster consumes for a snack, all dishes on the menu will contain capers, and roughly half of them will feature something of the “micro” or “baby” persuasion. (Now, I do like capers, but seriously. You don’t have to put them in everything.) What bothers me the most is that pretentious food is eaten mostly by people who eat to be seen and not to be full. Stupid pretentious people.

Rutabaga. It smells like feet.

Mealy peaches. You know how you look forward to yummy fresh peaches all year and you FINALLY spot them in the grocery store so you buy some and you’re working yourself up the entire way home because peaches are SO FREAKING YUMMY and you get home and wash one and your heart lifts and tingles as you take a bite and then BLARGH!! It’s mealy! It has the texture of a mouth full of wet sand! What a freaking letdown. I hate that.

Dust covers. I hate buying a nice new book and sitting down to tuck into it only to find that a large piece of stiff, unwieldy paper is doing its darndest to prevent my reading pleasure. It slips and slides and untucks itself from its proper place behind the first and last pages and is just generally about the most annoying invention ever, well, invented. I usually take them off. And promptly lose them. Or they wind up crushed and crinkled under a pile of paper. Completely useless, dust covers. And they don’t even do the job they were created to do because even if I keep them on, the top of the book’s pages still winds up under a layer of… you guessed it, Dear Reader… DUST! Sigh.

There you have it. A few of the things I hate. Maybe tomorrow I’ll post Things I Like just so to give you a reprieve from my consuming negativity.

If you’re nice.

Category(s): Miscellanea, Must Kill With Death!

26 AugAnd I’m the Devil. Now kindly undo these straps.

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I think my child is possessed of a demon. Or maybe she’s just a toddler. But I’m leaning toward demon. The Demon of Making Mom Eat Humble Pie.

See, my oldest, Ella, is honestly the sweetest, most compliant child on the face of the earth. She never went through the Terrible Twos. She never threw a tantrum, not once, ever. I think one time she thought about it and then I gave her “the look” and she stopped. Instantly. Seriously. The most grievous and/ or punishable thing she’s ever done was to cut her own hair when she was 6. Now, you might be thinking (especially if you’re female) that I’m a cruel and horrible mother for punishing her for that, considering we’ve ALL done it. Give a 6 year old a pair of safety scissors and a haircut is not far behind. But the punishment wasn’t so much for self-styling.

It was for SCARING ME TO DEATH.

One night, Ella was playing in her room, or so I thought. My pregnant behind was on the sofa watching Charmed and trying not to be sick (not because of Charmed). Quite suddenly I realized it was quiet. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that, when you have a child whose “inside voice” regularly exceeds the legal residential sound limit, signals that something is very, very wrong.

I hauled my whale-like frame off of the sofa and went to check. On my way back through the hall, I noticed long chunks of something shimmery on the carpet. I bent to pick them up (no small feat, I assure you) and realized.. OMG, that’s Ella’s HAIR. HER HAIR IS FALLING OUT IN CHUNKS. Which obviously means she has some horrible type of cancer and it’s already advanced because we didn’t catch it quickly enough and now her hair is falling out in CHUNKS! I must have picked up at least a dozen HUGE CHUNKS of hair on the way to her room, clammy fear and dread growing with every single one.

By the time I got to her room, I was a mess. I mean, a terrified, teary mess. The first thing I noticed upon opening her door was that her ENTIRE ROOM was covered in chunks of hair. I think I let out a sob. And then I saw her. She was poised ,mid-haircut, on her bed, scissors in one hand, hair in the other, with a look of utter terror on her face. Her hair had been at least a foot long, and now she looked like Robin Tunney having a psychotic episode in Empire Records.

I laughed. I kid you not. I laughed until I cried. And then I told her she couldn’t watch TV for two weeks and would have to use her allowance to pay for a haircut. Because I had never been so terrified in my entire life as I was picking up all that hair.

For a good 6 months she looked like one of our older sister’s Barbies after we’d been secretly playing “beauty shop” with them in our closets and then tried to return them like nothing had happened (oh, come on, you know you did it, too).

Now she’s 9 and will occasionally be a little sassy or throw an eye-roll in when she thinks I’m not looking. Even the Haircut of Doom didn’t involve an ounce of bad attitude and was done more out of a feminine desire for a new hairstyle (understandable, says the woman with Bettie Page bangs) than any latent anger management issues.

Of course, I had chalked all of this sweetness and light up to my impeccable parenting. Obviously, my supremely well-behaved child was solely the product of my superior knack for child-rearing. Right? Right?

And then there was Anna. Who has been angry since the day she was born. Probably before she was born, come to think of it. She’s also funny and loving and adorable and her laugh is like puppies and rainbows and sunshine. But when she gets angry, she gets angry. Hell hath no fury like Anna denied.

It started out as just so much loud crying. Can’t have a cookie? CRY! Don’t want to go night night? CRY! Don’t like that Daddy just ate our last Cheese Nip? CRY, and for a good, long stretch.

I had hoped that would be the extent of it. “Surely”, I thought, “A child of mine will eventually wise up and stop this nonsense. For I am the superior parent of well-behaved children!”

And now I am the parent of a demon possessed toddler.

Today, she threw a tantrum. And I don’t mean a “cry and stomp your foot” kind of tantrum. I don’t even mean a “cry, stomp your foot and shake your fists God-ward” kind of tantrum. I mean a full on Joan-Crawford-over-wire-hangers TANTRUM.

We have a daybed upstairs that we’ve turned backward against the wall so she can’t climb on it and fall off. When she began this pissy-fit, the Husband placed her little butt on the mattress and told her, “time OUT.” At first, it was the typical crying and yelling (I swear if I could translate those cries, they’d be NSFW).

And then, Dear Reader, it grew.

My child began to flail, and then to toss her head around like an augmented chick in an 80’s hair band video, and then to THROW HERSELF on the mattress. Repeatedly. And with force. And then she’d lie there and arch her back and let out the most ungodly sound known to man. It sounded like a wolverine in a blender. And then she’d stop for a second to see if we were watching. Then she’d stand up, jump up and down while doing the head-tossing thing, and throw herself down again.

This went on for 20. Freaking. Minutes.

Now, you may be asking why we didn’t pick her up or try a distraction technique or try some, I don’t know, chamomile oil or something… The truth is, I simply didn’t know what to do. Because I had never experienced fury such as this. I was in awe of it, the way I am in awe of hurricanes and tsunamis and forest fires.

Finally, I said, “Anna! Anna! Do you want to go night night?” God knows, it was a reach. It could’ve escalated the whole thing and I might have wound up with full head rotation and pea soup. But she, to my shock, stopped cold and said, “Yes.”

So I put her to bed. And then I crossed myself and prayed she wouldn’t find a way to sneak out of her crib in the night and find where we sleep.

Sometimes I think God is laughing at me.

Category(s): Homefront Hilarity

20 AugThings I Hate, Part 1: Loud Commercials

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Imagine this, Dear Reader: It’s noon on a Thursday. The 9 year old is off playing at one friend or another’s house, the baby is finally napping, and there’s laundry to fold. Now, as every SAHM knows, the coinciding events of baby naptime/ dry laundry means one thing: “I get to sit down and watch an hour long TV show without guilt!” Because motherhood is defined by guilt. Lots and lots of guilt. More guilt than a pubescent Catholic schoolgirl with a crush.

So, you schlepp the laundry basket to the sofa, pour yourself that all-important noontime cup of coffee, and you turn on the TV. Ah, NCIS. A guilty pleasure if ever there was one. You adjust the TV to a pleasant volume and commence to fold. Intro.. Oh no! That female petty officer is jogging at night! This can’t be good. A rustle in the bushes. But she’s listening to her iPod. Petty Officer, listen! He’s in the bushes! Fold a pair of toddler pajamas. He’s going to get you! THERE HE IS! Fold a school t shirt. He’s chasing her! LOOK OUT! Fold hubby’s boxer briefs (mmm, boxer briefs). He grabs her! She’s terrified! Aaaand opening credits.

Knowing there’s at least 2 1/2 minutes before the show resumes, you turn your attention toward the coffee. It’s a gorgeous, titillating amber and it’s HOT, folks. Hotter than a Catholic schoolgirl reading Anne Rice by flashlight. You bring it to your face. Mmmm, smells delicious. Sweet amber elixir of life. You commence to take a sip.

Suddenly, “PROACTIVE! DIRECT BUY! SHAMWOW!” Someone is YELLING AT YOU!!! It’s 38 TIMES LOUDER THAN NCIS! You SPILL YOUR HOT DELICIOUSNESS ALL OVER YOUR LEGS, CAUSING 2ND DEGREE BURNS BECAUSE IT’S FREAKING LOUD!!! I WILL SELL YOU THIS PRODUCT BY MEANS OF AURAL ASSAULT!!!

Hate. Will. Kill. With. DEATH.

What on EARTH made advertisers think that the fastest way into my checkbook was SCARING THE CRAP OUT OF ME AND MAKING ME BURN MY LEGS??? Why is LOUD considered the best marketing strategy? Sorry, dude, but bursting my freaking eardrums is probably not going to convince to buy a Chia Obama.

These advertisers must be the same people who attend Town Hall meetings. They obviously subscribe to the same philosophy on how to be heard.

Dear Marketing Geniuses:

The quickest way to guarantee that I will never, ever, in a million years send a stinking dime anywhere near your direction is to scare me ****less and send me to the hospital with burns. You suck and I hate you.

Kthxbai.

Category(s): Must Kill With Death!

19 AugSleep deprivation is my favorite hobby

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As previously mentioned, I’m a swing dancer. By “swing” I mean “lindy hop” (Google it. It’s awesome.) Well, lindy hop and blues and a tiny, itty bitty scrap of West Coast Swing. I’m by NO means the best dancer (no, seriously), but I’m pretty decent (I think, anyway. But that’s just me.) There are weekly and monthly dances here in Austin, which are fun, but I don’t get to go terribly often because my husband is also a dancer. And a DJ. And a sound guy. And a volunteer for various other aspects of this crazy hobby. And we have kids. And he gets paid a little to be there doing whatever he’s doing and I don’t.

So, every once in a blue moon we’ll hire a sitter, pack our fanciest duds and our dancin’ shoes, and head out of town for what’s known in our bizarre little community as an “exchange”. The point of a dance exchange is to get a whole bunch of people from all over to come to your little neck o’ the woods and, well, exchange dances. It’s tremendous fun, you get to make a metric crapton (that’s an actual unit of measurement, btw) of new friends (this is why I have 600+ Facebook friends, people), you get to do what you love best ever in the world (DANCYDANCE!!), and you get see a cool city’s sights and eat that city’s awesome local delicacies and stay in that city’s finest lodging establishments!

*snicker*

I am such a liar. A bad, wicked liar. That whole last part is completely and utterly untrue. I think this would all be best explained by giving you a sample “dance exchange” schedule. Here you go:

Friday:

5:30 am- Arrive at airport 20 minutes after you intended. Wait impatiently in line to check in and nervously in line for security check (why nervously? Because that’s TSA’s JOB, people. To make you nervous for no reason whatsoever.) Run to gate and board plane. Fall back to sleep during the safety announcements.

10:30 am- Drag your behind off the plane and stumble to the Starbuck’s kiosk to awaken thine self enough to read that book you brought in anticipation of your 3 hour layover in Utah or wherever. Try to ignore the screaming of the infant next to you. Poor thing’s been strapped into a carseat for 6 hours. You’d be screaming too.

1:30 pm- Back on the plane. Try to fall asleep. When that fails, watch the in-flight movie. Unless it’s something like College Road Trip, starring Martin Lawrence. Then read SkyMall and meditate upon how much you really want that handcrafted replica of Hermione’s Time-Turner.

5:00 pm (maybe? Don’t know anymore.)- Land in your host city! Yay! Wait impatiently for your luggage and drag it out to the curb. The event organizer told you there’d be “someone from the staff” there to pick you up. Wait. Wait longer. Bum a newspaper. Wait longer. Call the event organizer. No answer. Browse the yellow pages for cab companies until you realize you don’t have the name or address of the place you’re going. Sigh a lot. Try calling again. Start to cry (or rage, your choice). Then quickly paste on a “Oh, no, I didn’t mind waiting!” smile as your ride finally pulls up.

7:30 pm (Stupid traffic…)- Arrive at your host’s house/ apartment/ hovel. Now, this calls for an explanation for the uninitiated. WCS dancers stay in hotels. Salsa dancers stay in hotels. Ballroom dancers stay in hotels. Lindy hoppers and blues dancers do NOT stay in hotels. They sign up for a thing called “housing”, which is basically a system by which organizers place out-of-towners in the homes of local dancers for the weekend. You grab a bed- *snicker*. Sorry, lying again. You grab an air mattress, yoga mat, bit of sofa, recliner or floor and cozy in. You may know your host and/ or the other 18 people staying in their 1 bathroom studio, or you may not. Regardless, most of the time, as rough as it sounds, it really is fun. Anyway, you find an out of the way place (like the middle of the hallway to the 1 bathroom) to stash your suitcase, and then your tummy reminds you that you should think about feeding it something.

Great! You’re in awesome new (to you) city and you hear it has AWESOME food! You get all twitterpated thinking about the 19 yummy food places you looked up on travel blogs last week, and then your host politely informs you that a) the dance starts in an hour, b) you’re 14th in line for the bathroom and c) there’s only one car.

9:00 pm- You sit in the car (riding bitch with 4 other people) trying to breathe while you shovel down some Taco Hell.

9:30 pm- You arrive at the ballroom/ church basement/ Latin studio and stand in line to confirm your event registration. You get a very pretty purple paper wristband that’s designed to withstand the one shower you might be able to score before you get home on Monday. You check your packet for your t shirt, some samples of whatever the event organizer who works in skin care R&D was able to score, and a carefully written, hastily printed booklet full of incorrect addresses to venues, city maps from 1910 and the locales of all the fast food joints within 10 miles.

But then you look around. The dance is in full swing. The joint is JUMPIN’. The DJ’s rocking out over at the table and looks to have to seriously good stuff lined for you. Suddenly, you spot that guy/ girl you met at the 2nd to last exchange you went to and with whom your dancing immediately raises a notch or five. He/ she spots you too and comes running over and suddenly, you’re swinging out mightily. The floor is spinning and so are you and the music is getting under your skin and into your blood. And you remember why you do this.

1:00 am, Saturday- Off to the late night dance! That’s right, folks. Once the first dance ends, the second begins. And it goes till 5 am.

6:30 am- Die on your bit of sofa.

12:30 pm- There’s an afternoon dance in the park! Get ready! Hurry! We’ll stop at MickeyD’s on the way. Drive through, though.

1:30 pm- It’s 85F and you’re gonna dance all afternoon if it kills you. Which it might.

5:30 pm- Squish back in the car with the other 17 people who all smell exactly the same as you do. Stuff that Subway in your face.

8:00 pm- Time to get ready for the Saturday night dance! You stink. You’ve been trying to get in the shower since you walked into the studio at 6 pm. You spot that girly-girl from Ohio eyeing the shower door while trying to surreptitiously remove her hair dryer and flat iron from her suitcase. But YOU, friend, are READY. You sidle over toward the bathroom, pretending to look for your shoes, the door opens and BAM! You’re IN! Flat Iron Girl will just have to go curly, tonight.

9:45 pm- You finally show up at the dance. Seems Flat Iron Girl was opposed to her natural waves and would not comply.

1:25 am- Yep, you guessed it! Time for the late night dance! Unfortunately, in this part of town (the dance studio is situated between an abandoned warehouse and a field), the fast food joints close at 10 pm. You’re ever, ever so grateful for the granola bars and mushy bananas your event organizers have so thoughtfully set out for you.

7 am- Flat Iron Girl was a little.. um.. difficult to locate (seems she’d rediscovered Rockstar Dancer Boy from DC) when it was time to leave the late night dance. You finally managed to get her in the car and back to the studio. You die, again.

You repeat the Saturday schedule on Sunday, right through the late night dance. After hugging all 250 other dancers goodbye and getting FB info and phone numbers and pictures and your other shoe, you catch the bus/ metro/ cab to the airport. You couldn’t get today off of work so your boss said you could come in at 2 pm. You fall asleep at the gate and nearly miss your flight, except that the screaming infant in the carseat jolted you awake at the last call for boarding. Board the plane, if you can still walk. Promptly die. Spend the next several days sick and in bed.

Now, you who are not dancers may be reading this and shaking your heads in disbelief and going, “This biznitch CRAZY!”

Well, maybe I am. But I love it. I LOVE IT, I tell you. I love the lack of sleep, the failing air mattresses, the fast food and the cramped transportation. I love staying in the home of someone I’ve never met with 17 other people I’ve also, well, never met. I love the late nights and the early mornings and the laughs and the inevitable inside jokes (miss you, Tessa).

But mostly I love the sheer joy of dancing and dancing and dancing to the music I love. I love the energy it gives me. The way it sustains me for hours, nay, days upon end. It’s a crazy, nonsensical, sleep-deprived lifestyle, but I LOVE it.

Thankfully, for this event, we’re only driving a couple of hours. Believe it or not, not having to spend a whole day or two in and out of airports makes a huge difference in how much energy I have to put into the weekend.

But that still doesn’t mean I’ll be doing any sleeping.

Category(s): Mommy Needs Grownup Time

19 Aug(Bonus post!) When Cheese Food Attacks

5 Comments »

I made my favorite breakfast casserole, yesterday. One of The Girls, Mrs. K, introduced me to it. It’s delicious and yummy and all sorts of good. Basically, you mix 6 beaten eggs, a cup of milk, a cup of biscuit mix, a pint of cottage cheese, a full pound of shredded cheddar and some salt in a bowl, then you dump it in a baking dish and bake it at 350 for 40 minutes. Best damn thing y’ever had. And great for mass, week-long family breakfasts that you can just nuke and not have to actually make while you stumble around in your PJ’s at 6:30 in the morning and fumble with the coffeemaker which resolutely refuses to allow you to set its timer so you don’t have to fumble with it. (Whew.)

So, yeah. Breakfast casserole. I made it yesterday. But I didn’t have any shredded cheddar. What I DID have was a hugenormous (think wholesale club-sized) bag of American “cheese” slices. I say “cheese” and not cheese because cheese is.. well, cheese. “Cheese” is Processed Cheese Food. It’s what cheese eats. Anyway, so I chopped up a bunch of slices of cheese food and threw them in the mix. Turned out pretty tasty, all things considered.

Now, I have an almost-two-year-old named Anna (“Nanners” to us). Child loves her some eggs. Which is fantastic, considering she won’t eat meat (except “tacos”, which is any sort of ground meat, and bacon. At least there’s that). So, for lunch, I decided to give her some of my yummy casserole. I warmed it up just a little in the ol’ microwave (because, really, who wants cold eggs) and set it before her. She immediately tucked in. I put some “t’toons” on the tube and turned my back for a few minutes to Internet (it’s a verb, now).

A few minutes later, I turned around, due to some indescribably happy noises coming from the high chair. What I found… well.. was this:

And this:

My child had been attacked by cheese food. And it had done terrible, horrible, awful things to her. Held hostage by cheese food, she had obviously developed a serious case of Stockholm Syndrome, because she appeared to be loving every gooey, sticky, cement-like minute of it.

I just turned back around and continued looking at LOLCats. I needed a minute.

After my minute, I walked into the bathroom and drew a bath (I’ve always wanted to use that phrase. So elegant and.. uppity.) I went back over to the high chair where the poor child was squealing with Stockholmy delight as she RUBBED THE STUFF IN HER HAIR. And I mean, she was goin’ at that hair like a Jersey boy with a bottle of Dep and a date.

I removed her clothing (which was tricky) and her diaper (which, THANK YOU JESUS, was clean), and I carried her (gingerly) into the bathroom and plunked her in the tub.

It took me, I crap you not, a half an hour to get all the cheese food off the child. The hair was the worst. It was DISGUSTING. It had cemented and was orange and sticking up all over like Perez Hilton in a tub of Velveeta. The process was as follows:

Scrub with baby shampoo. Brush out. Curse under breath. Scrub more. Try the nylon scrubby thingy. Brush. Curse more loudly. Scrub more. Try not to cry. Curse (silently) the baby for laughing hysterically at hostage negotiation efforts. Scrub more.

Finally, I think I got it all out. Except for one rogue piece in her left nostril that I thought was a booger.

I dried her off and put her on diaper and clothes (ones which were not covered in goo) and told her it was “night night”. Now, mind you, up until this very moment, she’d been the happiest critter on God’s green earth. And she’s usually really good about taking naps. Child loves to sleep. In fact, if I wait too long, she’ll ask to go “night night”.

Not today, Dear Reader. Not today.

Everything was peachy until we got upstairs and into her room. It was fine throughout picking out a toy to sleep with and finding our pacifier (which is normally somewhere in the dusty regions behind the crib). It was fine throughout kisses and hugs and “night night, Nanners!”. Then I put her in the crib.

Oh, the humanity.

Granted, she’s been throwing tantrums for a while, now. Or so I thought. But I realized, at that moment, that I’d never actually seen a real tantrum.

This was Britney-worthy, folks. This was why terms like “having a cow” and “flying off the handle” were invented. This was an all-out, balls to the wall, choke-a-biznitch TANTRUM. She was throwing herself against the bars of her crib, down onto the mattress, buying her head in the sheets and PUNCHING THE AIR.

I laughed.

Heartily.

Finally, I picked her up and stuck her face up to mine. I think I startled her into shutting up. I said, “Anna. You are going to lie down. You are going to take your paci. You are going to get under your blanket. YOU ARE GOING to be quiet. And you are GOING night night.”

I set her back down. Now, this is a 22 month old, Dear Reader. Not even 2, yet. She laid down, took her paci in her mouth, pulled her blanket over her and closed her eyes.

WIN!

I win.

She is now reposing as peacefully as a princess. And I am now sitting down for a frakking break.

Moral of the story: Be very, very wary of cheese food. It’s apparently evil in more ways than one. When in a heated state, it will take your toddlers hostage and turn them into raging fiends. BUY CHEDDAR.

Category(s): FOOD! Nom., Homefront Hilarity

18 AugGoddess of my hearth, and some such.

14 Comments »

By way of introduction, I’m Summer (this is ironic, as that happens to be my least favorite season of the entire freaking year). I’m- well, I’m many things, honestly. I’m an Austinite (transplanted), I’m a great cook, I’m a swing dancer, I’m a hypocritical grammar nazi, I’m a highly opinionated modern woman… um.. and I’m a wife and mom. Yes ma’am (or sir), you’ve stumbled upon the most maligned creature that liveth upon the Internetz (well, maybe besides terrorist recruiting sites and Twilight fanfic): The Mommy Blog.

Is maligned the right word? Maybe marginalized is a better one. Ridiculed and stigmatized will also do nicely. Stereotyped, too. You know what I’m talkin’ bout, admit it. The second you read the words “Mommy Blog”, you conjured up an image of a nauseating splatter of kid pics, cutesy stories, handmade denim jumpers and sewing tutorials put forth by some poor soul who hadn’t darkened the door of a martini bar… ever. The same poor soul who has a closet chock full of high-waisted jeans, ratty trainers and giveaway t shirts. Or maybe Sketchers, velour track suits and designer diaper bags.

Yeah, I drank that [insert name brand of colorful drink mix here] for a while, too. But now it makes me sad. It makes me sad not because those blogs don’t exist, but that Stay-At-Home-Mommyhood still has such a stigma attached to it. From the Beginning of Recorded History through 50’s, they told us that’s what we had to do. In the 60’s, they told us, “You’re strong and capable and independent! Get an education, find a career, date like men do! Marriage and kids can wait, and that’s if you even want them! Be liberated! Be FREE!” And that was necessary. If it hadn’t happened that way, we’d ALL still be June and Donna. I’m totally not flaming the feminist movement, here (bra burning aside- turns out, I need one). I’m also not suggesting that any woman should be anywhere than exactly where she chooses.

But doesn’t it seem like the plan backfired a little? I had thought, when I was working full time and juggling that with single mommyhood that it was all about choice. Choice is, after all, a word that’s bandied about more than a ping pong ball in a frat house. I realized the second I made the decision to stay home with my kids after marrying my husband that that isn’t really the case. Seems the tables have turned and now the stigma is not with the career woman, it’s with the “50’s throwback”.

I have to admit, shamefully and with not a little self-scolding, that I’ve been living in a state of defensiveness and apology about my chosen career. I’m livid with myself for ever having answered “Oh, you don’t work?” with “No, I stay home with my kids”. GAH! Did I really say that? REALLY?

Next time, I PROMISE you, Dear Reader, that the answer will be, “SCREW you. I work more hours per week than you do in a month and I don’t get paid for it, biznitch!” Not that I’m up on a cross, here. I love what I do. But the concept of Stay-At-Home-Moms (from now on referred to as SAHMs) as Oprah-watching, bon bon nomming, jumper-wearing blank slates has GOT to end.

But even if it doesn’t, the important thing is that I’ve made peace with it (Because, as everyone knows, important = me. Right? Anyone?). And because the words we attach to things really are extremely important, I’ve changed a few of my self-titles.

I am no longer “oh, I’m just a wife and SAHM”. Nay. I am the Goddess of my hearth. I am the Queen of my Domain. I am the provider of good lovinz and boo-boo kisses and tasty things and belly laughs. Of sparkly floors and hot, strong coffee and fresh laundry and board game nights. I am the Gluer of Crafts, the Shopper of School Supplies and the Maker of Beds! I am counselor, crying shoulder, teacher and.. and ME. I have an identity. I had one when I came into this business and I somehow managed to keep it around. And, if you want, I’d like to share it with you, oh Arbitrary and Fickle Gods of the Internetz.

I feel the urge to impose upon you my random thoughts, memories, kid/ hubby anecdotes, potty humor, rants, holiday obsessiveness and maybe even a recipe or two.

And if you don’t like it, I’m hangin’ out, anyway. So, there. Oh, snap.