Yup, It Kind of Does

Today's Tweet:

Dear Spammers,

I don't speak Chinese. Not one little bit. I enjoy our local Chinese restaurant immensely, but that hasn't helped with language acquisition.  If you really want to sell a product, recruit a visitor to your website, or infect a Nebraskan's computer, you're going to have to do it in English. 

Incomprehensibly yours,

Karen

Dear Paperboy,

I am writing to confess that I have not always fully appreciated you.

For every time I called the newspaper office to complain, every time I muttered under my breath, "You couldn't have a little better aim than that?" and for every look of disgust as I shook a bit of snow or a couple of raindrops off my paper, I am sorry.

For all these transgressions and more, dear Paperboy, I am deeply contrite. After helping my daughters substitute on their friends' paper routes this week, I am duly chastened. I am a new woman. I will never again care where the paper lands.

With the utmost respect, and a bigger tip next time,

Karen

She didn't even sound shaky

I got this email from a friend today:

"Just a note to let you know starting tomorrow I won't have internet until further notice (about a week to 10 days)."

Huh.

She sounded fine. There must be some sort of methadone thing that she'll be using in the meantime. I think she called it a ... what was it again? Oh, yeah. She spoke of a thing called a phone ....

If you give a mom a question ...

(The following is a dramatization. Names, toys, or situations may have been changed to protect the attention-deficit levels of mothers, or to make you laugh. You decide.)

If you give a mom a question, she's going to want to answer it.

If you ask her where the Magnetix are, even though she was about to go exercise, she will stop what she's doing and tear apart your older sisters' closet looking for those blasted Magnetix, not because she's that good a mommy, but because it's driving her crazy that they aren't in there. Soon, she will realize that not only did she forget to start exercising, but she is halfway through cleaning the closet, which was not on today's schedule. And she still has not found the Magnetix.

She will leave the semi-tidied closet in your sisters' room and try another closet. With a triumphant, "Ah-HA!" she will pull the Magnetix from the second closet, hand them to you, bid you adieu and race off to squeeze in a now-abbreviated workout session.

While she's exercising, she'll think about how she has no idea what she's going to make for dinner. This will not please her. She will finish the workout and then wonder, "Now what was I going to do next?" You will ask her, "Mommy, have you showered yet?" Her face will light up, and she will race off to shower.

When she's finished showering, and looking over your sisters' math stuff, you will ask her what's for lunch.

"Lunch?" she'll say, as if you'd just asked her to explain the intricacies of molecular physics. "I don't know. We'll have something. Soon."

Soon, she will go make something, and you'll eat it for lunch. This will get her wondering what's for dinner again. She'll ask everyone what sounds good and then will announce that hamburgers are on the menu.

Then, you'll ask her if you can have a turn on the computer, and she'll say, "Yes, you can, just as soon as I finish checking this one thing." She'll sit down at the computer, and one click will lead to another, and before she knows it, she's read four blogs and she forgot what the one thing was. This will remind her that her youngest child is waiting for the computer, and that all the hamburger is frozen.

She will send your big sister to get hamburger out of the freezer. She will stop at her planner to make a note on her shopping list, and will suddenly notice a blank thank-you note, prompting her to announce that no one has written a thank you note to Grandma and Grandpa yet. "We are writing a thank you note, now!" she says in her I'm not kidding voice. "Where's Anne?"

"She's getting hamburger out of the freezer," someone will say.

"Oh," says your mother. "I forgot."

Hamburger now thawing, she sits everyone down at the table, commanding that they be grateful. Your sister asks, "Are we sending Grandpa's sunglasses back, too?" Your mother jumps, and she exits the scene to go find a box in the garage. While she's rummaging through things in the garage, she notices that it needs a bit of tidying up ... but her plans are interrupted by a call from the kitchen:

"Mom? How do you spell fabulous?"

"Fabulous? Well, you should look it up! Let me go find the dictionary."

And she'll be off to find the dictionary, which is on a shelf that needs to be tidied, and ...

Do you ever have this kind of day?

If you want one, just ask a mom a question.

She may not be Grail savvy, but she's funny

In follow-up to yesterday's Grail Code post, I just have to add this:

Anne-with-an-e may not have seen any of the Indiana Jones movies, but she knows Harrison Ford is in them. She was just asking me about the next movie, and was wondering who Shia LaBeouf will play. We Googled it and found out he's Indy's sidekick, so then she asked who will play Indiana Jones.

"Harrison Ford, I assume," I said.

"Oh, for Heaven's sake! He's 65! What is it? 'Indiana Jones and the Chiropractor of Death'?"

Thoughts on the 10th day of Christmas

Here's an idea:

When you find water dripping into the basement, and you trace it to the cupboard under the kitchen sink, which is full of water, and so it's clearly a kitchen sink leak, and so you oh-so-dutifully call the plumber immediately, because this-is-our-home-and-that's-water-damage-we're-talking-about ... and, so-let's-not-mess-around-and-think-we-can-solve-this-ourselves ... because-of-course-we-can't...

Well, not so fast, missy. Before you incur that $60 plumbing bill, like some people might have done, why don't you check those gallon jugs of water that you had under the sink? What? One of them leaked? Problem solved. All by yourself. And now you can congratulate yourself on being much smarter than I am.

**********

New Year's Resolution:

Lose a few pounds.

Strategy:

Stop eating all the stuff that I've been shoveling in for the last week-and-a-half.

Preparation:

Eat it all right now so that it won't tempt me later.

Uh-huh. I think it makes sense.

**********

The Best Dad

I was just looking for something at Amazon,and found this on the front page:

Click to Vote for Your Favorite Dad:

Homer Simpson
Atticus Finch
Tony Soprano
Cliff Huxtable
Mike Brady
Darth Vader

Now ... who do you think I voted for? (And, he's currently tied for second place with Cliff Huxtable, after Homer Simpson. Doh!)

I never meant for this to happen

You know how dads can be.

They introduce your sweet, darling, feminine little girls to Daddy Humor. And from that time on, your life as a mother is never quite the same. Oh, it's just as good, your life is. And in many ways, it's so much better with each passing year. Marriage gets better, mothering gets better ... everything really does get better.

There's just one, teeny, tiny thorn in your side. Such a little thing, really, hardly worth mentioning. You don't like to pick on Daddy Humor, because it seems to be such a bonding thing between Daddy and the kids. But, ummm ... well, you would never have chosen to watch that particular show with the kids, would you? Or to make a joke about that?

You may fill in your own blanks regarding just how Daddy the humor is, but here's a recent example from our house.

I sat down at the computer and found this on the desktop:


Ramona approached, and said, "Who's that?"

I said, "I don't know. Daddy did it. I think it's a Stooge. "

At this point, Betsy showed up behind me, took one quick glance and said:

"Yup. That's Curly."

Just like that.

"That's Curly."

A mother labors and labors to shield her children from certain horrid realities of this world, but when Daddy Humor raises its powerful, snickering head, there's only so much that a helpless mom can do.

Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.

Ramona observes the safety rules

Ramona does her four-year-old best to grasp, internalize and practice all of the usual safety rules. The actual consequences of each indiscretion, however, are a little harder to grasp.

This morning, she ran to me with a pair of scissors and said, "Are these ones safe for me to use?"

Seeing that they were the blunt-edged pair, I said, "Yes, those are your scissors, but don't run with them. That isn't safe. Please walk, and carry them with the cutting part down."

She turned around and walked away, very slowly and deliberately, watching her grip on the dangerous but coveted cargo, the caution in her step so obvious that I wanted to pick her up and squeeze the cuteness of it.

As she entered the dining room where her sisters were busy creating a paper chain explosion, I heard her say, "I was accidentally running with scissors. But don't worry. I didn't crack my head open."

Hey, who's the parent here?

This morning, I was doing dishes and listening to Casting Crowns. I may have had the volume up a tad high. Maybe. I don't really think so.

It seemed just right to me, at any rate.

Anne-with-an-e came in the kitchen and said, "Ummm, don't you think that's just a little bit loud? Could you please turn down your music?"

A tad high.

Maybe.

I'm dwivin' in my caw ....

In need of a good laugh? Try The Dialectizer.

With one click, my entire blog was redone in "Elmer Fudd" and I can enjoy posts like this:

De Winged Watchman is such a gweat book.

Anne-with-an-e and Betsy wewe wewuctant to begin this book, because, "It's about boys!" I weminded them that some of ouw favowite peopwe awe boys: Atticus, of couwse (and they'ww someday wove fictionaw Atticus as much as they wove ouw Atticus). Matthew Cuthbewt. Dickon, uh-hah-hah-hah. Cowin (once Mawy Wennox wowks hew magic.) Petew Pevensie (and Edmund -- watew, of couwse.) Wew Tuckew. Pa Ingawws. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit!

Or, you can convert to Cockney, Pig Latin or several others. But, I find Elmer irresistable.

[Hat tip to Deal at Catholic Writers Online.]

Verifying we're human

[Disclaimer: This is filed under "humor." Please don't really think that I'm offended by the word tests. Most of you are just far too nice, and will really, actually worry, and wonder if you should stop using them. No. Don't. I'm just trying to be funny. And, now that I've ruined any chance of being funny by explaining my humor, you may read on. But only if you can type this: qwevhtz]

The other day, I read some favorite blogs and slogged through The Test. You know the one -- I use it on my site, too, to prevent automated robots from leaving me less-than-informative spam. I thought, "There's a short post here."

Then, I visited Suzanne, and read this post, and realized that I'm not the only one. And, she just posted my post, so I postponed posting. (Do be sure to read the comments on that post ... Nutmeg's is especially funny.)

But now, I'm going to post anyway, because I have a sick Ramona on my hands and will be going to a late Mass. So, I have time this morning. Poor Ramona, and poor you.

My post was to be entitled, "Things that shouldn't hurt me feelings but do" and the first thing on the list was these little tests, which treat me as if I'm an intruder.

"You don't really belong here, do you?" they seem to taunt. "Prove to me that you're safe. Prove you're human."

With an understanding heart (since my blog asks for the same thing) I do my duty. I type nyzyrrq and then -- I should be allowed to move on, right? I'll be nodded to, approved, waved through the gate, won't I ?

Noooo ... I've made a mistake somewhere. The test pops up again, and asks, again, that I prove I am truly human.

This, of course, is an existential question on which a computer isn't really capable of discourse. Now I'm a tiny bit irritated.

And offended. Not only am I an intruder, I'm a moron. Who can't type. (Typepad is particularly devious, as the letters are placed against a grey and fuzzy background. It's daring us: You. Just. Try. To read. This. The words, "Open the pod door, Hal," spring to mind.)

Sigh.

I try again (and sometimes again) and finally find I've been successful. I'm the moronic intruder who broke the code! I'm in! My comment will be published!

The next sigh is one of satisfaction.

The existential angst has, for now, been overcome. My voice will be heard. I have triumphed over the machine.

Luddites, unite.

Concert-nesia

A long time ago (or perhaps a few days or weeks ... I'm a bit fuzzy on the whole time thing lately) I promised Jennifer that I would get back to the subject of the John Denver concert that I went to when I was in the 8th grade. I suppose I've subconsciously been putting it off, because I feel bad that there isn't much to say. I'm sorry, Jennifer ... 8th grade was a long time ago (I'm as old as dirt, you know.)

All I can really remember is that I wore my green t-shirt -- the one with a hood -- because I really loved that t-shirt, and shirts with hoods were in fashion, but not so in fashion that John would lose all respect for me for being a mindless, trend-following fashion hound, because of course, John couldn't really care less about fashion because he was far too fine a human being to care about such superficial nonsense. But, on the other hand, if John should happen to look my way, I thought I would look at least marginally attractive in green, and that was good, because I first needed to catch his eye if I were ever going to get him to think of leaving Annie for a marginally attractive girl who would show him in that brief moment of eye contact that she could appreciate him much more than Annie ever could, and that she knew him to be a deeply soulful human being who deserved only the best, such as a girl who wasn't too terribly caught up in clothes, but cared just enough about them to wear the right t-shirt to his concert.

(Oh, my gosh. I would rather have all my teeth pulled than be 13 again.)

I went, I saw, I listened. He sang. I sighed. I went home.

(I'm sorry, Jennifer.)

And, I have a correction to make to my previous post on concerts, in which I said that the only people I've seen in concert are John Denver and Three Dog Night (both when I was in 8th grade), and Jimmy Buffett. As I was talking with Atticus, I realized that I've also seen Harry Chapin, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Diana Ross (that was in Las Vegas when I was living a previous incarnation as a product manager and had to travel for business ... I despised Las Vegas and everything it stood for, even in that previous incarnation, so I think I blocked the whole thing out ....), and Dana Scallon (Anne-with-an-e held her hand on stage, and sang "We are One Body" along with lots of other people who piled up there at the end of the show.)

How is it that I forgot all of these other musical experiences?

Given my stunningly bad memory when it comes to my own life, I wouldn't be surprised if I've actually met Elvis.

Do I mumble that much?

While reading The Winged Watchman aloud the other day, Ramona suddenly stopped me and said, "What's a bumpoofle-dee-dee?"

I said, "A what? Where did you hear that, honey?"

"You! You just read it a minute ago."

"I did?"

"Yes. You said Bumpoofle-dee-dee."

Thoroughly confused, I skimmed back over what I'd just read and found this phrase: Some people think electricity is foolproof and easy.

"Oh! Honey, no -- " I corrected, "I said, 'foolproof and easy.' Not bumpoofle-dee-dee."

Anne and Betsy were besides themselves with giggles.

But, oh, it got worse at dinner time. The girls were recounting the misunderstanding to Atticus. Anne said, "Daddy, can I tell you about Bumpoofle-dee-dee?"

"Huh?" said Atticus, understandably foggy after a day of teaching high schoolers. "One poopy baby?"

If I thought the girls had a good giggle at breakfast, it was nothing compared to this laughfest. Anne spit applesauce across the table onto Betsy, and Ramona latched onto the phrase, which she could repeat endlessly, sending her sisters into fits and guffaws.

When everyone finally quieted down, I told the origin of the story to Atticus, but it seemed to have lost its punch. We do, however, have a new family word.

Perhaps we need to add elocution to our curriculum?

The Wisdom of Atticus

You know, he warned me.

He said, "Umm, Karen, let's not do a dry run on the Halloween candy this year."

Meaning: "Don't buy the candy too early." (You know, just to make sure that you know the procedure and buy the right kind and are sure to have enough on hand and all that ... not that there's any other reason to buy it early.)

Why would he say such a thing? Something to do with the old adage, "Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it"?

I'm the doomed sort when it comes to Halloween candy. But, I promise, there will not be a second dry run.

I can learn from my mistakes. I just don't always choose to.

At least they argue about the really important stuff

Ramona: His name is Mr. Snugglekins.

Betsy: No, it's not. It's Pooh.

Ramona: It's Mr. Snugglekins!

Betsy: He is Pooh Bear!

Ramona: NO, HE'S NOT! HE'S MR. SNUGGLEKINS! HE IS NOT POOH BEAR!

Betsy (quietly): He's Pooh Bear.

Ramona (walking away, in a huff): MISTER Snugglekins.

The difference between being 4 and 40-something

When lights-out time is imminent, we 40-somethings rarely jump up and down on the bed speculating as to whether Cinderella is dead or alive.

For Ramona, however, this sort of thing is standard operating procedure -- both the jumping and the speculating. I'm not sure which one I find more charming.

And, now that I think of it ... did she mean the cartoon Cinderella? Is she really so cynical as to think that Disney would kill off one of their princesses? She can be cynical. This is one frighteningly savvy child. Sometimes when I say something completely nonsensical, she cocks an eyebrow, casts her skeptical look upon me and says, "Mommy. You know that's not true."

But, back to Cinderella's possible demise. Perhaps she meant Lesley-Anne Warren?

Oh, no. Now I've gotta go check Dead or Alive before I'll be able to sleep.

I'm back. She's alive.

But now I'll never get "Ten Minutes Ago" out of my head.

The main difference between male and female bloggers is

the use of the word "mean." Not in the sense of a midway position, or something halfway between two other things. No, I mean "mean" as in "that's not nice."

Men don't seem to use this word in the same way women do.

Women bloggers say:

"No mean comments allowed."
"You can say whatever you like, but don't be mean."
"That's just mean."
"How can people be so mean?"

Men say:

"Huh?"

I could be way off base here (and if you are a male blogger who uses the word mean in the above-defined way, please let me know. I could be missing a whole set of really nice male bloggers.) But, in general, I think it's women who, as guardians of civilization, employ the word "mean" to mean simply "mean." And we mean it. We don't like meanness and we won't tolerate it. Especially not on our blogs.

And, if you find this post to be silly or inane, please feel free to say so.

Just don't be mean.

And then there are days like this ....

After blogging (and blogging and blogging ....) about how insanely wonderful and educational our read-aloud time is because it's packed with interesting, insightful, enlightening conversation, this is what was said at the breakfast table this morning, as we were diving into Hilda van Stockum's The Borrowed House:

Me: And, so, do you see how evil can be tied up in an attractive package?

Betsy: Mom, if we're just going to talk instead of read, can I go back to bed?

So, what could I say? I laughed. I laughed a lot. Then I got back to reading.