Never Try to Fool the Girl Detective

It doesn't matter how old you get. Well, now of course it matters. It matters a lot. Why when you're older you can't wear all the things you used to like to wear without passerbys making cougar noises. When you're older you can't dance in public. When you're older you can't use current slang - oh unless some vintage slang makes a comeback then you can because you can claim that you were the original owner of it back in the day. Not only can you take possession of it, you can claim that your particular vintage slang used to belong to Jimi Hendrix or something. Along with those hideous boots in the closet.

However. One thing that doesn't change as you get older is your birth order. And, if like me, you happen to be the baby of the family and if, like me, you have an older sister, then you, like me experienced the horror (or a similar one) that I experienced yesterday.

My sister sent a greeting card to Dave. She purposely used a false return address and she had someone else address it so that I couldn't identify the handwriting and so that hopefully I wouldn't open it before he did. My sister, however forgot that I am a graduate of The Honey West School Of Girl Detectives With Sexy Moles on Our Faces and that I can't be so easily fooled. I ripped open the envelope and inside this card were pictures of me taken in the 70's. One was really really bad, so bad that I ripped it up and threw it away because you're never too old to foil your older sister's evil plans. Besides, the horrible picture was taken during my emo stage (yes we had emo back then but we didn't call it emo, we called it "deep" or "intense" or "stoned." So I had this really serious no-makeup face on (I liked to refer to it as the natural look) and People? it just wasn't attractive at all.

She also enclosed the pic on the right. After studying this pic for a while I came to the conclusion that the 70's generation have absolutely NOTHING to claim as our own. We are a generation of posers.

 
We did nothing but steal symbols and music, styles and drug habits from the 60's generation. But we had no conviction behind it. As you can see here, I am wearing some god-awful shirt and a HUGE cross. Oh, by the way? I'm not religious. Note the enormous American flag used as a patch on my jeans. Truth is I never once had a political view or attended a protest and I didn't even register to vote until my late 20's.

My hair on the other hand is like a character in a time travel movie - It's comes from the Future. I would have loved nothing more than straight 60's hair, but my curly locks would not cooperate so I had to wait until Farrah Fawcet hair was in vogue and then my friends I was the bomb, just as my Future Hair had predicted.

I'm not sure what my sisters beehive oracle was trying to tell her, or what might have been living in it for that matter, but I'm sure her boyfriend would sure like to see what it looked like on her, you know in that prom picture that maybe I just might just have a copy of?

Just Do What I Say And No One Gets Eaten

So, Jen at Sprite's Keeper has this thing she calls The Spin Cycle, where she posts a blog on a particular topic every Friday and others can link their blog posts (related to that same subject) to the original. Yeah, I don't explain these kind of things well, so just go on over and check it out yourself.

Anyway, I found Jen's blog through this one and the Spin Cycle subject this week was pets, but eventually it became hamster specific, which got my attention because I really hate hamsters more than anything on the face of the earth. At least today I do.

Now that you know how I got here from there, which besides being a simply fascinating subject it also made you believe in the notion of "no coincidences" and so I'm sure you are now very eager to hear about my "spin" on pets, specifically hamsters, now aren't you?

Ok, when I say I hate hamsters more than anything (at least today) you shouldn't assume that this hatred actually started today because it didn't. It happened a long long time ago, in a faraway land where children were allowed to do a lot of things their parents should have said no to, but parents were all about being friends with their kids back then because back then they were all pretty much constantly under the influence of natural products they grew themselves.

As time when on, and parents grew tired of being kicked in the shins by their kids in public places, it became apparent that this parenting approach was not working out quite the way they imagined it would long ago as they listened to Led Zepplin IV in someone's basement apartment and so that trend eventually went the way of the Troll dolls, except in small communities of people that once were lovingly labeled bohemian but now we just refer to as "fucking cult freaks."

Thankfully today's parents run after their kids with wooden spoons again.

But anyway, back in the days of gauzy skirts and turquoise jewelry, I had children and I wanted more than anything to feel a close friend-bond with them, the one that could only be felt if I gave into their every whim, which of course included standing in long lines to "adopt" hideous dolls but also included allowing them to do things that went against my better judgment, specifically? Agreeing to let them to bring home the pre-school hamster for the weekend.

This hamster's name was Pinky. Every weekend, a child was randomly picked to take bring the class hamster home. Eventually it was our lucky weekend. And while Pinky herself did not actually do anything to make me hate her more than anything, she was the catalyst to a whole series of very unfortunate events involving hamsters. You see, after our Weekend With Pinky, my daughter had a hamster jonz and there was nothing that would satisfy this other than to own her very own hamster, Pickles.

So we bought Pickles and her cage and her sawdust and her bowl and her wheel and her plasma television, dream house and pink corvette. The only thing we didn't buy was a "Ken" for Ms. Pickles, but she didn't seem to mind. Turns out the reason she didn't mind too much is that apparently Pickles was also known as The Pet Store Pump and had had her fill of the mating scene already.

On the morning that I was scheduled to bring the hamster into my daughter's school for show and tell, Ms. Pickles gave birth. She pushed out so many little pickles I couldn't even count them. No , seriously it was so hard to count so I kept doing it and every time I'd get a different number. Let's just say it was in the 20-25 range. Yes, that is a lot of babies even for hamsters. My daughter, while disappointed about show and tell, was thrilled with the notion of all those pet hamsters and at that point I came out of my C'mon People Now Love Everybody daze long enough to tell her that as soon as they were old enough they were going back to the pet store.

Pickles didn't run on her wheel much after that. She just laid around while little hamsters fed off her. Every time I'd look in the cage, I'd count the babies. Funny I still got a different number every time, and each time it seemed like less. The babies grew bigger in size and less in numbers. Something was a little weird. I called the pet store and explained the situation and first asked if they'd take back the babies, then I asked if it was ok to keep one of them (because of course I wanted my daughter to like me.) They said yes, and yes, perfectly fine. I just had to wait until they were weaned.

But I was worried because I suspected something and it was something horrible. There was no way for these babies to escape the cage and they weren't hiding under the sawdust (I checked) so there was really only one thing that could be happening to these critters. They were becoming tempting little appetizers for Ms. Pickles. My horrific suspicions were confirmed when I happened to look in the cage one morning before anyone else was up and saw half a baby hamster.

I couldn't look at Pickles again.

And every morning I had to get up before anyone else and dispose of the horrific evidence. I tried to understand why Pickles would do such a thing. I tried to let her off the hook going down the whole nature/primal/instinct road but still I couldn't understand. Then I realized something. In the wild The Pickles Kids would have left home by now. They be in hamster college or they would have got themselves knocked up and left to find their own sawdust nest to push out the kids.

But not these little pickles. These guys just would NOT LEAVE. And Ms. Pickles, not at all into being best friends with her kids, but quite into enjoying her kids as a midnight snack, was using her own kind of tough love.

You see my friends, I learned a valuable lesson from Old Pickles that day. I learned to say things like "no" and "because I said so, that's why" and "you heard what I said," and "oh, you did not say that" to my kids. I learned how to make a scary face and have crazy mommy eyes when we were in public places. And though my children didn't like this new mom too much what they didn't know was that I did it all for them. I had seen the horror of Mom Overwhelmed and as God Was My Witness I wasn't going to let that happen to me.

So my kids can say what they want about my mothering skills.

All I can say is I didn't eat a single one of them.

And I for one am damned proud of that.

Best Laid Plans of Kitchen Gadgets and Overdue Rental Movies

I am convinced that inanimate objects have secret plots against me. (This of course is in addition to the theory that large numbers of people who don't know me are also busy plotting my embarrassment and/or demise.)

Dear Readers, I offer for your consideration -the coffee which spilled out of the cup this morning, obviously the result of weeks of planning. Careful studies were conducted to determine the exact angle necessary for the cup (who was in on this plan as well) to tip to allow the coffee (the mastermind of the operation) to successfully exit the cup and onto the floor, and due to extensive practice the coffee on it's descent would manage to touch the tie of my robe which (coincidentally? I think not) had just been washed, dried and folded.

But let's not forget to mention the accessories to the crime, those innocent looking bystanders, otherwise known as the Overdue Rental Movies who just happened to slip out of my hand at the right time, causing me to make a grab for them, resulting in my other hand, the one holding the coffee cup to tilt ever so slightly and the rest, my friends, is history. A plot. A conspiracy.

As much as all my stuff hates me, they also for some reason hate my white cotton robe. Specifically the tie to the white cotton robe. Routinely Kitchen Utensil Drawer grabs hold of the tie and once firmly in it's teeth waits for me to back away resulting in the daily untie-ing of the robe and exposure of the naked body underneath. And then Utensil Drawer laughs one of those evil mucus-y Laughs of the Insane.

There is a chance of course that all of this was an accident, not premeditated by the objects or even something they are capable of even if they took the time to plan it. See even if they did all get together after I'm asleep at night and even if they did sit around and plan what they would do if, just like maybe I used to plan what I'd do if I had Wonder Woman Superpowers, they probably wouldn't end up doing any of it because well, they probably can't and even if they could they wouldn't waste all that energy just to mess with someone like me. I wouldn't be surprised by that quite frankly because no one gives me any thought whatsoever and also? No one ever has. I'm just a piece of the furniture. I'm nothing. Insignificant. A paint chip. A beige paint chip. A saltine cracker. Unflavored yogurt, the store brand.

In other news, I have PMS today.

One Time My Blog Stopped Strangers From Seeing Me Naked

This morning  I was all "Should I take a shower or blog first, shower or blog, shower or blog? and finally I figured I'd just blog because it seemed a bit little more fun to me. No sooner did I settle into a groove of picture uploading and such than a knock was on my door - one of those "cutsy" knocks, you know, like the kind that says "Hey, it's someone you know!!"

So I closed up my robe a little, my enormous breasts ever threatening to expose themselves, and headed out to see who was at my condo door (through the peep hole conveniently installed for just such a purpose.) Before I could see who it was, three men were already starting to unlock the door because they were here to change the filters. And yes, there was a notice sent that I never received.

Anyway I let them in because they had already seen me in my jammies and ratty robe so whatever. They barrelled in and knocked against the overflowing recycle bin full of wine bottles because we finally threw out all the bottles with an inch of wine left, the ones we thought we'd use for cooking with but we didn't use them in time and they all turned to vinegar, so to recap we had this huge GREEN bin of Wino Evidence in the hall by the front door which I had fully intended to  take down to the recycle center today but now I have to clean up broken glass first.

So, anyway, the guys entered the Residence OF The Lady Who Doesn't Get Dressed 'Till Noon and Who Drinks Quite a Bit Of Wine.

Let's just say that I was just the teensiest bit pissed off about this whole situation.

Anyway the point is, if I didn't have a blog I would have been in the shower and they would have let themselves in - and my shower is glass and I never close the bathroom door - so, my friends someone would have had to die. And a very painful death too which would first involve the torture of the privates.

To drive the point home ad nauseam, let me give you a little background about this place. If your friends come to visit, the front desk calls you. If there's a fire drill, the front desk alerts you. If someone in the building has an infected toenail, the front desk informs you. If flying monkeys are invading the city, the front desk warns you, but if 3 strange men are about to bust into your condo and find you naked and not at your best age or weight, the front desk tells them to go on up, and also May the Force Be With You Gentlemen.

So the next time someone gives you that "don't you have anything to do? " looks when you talk about your blog you just tell them your blog friend was saved from a very humiliating situation and several men still have all their "equipment" all because of a blog, and we'll see who is belittling the blog world then, now won't we?

It's All Fun and Games Until Someone is Wearing a Cowboy Hat

I do a lot of walking around the city. The weather is finally starting to resemble something "seasonal" so there are many little kids/babies being strolled around. Yesterday I saw a little boy wearing a bright orange cowboy hat, and although he was grinning from ear to ear I had to wonder "did he choose his outfit or did his mom?"

Then with the speed of light I witnessed an Inside The Brain Slide Show (ITBSS) pictures of my kids wearing all the hats, sunglasses and outfits I dressed them in for my own selfish amusement. And then I spewed out this question to Dave, who just so happened to be with me at the time so I didn't have to use my keen telepathic skills to inquire this of him.

"What if our mothers still dressed us?"

The horror was tangible.

Quickly I tried to remember my mother's "favorite" outfits and I easily recalled a little sleeveless cotton sundress with the pattern of newsprint on it. Yes, WTF indeed.

I easily remembered it because I think I was stuffed into it approximately 382,405,083 times. Did I like it? Not particularly, but then I attended Catholic school and the nuns taught me through threats, fear and corporal punishment that I should be grateful for things like clothes and feet.

I also had a hideous pair of pajamas that were basically giant leggings with feet. And also? They were striped, red and white. Originally I think they were a Christmas present but again I wore them so many times that eventually - due to normal wear and tear and the fact that I was still growing - they made me look like a slightly homeless candy cane.

And yes, of course there is photo documentation somewhere. Most likely my sister has it in her "Photos to Blackmail Janine With" file.

So, mommies out there who have been waiting all your life to dress your little sweetie in pumpkin pajamas please for the love of God have the decency to do it before he/she has any chance of remembering it and no matter what don't take any photos which can, later in life be stolen by an older sibling with too much time on her hands.

In the comments, feel free to share the most embarrassing outfit your mother dressed you in, and/or the most horrifying thing you dressed your own kid in or the worst thing your mother dressed your sibling in and then took a picture, which you now have in your possession. On that note, if you send me said photos I will be happy to post them for the whole internet to see.

The Blackberry was not designed for those with the manhands

Obviously. Those little buttons all cozy and close-together like. God only knows what I'm texting half the time. It's a new language - let's call it Blackberrian. Thank god most of the people I text are fluent in that Language From The Future.

Anyway, when I text, I'm kind of like that guy from Brazil that my late husband used to work with. He was always saying things wrong but everyone laughed and forgave him even for the worst racial slurs because he learned English from watching television and movies and his favorite movie was Pulp Fiction.

The picture on the right is my own personal creation via some free image software that I am currently evaluating (I am now on day 230, 405 of my 28 day evaluation period) and the startup procedure is grueling because evaluation periods are not supposed to be comfortable and it just about drives Dave crazy to watch me open that program and he starts throwing his credit card at me and says For the love of the sweet baby jesus would you just buy it already? but I don't. You know, just cuz.

And so anyway here is the latest creation, The Blackberry with hieroglyphics which I thought was really amusing at first because I was trying to find some language to paste into the Blackberry no one could decipher ( similar to the messages I write with my own blackberry) but then I realized that this is so much easier to read than any of my messages.

It clearly states "I'll be a little late for dinner. Sorry honey."

See the little man at the top is working with another little man (at least I HOPE it's a man) and then there are some flowery looking symbols because he's thinking of bringing flowers home because he's sorry about being late. That sphinx like thing is the wife, sitting waiting, looking patient but she is so not which is exactly what he's worried about and why he's texting her and apologizing. Then there are some things that look like weapons and a horse like thing with a sharp thing near it's butt. This obviously is his way of saying Please honey don't kick my ass or stick some sharp thing up it cuz I'll be home soon and I'll bring flowers. Promise. Much Love, Phineas.

In other news, no one makes scallops like I do.