Woot! It's Friday

If you are wondering where I will be this weekend. The family and I are heading to Pismo Beach. You have a great weekend!

(Aren't you impressed, I learned how to insert an image)

Department Store Rage

I am not sure that the retailers of America understand what their function is. Their function is for me to go to a department store, with lots of departments and get what I need. The goal of a retailer, in my humble opinion, is to make the life of the buyer easier so that they will always come back and spend lots of money. And that means that when they carry one thing, they should carry all the things that go with it. If you are buying a tent, then they should carry sleeping bags too. Apparently the fine department stores of the Bay Area don’t feel the same way.

This weekend we are heading to a wedding. It is an evening wedding at a nice hotel and so it calls for us to wear cocktail attire. The bride and groom are being especially gracious and they have invited children. I was not so gracious at my wedding, only the children in my wedding were the ones invited. This means that I need to dress my child in a suit because that is what etiquette calls for. Now I have to go and get him a suit because he grows so fast, we don’t keep one around. Along with the suit, he needs a tie, belt and shoes. Right, perfectly logical.

Then why is it all of the department stores that I have visited in the 20 mile radius around my house, while they carry suits do not carry little boys dress shoes. Every store that I have gone to have little boys suits, and then when I go over to the shoe department, they do not carry, not even one style of dress shoe for little boys. Has society gone so casual that they don’t even expect children to dress for occasions? At every store I have kindly asked the store employees if they carry dress shoes for little boys, and then they give me that curious look as if someone rearranged all the features on my face the wrong way and they are not sure where to look. And then I have to say, “You mean to tell me that you sell little boy suits, but you don’t sell the appropriate shoes to go with them?” and all have responded, “I guess not”. And this is where I storm out of store knocking down clothing racks in my wake.

I gave up looking and asked my husband to look for dress shoes at this one store that I was sure would have them. He was so sweet to go and get them. I was a little shocked when I pulled the shoes out of the box and I was holding black little GIRL boots with a chunky heel and silver zippers on both sides. If the stylish heel wasn’t a dead give away the pink insole certainly would indicate that is was GIRLS shoe. My husband thinks no one would care and/or notice. Now if my son had chosen them, I would let him wear them. If my son wants to cross dress, fine, but I am not going to shove him into it. Granted, I told my husband to hunt for a black dress shoe for Drew but I did not think he was going to come back with black hoochie-mama boots for a little GIRL. And the husband is banned once again from shopping. I am thinking that hoochie-mama boots were intentional so that he never has to go shopping again.

Finally we scored some black leather tennis shoes that will do at Target. Honestly, I didn’t think black lace up shoes for little boys would be a stretch.

It's not you, it's your hair

Hands down, I had the best hair dresser in San Francisco. Her name was Brenda and she knew exactly how to make my hair look great. The great part wasn’t even how my hair looked, but I could go to Brenda and not think about what I wanted. She took my likes my dislikes and with minimal explanation could create a masterpiece out of my hair. She understood that my thick hair was shrub, and you kind of had to hack away at it like a bush to make it look good. My hair is deceptively thick and you have to get into the underbrush and thin it out. But she knew how to beautifully coif my shrubbery.

She was brilliant with color and highlights as well. I have a picture of me holding my son from behind and he is looking over my shoulder and after I get done admiring his adorable little face, I look at those highlights and exclaim, “Damn she was good”. I had panic attacks when she went on maternity leave. Before we moved into San Francisco I would commute into the city to see her. When we moved into the city we moved less than three blocks away from her salon. Two years later when we moved 40 minutes away from the city, I still commuted to see her. We were together for 5 fabulous years. And then she dropped me.

Well she dropped everybody, she was quitting her natural born gift of hairdressing to go back to school and be with her son. I guess I understand, I do wish Brenda all the best, it’s just that she was just that damn good. I took it hard. I can honestly say I practically grieved. It is so hard to find someone that does your hair without having to bring photos, color samples, and detailed diagrams for it to turn out decently. She understood hair.

Eventually I moved on and found Priscilla in our area, she does a pretty good job, but she was no Brenda. She was just starting to understand that my hair equals shrubbery analogy and she was almost getting it. My layers were a little blocky, but we could work on it.

I called today to make an appointment for my husband because his head needs a trim and Priscilla has left the salon. She left?!?!? Now we have to start the search all over again. I thought Priscilla and I were really starting to build something together and then she leaves, without some much as even a call. It’s so hard to search through the see of stylists and bad hairdo’s to find another Brenda. Should I put out a want ad?

“Woman with shrub head seeks caring, good, psychic hair stylist. You should be an absolute artist when it comes to color and highlights. Must be willing to cut the hair of husband whose dome needs careful care of remaining hair follicles. We tip well, I mean really well”.

Living on the List

My Godmother Carol is a wonder to behold. I stayed with her after-school during my middle school years before my biological mom stayed home on disability. I loved being at her house and playing with her kids. But they were more than that, they were my second family and her kids Jason and Christy I considered to be my brother and sister. When we came home, Carol was attentive, made us snacks, and made us do our homework. It was heaven and it was normal. It was the only thing normal that I had at that time in my life because my mom was married to my abusive step-father, and no day was normal at home. I loved coming to my Godmother’s house and experiencing the joy of normal. I practice the joy of normal in my own home now. Drama is like vermin to my husband and I, and we keep it out of our house.

My godmother Carol was a wonder to behold because of the amount of sheer tasks that she could accomplish in one day. She got the kids off to school, while they were at school, she worked at home in her husbands medical supply business, then she would pick up all the kids from school, including me and then do snacks, take us to activities, then make dinner. On top of that, the house was always neat and clean. Normally my Mom would come get me before dinner. Looking back, I can understand how tired my Godmother Carol was, and I applaud her for doing what she did. What always struck me was the list. The shopping list, the task list, the activities list, everything was kept straight on the list. When they would go camping, I was amazed at the three page list that she would compile and she would start packing a week before the trip and she would start lining up things to pack in the hallway, everything guided by the list.

I realize that making a list is not an unusual tool and that people have been using them for years. It definitely has rubbed off on me, if it’s not on the list; it is lost in the void. But now, I utilize the ultimate list making tool. I have Excel. Excel is great for business and crap like that, but Excel is my list making heaven. Excel helps me manage everything at home as well. Not only can I list everything and categorize everything, I can total amounts and do nifty things with the excel sheet. It takes list making to a new level with a cool border and a bold font. The beauty of the Excel list is that if I need to add something, no need to re-write the list or make a big mess, all I need to do is add a row and my list stays nice and neat. I find that making lists keeps the completely neurotic side of me in check and that helps maintain the joy of normal in our house.

Here I am about to take my family on a trip, and I have got my list and some semblance of sanity, thank you Carol.

The Battery Powered War

The war started when my son was around a year old. It was us versus my mom (biological). Nothing new of course, she and I have been battling for years. This time it is over something trivial, toys. Now when I say battle, I mean that she flings passive-aggressive statements at me and I ignore them, because that is the key to true communication.

When my husband and I got pregnant and we were formulating all of our lofty parenting ideas, we decided that we wanted out kid to be as technology free as possible. We have conceded on the no TV idea. My husband and I can’t live without TV and we were dumb to think out kid could as well. However, we do limit the amount of time he spends sitting in front of a TV. We limit it because we want him to spend as much of his time playing as possible. The time that he will spend sitting in front of a computer and/or a TV all the time will rapidly approach, and we want for him to experience as much play as possible. However we have not conceded on our lofty idea that our son has mostly non-electronic toys, and this is where we lead into the war that my mother is waging against us.

Let me start by saying that I appreciate all the gifts that she has given us. I could spend hours listing all the gifts that she has given our son. The things that remain constant in all the gifts that she has given us is that all of the toys light up, make awful sounds, and suck batteries. I had no annoying toys that made sounds as a child, so I am not buying the whole, “I am getting back at you for the annoying toys you had”. Also I was the good child and caused no problems so I am also not going to go for the, “You were an awful child and so I am buying your child annoying toys that will suck your sanity away from you”. While the toys are not that annoying, we seem to have some fundamental differences. She likes to get him the flashiest toy possible, while we like to give him toys that are not flashy, but they are still fun. If it doesn’t do a million cool things, it’s not good enough for her. I think that she makes up for not seeing us by buying him a flashy gift. We also don’t want him to equate her with gifts.

At Christmas when we told her that we were giving him a wooden train set with a table (that we were very excited about) she scoffed at us. A toy that does that nothing on its own requires pure imagination and physical effort to play with, why that equated to child abuse to her. So what did she do, she showed up with a “better” train set, that made sounds, produced steam, and zoomed around the crappy plastic track. So let’s recap, my passive aggressive mother found out what we were getting him and then purchased something that in her mind was better. In the end the wooden train won out with our son. My mothers train set was a plastic piece of shit that ran so fast the train didn’t stay on the track and my son was utterly frustrated trying to play with it.

My mom just doesn’t get it; she thinks wooden toys are a punishable offense while we think that toys that are not battery operated allow more room for the imagination to grow. I bought him rubber dinosaurs that do absolutely nothing, and he has a great time moving them as a herd across the dinning room table. The T-rex and Apatosaurus live in relative harmony together. I love it when he makes his Chevron cars make car sounds. It makes me giggle the tractor noises he makes when he plays with his tractor in the sand box. Before we know it we are going to have to pry him away from his Gameboy and Wii, we just wanted to give him a couple of years that where he was not plugged into something.

Now Drew’s birthday is next week. She has been after me for gift ideas. I told her to get what she wants, because she is going to do what she wants anyways no matter what I say or how I feel. She has been badgering me so much that I finally broke down and gave her some suggestions; however I did get smart and did not tell her what we were getting him (more Lego’s). As expected, she calls me from Toys R Us, and she is listing off toys that she thinks he might like (like I know Toys R Us like the back of my hand, he is three and he has only been in that store maybe 5 times if that).

The result, Drew wanted a plain Lightening McQueen Car. What he will be getting is a Lightening McQueen car that lights up, drives in patterns, and sucks batteries. Drew already knows how to say “Ka-Chow” he doesn’t need a car that makes those noises. Drew has been dying for a pterodactyl that he saw. It is a plain rubber dinosaur, to go with the rest of his herd. In response to my idea she said, “But it’s ugly and it doesn’t do anything”. Yes Mom, that’s the point.

From out of Nowhere

As my boss was walking by my cubicle today she said, "You're funny". I popped my head up and said, "Huh?!?!". Clearly she wasn't talking to me before because in response to me she said, "You're funny too, but not in the same way".

I can only take that to mean, I am not funny ha ha. I didn't sound like a good funny. I must be the funny weird one in the office that everyone laughs at behind my back. At least my breath does not smell like ass, like The Horrible Coworker.

Nothing to Wear

I finally figured it out, why I have nothing to wear. I have dissected my closet and I have a hodge-podge of clothes that make no sense, and that is why when I have to get dressed for something other than work, I freak out, scream, cry and pound the floor. Mind you, it is filled to the brim. It is because I am sabotaging my clothing. Yes, can you believe it, I am doing this to myself.

Lack of basics – I don’t have enough of the basics, in the right sizes. Black pants, white shirt, nice suit, little back dress, decent sweaters. When you are going for something basic, but jazzed up, I don’t have enough decent looking basics or I don’t own them at all.

Too much of the wrong size – Besides my works pants, which are not appealing for going out, I have 4 pairs of pants, one that is my normal size, one in the size that I am hoping to be again one day, one in the size of what I hope to never be again, and maternity. I really should just face reality. I should give away the ones that are too big and too small and accept that the just right size, is my size and move on with my life. I think I will be happier that way. However, I will hold onto to maternity pants because you never know when my second bundle of joy might appear, and they were expensive. Although knowing me, when I do get pregnant for a second time, I will probably look at all the cute new clothes and completely ditch my old maternity clothes.

Shirts that are too short – Once upon a time, in a fashion galaxy not so long ago, pants used to come all the way up and they were still sexy. However, all of my shirts are too short, and I need a tank top underneath so that I do not expose anything, like my butt crack. Now with all these low waste pants running around for the last couple of years – that I have no business wearing, and nor does anyone once – just take a stroll at the mall…. all of the shirts that I did like are too short. It did not use to be this way!

Jeans - I have 5 pairs of jeans, none of which fit properly. It seems that all of my jeans have been abducted and shrunk. Even the ones labelled with my proper size and bigger. It seems since I had a child jeans grab and pinch and do not fit properly, even the hem at the bottom has shrunk into some weird shape.

One wrong fad too many – Not being a fashionista, I have a huge problem with fads, most of them are ridiculous (Smock dresses– very angry about, when I am not pregnant I sure as hell don't want to look like I am).But when I do buy something trendy, I think I can pull off the ridiculous frock, but then it languishes in my closet. And then when I do need something to wear I sigh, growl and throw it back, angry that I wasted my money on a fad.

Clothes bought in a hurry – This is the worst for me. Because I have nothing to wear to out and I often have to go buy something in a hurry. It looks just OK, it doesn’t really fit right, but it will do in a pinch. And I will never end up wearing it again, for the very same reason mentioned above.

I am going to take control of this neurosis of “I have nothing to wear”. Anything that doesn’t fit and does not look great goes out. Too trendy of anything will hit the Goodwill pile as well. All the clothes that were bought in a hurry that I clearly don’t love enough to wear again goes out.

OK, well now that my closet is cleaned out, I only have two outfits that look good and actually fit my body. Shit, I still have nothing to wear.

Me vs. HVAC

At the cubical farm that I work at, aka the Bank, our in-house attorney stops by my desk everyday. He is not the one with horrible breath and hair that is another person. The in-house attorney likes to stop by and make fun of what I am wearing. Specifically the fact that I am covered up and wearing a jacket all day, this he finds absolutely comical. I don’t see what is so funny. Sure I laugh along and make a stupid giggle so that he can feel better about himself, instead of giving him the bitch stare.

All the offices at my work have windows, and those offices are all on the outer edges and all the cubicles are in the middle, pretty standard office set-up. The cubicle dwellers never see the light of day unless they happen to get to enter an office with a window or leave the building. What the attorney does not realize as an office dweller is that he has it better than the open range cubical folks. You see the temperature for the whole office is set by what temperature it is in the offices. Why? Because office dwellers loose their ever-loving minds if it is too hot or too cold in their offices, then proceed to complain about the adverse temperature as if someone just threw dog shit at them. Damn that HVAC!!!

In the summertime, when the heat is hitting the offices, they crank the AC up in the building to appease the temperature adverse office dwellers and what that means for me in cubicle farm is that it gets even colder out where we are. It’s already cold where I am, and then I happen to sit under a vent, and all that frozen glory sprays down on me. It’s not even worthy pleading my case to the office manager. As the temperature controller of our building she does not understand the meaning of cold, she is going through menopause and she insists on wearing a heavy wool suit everyday. I have nothing against women in menopause, I will supply you will all the chocolate and fans I can find, and I hope someone does the same for me one day. However, a woman who is having heat flashes, in a heavy wool suit is not best suited to determine the temperature of an office, as her opinion is skewed, in my humble opinion. She thinks I just need to buck-up.

But it really is cold, my hands often go numb and I have to wear my coat all day. They took away my space heater, they said no to my electric blanket, and they said that wearing my ski parka was unprofessional. My only line of defense is layering and hot cocoa. Layering helps me look less like a woman which keeps the horrible coworker from looking at my “shirts”, so it is beneficial that way. However, when this placid attorney stops my desk everyday to make his stupid joke, I really have to hold my self back from saying, “Shut-up you pansy-ass office dweller, you would cry like a baby if you sat where I sit”. I am frekin’ cold and it makes me crabby and clearly not in the mood for the unintelligent jabs that he likes to throw my way. I have tried to explain the office heating and cooling issue to him, to no avail.

Everyone wonders why I have to take so many sick days. Maybe it’s because I have an arctic gale blowing on me for eight hours a day.

Truce!

It’s been a long four months in the battle that is potty training and I am temporarily conceding. My son has worn me down, and I just give up for the moment.

We started the battle by waiting until our son was over two and half, he had all the verbal ques, and he would tell if he had gone to the bathroom in his pants. We didn’t push, we were patient. We did not underestimate our opponent, “the pooper”; we knew that we needed a lot of preparation for a big change like this. We read books and we explained what was happening when Mommy and Daddy had to go to the bathroom. He even followed us into the bathroom for demonstrations. We talked about being a big boy and how cool it would be to wear Lightening McQueen and Elmo on his butt. This was before we even made him sit on the toilet. We got a special toilet, which has too small because our kid is really tall for his age, so we got him a special toilet seat, which he was too big for as well. Sorry kid, you are going to have to learn to hold yourself over the pot, which he did.

Once our daycare lady determined it was time, we didn’t take this battle lightly; he went straight into underwear so that there would be no confusion with the pull-ups. We put him on the toilet in regular intervals hoping that he would catch on and tell us when he had to go. The first couple of weeks went ok, and he was sort of catching on. We cheered when he went on the toilet. However, we have now gotten to the point now where we have one accident a day, and he does not initiate taking himself to the potty if we do not take him. My daycare lady who has potty trained hundreds of kids said, “Well, when they are truly ready, it only takes three days” and that was when we were three months in.

We thought we would try some harsher battle tactics; clearly it was time for psychological warfare. We started with peer pressure, “Your buddy at daycare uses the toilet when he has to go”. We would even sneak up on him and wait until he did the potty dance and then we would jump out and say, “Hey, that is the feeling that tells you to go to the bathroom, go, go, go, and get to the toilet”. We tried parental pressure, “Mommy and Daddy love it when you go to the bathroom on the toilet all on your own”. Then we thought Grandparent pressure would surely kick him over, “Grandma and Grandpa are so proud of you when you got to the bathroom on the toilet”. Clearly at this point we are losing the battle, so we tried bribery, “We will take you to Discovery Kingdom to go see Thomas the Tank Engine, if you go to the bathroom like a big boy”. Still nothing works on this kid. Clearly he is highly trained in stubbornness. We had one last thing we tried, personal responsibility. We are on month four and for the last two weeks we have been making him clean up after himself when he has an accident in his pants (with help from us of course). He has to take his clothes off, take them to the washer and he has to clean himself up. We thought that if he had to take care of himself and clean up that he would be inspired to use the bathroom and we would have won the battle, because he has been so close for so long. I have even sunk as low as to say, “your not a big boy because big boys don’t pee or poo in their pants”.

Nothing, it didn’t work. He knows that he is going in his pants and he just doesn’t care. It seems that he is not connecting with the feeling of having to go and getting to the toilet. So we give up for right now. We explained why we are putting him back in diapers and I am just going to give it a rest. My enemy has beaten me by wearing me down.

"You look like a girl"

Why thank you nice observant coworker. Since my other horrible coworker who makes remarks about my “shirts” was not in the office today, I decided to wear something nice and pretty. I wore a skirt and a shirt that sort of accentuated that I do in fact have a waist line.

When I walked in, my other coworker said, “You look like a girl”. Funny, I actually feel like a girl today. My usual uniform is loose fitting black slacks, black shoes, and a button-down shirt or sweater. I have 4 pairs of black pants for this very purpose. Sometimes I really shake it up and wear brown or grey slacks. I work in a bank and having a flair for fashion is not appreciated in my industry, your interest rate is. I found that my uniform of black eliminates the confusion and time of what to wear in the morning, since I have a very limited window of time to get ready.

Today, I wanted to feel like a girl. I shaved my legs, put on some nylons, and wore a skirt. I however could not find a slip in drawer. I really don’t like slips anyways, I figure if I am wearing nylons and a skirt that you can’t see through or is not too short that it is totally unnecessary to wear a slip.

I feel like twirling in a field of wild flowers, and running across a green field into my lover’s arms. Whew, that moment was fleeting. The reality is that I will be lucky if I don’t plop food all over my skirt or toner. And if I happen to make it through work in tact, then I have my messy son to contend with at the end of the day. “Son, I love you, but I can’t hug you until I get home and change, because this is the only nice outfit I own and it is white”.

Typical

It was inevitable, I took the car in for service this morning and not even an hour later they called me with “bad news”, my tires are bald on the front from unusual wear and tear and would I like to purchase new tires for $625, buy three, get one free. I am not sure I really see the savings of buying three and get one free when it is $625!!! That would be in addition to the $279 service that we have to have. And unusual wear and tear?!?! If you call driving forwards and then backing up on a regular basis unusual wear and tear, then I guess. Do I have sucker written across my face?

I must, because then I called my husband and freaked out at him that our tires were bald and we were going to have to spend way more than we could afford right now. I know that it is the job of the service department to sell me everything under the sun in addition to the basic service that I came in for, but come on. So my husband calls, and suddenly the situation isn’t so grim, if we flip the front tires for the back, we won’t need tires for another 5000 miles. The service guy certainly didn’t give me that option, he just gave me tire pricing. It’s so cliché for the service guy to try and screw me out of more money just because they assume that I don’t know anything about my car. It’s even more cliché of me to be one of those chicks that does not know anything about my car and I have to call my husband in for back-up so that we don’t get taken advantage of. What kind of modern feminist woman am I?

I am the feminist woman who already has too much on her plate. I manage the money, I manage the finances for our second business, the social calendar, the grocery list, gifts, what’s for dinner, holidays, the child, the daycare, lost objects, my full-time job, birthdays, laundry, doctor appointments, dentist appointments, cleaning of the house. (You know you have the same list, we all do) Dog-gone-it, I don’t want to deal with the f@#$%ing car as well. I want to jump in my car and have it work , that is the extent of knowledge that I want with my car. Heaven forbid that I need a tow or have a flat tire, but that is why I pay AAA. I could learn how to care for my car, and do all that, but I am not sure that I have the capability to be responsible for one more thing. I am not even sure if I can be responsible for the second human being we are contemplating having. Most days we are lucky if everyone is fed and has clean underwear.

As it turns out, I have no time to break down the clichés that exist in my life, and become a more evolved woman. I think the conflicting thing about being a woman today is that I have a choice and I have chosen to be responsible for all these other things because I would feel like less of a woman if I didn’t have all of this stuff to be responsible for.

Gastronomically Inspired

I like each meal to be a culinary adventure. When I was growing up in the Bay Area, my parents loved good food. It was not unusual for us to go to Chez Panisse in Berkeley and check out what Alice Waters was up to in her kitchen. Alice Waters is my second Mom’s culinary inspiration (I have two moms, my biological mother and my step-mom, but since I have known my step-mom since I was eight and we have such a great connection, she is my other mom, so I often will refer to her as Mom). Alice Waters pioneered California Cuisine, or as they call it in France, Nouvelle Cuisine, meaning it was light on sauces and consisted of the very freshest food which comes from a fusions of different types of cooking techniques with the freshest locally available ingredients. Often on the weekends our adventures would take us to the latest restaurant that had opened so we could sample their food and see if it was worthy of our patronage. Now don’t mistake me for a food snob, my culinary adventures often take me to a Wendy’s drive through for a Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger and a Biggie Fry. I like everything on the culinary spectrum.

Now growing up with my second mom, who is a genius in the kitchen, you would think cooking would have rubbed off on me, but it didn't. My talent lies in knowing where the best place is to go to get what has gastronomically inspired us for that day. On any give weekend we go for Indian, to Sushi. Then the next day it would be burritos then Mediterranean. My talent really lies in dialing the phone, giving them my credit card number and picking it up or driving us to the best restaurant for what we are craving. It is not unusual for us to drive 45 minutes away from our house for a burrito. It’s because the burritos are just that good, and they know us on the phone when we call now.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy cooking, it’s okay. I love baking and doing deserts. I also love selecting the menu, if we are entertaining. The problem is that I am prep challenged. As my husband who used be a chef, I am mise en place challenged. Yes, we call cutting and dicing mise en place (everything in its place) in our house since my husband used to be a chef, we use the "correct" term. The issue is doing the cutting, and dicing takes me a long time, and since we love really fresh ingredients, we often don’t used canned anything, because fresh ingredients are always available to us. So that means that all the chopping is up to me, and the assembly, and it takes me a frustrating amount of time. That and my husband gets frustrated with my interpretive version of dicing. Since my husband does not like the way I mangle the ingredients, I often defer the cooking to him, because he is good at it.

Now the tricky thing has been trying to indoctrinate our young son into our love of food. He is expected be the third generation foodie, and we don’t want him to let us down. So far the only things I can get him to eat are cheese, veggies (which is fabulous), Tyson’s Dinosaur Nuggets (they are Trans fat free), macaroni and cheese, and fruit. Although, I will have to say does anything breakfast or desert. However, I can’t even get this kid to eat Spaghetti O’s (Annie’s Organic Pasta O’s) or anything savory. He completely rejects anything meat other than chicken nuggets. I know he is young and therefore a picky eater, and I am thankful I can get him to eat what I can, but I hope he knows that he was born into a family of meat eaters and it’s going to be a challenge if he goes vegetarian on us. In the meantime, we keep pushing meat and all different kinds of food in hopes that his foodie genes will kick in and he can enjoy all the culinary adventures we go on.

Friday at 5pm, where are you?

It’s Friday at 2pm and my brain is leaking out of my ears from boredom. All I can think about it getting on with my weekend with my favorite guys. It seems like the week after a short week seems exceedingly longer than any other week.

I just can’t wait to get out of here and start the weekend which consists of laundry (but of course), grocery shopping (It’s no joke, we really need food and toilet paper), helping a friend move (building up moving karma for when we need to move), listening to our dear friend sing the National Anthem, and a haircut for the child (that cowlick on my child’s head is starting to bug me).

What are you up to this weekend?

Dear Coworker....

****Warning: Snarky rant about to ensue****

I have a list of grievances:

1. Shut the fuck up. They can hear your monkey laugh from across the building. Why don't you just pound on your chest and pick your fleas with your door closed.
2. Your hairstyle is played out. The slicked back pompadour with sideburns went out in the 50's. Unless you are in a never-ending run of Grease or your are submersed in the San Francisco Swing culture (which I highly doubt because you are so lame), get a new look. Same with your glasses. My dad wore those in 1965 and you were not even born yet. You do retro very badly.
3. Stop walking around with your arms protruding out. You have informed us all that you work out and we still can't tell, nor do we care. So just put your arms down, your are blocking hallway traffic.
4. Seriously, shut the fuck up. When I am on the phone with clients, they can hear you yelling, "Fuck!" and this is while you are in your office. I have nothing against cussing, but come on, do you have to yell profanities all day?
5. Stop throwing staplers and kicking your garbage can at your direct reports. They work really hard for you, it would be great if you could show them an ounce of respect.
6. In the wise words of George from Dead Like Me, "Your breath smells like ass".
7. Find better mints for your ass breath. When you eat those gawd awful mints it smells like chalky, Pepto-Bismal, ass. You can't cover up ass breath, you need to go see a Dr.
8. Stop hanging your tooth brush over my cube. Brush your teeth and take your tooth brush directly back to your desk. Don't dangle it over my cube. Like I said, I don't want to smell your tooth brush that smells like ass.
9. Do not ever say to me again, "I bet you wonder why I am still single". I don't wonder, I have the facts.
10. When I am on a conference call with a vendor, do not bug me 11 times (I counted) to make smart-ass remarks.
11. Stop referring to my son' daycare as "Baby Jail".
12. Stop whistling the theme to Spider Man.
13. Don't ever stare are my chest again and say "Nice Shirt. I have never worn that shirt again and I make it a point to wear things that look like smocks and cover me completely.
14. Come to think of it, don't ever look at any part me again. Every time you look at me and laugh it makes me want to scrub myself with bleach. I can tell what you are thinking asshole.
15. Shut the fuck up all ready. I can still hear your conversation even though the door is closed.

If you could pretend that I don't exist or if you could disappear, that would be great.

****This conlcudes the Snarky Rant******

"I'm Sad"

My son is a month away from being 3 and in between activities or in a quiet moment he says ALL the time, “I’m Sad”. When he says that, I find myself trying to pick the pieces of my heart out of the garbage disposal. We try so hard to make everything good and healthy for him. I know that he is discovering emotions, but he really seems to be focusing on this sad thing. He will occasionally say when he is happy; he never says when he is mad or frustrated. I wouldn’t feel so guilty if he would express all the ranges of emotion.

In reaction to this new emotional development my husband and I have been talking about when we are happy and what makes us happy when we are sad. I try to direct our son to think about things that make him happy so that he can learn to deal with being sad. I acknowledge that he is sad, and try to make sure he knows its okay to be sad. He lives in a loving home, when we get home, he gets dedicated attention, on the weekends it’s all about him. He is not lacking for toys or educational stimulus, so I am completely confused about what this kid is so sad about.

It especially gets me when we are on our way to daycare. Even though he loves being at Miss April’s we will be driving and he says, “I’m sad”. And then I will ask, “Why?”, and he will reply, “I want to go back to home”. Yeah, me too! I wish I didn’t have to work and I hope that we can get things financially arranged so that I can stay home just for a couple of years or at least a job that is flexible with school hours. On top of that, what really gets me is he now is cognizant of the fact that he does not stay with me all day, and clearly would like to stay with me all day, and that really rips at my heart. But now, he is about to head into pre-school and he will not get to know what it is like with the two of us home together while he was little. Not that I am about to trade everything in to be a SAHM.

It’s times like these where I wish I could download his manual and fix it. I just want him to be healthy, happy, and well adjusted. Could he be doing this to get attention?

It's Not Hot Anymore

Now that she is in jail, can the world just forget about Paris? I figured that since she broke the law, drove drunk and could have killed somebody that the world would be disenchanted with Miss Paris Hilton. I thought that since she was locked up we could just forget about her, you know, forever. After all, she is not the first heiress to go to prison, don’t forget about Patty Hearst.

Let’s play the world’s funniest joke on Paris. How funny would it be for her to go to jail and she comes out, and nobody gives a shit about her. Let’s stop taking her picture, stop writing about her, stop her shows, remove her lame as attempt at porn, and when she gets out, “Surprise”, nobody cares.

I don’t buy magazines that feature her, or read gossip columns that do. I am doing my best to avoid her, but she is all over every TV program, the radio, and quite frankly, it’s just not hot anymore. Not that I ever liked her to begin with. The more I try to ignore this girl and the evil media outlets that support her, the more she doesn’t go away, not even in jail.

I implore you world to forget about Paris Hilton. Let her slip into the abyss. You still have Britney and Lindsey, just let one of the tartlets go, for the love of god. I am tired of the trio of obnoxious idiots Paris, Britney, and Lindsey. You rich spoiled girls, you have so much money, hire a driver. You know how we real people do it, we ask one of our friends to be a designated driver or (gasp) we take a cab. Thank god you tartlets are at least wearing underwear these days.

My Kingdom for a California King Comforter

When you first move in with your significant other, for me, the sleeping arrangements are one of those important issues. It was potentially a deal-breaker between my husband and I. When we met he had rock hard queen size futon mattress bed. And when I say rock hard, I mean that there were these masses of cotton in the mattress that had formed round protruding mounds that felt like rocks, and the parts that were not rocks felt like plywood. I was used to a double pillow top queen bed, befitting The Princess and the Pea. So when he got his first bonus ever, we headed to Sears and I made him buy a bed. I think a good bed is the foundation of a good relationship.

So after looking at all our options, we decided on the California King Mattress. I have no idea why the state of California has been honored with its own mattress, but there you go. It just so happens that a California King is longer than a king or Eastern King. We went with a California King because we are a tall family. My husband is 6’3” and I am 5’9”. Even though I am only 5’9”, which not all that short I can take up as much space in a bed as a person that 7 feet tall, which is kind of sad because that essentially leaves my 6’3” husband with a twin size bed amount of room in our bed, but he said “I Do” so that legally binds him to our sleeping arrangements.

So here has been the kicker with our California King bed, we can find sheets and we can find mattress pad covers, but finding decorative California King Comforters are extremely difficult. True, they can be found online for hundreds of dollars, but you know we have been on a budget for a while now. We can find down comforters, but not duvet covers for the California king, and a down comforter is problematic in California. So for the last 10 years we have had a standard king comforter & duvet cover on our California King bed, which means either our feet can be warm or our shoulders, and if you want both it requires the application of more blankets. Was it too much to ask for a California King Comforter that was not plain white that did not cost a fortune? And frankly I have been fed up with duvet covers and the little clippie things that you have to use to hold it in place. I have only ever wanted a nicely colored comforter for a California King. We have the perfect bed, but not the comforter to go with it.

Last weekend we were at Costco facing a bin of comforters that were the exact color I have been looking for, but I knew that it was too much to hope for a California king, after all I have been smited so much by the bedding industry with no California King comforter’s, I didn’t dare get my hopes up, and I am so over having a standard king comforter, that I was not settling for anything that wasn’t exactly what I was looking for. To my amazement, they had a California King Comforter set, complete with shams and a decorative bed skirt. Finally people finally what I have been searching for 10 years, and it was only $120, perfectly reasonable. I was a little teary as I grabbed it and threw it in the cart.

So we get it home, wash it and throw it on the bed, and I can’t sleep because both my feet and my shoulders are warm under one comforter at the same time and it is too strange a feeling. I am sure it is only a matter of time until I can sleep under it, but until then I smile every time I see it.

No Way Jose!!!

I can only be so nice, and I already have a big problem saying no. Evidence has presented itself that I am once again saying yes too much and now people think they can count on that yes from me.

I am an executive assistant at a bank and part of my duties is that I am at my desk so that I can pick up my boss’s phone. Our office has a receptionist desk that has one full-time receptionist and two back-ups that are staffed there everyday. That is a lot of people I think to cover a front desk. So why is it that they are always calling for me to cover for them? It could be a couple of options, either they are incompetent, or I have said yes too often, or both.

I am always the one willing to lend a helping hand. I say yes to everything and regret half of what I have said yes to. I find that some people really appreciate and need my help and only ask sparingly, while others feel free to use it whenever for whatever because they are too lazy to deal with their stuff.

The most egregious event at this current job is when the receptionist said that she had to help someone with technical issue (it sounded fishy, because she is clearly not in IT), but it was an emergency and she needed my help urgently, she said that the other two back-ups were no where to be seen. Well ten minutes into being up there, the two back-ups come from having a smoke break and say to me, “What are you doing up here? We told her we would not be able to cover her for something personal”. I was duped again for doing something nice.

Now mind you, when I cover the front I have to leave everything that I am doing behind and can’t do my job while I am away. And I always cover for them unless I absolutely can’t. I say yes when all the other 5 assistants in the building have said no.

So today, the receptionist asked me if I could cover her from 4:30pm to 5. It was a half-lie but I said that I was leaving early and no I could not cover for her. I am going to try and sneak out early, but I may not be able to. Her reason was that her friend was going to take her to pick up her car that broke down on the freeway. Am I an asshole? I am kind of feeling like one, but if her friend was any kind of friend, the person taking her would wait until 5pm to take her to her car. Or her husband could come pick her up and take her to her car. Or she could ask the other back-up person to (gasp) stay late, as that is her only job is to do back-up for the receptionist desk.

It seems like in my life when I say yes to some people it’s like it gives them license to not stand up and take responsibility for their own situation, because it’s much easier to ask me to bail them out. While I am all for helping people out, I also believe you should not lean on them to the point that they are your crutch. As someone who has dragged around dozens of “crippled” friends and family, it seems like I am doing them a better service by telling them no, and making them stand up and take care of themselves.