The puffers vs. the gamblers

Yesterday's outdoor wedding, sit-down dinner, winter hike and child’s birthday party went swimmingly, thanks to the four changes of clothing I brought.

And actually, it was such a beautiful day that I didn't feel like slitting my wrists until after we got to my nephew’s birthday party. But only because Chuck’s brother’s wife is a she-beast. I won’t get into that now, however. Instead I’d like to tell you where I've been for the last week—and not because I want to bore your pants off, but because I think I started dating someone.

It all started Tuesday night. My brother Ted called me in tears. He and his fiancee Holly were having problems. She’s getting clingy and is too eager. He needs space. They would be at our house bright and early Wednesday.

Joy.

On Wednesday, Ted and Holly arrived for brunch. Chuck beat his chest and said he was going to Home Depot; Ted would help him. Holly and I spent the next two hours watching Junior push Thomas the Train around the track.

"Is Thomas puffin'?"

"YES. YES. YES."

When Chuck and Ted got back to the house, I contemplated puffin’ myself.

Ted informed me and Holly that he was getting together with the boys to play poker; Chuck offered to sit in for someone. Holly looked forlorn and asked if I wanted company. Despite my internal noooooooooooo, I heard myself say yes. I spent the next few hours drinking wine and listening to Holly’s childhood pet stories.

The highlight: The time Holly’s guinea pig had pneumonia and she nursed it back to health with a heating pad. The lowlight: The time Holly’s guinea pig had pneumonia and she nursed it back to health with a heating pad.

On Thursday, Holly spent the day with her family. While Ted farted and enjoyed his space (all ten feet of it), we ate turkey at my mother’s house.

On Friday, Holly and Ted came over again. After lunch, Chuck and Ted "got lost" at the casino on the way to Home Depot (don't ask). Holly and I spent the next five hours watching Junior push his trains around the track.

"Is Thomas puffin?"

"YES. YES. YES."

Somewhere in there I drank mass amounts of wine and sent Chuck threatening text messages like, “I guess u never want 2 hve sex again.”

The men came home. Chuck left for a stag (yah, I know). Holly and Ted spent the night. We played Scrabble. The only words Holly and I could come up with had to do with trains. Ted felt suspiciously like a third wheel.



On Saturday, Ted left at 8 a.m. to be to work in Boston. Holly offered to keep me company for breakfast while Chuck slept (bastard). Again, we watched Junior push his trains around the track. When Junior asked, “Is Thomas puffin'?” she answered, “Uh huh! Yes! Yep! He is! Uh huh! He is, sweetie!”

Suddenly I realized I’d become numb to her eagerness to please. I also realized I’d rather hear her sing-song voice than my brother’s toxic flatulence. When Holly left at noon, Junior and I watched her from the window. I started to feel something, something achy and sad in the stillness: separation anxiety.

If a train puffs in a playroom and Holly isn’t around to hear it, does it make a sound?

I swear, if my brother breaks off the engagement, I will date her myself. Even if she is clingy and lazy and she monitors my wine intake like a busybody. Even if she does tell too many guinea pig stories and leave lubricant everywhere she goes.

I’ve invested too much time to let her go that easily. We can make it, baby!

Holly and me, up in a tree
P-U-F-F-I-N-G
First goes Chuck,
Then goes Ted
Then comes Thomas in Tidmouth Shed

Hah!

Just when you thought it was safe

to finally sit down and blog, your husband taps you on the shoulder and reminds you that you have a wedding to attend.

A wedding in a park on a winter Sunday. Followed by a sit-down dinner at a hotel. An hour away. On the same highway as tired, grumpy holiday travelers.

Because the soon-to-be married couple is a pair of avid hikers, the sit-down dinner will be followed by a late afternoon hike in the woods. After that, your husband reminds you, you promised to stop by his brother's son's birthday party.

I have to douse myself with lighter fluid now. I'm sure you understand.

Ten signs you're on the cusp. No. 1: You contemplate setting up your bedroom in the parking lot. No. 2: You swear a lot. No. 3...

When my friend Jen and I rented an apartment together 10 years ago, I moved most of my belongings in by myself. At the time, Chuck and I were taking a break and I was going through my I-am-an-independent-woman-hear-me-roar phase.

I may have even, ehem, stopped shaving my armpits.

I said may have.

Because the walkway leading to the front door of the apartment was a winter mud and slush pit, I had no choice but to move my things in through the back entrance. The door at the top was nice and wide, but the stairwell was a narrow two-story metal fire escape.

My solo stint was going fine until I got to my futon mattress, which was a double.



If you’ve ever tried to pull or tug on a futon mattress you know that it’s impossible. They weigh a ton, and you can’t get a good grip because its innards are so smushy.

Hear.me.roar.

I grabbed the edges and dragged it out of the car, then hogtied it with electrical cords and pushed it towards the stairwell.

What ensued was 45 minutes of grunting, pushing, tugging, grabbing, climbing, swearing, bending, jumping and crying. The cords kept catching on the railing. I couldn’t get a good enough handful of stuffing to pull it. I wasn’t strong enough to push it. I felt like a pencil trying to birth an elephant through my eraser top crotch. But I did it. I finally pushed that Godforsaken mattress

all

the

way

up

the

stairs.

When I leaned against the railing to catch my breath, I looked over and saw that an entire apartment complex had been watching me out of their windows. Watching and laughing. Laughing and watching.

Bastards.

Yesterday, as I carried co-worker Robert’s 20-pound frozen turkey up his creaky, slippery fire escape stairs because he assumed his complimentary ride home included the services of a personal assistant—he even asked me to stop for smokes at the gas station!—I found myself remembering that fateful futon fuck. And I started laughing hysterically.

Life is absurd sometimes, isn't it?

I laughed the whole way home. Laughing while riding through Mulletville felt as good as sex. I felt like a fucking superhero.

I hope you laugh a lot this holiday—even if some dude who smells like cat pee is staring at you like you're crazy as you slap his frozen turkey on his counter and back slowly away.

Especially if.

Gobble, gobble.

P.S. If you'd like to read about my Aunt Burty and her affinity for drumstick strumming (as in, her own drumstick), check it out at honestbaby. It's a real whisker biscuit tickler.

She who sees grasshopper on turkey's head should find new forest

I'm grouchy. I know that Thanksgiving is a time to enjoy our families and all that jazz, but between Chuck's divorced and remarried parents and my divorced and remarried parents, I always end up with that nagging feeling that we've left someone outside.

Oops, I mean out. I'd never leave a cherished relative out on the stoop.

Never, ever.

And I know it's only November 23 but I'm already tired of people trying to sell me things. All we hear lately is "Buy now!" and "Get to the store now!" Even worse, I've ended up on a new-agey mailing list. I’m not sure what purchase invited this travesty, but suddenly I am getting catalogs for organic lemur sperm and sustainable salmon headbands that make you look 10 years younger—and I’m sick of it.

I’m all for the spiritually-enlightened-meets-“green” slant, especially if it means one more person recycles or meditates by a tree instead of chopping it down, but I don’t want to buy a piece of it. I’m broke. And the messages are so corny. Like the letter I got today from a local spa. Can I share it with you?

Spa lady begins:

“It was a splendid Indian Summer week...there was a convivial atmosphere...a fresh palette was in the air.”

Yaaaaaaaaaawn. Two days of sixty degree weather does not change the fact that the trees are scraggly, gray-black premonitions of winter’s decimation.

“...in the autumnal season the most notable thing that is changing is change itself. Change happens...what may be harder to see is that the manner in which change occurs is in itself changing. Today change happens in giant leaps and bounds whereas before change took little hops.”

Huh? What kind of mind bender is that? Change is changing but not in the way it used to? How does she know how change operates in my life? My husband has been out of work for an entire year. I still live in Mulletville and work for a bunch of wackos. Not only is change taking minute hops, it’s hopping in the wrong fucking direction.

“...leaves had dried up into little origami balls...the light was playing with their round shapes. When I bent down...the little grasshopper jumped into the scene...What are the chances...?”

Probably pretty good, seeing as we haven’t really had a frost yet.

“What this scene...depicts...is that the thing that is changing, the experience, is something to be thankful for and not forgotten. The enjoyable present moment is in the cusp of change, the moment where you see the past and have a glimpse of the future...Enjoy the moment...”

Blah, blah, blah. Stop projecting your crazy ass grasshopper metaphor on me! Getting a facial at your spa is not going to transform my life. How did I get on your mailing list? Did Stop and Shop sell you my name because I bought non-flouride toothpaste? Or gawd, maybe it was the hemp and flax post.

The experience of change and deriving meaning is great and all, but sometimes a grasshopper is just a grasshopper. What if those queer little origami balls are just, as she noted, dried up leaves? You just wasted twenty minutes assigning meaning to an insect and a wad of organic matter when instead you could have been...

...you know, enjoying the moment.

For free.

We all can.

The truth about the men's bathroom

...at the Mulletville Park:



Extra points for getting vandalism correct, right?

The truth about pumpkin pie

It's Friday and I'm brain dead. This is all I have to offer:

Because a frozen turkey is riding shotgun, that's why

Every year, the company I work for puts together a Thanksgiving gift basket for an employee they deem deserving. Notice I said deserving and not in need. Even though the gift basket is generous in its contents (a frozen turkey, canned goods, stuffing mix, a grocery store gift card, frozen vegetables and a set of scented candles), delivery is a delicate matter. No one wants his or her co-workers to think he/she is poor or needs the basket, so the marketing committee pretends to hold a selection session based on merit when really we sit around and talk about who we’ve seen sleeping in his or her car.

Sad but true.

We met today to discuss the top contenders. We finally selected Robert, who has been spotted by more than one co-worker walking the 10+ miles from his apartment to work, and not because he needs the exercise. He looks like this:



But not so happy—or green.

Let’s listen in on how the rest of the meeting played out:

Marketing Head: “So everyone is amenable? Robert is our gift basket honoree?”

Group: “Yes.”

Co-worker #1: “Sir? I just thought of something...”

Marketing Head: “Yes?”

Co-worker #1: “If we give Robert the gift basket and he doesn’t have transportation, how will he get it home?”

Marketing Head: “How heavy is the basket?”

Group: [Raised brows. Shrugged shoulders]

Co-worker #1: “Even if he can carry it, what if it’s raining or sleeting? He might slip.”

Marketing Head: “Excellent point. People, I need ideas.”

Co-worker #2: “We could include a bus pass in the basket—”

Co-worker #3: “—A bus pass? He’ll be carrying a frozen turkey! We can’t ask him to ride the bus with a 20-pound turkey! We should pay for a taxi.”

Marketing Head: “Yes! A taxi! And how much money will a taxi­—”

Co-worker #4: “—Taxis are very expensive. The fare might put us over our gift basket budget—”

Marketing Head: “—We cannot deny someone the gift basket just because he doesn’t have the means to get it home. That is in direction contradiction to the Thanksgiving Gift Basket mission.”

Co-worker #3: “Do you think he might eat some of it before he brings it home? It might make the basket lighter.”

Co-worker #2: “What’s wrong with the bus? Plenty of people bring large packages—”

Co-worker #3: “—Someone will need to help him onto the bus. If he took a taxi—”

Marketing Head: “Quiet, everyone! There won’t be a bus or a taxi. Someone will give Robert and his gift basket a ride home. As compensation, that person may leave 10 minutes early that day. Mrs. Mullet? Is that something you’re agreeable to?”

Me: “Whatever.”

Co-worker #2: “Why should she get to leave early?”

Sport & Shave Ken has the worst pick-up lines

Yesterday, as I rode Thomas the Train for the second time this month, I watched all the fellow mommies diligently shuffling their kids through the pouring rain, and I remembered something.

I remembered that before I had Junior, I made fun of moms. Mercilessly. They seemed so eager to please and to use the word poop. I didn’t like all their stupid containers and how they always needed to compartmentalize snacks, toys and diapers.

I thought women who became mothers morphed into Mombots who sacrificed their fun, quirky and sometimes irresponsible inner selves to the ravenous child beast and shared way too much personal information. I also thought that mom-types were predetermined much in the way that Barbie’s different personas are and that I had no choice about what kind I’d become.

Would I become Crunchy Vegetarian Mom who only wore corduroy overalls and ate trail mix? Would I become Cocktail Mom who had a stiff drink in one hand and formula in the other and who accidentally slept with Crunchy Vegetarian Mom’s husband, also known as Malibu Dad?



(Heh, heh. Don’t you love when people accidentally sleep with eachother?)

Now I have a kid, so I have a clearer picture. Although I use the word poop a lot and share way too much information (hello, blog?), I’ve learned that you aren’t arbitrarily engulfed by a mother persona; or if you are, you were probably leaning in that direction anyway.

I’m also happy to say that my former inner self is alive and well. I know this because my friends keep telling me: “It’s so great. You haven’t changed since Junior.”

Over. And over. And over again.

At first I thought, Yeeha. But the more I thought about it, the more it bothered me. How could motherhood not have changed me?

I can think of the little ways I’ve changed. If I go to the grocery store without Junior, I can ransack the place in 23:04 minutes because I am so efficient now. I vacuum at strange hours of the night. I am a compulsive multi-tasker, often in ways that disgust me (like putting on mascara while talking to the credit card company while sitting on the porcelain bowl while supervising Junior’s bath while ruminating on my work to-do list).

But those aren’t necessarily good things, and they’re not fundamental. I didn’t go through nine months of labor to not only stay the same but also become unexciting, mechanical and anal. In a(nother) moment of self-doubt, I concluded that if motherhood hasn’t changed me, I must not have embraced my new role with enough testicle. Ergo, I’ve been mommying with only one nut.

Will the world ever be safe again?

Yes, yes, my kittens, it will. I’m happy to report that there’s a giant uniball at the end of this tunnel.

Last night, after Junior and I had dried off from our Thomas outing, my friend Jen came over with her four-month-old son. This girl is a trooper. Not only did she drive to Connecticut from North Carolina by herself with an infant to see her family and friends, she drove an extra hour to see me in Mulletville.

Jen and I drank wine and talked. Then we drank some more. Something beautiful happened, and it wasn’t just the wine buzz. The more we talked, the more I realized that despite being ridiculously sleep-deprived, Jen really hasn’t changed that much (cue sit-com “aha” moment). Her sense of direction still sucks. She’s still a bitch for never gaining weight. And she still manages to find cool shoes at the Maxi Pad. So, duh, she’s Jen, but with a kid.

It was like I got a glimpse of myself from my friends’ perspective and it wasn’t bad at all. It was gloriously reassuring. I love that Jen is still Jen; I wish I’d told her that. I also love that every day, thanks to this blog, I realize what a freak I am for obsessing about things that aren’t stress-worthy. I do have two nuts and I need to caress them and honor them with all my heart.

Simply, I need to give myself a mommy erection a bit more often. I hope you give yourself one too—and your partner*.

* Malibu Dad made me write that.

The one day I leave my hemp and flax dress home...I swear

I had today off from work. Chuck was on interviews (after a year of being laid off, employment is on the horizon) so Junior and I were left to frolic in the wonderland that is southeastern Connecticut.

Gah.

I decided to buy Junior some new books. I was all set to go to Barnes and Noble when I thought, why not support an independent bookseller instead? So I set my sights on the Niantic Book Barn.

Holy books. The place is set up like a compound, and there are used books everywhere. Not only do they sell books, there’s a kids’ playground…

…which was so infested with mold and mildew I skeeved at Junior touching anything. Seriously, have you ever been to someone’s house and enjoyed the ambiance of his/her laid back décor but upon closer inspection realized you mistook carefree for neglected? That’s how the Book Barn felt. I wanted to embrace the outdoor armchair nestled by a stack of books, but the more I looked at it, the more it looked like a chair I’d seen by the side of the road on dump day.

I don’t want to leave an establishment with Cladosporium clinging to my ass.

So Junior and I ventured inside and climbed the steep wooden stairs to the children’s section. A flattened Clifford the Red Dog lay on the floor, along with an assortment of…oh, hell, why pussy foot around? The toys looked like they had mange. As I raced through the books, I kept whispering to Junior, “Don’t play with that!”

Have you ever done the whisper-shout? It hurts your teeth.

Finally, I’d had enough. I grabbed some books and paid for them. The cashier ringing me out looked like a chubby Lily Munster. She didn’t smile. No one did. It was like everyone had just survived a plane crash and was suffering from PTSD.

Maybe I didn’t fit in. Maybe I should have worn a beret with crusty apple stuck to it and been perusing Yeats instead of wiping my child down with Purell? Maybe I should have braided organic alfalfa sprouts into my pubic hair to symbolize the suffering of genetically modified food?

Whatever.

I don’t need every retail experience to feel like Mickey Mouse’s smile is crammed up my butt, but as I drove away, I seriously wondered if I’d accidentally wandered into a Niantic commune full of childless artists and hippies and if they were pissed off about it.

Oh, but right, the books. The friggen books.

The best part? As we walked to the car, Junior squatted, turned to the woman walking past and grunted, “I’m poopin.”

Book Barn, if you'd give me all your Bukowski and Curious George books, I'd spend the day sweeping and polishing. You just need a little shine to your grime. I also have some gently used children's toys I'd be happy to donate. And maybe, just for a day, your moose statue could squirt vodka instead of water. Maybe then someone would smile.

Random Tuesday thoughts: Everyone's naked

It's time for RTT, brought to you by the fabulous Un Mom.



Why do some people walk like they’ve just climbed off a horse? It makes me silly.

What should I do about my life? I got a job offer in my field that would allow me three days in the office and two days at home. I’m thrilled but honestly, can I really get any work done with a toddler in the house? Sometimes it’s hard to find time to pee, never mind design a catalog.

I wish I didn’t like muffins so much.

I’m trying to be positive about winter coming, but now that the leaves have fallen off the trees, Connecticut is starting to get that dead look. How can one possibly be cheery when the natural world is screaming, “I’m a scraggly, naked mess!”? Or am I just projecting onto the trees?

(I’m not naked right now, promise. But if I were, would that change how you felt about this post?)

We’re getting five new windows put in downstairs. They are big ass windows, and the man’s here right now putting them in. When Chuck answered the door in his bathrobe, Chuck accidentally flashed him.

Ok, that’s not true but Chuck’s reading this over my shoulder and I wanted to give him a rise.

I’m not going to miss the plastic we used to put over those old windows. The draft was so bad the curtains would sway. It still wasn’t as bad as that apartment Chuck and I rented in Portland, Maine. My dad helped us put Styrofoam over some of the windows and then plastic.

Course, I think he saw Rico the landlord and wanted to shield us from the view. Didn’t work.

I am now convinced that ad agencies are feeding their creative teams LSD. How else to explain a juice commercial that involves school children, a comatose rabbit and balloons?



I'm scared.

But I'm not naked.

Promise.

News flash: Thomas the Train does not have a bar car

I don’t mean to be overly dramatic but holy shit, we made it. We spent our day with Thomas the Train in Essex, Connecticut. Walking into that Lala Land of Sodor music and screaming kids was downright trippy. I’ve never seen so many Sodorites. Every kid was sporting Thomas gear. And meltdowns? Scary. Ear piercing. Frequent. On more than one occasion I held Junior to me and whispered, “Thank God you’re mine.”

Junior was pretty juiced to ride Thomas. The bouncy train seats were nice. As was the open window. The sunshine. Mellow Junior.

But.

I know, I know, there’s always a but.

The ticket-taker talked the whole ride. On a microphone that was wired into enormous speakers—speakers that were everywhere. If your toddler wanted to ask you a million times “Is Thomas puffin?” you had to keep shouting yes. YES, YES, Thomas is puffin!

And instead of “Day with Thomas,” it should have been “Five minutes with Thomas.” Unless you walked to the front of the train after your ride (and by “walk” I mean let the crowd carry you), you didn’t see him. Junior kept asking us where Thomas was hiding.

For $90 ($18 per ticket x 3 tickets + $17.50 service fee + $15 shipping fee), my kid should not be struggling to locate the whereabouts of a bright blue locomotive with a face! It’s almost funny.

Almost.

Know what else is almost funny? Overhearing other parents’ conversations as we ate our $3.50 mac and cheese (to be fair, hotdogs were $1.50). My favorites:

“I need a cigarette and a nap.”

“Godammit, Spencer! [belch] Now I have to get you another [belch] straw!”

I don’t know what was scarier: The fact that someone thought picnic tables next to Porta-potties was a good idea or the loose interpretation of the term parenting I observed.

I don’t mean to put a negative spin on the experience (I mean, when Junior reflects on his life this will probably be up there with getting laid), but I feel jipped. The ad said storytelling. In reality, a video of Thomas played on a pull-down screen. The ad promised “Build with LEGO bricks.” There were LEGOs in the shape of Thomas, but he was already assembled, and kids were playing King of the Mountain on him (I’m not kidding, Junior took a heel to the cheek trying to just stand near him). Sure, you could meet Sir Topham Hat—for another $20.

Twenty bucks! To meet a scary-looking plump white guy who’s always giving orders.

And what the frick? The allure of Thomas the Train isn’t just Thomas, it’s all of his friends. It's the "You're cross" and the "No, now he's cross" and the "Check the signals!" and the "Ok, even though we're fickle little engines let's be friends again" comradery that makes it special.

For some kids, naming Thomas’ friends is as much a rite of passage as knowing their ABCs. Yet the only sign of Gordon, Emily, Percy, James, Sir Handel, Henry, Stanley—crap, I know too much about this topic—was one incredibly lame waist-high poster with a few of the trains on it.

Oh, and in the gift shop. The gift shop’s cup runneth over.

Well, next Saturday my cup will runneth over. My aunt, cousin and mother want to experience Thomas with Junior. He’s a lucky little boy in that he gets to go twice. I'm lucky in that now I know exactly what to bring with me:

1) earplugs

2) a peanut butter and jelly sandwich

3) a flask

I don't just blog about fleas and rotten meat. Hello. Take II

My friend called me yesterday. She’s the one who gave me the cookbook, so I thought she was calling about my meat explosion.

I was right.

After the mockery she said, “I like your blog, but you don’t really talk about being a mom that much.” I must have sounded hurt because she immediately backpedaled. “What I mean is, I wouldn’t really call it a mom blog. You write about work a lot. And Chuck. And Mulletville. And fleas. And other stuff, too.”

The conversation ended there because Junior wanted to get out of the tub and I didn’t want to wrestle a slippery toddler with a phone crooked in my neck, but I’ve been thinking a lot about what she said.

Avoiding the obvious—which is that the life of a mom need not be relegated to parenting issues alone—part of me wondered if I’d have more to say about being a mother if I didn’t work full-time. That made me a little sad. I’m home by 4:30, so I have a nice chunk of time with Junior at night, but my posts aren’t full of anecdotes about my kid because, well, I’m not with my kid all the time.

But even if I were, Junior isn’t entertaining 24-7. Sure, he held up plastic hangers to his ears last night and shouted, “I’m a moose!” but you’re not Junior’s grandmother; you probably don’t want to hear about every cute thing he does.

Another part of me tried to remember if my intention from the get-go was to be a mom blogger. I think it was. I think when I first started this blog I fancied myself a valuable resource for fellow moms. Clearly, I was drunk when I envisioned that.

The more I thought about the whole “You’re not really a mom blogger” comment, the more I realized I’ve kind of been avoiding the mom issue, and that my meatloaf is a fitting picture for why. It illustrates what my brain sees lately in the blogosphere: momsplosion.

Lately, there are so many women blogging about what it means to be a mom that my brain cells can’t synthesize it all. There are blogs of helicopter moms, supermoms, entrepreneurial moms, kayaking moms, product-reviewer moms, WOHMs, SAHMs, WOOHs, juggling moms, green moms, hybrid moms, stepmoms, same-sex moms and moms with two vaginas.

Then there are moms blogging about the helicopter moms, supermoms, entrepreneurial moms, kayaking moms, product-reviewer moms, WOHMs, SAHMs, WAHMs, juggling moms, green moms, hybrid moms, stepmoms, same-sex moms and moms with two vaginas.

And we haven’t even gotten to the dad blogs! (Had I known Chuck was so en vogue as a stay-at-home dad, I would have gotten his Viking-Ghostbusting-Stay-at-Home-Dad in the Buff calendar ready a whole year earlier.)

My point is that there are parents everywhere, and they are blogging about everything. A few years ago, blog tracker Technorati estimated there were about 8,500 blogs where parents were writing about their kids. That’s before the mom/dadsplosion. Right now, there are probably 657,836,098,747,647 blogs where parents are writing about their kids.

I've connected with some of them—like .0092%—and I love it. I really do. But some days, the sheer volume of words makes me feel like reaching for the Massengill. Do we honestly have that much to say about parenting? Do you ever feel that we’re saturating the blogosphere with our parental introspection? Do you think by now we might have covered everything?

I do. Some days I envision the parental blogosphere as the Great Oz. And I picture a mom—or dad—hitting “publish” on her—or his—blog post and the Great Oz receiving this notification:



Yah, the Great Oz uses a Mac. Of course he does.

The good news is that Quentin Tarantino is working it into his next script

Almost one year ago, I posted this. Oh, fine, lazy asses, I'll give you the Cliff Notes. I wrote "...I want to be culinarily fertile. I want to leaven a lasagna, birth a moist banana nut bread, souse a Succotash."

I still feel that way, even though the memories of this and this still haunt me. So last night, I put on my big girl pants and ventured into the Land of Meatloaf.



But instead of Julia Childing a meatloaf, I ended up with something that resembled...oh, shoot, are you trying to eat breakfast? I should probably be offering you a puke pan instead of descriptive analogies.

What happened? Was the meatloaf scared of the edge? Why did it recoil so?

Seriously, if that damn chunky blob of wretch is not the most compelling argument for becoming a vegetarian, I don't know what is. You fellas at the National Cattlemen's Beef Association better watch out. I'm single-handedly (and, albeit, unintentionally) bringing you bad boys down.

I'm hoping the Apron Goddess can whip me up a flowery one of these. I'd like mine in extra small: all this nauseating food means Mama Mullet's shrinkin as fast as her meatpile.

The silver lining to this debacle is that Chuck has agreed to take a cooking class with me! Isn't that sweet? Now I just need to find one through the Mulletville Continuing Education Department. Shudder. One whose menu doesn't include possum dumplings or fried muskrat. Mmmyah, maybe now you'll take this post a little more seriously.

Some nights it's better not to talk

Mrs. Mullet, after a rough day at work: "I need a hug."

Chuck: "Hold on."

Mrs. Mullet: "Now."

Chuck: "I'm coming."

Mrs. Mullet: "What's taking so long? Don't you want to be there for me in my fragile emotional state?"

Chuck: "I always want to be there for you in your fragile emotional states."

Mrs. Mullet: "States? Who said anything about multiple states? I didn't say state, plural. I said state. As in one."

Chuck: "One what?"

I'd consider dating the Easter Bunny

Seven parents. A one-year-old princess. A four-year-old Spider-Man. A five-year-old rock star. A five-year-old Super Mario brother. A four-year-old Butterfly Princess. A two-year-old dinosaur. And Junior, the two-year-old pirate who looked more like a well-dressed hobo.

I now know exactly what it feels like to herd sheep: crazed, maniacal, cackling sheep on a sugar high. The most frightening sheep ever! Sheep who decide to roll around on people's lawns. Who disappear into shrubs and wander off with other trick-or-treaters. Who yell into the night sky like barbarians.

Who wake up at 6:15 a.m. thanks to Daylight Savings Time.

Halloween, now that we've officially met, toddler-style, I think it's time we start to see other people.