It’s my birthday. No biggie–just another notch in a thirty-something belt. It’s been a long turkey of a weekend; no break, misbehaving children, a broken remote control due to a lost temper, and limited alcohol. Today, however, is my day. My husband bought me fancy champagne to celebrate. I called him and told him I’d save the second bottle for us to share, and he said “NO, no, don’t wait for me, you go ahead.” I listened. It was by the second bottle that I realized the fancy champagne has a “string” type thingy to hep you unravel the foil, or present as I like to think of it. Watching “Absolutely Fabulous” all day isn’t helping me understand all these little details of how things function either. All I need is a smile on my face and for the dog not to pee on the hamper again. I’m doing exactly what I want.
Few remember my birthday. My in-laws only remember my birthday when it lands on Thanksgiving day. I don’t really care. My husband is making me dinner with cognac in it, I’m wearing “Jackie” pearls, cute, high-heeled shoes, and one of my most expensive bras. Life doesn’t get much better, except for the fact that my day will end at midnight. Every year is a new experience, every year is meaningful in it’s own twisted way, and every year is getting harder and harder to remember with all this fancy champagne flying around. Thank goodness!
Last year I had a party where people I didn’t even know showed up. I had a cake and a D.J., we danced, we drank, and I was sick. No, seriously, I had a really bad cold. This year I will have a private party with one of Victoria’s secrets and my husband and pumpkin pie is its’ just desserts. Dinner with my husband and birthday sex is all I need this year. I feel absolutely fabulous. I encourage the rest of you to “pretend” it’s your birthday and . . . and Stretch Life Out!
I have three children, three rooms, three bills, and three messes. I have had enough of toys, toys, toys!!! My children reside on the upper level of my house–a girl’s room, a boy’s room, and a toy room. The upstairs is like the Bermuda Triangle; everything that goes or ends up upstairs ends up disappearing never to be seen or heard from again, although some random noises have been heard from a dark, spider infested corner of either room, but every one is too fearful to investigate. I assume it’s the Yoda from the original “Star Wars” trilogy that the boys “had to have” but are too afraid of it to keep anywhere near them while they sleep. When you touch it, it talks; when you talk around it, it talks, when you look at it, it talks, don’t even think about it–it talks! It’s green, and creepy, and annoying, and very expensive. Am I ranting? Of coure I am! I’ve been stuck in my house with my children for four days!!! The “Yoda” keeps ending up in the pantry under Halloween crap. I jump every time I need to get the mop. News to parents who have children that are yet to be aware of consumer goods and clever perfect placement advertising: get rid of your t.v. and never, ever buy “Yoda” or feed it after midnight.
I must be stupid. I bought plastic containers, shelves, and baskets to organize everything imaginable purchased for them. Do the kids use them? No, of course not! Cars with cars; dolls with dolls, toy food with–you guessed it, toy food, Star Wars crap with Star Wars crap, Legos with Legos, I could go on, but what’s the point? Such devices were made to make sense, I know, but three children equal total chaos in a very unorganized world. The cars end up in the Legos, the dolls end up naked, the art stuff is shoved underneath the book shelf full of toy food, and the Star Wars crap is every where! Maybe the kids are on to something and want to run for re-election, sounds about right. Everything in the world doesn’t make sense.
I send my kids upstairs to “clean up.” This apparently means to throw everything under my son’s bed, including dishes and cups and garbage–they’re not even allowed to eat up there!!! They have a hamper, but why bother to use it? They have a toy chest to toss it in, but I don’t even get that–it’s under the bed or, very creatively, buried under a blanket that supposed to be mountain for Barbie and Darth Maul to ski on because, hey–they NEED A VACATION!
I’ve been threating to send everything to Goodwill, because my kids are “so bored” and have “nothing to do.” Sting, and a bunch of other famous people with accents, once told me that some people don’t even know it’s Christmas time at all. My kids plan for Christmas the day after Christmas. I think I might teach them a lesson this year. Who’s with me? I can’t be the only one. Ugh. I need a vacation.
It’s the busiest, dumbest, most expensive, bloodiest, and most ridiculously biggest shopping day of the year. You fools!! I slept in today while my husband washed all the Thanksgiving dishes. After my kids had a piece of pumpkin pie for lunch, I did my nails and took a bath while he feverishly fixed the X-Box–is there any thing else to do? Why is every one always in such a rush today? Holiday shoppers need to get a grip, and I don’t mean on the credit card balances, although that wouldn’t be a bad idea. I believe there are only a few people you should be shopping for anyway, and I bet you don’t even like them most of the time:
First your kids; get them out of the way and any money possibly leftover should go to the remaining obvious people you might see six times a year–mom, dad, brother, sister, one close friend, and maybe one niece or nephew you’ve taken a shine to. I have a small family, so this makes sense to me. No one in your family wants you to go broke for them, but if you do they certainly don’t want to hear about it. I probably won’t start shopping until next week, when it’s during a work-day, and all you crazy fools are working over time to make up for your stupid shopping purchases today. What? Will there be no green sweaters left a week from now? Will toxic Barbie dolls go on strike? Will the Santa Claus earrings disappear in to a black hole? Well, there’s always hope. How many of you shop and shop only to discover in January all the crap you bought that ended up at the back of the closet?
I don’t see how going to Kohl’s at 4 bloody a.m. in the morning is going to really make a difference on when you finish your shopping. The sales are not going to end people! Retailers and advertisers make sure you’ll have a “deal” through Christmas Eve. Yes, I said Christmas! I’m sick of “holiday” crap! It’s Christmas, and you know it! I think we should all start a silent conspiracy against retailers and not shop for the holidays, instead wait for after Christmas sales and celebrate in the middle of January.
For now, I’m going to get into the spirit of things by putting my feet in a foot spa while the rest of you get callouses and empty wallets. Ho, ho, ho!
I was recently reading an article in “Vogue” magazine about Michelle Obama, the wife of a presidential candidate called Barack, and the reading was going pretty well (about as well as a reading from John Edwards), until I got to the last three paragraphs of a five page “quick hitter” documentary. If any of you watch E! you’d understand. Anyway, I was enjoying getting a glimpse into Michelle Robinson’s (maiden name-duh) life when I realized how Kodak perfect her life has been and could care less about paupers like me who read “Vogue” magazine. I was shocked to learn just how much she can’t stand her own children:
“It was a gift having my mother home every day. I want my kids to feel that way.” Hah!! The joke’s on us! Just wait, it gets better:
The days I stay home with my kids without going out, I start to get ill,” she says. “My head starts to ache.”
I was so shocked, I nearly fell off the toilet! I’m sick thinking about her children and the strong relationship they must have with the nanny. Then again, when I’m ill, my kids hug me and bring me water–does that sound like something that would make your head ache?
Apparently, Mrs. Robinson (Grandma) didn’t think her daughter Michelle could handle it either and told her daughter she didn’t think Michelle could take the boredom of staying home with kids. Naturally, Michelle was “surprised” to hear that taking care of her had been boring. Hmph. Old dog, old tricks, new day.
I almost feel sorry for her. I think it would’ve been brave to stay at home. I’m under the impression that she just got scared. Being a Mom is scary and “real” women do it every day. “Real” women vote too. I save up to buy “Coach” purses, I save up to shop at “Burberry” (which I only did once), but I always make sure I never have to save up for groceries, or hats, or snow pants, or cute art projects that my kids made in school that are turned into mugs and pillow cases and sketch boards. It’s true, real women read “Vogue” and are, indeed, paying attention to the articles and the women in them; not just “stuff” they have to save up for.
I am not surprised at all that Michelle has been in trouble for being “too” candid. During my readings of this article, she almost had me going. I almost fell for her line. But those last few paragraphs spoke novels to me on what kind of a politician’s “wife” she’s been. When I read about her boredom and her headaches, it hurt me. A good mother would be. It’s a good thing she doesn’t speak for her husband, because she’s lost my vote.
In a six-figure world it’s getting harder and harder to be a housewife, and you (Mrs. Obama), are just making it harder. Just for the record, there isn’t one boring thing about being a Mom–if you were one, you would know that.
Here’s to you . . .
Photo: ©2007 iStockPhoto.com/WillSelarep
My wife said this the other day, frustrated once again by the Internet. She was trying to find a crossword puzzle generator, a website she had visited recently to help our oldest with his homework. She believed that this would be easy. Who wouldn’t? An hour later — and still no crossword site — she was ready to unleash her fury on anyone who’d listen. This was me.
I didn’t mind. She was right. The Internet is, pretty much, a huge, sprawling mess of humanity. There’s no central index, no reliable way to find just what you’re looking for when you need it, and the software we all use to access it, in a word, sucks. Yeah, that’s right, sucks. It sucks bad.
For example, 900 gazillion people use a web browser each day, some as a normal part of their jobs (or goofing off during them), and it can’t fundamentally help you find anything you want. About all it can offer is a listing of places you’ve been to before that ended up frustrating you, along with a collection of links to places you once thought were interesting (that you probably found by accident) but now seem pretty stupid. Well you may have been drinking. And you’re not alone, as it turns out, if the actual content out on the majority of websites is any indicator.
I swear most of it was written by drunk people, extremely drunk, unhelpful people, who felt compelled to tell other drunk people what was on their mind at the moment they wrote it with better illustrations than Shakespeare. How all this generates billions of dollars of capitalization is better left to economists from impressive universities with lots of acronyms after their names. I’ll bet they’ll be drunk as they explain it to you.
At some point, the Internet became useless. I can’t prove it, but I’m pretty sure this happend right around the time guys like Jeff Bezos became billionaires for figuring out ways to sell us lots of stuff. Lots and lots of stuff. So much stuff that most of it is bound to be useless.
Ironically I work in the field. Yes, the same useless technology pays our mortgage and puts food on the table. That’s irony.
“I have to go through the maze to find a site that’ll just tell me without making me buy something.”