I’ve noticed that several of my favorite mama-bloggas are now “Fit Friend Bloggers”; women who have taken some sort of interweb oath to be a little healthier. (I, myself, have taken no such oath. My secret oath is to eat more pie.) Because I am a nice blogger friend — and because sometimes I like to laugh at other people — I have scoured the internet to find the perfect work out for busy, on-the-go moms who want it all.
May I present, The Celine Dion Workout:
For the more practical moms who may not already own the high-heel/leg-warmer combo (like you, my loafer-lovin’ Bad Mom) I am perfectly willing to share one of my combos with you. You need only pay for shipping. Please specify in your request if you’d like to borrow the “white-warmer/Jimmy Choo” combo or the “Striped-warmer/Payless pump” combo. Both are chic.
Monday afternoon, Jachin came rushing through the door after school, panting and red faced.
“Wow,” I said, “Did you run all the way home or something?”
“No,” he said, blurting out words between breaths, “someone threw a chicken leg at Cade, and I had to chase him down the street.”
“Wait… what?” I asked, confused. “Someone threw a chicken leg at you and Cade?”
“Yeah.”
“What kind of chicken leg? Like, KFC?”
“Yeah, like KFC, and it came two inches from hitting Cade in the head.”
“Who threw it?” I asked.
“Some teenagers in a red car. Both of the windows were open and they threw the chicken leg at us and kept on driving. They were laughing.”
“So what did you guys do?”
“Well, first Cade kicked the chicken leg into someone’s flower garden, and then he ran after them, shaking his fist and yelling ‘You suck!’ at the top of his lungs. And then I ran after Cade and tackled him in the neighbor’s yard, and covered his mouth and told him that it was not a good idea to yell ‘you suck’ in public.”
At this point I was wondering a few things. One, who the hell is throwing chicken legs at my kid? Two, who would waste perfectly good KFC on a prank… especially if it’s crispy? And three, should I be happy that my son saved his friend from a potential beat-down by teenagers, or worried that the neighbors saw my kid tackle another kid and put his hand violently over the other kid’s mouth like he was accosting him?
I know, they’re all really good questions.
So, last night the whole family packed into the car to dispense some vigilante justice. None of us knew exactly what was going down, but something had to be done about the disrespect and the wasted chicken.
“Are you going to punch them when they open the door, Dad?” Jachin asked.
“No one is getting punched,” my husband said. I, personally, thought that we should have brought along some toilet paper… y’know, to fight teenage fire with equally childish teenage fire. But that probably would have sent a mixed message to my kids.
We started at the top of the street and Jachin ran us through the events.
“Here is where we were when the chicken leg came at us. And there is the flower garden where Cade kicked it.” A few houses down he said, “And there’s the yard where I tackled him and put my hand over his mouth.” We saw the indentation in the snow that was shaped like two boys rolling around, arguing about whether or not they should go after the punks who threw a chicken leg at them.
“Show me where the red car parked,” Jon said.
“It pulled up and parked at the house on the corner, at the end of the street.” So we drove down the street to the corner.
“Right there,” Jachin said, pointing to a house currently occupied by an elderly couple. In fact, the couple has lived there over 30 years.
“Are you sure?” Jon said. “A really old couple lives here. I don’t know why teenagers would park and go in here.”
“Yeah, it was this one,” Jachin said. Then, turning and looking in the opposite direction, he said, “Or else, maaaybeeee… It may have been that one,” he said, pointing to another house across the adjacent street. Now, we don’t know who lives in that house, but there was, presently, no red car parked outside.
“Hmm,” said Jon. “What should we do?”
“I think we should go home and forget about it,” I said.
“I think we should go find the chicken leg in the flower garden,” Zoe said.
“I think a cat probably already ate it,” Jachin said.
It was at this point that Jon turned the car around and started back for our house. “Do you think I’m making too big a deal about this?” Jon asked me.
“Yes,” I said, honestly. And man, do I wish I would have lied… because a big, fat argument started over the chicken leg, and how I was the lesser parent because I was not incensed about my child almost getting his eye taken out by a delicious projectile. “No one got hurt. Nothing was damaged,” I said. I kind of thought it was funny, even. (But I didn’t tell my husband the part about me thinking it was funny.) All I could think about was how I, at 16, would cruise around with my friend, Margie, in her car. In the summer, we would take the T-tops out of her car, and she would drive down the street while I sprayed people with a super soaker and yelled obnoxious things out of my cheerleading megaphone. (Oh yeah, I was one of those irritating teenagers.) And I thought of how much fun it was, and how we never hurt anyone (even if we irritated the ever livin’ crap out of them), and how if this wasn’t my kid we were talking about, it would really just be kind of hilarious.
As of now, the mystery remains in the unsolved case files. The chicken leg is becoming garden compost as we speak. We are, however, still on the look out for the elusive red car with wild teenagers and buckets of fried chicken in it. It will no doubt be parked at some corner house at some point. Nancy Drew is on the case… and she’s bringing toilet paper.
My bike has been parked, lonely and neglected, against the wall of the garage all winter. Today as I went out to get in the car, my bike confronted me. It was a sad and emotional confrontation for both of us. But some things had to be said.
Bike: Surprise, surprise, you’re getting in the car. Again. Ignoring me for another day. I get it. I understand…
Me: Hey, Trek, I’m sorry. The weather’s been so bad, you know that. The sidewalks haven’t been clear for weeks.
Bike: Yeah, whatever. I saw Zoe ride her bike yesterday.
Me: Well, she’s 6, and she doesn’t seem to mind riding her bike when it’s 26 degrees outside. It’s a little cold for me…
Bike: Dude, whatever! Just admit that you love your car more than me!
Me: Of course I remember. I still love you. And this spring, I’m going to buy you a nice, new basket and we’ll have great times again…
Bike: You think you can just buy me a new basket and everything will be okay?!? You can’t just buy my forgiveness! It doesn’t work like that!
Me: Trek, man, I’m sorry…
Bike: No, forget it… You’ve changed. And why don’t you just admit that your feelings have changed… you never even touch me anymore!
Me: That’s not true…
Bike: Oh! Well, moving my handlebars out of the way so you can back out of the garage in that STUPID CAR doesn’t count…
Me: Trek, don’t call the Pilot stupid…
Bike: It is stupid! And why are you taking up for the car?!?
Me: I love both of you, in different ways…
Bike: That hurts, man. That really hurts… *sob* I can tell you that the stupid car doesn’t love you like I do. Do you think I would have let you slide into the side of a truck?!? Huh? Do you? No, of course I wouldn’t have… because I love you more than the stupid car does.
Me: That was an accident. It wasn’t all Pilot’s fault.
Bike: So whose seat do you like more?
Me: Trek…
Bike: No! I want to know! And I’ll know if you’re lying to me… whose seat is better?
Me: Well, Pilot does have heated seats…
Bike: I knew it, you jerk!
Me: Trek, don’t you think you’re being a little bit dramatic?
Bike: You know what… whatever. I don’t care. You’ve changed, Suz. And I’m going to be honest, your butt has gotten A LOT bigger since you started ignoring me and hanging out with the stupid car.
Me: Okay, you know what, Trek, you’re just being mean now…
Bike: The truth hurts, doesn’t it?
Me: Whatever. We’ll finish this later when you can be more mature about things. Have a good day…
I heard him screaming something to me as I pulled out of the garage in the car. As the garage door went down, he cried. I felt bad about the whole stinkin’ situation.
I can’t wait for spring, when Trek and I can be good again.
Zoe and I both have a small crush on Jason Mraz. Sometimes in the afternoons we like to hook the iPod into the wireless speakers and blast “Wordplay” or “Remedy” or “Geek in the Pink” really loudly throughout the house. When the boys are home, they tire of us playing the same songs over and over… but when we are home along together, we both understand that sometimes you have to play the same song over and over while you daydream about being at a school dance, and you are really dancing the crap out of the song, and everyone is in a circle around you, and you have totally caught the eye of the boy you have a crush on. Oh shut up, you do too do that when no one is looking! Anyway, today I thought that it would be fun to finally put a face with the song for Zoe. She loves “Wordplay”. The girl will listen to it for hours. So I went to YouTube and pulled up the video. Having never seen the video myself, I watched for the first couple of minutes. Zoe was cracking up laughing because in the video sweet, adorable Jason Mraz is sitting on a log and stupid, poor people are throwing rocks at him because these dumb villagers just don’t appreciate his dope rhymes. And his guitar is getting busted up. Hilarious!! So I walk back over to the sink to load the dishwasher, leaving Zoe at the laptop to continue watching the end of the video.
All of the sudden, her beautiful little face twists up and she starts bawling. I walk back over to the laptop just in time to see poor, pummeled Jason Mraz with blood squirting out of his shoulder, his arm half severed. See for yourself (it’s a very feel-good song)
Why would people do that??? How is he supposed to continue on playing the guitar and laying down phat verses?
I closed the video window (it was over anyway) and hugged her and told her that it as a joke, it was fake. It was supposed to be funny. Someone was standing behind him squirting ketchup over his shoulder, to be funny. But she continued to bawl. I played the video for “The Remedy” to show her that he still had both of his arms and look, he is smiling and singing… but I fear that the song will be ruined for her forever. Memories will flood back about how a bunch of ignorant peasants killed off her boyfriend because they just not accept him as anything other than a one-hit-wonder.
Kind of like me and the Milli Vanilli debacle… only with a tad more fake blood.
Don’t you hate it when you turn the steering wheel to the right, but your car keeps going straight… straight into the side of the truck that is parked in front of you… and then there’s a big crashing sound… but at least your airbag doesn’t deploy, smashing you in the nose…
What? This has never happened to you? Then you’ve never lived through a Utah winter. And while it wasn’t a huge “accident” (no police were even called), I did smash into a work vehicle, meaning that the guy had to take a bunch of pictures of his truck and of my car, and he had to call his boss, who had to come out and survey the scene. It was made into a much bigger deal than it actually was.
Although I love my Honda Pilot — and it’s supposed to be great in the snow — a four wheel drive vehicle does little to help you when your four wheels are all bald. It’s sort of like trying to really dig into a big, juicy steak with the amazing cutting power of 4 spoons instead of 2. Now my sweet Pilot has an owie. Not a huge owie, but enough of an owie to make me a little skittish about driving anymore today…
…or until I get better tires. And I’ve already told you how great I am at the tire store… Those jerks already see me coming…
This is a picture of my children with their great-great-grandparents.
Great-great-grandparents who are still alive and well in Provo. (This photo is a couple of years old, and I really should go for another visit.) I’ve had my great-grandmother, Afton, write a letter to my daughter, Zoe, so that Zoe would have a neat little piece of remembrance. How many girls have a letter written to them by a great-great-grandma? Not many, I believe. Afton is a neat lady; funny, quick as a whip, and I like to listen to her stories. There exists a hardbound book of her family’s history (called the “Jolly Book”, after her family’s name) that I’m dying to get a look at one day.
On a more basic level, I love this picture because it reminds me of a few things about that day:
1) Zoe was going through a “Sunglasses Phase”.
2) My great-grandparents have no toys in their house, so the kids fought over who got to play with the cow door-stop.
3) Even though my great-grandfather’s hearing is bad, Jachin read him Lego catalogs all afternoon, and my great-grandfather nodded like he understood everything. Then they rocked together on the rocking chairs on the front porch.
While in the gymnasium of Orem Elementary this morning – standing in line, patiently waiting my turn – the principal came on over the loud speakers with a few announcements, and then the National Anthem started blaring. Everyone in line turned in circles, looking for a flag. We found one at the end of a long conference table. The poor thing looked like it had been standing there since the school opened 30 years ago. We put our hands over our heart and the patriotic volunteers dropped their clipboards and started singing the words… sweetly and off key. A few others joined in. I just smiled and remained silent. Democracy in our little neck of the woods. People coming out to the polls early, before work, to flex their democratic muscles. One poor man was standing with his back to the flag, trying to figure out how to get his voter card into the machine properly, completely oblivious to the National Anthem. A few voices sang louder, and he finally turned around and spotted the flag. He blushed and put his hand to his heart. It was precious.
I wanted to thank you for spilling half of our trash in the street at the end of our driveway during your last pick-up. It was cool that you just left it there, instead of making any attempts at all to get out of your truck and pick it up. I think that it is awesome that all afternoon long my neighbors got to walk by with their dogs sniffing through all of the bags of private trash. Like the several pregnancy sticks with only one line on them. My next door neighbors are sad that I’m apparently not pregnant this month. But then they saw the box of ovulation tests, and they are glad we are still trying. I think that it’s so cool that whenever I walk outside now, the elderly couple across the street look at me like they’re wondering whether or not my husband and I were just getting it on.
I also think it’s rad that everyone saw the 65 Diet Coke cans; which, when you divide that by the seven says since the last trash pick up, shows that I still have a real Diet Coke habit. (Tsk, tsk, not a good habit to have when trying to get pregnant.) Oh and also, why are we not recycling all of those cans? Why are we throwing them in the street? The man three doors down with the black lab wants to know…
And the pre-approved credit applications that I forget to shred, well, all kinds of people are thanking me for those. I mean, we weren’t going to use them… why not put them out there for identity theft??
At least the trash bag with the steroid needles and broken crack pipes made it into the back of your truck, and wasn’t strewn down the street in the direction of the dump… and the daycare center. Thanks for being an A-1 trash guy. You rock.
Love,
Suz
ps- I was never going to tell you this, but I’m ticked enough at you that I’m putting it out there: The mailman is way cuter than you. I wasn’t ever going to say anything so mean, but there it is.
Jon went in Saturday to the tire place to have new tires put on his car. His tires were bad; completely bald. Metal sticking out of them, in fact. So new tires were bought and paid for, and an alignment was also paid for. But the tire place was too busy to do the alignment on Saturday. Jon was told to bring the car back in on Monday morning, when they could get to it promptly.
Monday morning, of course, was Jon’s first day at his new job. So he and I switched cars for the day and I was instructed to take his car in for the alignment. It was already paid for, I just had to take it in and let them do their thing. Simple, right?
Not exactly.
Because if you’re me, you know that I always, always do poorly in these types of situations. Service people see me coming from miles away. I am that girl. The girl who doesn’t know that it shouldn’t cost $400 for a certain $6 repair. (It didn’t help, either, that until about 3 years ago, I perpetually looked like a 16 year old.) I have overpaid for almost everything I have ever tried to do on my own. But hey, this time would be different because it was already paid for! All I had to do was drive the car into the stall and sit in the waiting room until it was finished. Very simple. Even for a dumb girl.
But about 20 minutes into my wait, the man comes out to me with a picture showing me the helter-skelter un-alignment of my husband’s wheels. He sighs, like what he is about to tell me is really hard to get out… like the car may have terminal cancer. He shows me the picture, because girls do better with pictures than big words.
He tells me that the “toe” is off by .45 degrees, and that it will be an easy adjustment.
Okay… I’m still waiting for the bad news…
But see this right front wheel? Well, the “camber” is off by a lot. And, because you have ovaries instead of testicles, the only way to fix the camber is to buy an additional ”bolt retro-fit kit”… for $65.
Excuse me?
I said, because you have breasts, it will cost extra to fix. Here, let me show you on a different picture.
He takes me over to a large poster hanging on the wall. It is a picture of a bolt. Ohhhh, riiiight, a bolt… see before when you said bolt I was thinking of something totally different, but now that I’m looking at the picture of the bolt, I totally get it.
I told him to take his manly “bolt retro-fit kit” and shove it up his man-butt.
Not really. But I was thinking it. Dang it, I was not going to come in here for something that should have been a free repair and leave spending a bunch of money. I said, “You know what, this is my husband’s car. If he wants to bring it back in later to have that done — and if it in fact still needs to be done once a man starts driving it again — then he can come in and have it done. ”
Okay, I didn’t exactly say that either. But I said something passive-aggressive and emptied all of the free popcorn from the popcorn machine into my purse. I did not give them any money for anything.
When I got home and showed Jon the picture of the horrible state of his right front camber and told him what happened he said, “Man, that looks bad. You should have had them do it.”
It is 5:30pm here (forget the little time stamp at the top of my posts… it’s never correct). I have been asking Zoe since 1:00 this afternoon to clean her room. Plain old asking didn’t work, so I tried a few other things… cajoling, pleading, bribing, and writing up a fancy check list for her, complete with boxes to check. Normally this check list thing really gets her psyched into stuff. But not today, today she’s giving me nothing. And I want to scream. Actually, I kind of was screaming. Well, I wouldn’t really say screaming, but my voice was definitely raised and higher pitched than usual, and I had visions of spanking her ever-lovin hiney. After 4 and a half hours of dodging my requests, and stalling, and more stalling, and five thousand of her “oh-mom-I-just-want-to-ask-you-one-more-thing-before-I-start-cleaning”’s…
I was done, people. Done with it. I told her I didn’t want to hear one more thing, I wasn’t going to answer one more question, I wasn’t going to talk about snacks, or her taking any “breaks” from the cleaning when she got too tired to put away her clean socks. I wanted her to go clean her room. NOW.
So yeah, there was lots of crying. Crying about there was just one more really important thing that she had to tell me. *sob* But I wasn’t buying it, the bee-yotch that I am to my daughter. I told her that she was grounded from TV for the rest of the day and her butt better not leave her room until it was clean.
She slowly walked back the hallway, tears streaming, tiny sobs still chocked up in her throat. Her sweet-head brother walked up to her in the hallway and handed her a note. It said: Here Zoe, I did this 4 you. He opened her bedroom door and ushered her in, and showed her that he had cleaned up nearly half of it while she was out in the family room trying to tell me just one more thing.
“I felt bad that you were crying, Zoe,” he said sweetly.
“I just wanted to tell mommy that I love her….” Zoe said, her voice raising to a squeal.
Yep. Total. Bee-yotch.
(but ps.- her room is still not completely clean.)
