All I'm Saying there's a joke in here somewhere

Deal or No Deal: Who gives a damn? Anyone? That is the most random, skill-less, bland game show ever. Is America really getting that dumb? And is that your final answer? (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

Freya is doing something interesting and we're not sure if it is a coincidence, or if she has learned something pretty major, considering her age. Matt will blow raspberries at her, and she blows them back! I haven't noticed her doing it any other time than when he is with her, so I think it may be a further sign of her genius. (And holy cow, is she ever howling right now. Good thing I'm in the "free zone" for another 30 minutes...)

The flashback part of the post title is due to the fact that we had a couple little girls stop at our house tonight to let us know that there was a wounded baby bird near their house. Matt, being the game warden extraordinaire that he is, rounded up a box to try to catch the little thing in. As you may recall from previous avian incidents, these things never turn out well. Birds don't really rehabilitate well, much less baby birds, so the proper course of action tends to be letting them alone and they rejoin the food chain a little earlier than they might have. If you know what I mean. Anyhoo, turned out it was a mature bobwhite quail, probably hand-raised by someone and just farther from home than usual. So it went on its merry bobwhite way, after Matt chased it around for a few minutes.

The life and times...glamorous, idnit?

From here on out, all new family traditions (in my family, anyway) require no less than one month's notice. Calling our home at 10:10 p.m. and announcing a new family tradition for the following afternoon will not be acceptable!

Unfortunately for me, the new rule was not in effect prior to this morning, when I returned a phone call from my brother who said that our family was going to start meeting at my grandparents' grave site on Memorial Day. It's not that it is such a bad thing, but for the fact that Matt has family here from Denver visiting and we had plans today.

Explaining that to my brother did not have much effect. He said our presence "would be missed," which is code in my family for, "You'll be on everyones' shit list if you're not there, regardless of your piddly little excuse."

So yes, let me drop everything to go to a grave site. One that each of us in the family has been to exactly twice in the past 16 years since my grandmother died and the 19 since my grandfather's passing. Seems kind of tardy to begin this tradition, but that's my fam-damily for you...

Having once been in the outdoor recreation "industry" and managing campgrounds, it always used to tickle me greatly when a holiday weekend was rainy and crappy. It meant I had to deal with a lot less bullshit from people who went camping and left their brains back home. (Believe me, it used to give me stomach aches the dicketry people would get up to.)

So it rains on probably 80% of the Memorial Day weekends in Idaho and I would cackle happily to myself.

Now I'm not in the camping business, and it typically doesn't matter to me one way or another what the weather is on any weekend. However. Matt's sister and her husband are coming to visit this week, and they're bringing their two springer spaniels with them. And we have two springers of our own. Doing the math, that leads me to the conclusion that the rainy weekend we are having + (springer spaniels)(4) = one hell of a messy house.

I'm more than a little nervous about how this is all going to work out.

I didn't want to post anything here until we knew one way or another what the issues were, but my husband was recently dealing with a potential health problem.

He had Hodgkin's Disease in 1987, and has been cancer free ever since. However, he developed a large lump on the side of his neck a couple of months ago, and went to see the doctor about it recently.

It's a long story, but he ended up getting several different scans of his neck and chest done, and we were all very worried that he had cancer again. This past Monday, the lump was excised and biopsied.

He is still cancer free.

We found out the good news late this afternoon, and now we get the bitch about all the medical costs to find out that he was perfectly healthy, which has been our best-case scenario since he found the lump.

It has been a time of much thinking for me. Thinking about life and how ours could change radically. I know he was doing the same and thinking about how unfair it would be if he didn't get to see Freya growing up. Thankfully, we're not going to have to worry about that for a while.

I went to a microdermabrasion appointment today and decided to try getting my brows waxed by their hair removal person there. (She did great, by the way.)

While she was working on me, I asked her if she did bikini area waxing. She said, "No, I only do laser hair removal on the bikini area." I looked quizzical, and she said, "Something about waxing larger strips of hair makes me nervous, and I scream every time I rip off a big strip. It frightens the clients."

I should think it would frighten the client getting their nether regions waxed, should the technician be screaming her head off.

Which reminds me of another depilation story: a couple years ago, Matt asked me where my tweezers were. This question always makes me nervous, because I bought high-end tweezers for my eyebrow plucking. I asked why, and he said his nose hairs were getting long. I said, "What do you need the tweezers for?" "To pluck them!" "You pluck your nose hair?!" "Yeah, it keeps it from growing back." "Honey, how many times have you seen me plucking my eyebrows?" "About a million...why? Oh..."

Holy ouch, Batman.

My sweet baby laughed for the first time today! I was sitting on the couch with her in my lap, and Matt was talking on the phone to his sister, who is coming to visit us from Denver next week. I pantomimed that I wanted her to bring some wine, using gestures mimicking swilling from a glass and making enthusiastic glugging noises, and Freya looked at me and said, "Ha ha ha!"

Okay, it didn't sound exactly like that. But it was definitely a laugh. I looked at her, I looked at Matt, we all three looked at each other, and that was it.

We've been doing everything but standing on our heads to get her to do it again, but she's not seeing the humor in our antics. It's going to be days before she does it again, huh? Well, she's laughing officially, so I'm thrilled.

Bet I can make you smile...

Continue reading "Gotcha!"

Just because I want to be the one to say, "Oh yeah, I blogged about it way before the news was public," about something, I'm going to go out on a limb here about my suspicion regarding a media type.

I think Campbell Brown of the Today Show is pregnant.

This past Sunday, Mother's Day, she featured a news story about making Mom a special meal. She was cooking with some celebrated Italian chef and the woman's son, and at the end, a wine toast was proposed. The chef handed Campbell a glass of wine, and there was a tell-tale flicker across Campbell's face as she tried to give it back. She failed to get rid of the wine, so just held it as she introduced the next story.

So you mark my words, here in a couple of months it will come out that she is preggers, and you can say you read all about it here first.

Whoopee.

For my first Mother's Day?

Freya crapped on my foot.

I was just standing outside with her balanced on my hip. As I was talking to Matt, I heard a loud fart and very shortly afterward felt something warm on my sandaled foot.

This is so going in the baby book.

Happy Mudder's Day!

Once again, I find myself ruing the lack of synaptic connections in my parenting brain. Matt and I went to Target this afternoon and picked up a few new toys for Freya because she is really enjoying sticking stuff in her mouth and gnawing on it. Rather than letting her continue on with dirty socks and a dishrag, we got her one of these. Cute, huh?

Until Mommy decided to sterilize it in the microwave, the same way she does the pacifier and bottle stuff...

View image

Matt went to a class at the area police academy earlier this week to teach him (and other officers) how to properly administer field sobriety tests. Those are the things you see people doing on COPS and other TV shows, or perhaps it is something you have up-close experience with.

Last night, there was a practical exercise. They had drunk people there to check out. I asked him where the heck they came up with the drunks, and it turns out that they are volunteers from one of the nearby hospitals. Like, hospital employees, not people who are sick of waiting for critical care and need something better to do.

So all these folks show up before the tests, and each of them are given a certain amount of alcohol and a certain timeframe to drink it in. This ensures that the drunks have different levels of sobriety.

I guess it is a good way to get bombed for free, but really, can that be any fun at all? I can't imagine it is...

I had several keyword hits in my StatCounter report indicating that someone out there is finding this site by searching Google for "Pat Monahan is an idiot," and "Pat Monahan is a jerk." There were at least four hits on those phrases in the last 24 hours. Now lord knows that I am simply warm for Mr. Monahan's form, and have no idea what his personality is like. I'd like to think he's not a jerk, but whoever does, feel free to leave a little note in the comments telling us about your evidence.

Now, I can tell you this: Clint Black is a jerk. Back in my teenage years, I had my panties in a bunch for that man. However, I met him after he played a concert in Boise, and I can unequivocally say he is a jackass. Anyone who'd bitch out a 16 year-old female fan just because Garth Brooks made a bigger splash than he did at his recent concert is definitely a jerk. And I'll never forgive him for being snippy with me. So there.

Now you know who knows some of the Hollywood types? That'd be Dee. It seems she went to high school with the young resident who caused the car crash in this week's episode of Grey's Anatomy. And he was a cheerleader. Which doesn't mean anything here or there, as far as I am concerned. Just found that interesting.

Dear Freya,

You turned three months old today! It amazes me that you've been with us a quarter of a year. It seems like such a long time, and yet it has only been an instant.

In the picture above, you are playing with what is probably your current "best friend" (in the non-parental category), a toy elephant we have named Paco the Pachyderm. Paco has rattles in his feet, crinkly ears and a vibrating mechanism inside his body. You have spent cumulative hours grabbing at those ears and gnawing on his trunk. Paco is guaranteed to garner some of your brightest smiles.

Happily, you are starting to discover your feet! I left your socks off yesterday, and you spent quite a bit of time checking out your toes. You cannot reach them yet, but you look at them like a hungry bird would look at ten tiny pink earthworms wriggling on the ground. In no time at all, you'll be gnawing on them, too.

You are cooing at your daddy and I during most of your waking hours. You have such a sweet little voice, but you can be darned bossy at times. I'm not sure what it is you want me to do, which may explain your exasperated tone sometimes.

I am lucky to be able to take you to my office with me every day. It has been such a good environment for you, as the bustle and the change of scenery appeals to your rapidly developing mind, and you are curious about everything and everyone. It is also a great benefit to my coworkers. You get so many visitors every day, and it is a beautiful thing to see a stressed out person come to see you, and I watch the stress melt away from their faces as soon as they've had one of your smiles.

You're a beautiful little girl, and you've made so many people happy already. I am so proud of the person you are now and the one you will become.

Love,
Mommy

I figured it was a good time to share a cute baby picture. Freya has had a couple of bath nights recently where she can't keep her stuff together and she just falls right to sleep in the tub. I can wash her hair and face, and she doesn't even open an eye to see what is going on.

In case you are wondering or concerned for her safety, I am in the tub with her.

How is it that reality television has sunk to such lows? I know it isn't considered all that great to begin with by many of the great minds of our century, but really!

First, there's this season of Survivor. Everyone likeable, with the exception of Terry, has been given the boot. If anybody but him wins, I'll pretty much just crap.

Then there's The Amazing Race, with whom I am a little annoyed to begin with, as Erica and Sherri weren't chosen to be on this season. But why are people such haters towards the Hippies? Those are some nice folk right there, and rat bastards like MoJo and the Frat Boys have treated them just terribly. I don't get it.

Now we're trying to get all highbrow by watching Texas Ranch House on PBS, but there's just not enough hate and discontent to keep us with it.

Back when I was pregnant, I blamed a lot of the dingy stuff I did on "preggo brain," which is supposed to come from the fact that you're busy cogitating on how you're going to give birth and your thoughts turn inward.

Now that I have given birth, I have no idea which direction my thoughts have turned; all I know is that they are gone, Daddy, gone. I have a pretty bad case of "Mommy brain" now.

For example, I held a Body Shop at Home party a couple weekends ago. I collected orders and checks, and tucked them all tidily in the Body Shop catalog to give to the rep when she delivered the orders. And then I threw the catalog away in a fit of tidying. And then I got to dumpster dive in our garbage can this afternoon, but it was too late--the checks and the orders were picked up in last Friday's trash run.

Dammit...