Man, can I write a peppy title or what? Next week’s breaking news:

Man breathes in and out — film at 11!

Now back to the subject of this post — what this self-absorbed woman said at the Weight Watchers meeting I recently attended. I’ll write about the weight loss thing* at some point, I suppose, but right now I just want to direct your attention to a short post I wrote for Funny not Slutty.

It’s about this woman whose every utterance makes me want to rip my own ears off with my teeth.  That ever happen to you?  You’re set on edge by someone, but when you glance around in a conspiratorial

Whywhywhy does she keep talking and where can we get a good Cone of Silence?

manner, everyone around you looks as serene as the Dalai Lama.  That’s me around this woman.  Do me a  favor and read the post (with free bonus cartoon!) and let me know if I’m over-reacting.**

*Oh and yeah, I’m trying for my third Lifetime over at the enchanted land of the double W.  If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then lucky for you.  If you do, here’s a “Bravo” sticker.

**I know I’m over-reacting, but she’s annoying as hell and I’m hungry.

Hey, Masters of the Universe. Wassup brain surgeons, Silicon Valley millionaires and CEO’s featured in those little blurbs in my alumni bulletin? I don’t want to brag, but brag I must.

I just finished making a stunt pickle for the community theater I work with. (All producers interested in optioning my life story can comment below and I’ll get back to you as soon as my schedule allows.)

I got to direct the last show and Phin was the lead; this time around, I’m helping with props and he has arguably the least funny part in The Odd Couple — Roy, the accountant.

It’s really nice for us to pitch in without having to be responsible for more than making fake kosher dills and memorizing a small part. (Yeah, I know; no small parts. But last show Phin had to be knocked down, slapped and emotionally flayed. This time, he deals cards and eats a stale potato chip. So small-er, certainly.)

This show Phin gets to stay on his feet, while my daredevil gherkin is smacked halfway across the stage. Sorry about the bragging, but stunt pickles are blurb-worthy. Right?

Right?

Goddamn english major. I really ought to consider some vocational training.

All right, I’m lying about the 3D.  But that’s how excited I am to read Parenting: Illustrated with Crappy Pictures, Amber Dusick’s book.  Instead of having electronic book molecules fly through space (whatever) and into my Kindle, I bought an actual olden days hardcover book, which I keep caressing in a lustful manner. It has color pictures…  and a shiny hard cover. (Take that, Kindle.)**  With paper pages you can spindle and mutilate, not that I would do that to my new non-virtual book.

Right now I am on Chapter five, and thus far,  it’s great.  Hysterical.  When I finish it, I’ll put up a 5 star review, unless things go to hell and they all convert to Scientology and/or Amber stops being funny. I’d put money on the five stars, if you can find a betting line that covers mom bloggers. Cayman Islands, you listening?+++

21st Century Kid:

What is this hard cover book of which you speak?  Is it something from Microsoft?

**Note to my Kindle: I didn’t mean it. I was just making a cheap joke at your expense. I love you, I can’t live without you and please don’t die like all my old Kindles. I treat you well and thus far haven’t dropped you on concrete or taken you into the sauna, right? Ah ha ha ha ha. Nervous laugh, why? What are you thinking right now?  Is everything all right?

+++ Edited to add: I finished the book.  I definitely recommend it. It got a little bit sentimental towards the end, but I have a low threshold.  Still 5 stars.  The illustrations slay me — how she can convey so much humor and expression with such seemingly simple, childlike strokes is astounding.  It’s wizardry to me.

Related articles

• Parenting: Illustrated with Crappy Pictures {Review and Giveaway}
• Crappie Tonight!! unrelated, but so what?

Hey, kid; we took you to frigging Disney. Why do you look like someone ran over your puppy?

I was shooting on my phone, in the sun, so I couldn’t actually see that Mooch was  silently protesting each photo op.  Until I got back home and realized every family photo looked like we were forcibly dragging a sad orphan girl to the gulag.

Or that Mooch was trying out for the part of “girl who dropped ice cream off camera right and was sadly watching it melt while her family laughed at her misfortune.”

Or that only she knew we would win free Disney passes for life if Mickey Mouse happened by and noticed that she was

The Saddest Girl in Disney World.

Seriously, Moochie.  It’s frigging Disney.

I know kids wear out to the point of screaming tantrums in the parks — we saw plenty of them.  But you never complained about walking miles, waiting on lines, the fact that we had to wear all the clothes we brought because it was actually cold out.  And you went on every scary vertical dropping, G-force inducing, upside down looping, scary warning signed ride without a moment of hesitation.

We know you had fun.  We just don’t have any photo documentation.

Edited to add: Phin requests that I inform you that he doesn’t normally rock a cargo short and blazer ensemble.  

Related articles

• Mickey Returns to Mouse House in 2D Shorts     
• (And you know how painful that can be.)

We ran out of excuses and finally decided to take Mooch to Disney World. Did you take note of my curmudgeonly attitude? To all you Disneyacs who go every year, who have annual passes and no children, who’d rather see Epcot’s Morocco than Africa’s, I apologize. And to those who can’t afford a vacation of any sort, I know I sound like a jerk. We’ll have a blast, I’m sure. The big kids are coming too, and any time we can get together and travel as a family is wonderful. Also: I love to travel — any time, anywhere.

It’s just that Disney’s never been the top choice for the adults in the family**. We have been selfish in that respect. Just as we never listened to kiddie music in the car, we adults decided on the vacation destinations. So Mooch has been to a lot of cool places (without monorails) and would rather listen to Nirvana or Bob Marley than Justin Bieber. This “adults decide” system has been working pretty well for all concerned.

So Why Are we Going to Disney World tomorrow?

She has a birthday coming up and she wanted a slumber party. Phin and I figured we could get out of that nightmare AND fulfill our parental duty by taking the kid to meet the mouse. See you in a few days.

 ** I rebel against any kind of enforced merriment, not just Disney’s.  No means no, even if it’s my answer to your “C’mon, limbo’s fun!” strong arm tactics.

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• The Reluctant Disney Fanatic

Somehow I don’t see it happening.

Yet she doesn’t seem to mind.  In fact, (and kind of pathetically) she kept reenacting that single step face plant for her own amusement.  It wasn’t as dramatic as “the agony of defeat” guy‘s crash on The Wide World of Sports, but it did make me feel guilty for having NEVER taken her sledding.

I know I should, but it’s not going to happen.  Our only snow-related tradition was to build a teeny snowman together and trounce the competition in her karate dojo’s annual contest.  We won two years in a row, then retired from competition.  Because we were that good.

I was in a theater the other day when a woman’s cell phone rang.  (Don’t worry, lady.  That announcement was only intended for less important people. Besides, it was only the first act, and exposition’s boring, right?)

Point is, she had one of those ringtones that replicate the sound of an old fashioned rotary phone.  This tone amused me the first 100 times I heard it, because I pictured confused teenagers with “OMG, what’s that?” thought balloons over their heads. But now the joke is old, and the tone’s starting to grate.

When this woman’s phone went off, in the middle of the show I’d spent half a year working on, I wanted to frog march her out of the theater.  Yet because I wasn’t raised by wolves, I knew this wasn’t the wisest response.  Besides, I would end up causing more of a distraction than her damn phone did in the first place.

Instead, I  waited until intermission, then told her she’s been exiled to Annoying Island, to live out her days with time share salesmen, the turn signal averse, people who chew with their mouths open and those who chuck “I know, right?” into every conversation.  Well, no I didn’t.  I had a pack of M & M’s with a Diet Coke chaser.  That showed her.

But back to that annoying ring tone.  Why stop at 1950′s technology? If you’re going to get in the WABAC Machine, why not go all the way? Or, if you’ll permit me to switch from a Rocky and Bullwinkle to a Spinal Tap metaphor, does Nigel Tufnel  set his amp to three? Not when it goes to eleven, he doesn’t.**

That’s why I developed my new ringtone.  When I get a call, I hear the footsteps of an ancient Grecian messenger (I mean one from ancient Greece, not an extremely elderly messenger; that’d be crazy) who runs up, panting, unrolls a scroll, announces “It’s for you,” and drops dead at my feet.

Then your message plays, so it better be important.  Because you basically killed the messenger.

** Did I lose you there?  Sorry.  I’m not so good with the linear thought. 

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• What’s The Best Ringtone You’ve Ever Heard?

…of Skokie.

This photo proves:

1. I wasn’t kidding.

2.  Mom shorts are a thing.  Sadly, I was in my 20′s and not a mom.

3.  Pisa is in Illinois.  Who knew? Then again, that explains why the ravioli sucked.

An ad featuring these pictures just popped into my inbox and thoroughly disgusted me:

good photo of gross thing by Mitzi Johnson … but not for the reasons you might suspect.  Sure, seeing the moldy insides of that blue suction bulb were cringe-worthy, but that wasn’t the worst part.  The flashbacks were.

We had one of the Nosefrida baby nose siphons, and it was awesome.  It was a veritable Dyson vacuum of snot-suckage, and Moochie wasn’t bothered by it like she was by the dreaded blue bulb.  The only problem was that I couldn’t watch or listen to it being used without having dry heaves.  Because it had (oh God, I can hardly type these words) clear plastic tubing.  Clear. Tubing! ARGHHH!!

The blue bulb was fairly useless, but at least the damn thing was opaque.

I have a problem with phlegm. (There, I said it.) And vomit and mucus.  Just typing these words is making me gag. If your adorable toddler waddles up to me with a yellow caterpillar of snot dripping mouthward, I’m not only going to gag, but I’m going to suffer multiple gag-inducing flashbacks.

Old men shooting snot rockets is the reason I am not a Chinatown fish monger, because as much as I’d love a career path that involves the word “monger,” I can’t abide the wet, viscid “THWAK” sound of mucus hitting sidewalk.

It’s my Kryptonite.

But if you’ve got a kid who hasn’t learned how to blow her own nose, that Nosefrida thing really does work.

 **Edited to add: because I’ve barely blogged for five months and have at best literally tens of readers, I was certainly not paid to write this post.

(Or: I’m Not So Good With The Computers)

SIRI: Pssst, Monitor…

MONITOR: Yeah?

SIRI: Do me a favor.  Kablooey’s got ten minutes to get out an email, so could you mess with her somehow?  Maybe freeze up, or erase her contacts, or…

MONITOR:  Wait, I got it.  As soon as she hits a key, I’m going to do this:

SIRI: Wow, that’s really effed up. I love it.