Friday, April 27, 2007

Something fun for Friday

I want a pair of Eleanor Grosch Keds. Because they look cute and comfortable. Because the designer is really hip and cool and therefore I will be too, if I wear them. Because I want to support hip and cool and talented women named Eleanor.

I was going to wait until they went on sale, but I'm a bit paranoid that by the time they do, they will be sold out. So.... Which pair do y'all like best?







Thanks!

Thursday, April 26, 2007

On Stopping Crazy Homicidal Maniacs

Even though I am currently mulling over ways to revamp this blog (to make it less “smart”, to include fewer “links”, to write more “often”), I am going to write another post that no one wants to read.

If you’ve talked to me IRL, you may have heard me rant about this already but here goes the electronic version.

Virginia Tech. 33 Dead. Crazy person w/ a gun. What went wrong / what should have been done / what could make schools safer?

Not much. A crazy homicidal maniac won’t care too much if he breaks a law when he obtains a firearm. Yes, it may make it harder, but guns, like drugs and abortions, will always be available to desperate people with cash.

We can close campuses, but we can’t close campuses to um... students, which above referenced crazy homicidal maniac was.

We can get police some turbo packs so they can fly really fast to the scene of a crime but see above: crazy homicidal maniac with gun. Oh, and chains to chain doors together.

See my point? Crazy people will do something crazy if they have their mind set to do it. So we have to stop the crazy.

I’m not in any sort of counseling / psychiatric / pastoral field. I’m sure people who are will have lots of insight and wisdom and advice on how to address potential craziness in people.

But I am a lawyer, and I know *something* about laws. Here in Texas, where I am licensed, we have some laws to prevent child abuse. One law is, if you are someone who works with a child (teacher, social worker, day care teacher, etc.) and you have a good faith reasonable belief that the child is or has been abused you have 24 hours to report that to authorities. If you do so, you are immune from civil liability, meaning a parent can’t sue you for making a false claim. If you do not, you are not only immune to civil liability, but you are subject to criminal liability for failing to protect a child. Anybody else in Texas also has civil immunity if you have a good faith, reasonable belief that a child is being abused, and you report it to authorities.

Maybe it’s because I’m a lawyer, but with this Cho guy, I’m hearing a lot of people who saw the warning signs, even administrators at VT, but for whatever reason, their hands were tied, or they were scared to do something.

We need similar laws to the child abuse reporting statutes, for potential school violence. Not only do we need to give civil immunity to those who report potential crazy homicidal maniacs to police, but we need to MANDATE school administrators to do so.

I’m still not sure the Chos of this world can be stopped, but we need to give ourselves the opportunity to do so.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Yesterday

Yesterday was a bad day. I started off depressed by the Virginia Tech massacre. Then I went to a college campus for work, and had to talk about Virginia Tech and its implications for all colleges. The woman I talked to then mentioned that she had lost her husband in the Oklahoma City bombing, and her son the year before, so "this kind of thing" affected her more. I almost started crying right then and there. Our computers and phones were all messed up at work, the parking garage attendant asked me if I was pregnant with my first baby.... Grrr.

I picked up the kids a little early to spend time with them before going over to Mrs. Dallas K's for a little shindig to celebrate MommyMe's first day of her new job. When I went over, the day turned around completely....

they surprised me with an early birthday surprise party! I got a card, and presents, and cake, and lots of yummy totally diet-friendly food, and of course, my bitches. I even got to see Cop's Wife, who has been too busy with mothering and working and getting a MASTERS' degree to see any of us lately. And Football Widow had such a good time, I felt like I was drunk while talking to her.

Thanks my bitches! Y'all helped make my 30th year so special, I can't wait to spend my 31st getting into more trouble with you!

Pics at Mrs. Dallas K's, as usual.

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Odds

Conversation at my house yesterday upon our first viewing of a Veggie Tales episode:
Me: They have no arms!
Jeff: Sara, They're vegetables.
Me: Well, they talk, don't they?

Other exclamation at my house yesterday: Holy shit, I ran a 5K! It's all due to Football Widow, MommyMe, and Mrs. DallasK. They told me to run ("train") and made sure I registered and didn't buy my crap about me wanting to make sure my leg wasn't broken and all. Thanks gals! I'm hurting in weird places today, but I feel so great about beating my goal time by 4 minutes! Yay me! Pics at Mrs. DallasK's, as usual.

This month's contribution to the printed word found here.

Monday, April 09, 2007

He Who Shall Not Be Named


See this guy?

I will not speak his name, but we all know who he is and what he has done. He has disappointed children, and dashed the dreams of young and old.

Karma is a bitch.

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Good times

Every day when we leave day care, I let E pick up two or three packs of crackers for the ride home. Yesterday, she gave me one and as I was holding it, M grabbed it from me and started gnawing on it. I tried taking it away from her, but she pouted, and I caved, since I had made her cry when I first walked in yesterday. (I was at the front desk signing the kids out, and she happened to see me from her room. Literally, there’s one spot where she could sit and see me, and she was there. I heard a kid crying quite loudly, and I thought, “my, that’s one pissed off baby…. That kinda sounds like mine.” I turned around and there she was, crying that she could see her mama and her mama wasn’t coming to get her. It broke my heart. Therefore… crackers.) So E got to get two more crackers.

We’re in the car, and E has finished her crackers and gets all pouty about something, and starts kicking my seat. I say, “look at that temper tantrum right there!” And she says, “I wanna see!”

“What?” I ask.
“I wanna see temper tan!”
“You want to see a temper tantrum?”
“Yes!”
“Right there! You’re the temper tantrum!”
“NOOOOOOOOOOOO. I WANNA SEE TEMPER TAN!”

It was pretty funny, and nothing I could do could convince her that a temper tantrum wasn’t something really cool outside of the car that she was missing.

She calmed down a little, and saw M still gnawing on the pack of Club crackers (yes I’m a horrible mother for letting her do that, I know). “I want Aggie crackers.” (E calls M “aggie”)
“You want Maggie’s crackers?” I ask.
“Yes.”
”No, baby, you had your crackers, those are Maggie’s crackers.”
“I want to share.” She pouted.

So freakin’ cute. She gets sharing! Kinda.

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Wired Wednesday

Once again, I’m all over the place this morning.

1) General Pace. WTF were you thinking? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. You can (and should) have your own religious beliefs. BUT. You are a SECULAR leader, not only to the military, but to our nation. You cannot call an entire portion of our society “immoral.” I know conservatives decry political correctness, but there is a reason for it. It’s also called common courtesy, showing respect, not trying to tick people off for stupid reasons. You and I agree on one very large thing: Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is an idiotic program. But in 2007, the military’s got some larger problems on its hands right? Women are getting raped, harassed and beaten in the military, never mind what’s happening to Iraqis, Afghans and detainees. What two consenting adults do off the job is no one’s business, and should not even be on your radar right now. Take care of some of these other items, then we’ll let you tell Americans what is “immoral.”

2) It’s Spring Break. Parents and tourists, do NOT ride the light rail during rush hour, or I will hate you and give you and your croc-wearing, denim short-sporting, Teddy Graham-eating self the evil eye. People use the rail to get back and forth from WORK. We value our quiet time. We do not want to hear your children asking “how many more stops until we get home?” And, “What’s the stop where we get off?” for the 100th time. I don’t want to hear your theories on the “inner city” and how “they should do something about that old building [Dallas High School].” I REALLY don’t want to hear you tell your preteen son (who’s old enough to stand up and let someone take his seat, BTW) how smart he is every time he COUNTS the number of stops on the train map.

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

I'm back with a new friend

I’d like to introduce you to my new best fantasy-friend, Mindy. (There's also a link over there to Things that I've Bought that I Love.)

Most of you know that my old best fantasy friend is Tim Gunn from Project Runway. And I still love him, but while I totally want to have coffee with him everyday and discuss all sorts of things, he will never, in spite of his orientation, be a true girlfriend.

That’s where Mindy Ephron/Kaling comes in. I discovered her blog a few months ago, and now between that and her acting/ writing on The Office, I think she may be my new best fantasy-friend, taking over from the illustrious line of Isaac Mizrahi, Ellen DeGeneres and Tim Gunn. (Yes, there’s a pattern there, and it’s not a good interview and a love of a well-cut jacket. I may be breaking the pattern with Mindy, but maybe she’s just a closet case like in all those blind items. Whatever, I don’t care.) Everyone knows that the basis of a truly meaningful, deep friendship is a shared interest in superficial things. Mindy’s blog makes me laugh and makes me want to shop and write about things I love, and I know that during my next shopping trip I will be having a deep, thoroughly superficial, thoroughly imagined girl-chat with her.

Right now, she won't take my comments. Is that the fantasy world equivalent of not taking my calls?

All over the place

Back to the princess phenomenon: See how I'm not the only parent to resist, and how totally commercial, contrived and evil it is? And how parents will have to eventually justify the tiaras as some sort of post-feminist reclamation of grrrl power? Oy vey.

Here's my latest in the paper. I'm not all that proud of this one, but whatever. It's published. It's got my name on it. I better get proud.

Many of you that are on Google Talk have seen my away/here message and asked about it. Yes, someone ate my burrito. And yogurt. And healthy choice frozen dinner. There's someone at work that steals food. They've stolen food from me before in my 3 years here, but never this much, all together. I alternate between being royally ticked off to just feeling kind of sad that not only has someone stooped to this level, but that I have to work with that kind of person. Plus, Mrs. Dallas K told me a story about someone who purposefully set out to steal the food from an officemate who they didn't like, just to f#ck with them, so I'm trying not to get paranoid about that.

Thursday, March 08, 2007

Y'all gon' make me lose my mind

Ok, first of all, what’s up with me not getting carded… twice yesterday?

I bought wine yesterday at two separate stores and there was NO request to see my identification. WTH.

And if the “buying wine” item isn’t enough to tell you that I’m ready for my husband to come home, here’s another clue.

I was telling Football Widow last night that I suspected my brain had stopped working, and I needed another adult around the house. For instance, I could not come up with something for dinner last night. Nothing sounded good to me, and though it was tempting to let E have an all-cracker meal last night, as she suggested, I literally stood in front of the fridge, waiting for inspiration. Finally, I came up with eggs and toast (brilliant) but it took me way too long to think of that. I suspected something was amiss with my brain.

This morning, I was got E and M dressed, putting great effort into keeping everyone happy and moving along. I got everyone dressed, fed, downstairs, got the dog out, got my shoes on, got the bottles in the bag and was taking M out to the car when E said, “I go poo poo mommy.”

“Oh, really? Really? Um, can you hold it until you get to school? NO! I mean, don’t hold it, hold it. Just, wait, ok?”

I’m still on my one track mind, and I get M out to the car and strap her in. I come back to get E and she says, “I need go potty poo poo NOW mommy.”

Remembering that she’s been making significant progress on this front, I decide that I really can’t ignore this quite clear and quite insistent request. I run out, and put the garage door down and lights on in the garage so M doesn’t freak out, then come back in and quickly take E to her potty.

As soon as I start unbuttoning her pants, I notice something.

She doesn’t have a diaper on.

“E! Mommy didn’t put a diaper on you this morning?” “No diaper mommy.” “Ok, well you sit down on the potty while mommy runs upstairs to get your diaper.”

I run upstairs in my heels, and find E’s diaper, where I left it on her bed this morning. I have no idea what happened. I have put a diaper on that child every morning for the past 2+ years. This morning? I lost my mind.

I run back downstairs (in heels) and into the bathroom, terribly cognizant of the time clicking and M sitting by herself in the car. I bend down, E says, “No poo poo mommy.” Damn. All that and no poo poo. I start to take off her pants to put the diaper on, and I realized a second thing. Her pants are sopping wet. I tell her I’m going back upstairs to get new pants for her, and tell her to try again with the poo poo (we need something positive out of this situation, right?)

I run back upstairs (slipping off the heels) and get some new pants. Back down, changing the kid in a Guinness-worthy moment, jumping (literally) back into the heels, telling E to “run run run!” out the door to the car.

I’m tired just typing it all again.

So yes, I need, no, deserve wine. And my husband comes home on Saturday. Expect my brain to start working sometime after that.

Monday, March 05, 2007

weekend update

So I could write about how E put herself into time-out on Saturday after sitting on her sister's head. (I yanked her off, yelled something like, "WE do NOT sit on the baby's head!" Then she put her head down and said, "Time out" and headed to the time out corner. Then I said, "No, MOMMY puts you into time out, not E. (pause) Go to time out!")

I could write about how M now pulls herself into a sitting position from laying down, and how she's *almost* crawling. Or how she talked our ears off this weekend. Bah bah bah bah bah bAH!

I could write about how E thinks Daddy's bringing home an elephant from India.... and I may, but right now I want to write about the three (yes, THREE) movies I saw on Saturday night.

We (Mom and Dad came for the weekend to help w/ the kids) started with For Your Consideration. I usually heart Christopher Guest's movies, and of course I will recommend this one to anyone, but it's not his finest work. Maybe I'm just not a Hollywood insider to get the jokes, but I don't frequent dog shows and I got the jokes in Best in Show. (Which I HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend)

Then we moved onto Jesus Camp. My mom cried. I got angry, and I laughed at Ted Haggard. Seriously. It was a scary show.

Dad went to bed, and mom and I decided to push through the night with one more: Shut up and Sing about the Dixie Chicks. These were two very interesting movies to watch back to back since they are both about the "culture wars," if you will (hate that term, but too early to think of a better description.) My mom, who cried about what was done to the children at the Jesus Camp, and who naively wondered aloud, "I wonder if the Bushes know about these people" still carries a sizeable animosity against Natalie Maines, and the movie did not change her mind.

Me? I love the Dixie Chicks. In 2003 I was annoyed with Natalie for the way she handled the situation, but I love how they came back. I love that they are strong, talented, smart, opinionated women who have put their families and careers first. The movie doesn't always paint them in the best light, but I still heart them and wish I had been able to go to their show. I'm probably going to watch it again this week.

Monday, February 26, 2007

One good story and one bad

My parents gave E some knock-off crocs for Christmas. She’d been asking to wear them, but (1) they were a little big for her and (2) they had holes in them, and it was very cold outside. Then I noticed some little girls in her class wearing them, and I figured they probably were very practical for day care life, and it got a little warmer, and her feet are bigger, so I broke them out last week. My mom also sent me a pair of mary jane crocs for Valentines Day, which are green like E’s. I HAD to point that out to her, and now every time she’s wearing hers, she wants mommy to wear her green shoes, like E.

So we were fighting that battle yesterday, when she got out one of my Coach purses that I had left out. “Bye bye mommy, see you later,” And she walked around the house with it, pretending like she was going on a trip. She even put in her tube of Burt's Bees lip balm (hers because she used it while sick with the plague.)

Then the real stylist moment came when Jeff came out without his pants on. Back up… he had showered, and dressed. He had a shirt on, and boxers, and had come into the living room to get his jeans out of his suitcase. “Pants on, Daddy, pants on!”

Our little stylist – green crocs for mommy, coach purse for her and pants for daddy. She’ll be dressing Jessica Biel before you know it.

So that’s my fun bit for today and now for the heartwrenching part. And I’m having difficulty writing about it, but I want you, my readers, to learn something from my pain.

Falling at Costco? Not my most embarrassing moment anymore.

Yesterday I served as assisting minister at church. It was my first time. I was terribly nervous. I read the gospel, lead the prayers of the people. All was well. I assisted at communion and spilled the chalice of red wine all over the organist.

Go me.

I wiped up what I could and had to go on. I started getting a little hysterical during communion. I’m sure most of the people who accepted wine from me (this time in the little cups in the tray) hadn’t seen the chalice debacle, but I still imagined them cowering in fear, “Don’t spill it on me!”

I put on a good face and walked with the pastors to the back of the church at the end of the service. The pastor put his arm around me and said some things to make me feel better, then made me go shake hands with the congregation.

After I was done, I ran back to the sacristy to grab my purse and a $10 bill. I found the organist, a nice woman who has, however, always intimidated me. I pressured her to take the money for cleaning her SUEDE JACKET. (Oh, I didn’t mention that detail?) She was extremely gracious, and declined, and forgave me. I started crying, and cried all the way home.
The rest of the day distracted me, and the pastor called me again last night to tell me it was fine, that he could tell me horrible stories about things he had done and seen during worship. I told him that it was more than just me being embarrassed about a mistake. My experience at the communion table was a big reason why I joined our church, why I even became Lutheran. It means a lot to me, and the fact that I could have detracted from someone else’s experience distressed me.

What could he say? “Well, that’s a good reason to feel responsible, but just brush it off, and next time you'll be fine.”

“I’m invited back another time?”

He laughed, “Of course.”

I’m still not over the mortification, or the guilt, but his and the victim’s graciousness says a lot about them, and about our church family.

I’m still taking a few months off from the job, though.

Monday, February 19, 2007

Poor Britney

By now everyone knows that Britney Spears shaved her hair. I am probably the only one who thinks the 'do looks good on her (as good as a bald head could look) but I still think the girl's got issues. This morning on the Today show (yes, I'm a SAHM today thanks to Mr. Presidents Washington and Lincoln) some psychologist was saying that Britney clearly does not have many close friends or a support system to help her through this time.

Well, after this weekend, I'm glad to say that I have bitches that would never, ever, let me shave my head. Not only would they talk me out of it (clearly with some profanity) but then they'd probably make sure someone was taking care of me. I'll post more about the birthday girl later, but you can read about her celebration (and see the pics) at Mrs DallasKs blog.

Friday, February 16, 2007

And the answer is...

Benign! But "changing." They want to check it out in 3 months.

As I told Jeff, they have to make their big doctor bucks, and I want to make sure I don't have cancer, so we all win.

My PSA for the day: Skin cancer is totally (well, 98%) preventable. Use sunscreen, go show a doc some skin. It's so easy, you would feel really stupid if you got it. You would say, "hm... Sara told me to get that mole checked out, I'm an idjit and I deserve melanoma." (Well, you wouldn't deserve it, because no one does, but you would regret not going to the doctor 10 years earlier.)

Ok, and weird moment of the day yesterday. I went in to the day care, and saw E's class playing in the big front room (it was too cold to go outside). I heard someone say, "Look, E, who it is." E ran over and yelled, "Mommy!" And I just had a moment - who am I? I'm that little kid's mommy? The one who can run and yell and is so freakin' cute? I knelt down to hug her, and she turned around to all her little friends and said, "My mommy!" I don't know when it happened, but I am her mommy. Wow. How did that happen? How did I get that blessed? Where does the time go?

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Big baby

Oh, I forgot to mention that M was 21 lbs at the doctor's office yesterday. What does that mean, besides the fact that she's HUGE? She's too big for the bucket (what we call the infant seat) and it's time for Jeff and I to get off our butts and decide w tf we're going to do about that. See, E is still in a convertible seat. Do we buy two more for M (one for each car?) One more? No more, and move one of E's to my car?

Right now we have a seat for E and a base for M in each car, so Jeff can drop off, and I can pick up. If we move to one car, one person has to do both, and it will be me, because Jeff has to work late more often than I care for our children to be picked up late.

We're cheap and lazy (which is why I breastfeed) but rest assured, we'll do the right thing. Eventually.

Starts w/ a Bi...

Of all the wonderful things to post about, let's start with my magic word of the day. Starts with a bi, ends with an opsy. Bi - opsy.

It's no big deal, just when little ol' me, all strawberry blond and freckled, goes into the dermatologist's office, they're on high alert, right? So I KNOW it will be fine, but it's somewhat unsettling all the same, especially after Jeff had his pre-pre-cancerous whatevers removed last year.

The thing that's bothering more than the biopsy, are the two "dry scaly" patches on my face, that she told me to keep an eye on, 'cause they may need to be frozen off. I don't know what she's talking about. I nodded, listened to her w/ great interest, put my fingers on my face. When she left, I got up and looked in the mirror. I still don't see them. She said in someone with my complexion, they're more worried about spots like these, than the big black spots, because someone like me doesn't get big dark spots. Yeah, I'm definitely worried if I can't see them.

Gah.

On to more exciting topics. Baby M is up on her arms and knees! She had done it previously, when she was pissed off about something. This weekend, she started doing it more, and started combining it with her backwards scooting. I predict she'll start crawling while Jeff is in India in a few weeks.

While I was feeding her applesauce last night (from an actual baby food jar - note to new moms. Don't buy the baby applesauce after they've had it 1 time. Go for the no-sugar-added regular applesauce. It's the same stuff, but half the cost), I wondered something. When I feed her pears, the jar says, "Pears." The other foods are "Carrots" and "Peas" or "Peaches." Why does baby food say "Applesauce" and not just "Apples?"

Hm?

AND why do I get absolutely glowing reviews from E's teachers at the end of the day (Her manners are perfect, she's helping, she's cleaning, etc.) and then she HITS me for putting her in her carseat? Then she becomes an angel when we get home? Oh that's right, she TWO. (Our answer for everything these days)

AND (last one, I swear) WHY do we have the arctic polar winds again? I thought we were experiencing Global Warming?

Friday, February 09, 2007

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Let's Give her a Horse's Laugh

f(*&r(*&r Blogger@!

Let's Give her a Horse's Laugh

Alright, to the non-Aggies out there, you might not understand this title or

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Homos

Welcome to Homo Wednesday, where we discuss the most ridiculous gay stories of the day.

One. Ted Haggard, that fundy preacher in Colorado who was exposed as a man who also likes naked gay massages and meth? He says he's thought about it, and now he's pretty sure he's not gay.

"He is completely heterosexual," Ralph said. "That is something he discovered."In investigating Haggard's assertion that his extramarital sexual contact was limited to male escort Mike Jones, the board talked to people close to Haggard and found no evidence contradicting him, Ralph said."If we're going to be proved wrong, somebody else is going to come forward, and that usually happens really quickly," Ralph said. "We're into this thing over 90 days and it hasn't happened."

So because no one else has come out and said, "I gave this guy a totally gay massage," that means he's not gay.

Look, I don't even care. I just want him to be healthy and happy and honest with his WIFE and people who look up to him. But we live in a country where apparently if two men's lips happen to touch while eating the same Snickers, they have to rip their chest hair out and club the other one with a tire iron. So Mr. Haggard, if accidental lip touching makes you gay, then naked gay massages might too, even if they were with just one guy (monogamous, as it were). Just a head's up.