Solidarity! And at least one liar.

I've been home now with this little monkey for just about three months, and the long-term effects are beginning to settle in.  For example, I have a really hard time talking to adults.  It's not that I use baby talk with Henry, because I don't, but more that I've forgotten how to regulate both rate and length of conversation coming out of my mouth.  It's probably because I don't get to go outside very much.

If I go to the post office, the clerk might have to repeat a question a couple of times because I've forgotten how to do "post office" things in favor of reprogramming my brain to be able to change a baby's clothes in the middle of the night without either party falling to the floor crying.  It's a skill.  Alternatively, I'll find myself at a house party, talking to someone and suddenly, inside my head, I'll hear myself and say, "Self, shut the hell up. Even I am tired of listening to you."  So on the outside, it looks like me talking a whole bunch, then stopping and apologizing, then realizing I have nothing else to say.  I am now the awkward person at your party, trying desperately to apply mustard to a bratwurst while holding a squirmy baby. Nobody wants to talk to that person. I don't blame them.

See, even now I've forgotten where the hell I was going with all this.  Oh, right. Okay, so I'm really excited to start going to a new group tomorrow that's all first-time, stay-at-home moms.  It's 8 or 9 ladies and their babies, all getting together at someone's house every Wednesday for three weeks. I'm far too excited for my own good, because 1) it's something to go to that is not inside my house and 2) everyone else will be just about as clinically retarded as I am.

It feels like the first day of classes at a new school, wondering if I'll make any friends and whether I'll fit in. The host emailed everyone, asking us to reply and say a little bit about ourselves and the kids, etc.  I was afraid I was going to have to read emails from a bunch of Mommybots -- you know, the ones that go, "Little MycKyhnzyie is the greatest gift I've ever been given.  From the moment I saw her, we just fell in love with each other and every waking second since her birth has been indescribably precious and joyful." For those of you who haven't had any children, I am here to tell you that that's the fattest line of horseshit ever. Ever. And for those of you who have had children and been deceitful enough to say anything like this in hopes of making yourselves sound like a better person, I hope you're ashamed of yourself.

That whole last paragraph goes better if you read it out loud in the voice of Lewis Black, featured in the "Back in Black" segments on The Daily Show. Wait, I'll go put in a picture.  There.  Now, if you've read it out loud with the right amount of vitriol, I'll give you a second to wipe the rage-induced spittle from your screen.

The good news, if it can be called that, is that everyone else seems just about as overwhelmed, bitter, and lonely as I am, with the exception of one woman whose email approached Mommybot status. I shall not judge her quite yet, and shall assume that she'll be more honest in person. But really, I'm so very excited to meet people just like me.  It must be what kids at the Special Olympics feel like.

How far away does it have to be to count?

On the side of the Stoned Wheat Thins box, it says, in big letters, "IMPORTED." Curious to find the source of my mid-morning whole grain fix, I turned the box over to find out what country they came from.

Canada.

What a letdown.  That's like saying that come Thanksgiving or so, you'll import your Christmas decorations up from the basement.

What is wrong with people?

I've seen two different examples of this now. In a commercial for dishwasher soap, a tiny construction crew bulldozes away a thick layer of baked-on lasagna. Then, at the bottom of the screen, appears the word DRAMATIZATION.

I cannot fathom the details of the potential lawsuit they think they're avoiding.

It ain't irony, but it's funny.

For the last few days on Facebook, many of my female acquaintances have been sending around some video advocating that staying out of the sun when you're young is a good thing.  They've all been treating it like Serious Business, using the reverential tones of voice that are usually reserved for other Serious Business such as breast cancer awareness or autism awareness or butthole awareness or anything else that might be haphazardly attached to a 5k/8k Fun Run/Walk For Awareness.

I haven't watched the video, because I'm well aware that sun safety is key to my face not looking like twice-baked roadkill.  Also, I hate participating in Facebook conversations that sound like Serious Business, because they're usually stupid.  So I thought this was funny.  Please note that the highlighted post was posted around the same time as the Sun Awareness post by complete coincidence.

For Henry's room

My only regret is that I didn't originally intend to put a body in there -- it was just supposed to be a monkey head and hands sticking out of the grass.  So once I put a body in, there was no room for feet.  But other than that, I reckon this is more pleasing than a storebought piece of themey wall art crap.  It is to me, anyway.

Please don't be alarmed, as I was, by the creepy claw-like reflection in the bookcase behind the painting. That's just me taking the picture.  But wow, gross.

Fun Game: Spot the Urban Hippies

Hey kids! Can you spot the five things in the picture below that make this particular city deck stand out as belonging to Urban Hippies?  Set a timer for 30 seconds, and... GO!

[you should be hearing a tinny rendition of "Girl From Ipanema" right now]

Time's up!

Let's see how many you got right. From top left, clockwise:
1. Freshly laundered cloth diapers, drying naturally but very very slowly due to crap springtime weather
2. Bottles being saved up for homebrew
3. Tomato plants that we're hoping work out better than last year
4. Recycling
5. Cloth diaper covers, positioned to receive what little sunlight we get on our fake deck
6. This last thing is the trick item -- it's not indicative of Urban Hippies at all.  Where on earth are you supposed to store these stupid baby bath sponge things?  We dry it outside, then by the time it's dry, we need to use it again.  So I guess this would be indicative of an Urban Redneck or something.

"In every job that must be done..."

... there is an element of fun. You find that fun and, snap! The job's a game!"
-- Mary Poppins, "Spoonful of Sugar"

It's also creepy sometimes.  I was folding the laundry today, which was the last of my three daily goals (element of fun part 2: make a list). As I tried and failed to fit five more white socks into Chris' white sock drawer*, I decided to take all of them out to reclaim all the socks he steals from me organize them into pairs.  Before I started, I guessed I would end up with the laughably large number of 27 pairs of socks.

So, I sorted and matched, and piled up the pairs without counting, savoring the moment I would find out how close I was. Have I mentioned I've got very little going for me in the way of excitement these days? I ended up with two pairs in the garbage due to holes, five unmated socks, and... exactly 27 pairs of matched socks.

I am hoping that analytical sock pairing precognition is only the first of many superpowers I can hope to attain as a mother.



*Who says I never let my two readers hear the sordid details of my personal life?  Yes, Chris has two sock drawers: "white" and "other."  Fun fact: socks can be, and in fact are, manufactured in at least 7 shades of tan.

Happy sixth birthday, Funundrum.

I'm celebrating by dragging this blog, kicking and screaming, into the era of "Share" buttons and updated posting gadgets.  Yaaay!!

My mind moves in mysterious ways

Last night, we watched a couple shows on Netflix about the making of various seminal rock albums.  One was Queen's "A Night at the Opera," and the other was U2's "The Joshua Tree." I then proceeded to have the following dream, set in the present day:  someone affiliated with U2 thought it would be hilarious to fill the studio with band member lookalikes representing their various fashions through the decades.

This quickly got out of hand, because when the band walked in the door, the room was filled with risers creaking under the weight of at least 300 men, all grouped into individual U2lets and dressed and coiffed appropriately.  All the albums were represented, as well as costumes from major tours and even videos for most of the singles.  Everyone was singing "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For." The people organizing the stunt quickly realized that there aren't that many true lookalikes out there, so they had resorted to tactics like stuffing a purple stocking cap on a dude who looked like Larry the Cable Guy, and calling it "Zoo TV Edge."

Listen, for a superfan like me, it was a hilarious dream.

On the Royal Wedding

...because as per Blogging Law (or Blaws, if you will, and I certainly encourage you not to), I'm required to make a statement. I certainly didn't intend to wake up specifically to watch the thing, but I figured, correctly so, that feeding the child would coincide with a good deal of the main action. When I got up at 3:30, I was saddened to find that my DVR had not begun to record, so I lost about a half hour of ridiculous hat coverage. Admittedly, that's 60% of why I watch formal British events, but still, I chalked it up as a loss and moved on.

Our neighbors across the street have such a large TV, we can always see when it's on and often tell what they're watching. I got a small, warm feeling of solidarity seeing their living room also ablaze with the glory of Westminster Abbey... until I realized that they're losing sleep ON PURPOSE to watch this bullshit, and I'm up whether or not I want to be (hint: I don't).

Kate's dress: lovely -- lace on top, pleats on the bottom, a vintage dream. Why on earth couldn't they have gotten married and done this dress more than three years ago? Think of the knockoffs I would have been able to get!

Hats: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Looking at you, Princess Beatrice. The best part is that I reckon it cost a small fortune.

QE2: Also lovely. I'm no hardcore royalist or anything, but can you imagine a nicer lady to be your ceremonial head of state? That is, I assume she's nice. I guess it would be even better for her to have a hidden mean streak.

This has been my shoddy Royal Wedding recap. I can now safely go back to ignoring British government until the coronation of ol' Jug Ears.

Important Update:

Update update:

Bad Copy of the Day Award: Submitter's Choice

Item 1

My brother-in-law Kenny sent this along, and I'm sorry to say I didn't read it close enough at first because I was so tickled by the ridiculous premise. He was at his local Baja Fresh, callously enjoying delicious California-style Mexican foodstuffs with little, if any, sympathy for those of us who have moved outside the Western Pico de Gallo Zone. The item in question was a "did you know" style sign, as follows:

"HEALTHY HEAT -- Chile peppers contain capsaicin, the compound that gives chile peppers their heat has been found to inhibit the growth of cancer cells."

Mmmm, round and round we go, and it never makes any more sense. It's like a factoid Mobius strip.

Item 2

I told you that story so I could tell you this story. My mom read about the Native Verbers in a previous post and shared with me:

"It reminded me of a sign (marquee) that drove us crazy. It was in front of a restaurant in Chula Vista, when we lived there. It invited people to 'Mother's Day with us' or 'Father's day with us,' etc. Never did use the word 'spend'. Maybe they didn't have a capital S."

Thanks for the Bad Copy of the Day Time Warp, Mom.

Chicago hot dog humor

We dropped into a new (to us) hot dog place this last weekend. The dogs were okay, and it's in a convenient location to some of our regular chores, so we may be back. Please do not take this to mean that you, upon visiting Chicago, should eat a Chicago dog at any place but Flub a Dub Chub's Hot Dog Emporium ("Come in hungry, leave with a chubby"). That would be an incorrect assumption. Man, I love that place.

At any rate, this other place had the usual list of hot dog variations with funny names -- but my favorite description, the one that earned this place a blog post, was the Blagojevich Dog: "Chicago style with ketchup (guilty on one count)." It had us giggling for a while. Of all the things that go on a Chicago dog, ketchup ain't one of them, and of all the crap Blago was accused of, he was only convicted on one lousy count. It's hot dog synergy at its finest.

As you can see by the last few posts, I've been cleaning out the ol' CrapCam. I actually quite like this picture for its negligible-but-present aesthetic value. I took this while waiting for Chris to use the ATM in the lobby of the bank near our house. That spot on the floor is caused by thousands of pairs of shoes shedding a bit of salted slush from outside.

The call is coming from inside the bathtub.

We love watching the news on WGN. It's oh-so-Chicagoey, and they strike just the right balance of professionalism befitting the nation's second city vs. C-list reporters who couldn't make it on the west coast. B-list, really. For C-list talent you have to go to a market like Las Vegas, where at least two prime time news anchors have lazy eyes. I am not making this up.

Most of the time, on the 9 o'clock news, WGN leads with national stories, followed by whatever the big news in Chicago is. There are two (count them!) weather segments, because weather is Serious Business here, and sports at the end (hint: the goddamn Cubs lost again).

Sometimes, a story like this comes up:

She actually led off the story by saying that police were looking for a "short, orange-skinned boy who goes by the name Ernie." Yes, really. The story is that 2,500 rubber ducks have gone missing from a suburban police academy. They were to be used for a fundraiser. So they went with the Ernie angle, naturally.

Government torture

No, it's not quite Gitmo, but still. This poster was on the wall of the hospital room where Henry and I were living for a few days.
I guess I should have taken a closeup, but I don't know if the CrapCam could have handled it. The poster features several Native American children who are all verbing in one way or another. Mountain Bike, Dogsled, Shawldance... you know, verbs. As far as I could tell, the verbs on this poster were sponsored by some government committee to get kids to do stuff. Verb-wise.

It drove Chris NUTS that so many of the things on that list weren't verbs at all, like basketball and soccer. My sticking point was that the website doesn't work anymore. How the hell am I supposed to verb, native style or otherwise, without access to VERBnow.com?

When two feet of snow melts

It magically turns into nothing but garbage and dog crap. It's like a miracle, but gross.

Panhandler of the day

I passed a Gentleman of the Street yesterday afternoon, who asked me for some change, as is according to custom. I smiled, and said no, but wasn't prepared for his most excellent response:

"If you wasn't so tall, I'd marry you. ...You a little tall."

Headline of the day for evoking unintended imagery

A CNN followup story about the overdue resignation of Egyptian president Mubarak is headlined as follows:

"Longtime spy chief now atop Egyptian pyramid"

Here's what I immediately imagined -- you tell me if you're thinking the same thing.

"Chicago Dibs" comes to Argyle Street

After we moved here, we heard about a decades-old tradition of "dibs" that pops up every winter in some Chicago neighborhoods. The rules go like this: after a big snow, if you're parked on the street, you have to shovel out your car, before the snow hardens into a nasty ice cocoon around your vehicle. It's a lot of work. Once you've shoveled out said car and drive it somewhere else, you may hold your spot with any old crap you've got sitting around -- favorite items are lawn chairs, buckets, and sawhorses. This way your hard-earned spot is still there when you come back. Should someone else move your crap and take your spot, it is acceptable to seek revenge upon the offending car. Revenge may include, but is not limited to, "icing" the vehicle with repeated applications of a garden hose, shoveling several feet of snow back on top of the car, and in more anger-prone individuals, keying and even breaking windows.

Yeah, I think it sounds really childish too. This is our third winter in Chicago, and every year I hear stories and see pictures of "dibs," but up until now have never seen it with my own eyes. I guess it took two feet of snow for the practice to make its way to Argyle Street -- from what everyone tells me, this is a lot more common in the western and southern neighborhoods.

Here you've got a CrapCam view of the spot in question. This person has chosen to adorn their parking spot with two or three doors. No, I don't know where you get spare doors.

A few more blizzard pictures

Maggie and I tromped all the way across our side of Lincoln Park in the hopes of finding a beaten path. I soon realized that it was all knee-deep for quite a ways in each direction. The best option was to get out onto Lake Shore Drive and keep going. It's certainly not something one gets to do very often -- the drive was closed in both directions for a little over a day. Just south of us, the northbound lanes were clogged up with hundreds of abandoned cars that had to be towed one by one.

What a view! You can see the Hancock tower from where we are.

Here we are trying to find a way down onto the street... but when the snow's as high as a bicycle wheel, it's tough going.

And still, people had already gotten out and shoveled so the sidewalks were pretty clear. It's called the City that Works for a reason.