The Friday Feature

Well, some of you may have noticed the new feature on the sidebar and some of you may be more like me. That is, you have the observational skills of a blind cave fish. However, since most people find my website by googling phrases such as:
"Asshole Mommy"
"Poop Molecules"
"Limoncello Decorative Bottles" I like this one because they are probably hoping the search will lead them to a Martha Stewart website, but instead BAM!, here you are at my crappy blog.
"Hermit Crab Legs Falling Off"
"I hate spiders"
"Garfield's Halloween Adventure F Bomb"
"Using a hair strand for flossing teeth?"

and my personal favorite, "How to get Hooker Blood out of Carpet" Psssst....use a ShamWow.

And, that's just in the last week. So, to assist all of you freaks out there who unwittingly stumble across this blog in the pursuit of such noble knowledge, there is a new feature on the sidebar with links to the most searched posts.

Now go out there and shine, little stars!

The Fairy House

by Sayde Friedman, 6 years old

The cover:


Aww, this is going to be cute, I can tell. Just look at that happy little fairy, the butterfly and the flower. How sweet and precious!









Page 1:


Wait a second, that dude is freaky. Is he holding a saw?
She's crying! He has cloved hooves!
Oh my God. What the hell?



Page 2:


Phew, here comes the hero to rescue her. What the frig? Is he holding a severed head?
Oh dear.

Page 3:

And, they lived happily ever after and had a smiling baby. Well, she looks happy, the Dad looks kind of angry. I guess raging, head severing brutality can do that to a fairy.

Well, I hope all of you out there are enjoying your so called "normal " children.

Jerks.

2004 Honda Minivan? $30,000

Leaving it in a parking lot overnight only to come back and find it covered in bird shit? $5

That same day, having to literally tie on the rear top brake light with rope because somehow it fell off: Free.

Watching your coolness factor do a slip and slide down a rocky slope and then plummet off a cliff? Priceless.

Yes, I now drive a bird shit covered, held together by rope, minivan. Please don't start begging me for a ride, I can't make the whole world happy.

I'll be in my room with the door locked. If you need me, too bad.

Oh what a lovely week it's been. I'll spare all the charming details and just share a few of my thoughts.

To all the husbands of the world, when the dishwasher explodes and the kitchen becomes Lake Lanier, and your wife calls you? She is not calling for advice or recommendations of any kind. She already knows to soak up the water with towels and call a repairman. She is calling to scream at you and mock your suggestions. These are the facts of life.

To all the children of the world, when your Mommy tells you to go play outside, that is code for, "You are so far up my ass that you're coming out my nose. Go away and give me 5 minutes of peace and quiet FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!" I like to think of Chris Farley screaming out that last part. Also, standing on the deck, peering into the back door with your hands cupped around your eyes like goggles, for an hour doesn't count as "playing" outside.

Maybe he should have paid her first

Many thanks to my friend, Melissa, for the heads up on this one. As she said, "ShamWhoops!"

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you will remember my love affair with the ShamWow super absorbent towel. It doesn't matter that I've never actually seen a ShamWow in real life, just on TV, but it looks so freaking awesome. The ShamWow guy on the other hand, has seen better days...I hope.

This is what Vince looks like after a smackdown.

According to the Ottowa Citizen, he got into a hotel fist fight with a prostitute who bit his tongue and wouldn't let go, a la pit bull style. He had to punch her until she released his tongue. Um...ouch? He then ran into the hotel lobby bleeding and that's when security phoned the police to arrest them both. Too bad he didn't have a ShamWow handy to soak up the blood.

You can use the magical ShamWow to soak soda out of a carpet and to stifle your hemorrhaging tongue after a hooker goes Mike Tyson on your ass. Only $19.95!

Dear TV Guide Channel,

When I step on the treadmill each day, I turn to you in a desperate plea for something to take my mind off of the boring torture I am about to inflict on myself. However, most of the time you let me down, and I end up watching CNN, which kind of defeats the purpose of watching TV to ease boredom.

Yesterday, as I watched the lines scroll by, waiting and hoping to see, 'Harry Potter' or 'Jaws,' my optimism began to fade because all of the good channels had already gone by with nothing to offer. 'Hot Girls in Scary Places'? Are you serious? I even briefly considered watching "Commando" out of a lack of options. But then you, TV Guide Channel, started running the "Top 50 Sexiest Men Of All Time" to brighten my day while I waited for something to watch. Thank you. Before yesterday, I'd never actually watched the TV Guide Channel for a full half hour.

Sincerely,
Katie

PS - I can't condone ranking Charleton Heston above both Patrick Swayze and Hugh Jackman. What were you thinking? Actually, I can't condone Charleton Heston being on this list at all. He looked like a cranky old dude even way back when he was just a cranky middle-aged dude.

This and $4 will get me a Cappuccino

Well Ladies and the two Gentlemen who read my blog (Lennie is not included here because I don't count the people whom I have to physically force to read my blog), today is my 100th post. I considered going out like Seinfeld. You know, calling it quits while you're number 1. Except for that I'm not number 1; I'm more like 5,742,001, and I'm not calling it quits. Because, as I figure it, the world needs me. Why, just today someone found my blog by googling the simple word, "parenting." I feel sorry for those fucking kids.

And, I ask you: where would the internet be without my little pearls of wisdom about farting, little mermaid erections, and dudes who put frozen shrimp in their pants? No where cool, I can tell you that.

So, in keeping with what other bloggers seem to do for their 100th post, I will hereby torture you with 100 things about me.

1.Besides "parenting", people have found my blog by googling "there's a demon in my house"
"how do I get a raisin out of my nose" and "minivan stench." I like to provide a variety of useful information.

2. My blog got it's name because I once spent an afternoon walking around the mall with a nice squishy raisin stuck to my ass. This never would have happened before I had kids.

3. Other things that never happened before I had kids include:

4. Catching puke in my hands

5. Being puked on (ok, well a few times I puked on myself, but that was in college and therefore does not count)

6. Picking someone else's nose for them

7. Wiping someone else's ass

8. Sniffing someone else's ass to see if smells like poop

9. Being totally vulnerable by the Intensity and Desperation of Love. MUSHY SAP ALERT.

10. I have my Girl Scout Gold Award - yes, that one was indeed random.

11. My first job was as a babysitter. I quit after a kid hit me with a baseball bat and then his Mom paid me $3.

12. My next job was a lifeguard. You can't believe the amount of drunk people that fall into pools.

13. I met Lennie in 7th grade. He was my lab partner and I had a crush on him.

14. Although we didn't start dating until senior year of high school when I finally got rid of the permed hair and rainbow bangs.

15. I hate libraries.

16. I could live happily the rest of my life eating only pretzels and Diet Coke.

17. Animal crackers and Nilla Wafers could substitute for pretzels if need be.

18. It sucks when massage therapists talk the whole fucking time.

19. I can move heavy furniture all by myself. Ask Lennie, he hates it. Once he came home to find that I had dragged a king size mattress up a flight of stairs during my 5th month of pregnancy.

20. Right along with #19: I'm stubborn.

21. I bite my nails when I'm stressed. Right now, they are nubs. I must have subconscious stress.

22. If left to my own devices, I would go to bed at 3am and wake up at noon.

23. I think it would be cool to buy a big boat and spend a few years traveling the world (and then I wake up)

24. I love hiking. I wish I did it more.

25. My biggest fear as a child was being eaten by sharks. It was a recurring nightmare.

26. Despite that, I still want to learn to surf.

27. I used to have 7 piercings. Now, I'm down to just one in each ear. I'm a suburbanite, what can I say.

28. Never thought I'd be driving a minivan either.

29. My other biggest fear as a child was animals. That is, until my parents got me a hamster when I turned 7. That little thing bit the shit out of my fingers but I still loved it. Then, they got me another hamster, and now we had one of each sex. Lots and lots of little baby hamsters ensued.

30. I have a lot more fears now. Most of them involve something happening to my kids.

31. I love a good bonfire. Marshmallows on sticks, stories, sitting on logs. Love it all.

32. I would kill for some ice cream right now.

33. I am content to leave a job only 1/3 of the way done.

Hide and Go Seek

My internet service is down so I'm typing this from a blackberry! Come check out my guest post at one of my favorite blogs, http://halfasgoodasyou.com/?p=2948

I'm soooo honest, and I never use sarcasm

I got a little bloggy Christmas present from Susan! It's an honesty award, for telling it like it is. Thank you, Susan, and I'm sorry it took me 2 weeks to get off my ass to accept!

There are the customary rules, but I gotta tell you I'm feeling a little rambunctious today and may not follow all of them. (Oooooooooo, I'm tellin') At least I was honest about that.

1."When you receive the prize, you must write a post showing it, together with the name of who has given it to you, and link them back.

2.Choose a minimum of 5 blogs that you find brilliant in their content or design.

3.Show their names and links and leave them a comment informing that they were prized with 'Honest Weblog'.

4.List at least ten honest things about yourself. Then, pass it on!"

Ok class, since it's almost Christmas break, today we are going to skip over rules 2 & 3, roll in the TV cart, pop a movie into the VCR, and call it a day. Lights off, heads on your desks. Instead of the requested 10 honest things about me, here are 10 times I was a filthy sneaking liar:

1. In 5th grade, our teacher made us grade our own papers. Actually, she made us switch with the kid sitting next to us and grade each others'. I had a major crush on the boy sitting next to me, and so when he suggested that from now on we just always give each other A's, I agreed, without a single doubt that this would seal our love forever. Of course, we eventually got caught and because of our sneakiness, I wasn't recommended to be on Safety Patrol in 6th grade.

2. Also in 5th grade (it was a difficult year for me), I told one of my Girl Scout leaders that I hated her. She made fun of me too much. My mom was mortified and made me call to apologize. I said, "I'm sorry I told you I hated you. " I lied.

3. I didn't lose my retainer when I was 12, like I told my mom. I sat on it and broke it into 4 pieces.

4. I stole a bottle of Wet N Wild nail polish from the Harmon Cosmetics store when I was a teenager.

5. In geometry, I wrote the formula on my desk in pencil before the test started. (Which actually forced my brain to remember it, thus defeating the purpose of cheating).

6. All those times I called in "sick" to work. But in my defense, there is no such thing as "Just don't feel like going" days.

7. I wasn't too sick to take the final exam in my Research class in college. I was too hungover.
Thanks once again, Everclear.

8. When Lennie called and asked if I had gotten a dog behind his back while he was away at training camp. "Absoultely not," I believe my reply was.



9. I wasn't really on vacation when my old Virginia neighbor invited me to what was basically a "buy some sex toys" party. I was just hiding out in the basement with the lights off for 3 days so I didn't have to go.

10. I can't think of a #10 right now because typically, I don't lie, I avoid.

Lights back on, movie's over. Now, I am supposed to pass this on to 7 more bloggers, but I promised no homework. So, if you consider yourself to be a blogger who "tells it like it is" go ahead and steal this award right off my page. I promise I won't tell on you, pinky swear, it's our secret.

Oh the Things you can Buy on Ebay These Days

So when I was tooling around on Youtube looking for that vulture clip, I came across one of my childhood favorites, 'Garfield's Halloween Adventure'. Unbeknownst to me as a child, Garfield apparently drops the F-bomb, twice. See for yourself:

This got me thinking about all those Disney movies that have subliminal sex messages in them. For example, 'The Lion King'. There is a scene where supposedly the word "SEX" is written into the dust.

All I've got to say is, HELLO! It is.

Then I started thinking about the balcony scene in 'Aladdin' where he is trying to shoo the tiger away. Aladdin whispers, "Good teenagers take off their clothes." This, I know for a fact to be true because I personally paused and rewound that scene 5,000 times.

Next, I remembered discovering that on the old VHS covers of 'The Little Mermaid', there is a huge phallus right smack in the middle of the castle art, just kind of blending in with the other spires.

Nice one. Sparkly.

After that, I remembered the marriage scene in 'The Little Mermaid' where the minister gets REALLY excited to be marrying the Sea Witch and Prince Eric. So excited, in fact, that he pitches a little tent right there under his robes. I know, it's the most disturbing of all.

I also know this to be another personal pause-and-rewind fact. I have issues. Sorry, I don't have the where-with-all to show you a visual of that one though. You sick freaks out there will just have to do your own search, like I did.

Upon my Googling "Little Mermaid Erection", I found some interesting results. However, there was one peculiar invitation that stood head and shaft above all the others. Take a look:

Did you see it? Look closer...

Apparently, you can get a great deal on a huge selection of Little Mermaid Erections on Ebay.

Bid on Little Mermaid Erection Now! Bid, you slippery bitch!

The Polka Dots were giving me migraines

I told you I get antsy. The last time I asked you guys what you thought of the change, it ended in a tie vote. So this time, fuck democracy. This blog is henceforth a monarchy - and I'm the Queen. ok?

Bag Tag

Ok, I've been bag tagged by Dorsey. This requires me to:
A. Dump out the contents of my purse onto the floor. No problem there, this happens on a regular basis anyway.
B. Photograph the goods. Never done that before, but I am game.
C. Describe the contents of my purse to the Internet & answer questions. Awesome.
D. Tag 4 other victims bloggers. Done. If I have to go through this then so do 4 of you. MUA HA HA HAAAA!



Here's the reason why my left shoulder hurts all the time:



I can't even believe some of the shit in here. We'll just go clockwise here starting from the bottom left. Take for example:
1. The "I Voted" sticker from 21 days ago
2. Two separate forms of Benadryl for Connor in case he eats a food he is allergic to. And of course, the EpiPen that I've thankfully never had to use but ALWAYS carry just in case. Uhh, EpiPen? Where'd you go? So, I have enough Benadryl to drug Connor into a coma, but no EpiPen, niiiiice. (Note to self: put EpiPen in purse and stop telling Internet how bad I suck as a mom)
3. Sunscreen Spf 55 because I like to have that beachy fresh glow.
4. Hair clip
5. Cell phone
5. Mac powder. LOVE it.
6. 3 lipsticks: 2 Avedas and 1 Clinique Black Honey (a favorite since college)
7. Tide stick
8. Starbursts which Lennie mysteriously threw at my head on Saturday
9. 2 packs of gum. Orbit, which sucked and thus has been sitting in my purse half empty for a while. And Extra Banana Strawberry which is delish.
10. Sunglasses
11. 3 pens. None of which are EpiPens.
12. My nursing cover which I love, but still get dirty looks when I breastfeed in public anyway. I think next time, I'll squirt them in the ass after they pass by.
13. Ella's diapers and wipes case.
14. Wallet
15. Minivan keys and Harris Teeter receipt (the snob grocery store, I just can't help myself)
16. A carrot and sweet potato covered bib with 2 dirty spoons.
17. Organic pomegranate lollipop that a random mom at a birthday party gifted me with for Sayde. I'm so keeping it for myself.

That's actually surprisingly little. There's usually a wide assortment of matchbox cars and polly pockets.

Onto the questions:
1. What's the most important thing in the bag? Definitely the EpiPen. Oh, wait.
2. What's the most embarrassing thing? The non-presence of the EpiPen.
3. What's the smallest thing? It doesn't really get much smaller than 'not there at all'.
4. Is there anything illegal? Please don't call Child Protective Services on me.

And now, my sweets, it's time for revenge...on innocent people whom have never harmed me in any way. These beautiful ladies very kindly voted in my header poll the other day, and so I've decided to repay them by swooping down like an eagle on crack and shredding open their purses for the world to see. Your welcome.

Michelle
Jennifer
Ubah
The Nice One

Here's your "I VOTED" sticker

Thank you to everyone who weighed in on the header. It was a very close race and in fact, Sayde and Connor are conducting a manual recount at this very moment to verify the results. But just like CNN, with 0.1% of polls reporting, I'm calling this election for the New Header.

However, a few voters seemed to be quite disturbed by the disembodied floating pea head. Apparently, it speaks volumes that the floating head of my infant daughter seemed perfectly fine to me, but freaked some other folks out. Furthermore, while Lennie originally said he liked the new one because it "suits me" better, he later changed his vote after he actually looked at the new one.

So that actually leaves it at a tie, which by the way was my worst nightmare. But nobody seemed slightly horrified by a cuddly newborn picture, so I think we'll stick with that.

PS. To those of you who hated the pea head, don't scroll down to the bottom.

Yay or Nay

Ok, kids. What do you think of the new blog header? I get a little antsy from time to time. When I was kid, I rearranged the furniture in my room pretty much once a month. But, looking at the beautiful picture of newborn Ella that Helmey made, I get a little nostalgic. So, I'll leave it up to you. If no one votes, I may have a flashback of sitting alone at a cafeteria table in elementary school and cry myself to sleep at night because nobody likes me. But no pressure.

Here's the old one...

Keep the new or bring back the old?

Lo Siento, Mama y Papa

There is a great car wash not too far from my house. You know the kind where they not only send the car through the autowash, but on the other side, a bunch of guys armed with towels, Windex and vacuums are waiting to buff the cars back into shiny newness (or in the case of my minivan, a lesser degree of disgustingness).

Well since my parents were coming into town this past weekend, and I knew I had to pick them up from the airport, I figured I'd make the poop-mobile as bearable as possible and take it to the car wash. Words cannot describe the putrid horror of the backseat of the minivan. A few weeks ago, I bought this little nylon garbage bag for Sayde because I was tired of cleaning all the apple cores and gum wrappers out of the cup holder. I thought it had been working out pretty well; she neatly deposits all her junk into a plastic baggie inside this larger nylon bag and no more soft brown apples for me to touch. Yes, I thought it had been working out well until I reached my hand into the black abyss of the nylon bag and it plunged into a pool of slimy foul-smelling goo which I can only assume used to be an apple. At this same moment, I was also engulfed in an alarmingly large swarm of fruit flies. Did you ever see that scene in "The Mummy" where he opens his mouth really wide and all the bees come flying out? Yeah, that was like the little nylon bag, except with fruit flies, and except it didn't turn me into a zombie chanting "Imhotep". It only turned me into a more nauseous and twitchy version of myself, although I do have an unexplained craving for BRAAAIIINNNNSSSS.

After I ran away from the fly swarm, washed the goop off my fingers, and chucked the nylon bag as far across the backyard as I could, I continued to clean out the minivan. Did you know there was a poopy diaper that was hiding underneath the passenger seat? I didn't. But it explains why I go through air fresheners so fast. Also in the trunk, after I removed the stroller and some canvas bags, I discovered that there were several large greenish ovals about the size of a small turd. I knew they couldn't be poop because:
A. God wouldn't do that to me twice, right?
B. They were too symmetrical
C. They kind of looked like multivitamins that had swollen up with water and started to crumble and decay on the floor of the trunk.
So I scooped them out, and because something is wrong with me, I smelled them. Yup, multivitamins.

I also cleaned out all the newspapers, school art, crayons, toys, hats, juice boxes, wrappers, folding chairs, sweatshirts, coffee cups, receipts, barrettes, water bottles, socks, and books that had been riding around North Carolina with us for weeks. And only then, after I considered it fit for human occupancy, did I dare take my minivan to the car wash and allow my shame to be exposed to strangers with towels.

I watched the guys go to work on the minivan, doors flung open, vacuum humming, a cloud of Windex. Then, they opened the trunk. And started talking to each other in Spanish, and pointing, and laughing. And I wanted to run over and say "Es vitaminas, no es poopies!", but I thought they would probably laugh even more at that, and also assume that I was not only the driver of a turdy minivan but also a little loco. So when they signaled that my car was ready I just gave a polite "Thank you", popped Ella in, and peeled out.

To Mom and Dad, who had to sit in the back of the minivan after it had been through the car wash: The 2nd level of Hell doesn't seem so bad when compared to the 9th, does it? Just ask Sayde, she's been sitting back there for years.

Who buys this stuff?

After staying up late last night to watch the election coverage, I'm scraping the bottom of the kids' candy bags. All the chocolate and Skittles are long gone, and we're down to Smarties, Tootsie Rolls and gum. How long until that disgusting looking jelly thing shaped like a finger gets eaten? Only time will tell, but I'm guessing sometime soon after the next sugar crash.

Fingerpop, your days are numbered.

A Brief History of the United States of America...Just Kidding, sorta

Did you know that the Democratic Party was at first called the Republican Party? It was founded by Thomas Jefferson, who was in favor of a Republic, as opposed to strong monarch-type federalist governments. Yes ,you heard that right, the Democratic Party was originally for smaller, weaker federal government. It took the name "Democratic-Republican Party "during the French Revolution and it wasn't until the election of 1824 when it finally split into the two party system we have today, with the Democrats backing Andrew Jackson, and the Republicans backing Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams. Don't say I never blogged about anything besides spiders and crack.

George Washington, however, was opposed to political parties and in his farewell address to the nation upon his leaving office, he stated:

"...the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it. It serves always to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration. It agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection."

Yeah, I know, I should have warned you to start taking shots of whiskey before reading my post today (well, I kind of did). I had to read Washington's words like 4 times to understand them. But basically, Washington thought political parties inspired anger towards the opposition, mischief and distraction from the real issues at hand. Pretty relevant for something written in 1796.

212 years later, it has devolved into this: While waiting in the check out line at the grocery store, the clerk said they were giving out free baby bibs. She held up two choices and asked which one I wanted. I chose this:





And then was simultaneously boo'ed and cheered by the people in line behind me. Somehow, I think this is exactly what George Washington was worried about. And this?

Most likely not what Thomas Jefferson had in mind.

Happy Halloween!

It's pretty sad that this little skeleton has better moves than me.

What do you do when you ain't got a clue?

Post some You Tube videos! Since I'm about as funny as a dead squirrel right now, here is a clip that even made me laugh. Thanks to Susan for jogging my memory!

I swear I didn't do it

Although I am kind of glad someone did. This, my friends, is all that remains of our Butler and her Hell Demon Spawn.

Don't hate me, animal lovers. For all my talk, I really am a big softy at heart. I'm the person who had a slight nervous breakdown after running over a squirrel, remember? The only living things I really get excited about killing are mosquitoes (and gnats....and flies...and fruit flies) mostly because it takes some luck to catch a mosquito red handed sucking on your arm, and I have mad skills with the dish towel vs fly scenario. Oh, and there was that time that the humongous Bumblebee flew inside the screened porch and I trapped it inside the plastic keg cup with full intentions of releasing it outside. But then I couldn't slip the newspaper over the opening of the cup quick enough because every time I tilted the cup, the giant Bumblebee was right there ready to attack me and buzzing really menacingly. And my panic was growing as I could feel the surprisingly heavy Bumblebee throwing itself against the cup like it was trying to burst through the plastic. And so I started screaming, "LENNIE HELP ME! GET THE RAID, GET THE RAID!" And Lennie came running out into the backyard with a can of Raid, aimed it directly into the cup, and right through the screen, sprayed the shit out of that Bumblebee. I was ecstatic. BOOYA, Humans win again! But that feeling was short-lived as the buzzing got weaker and weaker, and the Bumblebee didn't seem to be hurling itself at the cup anymore. Then, I just felt like a big human piece of crap stomping all over nature. Yet, I can sleep at night because it was either the Bumblebee or me, and that's how nature is. But, I digress.

In the case of the Butler, I'm not even guilty by proxy. I didn't call the Pest Control guys, ask Lennie to call them, nor did I instruct them to squash the Butler once they got here. However, I admit that I now have a small crush on Dan from the Pest Control company for his bravery and the panache with which he wields his big long stick (insert big stick joke here).

And since Susan was sadistic thoughtful enough to provide a link to a website which gave me all sorts of useful information on our Butler (a Golden Garden spider, I now know), I will sleep easier knowing that the Hell Demon Spawn will not be growing in that egg sac all winter long and "dispersing" in the spring.

So, while I have mixed feelings about the actual squashing of the Butler, I can't deny it: I'm glad she's dead. And, I'm really glad her babies are dead. And, I'm really really glad it wasn't me.