Project Status: Labels are for Nerds

Ever since my last visit to CPA sister’s house, I’ve been haunted by her label maker.   I mean, you can only stare into the face of well organized cans of corn for so long before you start to lose it a little bit.  So, since I have some homework for my graduate program and a bunch of laundry to do, this seemed like the perfect day to tackle my cupboards.

To refresh your memory, I don’t have a “fancy label maker” with little printer-outer slips that “self-adhere” to my business.  I have a roll of tape and my own bootstraps.  But I don’t complain.  I just rock my own homemade organizational system.  TAKE THAT.

BEFORE my dramatic kitchen makeover.

AND AFTER! You’ll notice how I added the word “box” for clarity and used scotch tape and a sharpie instead of masking tape.

I still don’t have a label maker and the damn children used up all the masking tape – AGAIN – so I was working with the tools I had available to me.  But I kind of warmed to the task, and labeled my other shelves.  And I didn’t label them all “snacks” this time either.  I kind of got on a roll and was really feeling like I could give CPA sister a run for her money as far as Mad Organizational Skillz go.  But then things kind of got weird.

I’m not even really sure what to put on this shelf now.

But, by the time I got to the bottom shelf I think I turned things around and was back in familiar territory.

Ahh, there you are.

So that’s like 90 minutes of my life I’ll never get back, but I’m going to say: worth it.  Time for a break.

 

Contacted From Beyond

Today I casually mentioned to a couple of colleagues that recently a hummingbird had landed on my face, and I had the distinct impression they did not believe me.  Maybe because they started making those universal symbols for “drunk” and verbalized some references about heavy drug use.

But I stand by my story.  Which is: Last week I was walking to the parking ramp and a hummingbird AGGRESSIVELY and WITH PURPOSE flew up out of a nearby flowering plant and directly into my face.  It alighted briefly upon my forehead and then fluttered down into a different plant.  There was a passerby who witnessed the whole thing, but as I don’t know him I cannot ask him to verify my story.

So I went to the Interwebs where I found this bit of awesomeness.

The authority of the Interwebs has deemed hummingbirds as AGGRESSIVE. Thank you very much.

But let’s just think about this for a minute.  IS THIS HUMMINGBIRD A DEAD RELATIVE????  I have to know.  And this answer is immediately followed by a Mitt Romney ad.  WHAT IN THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE??

I’ll admit it.  My mind is a flurry of activity.  I just thought there was a bird out there that maybe had a bad wing – I’ve had some encounters with squirrels before that lead me to believe that I have a special connection with nature.  Plus there was all that stuff with the undead mouse and the raccoon from our camping trip.  Maybe it is a sign.  A SIGN FROM BEYOND.

As you know, we just lost our majestic malamute, Smokey.  Is she trying to contact me???  She did once release a bluebird from her mouth.  I’ll recount here:

The Tiny Dictator: Da-ad!  There’s a bird in the breezeway!

Brawny Man: What?  Hold on – I’m coming.

Dictator: Oh, never mind.  Smokey got it.

Brawny: What?!? [Going outside, Smokey shiftily walking out into the backyard]

Brawny, in a voice of authority: SMOKEY.

Smokey, opening mouth: [Bluebird flies out to freedom]

This same week we watched a bumble bee fly out of her coat and at one point an earthworm fell off of her into the living room.  My point is, the dog clearly has a connection to her fellow animal-kind.  Especially the winged variety.  Do you think she’s calling me from beyond?  WHAT IS SHE SAYING?  SHE NEVER HAD ANYTHING TO SAY DURING LIFE FOR GOD’S SAKE.

I’ve never been contacted from beyond, so I’ll definitely keep you posted.  This could be a better project than secretly mis-labeling things in CPA sister’s house.  I’m going to give it some serious thought.

Halloween, Here We Come

Today is October 1, which means it is time to begin the annual Halloween costume planning.  Now, I love Halloween, but I admit that in the past I have done things like accepted a friend’s used Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber costumes on November 1 and then spent the entire next year talking up Bob and Larry as the coolest people on the Earth so that when October rolled around and I magically unveiled the costumes from the hall closet I could reign supreme.

The year we got away with free used Bob & Larry costumes.  Don’t they look happy?

No more.

Now The Children have opinions.  Strong ones.  Which is why they’ve wholeheartedly endorsed trick or treating this year dressed as our deceased malamute, Smokey.  Both of them.

I’ve tried for weeks to convince them that other ideas would be better.  Ideas that are easy to make.  And cheap.  Like a ghost.  Or a Child With Pink Hair.  While that last one almost got them, they’ve stayed strong and so today I found myself in the foreign land that is JoAnn Fabric looking for faux fur that I could adhere to a grey sweat suit using safety pins.  I knew the shopping trip was going to be iffy, but the fact that The Situation spent most of the time in the store yelling, “I have on two pairs of underpants!” kind of sealed the deal.

Admittedly, I’ve kind of skipped over the very important fact that our malamute died a couple of weeks ago.  Jokes aside, it was a sad and unexpected day for our old girl.  If only I’d known how fragile she turned out to be.  But, on the upside we still have our inferior sandwich-stealing dog, Frosty.  Who, I’d like to add, has been receiving unprecedented amounts of attention since Smokey went to the great farm in the sky.

Here’s Frosty, receiving her venison birthday cake with mashed potato frosting. In 11 years, have we ever celebrated a dog birthday? Until now, no.  What is happening to us?

So, now I spend most of my free time scoping out “Extra Large Dogs” on petfinder.com.  Why I bother, I’ll never know.  I clearly have two near-malamutes in the making right here in my living room.

I Can’t Take Them Anywhere

That’s it.  I’m just not going to take the Little Darlings anywhere anymore.

Today we loaded up the minivan and set out for one of Minnesota’s most interesting fall activities: the Renaissance Festival.  (In my defense, we tried the apple orchard last weekend but discovered that due to the horrible weather this year there were virtually no apples. So we rode a wagon around, petted a llama and went home.)  Anyway, we spent more than four hours at RenFest, as I hear the costumed-folk call it, and here’s the report I got.

Me: Guys, what was your favorite part of the fair?

The Situation: When I hid in that little space.

Here, my Dear Boy is describing the seven minutes he spent attempting to wedge his head between a large rock and my lower back while we watched an informative and interesting demonstration on how sheepdogs herd sheep.  In….the….renaissance….I guess.

Me, to the Tiny Dictator: And how about you?

For her answer, she went into a lengthy description about what I think was a little person disguised as a small child and a potato sack that I really couldn’t follow.  But, given the excellent actors at the Fair (Fairre?) I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.  Actually, I recall a similar incident from my own childhood involving my sister and a little person at Abe Lincoln’s cabin in Illinois, so I can go with it.

Regardless, neither one of these things are things we actually went to the Fair for…or PAID for at the fair.  And let me be clear: We FULLY EMBRACED the RenFest.  We bought them swords.  We introduced them to a Scotch Egg.  We watched a joust.  WE RODE AN ELEPHANT FOR GOD’S SAKE.  Impact? Memories? Squeals of Joy?  Nope.

I’m going to wager a guess and say that this evidence, added to the summer’s earlier ill-fated trip to the Minnesota State Fair, lead me to believe that I really would be better off saving my money for a trip to Europe and instead taking the kids to places like the backyard, the garage and maybe if we have a full day open, to Costco.

All the Married Ladies

Brawny Man and I are celebrating 13 years of wedded bliss this month.  In case you weren’t there to experience the glory first hand, I’ll include some highlights here:

1. Our photographer was a mechanics text book photographer who did weddings on the side.  If you can take close up shots of machinery for text books, I’m damn sure you can get shots of a couple of crazy kids who are getting married.

2. My mother-in-law wore her dress backwards for the whole day.  Seemed to be fine though.  Mostly.

3. After the wedding we endured an awkward conversation about “special time” with my dad where he offered to book us a room at the local AmericInn so we wouldn’t have to stay at their house.  I’ve blocked most of it.

Here we are on the day of our blessed union, 13 years ago, looking happy and a little itchy. Probably from the prescription deodorant I suggested we try in order to “look our best” on our big day.

Aaaand…here we are the day AFTER our big day when I decided to cut off all my hair because I was “losing my haircut lady” before driving 16 hours straight to our new home in South Carolina.  That’s love right there on Brawny’s face.

So now that you’re up to speed, its been 13 Glorious Years.  And all the married people understand that after 13 Glorious Years, anniversary celebrations tend to fall by the wayside.  We generally look for an opportunity sometime during the 90 day window of our anniversary date when we are at a restaurant together without the kids and call it good.  Which is why, last weekend, when we were eating dinner at a restaurant after being at the airport and before going to my nephew’s baptism that it struck me that this might be our only shot at celebrating the date of our holy and blessed lifetime union.

Well, that and this AWESOME TABLE DECOR which totally sealed the deal for me.

Hello! Look at her face. She is SO HAPPY about that shrimp.

Seriously.  If you were at a restaurant within 90 days of your anniversary and this was your centerpiece, would you NOT think, “OMG our anniversary!  Time to celebrate!!  Double exclamation points!!”  EXACTLY.

So, Brawny Man, this post’s for you.  There’s no one else with whom I’d rather spend this glorious, uproarious, fantastic, ecstatic, wonderful life.  I mean, unless Randy Owen from country music super group, Alabama, shows up with a broken down tour bus and nowhere else to go, no one to turn to…  But definitely other than that, it is all you.

You’re my best friend.  Love you.

XOXOXO

Practically Friday! This Update Brought to You by The 80s

Thank God it is almost Friday because I have a LOT of important updates from everyone.  Let’s get right down to business.

The Crushing of my Dream

A few weeks ago Kansas City reached north and killed my dream of inventing tiny beers.  As you can imagine I’ve been on a roller coaster of emotions ever since: delight that they exist, depression over having my dream killed, and most recently great thirst for a beer.  So I think it is time to crack open a cold one and give some serious thought to my new dream.  Right now, I’m tied between focusing my energy on secretly mis-labeling things in my sister’s house and joining forces with Brawny Man to make his idea of an air conditioned suit a reality.  I’ll welcome votes on these two ideas and/or new suggestions from all both of the people who are reading this blog.

Imaginary Conversation: A Public Apology

Sometimes I relive conversations that I had or wish I had had when I’m by myself.  Brawny Man will say something, “Like what’s that face you’re making and why are you moving your hands around?”  Its because I’m hashing out what I wish I had said in my head after the fact.  Anyway, this is why I owe someone an apology for saying (out-loud), “This is bullshit!” while in a women’s restroom earlier today.  Not your fault, anonymous pee-er in a nearby stall.  As far as I know, things were going just fine for you.  My apologies.

Smokey the Wonderdog

You already know that my malamute is about as bright as a box of rocks.  Today she hit a new low when I found her with this sticker attached to her side.

Handle with care.

Remind me next time to tell you about the time she released a bluebird as if she was part of a Disney movie.

Dear God Why am I Posting this on the Interwebs?

I was looking for a particular old photo tonight and got sucked into going through an entire box of gems.  Here’s one that just has to see the light of day.

So. Much. To. Say.

Understand: if this photo was deemed not-too-embarrassing-to-post-on-the-interwebs just IMAGINE what the other ones were like.  One was so horrific, Brawny actually asked me if my sister and I were dressed up for something like a play or skit and I explained that no, those were just our outfits.  And our hair.

I’m going to put this one at about 6th grade. No one looks good at that age, especially in the 80s.  But that giant gold clip growing out of my forehead isn’t doing me any favors.  And why are there so many cats in my closet?

Practically Friday people, only 4 more days to go.

Label Makers and CPAs

The other day some colleagues and I were talking about this guy we know who has a bar code scanner in his kitchen.  Something like when he uses all the sugar he just holds the bag up to his forehead and the grocery store knows he’s coming to replace his supply.  (It became very hard for me to listen to actual facts once I started imagining what that would be like.  I was really envious of The Jetsons when I was a kid.)

I was simultaneously horrified and awestruck at the idea because I’m a secret organizer.  I have VERY GOOD organizing ideas but sort of bad execution.  I’m quite good at creating an organizational system, just really not good at maintaining one.  This whole bar code scanner thing made me think about how CPA sister got a label maker for Christmas one year because her old one was “wearing out” and she used it label all kinds of stuff.

Here’s a good example of the differences between us: she used her label maker to label all her kitchen shelves sensibly and accurately.  I stole it and labeled all my baby’s stuff with names like Babe-Dogg and Poopsy Galore.  I’m pretty sure there are some confused garage sale recipients of our stuff out there somewhere.

CPA sister claims she’s getting ready to redo her pantry labels because they are getting “ratty.” WTF?

I should also disclose that I snuck into her house and took this picture of her pantry.  And also this one.

I guess alll I can say is those are some nice looking cans.

My point here is that you can see that her labels and her shelf contents actually make sense.  I really did admire this idea, so back when she created this system with her fancy label maker, I created my own system.

Where should I put my snacks? Oh, right here. And by snacks I mean pecans, marshmallows and hard shell taco shells.

Sadly, my label maker is a roll of masking tape and a sharpie.  And all my shelves are labeled snacks.  What?  Its a very versatile term, people!  There’s no moral of the story here – I just think label makers and CPAs are funny.  Betcha no one’s ever said that to you before.

 

No flat iron for me

Yesterday my friend Julie came into my office and asked if I would like some Moroccan Oil hair creme for curly haired people.  This is somewhat normal for me – I’ve had coworkers offer me a host of things and this was maybe the most normal and useful offer I’ve ever had.  One time my boss’s mom came in with a half eaten box of Kashi Good Friends cereal and proclaimed, “This cereal tastes like twigs and dirt.  I don’t know how a person could eat it, but I thought about it and you seemed like someone who’d like it.  Here.”  That same mom came in to the office one day and just put a used bra on my desk.  Come to think of it, that’s the second time someone’s mom brought me unsolicited used undergarments.  A story for another day.

Anyway,  Julie thought the hair creme made her hair look like some sort of wet woodland creature and wondered if I could use it.  Which I could and did and its awesome.

Yes, please.

I told Julie that about 5 years ago we had a well-intended intern who was constantly lamenting the fact that “could not” straighten my hair.  This same intern used the phrase “ew” in response to thinking about men over 30 and felt great sadness for me that I didn’t own a flat iron.  Every day she’d ask if I wanted to borrow hers until one day I finally agreed because I didn’t have the heart to tell her that unless she could sedate my kids for about a week no flat iron could help me.

All weekend, the flat iron sat in my bathroom until Sunday night.  I went in there for about an hour and straightened my hair.  In the end, I emerged with the exact same hairstyle as Christian Slater, alarmed Brawny Man a great deal and returned it to The Intern Monday morning.  She was quite disappointed that my hair was in fact, still curly.

So thanks, Julie, for the Curly Haired Person Hair Product.  I love it, and hope to God you’re over 30, because otherwise…ew.

This post is about “Keanu Reeves” mostly.

Today is Keanu Reeves’ birthday.  Despite being perpetually confused about what to do with an apostrophe after the naturally occurring ‘s’ in his last name, I feel an intense amount of happiness when I think about Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure.  I guess the movie must have just hit me at the right time in my life because the idea of using a telephone booth time machine to assist in a history presentation strikes me as AWESOME.   Not to brag, but I did win a state-level award in junior high for my haunting portrayal of the Ghost of Thomas Jefferson.  There was a lot of baby powder involved.  Anyway, the interwebs have informed me that Keanu was born in 1964 which means he is…appallingly close to 50.  Like Johnny Depp and Bon Jovi.  Why does everyone else keep aging, when I just stay the same?

This seems like a good time for a public service announcement about quotation marks – given the above-mentioned apostrophe confusion and all.  Please, good people, “STOP” putting quotes around things!  If you need to know more, please visit the Blog of Unnecessary Quotes to learn more or at least laugh for a while.  I mean, “laugh” for a while.

No more “ironing” for you!

Speaking of over, have you seen Portlandia?  Here’s one of my favorite clips.  This post is SO OVER.

Minnesota’s Great Get-Together, Indeed

I’m not sure what possessed me, but the other day I had to take a day off work to watch the Little Darlings and decided spontaneously to take them to the Minnesota State Fair.  Now, understand that I’m a huge fan of state fairs, but my loyalties lie with the IOWA State Fair - for obvious reasons.  (Its the best thing ever.)  But 12 years ago I went to the Minnesota State Fair and found it to be acceptable, so I decided it would be a super idea to load up the kids and drive them up there to see what we could see.

The day went fine, other than being mildly irritated that I dropped a substantial amount of cash on Fair Activities, only to be told by the Sweet Cherubs that their favorite thing was near the end of the day when a tiny plane towing a “Furniture Liquidation Sale” banner behind it flew overhead.

Well, I guess there was one incident.  We briefly shut down the sky glider.

Sky Gliders overhead (Photo credit: massdistraction)

In my defense, I was alone with two children.  The kids really wanted to ride it, and despite my intense fear of heights, I agreed mainly as a bartering tool to get out of going down that terrifying giant yellow slide.  So, we’re in line for the glider – the open air one, not the safe, enclosed little car one.  As our car comes around the corner, the boy and I line up and I help him on, only to turn around and see The Tiny Dictator still standing there.  I can picture my 6 year old left behind as her family is whisked into the heavens so I do what any mother would do -  I hop off.

I guess that’s kind of where things came unraveled.  I grabbed The Situation by his shirt collar to avoid seeing him soaring above by himself and consequently falling to his death.  That’s when he fell over flat on his stomach on the pavement.  I *may* have pushed him down in my attempt to save his life, or *maybe* the car itself lightly tapped him in the back of the head.  We’ll never know.  Regardless, he fell over and then The Tiny Dictator hit the decks, air raid style.  I think mainly out of fear/peer pressure.

At this point, the “ride operators” – AKA teenage boys with State Fair T-shirts as their only job qualification – started yelling “Stop the ride! Stop the ride!”  They did and I dusted the kids off, but since we were already in the queue the ride operators quickly ushered us into a car and patted me on the back saying something like “OK. OK.  You’ll have fun.  Up you go!” while I clutched my two crying children and tried to dispel my own increasing height-induced panic.

Luckily there was a bra on the roof of the nearest building, as well as a flip flop, so the kids were pretty much distracted right away.  And a good time was had by all.

This isn’t the first time we’ve had a physical problem in a public place.  When The Dictator was just 2 years old, she double punched me in both eyes using her stocking cap as a weapon in the middle of Target and it seriously brought me to my knees.  Stocking caps are VERY scratchy, people.  As mascara and tears were streaming down my face, I managed to replace my voice with an inhuman growl, ordering, “GET…IN…THE…CART!” I was holding on to her ankle while she donkey kicked me and other parents looked on, clasping their children to the chests with the Fear of God in their eyes.

So I guess I’d say the State Fair was a step up.  I’d go again.