Party on Billy...

What's up with the porcupine you ask? I'll get to that in a minute.

I previously mentioned the fact that I was shedding like a sheepdog in the summer. Well when I posted it, my friend Kajal emailed me to tell me that this was only the beginning and that pretty soon I would have really attractive spiky baby hairs all around my face.

I inquired if they could be fashioned into a classic 80's wave. She assured me they could not. Armed with this information I promptly forgot about the baby hairs.

At some point I asked my OB/GYN when the shedding madness would stop. She told me it has a name (telogen effluvium - in case you were wondering) and it would stop soon. Basically instead of my hair gradually falling out over the previous 40 weeks, it stopped falling out entirely. Now post pregnancy, lacking excessive hormones, it all falls out in the space of a few weeks.

Here's the problem. It all starts to grow back at once too. Enter the baby hairs.

So take a long look at that porcupine and imagine a spray..nay, a fan of 1 inch baby hairs framing my face. I discovered these the other day when I pulled my hair back into a ponytail and found a mini mullet of sorts staring back at me from the mirror. At an inch long, they don't fall neatly to one side or the other, they just fly directly off my head. It's an awesome look.

What can I say? I'm like the female version of the Achy Breaky Heart era Billy Ray Cirus. Business in the front, party in the back.

Tripp Trapp Paddy Whack, Buy Michael Vick a Bone....

People, it's just a fact that I don't have time to write thoughtful humorous things anymore. It's for all the usual shitty reasons so I'll spare you the excuses. My life is insanity and not in the "ironic, humorous, good blog fodder" kind of way but rather the "bad, exhausted, hating life way". One hundred and ten percent of the reason for my bitterness is work related so it was an ideal time for my mother-in-law to show up. Seriously. I'm not being funny. She does some crazy shit, but I seriously do like her. She took care of my kid and my house while I was freaking out about powerpoint decks. Her timing couldn't have been more impeccable.

She did decide that our feeding situation was unacceptable. The result was the procurement of a brand new $350 Swedish high chair and all the requisite accessories. So after working for the last week at breakneck pace, I kicked back and assembled a Tripp Trapp yesterday evening.

She also came armed with a gift for our dear daughter. It's a 24" Kathe Kruse doll named Missi...that has human hair....and wears a drindl. It cost more than the Swedish high chair. I sometimes see Missi at night and think she's going to come into my room and kill me. I don't think I like her. I also wonder whose hair is sewn in her head. I find that mildly creepy.

Oh, here's something else that's really creepy. So I've previously expressed my distaste over physical contact in the workplace. Please feel free to review the link if you need a refresher. A few mornings ago I wake up in a panic because I just had a dream. It was one of those dreams that's so real and vivid that you can feel it. I dreamt that I got drunk and hooked up with one of my co-workers.

One small point of clarification: I went to high school and college in the 90's and our definition of hooking up was not sex, so all you people out there thinking I'm having dreams about diddling my co-workers can just calm down. This was strictly PG.

So I push this all to the back of my mind and go to work. As soon as I walk in the office I see him and I feel really weird and silly. He's trying to talk to me and I'm literally running away to hide in my office. I am disturbed that I feel so weird. (It was an honest to god physical reaction of pure nervousness. How totally insane is it that your brain can mess with you like this?)

I'm trying to act normal but it's likely coming across as slightly retarded. In my head I'm wondering how he can act so normal. DOESN'T HE FEEL AWKWARD FOR GOD'S SAKE?? Clearly this is insane since our entire "incident" happened in the confines of the space between my ears. However, every time I see him I feel the need to run away.

I truly hope this subsides by next week. Sitting around staff meetings, grinning like an idiot and averting my eyes can't be good for my career.

Before I call it a night here, I just want to redirect everyone's attention to the fact that the Eagles just picked up Michael Vick. Douchebaggery like his is rare and special. I had really hoped that whole dog fighting ring business would have put him out of commission for good. I wanted him to rot in prison, if not for the dogs, then for being a complete idiot - he pissed me off enough to write about it. That's a lot considering my general apathy toward sports. Here we are, two years later and lo and behold, my own NFL team decides to pay him millions. Bastards. The only possible up side to this is that I can't wait to watch the PETA freaks attack the drunks in the 700 level at the Linc. Game on Pam Anderson. Welcome to Philly.

Pumpin Drunk

Ok I was a little "happy" while I wrote this one. So happy I forgot to post it. Well, better late than never - right?

Yea, I said it. I'm pumping drunk. Cool your jets people, I'm not going to feed it to my kid. Since I haven't had a serious bender...well....since the night I got pregnant, I am a pretty cheap date. So I went to happy hour with a few co-workers. Before the first glass of wine I texted husband to see if he could pick up child at daycare. Check. After the first glass of wine I texted husband to see if he could feed her a bottle (it went something like "I am going to be hammered. Please feed her a bottle."). Then he texted to ask me if I wanted sushi.

Good husband.

Consumed more wine, walked home (which must have been humorous to watch - drunk lady stumbling home with a breast pump and a laptop). I get home and despite the fact that my kid now finds it amusing to bite me with those two little teeth of death, I continue to do some breastfeeding. I'm no martyr, nor am I a glutton for punishment. It's mostly because I need to GET. IT. OUT. On this fair evening I unceremoniously retired the pump at work so it's home with me. I decide I will pump and dump at home. So while husband is putting child to bed in the other room I am drunk, hooked up to a pump and posting to my blog. Sad, sad life I lead.

Pumping drunk has its risks, namely getting stuff all over the place. First I realize too late that the containers are dangerously full...try to rectify, spills on my leg. Then I have no where to put it. Through one squinty eye I see the to-go coffee cup that I just pulled out of work bag. Dump containers and replace the lid on the to-go cup. Pump some more, stop. Unplug. Accidentally spill half of the container on leg. Curse. Grab to-go cup, dump remainder. Fail to realize the lid is on and closed. Curse again. Spill.

Totally disoriented. I will be SO FRICKIN HAPPY when I never have to do this again.

It's Saturday Night Bitches!

Saturday night! I'll bet you are wondering what this girl is up to. No? How about I tell you anyway...maybe it'll help you sleep.

1. Laundry - nothing new there.
2. Cleaning up take out from the aftermath of my parents visit & "post house shopping" dinner
3. Occasionally picking up a screaming child to feed her more Tylenol (6 month vaccinations - whee!)
4. Made Kale chips per Kajal's recipe. They remind me of what the leaves look like in the fall as they spiral lifelessly from the trees. However, these are edible and salty. I think I made them a little too salty. A word to anyone else who attempts this - Kale cooks fast and burns faster. Keep an eye on those suckers.

You might be asking yourself, "Why is she eating Kale chips?". Or, perhaps you aren't, knowing I grew up eating cardboard and tofu with my hippie mother. Either way, I've decided to remove the 15lbs from my ass that has decided to set up camp. I had hoped I would be like Gwyneth Paltrow and all like, "Oh la la la, I did nothing but breastfeed and somehow it all just fell off of miraculously". Clearly that did not happen since my pants still don't fit. Technically I can't even blame the baby, I need to blame my poor poor non-smoking metabolism and the fact that I ate a metric tonne of pretzels over the first 12 weeks of my pregnancy to keep from puking all over my shoes.

I'm not bitter. Just fat.

Me being on a diet means my other half is not allowed to eat bad stuff either. He isn't so fond of this rule which would explain why I found him squirreling away M&Ms late in the evening. Some men hide their porn, my husband hides his chocolate.

If you want to make a miserable girl more miserable, throw house shopping in the mix. A word on this whole business. First, I entered into this exercise without realizing that there was some sort of $8K rebate from the government. Apparently I am the only person in the free world that 1. didn't know about it and 2. isn't going ape shit over it. Why do people suddenly feel the need to blow hundreds of thousands of dollars to get 8 for free. To make matters worse, it's July and we're headed into a busy home buying period which is whipping the retards out there into a frenzy.

My father is convinced that our realtor is out to get us. I know this will surprise you all, but we don't agree on this point. She will tell you why two seemingly identical houses are priced differently, she will tell you why a house is sitting on the market for 200 some odd days, she'll even tell you if she thinks you shouldn't go see a house because it's a train wreck. His big beef is her saying things like, "well, this one is priced at $x because it's in such and such a zip code rather than this other home that's not." or, "People are willing to pay for center halls and first floor family rooms.". There's no judgement, she's just pointing out why people have priced their homes a certain way. My father believes that she would tell you a pile of shit in the street were nice if it were on the main line.

If you know anything about the Philadelphia suburbs, you know that the main line has an odd collection of homes. There are million dollar mansions, there are shacks and everything between the two. But shack or mansion, it's got several things going for it - reputation & one of the top two school districts in the tri-state area. Personally we're seeing two things out there. People who purchased at the top of the market, renovated, took out home equity loans, put almost no money down and want to recoup all that plus their closing costs. Then there's the old people sellers, God forsaken wall to wall carpeting, mothball smelling, carpeted kitchen havin, last re-decorated in the 70's stylin' nightmares. These people are the funniest - they probably bought the house for $30K in 1960 and think they're going to get the same price as the fully renovated joint down the block. Someone needs to remove their Blublockers and cruise line branded sun visor and smack them upside their cotton heads.

Frankly, I'm getting to the point where I'm going to call it a day and continue to rent. Or at least I may take a break until this rebate feeding frenzy goes away.

Anyone out there have an opinion? Realtor = good or evil? Rent or own? Skinny Girl or More to Love?

Dear Facebook,

Why do you think I might know this guy. I most certainly don't know anyone who wears a superman belt buckle. And, I really don't know any man who wears a shirt like that.

I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.

Love,
Me

Stupid News

Some of the best reading is in the comments sections....

Good Facebook / Evil Facebook

This is a really long way for me to explain why I'm not sure Facebook is such a good thing....

I had a roommate in college. To be clear, she wasn't really a roommate in the traditional sense but our one and only foray into the world of subletting. My dear roommate from Seattle was my roommate for 3 years. She and I had the longest tenure in #5. This might explain why we were close to killing one another at various points. Then again, we could just as easily chalk that up to being female and our constant alcohol consumption. Anyway, some time in those 3 years she went back to the happy state of Seattle for an internship. We were sad to see her leave, but she came back with good stories and she had met a boy (who she later invited to her wedding, who I later got drunk and hooked up with, which I later found out she planned, who then interpreted my "if you're ever in town, look me up" as an actual invitation and invited himself to my beach house that summer. In retrospect perhaps that wasn't such a good use of her 6 months, but you know what they say about hind sight...I digress). So while she was off hooking-up with my future hook-up, myself and the other occupants of #5 had the distinct pleasure of living with the Sasquatch.

She was called Sasquatch because she had incredibly large misshapen feet. Feet are not easy to hide but she sure tried hard. Like many things, if you aren't a person of reasonable intelligence, your ideas generally don't materialize as planned. She would wear extra long jeans and let them hang down over her toes to hide her feet. As you may have guessed this didn't work very well and probably succeeded in drawing more attention, not less, to her feet. So now we've establish she's a bit backwards. Let's move on to flaky.

She also told us, almost immediately upon move in, that her nickname in high school was 31 flavors. Curious, but not alarming until she decided to elaborate. You see she was given this nickname because of the number of guys to which she had given head.

Hmmmm. Special.

Seeing her always made me think of this clip from the movie Clerks. Over the next few months we all had varied interactions with her. I thought she was an idiot but found her moderately entertaining. It was like sport trying to pimp her out to guys. At the bar where I worked I introduced her to the owner's son. He was a man whore and this meant she immediately disappeared to his home in NJ for a weekend of fun. I seem to recall this being the cause of a fight between her and our other roommate (who I'm sure will chime in when she reads this because she never forgets anything).

Another time I pawned her off on a guy we all knew well. He had to call us and ask that we come retrieve her after she overstayed her welcome. She had a nasty habit of turning the "morning walk of shame" into "the following evening walk of - I'm too stupid to be ashamed".

Then there was the time I made a bet with one of my guy friends that I could just mention to her that he was asking about her and she would be at his doorstep in under an hour. He took that bet and lo and behold she showed up. He couldn't get rid of her so he offered to walk her home. She accepted (but was likely confused about why he was offering considering she didn't want to go). Then as they were standing outside #5 she momentarily went upstairs at which point he begged me to help him get rid of her. I told him to run. He ran. Fast. That part was funny. The bizarre thing was her reaction. It went something like this:

Her: Where did Jeff go?
Me: Who? (feign ignorance)
Her: Jeff
Me: Oh. He had to go.
Her: Oh. (blink. blink.) Ok.

So it was no big shocker when we heard she finally got knocked up our senior year.

Fast forward 10 years. Against my better judgement I join Facebook. 372 friends later she connects to me. Apparently she started and couldn't stop. I count 4 children.

I email our other roommate.

Me: Guess who connected to me...31 flavors. You know she's going to find you next and connect to you.
Her: Why on earth would you have ever accepted her?
Me: Meh...she's 31 flavors...she's harmless. Stupid, but harmless.

So now we've established harmless. Let's talk about not harmless.

So for all my brother-in-law's ranting about putting my daughter's website up, I had to think of him when this happened. One day my mother called (as she always does when someone my age gets arrested in my hometown) and said, "Do you know a guy named Mike D.?". Of course I do (I graduated with just over 100 people). Well he was arrested for having 6 gazillion pictures of naked kids on his computer.

Awesome.

Guess who is on Facebook. Where I post pictures of my kid. Where everyone posts pictures of their kids. Where creepy pervert dude who looks at kiddie porn is connecting to everyone.

Ick. Evil Facebook.

When it Rains, It Pours

I think the media is out to poo on my parade lately.  Keep this up and I may need some blood pressure meds.  

 

Here is a perfect example of why I hate religious zealots…I totally get that they believe abortion is murder, but seriously how can they possibly justify killing this man by saying it isn’t homicide but “stopping him in his tracks”.  Has anyone ever seen Gattaca? I truly hope that someday there’s a way to ferret out these wingnuts and put them in a padded cell before they hurt the rest of us.  

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/01/AR2009060100612.html?hpid=topnews

I'm an Angry Woman and I Don't Care if You Like Me

*steps onto soapbox* 

Stop reading now if it drives you nuts when I get up here and rant. I'll warn you in advance that I don't give a shit if I get flamed for this because it's my blog and I'm taking it and going home. So there....

I stopped being passionate about things a few years ago because I realized that at the end of the day I didn't accomplish anything and only managed to upset myself. Yes, I recognize this is an apathetic approach to life but it keeps me sane.  To quote my father, the master of the cliche, "Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one and most of the time they stink".  

Indeed.

Here's my problem.  Lately I've acquired this child and the fire burning beneath the surface has reared its ugly head.  See I may have become apathetic about things that impact me, but I have a really hard time being apathetic about things that impact her.  I'm not political or religiously inclined, but I take exception to people who want to control my body or put my health at risk.  So all the usual suspects piss me off - the status of healthcare, the influence of big pharma, the abortion debate and the latest addition to my personal club of hate ...the vaccination drama.

Everybody's gotta point the finger at someone when something bad happens. My husband likes to shit all over Americans for being so litigious. He likes to say things like, "you know, sometimes people just die and that's the way it goes and it doesn't mean you're entitled to turn around and sue the doctor just because they happened to be in proximity".  Actually you are entitled and that's part of the challenge - you are entitled to point the finger whether it's right or wrong.  The right to point the finger is the cornerstone of our society. It levels the playing field - all people rich or poor can fight when they've been legitimately wronged. Legitimately is such a subjective concept.

Yea I know, there's a big old conspiracy out there trying to mislead the sheep.  We shouldn't trust big pharma, be an informed consumer of medical advice, blah blah blah.  I get it. But here's the deal, some people aren't smart enough to to digest and make an informed decision. They are the reason why there are warnings on plastic packing material that tell you that it poses a suffocation hazard.  These people are not smart enough to consume, digest and then choose a course of action.  They are the very same people who don't understand that shit just happens sometimes and it doesn't give you the right to poison the well for everyone else.

Baaa.

So who gets the venom today (aside from all the vaccine haters out there) - Pennsylvania.  They let unvaccinated children mingle with the vaccinated ones. I stab my kid in the legs every few months to build immunity. I can live with the crying and crank ass she becomes because I'm taking one for the team. I know that she's healthier for it and so are the rest of the kids who can't be vaccinated for actual medical reasons.  I'm also taking one for the kids whose parents probably spent too much time with plastic bags over their heads as children because no one told their idiot parents that oxygen deprivation causes brain damage.  Good thing for those warnings these days...

I keep my fingers crossed that my kid makes it through the vaccination schedule without coming into contact with some child of an ill informed fanatic who happens to be carrying something she has yet to be vaccinated against.  In the mean time I will do my part to make sure that she stays well.  

*steps off soapbox*

PS - for anyone who thinks I'm being mean, please know that I refrained from making a comment about Darwinian theory.  Ooops, I guess I didn't.

Today, Yesterday, Random Stuff....

My dentist is the bestest ever. Aside from being the nicest guy you could ever meet, he likes to sing little songs without words while he works on your teeth. It's a bit like humming with an occasional be bops or boos. His staff is also nice, talking to his receptionist is a bit like mainlining sugar. This is not an exaggeration.

So why you ask would I be yammering on about my dentist (especially since my cleaning isn't scheduled until the 29th)? He and his wife sent us a baby gift. She (I'll give his wife credit for this one) sent a little set of socks and a gorgeous crocheted hat. All found at one of my favorite neighborhood boutiques - www.shophelloworld.com. Their website is crap right now, but worth a visit if you're in the Philadelphia area. Last I was there they carried Patricia Locke jewelry...love it.

Anyway, I digress. So aside from being a really nice guy, he's a good dentist.

It's also a good night because I guilted my husband into writing 3 thank you notes. Yes that's right people - 3 whole thank you notes. I think I beg him on a daily basis but apparently tonight the planets were aligned. Why you ask don't I just suck it up and write the notes myself. Simple - if they wrote to us in German, they will be thanked in German. I think that makes perfect sense. If he didn't want to write these thank you notes then SOMEONE shouldn't have sent out birth announcements. Mmmhmmm - yes, I'm talking to you husband.

The big news lately is that our kid has started rolling from her back to her stomach. Tonight I found her screaming in her bed twice after we had put her down. The first time she rolled halfway over and got stuck on her side. Clearly this made her unhappy and so she screeched until we came to fix it. About 30 minutes later she managed to roll over, wedge her arm between the crib bars and then thwack her head into the bars while yelping at us. I can tell already this mobility thing is trouble. No good can come from a wildly unstable human being jerking around - just ask my dear friend in London. I seem to recall an evening after polishing off a bottle of Jose Cuervo...it involved a front flip, shot glasses in both pockets and the need to lock someone in their own home.

Speaking of accidents...the poop in this house is reaching a critical level. The other day she came home from "school" with a note that said she was changed because of extreme excrement.

1. You have to love anyone that uses the word excrement. I tend to think that only applies to rodents and other small creatures. Apparently it also applies to my kid.
2. At least said child is smart enough not to have extreme excrement at home most of the time. It's almost like she saves it up for them. She's a smart kid - poop on the people we pay, not your mother.

Ok and this is where I'll renew your faith that I'm still a nasty bitch. There's a mother here in our building that I reluctantly met one day in the lobby. Our kid's are roughly the same age. I can't be sure but I think she may have been in the remedial classes in school. The conversation was reminiscent of a conversation I recently had with cafeteria lady in my office. Aside from that she wears sweatpants in public and asked me if I would be interested in a play date. Seriously? For 4 month olds? It's times like this that I thank my lucky stars I get up and go to work every day and don't have to take stroller power walks with elastic waist pants chick.

Ok enough. Here's my parting gift to you all, a little something to entertain you for hours. Thanks JR - this is a real gem. Read the comments. One word. Awesome.