momtrolfreak

Happiness is a Yellow Bug

Frog and I encountered this yellow VW bug a couple of days ago on our walk home from school. We were both a little tired and grumpy. It was just so perfect, and so needed. We laughed at first when we saw the car, and then stood quietly there for a moment, just smiling together, holding hands, basking in the glow from this beacon of happiness in our otherwise gray day.

He had gotten a smiley face stamp on his hand that day for being a good listener in art class. He took off his mitten and quietly smiled, looking from the smiley face on his hand to the one driving the car.

Then he broke the spell by yelling "LOOK A GARBAGE TRUCK!!!!" and I had the presence of mind to get out my phone and snap a photo (it's really the future of mind, isn't it, though, because if my mind had stayed in the present I wouldn't have thought about needing a picture). Mindfulness FAIL, really, but I'm glad I have the photo.

Our semi-grumpy whiney walk home turned, from that point, into nice conversation, laughter, and hand-holding.

Thank you to the bodhisaatva who took the time to draw that happy face.

You gave me two whole hours of happy evening with my son, rather than the upset,  "get your pajamas on RIGHT NOW," whiney-ass kind of evening we would otherwise have had.

Such a tiny thing made a big difference.

Thank you.

Dinosaurs, Dolphins, and Hippogryphs, oh my!

So, a few weekends ago we went to Brookfield Zoo to see the animatronic dinosaur doohickey. Frog loves dinosaurs and even knows the names of some of the basic ones--he's just started being interested--and I thought he'd get a kick out of it. Well, you know, it was okay. I do love the GENIUS warning signage (see above) in which a moray eel-like dinosaur manages to look cheerful in silhouette whilst chomping off some poor child's hand. Honestly, I thought the whole thing was pretty lame, because though they were molded nicely, their movements were jerky and the ones that you could "control" were done via buttons that had two steps: "Choose motion (like wagging the tail)" and then "execute command." Have these people met children? Nothing worked right because kids just came up and started smashing buttons and yelling IT DOESN'T WORK!! And it was hot and broad daylight and blah (yes, my compaints include 'hot' and 'broad daylight'--I think perhaps I would not have fared so well in the dinosaur's perfect natural habitat). Also, they did not have a section where you could go in an outhouse and sit on a toilet and then have a T-Rex rip the roof off. I mean, come on. Where is the creativity?

Frogboy was a little nervous about some of the big gest dinosaurs. The coolest one, in my opinion, was the brontosaurus-like creature by the central pond, and you don't even have to pay extra to see that one. Apparently they do it at night too which might have been a better atmosphere for ME, but I think Frog would have had a heart attack. I mean, he's pretty brave (case in point: he got a flu shot on Sunday and DID NOT CRY--the nurse said he was the youngest kid she'd ever given a shot to in 17 years to not cry--so take THAT, Home Depot cashier lady).  He is, however, scared of the dark now (thanks to Quincy on Little Einsteins who said in a recent episode, "I'm scared of the dark!" And now Frog says, "I'm scared of the dark!" Annnnnd fuck you, Quincy).

In other news, we also hung out with "Aunt Jackie," who is the twin sister of his Buddhist godfather, Jack. For the time being, at least, she has become proxy-godfather because we see her more often because Jack sold his soul to the Devil (read: Microsoft) and moved to New York. ("Temporarily," he says. Puh-shaw, say I.) So Jackie works at the Shedd Aquarium, and we got to go for free and do some really cool stuff, like go behind the scenes to see up top above the big main tank where the turtle is (!!!) and also see a preview of the new animal behavior show. It is very glitzy and sort of reminiscent of "Cirque du Soleil" and though parts are kinda cheesy (my main problem was with the porpoise-like, totally unflattering costumes worn by the trainers--and also the sour faces on some of the trainers who clearly were thinking, "Uh.....I am a MARINE ANIMAL BEHAVIORIST FOR FUCK'S SAKE, WHY AM I DRESSED LIKE A PENGUIN?!?!?!") But here's the thing: though some people have a problem with going all "Hollywood" with the show and think that it should be bare-bones education like before, the truth is that NO ONE WATCHED IT BEFORE. I guarandamntee you that they will sell more tickets with this new show, and that means that more people (including children) will fall in love with the animals and want to protect them and the planet they live on, WHICH IS A GOOD THING. Because my son was RAPT for this whole show. And last time we went, he wanted to leave the dolphin thing after 3 minutes. So there you go. Also, can I just say, walking penguins are the cutest thing I've ever seen. There's a whole number where penguins come out and walk RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF YOU and if you do not squeee over this you have NO PULSE. 

Last but not least, we dragged Frog along on the Harry Potter Exhibition at the Museum of Science and Industry. We got free passes because we are members, so we took Frog's Fairy Godmother (who shall remain nameless because she hasn't picked a pseudonym yet) with us because she is a Harry Potter FANATIC. It was cool being at the big ol' museum after hours--it was our Night at the Museum, we kept joking, except without Ben Stiller or rabid monkeys. So we walk up to the ticket-taker people and we're already in a party mood, because it's cool to be there after dark, and the guy busts out with this very John Oliver-like British accent, and he looked like John Oliver too, and he say, "Ha-loooo, ah you heyah to see Harry Pottuh?" Without even thinking, I employed a similar British accent (from my bag of many) to confirm that yes, we were, and he interrupted me: "Are you making fun of me?"

Uguh.

I really wish that I had had the quickness of wit to come back with, "No, are you making fun of me?" but alas, I just stood there, dumbfounded. Then it turned out we were early so I had to stand there and make small talk with him for SEVEN MINUTES (it's a timed entry kind of thing) all the while trying REALLY hard not accidentally use a British accent again. Because you see, I am pretty good at accents. I was an actress for years. I have been British and Irish and Polish and any number of things and the only accent I can't do, so far, is the particular mixture of Australian/Greek  that a former coworker used to have. Try as I might, I can't get it just right. The exhibition, by the way, is kind of lame. It's mostly memorabilia in glass cases, not really the "total immersion experience" they make it out to be. It was not "just like being at Hogwarts." But you get to sit in Hagrid's big chair, and you get to throw a bludger at a goal, and......well, there you go.

Who wins, then? I'd say, Shedd Aquarium, as I was thoroughly entertained, they were real animals, and they were the only one of the three attractions that did not FORCE me to exit through a(n extremely overpriced) gift shop (a seven dollar bookmark, MSI? REALLY?!??!!). Oh and, they didn't make me feel bad about mimicking someone's accent. But I still maintain his was a fake accent, too. No really. So. Ack. 

An Open Letter to President Obama: DUDE. Stop Bugging Me.

Look, Barack. Honey. I've had it.

Don't get me wrong, I love you, man, and I loved you even more after this:

But this spamming has got to stop.

See, you keep sending me pop-ups, telling me that you want moms to go back to school.

Well look: I ALREADY DID, Barry.

I DID IT.

It has been broughten.

I'M JUST ABOUT DONE.

(And really, don't you have more important things to be worrying about? That whole Iraq thing maybe? Or even Copenhagen with Oprah to woo the IOC?)

You have to leave me alone.

But Barack, oh honey, you will be SO PROUD: I took my big important comprehensive exam, and I just found out that I not only passed, but passed WITH DISTINCTION, which means I will graduate with Honors and get to wear a cool special stole thingie around my neck at graduation.

I mean, you know, it's not Harvard.

But still.

And while we're at it, sweetie, I just want YOU to know, that I know, that this? This is NOT YOU:

I mean, I know there are some chicks who apparently can't distinguish one good lookin' black man from another, but Barry, BARRY:

I am thisclose to a Master's.

I can tell.

When Readers Attack

Fear not, gentle readers. I have not "actually" been "attacked." I have simply been "nudged" by loyal reader "Ed," who keeps telling his diary about how I've abandoned him. I love this, not only because it makes me feel important, but because this is exactly the reason I started a blog. My idea back then was to blog in order to get myself writing and to KEEP myself writing, because in my mind's eye I would ostensibly have established some sort of responsibility to somebody. It is oh so easy to put off things that you enjoy (like, for me, writing, yoga, eating) in favor of powering through the day getting a million little sniggety to-do list workity-work things done until finally, at night, you collapse in front of, say, True Blood with your honey. But when you get stuff in your comments section from people saying they miss you, and then you look and see how many subscribers you have and that they didn't go away and are still waiting for you to say something....well, gosh darn it, it makes you feel all warm and gooey inside. So you write. Not, like, mind-blowingly awesome prose--I just don't have the energy for this right now--not that anything on here has necessarily been mind-blowingly awesome, but work with me here.

So, as a means of catching ya'll up real quick-like so that I can move forward from here and still make sense, here's a quick rundown. Okay, making sense is a high bar. Let's aim for recognizable English, shall we?

Dear Ed's Diary (et al),

Here's what I've been doing:

Vacation: Vacation is good. You should take one. Water parks are fun. I didn't used to like them, or even enjoy getting my face wet in the shower, actually, but wow. Fun. Who knew? It is also nice to see family, when you can. What is not fun is trying to do three vacations in quick succession at the end of the summer. Because then you come back to work and you cry and you don't write in your blog anymore.

Work: Really really busy with, like, work stuff that would so not interest you. Stuff that makes my brain hurt. And a lot of it. Note to self: Taking basically three successive weeks off and then having to get ready for a big big big meeting coming up, sort of exponentially makes it so that it feels as if you've actually gotten 9 weeks behind, and as if while you were gone, a chimp was rearranging your files for you so everything would be 'easier' to 'find.' You come back and things don't really even look familiar. Is that my handwriting? you think, looking at your post-its. And then you get overwhelmed. And then you work and work and work until you can't work anymore. And when you work at home, the guy next door decides to fix something loudly with a hammer that sounds like someone packing cigarettes against their palm, which makes you want smokes even though you don't smoke anymore. And then when you're at the office, there are these pesky meetings. And people talking. And crazy crack ho ladies crashing into cars and ending up in a high-speed police chase that ends up dead-ended in your office building's parking lot, so that you are ordered to leave your office and come away from the window in case shots are fired. And the funny thing about that is that my office is in a very fancy suburb, and many of the coworkers that live near my office don't like to come into the city because it's dangerous there and there's a lot of traffic. Yes, but in our traffic, the crack hos don't speed or run lights, because we have those handy surveillance cameras.

PHOTOS: Dad's houseboat; Aquaman & FrogBoy jet skiing at sunset; FrogBoy waiting for the plane home

School: Frogboy's new school is AWESOME. His teacher is this really cool, Guatemalan, vegan (I am a vegan vicariously through her, as I eat bacon). lady who even has a supercool name and tons of experience and a real curriculum and who plans to teach about the environment and have the kids put together school supply backpacks for kids in Africa and just, wow, super cool stuff. It's weird to be at a big school that has big kids in it, too (unliek the insular private preschool where my kid WAS a big kid), but it's weird in a good way. And he loves it. There has not been one single fit of clinginess, he always wants to go, and he loves packing his lunch (public school lunch in Chicago SUCKS, by the way, and don't even get me started on the breakfast, which most days is FROOT LOOPS. Huh?). He is a BIG BOY NOW and loving it. Especially the accessories: lunchbox with litlte bento box thingies inside, water bottle, Wall-E backpack....

Frog Quotes:
first day of school, wearing an "S is for Spaceship" t-shirt:
"Look Mommy, S is for Rocket!"
Impressing the new teacher? Fail.

later...
Aquaman: "What'd you do at school today, kiddo?"
Frog: "Nothing."
Aquaman: "NOTHING? You just sat and stared at each other all day?"
Frog: "Yes like this": (pouts & glares)
Aquaman: "Wow, that sounds boring. Do they not have any toys to play with at school?"
Frog: (rolls eyes) "Of COURSE they have TOYS , Daddy, or else we would have to LEARN all the time!"

making pretend ice cream cones at home in his room as I play "customer."
me: "Can I have mint chocolate chip?"
Frog: "No you can't eat that one because, because it is not a good flavor for girls it is a recipe only for a MAN so you eat this choklit one."

My Sister:
She's doing great, except for that whole thing a few hours after her surgery where she go up to go to the restroom (because the nurses said it was ok) and the incision sites on both side of her groin area (front of hips, kind of) started SPEWING BLOOD EVERYWHERE. My mother got this really high-pitched "everythingisfinedontworryaboutmeimnotabouttopassoutatall" voice when she was recounting this story. Sadly, I was not there to witness. Sounds like a scene out of Kill Bill 2.  Margot is really into Halloween, so, you know, it added to the decor (and then she didn't need to buy the baby oil). Thank you so much to all of you who sent me private messages or made comments or twittered for updates. She's recuperating well now except she is still very skinny. She's me, like, minus forty pounds. And I'm no skinny minny, but I don;t really have forty pounds to lose, so yeah, too skinny. She is, however, getting to eat foods she has not eaten in YEARS because of the Crohn's. Like carrots. Who knew anyone would ever be excited about that? It's as if she's 6 months old and trying First Foods. Baby steps. Oh, and everyone is okay, post-flood. As long as they can get to a Chick-Fil-A SOMEHOW, my family will survive.

PHOTO: Dude, I just spent ten whole minutes looking for a photo of Lucy Liu with the top of her head chopped off, before I realized I have "inappropriate content" filtered on my google settings. Sometimes parenting sucks.

My mother:
Is back in Scotland. I find this both irritating and inconvenient. Make it stop.

Aquaman: ...is really enjoying this year of teaching. It's nice when people get to spend all day every day doing what they were meant to do...like, living their calling. You know? This is very unfamiliar to most people. I'm happy that he's happy. But it's kind of not fair that he has that AND he gets summers off. Oh wait, I made him build me a kitchen. Never mind.

Grad school: Taking my last class now. Last one ever. OMG now I might actually have to DO something with my life.

....Nah.

As for the Big Ass Exam, we should know any day now. They said two weeks. The options are fail, pass, and pass with commendation. I am such a nerd that I will be disappointed if I don't get commendation, of course. Probably too much to ask, since I didn't even finish Middlemarch. But come on: has ANYONE? I effing finished ULYSSES, for God's sake, but Middlemarch was just boring as hell. Oh and HEY: You know what's funny? Trying to read a book that big and imposing-looking at a waterpark. Yup, nothing to see here, folks, just a little light summer  reading...a little 18th-century Chick-Lit. after this it's Bridget Jones and then The Manny...

Kitchen:
So. So. Purty.

Other:
Yet again there are babies EVERYWHERE. A woman at work just had her second, and there was a shower for someone else yesterday, which really brought back the memories. I like babies--I love holding other people's babies. And then giving them back and sleeping all night.

And I really, REALLY love being asked CONSTANTLY by well-meaning adults when I am having my second one. Oh and my kid keeps begging me for a little sister. Awesome. This is from a while back but in case you missed it:
Frog: "[Friend] is really lucky to have a new baby, right Mommy?"
Me: "Sure...."
Frog: (nodding) "Yeah. Reeeally lucky."
Me: "Do you wish YOU had a baby?"
Frog: "Oh yes, I think so!"
Me: "Yeah, babies can be cuddly and nice to hold....but they don't really play with you until they're much older. And then they take your toys.
Frog: "That's okay Mommy I will share." (he kills me when he says things this sweet)
Me: "But what if we got a baby, and then it cried all night while you were trying to sleep?"
Frog: (laughing and walking away) "Mommy, that's silly; we wouldn't get the CRYING kind of baby."

Oh, glad we cleared that one up.

Clearly I ordered the wrong kind last time.

 

Chicago Peeps: WTF Will You Do This Weekend?

I don't usually do these kinds of posts, you know, and by that I mean reviews, or "What to Do This Weekend" type things.

If you want reviews or cool stuff for moms and kids, you've got to check out CoolMomPicks. They are awesome. I think I buy, like, every third thing they recommend (I'm not made of money, ya'll).

If you want a list of stuff to do in Chicago there are a couple of sites for that I guess but the BEST one, IMO, is WindyCityTot. Funnily enough, I just went over to her site to grab her URL (I always screw it up because it's got that blogspot part in there) so I could  link to her, and she has just posted a tip I sent her earlier this week that I was about to give to you here, so now I can be TOTALLY LAZY and just link to her site!  Of course the link she put to me doesn't work so now I will have to go kick her butt. Just kidding.

SAVE THE MELODRAMA FO YO MAMA

Anyway, the thing I told her about for her weekly run-down of activities in Chicago is this show at Quest Ensemble called
"ALAS! ALACK! ZORRO IS BACK!"

It's an old-school melodrama, very campy and fun. There are some bawdy jokes but they soar right over the kids' heads. It's not a kids' show per se, but holy moly, did FrogBoy love it. Quest does shows for FREEEEEEEE, totally free, not "suggested donation," just FREE (though there is a bucket you can donate in if you want, there's no hard sell).

You buy a bag of popcorn (or two, if you want to eat one) - all refreshments are $1 so knock yourself out--and then you take your seat. Inexplicably Frog insisted on sitting in the front row. NO IDEA, HAS NEVER HAPPENED. Anyway, a guy comes out in character and introuces the characters and tells you what to do: when the bad guy (basically Stephen Colbert in a handlebar mustache--and by that I mean TOTALLY AWESOME) comes out, you yell BOOO!!!! and throw popcorn at him. That's right, you're allowed to throw popcorn. How. Cool. Is that.

When the ingenue comes out, you say "Awww!" as she bats her eyes. When the hero (duh, Zorro, keep up people) comes out, you clap and yell YAY!!!!

Now, Frog absolutely adored this. He's three and a half and is kind of hit-or-miss with theatre. Sometimes he can sit through a show, sometimes not. This one, he was riveted. It's short with an intermission, so don;t worry, it's not like sitting through Hedda Gabler or something. And here's the thing: it was a show my kid enjoyed THAT DID NOT ALSO MAKE ME WANT TO BLOW MY BRAINS OUT ALL OVER THE STAGE.

Which is good because there was a gun (which Frog charmingly calls a "shooter." Bullets are called "shoots.")

No one is actually shot, however. There is one well-done, exciting, but non-violent (no one is actually stabbed) rapier fight (Frog said they were like "metal lightsabers"). Even the town skank is pretty PG, nothing actually low-cut. The cast is great at interacting with the audience, bantering, and acting all "mad" when they get booed. The highlight of the show was when a piece of popcorn actually got stuck to the thick makeup on the bad guy's face, and he had no idea and went on with the scene like that for a good five minutes. Frog was LOSING. HIS SHIT. Laughing so hard.

The cast stands at the door after the show so people can meet them. One of them even gave Frog a balloon. This is the fourth show we've taken him to see at Quest (again, they are not a children's theatre, but a lot of their stuff is universally accessible, as it were). They have GREAT production quality--original composed music was awesome, the cast's voices were GREAT, and the set was amazing--the one backdrop with a picture of Zorro on it blew me away (note: The Set Designer and Scenic Artist are friends of ours, but we got in for free because EVERYONE DOES). They are funded I think by a grant from the city and from donations. Did I mention it's FREE? You gotta go.

Here's their info: Quest Ensemble: Alas! Alack! Zorro is Back! Fridays & Saturdays at 8pm, Sundays at 2pm. August 14-September 27th. THEY DO SELL OUT SOMETIMES so I would recommend a reservation. Calll 312.458.0895 or visit www.questensemble.org. 1609 West Gregory (basically Ashland and Bryn Mawr area).There are bathrooms available--real indoor plumbing! And everyone is very laid-back: it is unlikely you will get dissaproving looks from audience members about your child--unless you are a TOTAL DOUCHE and stay in teh room when your child is crying. Don't do that shit, it makes us all look bad.

p.s. Please to be bringing the dollars for the refreshments. You'll need to buy more ammunition I MEAN POPCORN at intermission.

PARTY TRAIN-ING

Second thing is the Thomas the Tank Engine festival at the Illinois Railway Museum, or, if you're not able to do that this weekend, then just going to the Illinois Railway Museum, period. It's the largest Railway Museum in the country, and there are a ton of trains and streetcars and buses there to look at plus ones that work that you can ride on. The festival was here just last weekend and then this weekend, so if your kid is EVEN REMOTELY into transportation, GET THEE TO UNION ILLINOIS. It ain't close--it's like an hour and 15 minutes northwest of Chicago: like, a bit past IKEA DO NOT STOP AT IKEA.

This weekend an $18 pass gets you admission including a ride on Thomas (see above for the picture of Frog standing dumbstruck in bottom left corner as he watches Thomas go by) and tons of activities, such as a cool push-pull trolley thing kids power themselves, a bouncy castle (a.k.a. moonwalk), a train tunnel with a ball pit, a meeting with Sir Topham Hat (in case you have any important Sodor city business you need to bring up with him), and a little learning lesson by a very sweet but boring old man about train safety. Oh AND, mini golf! And a craft tent where you get a Thomas tattoo,

and make a greeting card with stamps, and play with TONS of train tables full of Thomas trains. There is also a big gift shop DO NOT GO TO THE GIFT SHOP UNLESS YOU WANT TO SPEND MONEY LIKE LINDSAY LOHAN SHOPPING FOR BLOW.

And look, people, do not plan on just showing up and buying a ticket, because the Thomas train ride is a timed entry ticket, and you will be out of luck and stuck there until 4pm waiting for the last ride.

For more info, check out the Illinois Railway Museum site. Again, don't get mad at me because I'm telling you three times, THE THOMAS STUFF WILL BE GONE AFTER THIS WEEKEND. 

Although, so will the mean old (and by old I jsut mean, like 60, and healthy-looking, not some decrepit sweet-faced pruney 90 year old that we should all love and endure no matter what she says) lady who yelled at Frog for bouncing a (near-weightless, inflated, beach) ball on the floor AND BY FLOOR I MEAN GRASS IN THE GIFT SHOP, which is not indoors but is, rather, a large tent.

Mean Lady: "No! No! No little boy! Do not play with that ball in here!"

Me: (giving lady silent "don't fuck with me" smile)

Frog: (quivering lip) ?

Me: "Come over here honey, apparently, this silly lady thinks the Thomas Festival is for SERIOUS ADULTS and not a place for CHILDREN to have FUN. Isn't that silly?"

Frog: (wanders over to where Aquaman is looking at some wooden track AS IF WE DON'T HAVE ENOUGH TO CIRCLE THE EARTH THREE TIMES)

Mean Old Lady: "How could you let him bounce that ball in here?" (with emphasis, as if I was letting him play with a twelve foot python)

Me: "Um, It's not a museum, it's a TOY TENT at a train festival FOR CHILDREN." 

Mean Old Lady: "You are a horrible mother."

Me: "And you are a bitch. Mind your own fucking business."

...ANNNNND SCENE.

Frog was no longer within earshot, so calm down. Really, folks, no weekend child-related outing would be complete without a bitch smackdown and the F-bomb. Am I right or am I right?

Despite Mean Old Lady and the 90-degree heat we had a great time, all three of us. When we go back next year (it's a touring thing), I'm wearing a t-shirt that says

(front:) "THE CRAZY TRAIN DOES NOT STOP AT THIS STATION"

(back:) "SO STEP OFF, BITCH."

Subtle, no? 

I mean, come on, most of these little fuckers can't read anyway.

They'll never know.

He's Just Not That Into You (aka Doctors Suck)

I'm visiting my little sister this weekend. You know I must love her since it is something like 157 degrees down there right now. She has Crohn's Disease, and has been having some issues with it of late, involving near-surgeries and nights in the E.R. and cocktails of different medications and a trip to the Mayo Clinic that lasted over a week because though it was intended just as a rubber-stamp before getting her surgery (a bowel re-section: doesn't that sound fun?) done in Atlanta, it ended up being a nightmare in which they discovered that she had these mysterious blood clots lurking that might have killed her if she'd had the surgery because they'd be dislodged and go to her lungs annnnnd scene. So, yeah, near miss there. It's kind of astonishing how much of medicine, in this day and age when we can go to the freaking moon and fly in the air in giant rickety tin cans and send pieces of paper through the air using fax machines, which are themselves sort of obsolete (oh my god I am old enough to have witnessed the rise AND FALL of a major piece of technology holy god), ANYWAY, that in this day and age so much of medicine is comprised of the following three sentences:

• "Hmm. Let's see if this works:"
• "Whew! Dodged a bullet on that one!"
• "Fuck. We really screwed that one up. Sorry about you being dead 'n all." 

It's just a series of near-misses and guessing games. What on earth do you DO during eight years of med school and fellowship and whatnot, just try to get better at GUESSING? It's incredibly frightening. Do they just hand everyone one of those Magic 8 Balls and say, "Shake it and then look. Here's your white coat. Good luck."

I mean, I work with doctors and most of them are awesome and near-genius and to boot, have great senses of humor and really truly care about their patients. But none of them are working on my sister. Only jerks who change their mind at the last minute and don't think to review CT scans, apparently, are working on my sister.

Do I sound bitter? Well, yeah, you're fucking with my little sister, asshat. And while you're at it, how about RETURNING HER CALLS. It's not DATING: She shouldn't have to call and leave her number and then wonder, four hours later, if it's too soon to call again, if you're going to think she's a nutjob for bugging you. Are you just not that into her? Is that it? Is she not your type? Do you like another patient's intestines better? I will kick your ass. CALL MY MOTHER FUCKING SISTER.

So she'll have this bowel resection on Tuesday, right after they take pretty much a dustbuster and suck the blood clots out of her on Monday. Awesome. She's doing this about three weeks before the start of grad school at her dream school, in her dream program, which is awesomeness on a stick except she'll be drugged up now and it drives me crazy that she finally ditched the stupid job and we were so happy she got into this school and now it's all getting potentially fucked up.

My mom has come back from Scotland or Norway or wherever the hell she was, to take care of my sister after the surgery. Anyone flying back halfway across the globe kind of makes it seem like an even bigger deal. Like, if everybody was in town, fine, you can pretend it's just a precaution, or just like a wisdom tooth being taken out or something, but if someone had to return early from a trip around the world because of this, we should probably all be freaking the fuck out, right? Because in my experience (read: novels) whenever someone returns early from a trip, it's a big deal, because they had to, like, crawl through a bayou fending off alligators, or stow away on a cargo ship, or get in a hot air balloon, or something. It seems dramatic. And I suppose my mom could have left it to my dad, except that my dad says helpful things like "your so-called 'disease'" as if she jsut has indigestion still after two surgeries and is just sorting being a hypochondriac and when my sister was in the hospital LAST time, for an emergency situation involving something pesky like not being able to digest food, my dad asked her what she needed. She asked for magazines and toothpaste/toothbrush. Dad brought bubblegum flavored kid toothpaste (she is 27) and two mylar balloons that said "Happy Birthday!" and "It's a Boy!"

Her hospital stay did end up inspiring a joint compilation with me, over the phone, of activities one can engage in when bored in a hospital room. One of them is to take a bottle of baby oil and, from the comfort of one's hospital bed, squirt it on the floor in front of one's doorway, right before annoying family members come to visit. Namely one's father. (YOU have to time it right though so you do not give a concussion to any of your actual caregivers. That would just be self-destructive.) We will be developing a "care package" containing many of these items, which my sister will offer on her website as soon as she starts it. She has a really cool name for it and has already bought the URL, but I'm not going to tell you what it is, but suffice it to say that it is better than what I came up with as a Crohn's website, which was www.ifeelshitty.com.

So now pretty much all she can eat is meat, cheese, and dairy. Which is weird because before, those were things she couldn't eat. They keep changing the rules. I mean, you might THINK that a steady diet of cheeseburgers and milkshakes would be A-OK with just about anybody (I could do at LEAST two weeks on that), but after about a month you really want to blow your brains out, apparently. Who knew. She craves, like, lettuce. She is sooo skinny that it freaks me out. In fact, I am just a tiny bit freaking the fuck out at all times. It would have been a lot easier for me if she had done all this Health Crisis Shit back when we were younger and we didn't have much of a relationship because then theoretically I would have CARED but not been, as I said, freaking the fuck out. Add to that my whole CONTROL ISSUE and being in Chicago while all this is going on in Atlanta, where I can't actually walk in and throttle the doctors who are ignoring her calls, is a little, um, aggravating.

I also want to be there to support my mom as she supports my sister. My mom thinks she is being REALLY GREAT at hiding how much SHE is freaking out, which is cute. It's kind of like when Courtney Love thinks she is being really great at pretending to be sober, or when Lindsay Lohan thinks she's doing a great job at pretending not to be suddenly 45.

I have offered to donate blood in case my sister needs it but I think she keeps not asking the nurses if she will need it, so I'm gonna be really pissed if she needs blood and they didn't bank mine ahead of time and I have to go all True Blood on her and just open a vein or something. I have also VERY SELFLESSLY offered to be the donor if she happens to need a Fat Transplant. I feel that my muffin top qualifies as a vestigial organ, and I will gladly give it to a family member but if she won't take it then I WILL FIND SOMEONE.

(If you are interested in being a recipient, please comment below. I will not even charge you and you won't have to do one of those things where, because you are desperate for some else's fat, you lure me into a hotel room and slip me roofies, then I wake up the next morning in a tub of ice with a bad scar anda a bottle of pain pills, with a lipstick-written note on the mirror about how my kidney is missing. So, you know, super convenient for you).

The MomtrolLuxe BlogSluts Awards

Okay I promise this is the last time I will talk about BlogHer, but I am so enjoying my newfound bloggity-blog friendships that, with apologies to the SocialLuxe Lounge BlogLuxe Awards, I am giving posthumous (that is, after the death of BlogHer09) awards based on the same categories, but for the bloggers themselves, not the blogs.See what I did there?

Cleanest BlogHer: Tim Gunn at the Tide Booth
(that's me in the middle flanked by my buddy Tim and Deb (of Dirty Socks & Pizza) on my right while I shamelessly use Lee (of Moms Without Blogs) to conceal my muffin top. That, my friends, is how you Make It Work).

*photo courtesy of Tide Bounce Laundry Lounge on Flickr

Eye Candy BlogHer(s)
That'd be my girrrrrls, Fashion Blogger Monika and Social & General Awesomeness Blogger Kate, seen here shooting pool like THE BADASSES WE IZ at the BowlHer party at Lucky Strike. Hot girls plus pink boas = EYE CANDY.

*photo courtesy of EyeFiCard's photostream on Flickr

Funniest BlogHer
Kate again, who uttered my favorite quote from the weekend:
"Just think, ladies...if I play my cards right tonight, I could be a mommyblogger in 9 months."

Guilty Pleasure BlogHers
All the ladies I stood outside the Hilton and smoked cigarettes with at 2am, even though none of us actually smoke in real life. My throat is still recovering.SEE HOW I AM NICE AND DO NOT CALL YOU OUT BY NAME SO THAT YOUR HUSBANDS DO NOT KNOW?!?!?!?! (Hi guys!)

Most Provocative BlogHer
The beeyotch who stood up in front of me (and was at least as tall as the Statue of Liberty but with less class and less sense) and practically took the microphone out of my hand in a Room of Your Own to complain about the FTC crackdown on bloggers being paid for reviews (et al), whose main thesis was that it was all Obama's fault. And was then informed by pretty much everyone in the room that it started with the previous administration.

Tastiest BlogHer
Dual winners: Food/wine bloggers Michelle Lentz of My Wine Education and Julie Niesen of Wine Me Dine Me. Both of whom set me straight on a few wine myths I thought were true (I could tell you but then I'd have to kill you--just go to their sites, tres informative dahlink), but were still cool enough to eat bar mix. I would show you a photo of them on the red carpet at BowlHer, but there were two photos: one I lost (BECAUSE I WAS DRUNK) and the other one was deleted by the photographer because I was ever-so-gently caressing the 2-dimensional breast of the 2-dimensional Heidi Klum standee (BECAUSE I WAS DRUNK) and apparently there was some sort of contractual thing where Heidi didn't want anyone defiling her cardboard bewbs. Whatever.

BlogHer You've Learned the Most From
Oooh, tough one. I learned a LOT at BlogHer, about varied topics, from very different people, like Amy Turn Sharp & Neil Kramer's awesome "Storytelling" panel, which was easily the highlight of the conference for me, not just because of the panelists and the awesome discussion but because I got to talk shop a little with Schmutzie and with the back of BHJ's head. All of whom are amazing storytellers. I also learned a lot from the panelists on the Blog To Book panel, especially Stefanie Wilder Taylor, whose books and blog are hi-freakin-larious and who is--and I didn't think this was possible--as foul-mouthed as I am. Yay!

I think, though,  I'd have to say I learned the MOST from Liz Gumbinner (of CoolMomPicks and Mom-101), because she manages to be funny and classy and understanding and helpful and just an all-around cool person and great writer all at the same time. She's doin' it and doin' it and doin' it well, as Missy Elliot would say. And she's been uber-gracious to me with giving advice and giving me props and also, whoa, unexpectedly giving me a shout-out on her blog that like just about doubled my readership overnight. This is kind of like Paris Hilton choosing you as a finalist for her BFF, except replace Paris with somebody smart and funny and pretty and with no tiny dog in her purse, and replace the skanks with me. Unless you think i AM a skank, in which case I guess you can just leave that part the same.

Most Inspiring BlogHer
I don't think I can really write about the most inspiring stuff because I have a sinus infection and if I get all verklempt I'm gonna get all chokey and snotty. There are some people that I met, and that I didn't meet but saw on stage reading their work, that are so bare-bones honest, that so completely and honestly laid their shit bare for everyone to see, that they kind of make me feel bad when I do stupid posts like...oh, um, like this one. Those people, you know who you are. And I don;t want to come off as crass by saying "oh this person had this horrible thing happen GO READ ABOUT IT HERE!" because that's kind of like telling somebody to go drive to 7-11 and buy you a gallon of milk you don;t need just so they can ogle at a horrible accident on the way there. Except in this case the ogling would involve really heartbreaking prose. But you'll find those people, I am sure. It's the kind of writing that doesn't stay hidden for long. And I'm even a little late to the party on a lot of those people, so who am I to point at them? But yeah. Sniff. Gulp. Amazing. Ness. Itude.

So I guess I'll just say I was most inspired by myself, and my ability to be giddy about my writing again, not to mention to stay up past 10:30. I'll now leave you to your regularly scheduled programming, before I get all "A Very Special Episode of Blossom" on you.

Go on, back to work, you. Go feed your kid or type that report or chew out that underling or pick up that baby that's been screaming for the past ten minutes. It's way past my bedtime AGAIN. (Whoo, these moms of preschoolers, you really have to keep them on a schedule or they are screwed up for WEEKS.)

The New Yorker's First-Ever Centerfold

Great, now I have to hide The New Yorker from the kid.
(It's from an article about traveling in Siberia. The caption is totally serious, stating that she's a "woman selling vegetables" and where her town is, but come ON, this has to be intentional, right?)

The Daily Planet

Through one of those great "it's who you know" type opportunities (i.e. one of my son's friend's moms hooked me UP), I was asked to write a piece on BlogHer for "Enterprise City," the small-business blog of Crain's Chicago Business. Crain's is kind of a big deal. So I am feeling all journalist-y this week.  I think it's pretty good. Especially considering that the first time I wrote and sent it, my computer ate it and I had to start over from scratch. At 11 o'clock at night. Though I don't have a great handle on the "voice" of Crain's Chicago Business, since it's mostly read by people who have money or who know, like, how to get money. But I aimed for a professional. somewhat removed voice. ooh!, and I refrained from cursing! (PROUD). Though I did get in a couple of cracks in there about too much estrogen, Home Depot, and Obama getting a manicure. I think  I was punchy from lack of sleep. Anyway, if you are so inclined, you can go read it here.
Love,
Lois

ROYGBIV!

Hello interweb compadres,

I've been gone from the blog for a week because work has just been so heinous it has crept into my after-hours life way too much. No time to even think about posting. Sorry about that. I woke up this morning groggy and hungover, with blisters on both pinky toes from 14 hours straight wearing pinch-y high heels. Either I survived two days of meetings and then went to a Board of Directors dinner at a posh country club, or somebody slipped me a roofie and forgot to follow through.

So anyway, it's Pride Weekend, and the neighborhood is hopping! I think the gay community should rightly feel emboldened by the major victory last week, when the hate-spewing group that was scheduled to picket  (some vague mishmash of anti-gay, anti-Jew, equal-opportunity hatred: they literally were scheduled to picket at several synagogues, a library in a gay neighborhood, and a storefront theatre. huh?) on our block was rained out by a huge thunderstorm. Too bad, so sad. An enormous tree fell ten feet from where picketers would have been standing because it was struck by lightning: perhaps God was just trying to drive home his point (which I can only assume would be "don't be a hatah, yo?") and was just a little too much to the left.  Better aim next time.
But still, in case anyone's keeping score:
Gays and Jews: 1, Haters: 0.

Really looking forward to the parade tomorrow! The joy of having a three-year-old: you have to explain EVERYTHING, so nothing truly wacky stands out. "Why does that man have sparkly blue eyelashes?" just fades right into the lineup along with "Why are firetrucks red?" and "Why do dogs sniff each others' butts?" My son is not yet old enough to be made uncomfortable by assless chaps or by a 6-foot-five black man dressed as Scarlet O'Hara handing out flavored condoms. (No, FrogBoy, you cannot eat that "candy.")

Hopefully he will never be too old to appreciate the joy of being able to take pride in who you are, no matter who you are. If there's one thing I hope we've taught him so far, it's that. Everyone is special in their own way, everyone is important and deserves to be understood.

And you know, even if you don't agree with people, you don't have to go making signs and walking around in front of their place or worship, whether that be a church, a synagogue, a mosque, a temple, or a place of worship we in the neighborhood know and love as SideTracks (That's right, show tune heaven). And if you ARE going to make signs, at least spell them correctly.

Much love to all of our LGBT friends, both here in Chicago and scattered around the country. I'm hoping to march tomorrow (with our local school, Nettelhorst, which is so fabulous that they've decorated the school for Pride in rainbow ribbons along their entire border fence, and tomorrow will be the first public school to march in the Pride Parade) but in case we don't make it (due to sometimes-unavoidable preschooler angst), we're thinking of you all and we're P-R-O-U-D to count you among our friends.

*

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.

- Walt Whitman

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Your Civic Doodie

Aquaman had jury duty today, just four days before the end of the school year and the beginning of our home renovation project. When I found out he was being sent to the cook county criminal court, in a pretty rough part of the city, I couldn't help but see this eleventh-hour requirement as the equivalent of the lifelong cop who has to do just one last case, and gets shot the morning of his retirement party. It had Lethal Weapon 2 written all over it.

He texted me off and on throughout the day, letting me know how things were going. It was a murder trial, slated to take approximately two weeks. A two week delay on my new kitchen. (Yes, I know, I am a horrible, selfish person; have we not established this already?) Visions of stainless steel appliances and pretty cabinets NOT GETTING INSTALLED filled my every waking thought.

Long story short (do I ever do that? Eh, I'm tired), he didn't get picked and didn't even have to come up with an excuse. He did, however, witness numerous others trying to weasel out of it.

The judge actually said to one guy who claimed financial hardship, "Young man, there are men and women dying in Afghanistan and Iraq right now. The very least you can do is spend two weeks in an air conditioned courtroom. Is that so much to ask?"

What kind of asshole would have a rebuttal to a guilt trip like that?

That is some impressive, major league guilt. I get why the judge would go the guilt route, too.

What confuses me is that I had no idea my grandmother was a judge.

Little Known Fact: Memorial Day is a Jewish Holiday

FrogBoy goes to a predominantly Jewish preschool.

Conversation with FrogBoy, circa 20 minutes ago:

FrogBoy: "Mommy, tomorrow is Monday, right?"

Me: "That's right, sweetie"

FrogBoy: "So I have to go to school tomorrow?"

Me: "Nope, because tomorrow is special; it's a HOLIDAY."

FrogBoy: (calling to other room) "Daddyyyyy!!!!! Mommy says tomorrow we get to eat CHALLAH!!"

Ba-doom-CHA.

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Momtrolfreak named BlogHer's BLOGGER OF THE WEEK!

Oh. Ma. Gah. I am almost dangerously PSYCHED (!!!!!!!!!!!!) that I have been named this week's BlogHer of the Week, deeming me, at least this week, the Best of the Women's Blogosphere. www.BlogHer.com is a diverse, very cool community of 38,000 or so women bloggers, and their editorial team picked little ol' moi. So on the off chance that anyone from BlogHer has come here by following that link, I'm hanging out the shingle on my truck stop:

BLOGHERS WELCOME.

FREE COFFEE.

GOOD PIE.

Come on in!

Many thanks to whoever nominated me!!! Here's the e-mail I received from Jory over at BlogHer.

A new comment from “Jory Des Jardins” was received on the post “I Know What Boys Like” of the blog “momtrolfreak”.

Comment:

momtrolfreak,

We, and your blogging peers, loved this post! We selected it as the best of the women's Blogosphere, making YOU our BlogHer of the Week! I wrote about your post here:
http://www.blogher.com/blogher-week-momtrolfreak.

Thanks for the laughs!

--Jory
Co-Founder, BlogHer
for Elisa, Jory, and Lisa

Monte-flu-ma's Revenge

 

My husband is supposed to go to Mexico on Thursday.

Yeah, that's right, you heard me:

MAY-HEE-CO. El pais de la influenza.

He has no choice, it's a trip for work. My husband never but never gets sick, so there's probably no worry....except he just always brings everything home to me and the kid. So he'd be fine and we'd be the ones mutating into pigs. And honestly, I'm more worried about this than I was about the whole cocaine war, probably because it just seems a lot more likely that you could get sick than beheaded. I mean, in most towns. Tijuana, I don't know.

And you know, as illnesses go, "swine flu" is not the most glamourous thing to die of. As my friend Penny said, "I don't mind getting sick as long as I don't have to tell people I have swine flu." It sounds like something that would take out the entire crew of Pigs in Space. Swine flu, drug war...now all we need is a hurricane and some locusts and we'll be all set.

I'm hoping that Monday will bring news that the trip is canceled. I have no reason to be suspicious of Mexico; they've never been anything but nice to me. Even that time on our honeymoon when I was a contestant on the resort's "game show" and had to fellate a bottle of tequila and chipped my tooth the very first night. They didn't have any dentists, but they DID have a lot of bartenders who were very nice and kept me boozed up the whole week. Oh wait, it was all-inclusive, so that wasn't special treatment. If you're going to have a chipped tooth, though, I highly recommend tequila. It really seemed to help.

Schadenfreude

It's reassuring that the crazy people are sometimes located in other parts of the world besides America, wherever Survivor is filming, and the body of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

In this particular instance, I give you Germany:

Personally, I wouldn't climb over a fence, jump a hedge, and swim across a moat to get to a hungry polar bear unless I had an enraged 200-pound chimp with me for protection.