A couple of days before Halloween last year I offered Cupcake a dollar if she'd go up to a police officer having breakfast at the next table and say: "Hey, nice costume." She did it. He was amused. I paid.
Another time I offered her a dollar if she'd ask a barista what was "free weefee." She did it. The barista was baffled. I paid.
I offered Robespierre a dollar if he could name the one professional baseball team that's won the World Series based in three different cities. He couldn't (it was the Braves). I also offered to pay him if he could convince a waitress to spray whipped cream in his mouth instead of on his milkshake. He couldn't because she couldn't (health department rules). I didn't pay either time.
These Dollar Dares have become a cheap source of entertainment and a way for the kids to pick up a few bucks here and there. I like to think it also helps them not to take themselves too seriously and not to be self conscious about making small talk.
Yesterday we had burgers at an old fashioned diner. Robey put a dollar in the jukebox and chose a bunch of songs, one of which was "Thriller" (has anyone but me noticed that Michael Jackson has become a lot more popular and acceptable since keeling over?).
I offered them each five dollars if they'd go outside in the rain and do the Thriller dance in front of the plate glass window.
I organize my life with a BlackBerry. It does its job reasonably well, storing phone numbers, addresses, birthday reminders and dates. It even maintains my shopping list.
I use a simple spreadsheet application called Grid Magic to keep track of everything I might need.
My list could have been truly alphabetized but it got too difficult to keep moving things up or down to make room for new items so now I keep my list in alphabetized "chunks." Occasionally I temporarily add a new listing for a one-time purchase until I can manage to pick up zip ties, rope or a new microwave oven.
The spreadsheet on my BlackBerry is a handy tool to help me not forget anything crucial at the supermarket or superstore.
Unfortunately, occasionally the gremlins invade and tamper with my list.
Anyone know if supermarkets are carrying alpacas, llamas, ponies or gnus this spring?
Make personalized calendars even more personal with the addition of peculiar dates; here are some for January.
FeeFiFoto has been producing personalized photo calendars as a core part of our business since we were established. For the 2007 Christmas season we added a bunch of new templates, a thousand or so pieces of clip art, and the capacity to arrange photos in collages instead of being limited to a single photo per page. We've always had a feature that lets you enter your own family birthdays, anniversaries or special events.
Last year the kids and I designed calendars for our family, and in addition to the usual birthdays and anniversaries, we chose one day each month for a fictitious holiday just to see if anyone was paying attention. January 16 was Talk Like Pirates Day, February 24 was Walk Backwards Day, March 1 was Talk Really Fast Day, August 17 was Snowball Fight Day, and November 2 was Kiss Your Mom Day. We also acknowledged some legitimate holidays and anniversaries, like the Ides of March (March 15), Beethoven's Birthday (December 16) and the anniversary of Paul Revere's Ride (April 18). It was fun and silly.
Here are some silly, and real (supposedly) holidays you can add to photo calendars.
January
1 First Foot Day Z Day Paul Revere, b. 1735 Betsy Ross, b. 1752
2 Run Up The Flagpole and See If Anyone Salutes Day Happy Mew Year for Cats Day
3 Festival of Sleep Day National Chocolate Covered Cherry Day J.R.R. Tolkien, b. 1892
4 Trivia Day Humiliation Day Louis Braille, b. 1809
5 National Bird Day George Reeves, b. 1914
6 Bean Day Cuddle Up Day Joan of Arc, b. 1412
7 Old Rock Day Millard Fillmore, b. 1800 Charles Addams, b. 1912
8 Bubble Bath Day Butterfly McQueen, b. 1911 Soupy Sales, b. 1926 Elvis Presley, b. 1935
9 Play God Day Richard Nixon, b. 1913 Bob Denver, b. 1935
10 Peculiar People Day Grigori Rasputin, b. 1869 Ray Bolger, b. 1904
Yay! We have our own day!
11 Step in a Puddle and Splash your Friends Day Alexander Hamilton, b. 1755
12 National Pharmacist Day
13 Make Your Dream Come True Day Rubber Duckie Day Blame Someone Else Day International Skeptics Day
14 Dress Up Your Pet Day Benedict Arnold, b. 1741
15 National Hat Day Aristotle Onassis, b. 1906 Martin Luther King, b. 1929
17 Ditch New Year's Resolutions Day Customer Service Day Benjamin Franklin, b. 1706 Anne Bronte, b. 1820 Al Capone, b. 1899 Eartha Kitt, b. 1927 Shari Lewis, b. 1934
18 Winnie The Pooh Day Thesaurus Day Oliver Hardy, b. 1892
19 Popcorn Day Robert E. Lee, b. 1807 Edgar Allan Poe, b.1809 Janis Joplin, b. 1943
20 Buttercrunch Day Penguin Awareness Day Patricia Neal, b. 1926
21 Squirrel Appreciation Day National Hugging Day Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, b. 1824
Personally I appreciate penguins more
22 National Answer Your Cat's Question Day National Blonde Brownie Day
My first year practicing law, when I wasn't sneaking through the office clutching the walls, wearing beige and trying to be invisible, I participated in a double-secret program operated by one of the senior associates whereby participants were challenged to retell the facts and result of a famous and famously ridiculous case in the voice of any well-known author. There were submissions in the styles of Ernest Hemingway, Margaret Mitchell, William Faulkner, William Shakespeare, our local newspaper's unctuous society columnist, and even one of the uber-senior partners of the firm who liked to drop names at every opportunity.
I wasn't very good at the actual writing, but I enjoyed the game nevertheless, because all submissions:
Defied the managing partner who frowned on any waste of firm paper or supplies, and
Were pretty darn funny
Comes the publication of the (auto)biography of a former President of the United States, and I come across this review on a well-known web site that sells books and everything else:
So you see, I walked into Costco the other day, and I saw the cover on this book and I said to my secret service agent, "That guy looks very familiar." ... In this picture on the cover I look very decisive and slightly studly as well. (Don't worry! I'm not turning into a brainiac or anything. That word decisive was one of the words they put on the dust jacket thingy that sort of covers up the book's cardboard covers. Plus--you may not know this--that dust jacket thing helps keeps the words in the book.)
Anyway, I like the title of this book. It's a very pointy sort of title. There are these decisions, you know, and each decision has a point to make. I mean, each decision has its own point of view. These decisions, they sort of--it's like they have their own opinions. And so there are what I like to call "Decision Points." (I did my decisive thing and decided to have them put this title on the book after golfing with one of my medical friends--this fellow is a doctor, a human healer who practices his love on his patients--and one day he was saying something about "incision points." So I decided, if I change the letters around, I'll have a good title there. A very pointy title, if you will.) ...
Plus the other cool thing about my book Decision Points is that it has an index. Just like you would expect, things are very orderly in the index. They made sure to put the Q before the R, and then the S before the T. Which is very convenient because they have that same system in the phone book, I noticed. Putting the letters in a certain order, I mean. Again, that's another example of somebody being very decisive...
I was looking for a quick fix because of writer's block exploring old posts and came across this one.
1. I always bring popcorn and drinks when I take Robey and Cupcake to the movies. I carry it in a large black tote bag. We've only been caught once, when an actual grownup was taking tickets. He made us leave our stash in the car.
3. I always used to go shopping on Black Friday, back when I had time, energy and ambition but not much sense.
4. I always kiss my kids good night before I go to bed and tuck the blankets around them. It's the perfect time to steal kisses without being yelled at.
5. I always forget people's names. I wish everyone had a Times Square-style zipper running across their forehead that would spell out : "Here's who I am and here's how you know me..." I usually don't even bother to listen when new acquaintances introduce themselves, since I know the inevitability of misplacing the names as soon as I hear them.
Maybe that's part of my problem.
6. I always read the comics first.
7. I always stay up too late.
8. I always feel cold in the winter. Even pregnant, I was never hot. Funny story: I didn't go much of anywhere when I was pregnant on account of I felt like I was going to lose it approximately 14 hours of every day, which I usually did, so I stayed close to home. But in December of 2000, about a month before Cleo was born, I went out to a place that was nice enough to require that I wear real clothes that matched. I slipped on the dressy winter coat I hadn't worn all season and attempted to button it, but it wouldn't close. "%?&#@!" I thought, "the $#%& thing shrunk," before remembering that I was eight months pregnant.
True story.
9. I always construct a pillow fortress before going to sleep, with specific pillows propping up my neck, back and legs. It's a strenuous activity, which probably explains why I'm usually wide awake after getting in bed.
Bet that song is running through your brain right now, isn't it? You're welcome.
11. I always clip articles that I think might interest my friends or family and pop them in the mail.
12. I always wait until I've finished eating to drink anything. The bill has been paid, everyone's putting on coats and picking up purses, and I'm slamming down a full glass of iced tea in one continuous gulp.
13. I always find the dumbest St. Patrick's Day card out there and send it to my sister, who thinks St. Patrick's Day is the dumbest day of the year.
14. I always tend to blurt first and ask questions (or more accurately, offer apologies) later.
15. I always tip generously, unless service has been abysmal, since I know women as a group tend to have the reputation of being stingy tippers.
My son announced he was joining the school yearbook. Trying not to show my delight out of fear of scaring him away, I mentally congratulated myself: Yay! Yearbook is safer than wrestling or running, and the uniform is way more affordable.
After the first meeting he declared that he'd signed up to photograph cross country meets and the first was somewhere less than 1100 miles away and he had to get there right after school tomorrow, and I'm like: Okay, Bud, let's have a little talk about after school activities. It appears that, at least until you can drive, it'll be mainly my responsibility to get you to and from your extra-curriculars, so let's set some ground rules, shall we? How about some advance notice when an event is coming up; for example, instead of announcing that the meet is this afternoon and you need me to drive you nearly half the length of the Oregon Trail by 4 pm, can you let me know at least a day in advance? How's that work for you, Pal?
Grudgingly he agreed that, since I control the car keys, I might be making some sense, so Saturday morning we got up early and headed out with ample time to make it to the first race of the weekend.
As soon as we arrived at the park and parked in one of the park parking lots, Robey bolted with the camera, leaving Cupcake to carry the case because he's a good delegator that way. Cupcake and I and Miss Puppy set out for the field at a more leisurely pace. After circumnavigating a significant portion of park acreage trying to find the designated field, then tracing the drenched and muddy perimeter of the field in search of the white tent marking home base for Robey's school, we found: a couple of trainers, a few students, some parents -- but no Robespierre.
Just as it was dawning on me that I might have lost my kid, who probably didn’t have his cell phone because that would be too logical, my phone rang with a vaguely familiar caller id. It was Robey, calling from the zoo, and I was like: Robespierre, my darling, how in H.E.Double Toothpicks did you end up at the zoo?!
So Cupcake and I and Miss Puppy got back in the car and picked up Robey, who was waiting sheepishly outside the zoo, and we drove back to the meet, this time parking in a more suitable lot, and everything was pleasant and perfect from then on.
Game over, right? Happily ever after, right?
You don’t know us very well, do you?
While Robey was snapping photos of muddy high school students, Cupcake entertained herself by schlucking back and forth across an out-of-use ball field. She’d trudge to the middle, leaving gigantic, goopy footprints in the mud, and then slog back to the edge, where I’d pretend not to know her; then she’d start all over again.
Eventually Cupcake called out that she was stuck and I told her she was funny and then pretended not to know her some more.
She repeated that she was stuck and I told her to stop kidding around.
Then she pulled her foot out of her shoe and the shoe stayed where it was and I wasn’t laughing any more.
So, here’s where things stood:
Cupcake is stuck in the mud thirty yards away
She can’t gain leverage to bend down and dislodge her shoe
If she abandons the shoe, she’ll have to wade through mud up to her eyeballs to get to the edge of the field, at which point I’ll have to shoot her, not to mention that she’ll be sacrificing approximately half of a pair of fairly new sneakers
I’m standing on the edge of the muddy field, holding the leash of a dog who is, to say the least, excitable and unpredictable
I could abandon Cupcake as an example to those foolish enough to consider following her lead, but then I’d be stuck with all of her clothes and an unused bedroom
Heaving a sigh of resignation, I plodded through the mud, praying for the mercy of the slapstick gods.
Miss Puppy and I slipped and slid out to the center of the field. Cupcake pulled her foot out of the mud-logged shoe, balancing on the other foot while leaning on my back. I bent over and pulled the loop on the heel of her shoe and… nothing happened. I mean, nothing. That sneaker was sunk in the mud like it was rooted there. Meanwhile, any moment some Labradoodle was sure to catch Miss Puppy’s attention and she’d be dragging us through the mud like a couple of stuntmen.
I pulled some more. I put my hand inside that shoe and yanked and wiggled it. Finally, with a huge sucking sound, the shoe splorked free of the nasty red glop, Cupcake slid her foot back inside it, and the three of us scrambled back to the edge of the field.
In the end, one of us looked like this:
Who won the races? Who cares? What is it with me and mud?
What an elephant was doing in my pajamas, I'll never know.
Image borrowed from Paula J. Becker, who has a really cute blog.
The point of this extremely lame joke is that I killed a fly with a spoon last week.
Not that the fly had a spoon in its little fly hand. Although it might have, for all I could tell, since fly hands are normally microscopic and my vision isn't too sharp, even with glasses. And for that matter, it was a pretty big fly. As flies go. So it's possible that the bigger-than-normal fly did have a demitasse spoon in its hand with which it intended to stir cream and sugar into its iced coffee.
In any case, I saw no evidence of a spoon in the fly's hand as I picked up the spoon with which I swatted the fly.
The point? The point is that when writing a letter to Cupcake at camp, I wrote "I killed a fly with a spoon last week." And then I had to clarify my statement because the way it was written it appeared as if I might have killed a fly that was holding a spoon in its hand, which we have already established was not the case, and in any case would be most unlikely.
As I was telling this story to my sister (an instinctive grammarian, like me -- it runs in the family, like prominent noses and curly hair), we tried to dissect the sentence and figure out what was wrong with it and how to fix it.
But we couldn't find anything grammatically amiss.
"I killed a fly with a spoon" seemed to be completely proper, especially if the sentence were spoken rather than written. If, in conversation, you say "I killed a fly with a spoon," your listener, while finding your choice of subject rather grotesque, should nevertheless understand the implication that you picked up a spoon in your hand and used the spoon to swat a fly, which fell down dead on the floor.
Yet, the written sentence begged to be restructured so as to make abundantly clear that the fly was killed with the spoon, not that the fly came equipped with its own fly-size spoon.
Can anyone explain this conundrum to me? In a way that won't make my eyes roll back into my head and my knees to buckle, thus causing me to fall backwards on the floor, bash my skull and end up in bed for a week with hallucinations of flies stirring coffee in china cups using teeny tiny silver spoons?
You know how department stores will call you if someone tries to use your credit card after it's been idle for a certain amount of time to make sure the Terminix man wasn't snooping through your desk drawers while ostensibly treating your house for weasels or carpenter ants?
You know how some gift cards expire if you don't use them before a certain date because the stores are counting on your forgetting the cards so they get to keep your money without having to surrender services or merchandise in exchange?
That reminds me -- I'd better schedule that pedicure soon...
Well, guess what? BlogHer just sent me a plaintive note wondering where I've been and politely withdrawing my advertising until I post again. But really, I have an excuse. It might not be a good one but it's an excuse:
No... no -- not that she wouldn't try, but she's actually been on good behavior lately, if you ignore the recently shredded purple Ugg*.
Bar Mitzvah.
Yeah, that's the ticket. This Bar Mitzvah has had me busier than a one-armed man trying to paddle a canoe in a straight line. I've been busier than a termite in a sawmill. I've been busier than a one-armed man trying to pitch a tent in a wind storm.
Hellooo? Anyone out there? I know you're there -- I can hear you breathing.
And, as if the Bar Mitzvah weren't enough, I was in charge of Teacher and Staff Appreciation gifts for the month of May at Cupcake's school and I chose to give 77 people each two 750 ml bottles of Pellegrino sparkling water, which adds up to 156 bottles in thirteen 30-pound cases of twelve; each bottle had a ribbon and a mushy note tied around its neck, which took a month to accomplish, and then I had to deliver the bottles around a school comprising six three-story buildings equipped with precisely zero elevators, which is why the next time I tackle Teacher Appreciation the gift will entail an unsharpened pencil or a handful of feathers for each teacher although why they'd want feathers I don't know but it's enough already with shlepping 390 pounds of water.
So anyway BlogHer: I'm reallyreally sorry I've been ignoring you but it's nothing personal and thanks for your kind note of suspension which I totally deserved and I promise that I'll be more reliable as soon as this Bar Mitzvah has been accomplished and the kids sent off to camp exactly a week later, and while I have your attention can you do something about getting William Shatner to host Saturday Night Live? Thanks.
*Spell Check suggested egg or fuggy and I don't know what fuggy means but I think it might be my new favorite word.
Making personalized calendars even more personal with the addition of peculiar dates; here are some for February.
FeeFiFoto has been producing personalized photo calendars as a core part of our business since we were established about five years ago. For a long time our designs and features were relatively unchanged, but last year we added a bunch of new templates, a thousand or so pieces of clip art, and the capacity to arrange photos in collages instead of being limited to a single photo per page. We've always had a feature that lets you enter your own family birthdays, anniversaries or special events.
Last year the kids and I designed calendars for our family, and in addition to the usual birthdays and anniversaries, we chose one day each month for a fictitious holiday just to see if anyone was paying attention. January 16 was Talk Like Pirates Day, February 24 was Walk Backwards Day, March 1 was Talk Really Fast Day, August 17 was Snowball Fight Day, and November 2 was Kiss Your Mom Day. We also acknowledged some legitimate holidays and anniversaries, like the Ides of March (March 15), Beethoven's Birthday (December 16) and the anniversary of Paul Revere's Ride (April 18). It was fun and silly.
I can't imagine that the majority of customers who buy personalized photo calendars from FeeFiFoto have my family's twistedwarpedexotic
highly developed sense of humor, but on the outside chance that at
least someone out there appreciates a good absurdist* joke, I've
compiled a list of some really weird, but apparently true, national and
international holidays.
February
1
Serpent Day Clark Gable, b. 1901
2
Purification Day James Joyce, b. 1882
3
Carrot Cake Day Cordova Ice Worm Day
I don't even want to know about this one
4
Rosa Parks, b. 1913 Thank A Mailman Day Create A Vacuum Day
I've heard Dysons are really good
5
National Weatherman's Day Disaster Day
Could these two be related?
6
Lame Duck Day Aaron Burr, b. 1756 Babe Ruth, b. 1895
7
Charles Dickens Day
8
Kite Flying Day
Shouldn't this be in April?
9
Toothache Day
Think I'll pass on this one
10
Umbrella Day
11
White Tee-Shirt Day Don't Cry Over Spilled Milk Day Thomas Edison, b. 1847
12
National Plum Pudding Day
13
Get A Different Name Day Dream Your Sweet Day Read To Your Child Day
14
Ferris Wheel Day National Heart to Heart Day
15
National Gum Drop Day
But please, don't drop your gum on the sidewalk
16
Do A Grouch A Favor Day
But only if he asks nicely
17
Champion Crab Races Day
18
Pluto Day National Battery Day
Umm -- is there a National Assault Day?
19
National Chocolate Mint Day
You got my attention with this one
20
Hoodie Hoo Day
Woo hoo -- it's Hoodie Hoo Day!
21
Card Reading Day
22
Be Humble Day
The rest of the year, be as conceited as you like
23
W.E.B. Dubois, b. 1868
Banana Bread Day International Dog Biscuit Appreciation Day
Miss Puppy likes this one
24
National Tortilla Chip Day
25
Pistol Patent Day (Samuel Colt)
26
William Frawley, b. 1887
Buffalo Bill Cody, b. 1846 National Pistachio Day
I like pistachios better than pistols
27 Marian Anderson, b. 1897
International Polar Bear Day
I like polar bears
28
Public Sleeping Day
I like sleeping
29
National Surf and Turf Day
Do you commemorate Beethoven's Birthday? And what is an "Ides" anyway?
Visit FeeFiFoto to design really personalized calendars with your own photos and dates.
I'm sending this to Robespierre to remind him that, the next time he feels compelled to trash talk a wrestling practice partner, he'd better make darn sure he's stronger and/or faster than his opponent, so he doesn't come home again with a swollen jaw and an ice pack.
Make personalized calendars even more personal with the addition of peculiar dates; here are some for January.
FeeFiFoto has been producing personalized photo
calendars as a core part of our business since we were established. For the 2007 Christmas season we added a bunch of
new templates, a thousand or so pieces of clip art, and the capacity to
arrange photos in collages instead of being limited to a single photo
per page. We've always had a feature that lets you enter your own
family birthdays, anniversaries or special events.
Last year the kids and I designed calendars for our family,
and in addition to the usual birthdays and anniversaries, we chose one
day each month for a fictitious holiday just to see if anyone was
paying attention. January 16 was Talk Like Pirates Day, February 24 was
Walk Backwards Day, March 1 was Talk Really Fast Day, August 17 was
Snowball Fight Day, and November 2 was Kiss Your Mom Day. We also
acknowledged some legitimate holidays and anniversaries, like the Ides
of March (March 15), Beethoven's Birthday (December 16) and the
anniversary of Paul Revere's Ride (April 18). It was fun and silly.
Here are some silly, and real (supposedly) holidays you can add to photo calendars.
January
1 First Foot Day Z Day Paul Revere, b. 1735 Betsy Ross, b. 1752
2 Run Up The Flagpole and See If Anyone Salutes Day
3 Festival of Sleep Day J.R.R. Tolkien, b. 1892
4 Trivia Day Humiliation Day Louis Braille, b. 1809
5 National Bird Day
George Reeves, b. 1914
6 Bean Day Cuddle Up Day Joan of Arc, b. 1412
7 Old Rock Day Millard Fillmore, b. 1800 Charles Addams, b. 1912
8 Bubble Bath Day Butterfly McQueen, b. 1911 Soupy Sales, b. 1926 Elvis Presley, b. 1935
9 Play God Day Richard Nixon, b. 1913 Bob Denver, b. 1935
10 Peculiar People Day Grigori Rasputin, b. 1869 Ray Bolger, b. 1904
Yay! We have our own day!
11 Step in a Puddle and Splash your Friends Day Alexander Hamilton, b. 1755
12 National Pharmacist Day
13 Make Your Dream Come True Day Blame Someone Else Day International Skeptics Day
14 Dress Up Your Pet Day Benedict Arnold, b. 1741
15 National Hat Day
Aristotle Onassis, b. 1906
Martin Luther King, b. 1929
Make personalized calendars even more personal with the addition of peculiar dates; here are some for December.
FeeFiFoto has been producing personalized photo
calendars as a core part of our business since we were established. For the 2007 Christmas season we added a bunch of
new templates, a thousand or so pieces of clip art, and the capacity to
arrange photos in collages instead of being limited to a single photo
per page. We've always had a feature that lets you enter your own
family birthdays, anniversaries or special events.
Last year the kids and I designed calendars for our family,
and in addition to the usual birthdays and anniversaries, we chose one
day each month for a fictitious holiday just to see if anyone was
paying attention. January 16 was Talk Like Pirates Day, February 24 was
Walk Backwards Day, March 1 was Talk Really Fast Day, August 17 was
Snowball Fight Day, and November 2 was Kiss Your Mom Day. We also
acknowledged some legitimate holidays and anniversaries, like the Ides
of March (March 15), Beethoven's Birthday (December 16) and the
anniversary of Paul Revere's Ride (April 18). It was fun and silly.
Here are some silly, and real (supposedly) holidays you can add to photo calendars.
December
1 Eat a Read Apple Day National Pie Day Mary Martin, b. 1913
