FeeFiFoto Blog

Buh Bye Sarah

Bye Sarah.  Have a nice retirement.

Hi Linda!

Fame Contest.  Enter here to win fame, and a gift certificate!

Manners Versus Mushrooms: What To Do When A Kind Hearted Human Being Offers You Something That Makes You Cringe

The cough.  The COUGH.  It's getting better but it simply won't go away, and I'm beginning to alarm perfect strangers.  It's worst by the end of the day, what with all the talking and umpiring of baseball games and Marine chanting I've been doing (I don't know but I've been told!! / I don't know but I've been told!! / I thought this was just a cold!! / I thought this was just a cold!!) but try as I might, I just can't seem to stop hollering cooing gently at my kids, and I pay for it by nightfall. 

Tonight the kids and I dined at a Chinese restaurant with my parents.  The coughing, which had been minimal most of the day, escalated rapidly, and by the time our food was delivered I was hacking and choking like a first time smoker.  After delivering our five different varieties of stir-fried chicken (we're an imaginative bunch), the waitress returned with a glass full of lukewarm brown liquid -- some type of powerful Chinese tea ("Tea.  It's only tea.  Nothing else -- just Chinese tea") that she swore would cure anything from a monstrous cough to a severed finger to homesickness.

I examined it.  I swirled the glass and sniffed the contents; it smelled earthy but not unduly alarming.  I sipped it: earthy but not unduly alarming.  I shrugged and drank.

At this point I must commend my mother for her reaction to this scene.  She didn't blink, or flinch, or protest my sampling this possibly lethal potion; rather, she maintained a gracious and grateful smile.  My conclusion is that she's either become considerably more laid back in recent years, or I'm not on her familial alarm radar because I'm not a grandchild. 

I prefer to believe she's mellowing.

Once I'd made my way through about two thirds of the glass's contents, still coughing copiously, the waitress came back with a quart container of tea for me to take home, promising she'd make me more if I needed it.  I asked again if it was really just tea and she smiled broadly and declared: "Yes, just tea.  It's a mushroom tea -- very beneficial.  Make your cough go away."

Mushroom.  Tea.

Mushrooms.

I don't like mushrooms. I'm afraid of mushrooms. They're squishy.  They're slippery.  They grow underground, but they're not yummy potatoes.

They're creepy and they're kooky... mysterious and spooky... they're altogether ooky...

I've never willingly or knowingly consumed a mushroom in any form.  In restaurants I always (politely) insist that mushrooms be withheld from my meal, with an implied threat that I might run screaming from the room if I find one.

But.  Turning my nose up at the mushroom tea would have been as hurtful as refusing to enjoy the Mother's Day breakfast in bed mushy omelet, and for the same reason: I'm constitutionally unable to deny the hopeful puppy expression that comes with that type of offering.

So I guzzled the tea, thanked the waitress profusely, and toted home my container of mushroom tea.  It's sitting on the kitchen counter right now.  Looking at me.  Daring me.

Eek.

Don't Know What I've Done To Deserve This

I've been highlighted by FishHawk.  Must be  slow news day ;).  Seriously, thanks FH.

Oh, and by the way -- as long as I'm here, Happy 3d Birthday Miss Puppy.  We're glad you're part of our family.

I Can't Stop: This Cough Is Making Me Crazy

• I've had this (cough cough) cough for more than a week (cough).  I think it's the result of allergies because otherwise I feel fine (coughcough). 
• It gets worse by the (C.O.U.G.H.), by the end of the day, especially (kaff kaff) if I've done too much talking. 
• It's been difficult (kawfkawfkawf) to get to sleep because I can't stop COUGH COUGH COUGHING. 
• I've been suspended from my weekly volunteer job helping my friend care for her delectable (cough) babies.  I tried to disguise my voice on the phone (coff coff) but she caught on and took away my cuddling privileges. 
• My kids think I'm about to keel over whenever I begin hacking (hack hack HACK). 
• Nothing makes it go away -- not drinking water or sucking hard candies or eating ice cream, but I keep trying -- especially the ice cream. 
• My head hurts. 
• I can't sneak up on anyone.

Can anyone help me get rid of this horrible coughin' ?

Got the picture here.

Am I Too Sensitive?

I used to have a neighbor who borrowed my clothes to wear to dinner parties, parties that she hosted in her own home.  I was never invited to any of these parties, although I was privy to many details about guest lists and menus.  I haven't run into her in a long time.

I used to be one of those people whose male friends (even crushes) unloaded to me about their girlfriends.

My neighbor's daughter is getting married tomorrow night.  I wasn't invited.  He called this morning to ask if he could borrow one of my dog cages, since they're considering getting a puppy next week.

What do you think I should tell him?

I'm Sure The Kansas City Royals Are A Great Bunch Of Fellows

... but why does their logo look like it should be advertising Medieval Times?

Hi Linda!

Hi Linda!

Nothing else.  Just Hi.

SOO Proud Of My Puppy: Dog Training And The End Of The School Year

After less than two weeks with us Little Miss has learned to sit down in front of me or the door to let me know she wants to go outside.  When I ask if she wants to go potty she wags her little piglet tail and then dances for the door.

She's still a little shy, which can certainly be forgiven for a tiny creature who spent the first six months of her life in a cage, but she's getting better.

In other news, the end of the school year is nigh, which means:

• Field Day this past Monday: the kids and I spent much of Mother's Day slicing 20 watermelons and piling them in huge buckets with ice
• Band Concert Tuesday night: Cupcake and I rushed to a craft store in between dropping Robey off and the start of the concert to pick up dolphin stickers for the...
• Animal Research Expo: Cupcake researched and wrote about the albino bottlenose dolphin
• Band Banquet and Sleepover: my choices are to pick up Robey between midnight and 1 am on Friday night, or by 6 am on Saturday.  Which would you choose?
• Author Rick Riordan's book tour visit to our public library to read from his latest book.  This event occurs contemporaneously with the previous event, at opposite ends of town.
• Girls On The Run: Cupcake is running with my sister because hello?  I don't run.
• Three baseball games in a row: Saturday morning, right after the band sleepover; Sunday after Girls on the Run; Monday evening after school
• Robespierre's 12th birthday.  My baby!  My baby's turning 12!
• Third Grade Market Day: Cupcake and her partner are manufacturing and selling cardboard keychains in exchange for 3rd grade scrip
• Third Grade End-of-Year Party: we're holding a car wash; the kids (dressed modestly, I pray) will be washing parent and faculty cars out in the parking lot and then sloshing popsickles.

And you were wondering why I've been out of touch?

I'll Have A Salad: Guy Stuff

Why is it always men who do this type of thing?  If I'd read this article with all the names and pronouns blacked out, I would have known without a doubt that all the participants were men under the age of 40.  Let's see -- we have:

• beef (BIG beef)
• cheese
• bacon
• road trips
• complex rules
• competition for nothing more than bragging rights
• playoffs
• golf

Yep, this thing bears the earmarks of abundant testosterone; by my assessment the only things missing are power tools and spitting.  Read the entire article in the New York Times:

"ONE by one they approached the counter... and repeated the words like a mantra. Half-pound sirloin burger. Bacon. Cheddar...

“If anybody didn’t order a half,” Brett Weiss told the beefy guy taking it all down on a restaurant pad, “make them a half-pound anyway.”

Has Anybody Missed Me? Because My Laptop Crashed. Again.

Blame Sony then, because my POS Vaio went out AGAIN; it goes out more than I do.  This time it was the hard drive AGAIN; it's been replaced but of course I've had to spend three days trying to get back to where I started and I suspect I've lost a lot of documents and photos.

Unusual Ways Of Looking At The Usual

When your business involves photographs you regularly witness astonishingly creative approaches to the same old square or rectangular format.

When I had portraits taken of my kids I'd baffle the photographers by insisting on keeping the unusual photos like this one:

The woman who took this shot had her finger on delete, but I stopped her; this photo shows the essence of my son when he was six months old, with the fingers in the mouth and the little smile behind them.  I once insisted on a portrait of my daughter taken from the back.

Race From Witch Mountain: Movie Review

Robey and I went to see Race To Witch Mountain last night, before shopping for clothes for him -- not me, him.  He's growing so quickly I'm tempted to dress him in garbage bags for the next couple of years.

Anyway, the movie.  The main character is a cab driver played by Dwayne "Don't Call Me 'Rock' Any More" Johnson, who picks up two cute blond teenagers who happen to be illegal aliens without passports, from some planet many multiple light years away from Earth.  You can tell they're aliens because, even though they're cute and blond, they use stilted language similar to that used by HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey.  The alien kids spend half the movie looking very worried and the other half speaking as if they were reciting from a hastily-translated owner's manual for a Japanese-made appliance.  Meanwhile, The Actor Formerly Known As "Rock" drives them through the desert for the first 45 minutes of the movie without ever demanding to know why they talk so funny.

Online Shopping -- Isn't It Great? Discuss.

So, I was, like, browsing the Internet?  Because that's what I do, like, most of the day?  And I saw this, like, umm, sweater?  That looked really cool?  And I'm all This Stuff Is, Like, Really Cool?  So I like clicked over to the site?  On Etsy?  And this lady had all these really awesome, like, tops and sweaters and leggings and stuff and whatever?  And some of them were made of, like cotton and bamboo and whatever?

Oy.  I'm giving myself a headache.

Does Not Compute

Peter Tork, the 67-year-old quiet Monkee, has cancer, and I say that is just incomprehensible because how in blazes could Peter Tork actually be 67?

Adventures In Dry Cleaning: "No Ticky, No Washy," She Said

I went to the dry cleaners today to pick up a dress.  I knew exactly where to find the ticket: safe at home next to the telephone.  No problem -- give them your phone number and they look up your account.

The lady (Chinese, by the way) handed me the dress with a smile, and said: "No ticky no washy."  Then she grinned and said: "You ever hear that saying? 'No ticky no washy?'  My husband is Chinese and he's from New York and many dry cleaners in New York are owned by Chinese people.  He told me a long time ago they used to say that if you didn't have your ticket." 

I just gaped at her, terrified that my ADD-rooted inability to read social signals scuttled my chance of responding appropriately.  Of course I'd heard "no ticky no washy" before; my grandmother used to joke about it.  But how was I supposed to respond?  Was it okay for her to talk about it but not me?  Could I laugh with her?  Should I admit to having heard the phrase before?  If I joked about it would I be seen as whatever the anti-Chinese version of anti-Semite is?

I took a prolonged mental pause and then told her I'd hoped she'd give me the laundry if I just gave her my most winning smile.

What would you have said?

::Snicker::

Some bloggers like to highlight the Google searches that bring them readers.  I'm looking at the Google Adsense ads that are matched up with my posts.  For example, when I wrote about the differences between monkeys and apes, Google placed this ad:

Watch the Castrol Edge ® Grease Monkeys Super Bowl Commercial Now!

Monkeys and Apes... Grease Monkeys.  Yeah, that's a match.

Snarking: My Take On Oscar Fashions

Miley Cyrus looked like a Christmas tree.

Beyonce looked like a vase.

Will Obama's Stimulus Package Boost The Fashion Industry?

The title of the Spring 2009 New York Times Style Magazine is "A Stimulus Package," as in "Please please please spend some or all of your stimulus money on fashions.  Please?  Pretty please?  Ohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohplease?"

As a recovering shopaholic (I know, I can't believe it either) in a, shall we say, precarious economy, I feel limited ambition to buy anything, especially the Gainfranco Ferre PVC platform (thanks Imelda):

or the Dior Fertility Fetish heels (thanks Shoebuy):

Is There Mail On Presidents' Day?

Chez FeeFiFotoville the question is really whether there is mail on any day.  Let's review:

Cleo and I were in New York last weekend, so I put a vacation hold on our mail.

Check.

We came back on Sunday and a big pile of mail was delivered on Monday.

Check.

On Tuesday, we got nothing.

Did I Ever Tell You About The Time I Went To The Super Bowl?

Seriously, I had two tickets on the 50 yard line. 

Ten rows from the roof of the Superdome.

I went to college in New Orleans and my freshman year the Super Bowl (mis)matched the Dallas Cowboys (boo Dallas!) and the Denver Broncos (who had an adorable little pony mascot but not much else going for them, but, in any case, yay anyone other than Dallas!)  My friend's father worked for one of the sporting equipment manufacturers and he had handfuls of tickets to give away.  Back then the face value of Super Bowl tickets was... wait for it... $30.  Yes that's three zero, not three zero zero or three zero zero zero or anything else -- just 3 dot 0 dot.  Not only that, the halftime show in a big year might include Up With People (yeehah); the year I attended the halftime show featured the Canine Frisbee Throwing Championships.