gift drive highlight
Each year my daughter’s school community adds more than 200 underserved children to the holiday shopping lists that have us searching all over North America for wonder pet ankle boots that don’t exist.
In a heartwarming display of generosity, our holiday gift drive culminates in a sea of wrapped toys, shiny new bikes and moms sorting gifts while trying to avoid pouring coffee down our red turtleneck sweaters, or worse, on the athletic center floor (grounds for expulsion at our school).
It’s such a joyous event brimming with the spirit of the season no one would ever suspect I yelled at the Starbucks barista this morning for running out of skim milk.
We also donate personal hygiene items for the grandmothers and other care providers of the children in the Guardian Ad Litem program to which the holiday gift drive benefits.
My personal favorite donation wasn’t hard to find. What was hard was deciding which lucky granny should receive this special gift.
elf advice
Jingles really lowered his standards when he wandered into this glorified Happy Meal toy
Weeks after I spent the equivalent of three semesters at Princeton on American Girl Doll accessories for Christmas (including a loft bed that is bigger than my first apartment), my daughter cultivated a new obsession: Winx Fairies.
Hoping this latest craze will pass as quickly as my so-called “deluxe” pedicure (whoa…did I even get a massage?), I didn’t pay too much attention to her Winx talk until yesterday morning when she mentioned something about a Winx Tutti Frutti Music & Smoothie Bar.
I raised my eyebrows suspiciously, which might be a lie since they don’t actually move. But there was something about the way she worked Tutti Frutti into our conversation about Tony Bennett (I think?) that had me suspecting she was testing me to see if I was paying attention.
I was not.
Luckily I vaguely remembered spotting a Winx toy like that during one of my weekly parole visits to Target where I check in whether I need to buy 23 bottles of Olay body wash for that $5 giftcard or not.
So I purchased the Tutti Frutti Gin Joint later that day, immediately regretting my decision to add to the mounds of crappy plastic toys that seem to reproduce in my daughter’s play area like compost worms.
But it was (sort of) worth the finger lacerations I earned at midnight from removing the rubber bands, wire ties and various razor blade-like oyster packaging shards that cemented the $36 sweatshop by-product together to hear my daughter squeal this morning when she spotted her elf Jingles sporting fairy wings at the Tutti Frutti with one of the “Enchantix” fairies that has me fearing the Winx franchise might be a sex trafficking operation.
Jingles needs medical attention
Jingles is in critical condition following a brutal stabbing last night.
When I checked in on my daughter later in the day to make sure she wasn’t yet glowing in the dark from the carcinogenic heap of BPA plastic, I noticed Jingles was no longer hanging out at the Tutti Frutti.
Unusual since the original Elf on the Shelf book cautioned children against moving their elves, and my child is not one to question Santa’s authority.
“Where’s Jingles?” I asked her.
She gave me a grave look before pointing to her desk where Jingles was resting on a pillow.
“Is he hungover?” I asked (in my head) before saying, “Oh, he must be sleepy.”
With watery eyes she opened her mouth before falling silent.
“He…he…,” she finally stammered. “He used these to keep his fairy wings on!” she said, completely horrified.
Then she held up my Mother of the Year trophies. Which were actually two giant menacing-looking push pins I used the night before to secure Jingles’ fairy wings when tape, hairbands and my lack of innovativeness failed to do so.
It was hard to refrain from punching myself in the face after I saw her look of genuine concern. It was even harder not to laugh at the horrific incisions she believes Jingles inflicted upon himself. I half expected her to blurt out, “My dear, sweet Jingles is a cutter and needs some serious psychiatric help.”
So I let her counsel Jingles about his sadomasochism in the hopes that when she sees him co-piloting an airplane tomorrow morning, she doesn’t get too concerned about his questionable judgment and risk-taking behaviors.
As for me, I learned an important lesson today. Never stab the fucking elf.
Earlier in the week: Beeker is arrested for .98 blood alcohol level when trying to flee from Jingles covering Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas.” Authorities released him on 10,000 Swedish Meatballs bail.
caffeine crush
I always can count on a certain barista for an extra shot of uncomfortable flirting.
“May I have…”
“You can have whatever you want…”
Um. Ew?
So it’s only a matter of time before I start Googling: “how do you know if you’ve been roofied?”
a proud mommy moment
My daughter’s elf Jingles is quite the player.
Yesterday she found him surrounded by a harem of American Girl dolls in a heated game of hangman where I cleverly (we’re talking second grade “clever” here) spelled out “Jingles” in the used letter portion of the tiles.
This morning he was looking comfy on the couch with the ladies playing a game of “Guess what I am?”
Somewhere between 6 am and shoot me in the face, my daughter came running up the stairs to tell me about her discovery.
“…yeah – McKenna had a hippopotamus card on her head!”
“No way!” I said, wide-eyed and wondering why there isn’t a “Mommy Academy Awards” because I’d totally win, feign the same surprise and thank caffeine in my speech. “That’s hilarious!”
“I know,” she continued, “and Jingles was holding the die!”
Let me hit pause to treasure this…
…the moment at which with pride, joy and gratitude, I realized my eight year old correctly used the singular form of dice.
existential sucker punch
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke
Warning: this blog will most likely offend everyone I know, but please don’t email me trying to save my soul (only Starbucks can do that).
Yenta: I’m sorry. I “went there.”
LLJM: This is a Yuengling conversation
GBFF: Thanks for those threads (the not-itchy ones)
Recently it seems everyone I know on Facebook vowed to include in their prayers a precious toddler who was fighting for his life following a tragic accident.
I don’t know this family, but the boy’s pictures would pop up in my newsfeed, and I’d stare at his sweet, cherubic face feeling my stomach twist into a knot of grief for his mother.
I understand the family is deeply religious, and there was an outpouring of support from the community. I’d read posts about him being in “God’s hands,” and all I could think was, “I hope he’s in the hands of a good doctor and someone is bringing those poor people a breakfast sandwich.”
I’d read that “God is ALWAYS Good,” and knew that although the deeply faithful would find comfort in that, all I could think was, “Easy for you to say since your child is not intubated.”
Yesterday a family member posted that this little guy was “with Jesus now.”
This is not an obituary.
This is me catching my breath after an existential sucker punch to my gut.
If prayers were calculated like votes in a presidential election, this kid would have won by a landslide. An entire community got down on its knees and begged God to save this child. And yet.
How do we reconcile this?
Thankfully most people will seek solace in the warm blanket of their beliefs.
But what about those of us who find organized religion to be an itchy, wool blanket that clashes with our decor?
I don’t have the answers, but in the meantime I guess we look to the universe to help us knit our own blanket using threads of experience, karma and free will.
Let’s bedazzle it with a sense of humor. If you don’t believe the universe has one, then you’ve never been sitting in a rural cafe in La Tourette, France (population 12) missing your deceased father as the song from his memorial video is heard playing in the kitchen.
Accept the knots woven by chance and cosmic intervention.
You don’t have to accept death.
Just understand that it’s illogical and can’t be undone with a frantic, mid-day trip to Petsmart hoping that they have one spotted green pufferfish left.
Realize that while prayer may help you accept your fate, it doesn’t change the universe. She’s a stubborn bitch.
And although I hope that when my number is called, death is as slow and inefficient as the Fresh Market seafood counter, there are no guarantees I’ll be here tomorrow to help Nan find her phone (it wasn’t in the refrigerator like she thought), or maniacally pick at my daughter’s inner ears with a Q-tip instilling in her a lifelong fear of earwax.
So I hope my eight year old knows I allowed her to eat hot dogs not because I’m unaware of the consequences that random animal parts marinating in sodium nitrate will have on her brain, but because I want her to one day look back with fondness at the garbage she used to eat as a kid the way I do when I spot Little Debbie Star Crunch cakes. She needs to enjoy that chocolate chip cookie now before she learns about fat grams.
I hope she has patience, realizing that she is genetically predisposed to road rage. She needs to know that motherfucking every person who cuts her off in traffic will only make her Botox wear off faster.
Besides, we wait our entire lives for some things. Like self actualization or All Berries Crunch Berry cereal.
I hope she never forgets that beauty is found around even the sharpest corners.
This morning, she stopped in our driveway to look up.
“Mommy…look at the sky. It’s so beautiful.”
And that’s when I realized that sometimes we learn more from our children than we can ever teach them.
My daughter is an “old soul” according to my Gram. If anyone can see angels, it’s her.
And so I end this also hoping that she saw the angel of that little boy today.
And he was smiling.
philosophical dilemmas of the day
1. Is it okay to skip the gym because you smell like oregano even though you essentially spent the last week shoveling apple pie down your esophagus?
Because this morning, as I was tearing open a lens wipe to clean my sunglasses, it wasn’t until I had a lap full of crushed red pepper that I realized it was actually a packet of pizza spice.
After counting the amount of wipes in my purse including GermX and those lifted from my doctor prior to giving a clean-catch urine sample, there was less than a 3 percent chance I’d empty a pizzeria into my pants.
Now, if I slip on a puddle of spilled Clamato at WholeFoods in an effort to smell even worse than I do right now (as if that’s possible) and split open my head (I always imagined my obituary to read pretty much just like that), my daughter’s last recollection of her mother will be a nonsensical, uncaffeinated rant complete with real tears.
“Can’t think. Too hard. Oregano on my Otterbox. Crushed red pepper in my shoe. I can’t wear Papa John.”
If I had been alone, my conniption would include nothing more than an ear-splitting motherfucker. But since I try to dilute the curse words she undoubtedly hears from her Nana who suffers from Tourette’s, I usually replace my goddammning with a string of confusing outbursts that, in retrospect, are probably more damaging.
2. Does it make one less benevolent to first remove the BoxTops from the nonperishables she’s donating to the holiday food drive?
3. Is it acceptable to buy the Christmas Classics boxed DVD set again because it’s easier than trying to find the one (or three) that you already have?
4. Should you tell your daughter her Elf Jingles is in rehab because you can’t find the little asshole or just replace him with another (like her dead pufferfish) hoping she won’t notice?
5. Is joining a new gym warranted because the guy who sweats out hash-browns always chooses the treadmill right next to you? Or should you just recognize that at the moment you smell like a pepperoni calzone and go with it?
chick-fil-assholes v. chick-fil-gays
If there is one thing a journalism degree from the University of Florida promises (besides unemployment), it’s a devout respect for journalistic integrity (e.g. The New York Times) and a disdain for their slutty, uneducated sisters (e.g. Fox News).
No one debates the class whore, so I really don’t know why I’m diving into a peanut oil fryer of chicken nuggets and First Amendment rights.
But there is a good chance I’m premenstrual, and therefore cannot suppress the urge to share with you why I’m not eating *waffle fries today any more than I can overcome the desire to sneak up on my UPS man and hit him over the head with a frying pan because he left my new, poorly packaged Frye boots out in the rain.
The First Amendment does not exempt you from criticism
Let’s excuse them for not really understanding the First Amendment. They are just cows after all.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for redress of grievances.”
I don’t think anyone is saying that Chick-fil-A owner Dan Cathy had no right sharing with a Baptist newspaper reporter that he believes traditional marriage should be between only a man and a woman. The fact that his vitriol of gay marriage is plastered all over every social media outlet that exists is not only pure marketing genius on his part, but also a shining example of his First Amendment rights.
And of course he fucking believes in traditional marriage. His restaurant won’t even let my daughter pee in it on Sunday.
But what the First Amendment does not promise Cathy is an exemption from the backlash of people who think he is helping to thwart progress with not just his opinions but the power he holds as an owner of a $4 billion corporation that, oh by the way, just in case you might care, donates millions of dollars to anti-gay organizations.
Don’t believe they are anti-gay instead of just anti-gay marriage? One of the organizations to which Chick-fil-A’s philanthropic arm WinShape donated was Exodus International, which helps provide therapy to reform homosexuals. I want to know what PR person thought it was a brilliant choice to pass over starving children for “praying away the gay.”
Um, yeah. This was said.
‘We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage,” Dan Cathy said. “And I pray God’s mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we have the audacity to try to redefine what marriage is about.”
Here’s how I interpret that statement: “By wanting to marry your partner to get his health benefits, you’re basically calling God an asshole, and you better hope he forgives your pompous ass or else you’re completely fucked in the afterlife.”
Cathy calls homosexuals “arrogant,” but never stops to consider maybe they are not even Christian. Maybe they don’t even believe in God. Or eating their own placenta (Deuteronomy 28:57). Maybe they just want the same rights to be miserable and to half their partner’s 401k as every other hetero couple out there?
I do, however, have to give kudos to Cathy for being a marketing guru. He has been quoted as saying they are “not anti-anything,” that their “mission is to create raving fans.”
Well played, Danny boy. Well played.
If you don’t believe in gay marriage. Then don’t do it.
What the Chick-fil-Assholes don’t get, is that people don’t care what they believe, but their beliefs effect change. I get that abortion, gay marriage, and apparently cutting the sides of your hair (Leviticus 19:27) are against your core values. So. Then. Just. Don’t. Do. It.
I don’t eat anything with a face.
But there is a big difference between me declining the osso bucco special at a restaurant with a polite “no, thank you,” than there is with me giving $1.9 million to organizations that promote throwing blood on your (yes, okay, my) leather boots and saying that the Bible thinks it’s a sin to eat meat.
Think this is a bit of a stretch? Well, so is: “If we allow homosexuals to marry…what’s next…GOATS?!”
And for the record, I’m totally okay with the Bible thinking homosexuality is a sin.
As long as you also believe in getting stoned to death for losing your virginity before marriage (or before your husband buys you for 50 pieces of silver), as well as getting stoned to death for adultery, not believing in the LORD, cursing your parents, et al. I hope you have a gravel walkway, because we’re all dying slow, painful deaths if we take the Bible literally.
My mom taught me more than just my forehead is too small for bangs
Back in 1970, my parents relocated from the northeast to Palm Beach County, Florida. During the drive down through the confederate flag-peppered south, they stopped at a gas station for a drink. My mom was waiting in line behind an African-American girl, no more than 10 years old, with a quarter in her hand anxious to buy a cold Coke on that steaming hot Summer day.
The store owner pointed to a sign that read, “No Negroes Allowed.”
The little girl said nothing, before turning sadly on her heels and walking out of the store, completely deflated. My mom went up to the counter and bought two Cokes. She glared at the owner and made it a point to tell him that she was keeping one, and giving the other to that little girl.
My mom would tell me this story and also how my father gave her the, “when in Rome, let’s not get dragged behind a pick-up truck” stinkeye while she undoubtedly returned his look with a, “don’t fuck with me or else your rectum is being used as a bottle opener.”
And I couldn’t believe that kind of prejudice and bigotry existed in her generation let alone mine.
Also, I secretly made a note that it was normal to want to kick your husband’s ass on a routine basis and that she probably shouldn’t have bought either Coke, let alone two, but I get caffeine withdrawals. So don’t judge.
Homosexuality is not akin to “I prefer blondes, but can be swayed to fuck a brunette”
If you’re like me, you believe that if people had a choice whether or not to be gay, they’d probably choose the path that would not involve a constant battle for equality or the need for very colorful parades.
And just as that little girl couldn’t choose her race, and I didn’t choose that my chin looks like a baby’s ass, homosexuals did not make a choice to love who they love. I understand this could be debated, but I’m erring on the side of those who recall getting butterflies at age seven when someone of the same gender touched their arm.
And because of that, I think the Chick-fil-Assholes are on the wrong side of history with this one.
Someday we will look back at this heated debate and see the people against gay marriage in the same light as that Florida gas station owner.
And I just want to be able to tell my daughter that I bought two Cokes that day.
*Full disclosure: I’m not eating at Chick-fil-A today because I never do. I am not boycotting or condoning boycotting them, I just find their food repugnant. It’s also worth noting that our local Chick-fil-A here in St. Petersburg is very generous and supportive of our community, and I applaud their workers for never begrudging the fact that children vomit in their play area on a daily basis. They also earned my respect when their marquee shared information about a peach milkshake instead of the Mike Huckabee-initiated “Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day.”
hit “like” if you just ruined my breakfast
I started my Facebook page back in 2008, under duress from a high school friend who insisted I needed to see that the guys we used to crush on had more divorces than hair.
Being someone who waits until the monkey doesn’t break out into anal blisters before I take the vaccine, I certainly was not one of the first to join. But I also wasn’t as late coming to the party as say, Nana, who finally succumbed this year to the fact that Facebook was about the only way she was going to find out which of her friends were dead.
Before everyone’s great-grandmother joined Facebook, we used mass email to share engagement news, ultrasound pictures and new cell phone numbers after our ex-husbands decided to close our accounts for fun.
But now it seems my email inbox is rarely worth checking save for that occasional laser hair removal Groupon or Dunhill Travel Deal. And because every single merchant now insists on us surrendering our email addresses in exchange for the selling of goods, I show my annoyance by giving the following:
“K…at gmail.com.”
Yup. That’s my email address, Bath & Body Works. Suck it.
So in lieu of deleting yet another email from a store I visited once 10 years ago before I realized that “unsubscribe” was about as effective as the rhythm method, I check my Facebook newsfeed instead. It helps me pass the time while I’m standing in line at Target waiting for a “team member” to realize that we don’t need “help” finding our tampons, but wouldn’t mind more than one cashier.
Recently, I’ve noticed a bevy of Facebook “like” requests that have me considering unfriending everybody but NPR.
I’m not even referring to the inspirational messages that flood our newsfeed each day. You know…the same ones that your assistant has displayed all over her desk calendar in an effort to try and forget how much she hates her job. The expressions that over the decades we have grown to know, love and then tire of like a Gotye song. I actually don’t mind reading these. After all, maybe somebody out there just doesn’t know yet that he needs to be the change he wishes to see in the world.
Surprisingly, I don’t even mind the pictures of homemade pizza, pepperoni rolls or chicken wings. It’s the opposite of “sharing,” if you think about it, but post away if it helps you burn 5 of the 7,500 calories you’re about to consume.
I’m talking about the “hit like if you don’t think puppies should be slathered in BBQ sauce and roasted over an open flame” posts.
Here’s what I like: all (three) of my readers too much to re-post the photos of black-eyed children and toddlers with no limbs.
Where can I just hit “you”?
While I understand that there is a general goodwill impetus to sharing information and increasing awareness of important issues such as stopping child abuse and appreciating our veterans for their service, I’m wondering why I have to “like” this? Can we just assume that I’m not in favor of child trafficking and also that it might be too early in the morning to see a photo of it sandwiched between pictures of your kid’s Kindergarten graduation and French Open updates?
Please. Let’s all get back to the true spirit and purpose of Facebook. It’s for uncovering pictures of an old flame’s girlfriend and having your mother point out that she looks like a barn owl. It’s about conferencing with your middle school girlfriends to try and determine why the boys you once thought were cute were also the ones most likely to end up in prison on assault charges or working at Sbarros. It’s for admiring how adorable the little girls’ dresses are at the birthday party your daughter was not invited to. It’s for thanking the universe that you had the good judgment to lose your virginity to a guy with a decent hairline.
It’s for remembering that happiness is not a destination. It’s a Target with a Starbucks and more than one cashier.
i only wear white when it rains 