Happy Halloween 2008

Harry Potter and Hermione Granger

The Case of the Pumpkin Poop

A couple of weekends ago, the kids and I went to a produce stand and picked out the most perfect pumpkins I've ever seen. They were so excited to carve them. So last weekend we dug in.

Of course they think pumpkin guts are disgusting so I spent about an hour scooping and scraping those bad boys.

My son decided to freehand a jack-o-lantern face and some stars and it came out great (once I did all the cutting)



But my daughter really wanted to carve something more elaborate.

She had a book of patterns and she was considering some of the more challenging designs. I kept saying, "Are you sure, Honey? That's going to be pretty hard." But she was determined.

About an hour into her carving she announced, "This is harder than I thought it would be."

"Do you want some help?" I asked.

"No. I want to do it." And she kept plugging away.

I have to admit that once I put the candle in, I was incredibly impressed. How cool is this?

She was so very proud of herself.

I didn't want to put the pumpkins outside because I was afraid they'd get smashed. Or that wild animals would eat them. So I put them on the hearth by the fireplace.

But I made a mistake. When I went to blow out the candle before bed I thought for a second that the design had caved in. Or, I don't know, melted.

It took me a second to realize that the design on the pumpkin has been eaten off by our own little wild animal. Buffy ate my daughter's pumpkin.

It never even occurred to me that a dog would eat a pumpkin. It certainly never occurred to me that a five pound dog would eat about five pounds of pumpkin rind.

In the morning I had to break it to my daughter. She was so upset. I felt so bad for her.

My husband took her to get another pumpkin and the two of them recreated another wolf design. It is now rotting high up away from the dog on my kitchen counter. But Buffy is still in the dog house.

Happy 4th birthday you pain-in-the-ass pumpkin eater. You're not coming out of your room until you stop pooping orange.

Fucking Geese

When I pulled into the parking lot at the zoo for my son's field trip, I had a hard time parking. The lot was filled with Canadian geese.

I thought as I drove slowly toward them that they would fly away, but they didn't even waddle. They didn't even shake their tail feathers. They just looked at me.

I managed to weave through the sea of Christmas dinner to pull into a spot, but I was wondering how the kids' school bus was going to get through.

I had to wait for about ten minutes for my son's class to arrive, but the zoo kindly provided entertainment. After just a couple of minutes, two big, working class-type guys came out in green zoo jumpsuits.

They started walking toward the geese, and the geese ignored them as well as they had ignored me in my car. So the guys started waving their arms. The geese deigned to turn their heads and look at them.

The guys started yelling.

The geese started walking. All in different directions. And slowly.

Before long these guys were skipping and jumping and screaming. I think one even managed to turn a cartwheel before the geese were finally annoyed enough to leave.

You may think that geese say honk, honk. But I swear, as they flew away to a nearby pond, those geese called to those guys, "Fuck you. Fuck you."

Listen closely the next time you see geese flying overheard. I know you'll hear it too.

I wouldn't be surprised if their cars were covered in giant goose poo when they left work that night.

Damn, Canadians.

Another Weird Day

It's another weird, out-of-sync day. My daughter is home sick.

Yesterday I was on a field trip to the zoo with my son's first grade class when I missed a call from the school nurse about my daughter. So she stayed in the school clinic for a couple of hours until I checked my messages.

I felt so, so bad.

I also feel like the school nurse must think I send my kids to school sick and then she gets to clean up their puke. But she assured me that they are "the sweetest kids" even when they are vomiting on her, so that's good.

Of course my daughter feels fine today but she's not allowed back at school until tomorrow. It's funny because she doesn't know what to do without her brother around. I told her it was a great chance to watch any movie she wanted and play any computer game she wanted without her brother around, but she wasn't impressed.

Nim's Island, Poptropica, EverydayMath games, and violin practice later, she's bored.

In other news, today my horoscope said to pinch pennies. I wish I had read it before I booked a cruise.

At least gas prices are down. You can all thank my husband for the decline in gas demand. A couple of months ago he bought a little, used, blue Honda Civic for his commute to work.

He had done all the math to support the purchase price. Now it doesn't seem worth it. Yay. Another car payment. Do we get points for being environmentally friendly? (I still have to pay a gas surcharge for the cruise.)

Oh! I haven't talked much more about my nemesis DB (Dumb Bitch room mother) have I? She called me today. Her mere existence is such a rain wreck that it is entertaining to watch. But she's too stupid to get my verbal jabs. Which is just sad.

I feel bad for the teacher she is working with. But the teacher e-mailed me today and asked that I help with a bunch of stuff since there was a "miscommunication" with DB. I think the teacher is in on my "sarcastic quotation marks". It makes me smile. And since I am actually helping, now I can revel guilt-free in the human disaster that is DB.

Did I mention that she owns a "communication" company. (She means "marketing" but she probably doesn't "realize" that.)

Okay, enough sick day blather. Stay tuned tomorrow for a heartwarming story about fucking geese.

Blood Lust

This weekend I cut myself in a place where no women wants to cut herself. Ever. I cut myself in the worst possible place.

Yeah. Don't make me say it.

It hurt. A lot.

Here's the thing.

It's been a long time since I've written about sex here on the ol' blog of uncomfortableness because, well...

You have to be having sex to write about it. The new house hasn't exactly been christened, if you know what I mean.

So while I've been keeping things "clean" enough to not freak out children and small animals when I wear shorts, I haven't been keeping things up in a I-don't-want-him-to-have-to-pick-anything-out-of-his-teeth kind of way.

His teeth haven't been anywhere near there in a while.

But, we made a sex date (you do those things when you've been married 13 years) while he was in Reno last week and I wanted to, you know, make a good reimpression.

But then I gave myself an at-home clitorectomy and I haven't really been in the mood.

So if you're a fan of embarrassing sex stories about middle-aged straight people, you're going to have to wait for things to heal.

I wonder how long it takes for one of those to grow back.

Opposite of Emulate

Once upon a time I read a blog that I thought was really funny. For about two weeks.

It didn't take me long to get so sick of the writer's voice and whiny disposition that I started reading his blog as a complete train wreck. It was a great example of what I didn't want to become.

But this guy had legions of devoted fans. I never understood it.

Reading his blog made me so afraid of my own writing voice that I stopped using it. I really thought that I kind of, sort of had the same voice and vibe. And I worried about how I came off.

Now this guy has published a book. Like, a real fucking book.

I want to slit my wrists.

Alone with the Irrepressible Boy

What a weird day.

My son is home "sick" (Ha! I used sarcastic quotation marks. He is so totally fine. Kids recover so fast.) and the two of us are just sitting around watching television. It's a day out of time.

He's doing school work and I was thinking about blogging. But I noticed something weird while I was looking at my Blogger dashboard.

Lately I've been writing a lot of posts that I don't ever publish for one of three reasons.

1) They suck.

2) They don't cast me in the best light.

3) They might offend people.

What the hell is up with that? Like any of those things have ever stopped me before.

When did I get so afraid of just being me?

Only My Kids

Poor, little Tuna Boy is home from school. The school nurse called at lunch time to tell me that he had thrown up in the cafeteria and I needed to come pick him up.

When I got there he was standing in the doorway with his backpack on his back looking and acting totally normal. So I asked him if he had thrown up a lot or a little and the nurse quickly piped up to say, "A lot!" She also informed me in the kindest way possible that he should stay home tomorrow too.

Little Tuna Boy isn't happy about that. He hates to miss school. Both of my kids have been trying desperately to have perfect attendance at school for the last three years. They're still pissed at me for taking them out of school last year to come house hunting at the beach.

"Well," I told my son. "At least you're not missing soccer or anything. You don't have anything you have to do today."

"No," he answered. "I still have to do my homework."

I asked, "Did your teacher bring you your backpack with your homework?"

"No," he answered again. "When I got to the clinic the nurse wasn't there so I went to my classroom to get all the work I didn't do yet. I didn't want to fall behind if I had to miss school."

Only my kid. Only my son would think that way.

And my daughter? She's weird too.

This weekend we bought a new little CD player. While we were cleaning up the family room I put it on and searched for a radio station to play. Well, I cruised right by the classical music station looking for some pop music when my daughter stopped me.

"Mom! Put it back. I like the orchestra music!"

And the two kids cleaned happily listening to some classical music I couldn't identify if my life depended on it.

But when the orchestra music changed to opera music, I figured they probably had enough and I could find some decent music to listen to. But oh, no.

"Mom! That singing was beautiful. I find it soothing. Put it back!"

What the hell kind of roll reversal is that? All I want is some good Fergie or Maroon 5 and my kids are naming composers. (I couldn't even spell orchestra without the spell checker!)

Only my kid.

If I didn't see with my own eyes that they waste time playing Nintendo and enjoy hours playing pretend I would think they were being raised like little, hot house freaks.

Tuna Boy is currently sitting on the floor playing Lego's and watching Spongebob. And I'm sitting here thinking that maybe I should go back to school and get a degree in music appreciation just to keep up with them.

I guess our tuition money was well spent after all.

Reason I'm a Bad Friend #236

Every year I insist that I am going to get my Christmas shopping done early. Of course I never do. That would be...almost...sacrilgeous. Or unpatriotic. Frenzied late-December shopping is as Christian American as apple pie and church gossip.

But still, this year, I tried again.

The kids' school made it easy with their fall fundraiser. They sold Virginia Diner peanuts, including Hokie Nuts.

Since one of my best friends back in Louisiana is a Virginia native and Virginia Tech alum, I bought her an assortment of Hokie Nuts. Even chocolate-covered peanuts.

They sat in their box on top of my kitchen cabinets until I got PMS.

Then I ate her chocolate-covered nuts.

I figured I'd just order more and complete the set again. But then I got depressed because I ate my best friend's chocolate nuts, and I dug into the other two cans too.

This resulted in a week full of salty nut innuendos around the Tuna house. And a lifetime of guilt for me.

So today I'm going to order more nuts. And hide them better from myself. (And order a whole set of backup nuts because I know myself too well.)

When did everyone get so tall and skinny?

We were watching the Red Sox the other night when I commented about one of the players to
my husband. "He must have given up the steroids. Look at how skinny he got!"

Then we were watching our favorite sitcoms on Monday night (Monday night is sitcom night on CBS) when I mentioned, "Damn. Raj looks skinny!"

These last couple of nights, I've been noticing how skinny all the guests are on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.

Craig Ferguson. Craig Ferguson. Craig Ferguson.

I keep noticing how skinny everyone is on television. Even the men. What happened? I know things are bad but celebrities can still afford food, can't they? Is anorexic still in? Maybe it's just that everything is going high def now.

Speaking of which, we've been lucky enough to have a high def, wide screen television for quite a few years. In fact, we bought the T.V. before anyone was broadcasting in high def. Or in the right ratio for a widescreen.

Huh. Ummm, wait. I think a light bulb is going on here.

For years everyone on my television has been squished and stretched to fit my widescreen format. Everyone has been short and fat. I got used to it. Now that we have a new DirecTV box, everyone looks "normal".

Damn. Celebrities have been this damn skinny this whole time? I've been living in a shorter, fatter world than everyone else since 2000!

I think I liked my short, fat world. I want my old box back.

Craig Ferguson, Craig Ferguson

Speaking of my libido, it's been a while since I've had a grown up crush. Was the last one Raul B-something? Or Joseph Fiennes? I forget. But I digress.

Lately I've been crushing on T.V.'s Craig Ferguson. I record The Late Late Show every night and watch it after I drop the kids off in the morning.

I think Craig Ferguson is dreamy. I guess I have rather eclectic and diverse taste in men, but I think Craig Ferguson is both smart and funny. And Craig Ferguson is classically handsome with enough character to make him interesting. Any guy who can make me laugh with a self deprecating sense of humor can also get my juices flowing.

Craig Ferguson makes me wet.

(Don't worry. We can cut that out.)

So I've heard that Craig Ferguson Google's himself from time to time. I suppose Craig Ferguson surfs the net as much as anyone, researching for his comedy.

In the last couple of days I've gotten daily Google search hits for Craig Ferguson. Could it be that Craig Ferguson has found my blog? And Craig Ferguson finds me funny and entertaining? Do I intrigue Craig Ferguson. Craig Ferguson.

Does Craig Ferguson need some new writers? Does Craig Ferguson want to be my Tuna Man? Does Craig Ferguson need a new, interesting type of guest? Does Craig Ferguson want to get his Tuna Girl on?

Craig Ferguson. Craig Ferguson.

(And for image searches)



Craig Ferguson.

Oh, and I really enjoyed Craig Ferguson's book Between the Bridge and the River. You should buy it. Tell Craig Ferguson that Tuna Girl sent you.

Craig Ferguson.

What did we learn on the blog tonight, Craig?

Update: Craig Ferguson Watch '08

Eeeee!

Waiting Boom

It recently occurred to me that I spend about...oh, say...maybe 80% of my waking hours waiting.

I wait for the dog to get groomed. I wait for my husband to get home. I wait in carpool line. I wait for the kids to finish practice. I wait and wait and wait.

Not that I mind it. Not really. There are always things to distract and entertain me.

At the groomer's I listen to Buffy's "stylist" Myke (with a y) tell me about his wife and kid. While waiting on my husband, I watch TiVo'd Craig Ferguson and try not to develop a crush. In carpool line I read or people watch. The parents at school are especially entertaining.

But my favorite is waiting at my kids' practices.

My kids spend an inordinate amount of time practicing things. In fact, if you think about it, practice really defines childhood. Right now the kids are mostly practicing violin and soccer.

Their violin teacher is one of my favorite people here. She's just like me! Except talented, young, and really pretty. Plus, her cutie doctor husband does yard work while the kids have their lesson.

And their soccer coaches. Yum. Well, I should point out that my husband is my son's soccer coach, but they also both go to soccer clinics once a week.

Those soccer coaches are just too damn yummy to ignore. And they have these moves! Da-yum! They can do the most amazing things with those balls. And they can turn on this incredible speed in a split second.

*sigh*

And, oh hey! Look at that. Ding! Looks like someone's libido is alive again.

Now, I guess I just have to do something about it. And for that I might be waiting a little more. The man's sleeping already.

Are you kidding me?

I walked out of my house at 2:00 to go gas up the car and pick up the kids at 3:20.

When I hit the little unlock button on my car door handle nothing happened. No little beep. I had left my "keyless" key fob in the house. Along with my house key.

As I tried the front door, I mumbled a plea. "Oh, please, oh, please, oh, please." To no avail. It was locked.

No problem, I thought. There are four other entry ways to this house that no one ever remembers to lock.

All locked.

There was a brief moment of hope when I found the garage door opener. But the door from the garage to the house was locked.

More hope when I found a set of keys. To our garge door back in Shreveport and my husband's Chevelle on Cape Cod.

No need to panic yet. My husband has time enough to get to the kids. Thank goodness I have my phone.

Twenty calls, e-mails and texts go unanswered.

Okay. I have a shed and a garage full of tools and glass in my doors. A hammer, crowbar and jumbo hedge trimmers will not shatter that glass. I am weak. Ibriefly consider using the circular saw to cut a hole in the door.

By now, an hour has gone by and I realize that even if I got in now, I could never get to the kids on time. I call the school and ask them to put the kids in after school care.

Finally, FINALLY, my husband calls me back.

"Did you try the back door?"

*****

****

***

Is he freaking kidding me!

He is on his way to get the kids. I am on the back porch blogging from my Treo.

At least it's not raining. At least I know it would take a criminal more determined than me to get into my house.

No criminal could be more determined than I was to get to my children today.

Tonight we get a spare key made. My heart can't take this again.

Who's Minding the Store?

My husband did the sweetest thing this weekend.


He surprised me on Saturday by taking me to a piano store. He was going to buy me a piano, probably used, maybe even a used digital, but still. A piano.


He did a bunch of research and found this place online. It was highly rated and they also donate pianos to the kids' music academy which provides music education to underprivileged children.


I expected to be accosted by a sale's person the second we walked in the door. But the bing bong didn't seem to attract anyone.


Then we realized that there was a man snoring at his desk in the back of the store.


We tried to surreptitiously wake him. We cleared throats and spoke to the kids. We bing bonged the door one more time. But he kept on snoring.


We checked out the inventory but the longer we were there the more afraid we became that when we finally woke him up, he'd have a heart attack.


Even in sleep he looked about one juicy steak away from a heart attack anyway.


I was started to get the creeps and decided that we must leave right away.


We did stop at the kitchen design shop right next door, though. We were worried that the guy would get accosted and robbed.


And so I didn't get my piano. But I did pick out some awesome Black Galaxy granite counter tops.


It never pays to sleep on the job.

Speaking of Cartoons

This is what I do while on the phone.

I wonder what a psychologist would make of it.

Good Plan

nataliedee.com

"It's free and you can't get your hair in a ponytail if you don't."

You said it, Natalie. I'm totally on board.

I am sad.

I miss my old friends.

I miss sending the kids to a school I felt good about.

I miss having a purpose in my life outside of raising my kids and building my marriage.

I miss who I was back in Louisiana.

Mostly, I miss my friends.

A couple of days ago my husband regrettfully informed me that there is a possibility we will be heading back to the bayou in two or three years.

I wasn't sad about that. Can you believe it? It is quite telling.

So, today, I post myself a sappy reminder of what it is all about.


When I can't give them the world, it hurts so much.

Stupid, Junior High Rant

I got sarcastic quotation marked! (Yes, that's a verb.)

So, I stupidly, stupidly, stupidly volunteered to be a room mom. I thought it would be a good way to get involved at our new school and maybe meet some new friends.

Big mistake. Big fucking mistake. This is no sweet, little, Southern private school. This is a whole 'nother back-stabbing, snobby group of socialites with more time and money than brains or basic manners.

I got along just fine with the other room mother in my daughter's class. And I had already done enough work to get to know her teacher a little.

But when I went to the big meeting for all the room moms, I started wishing for a way to bail out.

Have you ever met a person and were just overwhelmed by her stupidity? Within moments of her opening her mouth you just knew that something wasn't quite right there. One of the room parents in our grade was like that.

But she was also mean. And self important. And desperate to be in charge.

My husband said, "She's a bitch!"

And I said, "No, she's really stupid."

And my husband replied, "So, she's a Dumb Bitch."

And she will forever be known as DB to me now.

Anyway, her participation is going to make everything a hundred times harder than it needs to be. To which I say, "Fine." I'll just put my head down, do my work, and make nice.

Well, then I got my big bale out.

My daughter got moved into the enrichment level at school.

Um, you know, I have to say it. Neener, neener, neener!

So I asked her teacher what this meant for room moms and she said, "Unfortunately, I'm going to lose you."

In the meantime, all hell had broken loose on the room mother front. Our grade apparently had a big fight, both verbally and in e-mail. We were chastised by the heads of the group. And I got pissed off. I held my tongue though.

But, the head lady called me and apologized for the whole thing and said that she knew I wasn't a part of any of it and obviously there are some personality issues. Than she said that she was sorry that they were losing me as a room mom and congratulations to my daughter for making it into the advanced program.

So I asked her how I should go about telling the other room moms, since they were meeting on Thursday and I didn't want to step on any toes.

She told me she would do it.

So she sent an e-mail, and of course included me. DB (who desperately called the meeting and only had me reply) replied all with a snarky response.

DB, check the distribution list before you hit send. (And don't e-mail from your anonymous blog's e-mail address.) And don't you dare sarcastic quotation mark the "QUEEN" of "sarcastic" quotation marks.

She will call me to "include" me. I'm this close to e-mailing her back to say not to "bother".

Stupid, Junior High Rant over.