HEY! Somebody Forgot The Cottage Cheese!

This week I was trying to make an entertaining post for you all out of all the dairy products that are currently curdling in my refrigerator. I was kinda hoping for that, "Awwww... isn't this cute! It's perfect!" response. You know, like you give your three year old when you open up your Christmas present and you find a fish net. And you don't fish. Ever. You don't even know how.*

I know what you're thinking. "Dairy products? Really? You mean like, milk and cheddar cheese?" Yes, those, AND whipping cream, AND half and half, AND buttermilk, AND homemade paneer (thank you Jon), AND yogurt, AND butter, AND egg nog, AND Goldfish, AND ice cream, AND cream cheese. Seriously. It's like Jon decided to bring home every part of the cow I would eat! Let me explain. You see, I was going be all witty and talk in this really bad Swedish accent. But then I remembered that John Wayne already did that in The Long Voyage Home in 1940. At the last minute I realized everyone would be all, "Been there, done that Ole!" and there you would have it, a butter turkey of a post.

So, since I'm convinced that robots/computers are going to take over the world someday (you have seen those Roomba commercials, right?) and since you all obviously enjoy my insanity/prophetic ramblings or you wouldn't still be reading, I decided to let the robots do the writing for me. After all, it's a New World or a New Year. or some such random potato/poetato-ness.

What Google Voice thinks I said in the message I left Jon on his cell:

Hey Jon, I thought I was just calling to let you know that I forgot that or come drop down below. I was going to transfer money order that I forgot and then, I was pregnant. I should be told his wife. Bill is almost like do about it up so I can do it so I'll hang. Yeah that'salright. So I'll talk to you later. Okay bye.

Awww maaaannn! Do you think Bill's wife will believe me when I tell her the computers made the whole thing up?

*Goodwill is the BEST place to take kids shopping for Christmas presents! I'm totally going to make this a tradition! Oh, and, Merry Christmas Jon!

You Know That Feeling You Get Shopping On Christmas Eve When You Realize Everyone On Your List Would LOVE Toothpaste This Year? Yeah. Me Too.

You know it's Christmas when:

1. You see SANTA FROG!!
Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, alofting* across the Pacific ocean by the aerodynamicness of his vaguely Pope-ish hat-just like The Flying Nun!


2. As you wait in line to see Santa at the neighborhood tree lighting you realize that, yes, yes, the man in front of you IS dressed like a woman golfer playing the circuit in August, and no, no, you do not have enough gumption to take a picture with your cell phone. Besides, Santa's watching and I'm pretty sure excessively embarrassing someone who obviously lost a bet gets you kicked off his good list faster than regifting last years slippers.

3. You reduce your three year old to tears as you grill her about what Daddy got Mommy for Christmas. In my defense, this will totally come in handy when Katie is taken hostage by evil spies from The Ring when she's president. They'll be all, "Tell us where the Intersect is!" while brandishing cyber knives or whatever, and she'd be all, "Is that all you got? Dude! My Mom is totally better at this than you losers are. Ice skating elephant! Ice skating elephant!" Although, we'll send her to Harvard or some other smart kid school and she'd actually be all, "I don't believe I'll tell you. Where did you aloft from, you cretins! The Intersect will always be safe as long as I am President! Ice skating elephant! Ice skating elephant!"

4. I am, once again, unable to take a decent Christmas card photo.
I don't know what's going on here. Well, that is, unless I'm about to vomit on Katie's shoes, after ripping her nasty mint candy cane from her hands and tossing Ellie at the broom stick brandishing snowman behind us in order to distract him as we make our get away with the chocolate peanut butter trees. Dude, I'm telling you, Christmas can be brutal.

5. We attend our local Festival of Trees to gather ideas for decorating our very first family Christmas tree.

Me-Recycled and Environmentally Friendly (minus the nasty flocking)

Katie-Ruffles Ruffles RUFFLES!!! With a Groovy Disco Ball On Top

Jon-Rubik Cubes and an Indecipherable Math Joke

(Insert Polar Bear In a Snow Storm Joke Here)

Ellie-Since she was more interested in, um, lunch they didn't have any trees that caught her eye. It WAS a family event, you know!

In the end we compromised on a traditional tree with a very cool** spoon tree topper.

Oh, and by the way, that's my ice skating elephant under the tree. Isn't it awesome?!!

*Alofting is TO a word, geeze! It means to carry one forth across an expanse of sea or land delivering presents to all the good little smolt and tadpoles of the world. Obviously.

**Yes. You can be jealous.

All Of These Things Are Just Like The Other, None Of These Things Are Different

I may have been kinda, um... lax with my blogging lately. However, I've been very busy squeegeeing crap in other places. I know what you're thinking, "Does she seriously just scrape the words right out of her head without a moment's hesitation and plop them down right here on the Internet and expect us to read them? Because that's lazy!" And yes, yes it is. And yes, yes I do. Also, this may or may not be the reason my readership is down by 6.45 people*.

And on that flapdoodle of a note:

Things that may or may not be related to my enjoyment of Captain Underpants:

1. I recently joined a burpee challenge. One burpee on the first day, two burpees on the second, three on the third, and so forth until March.

2. I have eaten oatmeal and guzzled coffee every morning for breakfast for the last month.

3. Ellie has been jostling herself awake by ripping up the cheese wind every morning. I now call her Tooty McTooty. Because I'm creative like that.

4. I had this conversation with a women from a random plumbing company, who I'm guessing isn't going to be sticking around too much longer at her job:

Me: The plumber I had out yesterday thinks the main sewer line is backed up with, what he called, oatmeal.

Random Plumbing Company Woman: (in a horrified whisper) What do you think that is?!?!?

Me: Ummmm.... well.... probably........ toilet paper and poop. Ya think?

5. Our house had a flood of BIBLICAL PROPORTIONS! Not a "one if a unicorn, two if a rabbit" flood. Our flood was more " Jesus's ability to walk on water would have come in really handy in our basement so he wouldn't get dysentery between his toes". Because dysentery is squishy. And brown. And doesn't always float.

* My imaginary friend, George, is on vacation.**

**OK. That sounded WAY less dorky in my head. No seriously. It did.

My Twilight Years

A few weeks ago I alluded to some notes I made for a post on "Why I would date Edward Cullen" but instead decided/was coerced by Pandora (the internet radio, not the character from a cautionary tale about snooping around Christmas presents) to write a post that saved the world from inappropriate x-ray photos and cancer, which was way more giving back/paying it forward/good karma/superhero stuff than another poke of fun at my interest in teenage vampire books. And now that the world is once again safe from low levels of radiation (because President Obama reads my blog and will soon be deploying the first TSA K-9 brigades to your local municipal airport, or at least he should) I'm indulging my decidedly more shallow side. Considering my deep side is like, 4 inches below my kneecap, you KNOW what will follow is complete drivel, just like what you waded through above. So, feel free to go and read something more intellectual, like this.*

(Looks left. Looks right. Looks under chair.) Just the two of us left huh? That's why we're besties!!! (giggling and clapping)

So, you know the quote from the movie, "You're impossibly fast and strong. Your skin is pale white and cold. Your eyes change color, and sometimes you speak like you're from a different time. You never eat or drink anything. You don't go out in the sunlight. How old are you?" That's why I'd date Edward Cullen.

Let me explain.

When I was in college I signed up for this history class. I'd never been interested in much of any American history past the passage of the 19th Amendment but I needed another history credit for my minor and 20th Century America was open and fit my work schedule perfectly. With dread, I dragged myself to class that first day and there. he. was. He was perfect. So distinguished. Plus he was extremely cute with the way his hair made a perfect fuzzy point on the top of his head! And he was 88 years old. Dude, I was going to be taught modern history by a man who had lived it! He spun stories of growing up during WWI, how he fought in WWII, the Vietnam era, Watergate, flappers, speak easies, the Civil Rights Movement....and it was only the first class! The next week, I skipped lightly over the quad, notebook tucked under my arm. Birds were singing, butterflies had landed gently on my blue backpack attracted by the rainbow colors of my educational joy. But when I got to the classroom my octogenarian professor was not there. Instead there was some TA lady who said she was taking over the class because MY PROFESSOR HAD DIED!!!! Seriously. Died. Do you know what kind of baggage that leaves you with?!?

So, it's not Eward's sparkly skin or his impossibly fast reflexes or his He-Man like strength. It's not the amber twinkle in his eyes or his animal blood diet (which I'd totally Bunnicula-ize by the way). It's because, while we are taking long romantic walks through the hazy Hoh rainforest just outside of Forks, he could spin stories of Black Tuesday, Frances Perkins, Sputnik, when Elvis met Nixon, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, sit-ins, the Beatles influence on modern American rock music, Gershwin.... And the butterflies would land gently on my blue backpack attracted, again, by the rainbow colors of my educational joy.

*I'd totally read something else if I had any brain power left that could function on such a level.**

**Because the computers and children are currently sucking my brain out of my left nostril and have dropped my brain wattage from something like 10 volts to 2.***

***I've never understood electricity so I only assume that two is less than ten. Assumptions have gotten me into trouble before.****

****Do I REALLY need another footnote to explain this one?*****

*****DUDE! I totally crack myself up!******

******definition 3*******

*******This is only funny if you clicked on the like this link.