FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions

I know you got 'em. So here's the answers:

Will you really send me a box of mac and cheese if I win one of your contests?

Yes.

What if I don't want you to? Will you still send it? Please don't.

OK, let me tell you a story. One day, many years ago, in a land with sunshine and a high influx of tourism, I worked at a historical society as a museum educator. (No. Seriously. This is a true story. And by true I mean in the sense that I worked for $7.50 an hour WITH a college degree. Because apparently I'm cheap like that.) My boss, who I will now randomly name Sue, and I were running an educational event where families could come and do some awesome history type activities as well as enter a raffle to win some very cool historical architectural themed things: blocks, books, etc. Sue decided that it would be best if she took the job of doing all the story times we had scheduled while I oversaw the arts and crafts area, the architectural blocks area, manned the information table and sold the raffle tickets. All day. A fair break up of the work? No, but I was having fun working with all the kids and talking up all the cool stuff we had up for the raffle so people would buy tickets to win things and the education department would raise some extra funds. (Maybe I'd get a raise!!! (Hahahahaha! Yeah. That didn't happen.)) Then, at the end of the day, just before we were to pull the winning tickets out of the basket, Sue comes over and whispers, "Let's take the book out of the raffle."

"What?" I thought. "You mean this book? The book I've been talking up all day. The book you've been reading at every story time? That book?"

Then Sue leans over my shoulder, snatches the book off the prize table, literally sticks it under her stupid looking blue plaid blazer, and whispers, "They'll never know." And then leaves me there to pull the raffle tickets. By myself.

In retrospect, she was probably just trying to get a good head start in her get-a-way, because she'd JUST COMMITTED A FELONY! Now, I don't know if the police ever showed up at her condo, bullhorns in hand, gas masks in place, battering ram at the ready, because we moved a year later and I now work for coffee and Twilight movie tickets (Man, I'm STILL cheap!), but she has to live with the fear of that happening every day of her life. So, dude, enjoy your mac and cheese because that level of stress would totally mess with my caffeine buzz.

Did you room with a drug dealer in college?

Yes.

Would you actually steal candy from Katie and Ellie to send to people on the internet?

You don't know me very well, do you? See, me and the Dental Association of America have a total symbiotic relationship thing going, a little like the carp and the hippo. In fact, I'm thinking of printing shirts up on Zazzle that say: Voldemort Ate Candy And His Nose Fell Off. It's catchy, hip and scary. Everything you could want in a reeeaaaalllly cool t-shirt.

But seriously, Ellie had more fun carrying and shaking that stripey box full of her Halloween candy all the way to the post office than she would have if I'd simply thrown 3/4 of her candy in the trash can, like the rest of the world does with their children's Halloween candy.

If I keep the candy, does that make me an accomplice?

In the words of The Kool-Aid Man, "Ooohhhhh yeeeeaaaahhhh!" From the first Whopper you popped in your mouth to the last stick of sour apple licorice. Unless you throw it away. Like Voldemort should have.

What do your kids shove under your couch?

How did they get all that junk under there!?!

I have no idea.

Seriously. No idea.

If someone uses the word "quantum" in a conversation, do I have to keep listening?

Oh, man.... I am soooooo sorry, because I come across this problem a LOT in my day to day life. In fact, I might even have once stumbled into a conversation about a Quantum Death Star in North Farthing that landed in the middle of elevensies because it needed a BSD license. Or I made that all up. Either way, the answer to your question is no. The word "quantum" was invented solely for the purpose of letting people know when it's OK to let your mind wander in a conversation, or, depending on the social situation, to simply wader off to another room. I totally recommend the wandering one, unless there is pie involved. Because obviously....PIE!!

Is escutcheon a swear word?

It has to be considering how many times Jon and I said it while replacing our kitchen faucet this weekend.

Any more questions for me? Leave them in the comments!

UPDATED: It's A Post About Twilight. Again. Count Your Blessings. It Could Have Been Another Fart Joke.

You knew this post had to happen. It's inevitable, what with Friday leaning all angsty against it's shiny silver Volvo and all. Because, let me tell you, my tickets are bought and my babysitter is set! (aka Wouldn't-Be-Caught-Dead-At-A-Teenage-Vampire-Movie-Jon) I even took the time to smirk all smugly like at the white pancake make-up at Fred Meyer. Pish! As if I need any of that stuff. I mean, Edward and I are practically next door neighbors, people! A three hour drive and "poof" just like that, I'm holding a non-surgared coffee in my pasty white hands and engaged in an in-depth historical discussion with my new bunniculized vampire friend under a familiar grey and misty sky.

(Um, you might want to pause for a bit. Take the time to to just enjoy the peaceful scene above. Rest in the cozily crafted moment and all that. Because....)

I created a Michael Bolton station on Pandora this week.

Because I like to keep my crazy real like that.

And, while I was bopping around the house getting dinner ready, or whatever it is I do when I'm not drinking coffee or reading Breaking Dawn, I realized that I wasn't just listening to depressingly bad music, oh no! I was listening to the Soundtrack of the Twilight Saga: The Discards:

How Edward feels about Bella

"Waiting For A Girl Like You" the live version by Foreigner.

How Bella feels about Edward

"After All" by Cher

How Bella feels about Jacob

"I Don't Have The Heart" by James Ingram

Jacob's response to Bella

"How Am I Supposed To Live Without You" by Michael Bolton

Edward's proposal

"Soul Provider"by Michael Bolton

Update: OK, I don't know what I was thinking here. Soul Provider? Soul? I mean, that's just embarrassing. (makes embarrassed scrunchy face and hides it behind hands) I went to Breaking Dawn last night and as I sat in my overly comfortable movie seat I gasped as I realized the total Twilight faux pas that I made! So, instead, what do you think about "Steel Bars" for Edward's proposal? Any better? (And by better I mean, worse in a horrifically awesome and sappy way.)

Edward's More Thought Out Proposal:

"Steel Bars" by Michael Bolton

(On a related note, it might be time to delete my Michael Bolton Pandora station....)

The wedding song

"Nothin's Gonna Stop Us Now" by Starship

Obviously the rest of the soundtrack would have to be padded out with a few orchestral selections, a LOT more Michael Bolton songs (because when you need angst...) and probably a Joe Esposito song or two. You know. For the fight scenes.

What horribly sappy songs would you add to the soundtrack?

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Hey, remember the contest I set up a couple weeks ago? The one where you were supposed to figure out Jon's Halloween costume? And the prize was a box of mac and cheese and all the candy I could steal from my kid's Halloween pumpkins? (Not to mention to totally awesome POINTS!!!!!) Guess what? Anonymous, YOU WON! I know you're probably busy bustin' out some moves you saw on Glee last night in celebration, but, here's the thing. I don't know who you are. I know who you're not, but that's pretty much as far as my Jigsaw Jones detective skills have gotten me. So, here's what I'm thinkin', you send me an email at:

mac(dot)and(dot)cheese(dot)attacks(dot)gmail(dot)com

and I'll send you the goods!

And for all of you who didn't figure out Jon's costume, he went as a Steam Punk Ghostbuster. And, admittedly, Anonymous' guess of "the guy from Around the World in 80 Days" wasn't quite right, but they won because I wandered Goodwill with Jon for at least 45 minutes (an eternity of shopping agooooonnnnyyyyy for Jon) helping him decide between dressing up as Jules Verne or something steam punky. And since Anonymous actually came up with a Jules Verne character I figured they were probably stalking us at Goodwill that day which means their Jigsaw Jones detective skills are way more developed than mine and I should probably pay them off in free candy and boxed mac and cheese.

Wordless Wednesday: Nebulae Emitting Gas (snicker)

Cat's Eye

The Flame

The Crab

The Triangulum

This Halloween Post Lacks A Scary Michael Bolton Video. Or Does It?

Guide To Scaring The Pants Off Of People

as written down by me

(Are you picturing me flashing a sparkling smile followed by a humble, yet coy, finger waggle here? Because I that's exactly what I'm doing. Kinda creepy, isn't it?)

1. Stand in a darkened doorway.

2. Wait quietly, and patiently, for someone to walk by innocently.

3. Jump out and yell "BOO!" Or don't. Really just the jumping out part is enough.

4. Laugh uproariously. Claim you never meant to scare them, you were just happened to be walking out of the bathroom/bedroom/living room/etc.

5. Do it again.

And there you have it, "How To Make Your Children Howl In Fear On Halloween Or, Really, Any Other Day You're Feeling Bored And Feel In Need Of An Adrenaline Pick Me Up: In Five Easy Steps". Guaranteed and time tested. For years and years and years. On the cutest little kid you ever saw:

Yeah, Mom. I'm onto your "innocent" and "unintentional" terrorizing you put me through as a child. I also know about how you watered down my soda too. Man, you're just lucky I turned out so gosh darn normal.

In other news, Jon went dressed as this for Halloween this year:

42,650 scarily Frankenstein-like reanimated points, a box of mac and cheese and all the candy I can steal from my children's trick-or-treating pumpkins if you can identify what he went as. If you dare!

Livin' On The Edge

I used to be a risk taker. An adrenaline junkie. A fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants-who-cares-if-they're-on-fire-I'll-put-it-out-when-it-rains type of person. I grew up in the deserts of Arizona, so obviously I ran around with my pants on fire a LOT.

What?

You don't believe me? You say, the content of this blog doesn't support the statement "that I used to be just like Patrick Swayze in Point Break." Um, I'm pretty sure I told you guys that I once dyed my hair with purple Kool-Aide, AND, once in high school, when my parents were out of town and a friend was staying over at my house with me, we ordered a pizza and got it delivered. Dude, we could have been murdered before the weekend even started! But we took that risk. Because we were young and careless and... other stuff. And, in college I used to walk from South to Central Campus after my night class. By myself. In the dark. (But that was mostly because I didn't want to ride the campus bus with my creepy English professor. He used to stare. And smirk. Dude. Either stalk me or belittle me. You can't do both. CrrrreeeeEEEEeeeepyyyyy!) So obviously I used to flirt with danger like Amelia Earhart used to flirt with aviation. Meaning, she didn't because she was totally out flying in the face of it!

But lately I'd been wondering if I'd lost that dare-devil in me. Had it been drowned with copious amounts of coffee, strangled through a lack of restful nights, smothered with a plethora of "whys"? So, I sat down this morning, butterfly coffee cup in hand and made a list of some of my daring ways:

1. I drink my coffee out of a cup that has "Not For Use in Microwave and Dishwasher" stamped on the bottom. I totally pulled it out of the dishwasher this morning too.

2. I routinely teach Sunday School without giving the kids candy. Even at Halloween and Christmas.

3. I run each morning wearing all black. Even in fog and early morning darkness. Without one of those blinky red lights either. (OK, this one might actually prove my stupidity rather than my audacious nature.)

4. I iron my shirts with my hair straightener. While I'm wearing them.

5. I brew espresso beans in my full size coffee pot.

6. I mow the grass when it's wet. With my electric lawn mower. (OK, I don't actually do this anymore since Jon found out and explained to me that "the weird feeling I get in my hands" was actually me electrocuting myself. Over and over and over, eh hem, again. He then Craig's Listed the mower and bought me a reel mower. Because it doesn't plug in. Even though I had already scrounged up a pair of plastic dish washing gloves and wrote "ELECTROCUTION GLOVES" on them in Sharpie. It's like he doesn't trust my understanding of basic science or something.)

You know what? I think I'm done listing things out. Because it's totally obvious I haven't lost that madcap part of me. I mean, sure my days running from men with smirking facial expressions is gone, but my days writing on the internet about other stupid stuff I've done have only just begun. So, excuse me, because I have to go make a tornado in a bottle with my kids. Now where did I put that jar of glitter?

I Stole A Baby. What Did You Do This Week?

I don't want to alarm anyone. But, a kidnapper was seen wandering around our local Fred Meyer grocery store just yesterday. I even have a picture:

Yeah. That's me. And, true, it's not the most flattering picture-but considering I'm a kidnapper and all, I figured I should, you know, gritty up my image a bit.

You see, there I was, wandering Fred Meyer, in my kidnapping costume (which obviously consists of jeans and a t-shirt, because when you're kidnapping babies, knee high boots with six inch heels and a cute flippy vintage dress just aren't practical, ya know? Mostly because babies will smear just about anything on you. And I'll stop there, because I have my boundaries, you have a wonderfully developed olfactory imagination, and I'm a kidnapper, so obviously I'm very busy stealing babies and I don't have time to be describing the ins and (hem hem) outs of babies shmear.) Anyway, there I was, doing my weekly grocery shopping at Fred Meyer. I had stuck Ellie in the cart so she could happily bounce on her little diapered rear while pointing at all the grocery items on the shelves. And that was my Rookie Kidnapper Mistake #1: Being Seen With A Baby.

Next, I naively pushed my cart to the check-out lane and proceeded to unload all my kidnapper food: tofu, wheat germ, Braggs Liquid Aminos, baby wipes, quart sized Ziploc bags, Halloween candy (in which to lure more unsuspecting sugar needy kids, obviously) and other such items while giving the older gentleman in the next lane a friendly smile as he gave my cart a weird look. (Which, naively again, I took to be a what-is-she-some-freaky-vegetarian look, rather than a oh-my-goodness-she's-stolen-somebody's-baby look. This is why I don't buy candy.) And that's when I made my Rookie Kidnapper Mistake #2: Making Eye Contact.

Quicker than I can say "I drive a Honda Civic, not a scary kidnapper Honda Odyssey!" I was being circled intimidatingly while having menacing questions thrown at my head by the, now, rude old guy from the next lane. "Where did you get that baby?" "Did you get that baby in Kansas?" "How old is she?" "Is that the baby from Kansas?" Bewildered, it took me a minute or two to figure out what the guy was talking about, before I could even try to assure the man that Ellie was indeed mine! Luckily the nice lady in line behind me threw in her support of my non-kidnapper status, or I think the guy might have actually called the police!

Lessons learned. So, next week, when I head to Fred Meyer to do my grocery shopping, Ellie's totally going in disguise:

Because I've never been accused of shoplifting either.

I Used To Dream In Technicolor

I dreamed I was a crouton the other night.

Oh no! You read that correctly.

In my dream I was a crusty stale crouton sitting on top of someones wilted salad greens. Then do you know what happened? I got picked out of the salad and put down on a napkin, before they poured all that boisterously fun salad dressing on top. Yeah. It's been kinda like that lately. I blame my kids*.

You see, it's hard to write on this blog when I'm all depressed. All those unfun type of emotions swim around in my nervous system and if I let them out they'd just plod around all scowly and weepy, half-heartedly kicking car-licking buffaloes in the head and making all my Twilight jokes soggy. Not cool. Plus, I'm not even sad about real stuff. (You know, like cancer, or global warming, or, um... the color gray.) I'm sad because I read a book. Well, three point zero two books, really. And I blame my kids. Yes. Again. But this time it really is their fault.

You see, Ellie and Katie pick out most of my books from the library. Something like twice a month, before I turn them loose in the children's section, I drag them over to the adult section. I'm not insane. I don't take them near the regular stacks. Oh no! I take them over to this section of our library where they put a lot of popular titles all mixed together on a couple shelves: fiction, non-fiction, biographies, self-help, whatever, all mixed together. Quick. Simple. Um, quick. Because usually after about 30 seconds Katie whines, "Can we go to the kid's section now? I'm booooorrrrrred!" and Ellie yells, "GOOOoooooo!" all long and drawn out while she toddles off pumping her arms in the air to keep herself upright. So, I let my kids hand me random books, which I dutifully put in our library bag to check out. I've been pleasantly surprised at times. Other times?

There are dead brothers, dead babies, a father who commits suicide, dead babies, dead baby ducks, more dead babies, and a mother who is murdered while carrying her baby on her head. And that last one was a picture book from Katie's pile! (Did you know Babar was that dark?) The only book I didn't read more than two pages of was entitled, A Gate at the Top of the Stairs, because after the previous three books I knew it was just going to be about a safety gate at the top of some stairway that goes on a baby killing spree. Obviously. It took me awhile, but eventually I caught onto the overarching theme there.

Now don't get me wrong. I get the whole deepen the main character by killing off some of the other characters in the story bit. Dude, I've read Harry Potter. But come on! Every single book this week? I can't handle it! I'm just not myself anymore. I even found these online:

And I was all, "eh...kinda...cute...(insert heart-wrenching tear jerking sigh here) maybe...."

Kinda cute? Kinda cute !?! They're BALLOON ANIMAL DOORSTOPS PEOPLE! Puppy balloon animal doorstops nonetheless! I should have been, I don't know, doing a Mary Poppins dance or, at the very least, belting out a slightly ribald Girl Scout camp song about my underwear!

But I didn't.

And, guys? Library day is coming again. Soon. (insert whimpering sigh with a sad puppy eye look here) Do you have any book recommendations for me?

*I figure I can keep blaming my kids, for just about anything, until they develop their own mad interneting skillz. Which, if they take after me should be around the age of 30. If they take after Jon, it should be next week.