I'm Like Martha Stewart But With Better Taste In Wall Fashions

So tonight I was sitting in front of my computer diligently searching randomly for "chicken backpacks", "show tunes sung by farm animals", "why I would date Edward Cullen" and "shrimp" when Jon said, "I don't understand your turkey poster. And, um, why is it hung in my office?"

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Exactly. That was my first reaction too. But, to be fair, Jon's definition of awesome is a little skewed. I mean, currently he's watching Korean sword demonstrations on YouTube. (Which I can only assume are posted by Korea's version of The Society for Creative Anachronism.) So, yeah. Not the world's hippest man. I mean, the guy hasn't even seen Twilight! (collective gasp!)

Now, I know you guys know why my TURKEY! poster is awesome. I mean, you make morada siamang references and flash your blingy ring watches all around your neighborhood while chugging coffee and debating the similarities and differences between Michael Pericoloso and Starburns. But Jon? He's just not as culturally relevant as the rest of us. I blame the computers. They aren't all mildly entertaining blogged drivel and cute dancing penguins. They're also geek MakerBots.

So, Jon. This one is for you! (insert cheesy gun point and wink here, also, note to self: wear mint green lounge suit)

First, it's not a turkey poster. It's a TURKEY! poster. Huge difference there dude. Plus it's awesome.

It's awesome because one day when I was six my parents took me to Vegas where they had an all night skee ball tournament. It was EPIC! Tickets were shooting out of my skee ball machine faster than a cheetah with the Hershey squirts. Then, as the early morning began to peak over that rhinestoned horizon I corralled all my tickets and traded them in for the most awesome poster in the world! Plus, my sister rolled her eyes when I hugged it tight in my wee little arms. Best. Poster. EVER.*

Fast forward nine years later (Don't do the math. It's just embarrassing.) and there I am, happily sleeping my nights away in my room decorated with not only my TURKEY! poster but, The Declaration of Independence, two wolf posters, an original poem written by me in fifth grade, a cow mobile, a picture of a cat, and a huge "Welcome To Lake Havasu" poster. Obviously my dream room. Then, my sister (you remember her, the eye roller? Yeah. That one.) walks by and says, "You need to redecorate." Then, before I even knew what was happening I was sleeping in a room with lace curtains, pink book shelves, and every cat poster she could find. Cats on ladders. Cats in trees. Cats in paint cans. Cats on books. Cats in hats. Cats on rustic benches. Cats with yarn. Cats racing through fields of buttercups. It was like living in Lolcats. But with pink rose sheets. My TURKEY! poster? Gone. Tossed aside in the mad shuffle to tack one more fluffy kitten to my bedroom walls.

Fast forward eight years later and I'm packing up my room after college graduation, when, I see it, tucked in the corner of my Barbie cluttered closet, rising from the ashes like some mythological beast of spirit and fire, tail feathers of gold, waddle of incarnadine, my TURKEY! poster reborn anew to live again!

And, that, Jon, is why the TURKEY! poster is the embodiment of all that is awesome. Everyone should be so lucky to have a copy of TURKEY! in their office. Plus the color of your office walls really bring out the amber tints in TURKEY!'s eyes.

*This is either the true story of how I got my TURKEY! poster or there were aliens involved. And angels. But not Elvis, because that would be stupid.

Six Things I Am Not Doing* Or TURKEY! Is The New Awesome

1. I am not standing in the kitchen waiting for my second pot of coffee to brew eating heart shaped cereal while watching Katie roll Ellie up in the living room carpet.

2. I am not watching this show:

But I am calling this guy Starburns:

because, come on, they're like twins!

Twins I tell you!

3. I am not wearing Jon's pants (and constantly hitching them up, thank goodness) because Ellie flung her homemade banana-apple-wheat germ-tofu breakfast all over my last clean pair of jeans. (Hey. Don't give me that look. It was the best banana-apple-wheat germ-tofu baby food I've ever made. Ever. And, how many times do I have to tell you, I CAN SEE YOU THROUGH THE COMPUTER, because, apparently it's not just uber-cool new computers that come equipped with a spy cam/Skype. Yeah. Thanks Jetsons. You've totally ruined computer privacy for everyone.)

5. I am not looking for the perfect place in our house to hang this poster:

Now, whenever I hear someone say "That's awesome!" I'm totally picturing my TURKEY! poster in my head.

6. I am not currently listening to the musical stylings of Frankie Yankovic "America's Polka King" because I heard Katie humming along to "Flightless Bird" by Iron & Wine on my Twilight Pandora Station and thought, "Hmmmm... Maybe I should expand her musical exposure." We'll be rockin' some bagpipe music tomorrow!

*'Not' is the new 'am'.
**See what I did there? I made 'not' into an accessory for 'am'! You know, like a pair of totally TURKEY! watermelon socks.

I'll Fight Like A Crazed Penguin 'Til The End

Jon: (in his "Peppy Disney Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah Inspired Voice," which means he's either going to some weird zombie killing video game party or he's going to talk about computers) You need a new laptop, Martha.

Me: (in my "Awww.... Crapazoidal! Jon's Talking About Computers and NOT Killing Zombies Voice," which truthfully is just leeetle whiny) NnnooOOoooOOoooo!

The top 10 reasons I should never be taken computer shopping at Best Buy

1. We will have this conversation:

Jon: SWEET! 64 B flash memory storage, NVIDIA GeFOrce 320M graphics processor, Bluetooth 2.1, built in Face Time for video chatting-

Me: Wait! WHAT? Like Skype? No. I don't want weirdos watching me while I'm searching for dancing penguin videos on You Tube, thank you very much.

Jon: You know it doesn't really work like th-

Me: Dude. I've seen The Jetsons. Yeah it does.

2. I will search for and play this dancing penguin video on every computer I look at.

3. We will have this conversation:

Jon: What are you doing?

Me: (looking at my iPhone) Downloading that cool penguin video. Because it's AWESOME!

Jon: But why are you shaking your phone?

Me: Duh. (rolling my eyes) It makes the phone go faster. I do it all the time.

4. Katie, Ellie and I will dance like penguins while watching each penguin video. Every time. There is no limit on awesome.

5. We will have this conversation:

Jon: SWEET! 2.3 pounds, multi touch track pad, mini Display Port output port with support for- Are you seriously checking your email?

Me: (slowly lowering my phone back into my pocket) No. No, nope. No. Not at all. What ports does the computer call at? Because if it can get me to Greece, I'd totally pick that one!

6. I will ask every employee if "fins come standard or will I have to pay to have them retrofitted?"

Because, admit it, that would be "like, crazy man"!

7. We will have this conversation:

Jon: What do you think about this laptop?

Me: No. It insulted me.

Jon: The computer insulted you? Uh, how?

Me: I was trying to type up some stuff on my blog, you know, to see how the format looked, and this STUPID computer said I typed this:

It aparntly works i html it 's like ir thinks im stupid or somwthing. Wgats up with the no soellcheck junk? i think its doing thid on purpose! thwre is no way im hitting tgat nany virtual typewriter buttons wrong!

Jon: "...."

Me: I don't take that kind of cheek from any computer!

8. I will freak out the 13 year old boy next to me by trying to see exactly how many of those tiny laptops I can fit in my diaper bag. (Answer: 3)

9. I will play that penguin video, "Just ONE more time!"

10. We will have this conversation:

Jon: You don't really want a new computer, do you?

Me: (smiling, as Katie and I penguin dance all the way to the car)

I Blame Captain Underpants

Katie: (sitting in the car with her mouth hanging open) I like to taste the cold air with my mouth.

Me: (shifting 'discretely' in my seat) Ummm.... Well.... What can I say? It's the oatmeal!

Excuse me.

I'm Looking At You With My Chemical Dependency Eyes. They're Like Puppy Eyes, Only Sadder. And Maybe Just A Wee Bit Scary.

I don't mean to alarm anyone unnecessarily, but-HECK NO! IT'S NECESSARY!

THERE IS NO MORE COFFEE IN THE HOUSE! NONE! NADA! ZILCH! OUGHT!

Seriously, ought. I ground the last 25 beans this morning and drank the weakly caffeinated water.

I couldn't get to the store, I couldn't get to the coffee shop-WHAT WAS I GOING TO DO? Maybe I could get through the rest of the day, maybe. I could be strong. I could hydrate well with water. But after that?? The next morning??? I quickly moved into crisis mode, ransacking the pantry for a forgotten bag, a leftover Vivran from college, a package of VIA*-ANYTHING! I was a jittery pre-caffeine withdrawal mess of a woman, and I looked it too:

Then, I got smart and sent this email to a friend:

Maribel**,

Oh my goodness, Maribel! I just realized! Your house burned down! You're, uh, you're probably all stressed out and stuff and, um, you know, could use some help or something, right? What if I did your laundry for you? I'd get whites white and darks dark and colors colored and all that-Ooo! I'll use soap! I mean, laundry soap, not bar soap because that would be crazy-and I'm not crazy. Nope. Could you drop your laundry off tomorrow at 9am? No later. Really. Don't be later. It'll mess up the caffeine-I mean spin cycles if I don't calibrate them to the rotation of the radius of the earth, and since we're in the winter season and all, it can't be after 9am. AM. You could come earlier. I'll be here. I'm always here. Ha ha. Oh, and would you bring me coffee? I used the last of mine this morning and, well, I don't need it or anything, but, you know, it's a nice start to the day-best part of waking up and all that.

Oh, and you have a new car, don't you? Because your old one blew up in the fire, right? Well, Jon can make it fly. No, really! It's true! It's some fancy smancy Linux OS they have now for the new models. (What kind of car did you get again?) But, he says he'll need more coffee. It has to do with the GZ file extension for a gunziped file when they're all compressed, the caffeine helps work that out or something, like a laxative I think. Anywhooooo! So, I'll see you tomorrow, right? 9am? With coff-I mean your laundry!

Love,

Martha

This is what Maribel wrote back:

Martha,

If you can get Jon to program my car to teleport me places, I'll give you all the coffee you'd ever want for the rest of your life and longer.

Maribel

PS See you at 9am!

I'm pretty sure Jon can do that.

*Yes. It was that bad.

**Maribel may not look like this,

but she could, because she's that awesome!

You Know How They Say A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words? Well This Post Has 335 Of Them. What Does That Tell You?

I haven't been sleeping lately. My "Why? Story" isn't as fun as the time I was in college and had to stay awake for 40 hours straight because I was taking 10 classes for 20 credits (Can you say butt load of work? I CAN! Butt load of work.) and then at like, hour 37 I was invited to go see Toy Story, and of course had to go, so I popped a Vivran and man was that one trippy movie! I haven't seen a Toy Story sequel since.

But, like I said, that's not my "Why? Story." And, because you all totally got the morada siamang reference on my last post, you know that it's baby related. Because, yeah. My life is predictable like that. I'd bore you all with the itty bitty 16 pound details, but, I'm baking cinnamon espresso cookies and I have my Twilight soundtrack Pandora station on continuous play (Are you judging me? You're totally judging me, aren't you?! I can see you through the computer screen, you know!) and really don't want to bore myself to sleep because I'm looking forward to dunking the cookies one by one by one by one into the mega cup of decaf coffee that I'm trying to fool my body into thinking is caffeine (my own personal brand of heroin), because it's after four and I am still breastfeeding Ellie, who is sleeping peacefully upstairs. Lucky duck.

I also remember one of my English teachers saying in high school that the most creative people are sleep deprived. I have one word for him: bull crackly. Sleep deprivation totally doesn't work, unless you think this is THE BEST POST EVER!! And if you do, will you be my bestest friend in the whole wide world forever and ever and ever? P.S I love you. (clasps hands and looks bashfully over shoulder)

Sooooo, instead of my usual awesome post (I can still see you, you know), here's an embarrassing picture of me. Yep. You're welcome.

This Is Two Posts In One, So You Guys Totally Owe Me. Unless I Accused You Of Murder, Then I Probably Owe You.

So yesterday I realized that I should have put up a vacation sign or something. I can see you all now, desperately logging onto my blog only to exclaim, once again, "Cottage cheese? Still!?!? ARG!! Will she ever come back? Will I be stuck with this curdled milk joke forever?! Where did she go??" (whimper sigh). The thing is, I DID make a sign. Two really, but couldn't decide which to use. I could have used this one:

But, it seemed too, I don't know... blah. I wanted something edgy. Something, cooler and relevant to our crazy mixed up world that we're living in with the siamangs all crazy weird when the vacuum robots come by that they totally go all morada. You're cool, so you know what I'm talking about.* But all I could come up with was this:

Yeah. I know. Not quite morada siamungs.

So, instead I flung all blogging responsibility to the wind (But not the oatmeal and coffee flavored wind. That would be gross.) and jetted off to Arizona. Where MY FAMILY AND A PACKAGE OF STARBUCKS VIA TRIED TO KILL ME!

True story: My Family Tried To Kill Me**

My sister-in-law and brother-in-law (who I will now call Fred and Ginger) invited me to run with them while I was in Arizona. They're training for a marathon but since it had been a year and a half since my last run, (A YEAR AND A HALF PEOPLE!) I knew I should take it nice and slow. While Fred, Ginger and I were running along the canals by the house where I grew up, Ginger turns to me and I hear her say, "Seriously!? This is as fast as you can run? YOU SUCK!! GET YOUR LARGE SPANDEX COVERED BUTT DOWN THAT CANAL! THE DECAPITATED FISH WE JUST PASSED NOT ONLY SMELLS BETTER THAN YOU BUT COULD OUT RUN YOU WITH ONE FIN TIED BEHIND IT'S BACK YOU LILLY LIVERED EXCUSE FOR A RUNNER! RUN! RUN! RUUUUUNNN!"*** And then she kicked me in the knee, yelled something about good luck finishing the last two miles alive, and sprinted off to join Fred all while laughing maniacally, forcing me to painfully hobble home by myself while singing my old elementary school song at the top my voice. (To keep the crazy people away. Duh.) This vicious attack forces me to steal drugs from my parent's house and then, in order to keep my would be murderers uninformed of my physically fragile state, secretly pop my stolen pills in the most inconvienient places like behind shower curtains and under ironing boards.

(knock knock) "What are you doing in here, Mommy?"

(shuffle, rattle, plugging in the iron) "Just ironing some, ummm... socks, Katie. Move along. Nothing to see here."

Also, I know it was premeditated, because I found THIS waiting for me on my bed when I finally lurched the rest of the way home:

It's Joint Juice, people. JOINT JUICE! I've never seen The Godfather, but I'm pretty sure this is the exact same thing.

True Story: How a Package of Starbucks VIA Tried to Kill Me

I drank it.

The moral of the story? Don't go running with Fred and Ginger unless they bring you real coffee.

* I'm totally throwing out random word strings here in an attempt to be edgy.

** Kinda true. Names, places, and dialog have been changed for literary effect.

***What she actually said, "Golly gee, that grapefruit tree is pretty."