Someone Invited The Curmudgeon To A Party And Now I'm On PinINterest

One night at Mabel's house:

Mabel: Hey! You know what would be cool?

Belinda: What?

Mabel: We should have a Pinterest Party!

Me: (Silently. In my own head, while remembering Katie's fifth birthday party planning.) Crapazoidal.....

Belinda: (Excitedly, because that's how Belinda rolls.) AWESOME! That'd be so fun! I found this really cool pin with tennis balls!

Me: (Silently. In my own head.) Crap-a-zoidal....

Mabel: (Excitedly planning, because that's how Mabel rolls.) Everyone could bring some project they found on Pinterest and we could do them! 

Me: (Closing my eyes and willing myself invisible, like Ellie does when she doesn't want to do something.) 

Mabel: (Grabbing her phone to show something to Belinda.) We could make our own dishwasher detergent!

Me: (Chanting silently. In my own head. Sitting very still with my eyes glued shut.) I'm invisible...I'm invisible...I'm invisible...

Mabel: Martha! This is going to be fun! You're coming. Right? (Which she probably said with her own version of "don't-you-dare-touch-my-coffee-stare." But I didn't see it. Because I was invisible.)

Me: (Silently. In my own head. But very loudly.) CRAP-A-ZOIDAL!!!! I was supposed to be invisible! (Out loud. In my curmudgeon voice, because that's how I roll.) Only if you guys call it a PinINterest Party.

Mable and Belinda: (without a second thought) OK! (Then they high fived each other.)

Me: (Muttering, under my breath, curmudgeonally.) Crapazoidal....

And that's how I found myself, just hours before the party, trolling PinINterest for something other than "Birthday Parties for Lazy People".

But first, a touching back story:

See, I had a grandpa and he was pretty cool.  He gave scratchedy mustache kisses and hugs that seemed to always smell of pipe smoke even decades after I last saw him smoke a pipe. He told me I was beautiful, which, especially, as a scrawny and horse toothed thirteen year old, I needed to hear and didn't want to disbelieve.  And, sometime, after he retired, he bought a computer. Grandpa used his computer to research things like genealogy, surf the internet, connect with near and distant relatives and old and new friends all around the world, and send emails.  You know the ones. The ones with a bunch of forwards on them.  One's that had amazing pictures of structures made completely out of oranges, or cats sleeping in weird places, or heart wrenching stories of penniless mothers doing their grocery shopping, or close up photos of the Blue Angels flying formations, or useful stuff like how you can open up pesky plastic packages with a can opener. He sent so many that I eventually had to make a mailbox just for him so I didn't misplace any of my other emails in the deluge. But then, Grandpa passed away, and after my uncle sent one last email from his account letting everyone in Grandpa's inbox know that his email address was now inactive, I thought about emptying the inbox, but, never managed it. Because I missed my grandpa.

End of touching back story.

A few years have passed, and it's hours before the PinINterest Party and there I am desperately scrolling through all the pretty pictures on PinINterest trying to find something to bring to Mabel and Belinda's party other than a recipe for making my own dishwasher detergent when I got the strangest sense of deja-vu. Because, dude, I had just seen a picture of a cat sleeping on a dog's head. And a plane! And! And! A useful tip about how to open up all those pesky plastic packages with a can opener! Dude.  I had seen this stuff before. In an email.  From my grandpa.

And that's when I realized:

PinINterest isn't just for overly extravagant children's parties anymore, it's also the place all those old forwarded emails have gone to die.  

And by die, I mean, they went to pretty pretty internet heaven, filled with recipes of caramel brownies, houses with water slides instead of staircases, huge libraries with cozy reading nooks, fuzzy knitted sweaters and running workouts... just like real heaven*! 

So. I did it. I joined PinINterest. Because it's the newest coolest whippest thing out there on the world wide web. Join me? Please?  I have a great recipe for dishwasher detergent!

*OK, sure, I don't actually know if heaven has a water slide, but, come on, God is awesome and so are water slides, you do the math.

Random. Just Like Normal.

The following stuff never made it into any real blog posts.  There may have been a reason. But, then I thought, DUDE!, everyone loves an underdog story!

She knows nothing, people. NOTHING! (And I need to add more sit-ups to my workout routine.)
Ellie: (at the park, while climbing up to the slide) I'm a big sister.
Me: (spotting from below) No. You're a little sister.
Ellie: (looking over her shoulder to pierce me with the cutest death stare ever) No. I'm a big sister. (finishes climbing to the top of the slide and yells) I'M A BIG SISTER! ELLIE IS A BIG SISTER!!
Me: (chuckling awkwardly, backing away, and sucking in my gut while giving a death stare to everyone at the park that day to just DARE and congratulate me)

We may have a bit of a problem....

We have run out of bookshelf space and took a trip to Powell's the other weekend.
Which means....
These books may have a permanent home on the floor of our living room. 

Fun story.  Mabel dropped by to borrow a book.  I told her, no problem, I'm pretty sure I know where that one is. Then I walked into the office and said, "I know I saw it in here somewhere once." And Mabel said, "You narrowed it down to one room?" And I said, "You do realize that each and every room in our house is floor to ceiling books, right? The fact that I could narrow it down to just this one room actually is quite impressive." And then I handed her the book.  End of fun story.


I'm in a video! At Zion!

I may have made it myself....


The unfortunateness of being a pear:

Pear. Rear.  They're  practically the same, um... word...

It's never too early to discuss politics:

Me: (reading from the new bulletin board at the library) Duck for President! Bad Kitty for President! Baby Mouse for President!
Kids: YAY!!!
Me: Who would you vote for Ellie?
Ellie: The Penguin.
Katie: She means the Duck.
Ellie: (turns toward Katie) NO! The Penguin! (does penguin walk) Waddle, waddle, waddle!
Me: And another independent voter is born!


And, lastly, and quite possibly leastly:


Cutest picture of Jon and me EVER:

What I Did With That Taper Week

Awesome Things (from my half marathon on Sunday):

1) Eating a peanut butter and honey sandwich in an elevator.

2) Starting the race with Clive and Mabel. Who enthusiastically* performed awesome Jazzercize moves with me while surrounded by a gajillion strangers in the pre-dawn cold.

JAZZ HANDS, PEOPLE! JAZZ HANDS!

3) RUNNING!!!

4) Pirates! At mile mile 7.5 and 10! And, yes.  They were shooting at us.  With blanks.  Probably.  I mean, the road was a little sticky... but most likely it was just Gu.... Right? (races off to check running shoes) Um... does Gu come in raspberry?

5) Being lapped by the elite marathoners. Twice.  Because they run at the speed of light.

6) Leaping over the road kill the elites left, Wile E. Coyote style, in their wake and yelling, "DEAD SQUIRREL!"

7) Complete strangers cheering me on at almost every corner! Because putting people's names on the race numbers you pin to the front of your shirt is sheer BRILLIANCE!

8) Hearing the announcer say as I raced down the finish chute,"Looks like we have a real treat for you all! Blah, blah, blah" (because it's physically impossible to understand announcers when you are sprinting out the end of a race) and feeling like a ROCK STAR! But then looking over and seeing the first place marathoner cross the finish line just in front of you.  I may have stole some of his applause. But only a little bit.  Just under 50%, or so...ish.

9) Eating post race food! In a bathtub. Fully clothed. Because Ellie needed a nap and waxed paper wrapped seitan burgers are noisy. Plus, I had just run 13.1 miles and eating in a bathtub just made good solid logical sense at the time.

10) And then Ellie woke up and there was Powell's.  And all was right with the world.

Because that world also came with a donut:

And a guy hiking with a Segway:

*As long as a 3/10 on the Enthusiastic Scale still rates as enthusiastic.  Which, it should, because three is totally a magic number.  School House Rock told me so.

Taper Week

A lack of a blog post this week brought to you by this book:

Seriously. Can't put it down.  And, you can't be upset, because that woman up there? She helped cure polio. She went to the moon.  She was blown up by a neuclear bomb and then went on to help develop DNA indicators, cancer drugs, and cloning! All that and she's not even a vampire*.

What are you reading?


*Or a "Lich King who is using a glamour to look sparkly in the sun". According to Jon.

I Took Some Horrible Pictures Of Fun And Then I Was Sad

Three of my Most Best Bestest Besties came to visit this last weekend!!! (Which I celebrated with a dance of glee and happiness. And, yes, my dance of glee and happiness includes one or two Gangnam style moves. I perform them badly.)  The timing of their visit was awesome, because the voices in my head were getting louder, and more insistent to be fed, clothed and kept in a basic state of aliveness. (In hindsight, those voices may actually be my children.) Me and my Most Best Bestest Besties do this every year, and every year we're in a different city, mostly because some of them insist on moving, like, a lot. But this year it was my year! We were going to SEATTLE! So, I did what any normal Seattleite-ish* would do when their out of town Most Best Bestest Besties visit. (That was the last time I'm going to use that phrase. Promise. Spoiler Alert: I'm lying.) I took them to the Space Needle!

Which, when they saw it, they were all, "Wow! This is awesome!" and some other stuff. And I was all, "I know, right?! Elvis!" And they all gave me a strange look that I took to be a collective exhibit of overwhelming pop culture awe, because, you know: ELVIS! And began to point out the important sights from the top of the Needle. Like this one:

Me: (talking really fast and gesturing wildly, because that's what tour guides do) We passed the Space Needle restaurant where Elvis sang "I'm Falling in Love Tonight" on our way up, but since the elevator didn't stop we didn't see it. But! Down there, is the Science Center where Elvis and Sue-Lin were chased under the arches and through the fountains by security guards in the movie!

Most Best Bestest Besties: Um.  What are you talking about, Martha?

Me:  It Happened at the World's Fair.

Most Best Bestest Besties: ------

Me: 1963?

Most Best Bestest Besties: ------

Me: The Elvis Presley movie?

Most Best Bestest Besties: We've never seen an Elvis movie.

Me: (in my sad voice, that I normally use for describing empty coffee cups and dead puppies) Seriously? No Elvis movies? Like...ever?

And that's when I realized I had to throw out my original "Tour of Elvis in Seattle".  And it's all my Most Best Bestest Besties fault.  Because it had the potential to be the most awesome "Most Best Bestest Besties Personal Tour of Elvis in Seattle" EVER! (Which is probably even true because, most likely, it's the only personal tour of Elvis in Seattle in the history of, um... ever.)

Instead, I had to show them the car that drives around with a hay ball on it's roof:

And the dead wolf fish in Pike's Place:

And, obviously, no one gets over this kind of Elvis disappointment without a little liquid fortitude:

Then I took them to the prettiest toilets in Seattle:

And a book store, because the two stops seemed to flow together well:

And, then, over some delicious Turkish food, I may have convinced them that the Seattle Mariners baseball team was recently sold to Texas**. Which, in my defense, is totally plausible considering Seattle sold the SuperSonics basketball team to Tennessee once.

But, I made up for it by taking them to "See A Shoe Actually Worn By World's Tallest Man":

And to see the hula hooping guitar/harmonica playing guy on the street corner:

The Dude has skillz.  Serious skillz.

And, then, the day came, when, one by one, my Most Best Bestest Besties boarded the monorail (where Elvis had sung to a sleeping-oh, never mind...) and were whisked away, each to their own lonely airplanes to their own lonely corners of the United States.  And I was sad.

And then, on the way back to the hotel, all by myself, to pick up my suitcase, I walked by this:

And the sight of the beautiful flowers callously shoved into a trash can at the Seattle Center almost made me cry....

But then I remembered that one scene from It Happened at the World's Fair!

You know, the one with Kurt Russell?

By the trash can?

You do?!

Finally, someone's seen it!***


*Because, I don't actually live in Seattle, or, even on the same land form....

**But only for like five minutes.  Because I couldn't keep from laughing.  Or, maybe, now that I think about it, they may have just given me this one.  You know, because of my huge Elvis tour guide disappointment? Because they're just plain awesome Most Best Bestest Besties like that. (Dude, that was like the most awkward Most Best Bestest Besties sentence ever.)

***Because someone out there has had to have seen this movie!

As Long As She Uses Her Super Powers For Good And Not Evil We Should Be Just Fine

Some people would say completing a triathlon makes you a superhero.  Not everyone, obviously. But, you know, some... people....

OK. Fine. "Some People" is really the same person who looks at this picture on the wall of my favorite restaurant* and exclaims at the top of her voice, "THAT MOMMY!":

Oh, yeah. My two year old thinks I'm a ROCK STAR!

But, whatever, dude.  A compliment is a compliment.   And, as the highlight of my day is chugging down a megalithic cup of coffee each morning at 7am**....

But, as the current reigning Rock Star/Superhero residing in our house, I have begun to realize exactly how lonely it is at the top.  So, I decided to create my own Superhero sidekick. Out of one of my children.  Obviously, I picked Ellie, not just because she thinks I'm a ROCK STAR!, but for practical reasons too. She's smaller than Katie, and therefore her DNA should be easier to mutate.  Also, I saw her licking our travel sized Operation game, and realized she'd already done like half the work for me. Because, as I've recently learned, our DNA can be "remarkably modified through energy centers", and that's basically what a battery is, right? Just little tubes of energy centers. And, since the website I learned all this off of also used words like "starship" and "Galactic Federation" and kept calling everyone on the Internet "dear Hearts" it's probably totally legit.

However, I couldn't leave this experiment at just one DNA changing variable, no matter how heavily researched by Sheldan Nidle and his "space kin". So I didn't.

More Things Ellie has Licked in her Quest to Obtain The Awesome Super Powers:

Her toes (For fleetness!)
Her shoes (For inpenetratable fleetness!)
Library books (For undepthable knowledge!)
A used band-aide (Little know fact: this is also how Wolverine got his super power.)
Her sister (To be able to create strong relational bonds just like Marcus from the Volturi in Twilight!)
Me (For the ability to withstand high levels of caffeine!)

The experiment seems to be going really well so far! I mean, sure, there's the side effect of huge amounts of mucus streaming from her nostrils, but, it's probably just a "scalar wave", which is really just "the result of inter-dimensional electromagnetic wave propagation" which simply "operates in multi-dimensional space/time."  Nothing to worry about.

Which is why I'm moving her into stage two this weekend.  That's right. It's time to visit the petting zoo!


Listen, Sheep. It's for the greater good.



*Not just because it has a disco ball in the restroom, an Elvis wall and a self serve coffee station out of an old VW bus. But, let's face it, it totally helps!

**OK. Fine.  There are other highlights too, but none that come in an awesome 3-D butterfly mug.  Mostly because my kids won't fit.

Please Excuse My Butt. It's Being Rude. Again.

This summer I have done my best to shield you all from the uncouth mutterings from my butt.  No.... No.... (waves hand vaguely, blushes) Don't thank me.... It was nothing.

No.

Really.

It was practically nothing.

(Those last three sentences were in my serious voice.  In case you missed it.)

See, another triathlon season has come and gone.  And, with a stellar lack of motivation shown by myself once again, I signed up for exactly one.  Wait.  Let me say this differently:

1.

Uno.

I.

Ibotuyi.

(Um, I made that last one up. Because Nickelodeon only lets Dora the Explorer talk to me in two languages.) And, because I only signed up for ibotuyi triathlon, I never got serious about my training. And, consequentially, conversations with Mabel began to go something like this:

Mabel: We should ride bikes tomorrow.

Me: (In my whiny voice.) Is it Friday alllrrrreeeaaaddy???

Mabel: Yep.  What route do you want to do?

Me: (In my serious voice. The one that comes with the scary "Don't touch my coffee" stare.) Same.

Mabel: It's a pretty flat route, you know, maybe we should do one wi-

Me: (In my "Did she seriously just touch my coffee" voice, which is kinda loud, and comes with irrational stomping.) SAME!!!!

Mabel: -hills....

Poor Mabel.  She totally deserves a free coffee, a fancy house on the beach in the Cayman Islands and  a donut for putting up with my whiny butt this summer. Or at least two out of the three.

But, no matter how many times I managed to throw a fit sneakily worm my way out of biking that almost flat 8 mile route with Mabel, last Sunday came anyway and bit me on the...

...(wait for it)...

butt.

(That was totally obvious, wasn't it?)

First, I had to battle my way through a half mile of cold lake water. Which included putting some woman in a head lock.  Accidentally. I think.  This makes complete sense, by the way, if you've ever done a triathlon.

Then, there it was.  Swinging, suspended, ever so slightly in the what the meteorologists were calling a "gentle breeze of early Autumn", from the communal bike rack. By its seat.  Accusingly. It may have even smirked.  Or that was my butt.  It's hard to tell sometimes after attempting all those WWE moves in 33 feet of murky lake water. However, not one to be intimidated by extremely tall doors or accusatory smirking bike seats, I grabbed my helmet, and headed out into that"gentle breeze of early Autumn". Which, by mile 0.3 was more like "stupid dumb cyclone of frr-rrr-rr-reeze my butt off dead of winter".  And I began to mutter about "dumb pseudo-scientists with their stupid spinning Dopplers". Which entertained me for about another 0.3 miles, but then reality set in.  I had fifteen more miles to go. Wait.  Let me say that differently:

15. Miles.

Quince. Milla.

XV. Millia.

Fabuto. Buttsquishes!

And most of it was uphill.  Which meant I spent the next fabuto miles buttsquishes pedaling to this cadence: "Mabel was right. Mabel was right. Why am I so stupid? Mabel was right." Dude, let me tell you, if it wasn't for the quacking I did each time I passed Mallard Road, I think I may have gone insane!

But then, came the run, and, you know, after a quick trip to the porta-potty and a mile of shuffling running, it wasn't so bad. I even managed to finish with a smile on my face!

Which, considering I hadn't even gotten to the free beer and massage yet, means it was pretty darn awesome!

Also? My butt is a total liar.

Except about that whole bike thing.