On The Curb

Breaking news: I just returned from the grocery store where the bagger, after commenting on how cute Gab is, said, “You don’t look like you have any kids.” Aha, but do I! I took this as a compliment but am puzzled as to what she must have been thinking.

Now, what could it be? I know she wasn’t fishing for a tip to carry my groceries to the car as Publix Hairs doesn’t allow tipping.

I’d like to think it was my hot, svelte rockin’ body. But, my scale and stretched out panties would beg to differ.

My warped glasses? The frizzy hair up in a messy bun with 3-inch long gray hairs sprouting out? (i’m delusional to think i can still pluck all of the ‘arctic blonde’ hairs taking over the real estate atop my cranium…yet, i yank a good 20 a day…it’s a habit at this point) My crow’s feet? The dry, callused heels? (i’m failing miserably at my new year’s resolution of baby bun soft feet) The deadpan expression on my face?

You wanna know my secret to eternal youth which elicits compliments from grocery store clerks?

My tie-dyed t-shirt.

Is there a word stronger than hate? Because that’s how E feels about this shirt. I’ve never seen anything (other than my affinity for Prince and his music) get under E’s skin more than my tie-dyed t-shirt. And, it dumbfounds me.

This shirt comes up daily in conversation. I use it as the fundamental difference between the two of us. I’ll wear tie-dyed shirts whereas he wouldn’t even scrub the toilets wearing such an atrocity (oh, but don’t get me started on the sleeveless dale earnhardt shirt he has in his dresser…i’m assuming that shirt came from the same alabama belle who turned him on to nestea in a can, yuck).

Deeper than tie-dye, E values appearance far more than I do. This is a topic worth an entire week’s worth of posts which maybe I’ll delve into later. FYI, if you want to befriend E, don’t wear tie-dyed clothing.

And, you can rest assured - I wear the ever loving shiznit out of my tie-dyed t-shirt! May you stay forever young in tie-dye.

A week later…again. Hi, there…again.

I could list the many reasons for my absence (again), but you all understand.

There’s a baby hiding at every escape route in this house. “Roger that. The Mama Bird is making an escape for the bathroom. We must remain steadfast in our mission to prevent the bird from emptying her bladder. Alpha Lima, engage in the caterwauling. Over.”

And, one particular baby whose name will go unmentioned ALANI! takes high maintenance - this purse with those shoes and that belt - chick to a fresh and frighteningly unexplored level. I thought certain university classes or ultra-sensitive lab experiments were a challenge? Shiiiiiiiiiiit.

What’s new and improved with the twins? They finally started acknowledging each other’s existence the past couple of weeks. Prior to the twin epiphany, I would position them face-to-face and they would blankly stare through each other. Oddest thing. Each would smile and chuckle at pint-sized Gab, but put another cup-sized person in the mix…fahget about it.

Long gone are the daily routines of slumbering like bears and idly staring into the great dark blobby unknown for these guys. It’s a constant shuffling of babies from this location to that location, keep your eye on the baby, where’s the baby, there’s the baby, move it around, move it around, oop the baby’s not under that cup.

They seem to be growing judging from the higher digits on their clothing sizes. Next week will ring in month 4 of Babies Gone Wild. I’ll post another height and weight count for anyone interested (mainly myself who is prone to bouts of extreme forgetfulness…if i don’t write it down immediately, poof!, the memory? she’s out of my life…i don’t even remember gav’s first word…i tell him ‘mama’ just to please myself…gab’s first word?…that i remember…it was ’sex’ said in a cute sing-songy voice…we’ve scared away many potential ‘couples with kids’ friend candidates when they ask the ‘first word’ question…she was trying to say ’socks’ as her grandmother was/is obsessed with keeping socks on her feet…socks, sex, potato, potahto…won’t you be my friend?).

**While no animals were harmed during the making of this post, breasts were suckled on 5 separate occasions.**

**Great. I’ve said breasts, sex, gone wild, and shiiiiiiiiiiit all in the same post. Googlepervs: Nothing to see here. Move along.**

Well, well. When I go for f*cking something up, I really give it my effin’ all, eh? I ruined the NaBloPoMo for April by being “lazy” one day, then having the internet take a hike for a couple more days, then what the hell…let me go ahead and crawl in a cave for the next week.

Random list of excuses:

• Alani doesn’t so much cry as she caterwauls. This makes me crazy.
• In a constant state of breastfeeding someone, the isometric hold technique of pecking out a post and comments with one hand is a bit tiresome and laborious. And, tricky. Try it sometime. Aim one nipple at a specific spot off to the side, slump up close enough to the keyboard to barely reach it with your “free” arm, then peck/backspace/peck away.
• Sleeping with a twin up in each armpit while I’m splayed out on the bed all ‘nailed to the cross’like, then carefully rolling side to side throughout the night to feed one while not crushing the other is giving me all kinds of funky posture and back issues. Not to mention the pit odor on the wee ones’ heads. “::sniff sniff:: Why does the top of Ethan’s head smell like B.O.?” Oh, I don’t know.
• A cold virus has been working its way through the house, first hitting up Gav. Then, snotting up Gab. Now, the twins are all cloggy and drippy and I started channeling Barry White mid-morning today. Time to start dialing up my friends and telling them with my deeeeep voice, “Remove your panties because we ’bout to get all freaky up in here. Oh yeh, baby. You know how daddy likes it.” Ahem. Yeh, I’m definitely suffering the effects of a cold.
• Gab has called a moratorium on all napping in this house. She herself will hold out until I make the 3:30 trek to fetch Gav from school wherein she passes the eff out as soon as he enters the car. “HI BO!” Then, immediate slumping of the head. (yeh, she calls gav ‘bo’…before ‘bo’ he was ‘cranky’ to her…i’m serious…she’d run to his door and belt out ‘CRANKAY!’…he went from ‘cranky’ to ‘bo’ sometime around the start of winter) It is Gab’s mission throughout the day to wake any sleeping baby. This makes me crazy and very pisssssed. Roar.
• Having not read a book since the arrival of the twins, my days without internet prompted me to pick up The Kite Runner which had been propped open to page 62 since who knows when. So, I used my “free” hand to finish off the book. Ehh, it was alright, I guess. I definitely didn’t blow my wad over it like others have. The high school short answer/essay questions in the back are a turn-off for me. Guess I should steer clear of book clubs, huh?

I could go on for days. But, no. I’ll get on with the show and finish my dang alphabet already. Sorry to keep you hanging.

(Letter de Leo Reynolds)

• Milkshakes - I thoroughly enjoy a nice, thick milkshake. So thick it renders a straw completely useless. There was a period when I would have to reserve a time frame of 4 - 5 hours post-milkshake to be home alone with my digesting shake and the havoc it created. (hello again, TMI, my old friend…poor bladder control AND explosive diarrhea…let’s party!) Fortunately (or unfortunately if you’re not into plump adipocytes), I am now able to chug a milkshake with nary a digestive complaint.
  • Having viewed There Will Be Blood this past weekend, this SNL skit now makes so much more sense. I DRINK IT UP!
• Mowing grass - Fulfills that whole instant gratification thing and spares the lawnmower from E abuse. I swear when E mows the grass, it sounds and smells like an industrial grade woodchipper is at work. You need to disp0se of a b0dy? Just toss it on our lawn…he’ll never see it and mow right over it.
  • Mowing grass is also great for getting out any pent up aggression I may be harboring. I do quite a bit of profanity slinging with my mowing, all masked by the loud buzz of the motor.
  • Lastly, I LOVE the smell of fresh cut grass. I’m not one to wear perfume, but if someone were to bottle fresh cut grass, I might spritz some on myself each morning. Fresh cut grass and cedar shavings. Who’s taking me out to a fancy French restaurant?
• Music, of course - I don’t know if a love of music is something you’re born with or you’re influenced by your environment. I do know I have always loved music and my mom was always singing (terribly, but singing nonetheless…i don’t claim to wail sing much better myself, but that still doesn’t stop me from subjecting everyone in the house and car to my non-stop karaoke).
  • I cannot understand nor relate to people who require silence in the car. Gav’s dad would CLICK turn off the radio which would cause my head to rotate 360 degrees, “WHAT.ARE.YOU.DOING?” ::spewing pea soup, spewing pea soup:: “Let’s just enjoy the silence.” You know that relationship was doomed a violent death.
  • Awesome brother P has always shared his music collection with me, sending me mix-tapes in college and now sends me cds of his latest finds. I wasn’t always so receptive of what he sent. I remember receiving a Rickie Lee Jones tape and not making it past the first song, “Ohmygod, she sings straight out of her nose. This sucks.” Well, a few listens (and years) later, I now enjoy her music, especially the Flying Cowboys album which is my album of choice for showers/baths. (oh yeh, i have a cd collection in the bathroom just for showering and bathing…let me check and see what else is in there…Sade Lovers Live, Kate Bush The Sensual World, Sarah Harmer You Were Here, Ryan Adams Heartbreaker, I Am Sam Soundtrack, Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals Live From Mars, and a bootleg special cd of Prince’s Return of the Bump Squad birthday performance in Miami, 1995…depends on whether i’m trying to wake up or relax as to who i’ll listen…or god forbid, i’m escaping to cry in the shower…surely, i’m not the only one to wuss out in such a fashion…flying cowboys works well for any of the above)
    • Man, that was a link heavy paragraph. I turn into a linking fool when it comes to music. I’ll throw in here, for the crybabies out there, if you ever need to work out a cry that just won’t come, anything Nick Drake will have you filling buckets.

Lots of references to crying there. I just hear so much of it from Miss Wee Queen of B-Movie Screamers, Alani. The backyard needs a good mowing.

I know you have been on the edge on your seat in anticipation of all the ‘L’ words that rock my world. I apologize for the sleep you’ve lost while waiting in such suspense. If you worked yourself into a nervous frenzy of irritable bowels, again, I apologize.

A full brigade of phone company repair trucks lined the streets of my neighborhood all day yesterday, all for my one little phone line. It posed quite the challenge, apparently being “open” in two different places (whatever that means…any phone savvy folks out there?…how does a phone line become “open” twice?).

But, just before dark, my phone finally rang for the first time in a day and a half (it really doesn’t ring very often anyway as i’m not big on the phone…i’m quite svelte on the phone, ahem). I was excited to see my email finally check itself to reveal 53 emails…53? Did the blogosphere really miss me that much? No, no, no. My mother who rarely calls or emails, but when she does it is rapid machine gun fire over and over. She and brother P are visiting and seeing the twins for the first time tomorrow. She fired off email after email, listing things that she’d like to see while she’s here. No, not sites around the city. No, not babies. Gifts she’s given the kids over the years. The last request was -

Con’t. koala blankets etc.. Also, the crystal vase I sent to you & Gab. RSVP Love, Mom
Gigi

Ok. See how’s it “Con’t”? Yes, there was quite the laundry list preceding this last email. And, umm, crystal vase? Whoa, I’m clueless on that one. Lastly, I don’t know who the hell ‘Gigi’ is.

Annnywaaaay. The phone and internet was back last night, but I was a lazy, lethargic, lousy loser. As I was saying Monday afternoon…

(Letter de Leo Reynolds)

L is for Lazy, Lethargic, Lousy Loser. Hi! ::madly waving:: I’m totally over here!!

You know I was home with the bay-beez “alone” all weekend. I could feign inability to make it to the computer yesterday. One twin drooled a sizable pool on the hardwood floor which I then slip in, thus crashing to my near death. While splayed flat on my back, the twins skootch up to me and suck my entrails through both n!pples while Gab proceeds (not the eyes! not the eyes!) to poke out my eyes with her sturdy toddler eye-poker-outers fingers.

Yes, but no. Twas not the case. I was just damn lazy yesterday. L-A-Z-Y. Apropos for ‘L’ day, yes?

(you know, i think i lost a reader way back with my misspelling of ‘apropos’…it was one of those, ‘i know this is spelled incorrectly, but my brain just passed a whopping balloon of cerebral butt gas which is rendering me completely stupid at the moment, so i’m leaving it horribly misspelled’ days. karen, are you there? i really am not a complete ‘tard. i’m just lazy sometimes. ahem.)

• Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore- Yes, I realize I continue throwing this book in your face. I tend to do that with books I highly enjoy. However, my badgering ‘Read it! Read it! Read it!’ approach tends to scare people away. I know. I don’t learn my lesson. Bad, dee, bad. While I’m all up in your personal space, Read it! Read it! Read it! may I recommend Robbins‘ Another Roadside Attraction and Sedaris‘ Me Talk Pretty One Day? For the gazillionth time.
  • No need, really, to summarize Lamb. It’s all there in the title. Which, I think, is what scares people away. They are in one of either two camps:
    1. I am deeply religious and highly offended you could even suggest Jesus associated with a character named Biff. Hey, it’s ok. ‘Biff’ is just a nickname. He is actually Levi bar Alphaeus.
    2. I am not religious and do not believe in Jesus, much less his buddy, Biff. Hey, that’s ok, too. It’s a fictional tale designed to make you laugh.

• Library - We are all about the library in this family. I am always amazed and slightly appalled when I learn someone doesn’t go to the library. It is chock full of wonderful treasures and, most importantly, they are FREE.
  • Gab loves the age-appropriate story times they offer each week. Her 1-2 year old group sings several songs, repeats rhymes, listens to a couple of stories read by a highly animated/voice brought to you by Helium, Inc. librarian, and finishes off the half-hour session with a snack. Stories and free food? Come on. Jump on this gravy train.
    • The 2-3 year old group substitutes snacks with crafts. Since Gab turned 2 this past January, I haven’t yet gotten the balls strapped on together to tote the entire zoo crew for story time. But, soon, I will. I’ve ordered a double stroller with a seat on back for Gab which, in theory, should make such excursions a bit more doable. Or, at least contain all the screaming banshees within one cage on wheels.
  • Gav is all about high speed internet on computers that don’t suggest, “Wouldn’t you rather gaze upon this rotating rainbow wheel of torture instead of wasting your time on Runescape with 56-year old males pretending to be 15-year old girls who want to meet you at the roller skating rink in Tennessee?” The RAM on my Mac has extended its belt buckle way out past the last hole. It takes me ages to get anything done. I have far more patience than the ‘gotta have it now’ 12-year old. So, he jumps at the opportunity to use the library computers. (i wish i could say he strolls the aisles, seeking the next great read)
  • I’m all over the books, dvds, and cds. Sometimes I get so crazy with it, I actually reserve everything online. Then, I don’t even have to scour the shelves. Since the arrival of the twins, my library time has dwindled to nil, but like I said earlier, soon to be rolling caged banshees. The quiet library folk will love me.
  • Need I add how handy the library is in times of internetlessness? I.Love.The.Library.

Just as I was writing a post about being lazy (’L’ day, remember?) and skipping out on yesterday’s post, my phone line went kablooey.  Now, I have no phone nor internet.  I might as well have E pull me around by my hair.  Maybe we can chisel a wheel from stone while we’re at it.

I was also waxing on about how I love the library (more ‘L’ day).  I escaped the house to pick up some tax forms (procrastinator here…i started the taxes a couple of months ago…did i finish?…of course not…but that’s what i’ll be doing today and tomorrow) from the library.  Hello!  I’m at the library.  I snuck onto a library computer to say Hi!  and I’ll see you when I see you. 

Ciao, mi gente.

Priceless

Quickly making its way around the ‘net, this video is sure to lighten your day. The voices behind Spongebob Squarepants add a new spin to Casablanca, Singin’ in the Rain, and The Godfather.