Wednesday, September 26, 2007

A Random Smattering*

Food.
Food is going mostly very well. Mush has fallen from its throne, and has been replaced by fruit. Amoryn adores fruit, all fruit, gimme fruit, set mouth to garburate: kiwi, banana, watermelon, peach, yay! Vegetables are : 1) okay - green beans, carrots 2) dodgy - avocados 3) heck to the no, woman - broccoli.
So I've been franken-fruiting things up, a bit. She likes kivicado, and with open & loving arms embraces banoccoli. (Banana! Is there anything you can't fix? Yes. See next paragraph.)
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Segue to: my back.
I threw my back out Satruday morning. If a word liike "threw" can escribe the intense, awful, searing reality that jumped on me as I was gently setting Amoryn down for a wiggle, at about 9 am. I had to call Pat to get him to come straight home from the chiropractor's; I couldn't pick the girl up. Things worsened by 11:30, and I couldn't walk, get dressed, sit, stand, lay, or get into the car to go the chiro by myself. Thank god for the man. He's been home until 10:30 this morning, when he had a meeting he couldn't ditch. I apologize now toanyone who has ever had back pain & not experienced heartfelt sympathy from myself - holy hells. It was as bad as the early stage of labor, except that labour had breaks and a clear goal - baby. The back pain? Aieeee. My sacrum was out of alignment & my whole lower back froze up. I am much improved, can sit gingerly for brief periods of time, can walk, dress myself, climb stairs, & sort of wrangle Am.
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Segue to: Sewing Project
Yes, I am making a bridesmaid's gown for Coreen. For Saturday. It's going to be quite nice, I think, & should only require a leetle bit of duct tape to hold it together. (I won't use the staple gun, no. I promise. ALthough it did work very well for a bed skirt.) The dress would have been done by now, but I felt much better laying prone & groaning all weekend, thank you very much. I love deadlines :)
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Speaking of Dressing:
Lululemon pants are not just "just workout pants". They are the pant equivalent of a wonderbra for your butt. How do I knoe this? I accidentally put the on backwards, & had my arse magicaly smoothed flat & my belly pooge was contorted into a high, taut configuration. Weird as hell. Happened Monday, when getting dressed was still rough.
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Segue to: Amoryn is Awake Now
Yes, the girl is awake, I'm going to go & rescue her bear from her loving clutches.
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*- a random smattering could also describe the foods currently present on my shirt - pureed carrot - left shoulder. Rice cereal - right forearm. Broccoli smooge - midriff. Etc.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

How To Make Ikea More Exciting

On Friday, Sarah & I took Amoryn to Ikea for the first time. There was lots of exciting.
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We were a small caravan - Am & I in the Jeep (carseat friendly), Sarah in her truck (shelf-loading friendly).
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Ikea, is of course, very exciting in & of itself. Where else in the world can you get a 50 cent hot dog & a shelf named Udovar, designed by a Swede, built in Lithuania from recyled banana peels?
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I needed a couple things, & ended up with tow rugs, some shelves, a big old cookie jar, & various Ikea odds & sods. Low-grade excitement.
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Sarah got an Expedit shelving unit (three boxes! oi!), and some other little boxy units. More exciting - her living room, yea it shall be reclaimed from the high tide of clutter.
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Amoryn looked around, had a bottle, and napped. She was very good-humored about the part where we had to unload everything in the back of Sar's truck to fit the new Ikea stuff in, and she cooed happily to the dark, empty parking lot.
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We'd driven from the back forty of the parking lot over to the store so Sar could get her last three boxes.
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This is when Ikea got terribly exciting. And I mean terrible.
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We accidentally locked Amoryn into the car.* Keys in the ignition. Vehicle running. Amoryn getting increasingly pissed about being stuck in the car.
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Sarah & I promptly lost our minds. We ran around the car trying the doors & pawing at the windows like we were junkie squirrels after some heroin peanuts inside the car. My cell phone was a) dead & b) inside the car anyways, so thank goodness that Sar had hers. We scraped together enough focus to figure we should call someone.
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"AMA? Oh my god, I don't have my card, what's their number..."
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"Maybe we should break the window? Oh my god, but she's looking at us, & I don't want to get glass in her face.."
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"Call Pat, oh my god. " In my frenzied state, I figured a cool, calm, collected man-brain might have a suggestion.
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Pat was downtown, so it would take like, an hour & a half for him to get to Ikea with the spare keys. He had no suggestions.
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We tried to get AMA's number. Information was No Help At All.
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We said screw it, & called 911.
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"Yes, we've locked the baby in the car. The car is running. The baby is safely secured and while seriously pissed off, is in no distress. Yes, the car is running. Yes, the baby is fine. She couldn't be screaming that loud if she wasn't fine."
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"They're sending the fire department. Oh my god."
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Pat calls back - call the fire department, he says - they do it for free. Done & done. Although I would gladly re-mortgage the house, to get my poor mad baby out of the car.
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Sirens start. Oh my god.
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Sirens drawing closer.
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Really loud sirens. And flashy lights.
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"Look baby, there's a fire truck! There's another fire truck! Thank god!"
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Six firemen & two firetrucks later, they jimmied the car open. As soon as the firemen clustered around the car, Amoryn stopped screaming in rage and watched with fascination.
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The captain was very nice, & talked to me about how his boys used to lock themselves in all the time. "Monkeys!", he chuckled.
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I tried not to dissolve into tears of relief & gratitude. (Sar said the same thing.) Amoryn was gooing & blinking & smiling at all the nice firemen in their reflective gear. I should've been more coherent & said thank you & found out what station they were at so I could take them some cookies, but all I could do was clutch at my completely unconcerned daughter & the car keys. Thank god it was not 30 above, or 30 below, and it was dark out. We called Pat twice to let him know Amoryn was out & fine.
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We then drove to the downtown core, so that the man could see that the baby was okay.
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The parking was ABYSMAL, but the baby was adorable & charmed all of his conference people. Then she fell asleep.
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Then we ordered pizza & went home.
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The End. Except that I'm going to get a set of car keys surgically implanted into my wrist.
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*- If you promise to be non-judgemental, & call, I will tell you the story.

Monday, September 10, 2007

Roll Count! Every cat, fall out!

If I could teach the cats one command, I would be very tempted to make it a roll-call command.
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I've been painting the basement bedroom, which makes me very happy. So far I've accomplished one coat of flesh-toned primer, & two coats of "Cleveland Brown". (Which is very much nicer than the first thing I thought of when I heard the name, thank you very much.*)
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Of course, the bedroom is an intoxicatingly perilous shambles, with everything huddling in the center of the room.
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And of course, the cats find this so! very! exciting! It's like one ran to find the other two, meowing "OMFG! Chek it owt!". Because they are all in there, perched on various verboten surfaces. Like my ladder, or the ledge I just painted, or the top of the big tippy pile of bedding. You know, fun cat places.
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And of course, trying the get all three of the damn cats out of the room, then trying to confirm that all three monsters are gone, well. Usually there has been a little bit of shrieking to help them understand that they should leave. And to find all three in the house, post shriek, can make a person feel a little crazy. And like shrieking more.
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Of course, cat-nip is suspiciously similar to roll-call. As is the sound of a tuna can opening. Hmmm. Perhaps I have been approaching this the wrong way...
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*- If you didn't think of it, you really don't want to know.**
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** - It's not like millinery, people.***
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*** - All right. But don't say that I didn't warn you... (thankfully, there are no images) http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=cleveland+steamer

Thursday, September 06, 2007

Are they really so innocent?

Boobs. Roughly half the population has, or is going to have, boobs.
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They're fun, they're roundish, there's all sorts of things you can do with & to them. But I thought that most men over the age of 22 or so understood what a good push-up bra can do.
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Maybe not...
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The man just sent this email to me & his (male) coworkers:
"...Go into the gallery for today's sunshine girl, compare photos with pushup equipment vs not.
pretty dramatic"
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This is who he's talking about:
"SUNshine Girl Jami is working her way towards a degree in social work. The 19-year-old student enjoys exercising and reading in her spare time. (Jason Franson Photo) "
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Good for her. Education is important. I admit, I hope she loses the chaps before grad, but hey. We all needed to find ourselves in college. I give her props for not getting augmentation.
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I sent this reply:
"Oh my dears. I hate to tell you this - but there is a reason that women will pay more for a bra than a pair of shoes. I guarantee you that this woman,
(from Victoria's Secret) without that bra & a team of professionals, would not look like this. And she's just wearing a mid range push-up bra, not the expensive extreme-plunge long-line ultra-gel push-up death-star bra. But you guys are in sales - you should understand marketing. And really, when your steak arrives on a plate, is it "false advertising" or "presentation"?"
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I admit, I'm moderately shocked that he foudn this worhty of note. I'm also going to make a point of not taking my bra off in front of him, either. With, okay. Without, okay. But the transition? It's like the magician taking the rabbit out of the hat! (Sort of, anyways.)
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Really. Are any women out there surprised by the boob transformation?

Hi Flickr.

Flickr says "Kumusta, Kourtney. I haven't seen you in a while. And now you know how tp greet people in Tagalog."
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Thanks Flickr... what is Tagalog? Anyways, I've been busy. In no particular order...
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In the garden,
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which really looks great,
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with company, which was fun,
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painting rooms the same color as my skin, (just the primer is this color),
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hanging out with Amoryn,
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who pretends to be a plumber,
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is abducted by her father,
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jumps,
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eats kiwi,
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and just fell asleep in my arms. We'll have to catch up more, later, Flickr. How do I say good-bye in Tagalog?
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Flickr looks sheepish, scuffles foot. "I only greet people."
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Ohhh... you say hello, and I say goodbye. I get it. You might be looking at a lawsuit there, Flickr.

Saturday, September 01, 2007

Delusions of Mellow

Every now & again, I have to face the fact that I am not as laid back as I try & tell myself I am.
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Yesterday, it was the fact that the DVD's were NOT in alphabetical order. Again.
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I mean, I can live with individuals letters being scrambled. We're not using the Dewey Decimal system, yo. But Kingdom of Heaven SHOULD not be by Star Wars. A Christmas Story does NOT belong by Moulin Rouge.
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It's almost as bad as the man writing in my address book IN INK. INK! INK! AGH!
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