I came home to find this yesterday:
The good news? Bear’s breath has never been fresher.
The bad news? I have no idea if this stuff will kill him. But since it was yesterday and he’s his bad/usual self, I think we’re in the clear.
The punishment? The EARS
“Whatever. You think you’re sooo funny. First this stupid haircut and now the freaking bunny ears. Laugh it up guys. Laugh. It. Up. Because I’m so peeing on the rug tonight.”
It seemed fitting that I imbibe a glass (or two) of wine while I write this post (p.s. it’s the evening when I’m writing. I haven’t gotten to the point where I’m drinking wine out of a coffee cup, thankyouverymuch).
My mom and step dad left for Montana, their summer home away from home. They run a guest ranch (www.hubya.com) just outside of Yellowstone and it’s the time of year that I hate when they go back to start getting ready for the season. We visit around the 4th of July and meet my mom in San Diego in the late summer, but that’s it until October each year.
The good part about them going? They unload their refrigerator, pantry and most importantly their wine collection on us! I left my mom’s house the other day with not only office supplies for the family business we run, but a ridiculous amount of wine. Not to mention the delicious things they purchase at Costco and AJ’s are now happily waiting to be ingredients in our next meal. The wine consists of either labels they’ve bought and decided they didn’t like (never had that problem myself) or gifts of a vintage they don’t prefer. But despite their origin, they are all happily at home in our modest wine rack.
While the influx of fermented grapes is wonderful, there are a few down sides. The first is we now have a great excuse to pop the cork more nights a week. And while this makes the night very enjoyable, my productive projects that I schedule for after Baylie is asleep like ironing, blogging, mopping, etc, are shot. While wine fueled posts are generally funny, they usually prove to be too much work to edit the following morning. And wine fueled mopping is dicey at best.
The second problem is that is that I think the cheap wine we usually buy is a little self conscious. Peter pointed out that one of the bottles from my mom was from 2002. It occured to me that I never pay as much attention to the date on the label as the number on the price tag. Therefore the bottle(s) of Rex Goliah ($4.99) is feeling a bit inferior to the bottle of Monte’s Alpha (not a clue on the price since I shop the shelves from my waist down) that I’m quite certain cost at least four times that.
But! Not to worry my pretties. I will drink you all and enjoy you equally. Or at least that’s what I’ll tell you.
It’s the little things in life that bring the most pleasure. Sometimes it’s hard to see those little things, or even remember what they are, but once in a while, I get smacked in the face by one and I remember how great it is.
Last week, Baylie went to “Camp Mamie” which means she goes to her Godmother’s house to play for a little while and I set out to run a few errands.
On my way back from the last stop, a song I haven’t heard for a while came on the Ipod. The Killers’ All These Things That I’ve Done makes me think of the summer before Peter’s third year of law school. We were in Phoenix while he did a summer internship for a law firm. It was almost time to pack up and drive back to DC. I woke up to the clock radio playing this song and I was hooked. I had no idea what it was, but I couldn’t get it out of my head. I had to (embarrassingly) sing it for Peter so he could try to find it on Itunes. Once it was securely on my favorite playlist, I practically wore out my Ipod listening to it. That same week, Peter got a job offer from the firm he had been interning for. Suddenly it was like our entire future was clear; we were going to get to come home to Phoenix. We could think about where we would live and make plans for the following year instead of having to say “we’ll see where Peter gets a job and then we’ll see”.
When my sister Ali and I got our first car (a ’94 green Volvo named Alfie) our favorite thing to do was drive with the windows down and the music cranked up. The feeling of freedom was only amplified by the wind in your hair and the bass in the speakers.
Remembering that feeling, I rolled down all four windows and turned up The Killers to an embarrassingly loud level and drove. And enjoyed the simplicity of the sun and wind and memories.
We live near a large park and in general have very active neighbors. I tend to see the same people out often in about a 1 mile radius around our house and especially jogging on the canal. I’ve noticed lately that I have seen the same guy running all over the place; near the mall, near the grocery, at the park, etc.
The reason I notice him is not for the reasons I think he would want to be noticed for. First, he always wears a beanie. It can be 60 degrees or 100+ and the guy always has on a beanie. Second, he’s never wearing a shirt. Third, he wears cargo shorts. And lastly but certainly not leastly, he has two LARGE Doberman Pincers on a joined leash tied around his waist.
The first time I saw this dude running by my car, my thought was “We get it! You workout! A lot! And you have tough dogs! You want everyone looking at you to think you’re tough too! But the dogs tied to your waist might be a touch overboard!”.
Every time I see him, I can’t help but think about what kind of person he is – because you can’t workout like that and not be a total and complete weirdo. I imagine him to be that guy in the office who is short and bald so he makes up for it by talking loudly and also condescendingly to his coworkers. He drives a BMW, but only makes $30k a year. He wears Ed Hardy shirts (when he does wear a shirt) and he doesn’t have a conversation without texting on his blackberry.
In short, I hate this guy. It takes great strength to stop my car in front of him, roll down the window and scream “REALLY?!?!”. And on the outside chance someone reading The Goon Room knows Mr.Shirtless Waist Leash guy, do him a favor and give him the link to the blog. And a shirt. And a memo that says “enough already, we GET IT”.
Sometimes I think I’m loosing my mind. Other times, I’m sure of it. But mostly I think I have too many things on my to do list and my brain can’t focus and or keep track of all the items. I am a big list maker, to the point of insanity, and yet all the lists (work and in general. House and kid. To do today and to do this week and to do this year. Grocery, mall, Lowes, Target. It’s a sickness) and a blinding number of hot pink post it notes are not enough. I get to a room and forget what I came for – or get distracted from the reason I went there in the first place and complete 6 other tasks before getting back to the original. Here’s an example:
I put Baylie down for her nap and walk past her high chair on the way to the office. I remember that her high chair is scary dirty and in need of a bleach spray down and a hosing off outside. I head to the laundry room to get the spray and I’m immediately distracted by the mop soaking in bleach water (yes, I like bleach) and proceed to rinse it. Then I notice the washer is done so I flip the wash to the dryer and take what’s in the dryer out. I see it’s my reusable grocery bags and set out to return them to my car. On my way back from the garage, I notice my new strawberry plants are looking a little wilted so I stop and water them, the lettuce, roses, petunias and catch a few other plants as our sprinkler system is on the fritz and I have no idea if Angel the yard guy actually fixed it yet. I go back in side to text Angel to see what the verdict is and in the process, notice how dirty Baylor’s high chair is. So I head to the laundry room for some bleach spray….
And thus the vicious cycle continues until either the kid wakes up or I actually get to throw away a few post it notes. Blog? DONE!
This week Bay’s bag of choice was my big beach tote. She could easily fit inside it if she wanted and it takes her two little baby man hands plus a lot of strength to carry it around, but she loves it.
Contents:
A hat
Her sandals
A bottle of lotion
Butt Paste diaper rash cream
A ziploc bag
Her Mini Mouse purse – she needs a bag to carry all her bags!
Play food ice cream and cookies
Rasins
A bowl of Goldfish crackers
Her Barbie cup
The box from a new bottle of Benadryl
Her “goggles” – she think because her sun glasses have a strap that they are goggles
Her business card that daddy made. It reads:
Baylor E. Wand
BaP (Big Girl at Play)
Available for Bar Mitzvahs, Weddings, Parties and Funerals
Yes, that’s right. It was 1 year ago today that The Goon Room was born. I was looking through the stats from the past year and thought I would revisit some of the highest hit posts from the past year and also my personal favorites.
The highest hits in one day was “It’s A Facebook Miracle!”. Not only funny, but something that everyone who has a slight obsession with Facebook can relate to.
My favorite kiddo posts are a mix of me whining about something Bay is or isn’t doing and those that are mushy because she’s so stinking cute – Kiddo Milestones and Daddy Did My Hair are two of the best.
The Rant category always gets lot of comments and excitement mostly because I’m a snarky, awesome complainer. The best examples are the “ungrateful for” series, specifically 7 Things I’m Ungrateful For. Also I particularly hate tourists and annoying people.
I always get nice comments on my recipes, like the delicious meatballs featured in My Meatballs are Better Than Your Meatballs and the yummy sauce that complements the meatballs so well. However, there were some losers such as Whopper Brownies.
And a few random posts like What the Mary Poppins?! and Phones On A Plane are two of my favorites, well, just because they were fun to write.
So peruse the material from the past year and enjoy – there’s more where this came from. Thank you so much for reading!
I knew this was coming. I just didn’t know it was going to be so soon and soooo dramatic.
Since giving up her pacifiers, Baylie has become increasingly obsessed with her stuffed animals. Particularly any recent acquisitions. The obsession has gotten so severe, she can’t sleep without them and needs them for at least 20 minutes after waking up. I’m sure here dentist and orthodontist will agree that these fluffy friends are much better for her teeth than a pacifier, but I think the pacifier may be better for Mommy’s sanity.
Our new bed time ritual involves getting Kat, Beanie Butt Bear, Little Bear AND blankie out of the crib. Bay attempts to carry all four of these items plus a cup of milk to the couch to snuggle before being shuttled off to bed. After prayers, we put the pillow down, then her, then blankie over top and then hand each animal to her individually while she decides their placement next to her. Last, the “aquarium” at the opposite side of the crib is turned on.
On top of all of this, Bay’s not been sleeping well – she was up we think 6 times last night. I say “think” because I’ve trained myself to go into her room, offer whatever comfort she needs and then get back to bed without having to fully wake up – it’s a skill – so I can’t be totally sure how many times I went in and repeated the same ritual. A normal suggestion would be to remove several of the thousand security items in order to allow her to sleep without rolling over on on them repeatedly, but I’m thinking that’s not an option. I’m praying that the sleeplessness is seasonal or molars coming in or allergies or something that isn’t going to last until she’s 12 because the men with the big butterfly nets will have come to get me long before she reaches puberty.
When Baylie wakes up, the reverse of the ritual is preformed. I intervened after watching her get increasingly upset when Daddy was not “doing it right”. First, Bay picks up Kat. Then she hands me her blanket – which I am to put over my shoulder. Then both bears. Then I pick her and Kat up, hand her both the bears and then attempt to carry her out of her room while she clutches all her animals while laying her head on her blanket on my shoulder. To say this process is annoying is an understatement.
But at least this way she’ll have pretty teeth, right??
This is the second edition of “What’s in Baylie’s Bag?”. In case you missed the first, I am documenting the crazy things that Ms.B likes to carry around with her in an edition posted each week.
This week, Bay chose the baby buggy that once belonged to her Aunt Ali and myself as her method of transportation of her treasure. The contents? Why Barbies, of course.
Contents:
Peter Rabbit themed Barbie
Bath Tub Barbie
Barbie brush
A bowl that once contained Goldfish crackers that were most likely stealthily eaten by Bear T. Dog – now containing a play food ice cream cone
A wiffle ball
The instructions to her Peg Play game which she opens and pretends to read by saying “read read read”. Also a few pegs and the strings from the game
The bathing suit and towel costume from her new and very much loved Build-A-Bear brand “Kat”. We can’t be normal and just build a bear, we build cats
UofA Wildcat puppet – BEARDOWN!!!
In anticipation of the one year anniversary of The Goon Room, I was looking over some of the blog’s stats. Top posts, highest number of visitors, etc. One stat that I find hilarious is tags searched. So what people are using to search for The Goon Room. And they are:
goon room, the goon room blog, the goon room, terrorist drink
Now, the first three make sense. But if you haven’t been a reader of The Goon Room for long, they you’re probably unfamiliar with the last one. Be sure and catch up on “If We Don’t Drink, the Terrorist Win“.
The Goon Room 