Speaking of ideas......and critics are born, not made

Right after I wrote my first children's book, The Fairy Painting, I wrote a chapter book called The Magic Waiting Room. I really like the story but, not having a boy who read at the time, I just couldn't get it right. My son is now 9 years old and is a great reader but is VERY picky about what he reads (it MUST be funny) so I got to thinking "maybe I can rewrite The Magic Waiting room so Son would like it AND get it out to a publisher" - thus killing two birds with one book. I picked up one of Son's favorite books - Diary of a Wimpy Kid - for inspiration then rewrote the beginning of MY book and gave it him to read. He read it, LAUGHED OUT LOUD, then said "That's pretty funny." But when I asked if he would like to read the rest of the story THIS is what I got:

"What's the title?"

"Who's the guy narrating it? What's his name?"

"Is the Magic Waiting Room a real place? Like, does it exist on earth?"

"Nah, I don't think so."

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!

Reality Show Idea

Am I the only one dying to read the rant, I mean appeal, by Kwame lawyer Daniel Hajji? I love Hajji, he is my favorite new character on the reality show Living in Metro Detroit that I'm convinced is secretly being filmed. Think about it: "Let's take, oh, about 4 million people and close most of the companies they work at and put some really dishonest, sneaky people in charge and OH! make sure there's NO good public transportation. This should be awesome to watch!"

Why I love Twitter (and Facebook)

No one else in my house watches American Idol. I tried recruiting my daughter a few years ago and she was kinda into it but it didn't stick and I'm on my own. So THANK GOD for Twitter (connected to Facebook) which allows me to make snarky comments during the show and actually GET RESPONSES (and I am all about the responses. If a tree makes a snarky comment in the woods but no one hears it, is it really snarky?).

It's like watching the show with a bunch of my friends without having to shower and get dressed and put on makeup and bring a dish to pass. Not that I'm sitting around unwashed, in my robe, gnawing on a baguette. That's....um....someone else.

Have I mentioned that I love Ellen? Not like Portia does of course, but she is hilarious and brings a much-needed sense of levity to the show. That's a hard line to walk. All those poor singers are taking it SO seriously and Ryan gets paid to make it even MORE dramatic and the judges are trying to sound all knowledgeable and intelligent and Smarter Than Thou about people singing and Ellen somehow reminds us not to take it too seriously without bursting any one's ego too badly.

Except Simon looks pissed, doesn't he?

A short comment about Kwame

Here's a quote (from The Detroit Free Press) from Kwame's lawyer about his inability to pay:

“You can’t jail him for failing to pay restitution unless you find it is willful,” said Daniel Hajji, one of Kilpatrick’s law­yers. “But he’s making a good faith effort to pay what he owes.”

BUT, if he's paying for other things (multiple cars, plastic surgery, etc.) isn't he WILLFULLY not using that money to pay his restitution? I didn't go to Law School but this seems pretty obvious to me.

Any lawyers or law students care to enlighten me?

Update: Apparently the Judge agrees with me! I feel so smart!

Are my teeth as white as all this snow? They'd BETTER be!

Last Wednesday we flew down to visit my in-laws in Florida where it was 63 degrees and windy as hell on Thursday but we decide to go to the pool anyway because 63 is still warmer than 33 (which it was when we left) and we figured no one would ever know because who else is stupid enough to sit outside in 63 degree weather with the wind whipping off all the towels you've layered on top of you to keep warm and it turns out we could barely find chairs because everyone was at the pool and some people were even in it.

Bad Parenting Sidebar: My son was kinda driving us crazy so we forced him to get into the pool and "play" only his older sister was too smart to get into the frigid water with him so he had no one to "play" with and when I told him to say hi to some of the other kids (who all had chattering teeth) he yelled "Mom, you KNOW I don't like strangers!" which pretty much meant no one went near him for the rest of the afternoon. Then my husband - in an utterly brilliant move - told my son that if he swam three laps he wouldn't have to go to swim team practice on Saturday and my son fell for it even though we were still going to be in Florida on Saturday and he bragged all afternoon about how he got out of swim team practice. It was almost sad. But he did sleep well that night so I think the combination of frigid water and mandatory laps was good for him after all.

Then Friday I got a call for an audition on Monday and it involves toothpaste so I insist that we go to the beach on Saturday (even though our flight home is Saturday evening) when it finally got above 70 degrees so my teeth would look extra-white.

We also go to the beach for this.

Best. Pizza. Ever.

Best garlic bread ever, too.

I bleach my teeth on Sunday - just to be safe - and then the huge snowstorm hits and my audition is moved back a day. I planned to go into this audition looking like someone who doesn't even NEED toothpaste but my tan is fading and there's no way I'm not drinking coffee so as we're sitting and waiting for my son to finish his guitar lesson this afternoon my daughter looks at me and says "Are you even MORE tan?" And, yes, I did dig out a bottle of self-tanner just to keep the glow alive for tomorrow morning. Shoot me. I like to think they'll appreciate the extra effort.

Of course, since it's 1 a.m. and I'm still awake and have to get up at 6 a.m. to drive my daughter to her early morning skating team practice I'm really hoping that the whiteness of my teeth will distract whoever is casting this thing from the wrinkles and bags around my eyes.

Our apologies, this site is currently under construction

Pardon me while I OBSESS about my CAREER and do NOTHING ELSE until I either collapse in exhaustion or snap.

YES I AM STILL SICK, WHAT OF IT?!?!?

You know that point where you have been sick so long that you have worn out every one's sympathy and the only way you could possibly get any more is to go into a coma?

I'm there.

But I refuse to go into a coma so the rest of you will just have to continue to listen to my sniffling and froggy voice and pretend to feel sorry for me to my face then wait at least 20 minutes after I leave to talk about how I am milking this for all it is worth behind my back.

Thank you.

The trouble with boys and thank God for snow days

I don't know whether this goes in the Bad Mother column or the Operating at 25% Capacity Due To Bronchitis column but either way when I got the note from my son's backpack (last Friday? Monday? I can't recall) that announced the 3rd Grade Valentine's Pancake Breakfast on Wednesday morning it did not even occur to me that this was his class Valentine's party and I should be out buying those cheap Sponge Bob or Star Wars valentine's (May The Force Be With You, Valentine!) and nagging him to legibly sign 20 of them.

So thank GOD for the snow day yesterday because my son would have showed up to the party without any valentines. Of course HE did not remind me about getting valentines. He constantly tells me "Mom, I just don't like love" and last year insisted on giving cards to only the girls in his class because "I don't want any boys to be my valentine." (I have to admit, I have no problem with that.)

This morning I glanced at the notice hanging on the bulletin board and realized that they would probably be having the pancake breakfast today because of the snow day yesterday and it suddenly hit me that I'd purchased nothing so I went into Uber-Mom mode and printed Happy Valentine's Day Your Friend, [Son] on clear address labels then wrapped each label around a Smarties package and Voila! instant Valentine that almost looks like he had them made that way just for his class!

Even while phlegmy I am incredibly resourceful.

I'm glad for the snow day and the chance to get about 12 hours of antibiotics into my system because if there had been school yesterday then he would have been the loser kid with no valentines to hand out.

Some whining

I'm too congested to think. I took Mucinex this morning and, perhaps because of the commercials where the little green phlegm people get forced out of their lung habitats, I expected to start spewing phlegm out of every orifice like a leaky volcano but alas, all I'm doing is coughing this mostly-dry-hacking cough that hurts from my throat all the way down to my ribcage.

I look bad. I sound bad. I'm just....disgusting. I hate February. And I'm not really buying the Chuck/Hannah relationship on Chuck. It's too contrived. And I find it really irritating. I may stop watching. Oh, who am I kidding...I'm not going to stop watching. I'm just going to complain about it. In a froggy-sounding voice.

If it's so good for me then why do I feel so bad?

It started with a "Bad Mom" moment when my son informed me that one of his nostrils only regularly works at 50-60% capacity. I called his pediatrician and talked to one of the nurses who said, before I go running to an Ears, Nose & Throat Specialist (my first reaction is always Panic!) I should try using a nasal rinse and that might take care of the problem. I informed my son that he would get to shoot water out of his nose on purpose and that sounded good to him in theory but the first night I went to do it he backed out of the bathroom saying "No, mom, no, no, no." like I was going to chop off one of his fingers. I finally got him to cooperate and it seems to be working for him then about the third day I realized that I wake up pretty stuffed up most days and maybe this nasal rinse thing would be good for me too so I did it a couple times and now I have THE WORST sore throat I've had since I had Strep back in '03. Or was it '02? Anyway, I don't get sore throats. I get lots of other things but after nearly dying from a wayward tonsillectomy in 1987 I can count on one hand the number of sore throats I've had. The only thing I can think to blame it on is the nasal rinse. I don't have a fever, or a cough. I do have a bit of an earache. And a headache. I blame the nasal rinse and I CURSE THE NASAL RINSE!

Oh, and Ricola, you are on my list too because your "throat drops" are not nearly as soothing as you claim.

People screaming at my car

I went to the mall today but never actually made it inside because I was on the phone with my friend Jill (and, Legislators, do not come after me, I was using Sync so it was hands-free and I was in no way a danger to anyone. Jill was in her own home and not dangerous to anyone either, as far as I know) and the conversation was really interesting and I haven't talked to Jill in a while and I hate people who walk around the mall talking on cell phones because if you are shopping at 11 a.m. on a Wednesday you are most likely NOT on an urgent business call and are pretty likely to scream "Oh My God!" at some point.

Speaking of screaming. While I was sitting in my car a Japanese woman came right up to my rear window and started waving her arm at my car and screaming at it in Japanese. I didn't know what to do. It's not like the parking lot was full and I was taking up valuable parking property, and she wasn't in her car anyway so she couldn't have been after my parking spot, but she kept waving and screaming and then I noticed that the rear hatch of the car across from mine (which looked similar but wasn't even close to the same color) was raising electronically and I realized that this woman was trying to open my rear hatch with her keys which was never going to happen because my rear hatch doesn't raise electronically (and this needs to be said....my rear hatch doesn't raise for just anyone).

After a few minutes and her friends laughing at her the woman finally realized that she was waving and screaming at the wrong car and I realized that I probably now know how to say "Open up you f**ker!" in Japanese.

I meant to write about the toaster oven...oh I guess I did

Yesterday I woke up with the flu and while I was getting my son ready for school (because I am a MOM and we still do things like that even at our sickest) the toaster oven stopped working and in my State of Unmentionableness I didn't figure out until hours later that the toaster oven was just fine but I had blown a fuse in the kitchen. Then last night at the hardware store my husband saw a shiny new toaster oven on sale for $50 and brought it home even though I reminded him that the old one was working just fine but the new one is now in place and this morning I had to try and figure out how to work the thing while getting two kids ready for school (and still recovering from the flu). First I couldn't figure out how to turn it off, then I couldn't figure out how to make it make toast and then it totally redeemed itself by toasting the almond slivers TO PERFECTION which is something the old toaster oven could never get right, either burning them or under-toasting them and usually both at the same time (How is that even possible?).

Then I had to finish painting the bathroom. I painted the first coat Sunday evening (my radio partner, Chris Sunday Brunch 10-2 on WOMC 104.3!!, says that's why I got sick....because I did a radio show, then ran errands, then painted a bathroom on Sunday and I did too much. I think that makes me sound like some Victorian chick who ended up in the bed with the vapors after high tea AND a ball in the same day) and I had to lay in bed all day yesterday trying to recover surrounded by piles of stuff that should have been in the bathroom - so I couldn't even stumble around the bedroom safely - and the unfinished walls taunting me.

The bathroom is painted but now I DO feel like a Victorian woman with the vapors because I am EXHAUSTED. But do I have time to be exhausted? No.

Things I Need To Do But Probably Won't

Figure out how to really use the new toaster oven
Do laundry
Clean the house
Find pictures of my son because he is Star Student in his class this week
Clean up the painting stuff in the bathroom

Things I Don't Want To Do But Probably Should

Shower
Get copies of Son's comp sheet for his audition this afternoon
Clean up the painting stuff in the bathroom

Things I Want To Do But There Isn't Any Chocolate Cake In The House

Eat chocolate cake