April Month in Pictures
Here are some recent pics taken this past month...

Doodle in his walker


Doodle in overalls


Doodle on floor near the STEERING WHEEL OF EVIL


Look at those blue eyes...


Oh yeah, we're here too... getting ready to go to the black tie event for my work


It's a hard life being The Dom


We love to ring the windchime


Doodle showing off his new sitting up by himself skillz


Spring finally arrives in NE Ohio

Careless whisper
I don't care how much of a drugged up, parked-car hittin' loser George Michael is today... I still think Wham!'s "Make it Big" album is the bomb diggity. And if loving Wham! is wrong, I don't want to be right.

My faith in humanity is restored... for today at least
Dear American Idol fans who didn't "Pick Pickler" this week...

THANK YOU.

From the bottom of my heart.

A word of warning to drivers on Rt. 8 northbound
Within the past week I have done my nails TWICE on the way to work. Yes, I have become that person. The one you see in your rearview mirror and think to yourself, "Is that chick doing her NAILS?" And then you speed up so you are nowhere near my car when it veers into a concrete abutment.

I have no excuse, other than nine months straight of sleep deprivation. It's finally gotten to me. Now I'm Crazy Doing the Nails on the Road Lady.

Fed Up
At the end of a long day, I amused myself by watching parodies of K-Fed's PapoZao clip. Here are my favorites:

Pina Colada K-Fed

Peanut Butter Feder Time

P.S. I just got my first creepy MySpace message.
Ew.

Oh, we are SCREWED
I have done my best to make sure that the likes of Barney, the Teletubbies, and their ilk do not infiltrate my little boy's brain. However, yesterday, we had Sesame Street on, and Doodle wasn't paying attention. Rather, he was in the process of doing his favorite thing of late, which is a) grab one thing. b) grab another thing. c) bang thing 1 and thing 2 together.

Then it happened.

Elmo came on the screen.

And Doodle must have heard the subliminal voodoo message in Elmo's words because he stopped clanging thing 1 and thing 2 together and looked up at the tv. Upon seeing Elmo's furry red loveable M.F.-ing face, he smiled and giggled. Then he stared, mesmerized, at the television for the entire duration of the Elmo segment.

I do believe we are in for it.

Ah, spring
Spring. The time of the year for tulips and daffodils, Easter eggs, sinus infections and hairballs. Yes, hairballs. On Friday night, BOTH my cats contributed to the hairball population. Molly was first which spawned my usual "NOT ON THE CARPET! NOT ON THE CARPET!" which of course was ignored. Dom was kind enough to do it on the easy-to-clean Pergo in the kitchen. Saturday Molly followed up with another one, on the carpet no less. Dom did some hacking but nothing came out. Then Sunday Molly trumped herself by making a deposit on the top step of the upstairs while I was upstairs with the baby. Getting downstairs with the baby and avoiding the pile was a feat.

The thing I've never understood about hairballs is, they're not really ball-like at all. They're more like, I dunno, hair sausages. Right?

Who's there?
There's this lady who works here who has this habit of, upon entering someone's cube, SAYING the words "knock knock!"

Even if she is already in your cube and she is looking you in the eye. She will still say it. She doesn't even actually knock on the cube wall. So. Irritating.

A post just to say here I am, my baby has the shits
I have been rather preoccupied over the past three days with a massively pooping baby. He has rotavirus which he without a doubt picked up from daycare. However, God forbid he be let back in to daycare without a doctor's note. So two personal days later, here I am back at the office. My husband is taking his turn today, my mother-in-law has tomorrow, and then my mom and I are tag teaming on Friday so I at least have some time in the office this week.

Other than being a poop machine, Doodle seems to be in great spirits. Yesterday we played all day and went for a long walk around the 'hood. Actually it was a beautiful day in N.E. Ohio, with temperatures pushing 70 degrees. You can't ask for better than that in April.

I missed Idol last night but DVR'ed it. I will probably watch it this evening. Although with Queen songs on the menu, I'm skeptical at best about how it will go. However, Pickler needs to take her ballsies and calamawri and sall-mon and go back to the trailer park she came from.

Another show that I am somewhat embarrassed to say that I am now hooked on is Blow Out. After seeing the guy on The Soup lambast Jonathan Antin every week I had to tune in and see what a toolio he really is. Although, there's something strangely likeable about him, as in that goofy friend everyone has who has no idea that they're stupid.

I went to a fancy party on Saturday night, maybe if I have time I'll upload a pic of my husband and I in our finest toggery.

Secret
Last weekend, I attended my cousin's wedding shower. It was mostly comprised of her fiance's family, and so I pretty much knew no one in the room. My grandma was there and so by default, as my cousin was obviously tied up, and my aunt had to be front and center as the mother of the bride, it became my duty to keep my grandmother out of trouble.

Easier said than done. She's known for her malapropisms, and now that her memory seems to be going, she constantly is asking the same questions over and over again. It's trying, to say the least, to spend any large amount of time with her. I love her, don't get me wrong, but I'm exhausted after her visits.

She was particularly bad at the shower. Not only did she constantly interrupt my cousin while she was opening her gifts with, "Who's that from? Is that one from me? What is it?" But she kept asking me if I knew where my aunt was, where my cousin was, why wasn't my cousin's friend Kelly there, etc.

But the topper was, during the gift opening, when she leaned over to me and asked, "Do you want to know a secret?" Keep in mind that my cousin is oh, maybe five feet away from us. I lean in closer to her. "When your aunt had your cousin, she wanted to give her up for adoption," she told me in a not-so-whisper. "I've never gotten over it and if your aunt knew that I remembered that she would die."

Oy. Vey.

I just hope to God that my cousin didn't hear her. I don't think she did, because there was a low chatter in the room. What on earth possessed my grandmother to reveal that family secret to me at that particular point in history, I'll never know. It's a horrible nugget of information, one that I would never repeat (except on my blog, but other than that). Let's hope that on my cousin's wedding day there are no more revelations like this.

Well... THAT was awkward
So the CEO big dog of my company took my whole department to dinner last week to celebrate the good year that we had. We go to this nice restaurant, and before dinner, he wants everyone to go to the bar so that he can talk to everyone and mingle and whatnot.

I'm standing with the Big Dog, Bad Lady, and one other female co-worker, when this grizzled old man approaches us with a goofy grin on his face. He holds out a business card which has the numbers 1 through 4 on it. "Pick a number," he says to Bad Lady.

"Three," she says.

He flips the card and it says "All sex maniacs choose 3!"

And then he walks away.

Yeah. Try and recover from that one while you're attemping to schmooze with the CEO of YOUR company!

Photo op
So how do the cats get along with Doodle? You be the judge...


Picture of baby? Cute.


Picture of baby PLUS BUNNIES? Uber Cute.

Reality show clip time

• Over the weekend I caught up on some of the reruns of Survivor Pearl Islands. I am reminded of how this is the best. season. ever! for several reasons. Sure, you know, Rupert's on there, and who doesn't love the Rupe, and you've got the whole Johnny Fairplay debacle, and the whole Outcast tribe coming back into the game, but it also confirmed in my mind what I already knew, and that is Burton is definitely the biggest hottie ever to play the game.
• Anyone catch Scott Long (we Hamster Timers know him "fondly" as Peen) on "The Surreal Life"? He was trying out to become the 7th cast member (the spot ultimately went to Maven, a nicely chiseled wrestler from MTV's Tough Enough series). Big Brother enthusiasts will be happy to know that Peen embarrassed himself on television yet again when he showed his rear end, which revealed a HUGE brown stain. Contestants were asked to strip to their skivvies to show off their bods. Guess old Peen should have worn the CLEAN yellow tighties, and maybe he'd be hanging out with Sherman Helmsley and Tawny "I Stiletto'd Chuck Finley" Kitaen.
• Without Project Runway to watch anymore, I have latched on to "Top Chef." It's not quite as exciting but I see potential.
• I missed "Unanimous" the other night -- why did it look like they were in the Big Brother house?

The clap
Last night Doodle surprised us by performing what some would deem a "stupid baby trick." He clapped his hands on command. I would clap, Doodle would clap. I would clap again, Doodle would clap again. And so on. As you can imagine, there was much applause at our house last night.

Behold...
The chompers!

I guess it's better than Army vs. Pittsburgh
Was anyone else as amused as I was by this yesterday? My husband just happened to point it out to me while he was watching the NCAA basketball tourney.



Then again, I'm pretty easily amused.

Moo Goo WTF?
So I got the weirdest prank phone call EVER on Saturday. At least I think it was a prank phone call. It was a bizarre phone call, regardless.

It went a little something like this:
Me: Hello?
Dude (sounds caucasian, in his 20's or late teens): Uh, is this the Owen residence?
(Owen is my husband's name.)
Me: Sort of... Owen lives here...
Dude: Oh, because this is the Chinese market, and the party that you're having this afternoon in a couple hours? Everything is all set.
Me: Huh?
Dude: You know, the party? 100 egg rolls, 100 sushi...
Me: Nope, not a clue. You must have the wrong number.
Dude: No, no, I've got schezuan beef...
And he KEEPS naming stuff! So I cut him off again.
Me: Who is this again?
Dude: Uh... the Chinese... market... buffet?
Me: And where are you located?
Dude: *dial tone*

WTF? I was waiting for the punch line. How weird is that? I mean, at LEAST ask if my refrigerator is running. Something. Don't leave me hanging like that!

If I had been thinking on my feet (but it was early Saturday morning) I would have played along like, "Oh yeah! THAT party! I thought you were talking about another party at the chinese market buffet!" Or been like, "No, it's 200 egg rolls, dumbass!" But instead I was just stunned at how random this call was. And thinking to myself as it was happening, this is so going in my blog.

Full of piss and vinegar
Some of these things I have been thinking of posting, but haven't gotten around to until now, so they may not be timely as I'd like...

• Project Runway... CHLOE WON?!?!?! I still haven't seen the finale but I saw that she walked away with the top honor. WTF? I love Santino, by the way. Love him. And I love Daniel, too.
• Crash won best movie at the Oscars? When I saw that, I thought to myself, "Oh, it must be some other movie named Crash, not the crappy, depressing movie called Crash that I saw." But nope, it was the crappy, depressing one.

I am, however, very excited about the Sopranos premiere. I hope it's good -- they take long enough to produce.

Happy birthday, buddy
Yesterday was my favorite little guy's 4th birthday.
OK, my SECOND favorite little guy.