No strings attached
Because it is that time of year, the "what the hell am I doing with my life" season, I have been contemplating making some changes and doing things I've wanted to do but have been too busy/lazy/financially unable to do. One thing that I know I want to do, before I transition from thirtysomething to cougar, is to fulfill my rock 'n' roll dream.

I've been playing guitar for half of my life, but not well. Beginning at age 16, when I got my first acoustic guitar ("Ruthie"), I've always just winged it. And because I never learned the ropes, my guitar chops are still fairly beginnerish.

Since I play by ear, I learned a few basic chords and from there was able to teach myself the chords to my favorite songs. And because my favorite songs traverse a wide range of cheesy to hipster, I have quite a repertoire of cover songs.

I've always wanted to parlay that into some sort of band. I envision myself in an 80s cover band, but there are definitely some 90's and even current day songs that I'd like to include. So my latest dream band would be an ultimate cover band that plays three sets and progresses through the decades. This would, of course, be complete with costume changes.

So today I made an important first step in making my dream a reality. I am going to start guitar lessons. Start from scratch, and learn the basics. Build on what I already know. And see where it takes me.

Separated at birth

Is it just me, or does




=





?

Big day
This morning, Doodle woke up with a dry diaper. "You want to try and tinkle on the potty?" I asked him.
"Um, no," he said. "Maybe I'll go on Thursday."

Apparently Thursday is the day when it all happens.

Bridging the cultural gap

This is what my blog looks like translated into Spanish. Who knew that "sketch" in Spanish was "sketch!" And that "factor" was "factor!" But in Spanish, you just reverse the two.

Santa Claus is Comin' to Town, or, Pandora's Box

As I may have mentioned before, Doodle loves his trains. Particularly of the Thomas the Tank Engine variety. We've been using the toy trains as motivation rewards in Doodle's potty training. I have this whole complicated chart system going, in which he earns stickers each time he attempts or succeeds to use the potty. It's been working somewhat well, because he enjoys putting a sticker on the chart, However, he thinks he gets a train for every try, and it just don't work that way.

He also errantly seems to think that anything he asks for, he will get. When he looks through the Thomas the Tank Engine brochure that accompanies any toy purchased, he points out all the toys he wants.

Last night at dinner he was showing us the train set he wanted, and my husband, with all the best intentions in the world, said five words that changed everything: "Maybe Santa will bring it."

When I last checked, it was August. So by my estimation, Christmas is still a loooooong way off. Especially to a toddler who doesn't understand the concept of time and who thinks five minutes is an eternity.

Doodle's eyes brightened. "Yeah! Santa will bring it!" He said. "Santa's coming over tonight!"
"No," we told him, "Santa won't come until winter time, when there's snow on the ground."
"Look!" he responded, pointing out the window. "It's starting to snow!"

At this point I dissolved into giggles and had to excuse myself from the dinner table.

Throughout the rest of dinner, and after dinner while I was cleaning up, Doodle talked incessantly about Santa Claus' impending visit. My husband and I exchanged glances and wondered what kind of Pandora's Box had been opened with the mention of Santa.

"Doodle, I have something to tell you," I tried. "Santa's not coming tonight."
"Nooooo!" he howled. "He is!"

When I began to fill the bath tub with water, Doodle melted down. It became apparent to him that we were proceeding with the normal, pre-bedtime activities, which did not include a visit from Jolly Old Saint Nick. It was the full water works, complete with lashing out in anger at both my husband and I for not allowing Santa to come over. Somehow we distracted him, and we got him bathed, pajamaed, and in bed.

This morning, as I was getting ready for work, Doodle was in an adjacent room, playing with his Thomas trains. He was talking to himself, concocting a train story of some sort. I clearly heard him say, "Well, Santa's coming over on Thursday ..."

Oh boy.

If there's one thing we've learned as parents, it's that Doodle forgets NOTHING. By hook or by crook, Santa will bring him the train set he wants. Because Daddy said he would. Maybe.

Goings on
Boat Day was slightly disappointing in that everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, was on their best behavior. IBL was subdued, Bad Lady was surprisingly gung ho and wanted to stay out longer in the boat rather than go home early. Color me shocked! The other cuckoo did not wear a life vest, thankfully.

In Doodle news, over the weekend, he began to show interest in using the potty. This has been a constant struggle for months. We had given up asking him about it because he would become hostile when asked if he wanted to use it. Everything has to be his idea. So we let it become his idea. This weekend, while we were at a wedding (a wedding in which my husband became horribly drunk and consequently slept in our bathroom), Doodle went tinkle TWICE on the potty. The next day he pooped on the potty at home. Hooray!

I'm probably due to spruce this site up with some pics, so those will be coming soon, I sorta promise.

Barack Roll

A little bonus posting action for you all since it's been a while. This nearly made me cry, made me say goodbye, made me tell a lie. It's really only funny if you know what a Rick Roll is, so google that and then help yourself to this one...

Just Sit Right Back And You'll Hear a Tale ...

A tale that will involve me and my co-irkers on a boat. For an entire day. On Friday. Let's take a look at some of the players:

IBL, who is rumored to have a fear of water;
Bad Lady, who is surprisingly upbeat about this trip (it's a day away from the office, so, it can't be THAT bad, right?)
and someone I don't have a nickname for but who is missing a few screws and who has bought her own life jacket to take on the trip and had to be talked out of buying a wet suit.
Dwight Schrute could board the vessel and I wouldn't flinch.

Already a typical man

Doodle and I have this complicated bathtime game involving twenty or so small die-cast metal cars. He drives one of the cars up onto the side of the tub, to where I am sitting. I must say hello to the car as it approaches, and goodbye to it as it turns and lines up behind the previous car. I must address the car by name.

Most of the cars he owns are from the Disney/Pixar movie, so they have come with names already assigned to them. Other, unnamed cars, have easily identifiable nomenclature such as "taxi cab", "van", "white van", "Citgo #21", etc.

But he has recently, ahem, "acquired" several new cars (thanks to us leaving him with grandma while we went to the Indians game Tuesday night...). They made their bathtime debut last night. So when a new one drove up for me to greet it, I stumbled. "Hi ... what's your name?" I asked. My son made up a name. "Red Car" was one.

"Hi, Red Car, what are you doing?" I asked, putting a twist on the game.

"I'm going vroom vroom splash!" my son said, or something like that. It's kind of hard to recreate onomatopoeia.

Every subsequent car had to be greeted with "Hi, what's your name?" even if I knew it was Lightning McQueen, Citgo #21, white van, etc. And then I had to ask every car what it was doing. They all answered with some variation of the "vroom vroom splash" response.

EXCEPT for Sally.

Sally is Lightning McQueen's girlfriend in the movie "Cars" and she also has the dubious distinction of being the only female car in our collection. So when I asked Sally what she was doing, I got a bit of a different response: "Going shopping."

REALLY.

Then Sally chuffed off, apparently in search of a Bloomingdales.

Elevetiquette
My office building is a modest four floors, and is equipped with not one, but two elevators.

I imagine in larger office buildings, the elevator traffic is much more dense, but the same set of rules which I am about to lay down certainly would apply.

First of all, there is a set walking distance from the elevator where one is expected to hold the door/have the door held. In my office building, I will hold the door for you if I a) you are several paces behind me, but I know you; b) see you coming through the door and you are within shouting distance for me to ask whether you're going up. A good general rule is if you make direct eye contact with a person coming through the door, you should probably hold the elevator for them.

Button pushing. My general rule is, if I get in first, I will press your floor button. If you get in first, please press my button. If I know what floor you're going to, I'll press it for you. (With only four floors, two of them occupied by my company, I do this pretty often.)

Once inside the elevator, there are boundaries. I will take up space in a back corner. With one other passenger, they should take the opposite diagonal corner. If a third enters, passenger #2 should step into the back corner opposite me, leaving passenger #3 in a front corner. If there are more than three people in the elevator, please observe the rules of personal space.

Conversation. With such a short ride, I don't expect it, nor in the morning, do I want it. If you talk to me, I'll answer, but I'm not going to ask you how the weather is.

Last but not least, if you are in the elevator and you are cleaning it in the middle of the day (we have the cleanest elevator in the WORLD), please do not try and hold a conversation with my boobs.

No, bigger than Jesus
I'm driving Doodle to day care this morning and from the back seat, the request comes: "I want Beatles."

Doodle frequently requests the Beatles, but more specifically the "Let it Be" album. In Doodle's mind, there are two kinds of music. The Beatles, and everything else. And everything else is completely unacceptable.

Sometimes, if I want to listen to something else (read: always), I try to ignore him. But as most of you know, trying to ignore the demands of a three-year-old is futile.

"I want Beatles!" he repeated.

OK. This is a battle not to be won by me. So I look (while of course paying attention to the traffic around me) up in the visor above my head where I store my cds.

"I want Beatles!" echoed Doodle from the backseat.

"I'm working on it," I responded.

I locate the cd. "I want Beatles!" says Doodle. There's another cd in my stereo. I have to eject that cd -- "I want Beatles!" -- and put the other one in. While I'm fumbling around with the cd's, I get another "I want Beatles!"

"OK, I HEARD YOU!" I say, through clenched teeth.

"Jee-zus!!!!" comes the response from the back seat.

Do you know how hard it is not to laugh at times like this? Especially because I know that he most likely got that from me.

Big Crazy
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you... Big Crazy.



Actually, his name (I think) is Gordon. All these trains look alike to me.

However, Doodle refers to him, without any explanation given, as "Big Crazy." Other trains on the Thomas the Tank Engine series also have this moniker, and for the life of me, I cannot distinguish a pattern. For instance, it is not the trains with only the square faces, or the round faces. It is not all the blue trains.

Here is Edward, who is NOT Big Crazy:



But here is Chick Hicks, a character from the movie "Cars," who at times is and at other times is not Big Crazy:



I wish I could crack the code!

One thing is for sure ... Doodle loves his vehicles. George and the Man With the Yellow Hat are all but a memory now.

A quickie

*takes a breath*

I've been mired in work, my dangerous facebook addiction and ... work. So my blogging has suffered quite a bit. In fact the only reason I'm here now is because facebook is down. I'd like to jump out the window because facebook is down.

I'll be back soon with pictures, and a tale of something known only as "Big Crazy."

Dharma Boomerang

Every once in a while you see or hear something that makes you do a double take. A 'what-you-talkin-bout-Willis' if you will. Like this morning when I passed a semi that was decked out with an array of stuffed animals across the dashboard. That merited a turn to the side, narrowed eyes and questioning look from me to the male driver.

Yesterday I was rushing through Kohls to return something, and I passed a woman with infant twins, a boy and a girl. The boy was in a stroller and the mom was holding the girl. The girl was crying her little eyes out. As I walked by, I heard the mom say, "Oh, what's the matter, Dharma? What's the matter, Greg?"

Say WHAT?

Seriously? You named your children after a 90's sitcom starring Jenna Elfman?

Seriously?

I turned to stare, my mouth agape, at the woman and her twins. Had there been a pole or stationary object in front of me I would have hit it. Had I not been in a rush I might have stopped dead in my tracks to continue to stare at the woman in disbelief. I mean, if you're going to name girl and boy twins after a 90's TV show, why not name them Brandon and Brenda, or Darlene and DJ, or Ross and Rachel for Christ's sake.

x-posted on my myspace blog

LOLrus :3

This week's viral video featured a blubbery mammal showing off some fancy flipperwork with a trainer. My heart is all atwitter for this loveable guy.

One inflatable monkey away from a meltdown

... and then the world played a cruel and horrible joke on me and my family and TOOK DOWN THE BIG INFLATABLE MONKEY ON THE ROOF OF THE TIRE STORE.

Its tenure was exactly one week, but the impact will be felt for months to come. When we had to go to meet friends for dinner Saturday night, the promise of seeing the big monkey was the only thing that would get Doodle in the car. And then it wasn't there.

"I see big monkey, daddy," Doodle said from the back seat as we got onto the highway. The big monkey appears right after we get on.
"It's coming," he answered. When he and I saw the monkeyless building, we quickly scrambled for reasons.
"Uh," I stammered. "The monkey is sleeping!"
"No!" Doodle said.
"Yeah," my husband agreed. "He's sleeping, bud. There's nothing we can do."
"No, Daddy," Doodle insisted.
"No, Daddy."
Pause.
"NO, DADDY!"
Pause.
"NO, DADDY!"
Pause.
"NO, DADDY!"

And so on, until I couldn't hold back the laughter The fact that this was somehow Daddy's fault was too much for me to handle.

Sunday, he requested the monkey's presence once again. We told him the monkey had gone bye-bye, and again, Daddy got blamed. Heh.

This morning, same deal. Except when he asked if we would see the big monkey, I replied, "we'll try." And that seemed to work.

Maybe, in time, he'll forget this monkey business.

How'd he do that?
It's been a while since Uncle Dom had a mental break and ritualistically brought up random objects from the basement and deposited them in the living room. But the house is reaching new proportions of messiness, and the basement, especially, has become the dumping ground for Doodle's toys, puzzles, cars, and things which cars can drive upon.

This is definitely my fault, because the past two, maybe three months at work have been so relentlessly busy that I am typically a zombie by the time I get home. The weekends are spent gearing up for another crazy week. That is starting to dissipate now, but not by much. I'm working five day weeks rather than six day weeks. So I've got that going for me.

Anyway, the cleanliness of the house has definitely suffered. It's to a point now where I can barely deal with it myself. It makes me crazy to even look at it, and the thought of diving in to straighten things out is overwhelming.

It's taken its toll on my large black and white beast, as well.

So it began with a reindeer stuffed animal, a basement dweller, that was inexplicably in the living room one day this week. It wasn't there the night before, and to my knowledge Doodle was in his crib all night. Therefore, the next logical suspect is a four-legged creature with a past reputation for such things.

The reindeer was one thing.

But then he outdid himself.

Doodle and his dad had been playing with balloons, and there were two in the basement: a green one and a blue one. They were just regular rubber balloons (or latex or whatever), that my husband blew up and then they tossed them around one snowy weekend morning.

My husband found the green one in the living room one morning this week, but it had suffered a casualty and was deflated. He didn't think anything of it at the time, and threw the balloon carcass away.

However, yesterday morning, the blue balloon, fully inflated, made an appearance in the living room. Doodle threw it down the basement stairs, and last night, right before I went to bed, I noticed it again, back in the living room. Still inflated.

How on earth did he manage a feat like that? I am impressed. Maybe it's because I just trimmed his claws on Tuesday.

The brink of disaster
It's been touch and go with Doodle since he's been getting this molar. Yesterday, for instance, he was in great spirits, until I came home, and then apparently every emotion, every bit of pain, every whine he'd bottled up during the day came pouring out. I think it's sweet that he thinks of me when he is repressing his rage.

Anyway, for the past few days, we've noticed a large inflatable gorilla flying atop a tire store that is along the highway on our route to and from daycare. The gorilla, it brings joy and balance to our lives.

This morning, I was trying to roust Doodle from his slumbers. "Come on, it's time to get up and get ready for school," I said. This was met with the sight of Doodle pulling his blanket over his head and pretending he didn't hear me.

I tried again.

"Come on, it's time to get up and watch George," I said.
That merited the cracking open of one eyelid, then the closing of said eyelid, and the resuming of pseudo-sleep.

Suddenly, a lightbulb went off, both eyes opened, and he said to me, "I see big monkey?"

Bingo. We were up and at 'em in no time flat.

As we passed the inflatable gorilla, I pointed it out to Doodle, but he was looking out the other window and MISSED IT.

Oh. My. God.

Had we not been running superduper late, as in, one more minute and Doodle would have missed breakfast, I would have pulled over and made sure he saw that damn gorilla. Because a child without his inflatable gorilla fix is ... well, it's just wrong.

Hell Ohio freezes over

Last week, we had a bit of an ice storm. I am of the mind that snow and ice are pretty, as long as I don't have to drive in it/walk in it/touch it/shovel it. That's why I got married, quite frankly.



The trees all had a nice glassy covering on them. It was quite tranquil. Until rush hour the next day, and then it was quite ... suck.



Here is a look at our backyard last week. Notice the placement of the sandbox (that thing in the background with the four legs artistically placed at the end of the wind catcher thing).



Being cooped up indoors causes people to do strange things. Me? I drink raspberry vodka and soda, listen to Hall and Oates albums and write long messages to old boyfriends on facebook that ultimately get deleted when I come to my senses. OCDoodle does things like this ...



Please note that before the world froze, all of these letters were in a nice, aesthetically pleasing scramble format all over the refrigerator door. One day, my child decided to line up the letters along the edge. Here, Uncle Dom ponders this new alignment of the universe.



You'll notice that Doodle actually went back and separated out all the red letters, and then the green letters. It's some kind of strange toddler voodoo.

Then, Friday, we had a bit of a flurry. A sprinkling, really. Did I mention that this light dusting of snow coincided with Doodle getting one of his two-year molars? Or perhaps two of his two-year molars? The good news? I didn't have to drive to work on Friday because I was home with a feverish, crabby child. The bad news? I was home with a feverish, crabby child.

As you can see, we hardly got but a smattering of snow... remember that sandbox? It's there somewhere.



We didn't leave the house from Friday afternoon, after a harrowing trip to the doctor's office to find out that it's not an earache, thank you, drive through, please do not pass go until you pay $25, until sometime Sunday.



Now that that's all behind us, we can look forward to things like St. Patrick's Day. See? We can even wear crazy St. Patty's day hats. Try and disregard ths fact that my son is wearing the sweatshirt of the devil's football team. I didn't buy it for him.



Yep. We're all on the mend. The snow has subsided, the roads are clear, the fever has broken, we've sprung forward. And the sweet voice of Tom Hamilton is back on the radio calling spring training games. It won't be long now.

Text #2
While we're on the topic of texting and my boss... last week I was out of town with him at a conference. We were sitting in the hotel bar with another girl I work with. The hotel has been under construction and our rooms are newly-redone.

"You know, I think I'm the first person to stay in my room," my boss said.
"I know I'm not," said the other gal.
"Why's that?" he asked.
"I had dirty towels on my floor, and ... pubic hairs ..." she replied, uttering the last phrase under her breath.
My boss is hard of hearing in the best of conditions, and in a crowded bar, his hearing is no good at all.
"What?" he asked. But she wouldn't repeat it. She and I looked at each other and burst out laughing.
He looked at me. "What'd she say?" he asked.
"I'm not repeating it," I told him.
"Why not?" he asked.
"I'm just not. God. I can't even look at you," I said, putting my hand in front of my face, traces of blotchy red marks beginning to crawl across my neck.
"Text it to me," he said.
"I am NOT texting it to you!" I told him.

But being out of town in a hotel bar with your co-workers makes you do strange things. Several seconds later, my boss received a text that said "pubes" and nothing more. I don't claim to be proud of my actions. Really.