The Plastic Wrap That Ate New York City

Happy Monday, Innernets! How was your weekend? Ours was fine! I learned two things:

1) When Ike comes down with his big brother's cold, he gets this hilariously gigantic cough -- CAAAAHHH-UGH CAAAAAHH-UGH-UGH-CAH -- and sounds exactly like an old man having a top-volume coughing fit at a quiet restaurant. So the next time you hear a cough like that and start looking for the person to scowl at, like GO OUTSIDE, DUDE, NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR YOU COUGHING UP YOUR LUNG, be forewarned that it could be my baby.

    1a) I mean, you can still scowl at him, if you want. He won't care. Old-man cough badger don't give a shit.

    1b) CAAAAHHHHH-UGH-GGG-CAH-UH-ETC.

2) Before you bundle your children up and send them outside to frolic in a couple inches of freshly fallen snow, you should PROBABLY confirm that the white stuff on the ground actually is snow. As opposed to a deadly, pointy mix of 10% snow and 90% ice. And you should confirm this fact through a testing method OTHER THAN watching your six-year-old pelt your three-year-old in the face with an iceball. 

    2a) He's fine! The cut didn't even need stitches. 

    2b) (dies)

    2c) Though I have to admit, the sight of both them lying on the icy ground, flapping their arms and legs in a desperate attempt to make snow angels while shrieking "WHY ISN'T THIS WORKING?" was pretty damned funny. But obviously I am tremendous jerk who routinely derives humor in the pint-sized suffering of my children. (See item 1. Also every blog post ever.)

***

Anyway. Enough about them! I need to talk about plastic wrap! SHUT UP THIS IS IMPORTANT.

Once upon a time, many years ago, I made the fateful decision to buy a box of generic plastic wrap. 

And when I say many years, I am not (for once, not even a little bit) exaggerating. This roll of plastic wrap is like the goddamned loaves and fishes, because it never, ever runs out. It just keeps going and going. An endless, magical supply of plastic wrap.

I should maybe call the Vatican. Or the Paranormal Activity people. 

Because this is the absolute WORST plastic wrap in the history of human kind.

I can't even express how terrible this plastic wrap is. It clings directly and desperately to itself, and nothing else. Put it on a bowl or dish and it will just...sit there, all non-sealing-like while its edges curl in to create an un-straightenable mass of gummed-up plastic wrap. It puckers and creases and instantly folds up into a three-inch-wide strip of uselessness the second you tear it from the box. That is, IF YOU ARE LUCKY ENOUGH to even get it to tear from the box, since instead of those fancy metal tearin' strips the hoity toity brands come with, this stuff has an edge of slightly perforated, long-since-worn-to-the-nub cardboard "teeth":

Hello! Do you need some plastic wrap! Okay! I will start gumming my way through that shit now! You come back in an hour or so. With the scissors. 'Cause we both know this ain't happening.

We HATE this plastic wrap, is what I am saying. Neither of us can use this plastic wrap without vocally complaining about how much we hate this plastic wrap. And while we're not like, AVID plastic wrap enthusiasts, or anything, the topic does come up quite frequently. Several times a week, for YEARS, one of us has bitched out loud to the other about this terrible, terrible plastic wrap.

Giving old boring married people something to talk about since 2007. Can your name-brand products deliver on that promise? For pennies on the dollar? I don't fucking think so, son.

And yet, the plastic wrap keeps going and going and going. I know I bought the big economy size, but this is RIDICULOUS. I should not still be paying for one single crime of frugality, all these years later.

Every once in awhile -- usually while muttering and cursing and trying to rip my third sheet of plastic wrap off the roll in order to mummify an ice cube tray of baby food -- I do stop and think, "Fuck this. I'm throwing this crap out and buying some new plastic wrap. Because life is too short for shitty plastic wrap. Because I am worth it!" 

But then, for whatever reason, I don't. I don't throw the box out and I don't buy a new one. Is it guilt? The fact that we're not using some recycled BPA-free hemp-paper alternative to the shitty plastic wrap? Or because we've made it this far so we might as well see this never-ending shitty plastic wrap storyline until the end? Because we maybe don't even believe that end will ever come so what's the point, we might as well just suck it up? Is it because the SHITTY PLASTIC WRAP IS FULLY IN CHARGE NOW?

YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED. YOU WILL ALSO GET A SURPRISINGLY NASTY PAPER CUT ON MY WEAK-ASS CARDBOARD TEETH. 

I don't know. It's an easily-solved problem that instead has become an epic years-long struggle for no particular reason. If this was a Paranormal Activity movie you'd probably be yelling at us to move or call an exorcist, so maybe we'll just try one of those things. 

The Mom in the Mirror

On a scale of one to 10, how corny would it be to kick off a blog entry with expressing gratitude to a supreme diety for the fact that it is currently Friday? Eleventy hundred? Ish? 

Fuck it. TGIF, man. Tee gee eye eff.

I have no idea why this week felt particularly rough, but it did. There isn't any one thing to point to and say THAT. RIGHT THERE. That's where my week went off the rails and into the realm of I hate everything and am going back to bed and I would like to see anyone try and stop me because I will fuck your shit up. 

I had a cold, but got over it pretty quickly. Ezra kicked a kid at preschool, but his teacher was all, "Yeah, they're all kicking each other right now. Kids! Whattaya gonna do?" We missed the bus one morning and I yelled at Noah for refusing to put his shoes on the first seven times I asked and at Ezra for taking his shoes OFF right as we were trying to leave, but then we caught up with the bus at the next stop a block away and I felt like a jerk, especially since I drive right past Noah's school on my way to Ezra's school and the only reason I was hellbent on Noah taking the bus was because I didn't want to have to get out of the car to escort him in. Because I was still wearing my pajamas. Stretched-out, saggy-butted ones.

On Wednesday I took Noah to karate, with Ezra and Ike in tow, and as I was directing Ezra to take a seat in the back, I caught a glimpse of myself in the giant mirror that lines the room. And I had that moment, like when you turn on your phone's camera to find it reversed and reflecting the underside of your chin(s), and you're shocked to see what you actually look like, and it's about 10 years older and 100 times more homely than you look in the mirror in your head. 

I was wearing makeup, but it clearly wasn't enough to mask the dark circles and pale cheeks and random red splotches. The workout pants and baggy shirt I thought looked casual but not sloppy at home...did not look like that at all, actually, but more like your standard uniform of the overwhelmed 30-something suburban mom who has completely given up. I haven't gotten a haircut since Ike was born or a color job since Blogher and the split ends and dishwater roots I've been telling myself aren't really that noticeable are, in fact, very noticeable. 

It all just...showed. How little sleep I get, how much I worry, how hard I work, how often I bump myself to the bottom of the priority list because at least I can operate kitchen appliances and put on my own underwear, and I'll put clothes on and do my hair once everybody else is dressed and fed and happy and my writing deadlines are done and I reply to just a couple more emails and oops there's the baby again and it's almost time to go meet the bus again so I know! I'll just put on some black workout pants and a baggy shirt! IT'S TOTES SLIMMING.

If "TGIF" is too trite, I suppose this entry won't be improved if I include some wistful expression of the necessity of a visit to a faraway tropical locale for relaxation purposes? Because Christ, I think I need a vacation.

The thing is, I'm not unhappy. Like, at all. I love this life, this crazy minivan-full-of-many-boy-children life that I never, ever expected to be living, but oh, I'm so glad I do. Honestly, I could kind of see myself having baby after baby, if I only had a place to put them besides Ikea dresser drawers. Or enough money to keep them all in karate/braces/camp/pizza/college.

Or enough patience to promise myself that I wouldn't yell at them for taking too long to put their shoes on, thus making me get out of the car and show the world that I didn't have time to get dressed that morning, even though that was my own damn fault for not getting out of bed 15 freaking minutes earlier, because...what? I thought today was going to be the magical day when everybody puts their shoes on the first time I ask instead of the seventh? Come on. 

I do wish I wasn't so tired, that I could take a nap occasionally without feeling guilty because there's so much STUFF that I should be doing, or that I didn't have to make the nightly choice between hanging out with Jason after we get the kids to bed or...sleep, maybe cramming an extra hour or two before Ike wakes up. I wish it didn't take me twice as long to look half as good as I used to. I wish Noah liked school better and I had more one-on-one time with Ezra and that Ike would stay a baby just a little longer than I know he will. I wish I had more patience, I wish those black workout pants really were as slimming as I imagine them to be, I wish I'd made a stupid hair appointment for this weekend.

I wish I wasn't such a cliche. But hey! TGIF. Amirite? Right. 

PS After rereading everything I just wrote I made an executive decision and booked a babysitter for tonight. Sorry, workout pants, Mama's gonna wear herself some JEANS tonight! Provided she can get them buttoned over her Spanx. 

It's Tradition, Dammit

Hey, so you know what happens when you get an email from your blog provider that reads, "The credit card on your account expired. Please provide a new one within X number of days or else you won't be able to post on your blog?"

And then you forget to provide a new card within X number of days? You totally are not able to post on your blog! Just like they said! I know, right? 

And then you're like, OKAY FINE, WHERE'S MY WALLET and you can't find your wallet and you're like, SCREW THIS, IT'S A HOLIDAY ANYWAY and you put it off again and  then you find your wallet the next day and finally update the card information...only to realize that this exact anecdote about mildly suspenseful credit card hijinks is the ONLY INTERESTING THING YOU HAVE TO TALK ABOUT ON YOUR BLOG. 

And then you're like, I REALLY SHOULD REEVALUATE MY LIFE. ALSO STOP USING CAPS LOCK SO MUCH.

But hey! I've been saying both of those things since I started this blog back in 2003. And hell, if I can't even be bothered to find my wallet within a perfectly reasonable, specified time frame, I'm probably not going to do anything that requires much more effort than that. Maybe by the time this current credit card expires. In 2015.

It's nice to have goals, I think.

***

We took the kids to see fireworks last night. But the actual fireworks were waaaay less exciting than the part where they got to sit on the roof of the car. 

Seriously. Experience of a lifetime. Next year we're staying right in our own damn driveway. I'll throw some glowsticks and shit from the shredder basket in the air or something.

Ike watched the fireworks from my lap in the front seat. And by "watched" I mean "completely ignored the copious amounts of commotion and BANG BANG BANG and WHOOOSHEEEEE noises and a bonus crazy lady wandering around the parking lot yelling at all the double- and triple-parked cars (of which we were one), all YOU CAN'T PARK THERE YOU CAN'T PARK THERE."

We ignored her too, actually. Bitch, we've been double-parking next to this same dumpster in the same back corner of this same semi-suspicious-looking gyro shop every Fourth of July for five years now. This dumpster and us go waaaaay back. We call her Smelly. Don't you be hassling us about Smelly, okay?

Anyway. Ike nursed and stared into space for awhile, and then Noah and Ezra got bored of the roof and decided they'd rather sit in the driver's seat and honk the horn, like, yeah, MORE NOISE IS WHAT WE NEED HERE.

Also: Hair. Has anybody seen all my hairs? I had some a month ago and now I haz no hairs. Woe.

And when the fireworks were over we came home and put everybody to bed and then I ate some Advil. The end. Happy Fourth!

Cracky

Why is today still spring break? Why wasn't one whole week off from school enough? Why this one extra stupid day -- the same day, of course, that I traditionally spend alone and gleeful as I thoughtfully and judiciously "edit" the contents of my children's Easter baskets because THAT BUNNY HAD NO RIGHT TO BE SO GENEROUS -- of stir-crazy kids running around the house begging for peanut-butter eggs?

And honestly, I'm not so sure Noah is particularly thrilled with being home with me anymore either. He's bored and done and over it too. Especially since I won't let him ride his little brother like a donkey anymore or swaddle the dog like an infant.

I am No Fun, you guys. And he is done with me, professionally. 

***

You know what IS fun, though? The new car. The kids looooovvvvvve the new car. They want to live in the new car. Yesterday, in a fit of We're Completely Out Of Activities related boredom, we simply opened all the doors to the new car and set them loose in it to climb and explore and turn traction control on and off.

Jason and I kicked back on the grass with iPhones and Kindles and supervised (which basically meant we looked up frequently enough to confirm that nobody had magically started the car and put it in gear and taken off for a new life on the road) and congratulated ourselves on being the greatest parents ever.

Except that -- and oh, we walked right into this one just like a Creed song -- when Noah was first informed that our Green Car was no more and we now had a new White Car, he took the news (predictably) very badly. Not a fan of change, that one. And I rushed to soothe his tears with the little detail that HEY GUESS WHAT, THERE'S A TV IN THE NEW CAR. Upon hearing this, Noah froze. His eyes went very, very wide. Then he said, "Let me get my coat."

"The TV in the new car is just for special trips," I tried to explain, "Long trips. Like going to see Grandma. Not short everyday trips."

To which my children were like, "HA HA FUNNY MOM NOW HOW'S ABOUT THAT DESPICABLE ME DVD?"

"Well," I tried next. "Today can be all special trips, since it's the first day in the new car. After today, though..."

"AND WOULD IT KILL YOU TO POP SOME POPCORN?" was pretty much the response I got.

Monsters. I have created them. Or at least equipped them with personal wireless headphones.  

***

It's something like 900 degrees outside right now (give or take a few degrees to account for the whole eight-months-pregnant thing), but since our one big planned organized outdoor activity was scheduled for Friday, that means it was 41 degrees and pouring down rain the whole time. 

The eggs were real and wet and covered in grass and filth, as if you plucked them straight from the underside of a chicken, for that extra authentic experience...

...which was admittedly dampened a bit by the sight of a parks employee openly marching through the egg hunt area with cartons of hard-boiled eggs, dropping them half-heartedly into the grass with a look of STUPIDEST JOB EVER on his face, while all parents in the vicinity rushed to explain to their preschoolers and toddlers that he was simply the Easter Bunny's HELPER, YEAH, THAT'S TICKET, and he just looks that grumpy because the Bunny doesn't offer very good retirement benefits.

None of our eggs made it to the (indoor) decorating table intact. Ezra kept dropping them and Noah insisted on "opening" his eggs to check for candy inside.

I sense I've let that one down in the whole "know where your food comes from" department, a little bit.

And there's your belly photo for the week, right there. I know you can't see my face or anything, yet I still feel like the massive amounts of fun I was having at the time really radiates through, somehow, anyway, regardless. 

The Great Confession

A long time ago, back when I only had one singular solitary child, my car had to go to the shop for a few days. I rented a car in the meantime, but when I arrived the rental place had given away the last mid-size class car I'd reserved. 

So they offered me a minivan. I think they thought I'd consider this a fabulous upgrade, since I was clearly SUCH A MOM and all, but I made a face, like, really? Ugh. My mom car is a Subaru WRX! It's a turbo. And a stick shift. It's fucking fast as shit. We used to take it to the racetrack for rally-car driving lessons. Until we got tired of replacing the tires so often. And, you know, we had to put a car seat in the back and a stroller in the trunk. And stuff. 

But I took the minivan. And to this day, I remember that moment out in the Enterprise parking lot when I opened those remote-controlled side doors and saw how easy it was to get Noah in and out, and all the interior room, and how smooth and quiet it drove and was like, damn, I could get used to this.

AND I WAS SO ASHAMED. 

So my Great Solution to the minivan question was to simply never, ever drive one again. Because I knew.

***

Last night, after test-driving every giant-ass all-wheel-drive SUV option in existence, Jason finally convinced me to sack up and go to a Toyota dealership to look at a Sienna. We needed to look at ALL the options, you know, before we could really make up our minds. 

We approached the sad-looking row of fat-bottomed symbols of I've Officially Given Up Everything I Used To Be on the lot and I immediately started bitching. It's ugly. It's too big. Why is the trunk like that, what the hell is that thing for, the DVD screen blocks my visibilllllllity, blah blah blah. 

"Where are the keys?" I asked the saleswoman.

"Push-button start," she explained, "Right there."

"THAT'S DUMB," I muttered.

I pushed the button. Whee! Heh. I like buttons.

"I AM STILL ONTO YOU, MINIVAN," I warned it. "STOP TRYING SO HARD."

The saleswoman smiled from one of the middle-row bucket seats. She reclined it a little and flipped out a fancy, La-Z-Boy style footrest.

"No SHIT, WHAT?" I sputtered. "That's ridiculous. This whole car is ridiculous."

Jason looked up from the brochure. "So you can hook up an XBox in here too?"

"MOTHERFUCKING CHRIST."

***

I drove it about 10 minutes down the road, executed a ridiculously easy U-turn, and practiced parking. Jason asked how it compared to the last big lumbering crossover SUV we'd just finished test-driving, the one I said was "fine" and "not too much like driving a truck, only kinda."

"DAMMIT," was all I said. Which told him everything he needed to know. 

We switched seats and Jason drove it back to the lot. The saleswoman left us alone to play the 4,000 other various buttons and cubbyholes. 

"I knew this would happen," I sighed, after discovering the built-in sunshades on all the back windows. 

"I know," Jason said, while messing around with the iPod interface on the navigation screen.

We went inside. I sat down and sighed deeply.

"I want a white one. Do you have a white one?"

***

They did.

And now so do I. 

(NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.)

(YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. XBOX PARTY IN THE BACK SEAT, Y'ALL.)

Welcome to the Nursery

No, not THAT one. That one's still an unspeakable pile of horror and disorganization and missing crib screws. I meant this one:

Goddamn hippies.

When we first moved from the city to the 'burbs we were pretty much incapable of keeping anything green alive (except for one hand-me-down decade-old jade plant), and in fact saw the tiny yard we have here as a plus: LESS FOLIAGE TO MURDER. 

We moved in. The jade plant promptly caught some disease and died. But we bought some herbs and stuck 'em in a planter out back. And then a tomato plant. Then peppers and zucchini and cauliflower and strawberries and onions and kale and butternut squash and beets and parsnips and leeks and homemade baby food and now it's a big production involving self-watering containers and concrete wire supports and composting and newspaper seedling pots and big ugly greenhouse light in our kitchen and I'm pouting because I don't have a deep enough pot to grow sweet potatoes in.

YET, anyway. 

We have no immediate plans to move, though every time a single-family house goes up for sale in our neighborhood Jason and I play a game of imaginary landscaping and discuss just how big of a garden we could have, and what the light and soil situation is probably like, and oooh, look at that porch! We could enclose that and have a greenhouse! We could do containers AND a real-live soil-patch grown-up garden! Maybe I would keep some chickens! PLUS, THINK OF ALL THE SWEET POTATOES. 

The mortgage calculations always kill the daydreaming. It's okay though. I still think last year's garden was pretty good for a couple of formerly death-thumbed city noobs...

...especially since it all started out small enough to fit on our kitchen counters.

P.S. If you're curious and also a dirty hippie lamesauce, I wrote a little about container gardening and composting over at AlphaMom, along with recommended books and such that helped us get started and not kill the majority of everything we planted.

P.P.S. And while I'm self-pimping and all, here's a Top Chef recap. It's about food! Super relevant to everything I've been saying today, shut up.

And How Was YOUR Day?

It was on this exact day in history when I realized that I needed to make a change. That the working-outside-the-home thing and I were not a good fit. That my poor already-meager brainpower reserves were overextended to the breaking point, making each and every venture into the outside world fraught with danger and the potential to snowball into a comedy of errors, or at least a story that could only be told with at least a dozen "...AND THEN!" transitions into the next circle of absent-minded hell. That being required to walk out the door remembering my keys AND my lunch AND the daycare bag AND the work I'd brought home the night before AND my shoes AND where I'd parked the car AND the baby, omg the baby was just too much. Something had to give. 

Five years and a whole extra kid-and-a-half later, this remains probably one of the most self-aware things I have ever realized about myself. Five years later, and it still holds true that the simple decision to "get out of my pajamas" is usually the exact point where my day goes completely haywire.

For the record, I am only required to Leave The House once a week, other than the weekends, but that doesn't count because Jason is there so he can supervise. I mean, so it's a team effort. Yes. That. On Thursdays, however, I alone am responsible for getting everybody up and fed and dressed and out the door for Noah's weekly OT appointment.

Yesterday, AS YOU MAY ALREADY HAVE BEEN AWARE, was a Thursday. So up and out we went, and I was feeling pretty good, considering I'd managed to shower and dry my hair AND find one whole hat for one whole child, so I only had to remember to repeatedly yank up one coat hood over one head, while muttering old-lady threats about colds and catching death. 

In fact, the only snafu was when I remembered that I'd never brought in my travel mug from my car, so I needed to run out and grab it and wash it out really quick so I could take my coffee with us. (NOTE: In my lifetime, I have personally purchased a good four dozen high-quality travel mugs, every single one of which is sitting in a desk drawer or under a car seat somewhere belong to my husband, so the travel mug featured in this story is my very last mug, a cheap promotional one that Tracey and I received when Mamapop won Best Pop Culture Blog from The Baltimore Sun. Tracey said I could keep our major award, which was very nice of her, except that it leaks all the time.) 

ANYWAY. BUT THEN! I retrieved the mug from the car, only to realize there was a very gross, very frozen chunk of last Thursday's coffee still in the bottom. We were already running late, the car was already running (in a very FORESHADOWINGLY-like manner, by the way) and the kids were already buckled into their seats and there I was, waiting for some warm-ish water to flow from the sink faucet in the kitchen so I could melt a week-old expired coffee ice cube or at least break it out with a knife handle or something. 

After a few desperate minutes, I put the mug in the microwave -- expressly disobeying the printed instructions on the bottom -- but then changed my mind after 10 seconds because you know, it would be SO LIKE ME to have to call Jason and tell him that I blew up the microwave for just this exact precise reason. 

Finally, I had a nice, cleanish cup of new coffee and we were back in the car. Which is when I noticed that the gas light was on.

Just like it had been on last Thursday, when I had consciously decided to NOT get gas, because 1) the gas light comes on in my car almost laughably early, like with more than 30 miles to go (according to some display thing on the GPS screen that I can check to more accurately gauge my gas-tank recklessness), and 2) as long as I made it home and then never left the house again, odds were good that Jason would drive the car next and would stop for gas. 

But we were all terribly sick last weekend, so nobody drove it anywhere, so I was now stuck knowing that I'd already cashed in my free early-gas-light trip and was probably close to fumes at this point. But we were late! Because...well, I'd spent all that time trying to melt that thing out of my travel mug.

We made it to OT on time, though I knew there was NO WAY we would make it home without filling up. But no matter, there were about three gas stations super-close to the therapist's office...I could stop and still get Noah home for a quick sandwich and catching the school bus in plenty of time. 

Except...for some reason, instead of just -- I DON'T KNOW -- driving to one of the actual gas stations that I was already familiar with, I decided to head towards the one that the GPS said was the closest. Huh! I thought. I had no idea there was a Shell station right there! That's really convenient, actually!

And it really would have been convenient, if it existed. Which it didn't. It was an office building. So I changed course and headed towards ANOTHER gas station, right around the time the stupid computer screen thing started yelling at me like, SERIOUSLY, YOU HAVE NO GAS, WHY DON'T YOU STOP AT A GAS STATION. YOU WERE LIKE, FIVE FEET FROM ONE A MINUTE AGO, MORON.

Oh, and did I mention it was snowing? Because it was snowing. What started as flurries around the time we arrived for OT was now a full-on snow "event," as the local weather people like to call it anytime we start seeing ACCUMULATION! Of UP TO TWO INCHES! YOU ARE ALL GOING TO DIE IN YOUR CARS! YOU ARE PROBABLY ALSO ON FIRE!

So there was a crazy amount of traffic, as the lines on the road were already more or less covered up, and as you know, when the lines on the road get covered up, everybody forgets where the lines ever even were to begin with. 

So I'm driving, all white-knuckled and over-caffeinated, with both kids in the car, and I can't even figure out which thing on the dashboard to freak out more over: the now below-E gas tank indicator or the clock, which says I have all of 15 minutes to get Noah home in time to catch the bus.

But I make it to the gas station. I pull up to the pump and reach into the diaper bag for my wallet.

No wallet.

No wallet.

NO WALLET.

No wallet, all of 10 cents in the coin tray, no secret $5 bill or credit card in the glove compartment, zero gas. Oh, and a cell phone with a red battery-charge indicator and yes, I have a car charger for my phone but no, I had no idea where it was at the moment.

I did the only thing I could think to do. I drove away from the gas station, back towards the snow-covered highway. 

See? Brain. Thinking. Not good at it. Obviously I'd hit max capacity for problem solving sometime that morning, probably during the thing with the mold-flecked coffee ice cube.

I called Jason and told him to like, omg, pray or something. He -- in a typical lack of faith and/or confidence in my coping skills -- ordered me to get the fuck to a gas station and wait for him there. I mewed sadly about the bus! The bus! I have to get Noah home for the bus!

"Yes, which you will most certainly NOT be able to do while stranded on the side of the highway."

(Right around this time, I drove directly by my old office building. Or more like...coasted, as I tried to use the snow to my advantage instead of the gas pedal. I'm beginning to think that general business park area has it in for me, for real.)

10 minutes later, Jason called back. He was still looking for my wallet. I told him to look in my black purse, which I'd carried last week to a BlogHer Meet-Up in Bethesda, which NOW that I think about it, was the other last time I left the house by myself. (I drove Jason's car. So he could have the carseats in case of an emergency. Also, because I knew my car needed gas.) He said he already checked that bag, and it wasn't there.

So. To recap. Things Amy Was Currently Freaking Out About:

1) No gas. Still sitting in traffic trying to get somewhere close to Gas Station Number Three, AKA the one every single driver in the area seemed to be flocking to, because OH MY GOD SNOW SNOW SNOW PANIC ALSO I NEED BREAD.

2) The bus. Even though that was pretty much a done-and-missed deal by now and I was going to have to drive Noah directly to school, I was upset because I didn't call the bus depot ahead of time to tell them Noah wouldn't be on the bus like I'm supposed to and what if I get in trouble for that? Or the bus skids on the ice right outside our house and everybody dies and it was ALL MY FAULT because I DIDN'T CALL, or maybe the bus driver will just be generally kind of MAD AT ME from now on?

3) My wallet. Where the hell was it? Did I lose it? Drop it? Get pick-pocketed? What happens if I got into a fender bender or something without my license right now because the road is slippery and you know, there are all these IDIOTS out there who don't know how to drive in the snow? I may be an idiot who spends 15 minutes melting coffee backwash from promotional travel mugs before driving her children miles and miles away in the snow with no gas and no wallet, but AS GOD IS MY WITNESS, I know how to drive in inclement weather. Kind of. Pretty much.

4) Phone battery. Seriously, where the fuck did my car charger go? Ohhhh, that's right, last week I met HeatherB for lunch and she texted to say she desperately needed an iPhone charger and all I could find in the house was the plug part but not the cable part so I yanked the cable from the car charger and then I guess I took the whole inside the house or something and see? All my problems in life stem from unsupervised outings. 

5) Starvation. We were almost out of the only snack option I had on hand: A bag of cheese-pretzel sandwich things that I desperately needed to believe was counting as a nutritious, pre-school-day lunch for Noah.

EPILOGUE

I made it to the gas station. We sat there for awhile until Jason showed up with a credit card and I racked up the single-most-expensive fill-up in my entire car-owning life. I drove Noah directly to school and got there before his bus, because the snow delayed everything by a million billion minutes or so, and when he got back home I fed him the entire contents of our pantry, because the poor kid was starving and I am mother of the fucking year.

EPILOGUE TWO

My wallet was totally in my black purse. Jason said, "Oh, THAT black purse." I have not yet asked him which black purse he thought I was talking about, because the only other black purse I own is a crystal-encrusted black satin evening clutch that is smaller than my actual wallet, and for the sake and safety of our family I need to keep on believing that that's NOT the purse he looked in, because ONE OF US HAS TO BE SMART, AT LEAST A LITTLE BIT. 

Turkey Run

DISCLOSURE TALKYSPEAK: Thanks to American Express for sponsoring posts today about small businesses.  American Express is presenting Small Business Saturday, a way to honor the local merchants who are the backbone of the economy, this Saturday, November 27.  They're offering statement credits to people who shop at small businesses, advertising for small-business owners, and donations to Girls Inc. for "Likes" of the Small Business Saturday page on Facebook.  Join the celebration by clicking the "Like" button at the bottom of this entry and then visiting the Facebook page to learn more about the program and read the terms and conditions that apply. 

ACTUAL AMALAH-TYPE TALKYSPEAK: 

I cannot lie. I just spent three hours in the car. Three long, torturous hours. Procuring our Thanksgiving turkey. 

It wasn't supposed to take three hours, of course. Half hour up to the farm, 15 minutes there selecting the bird, another 20 minutes or so wandering around with the boys, visiting with the -- ahem -- pardoned birds still wandering around the pens and the cows and what-have-you, taking adorable photos with them all decked out in Thanksgiving-y outfits I done picked out special...and then a half hour trip back, high on life and the knowledge that HOT DAMN, that is one delicious-looking, never-frozen turkey sitting on the passenger seat there. 

Most turkeys from the grocery store around here -- and all of them at the farmers' markets -- have to arrive frozen. Buying directly from the farm is the best way to get fresh, never-frozen bird, and as we discovered about three or four Thanksgivings ago, the difference will blow the top of your skull off. Figuratively speaking, with only the teensiest dash of hyperbole. So ever since, we've made the trek up to Maple Lawn turkey farm and lugged the thing home in a big-ass cooler. 

This year, it was my turn to make the trip. The day got away from me and I left a smidge closer to rush hour than I would have liked, but hey, I was driving to the COUNTRY. There's no rush hour in the COUNTRY. Come on, kids! Grab the camera and the earth-toned sweaters, and let's make some memories.

It took us an hour to get there. Noah fell asleep. Ezra demanded my entire stash of for-emergency-only granola bars. We hit traffic and red lights and detours and fender benders. It started drizzling at one point and the entire driving population of suburban-to-rural Maryland lost its damn mind. 

And when we got there, it was already too dark to take any pictures of the turkeys or the cows. But it wasn't too dark to see the line. THE LINE. 

The line for turkeys stretched across the barnyard to the...uh...turkey dispensin' barn, I guess, where it wrapped around and looped back and forth about four times inside. Most people came armed with their preorder slips and wheelie coolers -- except for me, who came armed with only a clunky SLR camera and two stir-crazy children. 

But we waited. "Everybody" swore they'd never seen a line or demand like this, even though "everybody" also swore that they'd been buying turkeys from this farm for years. That math didn't really compute, but I didn't really care. I was...happy for the farm. Happy to see the dozens and dozens of people buying their food directly from the growers and caretakers of that food. The other parents explaining to their children that yes, the turkeys in that pen over there were, in fact, the same thing that they now carried wrapped in butcher's paper and a plastic bag. Everybody, despite being gobsmacked by the line and worn out from the drive, readily swearing up and down that it was worth it. Buying from here was worth it. 

"You should have seen my mother-in-law's face," the woman behind me said, as I eavesdropped on her conversation with another stranger in line. "You can't screw these turkeys up, but SHE doesn't know that."

Eventually, it was our turn. One of the farmers asked Noah and Ezra if they were excited for Turkey Day, and they both obliged him with an enthusiastic "GOBBLE GOBBLE GOBBLE!" on cue. I selected our bird -- which cost just about a buck less per pound than the equivalent organic birds at the supermarket -- and wearily corralled the boys back outside, where it was now way, way, WAY too dark to get the pictures I'd hoped for. 

Instead, we marched back to the car and prepared to leave. Suddenly, Noah started to shriek and laugh. I looked over out the window...just in time to see two or three dairy cows stick their heads over the fence I'd pulled in next to, close enough for Noah and I to reach out our windows and touch the tips of their noses. They mooed in approval before moving away. 

Yep. Just like every year: Totally worth it. 

Nerds on Parade

Halloween, take three:

Noah's struggles with Halloween and dressing up ebbed and flowed this year, with one costumed activity being a roaring success and the next causing a meltdown of epic proportions. It was like spinning the wheel in Sensory Roulette. So I had no idea how his classroom costume parade party would go on Friday. 

When I arrived with Ezra in tow (and in costume), Noah had steadfastly refused to put his costume on while his friends got dressed. But then another mother showed up with a tray of chocolate cupcakes.

"See those?" I fibbed. "Those are for kids who wear their costumes."

BAM. Obi-Wan Kenobi IN THE HOUSE. And on parade.

With his faithful sidekick Yoda, seen here shortly before losing a shoe in the parking lot at some point.

Other than some mid-parade WHERE ARE THE CUPCAKES ALREADY fatigue, he did great. 

Ezra did too, though he did tend to gravitate to some very non-canon props. 

And then: FEASTING.

Halloween, take four: 

Trick-or-treating. The main event. Noah not only agreed to wear his costume with absolutely zero protest, he even allowed me to put on the cheap-ass synthetic-fabric tunic and rubber belt portion of his Jedi outfit (over his regular clothes, obviously, because ITCHY). 

Get ready for his hit single I Will Do Anything For Candy (But I Draw The Line At The Polyester Pants).

Jason dressed as a prawn-armed Wikus Van De Merwe from District 9. He had a great official-looking MNU Alien Affairs badge too. It was awesome.

At first Ezra thought trick-or-treating consisted of grabbing candy from our bowl, piece by piece, and dropping it into his bucket...

...so there was some momentary distress when he realized there was actually quite a bit more to it than that. And also some tears when he learned he was not allowed to go INSIDE the houses after ringing the bell. Like OH MY GOD, these people keep BOWLS OF CHOCOLATE right next to the FRONT DOOR. Can you EVEN IMAGINE what they might have HIDDEN IN THE KITCHEN? WHAT THE HELL, YOU GUYS.

Checking out the loot between houses.

(LIghtsabers are actually safety LED glowsticks from Life+Gear, who sent me a truckload of them back when Noah's Star Wars fanaticism first dawned. Awesome for visibility at night AND because they were technically too short to cause damage to TV screens, precious Ming vases or each other's skulls. Shout-out! Woot!)

(And yes, fellow nerdlings, I know Obi-Wan Kenobi should have the blue one and Yoda should have green, and I swear that was the way they were dispensed back at the house but you KNOW whatever your younger brother has in his hand is immediately 500 times more awesome than what you have in YOUR hand, so there you go.) 

(This from the kid who, when I referred to him as simply "Obi-Wan" to another mother at school, testily corrected me because "I'm Obi-Wan KENOBI, Mooooommmmm.")

I was Jessica from True Blood. I'm crying blood because Jessica is always freaking crying. 

I ordered the Merlotte's shirt and apron before I found out I was pregnant, and I briefly thought I'd have to switch to Arlene, the OTHER True Blood redhead (who is currently pregnant with what may or may not be the demon fetus reincarnation of a serial killer), but it turns out I don't have the belly for it yet. So I got to traumatize small neighborhood children with bloody eyes and fangs instead.

Also, yes, I was really, really freaking cold. But I was even more committed.

We stayed out until the buckets got too heavy to carry and little legs got too tired to walk. Also we had to get everybody to bed so we could stay up late and watch that zombie show on AMC with the lights turned off and the sound turned up because I totally enjoy NOT EVER SLEEPING AGAIN.

And that was our Halloween. How was yours? 

LET'S GO MURDER A TRUCKER. AND THEN CRY ABOUT IT.

Crime & Punishment

I'm fine! I'm fine! The EVERYTHING IS OKAY alarm is going off at full volume, I promise. Much like our neighbor's car alarm two nights ago, in the middle of the night, to which we responded by getting up, muttering a lot of curse words before slamming the window shut.

The next morning, we discovered that another neighbor's house had been broken into around that time, along with a good half-dozen cars in the area. Including ours. Although "broken into" makes it sound more dramatic than the reality, because our cars were unlocked. coughMORONScough. Nothing was taken from mine, though the glove compartment and center console had both been opened and tossed around, but they didn't even snag my phone charger or the stack of Emergency Tissues. 

(Here's what a dork I am: When Jason told me about the break-in, I was like, OH MY GOD THE ERGO CARRIER WAS IN THE TRUNK DID THEY STEAL THE ERGO CARRIER?)

("Um. No. That wasn't really the kind of thing they were after, babe.")

("Well, shows how much THEY know, because that's a really expensive carrier and they could totally make like, $80 at a consignment store. I'D steal an Ergo carrier.")

("Just tell me you didn't leave your cell phone in the car last night, okay?")

Jason's handsfree phone thing was taken, but even this was no terrible loss because he hated it and wanted to get a new one, and he hated it because it was so ridiculously complicated and required five specific voice prompts to make a phone call that I do kind of get a kick out of the mental image of the thieves attempting to use it without the instructions and being like CALL PAWN SHOP MAIN. NO, NOT TEXT MESSAGE. PHONE COMMANDS. SYNC. HUH? WHO IS IT DIALING NOW? OH FUCK THIS PIECE OF SHIT.

So that happened. Also, I went to a farm as a preschool field trip chaperone yesterday. Guess which thing was worse.

Since Ezra was coming along for the ride, I dressed the boys in seasonal and easily-visible-in-a-crowd orange shirts, silently congratulating myself on being so smart and from learning so many things from my years and years of experience at maybe doing stuff like this a whole three times before. 

Let's see. A field trip to a pumpkin patch. In October. Just a few days before Halloween. The whole farm was freaking lousy with orange shirts. LOUSY WITH THEM.

This was pretty much the way the whole day went. Viewed through the zoom lens, with the sounds of my shrieking after them to COME BACK HERE BEFORE A GOOSE EATS YOU.

Baby pigs.

Baby rabbits.

Baby chicken nuggets.

(Ezra's like, "SIX-PIECE, PLEASE.")

And an absolutely mind-blowing, life-completing encounter with a real-life SHEEP, like OMG BAA BAA BAA SHEEP SHEEP SHEEP!

An emu. They liked it. I distrusted it.

This is either a wallaby or a kangaroo. I wasn't paying attention. Either way, I just loved its expression of fuck y'all, I gots a TENT. 

At some point Ezra got tired and insisted on being carried everywhere, and I suddenly realized how ill-equipped I am for the reality of THREE OF THESE PEOPLE. 

Ugh. Hell in a petting-zoo pen, you guys. Noah got bit by a turkey, but he probably deserved it. Much like that turkey will deserve all that delicious, delicious gravy next month.

Frolic.

Strut.

Hayride.

Trying to catch a decent natural-looking photo before he instinctively does that exaggerated CHEESE thing he does all the time now and...

Sigh. Never mind.

PS. New post up at The Stir. Plus lots of great stuff at Mamapop today and while no, I didn't technically write any of that particular great stuff it will have to do until I can formulate a proper sentence about last night's Project Runway finale that doesn't disintegrate into HORRIBLE SEETHING EARTH-TONED RAGE.