My TiVo Suggests Tylenol PM

Whenever a great big natural disaster or big tragedy-laden news story hits a blogger's general area, they inevitably get worried comments and emails from readers -- particularly if they haven't updated in a few days -- emails of  the "are you okay? is your house okay? is it on fire? washed away by molten lava? and I saw on the news that someone was shot at a mall that I think is near your house and they didn't give any names and omg, YOU WEREN'T SHOT AT HOT TOPIC, WERE YOU?" variety.

So let me just put your minds at ease: Yes, I have stayed at the Mayflower Hotel in the past, but I am in no way connected to the recent bust of the high-class prostitution ring here in DC. Thank you all very much for your concern.

MY ALIBI IS STILL PRETTY HEAVY ON THE SHAME, HOWEVER

So Friday night rolls around. We put Noah to bed, Jason is starting a fire and I'm settling in on the couch, ready to be a giant pain in the ass re: what DVD we will watch, because I hate everything in our queue and especially the three DVDs that came in the mail this week and I don't want to waaaaaatch theeeeem, I want to watch something difffffffferent, preferably something that isn't even out on DVD yeeeeetttt.

This is when I notice that the TV is already on.

"Oh GOD," I say, "is this The Ghost Whisperer?"

Jason turns away from the fireplace and says something like, "Oh, is that what this is? It's just what was...you know...on."

"Eh, let's watch last night's Lost before we pick a movie to argue about." I slowly aim the remote the TV, and...

"Wait! Uh. I don't...I mean...I'm not sure I feel like watching Lost right now."

By this point my own prime-time detective-show-worthy wheels were spinning, and I remember turning off the TV before dinner, and that the TV was firmly locked in NOGGIN toddler mode, so if Jason just turned it back on and left it on whatever channel it was on LIKE HE CLAIMED, we'd be watching Wow Wow Wubbzy right now.

"YOU WANT TO WATCH THE GHOST WHISPERER! YOU WANT TO WATCH IT ON PURPOSE!"

Jason vaguely threatens me with the giant tube of Duraflame matches but concedes the point, and that's how we ended up watching Jennifer Love Hewitt's three-foot-long hair and eyelash extensions on Friday night.

"Why is this show shot like a daytime soap opera, with the smeary Vaseline lens and everything?"

"My lands, man. We certainly are learning A LOT about your TV viewing habits tonight, aren't we?"

"Wait...are you crying?"

"Shut up. My eyes are watering. It's a pregnancy thing."

"You're totally crying."

"WELL? THE MOM GHOST IS REALLY PROUD OF HER DAUGHTER, OKAY? AND SHE COULD TOTALLY SENSE HER MOM GHOST'S PRESENCE RIGHT THEN AND THAT WAS A NICE BIT OF CLOSURE FOR HER."

"This is a pretty terrible show."

"I know. We should totally record next week's episode."

AND THEN! IT WAS SATURDAY!

Saturday night I did not sleep. At all. I stayed up for awhile obsessively listing the Things We Need To Buy For The Baby Before October OMG October! -- sample items include plain white onesies, pacifiers, an infant tub, bottles and holy crap bottles are different now because of the leeching plastic and I know we sort-of knew about the leeching plastic with Noah but stopped caring after I broke all the glass bottles we bought but now we totally have to care about the leeching plastic with this one and do you realize how fucked we are if it's a girl? we have nothing for a girl! everything is blue! the carseat is blue! the extra sheets for the Pack-N-Play are blue! I might be forced to put lacy headbands on her and YOU KNOW HOW I FEEL ABOUT LACY HEADBANDS.

After realizing that Jason was asleep and not listening, I went downstairs and watched the Grindhouse double feature until four five in the morning, and was overly interested in seeing when the cable would made the switch for daylight savings time. At 1:59 am the clock and channel guide jumped forward to 3:00 am and I sat up and fucking CLAPPED FOR THE CABLE BOX, like I was celebrating my own special little New Year's Eve, or something.

SUNDAY WAS PREDICTABLY BLEAK

I sat on the couch all day and watched 13 straight hours of Hell's Kitchen reruns while bemoaning my lack of sleep. At one point Jason turned to me and asked, "Did I hear you refer to this baby as a do-over last night?" 

"Probably. Sort of. At least in terms of the leeching plastic."

The time change effed Noah up completely, as he refused to nap all day, but then did a faceplant into his dinner and fell sound asleep at 5:30 6:30 I don't even know what time it was either. There were four contestants left on Hell's Kitchen at the time, though, if that helps.

HEY, LOOK AT THE TIME! MONDAY WAS OFFICIALLY YESTERDAY

Once again, I cannot sleep. I start to doze off, then wake up to pee. My skin itches and all my limbs keep falling asleep. And the thinking! God. I cannot turn off the goddamned thinking.

Noah is getting a cold, however, and keeps demanding that I go in and wipe his nose.

I am happy to oblige. There is just nothing good on TV right now.

The Neenee of the Heart

When you have a speech-delayed kid, you will be constantly warned not to imitate their pronunciation, no matter how adorable it may be. When they butcher a word, you are supposed to model the correct pronunciation. You will be told this is very, very important. I have a very, very hard time remembering this.

"Buddy, do you want some muck?" I ask while pouring the milk.

"MMMMMMUCK!" he shrieks and nods his head.

"If you are a good boy, I bet you'll get a baboonay," I tell him at Trader Joe's.

"Yaaaay baboonaaaay!" he shrieks and eyes the balloons at the register.

When I tuck him at night, he asks for his neenee.

"Of course Mama will turn on your neenee," I say just before pulling the string on his favorite music box. That one is probably my favorite, since he calls ALL music -- instrumental, vocal, Snoop Dogg -- neenee.

Jason (who gets nagged with more child language development bullshiteese than anybody in the world -- "Stop! You're playing the Director Role! That's not the Tuned-In Parent! You're not O.W.L.ing it! Observe! Wait! Listen!") hears me do this and raises a silent, judging eyebrow.

"But it's so cuuuute!" I whine. "And his friend Max talks in paragraphs but still calls squirrels zaaaas because Julie thought it was funny and never told him that they aren't really called zaaaas and it's also so cuuuute!"

"One word," Jason says. "GUCKY."

Touché, dammit.

When I was a very little girl, probably a toddler, I called poop "gucky." Like...yucky. But...gooey. I don't know. My parents and siblings thought it was so cuuuuute and started using it all the time. Nobody went poop, we all went gucky.

The problem was, NOBODY TOLD ME I MADE THE DAMN WORD UP. Nobody, that is, until I used it in front of other kids. IN THE FIRST GRADE.

Not cute. Try mortifying.

Yesterday I was out shopping with Julie and Max (who cheerfully informed me that "Mas went Grandpa's house a couple days, um Amy? After baby brother come we go to California for good yaaay!" and it suddenly took all my strength to not collapse in a sobbing puddle in the men's department at Nordstrom because baby brother is due in two weeks and I have not yet been able to permanently affix myself to Julie's ankle while wailing DON'T LEAVE MEEEEE, but I'm working on it. I just got this new kind of glue off an infomercial.).

Noah heard the piano playing as we passed the escalator. "Uusic?" he asked.

I sucked in my breath and put my hand over my heart -- no! not uusic! neenee! call it neenee! -- before answering by the book.

"Yes Noah, music. Pretty music. Let's stop and listen to the music."

"Uusic," he said again, happily.

(He's also calling choo choos "trains" now all of a sudden. Will probably cost the island of Sodor millions in rebranding costs.)

Tod Tod Tod Tod Tod Toddlerville

Despite the occasional blogging-friendly pratfall, I actually do consider myself a fairly competent adult. I can make it through most days without serious injury, I juggle and meet multiple deadlines on a regular basis and I know how to open and close my stupid asshole stroller.

But there's something about New York that turns in me into a bumbling, fumbling idiot. I get on the wrong train! I trip on the sidewalk! I compulsively over-tip cab drivers! I walk around with the tags from my inside-out underwear sticking out of my pants all day!

This week's trip was no exception.

Noah and I left DC on Sunday, smack dab in the middle of prime napping time. Even with Union Station's priority boarding for families with young children, we barely found seats in time. I had our suitcase on my back, the diaper bag slung over my torso and I was dragging the stroller by the shoulder strap behind me while I desperately tried to hang onto Noah by his armpits while he howled and the entire world and several Amtrak employees judged but did not help. I shoved him on the train first -- by God, ONE of us would make it to New York -- and begged and panted to him to please please please follow Mama like a big boy.

When we found seats at last Noah was utterly delighted by the whole choo-choo-ness of the experience. For about a minute, which is how long it took him to realize that choo-choos actually involved a lot of SITTING instead of...I don't know...strippers and Cristal.

He screamed. SCREAMED. I heard the nerves of every fellow passenger in the car grate and felt their burning hot hatred as I fumbled to boot up my laptop while frantically begging Noah to hush and promising my endless iTunes supply of Blue's Clues episodes if he would just STFU.

It turned out that only one episode of Blue's Clues had downloaded correctly, for some reason. A 50-minute special called Meet Blue's Baby Brother. Which features 1) Joe and not Steve, 2) live-action puppets, 3) PUP PUP PUP PUP PUP PUP PUPPYVILLLLLLE!

We met Blue's baby brother a lot this week. Noah was completely pacified as long as it on, although his headphones meant he had no real awareness of the volume of his voice (not that that's a real great skill without headphones, durrrr) and would shout ACLOOOOOO!out of nowhere at the top of his lungs. I hate Blue and I hate her baby brother and I hate Puppyville and Alphabet City and all things bright and primary-colored.

He did not nap, obviously. He fell asleep in his stroller in Manhattan, while we waited in line for a taxi.

The whole real point of our trip was to spend time with my nephew Nicky, who is 19 months old. (Nicky's big sister, by the way, is 19 years old, and my brother-in-law is telling that to as many people as he can for the next two days before Nicky turns 20 months old.) So of course the boys ignored each other most of the time.  But whatever. PRESHUS FAMILY MEMORIES. LET ME MAKE THEM FOR YOU.

Since Manhattan apartments are a little on the -- ahem -- snug side, Noah and I stayed in a hotel around the corner, where Noah continued to not sleep. He finally conked out around midnight, but I woke up pretty much every time he moved because I was convinced he would fall off the bed and kept diving for his twitching foot, thinking it was his whole body going off the side, even though he was sprawled out in the dead center of the bed while I clung to about six inches of space off to the side.

I fell out of the goddamn bed around 4 am when I thought a pillow on the floor was my child's lifeless body.

Monday is kind of a blur -- I kept getting my foot tangled up in the diaper bag strap. Noah screamed his head off in a taxi so much that I over-tipped the driver even more than usual. I spilled coffee creamer all over Isabel and could never seem to get the stroller folded and unfolded or through doors and I spent 10 minutes convinced I'd lost a Sephora bag that was sitting two inches from my own ass. Isabel wanted to talk about all sorts of exciting Smackdown-related things and I think I just sat there with my tongue hanging out while Noah played with a pile of sugar.

Then it was back to my sister's place, where Noah napped in the stroller again while I tried to convince her that she should TOTALLY bring her toddler to DC for Christmas. TOTALLY. The train is NOTHING. It's EASY. We're having a GREAT TOTALLY EASY NOTHING TIME.

(I lie! I lie to my FAMILY!)

The boys finally started to acknowledge each other's presence that night, while they ran up and down the hallway outside the apartment. Nicky was not wearing pants. Noah was only in a diaper, which fell off at some point because I bought the large box of size fours, so dammit, that child will wear size fours.

They started chattering to each other -- Noah would hold Nicky's hand and shout GOOOOO! and point in the direction he wanted Nicky to run in, and then they would both run and shriek and laugh and hug and my sister and I laughed hysterically and tears welled up because my GOD, these BOYS. There's an 18-year age difference between my sister and I and more family dysfunction than you can toss a diaper at and yet here we are, with our boys, closer than ever and planning family vacations and I don't think it's a place either of us ever expected to be, but hot damn, it feels great.

My brother-in-law had the camcorder on at the exact moment my sister told us the boys had locked us out of the apartment.

"Huh," we both said.

"Seriously, you guys," my sister repeated, "They locked us out of the apartment."

"Huh," I said again.

I suddenly realized my sister was crying.

"Wait..." I said. The light bulb was starting to flicker a little bit.

My sister and her husband bolted down the stairwell to get a key from the doorman, while it finally occurred to me that yes, we were locked out and the boys were locked IN.

I sat down outside the door and listened -- I heard the sound of books being yanked off a shelf and I heard the sound of toddler footsteps change pitch as they went from hardwood to linoleum and back again.

I knocked. "Let me in, babies! Don't touch the outlets! Stay out of the kitchen! Don't open the TV cabinet! BUT OPEN THE DOOR TO THE NICE STRANGER IN THE HALLWAY."

I at least got Noah to knock back a couple times before my brother-in-law came careening around the corner with a key. My sister was a wreck; Noah's diaper was falling off again. I was like, "Eh. Are there stairs in there? There are no stairs in there. Amateurs!"

My brother-in-law physically put Noah and I on the train the next day and we met Blue's Baby Brother four more times, because it was the only thing in the world Noah wanted to watch.  Other than a stupid, stupid, STUPID trip to the dining car on the other side of the train that nearly resulted in Noah getting run over by a suitcase and my probably getting arrested for all the armpit holding/dragging/threats-of-leashing I did, the ride home was fine. Jason met us and Noah fell asleep in the elevator in the parking garage.

The end, MY GOD, the end.

The only preshus family memory I remembered to document. Huh. I wonder how that happened.

How Many Storches Does It Take To Screw In a Light Bulb

I somewhat randomly met a long-time reader recently who immediately wanted to know about The Tire. (Which is admittedly better than wanting an update on my menstrual cycle.) (HATE. THERE'S YOUR UPDATE. BUCKETS OF HATE.)

Where is The Tire? And what was the deal with The Tire?

Memmmmmmmmmmmmories!

The Tire is no longer in our basement or foyer or being used as a festive centerpiece. It is, believe it or not, actually on Jason's car. Enjoying the open road, freedom and the Japanese auto industry dream.

The deal with The Tire was simple: Jason's car only has room for a patch kit in the trunk. So he went and bought The Tire on eBay so he could also have a full-size spare. He rolled The Tire into our foyer. And left it there.

He said he might just go ahead and replace one of his current tires -- he thought it had a leak. This was the story for...a couple weeks? I think?

If your tire has a leak you should replace it, I would tell him at least once a day. I know how you drive. You're going to have a blowout and lose control and die. Replace the damn tire and get it out of the foyer. Nag nag nag. Also, get some more life insurance.

Then he said no, there wasn't a leak after all. He was just going to keep it in the attic storage for awhile. And yet the tire stayed in the foyer, occasionally drifting closer to the stairs, only to roll back to the foyer anytime anyone wanted some booze from the liquor cabinet.

Please put the tire up in storage, I would tell him at least once a day. It smells funny, and Noah is starting to crawl and wants to touch it all the time. Get the damn tire out of the foyer. Nag nag nag.

(Some people might just finally lug The Tire up the stairs and into storage their own damn selves. I do not believe these are the type of people I could be friends with in real life.)

So I posted photos of The Tire online, hoping he might be shamed into moving The Tire.

He didn't even notice for at least a week. And when he did, he carefully read all the entries and comments and said that since everybody seemed to love The Tire, it needed to stay in the foyer. Where it could continue to be loved and photographed, and hey, Amy, when you pull down on your face like that I can totally see under your skin into your eye sockets. That's cool.

Anyway. That's my marriage and welcome to it. 10 years next August, folks. Send wine.

The Tire was still in our foyer the day I interviewed our real estate agents. They wandered around the condo, making suggestions for decluttering and depersonalizing the place before going on the market. They stared silently at the tire for a few seconds, wondering if they needed to state the obvious.

Eventually, The Tire ended up in a rented storage unit for a few months before coming home to sit in a new foyer. And then Jason put it in the basement for Valentine's Day. And there it stayed for many months, until Jason ran over a nail and lo, The Tire was called into active service.

Thus ends the saga of The Tire.

Thus begins the saga of Light Bulb Watch 2007.

This is the ceiling fixture in our living room. I don't like it. Jason doesn't like it. It looks like the eye of that thing that lived in the trash compactor in Star Wars (also known as a dianoga, and OH MY GOD I KNEW THAT OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD), which I actually wouldn't mind since I imagine the long neck would actually be adjustable and I could shine light somewhere else besides...straight down.

We bought a new fixture right after moving in, but blah blah blah drywall internal support male-female electrical bzzzzzt I don't know. We needed some special thing to do some thing and HOLY CRAP GET TO THE POINT.

We have a new light fixture. We have all the necessary special things to install the new light fixture.

About a month ago the light bulb in the old fixture burned out. Jason said, whatever, don't bother replacing it, I'm just going to install the new fixture.

Uh-huh.

The light bulb is still burned out. I truly believe that replacing the light bulb will mean the new fixture WILL NEVER EVER EVER get installed, because Jason is a man of action only when things are actively pissing him off. But this also means I'm the one left explaining to guests why our living room is so dark and offering everybody flashlights.

So even though taking the cause to the Internet did not necessarily work for The Tire, I am trying again.

Just don't say you love the Eyeball Lamp. It really has no endearing qualities like The Tire.

(Some people might just learn how to install light fixtures their own damn selves. But these are just not my sort of people. Why waste all that effort that could otherwise be spent on perfectly good bitching?)

(Don't forget to vote everyday for your favorite parenting blog -- even if it's not this one. Especially if it's not this one.)

(I can't help it, people. I got a couple emails from a couple of my favorite fellow nominees who were all, IT'S ON, BITCH, and then I got all twitchy and competitive and threw the Monopoly board at their heads and challenged half the Internet to a crate race.)

Halloweenie

One drawback to the fancy search bar over to the left: I can now see exactly how repetitive my blogging -- and thus my very LIFE -- has been over the past few years.

I broke my toe over the weekend. The same toe I broke here. I stubbed it on the vacuum cleaner, just like I did here. But it's a different toe than the one I broke here, so I am mixing it up a little bit.

I stubbed it in the morning and did the whole silent-gasping dance around the bedroom, but it wasn't until a few hours later -- while we were shopping for last-minute Halloween costumes for ourselves, more on that ridiculousness in a second -- when I noticed my toe felt a little stiff. I flexed it inside my shoe, and heard an audible popping sound.

"JESUS CHRIST!" I hissed, as I kicked my shoe off to watch the swelling.

"Can I help you?" a store employee, dressed ever-so-conveniently like the deity in question, smirked back.

I followed up with a muttered "mother of GOD," but that doesn't appear to be a very popular costume this year.

***
I cannot remember the last time I got dressed up for Halloween, but we've been invited to a party. Us! Invited places! I know, it caught me completely off-guard too.

I had a lot of great costume ideas, but was ultimately stymied by rush shipping prices and the fact that I have the patience of a gnat when it comes to shopping. (An Audrey Hepburn costume was nixed after 10 minutes in Target when I failed to find a black dress or large hat, and when Jason suggested that there are, in fact, other stores in the world besides Target I announced that I hated Halloween more than anything, ever and I was going to buy a pair of cat pajamas and go as a blogger as imagined by Aaron Sorkin, but Target didn't have those either.)

So we ended up in one of those Halloween stores that crop up wherever a large chain store has gone out of business recently, where your costume options are "Sexy Nurse" or "Sexy Pirate" or "Sexy Rainbow Brite" or "Aw, Fuck It, Here's Some Underwear With Some Fairy Wings."

I bought the first costume I found that covered my stomach and my ass and called it a day. I am not even very sure what it is, exactly. Possibly Marie Antoinette, but with pants? Some kind of royal court gentleman, but in pink? Gender Identity Problems of the 18th Century, but with cleavage?

I don't know, but I am going to wear glittery gold eyelashes and a hot pink bra. It's all sorts of classy.

***
In other Halloween news, Noah has discovered the candy. This was entirely my fault, since I was trying to explain trick-or-treating and the cold, harsh fact that people were going to PUT THINGS inside his beloved pumpkin bucket. For you do not PUT THINGS in the pumpkin bucket.

(NOOOES THEY BE PUTTIN THINGS IN MAH BUKKET, TREATS: DO NOT WANT, etc.)

I think he is okay with the concept now.

Dessert? Dessert? Dessert? Dessert? Dessert? Dessert? Dessert? Dessert? Dessert? Dessert? Dessert? Dessert? Dessert? Dessert? Dessert? Dessert? Dessert? Dessert? Dessert? Dessert? Dessert? Dessert?

(We possibly ate a little more dessert than lunch today. So what? You gonna send over a squad of Sexy Police Officers over to stop me?)

One T-Junction Short of a Track

You know how some bloggers come back after a few days of not updating and talk about how BUSY, SO VERY BUSY they were, and you think, "I bet you were not really that busy." 

Well, I was not really that busy.

The other half of Noah's train table finally arrived, as did a bunch of Thomas the Tank Engine recalls-in-the-making train sets.

I should have known I was getting in over my head when I read the user reviews on Amazon...someone would complain that a certain piece had "two female ends" and thus wouldn't fit to form a circular track and blah blah blaaah, and then a hundred people would vote the review "unhelpful" and there'd be a series of rebuttals from Little Engineer in Little Rock and tommylovesthomas and hotdude4673 about how like, heh, the trains aren't meant to only go in CIRCLES and two female ends are actually really HELPFUL if you actually KNOW ANYTHING about TRAINS, unless you're like, heh, trying to replicate the track from the infamous Percy Saves the Day episode, which, heh, had a COMPLETELY BACKWARDS t-junction, like are we supposed to believe that was some sort of MAGIC t-junction? I mean, come on. Go buy some stupid cheaty wacky track and leave the fancy bridges to the REAL fans, loser.

Meanwhile, I was still at the "two female ends" thing.  Schwaa? And also, haaa? And also, why does that make me think of Fergie?

So I ordered some random (London, London) bridges and a track expansion set. I opted not to go for the the "buy this item with a DEGREE IN CIVIL ENGINEERING FROM PHOENIX UNIVERSITY" combo deal that Amazon thoughtfully offered, which was probably a mistake.

I have very literally spent the last 48 hours huddled around that train table, attempting to create a seamless track layout, failing miserably, drinking heavily and cursing. Always with the cursing.

Every attempt leaves me with at least one corner like this:

Go on, Percy. I dare you.

Percy's all, "Bah. And fuck you."

I have determined that I need to drive to the nearest hoity toy store and buy a couple specific pieces of track to finish our layout, despite the fact that Noah does not care in the slightest, and has instead been amusing himself with one 6-inch piece of track (that I randomly and heartlessly take away with each new layout attempt) and a plastic Tonka minivan for the past two days.

Yes, I fully realize that I'm being ridiculous.

And yes, I fully realize that the train set is his. The train set is not mine. I need to back away from the train set.

I think I have perhaps gone a little mad.

Sir Topham Hatt, totally sloshed again, is wondering how many damn bridges one stupid isle needs, and also how long it will be before he summons the courage to finally jump and end it all.

Yeah, it's true. Fucking stop work orders came in this morning. Some bleeding-heart pussy liberal discovered a nest and some rare bird eggs over there by the bridge -- no, not the suspension bridge,  no, not the toll bridge either, the sling bridge, over there, less than a foot away from the other bridges -- so for now, the track's ending here. So help me God, the union better come through this time for us -- my wife's been laid up on concrete blocks for months.

WANTED, ENGINE OF INTEREST: ENVIRONMENTAL DUMPING WITH MALICIOUS INTENT TO KILL RARE BIRDS. If you know the identity of the train pictured in this photo, please contact Sodor authorites.

"Old tires? Dead bodies? This isle sure ain't what it used to be," the sheriff thought bitterly to himself. "I gotta flip some track over to the roadway side so I can get the hell out of here."

Thomas has a Twin Peaks experience and meets his evil twin. "I think I can...DESTROY YOU, MOTHERFUCKER!" he said with a chipper glint in his eye.

"This is the worst disaster in the history of Sodor," the sheriff said, "A simple action switch track over yonder could have prevented this. It's like our entire community was designed by a backwards child. And wait...what's leaking from that cargo box...is that nuclear waste? Oh, the humanity!"

"Hic," said Sir Topham Hatt cheerfully, from his place in the gutter.

Chuck Effing Cheese

Guess what! We went to Chuck E. Cheese yesterday.

It went super well.

Oh fine, Noah actually did have fun -- his own Noah-ish kind of fun; the kind that involves just sort of wandering around aimlessly and suspiciously, perhaps occasionally deigning to go down a slide....

Pausing, of course, to read the Toddler Zone Safety Guidelines on the wall first.

Or to play with the boring toys that other kids ignore in favor of the ones with GIANT SMASHING HAMMER THINGS...

Seek the tomb of a knight a pope interred? WTF?

Or to watch the giant singing rat from a respectful distance...

Hey now! You're an all-star! Get your game on! For $20 in tokens, go play!

Or to just be the all-around most serious child ever to set foot in the place...

Did everybody here get their Kid Check hand stamp? Yes? Good.

He liked sitting in some of the rides, but freaked out if I put a token in and made it move or light up or do absolutely anything at all. It was kind of sweet, though, the way he would frantically sign ALL DONE ALL DONE and then run off in search of more stationary fun, like a row of HIGH CHAIRS WHEE AWESOME!

So I took our tokens and played some skeeball. Maybe a lot of skeeball.

I got pretty good.

Total winnings: 615 tickets, including a few ill-gotten ones since we got there right after they opened, and apparently the games all shoot out a strip of tickets when they get turned on (dirty!), so we casually wandered around and collected all the extra tickets. We scored about 85 tickets this way, which is enough for a very small harmonica or four Tootsie Rolls.

My 615 tickets got me some kind of rubbery choking hazard that sort of resembles a lion, a Spider Man coin purse because Noah clearly needs something to keep all his dollah bills and bizness cards in, and a hard pointy plastic dinosaur that is now his most cherished possession ever and the reason for the photo at the top of this post. He kept dropping the dinosaur behind the TV cabinet and then weeping over the loss, then I would retrieve the stupid thing only to have him intentionally drop it again. And then he would cry. Because. He dropped the toy he wanted. On purpose. Over and over. Again.

(What was I saying about two? What?)

Chuck E. Cheese. Guaranteed to moderately amuse your child, bring out the compulsive gambler/skeeball hustler in yourself, and leave both of you cranky and overstimulated for the next two days straight. Oh, and the pizza might give you the bends. Maybe. So I've heard.

(Ugh.)

Hey kids! It's Camel Toe Dance Party USA!

Weekend: Horror Movie Edition

Molarball: The Return; or Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Eat SpaghettiOs Again

Also known as Friday, the day Noah had a coughing/choking/hacking-lung fit right after lunch and projectile vomited a plate of pasta, half a cheddar cheese stick and an entire sippy cup of juice. And if you think this stuff looks gross coming from the bottle, just wait until you see it come BACK UP. Exorcist remakes, take note.

We've got incoming molars, people. And we are just fucking THRILLED about it.

Birthday Party: Part Two: The Planninging; or Take Your Fucking Theme And Shove It Up Your Fucking Ass

Also known as Saturday, the day it occurred to me that Noah's birthday party was exactly one week away and my extremely laid-back, jebus-lord-he's-only-two approach to planning the stupid thing meant that THERE HAS BEEN NO STUPID PLANNING.  Half the guests are vegetarian, the other half are extremely picker eaters and/or children, yet another half (shut up, the math works in my head at least) are Jason's gourmet foodie friends and when I suggested burgers on the grill and a couple boxes of veggie burgers Jason's show-offy dinner-party-loving head exploded, sort of like when I told a friend that no, Noah's birthday party doesn't have a theme. Am I supposed to have a theme?

I did break down and order a cake. I was planning to make one myself, but in this world-gone-mad-for-televised-fondant-competitions, I started to get a little stressed out over how I would decorate the cake, knowing that my nerves would get the better of me at the exact wrong second and I would end up with a cake that read HAPPY BIRTHDAY NAOH!

So I went to a bakery -- the kind of bakery that sells cakes shaped like handbags and baby carriages and my God, did I want to go in and request some boobs -- and ordered a damn cake.

"What's your theme?"

"GAH!"

I finally remembered that the eVite I sent out had monkeys on it, so...monkeys! Our theme is monkeys. Everybody will get a banana when they leave, and this way I don't have to worry about all the dog poop in the backyard.

BLOOD OMFG BLOOD

(This portion of our entry is dedicated to mah betches over at MamaPopTalk, who helped me ruthlessly ridicule Big Gay Top Chef Dale for being unable to operate a mandoline. The irony, it buuuurns. And has stubby thumbs.)

We had friends over for dinner Saturday night, so I decided to try out a new potato recipe. I was having issues with our mandoline, to say it nicely, and managed to nick the hell out of my finger. Jason sighed the sigh of the martyred saints and offered to take over the slicing duties.

I told him I also needed some onion slices.

Our onions were too big for the safety holder part. I told him I would just use a knife.

He started slicing the onion on the mandoline anyway.

I watched.

My brain twitched.

I shrieked.

STOP SLOW DOWN STOP STOP STOP FINGER FINGER

Anyway. That's how part of Jason's thumb ended up on our kitchen counter and why we spent the rest of afternoon at the emergency room. On the drive there (which seemed to take FOREVER, what with all the old people driving 15 mph and OMFG THIS IS A HOSPITAL ROUTE ASSHOLES, SOMEONE COULD BE IN LABOR) I tried to brainstorm other, dumber injuries (anything that involves a toilet, nudity, or something stuck up your ass) to make Jason feel better, or at least distract everybody from the Monty-Python-like fountain of blood gushing from his hand.

I did not put his thumbtip on ice or anything (I actually just stood there and screamed at it until Jason tossed it down the garbage disposal), and eventually I left him at the hospital so I could go home and finish my potato and onion gratin (it needed to bake for an hour!).

They gave him a tetanus shot and he took a cab home. Our dinner guests enjoyed the gratin.

My personal mandoline injury, made infinitely less cool by a Dora the Explorer Band-Aid.

So You've Gone and Dropped Your iPhone in the Toilet: Some Handy Steps & Pointers

1) If you have not yet dropped your iPhone in the toilet, consider NOT dropping your iPhone in the toilet. This is a solid course of action, in my opinion, and one that can be easily achieved by not keeping your iPhone in your back pocket, unless your back pocket has a button, but if that's the case, you probably aren't cool enough to own an iPhone in the first place, no?

If displacement of object x (where x = a fucking expensive phone) is forced by the downward velocity of object y (where y = your pants), object x will swan dive out and away from object y, with the trajectory being affected by the natural gravitational pull of object z (where z = the shitter) by a fairly simple factor of  murphy's law < just your flipping luck + manufacturers' warranty = VOID.

In layman's terms: pants down + phone falls = splish splash.

2) If you have already dropped your iPhone in the toilet, you do need to immediately remove it from the toilet, then proceed directly to step 3.

3) Wash your hands.

4) Stare at phone in horror for a few seconds and assess the damage. The screen will probably be reminiscent of scrambled porn.

5) Turn the phone off, if you can. Hit the button on the top of the phone and hold it until you see the fancydancy SLIDE TO POWER OFF option on the screen, which of course you will not see, because of the aforementioned scrambled porn. NOT THAT I KNOW WHAT THAT LOOKS LIKE, OR ANYTHING.

     5a) Try holding down the home button AND the top-of-phone button at the same time until the phone shuts off.

6) Don't turn it back on. Unless you are Amy. Who turned it back on.

7) Don't stick pens in the side of the phone in a vain attempt to open it up. Unless you are Amy. Who stuck pens in the side of the phone in a vain attempt to open it up.

8) Go online and read about dunking the phone in rubbing alcohol or Everclear. Do not do this because it sounds scary, but consider taking a shot of Everclear. Or 12.

   8a) Sink into blissful alcohol poisoning coma, where you will never have to think about the time you dropped your iPhone in the toilet, forever and ever, fluffy clouds and harps.

9) Put the phone down. Walk away. Wring hands, rent garments, gnash teeth.

10) Do not walk back to the phone after 10 minutes and attempt to start it back up. Unless you are...oh, you know where this is going.

12) Stick the phone in a cup of rice. Fret for a few minutes re: basmati or Arborio or possibly some Uncle Ben's Cheddar Rice with Broccoli before settling on the long grain enriched.

13) Remember, perhaps, that you did not ever finish peeing.

14) Confess to husband. Get shrill and hysterical over the idea that you may have to get an non-iPhone phone, because you cannot afford another iPhone, but doesn't he understand? You had an iPhone! You cannot go back now! What are you supposed to use, a fucking Razr? 

    14a) Consider prostitution.

15) Call it a day and go to bed. Tell reflection in mirror that it is not worthy of owning an electric toothbrush, much less an iPhone. Tell non-reflected-self to go to hell.

16) Wait at least 24 hours before turning the phone back on. Whoop with joy at the sight of the Apple logo. Holler with ecstasy at the sight of the homescreen. Weep with gratitude when the phone connects to the network with a fat, full signal.

17) Touch the Phone icon to call you husband and tell him that he doesn't need to divorce you after all.

18) Touch it again when nothing happens.

19) Oh.

20) Safari? Mail? iPod? Settings? Anyone? Bueller?

21) Determine that only the top half of the screen is working. Congratulations! Your iPhone is now a $600 texting/calendar/Google Mapping device.

    21a) Oh, and YouTube. You can still totally get the sneezing panda video.

22) Turn phone off and flee the room, decide to give it another 24 hours, also wonder what the odds are that the Apple guys at the Genius Bar will believe you that my heavens, I have no idea what happened, or if the iPhone comes with a tracking chip like George's book on Seinfeld, which in that case they will simply hand the phone back to you and say, I'm sorry, but this phone has been in the toilet, and we cannot help you.

(Ahh, this old chestnut. I should really have this photo on a macro by now. Ctrl+Alt+Fuckthisshit)

Or: An Important Reminder Why I Should Probably Shut Up About Flight of the Conchords Already

So the first thing you need to know about going to see Rent on Broadway is that there is a crazy line before the show. It snakes around the block. It crowds the sidewalk and yes, all those people have tickets.

As I mentioned on Friday, we actually saw Rent before, ages and ages ago. Probably the first cast after the original cast left. It was good. We clapped and I cried and then we got on with our lives. I don't believe there was a line.

As we approached the theater Jason went pale. Jason hates lines. He hates anything remotely resembling a line.

"We have tickets, right?" he asked, "That's just the line for those cheap tickets, right?"

I glanced at my watched and shook my head. "The lottery already happened."

We wandered through the crowd towards Will Call -- past many people fanning themselves with Ticketmaster printouts -- and I tried to figure out what I was missing here. There was no line at Will Call. We all had assigned seats. They never start the show until everybody is seated.

I collected our tickets from Will Call and joined what turned out to be a secondary line out on the sidewalk: the Line For People Who Are Not Waiting In That Goddamned Line.

"Is it like, the Star Wars line?" I asked. "Are people doing it for...fun?"

We stood in a line outside the Uptown Theater in DC once, for the first Star Wars movie. We waited for an hour and a half and Jason was ready to claw his face off, especially after he had the brilliant idea of escaping to Starbucks, only to discover there was also a line there, and he returned coffeeless and kind of wild-eyed and subsequently hated the movie.

"Lines are never fun." Jason said. "There's got to be another reason."

The Goddamned Line started to move, and people at the front of the line started to whoop and cheer, and some of the people in the Line for People Who Are Not Waiting In That Goddamned Line stepped forward and casually assimilated into the Goddamned Line. Nobody protested or complained, and Jason grabbed my arm and we followed suit, even though I cringed and died a little because holy crap, we just cut in line. We could go to jail! Imaginary Authority Figures! Noooo!

At this point I was still beyond baffled about The Line, because seriously, what's the point of getting someplace all early to stake out a spot in line if you aren't even going to defend that spot in line?  Start a fight! Roll your eyes! Register a disgruntled HEY! Something!

But I decided that maaaaaybe it was time to Let It Go. Just a little bit, anyway.

I should back up and mention that the primary reason we decided to see Rent again was the return of two of the original cast members, and because I was able to get us third-row seats. They were too far over to the right side of the stage to be considered awesome, but still. Third row! We could actually see faces! We might get sweat on!

Sigh.

Ok. So the first two center rows of the orchestra section are sold for $20 right before the show in a lottery system. I knew about this, but never had the patience or the copious free weekends in New York to participate. And then -- this I did not know -- other unsold and "undesirable" seats get sold at a deep discount to anybody who didn't win a $20 seat. The majority of these undesirable seats are the close-in rows at the far ends of the theater. Next to our seats. Since we were total suckers to pay full price. Suckers! N00BS! Yuppie scum!

Whatever, I liked our seats. Some of the blocking on-stage meant we spent some scenes staring at people's backs, but hey, I can watch the movie at home. I came to see Mimi's ass in close-up and to see if she wears Spanx underneath those blue pants. (Negative. Hot damn!)

The problem with our seats were all the people sitting right around our seats. We were smack-dab in the middle of the crazy fanatic section. The woman next to me had seen the show 350 times. A few of them were planning to enter the lottery again that night. The girl behind me was breathlessly and EXTREMELY LOUDLY explaining every possible obstructed view we might encounter to two "virgins" behind her.

"WE'RE GOING TO MISS MIMI'S ENTRANCE BECAUSE SHE COMES IN RIGHT HERE BUT DON'T WORRY SHE COMES RIGHT UP TO THAT MICROPHONE LIKE TWO SECONDS LATER BUT WE WILL MISS IT RIGHT WHEN SHE WALKS ONSTAGE FOR THOSE TWO SECONDS BUT HEEEEE WE'LL GET A GREAT VIEW OF ROGER'S ASS YOU WILL KNOW WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT WHEN YOU SEE IT HEEEEEEE I WANT TO HAVE HIS BABIES."

At this, the woman next to me piped up that his wife might object to that, and then the entire group started chiming in about how beeeeeeautiful his wife was and she's soooooo sweeeeeet, what, you never met her? Oh, I met her. She's sooooo nice.

There's always something a little cringe-worthy about witnessing unabashed fandom like that -- when it's like listening to a toddler explain their favorite episode of Elmo's World but you know, coming from a fairly grown-up person. I was once completely obsessed with Les Miserables, but I was 12. And believed that only Eponine really understood me, what with that fucking popular rich girl Cosette stealing her crush and all.

At one point they all quibbled over who had fewer straight friends.

Anyway, the show finally started (one girl said it always starts about 10 minutes late, but was quickly corrected by someone else who said no, seven minutes late), and the girl behind me promptly burst into tears. She cried through most of the first act, and then screeched out I LOVE YOU!!!to Anth0ny when he stepped close to our seats to deliver a line. Anytime Anth0ny or Ad@am did anything, half the audience erupted into ear-splitting screams. It was bedlam. They were rock stars. They were the Beatles.  (The poor girl from  American Idol was all, "Fuck, man, I bet Frenchie Davis didn't get upstaged like this.)

The thing is, they were amazing. If you haven't seen the show...oh man. RUN. DON'T WALK. Particularly if you can see the current cast. I cried through most of the second act -- not the blubbery omg squee sobs of the girl behind me, but just a sort of constant leaking from my eyeballs that I could not control. I noticed the one other guy in our section wiping his eyes several times.  Jason turned to me after a couple songs and simply mouthed the word "WOW."

In the end, though, we were the only ones sniffling. The fans around us were too preoccupied with getting the standing ovation started (standing up before the final notes of the show were even over) and then hightailing it outside to wait for autographs. And I wondered how effective the show could possibly be after 25, 50 or 350 times. At what point do you stop seeing the story and hearing the songs and start only seeing the tiny mistakes in timing and hearing the missed notes?

Maybe never? Or maybe around the same time you find yourself arguing over whether John or Frank or Harry was the better conductor with somebody during intermission?

I think twice is enough for me, though.