Yesterday I took my mom to Tyrolean Inn for dinner for Mother’s Day. It’s really cool to get to hang out with my mom like we’re old friends over a glass of wine. Well, I had beer but still.

As Cassidy gets closer and closer to that age where I stop being her best buddy and start becoming the #1 enemy, it’s comforting to know that one day we’ll get to be friends again. And that one day she’ll take me out to dinner for Mother’s Day and when the bartender recognizes her but can’t place her she’ll respond, “That’s probably because I’m sober.” It might not have been the best thing to say in front of my mother but it WAS THE TRUTH. And I couldn’t tell what the slight smile on her face meant for sure but it totally reminded me of the I-love-you-even-though-you-are-SO-GROUNDED look. Suddenly, I had the nostalgic urge to turn around and slam a door in her face just for old time’s sake. Instead we sat down and had a really nice dinner and laughed and gabbed and drank and enjoyed ourselves.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom.

It pains me to write this because I really liked Hoda before today but: What the fuck were you thinking?

Seriously.

I always liked to believe that reporters were given a bad rap. That when people claimed they were taking things out of context, or that practically no background work had been done prior to a segment, that they were just over exaggerating or being whiny jackasses. But today you pretty much proved that the douchebag reporting reputation that has developed on network television is 117% true. You get an extra 17% because seriously, Kathy Lee Gifford? Whoever thought THAT was a good idea deserves an extra 17% of COMPLETE FAIL.

When you interviewed Heather Armstrong today on your show it was clear to me from the very beginning that both of these common failings were true. First Hoda mentioned a passage from one of Heather’s blog posts saying:

Hoda: “You wrote on your blog that you worry that your daughter will resent you because all of her business being put out there…”
Kathy: “Potty training and all those things that are kind of private.”

Well Hoda and Kathy, had you taken time to ACTUALLY READ THAT BLOG POST you’d have quite possibly also mentioned the rest of the passage that explains EXACTLY how Heather feels about it and, in fact, thinks in the long run that Leta will CHERISH all those stories.

From furniture Elhovothat dooce post:

You will resent me for your curfew and the fact that I will not let you leave the house in that mini-skirt. You will resent me for showing up to your school in my pajama bottoms and for raising my hand in a PTA meeting when I hadn’t brushed my hair. You will text message your friends to tell them that I am the most horrible person on the planet because I’m forcing you to study for your exam in the morning. You are going to think that I cannot possibly understand what you are going through, and you will slam the door in my face.

Will you resent me for this website? Absolutely. And I have spent hours and days and months of my life considering this, weighing your resentment against the good that can come from being open and honest about what it’s like to be your mother, the good for you, the good for me, and the good for other women who read what I write here and walk away feeling less alone. And I have every reason to believe that one day you will look at the thousands of pages I have written about my love for you, the thousands of pages other women have written about their own children, and you’re going to be so proud that we were brave enough to do this. We are an army of educated mothers who have finally stood up and said pay attention, this is important work, this is hard, frustrating work and we’re not going to sit around on our hands waiting for permission to do so. We have declared that our voices matter.

If that doesn’t profess the exact opposite of what Kathy Lee was trying not-so-eloquently to imply, that how dare you think about writing about your daughter online and *gasp* POSTING HER PICTURE, I don’t know what could possibly GET IT THROUGH YOUR HEAD short of getting in your face and shouting it through a blow horn.

Had Kathy taken FIFTEEN minutes of her time to ACTUALLY RESEARCH the topic and the person who she was interviewing she might have actually walked away from the interview without looking like the stereotypical, uneducated, assumptive “reporter” that she’s trying to play on TV. And if I had a dollar for every time that I was at my grandmothers and was forced to listen to Kathy talk about her sweet, precious Cody on NATIONAL TELEVISION I too could quit my day job and find something else to pass my time. Like publicly slamming other mothers from my make believe pedestal way up there. *points up*

Both of you are mothers and today you failed your fellow mothers across the nation. You could have turned that segment into a resounding statement about the exploding growth of a community of beautiful, powerful, motivated and brilliant women bloggers. Fellow mothers banding together to form a wave of support for complete strangers, for the mother down the street, for the mother sitting silently on the park bench, for the mother quietly suffering from postpartum depression, for the mother who’s so confused and upset and doesn’t know who to turn to… but instead you chose to go the sensational route.

Seriously. Shame on both of you.

-Anna (proud mommy blogger) Hirsch

Remember that project I mentioned in the last blog and how it was only going to take a few more days and then I’d get it up and share it with the world? Well, I figured that I’d add some content and wrap it up this weekend for a BIG DEBUT on Monday and… then I was bitten by the Spring Cleaning Bug and spent the majority of the weekend scrubbing floors, throwing things away and organizing my socks by color order.

I get the OCD like drive to CLEAN AND ORGANIZE and NOTHING is safe. At this point I have my bedroom, bathroom, closets, desk and laundry room CLEAN. Clean but not completely organized the way I’d like them to be. So I’m going to continue with the initial cleaning spree this afternoon and hit the guest bedroom and bathroom and then eventually move downstairs. After the whole house has been obsessively washed (Seriously, I actually do the toothbrush to the baseboards thing) then I’m going to go BACK through and get rid of MORE stuff that didn’t make it out the door in the original sweep.

I’m tired of having so much STUFF. I am a complete pack rat, I can admit it, but there comes a point when ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. Like, that parking pass from San Francisco that was sitting on my nightstand from dinner a MONTH ago? Why was I keeping that?!

Plus! I’ve been getting some cute things for the house from Etsy that I want to get hung up, pictures from Maui LAST YEAR, and I bought new ink to get up some pictures from THIS year, and wedding pictures and SO ON. But I just CAN’T hang pictures in a dirty room. I just can’t. I get out the nail and the hammer and as I go to swing, the shoe laying in the corner is like:

Shoe: OMG WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?! DON’T YOU SEE ME LAYING OVER HERE JUST… LAYING!
Me: Stupid shoe. Do you see what you’ve turned me into!?

Sometimes I think I should keep these internal dialogues to myself. heh

In closing, I’ll leave you with Cassidy and her cute new haircut and her orange smile. She might not look as much like me as I’d like, but dammit I’m raising her to love and cherish her crazy side. It’s the least I can do.

PS - A HUGE thanks to the Intense Debate crew who got my comment links to work in IE. Those guys are SO GREAT about communication and customer service and if you haven’t tried it yet, please go and do it now!

Comments links are showing up in IE again! The folks at Intense Debate seriously rock!

My iPhone was stolen.

Okay, I know. I just heard you gasp and felt the disdain as you painfully exhaled and shook you fist at the sheer injustice. No, really.

It happened about a week ago and at the point in time I realized it was REALLY gone, I actually felt the machine rip the connection out of the back of my skull, flush me down the toilet and I was being woken up aboard the Nebakanezer shaking in the fetal position. It was really horrible. Seriously.

So I’ve lived the last week with no cell phone. I connected the 8525 up to our WiFi and browsing with it was like getting out of a Ferrari and being forced into a Geo Metro. It was slow and clunky and only had one browser available at a time and I had to click 14 different times to get Windows Mobile to check my email and I JUST FELT SO DIRTY.

I decided to not even activate a new SIM card for the 8525. I’d just try to live through the nightmare of being detached from the entire world for as long as it took me to come up with the $399 to replace it. Then I decided to make all the money online because I felt like an asshat because TECHNICALLY, I left the phone on the sink in the bathroom and I realize that it’s completely my fault that it was taken (well, my fault and the theiving bitch face that took it) and I’m not going to dent the bank account because of my dumbassness.

Then my mom INSISTED on buying it for me. Seriously.

Mom: So it never turned up?
Me: Nope, I’m just going to raise the money to replace it.
Mom: Come over, I want to take you to the Palo Alto Apple store and buy you a new one.
Me: Absolutely not! It’s YOUR birthday! I’m not going to let YOU take ME shopping on YOUR birthday!
Mom: I’m 60 years old, but I will STILL BOX YOUR EARS. I want my kids to be happy. That’s what I want for my birthday.

Ooooookay. So we went to Palo Alto and I got my mom some really cute earrings and lunch and… there are no iPhones in stock. ANYWHERE. In the entire Bay Area. At all.

She ended up ordering me one later online but I’m wondering if I should have waited to get one because clearly if they are out of stock at so many places, ESPECIALLY in the stores that surround the Apple complex, then they are obviously about to drop a new phone. I’ve read rumors of 3G and built in GPS but damn… I don’t think I can go a month or two or three till it comes out. I’m dyin’ over here.

Anyway, again, I’m sorry that I’ve been so quiet lately. I’ve been working on other projects and now that they are getting closer to completion I’ll have more time available again to stop neglecting aflux. Ohhhhh, did you see how I dropped the OTHER PROJECT bomb to leave you all guessing at the end of the post? Oh yeah, I did it! Is it killing you yet?

Yes, I’m alive. Yes, I’m a total asshat for not posting in so long. I don’t really have an excuse except that I know when I sat down to write The Maui Post it would have been like 75 paragraphs and 98,954,837 words and: DAUNTING.

I just don’t think I have the attention span right now. But things! They have been happening! Like, THINGS!

I promise, cross my heart, hope to die, that I will get a REAL post up for you all tomorrow. In the mean time, how are you all? What’s new with you? How about this crazy weather? Leave a comment and let me know!

*hugs*

So, I color code everything. At work I have the same form but for three different tax ID’s so to make it easy to identify when I’m ALT tabbing faster than the speed of light, they all have different color bolded fonts. When people see this they immediately ask me to email them because they see how much easier it is. Then there are the people that take them and use them and then SAVE THEM to MY shared drive account with THEIR info.

LEARN HOW TO USE SAVE AS, PEOPLE. Save it to YOUR folder on the shared drive, or YOUR hard drive. But don’t change MY FORM and then save it so that when I open them all in the morning, they are all WRONG.

GAH! So I come in this morning and before I even have time to grab a cup of coffee, OH LOOK! Somebody changed my form again! I happened to have that form sitting on my desk because it was a stat request and they all have pass across my desk so I can sign them before checks can be cut.

Me: Hey, coworker. I just wanted to let you know that the CB form is available in the S drive in a CB folder so you can use that one and save it to your own S drive folder or your hard drive.
Her: Okay?
Me: Well, you used mine, and I just wanted to let you know.
Her: No I didn’t.
Me: Oh, because my form has been changed and has all of your information on it.
Her: I didn’t use it.
Me: And the information from a patient account you worked yesterday.
Her: I didn’t use your form!
Me: Okay. Well somebody used my form and submitted it and then noted the account with your name then.
Her: I didn’t use your form.
Me: I have the form in my hand with your signature on it.
Her: …

So I password protected all my forms. Even the one’s I don’t really care about because: ACCOUNTABILITY. Apparently nobody has it any more and I’m creating a weak spot on my desk from continuously pounding my head against the same spot.

Over and over.

Daily.

*Title Quote: Robert Orben

Reese started a cool meme called Macro Monday. I love love love macro photography and will take any chance I can get to put that 100mm lens onto my camera. I figured since I took this shot this weekend of Peanut I’d use him for my first submission.

This little guy is a constant ball of loving energy. He is so sweet and loves to play and cuddle and sleep under your covers. Amber and Lupe kept threatening to send him home with me and seriously, if Ben would not have COMPLETELY FREAKED OUT, I’d have totally stolen him and brought him with me. Although Amber and Lupe act tough, I know they’d be lost without him around because you can’t spend more than 2 minutes with this dog without completely falling him love with him.

Last year, like ever single year before it, I swore that this year I’d make a more solid effort to beautify the outside world by planting… things? And I’ve planted lots and lots of things over the years! And most of them have died. Because planting things I can SO DO! Really well, actually. But killing things? I totally OWN at that.

This year I figured I’d just start out slow by trying to better NOT KILL the things around my house that are already growing. Like, the rose bushes in front of the living room window that I hate so much. But just because I hate them doesn’t mean that I should just let them die, right? Well, not until I rip them out of the ground which I plan on doing as soon as I can get over my debilitating fear of The Thorns. And it doesn’t mean that I’m going to let them fall prey to the 15,326,224,889 Aphids that are EATING THEM ALIVE. I know that’s the number because Ben questioned me so I counted.

So when he asked if I wanted to ride with him to OSH the other day I went along because I had… a plan. A plan which involved 1,500 vicious, blood thirsty and highly trained ladybugs.

Unfortunately I can’t give out all the specific details of Operation Eat The Aphids Till They Are Dead because it’s a highly protected and privately funded program and the fact that you simply know the name is putting you in danger. GRAVE DANGER! As a matter of fact, I might have to kill you when you’re done reading this.

What I can tell you is that Phase One of OETATTAD has turned out a little differently then I’d expected. When checking on The Clone Army the day after they were deployed I found that Phase One, previously dubbed Search and Destroy, has turned into Find The Nearest Leaf And DO IT.

Like, you know, DO IT. IT! SEX PEOPLE, I’M TALKING ABOUT SEX HERE!

Everywhere I looked there were vicious, blood thirsty and highly trained ladybugs DOING IT. All over the yard! Fraternizing among the troops! I didn’t ask, I shouldn’t have been told! What was going on!?

So I did what comes natural to any General in time of great despair. I grabbed my camera! I wasn’t able to post all the pictures because I was kind of worried that flickr would tag me as “unsafe”. Some of these pictures are pretty graphic, people. Five sets of ladybugs DOING IT in one frame is a little much for the general public to take on. Besides I’m pretty sure I can sell those to Playbug or Bugs Gone Wild for some good money.

All I can do not is hope that Phase One: Find The Nearest Leaf And DO IT leads to Phase Two: Feast Of The Ladybug Larvae.

PS - Nine days till MAUI!!!!! (That’s how I say Maui now. In all caps with 5 exclamation points behind it. Sometimes I even vocally BOLD it.)

MAUI!!!!!

*Title quote: Robin Williams

My dad and fabulous step-mom came to visit us while my dad had some business to do locally this week. I seriously love them both and and am still laughing a little at some of the stories I got to hear while we caught up. There is never a dull moment when we get to hang out with them. It’s all laughing and funny and light hearted and “pull my finger” and horrible dirty bathroom humor.

I could go on here about how much my dad likes to tease me about talking about poop. Although I think that for every time I might have mentioned poop in casual conversations he’d point out how much I like to talk about poop TWO TIMES. So really, he talked about it at least twice as much as I did.

But! Instead I’m going to post this fantastic video that my step-mom, Cherie, and step-sister, Danielle, worked so hard on and and are, rightfully so, very proud of. I’m proud of both of them too and wanted to publicly thank them for reminding me once again how thankful I should be for all the simple pleasures I’m afforded. When I see things like this it causes me to really reevaluate my goals and “dreams” and consider just how selfish I’ve become when I think about “what’s important in life”. Because having lots of makeup and Coach purses and the latest and greatest techy toy should NOT be what I value most. And I’m not particularly sure what I SHOULD be focused on but I know that realization and reflection are the first steps and hopefully, in time, the rest will follow.

So sit, watch, listen and when you’re done go leave them some love.

*Title Quote: Helen Keller

I should apologize for the fact that I haven’t written a blog entry in, like, two weeks but I’m really not sorry. I was sick. NON FUCKING STOP. The Plague, then The Great Belly Ache of 2008, then The Sinus Headache To End Them All. And in the midst of all this Ben had the audacity to also catch The Plague and be sick and not able to take care of me in a manner in which I require while I’m clearly in need. All I ask is that he bows to my every whim and desire. He acts like this is ASKING A LOT but really, how hard is it to hand feed me chocolate ice cream while scrolling webpages for me and wiping my nose? Seriously.

Married life has been fabulous despite that one shortcoming my husband has and I have now officially acquired his last name. And can I just say that WHAT THE HELL!? Women get the shaft on that end. Social security cards, drivers license, ATM cards, bills, email addresses, online accounts, credit cards… all of them have to be contacted, forms filled out, phone calls made, then you have to call them all 29 times and yell at 17 different people to get them to understand that ALL I WANT TO DO IS CHANGE MY NAME!

Anyway! I’ve been reading all your blogs and will get around either today or tomorrow to comment and show you all much love. But I missed you all lots and lots and lots. I’d make you all cupcakes and hand them out if you were here to try and grovel but you aren’t… so I’ll just eat one in each of your honor instead!

And because I feel bad for not showing all my girls love, I command you all to go tell Brit stop being so reclusive because I miss her, poke Ashley’s belly and wish her well on her upcoming arrival, go welcome Sewwy to the inked skin family, congratulate katy on her new geek job, remind Becca that mommyhood is full of sickness and booboos and she ROCKS at it, give Steen the love and positive thoughts she needs in the wake of losing her beloved Riddle, and tell Jenn to stop blogging so much because she’s making all us slackers look bad.

There are many more of you, but I’ve reached the point at which I’ve become too lazy to continue.

*big hugs*