Ode to XKCD

My favorite webcomic is XKCD. He’s not not always G-rated, but I really appreciate his alternate views on life.

I especially appreciate his views on parenting.

Basically, it’s the same views of parenting that the Bean and I share.

This view of raising children is basically known as the “We’ve got a baby. Crap. Now what?” parenting method.



As you can see, this comic illustrates how I basically feel about being given a little human to raise. It’s an awful lot of responsibility for someone who never managed to finish building the Lego castle.

I keep waiting for it to feel natural, for my inner parent to rise up and shine.

After all, parenting should come naturally, right? I mean, people have been doing it for millenia. Just quit worrying, go with your instincts, and everything should turn out okay.

Unfortunately, XKCD made a rather true-to-life webcomic about this, too:



Yeah.

Anyways, it’s my favorite time day (DRAGONMONKEY BEDTIME! WOO-HOO!!!!), so I’m off to go cook a delicious, from-scratch meal for my beloved husband.

Well, either that or I’m going to go order pizza. I’ll let you guys decide which is more likely.

Oh, and, Aarenex?

This one’s for you.

Ode to Pregnancy


ODE TO PREGNANCY
Sung to the tune of “Home on the Range”
Lyrics by me

Oh, give me some time
And I’ll sing you a rhyme!
Of the “miraculous bliss” of pregnancy
Where seldom is heard
A favorable word
Because I’m busy puking desperately!

Oooooooh! The wondrous joys of gestation!
I never thought that I’d miss my menstruation!
For some chocolate I yearn
But it’d give me heartburn
I’m daydreaming of my husband’s castration!

The world’s stinky and smelly,
Get your hands off my belly
No, I’m just fat–I’m not having twins.
I’m large and rotund.
Yes! I’m SURE there’s just one.
You’re hilarious. You’re such the comedienne.

Ooooo, how I love being with child!
My back hurts. I’m grumpy and riled.
My cankles are swelling
My acne’s rebelling
Exaggerating? No, this is me being mild.

I’m nauseous and spotty,
And I live on the potty,
Because my bladder’s the size of a pea
My waistline’s expanding,
I’m annoyed and demanding
What the hell? Is that a stretch mark on me?

OOOooo! I love being knocked up!
My cha-chas have gone up two whole cups!
Sadly so has my rear,
My thighs, and I fear…
Did I just feel a backroll? Ayup.

When I finally give birth
I’ll know that it’s worth
All this pain and discomfort supreme
But until that day,
I’ve just one thing to say:
GO AWAY. Unless you’re bringing ice cream.

Ooooooo The wonderous joys of gestation!
I never thought that I’d ever miss menstruation!
For some chocolate I yearn
But it’d give me heartburn
Yes! I’m daydreaming of my husband’s castration!

Just a couple more days….



So, last January I landed a job as an Executive Assistant. For those of you that don’t know, an Executive Assistant is just a fancy way of saying Personal Assistant. At any rate, right now my life revolves around helping my boss and his family get out the door for an extended business trip. I’ve been pulling 12 hour days here for almost a week, and that number is expected to rise until D-Day, which is early next week.

Sorry I’ve been MIA, but after 12 hours of sitting in front of a computer screen frantically typing away while at work, the thought of sitting back down in front of one when I get home is so distasteful it makes my teeth hurt. I’ve got a couple of stories that are in rough-draft form, so as soon as I go back to a more normal schedule, I’ll see what I can do getting back on the ball of updating this blog at least every other day.

In the meantime, I’ll just leave you with this comic from xkcd.org . Enjoy his archives. Hopefully that’ll keep you busy until I come back… since I know you guys don’t actually have lives and just sit around pining for my next intermittent post. Right? Right.

Haiti

And on a more serious note….

You guys should check out my friend’s blog . He recently returned from Haiti and has a pretty interesting story to tell. He’s one of those rare individuals that manages to have both intelligence AND common sense.

From what I understand he was originally supposed to be going down there with an aid group, but once he arrived he disagreed with their methods so he decided to just strike out on his own. He teamed up with another guy from that group, and the two of them struck out into Haiti, helping where they could, sleeping at stranger’s houses, and only returning to the airport to gather supplies before heading out again.

If you’ll pardon my bluntness, that takes a PAIR.

He’s perfectly suited for the helping out down there— he’s a contractor/part-time photographer that used to be an EMT, and he grew up in the wilds of all different kinds of countries (his parents were missionaries.)

I’ve got a big fat crush on his wife— in my next life I’m going to be her. She’s that woman who has 3 kids who are so intelligent, mature, and well-behaved that the whole family looks like it just crawled out of a 1950s tv show. She’s intelligent, beautiful, has a killer set of legs, always has a clean house, and can whip out a desert for 10 at a moment’s notice.

I’d hate her, but she’s the kind of person who got up early this year on Valentine’s Day to hand out Valentine’s Day cards to widows that she knew.

At any rate, check out his story. He has some pretty interesting insights on what Haiti REALLY needs. In addition, he’s a pretty killer photographer so he has a lot of neat footage.

By the way, if you live in the SoCal area, you can help Haiti out in a pretty serious way by donating blood at St. Joseph’s hospital. His wife would like to go with him on this next trip (she’s a registered nurse), but they can’t afford to do it unless it’s on paid time off. If you donate blood to the hospital in her name, they’ll credit it to her for paid time off. Email me for details if you’re interested.

And as for another plug for Haiti…

There’s an orphanage down in Haiti that’s pretty well-known and does GREAT work. If you live in the Colorado Springs area they are begging for volunteers to come by and help box up a shipment of donations that they’d like to get out by March 1st so it can hopefully arrive before the rainy season sets in.

If you have time, read some of the rest of her blog— although I would like to warn you, reading her accounts on the inept handling of the displaced kids gets me so mad that I see red. Did you know that not only are they stopping all adoptions out of Haiti (I can understand that part), but they aren’t allowing the existing orphanages to house any of the orphans?! It’s not like they’re going to secretly adopt them out… They’ve stopped all adoptions in the entire country! So, instead of having them in places that are set up to take care of infants and young children, they’ve got all of those children sitting out there in tent cities while places like that orphanage are laying off staff because there’s not enough work for them.

WTH.

The government approved and rushed through about 500 adoptions that were already in the works when the earthquake hit in order to make room for the new orphans… and now beauracracy and red tape has come to a stand still. You’ve got kids crammed into tents in the worst-hit area of Port Au Prince, and places like God’s Littlest Angels (who has mtrained medical staff, beds, supplies, workers, etc.) BEGGING to take some in to get them out of the tent city… and red tape is getting in the way.

Okay, I’ve got myself all worked up into a lather again. I think it’s time I jumped off my soapbox.

What the Heck is This????

So, like the complete narcissist I am I was googling “Blog of Becky” to see if anyone had talked about me.

Yes. I’m stuck up. WHATEVER. Y’all know you do it, too. There’s just something so gratifying about it…

At any rate, I found this WEIRD mirror site of my blog… it’s kind of my blog… but not quite…. It’s the same content, only it’s now in weird, semi-illiterate Jane Eyre/Pride and Prejudice type English.

Can anyone tell me what this is?

My REAL blog post

Strange, vaguely mesmerizing version of my blog post

Ugh. Now that I’ve reread both of them, I think the weird version is actually more fun to read. How sad is that?

James spent the terminal digit hours of my agitate hollering out, “You dislike black people! You told me you wouldn’t help me any beverage because I’m BLACK!” at the crowning of his lungs to anyone who happened to stray nearby him. Ha, ha, ha. I guess it serves me correct for making the jape in the prototypal place. Karma had its revenge, and I scholarly a rattling priceless lesson.

It did serve me right for making the jape, and in such a prototypal place. SIGH. I definitely scholarly a rattling, priceless lesson.

Thank you, Google Analytics

I really needed to know that the last few people who clicked on my site were googling:

Big Sexy Girls

How not to live your life as a stripper

I want to know Edwina the Emu’s babies

and for the WIN:

Jailbait blogs

Yoga Girl the Vomit Master

Scriiitch

“Ow.”

Scriiiiiiiitch….

“Ow.”

Scriiiiiiiiiitch.

OWWW.”

In retrospect, maybe it wasn’t as funny as it seemed at the time. Still, at the time, I thought it was fantastic. Four a.m. that morning found the peace of our bedroom disrupted by the quiet yelps of my husband as he attempted to shave— without soap.

Or water.

In the closet.

With only an old, dark mirror to guide him.

From the bathroom, where he had been peacefully shaving just a few moments before, came the sounds of retching as one of my coworkers deposited VAST quantities of semi-digested alcohol into our toilet.

And from the bed came the quiet sound of my snickering. I couldn’t have been happier.

I know that sounds evil, but in order to really understand my predicament, let me bring you back to the night before.

At my work, one of the bartenders is a gorgeous young redhead. I mean GORGEOUS. She’s got the long, wavy red hair (the exact color of hair I’ve always daydreamed of having), and a figure to die for. I mean, really… the girl’s a figureskater. And heavily into yoga. She’s a yoga figureskater with red hair.

I can compete with many things, but a yoga figureskater with long, indecently beautiful red hair is not one of them.

At any rate, due to a story that’s not mine to tell, Yoga-Girl from work needed a place to crash for the night. So I offered her a spot on my luxurious Ikea couch, and hurried to do my sidework and get off work. Some of the other bartenders/waitresses at the bar were feeling sorry for her, so they did what many people in the bar industry do to cheer other people up: They bought her free drinks.

Lots of free drinks. Many, many, hard-liquored shots.

When you take into account that Yoga-Girl weighs all of 115 pounds soaking wet, well… needless to say, by the time I got off of work she ended up being poured into the passenger seat of the car, more than anything else.

I raced for home as smoothly as I could (to avoid giving her whiplash), calling The Bean on the way to ask him to straighten up. By the time we arrived, she was more than ready for sleep, and collapsed on my sofa gratefully.

I finished up a few chores, and was just getting ready for bed, when I realized my mistake.

There, draped like the centerfold from a dirty magazine, on MY couch, was a gorgeous, yoga-master-figure-skating young redhead.

And there I was, fat and jolly on the other couch (the maternal version of St. Nicholas), muffin-top (muffin atomic bomb?) spilling over my extremely tight size 14 jeans as I used my oh-so-sexy breast pump.

What was I thinking, bringing home this gorgeous young treat for my husband to compare me with?

Yoga-Girl was dressed in a halter top and a long, tight, sexy skirt.

I was about to change into my mom’s old pajama bottoms she had loaned me until I could lose some of the baby weight and fit back into my own cotton, plaid pj pants.

Yoga-Girl’s tousled red hair lay about her in cascading waves, emphasizing the youthful glow of her taut skin.

The baby had spit up on my hair before I put him down for the evening, and I had just rinsed the ends off in the sink before throwing it back in a scrunchy. So I had damp, slightly crunchy spit-up hair.

Yoga-Girl’s sexy skirt kept magically traveling up her smooth, toned thighs, despite my embarrassed efforts to pull it down for her. And when I say that it was traveling up, let me assure you: Yoga-Girl’s sexy little lacy underwear matched her bra.

SIGH.

The night was unfortunately hot, so no matter how many times I tried to cover up Yoga-Girl, she continually threw off the covers. And again, unfortunately for me, the next morning was the morning that The Bean has his absurdly early math class, which meant he would be traipsing right past Yoga-Girl in her sexy, drunken pose on the couch on his way out the door at 4 am. With my luck, she’d probably have her sexy little skirt up around her ears by the time he left for work.

Disgruntled and drowning in jealousy, I realized that there was nothing I could do, so I went to bed.

At 3:30 am, like usual, The Bean’s alarm went off. He took his shower, dressed in his work clothes, and was just about to start shaving when…

In through our bedroom flew Yoga-girl, diving headfirst at our only toilet. The Bean had just enough time to gather his shaving supplies before last-night’s alcohol binge began its noisy journey into the toilet.

With a sigh, The Bean went to our only other available mirror to finish his shaving.

Scriiiiiiiitch. “Ow.”

HRAAAAAAAUUUUUGH!!!!!” (vomit sound)

Scriiiiiitch. “Ow.”

HRAAAAAAUUGGGGGH!!!!” (splatter)

Thank you, Lord.

Handy Manny

I stumbled across a new cartoon a few minutes ago while channel surfing: Handy Manny.

Handy Manny is geared towards toddlers and pre-K students, and features a handyman named Manuel who, along with his trusty little toolbox of talking tools, runs around town and fixes things.

In the few minutes I managed to watch this thing, Manny spent some time talking half English, half Spanish to his tools, danced to some Mariachi music blaring in his workshop, and then got a phone call to go fix something.

This show annoys me. I know the makers of the cartoon were aiming for multiculturalism and problem solving, but I can’t help feeling like they fell short of the mark. I kind of felt like I was watching a really clean, really cutesy racist joke in motion.

Meet Manny, the unskilled laborer! Watch him dance to loud Mexican music in his shop, and then run around trying to make a buck fixing things for people!

Really? They REALLY can’t see how that looks? At any moment, he was about to be joined by his friend Oscar the orange-seller and Hugo the Home-Depot loiterer. I changed the channel before they all popped open a bunch of coronas and started cooking things in foil on the BBQ.

I See Dumb People

For those of you that don’t know, my wonderful hubby (The Bean) is a finance manager at a car dealership. The car industry being what it is in today’s recession, he still sells a few cars on the side, mostly from repeat business. People like to buy their cars through him because he’s straightforward, no-nonsense, and because he has biiiig soft brown eyes that inspire a lot of trust. In fact, this is pretty much what he looks like:

In addition to his deceptively-innocent eyes (love you, babe!), he’s also a popular choice because he goes the extra mile for his customers.

Anyhow, onto the story: The other day, early in the morning, The Bean received a phone call from a very angry, very irate woman he had sold a car to the previous week. Apparently, she was stuck on the side of the freeway because the new (used) car she had just purchased from him was a LEMON.

Angry, irate woman: (rant,rant,rant,rant) and the car is now STUCK on the side of the road, because it has run out of COOLANT.

The Bean: What do you mean it has run out of coolant?

Irate Woman: There’s no coolant, and I’m stuck on the side of the road in rush-hour traffic! This is ridiculous! You sold me a car with some sort of a leak!

The Bean: How do you know it has run out of coolant? Are you sure that’s the problem?

Irate Woman: Because it says it right there on the gage! The coolant gage is on empty, THAT’S HOW!!!

The Bean (knowing full well there’s no such thing as a coolant gage): Coolant gage? Are you sure it couldn’t be the gas gage?

SILENCE

Irate Woman: I have to go. (CLICK)