Showing posts with label HA HA I'm Dumb. Show all posts
Showing posts with label HA HA I'm Dumb. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Saturday, June 1, 2013
I bet you're jealous of my brains
Any time I do something dumb, I immediately think of YOU. My faithful readers. Let us laugh in the folly that is my brain.....
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
I... am not smart
It's raining today. Raining pretty hard, actually. This morning I was at work, waiting for my client, who was late. She owns an art studio for kids, it's really cool, actually. Anyway, she was late, and I decided to dash out to grab some coffee while I waited; the coffee place is right across the street from her studio.
As I was headed out the door, I saw her pulling up, so I went into "hurry up" mode. I ran across the street, got my coffee, and then went back to cross the street again. But there were cars coming from both directions and I was impatient to get back. I stood there for about half a minute, yelling at cars inside my head, and getting totally soaked and annoyed.
It wasn't until I opened up her studio door and went inside that I realized why I had gotten so wet while waiting for cars to pass: I was holding my soaking wet umbrella under my arm.
But at least I remembered my coffee. And, in the end, that's what's important.
As I was headed out the door, I saw her pulling up, so I went into "hurry up" mode. I ran across the street, got my coffee, and then went back to cross the street again. But there were cars coming from both directions and I was impatient to get back. I stood there for about half a minute, yelling at cars inside my head, and getting totally soaked and annoyed.
It wasn't until I opened up her studio door and went inside that I realized why I had gotten so wet while waiting for cars to pass: I was holding my soaking wet umbrella under my arm.
But at least I remembered my coffee. And, in the end, that's what's important.
Sunday, November 18, 2012
The ebbs and flows of poor personal hygiene
Earlier today I was sittin' ... just sittin'.... you don't need to know where.... and I was looking at my arms and noticing that I have a ton of freckles and sun spots and shit. I remember asking my doctor about them years ago, she said they're there "because you're old." I love her. That's just something that happens to your skin when you've spent your life in the sun, it develops freckles and spots and other unsightly things.
But today I noticed something was new; there was a new spot I hadn't seen before. I spotted it and immediately thoughts of melanoma went through my head. That's the kind of cancer that killed my brother so everybody in my family is hypersensitive about any changes to our skin. I inspected it and saw that it was dark and symmetrical in color and shape, so probably not melanoma. Probably just a new freckle that's there because I'm old. I pondered the new spot on my arm, thinking about life and how everybody ages; one day my kids will be my age and I'll probably be dead; one day they'll have kids of their own who will also be my age... the circle of life, the constant ebbs and flows of it all. Very existential stuff for a Sunday morning.
But then I moved and I bumped my arm onto the side of the counter and suddenly half of my new spot was gone! So, I scratched at it and the rest of it just came right off.
Huh.
I guess it was food. Last night I made duck with a miso glaze and my spot was the exact same color that the duck skin had turned out to be. A nice, deep dark red, almost black; it really was very tasty.
So much for the ebbs and flows of life, this was just some food I'd dropped on myself while I was eating, about 12 hours earlier.
But today I noticed something was new; there was a new spot I hadn't seen before. I spotted it and immediately thoughts of melanoma went through my head. That's the kind of cancer that killed my brother so everybody in my family is hypersensitive about any changes to our skin. I inspected it and saw that it was dark and symmetrical in color and shape, so probably not melanoma. Probably just a new freckle that's there because I'm old. I pondered the new spot on my arm, thinking about life and how everybody ages; one day my kids will be my age and I'll probably be dead; one day they'll have kids of their own who will also be my age... the circle of life, the constant ebbs and flows of it all. Very existential stuff for a Sunday morning.
But then I moved and I bumped my arm onto the side of the counter and suddenly half of my new spot was gone! So, I scratched at it and the rest of it just came right off.
Huh.
I guess it was food. Last night I made duck with a miso glaze and my spot was the exact same color that the duck skin had turned out to be. A nice, deep dark red, almost black; it really was very tasty.
So much for the ebbs and flows of life, this was just some food I'd dropped on myself while I was eating, about 12 hours earlier.
Thursday, August 16, 2012
The funniest thing I've seen all week AND more about how dumb I am because you guys like that kind of thing
First things first:
GERMAN KITTY WATERMELON!!!
DIES IST MEINE WASSERMELONE! LASSEN SIE MEINEN ALLEIN WASSERMELONE!
Apparently there was a study about Triclosan, the active ingredient in things that are anti-bacterial, which said something like it gets into your muscles and makes those muscles not work anymore. I don't know, I'm hazy on the specifics. So, hubs sent me to the store to get new soap that would replace everything in our house that is anti-bacterial. (Hey, wouldn't it be great if there was some kind of... oh I don't know... regulation? Which made it so the products we purchase were safe to use and wouldn't cause our muscles to totally degenerate until we're dead and we wouldn't have to throw out everything we had already purchased and go buy brand new stuff? Wouldn't that be awesome? [Oh my god, she used the word "regulation" !!! BUUUUUUURN HER!!!])
So, I'm at Target (of course) and I'm browsing their soap products, and I pick up one and start to read the ingredients to see if there's any triclosan in it. Now... I have really bad eyes; my vision is just complete shit, so I'm standing there in the aisle, squinting my ass off, and I shit you not, I spent at least FIVE MINUTES reading all the ingredients in this product, looking for triclosan. See those small capital lettered words there right above the bar code and after the word "ingredients"? Those are the ones I read. Squinting. In the aisle. Took me five minutes to get through them.....
I looked much like this, I would assume:
The good news is that I found out later there's no triclosan in this particular product.
GERMAN KITTY WATERMELON!!!
DIES IST MEINE WASSERMELONE! LASSEN SIE MEINEN ALLEIN WASSERMELONE!
Apparently there was a study about Triclosan, the active ingredient in things that are anti-bacterial, which said something like it gets into your muscles and makes those muscles not work anymore. I don't know, I'm hazy on the specifics. So, hubs sent me to the store to get new soap that would replace everything in our house that is anti-bacterial. (Hey, wouldn't it be great if there was some kind of... oh I don't know... regulation? Which made it so the products we purchase were safe to use and wouldn't cause our muscles to totally degenerate until we're dead and we wouldn't have to throw out everything we had already purchased and go buy brand new stuff? Wouldn't that be awesome? [Oh my god, she used the word "regulation" !!! BUUUUUUURN HER!!!])
So, I'm at Target (of course) and I'm browsing their soap products, and I pick up one and start to read the ingredients to see if there's any triclosan in it. Now... I have really bad eyes; my vision is just complete shit, so I'm standing there in the aisle, squinting my ass off, and I shit you not, I spent at least FIVE MINUTES reading all the ingredients in this product, looking for triclosan. See those small capital lettered words there right above the bar code and after the word "ingredients"? Those are the ones I read. Squinting. In the aisle. Took me five minutes to get through them.....
I looked much like this, I would assume:
The good news is that I found out later there's no triclosan in this particular product.
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Sunday, April 22, 2012
And no information was actually imparted
When I told hubs this story, his response, after laughing at me and face-palming, was the title of this post.
It was Sunday morning, it was early, I hadn't had any coffee or even gotten out of bed yet, and Child 2 randomly asks me "Mama, are you pregnant?"
I probably could have been offended by that, but I was pretty sure he didn't actually know what that means. So I said "No. Do you know what that means?"
"Yes," he said. "But it's hard to explain." That means he had no idea.
I didn't realize how right he was, though, and suddenly I'm faced with having to explain something that's really hard to explain to a 6 year old. Sunday morning. Early. Before coffee.
And so I say "It's, uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh............ it's where babies come from. It's how you make new people. A baby grows in a Mama's tummy for 9 months and then it comes out and it's a baby."
Damn I'm good. I should win parenting awards. People should write books about me. Instructional manuals!
"Do you understand?" I asked, hoping this was the end of it.
"I think so," he said.
PHEW.
"But how do you know when it starts?" He asks.
Shit.
"It, uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh............ You, uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.................. "
Shit.
.............. long pause ...........
uncomfortable laugh
.............. long pause ...........
"You go to your doctor and she tells you."
He looks confused. I pray for hubs to enter the room and save me. He doesn't.
"We'll talk about it some more later," I say, officially putting an end to the torture.
That seemed to do the trick. I'll have hubs fill in some of the blanks.....
It was Sunday morning, it was early, I hadn't had any coffee or even gotten out of bed yet, and Child 2 randomly asks me "Mama, are you pregnant?"
I probably could have been offended by that, but I was pretty sure he didn't actually know what that means. So I said "No. Do you know what that means?"
"Yes," he said. "But it's hard to explain." That means he had no idea.
I didn't realize how right he was, though, and suddenly I'm faced with having to explain something that's really hard to explain to a 6 year old. Sunday morning. Early. Before coffee.
And so I say "It's, uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh............ it's where babies come from. It's how you make new people. A baby grows in a Mama's tummy for 9 months and then it comes out and it's a baby."
Damn I'm good. I should win parenting awards. People should write books about me. Instructional manuals!
"Do you understand?" I asked, hoping this was the end of it.
"I think so," he said.
PHEW.
"But how do you know when it starts?" He asks.
Shit.
"It, uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh............ You, uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.................. "
Shit.
.............. long pause ...........
uncomfortable laugh
.............. long pause ...........
"You go to your doctor and she tells you."
He looks confused. I pray for hubs to enter the room and save me. He doesn't.
"We'll talk about it some more later," I say, officially putting an end to the torture.
That seemed to do the trick. I'll have hubs fill in some of the blanks.....
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Every. Single. Time.
How often does this happen to you? EVERY FUCKING DAY, MAYBE???
My shitty art skills are particularly shitty right now so I used rage faces for this one. Note: I didn't draw these faces, I totally stole them!!!!! OH, speaking of shitty art skills, I officially forfeit all 45 of my Draw Something games. I'm sorry, I got in over my head (AGAIN) and it's too overwhelming, I can't do it. I was letting Child 2 play my games for a while (again.... REALLY sorry about that) so he might continue on with that, but I don't have it in me anymore so feel free to cancel your games with me. I know, I know.... I SUCK! 
Monday, January 30, 2012
I win at drunk baking
I love to cook. LOVE. IT. I particularly like to make elaborate and complicated things that require many steps. I also like to drink when I do these things. It's just more fun that way!
This weekend I got it into my head that I wanted to make Samoas; the Girl Scout cookie with coconut and chocolate. They're just cookies, right? How hard can that be? (Long time readers may now be remembering what has happened in the past when I have said "how hard can that be?" when baking was involved).
So, I went online and found a recipe. It turned out that there were many, many, MANY steps involved in this particular cookie process, but I like a challenge, so LET'S DO THIS!!! I went off to the store to buy my ingredients, and while there I also picked up a bottle of $5 champagne, because... well... because it was $5. I have no standards, anyway. Plus it was only $5.
First I had to make the cookies. Then I had to make the caramel. Then I had to toast the coconut. Then I had to mix the coconut and the caramel. Then I had to melt the chocolate. Then I had to put the caramel coconut on the cookies. Then I had to put the chocolate on the cookies. The whole process took about 5 hours and an entire bottle of $5 champagne.
During the process, I posted a few pictures to Twitter, because I enjoy sharing my failures in picture form, and here are what some of my helpful twitter pals had to say about it:
Hubs also helped out with "So you decided to go with the poop theme, did you?"
When all was said and done, they may have looked weird, but they were fucking tasty. Who cares what something looks like, right?? It's what's inside that matters. Here's a picture I drew of Child 2's face after he had eaten one:
Seriously, how can you argue with results like that???????
Anyway here's what an actual Samoa cookie looks like:
.... And here's what MY cookies looked like:
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Every Monday so far this summer
This is Child 2's first real summer with camp, before this he's just gone to his preschool which was year-round. Since I've never had an NT kid in summer camp before, I figured I'd just do what everybody else with an NT kid seems to do: to send him to 4,000 different camps. Kids need variety, right? Otherwise they get bored? (Answer: Probably, but TOO FUCKING BAD). I made an elaborate schedule (on a spreadsheet!) and picked camps where he would attend with his buddies.
Okay. If you have littler kids than mine and you think this might be a good idea, let me please be the first to tell you that this is not a good idea. Experienced parents will already know this, because they've done this already and very quickly realized what a stupid fucking idea this is. Reasonable-minded people may now also be asking themselves: "who in their right mind would send their kid to a new fucking place every week?" The answer? Only an idiot would do that, apparently. (HI!
)
The first day of camp is always the learning day, when you find out what the schedule is, what the rules are, where to park for pick up and drop off, etc. If you go some place different every week, however, every Monday you're starting all over again from the beginning. That's not something you think about, though, when you're an idiot and planning an elaborate social/camp schedule (on a spreadsheet!!) for your 6 year old.
That will definitely be something you think about next year, though. Because never again.
Child 1 is going to only one camp this summer; his fancy schmancy social skills camp, which is far away and at the top of a great big hill. He needs to be there by 9:00 every morning.
Child 2 goes to a different camp every week, in various different locations all around town. He, too, needs to be there by 9:00 every morning.
See, I bet you're already starting to see the problem here. That's probably because you're smarter than I am!
I've taken a map of Berkeley and I've labeled some pertinent locations, for you visual learners. Items in red are Child 2's various camps; there are actually more than 4 but some are in the same locations, even though they're different camps. I don't know... don't ask.
Every camp has a different schedule and a different policy for tardiness. Some say "be here no later than 9:05 or you'll miss the bus!!" or "be here no later than 9:10 because we lock the doors ahahahahahahaha!!!" and some say "meh, no worries. Be here when you can." But since every Monday is our first day, I never know what the policy actually is until we get there.
So, every Monday morning I have to race across town to drop off Child 1 (he can be there as much as 15 minutes early, so he always goes first). There is traffic, there is chatter... it is stressful.
And then I have to race back across town to wherever our new location is and hope that it's okay for us to be a little bit late.
... and then? I still have to get myself to work, usually by 10:00 but sometimes 9:30
This past Monday, however, was the Mother of all Mondays. Child 2's camp is waaaaaayyyyyy the fuck up in the hills above Berkeley, in a goddamn regional park for chrissakes (#4 on the map up there) with these twisty turny mountain roads. I had no idea where I was going so I'd printed a variety of different driving instructions. Except? It was really foggy. Like... really really fucking foggy. It's hard enough trying to see street signs that are buried behind piles of trees in the middle of the goddamn wilderness, but I couldn't even see more than a foot in front of me. So I got the GPS going, but it was telling me things like "make a U-turn whenever legally possible," when I KNEW I was headed in the right direction.
It was frustrating. To say the least.
I got him there eventually; about 20 minutes late. Luckily it was one of the "meh, whatever" camps so he didn't miss anything. But then I still had to find my way back down the mountain, of course.....
Next year? One camp. Maybe two. And that's it.
Okay. If you have littler kids than mine and you think this might be a good idea, let me please be the first to tell you that this is not a good idea. Experienced parents will already know this, because they've done this already and very quickly realized what a stupid fucking idea this is. Reasonable-minded people may now also be asking themselves: "who in their right mind would send their kid to a new fucking place every week?" The answer? Only an idiot would do that, apparently. (HI!
)The first day of camp is always the learning day, when you find out what the schedule is, what the rules are, where to park for pick up and drop off, etc. If you go some place different every week, however, every Monday you're starting all over again from the beginning. That's not something you think about, though, when you're an idiot and planning an elaborate social/camp schedule (on a spreadsheet!!) for your 6 year old.
That will definitely be something you think about next year, though. Because never again.
Child 1 is going to only one camp this summer; his fancy schmancy social skills camp, which is far away and at the top of a great big hill. He needs to be there by 9:00 every morning.
Child 2 goes to a different camp every week, in various different locations all around town. He, too, needs to be there by 9:00 every morning.
See, I bet you're already starting to see the problem here. That's probably because you're smarter than I am!
I've taken a map of Berkeley and I've labeled some pertinent locations, for you visual learners. Items in red are Child 2's various camps; there are actually more than 4 but some are in the same locations, even though they're different camps. I don't know... don't ask.
Every camp has a different schedule and a different policy for tardiness. Some say "be here no later than 9:05 or you'll miss the bus!!" or "be here no later than 9:10 because we lock the doors ahahahahahahaha!!!" and some say "meh, no worries. Be here when you can." But since every Monday is our first day, I never know what the policy actually is until we get there.
So, every Monday morning I have to race across town to drop off Child 1 (he can be there as much as 15 minutes early, so he always goes first). There is traffic, there is chatter... it is stressful.
And then I have to race back across town to wherever our new location is and hope that it's okay for us to be a little bit late.
It was frustrating. To say the least.
I got him there eventually; about 20 minutes late. Luckily it was one of the "meh, whatever" camps so he didn't miss anything. But then I still had to find my way back down the mountain, of course.....
Next year? One camp. Maybe two. And that's it.
Monday, August 1, 2011
An encounter at the bus stop
I'm chatty. I'm a very chatty person. No, I'm serious. I know you're shocked by this revelation, but it's true. I chat with people all over the place. You know how when you're waiting in line at the bank and you randomly start joking around with the person in line behind you about how slow the line is moving? That's me; I'm that person behind you. And I'll pull everybody else waiting in the line into the discussion, too. I do this everywhere I go; I'm constantly chatting people up.
I have a really bad memory. Like... REALLY bad. After you and I leave the bank, if I run into you the next day, I will have no idea who you are. You will look very familiar to me, because I remember faces for some reason, but I will have no idea who you are or how I know you. It's not personal; it's not that our encounter didn't make an impact. I remember the funny conversation I had in line at Wells Fargo yesterday, I just don't remember that it's you I had the conversation with.
You can imagine the trouble this might cause me. This isn't a huge town, so the people I meet will inevitably turn up again and again, and for some reason everybody else seems to have a better memory than I do. It's a problem.
Anyway, this past Friday I was picking Child 2 up from camp and I had one such encounter. It was quite typical of how these things generally go for me and I thought you guys might enjoy laughing at and also with me. My internal dialogue is represented below in purple and the always awesome Comic Sans.
I have a really bad memory. Like... REALLY bad. After you and I leave the bank, if I run into you the next day, I will have no idea who you are. You will look very familiar to me, because I remember faces for some reason, but I will have no idea who you are or how I know you. It's not personal; it's not that our encounter didn't make an impact. I remember the funny conversation I had in line at Wells Fargo yesterday, I just don't remember that it's you I had the conversation with.
You can imagine the trouble this might cause me. This isn't a huge town, so the people I meet will inevitably turn up again and again, and for some reason everybody else seems to have a better memory than I do. It's a problem.
Anyway, this past Friday I was picking Child 2 up from camp and I had one such encounter. It was quite typical of how these things generally go for me and I thought you guys might enjoy laughing at and also with me. My internal dialogue is represented below in purple and the always awesome Comic Sans.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
"HA HA I'm Dumb"
So, guys, I've been thinking... (oh, by the way, today on Twitter, in response to my "I don't know about you guys but anarchy is looking pretty good to me right now," somebody took offense at my use of the word "guys," because, as a woman, she doesn't like to be called that, and she said "Every time we assume masculine as the standard, we uphold the structure of patriarchy." I don't know her at all, and I assume she's a nice person just stating her opinion, so I went with the non-ridicule response option and I said that I call everybody "guys," men, women, kids and cats alike. However, since probably the majority of my readers here are female, I'd just like to profoundly apologize for the part I play in upholding the structure of the patriarchy in today's sexist society, with my use of this potentially pejorative term. Please accept my humble gratitude for your continued viewership, despite everything I've said that has subjugated you.)
So, guys, I've been thinking.... I can't help but notice that the posts of mine that you guys tend to like the best are the ones where I'm talking about some boneheaded thing that I've done. I figure that's because it bring us all, you guys and I, closer together as human beings. We realize, in the sharing of these farcical and sometimes humiliating stories of mine, that you guys and I are all just human beings, making our way through this life of ours (your guys' lives, and my own) and that nobody is perfect. You guys and I can laugh at the absurd, but when we do it together, we realize that we're not really actually all that alone on this big, dark, lonely planet of ours.
No, that's horseshit, of course. Really it's just funny to laugh at the crazy lady with the curly hair when she does wacky things. And I completely agree with you! And I realize that a lot of you guys are relatively new readers and probably haven't read any of my old stuff, but I've been talking shit about myself since day ONE! And so, as a present from me to you guys, I have created a new tag and called it "HA HA I'm Dumb" and have painstakingly gone through every fucking post that I've ever written, looking for the posts about my stupidity, and have applied that label to old posts that I think you guys might enjoy reading. There are 20 of them. TWENTY.
And THEN, guys, I started thinking that, I mean, really, I've been doing crazy shit much longer than I've been blogging about it. In fact, probably about once a day for much of my adult life I've found myself in a situation where I'm screaming at myself inside my head "FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY STOP TALKING NOW!" And I went back through the pasta strainer that is my memory and came up with a few more stories for your enjoyment!
And so, I present to you guys.... HA HA I'm Dumb.... Through the Years.
Guys.
1986: I was 16 years old and had just started driving. I was pulling out of some parking lot, and this dude started honking at me. Well, I was 16 and hot shit (and not one to be held down by the patriarchy) so I was like "fuck you, honker!" and drove off. But he kept following me, and he kept honking, and I was like WTF??? until he pulls up alongside of me and told me that I had left my wallet and all the rest of my belongings on top of my car and had been leaving a trail of wallet items behind as I smugly drove down the road.
1992: I had just met my now husband. At the time I had one of these funky alarm clocks with this really big snooze button on top, so that when it went off all I usually had to do was just to flail my arm in its general direction and hit the snooze button. One morning we were sleeping and the alarm went off. I guess I wasn't used to sharing a bed with somebody, and I was facing the wrong way, and instead of reaching out and smacking the top of my alarm clock, I reached out and smacked my eventual husband (really hard) on the top of his head. His response? "Thanks." Almost 20 years later and that still makes me giggle.
2009: It was the last day of school for Child 1; it had been kind of a rough year. I had made enemies throughout the district, including the Superintendent, the Assistant Superintendent, the Public Information Officer and, well, pretty much anybody that worked at the school district, really. I was walking through the hallway on that last day (I'm not sure why I didn't have Child 1 with me, since school was all over, but for some reason I didn't) and as I'm walking I spot ahead of me the Assistant Superintendent, who I can't fucking stand. For the purposes of this story, let's call him Mr. Smith. So, I spot Mr. Smith coming towards me, he says "hello Ms. Smo" and I say "uhhhh. yeah..." or something equally awesome, and before we're able to pass each other, I duck into the classroom of a teacher friend of mine. You know... to hide! I go up to her and I say "GOD. Mr. Smith is out there, I fucking hate that guy!" And then I see her face, and she's looking over my shoulder, with this kind of expression:
And I turn around to look and... of course... Mr. Smith had followed me into the room and had heard what I had just said about him. I mumbled something or other and bolted from the room. Oy.
2010: Child 1 hates the Food Network for some reason, which sucks because we used to watch a lot of it. One day he came into the room while we're watching Rachel Ray put EVOO on things and insisted that we turn it off. I ask him what he wants to watch, instead, and he says "kickball." Do they even have that on TV? I flipped through the channels looking for something sportsy and I see that the Stanley Cup is on. Thinking that the Stanley Cup is soccer, I say "Let's watch soccer! It's just like kickball!" Everybody is happy until the commercial ends and we quickly learn that the Stanley Cup is, in fact, hockey. I say "oh, it's hockey, not soccer. Well, it's kind of like kickball, except they don't kick stuff and there's no ball."
I'm sure there are more stories, but be glad that I even came up with four of them. My mind is like a steel trap that somebody has riddled with bullet holes. It's like a fishnet stocking. It's like swiss cheese. It's like.... oh, that's enough.... you get the point.
So, guys, I've been thinking.... I can't help but notice that the posts of mine that you guys tend to like the best are the ones where I'm talking about some boneheaded thing that I've done. I figure that's because it bring us all, you guys and I, closer together as human beings. We realize, in the sharing of these farcical and sometimes humiliating stories of mine, that you guys and I are all just human beings, making our way through this life of ours (your guys' lives, and my own) and that nobody is perfect. You guys and I can laugh at the absurd, but when we do it together, we realize that we're not really actually all that alone on this big, dark, lonely planet of ours.
No, that's horseshit, of course. Really it's just funny to laugh at the crazy lady with the curly hair when she does wacky things. And I completely agree with you! And I realize that a lot of you guys are relatively new readers and probably haven't read any of my old stuff, but I've been talking shit about myself since day ONE! And so, as a present from me to you guys, I have created a new tag and called it "HA HA I'm Dumb" and have painstakingly gone through every fucking post that I've ever written, looking for the posts about my stupidity, and have applied that label to old posts that I think you guys might enjoy reading. There are 20 of them. TWENTY.
And THEN, guys, I started thinking that, I mean, really, I've been doing crazy shit much longer than I've been blogging about it. In fact, probably about once a day for much of my adult life I've found myself in a situation where I'm screaming at myself inside my head "FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY STOP TALKING NOW!" And I went back through the pasta strainer that is my memory and came up with a few more stories for your enjoyment!
And so, I present to you guys.... HA HA I'm Dumb.... Through the Years.
Guys.
1986: I was 16 years old and had just started driving. I was pulling out of some parking lot, and this dude started honking at me. Well, I was 16 and hot shit (and not one to be held down by the patriarchy) so I was like "fuck you, honker!" and drove off. But he kept following me, and he kept honking, and I was like WTF??? until he pulls up alongside of me and told me that I had left my wallet and all the rest of my belongings on top of my car and had been leaving a trail of wallet items behind as I smugly drove down the road.
1992: I had just met my now husband. At the time I had one of these funky alarm clocks with this really big snooze button on top, so that when it went off all I usually had to do was just to flail my arm in its general direction and hit the snooze button. One morning we were sleeping and the alarm went off. I guess I wasn't used to sharing a bed with somebody, and I was facing the wrong way, and instead of reaching out and smacking the top of my alarm clock, I reached out and smacked my eventual husband (really hard) on the top of his head. His response? "Thanks." Almost 20 years later and that still makes me giggle.
2009: It was the last day of school for Child 1; it had been kind of a rough year. I had made enemies throughout the district, including the Superintendent, the Assistant Superintendent, the Public Information Officer and, well, pretty much anybody that worked at the school district, really. I was walking through the hallway on that last day (I'm not sure why I didn't have Child 1 with me, since school was all over, but for some reason I didn't) and as I'm walking I spot ahead of me the Assistant Superintendent, who I can't fucking stand. For the purposes of this story, let's call him Mr. Smith. So, I spot Mr. Smith coming towards me, he says "hello Ms. Smo" and I say "uhhhh. yeah..." or something equally awesome, and before we're able to pass each other, I duck into the classroom of a teacher friend of mine. You know... to hide! I go up to her and I say "GOD. Mr. Smith is out there, I fucking hate that guy!" And then I see her face, and she's looking over my shoulder, with this kind of expression:
And I turn around to look and... of course... Mr. Smith had followed me into the room and had heard what I had just said about him. I mumbled something or other and bolted from the room. Oy.
2010: Child 1 hates the Food Network for some reason, which sucks because we used to watch a lot of it. One day he came into the room while we're watching Rachel Ray put EVOO on things and insisted that we turn it off. I ask him what he wants to watch, instead, and he says "kickball." Do they even have that on TV? I flipped through the channels looking for something sportsy and I see that the Stanley Cup is on. Thinking that the Stanley Cup is soccer, I say "Let's watch soccer! It's just like kickball!" Everybody is happy until the commercial ends and we quickly learn that the Stanley Cup is, in fact, hockey. I say "oh, it's hockey, not soccer. Well, it's kind of like kickball, except they don't kick stuff and there's no ball."
I'm sure there are more stories, but be glad that I even came up with four of them. My mind is like a steel trap that somebody has riddled with bullet holes. It's like a fishnet stocking. It's like swiss cheese. It's like.... oh, that's enough.... you get the point.
Monday, July 25, 2011
The time I almost hit myself in the head with a dead mouse
So, it was Friday night, late, and I was making my final rounds through the house, turning off lights and such, when I encountered 2 things in my TV room: 1. A dead mouse, and 2. A bowl of cheerios that had been spilled all over a chair. I took pictures of them both, assuming I had something for a "Things I Find In My House" post.... little did I know that fate had other things in store for this particular blog post. I would show them to you, but, nobody really needs to see a picture of a dead mouse, right? So you can imagine what it looked like. Plus, I have no doubt that you can also imagine what a spilled bowl of cheerios might look like.
I stood there for a few minutes trying to figure out what to do about this situation. Normally what I would do would be to call hubs and make him deal with the dead mouse, and then get one of the kids to come and clean up their mess on the chair. However, everybody was already in bed, hubs had the flu, and I figured I should just deal with it, myself. But what was I supposed to do?
Then it came to me! I'll take the bowl, where the cheerios used to be, and I'll use it as a scooping device, of sorts, and I'll take the dead mouse outside! Awesome! Oh, did I mention that it was Friday night? And that I was drunk? Yeah. That fact isn't necessarily important to the outcome of this story, but it should be pointed out, nonetheless.
So, I do the scooping thing, and I head into the backyard, and suddenly I'm being followed by about 5,000 (murderous) cats who are very interested in what I might be carrying in this bowl. Hey, what do you have there, human? Can I see? Can I just check it out? Just real quick like? And suddenly I have this sense of urgency, that I must get rid of this mouse as soon as I possibly can. I'm still not sure what I'm going to do with it; I actually considered composting it, but that would have required a whole lot more effort than I was interested in at the moment, so, instead, I head to the back of our backyard, to the fence that separates our property from the neighbors, and.... observe.......
And then I went inside and went to bed.
fin
I stood there for a few minutes trying to figure out what to do about this situation. Normally what I would do would be to call hubs and make him deal with the dead mouse, and then get one of the kids to come and clean up their mess on the chair. However, everybody was already in bed, hubs had the flu, and I figured I should just deal with it, myself. But what was I supposed to do?
Then it came to me! I'll take the bowl, where the cheerios used to be, and I'll use it as a scooping device, of sorts, and I'll take the dead mouse outside! Awesome! Oh, did I mention that it was Friday night? And that I was drunk? Yeah. That fact isn't necessarily important to the outcome of this story, but it should be pointed out, nonetheless.
So, I do the scooping thing, and I head into the backyard, and suddenly I'm being followed by about 5,000 (murderous) cats who are very interested in what I might be carrying in this bowl. Hey, what do you have there, human? Can I see? Can I just check it out? Just real quick like? And suddenly I have this sense of urgency, that I must get rid of this mouse as soon as I possibly can. I'm still not sure what I'm going to do with it; I actually considered composting it, but that would have required a whole lot more effort than I was interested in at the moment, so, instead, I head to the back of our backyard, to the fence that separates our property from the neighbors, and.... observe.......
And then I went inside and went to bed.
fin
Friday, July 22, 2011
Birthday cake of doom
Yesterday was Child 2's birthday, as you know. If you don't.... whatever. Yesterday was Child 2's birthday. And since I'm the best mom ever, I decided to make him a cake from scratch. He doesn't like frosting or anything fancy, he just likes plain old yellow pound cake. How hard can that be, right?
Well, I'll tell ya.
I'm a pretty good cook, but I'm a shitty baker. I mean, I can whip up a delightful Chicken Tikka Masala, but for some reason whenever sugar and eggs and flour are involved, things tend to go horribly, horribly wrong.
That, of course, didn't stop me from downloading a "very simple" pound cake recipe from Allrecipes.com and giving it the ol' college try, whateverthefuck "ol' college try" even means. (What does that expression mean? Is it about blow jobs? Because that's the only thing I can think of that might work there.)
Now, it was the boy's birthday, and he was supposed to spend the day at camp and I was going to spend the day trying to make a pound cake (and also Chicken Tikka Masala!) but when I dropped him off in the morning, he said that his head hurt. And his stomach hurt. And he felt like throwing up. And then it felt like his head was throwing up. And he couldn't go to camp. And he needed to get back in the car and go home with me. And "but it's my birthday!" Okay, I get it. He didn't want to go to camp, he wanted to spend his birthday hanging with his Mama. FINE. I had a meeting so I made him go for the morning and then I went back to pick him up after lunch.
Unfortunately that meant that if there was to be cake making, he was going to have to help me. And, I'm not sure if I've mentioned this about him before, but.... he's really not very helpful. He's been trying to "help" me with stuff since he was about 2, which is so super sweet, and I don't want to tell him "no, you can't help me," but, seriously? Not helpful. At all. Hubs always says that he's "very well intentioned." Usually what I do when he wants to "help" is make up some random, seemingly related activity that will have him running all over the house and out of my way. Like, when I'm folding laundry and he wants to help (read: he actually just wants to build a towel fort), I will hand him single socks and say "go all the way downstairs to the TV room and put this sock on the couch." He will happily run away and oftentimes get distracted by something he finds in the TV room and sometimes won't come back for a good 10 minutes. When he does, I'll be ready with another sock, meant for the kitchen counter. And so on.
Anyway, he was helping me make his cake today, which meant he stood on a chair and practically got his fingers chopped off by the electric mixer. Helpful. As usual, since I was trying to, you know... bake something, it wasn't going very well. Sugar was flying all around, chunks of butter were hitting the wall, my arm was getting really sore from trying to mix it and I was imagining that this cake wasn't going to actually turn out very well.
So I says to him, I says:
Me: Child 2, I think you're going to need to lower your standards a little when you eat this thing
Child 2: Don't worry, my standards are really really really low.
Me: Do you know what that means, to "lower your standards?"
Child 2: Nope
Me: It means you're not expecting much. If your standards are low it means you're not expecting to be eating a really good cake at the end of this process.
Child 2: Don't worry, I'm expecting absolutely nothing.
As I start to put the eggs in, the sugar starts flying around less and I start to feel a little bit more optimistic about things, so I say....
Me: Okay, I think you can start to raise your standards just a little bit, this might not be as bad as I thought.
Child 2: In the last few minutes, my standards have raised about 5%.
We continue on, the flour goes in, the cream goes in, it's starting to actually look like cake batter! He looks at it and says:
Child 2: My standards have gone up another 3% since the last time I told you about my standards.
Me: Great! So we're up to 8% now, right?
The mix is done and I, of course, don't have the right kind of pan for the particular recipe that I've chosen, and so I split the batter into 2 unequal and uneven parts. It goes into the pans and we very happily put them in the oven and head off to play Mario Kart while we wait.
About 1/2 hour later.... I start to smell something. A burning smell. Like.... burning sugar?
Oh, god.
I go to check on the cakes and find out that one of them has risen dramatically above the top of its container and is spilling all over the side and onto the bottom of the oven.
Huh. I didn't know it was going to rise like that. It doesn't have any baking powder or baking soda or whatever that "baking" thing is that makes shit rise. I guess the flour did that? Bummer, though. Because that's the one that was supposed to look good and be decorated; the other one was just going to be leftover cake pieces that we would snack on.
At this point I'm regretting having invited people over "for some cake" later in the evening.
The recipe says to bake it for an hour and a half, and I put them both in at 2:00. The skinnier, flatter cake was done after about 45 minutes so it came out to cool. I had to leave to pick up Child 1 from camp at 3:40, so I should still have plenty of time, right?
Yeah, no, though. Since I used the wrong kind of pan it was denser than the recipe was assuming and actually needed longer to cook than that. So when I took it out, it was still totally soupy in the middle. But I didn't really have a choice, since I had to go get the boy, I couldn't just leave it in the oven, I had to take it out. I had no choice!
On our way out, I called Hubs and ask him to stop at Costco on his way home and buy some of their pound cakes, which I happen to know from experience come fully cooked. And then Child 2 suggested that we put the cake back in the oven when we return. Shit! Why the hell not, right?? And so we did! I left the oven on and when we all got back I put it back in for 10 minutes. I didn't actually know if that was long enough, but I figured I'd worked this poor thing over for so long now I should really just put it out of its misery. And, really, how much worse could things get at this point?
Okay, well.... now they're both out of the oven and honestly, at this point, I've given up on the whole "Mama baked a birthday cake" idea and am just waiting for Hubs to get home, because Hubs? Is a good baker. When he bakes stuff it actually turns out yummy, very few things ever catch on fire and if anybody can salvage this pastry disaster, it would be him. I call him "Master Baker" heh heh heh. (I do, I say "Master Baker" and then immediately afterward I say "heh heh heh.") Unfortunately Hubs has the flu and didn't feel like dealing with my Cake of Destruction. I thought maybe I could shave off the top and have an even surface with which to decorate? But when I did that, and I discovered that it was still totally cake soup in the middle there, Hubs helpfully suggested "maybe you should just shoot it."
Whatever.
I ate the cooked parts and threw away the rest. And then later when I was making dinner? The spilled cake bits that were on the bottom of the oven actually caught on fire. Yes, that's right! I started a fucking fire trying to bake my kid a cake for his birthday.
Sigh.
Here's the cake we ended up with; fully baked, from Costco. I asked Hubs if he would put "Happy Birthday Child 2" so that I could use an undoctored photo for the blog, but he refused. Whatever!
Well, I'll tell ya.
I'm a pretty good cook, but I'm a shitty baker. I mean, I can whip up a delightful Chicken Tikka Masala, but for some reason whenever sugar and eggs and flour are involved, things tend to go horribly, horribly wrong.
That, of course, didn't stop me from downloading a "very simple" pound cake recipe from Allrecipes.com and giving it the ol' college try, whateverthefuck "ol' college try" even means. (What does that expression mean? Is it about blow jobs? Because that's the only thing I can think of that might work there.)
Now, it was the boy's birthday, and he was supposed to spend the day at camp and I was going to spend the day trying to make a pound cake (and also Chicken Tikka Masala!) but when I dropped him off in the morning, he said that his head hurt. And his stomach hurt. And he felt like throwing up. And then it felt like his head was throwing up. And he couldn't go to camp. And he needed to get back in the car and go home with me. And "but it's my birthday!" Okay, I get it. He didn't want to go to camp, he wanted to spend his birthday hanging with his Mama. FINE. I had a meeting so I made him go for the morning and then I went back to pick him up after lunch.
Unfortunately that meant that if there was to be cake making, he was going to have to help me. And, I'm not sure if I've mentioned this about him before, but.... he's really not very helpful. He's been trying to "help" me with stuff since he was about 2, which is so super sweet, and I don't want to tell him "no, you can't help me," but, seriously? Not helpful. At all. Hubs always says that he's "very well intentioned." Usually what I do when he wants to "help" is make up some random, seemingly related activity that will have him running all over the house and out of my way. Like, when I'm folding laundry and he wants to help (read: he actually just wants to build a towel fort), I will hand him single socks and say "go all the way downstairs to the TV room and put this sock on the couch." He will happily run away and oftentimes get distracted by something he finds in the TV room and sometimes won't come back for a good 10 minutes. When he does, I'll be ready with another sock, meant for the kitchen counter. And so on.
 |
| This actually looks kind of gross, but it's just the mixing bowl and a pan. Don't get any ideas, perverts! |
Anyway, he was helping me make his cake today, which meant he stood on a chair and practically got his fingers chopped off by the electric mixer. Helpful. As usual, since I was trying to, you know... bake something, it wasn't going very well. Sugar was flying all around, chunks of butter were hitting the wall, my arm was getting really sore from trying to mix it and I was imagining that this cake wasn't going to actually turn out very well.
So I says to him, I says:
Me: Child 2, I think you're going to need to lower your standards a little when you eat this thing
Child 2: Don't worry, my standards are really really really low.
Me: Do you know what that means, to "lower your standards?"
Child 2: Nope
Me: It means you're not expecting much. If your standards are low it means you're not expecting to be eating a really good cake at the end of this process.
Child 2: Don't worry, I'm expecting absolutely nothing.
As I start to put the eggs in, the sugar starts flying around less and I start to feel a little bit more optimistic about things, so I say....
Me: Okay, I think you can start to raise your standards just a little bit, this might not be as bad as I thought.
Child 2: In the last few minutes, my standards have raised about 5%.
We continue on, the flour goes in, the cream goes in, it's starting to actually look like cake batter! He looks at it and says:
Child 2: My standards have gone up another 3% since the last time I told you about my standards.
Me: Great! So we're up to 8% now, right?
The mix is done and I, of course, don't have the right kind of pan for the particular recipe that I've chosen, and so I split the batter into 2 unequal and uneven parts. It goes into the pans and we very happily put them in the oven and head off to play Mario Kart while we wait.
 |
| Look! Two very blurry cakes in my oven! |
About 1/2 hour later.... I start to smell something. A burning smell. Like.... burning sugar?
Oh, god.
I go to check on the cakes and find out that one of them has risen dramatically above the top of its container and is spilling all over the side and onto the bottom of the oven.
Huh. I didn't know it was going to rise like that. It doesn't have any baking powder or baking soda or whatever that "baking" thing is that makes shit rise. I guess the flour did that? Bummer, though. Because that's the one that was supposed to look good and be decorated; the other one was just going to be leftover cake pieces that we would snack on.
At this point I'm regretting having invited people over "for some cake" later in the evening.
The recipe says to bake it for an hour and a half, and I put them both in at 2:00. The skinnier, flatter cake was done after about 45 minutes so it came out to cool. I had to leave to pick up Child 1 from camp at 3:40, so I should still have plenty of time, right?
Yeah, no, though. Since I used the wrong kind of pan it was denser than the recipe was assuming and actually needed longer to cook than that. So when I took it out, it was still totally soupy in the middle. But I didn't really have a choice, since I had to go get the boy, I couldn't just leave it in the oven, I had to take it out. I had no choice!
On our way out, I called Hubs and ask him to stop at Costco on his way home and buy some of their pound cakes, which I happen to know from experience come fully cooked. And then Child 2 suggested that we put the cake back in the oven when we return. Shit! Why the hell not, right?? And so we did! I left the oven on and when we all got back I put it back in for 10 minutes. I didn't actually know if that was long enough, but I figured I'd worked this poor thing over for so long now I should really just put it out of its misery. And, really, how much worse could things get at this point?
 |
| Hey, do you know what's an easy way to clean up the side of a cake pan that's spilled over? You just eat the side right off! Presto chango! |
Okay, well.... now they're both out of the oven and honestly, at this point, I've given up on the whole "Mama baked a birthday cake" idea and am just waiting for Hubs to get home, because Hubs? Is a good baker. When he bakes stuff it actually turns out yummy, very few things ever catch on fire and if anybody can salvage this pastry disaster, it would be him. I call him "Master Baker" heh heh heh. (I do, I say "Master Baker" and then immediately afterward I say "heh heh heh.") Unfortunately Hubs has the flu and didn't feel like dealing with my Cake of Destruction. I thought maybe I could shave off the top and have an even surface with which to decorate? But when I did that, and I discovered that it was still totally cake soup in the middle there, Hubs helpfully suggested "maybe you should just shoot it."
Whatever.
I ate the cooked parts and threw away the rest. And then later when I was making dinner? The spilled cake bits that were on the bottom of the oven actually caught on fire. Yes, that's right! I started a fucking fire trying to bake my kid a cake for his birthday.
Sigh.
Here's the cake we ended up with; fully baked, from Costco. I asked Hubs if he would put "Happy Birthday Child 2" so that I could use an undoctored photo for the blog, but he refused. Whatever!
Friday, July 15, 2011
Adventures with Wii Sports
Child 2 got a Wii for his birthday (he's going to be SIX!!) and we've been having a blast playing it. We have 2 games: Mario Kart and Wii Sports.
I suck at both of them.
Now, there's 2 different ways to suck at something: 1. You're awful but it's a whole lot of fun so you keep doing it, and 2. You're awful and you HATE it. Child 2 and I are both #1 with Mario Kart and we have so much fun playing it. We do a lot of screaming (Hubs says "are you playing a game or having a knife fight?") and we can often be heard hollering at the top of our lungs "ROCKET CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR!!!" I love Rocket Car.
I'm #2 with most of the sports games, although I'm much better at Wii bowling than regular bowling. He loves them all, though, and insists that I play them again and again, despite my suckery. Some are worse than others, of course.
For example, golf. We've only played it once, because I absolutely refuse to ever play it again. Did you know that when you get to +8 over par they won't even let you play anymore? Even they know you suck at it and so they just make you stop. Probably to save yourself from further embarrassment? Thanks, Wii!
I've made you a poorly drawn picture of how it went down. Enjoy!
I suck at both of them.
Now, there's 2 different ways to suck at something: 1. You're awful but it's a whole lot of fun so you keep doing it, and 2. You're awful and you HATE it. Child 2 and I are both #1 with Mario Kart and we have so much fun playing it. We do a lot of screaming (Hubs says "are you playing a game or having a knife fight?") and we can often be heard hollering at the top of our lungs "ROCKET CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR!!!" I love Rocket Car.
I'm #2 with most of the sports games, although I'm much better at Wii bowling than regular bowling. He loves them all, though, and insists that I play them again and again, despite my suckery. Some are worse than others, of course.
For example, golf. We've only played it once, because I absolutely refuse to ever play it again. Did you know that when you get to +8 over par they won't even let you play anymore? Even they know you suck at it and so they just make you stop. Probably to save yourself from further embarrassment? Thanks, Wii!
I've made you a poorly drawn picture of how it went down. Enjoy!
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