Important accomplishments and contributions - Check. Team player - Check. Doesn't smell like a fish market - Check.

Hey ladies. Feeling under appreciated at work? Want a big, fat raise but just don't know how to go about asking for one? Then I've got one word for you -

Douche.

That's right, douche. Clean the private area. Take a special shower. Steam clean the meat curtains.

Summer's Eve ran this rather unfortunate ad in a recent issue of Women's Day magazine:


According to the ad a crucial step, nay, the FIRST step in approaching your boss for a raise is making sure your special place is nice and squeaky clean before leaving for work with the help of Summer's Eve Feminine Wash. Then eating a good breakfast. It's all about priorities, people.

And then if that wasn't bad enough, ladies, if you're worried you might stink up your boss's office with your womanly smell, maybe you should bring a packet of feminine cleansing clothes with you to the office to freshen up with before sitting down for the big talk. You never know what may waft up when you cross and uncross your legs.

Summer's Eve's brand manager has since apologized for the ad stating that "... Fleet Laboratories and Summer's Eve brand have the utmost respect for women." They respect you, but they still think you're kind of stinky.

Kind of makes you long for days like this, doesn't it?




Source - AdFreak.com

BlogHer '10 or 20th high school class reunion? Decisions, decisions.

When BlogHer announced the date and location of next year's conference two things went through my head:

1. Yay! It's closer to home next year. A bunch of us New England bloggers can take the train together and bond over mimosas in the club car and get to know each other better by chatting in our large, comfortable, non-airplane seats. Probably via Twitter but you know, still chatting.

and

2. Hmm, that date sounds awfully familiar, like I've already planned something for that weekend. But that's silly, I never plan anything that far in advance. It's an entire year away, I don't even know what I'm doing next week. Pshaw. I'm sure it's nothing.

And I swatted that notion away like a pesky fly. Until last night when I was checking my Facebook page.

I don't know what made me check Facebook. I hardly ever check Facebook anymore. I mean occasionally when Twitter is down I'll run to Facebook like a fickle lover. I'll whisper a few sweet nothings and send them out into the ether, just to get my fix. But for the most part, the people I have friended on Facebook are either the people I already chat with in on Twitter, friends I see every week anyway, or high school friends I haven't spoken with in almost 20 years so...

Almost 20 years. Wow. That's a long time.

Twenty years. Twenty years?

Shit, my 20th class reunion is next year. I'm not looking forward to attending that reunion.

My reunion. My reunion? My reunion!

My 20th high school reunion is the same weekend as BlogHer '10.

Okay, that's funny.

It's like the universe is absolving me from having to go to my reunion and mingle with people I didn't really much for when I was a naive 17 year old and will probably really dislike when I'm a much more worldly 37 year old.

Hey, I've had my passport stamped at least twice. Maybe more. That totally counts as being "worldly".

But still, I weighed my options. My 20th reunion should be something I want to go to, right? I have this girlfriend who didn't go to hers, and every once in a while, she gets this really terrible feeling--you know, like something is missing. She checks her purse, and then she checks her keys. She counts her kids, she goes crazy, and then she realizes that nothing is missing. She decided it was side effects from skipping the reunion. No wait, that was prom. And if you get that reference we can friends.

On the one hand, I told myself, I could go for four days to New York City and hang out with people I genuinely want to spend time with. Okay, they're people I met in the computer but as far as I know they're not going to slip me a horse tranquilizer and harvest my vital organs. Although, I do have my doubts about a few...

But on the other hand, maybe I should put aside petty differences and hurt feelings and resentments and all that and bury the hatchet - so to speak because, you know, not literally bury the hatchet, even though I may want to take something sharp to a certain girl who used to be my friend before she stole my boyfriend, bitch - and maybe reconnect with the few people I actually liked in high school.

I gave it a lot of thought (five minutes) and actually came up with a pros and cons list. Ready?

"Should Tania go to the BlogHer '10 conference in NEW YORK FREAKING CITY or go to her 20th high school class reunion and stand in the corner and muse over what happened to that hot boy she had a crush on when she was 16 years old and he never gave her the time of day's hair and probably leave after an hour?"

Going to Blogher -

The Pros:

- It's in New York City and despite being just a few hours away I've never been. And yes, I've just admitted that I'm really that lame on the internet.

- Overwhelming, but in a good way.

- Late night parties, good conversation, and you never know where you're going to end up at 3am.

- SWAAAAAG: The steel cage match. Two people go in, one person comes out with a trial-sized bottle of laundry detergent.

- I like to squee.

- Where else can you gush over someone's business card and mean it?

- Seeing friends I only see once, maybe twice a year. Even the ones who live twenty miles away from me.

- *add something here about cultivating my craft and building business relationships and blah blah blahdee blah*

The Cons:

- The price. Wowza. I think I need my own street corner to pay for next year.

- Overwhelming, but I'm working on my social anxiety. One drink at a time.

- Exhaustion. Come to find out, I'm not twenty anymore. Who knew?

- Four days of squeeing when I'm generally done after two.

Going to my 20th reunion -

The Pros:

-

-

.....

-

- Um.

-

- I'm sure the food won't be too bad?

The Cons:

- Really? Do I need to write it all down? I have kids to take care of before they go off to college.

So after much soul searching and wringing of hands and rendering of garments, I've decided to go to BlogHer.

Who wants to hit the nightclubs at 3am? Because if I'm going, I'm pretending I'm seventeen years old again... And paying for the after affects for the next year. I'll need the company.

Let sleeping dogs lie. But if you insist on poking one with a stick be prepared for the dog to write about you on the internet

There are some parts of my past that I would rather forget forever. Nothing too horrible, I've never worked a street corner or anything. Just unpleasant memories that are better left swept under the rug with the rest of the dirt. So why is it that those are the things that always come to the surface like smelly sulfur bubbles? Can someone please answer this for me?

Like old boyfriends, for instance. Everyone has old boyfriends or girlfriends that they wonder what ever happened to. Those are the ones who, if they happen to contact you out of the blue after finding you on Facebook or something, you'd be happy to take a few moments out of your day to reminisce about the good old days with. Even, I might add, if the "good" old days weren't all that spectacular. Those hops and skips down memory lane are pleasant enough, if not a tiny bit disconcerting.

Then there's the other end of the spectrum - the just plain creepy type.

Guess which one emailed me out of the clear blue a couple of weeks ago. Go ahead, guess.

I dated this guy almost 20 years ago...

(20 years? I think I just choked on my tongue.)

... that for the sake of this post we'll call "Crazy Alex".

After I broke up with "Crazy Alex", an epically bad breakup where I feared for my safety more than a few times, I never saw him again and I have had zero desire to ever speak with him since. It was a relationship that never should have happened. The fact that it lasted the better part of two years is a testament to how stupid I was at seventeen - and even more stupid at eighteen because I was still with the guy. But in the spring of my eighteenth year I finally smartened up and dumped his sorry ass. Much to the delight of everyone who knew me, especially my parents. I'm surprised they didn't buy me a bedazzled flying unicorn that pooped puppies and jelly beans to reward me for finally getting rid of the guy.

Apparently he Googled me, which led him to my blog.

(Why yes, I am regretting posting my real name. Thanks for asking.)

And that, my friends, was a HUGE mistake on his part. Take note, lambs - if you had a bad relationship with someone a thousand years ago and you know they have a blog, do not, I repeat DO NOT, contact them or they will be forced to use your email as blog fodder.

We'll call it payback for every jealous rage he ever went on. Or making up for that time I was forced to throw a coffee mug (and stapler, and I think there may have been some dinnerware too) at his head and missed. And for the record I'm not proud of that. I have much better aim now.

Let's begin, shall we?

His words are in bold, mine are in snarky:

Well its taken me months to decide whether to write to you and say hi or just to leave it

(just leave it, just leave it, for the love of all that is good and holy, just leave it)

but here goes.
Hello

(Dammit all to hell. He never could take a hint.)

I found your blog one day, I will be honest I googled your name (*shaking fist at Google*) on a day that I heard a Cinderella song and you popped into my head, (that still happens on occasion).

(For the record, I have no idea what he means. I've never listened to Cinderella a day in my life. Really. And I never saw them in concert either. Um...)

I am so glad you have had a great life and are happy. congrats on the kids and I am sorry to read about your mom.

(Okay, it was nice of him to acknowledge my mom. Especially since she hated him with the power of 10,000 suns and she may have had a hit out on him.)

I have been married for 14 years now have two great step-kids...

(Right about here is when I started to zone out. I may have been humming "Nobody's Fool" but I can't be sure since I've never heard that song in my life.)

I guess I fall under the category of one of the "winner" boyfriends you had in your past that you wrote about, I definitely earned that title I was an ass.

(Bingo.)

sorry about that, I guess medication should have been prescribed earlier than 35. We have a...

(Something something, dog. Something, something. cat. Wonder what made him think I would care about his animals? Or his medication, for that matter?)

(Get out of my head. GET. OUT.)

I too stayed close to music I have been lead singer in a couple bands and worked as a bouncer at....

(Funny, I don't remember him being a singer. Or strong. I do remember him as being more than slightly crazy with delusions of grandeur, however.)

unfortunately lead singer syndrome led me into a felony charge that will never be clear for my record, but thankfully I have a very strong and understanding wife and family that stuck by me, another case of me being an ass...

This is where I was all, Wait just a second. Did he say "Felony Charge"? What does that even mean? Did he beat someone to death with a microphone? Oh my holy hell, who in their right mind emails an ex and casually mentions that? Hey, haven't talked with you in almost two decades. Did I mention I'm an ex-con? How are things with you?

*Head/desk. Repeat.*

I'm imagining him sitting down to write this and thinking Should I mention I spent some time in the big house? Eh, can't hurt. It's only amazing I didn't write back IMMEDIATELY and tell him all was forgiven and invite him over for Sunday dinner. Maybe make him my children's godfather.

There was more to the email after that, but honestly I think I blacked out.

You may think I'm being a little harsh, sharing this personal email on the internet, but I think he threw away any right to privacy when he contacted me out of the blue and mentioned he was a FELON.

Am I shouting? Sorry.

Since he's probably reading this, which is creeping me out more than just a little bit, I'm going to say this to him: A. - I'm glad you seem to be getting the help you should have gotten decades ago. I'm glad you seem to be in a stable relationship with a stable job. But what would make me very happy is if you were to forget my email address. Just pretend you never met me because I can't imagine you have any fond memories of that time. I know I don't.

Now I think I'm going to give my husband and hug and apologize for every time I screamed at him for not picking up his socks.

This is what my life has come to

Meet my new best friend, Box o' Wine.

Mr. C. brought this home yesterday and shortly after my head exploded. But that just means that since I don't have a tongue (remember, head went boom) I can pour it straight down my throat and strangely enough it's still satisfying. And I don't have to deal with the cardboard aftertaste.

I'm pretty sure Mama never told me there'd be days like this

C.C. is passed out in front of me, all scrunched up in her car seat under a blanket that is slightly more fragrant than I'd like it to be, wearing a long sleeve shirt on this warm summer day and newborn pants that don't really fit.

This was not the outfit I put her in before we left the house today.

No, the other one matched. It fit. It was goddamn adorable, okay?

Then I took her to see the doctor.

Everything was going swell at her two month appointment. She was smiling and cooing at the doc. I was told developmentally she's doing spectacularly and she's growing like a weed. Yes, everything was going along swimmingly until...

Until she got her foot caught under the protective paper on the exam table and it scared the holy hell out of her and she began screaming at the top of her lungs for a good five minutes straight until I was able to finally calm her down. Five torturous minutes where the doctor looked at my baby and me like one of us had sprouted another head.

That was fun.

But wait! There's more.

Then they gave her the two month vaccines. Then she screamed bloody murder for a good fifteen minutes because they stuck needles in her tender thighs. Chubby baby thighs suitable for snacking on, not sticking sharp things into.

FOUR freaking needles. In my sweet baby's adorably chubby, very tasty, extremely sensitive, thighs.

As if the screaming and the crying and the gulping of air - because the hysteria, oh my Christ, the hysteria - wasn't enough, I had the brilliant idea to try to nurse her to calm her down.

Well, what would you have done?

My sweet, chubby, tasty, high sensitive and now hysterical baby decided that screaming was easier without a tit in her mouth so she screamed whilst trying to gulp down a very strong gush of milk, until she finally tore her wee head away, letting fly a gusher-like stream of breast milk that would make the caretakers of the fountains at the Bellagio proud, and in her own way told me to GET THAT THING AWAY FROM ME, YOU CRAZY BITCH. LET ME SCREAM. Better yet, LET ME DIE.

And just when I was about to call to the doctor to get a sedative - for me - C.C. got eerily silent and...

Projectile vomited all over the exam room.

Think Linda Blair, but cuter.

Fortunately, I came prepared so I had a burp cloth and a bib in my free hand and was ready to catch any spit up. Unfortunately, this was not spit up and the flimsy material could do nothing to stop the gusher of spew.

Meanwhile, during the screaming and the thrashing and the choking and the crying and the hurling, Chicky was dancing around the room, standing on chairs, crawling on the sink, yelling for crackers and water and stickers and CAN WE GO HOME NOW?? I WANT TO GO HOME NOW. I WANT TO GO HOME. RIGHT. NOW!!!

Indeed, can we go home now?

Uh uh uhhh, not so fast.

First I had to clean up the floor, then I had to clean up the baby, then I had to hose down my hands and arms, and then I had to go rummaging around my humongous bag for a fresh set of baby clothes that apparently I packed when C.C. was four days old.

My apologies to the nurse who had to clean up the rest so I could get my children the hell out of there before someone mistakenly called the proper authorities because they thought they heard hara-kiri going on in the next room.

That was three hours ago and C.C. has been passed out ever since. She smells and her clothes don't fit and the blanket she's laying under is kind of gooey, but she's sleeping peacefully and she will wake with no memory of the torture her mother and doctor put her through.

I, however, am wondering if it's too early to submerge myself in a vat of gin.

And don't even get me started on what happened while Chicky was supposed to be sleeping in her room just now. It involves fecal matter and I just don't want to go there.

Make that an extra large vat of gin.

Okay, so maybe, just maybe, I woke up on the wrong side of the bed today

To the asshat woman who parked her humongous SUV mere centimeters away from my not quite as humongous so therefore totally socially acceptable SUV in the parking lot of the playground when there were at least 20 other empty spots you could have taken, including the six on the other side of your car, but you chose not to because I was parked in the only shady spot in the parking lot and you thought you could back your gas guzzler next to my only slightly better on gas but not really but I feel superior anyway car, obviously trying to bogart my cool air on this 85 degree day for your brat kid who pushed my angel okay not an angel but as far as you know she's a goddamn cherub child when they both went for the stairs to the slide and your kid was older and bigger and less attractive than mine and should have known better and you didn't even say anything to your devil's spawn little girl about how she should act like less of a little prick more appropriately on the playground, you shithead, and then you gave me a look of death when my baby started screaming and I tried to wheel my carriage out of the playground and maybe drifted into your breathing space and then I couldn't get my older kid or my big postpartum ass but even though I had a baby four weeks ago it's still smaller than yours myself in the car without contorting our bodies into positions that should only be seen in pretzels just to get into our car because your tank car was so damn close to mine and by the time we finally were all packed up I was covered in boob sweat and both kids were screaming so that I swore under my breath at you that I would find out where you lived and would leave weekly flaming bags of dog shit on your front steps,


I opened my door into the side of your car and I left a nice dent in the side of it. And I don't feel even a little bit bad about that. Have a nice day, bitch.

Boy Crazy? I prefer Girl Power

Back when I was a much younger woman and I was dating the guy who would become my first husband, his father loved to talk about his future grandchildren.

"Three boys! You have to have at least three kids and they all have to be boys. My son needs to carry on the family name. He's the last one. Three boys. Do you hear me? Three BOYS!"

I always hated that with a red hot fiery passion of 10,000 suns. As much as I cared for my ex-father in law, if looks could kill he would have been worm food a long time ago. I'm fairly surprised I didn't put him in the hospital since he said it so much and I have a pretty awesome death stare.

As luck would have it, the second time I married it was also to a man who was the last male in his family to carry on the paternal name. One huge difference - though he would have loved to have a son, and his father would love to have a grandson, I've never once felt any serious pressure to produce a male heir. Yet another reason why I'm still married to a man who has a physical aversion to light switches and cabinet doors. That and the fact that he'll do a mean soft shoe, naked, when I can't sleep. Works every time.

When Chicky was born there was much celebrating. A girl! How wonderful! A perfect little angel (Ha!) to fawn all over. Then we took our time deciding whether or not to have another and family members started to realize there was a good chance we wouldn't. Again, no pressure. Thinly veiled disappointment, but no pressure.

When we got pregnant this time, besides the behind the scenes dance of joy I'm sure my mother in law did once she realized our daughter would finally have a sibling, both our families convinced themselves this child would be a boy. A man child to carry on Mr. C's family name. A man child for my father to play catch with and teach how to write his name in the snow. Imagine their surprise when I told them about our ultrasound results.

I swear to God, Mohammed, and Snuggle the Fabric Softener bear, their faces fell. Even my dear, sainted Nana who knits and bakes cookies and never has a bad word to say about anyone looked disappointed. And when your Nana is disappointed, well, that hurts man.

Since then I've been asked by everyone, including the man at the full service gas station, what the sex of this baby is and I've been met with the same response once they realize we already have one girl. For instance, when the before mentioned gas attendant heard it was a girl, he said "So, next one will be boy. You keep trying, yes? You must have boy."

He's Middle Eastern. His English is not perfect but his intent was clear. I have girls. Surely I wanted a boy? Surely my husband would want to keep knocking me up until a male heir was produced?

Uh, no. Not really. I'm pretty happy with two girls, thankyouverymuch. Mr. C, he still badly wants a boy but knows that no amount of liquor or jewelry would make me have a third child after the hell I went through gestating the last two and he seems okay with that. I can deal with all those people of the world who believe a family is not complete until a child is produced who has his own lovie to play with as long as my husband is as secure with it as I am. Besides, with one man in the family and one male dog, there is certainly enough penis love around here.

And then my father, who admittedly is not a person I would ever assign the distinction of "Being sensitive to other people's feelings", but a man who had the good sense to always remind me that he was very happy to have two girls of his own and never desired to have a son, said to me,

"You're going to try again to have a boy, right?"

I'm fairly certain my eyes popped out of my skull right before the steam rose from my ears. Et tu, Father?

This world we live in is boy crazy. We are all male obsessed and if you, as a parent, don't want to jump on the boy bandwagon then obviously there's something wrong with you. I mean, I have the feeling my husband's colleagues and friends will look upon him with some pity because he never produced the coveted man child and that's really unfair. When are we going to get over this idea that a boy is necessary to produce the perfect family? Or, on the flip side of the coin, if a man and woman have two sons, do we have to pity the mother for never getting the daughter she so obviously wants?

You caught the sarcasm there, right?

Am I sensitive about this? Okay, maybe a little. I am a bit hormonal and cranky these days. But it seems horribly unfair for others to assume that just because my children don't have penises they are somehow second class, that we really did want a boy but the fates conspired to have us only produce female children. We're not living in China here, people. Girls can do everything that boys can do. They can even write their name in the snow with a little practice. And I don't know about baby #2, but Chicky is turning out to be quite the tomboy. A tomboy in pink, but still a baseball loving, soccer crazed, run around and get dirty tomboy.

So hear this, World - I am about to have another daughter and I couldn't be happier. Two frilly, pink sparkly tutu wearing, drama queens in the making... Who just might be the next President of the United States or the first female first basewoman on the Boston Red Sox. And I will never once wish one of them was a boy.

Even when they start dating.

Love is blind

What's worse than being hugely pregnant, feeling horrible pelvic pain, having constant heartburn, and not able to kick back and relax because the baby is pushing your lungs into your throat, making it impossible to breath?

(not to mention not being able to have a blasted glass of wine, for chrissake.)

Going through all that while BLIND!

Whoohoo!

After an unfortunate meeting of Chicky's index finger and my naked eye I was left sightless for about 36 hours this weekend .

Oh the PAIN!

Who knew a good old fashioned eye gouge could hurt so much? It was so horrible that I could not open either eye. Even opening the good one would cause white hot pain to shoot through the injured one.

The only saving grace was that it happened about 15 minutes before Mr. C got home for the weekend, so I was guaranteed a nursemaid and seeing-eye husband. After a quick trip to the ER where the doctor told me what I already knew (Yep, that kid got you good, a nice gash right in the cornea) she sent me home with eye goop and a scrip for Percocet for the pain.

Sweet Jeebus, I looove Percocet. Percocet = Another, way better word for "happy".

Percocet makes everything better. Can't see? Just pop a Perc, put on a rerun marathon of America's Next Top Model and sleep the day away! You don't need to see those skinny, catty bitches anyway.

I can see now. Things are a little blurry in that eye but it's feeling better and I'm back to my old surly, pregnant-and-not-happy-about-it self.

But the really bad part is that I can't take the Percocet any more. Life with a pre-schooler is sooo much better heavily medicated.


*If you haven't asked me a question yet, you still have time. I'll start answering those bad boys tomorrow so for today, ask away!*

Because on a day like today everything eventually ends up in the toilet

Dear Neighboring Town with the monster-sized potholes that nearly swallowed my husband's car whole -


You'll be paying for at least one new rim and one new tire. If not for the whole set of rims because, apparently, they don't make this style anymore. Just be happy you won't be paying for my therapy because I thought for sure the road had opened up and was about to swallow me and my daughter and bring us into the inner depths of hell.

Now, go fix your messed up roads before someone really gets hurt.

F*ck you very much,

The Chickys

-------------------

Today is St. Patrick's Day. I won't be drinking any green beer or eating any corned beef and cabbage because I'm pregnant. I can't drink and cabbage is not advisable at this point. Not if anyone wants to be in the same house with me anyway.

Massachusetts is one of the St. Paddy's Day capitals of the United States but I am of Scottish/English descent so it seems like a slap in my ancestors' faces to celebrate. Not being Irish I've never really celebrated this holiday but my husband is a quarter Irish so I guess I've had a bit of the Irish in me. Heh. Maybe I'll go crazy and wear green socks today. Or eat green jelly beans.

But I stop at the leprechauns. They freak me out.




---------------------

Chicky will be three years old in one month and she is not yet potty trained. She's close, so close, but she's not quite there yet.

Maybe I should send her to Potty School?

I've said it before and I'll say it again - God hates me. A lot.

There once was a girl who was very very good. She went to church faithfully with her mother and her grandmother ever Saturday afternoon at 4:30pm sharp.

(Saturday mass was much preferable to the Sunday masses. Less busy and no one had to worry about waking themselves up too early or wonder who was going to prepare the Sunday meal. Because as everyone knew it wasn't going to be the menfolk, those Godless heathens, who were often too busy nursing themselves through a hangover to be worried about actually preparing the food. Though they were the first ones to bitch if there was no Sunday dinner.

What was I saying?)

She went to a small Catholic elementary school where the other children were also very good. She wore the standard uniform of pressed shirt or modest sweater and a dress or skirt, even in the bitterly cold weather when her knobby knees would bang together like shutters let loose from their hinges in a storm. When she was feeling a bit rebellious she wore green corduroy culottes and she always thanked God for not sending her to the principal's office for pushing the dress code, because sitting in the principal's office was the worst type of punishment. The principal was a scary old nun who had facial hair and a mole. And she might have eaten kittens for breakfast.

She sang in the church choir. She was on milk duty. She folded the American flag every Friday afternoon in perfect triangles and never, ever let it touch the ground. She knew the rosary and the stations of the cross, she wore her cross of ashes proudly on her forehead all day on Ash Wednesday and never ate meat on Fridays during Lent.

She was a very good girl.

Then she got to high school and things changed.

No longer under the thumb of the nuns of her Catholic elementary school and no longer forced to sit in classrooms where all the desks faced a cross with the form of a nearly naked, writhing Jesus hanging from it, the girl started thinking for herself. She questioned the teachings. She no longer wanted to go to church. She fought with her CCD teacher on topics like a woman's right to choose to have an abortion and homosexuality. She even had premarital sex as a teenager.

Her mother was not happy.

Neither was God.

It didn't bother the girl. She renounced her faith, which was really not hers to begin with, and started referring to herself as a Recovering Catholic.

From then on, the girl, who was now a woman, would duck whenever she had to enter a Catholic church to attend weddings or funerals for fear that a lightning bolt would strike her dead. Her favorite curses were a series of Jesus Christs! Goddammit all to hells. And for Christ's sakes. The woman swore she felt a twinge in her neck every time she took the Lord's name in vain, like someone pinching you in that tender spot between the neck and the shoulder, but it didn't stop her. Jesus H. Christ on a popsicle stick was fun to say, and who was it harming? Fuck a duck is also enjoyable coming off the tongue and water fowl never retaliated.

God may have been busy worrying about wars and famine and baby birds falling out of trees but He would get his revenge.

It would come in the form of a trip that the woman's husband would be awarded through work. The very husband who worked a minimum of 18 hours a day and very much deserved the trip. It was the same conference/boondoggle the husband had been awarded the year before and the couple never thought they'd be asked to go again. That stuff just didn't happen.

Last year's trip was to a lovely resort... In Phoenix, Arizona. A wonderful time was had by all, but the woman had really hoped it would have been somewhere near the ocean. So, last year - Arizona. This year's trip?

Cabo San Lucas.

In Mexico.

Right on the ocean.

The date of the trip? Three weeks before the woman's due date.

She can't go.

She can't go because it's too far away and too long a trip and too close to her due date and she really doesn't want to chance delivering her baby in a Mexican hospital six hours away from home by plane. And with her luck, that is exactly what would happen.

If that's not proof that God is seriously pissed off, I don't know what is.


[On a related note - Is anyone going to that Johnson's thing in NJ at the beginning of April? I could totally make that trip. It's not Mexico but I needs to see mah ladies. Email me if you're going.]

My dirty little secret.

Physical activity has been lacking around these parts, to say the least. The last thing I've wanted to do after logging much time on the bathroom floor is exercise. The act of pushing a vacuum has caused me, more than once, to grab on to the closest available sturdy structure or piece of furniture to keep from falling over - although, that's due more to starvation and dehydration and the consuming blackness that falls over me when I've attempted to stand for a few minutes more than poor exercise habits.

But in the past week and a half I've begun to feel a bit better. Now that I am officially and securely in my second trimester my morning sickness is manageable with medication. Instead of getting sick upwards of ten times a day, if I can get some food in my body immediately in the morning and then keep up with it throughout the day I'll only get sick, maybe, once a day. The nausea is still fairly constant, but like I said it's manageable.

Unfortunately, the damage has been done. It's not easy for a woman of my advanced years (as the medical community would like to label me, being 35 and all) to spring back after almost two months of lying on a couch. It's going to take some time for me to get back my energy, as I was forced to admit to myself after a week of constant activity had left me beaten and exhausted come Sunday.

Okay, "constant" may be a strong word to describe the past week when one of those days entailed little more than caring for a toddler and going to the grocery store. But cut me some slack, 'kay?

My social life has suffered because of my near disabled state. Commitments were either canceled or never made. But worse than anything else, my house has become whatever the step below an official Super Fund sight would be called. It's bad. Or, at least, it was bad until Mr. C took last week off and the two of us (okay, mostly him. Again, still really weak and peakish over here.) tackled some pretty heavy duty house cleaning and de-cluttering.

I wish I could say pride of ownership lit a fire under my husband's ass and prompted me, too, to leave the ass groove in my couch long enough to empty the dishwasher. But no, that's not quite the case. Some pretty hard core nagging got Mr. C's attention and... How do I say this?

We hired a house cleaner and we need the house to be cleaner and more tidy before I let a stranger into my home to do the rest.

There, I said it. We're hiring someone to clean our house. I, a stay at home mom with no job (currently) am hiring another woman to come to my home and clean it for me because I can't keep up with it myself.

Right now my mother is spinning in her grave. The women in her family don't have other people clean their homes. They'd sooner torch the structure and skip town. But somewhere between my mom's generation and mine we lost that housekeeping gene. My sister, whom I love and adore more than any other woman, does not do house cleaning. She's hired cleaners for years and she's only 31. To her defense, she does run a successful restaurant and that takes a hell of a lot of time away from her busy working/shopping/spa/wine tasting schedule, so you can see why she would need to hire someone to keep her house clean.

(Love you, Seester of mine.)

And now, I am hiring someone to vacuum the pet hair and clean my bathrooms. She starts on Friday.

This doesn't mean I won't be doing any house cleaning myself. Keeping up with this place is a full time, seven day a week job (hence the house cleaner). The dogs alone make it necessary to pull out the vacuum every day. And Mr. C was recently promoted, which means a butt load more travel for him and no help on his end for me. Do these sound like hollow excuses to anyone else? Because I don't think my guilt will ever let me get past this.

I will now go back to eating my bon bons while I put my feet up and flip through fashion magazines. Cliche, thy name is Chicky.

I think it's perfectly reasonable to leave a burning bag of dog shit on his front steps.

I'm so angry I could chew nails. The real ones, not the ones on my fingers.

Yes, this happened years ago but do we really want a man who has such a complete disregard for life that he thinks it's perfectly fine to strap a dog to the roof of his car to be the next President of the United States?

Spring has sprung and guess what it brought to my door

Ah, the first day of spring. It brings with it the promise of warmer days, tiny buds on the trees (in some parts of the country anyway, in mine not so much) and pastel flowers. And spring also brings other, less desirable, things with it.

There I was, going about my day when I heard a knock on the door. Couldn't be one of my neighbors, I thought, they know that this is Chicky's nap time and they wouldn't dare knock on the door for fear of making my dogs bark and therefore forcing me to leave large steaming piles of poop on their lawns. Quite possibly from the dogs.

(Yes, they bark. And they steal Girl Scout cookies. I've got those suckers so well trained it's spooky.)

Couldn't be the UPS guy because I haven't ordered anything lately. But that reminds me, I really need to make that Amazon.com order.

Couldn't be Girl Scouts selling cookies. But a woman can dream.

Couldn't be school children selling popcorn or magazine subscriptions because they're still in school. Besides, those punks who live behind me never gave me my two dollars in change from the last ridiculously priced tub of caramel corn I bought from their sorry asses. So they wouldn't dare to try to sell me anything else.

(Feel free to insert your own "Better Off Dead" joke here.)

Who could it be?

I peaked out the window. Hmm, that's funny. No car in the driveway or in front of the house. Then an icy cold hand grabbed my heart. No, it couldn't be. Not now. It is close to Easter, but it couldn't be... God damn it!

Close. At least in their minds.



The Jehova's Witnesses. Shit. I really want to spend the little free time I have listening to someone tell me I'm going to hell. Don't they know I went to Catholic school? I support gay marriage and the right to chose, I'm already going to hell.

Now, I'm a live and let live kind of woman. I don't care what your religion is or who you care to worship: Jesus, God, Allah, Snuggle the fabric softener bear. You do what makes you happy and I'll be a God-less heathen and never the two shall meet. 'Kay? You keep your religion out my home and I'll keep my cussing out of yours. But when someone knocks on my door and tries to sell me on their way of thinking and then gives me that look that says, "Oh, you simple, simple woman. You just don't realize that your immortal soul is damned for all time and if you just gave up booze, celebrating birthdays, and roughly 60% of your pay you could go straight to heaven when the end of time comes. Which should be somewhere between 3pm today and 5,361 years from now."... You're just asking for me to be snarky.

Don't make me snarky. You wouldn't like me when I'm snarky.

So there's a man at my door - and yes I knew who he was and what his agenda was immediately, even before he thrust his pamphlet at me - and my dogs are barking and I'm thinking to myself If you caused my baby to wake up early from her nap YOU'LL HAVE MORE THAN GOD'S VENGEANCE TO WORRY ABOUT.

I gave him my best bored but smart-enough-to-know-you're-trying-to-sell-me-a-load-of-horse-shit-look and the man had the audacity to look towards where the sound of 160 pounds of dog waiting to rip his throat out was coming from and said,

"You'll have to go tell them if they don't stop barking we'll have to call ("He who speaks softly and carries a large PR firm" and no I will not mention his name here) to have them straightened out."

Oh no he didn't.

Oh yes he did.

As anyone who has been reading this blog long enough knows the quickest way to get onto my shit list is to mention "He who really needs to speak in a normal voice and stop screwing with an entire generation of dog owner's minds" without irony to me.

So I slammed the door in his face.

Okay, no I didn't, because my mama raised me better than that. But I wanted to. I just can't be that awful to someone who is trying to save my eternal soul.

But stay away from my hounds of hell. I like them that way. They're excellent judges of character. And their breath smells like Thin Mints.

Are they made with real Girl Scouts?

In case you have ever made the assumption from my long and slightly sanctimonious posts about dogs and their owners that my dogs are perfectly trained:

Could have been worse, they could have stopped at just eating the cookies instead of eating pieces of the boxes, too.

This is what happens after a long, cold winter when dogs don't get the necessary exercise they require and are left at home alone with the pantry door unlocked. Not opened, just unlocked. My dog, Lana, can open a sticky bi-fold pantry door with her paws.

Too smart for her own good? Maybe just a bit.

The other day she opened the pantry door and took three boxes of Girl Scout cookies off the shelf - along with a box of Aunt Annie's Bunny Pasta, because what better to wash down chocolate than powdered cheese and dry macaroni? - and shared them with my other dog, Fisher. One box of Thin Mints, one box of Peanut Butter Patties and one box of those caramel-coconut thingies. I came home to find this mess and two very happy Labradors hopped up on sugar with pieces of the boxes hanging from their mouths.

No, my dogs are not perfectly trained. They're wily, but not perfectly trained.

But then again, they sleep against a barrister bookcase filled with antique glassware, so I suppose they're not beyond hope.

And, no, I don't have any pictures of the happy, sugar-filled dogs. They were unceremoniously kicked through the back door, while I choked on my own words. You can't scold a dog for something unless they're in the act....Ack, cough, cough, cough, @#$%@&!

But you can kick them in the ass and refuse to look at them for a half an hour while you clean up the mess and then check to see if all the boxes were eaten. They left us two boxes of Peanut Butter Patties. How kind of them.

Anyone need a dog trainer? I'm available.