Category Archives: Husband

February 13, 2013 · 10:21 am

Happy Valentine’s Day! Don’t Give Me Cooties!

no romantic dinner Restaurants, florists and jewelry shops would like to convince you that Valentine’s Day is for lovers. And that passion will grow if you just fork out a fortune at a crowded restaurant, buy a dozen long stemmed roses on the most expensive day of the year, or purchase an overpriced diamond that has a used street value that’s less than a non-Smart cell phone.

Valentine’s Day does serve that minute population of those who are newly in love – those optimistic souls who met on Match.com within the past two or three months and whose relationship is still at the stage where they lock the bathroom door when they use the toilet. For the other 99.9% who are in a relationship, Valentine’s Day is kind of a hassle – especially when it falls on a weeknight as it does this year. The rest of us are too exhausted to go out and celebrate, and if we do, we’re too sleepy and bloated to consummate the evening after a big fancy meal.

This year my husband Tom and I will do what we do every year: buy each other a funny card. He’ll make his famous jambalaya, which is tastier than any restaurant, and for a fraction of the cost. We’ll celebrate the most romantic night of the year by dining with our three children. Jake will complain that he doesn’t like it, so he’ll get a bowl of white rice. Emily the vegetarian will have a separate meatless bowl, and Mary will try to nab the last piece of garlic bread. Our meal will be served in the kitchen. There will be no candles. No romantic music. And I will do the dishes.

We have a special event this year on Valentine’s Day evening. Jake is having a Cub Scout Pack meeting. Tom and I will celebrate by giving each other a little smooch during the event, then wait for the cubs to mutter “Eeewwww! Gross!”

The demographic that really caters to Valentine’s Day are children 12 and under. They celebrate by buying Valentine’s Day cards for every member of their classroom. They’re not allowed to just bring something for the boy or girl they have a crush on. They must also deliver a card to the boy that creeps them out or the girl who’s a big tattletale. Even the kids who give other kids cooties receive cards asking “Will You Be My Valentine?” Valentine’s Day is the one day of the year when you can tell that girl who doesn’t bathe often that she’s as sweet as Snow White, and she won’t think you’re hot for her. And although boys bring cards for boys and girls bring cards for girls, that doesn’t make them gay. Although it’s ok with me if they are.

kids cards

Kids’ Valentine’s Day cards come in a huge assortment, advertising hit Pixar or Dreamworks movies and Disney or Nickelodeon tv shows, and they usually have some accompanying prize attached. This year they include Brave cards with pencils, Phineas & Ferb cards with tattoos, Star Wars cards with glow sticks, and Transformers cards with erasers. I didn’t see Family Guy valentines, which is a good thing since Jake would have chosen them and all the elementary school parents would know that I’m a bad mom for letting him watch a show that would be rated R if it was live action.

Somehow I just don’t see the romance in Transformers. What kind of wish do they give the recipient? “Have a Apocalyptic Valentine’s Day?” “Be My Disastrous Demolition Valentine?”

tween cards

For the tween set, there’s Justin Bieber with tattoos that say “I heart JB,” Twilight Breaking Dawn with stickers, and Mustache cards with tattoos (where did this big craze about mustaches come from? Charlie Chaplin? Burt Reynolds? Hitler? Fodder for another blog).

mustaches

Jake picked out the cards from the movie Madagascar 3. It features Valentine’s Day wishes combined with circus advertisements for the cast. “May Your Valentine’s Day be Just Darling” also hawks “Gloria – the World’s Most Graceful Hippo.” I doubt Jake gave any thought as to whom he should give this card. However, if I was an overweight girl, I would be terribly offended.Madagascar 3

Crafty moms make hand-cut cards and fancy treat baggies, downloading ideas from Pinterest, Etsy, and Martha Stewart. I’m not one of those moms. Even if I had time on my hands I wouldn’t be one of those moms. I’m not creative or crafty, so whenever my kids have to build a class project like a Leprechaun Trap or a Spanish mission, I pimp out my oldest daughter Emily who lives her life outside of the box.

Most of the kids tape some sort of treat to the bag, usually SweeTarts or chocolate kisses – the official candies of Valentine’s Day. I might steal the kisses from my kids, but the SweeTarts get tossed into the candy bin that holds all the Easter, Halloween, birthday piñata candy, and a lone half-sucked on Christmas candy cane.

Jake’s teacher this year is forbidding treats of any kind, which will most likely cause a riot on the playground at recess with those kids nabbing candy from the students with more lenient teachers. Jake’s Valentine’s Day card package included temporary tattoos of all the Madagascar 3 characters. I’m hoping that Jake’s teacher doesn’t classify non-edible items as treats and allows them as gifts. On the other hand, even though tattoos and stickers may be classified as non-edible items, there is a good chance that some of the kids will still try to eat them – especially if it is something of the scratch & sniff variety.

By coincidence, on Valentine’s Day this year, Dr. To (pronounced “toe”), our local pediatric dentist, is coming to all the kindergarten classes to show kids the proper way to brush (follow the link in her name. She’s Jake’s dentist and we love her!). Then on Friday she’s doing the same for the 1st grade classes. This is perfect timing, since other than the day after Halloween, the day after Valentine’s Day will be the day most likely for rampant sugar to rot baby teeth.

Although Jake’s friends possibly spend hours addressing Valentine’s Day cards (or their parents whole minutes), I’m never sure what to with all those grams after the holiday. Jake and I read them together, and before the weekend they’ll magically disappear into our recycling bin.

Isn’t that romantic?

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January 30, 2013 · 4:45 pm

How Do You Feed 50,000 Visitors?

188868068It’s time to stock up on lemonade and homemade muffins because as of around noon yesterday, I have had 50,000 visitors.

It’s a good thing I have a lemon tree.

To a website like The Huffington Post or The Onion, 50,000 is small potatoes, but for my little mommy-turned-humor blog this is a miraculous feat. I am fortunate to know a boatload of people, but I doubt I’m acquainted more than a couple thousand.

I didn't quite capture the exact 50,000 mark.

I didn’t quite capture the exact 50,000 mark.

But 50,000? Who are these people?

How did they find Very VERY Busy Mom?

What lures them to my site? It’s probably not my new posts, since I’ve I only written three new ones this month – a record low. Yet somehow my viewership keeps going up.

If you stretched all my readers end to end on their backs, with stinky feet touching greasy heads (or pedicured toes grazing coifed up-dos, depending on my demographic) that line would reach an astounding 52 miles!

I doubt my readers would be particularly gung ho to venture out on that experiment. Still, it sounds like a bunch!

Granted, this 50,000 total doesn’t include individual people but rather daily visits. So if my husband, my mom and I were the only ones logging on, it would collectively take us nearly 47 years to reach that number.

By then I’ll most likely be either dead, too senile to write a blog, or too dim to log on at all. However by 2060, there probably won’t be blogs but rather mini-mind readings.

Hopefully you’ll just think of me and laugh. The way you do now anyway.

But if you’re not my husband, my mom, or someone who has a vested interest in my happiness (which leaves just my husband and my mom) why do you log on to Very VERY Busy Mom?

Some readers come when I announce a new post on Facebook. Half of me wants to hug and kiss these people for taking a moment out of their day to read what I have to say. The other half of me pities them, hoping that they’ll get a life that includes something more productive than trolling on Facebook.

Other readers are friends and acquaintances who receive an email from me announcing that I have a new post. I often assume that these people have given me my very own folder in their inbox. This folder is called “Spam.”

Another 318 people have signed up for automatic emails whenever I post a new blog. I wish I could buy a gift for everyone who’s done this, but they are all a mystery to me. For all I know, it could be one stalker with 318 different email addresses: iheartveryverybusymom@gmail.com; veryverybusymomismysexslave@yahoo.com; veryverybusymomstalker@nystateprison.com; etc.

Sometimes Google sends viewers my way. The most popular search terms involve Once Upon a Time. As the show’s dialogue editor, I spend 50 or more hours cutting each episode – more hours than I spend doing anything else including sleep – so I occasionally tend to write blogs about the show. Some of my favorite search terms are “once upon a time lesbian” (110 queries), “once upon a time lesbian kiss,” and “regina mills sexy.” I hope these webs surfers are not too disappointed when they land on my blog rather than something extra juicy.

Here are some other search terms my readers like to use:

“shingles face”

“school toilet”

“colon cleanse”

“sleepover party”

“too much poop”

“work at home mum makes $10,397/month part-time”

“is 50 shades of grey nasty”

“my husband loves me too much”

“sexy rubber gloves”

“trough sink at Costco”

“busy mom porn”

I have no idea who’s googling “busy mom porn,” and how they ended up on my website, but it kind of creeps me out.

Although there’s a “mom” in the title of “Very VERY Busy Mom,” there’s not one search term for “coupons,” “recipes,” “crafts,” or “cleaning.” Probably because I’ve never written about them. Well… maybe cleaning, or rather the lack thereof. Hence the “too much poop” search term.

If you’re reading my blog this very minute and it’s Wednesday, January 30, 2013, you are approximately my 50,235th viewer.

If it’s the year 2020, you’re either #6,547,289,136 or you’ve reached something called “Page Not Found.”

Will I put up a McDonald’s sign? “6,547,289,136 Viewers Served!”

What will I feed them all?

Apparently a few more Once Upon a Time predictions and something I can prepare with sexy rubber gloves.

I appreciate you stopping by Very VERY Busy Mom today. Have a muffin and some lemonade on your way out. I’m off to plant a second lemon tree.

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January 15, 2013 · 1:34 am

Baby, It’s Freakin’ Cold Outside!

39 degreesI was born to be born in sunny Southern California, but man oh man, it has been really cold lately. Not just cold for me and my abnormally warm blood, but so cold it’s the main topic of conversation, or at least a close second to Jodie Foster’s Golden Globes speech. The weather anchors call it a cold snap, which seems to be the phrase they’re all using instead of cold spell. Cold snap certainly sounds more frozen, as if all of Los Angeles was a block of dry ice that could snap. If it could spell, the letters would be “F-R-E-A-K-I-N’ C-O-L-D!!!”

I’m writing this blog just before midnight, and according to NBC Weather it’s currently 39° and expected to drop to a low of 33°. I admit that I’m a cold weather wimp, but for even you East Coast and Midwest transplants, you’ve got to agree that unless you’re a Navy Seal or one of those hearty Little House on the Prairie women who couldn’t be broken by 24’s Jack Bauer, this transformed tundra has become truly uninhabitable.

It doesn’t help that our house has virtually no insulation. It was built in 1930 with lath and plaster construction, which means that there’s none of that fancy, fluffy padding protecting my delicate body from the harsh elements. Fortunately we installed new energy efficient windows a few years ago, but the heating unit is a joke. Apparently some penny-wise pound-foolish previous owner decided to install a central air and heating system that was meant for a home that was 70% smaller. They justified it by not installing vents in the kitchen or the bathrooms. Needless to say, in the summer butter liquefies in seconds in our blazing kitchen, and in the winter the bathroom is so cold you might consider wearing a Depends rather than venture onto that cold throne in the middle of the night.

My husband Tom has been up coughing the last two evenings, and because he’s a true prince, he has been considerate enough to toss and turn and cough and hack up a lung on the living room sofa rather than in bed with me. He probably knows that in two day’s time, I’d just end up writing a nasty blog about how he Typhoid Maryed me with his pneumonia and all our mutual friends will give him crap about it. It’s better to be known as a prince than the contagion carrier. He just grabs a few blankets and cowboys up. Plus, he prefers the temperature a little nippy. Frankly, I think he’s got a little Navy Seal blood in him. Or perhaps some of that hearty Little House on the Prairie just-suck-it-up-or-I’ll-really give-you-something-to cry-about blood.

The thermostat is in the living room, which is the farthest point from the furnace and therefore the coldest room in the house in the winter – that is, the coldest room that is lucky enough to have a vent. But the living room is a good 10-20° colder than the bedrooms. If Tom turns up the heat in the living room, the bedrooms are sweltering – especially for Mary who sleeps on the top bunk in direct line with the vent.

I’ve mostly closed off the vents in the bedrooms while Tom’s having his little bout of germ spewing. A swivel tower air conditioner is strung horizontally up on the wall above Mary’s bed so she can cool herself if it gets too hot. My little Mary is like a delicate flower that is wilting at night. This is a nice way of saying she’s a wimpy girl without the Navy Seal or hearty Little House on the Prairie blood.

So now we have our slipshod heater trying to force itself through mostly-closed vents in the bedrooms as it chugs its way to the living room trying to warm my ailing husband. We’re paying a hefty price for gas, electricity, and power for Mary’s makeshift air conditioning unit. And still, it’s probably 65° in the living room and 95° in Mary’s room.

My 2007 Honda Odyssey has a nifty feature – a thermostat that reads the outside temperature. I’m not brave enough to go out this second to see if it’s really 39° right now. But I wish I could use the feature to accurately measure the temperature indoors. I’d like to squeeze my minivan in through the front door to see if there really is a 10, 20 or even 30° difference between Tom’s sofa and Mary’s top bunk.

Despite the frigid temperature outside and the vast array of climates inside, this cold snap has left me with a tremendous sense of gratitude – gratitude that our family is not homeless, gratitude that I will most likely be able to pay both the electric and gas bill this month, and gratitude that we have cozy blankets and heaters to keep us warm. But at this moment I’m mostly grateful that my prince of a husband is coughing on the couch instead of into my immune system.

Baby, it’s a cold. Outside! ( I don’t want to catch it!).

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Filed under Anxiety, Family, Financial Insecurity, Humor, Husband, Illness, Kids, Recuperating

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December 31, 2012 · 12:31 am

My New Year’s Resolution this Year: No More Resolutions!

No New Year's ResolutionsThere is one topic of conversation today that dominates all others: New Year’s resolutions.

Correction. For this year only, everyone’s talking about surviving the Fiscal Cliff. However, a close second is the aforementioned New Year’s resolutions.

This year I’m boycotting.

Every year on January 1st I vow to eat healthier and to exercise more. It’s one of those blood oath vows that I am 100% certain will stick. My goal is to lose 20 lbs., which is stupidly unrealistic because in order to maintain 110 lbs., I would have to live on a diet of diluted vegetable broth and run a half marathon on a daily basis. Frankly, I could care less how much I weigh as long as I lose this jiggly abdomen I’ve acquired this year and have arms strong enough to paint a ceiling without taking a break every five minutes.

I’m not going to call it a resolution. But I’m definitely doing more planks and eating less popcorn.

I also think I’m going to get more organized. It actually is a necessity because the clutter is clogging up the good stuff I can’t find. I keep meaning to make the transition from paper Day Planner to Google Calendar so the rest of the family can see what I’ve planned for them without having to decipher my chicken scratch.

Every year I hope that the coming year will be the one that gets us out of debt. This year I’m more realistic. Short of winning lotto, that’s not going to happen anytime soon. I just plan to keep what I’m doing – paying my bills on time, juggling balance transfer deals, and only buying what I absolutely need. There are a lot of folks who are too poor to even accomplish that goal, so I absolutely feel like one of the fortunate ones. Of course I still wouldn’t turn down that lotto win.

Maybe I’ll eat healthier, exercise more, get organized, and pay off some debt in 2013, but I’m not going to make a deal with the devil to do it. If I fail, I’m not going to kick myself, single-handedly devour an entire Boston cream pie, toss out my Thighmaster, haphazardly throw the contents of my entire garage into a rent-a-dumpster or run through the mall like a banshee throwing my Visa card at everything in sight.

It’s the resolution relapse that bites you in the butt every time.

When exploring a list of the most popular New Year’s resolutions, I realize that there’s a bunch that I already do. I’ve never smoked, I already quit drinking, I tell my kids and husband everyday that I love them, I volunteer, I recycle, and I already went back to school. I’d like to learn more Spanish than “¿dónde está el baño?” and “con queso por favor,” but if I don’t master the language this year, I can at least practice rolling my “R’s.”

Many people put travel among their list of New Year’s resolutions. I don’t, because it would cancel out the previous paying-off-debt goal.

Some aim for a better job. I actually like my job, and my boss pays me well, but I could use some extra hours in the off-season. I can aim for that, but I’m not going to call it a resolution. It’s more like making some phone calls to see if there’s any freelance work to be had.

Wait. I already do that.

Another typical resolution is to learn something new.  If I had the time, I’d do that more often, but I figure that I’ll have plenty of time for that in the old folks’ home.

A resolution that’s popping up more these days is vowing to manage stress. I could use a little more of that one, but since my bad bout of shingles last year, I’ve really been trying to get enough sleep and not get freaked out by the things I can’t control. So I guess I’ve been sticking to that last year’s resolution. Done.

Here’s what I really want to do in 2013:

I want to write more Facebook comments.

I want to accept that other parents won’t become more courteous drivers just because I roll my eyes at them when they double park at school pick up.

I want to watch more Jon Stewart.

I want to quit obsessing over gas prices.

I want to take a bath one day.

I want to find a better hiding place to store my son’s coloring pages than the recycling bin.

I want to dye my hair before my roots are an inch long.

I want to beat my kids in a game of Apples to Apples.

I don’t want any of my blogs to be stinkers.

Sometimes I just want to do nothing.

I’m hoping to do all these things in 2013. I’m just not going to call them resolutions.

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December 30, 2012 · 11:49 am

The Happiest Place on Earth Meets the Most Crowded Place on Earth

Our family in front of Sleeping Beauty's Castle

Our family in front of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle

In 2006 when my son Jake was born I invented a fantasy about Fantasyland. My dream was that in the year 2012 we would take the whole family to Disney World. By then, Jake would be 6, Mary aged 12 and Emily would be a ripe teenager of 16. It would be the perfect storm of kid’s ages to enjoy a week of amusement parks.

IMG_3141

The family posing in a Toon Town car

Unfortunately, it wasn’t meant to be. In my wildest dreams, short of winning lotto, there’s no way in hell that we could afford a flight to Orlando, a week-long stay at one of the Disney Resorts and 7 days at Disney’s Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, Animal Kingdom, Pleasure Island, Typhoon Lagoon, and of course my favorite – Epcot. The cost would total even more than the student loan I started repaying in 2010, and I have a hard time even paying that.

Instead, we decided that in lieu of Christmas presents, this year we would spend a day at Disneyland.

Our family posing in front of the Christmas tree at Main Street

Our family posing in front of the Christmas tree at Main Street

In high school and college I worked at Disneyland’s Hungry Bear Restaurant. Although the tasks and responsibilities were exactly the same as my previous job at Carl’s Jr. (take an order, upsell a dessert, take money, hand customer a burger and fries, move on to next customer), it was a really treat to work at the Happiest Place on Earth. I wore a costume, not a uniform, I was a cast member, not an employee, and the people paying for my slightly-above-minimum-wage salary were guests, not customers. This was before Tokyo Disneyland was built, so there were huge crowds of Japanese with cameras who loved having me pose with them in photos. I used to joke that I was mounted with a magnet on every refrigerator in Japan.

The famous shot of Walt Disney with a strategically-placed Mickey Mouse

The famous shot of Walt Disney with a strategically-placed Mickey Mouse

I still love Disneyland, which is exactly 41 miles southeast of our home. Tickets are now $87 for everyone 10 and over and $81 for ages 3-9. Parking is $15. So for my family, including my mother-in-law Lina (it’s our Christmas present to her), to just get into the park, we’d have to fork out $531. If you add gas at $3.69 a gallon and my minivan, which gets 14 miles to the gallon, you can tack on another $21.61. And if you really care about that, proceed to my previous blog post ($ ÷ Gallon) x (Miles ÷ Gallon) = LA Gasoline Anxiety.

I posted a request on Facebook asking if anyone knew of any good Disneyland deals. My friend Jeanne could get $6 off each ticket with her Disney Employee discount, but I would have to pay cash, and unfortunately we just don’t have it in the bank. I ended up getting about $3 off each ticket by being a member of the TV Academy, which would end up paying for the hot chocolate everyone enjoyed at around 10:00 pm on the day of our visit.

The crowd in New Orleans Square

The crowd in New Orleans Square

We decided to go to Disneyland on the Thursday between Christmas and New Year’s because the kids were off school and Tom and Lina were off work. I knew it would be busy, but I figured we’d stay until midnight when the park closed and it would just be a given that we would be spending a lot of time waiting.

We left at 8:15 am and arrived at the parking line at 9:30 am. One thing I love about Disneyland is its efficiency. There is an actual Disneyland exit from the 5 Freeway car pool lane that takes you directly to the parking garage. The line of cars was like a championship freeway series game between the Dodgers and the Angels – times about 10. I wish I had taken a photo for proof.

2 hour wait for Space Mountain

2 hour wait for Space Mountain

We entered the gates of Disneyland at about 10:45 am. All the medium and large lockers were taken, so we crammed all our jackets into two small lockers at $7 each. Jake’s now too big for the stroller, which used to serve as a large locker; mega-size if we stashed our loot in the seat of the stroller and made him walk.

I have never in my life seen Disneyland so crowded. Everywhere we went was like a wall of people. I felt sorry for anyone in a wheelchair or someone with a stroller – especially a double stroller. They were just stranded in place, as if they’d brought along Disney’s tar baby from The Song of the South.

160 minute wait time for Indiana Jones

160 minute wait time for Indiana Jones

The must-see ride on our list was Indiana Jones, so we migrated there first. The wait time was a staggering 160 minutes, which is mind boggling since the actual Indiana Jones movies aren’t even that long. We grabbed a fast pass which would allow us a short line, but we had to use it after 5:45.

I’ve heard that the unofficial maximum capacity of this 60 acre park is 85,000, and I would swear that on Thursday that number was exceeded. The mob became so dense the Disneyland employees (I mean cast members) were recruited for crowd control. They roped off sections of New Orleans Square and directed pedestrian traffic to the right and left, with no left turns allowed. Frankly I was expecting the crowd to riot, but everyone was surprisingly well behaved.

The wait time for the Jungle Cruise has a hand-written 60 minutes. The available cards only went to 50 minutes

The wait time for the Jungle Cruise has a hand-written 60 minutes. The available cards only went to 50 minutes

The Alice in Wonderland ride had a posted wait time of 60 minutes. We had been waiting for about a half hour when the ride stopped. The loudspeaker announced that due to technical difficulties, the ride would be closed for about 20 minutes. I expected a mass exodus but no – everyone continued to wait patiently in line. I thought there would be crying babies, wining toddlers, and bitchy parents, but apparently I was the only one. The Happiest Place on Earth was magically breeding happy customers (I mean guests).

I thought the crowd would die down once the children under 10 became tired and cranky, but they ended up being replaced by teenagers who arrived in the early evening.  It didn’t start thinning out until after 10:30 at night, but even then the lines for the prime E ticket rides were over an hour.

The shortest wait time in the park - 40 minutes for the Gadget's Go Coaster in Toon Town

The shortest wait time in the park – 40 minutes for the Gadget’s Go Coaster in Toon Town

We got in line for our last ride, Star Tours, just before midnight. After getting bounced around along with C3PO and R2D2, we joined the enormous throng at 12:30 am walking down Main Street and exiting the gates of Disneyland. We waited for three trams before it was our turn to board.

We didn’t get home until a quarter of two in the morning. Tom drove, and I fell asleep the moment we got on the 5 Freeway and didn’t awaken until we got off the freeway. My husband is a prince (see proof of it in my earlier post My Husband Loves Me More Than Your Husband Loves You.”)

Lina, Jake & Mary in Toon Town

Lina, Jake & Mary in Toon Town

The entire trip including food and a souvenir for each of the kids (two caps and a mug) probably totaled about $800, a little more than we would have spent on Christmas gifts for everyone, but well worth the price of the memories.

Every one of my children stayed awake until the very end – even my 6-year old Jake who not once complained about being tired, bored, or hungry. Mary was a little annoyed that we didn’t get to ride Space Mountain which had a 50 minute wait time at 11:55 pm. No yelling. No tantrum. But she stopped holding my hand. That’s how I knew she was mad. Throughout the day, Emily kept thanking me for the wonderful Christmas present. And of all the possible souvenirs she was able to pick out, the only thing she wanted was a Pirates mug.

I love my kids. Wherever I am, if my children are with me, that’s the Happiest Place on Earth.

The unhappiest place at the Happiest Place on Earth - the smoking area

The unhappiest place at the Happiest Place on Earth – the smoking area

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December 29, 2012 · 12:02 pm

What’s the Statute of Limitations on Mailing Christmas Cards?

2012 Christmas CardSome say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. If that is the case, then Christmas cards officially drive me insane.

Every year I swear that I’m starting the process early enough to finally get those cards in the mail well before Christmas, and yet here I am again this year, dragging my big bag of stamped cards to the post office the day after Christmas and glancing sheepishly at the postal workers who thought their busy season had ended. As everyone knows, the last thing you ever want to do is piss off a postal worker.

For years we hired my friend Laura Wagner to take family photos (follow her link if you want a great photographer). If I were a smart gal, the moment I finished a photo session, I would book another session with her for the following year, much like I schedule a dentist appointment for 6 months after I’m packing up my complimentary toothbrush and dental floss. Instead, my family’s entire December gets completely booked, and we don’t have a common two hours of daylight to get everyone together with the goal of taking a family photo.

My friend and neighbor Gina has a good camera, so one weeknight in mid-December we asked her 16-year old son Jet to come by to take a few shots and give us the memory card. Unfortunately, I didn’t investigate the shot before he left. The framing was much too wide and seemed to warrant the caption: “Cathy’s cramped living room and a few indiscernible heads in the far left corner.” My daughter Emily was perched in the back and her head was about a ½ inch tall, while Spike, our Australian shepherd was in the foreground and looked big enough to sit on the entire family in one squat. Even if I did want the photo, for some reason my computer kept seeing the shots as an unrecognizable format and refused to download them.

For round 2, I dragged over a piece of furniture and used it as a tripod as I set the timer on my camera. I should mention that my family was not happy that there was a round 2. The prospect of unblinkingly grinning for yet another round of red eye flashes was not something that would force a natural smile. Tom had a death lock hold on the two big dogs, while Mary’s little dog Bella kept squirming from her grip and chasing me to the camera. Emily was obviously not smiling and getting more and more upset each time I told her so. Jake was making goofy faces, and Mary kept whining for the whole ordeal to be over. After about a half dozen shots that were all stinkers, I went into Crazy Mom Mode and shouted, “I don’t ask for a lot, but this was important to me, dammit!!!”

I stomped off to the bedroom, fantasizing about leaving my family forever and moving to a small Midwest town to live an anonymous child-free life, where no one would know me or expect a Christmas photo from my seemingly happy family whose guts I now hated – and vice versa.

A couple minutes later, Tom knocked on the door and told me that everyone was ready to take the picture. I was pretty embarrassed about my behavior. I would like to say “needless to say,” but obviously it wasn’t needless to say. I apologized for throwing a tantrum like a 4-year old and started round 3 as I proceeded to take the best family photo I could with my standard consumer Nikon camera.

Not one shot was worth mass-producing. Heads were turned, human faces were buried by dog snouts, and I realized that Emily’s lipstick was too red. I would have been willing to use a bad photo as a blooper, but there weren’t any with everyone in the shot. We were all completely burnt out from the ordeal of taking a family photo, so we decided to take another photo the next time we could get everyone together and in a good mood.

Two nights later we tried again.

The shot still sucked. Sure, everyone was framed well, and they were all smiling, and their eyes were open and they were looking at the camera, but it’s still a standard consumer camera in less than ideal lighting, while my friend Laura Wagner has years of practice and training and big bucks spent on great cameras and lighting equipment. Also, the red eye worked on Spike’s blue eyes, but Jasmine’s (our German shepherd) brown eyes were glowing green like some kind of horror film. I tried to smudge it out with the iPhoto touch up tool, but then she just looked freaky in a different way.

All the flaws of the photo were made more apparent blown up in a 6” x 8” card, so I created a Costco photo montage where it was shrunk down to a 1-3/4” x 3” shot along side photos of Emily shooting a bow and arrow, Mary with her new little dog, Jake with his Student of the Month certificate, the kids at a Dodger game, Tom and Jake in their Cub Scout uniforms, and me with Jake at his school’s Rockin’ for Colfax concert – a great photo taken by Colfax’s premiere photographer Grettel Cortes (follow her link for her fabulous photographic abilities).

So why did it take until December 27th to get the cards in the mail? A combination of whittling down my 2000+ word first draft letter, and addressing and stamping a boatload of cards.

Thankfully they are now all in the mail. It’s a very good thing I ordered the “Happy Holidays” cards rather than the “Merry Christmas.”

If there’s any lesson to be learned, I will give Laura or Grettel a call in January and book them for sometime before December 2013.

Either that, or just scrap the “Happy Holidays” theme and wish everyone a Happy Valentine’s Day. Hopefully I can get those cards in the mail before mid February.

IMG_3130

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December 7, 2012 · 4:33 pm

As One “Dirty Job” Ends, Another One Begins

Poopy toiletAfter eight fun-filled yet horribly repulsive seasons, the Discovery Channel series Dirty Jobs has been canceled. Crawling through garbage, vomit, sewage, yucky muck, wiggly insects, or as host Mike Rowe describes in his Huffington Post farewell article, “feces from every species,” Rowe has taken pride and humor in profiling every crappy job that will make you eternally grateful for your crappy job.Dirty Jobs With Mike Rowe

This week, I had my own crappy job, but fortunately it had nothing to do with my show Once Upon a Time (I’m the dialogue editor).

At this point I advise any readers who are easily repulsed (yes – that means you, Gayle), to quickly click the “X” above this page and tune in another day. On the other hand, you probably already did that the second you saw the photo of the huge bubbling caldron of poop soup in my toilet, so by now I’m just speaking to the wind.

Super Colon CleanseI suppose that it’s fitting that I should work on a show that features magic in every episode, because I myself take a magical pill every day. Rather than turn me into a princess or a toad or something truly spectacular, this magical pill does exactly the opposite – it turns me completely regular.

By regular, I mean regular bowel movements.

The magical pill is called Super Colon Cleanse, and I buy it from the apothecary known as Trader Joe’s. Super Colon Cleanse silhouettesThe front of the bottle features silhouettes of a healthy man and woman standing in relaxed, carefree poses. The image is reminiscent of a classic James Bond main title sequence, which might be incredibly sexy if the couple wasn’t placed right next to the drawing of a large colon. imagesHowever, their casual stances do seem to be indicative of the effectiveness of their product. This is not a pose that screams: “Get out of my way! I need to get to the bathroom NOW!”Super Colon Cleanse colon

The magical ingredient in Super Colon Cleanse is psyllium, a dietary fiber that makes all who ingest it able to properly and regularly eliminate harmful toxins and waste products, or in layman’s terms, it makes me have a really good poop at the same time every morning.

Usually there is a perfect Circle of Life analogy to Super Colon Cleanse. Water is poured over the Plantago plant… which makes the psyllium seed… which is poured into capsules… which are poured into me… which turns into waste that gets poured into the toilet… which pours into water treatment plants… which cleanse the water enough to pour it back onto the plant.

Yesterday the Psyllium Circle of Life took a sudden halt at the toilet stage.

I sat down on my abode at my normally scheduled time, unclogged my own personal pipes, and pushed down the handle to flush my contribution to the next set of pipes. However, instead of spinning in the proper clockwise downward direction toward the 3-inch toilet hole, my deposit merely spun without disappearing, as if my bowl was set on the slow speed of bottomless Cuisinart.

I tried again. Within that split second of releasing the flush handle, I prayed to the porcelain gods not to make that muck overflow onto my bare feet.

The gods heard me. So instead of mopping up a feces-filled floor, I’ll have to drop a few bucks into the Salvation Army bucket next time I go to the market.

I always keep my end of a bargain.

I nabbed the plunger and started heaving and hoeing, plunging and purging, as I counted “1 – 2 – 3 – 4…” all the way to 25.  I did another set of 25. And another.

Defeated, I set the plunger aside and went back to work. Also, I opened the window because the stench was stifling. I know men like to think that their sh*t don’t stink, but I’m honest enough to admit that my morning constitutional can knock a buzzard off a gut wagon.

About 15 minutes later I went in to give it another try. “1 – 2 – 3 – 4…” Three sets of 25. I was starting to feel it in my triceps.

By this time, anything that may have been even slightly solid had now been completely liquefied. The toilet resembled a big bowl of tasty overcooked black bean soup – without the tasty.

“1 – 2 – 3 – 4…”

I performed this 3 sets of 25 workout all morning and into the afternoon. Every hour, the liquid would seemingly disappear, but the moment I flushed, the elixir would return black as ever.

Even though I was gag-ridden by this mountain of muck all morning, all this exercise was making me work up an appetite, so I stopped for lunch, then took a trip to buy a snake.

No, I’m not aware of a useful reptile that will eat through a clogged toilet bowl, but if National Geographic ever finds one, I’ll be first in line to adopt it. I drove to our local hardware store and purchased a “plumber’s snake” – a malleable steel rope that can force its way through curved pipes.

And then I did what any smart woman would do: I waited for my husband to come home from work and let him finish the job.

He did. And after less than a half hour and the eruption of a few curse words, the bowl was clean enough to eat (I just added this line for anyone who by this time isn’t completely grossed out).

However, I can already guess what my husband’s planning to buy me for Christmas:

Room freshener.

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December 3, 2012 · 12:52 pm

Catch the Red Eye!

red eye

No, this post isn’t about hopping a midnight flight from LA to DC. In fact, I’m one of the few people I know who hasn’t flown an airplane since before 9-11. It has nothing to do with the fear of flying into a skyscraper or having my toes strip-searched at check in. I just don’t have the budget to vacation anywhere further than where my minivan’s full tank of gas will take me.

I call this post Catch the Red Eye because I actually have a red eye. Fortunately it’s not contagious. I was just looking for a title that was catchy. I’m full of puns today.

Here’s my story:

I sat down to dinner last Monday when my husband Tom noticed my eye.

“Wow. Your eye looks really red.”

It wasn’t wow with an exclamation point or anything since nothing short of an emotionally-vested baseball or football game would warrant palpable excitement out of him.

I figured my left eye was just red from the year-long bout of shingles I can’t completely shake. But my daughter Mary leaned over and looked, and her shock and awe equaled about half an exclamation point.

“Yeah, Mom. It’s kind of gross.”

Tom also noted that my right eye was the wrong eye to be red, so I went to the bathroom mirror to take a look.

Yuck! It was really red! It was like my eye was bleeding on the inside, but the eyeball was holding all the blood in. There was a large spot on the outside corner of my eye, and in the next few days it spread through the rest of my eye.

My doctor assured me it was just a broken blood vessel and that it would go away eventually. It doesn’t hurt, so I don’t really think about it. It’s only when I run into someone I know that I remember I look ghastly.

“Geez! What happened to your eye?!”

Most of my friends use the exclamation point in this case. It’s nice to know that they care so much about me that their voice grows loud and concerned. It’s also a good thing for me to know that my husband cares about me even if he doesn’t use an exclamation point when commenting on my potential blindness.

It’s an interesting experience when I talk to people I don’t know. I find that when we meet, they are either drawn to my eye, or they’re trying particularly hard not to look at it. During our chat, I imagine our actual conversation juxtaposed with the conversation in the stranger’s head:

Me: “Hi. I’m Mary’s mom, Cathy. Thanks for dropping off Kristen.”

Stranger: “Hi. I’m Jamie. Kristen’s mom.”

Stranger’s Head: Jesus Christ! What happened to her eye?!

Me: “Mary talks about Kristen all the time. I’m glad we finally lined up a play date.”

Stranger: “Me too.”

Stranger’s Head: God, that thing must hurt like a bitch! Kristen didn’t mention that Mary’s mom had an accident.

Me: “Mary just got a new dog, so they might take it to the park. Would that be ok?”

Stranger: “Sure. Kristen loves dogs.”

Stranger’s Head: It doesn’t seem to bother her, but that eye’s really red. Is she stoned? There are a lot of those shops with the green crosses in this neighborhood.

Me: “Can I get you something to drink? To eat?”

Stranger’s Head: Munchies? Yeah, she’s stoned.

Stranger: “No, thanks. I was just going to drop off Kristen and pick her up in a couple of hours.” (pause) “Or less.”

Me: “I’d be happy to take her home.”

Stranger (a little too quickly): “No!”

Stranger’s Head: But she’s only got one red eye. I don’t think you can be half stoned.

Stranger: “I mean, thanks, but I need to come back to the area around 5:00 anyway.”

Stranger’s Head: Is her eye always that red? Maybe it’s a birth defect.

Me: “Great. So I’ll see you about 5:00?”

Stranger’s Head: Bummer for her. She probably gets a lot of people gawking at her.

Me: “Later?” (No answer). “Julie?”

Stranger’s Head: Damn! She caught me staring at that bloody thing! Look somewhere else!

(Stranger nods over to Tom who’s watching a football game).

Stranger: “Is that Mary’s dad?”

Me: “Her stepdad. Tom, this is Jamie, Kristen’s mom.”

Tom (ignoring stranger, shouting at tv): “Run! Run! Run! You $^%@* tool!”

Me: “Sorry. My husband’s a big Colts fan.”

Stranger’s Head: Wow! Mary’s stepdad sure loves his exclamation points!

Stranger: “My husband likes the Red Eyes.”

Stranger’s Head: “What the hell came out of my mouth? Backpedal! Backpedal!”

Stranger: “I mean Redskins.”

Stranger’s Head: Damn! I hope Kristen has a terrible play date. I can’t face this woman again.

*****

I say goodbye to Kristen’s mom Julie and escort her out the door. Thank goodness. She had something green on the tip of her nose and I couldn’t stop staring at it.

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November 29, 2012 · 9:25 pm

Mary Had a Little Dog ♪♫•*¨*•.¸¸♥

My husband Tom is a huge animal lover. In his early 20’s he worked for a veterinarian tending to beloved sick and wounded pets, and later he was employed at the Wildlife Way Station caring for wild animals that had been abandoned in the city. He tells a very funny story about how he survived the low pay by eating Monkey Chow.  Maybe one day he’ll write about it in his blog Middle Age Metal Head.

Like Indiana Jones, he’s not terribly fond of snakes, but with the exception of his lukewarm enthusiasm for that not-warm reptile, Tom loves all God’s creatures except for one: little dogs. He really hates them.

His disdain for these small fluffy balls of joy came into conflict with the desire of my daughter Mary who’s been pining for a little dog for years. We currently have two dogs – a German Shepherd named Jasmine, and an Australian Shepherd called Spike. They weigh in at 65 and 55 lbs. respectively, and although they’re nowhere near the size of Great Danes or St. Bernards, they are sizeable dogs that could scare away any home invasion.

Although I was raised with mid-sized mutts, my siblings and their kids today are primarily adopting purebred miniatures. And unlike the dogs of our childhood who were secluded to the yard, the house, or the foot of our bed, these doggies accompany their masters everywhere. My niece Kattie is planning to have her Mini Yorkshire Toby serve as the ring bearer at her wedding. Just like in the G/PG movies, my sister Tammie used to sneak her Maltese around in her purse wherever she went, except for at home when Lacey would live in her cleavage. Lacey passed away recently, which was very sad. I know my sister loves me more than almost anything in the world, but I feel fairly certain that she cried over Lacey much longer than she’ll ever cry over my death.

Mary loves to go to her Aunt Tammie’s house. My sister has a huge yard with several dogs of all sizes and even though three of her four kids are grown and have moved out of the house, Tammie’s constantly babysitting their basset hounds or boxers. It’s always so heartbreaking if one of them has puppies. Mary begs and pleads to take one home, but Tom has been insistent. He calls them “rat dogs,” and says that the whole collection of toy dogs at Tammie’s house wouldn’t weigh as much as one of our dogs. I’m not sure why that matters, but it seems to really irk him.

But Mary has been persistent. This week she turned 12, and she has been begging for a small dog for her birthday. Tom started to cave a little and suggested that she start feeding, watering and walking our dogs and cleaning up the poop in the yard. He thought Mary might whine a bit, but she didn’t. She scooped up those stinky piles with gusto. Tom reluctantly agreed to a home invasion from a little rat dog.

Mary started looking online at the pet adoption sites, studying the little orphan’s names and preferences (Captain likes to catch balls; Tiny enjoys having her tummy rubbed), and of course breeds (Chihuahuas and Poodles not allowed – a hard limit for Tom). Tom originally demanded that the dog must be at least 20 lbs., which to Mary and me seemed like a medium-sized dog. I figured that any dog that could fit into Pampers Cruisers Diapers would definitely not be classified as “little.” But we wore him down, and Mary searched for pups that were Pampers Size 1 and 2.

Every day she asked if she could go after school and find her new dog, but I was swamped with work and kept postponing it. I finally told her when she was off school for Veteran’s Day that Tom would take her. She couldn’t have been more excited had it been her own birthday. Unfortunately, it turned out that the shelters were closed for the holiday and she wouldn’t be getting one after all. She came home and cried, which meant that she was really, REALLY heartbroken because it takes a lot to make that girl cry.

I told her we’d go the week of Thanksgiving while she was off school, and she couldn’t wait for the day. She had her eye on a Terrier named Samantha at the Burbank Animal Shelter. I bought her a dog bed from Costco, and we drove over to see if Samantha could possibly be the pup that would be her new best friend.

However, the shelter had some stipulations. We had to come back with the whole family to see how Samantha got along with everyone – a nearly impossible task since everyone always has something going on, and the shelter closes each day at 5:00. We were also to bring Spike and Jasmine along to see what they thought of her, probably to make sure they wouldn’t immediately swallow the little dog whole. If it was a good fit for everyone, then we had to schedule an appointment for the next week to get her spayed. After that, we might be able to take her home.

It was truly amazing the number of hoops we were going to have to jump through to adopt a dog that was already on death row.

The next day was Mary’s actual 12th birthday. I still had too much work to take a break, but Mary really, really, REALLY wanted a little dog, so I shoe horned a couple of hours by bending the laws of time – a superpower I try not to overuse. I called the Van Nuys Animal Shelter to find out if they had the same rules as Burbank.

“So even if we find a dog we like, we can’t take it home until we can get the whole family here, right?”

There was a pause on the other line. “No. Why do you need the whole family?”

“But do you still need us to bring our dogs there?” I asked.

Another pause. Then very slowly: “We don’t want your dogs here.”

An hour later, we were taking home Bella, an adorable 1-year old terrier mix weighing in at a dainty 8 lbs. Because her shots were up to date and she had already been spayed, the dog was ready to roll.

Despite himself, I think Tom really likes her. He’s nicknamed Bella “Little Turd,” and she even comes when he calls her. Bella holds her own with our big dogs, and if you ask Mary how she likes her new dog, her voice turns sweet as honey. “I love her,” she swoons. Which has inspired me to write this little ditty:

Mary had a little dog.

Its cheeks were white as snow.

And everywhere that Mary went.

The dog was sure to go.

Obviously, we’re now working on potty training.

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November 22, 2012 · 11:22 am

10 Reasons Why I Am Grateful This Thanksgiving

I live in the East Fernando Valley. The rest of my family resides in various pockets of the Inland Empire – an hour away without traffic, and a slow multi-hour freeway crawl on a holiday like Thanksgiving. As Spock would say, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few,” so most holidays I’m the one checking Sigalert and making a pit stop at the In-N-Out drive thru to tide myself over before the big meal.

The last time I hosted Thanksgiving dinner at my home was in 1993. This was pre-kids, and my ex-husband and I prepared a turkey dinner for my mom, siblings, nieces and nephews at the home we rented in Toluca Lake.

Notice that I say: “prepared.”

Sometime mid-morning our oven broke and we finished cooking the turkey in the microwave. The ceremonial slicing of the bird occurred around noon so we could divide it into pieces small enough to fit into the microwave. You didn’t have the option of white meat or dark meat. Instead, it was your choice of “dry as a bone” or “pink enough to cause e coli.”

Besides the long drive and the rising price of gas, the microwaved turkey dinner was probably a good reason for my family to take nearly two decades before allowing me to host another Thanksgiving dinner.

As I write this post, my family will be arriving here in just under an hour to give me another shot. And since my current husband will be doing all the cooking this year (another reason why I think this one’s a keeper), I’m taking a moment to reflect upon the 10 Reasons Why I Am Grateful This Thanksgiving:

1. I am grateful that I get to enjoy a long visit with my Family of Origin, but that they’ll all leave before I remember why I couldn’t wait to move out the second I turned 18.

2. I am grateful that I didn’t have to kill my own turkey.

3. I am grateful that I decided against being cheap enough to make a pumpkin pie out of our leftover Halloween jack-o-lanterns.

4. I am grateful that my family will be so hungry that they won’t notice that we do not own a dining table.

5. I am grateful that that most Americans and I share the belief that Thanksgiving calories don’t count.

6. I am grateful that I am not invited to any social engagements this coming weekend where I would need to try and hide the 5 lbs. I gained on this single day.

7. I am grateful that the turkey’s tryptophane will keep me from waking up early enough to partake in the Black Friday Sales that I can’t afford.

8. I am grateful that there will be a variety of vegetables, but I don’t have to eat any of them.

9. I am grateful that since I am destined to become a football widow today, I’ll have two dozen family members here to entertain me.

10. I am grateful that we had new sewage pipes installed this year, just in case any of my family members have become closet bulimics.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you, and I hope that your hearts are overflowing with gratitude instead of bad cholesterol.

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