Once More with Feeling.

Irish Eyes

"May your right hand always be streched out in friendship, but never in want."

Happy St. Patrick's Day.

Kiss Me, I'm Irish

                                                   

 

I'm on a mailing list for a local spa/salon.  I should mention I live on the south shore of Boston, and my town is also nicknamed "The Irish Riviera".  This isn't a city-slicker $50 for a mani type of place,  and I appreciate the fact that,  for a few miles drive,  I can go in for an occasional facial or eyebrow wax and not break the bank.   Still,  it's amazing what special offers you can be afforded when you're on a mailing list.

To wit,  today I found this special offer:

    "Nothing says "I feel lucky" more than a Shamrock vajazzle!! Come in to Gl*w and show your  Irish pride by donning a green shamrock (anywhere on your body) in honor of St. Patrick's Day. You're friends will be so jealous... Just $15."

Yeah, I know, I know...this isn't exactly groundbreaking news, thanks to a one Jennifer "Boob" Hewitt and her labia of a year or so ago.  She promotes some lame book which makes an offhand reference to her vajazzling practices (in interviews of same book promotion, somehow this was an integral part in getting over a break up to Jamie Kennedy,  to which I can only offer a heartfelt "????")  but now this 3rd party personal grooming -meets-"interior design" has infultrated my small town spa. 

And, (AND!)  as if that were not enough to digest,  my neighbor who also goes to this same salon,  has asked about this  service, along the lines of  "are people really going for this?" and reportedly yes, and in pretty good numbers,  actually.

Oh, really.

(I feel like there is  a joke  about "the south shore"  and "Irish Riviera" to be made here...give me a minute...)

Perhaps I'm just projecting my own awkwardness and level of  commitment to pain for beauty's sake, but damn, ladies.  I can barely tolerate a bikini wax. And  I'm not even talking The Telly Savalas Special, just a seldom, summertime, very, (verrry) basic "I want to wear a bathing suit without humilation" level of care.  Now I am armed with the knowledge that there are women among me, in my town, walking around going Telly Savalas Special AND adding hot glue gun and some rhinestones  (shamrock blangy-style) to their parts.  

Remember when a thong peeking out of some low-rise pants was THE scandal?  Those were some good times, the early 2000s.

Also,  I'd like to know why my friends would be "jealous" as the offer suggests, as I can tell you my friends have no personal (specifically, visual) knowledge of  South of the Equator lady business. (nursing Carolyn has since removed "North" from that list. ) So do people show off their vajazzling? Is that a thing? Like in the ladies room where we tend to congregate? Or at Book Club?  I admit, it's been awhile since I've gone out.  Or is it the low $15 price tag that they'll be jealous of?  It's a confusing time for me.

 

Goodbye, Amazon

Amazon will no longer see another dime from me.  I don't care that the How To Guide to Rape/Molestation of Kids has since been pulled (but only after becoming a best seller), but the fact that Amazon thought that their position to sell it and continue to do so was defensible by any reach, going as so far as to hide behind the big, scary word "Censorship!" is beyond the pale disgusting and insulting to me and offensive to those who have fought for our Freedoms.   No one has stopped the author from writing his book.   There's his Freedom, which to this minute, remains fully intact.  However, freely electing to sell/discontinue  a product in your shop does not equate to censorship. Yielding to your consumer's outrage, is not Censoship.  Every day in our country, stores make the call as to what they keep/promote/sell on their shelves.  Furthermore,  in your statement, "Amazon does not support or promote hatred or criminal acts, however, we do support the right of every individual to make their own purchasing decision,"  actually, the author has now made a living from you providing him a platform to sell his ware. I'm sorry, but you do, in fact, support and promote  it.

Incidentally, Amazon - you also own Diapers.com and Soap.com, right? Pretty sure your target market for the former are those who care for children. Perhaps this was not your best call.

Well, way to go Amazon PR team and Legal Brains or whoever was responsible for that statement. You know, if it's one thing I can be happy with respects to your Epic Fail, it is the timing of all this: right before Christmas rush. I hope you feel the pain from others like me, who will now go out of their way to find other online vendors.  I hope you are, simply put, fucked.

Parents can be so cruel.

In the spirit of the upcoming holiday- bit of a repost of an old favorite. You're welcome.

Halloween 1983.  A fifth grade me had just moved to Connecticut from Boston.  I hadn't really had a chance to get to know people that well and  also had the handicaps of being pretty shy and a touch clueless.   That year my school had,  in an effort to promote Halloween safety, handed out little reflector stickers for us to put on our costumes so cars would see us,  ibso facto not mow us down leaving us for dead (and almost as tragic to me: candiless).

Anyway, as an obedient, rule-follwoing kid, I took this shit pretty seriously.  School authorities had SERIOUSLY ADVISED us to wear these stickers.  That's pretty much all I needed to hear (Plus, STICKERS! I LOVE STICKERS!). I didn't need a "We TOLD you to wear the stickers, but you didn't listen and now you are dead. Yeah, "sorry" about that. And sorry your little brother is eating all your Snickers" on my head.

Dressed as a 50's girl,  I think I am the shit.  I LOVE D the 50s and was pumped that I was able to wear my square dancing skirt that twirled awesomely (truthfully, the only reason why I took the class was for the skirt). The finishing touch was  my newly acquired reflective safety stickers.   But for where oh for where to display the two, small, orange, circle reflective stickers? (there were more, and in various sizes but I didn't want to overpower my awesome costume,...naturally).

To recap:

Tween girl...

2, small, circle, orange, stickers...

I made my debut at the bottom on the stairs.  What I wouldn't know until some years later was  my parents shared an a couple of  incredulous looks.

I mean, what do you say when your ten year old comes bounding down the stairs looking like this?

We won't even get into the subtle  makeup application. Welcome to Whore Island, kid. 

 So after shooting each other looks of "dude, any idea why your daughter is wearing nipples on her sweater?",  they snickered, took this picture, and we rolled.  I do recall them asking me "what up with the stickers on your sweater, Jen?" and I innocently advised them that I was just doing what the school  safety folks had told me to do so the cars would see me.  They were like,"okay,  okay... fair enough,"  and let it go. Meaning, they LET ME WALK OUT THE DOOR LOOKING LIKE THIS.

Assholes.  The both of them.

As per my  previous post on Halloween costuming and regard to my mother's "mad makeup skilz", here's the clan of us,  most of us still sporting my mom's silly rosy circle cheeks  (I guess this was the year Kate went off grid with just a witch nose  and this was the year I was considered old enough to be allowed to dip my own hand in the rouge pot (clearly), since we are without Mom's telltale red circle markings.)

Little did I know, with exception of a 3 year old Brian, the lot of them were probably laughing at my orange nipples.

RTW

Today is my first day back to the office after nearly 15 weeks out of it.  The day has gone by relatively pain-free, save for my rookie mistake of walking out of the house without breast pads, which, for those in the know, can relegate your top  into a constant developing Rorschach test sample. This pearl of information was discovered only after committing to some stealth self-groping on the train ride in, and upon which, whispering the words "oh, fuck."   For the record, you cannot will yourself to NOT let down.   Mercifully, I was able to get to a CVS with only minor damage to the bra and not my shirt.  Still: Oops.

We'll see how this transition goes.  I think she is having a good time with her grandparents who are at my home watching her.  In the meantime, I stare at this picture of her all day. 

Damn, she cute.

 

Well just look at that girl with the lights coming up in her eyes

Our Carolyn Mary, born June 22, 2010. 21", 7 lbs, 11 oz.

  


We are overjoyed.

There will be no Toddlers & Tiaras for MY girl.

After showing something I bought for Little Miss Sunshine-

Mike: I was thinking of buying something for her to wear to go home in [from the hosptial] but it seems like you got that covered.

Me: Aww...You can buy your daughter something to wear to go home in. Just no midriff and nothing too short or too tight.

A Tale of Two Jens

Me, 5 weeks out from my scheduled c-section date. I'm at 32 weeks as of this past  Monday:

Owen having a little chat and hug with his cousin at his birthday party. 

The "other Jen" - the one whom I did not need to see today:

For the record, I am not a Jen Aniston hater-ator. She's got an incredible physique. Just, damn, Jen.

The Spirit of Christmas Part II (Teenager Me is Fun edition)

It had been a few years between Mom-administered writing assignments.  The last one was from 1981/2 (wherein I got to first exercise my bullshitting chops as a 3rd/4th grader), and this was being from 1986, which puts me squarely mid-8th grade.

The circumstances surrounding this one are a little unclear, other than that all 4 of us kids knew mom had likely screwed up.

The background:

Four kids, ages ranging from 5 years to almost 14. As far as personality traits go, we had The Sneak, The Goody-goody, The Instigator, and The I Will Not Put Up With Your Stupid Clown Ass Crap (sometimes known as "The Enforcer"). I will not name names on the first 3, but I was #4, and I will say, not with pride, that my self-righteousness did get me into the mix (verbally, physically) with the person who chapped my ass that day. I had wanted things to be fair and right (and er, my way?) and if my mom wasn't going to call out the offender- she called it "choosing your battles" (if you could hear me go in my best Phil Dunphy voice: "LAME"),  I didn't have a problem finding the energy and resource required to bring the perp to justice (I was, after all, the oldest). 

The point is, we were not quite The Waltons.

Whatever happened this day in December 1986 though, from what I can piece from memory and the clues in my essay, Mom had thought we had done (touched) something, and sent us into our rooms. I'm sure there was yelling about this. I'm sure I did my fair share of it, too.  At one point, as we're sitting in our rooms, she was in the hallway and noticed that linen hall closet (also near our rooms) had been slammed shut so hard, that the door was actually pushed INTO the closet.  It didn't break the door, but that is getting some serious speed behind your door slam.

She called us out into the hallway and yelled, "WHO DID THIS?" and all four of us were like, "Uh, not me." And it was the truth. Unfortunately, she was not buying it.  The fact of the matter was, it was our mother who had slammed that door so hard it went inward. But do you really think we'd point that out to a woman who had fire shooting out her eyes?

And so with that and with the threat of a canceled Christmas looming over our heads, found ourselves yet again writing our Spirit of Christmas essays. 

And once again, I found myself with little to say on the subject, but having 2 pages to fill, I had to come up with some nonsense.

The first paragraph was me taking on a "You want an essay? Oh, I Will GIVE YOU An Essay," stance. I employed a very clinical, calculating, almost dictionary-like framework, including underlining words I would define, parenthetical thoughts, quotation marks and other fun gibberish. I also see I threw in an "etc.".  Nice. It's clearly fluff and I was well aware of that. It actually sounds like the wedding toast Joey Tribbiani first thought to give Chandler & Monica (all the "caring and sharing" and "sharing and caring with the love" business). 

A few favorite lines:

    "Loving is not fighting and putting up with certain habits because you care for someone and it doesn't  matter because love comes naturally."  What on earth? I think what I was trying to say was, despite the fact that x-sibling can be a total dickwad, because they are your bro/sister and will be so for life, get over it and just love them already.

    "Sharing is giving and not being greedy. Not necessarily items but love and feelings (proud, happy, sorrow, etc.)" Okay, some more bullshit filler, but I highlight this one because who finds my use of parenthesis there hilariously adorable? My sister read this to me on the phone when she found it, and lost it.

Apparently, I could only stretch the Christmas stuff a full paragraph, so I decided to shift gears and go a different direction. I chose what it meant to be a family. It would seem I took that task quite literally.

    "Motherhood" (this should be good)  "Motherhood is something that you are given and is a responsibility not to be taken for granted. ...It is a tough job but somebody has to do it. The mother stands as the discipliner (ed. note: totally a word) and if feels the need for her own rules is allowed to be "the boss" and make decisions."

Page Two:

    "The Children. The children are the children and are self explanatory." How I've gotten this far in life and not received any fancy awards for writing, well, it defies all logic. 

    "Since I am a child (daughter) (ed note: heh.) I know from previous experience (ed note: double "heh") that children screw up. 

Okay, now I'm about to casually set her up to realize she may have biffed this one:

    "But, I know if there are more than one child that mix ups occur. Today someone touched some things I my conscience knows for a fact that I didn't do it." I think I'm so pissed here, I was just running with whatever was in my head- proofreading be damned.

    "But I don't have any proof of it so she (mother) has no idea who the heck did it. ("Listen, I didn't do it, and if I did, I'd totally let you know.") ...is harder for people to see it if there are an abundance of them. ("But I recognize you've got your work cut out here, so I'm cutting you a little slack. That said, this instance might be a rare moment where your heathen children didn't do it.)

    "Today I touched NOTHING that wasn't mine." ("I believe I've made my point here, woman.")

    "I screwed up at the end (I'm sure I "calmly, reasonably and concisely" expressed my displeasure with being sent to my room for something I had nothing to do with thereby not adding to the mayhem) but someone (that would be you, ...MOM) didn't see that it wasn't all (any) my fault.

I'd come to learn that it was my essay that turned the tide and "saved Christmas" that year. I was many things, but  she knew a liar wasn't one of them. And with my judge & jury personality, she knew that I would have quickly ratted a sister/brother out in a situation like this. It also finally dawned on her that all of us were being straight with her about the door, and that "perhaps" the only other person besides me who had that kind of strength and love for slamming things, was her. Yeah, she knew.

Do you think she admitted that last bit in 1986?

My colors are blush and bashful, so this'll work out well.

Comment left on my Facebook page today, by my sister Emily:

The other day, Libby (my 4 year old niece)  looked over my shoulder at an US Weekly on the plane and said, " MOM, is that Aunt JENNIE in there???" After I told her no, I asked her why she thought that. "MOMMY, she is SO pretty she needs to be in there, wearing a pretty pink dress."

Officially the nicest compliment I've ever received. I am pretty enough to be in US Weekly.  You know, I would love to dominate  the "Who Wore it Better?" feature.