An especially unimportant rant regarding the latest Supernatural episode

So, apparently the most recent episode of Supernatural bugged me enough that I went on a tirade last night to my husband, while running, which is a feat in and of itself. Said tirade bares repeating.

Bloody Munchkin: So I have a bone to pick regarding Supernatural.
Fighting Nun: We've already talked about the flashbacks!
BM: No not the flashbacks.
FN: Ok then. What about it?
BM: Kermit TX!
FN: What's wrong with Kermit TX?
BM: That they mentioned Kermit TX! This is the second or third show in recent memory* that has used Kermit TX in any kind of capacity and it pisses me off every time they do! (This may take some explaining. I grew up in a town (THAT SHALL REMAIN NAMELESS!) that wasn't Kermit, but was very close to Kermit, thus making Kermit kind of my running grounds. Where I grew up, you had to drive an hour to get to the nearest Wal-mart, the nearest decent mall was an hour and a half away and so basically anything within a two hour driving distance of my hometown is basically home turf. I visited a friend in Kermit like every other weekend of my teenaged life. I had a very serious high school boyfriend from Kermit. I would drive to Kermit just to get my Sonic fix. I am very territorial about said town and its surrounding environment that I get uppity when said turf is featured in pop culture. If you feature my little neck of woods, freaking do it right).
FN: But they are featuring Kermit! What, are you like Romney and suddenly hate Sesame  Street and Big Bird and Kermit now too!
BM: Don't bring Romney into this! And don't invoke Sesame Street! You know I love Sesame Street!
FN: So what's your problem?
BM: That they mentioned Kermit TX but that it wasn't the real Kermit TX. And don't tell me they did. They picked some random house in Toronto or Vancouver or wherever the hell Canada and called it Kermit TX, but if they are going to find some backwoodsy house and call it Kermit, they might as well film in Kermit TX, that's as desolate and remote as they come!
FN: So your problem with a show about two people fighting demons, vampires, and other wackadoo creatures is that there isn't enough location realism?
BM: Yes!  God yes. And another thing? Kermit does not have a veterinary clinic. You need your cat fixed, go to Odessa.
FN: Didn't have a veterinary clinic. You haven't been there in what? A Decade plus? They could have one now.
BM: OK good point, but if it did I seriously doubt it would be occupied by the world's hottest veterinarian.
FN: So what, Sam was supposed to fall for an overweight fifty year old with a hump.
BM: Yes! At least then I'd know for sure Kermit was represented properly!

[* Ed. Note: The one other instance that sticks out in my mind was from Heroes. Hayden's character goes from Midland to Kermit. For the record, their representation of Kermit didn't feel right either. I think there is one more, but I can't quite remember from where.]

 

Random thoughts regarding some TV obsessions

Regarding Elementary

Dear Jonny Lee Miller;

That crush I've had on you ever since Hackers that has made me endure some very crappy movies (Mindhunters anyone?) and some not so successful TV shows (Eli Stone anyone?)? In case you were wondering it is still very much on. Your hairline may wain but my crush on you never will.

Dear Lucy Liu;

That girl crush I've had on you that began for reasons I can no longer remember but was definitely fueled by your ability to wield a samurai sword? Still very much on. Just thought you'd like to know.

Dear Aidan Quinn;

This whole 'Aging professor silver fox' thing your rocking? It's a good look for you. Keep it up. That is all.

Regarding Revenge

Dear Revenge!

I love you! Never leave me again! I need Nolan's fanciful layering and Victoria's bitchface, and both Daniel's and Jack's alcoholism, and Emily's wardrobe and Jennifer Jason Leigh's face of seriousness (or serious collagen injections, I can't tell which)  and... well I don't really need Deckland, Charlotte, or Emily/Amanda (Lisa P) Clark's pregnancy of contrivance. But I'll take them if I can have the rest! And can I go ahead and put odds on Emily/Amanda being the body in The Amanda, the flash forward at the beginning of this season? Cause she's my horse in this dead pool. Just sayin'. Also, Nolan and Emily as housemates? Best. Idea. Ever. I love you show that I have to wait until my husband is out of the house to watch. Never change.

Regarding Supernatural

Uhm, WTF was that last night? I'm still trying to process it all and I'm not sure that I'm very happy about. The flashbacks were chintzy at best and unnecessary in a lot of instances. Sam's flashbacks? Not worth the price of admission. Period. And the best this show can do for Purgatory is some backwoods somewhere? Lame. But not even that can diminish my love of the brothers. They've got an interesting angle of this season, but I don't know if it'll hold. We'll see.

Random Thoughts on A Cabin in the Woods

I finally got to see Cabin in the Woods on On Demand this weekend after months, nay years of pining for it and I have to say I loved it but I think my love for it is such that I can't put it together in a comprehensible review, so I'm just going to make a bunch random comments about the movie.

I love, love, love Richard Jenkins for so many reasons and in so many ways and in the first seconds of the movie, as he's getting coffee and jumps into that go-kart, I knew my love would only grow. And it did. He was great in this.

I have loathed Bradley Whitford for a number years for a lot of reasons, but they actually boiled down to one reason, which is that his character in My Adventures in Babysitting was a dick and I will always hold that against him. He could cure cancer, adopt a million puppies, and whatnot, and there would still be a part of my brain that would seethe upon his presence, but this role? Made me love him just a bit. I mean, come on. He's dancing with Jenkins! I can't not love that!

I love, love, love Amy Acker and so I beamed when I saw her. She gets all demanding and chirpy in the first couple of minutes and all I can do is smile. But I have to know one thing. Does Joss have some fascination with Acker in lab coats? Because I swear, every role she's played in the Whedon-verse has involved a lab coat at some point. Angel, Dollhouse, this. I'm not complaining. Acker rocks a lab coat. But I'm just wondering, is it some sort of nerd fetish Joss has to live out? Not that there's anything wrong with that, I'd just like to know.

And the other thing I love, love, love? Fran Kranz and his coffee cup bong of awesomeness. Speaking of nerd fetishes, I think I have one for Fran Kranz. Ever since Dollhouse and the "Glasses?" "On a chain!" "For the Win!" exchange between his version of Topher and Enver's version of Topher, I was absolutely smitten with both of them and now I'm in deeper smit because he ruled this movie and for the following line; "I'm drawing a line in the fucking sand here! Do not read the Latin!" Swoon. That's horror movie geekery at its finest and I love him for it.

That phone call bit with Mordecai had me cackling to like an insane degree. They totally hit the nail on the head with that one. 

 "What girl in her right fucking mind dances alone in her room in her underwear?"
"Uhm, all of them."
"Really?"
"Yes! Duh!"
This exchange has been brought to you by Kristen Connelly's dance of awesomeness. Dancing in your underwear is never the wrong answer.

Other random thoughts:

I don't know what it is with Joss Whedon and giant snakes, but maybe he just needs to direct an animated movie called Snakey: The Snake That Ate Some Cities and get it out of his system, because every time he brings a giant snake into one of his live-action projects, it just looks video-gamey as hell.

I read this via Joe Reid's awesome blog forever and a day ago and made note of it somehow in my brain and wanted to see if I agreed with that assessment or not and it turns out I agree. It's chintzy and cheap but in an awesome way that only Joss could manage I think. Yes I was all "Look, the Mayor is alive and well." but the sight gag was still worth it. Also, I would totally watch Snakey: The Snake That Ate Some Cities if Joss ever made it. Just saying.

Can we talk about Ron the Intern for a moment? Because I think I love Ron the Intern. Tom Lenk can be hit or miss in a lot of things he's been in. Andrew bugged the fuck out of me. He was the weakest link in the geek trio from Buffy and he just grated to no end. And it was because of this that he would show up in things, things I legitimately liked but I would still grumble "Andrew." And so he showed up in this and at first I thought he was Danny Strong, who I love, so I got all excited, but then I realized it was him instead and I got hesitant but then Ron the Intern and Maintenance guess correctly and he cheered and I melted. Ron the Intern 4 eva!

My last thought. What the hell is up with Sigourney Weaver ending up being the stern endgame in a lot of movies lately? She just shows up at the end, rattles some cages and then.... credits. What is that all about?

I loved this movie and it's everything people like Joe Reid and Jason at My New Plaid Pants had told me it would be. A+

I'm baaaacccck

I just looked and the last blog post I did was on 9/5. September officially kicked my ass ya'll. I mean, up one side and down the other kind of an ass kicking. On twitter, I just did a quick recall of events for the month, and it was freaking nuts! The hubbie had two business trips out of state, for starters, and the baby had a bladder infection during one of those trips, making a already frazzled mother even more frazzled. On top of that, the baby's birthday was smack dab in the middle of the month, and all the out of town family came in  for the occasion making about a week and a half of the month a complete zoo. There were family gatherings and barbeques and swim classes, and parties upon parties and five foot teddy bears that filled up a section of the living room, and it was just plain nuts! I always had something to do.

Finally, things started settling down. I started getting things off my to-do list (including long over-due notes to my writing critique partner. Hey Jason! Sorry), getting work done, and things felt momentarily normal. We started running again (I can almost run 3 miles now without dying! I know, I'm as surprised as you are! I might actually be able to do that 5k I signed up for without endangering a bunch of people! Should be fun!).

And then the baby got sick, which meant I got sick soon after, which meant my husband got sick soon after that, which means all three of us were miserable and cranky for the better part of this weekend. The bloody munchkin household has just not been able to catch a break.  I'm fully exhausted. I'd do a bunch of really desperate things right now just for a half-hour nap. I'm serious. I might actually consider committing crimes just for some R&R and the off-chance that my sinuses will stop throbbing like they are playing out a baseline to a Skrillex song.

But there's a bunch of things I want to say this week, so I'll try to get them off my chest, despite this stupid cold. Until then, somebody get me a nap! My whole kingdom for a nap!

A few more conversations tangentially about Coma

So we watched part two of Coma last night and had a few more random conversations involving the show.

Fighting Nun: So James Woods isn't the bad guy?
Bloody Munchkin: I know, right?!? Surprising! Also, beware the Garbage Truck of Doom, James Woods, beware the Garbage Truck of Doom.

Later On....
Fighting Nun: Oh, Dreyfuss.
Bloody Munchkin: Should've known. If not Woods, then Dreyfuss. I feel there's some sort of math equation in there: If Both Woods and Dreyfuss are in a project and one isn't the bad guy, always assume the other is, or something.

And a little later:

Bloody Munchkin: I am Ellen Burstyn! Fear me and my hypodermic needle of death!

Other things that I found out by watching the show. Micheal Weston is never not going to give me the heebie-jeebies. Ever since that one episode of Six Feet Under where he kidnaps the brother and takes him on a drug-fueled rampage, he scares the living bejesus out of me. I know in this show his character was meant to freak people out, so the casting director did a spot on job. Mission Accomplished, good sir or madam. I couldn't not shudder every time he was on screen, and using a microphone to announce your murdering of someone? Who does that?

Also this show may not have killed off little Joe Mazzello, but they made him and his story line, or lack thereof boooooooring. If this actually gets picked up, he better be given more to do. But don't kill him off or I will rampage. That's all I'm saying. 

Two conversations tangentially involving the episode of Coma we watched last night

So, my still prevalent Lauren Ambrose girl crush (which dates all the way back to Can't Hardly Wait, for those of you wondering) compelled me to watch Coma last night and because of this, some weird conversations arose that are sort of but not totally related. Enjoy! 

Conversation 1:
Bloody Munchkin, Watching Fletch on cable while wrangling the little munchkin: Morning
Fighting Nun, walking down the stairs: Is that Geena Davis? Are we just going to make it Geena Davis week?
Bloody Munchkin: Why yes! I fully intend to find Earth Girls Are Easy followed by Thelma & Louise and if the cable gods are with me, Beetlejuice.
Fighting Nun: Ok, then.

Conversation 2:
Fighting Nun, out of nowhere while feeding baby: James Woods is bad right? Because James Woods is always bad, even on Family Guy, so he's bad right?
Bloody Munchkin:  Well, yes, history implies that. There was that one show, Shark I think, where he was a good buy but it didn't even last a full season* because, well James Woods is the bad guy.
Fighting Nun: Just so we're clear.
Bloody Munchkin: But what I really want to know is how conflicted are you that the awesome black cop dude from Speed looks like he's playing an eeeeeevil doctor?
Fighting Nun: Who?
Bloody Munchkin: Not very conflicted apparantly.
*IMDB corrected me. Shark lasted two seasons, which WTF? How, because that show looked really stupid. Guess I don't know my James Woods roles like I thought I did.

I would've launched into a rant about how protective I am over Joseph Mazzello ever since he was in The Cure (God, I miss Renfro, sniff) because he was an adorable kid with AIDS and I just wanted to put him in my pocket and keep him safe and how The Pacific took that feeling and turned it up to 11, because here's this adorable kid who is now a young adult and he's in a war! A big bad war and if they killed him off in that miniseries I was going to rampage! Rampage! But they didn't so I was OK, but if they kill him off in this miniseries I will most definitely rampage! Protect Joseph Mazzello from harm at all costs people!!!! But I didn't have to rant about that while I was making coffee. So this is what you get.

An open letter to the world from my uterus

Dear World;

Thank you for your multiple inquiries into my current employment status. No, I am currently not taking on any nine month projects at the present time nor do I plan on accepting any roles as an incubator in the near future. I am weighing my options presently and I will get back to you if the opportunity presents itself. I appreciate the inquiries but am just not interested. Please stop inquiring about my status or plans for future projects. I would deeply appreciate it.

Sincerely;

The Bloody Munchkin's Uterus

Addendum from the Uterus's owner: I'm serious people. Now that the little munchkin is one, I've had to deal with an onslaught of questions about when I'm going to have the next one. Uhm, how bout 'None of your damned business' is when! Seriously. My uterus is flattered but not interested. Are we all clear?

These Days are Just Packed

This Calvin and Hobbes book pretty much sums up my weekends in a nutshell. I use to think this was such a childlike conceit, the idea of doing so much while doing nothing much really. I just didn't think this was something you could embody as an adult. But now that we have the little munchkin, my stance on this thought has done a 180.

The days, they are REALLY packed. To the gills even. Our days may be an 18 piece matching Louis Vitton set is how stuffed they really are. There's breakfast to fix for the little one and laundry to sort and the munchkin to wrangle and breakfast to grab for the bigger ones and an outing to plan and a diaper bag to pack/check and a munchkin to continue to wrangle and a stroller to wrangle into the car and that zoo is not going to walk itself and and a bottle to mix and elephants to see and otters OMG Otters and then there's a rice and beans to feed the baby and a burrito for my mouth and other errands and strolling and walking and driving and home and laundry and 'Hey, why don't pop over to the pool with the baby?' and splashing and swimming and dinner and bottle and bed and then TV for us. And that was just Saturday.

There are moments of utter and pure bliss in the busy that make the busy worth it. Take the zoo. The Oakland Zoo, bless it, can be a bit of a slog at times. It's built on a hill, with a lot of slopes. If you park your car at the top of the hill, that means, you'll walk down through the zoo but it also means you have to walk up that slope to get back to your car. Thank goodness we finally learned something this trip and parked on the lower level, which means the slog back to the car is downhill.  But my point is there's a lot of walking, which means, the munchkin whose chilling in the stroller entertains herself with an endless string of consonant and vowel sounds with an occasional mouth fart (ppppphhhffffttttthhh) added in for good effect and a couple of well timed EEEEEEEEs just to break up the monotony. But then we'll get to an animal exhibit, and if she can actually see them, it's incredible. She's a fury of sounds one second and then she gets really quiet and watchful. She particularly loved the bears and the giraffes. The camels also seemed to have her rapt attention. I just love to watch her in these moments. She's so studious and serious and then the next second, she's all bubbly smiles. It is pure glee and it's what I live for, maybe even vicariously a little bit. To peek inside those moments of joy from her perspective is a thing of beauty.

Going to the pool is the same way. You get her close to the water and she lights up like a Christmas tree. She splashes and giggles and plays and splashes and kicks and attempts to swim as we walk her up and down the pool. She's the life of that pool when she's there. There's a neighbor kid who loves to play with her and splashes her hands and she splashes back and they both laugh and giggle and it is pure mirth. No matter how tiring the build up is, those moments are what make it, all of it, totally worth it. 

My days are just packed. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Laura Zera's Guest Post: If Sharing is Caring, then Giving is Living

I think I've mentioned how I'm sometimes thankful that certain amazing, generous, incredible people have just up and appeared in my life and thanks to twitter I've somehow been surrounded by a whole lot more of them. Laura Zera is one of those amazing people. She's incredibly funny and personable on twitter, her website has now become a daily addiction for me and I also just recently bought Write for the Fight. She is also incredibly dedicated and passionate about this world we live in. Her guest post today is an insightful plea for why we should keep giving, not to just George Mark House, but to our favorite charities and organizations and explains the philanthropic spirit better than I ever could. Thanks again Laura.

(Also, remember, all you have to do to get my blog for a day is be the first to tweet or blog about George Mark House for the week and send me a link! Next week is wide open!)

Laura Zera's Biography

Laura Zera has lived and worked in Cameroon, Canada, Israel, South Africa, and the United States. Her first book, Tro-tros and Potholes chronicles her solo adventures through five countries of West Africa. She's currently working on a memoir about being raised by a schizophrenic mother and is a contributor to Booktrope's 2012 anthology Write for the Fight: A Collection of Seasonal Essays, a fundraiser for the National Breast Cancer Foundation. Laura has volunteered for more than 10 organizations in her lifetime, and has donated dollars to many more, so she expects to still be stuffing Ben & Jerry's down her piehold when she's 110.

If Sharing is Caring, then Giving is Living

Don’t let the title of this post fool you; I am going to try to make it through the whole piece without talking like Yoda. Try. Ever since I finished with my Wayne’s World phrase phase, I’ve been floundering…

First off, thank you to Tylia for letting me run amok on her site today. She’s been using her blog as a platform for good and coming up with creative ways to get the word out about George Mark Children’s House in northern California, a non-profit that specializes in pediatric palliative care. 

Originally, I was going to write a mental health piece, as that’s one of the core themes of my current work in progress, Crazy for You, and something I blog about quite often on my own site. But the more I read through Tylia’s blog posts, the more that giving stood out as a unifying theme.

Sometimes, believe it or not, giving can be a bad thing. You’ll not be thought of with any particular fondness if you’re remembered as the giver of hickeys, noogies, wedgies, or STDs. For the most part, though, giving is an act that makes all involved parties feel really, really swell. In fact, Stephen Post’s book Why Good Things Happen to Good People cites a 50-year study showing that people who are giving during their high school years have better physical and mental health throughout their lives. Other studies show that giving when you’re older leads to a longer life.

Giving doesn’t just make you feel good in the moment; it actually has long-term health benefits!

Non-profit organizations are a great way to give, through time or money, because they are vital to our society. They fill gaps in services that have been left by corporations and government, plus, they fill those gaps with a whole lot of heart. In other words, we’d be both sad and royally screwed without them. Agreed, all the TV commercials, direct mail campaigns and phone solicitations for donations can be annoying and overwhelming, but for the most part, non-profits are the real deal, so don’t let your favorite cause or charity get left in the cold because of ‘ask saturation.’

You don’t have to be wealthy to give, or always have to give big. Trust me, even a small amount creates a lot of happiness. I remember when I worked in a non-profit back about seven years ago, and how excited all of the staff got (there were six of us) whenever a donation came in the mail. One of our favorites was from an elderly gentleman without a lot of means who used to send us ten dollars a month. It would totally make our day.

One of the great ‘giving vehicles’ that is often overlooked or forgotten is the bequest—giving or leaving personal property through your will. Wow, talk about leaving a meaningful legacy. And here’s one that will have triple happiness impact: make a surprise donation in honor of a friend to an organization that’s meaningful to them.

If the idea of a financial contribution makes you itchy, then consider donating your time. It still holds all the ‘feel good’ aspects of giving money, AND you have the added benefit of gaining new friends and, quite possibly, new job skills. Finally, if time is also tight, then how about your blood? Don’t let the tax collector and your ex-spouse be the only ones who draw down on it. Note: if you have ever lived in Cameroon, then you will be on a permanent donor ban list, as I’ve found out. If not, then you’re golden!

You know, it’s crazy, but I feel better just from *writing* this blog post. I think giving really does a body good. And now I’m going to go give my stomach some ice cream.

Weird thing I wrote that I don't know what to do with

I can see the future. I can see a thousand different futures all the time. Actually I can see two futures that can happen thousands of different ways. Those two futures are either how my daughter dies or how my daughter injures herself significantly and I see the myriad of ways it can happen all the time. Now that she’s teetering on the edge of walking, I see these scenarios playing out one over the other with each step she takes, each step I take or her father takes. I get up from the rocking chair holding her and I can see the scenario in which I trip over the leg of the rocking chair ottoman and there I go tumbling head long into the bureau, holding her causing her bodily harm. I’ll put her on the bed and in the blink of an eye she’ll be teetering on the edge and I can see the future where she falls, breaks her head open, is a bloody mess and has to be rushed to the emergency room. I’m terrified of these futures, these events that could seemingly unfold at any second but so far have not unfurled themselves upon us. I know that the difference between our present and future and those futures is infinitesimally small. A few seconds, one different decision and I could be living one of those parallel futures. I hope each decision I make keeps those other futures from happening, but I don’t know if it will or if we’re just living on borrowed time until one of those futures manifests itself. 

Thankfully though, I just found out I'm not alone in this power. It was a a revelation to find another mother who also saw those futures. I watched as she told my baby "Don't chew on that. You could crawl away with it, trip and then it would get jammed up in your mouth, and then...." She let the sentence linger. She saw it too, another future, a different horrible future I could be living in.  This gift, this terrible gift must be bestowed on all parents at some level, and depending on our level of neuroses, our ability to see those futures must be heightened. Based on that logic my capabilities must be bordering on the supernatural.

But what do I do with this supernatural power? Do I find other mothers and let them know that I know? Do I just keep it to myself and hope that I keep making the right decisions? It's not like I don't see these futures for other people. That kid on the street pulling wheelies on his BMX bike without his helmet? I see his future and it never ends well. Should I continue to quell the urge to yell out "Wear a helmet!" or should I tell him? Should I tell him about this horrible future in which he ends up with a hematoma in his brain because he didn't put on a brain bucket? I don't know. 

 I do know that these futures are infinite and I have to decide which future I want for my daughter, for myself, maybe for the world.

This just came out of me and I have no idea what to do with it. It is sort of autobiographical and what I'm feeling right now. But it feels like it's the beginning of a short story or something. Just putting it out there. 

Stephanie Lucianovic's Guest Post!

I hate raisins. I hate raisins with a blinding passion that SF Giants fans like me usually reserve only for the Dodgers. I just can not abide the raisin. Raisins in cookies are a waste of a perfectly good cookie. Chocolate-covered raisins should be added to the Geneva Convention as a crime against humanity. And don’t even get me started about the atrocity that is Raisin Bran. The only thing I hate just slightly more are prunes *shudder* but that’s a discussion for a different day.

Thankfully I’m not alone in my hatred for the Damien of the grape-product family. Stephanie Lucianovic is the writer of the delightful GrubReport. She’s also a writer whom I’ve followed for, well it will show both our ages if I admit how long. She also shares my loathing of the wrinkly little bastards and, as the winner of my first ever #WW Challenge, was kind enough to share her thoughts on my blog. Her new book Suffering Succotash: A Picky Eater’s Quest to Understand why we Hate Foods we Hate is on Amazon and hopefully at a book retailer near you! Do yourself a favor and pick up a copy. 

Hate in a Time of Raisin

By Stephanie V. W. Lucianovic

Tylia kindly asked if I would write a guest post in support of George Mark Children's House, a place that no parent wants to ever spend too much time thinking about, but one that every parent is grateful exists. Deep down in the marrow of our souls, we are grateful. My following post on raisin hate might be lighthearted, but that doesn't mean I didn't cry hard as I read Tylia's posts about her beautiful son Ukiah and what George Mark Children's House meant for her family during their desperately hard times and what it continues to mean for them and all families. They need and deserve our support.

"[Raisins] are disgusting little bits of wizened chewiness that came into being only because Friar Tuck was too drunk to remember to pick all the grapes in a timely fashion." That's a quote from my book, Suffering Succotash: A Picky Eater's Quest to Understand Why We Hate the Foods We Hate. I may be a former picky eater turned career food lover, but there are still some things I can't abide, and raisins top the list.

I don't know when and where raisins ran afoul of me because I ate them as a kid and I even sort of liked them, especially when my mom stuck those tiny red snack boxes from Sun-Maid in my lunch. (Mind you, I dreaded getting those snack boxes at Halloween, but somehow they were more welcome in my lunch as an occasional addition.) As a pre-teen I went to a canoe camp in the Minnesota Boundary Waters where a daily handful of raisins was prescribed for our trail lunches. The non-perishable dehydrated grapes were there to keep us "regular," and once again, I had no problem eating them. I'm sure it was because a certain level of starvation set in after a morning of portaging and sweaty palm attempts to steer a big aluminum canoe with weak sauce J-strokes. In those situations, you snarf down any form of sustenance that hits your collapsible metal mess kit cup.

We don't need our food to look like Insects! Yeesh!

Of course I crunched through my fair share of that the popular children's snack, Ants on a Log, which, while not my favorite pairing with my late-afternoon 3-2-1 Contact, [Ed. Note 3-2-1 Contact, that takes me back! Those were the days weren't they?] was fun to make and eat. (I wonder if it will gross anyone out to know that we vastly preferred the cream cheese version over the peanut butter one...which is apparently called "Ants on a Snowy Log." You know what? That's just a touch too much descriptive detail for me. You mention snow on a log and then I start to think about lichen on a log and the creatures that you find inside logs and how the ants on all these logs are sitting on fallen logs, which are dead, decaying, softening, ripening, and I'm out!) Strangely enough, while I've never forgotten about Ants on a Log, until a fellow raisin hater likened their presence in rice pudding to bugs, I never truly thought of raisins as insectile before. Unfortunately, now I can't stop thinking of them as fat black flies crouching in my food. You know the kind of flies I mean, right? They're the ones that buzz louder than an electric razor, and summer heat makes these flies drowsy, so when they bump, sun-drunk, into windows, they make a loud juicy sound. Like someone launched a particularly large and wet spitball against the glass.

That's what I think of raisins in my food, because while I may have enjoyed snacking on them at some point, I have never, ever liked raisins in things. I loathe them in oatmeal, despise them in carrot cake, abhor them in apple pie, and resent the hell out of them in cookies.

But if black/purple raisins are ants or drunk flies, golden raisins are lumps of earwax. Those anemic little turds stage a sneak attack in what appears to be a rare raisin-free oatmeal cookie. The worst of it is you don't realize that your oatmeal cookie has been compromised until you've taken a large, raisin-riddled ecstatic bite and chew into that weird, sudden sweetness. This then leads to spending an inordinate amount of time breaking the oatmeal apart and excising the golden raisins away from the parts of the cookie you want to eat. Golden raisins turn dessert into dissection class.

It looks like you baked a million ants! Gross!

I'll end my treatise of raisin hate with a literary reference. When I first read Langston Hughes' "A Dream Deferred," in my mind it was always a raisin that festered like a sore, ran, and then dried up (all crustifed) in the sun. (Sorry, I have one more thing to add because I just learned about RAISIN PIE THIS IS A REAL THING THAT EXISTS AND IS A PIE MADE ENTIRELY OF RAISINS!)

[Ed. Note: Ew! Raisin Pie! God no! Geneva! Convention! That's a Hate Crime!]

Thanks again Stephanie! That was insightful and gross and now I will never stop thinking of raisins as juicy fly bodies (as if I needed a reason. Heh!).

The #WW Challenge

It's another Writer Wednesday today. I love #WW days because I get to tout writers/twitter friends I really like and who I think are deserving of a follow. It lets me express my love and respect for some truly unique writers/individuals. I enjoy that wholeheartedly.

But today, I thought I'd do something a little different. Recently I just found out that George Mark Children's Home has a twitter account (@gmch, not to be confused with @GMHC, and AIDS non-profit I also follow, and definitely not to be confused with @GMCLA, the Gay Mens' Chorus of LA who I also follow.) Obviously I think this is awesome and I followed right away. I don't have to tell you guys about George Mark House and the good they are doing and have done not just for my family but other special needs families do I?

We have a real opportunity to get the word out about George Mark House, to spread their twitter account and their message to the masses. So here's my proposal. Every #WW from now to the foreseeable future, the first writer or anyone really who sends out a tweet about George Mark House and forwards it to me gets to run my blog for the day.

Want to tell my (limited) readership about your new book for the day? Great! Want to Hijack my blog to post a billion kitten videos? No problem! Want to get all political or religious? Well, I'd prefer it if you didn't because I try not to do either of those here (although occassionally I do) but if its within reason, I guess I'll allow it. Here's your opportunity to use my blog for free to do whatever you want and say what you want for a day. Just spread the word about @GMCH on twitter or better yet, give George Mark a shout out on your blog and you've got this space all to yourself.

Any questions, concerns, issues? Email me at tyliagardner @ hotmail . com. Now lets do this thing!

Bullied Girls, Ears That Stick Out, and Plastic Surgery

So I read this this morning. I also read this (I read this one first).  I wish I had something witty and articulate to say but the best I might be able to do is rantingly all over the place but insightful. When an issue is too personal and also when I haven't chosen a "side" on the issue, my ability to be articulate (which is fleeting at best anyhow) goes out the window.

And the articles, this girl, this whole issue is personal for me. It's not personal in the since that I know this girl, but I do 'know' her because I was her. Every description about the girl, from the too big ears that stuck out, to the relentless taunts I lived. If you were to compare a picture of this girl to me at that same exact age, our ears would've been a match. I had those ears that stuck out way too far and were too big for my head. If you were to compare our experiences at that age, they would've been eerily similar. I was called 'dumbo' on a daily basis, along with Dopey, the stupidest dwarf from Snow White, and I was called a donkey and about a thousand other 'clever' taunts the kids in my school could come up with. Sometimes, when I wore my hair up, some jerks at my school would run past me, flicking or thumping my ears. I was a very sensitive kid and it would make me cry all the time. Everything described about that girl's bullying  I experienced for myself.

I should also mention that 14 was the exact age I first looked into the same surgery she had, otoplasty. I should also mention that because it was elective we would've had to pay for the surgery out of pocket and because it was what I considered at the time to be way too expensive, I opted out at the time. In that way I'm a bit different from the girl in the article. I put up with the taunts and the evilness through high school and it did get better.

Based on the picture, do I think she was beautiful just the way she was in the before shot? Yes. Do I think having her nose and chin done at the same time was excessive and unnecessary? Yes. Am I a little grossed out that this non-profit helped get these elective surgeries? Yes, but they sound like they help with a bunch of other facial deformities and given my history with clefts I won't badmouth them.

But I'm not going to preach that she shouldn't have had the operation, the way the Jezebel article tries to say. I won't that she should've stuck it out.  Because I did have the surgery later in life. I was in my early twenties, when I had the income to pay for the procedure myself and also the good sense to know that a) the surgery wasn't a game changer, self-confidence and security wise and b) just because I was changing this one thing did not give me reason to go ahead and change anything and everything else. And I'm glad I had the surgery. I'm glad I made the change, because making that change gave me the ability to forget about my ears. The amount of mental energy and time I wasted, especially when I was a teenager thinking about my ears, making decisions solely based upon my insecurities around my ears, the bad hair choices I made in an effort to hide my ears became a total non-issue after I had the surgery. And can I just say perms are out of the kettle and into the fire as far as hair choices based on ear insecurities is concerned? Yes the big spiral perm I sported between sophomore and junior year did a good job of hiding my ears but but that afro-perm had its own orbit! So not helpful!

My Hair in the 90's.

Ahem. See what I mean about rantingly insightful? Although finding out I had hair that was similar to that new contestant on Project Runway maybe stretching the defintion of insightful, but whatever.

What was I saying again? My point is a) I don't think she would've grown into those ears as the article suggests because I sure as hell didn't b)I am happy for her that she did get it done because now she doesn't have to spend the time I did worrying about her ears, but c) I am a little miffed that she pulled a 'while you're doing that, we might as well go the whole nine yards' thing and got her chin and nose done at the same time. That smacks a leeeeeetle on that side of the line of body dysmorphic disorder and that is definitely a slippery slope but d) I'm glad she is getting counseling so that she keeps her self-image in check.

I think what I'm saying is that we shouldn't be too hard on these sort of decisions and make it a capital c Case about the state of teenagers' self image and Oh My God the Horror that she should feel good about herself now. Yes, now that her ears are taken care of, she's going to move on to feeling insecure about other things. But she's a teenager. That's her birthright.

The Headline in that Jezebel article just pisses me off a tad. "Is heartbreakingly thrilled". You know what. She's allowed to be. I was too when my ears were revealed. She's allowed! Now leave her alone and let her be a teenager.

I put the rant in rantingly insightful don't I?

Book Review: Flame of Surrender: The Flame and Ferryman Book 1

Kaliel is an impulsive Elvin girl whose always getting into trouble and falling behind in her studies. Krishani is an insecure boy who isn't confident in his abilities or himself. They meet, either by fate or by chance and instantly fall in love. But this is no simple love story, even though it looks that way on the surface. That's why it's so intriguing.

Flame of Surrender by Rhiannon Paille (who happens to be a lovely person to follow on twitter, just FYI) asks a simple question; What happens when you fall in love with someone else in a world where that kind of love is forbidden? Can it find its place in the world, or will it be wiped out? Or worse, can that kind of love cause the destruction of their world as they know it?

This was a beautiful little book because it did start out so simply without much more to hook me in than to watch two people figure out what love is, and why they might feel it for someone else. But because we find out early on that this kind of love which is hard enough for us all to figure out on our own is forbidden, it makes it especially hard for the two main characters to navigate that part of themselves along with everything else.

But that simple little love story isn't the only thing going on. Not only do the main characters have to navigate their forbidden love affair, they have to figure out what it means to be special, to be more than the sum of their parts when they don't think very much of themselves to begin with. Kaliel and Krishani must figure out what it means to be a Flame and a Ferryman respectively, both titles carrying with them dire consequences. A deadly enemy is tracking down Flames for nefarious reasons and Ferrymen have heartbreaking duties to carry out.

The book is an easy read and the characters, especially the main two, feel very well lived in and fleshed out. There's not much big and important that happens for the first half of the book, which is not a complaint. It goes along at an easy clip. It's not until the last half where I was truly made aware of what was at stake. From there it barreled along and I hated setting it down. The ending, not to give too much away, is a real humdinger and left me quivering for more.

I do have one little nitpick though, which I'm hoping will be explained away maybe in a later book so I can keep it from eating at my brain. And it is the weirdest, nerdiest nit I've picked in a while. I feel weird for catching it and even making it a full blown thing in my head is how weird this nitpick is. There's a minor character introduced named Melania who talks about her father. I was given to understand that the children in the book were born from the land were found in a field certain times of the year and that the traditional idea of mothers and fathers didn't exist. Also, there's a king that has three daughters and I couldn't get a good sense about why that may be. It could be a logic slip by the author or it could be intentional and explained away in future books. If it's the former, it takes me out of the book a bit and requires me to argue with myself like I just did in this paragraph. If it's the latter, I look forward to the explanation, because I'm a little lost.

Nitpick aside, it's a breezy, entertaining read. B+ (If my nitpick really was a gaff on the author's part)/A- if it'll be explained away later.

A Disjointed, Rambling Review of the Craptacular In Time

So I watched In Time last night and instead of giving you a proper review, you’ll have to deal with my rambling, disjointed thoughts, again. Spoilers ahead, Fun times ahoy (TM Extra Hot Great Podcast):

Timberlake gives the worst crying faces I’ve ever seen, period. I’m sitting there watching what was supposed to be a tear-jerky moment and I kept looking at Timberlake’s face and laughing. My hubbie was all “That’s cold” and I was all “I’m sorry but I can’t take that at all seriously.

VincentKartheiser unfortunately brought very little bitch face to the proceedings. In fact, he looked botoxed and constipated all the time. I was expecting scenery chewing, deep scowling and pithy…. pith and instead I got sullen and indifferent. I put up with him on, what two, three seasons of Angel and this is how he repays me, by barely showing up to the party? For Shame. 

No, not that suit, although not complaining

EthanPeck looks damn good in a suit. He had like three lines (and if you ask me, the part didn’t require any lines at all) and mostly just stood there as scenery, which, where is that movie? Pretty Ethan Peck standing around in a nice suit and not saying much? Because I would watch that over and over again. I would go on a rant about how I’m tired of having to watch him in bit parts just to get my Peck Fix (Heh! Band Name!) and how I’ve sat through Nicolas Cage half-heartedly chewing through scenery and Jay Baruchel making googly eyes at a girl just to catch a second of him standing around wearing a scarf. He’s under-utilized and if Ten Things I Hate about You taught me anything it’s that he can smoulder and bring down the show if we just give him a part worthy of his abilities.

Far be it from me to complain when Johnny Galecki shows up anywhere doing anything, but he was totally over-qualified and under used. I mean really? The drunk best friend who can’t even make it to the second act? Shame on you movie. If you’re gonna put Johnny Galecki in a freaking movie he better be used to his fullest.

Olivia Wilde was another over-qualified, under-used actor in this one. *Spoiler alert if you’re gonna see the movie Her climactic death scene was so unearned and because it cause the aforementioned crying faces that evoked laughter in me it felt like such a cheat.

At least the movie knew what the hell to do with Bomer. He shows up, he smirks, he brings warmth and something extra to small character and then he leaves.

What the Eff is up with Pettyfer’s accent? So let me get this straight… How did a dude with british accent come to find his way into a cordoned off ghetto that no-one ever escapes? The addition of that accent feels like some half-assed idea Pettyfer insisted be there even though it had no business being there. It was ridiculous and what’s more he had a hard time keeping it up. Dear Douche, er I mean Alex; If you’re going to use an accent don’t puss out half-way through. Commit or leave it jerk wad. Also, it’s the future, not the twenties, drop the zoot suit jerk-wad. Love, me!

Speaking of odd sartorial choices, Cillian Murphy’s wardrobe felt as if the cast-offs from The Matrix and Equilibrium found a back room somewhere, got busy having illegitimate children that Cillian’s character was forced to wear. It was all dark and ominous totally lame looking. I’m disappointed wardrobe didn’t cap the look off with Morpheus shades. Just sayin’.

There’s this flashback scene about how their clocks get turned on that was totally not important and added nothing to the story. Lame upon lame.Although Amanda Seyfried preening in front of a mirror for a time did have its advantages. Speaking of:

My girl crush on Amanda Seyfried? Yup, it’s still there. Not even the crappy red wig could diminish it. Maybe the next movie I should watch/review is that crappy movie with her and Wes Bentley (which, if he isn’t the bad guy, I will eat my hat) just to go for the Seyfried Hat Trick (Heh! Band Name! I’m two for two!)

The total second half felt totally unearned. The whole robin hood bent felt like a lame plot device when the set up gave us so much hope and promise for something more original and vibrant.

Overall, not horrible, not worth much either. C+

OMG A Guest Blog, Featuring Eden Baylee

Spring into Summer – Official Release Date: July 9, 2012

 Life is funny sometimes. You don't know what life is going to throw your way or who. The same could be said for twitter. Somehow, all these fabulous people have become a part of my life, online and off and if it wasn't for twitter I would've never found them. My friend Eden is one of those people I'm thankful to have met because she's such an inspiring presence. 

Her new book was released on July 9th, and I decided to give her and her book a little presence on my blog. Please give her, her book, and her website a gander:

In Eden’s own words …

Spring into Summer is the companion piece to my first book, Fall into Winter. It’s comprised of four distinct erotic novellas; two take place in the spring and two in the summer.

The inspiration for this book is vast. My love of poetry has connected me to some amazing poets, and their words have seeped into my subconscious. It’s reorganized the way I write and ripped stories from my heart. “A Season For Everything” is heavily influenced by my affection for poets.

In “Unlocking the Mystery,” I pay respect to the serendipity of life. Though my writing is steeped in reality, this story acknowledges we can’t always explain the magical quality of love.

“Summer Solstice” kicks off the hot season. Everything about this story is hot—the men, the women, the toys. It’s a party with pagans, and they know how to have fun.

The final novella is “The Lottery,” a story that touches on many themes, but at its core, is about the choices we have, the sacrifices we make, and the relationships we keep.

The common thread? Sex, of course. This is erotica, after all.

Buy Links: Ebook

Amazon.com             Amazon.UK

Bio

Eden Baylee writes literary erotica. Her stories are both sensual and sexual, incorporating some of her favorite things such as travel, culture, and a deep curiosity for what turns people on. Spring into Summer is her second collection of erotic novellas.

Links

Website

Blog

Twitter @edenbaylee

Facebook

Youtube

Pinterest

Screw you Roomba for making me a better Housekeeper

Alternate Titles include:

Don't eat that Flip-Flop Roomba!

50 more ways to entertain your daughter/annoy your dog!

Sorry you're choking on mountains of Dog Hair Roomba!

So my husband got a Roomba for his birthday via my in-laws. My Brother-in-law and Mother-in-law went halvesies on the birthday gift. I'm trying not to read too much into what they think of my cleaning/housekeeping skills by giving him this. I guess it really would've been a pointed statement if they had waited for my birthday.

It's become a point of interest for my daughter because now suddenly there's something underneath the entertainment center that wasn't there before and it's shiny and it has buttons and if the big button gets pressed, it moves!

Now that she's crawling, anything that moves has her moving and it could turn into sheer pandemonium pretty easily. Thankfully or unfortunately, depending on how wicked your sense of humor is, there haven't been any dog/baby/roomba entanglements. We mainly run the roomba when she's at daycare and the dog is upstairs in the bedroom. If the roomba could walk-up/clean the stairs, the dog would really be in trouble, but that ain't happening (much to my shagrin. After the metric ton of dog poop I've had to pick up off the floor lately, the dog could use with some annoyance).

But the thing about the roomba is I now have to pick stuff off the floor now, like on a daily basis. And this simply will not do. I'm a member of the fraternal order of Sloth and I try to do as little of that as possible. I pick up around the house once a month and that's mainly right before the maids get here because if I don't they tend to put my stuff in weird places where I can't find it. But now, thanks to the Roomba, I'm forced to pick up random toys, the blanket, shoes and anything lying around on the floor, because if I don't things will happen.

I forgot my flip-flops on the floor this morning and dropped downstairs to get cereal/check Roomba's progress and as soon as I did I watched the roomba put the moves on my flip-flops. A lot of bumping and grinding was involved. So now I have to put my flip-flops in a place where the roomba can't get at them, protecting them like a father tries to protect his teenage daughter's virginity. No flip-flops you can not see Roomba again. He wants to do untoward things to you!

So screw you Roomba for making me do housework before you can do actual housework for me! I'd wish a metric ton of dog hair on you, but apparently you're already picking that up off my floor, so.... thanks?

The other thing that I can't get over is how completely without purpose it's meanderings look, It'll be stuck in corner, humping the furniture for what feels like ages and then all the sudden it'll shoot across the middle of the floor. I'd heard about this, but I always thought there was a purpose, a point, and right now I'm still not seeing one other than to give the Roomba a new perspective. 

We're still trying to name the roomba because we figure if its doing chores it should have a name. I suggested RoomBob but then quickly had to take it back because I don't want to step on Sars' toes. I tried convincing my husband that it should be Room-Benedict Cumberpatch, but he didn't get the reference or the joke, so I'm at a loss. I'm considering naming him Humpy given that it humps and bumps everything in sight, but I'm not sold. Feel free to drop any naming suggestions in the comments. If you don't I'll take it as a sign that I should feel free to name him Humpy.

Come join my fish bowl

Seeking: Another fish to swim furiously in my bowl... Of writing!

So, remember how I said I felt like I was in a fishbowl while I was waiting for my book critique? Well, I got the critique back a while ago. I haven't talked about it much because I've needed some time to digest it all. The one thing I have figured out is that I may be in that fish bowl in more ways than one. I'm just beginning to realize that I might be doing an injustice to the book by not having more than family and friends read it and offer their feedback.

I really want to take the process of getting this published seriously. I'm taking a getting published class from Gotham Writer's Workshop right now. I'm thinking about different publishing methods/houses that might work for me.

But I need to take the process of critiquing just as seriously, only I don't know where to turn. I know that there are some editorial services that I can pay to get my work critiqued, but when you factor in their per word or per page charge, well... it ain't a huge amount but it's not something to just shake a stick at either. I'm not sure I'm ready to sink that much money into having my book critiqued by an outside source.

People have mentioned finding a critique/writers group either in my area or online as a free/cheap alternative, but I'm not sure where to begin. If you have any good suggestions, I'm open to them. I'm in Norcal, so a writing/critique group in the bay area would be great. Any online options you've had luck with would also be appreciated.

But I'm also putting out an open call to writers who have stuff they'd want me to critique and who would be willing to critique my stuff in return. I don't really care what genre you write in. I'm willing to give any sort of work a read and turn my critical eye to it, if you'd be willing to read my work in return.

What do you say? Ready to jump into my fishbowl? Come on in, the water's fine!

Hungry cats need not apply

Just Breathe, Part 2: The Panic Button

We hit the panic button Sunday night. Actually, I think we prematurely hit the panic button Sunday night. I heard my daughter through the monitor at around nine and she didn’t sound right. I ran up the flight of stairs and sure enough she was really stuffy and congested. I tried suctioning her out with a bulb and cursed the sky that I hadn’t hung on to my son’s old suction machine for the millionth time since her birth.

I tried settling her down, but she wasn’t having it. She coughed, and the cough became mangled and her breathing sped up and the cough got mangled again and my husband and I both went pale as we looked at each other and then back at her. We both started wracking our brains about what might be going on. We had gone back to the river again for the second time in about a week and had a lovely time. She played with the grass and I wondered if she had an allergic reaction. We fed her strawberry yogurt and despite all the research we’d done, we worried she might have an allergic reaction to that.

We called the nurse’s help line listed on the back of our insurance card and explained the situation. Their recommendation was to call 911. We weighed our options as she slowly righted herself and stopped crying. As we saw it, we had one of three options. We could wait it out at home, put her in the car and take her to the hospital, or call 911. A million thoughts rushed through each of our heads simultaneously. If we kept her home, we ran the risk that it would get worse and how horrible would we have felt if it did get worse and we hadn’t done anything? If we took her into the hospital in our car, we ran the risk that she could have an event her car seat the way Ukiah did at 7 months and that terrified us both. If we called 911 at least we had a safety net. We just didn’t know if she really needed it or not, but at a certain level we didn’t care.

So at 9:30 at night, we called 911. The fire department showed up first, followed by the ambulance. By that time, she was fine, smiling gamely at the firemen (until they touched her) and back in good spirits. But we hated risking it, we couldn’t bear if things got worse and we hadn’t done everything to prevent it. Everyone looked at us trying to convince us with their eyes that we didn't need to go in. But we couldn't trust their assurances, unspoken or otherwise. We couldn't trust our own daughter's airway to do what it was supposed to, obviously, so we weren't going to trust the assessments of a bunch of strange men in out house. So we made the ambulance ride the ten miles to the hospital. We spent another five hours in the hospital, listening to all manner of weirdoes and put-upon curmudgeons who apparently frequent the ER in the middle of the night. We tried not to get too irate at a drunk girl admitted to the ER by her parents when she woke up our daughter and then told our daughter to shut up (true story! ER = fun happy story time!)

We found out she had a cold. We spent a whole evening in the ER because of a cold. And you know what, I don’t regret it. I don’t care if I’m being over-protective or if you think I scare easily. After everything I’ve been through, I’ve earned my right to press the panic button when I think it is right, pre-maturely or not. Because I love my daughter just as fiercely as I did my son and I will fight tooth and nail to make sure she’s alright. I’ll do all manner of things, including singing children’s songs just loud enough to drown out drunken ramblings so that my daughter can get to sleep. I’ll do anything I can just to ensure she’s breathing, even if that includes dialing 911 when I probably didn’t need to.

But just to be safe, don’t sneeze in front of me if I have a phone in my hands. I have a real itchy trigger finger.