VOCAB FOR IDIOTS

Mom, have you ever heard of the word exaggerating?

Yes, son. I have

Am I using it right now?

Um, no. Not that I can tell.

Didn't I just say that Mac (our dog) is bigger than this house?

Why, yes. You did.

Well, there it is.


Moments later...


Mom, what is "flu."

Flu is short for the word influenza. The influenza virus is like a germ that makes people sick. When we suddenly get really sick we say we have the flu because it is a shortened version of the word influenza. Like a nic-name.

Oh. I thought it was like"to fly."

OK. Well, yes. There's that too.

A TALE OF TWO MOTHERS

Saturday:

Mother's day for my mom. We went to my folks to spend the day. We went to lunch. We gave her a purple bike. And she loved it.

From there we took Maddy to her dance performance, Levi to his baseball game, grabbed some dinner and saw Speed Racer. We got home at nearly 11:00.

Which was far too late for me. And the kids. We were all exhausted.

Sunday:

Mother's day for me. I slept in until 8:00. I had my husband's famous eggs benedict. I opened beautiful cards and a fancy new crepe pan and crepe recipe book. Deliriously wonderful.

Then I climbed back in bed. I stayed there until 5:00. Audio book and Sunday paper, crap TV movies on LMN and laundry folding (because it is what I do with my hands while I watch crap television).

And it was just what I wanted.

The homemade kid cards:

Dear Mom,
I will love you forever,
And forever you will be,
The most wonderful mother,
You mean everything to me.

I thought of buying you flowers,
In the usual way, But, I knew you would prefer
A FOREVER BOUQUET!
- Love Levi
(Came with a paper bouquet that he made.)

Marvelous in every way
Over the top
Terrific at everything
Happiness wrapped up just for me
Everyone looks up to her
Reaches out and touches hearts
- Love Maddy, 2008
(Came on a rainbow painted watercolor card.)

Wishing all the wonderful mothers and all of the children of wonderful mothers a day for appreciating what you've got. And for those who feel they are lacking either or both of these, I wish you friends who love you and support you when you need it and even when you don't think you do.

Happy Mother's day from the La Familia Cupcake!

THE SWEET, SWEET SMELL OF MY SHOES

I bought four pairs of shoes to from this site celebrate my new job. (In the event that you go to shop here, be warned that they have a large selection of the hooker shoes. I didn't buy any of those.) And while I had the camera out I snapped some of my others.

Happy day. Love your shoes. I'll be loving mine over here.

MY AMERICAN LIFE

How lucky are we?

Life can be hard. It can be frustrating. It can be disappointing.

But then it gets good. If only for a day. If only for one breathtaking moment, it gets good.

If you can't watch This American Life on Showtime, I understand. Showtime is pricey.

But if you can, you really should. I highly recommend. This week's show is about a man finding independence and choice and beauty in the most extreme life circumstances.

And Johnny Depp spoke for him because he is not able to speak for himself. And I cried like a baby.

And I felt really good.

STUFF AND OTHER THINGS

It all started with Stuff White People Like. Which cracks me right up. Particularly the ones on New Balance Shoes (my husband, who is not white, per se) and White Problems: Poorly Read Partners (Also my husband! I'm the poorly read one!).

Then I started reading other Stuff People Like.

Like Stuff Christians Like. Such as porn and crock pots. Yum.

And that led to Stuff Nobody Likes. And particularly the post on Grammar Nazis.

As it turns out, I am a poorly-read wannabe mini grammar Nazi. If that is even possible. I like learning about common grammar mistakes and shaming people for making them. For example, the phrase "for all intents and purposes" would be correct. If you are talking about "intensive purposes" you ought to be working in an ICU ward, with great purpose. Also, if you feel sick to your stomach, you are feeling nauseated. Not nauseous. Things that are nauseous cause nausea. It's a bit tricky. You'll get it after a while. I'll harp on you about it. Fun for everyone!

I have learned A LOT from the Grammar Girl podcast. Fun and smart and super short. You can listen from the site, or you can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.

Feel free to shame your friends and family with all the nuggets of delicious hyper-correctness you will find here.

My gift to you!

I DON'T KNOW MUCH, BUT I KNOW CRACK-HEADS WERE NOT ON THE INVITE LIST

If your family is big enough you’re gonna get some kooks. Happens to the best of us. All those unique (read: weird) people. But you love them. You know, like the Jesus freak. And the alcoholic with the 4 ex-wives (but you can only remember 3 of them, who the hell is this Irma that you all keep mentioning?). The Amway sales reps (doing their best to keep an Amway home!). And then there’s the grouchy drama-queen uncle. Who is not happy unless he has made someone cry.

The usual.

This weekend we had a big family gathering for my aunt and cousin, who flew in from neighboring states for a quick visit. My cousin was bringing her new husband, and I was thrilled to meet him. I opted not to go on my weekend retreat so I wouldn’t miss out.

And it was lovely. Really nice.

Right up until my crack-head cousin showed up with her crazy mother and gigantic children.

See, I have this very sweet uncle who really thought that if he invited said crack-head and her unusually large children that maybe, just maybe, she’d feel the love and decide to give up her evil ways want to get better and come back into the fold of regular human beings.

But here’s the rub. She was never in the realm of regular human beings. Doesn’t even know what that looks like. The secrets in her childhood home were big secrets. No really, BIG SECRETS. Big ones. And then there were all the lies required to cover them up. Really fucked up shit. No joke.

So, fast forward a couple of dozen years. And a failed intervention or two. Picture a lovely BBQ. Visiting and chatting. Noshing and drinking. A brisk but sunny California day. Celebrating with my lovely(ish) family. And then she walked in.

Fuck.

It’s not that I hate her. I don’t. It’s not that I don’t want her life to be better. I do. But coming to this party is not going to make it better. Not for us, and not for her. How could she help but feel different? How could she help but feel less than? Her breath stank of booze. Her clothes were visibly soiled. Her teeth (the remaining ones – formerly her proudest feature) were chipped and stained. She didn’t talk the way she used to, because she wouldn’t lift her upper lip to show her gnarled teeth. Also, her voice sounded at least an octave lower and was all scratchy. Like a 75 year old bar fly. With throat cancer.

But what really pissed me off was that suddenly everything was all about crack-girl. And it wasn’t supposed to be about her. It was supposed to be a lovely celebration and visit for the out-of-towners.

And isn’t it just like a crack-head to steal the measly family limelight.

So I’m just being a whiner. If I were a good Christian woman wouldn’t I invite her in with open arms? “Come right this way! We’ve more than enough food/clothes/money/booze to share! Please grace us with your delightful presence!”

But I don’t feel like that at all. I feel like telling my sweet and well intentioned uncle that the next time he wants to invite crack-heads to the family gathering I’m gonna punch him in the face.

And God bless us, every one…

(BTW - my mom and my brother LEFT THE PARTY just after the arrival of Cracky the Cousin of Delight. Left me and my dad there. Cause that is how they roll. Ass holes.)

UGLY MOMMY SAYS "WTF??!!"

Interesting article about the new book, My Beautiful Mommy.

The book in question, My Beautiful Mommy, is a children's book. About when mommy goes in for "a little work." ON HER NOSE AND HER BOOBIES.

Kill me now.

HOW DO I SUCK? LET ME COUNT THE WAYS

OK.

So I've been away. Here is what I have been doing:

Looking for a new job. Which means endless phone interviews, shopping for "live" interview clothes, maintaining my current workload, telling my husband that he has to be positive ('cause I can't handle ANY negativity or doubt), live interviewing, considering offer letters, accepting offer, submitting my resignation, receiving numerous totally sweet messages from my soon-to-be-ex co-workers, receiving numerous totally sweet messages from my soon-to-be-ex clients, mourning the end of an era of my life, looking forward to a totally new and exciting era of my life, and stressing out beyond belief.

I've been waking in the middle of the night with busy brain. Staying awake for 2 to 3 hours.

I'm exhausted. I'm at the end of my tether. I'm a "bit" of a fucking wreck.

So...

The other night my husband woke me when he came to bed. He was feeling "friendly." He hugged me. He kissed me.

"Hey," he whispered. "How are you? Looking for a good time?"

"Oh god. Please no." I said. "This is my own personal hell."

Yes. I said that. I don't actually recall saying that. I had to ask Rube in the morning what (completely rude thing) I said to him the night before. I knew I said something. I just couldn't remember what, exactly, it was.

He was happy to share. Which is great.

I was, of course, referring to being awakened from a (somewhat) restful sleep. Not to my loving husband's amorous advances.

I'm a total bitch.

What do you want from me?

RICISM IN AMERICA

Him: The white rice and the brown rice can go in the same Tupperware, right?

Me: No. I want the brown rice separated.

Him (mumbling): ... pshish ... hurmph ... white woman's keepin' the brown rice down...

NO RESPONSE NEEDED

Laughing until I blow snot out of my nose followed by mopping drool from my own chin is one of my all time favorite experiences.

Not always so much while I'm in the office, but I'll take it where I can get it.

I was reading all 8 parts of this post right here.

Happy Thursday. Grab a tissue for chin mopping if you are at all like me.

I'M A LITTLE BIT IRISH

Or so says my mom. She was a Murphy before she married my father. *

* (Turns out I don't know how to spell her former last name. It is Murphey. But as I have given Murphy to my daughter as her middle name, we all have to deal with this spelling, too, now. Isn't that just like me - I'm such a shitty speller that I screw that up. Oh well. Live and learn and then stop having kids so you don't misspell any more family names.)

I have a daughter named Madigan.

My son is busily making a leprechaun trap.

Tomorrow we will dine on Irish soda bread and corned beef with yellow mustard and cabbage and carrots. (The trick is adding the cabbage for just the last 15 minutes. Just enough to soften the leaves, not enough to stink up your house.)

Happy St. Patty's Day to you and yours from the Cupcake Family.

May you live as long as you want,
And never want as long as you live.

AND NOW A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR

My friend Lisa sent these strange and wonderful old ads to me. And now I share them with you.

I'm now looking for the jaunty douche advertisements of yore and will post them as soon as I find them.

Can't wait!

TALKIN 'BOUT MY BABIES (AND THE WAY THEY ATE)

I nursed both of my babies. For two years. Not two years total, two years a piece. Four years total.

Now is the time to judge me. Think disparaging thoughts, get that icky feeling and make a face. Go for it.

I'll wait.

whistling, polishing my nails, finding some schmutz under one nail, scraping it out with the ...

Oh, OK. We're back. Here we go.

Why do I even mention this, you ask? Well, this lady is hosting a little web event about the boob stories. And I thought - "Hey, my story might be as interesting as any other story about boobs. I should share!"

Where to begin? Well, at the beginning, I guess.

Madigan, my first born, was huge. Eleven pounds, one ounce. And following her birth (which finally came by C-section eleven days and endless hours of labor after her due date, thank the lord) she had a small heart duct closure problem which caused her to have a heart murmur. The treatment for this ailment was a course of medication that tended to constrict the intestines and so NO FOOD FOR HER. I nursed my baby exactly once before they took her 5 floors below me to the NICU and started sticking IVs into her head and starving her.

I always wanted to nurse (plus I was hopped-up on drugs), so I strapped on the double-turbo hospital pump and went to town. My milk came in. Sweet. Bags of milk collected in the freezer of the NICU over the next few days. I was waiting for the go ahead from the doctors to feed my baby and we would be off!

Funny thing - the doctors released her to eat one night while I was at home sleeping. And the nurses fed her a bottle. A couple of them, actually. In the 7 hours I was away from the hospital Madigan ate 2 times. From a bottle.

I had no idea what that was to mean in my life. Honestly, when I heard the news I was fine with it. My poor baby had been starved by those mean doctors and I was just so grateful that she'd eaten and that she was keeping it down. And then I tried to feed her myself. Holy shit.

Imagine this, you have an ice cold bottle of Coca Cola on a very hot day. You tilt your head back and lift that thing up and the soda slides right down. It is so delicious and satisfying. The perfect beverage for that moment. Now imagine that your mother walks up to you with that same soda goodness (maybe even better, like Cherry Coke!) but she is serving it to you in a beach ball. Seriously, a beach ball. You have to open your mouth super wide and squeeze it out of one tiny, stupid hole and it's running all over your face and you can't seem to get a mouth full. That would suck, huh? Cherry Coke would maybe not be your favorite, right?

This was my daughter's experience with breast milk from my breast. The nurses had brought her this perfect, fast and convenient milk delivery system. She sucked that shit right down. I, on the other hand, came at her with two "E" cup sized rock-hard torpedoes. And she was pissed. Not having it, I tell you. And I was so guilt ridden about my hospitalized, starving, HUGE baby that I caved. I gave in and gave her the bottle.

The next few weeks were a blur of feeding nightmares. Of me sticking Maddy on my breast for as long as I could tolerate the writhing and screaming, and then caving in and giving her the bottle, followed by me pumping all of that milk out for the next feeding, and then changing my clothes (which were now sopping wet from all the milk that sprayed out of my chest during the festivities). Midnight feedings took two hours for these reasons. I wanted to be a good mom, but this feeding bullshit, nipple-confusion thing wasn't helping. But when it came down to it I really wanted to nurse, so I wasn't giving up. Or I was fucking mental. One of those.

Madigan eventually latched on and I had a very successful nursing career with both kids. And I really must interject that at no time did I plan on nursing for two years. I just kept hitting the regular weaning milestones (3, 6, 9 months, etc...) and asking myself, "Am I done? I don't think so."

When it was all said and done I weaned my kids when they could talk. When they both had mouths full of teeth and could eat corn on the cob and steak dinners. When they could (at least partially) dress themselves and go for walks and were whole people. I am not saying it is the right thing for all families. I am saying it was the right thing for mine.

And I'm so glad I was able to figure that out for myself.

DELICIOUS SUNDAY, FILLED WITH GOOEY HOPE AND PROMISE

Boy child started little league. For the first time. We are quite proud.

Girl child continues in her dance career and has recently started Girls on the Run for the third year.

And double report card awesomeness for this most recent trimester. Sweet.

Husband just got a new big manly truck. He's proud as a peacock.

When all is good with my peeps I find that I have more room in my life for things to be good for me. I have yet to manage the "I'm OK even if my family is is in turmoil" zen-masterness thing.

So, that being said, I had the most wonderful day today. I'm still in my jammies, I read and did crossword puzzles and planned for my future and cooked.

I will say that there is change in the air for my life. And that has brought with it some anxiety. But today, this precious day, has been lovely. And in the midst of imagining parts of my life differently, I found I could be peaceful.

And thankful.

WOW, HOW LUCKY CAN YOU GET?

* This post is 100% just for me. No one in the world will care about this but me. And this is MY blog. So that's all the permission I need.*




So bitter. So tortured. This is speaking to me right now. Not that I'm bitter and tortured. This is just a reminder of how much worse it could be.

Satin on my shoulder and a smile on my lips.
How lucky can you get?
Money in my pocket right at my fingertips.
How lucky can you get?
Every night a party where the fun never ends.
You can circle the globe with my circle of friends.

Life's a bed of roses whirling perfume on me
You can spare me the blues I don't sing in that key
And if there's a man who'd leave me I am happy to say
I haven't run into him yet

Gee Wee Wow
How lucky, how lucky can you get!

I love it when Barbara is singing me a little sad, just when I need it. Don't you?

TRASHY 80S MOVIES THAT MAKE ME SMILE

Valley Girl - Julie, a girl from the valley, meets Randy, a punk from the city. This is when Nicholas Cage was a huge-nosed, young and lanky, sexy outsider worthy of my young lust. Long before the "Peggy Sue" nasally voice debacle and the flabby middle aged guy who named his kid Superman. Freak.

This movie also introduced me to magic of Deborah Foreman. Pure 80s B movie queen. Heaven.

A few of Deborah's other movies are:
Real Genius - With young and sexy Val Kilmer. Yum.
My Chauffeur - Rich girl takes a job as a chauffeur. Hilarity ensues. Seriously fucking funny.
April Fool's Day - Deborah plays murderous twins. On a remote island. With all of her sex hungry college friends. Sweet.

On another AWESOME 80s note - Suzanna Hoffs (yes, from the Bangles) stars in The Allnighter. With Michelle Pfeiffer's little sister and Joan Cusack. Drunken adventures with sexy stupid guys.

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension - This might be the very best one of all. Not so much with the sex. Buckaroo is a neurosurgeon, a rock star and an inter-dimensional crime fighter. Peter Weller sexy as hell, Ellen Barkin back when she was hot, with aliens and Rastafarians.

Cue popcorn. Milk duds. Big ass coke.

Mmmmmmm.

CAN YOU SPARE A RAINBOW SPRINKLE?

What to do?

I have lots to say on so many taboo subjects. Religion, faith, the lack thereof, politics, candidates, the lack thereof, drugs and parenthood, all sorts of sexual deviance - you know, fun stuff.

But really, why? I'm no expert. I can't claim to offer anything more than a regurgitated tidbit on any of these subjects. I should just shut my pie hole.

And so this is where I am. Full of nonsense. Not saying anything that is really going on because I am not ready. Because it is somehow not safe. Because.

Bottom line - I would really enjoy a donut or 6 right about now. Sadly, I have none.

MY KIND OF CONVERSATION HEARTS

You can learn how to make these yourself, as well as many other lovely Valentine treats over at Brownie Points.

You're welcome.

THANKING MY LUCKY STARS

For my husband. Who loves me. Every day. Every way. Every weight. Every flavor of crazy. And even if he doesn't, he never says it out loud.

For never, ever, having to scratch or beg or yearn for the approval of my parents. I know people who have spent decades in therapy who will probably never feel like they have it. And here I am, swimming in a big pool of love and approval. More like a lake. An ocean, really.

For my brother. Who could easily make me blow milk out of my nose from laughing. That is if I were a milk drinker. Which I am most certainly not. But you get my point. He's the one I'd like to have with me if I got trapped in an elevator for 6 hours. And that, my friends, is not something I would want from almost anyone else on the planet. Certainly not anyone already mentioned in this post.

For my friends. Who are supporting and encouraging me through such a strange and hard time right now. Who say things so sweet that I don't even know how to believe what they are saying. But I try, because I love them so.

For my neighbors. Who are wonderfully wonderful. And who dork out on the wonderfullness of having great neighbors just as much as I do.

And finally, for my kids. I have no words for all the breathtaking gratitude I feel for them.

On this day, the eve of Valentines Day, I give you my heart. For I have no greater gift to give.

SO FRESH, SO CURRENT

Did everyone watch the Superbowl Half Time Show?

Or did you, maybe, take a nap?

OR, did you accomplish both thanks to the snooze fest that was Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' lackluster performance on the heart shaped stage?

What the hell happened? Who booked that show? Couldn't they come up with anyone who had a hit in THIS MILLINIUM? Is it possible that Def Leppard was booked elsewhere? Was Jefferson Airplane already committed to a big performance in Branson, Missouri? Are ZZ Top too busy fighting amongst themselves to make it to the BIGGEST SINGLE AUDIENCE FOR A MUSICAL PERFORMER ALL YEAR?

Please tell me this is not what the future holds.

I'm sure Tom Petty is fine. A lovely musician with lots of fans. All over the age of 55. And all still rocking it hard in their own "Baby Boomers Gone Wild" way. Sheesh.