kdiddy.org

I was going to write about how this morning when I woke up the baby he sleepily told me to “put on a talent show,” and how I was like, “I do everything else for you, I’m not fucking tapdancing, too,” and then how later, when I was trying to get him dressed, he simultaneously got a nosebleed, started peeing, farting, and sneezing and then a few minutes later wiped a gigantic booger on the hand towel and how he seems to have grown 3 inches since 7 p.m. last night because his pants are way too short and I’ve been having these really bizarre nightmares that I can’t remember any details of, other than “there were some people.”

But I thought about all of that and I said to myself, “This is all stupid,” so I didn’t post this. So the fact that you’re reading this is truly a feat of science. You should contact the media about your awesome ability to conjure non-existent blog posts.

I think I shall rename this blog fuckihavesomuchshittodo.com because fuck, I have so much shit to do! And it’s all I talk about!

As a special bonus for stressing myself out over crap that I (stupidly) willfully entered into (job, school, motherhood, existence as a functioning member of society), my lip is breaking out into a really sexy cold sore. The upside is that those really disgusting first two days of looking like your local meth addict turning tricks at the Best Western will be spent at home, where I will threaten my family by holding their toothbrushes thisclose to my lip. The downside is that I will look like your local meth addict turning tricks at the Best Western. Also, this shit hurts. Also also, I was kind of hoping for some adult time to alleviate the stress, but nothing says lovin’ HSV 1.

Anyway, we went to see The Roots last night. They were performing for Tech Fair. I’m sad to report that The Roots…kind of suck now, which is unfortunate since I stood around and frantically searched for the other members of my party for nearly two hours and then stood for another two hours while those hip hop darlings did their best impression of a drunken Doors performance circa nineteen-seventy-hell. For awhile I didn’t think it was so bad, but 20 minutes into their psychotic rendition of “Masters of War,” I wanted to choke someone. Granted, I was standing next to a group of young Anna Nicole wannabes and a couple who were making out the whole time, since, you know, “Masters of War” is the classic make-out jam.

The baby has been coating everything with snot the past few days and I’m guessing since all three of us are taking turns sniffling, sneezing, and “ugh”ing, that it’s seasonal allergy time in the kdiddy household. I gave the baby a swig of Benadryl this morning to hopefully combat the constant flow of mucous, and only after I had sent him off to school did I notice the “causes excitability in children” notice on the label.

Sweet. The kid’s already on 11 most of the time, which is weird since me, his dad, and even our cat are all

The sister-in-law and I met up with Sara G again last night for some yoga. While trying to coax my foot behind my head with the help of a strap, I gave my ear rope burn. Then the SiL was trying to convince me that we should take up racketball and I told her that that is a guaranteed broken nose for me (or, for that matter, her) as I am not coordinated whatsoever. And you know, I really wonder how I managed to stick with ballet for so long.

Dudes. I have about 3 weeks of this semester left. I am now Lucky in The Three Amigos…”Gonna make it…gonna make it…gonna make it…”

That’s my son in a picture I took a few seconds ago.* He’s wearing his storm trooper costume and has been for the better part of the last 30 hours or so. Yesterday morning he woke me up and told me he was cold and I told him to go put his robe on. A few minutes later, I walked past his room on my way to the bathroom and saw him wearing that.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Oh, I couldn’t find my robe so I put this on instead,” he replied.

Of course.

I just realized that you can also see our cat, Greedo, in that picture and that currently the Star Wars dorkiness factor in this room alone is through the roof.

In really awesome news, our car hoopty died once and for all. We’re trying to come up with creative methods of paying for a new one. So far, we’ve come up with:

1) yard sale
2) ?

Right now, we’re sharing our mother-in-law’s car and obviously that’s no long-term solution. But something has to happen this week, so that’ll be interesting.

Regarding my recent neglect of this area of the internet, I can only point to school and work as the culprit. In fact, my life over the past two weeks and probably for the next three weeks can be best summed up by this video:

I chose to get in the tire that is grad school, but during my descent I quickly realized that I am a total masochist. At the end of this semester, I will emerge dazed and say, “I hate that. I hate it so bad.” Then I will repeat this for at least four more semesters or until I chew my own face off. Whichever comes first.

Anyway, as if I haven’t saturated these internets enough, I finally got some twitter action, which sounds rather dirty. So, if you have a hankering for some stream-of-consciousness diddy, check that space.

*by pointing my laptop at him and snapping the shot with Photobooth. What? The digital camera is in the next room and it’s Sunday and I’m exercising my right to fuse my ass to the couch.

I really like reading the cooking portion of Pioneer Woman’s blog, since I feel she and I share similar culinary challenges: picky eaters and a lack of “fancy” ingredients.

The similarities end there. PW takes very pretty pictures as she cooks and in the background, you can see her gorgeous kitchen, complete with big fancy appliances and stainless steel and, holy shit, counter space.

For serious, every time she posts a new recipe it looks like she’s on the set of a Food Network show.

On the contrary, here’s how I throw down.

Let’s see, we have Wal-Mart rice, some of which has spilled on the cookie tray, peanut butter, salt, salt…a waffle iron.

Of course, there’s a decent amount of evidence as to what I last cooked sprinkled on the stove top. You know, in case I want to recreate something and want to know what the ingredients were.

Ahh, my favorite. The knobs on my stove are organized in such a way that I don’t think is very intuitive. As I alluded before, I don’t have any counters, so one day while I was cooking, I set a Rubbermaid bowl on the stove and then turned what I thought was the front burner on to cook something. Yeah, it wasn’t. So, some of the bowl is still there. Coincidentally, that night was also the night we came to the dramatic realization that the baby had a tree nut allergy. It sucked, too, since I made this really yummy green curry with ground cashews. Not only were the leftovers cold and worthless when we got back from the hospital hours later, they were also deadly. Yay!

Also, this guy comes in and judges me.

For the record, I’m making apple butter pork tonight. Yum.

Last night, I wrapped up a two-day open house for admitted grad students to my department. I’m really glad that’s over. Handling events makes me very nervous. The whole thing seemed to make my hair frizz to astonishing heights.

Also, the people in my department can really put ’em back. I’m actually a little nervous to show my boss the receipts on Monday.

In any case, me and the sister-in-law are going to meet Sara G for yoga in a little bit. Joining us will be this gigantic pimple that I have on my chin. His name’s Fred. Yeah, okay, nevermind. Apparently people crossing the Liberty Bridge think it’s an awesome idea to drive into oncoming traffic and cause traffic jams on an otherwise lovely Saturday morning. And to think the state won’t give me a driver’s license.

Hi.

I am crazily busy with work and school this week so my presence here at kdiddy.org will be sparse. I’ll be posting as usual over at MamaPop…because if I don’t Tracey and Amy come with the beatings.

Until then, I shall share this scene with you:

Husband: Dude, you ripped this fart the other night in your sleep. It was like *presses hands against mouth*
pfpfpfpfpfppfhththhehherFWAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHPpfptpappppp
puttputtputtsqueak

Me: Whatever, man.

Spouses or brothers? You be the judge.

This weekend was filled with the normal chores…laundry, grocery shopping, homework, half-hearted attempts at picking up toys from the living room floor.

But we also had a much bigger task, which was seeing our good friend Tony off as he joins the Navy.

The husband met Tony and his best friend, Chris, four years ago when Tony stopped into 720 one day and asked about some Theo Parrish records. The husband was shocked to discover that a pair of 19-year-olds had been falling in love with the music of Detroit in Brentwood, which isn’t exactly a hotbed of dance music. The kids, as they came to be known, quickly fell into our circle of friends, joining our caravan to Detroit and coming out to DJ gigs when they were old enough.

As the rest of us finished college and got jobs, Tony had trouble finding some direction in his life. Like any young guy has the right to do, he took his time committing to anything, hopping back and forth between odd jobs and mostly just having fun. School wasn’t for him, but as the number beside the 20 in his age got higher, he started to feel the urge to get his act together.

He decided to join the Navy some time last year and while we were obviously hesitant to celebrate, we understood that it was something he wanted.

On Friday, we gathered at Alto for one last night of carefree dancing. Tony and the husband both played records, spinning their favorites and standbys that are sure to get any crowd moving. Smiles and hugs were plentiful and everyone sang at the top of their lungs when the husband played “Days Like This,” an ode to a good day.

At 2 a.m., after we were kicked out, Tony’s friend Bob stood on the sidewalk and played the trumpet, a special treat for Tony.

Bob’s eyes were red and watery by the end of the performance and as that big Goodbye crept closer, we all started to feel its presence.

Today we arrived at Tony’s house and were greeted warmly by his parents. They are salt-of-the-earth types and fiercely love their family. By extension they love us since we love Tony.

Everything was fine until Tony’s dad gathered everyone in the living room to say a few words about his son.

Not surprisingly, things took a turn for the teary at that point. But Tony’s dad’s friend took the stage and started talking extensively about the Lord and another family friend said something to the tune of, “My one friend in the Navy something something artillery something something he died horribly…I hope that doesn’t happen to you!” Fortunately/unfortunately that shifted the mood somewhat.

We spent the rest of the afternoon just talking.

I teared up a few more times. I’ve kind of always felt like we were at least partially responsible for looking out for Tony. Not that he isn’t perfectly capable of taking care of himself, but he’s always been close with the husband, as though he was his adopted big brother.

It’s definitely weird having friends on the opposite spectrum of your twenties. At 23, which is the age Tony is now, I was a mom, but I can remember thinking that eventually I would understand things better, that at some point soon I would feel like a grown-up. At 29, I’m still at a loss and the fact that I am actually one of the grown-ups terrifies me as I am in no way qualified for the job.

I guess that’s why it’s scary to send one of our own off into a huge group of strangers who don’t care about him the way we do. He is, after all, just one of the kids.

I know he’ll be okay. But I’ll worry. And in four years, he’ll come back as a 27-year-old man, full of experiences that I can’t relate to, and a kinship with his Navy buddies that I won’t understand. Today, I got to be there as a kid enjoyed one last carefree afternoon with his friends and family.

That’s an honor I won’t soon forget.

Spring is the shit.

Today, the sister-in-law, my buddy Sara G and I all went and took yoga which felt so good and did so much to help pull me at least partially out of this funk that I’ve been in. Sara was going to Kiva Han afterward and I was kinda bummed that I couldn’t join her because I had to go home and do work, namely two interviews for AP. But I got to interview Charlotte Sometimes and it turns out that she is like my 20-year-old sister that I never knew I had. We chatted and giggled and swapped ballet stories. She’s fucking awesome and I think she’s going to be pretty huge. So you heard it here first, alright?

I’m kneeling on the floor and am leaning over my bed to look at my email and the cat was, up until a few seconds ago, sitting quite happily on my butt.

What a strange creature.