so this is love

Sometimes I stick secret love notes for my husband to find with cute schmoopy messages. I tucked a note in the fish food which read, "Of all the fish in the sea, I'm glad I found you." Another time I left a note in his sock drawer which said, "You knock my socks off!" That's right. Live at 11: Mona's cold black heart spews out something other than biting sarcasm.

The last note I left was this:



His reply:

My 12 fluid ounce dictator

Meet my master.

I am addicted to diet coke. This is no joke. (But to continue the rhyme, if you're a guy in England, you'd be a bloke!) Some days Mike and I say to each other, "NO MORE! This is the last time we're buying diet coke!" And then a 2 liter bottle magically appears in our fridge, or a 36-pack levitates off the shelf and drops into our cart at Costco.

One time Mike and I went without any diet coke for one whole month. This was four years ago and since then we have only managed a three or four day stretch without suckling at the sweet carbonated teat.

I'm not addicted to the caffeine because we have had our share of caffeine-free diet cokes as well. It's been wired into my brain. When a waiter asks me what I'd like to drink, I politely answer, "DIET COKE IN MY MOUTH NOW!" But there's always cheaper options like WATER or ICED TEA! What if I don't want to drink pansy iced tea or look like I'm Cheapy McCheapo when I ask for just water?

How lame is this, that I need something bubbly every single day and that right after I publish this post I will be at my office vending machine waiting for a cold bottle of bubbly to drop into my hand so I can chug its sweet contents into my welcoming belly.

in which I realize I am not 18 anymore

These past two weeks have thoroughly kicked my 25-year-old ass.

When I'm 45 I'll read that last line and travel back in time and re-kick my 25-year-old ass for spending more time nurturing my career and raising a child than being in a bar nursing a double crown and coke and my current self will plead with my future self that it would be impossible to take Nathan to a bar because he's only a toddler! And Future Mona would say, "Whatever! Take him with!" Because in twenty years, I will still be talking like a teenager and encouraging inappropriate parental behavior.

Last week I drove almost 400 miles total just to secure trees for a weekend tree planting. I had traveled 60 miles before I realized that the old SUV I was driving gave me the option to change the radio station and I wasn't forced to listen to listen to tired r&b. Though after four repeats of that song about apple bottom jeans and boots with the fur (WITH THE FURRRR!), I thought of my old fruity-jeans that were so tight it looked like my ass was eating them. Seriously. They were Guess jeans and if you have the same sixth-grade sense of humor as I do, you would yell, "Guess? I guess 'OM NOM NOM NOM NOM!'"

And I'm sure that's what long-distance truckers all over the country think as they log thousands of miles: tight pants they have given up or that snakeskin number they thought was cool at the time because Salma Hayek wore it in Traffic or how they bought a ton of J. Lo velour tracksuits and still wear them sometimes as pajamas because they are so comfortable even though you are wearing the soft interior of a 1987 GMC Starcraft Conversion Van.

So tell me something cool you did this weekend and while you are trying to whittle down your list of awesomeness, I'll direct you to The Full Mommy's Earth Day Giveaways. There's still time to get green up in here, up in here.

animal cruelty

Nathan eats the pony's food
Originally uploaded by kirida.

This weekend, our daycare provider held a birthday party for her daughter and rented ponies. All the kids had a ride and afterwards were given carrots to feed to the animals. They lined up and when it was Nathan's turn, we found him eating the pony's carrot.

I feel sorry for the pony who was just waiting to be fed when some bald toddler monched away while saying, "POSESSION IS 9/10THS OF THE LAW!"

Saturday night with Ed

Last night, our family drove out to Federal Way to meet Ed, his wife Daisy and kids Kiki and Devin at his in-laws' place. His in-laws are named Mike and Mona. Luckily, they do not have a son named Nathan or a cosmic hole would have ripped in the time-space continuum.

The last time I visited Saipan I was at my skinniest ever (read: fiiiiine! and unrecognizable!), so Ed and I concocted an idea to trick his father Ivan into thinking I was really a Japanese exchange student named Satomi. When he introduced me to his dad, I made a full bow and squealed a high-pitched, "So nice to meet chooo!" It was so hilarious because because he was so confused until we admitted that I was really Mona, only skinnier, kawaii-er and no longer Bacon Monster Desu! I guess you had to be there. And in possession of some Japanese language skills. And also drinking. KAMPAI!!!

Ed is a professional photographer and gave me some helpful hints on using my camera.



Like screaming into my son's ear, "SMILE DAMNIT!"



He also captured the face I give when I'm watching the scene in Pride and Prejudice where Colin Firth's in the copper bathtub. Or watching the chef at Benihana transform onions into steaming volcanoes. It's like science for my tummy!



We also made our sons kiss. Ed's son Devin has the most beautiful boy curls. I'm sure Nathan's hair could be as beautiful had I not turned him into Calliou (without the incessant whining and alopecia--for real, the kid's FOUR, where's his hair? The lyrics insist that every day he grows some more? In every area but hair?).

I love these photos when babies are allowed to be loving toward each other, giving and throwing kisses. This time is so short and fleeting and soon, Nathan will be huffing at me that it's awkward to kiss another boy for the camera and could I please just drop him off at mall, but don't stop the car and acknowledge that we're related, he'll just tuck and roll?

angels and pancakes: not what you think

Whenever I see the word "bebe," I never think of babies or the overpriced clothing store because in my native language, Chamorro, "bebe" means vagina. "Bebe" is pronounced with the same "eh" sound as in "beg."

My mom hates saying "bebe," because she thinks the word is too ugly and instead prefers calling it a pancake, pronounced with the same "ah" as those tweaked-out multicolored women who sing "Wanna wanna wanna faaanta?" (I couldn't find that fanta commercial, but I did find this crazy Japanese one. You're welcome.)

My mother has also opted to call it an "angel," effectively ruining both breakfast AND heaven for me.

Does your family harbor any strange vaginal euphemisms?

Juno!

I finally saw Juno and now I am filled with opinions. I have a tendency to watch movies long after their release date and then must share my stunning insight, even though no one wants to hear my Titanic theory that Rose and Jack could have totally fit on that board together. I don't think Jack was saying "Never let go," I really think he meant, "Move over, you ho," but couldn't say it because he had been in the icy water for so long.

Now Juno! I could have done without all the opening slang. Juno just seemed way too cool for me. I'm so glad I was never a teen mother because it would have been awful. There would be no hamburger phone or Angela Chase flannel garb. There wouldn't have been the hyper-indie soundtrack. If my teenage pregnancy were a movie, it would have been produced by the same reality misers who put together Cheaters. No money would have been spent on the actual filming, most of it would go to pay whoever makes up the dry humorless double entendres. If I had been pregnant at 16, there would have been crazy, hormonal outbursts and teary regrets for making out while Peter Cetera and Crystal Bernard (Yes, the same one from WINGS!) sang "Forever Tonight" in the background.

But I really liked the movie once I got over the slang dropping and relief that I was never a teen mom and therefore not eternally bound to my high school boyfriends, especially the one who asked for his Magic the Gathering cards back. (But then again, what better lesson to teach our hypothetical child than how to throw down a Fireblast card to deal 6 damage with 2 lightning bolts!)

My favorite detail of the movie was the Toyota Previa. I drove the same model in high school and it was a sweeeet ride. Only mine was a gold color and I called it the brown dildo because it would shake if you drove it faster than 70 mph. My mom taught me how to drive in that van, which explains why I suffer from road neuroses, a condition brought on by a 56-year-old woman shrieking into her teenage daughter's ear, "STAY ON YOUR SIDE! DON'T BEEP AT THAT GUY! WHO IS HE? DON'T USE THIS CAR TO GET PREGNANT! SANTA-MARIA-JESUS-JOSE!"

Ahhh, good times.

The best memory in that van was the night after our junior year Thanksgiving presentation. Instead of hosting an actual prom, our crazy baptist administration decided that since prom leads to "promiscuity" (which is untrue, Peter Cetera leads to promiscuity), we would have a banquet and performance in which every class presented a song and dance. But since it was as close to a prom as our school would allow, we still gussied up in glittery dresses and coiffed hair. After it was over, I drove my six classmates (I graduated out with a class of SEVEN) to a lookout point so we could take pictures.

We piled into the van and I tried to drive away, but the behemoth had sunk into the wet grass and we were stuck. My sweet friends got out and PUSHED MY VAN while in their dresses and hair and rich girl perfume. And after several tries of pressing the gas pedal and tires slinging mud on my friends, we were finally free. The girls weren't upset with me at all, I bet they were just glad I hadn't shifted into reverse.

And going back to babymaking and Juno, I'm glad I was pregnant in this decade and not 1974, where your postpartum depression is not at all valid after the trauma of childbirth, but merely a minor symptom of having dark hair.

Ham Jello!

Ham Jello!
Originally uploaded by kirida.

I have a box of Good Housekeeping magazines from the 70s and 80s. I have secretly kept in my trunk so my husband won't get mad that I'm bringing more crap into the house since technically, it's not in the house! Technical victory is mine!

Every morning, I walk to the bus stop and stop by my car to pick up another vintage copy. My dream of having my own library mobile finally realized!

I'm slowly scanning and uploading all the laughable ads, articles and awesomeness like this gem: a picture of a Christmas dinner complete with HAM JELLO! Not even the tassles can dress up that mess. Yech.

wasn't this guy on Little House and the Prairie?

wasn't this guy on Little House and the Prairie?
Originally uploaded by kirida.

I love you, internet

Check out this cartoonist's mother's entire yearbook in cartoon form. I looked most like the gal in the top row, except there needs to be way less visual self-esteem.

Inbox Zero - I'm late to the party on this one, but Merlin Mann's funny and geeky take to tackling the chaos of email. I don't have a system (other than flagged and not flagged--yikes!) and I definitely benefited from his hour presentation. How do you handle your inbox?

Best Game Ever - what happens when you combine a little league game with NBC Sports. Two other Improv Everywhere faves: Look Up More and Frozen Grand Central.

Photojojo reminds me that my little boy was a baby this time last year:



He's grown so much, especially his right arm!



What kind of awesomeness have you found on the internet?

I need a hero

Yesterday, after Mike and I had finished buying some flowers for our yard, he loaded into the trunk while I strapped Nathan into his car seat. I had just clicked him in when I noticed our cart speedily rolling down the parking lot, headed for a very expensive car door. I bolted across the pavement, jolted by my fear that we would have to replace a part that was worth more than our cars combined.

Luckily, my huge man-hands were able to clutch the handle before the blunt metal corner would eat away all our Disneyland money. I wheeled the cart back to our car, pointing out to Mike that I HAD JUST SAVED US A LOT OF MONEY. He said, "Thanks babe"--not exactly the Extreme Home Makeover MOVE! THAT! BUS! hysteria I was expecting.

So now I'm thinking of retelling this story, only replacing "shopping cart" with "stroller carrying a crying newborn" and "parked car" with "rushing oncoming traffic." What kind of world do we live in where one will think I'm a hero for saving some perennials.

What kinds of heroic feats have you performed? Have you cleared a paper jam in the office printer? Pushed an old woman out harm's way? Or just pushed an old woman? Tell me!

capri mother and capri son

capri mother and capri son
Originally uploaded by kirida.

Sometimes Nathan and I hide from the world and sip on some Capri Sun.

Jacking Tessie's post and making it all about me!

I just read Tessie's post about my catholic school bully of yore and suddenly a flash of previously googled People Of Mona's Past or POMP hit me and now I cannot function unless it is all spewed into list form.

As of my last google-fu search, I know:

-One ex-boyfriend gained a huge amount of weight, which is ironic because he made fun of my junk in the trunk while we dated and touted his extreme devotion to fitness and martial arts. I guess he lost the snack attack! OH SNAP!

-One ex-boyfriend works at a software company. BORING!

-One debate rival became a very successful headhunter.

-One ex-boyfriend is a genetic scientist studying the DNA of alcoholics.

-One former co-worker ran for a political position and lost in a very humiliating way.

-My first grade boyfriend (I was in 1st grade, he was in SIXTH--my older men preference started young. We were even called 7-11 because I was seven and he was 11! How's that for sugar-coating creepy puppy love?) grew up and got jailed for aggravated assault and for ramming into a cop car! I sure know how to pick 'em!

Still missing: Ashley, my bff with whom I haven't spoken to since I moved from Salem, Oregon back to Saipan. In the last letter letter I received, she said she had a gerbil named Maverick (she was a huge Top Gun fan). I can safely bet that the gerbil's dead now, unless they live for like 16+ years.

curious

With the all the different social networking sites available, I'm surprised that not many people of my past have established online identities, identities that allow me to anonymously trample through and discover what they've been doing since we parted ways. My google-fu has uncovered very little, save for the glittery myspace profile featuring the ex-boyfriend who added THREE INCHES to his height or a former debate partner who has an online album of funny yet vulgar t-shirts. I'm left to imagine that the rest of the lost classmates and former friends are living quietly as elementary school teachers or finance recruiters with healthy unblogged existences.

The only person I habitually google is Divine, the girl in junior high who threatened to lob off my jaw with her angry fists and invited her friends to join in. I was standing by a window, waiting for class to begin and looking down at the courtyard below. The popular eighth boy who dumped me had convinced her a few weeks prior that I had been talking smack and at that moment was flicking her off at the window.

She had gathered her female troop and waited by the stairs until my class let out. When I entered the semi-circle of girls with their fists clenched, eyes darting toward me. I don't remember most of what Divine hurled at me, the sharp gestures and angry threats to beat my ass down because I had supposedly "called her a bitch,"--the requisite insult worthy to incite unnecessary catholic school violence. I remember her friends nodding and egging her on, and how she desperately she wanted to fight.

Our gym teacher entered right before she could lunge at me and told us to break it up. The crowd dispersed and I ran home before any of them could grab my hair. My mom pulled me out of that school, I finished seventh grade at the school I had attended the previous year.

I googled Divine again last night after hearing about six cheerleaders beating up another girl. The mean girl prototype of my junior high who scribbled on bathroom walls and desks has tumored into a tech-savvy kind of vicious. I believe that if that encounter happened today, it would be posted on youtube and myspace, allowing google cache to hermetically seal that young female vitriol.

I don't harbor any anger toward Divine. I'm just curious--where is she now? Did she shed that angry exterior and blossom into a mature, balanced woman? Did she graduate from college? It's strange that almost 13 years later, I want to know if the girl who almost jumped me is okay now.

So tell me, my internet friend, is there anyone you google?

hear me out

Mike and I have decided to cancel Nathan's speech therapy appointment.

I'm relieved.

Ever since we made the appointment seventeen million months ago, Mike and I have been asking ourselves, "Does he really need this? Will this help?" His pediatrician had instilled fear that something was not right with our child. I believed him. I worried because of what he said. I let him make me think that my child needed immediate intervention or else his weak skills would doom him to a life of communicating only with people playing World of Warcraft, specifically, a lvl 41 dark elf dancing without her armor or people who say, "I am really a female but I am playing this male wizard for my younger brother."

Before we could even get an appointment for speech therapy, we had to get a referral to an audiologist. And the test proved what I knew all along: Nathan could hear. At the appointment, the woman said something that has slowly began to bug me. As she was giving her diagnosis, I noted that he always responded to his name and that, "He's probably just learning at his own pace." To which she flashed me the Debbie Downer face and said, "Yeah... or he's just responding to sounds that he hears frequently."

And since I've been replaying this memory, I am filled with what I should have said: "WHY WON'T YOU GIVE HIM CREDIT FOR KNOWING HIS OWN NAME, YOU HO-BAG HOTEL WITH FREE HB-HO AND HO-TIME!"

Mike and I are the only people who will stand up for our son, who will defend him and love him and stand in his corner when doctors are frowning that he doesn't meet their checklists.

As his mother and caregiver who has intensely watched this baby turn into a babbling, curious, bubbly boy, I believe that my son will speak when he's ready.

In the meantime, we will read to him, talk to him, and treat him like he's a normal, high-functioning toddler who sometimes is so worn out, he can't make it half-way through a book about counting kisses.

the men in my life

the men in my life
Originally uploaded by kirida.