SEX AND THE CITY!

Last night, I went to the Sex and the City movie with Drew and her friends Whitney and Alex. As someone who has watched every single episode of the series to the point where I notice characters from the show on other series (i.e. Magda on Law and Order without her Ukrainian accent, pushing Miranda to MAKE PIE!) or people on SATC who show up as different characters (i.e. the episode in the first season where they go to Connecticut for Laney's baby shower and the woman who says she was a vice president with hundreds of people answering to her and two seasons later she reappears as Carrie and Jon Bon Jovi's therapist Dr. G!), I had very high expectations. And the movie delivered in every way.

I'm not one of these women who believes she IS Sex and the City. I don't buy into the overpriced handbag/shoe mantra or that sleeping around like a man is equivalent to Norma Rae holding up a sign that reads "UNION." SATC was a sweet escapist show that I watched at a particularly delicate part of my twenties and when I watch it, I am brought back to that time when I lived in a small one-bedroom apartment with my high school friend Val. We would watch SATC together, spray our home with AXE deodorant so it would smell like a man had been there, and buy crap from Costco like a belly-dancing workout DVD which we never really watched other than the special features where the ladies danced with swords!

The only problem I had with the Sex and the City movie was that a sweet romantic scene was showing at the same time I needed to pee, so I let myself cry in hopes that I wouldn't have to leave my seat and I would just pee out my eyes. I told Drew and she said, "If you cry more, you pee less!"

And now that I have watched the movie, I feel like I can return to my regular TV/internet perusing because I know someone wants to ruin it Harry Potter style like those guys who read the book the first day it's sold then drive around the bookstores yelling out their windows about what happened to Dumbledore.

When we left the movie, the line for the next showing stretched around the whole building. I was tempted to yell out the spoiler, but for other movies and shout out, "KINT IS KEYSER SOZE!" or "PRINCESS LEIA IS LUKE SKYWALKER'S SISTER AND DARTH VADER IS THEIR FATHER!"

When you have unprotected Sex and the City

You get Babies and the City then they grow into Toddlers and the City who tickle their mothers on command.


nathan with his sippy cup from mona on Vimeo.

awesome. not awesome.

A couple of weeks ago, Mike introduced me to a radio show called Too Beautiful to Live hosted by Luke Burbank. I wouldn't have ever listened because it's on an AM station and also from 7 to 10 PM, a time when I'm either asleep or eating Werther's Originals and yelling at kids to get off my lawn. What I love about this show (you can listen to their audio archives) is that it's the radio version of everything I see on the internet. I'm going to pilfer their regular feature of "Awesome! Not Awesome!" in which they sort news and personal anecodates into the only categories that matter: awesome or not awesome.

Awesome: I reviewed a wonderful and inspiring book called The Boss of You and one of the authors left a comment! Read the review to find out why I love this book so much it should be sold in the AWESOME! section of Barnes and Noble.

Not Awesome: The rising cost of gas has caused a swath of new people to start taking the bus, specifically, every bus route I'm on. I applaud most of these eco-friendly, budget-conscious commuters, but I have to slam a big "NOT AWESOME" stamp on those who do not apply common sense to rides like placing their Whole Foods tote bags on the seats next to them instead of on their laps or those who fall asleep and spread their acid-washed jean donning legs into the other seat. And also under the not awesome umbrella: those who insist on loudly yapping on their cell phone about some juice stain they got "on the ass part of the pants." The ass part of the pants? Really?

Awesome: Memorial Day weekend! I hung out with Grrltraveler and her adorable family.





Check out E. and Nathan hanging out, their legs crossed, Nathan's hands folded like an 80-year-old. Couldn't you just die? I hope he's this sweet with girls, but I have a feeling I'm going to have to explain to other kindergarten moms that I did not teach my son those Cheech and Chong jokes and he doesn't depants people at home.

We also hung had a barbecue at Lisa and Branan's where Nathan and Cooper had a stare down.



Awesome: This weekend I also sorted through some boxes and found a treasure trove of old pictures and high school journals. I found this photo, a digital illustration of hair possibilities, only it looks like it was taken with a 1997-era digital camera and later slapped together in MS Paint.





This is what my hair really looks like if I let it air dry. I think this should be my new passport photo.





Whenever I see blonde women with black eyebrows, I think, "Wow. That's natural." Unfortunately, the only time I ever dyed my hair blonde, I got instead a shade of hooker orange, which is a good thing to know in case I ever want to change careers.

So tell me, what's been awesome or not awesome in your world?

On being a Millennial

My friend Drew and her co-worker came over to my house earlier this week to interview me about being a Millennial and what I thought about food products and different brands. Let me tell you my internet friend that I had many notes of social and political import to discuss, but instead, I shared the following:

1. Because I lived on Saipan and did not have the internet, I really believed that Claudia Kishi's baggy Cosby sweater, stirrup pants and clay earrings were really haute couture.

2. I also believed that when my mother said, "They only sell that toy in the states," she was telling the truth. Another lie that my mother told me? The "S" on your tag doesn't stand for "small," it stands for "STRETCH."

3. I watched the Real World in awe of all these hip twenty-somethings who were so cool, especially the San Francisco cast with their babydoll dresses, velvet chokers, and crochet vests.

4. Whenever I have miscellaneous ingredients without any real meal plan, I'll type them all in and include the word "recipe" in my google search. It turns up some recipe that I hadn't thought of before and doesn't require that I pull the dish out of the microwave half-way through and stir. Millennial Cooking 101!

5. I identify mostly with Millenials born in the early 80s, those who also watched shows like Hey Dude, Clarissa Explains It All, Roundhouse, Chip 'N' Dale Rescue Rangers, Ghostwriter and Ready or Not.

Also, Drew wrapped and decorated this wonderful present for Nathan.







Please note that Nathan's hair has grown back considerably since the Susan Powter Makeover '08 fiasco, but it's coming in kind of spiky. He looks like he's on the America's Next Top Model requisite makeover episode starring as one of the girls who loses her weave only he didn't have any attitude because he's two and hasn't been exposed to polyester hair. Yet.

I need to clear my thoughtsicles

There are some moments when I am hit with baby envy, when I am seething with jealousy over my pregnant friends getting jiggy with their expanding families. Like Monday, when a friend of mine shared that she's pregnant. While I was extremely happy for her because she is such a great mother already and she truly wants another child, my crazy thoughtsicles dripped back onto me and the what about me line of questions. What about me? I want a baby too! I want to say, "If you don't stop making your sister lick 9-volt batteries, I'm going to turn this car around!" What about me?

Then these frowning Mona moments dissipate when I think about the overwhelming cost of adding another one to our brood and how stretched we are with just one child. We have enough money for our bills and entertainment and my occasional raging kegger. I want to start my business this year. I want to pay off some credit cards. I want to go out with my friends and know that my one child is perfectly fine in the care of his father, whom is probably teaching him that Jethro Tull is a band and not one person and also, no matter what Mommy says, the world did not begin in 1983 on the day of her birth.

And then there's the fear that a second child would be Damien or other forms of babies who were not like awesome Baby Nathan. Nathan was a rockstar baby. He was everything I wanted in an infant: the chubs, chuckle and cheese, not to mention the delicious babystink, which has now been replaced with toddler smell and sometimes full-grown-man-post-Thanksgiving-meat-fest malfeasance.

Even with the ovarian baby pangs, I love having just one and the fleeting idea of being pregnant again frightens me. It is more than enough for me to handle. The truth is, I am just waiting until Nathan is coordinated enough to walk on my back and his toddler heft will work out all the kinks and my budding osteoporosis hump. It'll also be a sweet day when he finally follows the instruction, "Bring Mommy the remote control."

Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Canon Haters

Our family spent some time at Alki this afternoon, tossing stones into the tide and telling each other how awesome Mommy is (Yes, I talk about myself in third person. And also from Nathan's point of view. Boobs!)



I was shepherding Nathan back to the car, my camera in tow, when two teenage girls eyed me as they passed.

"HAHAHA! CANON!" One cackled.

"Like, who buys a fucking Canon?" the other snorted.

The two of them continued giggling down the path behind me and suddenly I realized they were talking about me and my Canon.



Really? Is this a scene from High School Musical I missed? Did iCarly address this in the episode, "Like Canons, OMG!" Don't they know that this line of discourse is reserved for writing in the margins of your Trapper Keeper? I was openly scoffed by teenagers who probably had their parents purchase these kit cameras so they could jazz up their myspace profiles.

And to drop the f-bomb on something as useless as Canon vs. Nikon (both are FINE cameras)? I can think of a dozen more relevant debates like East Coast rap versus West Coast rap (TUPAC!) and the British version of The Office versus the American version (USA! USA! USA!).



And since I had said absolutely nothing to them because of the whole possibility of being charged as an adult and losing custody of my son, Nathan ran after Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Rambo Headband, eager to avenge my honor and bite those legging-clad ankles. He really just wanted to let them know that their energies would be best applied at the nearest McDonald's, where I hear they're looking for a proofreader.

eggs

This past Easter my brother invited me to an Easter egg hunt at our friend's house and had asked me to bring some eggs. Since this was my first time to ever take an official role in Easter festivities other than Girl Who Steals the Golden Egg and Claims She Really Found It, Mom, I went to Target, purchased the supplies and spent two hours stuffing candy into 100 pastel egg shells.

We were about an hour and a half late because of traffic and during the whole drive I worried that my bag of eggs was preventing the young children from enjoying Easter and that upon my entry they would swipe the bag and hurl those multi-colored shells at my head and I would flee having assumed a new position as Woman Who Ruined Easter. When we approached the house, I told Mike not to stop the car and I would just tuck and roll.

Once I removed gravel bits from my face, I raced to the door, flung it open and held the bag over my head like I had knifed off some wild beast's head and I was presenting to the frightened townspeople and I yelled, "I HAVE EGGS! I! HAVE! EGGS!"

Only, I found myself ankle-high in empty plastic egg shells and surrounded by children whom had already had an Easter egg hunt (with almost 500 eggs!) long before our arrival and adults wondering if mental illness ran in my family.

And I took my sad bag home with the idea that maybe we could stage an egg hunt just for pictures. But we never had that faux-Easter, instead we had a bag of delicious chocolate and jelly bean goodness in the garage.

For the past few weeks, Mike and I have crept into the dark purple and gold den and chomped on chocolates. I've also learned that the best way to make my mammoth two-year-old climb the stairs himself is to stand at the top and open up a Reese's Cup and say, "HEY LOOK WHAT MOMMY HAS HERE!"

Last night Mike and I made an executive decision to chuck the bag in the nearest trash can not within walking distance because either one of us would be rifling through it and later blaming the strewn Twix wrappers on squirrels or those damn dirty apes!

Mike dumped it off at a street garbage can, walked back to the car and we drove off. Then suddenly, he made a u-turn, returned to the scene and said, "I double dare you to go back there and get the candy."

And this is exactly the kind of marriage we have, the kind that is filled with sweetness and love and the freedom to reply with, "Michael, if you make me stand by the side of the road, picking candy out of the trash, you will have to double dare me NOT TO PUNCH YOU IN THE FACE."

homes, head and Hey Mona!

This time last year, we were moving into our brand new home and ending an exhausting search for our place of our own. I still scour through Craigslist and realtor websites for prices because real estate is like gossip, only real and not scrawled on the junior high bathroom wall with taunts like, "Mona gives great head." Get the facts straight, my pre-teen female foes. I give phenomenal head. That's what happens when you have a no-gag reflex. It's like a gift that keeps on giving. Giving head!

I am really grateful that we bought when we did because shortly after we moved in, the real estate market went psycho and the loan we were graced with would have been promptly yanked out of street urchin hands and we would have had to live yet another year in the shanty town apartment where the woman below hated that we sang to our son and even dared to move. Way to kill our Dance Dance Revolution dreams neighborino!

We have traded in guaranteed parking stalls for awkward parallel parking maneuvers in front of neighbors who watch as I make a seventeen-point turn. We also lost the cool Bosnian maintenance man who always bellowed, "Rahhhmonaaa! How's going?" But we hired him as our maintenance man when one heater went out and my husband WHO HAS A MASTER'S DEGREE did not know what to do and again when yours truly who has a paltry bachelor's degree but pwned this game (which temporarily resizes your browser window FYI) turned off the gas for the fireplace and insisted that everyone in the house wear a sweater instead. Jimmy Carter was onto something, people!

So to celebrate my one year as owner of one home and one fat mortgage, (not to be confused with a phat mortgage. This mortgage actually has a weight problem. But it's my fault. I spoon feed it crispy chicken tenderloins smothered in honey mustard sauce and then we work it off by passing the remote control to each other during Intervention commercial breaks) please join in by leaving a question in the comments for next week's round of Hey Mona!

senior discount, cemetary views!

senior discount, cemetary views!
Originally uploaded by kirida.

Enjoying my new Flip video camera

my brother bothers my son during Calliou from mona on Vimeo.

Make sure your volume's turned up!

Great Wolf Lodge Giveaway!

My peeps at Seattle Mom Blogs are giving away a free night's stay in a family suite at the Great Wolf Lodge. All you have to do is comment by Thursday, May 15th and you could win!

I had to work that weekend so I could not join my SMB ladies, but maybe your lucky charms could snag this prize and I could live vicariously through you, my internet friend.

Hey Answers!

Thanks for participating in the first ever Hey Mona! Q&A.

thecandyqueen asks, "Hey Mona! Why am I so moody ALL the time???"

Hey thecandyqueen! You need to fill your life with happy activities, like answering the question, "Which Sex In The City character are you?" I am Miranda's nanny, Magda. And sometimes, Steve's mom, especially when her dementia set in and she was picking pizza out of the trash. We've all had those days.

Erik asks, "Hey Mona! You often refer to the exorcism of your dear Nathan....can he really turn his head 360 degrees?"

Hey Erik! No, Nathan cannot turn his head but sometimes his farts are so noxious, he levitates.

Swistle asks, "Hey Mona! Explain to me why postage rates KEEP BUMPING UP so that I ALWAYS have to use a second stamp on an envelope. Why not just CHUNK it up a big notch and then give us some PEACE for awhile?"

Hey Swistle! I hear you on this. I bought a ton of forever stamps, but then I used them all up. They did not last forever, lying liars who lie.

annenahm asks, "Hey Mona! I'd like to learn how to drop it like it's hot. But right now I can only drop it like it is luke-warm, and picking it back up before some slips off to the floor has been a real challange. Could you vlog us an instructional? You seem to have it going on. Thanks."

Hey Anne Nahm! Yes! I will be posting up a video with my tips on how to drop it like it's hot or at least tepid. I'm just trying to choose which pajama bottoms I'll wear to model these awesome dance moves.

Tamara asks, "Hey Mona! Since you're such an awesome photographer, can you give me some tips on looking 100lbs lighter in my pictures????"

Hey Tamara! Photoshop your head onto someone else's body. But make sure you have similar skin tones or else, you know, it'll look fake.

JMC asks, "Hey Mona! Why is it that I always have a million questions, but as soon as someone offers to answer one, I can't think of any?"

Hey JMC! I'll just give you an answer anyway: Stilton Cheese!

Tessie asks, "Hey Mona! You are a picture-takin' fool. What's one thing you wish you had a picture of, but don't?"

Hey Tessie! I don't have a picture of me holding Nathan right after he was born. Mostly because Mike didn't know how to work the camera and hello, I just gave birth, do I need to do all the work here?

audrey asks, "Hey Mona! How come nobody else is getting the punctuation of "Hey Mona!" correct? And why, oh why, isn't my beautiful lawn coming back so beautifully this year? Does it know I'm having a party in 6 days and it just wants to make me look bad? Will it come in all green and gorgeous the day after the party? WTF, lawn?"

Hey Audrey! Why don't you start your party at 11 PM? It'll be too dark to notice the lawn color. Also, if you get people drunk enough, no one will care about the lawn.

Coleen asks, "Hey Mona! How did you and Mike hook up?"

Hey Coleen! Mike and I were introduced by The Candy Queen and then Mike clubbed me over the head and brought me back to his cave.

Banana asks, "Hey Mona! Can you give us a tutorial on how do you flirt with the over 70 set?"

Hey Banana! If you want to lasso in some hot geriatrics (it's not hard, they can't move fast--joint problems), try out these pick-up lines at your local ICU, hospice, or bingo hall:

Baby you so fine, I bet you have all your real teeth.

Hey baby, where were YOU when JFK got shot?

Is that titanium in your hip or are you happy to see me?

Hey Mona!

I'm launching a new feature called "Hey Mona!" and I would like you to be part of its initial run. Please leave me a question in the comments and I will answer it tomorrow. You can be anonymous if you'd like, but I'm more inclined to answer questions from those with linky-links and namey-names, my internet friendo.

It could be your Mother's Day gift to me, which I will happily accept in lieu of propitiating my real wish list: wine coolers, Veronica and Betty comics, hugs and high-fives.

the birthday aftermath

We ordered Nathan a volcano cake at The Rainforest Cafe as we had done for his first birthday. At first, Nathan freaked out at the sparkler on the cake and thought it was some brownie beast with fiery appendages. Once we removed the sparkler, he realized that the dessert monster's innards were filled with rich ice cream and whipped cream and not unicorn tears and crumpled metal remnants of Thomas the Train (though I really wish some mega-mothra-beast could eat up those pissed off trains with the constipated faces--seriously, how difficult is your life when you are a TRAIN and you have a name like PERCY?).

I'm so glad that birthdays are over because now the focus can be on ME and MOTHER'S DAY! Tell me what you're doing this weekend, my dear internet friend, and in the meantime, let's listen to an apropos classic from Danzig, shall we? Nothing says love like a horror punk mixtape!

Happy Birthday Nathan!

Two days old.



Two years old.

Two years ago my son Nathan was born.

One day I was walking home from the bus stop. I was worried about Nathan's speech and I was going over in my mind whether speech therapy was the right choice. I noticed Mike's car pull up in front of our house, having just picked up Nathan from daycare. He was about half a block away from me and about to parallel park when he stopped. When I reached the car, Nathan was beaming at me.

And then Mike told me what had just happened.

He was about to park when Nathan pointed towards the approaching figure and squealed, "Mama!"

And I wish I could have framed that scene for the next checkup so I could say, "See? This is what I want. This is more than enough for me."

I have this vague memory from science class about the area between ocean and shore called the interstitial zone. Sea plants who cling onto rock have to endure extreme variables of low and high tides. They have to live through waves constantly crashing over them. This is how I feel about being Nathan's mother. I live in the interstitial zone--a place where I feel like I'm sometimes drowning under the grueling water loaded with doctors and their cold checklists or other judgmental mothers or a workload that keeps me in the office and sometimes I'm exposed and gasping and needing more and more of this magical boy.

And in the moments when I pretend I'm asleep and my son comes over and kisses me repeatedly or he runs so fast with he plows into me or when he can recognize his own mother from the end of the street, my heart balloons in my chest and it presses against my ribs so tightly that I don't know if I'm going to suffocate under the aching power of being this beautiful child's mother but I welcome it all in as I have for these past two years.

Four reasons why you probably won't invite me over for wine and cheese and smooth jazz

1. I don't like Garrison Keillor.

2. I could never get past "Who is John Galt?" in Atlas Shrugged. And it's the first line.

3. I just watched the first few episodes of Arrested Development on Hulu.com and now I will have to make time for all this rich, family dysfunction.

4. I could not continue watching Charlie Wilson's War after the scene where Julia Roberts separates her eyelashes using a safety pin. But Mike really loved the movie so I said, "If you love it so much, why don't you marry Tom Hanks and the two of you could change the name of the movie to Mike's and Charlie Wilson's War On Banning Same-sex Marriage?"

A letter to a five-year-old

Today is my husband's birthday.

Below is a letter he wrote to his five-year-old self. I've been trying to tell the story below, but my husband does it much better.

Dear Mikey, You are five years old today, and the year is 1961. I am writing you from 2005, 44 years later, and I have a lot to say. Today mom and dad told you that you were adopted. They explained it to you very well. They said that mommy and daddy wanted you, and that a woman who had you in her tummy and couldn’t take care of you decided to give you to mommy and daddy. This was the greatest day in mommy and daddy’s life.

It all seemed reasonable, that no one was trying to trick you. But then you asked, “Mom, where’s my real mom?” This broke her heart, and she cried in her room all day and wouldn’t come out. She wouldn’t let daddy in either. Daddy slept on the couch that night. You didn’t know why she was crying, so now I’m going to explain it.

Mommy and daddy tried to have a child for seven years. One of mom’s favorite stories was when she went to a state fair and visited a fortune teller. She was Catholic and didn’t really believe in fortune tellers, but she went anyway just for fun. The strangely dressed woman read mom’s palm and told her in the future she would have seven children. Mom laughed, as her and dad hadn’t had any luck in having even one baby. And as it turned out, the fortune teller was wrong. Mom didn’t have seven kids. She had eleven.

After they adopted you, mom got pregnant almost immediately. There was some question whether they were still going to adopt you or not, since they were going to have their own. But mom told the lawyers, “That’s my baby.” So the lawyers made sure you were adopted. Shortly thereafter, mom had twins named Timmy and Jimmy. But unfortunately, they died at the age of one and two weeks. Then mom and dad had four more boys and four more girls. They all lived and became your brothers and sisters, and here’s a little secret for you. I think you were always mom’s favorite. She let you stay up later than anyone else and often made your favorite dinner, spaghetti, which you pronounced, “sketti.” You would say hello to anyone and everyone, and whenever mom or dad asked you to say a word, you’d always give it a try. You were also very proud of all your various potty training accomplishments in the bathroom. One time you stuffed wads of toilet paper in your pants just in case you “had an accident.”

As time went on you wondered more and more about your “real” mom. Who was she? What did she look like? Why did she give you away? Where was she now? These are all questions you never wondered much about your biological father, I’m not sure why. But when your adopted mom died of cancer in 1978, you started wondering about your biological mother even more. You were hurt, confused. I understand that.

But now Mikey, I’m writing you to define the word “real.” Your real mom was your adopted mom. She did everything for you: fed you, bathed you, stayed in your room when you had German measles and couldn’t hear for two days. Most of all, she loved you. She loved you more than life itself. If she were here today, she’d tell you that and you’d know you don’t have to wonder about your real mom anymore. The woman who gave you birth is an important person. She made a brave and courageous choice and gave you the gift of life. But your real mom was named Elaine. If there’s a God in heaven and I believe there is, then she’s up there with God waiting for you, your brothers and sisters, and your dad. Some day everything will be explained. Some day all will be revealed. But you should also know that some day you will have a child of your own, and you’ll love that baby as much as Elaine loved you. Imagine that. In a world full of rain, one drop will belong to you. That is something wonderful to remember. So work hard in school, have fun, and remember that love interlocks the universe. Nothing can ever change that. Real is a word. Real is a just a word. What is real is what you believe is real.

Questions

I passed up this outfit for Nathan at the antique mall even though I seriously considered purchasing it. On one hand, I would have had the best, albeit pansiest, outfit for my son but on the other hand, my husband would have had immediate grounds for divorce, the reason scribbled under "irreconciable differences" would be: DRESSED MY SON UP AS SAILOR MOON. Did I make a mistake? Should I have just bought it?



Do you think Buddha ever had a bad day and was like, "Guys, no laughing today. I just rented The Notebook and I just need to cry!"

Wenatchee

Our family took a roadtrip to Wenatchee, Washington this weekend because Mike had a convention to attend. Nathan was feeling a little sick before we left but we decided to go anyway and let him sleep on the road. Traveling despite children’s illness is a long family tradition of mine. When I was seven, I caught the chicken pox right before my family headed off to Disneyworld and we traveled cross-country anyway. It wasn’t until years later that I found out that some normal, caring families actually cancel their vacations when the youngest falls ill instead of saying, “Hey, why don’t we let Mona leave her germs in every motel room and Denny’s from Salem, Oregon to Florida?”

I learned from a certain friend of mine that Wenatchee is also called "Wet Snatchee," and that some people call it "The Snatch." I am appalled that someone has perverted the good name of this Central Washington town and even more appalled that I didn't think of it first.

While Mike spent the day at the conference, Nathan and I pillaged the local scene. People were extraordinarily nice to me. I was not prepared for this. I live in Seattle where eye-rolling and “tsssh” are commonplace and I hate it when I’m on the bus and I can feel the bodyheat of the person next to me. So when the woman at the coffee shop told me to have a nice day, I wanted to grab her shoulders and shake her profusely while yelling, “I am obviously a woman of color! You ask me right now where I am from! Where I am ‘really from’! And then when I say ‘Saipan’ you tell me that I speak English ‘real good’! DO IT!”

We met the Mayor of Wenatchee. For being the first Pacific Islander to ever visit the apple capital of the world, he gave me the key to the city. Okay, that was a lie. It was really the key to the city’s janitorial closet and he told me to clean up, you damn dirty ape!



And speaking of cleaning up, Mike always makes the bed before we check out of a hotel. While I have never Amy Winehoused a room (I don’t bite the hand that gives me HBO and continental breakfast for free), I think the room fee gives me carte blanche to forgo bedmaking tasks. Do you have any traveling rituals?



Nathan and I drove out of town to Apple Annie Antique Gallery. I’ve decided that when I win the lottery, I’m going to drop bank at an antique mall, only I’m not interested in Charles and Diana commemorative plates or antique candy machines, I want the 1993 fall line from United Colors of Benetton, first editions of The Babysitters Club series, all the Nickelodeon cartoons I grew up watching (NOOZLES!), and if I have any money left, I’d like some Grossville High trading cards. What gems from your childhood would you buy?



After the antique hunting, Nathan and I found a swingset and my poor son let me know how desperately emo his life had become. For his second birthday, he wants an HR Geiger poster, clove cigarettes and an utter hatred for consumerism. They sell that last one at Target.



How was your weekend?

Cute overload

Too much candy from Capucha on Vimeo.

in which Charlize Theron totally messes with me

Whenever I wake up from a super LSD-trippy dream, I shake my husband awake so he can analyze it. He's my real life dream book (very different from dream boat, which is saved for my pretend boyfriend man-hybrid: Colin Firth-Bardem-Owen.) Do you have one of those? An encyclopedia of cataloged references that supposedly give, in my case, a reason why Charlize Theron drove a bus containing a my camera bag, purse, wallet and Xbox (not mine!) and then crashed it into the sea, leaving me yelling at her because I would have to cancel my debit card (second time this week!).

The thing is, whenever I relay my dreams to Mike, it's never as lucid (or as interesting) as when I had them, and they usually include the words, "like," "like you know," and "totally" so my poor husband wakes up to many of the following:

"I was back in high school and wearing the school uniform, only I had to debate 15-year-olds. And they kept singing that Peter Gabriel song, the one that I don't understand so I always sing 'something something' whenever I don't know the lyrics. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?"

"Someone was trying to steal my Nintendo Wii. But remember how you said we couldn't have any video games in this house because you didn't want Nathan to play video games and so like, WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?"

"It was sooo weird! I don't remember any of it though. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?"

Do any of you obsess about what your dreams mean? Do you analyze the deeper truths as to why Horatio Caine is hunting you down when really this all means that you shouldn't watch CSI Miami before bed?