kirida

what rhymes with vegan

2008-07-01T06:22:00.000-07:00

This new vegan lifestyle I've taken has been much better than I thought it would be. I haven't had any crazy desires to break into the nearest Denny's and grab the collar of the patron wolfing down the Grand Slam breakfast, screaming, "LET ME SMELL YOUR BACON BREATH, MAN!" Even though that would be weird because Denny's is open 24 hours a day and I'm sure I would be appeased if I calmly walked in, approached anyone at the counter and said, "Excuse me, dear sir. I noticed that you ordered both the bacon strips and the sausage links. Could you please breathe in my direction?" I would probably successful if I implied there would be a hand-j involved. WHAT?

Some days are easier than others. This weekend, I really missed fried chicken, fried rice, and sweet and sour chicken. Especially since I watched my husband eat all those dishes. But save for those meat mournings, I've accepted that this is the way it is. It's like no matter how many times I watch Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, I will never get my wimpy sedan to gun up to those speeds. My issues with food are my own. Other people can eat fried chicken and potato salad without bloating to the size of Kathie Lee Gifford's deluded ego. I can accept that.

Thank you so much for the support. I am on the hunt for recipes that taste enough like my old carnivorous life, so I won't be crying into my bowl of couscous and planning a funeral for all the foods I used to eat.

What isn't hard is watching my son at the local wading pool, going beserk whenever he runs into the water.

hanging with drew!

2008-06-28T07:17:00.000-07:00

Nathan and I hung out with Drew, the coolest person I know. She made some delicious vegan foods like grilled asparagus and seasoned tofu and pasta salad.

I should mention that the original photo above showcased way more of Drew's cleavage, so I did a re-shoot. However, if I were the subject of this photo, I would welcome any coverage my boobs receive. After breastfeeding a hulking child, bad boob press is good boob press. Actually, any boob press is good boob press. When I talk, I make it a point to gesture wildly toward my chest, as if my hands are saying, "Hello! My eyes are down here!!"

no meat for old mona

2008-06-26T06:18:00.000-07:00

Last week, I took a radical step and cut dairy and meat out of my diet completely.

Long before that move, I had been experiencing varying levels of crappiness--from end of the workday fatigue to what it must be like to wear Rachel Ray's underwear as a ski mask (for 30 minutes! Blecch!). My schedule is tight and goes like this: I wake up between 5:30 and 6, get ready, and make Nathan's breakfast. Then I make breakfast, let the eagles soar, dress and run out the door to catch the bus. After work, I come home to a little boy who wants to eat chicken nuggets and be read Where The Wild Things Are. And then there's Nathan!

I am exhausted by this time and this early evening lethargy cancels out any hopeful plan I had that morning like, "Hey, maybe when Nathan goes to sleep, I'll go to the gym!" or "Hey, maybe when Nathan goes to sleep, I'll catch up on my correspondence!" But sadly, when I put Nathan to bed, I fall asleep, too.

I know my diet is a huge factor. Groundbreaking, right? All those powdered and dried pasta sides and chemically-engineered tater tots are affecting me, turning me into the female version of Chunk from The Goonies because my body jiggles so much that every step I take is the Truffle Shuffle.

In this past week of eating bean burritos with avocado, tomatoes, cucumber and tofutti sour cream, baked potatoes with salsa and kashi cereal and soy milk, I have noticed significant changes. My energy level has skyrocketed. I can stay up past 8 PM! No more asking Mike what happened in the last five minutes of CSI Miami!

I have attempted and failed at diets in the past, as is my pattern with many novelty experiments, like the time in eighth grade when I decided to become a reggae singer, but quickly realized that I didn't want to sing reggae, I just wanted a legitimate reason to shout in public: LAWDA MERCY!

But this time I'm not looking at this as a diet or even as a "lifestyle" change. Every time I have the chance to eat, it's a simple question: Will this make me feel crappy? I'd rather spend three dollars on an avocado than on a burger, fries and shake (even though in the dark crevices of my brain, I am screaming, "WHAT THE HELL WHOLE FOODS?!? THREE DOLLARS FOR A DIGGITY DANG AVOCADO?").

I am fortunate to live in a city where there are a plethora of vegan options. I'm probably going to go buy Veganomicon (thanks Ashley) because there are 118 holds on the cookbook at the public library. Though, since I am still Seattle's fattest vegan, I could just bodyslam my way to a copy.

thar she blows

2008-06-25T09:36:00.001-07:00

thar she blows
Originally uploaded by kirida.

I'm blowing air into Nathan's face. I didn't have any garlic so he doesn't mind.

My friend Rachel's in Cookie Magazine!

2008-06-25T09:32:00.001-07:00

THANK YOU COOKIE MAGAZINE!!!
Originally uploaded by rasputina1.

If you haven't seen Rachel's awesome house, click on the photo to start your clickety-click technicolor tour!

Also, there are photos of Liam, the adorable boy wonder.

My genius, more heartbreaking than staggering

2008-06-19T06:48:00.000-07:00

why i won't be working at a coffee shop from mona on Vimeo.

Definitely not awesome.

2008-06-17T17:49:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week, the eight year old kid who lives next door took a rock from our garden and carved a long scratch on the hood of Mike's trunk. We wouldn't have known about this had another neighbor of ours not watched the whole incident. The kid left just as Mike was walking back to his car to pick up Nathan from daycare. When Mike returned, our neighbor approached him, holding the rock the boy used to scratched the car.

Mike asked if he knew who it was and he explained that it was a boy in a yellow shirt.

Just then, the yellow shirted boy appeared with his brother, both of them walking their bikes down the sidewalk.

"That's the kid!" Our neighbor yelled out. "That's the kid who did it!"

The boy dropped his bike and fled to his house. Mike and our neighbor followed, knocked on the door. The parents answered and Mike explained what happened, that their son had scratched the car. As as sure as that little shit did it, he cowered and denied any wrongdoing.

Thankfully, our neighbor was there, rock in hand, and confirmed that what Mike said was true. Mike showed the parents what he had done and they shrugged out an apology and offered to pay for it.

Mike's not going to make them pay for it because there were other--albeit smaller--scratches on the car and had this been a fresh paint job, he would have given them an estimate.

And tonight, the kid's out on the street again, riding his bike as if nothing had ever happened and Mike and I discuss what we would do with Nathan had he committed the same crime which would probably be cleaning the car with a toothbrush, but one of those finger toothbrushes you use on a baby.

What would you have done?

Not your father's Father's Day

2008-06-15T14:49:00.000-07:00

It's Father's Day, so that means that this is the time of year that I pull out the Breathe Right strips and perform the longest BJ ever. And since it's Father's Day, I'm not even going to time this one.

And while we're on the subject, I'd like to talk once again about Swingtown: my favorite show about swingers who also live in a town. (I bet they were going to originally call it Swingyurt, but it wasn't as sexy.) So the more I think about group sex, the more I think that it's just practical. Ladies (and some dudes--heyyy!), have you ever given a blow job that seems like it's taking forever? And worse, the TV's on and you realize that you're missing Mythbusters? If you had someone else there, it could be like tag team wrestling and you could just yell, "TAG ME OUT! TAG ME OUT!"

Happy Father's Day!

more mona minutiae

2008-06-12T23:22:00.000-07:00

I'm digging the show Swingtown, the new CBS series about swingers that gives you everything but the swinging! COME ON! It's like someone brought me to a Las Vegas buffet but I can only smell the food. Or someone plopped me into the middle of a fancy dress shop but I can't fit any of the clothes. Which is more of a real life scenario than bloggy analogy, sadly. But even with that egregious error, I tune in so every Thursday I can ask my husband questions like, "Do you wish I was your age so we could discuss where we were during the Bicentennial?"

I can see how cliche this show can be: a couple gets all freaky deeky and formerly secure wife now experiences the WHAT DID I DO? epiphany whenever her husband even breathes in the direction of another woman. But maybe I'm so desperate for something good on TV that even stock characters with predictable dilemmas are appealing to me.

This jealousy on screen makes me think about the early days of my relationship with Mike. We started dating when I was 19 and my relationship baggage was packed with afterschool special jealousy and frantic communication via phone, pager and ICQ (does anyone even remember ICQ?). I dated this one guy who would point out the skankiness of my clothes or how I never returned his pages quickly enough. And after that relationship fizzled, I thought that was how relationships functioned--with tearful pleas, whywere you talking to him/her accusations, and other exhaustive bull.

But I'm 25 now, with a son and a career and I can firmly say that my husband isn't going to leave me for Beyonce. But man, if Beyonce were into Mike, I would totally give the green light as long as he tells me what she looks like without her weave.

Also, I've turned what would be jealous moments into comedic gems. There are some moments when Mike will reveal something and I take that sacred information and throw it in his face whenever I can. Like, once he said that Geraldine Ferraro was HOT when she was running for president, but I didn't listen to the qualifier and instead heard only SHE and HOT and since then, whenever Geraldine Ferraro is running her crazy old lady mouth on the morning news, I have to run and shake my husband awake, saying, "Honey! Your favorite person in the world is on the news! Do you want me to get you some tissue and hand lotion?"

Thanks for joining me on this long climb, short slide blog post but hey, it's Friday and tomorrow I'm going to see The Happening with these fine ladies. Jealous?

How to listen to gangsta rap with children around

2008-06-10T07:14:00.000-07:00

Awesome. Not awesome.

2008-06-09T05:54:00.000-07:00

In another edition of Awesome. Not Awesome (shamelessly pilfered from the best show on the AM dial, Too Beautiful To Live with Luke Burbank), I categorize recent happenings in my life into the only categories that matter: awesome or not awesome.

Awesome: I met up with the ladies from Seattle Mom Blogs last Thursday at the Purple Cafe where I saw the light and it was wine.

Not awesome! I went into a liquor store recently and as I pulled out my driver's license to show the cashier, he shooed it away, saying, "Don't worry. I know you." And this was weird because I had never been at that liquor store before. So, how bad is my alcohol problem if my reputation enters before I do?

Awesome! My friend Deece sent me a care package from Saipan filled with items like ice keki (translates to "ice candy," and it's a better, dare I say awesome version of otter pops), Botan rice candy (which Nathan ate), dried mangoes, and ingredient for "salt." Salt is a salty dipping mixture made from soup base, kool aid and Tabasco if you're not a wuss. I had to explain this to my husband, White-Man-in-Residence and 1970s Senior Swingtown Analyst (his take: none of that happened in Belleville, Illinois), who doesn't understand why islanders would voluntarily eat something like this or why they think that visiting relatives on the mainland means staying there for three weeks.

Awesome: My Flip Video Camera. It's perfect and lightweight. I reviewed it over at The Full Mommy, but I want to add that it's also a great idea for Father's Day. Or Mother's Day. Or Make Me Feel Better About Myself Through Material Goods Day. We attended a birthday party on Sunday and my Canon was too heavy to lug around along with Nathan's massive body. Thanks to my tiny Flip, I was able to capture the following videos. Can I get an awesome?

Sliding take 2 from mona on Vimeo.

High five. Low five. No five. from mona on Vimeo.

airborne

2008-06-04T13:56:00.000-07:00

My photo of my friend Kathy's husband John throwing their son Jack in the air was chosen as today's Parent Dish's Image of the Day!

Wednesday Why Is it

2008-06-04T00:00:00.000-07:00

Why is it cellphones are so complicated? My cellphone contract is up for renewal which means I can upgrade to a phone that wasn't invented right after people stopped calling them "mobile phones," or waved them around like little flags of "Hey Look At Me" self-importance. Wait, they still do that? I know I would like to be able to take photos, listen to music and keep a calendar. I'm thinking of holding out for the 3g iPhone coming out next week, or the BlackBerry Curve or just chucking all cell phone upgrades in favor of yelling really loud. The last option would work, but I bet I'd get poor reception.

Why is it that everyone's life easier than mine? Whenever I have a particularly stressful day at work or a commute that annihilates a hairdo that I had carefully created that morning, I look around me and see all these people who seem to have it together and my mind starts drifting into their lives, how the women in the clickety-clack high heels have never imagined how wide their feet become after giving birth or the college student taking up two seats on the bus with his bag and schleps his laundry home on the weekend.

Maybe it's the rain that makes turns my head into a free verse LSD trip, the way I am when I drive through a rich neighborhood and am struck with the powerful need to park my three-hub-capped car behind the elegant shrubbery, gallop across the lawn and press my face against the cool window panes in hopes of stealing a glimpse of Viking subzero refrigerators that never house takeout containers from Denny's and the room where the rich people swim in their money like Scrooge McDuck.

How many penis euphemisms can I use in one post?

2008-06-02T22:21:00.000-07:00

Saturday night I went to a bachelor/bachelorette party. It was not called a "Romeo/Juliet" party and thank Jennifer Hudson's Bad Weave, because I get irritated whenever that label's used to describe a coed pre-wedding get down because, hello, didn't anyone read the play? Or watch the Claire Danes/Leonardo DiCaprio movie past the part where they make out? Most people know how it ends, right? Without wikipedia-ing it? I don't know if I want to live in a world where people think Romeo and Juliet are the latest additions to the Gossip Girl cast (I say this after raving about Sex and the City. That's right! I own my rave. No shame in my game.)

The party was wild! People stayed up after 9 PM! No one talked about Andy Rooney's desk or agreed that rubber bands are the best invention ever. There was a game where the women were given rice krispie mix to mold into an anatomically correct wang. (New from Parker Brothers: Wang Games!)

Guess who won?

I took home two pairs of his and her chocolate thongs which is just great because I plan to wear them while singing the Willy Wonka theme song, only I'm going to say Willy Wangka! Because every day I ask the question, "What would a 12-year-old South Park fan do?"

I might not wear them at all and simply top them off with a pint of Ben and Jerry's. How raggedy am I to look at chocolate panties and wonder how they'll taste stirred into a bowl of chocolate chip cookie dough?

The BlogHer Community Keynote

2008-06-02T20:07:00.000-07:00

Sadly, I will not be able to attend this year's BlogHer conference in San Francisco because we are attending the Mona's-Family-Reunion-Con '08 in Disneyland. However, I am very honored to be participating in the BlogHer Community Keynote committee with these poignant, prolific, priceless and perky ladies. I am judging the rant category, so if you know of an powerful rant post (especially if the blogger is attending BlogHer), please read Elisa's post for rules and instructions and nominate away!

SEX AND THE CITY!

2008-05-31T06:58:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-30T15:40:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-05-29T01:03:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-24T07:50:00.001-07:00

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

2008-05-21T10:11:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-18T22:04:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-18T06:16:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-05-16T15:27:00.001-07:00

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!

2008-05-15T10:19:00.001-07:00

senior discount, cemetary views!
Originally uploaded by kirida.

Enjoying my new Flip video camera

2008-05-14T05:31:00.000-07:00

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

Make sure your volume's turned up!