In Which Cat Defends “We Are The World 25 For Haiti”

Yes. I’ve heard the criticisms. But to me, this is a heartfelt remake of the original USA For Africa version, and for a selfless cause, to boot! Sure, they could have written/produced a new song, but hey, there’s a reason this one’s a classic. I’m only saying. Plus, the rap portion is pretty fantastic, and Wyclef Jean singing the song as translated into Creole? Beautiful.

(Although I do have to wonder how many people were like, “DUDE. What the hell does ‘hi-uh-tee’ mean?!” Because I am sometimes prone to strange and random wonderings?)

As a side note, I will admit, the posthumous Michael Jackson tribute almost turned me off– due to the Singing Along With Video Footage Of Dead People Totally Gives Me The Wiggins factor? which is MY issue, clearly!– but I decided I liked the inclusion after I overheard TD explaining to TGIM how seamlessly they were able to incorporate MJ’s part: “Yeah, see, they had some lady dressed up to LOOK like Michael Jackson, and she sang with him.”

Poor Janet.

In any event, my kids were moved by the video, especially the footage from Haiti, so I bought the album at iTunes. I figure it’s just one more little way we can give hope to the people of Haiti, and to the world.

Think about it.

Random Dinner Conversations at the Cheesecake Factory

Random DWM family conversations overheard at the Cheesecake Factory:

TGIM: Okay, while we’re waiting for our food, let’s talk about something. How about taxes? Who can tell me a situation in which you would have to pay taxes?

Allison: Thanks for the strawberry, T! (to me) Oooh, I bet that’s what his girlfriend will call him… “T”! Because it’s a really good nickname?

Tanner: Well, she wouldn’t be my girlfriend for long.

Cat: Really? Why not, T? Huh, T? What’s the big deal, T? Huh, T? Huh? T?

Allison: I hope our drinks come soon. I’m quenched!

Hannah: Tanner with a girlfriend? Ha.

TGIM: Nobody? All right, maybe a different topic. How about the weather? We could discuss the weather. Or global warming?

Cat: Sweetie, I think you meant to say “parched.”

Allison: No, because I’m REALLY thirsty, Momma.

TGIM: Fact: There is currently snow in every state in the U.S.

Hannah: Tanner is my big, strong potato man!

(giggles from the girls)

Cat: Um, what?

Allison: It’s an inside joke. Ha ha! (off my look) Oh, don’t worry, Momma… it’s VERY funny to us!

TGIM: Except possibly Hawaii. Okay, every state in the continental U.S.

Tanner: Those stone faces on the wall are freaking me out. Are the faces on the wall freaking you out? Because they are freaking me out.

Cat: Hey! Stop drinking all my Diet Coke! Who’s drinking my Diet Coke?! Stop it right now!

Hannah: Wow! This cheesecake is GOOD! I feel happy! I love this place!

TGIM: (paying the bill) Well, guys, there goes our food budget for the week! Yep, it looks like we’ll be eating a lot of beans and rice for a while.

Allison: No, because it’s Friday night, and Sunday is the start of a new week, so… I think we’re good, right, Momma? I mean, we’ll just shop for good food on Sunday, right? So… you know what I’m saying?

TGIM: (standing to leave) I know, let’s talk about this new show I discovered called Mantracker…

Hannah: Is that the one with the guy with the rope?

Allison: Oh yeah! Mantracker! I was very disappointed that he didn’t rope that guy.

TGIM: Me, too.

Cat: I have no idea what you guys are talking about.

Tanner: The macaroni and cheese here is NOT good. I’m just saying.

Yep. A night out with the DWM family! Chock full of food, and fun, and non sequiturs. And quite often, just a little bit surreal.

SnOw MG! Snowmageddon in Metro DC.

Snowed in! Snowed in! STILL! It’s Snowverkill. Snowmageddon. The Snowpocalypse! (tm witty Capital Weather Gang)

Seriously. The Federal Government in DC is shut down– closed for bidness, y’all!– and you would think that I would be totally enjoying the fact that I am free– albeit stuck at home, but still, free– for who knows how long, but NO. Instead, I feel, I don’t know, well… guilty. I know, right?! About what, you may ask? I don’t even know, I might answer! It’s craziness! Sheer craziness! Honestly. What’s with all the guilt?! I mean, it isn’t MY fault the U.S. Office of Personnel Management opted to close down all Federal agencies in the Washington DC area. It’s not!

That’s it. I’m jumping aboard the happy, carefree, snow day(s) train, starting right now. Feeling good. Enjoying the blizzard. Choo-choo!

Freak. And there’s the guilt again.

In order to alleviate said guilt, I will now post something of value on DWM. A Flickr slideshow of Photos Past, if you will. Because that is PRODUCTIVE.

Anyway, photos from the past. Back when my kiddos were all cute and pre-preteen and babylike and whatnot.

And I mean this… aaaaaaw! (Thanks to TGIM for the scans. You = Awesome.)

Amazing Gertrude!

While on my way to watch Hannah perform as Gertrude in Seussical the Musical, I had some SERIOUS nervous energy going on. Nevertheless, we got there, and FRONT ROW!

5th Generation Ipod Nanos (with video capture capability) ROCK in a covert ops situation. Just so you know. They’re just so… unobtrusive! Honestly. No one even suspected a thing! At all! So, awesome covertly obtained video footage will follow. Oh, yes. It WILL follow. And they’re gooooood, yo? Because, well, Hannah simply ROCKED Gertrude!

Uh-oh, I feel the motherly pride kicking in again. Gosh… I promised myself I wouldn’t cry…

Stupid Encyclopedia of Immaturity

Hannah: “Momma, if you say ‘gullible’ reeeeaally slowly it sounds like ‘green beans’!”

Cat: “Guuuuull-iiiii… crap.”

Honestly. Damn that wild hair that compelled me to give my daughter the stupid Klutz Encyclopedia of Immaturity for Christmas. Damn it to hell!

Also, heh.

Booty Shaking and Hair Tossing

Hannah, whilst singing most enthusiastically along with Metro Station’s “Shake it” which was blaring from the car radio:

“‘Shake shake, shake shake, shake your BOOTAY! Shake shake…” (turned to Alli, who was also belting out the tune) “C’mon Alli, WORK those curls!”

Okay. She may have taken some liberties with with Metro Station’s lyrics– but honestly, “shake it” IS somewhat vague, truth– but you have to admire her energy!

Yep. That’s my girl. Shaking her booty and working those curls.

*proud*

Looking Ahead While Looking Back

When I wrote the title “Looking Ahead While Looking Back,” I could totally hear a deep newscaster’s voice in my head which was all “Good evening. Tonight we will be looking AHEAD… (wait for it… wait for it…) while looking BACK.”

Which, weird?

In any event, I made our annual 2010 calendar gift. It will be shipping soon to a store near you! Okay. Not really. That was just the newscaster in my head talking again.

Click here to view these pictures larger

Previously on DWM: “Momma, can I read to you?”

Originally posted February 7, 2008. (Hey, I’m feeling nostalgic. So sue me.)

Alli stood at my left shoulder, resting her chin on the back of my chair to peek at whatever it was on my computer screen that held my attention. I could feel her there, fidgety and anxious, waiting as patiently as she knew how until I finished typing. Her warm breath tickled my neck, and I smiled to myself. I turned away from the computer (these days it is always the computer) to give her a smile, and that is when it happened. That is when I saw her.

Really saw her.

Of course you saw her, dipstick, you think to yourself. You were looking right at her. And you’d be right, of course, except for the “dipstick” part, because that is just plain rude. I looked at her. Of course I looked at her. But it was what I saw that startled me.

I’m not going to spout any hackneyed verbiage about seeing her “with new eyes” or “for the first time.” Nor will I wax allegorical about seeing beyond the outward appearance of those around us. Nope. It was simpler than that. I wasn’t seeing her anew; I was just… seeing her. Her sea green eyes, one magnified by a coke bottle lens, but both shining up at me, full of depth and warmth. The freckle on her chin. The wisps of unruly hair that danced around her hairline, escaped from the confines of her ponytail. The sweet little nose. The determined tilt of her chin, seemingly at odds with the amiable set of her lips. The almost palpable energy radiating from her body as her excitement and vitality threatened to spill over, to overwhelm me with, just… her, all of her, even as she struggled for composure.

She was so beautiful in that moment. Ethereal, yet so very real. I literally ached with the beauty of her. All of her. In that moment, she wasn’t just a spunky little mini-me with glasses and a propensity for chattering simply for chattering’s sake. I don’t know how else to say it. She was just… herself.

And it was breathtaking.

Alli shook my shoulder. “Mom? Momma?” She peered into my eyes, and a shadow of concern crossed her face.
Just a moment had gone by–seconds, really–but I felt both physically and emotionally exhausted, absolutely spent, as if I’d been traveling for weeks in some far off place and I was finally returning home. Trying to get my bearings.

I blinked a few times, fast, winking away any tears that dared to escape. I showed my tear ducts who’s boss, so to speak. “Yes, sweetie?” I finally answered.

“I love you.”

Now, I know for a fact that she had been about to ask me, “Can I read to you?” Because that is what she always asks when her homework is finished and she needs to read for twenty minutes for her reading log. But she changed the program.

“I love you, too,” I replied, then pulled her into my arms for a hug.

“I know,” she said simply. Then, “Momma?” she asked as she gently disentangled herself from my arms, arms which may or may not have been holding her a teensy bit too tightly.

“Hmm…?”

“Can I read to you?”

After a momentary glitch, we were back to our regularly scheduled program. All was well in the world.
But now, as I think back to that moment, I can’t help but wonder if Alli veered off-script because at that moment, that exact moment when she looked into my eyes… she saw me, too.

I Just Know Things. In My Mind.

Favorite new television show quote:

“I just know things. In my mind.”
Kat Stratford

Stated quite seriously in response to Cameron, drunk on a teen cliche– in other words, because he was too stupid to know the watermelon was spiked– after he asks an intoxicated Kat how she KNOWS her sister probably wishes she were making out with him RIGHT NOW.

First of all, spiked watermelon?! Who DOES that?! Tampering with the melon and whatnot?! I am so out of the loop.

And B, shut it! My kiddos MAKE me watch “10 Things I Hate About You”! Based on the movie of the same name! Which I may or may not have loved way back when! Because of Julia Stiles and her pouty expressions and slouchy overalls! And Heath Ledger and his singing in the bleachers! And their cuteness! And Larry Miller! Because he’s funny! Whatever! It’s a FAMILY thing! I watch the show with the FAMILY!

Also, the actress’s delivery was HI-larious. And Gregory Peck’s grandson, who plays the Heath Ledger role, looks and sounds eerily like his grandaddy, who’s old-timey babe-a-licious!

Wait. That probably isn’t the cool thing to say anymore. Freak! I am so out of the loop.

“Play.”

The other day my 10-year-old daughter kept calling me at work, for one reason or another– her sister called her “jerkface,” her brother kept stealing her beanbag when she would go for a snack, the mail hadn’t come yet, and she had this funny curl that kept falling in her face and she was SUPER hungry and WHEN was her new American Girl doll coming again, anyway?!– until I was finally like, “OH MY GOSH! You need to find something to do that does not involve calling me, okay?”

She paused for a moment, then, “Well, what should I DO?”

Seriously. I can barely manage my own schedule and she wants me to plan hers? What am I? Her mother?!

Stupid question. Scratch that.

“It’s summer vacation,” I said. “Play.”

“Oh,” she answered in a Wow, Really? voice. “Okay.”

As I ended the call it struck me– right in the gut, POW– that I couldn’t remember the last time I heard someone say to me, “Just… play.” Or the last time I had nothing but time in front me. Or the last time I could make plans to do something, just because I COULD, not because I HAD to do it.

I looked around at the seemingly never-ending piles of work still ahead of me, and an achy, wistful feeling stole over me, just for a moment, before another thought struck me.

“Aw, FREAK! I should have said, ‘Clean my bathroom’.”

Literally Speaking

You know that curse? That one the mother often calls down upon her recalcitrant daughter? You know, the one that goes, “Someday you will have a child just like you and then you will be SO SORRY, so help you God!”? You know? That one?

First of all, RUDE. I was a joy as a child. My teachers all said so. I’ll bet. I’m pretty sure. Probably. I mean, I was friendly, yo? With all the conversation-making and storytelling? And super helpful, too, especially when we had substitutes. They didn’t even need their lesson plans with me around, I tell you what. I mean, I was more than happy to point out all the class rules and procedures and not a bit shy to correct any divergance from The Way Things Should Be. I was just THAT helpful. The subs all thought so. I’ll bet. Probably.

Second of all, I momentarily forgot what I was talking about.

So… the curse. Right. Rewind to Sunday night when my kiddos insisted I watch (i.e., forced me to sit through) some random show about these real-life kid ghost hunters– whose legitimacy I totally call into question, by the way. I mean, what parent is all, “Sure, honey! You can stay out ALL NIGHT at that reportedly haunted hotel with a few of your friends and some super expensive night vision equipment, web cams, EMF devices, flux capacitors… Go on! Scoot!” Hey, I’m just saying the premise is flawed, is all.

Anyway, toward the end of the show, the token scaredy-cat girl was all, “Oh my gosh! I was literally scared to death!” and I grinned to myself because I AM just that much of an English geek.

Turns out I wasn’t the only one enjoying a bit of a laugh at the expense of the silly, scaredy-cat girl, who, quite frankly, should rethink her career choice because ghosts and haunted places? They’re SCARY, okay? That’s kind of the point. THINK about it. I’m only saying.

But I digress.

Before I could use this moment as a Teaching Opportunity (I think we’ve established my inherent geekiness, so shut it), I heard giggles. A smothered chuckle. Then, “Well, not literally,” my 13-year-old son drawled.

“I know, right?!” agreed my 11-year-old daughter in her I Scoff At Your Supreme Ignorance voice.

My 10-year-old daughter, perhaps for my benefit, added scornfully, “Because she’s still ALIVE?!” She turned toward me. “Right, Momma?”

Struck as I was by the astonishing degree to which my English Geekiness has rubbed off on my kiddos, I could only nod. She, apparently assured by my arrested expression that she had indeed got the joke, turned back toward the TV.

I couldn’t contain a small snort of laughter and a rueful shake of the head as it struck me that, by golly, my mother’s curse? Totally upon me. And you know what?

I’m not even a little sorry.

Taking Back the Blog

So, taking back the blog is actually much more involved than I initially thought. Turns out there’s, like, planning and time management and whatnot! Apparently blogging is NOT just like riding a bike. Blogging muscles atrophy if neglected, did you know? Well, DID you? Because if so, it would have been nice if someone had MENTIONED this to me! Good LORD, people! I’m stymied here! At a loss for words! No coherent thoughts! And I’ve MISSED blogging opportunities! Just missed ‘em! Opportunities involving my CHILDREN! So, basically, I suck, as a writer AND a parent, and it is totally not my fault. Oh, ho ho, that’s right! My suckage is on the heads of all y’all who neglected to mention to me that blogging is HARD and must be constantly worked at for maximum awesomeness! Right?! Right?!

Honestly. What were you thinking?

And look at that! My grammar is all over the place! All! Over! The! Place! Didn’t I just misplace a modifier or dangle a preposition or something absolutely ungrammatical like that?! WHY, GOD?! WHHHYYY?!

No, no, it’s cool. I’m good. No problem here. *breathe*

It’s just, well, DWM was like my journal. My not-so-secret cache of memories and moments all in one place, all here, one-stop nostalgia… and I’ve missed so much!

Silly moments with the kiddos, wherein we learn just how much I’ve rubbed off on them and how very funny and sad and scary and sobering that can be;

Stolen moments with TGIM watching television or riding birthday bikes or hiding away in our room eating Nielsons chicken strips and fries– with fry sauce!– while our kiddos are downstairs making frozen tortellini;

How I’m missing my BFF Paige while she travels all over the place, and totally missing the opportunity to talk about taking care of her cute little buns while she’s on vacation, because honestly, how could I pass up the opportunity to talk about Paige’s cute little buns?!;

Not to mention all the television, movies, books, and, gosh, even WORK, that I have discovered, rediscovered, enjoyed (or not) over the past year and didn’t taken the time to make a memory, to show that, yes, I was HERE, a part of it all, with my finger firmly pressed against the pulse of pop CULTURE!

I’ve missed the moments, people! The MOMENTS! And try as I might to recall them– maybe just a few, right?– to set them away for the future, it’s not the same, I can’t bring them back like that, the moments, because I’m seeing everything with different eyes now. Distant glimpses. The rearview.

And that sucks. Big-time suckage, that.

So… I’ll be taking back the blog now, thank you very much. That’s right! Planning and time-management be damned.

Just so you know.

Summer Cuts and Other Stuff

Tanner lost the curls (no fear, they’ll be back with a vengeance in a month or so…).

Hannah lost about 6 inches of what was fast becoming the HEAVIEST head of hair EVER.

Oh, Alli didn’t get a summer haircut. I chose this picture because– while you can barely see her– she’s totally perched in this awesome climbing tree in OUR FRONT YARD. Of OUR HOUSE. In which WE LIVE. Our family. And our two parakeets. All in our house. Just living and whatnot. It’s a whole Living In Our House That Is Ours thing. YOU know.

I’ll have you know it took every ounce of willpower I have to refrain from breaking into… the Talking Heads song. YOU know the one. I will not mention it lest I lose my already tenuous grip on my impulses. I hope you admire my restraint.

How to make a Momma choke on her hot fudge sundae. And hee!

While riding in the backseat of the car with your momma and daddy and sister, on the way to the BIG bookstore at the mall– you know, the one with the escalator and the cool cushy seats that are Just Right and NOT just those uncomfortable wooden rocking ones that make your bum numb?– to find a book for the school Read-In that you will pay for with your very own money, by setting aside the hot fudge sundae you have been messily enjoying to respond to some loud-mouth on the radio who is yelling about dumb political issues– “…and they’re only concerned about genitalia! It’s all about sex and race! SEX AND RACE!”– which, by the way, is SO not the driving tunes you requested, and piping up from the back seat in your best disgusted, nine-year-old woman-of-the-world, drama queen voice, “DAD! Can you turn that OFF?! We’re trying to EAT here!”

“Spin With It” or “The Stupid Wasp”

I’ve been feeling anxious lately. Unsettled. Discombobulated, even. And if you’ve ever been combobulated, you know how unsettling the opposite of THAT can be. I’m only saying.

Perhaps it is the heat. Here I am hard at work inside, while the sun is shining away outside, all, “Come out and PLAY, cave dweller!” And I’m like, “Don’t interrupt! RUDE.”

Perhaps it is the sounds of imminent summer pressing against my bedroom window. The first wave of summer bugs and their veritable cacophony of buzzing, chirping, whirring, zitzing. Distant mowers and leaf blowers whining and buzzing intermittently. A wasp, trapped between the window and screen, thumping fitfully against the pane. I am painstakingly ignoring the wasp’s plight; hornets make me cranky. I am aware of the inherent pun.

Even still, my house seems unnaturally still, somber… withdrawn from the restless, almost-but-not-quite-summer day brewing outside, and I wish I could withdraw and still the restless anxiety softly brewing inside.

Of me, not my house. Pay attention.

It is as if I am waiting, holding my breath, but I don’t understand why or for what. You know how there are times when you gaze out the window of a moving train or vehicle or airplane, and find yourself mesmerized by the scenery flying by… but not while you are the one in actual physical control of the vehicle or plane because that would be super dangerous? And although the scenery is moving by in lightning-quick flashes of lakes and trees and earth and sky, you struggle to capture it, to put it in your pocket, all of it—the meadowy greens and azure blues, the earthy browns and oranges and purples, even the strips of barren desert or occasional muck along the way—because it is just… so… breathtaking… it is!… and all that beauty is yours at that very moment, and you have no doubt in your mind that if you could just grab it and hold it all in your hands for even a teensy second then it would be the most wonderful, most perfect second of your life?!

But you can’t touch it because you can’t slow down, you can’t just stop, you’re not where you’re supposed to be yet? And your chest tightens and you can barely take a breath? Because as the scenery continues to pass by, to elude you, it changes, it always changes, and though it is still oh-so beautiful and utterly mesmerizing and you know that there is more to see, so much more, you also know in your heart that the you can never get it back, and you will never see it exactly the same way again? And even though you never had it, not to keep, not really, because it was never yours to take… still, you feel the loss?

Yup. The anxiety I’m feeling is a lot like that.

Like my life is speeding by in a whirl of restlessness and obligations and TGIM and my kiddos are only a mesmerizing blur along the way—lightning quick flashes of growing and changing and learning and becoming—so beautiful, yet so fleeting… and I can’t make it stop! I can’t snatch my children out of time and hold them close to me just as they are, so lovely and young, so full of innocence and love and trust, because there are miles to go and places to be and that’s just the way it goes, this life. And before I know it my son is a teenager with braces and hormones and opinions, and my daughters are not quite as grossed out as they used to be when they see people kissing and they will soon be too cool to cuddle up with me and ask me to read them bedtime stories.

So I’ve been feeling anxious lately. Unsettled. Discombobulated.

The wasp is still trapped. I hear it thumping futilely against the pane, and it strikes me that its only thought right now is probably to get out, get out, get OUT of the place in which it is stuck. And if the stupid thing would only slow down for a moment, take a breath—although insects technically breathe passively, but work with me here—maybe it would realize that, hey, it got itself IN there—it crawled right in, uninvited and whatnot—so it can certainly get itself the hell out. There is ALWAYS a way out! A way to move onward, to be free from the frenzied, futile thumping, because what you are doing is not WORKING.

Except for when I open the window and swat it dead, of course.

Hey, I TOLD you. Hornets make me cranky.

But, I’m thinking. Just like the poor deceased wasp, maybe what I ought to do to dispel the unnamed restlessness is to slow down for a moment, breathe, look around. Take notes. Enjoy the view. I mean, I have traveled this far, and I know the ultimate ending, but if I am always waiting, holding my breath, always searching for something more, or looking for a way to get… oh, somewhere else, I am missing what is plain, what is right in front of me. The mesmerizing blur, so to speak. And I can’t get that back! Like it says in “World Spins Madly On” by the Weepies:

Everything that I said I’d do
Like make the world brand new
And take the time for you
I just got lost and slept right through the dawn
And the world spins madly on

So, pay attention, me!

Also? Occasionally I am melodramatic and strange.

Wii Blackmail Bargain, 4-Year-Old Style

HA!

I just tried to call my BFF Paige, but her 4-year-old answered and told me, “When she lets me play Wii, I’ll let you talk to her.”

What can I say? Props to the boy for his mad bargaining skillz.

Watch Out, Britney and Justin!

Conversation in the car, minutes before Alli’s next-to-last basketball game:

“Momma, I hope we win this game! Then we get to play in the… the…”

“…the playoffs,” TGIM supplied.

“Yeah, playoffs,” Alli agreed, bouncing excitedly in her seat. “It’s like a dance-off… but for basketball!”

Watch out, opposing team. Alli’s in the hizzouse!

Bonus Points for Effort

On Saturday night TGIM and I went on a double date with Paige and TGSheM. Naturally, we left TD home with his sisters, plus two of Paige’s girls (one TD’s age, the other a few years younger than Alli) with the somewhat optimistic idea that extra bodies in the house would help prevent any kind of sibling squabbles or blood feuds in our absence.

Hey. It could work. You don’t know.

Toward the end of the evening, however, TGIM received a phone call from home. We knew it was The Call. You know. The one where the kid calls and is all, “So… I just thought you might want to know that Hannah is sitting on Alli’s head and I think the toilet is broken, but the towels got most of it, and the smoke detector in the kitchen WORKS, if you were wondering, and no one is even listening to me”– interrupted by background screams of “Tanner’s a LIAR! Don’t LISTEN TO HIM! LIAR! LIAR! Pants on FIIIIRE!” and “Get OFF me! GET OFF! Mooooooommmmmmaaaa!”– and always ending with, “um… so when are you coming home?”

I watched TGIM take the call, trepidation creepy crawling down my back, and waited for The Response. You know. The one where the parent is like, “Is anyone bleeding? Is? Anyone? BLEEDING?!” and then, “Then WHY are you CALLING?! We’ve talked about this! Rule number one: Don’t call unless there is blood or broken body parts! Now tell Hannah to get off her sister, stay out of the bathroom, don’t go NEAR the kitchen, and we’ll be home in a bit!”

But the only response from TGIM was a grin.

“Well,” I hissed sotto voce, “what’s he saying?”

TGIM covered the phone, held it away from his mouth, and answered loudly enough for all of us to hear, “He said, ‘When are you coming home? It’s pandeminium over here!’”

He uncovered the phone and replied, “Pandeminium, eh?”–I covered my mouth to stifle a giggle–”Well, we’ll be home soon, so hang in there.”

Afterward, we all agreed. Developing a larger-than-average vocabulary mostly through reading?

As it turns out, not always optimal.

Go gentle into that good night. Go on!

Sometimes? I get this naggy, achy feeling, deep down, deep in my heart, and I am struck by an almost overwhelming desire to walk away from it all. And by “it all” I mean the world wide web. Just to be clear. I’m not referring to my job, or my television shows, or TGIM and the kiddos. I mean, I don’t want all y’all thinking I’m going to pull a Marie Osmond and leave the nanny with credits cards and blank checks, all like, “I’m OUT of here!” For one, I don’t have a nanny. So, you know, there’s that. Also, Chuck and Heroes and Ugly Betty are back, so I can’t just pick up and GO, right? Madness, that’s what it would be. Sheer, unadulterated madness! Chuck is in 3D this week! I know, right? 3D! AND Joss Whedon’s new show, Dollhouse, is set to air in a week or so. Like I would miss that! Hello? It shall be awesometastic. Oh, yes it shall.

So… when I say walk away from it all, I mean the web. The Blogosphere. To simply drift away from the Twitter and the Facebook. To walk away from the vidcast and the blog. It’s been a good run! Who knew back in 2004 that I would still be here, here in the Blogosphere, writing and filming and friending and tweeting? Who knew? Certainly not I. I honestly had no idea what I was getting myself into, what I would learn and become, and sometimes… well, it feels like too much. See, I’ve gone and developed Expectations. And with Expectations comes Self Doubt. Envy. That big meanie, Judgy McJudgerpants. And I start to wonder stuff. Like, “Oh NO. What if I run fresh out of pithy thoughts? What if suddenly I’m pithyless? What then?” That is exactly the moment when I get the naggy, achy feeling, and there’s a part of me that wants to slip away. To go gentle into that good night.

And by “go gentle into that good night” I mean walk away. You know, from the web. Just to be clear. When I quote Dylan Thomas, I am speaking metaphorically. There is no need for intervention. ARE WE CLEAR?

I do understand that walking away from it all would be bittersweet. Bitter because I slightly neglected several well-loved hobbies to delve into the new ones, and where would that leave me if I turned away? But sweet, because I’ve made so many friends through all of it. See, this is why I am all about the milk chocolate. Bittersweet chocolate blows. Michael Scott had it right. “Why not just sweet? I mean, who are you helping?” And that’s what I keep asking myself. Who am I helping? Me? Who? And does it matter? Does it? With the gajillion bloggers out there, will anyone even notice if I fade away? I don’t know! But truthfully, I can’t help but think it hugely presumptuous of me to think anyone will. Notice, that is. Because, bold much? Honestly.

If I’m going to power through the Self Doubt and the Envy, and push aside the antics of one Mr. Judgy McJudgerpants, if I plan to rage, rage against the dying of the light, I guess I feel as if it should be worth it. I don’t want to be taken in again, as with American Idol, who strung me along for years and years before finally revealing itself as a sham and a liar and a time-suck of epic proportions! I should have learned after the Ruben-Clay fiasco of ‘03, but no. I put my blood, sweat, and tears into that relationship and where did it get me?! Huh?! Nowhere, bucko, that’s where! And I can’t get all those late-night hours spent dialing and voting and recapping BACK, no sir! That’s all I’m saying. I don’t want to look back and be all, “Dude. Why did I hang on to that relationship with the web for so long? Good LORD. What was I THINKING?”

You see?

It’s a conundrum, I tell you what. And by “conundrum” I mean… conundrum. Just so we’re clear.

In other news, I am occasionally melodramatic and strange.

Sometimes I Can Be a Super Duper Buttinsky

(DISCLAIMER: This is in response to a situation that has nothing whatsoever to do with me; however, thoughts regarding this sitch will continue to nag at at me until I speak my mind. So there. Read it. Or don’t. Whatever. I do understand that my blog is a public forum and that this may cause negative or hard feelings to be directed my way. But whatever. I feel strongly about what is being said. That is all.)

Dear Lady of Questionable Humor Who was Recently Burned by Twitter Tweets:

I’m sorry that because of something you wrote in your Twitter stream you had to suffer the indignity of having the police come and check on you and your children. I worry all the time that one of my neighbors will call the police or child protective services because I have a daughter that has the most HORRIFYING, piercing yell—I kid you not—and she has absolutely no qualms about shrieking at the top of her lungs for longer than one would believe is humanly possible if her older brother so much as looks at her wrong. Which he does. A LOT. To have the cops come because someone heard her screaming and thought someone was hurting her would be embarrassing and horrible and scary and did I mention TOTALLY EMBARRASSING?! I’ve tried to explain to her that there are “Good Samaritans” out there who could potentially call the police because they can hear her screaming, but she’s a child… and when it comes right down to it, it’s an impulse control issue and all we can do is work on it. That said, I’d be pissed if someone DID call the authorities, especially without talking to me first, but I would totally understand why. While I’d rather be approached first, I really wouldn’t expect a neighbor to come to my door and ask, “Excuse me, are you abusing your child in there?” Nah. Not many people would be brave enough to take that risk. I’m not saying it’s right. I’m just saying.

That said…

I’m American. I don’t watch Fox news (I don’t watch any network news, actually). I do watch “Bones” and “House,” though, and they are on Fox so sometimes I see news commercials during the breaks, but I don’t think that should count because I am usually getting snacks and such, or spending quality time with my husband and children. And I live in the DC Metro area, which is technically “The South” if you go by the Mason-Dixon line, which I totally don’t because that line of demarcation is ancient HISTORY. But dude. Honestly. If you use Twitter, you have no expectation of privacy, unless you protect your updates. And frankly, I don’t know you from Adam, but after reading back through several of your Tweets, I know more about your battles with bipolar disorder, your strained relationship with your husband, and your discontent with your co-workers (and boss) than I think is entirely necessary. WAY more. Good LORD with the TMI, woman! But I have the ability to, you know, NOT follow you. Or read your blog. Which is cool. If I don’t appreciate your brand of humor, so what, right? In the big scheme of things, it don’t mattah. We don’t know each other. We’ll likely never meet, even if I do ever travel to Canada. It’s a big place. Whatever. My good opinion is nothing to you.

So please don’t misunderstand me. I’m all for emotional honesty. I’m all for snark. I’m all for cutting jokes and whatnot. And I get that you want to Keep It Real. Awesome. Go on and get down with your bad self. You have that right. You have the right to ask all of Twitter if it would be okay to smother your screaming child. Even if you are TOTALLY kidding! Ha ha! I get it. You’re like Michael Scott. You hope to someday live in a world where a person could tell a hilarious Child Abuse joke. I hear you. But sadly, that is not our world. Yet. (Fingers crossed!)

So all the Twitter Tweeters who read your “questionable” Tweet (and the others before it) have the right-—and some “Good Samaritans” would say the responsibility-—to think—perhaps!—that someone ought to make sure that you are not REALLY going to smother your child to get her to be quiet and go to sleep. Because mothers ACTUALLY DO THAT. A commenter confessed that she Tweeted that she wanted to flush her child down the toilet, and asked if that Tweet should have sent alarm bells going in the Twitterdom, too. Well, no, actually, it shouldn’t. Why should it? Because mothers CAN’T ACTUALLY DO THAT. Unless there is some super secret child-flushable toilet out there that only she knows of, but even I cannot willingly suspend disbelief on that one, and I watched ALL SEVEN seasons of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” (I know, right?) Nor can you sell your child on eBay. Believe me. I’ve tried.

Wait! That was a joke.

You know, the image of the young mother Rowena smothering her three-year-old daughter in “Mary Jane Harper Cried Last Night” is STILL burned into my memory, and that came out in the 70s. THE 70s! I had nightmares! Didn’t want to sleep with a pillow anymore! Even though my momma was always super nice to me! But still! Hate Susan Dey to this… er, day! So there you go. You have willingly put yourself out there as a parent struggling through mental illness and the challenges of raising a family. So when you say something extreme, like “I want to kill my children,” this will lead to extreme reactions and/or responses. It will. You must have known that when you wrote it. Weren’t you trying to be shocking? Otherwise, a simple “My daughter won’t go to bed and she is driving me CRAAAZY…” would have sufficed. Extreme comments like yours set off alarm bells. They just do. And you can’t control the reaction you’ll get from readers who may not know you very well. Or, you know, at all. If you can’t understand that then maybe you shouldn’t be blogging. Or Twittering. At all. At least not in such a public forum.

Because sure, you have the right to Keep It Real and eschew “bullshit and fake honesty” in your own way. But if your exercise of that right in the public forum—where, again, people who see it may not (and most likely do not) know you personally—results in unintended negative consequences, then it is as Mark Twain wrote– that free speech “ranks with the privilege of committing murder: we may exercise it if we are willing to take the consequences.”

Perhaps instead of complaining that concerned readers should take the time to read back over your past posts and Tweets and figure out for themselves that you were just making a twisted sort of emotionally honest joke, perhaps you could ask yourself to take a few moments before you post something that you know is shocking or questionable and ask yourself if it may be taken in the wrong spirit by other parents or people who just don’t get your brand of humor. Like, “Hey, if I announced to a random crowd at the mall that I wanted to kill my children or asked passerbyers at the grocery store if it would be okay to smother my screaming child, would that raise alarm bells?” If the answer is yes, then there you go. Instant filter. Problem solved. I’m just suggesting that self-censorship is necessary if you aren’t keen on serious backlash for hasty or controversial content you put out there for anyone to read. Unless you WANT a reaction, of course, in which case, just keep on keeping on.

It’s like I tell my children who have inherited my control freak gene:  “You can’t control anyone but yourself.” To me, that principle extends to how we present ourselves and who we let into our little space in the blog world. You may not be able to control what other people take away from your writing, but you can control how you present your thoughts and feelings. Raw honesty does not have to be shocking or vulgar. It just has to be real.

Again, I am so sorry you had to suffer the indignity of cops coming by to check on you and your family. I mean that sincerely. That must have sucked SO MUCH.

That’s all I have to say about that. I will now carry on living my life.

Too Much Time on My Hands

When you’re stuck in bed– a hoarse, sniffly shell of what used to be a loud, exuberant human being– you find the time to do things that don’t really need to be done. Nevertheless, you do them. Because you CAN.

Thus… BEHOLD. My new DWM header.

Fancy, eh?

The Lambson Family Newsletter- Holiday Edition 2008

Click on the image below for this year’s Lambson Family Newsletter: Holiday Edition 2008. (Or download the PDF. Whichev.) Because I want to save a tree, that’s why! Also, I am disorganized and often quite lazy.

Happy freaking HOLIDAYS!

DWM Rewind: A Snaking Tutorial and Other Horrifying Stuff

Okay, I just found the best, most embarrassing video EVER! It involves a “Snaking Dance Tutorial” (not to be confused with the The Axl Rose, as seen on Sweet Child Of Mine and other Guns & Roses late-eighties videos) recorded in a moment of insanity, which I now believe was brought on by sleep deprivation coupled with extraordinary amounts of caffeine in my system, and… well, no shame whatsoever. I cannot stress ENOUGH that I was triple-dog-dared by Charlotte in PA (FYI: I think this may be a private blog now…), so it is ALL HER FAULT.

I was pleasantly surprised (read: horrified beyond belief, yet secretly pleased, but mostly just HORRIFIED) to find this gem of cinematographic goodness while looking back over some old posts. The following is the post that linked me to the video; it captures so well how I have been feeling lately about what of importance I have in me to pass down to my kiddos, that I decided to do a little DWM Rewind and post it in its entirety. Enjoy.

Or not. Whatev.

__________________________

Live Your Life With Arms Wide Open

Sometimes I look at my children, who are growing up so quickly right before my eyes, and I am at a loss as to what of importance I have in me to pass down to them. What? My love of books? My inner Drama Queen? My freckles? My Loud Talk/Loud Laugh gene? My charming wit and sparkling personality? My humilty? The list goes on and on… Then, this weekend, in the most roundabout way possible, I discovered one of the most powerful aspects of myself that I have to pass down to my progeny.

You see, nostalgia struck this weekend. One minute I’m downloading Sway by the Perishers, and the next thing I know I’m downloading music I remember listening to as I spent rainy afternoons in my parents’ bedroom thumbing through my parents’ old 45’s, jamming out to Purple People Eater, Charlie Brown, Shimmy Shimmy Ko-Ko Bop, Shoop Shoop Song, My Boyfriend’s Back, Rescue Me, oh, and this really catchy song about sitting in my a la-la waiting for my ya-ya (uh-huh… uh-huh…), amongst others.

So I went online to iTunes and legally downloaded Sixteen Tons by Tennessee Ernie Ford. I know, right? Me? Obtaining music on the up-and-up? All legal-like and shizz? Recognizing that creative works online are protected by copyright law? Not contributing to the illegal music trade which is destroying artistic creativity and innovation, eliminating jobs, and more than likely bankrolling organized crime?! I KNOW!

(Whatever. You’d think these people would be flattered that someone wants to listen to their stupid music, but noooooo. Money money money! That’s all any of these guys– singers, musicians, managers, producers– care about! I mean, honestly. It’s not as if I couldn’t do what I used to do when I was a teenager… which was to keep a cassette at the ready in my boombox and push RECORD whenever a song I liked came on the airwaves? Oh, the mixed tapes I used to make! At absolutely no cost to myself whatsoever! Well, except for the cassette, of course, but did you know that with a little tape and a tad of ingenuity, you can tape the new songs over old albums that you totally don’t want anymore anyway?… Anyhoos, no one was coming after me then, confiscating my Tainted Love Breakup Tunes or Hair Band Heaven Mix, no sir! Now it’s all about the money. Freaking selfish bastards.)

Um, okay. I had a point when I began…

Ah, yes! Sixteen Tons! Of course, of course… So I dragged my kiddos into my bedroom and forced them listen to the song. I watched delightedly as they fell in love with it, Ernie’s impromptu snaps setting a tempo like a coal-mining crew axing into a brick-solid wall, effectively sucking them into the hammer-like rhythm of the song. Alli snapped in time (fine, almost in time), Hannah bopped her head, TD attempted to look bored, but failed miserably– and as I was swept back to a time when I would giggle madly as my dad would bring this song on home: “I OWE my SOOOOOOUUUUUUU-OOUUUU-OOOUUULLL!… to the company store…” I realized that I was passing on a history. A legacy of music, if you will.

Which… scary thought.

This realization brought to mind my fourth grade end-of-the-year party, when my absolute favoritest teacher EVER gave us permission to bring in some of our own music to play for the class. Stoked, I rushed home and told my mother I simply HAD to bring her album– The New Christy Minstrels’ Sing and Play Cowboys and Indians – to school or I would absolutely DIE. So the next day, armed with my uber-cool album and a sure knowledge of my Cool Factor totally skyrocketing as soon as my classmates heard the opening strains of this kickass song called Navajo, I rushed to the front of the line, bypassing The Police, Air Supply, a few Blondies, Irene Cara (Fame, naturally), and– if I recall correctly– one Captain and Tenille album.

Needless to say, my classmates did not appreciate the music as much as I thought they would and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why. I mean, this was GOOD STUFF, right? What the hell was wrong with these people?! But it strikes me now that they did not enjoy my music for many of the same reasons that my daughter’s 2nd grade classmates probably wouldn’t appreciate the phenomenal music from The Phantom of the Opera or Les Miserables. Perhaps my classmates’ mothers hadn’t yet instilled in them a love for the The New Christy Minstrels’ minstrely goodness by playing Lily Langtree or Betsy From Pike– or, oooooh! this super funny song called Three Wheels on My Wagon!– over and over again.

And perhaps their dads didn’t stand at the door “singing” (note my use of sarcastic quote marks) Nelson Eddy as he’d leave the house for work: “I’ll find you in the mornin’ sun and when the night is new… I’ll be looking at the moon… but I’ll be seeing… (*deep breath* *mom joins in*) YOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!” And my mom would be all, “Oh , JIM,” and we’d laugh and shout, “Kiss her, Daddy!” and my mom would blush and be all, “Oh, you! Go to work!” and we were like, “Aww!”

Although, come to think of it, I don’t much like Nelson Eddy. Okay, I don’t even KNOW Nelson Eddy. But I love that memory! See how that works? It’s tricky. But that is beside the point.

The point is that as I sat there playing music for my children, I began to imagine my daughters or son sitting down with their own children, playing my music, perhaps songs from U2’s The Joshua Tree album or The Offspring’s hit single Pretty Fly for a White Guy, music that perhaps my grandchildren would take to THEIR fourth-grade end-of-the-year parties. And maybe my kids will teach their kids to Snake or Axl Rose, and maybe, just maybe!, they’ll even gather ’round the karaoke machine and belt out the oldies from their great-grandma’s and grandpa’s generation, perhaps Sixteen Tons or Rescue Me, and they will all laugh at how crazy life was back in the day, and maybe they will videotape it and send it to me, and TGIM and I will laugh and probably bust a tear or two due to the whole Empty Nest Syndrome, and, oh, how glorious that will be.

Yes! I thought. I shall pass down the music!

Of course, I began to panic. I mean, the pressure I suddenly felt to produce the quintessential 21st century mixed CD– representative of the most influential music from 2001 through today– was crushing, but I calmed myself with the knowledge that, hey, I’m totally up to the challenge. I watch American Idol. I pay attention to the music of Veronica Mars. I’m hip to the pop culture, fo’ rizzle, my shizzle.

Gosh. I tell you what… my kids are SO lucky to have me.

In truth, however, around the seventh time I played Sixteen Tons the nostalgia faded with the final strains of the flute and clarinet. I came to my senses and realized that my children, though influenced by my taste in music now, will grow into teenagers and will develop their own tastes, just as I eventually did, and they will call my music stupid and tell me I’m way out of touch and be all, “Ooooh, my music is so much cooler than yours, Momma! Ooooh!”

I must admit to a few moments of frustration and despair. Because if not my love of good music, what?

Then Natasha Bedingfield’s sassy song Unwritten came on my iPod and I was immediately struck– struck, I say!– by the words:

I am unwritten,
Can’t read my mind
I’m undefined
I’m just beginning
The pen’s in my hand
Ending unplanned

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words
That you could not find
Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions

Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins

The rest is still unwritten.

Good LORD! That was it! The part of myself I absolutely MUST pass down to my children! Because if nothing else, I want to them to learn from me how to take life as it comes– grab it by the balls, if they must– and freaking OWN it.

I can DO that. I just know it.

And the fact that I am instilling this lesson in their minds not only by example, but covertly, as we dance and laugh and sing this song together while cooking dinner, cleaning our rooms, even folding the laundry?

Well, that’s just gravy.

“Well, now that you mention it…”

Tanner says, “You know? In this picture? Uncle Jon looks kind of like Jesus.”

Dreamy Eyes and Broken Hearts on 34th Street

While watching The Miracle on 34th Street– not the TOTALLY awesome 1947 version starring Natalie Wood and Maureen O’Hara, but the disappointing 1994 remake with Richard Attenborough, who, BTW, I cannot watch without remembering his turn as Jacob in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and shouting– er, singing, “Jacob! Jacob and sons!” because AWESOME MUSICAL?!– the ever romantical Allison rushed to the defense of Bryan Bedford, played prettily by Dylan McDermott, after he proposed to Dorey Walker and she freaking SHOT HIM DOWN in the street like Atticus did to rabid old Tim Johnson, except not with a gun or bullets, but figuratively, or the show would have ended WAY differently, you know what I’m saying?

In response to Dorey’s unbelievably harsh “Have I ever done anything to give you the impression I wanted to marry you?” speech– which, Dorey, have you met Dylan McDermott?! Good LORD, woman! Are you INSANE?! He has, like, the DREAMIEST EYES ever! And the HAIR?! Hello?!– Allison turned to me, her misty eyes glittering behind her glasses.

“What?!” she cried. “She DID give him the impression she wanted to marry him! She DID! I mean, she kissed him”– she paused for emphasis– “ON! THE! LIPS! Like, mmmwah, mwahmm!”– here she made out with her hand a bit, which was a little disconcerting, let me tell you– “and she held his HAND, and… and… she went on a DATE with him!” She threw her arms in the air, obviously disgusted with Dorey’s loose moral standards. “Right, Momma? Right?!” she asked– rhetorically, I hope, because I was too busy trying not to giggle to answer– then she folded her arms across her chest with a little “hmmph!” and turned back to the movie.

Granted, the Dorey character does lose a little in translation, making this scene even harder to take, because, again, woman, do you not see the DREAMY EYES?! Come on! Plus, a single mom– not a widow, but a *gasp* divorcee!– trying to make it in the 1940’s business world was playing in an entirely different ballgame than today’s single working mom. Where Maureen O’Hara’s Doris was sympathetic as a realist trying to raise her daughter to accept the hard facts of life that would have been relevant to a single working mom at that time, modern Dorey’s mopeyness and glacial heart made me think, “Dude, a little Lexapro would be a Miracle on 34th Street for THAT lady, I tell you what.”

So, for a second I wasn’t sure if I should explain to my nine-year-old daughter that, in all honesty, smooching and hand-holding and dating aren’t quite the binding evidence of True Love she apparently thinks them to be, so TECHNICALLY the spurned luvah’s proposal was both arrogant and presumptuous (but, dreamy eyes?!), or if I should just let it go.

“I know, right?” I agreed, folding my arms across my chest in solidarity and cross disapproval. “Shocking.”

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