Random Kid Convo of the Week

Do you remember all those parental moments that I've shared with you? By far, this would be my absolute favorite...

The Kid: I got to see my High School class schedule for next year.

Me: Well, that's good. Did you get everything you wanted for freshman year?

The Kid: Yeah, I suppose. English I, Advanced Algebra I, Latin II, Elite Science, American History and some other stuff.

Me: That sounds pretty awesome to me, why do you sound upset?

The Kid: Ugh! See! See, what happens when you apply yourself?!

Me: Oh, right, sorry. God forbid your teachers get the impression that you may, in fact, be pretty smart.

The Kid: I blame you for this.

Me: You'd better. I'd be disappointed if you didn't.

Possession is 9 Tenths...

Own it, don't let it own you.

Recognizing you have a problem is the first step to recovery.

Over the past few days there has been some laptop/tech glitches in Frannieland and it's messing with my calm. More to the point, my laptop seems to have some kind of bug that's affecting my use of FaceBook. Everything internet related works.

Except FaceBook.

I have an appointment today with the IT-God that maintains the computers in our office. He has vowed to make my life livable again.

Monday, I came to the shocking realization that I may, perhaps, quite possibly, sorta haveanaddictiontofacebook.

I gave up smoking easier than this.

Newport 100's Menthol, in the box. Still rolls right off the tongue like I'm 18 again. I chucked that habit like a pair of Wal-Mart shoes but it seems that an entire weekend without Facebook has left me at a bit of a loss.

Do you realize that Saturday night I dreamt that my sunflowers were going to die if I didn't get to work Monday morning and login into Farmville immediately! Who dreams that?

There must be a twelve step program somewhere that I can join. I distinctly put in my profile "I would rather not become addicted to this." I said it from the very beginning.

Months after I started my blog I was still resisting the urge to join FaceBook. I'm really not much of a joiner to begin with, not a Sorority fan, I loath team sports unless it's a dance team and I'd rather observe something to learn it instead of jumping right in.

I like to read the manual, so to speak. On. Everything. I read Blogger for Dummies before I started this so that should give you some idea of my approach. To. Everything.

Buuutttt, the social networking aspect of Facebook and the ease with which I can post my blog on it sucked me in.

Completely.

Do you think they still sell Newport's in a box? They're like, what, $50 a pack?

What? Stop being so judgemental. I have to do something while I wait for FaceBook to be available again.

It Stuck

I hated, Hated! Sophomore English in High School.

To this day I can still remember my teacher with crystal clarity. Miss Antol, or as I lovingly referred to her, The Chicken Lady. Really, she looked just like one.

She was tall and on the verge of anorexic looking. You could see practically every bone in her body, elbows, clavicles, knees, it was gross. Her skinny or more aptly put scrawny appearance made her neck look super thin and her jaw huge.

To me this gave her the appearance of a chicken. I never called her the Chicken Lady out loud but I did tell my mom that was what I thought.

She always wore her hair in a bun or pulled back from her face; this made it easier to see the very bad foundation line on her chin and the powder blue eye shadow she wore. Up to her eye brows. There was also way too much eyeliner under her eyes and no mascara. Bad combo.

She apparently lived alone because if she had a companion they would never have let her leave the house with that application of makeup. Either that or she didn't believe in mirrors.

I may have hated her but I think she hated me more. I tried her patience at every turn. She would give us these asinine writing assignments she called 'journals' and we had to do them once a week. Write about anything you want just fill both sides of the page (standard sheet of notebook paper) and turn it in on Friday...any topic.

To me this was the dumbest, waste of my time that I could imagine. I went to Catholic school, I wasn't in the honor society but I had enough of a course load to keep two people busy. The Sisters believed that idle minds created mischief. I'm certain now that I'm a parent that they were right.

I fought, kicked, screamed, pled my case to my mother, that this was a complete waste of mind power. If she gave us a topic, set some kind of parameters I could understand but no, just write a bunch of stuff.

One week I actually wrote the same sentence until it filled both sides of the paper. "I think this assignment is an enormous waste of my time, I could be studying Geometry right now." I got full credit.

Another week I ran out of things to say so I cut the end of the page off.

She called my mother. And I got a D in English for the first time in my life.

Although she acknowledged that I was the first student EVER to think that one up, I still had to come up with a few more sentences if I wanted credit. My mother told her that sometimes I was too smart for my own good.

Miss Antol just hated me more.

I'm pretty sure it galls her to this day that she gave me an A- on my term paper and I managed to pull a B+ for the year out of my loathing for her and her 'journals'.

Over the past few months as I've written here I've begun to notice that for the most part I know the use of a comma, or the how to break a paragraph, proper use of capitalization, punctuation, etc. and I think I have the Chicken Lady to thank.

It appears that all of those pointless writing assignments served a purpose after all.

Although if anyone ever tells her that I'll deny it vehemently.

Flaws

Flaws.

We've all got them.

For instance, one of my biggest flaws is procrastination and in case you haven't noticed, getting the blogs that are in my head, into the computer. Lately I blame it on the weather, it's so dismal here that I'm finding it hard to bring the funny, and of course, procrastination.

At least I have a theme. Here's where more procrastination comes in...

Through the constant nagging of literally everyone I come in contact with in my personal life and the fact that I was supposed to do this a year ago, I got my act together and braved the Passport Office in the Post Office on a Saturday morning.

I had a passport 20 years ago, but it has obviously expired, my name has changed and I couldn't find it after my divorce. I have a theory on the last one but we'll save that for another time.

I did manage to find and complete the appropriate form and the additional form I'd need for my lost passport, and because my mother is prepared for a nuclear winter, she had a copy of my old passport complete with the issue date, number and any other random fact the government wanted to know. (My favorite color is blue, in case you were wondering.)

After attempting to fill out the form online three different times, I finally managed to get it right, whomever designed the online system should actually take the time to use it. Cuz it's not as intuitive as you'd think.

So, as I'm sitting in the chair in the Passport Office, with every form of documentation back to my baptism, the lovely postal worker points out a flaw I never knew I had.

Postal Worker: I think your head's too big.

Me: I'm sorry? What?

Postal Worker: In your pictures. Your head might be too big.

She then whips a super official-looking plastic card from her desk drawer, it's even attached to a thin metal chain, so if need be, she can wear it around her neck, and proceeds to show me how my head is on the border line of being too big.

Apparently this official plastic card has the lines printed on it that they use to crop your photo once you send everything in.

Postal Worker: See? Your face is right on the line. Where did you have these done?

Me: CVS. Listen I have good hair today, let's just take another set.

Postal Worker: Well, I really don't think you should spend the extra $15 dollars if you don't have to. We can send these in and they'll let you know if your head is too big. You can just send them a new set of pictures, but they may take them. You're on the line you now.

Right about now I'm thinking that it's probably going to take 6-8 weeks for them to decide if my head is too big and then another 6-8 weeks for them to slap the new picture of my shrunken head into a booklet and mail it to me.

Me: I don't have the Luck-of-the-Irish, let's just take a new set and call it a day.

So using up the small amount of luck that I have she managed to take a pretty decent picture, without my glasses. Well done postal lady. All I could say at that point was 'Thank-god I didn't pony-tail-it today.'

I'm wondering what other flaws I have that I'm not aware of? Maybe my eyes are too close together, or my fingers are too short?

At this point I'm just thankful that my passport is just a head shot and not a full body shot!

Imagine the flaws she could've pointed out then!

Sisters

I never had a sister.

I was the sister.

And my brother and I bickered and fought until he was in high school and I went off to college. The distance between us was enough that we just finally had to let it go.

We gave sibling rivalry a new meaning. My mother threatened on numerous occasions, to stop the car and leave us on the side of the road, to lock us in the basement so she couldn't hear us and at one crowning moment knock both our heads together if we didn't Cut. It. Out!

The Chica and the Littlest Kid are not like that. At. All.

They are like this:

This is Max and Ruby. Thank you Nick Jr., for this completely unrealistic representation of sibling life. Ruby is Max's older sister. She helps him learn things, keeps him out of trouble and is generally an all around, well meaning mother-hen.

The Chica is basically just like that. She makes the Littlest Kid lunch, picks up after him, makes him take a shower, mixes his chocolate milk....you get the idea.

So whilst we were driving back from the mall last Saturday this was the conversation going on in the back of the truck.

Seated left to right: The Chica, The Littlest Kid, The Kid

Chica: What's on your face?

Littlest Kid: Dunno.

Chica: Is it dirt?

Littlest Kid: Dunno...HEY! You just put spit on my face.

Chica: I did not.

Littlest Kid: You did!

Chica: I just licked my finger and got the dirt off.

Littlest Kid: That would be SPIT. On MY face!

Littlest Kid to the Kid: You saw. Spit. On. My. Face.

The Kid: Dude, normally I've got your back but I'm so stayin' outta this one.

Littlest Kid to the Chica: I get enough spit from the dog. Thank you very much.

Me to the Kid: I can honestly say I've never done that to you.

The Kid: Let's keep it that way.

The Littlest Kid (looking right at his sister): Yeah. Me too!

I'm Digging That Black Micro Mini Out of the Closet as We Speak

Thanks to Speaking from the Crib for giving me the idea for today's post.

I've been a little lazy the past few days so when this opportunity presented itself I couldn't resist.

As some of you know we don' t have cable tv here in Frannieland. Whatever, I have a fond love of the internet and between Hulu and Facebook I don't think I'd have time to watch any tv anyway. Although I've never actually watched an episode of The Jersey Shore I believe that it ranks right up there with shows like Reno 911, Family Guy, and anything that can be found on MTV. Bascially, I think you actually become stupider as you watch, or at least I do.

For all of you that love these shows I'll admit that I'm a die hard fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (I even have the lunchbox) so I really have no place to go. But I digress.

Apparently there is website that lets you generate your own Jersey-name and because I can't resist a Cosmo quiz or anything else that gives my life deeper meaning, I gave it a try.

My Jersey-name?

Pookie

This is freakin' cool on many levels but mostly because that's the nickname the BF gave me.

The stars have totally aligned. Perhaps I shall win the lottery, Snookie will become my new BFF and I too will be rockin' big 80's hair again.

Shut up. It could happen.

You Put It Where?

Some days I just love being a parent.

You know, the days when they can only find one piece of 5 different sets of gloves or when they tell you 'I brushed my teeth Tuesday' (it's Thursday), or my fav, 'It still looks white. How dirty can it be?'

So this morning when I asked the Kid if he had found his winter coat, which has been missing since Monday night, he replied with 'Yup.'

Me: Was it in the music room from when you stayed after Monday?

The Kid: Nope.

Me: Did you leave it in the BF's truck? He looked for you yesterday.

The Kid: Nope.

Me: Well where was it?

The Kid: I hung it in my closet.

Of course he did. Why would we ever think to look where it should be.

Random Kid Convo of the Week

It's report card week in Frannieland...

Me: Your English teachers comment says your 'socializing inhibits progress'.

The Kid: I got a 'B'!

Me: The Math teacher says the same thing!

The Kid: She changed our seats. There's no talking. I was working at the same time.

Me: The same time as the talking?

The Kid: yyyeeeaaaahhhh

Me: {Through clenched teeth} Stop. Talking. In. Class.

The Kid: You want me to not talk to my friends at all? For the whole class?

Me: For the whole class.

The Kid: Seriously?

Me: {cold stare} as a week without an iPod.

The Kid: You wouldn't, I'd be naked.

Me: Then naked you'll be.

The Kid: Fascist.

Me: That would be Dictator to you. Go do your homework while you practice Not. Talking.