LLLLLJK,

1. When the babies clean the house. The Boy is vacuuming as I write. It is awesome.
2. Hot tea.
3. Queso with ground beef, cooked to crispy crackly goodness with lots of cumin. And lots of pico de gallo on top.
4. Watching the Boy vacuum Duke. Yes. My Golden likes to be vacuumed. (Aside: if you think about it, a Golden is the physical opposite of a vacuum. As in physics, not the voomer. It is impossible for a Golden to be a void, or empty, or completely isolated. They just aren’t equipped that way).
5. WordPress. A lot.
6. The title, which just changed from “Things I Like” to the current “LLLLLJK,” when Jujubee jumped in my lap. She is a Golden that abhors a vacuum. As in voomer.
7. Fooootballllll!!!!!
8. Oskar, the little boy in *Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close*. This is a kid I want to know.
9. Reading the nativity scene from *A Prayer for Owen Meany*, an annual must-do for me.
10. Rooms full of dogs and quilts and books. And queso.

Things I learned this week

1. The Littlest likes “I Love Lucy” as much as her mom. Also Ricky Gervais. She’s a good girl, she is.
2. There is no such thing as too much Gorgonzola Cream Sauce.
3. Note to self: teach the BFF how to go super-stealth on the ‘net. She had awesome sneaky skills as a teenager. Now they must be reactivated before coming back to the blog.
4. When you’re chubby, people don’t tell you how cute your new outfit is. Even when it’s quite cute.
5. The whole fam-dam’ly can behave en masse, at the annual Whole Fam’Dam’ly Christmas Bash. Even with lots of alcohol involved. Granted, the bartender was doling out half-jiggers, but one of the cousins bypassed her altogether and just grabbed the bottle.
6. Having a toddler makes lots of people over-anxious. For instance my sweet little cousin, who went ballistic on our aunt after she announced to the whole room that there was no Santa Claus. Did I mention that the room contained not one, not two, but six little boys? Mayhem ensued. After I stopped howling, I told the boys that that particular aunt has bats in her belfry. Then the BBE and I spent the rest of the night referring to “She Who Ruined Christmas Forever”.
7. I have more blog readers than I knew. But how could I know? They weren’t COMMENTING or anything! No, it took blasting the old blog to get readers out of the woodwork. And yes I am mixing my metaphors. What does it matter? It’s not like anyone will complain, because that would involve–you know–comments.
8. I forgot.
9. If you remain quiet while a teenager complains, they’ll go find someone else to talk to.
10. Hot tea is good.
11. It is WAY possible for conversations about snakes to go on too long. Especially at a party.
12. Being married for twenty years is truly great.

need more hours

What if you had a button that truly could stop time? Not permanently, not for any nefarious purpose, just to catch up on everything that needs doing. Like sleep, and laundry, and shaving your legs.

First thing I would do? Sleep, uninterrupted and guilt-free sleep– for hours. (I would say ‘all day’ but time is stopped sooo…). Then I’d catch up on on my BlogBuds. Groom the dogs. Reorganize the pantry. Build a website. Go play with the BFF (because she would be exempt from the time thing. Also SaucyMomma, but given that she’s growing a baby, she’d just sleep the whole time).

We would have to go mess with a few people, because who could resist all those mannequins? Nothing big, just some lipstick here, a flower behind the ear there, possibly a couple of Sharpie mustaches, and a temporary tattoo on the biggest FT I know, proclaiming his love for all things fuchsia. Heh heh.

Christmas letters

warning: Pig Latin skills will be needed — sorry but I don’t need any Google searches leading eationist-cray eople-pay to my blog.

A childhood neighbor, who was a total wildhair (as a teen ran away with a boy, etc. etc.) grew up to be a ome-hay ool-schay mama. Complete with five kids (all born at home) and a home in Colorado.

Each year she sends a holiday letter, full of snippets about their lives and bible verses. Lots and lots of bible verses.

Last night the babies found this year’s letter, which begins with (of course) a bible verse, then reference to the “iblically-Bay orrect-cay trip to the ience-Scay useum-May”. Which my microbiologist husband says would go like this: “Here’s the entrance, and there’s the exit”. The letter goes on from there, with stories of the kids’ living odly-Gay lives interspersed among yet MORE ience-Scay useum-May trips.

The first shocked comments of “Who ARE these people?” led to discussions of how great it was for the aveman-cay to live as one with the inosaurs-day. Our collective big bad, but we did kinda act out the kids encountering their first urassic-Jay exhibit: “Mommy, this says that the inosaurs-day lived 200 million years ago!”. “Yes I know honey, it’s all just a big lie perpetuated by illary-Hay inton-Clay and her personal oven-cay”.

So then the Mama had to throw in the obligatory ‘Big Umbrella’ speech about tolerance and such, and people making choices and living their lives, and then the Mama quitted the room.

The babies and the BBE stayed behind and planned their own letter to send out. It’s full of children repeating third grade for the fifth time, soccer-field abbing-stays, and 1-year-olds smoking eroin-hay. Sigh.

Peevish

Following is an e-mail received last night from the SaucyMomma, which made me howl. Please note: the SM does not normally listen to Magic 95. However, the SM is pregnant with Saucy Number Four, so we are giving her a HUGE hall-pass.

“OK. So, you need to blog about Christmas Peeves. Mine (today) is the nerve wrecking repetition of Christmas songs on Magic 95. Not surprisingly, I am a Christmas music nut – there really is no such thing as too much Christmas music in my book. But certainly there are more than the 12 songs Magic 95 plays. Continuously. I’d like to make a couple of suggestions to the music selection committee at Magic. First, please X the damned Dan Fogelberg Same Old Lang Syne shit. Who gives a crap about your damned old lover? And what are you doing at the grocery store in the snow/pouring rain. On New Year’s Eve? Pitiful. Hardly a Christmas upper. Speaking of downright depressing and horrific – what about the torturous song about The Shoes? Please. The song sucks, but no one can admit this because it’s about a mother about to die. Hmmm. Just what I want to hear at Christmas time. I realize I’m hormonal – being pregnant with my 4th child and all. But, a song dedicated to the story of a little boy begging for money so his mommy can wear beautiful shoes when she dies and goes to meet Jesus is just down right cruel. The concept must be popular to the non-hormonal majority as I’ve been told there is actually a 2 hour movie of the story made especially for LifeTime TV. Starring Rob Lowe? HELP. And finally, I have nothing against Mannheim Steamroller and/or its indistinguishable counterpart the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, but every THIRD song?!?!!? My heart races like a Vegas light show trying to keep up with all the computerized musical gyrations.

Unable to take anymore from Magic, I stopped the madness with a few select purchases at Waterloo Records this afternoon. Now the only ones going crazy are my poor children who have been forced to listen to the Bare Naked Ladies croon We Three Kings over and over and over. After the third repeat, Will finally yelled, ‘Turn that damn song off!’ Did I mention he was SIX???

It’s Magic 95’s fault.”