best summer read - my nomination

It's awfully early to say this is the best damn light read of the summer. Especially since some parents, teachers, and kids are not even out for the summer (Hi, Sis!) So I won't say it.

I'll just nominate this novel and say I'll hold my real vote at the end of summer (wink, wink).

It qualifies as a light read because there are no longer-than-your-driveway sentences, it's not thicker or heavier than your Websters New Collegiate Dictionary, and it's written in a three-paragraph-per-section style, i.e., you can pick up the book soon after sitting your feeling-fat, matronly self down at Barton Springs Pool, surrounded by the hundreds of young, single, hip, tattooed, hard-bodied University of Texas coeds, and immediately jump right back into the story, without being distracted once.

I loved this book because Julia is such the anti-heroine. She reminds me of an all grown up and married with a kid version of Bridget Jones. And I lurrved Bridget Jones.

Julia's conversations with herself are such a contrast to the out loud conversations I have with the moms I run into.

You know the type, the I only buy organic, gluten-free, lactose-free, corn syrup-free type and the Gotta run, my son has a soccer tournament in Dallas and my daughter has a soccer tournament in Houston, busy day!! type and the I'm so tired I stayed up reading the entire Harry Potter series to my identically dressed, identically hair-styled triplets type.

The type where I walk away, thinking, My kids are soooo screwed.

But not true with Julia. This is a mom who writes honestly about her parenting foibles. Who shares her dissatisfactions within her marriage (read, mediocre to forgettable sex) . Who does all the wrong things, thinks all the most irreverent thoughts, hopes for all the most immoral endings.

And I loved her. Lots of cynical, gutteral sniggering in my beach chair.

My one complaint - I wish it were the size of my Websters New Collegiate Dictionary.

If you like self-loathing, sardonically witty, modern-parenting-trend-bucking moms who still have a naughty sex life, at least in their minds, and occasionally in real life, you might love Julia too.

strong women, talking babies and bum phucks

Woman and Child is back. Yay!

And posting about good, strong women who age out of the nicey-nice, takey-care of everybody but me, phase. And the good, strong men who love us.

And posting a nod to the "totally brilliant humour coming out of the U.S." in the form of talking babies in advertising.

Since this is one of the few commercials I will do a mad-grab for the remote, risking a herniated disc and a twisted intestine in order to de-mute so as to catch the latest baby with 'tude, I thought I would post this E*Trade clip for all to enjoy.

It's so much funnier in it's full-wide version rather than this chopped off one but it's your choice.

I don't know about your motives for gawking at tawking, wisecracking babies, but think I will look at this clip whenever I need a break from the agonizing coverage of the BP Gulf disaster.

Hang in there Louisiana, my mother's motherland. Katrina did not break your spirit and neither will this.

And BP? Stands for Bum-Phucks.

You can show your support by participating in Deb on the Rock's Love the Gulf Blog Carnival.

my kids are smarter than your kids

My daughter, BabyB, has determined that she can sleep on top of her bedspread, covered by a small blanket, and avoid making her bed in the morning.

And so, with this post, and with great pride, I hereby nominate BabyB as a candidate for the Nobel Laureate in Domestic Short Cuts.

And since there is a little known category called Family Laureates, The Curie family having won the most Nobel Prizes, with five, I will also nominate my son. He has discovered that, despite having a walk in closet, furnished with the usual array of clothes hangers, shelves and a string of hooks, he can organize his clothes better by laying them in discreet piles on his bedroom floor. Unfolded, even! That his mother nearly slipped a disc tripping over these piles on her way to open the window blinds is but a minor stumbling block of his revolutionary system.

BabyA comes in third place. She has devised a shoe organization scheme which may be too complex to describe in a short blog post. Her extraordinary design involves placing, or sliding, and sometimes kicking, her shoes, but most especially her slippers, under her bed where they wait, mismatched, until their partner shoe, or slipper, is put on the proper foot. How she does this has not been replicated by any other child scientists, or at least, a data base search has not yielded a similar reference. BabyA merely has to use the big toe of her unshod foot and slide it along the edge of her underbed, and, by a combination of tactile and sonar tracking, she locates the correct match. It's a spectacular process to behold!

Reader, does a child of yours have a Nobel-Prize-worthy discovery you'd like to nominate?

tig, no taxes

So I'm sitting here during my designated, schedule-all-clear, expressly-for-the-purpose-of-doing-my-taxes, time slot. That means, making no money when we could really use some extra income and I've turned down clients so that I can get my taxes done.

When, after an impromptu lunch time rendez-vous with my special Valentine (who would be my husband, of course) (because a sluggish economy has it's perks), I turned on the comedy channel. All the better to eat my post-coital meal lunch: extra sharp cheese melted on toast with alfalfa sprouts and the last of the winter garden tomatoes.

It was then that I saw this comedian, Tig Notare (no tar, eh?), for the first time.

I just had to share. Because I'm the biggest procrastinator on the face of this earth helpful like that.




If, like me, you just have to see more of Tig, you can check out her No Moleste spot, here. And, if once is never enough, here. And then there's her very own webpage, tignation.

Ok, back to my late afternoon snack taxes.