Yikes! Double Yikes!

I hadn't visited Go Fug Yourself in a while, so wandered over today and scrolled down happily until I saw this:

LaFugta Jackson

I suppose if you have nipped and tucked your way into an expression of permanent surprise, it makes sense to tailor your wardrobe around that sentiment:

This way, instead of blaming it on bad taste, LaToya Jackson can simply say, "Well, I was just so startled by the fact that my jacket shrank and then the ferret clipped to my belt tore a scrap out of it, all of which exposed the fact that I was forced to wear a bra top that didn't fit because it's laundry day. Still... happy face! Happy face!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What the heck is she doing drawing attention to that thing in her mid-abdomen area? I have something that looks similar, thanks to my lovely kiddos, but I can GUARANTEE that I will never willingly expose said flesh in this manner. Ick, ick, ick!

In case you've recently been offered a job by Naomi Campbell...

.... you may want to reconsider.

http://today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=entertainmentNews&storyID=2006-03-30T234021Z_01_N30262228_RTRUKOC_0_US-CAMPBELL.xml

Her assistants should definitely have medical insurance costs covered. Then again, they can probably recoup the costs of their stitches by sueing her after she assaults them.

A post about Hutton

I've realized I haven't posted much about Hutton, my beautiful 4 1/2 year old son with autism. He has been doing very well this year, learning so much and talking 100 times more than he did a year ago. This morning while we were getting ready to go to his speech therapy appointment, he told me excitedly, "Harrison watching Lions!" I said, "Oh, Harrison was watching "Between the Lions" on TV this morning?" and he said yes. This is exciting, because we're working on Hutton telling us about things that he has done during the day. Usually he is fine with telling us what is going on in the present, but not the past. And he's definitely got the future down. The night before something happens, he will usually tell me what we are doing the next day, whether it's going to school, having at-home therapy, or going to speech therapy.

Another behavior we're working on is Hutton's preoccupation with routine. Some times, Hutton is perfectly fine with new developments that aren't a regular part of his routine, but other times, a change will cause him to scream -- a very loud, very annoying scream, usually while he's in the backseat of the car and I'm trying to drive. This was the case this morning when the lower parking lot at the speech therapist's office was full, and I was driving around to the back lot. We have been parking in the lower lot most of the time, since we have been arriving early the past month, but today we were running late, and I had to park in back. SCREAM from Hutton in the back seat, right behind my head, that he wanted to park down there. Laura, gripping the steering wheel, trying to remain calm as I explain there are not any free spaces down there and we have to park up here today. Fortunately, I was able to rush him into the building without much more screaming.

Later on, when Harrison and I were reading a book in the lobby while waiting to pick Hutton up from his appointment, I heard the muted sounds of Hutton's screams from the back room. When we picked him up a few minutes later, his therapist explained that she was trying to switch things up a bit today, and when Hutton asked her to write a "1" on a piece of paper, she'd written two "1s." Oh, now I see that that would cause a furor! Oh well. As I said, we're working on it!

Hey, I'm as lazy as the next parent out there, but this is ridiculous!

I bring the ultimate in baby care - the bib-feeder!

I saw both sides of the issue, and wasn't too worked up about this convenience item for easier bottle-propping so you don't have to actually help your baby eat (man, when are they going to come out with babies that can hold their own bottles? Come on, babies, evolve already!). Lazy, but there are times when a frazzled mom or dad needs to have a few seconds to maybe make dinner, and if your baby is throwing his or her bottle on the floor constantly, that will make you want to tear your hair out. (Of course, I say this playing Devil's Advocate, as I'm a holier-than-thou extended breastfeeder whose baby never drank from a bottle. Yes, my nipples are raw from those new incisors coming in, but I'm Granola Queen, dammit!)

But then I read further.

Here's a press release the inventor of this contraption sent out: (and I got this from another website, so I don't know if this is really true, and it has some typos, which is usually suspect, so take this with a grain of salt!)

“My vision I believe is God given. I would like the company to provide a service to working Moms, Mom’s who have more then one child who are in multi-task situations, and assist teaching babies how to hold their bottle or sippy cup. This is the business end." OK, I'm going with you. I feel you. The misused apostrophe to make a plural "moms" makes my head spin around, but I'm with you, still.

It continues: "Mostly, in my heart Bibfeeder, is to be a blessing to starving children of the world and to help the missionaries spread the gospel of Jesus Christ who is my personal Lord and Savior. I believe that it is God that gives us gifts, inventions and talents and it is up to us to choose whether we will gloriy [sic] him or not. I choose for the Bibfeeder to be a blessing to the Kingdom of Heaven and to tell starving people, not only starving for food, but also spiritually. The answer is the good news of Jesus Christ”.

Huh. Say what? This bottle propping contraption is all about Jesus? Wait, now. Helping starving people? The same people who, say, are in third world countries and given free formula by "helpful" giant companies like Nestle, then their breastmilk dries up and they can't afford to feed their babies anymore because they can't buy more formula? Those starving people? Well, yep, this will definitely help them! Ok, I'll admit I'm getting sidetracked here.

The company does say on the bibfeeder website that a portion of your purchase price goes to feed starving children through Life Outreach International. That's good. Of course, then I think in my cynical Atheist way that the folks at LOI probably force the starving children to hear the word of God before they're given their bowl of soup. But hey, it's not like I'm helping end world hunger! I'm just sitting on my butt enjoying a latte.

Am I repeating repeating myself? Am I I?

I will have you know that I used to be very smart. I had a brain like a steel trap, full of both important and trivial knowledge. Seriously. I won the 2nd grade trivia contest, you know! The prize: a book of trivia. Gosh, Mrs. Lindstrom sure had a great sense of humor.

So, I have been slowly realizing over the past 5 years that my brain seems to be slowly oozing out of my skull, or my neurons are misfiring. The steel trap is not so steely anymore; it's more like rusty tin, or maybe not even metallic -- mashed potatoes or pudding. Yeah, a pudding trap doesn't work very well I've found.

The main result of this bad brain is that I don't remember 90% of what I watch or read anymore. Unless I read a book more than once, it immediately starts seeping out of my head. It makes being a participant in my book club extra challenging if I start forgetting a book moments after I've finished it. The first time I really noticed this was when I read the book Ahab's Wife, which is really long. I was well over halfway through when I realized, "Hey! I've read this before!" And it's not like I had read it 10 years before. No, probably had been 6 months. But I had zero recollection until one sentence jarred my memory.

This goes for films as well. Though I do have a somewhat better memory for films, it's not really that impressive when I average seeing three movies a month. Since having children, I average 2 movies a year in a theater, and the rest I TiVo or watch on DVD when I visit my mom. (We don't rent DVDs anymore. We even failed at Netflix. Yes, we suck.) Anyway, the point of this is that I just wasted 2 hours watching "Signs" which I had TiVo'ed on Saturday night from ABC. I started watching, and things were vaguely familiar, yet I had no recollection of having seen the movie before. Definitely not in the theater. A few scenes in, it's coming back to me: "Hmm, there's something about those water glasses all over the house that comes into play later...." Further on, I'm still watching even though I now know I've seen this movie before. "Hmm, is M. Night a doctor in this movie? Wait, I think that's the Sixth Sense." By the halfway point, I can remember the final scene of the movie, but I continue watching. I might as well finish it, right? I at least got some knitting done, so it wasn't a total waste.

It would be fantastic to be able to actually remember if I've read a book or seen a movie before, though, so when I am faced with a two hour block of free time I can use it to maybe read a book I haven't read yet, or see a movie I haven't watched before. Considering there are millions of books and hundreds of movies out there that I could be tackling for the first time, or that I could be revisiting the classics, I don't think reading Ahab's Wife twice or watching Signs a second time is really necessary.

Sigh, I better go to bed so I can give my feeble brain a break. I think I'll go buy some Omega 3s tomorrow!

Wonderful Weekend

Sometimes I wonder when my weekends went from being exciting, eagerly-awaited times, to just the same ole stuff as the rest of the week. It must have been after I became a hausfrau. Even before kids, I realized that weekends were never quite as exciting as I made them out to be. Even before I quit my job, this was usually the case, though. I think it was after I got married. No offense to my wonderful husband, but I think once I got married, we went from the excitement of weekends as being "date times" to weekends as being...just the end of the week.

When the kids are sick (Harrison is sick this weekend, last weekend I was sick, the weekend before it was Hutton) and we watch Madagascar for the 40th time since buying it Tuesday, weekends just aren't that exciting. So far this weekend, I have gone to the gym and to the grocery store. That's the extent of it. As much as I would love to go out to lunch, that's probably not going to happen because of sick Harrison. He was too cranky to go out yesterday, so I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch. Harrison slept 90% of the day yesterday, which was kinda nice, but still makes me feel a bit housebound.

Maybe I'll go out to Home Depot or something exciting like that. That used to be part of nearly every weekend! Yes, that's the exciting life I lead: I remember the good old days of going to Home Depot every weekend and feel sad that I am missing out on a weekly trip to Red Robin or Acapulco Fresh.

Just so you know, I actually like Madagascar, even after 40 viewings. It's pretty funny, with lots of cultural references for the adults. It is rated PG, after all!

Big surprise! I'm a democrat!

So, after seeing Allie D. post about this, I jumped on the bandwagon and took this little test: http://www.okcupid.com/politics My results: You are a Social Liberal (73% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (25% permissive) You are best described as a: Strong Democrat I know those who know me will be shocked by this. Actually, every time I take one of these, I kinda wonder if I might be moderate or libertarian this time, or - Gasp!- conservative!

This is going to be great!

I spend a lot of time online in pursuit of knowledge. Some of this knowledge is useful. Some is not so useful.

One website I visit a lot has been excited about this film since day one. When I heard about it, I was confused. Was this a joke? No, really, I thought I'd seen a skit about this on Saturday Night Live. A film parody. But, apparently it does exist, and it comes out this summer.

Its name: Snakes on a Plane. It's about Snakes. On a plane. How can you NOT be excited about this movie?








Another thing: Samuel L. Jackson is in it. So that means there will be lines like, "There are muthafuckin SNAKES on this plane!"

Of course, I was more excited about the movie when this was the only movie poster available:




Or even better, this one:




Yes, some people have too much time on their hands. And I'm one of them. After seeing the above pictures, and similar ones here, (go on! Click on them! They're FUNNY!) I noticed they had not used this yet, so I whipped this one up myself:



If you're more interested in tee shirts, try this one:
http://topatoco.com/snakes.htm

Ugh, I just ate dinner! I didn't need to see this!

http://www.send2press.com/newswire/2006-03-0322-003.shtml

Weird, just plain weird.

What is really funny about this is that Britney had a C-section.

It will be fascinating to see if the abortion rate drops because of this bizarre statue. Maybe in South Dakota. Let's watch that, huh?

I thought this was kinda funny, too.

I just started reading this article on nutrition and obesity, Don't blame Big Gulp for America's obesity, and I didn't have my pop-up blocker on, so as I scrolled down, I noticed a fancy ad for COCA-COLA. Hmmm. Sure, Coke is the parent company of Minute Maid orange juice and some other seemingly healthy things, but I don't think of nutrition and Coke together. Just kinda funny since the title of the article mentions Big Gulps, and most people don't get a Big Gulp of water with lemon.

Also funny was one of the nutrition experts quoted was a woman with the last name Nestle. Yep, I immediately thought of Toll House cookies. Yumm! So healthy, too. ;) (Fortunately, I don't have any chocolate chips in the house or I might be tempted to go do some baking. I do have some Thin Mints stashed in the freezer though if I get desperate!)

Of course, now the ad is something that popped on right after I had a long coughing spell:
Sudacare Shower Soothers. Hmm, that sounds pretty good! Of course, I am also thinking that my computer is watching me a little too closely.

Then on looking at the ad more, I realized you can draw in the steam! That's awesome! I'm going to turn off my pop-up blocker more often! I'm missing some great advertising.

This is funny...and sad!

Wednesday night, I was sitting down to watch a little TV, and saw that TiVo had recorded the South Park episode, "Trapped in the Closet." I was excited, as I knew it was the Tom Cruise/Scientology episode, so I hit play. And...lo and behold, it was NOT the aforementioned episode. It was a really old rerun, from back when I watched South Park religiously. (That's an interesting choice of words, considering the episode.)

The rerun was about the Chef benefit show the boys were getting together. I was a bit confused. Didn't Isaac Hayes just quit South Park, because as a Scientologist, he was offended by the "Trapped in the Closet" episode? Why the big tribute to his character, Chef?

Then I saw this this morning:
http://entertainment.msn.com/tv/article.aspx?news=218909&GT1=7703

Tom Cruise, you need to get a sense of humor! Maybe when your spawn is extracted from its host, you'll be a kinder, gentler human (you are human, right?).

Tempting the Cold Gods

I knew this would happen! Here I was, thinking how great my immune system was doing. Hutton has had a cold for over a week, Harrison had a runny nose, but I was still healthy! Go, Laura! It's because you work out and eat well. But not that often, and not well enough, apparently.

Yep, I've got a cold. Thursday night I had the extreme bowling ball head of sinus hell and woke up Friday feeling like I'd been trampled by elephants, who focused on my neck and spine in their trampling. Yesterday I blew my nose constantly. Last night I took a decongestant, even though I was trying to be good and not take anything suppressive so my immune system could tackle it on its own. But, you know, I'm just not strong enough! So, today the cold has moved down into my chest, and I'm coughing. Just like Hutton has been doing all week! So much for my strong immune system.

At least I'm getting a good ab workout with the coughing, not to mention the, er, kegels I'm doing when I cough to keep everything contained. Too much information, but that's what happens when you have kids -- they bring in colds and loosen everything up that once was tight.

Cough, cough. I'm not going to the gym this morning. Just walking up the stairs winds me.

Damn you, Cold Gods! You win! I was wrong to ever trust my immune system against your great powers!

Catching up with The Sopranos and Laura's Psyche

I had a dream that I was in some fabulous city with some fabulous people, but that's about all I remember. In the last part, I had to walk through a parking lot, and was supposed to tip this woman, and kept giving her quarters, but she started crying and would not accept them. It was like the quarters were not real money. Even after I'd given her 2 dollars in quarters. I finally gave up. And a guy was asking me why I had so much money in my purse - I had wads of cash, along with all of those quarters in my bag. Then Harrison woke me up.

I think all the cash was from watching The Sopranos last night. Woohoo! So great to see that show again! The last time it was on was June 2004, the month Harrison was born. In fact, my water broke during a contraction while watching the show! Fortunately it was at the end, and it was TiVoed so I didn't need to miss anything. But then I wonder if Harrison is going to be a violent boy because of the influence right before his birth. Haha.

But then the show also reminds me of my father, and that brings back to me that he was still alive to watch the last season of The Sopranos, and now he isn't. He won't get to see the final episodes. I don't know why I think of my father, as he wasn't in the mafia, and wasn't a violent guy. He was sort of like a kinder, gentler, slimmer version of Tony, though. He was a little stocky, had Tony's partial baldness, loved cigars...I remember watching The Sopranos earlier seasons on DVD with Dad and my stepmother, Barbara, in Florida when Hutton and I went down for a vacation after Christmas, in January 2004. After Hutton went to bed, we all sat on the couch together watching Tony and family.

That was the trip right after Dad was diagnosed with bladder cancer. A few weeks later, when he was back in California, he had surgery to remove his bladder and prostate, but it had already spread to his lymph nodes.

That was also the trip when I was finally accepting that something was a bit off with Hutton. He was 2 1/2, and I had bought some toys for him on ebay and mailed them to Dad and Barbara's house so he'd have things to play with while we were there. One toy was a little firestation. Hutton was only interested in the flagpole from the firestation; not the firetruck, not the firefighters, just the flagpole. The flagpole snapped into place, but Hutton kept wanting it out, and he would walk around with the flagpole, still not really talking at 2 1/2. All of us knew something was wrong, but he didn't have a diagnosis for few more months, and even then, it was a wishy-washy, "Let's say he has Autism so he can start getting therapy," from the neurologist I took him to.

My, have things changed for all families in the past 2 years, both ours and The Sopranos!


With Dad and Hutton on the beach in Naples (Florida, not Italy!) waiting for the New Year's Eve fireworks.

Ho Hum Friday

Yes, I've let things slide again. But I've been so busy lately! Uh, no, I don't really have anything to show for it. You'll just have to take my word for it!

Not much going on in the exciting world that is my life. I blew my mind yesterday morning listening to this in the car on NPR while sipping my latte and waiting to go meet Hutton's speech therapist. Plus I've been reading this, so I'm kind of in a parallel worlds kinda frame of mind. Physics really boggles my mind. Haha. That just reminds me of the talking Barbie from a while back that Feminists were angry about because one of the phrases it said was, "Math is hard!" Well, yeah, Barbie, I think so, too! And I don't think it's just cause I'm a girl, either!

Hutton is buried under the toy parachute we have. Harrison is running around. Fergus is sleeping. Sally is barking. Pretty normal stuff. I wonder what our doppelgangers (or maybe our evil twins?) are doing now in the parallel universes.