super

superman_logo-Wallpaper- (1) A few weekends ago, one of Husband’s friends visited with their teen and tween children. The tween child asked me what super power I wanted. I was paralyzed from making a choice. Every time I thought of a power, I thought about all the drawbacks — the ability to read minds (um, better off not knowing); the ability to walk through walls (I would get recruited by the FBI and be made to be a government weapon against my will); the ability to turn anything into marshmallows (this would probably make me feel sick of marshmallows, and someone like me would definitely turn something important into marshmallow by accident); etc. But finally, I was like, you know what? Sometimes, you just have to live, right? So I said I would be totally impractical and have the ability to fly. (Immediately, that made me think of my fear of heights, the fact that I’d always have to wear pants so people wouldn’t tweet pictures of my underpants, etc.; then I thought, maybe I should limit my ability to fly to like 10 feet. That’s high enough, right?) The tween’s power choice was for all his family, himself, and all his friends to live forever. Very sweet, and I kept all the drawbacks to that choice to myself. Thank you.

twins

garden-gnomes Wonder Twins are growing up. They are no longer pools of saliva and butter. They are now garden gnomes. They have necks, they talk, boss me around, cling to my knees when they want to roadblock me from leaving. It is totally wild to have so many wee ones running around in our home.

Hangover

The-Hangover-LA-1-14-10
Whenever I go out, First Son gets a hangover the next morning. If I’m not home to tuck First Son into bed or by the time Husband tucks him in, he usually comes to visit me in the middle of the night, (which doesn’t last long due to his proclivity to kick other humans in bed with him, so I always escort him back). He wakes up a touch cranky, in a verge-of-tears-not-sure-what’s-bothering-him kind of state of being, and I realized, he gets emotional hangovers whenever I go out, which of course, makes me feel knife-stabbing-guilt. Well-played, First Son.

An insult to lemmings; lemmings in suicide vests

Lemmings-PSPI’ve been reading about the gov’t shutdown and really liked this quote from the Times today:

Representative Devin Nunes, Republican of California, likened the hard-line, conservative members of his conference to “lemmings with suicide vests.” “It’s kind of an insult to lemmings to call them lemmings, so they’d have to be more than just a lemming, because jumping to your death is not enough,” he said.

P.S. I always thought lemmings were fish. I am dumb. Also, I hate rodents, so I can’t bring myself to post an actual photo of lemmings. Sorry. Makes my skin crawl.

Queen of Glamour

Chaka_Khan_-_1982_album I make glorious ladies like Chaka Khan sad a little inside. Last week, I had a day so tired at work, I stayed awake by consuming packets of jelly. Queen of the Night! Queen of the Night! Oooo-yeah! Oooh-yeah! Ohh-yeeeeeeaaaaah!

expunging “dude”

1338873689-tony-goldwyn-scandal-5 Tony Goldwan plays President Fitz on Scandal, but he’s been around a long time. He’s a descendent of Samuel Goldwyn, movie mogul, acted in films for a kabillion years like Ghost with Demi Moore and directed Diane Lane in “A Walk to the Moon.” He’s no schlub, and you know what? I think he’s very good on Scandal. It is not easy to say lines like “don’t you think I want to be the president you voted for” with genuine anguish. Acting through cheese. It’s an art. Pierce Brosnan is a master (See James Bond. He has one scene where a beauteous vixen has him tied in a torture contraption with a device that screws his neck tighter with each offensive word. He managed to gasp “let’s…have…one…last….screw…” when said vixen asked for last words. Amazing. I clapped.)

I’ve never thought about Tony Goldwyn but I say, go you, with your acting through the suds. And not only that, he does manage to project something imposing and presidential, a man actually doing a job, but he ruins all integrity when his twitter feed has him saying “dude, it was so hot in there!” Oy, “dude” does not belong in the vocabulary of a fifty-something gentleman with integrity. It was quite disconcerting and made me realize I must seem similarly absurd, so I am, hereby, publicly expunging the word “dude” from my vocabulary. Consider it gone!

wreck-it ralph

download (1) I really enjoyed this one, but more than that, it was a perfect story. I enjoy lots of stuff that is imperfect, and this may not be for you if you don’t like cartoon flicks, but it is so nice to read/view something that is flawless. I don’t mean that in any mysterious way either. By perfect, I mean stories that are moving and fulfill each stage of the Writer’s Journey. It makes for a more satisfying experience.

This will not make anyone else laugh but me.

imagesdownload On Yo Gabba Gabba, they have a section called “Cool Tricks,” where kids or something adults come out to show their cool tricks, eg, gymnastics, dancing, playing musical instruments. They say their name and state their cool trick before doing it. I was at the playground once with Husband. We were watching over our brood like the rag-tag, low-rent Secret Service that we are, pretending to be on the show.

Me: “Hi my name is Tina, and my cool trick is staying awake!”
Husband: “Hi my name is Husband and my cool trick is yelling at my kids!”

I cannot stop laughing at that. I laugh hard, alone on the street, when I remember him saying that. It’s bad enough I have to pretend I’m on the phone with someone, otherwise, I look too deranged.