That's No Lady...

Usually when I pick my daughter up from preschool in the afternoon, she spends a few minutes walking around her classroom showing me any new artwork she created that day.

Which was the case recently after the teacher had hung up all of the Valentine art made by the paste-eating set.

The school and classroom walls were plastered with red and pink heart-shaped crafts. There were flowers made from hearts, happy, smiling faces drawn onto hearts, heart collages...

She asked me excitedly, "Want to see the ladybug I made?" and of course, I said, "Yes," because I just love how anything she creates reflects the sweet innocence of a child's perspective. How for just a few moments, looking at her art transports me and allows me to see the world through her eyes...

As a matter of fact, I was lost in these thoughts when my little Mapplethorpe-in-training pointed proudly to this:

 

Ain't love grand?

Brutalism

Happy Bud Light Commercial Day!

For Valentine's Day, we treated ourselves to a little getaway at a nice hotel. Which would be very romantic, were it not for the fact that our four-year-old Valentine was also traveling with us.What it lacked in romance, it made up for in family fun, and by that I mean we spent an ungodly amount of time in the cesspool of bacterial funk hotel swimming pool.

In all of the years I traveled for work and spent half of my life in hotels, I don't know that I ever even saw a hotel swimming pool. Since I've had a kid? That is the first amenity we look for when booking a room, as we love her and want her to have a good time it helps with a little something we like to call "Operation Wear Her Out."

After two days of having the pool to ourselves, we were surprised when a group of people walked into the pool area. And even more surprised to discover that it was a women's college volleyball team.

Each of the women was approximately nine feet tall, looked amazing in her (tiny) bikini, and spent the next  hour frolicking in the hot tub and pool with all of the other nine foot tall, perfect-body volleyball players.

And then...they took off their tops and started making out. (Okay, not really. But still a pretty great Valentine's gift for Canetto that I totally took credit for.)

Two days later, I realized that this was, in fact, the gift that just keeps giving, as I discovered that I had ringworm behind my knee. (Calm down...it's NOT a worm, it's just an athletes-foot-type fungus.)  (Pause to dry heave...)

I did do a little research to find out what causes this...and guess what does? Right. Public pools. Full of bikini-clad college girls, I'm guessing.

Next year, I'm totally buying him chocolates.

A Snippet

Some good friends of ours just had their second son. Which means that we get to attend a bris this coming weekend. (Note to self: Vienna sausages are funny in theory but wrong on a couple of different levels when offered as a hostess gift at a bris.)

The bris for their older son was the first I'd ever attended. It was so emotional and the mohel was hilarious (who knew Jews were so funny???), and with the exception of my husband actually turning green while anticipating the inevitable, it was by far the nicest ceremonial rite I have attended that ends with someone getting a body part hacked off over bagels and lox. Or at least one of the nicest.

I'll be the shiksa screaming "Fore!"
Brutalism

Just Beat It

Yesterday, I again unsuspectingly stepped into the minefield of filth that is children's literature.

Well...at least Sally is honest, right?

Snowtorious

As mentioned in my last post, we have a lot of snow in the DC area. A LOT lot. Like, more than we have ever had in recorded history. It is at the same time breathtakingly beautiful and a tremendous pain in the ass (not unlike Megan Fox, from what I hear.) What it also is, apparently, is an excuse for otherwise respected journalists and reporters to coin new terms and phrases such as:

SNOWMAGEDDON!

SNOWPOCALYPSE!

SNOWMONGOUS WINTER!

SnOMG!

(Clearly, I don't approve of this practice at all.)

I was just hanging out with some neighbors in our cul de sac and one of them was mentioning that the local weatherman is thrilled with the storm and the round-the-clock coverage. He said, "the guy probably heard we were getting several more inches and got a huge erection."

To which I replied, "Don't you mean a huge SNOWRECTION?"

It is all I can take and I can't take snow more,
Brutalism

All Work And Snow Play

Here in the DC area, we have been buried in snow for the past three days. Since we, as an area, do not deal with this amount of snow well, I still cannot get out of my cul de sac to any main road. Because I am someone who requires quite a bit of alone time, I am about twelve minutes away from turning into Jack Nicholson in The Shining.

Rather than being frightened by this, my husband instead views this as some sort of invitation to test my limits of patience:

Canetto: "You know, you have a short fuse."

Me: "I don't think so. I am just getting cabin fever."

Canetto: (while poking me repeatedly): "Short fuse. Short fuse. Short fuse. Short fuse. Short fuse."

Me: "Oh. My. God. STOP IT RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!"

Canetto: (calmly and matter of factly) "See? Short fuse."

Writing redrum on the mirror,
Brutalism

Valley Girl

I just spent the past four days in Harrisonburg, Virginia -- a lovely area in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley where I went to college -- JMU, but only because Eastern Mennonite University would not have me. Something about my sinful love of patterns or something... ("I am totally going to hell" aside: There was a Mennonite girl who went to my high school. Because we were totally accepting of people from all different backgrounds, we referred to her all through high school as "Girl With Thing On Head" and even used a shorthand of "GWTOH" to reference her...which we did...often.)

Right now, GWTOH is somewhere looking at this:

and thinking, "Right. And you called *ME* Girl With Thing on Head?" (And by the way, she could have totally referred to me during high school as FTOG -- or "Fat Tub Of Goo," the fat being a reflection of my spiritual life...the one where I worshipped at the altar of Little Debbie...)

Harrisonburg and the surrounding areas are notable for not only the gorgeous mountain views and institutions of higher learning, but also for the (astonishing) number of "Git R Done" and "I'm only speeding because I have to poop" bumper stickers we spotted in our four days in town.

We spent most of our time at a local ski resort, and a little time in town. And it seemed like wherever we went, we were confronted with those vending machines in which you put a quarter and in return, receive a grimy handful of three-year-old Mike and Ikes . I don't know what it is about these things that attracts a young child faster than Roman Polanski's hot tub, but we were being pestered for quarters constantly by our daughter. To divert her attention, we found a toy vending machine and gave her some money...which is when she became the proud owner of the cheapest possible knock-off version of Billy Bob teeth.

She played with these all night and all the next morning. When we went to breakfast at a local place, she put the teeth in and smiled at the waitress...a waitress who smiled back with the EXACT SAME TEETH.

Gittin' R Done,
Brutalism