Never say never

Things I always thought were gross that I now don't mind:

• Oatmeal cookies
• Sour cream
• Holiday "this-is-what-the-Jones'-have-been-up-to-for-twelve-months" letters
• Baby saliva

Things that I used to love that I now think are gross:

• Cool Ranch Doritos
• Dean's "guacamole-flavored" dip
• Bologna
• Sleeping all day on the weekends (but I'm pretty sure this is just sour grapes)

112 ... more

Some of you were kind enough to ask for this list. As requested ...

1. I always open ketchup packets two at a time. If there’s only one in the bag, I’d rather not have ketchup at all.
2. I bake when I’m stressed.
3. I know what it feels like to fly. I think it comes from my dreams.
4. Before I met my husband, I was convinced I would skydive someday. Now, I’d rather not take that kind of chance.
5. I feel like a better person when my pantry is organized.
6. I would love to chuck every article of clothing I have and just start over.
7. Cotton candy creeps me out.
8. Because I always rode my bike in the same direction around our circular neighborhood and took all right turns, it was years before I could smoothly turn LEFT while riding.
9. I love jigsaw puzzles.
10. I think I’ve forgotten how to play. I hope my son can teach me how to do it again.
11. I really don’t like being outside all that much, at least not in my hot, muggy hometown.
12. I still don’t know how to put on eyeshadow properly.
13. I love not having student loans anymore. A part of me honestly believed I’d have to spend the rest of my life paying them back. (Thank you, husband, for your incredible debt management. It’s really more like debt slaughtering, I guess. You rock.)
14. I’m thankful my parents never let me wear makeup in high school. It made for crappy prom pictures, but I think it’s why I like my skin now.
15. If allowed to spend freely, I would buy too many books and greeting cards.
16. I only like coffee if it tastes like something else.
17. I have a secret passion for stadium nachos.
18. I once went on the Atkins diet and lost 20 pounds. However, I grossly overestimated my ability to live a life without potatoes or dessert. (Hello again, hips.)
19. I prefer to close window blinds such that they slope down from inside the room to outside. I think they block more light that way.
20. Flying a kite is terrifying to me. The way the wind tugs the string in your hand makes the kite feel alive, like some kind of powerful bird of prey trying to get away.
21. I dread the day my son starts school, because that means I’ll be a slave to a school schedule again. (But for other reasons, too. Like, I’ll miss him.)
22. I never rode the bus to school. I always lived too close, and was therefore never on the route.
23. I didn’t get my driver’s license until I was 18.
24. I taught myself to blow bubbles while chewing grape Bubbalicious gum.
25. I wish they made Flintstones vitamins for adults.
26. I don’t like food that is so spicy it hurts. Why do habanero peppers even exist?
27. I am a member of Amazon Prime.
28. I’m a pretty good shot with a .22 handgun.
29. I totally can’t handle a .45.
30. I never had a bad English teacher. I think that’s why I fell in love with the subject so deeply and later majored in it in college.
31. Before becoming an English major, I tried my hand at an accounting major. No one benefited from that experience.
32. The best paper I ever wrote as an English major was for a film class. It was an 18-page paper on the role of technology in the first two “Terminator” films.
33. The highest praise I ever received on a paper was on one I wrote about the fall of man in Milton’s “Paradise Lost.” My professor (whom I idolized) wrote, “You taught me something about this work that I didn’t know.”
34. Watching football makes me swear way too much. It’s very unladylike.
35. I believe that my mom’s lasagna is the way lasagna is supposed to taste.
36. The only two times I’ve ever had an asthma attack, I was playing Laser Tag. I’m not sure what’s more embarrassing – the fact that I played Laser Tag, or the fact that it made me so excited on two different occasions that I had asthma attacks.
37. Though I’m getting better about it, I still care way too much what other people think.
38. I pray more now than I ever have before in my life.
39. My prayers have largely changed from starting with “Please …” to starting with “Thank you for …”. I lead a truly charmed life.
40. I prefer Ovaltine to Nestle Quik.
41. I haven’t watched TV regularly in six months. Turns out the only thing I miss is “The Office.” Oh, and “Lost.”
42. While running through a parking lot (wearing hiking boots – I know, brilliant), I stumbled and fell, splitting my eyebrow open to the bone. That was the first time I ever got stitches, and the last time I ever took my brother up on the challenge, “Race you to the car.”
43. I love pot pies.
44. I’ve never ordered lobster for myself.
45. I’ve been known to strike up conversations with strangers on a regular basis.
46. Of the handful of times in my life I’ve been pulled over for speeding (ok, maybe six or seven), I’ve gotten an actual speeding ticket only once.
47. When I get really tired, my legs ache right behind the knees.
48. One of the reasons I love my husband is because he knows this about me, and when he sees me fading, will ask, “Getting that ache behind the knees?” And then he makes me put my feet up.
49. I still don’t know what I want to do when I grow up.
50. … but I know what I want to be. And that’s a wife to this man, a mom to this boy, and a member of this Faith.
51. I don’t know how to drive a stick.
52. My first car was an ’86 Ford Bronco, full size. Made me feel tough as nails, being a girl and driving that truck. It was a piece of crap but I still miss it.
53. I’ve never had a perm.
54. I’m a firm believer in the C.A.Y.G. cooking philosophy … Clean As You Go. Who wants to tackle an entire meal’s worth of dishes and pots and pans after dessert?
55. I have never taken a real risk with my hair other than to go short. I’m thinking, now that I’m a stay-at-home mom and out of the corporate dress-coded world, it’s time to do something daring.
56. I believe that if you lie on your back in the grass and stare up at the clouds, you can feel the earth moving.
57. I am a recent convert to the beauty of naps.
58. Cookie Monster and Ernie are my favorite Sesame Street characters.
59. I have never roller-skated.
60. Sometimes I still surprise myself with how many 80s songs I know all the lyrics to.
61. I’m appalled at the grammar of the previous item on my list.
62. I miss gorging myself on good fiction like I used to, before I became a mom.
63. I’ve never been stung by a bee.
64. In junior high, I was hit in the head by an aluminum baseball bat during P.E., resulting in a concussion, an enormous lump on my forehead, and a hospital stay. My science class made me a get-well poster with a unicorn on it, along with everyone’s signatures.
65. I used to believe that if I could only twirl fast enough, I would turn into Wonder Woman.
66. When I was in high school, I carried around a copy of the lyrics to Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again” in my purse for at least a year.
67. That fact still makes me laugh now.
68. I used to regularly attend hip-hop dance classes with a girlfriend. I had a great memory for the routines we learned but a significantly-less-than-perfect execution. Put another way – I’m not getting any callbacks for MTV videos anytime soon.
69. I’m addicted to XM Radio.
70. I’ve become one of those annoying people on facebook who primarily uses photos of his or her child as a profile picture. I don’t even care that it’s annoying. The kid is freakin’ cute and also the best part of me.
71. I feel the same way about blow-drying my hair as I do about working out – I hate doing it, but I always feel better once I finish.
72. I once carried a 27-pound bass drum three miles during a Fourth of July parade while suffering from a pinched nerve in my back, all because someone said to me, “don’t be a hero.” Moral of the story: Don’t tell me I can’t do something. Also: I’m a moron. It really hurt.
73. I have absolutely no desire to ever 1) go to Mardi Gras, 2) go on a cruise, 3) try snorkeling, 4) learn to scuba-dive.
74. Things that nest perfectly for storage make me happy (like Tupperware, glass mixing bowls, shoeboxes).
75. I hate hanging up clothes. I’ll always prefer to fold them and put them in a drawer.
76. I’ve always used bits of blue ribbon to identify my suitcases at the airport. Now that I’m about to tie new ribbon onto new suitcases, I think I’ll go orange.
77. I make killer baklava.
78. I’ve never made a main course that I thought turned out well, unless you can count soups as entrees.
79. I really want to visit the Highlands of Scotland someday.
80. LASIK is in my future. I’m tired of never knowing what time it is in the middle of the night until I’ve felt for and put on my glasses by feel in the dark.
81. I’ve never had a surprise birthday party thrown for me.
82. Unless you’re talking about dirty diapers or IRS audits, I love surprises.
83. I get very cranky if I don’t get enough 1) quiet time to myself, 2) chocolate, 3) opportunities to have control over some decisions, even if they’re as small as what’s for dinner.
84. My gramma, who died of breast cancer when I was 15, once owned a lovely little print of a woman in a yellow dress reading a book. Years later, while volunteering (in honor of my gramma) at a breast cancer event, I bid on the same print in a silent auction without realizing the connection. When I got it home, my mom told me it was the same picture. I believe that was my gramma telling me she loves me.
85. I hate, with great virulence, doing yardwork.
86. I write excellent thank-you notes.
87. I’m awful at actually keeping up with thank-you notes. But when I write them … see number 86.
88. I still sometimes catch myself squinching my eyes closed while I brush my teeth, the way I did when I was five. I don’t know why I do it.
89. I love having brothers.
90. It’s only within the last 10 years that I’ve learned how to be a good friend to other women.
91. I have stopped my car and gotten out to help turtles get safely to the other side of the road.
92. When I buy candles or hand soap, I always buy food-y smells. Flowery smells give me migraines.
93. I will never understand why I have good handwriting days and bad handwriting days.
94. I love my handwriting on good handwriting days.
95. My brother and I used to play church and pretend that small potato chips were Communion wafers. We’d solemnly intone, “The body of Christ,” as we fed each other Ruffles. Sacrilegious? Probably.
96. I’d rather be cold than hot.
97. I’d rather hold my tongue and be miserable than open my mouth and hurt someone’s feelings or make them feel bad. Even when they deserve it.
98. I have to talk myself out of opening my first Caffeine-free Coke of the day at 8 a.m., so intense is my craving for Coke. I love the fact that the bubbles are so sharp that it hurts my throat and makes my eyes water.
99. I’ve seen “The Shawshank Redemption” maybe nine or ten times, and still get hooked every time I hear Red’s voiceover narrative on cable.
100. I feel like I’m keeping up with technological advances by the skin of my teeth. In a few years, I imagine I’ll be “that woman” who has to get her five-year-old to help her transfer numbers from one cell phone to another.
101. I miss sleeping in on the weekends, but watching my infant son wake up smiling (even though it’s at 7 a.m.) is more than enough compensation for the loss.
102. I tend to vote Democrat.
103. I do not have an eye for interior decorating at all. I rely on the judgment of my sisters-in-law and girlfriends.
104. My favorite Lousia May Alcott book isn’t “Little Women,” but “An Old-Fashioned Girl.” I have my mom’s cousin’s copy, which is dated 1911 on the flyleaf. I love the way the pages smell. It’s like holding my own private vintage library in my hand.
105. I was voted “Most Likely to Succeed” in high school. These days, as I untangle my son’s little fingers from my hair and wipe his drool off my shoulder, I have never felt like more of a success.
106. Every year since I lost my gramma and grampa, I visit their graves when my family and I travel back to my mom’s hometown. Every year, I spend a few minutes telling them what’s happened lately with me and what I hope they’re watching from heaven. Every year, I cry.
107. I prefer dark meat to white meat.
108. I’d rather load a dishwasher when friends leave the house than set out paper plates for them to use.
109. Taking a shower at the end of a long, sweaty travel day is de-LISH-ious.
110. I never know how much to talk to my massage therapist. I want to talk enough to make it not awkward, but I also want to just enjoy my expensive massage. Plus, it’s hard to relax and make “I’m-digging-this-massage” noises when you’re worried what you sound like. As much as I love massages, I always leave one feeling like I could have relaxed more.
111. I prefer Coke out of a can, over fountain Coke or bottled Coke (unless it’s in a glass bottle).
112. I have the feeling someday there will be a new 112.

At the risk of seeming self-absorbed ...

I found the exercise of the "112" so stimulating that I'm working on version "1.1". I started it just for my own gratification, but am having so much fun with it that I'm considering putting it here. I'll post it if there's interest -- leave me a comment if you have any desire to read through another random list.

I think I've probably completely missed the point of how other bloggers have done it -- the two lists I've seen on other sites were carefully crafted to represent what seemed to embody each writer's core personality. But as you all know, I don't edit. So my 112 ended up being some things about me, not the definitive ones.

Plus, as rockalamp says, it seems ridiculous to assume that any one thing would permanently define any of us. I like the idea of doing the 112 periodically to see how I'm evolving, and would welcome the chance to read others' lists, whether it's the first take or the third or the eleventh.

"Distinctive" cookies, moronic marketing staff

Dear Pepperidge Farm:

As a long-time customer, I have a few questions to pose to you. In light of the loyal constancy I've shown your products and company (especially throughout my recent pregnancy), I'm certain that you will welcome my candor on these matters. I've long been either confused or irritated by two things about your marketing, and wanted to raise these issues to your attention.

First: When I am faced with the task of choosing from among your delicious cookie varieties, I almost always note the fact that your Milano cookies and your Double Chocolate Milano cookies are selling for the same price. This disturbs me for several reasons, which I will attempt to enumerate for you. If your Double Chocolate Milanos contain truly TWO TIMES the chocolate of the regular type, then why does the price not reflect this tremendous difference in chocolate-y goodness? With the current pricing strategy, you imply one of a number of things:

• Your chocolate is actually of such a low quality that using twice as much doesn't add any value for the customer or cost you any more; or
• You use so little high-quality chocolate in the regular Milanos that doubling the amount for the Double Chocolate Milanos doesn't impact your manufacturing costs; or
• Your marketing department is incompetent and fails to recognize the opportunity to offer either a savings for regular Milano customers or a chance for Pepperidge Farm to charge premium prices to choc-o-holics such as myself for the Double Chocolate variety; or
• You don't really use twice as much chocolate at all.

None of these implied truths is flattering to Pepperidge Farm, as I'm certain you can clearly see. Since I am no idiot, and recognize a bargain when I see one, I will continue to purchase your Double Chocolate Milanos happily, reveling in what I feel is indeed more chocolate than the regular variety (though I don't know that I am actually getting TWICE the chocolate I'm used to in the regular Milanos). However, your attention to the matter I've stated will enhance my confidence in your company immensely.

Second: I have noted on many occasions to myself that your cookies are packaged usually with five cookies in one "level" of your distinctive bags, with each bag containing several levels of cookies. However, you persist in stating that a "serving" of your cookies consists of two cookies. I ask you: Why do you torment me? If you package five cookies in one paper cup that EASILY fits in the palm of my hand, I consider one serving to be five cookies, not two. When will you recognize this, and either repackage your fine products, or update your nutritional information? As the situation currently stands, if I wish to know the nutritional value of the cookies I am consuming, I'm forced to do mental math that eludes my sleep-deprived new-mommy brain. Please address this matter on future packages of your delicious cookies. Also: You owe me $69.50 for a new pair of jeans I was forced to buy as a result of consuming your true "servings". I will gladly accept a check in this amount by mail, or you can contact me for PayPal information.

Your attention to these issues is greatly appreciated.

"Now that you're home all day, don't you get bored?"

Typical day:

7:10 a.m.: Boy wakes up. We greet the day with playtime and (most likely) the first of the day's "dirties." This production is usually quite voluminous and aromatic, and therefore very impressive.

7:35: We've now cycled from the activity mat to the Exer-saucer, where I am treated to, once again, the sounds that a cat, a dog, a cow and a duck make, plus their names in English and Spanish, as well as Baby Einstein's take on appropriate musical tunes for each animal, which include three classical pieces and, inexplicably, one bad rendition of "Old McDonald Had a Farm."

7:50: The Exer-saucer has now grown tiresome, so we move to a towel on the floor, where we play peek-a-boo, doodlebug (in which boy practices his rolling skills), and usually spit up a little (boy, not me). This starts the day's laundry pile, which will grow to remarkable proportions over the next 12 hours.

8:15: Boy begins to whine, signalling that he's tired and starting to think about a morning nap (yes, already). To buy some time, I employ the trustworthy swing, where he relaxes for 15 minutes while I run to the restroom if I'm lucky. (Hey, even mommies need to pee.)

8:45: Boy winds down for his nap while nursing. Since we have not yet sleep-trained our daytime naps, this means I'm lying down with him -- something I don't mind, since if I'm sleepy as well, it's the perfect chance to catch a nap myself.

10:00: Naptime's over! Recharged, boy signals his readiness to attack the day properly by vacillating between maniacal giggling because he's happy to be playing, and whining because he's already seen everything interesting in the house. I keep him occupied in a Pack-n-Play while I put on something presentable and make sure a comb's been dragged through my hair, which has air-dried from last night's shower and is therefore presenting a style I call "homeless chic."

10:20: We head out to one of our usual haunts to pass some time and give boy a chance to see something besides our living room. This means we're at Randall's, Super-Target or Panera Bread. I take the opportunity to pick up a few things for tonight's dinner, which only has a 50% chance of actually being cooked.

11:45: We're back home, and boy is usually protesting vociferously while I unload groceries from the car, since it's been two hours since he woke up and he's really ready for another nap. When reminded that mommy has not yet eaten anything herself and would love to inhale a bowl of cereal at least, boy responds with a screech that I can only interpret as a strong statement of apathy to this fact.

Noon: Hands and faces washed after our outing, boy and I lie down for another nap. Only this time I'm too keyed up, sweaty from running around, and mentally awake to sleep, so I surf the net on my iPhone or make to-do lists while boy snoozes. The to-do lists are usually overly optimistic representations of what I want to accomplish when boy awakens, but hey -- I'm nothing if not a positive thinker.

1:30: If boy has not been awakened before now by phone calls, UPS men, lawn services or the neighbor's dog, he's up now and ready to play again. Since he's still bored with what's in the living room, we move our operations upstairs to his nursery, where I have to do a lot of initial work to prove to him that no, it's not yet bedtime and there's no need to protest being put in his crib. See? See the monkey? See your mobile? Let's sing your ABCs -- again!! A, B, C, D, E, F, G, how-I-wish-you'd-let-me-pee ...

1:45: If it's a solid-food day (currently three times a week), we head back downstairs to the kitchen where rice cereal or fruit is prepared for consumption. Whether I get the temperature and consistency just right or not will dictate how much of this food I will be wearing at the end of our feeding session. Feeding boy is a two-handed job at this point, so there's not yet any hope of eating my own lunch yet.

2:15: Swabbed down from his lunch and temporarily sated, boy revisits his Exer-saucer while I grab a bite. Typical fare consists of Laughing Cow cheese and crackers, plus some goldfish and maybe a Reese's mini-peanut butter cup. And a swig out of a cold can of Caffeine-free Coke, which I am destined to never once finish. Phone calls are returned, e-mail checked, laundry folded, dishes put away from last-night's dishwasher-unload, and the husband called, as long as boy is playing happily. Which means I usually get one and a half items on the preceding list actually done.

2:50: Eye-rubbing commences, signalling the onset of nap #3. I have to decide whether I lie down with boy again or play bad-mommy and let him fall asleep in his swing. The state of the house usually makes this call for me.

4:00: Boy's up again and willing to play, though not nearly as cheerful as he was in the morning. We sing songs, practice our sign language and start dinner if he's willing to sit in one place for 10 minutes at a time. Which is rare. (We eat a LOT of Subway these days.)

5:30: Boy's starting to enter "night-mode", which means he's wondering when I'll get off my butt and start his bath and the rest of his bedtime routine. Daddy's on the way home, so we stall by walking down the street to check the mail.

6:10: Dad's home! Boy perks up to play for a few minutes. While dad blows bubbles on boy's tummy to the tune of delighted shrieks, I clear out the kitchen sink to fit boy's bathtub into it.

6:30: The excitement over seeing Dad is wearing off in the face of boy's sleepiness, so we start our bath. Once bathtime's over, we read a book ("Ten Little Ladybugs" by Melanie Gerth, which presents the opportunity to count in English, Vietnamese and Farsi, plus name animal names in Farsi as well), sing two prayers, and then it's another chance to nurse and relax for bedtime.

7:10: In the crib for the night (boy, not me). Current mode is to cry for 30 minutes, then fall asleep. While boy sleeps (and before the first feeding), I take the opportunity to shower, eat, talk to my husband, return phone calls, fold more laundry, sort mail, make the bed and check e-mail.

10:30: Husband's in bed and I'm still online, drinking in quiet time. I know I should go to sleep, but a silent house has its own siren call to this mommy.

11:20: Boy awakens for first feeding. He's back asleep without a peep by 11:40.

1 a.m.: I finally turn in.

2:15: Boy awakens, but it's not yet time to eat, so he settles back down in 10 minutes. I, who have sat up in bed to watch him on our video monitor, try to do the same.

3:15: Boy awakens and is fed and changed. We're both back in respective beds by 3:40. He might squawk again before morning, but he settles once more within 10 minutes (while I too try to re-enter a sleep "mode" for another couple hours).

6 a.m.: Dad leaves for work, and brings boy down to me for morning snuggle time and another hour of sleep before we do it all over again.

It's not all fun, but it's mostly fun, and it's not easy, but it's SO worth it.

Million-dollar smile

I had dinner tonight with my blogging-fool friend stillhavesandinmyshoes. We ordered sushi and had it delivered -- talk about decadence. My favorite quote of the evening: "Sushi is the answer. I don't care what the question is."

It had been ages since we saw one another, and yet stepping into her hug was like coming home. I love that about her -- she's got the most incredible heart and you can feel the love when you're in her presence. Just her million-dollar smile will warm up a room instantly.

Anyway, as we frequently do when we're together, we got to talkin'. Not just the usual "how-are-you/I'm-fine-how's-work" crap -- I mean real talking. There were tears and Kleenex involved. And she amazes me because despite the fact that she is going through some serious sh*t, she was still so engaged in what was going on with ME.

She's the definition of grace, courage, strength and faith, and I admire her immensely. (So if you're reading, crazy girl, know that you are loved. And TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF.)

Brother, uncle, friend ... hero

Some of the blogs I follow were established for a specific purpose -- product reviews, film criticism, recipe-sharing. I love that there are those out there who know what their vision is for self-expression, and can discipline themselves to keep their musings to a particular topic.

Not me, so much.

I started this blog ages ago with no clue as to what I wanted to explore, capture, share or learn. I just started thinking and typing. As a result, over the last two years, this blog has seen its share of diverse topics. Very little of it hangs together (though the recent addition of lots of baby-related posts suggests an emerging emphasis).

That's why it's so incredibly flattering to me that anyone would read what I have to say here on anything approximating a regular basis. Sure -- if I wrote exclusively about tree frogs, then there would be amphibian-enthusiasts who checked me once a month for a new posting about adhesive feet or multiple sets of eyelids or something.

But no. I toss out random entries on diaper blowouts, control issues and how I eat M&Ms. I post musings about cab rides in Los Angeles, things that make me smile, and explanations of what I like about reading novels. If you graphically approximated the topics I cover with a scattergram, you'd have something that looked like the big-bang theory -- dots everywhere, with no discernible pattern.

And yet, my 23-year-old brother checks this blog every night. I get e-mails or text messages at midnight or later telling me that he's read the latest post and loved it. On other occasions, when I've alluded to a post, he's right there with me, quoting myself back to me with sincerity and earnestness. I still have the text message he sent me one night when I texted him that there was a new post as of the night before. "already read it. dont u know im your biggest fan? :) "

His regular readership is all the more ego-boosting to me because I think he's one of the best things that ever happened to me. Though ten years younger than me, he's the one who has steered me to elements of pop culture I love that I never would have discovered otherwise (like "The Office," "Family Guy" and more). He is constantly making me laugh -- me, and everyone else who knows him -- he's cripplingly funny. He has always, always accepted me for who I am, never once seeming to go through that "my-older-sister-is-so-very-LAME" phase that has struck just about every other younger sibling I've ever known. He always helps me when I need him, whether it's with rebooting my iPhone, creating custom ringtones, taking out the trash at my house when I was nine months pregnant and my husband had to travel for work, or helping my neighbors get into their house when they locked themselves out (he's got mad lock-picking skills). When I'm down, he reaches out to tell me he believes in me, and that it'll be ok. When I've had some small victory in my life, he celebrates with me, even if it's as small as losing three pounds, or as unrelated to him as enjoying a great night of swing-dance-teaching.

And it's not just ME to whom he's amazing. He's so supportive of our mom, acting as a sounding-board when she needs it, a shoulder to lean on when it's required. He's a great brother-in-law to my husband -- they think the same way, and seeing them enjoy each other's company warms me to my core. Best of all, my brother adores my son, and delights in his babyness in a way that melts me. He's an incredible uncle to my little guy, and I can think of no greater wish than that my son grows up to be like his youngest uncle.

And so, youngest brother -- this one's for you. I am YOUR biggest fan. I will always rejoice in whatever brings you joy, whether it's a good bowl of Thai soup, an amazing friend and partner in miss M (as I call your girlfriend), or an entire season of Seinfeld on DVD. Thank you for making this disjointed little blog a part of your daily life. Thank you for reading it sincerely and absorbing it for the random things it says about me. Thank you for making me feel interesting -- because if YOU, whom I find fascinating, think I'm interesting, maybe there's hope for me yet.

My life is better because you're in it.

Midnight madness

As many of you know, I'm a new mom. And I'm tremendously lucky to have gone through the pregnancy and new-mom phases along with two amazing girlfriends -- we all delivered within four and a half months of each other, with their two babies being born two weeks apart.

My husband and I had our little one first, and so we got to do a little trailblazing. Our son's birth was a lengthy, difficult process, and I came home from the hospital well behind the proverbial eight-ball in terms of sleep and rest. The first two weeks especially brought challenges I had never dreamed of -- from the baby's well-defined sleep preferences (read: in someone's arms) to my own struggle with baby blues and unbelievable anxiety. I found myself so often lying awake at night while the baby snoozed in my husband's arms, wondering, "will something happen to him? am I doing this right? what if I make a mistake? what if my in-laws think I'm a terrible mother to their grandchild? what if he's not getting enough to eat? what if someone tries to kidnap him? what if I'm driving with him over an overpass near a bayou and I go off the road and we go into the water and Ican'tgethimoutofthecarseatOHMYGOD." I was such a wreck that simple things like the baby spitting up reduced me to tears -- "I'm sorry," I would sob to the baby. "Mommy's so sorry."

With tremendous support from my husband, my family and my doctor, I made it through those rough first two weeks, only to deal with more challenges in the form of breastfeeding. What I had always believed to be a simple and natural process turned out to be a painful and arduous struggle. At times it would hurt so much that the simple act of picking up the baby to feed him would make me cry real tears, in anticipation of the excruciating pain. I never ONCE considered quitting -- it was important to me to breastfeed for a variety of reasons -- but it kicked my butt for a while.

And then there was the perfectionism.

I have always held myself to high standards. So what, right? Plenty of people do that to themselves. And I've accepted my tendency to set ridiculous expectations of myself in the past, succeeding at times and falling short at others. But when you cross impossible standards with no sleep and constant perceived scrutiny from others around you (which I now think was largely imagined on my part), you have a recipe for disaster. All I had wanted was to be a stay-at-home mom to our child, and yet each day I felt like I was messing up the very job I'd felt perfectly cut out for. I looked after the baby scrupulously, attending to his every need. I kept him clean, fed, and held him as he slept. I wrote down logs of when he ate and when he had diaper changes. I noted his first trip to the doctor, his first chance to try a pacifier, his first time in the swing. I was so deeply subsumed in caring for him that I convinced myself that even taking a nap and going "off-duty" was impossible. And I barely registered my husband for a while, and completely neglected myself.

Fast forward to today, five months later. I've found a bit more balance in my life, I'm glad to report, though I still struggle with feeling like I have to have each day be "perfect" for my son -- perfectly timed naps, just the right amount of stimulation, exciting outings to entertain him, no TV, lots of playtime, books, you name it. And I've learned a lot from this process, and when my two girlfriends had their babies recently, I stood by, ready to reassure them when they felt overwhelmed or when their babies cried or when they needed a break to nap or take a shower.

Except they've handled everything beautifully. My sister-in-law is so attuned to her month-old daughter that I'm in awe. They seem to have found a perfect daily rhythm of eating and sleeping, and have ventured out into the "real world" in ways I wasn't brave enough to try till much later. My other girlfriend handles motherhood as gracefully as if she's had training all her life. Each of these new mothers has sailed past the feeding challenges that I found cripplingly painful, and seems to get enough rest to feel functional each day. They both amaze me with the ease they bring to being mothers to their beautiful children. I feel lucky to be going through this process alongside both of them -- and yet, that part of my brain that demanded perfect test scores on American history exams and that required me to achieve the highest performance ratings distributed at work now makes itself heard again. "What did I do wrong?" I lay awake and wonder. "They make it look so easy. How did I manage to make it so complicated? ... Am I not cut out for this? Am I doing it all wrong?"

And worst of all, "Will all this somehow hurt the baby?"

It certainly hurts ME.

Maybe she'll sign my yearbook ...

So one of the most fun and random things about blogging, as stillhavesandinmyshoes has totally pointed out already, is that once you start posting regularly, you start *reading* other blogs regularly too. First it starts off with your friends' blogs. Then you see who they link to on their pages, and you check those out. And all of a sudden you're checking twelve blogs twice a day because there is so much good stuff out there, and so many smart and funny people writing about it.

Thus began my writer-crush on the "Things I Am Over!" blog. I found it through emlocke, whom I found through badlighting, whom I found through a mutual acquaintance who doesn't even blog that I'm aware. So there are at *least* four degrees of separation at work here.

Check it out. Click on any one of her "funny posts" in the right-hand column. And once again, thank me later.

With thanks to R and D

I've seen a lot of good dancers in my time. As a part-time swing dance instructor, I've developed an eye for that magical combination some people have of musicality, rhythm, grace and joy. And it seems to me that in most cases, the great dancers I've met end up marrying people who aren't that into dancing. Seems reasonable -- you meet your kindred spirit, and you click on a bunch of levels but are different enough to be interesting to each other, and maybe you're different about how you feel about dancing. I get it.

Every now and then, though, you see two people together who are both great dancers, and you watch them dance. Separately (with partners other than their spouses, I mean), they're impressively good -- they catch your eye and sometimes the people around them stop dancing to watch. I'm talking good. But when they dance together -- *that's* the treat.

You see, two great dancers who are also in love don't just dance to a song, and they don't just move their feet and arms and bodies. The great ones paint their whole marriages into each gesture. It's not in how close they stand or in how they know each other's bodies -- it's in a small smile that's meant just for each other. It's in the way they're emboldened by the comfort and security of one another to try new moves and rejoice when they work, or laugh together when they don't. You get the sense that they don't just move together -- they breathe together. They bring not just their training and experience to the dance floor, but their trust and their faith. They dance in whispers and feather-light touches in a way, because when one extends a hand, the other will already have an answering hand there to grasp it.

I watched a couple like that tonight. It was any song, playing at the monthly dance they've attended for years. There was nothing special about tonight. There wasn't a particularly great crowd out to share in the music. There was not a single thing that made that song special, that moment magical, except the two of them. And watching their simple, sweet and short dance together was such an intimate experience that I almost had to look away. It's not that it was lewd or suggestive -- on the contrary. It was perfectly appropriate. But they danced without barriers. They danced without fear, without reservations or hangups or second-guesses of themselves or each other. They danced without even the need to keep up with where they each ended and the other began, simply because they were part of a single unit anyway, so what did it matter?

I realized that as heartbreakingly lovely as it was to watch them tonight, theirs is a dance that will continue to ripen and develop over the years of their marriage. And someday at their 45th wedding anniversary, they'll look at each other in just the same way. The moves might be different, and the song will probably be slower. But they'll step into that tiny space and blend into one another fearlessly and effortlessly, all the more beautifully for the years they've invested in the practice of a marriage of dancing.

My favorite summer dinner

Since it's gotten so blazingly hot and oppressively muggy outside, my husband and I have tried to lighten our evening meals to counteract the stifling heat. Here's our current favorite dinner:

Ingredients:
4 whole wheat tortillas
2 cups cooked, cubed oven roasted chicken
4 tablespoons hummus (roasted red pepper hummus, if you can find it)
A generous handful of fresh basil leaves
1 cup sliced cucumber, seeded
1 diced red bell pepper
1 sliced avocado
Crumbled feta cheese (optional)
Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:
1. Spread 1 tablespoon hummus on half of each tortilla.
2. Divide the chicken, basil and veggies among all tortillas equally. Add feta cheese if you're using it.
3. Roll up into wraps and enjoy. These are great with fries, chips, a salad, fresh veggies -- anything goes.

Other tasty additions: Alfalfa sprouts, zucchini slices, roasted red pepper, guacamole, tomato, onions, cilantro.

You can thank me later.

It all started with brunch

I used to think I liked French toast the way my mom made it. She would dunk bread into the egg batter so quickly that it was really more like *showing* the bread to the eggs. Her French toast, then, was truthfully better described as battered bread – there were distinct layers to it, egg-bread-egg, as if it were a cross-section of an archaeological dig.

For years I ate it happily, after watching her prepare it with a careful eye. She’d crack the eggs into a flat pie plate, add a splash of milk and a pinch of salt, and beat it all together with chopsticks. Then she would take up the square white bread, hold it aloft in readiness, and turn to me. “You have to be fast,” she’d say. “Nothing can ruin your French toast more completely than if you really let all that egg soak in there. The bread’ll fall apart.” I’d nod, my eyes gleaming with avarice as I fiddled with the syrup bottle in anticipation. Flash! And flip! And into the pan. The toast would sizzle as it hit the hot butter. Within minutes, my brother and I would be leaning over our laden plates, eyes closed in beatific joy as we inhaled the smell of a wonderful weekend in the making.

When I got into high school and then college, sometimes the preparation of weekend breakfasts would fall to me. I dutifully prepared French toast just the way mom always did – assembling the necessary ingredients quickly, whisking the bread through the egg batter, and frying up platefuls of crispy, sizzling toast. My dad, who abhorred sweetness with any kind of protein, always skipped the syrup, rolling his eyes at us in derision as we poured it on thickly. He would slather butter onto his French toast and devour it as a savoury treat.

At some point, I must have been watching Nick at Night instead of writing a paper for college, because I caught an episode of “Family Ties” long after the show had actually gone off the air. Alex P. Keaton was telling little brother Andy how to prepare French toast. “First,” he squeaked in that charming Michael-J-Fox way, “you start your preparations a day ahead of time, because you have to let the bread soak in the egg batter for at LEAST 24 hours.” I wrinkled my nose at the TV. “Ugh. Mush!” The rest of Alex’s lecture went unnoticed as I marveled that anyone could actually let the bread sit in the batter for any longer than a second or two. Shuddering in distaste, I eventually turned off the TV to focus on my homework.

It was years later when some small voice made itself heard on a fateful weekend. There I was, looking down at all the familiar accoutrement of the French toast ritual, when I thought, “But really – how mushy would it get?” I decided to do a little experiment. Teeming with guilt that I was departing from the method my mother had taken such care to instill within me (those Catholic mothers know what they’re doing with the guilt thing), I purposefully prepared the egg batter first before preheating my frying pan. Then I dropped the bread into the egg batter and stepped back. Turning my back on the plate to avoid the temptation of snatching the bread right back out again, I busied myself with the pan. When it was finally ready, I turned back to the pie plate to look at the bread, half-expecting to see that it had dissolved completely – but it looked fine. I had to use a little more care getting it into the frying pan, but once there, it fried up with no ill effects – it didn’t lose its shape, take any longer to cook, or splatter any more than it normally did. Somewhat disappointed in this seemingly normal production, I slid the toast onto a plate, cooled it off with a little maple syrup, and prepared to enjoy a distressingly routine brunch.

How wrong I was. Once I’d cut through the toast with the side of my fork and taken the first bite, I knew in an instant that I was on to something. The crispiness of the toast – yes, that was familiar and quite delicious. But the inside of the toast – there dwelled a creamy, custardy heaven I never would have fathomed. Somehow, the bread itself had been transformed into a smooth and fluffy filling of sorts for my crusty French toast shell. I ate my breakfast ecstatically, unwilling to take even a short break to call my mother and tell her about my discovery. (When I finally did call her, she was not impressed.)

From then on, the French toast ritual has never been the same. Not only do I relish the chance to let the bread soak in the batter, I add flavors with glee, experiment fearlessly with ingredients. Cinnamon makes its way into the batter regularly, as does vanilla. I’ve departed from white bread to try my hand at croissant French toast, or cinnamon raisin bread French toast. I saw recently that there’s a restaurant in Austin that does a carrot cake French toast I’m dying to try. But my favorite thing about the ritual now is that it’s mine. I finally woke up and smelled what I was cooking, departing from the way I’d been told to do something, instead finding my own path.

Since then, I’ve taken stock of a lot of things I picked up along the way to today, to see if they’re really mine. Some things still fit comfortably, whereas others suffered the same fate as mom’s French toast methods. The looking, though – that’s what’s important.

Come fly the friendly skies

My husband and I took our four-and-a-half month old son on his first plane trip recently. Here are some things I learned during that adventure.

1. Everything you thought you knew about air travel just became obsolete now that you're traveling with a baby. Even if you're a seasoned veteran of the post-9/11 airport thing, this is a whole new world.
2. You will always feel like you forgot something huge when you leave the house.
3. The baby has tiny clothes, but still needs significant room in a suitcase, once you consider diapers, wipes, blankets, toys, bath accessories and other various sundries.
4. The security personnel who man the X-ray machines don't care that this is your first time flying with a baby.
5. It takes longer than you think to disassemble the car seat/carrier from the stroller base and collapse it all to place on the X-ray machine conveyor belt.
6. If you don't place the car seat/carrier face down on the belt, it will get stuck.
7. It takes approximately seven minutes, two security personnel and one exasperated dad to "un-stick" a car seat from an X-ray machine conveyor belt.
8. A security line at the airport can back up impressively in seven minutes.
9. The guy behind you at the security line doesn't care it's your first time traveling with a baby, either.
10. It's very hard to tie your sneakers when you're wearing a baby in a Baby Bjorn carrier on your chest.
11. Your husband probably has his hands full with the carrier, stroller, backpack and diaper bag, plus boarding passes, and can't help you with your shoes.
12. People at airports don't even think twice about hacking into their grimy hands and then reaching out to touch your baby.
13. It's very convenient to wear your baby in a carrier, since you can lean back out of the reach of hacking people who want to touch your baby.
14. Airports are way dirtier than you remember them being, once you take your baby through one.
15. It will not kill your baby to be in a germ-y environment for a few hours, as long as you take reasonable precautions. Also, buy stock in Purell once you learn you're going to have a baby, as you will spend a fortune on this stuff.
16. The mild gravitational force you feel during takeoff apparently causes four-and-a-half month old baby boys to void their bowels in forceful, violent and pungent ways, often requiring a change of clothes.
17. There is not enough room in an airport lavoratory for two parents and a four-and-a-half month old with a soiled diaper.
18. When one parent stands outside the lavoratory with the diaper bag and supplies while the other wrestles with the child (who's laying on a changing table the size of a dinner plate), the antics are on display to any passengers seated beyond the lavoratories. If you can manage a wry comment directed at the rest of the plane, you will get some chuckles that may earn you some forgiveness when your kid starts wailing later.
19. A four-and-a-half month old baby boy is strong enough to pull up your discreet nursing cover.
20. The guy across the aisle from you is probably looking, too.
21. Somehow, flashing the guy across the aisle doesn't bother you as much as you thought it would. You're probably too damn tired to care.
22. People can surprise you with their compassion and decency. When you apologize for your crying baby and offer earplugs to the folks around you, almost all of them will decline, saying, "Ah, I've got kids/grandkids of my own -- I know how it is."
23. After all the headaches and juggling of gear, you can look back on the trip and marvel at how well your little one handled a major disruption in his or her short life, and feel proud of the kid. And of yourselves.

Jukebox baby

I grew up singing. But my musical repertoire wasn't limited to just nursery rhymes and children's music. I cut my teeth on seventies rock and easy listening, with some classical music thrown in for variety.

You see, I was born when my parents were in their early 20s. And like most college-student 20-somethings, they spent a great deal of their time with music playing in the background as they studied and went about their days. So when I came along, they just continued that practice as a matter of course.

My earliest memories have music in them. Some of them involve my grandmother singing me traditional lullabies, but more likely they center around CCR, Bread, Lobo, Juice Newton and Chuck Mangione. I played with Barbies as they rocked to AC/DC. I pushed around my brother's Tonka truck as the Mamas and the Papas sang "California Dreamin'." I helped my mom dust and vacuum as Copeland's "Rodeo" thundered through the house. My younger brother and I knew all the words to "Coward of the County" and "The Gambler" and sang along with Kenny Rogers every chance we got. I lay awake in bed on nights my dad's friends came over, listening to Vietnamese folk and popular music as it filtered through the walls from the living room. Years later, when I was a member of our office's party planning committee in the consulting firm where I worked, I noted aloud that we could enliven a summer office barbecue with John Fogerty and Santana. "What are you," asked my market leader, a senior partner in the firm, "some kind of hippie?"

Recently, my husband and I agreed we wanted to surround our son with music, just as we'd grown up. So today I launched iTunes and hit "play," setting my library to "shuffle." Within an hour or so, he'd heard Queen, several tracks from "My Fair Lady", "Rent" and "Les Miserables," Michael Buble, Soundgarden, the Dixie Chicks, Bill Withers, and more. I have no idea whether he absorbed any of it or if he even noticed it. And yet there may come a day when he runs across a throwback station on XM radio and sings along with Michael Jackson. One can only hope.

112 things

I've read two great blogs lately (emlocke and badlighting.blogspot.com) which featured lists of 112 things about their writers. I thought it was so clever that I did my own list.

These are things you'd know about me only on a "need to know" basis. If you know most of them, you're super special. If you know all of them, you should check to see if you are, in actuality, me.

1. I love sun-dried tomatoes, but hate fresh ones.


2. When I was a little girl, I loved to draw. For some reason, the two things I remember drawing over and over again are ballerina feet en pointe, and whale tails.


3. I always wanted to be an astronaut. The movie "Space Camp" was my personal "Rocky."


4. I support the anti-fur movement, but secretly think fur feels amazing. I mean, not amazing enough for it to be ok to kill something, but wow.


5. I've read "Jane Eyre" once a year since I was in the eighth grade.


6. I'm a stay-at-home mom with two degrees, and no, I DON'T think that's a waste of my education.


7. I think raw oysters are gross. If you have to serve something with Saltines and Tabasco to even make it appetizing, it's not worth it.


8. When I was in the fifth grade, I played an angel in the school play. The play was called "Follow That Star," and was about three astronauts who follow the North Star to the baby Jesus. No joke.


9. In elementary school, I was third-to-last out in the school spelling bee. I misspelled "chimney."


10. My husband and I, both non-drinkers, met in a bar.


11. The movie "The Hunt for Red October" can always rope me in.


12. The last movie I saw in the theater was "Cloverfield." I couldn't even watch all of it due to my crippling motion sickness.


13. Bing cherries are my favorite fruit, hands down.


14. The only kind of apple I really like eating is the Honeycrisp kind. It also seems to be the kind with the shortest growing season.


15. I love good jewelry, but own very little. (If any of you out there are looking for gift ideas, or anything.)


16. I am terrified of water. Almost all my nightmares have water in them.


17. I could probably eat sushi, Vietnamese spring rolls, Thai tom kai gai soup or just about any kind of Indian food every day.


18. When I was in junior high, I starred in an Oscar Wilde play called, "The Importance of Being Ernest." Our drama class was short on literate guys, so I was cast as one of the two male leads, opposite the guy I actually had a "thing" for in real life. So I essentially played a Wilde character in reverse drag to get a guy to notice me. Sometimes all you can do is shake your head and laugh.


19. My first real job was as a collections manager for Blockbuster Video.


20. The first cable channel I check when I turn on the TV is the Food Network.


21. I once tried out for and earned a spot on a professional cheerleading squad. It was as an alternate, and the squad was cheering for a now-defunct arena football team, but still.


22. My favorite pizza: extra cheese, veggie supreme, 86 the onions.


23. I think a man's sexiest accessory is a wedding band. Commitment is H-O-T.


24. I believe everyone has a natural superpower. For instance, I have a girlfriend who can go to the grocery store *without a list* and not forget a single thing she wanted. My natural superpower is estimation. If I'm setting the dinner table and I grab a jumble of silverware and a stack of napkins, I'm likely to get the count exactly right. Please - hold your applause. (I never said it was sexy.)


25. I always regret eating cinnamon rolls. They seem to embody excess. When I do eat one, I eat it as if I were unrolling a wound-up ribbon. Why would anyone bite straight through a cinnamon roll? You just end up with shards of pastry everywhere.


26. I love ramen. I really do. It's kind of sad. My favorite kind is the stuff you get from the Asian supermarket. You know, with the instructions in another language, so you're always just preparing it by gut feel? Good stuff.


27. When I announced I was making a career change years ago, I was told by my then-manager that I was making a huge mistake, and that my choice was a "dead-end." After that, I went on to have eight years in my new field, six of which were in highly competitive consulting environments, where I generated award-winning work and dazzled my clients before quitting to start a family. So there, Don. Don't ever underestimate a smart woman.


28. One of my favorite albums of all time is Annie Lennox's "Diva." I love just about every song on that one. Same goes for Alannis Morrissette’s “Jagged Little Pill.”


29. I know every word to "Les Miserables."


30. Before I made a faith-based commitment to abstain from alcohol, my favorite beers were Killian's Red and Red Stripe. Favorite mixed drink: Midori sour. I never could stand margaritas.


31. I dislike cheesecake.


32. I once dreamed of doing language research involving sign language and chimpanzees.


33. I love the smell of clover.


34. I believe that dogs have souls, and that cats cannot be trusted.


35. I've visited 22 states[1]. But I've only lived in two.


36. I'm great at Pictionary and Taboo, but horrible at Scrabble.


37. For the most part, I don't really mind public speaking.


38. I would dance every day if I could.


39. The last time I wore perfume, it was Happy by Clinique. I also really like L'eau D'issey by Issey Miyaki, and Red Door by Elizabeth Arden.


40. I can carry a tune, but not with style.


41. The only way I like scrambled eggs is wrapped in a flour tortilla with hash browns and salsa.


42. I *love* football.


43. I hate basketball.


44. I can tolerate baseball if I'm going with fun people AND it's Dollar Dog Night, when hot dogs are a buck.


45. I'm already, despite my own valiant efforts to the contrary, turning into my mother.


46. I give great scalp massages.


47. I miss the old Sesame Street episodes. After catching a few minutes of it the other day, I was greatly saddened by how different it is now than what I remember.


48. I realized last week that my son will never know a world without cell phones, laptops or DVR.


49. I can still hum the melody to the theme song for the 80s show "That's Incredible." It was hosted by Kathy Lee Crosby, Fran Tarkington, and that dark-haired guy.


50. I remember that Balki Bartokemous of "Perfect Strangers" was from the island of Mypos.


51. Someday, I want to develop a "look" I really like. I think it'll involve boot-cut jeans, long jackets and scarves. If Catherine Zeta-Jones would wear it while starring in a movie that takes place in the fall in New York City, it's probably for me.


52. I make a bed like no one's business. The sheets are always smooth and perfectly tucked. I have to get into a "made" bed at night, so I've been known to make a bed just to go to sleep.


53. I have two freckles on my nose, plus one chicken pox scar.


54. Thanksgiving is far and away my favorite holiday, because it's about nothing but food and gratitude. I'm a big fan of both.


55. Halloween is my second favorite holiday, because it's about fun and candy. Love those things, too.


56. The only other holiday I really like is the Fourth of July. Stuff explodes, you get to smell gunpowder in the air, and if you go to see a real fireworks show, you can usually get popcorn, too.


57. I never once was allowed to go trick-or-treating as a kid.


58. I got sick on grape jelly in the third grade. It was almost 20 years before I ate it again.


59. I don’t know how to pronounce the word “chignon.”


60. I still think doodlebugs are cool. (You know – those bugs that roll up into a ball when you flick them.)


61. I only go to bed because I have to. I love staying up late.


62. I played the flute for eight years and hated it. Then I switched to bass drum. I didn’t play it for enough years. LOVED it.


63. I made a binding commitment to attend a university I’d never visited.


64. I will never regret not making the Dean’s List in college.


65. The smell of freshly popped popcorn at the movie theater or in the airport is literally irresistible to me. Airport popcorn has been known to cure my frequent motion sickness.


66. I have no idea how the first guy to ever eat durian worked up the courage to try it.


67. Vacuum lines on a carpet make me happy.


68. I believe that people judge me based on how tidy my house is when they come by to visit.


69. When the Challenger exploded, I was in gym class in the fifth grade.


70. When the World Trade Center was attacked, I was driving to work in the carpool lane.


71. For me, home is where my husband’s hug is.


72. I don’t really believe that slot machines are gambling. To me, it’s like playing a video game – you put in money and pay for the entertainment of pulling the lever or punching the buttons. Who ever really expects to win, anyway?


73. I’m terrible at video games, unless you can succeed by random button-smashing – like Street Fighter.


74. I used to pretend that the plastic pegs for my Lite-Brite were jewels for my Barbie dolls to mine. That was how they funded their lavish lifestyles, with their mansions, convertibles and horses.


75. I hate being outside in hot weather. I detest that feeling of dampness in your creases that you get immediately when you set foot outside of an air-conditioned building. I’d rather wear four sweaters in a freezing climate, than feel sticky from the first sweat of the day at 7 a.m. where I live now.


76. Because I loathe editing, I’ve developed a more or less organized stream of consciousness. That way, when I write, I am assured of at least a partially logical product. (Lists like this don’t count.)


77. I cannot be relaxed in a cluttered room.


78. New York City intimidates me.


79. Whenever I announce to anyone that I’ve never seen “Citizen Kane,” or “Casablanca,” I get a shocked gasp. When I announce that I’ve never seen “The Goonies,” I get the same gasp. This does not bode well for Bogey.


80. I am grateful to know people who are always looking outside of the mainstream for interesting movies, music, literature and experiences. I am just not one of those people. I’ve always just liked what I liked, whether it was mainstream or “independent,” and I’m finally at a point in my life where I’m not apologetic for that anymore.


81. My favorite candy bar of all time is the Whatchamacallit.


82. I cannot, for the life of me, understand the appeal of scrapbooking.


83. The very word “flea” makes my hair stand on end. Ugh.


84. I can suppress a shudder. (I just had to, after I typed “flea.”)


85. I am also capable of sneezing silently due to superhuman stifling abilities. But it hurts.


86. I love the smell of rubbing alcohol.


87. I am a great solderer.


88. I used to fold underwear until I got married. My husband doesn’t, and his logic (“Who’s gonna know if it’s wrinkled?!”) has rubbed off on me.


89. I miss my gramma the most at Christmas-time.


90. I collect bookmarks.


91. I think snowflakes are heartbreakingly beautiful.


92. I put on a sock-and-a-shoe and a sock-and-a-shoe, not a sock-and-a-sock and a shoe-and-a-shoe.


93. I’ve never climbed a tree.


94. I will never understand why anyone buys a Rolls-Royce, a third home or a private jet.


95. I like the mountains better than the beach, but would gladly vacation in either locale.


96. I think someone could make a good living at targeting new mothers for in-home spa services. If someone was willing to come to ME to give me a pedicure, I’d pay a fuel premium.


97. I have almost never been able to eat an entire serving of yogurt. About two-thirds of the way through, the texture always makes me think “gack,” and I have to throw the rest away.


98. Lovebugs freak me out.


99. I speak Vietnamese well enough to converse with college graduates, and read it well enough to check a fifth-grader’s homework. But when I try to write it, I sound like I’m three years old. Or a moron.


100. I heart wikipedia.


101. When I was a kid, we used to call “sunny-side-up” eggs “dip-it-in” eggs. So now I have to stop myself from ordering them that way at IHOP.


102. I am addicted to my iPhone, but I don’t think I’m cool enough to be a “mac” person.


103. I prefer Super-Target to Wal-Mart.


104. I prefer Coke to Pepsi.


105. I love the sound it makes when you bounce a playground ball against cement. (“[ting … ting … ting …]”)


106. I love pie, but prefer crust-topped pies to open ones, unless you’re talking cream or meringue.


107. I bake better than I cook.


108. I do great French braids.


109. When I ski, I get bored on green runs, enjoy blue runs, and have absolutely no desire to try a black one.


110. I was in a car accident while driving the drivers’ ed car (though it was NOT my fault). After that, every time I got behind the wheel, the instructor would lead us all in prayer.


111. I think someone should find a way to serve avocado slices on pizza.


112. I don’t like it when the syrup from my pancakes touches my sausage or bacon. To me, sweetness and meat just don’t go together. (And because I’m a fan of “The Office,” I’m sitting here thinking, “That’s what she said.”)
     
     [1] California, Washington, Nevada, Colorado, Wisconsin, Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Kansas, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Texas and New Mexico, plus D.C.

Night, night

With my son's four-month birthday coming around, my husband and I have begun the process of sleep training. For those of you who aren't parents, what that means is that we're contemplating how we can get the munchkin to fall asleep on his own, sleep without being in someone's arms, and stay asleep for longer stretches (though we still expect him to wake up once or twice a night for a while to eat -- he's growing pretty fast).

Once you start doing the research on "sleep training," you quickly see why it's such a hot topic. There seem to be two predominant schools of thought -- 1) you are a parent, and you signed up for sleep deprivation, so just deal with your kid's habits and preferences, or 2) put him in a crib, close the door to his room and let him "cry it out." In a week or so, he'll sleep like an angel when you put him down.

I know lots of families who opted for the second choice -- or I should say, parents. I assume the kids weren't voting. It seemed to work well for them. They all admit it was tough -- that they hated hearing their kids cry -- that they cried themselves. But they come out of it saying, "It was the best thing we ever did." That's great. I'm glad it worked for them. Their kids do seem to sleep well and be well-rested -- more power to 'em all.

I'm not cut out for it. I just can't do it. I've spent the last three months and three weeks working hard to get the little guy to trust me -- attending to his physical needs as quickly as is reasonable, playing with him to help develop his mental capacity, praying with him to nurture his spirit if I can, cuddling and loving on him to address his emotional needs as well. After all that attentiveness (tempered with realism -- I'm not saying I've been his slave), it seems inconsistent to me to then put him down and communicate to him that he can cry all he wants -- I'm not listening.

The "cry-it-out" advocates argue logically that it's not neglect -- it's tough love. It's like taking your kids for their shots. You know they'll hurt, but it's good for them -- it's what they need. Or, it's like giving them the opportunity to learn a skill that will serve them in good stead. I buy it. I'm glad it worked for them and their kids. But I choose a different way.

I found a book called "The No-Cry Sleep Solution." It's the approach I choose to take with my son. I've found already that it's a misnomer -- there's no way you can change a baby's sleep habits with NO tears at all -- but I like that it sets forth a way you can respond to the baby's crying with soothing efforts, and still guide them to form new, healthier sleep habits. We're in week 2. So far my son's gone from taking 40-minute cat naps 5 or 6 times a day (exhausting to cycle between sleep and wakefulness that much), to sleeping an hour and fifteen minutes to today's triumphant two-hour stretch at a time. Once I make more headway with daytime sleeping, I'll focus on his night-waking -- he's a frequent muncher in the wee hours, and I know there are gentle ways I can get him to go longer stretches of sleep -- him and me, that is.

At the heart of it, I think it's been difficult because to some extent, I don't know if my heart is in it. The idea of changing his sleep habits seems bent on the assumption that it's a *problem* for him to fall asleep in my arms. I don't see it as a problem at all, but a blessing and a joy. It's a little inconvenient when I want to take a shower or eat a meal, but it's a miracle nonetheless. I know that in the long run, he needs to get used to sleeping on his own. I definitely don't want a high-schooler who still needs mommy to smooth his hair to fall asleep. I get that. But for now, I love to cuddle him as much as I can. He's already rocketed from 6 pounds to 12 -- from a skinny, wrinkly, fussy newborn to a playful, rounded, inquisitive infant who giggles and laughs when he's tickled. I'm all too well aware of how rapidly his changing self will outpace my ability to get in all the baby-time I'll crave.

So I'll continue to sleep-train. I'll keep easing away from him in bed to get him used to sleeping without mommy's warmth next to him. I'll keep extending his naps with extra nursing as he starts to awaken. I'll watch for chances to ease him into his bassinet or crib (both places where he plays happily but absolutely refuses -- loudly -- to fall asleep). I'll keep nudging him toward independent sleep -- and when he's snoozing in his crib all night, someone can tell me how to fall asleep without HIM.

They should make accordian-fold Mother's Day cards

Dear Mom,

Happy Mother's Day! As one of my steadfast readers, I know you'll see this. And I'm posting it here for a number of reasons -- 1) I wanted you to always be able to come here to see it, and know how much I love you, 2) I wanted anyone who comes across it to know how incredible you are, and 3) it won't fit on the inside of the card I bought you.

Now that I'm a mother myself, I have so much more of a sense of what you must have gone through in raising me and the boys. I have so very many memories of the adventures we all had while I was growing up, and as I look back on them, I can see now how some of them must have been so trying for you. So I have two main things to tell you this Mother's Day -- what I'm sorry for, and what I've learned from you. Here we go.

I am sorry for ...

• Starting off as a "day-night confusion" baby. Much mention has always been made in our family of how I was up all night and asleep all day for the first three months of my life, and only now do I see how exhausting that must have been for you and my dad. Believe me. I am REALLY sorry.
• Sneaking away from you as a baby and licking the bleach cap, and then throwing up all over the place.
• Being one of the reasons it became increasingly difficult for you to continue attending college classes. I have no idea how you handled being a mom and going to school. I'm truly impressed.
• Constantly throwing cookies into the aquarium and killing countless exotic fish. Come to think of it, I'll apologize for that again to my dad on Father's Day, since those fish were his.
• Feeding my baby brother an almost-full bottle of pink bubble-gum flavored Amoxicillin because he liked how it tasted.
• That time when some live crawfish escaped from the sink in the kitchen where they awaited being made into dinner, and I grabbed my brother's 5-year-old self and took off running with him out the front door and down the street for our grandparents' house. While we both had chicken pox. And were barefoot. You came home to an empty house with the front door open, and no kids. The fact that I am still alive after that escapade is a testament to your good graces and ability to forgive.
• The time I was about six years old, and we were visiting our Lutheran grandparents' home church (grandparents who were in some denial about the fact that we were being raised Catholic), and I genuflected at the entrance to the pew. Whoops.
• The scare I gave you when I got hit in the head with a baseball bat at school during gym class, and got a concussion and had to go to the hospital. It wasn't my fault, but I know you were terrified. I'm sorry you got scared. My turn will come, I'm certain.
• All the arguments I gave you over stupid ex-boyfriends in college who really weren't worth the breath we gave to fighting about them. For the record, you were right about all of them. For that matter, thank you for ultimately understanding that I had to figure some things out for myself, and for loving me in spite of my hard-headedness.

From you, I've learned:

• How to hold up my head when other people are trying to make me feel ashamed. I watched you for years handle yourself with grace and dignity in the midst of chaos. I admire you tremendously for the quiet pride you showed in spite of the troubles around you.
• How to love selflessly and completely. Not only did you slather love all over my brothers and myself, you delighted in who we were at every stage along the way, awkward or otherwise. You never once asked or expected anything from us except that we treat you and others with respect and kindness, and that we do our best at whatever it might be that we'd put our minds to.
• How to forgive, again and again. You've shown me that forgiveness isn't something you decide to do once -- you choose it day after day, and that's the true art of it, and the real gift of it to someone else. You're incredible at it.
• How to love a football team unreservedly. :) You and I both know we'll wear those team colors forever.
• What the phrase "living a life of service" really means. You are constantly helping others, in ways large and small. As someone who has benefitted from that help her entire life, and who has never needed it (or YOU) more than now, I thank you from the depths of my grateful heart.

Oh, I lied. There's two more things.

• You really love my husband. You really do, like he's your own. And the fact that I can sit in a room with you and with him and we can all talk without censoring ourselves, and we can all be ourselves just as we are that day or moment, and we can accept and love each other and respect each other completely, and enjoy each other's company wholeheartedly -- it's one of the greatest gifts in my life. I get to just be me around you both -- I never have to be "on" or wonder how you're going to take something he says or vice versa. I have entrusted you both to be yourselves around and with each other, and I can see that you have a deep affection and respect for each other. The peace that brings me keeps me whole.
• I can never thank you enough for the pure joy you take in my son -- your grandson. Seeing you delight in him gives me such pride -- that he can make you smile, that you love him so completely, that I can give you some measure of happiness through a little boy we both love so much. I will never tire of seeing you light up when you look at him, or when he smiles at you.

Thank you, Mom. Thank you for the sacrifices, the hardships, the self-denial, the unreserved love. Thank you for the sleepless nights, the ironed clothes, the cooked meals, the hugs and kisses, the rides to football games, the bedtime stories, the long conversations, the late-night phone calls, the times you took care of the spiders, the dogs you fed, the library fines you paid. Thank you for understanding that I never could stand touching wet food at the bottom of the sink and even when I did the dishes, you had to empty the sink strainer. Thank you for always having chocolate when I need it, or if you don't, for always going to get me some. Thank you for being there in the waiting room when my son was born, despite the fact that I was in labor for 25 hours and you couldn't drive yourself to the hospital, and had to keep getting rides back and forth. Thank you for remembering which one of the three of your children likes only the potatoes in a pot roast, which one only likes the carrots, and which one doesn't like pot roast at all.

It may seem like I'm grown up now, that now that I'm a mother, I don't need you anymore. Nothing could be further from the truth. I will love and need you always, and treasure our time together as I always have.

I love you. Call me.
Always,
Your daughter

Would you like fries (or onion rings, cheese sticks or buffalo drum-ettes) with that?

If you hand me a palmful of M&Ms, you may not initially notice anything out of the ordinary about the way I eat them. I don't toss them back the way a lot of people do, but that's not too strange. Watch me long enough, though, and you'll see that I actually choose which colors to eat first.

I guess some people do that too. But they're more likely to do it with candies that have flavors assigned to colors, right? I get that. I do it, too. For instance, Skittles -- I will happily eat all the red and purple ones out of any bag, leaving the citrus ones for my less-finicky husband. Gummi bears -- once again, I'll steal the red ones right out from under your nose so fast, you won't have time to say "Hello, Kitty." Lots of people have particular favorite flavors when it comes to fruit candies. And when it comes to chocolate, some even profess to like the green M&Ms more than the others. I worked with a woman who claimed that she could taste the difference between M&M colors (she was actually surprisingly good at it when we conducted a blind taste test).

Stay with me. My order of operations isn't about what M&M colors I do and don't like. It's not about flavor at all. It's about options.

See, when you hand me a bunch of M&Ms, you're not so much handing me "some candy" as you are offering me a *collection* of candy colors. And what's the hallmark of a collection? Variety, and completeness. So my preferred method of eating M&Ms is to visually assess which color has the most representation in the bunch, then start with that color. After I've eaten a couple candies (say, of the orange persuasion), I'll reassess. Brown dominates? Brown gets eaten next. My aim is to end up toward the conclusion of my snack with a complete set of M&Ms, one in every color. And from there I get even more picky.

In your standard, non-seasonal M&M collection, you've got brown, red, orange, yellow, green and blue. (I miss tan, by the way.) Because brown doesn't add too much (to me) to the color spectrum, I'll eat the last remaining brown one first. That leaves me with another set of options. Do I eat the remaining colors in "ROY G BIV" rainbow-spectrum order? Do I eat the cool colors first (green and blue), leaving the warmer colors for last, or vice versa? Do I get down to the basics by trying to end up with the three primary colors at the end (yellow, red and blue)? For that matter, do I consider "primary" colors to mean "primary" as in art (the above three), or "primary" as in the components of light (in which case it would be red, blue and green)? Do I eat the non-traffic light colors first, so that I end up with red, yellow and green? You see my dilemma.

The thing is, this weirdness isn't just limited to M&Ms (though M&Ms do seem to offer me the most choices in terms of how weird to get, don't they? I just re-read the paragraph above. Wow. That's a lot of crazy). I do this when I choose a cookie out of a variety pack, a Hershey's Miniature out of a selection, an appetizer off of a plate of assorted savories. My primary aim? To preserve as much choice for as long as possible. It's probably why I love buffets -- to me, a buffet represents not so much an opportunity to get as much food as possible for the money, but a chance to sample a nearly infinitely-supplied range of food for as long as I have the appetite. Growing up, my extended family members were always chiding me for eating just one plateful of food when we'd go to our favorite Indian restaurant for the Sunday buffet lunch. "You're wasting money!" they'd exclaim. But I was satisfied on so many levels with just one plate -- because I'd filled it with exactly what I liked, which on some days would be all veggies, or an assortment of potato curry dishes, and on other days might be just spinach and basmati rice.

Yeah, it's weird. I'm cool with it. Because chances are, most of us have some tiny, harmless insanity that we can't satisfactorily explain, and others can't begin to imagine. You do your thing, I'll do mine, and we'll all be ok. Pass the M&Ms, please.

Natalie Imbruglia's (very) hidden agenda, according to my college education

There's this thing I do when I get in the shower. I always try to get the shower curtain liner to lay flat against the shower walls. This inevitably involves dampening the walls with a palmful of water, then carefully sealing myself into the shower by making sure that liner sucks tightly to the wall. I realized that I used to do the same thing with blankets, at night in bed -- I like to sleep with the ceiling fan at a good clip, so I seal myself into the blankets by tucking myself in around my ears really snugly. I hate being able to feel a cool breeze leaking into the pocket of warmth under the blankets, but at the same time, I've got to feel it over my nose and mouth.

Why do I do these things? What's this obsession with sealing the cracks? In one way, it's about containing or preventing a potential mess. There's nothing I hate more than drying off after a shower, then stepping out onto a soppy shower rug. It's also about comfort -- a tightly sealed shower or a snug bed keeps in warmth, locks out cold. But maybe ultimately it's about control. Maybe I have to have things in absolutes -- all the water on this side where I want it. All the warmth from the neck down, all the coolness above the chin. Maybe these things I think of as my endearing quirks are really early signs of neurosis. Seem like a big leap? Not to me. I majored in English in college.

As an English major, you quickly learn that symbolism is king. If you can take two seemingly unrelated phenomenon and find a way to link them convincingly, you're golden. It's even more powerful if one of the two things you're connecting is a crippling psychological disorder of some kind, or at least has a strong religious subtext. I once listened to a song on the radio about a woman whose boyfriend had left her, and became convinced that the song was actually about her experience of losing her Christian faith. My family was pretty hard to convince, though.

"Mom, I'm telling you -- she says it right in the song. 'I'm all out of faith ... lying broken on the floor ... Illusion never changed into something real ... I guess the fortune teller's right ... should have seen just what was there, and not some holy light.' She's obviously singing about how she felt duped by organized religion."

"Sure, honey. Just finish your peas so I can wash your plate."

Anyway, sealing the cracks may be my way of creating a safe, isolated environment. And who couldn't use one of those? (Like how I morphed it from "control" to "security"? That's another English major trick. You're welcome.)

It's a jungle out there

A quick survey around my son's seemingly innocuous nursery reveals the following census of animals, present either in stuffed or toy form, or depicted in illustrations:

Lions: 5

Giraffes: 7

Elephants: 7

Monkeys: 9

Zebras: 2

Toucans: 1

Bears: 5

Frogs: 2

Turtles: 5

Ducks: 3

Bees: 6

Spiders: 2

Octopi: 1

Fish: 1

Crabs: 1

Alligators (I know!): 1

Animals among these that I'd actually wish for my son to encounter in real life at his age: 0

No wonder the poor kid cries if left to fend for himself in there for too long. I would, too.

The 5 a.m. bath

If you have a baby, and said baby sleeps with you in your bed, do yourself a favor and get a waterproof mattress pad. Just ... do it.

Last night started out like any other. The baby fell asleep and went through his normal cycles of sleeping 2-3 hours at a stretch, then waking up to feed sleepily, then drowsing right back off again. Toward morning he'd started to be a little fitful while feeding -- a sure sign to THIS now-experienced mother that he had what my husband calls a "project in the works." As a precautionary measure, I got up after the 4:15 a.m. feeding and got a small towel to place under our precious son, congratulating myself all the while on this brilliant prophylactic measure.

So it was about 4:35 when the boy started to really fidget in bed. I smiled in the near-dark, proud of myself that I'd done such a GREAT job of avoiding trouble. (I didn't know, of course, that this diaper would be a blow-out -- it had just been a while, and the boy owed us a good one.) I even reached past the angel-baby to tweak the towel up under him for good measure.

Well, the execution of this project was so noisy that it woke up my husband. "Was that *him*?" he exclaimed. "Of course," I replied, silently wondering if my husband was actually implying that it would be anyone else (namely, ME) making such god-awful bathroom noises while in bed. My husband then mumbled something like, "That's my boy," and rolled over to doze off again. I chuckled and waited the necessary 3-5 minutes to ensure that the boy was actually done, then gathered up my son to change that diaper. That's when I felt the wet patch.

Hearing my "uh-oh" for what it was (a dire commentary on the state of our sleeping arrangements), my husband catapulted from deep sleep into an impressively awake state. His first words were NOT "are you ok?" or "is the baby fine?" but "Is it ON THE BED?" (This should give you a sense of how much he loves our mattress.) After switching on the light, we discovered that the baby had managed to contrive a diaper blow-out *exactly* in the spot where the towel hadn't covered the bed. Of course. To paraphrase a somewhat forgettable movie from the 1980s ... the little insect was just waiting for that to happen.

So I plopped the munchkin onto his changing table to deal with the mess, and my husband sprang into "save-the-mattress" mode. While he wrangled wet washcloths, fabric brushes, carpet stain removers and detergent pens, I wrestled with our now-wide-awake and delighted three-month-old, whose toothless grin had all of us laughing within minutes. As Hyper-Diaper chuckled and chortled at me, no doubt enormously proud of his accomplishment, I tried in vain to get his jammies off over his head without smearing his work over the rest of him (though I narrowly avoided getting it in his hair, thank God). I looked at my husband, who surveyed the damage, sighed deeply, and said, "I'll go get his bath ready."

It's yet another sign (as if I needed it) that I married the right guy in that my husband then cheerfully accepted the inevitable and we had a fun (though somewhat shortened) bathtime session with Little Bit -- less than half an hour before my husband's alarm was scheduled to go off to get up for work. Cleaned up, dried off and re-dressed, the boy went peacefully back to sleep, as my husband hopped into the shower for his own ablutions, and I laid in bed, blessed with the knowledge that I'm the luckiest girl I know, despite the vile pile of linens that awaited me in the daylight.

More of life's mysteries

* When a dog digs a hole in your backyard, where does the dirt go? There's never anything to fill up the hole with.

* Why do hair elastics disappear? If it's not on my wrist, it's gone. Am I eating them in the night? Where do they go?

* How does Tupperware evaporate? I swear I had a complete set of plastic storage containers just a year ago. Now I have three lids and one container that fits none of them.

* Do rebellious teenagers in Japan and China get tatoos of English words?

* How does a fussy baby know just when you've had enough, and just at that moment, flash you a perfect, toothless smile?

* Why haven't they invented a candy that is nothing but the tip of an ice cream drumstick? Just cone, and creamy chocolate coating on the inside. Perfection.

But wait!

I love infomercials. Whenever I see a blue screen with the words, "The following is a paid advertisement for ..." I get excited. I don't know why it is. I'm especially susceptible to kitchen gadget infomercials, with home cleaning gadgets being a close second. Now that I have a new baby and we're up at all hours to feed, I'm definitely seeing my share.

My current favorite is in the latter category. It's the infomercial for the Shark Steam Mop. Or is it a Vac? Either way. I love the spot. Why is it that people in infomercials always call each other by name more than is necessary or natural?

Woman: "Mike, how can this Mop [or Vac] do what you say it will?"
Man: "Well, Rachel, I'll tell you. It's as easy as counting to eight. Or nine! You just plug it in, turn it on, fill the tank, wait for steam, push to activate, clean the mess, empty the trap, wash the mop head, sign this form, smile brightly, and presto! That's a floor you can be proud of. When was the last time your kitchen looked this good, Rachel?"
Woman: "Mike, I don't even know! Wow, I'm amazed, Mike! Can you show me that again, Mike?"
Man: "Sure can, Rachel. You just plug it in ..."

And so on. Usually the paid spokesperson (or "con", as I think of him or her) speaks way too loudly, and is dressed either way too well or way too casually (such as the woman in the GT Express 101 cooking device commercial -- could Wardrobe find nothing but her hooded velour track suit?). And just as often, the straight-man (or "stooge," to me) is way too naive. They have to be told how to operate something as simple as a light switch about six or seven times. And while I get that this repetition is supposed to hook the viewer, I just end up feeling insulted.

My favorite feature of any "paid programming" spot is the "but wait!" segment. It's always there. You've just been told how stupid it would be to pass up a deal this good on a food processor/juicer/fitness barre/vacuum/brother-in-law when all of a sudden, you get "two for the price of one!" or "also comes with these special tools/attachments/videos/gold necklaces/fanny packs, just for ordering today!" And then you listen for the magic words ... "Just pay for the shipping." Which is inevitably more than your mortgage.

But the kicker comes when the action cuts away from the studio to a pre-recorded segment of someone using an outdated or inferior product. The actor is always a total klutz. If the product is a compact blender, then he or she is shown going to the trouble of washing a conventional blender in a sink full of suds that regular dishwashing liquid could never generate, and dropping big kitchen items into the watery mess for good, splashy measure. If the product is a new kind of storage container for leftovers, the actor is shown opening a cabinet from which pour dozens of mismatched containers and their battered, scratched lids. If the product is a new food chopper, the actor is shown cutting his or her finger handling a "regular" knife and trying in vain to slice a tomato without squishing it. If these are the people who need the products being advertised, then the target market is idiots. Or at least people of average intelligence who have not yet mastered the art of deciding when you've put just enough stuff in an overhead cabinet.

Here are my current favorite infomercials, in no particular order. And admit it -- you can envision probably most of them because you've watched at least a few minutes of each yourself.

1. The Magic Bullet. Special bonus points go not only for having TWO paid spokespeople who are product "experts", but for one of them having a foreign accent for that extra twist of sophistication. AND for having a "stooge" who shows up in a housecoat, matted hair, too much makeup, horned rim glasses and dangling a cigarette from her lips. AND a fake New York accent. Priceless.
2. The aforementioned GT Express 101. What I want to know is, how many wraps do they think we eat? And once you've made two small cakes in the product's cooking wells, what do you do with the rest of the batter?
3. The Fluidity Fitness Barre. Wow. I'm actually serious here. If just buying the thing could make me look like those women, I would indeed shell out the cash.
4. The Shark Steam Mop/Vac. I scoff. But I also yearn for clean floors without chemical residue! (After a point, you start to go native.)
5. Hip-Hop Abs. I know better. And yet I can almost believe that working out could be fun. These guys are GOOD.
6. The Pedi-Egg. Do we really need to see what someone's foot shavings look like being dumped into the trash?
7. Chef Tony's SmartLidz. I don't know that I need them, but it looks like it would be fun to push my fist into the advanced polymer material just to seal up a container.
8. The RonCo Countertop Cooker. I don't even know what it's called. I just know that "Set it and forget it!" is the "Where's the beef?" of this day and age.
9. The sweeper thing with "quad-brush technology." This infomercial also sports an "international" spokesperson/expert. It scores special bonus points for the digital representation of being able to push a sweeper vac in four different directions AND swivel the head around.
10. The ShamWOW! I don't even know what I would use this product for. Think about it. If you'd used it to wash and dry your car, would you want to use it on your kitchen countertops after that? I have two words: love bugs. So if I actually bought it, I'd probably just pour soda on the kitchen table, wipe it up, and wring it all into a pie plate like "Vince" does in the demonstration. It looks totally fun.

Gotta dash. I think the Jack LaLane Juicer infomercial is due to start in 10 minutes.