Occasionally I get email from you guys and you want to know stuff about me. And if it’s not anything too weird or personal, I’ll usually oblige and answer back, but I’m pretty well convinced that everything you ever really needed to know about me can be found in the comments I leave around the blogosphere…

Izzy comments on road rage and preggo face:

Found on Bamboo Lemur Boys are Mean to Their Girls

I’m so with ya. I’m usually a reasonably calm person but bad, stupid, shit ass drivers PISS ME OFF.

While I try to be chill as I usually have kids in the car, my inner road rager yearns to be free and tends to find her way out via expletives, typically mangled in a feeble attempt to not swear in front of the kids.

Nice glasses and cute hair. Wish I had a face for short hair. I learned the hard way, during a pregnant “I must have a haircut frenzy” that I do not have such a face

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Izzy comments on her badass minivan:

Found on Wendy Boucher’s Blog

Dude…I’m conflicted over my momvan, too. But a Prius would never work for me. My car is like a purse on wheels.

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Izzy comments on toilet sitting:

Found on A Mommy Story

I have a circular logic thing going…it’s like this:

If everyone thinks that the seat is dirty so they’re not going to sit on it, then it’s probably actually pretty clean, right?

But what if everyone else over-thinks it the same way I do and they all assume that it’s clean and they all sit on it?

Then it’s not so clean.

I could go on and on but I think you get the picture…

I’m a seat wiper and layer down of TP or I use a seat cover thingy. I hate hovering over the toilet.

And according to the Target staff here, the seats are wet because the toilets spray water when they are flushed. Uh yeah…nasty TOILET WATER.

ewwww, okay?

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Izzy comments on the joys of coffee:

Found here: A Crack’n Life

Dude..if not for coffee, I’d be lucky to go once a week.

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See? Now you know that I cuss a lot when I drive, that I’m frequently constipated, that half my earthly possessions reside in the momvan, that I think about toilets way too much and that I need a 12 step program to stop using the word “dude.”

They say necessity is the mother of invention and today, I proved that old adage to be true; sinfully, deliciously, and kind of grossly true.

I had a yen for something sweet. While I usually take great care to not load up on sugar and junk food, I couldn’t shake my desire for a treat. (Okay. That’s a lie.  I love sweets and eat them frequently but whatever, right?)

So, now that I’m being totally straight with you, here’s the real deal. I don’t buy a lot of junk food because I’ll eat it all of the kids, so when I found myself wanting a treat in the mid-afternoon, there really wasn’t anything to suit my taste. But then I stumbled across my stash of “morsels” from a recent cookie bender baking project and I had a brainstorm…

I melted a trio of milk chocolate, semi-sweet and butterscotch chips in the microwave and spread it on Ritz crackers… Oh. My. God. It’s the bomb! If you like sweet and salty things together like chocolate pretzels or chocolate covered peanuts, you’ll love this.

I know you’re probably thinking it’s kind of trailer park-ish but if you can get past that part, it’s really, really good. And I think just regular semi-sweet chips would work fine.

The funniest part is that I used low-fat Ritz crackers, which is a lot like drinking diet Coke with a Quarter Pounder Extra Value Meal at McDonalds — but I try not to think of that part as I enjoy the pleasures of the uh…chocolate cracker thingys.

And if you don’t mind, next time I bitch about my baby fat, have a heart and don’t remind me of this post :)

(Also, please pardon some of the little issues with my new 3 column template. I still have some kinks to work out)

PS: Do you see the BlogHer button to the left? After you leave your pearls of wisdom, shards of brilliance etc. would you mind clicking it and taking a really quick survey? Thanks!

Anyone who knows me…or sort of knows me knows that I am not a La Leche League member or much of a breastfeeding activist. I was lucky in that both of my babies latched on perfectly from day one and nursed with no problems. I don’t have anything against LLL. I just didn’t really ever get involved with them because I had no breastfeeding issues to speak of BUT after reading about the thing in the Fred Meyer supermarket in Oregon, I am pissed. Incensed. Infuriated. I suddenly feel a kinship with LLL.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, the brief overview is that a woman was given some major crap about nursing her three month old in a grocery store because people complained. I heard a blurb about it yesterday and then today I saw that CityMama had linked to her article about it here.

I sent an email to Fred Meyer corporate (owned by Kroger) detailing my feelings on the matter. I was not particularly articulate or eloquent or polite. I wanted to convey just how ticked off I am about this (with LOTS of capitalization…lol) more than I wanted to bamboozle them with loquaciousness and words they probably wouldn’t understand anyway.

My vitriol runneth over:

I am totally shocked and offended that your company would in any way impede a mother from nursing her baby in one of your stores. I have a newsflash for you…BREASTS ARE INTENDED TO FEED BABIES. Before they were co-opted by men as playthings, they were actually used to feed infants. Yes, believe it or not, there wasn’t always formula and bottles.

How ignorant and narrow-minded can someone possibly be? Nobody is bothered by women parading around half naked at the beach or on TV but a woman sits down to feed her baby and it’s OFFENSIVE? I suggest you train your employees to deal with this issue properly before you end up filing for bankruptcy. I am OFFENDED by your policy on public breastfeeding and I won’t shop in any store that reduces a woman to a pair of breasts and I am NOT alone. You owe ALL lactating mothers an apology.

Brilliant posts and comments about feminism and motherhood abound recently in blogland and it occurs to me that this incident ties right in with those themes. Sadly, though, it makes me feel like we have a long way to go before there is anything even close to true equality. Women are the bearers and nurturers of children and this is how we are treated? Our breasts are too obscene to fulfill their primary function? There are not words…

And guys? Are your babies breastfed? Then this affects you, too.

Did you get the memo?

It’s official.

I’ve become my parents. Both of them.

Plural.

Arghhhggggggggghhhhh!

Why, you ask?

Well.

Because I said it.

I said the word.

Smart-alecky

As in “Don’t use that smart-alecky tone with me”

I don’t even know what that term actually really even means. So I looked it up.

Apparently…

One incarnation of “Smart Aleck” is a silent black & white porn flick from 1951.

Silent?

The hell?

They had porn in 1951? Silent porn?

I wonder if my parents knew about this movie when they were throwing that term around in the 70’s.

Heheheh :)

Kidding. KIDDING!

(Please. My parents were total squares. How else could I have turned out so cool?)

Happy hump day!

Thanks to everyone for sharing your thoughts on the pre-K 5 flasher. Also, a lot of new names down there, which you should know, I just luuuuurve. I’ll be checking ya’ll out later.

Right now, however, I am feeling a spark of inspiration crossed with nostalgia. No, not the kind of inspiration that might produce a high quality Club-Mom-Will-Pay-You-Money-to-Blog caliber of post. No sireee. That kind of thing cannot be forced. Today, instead of regaling you with deep thoughts, biting commentaries, or the type of LOL! posts we all love, I’m posting old pictures (because who doesn’t love looking at old photos of people they don’t even know?) and perhaps my shopping list.

Oh good. You’re still here. Thought that shopping list business might send you scampering off to a more enticing destination, like sayyyyy…the C-Span website.
Well…to your left is a picture of me, Miss Phi Delta Badass (I stole that from Dawn) at the Lakewood Amphitheater in Atlanta in 1993. I think the show was Helmet, 311 and some other up-and-coming bands. We were in town for the Great Atlanta Pot Festival, except it had been rescheduled so we just did other stuff, like this. “We” means me and four of my girlfriends. We all piled into my VW Golf and drove to Georgia from Florida. Who knew a Golf could hold that much estrogen? I think later that night we went out clubbing and ended up at a loft party all night. Another night we went out and ended up at Backstreets , a longstanding gay nightclub, until sunrise because it stayed open until 6am. Ah…those were the days. I seriously think 1993, the year before I got married, was one of the “funnest” ever. Later that year, hubz and I hooked up. We got married about 10 months later and the rest is history. You may or not be able to tell that my hair is striped and kind of reddish. All I can say is never, EVER, trust your friend when she says you should let HER do your highlights instead of going to a reputable salon because she’s a licensed beautician. The tip off should have been that she was working as a nanny. Turns out she got fired from Supercuts. Later, I would end up coloring it red and continue to do so for about a year, until I got sick of getting my dark roots done every 6 weeks. I could never be a bottle blonde. That touch-up business really blows… So check me out in my vegan-friendly, super-duper ugly non-leather purple Birkenstocks. I would later leave those behind on either the Butthole Surfers or Stone Temple Pilots tour bus. No….I wasn’t shagging rock stars. You’ve read “I’m With the Band” one time too many :-P Another story, another time. (I don’t smoke anymore, by the way, and I wasn’t really a badass. I just look like one in these pix)

So yes, my shopping list. I need:

• Nursing pads, preferably the Johnson & Johnson ones because I swear, they add about a bra-size. (they’re also “boob-shaped” because breasts should never have right angles on them) The J&J nursing pads…oh, how I will miss them when we finally wean and my boobs deflate.

• Something chocolate. The cravings, I must stop them.

• Organic milk, which is a total crap shoot around here lately, unless you need lactose-free, which is always in stock and very gross, IMO.

• A new Pur filter because our water is SO chlorinated, I might as well be drinking from my neighbor’s pool.

• A new toaster oven because ours, a mere three years old, has shit the bed. Have you tried to find an under-the-counter toaster oven recently? I think I’d have better luck locating a Dodo bird. Is there a black market for under-the-counter appliances? Email me.

And, as a public service to all of you, here are some products I have recently tried and found utterly disgusting (Please note that the Lipton pasta is the WHOLE GRAIN version. The regular kind is okay.) Consider yourself warned :-)
Oh, how things have changed… Now tell me, what were you doing in 1993?

ADDENDUM: You guys! Your compliments are really sweet but in all fairness, you should know that I’m just a very tired and very unhot mom these days ;-)

I’m a fan of consignment stores. I truly think they are great. Without them, what would we do with all the assloads of baby and kid junk that we’ve acquired that they so quickly outgrow or get tired of? Yes, I know I can give it to the Salvation Army and many times I do, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to hand over a $60 Gymboree dress, worn only once, to the Salvation freaking Army. The same goes for all the other overpriced, new-with-tags crap in my daughter’s closet. Even better, however, are the great things you can GET there. There are some serious bargains happening in consignment shops and so I usually check there first for things where it doesn’t really matter if it isn’t brand new.

After Christmas I went to my neighborhood consignment store to try and find a pair of tap shoes in my daughter’s size as hers seemed to be too small after the holiday break from dance. As we sat on the floor trying different pairs, I came across some that looked to be close to her size. They were very similar to the ridiculously expensive Capezio’s that we had consigned a few months prior. As I was untying them, I caught a whiff of something. Ughh. What IS that? Then it hit me. “Ewwwww!” I squealed as the shoes went flying from my hands. The woman from the store came running. I sat there on the floor with my hands out in front of me as if they were covered in something awful and vile. “These shoes have cat pee on them!” I screeched. I was justifiably horrified, particularly because I could feel the stickiness of old cat urine mixed with ammonia crystals on my hands and now that I recognized the smell, it was about to make me barf. Before I knew it, the owner had brought me a box of baby wipes and hand sanitizer and was apologizing profusely. She continued to prattle on about how she had no idea how this could have happened etc. I nodded my head politely. Yes, of course, I understand. No problem. But on the inside I’m all “Ewwwww…get me out of here!” I bought a clean, unpeed-upon pair of tap shoes (and I ONLY bought them there because she had class that day and I was in a hurry) and we hauled ass.

A few days later, I came home and there was a message from the consignment store owner. I couldn’t imagine why she would be calling. I was very curious so I called her right back.
Our conversation went something like this:
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Me: Hi, this is Izzy Smith. You left me a message earlier today to call you.

Owner: Uh, yes, hi. I just wanted to tell you that I was checking my records to see who consigned the shoes with the uh, cat pee on them and uh… THEY’RE YOURS!

Me: *GASP*

Me: *Apologizing repeatedly and telling her I have no clue how they could have gotten peed on blah blah*
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At some point I must have told the woman, in attempt to keep it light and not die of total embarrassment right there on the phone, that I was going to blog about this horrid story, as if it were some cute little anecdote. Talk about your humbling experiences…

So yesterday, after avoiding the shop for about a month because I seriously never wanted to see her again, I decided to bite the bullet and go in because I wanted to see if they had a certain item and what’s the first thing she says to me?

“So did you write about the cat pee shoes in your blog?”

“Oh. Haha. Did I say that? Yeah. I mean no. Uh uh. But I will. Mmhmmm” Right after I die of humiliation.

Epilogue
I racked my brains for weeks trying to figure out how this happened because those shoes were only ever in two places: in the car or on my kid’s feet. How the holy hell did they get pissed on? The only theory I have is this one: One night I went outside and I saw two big yellow eyes looking back at me form the dash of the BAM (bad-ass minivan). There was a cat in my car. My neighbor’s cat, actually. WTF? How’d he get in there? Then I remembered that earlier that day my friend had gotten her daughter’s booster out of my car. He must have jumped in without her seeing him and then gotten locked in there for like 8 hours. I guess can see how a pair of tiny patent leather tap shoes might be a viable substitute for a litterbox…you know, in a pinch, or if someone locks you in a car all day.

***And finally, I have a new renter, Life as Lou, located in the sidebar. She’s a mom of two and a military wife. Lou’s writing is funny and full of descriptive, clever observations. You simply must drop by and read her latest post about attending a Passion Party!***

Can we talk? Because I’d like to confess that I used to be a vain woman. Vain, vain, vain! A prime example of early vain divahood…at summer camp, age 13, my BFF and I wore Maybelline waterproof liquid eyeliner and mascara so we’d look hot (hott!) even after being in and out of the pool all day. All through junior high and high school I threw tantrums and broke countless hairbrushes because “my hair isn’t going right.” (Going right? Is that even English? WTF?) Can you imagine? I was expected to go to school with imperfect hair….the horror!

So you get the picture, right? Fast forward two decades and two kids and boy have things changed. I don’t want to say that I’ve let myself go but seriously, do I actually have time to be like that anymore? Hell no! I’d love to say that becoming a stereotypical ponytailed, no-makeup soccer mom (actually, make that gymnastics mom) has been a freeing experience, that I am happy to no longer be a prisoner within the iron maiden of beauty, but I can’t.

In my office, which happens to be in the center of the house, there is a mirrored closet that you have to pass to get through the room. I see myself in that thing 6,000 times a day and I swear sometimes I wonder who that woman is. She looks tired and man…wasn’t she wearing that t-shirt yesterday? What’s up with that hair? And her skin? I think that woman in the mirror needs a spa day…and fast. The saddest part is that while I long for the days when I had the time to be vain, a part of me kind of doesn’t care that much anymore what other people think. I actually go to the grocery store with no makeup (okay…tinted lip gloss maybe) and flip flops and dirty hair and I’m okay with it (as long as I don’t run into anyone I knew before kids…lol) I mean I drive a MINIVAN, for crissakes. I’ve pretty much thrown in the towel on so many levels. But I know that soon enough, both kids will be in school and I’ll have more time to ponder what it means to be beautiful (or feeling not so beautiful, in my case) and decide exactly how much maintenance I’m willing to do for it.

One thing I’ve never been is a poodle; my term for someone who spends an inordinate amount of time being groomed at nail, hair & tanning salons, getting facials, and having dates with personal trainers. I should clarify that I don’t dislike poodles and to some degree, I envy them; for they have the time and resources to pursue such an intensive regimen of pampering and grooming and well…I don’t. I’ll probably never be be a poodle but maybe I’ll get to a place where my vanity actually helps me begin to recognize that strange woman in the mirror again.

As a sidebar, yesterday in one of my legendary Target shopping binges, I bought a micro-dermabrasion kit. I used it last night for the first time and can I tell you…that is the best $17 I’ve spent on my non-diva self in a while. My face feels as smooth as my baby’s butt and it really does look brighter, smoother and I daresay…just a bit tighter. And this is just the first day!

This is an old essay from Salon.com, written by a guy, celebrating the hotness of real moms. It’s a classic. Check it out.

When my husband and I bought our first house, I kept noticing this weird smell around the toilet in the master bathroom. It was familiar but I couldn’t quite place it. Until one day when I realized the smell was that of sweaty balls. Yes. You read correctly. The toilet had one of those plasticky toilet seats and we had intended to change it but hadn’t done it yet. And THAT was where the smelly, sweaty balls smell was coming from.

The guy we bought the house from, Ted, was a real cocksmacking shithead bastard old-ass motherfucker. As you may have deduced, I didn’t care for him very much. This man, whom I loathed and who made me insanely angry SO many times while trying to buy this stupid house, had managed to stick it to us one last time with his nasty balls.

But what I really wanted to know is HOW the smell was on the toilet seat. I asked my husband if his balls touch all over the toilet seat, either inside or on it or whatever and he looked at me like WTF? Of course not. But clearly Ted, of the smelly balls, was doing SOMETHING to have left his stink all over the toilet seat. What I also want to know is how his kindly wife Regina put up with it. Didn’t SHE notice the stinky sweaty balls smell? Clearly, for his ball smell to have permeated the plastic toilet seat, it had to have been BAD.

If your man had balls that smelled that bad, wouldn’t you be concerned? At the very least, wouldn’t you have bleached the holy hell out of your cheap piece-of-shit plastic toilet seat every day? If it was me, I would have bleached Ted’s balls every day, too. Suffice it to say, we went and got a new toilet seat the instant we realized the source of THE SMELL.

Incidentally, after a few months of living in the new house, a check arrived for Ted from the IRS, in an amount very close to the amount of money he had screwed us out of (did I mention that he royally shafted us, in addition to subjecting us to THE SMELL?). It was some kind of refund for overpayment. Instead of forwarding it to him, we ripped it up into tiny pieces and ceremoniously flushed it down the master bathroom toilet. Yes. Bad karma. I know. It was worth it. My only true regret is that he probably never even knew about it.