I Call Bullsh!t

By now you may have seen or heard about the Today Show segment about moms who have a cocktail or other alcoholic libation (as in ONE) while attending or hosting a playgroup. Featured was author and mother Stefanie Wilder-Taylor in the first part where she states, and I paraphrase, that making an issue of the aforementioned partaking of an alcoholic beverage at a playdate is just another way for women to judge women. I agree. Mothers are held to a totally different standard than anyone else.

The second part of the segment involved Meredith Vieira interviewing Melissa Summers of Suburban Bliss and Janet Taylor, a guest “expert” on something or other. My honest, trying-to- be-objective opinion is that Vieira and the “expert” pretty much ganged up on Summers and more or less demonized her with hardly an opportunity for her to clarify her points.

I totally got what Summers was saying and I thought Viera was rather unprofessional with her leading trick questions and obvious bias and when Vieira ask Melissa if she would be okay with her babysitter drinking while watching her kids, I was floored. That was clearly designed to make Melissa squirm while attempting to answer a question that falls squarely into the “damned if you do and damned if you don’t” category.

I played the segment for my husband and we were both snickering at the “expert” and her premise that imbibing in front of the kids will set a bad example because we both recalled numerous occasions here in our home when we had alcohol in the presence of our children because hello? Do you really think we would host a small party for 6-7 adults and an assload of our collective children without some alcoholic beverages?

Additionally, Husband and I both recalled our childhoods in the seventies where alcohol was pretty much a staple. My husband’s parents even had a cocktail hour every evening where the whole family would hang outside at a large table with the neighbors and all the adults had a drink. And let me tell you, there is not a more normal, well-adjusted, loving, stable, non-dysfunctional family on the planet than my husband’s.

I remember that beer was consumed by my father, IN MY PRESENCE, at the watching of most football games and certainly while BS-ing with the neighbors after a hot afternoon of yard-working, car-washing or garage-cleaning. And bearing in mind that this was the seventies, beer was always consumed while we were out on the boat and cocktails started at about 3pm when we went to my grandma’s house. Both of my parents drank freely in the presence of myself and my older sister and I would never classify either of them as having been alcoholics or problem drinkers.

What really chafed my ass the most, however, was the subtext that mothers are *and should be* held to a higher, stricter standard. The responsibility of being tee-totaling paragons of virtue instead of actual human beings is on OUR shoulders while our husbands can, as my pop used to say, “crack a cool one” while watching the game at home OR purchase alcohol and drink it without any stigma at a sporting event, and have a drink after work or basically any damn time they want to, regardless of the presence of children.

I call BULLSHIT! on all of it and I applaud Stefanie for being so direct with her opinion and I applaud Melissa for holding her own while being attacked, however politely, by both Vieira and the guest “expert.”

Oh, and in case you assume that my husband and I must be big lushes because of our views on this hot-button issue, I can assure you, unequivocally, that we’re not. We drink very infrequently, mostly because we’ll fall asleep after one of anything unless we’re entertaining or at someone else’s house (and that’s only because it’s kind of impolite to be snoring and drooling when you have company or snoring and drooling on other people’s sofas.)

You can watch the Today Show segment here. Click the button that says “Launch”

And I’m sorry to say I will probably never, ever get to be a ClubMom blogger now because if my memory serves me, Meredith Vieira is part owner of that fine internet presence. Well, at least I’m in damn good company…

A Mindsticker? WTF?

Friends and passersby, I give you what is quite possibly the stupidest (and most sexist) ad EVER made. And the soundtrack? OMG. It’s bad.

Seriously, you HAVE to watch this 1970’s TV commercial for Tab, if only to hear them say “be a mindsticker.”

In fact, I should have saved this one for WTF Wednesday because I can’t even believe women were ever marketed to like this. Ughhhh!

Behold…

You can also watch it by clicking here

A Shiny New Year

As I sat down to try and put some thoughts together to sum up 2006, I decided to look at what I wrote last year on December 31, 2005:

Hope everyone had a fun and safe New Years Eve. I watched Dick Clark while I chatted on the phone and folded laundry. Yes, I know. I really need to stop living in the fast lane. I have children to consider now.

Do ya’ll know how they use plastic-coated wire to secure Barbie dolls to the cardboard inside the box? I hate to say this but I think that’s what they did with Dick Clark. The poor guy had a stroke like 2 years ago, right? He really looked like he had some plastic-coated wire around his middle securing him to his chair. I don’t want to be cruel but maybe it would have been better for him to have been remembered the way he used to be. I really felt bad for him.

And Mariah Carey? What was with that get-up she had on? She looked like an ice skater in that sparkly, spangly outfit. Only Tina Turner can get away with that and not look like an idiot. What happened to Mariah Carey anyway? She used to be somewhat dignified. Is it just me or has her cheese factor increased over the last several years right along with her blonde highlights and bra size?

After this year’s requisite viewing of Dick Clark’s So NOT Rocking New Years Eve, I’m certain that they are still Barbie-wiring Mr. Clark to his chair. There’s just nothing “rocking” about Dick Clark anymore and watching him is depressing. I don’t want to think about getting old or having a stroke or anything that miserable at the dawn of of a new year. And the Jersey Boys? WTF is that shit? People, please. That’s the music of my PARENT’S generation. Let’s just keep the Jersey Boys on Broadway, okay?

I was considering doing a review of my year after reading this fine example but honestly, the best things about 2006 for me were watching my kids grow and blossom and just totally digging them. BlogHer in San Jose was a lot of fun, too, but really, 2006 wasn’t a particularly exciting year. Not a whole lot happened, good OR bad so I decided to forgo the retrospective.

I also considered doing the lists thing but there’s no reason to when all the work has been done already. Thank you, Beth! Instead, I opted for a brief list of A Few of the Things That Got on My Nerves in 2006:

• Billy Mays and his loud, annoying voice. Basically, it’s like this… Oxy Clean = Good. Billy Mays in Oxy Clean commercials = VERY VERY BAD.

• The term “baby bump.” I hate it so much. It’s not a fucking “bump.” A bump is a term associated with snorting coke. Or that dance craze from the seventies. I wish magazines and tabloid TV shows would quit saying it. I want to throw things at the television when they do.

• The crooked baseball cap ala K-Fed. It looks STUPID. Stop doing it, people. RIGHT NOW!!! That means you, Pink and your huz, too.

Okay, enough about the new year. It will all be over in a few minutes and then we can move on to either sticking with or totally ignoring our resolutions. My resolutions are sort of vague but basically involve getting more sleep and trying to lose this last ten pounds of baby fat that I’ve been complaining about forever.

The good news is that I’d been totally fearful, after a trip to Target’s dressing room with it’s mirrors that let you see your back fat much too clearly, that I’d gained weight over the holidays but the scale says nothing gained…or lost. I’m exactly the same as I’ve been for a while now which blows me away because after going back on birth control I am SO hungry that I feel like I’m pregnant. Such irony…

Does anyone know of something over-the-counter that safely suppresses your appetite? Seriously. Better living through chemistry in ‘07, at least where my back fat is concerned… That’s my new motto.

Happy New Year!

Posted under Daily, Flashback, Life, Thinking | 29 Comments »

Embarrassing Memory Lane

The following entry was written especially for Mommybloggers.com when they so kindly asked to profile me a while back. I was reminded of it when Plain Jane Mom asked for people’s most embarrassing stories (go check out her contest) and I thought it might make a good re-post over here since I have been too busy (making up for doing absolutely nothing about the holidays for the better part of December) to tend to my poor neglected blog. As I write this she’s wearing a five day old post. That’s just sad. And so, because of my Lazy McSlackerass ways, I’m double-dipping and licking my fingers, just like that nasty Paula Deen on the Food Network.

Enjoy :)

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I was reading a post tonight that got me thinking about a really embarrassing moment that I experienced about 10 years ago. Of course it didn’t feel like a moment. It felt like an hour. An excruciating, in-slow-motion hour that still makes me cringe to this day.I cordially invite you to share in a little skate down embarrassing memory lane…

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The boyfriend I had before I married my husband was an ass. Why I stayed with him for four years is mostly a mystery to me. I mean I understood that he manipulated me and guilt-tripped me into staying so many times when I was already out the door. But I never understood how anyone, even a guilt-inducing master manipulator could convince me to stay in a relationship that had become so totally dysfunctional and unsatisfying…but he always did.

Until one day when I walked out and never came back. We never really settled anything or hashed anything out. It was just over. Like that. And within a couple weeks, he had another girl living with him. It was then that I realized it wasn’t me that he had needed all those years. It could have been anyone. He just needed a warm body nearby because he hated to be alone. And that made me really angry with him for wasting four years of my life. And my pride was a little bruised. But I swallowed all that and moved on with my new boyfriend/future husband (who I happened to have met from the ex…nyah nyah!)

Fast forward a couple years. The huz and I are happily married. We’re doing great. Except me, forever hallucinating that I was fat (HA! I was about 25 lbs lighter than I am now), decide I need to get more exercise and conclude that the rollerblading craze that was sweeping the nation was the perfect way to achieve this. I nag the huz until he gets himself a pair of rollerblades, too, so we can do it together.

It’s gonna be GREAT FUN! Never mind that we are NOT exercising-fresh air-rollerblading kind of people. We’re doing it anyway, dammit!

So one day, I suggest that we rollerblade to our friend’s apartment and stop for a visit. I put on a halter top and a pair of stretchy bike shorts (it’s reallllly hot out) and we proceed with the plan. We skate for a while and finally reach my friend’s apartment building but we don‘t see his car. He’s not home. Oh well…we turn around and start to go back the way we came.

As I’m crossing the road, I look to my right and I see it. The green VW bus that I knew so well is chugging down the street. It’s about a block away and coming right at me.

It’s HIM.

The ex.

I hustle to get out of the street, hoping against hope that we can get out of there without any interaction. I’m stiff yet spaghetti limbed and I feel like I’m in total slow motion. And before I can do anything to stop it, I wipe out RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM! On my ass!

I look at him through the windshield and our eyes meet. I’m positive he recognizes me despite my braid and sunglasses. I turn away so I don’t have to see his reaction. I can’t bear it.

I make it to the side of the street, clomp up on the grass and skate away on the sidewalk as fast as I possibly can. I don’t wait for my husband. I don’t stop to inspect my numerous bleeding wounds, including some pretty bad road rash on my upper thigh right below my butt. I just want to disappear before I die of embarrassment.

Once we were out of sight, I asked my husband if he thought there was a chance he didn’t recognize us. Please say yes!

“Uh no…I’m pretty sure he did,” said the huz, just before he broke into gales of laughter while trying hard to bite his lip and look somber out of respect for my beaten and bludgeoned ego.

To this day, he is not allowed to speak of the incident under penalty of divorce.

One Year and Many Bodily Fluids Later

It’s my one year blog anniversary this week and after taking a dive through the archives, it appears that I’ve come full circle!

It’s really weird! Not quite the same week as this last year, but pretty darn close, my cat had an abscess, my son was projectile vomiting all over the place and my daughter had lost her first tooth (awww!) This year?

SAME THING!

Cat with abscess? Check!

Son spewing vomit? Check!

Daughter loses tooth? Check! (Unlike the previous two, this is a happy event)

The only major difference is that this year, thankfully, the turd pudding is in a diaper instead of on my bedroom floor.

I guess it’s really true. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

I had no idea I would be this involved in blogging but I’m so glad to still be here! It’s been a lot of fun :)

Happy First Anniversary, Blog!