Important Question: The greatest ridiculous song lyric?

It's time once again for me to turn the microphone over to you, the reader, to help me address a little quandary that has recently locked up dangerously significant portions of my brain space.

Which of the following can fairly be declared the greatest line in the history of love songs?

Bruce Springsteen in Thunder Road: "You ain't a beauty but hey, you're alright."

or

Justin Timberlake in Like I Love You: "Here baby, hold my jacket."

Cast your vote below!

If by some chance, you think you can possibly beat these two contenders, feel free to let me know, and I'll take your candidate under consideration.

Just a cage of rib bones

In my ongoing efforts to win a Daytime Emmy award, I am hereby converting what started out as a simple post about my quirky love for a food conveyance into my shot at a treatment for a Lifetime Original Movie.

Towards that end, I have provided a suggested soundtrack by the inimitable Ingrid Michaelson, which seems to currently be required for all such entertainment (with good reason):

---

[Background music: The Way I Am]

When I went to load a bowl into our dishwasher the other day, I was struck with the memory that I'd broken the matching bowl a month or so ago, so I didn't have to leave a spot for that one right next to the other (I have a tried-and-true arrangement for loading our dishwasher). I love these bowls, because their nearly ideal shape and the fact that they're ceramic makes them the most versatile dishes we have.

I say "them" because we started out with four, but as we are now down to one, I suppose I should get used to saying "it" instead. Forget about those other two that were broken long ago, though, because we've only had two for a long time, and that makes the loss (or murder) of one that much more poignant.

[Background music: Breakable]

I'll pause for a moment to allow you to wipe away your tears, because if you're like me, this all seems exactly as tragic as someone setting a place at the table for the recently deceased before realizing there's no longer a need for it, and then finding themselves unable to take the place setting away because it seems so final and cruel. The only real difference is that in my story, the protagonist is the place setting itself.

On that note, I felt a little sorry for the bowl, and then I felt a bit guilty for robbing it of its life partner. They nested so perfectly together, quiet and content in that cozy cabinet, except when one or both of them went out to work or on vacation to the counter by the sink. Absence always made its heart grow fonder, so now it can grow fonder forevermore. At the same time, I have to think that it is now left to live in terror of the day when one of us drops it a little too hard or loves it a little too much, a la Lennie from Of Mice and Men.

For the icing on this maudlin cake, I had broken the dearly departed bowl by dropping it just a few inches onto the dishwasher rack, of all places, and this surviving bowl had to sit there watching in horror. And every time I put it back into that cursed place, it has to relive that awful moment. I believe the cause of death was that the victim had been brittle from a case of thermal shock, but that's all in the past and there's no sense in torturing myself any more than I already have.

So as this Last Bowl Standing now lay in that same dishwasher rack where its lover met its end, waiting for the ax to fall while facedown and trembling in fear, wracked with regret, horrible flashbacks, and post-traumatic stress, it became clear that these bowls are subject to the same whimsies of fate as the rest of us.

[Background music: Keep Breathing]

What makes them so special then, you ask? Nothing much, I guess. I just like the way they hold my cereal up like a gift each morning, making a healthy amount seem like the excessive quantity I might otherwise pour. Plus, they fit so nicely in our little dishwasher. (Sorry... too soon? They/it really do/does, though.)

So this bowl, just like those before it and every one to follow, is not much more special than any others, and it has little choice but to do whatever it is it does while it can, because it can never know which day will be its last.

Aaaaaaaand scene.


Footnotes:

• If need be, we can add a little coda about the last bowl moving in with one of the other set of bowls we have.

• That leaves open a sequel about the two renegades bucking the conventions of the society in our cabinet, and making their own way towards being happy again in the short time they have, and so on.

• The widowed bowl must be voiced by Valerie Bertinelli, or there's no deal, and I believe Dennis Haysbert was born to play the broken bowl. Suggestions for the widow's possible love interest include Vin Diesel or Pierce Brosnan.

This is not a blog post

You know, despite forecasts of rain, it looks pretty dang nice out there, and I'm done waiting for the hammer to fall.

We're going to go to the park and the pool, and if we get caught in the rain, we'll at least have had fun doing so.

Consequently, I will not be posting anything today. No, no, hold back your tears-- you'll just have to come to terms with there not being anything at all new posted on my blog today. Nothing. And these are not the droids you're looking for.

You'll get over it, somehow. I know you will.

P.S. To help you along, you could always go back and watch this again:

Rock-a-bama: The Newest Recruit

After spending a few more months hammering the airwaves and the national consciousness, and after increasing voter outreach efforts, it seems that Barack Obama and his supporters have finally achieved full penetration of the coveted preschool demographic.

I have here some video evidence of my 17-month-old daughter's spontaneous spouting of Obama's name, and her hearty laughter and enjoyment of hearing said name repeated back to her. After indulging her in this activity for several minutes the other day, she has been doing this intermittently ever since.

See here Exhibit A:


And hey look-- I already got my first vicious anti-Obama spam comment! I should print it, frame it, and hang it over the cash register.

Women: Can't live with 'em, can't eat your own string cheese

The world didn't seem all that funny to me this morning... among other things, I hate banks.

So this is the kind of thing I watch on days like this:


Just click play, and enjoy the random sampling of the wonders YouTube has to offer our troubled civilization.

Something else to remind me that the world is funny: thinking of that time M- cornered a younger boy at library storytime "trying to get him to understand" that she wanted to eat his string cheese. She only knows people who share their food with her, so she quickly became desperate as she ran through her whole repertoire hoping something would register with him-- "mah, peez", "biiiiite, bite"... even signing for more.

And when I say signing for more, I mean she was standing over him, repeatedly signing right in his face. Not aggressively, mind you, but more like, "Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth??" (funnier if you enjoyed the movie Rush Hour). I'm positive he knew exactly what she wanted, but he of course just wanted to squat in the corner and eat his string cheese in peace.

Even if M- had learned already how to instead use subtle hints and suggestions to get the boy to give her his string cheese and make him think it was his idea, he was nowhere near old enough to be blinded by any accursed motivation to allow this to happen. So she was destined for failure, short of using brute force, and he gained a valuable preview for the long life ahead of him.

And, for the record, this all happened very quickly, across the room, and by the time she was signing in his face I picked her up and explained that it was his string cheese and she had her own food to eat if she was hungry. Still, the bewildered and overwhelmed look on the boy's face was just priceless. If I'd had a stick of string cheese on me, I would have tossed it to him and just said, "Women, huh?"

And he would have stuck to his original plan of running back to his mommy.

The laughing wounded

Another one (of just a precious few...) of the hidden benefits of having multiple kids, versus having just one, is that wailing and whining over minor (or even non-) injuries is greatly reduced, without your having to do anything at all. This is at least true at the age my kids are (3 and 1), though I can see when you throw in scamming and scheming as they get older, the whining could actually increase over time. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

For the time being, though, I can't tell you how many times I've heard a head go "donk" in the afternoon, then silence for a second, and instead of crying next I hear laughing. This laughing, of the non-injured party (of course), is closely followed by the laughter of the successfully infected afflicted party.

This phenomenon works the same for both kids throughout the day, and let me tell you, I relish being freed of the constant dilemma of, "do I encourage the kid to fall apart at every little thing by fawning over him/her and checking for injuries, or do I seem heartless by basically not reacting at all?"

Between those two choices, I tend towards the latter most of the time, since it's usually pretty clear what warrants attention and what doesn't. I wait to see if the kid is shocked or otherwise on the fence about the event, and if so, I say something like, "Whoopsy!" in a happy voice. If it's for real, there's not usually a need to wonder about it. The rest of the time, I say if the kid wants a hug, why not, but otherwise it's no big deal. This has served us well so far. [A side note to the prospective parents out there: babies understand when they're being openly mocked at an astoundingly young age.]

By this point, if D- is crying or complaining about an injury, unless he's just really tired and cranky, you know he's earned it, and he can have some coddling. I don't think this will be an issue with the bulldog that is M-, but we still have to maintain my aloof demeanor to make sure we don't break her.

Outside whatever J- and I are teaching them with this, what they are teaching each other now is that watching other people get minorly injured is generally pretty funny, but then that's just a universal truth we all discover eventually. If you haven't yet, and especially if you already have, I highly recommend going to YouTube and searching for "people falling". If you're too lazy for that, here's a sample:

I really do love my kids, honest!

For all you non-parents out there, here's one great thing about being a parent you might not be aware of:

You know that horrified panic you feel when you suddenly realize your mind was wandering while someone was talking to you, and you stand there awaiting sentencing once this person inevitably says something like, "So what do you think about that?"

When three-year-olds are most of the people you spend time with, you almost never have to deal with this feeling. Though when you also split that time with one-year-olds, you do have to run the risk of falling asleep while people are talking to you. Even three-year-olds notice that... trust me.

At least half the time, though, when a little kid is rambling at you, even they don't know what they're talking about. (I've actually checked on this periodically, in case you think I'm just as mean as this post makes me sound.) So you don't even have to feel bad tuning in and out at will while they practice their "conversation skills". Listening too intently all the time only results in logic-induced headaches and unanswerable questions (again, trust me on this one).

In fact, D- is standing right next to me going on and on about something completely nonsensical as I write this post, asking only that I occasionally offer a "Really?" or an "Oh, wow!" in response to his tone before deliberate pauses.

Warning: You should make sure to check in here and there, though, or you'll miss stuff like this: