Be scared...she came with gifts

I love my mom. I really do. She's a truly fabulous person, hella fun to have around, and my kids have a blast with her. I think I have the best mom in the world...except when she brings my youngest two boys farting slime.

It looks innocuous enough but don't let the bright colors and promises of fun suck you in. Flarp /Noise Putty/Fart Slime (whatever you call it) is a toy created by the devil himself...or maybe by a Grandma looking to pay back her kid for year of torture.

My first nightmarish experience with it was on our road trip to Georgia a few years back when she bought some of it to entertain the kids in the van. Imagine mile upon mile upon mile of brrraaaaappppp, eeeeew you stink followed by the insane laughter of the warped shorties in the back seat. It was crazy making. Then, it got spilled on the seat and some brainiac covered it with napkins instead of cleaning it up. It clung to that seat like crazy clings to Charlie Sheen. It took years before I was able to peel that hell born slime from the van seat.

My mom showed up today with two containers of this brightly colored torture device. Gabe and Joey spent hours making it make farting noises as loudly as they could. They were driving Marty, me, and the pets crazy. I finally snapped.

*ring, ring* my dad picks up the phone

Hi Kris, how is everyone?

Do you KNOW what your wife brought my younger children?  She bought them farting slime. I hate that stuff and she knows it. It took me years to get it off the seat in the van. I'm saving it. I'm making sure it stays in good fart making condition until Mom picks them up on Sunday. They are both bringing it with them and have instructions to play with it the whole way down to your house.

You wouldn't do that to me, would you?

No Dad, you I will give ear plugs. Your wife gets to suffer.

It's a good thing I love my mom and value our family holidays together or I'd be giving my parents a copy of Chicken Limbo to keep at their house for the grandkids next Christmas.

What's something a family member loves that you hate with an unreasonable passion?

That's what S/He Said...

Y'all, ever heard a story so funny you laughed until you cried? I know I certainly have. I have not one, but two laugh outloud stories about TypeACon. Interestingly, both stories at least peripherally involve Anissa Mayhew. By that measure (and many others), it was a totally kick ass conference.

Story 1

One afternoon, I was coming up the escalator and who should I see near the top but Anissa and her posse. The only two I can swear to being there were Anissa and Charlie Capen, the amazing writer from How To Be A Dad and at least occasional columnist at HuffPo. There were at least 3 other people there but the hilarity erased their names from my brain. I'm sorry. As I step off the escalator, I hear Charlie saying something that sounds vaguely like dinosaur names but isn't which totally cracked me up because of Gabe's history. I briefly mentioned this link to Charlie and the nameless (not really but, once again, brain fart here people, me no remember) person he was talking to and turned to talk to Anissa.

Behind us you can still hear Charlie talking but, I was being good and polite and paying attention to the people I was talking to until that moment. It was like a TV moment. You know when something so outrageous is said that everyone's head whips around to face the speaker at once.
(like the adults in the Charlie Brown cartoons...
kinda funny since it was Charlie talking)

Waawaaa waaa waa waa wa wa
Waawaaa waaa waa waa wa wa
Charlie Capen is a giant cl*t
Waawaaa waaa waa waa wa wa

All of us must have had that OMG did he really say that and then the tweeting began. As the first person tweeted, I felt the need to remind them to add the conference hashtag (#typeacon). And, while person#1 didn't get the official hashtag added, person #2 did...cue evil laugh bwahahahahahahahahaha. Charlie is saying (with a touch of desperation) "1 is a rumor but 2 is confirmation." I tapped Charlie on the shoulder, pointed at Anissa, and said "What does three make it?" Charlie yelled "No, Nissa, no!" And, Anissa looked up, gave him a blank stare and said "I'm handicapped. I didn't hear you." and she kept on typing.

I seriously lost it. Anissa rocked that deadpan delivery. And, that's what s/he said!

Come back later for story 2.

The Coining of a Word: part 2

Way back in August of  '08, Vic coined a word.

He did it again. Be scared, my friends. Be very scared.

Vic and I were getting ready for bed and this is what happened...

Once again, I'm in the bathroom brushing my teeth and a loud fart noise emanated from the bedroom. The smell wafts towards me.

Me: Damn, that reeks.
Vic: Wasn't me.
Me: You're really gonna go there...
Vic: Didn't you see Jolie on her pillow?
Me: Dude, really...Jolie's by the foot of the bed, ground level. That was all on you.
Vic: laughing It was a fartochet.
Me: It was a what?!?!
Vic: laughing harder A fartochet. You know when a fart bounces off one surface and seems to come from another location. Jolie fartocheted. Her butt's right near the area under the bed. She farted. It bounced off the floor and up to where I am.
Me: I can NOT believe you've done it again but, DAMN, that is going on my blog. Between you and the kids, I'll never, ever have to worry about what to write about.

Once again, a new word and it's many variants have entered the lexicon...

fartochet - noun - a fart that bounces off one surface and seems to come from another location (coined by Vic Cruz on 6/2/12)

to fartochet - verb - to  produce a fart that bounces off one surface and seems to come from another location

In Which He Channels His Inner Al Bundy

I had a very scary revelation earlier today. When my husband sleeps, he channels his inner Al Bundy. Those of you under the age of 30 might not know who Al Bundy is but you know the actor who plays him...Ed O'Neill/Jay Pritchett from Modern Family.

Now, Al Bundy was a character in Married with Children which was one of the funniest shoes on television. For the era it was on, Married with Children was groundbreaking and pushed the envelope of what was acceptable. Al was misanthropic, miserable, sarcastic, and judgmental. When Al was at home, you often saw him on the couch, in front of the TV, in a pose like this...

Yeah, Al sat around with his hand down his pants...something many men wish they could do.

Luckily, Vic is nothing like Al Bundy during his waking hours. I couldn't live with a man like that although I spent 10 yrs laughing at him on TV. But, I discovered my husband channels his inner Al Bundy when he sleeps. The past few days, when I've gone through our bedroom while Vic was sleeping, he was lying there sound asleep with his hand tucked into the waistband of his shorts. God help me...the Y chromosome is polluting his brain.

What embarrassing or funny trait does someone in your life have? Names can be falsified to protect the guilty...bwahahahaha.

Brainiacs vs The Ass Clown

Bored teenagers are a bad thing.

Bored, brainiac teenagers are worse.

Bored, slightly pissed off, brainiac teenagers can be truly dangerous.

Back in the summer of '86, I was a rising high school senior and I was being recruited by a ton of colleges including the Air Force Academy. That summer, I went to a summer science seminar for a week at the Air Force Academy. It was a blast. We got to hang out with other really smart kids. We participated in incredibly cool seminars ranging from a sort of computerized Risk game to helping with the scientific analysis of the Shroud of Turin. We also acted like all teens did and had desk chair races in the hallways of the dorms and had a kick ass toga party one night.

Most of the Academy cadets who were working with us during the summer seminar were really cool. They were fun, helpful, and all around good representatives of the Academy. There was one cadet though that was a total ass clown. He was snotty to the guys and he ignored all the girls except the one he wanted to hook up with. He acted like an entitled asshole, not a military gentleman.

They had a bunch of activities planned for us including a field trip to Pike's Peak. But, on the day of the field trip, the schedule changed last minute and a handful of us missed the announcement that moved up the field trip time by an hour. Sadly, missing the announcement meant we missed the bus so we were left with more than a couple of hours to kill and very few of the cadets were left to supervise us. We started thinking.

My friend Matthew and I decided we needed to pull a prank. We really, really needed to pull a prank on the ass clown cadet and, we used information we got from him to pull the prank. During the toga party the night before, he was in his room with the girl he hooked up with...something that would have gotten him in a huge amount of trouble if he'd gotten caught. A huge group of us tried to make sure he got caught in there with her by locking his door from the outside. Sadly, we didn't know about one feature of the Academy dorm rooms that foiled our plan...the huge wall to wall windows. Well, we knew about the windows but we didn't realize that you could slide your window open, reach to the next room's window, and slide it open. Then, all it took was a swing across about 6 to 8 inches of space and you've escaped the locked room and avoided being busted.

Now, it dawned on Matthew and I that this process could be reversed and used to get into a locked room. So, we went to ass clown's hallway and tested doors until we found one that was unlocked. We then went from window to window, going through 5 rooms, until we got to ass clown's room. Did I mention that we were more that 3 stories above the ground and that we stopped to take pictures of each other hanging out the windows?

Once we were in ass clown's room, we started looking for something we could take and hide...something that would be big enough to be immediately noticeable but not something personal. Taking something personal just felt wrong and, we knew ass clown would panic if whatever was missing was Academy property...hehehe. We decided to take his mattress. Once we decided that, one of us took the mattress out the door and the other relocked the door and went back through the windows, closing them all behind and covering our tracks. I think I was the one in charge of the mattress and Matthew took the window duty but it was over 25 years ago so I can't swear who did which job. Once the mattress was out of ass clown's room and the window path was covered, we went looking for another unlocked door. The owner of the open room was the lucky recipient of a mattress in their closet...out of sight, out of mind.

Then, we sat back and waited.I don't think the Pike's Peak group had been back for even 15 minutes before chaos ensued. Ass clown discovered the missing mattress and, as predicted, he panicked. It took over an hour for him to find the mattress and, since we weren't the only ones laughing, no one ever knew who were the masterminds behind the Great Mattress Caper of '86...until now.

I think the lesson from my time out at the Academy was don't piss off a smart kid. They will get you back in the most unexpected way.

Anyone have any stories from your high school years that you want to share?

Save Me From My Children

Y'all, I love my children. I really do. But, sometimes I really wonder about them. Tonight, we had a moment that surpassed the dancing on the toilet moment. For those of you who weren't around 3 years ago, Gabe had a night where every little bit of sense fled his mind and he started dancing on the toilet and singing "dancing on the toilet is a great idea".


Yeah, the Cruz boys, specifically Gabe, lost their shit again tonight. Gabe stayed home from school today because he had a horrible sounding cough. But, by late afternoon, he was feeling better and he started bouncing off the walls. Shortly before his bed time, Gabe decided it was time to go streaking through the house. He pulled his pants down and went running in circles. The longer he ran, the more he giggled. Then the giggling got interrupted by him shaking his butt at Joey...because he loves to make his brother shriek. Truly, that didn't really phase me. He's a 6 year old boy. They seem to have a fascination with nudity at that age. But, I finally had to call a halt to those shenanigans because he was just getting too wild. I sent him to the bathroom to get ready for bed.

I should have known better.

I heard a few bangs and crashes while he was in there. Sadly, all noises that are quite normal when Gabe heads into the bathroom. Then, he comes strolling out with a shit eating grin. He looked at me and said, "I was drinking from the toilet." Without a question, I could tell he was telling the truth.

What the hell was he thinking. No one dared him. No one put the idea in his head. I guess he did it because the idea simply floated across his brain. I do have to admit I was torn between laughing my ass off and being totally repulsed. I sent him in to brush his teeth and the thought of having him gargle with hydrogen peroxide crossed my mind. Unfortunately, that tooth brushing didn't take because Joey heard what was going on, took off into the bathroom, and yelled "Do it again Gabe!" I heard the toilet seat go up and it was headdesk time.

While I was making Gabe brush his teeth for a second and a third and a fourth time, I called Vic at work to tell him. By the time I got through the story, I was laughing so hard I was crying because of the sheer absurdity of it all. I couldn't even answer Vic when he said "He did WHAT?" First, it was dancing on the toilet. Then, it is drinking from the toilet. I'm almost afraid to see what he comes up with next.

Clearly, I'm going to have to work hard to occupy his time this summer. Anyone have any suggestions?

A Piece of Ass is Good for the Heart

Today, Vic and I went out on our bi-weekly date. We hit three locations, had some laughs, and spent a ton of money. Yup, we went grocery shopping..Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, and Aldi's. We were going through the store aisle by aisle and the cart was filling up. That's when he started...

Vic: Look hon. It's Crusty Ass Pancake mix.
Me: shoots Vic that look
Vic: No, really...you have to look.

against my better judgment, I looked

Vic: See, I told you...Crusty Ass Pancake mix...and it's even heart healthy.
Me: It is NOT pronounced Crusty Ass!
Vic: Well then, how is it pronounced? Cause it looks like Crusty Ass to me.
Me: Really? Crusty Ass? You had to go there?
Vic: I don't make this shit up. I just read it.
Me: still shooting Vic that look...
Vic: and, since it says heart healthy on the box, their new slogan could be "A Piece of Ass is Good for the Heart."

So, y'all, how would you pronounce the name of this pancake mix?

and, do you think Crusty Ass pancakes would go well with a side dish of Cock Soup?

What The Fuck Wednesday (on a Friday)

by Xurble

Welcome back to a very special edition of What The Fuck Wednesday brought to you on a Friday by the atozchallenge and the letter W. What The Fuck Wednesday is the prime location to read about products, items, and events that make your head snap around and your mouth utter the phrase "What the fuck is that?"

If I'm being honest, this is posting today instead of next Wednesday because I desperately needed a W post and was brain dead. The brilliant and delicious Mrs. Spock sent me an email a while back with a picture of something she'd found that she thought would be perfect for What The Fuck Wednesday. I couldn't agree with her more. Here for your amusement is the Viagra Key rack...

available on Etsy through Coat Rack Designs by martinreilly

While it truly does make me do a double take and makes me wonder what the fuck they were thinking, it also appeals to the perverse side of my sense of humor. It amuses me greatly to think of the reaction my children would have to this hanging in my house. I can also think of a few family members who would be rattled by this.


What's the funniest, weirdest, or most unusual thing you've seen lately?

April Fool's Day

pril Fool's Day is a day I always have great plans for. Sometimes I get to follow through on them. Sometimes I don't. This is the story of the best April Fool's prank I didn't get to play.

I have a good friend Mike who lives out in California. Back in college during freshmen year, Mike lived in the same dorm as I did. Now, Mike's a great guy and a hell of a lot of fun but that term "he's such a boy scout" definitely applies to him. Through most of college, Mike spent his summer's working at boy scout camp and he had a group of friends that worked there during the summers with him. A number of these guys he worked with every summer also went to college together at NC State University and shared and apartment. Let's call them Tom, Jerry and company.

Tom, Jerry, and company were all good guys. Hell, they spent summers working at a boy scout camp and Tom was even in the national guard. But, these guys had a wicked sense of humor. One day when they were bored, they created a fictional roommate and named him Hugh G. Reccione. Say it out loud. Yup, their fictional roommate was named huge erection.Then, Tom, Jerry, and company proceeded to create a paper trail for Hugh. They got magazine subscriptions in Hugh's name. They signed him up for all kinds of mailing lists. It got to the point where Hugh was getting all kinds of junk mail...sales fliers, political mailings, even credit card offers. They even managed to get him a social security card.

Well, just link boredom create Hugh, boredom and the upcoming April Fool's Day got Mike and I thinking. Mike wanted to get them back because they had signed him up for the Lego Club (or maybe it was the Burger King birthday club). So, I put on my thinking cap and had a stroke of brilliance. It dawned on me that with the paper trail Tom, Jerry, and company had created for the fictional Hugh G. Reccione, he was over the age of 18 and could potentially get entered in a government data base. Also, I was in ROTC in college so I had access to a full military uniform. This was perfect for a set up!

I can hear y'all asking, "What the hell does a military uniform have to do with anything?" Well, if Hugh was over 18 and in the government data base, he should have registered with Selective Service...the group responsible for implementing a draft if ever our country needs one. And, if a group of people were hiding someone who hadn't registered with Selective Service, they could theoretically get in a ton of trouble. And, who would likely be sent out to check on something like that...maybe someone in military uniform.

So, the plan was to get enough ribbons and maybe some higher rank insignia to add to my ROTC uniform...make it look like the uniform of an active duty member. Then, I was going to show up at Tom, Jerry, Hugh, and companies apartment in uniform and demand to see Mr. Reccione as he was in violation of federal statute because he hadn't registered with Selective Service. Tom would have shit a brick because, as a member of the National Guard, he would have been terrified of getting in trouble for harboring someone who hadn't registered and, when the truth came out, for committing fraud by setting up a fictional Social Security account. We would have let this play out for a good part of the month. There would have been official looking letters and maybe even follow up visits in attempt to contact Mr. Reccione. It would have been so much fun watching Tom, Jerry, and company scramble and freak out...almost as much fun as seeing their reaction when Mike and I confessed.

But, I admit it. I chickened out. I was only 18, I was in ROTC, and I was afraid I would get in trouble for impersonating an officer. It pretty much amounts to the fact that I didn't have the balls to follow through. I'd like to think I'd have the nerve to pull something like that off today.

Tell me about the best April Fool's prank you've ever come up with and let me know if you managed to pull it off.

10 Reasons I Know God Isn't A Woman (we're up to 11)

I recently had a revelation. There is no way God is a woman. Now, I know there are some of you screaming about the heresy. After all, God can be anything God wants to be. And, I'm sure there are a lot of you feminists screaming, "Why can't God be a woman? Women can do anything." I'm here to tell you that the proof is irrefutable. God is not a woman and here's why...

1. If God was a woman, we'd have an on/off switch for our uterus. That way, we wouldn't have to bleed like a stuck pig once a month. Just think, flip the switch to off until we want to start trying for a family and then flip it on.
2. If God was a woman, we wouldn't have to give birth by squeezing a bowling ball through our hooha. Instead, we'd all have a camouflaged zipper in our abdomen and the OB would just unzip it when it was time for the baby to come out and zip us back up afterward.
3. Then, look at the bladder discrepancy. On a day to day basis, the average male's bladder is twice the size of the average females bladder. But, that all ends with pregnancy. By 8 months along, the small female bladder has been squeezed and squished down to the size of a pencil...and that pencil gets flattened to the thickness of a paper every time we sneeze or the baby moves. There is no way a woman God would have done that to us.
4. If God were a woman, the men in our lives would also wake up every time a baby cries at night or a child stirs. Seriously, what woman can sleep through a baby screaming over a baby monitor put right next to their ear like Vic did when Marty was 3 months old? Further proof that God is not a woman.
5. FROM RYS: If God was a woman, we wouldn't have menopause. The switch would be flipped off, simple as that. No hot flashes, no going dry down there. The switch is just never able to flip on again. Just because you're done with that part of life shouldn't mean you should never enjoy sex again, particularly since men never suffer the same thing!
6. FROM MRS. GAMGEE: The ever-so-hard-to-achieve female orgasm (particularly in comparison with a male orgasm). If God were a woman, it wouldn't be so elusive.
7. FROM ST. ELSEWHERE: If God was a woman, she would have put an expiration date on sperm too.
8. FROM ST. ELSEWHERE: If God was a woman, she would have known how painful hair removal is, and there would be no hair in the ahem places.
9. FROM ST. ELSEWHERE: If God was a woman, men would have had as tough post-puberty phenomenon as women do.
10. FROM ST. ELSEWHERE: If God was a woman, breastfeeding would be a shared function between men and women
11. FROM BEAUTIFUL MESS: God isn't a woman because if he were, we wouldn't remember EVERY little thing that has hurt us. We'd probably be able to let it go too...

All right y'all, I need more examples. A good list needs 10 reasons and I'm sadly short of that standard. So, tell me reasons why you know God is not a woman.

Why Computers Sometimes Crash!

I got this via email from my mom today. I don't know who wrote it originally. I don't know how long it's been circulating. All I do know is that this Dr. Seuss inspired parody makes my nerdy, geeky soul happy in the pants. I dare you to read it out loud without cracking a smile.

Why Computers Sometimes Crash!
the Dr. Seuss inspired version

If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port,

and the bus is interrupted at a very last resort,

and the access of the memory makes your floppy disk abort,

then the socket packet pocket has an error to report.

If your cursor finds a menu item followed by a dash,

and the double-clicking icon puts your window in the trash,

and your data is corrupted cause the index doesn't hash,

then your situation's hopeless and your system's gonna crash!

If the label on the cable on the table at your house,

says the network is connected to the button on your mouse,

but your packets want to tunnel to another protocol,

that's repeatedly rejected by the printer down the hall.

And your screen is all distorted by the side effects of gauss,

so your icons in the window are as wavy as a souse;

then you may as well reboot and go out with a bang,

'cuz sure as I'm a poet, the sucker's gonna hang.

When the copy on your floppy's getting sloppy in the disk,

and the macro code instructions is causing unnecessary risk,

then you'll have to flash the memory and you'll want to RAM your ROM,

and then quickly turn off the computer and be sure to tell your Mom!

Boo-beez

There are stories in our past that we each try to forget. Stories we try to pretend never happened. But, for you my friends, cause I love you and want to make you laugh, I'm going to tell you one of those I can't believe it's happening to me stories.

A number of years ago, about a year after Vic and I moved into the first house we bought together (ya know, the house featured in HouseBuyingFucknuttery), we had finally bought the riding lawn mower I'd been lusting after. Don't judge...when you have over and acre to mow, it does strange things to your desires. It was such a sweet looking lawn mower...red and shiny and it had a cup holder.

Friday finally came and I was up on my lawn mower taking care of the yard. It was just amazing how much faster I could finish mowing the lawn. I hadn't been out there long enough to even get a sun burn and I'd already finished the flat area around the house and I was headed up the hill so I could mow the upper part of the yard. I had completed two laps around the upper part of the yard and I heard the engine of a large truck in the distance. As I started the third lap around the yard, I had to make a detour around the swing set.

That detour did me in.

See, this was the first time I had mowed the yard with my beautiful new riding mower. I didn't quite have a handle on the turn radius of that beautiful red machine. As I rounded the slide, I turned a bit too sharply and clipped the bottom corner of the slide.

No, I didn't tear the slide off the swing set. It was nothing that simple. The wheel of the lawn mower hooked on the bottom edge of the slide and lifted it up out of the ground. That wouldn't have been too bad except the local yellow jacket gang had used that slide to disguise the entrance to their gang headquarters. Yup, I tore open the entrance to an underground beehive. The gang swarmed and went up my pants leg and under my shirt. I threw that bitch into park, jumped off my shiny red machine, and went tearing across the yard shaking my pants leg and flapping my shirt wildly. As I got near the house, I pulled the shirt up over my head. I figured I was safe. We lived way out in the country. Our neighbors were at work. And, dammit, the desperate need to get the bees out of my clothes overrode any sense of modesty.

I was wrong. I wasn't safe. Remember that large truck motor I heard. It was the motor of the UPS truck. And, you'll never guess whose house he was coming to...mine. That day will go down in Cruz family history ads the day I stripped for the UPS man. I bet the UPS guy didn't know he was going to get his very own peep show when he came to work that day.

Harry Ha-Ha

Since I tormented y'all with Voldemort themed erotica, I thought I'd share some truly funny Harry Potter things I found. Y'all remember Harry Plopper from The Simpsons Movie, right?

Well, I found a poster someone created using Harry Plopper's image...

And, while that gave me a good giggle, the video I found had me laughing so hard I was crying. I can either blame it on the fact that I was watching it at 2 am or I could simply admit I have the sense of humor of a 12 yr old boy. Give it a watch and tell me which reason you think wins out.

Do y'all have anything funny you've run across recently? I'd love a link.

Kristin vs. the tree

This weekend, we'll be going out to get our Christmas tree. We always wait until at least the second week in December because I have to have a real tree. We tend to make a bit of a production of getting our tree. It's part of the whole Christmas celebration for us. A few years ago, we added a new element to our whole Christmas tree production. We started tying our tree to the wall. Yes, really...we tie the tree to the wall.

A number of years ago, before Gabe was born, we were setting up our Christmas tree. We had this phenomenal tree, about 9 ft tall and super full, and we had a nice, new big tree stand to put it up in. Vic and I had managed to get that big mother up in the stand and we were letting it stand so the branches could settle open. We had filled the stand with water and I finally had a chance to sit down at the computer.

Well, I didn't get to sit down very long. In less than 15 minutes, I heard a shriek from the living room. As I rounded the corner I saw Marty clinging desperately to a branch of the tree. He's leaning back and the tree is leaning way over. I don't know how the hell he kept that tree from hitting the ground, but he did. However, whatever he did to tip the tree emptied at least a gallon of water from the stand onto the ground. It was such a mess. With help from Vic, we got the tree re-situated in the stand. It was once again secure...or so I thought.

Later in the day, it was time to decorate our behemoth. We had almost all of our ornaments on...the Sesame Street ornaments, my imported Italian glass ornaments, the ornaments we got on our honeymoon. The tree was looking truly gorgeous. All that was left was for Marty to hang the Grinch ornament. Now, Marty has a unique tradition with that Grinch ornament. In his mind, it's an ornament so it HAD to go on the tree but it was that mean old Grinch so it needed to be hidden. The problem that year was the way Marty decided to get the Grinch into the inside of the tree. Marty decided to go under the tree and come up on the inside of the tree in order to hang the Grinch in his hiding place. Wanna know how that worked out? *Not too good. Marty went up, the tree went over, and then, the tree hit the ground. All the ornaments save the Grinch were already on the tree and the tree was on the fucking ground. I had horrific visions of broken ornaments and having to undecorate the tree to be able to resecure it in the stand. I think there were only two things that saved Marty's life at that moment...1) only two ornaments broke and neither broken one was special in any way and 2) despite the screws from the tree stand biting deep into the tree when it fell, all it took to get it standing straight and tall again was to rotate the tree a little and tighten the screws again.

At that point, I decided enough was enough. I was going to fix it so that damned tree couldn't ever go over again. I marched out to the van and got the twine that had secured the tree to the top of the van. Then, I went up the hill to our shed and found my drill and to eye bolts. I hauled my trusty two step metal step stool out of it's corner and put those damned eye bolts into the wall studs.  I was standing on the top step of my step stool with the twine tied to one eye bolt. I leaned forward a little bit to wrap the twine around the truck and, that's when it happened. As I was leaning out (just a little mind you), I felt my foot slip. I think my foot must have been a little damp from my trip outdoors to get the tools because I sure as hell wasn't leaning far enough to account for the fall. The foot slipped, the knee loudly popped, and I hit the floor in the one small area I could hit without banging my head. My knee popped so loudly that I thought I had broken it again.

So, there I was, lying on the floor in an immense amount of pain and the damned tree wasn't even tied to the wall yet. A trip to the **ER in an ambulance assured me that my knee wasn't broken. A smart husband made sure the tree was secured to the eye bolts in the wall before I got home. And, the tree stayed upright for the rest of the Christmas season. I think that while the tree may have won the battle, I definitely won the war. To this day, our trees get tied to the wall before even one ornament goes on it. I even learned two very important lessons that day...1) step stools are evil bastards that ambush you when your feet are wet, and 2) the tree never wins.

So y'all, your assignment is to share one ridiculous holiday story with me. Maybe something that makes me feel not so alone in my klutziness. Spill it!

The Icecapades: Video Game Version

Hey everyone! Due to an unfortunate chain of events, I'm hijacking the Lair today. We've had a nasty stomach bug swarm the house, with a second victim (Joey) down for the count today. Yesterday was Gabe's turn. For Kristin, this has meant a lot of night duty and midnight laundry (you know, the unexpected kind...) and has taken a toll on her. Since today is a half day at school, she's been banished to catch some Zzz's before the rambunctious 4 + Marty return home early this afternoon.

And so...On With The Show!

The musical Rock of Ages is running at a local venue.  It's a tribute type play to the metal-era of the 80s.  As a child/teen from this time, I'm not sure how I feel about this.  Most of me just wants to laugh.  Then again, I was also a child from the 70s whose parents owned every ABBA album ever made, and even though I found Mamma Mia to be ridiculous at its release, the creative team really pulled it off amazingly well. 

But anyway, it got me thinking.  What area of entertainment had yet to be exploited as some type of stage show?  Then it hit me:  Video Games on Ice.  Kids from a fairly wide age range would clamor to see it, brought by their nostalgic parents who remember begging their parents for an Atari system.  We controlled little 'paddles' to keep the digital 'ball' in play:  when it was vertical it was called 'Tennis', but horizontally it was PONG.

But anyway, the more I though about it seemed to work.  It has all of the elements of success:

Built in story with rivalry?  Check!  Flamboyant costumes?  Check!  Fantasy like scenery?  Check!  Action?  Check!  Iconic music?  Check!  Kid friendly?  Check!  Because let's face it, you can't get bloody on the ice unless it's a hockey game.  And it works with a large array of games to choose from...giving it many runs!  That's YEARS of entertainment!  It's like Disney on Ice...featuring each film at least once, or a bunch and all the princesses come out at the end for a royal medley.  Except in this version, it might look like Super Smash Brothers Brawl.

What video game would you like to see featured first?

The Many Styles of Victor Cruz

The other night, I was in the bathroom giving Gabe a bath and Vic came into the bedroom to change his shirt. Right after he pulled the old shirt off I looked out and cracked up. T-shirt removal did a serious job on Vic's hair. See, my husband has decided that he needs to grow his hair out. I think he's having flashbacks to the 70s and earlier.

I call this the Nick Nolte mug shot look.

I was so amused by the first hair disaster that I broke out the brush and started playing with Vic's hair. I must say he was an extremely good sport and I was very amused by it all. Here are the many styles of Victor Cruz (with his permission)...

This is the Flock of Seagulls look.

The Sumo top knot

Sumo top knot side view.

But, then I decided the Sumo top knot was missing something. Hmmmm, what could it need? I think it needs chop sticks.

I'm still trying to convince him to wear the chopsticks to work. So, which hairstyle do you think is best for laughs?

Tales of the Traveling *B.O.B.

I know there have been many times I've raved to you about EdenFantasys. They have a truly amazing selection of adult toys and are super, super discreet with their packaging and shipping. I also adore them because they are incredibly savvy when it comes to social media and love to work with bloggers.

I'm sure y'all also remember when I wrote about the EdenFantasys BlogHer '11 party and ran a giveaway with it. Well, that giveaway led me to develop a whole new appreciation for the discretion and careful packaging that EdenFantasys uses.

The Not So Regular World of the Cartoon Network

I am deeply, deeply disturbed.  My kids have discovered two shows on the Cartoon Network that are going to make it very hard for me to argue that drugs don't pay. My youngest two have turned into major fans of The Regular Show and The Amazing World of Gumball.

In The Regular Show, the main characters are a 6 ft tall, bipedal, talking bluejay, Mordecai, and 2 ft tall, bipedal, talking raccoon, Rigby. The cast is round out with a ridiculously muscle bound MuscleMan; a yeti-like creature; a bipedal, talking Gumball machine (yes, in this show, not in The Amazing World of Gumball), and High-5 Ghost.

The two main characters are total slackers whose one aim in life is to entertain themselves by any means necessary.

And, then there's The Amazing World of Gumball (please note there are no gumballs or gumball machines in this cartoon). This cartoon focuses on Gumball Watterson (a young cat) whose mom is a cat, dad is a rabbit, sister is a rabbit, and brother/best friend is the former family pet who grew legs and became a member of the family. The cast is rounded out by the cloudlike school counselor, the school heartthrob who happens to be a balloon, Carmen the cactus who leads the girls, a female peanut with antlers and empty eye holes, the t-rex school bully, an eight bit spider, and too many other odd characters to be mentioned.

The show follows 12 yr old gumball through his series of misadventures.

Honestly, I don't see any  way an adult could have come up with these shows without doing seriously heavy drugs, probably hallucinogenics. And, these adults are making a living producing these cartoons. It makes it hard to argue that drugs (at least hallucinogenics) don't pat.

What kids show has you firmly convinced the creators must be on drugs?

The Manatee is a Hussy

I have come to the inescapable conclusion that my van aka the Manatee is a total hussy. Now, I'm sure most of you simply can't conceive of a van being a hussy but there honestly isn't any other explanation.

We love her. We clean her. We take care of her and feed her lots of gas and top off her oil. Yet lately, that just doesn't seem to be enough. First, we sent her to the mechanic to replace the messed up tension pulley in the engine. Everything seems ok for a little while. The Manatee was running smoothly. Then, the compressor in the air conditioner seizes up and breaks the belt. Ms. Manatee got herself bundle back off to the mechanic. After a two day stay during which the Manatee was cossetted and pampered, she came home with her air conditioning working well enough to freeze you out of the van and, yes, she was still running smoothly...until late yesterday.

Yesterday, the boys and I joined my parents for a day trip to Wet 'n Wild Emerald Point Water Park. Before we left, I had my dad check the oil in my van...just to be on the safe side. The trip there was uneventful and, once we got there, lots of wet, happy, silly fun was had by all. By the time we packed up and headed home, the boys were nicely browned and more than a little tired. I, on the other hand, was a shade scarily similar to the color of the Cheap Sally Dance Party tote bag I was carrying...

I think the Manatee was a bit put out about having to sit and wait in a dirt and gravel parking lot all day because she pitched a fit on the way home. We were driving along and I saw something in the road a little bit in front of us. It didn't look that big but just big enough to make me think "What the hell is that?" There was literally no time and space to avoid going over it since it didn't appear until the car just in front of us passed by it. So, after thinking "What the hell is that?", I quickly followed it up with "What the hell was that noise?" as something thumped near/under my van. I wasn't too concerned because it sounded like a smallish rock or stick bouncing off the frame. Shortly after that, Manatee started pitching her little fit. Every time I stepped on the brakes, my oil light and alarm went off. We weren't that far from home so I pressed on but the frequency of the warning light and alarm going off was getting worse and worse. I honestly figured it was a fluke and Manatee was just bitching because she was still running smoothly. When we got home and were unloading the van, I noticed a greasy film on the back window...still was just chalking it up to road grime. After I got the kids settled down for the night, I headed back out to give Manatee her yearly bling (registration sticker). When I walked around to the back of the van I noticed that greasy film covered the bumper, the entire back door, and the rearview window. This started my spidey senses tingling and I was concerned...especially after I looked under the van and saw a small puddle of oil. I called Vic (he was at work) and we came to the as yet unproven conclusion that something punctured the oil pan. So, Ms. Manatee is temporarily out of commission.

I started looking at the facts and the sequence of events and repairs and came to the inescapable conclusion that Ms. Manatee is a hussy that has the hots for her mechanic. What other explanation could there be?

A laugh a minute...

It happened again. Remember my post yesterday...laughing when you know you shouldn't...it happened again today. We have a huge number of kid's books and one of our favorites is the Sandra Boynton book Oh My Oh My Oh Dinosaur!

As you can see, the book truly is well loved. The corners are peeling. The spine is worn on the edges. But, it's been through three boys and we read it a lot.

This morning, Joey and Gabe were in the living room. As I came down the hall I heard them laughing and Gabe was saying "Don't tell mom. Please don't tell mom." Well, y'all know there is no better way to get a parent's attention than to say don't tell them. So, I asked. Joey cracked up and said "You know that book Oh My Oh My Oh Dinosaur! Well, Gabe was reading that page Dinosaurs singing a dinosaur song...

but instead, he said said 'Vagina-saurs singing a vagina-saur song.'" I knew I shouldn't laugh but I did. I laughed long and hard...and, Gabe now has his "song" on an unending loop.

Any clue how I can stop laughing when I shouldn't?