Browsing Archives for August 2008

The CDW Choreorganizers

August 25th, 2008

I was heartily inspired after reading P-Dub’s recent post on how she get those little cowpokes of hers to help out around the house.

Just a little card!

With a little picture!

And a brief explanation!

Brilliant!

So I made a few of my own choreganizers… customized for a family of four boys… and I can’t wait to see the results!

Would you like to see them?

This is one chore that makes my life a living hell. But now with these choreganizers, I will never have to face it again!

I decided to divide this particular chore into several steps so that my boys will not get overwhelmed…by the fumes… and the sickening responsibility!

Why?

Why did I ever let them stand up to pee?

Why didn’t I just keep holding them on the toilet as they balanced there whizzing away.

Why didn’t I somehow force them to keep sitting down?

Or at the very least teach them far better aim!

Do they even look at the toilet when they are peeing?

Because it seems more like they are running in the opposite direction of the toilet, or turning in circles, or trying to hit everything except the water in the bowl!

I have to be honest here, if one of my boys even makes even the slightest tremor of a sound while I am hacking away at the daily urine build-up, I have a tendency to react in extremely inappropriate ways.

Like reaching for the large bottle of aspirin in the medicine cabinet and pouring it down my throat.

Or worse – picking up the chainsaw I was using to break the congealed rind of urine between the floor and the stool – and tearing after one of my sons.

So I am really counting on these choreganizers to turn my life around. To make me a more balanced, agreeable, friendly, cute, perky mom! Just like Ree Drummond!

This has to work. Because if it doesn’t, I am locking them out of all the bathrooms for good and they can just go outside! Then the bathroom will be mine…

ALL MINE!

MOOHAAHAAHAA!!!

129 comments

Filed under: General Lunacy

Ground Breaking Summer Recipe

August 24th, 2008

Take some garden fresh cucumbers and some homegrown tomatoes and slice them up.

Sprinkle generously with salt…

Eat…

Repeat…

Repeat some more.

Save a tomato for the last…

Die happily…

26 comments

Filed under: Kitchen Tragedies

And Then There Was This One Time At Panera…

August 23rd, 2008

It is probably a complete mistake to post this story, but I feel the need to cleanse myself of a little iniquity.

My sister April, used to live in Saint Louis and I would frequently pack up my four boys and head to her house for a long weekend. Sometimes my parents would also be there and we would have a high old time driving April insane with our shopping needs and eating out at exotic restaurant needs which none of us could do back in small town Kansas. We often took all the kids out with us on these shopping and eating excursions because WE ARE IDIOTS.

So after a few hours of hitting the big box stores, we decided to get some lunch and we all decided that The Saint Louis Bread Company would be an excellent spot. Except for Drew my third son who was maybe three or four at the time and loathed The Bread Company. He hated The Bread Company. He despised The Saint Louis Bread Company. I have no idea why. We did not have a Bread Co. anywhere near us in KANSAS. Where did he form this strong opinion? What was it based on? The only time we ever went to Saint Louis Bread Co. was when we visited April’s house. Drew was only three. I couldn’t understand how any truly horrifying culinary experience could possibly be permanently imbedded in his toddler brain. But somehow, it was and he decided to throw one long fit inside The Bread Co. to prove it.

He whimpered, he whined, he gurgled, he moaned. The rest of us settled into our soup and sandwiches and tried to ignore him, but he just wouldn’t give it up. I was stern, I cajoled, I threatened, I pointed my finger and hissed, I tried to clog my ears with little bits of bread, but my three year old was getting the best of me.

Finally, I realized that we were sitting right by a huge window that looked out on the curb where April’s minivan was parked. She was in fact parked right in front of the store and I had a perfect view of her van. So I said, “Drew, if you don’t stop whining about your lunch right this very minute, I am going to put you in the van and you can whine all you want and no one will be able to hear you!”

Drew kept right on whining.

So I said it again – Right this second…stop whining… car… no one hears you… etc etc…

Drew looked me in the eye, decided I was bluffing, kicked it up a notch and threw himself on the floor in a rage.

I gotta tell ya, I was not exactly maintaining my composure at this point, but we were in a crowded restaurant and I did manage, with as much dignity as possible, to gather him up and carry him out, open up the van, wrangle him into his car seat, shut the door and walk right back into the restaurant.

When I walked back in, one table in particular was looking at me with huge melon eyes. I realized that it might be shocking to watch a woman stick her vibrating toddler in a van and walk away, but we could clearly see the van from our table and we were just about done with our lunch anyway. As I approached our table, April frantically motioned to me and in hushed tones she said…

“Rechelle..”

“What?”

At the same time the melon eyed people walked up to the table and said…

“Ma’am…”

“Yes?”

And then together they all explained.

I had not put Drew in April’s van.

I had put my tantrum throwing child in the melon eyed people’s van!

And there sat Drew, still crying, still flailing, still wailing…. in a complete stranger’s car.

I slunk back out to the van and got my son.

And I never used the old “taking the kid out to the car to teach him a lesson” mode of discipline again!

These days Drew picks all the restaurants.

Oh and Panera – or The Bread Co. is his very favorite place to go.

I am not even kidding you.

42 comments

Filed under: The Boys

Murder Comes to the Masses… An Agatha Christie Giveaway

August 19th, 2008

Stunning really.

When you think about it.

That the best selling novelist of all time.

OF ALL TIME…

Would be a woman…

A woman named Agatha

And having been given the singular and most hearty name of Agatha, she would continually come up with names of books that make you want to say them over and over again.

The MURDER at the vicarage.

>THE MURDER at the VICARAGE!

>The Murder at the VICARAGE!

The Murder at the Vicarage…

The MURDER at the…… VICARAGE!

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Agatha Christie is one of my go to girls.

She never fails to entertain me.

Her glittering settings in old hotels, on the Nile, along the Riviera, in the green and golden English countryside, amidst a quiet village,

A body…

Is discovered…

In the library…

Her characters...

The way she paints them with the precision of a neurosurgeon. Their mannerisms, the way they speak, how they lift the teacup to their lips, the white gloves, the noble gait, the little gray cells…

She wrote more books with Poirot, though according to my research, she grew to despise him long before she stopped using him as a main character. Perhaps it was then she began to plot his destruction. She plotted it carefully. Fully exploiting his usefulness like a mafia boss, because aside from being a prodigious writer, she also deeply believed she was an entertainer and did not want to disappoint her audience. And Poirot entertained people with his peculiar habits and massive ego like no other detective ever has.

You see, deep down… Agatha was really a blogger.

So even though Miss Marple was her favorite crime solver, she kept writing with Mr Poirot because her readers loved him so. (They told her this in the comments of course.)

Miss Marple is my favorite too – because you know me and Agatha – we understand one another. But I love Poirot too. My boys say POY-ROT and they ridicule me for renting all the Poyrots from NetFlicks one after another after another after another.

“Oh look” they say, “Mom rented another POYROT – what a surprise!”

My poor, pathetic, sad, little orphaned children.

So today for the giveaway I have got three great Agatha Christie books (all used – all from Alibris) one Poirot DVD and a set of THREE Miss Marple DVD’s.

To win one of these literary classics tell me… WhoDunnit? Do you have a favorite mystery? It can be a movie or a book or just one of those troublesome, nagging mysteries of the universe. Winners will be chosen randomly at or around 8 PM CST Tuesday Night.

This giveaway has been murdered.

0 comments

Filed under: Agatha Christie, Book Giveaways

CDW asks the BIG QUESTIONS

August 14th, 2008

I have two questions for you. Two… burning… questions. I would much prefer to have three burning questions for you… because two makes me feel off kilter. So let’s hope I can think of another question before this post is over.

Both of my questions relate to my job, which is at a Garden Center, but I am certain that people with all sorts of different jobs will be able to chime in with some possible answers…

This first question is this…

When I am helping a customer… to find a product… or to answer a question… or to serve the customer’s needs in any way… and in the middle of being helped… the customer takes a call on their cell phone… what should I do?

How long should I stand there waiting for the customer to finish the call?

Six seconds?

Six minutes?

SIX HOURS???

I have to tell you that after having been in this very situation several times now, my first impulse is not to wait at all but instead to immediately reach for a garden shovel and hit the customer over the head with it.

But that may not be the right response.

I gotta tell you though – it is irritating. I have lots of things to do. Lots of important things. There are plants… everywhere. Plants that need care… and water… and pruning… and there are floors with dirt that need sweeping and shelves with dust that need dusting and a cash register that needs to be stared at with a gimlet eye… and a phone that needs to be answered… NOT TO MENTION OTHER CUSTOMERS TO WAIT ON…

I truly enjoy helping people and waiting on customers, but there are some limits to what I can take. And the cell phone… the cell phone… ma’am your cell phone.. and it is ALWAYS a woman with the cell phone… I don’t know if I can take your cell phone.

No really it’s okay ma’am… I will wait here for the next fifteen minutes while you finish your call with your sister about the weekend at the lake!

And while you are at it, go ahead and tell her all about how you helped your daughter move on Friday. No Friday… no we moved her on Friday… my daughter. We moved her on Friday.

And please don’t forget to tell the person on the other end of the cell phone where you are currently standing.

I am at the garden center… the garden center… I am in the garden center and I am standing by the geraniums… the red geraniums…. I am standing by the red geraniums… and I am getting ready to go and look at the hydrangeas… the HYDRANGEAS… we are going to go look at the hydrangeas… what?… I can’t hear you… where are you? Are you driving? Are you in the car? I am at the garden center. The garden center. Where am I going next? I will probably go to lunch… Lunch… Lunch at Harry’s. I said I am going to lunch at Harrys. HARRY’S! I can’t hear you very well. Are you driving? Are you still driving? I am still at the garden center. I am still here at the garden center. Are you driving? Where are you driving? No I am not driving… I am at the garden center.

I am not even making up the fascinating content of these paramount calls. Well, I am mostly not making them up, but I have stood and listened to quite a few of these calls now. Standing and waiting for the customer to get back to her question. Trying to keep my hand from reaching out and grabbing the most lethal insecticide in the store, ripping the lid off and pouring it down my throat. Oh the burn… the blessed blessed burn and the peace… the blessed blessed peace that comes after the burn… the burn…

While the customer goes on and on…

And then I am going to go to Target. To Target. I am going to go to Target. I am looking for new storage bins. New storage bins. I can’t hear you very well. Are you driving? I am at the garden center.

So tell me gentle readers - what do you think a humble employee in the retail industry should do when waiting on a customer that decides to take a call in the middle of being served.

Question #2

What do you do when you have gas at work?

Bubbly gas, ripply gas, soft feathery gas, burning gas, decroded dying animal gas, silent but deadly gas, booming gas, rubbery butt flappers, nuclear warfare gas…

What do you do when you accidentally let one rip…

I mean let one fly…

like a delicate moth…

ascending a ray of sunlight…

In front of a customer?

What is the best response?

Should I pretend that it didn’t happen?

Should I quickly drop something in an effort to disguise the racket?

Should I rapidly guide the customer to the fragrant hybrid roses?

Should I look askance at someone across the aisle as if he/she were the culprit?

Should I giggle shyly?

Should I say “Whoa?”

Should I say “Excuse me!”

Should I say “Did you hear that?”

Should I say “Holy crap was that me or was that you?”

Should I say”Barking spiders” like my dad always does?

Should I feign paralysis?

I am pretty good at feigning paralysis.

I am just wondering what to do…

Not that it has EVER happened TO ME or anything.

Which brings me to question #3… which I just now thought up…

What do you do if you are simultaneously helping a customer who is on their cell p

hone AND you are farting AT THE SAME TIME???

It is a nightmarish thought isn’t it!

Dear God in Heaven, I hope that never happens to me!

I am here at the garden center… the garden center… the lady that is helping me just farted… I said she just farted… she farted…SHE FARTED! Are you driving?

121 comments

Filed under: Supreme Silliness

The Aggressively Friendly Nudist – The Explanation

August 8th, 2008

Okay, okay, okay I guess fuzzy pictures are not going to be enough.

To find “our nudist” we drove to a town south of San Francisco called Rockaway Beach where we received instructions from the visitor’s center that if we were willing to drive just six more miles further south we would encounter a very nice strip of white sand and a quiet beach. I do not remember the name of the beach, but I do remember that you park in a lot on the east side of busy highway 101 and then you have to cross to the west side of highway 101 which is harrowing and scary and I was sure we were going to die.

But we did not die. We made it to the other side only to discover the jagged edge of a perilous cliff which beckoned to my four sons like a candy machine with it’s glass busted out. They immediately ran to the edge of the cliff and this caused their father – THEIR FATHER – who has never been known to have a visible reaction to anything in his life – to yell at them to get away from the edge of the cliff!

It is clear to me now that I should have taken this rare emotional response from my husband as a sign of stranger things to come.

We eventually found a hidden set of steep stairs that meandered down to the beach. Funny – it was almost like someone was trying to keep this beach from being discovered.

Hmmmmm.

When we got to the bottom of the stairs there were several people sprinkled around the beach They all appeared to have clothing on, but I couldn’t help but notice two largish tanned men off in the distance in what appeared to be very scanty beach wear… scanty and strange swimwear. From a distance it looked like their suits were just kind of “muted” and “natural” and “grey” and “fuzzy” but yes it appeared to be swimwear.

One of the largish tanned men in scanty swimwear walked our way and as he moved towards us I kept trying to figure out his swim suit which appeared to be a speedo as it was centered entirely on the tiny area surrounding his… well… his…. his…. apparatus.

But then I noticed that the speedo seemed to have moving parts… jiggling things… and a strange thingy in the center that was…

That Was…

THAT WAS…

OH MY GEEEEAAAAAWWWD!!!!!

The country doctor and I rapidly moved our boys to the water and they dove in. I spread our stuff out on the sand in an area that eventually proved to be WAAAAAAAY to close to the nudist. As we settled in, I took in the lay of the land and it appeared that there were several nudists tucked around the bend in a cove that was partially shielded by boulders. One largish tannish nudist was laying just on the other side (our side) of the boulders with his largish tannish backside pointed our direction, but he was quite a ways a way and not interested in having a conversation with us.

But his buddy “our nudist” was not content to lie in the sand displaying his largish tannish backside. He felt it his duty to traipse all over the beach talking to all the sunbathers. His primary subject was the tides. I know this because I listened to him talk to the young couple next to us. They were very polite to him and conversed with him and for about ten minutes they talked tides with him.

Then he wandered over to us. The boys were playing in the surf, but the CD and I were sitting on the sand watching our kids.

We heard him approach us and come to a stop behind us and then he started filling us in on the dangerous tides in the area.

I can’t really explain it to you and maybe it was the wrong response, but neither one of us was really in the mood for a conversation with a nudist that day.

So we just IGNORED HIM.

But he was not to be IGNORED and continued with his informational lecture on the tides.

We continued with our IGNORING OF HIM.

Finally he asked us if we spoke English.

The Country Doctor said no.

And the aggressively friendly nudist said “alright” in a very grouchy voice.

I am not a psychlogist or a PHD in human behavior but I am pretty sure than “our nudist” felt extremely limited by putting on his display for the other nudists. It was simply not enough. It did not satisfy. He felt incomplete. For really, what is the point of being a nudist if you are not constantly shocking someone.

So he had moved his act over to the non-nudists and there he happily flaunted his brown body parts, talking tides to strangers, glorying in the discomfort he created, basking in the warm rays of shock, sunshine and disdain.

Since the Country Doctor and I were not willing to participate in his little show by keeping our backs firmly to him while he tried to talk to us, he finally moved along.

And then when he was a long ways away…

I took his picture.

And I am pretty sure that the aggressively friendly nudist would have been thrilled by that.

Thus ends the aggressively friendly nude… I MEAN NUDIST chronicles on this here blog.

Rechelle

36 comments

Filed under: San Francisco