mrtl

EmbarrASSment!

Unexpected laugh
Launches windy butt
Three Mamas present
Who all heard it

Funny coincidence
The same thing happened
To Lennox Lewis
On Celebrity Apprentice

Lennox, weren't you mortified?

Gordon Ramsay's Bare Chest

Blame me for my current fascination with cooking shows. I love "Top Chef," so it only made sense to watch "Hell's Kitchen." I don't much care for the run of the show, but enjoy watching him in action. He's quite entertaining. Then on BBC I saw that he has another show, "Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares." Interesting enough to watch several episodes, though I couldn't help but notice that these earlier, Britain-based shows had two major differences: a kinder, gentler Chef Ramsay, and his bare chest.

Every. freakin'. show. includes an intimate moment, where the camera crew, director, and whoever else is behind the camera cram into a small room and film Ramsay while he changes into his chef coat. And there's his chest. Like the audience is supposed to swoon. Ack!

His U.S.-based version of "Kitchen Nightmares" premiered last week. I don't like it. Not only did it change up the format to include major funds going to the nightmarish restaurant (can you say, "enabler"? how about "sell out"?) -- a little leg-up is one thing, but bringing in a design team, working through the night to do a complete overhaul with a name change is too much (and if I may say so, I was totally expecting Ty Pennington to appear) -- but his chest is still displayed.

Chef. I need to be completely honest with you. Your chest? Not a trophy. Keep it in the bag, please. And when your design team, chef, promoters, and cleaners come through, it minimizes the effect of what you're doing to help THE RESTAURANT turn things around. All you're really doing is setting up shop in a new location. What's the point?

Piddley Widdley Stinky Pee

Huhwha? I haven't blogged about Joon? My Asian former roommate? Total lapse, there, y'all. I apologize.

I had the (dis)pleasure of meeting Joon during my cross-country summer-long move to escape the friction at home. Joon was my friend's roommate, who became my roommate by default. I have a few random memories of Joon, which I shall share with you now.

• He loved to play Othello on my Nintendo. He'd sit on the livingroom floor and play that game for hours. Upon plopping down to start a round, he'd throw his fists in the air and yell, "OTELLO!" (He had a bit of trouble getting the TH sound out.)
• One day he went out to wash his car. He came back in and complained that the soap he was using was removing the brown paint. The "soap" he was using was oven cleaner.
• His pee was super stinky. Really super stinky. I'd avoid going into the bathroom for at least an hour after him, even if he just peed, it was so super stinky. Why did his pee smell like that? I never could figure that out. He did eat a lot of rice, but I lived in Japan for three years and never smelled anything like that. (Yeah, yeah, he was Korean and I'm totally generalizing. Like the rice is that different.)

This last one. Oh my. Last night I hosted a mommy meetup. After everyone had left I went into the bathroom and was HIT by that very same smell. In an instant I was back in Joonland, 1991, checking the bowl and floor for wayward shots. Surely it must've been one of the several little boys who came over. Gah! What were their mothers feeding them? I grabbed the Clorox wipes and Febreze spray to douse the room. I don't know when I'll be able to bring myself to go back in there.

Just writing this has given me a phantom recollection. don't.want.to.breathe...

Hi Fly! Bye Bee!

My first week sans mister mrtl went with my ass pretty firmly affixed to the couch. Last week I was determined to be more productive, thinking that time may go by faster if I got moving. I turned to a book that had been collecting dust on my shelf since I bought it and first read it five years ago.

Since then I've been doing a lot of cleaning. (FlyLady calls it "Blessing," a term you  won't be hearing from me.) I'm in the process of developing routines, turning this home into a well-oiled machine. The kids are fully involved in the process and have been doing very well. (I'm considering learning how to sew to make Jem a full-body dust mop outfit.)

::tangent to acknowledge possible screw in the well-oiled machine::
Yes, there's danger ahead, called "A Long Trip to Lazyland." We're heading back to Maryland soon. I do plan to take the FlyLady with me and develop a routine or two there.
::end tangent to acknowledge possible screw in the well-oiled machine::

My favorite part of it all, beyond having a clean house (did I mention I fired the cleaners a couple months back? gah - long story, not worth the time to write it out), is that I get to write lists. LOTS of them. I have a little green notebook in which I keep all my lists. Lists are so much fun, but I digress.

Several months ago, if not longer, I had created a HUGE list of all the "little" things that needed to be done around the house. I try to put one of these things on my daily list of things to do.

One of the first was dealing with Mr. Bug.

When we moved into Buttercup back in May of 2005, we weren't the only inhabitant. I had said previously that the former owner had left the house immaculate ("I would have licked the floor in a heartbeat."). This was the exception:

Mr. Bug, as you can see here, is dead. I don't know how long he was up there before we moved in, but he was dead upon our arrival. I'm assuming this anyway, since he was too far away for me to poke with a stick.

He's in the window sill above our front door. It'd probably be a good place to put a potted plant; I noticed our neighbors, who have a similar cubby, have some kind of animal skin sitting on what looks like a saddle. To each, I suppose. Anyway, since we don't have a ladder tall enough to reach the sill, Mr. Bug has been there for quite some time.

Until two days ago, that is. At 7pm on 7/7/07, I devised the perfect implement to finally evict Mr. Bug. Behold!

It's a Sweepa taped to a painting extension pole with a Swiffer Sweeper thrown in for some added support. It had to be long -- at least 12 1/2 feet -- to reach from the bridge (our open upstairs hallway) to the sill.

And on the seventh day, there were no more bugs on the sill.

It was then that I discovered that Mr. Bug was really a bee, and that he was not alone.

And yes, that's the VCR remote in the Stride-to-Ride. Jem keeps it there, as well as a cup, and she likes to put shoes on the seat.

AAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!

to be continued

----

I'm back. Breathing.

Not that it's anything "serious," or even worth losing the nails on my left hand. Still, I'm panicking.

It's over clothes, really. I shouldn't be so stressed.

Thing is, my presence has been requested at the home office. Whatever shall I wear? Sure, I have business suits collecting dust, but they're all pathetically outdated. I'm hesitant to buy a bunch of new things... ::grumble grumble, whine whine:: because I'm not quite where I want to be weightwise.

My desperation in this situation has led me to do the unthinkable: Atkins. Just till I leave, mind you, because there's no way I'd go back east without fucking up some pastries.

----

On another note, Alec Baldwin disgusts me. Maybe Kim IS being a whorebitch, but there's no excuse for him to speak that way to his child. NONE. I'd be a whorebitch in the face of that, too.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

My mother has made it her quest to outfit our house with all the essential children's movies (and then some), no small feat. It wasn't until recently that Bug started showing the requisite attention span for watching a movie. Bug's tastes are also pretty fickle; many times we've started a movie only to have her decide five or ten minutes into it that she doesn't like it, such as what happened with Mary Poppins (damitol). There's always the issue of age appropriateness, as well. I was so excited to watch Ice Age with her, only to find that the opening images of Scrat chasing after his nut scared the bejesus out of her.

With Bug's current interest in toys of transportation...

::tangent to convey my shocked delight::
Bug has a daily rest time in her room. She may play quietly if she is not tired. If we see she really needs a nap and she's not making the move, we'll call lights out after some play time. Other than this quiet playtime, Bug does not willingly go to her room to play alone. She is a social animal and usually hangs out wherever we are. (I really can't wait till Jem is old enough for them to disappear to play together. I'm just saying.)

THANK YOU SANTA for giving Bug a GeoTrax train set for Christmas!! Suddenly the girl LOVES going to her room to play with her train, even before we got batteries in the remote. W.O.O.T.!
::end tangent to convey my shocked delight::

... I mentioned to her one day that we had a movie about an amazing car that could FLY! She got all excited to watch it, even after I sang some of the song to her. I only mentioned the movie because I had fond memories of it, and I really did want to watch it with her.

I don't remember the movie being so damned long. What the hell are producers thinking, making a movie for kids that is two and a half hours long?? But am I getting ahead of myself? Maybe 2 1/2 hours isn't that bad. Maybe if the movie didn't SUCK and have too much fucking twaddle in it it wouldn't have seemed to go. on. forever. Sure, there were good parts -- my personal favorite being when Truly and Cara Mr. Potts act like dolls, -- and who wouldn't snicker at the name "Truly Scrumptious," which is so stripper (and brings to mind Eric Idle's nudge-nudge-wink-wink candy photography sketch)? Besides, it's cute as anything to hear Bug's attempt at singing the song:

Shitty Shitty Bang Bang, Shitty Shitty Bang Bang, Shitty Shitty Bang Bang, we love you!

In, in Shitty Shitty Bang Bang, Shitty Shitty Bang Bang what we'll do!

Near, Far, Shitty Shitty Bang Bang, what a lovely time we'll spend!

Bang Bang, Shitty Shitty Bang Bang, our fine friend friendly friend!

Bang Bang, Shitty Shitty Bang Bang, our fine friend friendly friend!

Seriously, were there editors? I've looked at the movie's home page and can't find the information there.

Every day Bug has asked if we can watch the movie again, and I've griped enough that now she follows her query with, "Mommy? I don't know why they made Shitty Shitty Bang Bang so long! Why'd they do that?" with the same look of solemn disbelief she used during the grape grabbing incident of long ago.

I love this girl.

Cleansing

I did it. I went to Bloglines today and clicked the "Mark All Read" link. 3117 posts gone, the ones that I have stubbornly held onto, swearing that I was going to catch up someday. It was time to face reality. There are too many other things taking priority, and while I miss reading so much, if I want to read again, I have to just start fresh.

The count was way off anyway. So many of you have gotten new digs. Now it's a matter of tracking everyone down.

I'm breathing easier now. How about that?

Moose Tunes for Kids

I just caught myself singing, "I Am a Very Handsome Moose"... again. At least it wasn't "I Am a Moose and I Love My Lips"... again.

The CD has notably become Bug's favorite; she no longer asks for "my music" when we get in the van, but for "my moose CD please." Playing it so regularly, the songs have invaded my psyche. They're too catchy. Dare I say it's my favorite, too?

If there is the opportunity to do a Halloween costume this year, I'm seriously considering being a moose with a cowlick. Then I'd at least have a decent excuse for singing such craziness in public. "A cow is slow and a moose is quick, so how did I get this silly cowlick?" Genius! Maybe mister mrtl would agree to being a cow with a mooselick. Granted, the moose is a boy and the cow is a girl. Get over it.

Mom Mom picked up the bear one for Bug while they were here. So far Bug has had no interest in listening to it.

Have a listen at your own risk.

----

On another note... watching SNL... does anyone else think "Promiscuous Girl" is the stupidest song ever? And they're making the rounds. I've seen this routine on no fewer than four shows now this week. Whoa, Nelly! W-H-O-A! Be a bird again, please! And make that rapper trying to sing stop, too.

Not Such a Good Idea

I should be asleep. Jem took FOREVER to settle down tonight, and there's the ME time I demand to have... I'm about to need to tape my eyelids open. Why must sleep be a luxury?

Sleep is not the purpose of this post, though. Discussing my big plans for a new banner is the purpose of this post. Follow me for a second.

Over the last week or so as I've struggled with my weak will for the sweet stuff, a lyric has been playing itself over and over in my head: "Save me from myself." As usual (in the spirit of the multitude of other banners inspired by them), this is from The The. This was (and possibly still is if I can bring myself to follow through) to be the theme of my new banner, and I planned to surround the words with images of that which tempted me.

I wasn't planning to stay up all night, but wanted to get a jump start on gathering images of the treats. WTF was I thinking? Have you visited www.hersheys.com lately? E-gads. It hurts. Oh it hurts. All the products listed... the products I didn't know existed... reminding me of the Holy Grail (the Irish Cream Rolo). Shit... It's worse. Looking for a link for the Holy Grail, I see the candy of my childhood in England.

::blame tangent::
Jana, you started this shit, talking candy. I realize you're just trying to encourage me to sit around and eat chocolate all day rather than train, ill-preparing me for our DDR dance off next year. Bitch.

Sorry. I didn't mean to call you that. It wasn't nice. It's just thinking about all this yummy stuff that I shouldn't be eating makes me hella cranky.
::end blame tangent::

Ranting about seeing all the chocolate online isn't the purpose of this post either. As I said, I was gathering images. When the Hershey's site didn't have that which I sought, I turned to my old friend, Google. What follows is the true purpose of this post.

Whatever you do, don't Google "Twix" and go into images. If you do, you may see a Very Disturbing, NSFW image... Oh. That's not nice of me, is it? I'm sure those of you at work are going to be pissed at me for teasing you in this way, making you wait till you get home to blantantly ignore my instructions. Ok. I'll play nice and describe it. You best give me mad props for doing so because having these words on my blog is surely going to lead to some unsavory search hits.

It is a picture of an woman's ass with a Twix protruding from it. (At least I think it's supposed to be a Twix; it looks awfully large for a Twix. Maybe that's a product of which I'm not aware. Is it wrong that I am now drooling over the thought of a large dildo-sized Twix now? Don't bother. I already know.) On the other end of the Twix is a woman taking a bite from it. The image is labeled with a catchy phrase involving Twix and a term meaning "women" that rhymes with Twix. A verb beTwixt the two is something one does with a shovel. That word is not "spelunk," although from looking at the picture it very well should be.

Do you understand why I could not possibly go to bed now? With this image in my head? With these thoughts?

Oh perfect. The stupid tic tac commercial is on, the one with the woman balancing the tic tacs on her tongue, which is just as creepy as the one where the woman juggles them with her tongue.

I Kid You Not

Included in the plethoric -- is that a word? if not, it is now in mrtland -- gifties my mother bestowed upon us when she arrived in Alaska last month was a CD for Frida (now Jem). I'm just now getting around to unwrapping and reviewing it. I had to share.

The song list includes such classics as "Hush Little Baby," "Lullaby and Goodnight," "Rock A Bye Baby," and "Sweet Child O' Mine."

Yes. You read that right.

It gets better.

I have yet to actually listen to the CD, and am a little scared now. When I Blingo'd the CD title (Drew's Famous Sweet Lullabies for Mother & Child) to link it here, I discovered at the link sound samples. Unable to resist, I listened to this track.

I implore you not to do the same. Please resist the urge. This train wreck is way too bad to play witness. It's so much worse than muzak.

Really. Don't do it. You'll just get mad at me for planting the sound in your brain. Then you'll get madder at me when you imagine Axl Rose doing his snaking to it.