In addition to being obsessed with websites like Crimestoppers where you can tattle on litterbugs and reckless drivers (plus whoever else needs to learn a lesson!), I LOVE petition websites. Whenever I’m looking to kill some time, I like to go online and sign random petitions for things like saving the polar bears or banning soda for purchase with food stamps. Yeah, like I said, random.
Last night I was browsing said sites and realized there was a petition to stop the world’s largest tire burning incinerator. In Pennsylvania. Like 30 miles from my hometown of Erie. Yeah, I’ll admit, Pennsylvanians aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed (clearly, if they are even considering this!), but seriously — the world’s largest tire burning plant? Um, sounds like an idea put forth by a gaggle of mentally challenged pyromaniacs with a hankering for lung cancer.
This isn’t the first time I’ve heard about a tire incinerator proposed in PA — the first one was actually slated to be put up on the shores of Lake Erie, but there was so much controversy that the developers took their idea south to see if they could pull one over on the more rural (notice I didn’t say inbred) population. Of course, I immediately signed the petition and then linked my Facebook page to the site in the hopes that some other wacko felt like playing pajama activist on the computer at 1AM by adding their signature. Just say no to tire burning!
Who sees tire burning and thinks, "Man, let's do this. I wanna build the largest tire incinerator in the world: yeah!!" ???
The other day I went to my OB’s office and finally had my glucose test done. Anyway, you drink this really nasty sugary orange drink, wait an hour, and then they draw your blood to make sure you haven’t turned diabetic. Last time I took the test, the office just served the Tang-like beverage in a bottle. However, at my new doc’s, they handed me the drink in a urine sample cup — which I thought was unintentionally hilarious on the nurse’s part, especially because she didn’t seem to see the irony in serving me yellow liquid out of a cup meant for pee.
At first I thought she was joking, but when I said, “Haha. Nice touch with the urine sample cup” and she didn’t crack a smile, I just chugged the concoction and shut the hell up. I’ll admit the nurse did give me a strange look when I asked if I could have some cups “for my next cocktail party” but she gave me a sleeve of them anyway without question.
So, what does warm apple juice plus free urine sample cups from the doctor’s office plus a groggy husband equal? Early April Fool’s!!! My plan as I write this, and Grey slumbers beside me, is to leave a warm “urine sample” cup of apple juice next to his breakfast cereal tomorrow morning. Then, when he drinks it, I’ll say, “Grey! That was my specimen for the gynecologist!” HAHAHAHA…I’m sure hilariousness will ensue…ah, the things that make me happy…
My kitchen counter: here are the ingredients for a fun morning!
Whereas I used to keep lipstick and breath mints in my purse, I now keep diapers and stain remover in there. Well, in addition to the lipstick. And the mints. And a whole bunch of other junk like old binkies, extra AA batteries, sticks of cheese, tweezers, and plastic Elmo dolls. But, the point of this post is that I never leave the house without my stain spray lately. Why? Oh, just because I am constantly spilling on my ever-growing belly. I’m not kidding, every day when I change into my pajamas, I look down at my shirt and realize something like, “Oh crap, was that mustard stain there all day?”
It’s really quite pathetic. A big belly shouldn’t just turn someone into a pig overnight, but that’s exactly what it’s done to me. I mean, at any given point of the day, no matter what I am wearing, a small child could probably scavenge a snack from the front of my shirt. Not that I was ever a neat person; I’ve always been the kind of girl that spills red wine down the front of her wedding gown or the person who walks around with Krispy Kreme frosting smeared all over my face for hours at work without realizing it.
But this belly has taken my Pig Pennishness to a whole new level. Â It’s always poking its way into trouble!
To continue my in-the-news thanking of important, smart people, I thought it appropriate that I thank Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro for her new bill seeking to label genetically modified fish and meat. I mean, it amazes me that some people can use science for such good (like Robert Edwards of yesterday’s note) and then others can use it for such evil — like the folks making the genetically modified salmon. I’m sure you’ve heard the debate at this point about the company that has spliced a bunch of different fish and eel genes together to make a gigantic “salmon” set to hit the seafood section of your grocery store in the near future. As if this isn’t disturbing enough (um, I want my spicy salmon rolls without eel DNA!), the FDA is planning allow this “fish” to be sold without being labeled as genetically-modified. So basically, as a consumer, you’d never even know if you were buying real, untouched, natural salmon, or the gross Frankenfish kind.
Thankfully, someone in our government finds this as seriously disturbing as the 78% of Americans that don’t want genetically-engineered salmon to be approved by the FDA. Representative Rosa DeLaura, a dem from Connecticut, introduced a bill the other day that would mandate labeling of genetically modified fish. Not only that, it’d also make sure any cloned animal meat would be labeled too — a good thing considering cloned meat/genetically modified food has caused everything from partially atrophied testicles to cancerous tumors to death in lab rats. I mean, getting a stomachache from eating something is one thing, but having your balls atrophy from chowing down on dinner? No one deserves that.
For that reason, I’m so happy Rep. DeLauro is trying to stop this nastiness. At least one person in office is against turning our world into some weird dystopic society where no one knows what the heck they’re loading into their shopping carts!
Funny, how so much changes, yet so much stays the same. Case in point: bedwetting. Truth be told, I’ve had long standing issues with this phenomenon. As a child, I’d pee the bed all the time. Until how old, you wonder? Well, let’s just say I REMEMBER IT, so it wasn’t like I was only two. I think this went on for a while.
In fact, my parents even invested in the “Wee Alert” system from Sears to try to curb the problem. The premise of this dry-sleep system was to put a metal sheet under the bed linens that sounded an alarm the second any wetness touched it. Basically, bed wetters had the piss scared right out of them. For me, it did not work. I just slept through the alarm and peed anyway.
Eventually the problem stopped. But then it started back up. In college. And grad school. And well, my late 20s too. Yes, I’ll tell you without shame: I was an adult bed-wetter. Don’t feel sorry for me. I didn’t have some sort of incontinence problem. It wasn’t health related whatsoever. The root of my issue? Cabernet. Yep. That’s all. So I switched white and voila! A dry night’s rest every time!
However, now that I’m in the final weeks of this pregnancy, I figure it’s a good time to bust out my waterproof mattress pad again. Not that my water breaking last time was a big deal — it was nothing like the Niagara Falls I envisioned from the movies — but you never know. I’d rather rest assured for the next six weeks that I won’t be destroying my bed with the onset of labor. Sweet dreams!
I am buying a cow. Not a whole one, but a quarter, because after finally watching the movie Food, Inc. the other night, Grey and I were so disgusted that we decided we just couldn’t stomach eating any more nasty factory farm-raised beef. Or chicken. Or pigs. Or turkeys. Ick.
If you haven’t seen the movie, I highly recommend it. Most of it isn’t anything new, but watching the documentary in its entirety really gives you a lasting impression of the American food system. The film shows everything from the nasty chicken houses (which incidentally are not a far drive from my new house here in DE) which dirty steroid-birds bask in their own poo all day to slaughter houses where sick pigs are crushed to death to make hot dogs. But it’s not like the producers are trying to shock you into vegetarianism or anything, just educate so that things change.
It definitely made a lasting impression. I can honestly say that I think my Bojangles cravings are over and I would think twice about an In-N-Out binge (at least until I researched where they got their beef). Because even though I’m anal about feeding the three of us organic at home, it’s like everything flies out the window when I see a Chick-fil-A and I can’t help myself from eating it.
So, Grey and I are going to start with a small step and buy part of a cow from a responsible local farm that raises cows the nice way. That way, I won’t have to feel like I’m eating some poor animal’s soul every time I decide to grill a burger or make pot roast for dinner. Whew.
Ducks may be cute feathered creatures, but they’re really evil little beings. In addition to their gross poop that they leave behind on docks and decks, did you know duck rape is a real phenomenon? I’m not lying. It isn’t just human society that seems to be getting more violent, but oddly enough the same thing is happening in the world of poultry. According to scientists, ducks are behaving more and more sexually aggressive each year. Really — Google it. You’ll be shocked. And fascinated. And then come to the conclusion you know waaaaaaay more about duck sex than you ever wanted.
I noticed this strange duck behavior when I taught middle school. Why you ask? Why would I notice aggressive quackers when I was a teacher? Well, my friends, because the strange set-up of my former school placed my classroom on the border of a strange little courtyard inhabited by 10,000 of these webbed-footed demons. And I SAW their violence first-hand — and so did all my students due to the fact that the huge bay windows looked directly onto them.
Every spring was apparently mating season for my little courtyard pets and we’d hear them squawking and quacking constantly while they mated. The kids would stare in fascination and get an in-your-face-lesson on the birds and the bees gone wrong. In fact, while I administered the 7th grade Virginia Standards of Learning test to the students, I even had to report a standardized testing irregularity of “kids couldn’t concentrate due to duck rape.” Literally — the ducks’ perverted behavior became so much of a distraction that some students couldn’t even finish their exams. But seriously, who’d want to do analogies while there’s animal gang rape going on outside your window?!
I like Duck Hunt because it's as non-violent as video games come AND teaches that ducks are sick sick creatures that should be eaten with a side of plum sauce.
Plumbing is kind of like oxygen — you take it for granted until you have none. I’ve learned this after the last couple weeks of battling barfing sinks and exploding washing machines. However, I’m happy to announce that, FINALLY, our plumbing woes seem to be gone. Or, maybe not gone all the way, but at least in the realm of acceptable.
The thank you note I wrote the other day to Bob, the gurgling toilet fixer, was a tad immature. In fact, Bob, although a great guy, was a bit out of his league when it came to our drainage woes. Long story short, we had the 100 Acre Woods growing in our 100-year-old terra cotta sewer piping and it finally dawned on us to haul out the big guns of plumbing: Roto-Rooter. Of course, this was only after we sold our soul to Bob’s plumbing company and offered him our second born child for payment of the enormous bill he presented us with, but no sense in crying over spilt milk…or in this case, an overflowing toilet.
So while I wish I had something more exciting to be thankful for, my newly Roto-Rooted pipes actually make me extremely happy. As I write this I’ve done eight loads of laundry in a row and I’m considering pulling an all-nighter just to get rid of this back-log from when we were on a water ration. And while it truly seems pretty mundane, I must admit, I feel like a little kid on Christmas morning. So here’s to plumbers and the people of the world that do jobs I’d never want to do (that includes you, garbage men, proctologists, hotel maids, and pre-school teachers.) THANK YOU!
Wow. My first shopping trip to Soap.com kind of blew my mind. I mean — where else can you pick up Tide, Charmin, and The Rabbit all under one umbrella? Though I actually haven’t officially ordered anything (honestly, there’s something that really creeps me out about a company that sells both Pampers and KY Jelly), I have checked out the new website since I got a coupon for 20% from them from their sister site, Diapers.com. For those of you that haven’t been to Diapers.com, it’s great. Instead of lugging home enormous boxes of diapers and baby wipes from the market, they will be shipped to your door — for way cheaper than you can buy them at most places.
Apparently, the founders of the site have had so much success with this concept, that they decided to start another website which sells other pain-in-the-ass grocery products like laundry soap and gigantic packages of toilet paper. But the only thing about this new site, Soap.com, is that as a first time shopper, I kind of got the feeling the founders actually wanted the site’s name to be Sex.com, but since it was taken, then figured, “Aw, screw it. Let’s just sell laundry detergent AND dildos.
I’m not kidding. After I placed some sunblock and Method hand soap into my cart, I curiously clicked on the site’s “Sexual Wellness” tab. I actually thought it was going to be stuff like herbal supplements or libido enhancing teas, but much to my surprise, Soap.com stocks and ships everything from pube hair dye to black satin covered handcuffs. I’m no prude, but this honestly shocked me. Nothing in their marketing campaign hinted about them selling kinky sex toys. Even the name — Soap.com — is pretty tame.
But, I mean, I guess the whole thing kind of makes sense. Eventually, if you’re having tons of sex, the odds are that you WILL pop out a kid or two. So maybe they figured, well, we sell Huggies, why not Trojans? I almost wonder if the company will find some crazy correlation to sales of diapers and condoms. Like, if someone all of a sudden is buying cases and cases of diapers, maybe they’ll also suddenly start buying massive amounts of condoms in order to prevent future diaper deliveries? Crazy stuff.
I couldn't make this up! This is a real screen capture I took from the site. Check out the "Frequently Bought Together" suggestions -- condoms, carseats, and baby strollers! HAHAHAHAHHA
Something funny has been going on with the plumbing in our house. It all started when the washing machine pipes began making explosive farting sounds when we ran the dishwasher. Before I realized where the noise was coming from, I thought we may have a poltergeist with a flatulence problem. But when the garbage disposal started making burping noises in the middle of the night, I knew it was no ghost. However, it wasn’t until the flooding began that we decided to call Bob the Plumber to come save us from seeping toilet water and gurgling bathtub drains.
And thank god we did. Bob quickly diagnosed our plumbing woes to be caused by overgrown roots from a giant tree in the yard which is busting through our drain pipes. And thankfully, he’s coming back tomorrow with a crazy crank that grinds up any of the pesky tree parts that are clogging things up. Plus, as a bonus, he said he’s going to give us a DVD of what the inside of our sewer lines look like (apparently a tiny camera is attached to the roto-rooting device).
Frankly, I’m almost as excited about the sewer-line DVD as I am about being able to once again flush my toilet. Let me assure you, the DVD will be on (and maybe even set to music) at the next cocktail party or family gathering we host at our house.
Before Bob came by the house and gave Grey the green light to install the toilet, this is what our guest bath looked like. I was considering just putting a chamber pot over the hole in the floor with a sign saying, "Let's pretend it's the 1800s!" Luckily, now our guests can excrete in style!
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