Apple doesn't fall far...

When I first met Josh, almost 8 years ago, I think he thought my ethnicity was a novelty. One of our first dates was in Central Park, it was one of those free (but of course!) concerts. While sitting on the blanket and as I was feeling pretty good about getting to know him, he came up with a proposal for a game. How about I make a whole bunch of noises and you tell me if it's a word in Thai? he suggested. He completely jostled me out of my daydream into an indelicate reality. I was so offended, I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I gave him a mouthful. Told him how offensive it was and that it was like making throwing up or other bodily funtion noises and asking someone if it meant something in his/her language - juvenile and uncouth.
We were able to move on from this experience because, as you know, a few years later, I have two beautiful children with this sometimes boorish idiot. Last night, one of our children told me she was going to say "goodnight" in Japanese. I got really excited, thinking that she picked up some Japanese from school. "Oookie ka ka ka da du" she says and I realize that she's making up sounds/noises. Then she says, I'm going to sing a song in Japanese. She belts out "Ode to Joy" but uses a bunch of non-sense syllables for the "lyrics". I can not believe the perfect pitch and melody and how long the "singing" goes on for. I guess she inherited her musical sense and sense of humor from Dad. I am now very concerned that she will soon tell fraternity-style potty and locker room humor types of jokes and humiliate me (as my husband often does). But it also means she will play a mean twinkle twinkle little star on the piano!

Confessions of a bi-polar blurter

I'm not proud of some of my shortcomings. One of them is that when I get angry, depressed or feel despondent about something, I often look to blame and insult. My poor husband is frequently the victim of such vituperative put-downs. "This marriage sucks!" I'll proclaim if I feel like he's screwed up with something.
Yesterday, my husband miraculously fixed our broken dryer. I admit that he's pretty handy and can fix many things, but this amazing accomplishment shocked me. I swelled with pride. And then it occurred to me, I should try to mitigate some of my past nasty comments so I told him, "This marriage rocks!" I expected at least a little smile but I got nothing.
The funny thing is that I think he's a unique (super-conceited?) individual.... impervious to both compliments and insults. Maybe a little more so with compliments. They don't actually affect (how great he already thinks he is). But really, my conclusion is that he is so much more intrinsically motivated than I am....hopefully he can pass that on to our kids.
Anyways, thanks for taking all of my wild mood swings in stride, Josh!
Sometimes, I do wish you could react outwardly to my comments. I know I sound like an immature pig when I say this, but I really wish I could get a rise out of you every now and again (without the surefire-brings-him-down-to-his-knees-as-he-cries-both-mercy-and-uncle; "I'm going to spend all our money!").

New skill

It's great to see cognitive skills develop in your kids. For the longest time, Sadie was oblivious to pronouns. Hold you, she would command me. Sit my lap, she would request. At 3 years old, she's mastered pronouns and now, I'm proudly announcing another new skill, transference.

Last night as I was tucking her in, she said that she was Cinderella. So we had to do all goodnights all over again with this new identity. "Good night Cinderella," I said. "Good night, Cinderella mom," she replied.

Late to the party, part six million

Previously, I had kvetched about not knowing about certain things that would either improve my quality of life or health that people (especially my in-laws) should have told me about (e.g. using a sonicare or electric toothbrush). Well I'm mad again! This time, it's over an electric blanket. We just got one and it feels so nice to slip into a warm bed. Why didn't anyone tell me about this because it seems like everyone has one! My sister in law touted the benefits once I brought it up, my father and mother in law confessed to having owned one, etc. The other day, we went to a birthday party and the door of one the bedrooms was left a crack open and what did I see? The unmistakable outline of controllers for an electric blanket.
OK - what else am I missing out on?!

My daughter is a goat

She eats anything and everything. When she was younger, frequently to my horror, I would find the most random and most horrendous thing in her mouth like a sequin, a piece of velcro or other chokables. Today, I had to restrain her from eating dry pasta that fell out of a box onto the floor. If my husband calls her over by name, she completely ignores him. If he yells, steak! she comes running over because she heard a magic word. If anyone is sitting at the dining room table, she comes begging and if you don't give her "a bite" (said in such a cute lilting voice), she will throw a tantrum. She gets over it quickly, and like a sharp-minded predator, she restrategizes, then moves on to look under the table for scraps.

She also destroys everything. She broke my DVD bay on the computer. She lost an online shopping basket 4 times (blame the horribly passe merchant that didn't use cookies?) by gleefully pressing the power key to suddenly shut off the computer. She broke my glasses. I can't find two gift cards that she decided were fun toys. She created deep scratches with who knows what implement, worse than a crazy cat on my coffee table. She's unplugged the cable box, the phone and other ulitilities after deciding that chewing on them wasn't good enough. On my dining room table, there are tons of brilliant pock marks created by pounding forks and other objects on the surface. I don't even think the Moh's scale of hardness applies to her, she can break anything hard. And today, I heard her making loud, obscene banging noises. I mosey on over and find her banging on a chair with wooden stick, each bang, creating a crater on the seat of a chair.

[CHEESEBALL UPDATE] I wanted to add that even though she's destroying everything and eating me out of house and home, I am madly and completely in love with her and can't stop giving her kisses and be completely in awe of her sweet chubby babyhood that will slip away too soon.

Husband or canine?

Yesterday, we had a couple over for an impromptu dinner. We enticed them with home-cooked steaks, one of Josh's specialities. I know it's hard to eat the meat close to the bone and the meat close to the bone is really very good, but is there another way to get to it aside from using your paws? I really was pretty embarrased. I think it made our proper guests a bit uncomfortable because they couldn't laugh about it with me. You can look at the image below and decide for yourself. Are you laughing or crying?

Part art, marketing and graffitti?

Last week, I borrowed by in-law's Prius to go shopping. I think it's a great little car. Any way, because they drove it from Vermont and it had snowed there, the car was pretty dirty. Of course some playful, unimaginative and compulsive person had to finger the words "WASH ME" on the rear windshield. But today I saw something interesting. Someone had fingered a website (URL) on someone else's car. A burgeoning viral trend?
Do I have to put myself on the "do not write" list?

Feel good plagarism

It was an exhilarating feeling, just as my daughter was falling asleep, she said to me, "There's no one in the world like you, Mom" and then she conked out. I thought it was the most heartfelt, most original, perfect, and sweetest thing in the world to hear. Just as quickly as my elation came, it left as I realized that technically, all she did was switch out a pronoun and parrot what I say to her almost every night as I tuck her into bed. "You're very special to me. There's no one in the world like you, Sadie."

Meatless in NY

A few weeks ago, I was treated to a most delightful, inimitable experience, brought to me by a benefactor who wishes to remain anonymous, so I will refer to this person as, Miss Havisham.

Miss Havisham works at Google and had casually mentioned many a times how she eats for free. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, in-between meal snacks and even takes a free, Google-provided shuttle to work. In March, Miss H moved from SF to work in Google's NY office. The fringe benefits in NY aren't as good as San Francisco, I was told, but still this was a chance for me to have a Googly experience.

Can I come eat for free, I asked. I wasn't too excited about it, I envisioned a college dining hall. After I made plans to meet Miss H at Google, I even gave Miss H a hard time about it. How am I supposed to get there?! Who the heck works in Chelsea?! I bemoaned.

But as soon as I arrived, I realized it was heaven. First of all, everything is so gimmicky and cute. The hallways are really wide so that employees can go to and fro using scooters (wonder if they have special insurance [from AIG, heheheh] because of this?). There are video game consoles peppered everywhere. Special storage units against the walls stored toys like Legos, etc. There were many in process Lego sculptures presumably made by fun-loving Googlers. Not to mention the requisite game room with foos ball, exercise equipment and other distracting sundry. And this has to be the ultimate, the entire building is a metaphor for New York. For example, we picked up her mail at "Wall Street" and had lunch near "Central Park". It was a great system; a stranger to the Google building like me, could figure out where I needed to go by the "address".

But that's not all....the best experience of all was the free food. The variety! The amount! The exotic! Vegan! Raw foods! Imported foods! ALL PLENTIFUL AND FREE!!!!

Check out this picture of complete satisfaction:

I'm holding a fresh(!) rambutan and coconut juice. In front of me is a delicious vegetarian spread (curried seitan, grilled tofu, etc.), the white drink is my favorite cocktail -- vanilla soy milk with skim lactaid and get this, they even had my favorite hot sauce - Tobasco brand Habanero sauce. Whatever my greedy little vegetarian spice-loving organic lactose-intolerant heart desired was there for the taking. I could definitely get used to this.

Outside of Google, I struggle with being vegetarian. At Google headquarters, the endless and delicious options makes it a breeze to eat vegetarian.

If I worked at Google, I could totally see myself giving up meat.

Starstruck and washed up

A few nights ago, I attended a wonderful event, 2008 Glamour Women of the Year Award. It was incredibly inspiring to see these women honored for their courage, bravery and accomplishments. Please click on the link and read their stories. I'll tell you one of them that really touched me. A little 10 year old girl, went to court get a divorce from her husband who was abusing her. This happened in Yemen, where child brides are common and divorces are not socially acceptable. As her story was being told and as she accepted her award, I was sobbing. I couldn't help it but think of my own daughter, had our circumstances been different, would I sell her as a child bride?

On to a more positive note, the dinner after the award was a real brush with celebrity. Jane Goodall and Nicole Kidman were less than 15 feet away. Katie Couric was inches away. Condoleeza Rice was also close by. I was truly star struck. Oh and Hillary Clinton, Salmon Rushdie, Tyra Banks, America Ferrara, Barbara Walters, Natalie Portman were also there.

Another really memorable part of the night was the chimp call that Jane Goodall made as she accepted her award. She's an incredible person, as were all the women who won an award.

They all encouraged me, or rather everyone on the audience to follow our dreams. Sadly, I'm not sure what my dreams are and I might be totally washed up, since I'm in my 30s. Seems like anything good that these women did or if they got a calling, it all happened when they were really young.

XXX

This is too much! While I'm working, my kids' caretakers are encouraging my children to make lesbian porn. Blech!!! Daisee's lips are often full of boogies.

Museum quality kids

Ode to Joy

This really hurt my ears and warmed my heart when I heard Sadieeee (LOUDLY) hum Ode to Joy on the telephone "...la la la la la la..." while I was at work.

Smartvoter.org a great website

I'm proud to be a citizen of the United States. I've voted in every election, ever since I qualified.

I'd like to share a tip for New Yorkers, California, Ohio, and a few other states covered by http://www.smartvoter.org/ What a great website! I gave them $50 today.

Gasp!

As an update to my post on Blaze, I can not believe that funkins cost $20 a pop!
This leads me to believe that the lit up displays that I saw were done years and years ago (by cheap Chinese labor), stored in a "Christmas" attic and displayed and foisted on at $15 per person, once a year to unknowing citizens like me.

Best Halloween ever

I always dreaded Halloween. And same with my husband. We'd like to blame our parents for not instilling a Halloween spirit. This is because a good Halloween costume, as well as Halloween decorations requires not only time, creativity but big $$$.
Last night, Josh and I went to a Halloween party where costumes were mandatory. Ever since the evite arrived and I accepted, I was very nervous about what kind of costumes we were going to wear. Hours before the party, we went to two different Halloween costume stores and almost left empty-handed. None of the costumes really appealed to us and the prices, even at 50% off seemed ridiculous. Finally, I convinced my sullen mate to get some face paint and that we would figure something out.
After we put the kids to bed, we were nervously pacing, thinking about what to do with our face paint. Ultimately, Josh was transformed to Frankenstein and I into a bunny. For the first time, our costumes weren't especially extra-lame. I even made a cotton tail out of cotton balls. But the best part about my costume was that I stuffed my bra and became a really big chested bunny. It was an inside joke, for those who knew me. Because they were so realistic, those who didn't know me, thought they were real -- as they didn't realize that that was part of my costume!
It was really fun and strange to be big chested for one night. I got a lot of attention. Even my friends seemed to like me a little more. But I also felt very self-conscious. I didn't know how I should be dancing or crossing my arms (under my big boobs, I found out from a real big-boobed friend) and I kept walking hunched, trying to hide my big rack.
The party was awesome. The host put an incredible amount of work into the decorations and setting. He had built a haunted house and a horrific maze to walk through -- fun and creepy!!! In front of his house, he erected a gigantic tent, full of delicious home cooked food and desserts as well as this really cool jet engine that generated heat for the tent. There were TVs/screens everywhere playing all sorts of horror movies. I even played Guitar Hero on Wii -- fun as heck! He even had professional DJ equipment and disco and strobe lighting in two separate dance areas. Oh and an open bar (Josh had waaaay too many drinks) and a professional tarot card reader who told me my fortune with the utmost persuasion to the point that I was spooked. Unbelievable that he doesn't charge for such efforts, I felt really guilty at the end and wanted to pay him something.
I had such a good time. I felt like a teenager; we came back home at 2AM!!! I told Josh that for the first time, I felt Halloween magic and felt inspired to think of ways to impart some Halloween spirit to our kids.

Nice hike

We (me, Daze and Josh) took a nice hike today at the Ward Pound Ridge Reservation. It was only a half hour drive but it felt like we were in a different region (New England-y) well as a time warp. The towns we passed through were so charming. Farms, horse country, etc. We saw some delicate looking trees with dainty pink leaves - it was like a cartoon/fantasy. Then we ate at the Katonah cafe, a cute little place with all sorts of people. Usually we end up eating with either loud Chinese people or other parents with kids, so it was nice to mix with the rest of the population. The only bad feeling was that Sadie was not with us; she was hanging out with my mom and sister. Any good experience or feelings I had while I was with Josh and Dase, came with a little guilt that I was cheating on her.

Almost....

These would have been perfect except one of us had to closed our eyes. Aw shucks!

Am I Bi-Polar?

Pirates

Fish

Crypts

Mastodon?

Dinosaur

Recently the hubby and I went to a very popular event in the Hudson Valley called "Blaze". Over 4000 carved pumpkins lit up, touts the website. There were some pretty impressively carved specimens as well as delightful scenes, like of dinosaurs, an underworld, pirates, etc. See our pics here or check out the website http://www.hudsonvalley.org/

Little dinosaur hatching. Cute!

Footprints

OK...now I have to tell you that Santa isn't real. Don't read on unless you like spoilers and don't mind knowing the truth, even if it's ugly.

WARNING: UGLY TRUTH AHEAD

I was very dismayed to find out at the end of the Blaze tour that many of the pumpkins are not real, organically (coming out of the earth) grown pumpkins, but manufactured, foam "funkins". Still hand carved though, the attendant assured me.

This little fact completely ruined my enjoyment and Josh's (but his only slightly). It did not seem to affect our four other companions. In fact two of them even felt relieved that they were not real. (Go figure!!!!) I felt misled, cheated and fooled. Wish I hadn't known, because prior to that, I was delighted, amazed and mesmerized. Do I need anti-depressants? You be the judge.

Nice picture

of my husband and daughter.