Dear Industry of Growers of Chickens,

I know that we, as a society, want everything bigger and faster and more, more more, more! (Everyone's inner-reading-voice should have just converted to Boris Karloff- "And they'd sing! AND they'd SING! SING! SING! SING"!) (That was a reference to How the Grinch Stole Christmas! If you didn't get that from the last set of parentheses, you should never tell me because I will make fun of you forEVER.) I get it. The chickens have been bred for their breast-size, much like Hollywood actresses. You've gotten to the point that the poor little chickys can't stand up on their own, much less even flap their wings. All because we Americans like maintaining our fat asses, and it's way cheaper to grow one huge chicken than two little ones.

So, yes, I get why chickens, and more specifically chicken breast, has gotten bigger and bigger over the years. But this?

That's frickdiculous. Absofrickinlutely frickdiculous. Yeah, I had to double up on the made-up words to express the point. Thanks for that, too, Industry of Growers of Chickens.

Loveys and salmonella,

Sarah

But only the beers you serve with lime. The regular kind of beer is full of uck.

Sam and I stopped by a quick-stop-and-go-gas-station place for beer. I set it at the register and sort of stepped away so Sam could pay. Okay, what I really did was turn away and stare longingly at the enormous candy display behind me, reciting (In my head, only, thanks. I'm not completely insane.), and this sounds like The Little Train That Shouldn't, "I don't need candy. I don't need candy. I don't need candy."

And as I'm standing there, trying to ignore the Whatchamacallit, I sort of sense... the woman behind the counter is doing... nothing?

I look at her curiously. "Hi," I say, trying to prompt her ass to just ring up my beer, already.

But because I am obsessive about the candy (and also, to get some, I must choose one before the bitch hits "total"), I turned back to the display.

Yet there is still no beepy-beepy meaning she's ringing up. But there is, "Uhm, do you have any ID?" So I turned and smirked (okay, and snorted) at Sam because, seriously? Neither of us will ever again pass for traditional college students. But he handed over his license, and she studied it. And studied it. Then she handed it back to him (I assume, because at this point I was still obsessing with the SweeTarts), and I hear, "I'm going to need your ID, too."

...

Aren't we being a tiny protective of the beer?

But I held my tongue (mostly) and handed over my license so we could just get the hell out of there. Seriously. Bitch. Wrap up the beer. Oh. Mygod.

It wasn't until I was climbing back into the car that it occurred to me. Okay, so maybe my obsession with the candy display, the awkward ignoring of the activity at the cash register, my continuous back-turning to her. Maybe it looked a little bit like me turning away to hide my face? And that dude, the one who was obviously old enough to buy booze, but he's with that chick who isn't making eye-contact, who's acting kinda sneaky? And who isn't, for whatever reason, making the purchase herself. Huh. Maybe someone needs to call the cops.

You know when they're little, and they use a phrase because they want whatever that phrase achieves for them, but they don't actually understand...

...the words that they are using, and it isn't until they've started speaking clearly, and yet they're still using that odd pronunciation, that it occurs to you that, no, he really has no idea what he was saying?

Ethan: "Crap, snapple, pop, rice krispies!"

It's kinda like that.

Merry Christmas... and yes, he was back in at 6:20, and I expect him there again in five minutes.

'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring... oh, wait...

3:08am

*Knock Knock*
"Go back to bed," I say, groggily.
"But I threw up."
"Oh, no."

Poor Ethan. What a way to start Christmas. Poor me. Is there any possible way to get puke out of a mattress? Especially at three in the morning?

I set him up in a little nest right outside the bathroom door. He refuses the light being turned off, though. He's up again at 4:20. And by "again", I don't mean to imply that he sleeps in the intervening time...

5:10am

There is whispered conversation. Connor greets Ethan.
"I'm throwing up."
"On Christmas?!"
Because he has a choice in the matter? He didn't take into account the scheduling conflict?

Emily and Connor wait while Ethan throws up again at 5:20. There's nothing for it. We give up on the notion of sleep and go down to rip open some presents.

We've finally given in and given Connor his cell phone. I decided to put it in his stocking, since it's normally the last thing they tear into, yet it's the first thing he does. I hurriedly grab the video camera to catch his reaction. He's shocked into silence for a solid three seconds. A record. I look down. The friggin' camera is paused.

Moving on, I pull a large present out from under the tree to give to Ethan. Apparently this is the keystone gift. The tree decides it would prefer a horizontal life. It dumps water everywhere, breaks a tree-side's worth of ornaments, and irreparably damages the tree stand.

I think it's time to break out the espresso flavored vodka for my coffee.

I hope this morning is going better for everyone else.

An Open Letter to Hershey's (Obviously They Didn't Pay Me to Write This Detritus)

Dear Hershey's,

I, for one, have never seen much point to chocolate flavored candy. If I want chocolate, just give me the effing chocolate, okay? But you chose to contaminiate riddle sprinkle my endearingly discounted bag of post-Halloween candy with the Hershey's Chocolate Pops (Naturally & Artificially Flavored Lollipop!).

Moments ago, I thought, "What the hell. I can't always be so closed-minded. How bad can they be?" How bad, indeed. I will tell you, since you obviously did not know before you put that nasty in my precious bag of joy. They can be that bad. I'm not saying "skunk-and-brussels-sprouts" bad. (Google just informed me of the "s" on the end of "brussels". The hell?) But just about as nasty as any candy- common to the United States, though, because, damn, rest-of-the-world (and Hershey's, apparently), don't you know candy is supposed to be yum?- can be and still be called "candy".

And, for swearz, I gave it an honest try. I even cracked that sucker open with a spoon, just to be sure you hadn't hidden some wonderful yum inside. You had not.

For shame,
Sarah

P.S. Hey, Hershey's? Go get in line- behind Maine- on over at Cate's for a Punch in the Face Award. Happy nose bleed.

The Work of the Devil. And Not the Fun Kind.

While Watching Alton Brown Make Cupcakes:

Sam: Are you gonna be a chef?

Ethan: I'm gonna be me.

Nature + Carelessness = Multiple Life Lessons

This is called foreshadowing:

Emily: Mommy, can I put my new water bottle in the freezer?
Mommy: It's not a very good idea. If the water freezes, it'll break the bottle. I guess if you only leave it in there a few minutes it will be fine, but you can't forget about it.

In fairness, she remembered it the first time she attempted this. The second? Notsomuch.

Emily, running in with tears in her eyes: Oh, no! I forgot about my water bottle! Mommy!

Mommy: Okay, well, this here is a double life lesson. First, you didn't take care of your stuff. You weren't paying attention and you weren't careful. Also, you didn't listen to me. This is the end result. Second, this is representative of all that is wonderful and life-giving about water on our planet!
Daddy, taking bottle: It tried not to break. Look, even the bottom bowed out. This is really cool!
Emily, perking up for the first time: Really?
Mommy: Oh, yeah. Why'd it split?
Emily: *sigh* Because the water expanded.
Mommy: Yep. Why do the rocks in our yard crush up every winter?
Emily: I dunno.
Daddy: Same reason.
Emily: *confused look*
Mommy: The water gets into those tiny little cracks and expands when it freezes and the rock breaks up and gives moss and grasses a place to grow and over time you get life and life and more life! That's why water is so great and part of the reason it's life-giving.
Emily: Cool.
Mommy: Also, that's why you don't have a water bottle anymore.
Daddy: But it's really neat to look at now.

Taking My Home to Work

I was at work the other night and called Sam to see how the evening was going. Homework was done, yay. The kids had eaten, a plus. And then...

Sam: The neighbor's dog caught and killed a groundhog.
Me: Oh, no.
Sam: Yeah. It was a baby.
Me: Ick. What did she do with it?
Sam: Well, she was going through our property on her way home, I guess. But then the kids ran out to see and scared her and she dropped it on our driveway.
Me: Vomit. So? What did you do? It better not still be there.
Sam: No. I threw it at the dog.
Me: The hell?
Sam: Well, I wanted her to take it with her.
Me: You just winged it at her? And how did that work for you?
Sam: It's at least in their woods now, instead of our driveway.

Sometimes the "don't call home on your break" option is the best option.

UPDATED: So apparently we've made it from one Six Word Saturday to the next with nary a non-phone-in post in between.

And I make no promises for this one either.

We spent a lovely day at the zoo today... I'm sure something funny happened... Oh! Sam donated a portion of his buffalo chicken wrap to the bin, at which point a black squirrel (as the zoo has both grey and black (okay, really dark brown), I feel the need to specify) (and by "has", I mean the little bastards own all the eating areas) climbed into the garbage can and reemerged with- not the bread of the wrap, as one would expect a cute little tree rat to choose- but a chunk of buffalo-sauce-dipped chicken.

What the mother hell? When did squirrels start eating meat??? He was apparently not a fan of the sauce itself because he systematically tore off the exterior surface of said chicken chunk, the scraps of which he then carefully dropped on our heads. Because he was in a tree. Because he was a squirrel. Eating chicken.

Now the grey squirrels. They ate the saucy bits that the black squirrel discarded. I'm not sure who is tougher in this situation, the black squirrel with his mad "I takes what I wants and I drops these icky bits on your heads" skills, or the grey squirrels who would like a shot of jack to go with these chicken wings, please.

I don't know if it's the time of year or the sun was just right, but you could see right through the fur of the black squirrel's tail, right down to the nasty pink skin. It's a good thing they have that fur because their tails look JUST. Like. Rat Tails. JUSTLIKE.

As a bonus, I present a Sarah&Sam conversation, driving on the way to the zoo:

Sam: Whoa! We just played chicken with a whole flock of birds! We won, though.
Sarah: I'm pretty sure we didn't. I didn't hear any thump thumps.

UPDATE: I just looked the smarmy little rodents up on Wikipedia. "However some squirrels also consume meat, especially when faced with hunger. Squirrels have been known to eat insects, eggs, small birds, snakes and rodents." The day I see a squirrel eating a snake? I know it's the apocalypse.

Airing Out the Plague Now

Apparently I took a page out of Cate's book before I had even read it. (Post out of Cate's blog?... No, that's a frickin' stupid saying.)

As soon as I got home from work, I got on chat and this conversation with my friend Cassie ensued:

me: hallloooooo
and how's JJ today?
FlutterBy: no idea
but he's been there since 7am
me: did you notice how i beat the hell out of him in a dark alley last night?
FlutterBy: thank you
me: no problem
he took me for serious, then

Uh, let me pause here to say that I, indeed, did not beat the hell out of anyone last night, dark alley or otherwise. And if I did, I was just being a supportive friend. Her jerkoff plumber can't seem to find the time to do the job he's been paid for.

FlutterBy: uh huh
me: as i was kicking him in the stomach i was yelling you! will! work! all! day! at! FlutterBy's! house!
and that bitch was all WHO'S FLUTTERBY!?!?!
FlutterBy: o.O
someone's hyper
me: bc i feel tons better
FlutterBy: yay

So, yeah, the point I was making was that those kids gave me the plague, but I survived. There was a full day, though, where I got out of the lounge chair once. In total. After having slept there. And by "slept" I mean "stayed up all night vomiting". Ever been in a car accident? One where you really get hit? (Or, I suppose, do the hitting, but I wouldn't know about that.) If not, you feel like it was you, and not your car, that was hit by a truck. That's how I felt that whole day. But I can walk again now. So yay! I guess that's less faking it and more real joy. I'm willing to share.

leave four or mor'n you're just plain "eg-no-ra-moose"

When I was a child, whenever we traveled, we would stop at just about every Cracker Barrel we saw. This, of course, was when the food was good- I'm nothing but disappointed by them now. (Take note, Cracker Barrel bigheads! Just in case, somehow, no one has mentioned it to you, you are ruining your own business with the crap that you now serve. You give down-home cookin' a bad name!)

I'm sure, among many of its other fine qualities, one of the reasons my mother would stop there often was the store's ability to shut us (read: loud, obnoxious brats all a-quivery with pent up energy from being in the car for the last seven hours) the hell up. Plenty to look at, enormous checkers games, and, at every table (and several at ours because mom would, ahem, acquire them from the surrounding tables) were those triangle peg games. The ones where you leap one peg with another, and then take the jumpee off the board until only one remains. I used to challenge myself by starting the first empty space at odd places around the board because it was so easy.

And behold! Linky lovin' from my sister!

...Holy hell. When did I get so stupid???

There is No Title That Could Make This More Spectacularly Awesome.

My kids. They left cookies and beer for Santa.

This type of crap is an everyday occurrence.

Deep growly voice, chanting: Eat a tur-key-LEG! Eat a tur-key-LEG! Eat a tur-key-LEG! Eat a tur-key-LEG!
Connor, stalking after Emily. I don't know why. But it's stuck on repeat in your head now, too. You're welcome.