Am I the only person on the face of the planet who has not seen this video?
(Hint: for a more dramatic impact, turn your volume up.)
(Unless you no likey the Whitney Houston. I’m just saying.)
sniff.sniff.goosebumps.
Also — does anyone else think this would make a great ad for The New AT&T?
No?
Just me then?
So much (too much) going on this week, what with Kate turning FOUR!YEARS!OLD! (prompting a trip to Incredible Headache Pizza), my favorite aunt turning sixty (prompting TWO! parties, one of which is a huge surprise party on Sunday), and school starting in twenty days.
Posting will likely be light for the next twenty days after which school will be starting.
Also, school starts in twenty days.
But because I have so much love oozing from my pores for all you beautiful people who still stop by everyday to see if I’ve had anything stupid new to say, I leave you today with links to two of my favorite posts that were read at the BlogHer Community Keynote. One serious, one funny. Like my two personalities.
It’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the sudden stop, by Mr Lady
Go read. Seriously. You’ll laugh, You’ll cry. You’ll thank me later.
* The following is pulled from my September 2006 archives. Because I have a BlogHer hangover. Thanks for understanding. xoxo *
Tuesdays are Unofficial Laundry Days in our household. I say unofficial because generally speaking each Tuesday comes and goes with little to no pomp and circumstance. And even though the event is announced to the public (my husband and kids) in advance (the night before), it seems I am the only person in the house who participates in the ritual every freaking week.
Three Tuesdays ago, I went through my usual routine of: 1. gathering all the kids’ dirty clothes from upstairs, 2. taking them to the laundry room, 3. sorting them, and 4. performing the necessary pre-treating, washing, drying, and folding, before 5. putting the then-clean clothes back in their appropriate closets and/or dresser drawers.
I had finished washing the third or fourth load and tossed it into the dryer, started the dryer, and then went back to sitting on the couch eating bon-bons scrubbing toilets. After about five minutes I realized that I had been subconsiously hearing some unknown repetitive noise.
Repetitive noises drive me crazy.
Short drive, I know.
I investigated and discovered the noise was coming from the clothes dryer so I went into the laundry room and opened the dryer door. The noise stopped. Which was a big relief really until I realized that the “noise” had actually been MY SON’S IPOD slamming against the sides of the dryer drum over and over and over and over for each and every one of those five minutes.
Apparently, prior to the commencement of Laundry Day the iPod had been tucked in the pocket of a pair of his shorts.
I was surprisingly calm about the possible damage five minutes in the dryer had done. It was the thirty minutes that the two-hundred-dollar-piece-of-anodized-metal had spent in the washing machine that I was going apeshit about.
Man. Was Jack in trouble.
When he got home from school, I looked up from my People with one eyebrow raised and matter-of-factly said, “Jack, your iPod is dead.”
He looked kind of sick and said, “What do you mean?”
“You left it in the pocket of your cargo shorts and they got washed,” I explained, my tone the epitome of I-knew-something-like-this-would-happen. “The iPod is full of water. You can see it through the screen.”
Jack’s voice became desperate, “Mom, those shorts weren’t dirty. I only wore them for an hour last night and I left them over the back of my chair to put them on again after football practice tonight.”
Crap.
Not only was the iPod dead, but it was kinda sorta almost nearly possibly entirely my fault. I was sick. I mean, now I couldn’t smack him for it. Not justifiably anyway.
Then I remembered that in the past I had read encouraging stories about electronic gadgets that had been sprayed, sprinkled, and/or immersed in water (and other various liquids — Rolling Rock comes to mind) and survived. The magic cure it seemed was to just let the damned thing dry out. And never, NEVER, EVer turn the power on until enough time had passed so as to assume thorough dryness.
We figured three weeks was enough.
So yesterday after school Jack and I proceeded to my closet where the iPod had been safely nestled for three weeks on a shelf between two sweaters. We took it down and immediately noticed a lack of water under the screen. We gasped. Jack pushed the button to turn it on and we saw this:
Which means “Dude, your battery is totally drained.” We gasped again and plugged it into the charger. After about ten minutes, I pushed the power button and we saw this:
Allow me to introduce you to the “Sad iPod Icon.” Which means “Your iPod hard disk is TOAST. Game. over.” We groaned.
But, I wasn’t giving up. If I didn’t fix the iPod, I figured my only reasonable option would be to give him mine. And THAT was NOT happening. So I did what I assume all red-blooded Americans do when they need help with a life-or-death situation like this.
I Googled.
Jack went upstairs.
I searched “sad ipod icon” and first read information about fixing the problem by forcing the iPod into disk mode. (I sound all technologically intelligent, but I have no idea what that means.) I followed the instructions word for word several times with no luck.
Sad iPod continued to stare at me the way my two-year-old does when I eat the last oatmeal raisin cookie in front of her. What? She doesn’t like raisins anyway.
I began mentally preparing myself to chuck Jack’s Christmas present (from less than one year ago) into the trash while the sick feeling in my stomach grew. And as I moved my mouse to click on the red “X” that would close my Google window, I saw something funny: a search result with the words “spank your iPod” in it. Intrigued, I clicked and indeed found a site called — what else — spankyouripod.com that offered the suggestion for fixing iPod hard disk problems by — yes, you got it — SPANKING THE IPOD.
BUT OF COURSE. After all, it had been a naughty, naughty iPod.
Nothing to lose, I held Sad iPod face down in my left hand and gave a little smack with my right.
Nothing.
I repeated the process with a little harder smack.
Again nothing. But I was enjoying getting to smack something over this deal.
I put Sad iPod to my ear and heard whirring and clicking noises so I figured I hadn’t totally fried it yet. Or figured I had.
Finally I took a deep breath, braced myself, and slammed Sad iPod down on my solid wood coffee table but HARD.
My ears ringing from the SLAM!, I slowly looked down at the screen and instead of the Sad iPod icon I saw a song title and artist name. Ecstatic but skeptical, I inserted an earbud and sure enough heard Green Day cranking out “Extraordinary Girl.”
It was like a Christmas miracle.
I yelled up to Jack, “Come get your iPod.”
“Did you fix it?” he asked incredulously.
“DUH. I knew I would,” I replied.
“Whatever.” He snatched Happy iPod from my hand and went back up the stairs.
No “Thank you.” No “Good job, Mom.” Nothing.
Damn teenagers.
See if I fix the next thing of his that I break.
Jessica is sitting on the floor, scratching our New Gray Tabby Cat* on the belly.
Suddenly, she stops and says to the kitty**, “Ewww. Is that a flea I feel on you? Or is that your nipple?” And then, to me, “Mom, do cats have nipples?”
“YES OF COURSE. All mammals have nipples.”
“Oh. Then how come parrots don’t?”
“Because the public school system has failed you.***”
————————
* Not to be confused with our Old Gray Tabby Cat Who Was Lost for Seven Weeks and Then Came Home Perhaps When He Saw We Had Replaced Him with a Newer (Not to Mention FEMALE) Model. (And who, at only three years, we don’t technically classify as old in age, but as old in the sense that we had him first.)
** For the record, the six of us have finally decided on a name for the new one. Unfortunately, we each have decided on a different name. So Bella (Rob) Trixie (Emily) Kiki (Jessica) Coconut (Katie) Flapjacks (Jack) Toonces (Me) it is. Good thing cats don’t need birth certificates.
*** Also for the record, Jessica is my one and only Straight A progeny. So now I’m wondering what creatures Jack believes do or do not have nipples. Will ask him in the morning.
We spent Independence Day last Friday with extended family at my Aunt Patty’s house, where the usual food consumption and fireworks ignition played out as in so many years past.
The only thing missing was my brother Jeremy since the main reason to look forward to the fourth of July in our family is the possibility of seeing Jeremy do something stupid like running backwards into the plastic pool that not five minutes earlier our mother had deemed off-limits. Also catching his head on fire with a bottle rocket.
But those are stories for another day.
We wrapped up the festivities at Aunt Patty’s house around ten o’clock and headed for home. The kids were worn out so the ten minute ride was quiet and eventless until we pulled into the driveway and Jack started yelling about the headlights had just passed over something in the neighbor’s front yard that looked like a cat that looked like Pete. Only he didn’t use the actual words cat and Pete, but instead made hand gestures and mumbling sounds since, as he later explained, he didn’t want to get the girls’ hopes up in case he was wrong. He occasionally plays the role of the caring, compassionate big brother. Bless his heart.
Anyway, Rob and I leapt from the truck but the cat took off in the opposite direction before we even got one good look at it. Fortunately, that would not be our last sighting.
SIGHTING NUMBER TWO
Two evenings later, on Sunday, Rob passed out his usual goodnight kisses and headed for work. Less than a minute later, he burst back into the house, wild-eyed, panting, and babbling about having just seen the cat again. Only, unlike Jack, his actual words were “I just saw Pete.”
He had been close enough to ascertain that the feline in question was a gray tabby with green eyes and the spitting image of our Pete, but the cat bolted before he could check to see if it was front declawed and neutered. Ahh, smart like Pete too.
Anyway, we were disappointed that the cat had eluded our capture again, but hopeful that we might actually still bring Pete home. Before I went to bed, I put a pile of cat food on a paper plate out in the garage and opened the garage door a few inches.
THE PLAN
Yesterday morning, I went out to check the cat food to find it half eaten. This had the immediate effect of causing the hamster wheels in my brain to start spinning. I called Rob.
“Hey,” I said, “I have a plan to catch Pete.”
“Really?” he asked, intrigued, “What?”
“When I go to bed tonight, I’m going to crack the garage door and leave food out like last night, but I’m also going to put the baby monitor out there next to the plate. And I’m going to sleep with the baby monitor and the garage door opener next to me. Then if the cat comes back I’ll hear it through the monitor and I’ll close the garage door.”
Rob thought about it for a few seconds.
“That could work,” he replied.
“I know, right?”
“Yeah. But that could also catch you a possum.”
THE TRAP
So at bedtime last night, Jessica helped me set up my little trap.
On a related note, our dadgum baby monitor is crazy farking sensitive so as to cause THREE FALSE ALARMS before we even made it to bed. I think it must have picked up on our neighbor eating popcorn from his living room sofa.
At around 3:30 am, I woke to the sound of Jack eating a bowl of Cap’n Crunch. BUT! WAIT! one of the voices in my head yelled. Jack would not be eating Cap’n Crunch at 3:30 am. At least not on the other end of the baby monitor IN THE GARAGE.
The next thirty seconds of my life after that realization: (read and picture in slow-mo):
BEDSIDE LAMP ON — PRESS GARAGE DOOR OPENER BUTTON — NOTHING — PRESS AGAIN — NOTHING — RUN TO LAUNDRY ROOM — PRESS GARAGE DOOR OPENER BUTTON LIKE LIFE DEPENDS ON IT — GARAGE DOOR DESCENDS — THROW OPEN DOOR TO GARAGE — SEE A TAIL SWOOSH — CLICK ON OVERHEAD GARAGE LIGHTS — SEE CAT NO! WAIT! SEE PETE SCURRY TO THE (CLOSED AND LOCKED) GARAGE WINDOW — RUN INTO HOUSE AND GRAB PHONE — CALL ROB — SCREAM INTO RECEIVER “I DID IT!!!! I CAUGHT PETE!!!! IT’S PETE!!!! IT’S HIM!!!! I DID IT!!!! — COLLAPSE AND CRY.
THE HAPPY ENDING
Now granted Pete was none too happy for the first minute or two. He sat on the garage window sill moaning and baying to be released. Imagine how confusing for an animal that’s been wandering lost for SEVEN WEEKS to suddenly be trapped in an only somewhat maybe kind of familiar garage.
I called to Pete, but he didn’t seem to hear or notice or care for the first minute or two. Then, suddenly, he stopped moaning and made a beeline straight for me. I sat on the garage floor and reached my hand out to him. He took a quick sniff and then rubbed his cheek against my palm. Like he always had.
Jessica and Katie were awake now from the racket and they came into the garage to see if I was screaming because it really was Pete. Or if I was screaming because it really was a possum.
The three of us sat on the dusty garage floor together, laughing and crying, petting and scratching, and cooing at our once lost boy.
After a few minutes, we opened the door to go back into the house and Pete led the way inside. We woke Jack and Emily to tell them the news and Rob, who had been at work, took an unscheduled break to come home and witness Pete for his own eyes.
And there we were at 4:00 in the morning. Our family of six, sitting in a misshapen circle in the living room with Pete walking from one to the other of us to soak up all our petting and scratching and love.
And tears.
