Weird Things I LikeTM: Old crappe

Confession time: I'm a pack rat married to a pack rat.

And this is good news! It means there will never be a shortage of Weird Things for me to write about. I've got a few years worth of posts right here at home. This means you can look forward to some delightfully schadenfreude-y Fridays.* You'll look around at your tiny accumulation of old newspapers and catalogs and think "At least I'm not as bad as Poppy."

Here's how bad I am. Yesterday Mr. Buxom got a new violin string from Amazon.com. He'd been missing a string for a while, and as soon as he tuned up, he wanted to play.

Mind you, the last time he played the violin, internet shopping hadn't been invented. There was no Amazon.com. Or if there was, it was for buying books. Which gives you an idea of how long it's been since he's played.

Anyhow, he tuned up the violin and started looking around for his sheet music. And couldn't find it, so he asked me if I knew where it was. Now, we moved into this house 11 years ago and he hasn't used the music in all that time, so no, I didn't know where it was.

The contents of what we laughingly refer to as "the music room":
Four instruments, one amplifier, a bunch of music, and two
misplaced board games. What's missing? Talent.

I started digging through the sheet music. When I was finished going through my vocal music, my old piano music, my now-deceased father's piano music, the flute music for my daughter who never learned to play the flute, the recorder music from each child's third grade recorder-playing stage, my collection of sheet music from the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, a few random bits of accordion and organ music of my father's which really shouldn't be here because we don't own or play an accordion or organ, I still hadn't found it.

A small sampling of my massive accumulation collection of vintage sheet
music. Do I actually play it? No. Do I frame it? No.
Does it hang out in the piano bench? Yes.

He started giving me the hairy eyeball, but I didn't throw his violin music out, I swear. I told him that if I haven't thrown out his Ranger Rick magazines from the early 1970s, or his high school spelunking equipment, or his grandfather's genealogy charts, or the 12 linear feet of National Geographic magazines even though ALL of the NG is available on disks now, I wouldn't have thrown out his violin music.

I mean, there's been an empty violin case in our basement storage area for years, and I haven't thrown THAT out.

And he believed me. Not because of my eloquence, but due to the completely ridiculous amount of crap I generously allow him to own.

I guess this means I need to clean/reorganize the basement, because I really believe there's a box of violin music down there somewhere. So if you don't hear from me for a few days, send paramedics. I'll probably be pinned under a collection of vintage Fisher-Price Little People sets.

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* Yes, people. The internet has spoken, and the weekly Weird Things post is going to take place on Friday. Apparently people like the whole WTF idea.

Bloggy Giveaway Carnival--Limited Edition Barbies, BNIB. A random drawing for Jen Lancaster anyone who enters.

You know, a lot of people would try to eBay this kind of thing, but I'm not organized enough.

Well, of course, I'm not organized enough. These are Barbies I bought for my daughter under the assumption that she'd become interested in Barbie some day.

OK, confession time--I bought one of them when I was pregnant with her. Yes, I really am that hopeless.

But anyway, my daughter's interest in Barbie evaporated a few years ago--and it was never all that great to begin with, as it was limited to extricating her from her package, losing her shoes, and messing up her hair.

(It seems pretty obvious that even as a small child, my daughter had a somewhat cavalier, frat-boy attitude towards her dolls.)

OK. Obviously, the interest in Barbie was really mine all along. Pathetic Baby Boomer that I am.

So anyway, for your Giveaway pleasure, I have the following:

The Avon Exclusive, Special Edition, Second-in-a-Series "Winter Rhapsody" Barbie, copyright 1996, which you could only get from an Avon lady
The Little Debbie Snacks Special Edition Barbie, copyright 2001, which you could only get if you sent in box tops. Of Little Debbie Snack Cakes. OK, we interrupt this shame spiral to bring you our final Barbie,
The Walt Disney World Resort Four Parks One World Barbie from 2002, which I bought for my kids' babysitter's niece ... and never got around to giving her. Because I am a LOSER.

You know, it's a good thing confession is good for the soul.

Anyway, I'm assuming these would be of interest to Barbie collectors, but of course, you'll be glad to know that none of them was made in China, so if you want to risk that whole choking hazard situation, you could probably let your children gnaw on the paint with impunity. Although if you do, you didn't read that here.

Leave me a comment if you're interested. I'll be running a drawing at 5:00 p.m. this Friday. Oh, and you have to take all three of them--no choosies.

(Did you notice they're all brunettes? I always had a soft spot for Barbies who had brown hair LIKE ME.)

***Edited to add***

Hello, friends of Jen! If you think Susie Sunshine should shut up and let Jen enter the contest, just like everyone else, I agree. So I'm entering her.

But I'm not entering Susie Sunshine. Even though I totally know she wants the Little Debbie one. Because I'm cruel--but fair.

***Edited again to add***

Yes, I'll mail overseas, so feel free to enter even if you live in Antartica. Also, be sure I have a way to email you--either a link back to your blog or your email address or both.

Yo, Mama!

Where've I been?

At the Elephant & Castle, because they generously donated a party to one of my charities. We got 90 freeloaders party-goers to attend. When I wasn't posing for pictures and wondering where I had put my drink, I went around ruthlessly shilling raffle tickets, and I twisted people's arms to the tune of $920. For the charity, she added hastily.

On Friday my cute little family of four went to see Yo-Yo Ma and his Silk Road Ensemble. We sat in a box because my husband bought the tickets. Box seats! And just so you know, the Symphony Center boxes leave the Lyric Opera House boxes sitting in the road, what with their better sightlines, closer proximity to the stage, and cute little closets. Also the goodies at intermission are much tastier. And the bathroom was like, right there. And the line was so short!

Jesus, I may have just talked myself into switching from opera to symphony. Yes, I really am that shallow.

And now, let me just explain why I don't blog more than I do. And why I'm still in my pajamas.

It's because my children TIRE ME RIGHT THE FUCK OUT. blackbird can testify how exhausting they can be, because she called me up yesterday while I was finishing packing for the weekend, and because yesterday was Friday the Thirteenth, which is obviously her lucky day, she caught my daughter in the middle of making a series of LOUD, NERVE-SHATTERING KEENING NOISES.

My daughter was making noises like a human siren because instead of being able to go to a private screening of High School Musical complete with candy and popcorn and the company of her fellow estrogen-laden peers, she was being forced to put on her Easter dress and go out to dinner and then to a concert at Symphony Center.

And just so you know, I am not perfect. No, really, I'm not, and having to make soothing apologetic remarks about it being her brother's birthday present, and that unfortunately, my husband had not written the date of the concert on the kitchen calendar, and it was too late to change our plans now, because the tickets were very expensive, while hearing that she hated me and was going to either run away from home or kill herself ... well, it kind of takes some of the luster out of what should have been a festive occasion.

And so, while dinner, which was at a child-friendly yet venerable Chicago restaurant with an excellent wine list was, in fact, very good, and while the music was both interesting and beautifully-played, and while Yo-Yo Ma is ADORABLE and energetic and amazing, and while he'd be my new boyfriend (except wonder of wonders, he's actually older than I am, and the rule is that my musician boyfriends have to be younger than I am) and therefore, the evening ended up being quite pleasant, if you factor out the hours between 3:30 and 6:30 ... I'm still recovering.

So that was yesterday's drama. Surviving it (as well as writing a Mamarazzi entry mocking Danny Bonaduce and incidentally affording my readers a glimpse of his pubic hair) was all I managed to accomplish.

And I'm still recovering.

An invitation to Internet crimestoppers

Inspired by blackbird (who says she was inspired by Alice, but didn't provide a link.) Thank you Alice, by way of bb, for starting me on the road to righteousness.

Because everyone knows that the first thing you do, if you want to reform, is confess your sins. So Internet, feel free to swoop down and make a citizen's arrest if you see me doing any of the following:

1. Not drinking water. Everyone tells me to do it, but no one manages to make it any more palatable.

2. Not giving a rat's nether regions for the fiscal well-being of my children's school.

3. Not exercising.

4. Especially by not going to the expensive gym Fiddledeedee talked me into joining.

5. Not watching television, and so

7. Not knowing what people are talking about most of the time.

8. Not getting dressed, but slobbing around in my pajamas until 12:47 on a Saturday afternoon.