I think $841 is enough

... but if you disagree--if you think I should send even more money to the American Red Cross's Haiti fund, head over to Babble's 50 best mommybloggers list and vote for Badger.

Not to be overly competitive or anything, but Badger apparently peaked at number 5. Not too shabby, considering she started at number 365. She's currently number 8--being beaten by Vodka Mom, with 901 to Badger's 841. I heart Vodka Mom, and there's a tiny, vestigial portion of my personality that refuses to tell you to head over to Babble and beat her into a pulp. See? That's me up there on the high road, being all morally superior.

But strictly pragmatically, above Vodka Mom, the numbers get pretty stratospherical.

I might as well face the fact that I might never be able to supplant the extremely dreary-sounding Peaceful Parenting. It sounds to me like a co-sleeping, nursing-on-demand, doula-hiring bore. And with numbers like that, it's a big show-off, too.

So I think I'll give everyone until 5:00 p.m. Eastern time to vote for Badger, after which I'll put a cap on my donation.

Remember, a vote for Badger is another dollar for Haiti. So vote, already!

In which I defy the space/time continuum

I was plagued by a series of physical ailments today.

Between my sore knee and hip socket (from Thursday's fall,) a sore eye (from wearing crazy glittery eye shadow to a cocktail party on Friday night and stupidly falling into bed in a drunken stupor falling asleep without taking off my eye makeup,) and a sore back (from standing around my fire-damaged condo discussing renovation plans and then pushing around an overloaded grocery cart,) I was feeling the weight of my years.

In fact, I was feeling the weight of more years than I've actually lived. By a few decades.

My lower back hurt, my hip hurt, my knee hurt, and my right eye hurt. "This is what it's like to be 83," I said to myself. And then I went out and told those pesky kids to get off my lawn.

And then tonight, at a dinner party, I was told I look 32.

So basically, in one day, I managed to add and then subtract several decades. With almost no effort on my part.

If Alfred Einstein could come back from the dead, I could win him another Nobel prize.

I'll let you know how young I am tomorrow morning. When I've sobered up.

Bullets Thursday

• There's a stretch of sidewalk on the street where my church is that has always struck me as an accident waiting to happen. It's one of the few places in town that can be described as a hill. In places the cement has heaved, so the surface isn't as smooth as it should be. In the summer when the leaves are out, the streetlights don't really do much of anything. In the winter, when it's already dark, the crazy sidewalk develops patches of black ice. Downward slope + crazy sidewalk + darkness + ice = guess who wiped out tonight on her way to choir?

• And it was a full-on wipe-out, too. I was glad I was wearing a down jacket and thick mittens, because the padding helped protect the upper half of my body. But I hit the sidewalk pretty hard with my left knee (take that, stupid sidewalk!) and ripped my jeans.

• And I have a feeling I'm going to be very sore tomorrow.

• I don't know whether you've noticed, but I'm doing Blog365 again.


• I'm picking up the slack from Badger, who did it in 2009.

• Badger is number five in the Babble mommyblogger write-ins.

• I nominated her, and she's gone from number 365 to number 5. This may be the single most impressive thing I've done in the five years I've been blogging.

• If you think I'm exaggerating, come back tomorrow, when I'll probably be reduced to posting pictures of the owie on my left knee.

Well conducted

My children are trying to kill me.

I mean, it's not like they haven't already tired me out. Especially new teenager Poppette, who sang in a concert tonight and was thoroughly excited and delighted by that ... and twenty minutes later, was home experiencing the depths of despair! And anger! Because she lost a textbook. Honestly, it was two extremes of emotion, height and depth--occurring incredibly fast, like one of those terrifying roller coasters that takes you way up high and then shoots way, way down. And twists. And leaves you hanging upside down. Maybe under water, I don't know. And I know I'm belaboring a cliché, but:

The ride is called Teenaged Girl, and it's coming to a Six Flags near you.

So anyway, now that it's almost midnight and I badly need to be sitting here drinking the one measly glass of wine Weight Watchers will let me have, I can hear her in her bedroom. And she is not asleep. And I'm going to have to go in there and get her to go to sleep or she'll be OTE (over-tired and emotional) tomorrow.

You know, teenagers are just like toddlers. Except with hormones.

OK, you already knew that, too. And so I'm posting this picture of my church choir, taken when we were visiting Salisbury Cathedral last summer.

Because both of my teenagers in that choir, and we're taking another choir trip in a couple of weeks. See how orderly and calm and in control we all look in our blue robes?



See how lovely? Blue robes. Stained glass. Historic edifices. Beautiful music. Not plummeting to a messy death.

This is also my life. And I just figured out what we need in this house. We need a conductor. Someone to tell us what to do (and, if necessary, divert dangerous electrical charges.)

See, when I'm singing in a chorus, I do what the conductor says. I sit, stand, sing, listen, take careful notes, try to remember everything he has said. And I don't argue about what I'm told to wear. Blue choir robes? Not really my thing. I'm more drawn to the traditional black. And yet, I don't argue; I just wear the stupid thing. And it's also effective with teenagers. See the kids in the picture? They adore our conductor and do everything he says.

Is it possible to hire a conductor for something other than a musical performance? Because I'm sure that Mr. Buxom would agree that it would be a distinct improvement if someone else were in charge around here once in a while.

The Pioneer Woman has nothing on me.

Remember when I said I was going all Pioneer Woman on your asses?

See, I nominated Badger for the Babble We've Never Heard of Your Favorite Mommy Bloggers list, and I've decided that if The Pioneer Woman can whore out her blog for Haiti, then so can I.

Except the Pioneer woman gets millions of hits a day, so she only offered to donate 10 cents a comment.

I'm not as popular as the Pioneer Woman (discerning readers will call this "stating the obvious.") Ordinarily, the thought of this causes me to sob convulsively, but this time, there's a silver lining. Which is that I can afford to donate more then a lousy dime per reader.

Also, unlike the Pioneer Woman, I don't want you to leave a comment on my blog. (Well, actually, I do. I like comments.)

But what I'm really doing is trying to get you to click through to the Babble site and vote for Badger Meets World. So I've promised to donate a dollar per vote.

So far Badger is in 12th place with 407 votes. Some blog called "Peaceful Parenting" is at 1,596 votes. Now, I don't know about you, but that sounds lame as hell. I'm not even going to click through and check it out. I prefer my blogs to be funny, and somehow, I'm not getting the idea that "Peaceful Parenting" is going to deliver much in the way of yucks.

Let's go, people! I'm not saying we can kick Peaceful Parenting's ass, but we can at least bully it a little bit.

Remember, Haiti needs the money, and Badger needs the votes. Go give Peaceful Parenting a wedgie. And tell 'em Poppy sent you.

15

I can't believe it! Badger is number 15 in the Babble list-of-curiously-neglected-Mommy-bloggers.

If you haven't already, please head over there to vote. Hell, if you've voted already, head over there to vote again.

(What's a grass-roots referendum without some ballot-box-stuffing? After all, I live in Chicago.)

What--you're still here? Go vote. Do I need to go all Pioneer Woman and send money to Haiti?

OK--fine. For every person who votes for Badger, I'll send a dollar to the Red Cross Haiti Fund. And I hope you're satisfied.

Now go vote.

Last year's Christmas card

In case I never got around to sending you one, here's the picture from last year's Christmas card.



Inside the card it said "We hope your Christmas rocks!"

As you can see, it took quite a while to get a picture good enough for a Christmas card:






I know what you're thinking. What kind of narcissist thinks we'd be interested in her Christmas card outtakes?

Hey! This kind of narcissist, that's who.

Actually, I'm not doing it out of ego. I'm doing it so you'll get an idea of what I go through. I spend the whole year trying to get a picture of the four of us looking passably attractive and doing something interesting. And this is a huge challenge, because we're generally sitting around staring into a laptop and looking like dog vomit.

See, I'm not a narcissist. I'm a whore. I want pity, or if not that, empathy.

I mean, those Christmas cards of the entire family looking adorable and perky on a beach somewhere--the little girls in Lilly Pulitzer shifts, the little boys in matching polo shirts ... don't you just hate those people? Please say yes.