A Moment Like This, Part Deux

Well sorry for the big build-up and then the anti-climax which is here, right here. This post was to include photos of kids sportin' schwag and demonstrating happy feelings re-created after the big incident, but those children were uncooperative and I've hoarded the schwag and, well, I'll just tell you what happened: We encountered the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile!

Oh, it was so sweet. Waxed to wienerific perfection. Gleaming like a ginormous processed meat beacon in that Sam's Club parking lot. Oh, she was a beaut. Some people wait a life time for a moment like this. The kids were giddy. I was hyperventilating. Matt was patient. I beat him over the head with my purse to get him to park the damn Land Rover ANYWHERE so we could bolt for that gleaming glorious frankfurter. We left the car while it was still rolling and made a run for it lest we get left in the hot-dog scented dust - we were so scared it would leave before we got there! But mecca was there for us when we arrived. And the door was open.

I want to tell you every detail of the upholstered splendor that was the inside of that wiener, I really do. I want to tell you about the bun-shaped dashboard and the wien-tastic music playing, etc., but I won't. I'm not going to spoil it for you. It is more unbelievable and amazing than you can imagine. And you should imagine. If you haven't seen this 8th wonder of the world, then I feel sad for you. Hunt it down and do it. They give you prizes!

Yes, the wiener whistle urban legend is true. The driver gives you one. Even if you're a hysterical parent and they're really for the kids, lady. He also tells you hilarious jokes if you ask him questions like: "Do you sleep in here?" His response: "Of course not silly, it's not a wiener-bago!"

Anyhow, my family was brought closer by the experience. Gwen even hugged me, she was so happy. There is so much more I could say but no, I want you to experience this for yourself. Go get that wiener!

A Moment Like This

Once Upon A Time I thought I'd never be lucky enough to see it. Then on a vacation a couple years ago I saw it not once but TWICE on the Interstate, going the opposite direction. I thought it was a sign from above that everything was good and right in the world. I have heard of other sightings. Once while on staff at a newspaper I was told one was spotted in the Wal-Mart parking lot. I rushed over only to be disappointed - it had just left.

A few weekends ago when my family was in the city shopping, we saw one in a hotel parking lot. Empty, just sitting there, with a line of a billion cars circling it like sharks around a bleeding diver. And we didn't have a camera. So since me and the kids were screaming at the top of our lungs for a camera! Now! RIGHT NOW! My husband, kind and gentle soul that he is, took us to the nearest Target to buy a disposable Kodak, then emergency-style drove us back to the scene so we could burn a whole roll of film on it.

Then last weekend all our dreams came true... stay tuned for part 2

Cool Mom's Picks For M-Day

One of my fave websites, Cool Mom Picks, is throwing some fab schwag our way for the big day. Check out their awesome list of stuff to beg hubby for. Oh who am I kidding, probably can't afford any of it and if I post this ad I get entered into a big drawing! However, the stuff is still kewl.

I MISS MY MOMMY!!!

It's true, it's all true, it's no April Fool's joke, I MISS MY MOMMY! Curse you, Michigan, and your pristine perfection, family ties and jobs with perks luring my mommy away! I know, I know, it was my own choice to move 13 hours away from my homeland and gripe and bitch about my mom living far away and then gripe and bitch when she did move here and now gripe and bitch when she moves back home! Mom-ma! (think 'Stella!' type anguish-filled plaintiff howl).

Yesterday after work I went to the local second hand store. Not because I wanted to buy anything (and I didn't) but because it reminds me of mom. Yes, mom and I visited there several times over the course of her brief residency here, but really any second hand store reminds me of mom. There's this smell, this musty smell, this smell of treasure waiting to be discovered in the cast offs of closets of yore. The smell evokes warm childhood memories of quiet grey days spent discovering fantastic stuff with momma in dust-mote filled corners of these warehouses of wonderment.

Ever since I can remember mom took us kids to second hand stores. While she mainly stalked the clothing aisles, I would hunker down in the musty book section and find treasure upon treasure in the classics. Peyton Place, House of the Seven Gables, Even Cowgirls Get The Blues, I'm Ok, You're Ok, A Hitch hiker's Guide To The Galaxy, Blue Highways, On The Road, Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Jonathon Livingston Seagull - those titles and SO many more were mine for the price of a nickel, a dime, a quarter, I don't know, never more than a dollar, at the local St. Vincent DePaul.

My mom is famous for her second-hand splurges and on her many moves (mom's sort of a gypsy in more tasteful clothing), the first thing she'd stake out was where and how many second hand stores there were. Forget groceries, this is more important! Junking is sustenance, equally if not more important than food and water! One year for Christmas, we even gave her gift certificates to Goodwill because we knew she'd like the opportunity to junk more than anything we could buy her new. Yes, mom taught us there's something soul-nourishing about second hand store hunting. And there is.

And yesterday my soul needed nourishing. I needed my momma. So I perused the racks of the musty old store and stalked the perimeter for furniture and housewares and even visited the back room for extreme bargains, etc., and then I just cried. I just couldn't help it, the tears just came. I sort of wandered in between some racks and let it out. I just plain miss my mom. I know I'll get to see her again, and I'm sure we have many junk-store filled afternoons ahead of us. I just miss her right here and now and it was nice to have that safe haven of used stuff to express myself in. Love you mom. Miss you.

I have a blog?!?!

Sort of skipped past Easter and then some... the fam has been busy lately, I guess, well, just sort of adjusting to Grandma moving back to Michigan. We were all so used to her gentle, sweet ways and kind guidance and fight intervention. And the fact that she always kept the litter boxes clean. We are all grieving. So we're going to totally have to crash her pad this summer!!!

This weekend has been grey and semi-wet, the time of year when it's struggling to be spring but hasn't quite got there yet, though there are some hella fat buds on the daphs just waiting to pop. I am rubbing my knuckles together in glee!

Above is a pic of my homemade, poorly rendered Goldbug and Maniacbug hiding in the ferns. Fletch has become fixated with an ancient Richard Scary book, Cars and Trucks and Things That Go, and finding Goldbug and Maniacbug hiding in oh-so-many clever hiding spots on each and every page. So since we were homebound and bored this afternoon I decided to make our own Goldbug and Maniacbug and hide them around the house for Fletch to find.

This was fun for, oh, say five minutes. The game quickly digressed to Goldbug looking for Maniacbug, finding him, and kicking his ass karate-style. Why is everything all star wrestling with little boys?? Anyhow, we read a book, did a craft and then engaged in active play all centered around one subject. Sounds like kindergarden readiness to me!!

And Gwen? Gwen was surly. Oh so surly. But she did make some delish chocolate pudding for us. And we love her.

Fried egg Fletcher

Last night Fletcher, who I was trying to get ready for bed, invented a new game: He was an egg and I had to "crack" him into a frying pan while daddy was the spatula and had to flip him over. I know this sounds weird, but it turned out to be so hilarious we all couldn't stop laughing (and we certainly didn't get calmed down and ready for bed for quite awhile).

So this is how it worked: We were all on me and Matt's king sized bed. Fletcher, sitting on his bottom, tucked up his legs and arms into his oversized Dolphins jersey and bent his head down inside the neck hole. I rolled him forward, "cracking" him into the 'pan' at which point he unfolded his body flat and then Matt (the spatula) picked him up and flipped him over a few times till he was "done" and then we "ate" him all up by tickling him all over. It was even more fun when I decided I wanted my egg scrambled, which led to crazy havoc with the spatula.

Man, that was just a really great family memory, and one I really want to remember. It is one of those times when taking a photo wouldn't have counted. There were no real eggs or pans, and it was all just make believe, nothing to photograph, but I want to keep that mental snapshot in my heart's wallet always.

And then there's Gwendolyn, moody, sulky, so full of emotional turmoil and angst. I hesitate to write about her here so as not to embarrass her. She is full of private inklings and cranky inclinations and tumult; she reminds me of the breaking of the bay from my Michigan childhood. In the spring when the ice cracks up on Lake Michigan there are these booms, loud as thunder, while the surface is still smooth and flat as ever then soon there are three and four foot thick walls of blue-green ice colliding and spiking and arching and banging and diving up from the water like deformed frozen trick dolphins and the scene is so calamitous and terrifying you want to run away screaming and stay there transfixed by the insane process of nature! But soon the ice floe is out to 'sea' and warmer weather arrives and there's the beach and the blue-green waves and the gorgeous lake is back to same-old-same-old. I guess it's just adolescence but it is MY daughter's adolescence and it is intense and scary and lovely and I just yearn for the days of same-old-same-old that lay somewhere in the foggy future. If you have a teen, I feel for you...

I must have it!!!

I was wandering the web and look what I found...

Rarely am I moved to stare slack-jawed and drooling at a piece of artwork but this, this is everything I have ever wanted in a print! It's cheap! It's gorgeous! It's a tree! Somebody slap me! I must have it for my bedroom!!! There is also another print there that made me instantly think of Gwen, and I must have it for her but I will save that as a surprise, so no post of it today! Thank you NiceBunny for making me a crazed shopaholic!