One Slurpee Shoe Sunday

#4: You remember that day about a year and a half ago when I was riding on Julietta’s scooter and I wrecked and hurt my finger real bad and I haven’t wanted to go on a scooter or a skateboard ever since?

Me: You mean right before we bought you the skateboard for your birthday that you’d been asking for for three years and now have never ridden? No, I don’t remember that.

#4: Well, that day I had a Slurpee and I dropped it.

Me: While you were riding on the scooter you were drinking a Slurpee? Maybe this is connected to you wrecking.

#4: No, I was drinking it next to the scooter. I just dropped it you know?

Me: Mmm-hmmm.

#4: And when it landed it just landed exactly like this, I didn’t do anything to it, so I took a picture and put it on my phone for the background:

#4: It almost made up for not getting to drink my Slurpee.

Here are your links:

It’s Shamrock Shake time again, at a certain fast food establishment I don’t patronize and haven’t in years. Here’s a badasss homemade Shamrock Shake recipe (bonus: contains actual dairy ingredients, so you can legally refer to it as a milkshake, rather than just a shake. . .gads, I totally sound like a former McEmployee. Which I am.) Shamrock Shake on Homesteading Housewife

If you’ve ever been pregnant, or if you’ve ever made somebody pregnant, or if you’ve never wanted to be pregnant, you should check out this post by Lyz Lenz, who is freaking hilarious and whom I got to hear speak at BlogHer ’12 : I Am Not a Magical Birthing Unicorn

Dammit. Somebody posted this on Facebook and I watched it on my lunch break at work and had to pretend like I got hot sauce in my eye again. Viddler video: high school basketball player passes the ball to a mentally challenged player on the other team.

I have a confession to make: I’m real damn glad I missed out on toddler tantrums. If any of you are taking my name in vain right now, please know that I am exactly 30 days away from having four teenage girls living under my roof at one time. For a bit of insight to the science behind why your animal child (um, speaking only of toddlers here) just threw spaghetti in your face, check out this post: Why Does My Kid Freak Out? on Slate. If you have a teen who just threw spaghetti at you, I can’t help you.

I freaking love this: The Nietzsche Family Circus. Randomized pairing of Family Circus cartoons and Nietzsche quotes.

One last bonus link for a bonus mom. Lisa Teal-Webb is a stepmom in Ohio who is one of my biggest sources of step-parenting help and inspiration through her group Buckeye Bonus Mom. This link is to an interview NBC4 in Ohio did with her.

Happy Sunday.

I Hate the Way You Lay On My Tiger Sunday

Right after we opened my current show, over seven years ago, I took a creative writing class in the city. It was the first time in my adult life that I knew I would be in the same place for the next ten weeks and available every Monday night, so I took advantage of it.

There was a woman in the class who had one of the best short story opening lines ever:

“I hate the way you eat your sandwich.”

It did then and continues to now serve as the basis by which I measure good dialogue in fiction.

Good dialogue in fiction comes from real life- our instructor, author Matt de le Peña taught us that. A statement like the one above can only come from someone stuck in a situation with another person that feels so interminable that they’re either going to kill the other guy, escape in the dead of night, or sell their soul to Satan to make it stop. It immediately sets tension and speaks volumes, with very few words.

When you’re with someone your whole life- or what feels like your whole life- you can fixate on the way they take their socks off, the sound they make before they answer the office phone, how they always move your coffee mug. It can make you crazy.

mytiger — I hate the way you lay on my tiger. Just to mock me. Not even playing with it.

What do you fixate on? I’m looking for some good lines.

Here are your links.

My favorite description of a first encounter with foie gras: Duck, Duck, Gross on Friday Night Casserole.

A courageous post about mental illness: The Clothespin Theory on Going Round and Round.

I love this. From the about page: Honoring natural selection’s most baffling creations. Go home, evolution, you are drunk. WTF,Evolution?

I dug this post about taking a couple of teenagers to NYC for their first trip, and losing an audition: You Can Learn a Lot From Losing on Running On Wine.

Heart Disease is the number one killer of women. February is National Heart Month. This is a great post from Darla about her mother: What the Heart Knows on She’s a Maineiac. Please do also watch the really eye-opening and funny video at the end of the post from Go Red For Women.

Happy Sunday.

Does This Cat Look Like Bacon Sunday

Recently, a friend of mine lost her cat. He was a great cat named Punkin and they loved each other well for nearly twenty years. She was understandably very sad.

The night he died, she was in the vet’s office and somebody brought in a rescue cat. Who needed a home. Who looked uncannily like Punkin, except longer. And possibly a little more like bacon.

Doesn’t he look like bacon? Like raw bacon? It’s a matter of debate at work and I would like your opinion. His name is Rosenthal, but he is Bacon Cat to me.

As far as what he’s doing in the refrigerator, I’m quite sure he’s looking for water. In addition to being Bacon Cat, he is also Water Cat.

Screen Shot 2013-02-17 at 10.25.31 AM — I just love water!

Here are your links.

Speaking of rescue pets, I’m making a plug for 11th Hour Rescue with this post by Julie Davidosky here on my own blog: Best In Shelter.

Nina Katchadourian spends her time on long flights by locking herself in the bathroom and pretending to be 15th century Dutch paintings. Airplane Lavatory Self-Portraits.

~~Chafe~~ Chase McFadden has resurfaced this week and I was reading some of his older posts on his blog and cracking up. In Case You Ever Wondered What Happened to Those Children from Deliverance

There’s a distinct taxidermy void on my blog. Let’s fix that. Truth In Advertising (Warning: If taxidermy creeps you out, you probably shouldn’t be here at all.) on The Bloggess.

Cartoon polar bears and hacksaw amputations- what’s not to love? The Real Bears.

Be sure to leave your opinion on whether or not Rosenthal looks like bacon. I don’t exactly have money riding on this, but something far more valuable: an unspoken air of self-righteousness that I will get to parade in front of those who disagree. Who may or may not be my superiors.

Happy Sunday!