Well, this shoots my week all to hell ...

Back in the office this morning, planning my week, and clicking through my email when I spot this in my inbox:

.

.

My lifetime charter membership is ending on Friday? Sweet Mother of CRAP! Elder Care Matters is threatening to kill me!!!

.

I'm going to go rough up Grandma Grace right now as a show of my defiance.

'Tis the season for disappointment

I haven't even started shopping yet, but I feel confident that I'll pick out all the wrong gifts. Again.

.

One thing I always get right, though, is the wrapping. I am a world class gift wrapper. Really! But I am starting to worry that the more beautifully wrapped the gift is on the outside, the more crushing the disappointment with the item inside. So this year, I have made up some gift tags that will help manage recipient expectations.

.

You should have heard the shriek of terror on that night

When we got our Halloween photos processed, we found some eerie images.

(For purposes of this post, let us just ignore the reality of digital photography, shall we?)

Care to venture what you are seeing in this image? Ectoplasm particles? Electrical disturbances? Ghostly artifacts ?
.
Terrible guesses, all.



Matt and I made cupcakes to take with us to a Halloween party. They were frosted with an absurdly delicious whipped meringue icing to look like brains. Some with vasculature and some without (for the squeamish).


I am not terribly practiced at piping icing with a pastry bag, so it took me a lot of time to make our macabre little morsels. I was pretty pleased with how they turned out.
.

You know where this story is going, right? You surely have to know.

.
Oh yes.



This story ends up with brains splattered everywhere. It was very much like a scene from Pulp Fiction. Poor Marvin.

Yum!

Did anyone else get super carried away after watching Pan's Labyrinth?

Couple of words make a big difference

Matt and I were upstairs while Max was entertaining himself downstairs. He called up to us, "I got it! I got it!"

We shouted back down, "Yay! Good work Max."

It occurred to us that we need to be more attentive parents when Max clarified, "I got it ... all over !"

The cleanup was just as unpleasant as you might imagine.

The Old Distract & Redirect Tactic

Did I mention that I am dieting? World’s least exciting topic it very well may be. That notwithstanding, I shall forge on to bore you with another diet-related post.

I have been nearly fasting all day in anticipation of a deep fried Twinkie at the State Fair. It has been three years since my last deep fried Twinkie, and I intend to end that slump TONIGHT!

Despite its despicable suggestion that I set a weight loss goal of 200 pounds, I continue to track my calories over at the Livestrong site. Out of curiosity, I typed in “deep fried twinkie” into the Livestrong calculator. Fortunately, entering the words "deep fried twinkie" into a fitness website did not cause my computer to explode. I did get some subtle redirection, though.


The folks with Livestrong wouldn't even dignify my query with a response. Rather they cheerily suggest, "Won't you enjoy a wholesome peach. We think you should probably just have a peach."

You calling me fat, Armstrong?!

Like all mothers of a new baby, I am starving, angry, and just a bit lightheaded. Ah, the joyful post-natal ritual of calorie restriction ...
.
I have been using the calorie tracker application available on the Livestrong website to keep tabs of every tasteless morsel that passes my lips. I logged on this afternoon to dutifully report my quarter-cup of cottage cheese when Livestrong challenged me to a fun little game of Truth or Dare.
.

Well, not so much Truth, more like Wildly-Insulting-Dare.

.

Oh yeah. Livestrong just suggested that I lose two-hundred pounds. Believe it.

.

Screw you, Lance Armstong, and the bike you rode in on.

.

.

Don't you shush me, Lefty.
.

An offer I could refuse

.

.

.

.

As part of the continuing legal education requirements for the Utah State Bar, attorneys must take courses on ethics and civility.

.

.

A recent exchange with opposing counsel has me concluding that we need to dial back the civility just a notch.
.

.

.

.

.
OPPOSING COUNSEL: How's the new baby?
ME: Great! Thank you so much for asking.
OP: So, are you nursing?
ME: Uh . . . yeah . . .
OP: Is that tough now that you are back to work?
ME: [shifts uncomfortably] I am able to send bottles of milk with the baby.
OP: Man! Those breast pumps are expensive!
ME: I guess.
OP: My wife had really nice ones.
ME: Excuse me?
OP: Breast pumps.
ME: Oh!
OP: If you want, you could have one.
ME: Thanks, I'm set.
OP: It would be good to have one at home and one at the office though, right?
ME: They are portable.
OP: Seriously, do you want the pump?
ME: No thank you, really.
OP: Why not?! It is in perfectly great shape.

.

.

.

I was able to finally communicate that I wasn't really all that interested in a second-hand breast pump before I made my escape.

.

My point is that civility can go too far. Uncomfortably, skin-crawlingly too far.
.

.

Just a concerned customer

Dear Brothers-All-Natural,

First off: I love your products, specifically the fruit crisps. Yum!

Okay, now you are aware that I come to you out of love, you will hopefully not begrudge me for playing grammar cop. On the back of your packaging it states:
.

.

.

.

We take great care to insure the quality and food safety of
our products … All raw materials and finished products are
tested daily to insure 100% purity and the best possible quality.

I appreciate and admire the guarantee on the package, but I am 99% certain you are misusing the term insure when you mean ensure.

I say 99% sure, because I suppose it is possible that you are actually referring to some sort of financial liability policy that would pay you for any damages resulting from a less than quality product (in which case the usage here would be correct). I strongly suspect, however, that you are making a specific promise of a quality or condition (ENSURE) rather than referring to limiting financial liability (INSURE).

Sorry to even write this email. Frankly, I disgust myself a little bit for bothering you. I only want good things for you and your tasty products, Brothers-All-Natural! I would hate for your magnificent product to be shunned by grammar-whackos – and you know they are out there.

With warmest regards,

Kerry

Par for our course

Why I Love my Husband

We welcomed our baby girl Molly into our family in May. With the blessed event, however, comes exquisite sleep deprivation. I am prone to pining for the rest that eludes me, even on facebook.

.

Perhaps it is my out-of-whack serotonin levels, but Matt's response triggered a violent gigglefit. Sweet Sassy Molassy, I love that man!

Mood Swings

Baby is coming in precisely ONE WEEK from today. I am variably delighted and terrified about the prospect of a new baby in our home.
.
I have put together a crude diagram that I just tap with my pen whenever people ask me how much I am looking forward to the big day.
.

It's nice to have the arrow back on the right after several horrifying days in the red.

Catchy, catchy irony

I have had this song stuck in my head since the BP spung it's cute little leak in the Gulf of Mexico.




You are whistling right now, aren't you?

Why? Why would I like any of these things?

I read an article about the increase of babies born to highly educated mothers, and mothers over the age of 30. Based upon that reading, I was presented with the following recommended articles featuring terrible things:

Ew! What?!

I get a weekly pregnancy email from the American Pregnancy Association which include tips for the poor sucker stuck cohabiting with a gravid woman. The tips are usually something like "let her take a nap while you make dinner, and perhaps she won't threaten to cut your break lines." Helpful common sense type stuff.

This week's tip made me deeply uncomfortable.

Massage my perineum?! That's the tip? Well that just sounds horridly awkward.
"Honey, grab that shoe tree and come help mamma stretch out the old hoo-ha!"

That's actually kinda accurate

Amazon has a nifty new feature where you enter a specific PayPhrase that gives you a shortcut to spending your money even faster. If you have shopped there recently you noticed that Amazon will provide you with a suggest PayPhrase which is usually some random bit of word salad.



I was shopping for some baby products when spotted this proposed PayPhrase.

Kerry's Utter Responsibility

.

Did they mean udder responsibility? This gave me a hearty chortle, and reminded me that I need to register for some Bag Balm.

Lack of sleep is hindering my professionalism

Pregnancy has a way of disturbing one's sleep. The consequences of sleep deprivation can be unfortunate. For instance, one may find one's self more funny than one actually is.

.

Case in point, in responding to a ridiculously detailed discovery request, I may have included the following item:

.

In response to request No. 24, [CLIENT] respectfully declines to describe the undergarments of the witnesses of this case, as such information is immaterial to a DUI prosecution, the discovery of which is unlikely to lead to admissible evidence. At this time I intend to call only the arresting officer. If at deposition Officer [LAST NAME] has no reservation to describing his unmentionables, however, I will not object.

TP Axiom

Listen. We have discussed this at length: the more bathroom tissue claims to be soft, the more abusive it is going to be to the business end of your digestive tract. Further adjectives are to be avoided at all costs when it comes to purchasing this stuff.

.

For the foregoing reasons, I simultaneously winced and clenched when I read this article from the Consumerist discussing the new tissue manufactured in the UK which incorporates bits of cashmere (recall that cashmere is still wool).

.

At any rate, the article is worth reading, if only for the delightful comments from like-minded readers.

.

If you guessed this post was just a lame excuse to recycle my angry TP graphic, you are especially astute!

Designed by engineers who have probably never seen one in real life

Here's a disturbing little product I spotted over at Amazon:

This is a Microsoft Bluetooth Notebook Mouse, which was apparently designed specifically for trolling the web for hardcore porn.

I especially, especially like how easy the scroll wheel is to find on this model.

Feeling rather ecru today

Just read an article about how Different Colors Describe Happiness vs. Depression. It was a mildly interesting story about a study with predicable findings.

Happy people gravitate toward yellow. Depressed people feel grey. An affinity for light blue is acceptable, while a preference for dark blue indicates an immediate need for heavy medication. Pretty intuitive stuff, I suppose.

It was the end of the article that piqued my interest.

Whorwell is now testing the [color] wheel on patients with irritable bowel syndrome. He's hoping that color choices can reveal patients' attitudes and predict how well they will respond to treatments like hypnosis. Because people are embarrassed by gastroenterogical symptoms, Whorewell said, non-verbal methods of getting information are sometimes preferable to conversation.

I am just imagining how such research will ultimately affect the treatment of irritable bowel syndrome.

GASTROENTEROLOGIST: How are you feeling this afternoon, sport?

PATIENT: For the nineteenth time: BROWN! I'm feeling brown, okay doc? Dark. Ruddy. Brown.