Here's What I Have to Say About Britney Spears

I check people magazine online almost every day. Well, every day that I work. In fact, I've added it to my Google Homepage. I like to look at pictures, okay? Stop judging me.

Lately, we see a lot of Britney Spears looking the way most of us might look on a Saturday afternoon-- makeup-less, hairbrush-less, hoodied and driving a terribly expensive car, with or without pants. (only one of those does not apply to me on a weekend afternoon, and here's a hint: I drive an Accord.)

Poor girl, that Britney. Nobody leaving her alone, even for a second. Her worst days are just as public as her best. And I feel for her, I do.

But lately, I see tons of photos of Brit-brit walking out of convenience stores with a pack of Marlboro Lights in her hand and I have to wonder what kind of sad, sad life she must be leading without even ONE good girlfriend who will slink down to the corner market and pick her up some smokes. Or paid staff person, even.

Life too public to buy cigarettes at a gas station when you're not exactly wearing pants? STAY IN THE CAR AND GET SOMEBODY ELSE FROM THAT GIANT ENTOURAGE TO DO IT.

Too Much Holiday Information
Today I had to return several boxes of discount work-related Christmas cards to Michael's, which is always a madhouse mix of rockabilly girls with betty page bangs and old ladies with 30 coupons trying to get that garland price down from $1.99 to twenty cents. There were about nine hundred people in line in front of me and nine hundred behind me, and I had just eaten a Christmas cookie back at the office that tasted like a stick of butter with some white chocolate chips in it. Which made me very, very sick to my stomach upon arriving at Michael's.

I waited a very, very long time in line. Through price-checks and tax-exempt codes and, I swear to you, beads being rung up individually. I tried to chat with the person behind me, but she would have none of my holiday cheer. When I finally got up to the register to handle my return, there was all of the commotion and confusion you might expect, with the wrong codes, manager overrides, re-voiding, extra scanning, store credit, starting over, again.

And during the whole process, my stomach was churning, my vision was blurring with impending gastrointestinal doom, the midsection of my body making high-pitched, audible noises. I looked behind me and saw the nine hundred grannies and gothies. I considered telling Deena at the cash register that I reeeeeeeally had to use the bathroom and could we just hold it right here for a minute? But then I pictured an angry mob chasing me to the end of the frame aisle and into the restroom. I pictured not actually making it to the restroom. I heard my stomach. My face got hot, and then cold. Deena kept re-voiding and re-coding. I had purchased 7 boxes and was returning only 6... the kind of math that can make you work very slowly and start over a lot.

And finally! It was done! And could you just sign this slip right here? Yes! Yes I can! I scribble and start to make a beeline toward the back of the store and... wait... what is this? No more rock in the stomach? Able to stand up straight? The emergency had passed! Cookie digested/ absorbed, whatever! I walked out of Michael's and into the sunny parking lot, free of digestive distress when only seconds before I was thinking of ways to deal with possibly shitting my pants at Michael's.

A true.
Christmas.
Miracle.

Blazzy Blazzy

As promised, here is my Mama's recipe for homemade, bullshit-free granola/ breakfast bars, which she suspects she adapted from a recipe printed in the oft-used, dog-eared, spiral bound cookbook that lived on top of our refrigerator throughout my childhood. It's still in print, probably updated, and I think I might just hafta buy myself a copy for old times' sake.

Granny's Granola Bars
1 1/4 cups peanut butter
3/4 cup honey
3/4 cup brown sugar
5 cups granola (I used Cascadian Farms plain Granola)
1 cup raisins

• combine first three ingredients over med heat until creamy
• add granola and raisins + mix
• press into 9 X 13 pan and chill overnight
  

Delicious this time, and, not being able to leave well enough alone, here's what I'll do next time:

• Maybe use almond butter, just to try it
  
• probably cut some of the granola and sub with sunflower seeds, nuts, flax seeds
• probably add other dried fruit-- dates, figs, apricots-- in addition to the raisins
• I will definitely score the bars before chilling-- cutting required some muscle.

Kill Your Television
We're almost TV-free in our house. We watched a short edu-video with Bird last night, and aside from that, I can't remember the last time it was on. Okay, my dad watched some golf last weekend. But. I'm not telling you this to be one of those judgy mothers that says "oh, I wouldn't know, we don't watch tv at our house." I'm telling you this because I'm proud of this tele-weaning even though it was in some ways accidental, and also because I've noticed a chill in the air and I realized that fall is nearly upon us and I have no idea when LOST starts back up again. Do you know? Will you please tell me? Because I have not missed an episode yet and I do not plan on starting now.

Need Recommendations
Two things:
1. Fiction to read. Your thoughts, please. I'm number 997 on the hold list at the library (labia) for everything I want right now.
2. Photo sharing. Seriously. Anyone have thoughts about shutterfly vs. flickr? anyone? Because I think I have to pay Flickr some money to upload the volumes and volumes of baby photos stored in my computer and I want to know if it's worth it.

Ciggins
Still smoke-free and on day 7. (my count was wrong yesterday). Husband on day 5, I think. I'm using a meditation technique to quell the cravings: every time I want to smoke/ think about smoking, I take a deep breath in and really notice it, understand that that breath is my life right now, then send a reason for not smoking out into the world on my out-breath. So far, so good.

What I'm having trouble with is what to do with the TIME. I've not been a day-time smoker for years, I don't smoke right after meals or in the car. I have a toddler so I don't go out to dive bars to see live music anymore. I no longer have a permanently reserved seat at happy hour. These obstacles have been removed. But.

Usually, we put Bird to bed around 8:30, clean up the house a little bit, and go sit on the back porch with a smoke and sometimes an adult beverage. We've fallen into this routine and it's become the time when A. and I connect, discuss, plan, et cetera. And now? We read in silence on the couch for a while and then go to bed at 9:15. Because we don't know how to handle the time.
But.
It will get better.

Times they are a'changin'.
A new executive director has been hired at work.
And it's a man.
And I am unexpectedly resistant to this change.
Because our little 4-woman sorority, while it was a huge adjustment in the beginning, has become a nice, comfy little arrangement for me. We have so little (and at the same time so much) in common and it really works right now. All I need is to share our little one-seater potty with some DUDE.
Meh.

Proof of End Times/ Proof that I am old and grumpy

As I become older and more crotchety, I become less and less tolerant of television programming. I can't even bear to channel surf all nine channels that come into my home, so tonight I checked the listings online to see what was available for viewing while I ate my egg noodle*/ peas/ carrots/ corn/ sea salt/ chickpeas/ cheese/ bowl. "Surely," I said to myself as I read the schedule, "what I am reading cannot be so."

I turned on the television to ABC and oh my SHITS, tvguide.com does not lie: Bingo on television. Televised fucking BINGO, which, incidentally, looked remarkably like a bizarre foreign game show, with a kooky Indian guy in a referee costume and a lot of shouting and zoomy cameras and contrived excitement, lots of bright colors and maybe some confetti. Sandwiched in between the murder show and the other murder show before the other murder show. Are you sad that you don't live in a retirement community? Or that you don't belong to the Knights of Columbus? Do not fear, ABC has dedicated an entire hour of prime time television to BINGO, right between the indistinguishable, paranoia-inducing crime shows. Just call meals on wheels, order the watery soup and yams, and you'll be all set for your Friday Night good-timin', guaranteed to be in bed by nine.

I'm going to drink beer on the back porch now.

* To the makers of No Yolks Egg Noodles: quit hiding your little promo coupons (Cinderella 9! On DVD!) wrapped in plastic deep in the bag of egg noodles. Every time I use your product, I dump the noodles into boiling water and then jump around in my kitchen trying to find something to fish the little advert packet out before the plastic melts into my noodles and I have to eat them anyway because I am freaking famished.

The Financial State of the House of Snee and Other Fine Things

So I somehow stumbled on a blog about money, and managing it, and blah blah getting your act together and et cetera. It really spoke to me, as financial tips usually do, and I tend to get all worked up about turning over a new leaf. And by the way, I'm talking about the plain-as-the-nose-on-your-face kind of financial tips, not, like, stock market advice or anything. That would be laughable. I'm talking about tips like "don't spend more than you make" and "don't buy something at the grocery until you check to see if you already have it." We have, by the way, an entire shelf in our kitchen dedicated to rice of all kinds.

I got the bug in my ear when I stumbled across mint, and then others and others and then pearbudget, and I got all worked up about making a spreadsheet, because YES! I can make a spreadsheet and make it do exactly what I want. Take that, Quicken. (Quicken that I have not updated for, um, I'm not telling you.) I browsed and surfed and researched and was really On To Something, smooshing together a lot of other ideas, something that was going to instantly make my life easier and help me save for those built-in shelves in the dining room quicker than you can blink an eye. It was going to be GLORIOUS! And I would be MAKING IT MYSELF! And figuring out how much money we spend on the dumb things that add up, and coming clean about all of it, coming out, confessing and addressing. On the road to being at peace about my checking account.

Oh, and as an aside, A. does not generally give a rat's ass about the checking account. Either we have money or we don't. It's that simple for him. In our case, very simple, as it is always the latter. I tell you this so you'll know what a solo journey it is, this sporadic, frantic quest for restfulness in our financial house.

I started a spreadsheet with great gusto. I plotted and planned and categorized and thought and even added a few formulas. And then the office erupted in a conversation about babies and I couldn't stay away, needed to race out to the front room and impart my motherly wisdom about this and that and the other. And now? I closed the spreadsheet and I've moved on. Taa Daa! Brief Action with No Follow Through -- my general mode of operation-- may not produce long-term results, but it sure will make you sick of something enough to ignore the problem.

A few words about television:
There is a crime show / murder entertainment ban at my house, where we do not watch Criminal this and CSUV whatever. For one, it throws my anxiety through the roof, and for two (related), I am of the belief that witnessing murder-- fake murder even-- on such regular basis is poisonous.

So the other night I set out to organize the mountains and mountains of stained/ outgrown and never-worn/ fancy-pants baby clothes hanging around in box after box all over the house. And not having cable, I had little to watch, and made an exception for Law and Order because I already had my shit spread out on the living room floor and because when I turned it on I really couldn't follow the story and didn't think I'd get too invested in it.

But it turns out that this particular episode was about something really, really horrible that happened to little children. So I say outloud, FUCK YOU, LAW AND ORDER. I just wanted to fold some damn baby clothes with a little distraction and now I'm thinking too much about your stupid, toxic show. You are double-banned.

On another note, LOST was awesome.

Five other things
1. The bug guy visited at work today and he found a live black widow spider on the outside of our building.

2. Have you been here? Don't you want to have peaceful, well-lit mornings like these?

3. We checked out a book from the Library about dinosaurs, and it's a super-simple little board book about "some dinosaurs are hungry. Some dinosaurs are sleepy. Some dinosaurs have long necks." and so on. And Bird listens patiently to the dinosaur observations, and when we get to "some dinosaurs have armored plates," she says in the sweetest little sleepy voice, "armored plates!"

4. I was really not kidding about the variety of snacks. I ate my lunch today at 11:00, and it is 3:40. Since lunch I have snacked extensively on the only things available: Life Savers and Swedish Fish Candy. I am both starving and nauseous due to the puddle of gooey, sugary shit rolling around in my stomach.

5. I had a conversation with my mother yesterday where I found her to be a little not herself, asking us to try a little harder to visit their house when we are already in Indiana visiting A's parents. She wasn't out of line to ask-- getting into the geography would be too long and involved-- and she wasn't being unreasonable, just a little out-of-character for her easy-going, "whatever works for you!" attitude. When my mom makes a request, you know she means it, because she rarely asks anything of us. And my heart chipped and broke a little more about distance and grandparents and Bird, and how there aren't enough days and weekends and phone calls and road trips, and there isn't enough Bird or enough time to go around. And about how we are so smitten by and immersed in our little budding life here in the South, but also so very, very attached to and rooted in the Midwest. Talk about being torn.

Letter to Yesterday's LOST episode

Dear LOST,

That sucked.

Yours,
Mama Snee

SNL Musical Guest Review II

Tonight, Christina Aguilera looks like a wax figure of a drag queen dressed as Dolly Parton.

And that's being generous.