Notes from the Road

The Couch says: Lady! Get Outside!
Growth spurt, teething, who knows; what it means to me is I’m on the couch all day with a kid attached to my hooter. Hooty! So if you see my IP address visiting your site 7 times a day and it makes you all “What?? What is she looking at? I’ll update when I’m good and ready! Damn!” just know that a) I am living my life vicariously through you, so help a sister out and b) I probably forgot I visited your site the first 6 times. Here’s where it would make sense for me to subscribe to those new fangled feed thing-ma-bobs but honestly I enjoy making my way daily through my long (and getting longer) list of bookmarked sites. It’s the anticipation, the little thrill I feel while the page loads. Like my birthday over and over and over again!

Evidence that I am Spending Too Much Time with my Sweet Friend, The Internet
I keep bumping into the story (and discussions about it) about females dressing sluttily at Halloween. According to The Internet, women have abandoned costumes like “postal worker” in favour of costumes like “sexy postal worker.” According to many of The Internet’s esteemed commentators, the costume isle at the local megamart is stocked high with sexist, sexy, oversexed sex costumes. (which are probably also flammable) This is news, I guess, in that the sexualization of things child-like is happening around us at an arguably greater rate than it used to. (I say arguably because I have no data on this – neither the “greater” aspect nor the “used to.”)

Blah blah blah padded bra. To my mind, the bigger problem here is that the majority of The Internet’s esteemed commentators seem to be buying costumes ready-made from stores that have costume isles. Don’t people make up their own costumes from the stuff in their closets anymore? Don’t you all go to thrift stores? Because back when, when I used to enjoy a party, I always just made up my own costume. (Actually I suck at costumes – left to my own devices, I’m one of those people you hate who throws on a straw hat and two-fists Corona all night. “What are you?” you ask. “A tourist,” I reply – so Sarah would help me come up with one. She was good. One year, she, Michael and I went as JFK (him,) Jackie O (her) and Lee Harvey Oswald (me). We each participated to our own level of comfort [she a flawless Jackie, he in a suit? I think with some fake blood on his head? and me in a plaid flannel shirt & ball cap, carrying a plastic rifle from the dollar store.])

I’m just surprised so many people say “Oh Halloween. I guess I have to dress up like a Playboy bunny – that’s all that’s available in the womens’ section of the costume store.” That’s like saying, “Oh my god I’m so nauseous and constipated from all the cheese I eat. But it’s all that’s available in the cheese isle. Damn dairy lobby.”

It makes me kind of wish I had a fairy princess costume to dress Trombone in. As it stands, he will be following in his dumb mother’s footsteps and dressing up as “a baby” for Halloween.

Lesson Learned
Three Stroopwafels is one too many Stroopwafels.

Hindsight, You Fickle Bitch
Trombone & I were out walking. He was half asleep – another turn around the block would have done it but I decided to go into the mall and get vegetables. Two women of about 40 years each sat at the picnic table outside the mall, having their smoke break. One had short, airy, frosted-tip hair and lots of makeup. The other one had a black bob, red lipstick and cat’s eye glasses. They eyed me as I approached the mall door.

“Worst thing you can do,” said the blonde one. I realized she was talking to me so I stopped walking.
“Hmm,” I said, “well I want to get vegetables.” I assumed she meant that the worst thing I could do was go into the mall and while that is A Bad Thing I wouldn’t say it was The Worst Thing. But then I don’t work there.
She gestured to the stroller.
“He’ll get used to it and then you’ll have to do it all the time.”
I realized she meant that The Worst Thing was to “walk the baby to sleep in the stroller.”
“Ah, well,” I said, “he’s not asleep yet anyway so no bad habit formed ha ha – ”
“HI BABY!” she squealed. Trombone’s heavy lids flew open.
“HI HI HI HI HI! LOOK AT YOUR BIG BLUE EYES!!”
Trombone stared. The dark haired woman lit another cigarette.
“WHAT A BIG BOY!” said the blonde and to me, “Was he big when he was born?”
“Yeah, 9.2,” I said.
“My son was 9.11,” she said, “they grow so fast.”
“Mmm,” I said.
“HI BEAUTIFUL BOY!” she tried again. Trombone was having none of it. He turned his head away.
“My boy is five now,” she said, “they grow so fast.”

Ten minutes later, in my own head, I retorted, “Wow! You must be exhausted from all that pushing him in the stroller to get him to sleep. You know, I must have missed that chapter in Baby’s Best Chance, the one about how the Worst Thing You Can Do is push your kid in a stroller till he’s sleeping. Actually, know what’s worse, blonde lady? Screaming at a kid (a kid you don’t know!) who is almost asleep and waking him up so that now his mom has to listen to him go “Uh uh uh uh uh uh uHHHHHHH!!!” (loose translation: where is my THUMB where is my THERE IT IS hey who took my THUMB) while she buys vegetables. And smoking! Smoking is worse! Damn it! Damn you!”

PS

My new shoes are a men’s size 9, thank you and get out of my road. If there were not already 17 plenty good reasons not to have more children, the fact that my feet cannot reasonably grow any larger and still be classified as “feet” would surely top any list I felt compelled to start.