Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

My daughter wanted to wear green today. Her wardrobe consists mainly of pink and red but I recently bought her a green shirt and a pair of pants. However, because she spends ever other weekend with her father I wasn’t sure the green outfit was here.

I dug through her dresser and thankfully located both shirt and pants. I was happily surprised to see that the green on both items matched. I really thought I had done well and also dodged a bullet.

“That’s not green” she said when I presented the clothes to her.

“Sure it is” I insisted.

“No, that’s greenish blue”

I took a closer look and sure enough the shirt and pants were teal. Still close enough in my book.

The daughter was not having any of it and was getting ready to cry.  At seven she is far too concerned with what other people think, specifically one little girl who will grow up to be a Mean Girl in high school, a leader of a clique.

I am surprised I haven’t bought more green clothing for her. She is a redhead and redheads wear green. Except my daughter’s favorite color is red so that is what we have. When she was younger I could get her anything I wanted, now that isn’t the case.

My daughter is a redhead but my son is a toehead. Actually right now his hair is jet black but that’s from a bottle. He is the only non redhead in the family. All of my nieces have red hair. When my son was little I dressed him in green, red and yellow. The same colors my nieces were wearing. At one point my sister in law remarked that I was dressing him as if he were a redhead.

Interestingly my son didn’t see himself dressed in shades of green. In every picture he drew of himself he is wearing a red shirt and blue pants, with yellow hair.

When my daughter came along I wasn’t as interested in dressing her like a redhead. Dressing her like a girl was much more entertaining. Her clothing was frilly, it had bows and beads, it was pink. It has remained that way ever since. The only other green item of clothing is a holiday dress in velvet. Not practical since it is not Christmas and it is two sizes too small.

We were running out of time and I had to get her moving. I told her I didn’t care what she wore but she needed to get something on quickly. She suggested we stop at Target and get a shirt with a few shamrocks on it. Luckily Target wasn’t open yet.

Daughter has recently decided that she needs glasses. She isn’t willing to get a second opinion however and is happy to wear my glasses. She has been begging me to let her wear them to school for the last couple of weeks.

I made a compromise.

“You can wear a pair of my glasses to school if you get dressed right now. I think I might even have a pair of green ones you can wear”

I have gobs of glasses. My father was an ophthalmologist and I used to work in his office.  Save for one pair of prescription sunglasses, I have never lost a pair. I started digging through the junk drawer (which I have still not organized) looking for a pair of green glasses I was wearing around the time of my brother’s first marriage 20 some years ago. I couldn’t find the green ones but I did manage to find the red ones. Remember glasses in the 80’s? The lenses are so big they cover your cheeks. That’s what I had.

I tried to pass them off as unique. No one is wearing big glasses. You wear these and everyone will want a pair. I also tried to sell her on transition lenses. I told her to put them in the sun and they would turn into sunglasses. They didn’t work. I don’t know if they wore off or what but they remained regular old glasses.

She bought it.

Either my kid will be  the trailblazer in her St. Patrick’s Day teal and huge red non transitioning glasses or she is going to come home in tears.

Thankfully, it’s Wednesday and her dad picks her up.

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I was asked to write a guest post about the top ten things men do that drive women crazy. I came up with the standard ones, leaving the toilet seat up, farting, hands down their pants, that kind of thing, but I couldn’t come up with ten and my post went horribly in the wrong direction. The post was rejected and I was given a different topic to write about.

Since I do not live with a man anymore, at least not at present( and the 17 year old boy doesn’t count because I am raising him not to do those things, though he does anyway), I wasn’t able to come up with any more than those three or four. And they all seemed really petty to me now, though they did drive me crazy then.

But I wonder what things men and women do that drive each other bonkers.

Here is the original post:

There have been a million articles written about the things men do that irritate their women. We all  know that leaving the toilet seat up, clipping their nails anywhere but the bathroom, spending the weekend on the couch with their hands down their pants and performing  Dutch Ovens are things that drive women mad. Which is probably why men do these things.

Let’s face it, men, specifically married men, have gotten a bad rap in the last decade or so. They are usually portrayed as big dumb oafs on sitcoms and television commercials.  They stumble through life not knowing what to do. Thankfully they have their smart wife to steer them through life’s challenges.

I’m not going to perpetuate that myth. I love men. I do. And my track record of two marriages and two subsequent divorces proves it. At present I have been single just long enough to appreciate all the great things about men.

Now that I am single I have to kill all the icky things myself. If a toilet gets backed up I have to plunge it out. My last ex husband was a phenomenal cook, I ate well when I was married. So what that he couldn’t put a dish in the dishwasher to save his life, I had a three course meal prepared for me every day we were together.

If something needed repairing my guy could do it. Sure I had to nag all the time but isn’t that what he wanted me to do?

Even though I am divorced I haven’t lost the ability to look and act pathetic when something goes wrong. I can convey that ineptness over the phone and my ex husband will come over and fix just about anything. As long as I have cold beer in the fridge.

Not too long ago I was given a glimpse of what a great guy my ex husband really is. I was having surgery and he offered to hang out at the hospital and wait to see that I was okay. He took the day off of work, drove me to the hospital, waited for hours while they prepped and performed the surgery and then waited in recovery with me while I came off all the drugs they used to put me under. He didn’t even bring a video camera to capture all the bizarre things I was saying.

It gave me great comfort to know that someone was out there waiting for me, that someone cared enough about me to take a day off of work and watch game shows while I had surgery on my girlie parts.  He wasn’t obligated to do any of that. When he stopped at the drugstore on the way home to pick up the necessary feminine protection products and purchased them himself, I was reminded of what a great guy he really is.

We women forget that about our men. We complain to our girlfriends that all they do is hang out in the garage, go fishing with their friends, never spend enough time with us, never stroke our egos enough and all those other top ten things they do to irritate the hell out of us. When they do the little things like buying tampons or plunging out that backed up toilet we often take it for granted.

I’d take nail clippings and Dutch Ovens any day.

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I’ve been noticing a trend lately, maybe you have too. If someone finds a unique hook, writes something radically different or changes their theme to a never before used design, everyone else does the same thing.

This needs to stop.

I wrote a while ago how bloggers were getting their periods at the same time. I said it in jest and to point out that we tend to write about a lot of the same topics at the same time. Sometimes this is done deliberately in the form of a carnival or theme but often times it seems as if one blogger finds a great topic and then others, who see how popular it was, basically steal it. They rewrite it and throw it up on their blog.

I know, stealing is a strong word.

I’ve gotten many topics by stealing.  Just the other day I was over at MrsBlogalot’s and saw what a great post she had written about being a blog junkie. I left a comment and while writing it noticed I had a post in the making. My Boyfriend or Blog post was born out of her Blog Junkie post. However, they weren’t the same post. Lately I have seen many blogs that seem to have taken the post from another blogger, change a word or two and then call it there own. This happened over at Agoosa.com recently. She had posted a little tip about what to do with that last slice of bread. Several comments were left thanking her for such a helpful tip. The next day one of the commenters used the post, didn’t even bother to change it up, as her own.

Stealing is wrong.  And thankfully it doesn’t happen all that often.

What I have noticed happening more often is blogs are being copied in theme, tone of voice and especially schtick.

I don’t know who started the cat blog fad, probably that cheeseburger cat, but whoever did it is now responsible for 352 billion blogs about cats, dogs, goats and other animals. I’ve even seen hermit crabs. Seriously, hermit crabs? They aren’t the most social of animals. How does anyone fill a post with a talking hermit crab?

Well, I hid in my shell most of the day. When it got dark I crawled around looking for water. They forgot to feed me again.

Having said there are billions of animal blogs I have to say this, there are three of them who do it so well I honestly think I am leaving a comment for a furry friend. Daisy, Pricilla and Nooter are superb at the animal blog genre. When I stop by the Maaaaa of Pricilla and leave a comment I know a goat has not only written the post but is also reading my comments. When Nooter stops by my blog I get all excited because I love dogs and he is so cute and reminds me of one of my dogs who is no longer here. I feel as if I need to leave dog treats out for him, just to get him to stop by on his rounds.

The reason these animal blogs are so good is because the authors never break character and they don’t treat their audience like idiots. These blogs are irreverent and self deprecating which makes them so enjoyable. Even though I have a cat I am not a cat person. My cat ignores me. I am only good for feeding her, changing her litter box and providing my feet for her to sleep on. Cats don’t take to me usually. I am a dog person. Because of the way my cat treats me, like I am her bitch or something, I fly by most of the cat blogs. Not Daisy and Harley. They are cute and they do good things for other animals. They also remind me of my children. These animal blogs are intelligent and interesting. The millions of copycat blogs that try to be like them are not. They are just annoying.

Another thing that has just gotten way out of hand is the strike through. It was funny at first but now it’s getting old. Maybe I need to wear my glasses more often but I have a hell of a time reading what is under the strike through slashes. If you don’t want to say something then don’t say it. Use the backspace key and get rid of the original thought. We all know we think horrible thought sometimes and lie about them. It’s been done to death.

( I would have totally over used the strike through thing except I don’t have the option in my editor and I am too lazy to do the HTML code for it)

Another thing I have noticed lately is that bloggers are using the same tone of voice. I go from one blog to the next and they all read as if they could have been written by the same person. Which is not to say that they are written poorly, not at all, they just sound like everyone else. I don’t have the skills to take this one apart. I can’t pinpoint what is so annoying about reading different posts that sound like they were all written by a computer. Because they don’t sound like they were written by a machine, they are good but there is nothing unique about them anymore. The AdMaster does a much better job explaining the importance of finding your own voice.

And finally, I’ve had it with the fucking cartoon characters. These were cute at first but now everyone has one.  Aren’t we adults now? The cartoon characters remind me of high school and having cute stickers on lockers and books. The cartoon characters are always juggling baby bottles, minivan keys, laptop, purse and other items. Who wants to juggle all that shit?

Not me.

If I ever figure out how to make a cartoon character for my blog (would someone please help me make a cartoon character for my blog, I really want one) it will have me juggling a box of wine, a vibrator with extra batteries just in case, and a take out menu.

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Since Lola jumped back into the dating world I have been thinking about finding a mate for myself. It’s been a fleeting thought, here and there, throughout the years since my divorce. I have dated but no one seriously. There seemed to be all kinds of good reasons not to get involved with anyone. My divorce took two years and it brought out the worst in me. I was angry and when angry I tend to attract the wrong kind of guy.

After my divorce was finally settled I moved, was job hopping and busy finding my way. Dating just seemed like one more burden that I didn’t want to take on. Last year I decided to give it another try but then life interrupted that plan and I never made it a priority. It didn’t help that the few dates I did go on were somewhat( okay, horribly) disappointing.

Fear is another reason I haven’t jumped back into the dating pool. You don’t go down in flames twice and think to yourself, oh, this is a breeze, I’ll just get back on the horse again. While it might be easy to blame my choice in mates for going down in flames the truth is it takes two to tango and I contributed to the death of both of my marriages. About 2% is my fault. That might be a conservative estimate. Regardless, I don’t trust anyone to get too close anymore.

For the most part this hasn’t bothered me. Being a single mom I don’t have a lot of free time so when I do I like to spend it with a book or watching a show from start to finish. I used to be fun. I used to do things. Now, I have to raise to kids and that can sap a lot of energy from anyone and I am not the most energetic person to begin with. The holidays are the worst but even they are getting better. I don’t feel as if I need a man to complete me. I am complete on my own and am happy with myself.

Which means I am no longer angry, in fact I am at peace, and it is probably time to go out and meet someone.

Except.

Now I blog. Unless I meet a man who blogs, who also happens to live in my hometown, it isn’t going to work. There is no room in my life for a boyfriend and a blog, let alone four.

How will I explain to him that I have to visit a million sites a day? How will he understand that everything he does is very likely going to be published on my blog and then commented on by virtual strangers. Strangers to him, not to me, you guys are family. But how is he going to understand that? Will he understand that when he tells me a secret I will keep it to myself, never to mention it to anyone, except all of you? I don’t think so.

I should have found a mate before I started blogging. I am sure that when a spouse becomes a blogger it is covered under that for better or worse part of the vows. If I became a blogger after I met and married him he would have no choice but to accept it, begrudgingly maybe, but accept it he would.

Who wants to get involved with someone who eats almost every meal in front of the computer? Who wants to get involved with someone who is constantly checking email to see if anyone commented? Who wants to get involved with someone who looks at stats all day long, even though she really doesn’t understand them. Who wants to get involved with someone who runs around the house mumbling things like keywords and bounce rate under her breath? Who would understand that when Google publishes their page ranks it’s the same thing as having tickets to the Super Bowl when your team is in it?

No one, unless he is another blogger and then there would be competition.

Who has the better theme? Who has more followers? Who has more feed readers (he would)? Who has more comments? I’d have to double my bandwidth.

Another blogger wouldn’t work for those reasons and because no one would go out and get things like groceries. We’d both never wear anything but sweats and showers would become optional. Two bloggers don’t make a right.

I’ve decided if I am going to get involved with anyone he is going to have to be a computer geek, but not one who blogs. A geek who spends his days in forums about databases, MySQL, PHP, CGI and scripts ( I have no idea what these things are, I just looked at my cpanel). He will have to be a guy who can lose hours of his life online learning things that will ultimately benefit me.

My first ex husband is a real estate agent. Yeah, I dodged a bullet there, though I completely missed his successful rise for nearly a decade. He had no tech skills and even worse no mechanical skills. If anything broke I had to fix it, or make the call if I couldn’t. My second ex husband is an electrician. He could fix things, anything. It was great having him around because if something broke I wasn’t allowed to fix it. He could also cook and enjoyed doing so. But he didn’t understand my attachment to the internet and I wasn’t blogging then. Even though he could fix anything he rarely did. He started considerably more projects than he ever finished, our marriage included.

No, the kind of guy I need to find is someone who has not seen the sun in decades. Someone so pasty white I will look tropical standing next to him. Someone who can explain things to me when I announce “I don’t get it”. Right now I am covered, my son is that kind of geek. However, he leaves for college in a year and a half so I don’t have a lot of time to meet a geek. And it isn’t as if they are easy to find. You don’t meet them at the bars or coffee shops. I’d have to find them online and sadly I don’t speak their language. I need someone to set me up.

Guys and gals, I need you to find me a geek. The only requirement I have is that he not live in the basement of his mother’s house.

Instead of turning into that crazy cat lady, if I don’t find a mate, I will be that crazy blog lady.

*Hat tip to Mrsblogalot for inspiring this post.

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Last week I got an email from a blog friend asking me for some help. Lola, from Lola’s Diner wanted to know if I would help her tweak her profile on Match.com. Lola has recently re-entered the dating scene and she wanted to make an impression.

Lola is one of my oldest blogging pals and I would do anything for her.

I am flattered that Lola would ask me to help her write a witty blurb about her. I am sure it is because she thinks I am a gifted wordsmith. I’m not. The moment you ask me to write about anything I get complete writers block. I start checking my email, I run a load a laundry, bathe the dog, anything to avoid having to write about one particular topic. I can blather on until the cows come home about anything until you ask me to talk about cows coming home and then I am stuck.

So I let the email sit there for a bit.

Lola sent me another email a day or two later and asked if I could help write her tagline.

At least that was a lot fewer words. Something catchy, something unique and witty. Sure I could do that.

All I could come up with was several different lyrics from Commodore songs.

“You’re once, twice, three times a lady”

“Lady, you bring me up when I’m down”

“Oh, oh sail on…”

Lola was pleased with my attempt, and ever so polite when she mentioned that lesbians don’t really care for the Commodores. She suggested I pick something from Melissa Etheridge or the Indigo Girls.

I like the Indigo Girls, Retrospective is a staple CD in my car. I couldn’t think of any lyrics to their songs except:

“Galileo’s head was on the block…”

and the song about Minnesota and the river but I was unable to come up with any lyrics, couldn’t remember the tune and didn’t want to go out to the car. I do remember it was a song about unrequited love and that probably wouldn’t be suitable.

This was hard.

So I wrote back to her and asked what her profile looked like now. I figured I could read it and maybe add a few suggestions.

Her profile was well written, funny and interesting. I suggested she remove one word.

That’s all I could contribute.

Which isn’t surprising given the fact that I am a straight woman who hasn’t had a date in well over six months. I can hardly get my writing mojo on to try to attract men, how the hell was I supposed to try to attract women.

I couldn’t even write my own profile on Match.com. I had to have JD from Idothings do it for me.

Lola, you don’t need my help and you shouldn’t want it. The only thing I was able to attract, when I wrote my own profile, was a guy who had the worlds worst set of teeth. You don’t need that. You are doing just fine on your own. Any woman would be lucky to have you consider dating her. I can’t make that any better than it already is.

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There is this tree on the boulevard in front of my house. It is going to fall. The city doesn’t think so but the general consensus in the neighborhood is that it will and when it does it will fall on my house. It has been ripping apart for the last couple of years and now the squirrels have made a home in the trunk. When the ground thaws and the leaves come out it will fall. This will be the fourth boulevard tree on this block that has fallen since I moved here three years ago. If it does fall it will not be the first time a tree has targeted me.

When my children were infants I played the game Imagine the Worst Possible Scenario. If you aren’t familiar with it, it goes something like this:

You bring your brand new baby home from the hospital and then you panic because even though you baby proofed the house with things like outlet plugs and doorknob doo hickeys that make it impossible for an adult to open a door, you haven’t secured the chandeliers. So what that they have been hanging from the ceiling for decades and have given no indication that they will suddenly fall? They are only held up there by a thin piece of wire and maybe some decorative metal.  Now that you have this brand new baby you realize you are so much more likely to be robbed at gunpoint, tied up and tortured by bad guys. The cat must go because everyone knows that cats sneak into the crib in the middle of the night and suck the life out of babies, which really isn’t a problem because as a new parent you vigilantly watch your child sleep for the first year anyway. The dog will think the brand new baby is a chew toy so he must be kenneled. You can’t place your slumbering baby, carrier and all, on the table because it will topple over and kitchen counter tops are a no go too. The refrigerator could kick on and the vibration which resonates through the cabinets (even though no one can actually feel it) will push the baby and carrier off and onto the floor. The only safe place for the baby is in the car because you have stuck a Baby on Board decal onto your back window.

Admittedly it has been a while since I played this game. The new kid smell is long gone and I don’t worry about those kinds of things anymore.

Until my neighbor pointed out the tree. Now it is all I can think about.

When the tree hits it will hit my daughter’s bedroom. So daughter has been sleeping in my room for the last few nights.

It’s been one big slumber party.

Last night I let her watch TV before going to sleep. I did it because I didn’t want to stay up all night and that was her plan since she didn’t have school the next day. Usually she falls asleep by nine but not last night. TV was the only thing I could think of that would have at least prevented her from writing another book or paper macheing the dog.

While she was watching TV in my bed she started to play with her loose tooth, I was almost asleep when she announced that she had lost another tooth. Thankfully the tooth letting has gotten easier since the first one finally came out.

In my half awake state I told her to put it under the pillow. I figured the tooth fairy would have a much easier time of it since she was already so close. My plan was to wait for her to fall asleep and then take care of business. Guess who fell asleep first?

At 5am I sprung awake. Tooth Fairy!

Shit.

I crept out of bed and went to my purse. I don’t usually carry much cash but I had a few ones and a five. I grabbed a bill and shoved it under the pillow. I searched for the tooth but couldn’t find it. It occurred to me that maybe she didn’t lose a tooth, I hadn’t actually seen the tooth since it was dark and I was half asleep. Maybe she was testing the tooth fairy. My son had done this, he lost a tooth, didn’t tell anyone and the tooth fairy didn’t come. This was actually very handy since I didn’t have to pretend anymore.

I searched for the tooth one more time, considered taking the bill back but decided not to risk it. I got up, got a cup of coffee and went into the living room.

Daughter woke up an hour later and came into the living room. She was pissed off.

“The tooth fairy didn’t leave anything” she said.

“Oh yes she did” I said as I stomped into the bedroom to investigate the situation.

I looked under the pillow, found the missing tooth, pocketed it but didn’t see the bill I left.

WTF?

I started throwing pillows all over the place in search of the money. I know I left a dollar. I couldn’t have dreamed it.

I lift up the pillow that makes up the headboard. A left over body pillow from when I was pregnant. It was under there thankfully. However, in my half sleep state I had grabbed a five and not a one, out of my purse.

Damn.

For a brief moment I considered making the switch except my purse was in the other room and daughter had just grabbed the five.

This just raises the bar for the next tooth.

When the tree comes down and the city is forced to replace my roof, I am adding the extra $4 on to the tab.

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