The Final Who Cares

Its basketball season, as you may know. Right now, in my living room, the Ohio State Buckeyes are playing, and, unless I want a lot of husband-moping, winning their place in the final two.

For the record, I don't give two shits about basketball. All televised sporting events are, to me, completely un-necessary and clutter up my cable with many useless channels. Don't even get me started on the Olympics. They can't even keep to their own channel, they have to mess with the channels I actually watch, and my Parks and Recreation re-run will be preempted by curling, or dancing around with a ribbon or some such nonsense.

But during the 15 years of my marriage, I have learned to sit quietly and feed my husband take out food and bring him beers while he enjoys his little sports things. When we first met, he would watch any sport on TV: ping pong, bowling, dancing around with a ribbon, you name it. I managed to wear him down to where 1) he only watches the finals of things; super bowl, Wimbledon final round, The Masters. 2) He only watches his favorite teams (Bucks, Reds, Tiger Woods) instead of every team ever formed around any game every invented. 3) He prepares me at least 48 hours in advance by telling me he will be watching sports for a few hours, thereby allowing me to adjust my expectations about my evening or weekend, and then he records the event on the DVR so he can skip commercials and the whole thing doesn't take as long. Before you berate me for "wearing him down" remember that I have been worn down too. I no longer scowl at him, complain, ask how much time is left on the clock, or, at my worst, storm out of the house and go to a bar. (This was before I learned that baseball games are played in series, and that was why, night after night, the Reds were on my TV.) I also provide him with snacks and beer, and try to keep the kid out of his way. See? We're even.

The one thing that has never changed and never will is his vocal passion when it comes to these games. He has broken a remote control by "flipping" it onto the floor, he has pounded the floor with his feet so that the whole house shakes, and I am sure that Leila has learned all the swear words she knows from being near him while he's watching sports.

Case in point: We were in the car together today, getting delicious take-out from Chipotle, and I tell Leila, "Daddy is watching the Buckeyes play basketball tonight, so we're just going to get him something yummy for dinner. You know what we can expect:" and she says, "WHAT THE EFF!! COME ON! JESUS CHRIST! SON OF A B.!!"

They are, the three of them (Daddy, Leila and the dog) piled on the sofa, and so far all is quiet. But its only half time. I have been married long enough to know that the last ten minutes on the clock of a basketball game not only bend time and space and turn into a half an hour, but are also when all the swearing happens. Pray that by the time you read this, my remote control is still intact.

DVR Where art Thou?

Remember when I canceled cable? That was a hoot.

I don't know if I've ever missed anything as much as I miss my TV and my DVR right now. I once had to convalesce from an illness for a long time, and I didn't miss walking as much as I miss my TV right now. You know how when you have a really bad cold and you can't breathe through your nose and you think to yourself "I will never take breathing for granted again!" I miss my TV more than breathing. God, I'm a shit head.

Tonight, after dinner, we all settled in to watch some TV. We started with the end of 60 Minutes. Fine. Then, I clicked on the guide, and scrolled through the options. There was nothing but crap. My mom kept saying, "You're going too fast!" but my feeling is, if you're driving past a steaming pile of skunk, fast is the way to go. My parents have a lot of QVC and public access channels right in the middle of their line up; there's no mystery there.

I come to rest on the second half of the Dick Van Dyke Show, which will be followed by M*A*S*H. Then my mom goes, "What's on 56?" I'd seen it in the line up: Larry King was coming back from the grave to interview Johnny Depp about his new movie, followed by... Piers Morgan. We agree, mercifully, that we don't really care what Johnny Depp has to say about anything. My dad says, "Check 32." and there's some old black and white version of Little Shop of Horrors. We go back to Dick Van Dyke. Then, after 4 seconds, my mom says, "Do we really want to watch this?" and we're all quiet, trying to ignore her, and just watch Laura Petrie do her thing. 10 seconds later, she says again, "Are we really watching this?" and my arm flies from its place at my side and I shoot her the remote and say, "clearly, you don't. So here you go, you decide."

She changes the channel to 2, and goes one by one through all the channels, the jewelry sales, the local education channel, Jersey Shore, and, lo and behold, there's nothing on. We travel to the channels beyond the Dick Van Dyke Show, and land on a channel that is playing Grumpier Old Men. There are commercials on, though, so we watch the commercials. One after the other, commercials. I am looking at my husband who is glued to his iPhone playing Words With Friends, and my dad who is watching the commercials, and no one will look at my face and confirm my disbelief that a Geico commercial is better than Dick Van Dyke.

Finally I say, "Why are we watching commercials?" and I'm informed that we are waiting for Grumpier Old Men. We couldn't wait the ten minutes through Dick Van Dyke to get to M*A*S*H*, but ten minutes of commercials are fine.

I retire to the bedroom, where I am now, writing this. I love my parents. Truly. But I do not love watching TV with them. There is only one queen of the remote, and it is I, and twas ever thus.

I just had Food

I'm in a mood. I'm getting my period, and I'm full, and there's nothing for dessert in my house, and I'm in a mood.

You know what song I've had in my head for the last three days? This one:




I can't stop singing it, which is kind of a problem since my daughter is nine and I have to hmm hmm over the words. I even downloaded it on iTunes so I can sing to it in my car.

Enjoy! I promise it will get you out of any funk you happen to be in, if only for a moment.

Confession Time

Remember that time a few months ago when I canceled cable?  Well, its back.  On Friday, a nice guy from AT&T U-verse came over and installed all the stuff, so now we have cable again.  As the resident sloth and TV/sugar addict in this home I feel the need to tell you that ITS NOT MY FAULT.  I am actually a little bummed about having it back.  Except for the whole award show thing, I haven't missed it at all.  But then there was the world series, and a little team called the Giants were in it, and my poor husband had to invite himself over to people's houses just to catch a game.  He even paid for the MLB.com online streaming service, but it kind of sucked. 

And of course he starts snooping around online for cable deals right after he throws me an amazing surprise party, and looks up at me (or down at me, he's taller) with his sad eyes and says, "I'm done with this experiment." He may as well have asked for a pony, too.  What was I supposed to say after everything he did for my birthday? 

My mom was kind of giving me the business about getting cable back, because she knows all about my unhealthy relationship with screens (that I have passed on to my daughter, apparently) and I had to remind her that I am not the only person living in my house, and sometimes you have to give in.  I didn't just give in, though.  I caved.  I caved hard.  But again, it was a SURPRISE PARTY!  I didn't stand a chance!  I even suggested that we wait until after the holidays, but it didn't work.

The good news is that I have actually sat down when I've had a spare half hour to watch some TV, and I've turned it off ten minutes in.  I have no interest in it.  I've gotten so used to life without it, I feel a little dirty sitting down to watch a cooking show. 

In other news, its the middle of November, 9:30 in the morning, and its almost 80 degrees outside.  No sir, I don't like it.  Its weird.  Like the Apocalypse.  Like earthquake weather.

The Oprah Recap, Part Two

Now, here's the stuff you really want to know:

We got the straight haired Oprah, rather than the curly haired Oprah, and I will tell you that she looks just like Oprah.  No taller or shorter, no bigger or smaller, she looks just like the Oprah you see every day on your TV. So she walks out and kind of waves and sits down in her interview seat, and then someone comes out and puts her shoes on for her, and then someone comes out and adjusts her sweater, and then her make up guy comes out and touches up her make up.  Then she made a joke about how when you're as rich as she is, no one will let you do anything for yourself.

Here's the interesting thing:  I realized that the show is not done for the studio audience.  We are a prop.  Which is not to say that it wasn't super cool and something that I will remember forever, but she and her guests are mic'd up for the camera, not the audience, and Oprah comes out, does her show like a smooth pro, hangs with the audience for a few minutes, and leaves the stage to go on with her day. 

So here it is:  Mercifully it was not Bob Greene for an hour.  Our show will air in January, and is a sort of New Year's resolution thing.  We had Dr. Oz for a segment on the five numbers you should know (blood pressure, cholesterol, waist measurement, weight, and I forget the other one) and he did a whole demo with a big blood vessel.  Then came Bob Greene talking about his five steps toward weight loss and his new book.  Honestly, I don't know what he said because I really did almost fall asleep, I was so tired.  When he left the stage we all thought, Don't we get a free copy of his book?

Then Peter Walsh, the organizing guru did a segment on de-cluttering your life, and shilled his new book, which we also didn't get a copy of, but Oprah said that everyone in the audience was getting a $100 gift card to the Container Store!  This was awesome, but also ironic since I worked at the Container Store for eighteen months and my whole house looks like a Container Store catalog.  Then came Adam Glassman, the O creative director who also does a style column in the magazine.  He came out with some models showing off new looks for fall.  Then Oprah talked about her new iPhone app, then she said, in her Oprah way, "Everyone here is going home with all this stuff!"  We all went nuts, partially because it was a bunch of free stuff, and partially because it was our job and we were all super excited to be there. 

So here is what I got:

Bootights: a combo of tights and socks to be worn under boots.  

A Chickie: an undergarment that you attach to your bra so your boobs
don't fall out when you're wearing low-cut stuff. 
Perfect for the stacked, like myself.

The Shirt, a button down shirt with cool double buttoning so, again, your boobs don't fall out

The Fluxus scarf

 

The Side Slope Parka from Eddie Bauer
that I took a picture of in the Eddie Bauer store on Michigan Ave:

And...

These cool Sorel Boots!

I had always wondered how they give away clothing items on the Oprah show.  I wondered if the audience had to go to some big room and try a bunch of stuff on, or if they ran out of sizes or whatever, so if you've wondered the same thing (or even if you haven't) here is the answer:  As you leave the building, you are handed a gift bag.  In our case, the bag contained the scarf (love it) and a big envelope with gift cards and vouchers.  Some of the vouchers have to be mailed in advance, some things can't be ordered until January, some take weeks to ship, but who's complaining?  Not me!  We got an Eddie Bauer gift card that we don't have to use for the parka, and I could do some good Christmas shopping with it, but, dammit, I'm getting that Oprah parka!  The women who were there with their husbands get double the stuff because the men get everything the women get.  So now you know.

It looked like Oprah had it easy that day because she came out casually, sat down, read off a tiny teleprompter like it was no thing and let the guests do the rest.  The guests really have to be on their game.  They have no teleprompter or cue cards, they have to know what they're going to say and how long they have to say it.  Then the audience claps and they leave the stage and don't come back out. 

When the taping was done, and the models and the last guest were gone, Oprah hung with the audience for a few minutes, answering some questions.  There was one woman in the audience who wouldn't shut up and just wanted everyone to know that she was in some small way connected to Oprah by talking about some animal shelter, and then another woman raised her hand and asked if she could get a picture with Oprah.  Oprah said, "Since you were bold enough to ask, come on down here."  Then every hand shot up, but she only took the one picture.  Oh yeah, there's an official photographer there throughout the whole show taking pictures or her and her guests.  

Then she said a really nice thing that I'm sure she says to all audiences, and I wish I could remember exactly how she said it.  She was all, "I know how much shopping, and manicuring and traveling and hair perming and hair straightening went in to you all being here today, and you've made us successful for 25 years and we really appreciate all the effort you've made to be here with us." or something like that, and then she said bye and left the stage. 

It went so fast!  The whole taping was an hour tops.  Then the fluffer lady came back out and gave us all the info on the gift cards and vouchers and stuff, and then we were ushered out of the studio, handed our gift bags and we were out on the street.  We were freezing, because only the person who made the reservations can get all the checked coats and phones and stuff, but we didn't care, we'd just seen Oprah!  We put our new scarves on, and went across the street to the Oprah store!

I went a little nuts in the Oprah store, and came home with a lot of souvenirs for friends and for myself that I now regret.  I'm not sure how many people want an Oprah Christmas ornament on their tree, but you're welcome!  I got one box of Oprah note cards, and I wish I'd gotten a bunch of those.  There is a section of the store called Oprah's Closet...

 where she sells clothes that she's worn before.  I almost bought a sweater, but then decided to stick with all the Oprah logo crap that was piled in my basket.  

Then we went to lunch and looked through all our vouchers and added up the value of everything and the number was over $650!  That was more than my plane ticket!  Then the server brought us this huge thing of cotton candy.  It was awesome.

We had so much fun, and it was such a once-in-a-lifetime thing.  The free stuff was nice, but it would have been great without it, too.  So I suggest you go to her website and try to get tickets for yourself and some friends.  Its totally worth it!

Chicago was fun also.  The people are really nice, and they all want to send you to their favorite steak house!

So: after all that, any questions?

Ciao

My mom caught an episode of the Kardashians last night.  My dad was watching a baseball play off game, so she turned on the TV in another room and surfed around until she stumbled on the Kardashians.  She was horrified.  She didn't realize it was a "reality" show, and when she found out this was a real "family", she was double horrified.  I thought for a moment that I had found in her someone with whom I could share my sick little love of the Kardashians, and maybe even pull her into Tori and Dean, but, sadly, no.  She was too grossed out, and changed the channel to watch a rerun of Larry King.  I have to hack in to her Netflix again and fill up her queue.

I am partying like a rock start tonight.  I'm going to drink and eat my weight in hors d'oeuvres and walk home.  Except that right now I feel nauseous.  It could be that I ate nothing but Lucky Charms yesterday.  I made a yummy healthy smoothie today, but I still feel like I'm going to puke.  I'd better not be pregnant.  I will be seriously crabby if that happens.  I have a friend who got pregnant accidentally, and when she found out, all she could say was, "I am so annoyed!"  Fast forward a few years, and now she has an adorable three year-old boy and she's annoyed for completely different reasons.

Can you tell I really don't have much to write about today?  I have a busy weekend ahead and I hope I don't burp through the whole thing like I am right now.  Ciao.

You Give Me Fever

I got sick just in time for the weekend.  I would have gone into a complete panic and started lining up child care for what was sure to be another hospital stay, but I was too tired.  You know what bugs me about being sick, aside from, y'know, not feeling that great?  Its that I will give myself over to the virus, in this case for two days, just laying around, drinking tea, watching movies, wasting away, and then on Monday morning, I'm still sick!  Its not fair!  I gave two full days to this thing, and its still around.  I don't feel any worse, but I don't feel that much better.  I have a whole Brenda Vaccaro thing going on.

I did decide to just bust on through it today, though.  We were out of milk, and I had a plan to get my toenails done with a friend and I wasn't going to pass that up, so I just muscled through.  I still don't feel too great, and I think its time for more advil.  I watched the original Wall Street movie (Charlie Sheen was just a baby!) and Looking for Mr. Goodbar.  Wow.  If you've never seen it, just be okay with that and move on with your life.

We're also having a heat wave, and you know how much I hate the heat.  Laying on the couch is not all that relaxing when you're sweating and thinking you must have a fever.

Is that enough bitching and moaning for you?  Don't I have anything nice to say at all?  My toenails look real perdy, and I had a delicious sandwich.  This coke I'm drinking is awesome, and tonight I get to watch Mad Men.  In a few minutes, I will take L to piano lessons where she will kick some serious piano ass, and then I will come home and faint from the heat and not make dinner.  At some point in there, I will run the dryer because its too hot for the heat from the dryer to make any difference.  Rob just has to have the red shirt TODAY!   You know, I do have a pretty good story about L opening her first bank account, but it will wait for another day.  Ciao.

Chile: All Ways Surprising*

Remember when I canceled cable?  It was a few months ago, and I swear I have never looked back.  I thought I would miss falling asleep during John Stewart, and miss all my cooking and decorating shows (Ina!  Candace!) and that I might not be able to live without Roseanne reruns.  Turns out, my fear was for naught, and life has been perfectly blissful without cable.  John Stewart is only a few clicks away, I already know how to make roasted brussel sprouts, my house looks freakin' amazing, and I can recite almost every Roseanne episode you can throw at me.  Ah...  Rob even found ways to watch major league baseball online, and maybe even his beloved Buckeyes, but that's not really my problem.

Here is my problem:  Awards shows.  I did not consider this when I canceled cable.  I figured out how to watch Mad Men without having cable and that was all I really worried about.  I didn't consider award shows.  Damn!  The Emmy's were on Sunday, an early beginning to award show season, and I searched online for a place to watch them.  I found lots of behind-the-scenes clips, a thank-you-cam, some red carpet stuff, but no live streaming of the actual awards.  Until I happened upon...

Chilean television.  I swear to God.  I watched the last half of the emmys at my desk on a 3X5 low res' window on my computer streamed - with commercials - on Chilean TV.  The show was broadcast entirely in English, no subtitles, and the commercials were half in English too.  America would so never do that, but I'm grateful that Chile did.

I usually Tivo the red carpet and the actual show, then start watching later, on my nice, big screen, fast forward through the commercials and the speeches, and pause and rewind and make a night of it.  This may be a problem...

There should be an award show package you can buy on line, just like there is a major league baseball package.  Where the hell am I going to watch the Golden Globes!?  I may have not thought this through.  I generally don't like watching at other people's houses because they talk through stuff, but I may have to resort to inviting myself over.  I'll bring wine!

(* The tourism slogan for Chile, my second favorite country)

P.S. Happy Anniversary, Rob!  14 years today!

Zinger

I know the suspense has been killing you, so let me get it over with and tell you that: I caved.  Not the first day, but the second.  I got that delicious Butterfinger, I put it in the fridge, and when the kid was playing at the neighbors, I sat down to watch a French film on DVD, and I ate that Butterfinger.  It was every bit as good as I anticipated.  The movie however, was only okay.  It was a lot of Kristen Scott Thomas looking sad and tortured, which she does very well, but still...

Leila is leaving in about an hour, and I'm pretty much not going to see her again until Friday evening.  Do you know what this means?  NO AUDIOBOOKS FOR TWO DAYS!!!  I can listen to grown up podcasts, and music!  Or nothing!  I can enjoy sweet silence!  I think I'll repaint the backs of my living room cabinets.  I really love how $17 worth of paint can make such an impact.  Actually, no one will really be cable to see them.  I just told my mom that they've been purple for 13 years, and she was flabbergasted.  She had no idea.

Speaking of my mom, she gave me one of her zingers the other day.  You may remember that she is not a native English speaker and when you add a martini to that, zingers are what you get.  She was describing to me how an eight year-old spoke at her friends funeral and had done an amazing job.  She meant to say that what the girl said was a little corny, but that she had been such a great speaker, every one was murmuring about it.  What she actually said was, "Sure, she was a little horny, but everyone was rumouring about it."

I've gone nuts

I don't know what's gotten into me. I think I've gone mad.

First, Rob built a box

then, we filled it with dirt and I planted stuff

It doesn't look like much now, but I planted two pepper plants, 6 pole bean plants, one zuchini, one cucumber, carrot, scallion and lettuce seeds. I don't have high hopes for the lettuce, I'm told its too late, but I'm going for it because, for reasons I can't fathom, I am suddenly very excited to grow things I can eat. We irrigated the whole back yard, too. I've been suspiciously productive lately. Its a little alarming. We cleaned out our garage and under our house last weekend. I don't know where all this is coming from, but I'm going with it.

And remember this?

It now looks like this!

after only 42 days!

You wanna know what else? As of Friday, we don't have cable TV anymore. No more TV for us. So last night, when I was dead tired and my feet hurt, my impulse was to fall on the couch and vedge in front of the TV, and when I remembered that I couldn't, I felt... relieved. Isn't that odd? We sat outside on our beautiful deck, I submerged my achin' feet in hot water, drank a glass of wine, ate some cake, and perused my new gardening book. Huh... Things are getting weirder and weirder all the time...

One for the Books

Dude, this day has kicked my ass. Not kicked ass, kicked MY ass, with steel-toed boots. I'm shocked I'm still standing. Actually, I'm not standing at all. I'm sitting with my feet up on the couch, drinking my third glass of wine, fourth if you count the one I had at 11:30 this morning. I threw the kid a bowl of granola for dinner and she mercifully ate quickly and alone. I am serious. My nerves are shot.

Let me 'splain.

I started the day by cancelling cable TV. Times are tough chez Bored Housewife, and nothing is sacred. Not even HGTV and Roseanne reruns. Then I cancelled long distance phone service, but I'm rethinking this. Now, if I call farther than a seven-mile radius from my home, I'm paying twelve cents a minute. This means that if I call Rob at work to prattle on about nothing, it will cost me twelve cents a minute, and that is too high a price to pay for prattle.

I had taken on the job of prepping some food for the PTA luncheon. So far, no problem. But as I was finishing up and washing my hands, I had a freak accident no one on this green earth could have anticipated. See, I've had this little hairline break in my engagement ring for some time. I didn't even know if the break went all the way through, and I really never thought much of it. But while I was washing my hands in the kitchen sink, the ring some how slipped or jammed or I-don't-know-what, but the upshot is the the break in the ring openned up and closed on the skin at the based of my ring finger. I couldn't believe what I was seeing, plus it hurt like a son of a bitch. I sprayed it with windex to get the ring off (it really works, try it) and tugged on the ring, but it was really pinched on there.

It eventually went all the way through the fleshy (very fleshy, if we're being honest) underside of my finger. Its like I had my finger pierced the slow painful way.

Not only was I horrified by the sight of my finger and the pain, but I had to get a huge salad, a big thing of roasted shrimp, and three flower arragements to the site of the meeting, and I was already running late. I called Rob, for twelve cents a minute, and completely fell apart, totally panicked, and after suggesting I go to the fire station to see if they could cut the ring off, a suggestion I still don't quite understand, he put me on hold and called a local jeweler, and they said they could save the finger.

Then I called the PTA president and completely fell apart on the phone with her, and another PTA lady was there, and this is the side of the conversation she heard:" Oh my God! Are you okay?! Oh my god. Okay, how about if K. comes over and takes you? Okay, she'll be there in a minute." Meanwhile, K. is thinking she is about to have to take me to the emergency room, or the police station or somewhere dramatic, but instead, E. hangs up the phone and says, "you have to take Bored Housewife to the jeweler." I had a Jewelry Emergency. I suppose if you have to have an emergency at all, the kind that involves diamond rings and going to a jewelry store is the one you want to have.

So we fly over to the jeweler, and I start crying again because it hurts, and I'm a pitiful dork, and I'm stressed about being late to this meeting, and he takes his magic plyers, like the freakin' jaws of life, and rips the ring off my finger. I think the holes left behind are impressive, but the ring is completely mangled. The ring that I love, have always loved, is a train wreck. I would like to express a theory I have that may be totally wrong: I think if you wait until your thirties or fourties to get married, you get a better ring. When you get engaged at 24, you get rings that break and try to maim you. I'm just sayin'.

When I finally got to the meeting, the ladies were all downstairs discussing important PTA issues, and after I put the food away in the kitchen I openned to fridge to see if there was an open bottle of chardonnay in there, and there was! The angels smiled on me. I poured myself a good slug of wine into a water glass, and went down to the meeting, which is how I came to be swilling the hootch before noon on a school day.

I am pefectly happy that this day is coming to an end. This day can suck it. But I have a full glass, a puppy on my lap, and love in my life, so I think I'll make it.

Can you see the holes? They're just above the wedding ring.

Poor mangled baby!

Lost

Something you may not know about me is that I'm a bit of a Lost junky, the TV show. Lately, I've been rewatching this season's episodes the morning after with two of my fellow Lost junkies, and then we read blogs about it and discuss it and just generally geek out. If we had been doing this for the past six years, it would be really sad, but we've only been doing it for a couple of months, so I feel okay about it.

Last night was the series finale episode, the big kahuna, and I stayed up way past my bed time to watch the whole dil-darned thing. I was too tired toward the end to feel anything but eager to go to bed, but when we watched it again this morning, I experienced the full emotional effect. I'm kind of wasted and heart brokeny right now, and its just A FREAKIN' TV SHOW. That must mean that regardless of what people are writing about the finale today, it had its intended effect on me. I kind of want to watch the last fifteen minutes again, but I don't think I can take it. I need to watch a comedy to shake off this melancholy. And maybe eat some cake.

Waaah haaaah haaaaah!!

Comcast Service has been the Best Part of my Day. WTF?

What a day. What a boondoggle. I have four million things on my to do list before going to the mountains this weekend (and I'm not exaggerating even a little bit) but in the middle of it all I decided that I couldn't live one more day without an HD cable box. So I made a detailed list of errands and stops I had to make, in the order I planned to make them, so my trip would be as efficient as possible. The first thing I did was realize, after the second errand, that I had forgotten to unhook and bring along the old cable box for the trade in for the HD box. I drove back home and got the box, just randomly unhooking cables from the back willy nilly, and headed back out on the road.

I found the cable store, 15 miles away, without much trouble, but it turns out I needed the last four digits of Rob's social security number to change the service. Typical that the one bill his name is on is the one that I'm upgrading, right? I have no idea what the last four digits of his social are. I know the first three, but not the last four. AND, Rob isn't answering his phone because he's in the middle of a St. Patrick's Day thing at work. Great. But I convince the nice cable lady, with all my charm and wit, to look at my cable bill, compare it to my ID and last name and just take my word for the fact that no harm will come to anyone if she just trades out the box. She buys it (sucker) and I walk away with a new box, but not before peeling the IR receiver deely bob that magically makes the Tivo work with the cable box off the old box (p.s I only know its called an IR receiver because I've spent the last hour on the internet trying to figure out how to make it work, lest you think I know what I'm talking about, which I do not.)

Anyway, I walk out the door with my new cable box and remote and power cable, and I'm driving south and I'm starving. So I pull into McDonalds for a mini meal (I know, I know, spare me the scolding) and I realize while I'm waiting in line in the drive through that I forgot the IR receiver deal at the cable store. So I get back on the freeway, with my food, and go back to get the thing. The great efficiency of my trip is up in smoke, and I had to postpone two things on the List of Important Errands in order to pick up the kid from school on time. AND the gas gauge was on E.

The HD box is hooked up and working (yay me!) but the tivo remote is still not working. I'm not sure what this means to my recording of Sober House with Drew Pinsky, but luckily they run every episode of that show about 100 times. The kicker of all of this is, we may be canceling cable all together in about a month and a half if Rob doesn't get the promotion he's gunning for. Increase in furlough time = less money + higher insurance premium = no HGTV for Bored Housewife. We're an American Cliche.

Now I'm home with Leila and her friend. Her friend LOVES our dog, and both of these girls keep repeating his name. If I hear his name one more time I'll throw something. I'm wishing I had named him anything but Perry. I've finally brought the dog inside because L is getting annoyed that her friend is paying 100% more attention to Perry than she is to her. So now they are outside in the back yard looking for ant hills, and Perry is inside whining and panting to be with the girls. The question is, what's more annoying: having to listen to two girls say "PERRY NO! Come here, PERRY! PERRY get the stick! PERRY move out of the way!" etc. etc or having to listen to the dog whimper at the back door (that's what she said)?

I'm picking dog whimpering. I'm going to fold some laundry and close my eyes for a while. I am done with this day. Maybe VH1 is playing Sober House AGAIN and I can watch some...

Stupid Grammys

You know what bugs me? Among many other things? The fact that I spent $66 at the grocery store on Friday, and now I have to go back there AGAIN and spend more money and cook more food. I didn't actually cook much of anything this weekend, kind of took the weekend off, but still! How could I have gone to the store 72 hours ago and still be out of syrup? This, in a nutshell (although, with me its always an incredibly large nutshell) is the problem with housewifery: It never ends. Ever. You can do all the laundry and put it away, only to have some man throw his dirty panties in the hamper one minute later. You can make the beds, and people just sleep in them again after a few hours. You can feed people, and the next day you have to feed them again. I know a lot of jobs are like this; you have to make the donuts every day, you have to update your spreadsheet every day, to follow the presidents motorcade every day, but at least you get a lunch hour AND A PAYCHECK. Jeez!

In order to avoid the grocery store, my most hated place next to the dentist's and airports, I want to talk about the Grammys. I talked about them last year at this time, and talked about how damn old I am and how I've never heard of half of these performers, and it seems like I've heard it all before, and I guess that's all I really have to say about it this year. Except for this Lady Gaga: really? I mean, really? I guess she can carry a tune, and play the piano, maybe, but, really? See? Old. And I think Beyonce stinks. She's very pretty and seems very sweet, but she still stinks. (Catherinette said, I don't know what I hate worse, Beyonce or Mondays, and I vote Beyonce. I'm so done with her B.S.) I do like the Taylor Swift, but last night she sounded like a piece of poo. I was a little embarrassed for Stevie Nicks and her jangly tambourine. But here's the other thing about the Grammys: I LIVE ON THE WEST COAST! All the winners, and all the outfits and all the downloadable performances were available on line before my Tivo even started recording the red carpet. SHUT UP rest of the country!

OK, I don't think I can avoid it anymore. I'm going to go to the stupid store, buy some stupid groceries, make some stupid stew and take a not-at-all-stupid-smartest-thing-I've-ever-done nap.

Keeping up with the Scallops

Oh my gosh! I haven't posted in a whole WEEK! Where has the time gone? There is so much to update you on, I just don't know where to start. How about at Red Lobster?

To be funny, Rob gave me a $25 gift card to Red Lobster for Christmas. Only, he forgot to actually give it to me at Christmas, so he gave it to me -wrapped in Christmas paper - last week. I know I am not the only one who has salivated over the Red Lobster commercials on TV, and dreamed about diving into a vat of all-you-can-eat shrimp and eating my way out. Admit it! Don't be ashamed, its ok to dream. We figured we'd save the gift card until some later date, but the thought of the buttery scampi and the scallops were too much for us to bear, so Friday night I dropped L off with my parents, picked Rob up from work, and we drove the 36 miles to the closest Red Lobster.

We had an appetizer while we waited for our table, and I made the mistake of looking in the little booklet where they keep all the nutritional information. Our appetizer was 1200 calories. Twelve. Hundred. For dinner I had the broiled seafood platter with stuffed soul, shrimp scampi, and bay scallops and mashed potatoes. Basically, a plate of melted butter with a little seafood thrown in. It in no way resembled the deliciousness that they sell you in the commercial, but it was still heavenly. There was no way I could finish it (not after that appetizer) so I got to enjoy it again the next day for lunch. I felt gross, but it was totally worth it.

We had a rainy weekend, my favorite kind of weekend, and here is what I did on Sunday: Rob watched football, I sat on the couch and watched sitcoms on hulu with my headphones. When they were over, I read my Oprah magazine and fell asleep on the couch. When the football game ended, Rob went to the gym, and I continued my nap on the couch. I got up eventually, felt sick because I had slept too hard and long, waddled around the house for a while, then sat back on the couch and watched the Golden Globes pre-show on E. I watched it on fast forward because if I have to hear Seacrest speak I will die. I watched the whole, long, endless Golden Globes telecast, watched the after party on E, still on the couch, and then something strange happened; I looked up from the computer solitaire I was playing, while watching TV, and I noticed that Keeping up with the Kardashians was on. I've never seen an episode of this show, but Sunday night they had a marathon and Rob and I watched it for more than two hours. We were strangely compelled. Not only were we watching it, but we were discussing it, like, That khloe is really not being fair to the other one's boyfriend. and Kim really shouldn't lie like that; what is she teaching her little sisters? and She seems dead inside but look at her ass! Then, we started looking them up online to find out more about them, like who's the oldest (Kourtney) who's the tallest (Khloe.) It took me two hours of watching the show to realize all their names start with K. (I'm slow like that.)

I went to bed feeling much like I had after my dinner at Red Lobster: It was bad for me, I was disgusted with myself, I felt fat, I needed to sleep it off, and I was looking forward to the next time I could abuse myself like that.

What is Wrong with People?

Okay, I have two things I want to talk about today, and neither one of them include vampires. At least I don't think so.

1) Have you watched the show Hoarders? Oh my God. Its so compelling, but so revolting. I can't not watch it. Just like its predecessor, Intervention, about addiction, its these people who are, frankly (and I don't think I'm being uncharitable here,) effing train wrecks. I joke about how I'm a pig with my pink mildew in the shower, and how I sleep under stacks of clothes at the foot of my bed while inhaling cat hair in my sleep, but these people are not pigs. I mean, they are, for sure, but they're also sad, sick people who need so much help. Its most heartbreaking when there are children involved like last night, and you see a little tiny kid picking his way into a room with a foot of trash on the floor. I can't stop watching it. Apparently, 3 million Americans are afflicted with compulsive hoarding, and I am so glad I am not one of them. Its good TV, though, I'll tell you that much. A double dose of Intervention and Hoarders right before you go to sleep is enough to give you nightmares. This one woman on the show last night had an armchair under so much garbage that it decomposed and broke in pieces when the cleaners (people with stomachs of steel, I don't know how they do it) touched it. Ugh.

2) I went to the playground today (I know, that's shocking as I NEVER go to playground. Bo-ring) and I had nothing to do while L ran around, and I noticed the woman on the next bench was reading the new People magazine, the one with Oprah on the cover. I thought to myself, Hey, maybe when she's clearly done and puts it down, I'll ask if I can borrow it. So I start looking at L's library books (all about sharks and dolphins and other marine life; I'm so over it) and then I notice the People magazine woman get up, with the magazine, and start walking toward the trash can. This time, I am saying to myself, out loud but not loud enough that people could hear me and think I was a psychopath, No. No no no. Don't do it! NO!

Bitch threw the People magazine in the trash. Its still on news stands! Its brand new! How does someone DO THAT? I had half a mind to go over and dig it out of the trash, but its not like the trash can at the library or something, its the playground, and its filled with dirty diapers and melted popsicles and bags of dog poop (hopefully its in bags) and all other kinds of nasty-ass things that kids create and parents throw away at the playground. When L was tiny and still learning to use the toilet, she crapped her pants at the playground and I threw her underpants with the poo still in them right into the trash can. I did not have a bag. This is what parents have to resort to sometimes, okay? I wasn't going to walk around with a poo-filled panty until I found a more suitable receptacle. Anyway, I was shocked. Who throws People magazine away? You can always find someone who is more than happy to take it off your hands, and then they'll pass it on to someone else until it ends up in a doctors office a year from now with the cross word done and the coupons ripped out, and you still enjoy looking at it. Crazy. Oh, and don't even get me started on how she didn't save it for recycling. Honestly.

Ikea, Youkea, We all Kea for a Bunch of Crap

Today was a tough one. I went shopping, went out to lunch and took a nap. I've spent the last half hour doing dishes and folding laundry so my husband doesn't start wondering about me, but, frankly, there's no mystery, he knows I'm a lazy slob.

I went to Ikea. I have to stop going there. As part of the redo of the living room, we need a new rug. What we want is simple and easy to find, but I have a hard time spending $400 on something I know my family is going to trash. We have a dog who may well chew it. We do not remove our shoes when we come in the house. We routinely eat and drink things like chocolate ice cream and red wine in the living room. Stuff gets thrown on the floor, like backpacks and purses and shoes and dog toys and grocery bags and all kinds of things that contribute to the trashing of rugs. Also, there's my dog's obsession with woodchips. Any rug we get in here will last three years tops, and that's just not enough return on a $400 investment. Now, you may ask me, Couldn't you change your slovenly ways? And the answer is Are you kidding me? Why don't I just lose 50 lbs. while I'm at it? I know myself; this is who I am. I have enough personal challenges with food and exercise and dental work, and I simply cannot be bothered to tackle being a neater person right now. Or ever. Love me, love my mess. And I know you do.

So, I go to Ikea with the specific plan of finding a rug, a night table for Rob, some pretty holiday candles, and a set of sheets that I already own but love so much I want another set. You wanna know what happened? The same thing that always happens at Ikea; they were out of stock of the rug I wanted, they don't have any pretty holiday candles, and they don't carry my favorite sheets anymore. I did find a night table for Rob, and its still in the back of the car. What will happen now is that we will open the box and find that it is the wrong color/missing pieces/broken.

You'd think I would have saved a lot of money not finding what I was looking for, but I didn't and you know why? I did what everyone who goes to Ikea does, I loaded up on a bunch of shit I don't need. Four rolls of wrapping paper. Four picture frames that I don't actually have pictures for. Two glass votive candle holders. Construction paper for Leila. Some normal, boring candles. Batteries. $161 worth of bullshit. I went there so I could NOT spend too much money on a rug, and look what happens? That's it, I just can't go there anymore.

Then I went to lunch and came home and took a nap. But I watched the Oprah that was all about porn first. She says that one in three people who look at porn are women. Duh. Why is this so shocking? Raise your hand if you ever watch porn... See? Do you know how many people hit this blog while looking for porn? One of my recent search keywords was Bored Housewife Mild Porn. The other one that keeps popping up is Housewife Tori, probably because of my love of Tori Spelling.

Leila is squealing in the bathtub because she has shampoo in her eyes and I find this endlessly annoying. Does that make me a bad mom? What makes you a bad mom, besides your porn?

Thanks to L.SJ for this one...

Oprah, You're on my List (But not Really)

I have a bone to pick with Oprah. Oprah Winfrey. You heard right, I'm not afraid to pick bones with her majesty, I've got some balls.

Here's the thing. I used to have a subscription to O magazine. No, it did not come free with my subscription to the Utne Reader or Atlantic Monthly, or the New Yorker, I ordered it of my own free will, and I enjoy it. I even read Dr. Phil and Oprah's what I know for sure, and it helps me kill time while I'm not cooking dinner. Anyhoo, I started to get real irritated like, because, I believe that, as a subscriber, someone who keeps circulation numbers up and helps sell advertising so Oprah can buy more dogs and chenille throws, that I should receive the magazine at least one day before it hits the news stands, and never one day later. But that didn't happen with O. I would go to the grocery store, and longingly look at the issue in the magazine rack, wanting desperately to read what nuggets Suze Orman had for me, and I would have to wait, sometimes very impatiently, for my issue to come in the mail. I even called the 800 number for the circulation department a few times to complain, and all they could tell me was that it isn't considered late until the last day of the month of the issue, or some B.S. like that.

I let my subscription lapse for this reason. I thought, "to hell with this." and I started to buy it at the grocery store along with tampons and instant oatmeal. But the cover price is so much more than the subscription price, and I love getting anything in the mail that isn't junk or bills, and Oprah herself kept sending me letters and offers for 50% of the newstand price, and finally I succumbed to her wooing, and ordered a two- year subscription.

Yesterday, I watched the Oprah episode with Ellen Degeneres and Portia DeRossi talking about their love (I let Leila watch it too, I thought it was a good teachable moment) and Oprah and Ellen went on and on about how they shot the cover for the December issue ON NEWS STANDS NOVEMBER 12! They were on Michigan Avenue in Chicago giving away free autographed copies, and you know what? I DONT HAVE MY NOVEMBER ISSUE YET! Don't tease me with December when I haven't even seen the Thanksgiving recipes that I will never make in the November issue!

As I write this, I am worried that I did get the November issue, and on of my rare cleaning jags, I put it away in the designated magazine place in my bedroom and forgot about it. Hold on a sec' I'm gonna go check...

No! Ha! I was right! October is in there, and November is nowhere! My subscription just started a few months ago so I have, like, a year and a half of this bullshit left.

I'm calling you out, Oprah! (or Ms. Winfrey if you're nasty) I want my November issue in the mail TODAY and I want the December issue in the mail TOMORROW, one day before I see it in the grocery store, or else! Or else I will, um, not watch your favorite things episode? Nah, can't do that, I love that episode. I know! I will NOT read your book club selection! So there!!!

(Here's the other thing, though: if, like in my fantasy land where I'm thin and my feet are two sizes smaller, I am ever on the Oprah show, or if she showed up at my door with a camera crew to hand me my November issue in person, I would totally recant and blubber and be all, "Oh, Oprah, I didn't really mean it! Your magazine is always worth the wait! Ha ha ha!" So really, I don't have any balls at all.)

***ADDENDUM*** Just got my mail, and my magazine did not come today. Oh, its ON!

Where's Fabio when we Need Him?

Today is my blogoversary! One year ago, I started writing about how my house is a mess, my animals are annoying, and how I hate to make dinner, and I'm still writing about the same BS a year later. Who knew? So before I write another few paragraphs about what is annoying me on this fine Wednesday, I just want to thank a few people: Thanks to J. for telling me to write a blog in the first place, and not shutting down my decorating ideas yet. Thanks to all my white-pants PTA moms for letting me expose them for the wild, bawdy MILFs they really are. Thanks to my husband for never getting mad when I write about his bad breath or his nightly nose-strip. And thanks to my readers (and commenters!) you all make me feel like a big shot!

Here is the first blog post I ever wrote. Nothing much has changed except that Leila is now 7, and in second grade. My house is in about the same state it was in a year ago, I'm still hungry, the puppy is a degree or two calmer, and I have a new TV.

Lately, I have been thinking about romance. I stayed up way too late to watch the last hour of Pride and Prejudice with Keira Knightly, complete with underbite, and Matthew Macfayden, who is really more dashing than handsome. I don't really care about the first two thirds of the movie; I don't care who Mr. Bingley is, and you can keep all the dancing, and, frankly, you can kind of keep Keira Knightly, too. But then, in the last hour, there is Mr. Darcy. Mmmmmm. Again, he's really not that handsome. I mean, he doesn't make me want to puke or anything, but its more the look on his face; he's so in love with Elizabeth Bennet, and in that scene, in the rain, where she is all pissed off and says, through her underbite, that he is "the last man in the world that I could ever be prevailed upon to marry!" His face just falls, like he's taken a bullet. There are more scenes in which he's dashing, but, in the end, and this is what I stayed up late for (Rob says to me, Are you asleep? And I open my eyes and say No! I have to stay awake so I can watch Mr. Darcy walk across the grass in his long coat!) Miss Elizabeth is taking a pre-dawn walk on the moors or whatever the hell they call them, and when she looks over the horizon, she sees Mr. Darcy striding purposefully toward her, and the music swells, and he has on a white shirt and riding pants and boots and a long duster that looks like a cape from far away, and I am just breathless. And he professes his love for her - again - and in spite of the fact that she has too many teeth in her mouth - and they huddle together without kissing, and the sun comes up behind them, and that's where the movie should end. But, it doesn't. The rest of it is Keira Knightly weeping with joy and being a little annoying.

Here's the thing:

You know that stereotype of the middle aged housewife who reads harlequin romances and thinks Fabio is attractive? The one who watches soap operas and is surly toward her husband when he comes home from work because his name is, like, Bob, and he's an accountant with a paunch and an appendectomy scar instead of a gay actor named Chance or Zander with his shirt off, a trust fund and a "bad boy" reputation? You know what I'm talking about.

I think I may be becoming one of those women. I don't watch soap operas, and I don't read romance novels, and I think Fabio is a joke, but I think I might be starved for romance. And you know what the pisser of it is? Its an impossible itch to scratch! Unless you're young and freshly in love, or a character of fiction, its really a no-win situation. Romance boils down to your husband going to the corner store for a vanilla drumstick because you're really in the mood for ice cream. That's pretty good. Or taking out the recycling without being asked. That's not bad. But I think I just have to resign myself to the fact that movie romance is out of my reach, and I should just download Pride and Prejudice on iTunes and watch the last hour whenever I feel the need.

Ah, yeah, that's the stuff.

Now, its lunch time.

p.s. As a little bonus, mostly to myself, I wanted to post the best comment I've ever gotten. Thanks, AlwaysAllah!

"I am 24 years old and in the midst of planning a wedding and trying to figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life. I've always known I want to be a mom - and a stay at home mom at that! The problem has always been that I am not a terribly domesticated woman...I hate cleaning, picking up after myself and others and the thought of it exhausts me! I thought that meant I needed to be a career woman...but that really doesn't float my boat! After reading your blog it's made me realize that I CAN be a mom and stay home and not be a domestic goddess...it's okay! I think the time you put into the relationship with your daughter and husband is 100x more important than cleaning the pink stain on your bathtub. (I just got rid of mine this week too!)"

What's That Smell?

You may have noticed, or may not care, that the Gilmore Girls series has been over for a few weeks. It was the second time I've gotten a Tivo season pass to it, and the second time I watched all five seasons of it, beginning to end. They're still running the show, from the beginning again, but I'm done for a while. I may have to wait a few years before I watch it again.

So I've been bouncing around other reruns: Sex and the City, MASH, Roseanne, but I've been a little bereft without a show to be obsessed with during the down times. Then the clouds parted, and the dove-like messenger of peace (Rob) found that Hulu has the whole series of My So Called Life.

This show aired in the mid-90s, and centers around Angela Chase (Claire Danes) as a High school sophomore. Angst ensues, and it is absolutely delicious. Not like the teen shit they have on TV now. When I first watched it, I think I was in my mid 20s, and it was in syndication. I was still close enough to high school days to completely identify with Angela. I WAS Angela Chase. Now, though, I find myself identifying with the parents on the show. Rob is watching it with me and I keep poking him in the ribs and saying, "Pay attention! This will be you and Leila in 8 short years."

I've read that when your kids are going through all their high school drama, they don't want to hear about your high school drama. That, no matter how you try to convince them that you, too, fell in love, and were disappointed by the object of that love, many times over, and that you felt less-than, and that you were scared and humiliated every single day, and that you can remember what was playing on the radio when you felt that way, They Don't Care.

This isn't very funny. How about this: Rob's breath was so heinous yesterday that the whole car still smelled like his stink today, and I had to drive with the windows open. Is that better?

If you've never seen My So Called Life, and want to relive a little bit of high school in the privacy of your adulthood, you should watch it. Its fabulous. Its better than Tori and Dean.