Just Another Day

I read this article not too long ago. For the time-challenged, the author basically states that people with children have overrun almost every spot in America. And he's not too keen on the prospect of his vacation time shattered by the screams of kids beating each other with their pool noodles. I can't even say that he is one of those child-less child haters, of which there are more than a few. They call anyone with children "breeders" and automatically assume every child is a three foot version of Satan. This author has a grown daughter, so he has to be somewhat familiar with the way young children just don't have a convenient volume control dial. No matter how much we wish they did. It's odd, because even as a parent of a young child, I can sympathize with the author's attempt to find relaxation, only to find every inch of available space taken up by inconsiderate, loud children and their families. Who among us parents hasn't gone on a "date

Today I used one of my stainless steel mixing bowls to store my freshly made pasta salad. Sure, I could have used one of the bowls I have with a matching lid, but that would have made my life easy, now wouldn't it? No, I needed the extra space the mixing bowl would provide, as the pre-lidded ones are quite huge and since my freezer still isn't working (please, please don't make me tell you what is going on, you really don't want to know) I need all the extra space I can possibly get. So, I reached into one of my kitchen drawers and pulled out a roll of plastic wrap. I gingerly opened the top and pulled off a bit. This is where things started to totally unravel, and not in the right way. I couldn't peel it off perfectly, and so crunkled up a rather large chunk off the edge. I pulled more, and finally got the wrap perched evenly on top of the cutter. I pulled down to chop it, and immediately the one corner collapsed, crunkling even more. I thought to myself,

When the powers-that-be at Blogger forced me to switch to the new Blogger, they told me that all of my information would stay the same in my profile. That nothing, not a thing , would get lost in translation. Trust us, Gina, they said. Have you seen my profile? Rarely do I look up my own profile. Whenever I do happen to see the content of my profile, I am usually just trying to quickly add a movie or a group or some such trivial thing from the editing page. But a couple of weeks ago, for some reason my curiosity got the better of me, and I clicked over. Perhaps it was the irresistible lure of my tearful Cindy Brady face, or that I had forgotten some of the things I had even put on there and was curious to see exactly how vapid I come off. After I got over my initial shock of seeing my profile visit total at almost three thousand, (hello, two thousand and nine hundred apparently never came back, was it my deep and abiding love for Monty Python that scared them off?) my eyes wander

I just thought it needed a little extra "oomph" today. What is the household chore that fills you with dread and loathing? And if you don't yet know what mine is, take a look at my profile.

We have ATT/Yahoo as our ISP, and they have thoughtfully provided a radio station for their subscribers. There is one particular genre that I find myself going to often, which is called "Little Kidz Music." Because nothing says hip like puttting a z on the end of something plural. Right. Anyhoodle, (shamelessly stolen from GFY ) for some reason they play a lot of soundtrack music. And what great songstress is given lots of airtime? This lady: Can I just say that until recently, I hadn't quite known the depths of my girl-crush on Julie Andrews? I mean, has this woman not been in oodles of classic movies? Movies that will go down in history as some of the greatest of all time? I remember very clearly listening over and over to "The Sound of Music" on my grandparent's 8-track player when I was a little girl. And yes, I realize I have totally dated myself, but I don't care. I think she has one of the most beautiful voices. So clear, so pure, so able

Welcome to the Harry Potter edition of Pointless Points Trivia, where the points don't really matter. That's right, just like my weak-willed attempt to avoid the spoilers, they don't really matter! What is Madame Pomfrey's first name? I know you all thought I totally forgot about this! And to be honest, I kinda did! But, that was so not fair to everyone who has participated, so I pledge that I will be much more regular at posting questions. For those of you new to the blog, there is a Pointless Points Leaderboard on my sidebar, and the person who gets to 10,000 points first will have some Sees Candy sent to them. Oh, and postcard people, I am running behind. I hope to go buy them tomorrow, but I'm not promising.

Have you heard the recent findings about diet soda ? If there is even a modicum of truth to this, my friends, my days are numbered.

Mr. Personality is growing out of his chubby toddler-like face and morphing into someone who everyday looks more and more like a young man. And a very good-looking one, if I do say so myself. Unfortunately, a lot of tween and teen girls agree with me, and wherever we go, there is always a chorus of "Oh he's so cuuuuuute" and general fawning over him like he's the next Johnny Depp or something. It hasn't been so bad mainly because they are random girls and I can just sort of dismiss them and not think about them anymore. But at his Tiny Tot program they have teen volunteers, and there is one girl in particular who lights up everytime he comes in the room. She is thin and pretty, with beautiful long brown hair. They seem to have some sort of friendship going, because he talks about her to me a lot. I will ask him her name, just to make sure I know who he is referring to, but he always forgets. Today I picked him up from school and she was bent over, listening t

Lately, I feel like the miscarriage has been defining me. And I don't like it. It seems that it keeps coming up and I keep having to talk to people about it, even now almost three weeks after the fact. I can't tell you how many times I have heard that "it was God's will." I don't believe that. I know that it is people just trying to make me feel better, to reassure me that I had nothing to do with it, that it was out of my control. Yet it annoys me to hear it. My God, the God that I believe in, has better things to do than go around pointing random fingers and proclaiming who gets what. That is the difference between myself and a lot of people. I am religious, but I think that we have been given free reign by God, and I thought that Jesus made it fairly clear that we have free will. I would not think that God would be so petty as to busy Himself with my affairs so closely. I don't think that He keeps me from getting a good parking spot any more than

Since Mr. Personality's arrival, I have totally cut down on my cussing, and I have only cursed a few times, and I think they went right over his head. At least, I hope they did. What are the curse words you find yourself using the most? Or are they made-up curse words? Why is no one commenting on this one? C'mon, don't tell me you never curse? Or at least say "Jumping Jehosephat" or something? Is everyone pretending to be demure? All right, all right. Apparently HaloScan is having issues. I forgive all of you. I need to go check it out, but if you try to access the comments one more time or refresh the page, they usually come up.

Dear Sears, Six years ago, we bought a Kenmore refrigerator from you. And all of a sudden, the freezer stops working. Ok, well, it is keeping things cold, but barely. The ice cream is mushy and the frozen pizza ain't so frozen, let's just put it that way. Am I wrong to be upset that it doesn't work anymore? That I expect it to be working after only six years? My parent's refrigerator is coming up on almost twenty, and they have never had any problems with it. Ever. My husband has tried everything he and everyone in our phone book can think of to fix it without calling you to repair it. Since the 4th of July, I have been living like a European, only buying things fresh and as I need them. Seriously, it sucks and I want to put some frozen corn in there. But I can't, because your product isn't working properly. Then, when we do call you to schedule an appointment, you try to hard-sell me something that sounds like it belongs in Vegas. Essentially I am bet

So I happen to know, in real life, an internet supahstaaahhh, who is Melodee at Actual Unretouched Photo . I can say I knew her way back when she had a blog entitled (and I hope she doesn't kill me) "Go Ahead, Make My Day," or at least something very much like that. Then she went on to fame and fortune as a blogger on ClubMom , as well as being published in the Christian Science Monitor and other pubications. And she laughed yesterday when I expressed frustration over not remembering to get her autograph, but I was totally being serious. She is just like she is on her blog, smart and not afraid to speak her mind. And prettier and skinnier than me as well. After knowing her online for many years as a result of "meeting" on an AOL message board, I finally got to meet her yesterday. She and her family are in town for her husband's annual conference and lucky me, it was being held in SoCal. I actually had called her the day before since I had given her my c

Maternal Mirth tagged me a long time ago for a meme, you know the one where you list eight things about yourself? Well, I am going to put a twist on this one and give you eight reasons why I am a complete idiot. Here goes: 1) I am so lazy that when the nail polish on my toes chips a bit and needs redoing, I just layer another coat over the chippped one. So that by the end of summer, I have a million layers of toenail polish that takes a minimum fifteen minutes per foot to get off. 2) I have several items that need to be dropped off at the post office, and for some reason I CAN'T GET THERE. 3) Do you want to know what my current library fine is? I dare you to guess. And then guess higher. 4) Have you noticed the ad on my sidebar? Here I went and thought, hey, I could use some money, let's see what happens. My process was that even if I made five bucks a month, that was five bucks I didn't have before. My one day profit so far is one entire cent. I'm gonna have t

Today I went shopping with my two teenaged cousins, my mom, and my sister. The girls and my mom are able to shop at a marathon pace, staying in stores for a very long time. I'm more of a quick looker, I don't examine things for a half hour and hem and haw over the purchase. Either I like it and I can afford it, or I don't like it and/or can't afford it. It's that simple. Anyhoo, the real point to this is that my sister and I, feeling the need to sit down and not seeing the need to be in Saks Fifth Avenue for long amounts of time, went outside and found a comfy place to sit down. And one thing about me that you should know is that I comment on people as they walk by. I can't help it. It's an affliction, I know. If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all and that crap is not what I am about. Well, to be honest, I am snarky. But, I can also be very fair-minded and if someone or something looks good, I will just as readily acknowled

Last night, I forgot it was Thursday! Thus a long and rambling post below instead of a poll! Ack! Hubba-hubba being off work completely threw me. What is your favorite "summer" food?

Thanks to Hubba-hubba, we are now the not-so-proud-owners of a crappy mouse and an even crappier mousepad. You see, sometimes Hubba-hubba goes to a discount store and gets a little carried away. Remember the picture of the Italian Dressing ? It was a bit like that. Our old mouse was getting sticky and just plain old , so we had discussed getting a new one. You can get a pretty good one for about twenty bucks. I had already scouted out the kind I wanted and was getting ready to ask my uber-Microsoft geek BIL to order us one. We also have an ancient but serviceable mousepad, which is of good quality but looking a little worse for wear. So today Hubba-hubba had a planned shopping trajectory, which is vital to his success. If he does not go with a list, he is bound to get all sorts of weird and semi-useless things. He was going to go to Pep Boys, Costco, and possibly Kohl's. Big Lots was not on the approved list of stores. But somehow he found himself strangely drawn to it's

- Does it make me bad that I thought Ladybird Johnson had already passed away? - There are discussions underway about possibly acquiring a dog. There are circumstances associated with this that I am not at liberty to talk about. Yet. - We are in a drought here, and I keep reading that a bunch of you have more rain than you can handle. Send some out West, will ya? The total rainfall in Orange County for the entire year was 2.61 inches. No, that is not a typo. - The man who dares to call himself a President is doing things that make me think treasonous thoughts. Worst. President. EVER. My poor son will still be dealing with the fallout of this Administration when he is an adult. - The woman who runs the part-time Tiny Tots program that I am sending Mr. P to this summer wears the tightest jeans I've ever seen. And she really shouldn't, if you know what I mean. She is not heavy, they are just supremely unflattering on her body type. - Hubba-hubba has the day off tomorrow, wh

As most of you know, I also blog on the Orange County Metroblog . Don't even try to tell me you have never noticed that big blue square on the sidebar. Anyhoo, Orange County and LA County are right next to each other, and I don't know anyone who lives in SoCal that doesn't attend events in both counties. I was born and raised in LA County, so I sometimes live vicariously through the Los Angeles Metroblog , although they tend to focus more on Los Angeles (the city of) than the county. One day I am on there, and I happen to see a post about my favorite band, Oingo Boingo. It was actually more of a YouTube clip of them in their early days on, of all things, The Gong Show. Don't even try to tell me you have never heard of The Gong Show, either. It was a very interesting clip, to say the least, and I typed what turned out to be a completely stupid and moronic comment with a sorry stab at humor thrown in. When I comment on any blog, I just sort of go for it, and didn

The cute-as-a-button Megs nominated me for a "Rockin' Girl Blogger" award, and I thank her ever so much for even thinking of me. I mean, who doesn't like a little bit of recognition now and then? No one that knows me would ever label me recognition-averse. And even though the rules state otherwise, there is no way I can nominate only five other bloggers. Have you seen my blogroll over there? All those people rock, and picking people over others just doesn't seem right to me. So, take the award, consider it yours and put it proudly in your sidebar. I am. *Oh, and I have determined for no particular reason that it is "Postcard from California" time again, my friends! I sent quite a few people postcards a couple of years ago, and so far their houses haven't burnt down and no restraining orders have been placed against me, so I promise your info is safe. Well, unless someone offers me some double digit money and then you might be in trouble. Last

Dear Prius Owner, When you are driving along an Interstate Highway, you need to move over into the slow lane if you don't want to go faster. You may not like it. You may think you are trying to punish the driver you brand a speeder for his exuberance with the gas pedal. But it really is none of your business, is it? I'm curious, do you Prius owners have some sort of contest or bragging rights over the mileage that you get? Because we all know that the slower you go, the more gas you conserve. And I totally respect your right to do that. But, you are not the judge and jury of the world, and so holding up a flotilla of cars because you are either too arrogant, or perhaps clueless, is not the way to win people to your side. I know that here in the LA area, Prius owners practically put a halo on their heads whenever they drive them. You think you are a higher class of human being than all us other gasoline-wasting people, even those like myself who already drive a fuel-efficie

One day last week, Mr. Personality decided to throw a major fit over not getting dessert after dinner. He had experienced a particularly sugar-rich day, and I made the executive decision that after all he had ingested, there was no need for dessert. As the angry tears ran down his precious little face, I told him that he should be grateful for getting all the treats he had already eaten. He looked at me and said, "I'm not grateful, I'm mad -ful." So as long as we are making up words for our emotions, what "ful" are you feeling today?

I am stuck in the ugly netherworld between denial and acceptance. You see, I have cried and I have talked and I have done everything I can productively do to mourn the loss of my second child. I am feeling able to finally change out of my pajamas and actually have the energy to do some cleaning. Even though my sister said I was absolved for at least two weeks from making any decisions harder than what to wear and what to eat, I think I am at a point where I can have a fairly clear-headed perspective on things. Or is that a classic case of denial? What has helped me most is that I have a little boy here who needs his mommy, not some mopey shadow of a mommy who listlessly goes through the day. If there is anything that has helped to motivate me past this, it has been Mr. Personality. I have this fierce desire to shield him from any of my pain. From the first day I began bleeding, I promised myself that he would know nothing, and I have been very successful. I would never want to bu