Momnesia

So check this out. Here is a list of all the things that broke this weekend:

1. my computer
2. the laptop on loan from Chris
3. the printer
4. the DVD player was already broken but it irritated me all weekend just sitting there with its not-working self
5. the car
6. the car we were test-driving to replace the car that broke down
7. the ceiling fan in our bedroom
8. a candle holder that fell off the wall without warning
9. Scott's third toe
10. my digital camera battery (work, not personal camera)
11. Emerson (she has a fever)
12. Scott (he got dehydrated at work so they sent him home. He had to rest and drink lots of Gatorade and water)

We're clearly overdue for a gift from the Universe, and I'm thinking it will be something pretty big, like superpowers. Clearly, about the only thing that didn't break on us this weekend was my sense of humor - and dinner with Patsy tonight will at least wear that down pretty well.

Tune in tomorrow to see if I survived the cookout.

I came home from a meeting on Thursday to find my husband in a panic.

"I need help!" he said, as he dragged the non-slip mat from the bathtub onto the back porch.

"Oh, god, the baby," I thought, and dashed inside to look for her. There she was, naked as the day she was born, running around the apartment with her arms over her head like an orangutan.

I picked her up, her naked butt against my right arm, felt her forehead for a fever, and checked her head and hands for injuries.

"Honey," I called, as I carried her out to the back porch, "I don't see anything wrong."

He sighed heavily. "She pooped."

I jerked my arm away from her butt. It was clean. Her butt was clean. I looked at him quizzically.

"In the tub," he said.

I snickered and went inside to check out her handiwork. Oh, look: with corn.

"Alright!" I said, laughing out loud. "Emerson made a good poopy!"

Natalya -

Okay, there comes a time in a woman's life when friends should turn to her and say, "Stacey, we hate to be the ones to tell you this but... Dude, they could show a MOVIE on your forehead. Go out and get yourself some bangs."

Why did you people not tell me that I have male-pattern baldness? WTF? I would like to be told when I look like a freak of nature, so that I may amend what I am doing to myself, and look less freakish of nature. Sometimes it is okay to point out to people that their forehead is taking over, like a huge glacial mass on the front of my head.

There it is, in all its gleaming glory, white as snow, shining like a beacon to all the
huge-foreheaded-freaks of the world: "Huge-Foreheaded freaks of nature, HERE IS YOUR QUEEN! LARGE CRANIUMED PEOPLE OF EARTH, BOW DOWN TO HER! But be careful not to lose your balance and fall on your face, you top-heavy weirdos."Thanks for the "heads up." I will make a hair appointment ahora.

Love the nostrils, by the way.

(SEE BELOW, BUT BEFOREHEADWARNED)

What. the hell. is cashmere extract?

"We looked for the softest thing we could find, and this is it," a new Softsoap commercial tells television viewers.

Cashmere, FYI, is wool from the Cashmere goat, a kind of Asian goat. So what can you extract from wool? Mittins? Lint? That's certainly what my dryer trap extracts. And socks.

It turns out that the Softsoap website actually tells you, which may be a bad thing:

So, previously, the universe was hating me and was acting in a generally hateful manner that was full of hate. Now, however, the universe has backed off and is now merely chuckling to itself and tossing random obstacles in my way to its infinite amusement.

Let us discuss today...
I got four hours sleep before Emerson woke up. Scott slept in until 11:30 so I didn't get a shower because he had to leave immediately for class. Two hours later he called to say the transmission blew out on the car. He was walking home.

Repairs on the other car were going to be $300 more than we had to spend, but that's just the way it goes. When Scott walked in an hour later, he grinned. It wasn't the transmission.
"Something else makes a car shudder, shake, and go slow," he said. "A flat tire."
"Well, why did you walk home?"
"Because the jack is here."
We left it out of the trunk after changing the brake pads. Duhr.

Figuring he'd be starving after walking so much, I had marinated a whole chicken all afternoon and stuffed my special herb mixture under the skin for maximum flavor. I mixed up garlic-parsley mashed potatoes and a key lime pie. I popped the chicken in the oven, and just asked Scott to turn the heat down to 350 in 15 minutes while I took a shower.

When I got out, Scott stopped me from going in the kitchen.
"We're not having chicken for dinner," he said.
What did I do wrong? Did I put it on "broil" by accident? I opened the oven door and glass showered my feet. There sat my beautiful chicken, splayed on the rack, sans Pyrex baking dish. I looked at my husband.

"See, when I opened the oven door, I noticed it was crackling a lot. I thought, oh, it must need some more water in the bottom." He held up a coffee mug with water still in it. Oh, no. The sudden temperature change shattered the dish.

So I cleaned out the oven and popped the key lime pie in the oven to cook while I went to buy Popeye's to go with the mashed potatoes and green beans. When I got back, the pie was ready. "Scott will you take it out?" I asked as I unpacked the chicken.

He opened the door and yanked on the rack too hard! The pie plate came flying out of the oven - and landed on his oven mitt! Saved!

I collapsed against the refrigerator.
"Don't even laugh," he warned.
Too late.