All Rileyed Up

Yesterday, my glasses dropped on the sidewalk and the lens popped out. I don’t even know what kind of shoddy glasses I own that when I abuse them and lose them and drop them on cement, the lens has the nerve to pop out AND refuse to be forced back in!

I needed a screwdriver to loosen the frame to slip the lens in, so I went into my dark and scary garage to find one. The garage smells like dog, is poorly lit, very disorganized and half the floor is covered with wood shavings and dead bees. We had a bee hive removed OVER A YEAR AGO from the area outside the garage window and dead bees are still on my garage floor.

Why? Because I’m not cleaning the garage. It’s full of tool-related stuff that I don’t even recognize, except for screwdrivers and hammers. Roto whatevers and saw tables and every picture in the Lowe’s ads that make it possible to turn a crib into a desk–that’s what’s in my garage. And the person who does know what these things are (I’ll give you a hint — his name starts with an H and ends with an -usband)? He’s too busy working to clean the garage (not in a ‘I begrudge it’ kind of way, but a ‘He works hard enough that I just don’t have the heart to ask him to clean the garage on his day off’ kind of way, esp since he won me over with his dirty talking). So we have this garage of canine cologne and bee bombardment, and this is where I have to venture for my screwdriver.

Now, being the energetic person that I am, I didn’t want to bring the screwdriver back inside the house to sit at the table to fix my glasses and then have to bring the screwdriver back outside. Twenty or thrity steps are just TOO MUCH for my ONLY PAIR OF PRESCRIPTION GLASSES (that aren’t sunglasses). I tried to fix them in the garage. The poorly lit one. With wood shavings and dead bees.

Did I mention I was also talking on the phone and therefore holding a phone to my ear with my shoulder while trying to repair the glasses in my hands? AND I had no glasses on because (obviously) I was trying to fix them?

If you didn’t see where this was going, my dumb ass dropped the screw that holds my glasses frame together.

And though I cursed and vainly searched, and then walked back inside to get a flashlight, I still didn’t find it. I spent the rest of the day, a sunless day, in my sunglasses and the following morning drove to Sears and bought a watch repair kit.

So, let’s see… avoiding one trip to the garage cost me two extra trips to the garage (to get the flashlight and go back out), not being able to see long distances for a day, a drive to and from Sears, and five bucks. I’m not a math genius (and based on the story at hand, I’m no genius at all), but I think I wound up on the losing end of that equation.

Two pictures today, from Lafayette Cemetery in New Orleans, in honor of a family death. It turns out this will be our final memory of him.

(See more pix here: wordless wednesday
Wordless Wednesday )

BOB Books have apparently been around for a while, but this is my first introduction to them. I have Set 1 for Beginning Readers, comprised of 12 short booklets. And boy howdy, do they mean short. I wish all books were like this, because as un-motherly as it sounds, sometimes I can’t stand reading aloud with the kids. I used to enjoy reading kid books, but when I’m reading something for the 950th time, it wears on my interests somewhat. Fortunately, no matter how bored I might get of reading BOB books, at least they’re short. Anyone can handle a minute, right?

My kids, ages 3 and 4, enjoy BOB books. They don’t read aloud much (yet), but they will point to the pictures. The sentences are nice and simple (“Mat sat. Sam sat.”) and at the beginning of every booklet, they tell you which sounds are being emphasized (no more than four per book), which is nice for the older children because you can make them point them out while reading. The books are also stick drawings with bits of color, so you could extend the reading activity to an art activity by encouraging your kids to draw them freehand or trace them, and color them. You could even re-enact these stories, as most of them involved easy things like “Dot and Mit sit on a mat” that could get funny when they sit on each other.

I like this one guy, Mac, who looks a little bit like a robot. “Dot and the Dog” involves the story of Dot, a little girl who looks like her hair is permanently in curlers, and her dog, as they try to figure out what is in a bag that Dot has. In the end, they discover “The bag had a hot dog.” I don’t know about you, some mystery bag containing a hot dog sounds pretty suspicious to me.

Then there is “Lad and the Fat Cat” — easily my favorite. First, it contains the sentence: “Lad sat on a keg,” followed up with “Lad had a nap” where he is sleeping against the keg (aka “barrel”). This book also talked about the “fat, fat cat” who at the end we find out was pregnant! Yes! Let’s call the pregnant animals fat! That will make all of us mommies feel great.

In “The Vet,” a veterinarian who goes to the zoo to help the hurt lion, which includes a page where “The cat ran zig zag. The vet ran zip zap.” The picture of the vet makes him look like he is a figure skater, and frankly, I don’t think it’s a good idea to move like that around a big cat (we all saw what happened to poor Roy, of “Siegfried and” fame ). But no worries from The Vet – he and the lion shake hands at the end (“O.K. Cat! O.K. Vet!”)

So, um, yeah. That’s my review of this book. Enthusiastic thumbs up for the little kids! And a few snickers for Mommy and Daddy too.

Important things for you to know:

Buy the book here.

Read more about the book here.

Want to review books like this? Go here.

BTW, Kailani of An Island Life is holding a giveaway to Warm Biscuit Bedding Company. Stop by before September 28th for all the details. They have nice fabric (and I’m into sewing lately).

You can also check out Kailani’s sidebar for info on the Carnival of Family Life, to which this book review is being submitted. See Real Life after Sept 30 for more posts.

My niece, bless her, is a cheerleader.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cs2LxuFEjpc]

She started high school this year and made the JV cheer squad (by the way, only two girls who went to tryouts did not make the team. I bet they felt great. Welcome to high school, girls. You’ll be feeling like that for the next four years.)

I watched my niece at the end of last school year as she practiced for tryouts, and I had to find other babysitters this summer while she attended cheer camp and cheer practice, and I even had to drive a gallon of gasoline to her mother one day, when she ran out of gas after dropping my niece off to gymnastics, which she started taking to improve her acrobatic abilities. All in all, I am a TOTAL BYSTANDER to the art that is her cheering.

Today, I went from bystander to psuedo-participant by attending a JV football game. I wanted to see my niece in action, to watch her cheer and to cheer her on as she cheered her team on, and to cheer in response to their cheers, which were intended to encourage the people in the stands to cheer (go ahead, reread it).

I brought Little No Limit and The Boy and we sat in the very front bleacher and – enough, already! – cheered. My niece, who is cool enough to not be embarrassed by her grandma, aunt, and cousins showing up to watch her cheer, smiled and waved. She even walked over and gave us hugs during halftime. Her friend gave the kids balloons (which got in the way the rest of the game, but it was a nice gesture). My niece later informed me that some of her cheer friends even said, “Look at those cute kids” and she told them they were her cousins. Whether or not she just said that to have something nice to say, I’m not above believing it.

Although it was JV football, the game was entertaining. How can one not get excited by witnessing the opposing team’s verbal abuse of their waterboy? They really seemed to get off on yelling at him. I also saw an excellent touchdown and many boy pile-ups. Parents yelled “defense!” with half their faces hidden behind video cameras. In my ideal world, they are videotaping the game to proudly show it to/harass out-of-town family members, and NOT planning to play back the game with their son to point out where he could have done better. In truth, they are probably videotaping it and will never watch it again. Whatever. I have a few years before I need to think about it. And I WILL need to think about it because The Boy was thoroughly excited by the game, and kept asking to play. Little No Limit was equally mesmerized by the cheering, clapping when they clapped and yelling incoherently when they yelled “Go!”

Everyone* left on a high note that night: the families of the cheerleaders got to see the girls do their thing. The families of the football players got to see the boys do their thing. The families of everyone at the school got to see their school win 20-0. And I – I got to sit around and get a taste of what’s to come while my kids played in the dirt. At least they weren’t eating the dirt. We’ve come such a long way.

*Did I say everyone? Obviously, not the losing team. 20-0! Whew. Maybe the waterboy put something in their water. It would serve them right. Poor, abused waterboy…

This morning, havoc ensued when the Notorious F.O.X. brought a dead rat into the house. The poor thing was clenching a tiny twig in its forepaw at the moment of death. It looked like it was holding a flower whose petals had fallen off.

And I’m going to let you in on a little something – when I saw that dead rat on the floor, I screamed. Not a high pitched girly scream, but a loud yell-scream, like the kind of sound you make when you’re listening to that Jingle Bells backwards email that your friend sent you wherein a friggin demonic creature takes over your computer and screams at you and you have to call your friend and yell at them for sending that without any kind of warning because you were holding your then two year old in your lap and now that stupid email joke may have scarred her for life… but I digress.

The reason I bring up this rat is that I am noticing a disturbing trend in the House of Riley. Grossness is taking over my home. Grossness! Dead rat in dog’s mouth? Gross!

Know what else is gross?

Last Friday, I grabbed the garbage bin handle and promptly stuck my hand into a spider web containing three dead flies.
Sticky web + dead flies + MY FINGERNAILS = GROSS.
I’m still waking up in the middle of the night and washing my hands, murmuring “out, damned web, out I say.”

Hey! Guess what else is gross?

Yesterday, I went to the gym again. (That’s not the gross part) I worked my heart rate into a frenzy on that crazy elliptical thingamajig which resulted in copious amounts of sweat. (Still not the gross part) I used my towel like the good gym member that I am to wipe my sweat off all the weight machines and such, and when I was done with my thoroughly sweaty gym routine, I got the kids from the gym care and went home. On the way home, The Boy asked if we could stop by the beach, which sounded like a good idea. We walked along, played with stones and sand, and then Little No Limit tripped and soaked herself in the water. Not a big deal. It happens almost every time we’re at the beach. That’s why I keep extra towels and clothes in the back of my car at all times. However, when we got back to the car, I realized I had forgotten to replenish the supply since the previous trip to the beach, which meant the only towel option in the car was – oh yes – my nasty, sweaty gym towel. Which we used, because she was that wet.

Gross, huh?

This may be the grossest, though:

Husband and I discovered that Little No Limit has been secretly brushing the dogs’ backs with – sigh – her toothbrush. Yeah. We caught her doing it this morning. No telling how long it’s been going on. Or whoever else’s toothbrushes may have been used. I shudder to think. Excuse me, now. I’m off to buy new toothbrushes. And Listerine. The jumbo size.

(This post contributed to the Carnival of Family Life, which will be hosted this Sunday at The Chocolate Chip Cookie Family.)

I’m serious.
What am I supposed to say? Oh yeah: Listen up, you dirty bilge rats! I am The Dread Dog of the Depths! Behold my glowing gold eyes!

You don’t scare me you cowardly canine! Now get back in your cargo cage, or I’ll cockamamie the cockswain right out yer caboodle!

The hell does that mean?

Argh! It means I’ve had too much grog, you yellow eyed, yellow bellied, yellow haired denizen of Mickey Dolenz’s locker!

It’s Davey Jones, fool.

They’re all a bunch of Monkees, which is what you’re going to become if you don’t watch it, you grog-guzzling gargantuan go-go boot wearing goober! Grrrrr!

I don’t like this game.

Avast! That’s because yer a dumb lubber who doesn’t know a good time when it drapes itself around her head! So says I!

I’m leaving now.

Arrgh! Get outta here right smart then, ya pathetic pusillanimous peacock. And bring me back some grog!

I don’t think pirates talk like that.

Damn to the depths, you cursed creature!

The rest of this post has been lost to the watery depths as Rio and I fought to the death! The death, mateys! In its place, I offer you one final shot, of the best pirate there ever could have been:

Thank you, thank you very much.

talk like a pirate day

Fishing (Coats) in Alaska

Skagway’s version of M*A*S*H

Behold… my large hand!

Boo!

More like Hidin’ Out in Alaska

Right now, a postcard of Elvis in some ridiculous fur outfit would have come in handy. Anybody got one?

Technorati tag:
postcards
tacky postcards

The Boy is fond of two sayings these days.

One of them is “I want to play with my peter.”
Translation: “I want to play with my computer.”

The other is “I want to play with Daddy’s balls.”
Translation: “I want to play with Daddy’s golf balls.”

What must my neighbors think…

I bet Danny Elfman wishes these guys were around when they made Pee Wee’s Big Adventure.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhXCRnkYZNg]

See more pix here: wordless wednesday
Wordless Wednesday