Conversation at bedtime:

The Boy: Can you leave the door open?

Me: I’ll open it after you fall asleep.

Close door, and approx five seconds later:

The Boy: I’m asleep now!

Me: I can tell that you’re not.

The Boy: Oh, okay. (pause) Now I’m asleep.

I open the door.

Me: Buddy, if you’re still talking to me, then I know you’re not asleep.

As I am about to close the door, I hear a whisper: “What if I talk like this?”

It was the Friday before Labor Day, 1996. Classes started the Monday before. Early in the day, I saw Brassy Girl and Lawyer Girl on the Peace Quad and learned that our friend The Texan had informed them that his idol, Trent Reznor, was putting on a pay at the door, impromptu show at the Howlin’ Wolf (Edited to note: according to the Texan, the show was at Jimmie’s on Oak Street. I could have sworn otherwise). Trent would be playing with the lead singers of Prick and Pop Will Eat Itself (a band I listened to almost every day my freshman year of high school, and thanks to YouTube, you too can enjoy the video madness that is “Can U Dig It” – as in, can you dig that white turtleneck with black stars).

The way I heard it was that Trent was about to do a couple gigs with these guys and he was talking to the owner of Howlin’ Wolf and decided to put on this last minute show sort of as a practice appearance. I have no idea if that’s true or not, but we did know that a last minute concert had been announced at Howlin Wolf featuring Trent Reznor and we intended to be there for it. Brassy, Lawyer, and I headed over after class, where The Texan had already staked a spot in line. That was around 1 or 2pm. The doors didn’t even open until like 5 or 6.

Now would be a good time to mention that the weather in New Orleans this time of year can best be described as humid is as humid gets. It can also be described as rainy. And that particular day, as we sat outside, could be described as *very* rainy – like, torrential downpour rainy. Still we sat and waited, soaking ourselves to the bone for tickets to see Trent Reznor.

Finally, we got in. We were no longer a line of people standing outside in hot sticky weather masked by heavy rain but a crowd of people crammed into a hot sticky bar meeting its maximum occupancy limits – and we were all soaking wet. Aren’t you glad you used Dial commercials don’t even compare to the personal hygiene lines being crossed that night as the crowd continually rubbed against one another with their hot, sweaty bodies and rain-soaked clothing. If you are the kind of person who is grossed out easily by personal hygiene issues, I have been to your worst nightmare. I don’t recall any disgusting smell accompanying the scene because it was overpowered by the prolific cigarette smoking. Have I ever told you how much I can’t stand the smell of cigarette smoke? The things I do for music… You cannot imagine what my hair smelled like after this event. I shudder to recall. And that’s saying a lot, seeing as in my most recent post, I admitted to once going a week without showering.

So we’re in the Howling Wolf, we’re waiting… waiting… waiting… A few bands of insignificant talent performed, until finally, at TEN O’CLOCK (remember what time I said this whole affair started?), Trent Reznor strode onto the stage, along with the guys from Prick and Pop Will Eat Itself, and oh, water and sweat and sticky flesh woes begone—what a glorious show! SO worth the wait.

They performed songs I didn’t know and songs I did know, and I felt like Trent was staring right at me when he sang “Head Like a Hole” but not in a “Ooh! He’s looking at me!” kind of way but a “Wow, he’s kind of got a ubiquitous eye thing going on – that’s freaky” kind of way. Which, in my youthful mind, equaled “Like, awesome.” Everyone went nuts, dancing, and moshing (I can’t even believe I used that word, but that’s what it was), and, frankly, between the whole day of sitting in rain and standing in the bar and then the heat and the crowd and the lack of food all day and the limited amount of water (because who wants to struggle through sticky-fleshed peoples for a cup of water from the bar tap and lose prime spots right by the stage?), it got pretty rough. I felt like I was going to faint. Brassy actually did faint. We snuck outside for fresh air, then trooped back in and finished the show. The show ended around midnight, and we were elated albeit soaked and sweaty and famished, not to mention we had also planned a road trip that weekend to my brother’s place in Gainesville, Florida, approximately a 9-hour drive away.

Because we were in college, and therefore invincible and not in need of those silly things like sleep, we decided to go to our respective homes, shower and dry off, pack our bags, and meet back at Brassy and Lawyer’s place within the hour to – yes – drive nine hours to Gainesville.

I went to my dorm room – remember those torrential rains I was talking about earlier? My SECOND FLOOR dorm room had a soaked floor and hallway. Welcome to New Orleans. I didn’t even want to deal with it. I told my roommate I’d help clean when I got back on Monday, packed my bags, and walked right back out. And I wonder why we don’t keep in touch.

9 hours later…

We arrived in Gainesville, Florida in that wide eyed stupor that comes from too much coffee, too much driving, no sleep, and a previous night of sweat-and-water-soaked moshing to an impromptu Trent Reznor concert. What was going on when we arrived in Gainesville? The pre-partying for the Tennessee-Florida football game. For those of you not familiar with the adrenaline rush that is an SEC game, imagine thousands of college students driving and walking about, crowding up the streets and sidewalks wearing orange and blue and (in that day’s case) orange and white. The whole city had turned into one big tailgating party that we had to wade through to get to my brother’s house, where we would rest for a few hours before driving ANOTHER TWO HOURS to Orlando where the Zen Fest would be going on that night. After telling my brother all about the Trent Reznor show, including vivid descriptions of sweat and flesh-rubbing that made everyone possibly uncomfortable, I turned to his bedroom for a nap.

Restless sleep and a two-hour drive later…

Zen Fest took place.

And that, my friends, is a story for another post.

***

On another note, I guest posted at Scribbit today on free things to do with children in south Orange County. Am I aware of the irony of adding this message to the end of this post? You betcha. Oh life, look at this long silly path you’ve brought me along…

Did you know that Johnson and Johnson’s is celebrating 50 Years of No More Tears this year? That is a long time to be in charge of the wash and hygeine care of our children.

Thanks to MomCentral, Johnson and Johnson hooked me up with their bubble bath and foaming head-to-toe wash. Little No Limit has been enjoying the luxuries of it and I admit, the scent is quite nice. The Boy’s skin is, unfortunately, way too sensitive to indulge in the free products, but he is able to use other Johnson and Johnson products from the Aveeno and Neutrogena lines.

So in honor of all these baths and Johnson and Johnson’s 50th anniversary, here are 50 things about baths:

5 reasons you should take a bubble bath:

1. So you don’t smell.
2. Nothing cleans your fingernails like a nice long bath soak.
3. So you can find a moment of peace.
4. When someone asks what you’re doing, you can respond, “Immersing myself.”
5. Because showers beat up you. Baths caress.

5 reasons your kids should take a bath:

6. Because they smell.
7. Nothing cleans a dirty child like a nice long bath soak.
8. To give you a moment of peace.
9. When someone asks what they’re doing, you don’t need to wonder.
10. Because showers aren’t nearly as cool to a kid, who is in no rush to go anywhere.

5 Reasons your dog should take a bath:

11. Lord have mercy, they STINK!
12. Ditto.
13. Ditto.
14. Ditto.
15. Ditto.

10 things you can do in a bubble bath:

16. Read a book.
17. Drink a glass of white wine or champagne.
18. Eat chilled fruit, like grapes or strawberries or cantaloupe and let the juice run on your fingers until they’re cold and then bring your hand back into the warm water.
19. Push back your cuticles.
20. Massage your feet.
21. Close the door, dim the light, turn on soft music and Imagine you’re at a spa.
22. Or make your musical selection the sound of ocean waves and imagine you’re at the beach.
23. Give your hair a hot oil treatment.
24. Give your face a mudmask.
25. Forget all about that irritating to do list.

10 things your kids can do in the bath:

26. Put a washcloth in a cup and call it ice cream (my kids do this every bath and think it’s hilarious).
27. Put soap suds on the walls of the tab and pretend they’re tub washers.
28. Stand up and slide their feet back and forth like they’re on a big inflatable raft (pending whether your tub has a solid hand grip).
29. Water flutes (plastic tube flutes where you add different levels of water to produce different sounds).
30. Crayon soap.
31. Soak a pop-up sponge or compacted towel.
32. If you have more than one child, they can play salon and wash each other’s hair.
33. Add a kettle of chamomile tea and call it tea time (nice on the skin, even the most sensitive skins).
34. Add some oatmeal with the tea and call it a breakfast bath (but *obviously* don’t let them eat this oatmeal).
35. Mini beach balls/sponge balls and a suction cup basketball hoop.

10 things that will happen when you put your dog in the bath:

36. They will not like you for the rest of the day.
37. You will repeatedly tell the kids they cannot get into the bathtub naked while the dog is getting its bath.
38. The dog will attempt many times to escape and the kids will not help, but laugh.
39. Once bathed, you will think, “Wow, I thought the bathtub was dirty before I washed the dog in it.”
40. Water will be sprayed and shaken all over the bathroom walls and any other room your dog makes it into.
41. After you believe you have towel dried and blow-dried the remaining liquid off your dog, they will go around to all the rooms shaking off water again.
42. You will go over your whole house with disinfectant wipes.
43. You may have to mop your floor.
44. You will begrudgingly admit to yourself that you cannot put off cleaning the bathroom any longer.
45. It will take you an hour to clean and disinfect your tub.

5 things about baths you might not know:

46. Jane Austen lived in the city of Bath in Somerset in England from 1801 to 1806. Despite her writing two novels set in the city, she did not like it, but Bath has named a city and city walk after her nonetheless.
47. The Bath Rugby Football Club was founded in 1865, making it one of the oldest teams to participate in what I refer to as the most terrifying sport in existence.
48. There are 11 US cities named Bath, not include towns, townships, counties, villages, or beaches.
49. The Bath Iron Works shipyard in Bath Maine built many famous WWII military warships, including the USS Nicholas, which holds the US Navy record for battle stars (30 combined from WWII, Korean War, and Vietnam).
50. I once went a week in college without taking a bath because my friends bet me to do it. I really did. My hair got pretty slick. Aren’t you glad you read to the end now?

P.S. Here’s a nice little video about Johnson and Johnson’s too.

I’ll be honest. The key to ensuring your children exercise caution and privacy on the Internet is in your hands. Set a good example (ie, don’t click on the pretty girl and her “see my webcam” only to find a sign up sheet for online poker). Sit down and have a face-to-face talk with your children about Internet safety. Require everyone to take some time OFF the computer. That being said, we live in a new age, and you might like the security measures you can take with Norton Online Family.

Here’s run down of what Norton Online Family has to offer:

One set-up for the whole family: You create one account online that you can customize to every person in the family, instead of four separate accounts

Website Reporting: Can see all the sites your children visit – although I’m sure you don’t need to check up on that that much because they’re quite trustworthy, no?

Word Search reporting: I thought this was neat – you can also see the words and phrases your children use and where those searches lead. Pretty cool because while your kid may have been innocent enough in her search for a “pretty box” you never know what perverted site might come up…

Site control: Like most parental securities, there’s a 40+ category of topics you can block. Think of it as SiteBusters.

Personal Information Safety: You can also see and/or stop the exchange of your children’s personal information that they may (in)voluntarily send on e-mail, IM or social networks.

Speaking of Social Networks: You can keep track of their activity on those sites too. Then again, you could just ask to add yourself as a friend.

Parent Alerts: If any of the house rules you set through Norton are broken, an email will be sent to you.

Timer: You can assign computer curfews. My teenage mind is reeling. Oh, the dreaded curfew… back with a vengeance!

For a free sneak peek of Norton Online Family, go here.

Disney On Ice

10. When they see The Incredibles on DVD, they brag to their friends they saw the REAL Elastigirl because only the real one could hold one foot behind her head while spinning around on the other.

9. They think that Alice actually went to a Winter Wonderland, and that Alice’s one-foot spin is the new way to handle the Queen’s “off with their head” request (seriously, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum – watch out, you’re getting a little too close).

8. They wonder what happened to the bottom halves of all the Disney princesses’ ball gowns.

7. In addition to “falling… with style” and karate chop action, Buzz Lightyear can add Triple Axel his repertoire of skills.

6. My kids know what a Triple Axel is?

5. They have changed the lyrics of “I Wanna Be Like You” to “I Wanna Skate Like You (ooh ooh).” Better than the more difficult to sing “I Wanna Do a Toe Pick Jump Takeoff Like You (ooh ooh).”

4. They believe it is acceptable to drive a car on ice.

3. Cinderella never ceases to amaze in her unending list of skills: cleans, cooks, talks to mice and birds, can arrive fashionably late at a party via pumpkin, rides around skating rink atop Prince Charming’s arms – The Boy dreamily muses, “So this is love… doo doo doo doo… so this is looooove…”

2. They’re worried that Nemo and the gang (not to mention Ariel) are going to freeze on the ice.

1. They go to Disneyland and are disappointed to see Mickey and Minnie “just walking.”

So. Interested in seeing Disney on Ice?

***

Much like I gave you the dirt on circus specials last week, MomCentral also sent out word there are some specials for moms who want to see Disney on Ice:

Offer #1: Get 4 tickets for just $44 by entering the code “MOM” at select ticketing channels*. Offer good on all performances, minimum purchase of 4 tickets required; additional tickets above 4 can be purchased at $11 each. Offer not valid on Gold Circle Seating, Front Row and VIP seating or combinable with other offers. Other restrictions may apply.

Offer #2: A select amount of Front Row and VIP seats have been reserved for you to buy before they go on sale to the public - just enter the code “MOM” when purchasing those seats.

Dates and cities where families can use the national MOM code are as follows:

Houston
Disney On Ice presents Mickey and Minnie’s Magical Journey
April 15-April 19

Dallas/Ft Worth
Disney On Ice presents Mickey & Minnie’s Magical Journey
March 18-March 29

Sunrise/Miami
Disney On Ice presents Worlds of Fantasy
March 26-April 5

Toronto
Disney On Ice presents Worlds of Fantasy
March 18-March 22

Kansas City
Disney On Ice presents Mickey & Minnie’s Magical Journey
April 1-April 5

Denver
Disney On Ice presents a Disneyland® Adventure
March 12-March 15

Phoenix
Disney On Ice presents a Disneyland® Adventure
April 9-April 12

Chicago/Rosemont
Disney On Ice celebrates 100 Years of Magic
Sept 8-Sept 13

Don’t see your city? Check out the Disney On Ice website or Ticketmaster to use the 4 tickets for $44 code, MOM. The Disney on Ice site also includes video highlights of the shows (check out Pinocchio – a real boy with real skills!).

I met Mary Patterson Broome a few months ago when she was on the Duke Fightmaster Show and she was so funny I asked her if I could do an interview with her on my blog. She immediately responded yes and it took me almost three months to send her the questions. This is why I will never be a top tier blogger.

The world of stand up comedy is so intriguing to me. I love watching it, on TV and live. I imagine it would be so fun to do, but find it incredibly daunting. I think I would really take it to heart if people didn’t laugh. I have all the respect in the world for anyone who does stand up, especially one as nice as Mary Patterson Broome.

1. What prompted you to go into stand up comedy?

Talking is really the only thing I’m good at. My friends always told me I was a great story teller and I’ve always loved performing - especially when I have total control of the content, which is something stand-up allows and plays or improv comedy do not.

2. What were some of your previous jobs before stand up comedy, and do any of those jobs make it into your act?

Oh yeah. I was a page (glorified usher) at CBS where The Price is Right tapes. I had to wear a red blazer with shoulder pads and a bow tie. I felt extremely attractive, as I’m sure you can imagine. Definitely have that experience in the ole’ routine.

3. What is your favorite thing about stand up comedy?

I love that it’s live and in the moment. There is no other art that gets an instant response. Of course if you’re not getting laughs, that is sometimes not the most fun aspect of it!

4. And your least favorite thing?

My least favorite thing is some of the time wasted just waiting for 8 minutes of stage time. I’m told this is part of paying your dues as a young comic but some times showing up at 7:00 PM and not getting on stage until 10:30 PM is exhausting.

5. Have you ever totally bombed with an audience? How do you handle that?

Yes. Like, the bomb.com. It’s brutal but the longer you’re a comic and the more you get on stage, the less and less you care if one set doesn’t go well. It happens to EVERYONE…or so I’m told.

6. What advice would you give to someone interested in doing stand up comedy?

Take a writing class and learn how to write a joke. Don’t just get up there and ramble because your friends tell you you’re funny. Strangers will expect you to have set-up and punch. Write as much as possible and get on stage as much as possible. Be nice to every comic you meet because they’re usually the ones that book shows you’ll want to be doing when you first start out!

7. Who are some of your favorite comedians?

I love Seinfeld and Jeff Foxworthy. I tend to lean toward comics on the clean side but I also love Doug Benson and Chelsea Handler.

8. Where do you come up with your material?

It’s usually all based on personal experience. I can usually twist any weird interaction with someone, whether it be a total stranger or a guy I’m dating, into a joke (not surprisingly, the guys I’m dating don’t so much enjoy that). I have some stuff about being from the South and my parents, too.

9. Where do you hope your comedy ultimately takes you (eg: movies, talk show, Vegas casino, comedy tour, etc)?

I’d actually love to get acting roles based on my comedy. I find that most comedic actors and actresses are basically themselves (is that grammatically correct?) in every role, with slight variations. I did a lot of acting growing up but felt more pulled to stand-up after college. I’d love to get back into acting through stand-up at some point. I would also love to do the road with my stand-up act.

10. I notice a lot of comedians use YouTube and MySpace to promote their work? How do you think the internet has changed the face of comedy?

It’s completely changed the face of comedy. A person can convince cyber space that he or she already has full-blown comedy career just by having a good-looking MySpace page! I think it’s good though because a comic can create and produce a ton of content then immediately get exposure for it. A performer can develop a fan base on the internet which sometimes really appeals to agents and managers, a great thing for performers without representation. Having said that, it’s kind of sad that these industry types can just pull up YouTube now instead of going out to a comedy club to check out new talent live.

11. How would you describe your style of comedy? Who would you compare yourself to?

This question is still tricky for me. I’d say I’m definitely clean so if someone’s looking for raunchy stuff, I’m probably not their gal. I make observations based on personal experience but sort of make fun of the fact that it’s coming from a limited, upper-middle class white girl perspective. I don’t like to compare myself to anyone. I’d like to think every comedian brings something new and different to the table.

12. Top three places in LA for good comedy?

My top picks are the Hollywood Improv, The Laugh Factory and O’Brien’s Pub in Santa Monica (okay, I really just love this bar but the comedy on Thursday and Sunday nights is free and fun!)

13. Any thing you’d like to say?

Get off your computer and go see comedy LIVE. It’s much better that way. If you live in the LA area, check out Mary Patterson Broome’s MySpace page for her upcoming appearances, and enjoy this clip:

I’m pretty funny…

This post contributed to Thursday Thirteen.

Friend called me last Thursday and said, “Sorry for the last minute notice, but I have an extra ticket to Lord of the Dance at the Orange County Performing Arts Center this Saturday. Want to come?”

Short notice? In the words of Special Man, “Nooooo problem!” Sis in law graciously stepped in to watch the kids and I got to sneak off for a free day of fun with Friend. And to show what kind of good friend I am, I offered to buy her a drink during the intermission. She declined because she’d just had her wisdom teeth pulled but accompanied me to get my drink, which is a good thing because after I ordered my drink, I discovered that they accept cash (how twentieth century of them) and my friend had to lend me money to buy my own drink. Yes, folks, that’s the kind of friend I am.

But back to Lord of the Dance. First off, let me just say that I love the song “Lord of the Dance” so much that it was the recessional hymn in my wedding ceremony. I also love theatre. I also love dancing, in particular tap. And while I don’t know much about Irish dancing, all these other loves point to YES.

In short, Lord of the Dance is totally awesome. Anyone with a love for theatre or dance will enjoy this show. I will admit, the costumes and stage effects do have a New Age tone to it, as if the entire show had been put together by Stevie Nicks in and for the city of Sedona. And I don’t deny I didn’t entirely follow the storyline short of it being something about good vs. evil and sexy seductress vs. girl-next-door.

But the dancing, oh the dancing. I smiled through most of the show involuntarily because I love listening to the tapping just that much. I also got a couple charley horses just watching them dance. Oi. Those people some serious dancing legs.
If Lord of the Dance is coming near you, by all means go. You won’t be disappointed. And to give you a little taste of its awesomeness, here’s a bit of the grand finale from the Michael Flatley times – it’s cool to watch on video, but pales in comparison to watching it live:

If this is just too long for your attention span (you sad product of today, you), try to make it to the 3:36 mark or so, and if even that is too long, try to watch at least from the 3:13 to the 3:20 mark – 7 seconds. Think you manage 7 seconds?

I used to have an apple orchard with around 150 trees. They were all red and golden delicious apples and they were the best tasting apples ever (assuming you like sweet apples). Fortunately, Husband did most of the plant tending, because as I’ve always maintained, I do not have a green thumb.

Even here, in my simple little backyard, I cannot even make my rosebushes thrive without attracting the likes of whiteflies and aphids. Our hydrangea plant isn’t in the greatest shape either. And the palm trees? Forget about it.

The truth is, I not only don’t have a green thumb, but calling my thumb a brown thumb is an insult to other brown thumbs out there. Like Crayola, I think we need to get more creative with the color of my thumb, something along the lines of “Composted Leaf Thumb.”

Composted Leaf Thumb suggests that it is definitely brown, but because of the whole composting thing, it hints at my tendencies towards organic and all-natural, and maybe, just maybe, indicates a desire to be more than a brown thumb, to move on to being a green thumb in the thematic sense of renewal with the whole leaves changing color thing? Am I way off now and I’ve totally lost you? Because I kind of lost myself about two sentences ago. Oh, well. My main point is this: I know I don’t have a green thumb but I don’t let that stop me from trying. Also, I don’t like to use pesticides, so all my attempts to go green (as in, keep them plants alive and green) must also be green (as in, the trendy sense of the word).

I’ve read through books like Organic Gardening and Dead Snails Leave No Trails (and by “read through” I mean I skimmed them and Husband read them and gave me the gist of them) and I think I’m ready to take on my pest problems without introducing pesticides. Thanks goodness for YouTube (how many time a days do you say that? and how many times does that comment have to do with finding yet another David Hasselhoff-related video?). Here’s a nifty video from Designing Spaces TV about Safer brand organic pest control products:

Turns out Safer brands makes an organic Bug Patrol that can control my aphid and whiteflies problems. Sweet!

For more gardening tips, you can visit the actual Safer website (which also has plant disease info, info on garden insects, an organic rose care kit, and organic bug control) or you can continue to read about me and my shenanigans as I spend this spring attempting to revive my roses, palm trees, and shrubbery. And, if we’re all really lucky, I just might succeed in growing my Chia herb garden and be able to post pictures of it.

And these are the two they pair together? Nice mask…

See other children’s art projects at Magic Marker Monday.

I got suckered in by a Yahoo headline and clicked over to People.com today to read about Gwyneth defending her website, Goop.com:

“I think the people who are criticizing it or criticizing the idea of it, don’t really get it, because if they did, they would like it.”

So, I’m guessing the title of her next newsletter is “Logic.”

If only, Gwyneth, if only. Goop doesn’t seem too hard to “get.” It’s essentially a very fancy blog with different pages for its categories. I liked reading about her Parisian weekends and her “I’m a NY girl at heart” ways. Gwyneth describes herself as having a “super fortunate life,” so why shouldn’t she share it with everyone else? I say and do the same thing myself. So do most bloggers. Give the girl the break.

And with regards to the journalist who suggested she chose “Goop” for the title because “Learn From Me, Ungrateful Peasants” was already taken, I have to admit, I would have thought much higher of Gwyneth if she had chosen the latter.