The Motherlode of Bling

Apparently, there are women who walk among us who own a lot of jewelry. I am not one of these women - I tend to take a liking to one item at a time and then wear it every day for a few months, until I forget to one day, and then I forget for pretty much ever. I have a little tray on my dresser which holds the few things I keep in regular rotation, and it takes up less than a square foot of my space.

So you can imagine my surprise when I peeked into the innocent-looking bag given to Evie last weekend by her Auntie Ani, which she described as 'just some old jewelry'. Inside was a literal shit-ton of gold and silver and sparkles and animal prints and, *gasp*, and...I can't go on. "Whoa,"was my first reaction.

I let the bag sit on the kitchen table for a day until, during our bedtime ritual, Evie interrupted to ask if I could get something out of the bag for her. "Mama can you find this necklace I saw - it has a plus sign on it, but one side is like, longer?"

"You mean a cross?"

"Yeah yeah, a cross. And it has sparkles in it, like shiny clear...diamonds? Can you find it so I can wear it to school tomorrow?"

"Sure thing sweetie." Oh, what a naive fool I am.

I went downstairs, peered into the bag, and saw an intimidating mass of tangled chains, enormous earrings, dozens upon dozens of bracelets, countless rings and a random pair of sunglasses. After a few minutes of digging around I found the cross. I set to the big task of untangling it - and that is where I spent every spare moment I had over the next several days.

The fruit of my labor

You see, untangling things is my specialty (read: I'm a little OCD about it), and once focused on the project of doing so, I must finish. A quick look at the above photo might give you an idea of the tangle-potential of the jewelry in that bag. And that's not even all of it - side note: if anyone gets a gift of jewelry from the teenager any time soon, you'll know where it came from. 

I decided that this was far too much jewelry for an 8-year-old without pierced ears, and I would have to find a way to carefully organize it all so that it didn't get retangled before she got a chance to enjoy it, so given is she to throwing stuff into maddeningly random piles around her room.

Can you guess which pair I'll be trying to rock soon?

Of course, there were things I knew she'd want to utilize in her wardrobe stylings immediately:

OMG Gold Bow Bracelet - adorbs.

Notice how nicely NOT tangled these are...

After stacking the bajillions of bangles, I was finally finished:

Now for the daunting problem of figuring out how to organize all of this stuff so that we can have our kitchen table back. Women with masses of jewelry, what are your secrets?! I have a feeling that Pinterest is going to be my best friend today...which is awesome because we all know how much I love a DIY craft project!

In the meantime, I have some accessorizing to play around with:

I think it works

But seriously - please leave any tips, suggestions, ideas on organizing all of this shizz in the comments below. Thanks!

Nine Days

I'd known months in advance that Erin's week long Yoga Retreat in Mexico was set for mid-March. I'm not sure what a "Yoga Retreat" entails, just that it meant a significant number of local moms were abandoning the children of Healdsburg to the questionable competence of the local dads. The authorities probably should have been notified.

I wasn't sure if I was up to the task, but it turned out not to be that big of a deal. Seriously! I guess I'm not really sure why I thought it would be. I had to come up with a couple of new dinner ideas and we went through a few more diapers, but really it wasn't so different from any other week.

I think I was worried about Jodee. Our relationship is still relatively new, or at least in my head it's too new to be subjecting it to this kind of test.

Three and five-year-old brothers are, quite simply, a natural disaster personified. There's nothing you can do to prevent a hurricane. All you can do is be prepared for the onslaught, endure it, and rebuild. It's exactly the same with Liam and Finn each weekend we're together. The last nine straight days, however, was like one of those hurricanes that stalls off the coast and just keeps making things worse and worse.

I anticipated this and wisely planned a couple of moments of relief. For example, I scheduled a sitter for Thursday night as a surprise for Jodee. I had no real plan in place for the evening, just a spontaneous break, maybe a walk downtown or a quick happy hour cocktail. This would have been great except I was so scatterbrained trying to manage the logistics of the week I forgot about the sitter until she texted that she was on her way. Of course I received this text while I was on my way to trade cars with Jodee at the gym and go pick the boys up from daycare. I got home 45 minutes into the 2 hour window I'd promised the sitter, so I paid her for her time and went and had a 1 hour 15 minute date with myself.

A Night on the Town

I think leaving town with the boys the following night was a wise move. We hadn't seen my parents in a while so it was off to Berkeley to hear my mother's sweet voice telling me things like "you should take a nap" and "we ordered pizza."

I got back Sunday night. While it was a totally manageable week, I was too exhausted on that final night to do anything but stumble to bed. The boys had napped during the day and weren't ready to end their weekend. Mercifully, Jodee offered to stay up for a bit and put them down for me.

I think she missed us.

Pi Day: Liam Learns About His Spheres

I was posting an article online about a man, named Akira Haraguchi, who memorized a mind-boggling 100,000 digits of Pi, when I heard a loud bang from the bedroom. It was that familiar sound that told me one of the boys was climbing something he wasn't supposed to, and it hadn't worked out. Usually this sound is paired with a cry matching the severity of the injury, but I perked up my ears and didn't hear a peep. This means that whoever took the spill was either uninjured or really injured.

Before I had time to panic I heard Liam shout "hurt?!" He sounded equal parts pained and confused, so I went to investigate. He was doubled-over, looking nauseous, unhappy, and completely dumbfounded. "Awww buddy! Did you get hit in the balls?" I asked feeling truly sympathetic. He responded by going to his room and putting himself back to bed.

I left him alone for the requisite 20 seconds it would take him to recover and went to inspect the scene of the crime. How remarkable was this? It had been just before 9:30am on 3/14/15. I was hyper aware of the time because it's Pi Day and it was around the one second of this century that matched Pi to ten digits. Could it have happened at exactly 9:26:53?

Just an hour earlier Jodee had reprimanded Liam after catching him propping up her foam body roller between my dresser and the foot of the bed and trying to ride it like a horse. Here's what I found in the bedroom.

I think his body roller rodeo days are over for now. I guess Karma is a math dork.

The Case of the Totally Lacking Pajamas

Yesterday I became mildly (read: verging on panic-attacky) obsessed with the fact that I didn't have any pajamas.

You see, today we are heading up to the fair city of Eureka, where we will spend the weekend celebrating the fiftieth (read: Five Zero) wedding anniversary of Paulie's parents. I know. It's crazy. That's a buttload of years to be married to someone. But whatever; they did it, so hoo-ah! celebrate we shall!

The pajama concern came up because joining us on this celebratory vacay will be one teenage son of Paulie, and one girlfriend of teenage son of Paulie. Let the good times roll!! As I am eternally the 'Bad Cop' in this arrangement, it was fun finding lodging that would accommodate Paulie and I, plus a separate bed for the teenage son, plus a separate bed for the girlfriend of the teenage son. Both of the teen beds must of course include many a loud obstacle (old springs, creaking floors, squeaky doors...you get the point) which will alert us to one teenager or the other trying to sneak into the warm, toasty-smelling embrace of their beloved. NOT ON MY WATCH, KIDDOS!!

Anyway, I realized I would be up constantly, making excuses to bumble into the main room (where one of them will be sleeping on the futon) to make tea, or pass through to use the bathroom, or pretend to be sleepwalking - the usual. And if this were going to happen I couldn't just be in my dowdy old 'everyday pj's'...i.e. a variation of whatever I wore earlier that day.

This is my reality

I brought this up to Paulie later that evening.

Me: Sooo...I'm concerned that I don't have pajamas. I think I need some pajamas.

Paulie: You, uh, you have pajamas.

(Therefore unleashing the crazy in me)

Me: No I don't! I have NO pajamas!

Paulie: Yes you do - you just wear the same clothes you wore earlier in the day. Well, the top. And some sweatpants. You have pajama bottoms, at least.

This was sort of my vision

Me: But I'm going to be puttering around making tea and shit and the teenagers will be there and I don't want to be all nipply in my holey t-shirt...I need some bonafide cutesy little pajamas. Like, with a collar or something.

Paulie: Okay baby, if you want some pajamas, you should definitely get some pajamas (side note: I love him! So agreeable.)

Me: And I might need some kicky little robe, you know? Like 'oh here I am in my cute pajamas and I just threw this cute robe over my pajamas because this is just how I roll, kids!' I mean, I need to be like the cool funky step-momish or whatever figure in this arrangement....... (at this point the conversation fades into other mumbly things because it always gets awkward here, ever since I wrote a OBVIOUSLY JOKE blog post about getting married and everyone started freaking out and Paulie got really annoyed with me and I didn't like it. But I can justify the comment above by blaming the teenage son because he's always calling me his step-mom and putting me down on emergency forms as such, because as he says "it's way easier than saying 'my dad's girlfriend who we also live with', god!")

So, while I had grand dreams of slumbering adorably like that girl in that 80's movie, I didn't have the time or money to turn any of this into reality. Instead I brought this hand-me-down cozy-as-all-get-out sweater-thingy that I like to call my Frasier Sweater, because it reminds me of the time Frasier was cat-sitting and he also had a sweater-blanket around him and he looked in the mirror and realized he'd become a Cat Lady.

Thank god I don't have any cats.

Have You Heard??

Oh hey, hi! Yes it's true, it's me - Amanda - the other half of the 'pair' in Pair-Ranting. The one who has been wildly and inexcusably absent as of late and who has made Mike's secret dreams of having the blog all to himself poor Mike carry the weight of the blog all on his own.

I'm sorry!

There are many factors behind my lack of sharing fun stories with you; but the only one you need to know about, really, is that first and foremost I've been hella busy.

When I say 'busy', yes, I mean the usual going to school, working, taking the kids on adventures and all of that other time-consuming bullshit that gets in the way of writing quality material for this blog.

However, one big thing that has been taking a lot of my free time is, uh, PRODUCING MY OWN GODDAM MORTIFIED SHOW!! That's right - I finally convinced the Powers That Be to let me give it a whirl, under the helpful tutelage of my SF/Oakland producer, Scott. "Come onnnn," I nagged and nagged, "Sonoma County is desperate for quality entertainment!" I'm pretty sure they thought it was going to be a cute little experiment and were just humoring me by consenting to let me try one little show in my backwoods small town.

Amazing hand-drawn flyer by Josh Staples
of The New Trust and The Velvet Teen fame. Yep.

Alas! The show is tonight and this mofo has long-since sold out! There's a waiting list! Ticketless would-be attendees are posting on the Facebook event page begging for tickets! I'm getting emails every day asking "Is it really sold out?! Please god can you help us??" People are asking how many hours before the show they should show up (read: camp out) in order to get one of the very limited door tickets! You'd think we were about to release a Pliny or something!

Seriously, I haven't seen this much ticket desperation since my days following the Grateful Dead. If I see people wandering around with one finger in the air, calling "can I get a miracle?!" my whole year will have been made. Plus the Press Democrat wrote an article that just came out this morning so needless to say people are finally taking me seriously and my phone, email and Facebook are, you know, exploding. It's...totally awesome.

So listen: I could go on and on about why I've been mysteriously quiet. But I won't, because as you can see I'm super busy and I've gotta go knock the socks off of Santa Rosa.

Onward!

P.S. Have you watched Mortified Nation - the hit documentary about Mortified - yet? You should, it's on Netflix.

P.P.S. Did you know there's now a Mortified Podcast on Radiotopia? There is! You should subscribe to it!

A Thin Line Between a Hug and a Choke

The boys have been a pretty good team over the years.

But when it comes to expressing their feelings for one another, it's usually something along the lines of this:

Which is why their behavior this week has been a little odd.

I know, awwwwww...right?

I love it and I want to know how to keep it going, but the reality is I don't have much to do with this. I think it's all part of the cycle. This week they'll be in love with one another and next week I'll be catching fists. They've gotten really bad at telegraphing their punches, thank god.

I think it's the rivalry that's actually the cause of their adoration for one another. It's a bit counter intuitive, but the internet says that sibling rivalry develops empathy and helps kids (especially brothers) form a tighter bond. I don't have brothers, but at one time I definitely detested my sisters almost as much as I adore them now.

The internet also says that the best way to ensure sibling rivalry doesn't get out of control is to make sure not to play favorites and to let them try to resolve conflicts on their own. That means locking them in their room after 7pm, right? Awesome. They'll probably just hug.

I Hate Haircuts

I'm usually okay with my boys growing older. I'll occasionally look at posts on this blog from years back and I get that little twinge in my body like some major organ just failed, but then I'll play that three year old recording in my mind's ear of colicky baby Liam screaming in the predawn hours and I feel much better. Having little babies was fine, but having little boys is the best thing ever.

The only time I get the dropkick to the gut panic attack is on haircut day. Here was Baby Finn last week:

And here's Prep School Finn this week:

Fucking bullshit.

Liam had his first professional haircut in years recently and he resisted a little. This was sufficient enough for me to unilaterally decide he should be spared the trauma of future pro-cuts, so I've reappointed myself as Liam's official groomer and have gone back to giving him mini-cuts that take no fewer than six days to complete. It's for his own good.

I know I don't have to worry just yet. It's not as though the boys are aloof and withholding affection. Quite the opposite actually:

It's just the intolerable shock of it all, like a few snips with a pair of scissors trimmed away half a decade. I don't like it. Some people say it's a "healthy splash of cold water" that will help me live in the present. Those people always make me wish I carried a five-gallon "healthy splash of cold water" with me at all times.