Monthly Archives: July 2013

Conched Out

conchs from the Atlantic Ocean

Our new pets

Yesterday right around sundown, Vivi found a conch in the ocean.  It bumped against her foot so she felt around under the water until she caught it.  She was busy admiring the shell when the…snailish foot thingy slurped out into her palm.  Like anyone with good sense, she panicked and flung it at her mother.  I caught the thing and we laughed until we peed which was fine because we were in the ocean.

“Do you want to throw it back in?”

“NO!  He’s my pet.”

“It’s a boy?”

“Uh-huh.  His name is Conchy.”

She carried Conchy back up to our blanket and put him in my tote bag (on top of my phone…ew).  When we walked up to the pool, she cradled him in her blue striped beach towel.  I wouldn’t hold Conchy for her while she and her sister swam, so she built a little corral out of flip flops and came back to check on him every few minutes.  I assured her that even if he did make a break for it, we could probably catch him before he made it back to the shoreline.  

Conchy slept on the nightstand last night (hey, it’s a rental and the table has a glass top).  He never once whined to be let outside or yowled at the door for more food in an already full bowl, so I already like him better than our other pets.  

This morning at low tide, Sissy found another conch.

“Hey!” I said, “It’s Conchy’s brother!”

Vivi looked at me like I was an idiot.  “Nooo.  This one is a girl.” 

“OK.  What’s her name?”

“Nyquisha.”  

Silly me. 

Conchy and Nyquisha–a love story that’s gonna start stinking by Thursday.  

Phoning It In: Tasteless Joke Tuesday

The Baddest Mother Ever is on vacation this week, but I won’t leave you hanging.  Here’s a tasteless joke that I heard on my day job:

What’s the generic name for Viagra?

Mycoxafloppin

BAM!

Saturday Snort

Q:  What’s brown and sticky?

A:  A stick.

The Lingering Effects of Schwag Bag Fever

1077092_10201005437611169_957169604_oI spent three hours in a free-Moscato-sample-fueled haze at the BlogHer conference Expo on Thursday night.  It was a star-studded affair.  The Pillsbury Dough Boy was there.  I got a picture taken with him and resisted poking him in the belly.  I met THE Dr. Boudreaux of Boudreaux’s Butt Paste fame.  I KNOW, RIGHT????  I said, “I’ve been putting you on my babies’ butts for six years!”  I’m sure he’s used to that kind of outburst.

The glamour got to be overwhelming.  HERE!  Try our fish sticks!  How about a sample of make your own soda?  Do you back1074606_10201005438371188_699236233_o up with Carbonite?  Would you like some free leopard print press on nails?  Have you ever tried a mochachocalattefrappesmoothie made in our high-speed blender?  Do you have heavy periods—sing karaoke in our booth!  Try more wine!  This frozen meal has less salt than an African elephant!  More wine?  Have a pedometer, compliments of Coke because we are all about FITNESS!  Tapioca pudding?  Tweet us and get a free Mojito Madness nail polish!  Did you know Best Buy sells hair care products?  These cookies brought to you by Land o Lakes!

I flirted with the sexy chefs from Lean Cuisine who were passing out champagne.  I spoke earnestly with the women from St. Jude’s.  I showed baby photos to the guy from wemontage, which prints your pictures onto removable wallpaper…cool!  I schlepped and schmoozed and schvitzed.

Then I crashed.

I lurched back to the serenity of my hotel room only to find that Steve Harvey and the makers of Windex had crept in while I was out to leave me a little sumpin sumpin on the bed.  Brown-chicken-brown-cow!  (If you sing that, it makes that porny music sound….bow chicka wow wow)

Here are a few of my favorite WTF moments from the schwag fest:

1074396_10201005381289761_339844213_oI’m not even sure what this doohickie from Verizon does.   Miniature fire plug?  It looks like a cigarette lighter with a USB port.  Any guesses?

1072578_10201005381649770_1995604501_oToothpaste that is 99% natural…which raises the question—what the hell is that 1%???  The blood of alien babies?

S132896_10201005383569818_1516192937_oilver and black crackle finish press on nails?  That’s got ME written all over it!

Coffee mugs, coconut water, bleach tablets, books, grocery totes, skin care products, nail polish…now I know why there is a FedEx office in the hotel.  To ship all this crap home!

Maybe it’s time for some Baddest Mother Ever giveaways!1073753_10201005383049805_427336017_o

Gratitude for This Day

This day is trying so hard to be perfect that it’s just becoming a little show-offy.  Like the beautiful and sweet toothy Midwestern girl who knocked sinewy Miss New York down to first runner up in the pageant.  Here are a few things I’m going to write in my gratitude journal for Wednesday:

navy pier

The weather in Chicago tonight feels like something that the Chamber of Commerce ordered up to persuade people to move here.  Seventy and blue skies with a soft breeze.  While shopping on the Magnificent Mile, I bought myself a little green and white scarf to WARM UP.

green scarf
This city tries hard to be beautiful (and succeeds).  It’s the cradle of skyscraper architecture.  Invented here, not in New York!  I have rested my feet by plinking fountains, marveled at street planters overflowing with orchids and looked out over a lake so blue it’s hard to believe it’s not an ocean.

fountainorchids
When I asked the doorman for directions to a pizza place, he winked at me and asked if I was buying.  The waitress at Giordano’s complimented my use of “y’all.”  Gaggles of tourists don’t mind looking like tourists.  I’ve gotten friendly answers from every person I’ve asked for help.  I like Chicago so much because it bustles with NICE PEOPLE.  Even when your car gets blocked in, it’s by an ice cream truck.

good humour

Getting to spend time with Jessica, who lived across the hall from me for six weeks in the summer of 1985, when we were at Governor’s Honors.  I haven’t seen her since high school.  I was a little intimidated about seeing her—she graduated summa cum laude from Princeton and is the managing editor of a prestigious scholarly journal.  And—even WORSE—she has the most beautiful hair.  I had such a good time catching up with her that now I’m going to have to miss her when I go back home!

(That’s her up there dealing with the ice cream truck).

The food, good lord, the food.  A stuffed crust pizza with the perfect balance of salt and butter in the flaky crust.  An engineering marvel akin to the John Hancock Building.  Two glasses of rose for lunch because red would have made me want a nap.  Tapas at Emilio’s for dinner—dates wrapped in bacon, garbanzos whipped with olive oil and served with shaved radishes and grilled peppers.  A cold bowl of gazpacho.  Goat cheese rolled in candied pecans with a pear poached in wine on the side.

giordanos

I get to spend four nights in a hotel bed.  No one has played hide and seek in it.  No cats have left hair on the pillowcase.  The sheets were washed by someone else, very recently.  I can sleep in the shape of an X and use all four pillows.  I can turn the air conditioning down to 64 and snuggle under the duvet.

hotel bed

My room overlooks Navy Pier, so I’ve been watching the Ferris Wheel spin around and around.  I think the Ferris Wheel was introduced here, during the Columbia Exposition in…1896?  It was the American answer to the Eiffel Tower!

ww at navy pier

And while I was sitting here watching the Ferris Wheel, I heard an odd booming noise.  Fireworks!  On a Wednesday night!
I got over the delight of that and got back to writing when a huge golden moon appeared out of nowhere.  It’s lighting up the rippling surface of the lake.

pink flower

Like I said, Chicago is kinda showing off.

Five Things I’m Taking To Chicago

1.  Five hundred business cards with my new logo!  I hope that’s enough.

ashley_banner

2.  The Hamsa hand I bought in Paris.  It protects from the evil eye and catches luck.

"Hand of Miriam" or Hamsa (Arabic) used to ward off the evil eye.

“Hand of Miriam” or Hamsa (Arabic) used to ward off the evil eye.

3.  Wonder Woman!  She’s riding in my messenger bag for the whole conference.

4.  My gratitude journal.  It goes EVERYWHERE with me!

wonder woman

5.  My White Knight.  The one who will save me.  The brave and bold.  Me.

smiling me

6.  Oh, and several pairs of these.  Clean.

Day Two

Click those links to read some classic Baddest Mother Ever stories!  And share them with your friends!

Thanks for all the love and support and encouragement.  I’m EXCITED!!!

Stolen Chicken and Racism

chicken_thieves_040613Let me come clean right off the bat:  I stole $8 worth of chicken from Kroger last night.  Here’s what happened…

I got home from Kroger at 7:30pm, frazzled and tired.  As G and I were putting away the groceries, I noticed that the brown shopping bag was missing.  I knew I had taken it with me.  It was nowhere in the car, the kitchen, anywhere.  I tried to figure out if we were missing anything, so I opened the meat drawer.  There was the pound of ground beef and the turkey pepperoni.

“Where’s the chicken?”

G shook his head and said, “I didn’t see any chicken.”  I fumbled through the freezer and checked the countertops.  No chicken.

I cussed a good bit then stomped off to Kroger to claim my brown shopping bag and my missing chicken.  Grrr… grumble grumble grrr.

I trolled the parking lot in search of my chicken.  No luck.  I walked in through the out door, right past the security guard and started checking each bagging station for my chicken.  AHA!  There sat my brown shopping bag, camouflaged by the brown plastic bags.  But still no chicken.  I grabbed the bag.  The cashier who was now working that lane (not the one who had rung up my stuff) asked me if she could help.  “I found my bag but I can’t find my chicken.  I paid for 2 lbs of chicken tenderloins but they weren’t in my shopping bags when I got home.”  She couldn’t help.

The cashier who had helped me came up.  I explained to him and he took me over to the customer service counter to check for returned items.  Nope, no chicken.  At this point, the store manager walked over and I explained it to him.  He said, “I’m sorry about that.  If you’d like, go grab another pack of chicken and we’ll stick it in a bag for you.  If you discover other things that you’re missing, just bring back the receipt and we’ll fix you up.  No problem.”

I did exactly that.  I walked to the back of the store, grabbed another 2 lb pack of chicken and took it up to the front.  They slapped it in a bag and handed it over.  I thanked them then waved a thank you to the store manager.  Home ten minutes later with chicken in the fridge.

This morning, I discovered that I was a chicken thief.  While fixing breakfast, I reached in the deli drawer for some cheese and there sat a 2lb pack of chicken, right on top of my havarti.  I held it up to G like it was a bloody glove and cried, “What’s THIS???”  He ducked his head and mumbled, “I must not have recognized it.”  Dude.  It says “TYSON” and “CHICKEN” right here on the clear wrap that contains a whole bunch of CHICKEN.

It’s not like I could return the pilfered chicken to Kroger this morning.  Or donate it to the Food Bank. So I guess we will eat the Chicken of Shame and move on with our lives.

But the whole incident got me thinking.  Last week, in the midst of the turmoil after George Zimmerman was found not guilty of second degree murder for shooting Trayvon Martin, a friend shared an intriguing quote.  It comes from a one-year-old article that was published in The Atlantic–“Fear of a Black President” by Ta-Nehisi Coates.  I recommend the entire article, but these are the words I’ve been carrying around with me:

“Racism is not merely a simplistic hatred. It is, more often, broad sympathy toward some and broader skepticism toward others.”
 

Sympathy and skepticism.  I’m speaking as myself here–a middle-aged, middle-class, European extraction white woman from a small town in the Deep South.  I walked into Kroger as an unwitting chicken thief and I got sympathy.  Another woman, say with a Spanish accent or darker skin, could have walked into Kroger with the same story about missing chicken and gotten skepticism.  At least she might have been asked to show a receipt or maybe sign something.  Or the skepticism she had faced in other situations would have stopped her from even trying to go back to Kroger to ask for her chicken.

The friend who shared the quote is a middle-aged, middle-class, African extraction woman from the same small town in the Deep South.  She’s a lawyer, dresses a whole lot better than I do and probably has more money to spend.  But she and her daughters have been followed around in department stores due to skepticism.

Sometimes it’s hard to participate in the discourse about racism because we look for simplistic hatred and DON’T SEE IT.  I don’t know many people who treat others with simplistic hatred, but I know well this sympathy/skepticism divide.  I don’t treat people with simplistic hatred, but I certainly waver between sympathy and skepticism based on my snap assessment of them.  If a young black man in a hoodie approaches me in the parking deck at night, I would be more prone to skepticism.  If a young black man in a white lab coat approaches me in the parking deck at night, I would be more prone to sympathy.

Photo credit: Nikkolas Smith via Van Jones

Photo credit: Nikkolas Smith via Van Jones

So that’s what I end up thinking about when I accidentally steal chicken from Kroger on a Sunday night.  I appreciate the sympathy that I received, but I also understand that it isn’t handed out evenly.

“I have a dream, that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. ” –Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

They Sell Underwear In Europe

It's a CARRY-ON!

It’s a CARRY-ON!

The Blogher conference is 72 hours away!  I’ve checked the weather in Chicago.  I’ve got 500 business cards with my new logo (and I’ve even practiced the “quick draw” to get them out of the holder…I kid you not).  I’ve borrowed a notebook computer so I can look like the cool kids when it’s time to take notes.  I went to the grocery store and stocked up on things G can cook easily when he’s taking care of the kids for four nights.  I’ve done the laundry.  Twice (darn you, cats).

Now it’s time to pack.  And I don’t feel ready.

Whenever I am nervous about going on some new adventure, I recall another piece of travel advice dispensed by Richard many years ago.  “They sell underwear in Europe, Ashley.”

Scene:  It’s 24 hours before our flight to another country.  I’ve got three lists–purse, carry-on, checked bag–and they’re organized by item type.  I’m crossing through each item and double-checking.  I’ve already got backup copies of my credit cards, passport and insurance cards zipped into the lining of my jacket AND in the inner pocket of my purse.  All toiletries are organized in clear containers and ziploc bags, with double bagging around the more gooey items.  But I’m still nervous about forgetting something.

Richard, on the other hand, walks to the dryer and pulls out a load of clothes, folds them loosely and slings them into a bag.  Zips it up and he’s done.

As I’m dithering about forgetting something, he says, “Let’s go!  As long as we have a credit card, we’re good.  They sell underwear in Europe.”

It reminded me of the line from Absolutely Fabulous, when Eddy and Patsy are trying to leave on holiday and Eddy keeps running around saying, “Money!  Tickets!  Passport!”  And then she runs out to the car but has to return three times to get…you know.  Money.  Tickets.  Passport.

Overthinking things?  Perhaps.

But there was that one time that G and I flew to Brasil with the kids and realized that we had left Vivi’s beloved Pengy in the car.  Try scrounging through the Sao Paolo airport in search of a replacement penguin.  Or the time Richard and I went to Bermuda with a broken camera (Grant had dropped it while taking pictures of his feet) and came back with three rolls of pictures that cut our heads off.  Or the time I needed Imodium RIGHT AWAY in Oxford on a Sunday morning.

What’s your thing that you just can’t travel without?

Saturday Snort

This came from my British friend, Ann.  It sure made me snort.  Hit “Like” if you get it!

darwin joke

(pssst:  This bird is called the Blue-Footed Boobie)

Shut Yer Pie Hole, Scale…

pie-chart-20090811-123901If my talking bathroom scale talked to me like a sassy girlfriend…

Dang, Girl!  Are you holding the baby?

No.  

Are you HAVING a baby?

I ate a lot of salt.

You ate a lot of something.

Salt makes me retain water.

It sure does.  But what makes you retain CAKE?

Cake, I guess.  Cake makes me retain cake.  

Want to hear the formula I use to calculate your weight?  I take the square root of your previous weight and multiply by PIE.