What to get that special someone...

The holidays are upon us and most of you ladies are probably trying to figure out what to get all of those people on your list including your spouse/boyfriend/lover/sex slave. You guys, aren't thinking about this at all yet, but come maybe December 20th you might begin pondering it. So here are a few suggestions for the ladies and the gentlemen. The real, the childish and the kinky.

For the ladies:
First, let's back up for a second. Let's start with what NOT to get her. Do not get her anything kitchen/cooking related. I received a food processor for Christmas once. Sometimes it is like he's never met me before. His excuse - "You asked for one!" Correction. I told him to suggest it as a gift idea for me to his mother. It's not that I hate food processors. I thought it would be a useful thing to have that I was unlikely to ever buy for myself. It's a perfect thing for an in-law-type of person to get me as a gift. It is not an appropriate thing for my husband to get me.
If your wife is really into cooking. And by that I mean, she specifically asked for a kitchen/cooking related item, it is like a hobby for her, then go for it. If you think she is into cooking because she prepares the meals for the family, do not. I don't mind cooking. I don't hate it like mopping the floors, but I don't love it like drinking wine. It's necessary to do until I can afford a personal chef. So just because she doesn't complain about cooking doesn't mean she wants a blender wrapped up for her under the Christmas tree from you. If so, that shit better come with margarita mix, ice, salt and tequila. She's going to need it.
Also, do not get her anything exercise related or a gym membership unless she specifically asks for this. If your wife is a runner, does marathons and that kind of thing - fine. There are exceptions to every rule. But if she has mentioned that she needs to lose some weight or kick off the New Year with a fitness routine - this does not mean you should show your support with some weights and a Yoga DVD in her stocking. This will not get you laid on Christmas.
Alright, here's what you can get her. Of course it would be lovely of you to think ahead of time and put time and effort into it. It doesn't have to be expensive. Go through photos and make her something. You can do so much with photos and I don['t mean a sweatshirt with a picture of you on it. If you have kids - put their photos in jewelry like a locket or a charm bracelet. Make her a photo book of photos from the past year. Hell, make her a mix tape. If you put some time, thought and energy behind it - I promise she will appreciate it because it really shows you care. Plus she'll be amazed you put time, thought and energy behind anything not sports or porn related.
Give her a helping hand. The love coupons were cute at one point in time, but let's face it we shouldn't need a coupon to get you to do a chore you should be helping with already. And do we really need a coupon for sex? That's what boobs are for. Schedule to have the house cleaned, car detailed or serviced. Make her life easier in some way - if only for a day. She is likely to have remembered everyone you two needed to give gifts for this year, thought of ideas for them, shopped and purchased them, wrapped them and then signed both of your names to it. What did you do to get ready for the holidays?
Matching bra and panties. Go to her dresser. Review at least three bras and three pairs of underwear for sizing. Go to department store. Ask for help. That's what the salespeople are for. I'm not talking about some sort of nightie. That gift is for you. This gift is for her, but you will get paid back with some sweet loving. Something simple, but still sexy. Good quality. Let her know you think she's still got it. If you don't think she's still got it, then fake it and face the fact that it is highly unlikely that you've still got it, too.

For the gentlemen:
I recently gave my husband a remote control helicopter for his birthday. Like a kid in a fucking candy store. And this gift works for every man in your life. He gets the thing out and all males in my house are immediately enthralled. This includes a 1 year old, a 4 year old and a 10 year old male cat. I feel confident this will apply to men of all ages. They come in every price point. The one I purchased was $35. It's been in his possession for 2 weeks and hasn't broken yet. If he already has a remote control helicopter, get him another one. He's likely to have broken the one he has by Christmas anyway.
Two words for you. Bacon Lube. It's real. Google it. The next best thing to just laying bacon all over your naked body. Because there is nothing better than bacon. If you are a vegan or vegetarian....well, I'll save another post for your dumb asses.

I hope this helps you this holiday season. If you have other gift ideas, share them here.

Happy Shopping!

Not-so-black Friday

Are you recuperating from shopping at 3AM? If you are, I'm intrigued and yet strangely afraid of you. I don't quite get the middle of the night shopping. I was always taught that nothing good happens at 2AM. It's the one rule in life I try really hard to really follow. So if I'm up at 2AM I make sure I'm definitely not doing anything good. Occasionally I've had to feed a child in the middle of the night. However I'm cursing them under my breath so it counts as "not good".
Instead I got a full night sleep and started first thing this morning on decorating for Christmas. This doesn't require too much effort as I don't decorate much for Christmas. Because I'm such a whore for Halloween it usually results in minimal Christmas decorations. I also don't send out Christmas cards. Once you start this tradition, I figure you can't stop so I refuse to start. I don't have family photos taken. I hardly develop film or even take pictures with a camera. In fact I'm not entirely sure where my camera is right now. I get pictures taken of my kids at their birthdays but I have no desire to put them in matching clothes, spend a bunch of money on postage, look up a ton of addresses and send them out. Plus, isn't that what Facebook is for? I keep thinking eventually I'll get left off of other people's Christmas card list, but each year I get more and more. I also don't save the photo cards. Am I supposed to? What am I supposed to do with them? Stick them in a photo album? That's odd. Stick them in a shoebox? That's called hoarding.
My oldest turns 5 in December which means that there is a huge influx of new toys that come into our home in December. So I spent some time today clearing out old toys. I should have done this last week then held a Black Friday sale in my home. I have some nice crap that doesn't get played with. Of course I had to remove these toys under the cover of darkness. If the oldest saw me removing toys he'd have a fit which would lead into a huge argument and end in tears. And I try not to cry on my days off work.
With the invention of online shopping why is there even a need to go into stores? I should be a good little yuppie and only shop at locally owned stores. I work for a small business and always have. I should support other small businesses. But then I'm required to actually get in my car, fight traffic and crowds, be pleasant to other people, not be rude about prices I don't approve of....you get the picture. I'm not exactly a pleasant shopper. Which is why you won't see me out at stores on Black Friday. If you need me I'll be going 4th gear on some leftovers and nursing my full belly with some vodka.
Merry Belated Thanksgiving one and all!

Damn you, Walmart!

I hit Walmart over my lunch hour. Just needed to pick up cheese cubes that Cody has to bring to a going away party for his teacher at school tomorrow. While I was there I thought maybe I should pick up a Christmas present or two - since I haven't even begun to think about Christmas yet. \

I got the hubby a remote control helicopter for his birthday and figured my nephews and possibly my niece might enjoy that, too so I headed to the toy section. (I purchased my husband's helicopter at Target. It was an Air Hog brand.) I went up and down the aisles, but saw no remote control helicopter and no Air Hog items at all. So I found a sales associate who was unpacking boxes in the middle of an aisle. The conversation went a little something like this:

Me: "Excuse me, do you carry Air Hog remote control helicopters?"
Him: (look at me with a dumb expression for a while)
Me: "Or any remote control helicopters?"
Him: (walks to a different aisle.)
Me: (follow him)
Him: (stands in the middle of one aisle and looks around)
Me: (stand there looking at him waiting for some sort of rain of knowledge to start pouring on me.)
Him: "Huh, I seen Air Hog earlier. I think it was on Cars."
Me: (continue looking at him waiting for him to show me where to go.)
Me: (after what felt like a 5 minute stare down) "Um. OK. Thanks."
Me: (walk away)

This was not a good start to my holiday shopping.

It wasn't me!

I'm not saying I'm the best moral compass.

There are the things that are only a little wrong in my book. For example, say you are grocery shopping with your kids and your kid HAS to have the grocery cart with the car in the front so he can pretend to drive the cart around. And you have to stop at every pillar in the store so he can pretend to fill up on gas, check the tires etc. (As if the shopping cart car uses that much gas!) And say your kid begs you for a toy from the grocery store and in a fit of desperation to get the hell out of there you say yes and not because you spoil your child and spend too much money on unnecessary items. Let's also say by the time you get to the check out lane, have waited in line and try to deflect the looks of shame from the young cashier because of the amount of cereal and wine bottles you are purchasing, you forget about the toy in the car portion of the cart. And of course the kid isn't worried about paying for it. So then you get the cart out to the real car, load the groceries and then when you finally pull your child away from the car cart you are aware that you have walked out of the store without paying for the said toy. Let's say it is also raining. Or really hot. Regardless, the environmental elements are extreme. Are you really going to haul the kid back in there with you to return the toy (you can't leave him in the car - someone could kidnap him), explain the situation and pay for it? Groceries are getting hot? You have a list of other chores to do when you get home. I mean, are you really going to the deepest part of hell for that kind of thing? Shouldn't the store really be on top of that anyway? And wouldn't it in fact be your kid that shoplifted and not you?

Now, let's say you order some furniture...maybe a couch. And at the time you ordered the couch maybe you picked up some tables while you were at it. Maybe you took those home with you that day, but had to come back to pick up the couch when it came in. Maybe when you picked up the couch, parts of it were messed up and it made you angry because you had to wait longer and you didn't have a couch and were having an event at your home soon. Maybe after dealing with this issue they told you that some of your tables were in and loaded them in your car. Maybe you didn't say "OK" or "Stop. I already got my tables." Maybe you just said nothing. And maybe when the couch did come in correctly and you went back to pick it up they put the rest of the tables in your car, too. Then, maybe a week or so later they called to say that your couch was in and wanted to schedule for delivery. Let's say your moral compass stops at one couch and not two but allows a second set of coffee and end tables. How far deep in the bowels of hell is that? Is that like 100 Hail Mary's? What if you're not Catholic? Does that make a difference.

Again, not that this happened to me at any point in my life. Just heard about it happening to someone else. Friend of a friend. Maybe I read it in the paper.

It surely wasn't me.

Shhh. Don't wake her. She's sleep....walking.

This blog is losing some steam. Probably because I've been a terrible blogger lately and haven't been making regular posts. So if you're still listening...reading...whatever, I promise to do better. Write more often. Even better, tell me what you want to hear. I have lots of opinions. Of course they change as often as my personality does, but that's another story.

For now I want to talk to you about sleepwalking. It's something I've been known to do on occasion. When I was little I would wake up sitting on my couch in the family room staring at the TV. Of course the TV wouldn't be on and it would be 3AM so I'd take myself back to bed. Sometimes I'd wake up sitting on the toilet and figure my alarm had gone off and it must be time to get ready for school. So I'd hop in the shower and when I got out my mom would let me know that it is in fact the middle of the night so I'd go back to bed.

Later in life is when the sleepwalking got interesting because a little thing called booze came into my life. It definitely amps up the sleepwalking craziness. One time when I was still living with my parents I went into my parents room in the middle of the night. My mom woke up to find me trying to pull the VCR off the shelf and put it on the floor. I was having some difficulty doing this though since it was hooked up to the TV and the cord wasn't long enough for it to reach the floor. She asked me what I was doing to which I replied, "I'm getting a glass of water." Duh. Parents are so stupid. I continued struggling with the VCR for a while finally breaking the cord and getting the VCR on the floor. Job well done! My mom continued to reason with me and I continued to tell her that I was getting a glass of water. Then I took a piss in their bathroom and went back to bed. My bladder must have been really full from all that water.

In college the sleepwalking became a little more frequent as I drank much more often. I was dating my husband then so he got the joy of trying to coerce me back to bed. Another time I fell asleep on his couch. He woke me up - or thought he had - and I headed to the bathroom to take my contacts out. After he let me struggle trying to get them out for a while, he finally convinced me that I had already taken them out...as I had my glasses on. One time I got up and went into the bathroom and stood in the shower with the cold water on filling the tub. Didn't wake me up. He got me back to bed and then he went to the bathroom. When he opened the bathroom door I was standing right outside of it holding all the remotes in the apartment. It was two guys' college apartment. Furniture made of pizza boxes but a wall of electronic equipment so there were multiple remotes. He said I seemed very proud of myself. Another time his roommate got up in the morning to go to class to find me sleeping on the couch. He assumed Mike and I had a fight and I was sleeping on the couch which is all well and good except that I was only wearing a pair of boxers. Thankfully this was before cell phones and he is a decent guy.

In the last 10+ years the sleepwalking has been just about nonexistent. A few occasions here and there, but last night I woke up at the end of the bed. I tried to get into my side of the bed and found my 4-year old. Assuming he had come down and gotten into bed with us so I got up and moved him to the sleeping bag next to our bed.

He's a terrible sleeper. The sleeping bag next to the bed allows him to come downstairs and sleep in our room without waking me up. I'm not going to worry about it unless he's getting ready to go off to college and still doing this.

This morning I asked him why he got in bed with us instead of getting in his sleeping bag. Apparently, he didn't come downstairs in the middle of the night. I went up and got him and carried him down.

Oops.

Highs and Lows

I learned the game "Highs and Lows" from a girlfriend of mine. Before you get too off track and think I'm referring to some kind of Karen Walker Chex Mix, I'm talking about a conversation game that you play with others where you discuss the high point and low point of your day. 

I don't know if it is something my friend practices daily with her family or something she grew up playing or just something she stole from a TV show. Regardless, I completely get off on that Leave It To Beaver shit so I'm going to share my highs and lows from this past weekend. Feel free to share your highs and lows with me. I guess it is only fair that this relationship be a two way street, just as long as you realize that I'm the more important person in the relationship. 

Lows: I think my 1-year-old broke my nose. It happened Saturday night. A friends' family was over which meant we had five kids under five in the house. This shouldn't be too difficult since we also had four adults, but first you must understand that little boys are like Gremlins. They might be Mogwais in the hospital, but as soon as you try to go to bed that first night home - they become Gremlins. (For those of you under 30 that don't understand what I'm talking about, please rent the movie Gremlins and be prepared to not sleep for a few nights.) They destroy everything in their path, constantly want to snack - but won't sit down for a meal, grow bored after a minute and a half at one task and quickly move onto another task and when in groups of three or more the volume, mess and chaos are multiplied by a gazillion. True story. So in the midst of this perfect storm, my one year old head butts me on my nose. If you heard a crack around 7:30PM Saturday night, that was my nose. He didn't flinch where as I immediately held my nose expecting to catch galloons of blood. However, it only caught tears. No blood was shed. The child was quickly scooped off my lap, I think in an attempt to protect him from any retaliation. Now, two days later my nose is still a bit swollen, a little crooked and very sore. The child is still unharmed, but I am plotting my revenge.

Highs: All of my Christmas shopping is done. I just have to place the order. I saw a commercial last night for the "Forever Lazy". If you think the Snuggie or Slanket are great, then just wait. Grab onto your britches and search "Forever Lazy" on You Tube. It fixes all the problems with the Snuggie or Slanket because as much as we all want to be lazy, sometimes we also want to play the Wii or go to the bathroom or are channel surfers or want to read a book or magazine. With the long boxy sleeves of the Snuggie or Slanket along with the fact that it just draped over your shoulders - it didn't fasten in the back, you were left with not much more than a regular blanket. The "Forever Lazy" fixes all of that. You can run the trash can down to the corner, lay on the couch channel surfing, play video games and more. Don't worry. The makers of the "Forever Lazy" have thought of everything. Need to use the restroom? There's a trap door. The Angelina Joli movie making you a little frisky? There's a trap door in front, too. (Box of kleenex not included) The only downfall I can find in this genius product is it only comes in three colors - grey, pink and navy. Where's my sports team logo or my leopard print? Maybe by Valentine's Day. Then I can get one for the hubby.