Two Eyes Open

Ozzy was being a real butthole the other day so I bought some googly eyes to stick on him to make his butthole-ness more palatable.

That right there is one of those sentences that you type and then step back and think, wow, I never thought I would string those words together--but there it is.

And there we were. At Michael's Crafts which is kind of where buttholes are made what with all the raffia, rhinestones and felt, and I saw the googly eyes and immediately felt better about things. Googly eyes make everything better.

Except when we got home Ozzy refused to let me stick said googly eyes on him. He screamed and squirmed and did the floppy body thing so I had to settle for Zoey who was actually not being a butthole at all but just wanted to watch Annoying Orange. Hey Ozzy! Hey! Hey Ozzy! Don't be such an apple! If you get this reference then I feel sorry for you. I also feel sorry for myself.

Zoey was a real sport about the googly eyes which reminded me of the time she was maybe 2 and ate a small googly eye off of something and I later found it staring up at me from her poop. Take it from me: googly eyes really do make everything better.

Later I downloaded an app to try to put googly eyes on Ozzy but I couldn't quite figure out how to place them or size them so he kept ending up with a googly third eye to ward off evil. That's probably for the best with where we're at developmentally and all.

Later still, after everyone had gone to bed I saw this old video of a dorky tween JGL on Jeopardy! and immediately felt better. It has nothing to do with googly eyes except it also makes me feel silly strange inside.

xo,
S

R.I.P. Google Reader

This is a post about something boring. But it is something boring like paperclips are boring. Boring old paperclips...I can't think of anything more meh. On the other hand, what if someone announced that all paperclips would suddenly be gone come July 1st? How would you feel then? What would you do?

Fuck. I just remembered about staples.

Ok, so maybe paperclips are not a good example. (Because you could also always do that 7th grade thing where you turn down the corner and spit on it a little? Tear a notch and then turn it back to hand in your homework. Someone should probably just take paperclips away. They're almost useless, really.)

No, what I'm talking about is Google Reader. I have been using Google Reader pretty much since I started reading blogs 8 years ago. I have it bookmarked on all my computers; I have the app on my phone. I read it in line, on the bus...this is all sounding very Sam I Am, but it's true--I read it everywhere.

Which is why I almost started to cry when I saw the announcement last week that Google Reader is closing, that on July 1 it will be gone. Gone??! And here I thought everything www lasts forevereverever. I feel betrayed, lost. And yes, a little silly with this boring post about a blog aggregator, but here we are. Staring at a soon-to-be obsolete not-paperclip.

So I must ask: if you read blogs (honestly I have about 200 in my Google Reader), what do you use? What do you recommend? An aggregator that works on a laptop as well as on a phone, has an app, all that yummy stuff. Pretty please: help.

It just hit me. Another sad side-effect of the disappearance of Google Reader is the years of images I have saved to my favorites. I guess this means I will have to start posting them, air out the dank corners of my starred items. Here we go...

Christmas on this, the first day of Spring.
xo,
S

The End of the Rainbow

Supposedly, leprechauns are around 3 feet tall and up to no good. (The leprechaun that came to our house this morning made the toilet water green and left behind a green Whoopee cushion which has been sat on with such gusto over the day that it is already split apart.)

If you catch a leprechaun it is rumored that he will grant you three wishes in exchange for his release.

I caught these wee lil' leprechauns this morning and this is what I wished for: 1.) my mom to be well, 2.) $17 million dollars, 3.) a full night of sleep with nobody kicking me in the face.

But then I remembered that I have to let them go if I want my wishes to come true...so. *Sigh* (Tonight I leaned toward Bryan and very quietly whispered I think the kids are trying to kill me. I was only kind of kidding.)

Pretty sure Zoey is flashing some Gaelic gang sign here. Erin Go Bragh, Yo.

On another note: when did St. Patrick's Day become such a big deal? At Zoey's school they make leprechaun traps and decorate, have little parties and everyone talks about what tricks the leprechaun did in their house. When I was little we maybe pinched someone if they weren't wearing green and got a shamrock shake if we were lucky...seven miles in the snow when candy bars cost a dime, and all that.

Anyway. Off to eat the rest of the green Jell-O.
xo,
S

Whiskers on Kittens

As in actual kitten whiskers. Only they're not on a kitten anymore.

When I was a little kid we saved the whiskers of our cats. Momo, Darryl, Wanda, later there was Lily...if we found a whisker on the floor we picked it up and saved it in a small Indian pot. (Feather not Dot.) I have continued this tradition with Kitty and now Nacho. And added a kiss. That is, I pick up the whisker and kiss it before poking it into the pot, taught Zoey to do the same. It's exciting when we find one. Sometimes--not often--I pull out the bunch of them and feel the pointy ends, so sharp and tipped with black. They're touch receptors, you know. Vibrissae, embedded deep into the muscular and nervous systems of a cat like a radar. I think this is why I like them, but maybe not, I don't know.

A study done at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine found that optimism is the top characteristic found in very resilient people. (Worth noting that altruism is second, followed closely by humor.) People with a positive outlook tend to bounce back from adversity quicker and with less lasting effects than those who dwell on the negative. Not to get all Pollyanna, but this is why I have been wearing these pink neon ballet flats lately and looking forward to the new Hosseini book and this book, too. It's been uncharacteristically warm out and when I walk home from the bus stop after work I can smell the daffodils. Hell, I don't even know if daffodils have a smell, but there is that and vanilla lavender body oil and tonight I found a whisker in the cushions of the couch.

Kiss.
S

Shiny Objects

Today was a bad day, the kind of day that makes me want to build a fort out of blankets to hide in, that makes me want to eat Cadbury Cream Eggs for dinner and overpluck my eyebrows, that makes me want to push my face into the belly of a kitten, listen to Yaz, take big gulping breaths of the smell of crayons and draw a page full of very large eyes. (I did 3 out of 7 of those, but will let the specifics remain a mystery.)

It dawned on me just now that a few months ago Ozzy pulled the "c" key off my laptop, and then the shift key, so that I have to make a conscious effort if I ever want to make an uppercase c. A big c. See? Funny how life is sometimes. I don't have much to say today but I also don't want my last two posts to stand idle as they have been for the last week or so, full of portent. I don't want to make this thing a Thing, to capitalize on everything the way it is. The big C. There. That took a moment.

So instead I eat Honey Smacks and teach Ozzy to kiss me when I say give me some sugar and paint Zoey's toes in the colors of the rainbow and think shiny object, shiny object, shiny object...here are some such distractions from the last week, my capital everythings:

This is his trying-to-get-away-with-something face.

I call this one Driftwood Surfer. Check out the form. A total natural, if only she didn't mind getting water in her eyes.

The t-shirt says it all.

If I were better at math I would graph the curve of her cheek, the slope of her nose, the rise of those lashes to better understand the beauty of divine proportion and why her profile stops me every goddamn time.

xo,
S