Tag Archives: ybab

Sexy back

Well, I am totes in rehab now. You want to know another reason I should be in rehab? The last two times we’ve had sushi, we accidentally dressed the wee uni in a kimono top that day. So insensitive! Actually, Mr. H did that. He ought to be in rehab, not me. But tell that to Oprah. She made me cry, and I promised to go, so here we are.

They issued me a do-rag and these:

And put me to work cleaning the bathroom:

I am all blurry because I am in rehab. Rehab goggles make substance abusers look like even better life partners.

It was a bad day to get bathroom duty. Lindsay Lohan is doing a cleanse. And so we found this in the loo:

I have to go lie down.

Year of the boor

Well, doggies, innernet! I best not leave you for another week without a post. That is mighty inhospitable. If things ever grind to a halt without my presence, I trust you will lean hard against the wind and steer the prow of your browser to double u double u double u dot wikipedia dot org and view my very favorite entry: Fallacy. Seriously, you could stay there all day! Then this is my second favorite entry, the red herring. If only they’d had Wikipedia ten or fifteen years ago. I wouldn’t have bothered with college. If they’d had IMDB, that might have been nice too. Just the other day, I had to make sure that Henry Ian Cusick is not the same person as James Callis. I am confused by hairstyles. Also, all white people look alike. Also, I can’t find my glasses.

What else is new? Well, I made a vegan chocolate cake to celebrate ybab’s eight month birthday (for me, not her). I even did that Martha Stewart business where one protects the pedestal of the cake stand with parchment paper while I shellacked it with icing. It looked beautiful! But it tasted like ass (the answer is yes, and you’ve tasted it too, I’ll warrant, so stop with the Happy Gilmore line of questioning). A ybab was returned early, and I overcooked the cake part. Oops. A ybab can stand up and walk around the room while holding the finger of a responsible adult (i.e. not me). This is terrifying.

Sick, sick, sick

From the management team: “Correction: The Hot Water shut down, only effects the River Building.”

Oh, I’ll give you a correction! Let me get out my red electrons.

A ybab just finished a whirlwind installation of four teeth. She looks like a little hobo. Today she tested well with the urban demographic. “Dayum, you got a ybab in there!” No, I am not just amazingly obese. There is a ybab under my coat. Where do you keep your spare?

Let’s draw the line at genocide

Saw that on the news last night in a story about Fidelity’s dealings with oil companies meddling in the Sudan. Fidelity says they have a legal responsibility to provide the highest returns to consumers, therefore they won’t rethink their choices. The reporter asked “So Fidelity is not willing to draw the line at genocide?” What a novel policy. A little mutiliation and oppression would be fine, Fidelity, as business is business, but draw that line!

Yesterday a ybab played a fun game called “Let’s cry all day.” Yes, let’s. Of course she settled right down as soon as her father came home, and her fever and general malaise finished by the time the doctor charged us $30 to say “Fluid in the ears, no infection. Teething.” Which I knew, but wouldn’t I be a jerk if I were wrong? On the way back, we saw dogs, so I guess that wasn’t a total waste of a leaving of the house.

I’ve been meaning to write about NBC’s segment on cocktail playdates last week. A blogger  got totally sandbagged by a stern robot of an expert, who asserted that women must never, ever drink in the presence of a child, and anyone who has even one drink has Issues and needs to learn a Healthy Way of Coping. I couldn’t write about this at the time I watched the segment, because it was 8 AM, and I was already drunk, and so were all my friends. Don’t you put Kahlua and whiskey in your coffee*? Now, we have been known to have a glass of wine with dinner because we don’t like coping. We do like wine, though. But, to the blogger’s point, there is a man around to keep me in line. Unforunately, that man is Mr. H, who has never actually managed to do this.

Meredith Viera had her “disapproving mother hen” face on throughout the segment. Perhaps she should go back to The View, where she and Barbara Walters and Rosie O’Donnell and that pretty-but-dumb little one can talk about being disgusted by breastfeeding instead. Rosie O’Donnell apparently didn’t let her partner breastfeed their baby past six weeks because she didn’t want to miss out on bonding too. Well, I have news for you: a ybab prefers the perfectly teat-less Mr. H at least 90% of the time. As a society, we’re OK with genocide, as long as it’s profitable, but titties, man, titties. Those are really scary. Especially when attached to drunk women. They are like twin frozen margarita machines, right there on the chest, where people can see them!

*This reminds me of one particularly awful job I had. My office wife and I would go hit Bruegger’s every morning for coffee and a bagel, and then we would nip into the liquor store next door for, well, nips to add to the coffee. And thus renewed, we would go back to our sublet lair in an unheated church basement, clap our leg irons back on, and enable the purchase of cut-rate vacation packages. You know, make the internet happen. But we drew the line at genocide!

The more I ignore me

Yesterday my lunch resigned from my stomach on short notice. As I was hunkered on the floor, a caustic freshet of broccoli dill soup shooting from both my mouth and nose, I realized it was the fourth anniversary of Vomitola.com! Actually, I realized that this morning. And the anniversary is really last Monday. No, head in bowl, I thought “Heather would know just what to play!” That’s a compliment. Once I threw up during a college radio shift, and while I was off horking up my tacos, she played “The Choke” by Skinny Puppy. Oh, nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen…nobody knows but boddddyyy.

I also realized that I haven’t thrown up in seven months and two days. Say, that’s the exact age of a ybab. Say. I threw up ON her on the most auspicious day of her birth. Should I put that in the memory book? Of course I’m going to. Where is the memory book, anyway? Mr. H has not thrown up in the entire six or seven years that I’ve known him. His take on the situation? “I’d rather crap.” Well, wouldn’t we all. Wouldn’t we all!

A priest, a rabbi, and a parenting expert were crossing a river in a rowboat…

I accidentally watched thirty seconds of the local FOX affiliate’s morning show last week. Why was the TV left on FOX at all? Cops, duh. Anyway, a self-proclaimed parenting expert was talking about “infant discipline.” I picked up my coffee and prepared to be infuriated.

But the lady had a point! She said that I shouldn’t be picking up my ybab every time my ybab cries because this will teach her that I will pick her up every time she cries. I pondered this, thinking that surely there will be some time when I’ll need to pick her up. What if she is being partially eaten by crocodiles? But I realized that I would have to stand my ground. If I pick her up every time she’s being eaten by crocodiles, she’s just going to expect me to pick her up every time she’s being eaten by crocodiles. Shouldn’t she be learning to self-soothe if she’s being eaten by crocodiles? She should also be able to sleep through being eaten by crocodiles, for at least twelve hours in a row.

I still haven’t gotten around to writing the nasty letter I planned to write. I have been too busy picking up my ybab, but only when she is not being eaten by crocodiles.

Oh, to finish the joke, the parenting expert fell in the river, and the priest and the rabbi beat her senseless with a paddle. She died.

Jack Bauer once double-teamed a chick all by himself

I am finally halfway through reading the October issue of Vogue. I’ve found out about outfits that are already out of style and movies that are already out of the theater. Very useful. Where’s the beef? Not in Vogue, of course.

In other TCB news, I am halfway finished collecting the annual bucket of refuse to take to the accountant. It seems we’ve paid enough in medical expenses and usury mortgage interest to buy a Lincoln Navigator. Well, more than a Yaris or two at least. How very, very exciting. I even paid my quarterly taxes like a good Beta, and I have the faint hope that we might get a refund. After all, a ybab is a terrible drain on our finances what with her daytrading habit. I keep telling her to hang on to Home Depot, but she doesn’t listen.

If Jack Bauer lived next door to Kramer, Kramer would knock before entering

Not much going on at This Old Hovel. I find myself wandering around muttering things like “They’re boxy, but they’re good!”

Yesterday, we went to IKEA again, under great protest. Did you know that you need to special order hinges for your kitchen cabinets, but you have to pick up your handles at the store? You can’t just also order the handles. Theoretically, at the end of 3-5 more weeks, we’ll have some cabinets. Goodbye, pile of food. Goodbye, unused rice cooker. Now no one will be able to see that I don’t use you.

Anyway, at IKEA, you can totally tell who is from Cambridge. That is all. And you can also tell who made a wrong turn looking for the Christmas Tree Shops. They’ll be the ones in your way in the marketplace as you desperately try to escape. They’ll also ask, of the ybab strapped to your front, “Is he comfortable in there?” No, I am Jack Bauer. I specialize in discomfort of the infant variety. If a ybab is comfortable, then I am doing something wrong. Please call my 800 number.

Whoa dilly

I am in the land of mundane tasks. That is right next to the Island of Misfit Toys. The cat has started a pots n’ pans band with the ybab. I asked them to be quiet while I was calling Fidelity to tell them to do something to my no-money, and they laughed at me. Then Fidelity laughed at me and said I had to DOWNLOAD A FORM AND MAIL IT LIKE A PEASANT, even though their site said to call a rep to access this feature. Some feature. Some pig. It’s OK, a ybab didn’t need a college fund anyway. She’ll get through on pluck and determination and a last minute made up scholarship essay just like her ma.

Speaking of the peasantry, I had to lie to them on engraved stationary the other day. Bless their little hearts. They think they are doing something good, but their puny offerings merely sadden and then enrage me. Back to the discount chain with your slutty infant outfits! I will thank you through pursed lips. My, what a colorful outfit. My. The accompanying rash is also colorful. Those pants make a six-month-old into a regular Tara Reid, which is what we all want in our heart of hearts. There is no nice way to just say “Please don’t buy gifts ever agin. We’ll still love you, if not love you even more.”

On preferences

Someone is a Big Girl all of a sudden. No, not me. I remain incompetent. Two nights ago, we thought we would add a second book to bedtime since we got a few for Festivus. A ybab pitched an unholy fit, so we stopped and went for trusty Goodnight Moon. She shrieked and squealed and was riveted as usual. Goodnight mush! No, I really mean it. You have a great night, mush. Who leaves mush out on a bedside table? That sounds like a recipe for botulism.

The next night, we explained that we’d still be reading Goodnight Moon after the new book. She grudgingly tolerated What Shall We Do With the Boo-Hoo Baby (Pickle her! String her up! It’s really hard not to editorialize.), but she also lolled back until she was totally upside down with her foot in her mouth. Then Mr. H picked up the other book and started to read the title. She popped straight up instantly and screeched with glee. I guess we have at least another 750 readings of Goodnight Moon left, each. I’ve tried sneaking in made up verses, and this also doesn’t fly. It wouldn’t be so bad if there weren’t one ridiculously showy identical rhyme. When we’re really vamping at the end, sometimes we read the ISBN and Canadian price.