Tag Archives: low concerns

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.

My small life continues!

Today I took Potassium Challenge. To do this, put three bananas in a blender. Dump in almond milk and enough cocoa powder to turn things brown. You can add almond butter if you are feeling totally insane. If you are only feeling moderately insane, add peanut butter. Mmmm, allergenic. I like to serve in a glass chilled in the freezer. Instant pretendo vegan ice cream!

A ybab’s dental trauma continues. She’s decided not to stop with just a tooth. She’s growing a tusk. Like a narwhal or something.

I made a list of people who are fated to receive our holiday card. How do we know 100 people? I don’t want to know 100 people. I do not want to address 100 envelopes, that’s for damn sure.

Restrain me

Tonight I took a ybab to the condo association meeting because I had to vote for people to be head busybody and Lord High Protector of the Visitor Parking Spot. A ybab behaved most delightfully, better than many of the adults present. Seen but not heard is a welcome prescription for most of society. OK, without the “seen” part too. I totally forgot about Wal-Mart for a minute there.

In other news: someone has recently acquired an enormous SUV. The license plate reads “YOGAETC.” Yoga and global warming, oil wars, etc.. Goes together like peanut butter and rocks.

Oh, and Zellweger has been leaking radiation all over the house. She’s hiding something, I just know it.

Then we received some mail

A ybab did not care to sleep, so we tried to go for a walk. It’s jeezly cold out, and the wind is whipping along the river. Old ladies glared at me for daring to take a ybab out. She was wrapped in a snug blanket, and she was wearing her silliest hat.

I was not wearing a hat. I also don’t own a winter coat. Mr. H got putty on it last year. The coat drive would not even take it. I can’t go try on clothes with a ybab because she hates and hates and hates. So I wrap myself in newspaper. I am turning into my mother. We can’t have nice things.

On the way back in, we checked the mail. We received several pieces of junk mail and a bank statement.

And then what happened?

I’m glad you asked. A ybab and I went through the drive-thru at the drugstore to get drugs. Then we went to the deli to buy a lot lot of booze. The deli was mostly out of booze! They are going to convert to a cafe soon. I forgot to RESERVE PIE NOW, and I was all prepared to grub one of their extra pies, but they didn’t have any pie at all. That’s OK, I can’t eat it anyway.

But I can drink a pie! Here is the annual Vomitola.com Free Recipe Giveaway.

Apple Pie
1 part Harpoon Winter Warmer
1 part Cider Jack or other cider. I actually prefer Magner’s.

Then I saw a person to whom I was recently introduced. I see this person everywhere now, yet we have no deeper relationship than the first meeting. Hi, hi! Helllooo.

I’m voting for this cheese sandwich

No, I’m voting for the person who called my house with the least amount of recorded messages. No, that would be bad. I’m voting for the person with the funniest commercials. No, he’s pro death penalty and has his own smorgasboard of crackpot ideas to boot. I guess I will vote for Deval Patrick and close my eyes and pretend he’s Barack Obama. Or Bill Clinton. Voting for Bill Clinton was so fun! Politics = totes not fun now.

Or I will skip voting in the governor’s race at all and turn my attention to my own pet cause, Wine at Grocery Stores. I already live near a lawless New Hampshire border town, so I can go buy all the damn wine I want at a grocery store. And that would be a lot of wine. We switched to Wine Block to economize. The grocery store carries the yellow box, the pink box, and the red box. The rest of the state should enjoy similar privilege.

I still haven’t made up my mind on the ballot question that has something to do with childcare. I have a child, so that might one day affect me, if she didn’t incinerate babysitters with the power of her mind. John Kerry says I should vote for whatever the question is, but a friend’s home daycare provider who has a yard full of stray insulation rolls and auto parts says I should not vote for it. Dammit, I am going to have to read something to get to the bottom of this, aren’t I?

Naw, I’ll just let a baby vote. I knew there was some reason we keep her around. She’s getting good at typing, and she ate my grocery list the other day. I have to go lie down with my wine block and a curly straw.

It’s like Ed Norton decorated our bathroom

That’s an IKEA joke. Badum. I would punch Ed Norton too.

Note to greater universe: calling or emailing me every day does not make the parasite come out any faster. In fact, each contact initiation adds one day before I will actually tell you any news at all. Three days if the email also contains a lame forward, be it a prayer, recipe (I have a really hard time believing you went and bought fish sauce, Betty Lunchbucket), or “word find” titled “My Mommy and Me are Best Friends.” In fact, that gets you put on the auto-bounce list. Dead to me!

Mr. H is standing around yelling “screws!” There are several thousand of them dumped on the table, but none of them are the right ones. This is also Ed Norton’s fault.

I have to go putty something.

Can I get some unnecessary antibiotics with that condescension?

The other day I made the big, huge, giant mistake of calling my parents to let them know we moved back into our house after a soggy two-week vacation in crapsville. I see now that I missed my chance to disappear forever, but live and learn. In passing, I complained to my mother about my aunt’s religious forwards, and I left instructions to never give my email address to anyone again, unless that person can prove he needs to contact me to award a genius grant. I mentioned my aunt’s helpful recitation about her grandson’s neck fold infections, and my mom ran with that. “Those kids have been on constant antibiotics, it’s no wonder!”

Wait. A tick. I seem to recall getting dragged to the doctorin’ hut (a walk-in clinic, we never had real doctors) for antibiotics for even a hint of a cold, or possibly seasonal allergies. Dr. Nick would protest “Is virus, no antibiotics,” but my mother would snort like a bull and cross her arms, and we’d leave with amoxicillin anyway. No thermal print out on the care of a sore throat involving mere salt water would be enough for her. Then we’d stop the antibiotics as soon as we felt better, and she’d give us the leftovers on the next cold. I think that’s the definition of how not to take antibiotics, unless perhaps you are also procuring your antibiotics from someone who runs the donkey show in Tijuana.

And let’s not forget the entire year I took tetracycline for acne when I was about thirteen. It never worked, and years later I found out that this was probably because my mom fed it to me each morning with a Carnation Instant Breakfast. She’s always been big on the “you have to eat breakfast” concept, although it’s perfectly OK if breakfast is a Little Debbie snack cake, purchased from the day old store. “As long as you have it with milk, for protein.” Whaddya know, dairy interferes with absorption. If you read the pharmacy label, you find things out sometimes.

I think I’ve taken antibiotics about four times in the last ten years, once I was left to arrange my own medical care.

On the flip side, my dad is now so paranoid about “Big Pharma” that he makes his own colloidal silver with a laser from a kit he bought on the internet. He attributes only daily colloidal silver consumption to his continued lack of death. Colloidal silver is a “natural antibiotic.” It can also turn you blue, but not according to his internet crackpot counter research.

But my mom stood her ground, and told me how babies always need antibiotics for a cold because of “secondary infections in their delicate little passages.” I mentioned that one of my annoying pediatrician interview questions was “Under what circumstances do you prescribe antibiotics,” and how I would rather not see someone who used them for the sniffles. This enraged her, and I got off the phone after that. Well, there was a diatribe about a conspiracy at her periodontist’s office, but I managed to think “meow meow meow meow” through most of that.

Today I finally got around to calling pediatricians. I got scoffed at for being “too close to my due date” to ask questions. I asked “So you mean my baby just doesn’t need a pediatrician then?” No, no, we just thought we’d berate you before making an appointment for an interview. I said “Fine, just assign me to the most attractive person in the practice, and I’ll call you once the baby’s here.” Then I called the next place. Same drill. Finally, I realized I was dealing with biddies, so I mentioned that I meant to do this sooner, but our house flooded. That was just the sympathy vote I needed, apparently. I’m all set up with Dr. Hot. If I’m going to have to listen to crappy mainstream parenting advice, it might as well be from someone incredibly comely.