QUICK GIGGLE: Sexy Sax Man

Okay, so this giggle’s not as quick as usual.

But when you’re never gonna dance again…

And when your guilty feet have got no rhythm…

Sometimes what you really need is five minutes of a guy in pleather tights playing the sexy sax riff from George Michael’s Careless Whispers over…

and over…

and over…

(p.s. I’m more than a little ashamed that I actually know the lyrics to this song…)

QUICK GIGGLE: Josh Groban sings Kanye West Tweets

…fur pillows are hard to actually sleep on…

 

Quick Giggle: Five Seconds…

…of prairie dog awesomesauce.

EXTERNAL CRAZY

Something about a woman in the later stages of pregnancy brings out the crazy in people around her.  Not just the crazy, but the stupid.  The ridiculous.  The outstandingly inappropriate.

The starting point for external crazy begins when a pregnant woman’s stride changes from the normal one-foot-in-front-of-the-other gait to the waddle-side-to-side-with-one-hand-on-the-small-of-your-back march.  Every pregnancy I’ve had has testified to this.

Cafe Press. Click here to see!

With my firstborn, a lady came up to me in a Wal-Mart, put both hands on my belly uninvited, slipped into a seance-like trance for a moment, and then told me my baby would be born without eyes.

With my second, a grandmotherly woman gently patted my belly, and then my hips and butt-cheeks, and told me I was made for breeding.

With my third, at a wedding shower, my own grandmother told me that she and I needed to stick together throughout the party because we were the fat girls in the room.  (This woman has a knack for snark…like the time she told me how pretty I looked…followed by the phrase, Isn’t it amazing what makeup can do for a person?)

So now, here I am, about a month away from the glorious act of giving birth.  I’ve got a waddle that any duck would be jealous of, a belly that puts Santa to shame, and Lord Almighty, the crazies are out to get me.

I’m a meal planner.  If I wasn’t, we literally would never, ever eat at home.  Meal planning saves my culinary hide, time and time again.  The downfall to this, however, is the massive grocery shop I do twice a month.  I spend an ungodly amount of time in the ginormous supermarket around the corner from my house, waddling from one end to the other, precariously stocking my cart like it’s a mobile, volatile game of Jenga while trying to keep my lovely three-year-old from accidentally toppling over the giant display of Velveeta.  Or freeing the tank of lobsters, who she feels would be much happier out of the water.  Or from opening every box of cookies, fruit snacks, pop-tarts, or whatever junk food happens to be within her reach.

Grocery shopping is stressful.

Yesterday was grocery shopping day.

Thankfully, we made it through the experience without incident…until we got in line to check out.

As I was putting my groceries on the conveyor belt, my lovely belly decided it was time to pull out its favorite labor-conditioning activity: Braxton-Hicks contractions.  Anybody who’s had multiple kids knows these contractions get stronger with each consecutive child.  It’s not actual labor – it’s just a pregnant woman’s body’s way of reminding her that, This thing you’re about to experience?  You know, popping a kid out of your lady-bits?  Yeah.  It’s gonna hurt like hell.  I’m sure there’s a more practical, biological reason for the fake contractions, but at that particular moment, I didn’t really care what it was.  At that point, all that mattered was that my abdomen had begun to clench down like a snapping turtle jacked up on Red-Bull and reptilian angst, and I was juggling a glass jar of milk in one hand, a carton of eggs in the other, and a bag of apples in my teeth.

I set my stuff down and drew in a deep breath, knowing the contraction would pass in just a moment.  Then I could pay for my groceries and get the heck out of Dodge.

Of course, it was at that moment that the checker (who had previously ignored my presence altogether) decided to glance at me.

Click here to see Kristen Wiig rocking it as Target Lady

Checker: (loudly, to no-one in particular) Oh my god, she’s going into labor!

Me: (still trying to breathe) No, I’m not.

Checker: Yes you are, you’re going into labor!

Me: No, I’m not.

SweetZ: Mommy? Is the baby hurting you?

Me: (patting her head while directing mean thoughts to the cashier) No, honey, I’m fine. 

At this point the pain begins to taper off, and I quickly resume putting groceries on the conveyor belt.

Checker: (distrustfully) You’re sure you’re not going into labor?

Me:  (irritated) Nope.  Not going into labor.

Checker: ‘Cause you know I’m not delivering your baby.

Me: (to self) No shit?  (to her, firmly) I’m not going into labor.

Checker: (after a brief moment of beautiful silence)  I took a human sexuality class once.

Me: (to self) Oh, lord.  (to her) Really?

Checker: (stops checking groceries) Yeah.  In college.  I hated it.

Me: (to her) Oh.  (to self) Why has she stopped ringing up my groceries?  What’s SweetZ doing?  (look around and spy SweetZ raiding the candy display)

Checker:  Yeah.  It was my first class of the day.  I hated it.  It killed sex for me.  It’s why I never had any kids.  The whole thing was disgusting.

Me: (pulling four suckers, five candy bars, and two packages of gum out of SweetZ’s hands and putting them back in the display)  That’s too bad.

Checker: (eyeing my belly distastefully) Not really. (resumes ringing up my groceries)

At this point, the guy bagging my groceries decides to chime in.

Bagger:  I took a human sexuality class in college, too.

Checker:  Really?

Bagger:  Yeah.  I loved it.

Me: (to self, digging through wallet, pretending to look for debit card) Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up.

Bagger:  I took a human sexuality class in college, too.

Me: (to self) Why is he repeating that?  (looks up)

Bagger: (is staring me down)  I took a human sexuality class in college, too.

Me: (nodding slightly)  Cool.  (to self)  Why?  Why, why, why??

Bagger:  I loved it.  You want your juice in a sack?

Me: (timidly, hoping I’m not about to agree to some weird double-innuendo sexual favor; I really just want SweetZ’s apple juice in a sack) Yes, please.

Checker:  I hated it.  Disgusting.  (looks at my bag of parsley)  Is this cilantro?

Me: No.  It’s parsley.

Checker:  Parsley?  (for some reason this seems to annoy her.  She looks at my belly once more, eyeing it like it’s a homemade explosive about ready to go off)  You’re sure you’re not in labor?

Me:  (exasperated sigh) Nope.  Not in labor.

Needless to say, when the bagger asked if I needed help out, I declined.  That had to be one of THE MOST uncomfortable grocery store conversations I’ve ever had.  Ever.

Okay, so it’s time for you to dish and make me feel better.  I want to hear your awkward grocery store moments, pre-natal or not.  Bad attempts at flirting in the produce aisle?  Shelf stock-boy stalking?  Devil children roaming the store unattended?  If you have a memorable grocery store moment, this is the place to share!

QUICK GIGGLE: Sh*t Nobody Says

I’ve got one he forgot:  Scooping my doggie’s doo out of the yard is AWESOME!

Can you think of any that weren’t mentioned?

QUICK GIGGLE: Guilt is a heavy burden.

Jumping into the Deep End

A long, long time ago, back when we had one-and-a-half kids less than we do now, my sweet little family and I lived on the Big Island of Hawai’i.

*Taking a moment to sigh wistfully.  Feel free to feel envy, jealousy, covetousness, resentment, what-have-you toward me for that fair bit of good fortune.*

Anyway…

I revisit that time of life quite often.  Out of all my memories, those two years spent on a giant hunk of lava are some of my most vivid.  I could spend hours telling(typing) all kinds of stories about a naive young family from Nebraska who sold all their worldly possessions (except what could fit into a few boxes) and moved half a continent and half an ocean away.  Sight unseen.  No clue whatsoever of what waited for us.

But I won’t.  Instead, I’ll just tell you one story.  For now.  (I reserve the right to bore you with all the other stories at a later date.  *enter evil laugh here*  It’s my blog, after all.)

Not long after our arrival, we, along with a sweet couple we’d recently met, decided to go to the beach.  Now, beaches on Big Island are different than what normally comes to mind when you think Hawaiian beaches.  Big Island is a young island, as far as islands go, and long stretches of uninterrupted white sand are a rarity there.  The few that do exist can be difficult to get to (Think 4-wheel driving across unforgiving beds of lava.  Something we weren’t keen on doing just yet, especially since we were driving about in a borrowed car).

So, we headed to a place called Two-Step.  One of the most beautiful places you’ll ever go for snorkeling.

The problem with Two-Step, though, is that it’s not really a beach.  It’s simply a shelf of lava that juts out into the ocean.  Gorgeous, mind you – the contrast of that wet, black shelf against the brilliant blue hues of the water…It’s something to look at.  But there’s no sand to speak of, and the water there isn’t child friendly.

That wasn’t going to dampen our spirits, though.  The Hubster and his new buddy took off for some snorkeling, while my sweet new friend Em and I stayed back to hang out with the kids, exploring the little nooks and crannies in the lava with my then 2-year old boy, while my little 4 month old baby slept on a blanket nearby.  I’m not gonna lie.  It was a killer way to spend the afternoon.

At some point, I decided I wanted to swim out and find the Hubster.  Em said she’d stay behind to watch the kids, so off I went, eager to splash a little.

Before I go on, there’s a little background about me you need to know:

I grew up in Kansas.  KANSAS.  A landlocked stretch of country that boasts gorgeous skies, lovely pastures, freakishly diverse weather and unforgiving wind.  Not a lot of water here, though, and nothing even laughably close to the mighty Pacific.  Even though I’d been swimming since I was little, every bit of swimming I’d ever done up to that point was in muddy pasture ponds, or State-dug lakes.  Bodies of water with no current.  No waves.  No uneven hunks of lava underneath you, teeming with things just waiting to inflict pain on you.  There’s just murky, brown water that is often shared by cows and humans alike.

Even so, I wasn’t going to let my lack of experience hinder me.  I boldly made my way to the edge of the lava shelf, where tourists and locals had gathered to step down into the ocean – the place where Two Step had gotten its name.  Here, when the waves pulled back a little, you could see the lava had formed into two ‘steps’ leading into the great blue abyss.

I waited patiently for my turn, watching as people gleefully jumped out into the warm, tropical water.  My chest was pulling tighter and tighter the closer I got.  There’s no need to freak.  It’s just water.  You know how to swim.  My little mini-pep talk was pathetic, and I knew it.  But there was no way I was going to turn back and admit my cowardice.  Pride pushed me onward.  I was a trembling but stubbornly determined mess by the time my turn came.

Gingerly, I stepped down onto the first step.  A huge wave of tsunami proportions (as it seemed to me) came rushing up at that exact moment.  My feet never touched the second step.  The wave pulled me out away from the shelf, and there was Midwestern Myndi flapping around in the water just like a fish out of water.

Ever aware that there were people around me, watching, I tried to act cool about it.  Like I’d been doing this my whole life.  I’m 100% certain no one was fooled.  For one thing, I’m a terrible actor/liar.  Everything I’m feeling in a particular moment is displayed on my face whether I want it to or not.  I’m pretty sure the expression my face carried in those moments could be described as utter-terror-I’m-too-young-to-die-oh-my-gosh-what-in-the-heck-just-brushed-by-my-leg??? .  But even if my face hadn’t given away just how out of my element I was, my skin color certainly did.  I’m what my friend Liz calls ‘an alabaster beauty’.  My skin is so fair, that when our family doctor in Omaha learned that we were moving to the Islands, he advised that I take out stock in a sunscreen company.  And he wasn’t joking.  Anybody with half a functioning eye could see that I didn’t belong.

So not only was I flapping around like a fish out of water, I looked like a fish out of water.  On top of that, I felt like a fish out of water.  It suddenly dawned on me that I was terrified of this thing called the Pacific Ocean.  I think I even hated it a little.  I may have even told it so, in the water-logged, profanity-filled language of a native Kansas cowgirl.

It was at that moment that some idiot dude in a snorkeling mask swam up to me.  Somehow I was managing to keep my head above water, but every time my breathing would begin to even out, a killer wave intent on sending me to a watery grave (Em’s hubster would later inform me through thinly masked amusement that these were hardly considered waves, but ripples) would send me back to borderline hyperventilating and hysteria.  It was at this exact moment that this idiot dude decided to hit on me.  For real.

Him:  It’s a rush, isn’t it?

Me: What?? 

Him:  The water.  It’s a rush!

Me (frantically looking around for the Hubster, barely able to comprehend that this guy was trying to talk to me):  Yeah, I guess.  

(Wave hits again.  I splash wildly trying to turn direction and swim the heck away from this moron.)

Him:  Hey, where are you going?  I thought we’d swim out together.

(Now I’m not only worrying about being drowned by an ocean that apparently hates me and wants me dead, but I’ve got some kind of aqua-stalker following me around.  My paddling becomes even more frantic, getting me absolutely nowhere.)

Me (trying to sound indignant, not panicky):  I’m going to swim with my HUSBAND.

Him:  Myndi?

Me (to self):  Oh my god, he knows my name.  How in the hell does he know my name??

Him (louder):  MYNDI!

Me: *sob* Leave me alone!

(Somehow the evil ocean has turned me around again.  I’m face to face with this weirdo, and I’m trying to figure the odds of me managing to paddle straight through him without drowning in the process.)

Him (a little more urgently):  Myndi, it’s me.  It’s Thomas!

(He pulls the goggles and snorkel off.  I stare at him in shock as he morphs from some weird-a$$ stranger to my dearly beloved Hubster, who just moments ago I was certain I’d never see again.)

Of course I immediately sea-cow lunged for him, locking my legs and arms around him in a vice grip, nearly drowning us both.  He couldn’t stop laughing as he towed his poor water-logged wife to shore.  I’d never been so happy to see him, or my kids, or dry land.

After that day, the Hubster and I had an agreement.  I wouldn’t go back to Two Step.  Ever.  And I’d never attempt snorkeling.  Ever.  I didn’t give a rats behiney how gorgeous the underwater world was.  How it was just like ’Finding Nemo’ down there.  How the turtles would swim with you and the world would go silent around you.  Nope.  Not ever.  Not for me.  We’d seek out the few sandy beaches and stick to those – beaches where I could feel the sand gradually slope down under my toes, where I wouldn’t be afraid to pull my kids into the water.

That, my friends, was my first plunge into the Pacific Ocean.

Any other aqua-phobes (word?) out there?  Funny underwater stories that you’re dying to share?  C’mon, make me feel better about my first foray into the wide blue yonder!

Quick Giggle: All Lies, I Tell You! All LIES!

This video popped up on Facebook a couple weeks ago, and it had me giggling all the way through.  I give you Seven Lies about Homeschoolers.  

Do you have preconceived ideas about homeschoolers?  Don’t be shy, let’s hear ‘em!

 Have any of you homeschooling parents out there run face-first into these (or other) misconceptions?

Let’s dish!

LEAVE A CAPTION SATURDAY

Rules: Leave your caption in the comments.  Best caption wins…nothing.  But hey, it could be fun!

“Boo!”

Log-Lines from the Edge of Ridiculousness

Last week I braved my fears and threw my attempt at a log-line for my book out to the masses for feedback.  And what feedback I got!  Such encouraging, kind, constructive words from so many of you…I’m still chewing through it all, but I’m feeling better about the concept.

We really Are Not Alone…and it rocks.  *big grins*

One suggestion that I found really helpful was to compare the book to popular movies or books that already exist.  While the hubster and I were discussing this idea, the conversation drifted, as it generally does, into the ridiculous.  Soon we weren’t talking about my book at all, but saying things like:

Beverly Hillbillies meets The Breakfast Club

Five nouveau riche hillbilly highschoolers move to Beverly Hills and find themselves in detention after refusing to conform to privileged private school rules.

or

Uncle Buck meets Ghost Busters

Unemployed bachelor and all-around slob, Buck babysits his brother’s rebellious – and ghostly – teenage daughter and her cute – and slimy – younger brother and sister.

We spent a decent amount of time cracking up at our new game and very, very clever book premises.  (To be fair, the hubster was home sick that day, jacked up on cold medicine…and I’m all a muss with preggo hormones…so things probably sounded far funnier to us than they will to any of you.)

As we were cackling and patting ourselves on the back for our wit and humor, it dawned on me how this could easily turn into hours and hours of fun – or, at the very least, a blog post.  :)

So here are some log-lines for unwritten books based on the idea of marrying popular movies/books/tv shows together.

300 meets 18 Again

King Leonidas – trapped in the body of his swinging grandfather – must lead a force of 300 men to fight the Persians while maintaing his bad-ass reputation, while his grandfather, trapped in King Leonidas’ much younger body, decides to re-live his youth.

How to Train Your Dragon meets Pride and Prejudice

Sparks fly when spirited but clumsy Elisabeth Bennet meets single, rich, and powerful dragon-slaying Viking Mr. Darcy.

Training Day meets Top Dog

On his first day on the job as a narcotics officer, a rookie cop works with a rogue detective who wasn’t what he expected: a dog.

Footloose meets Diehard

A city boy moves to small-town USA where he gives a local terrorist operative a dose of their own medicine through the medium of rock and roll and dancing.

Seabiscuit meets Boondock Saints

An undersized depression-era racehorse sets out to rid Boston of evil.

Elf meets Dirty Harry

After inadvertently wreaking havoc on the elf community due to his ungainly size and love of his gun, a man raised as an elf in the North Pole is sent to San Francisco to track down a serial killer.

UHF meets Jersey Shore

A local public TV station gets a new owner – a 20-something New Jersey-ite with orange skin, sky-high bouffant, and a vapid lifestyle.  Against all odds, the station becomes a big hit, with all sorts of gags and wacky humor from her friends.

Alright, that’s plenty from me – I want to hear what you’ve got!  What are some story combinations so ridiculous that they have you laughing out loud?