Customer Service.
Mood:  incredulous
Topic: Evil Things
When are the blog comments going to be fixed at last? I have been patient, but here I am paying you guys so much per month and comments have been down for quite a long while now. Angelfire is doing fine, so PLEASE TELL ME WHEN YOU WILL FIX THIS PROBLEM. It's not just me; I have asked and don't know of anyone who has been able to post a comment. THANKS
_______________________________________________

Message by Casey on Wed, Jul 5th 2006 1:11 pm

The migration of the blog application and blog users should be completed by the end of the month. We thank you for your continued patience during this time of updates and bug fixes.

Sincerely,
Casey
Customer Support - Lycos

______________________________________________

Your message on Wed, Jul 5th 2006 1:41 pm

Do you mean the end of JULY? I request a partial credit to my account for the loss of this service, which occurred without warning and which is going on for an excessive amount of time. Comments stopped working probably in early or mid June, so you are talking about six to eight weeks. If you cannot accomplish this for me, then I request that you forward my request to the appropriate person who can handle this. I have stuck with Tripod for quite some time, if you check your records, despite the availability of other and possibly better blog hosts. I don't mean to be rude, but this length of time is far beyond reasonable. Thanks!
______________________________________________

Message by Casey on Wed, Jul 5th 2006 3:58 pm

The most I can tell you is that you can cacel [sic] your paid service til the end of the month and then reinstate it. In the meantime you will receive [sic] credit on your account after you cancel.

Sincerely,
Casey
Customer Support - Lycos

______________________________________________

Your message on Wed, Jul 5th 2006 5:07 pm

Okay, but what will I be losing if I cancel? I have a domain name and a certain amount of file space which is basically what I'm paying for. Will I lose the files that exceed the limit of the free service? Will my domain name quit working? Please advise. Sorry to be a pest, but this is truly annoying.

_______________________________________________

Message by Casey on Thu, Jul 6th 2006 10:25 am

If you cancel your tripod upgrade you will lose your domain name unless you have purchased it for a year through Lycos Domains, you will be downgraded to a free account with only 20MB of space available, you will have to delete files to stay under 20 MB, but you will keep your tripod membername account and can upgrade again at anytime.

Sincerely,
Casey
Customer Support - Lycos

_______________________________________________

Your message on Thu, Jul 6th 2006 12:44 pm

Casey, I'm sorry, but this is unsatisfactory to me. Please advise whom I can contact who has authority to handle this situation. And don't tell me that there is no one; there always is, and as a customer I am entitled to this information. Thanks much.
_______________________________________________

Message by Casey on Thu, Jul 6th 2006 1:33 pm

I have the complete authority to handle this request which is why Lycos employs me. You are saying that you are "entitled to this information" what information is it that I have not given you yet?

If you would like information about our refund policies, see the following:

REFUND INFORMATION
[words words words etc.]

Sincerely,
Casey
Customer Support - Lycos

_______________________________________________

Your message on Thu, Jul 6th 2006 1:40 pm

The information to which I referred is the identity of someone who could help me. If you're the one, then that's fine. The fact is that I am not receiving the benefit of my bargain; one of the reasons I placed my site with Tripod was the availability of a Comments function, and I am not receiving that. I do understand that brief outages are reasonable during times of upgrade or migration. However, six to eight weeks is not reasonable. If you've not got the bugs worked out for the new Comments, then the old Comments should be put back in place until the new one is ready to go. I'm sorry, but I'm not just going to shut up and eat this. My husband and I are legal professionals and we're well versed in what rights exist; but beyond that, where's the customer service and attention to customer satisfaction? Your response has amounted to, in effect, "Shut up and deal with it, or go free and lose your data storage." Not so good. I would not treat my own clients in such a manner.

_______________________________________________

Message by Casey on Thu, Jul 6th 2006 2:17 pm

It's completely up to your discretion. You can be patient and wait for the bug fix/glitch patch to be released later next week or you can downgrade your account for the time being, or you can cancel. I have laid out the specifics on this issue. Our programming team is working on the problem and it could be fixed next week or it may take longer, depending on what complications arise. What legal rights, honestly...if you want to read the terms for our service, which you agreed to upon signing up, you can find them here: http://info.lycos.com/legal/legal.asp. Legal professionals...don't try that with me. See if you understand these two words, no liability.

The customer service and attention is right here. I could have chose to not answer this ticket due to the fact I have already addressed your question/concern. But, alas, I am addressing your issue with our migration process once again Ms. Crumpacker. Take it as you will.

Sincerely,
Casey
Customer Support - Lycos
_______________________________________________

Hey, Casey -- you don't need to get snippy with me. Put yourself in my place. It's not like I would sue you people; what would be the point? Even to file the complaint would consume more of our time and money than it's worth. I'm only pointing out that long outages are not going to make any friends for Tripod; and when I ask "Hey, what's up with this?" you're basically telling me "We'll do it in our own time. Deal with it." Benefit of the bargain. It's a fairly basic concept.

I think at this point we should terminate the correspondence, because you appear to be taking my concerns in a personal way which I don't intend. Tripod can do what it will do, and I'll decide for myself whether I want to continue to pay for a blog host under these circumstances. Short and sweet and we're done. Have a nice day; in fact, have a martini or a joint or whatever. Job stress! It happens to all of us. Thanks for your time.

BULLETIN BULLETIN BULLETIN
Mood:  bright
Topic: Evil Things
Viewing my traffic reports, I found that the following searches -- reported here VERBATIM and NONE OF WHICH I AM MAKING UP -- produced hits on the Mr. Baby Show within the past week:

Great Blue Basenji *
"Seven years old" + diapers
Blak Mother Fuckers (HEE!)
Thomas Haden Church's children
Diarrhea + baby + smelly
Male Dogs Peeing On Everything *
Faded Stretch Marks
Newborn Smelly Poop *
Dave the Barbarian
My Little Baby
Pushing Out the Baby
Teen With Condom
Pregnancy + Sex
Show Me the Coochie
I Have a Poopy Inside My Diaper
Infants Smelly Farts *
James + Dyson + Gay
Delicious Mammaries *
Babies and No Rectum
Stripper in Baby Pool
Miniature Schnauzer Problem Peeing
Newborn Grunting + Poop
Large Freaky Nipples *
Smelly Nursing Dog *
Pee + Poo + Children

* Would be great name for rock band

Whether this says more about me or about my casual readers, one hates to speculate.

Ask Me Anything!
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: Evil Things
The Mr. Baby Show has been in a slump of late -- the doldrums, if you will. I would call it the dog days of summer, except that the calendar tells me that summer doesn't arrive for another two weeks. We've got plenty of dogs, though. Those we've got.

In the interest of BEING AN INSTIGATOR, which is something I particularly enjoy, I will blatantly steal an idea from Coleen D. and throw an ASK ME ANYTHING.

Here's the deal: In comments, or in an e-mail, ask me anything, and I will answer truthfully*. I'll leave it up for about a week, because I am a lazy bitch who would rather fart around in the garden than update, and then I will put up the questions and my answers in a new entry. Okay? THIS MEANS YOU TOO, LURKERS. JUST THIS ONCE, OKAY?

I thank you. Nicky and Rudy thank you, too. They would smell your butt, too, if you would only come close enough.
____________________
* Except insofar as to do so might subject me to civil or criminal liability.

Yet Again.
Mood:  accident prone
Topic: Evil Things


The headline says that a postal worker killed six people before committing suicide this morning in Goleta, California. You know, that old chestnut; it's even crept into colloquial American English: going postal. For me, it was made extra creepy by the fact that Kevin Simpson, my virtual son, lives in Goleta. Of course many people live in Goleta, and most of them aren't Kevin, so statistics were on the side of him being safe, but naturally that was the first thing I thought about.

Ha, Kevin. I'll bet at some point in your life some well-meaning adult told you "Why don't you try to get a Post Office job? Such great benefits." Uh, not so much beneficial. Not tonight. Aren't you glad you blew off that advice?

Urethra! I Have Found It.
Mood:  on fire
Topic: Evil Things
I have finally figured out once and for all why men are forever looking at women's asses. I'm not kidding. There have been many theories on this topic over the years, and most of them have sounded like bullshit of one brand or another to me, and I've been standing back reserving judgment all this time. However, yesterday I hit upon the TRUE reason, and I'm going to tell it to you now.

They enjoy looking at our asses because most of us grow fond of pretty things at which we look quite a lot. Don't you find that to be true?

Men are always three steps behind us, chugging along, scratching their heads and trying like hell to catch up. THAT IS WHY THEY ENJOY LOOKING AT OUR ASSES. BECAUSE THEY HAVE SPENT GENERATIONS LOOKING AT THEM WHILE TRYING TO CATCH UP TO US.

Thank you for your time.

Letter To The Editor 01/08/06.
Mood:  mischievious
Topic: Evil Things
In response to Jeffrey McCall's column concerning Howard Stern. I don't have time for arguments. I am simply going to hand you a list of facts, all of which are true. Check my story if you don't believe me.

I am a 45-year-old woman.

I have three children under the age of five.

My oldest child is 21 years old.

I purchased my household's subscription to the Howard Stern "On Demand" channel.

My husband and I watch together after the kids are in bed. If one of the kids comes in, we are ready with a finger on the button; usually we just switch to CNN, which is much gorier and raises far more questions from my kids than does Howard Stern.

I have been listening to the Stern Show since 1988.

My 21-year-old daughter and her fiance also listen. Sometimes we listen together. They are young and can't afford Sirius or On Demand on their income, so sometimes when the kids aren't around they go into one of the bedrooms, close the door, and watch in peace.

I am a registered Republican.

I voted for Bill Clinton twice. I also voted for Dubya twice. At the moment I am mulling becoming a registered Democrat. See, your choice of declared political party is not a practical act, it's a theoretical act. I am a pragmatist.

I think Howard is brilliant and also that he's going to do just fine regardless of what anyone thinks of him and regardless of his motivation.

I am a member of Mensa.

My husband and I hold a combined total of two undergraduate degrees and 2 1/2 postgraduate degrees.

Our annual household income is several times the national average.

We have never watched a reality television show.

As I said, all of the above are facts, not arguments. Ask me if you don't believe me. And if you still don't believe me, check me out. I guarantee you that I am the only Gretchen Crumpacker in America, and I know that because I have checked THAT out.

Gastronomy 101: Nursing Mom's Lament.
Mood:  hungry
Topic: Evil Things
In which I confess to an eating disorder in years past, and relate a heartwarming tale of how a girl who considers herself chubby in a size 6 struggles with food issues to this very day.

In the early '90s, baby, I had a body. Some of you saw it for yourselves: size 2 -- sometimes size zero; totally buffed out. I lifted weights every day. I rose each morning at 5:00 and rode my bicycle all the way around the Upper Newport Bay, the estuary which has been my esteemed neighbor for 13 years now. My ass cheeks were totally firm and taut, with zero overhang -- at age 38, I wore a thong bikini and got away with it. That was before having my three youngest kids, of course. And guess what? No one knew it, but I had an eating disorder.

No, I didn't throw up or starve myself down to 85 pounds. But I binged and starved; I had a very problematic relationship with food, that being as follows: I loved it, but I felt terribly guilty whenever I indulged in it. So I would eat very little all week long, mostly because I was feeling guilty about weekend indulgences. On Mondays? I didn't eat anything at all. And by the weekend I was so ravenous I would eat everything in sight, and by Monday I felt so awful about eating so much that it was back to eating nothing again. I always felt ill from hunger, or ill from overeating.

I also looked fantastic. But you must agree I wasn't a happy camper. This was during my second marriage; it was very important to Anthony that I be perfectly lean and terrific. And I was so stupid, even in my early 30s, that I allowed the better part of my sense of self-worth to revolve around this.

So, fast forward to the late '90s. A divorce. And a new love, Ben Crumpacker, a man who loves me primarily for who and what I am, and not for how large or small my Polish ass might be. My relationship with food straightened out immensely. But because I still like to stay thin -- reasonably thin -- and because I have now been pregnant and/or nursing for six years almost without interruption (three miscarriages, three children, breastfeeding till my kids turn two) -- I still have to grapple with my weight, and with my relationship with food.

During my pregnancy with Sam, I gained an incredible amount of weight. During my pregnancy with Matt, much less so -- in fact, I lost weight rather steadily during my first trimester, but no worry -- I was losing fat, not starving my baby; I ate well, but sensibly. I gained 40 pounds with Julia, lost 30 of that in the first two weeks or so after the birth, and am still playing cat-and-mouse with the last 10 pounds. I can't diet very hard while nursing and pumping; the caloric demand is incredible, and I'm possibly even more ravenous than I was during pregnancy. So food, while it is now my friend rather than my sworn enemy, remains a problem. I wear a size 4 when I'm "thin" and a size 6 when I'm "fat", but I'm very fine-boned; even in a size 4, I carry a good amount of body fat.

And now here come the holidays -- Helloooooo, Holidays! -- and today I had Brownie Bites for Breakfast. Because they were left over from a little office get-together yesterday afternoon, and when I walked into the kitchen this morning they hailed me, like so:

Good morning! Yes, it's us! And let us tell you, we would be just terrific with coffee. Come on, why not? It's the holidays! Time to have fun! And believe us you, nothing says holiday fun like Brownie Bites for Breakfast!

I've probably gained a few pounds since Halloween. The jeans I put on this morning told me that. But guess what? I refuse to have food for an enemy. I'm a nursing mom. I have to choose my battles, and I'm opting out of that one. Because as much fun as it was having that little tiny rock-hard ass, I choose Matt, Sam and Julia.

And now I hear the Brownie Bites calling me back for a celebratory nibble. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Bitten By The Zappos Bug.
Mood:  mischievious
Topic: Evil Things
An evil, evil woman turned me on to Zappos not so very long ago. She might as well have introduced me to heroin. Leigh talks about getting drunk and buying shoes online, but I am completely fucking sober, yet it is 2:20 a.m. on a Friday and I have just finished yet another goddamned Zappos shopping session.

Those fuckers. You buy from them once, and they start lurking about your e-mailbox like drug pushers hanging around down by the high school. NOVEMBER CLEARANCE SHOE SALE! sings the message, and like a total fucking idiot I open the message, and click on the link, and the next thing you know I am salivating over a pair of butterfly-embossed flats which I absolutely do not need, but which nonetheless I suddenly absolutely must possess. GODDAMMIT, THIS IS A SICKNESS. I need help.

I don't go completely nuts, of course. I have a strict policy against lying to my husband about money, although I will cop to sometimes keeping things on a need-to-know basis, like so:

Ben: Your hair looks great. Was that, um, really expensive?

Me: Well, you know, it didn't shock the conscience or anything.

You see? When in doubt, equivocate. And always buy on sale! Because then you have an additional argument on your side, that being But honey, they were on sale. Seventy-five percent off! Can you imagine? I got a $100 pair of shoes for $25. At which point Ben will say Wow. I guess you had to buy them. Which is precisely what I want him to think, despite the glaringly obvious fact that you know what would have been even cheaper? Not to buy the goddamned shoes in the first place.

Anyway, I managed to escape for under $80 this time, but just barely, although yay! Free shipping, which is yet another enticement and further proof that Zappos is as evil and insidious as any playground pusher. Good Christ, they are clever.

So there is yet another Zappos box on its way to my address. I rationalize it by saying I'm going to give these shoes as Christmas gifts. Can I help it if I wear a seven medium, a size worn by a large percentage of the population? So it remains to be seen how many pairs of shoes will end up under a Christmas tree, or how many will end up under a Christmas tree other than mine, and how many will bypass the Christmas tree altogether and go directly from the box onto my feet.

Leigh: You are evil. Zappos: You are EVIL INCARNATE.

Confession.
Mood:  d'oh
Topic: Evil Things
Some of you may know that my Friday was imported straight from Hell into the lap of yours truly. I can't bear to get into details -- can't talk, write or even think anymore about what a truly godawful day this has been, except to say Lack of sleep + work pressures x daycare woes + too old to have kids = OMGWTF Help me Jesus.

I said to a friend during the afternoon, in between nursing the baby and trying to peel my brain off the ceiling, that I didn't know whether to take a nap, burst into tears, take up drinking in the afternoons, or possibly all three.

Actually? I did none of those things. Well, a nap with Julia, but that was later. But do you know what I did?

I ate an entire fucking Marzipan log from Cost Plus Imports.

That's right. I'm a pig. A big, fat, stressed-out, sleep-deprived pig. But you know what? It tasted freaking fantastic, I'd do it all over again, and I DON'T CARE.

And now back to our regularly scheduled insanity. TGIF! I'll be off kneeling on rice and saying Hail Marys.

Political Discussion.
Mood:  bright
Topic: Evil Things
I'm the last one to be having political discussions online. Or if not exactly the last, I shy away from them because I'm a Republican hippie, because most of my friends are way left of me, and because I loathe arguments. Don't want to lose any friends over something as ultimately trivial as political affiliations.

However, an online conversation I had about politics bears repeating. This took place with my friend Leo. He is a liberal from the Pacific Northwest who is much younger than me. I met him several years ago, around the time I met my husband, on a Yahoo mailgroup about the Matt Groening cartoon Futurama. That is also where I met another close online friend, Kevin Simpson, my virtual son, who is a little older than Erika. The Internet makes strange bedfellows. Kevin has even been down to our house to visit; he lives in the Santa Barbara area.

And no, there is none of that tawdry Internet cybersex thing about my friendship with either of them. You get your mind out of the gutter, you.

Anyway, here is the conversation.

Leo said:

I have a theory, or really a prediction, that I've been expecting to happen for some time and I think it is really close. Tell me what you think of this.

My belief is that the Republican Party is headed for a major schism that will drive them into small minority status for three or four election cycles (between twelve and sixteen years). The schism will be between the hard right evangelical social conservatives and the more sensible fiscally conservative yet socially moderate Republicans.

The best chance the Republicans have of keeping the White House in 2008, in my opinion, would be if they were to nominate Rudy Giuliani. Giuliani is extremely popular nationally, but he's a socially moderate, pro-choice Republican. If he gets the nomination, the evangelicals will bolt the party. They won't accept a pro-choice nominee. They'll probably try and find someone more in line with their views like Roy Moore or Tom Tancredo and run them as a third party candidate.

The last time something like this happened Woodrow Wilson got two terms. However, this split will go a lot deeper than the Bull Moose did. I don't know if the evangelicals will ever go back. They'll probably try and form a new third party, but their numbers will leave them marginalized. The Republicans will be out of the White House and a minority in congress for 12-16 years after losing their evangelical numbers. However, I believe many people who have a great distaste for the Republicans because of the excesses of the religious right may come back to the GOP.

After some time has passed, the Republican party will reinvent itself as a fiscally conservative, socially moderate party and will probably be stronger than before.

This is my prediction. I believe it will happen very soon. Considering recent poll numbers, I expect the Dems to take back the Senate in '06 and greatly tighten the ratio in the House. What do you think?

And I replied:

I think

(1) You have hit the nail exactly on the head.

(2) You have just reminded me why, among all the people one runs into on the 'Net, I have always been happy to make a point to stay in touch with you.

(3) I love me some Rudy. I would SO vote for that guy.

(4) In the words of a Republican friend of mine: "I think the present administration is being excoriated by the media. I also think the present administration asked for it."

(5) I have never thought Democrats were evil (remember, I voted for Clinton twice) and I have sometimes felt, um, hurt that Democrats seem to think Republicans are evil. You've just reminded me about a few things; and

(6) But you're still not going to change my mind about Michael Moore.

Okay?

That is all.

Morning Commute Soundtrack: My Aim is True (1977) by Elvis Costello. My sons are already little Elvis Costello fans, and you haven't heard anything until you've heard Matt lisp I want to hear Elvis Costello. This is their favorite album so far, and we've been playing it on the way to day care in the mornings. Alison produces feelings in me too big and complex to describe: longings, memories, aching sweetness. Ben and I considered it as a name for Julia, but the Alison of the song is sort of a hosebag, really, and that is also the name of Chaucer's Wife of Bath, another famous hosebag. And I didn't want to name my daughter after a hosebag. And if you were about to bring up Julia Roberts, shut up.

News Flash.
Mood:  accident prone
Topic: Evil Things
The cable guy is here. And I never thought I would say this, but we are getting DVR. That's right, even as we speak. Which I said I would never do. Because we don't watch, you know, shows.

Satan is coming home to roost.

In other television news, I finally succumbed to the 13 Going On 30 juggernaut last night. Yes, and enjoyed it. Dammit, Leigh, you've done it to me again.

Her name was Lola. She was a showgirl.

Evil is all around us.

Ju-on.
Mood:  accident prone
Topic: Evil Things
This is the last place you would expect to see a movie review. Especially a review of a horror movie. I have no use for horror movies. Slasher flicks, forget it. But last night I watched a movie that truly spooked me.

Appropriately, I watched it all by myself in the middle of the night. It was called Ju-on. Japanese, with subtitles -- ideal for a cosleeping mama who has to keep the volume at zero. This is not a slasher flick; there's no gore; nothing is obvious. The subtlety is what makes it so scary. A shadow with eyes. The face of . . . what? It was deeply and truly creepy. Really haunting. Ben had seen it already and been completely freaked out by it -- that's how I knew to watch it. He woke up just before the end and said See? Told you. We started to compare notes, when Sam unexpectedly said Don't talk about it any more. But this morning, he kept asking us to tell him about it.

The only thing I can compare it to is La Belle et La Bete. But, you know, Japanese, which definitely makes it extra spooky. You can read the New York Times review of it here. You'll need registration, but if I know you, you're probably registered with the Times already anyway.

Made our skin crawl, but in a very restrained and intellectual way. Check it out. Apart from that? I watched Twister. Twice. Because you have to watch Twister, is why. Because the watching of Twister is, like, a religion. I've got my weather nerd cred to think of, after all.

God, I'm going to miss maternity leave when it's over. Ten days and counting.

The Issue Of The Dearth Of The Procedure.
Mood:  amorous
Topic: Evil Things
So, we have established that I have a fantastic husband and three beautiful children, and that my life, although chaotic and peppered with expletives and baby shit, is basically wonderful. I could do with a little more money and a little less stress, but then again, couldn't everyone? But I wonder, sometimes, if I should be more worried about the Absence of the Performance of the Procedure.

Dooce, although I seldom actually read her anymore, blogged memorably about reconvening the procedure with her husband after the appropriate period of postpartum pelvic rest had expired. Isn't that a hysterical bit of terminology? Pelvic Rest. That's the six-week period of time after a vaginal birth when absolutely nothing is meant to pass through the portals of the Fun Zone. Well, egress is permitted as necessary, but ingress of any sort is strictly forbidden. Julia is seven weeks old, though, and those mandates are behind us.

So. Hubba hubba, right? Well; no. Not exactly. The thing is, when you're middle-aged and both have demanding careers and also have three children under the age of five, the performance of the procedure isn't exactly something that has a huge place in your daily schedule. Not even necessarily in your weekly schedule. Not even -- dare I say it? -- completely necessarily in your monthly schedule.

Is that awful? It's got to be awful. Absolutely every authority on earth says that the procedure has to have its rightful place in every successful marital relationship. But the truth is that the procedure, while it's always been a cool and worthy procedure, has become a sort of rara avis in Castle Crumpacker; it's a thing greatly to be appreciated, but seldom to be actually observed. A lot like the ivory-billed woodpecker. No one is especially unhappy about that -- no one is feeling angry or restless or abandoned or unloved. It's just that, you know, it's so hard to get to. And occasionally we look at each other and say Hey, I know you. I miss you. Remember what all that used to be like? And then we hug about the neck, and grin, and go back to wiping noses and asses and reading stories and doing laundry.

We're happy. We both agree we're stupidly happy. We're crazy about our kids. We enjoy each other's company. We're not feeling unloved or missing romance -- we've got tons of both! We just don't have the procedure. Not because we don't like the procedure, just that it's like listening to an exquisite adagio or tasting a fantastic wine or viewing a really gorgeously photographed movie -- we know we would enjoy the hell out of it, we just never seem to get a chance to actually sit down and do it.

It's funny, because people look at us and all these kids and figure we must be just like bunny rabbits over here. One of the partners at my law firm said it at my baby shower lunch: You two have got to find another hobby. Ironic, that. Because honestly? The procedure? Isn't a really common thing. Julia was practically an immaculate conception.

Is that so bad? Is it okay if we just get to it when we can? We realize that if you don't practice a skill you get rusty, and we may have to take refresher courses and possibly even go to summer school, and we are both totally willing to do that. You know, whatever it takes. But it's just so hard to get to right now. And I'm just figuring that every expert on earth would be saying it's a recipe for MARITAL DISASTER and we MUST address the issue of the dearth of the procedure or our marriage will IMPLODE, but to us? That just sounds like work. That just sounds like one more goddamned thing we've got to worry about and deal with. Which we don't need.

What do you think?

People Just Don't Talk This Way.
Mood:  chatty
Topic: Evil Things
No wonder Ben and I have foul-mouthed children. They were raised that way. Yes, it's all our fault, and I don't foresee it stopping.

Ben and I, before we met, both had a rather plain and pithy way of putting things. It was one of the things I loved about him. Way back when we first met, when I was working as his paralegal and only knew him from the office, we were discussing a particularly thorny case when he told me I can tell you in one word what the problem with this case is. And then he spoke a one-word description of the parties to the lawsuit which I will not repeat here, because it was somewhat un-PC and I don't wish hate mail. But I tended to agreed with him, and it did shed light on a lot of strange behavior, and I thought: This guy will SAY the stuff that everyone else THINKS, but will not say. Just another reason why Ben is perfect for me.

Fast forward eight years; we've been married for five and a half years and have three young children. And our plain and pithy manner of expression is second nature. In the checkout line at Target last weekend, we spotted a headline about Britney Spears and her elective C-section -- she didn't even try to have that baby the old-fashioned way and was quoted as saying she'd always known she wanted a Caesarean.

Me: Bleargh, that dumb bunny was too lazy to grunt out a baby.

Ben: Yeah, didn't want to stretch out the entertainment center.

Target Clerk: *swallows tongue* *giggles uncontrollably*

See? We just forget where we are sometimes. Once in Solvang, the tackily charming ersatz Danish village up in the Santa Ynez Valley, we got caught in the rain:

Ben: We should get inside a store. How about this one?

Me [squinting at shop]: Yeah, okay, let's go in this tourist trap and see what kind of cheesy shit they're foisting off on the yahoos.

Midwestern Tourist Lady [overhearing]: *swallows tongue* Mpppfffh!

And our kids? Chips off the old block.

Sam [putting on clean underwear]: Look! I have a Power Ranger on my peepee!

Ben: Hey, that's cool. I wish I had a Power Ranger on MY peepee.

It's a lot like Matt's My Peepee is BIGGER Than Yours! T-shirt -- only in our house is this type of thing considered ordinary and unremarkable. In public, sometimes we forget that people just don't talk that way. As John Irving once observed, that's always the way with families: Strange as hell to the outside world, but ordinary to each other.

For Medicinal Purposes Only.
Mood:  spacey
Topic: Evil Things
Well, that was very interesting. I'm not at liberty to say how this came into our possession, but it was a privately manufactured chocolate bar containing roasted peanuts and also cannibis, with George Doobya Koosh emblazoned on the wrapper. We split it after all the kids were safely tucked into bed. You know, for medicinal purposes only. And the presidential reference made it that much funnier and more ironic.

I mean, it had just been years and years and years and years.

What a strange week this has been.

Cute Shoes.
Mood:  crushed out
Topic: Evil Things
I have been having a shoe attack, as evidenced by the following, all of which I have acquired within the past 90 days or so. It's one of the little bright spots of life: Rain may fall and snow may fly, but if a girl's got cute shoes, how bad can it be?

Hanna Andersson: Bite Me.
Mood:  mischievious
Topic: Evil Things
I'm a well-known Hanna Andersson junkie. I'm a total sucker for those soft cotton knits and funky bold colors -- not to mention the Swedish angle (see IKEA). Their clothing is high quality and not at all what you would call cheap, unless you are the sort of person who pushes her baby about in a thousand-dollar pram, in which case shame on you, anyway.

My Hanna addiction began with a baby gift from one of Ben's Beverly Hills High/Berkeley buddies and his wife. Innocent enough: two cute little stripey baby suits. Except that I have been hooked from that moment onward, and today the entire family wears stripey Hanna things to bed.

All these years I've looked through the catalogs and sighed over the little girl clothes, which are to die for. I always figured it was a good thing I had boys and not girls. But now, of course, all that has changed. And Hanna Andersson, that conniving bitch, opened a retail outlet a few miles from my home last year.

Didn't take long, did it? Julia is nine days old today, and is the proud owner of the Hanna ensemble seen above. Even more reprehensible: Her Hanna outfit coordinates perfectly with the (yuppie? ghetto?) Juicy bowler bag I got for Mother's Day. I will not go into the details of the combined ticket price for these items, except to say that while the cost doesn't quite shock the conscience, it certainty startles the living hell out of it.

A little girl and the Hanna Andersson clothing line: It's a classic lethal combination, like booze and pills. I see a twelve-step program in my future, or at the very least, a whole lot of brightly colored, not-cheap little outfits in Julia's.

The Grammar Bitch Waits For A Birth, Irons Her Hair And Dishes Dirt.
Mood:  mischievious
Topic: Evil Things
First of all: I'm still pregnant. Today I'm going on the fetal monitor and there's a chance the Coochie Doc will decide to induce, but I'm thinking not. Julia seems happy in there. Stay tuned.

A big topic of conversation of late has been Daylight Saving Time and how they want to extend it. Me, I'm dead set against it; Halloween should feel like Halloween. We don't get much in the way of change of seasons out this way, but I can always count on the evenings to turn dark and chilly right at Halloween, courtesy of the time change and what passes in this area for the arrival of autumn. But that is not what really troubles me. What really troubles me is this: DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME, people. One saving. As in We are saving daylight. Not Daylight SavingS Time. Okay? Please. Both Howard Stern and my daughter Erika have cut me deeply in the past 24 hours by making that blunder. You can't imagine how much it hurts to hear it. Thank you.

Meanwhile, I must give a shout-out to the Farouk Chi ceramic straightening iron, which brings you the smooth Jennifer Aniston hair (okay, Jennifer Aniston if she suddenly aged 15 years, wore a pound less makeup, and was tired and immensely pregnant) you see above. Straightening one's hair is all the rage in Southern California; fully half the women in my office pay $500 a treatment, at three-month intervals, to achieve this look. In the Crumpacker household, we don't hold with such foolishness. If I were to announce to Ben one day that I intended to go plunk down $700 for a straightening, color and cut, which I would then have to go do all over again in 90 days' time, he would reply You WHAT? Have you gone stupid all of a sudden? And he would be right.

In fact, I'm the last girl to follow fashion trends; or if not exactly the last, I don't suffer foolishness willingly. But my husband has a fetish, you see. Last time I had a color and cut, the stylist talked me into trying the straightening iron for a lark, since my hair is curly, and I thought Ben would keel over backward when I came home. You look like Emma Peel, he said, referring to the plucky British heroine of the '60s spy series The Avengers. Ben has had a gigantic boner for that girl for 40 years; in fact, she probably inspired his first boner. So what could I do? I'm not so much given over to Mommyhood that I won't recognize something that will get me laid for certain, and pounce on it.

Speaking of which, Ben and I have worked out, once and for all and absolutely for certain, what went on with the Brad Pitt/Jennifer Aniston thing (as long as we're talking about Jennifer's hair, and about sex). It's this: Jennifer has a bit of a stick up her ass, don't you think? We get a bitch vibe from her, a subtle attitude of Eww, that's icky. We figure that she was probably a bit of a principessa and didn't much like to do sexual things, especially those which might muss her hair or produce gooiness. Meaning, most of the fun stuff.

So Brad goes off to make this movie, and along comes Angelina. Now, all you have to do is look at that girl, and you know it: She does everything. She'll yowl and scratch and draw blood and bark like a dog. Hell, we figure she'll stick her tongue in the Dark Place, and that's just for a warm-up. What's a guy to do? The poor man just went out of his mind, is all. And now he follows her around the globe like a puppy dog while she adopts Ethiopian orphans and he comes down with meningitis, not complaining a whit, because that girl? She knows tricks. It's the oldest story in the book. Rachel may have dressed up like Princess Leia for Ross, but I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts that she never got on all fours and howled at the moon. No contest there.

Got it? Good. And now I'm off to write a brief and go hang out on the fetal monitor. Ben will replace the battery in the digital camera, which had the bad grace to die last night and which I unabashedly guilt-tripped him into replacing TODAY (Okay, fine. We'll just have no photos of our new baby, then). And maybe? Eventually I will have a baby.

Introducing Nicky.
Mood:  crushed out
Topic: Evil Things
Look who joined our little family today. Nicky is a one-year-old male miniature schnauzer; not technically a rescue job, but close enough. This morning we piled into the van and drove to Mexico -- oh, excuse me, I mean Rubidoux, out in the Inland Empire -- and picked him up. We hope to give him a happier life and lots more love than he's been used to getting.

Alert readers have known with certainty that this was coming, ever since I wrote about wanting to rescue Annie, the standard schnauzer I mentioned last week. (Annie has found another home.) This puppy is a love. He's debarked, a procedure which is probably inhumane but which is admittedly something of a blessing where male miniature schnauzers are concerned, they being a deranged pack of tiny maniacs. Nicky weighs about twelve pounds and could bear some fattening up. That we can give, along with lots of love.

Welcome to the family, little guy.

This Way To Crazy.
Mood:  crushed out
Topic: Evil Things
This is a dog. And this must be my brain on drugs, because this is a female standard schnauzer who has just been rescued by Southern California Standard Schnauzer Rescue, and for whom I have just requested an adoption application. In case. Shut up.

I mean. Who could resist that face? Sam has been yearning for a dog, and I saw this little girl. I'm just looking and talking, I promise. I'm not doing anything drastic. But look at her. I mean, as long as we're expanding our family, maybe we could sneak in an extra additional member and no one would notice? You think?