What Papi Chulo is ...

Watching
"It's a perfect cross between Scarecrow and Mrs. King and The Forty Year Old Virgin."
[Yeah, except that Chuck dude isn't 1/10th as hot as Bruce Boxleitner in his prime.]

Playing

From a Couple of Weeks Ago

I never had the chance to blog about a recent project: birthday presents for Luke and Toby, who were turning four; and Dagny, who was turning seven. Possibly my favorite thing in the world is buying presents for people, and I really had fun with these.

I asked Luke what he wanted for his birthday. His reply? "Gum." Okaaaay. As it happens, the fourth birthday is pretty big for a lot of little kids I know -- it's when they are Officially Allowed to chew gum. So for Luke and Toby, I put together these tin lunchboxes full of the sticky stuff. That's Big League Chew, Fruit Stripe, Bubble Tape -- all the classics -- and more.

For Dagny's seventh birthday, I found this cute little bag at crewcuts and had it monogrammed for her. I think she likes it -- I've seen her carrying it a lot. That's my big tip for buying kid presents -- they love almost anything with their names on it.

God, I love crewcuts. I wish I could just order the adorable, mute little children from the catalog.

Oh, and there was one more thing. Toby has an obsession with ice cream scoops. [One of the redeeming virtues of preschoolers is their hilarious obsessions.] So as a little bonus I bought an ice cream scoop and spray painted it gold. You would have thought it was Excalibur the way he wielded it over his head and proceeded to bash everything in sight with it. I'm sorry to say I didn't get a picture, though.

Fuck the Pink Stockings

Words cannot even describe how much I hate Bill Simmons.*

*For those of you who don't know: he is the illiterate, misogynist, juvenile, preppy douchebag columnist and would-be President of Red Sox Nation who embodies everything there is to hate about all of eastern Massachusetts.

Update on Our Dancing Friend

I saw her turn counterclockwise! And now when I look she seems to switch at random. I just had to look at her longer.

BTW, Uncle Miles, in response to your comment: check out the comments on the post at Freakonomics. People list their education, profession, and which way the dancer turns for them. Marketers see her going counterclockwise; economists see her going clockwise -- it's chaos I tell you.

How Much Do You Love Improv Everywhere?

Yippie Ki Yay—It’s Blog Action Day

Today is the day we all write on our blogs about what we’re doing to help the environment. You know I love me some meme, so I wanted to contribute with

Eleven Things I Do for the Environment:

1. Instead of turning out the lights when I leave a room, I never turn on lights at all. I have night vision eyes.

2. I don’t drive a car; I don’t even ride a bicycle. I levitate to get from place to place. Suck it, DiCaprio.

3. I don’t use any packaging materials – at all. In fact, I use telekinesis to buy books from Amazon.

4. I have no carbon footprint. I created global warming all by myself, with my intensely hot body, but I am so cool that I’m chilling it down as we speak.

5. I don’t have to recycle – I incinerate garbage with laser beams from my eyes

6. I make love not war.

7. I wear fair trade, sustainably harvested edible panties.

8. I’m not just donating today’s profits from my blog to an environmental charity – I will pledge every cent this blog has ever earned to that little albino koala himself.

9. I lay my own eggs.

10. I use my own milk for butter.

11. I am a smug twat.

What mamacita is ...

Reading

Watching

Listening to (soundtrack)

This Week In Baseball

The Diamondbacks are trying to make my head explode.

Spin Me Right Round

Have you seen this yet? You look at this image of a spinning silhouette and, depending on how you see the image, you can determine whether your right-brain or left-brain is dominant. Which you probably already know at this point in your life, but it's cool anyway. I'm so right-brained that I can't even see it the other way when I try. via Kottke, Graphic Design Bar and others

More Fun with PTA

So, for the Fall Festival I needed some information from each of the teachers. I discovered yesterday that I only had this information from about 1/3 of them. Now, I am not supposed to email the teachers directly -- the Communications Chair does that. So I sent the Communications Chair an email asking her to email the teachers (again) for the necessary information. Follow that? Anyway, the subject line of the email I sent was "Recalcitrant Teachers." So the Communications Chair forwarded that exact email to the teachers. Holy shit am I in trouble.

What mamacita is ...

bitching about today:

I can't believe it's been so long since I posted. What the hell is going on? Let’s see – I’ve been working out. My friends are kicking my ass around the gym. It’s my goal to one day get on a weight machine after an old lady and not have to move to a lighter weight. In the meantime, I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. (But it’s a good hit-by-a-truck.) I expend all of my mental energy during the day scanning my immediate vicinity for a place to lie down.

Still working on the Fall Festival. It’s in two and a half weeks. I’m starting to get phone calls from crazies (“Can I set up a booth to paint henna on kids? And then you can just pay me in cash for whatever tickets I collect?” Um, no.) Everyone falls into two camps these days: people who won’t fucking leave me alone, and people who won’t return my calls. I hate them all.

Also due before the end of the month: hosting a Halloween party at our house for a hundred or so people and buying our neighbors' house. I’m thinking of taking up the hammered dulcimer, too, because I’m running out of shit to do.

Papi Chulo has been in California this week. The dirty little secret around Mamacita’s house is that Papi does ALL the work around here; you can see how this would play out in his absence. I summon all the patience I can to help with homework, etc. (from my reclining position on the couch), and then the kids are all, “We don’t want microwave popcorn for supper again.”

And the kids are having problems in school. Nothing really serious, but enough that I’m getting phone calls, notes sent home, requests for conferences, etc. It’s a long fucking story, but all explanations end up in the cul-de-sac of Horrible Mother Street. I’m around other kids all the time, and mine don’t seem any worse, really, but still, I get calls. Emmet’s main problem is that he is a nervous little man, and every time he gets fussed at in school, it makes things worse for him. But my pleas for mercy on his behalf only make me seem out-of-touch to the teachers.

I keep running out of emergency chocolate. I can’t sleep past 2 a.m.

So, as much as I enjoy blogging, my heart hasn’t been in it lately. I’m still reading a lot of other blogs – while lying prone, of course. But it feels good to get all that off my chest.

Allow me, once again, to declare my undying love for the Houston Public Library

I was so excited when Book Burro turned up with Jenna Jameson's book at the Houston library. However, of the six copies, four are missing. Fucking degenerates in this town.

What Papi Chulo is ...

Reading

Playing

Listening to
Isn't New Wave the proto-Emo? You'll never have the bangs for it, Papi.

Totally Making My Day, Pt. 2

Okay, I went looking for an image of a smurf to use in the last post, and this one cracked me up. Meet Gangsta Smurf:And his pals. Those wacky students.

Totally Making My Day

The First Time News Was Fit To Print, at Mental Floss, documents the first mention in The New York Times of phenomena such as the Smurfs, the War on Terror, and microwave ovens. via Kottke.

What mamacita is ...

Reading

Running away to one day

Listening to