Nonverbal Cues of the North American Male

(this was the scene in my office this morning:)

Observe how the male of the species will gather and deposit his dirty laundry (Fig.A) on the computer chair of the female.


Often this is a sign of aggression towards the female's other pastime (Fig. B).


It is also probable that the male was provoked by the presence of another, younger Alpha male (Fig. C).

Now observe the female's higher-functioning brain, and her ability to procure a second chair (Fig. D), thus leaving the male's laundry aside.





Finally, having accomplished all her tasks, the female will then travel to the male's workspace and leave a mark of her own.

The Slaughter of Joe Jonas

Well, I suppose this was bound to happen....

Either my husband or the new puppy was going to rip Flat Joe's head off sooner or later.

But, in the words of "The Million Dollar Man"....(where the word "bionic" originated, youngsters...)

We can make him better than he was.

Better.

Stronger.

Faster.

Hotter. (Ok, I added that)

Um, I think I should have gone up like 20% more in head size at Kinkos.








Not so much Flat Edward as Pea-Head Edward.

He reminds me of this guy from Beetlejuice:

Fat?

This makes me mental.

Fox News is running this photo of Jessica Simpson today with the headline:

"Jessica Simpson Shocks Fans With Fuller Figure!"

OK. First, why am I reading Fox News. The answer to that is twofold.

Number one, I need to be on top of any and all terror threats.

Number two, CNN probably won't report on the woman who gave birth into her sweatpants, which is probably my favorite Fox news story of all time.

But back to Jessica. Perez Hilton claims: "Jess got fat!" Is this fat? Really? You're going to show this to someone who doesn't know celebrities and ask them what they think and they're gonna say "I don't know- it's some fat girl"???????

Badonkadonk
<------------

Look- the high-waisted jean is really not meant for us curvy girls, for sure. When you have big boobs, you don't want to shorten the distance between waistband and underwire.

But it's just a poor fashion choice, people.

It's not like she caught the Fat Virus . (!) Did you read about this yesterday?????

Scientists are claiming you can "catch" fatness the same way you catch a cold. Bizarre, but I'm all for new excuses.

I'm not eating too much.... Someone sneezed on me.

Angels Among Us

(Do you know how hard it is to find a non-smarmy angel graphic? This is the best one, and it's standing on bubbles.)

OK, can we talk about the US Airways crash into the Hudson?

First of all, mad props to the hero pilot, "Sully" Sullenberger for a textbook perfect emergency landing.....

But I have to think there was SOME sort of divine intervention here, don't you?

When I told my 11 year old she said, "It probably was a guardian angel."

Which gave me chills because she herself was saved by some sort of intervention when she was 1 year old.

I am a Conehead....







Seriously, though- this is her at 1, in our condo in Connecticut. When you came in the front door, there was a stone floor landing, then 15 steep, narrow steps up to the foyer. Obviously, we had a baby gate at the top of the steps.

One morning, I was playing with her on the living room floor after a very sleepless night (she was waking 3-4 times a night).

The doorbell rang and I went to get it- a very large box from UPS. I left the baby gate that guarded the stairs open as I set the box down in the other room, because my hands were full.

Forgetting the gate, I went back to my daughter, lay down with her on the floor and eventually drifted asleep. I mean a deep, dreaming sleep. I was exhausted.

The next thing I heard startled me awake like a fire alarm: a loud, audible voice shouting, "WAKE UP!!!"

My first thought as I jumped up was "Who the hell is in the house???"

The I realized- my baby girl was not in the room.

I ran to the front hall and there she was: standing precariously at the head of the stairs. I grabbed her just in time.

It wasn't a dream, it wasn't a "sense" that I should wake up: it was somebody who deliberately jolted me awake because my baby was seconds away from falling 15 steps down to a stone floor.

I can never prove it, but I absolutely know it - and I'll be forever grateful to whoever it was.

Have you ever had a guardian angel experience?

Another Brilliant Invention

This is Diesel.

Slayer of Webkinz.

Drinker of Toilet Water.

And, unfortunately, Flatulator Extraordinaire.

I swear, I only feed him puppy chow. But Lord, you'd think he was subsisting on Taco Bell.

So here's my invention: The Portable Collar Deodorizer. (PCD)

STEP 1: Equip canine with PCD.

STEP 2: (in event of flatulence) IDENTIFY OFFENDER.

STEP 3:
RETRIEVE PCD.

STEP 4: DEPLOY DEODORIZER.

STEP 5: (if threat is contained) RETURN PCD TO HOLSTER.

Don't EVEN try to copy my invention because I've already called 800 number for my Inventor's Kit.

The PCD. Making Home Air Breathable...One Fart at a Time.

Paging Dr. Happy Hour....

(Editor's note: I know. Right now you're like "wait-is that a photograph of a doctor's outfit or did she actually draw that?" It's a gift. I really should forget this whole blogging thing and just concentrate on my art career.)

Anyhoo.

More fun with bizarre emails: A few days ago I got this:

Dr. Geoffrey Rutledge MD, PhD  to me

show details Jan 16 (3 days ago)

Reply

Hi HappyHourSue,

I was searching online for the best health bloggers when I discovered your blog athappymealsandhappyhour.blogspot.com. I want to tell you I think your writing is great. My name is Dr. Geoff Rutledge, and I've taught and practiced Internal and Emergency Medicine for over 25 years at Harvard and Stanford medical schools. I'm also the Chief Medical Information Officer at Wellsphere (www.wellsphere.com), where we are building a network of the web’s leading health bloggers -- and I think you would be a great addition.

___________________________________________________________________


Dear Dr. Ruttledge,
     I would be honored to be a part of the world's leading health bloggers. Obviously, my credentials speak for themselves. As you know from my writings, I feel that health is a very good thing and sickness...not so much.
     I accept your invitation. 


     p.s. If no one else has called dibs, I'd like to be referred to as "McFoxy". 
      p.p.s. Can I get one of those prescription pads?

PMS Warning

I get a lot of emails about products and services that someone thinks "would be of interest to your readers".

Yeah, I'm not gonna blog about skin cream or educational videos or meeting planners or kits that teach senior citizens to use the internet.

But. Yesterday I got an anonymous comment about what could be the greatest invention in 2009.







PMS Buddy is a free online notification service that warns boyfriends/husbands or other loved ones of upcoming PMS danger from the women in their lives.

You can enter up to five women's cycle dates and it sends you warning emails, complete with threat level. 

How awesome is that.

I am so signing myself up for myself.

Because EVERY MONTH I get all puffy and gain weight and EVERY MONTH I'm all "What the hell?  Why don't these pants fit??!!!"

EVERY MONTH I crave salty food and eat junk food like it's my job and EVERY MONTH I'm all "What is WRONG with me? Why am I eating this crap?"

EVERY MONTH I wonder "Why is everyone around me bugging the living crap out of me?"

It's like PMS Alzheimers.

So NOW I'll get a friendly reminder and I can totally avoid myself during that time.

Super Sunday

The drama has already started at my house 

regarding this Sunday's face-off.

No, not football.  

HBO's "Big Love" and Showtime's "The L Word".....

BOTH Season premieres...are on at the same time.

If you ask my husband, Big Love is the apex of cable-television viewing. 

Do not get him started about Big Love. Especially if you don't watch the show. Because he will try and sell you with detailed episode recaps til you just wish you had stayed home.

Big Love is the crown jewel of his Y chromosome pay-cable trifecta, rounded out with Entourage and Californication.

While I enjoy Big Love, I ***Puffy Heart*** The L Word. I love it, love it, love it.

The L Word girls are all gorgeous and glamorous and they have fabulous jobs but still have time to lounge around in cafes sipping lattes and they're so.........so.........so........
not washing anybody's socks.

By the way, the irony has not escaped me that his show is about über-heterosexuality to the third power, and my show is completely void of men.

I do rethink polygamy now and then, though,  when I see the Big Love wives all getting nights off from cooking and cleaning.  I might be able to get behind that program.

If I did, here would be my requirements for my 'sister wives':

#1) You can't be skinnier than me.

#2) You have to love drinking & dancing.

#3) You should be reasonably obsessed with Twilight.

#4) Sunday nights: Showtime, The L Word.

Sign-ups start today. :)

Not the Monday I'd Planned

Here's where I'm supposed to be right now:

At "Healing Hands Massage". Using the gift card I got LAST Christmas.

Yup, right about now, the masseuse would be quietly leaving the room, and telling me in that whispery-masseuse voice to take my time getting dressed......

....and then you have that fuzzy moment where you wonder if anyone would really notice if you just slept here for awhile.....

.....and you sit up and look in the little mirror on the back of the door and your hair is all oily and massage table-head-y. And you have the worst pillow-face ever.

But it doesn't matter because you're all floaty and spacey.

Yeah. that's not where I am, though.

At 6am my tween refused to get up for school, clutching her stomach in pain/not-pain/whatever. OK. Stay home.

Stepson pulled the rare but deadly 'back-to-sleep" maneuver, causing him to be late for school.

8 year old with extreme Anxiety Disorder dutifully took her baby valium in preparation for the 9:30 cavity-filling appointment.

Arrived at the dentist, where she proceeded to scream, thrash, and clamp her hand over her mouth so the dentist couldn't get to her teeth. Finally, under threat of hospitalization, she let them give her nitrous oxide, which backfired and made her hallucinate "that the dentist was trying to kill me".

Left dentist without getting cavity filled, and halfway home she pukes in the car.

Phonecall from the tween that "the dogs ran through the mud and got it all over the carpets. Upstairs and downstairs."

Yup. That sounds more like my life. And I wouldn't mind a little nitrous oxide myself.

My West African Store

THIS is the coolest thing ever.

Through Kiva, I lend $25 to, say, Antoinette Worou from West Africa for her general store. (which i did.)

She buys more supplies, makes a profit and pays me back the $25.

I've helped a hard-working woman entrepreneur from a third world country better her business, which in turn gives her kids a better life and education, for ZERO DOLLARS.

My dad and my sister have been doing Kiva for a little over a year and they always get paid back. They choose to then reinvest in a new business owner, but you don't have to.

(Stop looking at Robert Pattinson over there and focus.)

How cool is that? You choose who you want to loan to...

Maria's roadside fruit business in Peru...

Ana Maria's house-repair business in Nicaragua...

Felicitas from Peru who has 9 kids and a clothing business (obviously)

I just love it - especially now when the economy sucks and no one feels they can afford to donate to charities - you're still doing a great thing, but you can be repaid if you choose!!!!

Anyway- if you're interested, Intel is sponsoring the Small Things Challenge  , an awareness campaign that even the smallest effort on the part of one person can effect a huge change in someone's life.

Just go to that link - They are sponsoring both Kiva and Save the Children. (I clicked on "join the Intel group" at Kiva - that takes you to the gallery of business owners who need loans.)

Loan to a hardworking person in need: $25
Amount you get paid back: $25
Total money spent: $0
Doing a good thing AND being able to say you invested in a goat farm: Priceless.

Botany 101

It's not that this stuff doesn't happen at other people's houses.

It's just that it's WAY more likely to happen at my house.


Last night I was tucking the 8 year old into bed and my tween came in and said:
 "Mom? There's a plant growing out of my sink."

OK, you don't hear that every day...

Yes. There is a plant growing out of your sink.

Apparently, the hamster food, which contains sunflower seeds, spilled into the drain and seed + water = plant.

I'm willing to wager that a more meticulous housekeeper might have noticed this development sooner.

So we named him "Sinky" and I thought it would be great fun to just let him live there until my 11-year-old suggested that roots and plumbing might not be the best combination.

R.I.P., Sinky......on the bright side, maybe I do have a green thumb after all.

Jim Beam Talkin' Smack

Oh snap.

I'm flipping through the latest Rolling Stone and come across THIS: 

Oh no they di'nt.

 You can imagine my outrage, as mojitos are my beverage of choice for the months of March-September.

BG's too:

Don't be hatin' on my mojitos, son.

Duly ruffled, I  go to Wikipedia do some extensive Lewis & Clark research and I see THIS: 

Really, Jim Beam? These are your bourbon-swiggin' bad asses? Turtleneck-boy and Froofy-scarf with the Donald Trump comb-over?

Jonas Brothers scarf-wearin' - Hair Club for Men-joinin'- puffy face water-retainin' fancyboys?

Also? I learned that the Lewis and Clark expedition (and I quote:) "was only the second 'official' transcontinental crossing of North America north of Mexico by a person not of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, having been preceded to the Pacific coast (on July 20, 1793) by a Canadian expedition led by explorer Sir Alexander Mackenzie."

In other words, the Indians had already done it, as well as a Cannuck named Mackenzie. Who was toting Molsons, no doubt.

Don't disrespect the mojito before you do your homework, Jim Beam: that's a lotta smack talkin' for a liquor that's the main ingredient in Mint Juleps.

Victory Is Mine, Dooce

So I was on blog vacation, drinking wine in my hotel room with my sister, and I got this email on my new christmas Blackberry from my BBFF McMommy :

"You're number 11 on MomDot's Top 50 Blogs of 2008 list!!!!"

And because I had almost finished the bottle and still am a spazzy ham-hands at the whole touch-screen thing, I could only type back "Wha?" 

Actually, I think I typed "Wgs?" first.

So the whole drive home on the Jersey Turnpike I'm singing the Will.i.am song "It's a New Day" but, you know, substituting images of me instead of Obama in my mental music video.

Get on the MomDot site and start perusing the other (awesome!) winners, starting with #50 and moving up. 

At #43 I stop dead in my tracks and my "might as well eat it now cuz we're so starting a diet on january 1st" donut falls out of my mouth.

#43 Dooce: (alexa: #33,761 technorati: #30) : I know, I’m getting a big roar of outrage for not having her number one, but the fact is, I love her, a million people love her, but a million hate her too. We pat her on her back for being able to do what so many want to do….and even if she is a sell out, we like her style of writing and interesting ways of bringing her posts to life. Trust me..she will never see this and if she did, im quite sure she doesn’t give a shit she isn’t number #1. I don’t sign her checks…federated media does. HA!

Holy crap. As you may know, Dooce has been my rival and nemesis for my entire blogging career. 

Granted, she doesn't know I exist, so the rivalry is not quite as acute on her end.

Nevertheless. She is #43. I am #11. On this list. 

There will be no need for a boob-off at Blogher '09.  My work is done.

Mwuahahahahahahahahahaha.

Ha.

Note to self: Find out what Spiderman did after he killed the Green Goblin.

New Year, New 'Keyword Korner'

There are 3 things you can count on in life.

Death, taxes and bizarre Google Analytics keyword searches.

(Google Analytics gives you detailed info on your blog traffic - most awesomely, words or phrases that people typed into Google, that landed them on your blog.)

As always, I did not make this stuff up: anyone who doubts its validity just email me and I'll give you my GA password.

And so I bring you: More bizarre phrases that landed inquiring minds on my blog:

"I'm lint"

Um, it's one thing to declare "I'm lint", but quite another to type it into the Google search box. Are you looking for other lint-humans?

"beta swilling chardonnay sue"

Well, the actual tagline is 'chardonnay swigging beta mom' but good job- it got you to my blog.

"cellulite illustration"

Seriously Google? Someone's typing 'cellulite illustration' and you direct them to me?

"don't get your dog trained by Ed Farley"

Roger that. Thank you.

"drill pregnan hole morn pee"

Um, I want to say that's disgusting, but I'm not sure it's English.

"expanding butt"

Hello? I know for a FACT that Rosie O'Donnell has a blog...why ME?

"Facebook moms who drink and swear"

Well.  Let's move on.

"google second hand cd of the applejacks"

Yes. I am THE source for second hand cd of the applejacks. But you don't have to type "google" into Google.

"lasagna boobs"

I just don't even know whether to be insulted or not. My boobs have never been compared to pasta.

"snip snip off with husband's nuts"

Whoa, girl. A vasectomy is one thing...but don't go all Lorena Bobbitt on his ass....

"top 10 clean magazine for house ladies"

OK. I see the "Learn English" audio tapes are going well. But before you launch your magazine empire, we house ladies prefer the term "Domestic Goddesses". And unless you've got Robert Pattinson vacuuming shirtless? The big money is not in cleaning magazines.

Google Analytics: let it write the post for you. :)