no autographs...please.

It started months and months ago, but I didn't know it. Kim at work nominated her friend for a makeover on the Dr. Oz show. She didn't hear anything for a while and figured she didn't get selected. Finally she did get contacted. Her and her friend were selected to be on a segment about "housewives of Dr. OZ." However, the show wanted a group of girlfriends that would all try to lose weight together. Kim and her friend needed at least one more friend to be a group.

Kim asked her friend Renza to join them and she said yes. but she still sent out an email to a bunch of us at the office. They were going to try to do a karaoke group thing. Kim and Renza are members of a group at the office who I sometimes go to karaoke with. At first it sounded exciting. I was sure to get a great haircut at least. So I sent Kim my information and told her I was game even thought I didn't know what the Dr. Oz show was.

After I said I was interested, I started to think realistically about how the logistics would work. I reread the email and realized it was a weight loss thing. I figure this meant that they would drag me onto TV, in a sports bra, weigh me in front of everyone and then point out how stupid it is for me to eat fast food everyday. oops, I mean they would try to educate me about healthy ways to eat. The thing is, I am plenty educated about what foods are healthy...I just choose not to eat those things. Anyway, I realized that I didn't want my 15 minutes of fame to be wasted on showing the world how fat I am. I emailed Kim back and told her I wasn't interested.

There was lots of joking about how I should be offended that anyone would suggest I need to lose weight or need a makeover.

About a week later Kim called me. It was late Monday and I was at work. Renza had backed out, and Kim and her friend needed a third. We tried to think of other people who could step in...but the third person needed to be filmed the next day. Kim and her friend had already been filmed that day. I agreed to do it. A producer from the show called me a few minutes later. I was still at work and he asked me all kinds of weight questions. It was already embarrassing enough that I was answering the questions at work where everyone could hear me. The also asked me questions about my life. I think they were looking for my story. I think this is where I let them down. I have a great life. I don't have a tragic story that caused me to suddenly get fat. It just happened gradually as I got older. The only thing the producer found interesting was when I told him my favorite song to sing at karaoke was "Wonderboy" by Tenacious D. After we talked he told me he would call me later that evening. They would film me at home and in Detroit the next day (he seemed a little disappointed that I didn't live in Detroit). The plan was to film the whole group walking out of the Ren Cen, to get the lovely Detroit skyline, and then film us toasting eachother into weightloss. Then, they would fly us out to New York City the next week.

I got no call that evening.

I was a little disappointed because I had hyped myself up for it, but I was also relieved. I couldn't afford to take 2 days off of work this month. I also didn't want to be fat on TV. I also didn't want to work my butt off so I could impress TV land.

I would like to think that they didn't pick me because I was too pretty as a before and there wouldn't be a drastic enough change after my makeover. Or perhaps they thought I was too thin and you wouldn't be able to see my weightloss on TV. OR maybe they thought I was too well adjusted and that they wouldn't be able to make me cry on TV.

It would be very complimentary if they didn't choose me for any of those reasons. Turns out they just thought they didn't have enough time. Oh well, I think I will go on thinking it was because I am too beautiful.

I've been thinkin about my doorbell, when you gonna ring it...

VERY early this morning, just about 4:30 am, I swear I heard our doorbell ring and it woke me up. I kind of freaked out. I don't think you ever experience good things ringing your doorbell at that time in the morning. At least you don't when you are all settled in and established.

I got out of bed and peeked out the bedroom window. I saw nothing. I listened very carefully. I heard nothing. I woke up poor Nathan to see if he heard it. He heard nothing. I refused to go downstairs to look out the peep hole. (by the way, we have two peep holes in the front door. Nathan and I differ in height by about a foot, so we installed 2 peep holes so he could see out of one and I could see out of the other.)

I figured only the following bad things could be ringing our doorbell:

• A drunk person at the wrong house.
• A murderer
• A burglar
• A vampire (Once you invite them into your home, they can come and go as they please. At least that is how it worked with old school vampires. These new sparkly vampires might work differently)
• Zombies
• Mummies
• The Gestapo ("knock knock", "Who's there?", "The Gestapo", "The Gestapo who?" SLAP, "The Gestapo will be asking the questions.")
• Police or Firemen with bad news about the death of my family.

I was nervous but I tried to convince myself that it was all in my dream and I went back to sleep. About two hours later I woke up in a panic. What if someone had orphaned a new born baby in a basket on my stoop and I didn't answer that door? That poor baby would have been freezing out there for hours. So, finally I mustered up the courage to check the front door.

There was nothing there. So, it was either a dream, or the monsters got tired of waiting and ran off to another house.

Don't copy me

When I was a kid, and I thought it was funny to copy what people said, my dad would say, "copy me....don't copy me...copy me..." Well, now that I am an adult, I don't have many people copying me, except on TV. Pam on the office is trying to copy me. First I worked in an office, then she worked in an office. Then, I had a pink double breasted wool coat and then she had THE EXACT SAME COAT one season.

Well I just watched the wedding episode and was not at all surprised that she copied me again. There is the obvious thing...I married a handsome tall drink of water and then she did. But what I did not expect her to wear my dress. It looks just a little different, but I think it was because of her preggo boobs. That is the one place she did not copy me. I was not preggo on my wedding day.

A Play Date at The Club

Charles had his first play date this weekend. We got together with my friend Nikki and her son Carter. Carter is 4, so he is a little bit older than Charles, but Charles loves older kids, so it worked out great.

It is very mom of me to set up a play date for my child. It is also very posh of me, because the playdate itself was at The Club. It would have been more posh, if I was a member at The Club myself...but it was close enough that Nikki is a member at The Club and she let us join her as her guests. I was trying to think of some posh names for Charles and I to go by when we went to The Club. I was going to go by Buffy, but when I was trying to think of a name for Charles...I realized that his name is already Charles and it doesn't get much more posh than that.

Everyone involved had a WONDERFUL time. There is a little indoor waterpark at The Club and I even think I will have Charles's birthday there. (here is a link in case you are curious). We rebelliously took the kids into the hot tub. Carter can barely touch in the hot tub and was showing off his height. We tortured Charles through the lazy river. He hated the whole thing, but was brave enough to not cry the whole time. He merely pouted. Charles's favorite part was the kiddy pool. it had a 2 feet high slide and Charles would have played on that all day. He also loved that he could run around in the water on his own. However, it wouldn't be a family adventure if there weren't a few mishaps. These mishaps were hilarious.

• Charles loves to take off his socks and shoes in the car. We were already running late for our play date and I wasn't happy that I had to redo the socks and shoes. Somehow, Charles made one of his socks dissappear. I drive a small car. I don't know how he could make the sock dissappear. Finally I gave up, and put on one sock and two shoes. What a great first impression we made on The Club.
• The Club has an amazing family locker room. It is a hall way of lockers, and there are individual rooms that you go into to change. These rooms have their own shower, toilet, sink, and bench. It is a good thing we had this private room. I am sure that if I let Charles walk around in a regular locker room, he would go around grabbing strange butts. However, even in this private room we had some hilarity. First Charles flushed the toilet and it scared him. Poor little guy. It scared him so bad that when I took off his diaper to put on his swimmy diaper, he peed all over the floor. As I was getting paper towel and wipes to clean up the pee, he started stepping in the urine with his one good sock. I had to take it off and throw it away.
• We were going to eat lunch at The Club. We were even going to call it Brunch to make it more posh. We thought that maybe we would go back in the water afterwards. The Club doesn't serve lunch that early, so we were forced to go to McDonalds. It was ok, because as Carter nicely put it, "I love McDonalds too!" Because I was expecting to possibly go back in the pool, I had just put on my clothes over my bathing suit. With that particular outfit, it was a bad idea. The pants I had on that day were thin, and the water soaked into them like crazy and it looked like I really peed my pants. It was so bad that I left a butt mark on my car's driver seat and the seat at McDonalds. Oh well, so be it. Charles did eat his McNuggets like a mad man, LOVED his car he got in his happy meal, and loved running around following carter.

Even with our funny little hiccups, the playdate worked out great and I think maybe I need to plan some more.

Brandon - the new guy

Brandon is the new guy at work. He is great. Today he was hilarious.

Brandon, myself, our project manager, and our boss went to a meeting today to see a prospective client to get some new business. Towards the end of the meeting the following took place:

Prospective Customer: Where did my pen go? I know I had a pen, what happened to it.
Brandon: I have a pen if you want to use it to jot something down:
PC (taking the pen and looking at it intently): This looks like my pen.
Brandon: Nope, this is my pen, it is the only thing I brought with me.
PC: I don't know, it looks just like my pen.
Brandon: Wow, I guess we have matching pens.
(Boss looks around on the floor for the missing pen)
Brandon: Well you can have the pen if you want, I have more at my desk.
PC: That's ok.

We all went back to our desks and then the people on my team got an email from Brandon. He admitted that when he got back in his car, he found his pen on the passenger side seat. He did indeed steal the pen from the prospective customer. I guess we will all know who to blame if the deal doesn't go through.

Dry - Wet - Dry

I have two cousins named Joel. One is on my Mom's side of the family and one is on my Dad's. Recently I discovered that they have something very odd in common. Both of them (at least at one time in their lives) have regularly used wet wipes to wipe after going to the bathroom. I know that one of the Joels does it now. I am not sure if the other one still does, but I know he did when he was a teen. I was recently talking to the Joel who uses wet wipes now, and he has quite a system. He buys the special wet wipes that are flushable and when he wipes he uses dry toilet paper, then the wet wipe, and then dry toilet paper again.

I scoffed when I heard this detailed process. I couldn't imagine the expense and toilet clogging that must take place to make this process work. I was sure that some of the wiping could be eliminated.

I talked to Joel about this during a recent vacation. I was reminded of the conversation when I was in the 50's style hotel room alone with Charles. He took our lone roll of toilet paper and threw it into the toilet. He was so proud of himself when he did it. I had to fish it out of the toilet. It was super gross. I should have called the front desk and requested more toilet paper, but it was late and I was in my jammies. I didn't want to have to deal with all that. I looked around the room to find my alternatives. It just so happens that I had a full container of baby wipes. Not the flushable kind of course, but they were definitely made for wiping butts.

I won't go into detail, but I don't think I will be making the switch any time soon. However, in Joel's defense, I didn't give the dry-wet-dry system a chance. I only experienced the -wet- wipe system.

It did get me thinking though, I have a cousin that is also named Catherine. Do her and I have odd things in common?

Do you have any cousins with the same name as you? Do you have odd things in common? Do you use the dry-wet-dry method of wiping?

The "My baby is so cute" blog

Every Labor Day weekend of my life has been spent at a family reunion campout near Grand Rapids at my Great Aunt's farm. This one was no exception.

The campout is always really fun, but now that I bring a toddler along, it gives me a whole new perspective. I no longer see the campout through the eyes of a teenager who would ride jet skis all day long. Now I see it through the eyes of a 18 month old. The last time we were at the campout, Charles could walk, but he wasn't really mobile enough to get into big trouble. He was just starting to explore the outdoors and he wasn't interested in getting dirty. Oh how one summer has changed things.

If awards were given out at the campout, Charles would have won the dirtiest toddler award. I wasn't ready for this. Sure, I packed him lots of clothes, but not nearly enough. The first surprise came when I let charles play in the water in his clothes and regular diaper and then I let him play in the sand. This led to a giant swelled up diaper and a baby butt covered in sand. I tried to change him, but my frustration must have been obvious to everyone. Baby wipes are no match for sand. To add to the fun, Charles hates laying on the grass, so he was trying to get away. My aunt Marie came to the rescue with a tub of water for butt rinsing and a towel for drying and changing. The tub of water worked out great. In fact, it became the favorite adventure for little chazzy chazz. He loved sitting in the tub more than anything else.

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Of course, he also found many other ways to get dirty as well:

• Dragging Aunts and Grandparents to the food tent to get cookies.
• Begging brownies with white frosting.
• Climbing up onto dusty pavilions.
• Climbing into paddleboats.
• Falling down on dirt roads.

The nice thing is, I know that he enjoyed it more and more with every bit dirtier he got.

Did you have a nice holiday?

I see London, I see France...

Until recently I had two wonderful houseguests. The houseguests were my brother in law Andy, and cousin Danielle. Andy and Danielle are roommates and they were switching apartments. When you switch apartments in Ann Arbor in the student area, you usually end up homeless for a week or two. All of the apartment complexes build in this week or two of homelessness so they have a chance to clean up the apartment before the next person moves in. Also, since a majority of the tenants are students they can just stay with their parents. Andy and Danielle were in this situation and they stayed with us for the week that they were homeless.


I love to play the martyr in this situation. I would love to go on and on, "Oh, I am SO kind and SO generous to let these youths stay at my home and keep their stuff there." But actually, having them at the house was a delight. They both work the evening shift at Pizza Bob's, and they had to work a lot because all the other employees went to live with their parents. I hardly ever saw them. But even when I did see them they were a joy to hang out with and Charles had a ball playing with them. When they were there and I was not, they would amazingly clean up the house. It was a great situation.


Well, it was mostly a great situation. There was one drawback.


One of the days last week I was cleaning the bathroom upstairs. I am trying to be a cleaner person, and guests were using the bathroom so I thought it was important to have it not be nasty. I don't know how other people clean the bathtub, but for me I have to take off my pants. So, I was cleaning the bathtub in my underpants and a tank top. When I was done, I did some more housework...all in my underpants. What did it matter? The houseguests were at work and I figured I would be in bed or in jammies by the time they got home. Nathan and Charles don't care if I run around in my underpants, so it was fine. When I was done with the housework, we settled down on the couch to watch a netflix movie and I snuggled up with a blanket and never gave another thought to what I was wearing. The movie went a little longer than expected and Andy and Danielle got home while we were still watching it. They watched the end of the movie with us and chatted and joked. We were watching "He's just not that into you" and there is a part in the end that has to do with Ben Afleck's pants. Watching that scene reminded me that I wasn't wearing any pants. I was sure it would be no big deal. I was sure that somehow I would be able to sneak upstairs with the blanket and no one would know. But I waited and waited and there was no opportunity. Eventually I had to confess. I had to confess that I wasn't wearing any pants. Both Andy and Danielle looked embarrassed. I gathered up the blanket and headed up to bed. It wasn't until I got there that I realized that they might have thought that I was sitting on the couch barebutted, or that possibly they walked in on something romantic. Oh dear.


Well, I still don't know what they thought, but I did get even with Andy Saturday morning. Andy prefers to sleep on the sofa, and normally in the morning I would just see him cuddled up with a blanket as I quietly left for work. But Saturday morning Charles woke him up because he wanted to play. And guess what...Andy was sleeping in his underpants. Gotcha Andy. I guess we are even now.


How do you clean the bathtub? Do you have special cleaning clothes? Do you have any cleaning tips?

Are you smarter than a 4 year old?

Tuesday night the family and I went to a botanical garden to attend the annual joint meeting of the Audobon society and the Sierra club. Those of you who know anything about me realize how odd this was. Well, the reason we went is because there was a Raptor - Birds of Prey presentation. We were invited by my friend Nikki. It was in town, it was free, and it was open to kids. All of those things made it the perfect outing for a Tuesday Evening.

I didn't give much thought to anything except the bird show until I got there. The place was crawling with Ann Arbor hippies. I think Charles and I fit in ok, but the hubby pretty much hates the environment so I kept threatening to put him on their distribution lists. It is pretty unlikely that I will join either of these groups, but they did have their strong points. Most of the organizations that I have been part of have been full of long winded people who go on and on to hear themselves talk. The bird watchers and tree huggers are surprisingly brief. They got up, said they had a fundraiser, and mentioned there was more information in the back of the room. It was great.

After the brief announcements, the bird lady came out. She brought 3 birds with her. I am glad Nikki took pictures and sent them to me, because I didn't even think about it. The first one was a Falcon.

Here are the things I learned about falcons:

• There is more than one type of falcon.
• They are the birds that wear the little masks.
• There is a sport called falconing where you use falcons to hunt ducks.
• If you are a falconer, you get your first falcon by catching it from the wild. You then use it to hunt for a year, then put it back into the wild. I don't know where you get your second falcon.

When the bird lady took the falcon out of the box, she asked everyone what it was. All the kids knew. I did not. She told us a lot about falcons and about the other birds at the reserve...including a turkey buzzard. Turkey buzzards can smell, falcons cannot.

The second bird was an owl.

Here is what I learned about owls:

• They hunt skunks and can carry half of their weight.
• Owls weigh about 4 pounds. I think this means they can either only hunt baby skunks, or when they kill an adult skunk, they eat it on the ground.
• Their eyes don't rotate inside their head because they are too big.
• They do not have infra-red heat vision, but they can use their ultraviolet vision to see mouse piss (ala CSI-Miami).

Again, the bird lady told us lots of information about owls and the other birds at the reserve. Owls don't mind hunting skunks because they can't smell. Turkey buzzards can smell.

The third bird was in the biggest box. When she pulled it out, she asked, "and what kind of bird is this?" All the kids, even little Carter who is only four years old (I know this because he told me he was only four years old) yelled out, " A bald eagle!!!!" I thought to myself, what a bunch of stupid kids. She already told us it was a turkey buzzard.

I was the stupid one. It was a bald eagle. This teaches me that I am stupider than a four year old and can't even tell the National bird from a turkey buzzard. How embarrassing. We didn't stay much longer after that. Charles started fussing since it was getting close to his bed time. He liked the birds ok. He pointed to each one as the bird lady pulled them out of their boxes. He stared at them as she walked them past. But, while she was talking about them, he much preferred to kick the chair next to him and flirt with the little girl behind him instead of listen.

Overall, the outing was a success. It also made me think of something I hadn't considered before. I think I am at the stage in my life where I need to make "Family Friends".

You start out life and you just have to make friends for yourself. Sure, your mom has to like them enough to let them come over, but even if your mom doesn't like your friends you can still play with them at school.

When you grow up and start seriously dating or get married, you are supposed to get couple friends. I never had any trouble making friends for just myself. I was never the most popular kid in school, but I had plenty of friends. Couple friends are much harder though. To this day I don't think I have any. A friend of mine tried and tried to make good couple friends, but 4 personalities are a lot to try to merge together.

I think I will be in big trouble now. Now I need to make Family Friends. I thought of this when I was introducing Nikki's family to my family. First Nikki and I have to be friends (and with her taste in music and reality TV contestants that is always tenuous). Then, to be family friends we both need to have children. Luckily she has a little boy, Carter. Carter is 4, Charles is 1.5, so we have to see if they can get along. THEN there is the added complexity of getting the hubbies to be buddies. GEESH.

Well, I don't think I am quite ready to make family friends. I will be content with mixing and matching for now. Maybe I will concentrate on making Carter and Charles be friends and then work on the hubbies later.

How has your luck been with Couple friends and Family friends? Do you have any pointers for me?

A Delightful Disaster

or Rolling Down the River

or A 5 Hour Tour

Last Saturday I went rafting down the Rifle river with my good old friends Karen, Missy, Kayla, and Emily AND my good new friends Nikkie, Erin, Rob, and Kellie. It was definitely delightful, and definitely a disaster. I should have been clued in when the 2-3 hour trip to the river was full of torrential rain. When we got to the Rifle river we all hung out in the small gift shop hoping the rain would go away. There were promises that it was going to clear up later and we were not going to get our deposit back, so we decided to take our chances. We all bought rain suits that seemed to be a great bargain, and we headed out for the river.

My old friends and I were sharing a raft. Nikkie and Erin shared a canoe and Rob and Kellie shared another raft. We had more clues that the trip would be disasterous when the workers barely helped us get our boats in the water and when poor Erin slipped in the mud and completely soiled her favorite capri pants. However, none of that dampened our spirits. We were ready to go and every clue that we should do otherwise was simply met with laughter.

The disaster started when Nikkie and Erin tried to get into their canoe. The poor souls had never been in a canoe before. That combined with the wet weather and mushy river caused them to tip over several times. We decided it would be easier if the two of them came in the raft with me, and Karen and Missy took over the canoe. I was a little nervous about that at first. I wasn't yet good friends with these two new people. My nerves were quickly put to rest because these new friends were wonderful and because we connected the two rafts and the canoe together.

For the first four hours the trip was wonderful. The rain was only heavy once in a while and every now and then it even stopped. We were all in good spirits and laughed at everything from the low durability of the rain suits we bought, to the weather in Wisconsin, to being a fan of rain on facebook, to who knows what else. Everything was hilarious and no one minded that we were kind of going down the river in circles and backwards part of the time. The picture below should be evidence of how hard I was laughing, but really, when I look at it, it looks like I am crying. Believe me, the crying didn't start until the last hour of the trip.





We stupidly signed up for the 5 hour river tour. That tour was about 1 hour too long for me. After 4 hours we thought we were at the end. You are not supposed to bungy the boats together, so we unhooked and everyone went their own way. This would have been fine if we only had 10 minutes left on the river, but it turned out that we had a whole hour left. So, the two children (Kayla and Emily), two of my new friends (Nikkie and Erin) and I were left alone on the river in a raft. All along I was the most experienced rafter, but that wasn't really saying much. Now, I had to use that experience to get us to safety. I don't think that experience did me one lick of good. That last hour was pure misery. We tried to hold onto our good spirits, but the following factors made it impossible:

• We all had to go pee.
• We were all freezing cold.
• The rain started pouring harder than I had ever seen. I think it was a hurricane.
• We couldn't steer at all.
• We kept getting hit in the head by trees.
• We were going down the river in circles.
• We were weak from paddling so hard.
• There were campers along that stretch of the river who were making fun of us for rafting down the river in the rain.

I have never experienced such a long hour. I was sure that there would be no end to the river. I was sure that I was going to have to raise Kayla and Emily myself and that we were going to have to live as river people surviving on the fish (smelt...I got no laughs after my "you smelt it you dealt it" joke) that we could catch with our deteriorating rain suits. I would like to say we got to the end of the river shortly after giving up hope, but we gave up hope long before that and it was a miracle that we ever got off that raft. I have never been so soaking wet in my life. I was wetter than taking a shower or going swimming or anything. It was terrible. We all had extra clothes, but even changing into them was a pain. We all had to fit into a little tiny dirty bug infested bathroom and do our best to clean up. Poor Kellie had to buy a who Rifle River outfit. I have never been so happy to get into a car so I could be warm and dry. We drove from there to Tony's in Birch Run. I was exhausted...evidence below.

We were all literally shivering when we got to Tony's. I don't normally like hot beverages, but when little Emily (cuddling with me in the pic above) ordered hot chocolate, I had to follow suit. It was the best thing I ever drank in my whole life and it really warmed me up. After we all warmed up we recovered our positive attitudes and I had an excellent time chatting and eating and joking with all my new friends.

Karen and Missy asked me if I want to go hiking with them next time. I think the answer is NO. No offense, but I need a little time to forget this last trip into the wilderness.

Are you a Dave Bennett or an OJ

Long long ago, in the year of 1995, I went to the prom with Dave Bennett. The situation that lead us to go to the prom together was a little odd, and we definitely went "as just friends." My family, well mostly my grandma, got a little too excited that their little Catherine was going on a date. My grandma was sure I was not only dating Dave Bennett, but that we were in love. I think it broke her heart when I revealed that we weren't in love. She was very upset and she told me that I could either marry someone like Dave Bennett or I could marry someone like OJ Simpson (this was right after he murdered his wife, not when he was a popular athlete/actor). That idea has made me giggle for years. It makes me giggle because there is such a big range between marrying the preppiest, politest guy ever and marrying a murderous ex-athlete.

I was talking to the hubby last night and we decided that he was somewhere in between OJ and Dave Bennett. We decided that there should be a questionaire you can take to tell you what degree of Dave Bennett you are. I don't know how to set up Facebook Quizzes, so here are the questions, you will have to grade it yourself.

1. You killed your wife, how did you do it?

a. With kindness and a cheerful attitude
b. With a knife.

2. How did your sports career end?

a. From Pnenomia after T-Ball.
b. From injuries after a long professional career.

3. What kind of pants would you wear with a cream sweater vest with red trim?

a. Red Chordaroy.
b. Black Leather.

4. How do you feel about the naked gun movies?

a. Hilarious.
b. Great Acting.

5. How do you decorate your home?

a. With tasteful modern art pieces placed in a very artistic way.
b. With stolen sports memorabilia.

6. How did you wear your hair when you were young?

a. With a lovely wave in the front. Not quite flock of seagulls, but close.
b. Afro.

7. Are you a neat freak?
a. Yes.
b. No, I leave my bloody leather gloves everywhere.

If all your answers are A, you are 100% Dave Bennett. Maybe my grandma was right. Maybe there are only two types of men in the world. Or maybe you are Dave Bennett and you found my blog. In that case, hi Dave, how are you doing? Tell Carri and the girls I said HI!

If your answers contained 1-2 Bs you are 71% Dave Bennett. Sure, my grandma would think you were a good catch, but she probably wishes you were just a little bit more Bennett.

If your answers contained 3-4 Bs you are 50% Dave Bennett. You seem like a good guy, but a girl never know when you are going to flip out and be violent.

If your answers contained 5-6 Bs you are 29% Dave Bennett. You might have lovely fashion sense and a nice sense of style, but deep down you are a cold blooded killer.

If your answers were all Bs you ARE an OJ Simpson. You have NO chance of impressing my grandma.

What type of person are you?

ps: For those of you who don't know Dave Bennett from GBHS, U of M Flint, or from being my friend Carri's husband, shame on you. How could you not know Dave Bennett. Anyway, he is a buddy of mine who is a wonderful person and is the exact opposite of OJ Simpson.

Is this a garden blog?

I hate gardening. I hate almost everything about it. I hate dirt, I hate bugs, I hate sweating, and I exponentially hate sweating while digging in dirt while bugs attack me.

At the beginning of the summer, my yard looked like the picture below. If the neighborhood association asks, I don't know what happened to the tree that used to be where the pile of dirt is now. And, if I knew what tree they were talking about, I am sure it died through the winter. Anyway, this isn't about the tree that may or may not have ever been there. When the picture below was taken, I had already done more gardening than I wanted to. I had trimmed the bushes and pulled up weeds and dumped a lot of dirt. Last year I thought I was taking the easy way out, and I planted annuals. That was dumb, because that meant this year I was back to square one and had to plant something.



I have a lot of friends who are really into gardening and landscaping. I do not have lofty goals of having a beautiful yard like theirs. I have realistic lazy goals about being just above the worst yard on the street. I should have taken a picture of the other houses, because the bar has been set very low.

Well, I finally did my gardening, and I must admit, I didn't hate every part of it. I like that my house has color in front of it. I like the beautiful flowers. I like not having to feel guilty about picking the beautiful flowers because it is my yard and I can do what I want.


I did not make the annual mistake this year. I was saved from that mistake by some wonderful helpers. My friend Michele at work brought in some flowers from her garden for me. She was sure to bring in the perreniels that need very little attention but spread like crazy. My friend Nikki gave me some of her prize daylillies. I really like the daylillies because you are supposed to pick them because they only last one day. And best of all, I have little Chazzy-chazz to help me water the flowers.

So, FINE I will admit that there are a few positive things about gardening. Geesh!

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Cougar cousins: Amy, Supermodel bride to be Robin, Susan, me,
Sarah, Megan, Angela, Tami. There were a few non cougars that joined us,
but they are not pictured here.

This weekend while I was camping out with my cousins, my cousin Susan mentioned that she wanted me to make sure I blogged about the weekend. In response to her request, I decided that I should take down notes about interesting things that happened. I only ended up with one note:

When my sister was done with her meal at the restaurant, she got out her Nelgene bottle and poured her ice water into it. She said it was good water and she wanted to take it with her.

Looking back, I think it is a good sign that I didn't write down more. I was having too much fun to take down good notes. My family attends the same campout twice a year and it is always a wonderful time. This time was a little different though.

My cousin Robin is getting married in September, and we decided that all the girl cousins should take her out to dinner kind of as a batchelorette party. I have to say "kind of" because poor Robin is one of the younger ones in the crowd and the older half of the crowd wasn't up for crazy parties anymore. We did make an attempt. We all dressed up in our coolest clothes and looked like a lovely bunch of cougars out on the prowl. Perhaps we would have been very popular at a dance club.

When we got to the restaurant, we had to wait an hour before being seated. My sister Amy is really good with games and came up with a game where we would all write two facts about Robin. One would be true and one would be false. After we all wrote them down, they were read aloud. It was hilarious, but I felt kind of bad for Robin. The true comments mostly fell into three categories, an embarrassing childhood crush, embarrassing accidental childhood nudity, and ice cream. No one mentioned how Robin is really good at sports, that she is always nice about getting people treats from the dessert tent, or how quickly she picked up playing "part of your world" on the piano. No one remembered that she is the star of the family volleyball team.

The next day we were all talking about what would come up if we played the game about other family members. One cousin had a boob pop out of her bathing suit, another two had childhood mullets, and another accidentally peed on someone.

It got me thinking, that I don't know what mine would be. What would they say if they played the game about me? I am not fishing for stories here, I am just wondering if I don't have any moments like this, or if, in MY head, they just run together with the rest of my life.

What do you think?

PS: If you want to share a story, I would love it. I just don't want you to think I am begging for one.

Baby Mama Drama

Yesterday I met my friend Carri for dinner. Carri is my good friend from college and we don't get together as often as we should. We especially don't get together very often since we both had babies a few days apart.

After our dinner yesterday, I think I know why. I think Carri is the real mother of little Chazz.

I am not suggesting that our children got switched at birth, I am suggesting that Carri had a torrid affair with my husband and they are trying to pass their love child off as mine. It happens all the time, just watch Jerry Springer.

Here are the clues, draw your own conclusions:

• Everyone says that Charles has his daddy's face and my coloring. HOWEVER, he does not REALLY have my coloring. He is pale like me, but he has RED hair like Carri. Sure, red hair runs in my family but I do not have red hair. ALSO, Carri and I look enough a like that I was once mistaken for her daughter while we were at the mall.
  
• Charles took to Carri as soon as I sat him down. Carri beat me to the restaurant, so she was already sitting down with her food. I put charles in a high chair next to her while I went to get my food. Normally, this would not have worked out. Normally Charles would have cried and wanted his mommy. BUT, he didn't, because he was happy to finally be sitting next to his real mommy.
  
• Charles actually agreed to show off for Carri. I am always trying to get him to do his tricks for people, and he never will. He did all of them for carri. They include vibrating his lips, waving, and saying hi.
  
• When we left and parted ways, Charles couldn't take his eyes off of Carri. He watched her walk all the way to her car on the other side of the parking lot.

Why did I never suspect anything before? Well, ever since they met, Carri and my husband have disliked eachother. Now I am thinking that their passion against eachother flipped into a passion for eachother. The opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference. Hatred and love are very closely related.

DNA test here we come.

Bustin heads at Ghetto Bell

Last week my friend Nikki and I hosted pictionary at the home for wayward girls. Just for a little background information, there is a facility near where I work that houses girls who are troubled, in trouble, or are from troubling situations. Nikki is a wonderful volunteer at the home for wayward girls, and I try to help her out as much as possible. Pictionary went very well. Sure there were accusations of cheating, sore feelings over losing, and girls that were so cute and sweet that they broke your heart, but that is not the topic of this blog.

The topic of this blog is the dinner we had before hand. They do serve dinner at the event we hosted, but the food is always nasty.

Anyway, there is a Taco Bell near the home for wayward girls. This Taco Bell is like nothing I have ever seen before. It looks like a regular Taco Bell, but it has bullet proof glass everywhere like a gas station in Downtown Detroit. Because of such safety measures, we call it Ghetto Bell. It is kind of an adventure and a tradition to go there everytime we volunteer. Last week was the first time I felt nervous about being there.

The service is seldom award winning at the Ghetto Bell. Last week was no exception. When we got to the window, there was no one there to take our order. We waited a few minutes and then the guy who was making meat in the back put down the meat and came up to take our orders. Because I was behind Nikki, I didn't hear both sides of the conversation, but Nikki's side was enough to crack me up. Someone started giving the meat guy a hard time for not working on the meat. He responded, "Can someone help me, y'all are just standing around." The person who was originally giving him a hard time said something else and then I heard Nikki ask about the manager. Turns out, the person giving the meat guy a hard time WAS the manager and she had been swearing at the meat guy. Nikki did not appreciate that and told the woman so. Nikki asked for the name of the district manager and then looked at the mouthy manager and said, "No, it was your MOUTH". Then I just heard Nikki repeating her order over the voice of this ticked off manager. At that point I was ready to leave, but Nikki was not. Nikki got her food in record time, mine took forever. I had trouble enjoying my tacos because I was busy worrying about the following:

• Was there piss, poop, spit, or worse in my food? You always hear about things like that happening at restaurants. I just hope it didn't happen in this one.
  
• Was the manager going to come out and kill us.
  
• Was the manager going to call her baby daddy to show up and kill us.

I know, it is wrong of me to fear these things just because I in a Taco Bell with bullet proof glass, but still, I don't think I will go back again. We did manage to escape with our lives, but we probably just barely dodged a bullet.

Oh, and there was one funny/inappropriate thing that happened at pictionary night. We were doing a raffle for some prizes and the girls were way too excited. It was about 105 degrees in the gym and even hotter than that where I was standing because all the girls were standing about 2 inches from me yelling the numbers they wanted me to pick. While I was waiting to hear how many prizes we had left, I tried to get the girls to back up, saying, "Man, you guys are making it so hot over here." One of the girls responded, "Why because there are too many black people?" I completely ignored her response because it didn't make any sense, but another girl did not. She responded, "Yeah, why do you think it smells like this." I don't really know what she meant, or the background behind why she said it, but it was hard not to giggle a little bit.

Freedom Festival

Last night was the freedom festival fireworks display in Detroit. Detroit and Windsor work together every year to put on a fireworks display on a day that is neither Canada's Independence Day nor USA's Independence Day. They have the event on a date somewhere in the middle (or so I have heard, I don't really know when Canada's Independence Day is...Or if they are independent. They might still be a British Colony for all I know of Canadian history).


I heard about it on the radio when I was on my way into work. People were already saving their places at 7 am to make sure they got a prime spot for the fireworks that evening. One mother was there with her family. She said the kids were having fun playing around all day. One guy was there with a ton of booze and a tent turning it into quite a party.

When I watched the fireworks on tv, for 5 minutes before I got bored of them, I thought about all the people who had been waiting for them all day. There is NO way I would wait around all day to save my spot for fireworks. There is no way I would even drive downtown to see the fireworks, especially because they were expecting about a million other people.

It got me wondering if there is anything that would get me to drive downtown and wait all day to see. I asked the hubby and he suggested a perfect scenario of a free concert featuring your 10 favorite bands and a free tailgate party during the wait. I guess I might wait all day for that. However, I think I am starting to turn into my dad. The thought of being in such a big crowd makes it seem like torture. My dad hates crowds and as a kid I used to get so mad when that was the reason we couldn't do something I thought would be fun.

By the way, I am not against going to see fireworks, I have travelled to downtown Flint and Grand Rapids to see fireworks for the 4th of July, but both of them you were able to just go to. You didn't have to save a place all day.

Not Funny

I am an adult. Not only am I an adult, I am in my 30s, the oldest sister, a wife and a mother and with that you would think maturity would be inevitable.

I guess I missed the day maturity was handed out. The following are things that I should not find hilarious, but unfortunately I do.

• I got a call from daycare telling me I need to take the baby to the doctor because his penis was swollen. On one hand, I was worried about my poor chazz’s privates, but on the other hand I couldn’t help but giggle when I called to make the doctor appointment.
  
  
• I also couldn’t help laughing when my coworker told me to make sure the doctor checked his testicles to make sure they weren’t twisted. I am sure it is very serious if they are twisted, but the teenager inside me thought it was hilarious.
  
  
• Seeing the site of little Chazzy chazz in agony when I picked him up from day care sobered me up for a little bit, but when he held my hand and walked into the doctor’s office with a diaper, but no pants on, again I had to snicker.
  
  
• Things got funnier when I got him home and he diarrhea-ed in the bathtub.
  
  
• They were funniest of all when I followed doctor’s orders and took the boy outside, naked, for 5 minutes so he could get some sun in the area where the sun doesn’t normally shine. I kept picking him up and aiming his crotch at the sun. Anything to help my baby boy. The doctor did advise that I had to be careful not to leave him in the sun so long that he got sunburn on his privates. For the record, Nathan thought I was making up the part where the doctor said we needed to take the baby outside naked. I only made up the part where he said we had to do it in the front yard.