February 28, 2007 | Books, Parenting

Don’t tell the Stollerderby people, they think I am a witty hipster urban parent.

I am about as Suburban as you can get. I live in the suburbs, I drive a mini-van, I have two kids, I shop at The Gap, I belong to multiple books clubs and spend time thinking about my yard. (Okay, I really don’t spend that much time thinking about my lawn, but I’m trying to illustrate a point.)

After a year of being harassed by my mother (the library scientist), I finally went and got a library card in Virginia. I hadn’t been in a library in a couple of years. In fact, I believe the last time I was in la biblioteca (how many times could I use the word library in one paragraph before you stopped paying attention?) was to show my mom’s librarian buddies how pregnant I was. So, let’s say about three years have passed.

I had forgotten how much I love the library. That place rules. I can get books - for free! I also checked out a DVD - for free! Plus, the librarian was really nice (not like those mean librarians in Temple Terrace - they know who they are). AND I found a program next month for two and three year olds that is about planes, trains and automobiles. Ian is going to poop his pants.

Okay, let’s be honest. Ian was probably going to poop his pants anyway. Potty training really isn’t going that well.

What I am trying to say is go to the library. They let you have books for free.

(Hi Mom!)

February 27, 2007 | Randomness

Did you guys know that Elizabeth has perfect pitch? I can only think of one other person I know that has this talent. It blows my mind. Do any of the rest of you have perfect pitch?

Nobody was shocked that Anna Nicole Smith was on drugs while she was pregnant, right? So, why is it headline news?

I need one of these. (This link courtesy of my Academy Award Winning friend, The Kaiser.)

Speaking of the Academy Awards, Devra sent me this link of The Most Awkward Oscar Moments.

Not that you would, but if you decided to Google search the phrase john mccain freaked out we (or I guess, I) here at Sarah and the Goon Squad happen to be the #1 result.

We’re #1! We’re #1!

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This article isn’t confusing, but this headline sure is:

Women, blacks beat smokers, Mormons in U.S. race: poll

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February 26, 2007 | Parenting, The Pink One

Lately when I do something that Claudia really wants me to do she has an odd way of thanking me.

Here is an example, a couple of weeks ago, I washed her red bowl and poured her some Cheerios.

“Wow!: she said “You’re really big!”

I realize that when a two year old says you are really big they are actually just praising your Cheerio getting skills, but I can’t but help feel a touch insulted.

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The other day she was watching me get dressed and she said “Wow, Mommy! You have a really big butt!” which is jerky and untrue.

I’m just big boned.

TV

As I watched the 79th Annual Academy Awards I couldn’t help but wonder:

Seriously, how can people stand to watch television without TiVo? It took forever and I had to sit through all of those commercials like some kind of sucker. I was up way past midnight and that didn’t bother Ian one bit when he came into my bedroom this morning at 6:30 asking for yogurt.

As far as inventions go, if I had to live without either a microwave or my DVR I honestly think I would keep my TiVo.

Searching

These searches are killing me. Who takes their time to type in this stuff? Be careful what you wish for people.

Butt Traffic

Meredith Viera nipple slip 

I got several of these. What did I miss? 

Pictures of Ebola People

My Mom in the Shower

warm butt

barfing people in a box

dead chicken omen

dress up zwicky

There were a lot of variations on this one. I don’t even know what zwicky is. Wiki here I come.

Organic food feces

“I saw Winger”

It was in quotes and everything.

How to spell kyuss

You see the irony too, right?

zerbert, vagina

That was one search.

ass part for when I’m 64 

I’ve thought about this one a lot, and I have no idea what it means.

Was Anna Nicole Smith part of the Mickey Mouse Club?

Not that I am aware of.
Willie Nelson 4th of July onesie 

diarrhea sounds

Ew. This isn’t an audio blog anyway. 

noodling for catfish nude 

AND what is possibly the funniest search term yet:

I fucked a Doodlebop.

February 24, 2007 | Parenting, Potty Training

When were your kids really potty trained?

I don’t mean when did they first poop in the potty. I want to know how old they were when you just stopped buying diapers or pull-ups for them completely. When did they poop and pee in the toilet every time, no more relapses and they could sleep all night in underpants. Be honest. If they were five years old - I can take it.

February 22, 2007 | Guest Blogger, Other Bloggers

A couple posts back, Devra offered up some slightly cryptic information about Kool and the Gang and a flat tire. A lot of you were wondering what the hell she was talking about. In a guest post, Devra explains it all.

Maybe next time we can get her to tell the story about the time she was in her pajamas in the airport.

Without further ado, I give you Devra:

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1985. Summer. My mother at the wheel of our stylin’ Subaru sedan and we’re tooling up I-95 heading home to Connecticut after attending a wedding in New Jersey. All of a sudden, there is a big “pop” signaling the tire has blown out. Fortunately on the horizon is an “On Again, Off Again” McDonald’s. My mother slowly inches the car until we are in the parking lot. Without a cell phone in our collective imagination she tells me, “Hold tight, I’ll go in and call Triple A”.

(left: Devra pictured in 1985)

Considering I am a 16 year old with Saturday night plans, I’m not about to wait no stinkin hour and a half for AAA to show up. Prior to being allowed to drive my parents’ cars, my father handed me a lug wrench and stood over me while I changed all four tires, one by one. So, I can change a tire about as fast as a NASCAR pit crew. I tell my mom that I will go into McDonald’s, get out of the fancy wedding wear and into jeans so I can make it back to my social life,”Which you know nothing about anyway so just be quiet mom. Jeez!”

As I head toward the building, everyone starts pouring out of McDonalds because the fire alarms are going off and the place is being evacuated. I stand for a moment in utter disbelief as I come to the horrible realization, “Oh shit, I will have to change a tire wearing a poofy dress and Candies.”

My mother stands next to me as I slide the jack in under the chassis. As I am trying to crank the jack, a man comes over to us and extends his hand to me saying “Let me.” I look up and see a guy smiling down at me and then he says to my mom “This won’t take much time. Let me help.” As he changes the tire, my mother goes to work on this unsuspecting man. ( This will ultimately be the one time where I found my mother’s normally annoying habit of asking tons of questions useful.)

Mom: Is that your stretch limo?
Him: Yes.
Mom: Are you famous?
Him: I’m in a Black singing group. We are on our way to a show we’re doing in Connecticut.

White Rolls Royce pulls up. Man gets out and comes over to talk to the guy changing our tire. The discuss how much longer the tire might take, the guy smiles at my mom and me and says “No problem. We’ll just wait on you.” and he goes back to the car.

Mom: Is that Rolls Royce with you?
Him: Yes, they are the main group. We are their opening act.
Mom: Who are you guys?
Him: (chuckling) I don’t think you’d know us.
Mom: Really? C’mon Try me. I’m a professor at a university, I teach sociology. I might have heard of you or your friends from my students or maybe my daughter has heard of you.
Him: Well, okay. I’m from Whodini and that guy who just left is from Kool and the Gang.
Mom: Of course! I know Kool and the Gang. Kool and the Gang! Devra, don’t they sing that song about Susanna?
Me: That would be “Joanna”.

At this point, the tire is now changed and everyone is ready to go their separate ways. Thank you’s are made and then this kind stranger(yet a famous stranger!) gives us both a big smile and leaves us with a final thought, “I just know that if my mom and my sister were by the side of the road, I’d want someone to help them. So, I’m happy I could help you.”

His words have stuck with me all these years because he’s right. People should help other people.

February 21, 2007 | Other Bloggers, Questions For You

Here is a question for you other bloggers out there:

Do you ever go to some boring everyday function (like a fundraising meeting or the pediatricians office) and see someone looking at you funny and wonder if they know you from your blog or if they are just looking at you like that because you took a shower and went to sleep on wet hair and you look like Crazy Cat Lady?

Just me?

Fine then. How about this… have you ever been at a regular non-blogging function and been recognized? Or have you ever been somewhere normal and recognized another blogger?

I haven’t. Yet. But I look for you people at the grocery store… consider yourself warned.

February 20, 2007 | Randomness

For when you just don’t have the time to watch the movie. (Thanks Kaiser.)

Devra is working on a guest post to explain the whole Whodini/Kool and the Gang tire change thing, hopefully I’ll have that up soon, along with part two of my mailbag. (I’m still open for a few more questions.)Everybody knows that swag is really an acronym for Stuff We All Get, right?

This is funny.

_Nancy and Ali have done the meme too. Ali says she lost her virginity on her wedding night. I didn’t know people still did that. Did anyone else have sex for the first time on their wedding night?

Mr. Deity is killing me. Alison sent me a link to one, but I’ve watched them all. Good times. Plus, Jesus is kind of cute.

Oh, and Blingo is giving away a 42″ plasma tv this week, so if one of you could win one of those for us, that would be great. I’ve got the perfect place to put it.

February 19, 2007 | All Me All Day, Other Bloggers

Fine. It’s not really a mailbag. I told you that you could ask questions in my comment section in my last post. I must have been drunk when I wrote that one.

Fortunately, most of you were either too scared (like Bridgette) to ask a question, to polite to ask a question, or you just don’t read blogs on the weekend and I’ll end up doing a part two tomorrow. (I suppose the other option is that nobody actually reads my blog and it’s just my Mom clicking on my link 300 times a day because I told her I would get money from my ads if she did that.) But I did get a couple of questions, so here goes:

Andie D. (and yes I realize that her name is Andie, but I alwaays think of her as Grumppopotamus, and if I ever meet her I will insist on calling her that) asked: If you had to pick one celebrity to have sex with, who would it be and why?

If you would have asked me this question two years ago I would have said Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp, but since those answers are boring and I wouldn’t want to get any of Angelina Jolie’s cooties I am going to say John Lynch. There is no way John Lynch has cooties.

Mom at Work asked: If you could choose one blogger to rake her lawn and freak her out, who would it be and what would she title the post about it?

Well, You know I am lazy, so I would probably pick someone who either lived in an apartment or had a lawn guy so that the actual work would be minimal. Maybe a New York City blogger. They don’t have lawns. Or a Florida blogger, they don’t have leaves… maybe I could hide in my house and my crazy neighbor would rake their lawn for me. We would call the post “I think Sarah’s crazy neighbor is raking my lawn.” That has a nice ring to it.

Erin asked: I’m sure it’s in your archives somewhere, but did you have the goon squad vaginally or via c-section? Having gone the c-section route for my 1 baby, I have a lot of respect for moms of multiples who “did it” vaginally.

I had a caesarian. Ian was head down, but Claudia was vertex. Most of the time (but not always) with twins if either one isn’t head down they will do a c-section so that you don’t end up having one vaginally and one surgically. It is too traumatic to the mother’s system.

Devra asked: Houdini, Kool and The Gang and me. Now come up with the question I am answering.

That is easy. Who changed your flat tire?

You people are going to have to ask Devra about that one. She also met DMX in an elevator in Baltimore, and Jared, the Subway guy on an airplane. She isn’t like other people.

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I guess that wasn’t so scary. You guys are way nicer than Beth’s readers.