Desperate and Dateless

Happy Valentine's Day!  For some of us, today is a glorious day--filled with hearts, and flowers and sunshine and puppies and all that is right with the world.  For others,  it's a day to be suffered through--accompanied by vodka and ice cream and chocolate and vodka.  For others, it's just Tuesday.

For me, you ask?  Drumroll, please.

Once a year, on Valentine's Day, the editors at Action News want to show its viewership what dateless and desperate people look like on Valentine's Day.  When they undertake this act of public service, they show my picture.

It's awesome.

It's not only awesome, it's an annual event.  This is the 11th- count em, 11th- year that video has aired on the news.

Yes, I'm serious.

Yes, I'm really serious.

Yes, I know I'm a bit of a storyteller, but even my imagination isn't this good.  I could not make this crap up if I tried (and, yes, I've tried).

And yes, more people then you've ever imagined watch the news, and they apparently all watch Action News.  I don't know why NBC and CBS even bother to air televised newscasts.  Everyone I know seems to watch Action News.

I owe you all a story.

Flashback to Valentine's Day 2001.  My friend "C" (a/k/a the "Idea Generator") learns of an annual Valentine's Day event at the Irish Pub called "Dateless and Desperate".   We don't have boyfriends at the time.  We think the name is kind of awesome.  We decide to go.  If I'm being completely honest, I didn't require much convincing.  I'm a sucker for a good tongue-in-cheek name.

In any event, we arrive at "Dateless and Desperate" and a while later, I am selected to be a participant in the Dateless-at-the-Irish-Pub version of "The Dating Game."  Unsurprisingly, I don't win.  What I didn't realize until after I lost this game is that Action News was there at the time, filming the game, amongst other things.  Some of those "other things" included me.

The initial airing of the clip was a thing of beauty.  On the 11 PM news, right after Action News showed video of all of the flowers and all of the nice couples getting married at halftime at the Sixers game, they show the clip.  The lead in was "just because these people are dateless and desperate doesn't mean they can't have a good time."  And then there's a lovely close-up....of my face.

Awesome.  Yes, Philadelphia, I am the face of the dateless and of the desperate.  My parents are so proud.

C's mom was nice enough to tape (on VHS) my 15 minutes of fame.  C and I watched the video when we returned to her house for the night, cringed, had a good laugh and then arrived at the realization that most people had something better to do at 11 PM on Valentine's Day than watch the late local news.

That would have been an incorrect assumption.

The next day, I arrived at work, and at least a half dozen of my coworkers were kind enough to point out that they saw me on the news.  Then, there were the phone calls...and then, there were the emails.  My favorites were from my friends' parents and my parent's friends.  Turns out, LOTS of people watch the late local news.

A few days passed, everyone (or at least everyone but me) forgot about it, life went on.

Except for one slight problem.  The Irish Pub still holds the "Dateless and Desperate" event annually.  Action News still covers the event annually.  They have not shot new Dateless video since 2001.

Yes, this means exactly what you think it means.  This means that my face (and my 2001 hair and my godawful goth lipstick) is plastered on the news...EVERY.SINGLE.YEAR.  Sometimes, Action News mixes it up and plays it on the morning news, sometimes at noon, sometimes the late night news- but they still freaking play it.  Bonus points for them also having it on their website (video section).

Every year, I get phone calls, emails and  (more recently) Facebook messages on Valentine's Day (or February 15th) that start with "hey, I saw you on the news."  Only now, I'm on the downward slope of my 30s, someone's wife, and...oh yeah, someone's mother.

Every Valentine's Day, I'm a year older and a little less cute.  I'm okay with that. What I'm not okay with is the annual reminder of how I will never again be that skinny and how I wasted my  years of being that skinny with bad hair, misguided clothing selections, and downright appalling makeup.  I mean, seriously.  I look like a (admittedly less cute) version of a 90210 cast member---the post college years.  Youth is truly wasted on the young.  I suppose one upshot to aging is that the clothes dramatically improve.

Yes, it happened again this year.  This year,my face is shown just as the announcer says "and if you actually are attached this year, here are some ideas".

Yes, I'm a precautionary tale.

A public service announcement from Little Miss Sunshine:  Kids- stay away from any digital video.  You may end up on You Tube, entertaining people for years and years.

SHIT!  This video better not be on You Tube.

If you missed it this year, fret not.  I'm sure Action News will air it again in 2013.

This really, really better not be on YouTube,

Negotiating With Terrorists

Once upon a time, there lived a moderately flawed Princess who had an answer to virtually all parenting issues (and pretty much everything else for that matter).  She reigned supreme in her own mental kingdom--slaying bad behavior, sleep issues, and other parenting dilemmas along the way.

Then, one day, the moderately flawed Princess had a little girl.

For a time, the Princess continued to preside over her fictional kingdom.  The Junior Princess, as she shall be known, was a ridiculously easy baby.  There was no colic, there was barely any crying....just lots of sleep, lots of smiles, lots of cuddles.   There were no potty training fights, there were no issues with sharing, there were no public meltdowns.  For three years, the Senior Princess frequently entertained the thought "Wow- I have this parenting thing DOWN."   The Senior Princess dared to think that she just might a very special, very excellent mom.

The Senior Princess was a fool.

Somewhere around the Junior Princess's third birthday, an evil witch spiked the Junior Princess's juice box with a massive quantity of time-released PMS pills.   Since that day, the Senior Princess has regularly been in way over her head---frequently trying to reason with an organism who has the uncanny ability to simultaneously be completely unreasonable, completely hotheaded, and completely bursting with self-righteous indignation (and the vocabulary to match).

This isn't my kind of fairytale.  Life with my 3 year old ain't no joke.

Some days, I get hours and hours of quality time with the sweetest little girl in the world--the girl Little M used to be.  Some days (and today was one of them), I spend hours and hours of time engaged in a losing battle of wits against the world's smallest (and funniest) terrorist.

Little M: 286.   Little Miss Sunshine:0.

We thought that taking Little M ice skating would be a fun activity.  That would be incorrect.  I'm pretty sure I can never again show my face at Ice Line of West Chester.   It was in that Ice Line where I morphed from a reasonably well-adjusted member of society into a stark raving Jerry Springer style loon.

The whole event started off poorly. Her Majesty informed us, and anyone who was willing to listen, that she required her skates to contain flowers, butterflies, and princesses.  I didn't realize that she required a famous-person rider, complete with a list of unreasonable demands.  (For the record, if I'm ever a famous rock star, my rider will demand that my dressing room be fully stocked with Diet Dr. Pepper and Lucky Charm marshmallows, and that all Pepsi products be removed from the premises).  In any event, she was decidedly less than pleased with the black, unisex rental skates she actually received.  Strike 1.

After a 15 minute change of terror, where I feared that my digits would be severed by the flinging blades, we made our way onto the ice.  We completed 2 laps, 3 tops....where she was overconfident in her abilities as a skater, which meant that she was flailing all over the place.  Those might have been the longest 30 minutes of my life---compounded by the fact that we were the parents of the only small child in the place that was sans helmet.  Oops.   She demanded to be taken off the ice.  Strike 2.

It should be noted that today is the husband's birthday, and he took the day off to spend with us.  I imagine that he sorely regrets this decision.  Any sane person would surely prefer a day in the office than waste a vacation day spent with a 3 year old in the throes of terrible, and a wife who (using highly technical terms) lost her mind and her shit in a public place.

Despite the two strikes, I might have been able to be a return customer at Ice Line.  Then it happened.

Her Majesty saw the vending machines that were stocked with Dippin' Dots.   She demanded Dippin' Dots.  I said no.

As a side note, who actually eats Dippin' Dots, anyway?  To me, they look like disgusting ice-cream pellet droppings.

Boys and girls, it all went downhill from there.  The switch was flipped, and all reason went out the window.  She went nuts.  It was epic.  (The husband picked a great time to return the skate-walker.  Lucky him.)

It started with her repeating her demand that I furnish her with Dippin' Dots.  I declined.  She put her hands on her hips, gave me a filthy look and duck lips,  and tapped her foot (while still wearing skates).  She repeated her demand.  I repeated my decline, and this time added, "I don't negotiate with terrorists."

She didn't say a word, but the look in her eyes clearly said "Bitch, you not only negotiate with terrorists, you're going to accommodate them with a smile on your face."  And then she took off, in a full sprint, down the looooooooooooong hallway of Ice Line----while still wearing the rental skates.

For someone who couldn't stay on her feet while on the ice, Little M made a remarkable on-skates sprinter in a public place.  Unlike my daughter, I am a proficient (if by no means good) ice skater, but a total crap skate- runner.  I chased her, as fast as I could without biting it in humiliating fashion, pleading (and by that, I mean screaming) for her to "Come back here....NOW.  Get back here...RIGHT NOW, GOD DAMMIT.  You're going to time out...FOREVER!!!  STOP!!!!!!!!!!  GET BACK HEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRE, DAMMIT.  YOU BETTER HOPE THAT I DON'T CATCH YOU BECAUSE WHEN I DO YOU'RE GOING TO GET IT AND I'M SERIOUS THIS TIME...."

Classy.  Way to exercise virtually no parental control and sound like a whiny (and uncoordinated) idiot---ALL AT THE SAME TIME!

Thankfully, she bit it before I did----right next to the massive trophy case that I am so thankful that we didn't break.  (Don't worry, she wasn't at all hurt, and was still looking at me with her "you and what army, lady?" expression.)

Of course, we had an audience.

I attempt to walk her back to the changing area to return the ugly rental skates and get the hell out of there.  She wasn't really having it, so I'm dragging her by the hood of her jacket while whispering that I will get her a candy bar if we can leave without any further public humiliation.

I am pleased to inform you that we managed to get out of Ice Line without any further dramatic escapades.   She got her frigging candy, and I got 3 minutes of peace.

I shall collect my mother-of-the-year award now, thanks.

For the record, the following picture most adequately captures my plans for the rest of the day.

To being a pint-sized terrorist enabler,

I Heart You, Kelly Clarkson

Kelly Clarkson made me cry twice today.

Yes, you read that correctly.  I don't fully believe it either. I'd be ashamed, but honestly, I'm more flabbergasted than anything else.

I didn't even VOTE for Kelly Clarkson when she was a contestant on American Idol.  I wanted that Justin Guarini kid to win.  I even went through the exercise of dialing in votes (a few million of them, give or take) for Justin Guarini.  I wonder whatever happened to him?

Here I go again....turning my blog into shameful public confessions.  For the record, I'm not talking about the crying part, I'm talking about the part where I admitted to dialing 1-866-JustinG a few million times.

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm not--and I've never been--much of a crier. I'm German. We don't do that.   I don't cry at weddings, I don't cry at funerals, I don't cry at sad movies.  I've checked and I'm not actually a robot--I do actually bleed when cut, and there is a living, beating human heart somewhere in this body.   As a general rule, it's not a case of what I did not feel, it's a case of what I did not show.  This blog notwithstanding, I'm actually a fiercely private person (if more sensitive than I'd like to admit).

But Kelly Clarkson--- she got me twice today.  TWICE.  Frigging TWICE.

The first time actually wasn't that much of a surprise.  One of the very few things that I am a tear-sucker for is a well-sung national anthem.   I've spent 10 years trying to figure out how to move to London and be a fun expat and yet....I cry at the national anthem.  Go figure.  I actually wear dark sunglasses to all outdoor sporting events--in part because I realize that I am at risk for public displays of emotion if I manage to show up on time, which is rare.  Feel free- mock me now.

Kelly Clarkson: 1.  Little Miss Sunshine's tear parade:  0.  She rocked that national anthem.

The second time was the result of a combined effort by Kelly Clarkson and Little M.  Little M looooooooves Kelly Clarkson.  A while back, Little M truly impressed me with her lyrical analysis of "Mr. Know-It-All".

Little M:  Mommy, are all boys Mr. Know-It-Alls?
LMS:  Um...hate to tell you this, but yeah....pretty much.
Little M: Girls rule and are pretty.  Boys just eat a lot of food.

I love this kid.  This kid is just an explosion of awesome.

If "Name That Tune" were still filming new episodes, Little M would be a formidable contestant.  She can identify "Mr. Know-It-All" within 3 notes or less.

Little M loves to sing.  I'm guessing that she's inherited my musical ability, which is to say none at all, but her highly animated singalongs are things of beauty.

Imagine someone who is three and a half (and three and a half feet tall) singing her heart out-- complete with hands on hips, finger pointing, "talk-to-the-hand" gestures.  Keep in mind that her pronunciation of the "th" sound is, at best, spotty.  Now imagine her highly impassioned little voice belting out "you don't know a 'HAAAAAANNNNNNG about me" while her eyes glimmer with joy and spunk and mischief and she's telling some imaginary boy (or girl, or stuffed animal) which way the wind blows.

I don't have a baby, at least not anymore.  I miss my baby, but I love the spirited, independent, sassy little girl she's become more than words could ever adequately capture.

Kelly Clarkson--you gave my little girl the first song lyrics to which she's ever truly connected.  That's worth a few tears on my part.  If it were 2002 all over again, you'd get my vote this time,

(This is not a) Drive By

It's possible that I misinterpreted the directives of blogging.  I had given a respectable amount of thought to today's blog topic, and came up empty-handed.  I went back to the drawing board, decided to play Webster and re-write a (very small) part of the dictionary---and went about the business of re-defining the term "blog" from whatever term blog actually means (beats the f out of me) to "shameful public confessions".

And shameful it is.

Boys and girls,  I am a Train fan.

I told you it was shameful.  I am deeply and profoundly shamed.

By the way, I wasn't dumbstruck by out-of-nowhere fandom, but rather, it snuck up on me....bit by bit, song by song, and over the course of more than a decade.  "Meet Virginia"---check.  "Drops of Jupiter"---check.  (I'll admit to hating "Calling All Angels" and for that matter, every song ever recorded with "Angel" in the title.)   It wasn't the case of me seeking out the songs---I didn't own any of them--but more the case that every time I'd hear one of those songs, I'd be struck with the "hey, I like that song" thought.

I realized that I was really, really in trouble with "Hey, Soul Sister."  Trouble with a capital T kind of trouble.  As anyone with ears and a functioning radio will attest, that song is played 143,286 times per hour.  For me, the measure of a great song is my willingness to listen to it over and over, despite protests or point-blank pleading from the peanut gallery to switch the channel.  While we are on the topic, I am a world-class radio channel surfer---but I have not once (NOT EVEN ONCE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD) eschewed "Hey, Soul Sister" for whatever is behind door #2.   I'm not sure if that's really sad or some twisted form of loyalty.  Leaning toward sad, for the record.

And then there's "Drive By".  "Drive By" as in the song that I hummed for the better part of a day, then caught myself singing in the elevator (my coworkers already know that I am criminally insane, so that's okay).  The icing on the cake was when I came home tonight, broke down, bought the damned thing on iTunes, then proceeded to dance around to house to it, head-bopping, arms-in-the air, kick-up-one-leg-80's movie montage style.  Nice.  If you don't like it, sue me (yes, I am quoting "Drive By" in my defense of my "Drive By" purchase).  Go me.

Unnecessary tangent:  This song is directly responsible for yet another shameful public confession.   The first time I heard it, I thought that it was performed by Rascal Flatts.  Following is the transcript from my stream-of-consciousness rambling initial reaction to the song:

Wow this song is catchy....really catchy....kind of sounds like Rascal Flatts...yeah, I really like "Bless the Broken Road"....holy shit, I like Rascal Flatts....holy shit, I kind of like the Dixie Chicks, too....holy fucking shit, I think I like country music.....when exactly did a become a redneck....I've spent my entire life in a major northeastern market and I like country music....what the fuck.....well, the girl country singers are much prettier than most other girl singers...Faith Hill and Carrie Underwood are so pretty, it gets on my nerves...I think I'd need to be put on the rack to have legs like Faith Hill, but the rack doesn't sound that bad...how great would it be to weigh what I actually weigh and be 5'10"...OMG, I have an immigrant parent, and in less than one generation, I've become a regular, garden variety redneck, like that Gretchen Wilson woman... why the fuck do I even know who Gretchen Wilson is?...time to play classic rock, STAT.


While we're on the topic of my immigrant parent-- Most of my family speaks with a very thick German accent, and I like uptempo country music.  Go figure.   I'm so German that when I'm angry or otherwise fired up, I lose my ability to say the letter "s" and replace it with "sh".  I don't even want to talk about the number of times that I've yelled at Mady to "Shtop it...shtop it NOW" or to eat her yogurt "with a shpoon" instead of like an animal.   And I like country music.  I don't think any self-respecting European would ever listen to that crap.  I'm just saying.

I digress.  I'm a song lyric person, always have been---and Train's lyrics definitely appeal to my inner girl  (yes, I have one).  Somewhere, not-so-deep-down, I'd like to believe that I'm the unconventionally gorgeous, charmingly complicated woman whose contradictions are blindingly appealing to a poetic-souled man.  It happens.  I think that most women would love to have a song written about them, so I don't think I'm all that uncommon in this regard.  Unfortunately for me, I think that if that song were ever written about me, it would probably be titled "You'd Be So Much Cuter if You Just Once Shut Your Mouth When I Watch TV."  But hey, a song written in my honor would still be a song written in my honor.

Train rules,

Little Miss Sunshine