Mar
18
March 18, 2007
There is a large Goodwill store in our neighborhood and visiting it with debit card in hand has become one of my favorite weekend activities. Sure, you could say it’s lacking in the sort of tastefully-Botox’d, tinkling-piano atmosphere that Nordstrom strives to offer, but where else could I buy an entire wardrobe of shirts for twenty bucks?
This particular Goodwill is awesome, in that you can always find barely-worn non-crappy clothes and shoes—a benefit of its relatively affluent zip code, I’m sure—as well as decent housewares. Riley has some super-cute clothes from there, including a swooningly macho little North Face type vest. They even have a maternity section, which is a fantastic alternative to spending hojillions of dollars at Motherhood Maternity for outfits with a 6-month shelf life.
One of the reasons I like going there so much is that you never know what you’ll find. A pair of Seven jeans for $5.99? Some oxblood Nine West mary jane square-toe flats for $3.99? A $2.99 toddler-sized sweater in green and blue stripes, far cuter and better made than Old Navy’s offerings? A pretty rectangular glass vase that’s perfect for holding daffodils, priced at $1.99? SCORE.
Of course, there are times when all you leave with is the pervasive smell of musty attics clinging to your hair, because that’s the day when the clothes are all ugly or stained and the toy aisle is depressingly full of broken plastic crap that kids are throwing at each other and every two minutes a heavily accented man haltingly announces into the crackling P.A. system that all towels are 40% off, thank you and have a nice day.
That’s what makes it so much fun, the fact that it’s a total crapshoot. Will there be an 8-piece collection of beautiful ceramic bowls today? Or will there only be a chipped plastic tumbler with faint Kool-aid stains in the bottom? Ahh, eet ees a mystery!
If I were more creative and brave—like, say, Seattle’s own Ariel Meadow Stallings, my personal fashion hero and woman of many talents—I’d be buying up those vintage oddball clothing items that magically transform into a smoking hot outfit once you pair them together correctly, but man, I just don’t have the eye for that stuff. I want a stylist, and not some horrifying Hollywood praying mantis who always dresses her carb-phobic clients in oversized sunglasses and leggings, I want a funky chick with a tongue piercing and an ample ass who knows exactly what clothes flatter the size 10 body, who incorporates Threadless t-shirts and Cruel Girl jeans into her wardrobe recommendations.
Also, I would like a pony. A pink-winged flying pony whose ass burbles out a steady stream of zero-point Starbucks vanilla lattes.
In other news, our Netflix queue has been woefully clogged with unsatisfying movies lately. The most recent travesty being Fast Food Nation—spare yourself the pain of watching it (and finding yourself thinking, hey, what happened to Greg Kinnear’s character, did he just randomly disappear never to return to the storyline [answer: yes]? and what the fuck, is that Avril Lavigne? and why the hell wasn’t this a DOCUMENTARY?) and read the book instead, friends. There was Casino Royale, which had some nice moments of chasey chasey pow-pow-pow, but was annoyingly long and featured a 43947521 hour poker game (although it does earn points for including a brilliant line of dialogue from Bond: “Skewered. One sympathizes.” —I realize that makes no sense if you haven’t seen it, but if you have, did you also mentally file under Bitchin’ Rejoinders with the fervent hope of being able to use it someday?). And Babel, the movie that didn’t have the stones to be as utterly depressing as it could have been.
I need some recommendations! What have you rented lately that didn’t suck?
Mar
15
March 15, 2007
Despite February’s strategic operations involving ovulation sticks (uh, several of them, as I completely guessed wrong on when to start checking and so ended up peeing on two entire boxes of tests before finally getting the little “time to start riding the baloney pony!” result) and a nearly obsessive level of self-scrutiny (I have never been so intimately aware of my own secretions, and if you are now wishing you could go back a sentence and not read that, I apologize), it appears our efforts will have to be filed under “Practice Run”.
I felt oddly conflicted about the, er, MS appearance of the PMS I can now blame the scale’s stubborn numberlock on (2 pounds less now, hooray for bloating?). On one hand I’m sort of wanting to go further with the diet/exercise thing and see if I can’t get back into those size 8s. On the other, now that we made the decision to greenlight Suctopus #2, I’m ready to get the process started. I kind of feel like we’re in some weird limbo where another enormous life-changing event is just around the corner but in the meantime, dammit I’m out of Tampax.
I also feel 1) a little ambivalent, like it will happen when it happens and it’s no big deal to wait a while longer, 2) a little paranoid, like what if we’ve got unknown fertility issues this time around and this is just the first of many, many months where we get a big fat DENIED on the babymaking front, and 3) a little worried about zombies, because jesus, fucking ZOMBIES, man.
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Say, what do you think about this Silestone surface for a kitchen counter?
Apparently it “evokes the mystique of the Great Smoky Mountains” (hee) by containing “a collage of brown hues flecked with cream and black shades.” I think it might be nice with a cream/tan wall color, cherry cabinets, and stainless appliances. But maybe too dark for our little kitchen? I don’t know.
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JB came in yesterday morning after getting the paper, which he tossed onto the dining table with an irritated slap. “I am FARTING TOO MUCH,” he announced, glaring at me.
“I fart all the way down the driveway to get the paper. I fart on my way back in. I fart in meetings. I fart in my car. I fart in the morning, afternoon, and night. Don’t bother asking if I’m farting right now because I AM.”
“It’s good for you,” I said. “Your body is processing vegetables instead of Pizza Hut. Think of it like a Health Foghorn.”
“I’m a GUY,” he moaned. “You understand how much farting a guy has to do to think it’s too much? A hell of a lot, that’s how much.”
Frankly, I can’t deny the effects that broccoli, beans, and bok choy are wreaking on my own system. I prefer to think of it as off-gassing, that with each emission I’m reducing my overall capacity and eventually may just fart myself into a smaller jeans size.
They seem to be mostly of the All Sound and Little Odor variety (“Proooo!” “Pah!” “Fnapffff!”), so I haven’t worried about it overmuch. Perhaps it’s time to take some countermeasures, though—I had assumed it was a temporary bodily adjustment, but with each passing (haaa!) day we’re continuing to let ’em rip, to the point where we’re actually outfarting both the boy and Dog combined.
Last night we were watching TV and I heard a robust wind note emanate from the couch. “YOUR FAULT,” JB said, without looking up. I thought about answering in kind, until we created a sort of whalelike communication song between our respective rear ends, but figured that kind of game really has the potential for an unpleasant ending (“Um, I need a new pair of pants over here”).
So Beano’s on the shopping list, along with Tampax and more First Response kits. I’d ask JB to run to the store for me, but I doubt he’d be capable. Just one more reason why we’re the stronger sex, ladies.
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