scrap

1. I'm not buying in to this Swine Flu billshut. It's the flu, it's bad, it's killed 200 Mexicanos, and a toddler in Tay-has. Okay. 200 people in Philadelphia die every year because they aren't smart enough to turn on a fan in the summertime. We live in brick houses. They turn into brick ovens. The nice part about that is that you can set a DiGiornos on the counter before work and it is baked to perfection by the time you get home. The bad part about that is grandma cooks up like a ham under the same conditions. Take home lesson? Rub her down with Ginger Ale and pin some pineapple rings on her soft spots on your way out the door each morning, just in case she doesn't feel like cracking a window.

2. On a related note, I also don't think that the flu is a punishment from God signifying the end of days. I'm pretty sure the same assumption was made about the Bubonic Plague and Surprise! Still here. Those floods in the Mississippi River Valley a few years ago and the follow up rash of tornadoes? Didn't end the world. It didn't even end the frigging Mississippi River Valley. Oinky ickle piggy mutation germs probably aren't going to do us in either. My kid comes from a strong genetic line that didn't die off when a lot of Philadelphia did. I'm not too worried about his current state of snottiness. In 1957 the Asian flu killed 70,000 Americans. In 1968 the Hong Kong flu killed 28,000. I had SARS once and survived. I think we will be okay. Wash your hands.

3. When I don't like someone, I refer to them as a "Bobrick" in my head. The Bobrick company makes an overwhelming majority of those little metal boxes that we ladies toss our used sanitary products into whilst in a public restroom. Pleasant, no? So much more scathing than jerkoff or douchebag.
3b. My mom doesn't call people douchebags, she calls them douchenozzles, which is OMG SO MUCH GROSSER! The bag is just the part that holds the liquid. The nozzle is the part that goes up inside the rotty, stinky, filthy... you get the picture.

4. After a few tears and long hours of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance I have given all of my post-partum pants away. I'm 32 1/2 years old. Normal, healthy 32 1/2 year olds aren't supposed to weigh under 120 pounds when they stand at 5'7". I'm not meant to be a size 4 ever again. I looked sick. I was sick. My friends were worried. My mother was talking to my coworkers behind my back to make sure I was taken care of from 9-5. It was nice to have women everywhere hate me because I was a skinny mom. Now it's over. Le Sigh.

5. I am on a crusade to end Mothering Guilt of all kinds. If you have a mother, you know what this is. If you are a mother, you really know what this is. It's 2009, folks. Let's make it stop. I think we will all be much happier when it ends. (cue Cat's in the Cradle now so the Dads can get in on it too)

6. I planted basil on Sunday and something ate it all from the top down. When something eats your crops that way out in the burbs or country, that something is usually all cute and hiphoppity or adorably Bambiesque. When something eats your crops on your second story deck in the city, that means you have ravenous climbing/flying giant bugs dangerously close to your sliding glass door that your kid leaves open on the daily.

7. I have a LoveHate relationship with eggs. I don't like when people use eggs to make breadcrumbs stick to chicken before frying it up. I used to think that it was like they were basting a mother with her own child, but then I thought about it and realized that eggs aren't baby chickens at all because they aren't fertilized. Eggs are technically chicken menstruation. So it's more like they are basting a mother hen with her own period. Then eating it. Dipped in catsup. Mmmmm. Visuals.

8. What does a vampire use for teabags?
Your mom's old tampons.
okay, I'm done. Three is my limit for menses references.

9. Girls, do you have a dollar a day to spare? You could put it into savings, you could feed a kid in Ethiopia, you could buy three sips of latte or you could go buy a really good bra (my latest fave is the Bali minimizer) once a month, wear it into the ground, and then toss it. Repeat on the first of every month. I don't know why I didn't figure this out sooner. My bra size is constantly changing, and I have no idea why or how but I've come to accept it as fate. Bras are never the same once they've been washed a few times and your titters start looking all wonky and your pits get those callouses from the pilling on the wire and then the wire itself bends a little and stabs you. Who wants that? Not me. Bras are my new expendable commodity. My teetaws are looking fab due to this revelation.

10. Check your credit card APR's when you get your next statement. That should bunch your drawers enough to stop using them and start paying them down quickly.
Bobrick creditors can kiss it.

Big ups to Lizzi who passed the Honest Scrap award on to me yesterday and to Haley who tossed me the Neno's award. I have talked about Lizzi here recently, but wanted to let you know that I found Haley's blog right before she had a huge surgery which sucks in general but it got us to talking (and talking and talking and talking) and we have way more in common than ladycancer and I love it. And her. I love loving bloggers. It's my favorite pastime.

Yes, that's how you spell pastime. It looks wrong, doesn't it?