fun

Weekend with Mommy

~ thedailydish ~ 10 Comments

My weekend in one word:

CHA-CHING!!!!!!!!!!

And in two:

CHA CHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For those of you who are vision impaired, Saturday night I won $738.50 at the Borgata Casino Hotel & Spa on a slot machine. I will NOT tell you which one b/c it is now my secret luckiest winniest machine ever and MINE ALONE. Plus I do NOT want to encourage anyone in the folly that is gambling. Let’s face it folks, you are probably better off going into the bathroom, taking out your wallet and flushing it down the toilet than to try to WIN AT GAMBLING b/c it ain’t gonna happen. EXCEPT FOR ME!!!!!!!! WOOHOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

What a magnificently crazy fun-filled weekend!! Today I am trying to get back into the swing of things, but frankly I’m really not feeling much inclined. And who can blame me? The prospect of laundry and chores, bleech. I haven’t even brushed my teeth yet, and I might not now b/c I AM RICH. I am ready to retire for good. Like my good friend Jim next door who has thrown in the towel after 36 glorious years. And I am not speaking of 36 years of WORK – Oh NO! He is 36 and has decided to retire. B/c THAT is West Philly living and I LOVE IT!

SO where was I?? Oh yes, the weekend was grand. Well to be honest it started out a little shitty, but what else could it be when a sewer line backs up into your basement? Ahhhhh. Nothing like the smell of poop in the morning. Or the afternoon. Cause that’s how long it took us to remedy THAT lil problem. And by US you know of course I mean my beloved husband, b/c he’s the one who had to touch the stuff. YUM-YUM. Here is a photo for your enjoyment:

Look at that hand. He joked that he was going to rinse it in gasoline, but I do not think he actually did. At least not while I was watching. He had to go to the Home Depot and rent a big giant snake. It is a tool for plunging out your sewer line and not the fanged animal of course, though that would have been preferable to the poo. So the weekend’s festivities got off to a bit of a late start, but you can see how Saturday night finished, so who cares. right? My husband is the BEST.

Sunday we took in the last day at the Philadelphia Flower Show. They were not being persnickety about which door you used either, much to my relief. Though of course you had to buy tickets which of course did not come cheap. But that’s o-kay b/c our weekend was ON THE BORGATA. So the flowers were fun, the swarming masses much less so. We ate lunch across the street at the Reading Terminal Market. We had cheesesteaks at Rick’s, which is still there, at least until the court date in June. I had not eaten at Rick’s for quite some time and realized why. No offense to Rick’s, but they are one of the few (if only) Philly cheesesteak joints that 1) don’t chop their meat, which I don’t care for, and 2) offer the “works” aka lettuce & tomato on the steaks. As a Philadelphian I have to say this is weird. I have eaten steaks all my life and have yet, until this weekend, to see hoagie fixins on one unless it’s a HOAGIE. Oh well. It was otherwise o-kay. And of course we had Bassett’s which rocks above all others. I had pumpkin AND peach on one cone and it was simply Heaven in an ice cream.

Yesterday we spent the day at Peddler’s Village in Lahaska. My parents used to live minutes from there in New Hope, and my mommy hadn’t been back since moving to Atlanta. Almost a year and a half ago. So we took the tour and tooled past her old pad. It was not looking too bad, but it just wasn’t the same. We spent the rest of the afternoon eating and playing games at Giggleberry Fair, the Peddler’s Village (slightly) less commercial equivalent of a Chuck E. Cheese. Since it was a Monday afternoon, it was D-E-A-D. My mom took the girls on the carousel and the older man who runs the thing let them stay on waaay longer than normal. I believe out of sheer boredom. It was great fun the first 5-10 minutes, but after that all three of them looked a bit queezy. My husband & I were both very glad to be watching from a bench. Afterward, we hit the outlets. My mommy bought the girls a HUGE bag full of stuff from the Children’s Place, they must have gotten like 5 outfits each. Everything was BEYOND CHEAP, like 99 cents, $2, $3. CRAZY. I think she spent $70 total on the whole lot of it. I really like the Children’s Place very cute & colorful clothing, but some of their stuff can lean distinctly towards trampville. Hoochie mama gear on women is mildly entertaining; on a 4 year old it is criminal.

My mommy also bought me the rockingest pair of shoes. They look like granny shoes, here I am wearing them:

YES they ARE COOL. They will look better w/out my fuzzy polka dot socks, but they still look great even with them. WOW. I love these shoes. I used to have a pair like this back in the early 90s (that’s 1990s NOT 1890s, though they probably looked just like this back then too). My friend Daffy just bought a similar pair. Yay! Okay now all you crazy salivating foot and shoe fetishists can MOVE ON.

SO I had been thinking of buying a sewing machine with my remaining Borgata winnings, but when we went to JoAnn Fabrics yesterday to check out the machines all they sold were Vikings. I’d read great things about Brother machines; not only are they inexpensive but they are supposed to be FABULOUS. So I passed on the $400 unknown Viking. I am going to continue researching. or maybe I will stumble into one at a thrift shoppe for an irresistible LOW LOW price and go for it. I am lucky, you know. But now that my mommy has once again returned south, the whole idea seems less pressing. Or maybe just less fun.

My mommy left at the crack of dawn this morn, leaving behind the faint scent of her perfume and the familiar dull ache which has returned once more to my heart. I know that there are people out there who have awful mommies. and I feel so badly for them. BUT I do not exaggerate when I say that my mommy is simply THE BEST MOMMY IN THE HISTORY OF THE WHOLE ENTIRE WORLD. Unfortunately for us, she is also a successful executive who now lives 800 miles away in ATLANTA. SO unlike yours truly, she can’t just hang out in West Philly for all eternity not brushing her teeth. Don’t get me wrong, I am beyond proud of my mom. To me as well as the rest of the world she is a certifiable SUCCESS in every way. And being a success is a good thing. But being on the receiving end of success sometimes truly sucks. I miss her. I wish she didn’t have to work so hard for people who don’t really care about her. My daughters sob when she leaves. And so do I.. Which is better?

All-in-all, this weekend of fun with my mommy has reminded me of several things. Poop smells. Gambling does not pay unless YOU WIN. And I would rather be with my family and have less money, than be rich & successful apart from them. YES money can be great, especially when you are poor. But it cannot buy you happiness. A lesson that Eliot Spitzer should have learned, but. unfortunately some never do.

Neat facts about polar bears & penguins.

~ thedailydish ~ 4 Comments

Last week I took my younger daughter to the Academy of Natural Sciences here in Philly. It is a nice museum. They have lots of old animals – some stuffed, some just bones. All very cool. They also have a new exhibit all about polar bears and penguins, appropriately called Ends of the Earth: From Polar Bears to Penguins. Since we were there on an afternoon, mid-week, we pretty much had the place to ourselves. Which was great. We got to try out all of the new exhibit stuff – lots of computer-interative features, quizzes, videos, and so on. They had a really neat game my daughter loved where you’d push a button and then hit light-up fish on a panel to reach a quota and “feed” your own baby penguin. We played against each other a couple times and of course I won. Mostly b/c I am 5 ft.10 and have super long arms, whereas my 4 yr old daughter is way short with short arms and the coordination of a 4 yr old. As the game is sort of like a light-up version of whack-a-mole (a game I rule as champion and always win at the carnivals), she was none too pleased, b/c she too enjoys a good mole whacking and is pretty darn competitive. Probably something to do with being a younger sibling. So afterward she asked me to join her and we won together, which was altogether more pleasant for her and still fun for me too.

At this new exhibit I learned a great many facts I was surprised I did not already know. I found this surprising since I consider myself a real naturalist type through and through, but who am I kidding. So I am here to tell you some of what I learned so that we may all be smarter together. Isn’t that nice? Yes it is.

Did you know that polar bears are not just big ass scary meat-eating creatures? Me neither. They also do have a gentler side. It is called being a Mommy polar bear. The Daddy polar bears are just the mean flesh-ripping fiercesome types you were imagining. But the moms are really nice – well at least to their young. And that is good. These nice polar bears (and the mean ones too) live only in the Arctic circle. That is at the North Pole for those of you not in the know, around Canada, Siberia, Greenland. Up north. Above here. I think those liars out there who talk about Santa Claus say he also lives at the north pole. But if that were true he would surely get eaten by a polar bear. B/c He is FAT. WAy fatter than those seals. And that huge red suit would just scream TENDER JUICY STEAK!! to a hungry polar bear. But we all know THERE IS NO SANTA. Oh, you didn’t? Oh. I am sorry. …Please stop crying.

Penguins only live in the southern hemisphere. WOW. I did not know this before I went to this exhibit. Sure I knew some penguins were from the southern part of South America – like the Humboldt penguins they have at the Philadelphia zoo, but for some reason the whole “they live ONLY in the Southern Hemisphere,” escaped me. the PAST 34 YEARS. Yes, I do feel dumb. If you think about it – it’s pretty simple. If they lived with the polar bears they would be completely wiped out by now. So they must live where there simply are no polar bears. They still have to contend with the insanely sinister sea lions, but no big furry white bears. Now I am smart.

Unfortunately I let my daughter talk me into taking the computerized knowledge quizzes before we had gone through much of the exhibit and of course I scored poorly. In fact, my daughter did better on those computer quizzes at the Academy of Natural Sciences than I did. And she is 4. I normally would have laughed and thought no more of it, EXCEPT THAT I CAUGHT the exhibit worker guy watching us and witnessing my stupidity. Initially I spied him standing behind us, then once he noticed I had noticed him watching he went and courteously stood behind a pole still watching, but at least being slightly more discreet. Not like when I caught my plumber checking out my butt – YEAH YOU KNOW HE WAS – but then he still charged us over $1800 and did not take off a deduction for his eyeball ass grabs, which you KNOW he should have. Anyway, the exhibit man came over to us later and was trying to explain some facts to me since he believed I was slow. Which I didn’t appreciate. When you have been outplayed on a quiz TWICE by a 4 yr old, an adult’s demoralizing condescension IS NOT WELCOME. Oh well. You will be glad to know I do not feel stupid anymore. Thanks to that great exhibit and the nosy exhibit guy, I will never forget the whole northern vs. southern hemisphere thing. And now, neither will you.

TAG! I’m it.

~ thedailydish ~ 8 Comments

I am totally winded from that game of tag. Yes, I know you ladies wanted the upper hand, but making me wear the blindfold was a bit much. Good thing you spent so much time laughing at me. HAHAHA. YES, I may have a weird ear disease, BUT I AM NOT DEAF.

1) You are going to be stranded, Survivor style, on a tropical island. You will have only the clothes on your back. Basic food & water will be provided. Name 3 things you would bring (and they cannot be PEOPLE).

Strictly practical. No. 4 SUNSCREEN. Cherry chapstick. A hairbrush.

2) Name one person (famous or not) you have a *secret crush* on and WHY.

Now that I know my husband is JUST WAITING to read this, my crush will have to remain a secret forever. for all of our safety. But for a famous guy I might pick Jason Bateman. We were watching Arrested Development last night and he is very cute. He is also very funny, which for me is just as important. And after bald men I like brown hair best. I also think I would like a grown-up version of Harry Potter. Then if the dementors show up to kiss out my soul, he can rescue me with his Stag petronas. So I will leave it at that.

3) What was the last thing you did before getting on the computer?

Installed a plush tree house for my bird. It looks like this:

She is not using it (of course) preferring instead to eat. Perhaps she will use it later.

4) Name one thing you are ashamed of about yourself.

I am acutely claustrophobic.

5) How long does it take you to get dressed in the morning? Outline your routine on a typical day. Feel free to mention name brand items you use – shampoos, soap, toothpaste, etc. for interest and character development.

Normally about 15 minutes; in the rare event I am leaving the house to go someplace fun (DATE NIGHT OUT!) then it may take me 30 minutes to choose an outfit & get dolled up, but that is a rarity. My regular routine is to wake up & brush teeth. I use Tom’s natural toothpaste b/c it doesn’t have chemical additives. Putz around the house for a while in my pjs, feed pets, update my website, check email. Decide it is finally *time* to get dressed. Take a shower. I mentally select an outfit while showering. I am not brand loyal (sorry Curly). We use whatever shampoo & conditioner I could find at the store not tested on animals b/c I cannot abide the thought of rabbits being blinded for the sake of my hair. NOTE: Target has a lousy selection of said products and they should be ashamed. I soap up with whatever soap we have purchased. I like Mysore sandal soap from the Indian grocery, I also use the white soap we have – I think it is Olay. I usually buy soap in bulk from BJs and choose whatever is cheap at the time. I do have very dry skin so I try to avoid deodorant soaps. My husband & I both use the same Dove deodorant which I put on before dressing. B/c he uses it too I always remember NOT to buy the fruity girly smelling scents. I do not want his coworkers thinking bad thoughts about my husband. After I get dressed, I put on a little makeup. All stuff you can buy at Target. I use tinted moisturizer, loose powder and (most days) mascara. Always cherry chapstick. I used to like mint chapstick really well but I never can find it. Did they stop making it? Perhaps someone could send me some if you find it. Last, I spritz myself with some expensive perfume – one of the non-cheap things I use. I have a variety of scents that I rotate so I always smell super. This description of getting dressed has taken me way longer to write and read than the process itself.

6) Since you all know I am food-obsessed, humor me by describing your last meal – if you could plan it.

My last meal would be buffet style b/c I love being able to eat 2 bites of 50 different things. I also like being able to get up and roam around whilst eating, b/c I bore so easily. My last meal buffet would include all of my favorite foods, and since I would be dead by dawn, for once in my life I wouldn’t have to worry about not eating salt. The food itself – too much to name. Suffice it to say the food and drink will be unforgettable and you will ALL BE INVITED.

7) What is your middle name? Does it have any significance?

My middle name is Angela. It has symbolic significance. My full name translates to “Angel of God.” NOT TOO SHABBY EH? I am glad I was not named chastity.

8) Name one thing you have always wanted but HAVE NEVER HAD.

A book deal.

9) How did you meet your spouse or s/o?

He used to work as a manager at a local indie video store & signed me up for an account when I came in. I had just driven an hour with the top down in my beloved former jeep and my hair was a MESS. He still came over to chat me up though. Either I am HOT or he was not too discriminating. As I was filling in my info on a clipboard, I looked up, we locked eyes and I KNEW HE WAS THE ONE. Love at first sight. Of course, he doesn’t remember the moment at all. Afterward, I would think about him all the time – even told my friends and family about THIS GUY I LIKED. But when I like a guy I am mortified being around them (fear of rejection) and so I was too embarrassed to go in and try talking to him. So I used my sister as a spy. Finally she tired of doing this – she was not interested in any of these video guys – and warned me that if I kept sending her in in my stead, he was going to think SHE LIKED HIM. I freaked, ran to the store. Walked in, made a beeline to one of the shelves. He came over w/in seconds to say hi, and The rest is history.

10) Tell me a joke. Pictures are acceptable.

The Nuclear Wave, courtesy of WTTF.