Posts from — July 2009

Here’s some rare footage of Baroness Rosie Von Crazypants vs. The Table (the Baroness emerges victorious):

Crazy head from racher on Vimeo.

I’m on day eight (Seven? Nine? What week is it?) of a two week beach bender, and I’m currently on a couch in the Welcome Center of our resort using the WiFi to post a quick shout out to my homies (That’s you.) in the Real World.  After spending so many days sand encrusted and sunscreened, sitting in this air conditioned lobby with the faux potted trees and gold gilded lamps with my flip flops and bathing suit on just feels wrong.  Not to mention the fact that going eight full days without even looking at a www dot anything makes for quite an avalanche of information once you finally log on.  I think I’ve broken my Google Reader with my blatant neglect.

Don’t stop checking in though, because I’ll be back soon.  And HOO BOY do I have some stories for you.  I’ll just leave it at that.  Because I like to know that back at home, my beach compadres are sweating it a little.

I’ve been spending this week sporadically packing, both for the beach and for the Big Move, and even though I was (in my mind) dedicated to this task, I sit here looking at what I’ve accomplished and see a mere two taped up boxes (“Winter Coats”, “Vases”) and a reusable grocery bag full of pantry odds and ends.  This seems ludicrous to me, since I had child care help this week (courtesy L’s sister, who deserves great thanks in the form of bags of cash or possibly bottles of high quality vodka, but who instead got a multicolored heart, which while ripe with sentimental value is not an accurate reflection of how incredibly grateful I was to be able to spend my week having conversations about something other than Traffic Rules and How Far I Just Shot That Rubber Band) and therefore should have been a productivity machine. However, the standards for productivity have been lowered considerably with the addition of another family member, which is unfortunate because said addition seems somehow magically to have quadrupled our Stuff To Get Done quota.  A day where a load of laundry gets 1. carried to the kitchen 2. put in the washing machine 3. washed 4. moved to the dryer 5. dried 6. folded and 7. put away comes around about as frequently as a solar eclipse.  Or perhaps Halley’s Comet.

So I did get some laundry done, I guess.  And I got to go shopping for an afternoon, which was really nice, and also sort of surreal.  Nice because I was by myself and able to peruse the clearance racks at my leisure and surreal because I was by myself and able to peruse the clearance racks at my leisure.  It’s crazy what you can observe at your local TJ Maxx when you’re not keeping your eyeballs on two small people.  For example, I am fairly certain that the Keeper of the Try-On Rooms is required to be a.) Russian and b.) associated with the mafia.  I made two trips to the fitting rooms and even though one woman’s shift ended and the other’s began in between the two times, the level of iron-fisted rule enforcing was not lowered one iota from the first employee to the next.  I barely made it to the entrance before the first lady barked “SIX ITEMS ONLY. YOU HANG HERE.”  I thought maybe I would take the time to hang everything I had and choose the six items based on type of clothing etc, but clearly I have a naive view of my freedoms when it comes to fitting rooms.  “PUT REST IN CART THERE,” she said after I had hung the sixth item up.

“Oh, I thought I might hang up the rest first so that -”

“YOU HAVE SIX. GO IN ROOM. REST IN CART THERE.”

“Yes ma’am.”

While in my fluorescently-lit stall, two teenage girls entered the one directly next to me and had the following exchange:

“Oooh girl, yo’ feet STANK.”

“Yo’ MOUF stank.”

“Yo’ BOOTY stank.”

“Ooh girl, you nasty.”

“Whatchoo think about these pants?  Look at my behind.”

“Girl you look GOOD in dem pants.  Yo’ ass is FINE.”

“Whatchoo talking about?  My booty hangin’ ALL out these pants.”

“You right, I was playin’.  You look like a ho.”

“Girl you shut yo mouf.  I’m gettin’ out of here ‘for I die from yo nasty FEET.”

I really kind of wanted to get their opinion on the shorts I was considering, but I was pretty sure that those nasty feet they were smelling were mine.

As I exited, a woman was trying to take some hats into the dressing room (the horror!) and The Keeper of the Try-On Numbers was not having any of it.

“NO HATS IN DRESSING ROOM.”

“But see, the reason I want to take them back is -”

“THESE ARE RULES. NO HAT IN DRESSING ROOM. YOU GO TO MIRROR THERE.”

“Yes but, I would really prefer-”

“YOU NO ARGUE. RULES IS RULES. NO HATS IN DRESSING ROOM.”

I scurried past with my selections, fearful of Hat Woman’s fate and eager to stay out of the eye of the Merchandise Mafia Matron.  I thought in the checkout line how I would have maybe paid money to have seen the interaction between her and the two girls that had been in the stall next to me.  Comedy gold, I’m thinking.

THREE DAYS UNTIL THE BEACH.