Okay, so if you're in fourth grade, life might be hard.

It was very nearly the end of the Medium Boy last week. On his birthday, no less. I'd had it with the stubbornness, the bearish attitude, the surly pleas to be left alone. All in a space of twenty minutes, circa 7 AM. UGH. I thought I'd just make it a nice round ten years of his and my life. Give him back, no exchange, no refund. Fourth grade is killing us. Another option I considered was the performance of a craniotomy by electric knife and shoving the times tables in there, for this is the only way seemingly left that they're going to get IN there. Where is Dr. Derek Shepherd when you need him?

On the other foot, Halloween is coming up and despite the fact that I seem to have no use of the front of my face besides the production of green slime, (another post altogether...) I'm looking forward to the Ninja who will inhabit the body of the ten-year-old for the night. We've painted toenails black to celebrate just such an occasion. "It's so GOTH!" squealed tough Ninja Boy. Who promptly got in trouble next day at school trying to surreptitiously show said dark tootsies to his friends. Ah, the intersection of fourth grade angst and fourth-grade-boy senselessness.

We did have a glorious time at the ice hockey rink party; he only fell approximately six times, and there are no major bruises on his body that I've been allowed to peruse. We ate cookie cake with blue and orange icing (WHY do they insist on making icing in colors not found in nature?) for a week, and the boy racked up. He's got enough cash for that new bike he has been jonesing for, which I am lobbying hard in favor of instead of the Nintendo DS, which is our other option. He graciously bought us McD's breakfast Saturday morning, and I was allowed to borrow a buck for Cub Scout money this week. He is awesome sweet, that black-toed ninja Medium Boy. Okay. So I guess he gets to live. For now. I could still hunt down that receipt, you know.

Dear Entrecard, I QUIT

Yes, dear Internets, no more Entrecard for me. Take me off the list. Why, you ask? Well, for one, I would like free reign over the content of my blog. Me. The author, the absent hostess, The One Who Thought of It. I haven't been holding up my end of the bargain, really. I haven't done any dropping since I don't know when. BUT. I will NOT be blackmailed, or bought. I will NOT pay $5 a month "subscription fee" to keep ads I didn't solicit out of my space. It may get dusty from disuse sometimes, and the cobwebs might clutter a bit, but this little blog is still mine, and one of the few things in life I like to think I still have some semblance of control over. For now. This moment. Okay, this one. So see ya, Entrecard. Don't let the screen door hit ya in the ads.

Facebook Ate My Blog

I haven't been around here much lately. I've ignored comments, I've let perfectly good blogging ideas go by the wayside (How's this one for ya -- originally suggested by Karyl who had a moment on Rosh Hashanah -- exciting new headwear for balding Jewish men on their way to temple -- it's a toupee - it's a yarmulke -- it toup-ulke! Impress the nice girls, oy, they'll love it... okay, well, maybe not.) I've been a terrible hostess. While IRL, I have actually had a terrible cold that has caused great hunks of green matter to spew from upper orifices and make me pass out and miss any vestige of social life I will ever have and alienate those kind souls who thought they wanted to have that social life WITH me, that is hardly the excuse for my absence here. After all, everyone knows while in the throes of Nyquil, blogging is fun -- kinda like drunk blogging, and re: spew, this is what Lysol comes in spray bottles for, after all. No, the iffy health is NOT the reason for the scarcity of posts here lately. It is totally the fault of the Devil Facebook.

Yes, I have fallen into the time abyss that is Facebook. Facey Spacey is my life now. I Farkle, I have a farm - uh, TWO farms, two different universes, a fish bowl, a roller coaster cluster, a group of sorority sisters, and I apparently am wanted by the mob. Not to mention the large sucking sound of a minute of time spent trying to rack up points clicking on little groups of clinking clacking jewels. My friends friend me, and make unreasonable demands on my gifting ability. They want farm animals, smiles, pillow fights, hearts, long island iced teas, you name it, I got a friend who wants it from me. So you see, Facebook has eaten my blog. I no longer have the energy to come up with snappy repartee for the general internets, because my special Facey Spacey people need a pint of O-negative, and want to know what Melrose Place character I'm most like. I was the Heather whatser-name one. Although I took the quiz three times with all different answers, and got the Heather person all three times. Was she the only one in Melrose Place? These Facebook quizzes are amaaaazing. Not always in a good way.

I promise to stop this obsession, I promise to drop Entrecards again, and make little comments to my bloggy friends really reallllly soon. I just have to break 100K in Bejeweled Blitz, then all will be right with the world. Until then, can I send you a smiley heart and call it a post?

Bar Tricks and Marketable Skills

Okay, this is sort of a meme that fell from the sky while driving in search of lunch. It is a list of my personal, shall we say, quirks, acclaimed bar tricks and unusual but sometimes very handy ergo marketable skills.

1. Can do that cherry stem in a knot thing. Always popular with the boys.

2. Can take bra off while still wearing shirt. (see above) and OMG now that I am elderly, such a relief. I've done this particular trick driving home, even. Just don't tell the po-po.

3. Can take jeans off without unzipping. This is a product of Xtreem Non-Carb Regime currently undertaking and I guess should be noted as temporary until I get some that fit again. Or eat a few fries, undoubtedly.

4. Can read upside down. Very very handy when in clients' and bosses' offices.

5. Can reliably count by sevens from any point in the scale. I don't know how that happened, except that I had to hand-write radio schedules for a good while in my youthful career. Now I'm Rain Man.

6. Can dredge up some seriously frivolous information about archaic culture (think 70's TV) when faced with competition. Never been beaten in Trivial Pursuit.

Um, okay, that's it for now. A little meme-lette for those who don't see the point of coming up with eleventy-hundred little things to reveal to the Internets...

All Together Now

No endorsement intended, except my usual attraction to odd and wonderfulness. And okay, beer. But not necessarily THAT beer.

Ahh, the Sacred Nine Minutes of Extra Sleep

The question of the day, a lovely Monday, is this: Why do alarm clocks routinely give the snooze-button slapper nine extra minutes of sleep? Why not five or ten? Or some other arbitrary number, 8 and a half? Pi? I have wondered this wonder while lying sleepless in between alarm soundings, losing my sacred nine minutes thinking about them. I've even googled the query. And the answer is: there is no good answer. Um, let me rephrase that. there are a BUNCH of good answers, but no one has stepped up and declared their answer to be the right, the definitive, the correct in all places even Jeopardy answer.

Some of the answers I've read: the nine minutes was determined by some University study to be the threshold of humans falling into a deep sleep. Ten and you'd be wayyyyy back in dreamland, so nine minutes of one-eye-open faux rest for you, no chance of revisiting Brad Pitt in your REM love nest. Speaking of love, another theory had to do with the average length of marital relations (3 to 13 minutes as quoted - is that with or without the running to the bathroom to tinkle and brush the green out of two sets of teeth??) and the idea that the snooze alarm would give you time for a quick good morning getter-going before rising. Yeah right. Good luck with that one. We don't even TALK to each other until we've had our coffee. Yet another thought on the matter had to do with the clock not having to remember (or was it change) but one digit if the alarm rang every nine minutes. I started thinking about this one, techno-semiliterate that I am, but it just made my head hurt.

I do however, have my own theory about the nine minutes. You see, the techies in charge of alarm clocks may actually be a group of old math teachers, retired but bitter, since there was always that smart kid in the middle row who never liked to show her work. I know, I was one of them. My head was a calculator, and sometimes I couldn't even tell them HOW I got the answer, I just knew it was right. So they have developed this nine-minute clock to make sure people like me DON'T go back to sleep once the alarm clock has rung. Instead, I am stuck doing the math in my head -- let's see -- nine times two is eighteen minutes, 6:18 plus eighteen... nine times three, add that...

And I Wanted School To Start - WHY??

I post this very funny and timely video just to remind myself that I am not the Lone Ranger when it comes to this whole say everything fourteen times in the morning Mom stuff. My morning this morning, for your perusal:

I was up and bathed by 6:35. Played a few rounds of Bedazzled Blitz on Facebook just to steady my nerves, then at 6:45 approached the Medium Boy's room, otherwise known as the Cave of Pre-Pubescent Maledom. I opened the door, and said, sweetly, "Max! Please get up -- time to be up and at 'em, sweetheart!" 6:55, again with the door, again with the "Please get up, honey!" I preheated the oven for his biscuits. 7:05: still no sign of life from the cave. This time, the drill sargeant Mom was in full effect. "GET UP!" I bellowed. "I'm UP! bellowed back the Medium Boy somewhere in the recesses of the cave. "THEN GET OUT HERE AND GET DRESSED!" Groans and shuffling of feet.

I poured coffee. Took a few sips. Found inert body laying on my couch. "Get dressed, honey," I said. "I don't have any socks," said he. I went back into the cave and found some clean and unholey socks. I flipped them his way. "Now, get the rest of your clothes -- and not the pants you wore Friday AND yesterday."

I put the biscuits in the oven. "But, Moooom, those are the only ones that fit me. (Clever girl I am, last week, after he modeled the shorts from last year's uniform collection, swearing up and down that yes, he could wear them, no, they weren't too tight, I went to the local outlet and purchased a pair in the next size up, just in case, for a few pizzas down the road. GUESS which is the only pair that fits him now, a mere seven days later?) "Get the old shorts and wear them today. And get a green shirt, there are no navy ones in the pile. "They squeeze me, and I HATE green!" "Dude, you're going to get squoze today, and green is it. Where are your socks?" Nine minutes later - the biscuits are ready. "Why haven't you gotten dressed yet? WHERE ARE YOUR SOCKS!?" I put the biscuits and coffee on the table. Medium Boy wearing green shirt, squeezy shorts and terrible scowl appears at his place. We scarf in silence.

It is now 7:33, the bus arrives at 7:48. The biscuits disappear, followed by most of the coffee. He then packs his booksack. "Go brush your teeth and comb your hair." "I don't care about my hair." "I do, and you have green teeth. You don't want to live like an ape!" "We evolved from the apes - I learned that in science." "Yes, I know, and I'm glad to hear you're getting something out of school. But the whole idea is that we HAVE evolved, and we don't breathe green on our classmates. WHERE ARE YOUR SOCKS?" A few minutes of bathroom time later, 7:44, he emerges with socks on. He does the shoe wiggling onto the foot dance for way longer than it actually takes, with the cat joining in. Finally, both shoes are applied to correct feet, booksack to shoulder, the Medium Boy out of the door. 7:47:50, ten seconds to spare. Whew. One more day of this, and he WILL be grounded until he's thirty. And I wished and wished for the start of school -- just exactly why, again??