Scene:  We are discussing winter clothing, which Jared interprets as yet another chance to try to force me to go skiing for the first time.

Jared:  Come on, you could be a ski bunny!

Me:  That’s not really my look.

Jared:  Yeah, I guess you’d be more of a ski rat.

It’s five in the morning and the residual effects of a rhinovirus have cheated me out of yet another hour of sleep, so why not return to my sorely neglected blog?

In keeping with my one-post tradition of coming up with witty subtitles for French absurdist novels, here’s another entry:  Albert Camus’s The Stranger:  Man It’s Hot Out!!!

Damn I’m sophisticated.  So much so that I am currently blowing snot into a cloth diaper.  It was never actually used as a diaper, so it’s not as gross as it sounds, I guess.

I really thought I had something else to say, but I seem to have to lost it or blown it into this cloth diaper.

An Asshole Goes to the Park

Last night brought an experience I had not had in many years—the dreaded sleep paralysis.   Due to some combination of a restless mind, post-weaning hormonal upheaval, and the dubious decision to read Sartre’s Nausea in bed, I fell asleep late and fitfully.  An hour later I woke to the sound of slow, sticky footprints next to the bed.  I tried to turn over to investigate but was trapped—trapped!–and unable to move anything but my eyelids.

I knew that the paralysis and delusion were both due to a common biological phenomenon, but I was still upset and tried to wake Jared so I would be less alone in my predicament.  When I tried to speak I felt a crushing weight on my chest, and could only produce low gutteral sounds that were not loud enough to wake him.  After a few awful moments I was released.  I rolled over and tried to fall back asleep in the sweat-soaked sheets when suddenly the baby woke up down the hall, despite being a usually excellent all-night sleeper.  Though I like to think that our strong mother-son bond caused him to sense my silent distress, more likely it was all just a coincidence, but needless to say it was a very unsettling night indeed.

Not to continue the trend of only posting when Jared fails to recognize a prominent pop culture reference, BUT he’s just so durn funny.

Scene:  We are playing Trivial Pursuit.  The subject of the soft drink Mr. Pibb comes up.

Me: They call me…MISTER Pibb!  [guffaw]  Who am I?

Jared:  Pumbaa?

Me:  [confused, damning look]

Jared:  You know.  “They call me Mr. Pig!”

Me:  Oh my fucking god.

In the vein of my neighbor’s cantankerous “If you’ve never been there, shut your mouth” bumper sticker, I think I’ll make one that says “If you’ve never weaned, shove it up your ass.”

I’ve been here for years, etc.

After an extended period of blog dormancy, I return to mock my husband for not understanding 1970s cultural references that by all accounts he SHOULD understand especially since he is much, much older than me and was actually alive then.

[Fridge door is open.  Baby reaches for container of chopped bell peppers.]

Me:  “You want a pepper?  Here you go.  I’m a pepper, you’re a pepper, he’s a pepper…”

Jared:  “What are you blathering about?  No one’s a pepper.”

Sigh.

Jared’s response to the Trivial Pursuit question “What’s missing when you hear the phrase ‘Code Adam’ over a department store’s PA system?”:

“Someone’s pants?”