Category Archives: Damn Hippies

Bumper Stickers and Big News!

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It’s almost Valentine’s Day, and because there is no semi-holiday that goes by uncelebrated by sugar cookies, I spent some time this morning cutting out round cookies. Heart-shaped cookies have been deemed too embarrassing for words, but round cookies? With bright pink buttercream and heart-shaped sprinkles? Perfectly acceptable. I was getting ready to frost them when I realized I was almost out of powdered sugar, so I popped over to the grocery store and was almost sidetracked by this:

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Fun Dip! They still make Fun Dip! I haven’t seen Fun Dip for decades! And this Fun Dip – it magically changes colours! I’m sure the child bringing in Fun Dip would be super-popular amongst peers, but perhaps less so amongst parents and teachers. I stuck with the cookies and they turned out nicely, even if a round cookie cutter seems to be an elusive item, necessitating the use of a small plastic cup instead.

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Speaking of things unseen for decades, yesterday Mark and I were walking home from the library, where he had cleaned out the entire section on children’s Greek mythology reference books, and I had picked up a delightful little read entitled “Fishbowl.” Slight digression: if you have the chance to read “Fishbowl,” do, because it is just wonderful. A truly fun read.

Anyway, we were walking home and parked along one of the side streets was a van, covered in bumper stickers. We stopped to look because one of us noticed the sticker saying “My Other Car Is A Dino-Bot” and I immediately regretted our decision. Along with “Oral Sex: The Best Last-Minute Gift” was a bumper sticker that I hadn’t seen since the early Eighties, at best: “Grass, Gas, or Ass: Nobody Rides For Free.” The sad thing is that this bumper sticker was not an old one from the Seventies; it was obviously newly purchased and affixed to the back of the van. In other words, you can still, somewhere, purchase a Gas, Grass, or Ass: Nobody Rides For Free bumper sticker. And here I thought hitchhiking was a thing of the past. I’ve never hitchhiked, and I most likely never will, but if I did, I probably would NOT want to take a ride from the person driving that van, especially with all the not-so-subtle messages plastered all over the back, Dino-Bot notwithstanding. Anyone who watched Silence of the Lambs in their formative years would feel the same way, I’m sure. One moment you are taking a ride from a person who encourages prostitution in exchange for a lift to the next town, the next moment you are in a giant hole in the ground being forced to lube up so some sicko can make a skin suit out of you.

I mean, maybe the owner is perfectly normal and just likes distasteful bumper stickers, but why take the chance?

In any case, Mark and I stood in awkward silence for a moment before heading for home and resuming our discussion about the twelve labours of Hercules.

Completely unrelated to any of the above, I have big news! After nearly nine years of yoga practice, I have decided to take yoga teacher training. I’m pretty excited about it! With the kids getting older, the timing just seemed right, so in April I will be starting my 200 hour program. My goal is to work with people with pain and limited flexibility/ mobility, and perhaps seniors. It’s been a while since I’ve been in school, so I fear I might be a bit like one of those mature students who asks all the questions and discusses the role of Life Experience and its Real World Implications. I’m like Grandpa Simpson! But maybe a bit more stylish.

Friday Fun

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It’s a PD day. It’s 9:09. I have had approximately nine cups of coffee. In related news, this post will be in point form.

COPA Cabana

As many (most?) of you know, I work at Yummy Mummy Club, or YMC, both as a writer and a twitter-er. Imagine my excitement when, at the Canadian Online Publishing Awards, YMC won GOLD for Best Use of Social Media! Look:

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So that was pretty happy news. YMC also won gold and silver for two online campaigns: Dove Beautiful You, and Elmer’s Freestyle, along with gold for Independent Publisher of the Year. I think I will crack a bottle of amarone tonight, to celebrate!

Holiday Music

Sirius radio has a fabulous holiday channel, called Holly, and I haven’t stopped listening to it since I discovered it. It has everything from Harry Connick, Jr. to Barry Manilow; in other words, it is my dream holiday channel. In the past twenty-four hours, I have heard no fewer than five different renditions of “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas,” which is my favourite Christmas song EVER. Except, maybe, the terribly politically-incorrect Baby It’s Cold Outside.

Spectre

Until very recently, I had never seen a James Bond movie in my life. When one is completely outnumbered, one watches the movies that everyone else wants to watch, and so we’ve been watching the most recent James Bond movies for our Friday Family Movie Nights. I normally fall asleep at some point in the movie, because explosions and whatnot bore me. What doesn’t bore me, however, is a shirtless Daniel Craig.

After we’d watched three Daniel Craig movies, we were ready for the newest: Spectre. My husband was very excited and he booked seats for the opening weekend. We all went and were kind of underwhelmed. For one thing, it was at least thirty minutes too long. For another, he was completely clothed for the whole movie. THE WHOLE MOVIE. Why am I here? I kept thinking to myself. This isn’t interesting at all.

It reminded me of when the boys made me go see Avengers: Age of Ultron. Not only was it a terrible, terrible movie, but it was tragically low on the shirtless men factor. All that talent, and the only guy who takes his shirt off is Bruce Banner? WHAT KIND OF MOVIE IS THIS?

Action movie makers, take note: if you want the “mom vote,” maybe throw us a little bone, here? Does Chris Evans need to chop wood with a t-shirt on? No, he does not. He is Captain Freaking America, and he can chop wood with no shirt on, thank you very much.

Greek Mythology

Mark has been obsessed with Greek mythology for the past while, and I used to be PRETTY knowledgeable in that area myself. However, the student has far surpassed the teacher, and now every single day he asks me questions that are unanswerable. For example, who is my favourite demigod? Do I know which animal/ plant symbolizes which Greek god? If I could have any power bestowed upon me by any god, which would it be and why? It makes for interesting dinner table conversation, sort of. Jake mentioned that he would like to never die, to which Mark responded, “Immortality is not always a great thing, Jake.” Then he went into this depressing spiel about it, and how sometimes it’s just better to die, which reminded me of this terrible biography my husband watched about Kurt Cobain. Good lord, what a mess. I felt like this conversation warranted a drink if it were to continue, but thankfully the subject veered into the following debate: Was Persephone happy to be in the Underworld? Discuss.

I am the Walrus

Jake has been walking around saying “I am the Eggman” and laughing. “Eggman! Who would want to be an eggman?” Mark asked if it was true that The Beatles had a song called I am the Walrus, and that, my friends, I could answer. This spurred a long discussion about a) why anyone would want to be a walrus, b) what exactly is an eggman, c) why were The Beatles so popular when they are obviously so lame?

I told the boys that their music was the first of its kind, and very innovative. I explained how, way back in the 1950s, Elvis Presley was considered scandalous because he danced too sexily. The boys looked at me in silent disbelief and dropped the subject.

“What?” I asked. “Elvis was considered VERY sexy, back then.”

“Mom, please stop saying Elvis and sexy in the same sentence.”

Everything’s Coming Up Milhouse

The term “growing boys” has taken on new meaning, as they have both grown almost an INCH since September. I looked at Mark in his nearly brand-new karate gi yesterday and thought he looked like he was ready for The Flood.

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Happy Friday, everyone! Have a great weekend. xo

Back to school, back to school, to prove to my dad that I’m no fool.

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I know it’s the big “first day of school” for a lot of you, but we are already into our second week. The boys were pretty happy to start school last week; we are all enjoying that “back to routine” feeling. The children have been relentlessly quoting Billy Madison: back to school, back to school, to prove to my dad that I’m no fool. Over and over.

I, for one, have been incredibly productive and busy since they’ve been back at school, which is a good feeling. I mean, I miss them – and today I miss them more since they are staying for lunch for the first school patrol meeting of the year – but it’s kind of nice to get things done, too, and to hear later all about the exciting news of the day. “We’re going to be learning about Ancient Greece and the origins of democracy!” said Mark happily, along with “We’ll be looking for moss in our forestry unit!” Jake excitedly talked about the Math Question of the Week, which had to do with being trapped and tied up in a room with a ticking time bomb, and a rat chewing the knots on the rope, and would you be freed in time, or blow up? Jake loves math anyway but the semi-violent and gross Question of the Week took it over the top for him. Math AND explosions? How can one go wrong? Needless to say, the first week was pretty great.

Barkley’s not as happy with the change in season, though:

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Look at that sad, fuzzy face.

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Poor Barkley.

Other than Barkley’s depression, things have been fine so far; I’m thrilled with the boys’ teachers and classroom sizes, and they are too. I’m less thrilled that Mark has already had a cold and so spent the long weekend coughing and lethargic, although the weekend was cold and rainy – and even a bit snowy – so it could always be worse. He could have been coughing and lethargic on a nice weekend. As it was, we spent most of the weekend at my parents’ place for an early Jake-birthday celebration.

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This week I’m apparently going to be chaperoning a walking field trip to a nearby natural park, dubbed “Whispering Woods.” The boys’ teachers are really on the ball and are very technologically-oriented, and so I received a message detailing all scheduled field trips for the upcoming year. The upside of this is that the boys will both be exposed to some excellent learning opportunities, such as a week long trip to something called the “Open Minds” arts centre. The downside is that each of them will require parent volunteers for a week for the trip to the aforementioned “Open Minds” arts centre. I have a feeling my mind is going to be opened. Opened, like a gift, or a flower, or something.

In any case, I received the request for volunteers for this week’s field trip, and in a moment of weakness I capitulated. After all, as I told my husband perkily, now that I’m not chairing the School Council or Parent Association, I have extra time for these in-class requests. “Or,” he said ominously, “You could just say that you’ve done enough volunteering to last a lifetime and have someone else do it.” True.

In any event, I’m happy to say that the forecast is not for snow, nor rain, during the scheduled field trip, although I am wondering what I was thinking. Three hours in the Whispering Woods with 53 fifth-and-sixth graders? Looking at various plants and – if Mark is to be believed – moss? This doesn’t sound like the best idea I’ve ever had.

NEVER AGAIN

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My husband has taken three consecutive weeks off of work this summer. Such a thing has never happened before. The result was we spent five days at the lake with my parents – during which we left the kids for a night and road-tripped to Jasper, just the two of us – then after less than 20 hours at home, we left again for ten days with his parents. It was a lot of fun, but I am definitely glad to be home again, not the least because I put on jeans this morning and had to jump around just to get them on. I have Post-Vacation Too-Tight Pants Syndrome. Thank goodness for long shirts, is all I can say at the moment. Who knew that averaging four drinks a day over a two week period would cause weight gain and bloating?

We got home yesterday, and I was a bit distressed at the state of my garden; the city had been hot and dry while we were gone, and my plants were a bit crunchy. We put the sprinkler on for a few hours, rotating it carefully around the yard, when a gigantic thunderstorm hit and we received several hours of steady rain. The garden is no longer crispy.

This vacation marks the first time ever that I have under-packed, and I shall never do it again. I packed three skorts, a few tank tops, two beach dresses, and some bikinis, along with a pair of knee-length yoga pants and some very light t-shirts. I figured the weather was going to be too hot to need pants or sweaters, and things are pretty casual on the vineyard. Wouldn’t you know, the first two days were cooler than normal, rendering my light pants-less wardrobe insufficient, AND we got invited to a fairly dressy function, to which I wore a striped beach dress and sandals dating from 2009. Never again will I travel without my usual five pairs of shoes and little black dress just in case. Packing light is not for me. NEVER AGAIN.

I was largely unplugged for the vacation, save for a few things I had to do for work. I did, however, witness outrage about the killing of Cecil the lion, followed by outrage about the outrage, followed by photo memes that dealt with the following: a) why should we be outraged by a lion’s killing when there are so many human rights violations in the world, b) photos of farm animals captioned “If I was a lion, would you care about me?”, and c) photos of fetuses captioned “If we were selling lion body parts, would you care?”

HONESTLY PEOPLE. Mass outrage and then mass outrage about mass outrage and then MEMES about mass outrage about mass outrage showcases everything that is wrong in the world today. I love the internet and I certainly do not want to go back to the days of the rotary phone and looking things up in the Encyclopedia Britannica, but this – what my friend Swistle calls The Giant Internet Hand of Spanking – is one of my least favourite things. And to top it off, there is an election coming up. Two elections, if you happen to have friends in both the US and Canada. God help us all.

I don’t know how you feel, but the prelude to an election makes me long for the days when you didn’t really know where acquaintances’ political sympathies lay, unless you noticed a campaign sign on their front lawns or a pointed letter to the editor in your local newspaper. To me, politics is just too intimate to discuss; I find conversations about elections to be awkward and uncomfortable, not unlike someone telling me about their partner’s proclivity for porn or their own fantasies of being the girl in 50 Shades of Grey. These are things that I don’t want to know, it’s information that I just don’t want to have. Just like I don’t want to hear someone’s husband’s name and the words “loves anal” in the same sentence, I don’t want to know anyone’s voting preferences, unless we are very good friends, and then it is okay but I still prefer not to talk about it. I prefer my Facebook feed to be filled with photos of pets, kids, vacations, and what you ate on the 30 Day Shred. More puppies, less politics – maybe I should make it a hashtag.

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Robbing my children of joy and wonder since 2004.

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It’s only 12:45 and I feel like I’ve already accomplished SO MUCH today; one of those accomplishments was “going to Costco.” I have discovered the key to non-frustrating Costco trips – other than Shopping Cart Karma – and that is to go more frequently for fewer things. Of course, this would not be feasible if I lived in a rural area, but I’m 15 minutes away from my nearest Costco and so that half-hour round trip made more frequently is well worth it to not almost die from the physical exertion of pushing several hundred pounds of things through the parking lot, and then unloading all those things from the car and putting them away, necessitating several dozen trips up and down the stairs. Smaller frequent trips = Costco happiness.

Longtime readers will remember how I used to loathe Costco with all my might; I’d spend all the time shopping steeped in resentment, and also I would be deep breathing for fear all those gigantic boxes would suddenly let loose and fall on me, killing me instantly. This was a silly fear for in all these times, I’ve only been almost killed once by a falling pile of tampon boxes. Well, “almost killed” is probably an over-statement. In any case, I actually ENJOY my Costco trips now; possibly because the children are growing so rapidly that they eat every single thing in sight. They MIGHT even have eaten these, if I had deigned to buy them:

kalechia

Ha! Just kidding. They’d never eat those. Hell, I don’t think I would eat those, and I am exactly the target market for such things. Kale and chia tortilla chips. Please. That’s too sad even for me.

It was insanely busy in there, but I amused myself the way I usually do when I’m in a giant lineup: by surreptitiously peeking at other people’s cart contents. It’s so interesting. I often wonder what people are going to make/ cook/ do with the variety of items. It’s a fun little game. For example, the man in front of me had nothing whatever except a giant pork tenderloin and a 1000-count box of Splenda packets. I wonder if people are looking at my cart, wondering about me, although my cart was a little boring today: mostly fruit – fresh, frozen AND dried – nuts, and chocolate, with a flat of Perrier thrown in for balance.

I also bought a few candy-type things for loot bags because…we’re planning a birthday party for Mark! This is big news; we haven’t had a kid birthday party for a few years – neither boy has wanted one, but this year, Mark does. Mostly, it’s going to be eight kids “hanging out” in my basement. I’m not going to lie: I’m slightly nervous at the thought of having EIGHT KIDS IN MY BASEMENT FOR FOUR UNSTRUCTURED HOURS but maybe it will be fine. Mark isn’t interested in party games or the like, so the vague plan is for the kids to play Just Dance and watch a movie on DVD, but we shall see. Hopefully it will be fine; as long as I remember to put away my husband’s free weights and reiterate that no one is allowed on the elliptical machine, there should be few injuries, at least. I’m sure the kids will have fun – there’s going to be pizza and a DQ Treatzza Pizza so ALL WILL BE FINE, RIGHT?

One thing that we are doing, and have done in the past, is eliminate the gifts and instead ask guests to bring food bank donations. This works well for us; Mark is a pretty charitably-oriented guy, and really doesn’t need a whole bunch of gifts – he has two sets of doting grandparents, aunts, and uncles, plus gifts from us. But the other day I saw an article in Today’s Parent about “No Gifts, Please” and the Facebook comments were as full of anger and vitriol as a piece on measles outbreaks. I know, I know, don’t read the comments. But really, you would have thought that, instead of focusing more on “good times with friends” and less on “unwrapping a ton of things to add to the million things in the kids’ room” meant “depriving child of all joy and wonder in life.” Well, if that’s true, so be it. My children will look back on their childhoods and say well, it was pretty good, except for the total absence of joy and wonder.

Speaking of joy and wonder, yesterday I had my hair coloured and cut – a week late, due to my pressing commitments as Book Fair Lady – and today I am having the best hair day ever. Soft, bouncy, shiny…and the only witnesses were the people shopping at Costco and the girls at the dog park. Due to the miracles of the modern age we live in, you are now witness to Nicole’s Best Hair Day of March 2015. Yes, I’m calling it now, I don’t care if it is only the fourth.

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SO much better than the before photo, am I right?

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As we enter the tween stage, my plants shall be my babies.

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Yesterday, Jake had a field trip – to a movie theatre. Apparently there is a film festival going on – who knew? Not me. – and his class was slated to see a movie called The Seventh Dwarf, which was, obviously, all about fairy tales and reimagining of traditional fairy tales. According to Jake, it was a total snore. I guess there weren’t enough explosions for him.

Of course there was a liability waiver to sign, and among all the possible hazards – bus crashing, children walking in a parking lot, etc. – there was a new one: “unfamiliar environment”. I’m not exactly sure what the exact hazard associated with “unfamiliar environment” is. Getting lost, maybe? But “becoming separated from the group” was also listed, which is sort of the same thing as being lost. The noise level in the theatre, maybe? The darkness? I just don’t know.

I planted herbs and greens in my brand-new indoor grow-light garden on Monday, and they are already sprouting. I’m incredibly excited about it, and now my husband and I are referring to the little sprouts as my “babies”, in case you’re wondering exactly what kind of crazy old lady I am destined to be. I am going to be the crazy old lady with a million houseplants, all started from seed, which will be referred to as my babies, and my indoor jungle will be the talk of the nursing home. This, in addition to my vision of myself with terribly artificial, flame-red hair, lipstick bleeding into the fine lines around my mouth, reeking of Chanel Number Five, making sexually inappropriate comments to all the male orderlies and strutting around in my slacks and pumps, will be me in forty years. It’s good to have goals.

Speaking of goals, yesterday I dropped the boys off at karate and headed to Superstore to pick up a few items. At 5:30 on a Thursday night, I made it IN AND OUT IN FIFTEEN MINUTES. This includes the time I spent browsing the Daiya cheese section to check out their prices, and the time I spent wondering if I should purchase my nail polish in “Shell” or “Pretty in Pink”. Fifteen minutes! It’s a new record. It gave me some time to just relax and read a book before the boys’ class finished.

I’ve been reading The Goldfinch, and I really like it, except for one thing: all the drug use. Call me “square”, call me “lame”, but the excessive drug use and descriptions are really, really disgusting. I find myself flipping forward to see if there is still excessive drug use or if the main character has gone “straight”, then sighing, I realize that he’s still high, and turn back to the original chapter. I had this same experience while reading Shantaram and the descriptions of being incarcerated in an Indian jail; I would flip forward 100 pages to see if he was still in jail, OMG he is, I cannot take it anymore. Yet, I’m emotionally invested enough in the story to keep reading; I gave up on Shantaram during his heroin withdrawal scenes. I guess I just don’t have the emotional wherewithal to cope with fictional junkies.

The book fair is next week; I’ve been busy this week preparing for the fair itself plus getting organized for having a few days totally out of the house, etcetera. It’s been a productive week but now I’ve lost all motivation. I have a can of chickpeas sitting on the counter, waiting for me to magically turn them into hummus for dinner, and a giant basket of laundry in need of folding, and yet all I want to do is sink into the couch with a glass of wine. On the count of three, I’m pressing publish and finishing those little tasks so I can uncork that bottle, guilt free. Have a lovely weekend, lovelies. One, two, three…

The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year, Sears Style

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This weekend was a whirlwind of Christmas cheer activities – there are only FOUR WEEKS until Christmas, people! We actually put the tree up even though it seems early, even for me. This coming weekend is massively busy, and I cannot and will not go into December without the tree, and so this weekend was it, even though it’s five days until we can bust open the Advent calendars. Speaking of Advent calendars, a friend of mine put together craft beer calendars for charity, and I bought one for my husband. I will tell you this: it is an incredibly great idea. She did this last year and sold thirty calendars; this year she made 96, all proceeds to purchase socks and underwear for the Drop-In Centre. She raised over $4700 doing this; that is a LOT of socks and underwear. Bravo, Lyndsey! And sign me up for next year.

So the tree is up, and so are the outdoor decorations. It was a mild weekend, and Calgarians know that you just cannot let a chance like that go by. Seize the day; next weekend will be minus 20, and putting up Christmas lights in those temperatures is not pleasant. My husband not only had a theme for the front yard, but he also decorated our detached garage with coloured lights, and set up the light-up moose in the back yard. I can look out the window while I’m in the kitchen, and feel festive and happy. It’s so dark here now; the sun sets at 4:30 and it’s completely dark by 5:00. As I write this, it is 10:30 am and the house is completely dark. The sky is grey, the snow is grey, it would be pretty damn depressing if I didn’t have glittering light-up icicles on the house to go with the light-up deer, hippo, penguins, and three trees. Our house is glowing, not unlike the Griswold’s, but happily with less power usage.

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Do I look happy?

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I’m excited about my new ornament!

Since the tree is up and the house smells like peppermint-chocolate from my incessant baking, it’s time for everyone’s favourite gift list: NICOLE’S FAVOURITE THINGS FROM THE SEARS WISH BOOK. I picked up the Wish Book back in late August but I’ve held out on sharing because people tend to think poorly of one’s mental state when one talks about Christmas in late August. But oh, the treasures that are in the Sears Wish Book! As we all know, Sears Canada is having financial trouble – mostly because the clientele that frequents the actual store tends to be elderly and the elderly have a bad habit of, um, passing on – but the day the Wish Book becomes unavailable is going to be a sad, sad day, people.

I’m already a little sad because I scoured the catalogue and there is not one Snoopy Sno-Cone Maker. I looked, and looked, and nothing. There’s a whole page of old-timey toys, though.

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Didn’t everyone have that rotary phone and radio? My husband had the radio; it is at my in-laws’ and it still works. That is some quality workmanship. The rotary phone feels like quite the collector’s piece. Again, my in-laws’ have a (non-working) rotary phone at their place and it was a little fascinating for my kids. That’s how you dialed the phone? How did you text? Slinkys, though. Those were awful toys. They were always getting tangled and twisted and even if you could get them to go down the stairs, they would only go down a few steps before stopping. Disappointment.

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Ever since the word came out that Hello Kitty is not an actual kitty, I feel weird when I see this kind of merchandise. It’s like when I watched Stand By Me in my youth – hoo boy, did I have a thing for Kiefer Sutherland and his bad boy kitch – and there was discussion around Goofy. If he is not a dog, what the hell is he?

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More Hello Not-Kitty. In “Everything Old Is New Again” news, the Ninja Turtles? I was actually shocked – SHOCKED, I SAY – to hear my kids talk about the Ninja Turtles, and refer to them as Mike, Donny, Ralph, and Leo. What? Are the actual famous-artist names too difficult for today’s youth? I’m disappointed. But I’m not disappointed in the availability of unicorn and rainbow dog glowing plush night lights. Remember Glo-Worms? This is like a fabulous rainbows-and-unicorns improvement to the poor, lowly worm. Although I’m sure the worm world is saddened by this. We finally get high status as a stuffed glowing lovey, only to be knocked down by puppies and unicorns AGAIN? Goddammit. Back to getting stepped on after rain storms.

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I SO BADLY wanted to get an Elvis shirt and pajama bottoms, but my husband threatened to never have sex with me again if I wore one. Is a silk-screen picture of Elvis really such a boner-killer? Sadly, the women’s t-shirts only feature young Elvis, not the glammed-up, sparkly, be-caped-and-huge-glasses Elvis that I love. This is why you’re going broke, Sears. If I had the chance to buy a t-shirt with 1973 Aloha From Hawaii Elvis, I would in a heartbeat. You’re out of touch, Sears. I’m out of time.

Of course, if I did I would be a poor, sex-crazed woman. The last time we were in Hawaii I saw a t-shirt that said Elvis Has Not Left The Island and I wanted it SO BADLY, but it was unavailable in my size and also, my husband presented the same boner-killing argument.

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He didn’t say anything about a leg lamp shirt, though…

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Here’s a PSA: do not buy these mugs. I received one in this same style (although not with Mickey Mouse on it) and it constantly leaked. Unless you enjoy having hot coffee scalding your chin and chest, don’t buy one. Those little mediation fountains are pretty fun, though, and only $9.99 – what a steal! It seems strange that they are on the same page with potty seats and a beer belt, but I guess they are all “Gifts for Under $10”. Oh, wait! Those aren’t potty seats, they are neck pillows. Still.

To file under creepy things:

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These sweatshirts that zip over faces, I HATE THESE THINGS. I’ve seen kids with ninja-style ones and they creep me out. I must see faces. Even creepier is a storm-trooper/ Sith hoodie. Also creepy?

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Those freaky-ass dolls that are dressed up as animals. I don’t know what it is, exactly, that is creepy about it. Is it the dead eyes? The “I’m going to eat you in your sleep” expressions on their faces? If you cannot read the description, here it is:

Little Mommy Cutie Animal Dolls: part stuff animal and part baby doll with soft furry body and a matching hood with fun-to-hold ears – colourful pacifier attached by a ribbon.

I need offer no further comment, except to say that it comes in three varieties: Cutie Bunny, Cutie Bear, and Cutie Lamb.

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I know I said this last year, but if you are considering buying someone an electronic ear wax remover for Christmas, DON’T. Talk about boner-killers. Baby, I love you. Here’s an ear wax remover. I cannot believe that the Sears catalogue no longer has Snoopy Sno-Cone Makers but it offers an electronic ear wax remover as a gift idea. Also probably not a great gift idea: the Wraptastic Kitchen Wrap Dispenser. There are very few people in the world that would actually be glad to receive this under the Christmas tree.

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I know it’s supposed to be cute, but You Crawl I Ball onesies seem very inappropriate to me. These mugs, though! What could be cutesier than having “Mr. Right” and “Mrs. Always Right” mugs with which to sip morning coffee with your beloved? It’s like the mug equivalent of I’m With Stupid, but nicer. It reminded me of these t-shirts I saw in Maui:

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I STILL laugh when I think of them. That is some funny merchandising.

Speaking of sexytimes and boner-killers, what do we think of Santa and Mrs. Claus costumes?

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 The expression on the elf-dog’s face is PRICELESS. Poor thing’s probably going to be a target at the off-leash.