The Word of the Day Is...

OK, Kiddies, the word of the day is...
Irony.

Irony as depicted in this picture.



Yes, I went to Sam's Club and bought the Jumbo Size bag of Reese's Pieces.

And yes, doing my part to aid in the "Reuse, Reduce, and Recycle" effort, I saved the plastic container that my Alli Weight Loss pills came in.

And yeah, I stored my candy in it. Ironic, eh?

I'm a Foxy Lady

A couple of years ago, I switched from Microsoft's "Internet Explorer" to Mozilla's "Firefox" as my web browser. I could give all sorts of good reasons for why I switched, but the ultimate answer is simply that all of the smart cyber geeks seemed to prefer Firefox.

Since then, I've upgraded to version 2.0 and last week I upgraded again to their newest version, aptly titled Firefox 3.0.

There are tons of security and performance improvements, but the upgrade was worth it for one reason only...

Full-page zoom.

Previously, I've had zoom capabilities for text but it was infinitely frustrating to my myopic eyes to try to figure out what was in a little picture. My 22-inch monitor was basically being wasted by many sites because the text and pictures would be fairly small with a big bit of nothingness off to the right.

Now, when I hold CTRL and move my scroll wheel, the whole page zooms in and out. I can read the tiniest print and check out the tiniest detail in pictures (Paris Hilton's underwear notwithstanding). It's awesome. And, of course, it is free.

Oh, and another nice benefit are the free add-ons that Firefox offers. My favorite is "AdBlock Plus" which eliminates ALL of those damn annoying animated banner ads.

Apt Commercialization

In this day and age of TiVo (and fake TiVo wannabes), it's not all that common that I watch those 30-minute segments of inane commercials.

Yeah, yeah. I know. Commercials are a necessary evil. They pay for the programs we watch, after all. Though, I have to say, my exorbitant cable bill clearly indicates that I'm already paying for that programming, but I digress.

Still, the problem is that most commercials are annoying. The public is more than willing to watch good commercials. Heck, the best part of the Super Bowl is the ads, right? But for the most part, companies don't care. They think that repeating the same sentences over and over and over is the most effective way to have people remember their product. And even more irritating than that is when they repeat the same exact commercial twice in less than 5 minutes. Ugh!

I guess that's what makes good commercials so memorable. That's why 30 years later we still remember Mean Joe Green and his Coca-Cola.



And, of course, there are the Budweiser frogs.



Sometimes commercials are just so perfect, you wonder why someone didn't think of it sooner. Today, I heard a Visa commercial where a young couple finally decide to buy a new flat-screen television. Of course, being of the "Now Generation," they don't have the money for it. Rather than save up for their new purchase, they whip out the old credit card. And the song that plays as they dig themselves deeper into debt? It's Queen's "I Want It All (and I want it NOW)." How perfect.

Hey Beth, Keep Your Chin Up!

When Beth was born (gasp! nearly 17 years ago!), she was over 2 months premature and spent the first 2 months of her tiny life living in an incubator. To touch her, we had to put our hands in these little holes inside the box where she was being kept warm and safe.

On top of that, I was a pretty sick chick, too. The pregnancy was toxic to me and my vital signs were wickedly out of whack. Because of that, I was completely bed bound for the first few days after Beth was born. After two days of not being allowed to even SEE my daughter, let alone hold her, I kicked up a temper tantrum nasty enough that the doctors felt if they didn't get me down to the neonatal ICU soon, my blood pressure would be through the roof.

So, to ameliorate the postpartum freak out I was about to have, they wheeled me into that bright, sterile environment while I was still lying flat in my hospital bed. Not the best way to finally see your newborn baby.

It was a few days before I finally graduated to a wheelchair. That meant I could reach my arm into one of those incubator holes and I could touch my baby's face for the first time. It's a feeling I will never forget. Check out those bruises on my arms! And see that teeny little bottle sitting beside the blue machinery? Just call me Elsie the Cow. Homemade milk, baby!



Since this was my first time really seeing Beth, I did the usual new parent thing and counted fingers and toes. When I looked at her face, I realized she had a bump on her chin. It was ragged and irregular. Since she was born by C-section, I assumed the doctor nicked her chin with the scalpel when he was taking her out.

It was probably ten years later when a doctor noticed it and told me it was actually a mole. Weird. It was "skin colored" and not round. Sure 'nuff, another doctor looked at it a few years laterand agreed it was a mole. He felt she should have it removed while she was young and could heal better.

Another few years later, I finally convinced Beth to have it removed. It would have been smart of me to take a picture of it, but too late! This is the closest I could get.



Monday, she went under the knife (for real this time - not just presumably being nicked by an obstetrician), and she is now beautifully bump-free. Or so I would assume. She's still bandaged up, but the surgeon said it would be barely noticeable after a few months.




My brave baby.

Do the Hippie Hippie Shake

Recently, Heather got to spend a few hours with her boyfriend.

Paul, well, how can I describe Paul. I’d have to say that Paul is just a weird duck.

But as far as weird ducks go…Paul is infinitely likeable. He makes me laugh. He’s a total hippie. Yep, long hair, tie-dye headband and everything.

What I like best about Paul is the fact that he lives for himself. He doesn’t care what other people think about him. He’s just so completely sure of himself which is a quality I’m sorely lacking.

When Heather took Paul to her Youth Group meeting, a young 6-year-old girl noticed Heather was holding his hand. She went up to him and asked if he was a boy or a girl. Between Paul’s long hair and the fact that Heather had covered Paul’s fingernails with a pretty shade of blue nail polish, you can understand her question. He laughed and said he’s a boy. The poor little girl was mortified that she had asked, but I have a feeling that it totally made Paul’s day.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to just live life not worrying about people making fun of you or telling you how you have to live?

Don’t bother with mascara that always seems to flake off and turn my sclera bloodshot.

Choose your high school boyfriend based on who makes you happy, not who will allow you to rise a rung on the social ladder.

No need to wear a tight bra just to make my boobs land somewhere north of the equator just because everyone else thinks it looks better.

I don’t know about you, but as for me, until everybody else feels like they can be themselves, I guess I gotta follow the crowd. Oxymoronic, ain’t it.

Overdressed

Now that we live right across the street from the city park and tennis courts, suddenly Heather finds the need to put on make-up and do her hair BEFORE going out to mow the grass. Sometimes, she even dresses up for the occasion.



I'm not kidding you, she actually took off shorts and a t-shirt and put this on just to mow. I have a feeling there was a cute shirtless teenage boy across the street whacking tennis balls and she wanted to catch his attention. (She's cute enough, she could have done it in sweat pants!)

OK, as per Andi's request (from the comments section), here, I present Heather's infamous "Panda Hair."

Overstimulated

Who says that kids nowadays can't focus on more than one thing at a time?

For example, tonight, my daughter was talking to two different people on IM, had her email open, was listening to music through her MP3 player, was on the cell phone (with the house phone within easy reach) AND was reading a book in between sentences.



Now if only she could learn to chew gum and walk at the same time without tripping over her shoelaces, she'd be all set.