A few months ago the Muffin and I were on a long-ish car trip together.  I don’t remember where we were headed or why, but during this jaunt we had worn out both our iPods, made all the interesting conversation we could stand, and had most likely stopped at Taco Bell at least once so that Muffin could get a Mountain Dew Baja Blast, which, as Muffin will angrily inform you, is not sold in stores.

So we started looking for other highway diversions to pass the time.  It was then that I suggested we play a road game of my own design.  Are you ready for it?  Because it’s pretty awesome, and I just know you are all going to rush out and start playing it.

Here’s what you do: Take the three letters on a car’s license plate, and try to come up with as many words as you can think of that include those three letters.  You can add as many other letters as you like and the letters can go in any order.  Alternate turns with your driving companion until one of you cannot come up with any more words.  Here’s how the game went when Muffin and I played it:

Okay, Muffin, here we go.  The letters are YLY.  Hmm… ETYMOLOGY!

“Huh.   Um… Belly?”

No, no, that’s two “L’s.”  You need to use two “Y’s.”

“Oh, right.  Uh, how about ‘yelly?’”

Yelly?  What is that?  Is that like “belly?”

“No, it’s like… you know, when you’re mad and you shout and you get all ‘yelly.’”

Okay, I’m almost positive that’s not a word.

“Well, there aren’t any other words in the English language that contain two ‘Ys’ and an ‘L.’”

What about, “coyly?”  Or “wryly” or “dryly” or “shyly” or…

“This game is stupid!  I don’t want to play anymore.”

And thus, we have never played license plate anagrams again.  Tell me, Internet… what kind of made-up games do YOU play?

I woke up this morning feeling a bit down, Internet.  It could be that our plans to wean Jenna from her nighttime feed have gone horribly awry and have lead her to getting up not once, but now TWICE at night to be fed.  Talk about your all-time backfires.

Or it could be that the weather-guessers predicted sun for today and instead it was rather gloomy and overcast.

I don’t know the cause, but I just generally woke up very tired, on the wrong side of a cozy, comfy bed that I did not wish to leave.  Determined not to let a bad mood get the best of me, however, I employed the following methods, little things in my personal arsenal that can usually beat the doldrums away:

1.  Watched “Hairspray” with Michael.  Much to Muffin’s chagrin, this is one of Michael’s favorite movies of all time, probably because of all the upbeat singing and dancing and bright colors.  That’s probably why I like it, too.  Or maybe I like it because Michael likes to sing and dance along.  That’s right, Muffin.  Michael likes to sing.  And dance.  TO SHOW TUNES.

2.  Listened to some Christmas music.  I’ve blogged about this before somewhere and I’m too tired to go dig up the link, but listening to Christmas music when it is nowhere close to Christmas is one of my secret vices.  It never fails to put me in a better mood.  I love Christmas.

3.  Two words.  TANTRIC.  SHOPPING.  This is the term I’ve given this bizarre but oddly fulfilling little habit of mine.  Let me preface a bit.  When you live in a big city, close to malls and shopping centers of all kinds, you are never at a loss for an item you want.  If you want, say, a black turtleneck sweater, there are probably 50 different places you can go to find 1,000 different sweaters at various price points, and they’re all within 10 minutes of you.  This is not the case on the coast.  If it’s not at Maurice’s, Ross, JC Penney, or (hard swallow) Fred Meyer, the coast DOESN’T HAVE IT.  It’s understandable then, that I’m a big fan of online shopping.

But as is the case with our culture, want almost always surpasses need, and what with diapers to buy and babies to feed, I can’t just be traipsing around the internet buying black turtleneck sweaters willy-nilly.  So instead, I do the next best thing.  When I’m feeling low and in need of the odiously-termed “retail therapy,” I just hop online to my favorite purveyor of whatever it is I’m in the market for and shop away.  I put any and all items I even remotely like into my “shopping cart.”  I shop until I can shop no more, then I check my shopping cart, smile at the total cost of the items in it, and CLOSE THE BROWSER WINDOW without purchasing a single thing.  And it feels almost as good as if I’d actually bought the items.  One of my favorite feats is to cyber-visit places I could never really afford, like Saks Fifth Avenue, and really fill that cart up and see how big a total I can rack up before I close the browser (last time it was about $5,000).  Lately I am also doing tantric home decorating, wherein I go online and “fake” purchase all the various accoutrements I want for the house I don’t have but plan to build someday.

Personally, I think tantric shopping is the answer to difficult economic times.  It’s the thrill of shopping without the cost (or the guilt!).  Seriously, I should call Suze Orman and let her know.  Then maybe instead of purchasing all those ill-advised jackets of which she seems so fond, she could just “tantric” buy them instead.

Tell me, internet.  How do YOU get yourself out of the dumps?

Many, many years ago when I was a kid there were these fun cartoons on television that profiled an adorable little rodent named Mickey Mouse and his colorful cast of friends, including girlfriend Minnie, duck pals Donald and Daisy, dog Pluto, and dog?  Wolf?  Long-eared creature?… Goofy.  They even spun these fantastic cartoons into an entire “land” of Disney.  Remember that mouse?

Anyway, if you don’t have kids you probably haven’t noticed that Mickey and his friends?  Not on television anywhere anymore.  Maybe in some iteration, but not the oldy goldy cartoons of my youth.  Gone.

As such, Michael has no idea who Mickey Mouse is.  For this reason, he was a bit confused when my parents, after a trip to Disney World, returned with a Mickey Mouse t-shirt for him.  I tried to explain and showed him a book or two, and he seemed to accept that there once existed a humorous mouse who wore white gloves.

Now we skip to the part of the story where our cat Buddy (affectionately known by the Muffin as “douchebag”) leaves a dead/partially eaten mouse on the doorstep.  I am unaware of this fact, so when I hear Michael open Buddy’s cat door, as he frequently does when he hears Buddy meowing to get in, I think nothing of it.  A few moments later I went to tell Michael that it was time for lunch, and what do I see?

Michael, playing tenderly with a half-eaten mouse carcass.  He looks up at me, grins widely, and says, “See, Mommy?  It’s MICKEY MOUSE.”

Walt Disney would totally not want his cryogenically frozen head to be thawed if he knew this is the kind of world he would have to face.

Michael, do you love your sister?

(looks thoughtful for a moment)

“No… I just like my sister.”

Typical conversation with a two-year old…

Michael, it’s time for lunch.  Would you like some spaghetti?

“No.”

Okay, how about a sandwich?

“No.”

A Lunchable?

“No.  I don’t want it.”

What about some soup?

“NO!”

A hot dog?

“No.”

Michael, are you just saying “no” to everything I ask?

“No.”

Michael, is your name “Michael?”

“NO!”

Michael, would you like some chocolate cake?

(Pause)

“O-tay!”

When I was younger, one of the best arguments I could make for having kids was that I would get to do all sorts of fun crafts with them, because as a kid I just loved, loved, loved any and all artistic pursuits.  I loved to dig into my craft supplies, cut some crap out of construction paper, Elmer’s glue that crap to some other crap, attach some uncooked noodles to it and then maybe some cotton balls, paint it and roll it in glitter, then string a ribbon through the entire works.  Then I would present it to my mother, announcing proudly, “It’s a picture frame/paper weight/ash tray/Christmas ornament!  YOU’RE WELCOME.

When I was in college I discovered there was a special program for people like me and it’s called ART MAJOR.  So with much excitement I embarked on my first art course, Drawing 101.  As I recently mentioned to my friend, KSchimmy (art teacher, friend, and fellow mom), I did fine until I reached the unit on”pointillism,” which I straight-up failed.  A big fat F in pointillism.  We were supposed to do a still life entirely in pointillism, which is probably the most tedious project in the world.  As a nation we should just replace corporal punishment with pointillism projects.  Show me an inmate who has to draw a spring bouquet entirely in points, and I will show you a person who will never commit another crime.   Anyway, I did okay on most of my pointillism project, until I realized we also had to do the black backdrop entirely in points, which, if you’re not familiar with pointillism, means you’ll be carefully drawing approximately 4,000 gazillion fa-fillion dots.  And then I decided to major in English, where the only dots I would need to worry about were above the letter ‘i’ and lowercase “j.”

Clearly I’ve gotten off track here.

A week or so ago, in preparation for Mother’s Day, I decided that I could do a really fun craft with Michael AND make the grandmothers a special, sentimental gift.  When we lived in “the big city,” I recalled seeing kits from which one could make their own concrete garden stepping stone, complete with kid handprints, mosaic tiles, yadda yadda.  Naturally, no store within 20 miles of here sold such a thing, and though I found the kits online, purchasing and shipping two of them would have cost around $75… kind of a lot for a stepping stone, in my opinion.

Not to be defeated, I decided there surely must be a way to recreate this project on my own, for a much more cents-ible price.  Behold, the Carolicious method for making your own garden stone…

1.  Purchase a bag of concrete.  Again, we live in the sticks so the only size bag our local hardware store sold was 60 pounds.  You most certainly don’t need this much concrete, but at least it’s cheap.  The bag only cost $2.50.

2.  Prepare a mold.  After pondering various things that were round like a garden stone, cheap, and disposable, I landed on those plastic trays that you put under potted plants.  They were a dollar apiece.  Grease the mold with something… greasy.  I used Crisco, and it  worked like a charm.

3.  Mix the concrete.  Okay, here’s where it gets a little tricky.  If you’ve mixed concrete before, this will probably be easy for you.  I, on the other hand, had never mixed anything other than a cocktail, so I turned to an expert for help… my brother Matt: structural engineer, concrete afficionado.  I called him at work, because, you know, my homemade art project is definitely more important than whatever he was working on… probably just stupid stuff like making sure buildings don’t fall on people.

After a long lecture on the finer points of concrete (it’s “God’s material,” Matt informed me), I came away with some good instructions.  Pour some concrete from the giant 60-pound bag into a bucket and then add a little water.  Mix.  Add water if needed, mixing until it has the consistency of a thick milkshake.

3.  Pour it into your mold.  At this point you should have a two-year old pulling on your bathrobe, whining that he is tired of craft time and wants to play cars instead.  Extra points if there’s also an infant wailing in the background.   Please also note that if you’re going for the full Carolicious effect, you should be attempting this in your pajamas.  After you’ve poured the concrete, smear it around so it looks uniform and the top is even.  I poured mine about two inches thick.

4.  Wait.

5.  After about two hours, the concrete should be starting to form up.  This is when you want to put your adorable child’s handprints in the concrete.  Give yourself even more points if said toddler screams, refuses to touch the concrete and has to have his hand forcibly smooshed into it.  See?  WE ARE HAVING FUN.  Wash the toddler’s hands, because concrete is pretty nasty stuff.  This is also the time to add any other adornments you might like.  I created a border on mine using marbles, because that’s what I happened to have on hand.

6.  Cover your stone with a damp cloth, re-wetting it as needed.

7.  Whatever you do, DON’T MOVE THE STONE.

8.  In about 24 hours, the stone should be all set.  Carefully remove the mold.  It was at this point I noticed that one of my two stones had cracked because I had moved it earlier.  Refer to number seven.

9.  Wrap, give to Grandma, and enjoy the surprised expression that says, “Gee, this is so much better than diamond earrings.”

Total cost of project: $3.50, plus several pounds of concrete left to spare.

Parents out there, let’s hear YOUR crafty ideas!

1.  Sobe Life Water taking one of the most brilliant songs of all time, "Thriller," and turning it into a bizarre advertisement featuring a poorly dancing Naomi Campbell and some weird CGI lizard.

Since Jenna was born I've been catching a lot of TV between the hours of 11 pm and 6 am.  Sometime when she's older and causing me grief I will inform her that by six weeks of age her brother was sleeping through the night while she can't go more than three hours without piping up, as if to say, "Mom, I know it's 3 am, but I'm pretty sure there are TiVo'ed episodes of "The O.C." waiting for us, and I'm just DYING to know what's going to happen between Ryan and Marissa."  And you know, I really can't blame her, because the Soap network is re-running the first season right now, which was PURE EFFING GOLD.  And since she's only six weeks old she doesn't know that the show is preparing to jump the shark in just a few short episodes.  I'm sorry Jenna, but brace yourself for a whole lot of suck coming your way.  Life's just not fair, is it?

Anyway, this has prompted today's diversion.  Internet, I ask you… What shows (past or present) used to be awesome but then hit the wall (and when)?  Here's my two cents…

1.  My friend Beth is going to kill me for saying this, but I've gotta go with "Friends." For me the show jumped the shark when Rachel got pregnant.  Friends was a great show that unfortunately went about two seasons too many.  By the time they decided to knock Rachel up they had run out of plot lines.  In the end I think we all kinda quit caring about Ross and Rachel getting together.

2.  "Grey's Anatomy."  I loved, LOVED this show when it first started, what with all that McDreaminess scampering about, but the influx of new characters and all their various romantic entanglements started to wear on me.  Does anyone there even practice medicine anymore?  I quit watching at some point when Meredith turned down McDreamy.  NO ONE turns down Patrick Dempsey, least of all Ellen Pompeo.

3.  "Desperate Housewives."  This show was at its juicy best when Gabby was screwing the underage gardener.  And now they've fast-forwarded five years into the future?  Puh-lease.  It's all a little "Bobby Ewing got run over, but wait!  It was just a dream" for me.

4.  "Lost."  In the beginning it was all so mysterious.  Where are we?  What is that strange creature in the trees?  Will we ever get off the island?  Answer: Apparently not, and no one cares.

Internet, what do you think?

High atop my long list of unusual needs and desires (such as my flat refusal to eat the one last corner of the crust of any bread, whether it be toast or sandwich) is the desire for my life to have its own soundtrack, you know, like how a movie almost always has some kind of a music playing in the background highlighting important moments.

There have been many touching moments in my life where I stop long enough to ponder what sort of song would be appropriate.  Or I’ll sometimes even wish that a suspenseful or scary moment could have some screeching violins to back it up.

Is that weird?  Wait, don’t answer that.

All this thinking about my life soundtrack got me to pondering over what actress would play me in the movie version of my life, and what other actors might make up the cast of key players.  I think Reese Witherspoon or Meg Ryan circa 1990 would make good Carolicious candidates, while the Muffin would be most accurately portrayed by John Krasinski from "The Office."  And Michael, of course, is adorable enough to be a child actor so he could just play himself.

Tell me, internet, who plays you in the movie version of your life?

I’m all done with school (for the moment anyway), and I thought I would have SO MUCH to blog about, but as it turns out, I got nothin’. 

I was sitting around this morning thinking I should blog about something when the latest New Kids On The Block song came on VH1.  Yes, you heard me right.  New Kids On The Block (NKOTB, if you’re nasty) has a new hit, and yes, VH1 still occasionally plays music videos in between Rock of Love reruns.

NKOTB was HUGE when I was maybe a third or fourth grader, say nine-ish.  I was not a big fan of them right off the bat, unlike a friend of mine who had an NKOTB t-shirt (which she cinched with a scrunchie, natch), an NKOTB watch, NKOTB bed sheets and even a Ken doll rendering of Jon.  Since I was a geek raised by old parents I was probably too busy writing to the Johnny Mathis fan club to get interested in a group more my age, but I did start to like them just about the time everyone else quit.  Why did that happen?  Why did the NKOTB bubble burst?  I just remember that when I asked my NKOTB-obsessed friend, circa 1991, why the dudes were suddenly out of favor, she told me that one of them got in trouble for having a container of his own semen in his locker.  Considering that I was 11, I didn’t know what semen was but it sounded gross and possibly like snot, which seemed like a yucky thing to keep in a container, let alone in a locker, so I shut the boys out of my life forever.

Long story short, the boys are back and despite a collective age somewhere in their late thirties, they are rockin’ some white pantsuits and bopping around boy-band style in a new music video.  The first few times I saw it all I could do was scream, "SING HANGIN’ TOUGH!" before throwing my remote at the screen, but I’ll be damned if I haven’t come around to the boys once again.  I never in a million years thought that I would be listening to NKOTB again, 20 years after they were popular the first time.  Kudos, gentlemen.

Anyway, as I’ve mentioned before I would trade any and all of my talents just to be able to SING without making small children cry, which leads me to today’s diversion.  If you could choose to sing like one person, any person, your musical idol, who would it be and why?

For me it’s a toss-up between Etta James circa 1960 and Joss Stone (who, one could argue, is sort of a modern-day Etta), who I think has one of the best and most underestimated voices out there.

Who would you want to sing like, Internet?