an actual conversation that took place at my house

Me: “Evan, what does a duck say?”

Evan: “Kack kack!”

Me: (giggling uncontrollably at the realization that my son is a genius) “YES! That’s right! That’s exactly what a duck says!” (meanwhile I continue to quack loudly while making funny faces to encourage him to keep it up)

I’m all about sacrificing my dignity.

weekend festivities

Apparently, this is the time of year where it seems that I wake up in Florida every day. Enough with the hot! And the humid, OMG. This weekend was cray-zay. On Saturday it was literally 108 degrees at my house. I better start saving money to pay for my electric bill.

But apart from that it was a rather nice weekend. Swimming lessons continue to be awesome fun. Once we were done at the pool we retreated to the air conditioning and pretty much stayed there all day. My sister-in-law came to visit us so we headed to the mall for even more air conditioning. Then we watched Grizzly Man – highly recommended, very interesting documentary.

Yesterday afternoon we headed up to Fashion Island thinking that it would be a bit cooler with the ocean breezes. And Fashion Island, it never disappoints. It was ten degrees cooler, plus they have those funny fountains with bubbles of water that explode out of the ground and land on the heads of unsuspecting toddlers who dare to walk along their surfaces. Good fun. After the fountain, a ride on the carousel (Evan’s first), and an eyeshadow purchase from the MAC counter at Macy’s, we headed over to Bandera for a delicious dinner. It was there that we determined, lo and behold, that Evan enjoys artichokes! We were sitting back sipping our cocktails and saying la la la, our child is the best, he is so well-behaved AND he likes artichokes. Then when he was done with his dinner he began throwing Cheerios so we beat a hasty retreat.

We got home, put him to bed, went downstairs, watched Entourage and ate Drumsticks. In my opinion, Drumsticks must always live in my freezer. Always. Well, until they are eaten.

TGIF

You know what sucks? When you have a massive sneezing attack right after you've put on mascara.

Also, when you are lounging comfortably on your sofa watching the British Open and sipping your second cup of coffee and then you realize: it's not Saturday.

Ouch.

snippets

Hello peeps. Since it's been a while, I'll just update you with a few small items to start getting you up to speed on what's going on in my life.

1) Just got back from a business trip to Columbus, Ohio. It was hot there.

2) It's also hot here.

3) Getting home from Columbus was a nightmare involving multiple missed flights, ridiculous security lines, ground holds in Chicago due to bad weather, and whatnot.

4) The mommy & me swimming lessons are going great! We just had our fourth lesson on Saturday and we've gone from hysterical crying (lesson 1) to whining (lesson 2) to only whining when our face gets wet (lesson 3) to pure unadulterated joy at being in the water (lesson 4). Success.

5) I am once again obsessed with HBO's Entourage.

Because I have a lot of work to do at this moment, I must cut the list short. I promise to update again soon with more. Three-week blog hiatuses (hiati?) are for the birds...

you know you're out of shape when...

...spending 20 minutes crouched down in a swimming pool holding a toddler causes quadricep pain so intense you can barely walk down the stairs.

twice in one week, now that's a record

Hi! Here I am, making a concerted effort to post more than once a week. And what a week it’s been. Yesterday, I spent an hour and a half at the dermatologist’s office getting, count them, five skin biopsies for various suspicious spots. That was a good time. I have to say, though, apart from the whole scary “waiting to find out if I have skin cancer” thing, the process was rather fascinating. I love Discovery Health, all surgery channels, etc. so I thought it would be interesting to watch the doctor do the biopsies. And it was. Is that weird? Does that make me sound like a freak? I’m really not, I’m just fascinated by anything medical. Apparently, even my own.

Anyhoo – I need a good book to read to take my mind off my impending skin cancer doom. Any recommendations?

few and far between

Wow, has it really been this long since I posted? Apparently yes. Maybe I should start a movement: Blogging Once a Week (or Less) For Fun And Profit!

Well, what’s going on Chez Bearca? Lots, I tell ya. Last night I went to the spa with some girlfriends and had a fabulous massage, followed up with a margarita and copious amounts of homemade tortillas from El Torito. Yum. Oh! And I’ll be traveling to Columbus, Ohio in the next few weeks on business. Really looking forward to that. And? This Saturday, we start Mommy & me swim classes! I cannot wait. Evan has these new swim trunks and let me tell you, just thinking about him standing by the pool with his belly hanging out over those trunks brings a tear to my eye.

And also? I am in the market for some really awesome aviator sunglasses that are not too Hollywood obnoxious looking. I’m sure that will take up a boatload of my internet surfing time for the foreseeable future.

But speaking of internet surfing time, please do yourself a favor and read this. Random, but so very funny.

weekend bonanza

I’m heading into this weekend with yet another lengthy list of things to get done. There will be Costco! There will be planting in the backyard! Diapers will be purchased!

So basically, it’s going to be an awesome weekend. I am feeling a bit blah today. Not sure if it’s the weather (which is yucky) or just some sort of general malaise (also yucky) but I am just kind of ehhhhhhhh.

Adding to my anticipated weekend dissatisfaction is that the book that I’m reading right now, American Pastoral by Philip Roth, is not really grabbing my attention right now despite the fact that it won a Pulitzer. I mean, I get it that this guy represented the American dream and all that is possible and then it was all taken away with one selfish misguided act by his revolutionary daughter. I get it already! Geez. Also, this book is the literary equivalent of a gigantic salad. To beat you over the head with the analogy, you know how you can be eating a salad for what feels like an hour and you still find yourself with an enormous bowl of lettuce? That is what reading this book is like. I keep reading and reading and somehow I have been stuck in the middle of it for the better part of two weeks.

So in addition to the diaper buying and the Costco food tasting, I will also focus on Pulizer prize-winning book conquering.

because who can resist a cute bathtub shot?

this weekend by the numbers

Times Evan threw up in his bed on Saturday night: 2

Number of sheets soiled in the process: 2

Hours of sleep I got that night: 4

Alcoholic beverages I consumed over the weekend: 4

There is nothing like doing barf laundry at midnight on Saturday night because you are running out of clean crib sheets and sleepers! And this was not the wimpy spit-up of months past. This was real, honest-to-goodness throw-up, complete with chunks and the vomit smell. I will spare you additional details (come to think of it, are there any? That was pretty graphic).

All in all, though, the weekend wasn’t a total loss. Some notable achievements:

• Bought a new dining room table!!
• Scheduled an appointment with the carpet cleaners
• Got a new baby gate for downstairs
• Went to the nursery to get some plants for the backyard
• Spent a bunch of time hanging out in the yard enjoying the hot weather
• Had my sis and her husband over for dinner (complete with some uber-delicious chipotle mashed potatoes)

So despite the chunk-blowing, it wasn’t a bad weekend. But is anyone else annoyed with the way they wrapped up the Sopranos episode last night? Barely anything happens all season and then they close it down for who knows how many more months. Thank goodness Entourage is coming back next weekend. Yay!

pride goeth before a fall

Over the last couple of months I’ve nearly broken my arm patting myself on the back thinking “Wow, I’ve really got this working mom thing wired! What are all those people whining about?” Perhaps it’s my incredible organizational skills! My incessant list-making! My ability to juggle home and work flawlessly and simultaneously!

But lately my son has been a magnet for every virus in his day care. First there was the roseola incident. A couple weeks later he got a fever and had to come home. Then over the weekend, he got another fever and had to stay home on Tuesday. And I have a couple of business trips coming up.

Then I realized, this is where the rubber meets the road. This is where my always-present-but-often-latent guilt rears its big black head. Am I spending enough time comforting my sick child? And when I am, are people at work thinking “Is that slacker taking care of her ‘sick baby’ again?” And if they are, do I care?

It turns out I do.

I have such an overactive sense of guilt that I struggle with the concept of doing the best I can. I am pulled in so many directions. But even so, I am so lucky to have a supportive and helpful spouse. I also have a supportive manager. I have a housekeeper who comes every two weeks to scrub the house from top to bottom, and a gardener who comes every Friday to mow our tiny lawn. So what am I complaining about?

I guess it’s an age-old problem that I’m not exempt from after all. At the same time, I wouldn’t trade it for anything (except maybe the ultimate flexibility of independent wealth.) Unrealistic dreams aside, I’m generally pretty happy with my arrangement. It’s been eye-opening to realize that even though I’m content with the way things are, that doesn’t mean it won’t blow up from time to time.

Maybe I just need to be okay with that. It still scares me, though.

overheard at lunch today

I was sitting outside in the beautiful sunshine, eating a delicious panini and eavesdropping on the conversation that the geeks at the next table were having. My heart was warmed by the fact that they were peppering references to So I Married an Axe Murderer throughout their conversation. Also, they were discussing how LL Bean sells indestructible jeans and how that would be the ultimate in clothing. One guy said “I will buy seven pairs and never have to shop again!”

Putting aside the fact never having to shop again would be my personal hell, this overheard conversation made me realize how much I love nerds.

operation baby exhaustion

Now that my baby (and by “baby,” I mean child who walks everywhere and therefore is no longer officially an infant but how can I not call him a baby anymore, SOB) is extremely mobile, I have a new parenting strategy. The strategy is to provide him opportunities to exhaust himself so that he will become compliant and amenable to anything I want him to do. Like for example sleep. This weekend, the new strategy manifested itself in a couple of different areas.

Saturday was a beautiful sunny day so we packed up a bag and some beach chairs and headed off to the park. Silly us, we did not understand that chairs are useless in this new parenting strategy! No, rather the park for us means following him on foot everywhere he goes so we can be prepared to extricate the leaves that he picks up off the ground and shoves in his mouth, or ready to change his direction if he’s rapidly heading toward a ditch. I should also warn you that this strategy requires climbing. I figure working against gravity has got to be a successful method for baby exhaustion. Well, it is, but it is also a fairly reliable way to exhaust your husband. Mine was forced to climb up the playground apparatus approximately eight (8) times to go down the slide.

Then, Sunday we went to the Irvine Spectrum, which is kind of a weird mall, but it has an Oakley store so the hub wanted to go there. In a mall setting, executing the strategy means setting the child free and following after him with the stroller, possibly with some baby wipes in hand to de-dirtify him after he has literally done a belly flop into a puddle and stuck his fingers in every drain he sees.

So there you have it. Operation Baby Exhaustion was a success, but I still haven’t recovered. Red Bull, anyone?

stickin' it to the man, part two

The poor attitude exhibited in my last post has passed. Yes, I still have a gigantic zit on my nose and an atrocious up-do, but what are you gonna do. I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do: buck up, drink a caffeine-free Diet Coke and tell you about something really awesome that happened to me recently. Like, really awesome. Not sarcastic awesome.

Did you know that if you get a speeding ticket in the state of California, you have the right to a Trial by Written Declaration? That means you can fight your ticket by mail without ever having to step in front of a judge. And furthermore, if you do not like the way the judge rules in this Trial by Written Declaration, did you know that you have the right to request an entirely new trial? Yes. It is true. I know this because I am a nerd and read the vehicle code.

I am not so much of a nerd that I read the vehicle code for fun. I read it because yes, I got a ticket for ALLEGEDLY going 47 in a 35 mph zone. I repeat, allegedly. This troubled me. This troubled me because it was my second ticket in less than 18 months (um, for speeding) which means that I couldn’t go to traffic school to get it off my record. So, I decided to pursue a Trial by Written Declaration because after all? What did I have to lose.

I will now detail the chronology of me fighting the power.

I sent a letter requesting a Trial by Written Declaration, enclosing my bail payment of $119.50.
The court sent me back the forms I needed to submit evidence on my behalf.
I wrote up all such evidence and had my attorney (for full disclosure, I should say my husband who is an attorney) review it.
I mail the stuff to the court.
I anxiously await the judge’s decision over the next six weeks and obsessively check the mailbox hoping for news of my fate.

And then, it happened. I got a notice from the court in Saturday’s mail. I opened it up and guess what? My ticket had been dismissed! Either my case had been incredibly well-argued, or the cop who cited me had failed to respond in the time he was given.

Either way, they will be refunding the money I paid for the ticket and for now, the People of the State of California are off my back.

funk

Today is really annoying.

Exhibit A: I have an enormous zit right on the tip of my nose that no amount of concealer can hide.

Exhibit B: Work is stressful.

Exhibit C: The weather is blah.

Exhibit D: Bad hair day. Just now I took a camera phone shot of myself to illustrate said bad hair day, but decided that it was too hideous to share with the internet.

Cupcakes. Where are cupcakes when you need them?

More later when I recover from this funk.

where shopping carts go to die

I just went grocery shopping at Trader Joe's. Now, I love shopping there as much as the next gal, but I've figured out how they keep their prices so reasonable. It's because they eliminated the budget line item that other stores keep on the books to purchase shopping carts. Honestly. Trader Joe's has the most horrific shopping carts in the history of any retail establishment. I have never gotten a cart there that steered right, that I didn't have to use all my admittedly minimal upper body strength to navigate it down the aisles. It's annoying. Annoying, but worth it in order to enjoy the possibly heroin-filled cracker discs knows as Savory Mini Thins.

And: on the way home from Trader Joe's, I heard Edie Brickell's "What I Am" on the radio, followed up by Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar on Me." Fabulously reminiscent of tenth grade. Jack FM, I salute you. You are doing the Lord's work.

V is for vindicated

I love to read, and to avoid my book habit wreaking havoc on my budget, I frequent the library quite often. (is that redundant?) I also really enjoy reading a nice little crime drama slash detective story from time to time, especially while traveling. There’s something about spending a couple of hours living vicariously through Kay Scarpetta or Kinsey Millhone that really makes a flight seem short.

One time, though, I left a copy of Sue Grafton’s “Q is for Quarry” on a plane. Oops! I went to the library to report my transgression and paid whatever lost book fee there was.

So when I recently checked out a book for my flight to Ottawa, I didn’t give it a second thought until I got a phone call saying it was overdue… after I had already returned it.

Then, I received a threatening letter explaining that the next step would be to turn me over to collections. Sheesh, these library folks don’t mess around. Remember that Seinfeld?

The funny part? The book they claimed was overdue was none other than, you guessed it, Sue Grafton’s “L is for Lawless.”

After a quick phone call to the library, they were able to find the book on the shelves and absolve me of any wrongdoing. What a relief. I was starting to dread the library cop shakedown. Almost as bad as a tax audit.

new era

This weekend was action-packed. We went to see my parents so Evan could hang with Grandma and Grandpa. Success. He was happy wandering around their house, doing laps from the kitchen to the living room and back like he loves to. But yesterday Dr. Jekyll showed a little Mr. Hyde (or is it the other way around?). We took him for his second haircut ever, and he screamed bloody murder. Which was weird, because at his first haircut he had a grand old time. Then we made nice by taking him to the park so he could go on the swings. All was forgiven.

At this point he has definitely developed preferences and whatever the opposite of preferences are. Here is the current scorecard of various activities and Evan’s reaction to them:

Bottle? Good.
Sippy cup with milk? Um, not so much.
Haircut? VERY VERY BAD.
Walking? Good.
Being carried? Bad.
Walking around the house with the remote control? Good.
When Mommy takes the remote control away? GOD HELP US.
Swings? Excellent.
Shots? See “When Mommy takes the remote control away” above.

Apparently, the era of the docile, agreeable baby is gone for good. Don’t get me wrong, he is a great kid. He just knows what he wants, and a haircut ain’t it.

beware, this is a rambling post about the beauty of list-making and a plea for recipes involving powdered wasabi

I am the type of person who makes a list for absolutely everything. I don’t think I could function in a world without lists. I could make a list of the various lists that I keep and it would make me happy. Crossing things off is just so satisfying. I don’t know if it’s my natural tendency or if it’s directly caused by too many years in a corporate environment. Possibly both.

So a typical to-do list for me might read something like this:

• Do expense report
• Pay AmEx bill
• Get car washed
• Drop clothes off at Salvation Army
• Get groceries
• Call for haircut appt.

The beauty of this list is that guess what? It spawns another list! A grocery list. Now we’re just getting warmed up. I have often thought that it would be helpful to make a grocery list in the order that you would encounter the items in the store. However, I am not really that anal. I am surface anal. For example, my house looks clean, but whatever you do, DO NOT open a drawer or closet. The results will frighten you.

So where was I? Well, it has come to my attention that not everyone lives and dies by the list. Some people do things willy-nilly! Throwing caution to the wind! Doing errands in a haphazard and unorganized fashion! I could tell you about the time I sent my husband to the grocery store for some dinner items and he came home with a can of powdered wasabi. We were not having sushi for dinner. We were not having Japanese food for dinner, in fact. But to this day, there is still a can of powdered wasabi cooling its heels in my pantry. A never-used can of powdered wasabi.

This is what happens when a list is disregarded. Powdered wasabi happens. But I am of the school of thought that believes when life gives you powdered wasabi, you make powdered wasabi lemonade. So if you know of any recipes that use powdered wasabi, please write it up for me and leave it in the comments section. Just avoid any lemonade recipes because hello, that was figurative.

miscellany

People, people, people. It is Tuesday and therefore I am rubbing my hands together with glee just thinking about what vocal delights the American Idols have in store for me tonight. Then, I will be spending an hour with my semi-secret television boyfriend Dr. House afterward. Win-win.

Also, I have discovered a delicious new beverage: Aquafina sparkling water in lemon-lime. Tasty.

And in unrelated news, I am really hoping the metallic trend keeps up for a while. I have made a few investments in that arena (shoes, bags, etc.) and would be sorely disappointed if it suddenly went out of style. I have this annoying tendency to go completely overboard on something I like and it turns into somewhat of an obsession. But what happens is that I’ll be a complete naysayer on that thing for up to a year before I end up embracing it full-scale. For example, back in the late 90’s I thought it was so lame that cropped pants came back in style. A year later I ended up with about 800 pairs of cropped pants in my closet. And now, I can see the writing on the wall. Right now, I’m hating the straight leg skinny jean. I love, love, love the boot cut and think it’s so much more flattering – for me at least. But I can just see myself in April 2007 wearing skinny jeans nonstop, eating my words along the way. I don’t know why I do this. Evidently I am just a Late Adopter of fashion trends.

So if you’re wandering around the OC and see a girl in flared jeans and multiple metallic accessories, feel free to say hello.