Take That, Michael Phelps.

Said by my son, after watching Michael Phelps win his 8th gold medal at this year's Beijing olympics:

Him: I'm gonna be just like Michael Phelps when I grow up.

Me: Oh yeah? That's cool!

Him: Yeah, only I'm gonna win 9 medals. So I can beat him.

Aaah, wisdom from 4 year olds. Can't beat it.

Waaaaaaaaaaaal-E.

We took the prince to see Wall-E tonight, and just, wow. Pixar has done it again.

I won't go in to details since it's opening weekend and people (Who am I kidding? No one reads this!) may not have been able to get to the theater just yet, but gentle reader, I hope you do. It is well worth it.

Oh, and if you're anything like me, bring a tissue. Wall-E is VERY endearing...I'll just leave it at that.

Oh You Poor Neglected Pumpkin!

Oh my poor little blog! How I've neglected thee. But I hope you understand, dear reader (all one of you)...life gets in the way sometimes. I'll try harder to be a better blogger, I swear!

The kingdom is abuzz with excitement for our upcoming vacation. The hubs and I are taking the prince to Disney World next week, and I can't say who is more excited; the boy or me. The hubs could not care either way, he's already been there twice, but me...oh me, dear reader...I have been waiting for the past 31.9 years to go to Disney (I'm what one might call a "Disney Freak"), and I am bursting with excitement. Not even the threat of my office potentially closing down (that's another post for another day) has broken my spirit!

So yes, I will be trying to post more, but maybe in a week or so...I've got a hot date with a mouse next week and I've got to get myself prepared!!

Dear Terri & Justin,

You're douchebags.

Someday I hope to live next door to normal, mature adults. So please move soon.

XOXO

Superfan Heaven

It's a magical time of year in Detroit. A time where at any given point during the week, there are not one, not two, but three professional sporting events taking place at the same time. 'Round here, we call it a "sporgy"...a "sports orgy" if you will.

Being the superfan that I am, this is indeed a wonderful time. Saturday night, we were able to partake in the Red Wings win (yay!), The Pistons loss (boo!) and the Tigers win (yay!). We actually ran out of tuners on the TV (which is hard in our house...it is a nerd den if I ever saw one) and had to resort to putting one of the laptops on the tv stand with the Slingbox running. The sacrafices we must make. Le sigh.

Tonight, the stars have again aligned, though this time they were kind enough to stagger the starts, so we've been able to watch all of the games just flipping through. We watched the Red Wings win (again! SUCK IT, PITTSBURGH!), the Pistons win (finally! SUCK IT, BOSTON!*) and well, the Tigers are scoreless as I type this, but at least they're not losing so I can't complain. Double sporgy weekend. w00t!

Aaah. Nothing like Spring in the D. Gotta love it.

*To my Beantown girls, I still love ya...but it's the playoffs, so all bets are off. ;)

Dear Woman Wearing Pajama Pants At Target This Morning....

Just because you're a stay at home mom doesn't mean you don't have to try, honey. Maybe you put on something a little more than your jammies before you trek out to Target in the morning.

Love,
The Queen

PS: If you MUST wear the jammies out in public, could you at least make sure they're clean and not full of holes? K Thanks!

What No Parent Should Ever Have To Go Through.

The death of a child.

I cannot, for the life of me, fathom why things like that happen. I mean, I know there's a reason, and I know that it's all part of God's plan, but I just don't get it.

Yesterday, a boy from our neighborhood died. Sixteen years old.

Roughly two years ago, he was diagnosed with ALS (or Lou Gherig's disease). I was driving to my mom's house (they live in the same neighborhood as we do) and saw a handicap ramp in front of this family's home. I had assumed that they had taken in an elderly relative; after all, the parents were in their 40's, the kids in their late teens..what other explanation could there be, right? Not so. The youngest child had a couple of spells, where he'd fallen, almost for no reason. He seemed to be weakening. No one understood why this healthy 14 yr old was deteriorating. Trips to the doctor eventually revealed his diagnosis, which to this day seems impossible to me. Young people don't get ALS. That's an elderly persons disease, right? Sadly, wrong.

My heart just aches for them. This was their baby, their only boy, with an entire lifetime ahead of him. All of that promise and hope for the future now wiped out. And it makes me sad. It makes me angry.

Yet, at the same time, it makes me thankful. Thankful that even though my son drives me insane most days, I am fortunate enough to have him here with me. That is a blessing that I was sadly reminded yesterday not every parent has.

Duh, Mom.

My son is playing with his Leap Pad, and the little shit has figured out how to beat the system. Don't know the answer? Hit it twice and it tells you! Figured it out all on his own.

So the hubs and I are listening to him cheat (THAT'S RIGHT, SON, YOU ARE CHEATING AT LEAP PAD! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?) for the umpteenth time. This is the exchange that followed:

Us: If you can't figure out the answer, use a less difficult book. Don't cheat.

Him: I have to.

Us: No, you don't. TRY to give the correct answer.

Him: But I can't, my brain doesn't know the correct answer!



Hm. Hard to argue with that logic, bud.

When My iPod Alarm Clock Says "Get Up"...

It MEANS it.

Reason 2,364 Why My Neighbor Hank Rocks.

My neighbor Hank is pretty cool. He's a genuinely nice dude, he and his family are great people to live next door to, and he absolutely LOVES the Prince, so anyone who's that nice to my kid is good in my book.

I shall now offer to you reason 2,364 why my neighbor Hank rocks.

Sunday afternoon, my kitchen. Hank is chatting with the King (random nerd things, I presume) when he hears the dulcet tones of the OTHER neighbor's obnoxious Lab and Beagle wailing outside my window. (This is a VERY regular occurrence, one that has caused us great grief since these people moved in. That's another post for another time.)

Him: WHAT is that?
Us: The dogs next door. Nice, huh?
Him: Oh wow. That's awful. Happen a lot?
Us: Every day of our lives.
*Hank falls in to deep thought*
Him: I've got it. We can hook up speakers on your deck, and I've got some recordings of ultrasonic sounds..not audible to the human ear, but it sure would shock those dogs. I know just how to set it up. Cause, damn..that's annoying.

Hank rocks. Why the hell didn't we think of that? (It pays to live next door to an audio engineer, I suppose!)

Pandora Whor-ah

A little while back, Stacy posted about a website she found, called Pandora. For this, I am eternally grateful. I now pledge my undying love for her and her internet findings.

Pandora is omnipotent. It is magical. If it were a hot guy, I'd totally make out with it.

Here's how it works: You select an artist, say, New Kids On The Block. DON'T YOU JUDGE ME! Ok, so you put in the artist, and Pandora waves her magical wand and *poof!* NKOTB are soothing me with their melodic sounds. THEN (and this is the best part!) it starts to pull other songs from artists in the same vein. So after I teleported back from 7th grade (oh Donnie Whalberg, how I loved thee....) it started to play songs by Tiffany, N*Sync, and various other teeny-bopper music. Quelle awesome! You also have the option to rate the songs while they're playing, so it learns what you like and dislike. Quelle awesome, again!

With this, you can create a myriad of stations (I have everything from NKOTB to The Supremes, Billy Joel to Daughtry...whatever mood I'm in, Pandora knows what I'm looking for...I'm telling you..magical) and here's where it gets even cooler- you can share these stations with your friends, and they can listen to what you've got in your playlist and conversely, you can listen to theirs. For instance, my co-worker listens to a completely different style of music than I do, but I am open to listening to new things, so I click on her station...and what do you know? I liked it! Songs I didn't know I knew...and hey, I have the artist names now! Thank you Pandora!

The best part about this? Free. Totally free.

Try it, I guarantee you're going to love it. Seriously.

It FIgures!

The weather around here finally decides to stay nice (read: it's not snowing 24/7 anymore!) and what happens?

I get an ear infection. Wait, let me correct that, a DOUBLE ear infection. For the second time. In less than six months.

Fabulous!!!

What the hell? How does a thirtymumblemumblemumble year old woman get two double ear infections in six months?

Calgon take me away.....

Two Down, Four To Go.

It's a bad week to be a fish in the castle, let me tell you.

The Prince has (strike that, HAD) six African Cichlids, which his uncle hand raised for him. The sixth fish, and most coveted, was a special one that the Prince had named Sunny D, because of his gorgeous orange color. In less than a week, we've lost him, another "regular" cichlid was belly up when I came home for lunch today, and there's a third one that I have a sneaking suspicion is on the way out. I'm praying I'm not met with any surprises when I walk in the door from work tonight. I don't know if I can handle it.

Originally we thought that the demise of Sunny D was because of an accident; when we found him, he was pinned underneath a decorative log in the tank. The King liberated him from the situation, but he was in bad shape. He struggled on through the night and in to the next day, but went to the big fish bowl in the sky by last Friday evening. Poor fella. Throughout the week, however, we started thinking maybe it wasn't a freak accident and he got his tail whooped by one of the others. After today's findings, I'm pretty much convinced that was the case.

If you don't know about cichlids, let me tell you this: the are AGGRESSIVE fishies. Really aggressive. When Sunny came to the tank (he was a late arrival as my brother in law wanted to make sure the tank was in good shape before bringing him to live with us) he immediately put his smack down and let the rest of the tank know he was in charge. This did not go over well with the other residents of said tank, as you can imagine. Ever since, there's been some strange fishy powerstruggle going on, and I guess you could say that generic cichlid #1 is the winner. Either that or he's gone American Psycho on us and is systematically murdering all the other fish in order to have the tank all to himself...

The worst part about all of this is telling your four year old that his pets are dead. Don't get me wrong, I know they're just fish, and are TOTALLY replaceable, but, hey. The kid's 4. That's tough on a little guy. Maybe I need to detour to PetSmart before I pick him up from school today.....*sssshhh..don't tell on me!*

Oh, and BTW, Detroit Tigers? What the hell? WHAT. THE. HELL? 0-4? Are you freaking kidding me?

Where the heck have you been?

Me? I've been here, there and everywhere, and completely neglecting my royal posting duties.

BUT! I'm back! And sassier than ever! Well, maybe not sassier than ever, but I try.

Oh, how I have exciting news to share with you! The king finally gave in to my constant, incessant whining regarding the laundry apparatus in the castle (apparatus? apparati? who knows...) and I'm now the proud owner of this (and its drying counterpart):

I love this thing more than any person should love an appliance. It's been the object of my desire for quite some time now, and I'm so happy it's taken up residence in my dungeon, er...laundry room.

Next stop: Operation Laundry Room Redo. The poor King has no idea the amount of work he's lined up for himself just by doing the nice thing and buying me that washer and dryer...*giggle*

We Interrupt This Blog...

So I can wallow in self-pity for a bit.

I promise I'll be back and complaining ASAP.

It's not that it's ugly, it's just that I wouldn't do that to MY house...

I'm hopelessly addicted to do-it-yourself remodeling shows. Why, you might ask? Several reasons, but I will tell you, the number one reason is that the evil part of my brain just LOVES to see it when people totally screw it up. I know it's wrong, but my repressed interior designer (majored in it for half a semester, you know!) loves to see what other people think is "aesthetically pleasing", and I love to sit my plump hiney on the couch and judge them. And watch them judge each other, too!

One of my favorites, Moving Up, was back on this weekend, and let me tell you, after a long hiatus, it was worth the wait. Not because I longed to see the hard work that these families put in to beautify their new homes, lord no. I wait for the bitchy commentary from the previous owners. Me-to tha-yeow!

If you've never seen it, let me give you the quick and dirty run-down. The show focuses on three families, we'll call them A, B and C. So A buys B's house, B buys C's house, and C buys someone else's house but no one really seems to care what they do to it. The premise of the show is that once the new owners have renovated the home to "their" style (and I use that term VERY loosely, folks. Very.) the previous owners come back through with the host (the lovely Doug Wilson, formerly of Trading Spaces) and critique the changes.

Ok, here's the rub...well, aside from the fact that people actually have the gall to say on national television that "2800 square feet is not enough space to raise a baby". I don't understand the how these former owners don't get the fact that they DON'T LIVE IN THESE HOMES ANYMORE. This weekend's episode had a real winner, by the name of Erin. Erin had a blood red wall in her bedroom, and while I did like the way she had it decorated, I can't say that I would be able to sleep with an entire wall of AB positive above me. But hey, that's just me. So delightful Erin walks through her former home, which the new owners had done a very nice, albeit bland job on. Upon seeing the bedroom, which has now been painted a cool blue shade, demands "where the HELL is MY red wall!". WTF, lady? What do you mean YOUR red wall?

Um, well sweetheart, seeing as it is no longer your house, it really doesn't matter where the red wall is. (But if I was taking guesses, I'd say it was under 15 coats of primer...) What the heck is wrong with people on these shows? Why would you expect the new homeowners to keep your paint colors? Are these folks so delusional that they think their decorating styles are the best ever and everyone should just LOVE them and keep them no matter what? Please.

The end of the episode has the the host sitting with the current owners, showing the tape of the former owners doing the "walk through", and I cannot fathom how these people don't understand that no, the former owners are probably not going to like whatever the new owners do no matter how nice it is, because let's face it, it's hard to see your memories wiped away. I also can't understand why these same people get all pissy and flip off the monitors and curse at the TAPE of the former owners, just because they don't like the new decor. Get over yourselves people!

The King and I got in to a heated discussion watching this episode, and he alleges that I would be the same way if I was in the situation, but I like to think I wouldn't be. I like to think that I'd be open to the fact that hey, the new owner of my house might not like my cute little Americana themed room, or they might not like my bright bathroom or dark bedroom. And yes, it would hurt to see the prince's bedroom, the room that we so lovingly and painstakingly prepared for his arrival, the room where I spent many a night rocking him to sleep while we both cried (he, from being a baby, I, from sheer exhaustion) gutted and all, I am smart enough to know that for every memory I have in my home, they are just that; memories. Memories that I have locked away in my mind that no one will ever take away from me. Once we're gone from here, I like to think that another set of parents will make new memories in this house.

I also like to think that if I was going to be taped for television, I might exercise an ounce of restraint and not tell a video monitor to f**k off (I'm looking at you, Erin), but who knows. I might be PMSing that day, and then all bets are off.

Springy Sprung Sprunging. Oh yes, I just typed that.

After an all too long winter, it appears that Spring will finally be sprunging. Yes, I just typed "sprunging". 13 years of Catholic School education just went right out the window, and somewhere in the distance, my mother just had a total conniption from my misuse of the English language, though she doesn't know why. Just for her benefit, I'll say it again. Sprunging. Spring will finally be sprunging.

Love you, Mom!

For the first time in what felt like an eternity, it was above the 50 degree mark. We celebrated this monumentous occasion by taking the prince out for a bike ride, though with him it is more like "chase the 4 year old and try to stop him before he rides the Hot Wheels bike in to the street". Good times. We even took the princess, though she whined and barked the whole time, and is now shooting every human in the castle the evil eye when they look at her. A cranky Westie, that one is.

I'm praying that mother nature isn't being a trampy little tease and giving me a taste of this and then going to make it snow by mid week. I need some nice weather STAT.

You think I'm kidding? I'm on my fifth round of "Hail Marys" as I type....

Let He Who Is Without Sin Cast The First Stone.

So this will be one to file under "random" but I'm so irritated by this I just had to get it off my chest.

This afternoon the Prince and I went to lunch with my mother. The restaurant was packed; evidently there was a gathering of some members of The Salvation Army there, and they were sprinkled throughout the restaurant. The only open table we could find was behind a group of 3 boys and 3 girls, all whom appeared to be 14 years old or so.

They were fairly well behaved, just sort of loud, as groups of teens sometimes can be when they're out together. Talking about their prayer groups, meeting up at the teen center, excitedly making plans for a mission trip they're going to be taking. At one point, they all kind of broke out in to song, singing what appeared to be a hymn of some sort, "Hallelujah, Hallelujah...etc". No biggie, I'm all for being in to your faith if that's what you do. More power to ya.

Here comes my problem.

I hear them start to giggle and they're motioning towards the door. There's a girl leaving with her family. A tall girl. A VERY TALL girl. So these christ-loving sweethearts sitting behind me start mocking this girl, and making fun of her in such a manner that I honestly wanted to cry for her, and was so thankful she was out of the restaurant and could not hear what they were saying. "Hah, she's a giraffe!" "Look, she's so tall she has to duck to get in her car!" "She's the Empire State Building, she's so tall!" It was breaking my heart, and it left me feeling very sad.

But then, the more I thought about it, the more angry I got. What the hell, kids? That behavior is so hypocritical...you're talking about your church activities, your prayer groups, your missions to help others. Yet, here you sit, mocking one of your fellow church members. Loudly. In Public.

Not very Christ-like behavior, if you ask me.

Don't Drive Angry.

Sweet mother of God, this is getting ridiculous already!

The kingdom of minutia (you know, that tiny little lot that the castle sits on..) was socked with yet ANOTHER winter storm today, and I'm telling you, it's getting old.

In less than 24 hours, we accumulated more snow than the entire MONTH of March normally averages. How 'bout them apples? I don't know about you, but I'm thinking next year I'm going to drive my happy ass out to Punxatawney on February 2nd and have me a little talking to with a certain prognosticator. A real heart to heart. Oh, I don't know, along the lines of "Spring's just around the corner or you're going to be stuffed and mounted on my wall, Philly".

Or something to that effect.

Dear Brandon Inge, STFU Already.

Oh, Brandon. Brandon, Brandon, Brandon.

I want to keep liking you, I really do. But you are making it fricking impossible anymore, and I'm afraid I'm going to be joining the masses of other Detroit Tigers fans who have had it with the whining.

Look, Brandon. I get it, I really do. You want to be in the thick of it, you want to be an every day contributor to what appears to be one of the best teams taking the field this summer. You're hurt and frustrated that your job, a job that (except for the hitting) you do VERY well, was stolen right out from under you. I get it. And I don't begrudge your hurt feelings. But seriously, dude, STFU already.

Your nice, big, fat contract, coupled with your abysmal batting average, is not going to make you the most desirable trade prospect out there. You know it, the Tigers know it, every other team in MLB knows it. Hell, my 4 yr old knows it. However, that big fat contract is going to get paid to you whether or not you play every day or twice a week. You need to man up, and be what they need you to be. Even if it means you have to catch. The current state of Michigan's economy has left a lot of your fans out of work..and I guarantee that any one of them would be more than happy to sit their ass on the bench for that kind of paycheck.

So please, Brandon, suck it up and take your medicine like a big boy. Get your numbers up, make yourself worth that contract to another team, and most importantly, stop acting like a douche. You've done a lot of wonderful things for this community, and it is all going to be a distant memory soon if you keep sounding like a whiny brat.

Kisses,
The Queen

Well Hello There!

Bonjour! Welcome to my blog!

Here you'll find a hodgepodge of things, basically whatever thoughts happen to pop in to my twisted little mind... ranging from family and parenting, to work, music, whatever....anything goes! It'll be no holds barred and *hopefully* entertaining. (Um, and thearputic, for me...)

Enjoy!