moe, larry and me

i give up.

you can't really tell from this corny photo, but i've surrendered to my hair. i've let it go curly. and i know, i know, curly wasn't the stooge with curly hair, larry was. and curly didn't have curls, he was bald just like britney. but for the sake of argument, i'm playing curly in this photo 'cause that's what i am. CURLY.

i've had a love/ hate relationship with my naturally curly hair (oh, man, now i sound like that redheaded girl from the 'peanuts.' what was her name? frida?) for most of my life. you know, when you're a kid you just kinda accept the way you look because that's all you've ever known. then, when you start to get self-conscious-- like in junior high-- you begin to fight nature to "fit in" with the trends. luckily, when i started getting self-conscious, BIG HAIR was, like, TOTALLY in. the curls reigned. topped with feathered bangs coated in hairspray, styled in a triangle shape.

between then and now, i've had my hair in every size, shape, length and color known to beauticians. but let's face it... the past decade especially has been rife with straight, straight and more straight hairstyles. you had a choice between stick-straight, pin-straight, and straight as a line. i chemically straightened, dried with a fire-hot blowdryer, scalded with a flat iron, and mourned when it rained. don't get me wrong, i could never quite get rid of the curlies at my temples, and the ends always kinda flipped up, but at least i was "with it."

well, not anymore. growing it out again has been painful this time around, and one day i accidentally let it go, and the curls actually looked better than the straight. i surrendered.

most people say it looks good! kinda flapperesque. kinda modern. i think they're just being nice. they tell me that curls are back IN, baby! i don't know whether or not to believe them. i don't really care. it's easier not to fight. it's easier to give up.

V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N

my folks are here for the next month, and as always graciously offered to watch the kids while t and i went somewhere. anywhere.

now before surgery i had these grand ideas of trekking through the hill towns of tuscany. this kind of travel really suits the two of us... we love to tour, learn, absorb, eat, drink, and wallow in a new culture from early morning until late night. for some reason, this is entirely relaxing to us, and we'd probably travel nonstop given the chance.

after surgery-- although i am almost completely recovered in less than 2 weeks-- a physically challenging trip didn't seem like such a grand idea. i'm still not allowed heavy lifting, and i still tire out a little faster than i'm used to. normally the idea of an all-inclusive tropical vacation sounds ho-hum to us, but right now it actually sounds good to us. a little r & r might be just what the doctor ordered, literally.

i started researching bargains, deals, locations, flights, and most of all, user reviews (tripadvisor.com rocks). after a week of going through travel websites (BookIt.com rocks) with a fine-toothed comb, we finally decided on the dominican republic. feeling good about the price, i went on the next day to book a 6 day/ 5 night vacation, and found that it was $150 less than the day before! cha-ching! we felt even better, and now we've got our plans in hand for a tropical paradise in mid-march. i'll let y'all know how it goes.

other than that, busy busy busy. filing tax receipts, doing household projects, getting back to volunteering at school, and helping t prepare for his trip to nyc. if anybody's there, go visit him at the comic convention at the javits center this weekend!

a bizarre thing happened...

only in the blog world would something so bizarre occur.

yesterday i posted the funny clip from the local paper, and i'm not even going to write the name of the celebrity it was concerning. scroll down if you didn't see it already. later in the day, i noticed my stat counter was already at an all-time daily high for page loads. huh?

i did a little cyber-sleuthing, and uncovered a sordid world of meanness. apparently, haters of this particular crooner (below mentioned) regularly troll the internet for nasty little tidbits about him to post to their hater websites. mine was discovered, and copied in the comments section of this post with a link. by the end of the day, all things told, my site was loaded approximately 4 times more than usual. i wrote a thank-you to the guy who wrote the mean post-- my humble little blog turned superstar for a whole day!

i had another stroke of luck yesterday, you'll never believe this one. my friend zuzu's husband runs an ad agency in durham. they had a british designer shoe company client who gave them shoe samples... and guess who benefitted? ME! check 'em out kids--

i'll have to learn how to walk in 4" heels 'cause they are too cute for words. free shoes and free handbags must be the best thing for a girl.

only in a small town

kids, it still hurts me a little to laugh hard, so imagine the agony i was in when i read the local paper this morning (thanks, beth!) and saw this:

oh, man! there is really NOTHING happening around here if they're willing to ADVERTISE this! and i love the way they trickily put it... "CLAY AIKEN's car." i was falling off the chair at this one. why on EARTH would you round up the kids for a fun afternoon of looking at clay aiken's CAR? anybody wanna come visit me so we can go look at clay aiken's car together?! what a rich cultural experience that would be!

especially if you read and/or believe the tabloid headlines or what perez hilton says about clay's escapades. who knows what might be lurking in the back seat? sigh.

retired at 8

no, the post title does not refer to my bedtime last night. i stayed up until 10, but couldn't make it through "battlestar galactica." we tivo-ed it, so i'll try and watch it tonight.

the title refers to our son, who at 8 yesterday announced to us that he is retiring. we gave the matter a serious face and grave response to his face, but after he had turned his back we hid our smiles behind our hands and chortled, "retired!"

let me 'splain. no, it would take to long. let me sum up (that was an obscure reference to 'the princess bride' in case any of you caught it). around thanksgiving, h thought up a heroic new character that he called "x". he briefly considered making a film about x, or writing a screenplay or novel about x, but since he already has other characters in development in those genres, this time he chose to tell the story through a comic book. he proceeded to get a piece of construction paper and several pieces of white paper, folded them in half and stapled them down the spine, and the series of "x and crabby" was born. kindly, he gave his sister credit on every single book as a co-creator, although she had nothing to do with any of them. if she did, the comic would surely have contained more dogs and wolves than it currently does.

i need to tell you that h is really an idea man. his ideas are grandiose, and he needs to execute them quickly lest he forget them before they make it onto the paper. thus, detail and execution are often lost in the process of his creativity. maybe someday i'll convince him to treat his ideas as "sketches" so he could more fully flesh them out later, with more attention to coherence and detail. for now, i wish he would include a brief synopsis at the beginning of each issue so i might have the slightest idea where the story is headed!

anyway, he's been hard at work on these comics-- sporadically-- ever since. above is an example of a page from issue #2: "say cheese and be happy, pappy!" just so you'll have an idea of what's going on around here. yesterday, he sat at the kitchen table... diligently scribbling away on "x and crabby #11: the master." upon completion, he placed it on the shelf among the other issues, and announced his retirement. oh, not to worry. he's just moving on to other projects now... and maybe someday he'll return once again in "x and crabby series 2." come out of retirement, if you will.

after all, he's only 8.

in-VAL-id IN-va-lid

in a cruel twist of the english language, the word invalid, a noun meaning one who is incapacitated by a chronic illness or disability is the exact same word as invalid, an adjective meaning not legally or factually valid; null. how fair is that?

i don't make a very good invalid, i guess that makes me an invalid invalid. i've recovered so quickly that my only real complaint at this point is fatigue. i haven't taken pain meds in DAYS, i i've gotten up and gotten the kids ready for school every day this week, and have provided a rudimentary and simple dinner for my family each night. i've done laundry and done light cleaning, and even managed a short trip to walmart. needed a nap after that one!

but also as an invalid i feel somewhat invalid. lame, useless. i don't like to be told what i can't do, and i don't like NOT being able to perform tasks. part of it is doctor ordered things such as "no heavy lifting." part of it is things i don't have the stamina for, like walking the dog her usual mile a day. other things are stressful things like adding up tax deductions that i simply can't afford to wear me down at the moment. i'm not used to this feeling of uselessness, and always have this bull-headed charge ahead attitude, so this is KILLING me!

every day gets a bit easier, a bit better, but don't expect any triathlons soon. for that matter, don't expect any triathlons at all! now THAT just doesn't sound like fun to me. thinking about a triathlon makes me almost glad to be an invalid invalid.

home again!

hey- yo!

i want to tell everyone i'm home from the hospital, and honestly doing really well. for major abdominal surgery, that was a piece of cake. i remember waking up in the recovery room and grinning... it's all over!

even the hospital stay was fine. the bed was unbelievably comfortable, so i snoozed fitfully as i needed. my pain is well under control, and i am moving around as much as i feel able.

thanks to everyone who came by here and wished me well, it honestly meant so much. sounds like most of you would gladly go through this for the chance to be "free" too! i am positively liberated... not only from those x-es (tampax and kotex) but from my uterus and it's problems, too. and susan, just a couple of weeks ago i read that they were doing the very first womb transplant surgery! however, i'm not sure anybody would have wanted mine. not that it wasn't good for the baby process, just not the rest of it. what i was offering up in my post (anybody interested??) are all those feminine hygiene products!! anybody want them? anybody?! they're freeeeeeee!