Friday, August 15, 2008

Oh EVIL shoes! Thou hath seduced me

I saw a facebook group today called: I Dont care How Comfortable Crocs Are, You Look Like A Dumbass. I bought myself some purple Mary Jane crocs about a month ago and I've been wearing them in public ever since. Oh the shame of it.

Nothing says, I HAVE MADE A CONSCIOUS DECISION TO LET MYSELF GO than a pair of crocs on an adult. I resisted for many years but somehow this summer, after watching my kids climb in them, run through sprinklers and slip them on and off in the blink of an eye, I thought maybe they weren't such a bad idea. I thought "I'll only wear them around the house --Just something to come in and out of the backyard in." But they're comfortable, strangely comfortable considering they're made out of jelly plastic. Remember jellies? Your feet would be a giant blister after about an hour. But not so with crocs. Now between the rain and my kids constantly wanting to play in the water, I strangely found myself wearing them further and further afield until I found myself walking to work in them (and at least changing into a nice pair of Sofft pumps when I got there).

Oh the shame of it! Slipping my feet into an ugly purple plastic clamshell and pronouncing to the world "I don't care that I look like a dumbass!" When secretly I do, but I want to wear shoes that can get wet, that don't make my feet sweat, and that need overrides any fear of dumbass-edness that lurks on the vainer side of my brain (which by the way is MORTIFIED by these shoes). My whole consciousness has been bifurcated by a pair of ugly shoes where functionality has replaced form to the point of absurdity. WHY? WHY must they be so ugly and so comfortable? I used to wear Teva sandals, but when they get wet, they start to chafe, whereas crocs dry in about one minute and don't give you blisters. I tend to find myself with wet shoes while far away from my house with no way to get home, but my own two feet. And

DAMN you crocs you temptress of all that is ugly in footwear. I have fallen to your whims.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Take Out Night: DENIED!

Warning: Whining is about to ensue. If you do not enjoy my whining, please don't read this!

So, Thursdays we do take-out. Most other nights, I cook. Tonight it was Indian and I ordered some mild Tikka Masala and waited.

The Masala was not mild. I've ordered from this place a million times and I know what it should taste like and this was NOT it. It was WAY too spicy to be anything approaching edibility for me. I feel sick from trying to eat it. Now my mouth is burning and I'm still hungry. What do I do? Do I call the restaurant and say you F*&^cked up my order?

But we're watching Army of Darkness in High Def, so it's not all bad. I'm just hungry.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Where's the Boobs? My take on the 2008 Olympics

Seriously, not one of these women could fill out a AA bra. None of the swimmers, skaters or volley ball players. Have female athletes been secretly undergoing breast reduction surgery? I don't get it. Figure skaters have breasts, why not gymnasts? I thought there were age limits this year so they couldn't complete those pre-pubescent children any more. It's just creepy seeing so many women in skintight lycra looking like some breast cancer survivor's fitness group. I know I'll never be an Olympic athlete, but I always thought it was because I'm totally unathletic and uncoordinated and basically lazy when it comes to physical fitness. But know that it's not my couch potato soul that is holding me back, it's 36D's that God (and my Jewish mother) gave me. Who knew? Without them, I'm sure I'd be doing triple rotations with another androgynous girl on a 3 story diving platform in perfect synchronization, or surreptitiously picking lycra out of my butt after whacking a volleyball over a net.

And what's with the slutty uniforms? The men who play beach volleyball don't dress like they're about to work a shift at Scores or the Golden Banana or wherever the gals go for a bachelorette party these days. Why do the women have to wear g-strings to bat the ball over the net while the men get to dress like NBA players in loose comfy shorts.

It just doesn't seem fair.

Monday, August 11, 2008

No Sense at all

My dad's latest Farm Folly has taken shape. It's a tall, narrow outbuilding complete with a cupola that I have nicknamed Francis Ford. The walls are up and the roof is enclosed. Eventually he'll shingle the roof with recycled slate from an old project on Beacon Hill. The kids are looking forward to sleeping in the little house. The entire horseshoe driveway is now dotted with renovated little buildings. We have a HUGE barn that my dad has straightened out with winches over the last 20 years and serves as a general storage-space-for-junk-my-parents-will-never-use-but-can't-bear -to-stick-in-a-dumpster. We have the "Turkey Shed" an artist studio which has a solid wall of windows and artwork on every scrap of non-windowed wall space. It has a large desk for writing or drawing and a full sized futon couch for sleeping. There is also the ice house, which can function as an 'outdoor shower' which means you connect the hose to it and let the water heat up in the sun, so it burns you and then it's freezing 50 degree well water. But nobody has actually taken a shower there since 1992. (We adapted our tub in the house with a real shower, and for some reason everybody seems to prefer hot running water at an adjustable temperature -- go figure!). Then there are two tiny sheds, one is a garden shed that always has some snakes hanging out in it. The other is the old outhouse (both with slate roofs, mind you) which is used primarily for kite storage at the moment. And there is a tractor storage shed that my dad keeps his 1953 pick up in that he's decided isn't worth restoring (see above about junk-my-parents-will-never-use). And finally there is a Japanese tea house with a giant circular window that looks out onto the fields. Think of a birdhouse, but on a human scale.

I'm looking forward to the new building which will theoretically have insulation and running water, making it much more useful for year round habitation. The tea house has a woodstove, but no insulation whatsoever, making it a difficult place to stay much past Thanksgiving. Charm only goes so far when you're freezing your butt off.

We just spent a nice weekend there. Eric and Rich hiked from the entrance to the High Ledges bird sanctuary into Shelburne Falls, about 4 or 5 miles over rough terrain. I swear, God does not give men more sense than your average turnip. It's like He thinks, "You can have a penis, and rule most of the world, but you can't make intelligent basic decisions without your women." And they don't. I left my dad, Rich and Eric to go on a nice hike up to the Fire Tower in Shelburne and my dad decides to send them down a path that HE'S never hiked based on his recollection of my uncle's walk down it about 10 years ago... The boy isn't even 5 and they're tramping out into the woods on unknown paths with no food or water. "Well there were about 12 shirtless gay hikers on the path with us!" he protested when I asked what he would have done if he had gotten injured on such a treacherous hike. "But the hikers passed you right?" I demanded. "What good could they do?" "Well, yeah. But nothing happened." My eyes have rolled into the back of my head and stuck there over this incident.

But part of me is SO proud of my little dude for hiking all that way without stopping. Kaylee won't even go across the yard without howling "UPEE UPEE!!" But Eric was probably like that it her age. It's just amazing how much you don't remember.