Sucidal Christmas

Ah, the holidays. Somehow they crept up on me and once again I'm suddenly wondering why there are lights up and Santas at every corner. Didn't we just have 4th of July like last week? How is it almost Christmas already? I am entirely done with my Christmas shopping, so I guess it's not THAT big of a surprise, but still it seems far too early. Maybe because stores start shoving Christmas down our throats in early October and we're all really numb to it by the time the actual holiday rolls around that when it's actually the real holiday time, we just don't care anymore. In every town there is always one radio station that plays 24 hour Christmas songs starting around November first. I boycott this station with a fervor generally reserved for the STL Cardinals or the White Sox. There are only so many Christmas songs (even if every Tom, Dick and Mariah do a version) and really, how long can you listen to them over and over and over before you get a little nuts? As we are now less than a month away from Christmas I decided I could lift the boycott and hear a few holly jolly songs. I punched the stations pre-programmed button and out came the warbling notes of Judy Garland, followed by Bing Crosby and that upbeat Melekeleki Maka. I love you Bing! Anyway, I'm cruising along, feeling merry and bright, smiling at bundled up passers-by and enjoying the twinkling lights when one of those sad sack holiday songs came on. Boy, nothing will bring you down like a sad Christmas song. We're not talking Elvis' "Blue Christrmas" here, because at least that has a fairly peppy tune, but have you ever heard "Christmas Shoes?" If not, it's about a boy who wants to buy his dying mother a pair of shoes for Christmas but doesn't have the money. Yeah, yeah, it's a sweet sentiment: poor boy, dying mom, Christmas miracle, blah, blah, blah, but come on! It makes me want to slit my wrists. Why do people write sad Christmas songs? Is there any wonder that the suicide rate goes up around the holidays? I don't know that that's true, but I heard it or read it somewhere and it sounds about right, so I'm saying it. Prove me wrong children, prove me wrong.
After the sad song, my Christmas spirit plummeted and I thought about looking for another kind of spirit. I do not condone drinking and driving though, so I had to nix it and hope that something upbeat would come on to bring back that Christmas-y feeling, but no, no. Christmas Shoes was followed by Toby Keith's "I'm right here" which again, wrist slitting urges. Good grief (Charlie Brown), what's up with all that? Holiday songs should be about snow and family and Santa and Jesus and stuff, not sad little kids and their dying moms or kids in a homeless shelter hoping Santa will find them. Yes, I do realize this stuff is reality for many people, but holiday songs are supposed to bring you up and make you feel the spirit of the season, not drag you down into the depths of sorrow and dispair. The next time a sad song comes on, I'm going to turn it off and start singing something silly like "I want a hippopatamous" or "Dominic the Italian Christmas Donkey" and keep myself happy and bright. Boo on sad sack Christmas songs!

Oh, I want a hippopatamous for Christmas! Only a hippopatamous will do! I don't like crocodiles or rinososauruseses, I only like hippopatamouseses. And hippopatamouses like me too!


The only sad holiday song that gets a pass for me is Same Auld Lang Syne by Dan Fogleberg. I know it's supposed to be a sad song about regrets and what might have been and what not, but it always makes me smile and think about the boys in my past and what would happen if I ran into one of them at the grocery store.

8 pounds!

I've worked hard to keep myself in shape (and no, not round though I agree that is indeed a shape, just not one I'd like to be). I've spent countless hours in the gym and deprived myself of thousands of delicious calories. It sucks. Sucks with a capital Su. I'm actually thinner and in much better shape than I was in the picture that's just to the right here (she has chubby arms). In the past 2 1/2 months I've fallen off the workout wagon. I got sick a couple of times and just couldn't get back into the whole gym dedication thing again. Also, my aunt sent me about a pound of the most deliciously evil fudge you could ever imagine. She manages to take the recipe that's on the back of every jar of marshmallow fluff and turn it into something that would make the angels weep if they tasted it. I don't know how she does it, but I'm sure there must be some black magic or soul selling involved. Evil. Eeeeevvvvviiiiilllllll.

So, thanks to the evil fudge followed quickly by Halloween and all that left over candy and a lack of hitting the gym, I have somehow managed to gain 8 pounds. 8 pounds! Holy crap! Not being a large woman, 8 pounds is a lot on my frame. Most people can't tell, but believe me, my jeans were letting me know the other morning when I tried to stuff my extra 8 pounds into them. My thighs (where my weight likes to hang out cause that's the place to be apparently) looked like fat little sausages encased in Michael Kors denim and there was enough muffin top to start a bakery. How could I let this happen? How?????? And why does it happen? I mean, once you've worked your ass off (literally) getting in shape, you should stay that way. Period. There should be no silly upkeep. Any fat that you take in should just know that you've been working out and will get burned off anyway and just flush out of your system without spending time attached to your thighs, no matter how tempting they might look and how much fun the fat heard your thighs were.

This morning I schlepped myself to the gym and spent more than an hour on the elliptical and the treadmill trying to make the 8 pounds magically disappear (sadly that did not happen-imagine that) and cursing that ooey-gooey delicious fudge. Damn that woman, anyway. Sadly, I'll be at the gym again tomorrow and probably every week day that I can fit it in, bitching and moaning about how unfair it is that foods that taste so good are sooooo very, very bad for you and how sitting on the sofa most of the day does not lead to toned thighs. Unfair! Unfair I say!

Dorothy: Serial Killer

Greetings semi-loyal readers! I've been a bit under the weather for a few days (effing strep), but now I'm back with 50% more snark (Please note this statement has not been evaluated and lazy writer, LLC makes no guarantees on actual amount of snark.)

So, last night I had one of my more enlightening parental experiences. We didn't do anything spectacular, just sat home and watched a movie, but it was some of the most fun I've had in a long while.
We normally watch Wheel of Fortune during dinner. Shut up, you watch TV while you eat too. At least Wheel of Fortune can be passed off as a learning experience (or so I tell myself) and we do talk about the sounds each letter makes and he tried to read the words. He's 5, this is super educational people!
For some reason we ended up eating a late dinner and Wheel was over before we were finished, so I pulled up the guide and saw that The Wizard of Oz was coming on. I flipped the channel thinking it would get us through dinner and then I'd turn it. Wrong! He was fascinated! Fas-in-nat-ed! He had seen the Munchkinland set on the Great Movie Ride at Disney World, but never the movie itself. First he wanted to know why it was all in one color (silly me, he'd never seen a b&w movie before), then he wanted to know why that mean lady tried to take that girls dog away. He was incensed! He commented that if anyone ever tried to take his dogs away he'd call the Army and they'd be in serious trouble!
I cleared the dinner table and he moved over to the sofa, where he settled in to watch this crazy movie that went from one color to techni-color. He made several interesting observations that make mom proud (I actually started writing stuff down after a while, so I could share it with you lovely folks).
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On the munchkins:

C: Mom, I think there's something wrong with those munckins.
Me: You do?
C: Yeah, they're weird. Something is really wrong there.

On Dorothy's house landing on the Wicked Witch of the East:

C: Did that girl kill that witch?
Me: Yes.
C: Is she going to get in trouble?
Me: No.
C: Well, if I killed somebody, I'd get in trouble.
Me: Yes, you probably would.
C: I think she needs to go to the bad chair.

On Glenda the Good Witch:

C: Why is she in that bubble?
Me: That's how she travels.
C: Is she sick?
Me: No. Why?
C: Sick people have to go in bubbles.
Me: How do you know?
C: I saw it on TV. At Gigi's house.
Me: Oookaaay then. Well, Glenda travels in a bubble.
C: If she's a witch she should be on a broomstick then, not in a bubble. It could pop and she could get hurt.

On the Scarecrow singing about needing a brain:

C: He's smarter than he looks.
Me: You think?
C: Yeah, he's good at rhyming.
Me: You're right. He is good at rhyming.
C: Yeah, we do that at school, but we're not that good. He must be pretty smart.

On the Tin Man:

C: How does he work if he doesn't have a heart?
Me: Um, well, he's kind of like a robot.
C: Why does he need a heart then?
Me: I don't know. So he can be kind, maybe?
C: I think he's already kind, he just doesn't know it yet.

On the Cowardly Lion (and Dorothy slapping him on the nose for growling at Toto):

C: Ooooh! He's not being very nice! I'd smack him on the nose too if he tried to bite my dogs. He's a big meanie.
Me: He's trying to act brave.
C: Picking on little dogs isn't nice.
Me: No, it's not.
C: It's not brave either.
Me: You're wise beyond your years, little man.
C: No I'm not, I'm just a kid.

On the Cowardly Lion song:

C: Why does he want to be king of the forest?
Me: They call lions king of the jungle, but he lives in a forest, so that's what he'd be king of.
C: Well, if I were king, I'd want to be king of a city, not a forest.
Me: Why?
C: So I could do stuff.
Me: Like what?
C: Go see movies and eat all the popcorn I want.
Me: Is that all a king does?
C: (thinks for a moment) I'd go to the museums too, and I'd touch the dinosaurs and mummies.
Me: Because you'd be king?
C: Uh-huh. If I were king, I could do that. But not if I lived in a forest.

On the flying monkeys:

Me: When mommy was a little girl, those monkeys used to scare me.
C: They did?
Me: Yes.
C: Did they scare the bejebers out of you?
Me: I guess they did.
C: Those monkey-birds are scary.
Me: Yes, they are.
C: Are you scared now?
Me: No.
C: Do you need me to hold you?
Me: If you want to. Are you scared?
C: Maybe a little. But they're not scaring the bejeebers out of me.
Me: It's okay to be scared. When I was a little girl I used to sit in Gigi's lap when I got scared of the monkeys.
C: How old is this movie?

On the trio beating up the "Oh-wee-oh. Wee-oh-oh" guards:

C: Did they kill them?

Me: No, I don't think so.

C: How do you know?

Me: I don't really, but I'm pretty sure they didn't.

C: But they could have.

Me: I suppose so.

C: I thought they were the good guys.

Me: They are. They're trying to save Dorothy.

C: If they're the good guys, why do they keep killing people?

Me: No idea. Watch the movie.

On Dorothy killing the Wicked Witch of the West:

C: There she goes again.
Me: What?
C: That girl killed that witch.
Me: She was a bad witch.
C: Is that girl in trouble now?
Me: Nope.
C: No bad chair?
Me: Nope.
C: I don't believe it.

On the Wizard giving out the "awards":

C: See, I knew it! That Scarecrow was smart!
Me: He sure was.
C: And the Tin Man was kind!
Me: Yes. You were right. And the Lion was brave all along.
C: Yeah, but he still picked on that little dog.

On Glenda telling Dorothy she had the power to go home all along:

C: What? She could use her shoes?
Me: I guess so.
C: She should have told her that before.
Me: Well, then we wouldn't have a movie.
C: I guess. (Pause) It was all about the magic red shoes.
Me: You should see if your red high tops are magic.
C: They're not.
Me: How do you know?
C: You bought them at Wal-Mart.
Me: And?
C: Mom, you can't buy magic at Wal-Mart.

On Dorothy waking from her dream:

C: You mean it wasn't real?
Me: No, it was all a dream.
C: That was a long dream.
Me: Yes it was.
C: Hey, that guys looks like the Scarecrow!
Me: He sure does!
C: He's not as smart though.
Me: Why do you say that?
C: He has to work. Don't you remember? We saw him earlier. He was working on the farm.
Me: Oh, yeah.
C: All the Scarecrow had to do was hang around.
Me: And that makes him smarter?
C: Well, he wasn't working.
Me: You're a genius.


There was ever so much more (I have 5 pages of notes), but these are the real highlights. Here's what I learned from watching the movie with him:
The munkins are weird, I'm old, hanging around on a post is better than working, I should really talk to my mom about what she lets him watch at her house, witches should travel on broomsticks not in bubbles, picking on small dogs is not brave, if you're going to be king, be king of a city where you can do stuff, you can't buy magic at Wal-Mart and Dorothy is a serial killer.