No wonder she's so annoying...

Family ties: Candidates' ancestry makes for strange bedfellows

Turns out Hilary is French Canadian. And since the most famous French Canadian ever is Celine Dian, I will go ahead and assume that they are all just as grating.

Alanis Morrissette is the exception that proves my French Canadian rule. I still look back fondly on the period when I was 14 or 15 and Jagged Little Pill gave a voice to my young womanly angst. And then, of course, she released this last year...

Pray Hard, The Jesus Christ Story

Last week some senior citizens from the church next door to my school brought all the teachers Easter gift bags. They included some Post-its, markers, cookies, and a fingertip towel embroidered with eggs that I would put out in my guest bathroom if I were my mother-in-law. Oh yeah, they also gave us all an index card that said "God is great!" in shaky grandma handwriting and a book called Pray Big, which apparently outlines the scriptural support for making specific and large requests in prayer. I say apparently because that is what I have learned from the back cover, which is all I will ever read of the book.

I can't give a specific reason why, but it bothers me that it is acceptable to pass out a book about Christianity at a public school. So I told several friends and family about the gift to gauge their reaction. Except in doing so I kept accidentally calling the book Pray Hard, which sounds like it could be a new movie starring Will Farrell as Jesus and maybe Rachel Dratch as a skanky Mary Magdelene.

Stand by your man

Eliot Spitzer and his out of control man parts are all over the news lately. In general the story kind of bores me, as I am not nearly as interested in the seedy details as your average cable news anchor. When I saw the picture of "Kristen" on the front page of CNN.com I had the same reaction I always have to thin girls in bikinis, namely wondering why her thighs look like that and mine are all pasty and fat. I have bad thigh karma and am clearly paying for something horrible my thighs did in a former life.

Naturally, being a wife these days, I am fascinated by that poor Silda Spitzer. Here's a picture of her standing supportively a step behind her husband while he tells the world that he betrayed her.


I don't really care where old Eliot stuck it, but I am dying to know what is going on between those two right now. I've heard a lot of references to "standing by your man" in the media lately, but I think it is not accurate to assume that she is standing by her man just because she is, you know, standing right there by him. That facial expression could be interpreted a variety of ways. For example, "Where did this all go so wrong? I will do anything to save our broken marriage." Or maybe, "Eh, better her than me." My money's on, "Should I stop by the divorce lawyer's office before or after I pick up the dry cleaning?"

Really, it's not my place to judge because I don't think you can ever truly know how you would react until you are in such a situation. Except that I do. I would react just like this lady from China.



Cheating husband outed on Chinese Olympic TV

Her husband was in the middle of a news conference announcing a new Olympics network in China. She hopped on stage an announced to the world the the bastard was cheating on her. I love it! Husband would never let me near the stage if he were in the position of publicly announcing his infidelities. He knows I would channel my inner Strong Black Woman, steal the microphone, and say something like this:

"Girlfriend! Let me tell you what this fool did. He spent eighty goddamn thousand dollars on hos! Can you effin' believe it?! Me neither. And then he brings me up here like I'm just gonna smile and hold his hand. I don't owe that fool a thing. He owes me. Eighty. Thousand. Dollars."

But see, Husband knows this, and that's why he keeps it in his pants. Or maybe that's why he will never seek public office. Hopefully not just the latter.

Spring Break, Day 4 of 9

So I am four days into my nine days off from school. Here's what I have accomplished so far:

1. Mopped the kitchen and guest bathroom
2. Finally ordered our wedding album
3. Went to the gym zero times
4. Bought three pairs of shoes

Here's what I still have left on my to do list:

1. Do something about the crap growing in our shower
2. Catch up on laundry
3. Put away the laundry I did two weeks ago
4. Go to the gym everyday
5. Reorganize the office
6. Grade a file box full of papers
7. Clean out my closet, as I do not need daily access to both size 4 and size 10 pants
8. Organize our CD collection
9. Take my wedding rings to get appraised so I can renew the insurance
10. Talk to a realtor about selling the house
    
11. Spend at least two days working up at school
12. Steam the new curtains, whose wrinkles continue to taunt me
13. Spend some time with Husband
14. Take the dog to the park
15. Clean out the garage in hopes of finding whatever is living in there
16. File our taxes

Hrumph.

"We are definitely not ready for kids if we can't handle a little bit of stray poo."

That is what I just yelled at Husband as I was disposing of a warm dog turd I just found on the living room carpet. We are watching my parents' dog for a few days and she is apparently unable to scoot her but across the grass like a real dog.

It's times like these I wonder if I ever want children. It doesn't help that I just watched the Jon & Kate Plus 8 where they all got the flu. Oh barf. Literally.

Husband:Hansel :: Wife:that lady who puts Hansel in the oven

Husband has a habit of leaving a smattering of bottle caps, Kleenex, empty pretzel bags, crumpled up credit card receipts, and the like in his wake. It's like he is marking his territory except without all the peeing on vertical surfaces.

Husband has a friend who says he got married just to have someone to hand his trash to. And he is not kidding. I have seen him hand his wife the wrapper when he pops a piece of gum into his mouth on more than one occasion. Of course we were appalled by this and considered it further evidence that he is a useless asshole (in a good way, of course, if he is reading). But I'm thinking his wife is onto something. Really, the net result is the same. I still end up throwing away Husband's trash, but in the meantime it sits around cluttering up the living room and is sometimes eaten and vomited back up by Dog.

Urburbs

Since last I blogged, Husband and I have started hating the suburbs and wanting to move back to civilization. Not that we ever loved it out here. Here are the top 5 reasons we hate living where we do...

#5
No one cool lives in our neighborhood. The most interesting neighbor we have is the teenage girl across the street who is always either making out with her boyfriend in his hoopty car or trying to break up with him in the front yard. It was really awkward that time Husband and I spent the afternoon cleaning out the garage and that kid was out there in his wifebeater for two hours trying to convince her to keep letting him hit it.

#4
There was a tumbleweed in our driveway the other night. Whatever, but for some reason this troubles Husband greatly.

#3
There are no black people in the suburbs. I want our kids to know that there are black people in the world. This is an unfortunate though understandable gap in the education of students here in Suburban ISD. Most people move out here for the good schools, and they do have wonderful special programs. So we are hoping our kids are just average so the local urban school district can sufficiently educate them. If we end up with a genius or a sped case then we can always move back out here later.

#2
I have recently discovered that industrialized agriculture is killing America (more on that in a future post). The restaurants here in the 'burbs only serve prepackaged high-fructose mechanically-separated processed crap on a bun.

#1
The local HEB parking lot is smattered with "W '04" stickers and Dale Jr. sunshades. We are in the middle of NASCAR Nation. A tragic reminder that this is indeed a red state we live in.

So Husband and I have decided to move. This decision precedes action by approximately 3-15 months, but I feel better already. We acknowledge that we are not cool enough to pull off or even want a condo downtown. Our ideal 'hood is not quite urban, not quite suburban, but a happy little place in between similar to where I grew up. There are backyards and a Target AND non-white people and independent businesses. We like to call it the "urburbs." We look forward to showing you around our adorable little cottage soon(ish).

Champisky

We are blogging again! I know Husband has a blogging history reminiscent of the little boy who cried wolf. But please don't hold that against me. Maybe it would be more accurate to say that I am blogging again.

Anyhoo, we went to Spec's and HEB tonight on a quest to get liquored up. Husband acquired both champagne and the goods for whiskey and Coke. So we are thinking that later on we might make some Champisky to celebrate the resurgence of the blog.

Mostly I stopped blogging because Suburban ISD, my esteemed employer, discourages its teachers from posting personal information online, such as photos involving beer bongs and bikinis. But I am old and married and would never in a million year post a picture my boobs online. And I don't really care if my students know that they drive me to drinking. A few months back when I ditched the blog I cared a lot about my job, but now it's kind of soul crushing. More on that later.

Yay blogging!