flightless hag

A chronicle of the adventures of birdwoman: a lonely, talentless freak who wanders the internet in search of entertainment.

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Location: Philly

I'm a 40-something married white female, survivor of weight watchers, avid reader of pulp. Dogs (not cats), extreme right (handed, not politics), ENTJ, alto, wanna-be knitter.

January 23, 2007

Mothman Update

So, we're trying to teach little Mothman to say the following phrase:

"Say hello to my little friend."
(with a bad accent, of course.)

Grandma is not at all amused by our making light of the injury to poor little Tim. He's all mad because I won't let him go back to school and show all his friends his wound with all the strings in it.

Little boys sure are morbid.



Stinky, on the other hand, is rapidly careening toward adolescence. His, like, every other, like, word now is, like, "like". I know I use the word, but sometime around college, when my bratty sister told me it was extremely annoying, I made a concerted effort to reduce my like-abuse. Now, I see what she was, like, talking about.

It is funny, though, to see him try to emulate the very strong and vivid personalities that make up television these days. You know, the people who are generally on television are quite captivating in one way or another. He's weighing their mannerisms, actions, and words, and trying to see if he can fit them into his own arsenal in his quest to cool-dom.

I hate to break it to him - he's a really bad cross betwixt John and I. He'll never be cool. But my goodness that boy is handsome, and he has a wicked imagination. He won't be popular, but he will break a few hearts. Girls can be real suckers for the handsome, withdrawn writer type. Heavens knows I was. Lucky for me my shy writer likes chubby, silly, flightless hags.

(*)>

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January 21, 2007

Our Weekend


We had a very exciting weekend. For us.

There were adventures, treasure hunts, movies, and… we saw a red-tailed fox. Just ask Stinky. That’s the only thing he remembered from the entire weekend. Until the accident.

Timothy, AKA Grace, fell over his feet, cracked his head open, and scared the crap out of everyone in the house. After 45 minutes in the ER, 5 stitches, and almost no tears, he’s almost as good as knew, with a new, mature look on his Franken-brow.

Have I ever said how much I hate being a parent?

(*)>

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January 20, 2007

How We Warp Our Children

Raising Stinky and the Moth has been a fun experiment for us. We are not very good parents, but we sure are having fun.

In one of our annual Christmas letters, we alluded to the fact that our children think clowns live in sewers because they saw a part of Stephen King’s IT once. Grandma just shakes her head whenever the spare lectures her on the clownth in the dwain.

But the best is what I heard the Heir lecturing Mothy about washing his hands… well he was quoting what Dad says when he gives them showers:

“It rubs the soap into its skin or else it gets the hose again.”

My kids quote Silence of the Lambs. Mercy me.

(*)>

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January 17, 2007

Hey, Wanna See My Rubbers?

So, I was going through some of my old blog entries, because a reader out there actually commented on something I wrote a few years ago, and I realized I never did tell the story of the guy with the rubbers.

It was the summertime – I want to say 1992, though it might’ve been earlier. It was the year that all the weddings happened (you know, if you go to college, it seems like 50% of your friends get married within a year after graduating?) I was a poor college student, and was in 4 different weddings that summer.

Laura’s wedding was in Ohio.

I got on Greyhound and trekked to Ohio. I love Laura, and a trip to Ohio to see her happy was nothing, man. The trip back, however??

Well, it started on an overbooked bus. That broke down in Pittsburgh. However, between Cleveland and Pittsburgh, the gentleman next to me casually asked if I wanted to see his rubbers. He was probably in his 20’s, and very much the hippy. It was a bus, and a super-packed one, at that. What was the worst that could happen? I said, “sure!”

He pulls out 2 rocks and starts rubbing them together. It’s dark on the bus – a nighttime run – and I could see the eerie glow in the rocks pretty clearly.

I say, “Hey, piezoelectric crystals!” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyroelectric_crystal

He was like, “Dude! You know what they are!”

We spent the rest of the ride talking about hippy things and science things (the best hippies are the ones who have all sorts of weird theories tied up with unusual scientific facts). When the bus broke down in Pittsburgh, we went for a walk (it was around 1am, I’m walking through an area of Pittsburgh I know nothing about, with a total stranger – yep, I was totally stupid), finally got a seat on a bus to Philly (whose bathroom door would not shut and whose potty had been VERY used – ICK), and ended up having breakfast with another hippy friend of his at the South Street Diner (I wonder if that’s still there?) listening to more crazy hippy theories. If I had any sense back then, I would have written down those hippy theories. As it is, all I remember is that his name was Dave, his friend took a total shine to my roommate, and it’s one of the strangest memories I have.

(*)>

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January 12, 2007

Bathroom Etiquette

So, my husband was in the bathroom at work just before Christmas break, doin his bidness at the urinal, and a dude comes up next to him.

“So, you have a little one, too, eh?”

John wasn’t sure if he should hit the guy or just walk away. But first he had to shake and zip. This gave the guy time to finish his thought…

“My daughter is 8, and she’s a blast at Christmas.”

Of course, someone was, uh, pinching a loaf at the time, so the story got all around the department. I think it’s great that John’s always coming home and playing with his little one. Takes a lot of pressure off me, you know.

Heh.

(*)>

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New Jersey Dealt It

A few days ago, New York City was inundated with a terrible smell. Some sort of thiol was about… and it wasn’t pleasant. People were sent to hospitals, buildings were evacuated, and many accusatory eyes were focused in elevators and on the street.

In the end, it seems the smell originated in Jersey. Big surprise there. You can see the states conversing:

NYC: “Connecticut, do you smell that? Do you have something to confess?”

CT: “Only the lowest breeding would force me to be involved in this conversation, let alone produce something so… base. We blue noses do NOT poot.”
NYC: “True. Rhode Island?”

RI: “Who, me? Dude, I’m too little to do shit, literally. Besides, I believe the saying is he who smelt it dealt it.”

NYC: “Funny. Well, I suppose that leaves me with New Jersey. Jersey, what say you?”

NJ: (snicker) (giggle) “Well, it sure smelled better going in than it did coming out!”


Jersey, you ought to be shamed. Truly.

(*)>

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January 08, 2007

Granny’s Got An In


It’s confirmed, Granny has an in with the tooth fairy.

It all started a few months ago, when Stinky lost his first tooth. It had been loose for weeks, but he wouldn’t let us pull it. Then, the day we were to go to Granny and Poppy’s house, it fell out.

What to do?! The local tooth fairy had already plunked a bunch of dough down at the Rusty Nail down the street – what’s a tooth fairy to do while waiting for a tooth to fall out? We understand our local fairy has a penchant for cheap, bad lagers. Anyway, after all that waiting, he couldn’t even claim the tooth, since we would be at Granny and Poppy’s abode, which was in another fairy’s territory.

So, Granny put a call in to their local tooth fairy, to see if the account could get transferred. (don’t you know – when Granny was “talking” to the tooth fairy on the phone, her phone rang. To add insult to injury, they usually get, like, two calls a day. She has the most incredible luck!) Anyhow. She was successful in her quest, and stinky got two dollars (two bucks! Do you believe that?!) under his pillow.

Well, yesterday, we get home from church, and he’s in tears. It seems is second loose tooth came out when he bit into a cookie at church and he swallowed it (sorry about that ambiguous pronoun. He swallowed the cookie AND the tooth.). He wanted to wait til he, um, passed it, and he wanted me to find it in his… excrement. Nice. I said, “Hey, Granny’s on good terms with the tooth fairy guild. I think she supports their union benefit or something. When you talk to her today, ask her to give them a call.”

So he did. And she did.

But without proof of tooth, he only got $.50 (that’s fihdee seh, does anyone else miss the cent on the keyboard?)


(*)>

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Seven Years of College, Down the Drain

I have one week left of relative freedom, before the education indoctrination re-commences. I’ve spent the last three weeks in a fiction haze, reading all the books that I had put aside for months.

And now, it’s back to psychology of the educator. Sheesh.

I’m not a saint; in fact, I’m a pretty big sinner. I’ve got gluttony, sloth, and envy down cold. I’ve not done much for my fellow man, either, except donate some money here and there. But, I’ve reached a crossroads in my life, career-wise. So, I’ve decided to go down a different path, for a while anyway.

I’m going back to get my certification to teach. When people ask why, I give all sorts of stupid reasons. My current job sucks (truth). I don’t really want to be in IT anymore (truth). I’ve always gotten a kick out of teaching basic science and math (truth). Oh, and the teachers’ three best reasons to like the job factor in, too (June, July, and August).

But the real reason? I think it’s time to give something back. I won’t be the best teacher in the world, that’s for certain. I won’t be Mr. Holland with an opus, or Antonio Banderas, reaching across the class divide with a tango. But maybe, just maybe, I can reach one kid somewhere, and help the flower of curiosity in his or her head to bloom, instead of being completely killed by inattention.

My husband thinks I’m nuts. But I want to teach in the city – just for a few years. I’m not vain enough to think I can make a difference. I’m not strong enough to tough out those kind of environments for the rest of my working years. But I feel like I have to TRY to give something back. I certainly hope I’ll be better than the teachers who don’t show up 30% of the time, or the teachers who do not have English or Spanish as a first language.

John is, of course, stymied by this. He is scared I’ll get shot or worse (not sure what worse is…) After living in the Temple area (or worse, which I did for several years), we’ve both become sheltered little suburbanites.

Hell, he was in the Peace Corps. I’d hope he could understand something of why I want to do this.

But I have exactly one year to convince him.

(*)>

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