So I need some help, o! fellow Internet Guru’s, and the only solution is more cowbell.
Wait, that isn’t right. What I NEED is not cowbell, although Lord knows it wouldn’t hurt. What I need to know is how many readers I have.
My question for you is this: is there anyway to know how many readers I really have out there? It seems a simple request, but in the age of feed reader programs (like my beloved Google Reader, whom I might actually want to make babies with), it’s nearly impossible to quantify (kind of like my Level of Awesome. It’s Super Great, right now).
If you’re reading this in a reader, could you click over so my stat counter can see you? I won’t beg you to comment or anything, but I’m just trying to see if my stats are right.
I have a stat program, of course I do, who doesn’t? Otherwise I’d never hear of such search terms as “cameltoe competition” (Hi, I’m reigning champion to all of you who found me that way) or “my mom just wants to hold the baby but not do any cleaning or anything” (mine too! Mainly because she’s not my maid). I mean, how is that not FUNNY AS HELL and worth the time I take to check this out?
But I have a free stat counter, and I’m told by The Daver that there are such programs that you pay for out there. Since I am the Resident Cheap Ass, I don’t like to pay for things that I don’t have to. Anyone out there who does pay for one and can recommend it?
If you don’t have an answer to either of my pathetic and mewling questions, tell me this: do you have any big Labor Day plans with which you can make me feel like a lame-wad for sitting at home on my butt?
And hey, will you send some good vibes to my Southerly friends who I have just learned are now evacuating for Gustav? Of course, it’s the 3rd anniversary of That Bitch Katrina.
So, I got tagged by two of my good buddies to do a meme I’ve done a billion times before. What’s scariest is that I can STILL come up with weird things about me to go on and on and on about. Color me happily self-indulgent.
CLC and Holli, this one’s for you.
The Rules: Mention six quirky, yet boring, unspectacular details about yourself (wait, aren’t they all?).
1). I am deathly terrified of eyeballs. When I was in nursing school, we did a whole unit on Eye Disorders and The Fucked Up Things That Can Happen To Them, complete with pictures to illustrate the disorder. While I could handle sticking my hand into a gaping, festering surgical hole on a patient’s abdomen, I couldn’t handle looking at the Gross Eye Problems (yes, that’s a technical term).
2) I have a female relative, a great-great-great…ad nauseum grandmother on my mother’s side. Unfascinating to say the least.
Until she was stoned to death during the Salem Witch Trials of 1692.
Her name, according to familial sources was also Rebecca.
3) I wanted a baby sister when I was about 3, and since my mother had already been “fixed” (apparently after seeing my ugly newborn face), I resorted to the next best thing.
My retarded cat named Biscuit.
I used to dress the cat and her 4 brain cells in my old baby clothes and stuff her into a doll’s carriage. She is the reason for the cross-hatching of scars on my torso. I was, apparently, also in possession of a mere 4 brain cells.
4) I am currently obsessed with food and despite being asked every 2.5 minutes if I’d had any during my last two pregnancies, this is the first time I’ve had major cravings. I have a major addiction to Flavor Ice, along with anything tomato based (although NEVER raw tomatoes. *shudder, shudder*).
It’s actually more obnoxious than you’d think.
5) I may have to raffle off chances to Name Aunt Becky’s Sausage when the time comes. I broke down and bought a baby names book because we’re so desperate, which boasts having something like 5,000 names. Sadly, they don’t distinguish between names that SUCK and names that don’t.
Any good names you can think of? The stipulations are as follows:
Names cannot be Benjamin, Alexander, Joseph or Maxwell. Also, not David or Rebecca.
Names cannot begin with an H and preferably not an A, B, R or D.
The big anatomy scan is scheduled for September 17, so I’ll have more stipulations (God, I am one demanding BITCH) then. Mainly, “must be boy or girl name.”
6) When I was a kid, I’d buy or be gifted boxes of crayons. For some reason, I loved looking at them best in their neat little rows, lined up perfectly and unsullied by my inexpert coloring. I’d always save them for the Perfect Coloring Sheet, especially my favorite colors (namely: pink.).
Once they were used, I’d be less enchanted by their imperfect nubs and want to get a fresh new box. Never did I use the nubs to color. Needless to say, I was not an artistic sort of child.
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I’m supposed to tag some of you to do this meme, but I never do. Instead, I ask that you tell me one interesting factoid about YOU. Or it can be something UNinteresting. Doesn’t matter to me. And you, YES YOU, you lurker out there, hiding in the shadow of google reader. C’mon out and play!
First off, let me say a big thank you to anyone who thought enough of me to email me or send me some good vibrations. The Internet is a strange and wonderful place, and I am honestly tickled pink that you guys would care enough to think of me. I’d elaborate further and beg for support since I was born lacking a filter (it’s genetic, I’m assured), but it’s not my issue and it’s not for me to discuss.
*air smootches to you all*
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It may come as a shock to absolutely no one that my parents were hippies. Well, considering how I turned out, it may come as a shock to everyone, but I digress. I was born into a family who grew their own veggies, churned their own butter (yes, seriously), made their own maple syrup and shopped at real health food stores before shopping at Whole Foods became trendy.
We were organic before it was hip and trendy.
I cut my teeth on Free to Be You And Me and Pink Floyd’s The Wall, and could probably sing any number of anti-war songs to you, songs you’ve probably never heard of, even after years of Britney Spears and bubble gum pop have melted my brain.
Of course, I am nothing like this. My favorite food is McDonald’s (I am also apparently trashy), I genuinely like music that has no deeper meaning than the same repetitive beats, and am over-archingly as shallow as pond scum (or is pond scum deep?). The more processed, pasteurized food-like substitutes, the better.
Now, 5 years ago, Ben was embroiled in many times weekly therapy for his autistic issues (hate of the term “problem”) and I was meeting fairly often with the Early Intervention coordinators. During one of those meetings it was brought up that Ben should be immediately enrolled in preschool. For Special Needs kids. It was through the state, and I considered it for awhile.
Daver and I came to the conclusion that we were going to look into preschools, but probably something more private than that. We ended up at a Montessori school in a nearby town built on several acres, and after we were accepted he enrolled at age three.
Turned out to be one of the smartest decisions we’ve ever made (save for the deep fryer we never bought. That was smarter. Can you imagine the mess?) and Ben thrived. Some of the issues we had with him were subdued to the point that it was barely perceptible to those not in the know about his diagnosis, and others were eliminated altogether.
(For anyone who didn’t know, I am now telling you the issues with food and more explicitly his peanut butter sandwich are directly related to his autism. NOT just being an asshole picky kid (that would have been me). So, sucking it up and dealing with it is not the same as taking a binkie away from a 4 year old.)
Ben stayed at that school for years, and until he reached the elementary years, we were thrilled by it. Suddenly, last year however, when we had to begin to pack his own lunch, it became glaringly apparent just how unlike the rest of the school our family was. We were now bubble gum pop versus the folk singers. Turns out my years of being raised as a hippie didn’t do much except for show me how little of my upbringing I’d retained.
Without so much as a note home to parents, it was expected that we were to psychically know what was Forbidden To Pack and what was not. I’d never have packed a Twinkie or a Ding Dong, a Kool Aid or a bag of Fritos, but THAT WASN’T ENOUGH. I mistakenly bought him some Milano cookies for his first day as a big old first grader, and he came home to inform me that he was told that he couldn’t eat them. By his teacher. In front of the class.
Which was MY fault, not Ben’s, yet he was literally cowering from the cookies (he has a high regard for authority, something his mother could stand to learn from). But the other parents were as crunchy granola people as my parent’s had been, so the issues were squarely my own to deal with. We just didn’t fit in there, not anymore.
Over and over, these situations happened, I’d pack something dumb, he’d pay for it. I’d try to contact the school only to be ignored. There is, of course, more to the story than I’m telling you, but for brevity’s sake, I’ll choose to be, well, briefer than normal.
The Nut Ban! was just the icing on the cake for us. It was just over. Time to move on.
Ben started his first day of public school today, complete with hot lunch program and peanut free TABLES at school, and while I’m thrilled that this will be such a good opportunity for him, I’m equally nervous. I hope we made the right decision.
(They totally had Capri-Sun on the hot lunch menu. I’m pumped.)
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