Ass Soup & Crack'ers.

Why do people take baths together? Why, in the name of the Father, the son, and the holy toast, why?

Isn't it just sitting there stewing in what I have deemed Ass Soup?

Oooh. Nothing says I love you like butt-soap froth on your face.

Solo baths are bad enough. When I want to take a bath, I shower first. It's just a Thing I Do. I wash all my bits in the shower, and then I soak in the tub, fresh as the proverbial daisy. I realize this is just too much effort for the vast majority of the American Public at Large. That it just doesn't occur to people to wash their asses before soaking in butt stew. But to soak with another person in butt stew, hiney goulash, or ass soup...it just--I--you can't--you must--you fucking have to realize, THAT'S. JUST. GROSS.

Because...because...

ASS SOUP.

Now listen. I've done it. I've taken baths with boys before. WHOA, SHOCKER.

But I have. I've done it. And it was que romántica, especially as we lounged there to a CD full of soft Celtic tunes. But that was years ago, long before my OCD took a sharp turn for the worse.

And now, those romantic baths of yore are Right Out. Right out. Sorry, husband.

We also have a hot tub, and even though that bitch is chlorifuckinated to the max, I STILL have a hard time soaking in it with someone.

Before heading out to go lounge in it for a bit with my main man, I will ask nonchalantly, "How's your ass?" And he will answer without hesitation, "Pristine." Because he knows I don't even want to soak in a hot tub full of CHLORINE BLEACH-WATER with someone else's ass. That's OCD for ya.

[I'm sorry, I'd add one of my awesome pictures here, but Googling "two butts in a hot tub" did not yield any image results that I want my husband to see when he reads my blog. Sorry honey."]


Wait! Here's a safe one.

 What what, chicken butt!!

And another!

If that don't want to make you soak in butt stew, I don't know what will.

But still. All you people who take baths with your significant others. How do you do it? I've done it, in the ancient past, but remind me: How do you do it? Doesn't it bother you? Do you mind? Do you shower first? Will you still do it now that I've brought it to your attention? Will you now wonder, WWJD (What Would Jo Do)? Will you now forevermore be a little squicked out by sitting in bum-bum chowder? You're welcome.

Fun Friendly Phobic Fact Friday!

Please, for the love of God, close the toilet seat before you flush it. When you flush, microparticles of toilet water (and whatever was in the toilet) are aerosolized and are sprayed up to several feet away, landing on you countertops, your hair brush, your cup of water, and your...*dry heaves* your toothbrush. So keep these items as far from the toilet as you can, and always, always close the lid before flushing.

PS: Don't forget to ask me questions in our Q & A session!!

Q & A

Let's do a Q & A session. The first of many. I'm sure I'll do this again later.

But I'm curious, do you have any questions for me? Some of you ask questions in the comments, which I always enjoy. They either get me thinking, or they make me smile because they are already topics I plan to discuss and I'm like, "Great minds think alike, baby!"

So I'll leave this open today. Is there anything, anything at all, you wonder about?

Ask away, child. Ask away. Feel free to ask anonymously too. I'll answer in another post later.

You Had Me at Purell. You Had Me at Purell.

So there's apparently a new show out there called Suburgatory, and I know nothing about it, but I'll tell you what, in a mere 8 seconds, it won me over. I was fast-forwarding through the commercials of my TiVoed Dancing With the Stars, when suddenly my keen eye caught something lovely: a glimpse of Purell. I'd know it anywhere, even fast-forwarding on the fastest speed my remote control would take me. I stopped and quickly rewound, only to see a promo for this new show, and all it took for my heart to be won forever was to see a soccer mom giddily Purell-down the stripper bar before doing a brush-your-teeth dance routine on stage. Forget Dancing With the Stars. My heart now belongs to Suburgatory.

That. Is. Me.

Only Blonde.

These people. Are. You. 

After reading every one of my blogs about the Things I Do.

...I'm OK with that.

Monday Musings.

So I had someone unfriend me from another social networking site in a response to what I can only assume was my last blog. Guess they think it's inappropriate to dislike your sick child.

Just doing my best to alienate my small group of readers. Bygones.

---

Anyway, it's Monday and you know what that means. It's time to muse.

I've always been curious...Do germs stick to dry cloth? Sounds stupid but...I mean...do they? Like, specifically, if you only briefly touch something with your sleeve? Kind of like the five-second rule. I'm sure they do, but to what extent?

THE RAECH says they do.

In fact, she recommends changing your kids' clothing after school to cut down on germs. She would appreciate that I already strip my kid bareass nekkid the very milisecond second she walks through the door after preschool, and toss that shit in the washer on hot immed.

But anyway, see, I always open doors with my sleeve if I have no paper towel or something, and, it's not like I then proceed to lick my sleeve, and I don't consider it clean, per se, but I feel a lot better about my sleeve than I would my bare hand if I'd touched the doorknob. So, to what extent do germs really stick to cloth?

One wonders.

Mom of the Year.

Can I just tell you all what a terrible mother I am?

Here's why.

When my older kid gets sick, I don't immediately feel the urge to rush to her and smother her with hugs and kisses and soup and honey; I feel like backing away slowly and making the sign of the cross and saying a prayer to the Patron Saint of Boogers that I don't get what she has. I don't want to cuddle her on the couch; I want her--or rather, what she has--to stay far far away. When she's sick, I feel almost like she's poison. That's why I am a terrible, terrible mother. When she's sick, I feel like my oldest child is poison.

I get so terribly afraid that she will make me sick, but only because if she makes me sick, I will make the baby sick. It's not really about me, it's about the baby. I don't really care if I get sick, even though ever since I broke my nose* in 2004 the slightest stuffy nose hits me HARD. But it's all about the baby Naomi. I'm so worried that she will get sick and, worst case scenario, stop breathing or that she will get sick and, best case scenario, have a terribly difficult week, that when Maya gets sick, I panic. I worry that she will infect the entire family, one by one, zombie like.

* A long, sordid tale, too complicated for this blog.

Just writing these words makes me know how awful I am, makes me believe it. I don't need anyone else to confirm it, I already know it. I mean, what kind of person thinks their poor sick firstborn is poisonous? Who doesn't feel that motherly urge to cuddle her sweet sick baby? I know I used to feel it, I know it for sure. I used to feel that motherly urge, and now I don't. Now I'm afraid of my own kid when she gets sick.

I'll tell you a tale, a tale of pre-all-OCD*-Jo.

* It just so happens that your friend here used to be only mostly OCD. There's a big difference between mostly OCD and all OCD.

I remember specifically, when Maya was just over a year old, she got very sick with Roseola. She had a high fever and was just about to break out in spots, and she was miserable. Now, Maya was not a cuddly child, not by any stretch of the imagination. She would not give in to hugs or kisses, would not cuddle us at all. AT ALL. So when she was horribly sick with a 105-degree fever and wanted nothing else but to lounge in my arms for hours, poor sickly thing, I lapped it up. I was sad for her and scared for her, but loved the cuddle time. Perhaps because I didn't have a younger baby in the house to worry about. Or else my disorder just hadn't peaked yet. All I know is I cuddled that cuddlebug like there was no tomorrow. 

Behold, poor sweet sick Maya:

Poor baby. Oh how I cuddled her. I didn't give a thought to catching what she had even before I knew it was Roseola and I would not catch it. I cuddled her.

But something has changed over the years. I've gotten much worse, and I've also had another baby, and now, I don't know, my aim is to protect the littlest one. At the expense of my biggest one, I guess. Because that's how I roll.

So I am a terrible mother. I am terrible because my child is sick. She is sick with a bad chest-cold, and when I hear her cough horribly and gag with phlegm to the point of almost vomiting, I don't immediately run to comfort her, I cringe and flinch. I CRINGE AND FLINCH. Who does that? Me, I guess. OCD Me. Mother of the Fucking Year over here.

---

Literally, as I was writing this last night, Maya woke up from her nap, and I tried to give her love. My kind of love. OCD love. I hugged her, parked her in front of Wow Wow Wubbzy with her 5-hour-old refrigerated peppermint vanilla-bean frappuccino (because nothing says I Love You like leftover refrigerated frappuccino) and hope she'll keep coughing into her elbow and won't infect the baby.

Sigh.

lol. Guess who was right to be panicked that her kid was gonna catch something from trick-or-treating?

Let's do the math. Halloween was Monday, and here we are with a sick kid three days later. Halloween plus three plus sick equals...yep.

I'm just saying.

On a Serious Note.

Well, I managed to survive Halloween, barely. I really did have several moments of absolute panic when I thought of my kid reaching in all those bowls of candy. Like, full-blown anxiety attacks. And now I think I'm going to have to either wash my hands every single time after touching any of the candy to open for my daughter, or else put the candy away for a couple of weeks until I think all the potential cold germs have died slow suffering deaths. That doesn't account for the bum-bum germs on the candy though. Do bum-bum germs ever die?

---

I'm still seeing my doctor to try to get this OCD under control. So far she's got me on a cocktail of medications so wild that it would blow your mind and destroy your pansy liver, but you see, my liver is made of steel. Things don't affect me like they affect the typical person: caffeine, alcohol, painkillers, all medication really. And that sucks.

Certain symptoms of mine are much more under control (I was seeing her for atypical depression as well, so long as we're airing my dirty laundry), but the OCD is completely untouched. I'm on 3982743279.5 drugs and my OCD is all, "IN YOUR FACE, SUCKER! You can't TOUCH me!!"

And I'm on some hardcore shit. I take all these pills and sometimes more each day:

If you look at this, doesn't this kind of look like a sideways infinity symbol? Fitting, no?

And do you think they're working for my OCD? In a word:

That is to say, 

So I don't know what to tell ya. I'm still seeing my doc on a regular basis, and we're still tweaking this and increasing that and adding this, but right now, OCD still has the upper hand, and I still constantly tell Maya "DON'T TOUCH!" and use hand sani up to my elbows 259 times a day and shroud my baby in Saran-wrap and so forth.

Honestly, I've lost faith. When motherfucking KLONOPIN didn't do jack squat for me, I lost faith. I truly believe nothing can calm down my OCD symptoms, mostly because, see, I still believe I'm right about the things I'm afraid of. I still believe know there ARE germs on things like restaurant tables and ketchup bottles and McPlaguePlaces and people's hands and doorknobs, etc. I will never be OK with my baby slobbering on a shopping cart handle or making out with a Saint Bernard.

There's no drug that will make me forget that there are germs on things, and I don't think there are any drugs that will make me be OK with me or my family ingesting or spreading about those germs or not washing them off at our earliest convenience.

When I was seeing a shrink about this, he said there was a little tiny blue area of the brain responsible for panic or fear or worry or concern that you could turn up or turn down. He said mine was obviously cranked way, way up. (Thank you Captain Obvious!! Now here's 300 American dollars for your diagnosis).

He said that medication could easily crank this "blue area" of my brain down. He prescribed meds. Then later my other doctor prescribed meds. Lots of meds. Lots and lots of meds. But it's just not working. I don't think anything can crank it down. I really don't. I think the little blue area of my brain will stay cranked up to red. Code Red. Forever.

I really do feel hopeless about it all.

It's Time for Panic. IT'S PANIC TIME.

AM COMPLETELY COMPLETELY PANICKING ABOUT MY CHILD TRICK-OR-TREATING IN A COUPLE HOURS


ALL THOSE LITTLE TINY GRUBBY HANDS IN ALL THOSE BUCKETS OF CANDY


SO MANY HANDS


COVERED WITH SO MANY BUM-BUM GERMS


OH GOD ALL THE BUM-BUM GERMS


ON ALL THE HANDS


THE SNEEZES


THE RUNNY NOSES


GERMS ALL OVER THE CANDY


ALL THE GERMS


ALL THE GERMS


SOMEONE TALK ME DOWN

/END TRANS

Monday Musings.

If the sun is a natural disinfectant, why does everything outside remain so full of germs?

Dammit, why did I Google-Image "dirty" without the safe-filter?

With the sun pounding down on it, why is everything still so...dirty? 

Like...dirt?

And...dog doo?

And...hot tin slides?

One wonders.

Fun Friendly Phobic Fact Friday!

Ah, the casual, comfortable flip-flop: A symbol of summertime, an emblem of relaxation — and a harbinger of death?

93% of flip-flops worn over the course of a summer will end up with fecal matter on them. 20% will have E. Coli. Staph was also found. And "feces, urine, spit, vomit, animal droppings were all present." Furthermore, the film of grime (you know, the "tan line of dirt") that coats your feet at the end of a day of flip-flopping around town is some dangerous stuff, and if you happen to have a cut or open sore on your foot, you could actually be in danger of getting a serious infection.

So if you flip-flop, consider washing your feet upon arriving home, or do like I do and take an all-purpose Sani-Kids wipe to your grimy piggies.

I Should Have Gone Dressed as Sad Panda.

So yesterday was Trick-or-Treat day at my husband's workplace. I got the kids all ready--Maya was a frog and Naomi was a kitty, and we were to go office to office to collect treats. Sounds simple, right?

My big girl, with her hair sprayed frog-green and wearing her frog-green Converse shoes.

My little girl, with her fivehead. Shit, that's a sixhead.

She got that sixhead from her daddy:

But I digress.

So, OK. You knew the second I started this entry that I would be talking about how this trick-or-treating event wound up being a stressful time for me. But the stress started long before the actual trick-or-treating.

• First, while we were still at home, Maya wouldn't shut up about OMG MOM WHEN ARE WE GOING TO TRICK OR TREAT? But I mean, I can't fault her for that. She's a kid. Still, having to say, "At three o'clock" or "in four hours" or "in two hours" or "IN TWENTY FUCKING MINUTES SHUT YOUR TRAP" gets old.

• Second, I couldn't find the black sweater that I wanted to put over Naomi's leotard. My Incredible Hulk of a seven-month-old is wearing a hand-me-down black leotard that we just inherited from an Incredible Hulk of a 5-year-old, and it fits her, so help me God it fits her. Must have been those 'roids I was on whilst pregnant. But the leotard is sleeveless, so I wanted to have her also wear Maya's tiny little half-sweater--you know, those dumb things that people wear that make you think, "Where's the rest of it" or "I hope you paid half price for that bitch"?

We have one of those in black, but we bought it size-wise to fit Maya like a regular sweater, just with the sleeves rolled up a bit, so it wasn't all, why does your sweater only cover your boobs?

Anyway, couldn't find it. Instead of thinking "Oh, I'll use the pink sweater" like many of you would think, I decide to full-on panic. Because I need the BLACK SWEATER. The black one. To match her black leotard. So I panic and race around the house and tear things apart to try to find the BLACK SWEATER. Still can't find it. Fuckballs.

Then I have a burst of inspiration and think, "Say, didn't my firstborn wear a black long-sleeved shirt for Halloween one time?"

Annswer: Yes, she did, two years in a row, actually.

Yes, I know she looks like Chris Farley there. Shut your face.

So Maya wore that fucker two years in a row, and I sorted all her clothes so that Naomi would have them at appropriate times and seasons. SO WHY COULDN'T I FUCKING FIND IT?! WHY JESUS HAROLD CHRIST WHY??

OK. I finally found that got-damn black Halloween shirt, and I put it under Noey's leotard. Crisis narrowly averted, stress mode still on high. Because you can't just turn that shit off.

• Then we load up the car with kids, clothes, bottles, hand sani, sani-hands, etc., and we're a goodly distance down the road when I think "FUUUUUUUUUCK! Did I remember Noey's kitty ears?!" I pull over and look through the stuff in the back. I did. I did remember Noey's kitty ears. See?

Noey's all, "I got Daddy's sixhead, but I got Mommy's deviousness...."

• OK then. We get back on the road. Then, THEN, 2/3 of the long-ass way there, suddenly Maya tells me she's about to throw up. I haul ass off the freeway, have nightmarish visions of the first time we did this (when Maya was two years old and actually did randomly vomit all over her giraffe suit 2/3 of the way to my husband's workplace and I had no working cellphone or towels or anything at all to remedy the situation), and this time, sweat pouring from my brow, I basically tell her, "If you're gonna spew, spew in this" and hand her the trick-or-treating bucket.

• After we get back on the freeway, we are almost to my husband's workplace when Maya once again is screaming in either agony or misery or nausea, and I yank my car off the side of the road, envisioning spewage from here to right over there, and once safely on the shoulder, I ask her to take one finger and point to exactly where it hurts. She is SCREAMING in pain and she points basically what amounts to her mother. fucking. appendix. Are you kidding me? Are you? Are you??

So we sit there awhile, I keep asking her how she's doing, and her story changes, and she's now not at death's door any longer, and finally I am confident that she's OK and doesn't need emergency surgery and we continue to my husband's workplace. The agreed-upon deal was, I will park and call him from the parking lot and he will come fetch us, since his workplace is a very secure situash and I cannot just enter, I will need to be escorted inside. So I circle the lot once or twice, and I see a few parking spots that you could park this in:

But nothing else. Certainly not my, ahem, SUV. (Sorry environment.) Because the parking spots are yay-big:

and the people parking are dicknuggets who take up 1.5 spots each. So I call my husband needing to ask, "Howdy pardner, where the fuck does one put their car when there's nowhere to go in this particular lot, see?" No answer. No answer on his cell, NATURALLY, because whenever I NEED him on the phone, there is NEVER an answer. Ever. Never.  Whenever I call him on his fucking motherfucking fucking fuckball of a fucking cellfuckingphone, he doesn't fucking answer. And it enrages me like flames. It-it- the f--it--flame--flames. Flames, on the side of my face, breathing-breathle--heaving breaths. Heaving breaths...Breathing...

FLAMES.

FUCK. So I circle the lot 283974893476034 more times, and call his cell 283974893476033 more times, and meanwhile my kid is once again telling me her "neck hurts and she's going to barf" and WHAT AM I GOING TO DO??!

Finally I get Child Alpha calmed down, load Child Beta into her stroller, collect everything I think I need (Sani-Kids, Purell, kitty ears, etc.), but naturally forget her bottles, which we'll need later but won't have, and walk into the reception area, hoping they know my husband's direct desk phone number because HE WON'T FUCKING ANSWER HIS CELL EVEN THOUGH HE'S EXPECTING OUR CALL AND WE ARE ON TIME DOWN TO THE MILISECOND (sorry, someone's still bitter), but luckily, as I am about to request he be paged, he sheepishly comes down a couple floors and greets us there.

OK. So from there, we start the actual trick-or-treating. And the real stress can begin. Up until now it was just shenanigans.

• You see, NOW, I have to meet my husband's coworkers (which means handshakes galore, OH MY FUCKING GOD, and one lady's hand was not only cold but WET).

• In particular, I have to meet my husband's directly-across-the-hall teammate, who happens to be fucking beautiful, a living version of Jasmine, but even more fair and more exotic, and who I know comes in to sink into his office couch and chat with him on the regular and ask his opinion on everything under the sun, which I find most inappropriate.

Oh and how glad I am that he gets to stare at her through their windows across the hallway all day long, every day, while I'm at home with two-day-old hair and wearing sweatpants and barfed-on shirts.

• Anyway. After the Jasmine encounter, which left me feeling oh-so confident and sexually desirable, then we trick-or-treat, going office-to-office.  I have to observe as my kid digs out candy from a thousand bowls throughout three floors of the enormous building (where every bowl has seen the likes of 59027592743 other kids' sticky nasty gross hands).

• And then I have to sit there silently while Maya makes projects (like decorating mini-pumpkins by using glue and pens and stickers and things that 239087325 other kids have touched).

• The baby by now is getting antsy and hungry, and I realize I've left her bottles in the car way the hell downstairs and outside in the lot. Great. More things to stress over. A grumpy baby and no bottles.

• And finally we all have to eat snacks like mini-wieners wrapped in puff pastry (served by using spoons and forks and tongs that 923839875 other people have spooned and forked and tonged with, in containers no doubt kept below the proper safe temperature, but who's counting).

It is at this point that my brain is in cold sweats and my underarms need pantyliners. My husband asks me if I am OK and I manage to shake my head and squeak, "No."

Why is this so hard for me? All it is is dressing my kids up (adorably so), driving 25 miles, going door-to-door at a large office, getting free candy (and who doesn't love free candy? except that I am thinking, "how am I going to disinfect every single piece of it?), making some pumpkin art, going "fishing" for some bracelets, and snacking on pigs in a blanket? This was just trick-or-treating. What is so hard about this?? I don't know, but I was freaking out. FREAKING OUT. 

This. Is. My. Life.