Kitten day! Kitten day! Kitten is here!

Yesterday was KITTEN DAY!! It’s sort of like a national holiday, celebrated mainly by quickly digging out a litter pan and scooping your giant cat’s used (but clean) litter into it. And calling it good. Because you already have an enormous cat AND a parrot. And dust mites, if they count. Although, I usually don’t whip out the electron microscope to show friends my mites.

Caribou is ELATED, and spent a sleepless night listening to every eek, mew and breath of the wee little thing.

We named her Mouse, but Antoine has decided it’s not abbreviation-able. I need to post a picture. 

Little Mouse is the sweetest, cuddliest little wad of fur. 

However, Mouse did a very strange thing. She laid on her side, paralyzed, and then I realized she’d pooped. Cute, no? I think she’s backed up. Now you know the first sentence Antoine heard when I picked him up from work today. 

Me: “Hey! The cat laid on its side and when it got up there were two tiny, wee little turds on the ground. Weird, huh?

Him: “I see a vet bill in our future.”

Bebe, our fatso cat, is thrilled. And by thrilled, I mean a hissing, growling beyotch with not a single maternal bone in her Paula-Deen-Fried-Butter self.

Sunday I start my new job! I get to take the train to Vancouver, B.C., for a week of training. This involves LOTS of samples (my job involves hocking nouns). Very exciting. Ohhhh Canadaaaaaaa. How I love your bacon. Actually, not. But I wanted to say SOMETHING nice about our kind neighbors.

Alright … going to snuggle with my domesticated farm and Antoine and watch X Files, Season One. Yeaaaah! 

© Wonky Nostrils and Taming Flamingoes, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to blog author and Taming Flamingoes with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Breaking flamingo sabbatical: I’m baaaaack

I can’t make trees turn into child-abducting monsters à la Poltergeist, but alas I am back indeed after a week (or so) doing flamingoish things, namely putting my wings in my ears and saying “la la la la la” when someone would mention my blog.

Sometimes, you just need a break.

This blog is dedicated to DD, a friend and former coworker who bugged me enough to get me to write this. Thanks, DD. You were always there for me when my keyboard would start smoldering and melting, or when I decided one day that I wanted a keyboard that was “clickier” than the one I had. You put up with my technological whims. Now I’m glad I can be here for you.

German and I went to a playground on Mercer Island the other day. We call it the fire engine park because of a structure that looks like … a fire engine.

On the day we went, the park was infested with Nanny State parents hell-bent on sucking all the fun out of the playground.

Here’s how it happened: So, German is running ahead of me to this awesome playground as children are wont to do. He’s far ahead of me, but I can still see him. This park is huge, and he was running in the giant grassy field to the play structure, which must have been designed by someone who hates children.

It’s all brick, steel and concrete. It’s totally awesome and old school, and German loves it. One small, newer part features the aforementioned fire engine slide and monkey bars.

When I was a kid, playgrounds were made of glass shards, twisted metal and stone. Sounds about right.

Ahead of me is some old fart of a dude, geriatric tush saggin’ in his REI multi-pocketed shorts, feet protected from this cruel world with Tevas and socks (natch).

Sprinting ahead of Gramps was his grandson, who looked to be about German’s age.

“Don’t run so fast!” Gramps yelled at his oblivious offspring, who was leaving a rooster tail of gravel in his wake.

With the social skills possessed only by children, the two kids spotted each other, didn’t bother learning names and began engaging in the favorite pastime of four-year-old boys: Monsters and chase.

I settled into my sideline spot, watching the pair tear around the brick-concrete-steel playground of death. Gramps did the same, a few yards away.

Being old and having seen the world, one might think ol’ Gramps would be all about his kin essplorin’ the world with fearless abandon.

But no.

Like a giant confused fuddy duddy, Gramps would swivel his wrinkly head around looking for the streak of motion denoting his grandson and German.

“Where did you go?!” he’d demand, baffled, as the children dashed by him.

“That was an awfully big jump!” he declared after Sonny leapt from the last tier on a big toy. The distance? Eighteen inches, give or take a few.

Between paranoid Gramps and I was a mother of two twin boys.

She was just a vision.

She was decked out in mom jeans, big puffy running shoes, a flannel shirt and (the crowning glory) a giant floppy nylon hat. Oh, and a backpack. The Urban Hiker can’t be without a backpack.

Ugly hat.

Her twins were a year and a half old, I heard her tell Gramps, and were equally fashioned in flannel and jeans. (Kurt Cobain is rolling in his grave).

She said, non-chalantly, that her and her toddlers just hiked a mile and a half at Mercer Slough. First of all, the slough is not uphill so cannot be a true hike. Secondly, who has the patience to drag babes in diapers, whose strides are no farther than a foot, a mile and a half? Not I, Urban Hiker. Not I.

While listening to her drivel, I deduced she’s one of those parents who talks about letting their kids explore and be free while warning them about razor blades in grass.

Hovering a hands-width from her precious snowflakes, she was a bubble of joykill ensuring no harm — or exploration or freedom — befalls her nestlings.

Meantime, German and Sonny are racing around like puppies. At one point, the boys chased each other onto the fire engine structure.

This is where they got all kinds of crazy, to hear Urban Hiker tell it.

German went down the slide HEAD FIRST.

This slide, which is about, oh, four feet off the ground, is enough to tighten the sphincters of many a ridiculous parent. Feet first? Maybe for your mamby pamby milk toast kid. Suck it, hiker mom.

That is a real picture of the actual slide.

Let me lay this out. German, alone, goes down head first.

Gramps huffs and puffs and gives his pacemaker a thrill.

Urban Hiker’s eyes widen as if she’s spotted a rare butterfly to tell her book group about.

This is my kid, not theirs, and they both appeared as if they were passing kidney stones.

“Oh, no no no,” declared Urban Hiker. “Feet first. Feet first sounds good to me.”

I laughed.

“Sorry to use my teacher voice, but I used to be a teacher,” she said with a smug nod. Gramps was dazzled at her display of maternal protection toward a chick who wasn’t her own and was left to — gasp — explore various ways to locomote on an inclined plane.

My lip curled into an Elvis-like sneer.

“German has cat-like reflexes, and I’m not worried about him going down a slide head first,” I told Urban Hiker.

“He’s a kid and this is a park,” I added, in case she forgot.

I couldn’t believe a stranger was telling my child to go down feet first.

While this was playing out, Gramps totally lost sight of his grandson. Sonny dashed away, far, far away, leaving a befuddled Gramps one Jitterbug phone call away from reporting the child missing.

Thankfully, it was time for German and I to get Caribou from school.

These people, I swear.

Parents need to realize they’re rearing human beings, and that it’s okay for them to fall down or skin a knee or eat a bug.

Poor kids will never know the thrill of … anything, I suppose.

Hope Urban Hiker can find her parental cajones on her next outing. Just put them in that backpack, right?

© Wonky Nostrils and Taming Flamingoes, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to blog author and Taming Flamingoes with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Rambling like a rose

As Eddie said, I’m still alive!

Where’s Wonky been? Oh, you know, right here.

I saw a billboard the other day, saying that the city of Seattle would boot cars belonging to anyone with four or more unpaid parking tickets.

1. This ordinance is skewed toward people without means, and is oppressing them. The Man is wrong, man.
2. People with unpaid parking tickets probably don’t have the money to pay them. Why else would someone NOT pay their parking tickets?
3. I don’t park in Seattle, so I don’t have a horse in this race (jussayin’).
4. In my world, I’d say ANYONE with four or more tickets, unpaid or not, ought to have their car booted. Just because someone can pay to park illegally every day doesn’t mean it’s OK since they can pay for it. It’s like saying, “Go ahead and do the wrong thing. As long as you can pay your way out of it you can continue to make this mistake over and over.”
5. Rich and poor deserve the unhappiness of discovering The Boot.
6. Because fairness rules in Wonky’s World.
7. Moving on.

All that laundry I wished would fold itself? Those 194 loads? Well, not that many, but it felt like it. I washed, folded and put away each piece. Organized my closets. Mopped the floors. I just unplugged, and it felt great!

During the past few days, I took the liberty to watch movies I’d not seen before. Namely, The Graduate, Girl, Interrupted, Precious and, er, I forget. Nevertheless, I kept the TV on while I cleaned. It’s a luxury I usually don’t indulge in — we don’t have cable, just Netflix. I’d usually rather read than watch TV.

Now the kiddos are here, and I’m so thankful. German has decided he likes to wear a bandanna on his head like Kid Rock or Lynard Skynard. He said he looks like a rocker, and that he is awesome. I agree.

Caribou is just as thoughtful and sweet as ever, and thank goodness she has no desire to wear bad-ass bandannas.

Lulu the possessed parrot is screaming her little heart out, yodeling with reckless abandon (and a wicked-awesome vibrato). Bebe the fat cat has worn a spot bare on her stomach — the spot she uses to get leverage to clean herself.

Antoine, sweet and wonderful Antoine, is off this weekend so we’ll all be able to pal around town. The kids, who love and miss their Antoine when he’s at work, are thrilled (so is their mom).

My dear friend Heidi, I found out, is only five hours away. FIVE HOURS! This is excellent news, because it means I can take the kiddos for a visit! Yay!

Alright. So if I don’t post for days, it only means I’m totally lazy and uncommitted to writing. Heheheheh.

Also, I’m cooking two chickens tonight. They’re already dead and bagged. Just wanted everyone to know what’s for dinner.

Bacock!

© Wonky Nostrils and Taming Flamingoes, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to blog author and Taming Flamingoes with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Ants in thy pants, deep thoughts

Whenever anxiety gets me all a-twitter, what do I do? I clean.

Of course, the cleaning follows the numerous attempts to avenge anxiety by napping, eating, having a glass of wine, maybe a bath and deep-breathing exercises. But when all else fails, I clean.

Today I rearranged the bedroom. Again. And vacuumed. Did a load of whites. Wished upon wishes that Antoine was here.

I’m feeling a wee bit better. There’s this feeling, the anxiety, that attacks and pounces upon me like a rabies-ravaged jungle kitten.

“Mew!” it squeaks, lunging for my heart.

It squeezes my heart into beating as if I’ve just stolen something from King Hammurabi. It sucks all the breath from my lungs. And then, for dessert, it grabs hold of my stomach and flops it around shaking it like a pit bull with a steak. Eeep.

I’m feeling lonely and overwhelmed, but thank god I get to go back to work soon. Yay! I don’t have to be cooped in my apartment, all alone but for a bird and cat! Hooray! I can wear makeup and normal clothes!

Sure, I could do those things now, but it’s much more meaningful to save bathing, brushing your teeth and waxing your eyebrows for a special occasion. Like, say, a job.

Golly, I love the smell of summer. It’s wafting through the open window right now, and it’s lovely.

Alright. I’m down to views in the teens, so I’m vitally aware my blog is sucking. I’m just not feeling it lately. Been worrying about money, the kids, loads of things. And then I avoid the blog til the last minute. And end up with something like this.

You know, I wish there was a nude beach around here.

Nothing is as amusing as people watching, and I’d totally get naked to watch other people be naked. Not for any prurient interest, because you know they’d be mostly old men. But just to see how a group of people walk around, all nonchalant, pretending they’re not naked. Or maybe they really don’t see the lady with the goiter and the guy with the two different sized nuts. Huh.

© Wonky Nostrils and Taming Flamingoes, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to blog author and Taming Flamingoes with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Naughty flamingo tries the Master Cleanse?

I am being such a naughty flamingo. I took Mother’s Day off from blogging, simply because I was too busy doing fun mommish things. Like watch my children swim in a freezing-cold lake. How are children able to tolerate the cold so well?! Always amazes me. Had a beautiful day, a wonderful weekend and have a totally destroyed house to show for it.

Today, and lately (avid readers can probably tell) blogs have fallen into the “meh” category. Like a wallflower at a dance, they’re there but not really there. You know?

I attribute this to one thing: Fights.

Yes, fights. Spats. Disagreements. Try as I might to not let people — especially people within my inner-circle of trust (thanks, Meet the Parents) — sully my blogging, they have.

Who is this person? Hushed whispers bounce off every hard surface.

I’ll tell you this: It is She Who Can Not Be Named. Just one person, and POOF. I’m off track.

So I’ve been in blog-land limbo. How much do I care? Haven’t figured that out yet.

In the meantime, I’ve just been giving myself daily pep talks (works to some degree).

I’ve also been focusing on the homestead (make great dinners nightly) and the homestead’s needs (a good vacuum and a professional laundry folder).

Clearly, the blog isn’t part of my focus. It ought to be.

(The kid in the apartment across the street is having a serious meltdown, and its evil mother just said, “shut up, will ya?” Disgusting.)

With the new Dream Job starting in June, I’m staring at my wardrobe and wondering a few things.

1. How did I get so fat.

3. Will doing the Master Cleanse work, or just make me a very hungry, cranky B-word?

4. Where did No. 2 go? Flushed.

5. Black and white are my two color choices to dress in for work. I’m going to look like an obese zebra.

6. Obese zebras are the new skinny girl.

So that’s that. My eyebrows may as well be crazy caterpillars because I need to wax them so badly. My hair is in dire need of a dye-job (a la henna from Lush). And I’m fat.

I can take care of the eyebrows and hair color tomorrow. As for the fat … dunno. The Master Cleanse sounds way too easy. So that’s probably what I’ll do.

Besides. I love maple syrup, cayenne pepper and lemon juice.

© Wonky Nostrils and Taming Flamingoes, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to blog author and Taming Flamingoes with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Most boring blog of all time/Mother’s Day

I’ve been with my kids and having an awesome few days (got them early this week!) so I’ve been making dinner and cleaning and going to parks and on walks. Mom stuff. Ya know.

So …

Yep, I missed blogging yesterday. Not as in I actually missed it, like, “whoa, I miss blogging soooo much.” But I didn’t write it. I missed it.

Like a period that doesn’t come … you miss that period. Maybe you do cry, all “boo hoo, I miss my period, I miss changing tampons and wearing dumpy underwear,” but I doubt it.

To that point (I love Office Speak. Sheesh.)

Mother’s Day is tomorrow. I’ve said that mainly for the crazy man who lives in a cave without electricity or running water (which reminds me, I’d totally live in a cave, a la Ayla) and happens to stumble out on the ONE day that actually matters to some people with uteri. Namely, Cave Dweller’s mother.

Let’s face it. Cave Dweller is fictitious and anyone without knowledge of Mother’s Day must be either in a coma (apologies to all who have friends or family in a coma) or motherless (by birth). And that’s impossible. So only those in a coma get a free pass.

I’ve never felt like I needed a whole holiday to celebrate my uterus’ penchant for reproduction.

What about a holiday for the nurses who save the lives of women on the brink of bleeding out after a miscarriage? How about a holiday for the immigrants who work in fields at minimum wage (if they’re lucky) to pick the flowers we’ll be giving to our collective mothers tomorrow? Or a holiday to celebrate kids who grew up in the hands of not-so-great moms and made it anyway?

Just sayin’.

Tomorrow, I’ll be basking in the sun like a bright, white whale on Mercer Island. Antoine, the kiddos and me are going to head out to the beach, lay out a blanket and spend a day with Frisbees and books and cold beverages and — perhaps — a dip in Lake Washington.

After all, when it hits 80 degrees in Seattle (that alone makes the evening news) and our wet-accustomed selves are exposed to such extreme temperatures, it becomes akin to living in the African savanna. People rush for air conditioners and fans, floatie noodles, ice blocks and ice chests and massive quantities of SPF 60.

It’ll be one mother of a sunny day tomorrow, so go celebrate with your pasty kith and kin and thank the uterus closest to you.

Don’t worry, in a few weeks it will be “thank a testicle” day. Oh, holidays.

© Wonky Nostrils and Taming Flamingoes, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to blog author and Taming Flamingoes with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Twofer: Good reads AND things that rock

In honor of my new job, I’m composing a capsule of books I read while unemployed and a list of things that feel good.

A two-fer!!

Books.

Fortune’s Rocks, by Anita Shreve.

Like to read about turn-of-the century women’s issues? Me neither. So here’s a great book about a 16-year-old girl who gets it on with a married 41-year-old man, and the result of the brief affair. Shreve also wrote The Pilot’s Wife, an interesting yarn about a pilot who dies and his wife, who finds he’s lived a second life for as long as they’ve been together. 

“And this all causes her to wonder at the disparity between the silk dresses and the natural postures of the body, and to think: How far, HOW FAR, we are willing to go to pretend we are not of the body at all.”
― Anita Shreve, Fortune’s Rocks

DREAM JOB HAS CHOSEN WISELY! I got it!

‘Eller! Well, I got the job. The Dream Job! Sigh. Such a relief. I can now afford to live and breath and have name-brand tampons AND get my kids new shoes and school clothes! Ahahahha. Life is good.

I’ve been really busy in the past few days, and will continue to be until I get all the dreaded paperwork signed, scanned and emailed back to Dream Company.

In the meantime, chew on this: Wouldn’t it be nice to UNSUBSCRIBE to relationships in your life? What relationships would you unsubscribe to? 

Off to water my zebra plant that’s on the verge of blooming, and then to get Antoine, and then to see my sissy. Gonna make some duuuuurty rice for dinner.

Git it, grrl!

Flamingo facelift!

Yesterday, because now it’s 3 a.m., I saw the most HORRIFIC sight. Poor woman was raisin-brown (though surely born of a pasty race) with a face I could probably play like a drum. She was in her 70s, but tons of bad plastic surgery tried to keep the years at bay.

Alas, the collagen-injected lips smeared with Joker-red lipstick, and the perennial look of surprise on her face sorta gave it away. Poor thing.

Couldn’t sleep. So I revamped the TF blog.

Whatcha think??

 

Holla!

Longing for elementary-school talents

It has come to my attention that I “have talent, have real talent,” and that I “don’t have to write this boo-hoo bah shit.”

I’m still trying to sort out which blogs contain the aforementioned “boo-hoo bah shit,” and which blogs display “real talent.”

Unfortunately, I think my blog IS the “boo-hoo bah shit,” and my previous profession as an award-winning print journalist would be the “real talent.”

For this, dedicated readers, I apologize for providing you such textual slop.

You’ve been like eager pigs at the trough, and I’ve been ol’ Farmer Fred with a bucket of rotten, wasp-ridden windfall apples, eggshells and last week’s shepherd’s pie.

I’ve flung the contents to you, my porcine charges, in hopes you would find sustenance within the spoils.

Alas, as I’ve said, I’m now aware that I am only feeding you “boo-hoo bah shit,” the lowliest form of forage for any creature big or small.

Today I shall begin anew, speaking only of things that shall reveal my “real talent.”

Now I will type a paper about primates I wrote in 1987, because I was a really talented fourth-grader.

SCRATCH THAT. It’s 16 pages long, written in a hideous cursive hand, in faded pencil.

However, I note with some satisfaction that the obviously child-drawn monkey adorning the cover was not created by Alfredo Arreguin but by me. I say this only because a child-me has written, “Illustrations by Wonky Nostrils.”

Why do kids always write, “Illustrations by Wonky Nostrils,” as if they’ve commissioned their dear friend Pablo Picasso to illustrate a hand-written, in pencil and cursive, tome on primates?

Answer unknown. Feel free to enlighten.

You mean to tell me Picasso was not commissioned to illustrate a fourth-grader’s paper on critters with opposable thumbs?

Instead, I shall give you a true example of my “real talent.”

I’ve gone through the remarkable archives at Wonky Nostrils, Inc., to bring you the most inspired work ever produced by an 8-year-old girl.

I bring you, The Porcupine and The Plum, written by Wonky Nostrils and illustrated by Wonky Nostrils, 1986.

Contents

Chapter One: Porcupine gets lost, [pages] 1-6

Chapter Two: Plum saves Porcupine, [pages] 7-10

Chapter Three: Porcupine has a Friend, [pages] 11-13

Whence Porcupine happens upon Miss Plum

“Oh dear, I’m lost in the middle of nowhere!”

“Oh, who are you?”

“I’m Miss Plum.”

Oh, I didn’t know plums could talk!”

“Well, plums can’t talk! Huh! You see, I was a baby plum when a fairy came to me an in a puff of blue cloud I could talk!”

“Well that’s interesting! Miss Plum, how did you grow into a beautiful tree?”

“One hot summer day a little girl came and planted a plum seed and in the fall when it rained and hailed I began to grow. When it sunshined I grew into a beautiful tree.”

“Oh, what a nice childhood!”

“Why thank you!”

“Well,” said Porcupine, “let’s play.”

“I can’t play.”

“Why?” said Porcupine.

“Because I am a limb, and I don’t have feet, hands or arms.”

Cracks me up that I actually wrote that the plum couldn’t play because it was a damn plum and didn’t have arms, feet or hands. Or a head. Kids, I tell you!

“Oh, yeah! Well, do you want to talk?”

“Okay, how do you walk, shake and play?

“I only talk, but I’m going to get legs, arms and a head.”

“Oh, boy!” said Porcupine.

Chapter Two

“Well I’m going now, so bye,” said Porcupine.

“Bye!”

“OH HELP! Help Miss Plum!”

“What’s that noise I hear? Why, it’s Porcupine!”

“Save me!”

Snap! The blue fairy appeared and gave Miss Plum arms, legs and a head, and at that very moment Miss Plum caught Porcupine as he fell.

“Thank you,” said Porcupine. “That was close.”

“It sure was.”

Nothing like a last-minute sprouting of arms, legs and a head to lasso a friend to safety.

Chapter Three

“You saved my life! Would you like to have a picnic?”

“O.K.”

So they sat down on the grass.

“Well, well, look, strawberries! Let’s have some.”

“O.K.”

Yum, yum, burp, hiccup.

“I’m full.”

“I’m full, too.”

“Oh, I’m tired.”

“Oh boy am I ever tired.”

So they both laid down on the grass and took a long nap.

But just before Porcupine fell asleep he thought to himself how wonderful it is to have a special friend.

In reading this little ditty, I’m amused at the language I use. It’s strange, so formal-ish compared to my daily vernacular of late.

“Oh boy am I ever tired?” I don’t think I’ve ever said those words out loud. Very funny. This reminds me of how, when watching old movies, everyone had a bit of an accent. Think Maureen O’Hara in The Parent Trap (1961).

Well, there you have it. I’ve got that out of my system now, and I can assure you I’ll continue to supply “boo-hoo bah shit” at some point in the future, because I am prone to spells of writing boo-hoo-ish shit when the mood strikes.

In the meantime, you’ll just have to admire my real talent, circa third grade, written and illustrated by me. Naturally.

© Wonky Nostrils and Taming Flamingoes, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to blog author and Taming Flamingoes with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.