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The transformation is almost complete

Posted in Random, tagged , , , , , , on April 3, 2011| 10 Comments »

“What is this, Mama?”
“This, Honey, is WrestleMania.”

Oh yes, it is.

In a shocking metamorphosis that began with moving out to “The Country” in 2006, continued with burning trash in the backyard and attending the Redneck Games and Rattlesnake Roundup, I have become what I feared the most: a redneck.

Or at least I have begun to assimilate into the culture.

I’ve been excited all week because tonight is Wrestlemania XXVII.

Ed almost had me talked into going to Atlanta to witness it live. But there is that little matter of an 8 a.m. class I have to teach. So, thanks to Xfinity, I can enjoy The Rock in the comfort of my own home. Oh yes, I would like to smell what The Rock is cookin’.

Also a draw: The Miz, whom I remember from “The Real World: Back to New York.” He’s also the WWE World Champion. And he’s AWESOME!

Ed and Trish have arrived for the event. Ed is in the kitchen, making nachos. Trish is taking bets on who wins each match. The kids are engrossed. Eddie is amused, as he usually is, by what I get us into. I’m writing this confessional. All is right in the world.

Look for the recap tomorrow.

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Save the children

Posted in Random, tagged , , , , on March 31, 2011| 12 Comments »

No. 7, “Why my children will be scarred for life,” tied for second place with No. 8, “The time I was sentenced to church,” in the Choose your own adventure race. Today I feel the need to address that topic. (Eventually, I’ll tell the church story also.)

So here goes:

Why my children will be scarred for life:

I stifle their creativity.
I will not let Dominic make sound effects in my car. I will not let Gideon draw on his bedroom walls with a Sharpie.

I limit their ability to make fashion choices.
I will not let Dominic wear a cape to school. I make Gideon wear his jacket when it is below 68 degrees outside.

I restrict their freedom of expression.
I will not let Dominic talk about poop at the dinner table. I will not let Gideon have a tantrum in the grocery store because I refuse to buy chocolate Easter bunnies.

I prohibit lifestyle choices.
I will not let Dominic subsist on bread alone. I will not let Gideon eat candy instead of a meal.

I repress their nurturing capabilities.
I will not let Dominic have a bat for a pet. I will not let Gideon and Mona the Dog swap spit.

Do you think I’m a terrible mother yet? Here’s more evidence:

  • I make them listen to the Ramones, the Monkees, Neil Diamond, Journey, Lady Gaga, the Pixies, Katy Perry, Marvin Gaye, Duran Duran, the B-52’s, Darius Rucker and Hanson — sometimes all in one day during the drive to school (view sample playlist).
  • I make them do manual labor: make their beds, clean up their toys, feed the dog, feed the cat, give water to the hermit crabs, carry in the groceries, carry their dirty dishes to the sink, help me make dinner, sweep the stairs, vacuum the living room, help Eddie with the yard work, etc.
  • I make them watch as many nature documentaries as episodes of “iCarly” and “Spongebob Squarepants.”
  • I make them eat kid-unfriendly vegetables such as Brussels sprouts, leeks, rutabagas, squash, broccoli, green beans, eggplant, beets, turnips, mushrooms, fennel, peppers, onions, spinach and celery. (Each of those has appeared on their plates some time over the past two months.)

So there you have it: one awful mother = two scarred children. Judge away.


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No. 4 for the win

Posted in Random, tagged , , on March 25, 2011| 1 Comment »

Well, I’m surprised. No. 4, “My latest food crushes,” won the “Choose your own adventure” race. No. 7, “Why my children will be scarred for life,” and No. 8, “The time I was sentenced to church,” tied for second.

As you wish.

I can still attack a bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, but I’ve moved on.

Warning: The following items are not very healthy, especially if you eat them in large, ridiculous quantities (not that I would do that, of course), but they are delicious!

  1. Dark chocolate with sea salt from L’Artigiano by way of Wright Square Café in Savannah. Expensive as hell, but totally worth it.
  2. Gianduja hazelnut chocolate paste from Leone by way of Eataly in New York. It’s like Nutella’s snooty, cultured older brother. I feel like carrying a tube around in my purse and squeezing it into my mouth at stoplights.
  3. Fage Greek yogurt with fruit. My favorite is the blueberry-acai. Sweet grandmother’s spatula!
  4. Kettle brand baked potato chips, salt and fresh ground pepper flavor. I can be full to the bloated point and still devour an entire bag.
  5. Annie Chun’s sesame seaweed snacks. I have my friend Sophia to thank for this addiction. It seems like something you shouldn’t eat — it looks like a piece of green, crumply paper — but it tastes so good!
  6. Basler Läckerli, a Swiss biscuit made with spices, honey, almonds. I’ve been to Switzerland twice, both times around Christmas, which is when these treats are popular. I found them in Bern. I would fly to Switzerland just for these things. Actually, I would even walk and swim to Switzerland for them. They are that good. 

So that’s it. All my latest nasty little snack secrets are out in the open. I feel so vulnerable. (And fat.)

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Choose your own adventure

Posted in Random, tagged , on March 23, 2011| 7 Comments »

Writer’s block. Dissertation stress. The lure of my pollinated backyard.

Whatever the reason, it is quite sad that I have had nothing to say here since the Rattlesnake Roundup. (Maybe that said it all.)

So you get to choose a topic:

  1. How to recognize and use rhetorical devices
  2. Common grammar mistakes and how to avoid them
  3. Pet peeves
  4. My latest food crushes
  5. My dissertation: What’s up with that?
  6. Newt Gingrich
  7. Why my children will be scarred for life
  8. The time I was sentenced to church
  9. Students, broken down by kind (an extension of this post)
  10. What I would do if I got Johnny Depp alone in a room

Your choice. Make a selection in the comments by Thursday, March 24, at midnight.

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Redneck roundup

Posted in Random, tagged , , , , on March 12, 2011| 4 Comments »

After Trish and I went to the Redneck Games last July, I knew I had to mark my calendar for the Claxton Rattlesnake Roundup. This marvelous event, held the second weekend in March, began in 1968 in an effort to reduce the rattlesnake population in the city. Now I think they have to truck in the snakes to round them up.

Sadly, Trish had to beg out to host a basketball tournament with the Savannah Storm. My friend Royce agreed to make the trek with me.

We got there early (9 a.m.) for the “3-D archery tournament.” It seemed promising, but the two of us made up 66.6 percent of the audience. The other spectator was an archer’s significant other, and I swear she was wearing pajama jeans.

While looking for the snake handling demonstrations, we ran across the entrance to the “birds of prey” area, which also doubled as home base for the gun raffle …

… and taxidermy expo.

We meandered outside and found the namesake snakes.

They were angry.

Around the corner, we spotted our first (and only) snake handler of the day. She was showing off a yellow rat snake.

Of course, we had to join in.

This is also where we spotted our first mullet. And what a glorious mullet it was (made even better by the Spiderman face paint).

We went back to the car to gather the energy (found in the cooler in my trunk) to continue. It was a good thing we did. We needed sustenance for the things we would see:

A coonskin cap

A coonskin snake

A many-skinned truck

A fish in a truck

Some knobbly butts

Rattlesnake queen

Stuffed acid-washed jeans

Stuffed coiled-up snake

Cantilevered waist

Human hamster balls

Massive overalls

A country fair is never complete without fried alligator and spiral potatoes.

That’s it. That’s all we could take. Royce is trying to talk me into going to the Warrior Dash. Maybe …

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Open letter to homophobes

Posted in Random, tagged , , , , , on March 8, 2011| 32 Comments »

Dear Straight Brethren (or Closeted Brethren Pretending to be Straight) Who Oppose Gay Marriage:

I want to talk to you about something very important. I’d like to think that we’re all reasonable adults, and I hope you can open your mind to the points I am about to make.

We both know that it really isn’t our business whom gay people marry or if they marry at all.  Their desire and ability to marry have no effect on my marriage or yours any more than Charlie Sheen’s “marriages” have.

Before you bring up the so-called “sanctity of marriage,” let me remind you about Larry King, who is on his seventh wife. You don’t seem to care about him (or Tiger and his traveling tool), but you seem to be squawking loudly about the Defense of Marriage Act. Defense of Marriage? Really? We need a defense for an institution that is all about individual choice? People are going to choose it or not choose it, be happy or unhappy, make a mess of it or not make a mess, and no legislation can do anything about that.

So what we are talking about here is discrimination. Let me remind you that gay people pay taxes. They’ve essentially paid for legislation that discriminates against them. That sucks. We’re talking about human beings who have just as much right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as we do. If they aren’t treated equally under the (tax-funded) law, maybe they shouldn’t have to pay taxes. Uh oh.

Please don’t talk to me about the Bible. You can’t use the Bible for two reasons:

  1. If you are going to adhere to one passage, you have to adhere to the whole thing. Should we start stoning adulterers? Maybe we can start with Newt Gingrich. (You know the Bible also says divorce is wrong.) Don’t get me started on why literal interpretations of the Bible are a bad thing in general. Even the Vatican doesn’t advocate a literal interpretation, and you know how I feel about the pope.
  2. There’s this crazy thing we have here in America called “separation of church and state.” I know it isn’t very convenient sometimes, but there it is. So don’t allow gay people marry each other in your church if you think homosexuality is a sin. That’s fine. But civil unions should be available to give same-sex couples access to state-created rights. You know, the states they pay to operate through tax dollars.

The choices any people make in their personal lives do not affect me at all — unless, of course, they choose to attack me or my family physically, or rob us, or something like that. And that’s when the law should get involved.

You know what does affect me, affect us? Misuse of tax money. Cuts in education. Poor road maintenance. National dependence on oil. I could go on, but I won’t. You are reasonable. You get my point.

Can we please focus on legislation that truly affects how we live our lives?

Let’s be reasonable.

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Spring flavor

Posted in Random, tagged , on February 28, 2011| 4 Comments »

What I have not been doing lately:

  • Working on my dissertation. (Explanation needs to be a separate post.)
  • Posting new content to this blog. (Clearly. It’s been 10 days!)
  • Worrying about anything. (Very much a good thing.)

What I have been doing:

  • Enjoying the “incubation” period where I consider how to continue with my dissertation.
  • Taking a break from the computer (e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, etc.).
  • Battling early-onset spring fever.

My spring fever manifests itself in strange ways. For example, I decided last week that I really wanted to make ravioli. From scratch. Filled with fresh lobster meat.

“What the f—?!” Eddie said. (But not in a negative way, of course.)

I bought a pasta maker and commenced pasta making.

Step 1: Make dough, knead and let it rest for 30 minutes.

Step 2: Cook lobster. Chop tail (below). Mix with chopped mushrooms, salt, pepper and light cream.

Step 3: Roll out dough in pasta maker.

Step 4: Use ravioli press to create pockets of joy. Repeat many times.

Step 5: Let ravioli dry for an hour on each side.

Step 6: Boil for eight minutes.

Step 7. Make garlic cream sauce in which to immerse ravioli.

Step 8: Top with chopped basil for that impressive restaurant flair.

Step 9: Gorge until you have to go lie down.

Family and friends = fat and happy (and totally impressed).

After that experience, I decided to experiment. I made spinach dough, which I turned into ground turkey and mushroom ravioli and also linguine.

And it’s only February.

 

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Keep calm and carry on

Posted in Random on February 2, 2011| 1 Comment »

Ironically, when I am under the most stress, that is when I feel the most charitable toward fellow humans. I’m a kinder, gentler Beth (or “Betty,” as I am called by Dominic’s classmate’s mom).

Evidence:

  • I did not mentally resolve to fail the student who asked me (via Twitter) if we were having class today, despite the fact that I told him in person and via the syllabus that there was no class today.
  • I did not launch a well-placed kick at the nut sack of the idiot whose meandering while chatting on his cell phone nearly made us miss the train from the airport.
  • I did not body-slam the intellectual giant who thought it was a good idea to drag her suitcase — in which one could hide at least two corpulent corpses — onto said train, banging into everyone in sight and running over countless toes.

See?! I am calm. I. Am. Calm.

For those who wish to know, I am in Washington, D.C., attending the Association of Writers and Writing Programs annual conference.

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Are you ready for some footb … wait! Is that guacamole?

Posted in Random, tagged , , , , , on January 23, 2011| 4 Comments »

So today is apparently a big day for American football fans. In my world, here is how I remember who is still a contender:

Game 1:

The team immortalized by Chris Farley and some other folks in a “Saturday Night Live” skit vs. The team formerly led by the is-he-retiring-is-he-not guy who supposedly texted photos of his naughty bits.

Bit players won.

Game 2:

The team that used to have great players like my sixth-grade teacher’s husband’s cousin (John Stallworth) but is now led by an alleged pervert/assaulter vs. The Jets (as opposed to the Sharks).

Eddie likes the Jets, but, as I am writing this, a flock of geese evidently flew into their engines and they are making an emergency landing.

I sort of cared about the playoffs when the Falcons were still in it. Now I don’t care at all. But I’m still excited about the Super Bowl.

Why?

Commercials, people!

And this year’s Super Bowl coincides with the fact that I am teaching Promotional Writing where I get to talk about advertising. So I’m very excited.

And there’s the food, of course. It’s like the holidays where you give yourself a pass. I’m giving myself a pass to make myself sick on nachos while watching some double-perv action.

Yay, nachos!

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Résumé of real life

Posted in Random, tagged , , , , , , , , , on January 14, 2011| 2 Comments »

I love this résumé on Craig’s List and I don’t care if it is real or not, or how old it is (2008). Warning: It is quite profane.

Here’s my less profane (and therefore less funny) non-work version of my résumé:

Résumé of Dubious Achievements

OBJECTIVE: Finish my freakin’ dissertation already and get my life back!

STUFF I HAVE DONE:

  • Commented on my boss’ crazy hair. (I don’t remember doing this, but he swears I did.)
  • Used “meh” to describe students’ work. Repeatedly.
  • Gone ballistic over mistakes in printed materials (much to the joy of most of the people reading this blog).
  • Chosen to watch “Jersey Shore” instead of getting much-needed sleep.
  • Cleaned my kids’ faces with my own saliva. (Vile, I know, but there it is.)
  • Watched “Tommy Boy,” Napoleon Dynamite,” “Grease” and “Pulp Fiction” many, many times (too many times to count).
  • Watched “Transformers” and “Iron Man” while pretending it was because the boys wanted to watch. (We all know how I feel about Shia LaBeouf and Robert Downey Jr.)
  • Fed my children peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner.
  • Laughed at “iCarly.”
  • Planned an outfit around a necklace or pair of shoes.

MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENTS:

  • Maintained this blog for more than a year.
  • Gotten out of bed on these recent frigid days.
  • Refrained from punching my mother-in-law.
  • Endured guest lectures that seemed interesting on paper, but were executed in the most boring, soul-sucking way possible.
  • Watched the George Clooney version of Batman. (Shudder.)
  • Pretended to be interested in Duke basketball.
  • Arranged a repair date for our recalled washer.
  • Created a brachiosaurus out of patterned paper. (Origami does not come naturally to me.)
  • Remembered to give Mona her heartworm pill this month.
  • Flossed regularly.

PROFICIENT IN:

  • Making lasagna, gyoza, potato and leek soup, and pumpkin pie.
  • Getting the boys dressed in five minutes.
  • Beating my hair into submission in about that same amount of time.
  • Butchering complex concepts in Spanish (fourth-grade level = fine).
  • Going to the gym even though I hate its guts.
  • Refusing to balance my checkbook.
  • Planning our next vacation.
  • Dreaming about winning the lottery.
  • Not wearing plaid.
  • Microsoft Office and Quark.

References available upon request.

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