I seeeeee you.

I'm supposed to wear glasses. Did you guys (well, the one person who reads this once in a great while) know that?

I hardly ever have them on when I'm out in public, because I have this fear that they make me look extremely dorky... and like the quintessential librarian. So, most of the time, they stay in my car... where I'm required by law to wear them. (Because my license says so).

Recently, though, I've decided that I may need to change my glasses-wearing habits. Because I'm pretty sure I've been ignoring people.

A few weeks ago, Rene and Josh stopped by to visit me at work, and I looked right at them, gave a little smile, then totally walked away without saying a single word to them, because I had no idea who they were. All I saw were two blob faces on two guy bodies, and I smiled to be polite. Luckily, they're awesome, and they followed me up the stairs, probably thinking to themselves, "Whoa, when did Jamie become such a snob?"

Then today, on my way into work, some dude working with the landscape company in the garden gave me a big wave. I grinned and waved back, but I have no freaking idea who that guy was. One of my co-workers saw the whole thing and asked if I knew him... to which I had to (embarassingly) reply that I had no clue because I couldn't actually see his face. He could have been some long-lost friend from school... or he could have just been trying to tell me to watch out for a truck that was about to back into me... (That's the other problem. A lot of times, I'm kind of oblivious to my surroundings. I have pretty much the worst observation skills ever).

So here's the thing: If you've seen me any time in the past, oh, 10 years or so, and I haven't indicated that I recognized you, it's not because I'm snubbing you, I swear. It's because I can't actually SEE you.

I tried wearing the glasses yesterday, and two people commented on them. One of my co-workers said, "You wear glasses??" And then a patron told me that I looked very librarian-ish. It didn't exactly sound like a compliment. =P

*Sigh*

I think I'm just going to have to get over my self-consciousness and put the stupid things on once in awhile.

Speaking of home (which is supposed to be the NaBloPoMo theme for this month, and which I've been completely ignoring), I'm totally back on my getting-rid-of-everything-I-possibly-can kick. Having clutter is driving me up the wall, so I've started tossing things out. Yesterday it was one of those hideous long stand-up mirrors. It's been broken for about three years, and in all that time I haven't bothered to replace it, so I finally did this weekend. Now I have a pretty (and cheap) mirror in a white frame hanging on the wall instead.

I also managed to toss out some old VHS tapes. Because I'm pretty sure I'm going to buy a Playstation 3... that way I can play BlueRays, DVD's, AND video games.

Anyway... my next project? Books. This is a hard one for me because (and this is probably fairly obvious, given my profession) I love books. So getting rid of them is incredibly hard for me. And I always have a feeling that even though I haven't read a certain book in years, the minute I find a new home for it is the minute I'm going to want/need to read it.

Ugh.

Wish me luck.

Summer fun

Oy.

I love summer to itty bitty pieces, but it's totally kicking my butt. After today's trips to two playgrounds, Dairy Queen, and the lake, I am so very ready for an early bedtime.

And possibly a strong drink.

Porkin'

A word to the wise:

If you happen to have a stomach that is notorious for not being very accepting of new foods, it probably isn't the greatest idea to eat a pulled pork sandwich being sold by a street vendor during Bike Week. Just a thought.

Aside from the fact that my tummy is not thanking me right now, having lunch outside of the library with a group of my co-workers, while a very loud oldies band played on a stage directly in front of us, was exactly what I needed today. I've been missing out on Friday lunches with my sisters, and while this wasn't exactly the same, it was really nice.

Bring on the weekend.

Two-for-one

There isn't much that would compel me to write two blogs in one day... however, this just couldn't be left unsaid:


Holy Overabundance of Motorcycle Hotties, Batman!


I'm tellin' ya... if I didn't have an adorable boyfriend who I completely adore, some poor biker would probably find himself under attack.

*Drool*

Bikers, baby

We are smack dab in the middle of Bike Week here, and while it annoys the heck out of most of the area residents, I kind of love it. The constant rumble, the new and interesting faces that pop into the library every so often, the traffic back-ups... well, ok... I don't love EVERYTHING about Bike Week.

I think I just really like the idea that for one week out of the year, the place where I grew up is a popular tourist attraction. Because the rest of the year? Not so much.

Besides that, my little man is a lover of all things motorcycle, so having them all over the place is tres, tres exciting for him.

A few years ago, around Bike Week, I went on a couple of dates with a guy who was doing some of the work on our new library addition. I'm not sure it was completely kosher, and in hindsight, I'm not sure what I was thinking going out with a guy who wore a hard hat with a highly visible "Crotch Cannibal" sticker on it, but he was cute and I was young and single, so hey... why the heck not?

Anyway, he had two motorcycles; one sportsbike and one cruiser (or whatever those bigger hogs are called), and one of our dates consisted of him taking me out for a ride on the sportsbike. Without a helmet. (Yes, yes, I KNOW how dangerous that was, and no, I've never done it since). But oh man, was that exhilerating.

Shaws' Guy had a Ducati. And another one of my exes had a bike. (Apparently I'm attracted to the biker boys). However, Mr. Krutchy has nothing of the sort, and probably never WILL, so it looks like I am motorcycle-less this year... unless I get a license of my own.

Hmmmm...

Bare bones

There were bones (bones!) in my tuna fish sandwich yesterday. And they looked like human baby teeth. So, obviously I retired THAT sandwich to the garbage can immediately and went upstairs to tell my co-workers about it. One of them (very helpfully, I might add) said, "Maybe they were rat teeth."

Ew. Just... ew.

She also wanted me to go back to the trash can and dig out the hard toothy-looking things. I'm pretty sure her idea was to send them to the tuna company or something, but 1. There was no way I was going digging through the trash, and 2. What would be the point? All the free tuna fish I could eat? There's no way I'm going NEAR that stuff for at least 6 months.

Rat teeth... yick.

Oh. My. Word.

I took the little man for his Kindergarten screening this morning, and it hit me like a ton of bricks that, holy crap, I'm about to have TWO children in school. And yeah, I was young(ish) when they were born, but dang I feel old.

Before we left, we spent a whole going over the letters of the alphabet (he got about 20 of them right) and the numbers 1-10 (ALL of them... woot woot), and when we got to the school, I had a little taste of what sending on the school bus in the fall might be like; the screener led my little guy away and he didn't even look back once. The school secretary (who doesn't seem to have aged a day since *I* was in elementary school) looked at me and said, "You can't have two kids in school!" And I told her, truthfully, "I'm SO not ready for this." *Sigh*

When the testing was over, the little man came up to me, full of chatter about the questions he'd been asked. He said, "I got every single one right! They only asked me the easy letters!"

I love him.

And come late August/early September, when he steps out of pre-school-hood, and into big-boy-in-school-ville, I'm totally going to be bawling my eyes out.

Sniff sniff

You know how sometimes a smell can hit you with a memory so strong that you actually have to stop what you're doing because you've kind of forgotten everything else for a moment? That happened tonight.

It was a towel, and I had just taken it out of the dryer, but for some reason it had a slightly different scent than the rest of the clean towels; it smelled like L's laundry. And that's really weird, because L hasn't lived here in over a year. L's laundry always smelled a little bit metallic, I think. This will sound weird, but if you go to a clothing store and end up carrying around a bunch of hangers, sniff your hand afterwards (although try to do it when no one is looking, because you don't want people wondering about you)... that's the smell that L's laundry used to have. And I loved it. I don't know why exactly, I just did. (Yes, I KNOW I'm weird.)

Getting that little whiff of the towel sent me tailspinning into about 15 different memories all at once, and I'll admit that for about 5 seconds I couldn't move. After that, I was ok, but sheeeeesh.

Maybe it's time for new towels.

Smoking is bad for you

Apparently, my daughter has appointed herself Cigarette Police, and I'm not exactly sure why this is. No one in my family smokes, so she knows very little about cigarettes in general, but starting from the time she was approximately three years old, whenever we walked by someone who was smoking, Em would start up with this hacking (and believe me, completely fake) cough. It's actually hilarious, but probably not so much if you're the person it's directed at. And I tend not to laugh as hard when that person is a big burly motorcycle dude or something. Lately, she's taken up actually TELLING them that smoking is bad for them. And while that is completely and inarguably true, I don't think smokers appreciate hearing that.

Anyway, this weekend, as we were driving to Krutchy's softball game, I said to both of the kids, "Ok, guys, listen. A lot of people at the game are going to be swearing. You're not allowed to repeat any of those words. Got it? Also, a lot of people will be smoking. Please don't tell them it's bad for them. They KNOW it's bad for them, and even though I know you're just thinking about their health and that's very sweet, they really don't want to hear that from you. Ok?" And they did me proud. I didn't hear a single swear or guilt trip out of either one of them.

So today I was recounting all of this to Brian, and he told me something that made me laugh for about three minutes. His 6 year-old son (who is one of the funniest kids I have ever met) recently walked up to someone who was sucking on a cigarette, and whispered in that person's ear, "I think smoking smells good."

Kids... they so crack me up.

No, seriously... in the heeeeeeaaat of the moment.

Maybe it's because of my last blog title, but this song has been stuck in my head alllll day. Not the original, silly. No, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jD62fcfYqHw&feature=related is the version I can't seem to get rid of. I've been humming it pretty much non-stop all afternoon and evening... and yes, that includes the hour I was manning the adult desk at work. I'm pretty sure several people now think I'm a complete weirdo. Eh. They're just lucky I didn't do the "knee-clap, knee-clap, hand-clap" thing, because I was TOTALLY doing it my head.

Of course... if you don't like Asia, then there's always http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcmOe2geZ4Q&feature=related instead, which is just as entertaining in its own way.

Yeah... sorry. I'm pretty sure all this heat is starting to affect my brain. I'll try to steer clear of blogging until it cools down juuust a bit.

And now I am off to watch some mindless television, because I think that's about all I can handle at the moment...

P.S. One of these days, I promise I'll learn how to stick a word or two in place of the whole entire website. Grrr.

We're gonna sleep gooooood tonight

Things I managed to fit into just one day:

1. The little man's birthday party. Which, in case you were wondering, consisted mostly of girl guests. Turns out my little dude is quite the ladies' man. We decided on a venue of McDonalds this year, mainly because having it there meant that I didn't have to do any of the work. And they were awesome about everything, so it made me feel a little less guilty about feeding my own children (and several others) completely unhealthy food.

2. A trip to the town beach. Brian called almost immediately after the party, and asked if I wanted to take the kids to the lake. Now, I'm not exactly sure what Brian was thinking, since he had been at the birthday party with his son, and was as exhausted as I was, but I gladly went because, hey, how many gorgeous 85-degree days do we get in New Hampshire? Answer: not many. Guess what, though? Lake water in early June is fricking FREEZING. We haven't had enough sunny hot days to warm it up properly, so while the kids thought it was great, Brian and I nearly froze to death.

3. Laundry. One of my least favorite chores, but if I do it on Saturday, then I get Sunday to relax. So this is the one area where I try my hardest not to procrastinate.

4. Grocery shopping. Another chore/errand that I'm not particularly fond of. Add that to the fact that my children were having an extremely hard time listening (probably due to the overabundance of sugar/sun they got today), and it made for a slightly nightmarish shopping trip.

But now all of that is done, which means that I can actually enjoy my Sunday. And just so you know, this particular Sunday it's supposed to reach temperatures of 95 degrees or so. The kids and I have plans to spend the majority of the day outside at Krutchy's softball game, and I've already started a mental list of all the things that I need. At the top: sunscreen, sunscreen and more sunscreen. Because after last week's burn (which is just now, very attractively I might add, starting to peel off like crazy), I'm smartening up.

And now, I think I'll go crash in my bed for about 10 hours.

Burp

Want to know what my absolute favorite thing about my children is?

Their senses of humor.

I don't know how many times I've heard from random strangers that my kids are extremely happy... but every single time it makes me smile. The little man, especially, is hardly ever without a grin on his face. Have you ever tried being sad or angry with two little rays of sunshine constantly in your general vicinity? It's nearly impossible.

So last night at the restaurant, the little man was doing his thing, working the room. He adores being the center of attention, and apparently decided that burping was the way to do that. So (like an idiot), I encouraged him, asking, "Can you burp the alphabet?" He assured me he could, and went on to attempt to prove it:

"Urp: that was an A. Urp: that was a B. Urp: that was a C."

And then... of course...

"Urp: that was a fart."

I'll admit it, my son has no class. But he IS pretty darn hilarious, and personally I think that's far more important.

Farmer wants a wha...?

There's a good possiblity that reality tv is reaching even lower lows in "Farmer Wants a Wife." The dude totally just broke up with one of the girls by putting her name in fireworks in front of the whole town at the county fair. However, does that mean I don't watch the show? Heeeeell no. I am, apparently, a glutton for punishment. *Sigh*

So tomorrow is Jenni's birthday, and since her wonderful husband is taking her on some kind of surprise trip to celebrate, our family got together tonight instead. The ten of us met at our favorite local Chinese restaurant and chowed down, before heading back to my apartment for some delish cake with whipped cream and fruit on top. Oh-so-yummy.

I love hanging out with my family. Sure, we argue... we're a normal family. But it's also completely obvious that we all love each other to pieces. And when we're together, we laugh a TON. So yay, Jenni! Thank you for having a birthday. ;o)

Biker dude

The little man turned 5 a week and a half ago.

Today, he learned to ride a two-wheeler. He just looked at me and said, "Mommy, can you take the training wheels off my bike?" So I did, figuring that I'd be putting them back on within a couple of minutes. Only, he totally proved me wrong. I gave him a couple of little pushes and that little guy was off and riding.

My kids are growing up way, way, way too fast.

Cock-a-doodle DON'T

Ok, I'm supposed to be blogging about "home," so here goes: Want to know what woke me up this morning (hey, it works with the NaBloPoMo theme... I was HOME when I was asleep)? A rooster. At, like, 5 am. A fricking ROOSTER, for goodness sake!

Anyway, down to the real business of today's blog:

Today I was working at the adult desk and a guy came in to see if we had a fax machine he could use. We don't. I mean, we HAVE one, we just don't allow the public to use it because we're mean like that. Anyway, I kind of wish we did, because (and I am SO not kidding here) this guy looked EXACTLY like Mark Wahlberg. I mean, not dirty and scruffy like Mark Wahlberg usually looks in his movies. He was all clean-cut and nicely dressed, but still...

And yes, I will admit, I have been absolutely and completely sure that I saw movie stars in random places before. Most memorably, Richard Dreyfuss in the Dalles, Oregon; and Greg Kinnear in Port Clyde, Maine. My family STILL picks on me for the possible Richard Dreyfuss sighting, and that happened 13 years ago. So I hesitate to mention things like this.

But seriously, people. This guy was a dead-ringer for MW. And you never know... it COULD have been him. I'm just sayin'... I think he was kind of looking at me like he was waiting for me to say something. I didn't take the bait, though. No way was I gonna be like, "Hey, has anyone ever told you that you look JUST like Mark Wahlberg?" He probably gets that all the time.

Ok, I know you're all thinking, "Would she just shut up about Mark Wahlberg already?" You're right. Shutting up now. But if he comes in again... I'm not making any promises.