GONE

I have gone back to Xanga. Visit me again HERE: www.xanga.com/livingwilde

 

Fo(u)r Greg

Four jobs you've had in your life: Waitress in college, Writer directly out of college, morphed into Public Relations, morphed into Sales/Marketing for high tech companies. Four movies you could watch over and over: The English Patient, Out of Africa, The Blue/White/Red trilogy, Dirty Dancing. Four places you've lived: Virginia, Alabama, Pennsylvania, Indiana Four TV shows you love to watch: Desperate Housewives, Biography, CBS New this Morning (Sunday/Arts edition), Friends (yes I know it's been canceled, but I have ALL the DVDs! --thanks Steve!) Four places you've been on vacation: I'll be snooty just for Sarah... This year, we're going to Vail, Breckenridge, and Cancun, and add my favorite vacation spot, Paris. Four websites you visit daily: Sarah's Blog, Greg's Blog, Ronda's Blog, Elaine's Blog Four of your favorite foods: Tomatoes, Mozzarella, Balsamic Vinegar, Chocolate. Four places you'd rather be: Teaching, In School, Home, Any Beach. Four albums you can't live without: Afterglow Live, Wicked Soundtrack, Your Little Secret (still one of my favorites), Everything Bon Jovi. Four magazines you read: Fitness, Shape (or as Ronda calls them, my "skinny bitch magazines"), This Month on APT (really -- cover to cover), RID Journal Four cars you've owned: 86 Dodge Colt, 92 Toyota Paseo, 96 Toyota Corolla, 03 Honda CR-V Four people to do this meme: Sarah, Ronda, Elaine, Nancy.

A GREAT Quote...

Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it’s cracked up to be. That’s why people are so cynical about it. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don’t risk everything, you risk even more.
—writer Erica Jong

Inspiring the Next Generation

I drive carpool. Every friggin' morning. Our carpool consists of 3 kids -- Elyse (my 12-year-old, 6th grade daughter), Cadence (her friend, 6th grade), and Jackson (neighbor, 8th grade.) Grades came out on Friday, and Elyse and Jackson are both on some level of restriction.

Now, I don't know what Elyse says to her friends about her mean mom, but she is smart enough to not complain about this restriction to me. In fact, she actually admitted that I went lighter on her than she expected. Jackson, this morning, was being a bit high maintenance. So we had a conversation. It was one-sided. They don't know how to take me.

"Dude! You seem to be under the misguided impression that you are the center of your parents' world!"

"Stephanie! That's so cruel! Are you telling Elyse that she doesn't matter?"

"I have a life. And Elyse knows that. If she plays her cards right, she gets to become an adult who has a life. What do you think you have to look forward to about being a grown-up? Hounding your kids all the time about their grades? What kind of fun do you think that is?"

Laughter.

"You're a hobby. You're a hobby that your parents enjoy, but man, wouldn't that suck if all you had to look forward to was growing up to get a job and push your kids around. Elyse is a Wilde chick in training, and she knows it. That means I have a life, and hopefully she's developing a life."

Elyse agreed. Then there was discussion about Hobby Lobby. As in building kids.

I'm sure that again, this secures my nomination for mother of the year. But ya know, it's worth a rant! Even though I know this conversation puts me squarely in the camp of that newspaper parenting guy that I hate.

Breast Shopping

Ah, I pretended I wouldn't blog about this, but I find I must. On Saturday, Ronda and I took her breasts shopping. Her breasts have decided that they need new bras. This, of course, was after being denied their own zip code. I'm not convinced that they won't be granted their own zip code by the time she starts lactating, but, sigh, not yet.

No, at this point Ronda's breasts are only an E cup size. This makes me happy, because I'm an English person, and I like that we are both vowels. Ronda apparently likes this too. As we were shopping for bras, she pointed to a rack of "petite" bras, and said, "Oh, isn't that cute." "That's my size." "No it's not. You cannot wear that bra." "OK. The one behind it."

In reality, I guarantee I could have fit into the original bra with very little cleavage. But my breasts weren't shopping. My breasts can't intimidate sales girls into excitedly looking to the back of the rack for an ever bigger bra. The sales girls see me coming and they simply point to the toddler section. They see Ronda, and they see an opportunity to squeeze someone into bras they stock for "just in case."

On Saturday, I was The Crocodile Hunter. Only, they weren't crocodiles, they were Ronda's breasts. Ronda needed two things. New bras. Done. And nursing pajamas. Well, when I bought nursing pajamas, I wondered why they made such enormous boob holes in them. I can fit my head through those holes. Right. Enter Ronda. It took two of us in a tiny fitting room to get the PJ's on. Getting them off? Oh no. Not happening. Much like a crocodile, the breast attacked. Throwing itself this way and that, and refusing to give up its now native habitat inside the fabric of the pajamas. The breast won. The pajamas failed.

But the store won't know that until we are a faded memory.