More Post-Holiday Stuff

So, to recap, Christmas Eve we ate the traditional Baby Jesus Dogs -



And then Tito spent Christmas Morning throwing up Baby Jesus.


Yeah, my bathroom's gross. Shut up.

Tito's birthday was the 29th, thus signaling the beginning of the six-week period out of every year when both of my sons are the same age, since Pie was born in February of 2002 and Tito was December 2002. We took the kids to Evil Mouse Pizza



where we saw games like this one:



And Pie threw down with some funky dance moves



and I nearly wet myself laughing.

Pie, just as an aside, has apparently reached the age when he's way too cool to be seen with me. I took the Apes to my kickass dentist last week, and when it was Pie's turn to go in, I tried to be all hip and I put my hand out for a high five as he walked past me.

He paused, shook his head ever so slightly and said, "Nnnnoooo."

Anyway, next, my parents came to stay with us for New Years', and it was fun. It was the stress that I couldn't write about because it was going to be a surprise for the Apes, and I know Beeb occasionally reads my blog, so I didn't want to chance it.

Really, my parents are wonderful, fun and laid-back, and the complete antithesis of my Inlaws. My kids adore them the way kids should adore their grandparents, and I don't have to worry about demands of perfection being placed upon me or about my parenting skills being publicly scrutinized.

However.

Sometimes it's harder to make plans when everyone is flexible, you know? When I make a few suggestions and "anything's fine" with everyone, then I feel like I have to make the ultimate decision for the group and it makes me really nervous. Why, I don't know. I get that, in all likelihood, it's totally in my head. Nobody's going to be mad at me, I don't think, but trying to make plans for the Apes and my parents - and keeping track of everyone - is extremely stressful for me.

Anyway, one of the mornings we all (minus R and Tito) went to the mall to see The Blind Side. We stopped at Panera (which around here is called St. Louis Bread Company) to buy a baker's dozen bagels. Our order went something like this:

Ok, can we get ... um ... four, five? Five. Five Cinnamon Crunch bagels, three of those cut in the bread slicer and put into individual bags. Then we need threeeeeee, three Asiago sliced the regular way, no wait, one of them in the bread slicer. How many is that? Seven? Eight? Ok, then, just five more of the Cinnamon Crunch sliced regular. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah, that's good.

The cashier didn't roll her eyes or sigh audibly. Why? Because they deal with people ordering shit like that ALL THE TIME.

She did, however, ring up each bagel individually, which would have come out to a price slightly higher than the Baker's Dozen price listed on the menu. Then she walked over to the bread slicer (still well within earshot, mind you) to slice three Cinnamon Crunch and one Asiago bagel and place them into separate bags.

Mom began to freak out a bit. If you've hung around me for any period of time, you may have seen me in one of these little mini anxiety attacks. Apple doesn't fall far, folks.

Sarah. Sarah, she's overcharging me. She charged me for each bagel.

Mom, chill, she knows what he's doing. There's probably a discount key she hasn't pressed yet, or something.

No, Sarah, she's charging me for each bagel. Should I tell her she's overcharging me? I'm going to tell her she's overcharging me.

Mom, you can't possibly be the first person in the history of Bread Company who's ever ordered a total of thirteen bagels. I'm sure there's a system in place for these situations.

She's going to overcharge me. She's not doing it right. I know she's not doing it right.

Mom, her nametag says ASSISTANT MANAGER. She's been trained. Calm down. Seriously.

Sure enough, she adjusted the price before giving Mom the total, so it was cool, but still, I'm tempted to rent the DVD of Rain Man and check the Deleted Scenes to see if there's one called "The Bagel Incident" that was juuuust barely not Rain Man enough to make the Director's Cut. Wouldn't surprise me one bit.

Another thing my parents do that drives me mental is combine small amounts of different kinds of cereal into one box. I poured myself a bowl of Fruit Loops and got this -



Honey Loop Flakes. GAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!!

Back me up, readers. If all cereal was the same, they wouldn't make 200 different kinds, right? Come on. Some days you're feeling Honeycomb, other days you're feeling Frosted Flakes. It takes a lot out of me to determine what Cereal Mood I'm in at 6:45 in the a.m., so when I commit to a cereal, I want it to commit to ME. In other words, when I pour a bowl of Raisin Bran, I better not find no damn Cheerios in it. These things should NOT be tampered with. Can I get an Amen??

Ok, so other than The Bagel Incident and Honey Loop Flakes, my parents' visit was great. The next major event in my life was my 39th birthday, last Wednesday. It really didn't hit me until a few days later, on Dr. King's birthday. He's always looked older to me in pictures, but he was 39 when he died. Of course, not everyone is born to change the world as he did, but it made me think Shit, what have I contributed to the world in the same amount of time on this planet?

Well, I'm working on it.

Meanwhile, I am LOVING my job at Squish. My bathroom looks like a Squish shop. Hey, I need to be able to talk about our products from my personal experience, right?

I even hennaed my hair with Squish hair color.



PLUS, as part of my job, I got to come up with some awesome party ideas for February (finally, I'm getting paid to plan parties!!!) and I'm going to need the local branch of my fan club to help me out because there's a contest involved, and you all know how competitive I get.

(ADD moment - What the fuck is this Karen Walker I Can't Believe It's Not Butter Turn The Tub Around bullshit???)

I was nervous for a while because I was hired as Seasonal and there was some question about which Seasonal folks would get to stay on after Holiday, but I must have charmed them with my wit and the Je Ne Sais Quoi you know and love.

That said, I haven't fully unleashed Penny Karma on them yet. In fact, I am hesitant to let the coworkers in on Behold My Brilliance because it would mean that I couldn't rant freely about work-related drama, should I perhaps want to, someday. I'm still enough of a noob to not have any idea what goes on between the full-timers, and I don't care, but if any fun shit comes up that I think you all might appreciate, I'd like to be able to share it, so I'm kinda torn.

Remember how I struggled with joining my high school alumni on Facebook? It's like that. Somehow I've managed to keep it clean on FB and so far nobody's outed me as a liberal-minded pottymouth blogger, but Jesus Christ, there are days when I'd love to drop an F-bomb and watch the Sh** storm that would undoubtedly ensue. You bitches know how much I hate censoring myself.

I've let the coolest of my co-workers read my previous post because for some reason Inlaws came up as a conversational topic, and Lord knows I've got plenty to contribute to THAT conversation. She dug it.

I've let a different co-worker know that my friends call me Penny, because I realized out loud that it feels weird to me to see Sarah on my name tag. I forget my own name, sometimes, because I'm always addressed Mom or Mrs. Karma or Parent of (insert name of Ape). And I think of myself more as Penny than as Sarah. At least I want to be more Penny than Sarah, especially in social situations. Penny's the one you want to hang out with, trust me. Sarah has interpersonal awkwardness and occasional gut-wrenching social anxiety.

My First Post-Holiday Post

Christmas is over. But the stress isn't.

Christmas morning Tito barfed in my bed. Sure, it was gross and a minor inconvenience, but since it meant I could stay home with a sick kid instead of spending the day you-know-where, I'd say I got the better end of the deal.

Well, scratch that. I missed the fantastic meal MIL made. And I kinda did want to see the reaction to the gifts I put together for the Aldikids.

Remember the not-so-subtle gifting feud I've continued for years? Basically, the Aldis have a history of shitty gift-giving. When I say shitty, I mean their gifts are clearly bought on Super Duper going-out-of-business clearance and are either ridiculously age-inappropriate, discontinued and therefore impossible to find the accessories necessary to make them fun, defective and almost always unreturnable. They've done this to us for years. I've only been paying attention to it since 2001. It's so obnoxious.

When Beeb turned 4, they gave her a train engine that blew bubbles that, according to the box, was for 18 months and up. She's not a two year old boy, geniuses. So we tried to return/exchange it - at every store in the greater metropolitan area. NOBODY had this stupid thing.

Then we remembered that Mrs. Aldi's creepy dumpster-diver brother and his creepy toothless midget wife used to work at a store called Grandpa Pidgeon's that went out of business years ago. They bought up a buttload of 99% off crappy toys on Clearance and stuffed them in a closet, pulling them out as needed to give as gifts. Mystery solved, Scooby.

This comes from a 2005 post, in which I reference the following email I sent to my friend Renee back in 2002:

Well, I'm sure you remember Mr and Mrs Aldi who are notorious for giving us re-gifted, crappy, age-inappropriate and incorrectly sized gifts (remember my Winnie the Pooh sweatshirt from the Juniors department and the Bubble Train for ages 18 months+ for Beeb's 4th birthday?) that were purchased on clearance and put away for a gift-giving occasion that could be months away, rendering the shitty gift unreturnable and worth about 33 cents in store credit if you can even determine which store it was purchased from? And forget a gift receipt since you'd only get what they paid for it back, which probably isn't much more anyway. We end up giving the gifts they give us to Toys for Tots, which means I have to figure out a place to store it for 6 months.

And I'm sure you remember how we attempted to rise above this gift-giving inequity and continued to buy cool gifts for their daughter (Aldigirl), such as a really cute wooden dollhouse and a Rainbow Princess Barbie, both of which were met with Mrs Aldi muttering "oh greeeeeeeeeeeeaaat, more little pieces for me to pick up..."

Well, we decided we're going to beat them at their own game. We look for toys with lots of parts that are completely annoying on clearance and put them away to give to Aldigirl. It's like a sport, and hubby and I are great at it. In fact, it's brought us closer together as a couple. At one point we found the Baskin Robbins mini ice cream maker on clearance at Target, but then we found it at WalMart for 20 bucks, so we returned it to WalMart (hee hee) and made money on the deal.

Then we found Cootie Jitterbug - a battery-operated, noisy and annoying version of the original, and put it away for nearly a year until Aldigirl's birthday. Thank GOD they didn't have a party for her again this year. Every year they try to cram like 12 grownups and 7 kids in their house. No, Reverend Aldi had a conference in LA, so they actually purchased a plane ticket and took Aldigirl to Disneyland for her 4th birthday. Whatever.

Anyway, we presented Aldigirl with her gift at Easter (in a non-reusable slightly torn gift bag, as I had covered every detail) and to my delight, she shrieked "I ALREADY HAVE THIS GAME!!!" Gleefully I imagined the scenario that we had endured so many times before - standing in line at the return counter "um, yeah, I got this as a gift and I need to return it..." "yeah, RIGHT! we haven't had those on the shelves for 6 months! You can have a dollar in store credit, if ya want it..." "no, thanks..."

Well, apparently Mrs. Aldi knew exactly what it was worth since she probably bought it at the same time we did, and her reaction was "oh...you love that game...now you can have one upstairs and one downstairs..." Hilarious! And the best part was that I was in the bathroom at the time, where I could hear everything and yet freely snicker without fear of an embarrassing social faux pas. I was so tickled by my triumphant victory, I don't even care if she's onto us. I suspect she is.


Over the years they've presented the Apes with some pretty kooky shit. One year they gave Beeb an uncharacteristically cool gift - an MP3 Player called the Juice Box which played little cartridges with videos and music on them. When we went to look for more cartridges for it, we found it at KMart in a clearance bin, discontinued, and we soon came to the realization that it would be a major pain in the ass to find the cartridges and accessories necessary to do anything with it. Thanks, douchebags.

And then last year, they hit a new low. From my 1-6-09 entry:

I didn't think there was anything lower than giving a kid a shitty gift, but there is. It's giving a kid a really awesome gift that doesn't work. They got the boys cool AirHog helicopters and threw in, as a bonus, these cool-looking guns that shoot nerfball-like things.

At least, that's what they're supposed to do. They don't do shit but collect dust. They don't WORK. The boys were so bummed, it was sad. Who wants to see a sad kid on Christmas?

The Aldis included batteries, which was surprisingly generous. So when we got home (of course I couldn't let the boys open them at Chez Inlaw because they'd shoot them all over and I'd be the worst parent in the world) we put them in, and couldn't get either gun to work. R thought perhaps we should get some NEW batteries, as we wouldn't put it past the Aldis to include some mostly-dead batteries that they'd taken out of one of their kids' toys. New batteries didn't work either.

R did a quick internet search, and found these items on Super Duper Clearance at Target.com. We kicked ourselves for not opening them at Chez Inlaw so the Aldis could be exposed as the crappy giftgivers they are.

Anyway, finding out what discontinued tchotkes the Aldis gave the kids for Christmas is one of my favorite things to look forward to during the Holidays. And, because I like to make the magic last all through the year, I am constantly on the lookout for shitty clearance rack gifts to give to the Aldibrats. I don't care if I have to hide it in my closet for eleven months, fuck it, I'll smile every time I see it in there.

This year I totally outdid myself.

About four or five years ago I found a huge Thomas the Tank Engine set with miles and miles of blue track. I really don't know why I bought it, other than that it was a really great deal I found at a toy store called Zany Brainy that was going out of business, and Tito already had a million train sets, so I put it away in the garage at the old house (the one we moved out of three years ago), and then when we moved to our new house I once again hid it in the basement inside a garbage bag.

Maybe a year or so later, I found a Whistle and Go Thomas toy on Uberclearance at WalMart, thinking it would make a deliciously annoying gift for Aldiboy, should we be invited to Aldiboy's birthday party. We weren't. Boo fucking hoo.

This year was considerably leaner than last year when R was making phat commission and Santa brought my Dyson, a bigass TV and an Xbox 360, so this year I raided the gift stash (and the yarn stash too, come to think of it - I knitted crappy garter-stitch scarves for the kids' teachers).

Bottom line: Aldiboy got a gift with a whistle in it AND another with a million little parts. Oh, and if the fact that the train set was in a visibly discolored box doesn't clue them in to its age, just wait till they try to find additional parts for it.

Noisy, check. Little pieces, check. Impossible to return, check.

It gave me the same physical sensation of the shamelessly indulgent bliss that you get when you eat too much on Thanksgiving. So totally satisfying you almost feel guilty, but you don't. It was almost like a food coma, except it was more of a Screw You, Asshole coma. I rode that high for days.

And the best part? Out-of-pocket cost? ZERO. It was a muthahfuckin Hat Trick (for those who don't understand sports terminology, it's when a hockey player scores three goals in a game), muthahfuckers!!!

But there's more - I got a $10 gift card in the mail from Kohl's so I thought I'd see if I could find something for Aldigirl. I found a Ralph Lauren purse for $3.74, a wallet for $6.00, and a set of three little rings with pink stones in them for $2.00. I had to spend at least $10 to get the $10 off, so I ended up spending less than $2.00 out of pocket.

But then the purse looked a little bare, so I got a SnowFairy perfume solid from Squish and, the piece de resistance (yeah, I know it's supposed to have accents cuz it's French) - a cute little case from Claire's with four hideous colors of eyeshadow, three lipglosses, and MASCARA. Hee hee!!! I'll bet you anything she puts it on her eyebrows.

I was so bummed that I didn't get to witness Mrs. Aldi's reaction to the makeup, but R said she rolled her eyes or something.

I don't know if it's irony or coincidence, but the Aldis gave Beeb a purse for Christmas too. It's huge. It's zebra print vinyl with a giant pink bedazzled peace symbol on it. It's CRAZY. Beeb loves it.

But because I was home with sick Tito I missed our semi-annual church pilgrimage and the trip to Chez Inlaw, Christmas didn't really feel like Christmas to me. It was just like any other Saturday. I sat in bed next to Tito all day, which, in a way, was a gift to me.

More Post-holiday posts to follow...

Time to Reflect.

Shit, it's been a while, hasn't it?


As usual, my life undulates between too boring to blog about or too busy to blog about the craziness. Anyway, I'm kinda glum today and I need to remind myself of all the good things that happened in 2009.

Pie won a trophy in the Pinewood Derby.

Spent Valentine's Day at Urgent Care.

Got my tonsils out, and haven't had Strep since!

Saw the Jonas Brothers 3D movie.

Saw them even CLOSER - 3rd row, baby - AND saw the tour bus!

Went on a Dream Date with Cam Janssen.

Helped out Project Linus.

Killed a colony of Termites.

Had my knitting appear in a national magazine.

Created KICKASS Halloween costumes, yet again.

Attended my 20-year reunion in a smashing green dress.

Perhaps most notably, got a job at Squish.


Well, that didn't help my mood as much as I hoped it would. It seems as though some of the good things that happened this year had a flip side, ya know?

I am feeling BigmotherfuckingTime holiday stress. BIG. For reasons I can't talk about.

Ah, the holidays. What lovely memories. Like the time I bounced a $7 check to a charity just so my kids wouldn't be left out of the class project to send Christmas gifts to an orphanage in Africa. And the two consecutive years that WE were the Adopt A Family family at church. Good times. I hate how Christmas has become synonymous with Financial Stress at my house.

We couldn't afford to do Boy Scouts again this year, which made me feel like a crappy parent, but in the end I got over it. It stressed the shit out of me, and Pie didn't really care if he did it or not.

Killing the colony of termites cost an insane amount of money. Maintaining a termite-free house costs an insane amount of money, but the alternative is that we have more money and more termites.

I have a job, and I like it, but it causes me a great deal of stress at home - getting housework done and juggling appointments and finding rides for my kids to get places has made me wonder if I can emotionally afford to have a job, even though I'm positive I can not financially afford not to have one.

I got my tonsils out, had to remove my badass nipple rings and haven't put them back in so I feel like part of my badassness is missing. And I've gained weight since my surgery. GAINED. You're supposed to LOSE weight after a tonsilectomy.

I was the only person (other than The Grapevine) to have gained weight at our Reunion. I did, however, manage to conveniently forget to pay for our tickets. Suck it, Alumni committee.

Knitting accomplishments were few. The entire year, I purchased a total of 4 skeins of yarn. The rest of my knitting time was spent cranking out crappy garter stitch scarves. I made some money selling them, and the rest became teacher gifts. I've thinned my crappy yarn stash, which felt pretty good.

Oh yeah, and Kevin Jonas got married yesterday.

It's a cyst, we think.

Even before my Urgent Care visit, I'd spent the last several days calling various medical professionals, trying to max out our Flex Spending by making appointments for myself and my kids before the end of the year, when our health care plan changes. I'm trying to cram as many appointments set up for the same day as I can, so as to minimize the number of days I have to ask off at work.

I am driving myself nuts.

Weeks ago, I scheduled Pie's urologist appointment for this Friday morning, and had emailed my Squish boss last Sunday informing her of my availability for this week, but when I went to get my schedule, I saw that I was still scheduled to work Friday morning.

I figured it would be easier to reschedule the urologist than it would be to find someone else to work for me, and I didn't want to be a bitch and point out the fact that I DID inform the scheduler that I wasn't available to work Friday morning. I'm too new to make a big stink, even if I am in the right.

You should see my calendar. It's covered with scribbles and arrows. I can barely even read it myself. I hope this doesn't present a problem.

It's a darn good thing my ovary conveniently decided to burst on Monday, since that's the only day this week that isn't completely booked. Yesterday I was supposed to have an appointment with my eye doctor regarding my cornea. Remember a couple of summers ago when I had that corneal ulcer? Yeah, I've got more corneal drama. I don't think I'll be able to wear contacts anymore.

Anyway, I was supposed to see my eye doctor at 1:45 Tuesday afternoon, but Tuesday morning Beeb reminded me that she had signed up to go bowling after school, and she said I'd need to drive her from school to West County Lanes. I was afraid I wouldn't be home in time to take her, so I called to see if I could get in any earlier that day, but, alas, the best I could do was Thursday morning at 11:15. I have to work 3-8:30 on Thursday.

As it turned out, she was supposed to ride a bus from school to the bowling alley, so I COULD have kept my appointment, but somehow that wasn't made clear to Beeb or to me. Tuesday evening Beeb had a band concert, which MIL and FIL were planning to attend. The same evening, Pie had an event at his school, so we would have to split the squad. I volunteered to take Pie and Tito to Pie's thing while R and Beeb met MIL and FIL at the concert. Pie's thing was kinda lame, but I was NOT in the mood to hang with the Inlaws.

I knew the evening would be crazy, but I had no idea that the afternoon would be even crazier. No, I did not anticipate that I would be receiving a call from my mortgage company saying that I was thirty days past due. Like hell I'm past due; I made our December payment on November 20th. We're always early, and we always overpay by a little bit. I round up because I can never remember how much we're supposed to pay.

Further investigation uncovered the fact that my mortgage payment had increased two months ago (thanks for letting me know!) and because I had been paying approximately $85 dollars less than the amount due for October and November, they were considered partial payments, and so according to them we haven't paid November or December at all, whereas in reality we were a mere $85 short on each of the last three payments. I'm so pissed.

I mean, it's not like we're deadbeats or anything, I just made an honest mistake, but our credit will be negatively affected. Our October payment was $85 short, then $85 from the November payment went to cover October, so we were $170 short on the next payment, and now we're $255 short, technically, but they're saying I owe for December. So stupid.

I spent the entire afternoon getting to the bottom of this quagmire (giggity giggity!), and it has since been resolved, but mother FUCKER, hearing that I hadn't made the December payment when I know goddammed well I had, and knowing that we can barely afford our monthly payment as it is, just about broke me. Here I am trying to juggle a little part-time job in addition to the other demands on my time and energy, making my best effort to keep my shit together, and clearly, I'm failing. I'm so disappointed in myself. How did I ever think I could handle all of this?

I'm so unbelievably stressed out, I was starting to wonder if my abdominal pain wasn't a stress ulcer. But today I went to my gyno. Here's my annual gyno pic that you all love -



I told her that I'd been to Urgent Care on Monday and that I was reasonably sure I had a cyst or something. She did some poking and decided that I need to get myself in for an Ultrasound next week. I've got it scheduled for next Tuesday, since I was planning to ask off for that day anyway. The kids have a half-day at school on Tuesday, and Pie and Tito and I have been invited to see a movie that afternoon with Pie's buddy John and his mom. I'm not about to go to work after all that.

So I'm going to work in about two hours, working until close, and it's supposed to snow tonight. While I'm out, R and Rip and The Rev are going to be moving the refrigerator that the Aldis are giving us (they bought themselves a new one) to my basement next to the bar, which we also got for free! Soon we'll be able to entertain down there! That'll be good.

But I digress. As I mentioned, I'm working tonight, tomorrow (after the eye doctor), and Friday morning. I'm off Saturday, and then I have to go in for a meeting on Sunday morning at 8. Next week I have the Crazy Tuesday, and on Thursday I'm going back to the ENT who took out my tonsils because I still feel like there's something stuck in my throat.

The following week I'm taking Beeb to get a mole on her neck removed.

The week after that I'm taking the kids to the dentist.

The week after THAT, I'm taking Pie to the urologist.

And I haven't even started stressing about the Holidays.

A blog in three parts, accidentally.

I know I should blog. I know. I feel like I'm neglecting the global fan base who has made me the international superstar I am today. But really, you haven't missed anything.

I dig working at Squish (although so far I've spent more than I've earned), but I'm still feeling kinda like an outsider. I haven't dropped the full-on Pennytude on them, though, so maybe they don't know I'm cool yet. It's a kinda lonely gig, too. It's a small space inside a Macy's store, and when it's not busy we're supposed to stand outside the Squish counter's walls and stop passing foot traffic. That'd be fine with me, except I'm not allowed to whip out my boobs. What fun is that?

Last week was MIL's birthday, R's birthday, and Thanksgiving. Even though we were already planning to go out to Chez Inlaw on Thursday, R said we'd also go out Sunday for MIL's birthday. I would have been pissed about having to go there twice in one week, let alone in one month, but it was all worth it when my BIL, Reverend Aldi, let it slip that they'd have to bring their dog to Thanksgiving. Since the Aldis have to celebrate every holiday with my Inlaws, PLUS Mrs. Aldi's own totally creepy family, Chantal would otherwise be stuck at home all day.

Please tell me you remember what happened the last time the Aldis took their dog out to the Inlaws. It may have been the best day of my life.

Anyway, I was totally giddy all week, imagining a repeat of this past Fourth of July, when Chantal dropped a huge steaming pile of poo right on the immaculate white carpet in FIL's living room. I even thought about sneaking over to the Aldis' house and feeding Chantal some chili when everybody else was asleep.

Y'all know I'm not above it.

Imagine my disappointment when I arrived on Thursday afternoon and both Chantal and The Reverend were absent. The Reverend was sick, supposedly. MIL said he sounded terrible on the phone.

Shit, if WE were supposed to be there and we had a car wreck on our way there, we'd have the ambulance take us to FIL's house even before we went to the ER because otherwise FIL would give us endless grief. It's happened before. He was a real dick to R when I was home sick with the Strep on Mother's Day one year. He didn't believe for a second that I was really sick. I WAS. And it was still more pleasant than going out there for the afternoon.

Wanna hear my theory? I think The Rev faked being sick so they wouldn't have to take a chance on having the dog poop on FIL's floor again. R agrees with me. There's a good chance the dog will come out for Christmas, I think. Fingers crossed!

So, since The Rev and Chantal weren't there, it was an extreeeeemely boring afternoon. Mrs. Aldi and the Aldikids were there, but they only stayed for a little bit before they had to leave for Mrs. Aldi's sister's house, so then it was the five of us Karmas and MIL and FIL.

I've figured out that if we take a kid-friendly movie with us, we can all watch it together. We get credit for staying a couple of hours, we don't have to engage in any conversation with anyone, and it has a definite end, which allows us a graceful exit. Total WIN.

-----------------

Ok, now we move on to Part Two of this post. Literally as soon as I finished typing "total WIN", I stood up and felt a horrible pain in the lower left part of my abdomen. I sat back down, got on WebMD, and tried to figure out what the problem might be. I didn't have a fever or vomiting or any other weird symptoms, just a hideous stabbing pain that got worse when I went from sitting to standing. I couldn't stand all the way up straight.

WebMD's suggestion was to seek medical attention immediately, so, in gut-wrenching agony, I drove myself to Urgent Care. Actually, I had to wait for Beeb to get home so I could explain to her that Pie's obnoxious friend John was coming over after school because his mom needed to take her other son to a late doctor's appointment and she wouldn't be able to be there when John got home.

Beeb was relatively cool with that, and I called R on the way there to tell him what was going on. He would probably be home before Pie and John got home anyway, so it was going to work out fine. I went to Urgent Care, waited for about 30 minutes, got into a room, had to do the old pee-in-a-cup trick, and yay, I'm not pregnant. If I was, they'd have had to peel me off the fuckin ceiling. Seriously.

Next step, a blood draw. I haaaaaate blood draws. I get all freaked out. I've cried before; recently, even. It's totally embarrassing.

Bloodwork came back fine. Next they wanted a pelvic exam. Ugh.

So, just to recap, I'd already peed in a cup, bled into a tube, and now I was supposed to expose my crotch to someone other those who have been granted prior authorization. It made me think of that classic line from Clerks, "I'm not even supposed to BE here today!!"

Look, I've already got my annual Cooter Rootin' scheduled for Wednesday morning. I'm not aesthetically prepared to spread 'em for a stranger right now. I haven't shaved in a couple of days. I'm wearing panties that say "You Wish" on the butt. Now it's kinda unintentionally comical, obviously, but I wouldn't have worn those on purpose to see my gyno.

Especially if I had known that it would be performed by the same little guy who's done my throat cultures the last five or six times I've been in there with the Strep. Now he gets to swab a much more sensitive part of me.

I decided many years ago that I prefer to see a woman gynocologist. I know different people have different opinions on this very personal choice, but here I was about to flash my crotch for this dude who, up to now, had only seen my diseased tonsils. He only had above-the-neck familiarity, and now I'm granting him access to the Holy of Holies (pun intended). I just felt a little strange about it.

For those of you familiar with the show Seinfeld, Dr. Dennis looks a lot like NBC president Russell Dalrymple, whom George and Jerry stalk in the episode entitled "The Shoes," until they find him in a restaurant. Whereupon Elaine, in a very low-cut dress, walks over to his table to ask if he could help her open her bottle of ketchup. She flirtatiously leans forward and asks,

"Do you have a... Ketchup Secret? Because, if you do have a Ketchup Secret, I'd really, really like to know what it is."

He totally looks like the Ketchup Secret guy.

I hope this helps at least some of you visualize what I was dealing with at this point. He left the room so I could get undressed from the waist down, and a minute or so later I heard him knock on the door to ask if I was ready. I told him sure, I'm all set, come on in.

He re-entered, clad in what looked like a green plastic hazmat lab coat. I didn't know whether to be totally insulted or to burst out laughing. I mean, dude, what is this, a fucking alien autopsy? Am I going to spew florescent toxic oozing zombie fluids all over you? Pretty sure I'm not, but it's best to be prepared, I guess.

I scootched my cootch down to the edge of the table and stuck my heels in the stirrups. And if that information is too graphic for your taste, then you're reading the wrong blog, my friend.

While inserting the speculum, he said, "Ok, now, the key is to just relax." Like I've never had a pelvic before.

No, the key is to keep myself from laughing so I don't accidentally fart at Dr. Ketchup Secret.

Staring into the abyss (while I tried to relax), he stated that he was seeing, and I quote, "a little more discharge than he'd like to see". Well, hell, if I'd known somebody'd be scraping me out today, I probably wouldn't have gotten me some luvin' this morning either. Oops. I don't know what kept me from asking, Well, gee, how much discharge would you LIKE to see?

Thank God my filter was still engaged. This guy would NOT have found it funny in the slightest. Therefore, I'd like to put a simple request out there to any current or potential medical student:

If you're considering a career in the field of Gynecology, please, please, PLEASE get a muthahfuggin sense of humor. I can't possibly stress this enough.

He started poking me from the inside and the outside, and DAMN, it hurt. His diagnosis? Ovarian cyst. He suggested I call my gyno and get in for an ultrasound.

------------------

Which brings us to part three of this post. I'll have to post that part tomorrow. It's still too raw to write.

(The experience, NOT my vagina.)

Workin' it!

Get this.

I submitted my pitiful, anemic, half-assed resume via email, along with not a cover letter but a very informal "Hey, here's a little bit about me - I've been a stay at home mom for eight years" paragraph, got an email back the next day about setting up an interview, went in, nailed it, and...

I GOT A JOB!

I'm working part time for a well-known 100% vegetarian, Fresh Handmade Cosmetics company that I'm going to call Squish. I've worked for a couple of similar companies over the course of my stellar retail career, so it was a natural transition. They'd have been fuckin crazy not to hire me, honestly. I know my shit.

I get a fabulous discount (jealous??) and I don't have to buy a whole lot of new clothes because I already have a lot of black in my wardrobe. And the girls who work there are pretty cool. So I think I'll like it. It'll be tough to make the transition to working again, though, after all this time. It was reeeeally hard for me not to be at the bus stop at 4:10 this past Wednesday. But Beeb was there for them, R got home about 40 minutes later, and they all did fine.

When we only had Beeb, R and I both worked full time. The boys have never dealt with me not being there when they got home from school. Beeb gets home before they do, and now that R has a job with more regular hours, now was the ideal time for me to get out of the house. And I figured Holiday would be when a lot of retail shops would be hiring. I plan to stay beyond Holiday, if they want me to, and again, they'd be crazy not to want me to. I'm good at selling stuff I like. And I lurrrrve Squish stuff.

So because of this new gig my blogging time might be limited, but please be assured that no matter where I am or what I'm doing,

I SMELL FANTASTIC.

Trick or Treat, a little late.

Sorry it's taken me so long to post this, my poor neglected readers. I know my annual Halloween post is one of my favorites to write, and it's usually pretty popular, so, with my apologies, here y'all go.

You may recall the bitter anguish I felt upon discovering that the Costume Contest had been inexplicably nixed from this year's Pevely Flea Market Halloween Event.

Such total bullshit. I guess the other people were getting sick of losing out to Team Karma.

I suppose I can understand that. I mean, if my kids' costumes sucked and I was the sort of mother who couldn't stand to see their 6-year-old get her heart broken when her French Maid costume failed to wow the judges, I'd probably be disappointed too. But my kids are good sports, and they have awesome costumes. Why should my kids have to miss out on our annual tradition of kicking your ass just because your store-bought Spongebob costume didn't place?

So this year, we went ballz out for the Trunk or Treat event at Pokey Oaks Elementary. We invited The Racers, and allowed them to see me in my full-on, maxed-out, fiercely competitive thirst for glory. They'd seen glimpses of it before, sure, but NOTHING compares to me on Costume Contest Day, and you need to either get on board or get the fuck out of the way. I'm happy to say that they handled it extremely well.

Kev even snagged a pic of R and me snarking on the competition.




And with that, may I present this year's Team Karma costumes:

Tito was the dog from the movie UP (now available on DVD and BlueRay), complete with Cone Of Shame.







Seriously, how FREAKIN cute is that?!!?


Pie was a classic nerd. He called himself Ervin Ritzensnurf. He was particularly excited about the pocket protector. We took these pics before I slicked his hair.






And, finally, just for the sake of comparison, here's Martha Stewart's MEDUSA, from her website.



And here's MY Medusa.





Martha Stewart can decoupage my ASS.

Tito's costume required some creative hand-sewing (his ears and tail are made from a pair of brown socks), but Beeb's was HELLA labor-intensive. I don't remember how many snakes we ended up with, but they're individually knitted with two strands together, in stockinette so they would have a flat side like a snake, and then twisted and tangled together and attached to the hat.

The hat is basically the Hallowig pattern from Knitty, or at least that's what it would have been if I'd done it right, except I fucked it up (of course) on the decreases and so I had to kinda fudge it a bit. It's not completely closed at the top, so I coiled up a snake and sewed it on so you can't tell. But it turned out awesome and Beeb was so proud. A few people wanted me to make them a Medusa hat too. Not sure I could fuck up exactly the same way again, but for the right price, I might whip one up for ya.

Unfortunately, the costume contest at the Trunk or Treat was only for kids in Pre-K thru 5th grades, so Beeb, being a 7th grader, didn't get to participate. The boys, however, each won a prize for their grade level. Tito was Best Homemade Costume (which, to me, is a totally stupid category), and Pie won for Funniest/Silliest Costume.


TEAM KARMA DOMINATION CONTINUES, BITCHES!!!

Why I Blog.

I love blogs. I love writing this blog. I love reading blogs.

I read blogs for many reasons. I read the funny ones, the inspiring ones, the ones that show the amazing things someone with mad skillz can make with yarn. I love displays of creativity and craftiness. I love people articulately expressing opinions, whether I agree with them or not.

I read blogs that make me feel normal. The ones where moms want to pop other people's kids upside the head. The ones where people want to tell their bosses to fuck off. I feel less bad about hating certain types of people when I see that other people hate them too. It's comforting to know that I'll have someone to sit next to in Hell.

I suppose that's why I write, too. I put it all out there because I'm an external affirmation whore and I need other people to tell me that I'm normal, or, at least, that I'm the kind of abnormal that's fun and entertaining and not totally creepy.

I also write because I'm cheap. And when I unload a ton of heavy emotional shit on you like I did last time, I almost feel guilty. I'm saving a ton of money in therapy bills. Just so you know, I'm saving it for my kids' therapy fund.

Speaking of The Apes, I blog because I want to remember the wacky shit that my kids do (which reminds me, I need to share a poem that Pie wrote), and I like to look back over my posts from the year before and see how I've grown as a parent.

I blog because I loooove feeling like I this blog is a really big secret and only the coolest people can know about it. I like knowing that people who have never met me know what panties I'm wearing to my Inlaws', and want to know how much butter I'm putting in my desserts. I've even gotten butter-intensive recipes from readers. That's so cool.

I write to entertain, to inform, and to purge myself of all the profane rants that percolate inside of me. I blog to avoid some of the realities of my life (like housework) by confronting and sharing other realities of my life (like depression).

Which brings me, tangentially, to why I'm blogging today:

The honeymoon is over. I need to find a job.

Remember the last time I looked for a job? Here's an excerpt from my post from March 26, 2007.

"Friday I had my second interview at Vandelay Industries downtown, so I figured R and my parents could take the kids to the City Museum just down the street and I could meet them afterwards. I felt great about the interview. Here's one of the highlights. I'm paraphrasing, of course -

So, tell us a little about yourself, Penny!

Well, for the last six years I've been a stay-at-home mom, but I'd always planned to go back to work when my youngest started Kindergarten. So this opportunity has come up a year earlier than I'd expected to go back to work, but I decided that I'd rather pursue it now rather than wait until it was the ideal time and hope that there was a good job available, cuz I'd really prefer not to go back to retail... I mean, there's nothing wrong with retail, but I'm 36 years old and I'm kinda too old to be folding jeans for a living... I did my time at The Gap ten years ago... I mean, if there's a Jean-Folding Emergency, I'm your man. Just a little sumthin' extra I'm bringin' to the table...

I assure you, if I hadn't gotten the inside information that what was keeping me in the running for this job was not so much my work experience but rather my youthful exuberance, I probably wouldn't have said all that, but I opted to just go ballz out and be my lil ol' effervescent self. And I think it went well. The interviewers laughed at my jokes this time. When I arrived, the girl I'd be working with actually told me that this interview would be informal and that they just wanted some more people in the office to meet me. I took it as a good sign.

Anyway, after the interview I was to walk to The City Museum to meet R, my parents, and the Apes. On the map, it doesn't look it was that far from where my interview was. In reality, it's about fifteen city blocks. Not a big deal, I've walked farther than that, I wasn't worried about it. But then it started to rain. No problem, I had an umbrella.

Cut to a shot of me walking down the street in the rain with a broken umbrella. In heels. For fifteen blocks. The good news? I was wearing my Power Panties."



I didn't get the job. I didn't care.

I don't want a job. I have a job. My job is being here in case anybody needs me. I have gotten used to setting my own schedule, for the most part, and answering to no one but me. Since going on bed rest when I was pregnant with Pie, I have been a stay at home mom. This is the first time I've had more than a couple of hours to myself during the day in eight years. I rather like it.

And, in a way, I feel I've earned a sabbatical. The way I see it, I've banked all of the fifteen minute breaks people who have regular 40-hour a week jobs get in an eight-hour workday and I'm opting to take them as a lump sum.

Then there's the fact that I really, REALLY hate writing resumes and cover letters. It's depressing. I hate reducing three years of work experience into a single sentence. I hate trying to summarize myself. I never know what to say. I don't feel like I come across accurately in summary form. I'm way too complex.

I hate seriousness and formality. It's not Me. I don't interview well. I get really flustered and I feel like they can tell how uncomfortable I am. If they had an open bar at a job interview, they'd hire me in half a second.  But then I'd probably slip and say, "Oh, I should tell you about my blog!"

I wish I could put Pevely Flea Market Costume Contest Winner 2006, 2007, and 2008 on my resume. If they're not impressed by that, then I don't want to work for them.

Yeah, we skipped Pevely this year.  BUT, we're going to Trunk or Treat on Friday, and this year's costumes are some of the best I've ever done.  There will be pictures. 


Oh, here's a good pic of The Green Dress, before we left for the Reunion.



Should I wear it to my interview? 

My Inner 7th Grader Takes a Beating.

I loved my awesome green party dress. Loved, loved, LOVED it. I loved the color, the fit, the fact that I found it in a thrift shop for $15, and the way Kev's mom fixed it to look absolutely perfect on me.  My glorious shoulder freckles looked magnificent. 

I really was looking forward to knockin 'em dead at my reunion.  I wasn't a bit nervous in the car on the drive to fancypants downtown Clayton, because I knew at least one person slated to attend had gained more weight since high school than I have. There was a deliciously morbid comfort in that.

My only fear - more of a concern than a fear, really - was that given the guest list, it might be a little bit boring. And when I get bored, I get creative. And when I'm drunk and bored, my kind of creativity might frighten some people.  It might delight those who know the post-high-school Penny Karma I have since become, but I didn't drink at all until college, so my high school pals have witnessed plenty of Creative Sarah, but not Drunk Sarah. 

And I was reasonably sure that the uberconservative George Dubya High School alumni weren't ready for Creative Drunk Penny.

Out of the 85 people in my graduating class, only about 30 were signed up to attend. Of the 30, I only cared about 5 or 6. I couldn't care less what Kimmey Fiero, Stereotypical New Money Stinkin Rich Gorgeous Barbie Doll Cheerleader Snotrag is faring in her illustrious career as a Trophy Wife.  In fairness, she was never really outright viscious to me exactly, but that's only because she didn't want to squander her precious Cheerleader Spirit energy on a peasant like myself.

We ran into Kimmey Fiero in the elevator. 

She is one of only a handful of people with whom I can't even bluff my way through a fake conversation full of nothing more than small talk and pleasantries. I don't care what she's done over the last twenty years, and I know she doesn't give two shits about me either.

She did that sappy obligatory "Oh, hiiiiiiiiii!  How great to seeeeeeeee you! You look fan-taaaaaa-stic!" bullshit. I was smirking through clenched teeth, choking on the words I wanted to say, which were "fuck off, you emaciated twat," or something like that.

We joked uncomfortably about how long the elevator was taking to get to the roof. The ding of the elevator brought an audible collective sigh of relief, and she pranced off to look for her uppercrust kinfolk, who apparently had better things to do that night. Kimmey left after less than an hour because nobody cool was there.

The very instant R and I stepped out of the elevator, Julie Wigglesworth yelled from across the room, "HEY, THERE'S MY LITTLE CEASAR'S BUDDY!!!" in a pathetically overt attempt to humiliate me in front of my husband.  See my last post if you don't know what I'm talking about. 

She was hoping to out me, I'm sure.  It didn't work.  I laughed, said, "Oh, Julie, this is my husband R. You met my friend Kev a couple of weeks ago (turning to R) - Kev and I ran into her at Little Ceasar's when we were picking up dinner for the kids (turning back to Julie) - Kev and his wife are so great, in fact, they're watching our kids for us right now!"

Derailed that shit, didn't I?

As the night went on, I learned some interesting things. One of my former classmates ran into another fellow former classmate at, of all unlikely places, a strip club several years ago. The mother of a friend of mine died, which made me extremely sad to hear.  FOUR of my friends had each popped out two more kids since I'd last seen them.  I've popped out two more since the ten-year too, come to think of it.

I drank. A lot.

I offered (read: threatened) to whip my boobs out as part of a fundraiser for the Alumni Association.

People told me how hilarious my Facebook updates are, and I snickered to myself, because those people have no idea that I'm waaaay funnier without the Facebook Filter in place.

I got defriended on Facebook 24 hours after the reunion.

It was a nice night, really.  My effervescent personality sparkled brilliantly.  I was really delighted to be able to introduce my husband to people who have known me longer than he has. R, I would like to add, looked dapper and amazing, and he got to know several of my friends, which was really cool. 






And the next day (yesterday), the pics appeared.

I look hideous in the pics everyone is posting. I looked horrible in the pics at the ten-year too. I look gigantically pregnant in the pic that wound up in the Alumni Newsletter. I was mortified by how underdressed I was for the ten-year, so I was going to overcompensate this time.  I'd been stewing about it for a decade.

Major, MAJOR FAIL. 

The invite called for "Smart Casual" attire. What the fuck does that even mean???  People wore jeans. That pissed me off, a little. I glammed it up and wound up with pictures of my backfat posted for the world to see. Look.




Oh, and notice my buddy Newman (who made sexually suggestive remarks to me every single day for six years, back in the days before I would have been as tickled by it as I would be today) making out with his adorable wife on the right side of the pic.

I wish I didn't look so hideous in the pics, because that's what the people who weren't there are going to see and use to draw their own conclusion about how well I've aged. Of course I know that there are some folks who would be ripping on me no matter what I wore, which is why I chose to wear a dress that made me happy.  And I was happy... until yesterday's rude awakening.

I really thought I looked awesome. People told me I looked spectacular, and I believed them.  And now here I was faced with the reality - and relative permanence - of these wretched, unflattering photographs floating about the internet.  I really wanted to blow my classmates away, and instead, I made a complete ass of myself. 

Here I was having a great time, thinking I looked bloody freakin amazing, and the whole time I had no idea I looked so Huttish in my shiny green dress.  I am totally embarrassed, and there's nothing I can do about it now.

To their credit, R and Kev and Rip and my beloved loves have all reminded me of my beauty.  R told me he thought I looked stunning and he was proud to be with me, but it's almost like hearing it from your dad. You know he means it, but you also know he would never tell you that you were anything less than beautiful.  I was too deep in a self-loathing funk to listen.

I feel disgusting, enormous, amorphous, gross, and above all, incredibly foolish.  I want to throw up.  I want to take a scalding hot shower and scrub my skin with steel wool.  I want to crawl into bed with a box of Oreos and a bottle of Schnapps.

I know I'm taking it far too seriously.  I know I'm totally overreacting.  I know I'm making a big deal out of something that's really not a big deal.  I know I'll get over it.  But right now, I feel like everybody else was in on a big hilarious joke...

and that joke was me.

Heard It Through The Grapevine.

You might not have known this about me, but I'm not big on the Forgive And Forget thing. I know it's unhealthy to go through life bitter, but I bear grudges against people who have pissed me off FOREVER.

FOR. FUCKING. EVER.

Why do I bring this up? Because I'm still pissed off at Julie Wigglesworth (aka "The Grapevine") for telling the entire world when I was literally - LITERALLY - the only person cut from the girls' basketball team tryouts because I kept forgetting to inbound the ball. And she'll be at my 20-year reunion this weekend.

Kev and I ran into Julie at Little Ceasar's last week when we were picking up dinner for The Apes. I can't wait to see what rumors get started via "The Prayer Chain", which is basically where everyone spills whatever juicy piece of gossip they have uncovered.

"Ladies, we need to pray for Penny Karma's marriage... I saw her last week WITH ANOTHER MAN!!! (insert collective gasp of horror amidst clinking of teacups)" And by the way, whenever you add food to one of these dirt-dishing sessions, it's doesn't count as gossip.

Snark + Snacks = FELLOWSHIP. Just tellin ya.

I was briefly tempted to bring Kev to my reunion, but I think it'll be way funnier if I bring my trophy husband R and try to send Julie silent but comically overt signals to keep mum about the fact that she totally busted me with my boyfriend. Whatever. R and I have no secrets from each other, but I'll take the high road and let her think she got the scoop of the century, because I'm the better person.

And P.S., she's gained at least eighty pounds since the 10-year reunion. I, on the other hand, have lost about forty. And I have a kickass dress to wear that looks absolutely stunning on me, thanks to Kev's mom who altered it for me in exchange for pumpkin muffins that don't taste like pumpkin. Plus I got a Swiss Army bra to go under it. The bra cost more than the dress, hose, and shoes combined.

And my husband's a million times cuter and awesomer. Oh, and get this - she started dating her husband back in high school (married the first guy she ever kissed - how very Barbara Bush) and she was sooooo excited to tell us that instead of going to a four-year college, he was going to go to a tech school to learn both "Heating AND Cooling... so he can work year-round!!" Like it was a double major or something. Mensa material, for sure.

She's one of those people who spin the most mundane shit to try to puff themselves up. When her hubby's grandfather died, they moved into his house, which just happens to be in a very nice suburb of St. Louis (where I just happened to grow up), but the way it appeared in the Alumni Newsletter was that they had "inherited an ESTATE in Kirkwood". Ok, the word Estate doesn't necessarily refer to a giant fancy house, it could also - and, in this case, DOES - refer to an acrid-smelling house full of acrylic yarn and other old people crap. I mean, Hello, ever been to an Estate SALE?

But I'm not one to talk snarky shit behind someone else's back.

Ok, I suppose my sharing all of this with you while eating Cocoa Puffs out of the box technically counts as Fellowship, if you're snarfing a snack too.

Remember back when I was trying to decide whether or not to join my high school's alumni group on Facebook? I've been way more active on FB than on my blog, and I feel kinda guilty about that. But rest assured that this blog will ALWAYS be the place where I unload my profane rants about the things that many of my FB friends won't be able to handle.

My blog is my internal monologue. Facebook and Twitter are my internal one-liners. A lot of them are little situational funnies and snide remarks that come to me in a particular moment, and I don't feel that those moments contain enough substance to warrant a full blog post.

I'm sorry if I've disappointed any lurkers, but I find Facebook more engaging. Feedback is more immediate and conversational. I like when people comment on my silly status updates and pictures and I can know exactly who's reading what I'm writing. Yeah, my Facebook is kind of a watered-down version of my life (which requires some major filtering since my parents and uberconservative high school friends read it), but I love that people still think I'm funny when I'm not dropping a ton of muthahfuckin expletives n' shit.

In totally unrelated news, I've been trying to figure out how I can bring up the subject of knitting to my sons' teachers. Because if they are, in fact, knitters, I'm going to have to rethink my Teacher Holiday Gift plan. Non-knitters are mesmerized by FunFur because they don't know shitty yarn when they see it. I would never knit a gift for someone I knew was also a knitter. If they don't know the difference between a knit and a purl, they're getting a cheesy garter stitch scarf for Christmas. And if they're designing their own lace charts and selling their patterns online, then I'm fucked.

I've been cranking out cheesy scarves for the last couple of weeks. I'm trying to use up all of the crap yarn in my stash. I can't believe how much Lion Brand Homespun I had. And the colorway I had, when knitted up, kinda looks like it was made out of dog hair. What was I thinking??? But I'll knit it up into something that would impress a Muggle, and give it away and then it will be out of my house.

So my brilliant idea is to wear one of the sucktastic scarves to Parent-Teacher conferences next week and see if they comment on it. If they say, "Oh, you knit too?" then I'll say "Well, I just started recently..." instead of "Yeah, I started three or four years ago but I suck, not because I lack skills, but because I lack the ability to focus and commit to a long-term project, so I mostly make hats and scarves and stuff that doesn't require seaming."

It's sad how often I'm forced to find creative ways to hide what a dumbass I am. It's alarming how adept at it I've become.

I'm sure this skill will come in handy at my reunion. Stay tuned.