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.