I didn't put this up when it it actually happened, because our babysitter--who reads this blog--was coming over that night, and I had nothing to feed her but that pizza. (Sorry, Kelley Anne!) 

And, yes, I know. It was technically a simile I was searching for. Not a metaphor. So all you English majors can untwist your knickers, okay? Relax. Breathe. Your going to be fine. (Awww, look at all the English majors! So cute! Cringing in their little chairs because I just said "YOUR going to be fine" instead of "YOU'RE going to be fine". Itkills English majors when people do this. Don't ask me how I know.)

So it's Saturday. And I see that my mother is ONLINE.

What is up with Skype and Facebook telling me who is online? It's none of my business. Yet I always feel like I should do something with this information. Like send a little note or something. Just to say hi.

Hi, mom!

We have a very full day today. Laundry (whites AND colors)!, medium-long run (7 miles), birthday party at GLOW GOLF!, fundraiser for Africans I don't know (but who are lovely, I'm sure), and then Larry's playing at the French Quarter tonight. (Not theFrench Quarter. But the Nashville club The French Quarter, which ispractically the same thing, really, if you squint your eyes and tilt your head just so.

I've been going back and forth with the nice folks at Typepad trying to figure out why in the H-E-double-hockey-stick I can't upload my new web banners from the Blabbermousery. They've uploaded this one for me, but now (AFTER MUCH DRAMA and LOSS OF CONTROL OVER THE SITUATION) I'm not sure if I even like it. It's sort of ... I don't know, not Inaugural Ballsy enough. And the typeface ...

Whatever.

I am a busy woman. I have two kids and a full-time job, not to mention this stupid goddamn Special-K diet to contend with, so we're all just going to have to live with the blog banner for awhile. Need I remind you of the STARVING CHILDREN IN AFRICA WHO DON'T EVENHAVE WEB BANNERS?

ANYWAY. Speaking of the needy, Sean finally got a haircut.

Doesn't he look handsome?

The drugs are still wearing off. They had to sedate him twice.

The groomer called him "such a weenie" and "Mr. Chicken", which was putting it kindly, considering Sean tried to kill her. 

Next time, they're going to euthanize him first. Just to take the edge off. 

When we got Sean in the car, he was still a little punchy from the drugs. I could tell he wanted to hang his face out the window, but he couldn't figure out how. He kept cocking his head and looking at the window, like, dude, that window and I are like THE SAME DOG. 

Except that car window never had dreadlocks hanging out his anus.

A lot of you (two? three? I lost count) have been saying you would like to see more video blogs.

My camera was actually at Camera Camp for a couple of weeks (that's what we call the Canon repair shop, so the camera thinks it's having fun when we send it away), and then I got some more fan mail on YouTube, this time from a crazed Lance Armstrong fan who was very offended by my "review" of Eat to Live.

"You are really stupid and obnoxious," he said. "Please stop posting reviews."

And because I'm the kind of spineless people-pleaser who lets her readers design her blog, I was all, "THANK YOU FOR YOUR VALUABLE FEEDBACK! Live strong, my friend!" And then I massaged his feet. 

I try not to take it to heart, but it rattles me when people take the time to tell me what a stupid idiot they think I am. Can you imagine stopping to write a note every time you encountered a jackass? How time consuming that would be? And for what? I don't get it.

On the flip side, I must say, you all are the nicest readers in all of the blogosphere. I don't think there's a bad apple among you. Such sweet comments on our Wild Things video (which I honestly didn't expect anyone but my family to watch) ... I was blown away. You are good peeps.

And because I love you, I will share this exciting and well plotted tale of my family about to go out to dinner and stuff.

  My You Tube friends will LOVE it.

Larry spent the morning building the boys a tree fort. Or really it's more of a treeplatform I suppose. But still. It’s fun. And the boys are having a blast with it.

They climb the little ladder, they stand on the lookout, it’s not too high from the ground, so they’d (allegedly) be hard pressed to kill themselves falling off of it. 


This afternoon, having delivered a brief safety lecture about not pushing or using the jump rope as a noose, I went inside to check my e-mail. As I was sitting at the computer, I was sort of wistfully thinking to myself how nice it is that the boys are at an age when they can entertain each other in the yard, and I don’t have to watch them every single second. Then I heard this strange sound coming from Patrick. Kind of an egh egh egh egh sound. It wasn’t his usual little brother victim cry, but an odd noise that my brain could not make sense of. So I went to the back door and looked out. Patrick was sitting on the lawn several feet from the tree fort, whimpering. I scanned the yard for Gus and then, two feet to Patrick’s right, beside the tree fort, I saw Gus’s foot. And his leg. AND HIS BODY LYING ON THE GROUND TOTALLY STILL. I threw my can of soda down on the deck and ran across the lawn, screaming Gus's name like I was in a Lifetime movie. GUS! GUS! OH MY GOD! PATRICK, WHAT HAPPENED TO GUS? GUS GUS GUSSSS!

His little face was so still. I thought he had fallen off the platform and hit his head. Or fainted? He looked so peaceful and strange, I thought. Is he dead? In a coma? Should I move him? Did he break his neck? And all this time (two, three, ten seconds?) I'm saying his name and touching is face, and he’s lying there, unresponsive because HE THINKS I’M PLAYING ALONG WITH HIS GAME.

“Police Army Force.”

In which Patrick had just shot him! 

Egh egh egh egh egh.


Cause Gus was the bad guy!

See?

HA!

Ha ha!

HahahahhahahhahahahahhahahaOH.MY.GOD. 


Boys.

So reader Jennie left me a comment today. She said she's having trouble with the new blog template. Emotional trouble. She doesn't think the new look is "me."

On the one hand (the one wearing the sock puppet), I kind of agree with her. The new header is a little "BlabberMouse accidentally gets an invitation to the big Inaugural Ball and wears not one but TWO (!) pairs of Spanks under her fancy blue bias-cut dress." But on the other hand, it's so PRETTY! I love the little burstily bubbles, and the shades of blue. It makes me happy every time I see it. 

Nevertheless, I'm all about customer service here at the BlabberMousery, and I want you people to feel at home. (Assuming you can feel at home with the burstily bubbles and the blue background SOME THINGS ARE NOT NEGOTIABLE LET'S JUST BE CLEAR.)

Okay? We'll put it to a vote. Your comment is your ballot. Stuffing the ballot box is totally permissible. Here are the three candidates:

Vote early, vote often.

Weekend before last, I videotaped Gus giving a six minute impromptu monologue about Where the Wild Things Are, a movie he is obsessed with but refuses to see because of "The dangerous situations Max finds himself in." (I read him a review of the film that used those words exactly, and he has been incorporating them into every Wild Things conversation since.)
 
Since the movie premiered, he's followed the hype with scholarly devotion. He's watched all the trailers (which, to my delight, he mistakenly calls "trailer trashes") and has scoured YouTube for all things Wild Things. On Sunday night he made me watch an instructional video demonstrating how to make an official Wild Things costume.
 
"Watch carefully so you can make this Max costume for me tomorrow," he said.
 
"I don't even have a sewing machine, Gus."
 
In a tone suggesting that I am a tedious person who always gets hung up on trivial details, he sighed and said, "You can buy a sewing machine, Mom. Now did you see how they sewed the tail on or do you need me to go back?"
 
He asked Larry to videotape him and Patrick performing their own interpretation of Where the Wild Things Are, which will be very different (and "much less scarier") than the movie. He says the idea for his Wild Things movie came to him in a dream.
 
Because we are always trying to encourage the boys' creative expression, Larry has been very gung-ho about Gus's movie-making talk--though we were both somewhat mystified when Gus announced that his next feature film will be called San Francisco Party Dance. In it, Gus says, he will play the role of "Larry", a guy who walks around San Francisco saying "All I got is this $1 bill!"
If you know what he means.

Have you had ample opportunity to soak in the Halloween photos from the last post? Do you need another week? I know some of the images are intellectually and philosophically challenging (Are they cookies? Are they art?) Just remember. Learning is a journey, not a destination. Take your time.

You're good? 
Alright then. Moving on to the next discussion topic. This one is entitled "Dark Chocolate: I Know You Love it, But To Me It Tastes Like Pan Seared Diarrhea."

Truly. I'm not just saying that for effect. Given the choice between dark chocolate and no chocolate, I'll take a rich creamy bar of NOTHING any day of the week. Thank you and pass the Symphony bars.

I am so sick of the rampant chocolate snobbery in this country. Everywhere I go, people are all, "You prefer milk chocolate? Eww, not me. If I'm going to eat chocolate, I'm going to eat the GOOD stuff." 

I'd like to see what they do to a Snickers bar when the cameras aren't rolling.

And yet they behave as if I'm some kind of Cacao Neanderthal.

(Which they no doubt pronounce Neander-Tall, because that's how CULTURED DARK CHOCOLATE CACAO LOVERS DO IT. And don't get all up in my business about how Neander-Tall is the PROPER pronunciation, unless you are also willing to admit that your strong suit is called your FORTE and not your FOR-TAY. What? You knew that, but you continue to pronounce it For-tay because EVERYONE ELSE DOES? Hmm, that's kind of how I feel about NEANDER-THHHHHALS.Thhhhhhhh.)

I remind myself of Richard Gere in Pretty Woman. "My therapist says I'm very ANGRY."

Here you can read about a few other things that annoy me (since you brought it up).

And to that list I would like to add #11: The fact that the only person who commented on that list did so to lament my loathing of dark chocolate*.

(*Though I still think you're swell, Margie.)

I made this picture from scratch.

On Halloween eve, Patrick decided to abandon his UPS man costume and go as Spider Man instead. Five stores later, we procured The Last Spidey Suit in All of Nashville (size 8) and matching mask. But when it was time to go trick-or-treat--the mask was gone. Larry and I ransacked the house, cursing parenthood and all American holidays, while Patrick kept saying, "Let's just go. It's okay. I don't need it." Only after we arrived at the party did he confess to hiding the mask behind the refrigerator because it was too scary.

Gus, on the other hand, wanted to be as scary as possible. For the first time in his life, he requested full hair and makeup.

Despite the faultering economy and greater-than-usual number of darkened doors, the kids managed to take home a pretty good haul. 

It's the great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

The end.