Annual Earnest Post

I've been blogging about a year now. Mostly making fun of motherhood, Mormons, cowboys, and incorporating top tips on parenting for your edification such as the Slap 'Em to Sleep™ strategy. Between this blog and my bloglet, I get my share of feedback from readers and hey, not all of it is positive.

Which is really a shocker.

I mean, who could dislike me? I post pictures of my beautiful child every day; I speak about the joys of being mom to a gifted child; and I wax lyrical about the great blessings that have been bestowed upon me and mine. I post about celebrity births and wish "J.Lo and Mark all the best" and I thank the Christian God out there for making me and mine more special and privileged and basically better than you and yours! In short, I am a blogger likely to top the mom-blog traffic charts.

Wait, I said this post would be earnest. So bear with me. I now officially remove my mantle of sarcasm and irony for exactly one post to explain who I am, what I believe, and why most mom-blogs are absolute drivel. I feel I must clarify my position from time to time, so as to make entirely plain to everyone who asks (all five of you) why I write the way I do. Some people think I'm mean and "hateful." They misunderstand me. Conversely, I am dismayed to learn that some of my own fans seem to think I encourage them to write mean, nasty, and downright un-entertaining/insubstantial attacks on those around them and people in general. I will address both of these prongs in the following:

I DO COUNT MY BLESSINGS
I just don't do it in public. I have a magnificent child and a magnificent husband. We have many magnificent moments in our lives. Having a child is the single most important and defining moment of my life. Yuck, those sentences are so cheesy. They may be true, people, but they are also very boring sentences. This is why you do not hear them more often. It is not my bag to brag about how swell my life is or how astonishingly perfect my child is. It is not my bag to post images of my exceptionally handsome husband and exceptionally gorgeous child. It is not my bag to talk about how lucky I am. To feel lucky; privileged; and occasionally, stupidly gloriously happy: these are private, personal sentiments and serve absolutely no purpose in other people's lives. So I keep the happy moments to myself. With the exception of those I find to be highly amusing and which I think might be enjoyable for others to read.

Plus, ahem, I am just someone who likes to dwell on the glass-half-empty experience. It's where I'm at my best. To be joyful in blogging makes me feel ill. Joyful bloggery, unless wildly hilariously clever, is utterly useless and entirely scary. You may have noticed I am writing less and less about Crabtot's tempestuous toddlerness of late and confessing to fewer lapses in martyred maternal good humor? It's because I'VE BEEN ENJOYING MYSELF more and more as her mother. And this makes it a heck of a lot harder to write about with any real substance or hook.

I DON'T WRITE WHATEVER POPS INTO MY HEAD
Some people have praised me for my "brutal" honesty or cited me as an example of nasty mom-bloggery. Tart, opinionated, barbed. This is how I see my most prickliest posts. I believe in the power of negative thinking but only because I believe there is much that is positive in expressing one's most down-in-the-gutter-humiliating experiences of parenthood, preferably if it is done with a big wodge of humor ladeled into the mix. I also believe in negative mombloggery as a way of dressing down the general mom-public when I think we most deserve it: I write occasional snarky things about baby showers and mulitmedia momming and suchlike because I believe there are people who really deserve to be taken down a notch. In short, I believe I am performing a public service.

Okay, so, not really.

Boy, being earnest really is so hard to sustain! Happy-religious-joyful-perky moms, HOW DO YOU DO IT?

Roit, back to the point. I say negative things and I mock moms and momming quite often. But I have a line. I do not, for example, write about the personal miseries in my life. I don't write nasty things EVER about my family and friends even if I feel or am experiencing nasty low points with the aforementioned. Why do I not post about those close to me? Because they are close to me. And every single word you say on the internet is forever cached. Every foul word, expletive, personal revelation, indiscretion, is there in perpetuity. I think about this quite a lot, peeps. As do all the bloggers I love. For some, the degree of privacy is far less stringent or Victorian than mine. Many mom-bloggers use their kids' names, photos, and record intimate details of life as mother and wife. I'm not saying you can't do this successfully or legitimately and decently, but I choose not to. I also choose not to write about my kid's bowel movements (poop! ha ha! How FUNNY!) or say things that might, later, cause her shame and anger. I realize that no matter what I write she will probably be embarrassed and annoyed by her mother's musings down the road...but I certainly do my best to respect the privacy of someone who has no say in what her mother chooses to record about her online.

I'm not perfect in my blogocratic oath. I am a momocrite. I once wrote about Crabtot having a wee in the flowerpot and using my cashmere sweater as toilet paper. But people, it was CASHMERE! Exceptional circumstances!! I have also had some low moments --Polish poolboy, anyone? Yes, occasionally I have felt it necessary to issue an apology. For not being funny enough.

MY LAST EARNEST WORD
You have to have rules. Self-imposed limitations. Some mom-bloggers don't and some of you in that grouping think I am one of you. I'm not. If you have nasty personal things to say about those you love, try keeping a diary. But please don't think I dig you if you're just plain mean-o! I dig you just as little as I dig those who write all their braggiest, cheesiest, most appallingly narcissistic smug-self moments into their public blogs.

Thus ends my annual earnest "What I Believe." I think we can all agree that it was not the most delightful. I think we can all agree that we do not wish to see this sort of thing again for another year. I think we can all agree that blogging, when intense, is sort of slightly creepy. I think we can all agree that when Flavor Flav says "Do you know what time it is?" we do not.

I have no idea what that meant either.

I look forward to a return to lightness and laughter! Oh, how we shall laugh together, my friends! But it will be a good week before I post again here. I am on the road tomorrow, heading north and west. There are plump posts ahead and they will be consist in a combination of marshmallows and anchovies; sweet and salty, fluffy and fishy. Meantime, get thee to the bloglet for Crabmusings if you want them next week. Because, you know, even if I am traveling or taking an extended crack-binge break or whatevs, the people at Cookie still expect me to post reg'lar and good. Wankers.

Meantime, thanks to Guy Kawasaki at Alltop, a fabu new non-robot-chosen aggregator thingy that lists the Crabby blog in its mix. I am finding some good sites in there, like Stuff White People Like and other such bloggish goodness. Check it out, ai-ight?

And ah yes. The comments, I know I may get some harsh ones. Blogging is fair game. Bring it on! [she says, running away terrified...]

Good Idea

You just have to adore spam. Crabmommy recently received an email entitled "Good Idea," as follows:

Hi friend
I am spanish and I have seen your blog.
Is cool, but you need to add an animated image or a clock.
Make it more creative. I have added a clock in my blog and the people like it.
Just go to www.myclock.we.bs
Is very simple to include in your blog. Just selecting a simple code and put it in your page.
See the website.
Your friends will love it.
We need to be diferents and creatives.

A clock. Man is that ever a good idea. Indeed, I need to be diferents and creatives. Thanks, jlg7564@hotmail.com. You're super! (I particularly love the non-sequitur-like quality of the line "I am spanish [sic] and I have seen your blog.")

p.s. After attempting to be chipper and picking out my favorite egg-shaped things for the bloglet (like the Eames egg-chair with MP3-hookup and a hefty price tag), you may be pleased to note I have reverted to my crabby ways: today, getting peppery with Horton Hears a Who Cares About This Remake? And no, I haven't even seen it. But having no informed knowledge of a matter never stopped me from weighing in.

Wow, that's a lot of linkage. Can anyone say "plug"?

On A Lighter Note: Or, Let's Get Back to Dollar Store Giveaways

I feel I've been getting heavy on this here blog. And maybe it's time for a lighter flow...or none at all. Stay with me. I'm talking about my beloved Christian-owned Dollar Store of Crabtown. Where, as some of you remember, I have walked in search of prizes for my Dollar Store Competitions.

Crabtown's Dollar Store yields an intoxicating mix of Chinese-made product off-gassing and such mystifyingly beautiful treasures as mango-flavored pineapple strips and Crucifixion stickers.

And today, at checkout, I saw the best DS product yet: a no-name pregnancy test.

And so I put it to the floor: are you brave enough to try it? How long has it been on the shelf? Ask and ye shall receive...from me...your very own Dollar Store pregnancy test. Because when you really want to know the answer, you might just get one from a cheapo prego test.

Then again, you might not.

So, who's in? Put your comment in the hat and you too might be the proud owner of a DS prego test!

p.s. If you are more inclined to the higher end, stop by my bloglet for products of egg-shaped loveliness in celebration of Eastertide.

War in the Playground: Babble Bullies Offsprung

Guys, things are getting nasty: 2 parenting websites are clashing in the playground. And I'm taking a side.

Babble did a bad, bad thing.

If you read this blog you may notice I often refer to Offsprung, a parenting website whose motto is "because your life didn't end when theirs began." I like Offsprung, and I like their parenting forum, called "The Playground," where open conversations can be mildly addictive and where I even hosted a virtual Parents' Night Out complete with real cocktails.

But since Offsprung's been up a while now, one can only imagine why Babble (which has been around even longer) has suddenly seen fit to debut the Babble Playground. Another online forum for a parenting site? Fine. But calling it "The Playground"?

Babble can hardly claim ignorance of Offsprung and its playground, which I imagine they will do if questioned about the coincidental name. Offsprung is the venture started by Neal Pollack, author of parenting memoir, Alternadad. Babble knows Pollack. They've gotten quite a bit of mileage out of discussing his book on their site.

I enjoy both Babble and Offsprung. In fact it is Babble that inspired me to start Crabmommy, right here. Babble debuted as a supposedly edgy, ironic parenting website, but their first video featured the gorgeous CEO couple giddily chatting about the beauty of parenthood while their son frolicked in his Modernist nursery. Edgy, ironic stuff!

In truth there are many pieces I have enjoyed at Babble. But it's always scary when major corporate-sponsored sites step on the little guy. At Offsprung, you are free of pop-ups sporting new designs for SkipHop bags or Sigg flasks. Offsprung is going it alone, whereas Babble is a corporate venture by ultra-successful NerveMedia people. Nothing edgy or ironic about their m.o. there.

Look, far be it from me to diss advertising. I blog for Cookie magazine for God's sake. But when you're on a sponsorship-free site as good as Offsprung, you know it's a rare treat and it should be protected, not threatened. It's basically public service for parents. All parents. Even rural ones. I once sent Babble a piece I'd written about leaving the city (NYC) for the rural mountain west. Only to be told that they couldn't run it because Babble is only for urban parents. Now THAT'S edgy, innit?!

Thankfully Offsprung doesn't mind the country hicks swinging by with our weird rural ideas and crappy unironic decor. They accept me, unsophisticated as I am given that I am agrarian folk...They's good peoples.

Babble, don't steal from the little guy. Get out of the playground. Go have fun in "The Sandbox" or on "The Sidewalk" or some other edgy, hip urban place where you do your edgy, hip urban thing. Meantime I'm off to copyright Crabmommy, in case you plan on debuting me without my being there.

Mom on Trial for Being Normal

Apparently Chicago police have too much time on their hands.

According to CNN, some poor chick was arrested for leaping out of her car, running over to put some money into a Salvation Army bucket with her 2 kids or somesuch act of goodymomness, when the police arrested her for leaving her other tot in the car-seat for all of one minute. And now she is on trial. That's right. On trial. And not just on Nancy Grace. (Whose Country Star name -- for those of you into the music name generator -- is Cooter Perkins.)

Ooooh. Baaaadmommy alert! Thank God I'm not moving to the windy city....where it's a lame wind that blows nobody any good. If you follow.

I think the cops should be sentenced to 5 years of tampon-wiener craft activity.

On a happier note, I have posted some links to truly swanky egg-shaped design loveliness, for your delectation over at the bloglet, just in time for Easter. Especially do not miss the adorable "egglings," tiny ceramic eggs that hatch into basil and mint plants. Too delightful!

Why They Should Go to Boarding School at Age 3.5

Today Crabtot told me she was going to "boil" me. "In oil."

I can only think it derived from our DVD of Horton Hears a Who (the original animation, thank you very much) where the oppressors march the colony of Whoville off with the chant "Boil that dust speck, boil it, boil it..." Crabtot and I have often chanted along to that peculiarly delicious and sinister refrain...but not for a very long time.

The threat was preceded by intense hair-pulling (because Mom had come to pick her up from school, which she hates to leave) and a companion threat: "I'm going to break your sunglasses!"
Another one of late: "I'm not making you a birthday card...ever!!!"

Well you know what, poppet? I'm glad you love school. There are some schools where you can stay all day and all night too. Maybe if you keep up the good work you'll get to go to one of them.

Anyone else's kids dropped choice hostile nuggets lately?

Rock Star Name Generator

This is hilarious.

Input your name in this search engine and it will tell you what your rock star name should be. Apparently mine should be "Brock Ash." Um, okay. And it says Crabtot should become "Izzy Jones" when she takes to the stage. And my rap star name? Maya Tricky. Erm. Yep.

What about yours? Better yet, your offspring's?

Tampons and Ebay

No, the two topics aren't related. Thank goodness.

First, as you all know, I enjoy a good tampon craft. Like these cuddly tampon toys from Heidi Kenney of My Paper Crane.

Second: I was recently chatting at a parenting site and realized one of the participants had a baby named Ebay. Seriously. As in, "When I first had Ebay I yadda yadda yak." Or, "Ebay insists on cluster-feeding...does anyone have any advice?"

Ebay.

That's all, folks.

(Except today, at the bloglet: weird kiddo book by Wanda G'ag. And a call for more book suggestions by authors with peculiar names b/c Crabtot and I like to laugh at them.)

AND ahem, p.p.s.

IF YOU REALLY LOVE ME...

Please click on the top right-hand widget of this blog, the one saying "Vote For Me in the SA Blog Awards." Because Crabmommy has been shortlisted for Best Overseas South African Blog. Do you know what this means? Nor do I. But do I want to be special? Always. If you're patient and kind and generous, please click on it before March 19, scroll down to Best Overseas Category, and vote for the Crabmommy. I stand to win nothing except another widget. But winning widgets are better than no widgets at all. I think. *Warning: they will ask for an email address and make you confirm the vote so by all means don't do this if it's too invasive or tedious...Well, actually I take that back. Just do it anyway! You know you simply MUST! And if you do... thank you a whole big chunkload!!! When you are next nominated for something as random as this, be sure to call on me and I will vote for YOU! Maybe!

Judging Mommy (or Shweesh! One Dang Long Post!)

As you know, I'm a momocrite who has plenty to say about moms who tweak my vibe. This ranges from infant edumoms to strident athleti-moms to humorless twitmoms to perky dullmoms to smug multimedia moms and so forth. All that said, I reserve my greatest judgment for those moms who see fit to judge badmoms most harshly.

Yes, yes, the irony is not lost on me. But let me make a distinction: I think it's good to bash moms who think they're on top. But bashing moms who are down? Not for me. I don't want to talk about Britney here. I want to talk about this freaky woman named Nancy Grace who heads up this insane so-called "news" show, which I have insanely been watching while stashed temporarily in my father's vacation apartment in Crabtown during the course of my move. And in this my father's apartment television is available to me and anyone who knows me well knows that when I see television I become insanely addicted to it and cannot believe it and must simply talk about it as much as possible while in the throes of its miserable and shamefully delightful clutches.

Meaning that every night now I flick on the Teevs for vast blocks of time. I might start with Rock of Love, and then I tune in for a bit of Flavor of Love, this indescribable piece of nonsense involving onetime Public Enemy rapper Flavor Flav, a tiny little whacked out man waving chicken wings at various potential love matches. Only one thing stops me from watching Flavor Flav for too long: when he starts making out with gigantic Brigitte Nielsen (whom he calls Bridget), I look for something else. *Those of you who have seen this guy: Did you know: Flavor Flav is a classically trained pianist? Freaktastic!

BACK TO THE POINT: Last night I couldn't stomach seeing Flav and Bridget, so I ended up on watching this incredibly nasty and graceless Nancy Grace woman unfolding her incredibly nasty little show before my disbelieving eyes. I am probably the last person on the earth who had not known of NG prior to last night's TV marathon. For anyone else still blissfully unaware of her: she is this witchy little ball of anger with a furiously shellacked head of golden hair that seems itself to send messages of ZERO TOLERANCE and HOT DAMNIT I'M A REPUBLICAN! and so forth. Moving on to what really ticked me off:

Last night Nancy spent about thirty minutes on a BREAKING NEWS STORY about a woman who went out to ostensibly buy birthday presents for her 9-year-old boy and instead spent the night out, drunk, and only returned in the morning to find policemen waiting for her. Apparently her little boy had called 911 and though he hadn't said anything on the line, the cops came anyway to find him looking after his 2-yr-old sister. Or something.

Okay. So OBVIOUSLY this is a horrible story. And OBVIOUSLY this drunk woman is a freak show and a menace and a bad parent in this particular moment of her surely quite miserable life. But there's another dark side to this and it's the shellacked demonhead dispensing fury and judgment from the seat of her news show. Seriously, I could not believe the venom with which this Nancy Grace judged the wayward mother. She went completely ape, and more or less uttered a stream of wounded outrage for half an hour because it's all deeply personal to Nancy Grace. From what I can see Nancy is or was some kind of lawyer. Maybe even a judge. Which would make sense for she sat at her desk fulminating and frothing at the mouth over this BREAKING NEWS STORY and passing lavish judgment on the shamed losermommy for a good half-hour, without pause. She had a panel of experts on the show too, but whenever they started speaking about rash legal judgments or not taking children away from the mother quite yet because they didn't have enough facts and the woman had never done this before, yadda yadda, Nancy interrupted and practically levitated with anger. I firmly believe that had she been within physical range of this sad pathetic woman, Nancy herself would have personally throttled her. Because Nancy is a new mother, a point to which she alludes to throughout her show.

Which brings me to my very long-winded point: self-righteousness and outrage at bad mothering. This is what makes me most ticked off of all. Ayelet Waldman wrote about this phenomenon far better than I can. And it is a phenomenon: this desire mothers have to cast blame onto those who are down. This need of "good" sanctimommies mothers to fall upon "bad" mothers with such devoted impassioned glee.

Nancy Grace pointed out correctly that the children in this case were endangered by their mom's reckless, selfish, etc. etc. act of abandonment. I am sure that mom will be prosecuted. I am sure she will lose her children. Maybe she deserves it, maybe not. But does this need to make the news and be dissected by a professional white-collar upperclass conservative SANCTIMONIOUS mother, complete with call-ins from similarly outraged mothers? Why? To what end? People, nothing actually happened to these children. Something could have happened, yes, but it didn't. In other words, nothing happened that ought to make it to the top of a news show on CNN no less, and be dissected for thirty minutes. This is the sad miserable crappy story of one family in this country, a story to be hashed out in the miserable small town where it happened. National news? I don't think so.

Here's an irony: maternal love does not make us soft. Love for our children brings out a hardness in us. Or, at least, some of us. Through the process of loving our own children we come to hate those who don't do right by their own. But is it really their children the Nancy Graces of this world are fighting for? Or is it simply that NG and her ilk enjoy kicking a dog when it's down? Because it makes them feel good and right and moral and on top of it. Pa.The.Tic.

This episode reminds me of a conversation thread I participated in a while back on a blog called, ironically, Slackermoms-R-Us ("where moms are cut some slack"). For the record I like this blogger and don't find fault with her post. It's the comments that took me aback. Maybe some of you remember the case of the Missouri pediatrician whose child died of overheating in her car seat? A terrible, appallingly weird accident where the two doctor parents each thought the other had dropped the child at daycare. If I remember correctly the mom had the dad meet her at the hospital where she worked; she was late and wanted dad to drop baby at daycare and park her car. Dad never got the message right; he picked up the car but did not know the baby was in it. The baby died.

A ghastly story. Which the blogger was simply reporting. But the comments! Ohhhh the sense of superiority and certainty with which women weighed in on the mother, on how negligent, how screwed up her priorities etc! Few of these people saw room for human error and absurdly dreadful but plausible misunderstanding between father and mother. Few of these commenting mothers saw room for mitigating facts (that maybe the baby was asleep and in a rear-facing car-seat and thus the father did not know she was in the car; that maybe the part of the mother's cell phone message about dropping off the baby at daycare before parking the car had not made it through to Dad). Mostly the commenters stroked their own maternal egos, and passed judgment, and swore such a thing could never happen to them because, you know, they are good mothers. Unlike this woman. One might read in their words that this woman whose child had just died deserved to have this happen to her. Because she was a bad person who did not care enough about kids. Like that makes any sense. A pediatrician who doesn't care about kids. Especially her own.

Just unbelievable. I think only I (posting as someone called "Amanda") and one or two other chicks tried to stick up for the poor bloody woman. Just imagine her life: First, she loses her child under circumstances so cruel and devastating as to be almost surreal. Second, she has to face the smug mothers of America. The Nancy Graces in houses everywhere. So for this mother, it's a double dose: I'm sure she blames herself. And just in case she doesn't, we'll do it for her.

As you can see, the mood is light here in the Crabcorner. I blame it on watching that toss, NG. Because when I see other mothers beating a mom when she's already in the gutter, I don't know about you, but I feel for the target. Even if she's a bad mother. If anything I identify with the bad mother more in these circumstances because I don't want to and can't connect to the good mothers strapping the badmommy to the ducking chair. If it means choosing between Nancy Grace and the bad side, I know where I'm headed. Heck, maybe that drunkmommy was watching Nancy Grace that night and thus simply had to dash out on her kids and drink herself into a coma.

Sorry to be a titch humorless today and a lot verbose. It's all this moving, man. And the TV. Get me away from the TV! It's like a car accident. I have to look. Especially when it gets late. But tonight I'm skipping all depressing news shows, from Barack's losing his big edge to NG's losing it in general. Instead I think I'll watch something worthy. Like Charles Bronson in Deathwish 4: the Crackdown.

Anyone else feel the self-righteous twinge of self-righteous anger when self-righteous moms get all...self-righteous on each other?

New post today at the bloglet: Help me answer the question, "Mom, when am I getting a baby sister?" Because my first answer ("When your dad gets another wife") isn't really working well for Crabtot.

Crabs Move Sideways

I've been holding out on you. The Crabfamily is moving. We are giving up Crabtown for a new urban life once again, in a place we shall refer to as Crabcity. We are scuttling off to the side, scuttling away from rural life in Wyoming, scuttling on to new horizons, bigger places, greener pastures and so forth. Forget the pastures. We are done with pastures. We are looking for bright lights and urban sparkle. So we are moving to CHEYENNE.

Kidding.

But we are moving. This has all been going down for quite a while. And yet I have kept mum about it? Why? Because I am scared that my new move will make me happy. And when I'm happy I don't have anything to write about.

Thankfully, on further reflection it has become clear that our new home will yield its own share of mock-worthy targets. And thankfully, on further reflection it has become clear to me that it is impossible for me to ever truly be happy or feel "at home" or be "psyched" or "connected" or "totally down with" whatever scene I may find myself in. So I am pleased to say that while I was at first depressed at the thought of moving on to a place that will make me happier, I have come around to a new, more optimistic outlook: while I might be better suited to Crabcity, it will still be imperfect in my eyes, and I can complain about it and make fun of it. In short, the blogging can continue.

Moving is slightly un-fun even when you are pleased to be doing it. Crabhub has a cool new job in a great new place. And where is it we are going? Hint: not back to where we came from, i.e., not NYC. Let us just say that in my new city I will not be subjected to quite so much bright and cheerful sunlight, to which I am allergic. Let us just say that my skin will not be quite the raisin it has become in this high-altitude ski-town. Let us just say there will be a few craft markets where we are headed, and that wind-chimes will likely be sold at said markets, by people in drawstring pants. Let us just say that if we wish to bathe in a vat of freshtastic broccoli rabe, we can do it in our new locale. And let us just say that we are rather happy about that.

And frankly, how could I not feel welcome in a place that sports the following street sign?
Photo by Jege.

BUT while I may have relentlessly mocked Crabtown, I admit that I will miss it too. Its rodeos, its mountains, its prefabricated homes that cost tens of millions, its Christian-owned Dollar Store; the verdant hamlet it becomes in summer...heck even the sheets of ice I skid on outside my front door during the 9 months of winter! Okay, maybe not that. But I will miss Crabtown, because for me the grass is always madly greener when you are in a whole completely different pasture, and you are, like, looking at this other pasture and saying, "Whoa! that grass??? It is completely amazing-looking!" Even if what you are looking at actually isn't grass but is more pavement in nature. If you follow.

Indeed, city or country, I am always about missing the other side. Crabtown, you have been good to me. You have given me fodder for my blog. You have given Crabtot far-too-fresh air and a Heidi-like alpine childhood. You have given me proximity to whiffs of Mormon culture. And hyper-athletically inclined people. You have also given me some lovely beautiful nature stuff that I have made fun of and not adequately appreciated. Oh well. Bloody hell.

THE END.

More to come as we migrate. Another reason not to give a blow-by-blow of one's move? Because it is utterly tedious to read about people packing boxes and arguing and running out of packing tape and wondering whether to keep or throw out their only-just-begun cakes of soap and how do you pack slightly used soap and isn't that the height of depressingly parsimonious frugality? Wait, no, it's just about being green and not being wasteful and now here we go, changing addresses on our fiftieth visas once again and cleaning ovens with that dreadful foam so we can get our full security deposit back. See what I mean? Bo-ring.

Wish me luck. And please go to the bloglet to see the super-freaky baby nursery of Christina Aguilera. Okay, I swore I would never write about celebrimoms but I've also told you up front many a time: I'm a momocrite. Go see it. It's fantastically scary. Bring garlic and a crucifix. You're going to need it.