Oh? Okay!

Time and money. The two greatest illusions of the mortal coil.

I have a new discovery. And it is truly of the "eureka!" variety. There are two answers to almost 82% of the questions we are asked every day.

To be fair, what led me down this road has been my tireless effort in reasearching a way to get another $20 bill in a hundred dollars, but that's on the back burner for now (and possibly another blog post - feel free to weigh in. Help a sistah out!)

Anyway, by my estimate the answer to almost 82% of life's questions can be answered with one of these two replies, "About 40 bucks" and "10-15 minutes".

Think about it. Here is list of questions that can be answered with the forty dollar answer:

"I love those new shoes! How much were they?"
"I bought girls scout cookies, but I didn't spend too much."

"We all met up at Beer Depot for drinks, but I didn't stay very long"

You with me so far?

Next, a list of questions that can be answered with my 10-15 theory:

"Oh hey, I woke up a little late, but I'll be there soon"

"I want to drive downtown to that new boutique, how long will it take? I'm on lunch."

"Holy cow, I'm hungry! When is dinner??"

The really strange thing about this idea, is that it speaks to what we are willing to give. If something I have to do takes more than 10-15 minutes that task starts to loose it's luster a little bit.

I am willing to start a garden, with the careful forethought that this project will have to be nutured. I actively and happily accept that raising my kids, builing a house or watching a film takes time. That time is born of our natural reserves, desire and instict.

But if I am asked to sit through a conference call, an oil change or a trip to the bank that takes more time than this? I am lost. Where time is concerned we must somehow instinctively know what our limits are.

Money? That's a whole other beast. The worst part is that it's a beast who feeds a beast.

Money is nothing but illusion. To cut to the quick of it yes, money is power. But let's make no mistake of it, money is something most folks worry about, and that simple (albeit esoteric) truth is that worrying about money drains our power.

For most folks who will read this blog, we get by with more than what we need. When confronted with dire straits financially, the more enlightened of ourselves find that we are luckier than most folks in the world. Forget the world. We are more lucky than most of the folks who live in our same county.

For this reason I believe the answer "about 40 bucks" suits so many of us. It's what we're willing and able to spend. We can justify no more than $40 for a pair of shoes. We can justify $40 dollars when we need to take our kids to the doctor (damned co-pay), $40 is what we'll spend happily, freely on a night out with a good friend.

"About 40 bucks" covers so much of our life that is has become a surprising catchprase of our middle class lives:

"I only spent $40 bucks on this dress"
"He and I had such a great pizza dinner tonight, together."
"I took the kids to Target and I got most of what they really need for school."

It's a blessing when we have to have our $40 to share with family or friends, and I propose we spend no more than 10-15 minutes on anything we don't want to do.

The trick is to make sure to keep these measurements in perspective.

Waitaminute . .. ..When the hell did THAT happen?

I love music. No, really I LOVE music. So when Louisville's own Forecastle Festival was boasting some really great acts I decided that I would finally submit and get tickets for two days of the three day event. Full disclosure, I got free tickets through the Maker's Mark office - we were a sponsor.

So, I bailed on Saturday and the Smashing Pumkpins and opted for Sunday, She and Him and the Flaming Lips. The deal was further sweetened when I called my friend Maggie Jones who said that they were on their way out the door for Forecastle and yes, I could have a ride.

Smuggling in 6 "mini" bottles of Gallows white wine (that Maggie, always thinking) is always a breeze when you're over thirty and have clean-ish hair. So our evening was off to a great start. $2 cups of ice and we were definitely on our way. Then I took a look around.

As I scanned the crowd I realized that I had left my lip ring, lucky dreadlock, hula-hoop, and inner bliss at home. Damn, I knew my purse felt a little light. The funny thing about it as I took another long gulp of wine (most of the kids wandering around the shakedown were carrying beers) I realized that the kids I was looking at were me just a few short years ago.

I realize this makes me sound like a codger, but for cryin' out loud I'm only 33. Why was I having so much disconnect? Why were these tanned and toned abs, purple striped hair and bangle bracelets making me so uncomfortable? I used to be cool, dammit!

So anyway, we stepped into a side stage event featuring "Cirque Beserk" from LA and the promised weirdos trotted out for choreographed trampoline bouncing. A contortion act appeared, as did a gal who hung from 40 foot curtains, tying them around different bodily joints and for 8 minutes she artfully, gracefully, simultaniously flew and fell through the air.

I don't guess I have to be so weird that I have to join a runaway circus made up of ex D&D junkies who live in their father's basement and ex strippers who are yoga teachers Monday through Friday, but there I had it.

These circus folk, like the dreadlock girls and men in guadalupe pants and Hempseed hats all had "real jobs", like me. I wasn't too old for this weekend event, I was just apparently just having an issue with letting my inner weirdo out. As I looked again at the hippie girls I remembered that I used to have tanned, toned abs, purple hair and an unsteady grasp on reality, but now I'm in a different stage of my life. Again, full disclosure: my grip on reality is still a little dodgy.

It may have been only 10 years ago that I was "those girls", but it felt like a lifetime ago. And as we walked around I felt a little sad that "Young Emily" and her carefree, drifting ways were sort of gone. Today I might not hulahoop at the festival, but I used to. And I've got my own groove going and I'm happy with that.

What made me happier? Realizing that "Team Drealock" had no idea that in the blink of an eye they would work their desk job and reminisce about being "Young Stacy", "Young Amanda", or more likely "Young Diva-Bliss Stafire".

Don't blink, my dream-chasing friends! One love! Jah Rules! Stir it up! Don't trust anyone over 30!

Party like a rock star today, fax like your life depends on it in 10 years.

Oh yeah - it's ON!

I have noticed the slow, steady, boiling supermarket war between Lavender and Pomegranate over the last 2 years and I have recently found myself a one-woman Sweden in their battle for supremecy.

For the last eight years I noticed that everything I purchased contained "a hint of lavender". Everything from window cleaner to dishwashing packets, laundry cleaner to greeting cards contained "a hint of lavender". Not to mention the soaps, lotions, diapers and trash can liners that also carried the "with a hint of lavender" flag.

Cut to 2008; a new era was dawning and "Pomegranate" was making a charge up the hill. "Pomegranate!" screamed at me from every aisle of the local grocer - again the soaps, lotions and juices tempted me with their new ideals - "anitioxidants", "flavor" , "Omega-3" (really? wtf?) and yes, even "super food!" Pomegranate had launched the first grenade in the war on flavors and scents. Green apple made a feeble attempt in 2006, but no one took green apple seriously. In the end, I think green apple was too forward, no seduction in the scents and flavors fight. Green apple came cloying and desperate like so many impotent stalkers (case in point; lanolin, honey, raspberry) I mean c'mon. When you go to the grocery, do you buy green apples?!? Yeah, you buy honey - every 8 months!

No, "pomegranate" was the new "It girl" in Safeways, Wal-Marts and Krogers across the land.

Trying to be non-commital, I made selections for "pumpkin" scented dish detergents and I toyed with "Aloe" mouthwashes, made purchases for the old stand-by "Lemon" scented detergents. "Lemon" is always a solid bet, would never get you in trouble and it sure as heck wouldn't feed those beastly marketing pukes who lived under the P&G or SE Johnson encampments. Lemon is too obvious. No, lemon has always been above it all. You can't touch lemon!

In the end, despite it's inability to become a flavor, my money's on lavender. Lavender is the new Pine/Lemon - inedible on it's own, yet intoxicating.

Trusty lavender will take her place on grocery shelves next to all the other "johhny-come-lately" smells that assault our senses as we try to find our way to the frozen foods section. Heck, for a while there it looked like Kiwi was going to make a good go of it ("kiwi, have you met "green apple?") - I laugh in your face!

To get down to it, lavender is the new lemon. End of story. Pomegranate will likely usurp Acai's position as the cream of the flashy new crop of market-ready offerings, once the dust has settled. Where does that get you, exaclty? A one-way ticket to nowhere baby!

If you see any new upstarts, be sure to let me know. I'll be sure to find their proper place in the smelly, flavorful heirarchy we all seem to live in these days.

The Rolling Stones-She's So Cold -HQ

The Blah Blah Blah Blog's house band

Can't Keep A Good Nation Down

Please visit my friend Clay's blog to read what he wrote about our amazing country.

http://fatclay.com/

I couldn't have said any of it better than Clay. Happy 4th!

Fool's Paradise

Occasionally, I feel like Mrs. Nathan Arizona, as described by Holly Hunter's character "Ed" in the cult classic, "Raising Arizona".

"HI, you heard what she said, you know they got more than they can handle"

Sometimes I feel like I have more than I can handle. The strange thing is that it doesn't do anything to curb my baby fever.

I'll say this up front (in my husaband's defense) - my children are blind, raging lunatics; as quick with a hug as they are a foot to the face. They talk incessently. They demand juice, and MORE JUICE. They stay up late, stealing the few and far between moments that Britt and I share, encroaching further and further into our "us" time.

Britt says he doesn't wan't anymore children because he is looking forward to us having some time for ourselves. I tease him that he is searching for a fool's paradise.

He thinks that once the boys are out of diapers and off the bottles that our lives will somehow re-normalize and it will again be just the two of us. Pffft! I say, once the guys are out of diapers our whole lives will be nothing but football practice, group dates to the movies, birthday parties at the bowling alley and more running around than what we did with any of our newborns.

The simple fact about child rearing is that the "good days" are the early days. Kids demand and require more time and effort (and driving!) as time goes on. Those late night strolls around the nursery will pale in comparison to the late night phone calls from teenagers asking for a ride home from the party.

All that being said, why not add another body to the mix? If you never stop worrying about your kids then having another one could/might/hopefully bring you more joy to the family.

I don't know. Maybe I just have baby fever.

Maybe we should just get a puppy.

Open Post - Hosted by Ray Radford

This is a picture of my dad with my mother and their friends from back in the day. This might be photographic documentation of my father's first shout from the mountain.

I sort of like to think of Ray as the original "smack my dad talks" - I just wasn't clever enough to tweet Ray's rants. So here he is, unfiltered - meet my dad.

By the way, when he emailed me he called this thing "your blob". Oh dad!

When I was growing up, words , their usage and origins were regular topics of the day. “Look it up in the dictionary” was heard about as often “wash your hands before dinner” and “because I’m the Mom and I said so”. With that as the background, I went in search of the etymology of the word ‘summer’ and I’ve discovered it’s Native American- quite possibly Cree- for “season of noisy shoes”.

Honest to God, the incessant flippity-floppity of the damn flippity-flops is about to get my very last flippin’ nerve.

Flip-flop, flip-flop, flip-flop, flip-flop all day? Really? If you wear them to make sure people hear you when you’re coming towards them, a vuvuzela or a kazoo is more effective and a shit load less irritating.

I’d also like to call bullshit on ‘these aren’t flip-flops they’re sandals’ response. If they look like flip-flops, and sound like flip-flops, they’re flip-flops period and I don’t give a damn if they have rhinestones and or not.

At work, casual Fridays (now becoming casual everyday) is not code word for making your coworkers want to eat a bullet. I’ll bet if you passed a law that said if your work place allows flip-flops then people could smoke wherever in the hell they wanted to, you’d put an end to this. Wait! I got it! How about copying the NYC model and you have to pay an $11.00 (with taxes the average price of a pack of smokes in Manhattan) per day fee to wear flip-flops in public? Billions could be raised, foot disease wiped out, no more homicidal/suicidal co-workers, reduction in carbon footprint, Gulf oil spill cleaned up, cancer as we know it would be wiped out, all children would be educated. Ok, the last four may be a little over the top, but you get my point.

Speaking of smoking, I’m thinking of tearing a page out of the anti-smoking lobbys’ playbook and having buttons printed that read “Yes I mind if you flip-flop”.

Jim James and The Roots

I'm such a big fan of Jim James and My Morning Jacket, plus his side project Monsters of Folk. Jim and The Roots KILLED IT in this version of Dear God 2.0. Jim of course is a genious and I thought the rhyming over this stellar song was pretty good, they kept it deep:

http://www.prefixmag.com/media/the-roots/dear-god-20-f-jim-james-live-on-fallon-video/41556/

I'm probably not supposed to add this link without citing it so here we go, "The video is the property of NBC and that chuckle-head Jimmy Fallon"

Just say "Yes!"

Ahhhhhhhhh . .. .a beautiful Father's Day end to a beautiful weekend. I love summer.

There's nothing better than popsicle-sticky chins, late nights with friends, lazy days at the pool, lightningbugs and every other possible wonderful moment of sunshine.

Summer has a bad history of zooming right by us. From the time we are kids it seems the moment we walk out of school and into the warm promise of the high season we just as swiftly find ourselves back in the schoolroom.

Hair brushed a little too hard and straight. The cracking sound of opening this year's new books. Yeesh. What happened to my tangled blonde hair? What happened to evening ice cream trips with dad?

So I am starting (for myself) a summer revolt. I'm going to take the day off when I feel like sitting by the pool for a day. I'm going to let the dishes sit overnight so I can sit outside with my wine and listen to the locusts. I'm not going to check my email so often, in favor of taking the kids for a summer evening stroll.

I am reclaiming summer.

Summer is for lovers-of life.

I love summer.

Happy Father's Day

You know what? Being a dad is hard.

It's easy to praise mom - she's the marquee player, always in the limelight. Making dinner, finishing puzzles, kissing boo-boos,driving kids to soccer practice, fixing lunch, solving problems. Being a good mom isn't easy, but it is so obviously praise-worthy that we forget the unsung heros of marriage and parenting - the dads.

On our first date I told my (future) husband in these precise words, "There is nothing in this world harder than being a good dad."

"The pressure of being a good father is not for the faint of heart", I told him. I had a daughter of my own from another marriage. The child of a "not so great" dad.

In my mind being a good dad was being the guy who tucked kids in bed, read to them, played ball with them, made dinner for them, kissed them, held them, understood them. The role of "good dad" was not one to be taken lightly. These guys not only do ALL of the above, but they pay the bills, worry about the car, the mortgage, the money, etc. - and the really good ones make sure that their wives have the occasional luxury of new shoes, a perfect flower garden, or the relief of date with the man they love on a Friday night - even when times are tough.

Good dads do all of this; letting the light and love of their children reflect on the mother. And dad becomes another bit player in the game of life.

I want to say here: I have a great dad. And I married a great dad and I love and appreciate the dads I know.

I know what you're doing. I see you taking care.

You're a hero - you're my hero.

And I love you

Sportz - NBA

I want the Celtics to win. I mean, I REALLY want the Celtics to win the NBA Champioship game. The only thing standing in our way? The "C" key on my omputer is broken and it's screwing up all of my faebook posts and whatnot.

In any case - "Go Celtics!" ( I have to double push or extra push the "C" key to make a proper c)

Rondo, Pierce, Allen, Garnet, Big Baby - what's not to love?

Kobe - what's not to hate?

Think I Have My First Pitch

I watch the same old shows every day. But I do LOVE a good reality show. In fact, the more terrible the reality show (I'm lookin at you Property Virgins - NEVER LEAVE ME!) the happier I am. That's why I feel I'm an expert at what the "next big thing" will be.

My reality show is a cross between "Ice Road Truckers" and "Pawn Stars". I call it "Code Dogs!" The exclaimation point is part of the title, yes.

"Code Dogs!" follows the story lines of 20 people (mostly men) who work out of a windowless room in the basement floor of a multi-national company, writing code for the most advanced baseline applications the folks in the IS department find necessary.

Watch incredulously as these brave men and women try to determine who will purchase tomorrow's supply of real half-and-half for the mini fridge supply (Paul and Angel hate powdered cream). In the shows 8th episode arc you'll be amazed as the team (pit-stained, heavy breathing, Judas Priest t-shirted) turns over a projected 4 day project in less than 48 hours. In the season finale, Aimee and Doyle must decide if their love is strong enough to survive an 8 hour shift with . . .The SERVER!! 2 words - Wedding Plans on hold!

Looks like TLC owes me some money. Am I right?

New Feature - Favorite Forwards

Generally, email forwards are annoying, but this one is pretty good and I've never read it before so here you go:


Let's put the seniors in jail, and the criminals in a nursing home.

This way the seniors would have access to showers, hobbies, and walks, they'd receive unlimited free prescriptions, dental and medical treatment , wheel chairs etc. and they'd receive money instead of paying it out. They would have constant video monitoring, so they could be helped instantly, if they fell, or needed assistance. Bedding would be washed twice a week, and all clothing would be ironed and returned to them. A guard would check on them every 20 minutes, and bring their meals and snacks to their cell. They would have family visits in a suite built for that purpose. They would have access to a library, weight room, spiritual counseling, pool, and education. Simple clothing , shoes, slippers, PJ's and legal aid would be free, on request. Private, secure rooms for all, with an exercise outdoor yard, with gardens. Each senior could have a PC, TV, radio, and daily phone calls. There would be a board of directors to hear complaints, and the guards would have a code of conduct that would be strictly adhered to.

The "criminals" would get cold food, be left all alone, and unsupervised, lights off at 8 PM, and showers once a week. Live in a tiny room , and pay $5000.00 per month and have no hope of ever getting out. Justice for all.

You know what? Whatever.

I am currently experiencing what I call "culture fatigue". Culture fatigure is the feeling one gets from experiencing overexposure to celebrity gossip, news porn and an understanding that what you hear is only half (if we're lucky) of the truth of what is atually happening in the world.
Culture fatugue's side effects are apathy, entropy,overeating, overreacting followed by a general "who could give a shit" attitude.

That's why there's "Fukital". "Fukital"'s daily use has been proven to help users re-evaluate and make adjustments to what might really be important issues in their own lives. Cultural Fatigue is a series issue, but must never be evaluated by a doctor. Only you can help yourself!

Can't do anything about the gulf spill? "Fukital"! Hate your measley eyelashes? "Fukital"! "Lindsey Lohan got you down? "Fukital!