I have a dumb cherub on my shoulder. It needs to die. When I was at Thrill Vulture with Kristen, I searched and searched for something  that I liked enough to cover up that cherub. I asked myself, “What do you like? Why don’t you know what you like?” I finally realized that I like faith and I like humor. While faith lends itself naturally to the tattoo art, humor really doesn’t, which is a bummer.

So me and Jesus? We tight. But, I don’t know if you can tell by reading my blog, I’m not really comfortable with Christianity as a whole. I have some issues. Issues with trust and with people and with arbitrariness and with, oh, lots of stuff. In spite of my many, many issues, I think I’m going to go with the classic nice-looking cross with one of my favorite verses on it. Here are my choices:

John 8:7  Jesus says, “What, like you’ve never done a shit thing? Line up, we’re gonna stone you too. That’s what I thought. Don’t be a dick.”

Matthew 7:1 Jesus says, “Dude, you’re an ass, too. I can say that about people because I’m the Son of God, but you can’t say that cuz you suck. Don’t be a dick.”

Matthew 5:3-12 “It’s so much more awesome to not be a dick than it is to be a dick.”

Romans 14:22 “Believe stuff, but don’t be a dick about it.”

I’m not sure what translation that is. I think maybe it’s the “Jesus, what’s your favorite curse word?” edition by James Lipton from “Inside the Actor’s Studio.”  Jesus’ favorite curse word is absolutely “dick.” Or maybe “Jesus H. Christ.” Either way.

So now I’m saving my pennies and looking at tats. I suppose I could always go with Snowman Jesus, but I don’t want to offend anyone. People are touchy about that kind of thing.

So we waited a couple of hours while I rehearsed in the mirror and Bryan put Maya to bed. Then we told Lena and Liberty. Liberty said, “That’s ok, I was kind of sick of him anyway.” Lena cried a little bit and then, Digital Native that she is, said, “I’m going to make a slideshow of Choji and put a sad song on it and post it on my blog and my Facebook.” She’s very proud of it, so I’m posting it here, too. By the way, when she posted it on Facebook and received condolences, she responded, “Yeah I miss Choji, but doesn’t the song go good with the slideshow?” I can’t wait to see what she does with my funeral.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNkdNO_udrk

In the morning when we told Maya, rather, when we remembered to tell Maya, she cried a tiny bit. We had the funeral that night and she cried more. Choji’s death has made her more concerned about when our cat Kisa dies or when Kristen’s dog Rudy dies, though. She wonders how they’ll bury a big old lab, she wonders if we’ll get another cat (yes), and all three girls want to get another hamster. ??? The answer is no. We will all just have to wallow in our grief over our one and only rodent. I will never miss seeing him put his butt up against the cage in order to pee or poop outside of his nest. That just ain’t right. I can deal with a lot of things, but an ugly, smelly rodent is not one of them.

The maths are wrong, baby, cuz your hotness is rockin’!

Easter was lovely, except it needs to last much longer so my family can stay much longer and we can have, like, an 8-day feast instead of a weekend binge where we drink and eat too much and hurt ourselves. If we knew it would last longer, we could pace ourselves. I promise we would pace ourselves. My sister and I discovered that it doesn’t really matter what kind of wine a person drinks. If that person drinks too much of it, that person’s belly gets mad at them and punishes them. In other words, it’s not the quality, it’s the quantity. My sister-in-law is wise and she knew that already. She and my brother and brother-in-law, along with Bryan, were able to go to the Ohio Deli (as seen on Man vs Food!) and eat and eat on Saturday, while my sister and my mom and I stayed with the kids. Well, my mom stayed with the kids. Tracey and I just laid around and said, “Shhhh!” But now we know. Damn.

My Columbus friends were able to meet my family and that was lovely. I felt like I should be more nervous about it for some reason, but I wasn’t because Kristen, Dawn and Lynne are just Ohio versions of me, my sister and my sister-in-law. I don’t branch out much in my friendships. And the husbands? All of the husbands are beaten down by perfect matches for their loud and lovely wives, so we love all of them, too. Even my brother. I never found the bellybutton lint he hid here, but I have a feeling he hid it on my pillow. Just thinking about it gives me chills. Or, maybe he unscrewed the screen on the showerhead and put it in there so I shower in lint leavings every morning. Ew!

With that, I’ll leave you with another disturbing image. Everybody knows that My L1ttle Ponies love Easter. I just didn’t know how much they love it until I walked in the bathroom and found this little filly enjoying Maya’s Easter basket. In front of the mirror. Seriously, H@sbro, who designs your baskets*?

*I didn’t buy this basket. My mother-in-law bought it for Maya 2 or 3 years ago. I didn’t even notice what the little pony was doing until I saw her watching herself in the mirror with that look in her eye.

P.S. Don’t ask me what Maya’s basket was doing in the bathroom. Nobody wants to know.

Yes, the baby is fat, but look at that bathroom! Isn’t it gross? But still, I turned out ok. Sort of.  I say this because we’re buying a house with awesomely dated bathrooms. Maybe. You never know until you actually close. We have a closing date (March 19th), time, and location, so we’ll probably close. But still. It’s a great house, great location, just a little dated. The bathrooms are especially dated, with seashell-shaped sinks in one of them. The other one has a dark brown toilet. And those bathrooms always make me think of that old bathroom in that picture up there.

Oh, and! There’s a Florida room. My friends and I get to play Golden Girls in it. I get to be Betty White because she always had a story about back in St. Olaf and I always have a story about back in Chesaning. I’ll let those of you who know Lynne, Kristen, and Dawn guess who gets to be lusty Blanche, straight-talking, offensive Sophia, and steady-eddie Dorothy. It’s hard to pick because they’re all so slutty and offensive!

Anyway, I’m packing. All the time packing.

We’re going to the Unschooler’s Winter Water Gathering at Kalahari Resort  tomorrow morning with some of the weekly potluckers and other locals, so that’s fun.  Dawn has to work, but we’re making her son come with us because our children cannot bear the void caused by Noah’s absence.

Oh, I know! I read this book called I See the Moon by C. B. Christiansen and I got choked up on every single page and then I cried through the last 3 chapters. It’s about a 12-year-old girl whose 15-year-old sister is pregnant and placing the baby for adoption. The little sister dreams of being an aunt and she’s so excited and she wants to be just like her favorite aunt who now has dementia and it’s just so sad. Every page. Read it and tell me what you think. But lower your expectations because when I finally got around to seeing the movie Titanic, I did not shed a tear. For weeks everybody kept saying, “It’s sooooo sad! Bring a whole box of tissues!” And then it was soooo lame except for the musicians’ continued playing and the images of the old people and parents and children holding each other on the bed and waiting to drown. That part was sad. Oh, and the part where Rose didn’t die. That was sad, too. Don’t judge me.

Anyway, that book was sad, but maybe you won’t cry. It doesn’t mean you’re cold and dead inside. Probably.

The analysis indicates that the author of http://sundayswithstretchypants.com is of the type:

ESFP – The Performers

The entertaining and friendly type. They are especially attuned to pleasure and beauty and like to fill their surroundings with soft fabrics, bright colors and sweet smells. They live in the present moment and don´t like to plan ahead – they are always in risk of exhausting themselves.

The enjoy work that makes them able to help other people in a concrete and visible way. They tend to avoid conflicts and rarely initiate confrontation – qualities that can make it hard for them in management positions.

In case you’re wondering, and you don’t know me in real life, that is an actual picture of me. If you do know me in real life, it’s still an actual picture of me, it’s just the one that Bryan keeps in his head. For special occasions. And obviously, none of that analysis is true except for the part about it being hard for me to be in management positions. I’m extremely coachable, but I’m a horrible coach. Uh, so good thing I homeschool? Shit.

Anyway, here’s Kids Know Stuff:

ISFP – The Artists

The gentle and compassionate type. They are especially attuned their inner values and what other people need. They are not friends of many words and tend to take the worries of the world on their shoulders. They tend to follow the path of least resistance and have to look out not to be taken advantage of.

They often prefer working quietly, behind the scene as a part of a team. They tend to value their friends and family above what they do for a living.

No, that’s not an actual picture of any of the children. And, I think, not even a picture anybody would ever have in their heads. Of anybody. Ever. However, the analysis is definitely true. My babies are precious little sweety punkins. They’re vulnerable and quiet and they definitely wouldn’t think it was funny to burp on camera or anything like that.

Speaking of artists, I know some. My friend Kristen Marra Marek has some photographs in the C-note Art Show. (There isn’t a search form on the site and there are a lot of artists, so do ctrl-f and then type her name in if you want see her stuff.) And maybe vote for her stuff because it’s good. I wouldn’t try to make you vote my way, though. No, I would never do that. I think voting should be private and not talked about at all.

*cough*

I know another awesome artist in that show, too: Sharon H. Bell. You could vote for her too if you wanted to. I know it says one vote/IP address, but sometimes that’s a lie. Sometimes it’s not, but you should try to vote twice like I did in the presidential election.

Because of this alphabeticality (it could be a word) of my name, I get butt-dialed a lot and it’s kind of creepy sometimes. I mean, somebody calls me and doesn’t say anything, but I can hear background stuff? It’s weird. My nephew does it pretty frequently and I always think it’s an emergency. Like maybe his leg is trapped under a tree and his cell phone is just out of reach so he threw a rock at it just to get it dialing and he can’t tell that it called me and before he figured it out, he passed out from the pain. I always debate calling 911. One of these days I’m going to do it. Maybe.

The other night, Kristen’s husband was working through the night at his dangerous lighting job and he butt-dialed us 7 times and left 5 messages. We turned our ringer off, but the first time he butt-dialed us, Bryan answered and we were both a little worried that it was an emergency. I heard Bryan answer the phone and then I heard him say, “I can’t hear you! Joe? JOE!” Bryan swears he heard him say, “Dude!” which we thought meant he was probably trying to say, “Dude, I’m trapped in a puddle of water and there’s a live wire swinging around wildly! It’s just a matter of time before I’m toasted! Dude, help!” We were going to call 911, but then we remembered that we didn’t know exactly where Joe was working and we felt it would be rude to send the rescue workers on a wild goose chase, so we just turned the ringer off and went back to sleep. He was alright, though. In the morning there were 5 messages that all had Joe’s far-away voice talking about lighting and prices and what goes where. It was boring and the only emergency was that I could have died from boredom. But I listened because what if he said something interesting? What if there really was an emergency?

Really, I think I’m getting desensitized to the feeling that there’s an emergency when somebody calls and doesn’t say anything. So if there is an emergency which doesn’t prohibit your cell phone from calling me, but does prohibit your speech, you should not call me. I’ll totally hang up on you. And then I’ll make fun of you for butt-dialing me and you won’t get rescued. And that would be embarassing for me.

2. Dawn. She works my blogs and she invites me to free spaghetti dinners. And she makes me laugh.

3. Kristen. She makes her husband deliver coffee to me and she sets up free coffee for her neighbors because she has a generator. And she makes me laugh.

4. My other friends here and in Chesaning, and my extended family. They invite me to do laundry at their house and they invite me to stay with them and use up their electricity in order to get me to shut up with the whining. They remind me that I’m very lucky to have several places to which I could flee if I really needed to. And they make me laugh.

5. My husband and children. They’re just awesome. Bryan’s awesome because he puts up with me for-evah! And he’s cute. And the kids are awesome because, well, they’re 50% me. I’m kidding! They’re their own little bundles of funny electricity-addicted awesomeness. And they make me laugh.

6. Margaret Cho. Thanks to Dawny for this link because I couldn’t have said it better myself. And it makes me laugh: I’m Christian You Fuckers

We went to the Obama/Biden thingy in Dublin on Saturday with Kristen and Dawn and their tweens. Yes, we wore matching homemade t-shirts. No, it’s not lame. It’s cool! The kids were bored, but they were so, so good and I know someday they’ll thank us for dragging them there. Lena already told me she wanted to show her future children the “on the road to change” sign that she was able to wave. Awwwwwwwww!

Our t-shirts were cool, thanks to Kristen, but this guy’s t-shirt was the best:

Of course I had to get a picture! I don’t even care that I look like a dumbass in this photo (I am a dumbass, so I should look like one). I’m posting it because the t-shirt says, “Michelle for first lady.” Word.

Dawn has a full report here. Kristen has a bunch of pictures here.

My report is that it was awesome. That’s all. Sixty-five days, people. Get your people to the polls.