Crazybananas

My brain hurts. I edited photos for hours last night, got to work this morning with piles upon piles of crap on my desk and I still have effing pink eye.

So laugh a little!

I don’t know about you, but I would rather have a president with a unicorn. I know Lu would totally agree. She loves unicorns.

Because even without cable TV you can still get fun shows that don’t make your ears bleed (I’m talking to you, Dora!).

What does it say about me that this video makes me really happy?

Updated to Add:

This is the highlight reel for the new season of Sesame Street. Check out all the cameos, my goodness! My favorite is Mike Rowe from Dirty Jobs cleaning out Oscar the Grouch’s trashcan.

OK, first Budweiser and now the Bryant Park Project? What gives, America? On top of all of the horrible things going on in the country (war, bad economy, loss of civil liberties, and on and on), now you’re getting rid of two of my favorite things?! Damn, the man!

In order to give a full tribute to my favorite of all radio shows that was rudely cancelled by NPR (National Poop-head Radio, I’m a little bitter) I’m linking to one of my favorite BPP stories. I tried to teach Trent how to do the Rock, Paper, Dance Off last night during our date night (also known as, drink way to much, start talking about issues that are waaaaayyyy to deep and wake up with underwear hanging from a lamp), but it just turned into a minor slap fight.

Goodbye, BPP. I miss you and your witty banter already.

My husband came home last night after four days away and looked at me like I was an alien. I was so excited to see him, but maybe the pus spewing out of my left eye (oh yes, the left one, no longer the right one) may have turned him off. He spent most of the night avoiding me and my pus, but after Lu went to bed, he came into the bedroom where I was doing the laundry dance. The laundry dance is what occurs when a dumb blond a-hole is bored while folding laundry. Now the laundry dance is sad enough to witness, but imagine walking in on your wife doing the laundry dance, looking like she got punched in the eye, and the following is on the TV:

Holy. Shitballs.

It’s probably cause for divorce, right? I should have a clause in our prenup preventing him from leaving me due to my sicko obsession with crappy Disney channel movies. He just looked at me with one cocked eyebrow and I said, “Listen, we all have faults, and unfortunately this is mine. At least it’s not hard drugs.”

Oh, and while I’m confessing, I may as well just out myself on the upcoming Disney mania.

Egads, the lipsynching is mesmerizing!

Now, you may wonder why I would post such awful crap on this site and not keep these horrendous videos for myself. Well, mostly because you know later today I’m going to start getting emails with this video from all of those who mock my horrid fault and this is my way of one-upping them.

Ha! Beat you to it! Who’s the loser now?!

Answer: Me

Does anyone else think this little blog has been all doom and gloom lately? Well, sorry, for those of you that came here looking for fart jokes or stories about how my husband convinced me we needed a new DVD player in order to purchase a Playstation 3 (true story), but this just isn’t the week. We’ve had strokes, we’ve had heart disease, we’ve had pink eye and did I mention that I was eaten alive by chiggers in my lady areas? Because I was, and now Trent is worried I have herpes.

While you all have lives and hobbies and reasons to spend less than 30 hours per day on the Internet, I tend to spend bits of my free time catching up on my web-collegues, a.k.a. other bloggers. Whenever I mention a blog to someone as a good read, they automatically cock their eyebrow and pat me on the head like a puppy. Apparently “blogs” are not considered worth reading and “bloggers” aren’t “good writers.”

Now, this may be true in some instances (anyone on MySpace, I’m talking to you!), but there are so many talented people out there, and writing on the Internet gives them a chance to really express themselves, even if they do have the Average Joe life. And some of them (like her or her or her) do end up being recognized and are rewarded with book deals effectively transforming them into “real” writers.

But every now and then, there are stories that touch your heart in ways that you never thought a website could. I found the site Punk Rock Mommy via Toddler Planet (which I’ve written about before). Andrea was an amazing writer, mom and wife who was dealt one of the shittiest hands possible and somehow found the strength and courage to share her journey with the world. In her own words:

I decided to be nice and try to just laugh about it. Its not that I didn’t feel sad. I did to be sure. But mostly I just thought it was so cliche’. Very Lifetime television. Mom of six finally graduated from college finds out she has deadly cancer the NEXT day? Implausible. I made up a top ten list ala David Letterman. Top ten reasons its good that I have cancer. Some of them are very funny. I let myself cry only a little. I pray. And although I know that the next world is more wonderful than this one, I will hold on dearly and pray for God to let me remain here with my lovely children and wonderful husband. But I won’t be angry or bitter. Life is too short. Especially mine.

I have only followed Andrea’s journey for a few months, but I went back and read most of her archives. With everything that has been going on with my family in the last week, her words had new meaning for me. But when I logged on the other day and found the post labeled “My Last Blog,” I broke down in tears over my keyboard. In her death, Andrea felt the need to comfort not only her gorgeous children (aged 20 years to 1 year) and her husband, but all of us, whom she had never met. Again, her words:

I am sure that some of you are profoundly saddened by my passing. Death is far more about the living than the dead. But I believe in my whole heart that this is what was meant to be for us all. My friends rallied around us and supported us in every way imaginable. What an incredible gift. That was a lesson in selflessness for them. And in acceptance for my family. My children have many wonderful people to rely on. Their father, step father, grandparents, and friends. I have no doubt that they will be devastated. But in time these wounds will heal and reveal themselves to be battle scars that serve as a testimony to their inner fortitude. My children will move mountains.

Thank you all for participating in my life. For providing sweet words of encouragement and prayer. I pray that none of you will ever get cancer, it sucks. But if you do or someone you love does I pray some of my words are a comfort to you all. Have a wonderful life. I will have a wonderful afterlife.

© Jonathan Olshefski, 2008 All rights reserved

I feel so lucky to have read about Andrea through her own words and the words of her family. I hope if you have the chance, you will pop over to her site punkrockmommy.org and read about this incredible woman and her family. I won’t even ask you to pray for her, because I know that after reading only one paragraph of her words, you will automatically begin praying without any requests from me. This site was such a blessing this week, while I was so scared for my family, to read the words of someone who has been through hell and came out a better person for it, even in death. What a gift Andrea has given us.

Yup, it’s pink eye.

And both Lu and I have it. And Trent is leaving today for four days. And it’s a highly contagious illness, so guess who can’t go to school? And guess who’s avoiding getting fired by going in to work at 4 in the morning to make up for all of her sick days? And guess who’s really, really crabby about the big meeting she has today where she will probably ooze green goo all over an important client?

But at least when I wake up, I can’t open my right eye. Because if I could see what was underneath that glued shut lid, I would probably just crawl back into bed and die.

Meet the family from left to right: Lee (doesn’t look sick to me!), Erin (and her cute belt that I totally copied and bought for myself), Mr. Plate (our representation of Steve, who had already left for his baseball tournament), Scott (who ate more chicken salad this weekend then should be allowed by law), Mrs. Plate (Allison, who was probably wishing she was inside the nice air conditioning instead of sitting on the bleachers during a high school baseball game), Me (the craziest of all bananas), Trent (bearded and lovely), Ashley (realizing a baby gets heavy after posing for 5 minutes) and Lucy (whose brain apparently itched…hey, when you got to scratch, you got to scratch!) - Missing is The Great Cindy, Trent’s mom, cooker of chicken salad, enforcer of Lee’s new schedule, and photographer of the family

Thank you for all of the well wishes. The emails and comments have meant so much to me and the whole family. Things are looking exponentially up for my father-in-law and his health. Right now we are waiting a month to see if some medication can close the hole in his heart, meanwhile he’ll be taking a bunch of tests and leading a life that does not involve birthing calves.

Personally, I’m pretty exhausted, not only from lack of sleep, but emotionally as well. It takes quite a toll on a family to hear that a beloved member is sick, then not-so-sick, then super-duper sick, and then maybe only mildy seriously sick. It is enough to make one’s brain bleed out their ears. Or, in my case, to give a person a mean case of pink eye. I woke up this morning with my eye swollen shut and my head pounding. I’m assuming it’s from the stress and amount of crying done in the last week. I can tell I’m totally spent, especially since when Trent cancelled lunch with me today at the last minute, I had to run to the bathroom to keep from bawling in front of co-workers. I guess I can always blame the swollen eye for my tears.

On another note, how do you all feel about eye patches? Too pirate like? Or trendy fashion statement?

I will be away for a bit, celebrating the fourth of July with large amounts of food and alcohol, as our founding fathers would have wanted. I’m in need of a blog-vacation, so I won’t be posting for a few days.

I have spent the last few weeks thinking a lot about the state of the world and what I’m doing with my life. Am I showing Lucy the right way to live? Am I doing all I can to make her planet a better place? This will probably continue during my few days away from the Internet, especially since I’ll be on a farm in Nowheresville, Kansas with a split group of political enthusiasts who love to drink vodka and debate (or dance, whichever comes first). I feel like I haven’t been doing enough for my world in the last few years. Before the whole holy-shit-I’m-pregnant thing, I was very involved in my community and non-profit organizations and saving the world one empoverished family at a time….but lately I’ve been doing some major slacking. Maybe because I started to become a part of an empoverished family myself? Maybe because my own life just seemed like too much?

But it’s time to do something. So a big goal of mine this weekend is to find a way that I can help more than just myself. What can I do? Where will I contribute the most good?

What can you do?

What will we do?

Trent and I hardly ever get nights out together these days. I literally cannot remember the last time just the two of us went out and did anything. So when I saw this movie trailer, I emailed him the following:

September 12, 2008. Date night. Put it on your calendar.

Then I immediately booked a babysitter and did the happy dance.

“Hey, I’m sorry I got all pissy and started yelling at you. It’s just, I’m really tired and today was the only afternoon I had for myself and then you asked me to come home and help you with the baby. But when I came home, you went down to the basement for two hours and left me alone with her while you watched TV. Then after the whole “pooping in the bathtub” incident, I just got really angry. But I’m over it.”

“That’s OK. I’m sorry for leaving you alone with her. You’re just better than me.”

“No, I that’s not what I meant. Let’s just drop it, OK?”

“OK. And I’m sorry for calling you a bitch.”