Some Pig

Pretty Ugly

Wow, now I know the Pats are among the elect; what else could explain their managing to pull a win out of that steaming hot mess of a game last night???  Divine favor is the only way to explain how they held onto a three-point lead to the end of the fourth quarter, especially considering that Joe Flacco played much better than Tom Terrific AND the Pats managed to give the ball, gift-wrapped and personally inscribed, back to the Ravens on Tom's long bomb shot into the end zone.  Several times during the fourth quarter, I said to myself, "welp, that's the game right there," both for and against the Pats, and yet things STILL kept changing in the weirdest of ways.  I can't decide if a butterfly somewhere in the Peruvian rain forest chose to flap its wings at an opportune moment or if Myra Kraft blew an angel's kiss over the kicker, but those are the only explanations I can come up with for an NFL kicker to miss a bread-and-butter shot like that in the final seconds of the game.  And how about Steven Tyler making it through the national anthem without popping an anyeurism on the high notes??? Yep, this game had heavenly intervention written alllll over it.

So we're (I say 'we' like I had anything to do with it, other than yelling at the girls to PLEASE STOP BOTHERING MOMMY UNTIL THE GAME IS OVER, IT'S THREE MORE MINUTES WOULD YOU JUST PIPE DOWN) going back to the Super Bowl, a fact that should have my feet a-tappin' and my heart a-singin', but of course now I'm miserable.  Why?  Because we're going up against the Jints!  Again!!  The mother-lovin' Jints!!! The streak-breaking, perfect-season-ending, Manning-at-QB, not-the-charismatic-one-but-the-boring-one Jints!  GAAAAHHHH.  What if the Exalted One is doing this to us just to eff with our heads???  I can't take two weeks of this, I just can't.  I'm sure Hoodie and Handsome are just as happy to be meeting Eli and friends again and I can't say I blame 'em; looking at the Niners last night, HOO BOY those were some big boys out there on the field, and they looked like they enjoy dishing out a pounding, but ... well, I don't think I could stomach two losses to New York.

Several years ago during the last Jints-Pats bustup, I remember watching the two teams come out of the tunnel. I was struck by how different their demeanors were:  The Giants came out looking on top of the world.  The Pats marched out like a pack of dour old parsons with a three-hour sermon ahead of them.   I did not think that boded well, and of course, I was right, because, well, DOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.  And also, MISERY.  They are my boon companions.  But back to my point, which is, I hope that Hoodie and Handsome approach this trip to the big show a little differently.  What I remember of the previous SB victories was how much fun Tom seemed to be having out there, and he doesn't seem to have had as much fun lately in the big games.  It must suck to be in his shoes, with such outsized expectations riding on his shoulders; no one expected a 24-year-old kid who was a 6th round draft pick to get to the championship game, but everyone expects Arguably The Greatest QB of All Time to do it, which has got to weigh on a body.  I'm hoping Vince Wilfork, who always looks like a kid in the candy shop, and all the other noobs who are just ecstatic to be where they are, can infect the rarefied air of Patriots Place with some cheer for the next two weeks, because, damn, it's the Super Bowl!  Who expected us to get there this year, of all years?  I for one did not, and don't lie, a lot of you didn't either.  Or at least, if they'd been knocked out in round one or two, you would've shrugged your shoulders and said, "eh, they had a good run," and been pretty well satisfied with that.  Don't lie.

I am also putting Gisele on notice that she is to cancel all her fashion shoots and set aside her jet-setting ways for the duration.  She needs to turn up the loving helpmeet/adoring spouse act to Nigel Tufnel's 11 for the next two weeks, and if she won't, I know about a million women in New England who would happily go down on their knees to offer the home team their support.  PRAYING, I meant - sheesh, you people, this is a family blog, after all. 

P.S. All you supposed New England residents in southern Connecticut who support the Giants?  Go move to Jersey with the other Giants fans, or recognize your regional allegiance and get behind the local team.  Or else you're going to burn.  In hell.  That's a promise, not a threat.

P.P.S.  A friend and colleague of mine, who is dear and sweet and kind where I am not, posted the following last night:

I can't help it. I feel so bad for Billy Cundiff. Not that I'd take back the win or anything, but I just can't image how he feels right now. Can you tell I teach middle school?

To which I say, yes.  Yes, we can.

Letter From A Broad: Act Your Age, Even If You're Eternal Edition

Dear Middle-Aged Mom,

I don't know and I don't care how smokin' hot that "True Blood" guy is, or whether you're on "Team Jacob" or "Team Edward."  What I do know is that you, as a grown woman with young children, are far too old to be rockin' that t-shirt with the slogan, "I Kissed a Vampire And I Liked It" on the front.  For the love of Vlad, please, dress your age.

Sincerely,

Some Pig

P.S. That baseball cap with the team logo picked out in rhinestones is pretty idiotic-looking on you as well.  However, we're going to take this one step at a time.

P.P.S.  2008 called.  They want their fad back.

The Clothes Make the Man?

Recently my husband has turned over a new leaf.  No, he did not decide to ditch me for a younger, prettier, more-likely-to-remember-where-she-put-things model; although if he does, I totally do not blame him after the Great Car Key Incident of '09.  Anywhat, after forty-some years on this planet, he decided that he was going to make more of an effort, sartorially speaking - which is a fancy way of saying he's trying to dress better.  This is a little more difficult for men than one might imagine.  In days of yore, all a man had to do to dress well was throw on a suit and make sure his tie had no egg yolk stains or the like on it, and voila!  Well-dressed!  Now that suits and ties and even "business casual" have gone the way of the dinosaurs, it's a much more open-ended concept. 

In addition, Hubs happens to be a towering presence in my life in terms of personality, but not so much physically.  He's lean and wiry and has absolutely, positively no backside.  None.  Clearly his genetic makeup is much more refined than yours truly's is, because my sturdy peasant ancestors bequeathed me with the genes to store enough energy in my backside to outlast several famines.  It's not hard to see that Warren has no junk in the trunk when he wears typical khakis and jeans, because the hind end of his trousers looks like Santa's sack on Christmas morning.  With the clothes Warren used to buy, there was so much extra fabric hanging around his body, he could've made a tent and camped overnight.  Well, no more!  Warren went shopping with his most metrosexual friend, and my formerly Dockers-and-golf-shirts husband came back calling individual garments "pieces" and spouting phrases about "tapered fit" and "slim cut".  And the price tag??  Holy haberdashery, Batman!  As our friend Molly astutely noted, "When you start calling clothes 'pieces,' that's a hundred bucks per."  Considering I buy the majority of my clothes at thrift stores and consignment shops, I had to go sit down for a minute when he gave me the final tally. "But they'll last forever," he said to me defensively, to which I say, "Damn skippy, they're going to last forever, because at that price you are wearing them into your next life as well, bub."

Warren's new snappy duds have generated a positive response professionally; at least, a number of people outside his department have commented favorably.  The people inside his department wouldn't notice because Warren works in IT, a.k.a., the last refuge of the fashion-impaired.  I have seen coworkers of his sporting Fair Isle knit vests, for heaven's sake; they hardly qualify as arbiters of fashion.  This positive feedback is a welcome development, because the other side effect of Warren's new wardrobe is that laundry day has become a MUCH more complicated process chez Pig.  The laundress who handled Marie Antoinette's linens is as nothing on me.  (And before I get bombarded with let-him-do-his-own-damn-laundry comments, I need to note that Warren works absolutely insane hours at a grindingly difficult job to keep us living la vida loca here in the First In The Nation Primary State, so the least I can do is keep the man in clean undies.)  As I have learned, when you stop wearing clothes and start wearing "pieces," each of those garments has a set of  washing instructions completely and totally unlike all the washing instructions for all the other "pieces": Cold water, gentle cycle, tumble dry low.  Warm water, wash with like colors, hang dry.  Hand wash ONLY, NO FABRIC SOFTENER, NO BLEACH, NO STAIN REMOVER, WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING, SULLYING THIS FABRIC WITH YOUR CHEAP-ASS ON-SALE NON-ORGANIC PHOSPHATE-RIDDEN LAUNDRY SOAP??? 

Given the dire warnings on the label and the fact that I am paranoid about doing everything I can to prolong the life of these VERY EXPENSIVE garments, doing Warren's laundry is exhausting, I tell you.  So far, the only garments that's suffered was a khaki skirt of mine that I FREAKING LOVED (Banana Republic!  $2 at the thrift store!), which got blue dye on it from one of Warren's hand-dyed-by-traditional-weavers slim-fit shirts.  Meanwhile, I think his clothes are looking down on all the other clothes in the laundry basket.  Sometimes I swear they're huddling together, making fun of the hand-me-downs and thrift-store finds that make up the bulk of the laundry:  "Wow, it must be so nice to be able to wash yourself in any old load of laundry.  Of course, *I* need *very careful* washing to protect my delicate fabrics and sensitive dyes!  But you, well, any old wash setting will do.  How convenient!"   All I can say is, if they don't stop talking smack to all the other clothes, Imma gonna "accidentally" put them in a heavy-duty wash and tumble-dry them back to the Stone Age.  THAT'LL SHOW 'EM!

Coming Clean

After a winter of excessive eating and drinking and general slugitude all around, I have come to the realization that I look and feel awful.  Basically, I look like this guy, minus the moustache and happy expression (at least, I *think* my face is minus the moustache, although with my increasingly crappy eyesight, I could be sprouting a whole crop of middle-aged whiskers and never know it - which may be why Mother Nature gives us the gift of crappy eyesight in middle age, lest we have a clear view of the aging process).  So a friend and I have agreed to try the Dax Moy detox diet. 

Now, I can imagine there are those of you among my readership who think going on a detox diet is an unnecessarily radical step.  "Why not just cut back on certain foods and exercise a bit more," you may wonder, as you sip your tea in  your impeccably organized home office while your two-point-five perfectly behaved children quietly complete their homework at the specially designed homework station you pulled together in your spare time (wait... when did the imaginary reader in my head morph into Martha Stewart?  I dunno.).  Anywhat, the reason I don't take the moderation-in-all-things approach is because ... I can't.  It is just not in my nature.  For example, the first thing I like to do when I get up at oh-dark-thirty in the godforsaken morning is make me a big ole pot of nice, strong coffee.  And then I pour myself a big ole travel mug of coffee and fancy it up with dollop (read: glug)  of cream and a spoonful of sugar or two.  I drink that coffee while I strap on my armor and gird my loins get ready for my day, and then I refill my big ole travel mug with even more coffee and cream and sugar to start Caffeination:  The Sequel.  And I know me.  I've had a lotta years on this planet to get to know me (What?  Twenty seven is a lot!).  One thing I have learned about me in those twenty-seven years is that I don't do "cutting down."   What I do is start off by thinking I'm going to cut down, and then incrementally creep right back to where I was: "Well, if I just refill my mug halfway instead of all the way, then I'm really cutting back by at least a quarter of what I usually drink, but since I didn't fill my first cup all the way to the top that counts, so that means I can refill my mug a little bit over halfway..."  In other words, I am basically binary.  There's on, off, and no middle ground in between.

So the first stage of this detox program requires cutting out alcohol, caffeine, sugar, and chocolate - or as I like to call them, "reasons for living".  Warren has greeted these plans with equal parts concern ("Hm.  I feel guilty not doing this with you.") and alarm ("This doesn't mean I have to give up coffee, does it?"), but has promised his unwavering support (probably because he doesn't actually have to do anything differently).   My closest coworkers, on the other hand, could be problematic.  After I announced the no-caffeine component of this regime, one of them stood in my doorway and took a long drink from his coffee with an exaggerated ssssccchhhhluuuurp.  And if he does that to me at the same time tomorrow, I will not be responsible for my actions.  Now if you will excuse me, there is no point detoxifying if there aren't any toxins in your system, and I have some ground to cover before my forty days of deprivation and despair embracing a healthier lifestyle.  Hey, if Noah could live in an ark with a crowd of unhousebroken critters and his whole fam damily for forty days and nights, surely I can keep my mitts off the mini-Snickers for just as long.  Right?  RIGHT????

*sigh* At least there should be some good blog fodder in this.

Liars, Lying Liars, and 8th Graders

Well, second quarter just ended, and since then we've been dealing with the blowback from horrified parents.  Eighth grade represents a watershed moment in a student's academic career, because we start giving lengthier assignments that involve more abstract concepts and reasoning. Most students are ready to make this leap, but a hefty minority have some adjustment issues, shall we say, with the higher expectations and increased work load.  These adjustment issues usually manifest themselves in lower grades than usual, "lower" being in the eye of the beholder, of course.  In the course of my career, I've had irate parents demand to know why their student got a B minus, and I've had kids flunk with a grade of 9 (yes, as in point-oh-nine) for the term and never heard a peep from anyone.  But I digress.  The point is, this is the time of year when we have to talk down any number of parents who are just sick, sick about Jaxon's and Mylissah's grades and who want to know how we teachers could be so unconcerned and uninvolved as to allow this to happen?!?! S/he tells me that s/he always gets your work done and now s/he's so confused and doesn't understand how s/he could have gotten such a low grade, so what, exactly, do we teachers plan to do about it so that this horrible situation doesn't happen again???

If you happen to be the parent of an eighth grader, or will be the parent of an eighth grader, or have been the parent of an eighth grader recently, I am going to break my self-imposed injunction about giving advice.  If you really want to help your middle-school-aged kid improve his or her grades, you only have to do one thing.  Here goes:

Do not believe a single thing your kid tells you about his or her grades. 

A Basic Primer on Male-Female Relations

Me:  India told me today she has to dress fancy to impress a boy in her class.

Male Coworker:  How?  Is she wearing food?

Me:  I told her she might have more success telling the fart jokes she loves so much.

Male Coworker (shaking his head):  Unless your coat is made of cookies, it's not going to matter.

SP Explains Facebook Etiquette for You

If you, like me, are congenitally nosy and like to get all up in your acquaintances' biznazz, then you, like me, probably have given into the time suck that is Wastebook.  But as with any larger organization that plays host to a wide variety of people, it can become a jungle out there if we don't all have some sense of decorum.  So, without further ado, I bring to you my totally subjective and thoroughly biased view of:

Facebook Etiquette for the Masses

Rule #1:  The One-A-Day Rule

If you have been telling everyone your daily horoscope, what you ate for lunch today, and twelve knock-knock jokes your kid told you, you may be wondering if you're posting too much.  Answer:  YOU ARE.  A good rule of thumb is, you get one status update PER DAY and that's it.  Now, if you negotiate peace between Palestine and Israel, win the lottery, or get in an accident that requires the immediate donation of a kidney for your survival, feel free to post multiple updates.  If you are just an ordinary schlub like most of us, pick and choose from the zillions of mundane details about your life and be a little selective, please.

The Ansel Adams Corollary - post your eighty-seven pictures of the new puppy sleeping in one sitting, please, lest each and every one of them generate a separate status update.  And couldja maybe winnow those 87 images down to a mere three or four?  One reason why Ansel Adams is so famous is because he knew not to flood the market with every dang snapshot he ever took.

Rule #2:  Embrace Rugged Individualism

Since I joined Facebook, I reckon it's been Special Education Week about 192,612 times.  Ditto with Sisters Week, Best Friends Week, and Let's Raise Awareness of the Trauma of Lost Teddy Bears and Stuffed Animals Week. And while each and every one of these is a worthy and valuable cause, do we as a society really gain anything if I click the "like" button, and/or repost the message as my status for 24 hours?  I joined FB to get cheap thrills by lurking in the webosphere to keep tabs on old friends, not to read the same five messages over... and over... and over.

The exception to the rule:  If it happens to be Girl Scout cookie ordering week, you feel free to broadcast that news just as many times as you like, so I don't miss my chance this year!!!

The gullible-isn't-in-Webster's-dictionary addendum:  Facebook is not going to add a "dislike" button, start charging 3.99 per month for an account, or sell your email address to the Dark Lord.  Stop signing your names to those online petitions, and more importantly, stop forwarding them to ME.

Rule #3:  Inside Jokes Are Like Underwear

Both of them should stay on the inside. Really, people, you can email that stuff, or write a separate note and tag the people who will get your insider references.  Presumably you joined FB so other people will KNOW what you're up to, and it's annoying when someone starts posting enigmas with tag lines like, "UMB '95 peeps, you know who you are" and the like.  Double goes for angry status updates about vile exes or two-timing friends that are meant to get back to the person in question.  If you need to vent about your babydaddy, fine; just leave your readership out of the direct line of fire.  Here I am thinking of posts like, "I HATE people who lie cheat and STEAL!!!  Especially when they do it and then lie to your FACE!!!!"  That just makes me uncomfortable.

What Happens in the Hood (or the Ville, or the Land) Needs to Stay in the Hood addendum: No one else cares what happens to your FarmVille, your personal Mafia, or your online sorority avatar.  Sorry, but there it is.

Rule #4 u dont have to use capital ltrs and punctuation and stuff all the time on fb but for the love of Fred pls use at least minimal punctuation and grammar so that i can tell whut yr talking abt without having to go back to using parochial school sentence diagraming skilz and u dont have to spelchek evrything but if i cant tell wht yr tryn to say then that defeats the point of fb dosent it kthxbai

***

Keep in mind, I have only scraped the surface of Facebook's potential to annoy the crap out of people.  If you have any additional etiquette tips we should be following, please, suggest away!

There's An App For That, Right? Or; Bon App-etit!

Dear Interweb Geniuses,

I have a brilliant idea for a new downloadable application for hand-held devices - what you technobabblers like to call "apps," I believe.

In this app, you'd store the names, ages, and eating proclivities of the fellow human beings whom you're expected to keep alive by feeding them at regular intervals.  In my case, those would include tags such as, "will only eat broccoli on alternate Thursdays," "hates anything lumpy," "will not eat frozen vegetables except by subterfuge," and "dislikes anything that is not a combination of starch and cheese."  Then you'd type in the contents of your larder, such as "eight fish sticks, vintage uncertain;" "box of panko crumbs," "jar of manzanillo olives," and, "something which may or may not be a bunch of scallions."  The app would dutifully, and rapidly, troll through the collected works of everyone from Daniel Boulud to Betty Crocker, and ping!  In mere minutes, it would download the perfect recipe, one that uses only ingredients which you have readily to hand AND which satisfies the tastes and dietary proclivities of all members of the household.  And, oh yes, also takes less than thirty minutes to cook (I was going to say 20, but I'm feeling generous), requires minimal cleanup, and provides excellent nutrition. 

Shoot, I'd even pay cash moneys for that!  Although I won't have to, of course, seeing as you're going to pay me a royalty for every desperate housewife who downloads my genius idea.  Then I will be rich enough to hire a personal chef, and I won't need my genius app, will I?  Either way, I win!

Everything I Need To Know I Learned From Nick TV

This post is intended as a public service to all middle-school-bound kiddos currently hiding from the heat by sitting in the family room and watching iCarly reruns.  Before you begin your middle school years thinking that you're walking into a real-life version of Hannah Montana, I need to step in and set you young'uns straight:

1.  Take a look at your class photos for the past five or six years.  See those kids - the ones with the buck teeth, cowlicks, coke-bottle-bottom glasses, and awkward retainers?  These are your classmates.  You will not walk into school on the first day of sixth grade and suddenly be surrounded by a pack of well-groomed, apple-cheeked, child-model-worthy preadolescents in a studiedly diverse range of ethnicities and heritages.  

2.  Open your closet and take a look at your clothes.  If you have an older sibling of the same gender, open his or her closet and get a good gander, too.  This is what you will be wearing to school, and believe it or not, you will wear the same clothes more than once.  You will not have a wardrobe consultant, be offered product placement opportunities to sport the latest tween fashions, or have different accessories for every outfit.  In fact, you will look nothing like Zack, Cody, Nick, Joe, Carly, Hannah, Zoe, or (reaching back in time here) Raven.  The only exception to this is for boys, who all have Justin Bieber's hair (although if you ask them, they hotly deny that their hair looks ANYTHING like his).

3.  When you go to school, you will be expected to go to class, pay attention to what goes on in class, and retain at least some of what you are taught in class.  Surprisingly, instruction lasts longer than the three minutes maximum ever shown on tweener fare.  Furthermore, your teachers will not look as well-dressed or well-rested as the TV versions, and they will not obligingly turn away to correct tests or conference with another student at the exact moment that you want to have a critically important conversation with a fellow student about an issue of deep and abiding concern to you. 

4. Every night, you will be given homework and you will be expected to do it.  Doing your homework is not just a plot device thrown in to give your character a reason to be sitting at the desk in your room so that your mother, the former international-supermodel-turned-award-winning-graphic-designer, or your dad, the rock-concert-promoter-who's-really-a-secret-agent, can come sit on your bed, ask you what's wrong, and then impart wise counsel before you hug each other.

5.  Speaking of your family, what you have now is what you got, kid.  You not going to wake up and find that your stoopid older brother has suddenly become a movie star, or that your mom and dad are really cool and they've been hiding it from you all along. 

6.  Let's talk about that room, too.  Take a look at your bedroom.  See the decor, which has not been changed since you were five and entranced with (pick one) butterflies/Tinkerbell/Tom Brady/superheroes?  You will not be getting a redecorating job by a top Hollywood set designer.  Notice the lack of a high-def TV with DVR, laptop, cellphone, and Wii dedicated to your personal use? You will not have those, unless of course you already do, in which case I'm the dummydope and not you.

7.  Believe it or not, not all football players are stupid lunkheads who weigh 215 at age 12.  Not all girls who aren't your two best friends are rich and mean.  In fact, some rich kids are nice and some football players are skinny and some kids are mean and some are f'ed up. That is called "demographics".  

8.  Most schools do not have gym uniforms.  For some reason, Hollywood types think that gym uniforms Impart a note of wholesome middle-Americana, so tween shows often feature a scene where everyone is wearing matching red shorts and white t-shirts with the imaginary school logo on it (although now that I think about it, this may be a necessary move to counterbalance the patently unrealistic level of cleanliness and attractiveness of the fictional student body).  Also, cheerleaders do not wear their uniforms to school all day, every day.  

9.  Point of fact: When someone suggests putting on a sixth grade talent show, no one is going to throw together a band that manages to write, produce, and sing a whole set of original songs after four days of practice after school (represented on the show by one five-minute segment of one rehearsal, in which a carefully scripted conflict is hashed out and harmony restored to the group).  In fact, believe it or not, not everyone in your age group is in a band, wants to be in a band, or is thinking about starting a band.  Those few kids who say they are in a band are rather grandiosely describing what is, in reality, a random collection of kids who get together to play loudly and talk about how they're going to make it big once they learn actual chords and stuff.

Well, I'm glad we got this straightened out!  Now turn off the computer and go outside, but not until you make your bed.  Don't forget to listen to your mother, and DON'T MAKE THAT FACE AT ME, I CAN TELL EXACTLY WHAT YOU'RE DOING.  Enjoy your last five weeks, kiddos, and we'll see you on August 30th!

Sage Advice Regardless Of The Circumstances

India got a tiny digital camera from her Nonni as a belated birthday present.  Even before I could procure the requisite teeny-tiny batteries, she amused herself to no end taking pretend photographs of everyone.  Today at the breakfast table, she was snapping pictures of her sister, a more-than-willing subject.  "Remember, Cici," India warned her in serious tones, "don't look like your butt!"