Sweetney

Blogger's child consumed by stuffed animal hoard

I tried to warn her, I did.

I'd glimpsed that look in her stuffed Stitch's eyes. A look eerily summoning to mind the Chucky film saga, and that creepy-ass movie Magic, the one with the murderous ventriloquist's doll. It was a look that made the pit of my stomach churn and roil with worry-laden gastric juices. Maybe the “stuffed friends” aren't so friendly after all. But she shook off my concern with a giggle, followed rapidly by some random comment involving “poop” and “butts” (as is her way).

Unfortunately for her, my intuition proved sadly precognitive.

Now officially a good morning

I share because I love: a delicious compendium of Lolcats on flickr.

You can thank me later.

Tragic Kingdom

During our week at Disney World, I learned many things. I learned that a bottle of water costs four dollars, a slice of pizza will set you back eight, and those Crocs with Mickey Mouse head-shaped holes that all the kids seemed to be wearing? THIRTY-FIVE DOLLARS. Cheapskate that I am, I was close to swallowing my tongue over the Disney Magical Overpricing at every turn. blarrgh.

But most of all (and most painful of all), I learned that four year olds are afraid of everything.

GWAR vs. Joan Rivers

OH THE AWESOME DISCOMFORT. And how better to celebrate Memorial Day than with The Scumdogs Of The Universe (I mean GWAR, not Joan)?

Guess who didn't miss us at all while we were gone?

He spent the week boarded at a local frou-frou doggy daycare, as though we love him or something.

The view from here

(The first in a long series of Disney World-centric photo collections)

Y'all, this is the view from our hotel room balcony:

Motherfuckin' Zebras in the hiz-ouse!

Having a great time, wish you were here.

It had to have been about 20,000 degrees inside that
costume, yet Pluto managed to stay perky and professional

I have a gazillion photos to share, and hope to get some of them up later today... I've missed you, intarwebs.

Gonna go see a man about a mouse

Tracey, you've just conquered Double Angry Eye -- what are you gonna do?

I'm going to Disney World!

No, seriously. I'm going to Disney World. We leave tomorrow, and I have a To Do list to run through today that, if given a window of opportunity, might slip off for a few and eat Pittsburgh. Have I mentioned before how much I hate the day before going on a trip? Its almost as bad as, umm, the day after coming back from going on a trip.

Anyway, I'll be updating from The Magic Kingdom as much as I'm able next week. I'm working under the assumption that going to Florida isn't like going back to some dark-ages, pre-wireless interweb time, but who knows. It is a sort of hellish place, you must admit. They might still use modems there or something. [shudder]

Expect lots of photos. No, I mean expect to be BLUDGEONED WITH PHOTOS. Just warning you now.

All Disney World-related advice/tips/insights much appreciated, particularly those specific to going with a preschooler. Its gonna be alright, right?

Good Morning, Sunshine

Last night's rain brought some new gorgeous new blooms (click images for flickr enlarge-o-version)!

(Many more after the jump)

links for 2007-05-16

• Better to Be a Chimpanzee
  Hiasl, a 26-year old Austrian-based chimpanzee, is petitioning the courts for human status
  (tags: animals science)
• Geekologie - Tornado video shot form 50 yards
  People are crazy go nuts.
  (tags: video nature)
• under_water_tiger - a photoset on Flickr
  He's quite the swimmer.
  (tags: flickr photos animals)
• New York Times - The Older-and-Wiser Hypothesis
  Great article about wisdom and age (and whether these are related or not)
  (tags: aging health society philosophy)
• flickrvision (beta)
  google maps + flickr + real time = AWESOME
  (tags: flickr cool internet mashup)

Achieving Maximum Awesomeness

So I know that many of you have been following my Angry Eye Saga on twitter (and if you aren't you so should, because, you know, good times), which began yesterday as some general morning eye goopiness and redness, and rapidly evolved into an epic good vs. evil-type battle between Angry Eye and the surrounding body in which it is encased. Drama, heroism, gigantic eye boogers -- this narrative has all the bells and whistles. BUT! I have newier news! And that is: MY LEFT EYE HAS NOW JOINED THE DARK SIDE. Yes, the traitor Lefty is now evilly cavorting with its angry optic brethren, and oh the multiplied burning and itching. But I think its safe to say that this development marks a rather significant Life Moment for me, one which might be best explicated in the following graph:

As you can clearly see, prior to Double Angry Eye, my life was somewhat middling in terms of achieved Life Awesomeness (LA). Childbirth, a root canal, and even single Angry Eye barely managed to collectively push me into the 50th percentile of LA. But now, with the Double Angry Eye? LIFE AWESOMENESS IS OFF THE FREAKIN' CHARTS. Thank you, Double Angry Eye!

For those steely enough to stomach it, photographic evidence of The Awesome after the jump...

M'ungry

Perhaps too adorable to eat, but these are giving me the tummy-grumbles nonetheless.

This Weekend In Tracey's Random Thoughts About Things (And Stuff)

Bam Margera: I am so over you. You have become something beyond self-parody. You are corporate-sponsored rebellion, and that bores me. Your 15 minutes are now up. Done. Buh-bye.

The Springer Hustle: The best show about the making of the worst show on television, ever? Perhaps...

Driving a Prius with a personalized license plate reading “Eco Car” may make you a noble solider for environment, but it also makes you look like King of the Smug and Self-Congratulatory Dorks. Please get over yourself. Thank you.

I am also completely over men who empty the dishwasher with a sort of grand flourish, suggesting they anticipate accolades and verbal stroking... perhaps a laurel wreath to encircle his master's regal forehead? Ahem-cough.

One of the countless vortexes of evil residing in suburban Northern Virginia: the dread Cinnabon/Carvel Combo Store. Whoever conceived of this most unholy union deserves their own special circle of hell, preferably one involving the forced insertion of sprinkles and icing in orifices they were not meant to be inserted into.

Cache is NOT a name for a human being.

Diagnosis: F-U-N

(Actual quote from M, uttered while playing doctor with her yesterday (and why does she always get to be the doctor? SO UNFAIR)):

“Okay, now let me check your blood pressure... Oooh! It says your blood pressure is 500,000. That means we're going to Disneyworld soon!”

And I'm guessing that an irregular heartbeat would mean we need to get to Chuck E. Cheese's, STAT.

She's crafty, that one.

Twit

Yes, I am sheep: go here to subscribe to my text messages. You know you wanna.

In Praise Of My Own Decrepitude

On tap for this weekend: Saturday: Birthday. Sunday: Mother's Day. Its 100% about ME ME ME for the next two days.

Bout freakin' time, man.

And while I hate to be the one to break it to you -- shattering your image of me as a taut, vivacious Mom You'd Like To HangOutAndPerhapsShareACocktailOrTwoWith -- tomorrow I turn 37. THREE-SEVEN. That's, what, 322 in dog years?

WILL SOMEONE JUST PLEASE SHOOT ME AND PUT ME OUT OF MY MUSTY-SMELLING GERIATRIC MISERY? Please? I'll let you have a ride on my supah tricked-out mobility scooter!

[Note to self: pitch series “Pimp My Scooter” to Hallmark Channel and Lifetime Network. Oh hell, and The History Channel as well. Why not? I mean, they're a televised Aging Boomers-R-Us, right?]

Shameless Self-Big Pimpin'

Quoth Madonna:

Unlike the others, I'd do anything
I'm not the same, I have no shame
I'm on fire!

Actually, I'm not so much on fire! as on cold medicine!, having woken this morning to the tale-tell ominous throat tickle and generalized sinus misery that always heralds the descent of the demonic forces of pestilence upon my being. Gawdammit.

But that's actually beside the point. Though I do enjoy whining, oh yes.

The point is: first came the MamaPop, and now we make with the MamaPopTalk, a forum site where awesome peoples like yourself can go to chat about pop culture (and everything else, quite honestly), from the comfort and safety of your own home or workplace.

I give because I love.

So come on by, tune in, turn on, and drop out! What are you going to do instead, WORK? HAHAHAHAAAAA! Right.

When The Lunatics Take Over The Asylum

I imagine it looks and sounds a little something like this:

Once upon a time.... POOPY! In the world of preschoolers “poopy” = COMEDY GOLD.

(Thanks, Joel!)

Inept Gardener Weekly

Sometimes I actually feel a little guilty having the garden that I have. It is, bluntly put, freakin' magnificent. And I can say that without it being shameless boasting only because I had so little to do with its existence, having planted perhaps a grand total of .05% of its bounty (practically nothing, honestly). I'm just the humble caretaker really, and not a terribly adept one at that. But brown-thumbed though I may be, I can still marvel at its beauty and my luck at having been bequeathed it.... BEFORE I KILL IT (as is my way).

(Warning: many, many pictures after the jump)

A Photographic Representation Of My Yesterday

(As well as of my girth and general fuzziness:)

Really there's only one word that could possibly encompass the breadth and depth of the day's dysfunction: CLUSTERFUCK.

And yet, when visualized as a cat? MIRTHFUL AND COMICAL.

Cats make everything all better, the end.

Mama Blasphemer

Her: Mommy, did you know that Jesus is God?

Me: [stuttering] Umm yeeeeah well. Hmm. Everyone is God.

Her: No they're not.

Me: No, see, its umm, well, its complicated. Everyone is a part of God, and God is a part of everyone and everything. So God is everyone and everything.

Her: NO. ONLY JESUS IS GOD.

Me: Ummm, okay. Hey, want a lollipop?!?

I am a complete and utter failure.

Maybe the answer is to just distract her from her theological probings with sparkly things, since she seems so fond of those these days?

Mmm...glitterific... and pay no attention to
the God that may or may not be behind the curtain, child!

Blogging and women

From yesterday's front page of the Washington Post: Sexual Threats Stifle Some Female Bloggers.

Some of this sounds all-too-familiar:

Kathleen Cooper, the single mother, said she began to experience harassment about five years ago after she posted a retort on a friend's blog to a random blogger's threat against a friend. The harasser began posting defamatory accusations on Cooper's site, on his blog and then on a site that purports to track “bad businesses.” He said that he could not be responsible for what “his minions” might do to her, she said.