Royal Wedding Part Deux

Ok, at the risk of being repetitive, here's another royal wedding post, but too funny not to share. Thanks big sis!

Royal Pains in the Bum

OK, so I've been struggling for a few weeks to think of something original to write about the Royal Wedding (Yes, remember THAT news story? Where did it all go?????), something that hadn't been said five million times elsewhere. Then a very sarcastic friend of mine saw me in town and yelled out "Hey, Pippa!" to catch my attention and it hit me: Kate Mountbatten-Windsor (nee Middleton), Duchess of Cambridge yadda yadda yadda and her stunning sister Pippa have a lot to answer for.

Most British people to hit the US media - actors, musicians,politicians - are relatively unattractive in American terms. The one exception might be David Beckham (I don't count his wife because I'm not convinced she's human) but even he has awful teeth. We are a nation known for our poor dental aesthetics. Someone I worked with once threatened to come visit my husband and I in the UK and I jokingly said I wouldn't give him our address. "How hard could it be to find two people in England with good teeth?", he quipped. Humph.

But now we have Kate and Pippa, who have set the bar WAY to high, apparently without any effort at all. It's not like Diana, who never quite seemed to be of this world (in a good way, unlike Posh) because their beauty seems very accessible. By contrast, I am no longer 'not bad for a Brit'. In fact I'm quite sure that anyone who heard my "friend" calling me Pippa took one look at me and thought "as IF!"

(It was a beautiful wedding though, wasn't it? No, I wasn't invited)

Level-- I mean Step-- One

When we were kids, my brother and I-- both blonde and blue-eyed with a natural SPF of about negative eight-- often sought ways to escape the relentless rays of the mid-day summer sun.

At the beach club, we'd commandeer a table in the bar and play backgammon for hours. And, on those days we skipped the beach and stayed at the house, we'd hide out down the road (and across an abandoned field) at a restaurant/bar that had an adjoining black-lit arcade with a Six Million Dollar Man pinball machine, Space Invaders, and Pac Man. We spent a lot of time and ice cream man money there.

All those hours spent in bars as a kid may be at the root of my problem. No, not a drinking problem. A gaming problem.

My susceptibility to the siren song of "Player 1" has manifested itself many times over the years: I spent hours in my brother's room playing Pitfall! and Hockey on the Intellivision; I was addicted to Snake Byte on our Apple II (I can still picture vividly the trailing green tail); and I know that I deserved a four credit A in Tetris for all the time I wasted playing it freshman year.

The kids always ask me to play Wii with them and I defer. My reason for saying no is not that-- at almost 40-- I think video games are beneath me or that I no longer have the requisite hand-eye coordination. I don't play Wii with them because I'm scared of a future that finds me home alone at 11AM on a school day working hard to help Mario and Luigi rescue the princess.

And then I got the iPad2. Alert! Alert! Turns out I know myself pretty well. And yet... that didn't stop me from playing Angry Birds Rio until I got three stars in every level.

My name is Weaselsnark and I have a problem.

I No Longer Have Piles!

My in-laws are coming to visit next week for my son's First Communion. It's a very good thing because our guest room is a pigsty and I needed a kick in the pants to do some spring cleaning.

The extra wet, cold spring meant that I had plenty of time to go through the kids' rooms and get rid of the clothes that don't fit them anymore. I only wish we had cousins nearby to offload the stuff in one fell swoop. Instead I put it into piles on the spare bed: girl clothes that can be passed down to my younger daughter (that I think she'll want to wear), boy clothes that can be sold on consignment, boy and girl clothes for Goodwill and little girl clothes for consignment. Consignment potentials also have to be divided and dropped off seasonally.

Once I had categorized and bagged up all the clothes that were on the bed, I found wrapping paper, a humidifier filter, partner-deficient socks and my royal wedding paraphernalia (so THAT'S where the bunting went!). I still have some work to do in there but it was very cathartic to get the clothing sorted. Now the kids can open and close their drawers and wear seasonally-appropriate clothing. For a couple of months anyway.

Cup of Woe

Saturday was Opening Day for baseball in our town. Yawn....oops, I mean, yay!

My son had his first practice Saturday afternoon. Because spring weekends in suburbia are literally jam-packed with sports, the plan was that my son and I would rush from his practice to catch the end of my daughter's soccer game.

Watching my son struggle to keep up with me as we headed for the parking lot and then duck-waddle/run back to the batting cage because he had forgotten his water bottle, I couldn't help but think that maybe having eight different sports commitments a week was beginning to take its toll.

When we finally got to the car, he kind of laughed, shook his head, and said: "Note to self: next time the cup goes over the underpants." Ouch.

Separated at Birth

The Donald and Owen Wilson: Same squinty eyes, sucking-a-lemon pursed lips and floppy hair. Let's take a poll: Who would you rather have as your President?

Someday Is Not A Day Of The Week

There is an article in this month's Real Simple magazine about procrastinating and how to stop. I haven't got around to reading it yet but I plan to. It's very frustrating to know full-well what you have to do, whether it be sending an email to that long-neglected friend or cleaning out your closet of things you haven't worn for five years or more, or putting your family photos in an album, and yet still not be able to bring yourself to do it.

For example, my son really needs a tie for his first Communion. I tried one store, weeks ago, then gave up. He's probably going to end up wearing the Gryffindor tie that was part of his Halloween costume two years ago. Is that offensive? The Church of England refused to allow the Harry Potter films to be set in Canterbury Cathedral because of the witchcraft theme, so I'm assuming the Catholic church isn't too happy about it either.

Mostly I procrastinate when it's something I don't like doing. I would rather do almost anything else but grocery shop, for example, so sometimes we literally have nothing in the way of real food in our house. I'll finally get up the energy to go and then be diverted by the first phone call suggesting a coffee break. I'm not talking 'Glass Castle' here (no one actually goes hungry), but we've had Lean Pockets for dinner. Once or twice.

Other times I put off things that seem like they would require a lot of logistics; going away on a girls' weekend or learning how to play the guitar. I have nothing but admiration for people who know what they want and make it happen. I have good friends who are like that - how can they can stand me?!

So I'm going to read that article and see if I can motivate myself to be a more efficient, organized person. As soon as I've finished folding the laundry. And watching 'Iron Chef'...

Miss Crankypants

I remember reading Miss Lonelyhearts in high school and being inspired to write a daily column on things that bugged me. But then I got distracted by all the AP Calculus I wasn't understanding and forgot about my pet peeves. Or at least about sharing them.

Well, no more! My time has finally come.

Today's gripe: Why do packaged loaves of bread always have an odd number of slices? Wouldn't you assume that most people are using sliced sandwich bread for..... I don't know, sandwiches?! A single slice of bread is of exactly no use to me. And if you've ever been left literally holding the bag (as I was this morning) you know the desperation of trying to cut the heel enough to make it pass (upside down, natch) as a regular slice of bread.

I can imagine how that will go over in the lunchroom. What could be less appealing to a kid who-- much to my chagrin/bemusement-- carefully eats every morsel up-to-but-not-including the crusts, than a whole piece made up of nothing but crust?

And while we're fixing the loaves of bread, why not just leave off the ends altogether? Lop them off at the factory and recycle them right there into breadcrumbs or stuffing. Does anyone eat the ends or do we all just reach past the heel to get to the good stuff underneath? (Strangely, I never throw away that top end until the whole loaf is otherwise finished-- I've always treated it as the protector of the other slices or something).

I'm feeling better already.

Clothes Encounters

We were invited to a family party two weekends back - no, I'm sorry, per the invitation it was an "event" - and far too late to do anything about it, we discovered that our older daughter has absolutely NOTHING to wear except sweats. We cobbled something together out of clothes of mine that shrank in the wash (I swear) and vowed to go shopping together the following weekend.

So last Saturday we went to the mall. The problem was, neither of us knew where to shop anymore. Gap was too "young" for her (really? 'cos you're 10), Crewcuts was too fussy and designed for stick figures, and Justice was just plain nasty (my eyes actually hurt from all the tacky colors).

Finally, we found Abercrombie and, as I would have been at her age, my daughter was in heaven: Skinny, stretch jeans, plaid shirts, cute cardies, tiered skirts, Justin Bieber blaring (Baby, Baby, Baby, Oh!), a miasma of perfume wafting through the air!

We grabbed armfuls of clothes and headed for the changing rooms where we were stopped short by a very ditsy shop assistant who informed us that only one person was allowed in the changing room at a time.

"But I'm her mother and I want to see how everything fits!" I spluttered.

"It's store policy ma'am" (Oh no you didn't!).

The policy is probably aimed at tweens/teens on a shoplifting spree but this girl clearly couldn't work out the difference and I didn't feel like pushing it. She said what she was told to say. I guess a store that sells padded bikini tops to seven-year-olds really has a pretty twisted view of the world.

Of course, we'll go back.

How to Tick Off Your Kids

Step one: Tell them it's a snow day.

Step two: Wait for them to get all excited.

Step three: Say "April Fool's!"

Tried and true.