Friday Tapas: The Battery Operated Edition

Something long and cool, Georg? – Baroness Schraeder in The Sound of Music

It was never my plan for each edition of Friday Tapas to follow a set theme. The entire concept – derived on a complete whim – was intended only as a brain dump for the disjointed thoughts in my head that didn’t lend themselves to full blog posts.

However…

Life keeps handing me these lemons, you see. Ones that, if nothing else, make for tasty blog fodder.

So, I’m once again pairing this week’s tapas with a glass of thematic lemonade.

Not too sweet, not too sour, as The Baroness would say.

• My week began with a stalled car in our daycare’s parking lot Monday morning. I had it jumped, only to find that the power steering was kaput. At which point I cried Uncle! to the universe and called Triple A for a tow. The bad news? My car appeared to be royally FUBAR’ed. The good news? I was able to spend an extra hour with Lil’ Bit that morning in her daycare environment while waiting for the tow truck to arrive. ”Mommy’s sick car,” as per my daughter, would later be diagnosed with a dying battery (the original to my 2004 Saturn Ion), as well as a blown fuse due to the jump. So. Not so royally FUBAR’ed after all.

• After picking up my non-FUBAR’ed car later that evening, I headed for home, only to be tailed and later cut off by an old man with a fu manchu driving a Ford pick-up with a bumper sticker that read I ♥ Cooter. Insert stereotypical West Virginia joke here.

• That same day, I politely declined two offers of a ride to work from the tow truck driver and my boss. It was a nice morning, so I opted instead to walk the half mile from daycare to my office. Wearing black patent leather peep-toe wedges. Because I’m a rock star. Twitter agreed.

• I also exfoliated with battery acid this week. After changing the batteries in our 2-year-old baby monitor – for which the rechargeable kind are apparently a requirement vs. an option – it began leaking the stuff. Because a dead car battery and busted water heater just weren’t enough of a hassle. Anyhoo, unaware of what was happening, I picked up the monitor early one morning to glance at a restless Lil’ Bit… and then proceeded to moisturize my face. Much stinging and redness ensued. OMG! I thought. What the hell is Clinique putting in their moisturizer these days? A little while later I realized what had happened (based on the puddle of battery acid on my nightstand) and deduced that I must have gotten some residue on my finger. Bottom line? I do not recommend making battery acid part of your skincare regimen.

• If bad things come in threes, then let’s hope leaky battery acid counts as a sufficient “third” to the aforementioned broken water heater and dead car battery.

• As you can see by the clips I posted on What She Said’s Facebook page, I was inspired to revisit North and South - my favorite miniseries of all time – on YouTube this week while thinking about Don Draper from Mad Men. How did I get from Mad Men to a nearly 30-year-old saga about the Civil War? It’s probably best not to question the inner workings of my mind.

I see only one common denominator here.

• I can always tell what Lil’ Bit has been dreaming about because she talks about it immediately upon waking. Recently, she dreamed of Target. (Can you blame her?) I know this because “I see lights at Target!” was the first thing out of her mouth one morning. Which was very cute since her favorite thing to do at Target is watch the automatic lights turn on in the cold cases of the supermarket section.

But then she followed that up with, “I see Mommy’s boobies at Target!” Oh my. Whatever was I doing topless at Target?

You know those dreams in which you’re naked and humiliated in public? It was just like that. Only played out in someone else’s subconscious.

• Thursday morning, Lil’ Bit suddenly announced, “I not feel sick anymore!” And she was right – she is, in her words, “nice and better” now. In fact, our entire family has been illness-free for one full week. Everyone clap and shout Hooray! And then knock on wood.

• I must give a little shout-out to Syracuse for being one of the only teams in the NCAA Tournament to do exactly what I said they’d do in my pitiful little bracket. My husband’s favorite team – in whom he had zero confidence – made it to the Elite 8 before getting knocked off by Ohio State. No small feat considering they lost their 7 ft. tall center, Fab Melo, to academic ineligibility just before the tournament started. So, good job, guys.

From Hubs and Lil’ Bit, too.

 And now for some bloggy love, sans thematic references:

• I’ve neither read The Hunger Games nor seen the movie, but I laughed all the way through Kludgy Mom’s 6 Reasons Why I Didn’t Get Up At Midnight to See The Hunger Games. Partly because, like Gigi, I value my sleep - A LOT. And partly because she kept talking about gyros.

• In a syndicated post on BlogHer, Shalini from Reading (and Chickens) compared certain bigger bloggers to WalMart and Target and smaller bloggers to more exclusive boutiques. Which made me reflect – not for the first time – that I am perfectly fine with being a “boutique” blogger. I’ve never really liked WalMart anyway.

• Huffington Post blogger Lisa Belkin asked of professional writers and bloggers alike this week, “When do your child’s stories stop becoming your own?” The comments – which range from complete indifference to scathing criticism of those who draw inspiration from their children – were as thought-provoking as the piece itself. In short, this is a must-read for anyone who blogs about their kids.

• Finally, it needed to be said, and Tracy from Sellabit Mum said it in her New Egg Hunt Rules for 2012 – specifically designed for those helicopter parents who, in her words, still wipe their 12-year-olds’ asses. We’re actually attending an Easter egg hunt this weekend. And while I would love for my daughter to be QUEEN OF ALL EGG HUNTS (who wouldn’t?), I’m going to try – really try – to refrain from being the kind of douchepump who jumps the rope to a kids-only area and snatches all the eggs away from fellow children and their rule-abiding parents in an effort to “help” their own offspring.

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And with that, it’s time to kick off said weekend. Got any special plans?

After behaving at my child’s egg hunt, I’ll be shopping for rechargeable batteries and the North and South box set. At Target.

With my clothes on.

So, what’s on your mind?