Author Archives: Christene

Bad Girls Get Everything

I have come to the realization that bad girls seem to get more out of life. I have often hidden all my naughtiness for fear of being persecuted or judged. I feel that if I want to advance my career, in lieu of a resume, I should just provide a list of my bad behavior, in public, private, and everything in between. The list below should be easy enough to follow, numbered for your convenience. At the bottom, I have also taken the liberty of including things I have not yet done, but am willing and able to do for [reasonable] compensation – a list constantly expanding and very much open to suggestion.

1. On the last day of high school Tanya and I ditched school to go watch a movie.

I don’t remember the movie, but I was disappointed that we didn’t get caught.

2. The last time I saw a musical on stage, Cats had just come out. I meowed for a month. In public.

3. I once slept with a man for the sole reason that he could recite Coleridge off the top of his head.

It was only coincidence that I was actually married to him at the time.

4. I can pole dance.

Not well. And not with the pole, but near the pole.

Ok, I can gyrate within the general vicinity of a pole.

There is a pole down the street from my house… I can bounce around in my kitchen… just put these two things together in your head.

5. I once received monetary compensation for writing someone’s term paper. They received an A in the course. In case  you were wondering.

Also, I was seventeen at the time and the person was writing the paper in order to receive an MBA. This should tell you something about me, or them, their professor, or the standards of the academic institution they were attending. Take your pick.

I used the money from this enterprise as a coffee budget for the following year. I had my priorities.

6. I have worn the same shirt two days in a row. I was tired.

7. I once took my kids for a walk, got extremely dehydrated pushing the double stroller and drank their juice. Later they asked me for juice. I told them we left it at home.

8. I eat chocolate before bed. It makes me feel naughty.

Then I brush my teeth.

9. I once dated a man only because I knew it was against his religion. I was hell bent on making him cry. I did. Then I felt really bad. Crap.

10. When I was four years old I had a crush on the neighbor boy. He was nineteen, but very nice. He offered my parents to take me to the park, but forgot to mention his girlfriend would be joining us. I got jealous and threw sand at her. For an hour.

In my defense, he never told me he had a girlfriend.

11. I had a one night stand.

Then we got married and had two children.

12. I am totally into Courtney Stodden and Kim Kardashian. Yes, I follow along. Sometimes I like to dress like Kim.

13. One time at camp (I was about nine), I stumbled over my own feet and fell into a lake. I was too embarrassed to admit to it, so I told everyone I had seen it on Girls Gone Wild.

My parents were called in for a conference.

And here is the list of things I have not yet done, but willing to consider…. for the right cause.

1. Anything having to do with chocolate.

2. Anything having to do with George Clooney.

Preferably, we can combine numbers one and two.

3. I am willing to wear tacky jewelry, and speak with a Brooklyn accent.

4. I am willing to watch realty TV (depending on the show, my price may go up).

5. I am willing to watch sports in one hour increments (for an additional fee I can cheer and make snacks).

6. I can steal a car. If handed the keys.

I don’t drive Mustangs.

7. I can commit gerrymandering. You may not like the results.

8. For a certain price I will commit arson.

With an affidavit from the property owner stating this is OK.

9. I am willing to speed on the freeway.

No more than 80 mph.

10. I can provide an alibi for most crimes since I seem to be constantly at home.Writing ridiculous blog posts.

Wordless Wednesday

Bought dress… dress fits…. I look terrified in this picture.
Interesting….
Mary and I huddling and cold….
I bought an egg frying pan that comes with a 39 page instruction manual in five different languages…
Kids at the park…. Mary is pushing the seesaw…
Sat at this red light three times… took a picture…
Small children are like cats… put food on the floor and they congregate…
Hair turned out nice this time!
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They Have Had Enough

I was totally going to blog about Petrarch, Ovid, and Spenser, and yes there is a connection. I just read an amazing article that a friend sent me, and I have all sorts of things to say about it. But I will reserve that for another day. I am exhausted. Instead, I will tell you about my children which are equally as fascinating as Ovid I am sure.

Children like stability. When they begin getting shuffled around, especially when they are little, it is hard on them. My children are still too little to understand the days of the week, and every morning they must ask where they are going, who is picking them up, and at which home they will be staying. This is very stressful for them, and since, as I said, they don’t understand how the days work, they also don’t understand that certain things happen *every* Monday, and *every* Tuesday, etc., nor do they know when Monday is.

To aggravate matters, my crazy schedule demands even more shuffling around. On the days I work until ten at night my mother picks them up from school, and they spend the night at her house. You don’t have to be a parent to realize that picking them up after work at close to eleven at night, pulling them out of bed to drive them across town, only to get them back into bed close to midnight, and then yank them out just a few hours later is a bad idea. Not only does my mother spoil them rotten in the evenings, when morning comes, since she has nowhere she needs to be, the children get to sleep in until they naturally wake up to the smell of fresh eggs and honeyed toast (where were my fresh eggs and honeyed toast growing up?).

Needless to say, the next morning when they must return to being brutally awakened before dawn, they are less than pleased. Not to say I am brutal about it, but I think any time someone must wake that early the process is rather brutal.

Poor little things get schlepped back and forth between three different houses, sometimes two in the same day, and it is not difficult to see that they have begun acting up. They are exposed to different rules, expectations, bed times, routines, and even clothes. They are confused, perhaps even angry about it, but as I explain to them, this is just the way things are. Because I don’t know what else to say.

And how can I expect two small children to adopt my “it is what it is” mentality that took me decades to hone? Because for me it wasn’t so simple. It is what it is? Oh no! I willed, and forced, and contrived, unaccepting of circumstances, no matter how much out of my control. And I was a grown woman!

Yet while I make leeway for dissension, I can’t help but explain that temper tantrums and tears will not solve problems, make the week move forward any faster, change the course of where they will end up that evening, or help them spend any more time with whichever parent they happen to prefer at the moment (after force bathing Ally and threatening Ducky with a sponge, I don’t think I am going to make Favorite this week).

Also, after having been made to walk about six blocks to Starbucks, they are, to say the least, disgruntled. Tonight they were supposed to see their Nana… but instead, because I have the day off from work, they got taken around town. To show their appreciation Ducky threw himself on the ground as we were crossing Wilshire Blvd (huge intersection), and instead of trying to help me pick him up Ally decided she would throw down her juice cup and stand there as I wrestled with them across the street, essentially stopping traffic for about five minutes at what would normally be rush hour in the middle of Los Angeles.

I think they have had enough of their mommy right now.