Beware of Nerds with Assault Rifles

Disclaimer: I am a nerd and I looooove nerds: I married one and together he and I have produced four more, doing our part to ensure that the nerd dynasty lives on for generations to come. And the best thing about being a nerd is recognizing nerdy traits in others, and then making fun of them for it. At our house we do a lot of this:

Today was a red-letter day for all the denizens of Gamer Nerdom. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was released at 12:00 a.m. (I pride myself that I actually had to Google the exact name of the game.) This is the kind of event that brings the nerds out in droves, standing in line for the stroke of midnight, then running home giggling in geeky glee to begin the massacre.

Cameron’s birthday was last Saturday, but we gave him an IOU for COD as part of his gift. We had reserved it in advance and Joe planned to pick it up after work. Then last night Cam’s sweet, nerdy dad decided to pull an audible and pick it up early so little nerd could start playing right after school, without having to wait for Joe to get home. While we were out getting groceries we went by Nerd World to pay for the game so Joe would just have to stop in after midnight and swap his receipt for the grail. I mean…the game.

I have to say, I’ve got his back on this one. I’ve always thought that the most fun parts of parenting are saying yes when the kids are sure you’ll say no and surprising the heck out of them with something they never saw coming.

When we pulled up around 7:00 p.m., there were already about 25 people in line.

Disclaimer #2: Sometimes when I post conversations between me and Joe, I embellish my lines just a little. It’s the only time in my life when I get to be the funny one and Joe has to be the straight guy (huh-huh…)

Me (with great excitement): Oh. My. Gawd. I will give you 50 bucks if you lean out of the car and holler, “Nerrrrrrrds!!!”

Joe: That offer would be a lot more enticing if we didn’t share a bank account. I’d basically be paying myself to get jumped by a crowd of nerds.

Me: So, if you can pay for your game in advance, then lollygag back in here after midnight, why are all these nerds in line?

Joe: It’s the experience. They’re excited and want to hang out with other fans.

Me: That’s great, but if any nerd-on-nerd action breaks out, I’m outta here. In fact, I think I’m going to just wait in the car.

Joe: Oh come on, I’m the one coming back up here at midnight, the least you can do is come in with me now.

Me (eyeing the crowd uneasily): I’m not sure any of these nerds have actually seen a girl before. I fear for my safety.

Joe: Oh, they’ve seen girls alright. That’s what the internet is for.

We go inside, which surprisingly doesn’t smell like nerds. I remember back in the day video game stores smelled like someone’s basement after ten stinky geeks were down there playing D&D all night.

Me: Nerd World must have a helluva ventilation system.

Joe: It’s not just unwashed, socially-inept geeks who play video games anymore. It’s high school kids like Cam, college students, even supercool dads.

Me: Awesome! Where are the supercool dads?

It went on and on like this all night. Bottom line: Cam not only got his game right after midnight, he convinced his dad to let him stay up and tag along to the store, then play two hours of COD before finally going to bed. Sorry, Cam’s teachers: he may not be his best today, but he’ll be in class. That’s more than I can say for some kids, who were actually allowed to actually stay home from school to play all day long. Their parents must be Nerds of a Higher Level.

Joe said the nerd-watching experience was worth staying up late. “I wish I had thought to bring the camera. Those were some high-quality nerds.”

Let me leave you with this thought to ponder. The guy working at Nerd World told us they expected 400 people to pick up their games at or soon after midnight. And that’s just in our small, suburban town’s branch of Nerd World. Extrapolate that out and you’ve got literally jillions of nerds worldwide. Cool people better beware. Nerds now how sniping skills.

Party Rock in the Kitchen Last Night

Sometimes songs get trapped in my head. It’s my experience that the only way to get them out is to pass them on to someone else.

Cam was washing the dishes last night when I walked up, gave him a hip bump and said, “Stop!”

He instantly replied, “Collaborate and listen,” at the exact same time I said, “Hatin’s bad.”

Then we looked each other, eyebrows shooting up, mouths slowly curving into smiles.

I don’t know who was more impressed: me, that my 13-year-old totally rocked out some vintage Vanilla Ice, or him, that his mom knew that LMFAO is more than just what you type when something online amuses you.

Either way, we’re both kind of badass.

Do yourself a favor and watch the Party Rockers video.
It's all kinds of silly, and everyone needs a little of that.

A Stupid Little TABLE! Tale

This morning I needed to lug our six-foot, portable banquet table into work. Long story, but the most important part is that it was important. As in, crucial enough that if I forgot it, I would have to turn around and come back home for it, even if I was 59 minutes into my hour-long drive.

So last night I did what I always do when I need to remember something: I put a large, obnoxious sign on the back hallway door leading into the garage, and this time the sign read: TABLE!

Clever, huh?

Sweet Beezo saw it as he was getting ready for school (the boys’ getting-ready supplies have been banished to the bathroom off the kitchen to streamline the whole six-people-trying-to-get-out-the-door effort) and asked me if I wanted him to bring it up from the basement.

He’s thoughtful like that and it made me want to grab him by his elf-like ears and plant a big kiss on him. So I did. Then I smiled sweetly and reminded my little boy that the table probably outweighs him and I didn’t think his scrawny bag of bones could wrestle it up the staircase. But I did ask him to scout out our cavernous basement, as simply pre-locating the damn thing would add several minutes to my morning.

Soon he was back, delivering the four most-uttered words in our house, the ones that usually make me blind with fury: “I couldn’t find it. “ But he was doing me a solid by looking, so I thanked him and sent him along to the bus.

Fifteen minutes and every nook and cranny in the basement later, I was saying the same four words, as well as many others I probably shouldn’t publish here. I gave up and left a message for Joe asking him if he had seen it.

He called right back.

“Did you find it?”

“I left you a message fifteen seconds ago. Of course I haven’t found it.”

“Did you look everywhere?”

“Everywhere it’s logical for a six-foot *#&$!) table to be.”

“Did you look…in the backseat of your car?”

Silence.

Morals of the story: Be nice to people when they’re doing you a favor. And when you’re the one doing the favor, such as hauling a heavy table to the car for your wife, be nice enough to tell her where the *#(&!@ it is.

This Project RULES

I’m pretty good at memory keeping – I have a zillion scrapbooks commemorating family life, tons of memorabilia packed away, and at one point even contemplated trying to preserve one of the boys’ umbilical cords, until the cat took advantage of my hesitation and ate it.

True story. Really gross, but true.

One thing I dropped the ball on was a growth chart. I kept meaning to put one up…and kept forgetting to. I could have just marked the wall, but I was holding out for something detachable that we could take with us when we moved. And it seems like there were always a million more things to do and to buy that took precedence.

Then one day I turned around and my oldest son was looking me dead in the eye. And he wasn’t standing on anything or hanging from anything – in his bare feet Cam is inching up closer and closer to my height. He’s in the middle of a monster growth spurt and I realized it was now or never for the growth chart.

I searched around and everything seemed a little too young to bridge the gap between a 13-year-old and a 2-year old, and a little too girly to keep my boys’ eyes from rolling. So I decided to make my own, based on something awesome I saw at my brother and sister-in-law’s house.

Behold – Super Ruler.

Super Ruler was actually super easy to make. Our shopping list consisted of:

8-inch wide by 1-inch thick by 10-foot long slab of lumber, like one of these.

We almost bought a 6-foot board. We knew we were going to hang it 6 inches above the floor to clear the baseboard, so it would actually measure up to 6 and a half feet tall. Then I remembered I come from a family of giants and realized that there’s a small chance that 6 and a half might not be enough for our boys, so I went with the 10-foot board and cut it down to 7 feet. If one of my kids ends up taller than 7 and half feet, we probably won’t be able afford to feed him, and he should just move out. :)

Snazzy yellow spray paint. For some reason I was thinking rulers are generally yellow. I was probably thinking of pencils, since rulers can be any color, but we went with yellow anyway, just because it’s happy.

Eighth of an inch art tape. I found this near the dry erase boards at Staples after a long search. Joe thought it might be one of those things I dream up that don’t actually exist in the real world, but I hunted it down. I used a ruler and pencil to line off the spray-painted board at half-inch increments, then went over them with the tape so they really stand out.

The grand finale of any project – Modge Podge! I went over everything with a few thin coats to seal it all up. I could have used a spray shellac or something, but this was more fun. Remember putting Elmer’s glue on your hands in elementary school, waiting for it to dry, then ripping it off like you’re a zombie pulling off your own skin?

If you’re wrinkling your nose up right now and thinking, “Noooo, I most certainly did not,” you are just no fun and probably shouldn’t be reading this blog. Use the extra time to try the zombie trick I just taught you. You’ll be glad you did.

And that’s it! You end up with a beautiful, ginormous ruler, fit to measure even the most freakishly tall child. This child isn’t freakishly tall (yet), but he lends a very Vanna-like zing to the big reveal:

And he’s super cute.

The only drawback to finally having a growth chart is that there’s obvious proof of this:

I’m a little over 5’9” and I thought it would be years and years before one of my kids got anywhere close to my height. At Cam’s alarming growth rate, he might pass me by Christmas.

At least I know this little guy will be cuddle-sized for at least another decade.

So, so true...

Source

Shake It Like a Polaroid Picture

Lately I’ve been trying hard to put myself “out there” and have more fun, even at the risk of looking like a complete and total idiot. So in the last few months, among other things, I have danced with wild abandon in public, joined a kickball league, and trained for my first 5K.

The hubs and I in our uniforms on the kickball field. Really.

And trust me – I have absolutely nooooo doubt that on many (most?) occasions I have looked like a complete and total idiot. I’m trying to just suck it up and move forward, disregarding what other people might think. As that wise old sage Dr. Seuss said, “Those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.”

My son Cameron puts it in a much less eloquent, but more down-to-earth way: “Your friends like you anyway, and if anyone else thinks you look dumb, it’s not like they’re going to remember it 20 years from now, so who cares?”

That was his personal credo as he finished his 8^th grade year, and I’ve never seen the kid have more fun. Sure, he lost his lifetime all-A status when he got his first report card B, but he also won the 8^th grade “how long can you hold in a mouthful of water during math class?” title. So, there’s that.

However…It’s hard to get out there and shake your groove thang in public when that particular groove thing is so out of shape you could easily lose control of it and do seriously damage to innocent bystanders. I blame it on baby weight – 14 years worth.

A few months ago I was reading Cathy Zielske’s blog, which I follow religiously. Cathy is not only an amazing graphic designer and scrapbooker, she’s just supercool and I enjoy reading about her life.

Like me, Cathy’s not new to the battle of the bulge, but awhile ago she shared with her readers her new philosophy for getting into shape and it was so simple and so enlightening that I almost fell off my chair when I read it:

Move more, eat less.

This is where I give a tip of my hat, a kiss and a “yes dear, you were right all along” to the mister. Joe has been telling me for YEARS that those two principles are all anyone needs to lose and keep off weight.

His actual words were more like, “Fatties need to put down the cheeseburgers and get off the couch,” but you get the gist.

I will say that Joe is one of those very fit guys who only has to cut back on an extra order of fries to drop ten pounds, so it was easy to tell him to go to hell and then proceed to eat a whole bag of Doritos.

Plus, Cathy her own LOGO, for crying out loud.

Sorry Joe, but great design and awesome logos will always trump very supportive, loving life partners. You know how I roll. I may even have it tattooed on a prominent body part, or possibly stenciled on the ceiling of our bedroom as inspiration to get my fat ass out of bed in the morning.

I’ve been working out pretty steadily since January and although I’ve only lost around 20 pounds, I’m down almost three sizes. Plus, I feel FANTASTIC.

Joe has been instrumental in keeping me motivated, though verbal encouragement, a raised eyebrow when I take a second serving of something delicious, and by trotting alongside me as I attempt to run. In truth, he could probably take a leisurely walk and still keep up, but I take it as a public declaration of love that he actually simulates a running stride.

The only thing I can do without (and I’ve told him): that whole running-backwards-rooting-me-on thing. The fact that he can run backward and speak at the same time, and still be ahead of me, makes me want to punch him in the face.

Hmmm…as important as it is to develop my personal outlook and my fitness level, maybe it’s best for all involved if I focus on anger management next.

Heeey Kool-aid!

Quick post tonight, but so worth it…

Have you ever seen “My Strange Addiction” on TLC? If you haven’t, there’s not much to say about it – the title pretty much sums it up. A woman who sleeps with her hair dryer, a guy with a silicone wife, scab pickers, a disturbing girl who lives as an adult baby. You know, your average, garden-variety freaks.

Anyway, Jerame and I were watching TV and a commercial came on for the upcoming episode about a woman who…hold on, I’m fighting back the bile…eats her dead husband's ashes.

This brought about the funniest line of the night from Jer:

"Ewwwww, mom! She's licking it off her finger like it's Koolaid powder!"

Heeeee! That kid kills me.