From the monthly archives:

May 2014

No Comment

by Marinka on May 26, 2014

It took me a while, but finally I realized that the comments section on this blog is broken. At first when I saw zero comments on post after post I thought, “huh, no one is commenting!” and while that would make some bloggers despondent, I just took it to mean that everyone agreed with my wisdom and were also rendered speechless by the same. Or at least commentless.

But then I started to get some emails, tweets, and skywritings from people who couldn’t leave a comment and wanted to know what the hell was going on and I had to “I could have had a V-8” smack my forehead and come to grips that something was very wrong. Irreparably so, apparently.

The problem with having something wrong blog-wise is that it is really the last thing that I need right now. Because it’s one of those problems for which people have very little sympathy and I’m one of those people who doesn’t see the point of having a problem that doesn’t elicit sympathy from people. This is why I highly recommend divorce. You could be having the Best Divorce Ever, really, tripping the light fantastic, and yet everyone will treat you with respect and kid gloves. Incidentally, do you think that kid gloves are made out of goats or are they just really small and ill-fitting gloves?

Oh, right. You can’t answer.

Anyway, I contacted the authorities and hopefully help is on the way soon. Or right after they find the Lindbergh baby, IDK.

Meanwhile, please know that I am living a very full and exciting life and that Mama and Papa are being as adorable as always, except they have been suffering too, as they have been invited to a 3 day destination wedding and Friday night is “smores and sing-a-long” night at the beach with instructions to “bring your own guitar!” and Mama told me, confidentially, that she doesn’t have a guitar and wondered if she should borrow one.

Oh, and my hair is now reddish. Certain friends have suggested that this has Midlife Crisis written all over it, but I just wanted to go back to my natural color.

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I’m the one who looks like me, but with reddish hair. The other woman is Sarah, who colored my hair. A former friend who saw the photo thought she was my daughter. May he rest in peace.

When my daughter saw my hair she was delighted and informed me that redheads would become extinct soon, so I knew I was on the right path. My son had a slightly different reaction and gasped, “OMG, MOM, WHO DID THIS TO YOU?” and when I explained that I hadn’t actually beed abducted and dyed against my will, he shook his head sadly at the unexplainable nature of adulthood and murmured something like “it’s just not normal to have your own mom look so different.”

But I can’t go into all of that because my comments section is broken and it would just feel like I’m talking to myself.

So I’ll wait until the comments are working again. Because I love you that much. You should probably write to your Congressman and demand some action on this issue.

UPDATE: Comments are now working. Which makes this post sort of pointless. Unlike all the other, pointed posts.
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BTW, if you haven’t checked it out yet, I’m hosting the monthly book club discussion over at Alpha Mom. Come visit me over there, it’s very fancy, with working comments and everything!

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What’s In a Name?

by Marinka on May 20, 2014

Recently I decided to kill both of our cats with my bare hands.

Oh, you didn’t know that we had two cats now?

Well, of course you know Nicki, the striped goddess that we love and adore. Nicki has been with us forever, ever since that moment when the kids begged and pleaded and promised to feed her, empty her litter box and tend to her stripe realignment (GUESS HOW THAT TURNED OUT?!)

But you may not know this beauty:

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I wish I could introduce her to you properly, but the kids couldn’t name her for the first few weeks, at which point I called a State of the Family Emergency meeting and threatened the kids with snack and screen and oxygen deprivation unless they came up with a name for the cat. Then, I launched into a monologue about the virtues of working on a problem collaboratively and, just to gilt the lily, about the importance of siblings and also how Adam named all the animals and birds in a shorter time period than they’re taking with this fucking cat and the next thing I know, they were asking if I would stop talking if they agreed on a name: Claire.

Personally, I was hoping that they would choose my contribution– Matilda, and was filled with temporary rage of a kazillion burning suns when they didn’t. I mean, you give them life and this is how they repay you?

So the cat was Claire and we lived happily ever after for a few hours, when I noticed something strange. And the something strange, besides the fact that tourists in NYC often walk three abreast on the sidewalk, as though it is their private sidewalk in the middle of Times Square and no one else needs to get past their glacial pace, was that my daughter was talking to someone named “Ollie.” At first I assumed that she had an imaginary friend, a little odd for a 15 year old, but kids today, who the hell knows what’s up with them. But then I realized that she was addressing Claire as Ollie.

This was rich. I pointed out to her that she was calling the cat by the wrong name, and considered affixing one of those “Hello, My Name is Claire!” stickers on the cat as a learning aid, but then my daughter told me that she just agreed to Claire so that both her brother and I could shut the hell up, and, well, it’s hard to argue with that kind of logic.

And now the cat has two names: Claire and Ollie and because if I call the her the “wrong” name in front of the wrong kid, there are consequences, so I call her The White Cat or, better yet, avoid talking about her altogether.

Except that has been a problem lately since the whole deciding to kill both cats with my bare hands. I mean, sure I can say “I am going to kill both cats with my bare hands” but I find that it lacks a certain personalization. That personal touch that “bare hands” implies.

So that’s a problem.

The other problem is that I am now so exhausted from explaining the cat name situation to you that I absolutely have no energy to tell you about the reasons behind my wanting to kill both cats with my bare hands. That will have to be a post for another day.

I hope you can handle the suspense.

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Positive Pregnancy Tests for Sale

May 8, 2014

This morning I read an article (if that’s the term we’re using for news stories these days) about how there are positive pregnancy tests for sale online. Please sit with that for a while. Some people will buy other people’s positive pregnancy tests. Not because they have some sort of weird fetish, which maybe I […]

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Back and Blonde

May 4, 2014

I’m back home from Rome and absolutely no one feels sorry for me. I drop hints, trying to elicit sympathy, but my “it’s been days since I’ve had a gelato!” and “the Campari over there is so much better than the bastardization they serve in NYC” proclamations have been met with the kind of indifference […]

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