this is not about Tiger's wang

Tiger Woods’ (you thought I was gonna say penis, didn't you?) daughter goes to school, which wouldn’t strike me as odd…if she wasn’t two years old. That’s a bit younger than the typical kid is forced to learn that 2+2=blue, isn’t it?

When my kids were two, they still had potty incidents and managed to spill their spill-proof sippy cups. Their days definitely didn’t include English Lit first period.

When Becca was two, she climbed into the garbage dumpster and ate from the sugar canister someone had thrown out. When Matthew was two, he stuffed a banana in his toy-box and I caught him eating it days later. Trust me, they were in no shape to sit still and listen to a teacher for hours at a time.

Now, before you consider the source and decide my kids were probably paste-eating grunters until they were six or seven, please note: my kids were very smart (and still are, though they’re currently teenagers so that takes some of the smartness right out of them by virtue of chemistry and hormones).

I’m just not sure what two year old would tolerate a structured classroom environment without absolutely losing their sh*t. I think it’s cruel to force that on 'em. At that age, they should be frolicking freely, pretending to be boogers or raindrops or pink polka dots or something.

Hell. Who knows. Maybe little Miss Woods is a child prodigy. I know her DAD was a prodigy by the time he was two and look at him now. Quality.

I’m just thinking they should give the kid a break. Just let her be two and smear pudding on her face and take a nap when she’s tired and spend time with Mom instead of Staff. But that’s just me.

Human? I think not.

Saw a picture of this guy



in an article about billionaires. His name is Carlos Slim. It’s an ironic name, like calling me Slender Willow or Vanilla Petite, but he can get away with it because, well, he’s got more money than God.

Considering the rest of the billionaires on the same list have lame names like Jim Walton and Lawrence Ellison, old Slim’s not only the richest, but the one with the coolest name. That means he gets to date the head cheerleader.

I read the list and then got to wondering what billionaires do when not taking over the world one sweatshop at a time. Origami with $1000 bills? Yoga on mink yoga mats? Since they crap dollar bills, what do they wipe with? Oh, I know. Disposable baby harp seals… ‘cause you know there ain’t no cleaning that off with Dawn dish soap, baby.

I guess some billionaires might spend their time donating money to worthy causes and setting up foundations to benefit all mankind *cough tax write-off cough*, which is admirable. And other billionaires inexplicably spend their money on $2000 suits yet still get really bad haircuts and wear 1980s serial killer glasses:



All this thinking got me…uh…thinking: how do you become a billionaire? On this year’s World’s Richest list, Forbes tries to church it up. It says Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal made his fortune as an “investor”. An investor?! You don’t invest $100 per paycheck and end up with $19 billion dollars. That guy didn’t “make” his fortune, he inherited it.

Prince Alwaleed could take a play outta the next guy’s book: David Thomson, worth $19 billion and the most honest man alive. In italics, next to his name, it just says “inheritance”. He didn’t work a single day of his life and he is SO PROUD OF IT.

Billionaires are funny. Why not just straight up say “I sold 357 metric tons of asbestos and lead-based toys to foolish Americans” or “I exploited my country’s most recent financial crisis by buying low and selling high”? Instead, they think they need to make it pretty on paper, when in reality, nobody really believes Li Ka-Shing made $21 billion by being “diversified”. What does that even MEAN? My guess? Drugs. Lots and lots of drugs.

Furthermore, I wonder: do billionaires look down on millionaires? Are billionaires like the populars in high school and millionaires like the audio-video club? Would Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal be caught dead at prom with Donald Trump? The world may never know.

I’ve come to the conclusion that billionaires might as well be a different species than the rest of us. Except Carlos Slim. Guy with a name like that would be totally cool downing some ice cold Dos Equis on my patio, I just know it. *Slim, call me.*

Quality time with Becca

I was sitting on the couch next to Becca last night. We were watching TV and she slowly leaned toward me and lay her head lightly on my shoulder. Awww, I thought, pleasantly surprised, my heart swelling…then she farted. Apparently, more important than snuggling with her mom, she was just freeing up some space.

May the guilt be with you forever and ever and ever

When my kids were little, I spent all my time worrying about the decisions I was making. Was the movie I just let them watch going to turn them into crazy, shotgun-toting, clown-loving cult members? What if the way I taught them to tie their shoes wasn't the right way? Was I feeding them enough preservatives?

But now that I'm the mother of teenagers, I don't worry about my decisions any more; I worry about theirs. It's the natural order of things. Look it up.

Their past, present, and future decisions make up about 99% of my worrying nowadays. (The other 1% is worry about my mustache. Don't pretend you didn't notice.)

I remember being a kid. I wasn’t sorry I DID whatever I was in trouble for, I was sorry I got CAUGHT. Made me more careful. If I caught my kids doing some of the stuff I did at their age, I’d just cry and Steven would take everything away from them but their underwear.

It's time to face the fact that there may realistically come a day when Matthew's privileges are as follows: FM radio and toilet paper.

And I just know that the booking officer will turn to me and say, "This is all your fault."

boy, 1. mom, 0.

Mom, singing, "What do tigers dream of..."

Matthew, "Mom, who sings that?"

Mom, "Umm...Ed Helms, I th..."

Matthew, "Let's keep it that way."

ZING!

Random musings

The other day, Becca described a guy as "tall and dangly". I assume she meant gangly, but might be wrong.

Christmas decorations left up after New Years are a visual example of how it feels to be clinically depressed.

I realized I root for the movie bad guy more often than not.

Large groups of small children in an enclosed room smell like a herd of goats. And small groups of large kids in an enclosed room smell like Frito chips. It's science. Look it up.

Pop Pop, did your butt itch?

Dan Rather said our grandparents come from the greatest generation. Let us examine, shall we?

Their generation lived to fight through World War II, eat dirt during the Depression, to have some serious sex during the Baby Boom (bowm-chicka-bowm-bowm), and to retire before douchebags like Bernie Madoff snorted their life savings. They only drove cars made in Detroit, and did the jitterbug with absolutely no idea that they looked less like they were dancing and more like their asses really, really itched.

The ladies wore heels to do housework, lipstick to the grocery store, and girdles reinforced by asbestos and industrial grade rubber. The men shaved every day and smoked cigarettes pretty much constantly, in bed, in the shower, in the baby's room, at work.

Dinner was red meat, butter, and something-something starch. Everybody had a vast liquor cabinet and Mom knew just how Dad liked his gimlet. All the dogs were named Rover and kids were named after ancestors, not inanimate objects.

It seems like it was a good time and these were people who knew exactly what was what. Baseball was America's past time and nobody had ever heard of soccer. America was the greatest country on earth and if you disagreed, Senator McCarthy would by-God like to have a word with you.

The facts are pretty clear. That generation kicked so much ass, America had absolutely no choice but to barrel full throttle through the middle of the century, consuming vast quantities of democracy, butter, and fossil fuels...

...and then their kids hit puberty. With the act of such a great group of Americans to follow, their kids didn't stand a chance, so they went ahead and ricocheted off the shining, righteous deeds of their parents and straight on towards free love, hash brownies, and disco.

But despite their hooligan kids, they were almost certainly the greatest generation. And if you doubt that, here's proof.



Check and mate.

Resolutions are for pussies!

You know what they (I) say about resolutions? They (I) say you don't need the beginning of a year to make a resolution. Resolutions get broken. So you promise yourself something and then you let yourself down. I'm too busy letting other people down to let myself down too. There are only so many hours in the day, you know.

But because I am physically incapable of (admitting to) failing, any resolution I might choose to make would go something like this:

I resolve to quit smoking. I go buy my first ever pack of cigarettes. Smoke one. Throw the rest away (after the vomiting stops). Resolution fulfilled. Man, I so rocked that.

I'm going to market it and call it the Kelly No Fail Method of New Year's Resolutions (patent pending). The royalties will make me rich.

This year is going to kick so much ass.

I. Want. It.

The RIDGID going spindizzy sounds like an awesome Saturday night to me.

Dude was biblical

I was driving behind a small SUV this morning. There was a decal on the rear window:

World War I Veteran

Based on the modern timeline of world history which includes both World Wars and the rise of Oprah, I was able to quickly determine that the driver of that car was old.

As he pulled into the turning lane, I passed him and I took a good, long look. I do not hesitate to say that I think this dude was Noah's older brother. And because "Noah's older brother" isn't catchy at all, I've decided to call him Biblical Bob.



Now. To the point. Let's just do some quick math:

World War One ended in 1918. If Biblical Bob was, say, 18 when the war ended, that'd put him at 109 years old. And driving.

Let's say he was maybe a frisky teenager and was only 16 when the war ended. He'd still be 106 YEARS OLD. And driving.

Isn't that comforting?