I am Alive!

Watch this space for a whole week's worth of, um, filler!

I've been busy. I'll post something for real tomorrow.

For reals.

Oh Dear.

I have been bad. It's bad enough that I've neglected my why in God's name did I think I'd want to write a post every day for an entire year blog.

I've neglected my bloggy friends, which is far worse.

I love you, bloggy friends, even if I don't write to you as often as usual!

I've been busy.

I've been obsessed.

And I've been trying to figure out how to make really, really boring busy-ness sound interesting.

Tune in tomorrow!

The Raker's Progress.

No no no, not that kind of rake. Although I would pay him plenty if he'd rake my yard in that getup.

Today I raked last fall's leaves from my yard.

I know.

Ethan's never seen me with garden implements.

"Dad! Mom's got a rake!" he cried.

Ethan is 13 years old.

The Lemonys are not gardeners. We've never had to be gardeners. Before we moved here last summer, we lived for 10 years with a one acre money pit lawn. Now, no one can take care of that much land themselves without at least 4H certification and industrial equipment, so we spent our kids' college funds on hiring a small army of landscapers to keep our lawn looking nearly as green as our neighbors' alive.

So when we moved here, way at the top of the must have list was yard only big enough for Ria's bathroom needs.

Mission accomplished.

Now, mold is not any Lemony's friend, so I loaded up on enough Claritin D to certify myself as a crackhead. Whee! Energy galore!

I raked the entire back yard, including mounds of leaves turned compost, twigs and those little plugs of dirt that look like poop that were left by the aerating team -- in 10 minutes.

Yep, I put off a 10-minute job for seven months.

And, judging by the way my eyes are burning and swelling shut, I'll forget about this do it yourself nonsense and put the job into the hands of professionals for the rest of my life.

Now I've got to find some neighbor kid who will mow every week for cookies.

I'm Sending You Away, Just for Today.

Today I don't really have anything interesting to say, but blackbird does. So I'm urging you to go there and enjoy.

Aaaaah. Now that Mr. Lemony's up, Ria has moved from the space where my legs should have been all night. Now that she's on his side of the bed, I can take a much-needed nap.

This is living!

Someone's in for a Surprise.

So last night The Lemony Family was finishing dinner at our favorite Boulder restaurant when we noticed that our waitress was pregnant. We've had her many times before, so we were pretty surprised to learn that she's six months along. You know, she's got one of those compact first pregnancies. I had one, too. My second? Let's just say that all the cliches are true.

She was thrilled to talk about the whole baby thing. It's a girl and she's named her something like Arachnea. I'll have to get back to you on that.

Anyway, she giggled and looked adorably wide eyed as she gushed about her plans: Well, I'm going to keep on waitressing and I'm going to school and my finals are next week. Then I'll be starting a new term. That'll be just about over when Arachnea comes, she'd due on August 15. Fall term starts soon after that but it'll be OK because my parents will be here for a week and my boyfriend's parents will be here the next week. Of course, they're like, 78, so all they'll be able to do is play with the baby, but that's all right. I'll be doing Fall Term online, so the baby shouldn't be a problem.

Sometimes you just don't know where to begin to correct a statement. So Mr. Lemony and I just sat there and smiled. Even our kids looked a little wide-eyed at Arachnea's mom.

As we walked out, I muttered to Mr. Lemony, "I have a feeling she'll be changing those plans".

He laughed, knowingly.

Does Alli Work? And an Unrelated Correction.

Bottom Line: Yes, I think Alli works.

Alli says it makes more fat from the food you eat pass through the intestines, so your body doesn't absorb it. Now, I don't want to get too disgustingly graphic or anything but I believe it does.

Now, I haven't tested Alli scientifically but I have lost a few pounds over the past few months that I've taken Alli. I lose weight soooo sloooowly on my own. I can't say I've lost 10 pounds in a week or anything - that's just a wonderful dream - but I have lost weight faster with Alli.

And about the side effects - if you eat something super fatty, say a Supersized Big Mac Meal and swallow two Alli's to cope with the fat intake, you will regret it for hours, digestion-wise. Not that I would know personally, ahem, right. OK, I'm wincing at the mere memory.

The idea behind Alli is that, if you reduce the amount of fat you eat AND take Alli, you'll do very well. And you do!

And yeah, it's expensive. Hello, GlaxoSmithKline! How's about lowering the price for those of us who'd like to use Alli long term?

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The Unrelated Correction.

Yesterday I wrote, in my list of Reasons to be Cheerful, Part I, Even though it's snowing horizontally, you know it won't stick. Thank you, Mother Nature, for not only proving me oh so very wrong by sending me an inch or two of sticking snow but adding to the joy by providing the heaviest cloud cover I've ever seen in Boulder - on freaking May Day.

Alas, I guess gloating about good weather gives you bad karma.

A sure cure for bad karma? Visit Mamarazzi! It's my day! Woo hoo!

Reasons to be Cheerful, Part One.

Those tiny yellow-green leaves on the trees.

Actually wanting to take the dog for a walk.

Being able to get the kids out the door without spending 20 minutes stuffing them into jackets, hats and mittens.

It's 8:00 pm and it's still light outside!

The sudden urge to have a lemonade.

With a splash of vodka.

Chirping birds (except at 4:00 am)

Is that the Ice Cream Truck I hear?

Even though it's snowing horizontally, you know it won't stick.

We never get tired of Spring.

*************************************************************
And some of us never get tired of Mamarazzi and Julianne Moore.

My World and Welcome To It.

Today I'm starting a new meme! I'm calling it Show and Tell. Just show what you see in your everyday life and caption the pictures. Easy! I'm a SAHM, so I see my kitchen. All day. Every day. Glamorous, no?


Starting counterclockwise, we see Mr. Lemony's beloved Health Nut Bread, yet another novelty cereal I couldn't refuse and our phone command central. The antennae feature a couple of finger puppets given to me ages ago by an ad agency co-worker who was, like most ad agency people, a frustrated writer. Her sister is a writer, best known for her short story and movie screenplay of Secretary. I looooooove James Spader.


The morning beverage center. Coffee for Mr. Lemony & me, Gatorade for Ethan. Emily's still in bed (We're on Day 5 of a 5-day weekend) so you don't see her breakfast lemonade.


Ahhhh, where the cookie magic happens!


The Breakfast Bar. Two salt grinders, one pepper grinder, Ethan's morning meds, my Alli and a thermometer showing just how fabulous today's weather is.


Ria's dog treat center, featuring a rawhide and a jar of her crack, Greenies. Also the knives Mr. Lemony got for Christmas some years back. Interestingly, he doesn't cook much. Note that many of the knives are dusty. I'm sure some of them have never been used, even by me.


Crisco and astonishingly clean pot from last night's fried chicken dinner, the Lemony family's absolute fave. Also on the counter are two parts from the outdoor grill which didn't work a couple of nights ago, no doubt because parts of it were missing. Also note, in the background, ancient Game Boy Color plus my canine child Ria on her camouflage couch.


That's it, even the kitchen sink.

Also, be sure to check out my other blog, Mamarazzi! My day's Thursday but please enjoy Kristin's poll today on the whole Miley Cyrus brou-ha-ha.

OK, it's your turn now. I showed you mine, now show me yours!

A Word About Verification.

I can't ever seem to get blog comment word verifications right.

Maybe it's nature's way of saying get bifocals already, you pathetic Dorian Gray wannabe! Maybe it uses a part of my brain that got the short shrift. But conservatively, I get the word verification wrong about half the time.

So what have Blogger, Wordpress and Typepad done? They've made their WV's harder to read and more unclear than ever.

Now I not only have to squint harder, accelerating my need of the myriad "eye zone" products I see everywhere I shop, but I have to spend more time asking myself, "Is that a 'j' or an 'i'? A 'g' or a 'q'? An 'a' or a 'z'? Yeah, I have to analyze every letter these days.

Although, I do occasionally get a WV that makes me smile. Recently Wordpress made me type "defeat badger". Now, I love Badger and don't mind a little competition but "defeat" seems a little strong and overly aggressive.

Whatever, I pledge to never, ever, make my friends suffer just to leave me a comment or two. I don't use the WV option and, so far, I've only received one filthy comment (which would have been highly entertaining if only I'd been able to make sense of its broken grammar) and have no evidence of bots infiltrating my computer.

Thank you for putting up with my Rant o' the Week.

Whooooooaaaaa, Doctor S!

As you may know, The Lemony Family's lives currently revolve around coughing and general malaise. Mr. Lemony's taking some prescription cough syrup, which has quelled the cough but he and now Ethan (the son formerly known as Wii) are spending mass quantities of time feeling generally rotten and sleeping.

And I'm not feeling up to snuff. I just know I'm going to start hacking momentarily.

So last night about 3am, I felt a little coughy. Anxious that I'd start hacking, waking up the whole house while inflaming my trachia, guaranteeing days and days of misery for all, I shuffled to the bathroom and sucked down a couple teaspoons of Mr. Lemony's hippie dippy cough syrup and fell back into bed.

An hour or so later I woke up, having had the most vivid and all-around amazing dream. I grabbed my computer and wrote notes of everything I remembered from the dream because this dream held all the answers to every question ever asked about life itself.

And it featured Dr. Seuss trees.

Never has a more enlightening dream been dreamed.

This was a life-changing dream.

So I woke up again several hours later and checked my Word document.

I laughed.

Snorted.

Guffawed.

What a load of self-important crap.

Stupidest. Dream. Ever.

It contained no brilliant message whatsoever.

It contained no message whatsoever.

I checked Mr. Lemony's cough syrup bottle. Yep. Hydrocodone, Tussionex. Opiates. Whee!

This is my brain on Tussionex. Fizzzzzzzzzzz.

I've said it before and I'll say it again.

I mean what I said and I said what I meant.

Drugs make you stooooooooo-pid, one hundred percent.

Two Days - in a Row! - of Medical Adventures.

So there I was, innocently reading blogs in bed, my gums stinging only slightly from the day's earlier cruel assault gentle cleaning, when Mr. Lemony called attention to himself.

Ba - huh - REE - uh - BLECCH!!

Mr. Lemony coughed unusually passionately.

"Whoa. Try not to do that again," I helpfully offered.

Ba - huh - REE - uh - BLECCH!! Huuuuuuuggh!!

This sort of thing continued for quite some time.

Twelve hours later, Mr. Lemony was looking a bit worse for wear. I told him, with unusual candor, "Mr. Lemony, you look like shit".

I suggested that he see a doctor. "You've got bronchitis. It's going around. Mscellania's seven year old has it, too."

"Yeah, I've thought about it. But the doctor will just tell me he can't do anything for me and hold me in disdain."

This I understood. We've become all too familiar with much too successful big city Chicago doctors with toxic attitudes. Actually, the doctors are pussycats compared to the women at their front desks.

Now, I've had untreated bronchitis and I've known Mr. Lemony for thirty (!!!!!!!!!!!) years and I knew that, if we didn't get medical attention stat, Mr. Lemony and I were in for an endless night, and not the good kind.

Skipping boring details, half an hour later, we discovered the world of the Urgent Care clinic.



Skipping more boring details, Mr. Lemony was treated by what he described as "an old female hippie doctor". She was kind, gentle, friendly and told him that he, indeed, has bronchitis. She patted him on the back and wrote him a prescription for the old fashioned kind of cough syrup that not only shuts up the cough, it shuts up the potentially whining husband.

Life is good.

As Mr. Lemony said, "It was yet another typically excellent Colorado experience".

We like this place.

The New Dentist. By Sarah.

When the family moves 1,000 miles, good moms find new dentists right away.

I am not a good mom.

OK, I did find a good pediatric psychiatrist right away. And I bugged our Chicago orthodontist mercilessly until he found a primo replacement in Boulder (technically, Louisville). But dentist? That's stressful. I mean, I'm pretty fussy about who I let put razor-sharp implements of death in my mouth, thank you very much.

Worst of all is the inevitable flossing lecture. I know, I'm a pig, all right?

And yes, our next door neighbor is a dentist but I wouldn't even consider jeopardizing a friendship by having to say over the barbeque , "Gee, Rob, I just don't like the way you prod my mouth".

Yet teeth don't de-scale themselves so The Lemony Family did find a dentist. I was the last to go. I was so scared I forgot to load up on happy meds a bit apprehensive, letting unknown sources scrape an entire year's crust off my teeth, which happen to be attached to those pain prone things called gums.

Not very interesting story short, I survived. In fact, I will go back willingly in six months because not only was the hygienist gentle, she entertained me with stories of her three month old son (you know I'm a sucker for kids) and tales of growing up in rural South Dakota.

But mostly I'll go back because they gave me only got a small lecture about the whole flossing thing.

That Song From That Dockers Ad.

It's by Marlena Shaw. Recorded in 1969. Written by Ashford & Simpson. Originally recorded by The Fifth Dimension.

Now you can watch that Dockers ad playing every five minutes during the NBA playoffs in peace.

You're welcome.

My Blog is Going to the Dogs.

Even before we adopted Ria, when I still disliked dogs, I would have awwed and cooed at this.

The video gets especially cute at about :50.

I Got Tagged - Six Random Things About Me.

Jenalexa tagged me for the classic Six Completely Random Facts About Me Meme. I don't think I've ever done this one.

The Rules!
- Link to the person who tagged you.
- Post the rules on your blog.
- Write six random things about yourself.
- Tag six random people by linking to their blogs. I'm breaking this rule. I know you're busy. Consider yourself tagged, absolutely no pressure.
- Let each of the six know they’ve been tagged by leaving them a comment (on their blogs). Hmm. Skipping this one, too.
- Let your tagger know when your entry is up.

Six Completely random facts about me:

1. I love to read blogs and anything, really, on the computer but I haven't read a novel in years. For some reason, reading novels always makes me sleepy.

2. I bake cookies for my kids almost every day.

3. I'm an excellent whistler.

4. I have tinnitus. Probably because I love rock music too much.

5. I like to watch gory medical programs on TV in the wee hours after Mr. Lemony is asleep.

6. I like to live in different places. I've moved at least 13 times since college. My kids have lived in three different parts of the country.

Remember, if you want to be tagged, consider yourself tagged.

Thought I'd Share Some Ads I Found.

Call me stout and I'm putty in your hands.


This should help contain my suburban stoutness.


I've had this nightmare.


Fortunately, thanks to the mask, nobody knew this was me.


Ah, cigarettes. They slim, relax and are doctor recommended.


If the kids get on your nerves and Camels aren't helping, just knock the kids out.


The horror of infectious dandruff!


If you don't enlist, you'll live... to regret it.


You also may become a girly man.

Underappreciated Blogs. And for Once, I'm Not Whining About Myself!

It's come to my attention that at least two of my favorite blogs don't get enough readers. So today I'm opening your eyes to two deserving blogs I think you'll like. I'm listing them in alphabetical order because they're both worthy of being listed first.

Ayatollah Mugsy (The Ayatollah's Teachings) is so clever, so well written and always makes me laugh. Mugsy is a pug who writes (with the help of his human mother - whose name I don't know) about his life as the supreme ayatollah of Pug Life Ministries. It's not your standard doggie blog.

I think Mugsy and his mom are freaking brilliant. Please read.


PB&J In a Bowl is a lovely blog written by a mom (again, whose name I don't know. I really should ask) about her family, particularly her four year old daughter. It's smart, funny and heartwarming. And she posts every day! Please read this one, too.

That's it for today. Tune in tomorrow.

Mission Accomplished - And It's Tasty!

For several days now, I've been on a quest for the elusive Vosges Mo's Bacon Bar. It's that bacon chocolate bar I've talked about before. It became a bit of an obsession.

I found it! I've eaten some of it! And I'm ready to tell you all about it!

But first, my book loving friends, I want to tell you about the place where I finally found it, the Boulder Book Store.



It's a old independent bookstore and it's very successful. It's quaint. It's unairconditioned and it was hot as hell in there. So we only browsed around for half an hour.



It's got three floors and lots of little rooms. Its directory can't be beat.



Here's the main aisle of the main floor, complete with a couple of classic Boulder types.



You can buy a few used books and read them in the cafe.



The bookstore sells fabulous chocolates. Also liberal political mugs on the bottom shelf. You won't find a whole lot of Republicans in Boulder.

Oh yeah! I'm supposed to be writing about how the bacon chocolate tastes!

As I mentioned, the store was hot so the chocolate was soft. Perfectly soft, actually. It instantly melted on my tongue so I immediately got the full smooth richness of the unusually dark (41% cacao) milk chocolate. I'm not crazy about super high or super low cacao bars and I deemed the 41% pretty darn perfect. So far, soooo good.

Then I tasted the tiny chunks of embedded smoked sea salt. I wasn't expecting this and I was a bit put off at first but, by my second square, savored the yin/yang of sweet and salty. Yum.

Lastly, the bacon comes to play. The bacon's chopped into teeny tiny pieces, adding to the bar's lightly bumpy texture. After I sucked off about half of the chocolate and salt, I needed to chew the bacon bits. Surprisingly, the bacon flavor's fairly subtle. Bacon's the final flavor I tasted. Sweet, smoky bacon. Nom nom nom. Excellent.

So I chewed my second square from the start and experienced the same unfolding of flavors, only much more quickly, so they mingled together more. Nom nom nom. Excellent.

At $7.50 per bar, it ought to be. And it is! It's really, really heavenly. Excellent chocolate, excellent balance, excellent exoticness.

In other words, I like it.

Oh, and I noticed that the bar's expiration date is tomorrow, meaning it's been sitting on the shelf for 8 weeks.

And it's still drool-worthy.

I have to wrap this up because I still have half a chocolate bar in the kitchen and I can hear its siren song.

This Stuff Never Gets Old.

Go ahead. Put off cleaning the bathroom, unloading the dishwasher and raking last fall's leaves that still cover my your back yard.

And dear daughter Emily, take a break from you AP Biology Test study group.

Y'all deserve a good laugh.

Video Friday.

Overhead in Superior, CO

Yesterday I made a special trip to my neighborhood Whole Foods just to buy and try this new Vosges bacon chocolate bar I had heard about. Lo and behold, the candy aisle beckoned and who knew there were so many organic chocolate bars awaiting my eager taste buds? Lordy, I had a lengthly task ahead to fish the one goody I wanted from a sea of chocolate bars. It was a job I'd gladly take on.

But.

I'd first have to deal with this woman and her cart parked in the middle of the candy aisle, directly in front of the Vosges bars, blabbing away on her cell phone. I realized I had no choice but to assert myself physically and wedge myself between her and the chocolate. I will do just about anything for chocolate.

That's when her phone conversation took an unwelcome turn.

"Oh, I can't come to the meeting. I can't even come back to work until I stop hacking and throwing up all day," she wailed.

Now, I've been under the weather myself this week and really don't want to pick up something worse than the yucky upper respiratory infection my son, my dog and I already have. So I bolted to the far end the aisle, turned and glared at the woman, hoping and praying that my cowardly stance would shame her into moving into another aisle and gross out someone else. What do you know, it did not work.

Her conversation continued. She didn't budge and seemed oddly delighted to be sharing her woes. "I'm really ill. I've got sores all over my body. It's horrible! I wish you could see them!"

Oh, yes, I wish I had seen them, too.

I'm not even going to tell you what else she said about her symptoms because you may be eating.

Although she looked perfectly healthy and was probably lying to get out of work, I wasn't taking any chances. Whimpering, tail between my un-sored legs, I skedaddled out of the store without a single bite of bacon chocolate.

But! Things got better! At the supermarket across the parking lot, I overheard a woman's conversation that I liked much better.

One cashier said to another, "Oh, did you see that woman's tattoos? So gross! How could someone do that to herself?" **Pause** "I mean, all my tattoos are in places where you can't see them."

I leave you with a picture my daughter Emily took with her beloved iPhone of our bacon-loving chocolate lab, Ria.

Disaster Averted.

My daughter Emily (The Daughter Formerly Known as TV) loves her iPhone. Loves it. How much does she love it? When she came to after having two wisdom teeth removed, she immediately, in a panic, shrieked, "Where's my iPhone?!" We handed it to her and she looked happier and more relieved than I think I'd ever seen her.

Today after school she looked sunken, near tears. Seems that someone had walked into her coming around a corner in school, breaking her iPhone. I'm not making light of this. Emily's a tough young woman and withstands all sorts of trials, not the least of which is having a goofy mom who blogs about her.

This situation called for swift emergency measures. Mr. Lemony took Emily directly to the Apple Store to make things right, probable outrageous cost be damned. Mr. Lemony and Emily didn't even have an appointment with one of those Apple Geniuses. Seriously, Apple Geniuses are booked more solidly than doctors: You need to book an appointment weeks in advance and when you show up at the store, they make you wait an hour before they can squeeze you in. Blessedly, you're not forced to wear a paper gown.

Wonder of wonders, the Apple Store had a Genius who wasn't booked. Not only that, the Genius dude replaced her iPhone on the spot. For free. Free.



But Mr. Lemony did spring for a protective case.

Tonight, Emily is the happiest girl in town. And we're the most relieved parents.

Coffee, Om Nom Nom.

I stole this from TX Poppet.

This test result is a half truth.

Make no mistake about it, I like my coffee delivered stat. Now. I'd be lying if I told you I haven't been guilty of grabbing occasionally being tempted to grab somebody else's Starbucks' Venti Latte before even placing my order.

First thing in the morning, seriously, first thing, I brew myself a nice big mug o' joe. Then I add a generous amount of sugar. Equal's OK, as is Splenda except I despise its name - I can just see the creative team at the ad agency coming up with a name they think upscale women will like. So I suppose they expect we'll say, "Oh, this packaged powdered sweetener is simply splendid, daaahling!" Yecch.

And Stevia? I've tried it and I suspect Stevia's repackaged corn starch. Or play sand.

Once I've settled the sugar ordeal, I dump some large amount of Lactaid milk into my mug. Yes! Another Lemonysarah fun fact! I'm lactose intolerant! Whee!



Then I chug the coffee (cafe au lait?), start cup #2 and repeat the cycle. That's my breakfast.

My daughter (let's see how she feels about my outing her real name - Emily) TV tsk-tsks my coffee addiction. Yes, my name is Sarah and I'm a coffeeholic. I have made the ultimate sacrifice and eliminated caffeine from my life a few times and I can tell you:

- I felt horrible for the first 3 days of coffee detox.
- I still needed to start my day with a coupla mugs of decaf because I love coffee so.
- I didn't feel any better without the caffeine, so why deny myself my beloved caffeine kick?

Oh, and the Meerkat Krunch cereal box? It's there because it's cute - and vaguely wrong - plus it hides what my kitchen really looks like in the morning. Oh, who am I kidding? I Windexed the counters to protect my reputation as a non-slob just before I took this picture.



All right, while I'm confessing, I may as well let you know. My kitchen's usually a litle messy. And I don't always use my caffeine energy to clean it.

Now you know.

Tales of the Darkside.

One of my friends is having neighbor trouble. Ca-raaa-zy neighbor trouble. Makes you want to move neighbor trouble. She's not alone: Neighbors from the dark side happen more often than pollyannas like me want to believe. Even though I've experienced them personally.

 ① Such as the neighbors from The Lemony Family's first neighborhood. They were the classic wowee-zowee couple: The mom was a pediatrician, the dad had just gotten his degree in cardiology. They moved on up to the big time, to the dee-luxe McMansion in the sky. Four months later they were selling their house, not because one of them got a great job offer out of town but because of "neighbor issues", they said. They were so secretive about the specific problem so naturally our neighborhood went abuzz with wild speculation, mostly fueled by me because I had nothing better to think about. OK, that's a lie. I'm excellent at keeping secrets. I merely listened to the neighborhood gossips and let my own imagination go wild.

Anyhoo,they sold the house: Six months later, the new owners had the house up for sale. My real estate agent friend said the new owners were selling because of horrible neighbors.

② This second one's a secondhand story. I have to come clean about that because my 16 year old daughter reads my blog and challenges my stories' veracity if she catches the tiniest whiff of exaggeration. Thanks, dear. Hmm... second thought, I'll skip that story and move on to another former Lemony Family neighbor.

③ We had neighbors, a couple of middle aged single women who evidently wanted to relive their adolescences. I think one was a nurse and one delivered pizzas and they both worked odd hours, allowing everyone on the block to enjoy witnessing their antics. When they weren't working, these ladies partied. Make that par-taaaayed. They drank a lot of beer. We could tell just how much by the number of broken National Beer bottles in the street.

But what bothered the neighbors most were the noisy naked encounters (not with each other, much to the neighbor men's disappointment) on their deck. Outside. Particularly problematic were the encounters that happened in broad daylight. The upside is that at least we could see those parties' beer bottle shards before running over them with our cars.

④ We moved to a snazzy neighborhood full of do-the-right-thing-or-die Republicans. Surely they behaved themselves, right? Well, the house across the street from us attracted a series of questionable owners. My personal favorite was the man who decided to divorce his wife and began his new life by starting his own business. We're confident that he converted his three car garage into a meth lab. He bought a hot car with a license plate that had a seven-letter version of the word"dangerous", which he drove around mostly very late at night. I once saw him hanging around a construction crew, looking nervously over his shoulder every few seconds. I'm not sure which is worse: A crackhead neighbor or a crackhead building your house. Good times.

And to think that just recently I felt bad about not seeing my neighbors enough. That's the kind of bad neighbor I can live with.

I am Curious, Green. With Envy.

Now that I have your attention, I'm going to ask you a personal question that I've wondered about for the longest time.

How many hits does your blog get daily?

And what have you done to get so dang many hits? I mean, besides writing a bitchin' blog.

So, show me yours and I'll show you mine! Numbers, that is.

If you're an exhibitionist, tell me in the comments. If you're a prude like me, email me. The address is in the right hand column, right over the blue Blog365 circle.

I'm Sick So I'm Taking the Easy Way Out Today.

Oh my, the entire Lemony family is sick. Good news, though - the Lemony children are old enough to need minimal parental help. Yes, those of you with small children! In a decade, you too will be allowed to get sick again.

So... what effortless subject to write about today? Wii's science project that thank God Mr. Lemony helped him with while I slept for 16 hours straight? Eh, that can wait until tomorrow because the camera with the photos is all the way downstairs and my head hurts too much to move from my comfy bed.

So I'll show you a picture off the internet of the new outfit I bought just before the first illness of the Winter smacked me down. It's from J. Jill and it's perfect for Sushi Night Out with the kids.



It's contemporary yet modest and it nicely covers my fat bottom. Like most of my wardrobe, it's black, so nobody will be freaked to see me wear a color for once in my life.

Best of all, it looks best with sensible shoes.

While I'm on the Subject of Retail...

... Every retail chain has its own feel. For lack of better term, and old age, I call it vibe.

Yesterday we discussed grocerers, with Wal-Mart and Whole Foods emerging as the yin/yang of vibe. Only the wonderful Badger admitted to liking Wal-Mart and disliking her Whole Foods, but that Badger's always been a rebel.

Today's subject: Nordstrom and Nordstrom Rack. Take notes: Discussion to follow.

Briefly, for those of you who don't know Nordstrom stores, click here and here. What I can't show you is the peaceful, elegant without being stuffy feel of regular Nordstrom stores. And the service! And fitting rooms! Oh, and they have delightful bathrooms, too. Squeaky clean, upscale and best of all, huge with separate ROOMS for diapering and nursing. Happy, happy customers. Lovely, lovely, lovely.

Then there are Nordstrom Rack stores. Oy.

Nordstrom Rack stores are where the items that have been on sale for a few weeks in lovely Nordstrom stores go to die. It's efficient but it's not a pretty death.

Rack stores are big bare bones strip mall stores CRAMMED with racks and racks of sale clothing and shoes. The fitting rooms are tiny and well enforced. NO bathrooms. Buying shoes? Great. Find the left shoe in a pile, try it on standing up and, if it's not too beaten up, fight your way to the Shoe Match window where a disgruntled employee will spend half an hour finding your shoe's mate. This is after you've waited half an hour in line.

Again, we have a yin/yang situation between the Nordstrom and Nordstrom Rack stores. Etherial vibe store/Hellish vibe store.

Still with me? Good, because I'm finally getting around to the subject. Mad writing skillz: I not got dem.

Rack customers are, how shall I put it? LOATHSOME. I blame bad store vibes.

I've been to many Rack store and every single one attracts/somehow reinforces the exact same customers:

1. The "Oh! You're rifling through that rack! Then I'll stop what I'm doing and butt in JUST BECAUSE I CAN!" customer.

2. The "Sure, Kayden and Jayden, you can wear your roller shoes in here! Now skate around the store and leave Mommy alone." customer.

3. The "Hey, now's the perfect time to call my best friend on my cell phone and talk AS LOUDLY AS I CAN! Preferably in some undecipherable language." customer. Judging by the manic behavior of these shoppers, I suspect most of them are actually speaking in tongues. Oh, did I mention that these women all dress like Paris Hilton as a streetwalker? Eeep.

So WHY, you'd reasonably ask, do I go to Nordstrom Rack stores?

Because I find stuff like these $128 Eileen Fisher jeans marked down to $29.97.


So I'll endure more trips there because shopping Nordstrom Rack builds character and my wardrobe.

NOOOOOOOO!!!

I'm not going to make a habit of writing about American Idol but OMG.

THEY VOTED OFF MICHAEL JOHNS!

That's just wrong.

Wrong wrong wrong.

We didn't expect him to win the whole thing but it's TOO SOON.

Mr. Lemony just told me to tell you that the entire Lemony family is offended.

Don't Make Me Go There.

You've got a favorite supermarket, right? And I bet there are supermarkets that creep you out, too. You know, the ones that just have this icky vibe? The ones you won't patronize because they ooze this vaguely creepy sensation?

To make matters worse, I can't find ANYTHING in my local Safeway and Albertson's. And if I'm lucky enough to find, say, the Gatorade hiding in the water/natural foods aisle, there's no chance in Hell I'll find the quart-sized plastic bags. Seriously, I spent half an hour in the Safeway yesterday trying to find them. Never did locate them. I did find the trash bags and, just for a moment, considered wrapping Wii's lunch in unscented small wastebasket liners.

And I'm sorry, I just don't do Wal-Mart. I despise Wal-Mart passionately for more reasons than I can count.

Which leaves the Tar-zhay and Whole Foods. Oh, who am I kidding? I love Whole Foods but it's the Tiffany's of groceries. You know, buying one bag of basic foodstuffs requires dipping deeply into the kids' college funds.

Now, like everybody else, I loves me the Tar-zhay. But I do not love those too-frequent times when I've shopped too late in the day and the Tar-zhay's out of half of my absolute must haves.

A couple of days ago, they were completely out of:
- My beloved Fleischmann's Olive Oil margarine
- Wii's can't get through the day without it Gatorade, small size, Fruit Punch
- Dannon Coffee Yogurt, which I've adored and craved for years and years
- Breyer's French Vanilla Ice Cream, something Daughter TV needs as much as I need my Dannon Coffee Yogurt
- Straws, because The Lemony Family can't bring themselves to touch glasses with their lips
- Frozen baby peas. Not regular size peas. No.
- Chicken breasts. What supermarket runs out of chicken breasts, I ask you?!

So guess what's the only other supermarket that carries all these items?

Wal-Mart. The dreaded Wal-Mart.

My solution? Go out to dinner every night until the Tar-zhay shapes up.

Then I'll complain bitterly to the Tar-zhay manager. Again.

Because it's WAY better to have a bad reputation at a good supermarket than to step foot into a creepy one.

Am I right, people?

Yes, Another Cheap-o Video Day.

Honestly, I'll have something real tomorrow. But today I want to share old stuff again.

Todd Rundgren had only one album in the Top 50 - and he's made 20 solo albums. On which he played all the instruments, sang all the vocals and produced and even engineered. He also did three Nazz albums. And I'm not even going to mention Todd's 12 (WHY, Todd, WHY?!?) albums with his band Utopia because Utopia sucked SO BAD.

He's also produced about a zillion A-lister albums.

And he's