Birthday Cake Drama, Bink Sleeps

Apparently, theatrically refusing all types of birthday cake has started a mini-uprising in my family.  Nobody is satisfied with my decision to not have a cake - mostly because they are greedy, greedy little goblins who want a piece of the pie (I can't think of another description!  Suck at the teat?  Maybe) and I am terrified that there will be some sort of whipped-cream-frosted (I HATE WHIPPED CREAM FROSTING) or buttercream-frosted (EVEN GROSSER) monstrosity showing up when I least expect it. 

Also, because I am SuperMomChampoftheWorld, I am happy to inform that Bink slept through the night last night.  And probably also because she was really tired.

I Just Realized

I am so tired and distracted that I forgot to go to my yoga class that I signed up for.  I blame Bink.  See, she has been doing this thing for the past 528390 years (give or take five minutes) where she goes to sleep nicely at 8:30 pm and then wakes up at 11 and screams bloody murder for the rest of the night.  Needless to say, it is a little bit disruptive.  I should probably now go to Burger King to mourn the loss.

Bakery Cakery Dock

Like I said, I'm turning 26 for the seventh time next week and the Great Cake War has begun.  This is something that has been happening for about three years now; I'll explain.  So ever since before my mom was born, I have been going to one bakery for all of my cake needs, and getting the same exact cake - wedding cake (that silver/white kind) with white frosting, from a Jewish bakery in the town next to me.  The bakery itself was horrendous, the people were totally mean and terrible, but they made my favorite cake ever so I didn't care.  Also, sometimes if the grandson was working, I'd flirt with him and he'd give me a free half-moon.  Anyway, so when I got married a few years ago, obviously they had to make my wedding cake.  They didn't actually know how to make wedding cakes, as nobody ever wanted them to do it, but I was insistent.  It had to look EXACTLY like all of my birthday cakes for the past 28 years (yes I understand this math is illogical when compared with the first sentence of this post, suck it) and the guy was pissed.  He wanted to be fancy (note: the baker is 54890 years old, tiny and crotchety and wears the same polyester old-man pants and top combo everyday.  I highly doubt he's checking out Martha Stewart Weddings for the hottest trends) but I said NO.  I just wanted plain frosting, plain roses (tons of them, but birthday cake roses), and some swirls.  That was IT.  Eventually, he did make my dream come true, but as a sneaky f-u to me, he put this crazy elasticized thing that I can only describe as "old lady cake underpants" around the bottom tier to put his own little thumbprint on the whole disaster, but the point of this story is that not five minutes after the bar closed at my wedding, this bakery went out of business.  OUT OF BUSINESS.  It was sort of like they had done all they could, reached the pinnacle of finally having someone want to have them bake a wedding cake (which has to be the ultimate honor for a bakery, right?) and they were spent.  Or that 480389 year old man died.  I don't know.


Cake and cake underpants

So, there you go.  OUT OF BUSINESS.  I have literally never enjoyed cake anywhere else.  So what to do? 

If you are me, you will refuse all birthday cakes from then on and act like a total jerk about the whole situation.  So that is what I am doing now.  I dramatically told my husband I didn't want a birthday cake and, being the awesome guy that he is, found another place that makes the same kind of cake.  The only catch is, for silver cake, you have to get one that feeds 40 people.  I have three friends.  That's not going to fly.  So here I am, moaning and whining again.  But it can't be helped.  Maybe boyfriend should have left the bakery to his sexy grandson.  I'm sure I'd be knee-deep in frosting and roses at this very moment.

Sigh.  It's hard being me.

Birthday week

So I am turning 26 again in a week and decided that once again, it is time to make "New Year's Resolutions" that I won't stick to.  Until now, of course.  Hello!  What I have chosen to do is "live in the moment'.  I grandly told my husband this this morning and he was PSYCHED.  Why?  Because I don't do it and I'm constantly stressed out and the world's most annoying human being.  It's okay, I can say it if it's me.  YOU can't, however, so I don't care to hear it.  Ha, who am I, the Queen of England?  Maybe I am, you can't prove it.

So that is my resolution.  Also to grow my hair out two inches but keep my new bangs.  Aim high, America!

At the Gym

Okay, so nothing ever happens at the gym, so why talk about it?  Well, today something DID happen.  I worked out for my standard 22 minutes, sweating uncontrollably and grossly, then go upstairs to put my work clothes back on, not shower, and head back to the office, when I see...

I'm not joking...

A girl...

Blowdrying her hair...

DOWN THERE.

For reals, yo.  It was pretty much the most horrible thing ever and I swear she was doing it, because she had a towel on her HEAD as well as one wrapped around her.  She had one leg up and was doing her business.  So yeah, I feel like that warrants some sort of discussion.

The Gym

Eeechwjiehweruiywehchchhhhhh... That is how I feel about the gym.  I don't like it.  BUT I just saw myself in pictures at a friends wedding and frankly, I look like 10 pounds of sh!t stuffed in a 5-pound bag.  Gross.  Though the dress is cute, well, on the hanger now, it is time to get rid of the chub.  So I am joining the gym this afternoon.  At least the gym I go to (we've had a long and checkered past: I used to belong, but then I got a new job out of town so I quit.  Then I got my old job back, rejoined, and then I got pregnant and was vomiting seven (yes, SEVEN) times a day so I made my doctor send them a note so I could quit again.) is REALLY nice, and it's all girls, and it smells like the gorgeous spa across the street from my office, so really, I probably won't be talking about it again UNLESS some old naked woman comes over and touches me on the shoulder (NAKED) and (NAKED) says in this ultra-creep voice "You're pretty".  Then, I'll have lots to share.  Otherwise, no big deal.  But I am excited to get rid of my fat-back and start looking like an Olsen twin.  Kidding!  Except not really what?!

The Pool

So my complex has a pool.  It's super nice and I take Bink there sometimes because she is insane about the water.  LOVES it.  So we go and we're having a nice time splashing around and whatever - there are a ton of moms and dads there with their kids and everyone sort of hangs out.  No big deal, right?

Wrong.  Obviously.

So everyone is playing and all of a sudden this man, with a long, romantic ponytail comes bounding into the water.  Now, it's like three o'clock on a Friday afternoon, not disco time (ha!  Disco time!) and he is WASTED.  Like, so wasted you can smell the booze on him from the shallow end, and he is cavorting in the deep end.  Yes, cavorting.  He is flipping his ponytail all around and trying to talk to everyone (everyone being the twelve year olds and toddlers with their parents who are swimming away as fast as they can because, well, EW) when he finally decides to talk to the lifeguards because they have to stay where they are and cannot run away screaming.  Also, this guy is at least thirty-five and the lifeguards are in high school. 

He's talking and talking away while the poor kids look as if they want to die, and he keeps saying REALLY inappropriate things, to which the lifeguards respond "You can't say things like that here, sir, it's inappropriate, I'm sorry" (of course I am sneakily laughing my head off) and he keeps saying "No worries, no worries, I'll stop."  He brags to these kids about being Scottish (um, he is American, probably his great-great-great-times-a-billion grandmother had McDonalds once or something) and then he jumps out of the water, steals a baby's float off of a deck chair along with the kid's teddy bear, and jumps back in the water with it, pretending that it is his child.  It's like he totally forgot he was even talking to the lifeguards, which I am sure they were happy about, but um, you can't steal things.  So he's talking to the bear, pretending it is his baby, when finally the lifeguards have to throw him out.  He is so wasted he's not even embarrassed, he's like, "Cool, see ya!" puts back the kid's stuff, and leaves. 

It was the weirdest thing ever.  Everyone sort of looked at one another, wondering if we had all actually seen what just happened.  Oh, romantic ponytail, thank you for making me feel good about myself.

Things Don't I Like and Things I Hate

When my brother was in school, he actually made a book with this title.  It is hands-down the funniest thing that ever happened, because he MEANT IT.

Also, he wore a tuxedo to school everyday. 

Anyway, maybe we should clear a few things up right from the start.  I say this because I often find people think of my one way, and then they are shocked and saddened to find out I am not.  Well, let me explain.  Basically, I'm so insecure that I want you to know EXACTLY what you are getting into, okay?  Okay.

1. I used to be a writer.  Like, a realish one.  I had a column in a paper that probably everyone skipped over to get to the good stuff, but I swear I really did used to do this.  I'm like D.B. Sweeney in The Cutting Edge, trying to reclaim my lost glory.  Well, I never really had "glory", per se, but I did used to write.  So I am a hack, but only a moderate one.
2. I love TV.  I really, really love it.  I don't really let my kid watch TV on purpose, but it's on, so she's going to see it, and I'm okay with that.  I'm also going to be okay with letting her have McDonalds every once in a while when she's bigger.  Anyway, I make many non-mainstream TV and movie references all the time and get really mad when nobody knows what I'm talking about.
1. My favorite show is Saved by the Bell.  I have the board game. I have every episode on DVD.  NO, not the College Years.  Those are fake and stupid, though I did want to cut my hair like Tiffani-Amber Thiessen.  Probably I still do.
2. My favorite movies are Breakfast at Tiffany's and Billy Madison.  Maybe that sums it up?
3. Lilly Pulitzer is hands-down my favorite thing ever, but it doesn't really fit me.  I don't care, I buy it and wear it anyway because I LOVE IT. 
4. I love wine.  LOVE it.  I used to hate it, but now it's all I drink.  I used to drink whiskey, but now it makes me sick.  Mostly because it makes me think I'm in college again, which is definitely NOT the case for many reasons (which I won't divulge right now.  Dude, we just met!  I'm not giving it up already!  It's not like I'm in... wait a sec...)
5. Five is my favorite number and the volume on my TV, radio, whatever, has to either end in a 0,2,4,5,6 or 8.  Like, the volume can be at 18, but if it's at 19 I get inexplicably nervous and irritated.

Think I'll stop at five for now.  Did you know that you are supposed to write out numbers zero through nine as actual words and once you hit 10, you can go with numbers?  It's a fact.  I think that's right, anyway.  Maybe I just made it up.

New Start

I would like to be a writer.  I have many awesome ideas for awesome books that would sell 54890 copies and I would be a rich girl who walked around the neighborhood (any neighborhood will do), throwing money in the air like the Monopoly Man (complete with top hat, mustache and walking stick, swoon), but here's the thing: I work.  And I have a nine-month old.  So I spend all day working and then all night making sure my little Bink is cared for, fed, and caught up on all seasons of Gossip Girl.  It doesn't leave much time for my dream lifestyle, so I guess this will have to do.

See how I am trying to make it seem like I have to do this?  Like you MADE me do it?  Suckas.

Anyway, I named this post "A New Start" because back when I was young and stupid and thought I was going to be a Martha Stewart Mom (MSM) who was going to lovingly update friends and family about the goings-on in Bink's life, I signed up for Blogger and actually wrote, like, two very nice, very lame posts and the quit because, well, it was lame, and I was too busy crying.  Post-partum depression is a BITCH.  But do you know what is awesome?  Italicizing!  It's the Jazzercizing of the Internet generation.  Sorry.  So, yeah, I abandoned that project because it sucked and really sort of forgot about it.

Until now.

Now, now that my Bink is a woman, enjoying highballs and cigarettes in those long cigarette-holder-things, I decided that, well, a few brain cells are functioning again despite the fact that SHE NEVER SLEEPS (I'm not bitter, I swear!) and it's time to start using them, so I deleted those and pretended that this was my first post.  But then I just wrote about it... crap.  Whatever.  And yes, I'm going to start using my brain again. 

Ha, I use the term "using" very loosely.  I am a mom who won't let her kid watch kid's shows because said kid is too engrossed by them, but keeps crime shows on 24 hours a day.  What?!  If she is in a situation, I want her to know how to defend herself!  This is what I tell my husband, and since I did once thwart a mugging (a story for another day), and because I'm legit he believes me.  But I do love Bink to a creepy, creepy degree.  And that's why I want her to be the well-rounded, athletic, funny, sweet, carefree girl that I never was.  I was funny, of course (of course!), and way too smart for any guy to want to make out with me, but I was not "that girl".  Really, I believe it was because I was born with brown eyes, not green like my Dad's, but here's the thing: BINK HAS GREEN EYES LIKE MY DAD!  That's how I KNOW she'll be the girl I always wanted to be, I just have to steer her in the right direction. 

Wait, where was I going with this?  Who cares, I've already started thinking about something else.  So yeah, I started a blog.  I don't know if I'm going to tell anyone about it yet.