And by “funk”, I mean “funkiness”. Can I get a what what?! Okay, I’ll stop now…

Since I am bone dry of any sort of creativity at all, I’ve decided to take some time today to tell you all sorts of things that you’ve never needed and/or wanted to know about me.

1. I was, and always will be, a cheerleader.
I began cheering when I was like eight years old and continued through high school. In fact, I was CAPTAIN of the cheer squad my senior year of high school. (Okay, co-captain, but captain just sound so much more prestigious…)

Don’t get me wrong, though. I was not popular. No boys ever asked me out and I didn’t even have a date for prom (even though my boyfriend was there…with HIS date. Long story.). So don’t believe all the Taylor Swift and Avril Lavigne bullshit about the cheerleaders being all perfect and having it all. Because it’s bull. shit.

2. I don’t eat blue things.
Blue foods are just not natural. I don’t bother telling me that blueberries are blue because obviously Fruit Namer McJoe is colorblind; they are obviously purple. And gross anyway.

And it’s no use trying to convince me that neon orange Cheetos aren’t natural. Because they are delicious.

My logic just can’t be beat.

3. Do Huggies come in size 12?
This is more about Bee than me, but at just a few months shy of 3 years old, Bee shows absolutely no desire to potty train. Like NONE. And we’ve tried everything: candy incentives, toy incentives, cool musical toilets (which, no fair, right? MY toilet doesn’t sing when I piss…). Her best friend even pees on the potty already and Bee is all, “Good for you. Hey mom? I just shit myself again. Clean it up, kthnxbai.”

I’m just hoping to get her potty trained by high school. Or college.

4. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
Despite my obvious awesomeness, I may be one of the most insecure people I know. Especially when it comes to relationships (friendships, really). I’m constantly wondering if my friends like me or simply just put up with me. Totally healthy, right?

One of my morbid concerns is that when I die, no one will bother to come to my funeral. I’m totally convinced that I’ll just be all gorgeous and floating around, waiting to see who arrives and who is crying the most (I’ll haunt that person the least), but only like five people will show up. So you fuckers have been warned: I will torture your ass from beyond if you don’t come to worship celebrate my life after I croak.

Luckily, I have some friends that not only know all my craziness but love me anyway! For that I am soooo thankful. Love you to the moon and back!

5. Hi. My name is Mama Bee and I’m addicted to the Interwebs. (HI MAMA BEE!)
Seriously. Like if my friends email or Facebook me and I don’t respond within five minutes, they send out search parties. I often get “Is everything okay?!” emails and texts when people don’t hear from me for, gasp, an entire day! I find it hilarious and just a bit disturbing because, yes, I’ve checked Facebook about 54 times already while typing this post.

Okay, that’s all I have for now. If NickJr. doesn’t make me kill myself this morning, I’ll try to come up with something a little more interesting to write about!

Song title: Random Funk by Schnitt Acht

Oh. Em. Gee. people. I have so much stuff fluttering around in my cranium, it’s not even funny. Here’s a quick download of recent events and hopefully I’ll get a chance to blog about all this stuff soon!

- How in God’s Green Earth is it SEPTEMBER already?!?!

- Sissy’s family and ours just spent a whole week in the lovely town of Seaside, Oregon and I am so not ready for my first day back in “the real world”. Ugh.

- The lovely ladies at SITS are going to feature this blog soon! Serious OMG. I know you are probably thinking the same thing as I am, “THIS blog? Are you sure they didn’t make some horrible mistake?!” (PS: You are totally an asshole if you were really thinking that.) Now I have to select my three favorite/best/whatever posts to be featured. How the hell do I do that?! HELP!!

- Guess who’s pregnant?! Yeah, NOT ME. Quoting Pearl, “FFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

- Somewhere in Seaside, Bee got infected with what I can only refer to as “the devil”. I think hanging out with three other fun kids all week got her so wound up that now she is in a perpetual state of hyperactivity. And she has decided that “no” is her favorite word again. Ironically, “Time-out” has now become my favorite word.

Song title: Raw Update by Technotronic

Recently, some drama arose regarding a very old post, which honestly is such old news. I could go in to the sordid, dramatic details but rehashing the hurt feelings from my honest and, if I do say so myself, hilarious words would probably only make things worse at this point.

But it does flow nicely in to a topic that I’ve wanted to post about for a while. That topic is: Honesty.

I think we can all agreed that I can be a little blunt, a little call-’em-as-I-see-’em. But if there is one thing I’ve learned from this whole blogging experience, it’s that the truth shall set you free.

Seriously. I just wrote that. (We can all gag in unison now.)

But fer reals, yo. I don’t think I have felt anything as liberating as being completely truthful, whether the person wants to hear it or not (which, of course has it’s own repercussions).

The first time I experienced the cathartic release of honesty was back in the olden days when I wrote my Losing My Religion post.

Months prior to writing that post, I had become part of a local Bunco group (Shut up. Rolling Dice isn’t just for old ladies anymore! However, momnesia and fatigue plus wine and having to count things is kind of conundrum for me. Too much work. But I digress…). It quickly became very obvious to me that these ladies were not only religious (hi ladies!) but religion played a very large and important role in their lives. To each his/her own, right?

While no one brought up the topic with me directly, I was always on pins and needles waiting for the inevitable, “So which church do you go to?” to which I would be horribly uncomfortable wondering if they would (1) stone me in the public square, or (2) (worse) not invite me back to play with them when I told them that church/organized religion/God/et al is not really my thing (which, in itself is a total understatement).

Months later, after creating this blog as a way to funnel my verbal incontinence and commemorate Bee’s early years in an embarrassing and completely inappropriate manner, I decided that come hell or high water I would out myself and my views on the topic.

And you know what happened?

Nothing.

Well, nothing except that I suddenly was having an exponentially better time at Bunco because you know what? Now they knew the real me. They read the blog (hello, again, ladies!) and suddenly I wasn’t scared that they would gasp and be all “why I never!” if I accidentally dropped an F-bomb during a round (which, I’m guessing that they probably still gasp but just an inward, silent one. Or maybe it’s outward but I’m just too busy laughing at my own jokes to notice. I guess we’ll never know…).

And just the other day, I tried this whole honesty thing out on some friends of mine. Last month or so, when I was really having a hard time with my anxiety and stress and, let’s be honest, emotionally I think I was hanging on by a thread, I had invited a few mommy friends to a local park so the kids could play together. They never responded to my invitation, but it was totally the definition of last minute, so I wasn’t upset.

Since it was on the way (and I’m kind of a stalker…sorry, but we’re being honest, right?), I happened to drive by one of their houses on the way home, only to see that the other mom was there, also. And (SHOCK – how could it be?!?!) I had not been invited.

Now to the normal person (maybe even the “normal” Mama Bee when she’s not having a serious mental breakdown), this probably wouldn’t be a big deal. But for me, then, I was thoroughly convinced that my (1) friends didn’t like me, (2) I was a black sheep outcast because of my cold, barren womb, and (3) basically I was an unlovable, sucky friend who would die alone and friendless. Okay, maybe that third one is exaggerating just a bit, but poor Mr. Bee couldn’t convince me to save his life that my friends actually did like me, etc., etc.

With the help of an understanding (and obviously, much more wise) friend, I was convinced that No, my friends didn’t hate me, and Yes, I was crazy.

Some Xanax and Zoloft later, I confessed my craziness to my friends recently and now it’s just something funny that crazy, unstable Mama Bee did.

And I feel so much better knowing that they know what I was feeling and going through! (Albeit, they probably think I’m a crazy stalker now, but if the shoe fits…)

Of course, you are forced to walk that thin and wobbly line of being honest and the possibility of hurting someone’s feelings. Like do you really tell a friend that they’ve hurt your feelings when it’s too late for anything to be done about it? Do you passive-aggressively tell a friend of a friend in the hope that your feelings will eventually get back to the target without you actually having to confront them yourself? (Not that I would ever dream of doing something like that…)

Or, if you’re like me, you just write about it on your blog.

Song title: Honestly Speaking by DJ Green Lantern

Most of you are probably aware of the, let’s call them, enthusiastic clown fuckers Cirque Du Soleil fans I had trolling my blog yesterday. Thanks to Google Analytics, I was finally able to figure out how they found my blog in the first place. I finally found the Cirque forum where this was posted under a “Corteo Hater” post:

“I happened upon this blog. Just thought I’d share it with you all.This woman really hated Corteo.”
For anyone who hasn’t read my previous post, I wrote about how much contortionists and clowns scare me. I did not write about how much I hated Corteo. In fact, I’ve never seen the performance. But my intention of the post was to say that I will most likely never see the performance as Cirque performances, in general, freak me the fuck out.

Now, obviously, there are about a billion crazy enthusiastic Cirque fans out there. And I think a few million of them visited my blog yesterday.

(If any of you are still brave enough to hang outand visit with the Hive, WELCOME!)
But most of those visitors decided to attack my personal blog for saying things that I did not actually say. The whole situation brings an interesting question to mind. How often, in our daily lives, do we misread/interpret/understand what someone is saying?

I used to have a friend that was pretty rude. In fact, something in his delivery or words he chose would pretty much insult me (or I would interpret as rude), every single time I saw him. After a while, a few friends opened up enough to reveal that they, too, interpreted Mr. Snuffleupagus* as being rude.

Fast forward a few months later and every comment that came out of Mr. Snuffleupagus’ mouth was interpreted by me as being beligerent and/or rude. Did my preconcieved notion that he was now a rude McDouchePants color all of his comments as rude in my mind?

Now, because we were all chicken shit, we never actually spoke to Snuffy about the sitatution. Which leads me to wonder, can we ever really know someone’s intention without complete honesty being involved? And how can we learn to shed our preconceptions in order to really hear what is being said instead of filling between the lines with what we assume is being said?

*Name has been changed to protect the rude innocent

Song title: Misunderstood by Better Than Ezra

Check this out:

Possible Troll Sighting

Does the Hive have it’s first ever troll? Am I just misinterpreting “Bubble’s” comment? Is it bad that part of me is bummed and the other part is thrilled that I have a douchebag troll?

Update: DEFINITELY troll(s). I seriously love that such a tame post actually offended someone! My work here is done…

Song title: Mean Mean Woman by John Lee Hooker

The men’s beach volleyball team of Dalhausser and Rogers have numerous sponsors. One is apparently Oakley Sunglasses because even though the glare from the lenses prevents them from playing well, they refuse to take the glasses off. So they just took the lenses out:

Do they realize that they are totally copying Twitch?

Song title: The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades by Timbuk3

Because I Have A Vagina: My transition from “working” woman to a SAHM
I don’t think there is anything like pregnancy and motherhood to really expose the differences between men and woman (both biologically and socially). Sure, we all grow up learning about the glass ceiling, women being paid $0.70 to a man’s dollar, yada yada yada. (Apparently, in 2006, the Census Bureau says, the typical woman earned 77% of the typical man’s wage. Oooh, we’re gaining on ‘em, ladies!)

However, in my opinion, money is one of the more insignificant examples of why it sucks to have a vagina. Let’s start with marriage and having to decide whether or not to change your name. Of course tradition tells us ladies that if you really love your husband, you’d change your name to his. But what is glossed over is the sense of loss a woman has when/if she decides to change her name. For me, I had spent the last 20 years in school and had a new business and fresh law degree under my belt as my wedding day approached. I always knew I’d change my last name, but the thought of shedding what I considered to be my legacy, my past, my heritage, was a difficult concept to grasp. Everyone knew me by my maiden name. All the hard work I had put in at different jobs, meeting new people; I felt like all that would be wiped clean.

Then I had to sit down and consider my future career-wise. Having just graduated from law school, Mr. Bee and I decided that I should concentrate on my new career as a wedding planner (natural transition from law school, I know). This was an easy and difficult decision to make. I had just completed three years of grueling school to get my fancy piece of paper and a part of me wanted to put it to good use. But when I looked at our “family plan”, it just didn’t make sense for me to put in a few agonizing climbing-the-ladder years at a law firm or in public service, just to take 5-10 years off to raise our children. So I guess that decision came fairly easy too.

So now you’re married and you’re pregnant! Now it all sinks in. You mean that because I have a vagina I have to grow this thing in my belly (I love you, Bee!) for NINE MONTHS (oh, and FYI you non-mamas: Nine months really equals ten months in whacked out pregnancy math.) Then you get to push a 6-10+ pound baby out your baby hole and recover from that trauma quick enough to start breastfeeding. And let’s cross our fingers and hope that you don’t have any incontinence or any of the other fun “gifts” that pregnancy gives you. In the meantime, don’t forget to clean, cook, take care of your husband and, maybe if you find some extra time, take care of yourself a little too. Oh, and don’t forget losing all that baby weight you gained because, geez, if Jessica Alba can be a size negative triple-zero just two weeks after the birth of sextuplets, then you should be able to, too.

Don’t get me wrong, I know that men have huge pressures on them to work and support a family. And that can’t be easy. Especially when you’re married to someone with spending habits like mine (Sorry, honey).

But the impact of having children is so much less for a guy than a girl. The weight gain, the loss of any kind of attractive body (just say good bye to any sort of muscle tone in your abdomen), stretch marks…) And welcome to the world of worrying:

“Do we have enough diapers, wipes, formula, baby food, milk, clothes that fit the baby, books, learning toys? What I am going to make for breakfast, lunch, dinner? Did the baby have her bath tonight? Did I remember to brush her teeth? Did I read enough books to her today? Do we have enough clean sippy cups and do I have time to shower AND vacuum before the baby wakes up?…”

In the meantime, you get compliments from friends about what a great dad your husband is. And no doubt about it, he’s the best! That’s why I married him, duh. But when’s the last time that someone commented to my husband that I was a fantastic wife and mom because I watch/take care of Baby non-stop. All my husband has to do is take baby duty for a hour and he’s winning awards and cooing from all my non-mama friends. I get that not all husbands wake up with the baby in the middle of the night when you are nursing or offer you a full Saturday off without the baby (thank you, thank you, thank you, honey!!), but that’s just the kind of thing I would hope a dad would do to help a mom. Because, speaking on behalf of moms everywhere, I’m pretty sure our collective heads would explode if we didn’t have some time off once in a while. Right, ladies?

Then your husband (and family) (and friends) (and strangers) start asking about #2. Really? Seriously?! Even though it means more money spent, a husband/dad’s duties don’t really change much whether you have one or ten kids. But for a mom? That means that I will be bald from pulling my hair out even faster!

For me, #2 means that I most likely will have to quit my job. I started my company, my business, in 2003. Since then it’s grown through word of mouth alone and, although some times it gets to be a lot of stress and work, it really is my pride and joy. I love being my own boss. Luckily, I have a husband who is successful enough to support us with or without my paltry income. And Mr. Bee absolutely supports any decision I make regarding the company. But with our current plan, next summer I predict that I will be too full of Baby #2 to want to spend 10 hours on my feet after taking care of a toddler all week.

I could just take a sabbatical for a year and rev things up again in 2010, but that just seems really unlikely. The thought of having uninterrupted summers and all my Fridays and Saturdays free does make me do a little jig, but to give up my company, this baby of mine, does break my heart. Because I’m good at it. I really am. And if I give it up, it’s like it never happened. I’ll never win those awards I’m always striving for and never win. I just have to give up that dream.

And even if I close down the company, I’m already brainstorming other projects/companies/businesses to start. I just don’t know if I can stop being creative and controlling – the two things I do best!

When money isn’t the issue, how does a mom choose between spending more time with her babies and spending time as a business woman?

Song title: . Woman to Woman by Beverley Craven

1 As a 1930s wife, I am Very Poor (Failure) Take the test!

I’m ridiculously proud of this score! Take the test and comment with your score

Song title: Good Girl Gone Bad by Rihanna

My Long Evening
Just to make the story of my poopy evening more poo-filled, I’ll begin by giving you an update on our house hunting. For those who aren’t loyal members of the Bee Hive (for shame!), Mr. Bee and I have been house hunting for approximately a half year by now and we finally found our McDreamy house. No, Patrick Dempsey doesn’t live there. But it’s McDreamy none the less.

So I couldn’t stand the suspense and finally emailed our Redfin agent on our anniversary, hoping for some really sweet news to be an anniversary gift for ourselves. Our agent emails me back with this:

“[The] contract has been received and will be assigned to someone at the bank the first week of August.”

Seriously?! So for the last week and a half our offer/contract has just been sitting in someone’s god damn inbox?! And no one is even going to be assigned to it until (hopefully) next week!?!?! I say hopefully because I don’t know if the douche bags at “The Bank” will consider this coming week or the week after to be “the first week of August.”

I knew that this whole process was going to be irritatingly slow, but seriously. This bank is so small, I can’t even find a website for it.

FYI: If you have/are a company and you don’t have a website, you are dead to me. Seriously.

Mr. Bee and I have decided that if this house doesn’t work out, we’re going to be really disappointed. Like soul-crushingly disappointed. You’ve been warned…

But I digress. The whole house thing doesn’t have anything to do with tonight. I just wanted you irritated on my behalf as I start my story…

So our whole day today (okay, not really, but kind of) was scheduled around an appointment I made a few days ago to get my hair cut and colored uh, naturally enhanced. Yeah, yeah, it’s natural. I swear!

On my way tonight to Le Mall, I was stuck in traffic behind some chick in a red Jeep. Oh wait, that’s not a girl. It’s a dude. With a…wait for it…mullet! And I’m not talking a “oh, my hair is just a little long in back” mullet. I’m talking a full on Dog, the Bounty Hunter mop! It’s was fucking awesome. I was dying in laughter as I passed him only to see gigantic elk antlers attached to the grill of the Jeep. Classic.

So I get safely to the Mall and down a quick (and disgusting) mall pretzel with “cheese”. I’m pretty sure this was some sort of cheese product and not the actual thing. But I was hungry and since my appointment was at 6pm, I figured I’d be dying of hunger if I didn’t shove something down my gullet before the girls at G.J. had their way with me.

I go to check in at the front counter, after wiping the last remnants of cheese goo from my chin, ready to begin my transformation from dumpy mom to our beloved and recently departed SYTYCD dancer, Kherington:
only to find out that the Douchey McDoucherPants who took my reservation made it for FRIDAY night, not Saturday. Cool. Thanks jerk for totally messing up my plans and making me put off my beautifying for a whole week.

Sidenote: At this point, I’m so disappointed that I practically want to cry. I don’t think the fact that I’m super PMSing right now helped matters much.

I made an appointment for next Saturday and now had to figure out what the hell do to with myself instead of just wasting a Saturday evening. Mr. Bee suggested that I drive to Renton to find the much sought after Mario Kart for the Wii. Apparently, The Store That Shall Not Be Named said online that they had some in stock. So I started the half hour drive up to Renton through stupid pissy drivers.

Another Sidenote: Okay, for all you stupid asshole drivers out there that think some silly girl driving an SUV won’t care if you cut her off and drive like a total douche…SURPRISE! I DO care! In fact, I will fuck with you like nobody’s business if I get the opportunity. And what you don’t know about this little blond, is that I am in fact a pissed off, PMSing, stressed out and needing a break but I didn’t get one because some other ass messed up my hair appointment, Mom without her baby in tow. You know what that means? It means that now I can drive like I want to (i.e. not all careful and cautious since Baby Bee is in the car). So watch out, asshole drivers. Mama means business.

When I finally get to The Store That Shall Not Be Named (TSTSNBN, for short, or VoldeMART as Mr. Bee suggests), it’s swamped with people. And I’m going to be as super PC as I can right now. I know VoldeMART has great prices. But I’ve also seen that documentary that talks about what a horrible corporation it is, destroying whole towns and what not, so the Bee Family just tries to avoid it as much as possible. And while I’m sure we’ve all been patrons of said chain multiple times, there is definitely a stereotyped clientele. You know. You’ve seen them.

But at this place, it was like the typical “clientele” times 850 million. It was KER-azy. And here I am, not dressed up per se, but trying to be cute for my hair appointment so when I go from drab to fab my outfit will match. Well, let’s just say, it did not fit in here. It’s kind of like that time I went to Lowe’s in a skirt and heels to pick up some random plumbing thing. Just stuck out a bit.

I went to the Electronics counter and, of course, the dude says that he had like a trillion (okay, 6) Mario Karts this morning but they sold out already. Yay for me. So I head back, trying to navigate through the throngs of people mesmerized by “falling prices.” I’m trying to dig out my cell phone to call and relay the “meow meow”-ness of the situation to Mr. Bee, when I hear, “Hey! Maam!”

Maam? Really? Yep, I’m that old, I guess.

But here comes Electronics Counter Dude (aka: my savior) with Mario Kart in hand!!

WHAT?! I guess some dude had called and put it on a hold a few hours ago but never came to buy it so he’s gonna let me buy it from him instead!!! YAY!!!!!!

So this story has a happy ending, I thought, as I pulled back on to the highway and headed for the comfort of home.

*******

Totally unrelated, but for those keeping track, the Bee Household now officially has the ability to DVR 5 shows at one time! Hilarious! Apparently the replacement TiVo, that came a week or so ago to replace our gangsta Series One original TiVo after the Nielsen Ratings hardware broke it, has a dual tuner! haha! Just when you thought I couldn’t possibly watch more television…

And a special little nugget for you if you’ve managed to read this entire post, here’s a little “Quote of the Week” from Bunco Night:

“I can’t help it…the big balls kill me every time!”

And since I’m catching up on all my random thoughts for the week, if Sara is out there, your husband does not have a rape wagon. But THIS GUY definitely does:

I couldn’t help but take a photo of it of that beauty while driving!

Song title: Blah Blah Blah by Iggy Pop

A Cornacopia of Random Crap
First of all, let me apologize for my extended absence over the last five days! Last weekend was yet another wedding and then a somewhat impromptu trip to Portland. Mr. Bee had some conventiony thing to attend and invited Baby and Wifey to join him. Since we were really only there for like a day and a half, we didn’t do much. Seriously, I’m pretty sure we drove 2 1/2 hours (one way) to stay in a hotel (sarcastic woot) and go shopping.

We had a good time, but boy, vacations kind of suck with kids. Don’t get me wrong, I love traveling with Bee (she does amazing on planes and, well, everywhere). But the change of scenery certainly does not promote regular nap/sleep times and having to chase her around to make sure she doesn’t electrocute herself in the non-baby-proofed hotel room does not a fun vacation make.

But now we’re back in town and back to the status quo. No news on the house yet but I’m really hoping that we’ll at least get a “touching base” email or phone call today. Mr. Bee and I have pretty much planned everything there is to plan before we physically get the house! Seriously. We know what we want to do to the house before we move in, after we move in, hell, we even have made a game plan for the big move! Jumping ahead of ourselves just a bit!

Earlier this week I got to attend my monthly Bunco game and once again was shocked at who and why people read this crap! Honestly, don’t you people have better things to do? Hmmm, I guess you could ask the same thing of me…Well played, friend. Touche.

Since I can’t remember the other 85 billion things I was planning on blogging about today, I’ll leave you with another TV show commentary:

Shear Genius
Shear Genius is a reality show based off the Project Runway formula. It pits different hair stylists against each other for some random ass prizes (I don’t know, new scissors or something?). It’s actually pretty fun to watch, especially since I change my hair style like I change my underwear. (Every couple months? ::rim shot::)

But this week’s episode kind of got me thinking (read: irritated). I had seen promos for the episode that featured the women who the stylists would be working with (i.e. cutting their hair). The clients/women looked like this:

So I’m thinking, “Oh my god, what an emotional challenge! The women obviously have completed chemo from horrible bouts of cancer and now they are going to get awesome wigs, etc. How amazing for everyone!”

And then they announce that the women have something called Alopecia. It’s an immune system condition where you just don’t have any hair.

Seriously?

Now, don’t get me wrong. Having Alopecia would suck giant monkey balls. But when I thought these women were coming straight from cancer treatment, simply not having any hair ain’t that big of a deal. I mean, come on! Never having to shave your legs or pits? How frickin’ awesome would that be?!

But seriously, these hair stylist were bawling their eyes out like they had just been told their moms are dying. Come on, people! So they don’t have hair? It’s not a life-threatening condition! Yeah, it’s sucks significantly, but give me a break!!

Okay, I’ll step off my hairy soapbox now…

Song title: Everything and More by Billy Gilman