Thursday, January 29, 2009

Random Funny Things My Kids Say - Part 22

Youngest and I were at Target when we ran into one of the girls old dance instructors, we shall call her Ms. Pam. She is an older lady with a killer figure even though she is well into her 60s. My pudgy self usually feels woefully inadequate next to her. Usually.

So we haven’t seen Ms. Pam in ages and she’s looking a bit changed. As we are exchanging pleasantries, Ms. Pam leans over to greet Youngest.

Youngest blinks and says “What’s the matter with your face?”

I nudge her, “Don’t be rude, Ms. Pam looks lovely!”

Youngest has scooted behind me and is pulling at me to lean down. She then says in a loud whisper, “Something is wrong with her mouth!”

Ms. Pam cuts in, “Oh no dear, it’s just this botox! I just had it done yesterday and it hasn’t settled yet. The little ones always notice first!”

She leans down towards Youngest “It’s just some medicine in my face that’s supposed to make me look younger, sweetie!” She laughs gaily, even as her death mask continues to grimace.

Youngest scoots further behind me and whispers loudly, “She’s laughing but not smiling!”

If I could slap my hand over her mouth I would, but must settle with telling her very firmly that she is being rude.

“Don't worry about it! I’m used to it, dear!” Ms. Pam says as she trills out her bye-byes and leaves us. I'm wondering how you can get used to little children hiding from you in fear.

I turn to Youngest and begin to admonish her for her rude behavior but she is not really paying attention to me, she is still peering around me after Ms. Pam. Suddenly she turns to me and says real seriously, “Mommy that medicine is supposed to make you look younger but instead it makes you look deader. Please don’t ever do that to yourself ok?”

I understand and I promise her that she has nothing to worry about. “Don’t worry baby, when I get old, I’ll just look old, not scary, ok?”

She nods and smiles relieved and says, "Don't forget to dye your hair, Mommy, your gray hair is showing!"

Oh the irony!

Friday, January 23, 2009

When life kicks you in the butt...

Sometimes you just have to drop to the ground, curl up into a little ball, suck your thumb and moan piteously.

That's me. I'm overwhelmed in a tidal wave of work and I can't swim! First week of class and still revising is not a good combination - plus I am involved heavily in a project that I am so excited about but which is also taking every other minute of my time. So something is suffering, besides my health - and it is this blog and visiting all my favorite blog places. I am sorry and miss you all! But I hope to recover from my ass whooping real soon. In the meantime, may I leave you with an interesting video clip?

I stole this from Angry Asian Man's blog. It is comedian Danny Cho's impersonation of North Korea's infamous Kim Jong Il. He has the Ploo...

Monday, January 19, 2009

Interview with Angus

Angus interview - take 1

Angus - Hi this is Angus. Except since some of you think I'm a boy, maybe you should call me Angus Star!

Oldest - That's because Angus is a boy's name!

Angus - Be quiet! This is my interview.

Youngest - How come she gets an interview and not us?

Angus - Because I'm the funny one, now pipe down pipsqueak!

Youngest - Mommy she called me a pipsqueak...

Angus interview - take 2

Oldest and Youngest are now on the computer playing a game.

Angus - I want to play too!

Me - After the interview...

Angus - I want to watch. (starts walking away)

Me - come back! You can play it when they're done. Let's get this over with...

Angus - I have to go the bathroom...

Angus interview - take 3

Me - People want to know what you eat

Angus - People want to know what I eat? All the people in the world? Really? Just me? I'm so important. Well I love noodles, lots and lots of noodles. I love Mommy's homemade steak cause it's really juicy and delicious. You know once I wrote about steak at school.

Me - What did you write?

Angus - Ummm, I forget, but it was something to do with how much I love steak and maybe I might have been a little complaining that you don't make it often enough. Also I love fruit a lot. I eat fruit all the time. Sometimes I eat too much fruit and it gives me a tummy ache.

Me - That's cause eating a lot of fruit makes you gassy.

Angus - (falls off the sofa and rolls around on the ground cracking up at the word gassy)

Me - Calm down and tell my readers something about yourself.

Angus - Like what?

Me - Anything, whatever you want.

Angus - Well..... I hate my boring fish! They are so boring! Well the snail is kind of cool and disgusting. But mostly they are boring. They don't do anything just poop and eat and swim around. Dogs are so much more interesting. They are so cute and cuddly! I want a dog. I want a dog so badly. I would do anything for a dog.

Me - (clearing my throat loudly)

Angus - Anyway, other things about me. Oh I know! After I eat a lot, I like to look at my belly and see it getting bigger and smaller. After I poo too. (devilish grin) You know what's weird about me? You know like if we are watching TV like Spongebob or something like that. Well I can smell them. It's hard to explain but I have a super sensitive nose so I know how TV characters smell like even though they are on TV.

Me - How do you do this?

Angus - It's a superpower! But it is really hard to explain but I can look at the character and I sniff and I can smell what they smell like. Like Patrick Star smells real weird. But I kind of like it. You wouldn't like it, Mommy.

Me - Why? What does it smell like?

Angus - Kind of like Doritos and a little gassy.

Me - YOU LIKE THAT SMELL??!!!

Angus - Sort of! Makes me hungry.

Me - What about Spongebob, what did he smell like?

Angus - I don't remember. I mostly remember what Patrick smells like. And Mr. Crabbs smells like money. And Kitara from Avatar smells great, like construction paper. But you have to admit, this is a cool superpower right?

Me - Ah, hmmmmmmmmmm. Errrr yeah. Ok so what do you want to say to my blog readers to wrap this up.

Angus - Roses are red, violets are blue. You smell really bad, but I still love you.

Me - Thanks a lot!

Angus - Your welcome. Don't forget to ask them if they like my poem. And if they don't, who cares, I don't like it either! (she laughs and runs off)

(I wish I had thought to tape this interview so you could hear her randomness in person. She is sooooooo funny and while this interview captures the essence of her, you can't hear her husky laugh or funny mannerisms. Next time, I'll have to tape her and do a podcast for you all.)

Thursday, January 15, 2009

The Ip Man

The one movie I am really dying to see and it may not be released here. The martial arts biopic Ip Man - premiered in Hong Kong theaters last month but still no word of a US release date. It will probably only get released in DVD format here, which bums me out. But here is the trailer.




Ip Man is about the life story of Ip Man, the grandmaster of the Wing Chun style of kung fu and master of legendary kung fu superstar Bruce Lee. The film focuses on Ip's life during the 1930s to the 1940s during Second Sino-Japanese War. Ip shoots to fame when he defeats kung fu masters from the north in a nationwide wushu championship. Hundreds wanted to learn kung fu from him. When the Japanese occupies Foshan during the Sino-Japan war, Ip is forced to work as a coolie in a factory. He is also invited to fight in sparring matches for the enemy’s amusement. For example, one part of the movie shows a former Wushu Grandmaster forced to spar with the Japanese for a bag of rice. He is badly outnumbered and killed. In a similar match Ip shows his masterly skills, defeating his opponents despite being badly outnumbered. The movie looks like it is set up to show how kung fu helped lead Chinese resistance to the Japanese occupiers.

But I don't care about that, the reason I want to see this movie - besides the fact that the trailer looks awesome - is because, to quote my furry panda fan from Kung Fu panda "I love Kung Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!!!!" Yeah, I do love my martial arts films.

Monday, January 12, 2009

The Art of Taekkyon

First off, I snuck in a little time to write up a quick entry into Jason's awesome Clarity of Night competition. Mine is number 59. I shouldn't have because I am so behind on my revisions, but perhaps because I've been struggling, it was good to write something else for a change. So if you have a moment, please click over and let me know what you think!

On a different note, I want to introduce you all to something that most of you probably have never heard of. Taekkyon is an ancient martial art of Korea which is considered by many to be the predecessor of the modern Tae Kwon Do martial art. The history of Taekkyon is fascinating. It nearly died completely out during the Japanese occupation of Korea. The story goes that a crazed sword wielding Japanese soldier was killed by an unarmed Korean man using only taekkyon. The Japanese immediately outlawed the practice, stating that it was too deadly, and killing anyone associated with or continuing the teaching of taekkyon. After many years, the art was nearly forgotten until not that long ago, when an 80 year old man was seen practicing the movements and an ancient art was reborn.

Taekkyon is a major part of my Seven Kingdoms novel and now that my novel has a female protagonist, I get to show you what I envision she would look like. Here is a famous Korean taekkyon martial artist showing you the both the power and the beauty of this ancient art.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Random Funny Things My Kids Say - Part 21

Being lazy and cheap this year (I forgot to do my annual Christmas cards but refuse to feel guilty about it), I waited til the new year to buy my 2009 wall calendar. After all who wants to pay full price? The answer to that is anyone who would like to have a choice as to what pictures your calendar will contain. The choices left for me were stupendously bad. Lots of overexposed fake tatas, Hannah Montanas, bad tv shows I've never heard of, and a calendar titled "Crack" which is apparently the official butt crack calendar. Having no desire to stare at ass all year long, I found one slightly bent calendar hidden behind the Cracks that was called Poopy Puppies. And no, it is not a calendar of pooping puppies, that would have been nasty. It is a calendar of cute little dozing puppies with an unfortunate choice of title.

So I put up the calendar and January has an adorable little puppy sleeping on its back with its tummy all exposed. Da Man takes one look at it and says, "You know what's going to happen as soon as the girls see it." I ignore him.

That day we had friends over for lunch. They have a boy and a girl who is about Oldest and Angus's ages. (Note for new readers - Angus is the nickname my middle daughter gave to herself. Sorry to confuse anyone who thought Angus was a boy!) Angus and the boy, who is a year younger, are good friends, real troublemakers. I'm in the kitchen prepping and I hear Angus and the boy giggling behind me. They are standing in front of the calendar. Angus points right at a certain point in the picture and says, "what do you think that is?"

"It's just a bump," the boy says.

"No it's a pee pee!"

"That doesn't look like a pee pee!"

"Yes it does!" Angus insists.

"How do you know, you don't have one!" The boy says.

"But I've seen it. I just saw yours today!" Angus admits.

"When?"

"You always leave the door open when you pee!"

"You shouldn't look!"

"You shouldn't leave the door open!"

"I can't help it. I'm scared when the door is closed.

"Well I can't help myself either. I'm just too curious!"

I think Da Man is going to have to have a little talk with Angus about her curiosity.



Updates of what is happening around the blogosphere!

Aerin at In Search of Giants is hosting a writer’s challenge to foster inspiration and community. It's pretty low-pressure: 1000 words a month. At the end of the year, you'll have a total of 12,000 words, which is not even half a NaNo entry. Go here to sign up!

BONUS: If you sign up for this challenge by January 14, your entry to the Ascension Clarity of Night contest counts as all 1000 of your words for January!



And:

Please drop by the Book Roast for the hippest publishing party in town! One hot publisher, two terrific agents, and six fabulous authors will be kicking off the launch party!!

The Book Roast serves up a variety of authors and books, lightly grilled and seasoned with humor. The Book Roast site is a free promotional tool for authors dedicated to celebrating great books! Its mission is to help publicize books of all genres, printed by publishers of all sizes.


The launch line-up is:

Monday, Jan 12: Mystery Publisher
Tuesday, Jan 13: Eric Stone
Wednesday, Jan 14: Agent Lucienne Diver
Thursday, Jan 15: Barrie Summy
Saturday, Jan 17: Elysabeth Eldering

Monday, Jan 19: Mystery Publisher
Tuesday, Jan 20: Traci E Hall
Wednesday, Jan 21: Maggie Stiefvater
Thursday, Jan 22: Agent Nathan Bransford
Friday, Jan 23: Jennifer Macaire

We hope to see you there!!

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Random Funny Things My Kids Say - Part 20

Some of you may remember this little funny thing that happened last year, which I posted about in my very first Random Funny Things My kids say. I post it here again as a lead in to the newest Angus escapade.:

Explosive secret:

My middle child came home and told me she had to tell me a secret. I asked her what was up. She said, “At school today I had to fart but I didn’t want to fart at my station cause I knew it would smell bad so I went to another station and farted and then ran away. But I didn’t know it would be SO stinky. I thought it would just be a little stinky. But it was really bad! It smelled like lots and lots of boiled eggs! Lots of them! I didn’t know my fart could smell like that! And then Grant said Phillip did a stinky fart and Phillip said Nuh, uh and that Grant must have done it and then everyone started going ‘ill, ill, someone farted!’ and teacher got so mad at both of them she gave them both letters (the school gives out letters for bad behavior). And she had to open the window to let some air in. But I didn’t tell anyone that it was me who did the stinky fart and Grant and Phillip got in trouble. I was too scared to admit that it was me that done it. Was that bad? Will God be angry with me? Mommy? Mommy why are you crying?”


fart Pictures, Images and Photos
Secrets and Lies - Angus strikes again

So after dinner with some friends at the mall last night, I stopped by the makeup counter at Nordstrom's to buy some eyeliner. The nice Lancome lady commented on my beautiful girls and offered up some lip gloss. First she put some on Oldest who beamed happily, then she offered some to Angus who immediately ran off to a mirror at another counter. As I raised Youngest up to get her coating of luscious pink delight, a sudden horrendously foul smell hit me. My eyes began to water and I stare into the shocked and frozen expression of the Lancome lady before me. I glance at Youngest and Oldest, they were blinking their eyes and rubbing their noses. I stare back at the Lancome lady who is still frozen, but her face has begun to melt from the fumes. Copious eyeliner and mascara flow like lava down her perfect skin.

The smell finally begins to fade and Youngest starts to squirm, pressing forward with lips puckered. Lancome lady automatically applies lip gloss to Youngest's cupid bow. I put down Youngest and stumble back, wiping the tears away from my eyes while Lancome lady flees the scene with her melted face, barely taking in the girls thank yous. Angus finally saunters back. Oldest immediately goes on the attack.

"I can't believe you farted and ran away!!!"

"I didn't!" Angus shouts. "It wasn't me!"

I'm rushing the girls out of the store as fast as I can before Lancome lady decides to call in a poison gas attack to Homeland security. We run into the car all the while Angus is protesting her innocence. As we are driving away a horrendous stench befouls the entire car and I quickly roll down the windows as I gag and wheeze.

"PEEEEEEEE EWWWWWWW! I guess my farts do stink!" Angus begins to laugh. "I think I have to go to the bathroom."

"Please do not fart again," I insist, "Or you may have an accident."

"Well you better hurry then!"

"You're killing me!" I say as I speed up.

"Ooops!" she says and begins to laugh again. "Mommy's gonna vomit! Mommy's gonna vomit!"

"There's something terribly wrong with you," Oldest says from the back of the car.

I agree. I think she takes after her father.

gas mask kid Pictures, Images and Photos

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Please Help!!!

One of our very own, Travis Erwin, the wonderful blogger of One Word, One Rung, One Day fame, has suffered a terrible loss. While he and his family are safe, they have lost everything they own in a house fire that has left them homeless. There are many of us worrying about him and Erica Orloff, Stephen Parrish, Chris Eldin, Natasha Fondren, Merry Monteleon and Moonrat have been brainstorming on what we as a community can do. Stephen has done a great job setting up a place to make donations to help Travis during this terrible time. I know these are tough times. They are tough for me too! But the thought of being homeless, especially with small kids, is devastating and I want to do all I can to help. Think of your house and everything in it, and now think of losing it all. That is what happened. So please, donate and help rebuild not just their homes, but their lives.

Habitat for Travis

Thank you!

Sunday, January 4, 2009

So...

Charles asked me why I changed my blog address. Well I did it at the advice of my agent who felt that Random Acts of Unkindness was not a good address for a young adult author to have. It took me longer than I needed to switch over because I hated to give up the snarkiness of my old blog, but I did a little impromptu poll with some parents and was told overwhelmingly that they wouldn't be too keen on their kid going to a blog with that title even knowing what it is I wrote, and even though I did clean up my posts. One friend even said that there was something raunchy and vaguely lascivious about my blog title. Well I tend to disagree - I mean it says unkindness right? Sheesh, what a deviant! If it said random acts of kindness - well maybe that would make more sense. No wait, that's some goody two shoes charitable/religious thing, not the kindness I was thinking about, beg pardon.

So I gave in and finally made the move. Like I mentioned earlier, my name blogspot was taken by spammers - BOO SPAMMERS!!! - and Hello Ello my second choice was also taken. And here we are!

Tomorrow the kids are all back in school. Cue music:



Yes I know this is really more appropriate for September. Yes I know it was only a week and a half. Yes I really do love love Love my children. But I'm so happy that they are going back to school I could cry. Please cue music again...

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Breaking out the New Year with a Brand New Blog!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

So if my redirect worked, it should have brought you here, to Hello Ello 2, my new home. Welcome, welcome! I've missed you all! I've missed the blog. But I have been a good Mommy, scheduling back to back playdates (which I absolutely despise and dread), even having 3 simultaneous playdates (horror of horrors) and am just barely retaining my sanity. I don't know how other Moms schedule playdates every day during the holidays. Dealing with my own kids is difficult enough, dealing with other people's kids and your own requires certain saintly qualities that I apparently have not been blessed with.

Back to my new blog. Nothing should have changed significantly.
Aerin,
wonder woman Pictures, Images and Photos aka Wonder Woman, who has been so awesome to help me, imported everything over beautifully and if anything is screwy, it is entirely my own inept fault. Like the linky love. I can't seem to just cut and paste the list, confound you Blogger! That means I have to rebuild linky love. This goes completely against my sin of sloth. I has such a headache just thinking about it!

So I will have to rebuild my links back up slowly and I will ask you for your help. If you have linked to me or followed me in the past, may I ask you very kindly to link and/or follow my new blog? Leave me a comment and I will make sure to link you up asap. And I will need help to make sure I capture everyone so if you don't see your link on my side bar, it is not intentional, it is simply stupidity and sloth. So help a girl out, won't ya? Thank you all very kindly!

By the way, since my girls have found my blog, I've been forced by Da Man to clean up my blog. I've been searching out some of my more colorful word choices and found that there were over 250 uses of a certain foul excrement word in my previous blog posts. In fact, I found one post where I used excrement a total of 20 times. Sheesh that took forever to clean out. And additionally there were approximately 90 posts using a word that rhymes with luck. Who knew I was so foul mouthed? Apparently everyone but me.

But as we are starting the New Year and a New Blog, I decided that I will share something with all of you. My dirty little secret.
cute skunk Pictures, Images and Photos
Sometimes I am a real stinker of a Mommy.I have lots of examples of being a stinker, but here is one that still cracks me up. It earns me the glare of other Mommy disapproval if they were to know about it but I don't care.

Youngest has this little Oreo cookie ritual. She likes to open up the chocolate cookies so that the cream side is up. She will open 3 or 4 in a row and then she likes to carve out half the cream onto the naked cookie so that all her chocolate cookies now have at least an equal amout of white cream on each cookie. Only then will she eat them. (Yeah, I have OCD and each of my kids have some form of it. As OCD goes, this is pretty mild.) Well I take joy in waiting until Youngest has opened all her cookies and then I distract her by shouting out "Angus is playing with your brand new Barbie kitchen set!" or some other nonsense like that, at which point she runs off to protect her toys, leaving her cookies unguarded. I quickly eat all the cream off of her cookies and then run and hide. Oldest disapproves and tells me I am terrible. She is right.

When Youngest comes back, she throws an extraordinary temper tantrum on finding that all the cream has been eaten and all she has are sad little naked cookies. Now she no longer wants to eat them, which works for Oldest who likes only the cookie part anyway. Oldest scoops up the cookies and eats them and Youngest begins to cry.

After I have finished laughing, I dry her tears and bring out some more Oreo cookies for Youngest to eat. I've pulled this trick on Youngest in many different variations as she has gotten more and more distrustful of me. Sometimes I pretend I'm just trying to help her, other times I snatch the cream side out of her hand and stuff it in my mouth. I just love to see how indignant she gets. And yes, I am such a big stinker.

The other day, Youngest got an oreo cookie and opened it and said "Here Mommy, I got your favorite cookie for you! Open wide!" holding the cream side up in front of my mouth. I gladly opened up when suddenly she pulls a fast switcheroo and shoves the naked no cream side of the cookie into my mouth at the same time she shoves the yummy cream filled one into hers.

"Ha Ha!" she shouts gleefully.

The little stinker got me. I'm so proud. It's times like this that bring tears of joy to my eyes.

Don't forget to pop by Jason's writing contest over at The Clarity of Night. The competition is always amazing and the prizes are terrific!

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