Friday, February 6, 2009

Hodgity Podgity Friday: chaos edition

I was so hopeful that today’s post would be the triumphant reveal of my gorgeous new bathroom. Alas, it is not. I am keeping my fingers crossed for my next turn to post. I’ll spare you the gory details so you won’t hide away from me on Wednesday, but let me just ask you this: if you never see the plumber or his jackhammer, do they really exist?

Have you ever had one of those days when everything goes wrong, breaks, or just turns to crap? The kind of day when you discover that your employees have dealt with the malfunction of expensive machinery by sticking a post-it on it and running away?

I’ve had a couple of those days this week, and I need some help. You see, I can’t figure out how to spell the sound of my own maniacal laughter! I realized that in two separate e-mails to my family yesterday, I wrote: “HAHAHAHAHAHA” to express the alarming level of my lunacy. But it looks super jolly! How can I ensure that the crux of the sentiment is appropriately expressed? I could write: “bwah ha ha!”, but that just sounds like the Count from Sesame Street . He’s weird, but not nearly diabolical enough to represent. How would you spell my crazy laugh?

In other news, conversations between my children in the car continue to delight and amuse. No developments on the Les Girls front, but there is a new game in town that you might want to try. It’s part competition, part performance art. You have to express your top ten fake laughs for the judge, who will tell you which is the funniest. Thing is, it’s hard to remember or distinguish between each fake laugh, so it’s a really loooong, loud, and frustrating game for everyone involved. Especially the driver. Who clearly has the scariest best fake laugh of the lot. Another fun way to pass the time is to enumerate your list of favorite colors, favorite animals, favorite people, favorite foods, etcetera, etcetera ad nauseum until death. We even numbered our favorite fingers. Guess which one is mommy’s favorite?

So, I’m a little stressed. What is unusual for me, being the silence junkie that I am, is that relief is often coming in the form of loud music, especially in the car. There are a lot of miles between school and work and home depot and school and lowes and work and dixieline and home and costco and work and school and home. Perhaps I’m just distracting the crazy, but it works. These are the magical songs that I find myself repeating:

Uncle John’s Band- performed by Jimmy Buffett and his steel drum band
Treachery- Kirsty MacColl
Cruel to be Kind – Nick Lowe
Lovesick Blues – Patsy Cline
Friday Night – Lily Allen

Say Hey (I love you) – Spearhead
Precious Time – Van Morrison

Oh, and one of the things on my home depot list for this week was to pick up a little something for my boy.



Talk about your stress relief


Pow!

4 comments:

Me, You, or Ellie said...

Nice! All of it. Well, not your inept employees or your too-big-vanity, but your boy's kick is pretty great. Has he grown a foot? His ka-ra-te trousers are now capris.

Love you honey. Have a great weekend!

Ellie

p.s. I do not know how to spell your lunatic laugh. But I hear it in my head. Loud and clear. Scary? Oh, it's scary.

Me, You, or Ellie said...

Gotta love that middle finger. No doubt about it.

I will never introduce the laughing game to my kids. My oldest has one fake laugh, and only one, and it alone drives me nuts. Ten? No way, I could not endure. (But then again, I've not had a week filled with perfecting my very own maniacal laughter.)

Sounds like we need to go drink some beers, Jacquie!

Beth

Anonymous said...

Lovesick Blues? Love it and would crack up if it was going through my head all day long...

Di
The Blue Ridge Gal

Anonymous said...

Jacquie,

It's Meg B., aka Meoghan Mary, to be distinguished from Megan Maria poppa pia. Anyway, my girl Lizzie (who now goes by "Izzie") spells lunatic laughs all the time in all the stories she writes (yes, there's usually a lunatic), and she spells it like this: "mmwwah-ha-ha-ha-ha"!!!! Note the important shift from your Sesame St. "b" to the subtler and crazier "mmm" sound. Or, if you don't care for this one, you could establish an insanely high-pitched, staccato giggle, which you must do with bugged out eyes and a big, frightening smile.
I hope this helps. Will write soon to provide more car game ideas (make lists of everything that annoys you: this killed a full hour for my kids once recently), and to talk about coffee (I'm looking for one of those rolling I.V. things to hold a bag of coffee that I can mainline.).