Happy...Er....Halloween

I used to love Halloween.  When I was a teenager Halloween was a blast.  It was a dark, and sinister and an excellent excuse to wear fangs to school.  I actually managed to get fake vampire fangs into my yearbook picture.  What school plans picture day on Halloween?  Sounds like they should've expected some of the shenanigans that took place.

Now that I'm a mom, Halloween is a giant pain in the ass.  It was fun while the kid was little.  I'd buy some cute little costume and we'd go out for maybe an hour before she got too tired of walking around, then we would go home and I'd eat most of her candy.
She's 10 now.  The costumes are getting more and more involved.  We made this one.  She is an eagle.  To be fair, we actually made it last year, and she was a snowy owl.  This year we dyed it brown and she's an eagle.  This was her idea, I would've gotten her a new costume.

I also have to argue with the hubby about what the kid will be for Halloween.  She wants to be things like a Snowy Owl, a Hummingbird, a Gnome, the embodiment of peace and love itself.....fucking hippie.  He thinks she should be death, or a zombie, or something extra super scary that only his twisted brain can conceive.

 (I think she should be Pestilence Pony http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIY41LrvMFQ)

This year we had a Halloween party.  My darling husband is all about Halloween.  His favorite movie of all time is Halloween.  He already owns most of the decorations required, including random body parts.  So we had to decorate. 

My idea of decorating is throwing up some orange lights, and maybe some window stickies (maybe).

This year, we went crazy.  I made (yes MADE) ghost lights.  I made hanging ghosts out of cheese cloth.  We made paper mâché pumpkins.  We put up spider garland.  We hung a dummy in the tree out front.  We put a bunch of grave stones in the yard.  There was more.  Lost more.

My daughter had fun though, so I guess that's the whole point.

So today is Halloween and I'm at work.......in costume.  I was supposed to be a vampire but the stupid teeth wouldn't stick.  So I'm just wearing a flowy, black satin and velvet gothic dress that has BIG bell sleeves.  I've owned this dress since I was 16, so I'm rather surprised that it fits at all.  It's tight in the arms though.  The sleeves bell out right at my elbows and that's where it's cutting off my fucking circulation.  It's so uncomfortable.  I feel like I have tourniquets on both of my arms.  Which gets me thinking about getting my blood drawn.  Which makes me queasy. (I'm a pussy about needles.  Which is completely ridiculous.  I have something like 13 piercings in my ears alone.)  I have never been so unhappy that I didn't bring a change of clothes as I am today.  The thought of walking into Walmart in this get-up and purchasing horrible pants just to be able to take this fucking thing off isn't pleasant.  Although perhaps I won't be mistaken for an employee in this outfit.  (I have been somehow mistaken for a Walmart employee on something like 10 separate occasions.  One time is was twice in one day.  And I wasn't even fucking wearing blue that day!!  Oh I think I'll have to write an entire post to explain).

As I walked into the store this morning to get a cup of coffee, some douche bag at the coffee counter says "So I guess you're dressed up."  Oh, you think so fucker?  I surely fucking hope so.  If I came in here, wearing this, on any day besides Halloween, I'd hope you'd call my therapist for me.  But as it is clearly Halloween, you are safe to assume I'm not just an angsty teenager that hates my parents and thinks black makes me look paler.  (I may have been at 16 when I bought the dress, but we're not talking about that now.)

Naming the Gremlin

So....
This post is about the adventure of talking with Me Husband (still trying to replace "Fiance Face"....can't settle on anything) about baby names.  He's an asshole.  I spent a couple of hours going through the endless lists of names that are available on the Internet.  Not hours in a row of course.  Just here and there.
I made a list of maybe 15 names per sex.  Cute names.  Names that weren't so unique I cringed, but names that weren't so common place that there would be 3 more of them in the kid's kindergarten class.  Names like Claire, Aiden, Molly, Ian, Alana, and Evan.
I finally get the courage to show him the list one night (for a bit there I was afraid to say the word "baby" around him).  He glances at it for maybe 5 seconds and starts picking apart my choices. 

H:  Connor?  Molly? Issac?  These are terrible names.
Me:  Really?  You don't like Claire?  Or "Damien"?
H:  "Damien" is my step brother's name.
(Name has been changed, so someday when he finds this blog I can pretend it's not mine)
Me:  You really don't like any of them?
H:  No.  They're awful.  These are like Waldorf names.

Oh here we go again.  My daughter attends a private school.  A Waldorf school.  I'm not going to attempt to dissect Waldorf education just now, but it's a very wholesome, creative, nurturing environment.  They have activities such as knitting, making butter, puppetry, and drawing with block crayons (because life doesn't have lines around it).  I love it.  She loves it.  How many 10 year olds love going to school?  I mean LOVE school.  Are upset that it's summer vacation?  Not many.  But mine does.  She, and the rest of her class, learned to read in like 2 weeks.  One day she's picking out words, sounding out the syllables.  Then like 2 weeks later she was reading with next to no trouble at all.  It's because of the way they go about the process, teaching them the "value" of letters so they can totally wrap their little heads around it.  They also wait until late 2nd grade to start.  As a result the kids are absolutely ready to learn it.

Husband thinks its a fruity, touchy feely, hippie school.  Which it kind of is.  But he doesn't see the value of it.  We have agreed to disagree on this one. 

But in any case....they were not "Waldorf" names (examples, Tobias, Bolosai, Mytraia)  They were not generic names either.  I refuse to raise a John, or a Jennifer.  They weren't trashy names (Destiny, Amber, Dallas).

So I ask him what he had in mind.  Ready for this?  Erma....Herman....Bodack.

I'm sorry, Bodack???

He says "Bodack is a great name".

Now, I'm pretty sure he's kidding.  At least, fuck, I hope he's kidding.  I hope to all things holy or unholy that I didn't marry and procreate with a man that thinks it's totally acceptable to name his child Bodack.  And the best part?  According to him it's a dual gender name.  Ladies and Gentlemen, my daughter, Bodack.

So today, I try again.  I download a baby names app for my phone.  What fun!!
I go through the names.  Holy shit are there a lot of terrible names out there.  I sigh, and click the button that will only show me "popular" names.  This leaves out a lot of the weirder shit.

I find some more that I don't hate (because this is all I can hope for at this point, a name I don't hate.)
Alan, Carly, Kadence, Justin (I guess).

I email him my list from the app (I heart technology).

He responds "Eww, lol".

Fuck you dick.

Me:  This coming from the man that thought up "Bodack".
Dick:  Bodack is a great name.
Me:  It is most certainly not even a name, let alone a great name.  Fucking weirdo.
Dick:  Is too, look it up.
Me:  No, you know what, I believe you.  I've got an app here with thousands of horrible names that are still better than Bodack.
Dick:  Ha Ha good for you.
Me:  Bodack McNamesbeenchanged.  That's catchy.  Tell you what, let's get the kid a guide on how to be a serial killer while we're at it.
Dick:  lol (because he's soooooo creative)
Me:  That sounds like the kind of name that a kid who went to school packing a semi-automatic weapon in order to shoot down all of the kids that picked on him for his stupid name would have.  You're right, let's keep it.  I've always wanted to be interviewed by reporters.
Dick:  Ha Ha.

Why do I bother?  I told him that we would wait to see what's going to come out of there before we argue about the name.  No sense in arguing for Claire if it's going to have a penis.
Don't worry kid.  I won't let him name you Bodack.  I swear he only said that to make Erma sound better.  Poor fucking kid.

P.S.  While spell-checking this post......Bodack is not a word.  Thank you Websters.

Adventures in Craigslist

I love Craigslist.  I really do.  You need FREAKING ANYTHING.....you can find someone selling it on Craigslist.
So, I'm having a baby.  Fiance Face.....oh shit I guess he's Husband Face (?) now....anyway...
Husband says "We're not buying brand new furniture!!".  I'm completely down with that too.  So I start looking for good deals.
I find a crib.  Yea!! It's really quite nice, a cherry color, and in great condition.  The seller has the brand name and model in the ad, so I look it up.  Oh.  He's selling is for $150 but I can get it brand new for $219, not such a whopping deal.  Then I find that there was a recall on this model of crib.  Eh, no dice.
I find another crib.  This one is white.  I like it.  I liked the other one better, but this one isn't bad.  And it's $25 cheaper than the last one.
I begin correspondence with the seller...and she's funny and sweet.  Oh, I like her.  Cool.
So I'm all set to go pick up this crib this afternoon. 
While I'm at it, I find these two dressers, that have a little hutch over the top of each of them.  And they're white, like the crib.
Not only are the dressers cool, but they're advertised for $20 each or $35 for both.  Sweet!!
So I email the seller.  She sucks at email.  Doesn't get back to me forever.  One line answer that leaves me needing to ask the question again.  But I want her merchandise, so I put up with her.
Today, she emails me and says "Hi, I've had so much interest in the dressers that I have increased the price to $30 each."
I'm sorry, WHAT?  You mean you priced your item too low like an asshole and somehow that's my fault?  No Bitch, you advertised your product at a specific price.  It's not my fault you weren't asking enough.  You just don't get to do that.
::Sigh::: But I want the freaking dressers, so I email her back with an offer of $50 for both.
Yeah, no dice.  Apparently her milkshake brings all the dresser buyers to her yard, and she already has two people coming to look, so she can get away with being a douche bag.  Oh how I hate her.
Husband says "flag her and report her to Craigslist".  Yup, that'll show her honey. 
No, I want to drive to her house, knock on her door, punch her in the fucking mouth the moment she opens the door, and walk away tossing a crumpled up print out of her Craigslist ad on her unconscious form as I go.  But this isn't something a mentally stable person would do.  So I flagged her ad.  Twice.  And deleted her emails.  Hmph, take that!  Bitch.