Please, say it like I'm an English as a Second Language six year old with Fetal Alchohol Syndrome.

A recent TV commercial sends my eye into an eye-twitching frenzy every time it comes on the TV and I had to say something about it, because holy cow, I'm getting tired of the media talking to me in pretty little words like I'm sitting here in a helmet with a credit card in my hand.

The Corn Refiners Association is trying to tell us that high-fructose corn syrup is a natural, and non-harmful food additive, and is counting on you not knowing your fat ass from your fat elbow.

The commercial starts with two women at a party, one of whom is pouring a bright red beverage into a glass. The other one says, “Woooow, you don’t care what the kids eat, huh?” and the other one smiles and says, “Excuse me?”.

Did a man write this script? “You don’t care what the kids eat, huh” is enough to get you stabbed at any mommy gathering. I don’t care who you are.

What the fu- ? Who the f- ? DIE, BITCH! (gurgle), would be a more appropriate response.

When the should-have-been-iced mom is asked what’s wrong with high-fructose corn syrup, she starts stuttering, can’t come up with an answer, and talks about the other mom’s shirt.

Here’s your answer, dumbass.

High fructose corn syrup is NOT natural. Yes, it comes from corn. Gin comes from juniper berries, but I’m not about to start drinking it instead of water.

High fructose corn syrup is corn syrup that is PROCESSED by the addition of enzymes (as in, not natural, try and stick with me) to raise the fructose content. Fructose is sugar. Like refined white sugar, which is sucrose, lactose, and fructose, and also not natural – refined, hello… Corn syrup on its own is mainly glucose, that is derived from corn in the form of a starch-gluten suspension, and is used commercially to extend foods’ shelf life. Large quantities of fructose stimulate the liver to produce triglycerides, promotes glycation of proteins and induces insulin resistance.

Manufacturers use it because it’s cheaper. Not because it’s a fantastic, natural thing that they want to share with you, or because they care that you can’t squeeze into your fat pants any more without a shoehorn.

Why avoid it? Because like any sugar, it makes you fat. But avoiding it means that you have to start reading labels, because high-fructose corn syrup is in everything from soda to ketchup. By checking labels and opting for real, natural foods instead of processed foods that contain high-fructose corn syrup or refined sugar, your diet and health improve, and the world is a better place.

However, now you should just avoid it because the Corn Refiners Association thinks you’re a fat, stupid moron who can’t think for yourself. Yes, you. If you don’t think they’re talking to you, come over here and let me smack you in your damn head.

Corn Refiners Association, I’m sorry that you put food on your own tables through your income from high-fructose corn syrup, but since you don't care about my health and think it's ok to shovel your bullshit at me, I'm not too worried about you. Time to go back to school and learn how to do something else.

Try Alaskan King Crab fishing, that looks lucrative.

Or public office. They’re taking anyone these days.

The Fruit of My Womb is Bananas

I received a magical compliment the other day from the Kid's teacher. She told me that she (the teacher) had accidentally dropped a container of paint on the classroom floor, and the paint spilled everywhere. Thirteen pairs of eyes stared at her, transfixed.

My child walked over to the sink and got some paper towels and started cleaning up.

Oh, how I love a child who likes to clean. Last weekend, she came home and was bothered by some fingerprints on the glass balcony doors, and asked for some Windex and a paper towel. Did I deny her? Certainly not.

She sprayed and wiped for a good half hour. I didn't have the heart to tell her that cleaning glass in direct sunlight with a generic spray cleaner is almost guaranteed to cause streaking. She seemed so happy.

She has her own "Malena towels" under the sink for spills, and my parents stare at her when she goes running for them to clean up a ring on the coffee table when they don't use a coaster.

One of her favorite toys as a baby was a vacuum cleaner, and her dad would roll his eyes as I cheerfully dusted, vacuumed, and Febreezed up a storm with Mini-Me and her Bubble Vac joyfully trailing behind me.

Today, she needed to bring something to school that started with the letter "D". I was stumped. Disease? Dystentery? Dialysis. Dementia. (I've been watching far too much House lately.) Decahedron. Duluth. I got nothin'.

D is for Darth Vader, dude.

You Can't Always Get What You Want. Unless You Ask for It.

In an earlier post, I expressed my misery over planning my kid's fourth birthday party. Our favorite park had party rental opportunities, but the cost was $700 for a 12-hour party, which is not at all appropriate for a child's birthday party.

I sent an email to the county-run park, requesting an adjusted fee.

The park ignored me.

The park wrote back a week and a half later, and said they'd get back to me.

I heard nothing.

I called to follow up, they said they sent paperwork through. I asked for names. I was directed to the director of the parks department.

I called the director of the parks department, using a former coworker in the county to get his direct number. He knew nothing. He directed me to the assistant director. The assistant director knew nothing.

I emailed the park back, noting said status, and included a sentence like "I'm still hopeful that we can make this happen". Drink my Koolaide, Parks Department. This is a team effort, here.

The park called back today. They are granting my adjusted fee, and creating a new fee schedule to be put into place on October 1st. Which, coincidentally, is Malena's birthday.

I have secretly renamed it The Malena Amendment.

Y'all Must Be Al Kaida.

From 2002 - 2006, I hated today. Around 2007, I stopped noticing. This year, I may even turn on the TV.

I hated photographs of the towers, because an image of two straight straight structures reaching into the skyline couldn't capture what it was like on the ground just after 9am. The image of the towers in their former state didn't help me remember the innocent days of looking up and using them as a compass. The images in my head that I really wanted to be in touch with are much different.

I remember walking around in a daze, as people covered in ash and blood wandered around me. I remember a woman on the Queens side of the 59th Street Bridge with tears streaming down her face, shoving a cop who was blocking all entry into Manhattan and running towards the other side, screaming. The thought that's been in my head for seven years is that I hope, with every fiber in my body, that she found whoever it was she was trying to get to. The image in my head that was the most nightmarish was the plume. It was so completely unreal, and so much a sign of our world coming to an end, and it was a large part of whatever it was that shut my brain off and just allowed me to walk the seven miles home without thinking. My daze lasted for three days. Another image in my head is noiselessly shuffling around downtown with my friends a few days afterwards, and seeing the countless faces of the missing up on walls, with phone numbers to call if you had any information. My heart breaking at that point was almost audible. The noise that was in my head for years was the sound of the bodies hitting the awnings with such frequency, and such a loud thud. The physical reaction that I remember most clearly was afterwards, when the first plane was permitted to fly over Manhattan again. My entire body choked up and froze as I heard the noise and looked up at the sky, ready to run.

I don't remember anything until 9/14, when the phones finally rang again, and my friend Trine, who had been trying to call from Copenhagen for three days, heard me say "hello" and uncharacteristically burst into tears. At that point, I woke up.

The political bullshit that followed didn't matter to me at the time. If you weren't there, I really didn't care what you thought. The "We'll Shove a Boot in Your Ass" song bothered me. I don't wear boots. You weren't there, so stop with the "we". Just shut it.

Today, seven years of bottled-up and Prozac-ed-down emotion came full circle for me. My daughter brought home a note from daycare that said "SHOW YOUR PATRIOTISM TODAY BY WEARING RED, WHITE, AND BLUE". My child does not have patriotism. She can't even figure out what a state is yet. I don't send her to school in a "Keep Congress Out of My Ovaries" tee-shirt, because it seems smarmy to make my kid walk around expressing my values in her clothing. However, if all the other kids (shudder) were wearing red, white and blue, I didn't want her to feel left out. On her bed, I laid out the bright pink dress she had chosen for herself, and a red and blue skirt with a white top, and asked her to choose. She chose pink. I asked her if she was sure. She said yes, and pulled the pink dress off the bed. She accessorized with a pink headband with a bow, and her new sneakers.

When we got to school, she walked next to me, twirling and skipping. A little girl in front of us with a navy blue skirt and white shirt and a red, white and blue bow in her hair stared at Malena with wide eyes. Her mother grasped her hand firmly and told the girl's brother, in a red, white and blue tie-dyed shirt, to hurry up. The little girl pointed to Malena, looked up at her mom, and said "Pink". Her mother stared straight ahead and pulled the kid's hand and told her to come on. Obviously, there had been a clothing battle in their house this morning. And in a clothing battle with a screechy three-year old, there are no real winners.

I stopped Malena and asked her, "If anyone asks you why you're not wearing red, white and blue today, what are you going to say?"

She smiled at me and said, "Pink makes me happy".

NO MORE MR. NICE GUY. Seriously. It's Making Me Nuts.

Oh, the men I've dated. It reads like a Who's Who of the wall at the post office.

Now that I'm old, I decided it may be a good time to grow up and date someone with "a job", and "a place to live", and "no outstanding warrants".

New Guy's favorite shirts have long sleeves and buttons. A recap of his workday is like a giant sedative. He always identifies himself by name when he calls. Because in case Caller ID isn't enough, he's never going to rudely just assume that I recognize his voice. I guess he doesn't realize that most of the people that I regularly talk to call me with a mouthful of cheese, and when I answer, cough out a muttered "S'me" by way of greeting, and then proceed to silently stare at their monitor and read their email.

New Guy is painstakingly polite. He jokingly refers to any movement in our relationship towards a commitment as "The Taming of the Shrew".

Ha.

Heh.

My reaction to any of the crap music he listens to is akin to holding a lighter over my head and screaming "FREEBIRD!" and then secretly tossing his gross CD's out the car window while he's trying to read road signs. He doesn't care. He saves everything in protected files on his computer.

I have an incredibly busy workday, and often have to hang up in a milisecond to answer a call, or a Skype message, or an email in flames. I end calls with a "GOTTA GO BYE!" and usually hang up on him as he's saying "Ok, we'll talk later... take care.... goodbye", except to me it sounds like "O-" (slam!). When I make decisions, they're ususally done triage-style. They're done in a split second, like someone is holding up flash cards in front of my face. YES! YES! NO! NEED MORE INFO! NO! NO! He needs to form a committee to form a committee to address coming to a decision. And then he talks about how he arrived at that desicion, what he felt while making the decision, the unexpected side effects of the process of making a decision, the ramifications of said decision, what other people noted about his decision, and the entire time, I'm throwing myself on the ground and bleeding out my eyes, screaming "WRAP IT UP!!".

Who needs to change? Do I need to stop running around in circles, screaming and smacking myself in the head, or does he need to grow a pair and yell back every once in a while? Or both? Or neither? (Or should I be on my knees thanking the Great Pumpkin that there's someone kind, loving, and patient out there willing to put up with my cantankerous personality?) (FYI, I'm going with a big no on that one.)

This yucky relationship stuff is so frikkin' tedious.

FREEBIRD!

Eye, caramba.

It isn't often that someone can out-crazy me. Even less likely that anyone can make me stutter. Total solar eclipses probably happen with greater frequency.

But the other day, I was running errands, and stopped off at the pharmacy to pick up a prescription. There was one person in front of me, and the five-minute wait was enough to send my kid into a bored fit of silliness. She climbed into a chair with a blood pressure cuff and pretended she was blasting off into space. Quite loudly. I pretended I didn't know her.

When I got up to the counter, the smiling pharmacist had eyes that went in different directions.

Oh,... ahh.... ok. I picked an eye and went with it.

Last name? Gave it to him.

Sign here - sure.

Any questions? No.

Well, if you do have questions, please call.... and he rattled off a number while trying to contain a giggle. I raised an eyebrow.

Has your doctor given you a sample of Clarinex? Uhh - yes? (How the hell did he know that?) Great!

I reach into my purse to pull out some cash, and am staring at a business card with a phone number printed in giant numbers across it... that's weird, it's the same number... he... just... rattled off...

I push aside a sample box of Clarinex I got at the doctor's office this morning to grab my wallet and my entire body froze -- I was looking at the wrong eye. I WAS LOOKING AT THE WRONG EYE!

HE'S GOT A GLASS FRIKKIN' EYE!

He knew I was trying to politely focus on his left eye to maintain eye contact instead of whipping my head back and forth from eye to eye, confusedly trying to figure out where the hell he's looking like I'm following the flight path of a drunken bumblebee, and I picked the wrong eye. So while I'm staring into a cold glass orb, he's peering down into my purse with his good eye and reading off the contents to fuck with me. At this point, he's just trying so hard not to burst out laughing.

He knows I know.

From behind me I hear "Ooh! Blah blah blah blah blaaaaah, blah blah blah blah blah". My child, who can't read, is sitting in the row of chairs behind me holding an upside-down Readers' Digest, and saying "blah blah" with a crazy excitedness.

Marty Feldman asks, "Is that your daughter?"

I turn back with a "Never seen her before in my life", and rip the bag out of his hand as he's still surpressing his giggles.

He calls out a "Have a nice day!" and it really takes all my gentility and ladylike reserve not to wing my prescription bottles at his forehead.

My kid sits contentedly as I turn to leave. I yell "Goodbye, rotten kid" as she comes running, and from behind the counter I hear the pharmacist yell back "Goodbye, lady!".

I - ... you... w-w-w-wha... errgh.

You... fa. Mmph.

B-b-b.... dammit.

I am currently planning my next visit.

It's the End of the World As We Know It

I went into fully panicked hurricane shopping at the supermarket today. I hadn't planned on it.

I was casually speaking to a coworker this afternoon -- a coworker, I might add, who normally has the demeanor of one of those forest fire firefighters (fire fire?) who jump into flames from a helicopter with an oxygen tank strapped to their back.

Said coworker said, "I'm a little nervous about this Hurricane Ike".

Mmm-hmm. I let that comment rumble about my brain for a bit, while I carried on with my day, picked up my kid, and decided to make a quick trip to the market for some milk and fruit. As I walked into the store, a TV near the customer service desk showed the governor of Florida saying something about an evacuation.

I let my face show no emotion. I slowly pushed my cart and my kid through the aisles, quietly picking up more groceries than I ever have in my life. Because in the back of my head, I know I have liquor, graham crackers, and cat food at my house, and I'm picturing myself banging on my neighbors' doors after the Apolcalypse, screaming "PLEASE! MY BABY IS HUNGRY!". Must. Be. A responsible. Parent.

On a side note, are the words "apocalypse" and "calypso" somehow related?

So there I am, trying to act casual, like Sean of the Dead walking amongst the zombies with my mouth hanging open and a dead look in my eye, because as soon as the other shoppers see me excitedly grabbing water and batteries, the whole store will go crazy, there's no bread left, and Jack's your uncle. Bob's your uncle? Someone's your uncle. I don't know. There's no bread.

I now have water. Batteries. (I don't know why I have batteries, I don't own a flashlight, and it's not like Comedy Central or A&E run on a 9-volt.) Canned fruit and vegetables. Tuna. Do you like tuna? Come over. I'm allergic to it. I don't know why I bought it. Again, the panic.

I get home. It takes me five trips from the car up the stairs into my condo. F-I-V-E. I painstakingly stack my groceries in my tiny suggestion of a pantry. If I use the space on top of the fridge, I can get it all in, and store all my bottled water. I stand back. I admire my work. I smack myself in the head.

If I ran a supermarket, I'd have the governor screaming about evacuations on a TV in the front of the store as well.

Stop by. We're having Vienna sausages and spaghetti-o's. For a really, really long time.

OH MISERY, THY NAME IS 4TH BIRTHDAY PARTY!

I had it all planned out.

I was going to have the Kid's 4th birthday party at our favorite park. It has a butterfly garden, and a huge deck and awesome party room, and really great trails. Free parking. And we haven't already been to 27 birthdays there. We actually haven't been to any birthdays there. It's virgin birthday party territory. (That sentence sounded better in my head.) It's the perfect location for anyone dreaming of a laid-back, kids-running-in-circles, rain or shine (hugely important during hurricane season), emphasis on nature, bring-your-own-healthy-food kind of place.

I called. They want $700 for 12 hours, and that's all they have. I shrieked. What 4-year old has a 12-hour birthday party? Yeah, well, that was my option.

So I searched. There was a museum option and an arts and crafts option, but the musem is far and has really crappy parking and they just give the kids chewy pizza and ice cream cake with no name on it. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BOY OR GIRL! After my diabetes rant, this seems slightly hypocritical. And everyone's been to the arts and crafts place. Most of the parks have outdoor pavilions, but those can be 96 degrees and at the first sign of rain in the morning, no one would show up. Which would suck.

I even sent an email to the county Parks Department, wondering out loud why they didn't actually serve the children they worked so hard to engage, what with their educational exhibits and butterfly garden and such.

The Parks Department said: (crickets chirping).

Blah, blah, blah, whine, whine, whine, the choice boiled down to Chuck E. Cheese, or Death.

Death, please.