This week, in the mind of Amanda Hill . .
(1) I’m always left scratching my head when advertising slogans are in quotes. They jump out at me on billboards or on the backs of the trucks. “Real country cookin,” one reads. “We’ll be there when you need us,” says another. Who is saying these things? Is it similar to air quotes, where you say one thing but mean another? If that’s the case, don’t plan your day waiting on those losers. They’ll come to fix your leaking toilet between 8 am and whenever they can pry themselves away from Denny’s all-you-can-eat pancakes. That are “made fresh.” Eeeugh.
(2) I am struck by the lack of random acts of kindness I perform on a daily basis. I should pay for people’s groceries behind me in the check-out line. I could stand to wait more, compliment more freely, and act more selflessly. I think I’ll start by not screaming at my two-year-old for dumping an entire container of blueberries on the kitchen floor. I’ll just pick them up, some half-smashed into the bottom of my shoe and others staining our travertine tile, and simply say “there you go, buddy. This act is for you. Don’t gripe the next time the door slams into your face, K? How many of these do you think I can do in a day?”
(3) Why LOL? Why not SFF (so freaking funny) or TAGO (that’s a good one) or just DTWA (dang that was awesome)? These are at least more accurate. Rarely does a friend’s facebook update on health care reform cause you to cackle uncontrollably until your eyes begin to water. Unless you are friends with David Sedaris, in which case you have my full permission to use LOL. Or SFIWMPA (so funny I wet my pants again). But then you’d forget all those letters.
(4) I roasted some butternut squash in little cubes and then put them in ziplock bags for my kids to munch on during a two-hour car trip. I really don’t know what happened to me. For a moment, my mind went blank and I forgot what it was like being a mother at all. My kids just looked at the bags like I was handing them chunks of poison-laden concrete. “Uh, do we not have Cheese Nips?” my daughter asked. Of course we do. I’m not sure where that even came from. I looked down at that alien squash and shook my head in disgust. You are dead to me. Pass the oreos.
(5) My daughter likes Martinelli Apple Juice in a glass bottle. When we drive through the coffee place by our house, she insists on me asking for award-winning apple juice, like they might make an error and hand her the off-brand swill.
(6) Speaking of my daughter, we were on our way to the pool when she was having a conversation with herself. “Who ya talking to?” I asked. “My feet families,” she said. She wiggled her toes as if all the people were waiving at me. Each toe had a name, and each foot was a family that occasionally got together with the other foot for trips and such. I hope they like each other since they live so close. I wonder if other children act this way.
(7) I was in a rush the other day, and plucked my shoe-less two-year-old out of the car and plunked him into the grocery cart because I was too lazy to find a matching croc. But one item led to several, as grocery store trips go, and suddenly I had an urge to pee. I’m trying to hold a wrangling and twisting two-year-old in my lap while using the restroom, but it was impossible. I tell him to stand over to the side where people’s shoes probably didn’t touch as often, not moving from that one place, because at least that minimized the germs his feet would be exposed to. This is the actual logic that went through my head. I have no idea how I made it through law school.
(8) I sucked on my son’s pacifier to clean it the other day because I thought “I’d wash off the bad germs from the floorboard by putting it in my dirty mouth that hasn’t been cleaned properly since the Listerine wash at 9 pm the night before.” That’s me reasoning to myself, in case the quotes threw you. And we all know from (7) above how excellent I am with reasoning. TAGO.
(9) I did one of those online tests to see how many books I’ve read of the 100 best books of the world, and I was hovering somewhere around the pitifully-low national average. I have a feeling I’m going on an Amazon bender. Mark Twain and Nabokov. Steinbeck and Woolf. I’m cracking open book covers not because I really want to, but because I’ll beat that other stay-at-home mom who has read more classics than I have. I’ll show the world how smart I am. I’ll make squash nuggets for long summer car trips and carry shoe-less toddlers into germ-infested bathrooms.
Oh, wait. . .
