Kevin’s upcoming Halloween party required a costume.
It needed to be Clever. Creative. Comical. Quirky. Cheap. Mostly, it needed to rival our reputation for being different.
One year I wore a column around my neck, with two deer emerging from my cleavage, a red ribbon on my lips, and purple hair as I represented the LITERAL description of “The Ideal Woman” from the Song of Solomon.
For her middle school party, Kacey disguised herself as a sofa table, complete with a lampshade on her head. Party-goers bumped into her, thinking she was actual furniture.
ME: “So, Kev, what’s your costume gonna be for this shindig?”
KEV: “I dunno. Maybe I’ll go as a telephone pole.”
ME: “You COULD go as a tree.”
KEV: “A tree? That’s so boring, mom…(long pause)…I think I’ll go as a log.”
Because that’s SO much more interesting than a tree.
Six pieces of poster board, a roll of woodgrain contact paper, and some black mesh garnered him a prize for “scariest costume”… not because the costume itself was creepy, but because the brain that produced the idea to dress up as a LOG is, apparently, pretty darn frightening.
I told him he should put a nametag on his log costume that read, “Hello, my name is Lincoln.” Then I laughed my silly head off.
Kevin, however, doesn’t appreciate my humor.
When the kids and I go for sushi, we order several of our favorite rolls loaded with things like raw tuna, eel, tobiko, masago, wasabi, and the likes. Besides Kevin’s aversion to all things avocado, we love every oversized bite, and are happy to eat it exactly as the chef creates it. Low maintenance, right?
Server: “You don’t want ice in your ice water?”
I was trying on a pair of strappy ankle boots the other day, which, of course, I will never buy because of the whole, you know, “legs like tree trunks” thing. Anyway, as I was trying them on, pretending to be tall and graceful, it occurred to me:
And…there we go.
“I don’t need this stuff…I don’t need anything except this ashtray. That’s it. And this paddle game. The ashtray and the paddle game and that’s all I need. And this remote control. The ashtray, the paddle game and the remote control, and that’s all I need. And these matches. The ashtray, and these matches, and the remote control and the paddle game. And this lamp. The ashtray, this paddle game and the remote control and the lamp and that’s all I need. I don’t need one other thing, not one – I need this! And this! And that’s all I need. The ashtray, the remote control, the paddle game, this magazine and the chair.”
of my adult life wanting and wishing I had more; a bigger house, nicer car, more shoes, and an endless supply of essential throw pillows. 
7:57 – Finish make-up. Change dirty top to coral one. Throw aqua one on floor. Think coral is too orangey and looks too Halloweenie with black pants. Change to aqua striped top. Throw coral one on the floor. Stripes make me feel fat today. Who am I kidding? Stripes make me feel fatt-er today. Change to gray top. Throw stripey one on floor. Gray top requires a bra change. Throw first bra on floor. Top off with silver earrings and necklace.
8:15 – Curse humidity, blow dry some more, contemplate chopping hair off.
8:36 – Calculate lateness. While doing mental math, space out and miss parkway entrance. Forced now to take longer route through town.
8:49 – Pull into parking lot. Ridiculously late. I blame the toddler. And the cowboy. And the mouse. And the humidity. And the sneeze. And the full moon.
I have a pair of stuffed animal racoons from high school days dubbed “Smokey” and “Bandit”.
For her 4th birthday my daughter received her first Barbie. She could have named her Buffy or Ariel or Jessica, but instead, she chose the prettiest name she knew: LEONARD.
But of all the weirdly-named things in our little world, my favorite was Kevin’s first Beanie Baby. It was a lobster, which, as a preschooler, he pronounced “lomster” and christened it with the biggest word in his little vocabulary: APPARENTLY.
I experienced a brief wave of panic this afternoon as I was brushing my teeth. Midway through the process, the battery in my Sonicare toothbrush DIED.
Myers-Briggs classifies me as an 
I am at my best when: my surroundings are clean and uncluttered. (I know what Einstein said about messy desks, but my inner minimalist NEEDS things neat and orderly and at nice right angles lest she feel completely out of control.)
And I want one. Like 250-square-feet of luxurious TINY. Seriously, I do. Minimalist Me gets lost in the idea of simplicity. (“Minimalist Me” is not to be confused with “Minimal Me” who got lost in Lane Bryant years ago.) 
No room for superfluous baskets collecting laundry we don’t really even need for another 3 weeks. No spacious countertops serving as gathering places for dirty dishes and receipts and junk mail and “to do” lists that never get “to done”.
Should Forest Whitaker and Jared Leto decide to break in during the middle of the night, is the apartment-sized refrigerator capable of doubling as a tiny Panic Room?
And my last question is, when I light a candle for ambiance, or to mask the effects of the aforementioned baked beans, how long can we survive in the enclosed tiny space before the candle flame reduces the oxygen level to a deadly 19.5%?
Crunchy moms are women who make their own soap and wear hand-made calico peasant skirts and raise chickens. They grow mushrooms in their compost pile, hug trees, go braless, and eat organic kale chips for breakfast. They bravely venture out in public without makeup, and clean their houses – and their bodies – with nothing but baking soda and vinegar. They are green, eco-friendly, natural-minded, family-oriented granola eaters. Hence the term “Crunchy Mom”.
en I had to go outside to lick the bottom of the lawn mower to make sure they weren’t the same thing. The verdict is still out on that. And thanks to Saturday Night Live character, Mary-Katherine Gallagher, the thought of tree-hugging kinda freaks me out.
she said 
You must be logged in to post a comment.