Sometimes, I Trip

I am going to take this opportunity to say that this past weekend, I was not the nicest person in the world. I tried, really I did. But due to circumstances that were a little bit out of my control, the niceness success rate was not quite 100%. It wasn't that I didn't try to suck it up and put on a smile, it's just that it all seemed so, well, pointless and unpleasant. Like trying to convince yourself that eating the fat free salad dressing isn't really that bad and that the bitter metallic taste isn't really that noticeable even though you know damn well that the full fat salad dressing isn't going to kill you, so what's the point of pretending that you like the fat free kind?

Okay, that was random.

So like I said, there isn't just one reason for my edginess, but rather a combination, an amalgamation if you will, of many different types of sticks to my eye.

Maybe it's because my week started out with a sick kid. Like, a freakishly-high-fever-three-nights-in-a-row, oh-look-she-has-pneumonia, now-she's-home-from-school-for-4 1/2-days sick kid.

Maybe it's because after being loyal to the same piano teacher for the past nine years and always delivering her check at the first lesson of the month, she was unwilling to compromise with me regarding her cancellation policy, even though I had a kid at home with a 104 fever.

Maybe it's because Doug got a chest cold and I ended up with the same chest cold and strep throat, just in time for the weekend.

Maybe it's because throughout the entire weekend, people still wanted me to make food for them (without touching it too much or coughing on it) and the only meal that was considered take-out was the single-serving cheese pizza that I bought for Zoe while we waited for my prescription at Target.

Maybe it's because my attempt at taking a ten-minute nap on Saturday before I drove Zoe to a birthday party was interrupted by a boy saying "Hey there's something wrong with my Xbox Live account, can you come fix it before you leave?"

After quickly glancing at the back of my throat while sitting at a stoplight and seeing what appeared to be a couple red ping pong balls with white polka dots, I decided that a visit to urgent care on my way home from the birthday party would be a good idea. Zoe thought that this was the perfect time to embark on a pain-in-the-ass marathon, touching everything in sight, failing to follow even the simplest directions, begging for 22,000 items in Target, and giving me a look that says "I'm going to do whatever the hell I want to do because you probably won't beat me in public." This super-pleasant two hours, followed up with a difficult bedtime, might have had something to do with my mood on Saturday evening.

It could even be that after waking up with a fever on Sunday morning, I fed the dog, got the paper, emptied the dishwasher, started laundry and made chili...while the rest of my family slept in.

Maybe it's because there's an elaborate board game that's been sitting out, taking up the entire surface of our wet bar, since November, and even though I've asked, on numerous occasions, that it be picked up and put away, it has continued to sit there. So when the oldest kid finds me coughing and sprawled out on my bed and says "Hey, should I pick that game up today?" and I say something like well, gee, I've only been asking for it to be picked up for the last month or so, so yes, picking it up today might be a good idea and then he says "Wow, sorry I asked. What's the big deal," it may not put me in the best frame of mind and/or make me leap around the room in jubilation.

Or maybe it's because when I quietly snuck upstairs in an attempt to take a nap on Sunday afternoon (between loads of laundry), I was immediately woke up with the pressing question of "Hey mom, can I have a juice box?"

So like I said before, I know there were times this weekend that I wasn't the nicest person and honestly, all I can say is...oops.

Musical Memories

At one of the boys' recent piano recitals, we had to listen to another student play "The Entertainer." And unfortunately we weren't subjected to just the first and second sections, but it went back to the first, then the third, then the interlude, and then the fourth section, with repeats, and it just wouldn't end. And although we've had to sit through more than our fair share of excessively long recital pieces played by complete strangers, I'm pretty sure that sitting through "The Entertainer" can be found within the definition of cruel and unusual punishment.

The first time Zach ever said "Uuuugh, great, The Entertainer. Because, ya know, no one's ever heard that song before" I was kind of annoyed since, after all, that's my line. It seems like every kid (including me) at some point during their piano education is forced to learn this Joplin ragtime classic. All kids except mine, that is, because after I was asked to play this song no fewer than 2,783,824 times as a child, I'm pretty sure I would bolt out the front door and scream while running down the street if I heard that opening sequence of D-E-C A-B-G.

Seriously, every time I hear that song, I have flashbacks of hearing the dreaded "Hey Jody, head on down to the basement and play 'The Entertainer'." I would have gladly played something else, but my parents' friends always wanted to hear "The Entertainer," I suppose because it was familiar.

And while hearing "The Entertainer" happens to trigger the Pavlovian effect of sweaty palms, instant deafness and feelings of dread (I know this for a fact because yesterday while I was at Target, I heard the all too familiar first six notes being played on one of the demo keyboards and my palms started to sweat -- from four aisles away), there are several other songs that also trigger memories from my past:

"King of the Road" ... Roger Miller I was about six years old and had figured out how to use a turntable, but unfortunately didn't own any albums of my own. After finding this fine song buried in my parents' albums I listened to it over and over, and over again until I had the entire thing memorized. Unfortunately for everyone, there was no lip syncing and instead I sang at the top of my lungs while throwing in a finger snap here and there. What's amazing to me is that I distinctly remember singing this song and dancing around, but I've managed to forget about the part where my brothers are laughing at me, and most likely calling me a moron.

"Daddy Sang Bass" ... Oak Ridge Boys I don't think there was ever a time that I didn't hear this song while riding in the back of my dad's car. And every time it was on, one of my parents would say "Wow, would you listen to that bass! He can sing so low! That's really something." and I would think well, yeah, it's a song about a guy singing bass, and I think I've heard this song before. Like, yesterday.

"Another One Bites the Dust" ... Queen Ah, the days of roller skating. The carpeted walls, the bruised knees, the fact that I completely sucked so I never had skates of my own and always wore rentals. Shoot the duck!

"Everybody Wants to Rule the World" ... Tears for Fears Remember when cable TV came to your town and you were finally able to see what MTV was all about? And MTV, at that point, actually aired music videos but they only had, like, 36 minutes of programming that they'd air over and over again? Well, this song/video was in that 36 minutes and every time I hear it I think back to sitting in basement rec rooms.

"Xanadu"... Olivia Newton John One of the funniest karaoke duets I've ever seen, which made it totally worth lying about my birthdate to get into that bar.

"Sharp Dressed Man" ... ZZ Top I was lucky enough to have older brothers that didn't mind driving me around. They would bring me to gymnastics, let me hang out with their friends and even hauled me to a few parties. And they played their music LOUD while I sat in the seatbelt-less backseat, sliding back and forth on the red vinyl with every erratically taken left and right turn, singing "Every girl's crazy 'bout her sharp. Dressed. Man." Loud.

"Life's Been Good" ... Joe Walsh Lazy summer days during high school in Mark's backyard, playing volleyball, swimming in the pool, sitting in the hot tub, riding Waverunners, drinking umm...stuff.

"Careless Whispers" ... Wham! Easily the most awkward junior high dance to ever take place in the history of junior high dances.

"Rock and a Hard Place" ... Rolling Stones A guy asked me to go to this concert when I was a junior in high school and thinking that she'd for sure say no, I asked my mom if I could go. When she said yes, fine, go and have fun, she instantly became one of the coolest moms ever.

"Pour Some Sugar on Me" ... Def Leppard High school sports, specifically softball.

"Pictures of You" ... The Cure When Doug and I were first dating, it was an inevitability that at some point during the evening, we would hear this song.

"Dancing With Myself" ... Billy Idol And then there were the dates with Doug that we would drink a little, eat an entire bag of Cool Ranch Doritos, play a little Nerf basketball, and then dance around like idiots to Billy Idol.

"Kickstart My Heart" ... Motley Crue The concert in which my brother's (now ex-) girlfriend discovered that it's very risky to drink a wine cooler in the front seat of a car, especially when the driver decides to slam on the brakes, causing said wine cooler to spray all over the inside of the windshield and rendering it undrinkable. She also discovered that after heat is applied to the windshield, that shit isn't ever coming off, not even by licking it.

"Janie's Got a Gun" ... Aerosmith When you ask someone at a party if they want some Chex Mix and you are the one holding the ginormous bowl of Chex Mix, make sure that when they say "yes, I do" that they actually take a handful rather than what Steve did which was hit the bottom of the bowl as hard as he could, which caused the Chex Mix to rain down over a one-block area.

"You Shook Me All Night Long" ... AC/DC Two words: dancing baby. And in this case, the baby was Zach.

"Angel" ... Aerosmith Driving home after euthanizing our beagle, Baxter.

"You Are My Sunshine" ... various artists, but my favorite is Norman Blake This is the first song that Charlie learned how to sing. He used to sing it to Zoe when she was a baby.

"Ring of Fire" ... Johnny Cash Never again will I ever be able to hear this song without thinking about science projects. And what sucks the most is that my kid will always associate Johnny Cash with a school year that I'm pretty sure he's still recovering from. Seriously, this song came on while we were at a Twins game and he had to get up and leave our seats.

"Just the Way You Are" ... Bruno Mars So, Doug and I are driving somewhere together and this song comes on. I say wow, these lyrics are so familiar because you say the same things to me all the time. He's like what the hell are you talking about woman? This song sucks. I say no, no, just listen. You'll know what I mean.

• "Her hair, her hair falls perfectly without her trying." Of course he laughs because at the moment, my hair is in a ponytail.
• "When I see your face there's not a thing that I would change" which just induces more laughter, because unless he's blind, he can see that there's a giant zit trying to burst forth on my chin.
• "Her nails, her nails I could kiss them all day if she'd let me." I'm sure he would kiss them, if he wanted to risk cutting his lip on one of my super hot hangnails, jagged edges and overgrown cuticles.
• "Her laugh, her laugh she hates but I think it's so sexy." Ah yes, the laugh. The donkey meets hyperventilating clown meets megaphone meets occasional snorter meets rabid hyena meets girl. Sooo sexy.

At least the song finally came to an end so that he could stop laughing, catch his breath and focus on his driving. But from now on, every time I hear the delusional and cheesy lyrics of that stupid song, I'll have to pull over because it's hard to drive when you laugh like a donkey/clown/ megaphone/snorting/hyena-girl.

The Coveted Notebook

Now that Zoe is six, Monday night piano lessons have been added to her schedule. Surprisingly enough, she was really nervous for her first lesson because, as she put it, "I can't play those long songs with all those notes all crazy and stuff like the brothers can." I wanted to tell her that it's really okay because that one song that Zach is playing right now? Well, let me just tell you that I really, truly, honestly despise that song, but since I have to be a supportive parent all I can say every time I hear it is "that sounds nice, dear." But as soon as he is done with this piece of music that sounds like nothing but cacophony, that sheet music will be known as kindling before either of my other kids has a chance to play even one measure of it.

Since she was nervous, I made sure that she was completely prepared for her first lesson. Cute bag (aka repurposed dance bag), new piano books (aka new workbook, two-times-hand-me-down lesson book) and a new box of crayons for the workbook -- check, check and check. And after seeing that the piano lessons required new things and finding out that they would cost money, her excitement level ratcheted up a few notches.

At the end of the first lesson, everything seemed to have went smoothly, her nerves had disappeared and she was genuinely excited for the following week. That's when her teacher said "Zoe, where is your lesson notebook so that I can write down what you need to practice?" DAMMIT! A notebook! The boys have been hauling a lesson notebook for the last nine years, HOW COULD I FORGET THE NOTEBOOK?

As soon as we got home, I immediately started searching for a suitable notebook. Since I love browsing through office supply stores, small notebooks and pens tend to accumulate in my house so I knew I would find at least one. And that's when I spied it: medium size, covered in multicolored daisies, with a translucent plastic laminate cover. I hated to part with it, but I knew that Zoe would love it.

Just as I was about to stick it in her polka-dot piano bag, I looked at the front of the notebook and noticed something stuck to the first page, under the laminate cover. Upon closer inspection, I realized that this notebook would never work.

For those of you that are fans of The Mean Mom on Facebook, you know (or maybe you don't) that the kick ass cross-stitched Mean Mom profile picture was created by an amazing girl, aka Stitch Out Loud, and given to me as a birthday gift from my husband. Well, when I received the gift, there was a sticker attached to the packaging that I loved so much that I stuck it inside a notebook. My favorite daisy-covered, plastic laminate notebook:

Sorry, Zoe, but I guess you're just going to have to use a plain black spiral notebook for now. However, if you promise me that you'll never, ever play "Toccata" from Khachaturian's Children's Album, Book 2, well, then maybe someday I'll buy you your very own daisy-covered notebook. But your's won't have a special sticker.

To get your own pieces of cross stitched greatness, look no further than here:

ST!#CH OUT LOUD

SENDING AWESOMENESS AND OBSCENITIES INTO THE WORLD ONE STITCH AT A TIME.

Impressive, No. Loud and Obnoxious, Yes.

On Sunday, Zach and I headed downtown Minneapolis for yet another piano recital. Since the boys do several recitals every year, they're not really that big of a deal anymore and are actually more of a nuisance since they're always scheduled in the middle of the day on Sundays. This particular recital was more annoying than most because since the other performers made their grandparents and third cousins attend, the room was filled to capacity resulting in a standing-room-only situation. Zach eventually got a seat, but I ended up standing next to a woman that reeked of Indian food. I hate Indian food.

One thing that got me through this hour-and-a-half of mouth-breathing was knowing that I was grilling steaks for dinner. Unfortunately, I also knew that I had to stop at the grocery store after the recital to buy these steaks, which meant that Zach had to come with me. Imagine my surprise, then, when the shopping experience did not consist of him following me around the store, sighing loudly at every opportunity and complaining about it taking too long. In fact, we actually had a great time together because we made fun of everyone else.

The grocery store we stopped at is located in a suburb that I'm not exactly sure how to describe, so I'll just call it "Home of the Dickheads and Overpopulated With Assholes and Bitches." You're probably wondering why I bothered to subject myself to such a pretentious shopping experience, and the answer is: the ribeyes were on sale.

While we were waiting in line at the deli, a woman whose hair was 19 different shades of blonde, had a purse so big that it wouldn't have qualified as carry-on baggage and was apparently incapable of removing her ginormous sunglasses while indoors wandered up and waited behind me. When the deli lady asked her if she needed help, she hollered "Why yes, I do! Thank you sweetheart!" and then for some reason she started laughing like a hyena. Zach looked at me like "holy crap did you hear that what in the hell is wrong with this woman" and I gave him the exact same look. She then proceeded to tell the deli lady that she wanted turkey, but not just any old turkey. She wanted something different and amazing. Something that was really unique and had some zing. No shit. She used all of these adjectives for turkey. She then proceeded to shout at the deli lady, calling her girlfriend, honey, sistah and then sweetheart one more time before she finally wandered toward the floral section.

A couple minutes later, we saw another woman (also with her sunglasses on) that was talking REALLY LOUDLY TO HER TWO DAUGHTERS TELLING THEM THAT THEY WERE MAKING SPECTACULAR CHOICES IN THE CRACKER AISLE AND OH MY STARS THOSE CRACKERS LOOK DELISH WOW MY LITTLE DARLINGS ARE AMAZING! Again, Zach looked at me and actually said "Holy crap, is everyone at this store insane? I hate it when people talk so loud and fake and stuck-up. They don't look cool, they look stupid." So there you have it, loud stuck-up bitches: teenage boys think you look, and sound, like morons.

Now, I could have taken the mature route and told my kid to just ignore them and be nice because gee whiz, everyone has their own insecurities and mannerisms and some people need more attention than others, but that wouldn't have been very fun. So instead Zach and I wandered through the store, shouting at each other. In produce I shouted "Ooooh yummy! Smell the delectable ripeness of these pears Zach! They smell amazing and scrumptious!" In the condiment aisle, Zach yelled "Wow! That ketchup is so red! It's spectacular!" In the bakery I hollered "Wow! These hot dog buns are so soft and fresh! I bet they're delightful!"

While I was shouting about some chips and turning into an aisle, I had to stop because the cracker lady was standing in my way, loudly reciting the entire inventory of the olive oil shelf. She was so impressed by the sound of her own voice that she didn't hear me say "excuse me" twice. Finally she noticed me and said "Oh. I'm in the way aren't I. Where did everyone go? I need to go find my Jessica. JESSICA!" Then Zach said "I think if I go lay down over there, block the entire aisle and shout at the ceiling, I'd be less annoying than that woman."

I'm proud of the fact that my kids get good grades and put a lot of effort into their sports and music. Of course they piss me off sometimes, but when they display great instincts and are able to identify the morons of the world with such precision, these are the moments that tell me yeah, I really am doing something right.

Yes, They Practice

When people find out that Zach and Charlie take piano lessons, one of the first questions they ask is, "How old were they when they started lessons," and then they always ask, "How do you get them to practice?" Zach started lessons when he was four, Charlie was six, Zoe will start this fall and as far as practicing, it depends on the day.

Thanks to the monotony of Monday through Friday I never have to remind them to practice during the week because it's something that has become as automatic as brushing their teeth or being a smart ass. But any time there is a change to our schedule, like a day off from school or a weekend, I usually have to remind at least one of them that the piano isn't in our house for decorative purposes.

Did their practicing schedule fall into place the instant they started lessons? No way. After the initial excitement wore off, they discovered that learning how to play the piano is hard. It took at least three or four years before they actually wanted to practice and wanted to get better without being reminded by me, in a very loud voice, to put their ass on the piano bench five times a week.

Fortunately for me, the boys are both really competitive and don't like to publicly suck at the things that they have put time into. They've both seen other students show up at recitals unprepared and have watched them cry on stage, make huge errors, and sometimes even forget how to play their song. Neither of them ever wants to go through this embarrassing experience and they know that the only way to be prepared is to practice.

Since I took several years of piano lessons while growing up and still try to play when I have time, I think that a big motivator for them is that they want to be better than me. After all, they can kick my ass at tennis, they're better at video games than me, so eventually being able to play more difficult piano pieces is bound to happen. I figured since Zach's been taking lessons for about 10 years, I still have a slight advantage over him. And then I took a look at what he's currently learning:

Hmm...maybe I'll start encouraging him to not practice and I should be putting my ass on that piano bench more often.

P.S. Happy birthday, dad. Thanks for paying for all my piano lessons.