don't mess with the mountaineer

in college, a friend of a friend did mascot duty. the rumor was that there was an intense audition process in order to play the part of otto the orange during football and basketball games at good old syracuse (YAY!). 'otto' was a big fluffy orange that did lots of silly tricks during commercial breaks and after touchdowns. sometimes, otto even got put into random stunts with the cheerleaders. the big orange also did this thing that was sometimes referred to as the 'otto bounce.' it involved tucking the knees into the bottom of the ginormous orange costume so it basically looked like otto was an orange with just feet and no legs. then, otto would bounce. HIGHlarious, but you probably had to be there. and of course, lets not forget the obligatory 'fight' that otto was supposed to have with the opposing team's mascot at some point during the event. this ranged from angry finger pointing, to mock boxing and everything in between. sooo anyway, this friend was pulling mascot duty as otto at west virginia during a football game and was preparing to get involved in THE FIGHT. apparently, the west virginia mountaineer was pissed that he had to dress up like davy crockett and was TOTALLY jealous of otto's bangin' ball of fluff because the mountaineer body-slammed said friend of a friend, and broke his leg. don't mess with the mountaineer, or your femur may end up broken.

ikea

i have this very odd shopping habit. it reared its ugly head during a trip to new england's one and only ikea store last weekend. i'll discuss ikea (aka my new lover) in a bit, but first this habit thing.
i believe that this springs from my inability to make decisions on occasion, or lots of occasions, depends on the weather. i'll see something i like a lot, pick it up, carry it around and then PUT IT BACK. maybe its a psychological thing where if i have it in my possession long enough, then i get sick of it and don't like it anymore. most often, i find myself doing this with clothing, but in ikea it was with a duvet set. i had been pining over said duvet set online for a while and had decided to buy it. so, i found it, picked it up and put it in my ginormous blue bag that ikea provides and walked around for a good 45 minutes before making my way back to the bedding section and depositing it back on the shelf. now, i'm thankful that i saved $40, but, i fear that this inability to commit to even the simplest of purchases is a sign of something larger. who the hell knows? maybe i'm just a dork.

onto ikea. despite the fact that its kind of in the middle of nowheresville, i heart it. granted, some of the furniture strikes me as way too jetsons-esque, but i cannot get past the idea that you can buy glasses for fifty cents a piece. thats cheaper than goodwill and its brand new. i don't love the idea of yet another block of cement taking up space in the wilderness, but i guess my 'hippie at heart' nature can deal when it comes to cool, cheap furniture. no more bob's discount pit for me. we're moving up in the world.

the first

for those of you who know me even remotely well, you know what i do for a living. for those of you who don't, i'm a 'nanny'. my job description should be 'take care of children.' instead, it has grown to encompass the following; dog walker, food cooker, grocery shopper, laundry folder, errand runner, chauffeur, do-er of dishes, schedule maker, the list goes on and on. the ad i answered in the paper two years ago should have gone something like this:

WANTED: someone to do all of the things we don't want to do, oh and by the way, take care of our kids while you're at it.

some people dream of having their own office in the corner of the building, i'd settle for the corner of a cubicle right now. hell, you can put me in the hallway if it means i don't have to hook the damned carseat into my car one more time.
don't get me wrong, there has been a lot of good that has come along with this job. the best perk by far has been the OUTRAGEOUS stories that revolve around this family unit. i seriously could not make this shit up. for instance, there is a grandmother from nyc, lets refer to her as MM, who comes to visit every so often and usually i end up carting her around at least once during her sojourns north. her most favorite thing to do is go to target. i think it makes her feel closer to the common man. i adore target as well, but not when MM is along. the best trip was last fall when she had her all black, all spandex outfit on, with the enormous chanel sunglasses, huge marc jacobs bag AND baby blue crocs. lets not forget about the baby blue pashmina that topped it all off and the perfectly coiffed hair that took half a lifetime to perfect while buckaroo and i sat in the car listening to raffi sing his version of 'yellow submarine.'
once we were in target, the fun really started. we were there to find dumb things like hairspray and toothbrushes but MM just could not make it more than 7 feet without finding something that she deemed "divine." i like target and all. i would even go so far as to say that i somewhere between 'more than like' and 'love' target, kind of like the guy you were 'seeing' in high school. i would not however, call anything i find at target 'divine.' but i digress.
we were just about to pass the underthings section of target when MM spotted bras that just needed to be talked about. she went on to wax poetic about how fabulous this certain bra was and blah blah blah. i remember nothing that she said except for "look, its just like the one i'm wearing right now." she then proceded to LIFT UP HER SHIRT AND SHOW ME HER BRA AND HER 60SOMETHING YEAR OLD BOOBS! what do you do? its like those books from grade school, choose your own adventure or something stupid like that. what choice do you make? do you a) tell crazy to put her shirt back on, that this is new england, not a nudist colony, b) laugh in her face or c) nod and smile and make a mental note to remember this for your memoirs. i just smiled and said "look MM, there are the fake uggs you wanted to look at." her reply, "oh lo darling, you're just too divine."

funny little kid story of the day:
i took the family dog to the green mountains last weekend while my employers were on vacation in jamaica (more on that later). said dog had a great time except for being violated by my cousin's dog who happens to be unfixed. it was a truly funny scene to watch poor girl dog drag her butt on the ground so as to avoid unwanted advances from horny boy dog. sooo, i was relaying this story to dog's owner today and my favorite 6 year old, lets call him buckaroo, says to me "what does violate mean, is that something grownups do to each other?"