How Procrastination Is Related to Productivity

I have this theory that you need to have a very special family tree in order to have productivity.

Mama Meditation secretly—or not so secretly—just wants to lie on the sofa in a plushy robe with coffee and a good book. Irish cream smoothes the coffee, the intense effort of reading coupled with the prone position might lead to downward fluttering of eyelids, and a nap ensues.

Each generation has to reject something about the previous generation, so one descendant of Mama Meditation is Brother Action.

This fellow figures that if it weren’t for the last minute a lot of things wouldn’t get done. There are so many things in line in front of that particular project that there’s no reason to feel guilty or unproductive. You’re not postponing, you’re prioritizing.

He has a fraternal twin, Sister Acquiescence, who helps put things on the list.

Their younger brother Justification has many reasons to explain why that particular project on the list can’t get going right now, but perhaps next quarter or before the end of the fiscal year if it’s actually still a priority by the time you get there.

Then there’s Cousin Adrenalin, your favorite visitor as you approach a deadline. In fact, sometimes you invite Cousin Adrenalin in a very special way: By first bringing in Aunt Procrastination, who in fact gives birth to Cousin Adrenalin just before or on the due date.  

This sometimes involves a little assisted reproduction, as it were—without Aunt Procrastination there would be no Cousin Adrenalin, and you’re the one who helps Aunt Procrastination get to those doctor’s appointments.

You know how families are. Once Aunt Procrastination and Cousin Adrenalin are invited to the party there’s no way Sister-in-Law Perfection dare show up, to everyone’s secret relief.

After all, when she’s there no one has a really good time. They’re all trying to be on their best behavior because she’s such a nag. And if Sister-in-Law Perfection isn’t there then Niece Productivity will show up.

Mama Meditation is everyone's favorite but they all know that if she were left in charge there would be no cake for dessert because she’d never even get around to cooking dinner.

If you have too much Action and Acquiescence they ramp up a lot of effort but sometimes create so much activity they can’t actually get things done in time.

No one wants to listen to Justification because they do want dinner.

So they rely on Adrenalin to carry the day yet again, thankful that with Procrastination around there’s no time for Perfection but they’ll get Productivity.

A talent for stating the obvious

I live with a house full of people who enjoy a good laugh, and who can fire off a quip that will leave us all in stitches—the kinds of things that make me laugh until I cry. Sometimes it’s a turn of phrase, sometimes it’s a reference to a line in a favorite movie that we all quote in sync, sometimes it’s an involved word-play pun thing requiring extensive inside knowledge of family stories.

When someone says the line, “You don’t know,” we all simultaneously cry out “You don’t know!”, hold our breath, and cover our heads with our arms. This, of course, is Guy Fleegman in that great classic film Galaxy Quest, when they land on the alien planet to get the beryllium sphere and Fred Kwan opens the hatch.

When someone refers to pain, we say, “Life IS pain, princess. Anyone who says differently is selling something”—from that other great classic filmPrincess Bride.

If it’s a discussion of money, someone is bound to say in a semi-strangled voice, “Give me the cash!” and do a little dance, like the guy who tries to hold up Korben Dallas in Fifth Element. Note that this is NOT the same thing as saying “Show me the money!” like Rod Tidwell in Jerry Maguire.

Perhaps my favorites, though, are the straight lines.

Scene 1:

Sweet Husband (pointing to new building in a neighborhood we drive through frequently): Look, there’s a new office building.

Me: I wonder what’s in it.

Sweet Husband (gently): Offices.

Scene 2:

Me (experiencing a craving for those puffy little pastries with the powdered sugar and fresh lemon while snuggling in bed with said Sweet Husband one weekend morning): I want a Dutch Baby.

Sweet Husband: But I’m not Dutch.

Scene 3:

Sweet Husband and I are seated in the dining room, working away on our respective laptops. We hear an odd snapping sound from the living room and look at each other.

Sweet Husband: What’s that?

Me: A snapping sound.

That’s the kind of thing that cracks people up around our house.

What IS It with the Body Spray Already? Smells Like a Lot More than Teen Spirit

Image via Wikipedia

My eyes are tearing up and I’m getting ready to sneeze, a good sign that one of my sweet-smelling daughters has readministered body spray. Again.

“Readminister again” is not a redundant statement; they will later re-readminister. Possibly just as they get into the car or some other enclosed space in which I will be trapped with the vaporous goodness.

Japanese Cherry Blossom? Cherry Almond Vanilla? Something involving cherries, at any rate. Or flowers. It’s hard to tell what specific scent it is when it’s bombarding you at Force 10.

Don’t get me wrong—I love my daughters. Really. I’m pleased that they prefer to be clean and sweet-smelling. They generally leave the house groomed, although we differ on the critical question of whether slippers with semi-hard surfaces on the bottom count as footwear for the big wide world out there.

On the slipper question they vote Yes, I vote No. My vote does not count. The only time they entertained the possibility of reconsidering this point, it was because four feet of snow fell on us in late December and early January and stayed for weeks. They didn’t wait for the spring thaws to go back to the slippers.

They’re not over the top on make-up, thank heavens. Admittedly Eldest Daughter went through a raccoon-eyes phase, applying black eyeliner and extra-black extra-clumping mascara with the enthusiasm of a small child newly introduced to scented markers.

She shared her hard-earned wisdom with Number Two Daughter, who uses a light hand. Both have beautiful eyes in any case.

And they do smell nice. But this comes at a price: the constant reapplication of body sprays purchased approximately every other week at Smelly Body Sprays R Us or some such chain.

When one of them gets ready for school in the main bathroom, we brace ourselves for the moment when the door swings open and the cloud wafts out well in advance of the girl ostensibly wearing the perfume—or being worn by it.

I’m sure I did this at their age. I remember a certain fondness for Love’s Baby Soft that probably announced itself around corners. Today my tastes are a trifle more sophisticated (Coco Mademoiselle by Chanel, which they had better not stop making), and expressed in moderation.

So what do I do, say, “Don’t smell quite so nice”? There’s a reason the words “teen girls body spray” bring up 103,000 results in Google.

A closer look at these results reveals that apparently this isn’t exclusively a girl thing—in fact, it’s a huge problem with boys.

Who knew? Since we have one boy who is 11 and still smells like the outdoors and whatever project he’s been working on involving glue and solvents, if not soldering irons and melting rubber, this has not yet become apparent.

Boys ODing to prevent BOing is such a problem, in fact, that the manufacturers are actually starting to suggest boys should tone it down. This will never move product—I’m amazed at their public-spirited campaigns (which conveniently move the product name up in the Google results....).

For example, this YouTube spot aims at the boy side of the line, using a sex appeal pitch to suggest that subtlety is sexier than a level approaching anesthesia.

This piece talks about the Axe overdose effect similar to what I’m experiencing with Cherry Almond Vanilla Blossom Floral Flower Whatsis.

The Center for Parent/Youth Understanding (such dreamers they must be, the people who could found something with such an aspirational name and so little hope of realizing the goal expressed in the name….Oh wait, it’s a Christian organization; they may have back-up help) write about the problem here.

The Google results, as always, are an entertaining mix of sites telling you about the problem, and sites enabling you to make purchases that will add to the problem.

I won’t even get to the articles where they talk about using body spray as a flame thrower or inhalant. I already know this stuff is both deadly and a substance of abuse--I’m livin’ it. Here it comes now....

Becoming a Woman, and Boys Boys Boys: More Time with Younger Daughter

Image by Melvin Schlubman via Flickr

Picking up where we left off in our mother/daughter interview. Scene: Coffee shop. Rainy day. Nosy Mother and Younger Daughter stare into each other’s eyes, gauging questions and the risk of answering honestly. Nosy Mother asks, smart-aleck Younger Daughter answers.



What kind of woman do you want to be?

The kind without a penis.

That’s a given. Moving on from that—

Young Daughter giggles, then is momentarily distracted when she notices that she left a handmark on the window like that scene in Titanic.

The kind who goes shopping fairly regularly, with the money to do so—not credit cards. I don’t want credit cards. I know it might come in handy, but I don’t want one.

Happy, hopefully. Most of the time. Not like overly happy, but close enough. Um… I’d like to have a career where I can support myself and possibly children with the essentials on my own without anybody else like if they died, divorce, anything like that.

When it’s your turn, what are some of the questions you’ll ask me?

Well, you’re gonna have to wait and see, aren’t you? See, that was a question—get it? Ha ha.

I hesitate because the inteview seems to be winding down and I'm wondering where to take it.


That’s it? You didn’t ask me about boys.

What about boys?

I don’t know, what about ‘em?

What do you wish you had known before now, or what do you hope you’ll learn before it’s too late?
You mean before I go crazy and kill one of them?

Yes, preferably.

Furrowed brow.

Too many questions.

I suggest she stick with the before now question.

I don’t have that many problems. No, wait, that’s a lie. Um…. I guess, just, to know for sure how you feel about somebody before you get into a relationship.

Moving on to what she’d like to learn before it’s too late.

If I knew what I wanted to learn, then I would have already learned it, wouldn’t I? Or at least be part of the way there.

I guess I’d want to know myself better before I got into a really serious relationship with somebody. Have a little bit more confidence too—inward, not outside. My friends have told me that when we’re in public I seem really confident and everything, but then they know me. (With a lisp): Confidenth ith thexthy.

What should I be asking you about boys?

What type.

What type?

We hit pay dirt. To aid in readability this section is shown in separate paragraphs, but it’s best read in one long gulp without coming up for air in order to achieve something like the original experience. Good thing I type at over 100 wpm.


I don’t know why, but dark hair. Not that I don’t think guys with light hair are attractive but…. Like dark brown or black. It’s pretty. Attractive. I know that supposedly that’s less important to women than it is to men, but it’s still fairly important at my age, I’d say. I enjoy the attractiveness.

Some level of, of, of—like comfort, Oh, I do like them tall. Whether that’s physically because they’re like bigger and taller—I don’t like them smaller than me (shudders). I just don’t. Or just an air about them that’s kind of comforting. I’ve noticed that I always, like, no matter who the guy is if he—hmm—if he keeps kind of capturing my interest when we’re dating, there tends to be some side of danger to him. Never a biker or something, but like—should I change names?—skip that one—there was—after that….

She gazes off into the distance, rummaging through some mental filing cabinet, while I worry about the omissions.

We’ll just say Jesse. Jesse—kind of a—not a great student. He was in Odyssey (the gifted program she was in). He’s taking online classes now. Also now he does a lot of pot. So I’m glad I got out of that. But he didn’t back then. OK.

Or there’s Devin—he was a jerk around his friends but he was nice when you were just with him, so I guess that part of him that was a jerk, that was the danger aspect. I don’t like that, but--three days, I think that one was.

OK, so then more recently I’ll start with Matt. I don’t know what the danger was there, which may have been the reason that it ended because I lost interest, but he’s a really nice guy, which is kind of sad, because, well, he’s a nice guy…. I don’t know. I think Hannah liked him. I don’t think there was danger, so that might have been why.

Nyc? N-Y-C.

Chuckle, clarification that NYC is a spelling and not an offhand reference to New York City.

Scene kid, piercings, but nice guy, very hyper which I appreciated because he could keep up with me but then he didn’t pay that much attention to me. And then I found out—we were hanging out with a big group and we went to this kiddie park and there was this big No Smoking sign and I was joking and said “No smoking, Nyyyyc,” and he said that he didn’t smoke – cigarettes –and it turned out he did smoke occasionally and he smoked pot sometimes and he hadn’t told me that and I was pretty sure it was obvious that that was important to me. That was my birthday. My birthday parties are cursed. That was a bad night. He never came—to the party.

She shoots a sidelong look to see if I caught the double entendre.

Next morning I think he actually had his friend, who was his ex-girlfriend and then they dated again and then they broke up again and her heart was broken—he like told me through her that he didn’t want to date because I was overbearing because of the pot even though I hadn’t said that much. I told him he could either stop smoking pot or date me but not both which was like too much for him. Too controlling.

Most recently there was Eric. He was a junior so he was older. He was a nice guy. So it was good because I had the thing of danger because he was older but he was still nice. It wasn’t really danger but it was something extra, you know?

Like having a motorcycle. One time, I crashed a motorcycle into a fence. With me on it.

That must have been at your dad’s.

At Aunt Jeanne’s. It was a small motorcycle, not like a big one.

They have to be able to talk a lot. Sometimes it turns out that’s a problem because they don’t have as much to say as I do because they’re a guy. Ooh, she has my shoes! (Noticing the black, shiny flats on the barista)



This is by far the longest answer.

I told you you should have been asking me about guys.

A future post will feature an interview with 18-year-old Oldest Daughter, who is just as quick-witted and has four more years of experience in seeing if she can get to me, choosing what she will and won't tell me, and generally excelling at verbal fencing.

Related Reading

• How to Improve Family Communication: Fridge Talk
• Raised by Wolves, or Free Range Kids? Either Way They Learn and Live. At Least So Far.
• You'll Save Us, Won't You? My Kids the Idealists
• Getting to Know My 14-Year-Old. Or Trying. Very Trying.

Getting to Know My 14-Year-Old--or Trying. Very Trying.

This idea is thanks to The Daily Blonde, who interviewed her 13-year-old son. I show the piece to Younger Daughter and suggest, “We could do this—it will be fun.”

Her: “Sure. Sure as in ‘We can do it,’ not sure as in ‘It will be fun.’”

Later that day, after she completes the latest stage in her quest to re-read all the Harry Potter books—she just hit the speed bump created by #4, which is a lot longer than #3—we adjourn to our neighborhood coffee shop/bakery.

Then to a second, when #1 proves to be—as is always, always the case on Sunday afternoons, and always, always forgotten until we’re looking at the sign on the door—closed after 3 p.m. After ordering, we settle at a table that lets us look out at the cold, rainy street.

Image by -eko- via Flickr

What do you want to be when you grow up?

She shoots a blue-eyed glare at me from under her eyebrows, since she’s been asking me what she should be for quite some time now and I have apparently not provided satisfactory answers that let her decide her entire future. At age 14. Pursed lips, deliberative pause. She’s so pretty and smart.

There are a lot of things I want to do, but I’m not sure which one. It just has to have something to do with words and people.

Which she knows I just read in her 25 Things post on her blog. She’s picking raisins out of her bagel. That’s my girl!

What are some of the ideas you've had?

Being an English teacher, preferably Honors because—preferably Honors. Or editing of some sort as in newspaper, magazine, publishing house.

We recently discussed the distinction between copy editing and editorial decision-making. I think she means the decision-making kind.

Politics generally, which would be going straight into politics like looking to be a senator or president or something like that. Or going through being an English teacher and then trying to run for superintendent (of public instruction—a statewide office in Washington; we recently discussed whether the teaching profession had any political pathways).

Or train dolphins.

t’d also be really fun to run a coffee shop. I know I wouldn’t make big bucks but it would be fun. It would have to have a cool vibe. I’d want to burn candles but some people are sensitive to them.

Or I could be a trophy wife, go on a reality show.

Talk to me about the dolphin training.

They like fish.

I sense she’s giving up on this whole endeavor.

What do you like about the age you are?

That I have all my options open—well…. Okay, except some certain sports where you have to train since like before you were born. The sense that I have my options open and could do almost anything from here.

What don’t you like?

No one takes us seriously. Adults don’t take you seriously. Also my peers—most of them are stupid. Which is not to say that they’re not nice, some of them—just not smart.

Also I can’t get a job that will pay me enough, like a steady job, because people don’t hire 14-year-olds. I know that I have the responsibility to do it, but because of my age I can’t. All the age limits and everything.

At least I’m tall enough to ride the rides.

Does it make sense to you (that adults don’t take you seriously)?

It makes sense to me that they have more experience and therefore see themselves as higher beings, but it’s really annoying.

Are you going to share your bagel?

Is that an interview question? Is it now? (in a mocking/challenging tone)

Discussion about the raisins we’re now both picking out of the bagel. Nasty, squished-bug raisins, masquerading as chocolate chips. Not that this is a point I’ve made before or anything. We circle back to the interview.

If you could live anywhere, where would it be?

Never Never Land.

Why?

Beause I was just joking.

If it were outside the US, it would be someplace like Paris, because come on--French people, fashion, food, coffee, French people.

Or a big city but not in the heart of it. Or a middle city like Seattle where there’s a ton of culture but you’re not flipping off all your fellow drivers—not all of them. Or somewhere near New York.

Or Never Never Land. There are mermaids there, but they were ugly in one of the movies. Not at all your usual stereotype. They tried to play with the mermaid stereotype but it was just ugly. Really fun to play follow the leader and bounce on logs behind Peter Pan, like the little kid with the Indian hat with the feathers.

Treading in dangerous waters, what do you like about our family?

Not too short.

We’re not too short?

Right. How tall am I going to be? Big Sister said about 5’8” or 5’9”.

She lied. What do you like about our family, besides not being too short?

Which one?

The family you live with the majority of the time.

Including or excluding the children?

Sweet Husband’s two kids, The Engineer and The Movie Sponge, are with us alternate weekends & half the summer. Eight-year-old Movie Sponge follows Younger Daughter everywhere, mimics her every move, sits beside YD watching her play Sims, claims to like TV shows she’s never seen just because Younger Daughter likes them. See poem “I Have a Little Shadow.” The Engineer pretty much focuses on making things and taking things apart.

She's stalling.
You decide in your answer.

Let’s see… We’re pretty good-looking.

Can’t argue with that, nor would you want to.

We have fun when we make sex jokes about Santa Claus.

This comment really should be followed by a full explanation about a carful of butt-gusting laughter occasioned by the giant blow-up naughty Santa on North Division who waved at us in leering fashion two Christmases ago. What does a naughty Santa pull out of his big bag of presents? No time though, as I’m having to prompt for answers—they’re not flowing like water here.

What don’t you like about the family?

Pass.

After an awkward pause, the interview picked up a real head of steam when she prompted me to ask her about boys, making it far too long for one blog post. Boy stuff in another post.

Turn about is fair play; you can read her interview of me.

Related Reading

• Becoming a Woman, and Boys Boys Boys: More Time with Younger Daughter
• Good Word, Indignant: An Interview of Barb Chamberlain

For Someone Who’s Supposed to Be So Smart… Ways in Which I’m Stupid

My father has a way with words. Now, he’d be the first to tell you that with my mother around, he doesn’t get much chance to talk. “She talks enough for the both of us,” I heard more than once. And yes, Mom could at times serve as the prototype for Chatty Cathy.

Dad didn’t talk at length, the way she did. So when he spoke, his pronouncements carried more weight. Sometimes we almost jumped when he spoke because it was unexpected, another country heard from.

And of course, he was DAD. I grew up at the time when “Wait ‘til your father gets home” had serious meaning, and you’d really, really rather suffer Mom’s discipline than Dad’s. (Although her line, “I’m so disappointed in you,” did carry a stinging power. I want to know how to sink that same emotional hook deep into the guts of my two daughters so I can tug on it when I need to.)

Some of Dad’s memorable pronouncements fall into the category of folksy sayings, like “Whatever smokes your drawers.”

Another line of his—possibly reserved for me personally among his six children: “For someone who’s supposed to be so smart, you don’t have much horse sense.”

This pronouncement was not without merit, I have to admit.

One summer I had the use of Middle Older Brother’s Datsun pick-up while he traveled for work. Somehow the whole idea of adding oil to the engine had never been made clear to me. The engine seized up once and for all on I-90 as I merrily zoomed eastward to go hang out at Lake Coeur d’Alene.

A passing semi-truck driver gave me a lift (this was in pre-cell-phone days, of course) and I called my parents for rescue. The engine was toast. This was the kind of episode that might induce the unfavorable comparison to four-legged hay burners.

I’m a little better at routine vehicle fluids now (although Sweet Husband takes care of it for me, I do know it’s supposed to happen and I had my car serviced regularly before he was on the scene). There are still some ways in which I lack horse sense though:

• Leaving valuables in plain sight on the front seat. I believe most people are honest, and so far no one has broken into the car to take anything. Someday I will be wrong about this.
• Being quite sure that even when the fuel indicator is on the red line, I have enough fuel to get to the next available gas station. So far, this has been true. Good thing I mostly commute by bike or bus.
• Doing “one more thing” before leaving for something: Work, a meeting, a date, a doctor’s appointment for one of the girls. I know-know-KNOW that when I squeeze in one more e-mail response or chore I make us all late. I know that. But surely there’s time for just one more thing?
• Believing against all evidence of the past that the regular consumption of giant snickerdoodles (only ones baked perfectly so they’re still bendy in the middle, of course) has no effect on my weight.
• Thinking that since there’s plenty of time before the project is due, I don’t need to start now. (Love the adrenaline arising from artificially induced deadline pressure through procrastination--and there are always a lot of things on the list that do have to happen before the deadline for this item.)
• Failing to write down things that family members tell me about appointments and tasks, despite the fact that I do this faithfully at work and for all volunteer efforts. I have notebooks stretching back over 5 years, a simple system of stick-ums to flag items for follow-up, and a fairly systematic use of Outlook calendar and tasks to move things along. Family items, not so much, & thus I forget plans and projects that involve my loved ones.

Looking at this list, I notice a continued carelessness toward vehicles (possibly scarred by that little Datsun episode). Definitely a disregard for the passage of time as measured by standard devices, which after all are made by humans and have little to do with the actual workings of the universe. Perhaps a certain childlike belief in magical thinking.

It’s not that I lack horse sense, Dad—it’s that I believe in fairies. I do believe, I do believe, I do I do I do.

Random Games with Words: What Do You Expect from a Linguistics Major?

I've been saving up various blog bits, all of them some kind of word play. The original idea was to expand each category into its own post. Then I thought, "Hey! Why bother? Maybe this is as good as it gets."

What Kind of Bird Was that Again?

As an illustration of just how word-geeky I am, witness this: The night I met the man who would become my first husband, I charmed him with this little zinger: "A blackbird is a black bird, but not all black birds are blackbirds."

He had me repeat it, and I lectured about the role of emphasis in changing the meanings of words and phrases. The fact this did actually charm him is possibly an illustration of how geeky he is, too....

The Whole Kit & Caboodle

How much IS that, anyway? Transcript of a discussion with Eldest Daughter:

“How much is a caboodle?” she asks. She is on the phone with a friend and consulting me over her shoulder. I ponder briefly.

“Is the kit included?” I ask. “The whole kit and caboodle would be more than just the caboodle.”

“Just the caboodle,” she answers.

“Ten or fewer, then, I think.”

She nods and repeats my answer into the phone, then turns to me again. “I thought it was 14, but maybe that’s with the kit. What about with the kit included? The kit could be around 4, so the whole kit and caboodle would be 14.”

I respond, “Sounds about right to me. A kit would be pretty small. Four is good.”

There. That's settled.

Words We Should Get to Use More Often

Wouldn’t life be great if you had more occasions to use some of these?

• Exuberant
• Joyful
• Melodious
• Sunshine

Fun with Phrases: Think About These

We all know oxymorons such as jumbo shrimp, pretty ugly, clearly misunderstood.

For years I’ve kept a list of terms that aren’t quite oxymorons. I don’t know what to call these—accidental funnies? I’d welcome additions to the list from inventive minds.

• Cement truck: Gets TERRIBLE mileage.
• Wood stove: The ultimate in planned obsolescence.
• School library: Well, which is it?

Misheard Song Lyrics

This particular item was inspired by a post on For a Different Kind of Girl, a blog that reliably makes me snort beverages through my nose.

In the category of misheard lyrics, for the longest time I thought Journey (want to buy Greatest Hits & sing along?), for some incredibly odd reason I couldn't fathom, was singing, "You come to me with broken arms."

That image of two arms in plaster casts reaching out lovingly just didn't make much sense, but oh well, who's supposed to understand rock song lyrics anyway?

And In Closing....

The coolest gift I ever received from a boss was the Oxford Unabridged Dictionary--the version that's all in one huge book you could use to break someone's toe.

Granted, it was given to me by a creepy and possibly psychotic boss who bragged about smuggling a pistol through airport security (this was in the early 80s), and who hated lawyers with a passion that made him send strange letters with derogatory terms about them ("shyster!") written all over the envelopes, making the address all but indecipherable and the letter therefore undeliverable. It was still a great gift.

My fondness for words and dictionaries would be because--as my college boyfriend was fond of saying about my chosen major--I was a cunning linguist.

Thank You for the Belly Laughs, Marie Osmond

You’ll have to forgive us. We’ve never watched QVC before as a family, with all the exponential reinforcement of scorn and hilarity that implies, and none of us have any desire to live in Collector Doll Land. There are, of course, fan sites devoted to Marie Osmond and her dolls. These people will hate us.

Picture this, if you will (although we’ll certainly understand if you’d rather not):

Dolls—a parade of dolls—each one more frightening than the last, with names possibly created by choosing one item each from lists of first names, floral references, colors, and cutesy actions.

Names like Suzie Rose Bouquet, Arabella Catching Butterflies, Summer Sunset. Adora My Sweetheart Belle. Candy Corn Too Sweets Tot. Butterfly Kissy Tiny Tot. Pardon me while I step out to my dentist’s office for treatment of dental caries.

“Get a load of those NAMES!” shouts The Boy, who is 11 years old and thus primed to mock frilly fou-fou dolls.

The first doll appears on the screen. An odd sensation creeps (a word you’ll see a lot on this page) over you, akin to that experienced when you see Chucky previews.

“What’s WONG with them?” asks 8-year-old Littlest (who hasn’t quite gotten her Rs nailed down).

We begin to figure out the creep factor when they go to a tight close-up on the creepy eyes and mouths held in strange positions, some of them suggestive of pornography (pouting lips, mouth half open in eager expectation).

The eyes don’t quite match. While this is true of humans, it just looks wrong on a doll, which we all expect to be symmetrical. The spokes of color in the irises are wrong somehow—too stark? Too something. “Creepy!” we all shout in unison.

Butterfly Kissy is like Raggedy Ann with antennae and clown make-up. It’s sculpted to have a little dot by the eye that matches the one Marie has in real life. She demonstrates that it says Kissy on Kissy’s butt, which is supposed to make us feel even better about having Butterfly Kissy in our lives. Littlest asks, “Is it a cat-uh-piw-oh?” because of the antennae.

The babies are all chubby—more of America’s obesity problem on parade. The parade of dolls continues: first a full-body shot that just lets you catch a glimpse of the off-kilter facial oddity and the astoundingly poufy clothing and accessories to accompany the cutesy name, then a close-up that lets us criticize in far greater detail. Each name and outfit inspires whoops of derisive laughter. Then it gets worse.

She has little Ewok-like babies in fur suits to make them look like wolves or something. They’re so overfed they have creases next to the mouth, and eyes that almost fill the socket like those of an animal, dark and sinister with no white of the eye showing.

Marie fondles the fur, with a tight close-up on her artificial fingernails. The hands lift the hat off to reveal that the baby is bald, with lines drawn on its head to suggest hair.

“Buddha Baby!” my by now screaming, writhing, shrieking, giggling family dubs this one. (Some of us are actual Buddhists; this is not a religious comment.)

It has paws on its little footies. These fat babies are not infants at all; they are elderly men from the Mongol steppes, but with animal features á la The Island of Dr. Moreau.

Marie plays with the baby some more, flapping its arms to show that they’re jointed. This is apparently a big selling point in Creepy Doll Collector Land.

Additional creep factor: She can’t stop playing with the doll, stroking and rearranging the whole time she’s on camera. She suggests buying the Tiny Tots and posing them in the arms of the larger models, writing messages on the bodies of the dolls as if they’re journals so that you can pass down the wisdom you chose to capture on a doll, sending messages to your own future about how deserving you are of love and caring.

If you’re getting all this solely from a porcelain doll, this is very, very sad, and would sober us for a moment, were it not for the creepy animal dolls on screen.

Marie discusses the incredible quality of the porcelain she uses, the eyelashes, and the hair—but these are the Buddha babies we believe have the hair drawn on their heads, and they’re made of vinyl so the porcelain reference doesn’t apply to the doll she’s currently fondling, which goes for $75.

She demonstrates the way she signs the dolls on the backs of their neck, so each doll has its own little Marie Osmond tat. We hear nothing of the discussion Marie has with the show host as we howl and denigrate.

While the nation admired the plucky Marie dancing her fanny off in “Dancing with the Stars,” and of course there’s all that weight loss thanks to whatever product she endorses in full-page ads in the Sunday supplement and the beautiful perfect Osmond teeth, that doesn’t mean we have to love her expensive creepy dolls.

Useful Super Hero Traits: I Am Sleeper Girl

“The Incredibles” is one of our family favorites, watched enough times that we’ve memorized some of the dialogue. We probably all dream of having superhero powers at one point or another. Flying, super strength, leaping tall buildings in a single bound, invisibility, laser vision—wouldn’t those be fun?

In the movie, of course, the super heroes have to go underground, where their super powers mostly lie untapped.

It’s handy when Elastigirl can use her stretchy arms to try to keep her kids from fighting under the dining room table, but other than that, their powers don’t do that much good in day to day life.

Given the two-plus feet of snow on the ground at our house last week, laser vision would actually be great, as we could vaporize the snow and clear the driveway, but the neighbors would notice. (Or maybe not, now that the temperatures have warmed up and everything’s melting.)

I’m working on a list of powers that we’d really use in a normal day, without being detected by the muggles.

I, for example, am Sleeper Girl. I fall asleep easily—within about 60 seconds if I’m not kept awake by some means, as Sweetheart can attest.

My job requires some very early-morning calls during snow season, and I can get up and work for half an hour to an hour, go back to bed and go straight to sleep to make up for the lost ZZZZs.

Not poor Sweetheart, who might be dubbed Wakeful Man if that had any super value. While Sleeper Girl really hates to be Sleep-Deprived Girl, I’m always able to make up for lost sack time, whereas once he’s awake, he has to give in and get up because his brain is working overtime. He lies awake for a while, staring at the ceiling and designing sails or computer programs or something in his head, then gets up. This is not super useful.

A power I’d like to have: Mold Blaster. I’d be able to eliminate the mold on the last few slices of bread in the drawer, or the half-empty carton of sour cream in the back of the fridge, to save myself from making a trip to the store in mid-meal prep.

This could also come in handy cleaning the bathroom—not that it’s ever dirty enough to be moldy, I hasten to add…. Not really. Not with my fondness for bleach where it counts.

Al Dente Woman: She can always judge the doneness of whatever’s being cooked, without burning her fingers juggling a hot piece of pasta. This power applies to all foods, so she can do perfect over-easy eggs, pie crust that isn’t burned around the edge, muffins that aren’t still too wet in the middle, and of course—most important—snickerdoodles cooked to that moment of perfection where they’re still slightly bendy in the middle.

Laundry Liberator: With one piercing glance, restores clothing to clean, pressed, nice-smelling state (includes chemical-free dry cleaning service and closet organizing).

I’m sure there are more. I’m just stuck in a domestic mode because I didn’t spend my days off last week cleaning the house thoroughly the way I sort of halfway kinda maybe thought I might, and the mood isn’t going to strike any time soon. I need these Supers to show up, and soon.

Addendum Feb. 22, 2009: Added my superhero image, created at www.cpbintegrated.com/theherofactory. Found Hero Factory thanks to Berry Blog.

Fun with Slogans: Deathless(?) Prose for Chests & Bumpers

Chalk it up to my undergraduate studies in linguistics and English at Washington State University. Or to my general word geekiness, which pre-dated college and gave me fun facts to share as small talk.

In fact, I charmed my first husband with linguistics on the night we met (at a Mensa meeting. Doesn’t get much geekier.):

“What’s the difference between a blackbird and a black bird? All blackbirds are black birds, but not all black birds are blackbirds. (pause) It’s all in the emphasis.”

This thing we’re chalking up to college and word geekiness? My deep-seated desire to coin the kinds of phrases that will live forever on your car bumper or chest.

I think of my deathless prose at odd times (don’t we all?), inspired by someone else’s poorly written slogan or my witty family or a funny turn of phrase in a meeting (I try not to guffaw out loud at these junctures—usually succeed). And there’s always the random association free-for-all in the morning shower.

There is now an outlet for such fun and games! Thanks to someone on Twitter—can’t remember who—I found threadless.com and its typetees.com, where I can submit slogans.

The slogans are visible for a week, and people vote up or down. If any of mine win, I get $400 cash and a $100 gift certificate for shirts, thus ensuring that my children will receive a plethora of T-shirts.

On the other hand, I may get no votes at all, making my prose just a little short of deathless.

Hence this list, so at least the faithful who read this can get a chuckle or two.

You can go vote too, if you like—not just on mine, but on all the rest—if you click on the phrase and create a log-in. Your choices are “I’d wear this” and “Uh, stupid” (which gives me an idea for another post, on how we might affect election outcomes by just . . . reframing the options a tad).

• "Plethora" has lots of letters.
• Abbreviation is a really long word.
• There's nothing quite like verisimilitude.
• This shirt is ironic. Get it?
• I totally rocked Pong. (for my fellow Baby Boomers at the tail end of the boom)
• If you were telepathic, you'd know I'm thinking about you.
  
• The average person spends 17 months of life reading T-shirts. (Someone submitted one along these lines but with—gasp (shudder)—typos.)
  
• Namaste.
• My other shirt is a button-down. (Someone had already submitted “My other shirt is a tux”—my first effort on this theme.)

If you submit a slogan of your own, tell me in the comments so I can go vote!

Sweetie and the Poo Rock

Sweetie enters the dining/family room, where Eldest Daughter, Second Daughter and I are all ensconced with our laptops: family togetherness, 21st-century style.

“Where’s the poo rock?” he asks. We all snort with laughter.

We know what he’s looking for: the pumice stone we use to get mineral deposits off the toilet bowl. It’s the word “poo” that sounds so funny, especially coupled with “rock” to form “poo rock.” (Having a juvenile sense of humor is considered an asset at our house.)

It probably triggers thoughts of Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo, from South Park. I was never a South Park fan, but we were trapped at the lake cabin and there’s a DVD of that episode, so I was subjected to the singing talking poo and his little poo family.

The poo rock is a key piece of the bathroom cleaning equipment and supplies in our house. I don’t think we have particularly hard water, but a ring forms fairly quickly. We do scrub the toilet—every so often—yet that just doesn't do it.

I’m fond of the application of a bleach/water spray to kill toilet germs. In general I’m pretty environmental in my housekeeping practices, such as cleaning the shower with a paste made of baking soda and a dab of shampoo. (Try it! Works great!)

But not for the toilet. Death to germs, bring on the bleach.

We inherited some build-up when we bought the house that we have worked away at with the help of poo rock. I’m still sort of amazed that you can scratch away at porcelain (or whatever toilets are made of these days) with a rock and not hurt it, but that’s the magic of poo rock.

Another challenge in our master bathroom is that we have a yellow toilet. Hello, toilet manufacturers? Yellow is the last color we want for a toilet. Well, maybe second to last—brown would be the winner there. I want to know when something’s clean and I’ll never, ever know with this toilet.

We conserve water in the time-honored fashion, by not flushing until it’s necessary. This, coupled with Stupid Yellow Toilet Color, means that I’m not quick to stick my hand in for scrubbing even if it looks innocent. I have to flush before I start cleaning.

You may be noting that this wastes water. Yes, but wouldn’t you make sure?

Sweetheart and I were brushing our teeth together the other day. I thanked him for his diligence in attacking the mineral build-up so effectively.

There are a few spots that are hard to reach because of the intricacies of interior toilet design so he hadn’t gotten absolutely everything farther back. His efforts had improved the view enormously, though.

“What we really need is poo rock on a stick,” he said.

Do you have any idea how much it hurts to snort toothpaste foam through your nose?