Almostgotit.com

I LOVE THIS DEODORANT!

A contender for “one of the more creative ways to save money,” this stuff is basically a giant salt crystal.  To apply, you run it quickly under the faucet and roll it around on your arm pits.

Please tell me you did NOT just write “arm pits!”

The weird thing is, this stuff actually seems to WORK.  (if you want to read more about aluminum-free, non-allergenic deodorant while also listening to some really awesome elevator music, click here.)

MOM!!

Seriously, when I use this deodorant (which costs about the same as regular deodorant and lasts up to a year), there’s absolutely no odor at all.  Not even the flower-y (or SPRING FRESH) smell of deodorant itself.  An added bonus is that there’s no danger of turning your tee-shirt arm pits yellow with this stuff, either.

Oh. My. GOD.

That’s “Gosh,” honey.  And sweetie, here’s the thing:  Everyone Poops.

I KNOW THAT, Mom, but NOT YOU.  You’re not allowed!

——–

Related posts &  links:

Duck Chronicles II (slide show by my 12 year old)

How to embarrass a duck

EVERYONE POOPS

How to embarrass your kids in front of their friends

Want to embarrass your teen?  Pick her up in a car that looks like a hotdog.  (count your blessings, my dear.)

It honestly didn’t occur to me until yesterday afternoon that there might be some connection between my love for Aga stoves and my earlier obsession with Easy-Bake Ovens.

Wow, and I call myself a feminist…

“Easy Bake Oven: Teaching girls their place since 1963″
Image: Ebaumsworld.com

I never did get an Easy-Bake Oven, no matter how much I begged for one. My exasperated mother told me I could just use the REGULAR oven if I wanted so desperately to bake something.

My mother just didn’t understand.

The clever artifice of the Easy-Bake Oven was an essential part of its charm for me: by the heat of an ordinary light bulb, one could produce a wonderful variety of cakes, cookies and pies, each a perfect miniature of the real thing. And actually edible, to boot!

The Easy-Bake oven was like a doll’s house come to life.

Nor am I the only person, nor even a member of the only sex, to suffer from an unrequited love for an Easy Bake Oven:

I cannot begin to tell you of the psychic agony of being a “sensitive” male child in the 60s (well maybe not sensitive just plain oddball) wanting and not being able to enunciate the X-Mas Love that Dare Not Speak Its Name: the EZ Bake Oven.

Five years ago, in celebration of the Easy-Bake Oven’s 40th anniversary, NPR ran a story featuring The Easy-Bake Oven Gourmet, a combination cookbook and retrospective written by David Hoffman.

With all due respect, Mr. Hoffman and NPR don’t understand, either.

Educational? Gourmet? Wild mushroom flan?

No, no, and GOOD HEAVENS no.

Easy-Bake Ovens, guys, are all about magic, Christmas, and multi-colored sugar sprinkles:

I’m 43 and I’ve just fulfilled a dream. As of a couple of weeks ago, I am the proud owner of an Easy-Bake Oven … Today, I pulled it out of my “tickle trunk” (bedroom closet) and showed it to my 4 year old nephew and informed him that we were going to bake Christmas cookies. His eyes lit up, and our day quickly shot up to a 10 on the excitement scale … I had my mini copper Christmas cookie cutters (which up until this point, had only been used with the playdough I made them — recipe off the ‘net) and sprinkles at the ready much to their delight. …Three batches later, I put the brakes on them eating anymore as their Dad would soon be here to pick them up and take them home for supper… Tomorrow for lunch, we’re going to try out the pizza recipe I found for Easy-Bake Ovens. The 4 year old is bringing some different sparkles from home for tomorrow’s afternoon session of Christmas cookie baking. Thanks for the memories Easy-Bake! Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night…   -Nadene, comment on beancounters.blogs.com

O, Sing It, Sister.

Secret confession: I love Maeve Binchy novels.  A main character in many of them is the “Aga,” the classic British and Irish stove (or “cooker”), usually wood-fired, that the rest of the characters center their lives around.

This is, for me, the perfect image of domestic tranquility that I have repeatedly tried to emulate in my un-employed state, the Narnia I can never quite get to.

If I had an Aga, my life would be perfect, probably.

When we lived for a year in England (in Oxford, Oxfordshire… on the edge of the beautiful Cotswolds,) I saw several wonderful kitchens built around the modern version of the Aga, which now usually runs on gas.

Agas are numinously beautiful.

I serendipitously stumbled upon this Aga shop in Woodstock, Oxfordshire. It was a little visit to heaven.

My dear friend in England, an elderly woman named Margaret who drove me all over the Cotswolds and told me stories for hours, once operated (with her husband) a boys’ boarding school, which they operated in a large country house.  She had a 20-foot-wide Aga in her kitchen there, and in the middle of the night when she had a baby to nurse, she’d sit by the Aga to keep them both warm.

Someday, someday. I will have an Aga…

Ever feel like Ensign Ricky? He’s the guy with hardly any lines who appears in just one episode only to be killed off so all the other characters can live to beam another day.

Women feel like this a lot more then men do, especially women who are wives, and ESPECIALLY wives who also moms. Subverting your own interests for everyone else’s is only called “virtue” when someone else is doing it: when you’re doing it yourself, it only works if you believe that actually you’re pretty darned important, even while serving as the Sacrificial Lamb.

Otherwise, you’re pretty much just dogshit.

HUSBANDS, TAKE NOTE.

Dear B. (I hope this is still B’s email… but you can read it too, G.!)

Our son has just two more days before his last final is over and he’ll be a sophomore! It has been such a big year. I was thinking of you today, and I’m sure you are not far away from having your own college sophomore, too.

Can you even believe it?? And another crop of graduating seniors, already, going to prom and talking importantly about college plans and summer jobs. Wow!

I miss you, lady. It’s been great to have occasional Christmas cards and family photos, but just not good ENOUGH. We have been planning for years to come visit, but it just never has happened — I’m so sorry! And the years go TOO QUICKLY! (cue the dramatic, heart-wrenching sound track here…) I hope you are truly, truly well. It would be so good to sit with you at Starbucks and talk about *everything* for four hours, at least!

No, I’ve not just been diagnosed with a life-threatening disease or something (thanks be to God)! I know — mush mush mush! But I’ve just been thinkin’ of time going by, people who have come and gone and all the wonderful people whom I’ve loved. ACTUALLY, I was sitting in church today thinking about how selfish I’ve been lately, and self-protective, and remembered you once saying in our Mothers of Young Children group that you just “trust and trust…” which had caused *you* some heart ache, too. So that got me thinking about YOU, and how much I loved you and love you still, for the piece of you that is still part of me, too.

Are you still with me, or are you vomiting on your computer keyboard yet?

Anyhoo, wanted to say “hey” and send you a long-distance hug and maybe even a bunch of gold stars (pretend!!)

Much love to you,

Almostgotit