Metaphor.

Last night my dog, an 18-pound Pug, was playing toys with a dog bigger than her.

Penny the Pug was running all over, playing toys with a dog more than three times her size. She tried her best, but lost the toy battle.

There might be a metaphor in there somewhere for life. There was zero chance of her winning that fight, but she didn't know that and still probably had fun during the toy battle.

I thought about telling her to give up. I tossed her another toy to play with, but she didn't want it.

She wanted the one the bigger dog had, the one she couldn't even reach in his mouth because she's so small.

Yes, I'm pretty sure there's a metaphor in there somewhere.

An adventure

I wrote this a few days ago. Since then I read the babies a book for the first time. It was a riveting story about pumpkins and ghosts. They paid attention until the end.

You have to start them early, you know.

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I haven't seen my nieces in a week. I swear they grew about 28 feet since I saw them last.

I spent a lot of time with them last night. Around 7 p.m., I asked my Mom if she wanted to go shopping with the babies.

My parents were game, loaded the kids up in the car, and I met them at the store.

The babies love shopping. We showed them Halloween and Christmas decorations, they laughed at a piece of glittery scrapbook paper I showed them, and one baby grabbed a pink feather boa and held onto it for a while.

Before we left, I changed one baby into a clean outfit. As I was changing her diaper, she screamed at me so hard her face turned red.

Like I told my Dad last night: Shouldn't I get a 'thank you for changing my diaper' instead of screams?

I guess babies don't know how to say thanks. They should, but they don't.

:)

Grasshopper of doom.

Not that long ago I got a text message from a friend. A grasshopper found its way to her car, she said, and tried to kill her when she was driving.

I sympathized, but couldn't understand. It's a bug in a car. What's the big deal?

Well, I understand now. The grasshopper of doom thing happened to me yesterday.

I was going to the post office, living out my happy little life and minding my own business, when something flew past my head.

It was scary, and the grasshopper flew past me fast. I was stopped at a stop sign when it landed on my dashboard. It stayed there for a couple of seconds, then flew into my backseat.

How terrifying.

I looked in the back of my car when I got home last night, but couldn't find it. Just to be safe, I rolled all of my windows down in my car, in hopes that the stupid grasshopper of doom would hop its way out of my car and life during the night.

I ran an errand for work this morning, opened my car door, and looked down at the floor.

The grasshopper was sitting there, staring at me, mocking me.

A terrible first world problem enhanced and circled by Photoshop for dramatic effect.

I did what any other adult would do in this situation.

I threw my car keys at it. It didn't budge. I took one of my shoes off and threw it at the grasshopper. It still didn't move. I was thinking it would get scared and jump out of my car.

On second thought, can grasshoppers even get scared? Maybe my line of thinking was stupid.

Anyway, this morning I was standing in my work parking lot, keyless and shoeless, staring at a bug in my car. The only thing left to do was take a photo of it and send it to my friend, the one who understands how evil grasshoppers are.

They come out of nowhere and really do try to kill you when you're driving.

The thing is, I'm a strong, independent woman, except when it comes to bugs. When bugs are involved I become kind of weak and whiny.

Spiders and grasshoppers and other creepy crawlies? I'm not even going to pretend to be strong. There was an incident week involving spiders. Like a grown up, I noped it out of there and made someone else deal with it.

I can handle a lot of things in life.

Bugs I can't handle.

(I finally did get the grasshopper out of my car. It took both shoes.)

What do you blog about?

At the conference I went to in South Carolina we had to fill out sheets of paper as a get-to-know-everyone exercise.

There were several squares on a piece of paper, and each square had something written on it. The idea was to introduce yourself to people, then get them to sign whatever square described them.

Examples of squares: Can spot a typo a mile away, Grammar Nazi, Writes a blog.

Mostly I signed the 'can spot a typo a mile away' square, but sometimes those were already signed.

Hmm. What's a blogger to do in this situation?

On a few I signed the 'Writes a blog' square, which led to people asking me about my blog, which made me realize that I really don't like talking about this blog.

Weird, right?

The main question people asked me was what I blogged about.

I write about making babies mad and how much of an introvert I am.

Then there was the time my bff got married and my eyes almost exploded (not really), the time I danced like an idiot, and a post about how I fall down a lot.

So, basically, that's a terrible question to ask a blogger, especially an introverted blogger, because I have no idea what the answer is. 

Bossypants

I needed some reading material for my travels over the past week.

The book had to be small enough to fit in my purse, so the Harry Potter book that I'm reading is automatically out.

I also wanted something light to read, so Dan Brown's newest book that's sitting on my bookshelf was also ruled out.

Hmm. What should I read on the plane?

I was shopping and came across Tina Fey's "Bossypants." I can't even begin to explain how amazing it is.

First off, I love Tina Fey. She's hilarious and the book is wonderful.

I tore off pieces of paper to bookmark places in the book I wanted to quote.

The first part I loved is about a page long. She talks about how awkward it is to get a manicure for the first time.

"Now that you've radically embarrassed yourself, you are ready to squeeze into a seat at a tiny table and basically hold hands with a stranger for twenty minutes. That really is the craziest thing the first few times  you go, getting used to passively flopping your hands into another woman's hands. It's like something they'd make you do at a summer camp as a trust-building exercise, I assume."

Loyal blog readers (hi Mom and Dad!) might remember that I don't really like getting manicures, either. 

At least I'm not the only one who thinks it's really weird.

Other quotes from the book:

"You have to try your hardest to be at the top of your game and improve every joke you can until the last possible second, and then you have to let it go."

"With that exchange, a cosmic shift took place. Amy made it clear that she wasn't there to be cute. She wasn't there to play wives and girlfriends in the boys' scenes. She was there to do what she wanted to do and she did not fucking care if you liked it."

"Yes. We don't fucking care if you like it."

"My ability to turn good news into anxiety is rivaled only by my ability to turn anxiety into chin acne."

"Politics and prostitution have to be the only jobs where inexperience is considered a virtue. In what other profession would you brag about not knowing stuff?  'I'm not one of those fancy Harvard heart surgeons. I'm just an unlicensed plumber with a dream and I'd like to cut your chest open.' The crowd cheers."

"When people say, 'You really, really must' do something, it means you don't really have to do it."

"When it's true, it doesn't need to be said."

"Why not do both, like everybody else in the history of earth? Because, as I think we have established in this book, things most people do naturally are often inexplicably difficult for me."

Jesus stick.

For the past few days I've been in Nebraska at a farm show for work.

At every farm show I go to I see people wandering around with walking sticks.

Yesterday morning while roaming around the show, an old man stopped me and asked me if I wanted a walking stick.

Sure, I said. Why not?

He told me I'd have to listen to his story. His story involved being inside of a tent and dry grass, so I figured it wouldn't be bad.

Might I tell you that it was 45 degrees and raining yesterday in Nebraska? And that dirt roads in those conditions turn into mud soup?

Going into a tent seemed like a good idea.

The old man sat me down with a couple of other older men. He was part of a Christian organization, and he explained that life is short and can end at any second.

You don't have to tell me this, especially on Sept. 11. I admired what he said and listened on.

After a few inspirational messages, he asked each of us (me and the two other gentlemen listening to him) whether we would go to heaven if we died soon.

I said, yes, I think so.

He asked me why I think that.

I said something like, well, I think I'm a pretty good person. I also go to church sometimes and try to treat people respectfully (although I mess up sometimes).

The old man got kind of agitated. That's not good enough, he said.

It's not good enough! You're not going to get into heaven just because you're a good person!

He then told me what I could do to get into heaven, but honestly I stopped paying attention. Some guy basically told me I might go to hell in 45-degree weather while I was wearing an $18 Wal-Mart coat, all because I wanted a Jesus stick.

My thought? Dude, look around. We're already in hell!

I think it's worth noting that I did get my Jesus stick after the old man prayed for my soul. Or something, like I said, I wasn't really paying attention.

And I still maintain that I'm a pretty good person with a pretty good shot at seeing those pearly gates.

So there.

A case of the blahs.

I don't deal with change very well.

It was north of 80 degrees on Monday. Yesterday there was a monsoon in Nebraska, where I'm working for the week, and today it was in the 50s and overcast.

Change is hard, even if it just involves the weather.

My allergies don't really know what to think of this. I set a new record and sneezed 12 times in a row yesterday. Sigh.

To make it all worse, I'm kind of a moron and I didn't bother to check the weather forecast before I packed. In my defense, I got home at 9 p.m. Sunday and left at 7 a.m. Monday, so there wasn't a whole lot of time for planning ahead.

Anyway, I didn't do a hot job of packing for this trip. I didn't bring a coat or a raincoat, and I brought my kind-of good shoes and no jeans.

The farm show we're working at got canceled today because of the downpour yesterday. Tonight for dinner I wore nice black pants, a pair of cute flats I just bought today, a t-shirt I wear for pajamas and an $18 coat I had to buy at Wal-Mart in Nebraska on Monday night.

I didn't pack jeans or a non-pajama shirt.

Oops.

I want to go home and hear my Pug snore all night.