Family Scandal

Since I bear so many similarities to some of the world's best-known royalty...

...it was only a matter of time before I experienced my own family scandal.  I plan on handling it with clearly offended dignity, allowing myself only half-smiles and gracious nods until I get through it all.

Our scandal is this: Princess has a boyfriend.

I suppose I should have seen this coming.  We were due for a scandal; things have been so quiet on the Brangelina front that Jen and John went ahead and broke up again, the Stewart-Cramer showdown was decisive...I guess it was just my turn.  As a celebrity in my own mind, I take my responsibilities very seriously.

The scandal has caused shockwaves throughout the day care, my workplace, and most of the house, which explains the mess.  Everywhere I go, people are asking me about it, sometimes without being prompted.

Here's the real story, not the exaggerated "tabloid" version you'll get from some disreputable rag like The Kid Place Weekly Newsletter.  The other day, I picked Princess, age 3, up from day care.  One of the older classes had been combined with hers, and several 4-year-old girls began hugging her goodbye.

"How sweet," I said to myself, not knowing that the real show hadn't started yet.

I didn't notice the 4-year-old Lothario, twirling his inexplicable mustache, slinking ever closer to my frail, tiny child.  Before I knew it, he was facing her, alone, except for me and the teachers and the other children.

"Princess," he growled in his breathy 4-year-old manly voice, "I need a kiss."

And she kissed him.  Right on the cheek.  He kissed her, and they hugged.  When she came and took my hand, her smile was rather pleased.

Mommy was stunned.

We drove home in silence.  When I questioned her at home, she was nonchalant.  "Yes, that's Tyler," she said when I asked if that had been her boyfriend who accosted her at the door.

But when Daddy got home and asked her...

...she BLUSHED.  My three-year old blushed when asked about the day care Rhett Butler.

We still haven't recovered; the scandal is still the subject of gossip and open speculation.  I can only hope Angelina adopts another baby, or anything to allow me to return to my quiet, private life.

But Tyler will still be around...

Nightmare Scenario

I've been having some vivid, disturbing dreams lately. Some are disturbing in that pleasant, I-want-to-see-where-this-is-going way, but others are just plain wacky.

Last night's dream was vivid and disturbing enough for me to only hit the snooze button three times, so I could immediately reflect upon it. I won't go into detail (is there anything worse than someone who tries to "tell" a dream?) but I can sum up nicely:

In my dream, I was watching the final episode of "ER," in which real medical professionals pontificated at length about the changes in medical technology over the course of the show's 15-year run. That's not the disturbing part.

In my dream, I changed the channel, and found that Rupert Everett and Madonna had made a sequel to "The Next Best Thing." Does anybody remember that movie? I warn you right now, I'm going to totally spoil it, because it's old enough that anyone who wanted to see it would have done so by now, and it's awful.

In "The Next Best Thing," Madonna is a hip yoga instructor who lives with her gay BFF. She's in a relationship with someone whose name I can't recall, who may be in so few scenes because he's embarrassed. They break up, Madge goes to Rupert for consolation, they get drunk and spend the night together. This plot device was so plausible, it made me wonder if they were reading my diary!

Of course, as always happens when you've spent one drunken night with a gay man, she gets pregnant. They decide to raise the child (a boy) together, continuing to have their own romantic relationships on the side. This sounded like such a solid plan, I almost left the theater. However, to my stunned amazement, it didn't work.

Madge meets Benjamin Bratt and wants to marry him and move to the suburbs. She also drops the faux-British accent she's been affecting throughout the film, for valid reasons of character, I'm sure. Rupert vows to fight her for custody, and Madge reveals he's not the real father, it was the ex who dumped her at at the beginning.

YAWN! I mean, GASP! Who saw that one coming? They don't pay those writers enough.

The rest of the film shows the former BFF's progressively hating each other more, and there are courtroom scenes. Remember, it was billed as a comedy?

So my dream last night was that someone made a very lengthy sequel, and I caught the end.

The plot of the sequel: two words: suicide pact. But, it got me thinking...

Say it with me: Titanic II. Oh, yeah...

World Domination

I don't wish to toot my own horn, but it has recently come to my attention that I am on my way to total world domination.


I began writing this little ol' blog as a creative outlet; it also gives me a reason to use semi-colons to my heart's delight as I create compound-complex sentences without anyone criticizing me for it (not to mention indulging my addiction to parentheses).


However, what began as something of a "lark" has turned into a "frightening carnivorous lark" as a particular facet of my behavior, as illustrated by my blog, has been turning anyone who reads it into a very specific kind of monster.


The Heckle MonsterTM. Pictured here, clutching its obviously intimidated offspring:


The Heckle Monster is identified by its rapier-sharp wit and understated physical attractiveness. It preys upon those innocents who go through life completely unaware that a lowbrow, wicked sense of humor lurks underneath a genteel veneer. This particular specimen is unusually ruthless, even attacking its own mother, forcing her to heckle formerly beloved movies, sometimes weeping with the ruthlessness of her attack, but helpless to do otherwise.

It's all true. My mother, a paragon of decency and itellectual virtue, recently called me on the phone.

"It's all your fault," she began, which may not sound like a promising start, but it's a fairly typical opening for our conversations.

"What did I do now?" I asked.

"I'm watching Lord of the Rings," she answered. It was all I needed to know. My dear mother now cannot hear Orlando Bloom's voice without grave concern over the state of his bowels, and it's all my fault.

Then, my sister called me to inform me that my beloved nephew, Dervish, was heckling Titanic. I heard him in the background yelling at the television, "Jump off the boat! At least you'll be out of this movie!"

He's 9. I apologize. To my knowledge, Dervish doesn't read my blog, so the only way I could have infected him with my disease would be general contact.

You understand what this means? I am a bio-weapon, a force of mass destruction the likes of which this world has never seen. Imagine what I could do in the evil places of the world:

(Cue imaginary dream sequence music.)

Obama: It's serious this time. We can't get North Korea to back down.

Deb: What do you want me to do?

Obama: We can't mess around here. You're going to have to bring out the big guns.

Deb: You can't mean...

Obama. Yes. The Matrix. The entire trilogy. Then Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. If that doesn't work, The Ten Commandments, Rebecca, and-

Deb: Not-

Obama: Yes.

Deb: I can't heckle that. Think of the children.

Obama: You must. For the good of the nation.

Deb: All right. (flies off into the night, with Sunset Boulevard tucked under her arm...)

(Cue end of dream imaginary music)

Yes, I vow to always use my powers for good, and never, ever heckle Sunset Boulevard again, unless it is for the good of the nation.

And I'm ready for my closeup, Mr. DeMille...

A Princess Sample: Sunday Morning

This morning, Princess climbed into bed with me, as she usually does on non-school days.

"Mommy," she said, "I'm cold, let me under the covers with you."

I let her in, and as soon as she was snuggled against me, she gave me a secretive little smile, and tooted.

"Princess," I asked, "did you just toot on Mommy?"

She batted her eyelashes at me and responded, "I was just thinking about you."

Then, she pulled her arms out from under the blanket and played with her dolly.

She said, "Mommy, I'm cold."

I said, "You're under the blanket with me."

She said, "No, my arms are cold.  I need a blanket with sleeves."

Snuggie strikes again... drat you, Kristina.

Have a great week, everybody.