I'm Never Going To Shut Up About This One

I'm about 70% into a major dining room overhaul, a fact which has led to me scouring all corners of the earth for ideas and stuff and things that will help finish the project. Of course that means I *HAD* to go into Pottery Barn. Dining rooms and Pottery Barn are like peanut butter and jelly, no?

The first hint that this trip into Pottery Barn was going to be special read like a sign. Well, OK, it wasn't so much a hint as it was a literal sign--a sign in the doorway which announced that the store would be closing for renovations. One quick look inside gave notice that we were late to the party. The store was nearly empty.

BLURGH. I hate when I miss Store Closing Parties.

Empty shelves have never really stopped me from going to Store Closing Parties, though. Maybe I would find one little thing? Something? Anything?

I quickly bee-lined towards some metal bird sculptures that would look absolutely amazing in the china cabinet I currently have torn apart. As I stood there stroking them and trying to convince myself that $50 for two metal birds was totally reasonable, I heard something.

The husband. Beckoning me.

I quickly turned to see what he wanted. I swear the ceiling opened up, the sun scrambled to position itself where it could spotlight the husband's find, and angels began to sing. HALLELUJAH! He was standing pointing at a table.

The Table.

Months and months ago I got it into my head that the table in our kitchen was the wrong shape. A round table! That's what we needed! And a pedestal table, at that. I spent hours scouring stores, both in person and online, but couldn't find anything that I loved enough to open up my wallet.

But there it was . . . The Perfect Table. Of course, I had already seen it online and knew it was $1000. The husband isn't as much of a cheap ass as I am, so I figured it was marked down to $500 or something. A good deal, but certainly nothing to get excited about.

I decided to humor the man and slowly walked over to The Table. It was a floor model and bore the marks of years of wear. It wasn't anything that couldn't be fixed, but it certainly had seen its share of wear and tear. As I carefully looked over the scratches, a tiny little sign interrupted my thoughts.

$199.

THE TABLE WAS ON SALE FOR $199.

I looked again at the totality of the hunk of marvelous wood that stood in front of me. Was it horribly disfigured somewhere? Was it missing something? WHAT WAS WRONG WITH IT?

Oh! The leaf was missing.

Not a huge deal, but certainly it made sense that it had been marked down so much. Between the wear and tear and the missing leaf, it was probably only worth $150 to me.

As I turned to go back to stroking my metal birds, I saw another table across the store that was just like the one the husband was encouraging me to buy. IT HAD ITS LEAF.

Never before has a woman stuck such an aggressive pose as she pondered the fastest way across the store. I was prepared to take out anyone who so much as looked at My Table. I slapped on my ninja outfit and ran as fast as I could.

IT WAS ALSO $199! And while there were a couple of deep scratches, it still looked totally fixable. In a flash, my debit card flew out of my wallet and I tried to throw it at a sales person. She clearly did not understand the urgency of my need to purchase The Table before anyone else noticed it. She was all sorts of busy chatting with a customer. The nerve!

I grabbed the little price sign and slowly backed my way to the register, never once taking my eyes off the prize. I absolutely was willing to physically maim anyone who tried to stop me from completing my purchase.

I needn't have worried. The whopping two people in the store didn't care about my table, but -OH!- I cared! A lot!

Buying that $1000 Pottery Barn table for $199 was easily the most exciting thing to happen all weekend. EASILY.

And, yes, I just wrote an entire post about buying a table. Lame, I know. But you took your time to read it, so welcome to The Lame Club! We have nice tables here.

She Wasn't Impressed

An Equal Opportunity To Suck Face

You can argue Nature vs. Nurture until you're blue in the face, but I can tell you sometimes the answer is NONE OF THE ABOVE. Alexis was born a hopeless romantic, but she neither got that from me via genetics nor did I ever teach it to her.

If I watch Cinderella, I gag. Alexis swoons. LITERALLY. SWOONS.

I need a barf bag to watch Sleeping Beauty, especially the part where the prince kisses the narcoleptic chick. Alexis thinks it's sooooooo sweet.

Frankly, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs creeps me out. WHY IS HE KISSING A POSSIBLY DEAD WOMAN? Alexis gets all sorts of flustered and kerfluffled and says "Awwwww" when she watches it.

I generally think that princess movies reach the peak of stupid when the main characters suck face without even knowing each other, but I let Alexis watch them anyway. She loves the movies. She loves the romance. She loves the kisses.

::PUKE::

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There's one thing Alexis did get from me--a love of music. While her taste in music is . . . . suspect (that's the nicest word I can come up with for her love of Britney Spears), I've been known to hole up in my room with a soprano clarinet or alto saxophone for hours just as much as she's been known to hole up in her playroom with a microphone and piano.

And that's why I let her watch Glee. It might be her favorite show on TV these days. Mostly her love is limited to the musical numbers. She thinks the talking and plot lines are "boring," but the singing and dancing? Totally her kind of thing. She stares at the TV intently any time Glee is on, just waiting for them to cover one of her favorite songs.

Of course, watching Glee is a supervised activity. It's not exactly a show written for 5-year olds, so we cuddle up on the couch together to watch it, with me taking the opportunity to yell, "HEY, LOOK! IT'S A JONAS BROTHER IN OUR BACK YARD!" any time the content on the TV is something less than appropriate.

Which I found myself doing the first time two boys kissed.

Hypocrite, much? Yes, I was. For that brief moment.

But that part of me deep in my heart that truly, strongly believes that love should be equal opportunity started to grin from ear-to-ear because DUDE! Boys kissing! On my TV! We have a long way to go in the quest for equality, but that's a hell of a step in the right direction.

I see nothing wrong with my kid watching a prince kiss a possibly dead princess, and I see nothing wrong with her watching two boys kiss.

But if anybody starts rounding their way towards second base, I'm sure as hell going to find a Jonas brother to throw at Alexis.

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Representative Metcalfe has introduced a bill that would "protect marriage" in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. In my opinion, "protect marriage" is fancy wording for "legalize discrimination." I believe that every person should be treated equally, no matter who they want to kiss. I have signed the Equality Pennsylvania petition, and I hope you'll take a moment to do the same.

Read more about Pittsburgh Blog for Equality Day here.

I Have No Doubt That She'll Do It

"Momma, when I'm bigger enough, can I dye my hair?" Alexis asked.

The kid spends entirely too much time concerning herself with the future. She plans and plans and plans, creating benchmarks and goals and dreams and aspirations. She sticks to them all, too, so I have to be careful how I answer her.

"I'll think about it," I decided to go with the safest answer possible.

"Can I have pink streaks?" she continued. "And some purple ones, too!" she added.

I thought about it for a second and realized I really wasn't opposed to her dying her hair bright colors. Just not NOW, obviously. Maybe in ten years.

I know better than to leak any sort of time frame, however, so I said, "I'll think about it." Always with the safest answer possible.

"OK," Alexis said. She tends to accept the "think about it" line, but only because she knows she can ask 5,301,924 more times or until I just cave.

Realizing that I wasn't really in the mood to spend the entire day answering the same question, I decided to scope out just far ahead the kid was planning this time. Sometimes she's plotting what she'll do next week, but usually she's trying to schedule every moment of her teen years. At the rate she's making plans, she's going to have to have about eight 16th birthday parties if she wants to fit it all in. "When are you trying to put pink streaks in your hair?" I asked.

"Ummm... When I'm 60! Can I dye my hair when I'm 60?" she asked with an air of excitement in her voice.

I chucked before answering, "Absolutely. You can absolutely put pink streaks in your hair when you're 60."

It's nice getting to be the good guy once in a while.