Friday, June 8, 2012

Stainless Steel Is Turning My Kid into a Narcissist


It's been awhile, and I'm eating my lunch, so I'll be brief. I was just wondering if anyone else has noticed their young ones staring at their reflection in the stainless steel? Last night while I was preparing the already prepared dinner (my brother still mocks me for burning no-bake cookies back in the day), I turned to see Q moving between the oven and fridge, turning her head to the side, giggle, move to the other appliance, repeat.

Of course I did what any good parent would do - laughed and totally reinforced the behavior.

Anyway, we went on a run this morning. Had to share a cool photo. We continue to be happy with our decision to move out of the big city. We've missed the conveniences (particularly the 10 different Vietnamese and Thai restaurants outside our door compared to the two in the whole Cincity), but we're dealing. :)




Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Famouflage

This, my friends, is a wonderpus octopus--a complete studette in the sea world. Not only does she have a rockstar name, she can deftly evade any pursuers by simply changing colors and blending in with her surroundings. You can find her anywhere from Bali to the Philippines.

Like the wonderpus octopus, the Curry family is assuming the position of blending in - or camouflaging ourselves - into the current surroundings. Don't worry, the huz will still be whipping up mad dishes and the babe will still be wreaking havoc on our bathtub; this is change is only superficial.

We started with the babe. They had these baby Toms in my recent purchasing spree and I just couldn't resist.
I found the next addition to our camo family at the checkout line at the WalMart. The huz had snuck a pair of {shorts} into the cart, unbeknownst to me.

So basically, I'm the only one left before our famouflage is complete and we're fully immersed in our surroundings. I've been investigating some options and thought I'd open them up to you to decide.

1) Camo Dress. Check this out - A WHOLE WEBSITE dedicated to formal camo wear - GOLD.



2) Heels. I don't even know what to say about this.

3) iPhone Case: I mean, nothing offers a bigger more non-descript impact like your iPhone case. An option.
4) Camo Sheets. Put on some Silk and put the ants in romants with this nighttime number.


5) The Camo Yoga Pant. Sears, you have trumped everyone. Not only have you completely negated the whole premise of yoga with your camo yoga pant, it's just downright heinous.
Sign me up.

As a side note, if you type in "camouflage" into Etsy, approximately 45 percent of the results are camo garter belts? Who wears garter belts outside of their wedding night - if then?!

Saturday, March 31, 2012

Ya'll Ain't from 'Round Here - Are Ya?

It was like not wearing green on March 17th in Dublin. A sea of blue flowed through the Wal-Mart in Florence, KY, and I was one of three people in several long lines queueing at the express checkout not donned in Wildcat gear. In less than six hours, UK will battle Louisville in the Final Four - and yes, the other two people in line are wearing red.

I should have known what was up when the lady giving me a pedicure scoffed at me when I told her, no, I didn't want a "UK" on my big toe.


"Ya sure?" she asked.

"Yeah, I'm sure."

"Ya want a flower at least?"
LORD LADY. She would have been 10x better at selling CUTCO than I ever was.

"Nope."

"You mean you just want a plain color and that's it?" she asked in a voice of 3/4 cup of shock, 1/4 cup of disappointment.

"Yeah, that watermelon color would be great, thank you."

We spent the next 15 minutes in complete silence. She clearly had nothing in common with me and didn't want to waste any time with small talk. If my feet had lips, they'd totally be smiling. They always wanted to bite the bitches who talked too much.

That was today. Rewind to yesterday, I had encouraged the huz to a 2 mile hike to an awesome market in downtown Cincinnati. We set out just before lunch, hoping to grab veggies and meat for dinner, along with some tasty lunch treats. The babe leaned back in the jogging stroller and admired the sights, we were all excited and fueled by adrenaline as we made our way across the bridge for the first time. We made our way up the hill, cutting through the guys in suits.

Trudging on, we admired Zaha Hadid's design at the Museum of Contemporary Art. We were stoked to see a gastro pub, theaters and boutiques all populating a busy downtown. Q squeaked intermittently, but nothing that caused a pause in the step. As the foot traffic began to thin, she started throwing things. We probably let her toss the bottle of sunscreen four times before finally taking it away.

We stopped for coffee. She wailed.

I gave her the cap. We toiled on.

The sun popped out of the clouds and started blazing down on us.

I got out my phone, trying to map our directions.

We had .5 miles left to go.

"Let's go down this street," I suggested, trying to vary the route to keep it interesting. We walked more quickly as the boutiques turned into cash exchanges. Anyone who has seen The Wire would be able to recognize the almost immediate proliferation of corner boys who occupied the streets.


Coming from the worst neighborhood on the north side of Chicago, we were FINE, I reconciled. And at the end of it, we were fine. We made it to the market. We ate. Q saved her meltdown. People just looked at us, shaking their heads as they shouted drug orders across the street or to drivers stopped at a red light - knowing full well that we were just trying to get through there as quickly as possible - clearly not from around those parts.

The best anecdote comes from earlier in the week. The huz goes out to get a plunger at the hardware store about five blocks away. He wants to get there quickly, so he hops on his bike. Again, as a well experienced rider on the streets of Chicago, the huz feels confident riding on the streets. Any Chicago biker can tell you that if you can ride Clark Street downtown, you can ride anywhere.

Approaching an intersection, he sees a big F-350 stopped at the light itching to turn right. The huz takes his green light, acknowledging the man with a head nod for not turning in front of him.

The guy is in awe of his blatant disrespect for his diesel-powered black beauty. He turns behind the huz and slows, turning down his latest Blake Shelton jam before shouting out the window,

"You ain't from Kentucky, are ya?"

We moved here to be closer to family. And we'll get there, but we feel like we jumped countries moving here. But I'm not ready to turn in our Toms for socks with sandals yet.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Over the River and Through the Woods: The Kentucky Files

Operator: "Hi, I am here to help you transfer your water service."

Me: "Thanks."

Operator: "I understand you're moving to XX Main Street in Covington."

Me: "That's correct."

Operator: "It says here Antoinne Curry lives there, I know Antoinne, are you his wife?"

Me: "No, I'm not."

Operator: "Oh, I was wondering, I didn't think Antoinne had a wife."

Saturday, March 17, 2012

One Week, One Month, One Year and a Cake

In one week, we will be leaving Chicago. In one month, we will be celebrating one year with Q.

Today we said goodbye to all of her friends at music class, including Jake - her first kiss; Shelley, her awesome instructor; Violet, Aysla, Addy, Maya and a bunch of other cute babes. Music class rocked.

In one week, we'll move from the great state of Illinois to the even greater state of Kentucky. Or maybe the more infamous state of Kentucky? Regardless, we'll trade in our title of "Chicagoans" for "Kentuckians" or something like that. We'll be exchanging Lake Michigan for the Ohio River; 312 for moonshine. It should be blogworthy, to say the least. The pros of all of it is that we'll be closer to the fam, so nanna, pappy, gaga and gp3 will all be able to watch q grow up. That part is pretty rad.

But on to important things - one month after the move, we'll be celebrating Q's first year on this planet. It's gone SO quickly!! I couldn't resist to share some of the cute stuff I've seen while planning the festivities.

I'm thinking a strawberry theme for our little strawberry lover.
We'll start with the cake - doesn't this look incredible?

You can find the full recipe here.

For the obligatory one-year cake eating fiasco, I found the CUTEST pair of diaper covers on Etsy - just insane.
Now to build around the rest... while moving, can't forget the moving. Happy St. Patty's Day!

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

I Filed for Divorce

I just couldn't take it anymore. It was a really bad relationship. You disappointed me daily and brought me down. You overwhelmed me and disrupted my work. You made me think awful things about people I really didn't even care to know about. You isolated me from my friends in your weird, manipulative way. You made me compulsive, obsessive and stalkerish. I'm divorcing you, Facebook.

I think the final straw was a nice long email from a great friend, not on Facebook. It was a comprehensive recap of some of the things his young son was doing, recent trips, work highlights and family updates. It made me think about how I'd been cheating on those communications with you. I'd previously relished in developing correspondence with old friends - coming up with funny memories or anecdotes as we caught up in a quick email exchange. Personalizing my news. Customizing it for each individual rather than delivering factual updates or random thoughts en masse. It made me realize how you'd cheapened my life - and my insight into my friends' lives. So with that, I am finally over you.

It's almost been 24-hours since I said my last goodbye, but you didn't make it easy. You buried your "deactivate" button deep in your countless and confusing security options, taking me nearly 15 minutes to figure out how to finally let you go. Twice throughout the day yesterday, my left index finger instinctively went to the "F" key with the cursor pointed in the URL bar, but that blank ugly sign in form provided the perfect reminder for all I was not missing. You are bland, baseless and boring, Facebook. I refuse to be held captive by your whims any longer. All the cool people stopped posting shit a long time ago. Now all I have to read about is either 1) people with lives exactly like mine or 2) people who are out partying and living the life I used to lead, and both are pretty damn boring. Watching my baby swallow every piece of her dinner is 10x more intriguing to me than the update from the chick who used to sit beside me on the bus in third grade and had a rough trip home that evening.

So with that, Facebook, I'm curbing my voyeuristic inclinations and redirecting my focus. From now on, my family, my work and my FRIENDS will get my focus. See ya.

Friday, February 10, 2012

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Audios Amigo


"How do I say goodbye to what we had? 
The good times that made us laugh 
Outweigh the bad. I thought we'd get to see forever
But forever's gone away It's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday."


**Boyz II Men**

It has been one hell of a week. We're in the process of moving and it's an effing nightmare. Mix moving with moving across state lines - it's like DMV bad. Moving across state lines with a 9-month old? That's like sit in a locked room with Sarah Palin for 48-hours bad. So when I came across this article on the Huff Post where this woman lamented about things lost (reading and hot meals, really?!) and I got really bored and depressed. So tame, honey. And I'm sure YOU were the one that stuck with the trombone throughout high school, weren't you?

So in the spirit of letting off some steam in advance of my long anticipated chick day on Saturday, I thought I would provide my own PG-13 version of the things I used to do before I had children. Mom, sorry again.

1. Day Drinking. If you're half a human, you've spent more than a week of your life, at some point, belly up to at least three bars before 1 p.m. You know what I'm talking about - the kind of day where you crawl into a very dark hole early in the day and emerge several hours later, surprised by the sun, instantly cowering like a gremlin and shriveling beneath its rays.

Fast forward to today. Now I'm that woman with painted scorn on my face as I see you coming out of the bar, trying to usher my kid into the car as quickly as possible. And now I know it's not disapproval on those people's faces, dressed in their church clothes while we were having a Sunday Funday - it's JEALOUSY.



2. Speeding. When I got my first "real" car after college, I felt like the first day I had my license and drove home from volleyball practice in the family Celebrity. Careening around corners, my foot didn't feel comfortable unless it was thoroughly extended and pointed toward the floor. The best part was racing people on the outer belt or down the interstate, giving grannies anxiety attacks as I passed them on the right.

By the time I was 25, I'd racked up a grand total of four speeding tickets in a six-month period, which earned me a nice big trip to the local judge to have my license revoked. Fortunately for me, my brother had a lawyer on his smile retainer who was able to get my last ticket reduced to a "loud muffler" violation.

Now, I feel like a giant ass hat if I breach 10 mph over the speed limit. As my foot draws to the floor like a drunk to White Castle, I look up to my rearview mirror and see that sweet face. And I slow down.

3. Smoking a Ton. I LOVE/D smoking. I loved smoking anything I could smoke. I remember in high school this kid I was studying with was smoking some cool Indian cigarette that stained his lip (AWESOME, let me get a drag of that bizness!). When I lived down under, my roommate suggested we try smoking some of the leaves in the mandarin tree beside our flat and we rolled them up. When April 20th came around, I was ... STUDYING, duh.

Anyway, I haven't sniffed a smoke of anything since the wee one has come into this world. Now I want to punch anyone walking ahead or two miles behind us with a cigarette. I can't BELIEVE that people pay that much for a pack of puffs! I have supplemented that delightful stash of tobacco curls in the bottom of my purse with mum-mums and rattles. I probably don't smell any better for it either.

4.  Sleeping until 2 p.m. Ah, the childless It didn't even have to be a late night to spend the ENTIRE next day in bed. Swimming throughout the pillow sea, we'd make our way to the most amazingly comfortable arrangements, playing in our PJs and talking about what we wanted to be in life.

Now, we're waking at 2 a.m., moaning about life, grabbing for any available pillow and wishing someone would put us out of our misery.

5. Shopping. Back in the day, I'd spend hours tarrying around shopping areas, people watching, scouring for sales and digging deeply in racks trying to find the most interesting print that I was convinced no one else had purchased, let alone seen. My closet was filled with combinations from all types of stores gathered from different parts of the country.

The HuffPost writer laments spending $150, I can't even get in the effing DOOR to give the city my 10 percent sales tax.

6. Rolling with My Homies. From my brother to my huz and my girls, I used to spend hours idling away the hours just hanging out. We might spend 10 hours doing absolutely nothing. It was a really special day if we convened with another group of people or engaged in another social gathering, because we typically were just happy hanging.

Now, I hang with Baldy the Baby, Raylan the Rabbit, Sophie the Giraffe and maybe Grover if I'm lucky.

7. Manicures. Going to get my hands rubbed down was a weekly event. I was BUDS with my nail people. There was John Juan, Kate, Jenny - some of these know more about me than many of my closest friends. There was nothing better than strolling into the salon on a Saturday and just chilling with them, catching up on everything that had happened during the past week or two.

These days, I'm lucky to get the babe's claws cut, let alone my own. My fingers look like they came from West Virginia along with the bags beneath my eyes.

8. Swearing. I like swearing. A whole bunch. Particularly when someone cuts me off and I feel like throwing something at their car. But I think the worst word I've ever heard my mom say was "hell" and that might have been in reference to the actual place. While you won't ever catch me EVER uttering, "H - E - double hockey sticks," my days dropping bombs are in the rear view mirror. Fuck.  

Friday, January 6, 2012

Mama's Got Big Guns

"Flexin, flexin, all day I'm flexin'. If flexin' was a crime then somebody come arrest me."
- The ever prolific Young Jeezy 

Yesterday, while walking back to the office from a quick trip to Trader Joe's on State and Ontario, I realized that mama is STACKED. In my bags, I carried not one or two bottles of wine, but four (don't worry ma, we've got visitors coming) and a six pack of beer for the huz, and it didn't even phase me. Back in the day, I'd made it to the corner of Clark before having to massage my arms. Now, after months of rocking 25 lbs of love in my arms every day, I've got arms of STEEL, baby! 
You want tickets?

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Jan Jams

January sucks. Well, unless it's your birthday, January sucks. Fortunately for me and the other other bajillion Capricorns out there who likely drink work too much and don't play enough (at least according to this site), a good playlist can help break up the monotony that is going to work, go home, play with, feed and bathe the babe, play with the huz and go to bed.

For a little boogie in your night (or day), peep the following:

1: I LOVE Andre 3000 like I love Budweiser and a good pair of red heels. This new jam, in intense anticipation of the March 13th album release, makes me happy: Play the Guitar

2: The new Black Keys album: The whole thing is fantastic, but check out Sister or Hell of a Season. Both quality jams.

3. Mama loves some Keith Urban. That being said, I would have been better off spending the $20 on his last two albums on some BOGO deal at Payless. "You Gonna Fly" is reminiscent to the epic jams on his Be Here album though, so I may have to give it a shot.

4. The title track off Florence + the Machine's new album is worthy of easy Sunday cleaning tunes - or a baby dance jam.

5. And for a fun, final way to close out this very short playlist, definitely give Lykke Li's "I'm Good, I'm Gone." It's not new, but it's cute, fun and lighthearted for those sunless, dreary, January days.