The Island of Misfit Toys

The following toys should never have been made for what I would have thought would have been obvious reasons:
Darth Vader Learning Laptop
B-Bratz Webcam
WWE Role Play Superstar Gear
Gwen Stefani wind-up doll
A toy that has this note from a previous buyer: "Be aware that the microphone does not work like a real microphone... it is only a remote control."
Somewhere in the clearance section is a remote control that works like a microphone.

Be Sure to Read the Fine Print

From the preparing for surgery booklet for Miss I's surgery Tuesday:
"If you are not the biological parent (natural mother or father) of the child, you must bring copies of court documents of your legal right to give consent for the procedure and anesthesia."
Yet later, "If you are not the biological or adoptive parent, but you do have guardianship, please bring legal proof of guardianship." So adoptive parents may or may not be required to present documents supporting their legal right to give consent for the care of their children. If I have any questions about this, I can speak with a social worker in advance of admission.
Oy.

Around My Mother's Table(s)

We celebrated Thanksgiving with two tables this year. A twenty-some pound turkey and an extra turkey breast. And the following guests:

Grandma and Pappap Gardener
My siblings and their spouses
My parents' grandchildren (6 total kiddos)
Aunt and Uncle
Aunt and Uncle's adult daughter
Aunt and Uncle's soldier son
Soldier son's soldier friend
Soldier friend's young wife
Soldier friend's young wife's mother
Uncle Gardener
Grammy and Grandpa Bloom

This year, we missed many, but we were blessed to spend the holiday giving thanks with people we'd never met before we passed the plates. There were three vocal and committed members of the right side of the Republican party, two libertarians, a few public educators, two pacifists and two paratroopers. I hope your holiday was as blessed.

Why Did I Wonder

"Momma, sometimes when I get out of the shower and my skin is shiny I look like dark chocolate."
"I wonder what I look like . . ."
"Ham."

I'd Like to Buy the World a Roomba

Do you remember "I'd like to buy the world a Coke . . ."?
If I could, I would buy everyone who reads here a Roomba. I love my new Roomba so much, I really want to spread the completely uncynical love I feel for my new Roomba 535 to your house, and yours, and yours . . . She makes me happy, with her happy green clean glow, her little blue dirt light and her dedication to fetching dog hair.

Targetting Target

Moms are mad.
Target online had the Britax Marathon carseat in grey and cowprint on sale for what appeared to be a close-out price. I had promised not to buy anything for newbaby, because we are months away and it only makes the waiting harder. But the price was too good to pass up. We'd just hold onto it until we had someone to put in it.
It was also too good to be true. Target apologized today to apparently millions of angry moms for the "inconvenience" of the mispriced item, cancelling the order and offering to sell it for the regular retail price of $279. But here's the problem: they also offered some moms $30 credits for their troubles. They offered other moms $10 credits for their troubles. They offered still other moms no satisfaction. It will cost them far more than $30 per mom in the next few days while they field an extraordinary volume of phone calls, while still other moms decide to take their online business elsewhere. I pity the customer service reps who take those calls. I'm just taking my Christmas shopping to another site.

More Nastiness at the Bloom Household

"I don't like you, Momma!" This is familiar -- and I responded with my familiar "I can understand that, but you do have to respect me." Only this time she followed it up with "Not even GOD likes you."
Wow. Now who can top that?!

Some things are better left unsaid.

Little Bun was furious with his dad.
So furious that, despite no name-calling in our family, he said "You're a freak," and when that didn't make him feel better, repeated over and over "freak, freak, freak, freak, freak . . ." His dad, to prove (I suppose) that it wasn't getting to him, said "Say what you have to. Get it all out . . ." Little Bun blurted "Sh*t," which was followed by stunned silence from both.
Dr.Bloom suggested several punishments, but I feel that "Sh*t" was possibly covered by "Say what you have to" and "Get it all out."

Language Bomb

Share with your friends prone to hyperbole.

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (with spoilers)

We didn't expect anything serious to come out of the second Madagascar. We just wanted to do something with the kids that didn't entail sick Mommy moving. We were surprised, more than once.

The movie begins with young Alekei in an African Wildlife Preserve, clearly the treasured son of the pride's Alpha male. While his father is occupied fighting the Beta-lion (voiced by Alec Baldwin, looking very much the feline version of the actor) the toddling cub is lured off the reserve. His father tries to save him (and for a moment appears to be shot) and Alekei is washed away. Soon a rescued Alekei turns up in the Central Park Zoo, renamed "Alex," and we are back in the familiar territory of the original film.

A quick sequence takes us through what has brought our four heroes to Madagascar (a device some reviewers found annoying but I found fun) and soon, they take off in a fragile plane, only to be grounded on the continent proper. Soon Alex realizes that he has landed on his native ground, and he is reunited with his father and mother (and the film explicitly refers to Roots). Alex/Alekei finds what he has always been missing (though the performing King of New York has no survival skills necessary for the King of the Watering Hole). Marty finds that in the zebra herd, he doesn't stand out anymore. Gloria finds true love.

Alex/Alekei's forced removal from Africa and separation from his doting father and his renaming was hard for the Bloom family. Thankfully, however, it affirmed that Alex/Alekei had always been loved at home, and in the end, the adult Alex was who he was in a combination of nature (as a cub he was inclined to dancing) and nurture, in Africa and in the Central Park Zoo, by his beloved friends. Marty, too.

More conservative families may find objectionable a penguin's romance with a dancing hula girl, and the interspecies infatuation of a giraffe and a hippo. Of course, this is no less weird than the polymorphic perverse (in the Freudian sense) King Julian, who comes along for the ride.

Her Nose and th Unknown

Everyone here at Chez Bloom is sick -- except for Miss I. I have spent about a week under blankets, a week during which Miss I has petted my head and said things like "Oh Mommy, you're so cute." That's real love -- because I assure you there is nothing actually cute about me right now.

Miss I. hasn't been sick, but she is having surgery soon. After two years of house-shaking snoring and sleep apnea, speech difficulties (which, to be honest, I will miss), and a permanent runny nose (which I won't miss -- while I'm generally opposed to retouching photographs I can say I have digitally wiped her nose more than once), she'll be having a tonsil and adenoidectomy.

The risks of the procedure are relatively low, and certainly less than a lifetime of sleep apnea. But this is one of those times were *adoption* becomes an issue (as if it isn't part of our daily lives, which I don't mean to imply). Because we don't have a family history, her ENT has more concerns about bleeding and post-op complications. We're running a battery of pre-op tests, and they're planning on keeping her for two days even though most patients go home after one. I'm sure everything will be fine, and in comparison to the experiences of one of our beautiful friends, this is nothing -- but it is something that reminds us how much harder the road is for adoptees. Family members assure me that surgery on your child is always scary (which I know to be true from experience with Little Bun) but this, like so many things already, comes with the added unknown -- and there's only more to come.

Hope and Joy

I wish I had something prepared for this occasion, but despite the fact that I looked forward to this moment, I suppose part of me didn't actually think it would come.
Two things that strike me as just right, and what's right with America:
1. Obama won by a clear majority. No hanging chads, no court cases, no conspiracies, no electoral college upsets, no last ditch smears (not sincere efforts at "October surprises, anyway). If you believe in democracy, you have to accept the outcome -- even if you don't like it.
2. McCain's concession speech was genuine and gracious, and a reminder of the McCain so many would have wanted to see elected. Pre-shoring up the base, real deal McCain who has been friends with Joes Lieberman and Biden (pre-Joe the Plumber) would've made a worthier opponent.
One thing that's right with the world:
A national holiday in Kenya today.
One thing that Joe got right:
It didn't take long for a test to present, in this case for Russia to react.
Really, Russia? What, three hours?

M,
I think I might have accidentally dressed as Palin on Halloween.
If not for the high brown boots, newly brunette (goodbye grey!) 'do, and good girl? glasses, why did two Texans follow me off a cliff -- even after I told them with a wink that I was clueless?