James Franco

My friend Jessica and I went to the movies over the weekend. She is my perfect movie date. We love a good R-rated flick, especially if it's a comedy. We have the same taste in shows. So when I called her up and told her we should go see Spring Breakers, she was totally on board.

So we sit down in the theater and within five minutes of the movie starting, we look at each other and Jessica says, "We'll give it five more minutes." Everyone knows exactly what that means. She and I are NOT prudes at all. I was a wild child myself, but this movie took it a million steps further instantly. I think we might have been close to being slightly offended by the content of the show. A movie has to be pretty crude to make me and Jessica feel like old maids. We were both like, "Whoa, we are totally moms now!!!" It freaked us out about raising our own daughters in the world today.

I love Selena Gomez and the whole first half of the show we were just hoping that Selena would smarten up and get away from her awful, foul mouthed, dirty, violent friends. I couldn't relax until she was 100 miles away from all the Spring Break debauchery. We both wanted her to be safe.  I just kept thinking, run Selena! Justin Bieber will take you back and keep you safe girl! What the hell are you doing in Florida anyway?

We stayed for the entire, crazy, movie though. It was only an hour and a half, but it got super weird. I wouldn't recommend this show to anyone, but I have to say that James Franco was amazing. He was completely unrecognizable and he played the thuggy, trashy, drug dealer type to perfection. He was like a skinnier Kevin Federline. The more I think about it, the more impressed I am with him. If this movie were anything other than "Spring Breakers", he would be up for an Oscar for sure. The dude is committed when he's playing a part. Jessica works for Delta and she always sees James at the airport. I told her she needs to ask him if he was super uncomfortable during some of the scenes in this dirty movie. How could he not be? My skin is crawling just thinking about it. Good work James. I hope you got to keep that shiny grill as a souvenir!

 

Isn't this a crazy transformation? That guy up there normally looks like this guy down here.

Good hair and clothes make a huge difference.

P.S.
My spell checker always has to try to correct me on the same words. When is this system going to learn that "Bieber" is a word and "Thuggy" is a word?

A Case for a Bounce House

Having kids has taught me so much about the world. Like for instance, the world DOES NOT revolve around me (blew my mind) and no one cares if my dinner is cold when I sit down to eat it. My kids also taught me that my living room floor is covered, not by carpet, but by an alarming amount of hot molten lava. So much so that my kids are often forced to tear apart my pricey leather couch and jump from one cushion to another just to avoid burning to death in said lava. While I appreciate their caution, I also found myself getting really sick and tired of reassembling my couch everyday. That's when the stroke of genius hit me. I don't need a nice looking living room with couches that never get sat on. I need a trampoline or bounce house.

I remembering seeing the movie Big when I was a kid. Tom Hanks had two things that rarely go together. A kids mentality and money. He got himself a huge loft apartment and filled it with everything a kid could possibly want, full size arcade games, Foosball table, toys and a trampoline. I was so inspired by his awesome loft apartment. I swore right then and there that I would put a trampoline inside my house when I became an adult and I had my own money. I also vowed to own my own roller rink and marry the lead singer of Skid Row. The roller rink and the rock star proved to be beyond my grasp, but I can totally purchase a trampoline.  I ended up marrying a grown up though and the trampoline plan was quickly vetoed. So I went with the next best thing, an inflatable bounce house.

I told Dave my plan and he was not on board. The following weekend was my daughters birthday and we went to Boondocks (a family fun center) to celebrate. We came home with thin wallets, loads of junky toys and my oldest daughter got the best souvenir of all....Pink Eye! Dave, ever the raging germaphobe, immediately concluded that we would never again visit the germ ridden Boondocks. The kids were devastated by the news and I realized I finally had a great angle to sell him my bounce house pitch. It would be our very own, "uncontaminated", brand new "clean" bounce house and our kids could be super entertained without picking up all the kid sicknesses that plague our house and Dave's brain. SOLD!

I looked at a ton of them online and decide which one I wanted and I ordered it. Five days later it arrived on my porch and five minutes after that my couch was pushed up against the wall and we were bouncing. My kids were thrilled and they felt compelled to build up my mother ego again and again by telling me, and I quote, "You are the best mom in the whole world!" Gee thanks, and just yesterday I was called the meanest mom on the planet for insisting that my kid get her homework finished before we left for school. It's a manic life with young kids.

So here's the verdict. I am very happy with my purchase. This thing inflates in 20 seconds and deflated in a minute. Supposedly it folds up small enough to fit in a duffel bag, though we've yet to find a reason to put it away. My kids haven't had any interest in the T.V. (except for some Mario kart racing) and the couch hasn't been touched since the day the bounce house arrived. It's absolutely wonderful and if someone comes into my house and thinks it looks stupid sitting there in the living room, they are free to turn around and leave. So far though, everyone seems to love it just as much as we do.

Confessions of a Candy Crush Addict

I made a horrible confession on Facebook yesterday. It was painful to do, but there is something so nice about outing yourself via social media. I confessed that I am horribly addicted to the game Candy Crush Saga. It's so true and very embarrassing.

This dumb game was introduced to me on Facebook, but it's a really popular free ap that you can download. Free being the key word here. I adore free games and I  make fun of anyone who would pay real money to download a game or buy "boosters" that would get them further in the game. Paying money for this stuff is absurd because you don't have a chance of winning any real prize by beating your game. It's not like you're gambling in Vegas and you actually stand a slim chance of hitting a jackpot. If I get to the end of Candy Crush Saga I will not win anything. I would probably just be sad that it was over and my house would finally get a good cleaning.

Yesterday I became my worst nightmare. I could not pass a certain level of Candy Crush and I did what I swore I would NEVER do. I bought some boosters...with real money. I paid five dollars and I received boosters that would give me 5 more moves and boosters that would explode tons of candy. It paid off immediately because within a few minutes I passed several difficult levels of my game. This thrilled me to no end. I also had the joy of hitting rock bottom in my life. What have I become? How did this happen? It was so quick and easy to hand over my real money and I found out how the other half lives. I don't want to be like that. I want to hoard my money. I want to pass those levels without the aid of costly boosters. I crossed a line I never wanted to cross and it felt dirty.

Confessing all of this was wonderful. There is no way in hell that I'm going to send another penny to the Candy Crush creators. It won't happen. One of my girlfriends that I used to work with added a great comment under that Facebook confession. She said, "Don't tell Dave! You'll be in trouble!" She knows me and Dave all to well. I would be in big trouble and that's just fine with me, because I would punch Dave in the face if he spent real money on a game as dumb as Candy Crush Saga. I would change the passwords on the Paypal account and take away his credit card. I would Freak the Freak as we say in this house and I am certain he would do the same. That's exactly why I didn't mention this to him.

I will continue to play the dumb game and I swear that I will never again pay for a booster. It's times like this that I feel thankful that Facebook doesn't offer me instant shots of heroine by clicking "okay" to the credit card charges.  God only knows where I'd be now if they did.

Post Bachelor Depression

While I totally loved the finale of the Bachelor last night, I'm overcome with Post Bachelor Depression. Dancing With the Stars doesn't fill that Monday night void for me. Magical Mondays are gone until ABC can drum up some more of that sweet Bachelor drama for me. I'd kill for a new season of Bachelor Pad, but I haven't even heard whispers of one on the horizon. I'm truly shocked by this because there are so many gorgeous rejects left over from Sean's season. These women need a shot at Bachelor Pad. ABC can save a little money on the casting of it because I volunteer to do it for free! I was made for that job.

So back to the finale. I was totally rooting for Catherine half way into the episode. Lindsey is great too, but there was something so much more genuine and real about the pain and angst that Catherine was going through. It was so honest and heartfelt. I LOVED when Sean kissed her goodnight and left her room and she went after him. That's love for sure. I was not sure why Chris Harrison chose to make such a big deal about the moment when Catherine professed her love to Sean and he didn't say it back. He's not allowed to say it back. He touched his forehead to hers and I knew right then and there that he loved her back. I thought it was so tender. I was getting a little teary eyed about it.

The ending was magical. The letter, the gold dress, the hyperventilating. I loved every second of it. It worked out so perfect. Lindsey will look back on this experience and be thankful that Sean didn't propose to her. It will take time, but she will eventually come to accept that you don't want to be wearing that HORRIBLE silver dress of hers when you get engaged. It was so beyond awful. It gave her no shape at all and she just looked like a walking fish, a Salmon perhaps. I hated it so bad that I wonder if it didn't make it easier for Sean to dump her.

I'm very much looking forward to the televised wedding. Ashley and J.P.'s wedding was so fun to watch and I hope that Catherine and Sean have something similar. I was hoping that they had eloped already and that was the big surprise, but I'll be glad to watch it play out on T.V. All and all. Best Bachelor Finale EVER!

People I'd Like to Smack

If the words "white trash" offend you, this post might not be for you.

Sometimes I do a little grocery shopping at a sketchy store that is often filled with a mix of bargain hunters (myself included) and the ever interesting members of "meth nation". It's shopping and a show. Sometimes it's entertaining, sometimes it's a frightening look into the future of America. I got the stomach turning glimpse the last time I went.

I stumbled upon a couple with a baby and what appeared to be another bun in the oven (it could have been a monstrous muffin top, but I'm guessing it was a pregnancy). The baby in the carseat was wearing a long sleeved onesie with an unsnapped crotch ( I guess it takes a lot of effort to snap a kids crotch snaps)....and that was the extent of the clothing. No socks, no pants, no coat, no nothing. Dad (I'm assuming here) had head tattoos, which is never a good sign. The head tats appeared to be gang related, which really does make a head tattoo that much worse. It just seems like a very limiting life decision. In this economy I'm not wanting a gang tattoo on my forehead. What if you need a job and only the "Bloods" are hiring and here you've got a "Cryp" tattoo right there on your face?

Mom was also a hot mess in pajama pants and slipper at 1:30 in the afternoon, but we won't even go there. They were ahead of me in the check out line and watching them made me really super excited to go get my taxes done. They had three separate grocery orders on the conveyor belt. Two were paid for with food stamps. That covered all their basics like bread, peanut butter, milk, cheese, eggs and formula. The third order, the one they were paying for, included the most important purchases. They had a case of beer, a carton of cigarettes, five 12 packs of Mountain Dew and a boat load of hamburger meat. The total on this grocery order was expensive. Soda and cigarettes can really eat up a grocery budget. I was glad they had those food stamps for the other stuff, because it would have cost them an arm and a leg if they had to pay for all of it themselves!

I paid for my groceries and headed out to the parking lot, relieved to be out of there and that's where the plot thickened. The lovely family had loaded their groceries into the GMC Yukon and dad sat in the front seat, taking on his I-phone. Mom lit herself a cigarette inside the car, with all the windows closed so that the little kid in the carseat could get all the benefits of a cigarette while still lacking the dexterity to hold a cigarette for herself. Lovely. I drove home feeling so sad for that kid in the carseat with two complete idiots for parents. I thought to myself, what chance does that little girl have for success in the world when her example is dumb and dumber?

Hair Stylist Problems

The Baker

Every now and again Dave mentions that he wants me to bake him some cookies. He feels sort of picked on that I don't bake specifically for him. With all the food allergies in this house, I bake my signature eggless pumpkin muffins on a regular basis and on holidays I'll whip up my delicious eggless sugar cookies. The theme here is eggless, as in the six year old dessert fanatic can eat them. I think it's rude enough baking delicious treats in front of Lyla that she can't have, but it crosses the line to make egg containing cookies in front of my cookie loving allergic kid. It's rude. Dave still wants me to do it, but I always say no and that's when he takes matters into his own hands.

Before I went to the grocery store on Sunday, Dave reminded me to buy him some fresh eggs because he was planning to do some baking before dinner. I rolled my eyes but I did remember to buy his ingredients at the store. When I got home I put the new eggs in the fridge and set the old ones on the counter by the trash can because Dave was taking out the trash.

Dave starts his baking extravaganza and twenty minutes in, there are a million dirty dishes but he's doing his thing. He then opens the fridge and yells something like, "Damn it woman! Are these eggs in the fridge the new ones or the expired ones?" I mumbled a smart ass comment like, "Read the freaking date on the side genius!", and then proceeded to tell him that of course the fresh eggs are in the fridge because that's where they belong. Dave then blew a gasket because he had used the expired eggs in his cookie recipe. He was very dramatic about dumping his dough in the sink along with the "contaminated" bowl. He was really upset about this set back, but he decided to start over. This is where I get my mind blown. He now needs to use all new bowls, spoons, measuring cups and measuring spoons. He is now doubling the absurd amount of dirty dishes required for man baking. I only complain about this because Dave isn't entirely sure how to start our dishwasher. We've only lived here for three years and he hasn't learned how this new one works. I'm sure by next year he'll have gotten the hang of it. It is a two button process that the four year old has mastered but it can be really complex.

If I watched him bake in slow motion, I still wouldn't be able to figure out why he makes such a huge mess. It's like he can't possibly be expected to measure flour in the same measuring cup that he used for sugar. That would be gross! He also seemed alarmed that our flour is unbleached. He was hoping I had a bag of bleached flour hidden away in case of emergencies. I don't understand this dude or his methods. The good news is that the cookies turned out really good. The bad news (for my belly) is that the cookies turned out really good. I'm going to ask Dave to put them somewhere up high and out of my reach. This is a major plus side of being short. If I have to climb up onto the counter to reach the sweets, I'll usually just stay away from them. Out of sight, out of mind.

Hair Stylist Problems

Sicky, Sick, Sick

I try my best not to use the F-bomb, but it was totally called for in this situation (and in the kind of traffic where it's not moving for no reason what so ever). Everyone on the planet would agree.