Sweet Pea & Me, It's a Good Thing

Let's get this party started.

Sweet Pea wears the flag of freedom when The Cousin is on holiday.

The Cousin's in Israel. She took a plane last week to spend time with her dad's side of the family.
The Cousin and Obama in the same city, at the same time,  makes me excited. Knowing The Cousin, she will draw way more attention.
So, this family VK left me and Sweet Pea sola yesterday. Yowza! It's so unbelievable how a kid can change so much in just a couple of weeks.  I swear to god, she's a miniature adult now.
Indications?  Well, she's refusing to eat baby-type foods; refuses to be spoon-fed.
She demands chunks of food and wants them placed on her tray so she can pick them up all by herself.
Of course, if I don't comply and try to sneak a spoon of yogurt or oatmeal in, she pulls one of two stunts: either she bites down on the spoon and won't relinquish it or she swings her arm at the spoon and the mush goes flying.
Her new way of eating produces several clothes changes during a day.

Are there seconds?

As well as, bib changes. It didn't take long to figure out that she hates the plastic Bjorn baby bib.

Damn this thing.

You know Bjorn products are modern looking, for sure. They come in all these hip, cool 2013 colors, but they're not at all what they're cracked up to be. Kids just know.  This bib is as hard as a Tonka truck. I mean, would you like it strapped around your neck while you're trying to enjoy a meal?
Sweet Pea had yam (people yam not Gerber yam) and ground beef with lentils.  I think it was the lentils that brought on the series of poopy diapers, but that wasn't my issue with Sweet Pea yesterday.
So, she was lying on the changing table and it was a "doozy".  Her legs were active. Her head was moving. Suddenly, her right arm comes down and takes a swipe of poop.  "Shit" was my actual thought.  
I managed to clean her all up rather quickly, and efficiently I might add, and I stand her up stark naked.  Her smile's so big, it reaches New York. Then, she looks me in the eye and starts peeing on the table. (Her smile continues to reach New York).

I don't blame her.  She's got me all to herself.  No cousin to choke her. No project time for The Cousin. No sharing of "Bal La Lee" and she's gonna milk it for all that's it's worth.
Sweet Pea pushed it to the limit. I kept hearing Elton John's song in the background, Philadelphia Freedom, throughout the day...

Do you need this one?

Under sink cupboard

Plastic bags bad for sea creatures and other living things

It cracks me up that the parentals have one of these on the pots and pans cupboard and not on the cupboard with trash and hazardous cleansers.

They think they're so smart.

I'm pretty sure Sweet Pea will be figuring out how to crack this open.  She's a whip.

Actually, she's got me beat in that department.  I spent several minutes yesterday trying to turn on a black Iphone that was sitting on their shelf.  It was quite frustrating and I was feeling like it finally happened; I'm finally my mother... then Sweet Pea's mom came home for the "noon feeding" and I admitted to her my lack of tech skills. She burst out laughing saying that the phone is Sweet Pea's "pretend" Iphone.   Very funny.

Enjoying The Old Testament

Sweet Pea can sit still. Really she can.  For a fraction of a second.
Here, she's reading about Adam and Eve.  Yep.  She seems to be laughing, doesn't she? I don't think she believes it either.  And if the chapter on Sodom and Gomorrah is in there, I'm screwed.

Because reading is valued by her family (and by the nanny) I try to read lots of books to both her and The Cousin on my watch.  To my surprise (or dismay) there were a couple of new books in Sweet Pea's book basket.

Nanny's Choice

When it was my turn to choose, I really got into Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You?  


Since Sweet Pea lives a mere 10 minute walk to the aquarium, we decide to go on an adventure.
Why the hell not?

I'll tell you why.  It makes absolutely no damn sense to go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium during spring break.
Sweet Pea, though she had only 30 minutes of nap under her belt, was a trooper!  It was me that was sweating bullets.

We be diggin Splash Zone.

S.P.: "Let's go!" Me: "Let's rest!"

And then what really made my afternoon was a voice in the crowd call out Sweet Pea's name.  It happened in the Open Sea exhibit room.  Seems Sweet Pea and this woman's daughter are in the same play group on Tuesdays.  She introduces herself, her husband and her in-laws and then says in this perfect, syrupy voice that will remain with me until I die, "And you must be her grandmother?"
That's it. We're out of here.

Home at last. Just in time for an afternoon snack before Da Da gets home.
Life is definitely good.
And Sweet Pea and me?  We're a good thing.

Signed the nanny & friend not the f@!*ing grandmother,

~tpg

"I know. Stop Talking."

I’m typing this week’s blog with one hand because I’m holding a glass of 2-Buck Chuck in the other. Such self-sacrifice also occurs when my big boy is snuggled up, purring on my arm or lap.
The movement of two-handed typing disturbs "the king" and we wouldn't want to do that,
now would we?   

I had such a great Saturday with Wen and a girl pal, whose name will remain anonymous! 
The three of us headed out early to all the yard sales.  Just to mess with ‘em, we hit the ones that said “No Early Birds” before the given time of arrival, simply to release our rebels within.

While many areas of California are still sweltering in near 100 degree temps we, here in

Monterey County, are dripping in early morning fog and wet mucky muck. 
Plainly stated, I froze my ass off yard saleing. 

We got some damn good bargains though: a couple of fancy vases, a Virgin de Guadalupe lamp for a friend, a pork-n-beans dish with lid, fake beads and a Bob Marley sweatshirt.  Wearing a Bob Marley sweatshirt in the trailer park wouldn’t go over well.  Most likely, I’d have been tied up by my ankles, put on trial and executed without a jury of my peers.

My shit kickin crime?  
 H I P P I E.

After yard saleing, Wen dropped my friend and I off at Hambrook’s Auction in Pacific Grove. 
This is my new addiction; the auction.  Well, I have another:  Peanut Butter Cheerios. OMG!

There's only a couple a things that would make a ‘trailer girl’ chirpier than an auction:
Watching Who Wants To Be A Millionaire while chugging a free six-pack left over from the Annual
Moose Lodge picnic or winnin 4 bucks on a Quick-Pick.
Hambrook's Auction has been in existence since forever.
http://www.hambrooks-auction.com/
It's held in a huge 16,000 sq foot building, live auction carried out upstairs, silent auction happening downstairs.  The crowd's mixed like a well-tossed salad:
antique dealers, consignment store whores, Ebay fanatics, hillbillies lookin for a deal and us,
two girls just looking for a good time. (I, of course, am also looking for some stock for our resale business known as V W Upcycling.)
Before we enter the action, my pal and I head for Pavel's Bakerei (they spell bakery in a shi shi way) for a delicious breakfast pastry and coffee.
I, being the diabetic, can hardly inject my insulin fast enough and get through the bakery door.
As we storm through the line, taking "cuts" like first graders in a line to get on a field trip bus,
I'm instantly happier than a tornado in a trailer park.

I'm drooling.  No doubt.  My pal says to me, "Let's just get something small and take it to go."
SOMETHING SMALL? Come on now! Are you f@#king kiddin me?
I order some fancy dancy raspberry donut thing that they call a "bombolini" and let me tell y'all,
They ain't the donuts at Winchell's!  She gets a maple.  We order two coffees also different from  Winchell's.  We pay and head to Hambrook's.
We take our seats as the auction is in full-swing.
I'm as happy as a dead pig in sunshine.  In complete heavenly silence, and with the auctioneer's babble rolling off her tongue somewhere in the distant background, we begin eating...
Eating...Eating...Continually and pleasurably devouring our goodies...

Finally, I lean over to my friend and say, "This is better than sex; better than any orgasm."
To which she replies, her mouth shoved halfway into her maple bombolini,
"I know.  Stop talking."

The bidding's crazy-fast and I can barely keep up.  I mean, even if I had money to blow and I paid close attention, I'd miss the train 'cuz the auctioneer, a big girl with fiery red hair,
is totally breakneck.   Vintage tables, an Eames chair, bamboo coffee table, dining sets from France, "known" paintings that are pencil-signed.  Even a turquoise bust of a horse. 
Boy, rich people or "high cotton" as my grandaddy called 'em, are so weird!
After 'bout an hour, we squeeze through the row of fold-ups and lotsa folks, making our way downstairs to look at the silent auction items.  I see a cabinet with a paper description like this:
"ORENTAL CABNET" STARTING BID $10.00. INCRMENTS $2.50.
YowZA! I love it.  I write in $10.00 and crawl back through a now larger-than-ever crowd in search of other bargain items.  My pal bids on a '60's chair and an original piece of framed art for her daughter.
When I return to my "cabnet",  there are about 6 bids written in and the last being $100 bucks.
Sheee it!
I want it bad, but not that bad.  When we return upstairs we see 3 empty chairs, one of which has a purse on it.  We carefully make our way through the aisle, trying not to step on any body's feet, and take two of the chairs.  As we make ourselves comfy, this hoochy mama, owner of the purse, returns.
She flashes us one of those looks that the bitchy, popular girls gave us nerdy, unpopular girls
in high school and says,  "Well, it looks like someone took my chairs which were saved for my
husband and I."
I stare at her and her husband (singular) with my best trailer trash stare, running my tongue over my two front teeth and under my upper lip gum and making a kinda squeaky mouth-sound; the kind that sounds slightly irritated yet confident.  I say,
"Well, unless you got 2 husbands, that looks like 2 empty chairs, so there shouldn't be a problem."


The auction continues with roaring enthusiasm.
The air is electric and the people are so fun to watch.
I end up buying a modern, angular table lamp.  My pal got her '60's chair and painting and some glass vases.
Yep. Yep. A good time was had by all.

On the way out, she says to me, "That was fun! Let's go back next month."

"OK. I think the next one is the first Saturday in October."  I'm on board.

"No, not the auction. I mean Pavel's."

That girl will do anything for a good.....donut.

Speaking of girls that will do anything or, in this case, boys that will do anything.  How about our vice president?  Joe Biden cozied up with a female biker during a stop the other day
at Cruisers Diner.
The Associated Press snapped this photo of the vice president sitting behind a female biker. While he talked with her, two other male bikers looked on.

According to the campaign, the bikers were part of a group called the "Shadowmen," but there were no other details on who the female biker was or what sparked the conversation between her and the vice president, because the pool had been escorted out of the diner before the encounter.

A second AP photo showed Biden grabbing the female biker's shoulders.

When Biden entered the diner, he approached three diners seated at a counter and asked if he they'd lend him one of their motorcycles, according to the pool report.

"Can I borrow one of your bikes? They don't let me ride anymore," Biden said.

"Probably not," Jeff Cook, one of the diners, said. The vice president responded laughing, "Probably not."

Watch yourself, Joe!

Don't you go pullin an "Eastwood" on us.

I dig biker chicks, though.  I shared time with a few at the park over the years.
Male bikers tend to be big, burly scary-looking varmints with hearts as wide as Leonilda's
(from space 18) flowered housedress catching wind.

But the ladies, oh my! 
I seen 'em with their boots, tattered tank-tops, spiked purple hair.  Some loaded with leather bandannas and bandoliers slung low on their sweaty cleavage which glistened with tattoos. 
To me, they're dangerous priestesses not to be reckoned with. But they're not hooches like the high school bitches or the one at the auction.
These gals aren't kiddin anyone. They know their shit stinks like everybody else's.
And like Joe, I kinda dig 'em.

I think I've come to some sort of end in the road.  Some sort of conclusion point if you will. 
Just one more thing though about those fancy donuts we were eating...

Oh, never mind.  I know. I'll just stop talking.
Love y'all.
~tpg