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I finally succumbed to the marketing pressure and got me one of them fancy motorized tooth brushin’ contraptions everyone thinks are so great, or at least everyone thinks that everyone else thinks they’re so great so they buy them and end up stashing them under their bathroom vanities two days later.

I’ve seen the commercials with the models and their atomically white teeth, having been gently polished with the Super Sonico Brushinator just two minutes twice a day for two weeks. Oh how they shine. Oh how people flock to greet them.

“What happened Angie? Did you meet a guy? Have laser hair removal on your belly button? WHAT? You can tell me. I’m your bestedly besttest friend in the whole entirety of the widely wide world. Oh Ange! You’re such a tease. Dish the dirt girlfriend. Why do you look so luminously radiantly shockingly beautiful?”

Then she says it’s the toothbrush, yadda yadda, and next thing I know the Ange inside my head is putting a cheap knock-off version of the Brushinator in my shopping cart at the money-sucking vortex that is Tarzhay.

I get it home. I try it for maybe a week. No one is flocking yet but I am experiencing some tooth sensitivity, which must be a sign that it’s removing the calcified crustiness hiding my luminous smile…or my enamel. I choose to believe it’s the crustiness. Crustiness may be ugly, but it allows you to drink hot cocoa and eat ice cream with very little discomfort.

So my shield of filth was wearing down, but so was my toothbrush. By Friday night, it had very little steam at all and halfway through the top row of teeth it stopped completely, the gyrating, the swishing, the humming, the chiseling, they were no more. The brush stood motionless in my terrified mouth and I froze, not knowing what to do next.

How could I go on? What was I supposed to do? Should I rinse my mouth out, charge the brush, wait for two hours and start over? No. I had to get to bed. Something had to be done.

So, I opened the drawer and pulled out Old Bessy, my standby. I loaded her up with paste. She’d never let me down before. She’d never stopped running, battery or no. With some swift wrist action, we worked as a perfectly synchronized team. I lovingly rinsed her and put her back in the place of honor out on the counter. (I remember Oprah once saying something about toothbrushes and hair products not belonging out on the counter, like they should be hidden away in shame in some cute floral box. Personally I like to see a toothbrush in someone’s bathroom. It reassures me that they practice oral hygiene and does a lot to build trust and friendship.)

In disgust I rinsed out my pathetic excuse for a motorized dental cleansing device. Dead in the water. She’s sittin’ in the charger right now but I’m a little disillusioned. I’m not sure if I should take her back.

Dan wonders why I didn’t just use her lifeless body full of half-sudsed paste to finish the job. I’m not sure. It just seemed wrong somehow, like swirling your dead fish around in its tank to remember the good old times. Just wrong.

Please go leave a comment for Artemis Rich, something that makes you happy, to cheer her up. She’s having a rough time.

Bookclub discussion for tomorrow will be at the new site Novel Encounters, which will totally be up by tomorrow sometime, promise.

Update: The bookclub site is not so much of the ready. I guess we’ll finish this book here. When I learn CSS, we’ll move to the new site. 🙂

So I’m new here, in this town, where I live. You know? The move and such? Many of my good friends have moved out of state recently or just gotten lives or something. I’m starting to make new friends slowly. I’ve met some amazing people whom I’m getting closer to, but friendship is largely proportional to time served….

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Health, quality, ethics and affordability.

Lately we’ve been big on produce at the Daring household to the tune of about 8 lbs lost and increased regularity amongst the preschool faction.  We’re liking this change so well, that we’ve decided to branch out from our normal produce buying habits….

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Since watching the movie Cars, and I use the word “watching” loosely here to mean having your parents pay $5 to get you into a matinee so you can rotate between the theatre and the restroom like a pinball and accidentally bonk into your brother multiple times as you hop from seat to seat while the movie is playing, Laylee has been obsessed with red cars….

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I may just have to WebMD myself… and I hate to do that. I really do. That site is guaranteed to turn even the toughest I-refuse-to-go-to-the-doctor-because-I-bike-all-day-and-drink-protein-shakes-every-meal manly man into a raving hypochondriac.

I can diagnose myself with the most atrocious diseases based on symptoms like the ones my entire family is having today:

…

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Sam Jackson may be fighting Snakes on a Plane but I’m fighting my own battle down here on planet earth….

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As witnessed Tuesday, laying in the grass in my back yard.

If we cut down the grass, we cut down on the possibilities for exploration.

In an attempt to up the morbidity level of this blog, I feel it is my duty to inform you that Jack Again, our latest attempt at pet ownership, has very little time left on this earth.

Magoo’s linguistical skills are growing and with them, his obsessive compulsive behaviors. He. Must. Act. Out. The. Words. As. He. Says. Them. He must. He will. He shall.

When he says:

Gick: he must kick something.

Dat: he must go to Dad or grab whatever “dat” he is pointing to.

Jeez: he must eat some cheese or say a silent prayer to the Savior, whose picture he is pointing at.

Deeks: he must get a reply of “you’re welcome.”

Engh-engh-engh-engh: he must repetitively whine this syllable until I lose my ever-living mind.

Now his latest word is “shish,” which means in any language “little fishy”. Magoo loves the shish. He adores the shish. He wants to clutch the shish from its watery enclosure, squeeze it lovingly until its eyeballs pop out, throw it on the floor and march off in search of more Jeez. He’s very hungry and also religious.

Now that he’s learned to climb up on a chair, he is frequently seen pushing one around the house, in search of prey. Nothing is really safe unless locked away. And what’s the point of having a shish if it’s locked away so no one can see it?

I’m afraid for you, little shish. You are still so small and have so much potential for… um… swimming and such.

And they will. They’ll lie through their teeth. It’s considered wrong to speak ill of the dead and a person’s death brings all kinds of healing and magical forgetfulness dust.

When Aunt J was dying, she looked over the wonderful things that were going to be said about her, picked out a specific item and said, “Don’t LIE.”

Driving home today from the funeral of a fabulous and not-possible-to-exaggerate woman, I could not stop crying. I was not sad about her death. Her husband passed away 28 years ago and she was more than ready to join him.

I was sad about my death. No, it’s not imminent. Not that I know of.

There’s just so much more I’d like to be and do before it happens. I want them to be able to tell the truth. So from the tears comes this partial list, a list of the truths I hope to cultivate:

She was kind.
She was the wife her husband wanted and the mother her children needed.
She not only loved people, but she showed that love in a way they could understand.
Her hands were worn in service.
She had her priorities straight.
She knew her limits but stretched them slightly every day.
She didn’t let her desire for appearances outweigh her children’s need for adventure.
She did not waste a breath speaking ill of other people.
She didn’t take the last cookie.
She greeted rather than waiting to be introduced.
She asked people to sit down.
She actively listened.
She remembered.
She helped people discover their beauty.
She left places more beautiful than she found them and people happier than she met them.
She was humble and confident.
She generated, rather than consumed, peace.