half-assed christmas

Half a dog ass. (Again.)

When I wrote Iced by Scrooge at the beginning of December, I was just joking around. Sure the toppling Christmas tree was an inconvenience, but we tied it up, took all the breakable ornaments off the tree and proceeded to go about our merry way through December.

I tried to keep my sense of humor throughout the month and started tagging my lame attempts at getting into the Christmas spirit (and anything that went wrong) as #halfassedchristmas on Instagram. Supporting your Christmas tree with string and dumbbells is definitely half-assed. So is decorating by dumping Christmas balls into a bowl. I sent my Christmas cards out on December 20th. That was definitely half-assed. (But they were actually wedding announcements, not Christmas cards, so I figured I get a pass...except our wedding was nine months ago...)

We can't do it all. #halfassedchristmas was funny and reminded me not to take things too seriously during a usually busy and stressful month.

Little did I know that come December 23rd, #halfassedchristmas would bite me in the ass. Larry and I had gone out to dinner for my birthday. It was a 45 minute drive home from the restaurant, and within two minutes of walking in the door, Larry was hit by a violent stomach flu that left him retching and feverish for the next two days. Poor guy. He spent Christmas Eve shivering and sweating on the couch:

We cancelled Christmas Eve dinner and Mom brought us a pizza. I told Larry not to bother wrapping my gifts, but that evening he dragged himself upstairs to wrap in the bedroom while I was frantically baking downstairs in the kitchen. I later went upstairs and found this:

Larry went to bed and I stayed up by myself on Christmas Eve to finish baking a peppermint cheesecake. I had planned to decorate it with white chocolate trees. I melted the chocolate, put it in a bag and began to pipe the trees onto waxed paper. They came out perfectly:

Well, shit. The melted chocolate caused the bag to explode and there was no way that clumpy mess was going to look like a tree anyway. I was over it. Merry freaking half-assed Christmas! It was time for bed.


Larry was still sick on Christmas Day, so we had a low-key Christmas morning together and then I went out to Maryland to have Christmas dinner with my extended family:


When I got home, the patient was still shivering on the couch. I tried to get him to rally for a family Christmas photo - it was our first married Christmas after all! This is what I got:

Oh well.

I later heard that we weren't the only ones who had a crappy Christmas this year. Multiple friends had sick children, home disasters, and minor tragedies befall them. I DEMAND A DO-OVER!


But in between the frustrations, there were some good bits to the month:

A birthday text from my mom that made me teary.


A good haircut. A friend who left homemade rum cake and wine dressed as a sock monkey on my doorstep.


A birthday cocktail called a Mexican Warhead. A hilarious book given to me by my oldest friend. A birthday celebration with friends from all different periods of my life. (So much fun that I forgot to take pictures.)


Larry and I both giving each other instruments for Christmas: ukulele for me, strumstick for him. (We have a habit of accidently giving each other very similar gifts.) Flickering candles.


A delicious Christmas dinner. And the peppermint cheesecake was a hit, even without the white chocolate trees.


And as always, the cutest pups. We didn't give them anything for Christmas but used wrapping paper. And they loved it. (They also got to lick out some peanut butter jars...)


And New Year's Eve on the beach in the Outer Banks. I didn't take out my Nikon the entire weekend, but there was a hilarious game of Cards Against Humanity, a bonfire on the beach as the clock struck midnight, a tumbler full of Dom Perignon, and the white flash of naked flesh as drunk people skinny- dipped in the frigid Atlantic in the wee hours of the new year. (No photos of that part, and to clarify, the naked fools were not part of our group!)

So those were our holidays this year. Our first married Christmas was rather half-assed and crappy, but hey, that just leaves room for improvement! But right now I am over it. It's time to move on. Don't let the door slap ya on the way out, December 2013!

iced by scrooge

Alternate title: I Quit Christmas.

Every year I write about how much the holiday season stresses me out. No one likes a complainer or a scrooge, so this year I decided to make a change to assure that I enjoy the month of December to the fullest.

As a small business owner, this is a busy time of year. My shop vends at a lot of holiday markets and online sales pick up - I am SO thankful for this. Prepping for markets and shipping orders I can handle, and it's exciting when my shop is successful. It's all the other things that stress me out - the shopping for gifts, sending out cards, baking and cooking and decorating and blogging and entertaining, and trying to finish all the house projects we procrastinated on before the end of the year. I love doing all these things, but when I have to do it all at once...well, it's a lot. And I realize it's no different for me than for the millions of other humans who celebrate Christmas - this is a busy time of year for everyone.

But that's too much multitasking for me, so I decided to take a step back. I do love Christmas and I think it should be fun, so this year, I was going to do things differently. I wasn't going to stress myself out making hundreds of Christmas ornaments and photographing them. I was going to steer clear of shopping malls and hunker down at home. I was going to take a break from the blog and social media to enjoy my real-life family. I was going to get my shopping and gift wrapping done early and my cards sent out and then during the month of December (in between art markets and packaging shop orders), I was going to relax and do things I enjoy. Holiday dates with my husband. Baking cookies for the fun of it. Sitting by the Christmas tree and reading a book. Watching a movie with flickering candles and a bowl of popcorn. Having friends over for cocktails. Snuggling the puppies in front of the fire. You know, the good stuff: family, friends, food, coziness. But you know what they say about the best laid plans...

Yesterday was a well-deserved day off. The day before was a long day on my feet vending at GRUMP, and I was looking forward to sleeping in and enjoying the day with Larry. We awoke to snow falling on our bedroom skylight - what a perfect Sunday for decorating the tree, listening to Christmas music, and cooking together. By afternoon, the whole house smelled delicious: there was a fresh Christmas tree in the house, apple pie cheesecake bars in the oven, ale-marinated pork loin simmering on the stove, and a rosemary-citrus candle flickering in the living room. We were cozy inside the house as fat snowflakes fell from the sky and the dogs lazed in front of the fireplace - something I was especially grateful for as we remembered that our fireplace was broken last Christmas. We got out some wine and cheese, pulled all the Christmas boxes out of the attic and were ready to deck the halls. It was already December 8th, so although I was a bit behind with my holiday prep, maybe for once, December wasn't going to get the best of me!

My idealized vision for our perfect holiday weekend didn't turn out exactly as I pictured it in my mind: The wedge of brie I had just bought tasted like ass - no biggie, we'll just drink the wine. The recipes we cooked weren't that great - no problem, they can't all be winners. The snow turned to wet nasty sleet, so I couldn't get my family outside to take a Christmas card photo - eh, shit happens, so we'll have to figure out a Plan B. Larry wasn't interested in decorating the tree with me - that's ok, he can watch the game and we'll chat as I string the lights...

Progress! This may have been the first year I managed to string the lights without tears and/or a hissy fit! And the tree was up! With lights! And ornaments! Behold:

Ooh, so beautiful!

*RECORD SCRATCH*

And then the tree was down...or almost down. Luckily, being the night owl that I am, I was still sitting by the fire at 1:30 am when it started to topple. I screamed. I caught it. I called to Larry.

The next hour and a half involved head scratching, four letter words, digging through numerous boxes in the utility room for string, shims, and various tools, the removal of a window screen, the de-ornamenting of the tree, crying, and perhaps one of us in the backyard wearing nothing but underwear, crocs, a winter coat, and a headlamp.

And this, my friends, is a DIY Christmas Tree Stand as installed by one former architect and one civil engineer at 3:00 am:

There, we fixed it!

The other end of the cord is wrapped around our Christmas tree inside the house. On the plus side, it managed to hold the tree up all night (or rather, what was left of the night), the barbells didn't come crashing through the window (ending up with a broken window would have been an epic fail!), and Larry and I are still married.

Tree crisis averted! (At least until tomorrow when we try to figure out what the problem is and come up with a permanent solution.)

BUT THEN! Before we went to bed we smelled...GAS. As in natural gas. (I feel the need to specify since I do live with three boys...) Natural gas which was LEAKING FROM OUR FIREPLACE. And to think we were worried about a toppled Christmas tree! Why not add OUR HOUSE JUST GOT BLOWED UP to my list of holiday grievances?

So we turned off the gas. No more fireplace, again. Which is especially troubling since there was an ice storm overnight and while we still have power, many people in the area are without electricity...and heat. Which is generally a good time to have a gas fireplace and a bad time to have a broken gas fireplace.

The ice-coated trees do look beautiful, so I went outside this morning and snapped some photos while trying to appreciate nature and find the silver lining. But then chunks of ice started falling off the trees, so I took that as a cue to get my ass inside so as not to end up with a broken face. A busted fireplace, an ice storm, and a toppled tree...I'm beginning to think we were iced by Scrooge himself!

The moral of this story is wop wop. And also, bah humbug. Scrooge, you win!

put a (dead) bird on it

Usually whenever nature takes its course in our yard, a haiku is written to honor the deceased prove how f*ed my brain is. So far there have been three squirrels who died at the hands jaws of Gravy, a fourth squirrel who randomly dropped dead on our front porch, and a slew of insects (and a shrew) that were chewed up and regurgitated by Banjo. (The crunchier, the better!)

Oh, and I found a skull in our laundry room once, but never wrote any poetry about that, maybe because I wasn't sure what species the skull belonged to. I'm thinking a mouse?

Anyway, I was having a fantastic day on Friday - gorgeous weather, lunch with friends - and in the afternoon decided to sit on the back porch to enjoy the sunshine and eat a cookie. That was when my good day came screeching to a halt thanks to a DEAD BIRD on our porch dining table. Pretty sure that's some kind of bad omen...

Tablescape, with dead bird.

Still, I couldn't resist:

Dead bird on table.
Hit the window, broken neck.
Dinner is now served!

Candle & dead bird
Make elegant tablescape.
D-I-Y, bitchez!

Farewell feathered friend.
Now you adorn our table.
#PutABirdOnIt.

My dear husband, your
'Honey Do' List got longer.
#PutSomeBleachOnIt

hawaii | the poop fish

WARNING: In case you didn't deduce it from the title, this post is about poop. Leave it to me to de-romanticize my fairy tale Hawaiian wedding with this shitty story...

On Saturday, Larry and I arrived on the windward side of Oahu for a week of vacation. It was two days before our wedding.

After a day of driving and checking things out, we were hungry! We stopped at a steakhouse across from the beach, grabbed seats at the bar, and ordered cocktails as we perused the dinner menu. It was a steakhouse after all, so ordering steak was a given. The fish of the day was Walu - we'd never heard of it, and eager to try something local and Hawaiian, we ordered that, too.

We split the portions of fish and steak between us so that we could each have surf & turf. The steak was good, but the fish was AMAZING. Buttery and unctuous, the Walu's tender white meat was the best fish we'd ever tasted. We couldn't get over how delicious it was as we savored the last bites. We ordered a second round of cocktails and dessert, paid our bill, and headed back to our new digs with full and satisfied bellies.

Back at the apartment, I decided to google Walu on my phone to learn more about this delicious fish.

Me: Uh oh...
Larry: What?
Me: Walu is the Hawaiian name for Butterfish...or ESCOLAR.
Us: Ohhhhh Myyyyyy Godddddd, we ate the pooooooop fiiiiiiiiish!!!!!!!

Yes, the poop fish. Let's rewind a decade or so, shall we? When Larry and I were first dating and getting interested in food and cooking, we heard about a fish called Escolar. Consumption of this fish was known to cause (hope you're not eating lunch right now)...diarrhea. As if a case of the shits wasn't bad enough on its own, this fish did not just cause ordinary diarrhea, NO, eating this fish resulted in (seriously, put down your sandwich!)...explosive oily orange diarrhea. I remember Larry e-mailed me an article at work about the "side effects" of consuming Escolar that had me in tears at my desk. I've searched the internet far and wide to try and include a link to the article in this blog post, but even after googling such unfortunate terms as "diarrhea fish", was unable to find it. You'll just have to take my word for it - this article was a riot. It included the story of a man who had eaten Escolar at a restaurant for dinner and the next day he ruined his dress pants AND HIS OFFICE CHAIR AT WORK due to the aforementioned explosive oily orange diarrhea.

Can you even imagine? I mean whhhhyyyyyyy would anyone serve or eat such a thing? Larry and I lived in fear of accidently being served The Fish That Makes You Shit Your Pants. We memorized the names Escolar and Butterfish and vowed to avoid The Poop Fish at all costs. And we were successful for nearly a decade...until we failed...36 HOURS BEFORE OUR WEDDING. Let me repeat that: WE ATE THE POOP FISH 36 HOURS BEFORE OUR WEDDING.

Now you know why we were freaking out. I mean here I was worrying about getting sunburned before my wedding...the possibility of crapping myself had never even entered the realm of my pre-wedding concerns. Rain on my wedding day? Sure. Tripping on my dress? Yep. SHITTING my dress? Oh, hell NO.

So here we were, 36 hours before our wedding, and just the knowledge that we had consumed the poop fish was making my stomach start to hurt. We googled for more information. We had split the serving of Escolar, so we estimated we had each only consumed three ounces. Typically, a serving of six ounces or less did not usually result in the unpleasant side effects. Usually. Huh. Usually is not a reassuring enough term when you're going to put on A WHITE DRESS in less than two days.

Still, maybe we would be spared. Maybe we would get lucky. And by lucky, I wasn't referring to the wedding night, I was referring to avoiding explosive oily orange diarrhea on THE DAY WE PLEDGED OUR LIVES TO EACH OTHER. "I do." *Toot!*

Yes, this story is TMI. I'm quite certain I would not be telling it if it did not have a happy ending. We were spared. We got lucky. Neither of us experienced a single side effect (other than anxiety and dread) from consuming the poop fish. Our wedding day was gorgeous and went off without a hitch and most importantly, without any gastrointestinal distress...

So let this story be a public service announcement to the rest of you: Avoid eating Walu, Waloo, Butterfish, or Escolar and save your office chair, your pants, your wedding dress, and your dignity!

SMASH! (2012 edition)

Alternate titles: Lighting Doesn't Strike Twice...or does it?
                        Oops, it happened again!
                        Shit. Shit shit shit.

So, on Saturday, Larry and I decided to build some stuff. We hauled out our tools. We went to Home Depot multiple times. We bought more tools. We set up in the backyard. We went back to Home Depot. We measured, sawed, drilled, and cussed. But we made progress:


Look at all those trees behind Larry! Foreshadowing!

A sneak peek of one of our projects:

Yes, it's a doggie dining table...

Late in the afternoon we reached a stopping point, and noticed the sky was getting a little cloudy. We packed up our stuff and went inside. Larry turned on the TV to the emergency signal going off and warning us of a tornado in our area. Within 60 seconds, the sky had opened up with some of the scariest rain and wind I'd ever experienced. We huddled in the middle of the house as the electricity flickered.

A huge branch came crashing to the ground 10 feet from where we had been working five minutes earlier. Luckily it landed in the very middle of our yard where it didn't do any damage.

A minute later a huge leader came crashing off another tree and landed...on our fence. Wop wop. (There was some more cussing and then I went into the kitchen and baked cookies.)

You may recall this has happened to us before. SMASH 2010 did not help my fear of wind. Lightning doesn't strike the same spot twice? If that spot is our backyard, then yes, yes it does. However, the fact that both times the trees missed our house and no one was injured made me realize that we're not the unluckiest, we're actually the luckiest. Whew. As we surveyed the damage and I inspected the crater that the first branch left in our yard, I felt so thankful that the crater wasn't in my head. Scary stuff.

The pictures don't really show the full extent of the damage. Half of the leader was cantilevered into our neighbor's yard so it wasn't visible from the perspective of these photos. And honestly, I am so over photographing fallen trees. But luckily, the leader wasn't nearly as big as the one that smashed our yard two years ago and this time we didn't have to call the professionals to clean it up.




So we didn't finish our projects the next day. We awoke Sunday to perfect September weather, but rather than going on a hike or building furniture for our dogs, we spent the entire day chainsawing, chopping, bundling, hauling, and repairing. It always amazes me how much waste comes from a fallen tree. When we had all the tree pieces (there was actually a third piece that fell on another part of the fence, but didn't cause any damage) gathered up, they pretty much filled our entire backyard.

At least we still got to use our tools...


My mom came over and spent the whole day helping us (really, I think she just wanted an excuse to use the chainsaw!). Thanks, Mom!

We worked harder on this "project" than we have on anything in a while...isn't it amazing how you can spend a whole day on something only to get it back to where you started?

stupid things said to me by various medical professionals

......................................................
Phlebotomist (after drawing my blood): "Don't pass out in the parking lot!"

......................................................

Symptom: Itchy feet.
Doctor: "Maybe you have new socks."
Actual Diagnosis: Penicillin Allergy.

......................................................

Symptom: An ice pick in my eye.
Doctor: "Maybe you have an allergy."
Actual Diagnosis: Cluster Headaches.
......................................................

Doctor: "It could be a pancreatic tumor."

Thanks for not freaking me out.
......................................................

Location: Operating Room, 10 seconds before general anesthesia kicked in.

Surgeon: "Well, it's too late to turn back now!"
......................................................

Doctor leaves exam room, comes back with medical textbook, hands it to me.
Neurologist: "Read this. Does this sound like your symptoms?"
Me: "Yes."
Neurologist: "You're a textbook case!"
......................................................
Doctor: "I'm 99% certain that swimming will cure you."
It didn't.
......................................................
Nurse: "Do you do any (illicit) drugs?"
Me: "No. Do most people admit if they do?"
Nurse: "No. But sometimes they're high when they come in here."
(I should clarify that I was in the office of a prestigious hand surgeon, not the type of establishment where junkies would seek medical care.)
......................................................
Nurse: "Are you married?"
Me: "No."
Nurse: "Well, the doctor is very good looking."
......................................................
Doctor: "I won't lie. This test is extremely uncomfortable."
You mean it hurts like a mofo. Thanks for your honesty, doc.
......................................................
Doctor: "I can't find anything wrong with you."
(Pause)
Doctor: "I'd like to operate."
......................................................
Radiologist: "I can't seem to get the needle into your joint."
(Repeat this comment for the next 45 minutes.)
......................................................
Doctor: "All radiologists are clowns."
......................................................
Doctor: "I'll take you down to Slade's (a bar) for a few drinks. After that, you won't be afraid to put anything in your eye!"
Say WHAT?

chopped

Hey, look - I have new hair:

Now, I do this about once a year - chop all my hair off. Afterwards, I swear I'll never let it get long again. But then it grows and I get lazy and think it would be fun to have hair long enough for twisty-'dos and milkmaid braids. What actually happens is that I end up wearing it up in a bun hair ball every day...which looks only slightly better than the thing a cat coughs up.

So in the interest of full disclosure - the before photos:

(Shortly after this photo was taken I placed a 9-1-1 call to the salon.)

Clearly, I was waaaaaaay overdue for a cut and some highlights.

When the stylist asked what I wanted, I thought...um, can you make it NOT LOOK LIKE THIS? Also, I would like there to be less of it.

People, this is MY ACTUAL HAIR. I was born this way. It's like a genetic experiment gone horribly wrong.

This is what I have to deal with on a daily basis. Yes, I am aware that it appears that my hair could provide shelter for a colony of rodents.

(Holy shit.)

It defies gravity and all laws of nature. It isn't natural...but, yet...it is. It's a freak of nature! It's aliiiiiiiiiiiiiiive. No, wait, it's dead. Seriously, what died and got stuck to my head???

My hair is the bane of my existence. I try to embrace it, but most days, I want to punch it in the face. I guess that would do nothing besides give me a black eye. So I guess I should say, most days I want to shave it off. Unfortunately, bald is beautiful doesn't work quite so well for us chicks with heads shaped like a potato.

I'm kinda thinking that maybe I should've waited until after Halloween to have it cut, though. I could've gone as an Orangutan. Or Cousin Itt? Carrot Top? Chewbacca? A Sasquatch? No costume required!

Anyway, the hair had to go. So long, rat's nest:

Amy at Nash Hair Design (SO happy to have found an awesome salon in Falls Church!) worked her magic to give me a new short highlighted 'do. Of course it looked great after a professional blow dry, but the real test was letting it go curly...would I look like a dandelion? I'm a low maintenance girl. I don't think I've used my blow dryer since we moved into our house three years ago (despite the fact that one of my first purchases for the new house was a nifty wall-mounted hair dryer holster).

This is what it looks like with some gel and allowed to air dry:


Close-up of my highlights, complete with evil-eye:


Seriously, remind me to never let my hair get long again. Never again. It scares the children:

Nooooooooooooooooooo!

the sacrifice of tony stewart

When I wrote about our trip to West Virginia, I mentioned that we spent our evenings burning things in the firepit.

What I didn't mention was WHAT we were burning.

The answer: A life-sized cardboard cut-out of Tony Stewart.

Now, let me preface this by saying that I have nothing against Tony Stewart. I do not think the real Tony should be burned or harmed in any way. In fact, our NASCAR-loving friend Mike is Tony's #1 fan.

Which is why Mike's mom gifted him with a life-sized cardboard cut-out of his idol.  However, Mike does not have room for a 6' tall Tony replica in his apartment. Mike also likes fire. He decided that Tony had to be burned.

Mike, Tony, and Tim before the sacrifice:


It was decided that Tony should be ignited from his, um...crotch. Sorry Tony, that's gotta burn.

This is the most redneck thing I have ever seen:

Mike spends a moment of silence with his idol...

...who is miraculously still smiling, despite the lethal chest wound:



RIP Tony.

the architecture of the new river

One of the most interesting things we saw during our jetboat ride through the gorge was the primitive fishing shacks that line the banks of the New River. Able to be accessed only by boat, these rickety shanties were built along the railroad easement - often perched on a pile of rocks or built into a nearly vertical slope. Equally rickety outhouses were often nearby. They remind me of the shacks on the bayou in Louisiana.

While I didn't dare point my camera at any of the locals, yes, many of these shacks were occupied by families spending their weekend at the river. They sat on the porches with coolers full of beer and their fishing lines in the water.

"Here's a big rock, let's build a house on top of it!"

We'll end with my personal favorite:

shake, rattle, & roll

Earthquake!

Like the rest of the East Coast, we experienced an earthquake today. And not just a little tremble, but a 5.8 magnitude whammy, with the epicenter a mere 90 miles away in Mineral, Virginia. News reports say it was felt from Massachusetts to South Carolina, but a friend of mine in Canada e-mailed to make sure I was ok, and said that he felt it in Ontario, too.

I hate to even pretend like a 5.8 earthquake on the East Coast of the United States is a big deal after the recent widespread tragedies that have occurred in countries like Haiti and Japan. I can't even imagine. In fact, I can't even imagine living on the West Coast where these things are more common and more dangerous. But as my cousin from California pointed out, "A 5.8 in an area not used to earthquakes, including buildings not being retrofitted to handle the shaking, is nothing to sneeze at!" Oh, I didn't sneeze at it. In fact, I nearly peed my pants.

Not only that, here in the mid-Atlantic, Mother Nature usually takes it pretty easy on us. For the most part, we don't have to worry about hurricanes like in Florida and the Gulf, tornados and flooding like in the Midwest, forest fires, earthquakes, and tsunamis like on the West Coast, or blizzards like in the North. The worst we have here are heat waves and the occasional Snowmageddon. (Which some members of my family think is fun.) Acts of God aren't even on the worry radar over here - being in the nation's capital we're much more concerned with acts of terrorism.

The other weird thing about experiencing an earthquake, is that they happen out of the blue - literally. Today was perhaps the most beautiful day of the year in Northern Virginia. Perfect blue sky, sun shining, a gorgeous 80 degrees, and then BAM, my house feels like it's being torn apart.

Thoughts that went through my head as my windows rattled:

• The &#$*@!!! washing machine is off balance again!
• Wait a minute, I'm not doing laundry!
• Is this an...EARTHQUAKE?!
• Oh shit, is this a nuke? A bomb?
• The house is going to fall apart!
• Should I stay upstairs and risk falling to my death?
• Or should I go downstairs and risk getting crushed?
• I'M GOING TO DIE!

I was shaken up and bewildered. My heart raced for a good hour afterwards. Things fell off the shelves in the library, pantry, and laundry room. The dogs' water bowl spilled. The candles on our patio table were knocked over. My studio looks like it was hit by a natural disaster. Oh wait, it looked like that before the earthquake...

Fortunately, my wine was just fine. Whew! (Priorities, priorities!) Who would've guessed the wine rack was rated for seismic activity?

Afterwards, I still wasn't sure what happened. I couldn't reach anyone on the phone. I tried googling "DC earthquake" immediately afterwards, but nothing turned up. So I turned to the most valuable tool in an emergency...Facebook. Within seconds of it happening, nearly a dozen of my friends from New York to West Virginia had already posted "Earthquake!" Larry reached me via text message - he was unnerved after being in a swaying high-rise office building. Hours later, I finally reached my mother:

Me: Are you ok? Did you survive the earthquake?
Mom: Yes, I'm fine!
Me: Did anything break? Your china?
Mom: Nope, it all survived.
Me: Oh good, I just wanted to check up on you.
Mom: WHO IS THIS?

Well gee, Mom, only YOUR FIRSTBORN CHILD.

And because comic relief is always good in situations like these (and because I needed some rolling to go along with all the shaking and rattling!), this guy never fails to crack me up:

Rollin' from Funnelcloud Rachel on Vimeo.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got some wine to drink...