April 23, 2006

Recipe for fun

Recipe for a night of fun:

1 willing 6-month old baby
3 dress up wigs (slightly knotty from excess use and being stored in wig bin)
1 5-year old princess fanatic
A camera to catch the fun

Mix the first three ingredients and make sure you have ingredient number four handy. Results are as follows:

Lil C as "Snow White"

Lil C as "Cinderella." She looks really good as a blonde, don’t you think?

Lil C as "Pocahontas" or as Big I likes to call her, "Poking-hontas" (The wig itself looks more like Pocahontas after a serious windstorm.)

And finally, as Sleeping Beauty or as Big I calls her "Sleeping Booty".

I never would have let her big sister do this to her if it wasn’t for the fact that Lil C was having an absolute blast pulling her own hair. And since we could all use a break from having our own hair pulled in this family, why not?

In other fun this weekend, I received my first true hate mail. OH, the joy! When I wrote about the Duke Lacrosse team I was prepared for a dissenting opinion or twelve, which is perfectly fine. I have no problem publishing opinions opposite of mine. But, unless you’re going to mail me a check for the $8.95/month I pay for my typepad account. . . then I flat out refuse to publish comments that contain blatant name-calling, unintelligible garble, and other nonsense that only proves that you are not only immature, but also seriously lacking some reading comprehension skills. After all, it is my site; and as it clearly states on my "about me" page, if you don’t like what you’ve read than get lost. "No one is making you read this." So, instead of deciding to publish the rude comments in my comments section, I choose to do it here, Dooce style, with a bit of my own commentary. Here goes:

Original comment from "emmaline" or Darla O. (like her email says):

"you’re an idiot. you don’t know a thing about this town or what has gone on here. what happened at your university didn’t happen to you. i’ll say it again. you’re an idiot. shut your mouth about something you know nothing about."

Well, if you want to get technical, really I didn’t open my mouth. I typed. And thanks for letting me know you think I’m an idiot twice, because really, once just wasn’t enough. So, because my kids were asleep and I didn’t have anything better to do; and because I thought it might be kind of fun, I wrote an email to "Darla." I let her know her comment would be deleted because name-calling is immature; and then I asked her exactly what was so offensive about the post. Her response:

"you really are an idiot. and you do need to keep your mouth shut about things of which you now nothing. pittsburg ain’t durham, and you’ve proved it with your unbelievably moronic post. if you had any guts at all you’d let posts be shown as they appear."

She certainly is fond of the word "idiot," yet there is still nothing cited about what exactly is so darn "moronic." As a former English teacher though, I felt a sudden urge to put this up on a chalkboard and start correcting things, but maybe her shift key just doesn’t work. . . or maybe. . . well, name calling isn’t nice so I’ll refrain. Then I asked her again, to tell me what is nonfactual about my post. Seriously, if something isn’t right, I’d like to know and correct it. (For fun, I also let her know that she spelled Pittsburgh incorrectly.) I got this:

"by the way . . there’s plenty that isn’t documented and factual in your moronic post . . .you have ignored the facts altogether as they have been reported here in durham. but i’m sure that doesn’t matter to you in the least, oh self proclaimed grammar goddess. then again, you’re an idiot from freaking pittsburgh who spends her time celebrating her physical aggression over other people. what can we expect. stay where you are. and leave our problems to us. keep your freaking, stupid, pitmouth shut."

Yeah, that’s what my whole site is about! I’m so glad she gets it! Physical aggression over others. Wow! I wish I had her reading comprehension skills. Hey, at least she spelled Pittsburgh correctly. Good girl. I’m so loving her use of punctuation too. Creative writing is certainly her strongest skill. Does anyone know what a "pitmouth" is? Just curious. And then:

"it’s YOUR blog that doesn’t allow anti-your-view comments. jeez. YOU are a coward. black belt or not. your a self absorbed coward. face it. and by the way, my 14 year-old niece could totally kick your ass on the mat, sista."

I’m so scared. Seriously, shaking. . . wait, is your niece the 14-year old girl at my dojo referred to on my about page? (Because in that case, I might be.) Now, it appears that emmaline/darla has some visual problems too; because prominently displayed on the site is my "current rank" which is not black belt. (What was I going to do? Call my site "Green Belt Mama" and then have to change it with each rank? It’s there because I’ll eventually be there, but now I’m getting off topic. . . ). Then, once I’d blocked that email address, because it’s not like anything she’s said is even intelligible. . . and frankly, I was getting bored. Then I get this. . . guess who?

"From: Norma Bates (email address not printed here but if you really want it. . . )

To: Black Belt Mama

Subject: the fact that you spell you’re inconsequential town correctly

. . . don’t mean that you can get mine right, blogging from so far away, you unbelievably smug person. You need to keep your mouth to yourself because you are totally uneducated about Durham."

Darla/Emmaline? Is that you? I thought so! I’d just like to point out a few things here. First, you don’t know where I’m from. Just because I went to Pitt doesn’t mean Pittsburgh is my home town. Maybe it’s Durham. Wouldn’t that just blow your mind? Second, keeping my mouth to myself sounds. . . just lovely, I think. Wait, what does that mean exactly? Third, in case you weren’t aware (or have otherwise been living in an underground bunker with no access to the outside world), the Duke lacrosse story is now a national story, which means anyone with a radio, newspaper, TV, eyes, ears, or a brain has access to the story. And finally, I would be willing to bet that the boys on the lacrosse team aren’t all from Durham. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that at least 90% of them are from out of state. And, if you’d like one more little factoid, the arrested boys are from NY and NJ. Since I used to live in NJ, it’s officially my business if I want it to be.

So there! I feel better now! Take that! (I may not publish name-calling comments in my comments section, but they sure do make for fun posting.)

And since recess is now over, I’ll be signing out. . .