Kristabella: Full of Snark Since 1977

Posted By Kristabella on February 4, 2010

You all know my nephew Noah, right? He’s this adorable little chap.

Anyway, Noah has a project at school right now where he has a travelling bear (also named Noah) and he needs to have his bear go all over the world. He’s been in Chicago to a Bulls game, he’s been to Mexico, he’s been to Atlanta, but he has so many more wonderful places that he needs to go visit.

And that is where you all come in.

Would you be willing to print out this adorable bear and take a photo of him in your city or town? Or have him do fun things like attend events? Anything to enlighten his boring, bear life?

You can even write a little story of his adventures while he was visiting with you and then mail them to Noah the person so he can show his classmates how awesome of an Auntie he has, and all the exciting places Noah the Bear got to go!

And, Noah would really like Noah the Bear to go to China, so if anyone knows anyone in China, let me know.

If you would be interested in participating, either leave a comment or send me an email at fullofsnark (at) gmail (dot) com and I can email you a photo of Noah the Bear to print out with the instructions.

The Noahs and I would be super grateful to all of you that are willing to help. All people who participate will be entered into a drawing for a $10 Amazon gift card. And I’d be more than willing to repay the favor if your kids ever have this project. I mean, what kid doesn’t want a photo of his bear with a drunk lady, a cat and an empty bottle of wine?

Thanks for all your help!

Category: All Things Blogging, All in the Family, Halp | 47 Comments »
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Posted By Kristabella on February 2, 2010

This past weekend I went to visit my brother and his family. I hadn’t seen them since Christmas and I needed some good Auntie time with Noah and Skyler. Plus, on Sunday Noah had his annual Pinewood Derby Race for Cub Scouts.

Since Noah’s race took all of five minutes and we stayed the whole day, we had a lot of down time. So I decided to take photos of Skyler and show her the magic of the self-portrait.

And then Auntie got involved in the fun.

And then at the end of the day, we tried to get Noah to join us. He was reluctant at first.

But it took him little convincing to play along with us!

Is it any wonder why I’m their favorite Auntie?

Category: All in the Family | 12 Comments »
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Posted By Kristabella on February 1, 2010

Do you have any irrational fears? I have a few. One, I’m afraid one time I’ll step out of bed and someone will have been hiding under my bed and they will slice my Achilles tendon and I won’t be able to move! Two, I have an irrational fear of pink eye.

I know, right?

See, my last job was located on the South Side of Chicago, not in the best part of the city. The most convenient Dunkin Donuts was not the cleanest facility. It was part of a gas station/Burger King. I always went to this one because it was close to the prison and a lot of the cops and sheriffs would get breakfast there, so I always felt safe-ish. But there were also some shady characters, homeless people, etc. that visited this establishment as well. So much so that the place was just dirty. And I would convince myself that by touching the door handles to get in and out of the building, I was going to get pink eye. I made a POINT to wash my hands as soon as I got to work because I was afraid I would touch my eyes later and totally get pink eye. Why pink eye and not anything else? I have no idea. But I was always CONVINCED.

I never got pink eye. In fact, I haven’t had pink eye since I was a senior in high school. I only remember having pink eye then because I got it right before we were going to Puerto Vallarta for spring break with my dad. And they specifically tell you NOT to go in the sun when you’re on the antibiotic eye drops, so I had to convince the doctor to give me special eye drops so I didn’t spend a week in Mexico SITTING INSIDE.

Well, that was the last time I had pink eye until this past week.

Last Wednesday my eye was really itchy. So if it itches, I scratch it. Most of the time I don’t think about door handles and light switches and a host of other things that I touch with my hands before touching my eyeball. I have no idea why my brain thinks the Dunkin Donuts is dirtier than doors in a parking garage, but there you have it.

So before I went to bed Wednesday night, my eye was really bothering me. I went to take out my contacts and I noticed that the whole right part of my right eye was red. “Hmmm,” I thought. “This can’t be good. Maybe I scratched too hard?”

Of course I Googled pink eye and asked Twitter if pink eye itched. Because if you ever have a question, odds are someone on Twitter will have an answer for you. The consensus was that it could be pink eye and that if I woke up in the morning with an oozy, crusty eye, it was pink eye. So I went to bed.

When I woke up, my eye was a bit crusty and kind of oozy and the red had spread (hey! Thanks rhymes!). I decided in the interest of not spreading it to my co-workers, that I would work from home and keep the plague contained in my house. And then secretly wondered if cats get pink eye. And maybe thought about touching their eyes just to experiment. Thankfully my cats have lived with me long enough to know that they shouldn’t ever let me touch their eyes.

Since it had been like 15 years since my last bout with pink eye, I was a little fuzzy on the details. I was pretty sure it was SOMETHING and not just regular eye irritation. So to be sure, I decided to touch the infected eye and then touch my good eye to see if it spread. Worst case is that it would spread and I wouldn’t have like 2 weeks of pink eye.

I finally made it to the CVS Minute Clinic (which is actually kind of awesome and so quick!) and as soon as I walked in the doctor was all “oh yeah, you have pink eye. And it spread to the other eye.” Whoops.

I got my eye drops and have been using them ever since. When I remember. Because every 4 hours can slip by, especially when you’re in a movie and wearing 3D glasses over your glasses because you can’t wear contacts because you have the PLAGUE OF THE EYEBALLS! Not that you could wear any contacts anyway because you have no more left! The last pair you had, you threw out because it was INFECTED!

Basically I hate wearing my glasses. So the end of this infection (and my contacts order) cannot come quickly enough.

This is apparently my grumpy old man/I-hate-pink-eye-and-having-to-wear-glasses face. Also, apparently my neck has gone missing. Can anyone help me find it?

Category: A Dash of the Crazy, A Day in the Life of Me, Medical Mishaps | 23 Comments »
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Posted By Kristabella on January 27, 2010

Have you ever heard of the term Bystander Effect?

According to Wikipedia, it is defined as follows:

The bystander effect is the somewhat controversial name given to a social psychological phenomenon in cases where individuals do not offer help in an emergency situation when other people are present.

Basically it says that the more people who are around to witness a crime, the less likely people will actually help.

This morning on the radio, they played the following clip from NBC News:

If you don’t want to watch the whole thing, the premise is that they set up a fake child abduction to see who would help, all while the child’s mom watched, hidden in a van, to see who would come to the aid of her child.

I always wonder what I would do in a situation like this. Hearing this on the radio, without any accompanying images, I can tell you, when the kid first starts screaming “You’re not my dad!” there would be no way in hell that I would help. I would have assumed it was a bratty kid who was with her stepdad or mom’s new boyfriend and was pitching a fit.

But as the clip goes on, she clearly starts yelling HELP and asks people to help her because “this is not my dad.”

And it got me wondering – would I have stepped in to help?

I wrote before how I would protect kids from harm, whether they were mine or not, especially when they are in my care. But a situation like this? It makes me wonder what I would do.

Part of my hesitation is that I am a woman. And if a large man (albeit I am not petite flower by any means) was doing the attacking, I know my first thought would be “that man will kill me and the kid.”

But the sound of that girl screaming, although staged, is still playing over and over in my head. Could I be selfless enough to step in, even though I might get hurt? Or I might have misjudged the situation? Shouldn’t that be what I do? As an adult and as a human being?

Obviously, there is no question that if I know the kid/person, I’m stepping in. But why should I have the hesitation with someone else, someone I don’t know, someone not related to me? That isn’t fair. And wouldn’t I want someone to step in if the roles were reversed?

I feel lucky that I haven’t been on either side of this issue. But it definitely makes me wonder and makes me want to somehow ensure that I would react and wouldn’t just wait for someone else to help. Like they said in the video, the worst that could happen if you stepped in would be that you could be wrong and the situation wasn’t what you thought. And no one really wants to imagine what the worst that would happen if you didn’t step in.

So what do you all think, what do you think you would do?

Category: All Things Blogging, Land of Random | 24 Comments »
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Posted By Kristabella on January 26, 2010

So in my lapse in posting, I have forgotten to tell you one of the BEST blog stories EVER! I swear, after it happened, I was like “THIS! This is why I have a blog!”

A little over a month ago, a week before Christmas, I went to get my eyebrows waxed at my normal salon. I went on a weeknight because I was busy over the weekend, which is when I prefer to go. I go every 4 weeks. My eyebrows don’t take a break in growing. In the summer, they generally grow faster and I have to deal with caterpillars above my eyes. Thank God for bangs!

Anyway, that was not the point of this post. So my appointment was later in the evening, so I figured I would head to Trader Joe’s for something for dinner. I figured since Trader Joe’s is always crowded, this would kill some time. But I forgot that Trader Joe’s is always so crowded it annoys me, so I forced myself to get in and out of there as quickly as possible.

So I had some time to kill before my appointment. I drove over  to the salon and parked on the street. Since I had about 20 minutes, I figured I’d just sit in my car, listen to the radio, check Twitter and play a game of Solitaire. Plus, it was raining, so I didn’t feel like getting out of my nice warm, dry car.

The lady at my salon is usually on time, so with about 10 minutes to go until my appointment time, I figured I’d just head into the salon. It was close to closing time, so I hoped I could get in a bit early. So I stopped checking Twitter, shut off my car and started to open the car door.

Note: As a city driver who has experience parking on city streets, I always look before I open my door. And I did on this particular evening, but as I mentioned it was DARK and RAINING.

So as I open the door, I almost hit a guy on a bicycle. I didn’t see him! I swear!

Since I’m far too nice of a person, I apologized profusely, yelling at him from afar that I was sorry. Oops! My bad!

That was until he stopped, got off his bicycle and started racing towards me that I was like “Oh hell no, Lance Armstrong!”

So Lance Wannabe starts lecturing me. Telling me I need to look before I open the car door. And that he could have been seriously injured. And I apologize again, and DO NOT mention that it is DARK, RAINING and that he is wearing ALL BLACK!

Apparently Lance doesn’t like my tone. He doesn’t feel my apology is sincere. So I’m all “whatevs, Lance. I apologized, you’re still able to walk, MERRY CHRISTMAS!” and I walk into the salon.

As I go to take my coat off, Lance CHASES me into the salon (IN! TO! LIKE COMES ON IN!) and starts lecturing me again! Telling me I need to fix my attitude. And at one point says “do you hear how you’re talking to me?” And because I value my life, I DID NOT say “DO YOU REALIZE YOU JUST CHASED ME INTO A HAIR SALON?” Because really, Lance? Politeness is OFF the table at this point, SIR!

Thankfully I love the lady who owns the salon and she stepped in and was all “OK sir, we’re done here” and the dude was on his merry way. And a guy who was in the salon getting his hair cut was all “if he comes in again, I will kick his ass for you.”

And all I kept thinking was 1) this shit ONLY happens to me and 2) I am so thankful I have a blog to share this on.

Really, Lance Wannabe? WHO DOES THAT?

:::

In other news, I forgot to tell you guys I’m writing over at Draft Day Suit. I’ve written two posts so far, and will be writing plenty more, so please go check it out, add it to your readers, comment, tell your friends!

Category: A Dash of the Crazy, A Day in the Life of Me, The Luck of the Polish | 21 Comments »
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