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!

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?

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?

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?

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!

The show was fabulous! I never saw the movie, so it was all new to me. It was so, so good! And the Beyonce part was played by Syesha Mercado, of American Idol fame. And she was fantastic. And the chick who played the Jennifer Hudson role was so good she repeatedly gave me chills. And before this tour, she really was only an extra in a few musicals. She’s going to be the next big thing!

The one thing about the show that sucked was my view. I bought these tickets a long time ago (my mom’s birthday is early December) so they were good seats, smack dab in the center in one of the first few rows of the balcony. But instead of seeing singers in sparkly outfits, I looked at this.

Yep, the back of this man’s head. I know it is hard to understand just what it is like, so I did a mock up of what it looked like when performers were on stage.

Thankfully I could just lean into my mom’s personal space so I could actually see AND hear what was going on.

After the show, my mom and I went to a nice steak dinner. We took our time, had great food, good conversation and plenty of alcohol.

After dinner we continued her belated birthday celebration at an Irish bar, with more drinks! My mom lives with my Grandma and doesn’t get out a lot, so she got to decide how long we stayed out. And we had an awesome night. It was great to just be able to sit and chat, especially since I hadn’t seen my mom since Christmas.

Today, of course because I am old, I was a wee bit hungover, so I spent the day on the couch watching TV. I left for all of 20 minutes to drive to Taco Bell to pick up some food. But other than that, my couch and I were inseparable today. Which is how most Sundays should be, in my book.

So tell me, how was your weekend? Do anything exciting? Did you watch The Pregnancy Pact? Spill it, internet!

For instance, I just noticed that I was given an extra $700 in my most recent paycheck. And while I wanted to keep my mouth shut and say nothing (HELLO, FREE LAPTOP) I just couldn’t. There was no way I could not tell someone. Maybe I wouldn’t have said something right away, but after the worry ate a hole in my stomach, I’d let them know. It wasn’t as if I would ever spend that money. I can talk a big game, but it wasn’t mine, and I knew it.

Anyway, so last night I went to see Mamma Mia with my friend Schwerer. The show was excellent. Surprisingly, with all the Broadway shows I’ve seen, I’ve never seen Mamma Mia before. I didn’t even see the movie. The musical was EXCELLENT. The second act is a snooze fest until the end, but the end more than makes up for it. Especially when the cast comes out to perform an encore and encourages the audience to sing and dance along! Good times!

We saw the show out in the suburbs near my work. We met for dinner and headed over to the theater in enough time to get our seats before the show started. We both drove separately, so we followed the signs for the parking lot with the rest of the theater-goers. The problem is that it wasn’t until you were in the parking line, the ONE WAY, line, that they said it was CASH ONLY. So I panicked. Because I had only $5 with me. And the parking? WAS TWENTY DOLLARS!

So I pulled off to the side and called Schwerer, praying she had $20 on her I could borrow. Turns out, she ONLY had $20, which was enough to park her car. And since I was in a line of cars and there was no exit, I freaked out and pulled up to the booth hoping the lady would cut me some slack. Or at least tell me how to exit.

They wouldn’t take just $5, sadly. But they did take checks and she was surprised I didn’t have my checkbook on me. I honestly don’t even know the last time I WROTE a check. So no, I don’t have my checkbook with me, parking lot lady. IT IS TWENTY TEN! (Nope, still doesn’t sound right.)

Thankfully she did show me how to exit and told me I could park next door in the hotel’s parking garage, as they took cards. And, bonus! The hotel parking garage was cheaper! But I had to walk up a snowy hill to get to the theater, so it was a wash.

Like I said, the show was great, until the end when some chubby man in spandex and platform boots lectured me about donating money for Haiti. I understand the tragedy and have donated money, but this was not the place. Talk about buzzkill after seeing such an uplifting, energetic, happy show!

Anyway, the show ended and I walked back down the snowy hill to the parking garage. The garage said to take my ticket with me, so I did. I assumed there would be pay machines somewhere. I didn’t see them anywhere, so I figured at the very least, there would be a pay machine near the exit for those of us idiots who forgot to pay. Because this is how it is in EVERY parking garage in the city of Chicago.

Apparently the suburbs are different. There was no pay box. And the machine that took your ticket didn’t look like it took credit cards either. So I panicked.

There was a car in front of me, and after hemming and hawing, I decided at the last possible minute to GUN IT and follow the car out of the garage. I thought the gate arm-thingy was going to snap off and I was going to get arrested. It did hit my car, but bounced right back up.

I drove the rest of the way home just waiting to get pulled over by the cops for skipping out on my parking fee. I was a nervous wreck driving home. And I literally couldn’t fall asleep because I felt so GUILTY that I skipped out on paying at a HOTEL parking garage. Like they aren’t making money hand over fucking fist anyway. Like my $5 was really going to break their bank.

But it didn’t matter. It was the principle! I broke the law! I STOLE PARKING! I almost busted through the gate! I SHOULD BE THROWN IN JAIL!

I’m still half expecting that I’ll get some sort of bill in the mail because they have cameras or something and they will trace my license plate. And I’m sure there will be a photo of my scared face, ducking in my car to get out of the way of the gate arm thingy that was coming down…on the roof of my car, NOT my head.

And somehow, in my mind, this is way worse than having a fake ID. A fake ID I got from the actual DMV.

So tell me, what is the worst thing you’ve done? The biggest law you’ve broken?

But don’t tell me anything too bad, I don’t want to have to feel guilty that one of you once stole money off an old lady or something. I have enough stomach problems as it is.

The first week of January, I went to Atlanta. And then last Friday, I was feeling under the weather so I called in sick. For some reason (JULIE & JULIA) I feel the need to say this on my blog like I’m covering my tracks or something. Like I was really home cooking Beef Bourguignon because I fell asleep on the couch and burnt the dish in the oven. The only thing that is true in that sentence is I FELL ASLEEP ON THE COUCH.

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Have you seen Julie & Julia? Spoiler alert: It was horrible. Julie Powell is a whiney, pretentious asshole. And I guess the movie makes her out to be nicer than she really is in real life. And poor Amy Adams! She’s so cute, but that hair is BAD. And why should the princess from Enchanted have to play such a horrible human being? Which I guess makes her a good actress because Amy Adams? I HATED you as Julie Powell. Well done.

If you feel you must see this movie, please do see it for Meryl “T-Bone” Streep’s performance as Julia Child. She was excellent and made me want to know and read more about Julia Child. And also wish she was still alive so I could be her friend and we could sit around and eat butter and drink wine and talk about that horrid Julie Powell.

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This post is going to be all over the place.

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So this weekend, I did a whole lot of nothing. See above: falling asleep on the couch. In fact, I may not have showered for more than 2 days. And then when I did shower, I had Depeche Mode’s “Clean” in my head for hours.

“Clean. The cleanest I’ve beeeen…”

BUT! I did get my eyebrows waxed. (Just eyebrows. Not bikini, or then I would have showered. I’m not that disgusting.) And I got gas in my car! And I loaded AND then unloaded the dishwasher simply because I was out of cutlery. And I re-filled my prescription at a drug store that is close to my new house and not my old one. Which should make me more likely to pick it up. (And NO, AETNA, I will not be doing mail order prescriptions because EVERY time I’ve done that? I’ve lost my job. Sorry it costs you more. And me MUCH more.)

I also did six loads of laundry. “SIX!” you exclaim! “How can one person have that much laundry? Did you take in boarders? Were the cats especially pukey this weekend?”

Well, yes, they were exceptionally pukey and no, I have not taken in any new houseguests. I just have a compact washer and dryer. This is not complaining. This is just serving as an explanation as to why I have more loads, since I have a tiny washer and dryer. And I don’t really care, since I can do my laundry naked while sitting on the couch and not have to step foot outside.

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I found this flyer under my door when I got home today.

It’s good to know if I’m ever faced with a flyer threatening my life, I’m totally safe.

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So, this morning we had freezing fog in Chicago. I laughed when I heard about it and saw the funny graphic on The Weather Channel app on my phone. I mean, what the hell is freezing fog? How is it different than freezing rain or sleet? I mean, HOW is that even possible?

It’s possible. Let me tell you. And when you experience freezing fog, it’s like you GET it. You’re like “THIS? This is freezing fog!” It’s kind of like a frozen mist. It is definitely the weirdest weather thing I have ever experienced in my life. It’s like if you were outside in Arizona in the middle of the summer, sitting on the patio with those misters, and then all of a sudden the temperature dropped 80 degrees and all of a sudden that water coming out of the misters was frozen, like snow-ish. So bizarre.

But hey, it wasn’t snow, so I am not complaining.

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So since I’m trying to get back to posting all the time, I am in need of some ideas for posts. Is there anything you want me to write about? Death Is Not An Option themes? Do you have questions for me? Do you have questions for BACON? Help me with my writer’s block! Or one of the cats gets it.

Well today Twitter redeemed itself.

That’s not actually true. I actually love Twitter. I might be addicted to Twitter. (Might. HAHAHA! That’s rich.) It’s the only way I’ve been able to feel connected to the blogging world when my posting has been so infrequent. So it is like a damn double-edged sword. Zaps my creativity, which makes me blog less, which makes me tweet more, just to be a part of the blogosphere. That might be the lamest, nerdiest, saddest sentence ever.

Twitter is good. I can get the weather every morning from the local news outlets. I follow one of the Chicago weather guys, who actually tweets more about golf and his vacations to Florida than the weather. I know of events happening in the world, usually before a lot of non-tweeters. I can warn my mom when there are delays on the train and when she should take the bus instead. I can share with everyone this creepy photo of my cat so that if I wake up and somehow my brains are eaten, WE WILL ALL KNOW WHY.

See? Twitter can sometimes serve a purpose. Like it did today.

I’ve been thinking about starting to babysit in my free time. Mostly for the extra money (to start a laptop fund) and also because I’ve really started to think that child care might be in my future, especially if I have no kids of my own. So I figured that stepping my toe into the babysitting waters, babysitting people not related to me, would help me realize if I would like to go into child care or if I should just stick to becoming a best-selling novelist.

I don’t really know how people find babysitters. So I figured “a lot of the people I know on Twitter are moms and I think they have babysitters, I’ll ask them.”

I actually didn’t think I would get any responses. But I did! I got LOTS of responses! And people told me about SitterCity! And then SitterCity followed me on Twitter! And I started a profile! I just need to write a bio that doesn’t mention snark or booze and take a photo the exact OPPOSITE of the one I use on Twitter, Facebook and this blog, and I’ll be all set to go! People will love me and clamor for me to be their babysitter! Because I am like a child myself! I’ll be the star of SitterCity! And you cannot tell me otherwise!

On top of it, I didn’t actually expect for one tweet to lead to an honest to goodness babysitting job this Saturday! For a blogger! Twitter FTW!

I’m excited! I enjoy babysitting. I love kids, so I’m really looking forward to taking this on as a side gig. Because it forces me to do something on the weekends and not spend money, and I get to make money money, make money money! So maybe I’ll have a new laptop sooner rather than later.

For example:

Before I would probably wax poetically about how I sat in my PJs all day, becoming one with the couch cushions, watching endless hours of reality television, which led to dreams about The Situation. I would have stretched one event, one Tweet-able event, into a whole post. Nowadays I can’t seem to find that kind of creativity and writing ability for a tweet, let alone a post. And that makes me sad. Reality television is rotting my brain, apparently. But I won’t give up Jersey Shore!

I don’t generally do New Year’s resolutions. It’s just really setting myself up to fail. I mean why do I have to wait until January 1 to decide to do something or change something? It’s within all our powers to make those changes/decisions every single day. But since January 1 happened to fall close to me falling off the blogging wagon, I decided that this could be my resolution. I need to write more and make it a habit again. Find my passion for it and not feel like it is a chore. (Not sure why I feel that way when it isn’t a JOB.)

There was a story on the radio the other day about how people need hobbies. The DJ on the morning show was talking about how even though his job was his life and his number one love, he still needed a hobby to be sane. And it is true. We all need that part of our lives where we can unwind and enjoy what we are doing. I’d say that blogging is definitely one of my biggest hobbies. Right after drinking. Ba-dum-bum.

But lately I don’t put as much effort into my favorite hobby as I once did. And I think not taking the time to write, to get my therapy through writing, to connect with all of you, leads me into a vicious circle of feeling depressed and tired and leading me to just check out and spend time bonding with my couch and remote. And that’s not really good for anyone, let alone the springs in the couch.

Recently, every time I set out to write and I’m too tired or I don’t have anything to say, I just give up. In the past, I would have sat there looking at a blank, white screen, digging down deep to find something to write about. I need to get back to that. (This post is an example that I still am able to do just that.) I need to write and love writing again. I need to not let the opinion of some regarding my writing get me down and just make me pull away, pull away from something that keeps me sane and that I love to do. Something I’m passionate about. I need to keep my creative energy flowing because it is there and I can put it to good use. I mean, do you know how many other things in this world can be labeled with a label maker? IT COULD BE A WEEKLY SEGMENT! “Labeling the Land with Kristabella!”

So I’m not going to make any promises. Because sometimes I fall asleep on the couch before 9 PM because I am old. And sometimes I go out and drink too much wine. But I am promising myself to make more of an effort, to not give up so easily and to force myself to post when I just don’t feel like it. Because it is good for me. Like exercise. Which I should also probably do more of as well. But  baby steps, people, baby steps. It’s only January 12.