FeeFiFoto Blog

Wordless Wednesday: We Bought Several, Using Genuine Fake Money

2009-07-15T03:03:00-05:00

Sharyn Essman

It's Bastille Day, And You Know What That Means: Time To Update The About Page

2009-07-14T13:39:09-05:00

Image here.

In case you're confused, there's really no connection between Bastille Day and updating my About page. I'm just messin' witcha.

I have, however, updated my About page, and here are some highlights:

I'm a recovering attorney with two kids, two dogs, a gift site called FeeFiFoto (duh), and very little free time on my hands.

I'm really good at parallel parking. Someone gave me a lesson when I got my first car and I've never forgotten how. I could park a school bus if I had to. As long as the bus had an automatic transmission.
I did fail parallel parking on the driver's test, however. Both times. But I can do it now, I swear. I even give lessons.
I do know how to drive a standard transmission, just not one on a bus.
Do they even make school buses with standard transmissions any more? It's been a very long time since I've ridden a school bus. Since I get motion sickness even at the mention of a bus, I don't think I'm going to be finding out about the transmissions on school buses any time soon.
Something something spoons...
...
Something something blah blah weather...
I can complete the New York Times crossword puzzle, in ink, any day of the week.
I'm a Beatlemaniac.
I'm a serious chocoholic. Ask about the chocolate stories sometime.
Blabber about hobbies...
...
I've never smoked a cigarette or taken drugs. If you need someone who can honestly say that to your kids, call me.
I'm definitely a Disney and not a Warner Brothers.
Boring information about my family...
I hated practicing law. I spent most of my tenure slinking around the office clinging to a wall, wearing beige to fade into the paint, staring at my feet in the hope of never making eye contact with anyone, especially my ~~manic-depressive~~ bipolar secretary, who might yell at me or demand I practice law, for which I clearly was not qualified.
I have math phobia, although unleash me in a roomful of typos and grammatical errors and I'm happy as a hog in a mud puddle. I might even correct the typos in your comments if you're really nice. I can't wait until my kids are old enough to handle the family's finances.
Exercise? Excuse me while I hide...
What my dog ate...
Will somebody please clean up this mess?!...
I have beautiful blue eyes that turn greenish when I wear green, purplish when I wear purple, and turquoiseish when I wear turquoise.
Sports...
I've been within spitting distance of the following celebrities; although I'm too polite to have spit at any of them there are some at whom I might have liked to spit: Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Eva Gabor*, Larry Hagman, Prince Philip, Shirley Jones*, Nelson Mandela, Neil Diamond, Oprah Winfrey, Joe Namath, Hugh Grant, Teri Garr, Joan Rivers, Lou Brock, August Busch II*, Itzhak Perlman* (key: "*" indicates handshake or conversation).
More junk about my family...
I can see Russia from my house.

Why are you still here? Get out of here and go update your own About page. Scoot!

Photo Hunters: Garbage

2009-07-11T01:01:00-05:00

Here it is -- my photo of garbage:

It's a closet... full of garb... hence...

Garb-age.

Thank you. I'll be here all week. Remember to tip your waitresses.

See more Photo Hunters here.

American Idols: Whom Do You Admire?

2009-07-10T09:33:04-05:00

Robespierre: "Jon Stewart is my new idol.

Me: "Really. Why's that?"

Robey: "Because Billy Mays died."

Me: "..."

I Am Mossy: Replacing Grass That Won't Grow, With Moss, Which Might

2009-07-08T22:12:57-05:00

With sincerest apologies to Bossy, who is one of my blogging idols. In fact, I might or might not have a shrine to Bossy in my home, replete with life size graven images of her and her Great Dane, Stella (I wanted to name our dog Stella, or Taxi, because, how funny would it be to chase a fleeing dog yelling either name? but my kids wouldn't buy it). Y'all go read Bossy's blog and then come back to my paltry post. Better bookmark me, because once you've met Bossy, you might not be interested in me any more, kind of like when Jan's boyfriend met Marcia and all of a sudden he was like: "Jan who?" and Jan was like: "Marcia Marcia Marcia!!"

Was I talking about something?

Ah. Moss.

Since reading about moss in the New York Times more than a year ago, I've been contemplating letting moss take over the yard, since I'm abundantly lazy nothing else will grow there anyway:

"Moss, which grows fast and hugs the ground, prevents soil erosion. Its density repels weeds. Deer do not snack on it. It can be walked on. Even when it looks dead, a splash of water can restore it to emerald health within minutes. It doesn’t need fertilizer (lacking a root system, it takes nutrients from water and air). All it needs, in fact, are shade, moisture — though not large amounts of water — and what most gardeners would regard as poor-quality soil."

Hey! I have all that stuff: shade (that's why I can't grow grass), moisture, Moss-Disdaining-Deer (thank goodness we have no moose around here), and poor quality soil. And I have lots of moss growing in lush patches ringed by poison ivy and patrolled by mosquitoes.

Transplanting is ridiculously easy:

Employing a motion similar to scraping frosting from a cake, gather moss chunks:

Transport moss to a bare quadrant of the yard:

Place moss on bare spots:

Water:

Image here

Wait

Who Knew It Could Be This Easy: The Fountain Of Youth

2009-07-08T08:27:13-05:00

Headline from Monday's New York Times:

‘Tonight Show’ Audience a Decade Younger

"One of the big questions facing Conan O’Brien was this: How can he succeed with the older “Tonight Show” viewers? The answer: by making them younger.

In Mr. O’Brien’s first month as host, the median age of “Tonight Show” viewers has fallen by a decade — to 45 from 55..."

Enough with The Daily Show -- I'm switching to Conan.

Wordless Wednesday: We Like To Photograph Doors. Don't Judge.

2009-07-07T23:38:42-05:00

Fame Contest. Enter here to win fame, and a gift certificate!

Public Service Announcement: How (Or Why) To Clean Your Refrigerator

2009-07-05T21:09:10-05:00

Fame Contest. Enter here to win fame, and a gift certificate!

STEP ONE
Prepare Jello in a large bowl according to package directions.

STEP TWO
Place bowl on a shelf in the refrigerator.

STEP THREE
Slam refrigerator door, causing Jello to slosh liberally.

STEP FOUR
Discover Jello puddles in refrigerator drawers.

STEP FIVE
Spend the next hour removing, washing, drying and replacing refrigerator drawers and shelves.

More Travel Excitement

2009-07-05T19:28:15-05:00

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Let's see -- where were we? Something about traveling, Italy, noses...

Ah yes -- nosebleeds on parade.

Cupcake's nose can erupt like Mount Etna if you just look at it; it's a special power she has that we try to devote only to good. So when my father hugged her and inadvertently touched her nose, the gushing recommenced.

This time the tag team included most of the family:

Armed with tissues and bidet towels (they were fresh! and clean! I swear!) Robespierre and I hovered over her as she lay on the floor, blocking our access to the bedroom and the bathroom.
My sister called a friend in the States, a doctor who happens to know everything about everything. He suggested trying to locate some medications to help shrink the blood vessels.
My brother-in-law found an all night pharmacy (by now it was 10:30 p.m., Rome time, and I don't even want to think about what time it was according to our body clocks) and returned with pseudoephedrine pills and epinephrine ointment (bless those la-di-da, unregulated Europeans), both of which I'll be selling on eBay next week (KIDDING, Regulator People. I'm just kidding. Please don't hunt me down, cancel my eBay account and send me to prison with Bernie Madoff and Phil Spector).
Robey asked the people at the hotel's front desk if they could provide a doctor. The gave him an adapter (bless those English-as-a-second-language Italians).

What we needed:

Image here

What we got:

Image here

My father and I loaded Cupcake into a taxi and took her to Rome's Ospedale Pediatrico BAMBINO GESU (lots of pictures of Baby Jesus there, you bet) for treatment of tre episodi di epistassi durante la nottata. After providing Cupcake's name, birthdate and nationality, which the receptionist took down on a piece of scratch paper, we waited more than an hour to see medico richiedente Anna Maria Musolino, who told us (via a most likely extremely expensive phone call to Doctor Friend in the States, who, in addition to knowing everything about everything, is fluent in English, Spanish and Italian) that, since the nose had stopped bleeding while we waited she couldn't pack it, but I should bring Cupcake back the next day to consult an ENT, and could they please have the bed back because they needed it for the next patient.

Cupcake and I slept until 1 p.m. the next day. Later she delivered personalized thank you letters to each family member, even my niece and nephew, who slept through the whole thing.

Their letter read somewhere along these lines:

Dear Stretch and Artypants: Thanks for nothing. Love, Cupcake.

Now That I Think About It, The Nonstop Coughing Wasn't So Bad: Travel Crises

2009-07-04T23:02:25-05:00

Some kids are chess masters. Some excel at skateboarding, music, basketball or writing.

My kids are World Class Nosebleeders.

There are clear advantages to being the parent of an experienced nosebleeder. Such as...

for example...

ummm...

Wait! I know!

If someone you're with has a nosebleed, you'll know exactly what to do.

Ta da!

A few years ago I had their noses cauterized. I had to; our carpets gave the impression that our hobby was axe murdering. Both have had to have the procedure repeated, and Cupcake more than once. I try to remember to have them slosh Vaseline in their noses, with "try" being the operative word.

So we're on a plane to Rome two weeks ago. The flight is long, the plane cramped and inhospitable. Five hours into the flight, Cupcake sneezes.

Sneezing in our family is almost never a positive experience, especially when it occurs on a plane. When Robey was six months old we were traveling and he was wearing THE cutest outfit in the history of infant couture: sky blue and white checked flannel overalls, and a shirt printed with hobby horses, brand new.

Just after taking a bite of mushed carrots, he let loose an epic sneeze.

Bye bye hobby horses. Bye bye sky blue checked flannel.

And then we have the nosebleeds.

Bet you know what's coming, don't you?

Have you ever heard anyone call out for a doctor in a public place? It never happens, does it? It's a myth, a tool for advancing the action in movies and television shows.

It happened on our plane.

It came from me.

I'm such a cliche.

Cupcake and I crammed into one of those tiny airplane loos, and I stuffed dripping tissues into the trash while trying to listen to a handsome young Italian doctor and an American military medic; they gave me plastic tweezers from the plane's first aid kit and explained how to pack her nose if the bleeding continued.

What a great way to endear ourselves to our fellow travelers (as if it weren't enough that I was still coughing helplessly. "Really," I assured anyone within earshot, "it's just an allergy"). After thirty minutes, I finally got her nose to stop bleeding.

We arrived in Rome and exited the plane, to the evident relief of the entire flight crew and all the passengers.

We checked in to our hotel and took pictures and blah blah spent the day and ate lunch and took more pictures and ate dinner and blah blah more pictures and went back to the hotel to get ready for bed. Cupcake hugged my father and he accidentally bonked her in the nose and whoops! Off again.

Like the story? There's more to come. Check back for the next installment in our story: "As The Nose Bleeds."

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