The Mommy Rant

Kiss Off

2021-01-20T10:54:00.000-05:00

A playlist for Trump leaving the White House:

1. Mr. Bad Example - Warren Zevon

2. Everybody Want To Rule The World - Tears For Fears

3. Don't You Want Me? Human League

4. I'm a Loser - The Beatle

5. Urge for Going - Tom Rush

6. Leaving On A Jet Plane - Peter, Paul & Mary

7. Movin' Out - Billy Joel

8. Good Riddance - Green Day

9. Kiss Off - Violent Femmes

10. Don't Look Back - Boston

Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

song: Kiss Off • artist: Violent Femmes

What I Like About You

2019-06-04T08:54:00.002-04:00

My kids have accused me of showing favoritism and they're right.
I like our pet guinea pigs better than all four of them.

song: What I Like About You • artist: The Romantics

Eight Days a Week

2018-11-28T09:14:00.003-05:00

C says that Black Friday, Shop Small Saturday, Cyber Monday, and Giving Tuesday should be followed by Apply for Welfare Wednesday.

song: Eight Days a Week • artist: The Beatles

smokin in the boys room

2018-11-15T09:36:00.001-05:00

Here’s a funny (or not) story.
S and N wanted to make super scary jack-o-lanterns this Halloween and somehow equated super scary with smoking. So they wanted both their pumpkins to have cigarettes and I offered to make some with white/brown paper but neither of the boys could understand why I needed white paper because as it turned out, they had never seen an unsmoked cigarette, just butts in the beach parking lot, so they assumed cigarette were just the brown filter end.

Song: Smokin in the Boys Room • Artist: Brownsville Station

I Write the Book

2018-02-12T12:06:00.000-05:00

I just realized this today (can you believe it?) and this is about as quasi inspirational as I’ll probably ever get.

Ever notice that it only takes dropping one letter to make a “notebook” a “not book?”
Here’s to all your notebooks never becoming “not books”

song: I Write the Book • artist: Elvis Costello

Stormy Monday

2018-02-07T11:11:00.001-05:00

I don’t understand people who deny climate change. Don’t something like 97% of all climate change scientists agree that climate change is happening at an accelerated rate and that people are the cause?
Those seem like pretty good odds.
If I went to see 100 doctors and 97 of them said I had cancer - I think I would probably stop wondering whether or not I had cancer and start doing something about it.

song: Stormy Monday • artist: Eric Clapton

I'm Sorry

2017-11-03T00:31:00.001-04:00

Confession: when I play Sorry with my kids and I get the card that sends them back to start - I'm not really sorry.

song: I'm Sorry • artist: Brenda Lee

Luck be a Lady

2017-11-01T23:12:00.003-04:00

Through a set of circumstances that left us without electricity for 24 hours and without water for almost 60, I found myself at the laundromat with an overflowing basket of dirty clothes; and it occurred to me that feeding a $10 bill into the coin changer was about as close to winning at Vegas as I would probably ever come.
Luck be a lady really means having clean clothes and ice cream that’s not melted.

Song: Luck be a Lady • Musical: Guys and Dolls

Z is for Zevon

2017-08-06T00:25:00.004-04:00

Warren Zevon was 56 when he died in 2003 but his songs have such a wicked sense of humor that I’m including him anyway. He was way cooler than I will ever be and frankly - I’m okay with that.

Y is for Yates

2017-08-06T00:24:00.004-04:00

Paula Yates was 40 when she died of a heroin overdose in 2000. She was famous pretty much for being famous but her credits included being married for almost 10 years to rocker Bob Geldof. The closest I've come to Sir Bob is occasionally belting out "I Don't Like Mondays" - un-creatively enough - on Mondays.

X is for Malcom

2017-08-06T00:21:00.003-04:00

Complicated political figure Malcom X was 39 in 1965 when he was assassinated in New York City. This quote is attributed to him and holds a lot of water given today’s politics: "You're not to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it."

W is for Wilde

2017-08-06T00:21:00.001-04:00

No one has ever asked me this question, “if you could have any celebrity, living or dead, to your house for dinner who would you choose?” If anyone did ask, I might answer, Oscar Wilde. It’s true that I haven’t read Walden but I have read “The Picture of Dorian Gray.”
Oscar Wilde died in 1900 at age 46, three years after being imprisoned for “gross indecency with men.” Arresting and jailing someone because they are gay seems about as far-fetched as having a portrait in one’s attic that becomes aged, old, and ugly, while its owner stays ever youthful.

V is for von Richthofen

2017-08-06T00:20:00.006-04:00

WWI Flying Ace Manfred von Richthofen, otherwise known as the Red Baron, was 25 when he was killed over France in 1918. His death was a severe blow to German war morale. I myself am afraid to fly. Technically he belongs under the letter “R” but I really wanted to include Gilda Radner.

U is for Uncle

2017-08-06T00:20:00.002-04:00

Uncle Buck (aka John Candy) was 43 when he died in 1994. Who didn’t love John Candy? John Candy was born in Ontario in 1950. I too have Canadian ancesetry.

T is for Thoreau

2017-08-06T00:19:00.002-04:00

Henry David Thoreau was only 44 when he died in 1862. His book “Walden; or, Life in the Woods” was published in 1854. It has never been out of print. I confess that I've started but never finished "Walden" but I’ve been to the pond.
Thoreau would have turned 200 this year.

S is for Sutcliffe

2017-08-06T00:16:00.003-04:00

Stuart Sutcliffe was the original bass player for the Beatles. He left the band to pursue a career as a painter but died when he was just 21 of an aneurysm. It’s debatable, really, whether he accomplished more in his life that I have thus far, hell I’ve painted and strummed a guitar but until I started researching for this list the only ex-Beatle I’d heard of was Pete Best who is still very much alive.

My favorite Beatles song is "In My Life."

R is for Radner

2017-08-06T00:13:00.003-04:00

It's always something.
Comedian Gilda Radner was 42 when she died of ovarian cancer in 1989. I enjoyed her character Roseanne Roseannadanna on Saturday Night Live even though I knew a few people who took my name and dubbed me “Roseanne Roseannadanna Joanna Briana.“

Q us for Queen

2017-08-06T00:13:00.001-04:00

Queen Nefertiti was 40 when she died in 1330 BC. She was married to the pharaoh Akhenaten who ruled during one of the wealthiest periods of Egyptian history. It’s rumored that after Akhenaten’s death she ruled Egypt herself before the accession of King Tut. You go girl!

P is for Phoenix

2017-08-06T00:12:00.001-04:00

According to Wikipedia, River Phoenix’s work included 14 films and television appearances and yet he only lived to be 24. My personal favorite was Phoenix as Chris Chambers in “Stand By Me,” which hit the screens in the summer of 1986 while I was deep into my Stephen King phase. “The Body” was one of King’s rare - non-scary - works.

O is for Orwell

2017-08-06T00:10:00.000-04:00

George Orwell died of tuberculosis in 1950 when he was 46 years old.
I read both “Animal Farm” and “1984” in 1992, when I was 24.

N is for Nazareth

2017-04-25T12:57:00.004-04:00

Jesus of Nazareth was 33 when he died at the beginning of the AD calendar.

Jesus’s contributions were many. His most well-known may have been his admonition to us to love our neighbor as ourself.

He’s also famous for feeding a multitude of followers by the sea of Galilee with only a few loaves of bread and some fish. I assume the food went as far as it did for the same reason it does in my house.

The multitudes were all picky eaters.

M is for Morrison

2017-04-25T12:22:00.002-04:00

Jim Morrison, the Lizard King, was only 27 when he died in Paris in 1971.

I have never looked particularly good in leather pants.

L is for Lovecraft

2017-04-25T12:19:00.003-04:00

H.P. Lovecraft was 46 when he succumbed to cancer in 1937 after postponing going to the doctor’s office like a typical guy. Not famous in his lifetime he’s posthumously become known as one of the founding fathers of horror fiction.

I keep all my doctor’s appointments.

K is for Kennedy

2017-04-14T13:08:00.001-04:00

Pretty sure I’ve outlived half the Kennedy clan.

Joe Kennedy Jr., died at 29 in 1944.

Kathleen “Kick” Kennedy was 28 when she died in 1948.

John F. Kennedy was 46 when he was assassinated in 1963

and Robert Kennedy was 42 when he was killed in 1968.

My favorite quote from JFK, the one that seems most relevant today is, “we enjoy the comfort of opinion, without the discomfort of thought.”

J is for Jones

2017-04-13T08:37:00.003-04:00

Not just the protagonist of a Grateful Dead tune, Jonathan “Casey” Jones was a real life train engineer who died at 37 because he stayed on his train trying to slow it down rather than jumping to safety. Casey Jones was the only fatality when his train collided with Engine 83 outside of Canton, Mississippi on April 30, 1900. Not only immortalized by Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead, Wallace Saunders, Jones’s friend and colleague wrote “The Ballad of Casey Jones” which has been recorded numerous times in various incantations.

I too, enjoy riding public on transportation.