My Fascinating Life + Zeeee Contest Magnifique!

UPDATE: If you are here for Zeeee Contest, CLICK HERE.

Okay before we get to The Contest, let me just give you some interesting tidbits (not tit bits, as Mutters would have you believe) about my day. (And speaking of Mutters ... for those of you who are waiting with baited breath (and I'm sure this includes Mutters) to read the Tres Bizarre Serious Interview Series: Mutters, it is coming. It's just taking forever to edit due to some keyboarding issues (think man+toast+keyboard) and the length of our conversation. So be patient hosers!)

+++

Sixer is in dance class for the first time this summer and sitting in the lobby each week has just about destroyed me.


There is a mom who brings her about-seven-year-old son with her each week while her daughter dances. She also brings her little babysitter AKA laptop, (and God forbid that you be sitting in the seat next to the single electric socket in the lobby because she WILL give you the stank eye until you move), and sets her little fella up at the computer and gives him her cell phone, then leaves and "goes walking". The little boy is like, "When will you be back Mommy? Where are you going Mommy? Mommy? Will you be back soon Mommy?" and she is always exasperated as she answers him, so exasperated in fact that she must add an extra syllable to each of the words she uses, "Soon-ah! Walking-ah! What-ah? YES-ah!" Then he watches all of these creepy ninja movies that scare even me (someone who many consider "creepy") ... let alone his poor little desensitized sevenish-year-old brain, the entire time she is gone, at a very high volume. Poor little bugger. I just want to wrap him up and take him on a walk with me, since his mom obviously can't cut in to her ME-TIME to do so.


Then there's the mom who, the other day randomly ... seriously out of nowhere ... proclaimed, in the middle of a goss-fest, totally unrelated to any of the smack-talking that the other moms were performing, as she was clapping her hands all "Hercules! Hercules!" style, "MY MASTER'S IS ALMOST COMPLETE!" Lord knows I am super proud of myself for completing a master's degree and I may have bragged about it a little here ON MY PERSONAL BLOG, but I didn't break into other's conversations, gossip or otherwise to announce it to a crowd of people (unless you include the time at Westroad's when I was singing "Master master master! I'm a big fat master!", but really, that's not the same thing, is it?) The other moms stopped for a nanosecond and then kept right on going. Sorry honey. Nice try. No attention from the other Bees.

Ironically, here I am gossiping about them. What a terrible, shameless hypocrite I am ...

...
...
...

... Oh well ... anyway ...


... there's also this mom who has two daughters who are either twins or very close in age and she does not supervise them whatsoever. She only notices the naughty things they are doing after they have done something that she can't reverse, such as dismantling a portion of the bead-board wall, flushing a sock down the toilet, whacking another little girl over the head with a baton -- that sort of thing. (I watch them the whole time, and unless they are going to hurt themselves or someone else I just give them a little twinkle-eye and enjoy the show.) Three weeks ago little girls got a hold of her cell phone and smashed it into a bench and it broke (the phone, not the bench). The mom said, "YOU BROKE IT!" in this really crazy-mean voice and then softened as she said, "Oh well ... I've been wanting a new one."

I don't have to spell this out most likely, but I just have to say it: I am not like other moms AND I AM OKAY WITH THAT.

Egad!

One of those little lookalike girls that broke the phone said to me on the first day of summer dance session, after staring at me for a solid minute and a half: "Are you the mom?" which is much better than the little girl who came up to me one morning at a campsite when I had my hair cut boyishly short in the late nineties and said, "Are you a man or a woman?" I actually liked both of those questions quite a bit. Kids are so refreshingly honest.

The conversation I caught on my way out today (the last summer session for this studio - Praise Be to God) was so funny though and maybe even made it worth subjecting myself to being the oddball mom for the past four weeks (Well that and the utter joy that my daughter finds in learning dance ... and ... oh yeah ... I kind of like being an oddball, if you haven't already noticed, without me stating the obvious. :))

It went a little sumpin' sumpin' like this:


Mom With Big White Mom-Shorts and a Sun Visor: You got your hair cut. It's so cute!

Mom With New Wispy Hairstyle: I know!

Mom Who Looks Like A Mennonite, But Isn't: Did Nancy do it for you?

Mom With New Wispy Hairstyle: Yes! Isn't it great? She totally whacked me off!

Mom With Big White Mom-Shorts and a Sun Visor: You are so lucky.

Clueless I tell you! I guess not everyone can be so socially aware and perfect as me though, so I will quit complaining ... for now.

+++

On my way from wifi hotspot numero uno to wifi hotspot numero dos, I was driving behind a big honkin' pick-up truck. I was just minding my own business, singing along to the Official Lawrence Welk Show Soundtrack, when what should I see but a giant level flying out of the pick-up's bed into the street. Since I rarely get a chance to be a local hero, like that goody-two-shoes Kristen Gilbert ... I sped up (to the speed limit as I usually drive a tasteful two to three miles under) and tried to stay even with the pick-up. I rolled down the driver's side window and at the next stop light I yelled, "HEY! You dropped your level back there by McDonald's"! The look on the pick-up driver's face indicated that he felt the same way about his level as I feel about my children. I thought he was going to throw himself out of his truck from worry and sadness at his carelessness. But he regained his composure, waved his hand briefly, and said, "Thank you" then sped off around the corner, presumably to go rescue his beloved child from the mean streets of Omaha.

My acts of random kindness astound even me Sillies. I am just a really really really really good person and you, my friends, are lucky to know me.

+++

What a pleasing segue way into my next brief item on my agenda: Paying It Forward. A while back, DickieBo, every one's favey tired old cop, gave me a prize -- happiness -- with nothing expected in return as a result of a Paying It Forward style thing from one of his friends and I can't remember her name and there is a link to her blog somewhere on my blog, but I'm too lazy to go look it up, but not too lazy to write this ridiculously long sentence. Anyway ... I promised to pay forward this happiness that Dickiebo gave me, and it is time now that I make good on that promise. I have dutifully placed everyone from my blogroll into a hat. Well, their names ... not them ... and pulled out three of them. Now I just need mailing addresses, social security numbers, blood types and DNA samples from the following bloggers who all happen to be female and are to be my Pay It Forward recipients:

*BipolarLawyerCook
*KrazyBlonde
*Poppy

Okay ... just a mailing address will do ... seriously. If you're not comfortable giving a mentally unstable stranger your mailing address ... just be honest ... and I will pay it forward to someone else. BTW, if you visit Poppy soon, prepare to get a pit in your throat and a tear in your eye, due to the heart-wrenchingly touching youtube video she has posted there.

These wieners winners will receive an attractive prize package worth several dollars and a few cents via the cheapest form of snail mail the law will allow and they don't have to do a single thing in return except promise to pay it forward. I will post pictures of the packages on the day I send them.

P.I.F. Ladies: Send your addresses here: morgetron@gmail.com

+++


Fast forward to my evening ------> I enter a coffee shop. As I enter, I see a HELP WANTED sign. I think to myself, I could definitely dig making coffee on a part-time basis ... hmmmmm. I think I'll apply for this near-minimum-if-not-minimum wage job and see what happens.


So, I go in an order my coffee. This is a rarity as I am normally a tea girl, but it smells good and I need a wifi hotspot. I'm standing there talking to the barista (That IS what they call coffee selling people, right?) and he is the quietest man I've ever encountered. I, though I know you'd be hard-pressed to believe it, am rather quiet -- even timid -- in public situations. So I have to have him repeat everything he says. He has to ask me to repeat everything I say. I have lots of questions because I don't know how to order fancy coffee, and I want to apply for a job. It is a painfully quiet conversation, but he is really nice and explains the different types of espresso he is offering AND gets his manager, who is probably a decade my junior, to print me off an application. So ... yeah. Cool. Quiet. Coffee. Applied for Job. Sure did. Uh-huh.

+++

Now ... onto ZEEE CONTEST! You can read below, but there is a better post about this HERE.

As you know, I am obsessed with ... well ... ME, so of course this contest is all about ME ME ME ME ME ME! Yay ME!

It was inspired by Hubbetron's drawing as portrayed in the post below this one (linked in case you're too lazy to scroll three inches.)

Contest Rules and Procedure:

1. Find a picture of me.* This should not be hard. Most of you can just check your hard drives because I know you like to download all of my pictures into your Morgy folder that you have password protected and enshrined on your desktop. If you do not fall in to that category, then you can probably just look at my sidebar or the top of my blog, dig around in my archives, OR check out G-Man's Happy Birthday Morgy Post. (PS: The drunken falling down photo is NOT me. That was G-Man's funny little joke. I'm not saying that a picture similar to this one does not exist, but it's not me!)

2. Once you have selected an image, draw a picture of me, in the style and medium of your choosing.

3. Take a picture of the picture and save it as a jpg, and send it to my gmail address: morgetron@gmail.com, or if you know my snail mail address, just mail it to me. Obviously I'm not going to post my home address here, so some of you will be stuck with the electronic route.

4. I will be asking three random bloggers and a single non-blogger to judge this contest. (These folks are TBA as soon as I hear back from some peops.)

5. I must receive digital entries by midnight on July 12, 2008. That's midnight your time or my time, whichever is latest. Snail mail entries must be postmarked by July 8, 2008.

6. The judges will have one week to judge the drawings. They will select a single winner in each category:

* The BEST rendering of Morgy.
* The WORST rendering of Morgy.
* The MOST MORGYLICIOUS drawing of the bunch.

7. The prizes are all TBA.

8. Tell your friends.

9. Everyone in the WHOLE WORLD is eligible for this contest. If you are lurking, consider de-lurking yourself for this very special and possibly once-in-a-lifetime occasion.

10. If I have left out any details, hopefully someone will mention it in the comments and I will clarify tomorrow or the next day or the next day. Full details coming soon.

I wish you well in this endeavour.

*If you KNOW me or have MET me and have a picture of me in your head derived from a meaningful moment we spent together, by all means, do not be saddled by a mere photo.


IloveyoulikeSixerlovessparklythings.