Wait...what?

As my loyal readers (all five of you) can attest, most of my recent posts have been about my kids in some way. Well, after spending 5 weeks of doing almost nothing but childcare, I'm ready to talk about something else. ANYTHING else. So I read a blog earlier today that got me thinking...

The blogger dude (I can't remember the name, or I would quote him) was "talking" about song lyrics, and how people often sing the wrong words by mistake. There is even a technical term for this: mondegreen. It came from some guy hearing "upon the green" as "mondegreen". There are many famous examples, and I have included some of my favorites here:

- Jimi Hendrix
Wrong lyrics: S'cuse me while I kiss this guy
Real lyrics: S'cuse me while I kiss the sky
This one is so famous, and so often misheard, that there is a website, www.kissthisguy.com that has frequently misheard lyrics!

-Creedence Clearwater Revival
Wrong: There's a bathroom on the right
Right: There's a bad moon on the rise
I gotta admit, I can't hear the difference here. If no one had told me, I'd still be singing it wrong.

-Pearl Jam
Wrong: Jeremy's smokin' grass today
Right: Jeremy's spoken yesterday
To be honest, if you understood Eddie Veder, than you've probably been smokin' grass today too.

-Garth Brooks
Wrong: Looooonnnngg, Nick Bottom
Right: Loooonnngg, neck bottle
This one was one of my youngest step-son's gems...that kid cracks me up!

-Iron Butterfly
Wrong: Inna gadda da vida, baby
Right: In the garden of Eden, baby
Okay, to be perfectly truthful here, you weren't singing the wrong lyrics...they were. My extremely reliable sources (a VH1 special) tell me that the songs lyrics were supposed to be "in the garden of Eden" but the dudes were so strung out that no one (even the song producers) could make out what they were singing. It might also explain the 17 minute drum solo.

-Alanis Morrisette
Wrong: This cross-eyed bear that you give to me
Right: This cross I bear that you gave to me
She was so angry, of course she wasn't annunciating! BTW, I highly recommend her Jagged Little Pill album to anyone who has "man trouble". It will either: A. lead you to a place where a jury of your peers will decide whether or not it was justifiable homicide or B. it will put your silly problems into perspective. Totally worth the $13.99!

-Kiss
Wrong: I wanna rock and roll all night, and part of every day!
Right: I wanna rock and roll all night, and party everyday!
Okay, we're really talking semantics here, but one can hardly blame people for only wanting to rock and roll for part of the day. After all, if you party everyday, how are you supposed to rock and roll the next night, hmmm?

So I'm sure there are plenty more, after all the songs "Louie, Louie" and "Bohemian Rhapsody" alone provide us with endless fodder! But I would love to hear what some of your favorite misheard lyrics are.

My Love/Hate Relationship with Holidays

If you were to ask anyone who knows me, even slight acquaintances, they would tell you that I love holidays. I always make a big deal out of them. I love carving pumpkins and cooking turkeys and decking the halls and dying eggs. I even make a big deal out of the less obvious holidays. Leprechauns always visit our house on St. Patricks day, and leave a little trail of gold coins leading to a little surprise! (Like a fancy shamrock hair ribbon or something.) I don a sombrero and make enchiladas on Cinco de Mayo. (The margaritas make the hat easier to pull off.) The problem is, while holidays are super fun and create special memories for my kids, (not to mention photo ops) they are a ton of work for me.

I am fully in charge of holidays around here. The husband's contribution to holiday preparation is to put on a clean shirt, which I suppose is better than the alternative! This year we were a little late in getting our Easter decorations up, for obvious reasons. (This has given the angel one more thing to add to her "life was better before my brother was born" list.) In fact, the angel put some of them up on Saturday and the rest just didn't make it out this year. (Mommy is busy!!) It was actually a bit of a battle to have the husband retrieve the decoration boxes from storage at all, but the baskets and plastic "hunting" eggs are in there, and I told him if he wouldn't get them for me I would go out and buy all new ones. (I had the boxes two hours later.)

Not only is the set up and decorating tiresome, but holidays are notorious for lack of sleep. First, Mommy has to stay up late...cleaning and stuff. Then the kids are up at the crack of dawn to see the treasures, which means that Mom and Dad are up too. (These are the same kids who must be awakened with a whip and a chair on school days.)

When I was growing up, holiday dinners happened at around 3 in the afternoon. My parents had time for a cup of coffee, a leisurely shower and maybe even time to make a meal or a dish to take if we were going elsewhere. The husband's family dinners are at noon. (They are serious about this. We once arrived at 12:30 and the food was already being put away.) This means that we have to scramble to get everyone dressed and ready to go on time. ("Look at all this neat stuff the Easter Bunny brought for you! But don't take it out, we've got to go!") Easter is even worse, because they do an Egg Hunt for the kids at 10. In the morning. This might not seem like such a big deal to most people, but it is damn near impossible for me to shower, dress, do something with my hair and make-up, assist the angel in her dressing, (tights are tough to put on) dress and feed the peanut, (that one really hurt, because feeding him is a half hour of sitting and doing nothing but watch the minutes roll by and think about all the things I should be doing.) and then make three dozen deviled eggs. I tried to enlist the husband's assistance, but he has proven himself to be next to useless when it comes to putting on tights and tying pretty bows. He also is not equipped to feed the baby. He did "help" me by peeling some of the hard boiled eggs, but that actually turned out to be a fiasco as well. (I'm not sure what he was doing to them, but his eggs looked like he removed the shell by shooting it off with bird shot. I finally had to send him to the showers or we weren't going to have enough "smooth" eggs to devil.)

Anyway, we arrived only an hour and a half late, though luckily they held the egg hunt for us. (I think they feel sorry for the angel because her mother wasn't up at 5 am. And they already know how much help her father is.) I was finally able to snag a cup of coffee and a bite to eat, wishing the whole time that I could be napping. What good is all that preparation if you are too tired to actually enjoy the big day? What's the point in running yourself ragged visiting relatives, only to return to the disaster you left at home with no energy to do anything but lay on the couch and survey the damage.

I'm looking forward to Mother's Day. (Just not all the work I'll have to do to prepare for it.)

Milk leg

A long time ago, (I don't know the actual time period...Yor, maybe?) women who had just given birth were required to lay abed for a month or so. This led to something known as "milk leg", when the new mother became weak and sore and had a difficult time moving around afterward. This might just be the hypochondriac in me, but I think I have that.

I like the idea, though. They recognized that giving birth (I like to say "giving birth" rather than "having a baby" because "having" sounds like something that happens to you and "giving" sounds like something you do...and believe me, I DID something.) was a difficult and traumatic experience, and women needed help and a long time to recover, physically. I think most were just happy to have survived at all.

Of course, now-a-days women are supposed to bounce right back. Actresses are seen on the red carpet only 3 days after giving birth? (Although, who's kidding whom here? Actresses' children are born by professional stunt women.) And there is a subtle pressure to regain normal activity as soon as possible. Not by your doctor, of course. Those guys tell you to "take it easy" for up to six weeks! No, the pressure comes from other sources. Like my angel, who whines because I'm feeding the baby and not making the Easy Mac she requested, and she's starving to death and I care more about taking care of the baby than I do about taking care of her. (She should sell tickets for these little guilt trips.) And the husband, who thinks I should go DO something instead of sitting around the house all day. Why would I take a newborn out of his warm sanctuary and into the cold and flu ridden world unless absolutely necessary? Not to mention going out with a two week old requires more planning than a shuttle launch. I could go for a walk, but walking is still a little painful. (not to mention cold!) Don't these guys realize I'm only half way through my "milk month"? They should consider themselves lucky I'm not laying in bed making them wait on me, instead of the other way around.