Rich is my New Best Friend
I played a mean trick the other day by inflicting upon you a rather evil vanity license plate to decode. 
Amazingly, someone actually figured out my little cipher. Rich Crete posted the following comment:
1 = Won
Lac is the Egyptian word for “The” which as we know in German is Der
Ros is Latin for ass or in polite society…Butt
The answer was “Wonderbutt”. Wonderbutt is pretty much this blog’s mascot, so I thought it was appropriate. What is truly amazing, though, was that Rich translated it using completely different languages than I did. And I’m not even sure his translations are real. My translation worked this way:
1=Won
La= the French word for “der” (according to Google Translate)
Crosse= the French word for “butt”
I giggle at the irony when I first typed in the “Wonder” part into Google Translate and hit the Spanish button. The result was “preguntarse”. As soon as I saw the last syllable, I thought that was pretty appropriate.
Anway, congrats to Rich on his new award, the “I Wonderbutt, Do You?” trophy. As a condition of accepting this award, you must know that you are committing to responding to my e-mails of license plate photos from now until the end of eternity.
Now, I am a teacher. Teachers like to recognize superior effort as well as talent, so I feel that I must also point out the stunningly wrong but cunningly long comment by John as he attempted to think himself out loud to the solution.
So, I am going to present him with the equally prestigious “Do You Wonderbutt? I Do” trophy.
While I am talking about awards, I must thank butenuffaboutme for offering me a Versatile Blogger Award. What the heck. Let’s throw in something for butenffuaboutme, too.
O.K. My job is done.
A Ring of Truth
One of my favorite bloggers, Kay at Blue Speckled Pup, decided to participate in the Biggest Liar Challenge; I was interested to see that one of the possible lies was that she had trained her dog to ring bells at the back door whenever he needed to go out. Whether or not this is a true statement, I believe that it is further confirmation that she and I have a weird psychic connection. The following is a true “tail” of Mrs. P.I.B.’s house-training experience.
When she was a puppy, Mrs. P.I.B. was pretty easily house-trained. The only problem was that I was really the one who was trained. I would take her out almost every hour to ensure that she did not have any accidents, and watch her closely for any signs of discomfort. (This was during the summer. Summers, as you know, are when teachers sit around on their tuckuses eating bonbons, so I had plenty of time to devote to my Human Obedience classes.)
I soon tired of this method, but I couldn’t figure out a way to teach her to let us know when she needed to go out. Part of the problem was that we had a 2-story house at the time, and she was not allowed upstairs where our office was. There was no way that we could think of for her to signal to us that she needed to go out if we were on the second floor.
I jokingly stated that she needed a bell to ring whenever she needed to go out, and my father-in-law laughed at the thought. The next time he came to the house, though, he brought me a rope of three cow-bells to tie to the door. I took that as a personal challenge. This was long before the days of The Dog Whisperer, so I was pretty confident that I was the best dog expert I knew.
Mrs. P.I.B. is pretty smart. It didn’t take her long to learn to ring the bells when she needed to go out. She would sit by the back door, and smack her paw on the bells to notify us she was ready. Within a couple of days, the system had been perfected. I was pretty proud of my superior dog-training skills.
After about a week, I was upstairs working in the office one day, and heard the bells. I went downstairs to let Mrs. P.I.B. out, but she didn’t “do” anything. I chalked it off as a false alarm, and we both returned inside. Back upstairs for me. Five minutes later, the bells rang again. My new lesson began to sink in. Sure enough, I wandered back downstairs, took Mrs. P.I.B. out, and she once again seemed to have no interest in “doing her business.”
The third time, I leaned over the rail upstairs, and shouted, “No!” The bells went silent. That was the end of the false alarms – that day. Just call me The Dog Shouter.
The next day, I happened to be upstairs when the phone rang. I answered, and started chatting with a friend of mine.
“Brnnng!” went the bells. I was pretty certain Little Mrs. P.I.B. did not need to go out because she had just gone before I went upstairs. I ignored her. “Brnng!” She slammed her paw against the bells, banging them against the door. I leaned over the rail. “Brnng!!!” Even louder. Then, out of the kitchen came Mrs. P.I.B., and she looked up at me. Not wanting to yell, “No!” while my friend was in the middle of a sentence, I just shook my head at the dog. She tensed, then raced back to the kitchen, banged on the bells again, and raced back out to see my reaction.
I had a quick flashback to my childhood days when my mother would be on the phone, and swat at me like a fly whenever I tried to interrupt.
It was quite clear that Mrs. P.I.B. was more interested in my undivided attention than going outside. I walked calmly down the stairs, still on the phone, yanked the bell rope off of the doorknob, and dumped the kit and caboodle in the hall closet. I glared at Mrs. P.I.B., and went back upstairs to continue my conversation.
That was the end of the bell experiment. To my credit, Mrs. P.I.B. has been perfectly house-trained ever since.
You probably won’t be surprised to learn that I never even attempted this technique with Wonderbutt.
And that one of us still needs some remediation in the house-training area.
It's Hard to Be Stern With Someone This Darn Cute
Y U MADD?
Forget cell phones, DVD players, and other distractors inside the car. I will tell you what should be banned – personalized license plates.
If you ever pass me while I’m driving, and you see me mumbling to myself, apparently alone in the car, the explanation could be one of two: I’m singing loudly with the radio so as to break the eardrums of any serial killers who might be hidden in the back of my car, or I am trying to figure out another ding danged personalized license plate.
As some of you may know, I am a bit competitive. And I get really irked when I can’t figure out someone’s plate. I feel like I am the only one on the interstate who doesn’t get the inside joke. At first, I feel dumb. And then I start feeling angry at the plate displayer. How dare they put a plate on their car that purports to convey a message when no one can figure out what the darn message is?
Today, I drove for about a mile behind a car whose plates said, “RAPAZA.” I know there are clever little tricks for these things, like saying the name of the letter instead of its sound, so I spent a long time trying every combination that popped into my mind.
“Rap Pee Aza, Are a Pee Aza, Are Ay Pee Assa…”
What the heck? Then I started trying to say it really slow at the beginning and speeding up on the last syllable. Then I switched it.
Nothing.
Frustrated, I tried to take a picture of the plate with my cell phone. Yes. I know. That makes me a bad driver. Guess what? I can’t cook and I can’t wrap gifts either. But I’ve been able to do the Jonas Snap since I was 10, so I’m not a complete loser.
Taking a picture didn’t work. My cell phone has about .001 megapixel resolution, and going 65 miles per hour while I’m trying to take a picture doesn’t seem to improve it.
As soon as I got my frustrated self home, I went to the computer and Googled “Rapaza”. Guess I could have done that on my iPad while I was driving. But I do have some limits.
Anyway, some of you may already know where this is going.
According to one of the millions of reliable Google sources, “Rapaza” is in fact not Spanish, but Galician (one of the languages spoken in Spain). And it means young girl or teenager.”
O.K. That’s just not fair. If I can’t figure out half the ones that are in English, how am I supposed to decipher one in another language?
Two can play this game, you know. I’m going to get a license plate that says this:
(I just want to tell you that I also tried translating the first syllable of this to Spanish, and it was “preguntarse” – which seems far more appropriate, but is also far too many letters.)
And, yes, I will bestow the coveted award unique to this website upon the first commenter to translate my license plate.
I’ll Just Blame it on the Dog
Still recovering from my whirlwind trip down the red carpet in my Vera Wang gown, I find myself back in the real world once again tasked with the mundane. Today’s challenge – wrapping a baby shower gift.
I am the Worse Wrapper in the World. Note the “w” in “wrapper”. Because I can totally rap, I’m telling you. As long as no one is watching me. But I can’t wrap to save my life -with or without an audience.
I am good about buying the gift ahead of time, but that’s where my planning and foresight usually end. I focus completely on finding the perfect gift. Wrapping it never crosses my mind while I am actually at the store where I could, perhaps, find some suitable attire for my well-chosen present. Because I generally skip that step in the whole thinking ahead process, I typically find myself frantically turning the house inside out as I look for appropriate packaging an hour or so before the event.
This baby shower gift is a perfect example. I actually did momentarily pause in the gift wrapping aisle on my way to the register. But I told myself that I did not need to spend more money on its dressing than the gift, and besides, I had the perfect bag in which to place the gift at home. I don’t know what possessed me to think this. My only daughter is nine. Since I never buy bags, and it’s been nearly a decade since I’ve received any baby gifts, why would I have a BABY SHOWER bag in my closet?
After hesitating over using a quite salacious Abercrombie and Fitch bag instead, I settled on wrapping paper. Amazingly, there was a roll of appropriately patterned paper in the closet. And, there was just enough left on the roll to wrap the gift.
Or so I thought.
The other dumb thing I tend to do when buying gifts is purchase irregularly shaped gifts. Which is not a major problem when using a gift bag, but completely overwhelms me when I am wrapping. Completely.
And the pressure was worse because I knew I only had one shot. If I messed this up, the only thing left was the A&F bag. I briefly considered covering the A&F bag with duct tape. But that stuff is expensive. MacGyver may have an unlimited budget, but I live on a teacher’s salary.
I am hopeless at this. The only thing I’m worse at is cooking and, oh joy, I am supposed to bake a dessert to bring tomorrow, as well. Do these people not know me, by now? Do they just hope, as time goes by, that I’m going to improve in these areas? Or do they just revel in watching me squirm over things I find impossible? Probably that.
I think that they are jealous of my Award Shelf, and feel like I must be put in my place on a regular basis to keep me humble.
Well, that’s not gonna work.
So, I was cruising for pics for this post (I had one of the actual bad wrapping job I did, but somehow deleted it), and I came across an actual service that DELIBERATELY wraps things badly - called, appropriately enough, CrapWrap. You could pay them - or have me do it. Your choice.
Thanks to the Pittle Leeple
Previously, on whatimeant2say, I began my Awards Acceptance Speech, but was abruptly stopped by an orchestrated disturbance claiming I had gone over my time limit. I was able to hijack another star’s allotted spot (Oprah has enough awards anyway) in order to finish up.
“As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted – well, I don’t know what I was saying. But here is what I will say.
I will say that I am here to stay.”
Uh, did I mention that I downed a few “refreshments” in the interim before I was able to reappear at the podium?
“Yes, I am here to thank all of the pittle leeple. My blog is a suck fest due to you. No, that’s not whatimeant2say. It’s a fu- nope, that’s not it, either. Never mind. Moving on. I have to thank you, first, for my Biggest Liar award.
The Best Liar Award is Now Rightfully Mine!
Because I fooled you all! No one figured out that the true statements were 1, 3, and 6. That’s probably because I made a little error with #1. I was in “Scrooge – the Musical” in high school, not “Scrooged.” Sorry about that “d” I added. It’s been 25 years since I was in high school, so I think that minor mistake should be forgiven. I know – I don’t look that old. I am very well-perturbed.
Anyhoo, those of you who thought #2 was true must not know me at all. I am just completely insulted that you thought I would ever do that even one time. I don’t remember what “that” was, but I can assure you I am too much of a lady to do it.
Now, I should move on because I don’t want any silly little man in a tuxedo using his stick to shut me up again.
I have one more award that I am thankful for. Rumpy Boad to Rubba has awarded me – no, wait a second, it’s Bubba Rumpy Boad. Hang on…
Oh yes. Bumpy Road to Bubba. Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers. Can you say that 10 times fast? Bubber Raby Buggy Humpers. Bubba Baby Bubby Thumpers. Huh? Oh, yeah. So they gave me a HUG. Award, I mean. Not a hug. Don’t you worry, Cap’n Firepants. You’re the only one I hug. I know you don’t think I do it often enough. But – crap. There’s that friggin’ music again! Fine. Just give me my trophy and I will be gone. Fine. Yes, I know there’s no trophy. Fine. I am leaving. Fine. Yes, I know I’m still on stage. I just thought I could squeeze over here an eensy little bit so I could, uh, help out Brad Pitt if he needs any help with his lines on the next present station. Fine. Fine, I said!!!! I’m leaving!”
The worst part? Vera Wang made me give back the dress. That’s okay. It’s hard to put a dress on an Award Shelf, anyway.
A Trip Down the Red Carpet
I have figured out the problem with blog awards. I don’t get to wear a designer dress to show off on the red carpet. If someone does not immediately rectify this, I shall have to come up with my own solution, and it won’t be pretty. Awards just don’t have the same zing to them if my clothing and hairstyle are not being critiqued by Joan and Melissa Rivers.
While you folks work on solving that problem, I will give you a sneak peek into my Award Acceptance Speech that I have prepared just in case my dreams of a televised event on E! come true:
“I am so honored to be standing in front of all of you tonight. Isn’t my Vera Wang dress to die for? I almost snagged it during that little incident on the red carpet involving one of my somewhat over-exuberant fans. But I digress. This is not about my fabulous appearance, but about my awesome blogging prowess and the fact that you have finally decided to give me the recognition I deserve. However, I don’t want to sound like this is all about me – even though it is. Allow me to mention some others who have played a slight role in my success.
First of all, I would like to thank Wonderbutt. I think I truly understood his devotion during a recent special night we spent together on the couch during a thunderstorm. At 4 in the morning, he leapt off the couch, ran to a corner, and threw up. Thank you, dear Wonderbutt, for thinking enough of me to travel so far before hurling your cookies. Your love truly inspires my tremendously well-written blog posts.
And, I would be remiss if I did not thank my dear husband, Cap’n Firepants, for finally signing a contract to replace the flooring that we have been missing since October. If we had done this months ago, I would not have nearly as many attractive pictures on my blog of our pox-infected floors. I also want to thank you, my pirate prince, for not bringing up the fact that we would not have needed new floors so soon if Wonderbutt had not decided that our old carpet was so distasteful he would pull it up on his own. As you know, any criticism of me or my dog would have completely shut me down emotionally and I would not be able to write another word for the rest of my life.
Of course,this speech would not be complete without a shout out to my dear daughter, Dimples. Her giggles as she reads posts I have carefully selected for her viewing pleasure motivate me to continue to write even on the darkest of days – like the one when she told me she likes a boy (code named “blanket 27”), dashing my hopes dreams that she would remain my sweet little innocent baby forever.
Oh, sorry Honey. I probably shouldn’t have mentioned the code name in front of a television audience of millions of people, one of which probably includes the boy you like. But, don’t worry, I didn’t tell anyone his real name is Jack. Your secret is safe with me.
Um, would someone tell the orchestra to be quiet? I can’t hear myself talking.
What, my time is up? I don’t think so. This evening is devoted to me. I have all of the time in the world.
Oh, fine. I will just post the rest of my speech on my incredibly famous blog. Who needs you anyway?”
photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/polvero/3813357696/”>Dustin Diaz</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/”>cc</a>My Firepants are on Fire
In the interest of adding another award to my shelf, I am participating in The Hobbler’s recent challenge to be the Best Liar. The best thing about this award is that there are no rules. So, I am going to make my own. Because I like to be in control.
Like The Hobbler, I will tell you 6 things, three of which are true and three of which are lies.
Unlike The Hobbler, I am not going to put the award on my shelf unless I’ve fooled everyone who guesses. (Well, technically, The Hobbler does not have a shelf – so I guess she couldn’t do that anyway.) Your job is to, of course, find the truths. If you guess correctly, you’ve got yourself a prized “I Wonderbutt, Do You?” award. If no one guesses correctly, I get to add another knick knack to my shelf.
So, here you go:
- I once played Ebenezer Scrooge in the musical, “Scrooged.”
- I voted for George W. the first time, but not the second.
- I was voted Most Intelligent in my Senior class.
- I moonlighted as Shot Girl in a country western bar my first couple of years of teaching.
- My favorite movie as a teenager was Dirty Dancing. I watched it approximately 113 3/4 times.
- I have never watched Animal House.
Alrighty then. The gauntlet has been thrown, and the challenge issued. I am looking forward to sticking that Best Liar award on my shelf. If you should defeat me, however, I will accept being a loser with grace – though I might send Wonderbutt to drool on you. I am suffering from Diet Coke withdrawal right now, so I’m a bit unpredictable.
By the way, feel free to take on the Best Liar challenge on your own blog. I am hoping you will so I will have more information with which to stalk you be more informed about my fellow bloggers 
The Best Liar Award
What Happens at Home Does NOT Stay at Home
A word to parents: While you might be worried about Twitter knowing your address and phone number, even more intimate details about what goes on in your household get shared about you every day at school. Here are a few conversations I heard amongst my Gifted and Talented students this week (of course, all of the names below are pseudonyms).
My third graders (8 years old) were using the iPad to make a puppet show video. They chose their characters from the “Talk Show Set.” Here is their group discussing their own creation.
Jay (pointing at the Talk Show Host they had chosen): Is that a boy or a girl?
Dave: It’s a girl.
Conan: No, it’s a boy.
Dave: No-o-o, it’s a girl who acts like a boy. It’s Ellen.
Jay: Ellen? Isn’t that the one on the J.C. Penney ad? My mom was talking about that.
Dave: Yeah, did you see the Facebook thing? There’s a whole thing about that. My mom -
Jay and Dave did not have the chance to go into more detail on the “J.C. Penney thing”, as the fourth group member quickly informed them that they were off-task, and they got back to work. I was slightly disappointed, though, as I was a little curious about how an 8 year old would explain the “J.C. Penney thing” about which he seemed so knowledgeable based on his Facebook source.
Strangely, Ellen made an appearance in another conversation in my classroom this week. This was an exchange amongst my four Kinder students. Keep in mind, these kids are 6 years old:
Belle: My mother is French and my father is from Puerto Rico. Of course, he speaks Spanish all of the time.
Ariel: I speak some British.
Belle: He talks in Spanish to his whole family from Puerto Rico. Of course, to his mother because she would spank him if he didn’t. (Belle chuckles at her own comment.)
Pocahantas: My mother can’t draw a thing. I tried to teach her.
Ariel: Oh, didn’t that help when you tried to teach her?
Pocahantas: No, she just wants to watch Ellen when I get home.
Belle: You should be in pageants (to Pocahantas, not to me, although that would have made much more sense).
Ariel: Do you watch -
Belle: Toddlers and Tiaras? Of course! I never miss a show. You know, they are completely different people when they are on the stage than they are when they aren’t.
Ariel nods knowingly.
Belle (to Pocahantas, again): You really should be in pageants. You’ve got a perfect face. I would love to be in pageants. The best part is they wear makeup. I really wanted Avis to win. She was the best.
Ariel again nods knowingly.
Pocahantas clearly does not know what Belle is talking about.
Jasmine (completely uninterested in this entire discussion): Sometimes I can color in the lines, but sometimes I can’t. I struggle with it a lot.
The timer goes off.
Jasmine gets the award for revealing the least about her family’s television and computer habits.
I’m wondering if their parents have any idea how much these kids are taking in at home. I think we need to start tattooing disclaimers on the feet of babies before they are released from the hospital. ”Parental Warning – Nothing You Say, Do, or Watch will Ever Be Private Again.”
I Accept A Smidgen of Responsibility
Some might wonder how, with a dog like Wonderbutt, our saintly Golden Retriever could have been saddled with a nickname like Mrs. Pain in the Butt.
After all, she is the Lady to Wonderbutt’s Tramp, right?
Looks can be deceiving.
Mrs. P.I.B. has quite a few habits that have helped her to earn her nickname, despite her well-mannered appearance.
I alluded to one of them in yesterday’s post regarding my super duper cooking skills and the involvement of a smoke alarm.
The pacing and panting and major freak-out are not infrequent reactions on the part of Mrs. P.I.B.
I do have some sympathy, however, because I’m pretty sure her anxiety is all my fault.
Years ago, long before Wonderbutt, and months before the Smoke Alarm Incident, Mrs. P.I.B. was fairly well-adjusted. One night, we went to bed as normal, only to be woken several times by a whining dog outside our door. Mrs. P.I.B. does not sleep in our bedroom normally because she makes all kinds of noise while she is sleeping – from smacking her lips loudly to whining while she chases squirrels in her dreams.
When we opened the door that night, she was frantic, and tried to sweep past us into the room, but we wouldn’t let her, thinking it would set a precedent that we would have a hard time breaking.
It was not a fun night.
The next morning, I got up early, and went out to the kitchen to deal with our panic-stricken dog. As I neared the kitchen, I heard a beeping sound. I finally tracked it down to my cell phone. Apparently, the battery had died. It wasn’t completely dead, though. It emitted its pre-flatline regular beep all night, which would probably be considered a particularly cruel form of torture for canines with sensitive ears. As soon as I plugged the phone in to recharge, silencing the beep, Mrs. P.I.B. noticeably calmed down. The mystery was solved.
But the fun was just beginning. Starting with that incident, Mrs. P.I.B. became a nervous wreck whenever something beeped. We were more conscientious about keeping our phones charged. But, then we had a couple of thunderstorms that caused the electricity to go out, causing the various electronics to beep. After that, Mrs. P.I.B. became deathly afraid of thunderstorms. There doesn’t even have to be a beep anymore. Now, as soon as the wind begins to signal an oncoming storm, Mrs. P.I.B. begins to cling to our heels.
I was watching the Friends episode the other night when Phoebe’s smoke alarm won’t die even after she: removes the battery, beats it with a hammer, and throws it down the garbage chute (hilarious episode, I highly recommend it!). Mrs. P.I.B. ran into the room at the first screech of the smoke alarm on T.V. She looked at me as though I were crazy to allow this to continue, couldn’t I hear that blasted sound? I finally had to change the channel because I was afraid the dog would expire before the alarm did.
So, all of you Mrs. P.I.B. fans out there, let me assure you that she comes by her nickname honestly. She’s got some other bad habits, too. But a Lady has to have some secrets.
Nervous wreck of a dog that she is, she’s still just as lovable as Wonderbutt.
Mrs. P.I.B. in Her Carefree, Younger Days
I Feel Snubbed
I don’t know how I missed this, but there is apparently one reality show I should have applied for last year.
Frankly, I am shocked that the casting directors did not come and hunt me down for this one.
If there is anything I excel at, it’s this: Worst Cooks in America.
I read about it in the paper, and was immediately insulted that I had not been chosen for this series. I raced to the computer to look up the website to find out more about the participants. As I scanned the members of the teams, I became pretty confident that you couldn’t find a better worst cook than me. Except for the lady who put her husband in the hospital with food poisoning. She might give me some competition. On the other hand, the only reason I haven’t added that misfortune to my resume could be because I have a smarter husband.
When I met my future husband, Cap’n Firepants, I was living off Ramen Noodle and Diet Coke. I was a little intimidated by the fact that his mother was a nutritionist. And, in the elder Firepants household, meals were a big deal. BIG, BIG Deal. Like slave half the morning in the kitchen over making lunch, then half the afternoon in the kitchen cleaning up lunch, then the other half of the afternoon making dinner, then the – well, you see where this is going.
I consoled myself with the knowledge that, at least the Cap’n knew how to cook.
I did try when we got married. Got lots of recipe books, mostly bestowed upon me by in-laws. Got subscriptions to Taste of Home and Southern Living – also, now that I think about it, gifted to me by the in-laws. Hmm. How did I not pick up on those subtle hints?
The true testament to my ineptitude in the kitchen was initiated by an incident in which I decided to pre-heat the oven, not realizing that something had dripped on the bottom during my last use. Apparently, a lot of something. I turned the dial, and left the room. Minutes later, the smoke alarm went off. I ran into the kitchen, and there was smoke everywhere. Our Golden Retriever, Mrs. P.I.B., who was only a year or two old, freaked out, racing around the room frantically panting while I shut off the oven, opened doors and windows, and grabbed a broom to beat the smoke away from the smoke alarm.
Yep, I hadn’t even started cooking anything that evening, technically, and still managed to almost kill us.
Here’s the kicker, though. From then on, anytime I turned on a burner or the oven in the kitchen, Mrs. P.I.B. would back out of the room, tail between her legs, and hysterically pace near the front door the entire time I occupied the kitchen.
You know you’re a bad cook when even your dog won’t come in the kitchen if you’re anywhere near the stove.
Mrs. P.I.B. Running Away from My Home-cooked Meals
