Cuticle Pox

Disclaimer: I promise, this will be my last chicken-pox-related-post. We’re in the home stretch now: scabby time.

But I just have to tell you, in addition to chicken pox, which is bad enough all by itself, Bucket Head also got another ear infection and we spent Saturday afternoon in the Emergency Room. Why oh why must they always get the massive boo-boos on the weekends when the co-pay is $200 instead of $20?  Not kewl.  

Look, I know you are just as sick of this shit as I am and that you miss the raunchy, deviant, sexy Iris.  So to appease you nasty monkeys (whom I love so dearly… takes one to know one), let’s talk about peckers. Poxed little peckers, to be precise.  Men folk, brace yourselves. 

I was giving Bucket Head is daily oatmeal bath the other day when Nature Boy, my sensitive and poetic 9 year old son, came in to say hello.  

“Oh…look at that poor little dottie body. I feel so bad for him.” he said.

“I know, honey. Poor little thing. Don’t worry, his chicken pox will be gone in just a few more days.” I reassured him. 

“Mom?” he asked.

“Yes?”

“Did you notice that it’s on his penis?”  

“Yes. Yes I did.”

“DOH! Mom look! It’s on his cuticles too! OUCH!”

“Cuticles?” I inquired.

“Yeah. Look!” he urged. I grabbed Bucket Head’s hand and looked closely at the cuticle region of his fingertips…no pox. That is the one square inch of this child without lesions or scabs.  ”Huh?” 

“No Mom!  His cuticles! (he shouted…as if I simply didn’t hear him)  Down there!” (and he pointed dramatically to Bucket Head’s groin).

“OH! You mean his testicles? Yes, it is on his testicles too.” I answered.

“Testicles?” he asked, with a perplexed face like I had just spoken Swahili. 

“Yeah, you know…his balls. (blank face)… Those things (I pointed)… in that wrinkly little bag… under his penis. They’re called testicles, and the skin around them is called the scrotum, remember?” (and to those of you who did not know the distinction until just now…you are so welcome.)

“Oh yeah! Right. That looks really painful… Mom?”

“Yes?”

“Why is it called chicken pox?” 

“Uh…I dunno. Why do YOU think it is called chicken pox?” [Score! Best parenting answer ever!]

“Because he looks like a plucked chicken?” he surmised. 

“Good guess. [wow!] I’d buy that. I’ll google it and get back to you. Don’t you have some times tables to memorize or a Pokémon battle to win or something?” (’cause damn, I mean, the chatter…does it ever end?) 

“Yeah. OK. Bye Bucket Head. I hope you and your little frank and beans feel better soon, dude.”  (Sweet…he doesn’t know “testicles,” but he knows “frank and beans.” Did I let him watch There’s Something About Mary with me one time when I was drunk?)  

My little Nature Boy. Great kid. I don’t get a chance to write about him very often. He’s so pure and decent most of the time – he just doesn’t give me the same quantity of material that the other two crumb-snatchers do.  But the “cuticles” bit killed me.  I couldn’t make that shit up if I tried.  Out of the mouths of babes, eh?  

So yes, Bucket Head’s frank and beans are totally poxed. It is absolutely horrifying to look at. No, I won’t include a picture… I’m too afraid of adding “child pornographer” to my rap sheet. You’ll just have to take my word for it and use your imagination. But it is everywhere. EVERYWHERE. 

Bucket Head calls his penis, “eenis.” He’s only 19 months old and tends to omit the first sounds on a lot of words, which is purdy darn cute.  So now he is walking around, tugging at the front of his little diaper, saying “Eenis…itchy. Eenis…itchy.” Heartbreaking. Wasn’t Eenis a character on The Dukes of Hazard?  Bonus points for anyone who can answer that. 

Well, at Nature Boy’s request, I did a little research and found out a whole bunch of nifty facts about chicken pox that I bet you are just chompin’ at the bit to know.  

Get this – according to cyberspace, chicken pox Is named as such after one of several possible reasons:

• after chick peas, from a supposed similarity in size of the legume to the lesions;
• the specks that appear looked as though the skin was pecked by chickens; 
• the term reflects a corruption of the Old English word, “giccin,” which meant “itching;”
• Samuel Johnson suggested that the disease was “no very great danger,” thus a “chicken” version of the pox (as opposed to small pox, which was a great danger…contrary to its moniker, and the great pox, syphilis).

So, yeah, no easy answer, and none that stand out as a clear winner for me to share with the kids.  I mean really, chick peas?  Have you seen a chick pea lately?  Not a single lesion on Bucket Head comes even close to looking like a chick pea. Next. Skin pecked by chickens?  Maybe. “Giccin,” sounds like “chicken”? Perhaps. As opposed to “smallpox”? Well then, shouldn’t they have named smallpox “big pox” or “serious pox” or “fuck it…yer gonna die pox?”    

Here are some other noteworthy things I learned in my google-time today: 

chicken pox  

• is caused by the varicella-zoster virus, a member of the herpes virus family. Lovely.
• aka varicella, is a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning spotted, orvarus, meaning “pimple.”
• is a highly contagious respiratory disease that is spread through the air or by direct contact with an infected person’s nasal mucus, saliva, or oozing skin lesions. You had me at oozing.  
• usually takes 10-21 days to incubate before symptoms appear. Something to look forward to…
• is most contagious 12 to 24 hours before the rash even appears. Nice.
• doesn’t spread through indirect contact. That means it doesn’t live on objects like sheets, towels, counters, or toys. Phew.
• is usually only contagious until all the sores have scabbed over, usually about six to seven days after the sores appear.  Sweet!  Home stretch! 

So again, I apologize in advance for the lack of sexy. But stay tuned…I have my annual OB-GYN checkup this week, and you know what that means: oodles of TMI just around the corner.  And hopefully, what I have to say about that will in no way contain any references to lesions, scabs, or infections of any kind.  No promises though.  

 

© 2008 The Bearded Iris

Show Me the Money

If yesterday’s Wall Street blood bath has your panties all in a wad, don’t panic.  This does is not a “run on the Savings and Loan.”  Please leave George Bailey and his new bride alone.  They deserve that honeymoon and should not be harangued by you and your general anxiety disorder.  Just sit back and relax, honey. Iris has some unconventional financial tips that can bring your blood pressure down and please your partner all in one fell swoop.  

1.  Take it from me (and Suze Orman) that a coffee can is NOT the place to stick your money.  Yes, it is always a good idea to have a wad of small bills around in case of emergencies, or for playing “stripper” with your man on special occasions…like Tuesdays, but the majority of your money should remain in FDIC insured accounts.  Don’t be a Chicken Little.  This is not the time to lose your head and do stupid things.  In fact…I’m no expert on this, but I’m thinking now would probably be a good time to BUY BUY BUY.  It is like a fire sale on Wall Street today.  Have at it!

2.  Quit your gym membership.  Have more sex.  It is fun and mostly free.  If you do it correctly and often enough, you can improve flexibility and burn lots of fat.  Plus, you can do it in the privacy of your own home (although outside of the home can be fun too) and you don’t need any special apparatus or matchy-matchy outfits.  Wait, I take that last part back.

3.  Stop buying and wearing panties.  You’ll never have those pesky VPLs (Visible Panty Lines) and you’ll cut down on your laundry, which is also a very hip and “green” thing right now.  Let it breathe…it will thank you later.  See also: tip # 2 above.  No panties = easy access.  

4.  Don’t eat so much.  Think of all the cashola you’ll save at the grocery store!  Plus, you’ll have fewer calories to burn so you won’t need to work out so much.  Once you lose some weight, you’ll feel better about yourself too and can stop spending all that money on therapy and antidepressants.  And you’ll feel sexier, which will make you want to shag even more.  It is a self-perpetuating cycle of thriftiness.  This is a win-win-win solution, people, and it goes hand in hand with tip # 2.  Try it.  

5.  Save money on prescription drugs by stealing them from your friends.  

6.  Set up as many automatic payments as possible with your online banking service.  You’ll save oodles of green on late payment fees and imagine all the extra time you’ll have for things like, oh I don’t know, sex and illegally obtained prescription drugs.  

7.  Don’t pay for things you can get for free like movies, music, cable TV, and sex.  Be creative.    

8.  Get rid of your phones.  Everyone has a cell phone these days…just borrow one from a friend when you need it.  Borrowing a phone today is the equivalent to asking for the time, or bumming a smoke, or using someone else’s toothbrush on a one night stand…no big deal.  People really don’t mind.  

9.  Cut back on the number of extra-curricular activities you force on your over-scheduled children.  In addition to the monthly tuition payments you won’t have to shell out for music lessons, sports teams, tutoring, foreign language immersion classes, and horseback riding clinics, you’ll save on gas and the future psychiatric treatment that your children are most certainly going to require.  

10.  Quit contributing when they pass the basket at church.  If you are embarrassed, do what I do and just stick an empty envelope in there every week.  That way, the judgmental holy rollers in your pew will still think you’re a big spender, but you can use that money toward something more practical, like organic milk or push up bras.  

11.  Be open minded.  A box of wine is economical and better for the environment.  And after the first couple of glasses, the taste really grows on you.  

In conclusion, you don’t have to be a financial wizard to save a little money, just a teensy bit of creativity and a pathological lack of shame.  Oh, and don’t forget to vote Obama.  Who do you think got us into this mess?  Hmmm, let’s see, could it be?  The Republicans?  Oh yes, that is ringing a bell.  Just say no to 4 more years of this shit.  Please.  I beg of you.  Now put your computer away and go shag someone.  Listen to Iris, sugar, and make love, not war.

 

Thrift is not an affair of the pocket, but an affair of character. ~S.W. Straus

Whore

My Mama always told me, “Be a lady on the street, a cook in the kitchen, and a whore in the bedroom.”  I think she’s got this one all wrong, folks.  It can be really fun to be a whore in your kitchen.  Or on your dining room table.  Why restrict this kind of activity to just one room?  After all, what is a whore, if not flexible and creative?  

The American Heritage Dictionary defines whore three ways (ironic? I think not): 

1. A prostitute.
2. A person considered sexually promiscuous.
3. A person considered as having compromised principles for personal gain.

Well, clearly I am not doing it for money or often enough or with enough people to be considered a big old nasty whoo-ore in the literal sense.  But as far as making compromises for personal gain…ladies, don’t we all do it?  I trade sex for favors in my home all the time.  Sometimes it is subtle…like that time I gave up the pooty right after dinner knowing full well my husband would do the kids’ bedtimes while I basked in the afterglow. (Hot tip for the husbands: we’ll do almost anything for an occasional night away from the cling-ons.)  Other times it is an outright barter: “Honey, take the kids to the birthday party.  Please?  I just can’t spend another afternoon at Chuck E. Cheese.  I’m on the verge of a shooting spree.  Please?  Come on!  If you do Chuck E. Cheese detail, I will give you a blow job when you get home.  I mean it this time.”  This is just smart business acumen.  Nothing wrong with a little give and take, I always say.  

There is another saying I grew up with courtesy of my good ol’ repressed mother that also just burns my biscuits: “Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free.”  First of all, no, I am not so daft as to think my mother was calling me a cow.  It is just a euphemism.  Not an insult.  For some reason, farm animals make for really good metaphors.  No, the thing that pisses me off about this one is the fact that it is just so sexist and misogynistic.  I am going to raise my daughter with more of an equal rights approach.  She is going to go through life thinking “Why buy the pig when all you want is a little sausage.”  Of course, I will school her properly that if possible, try to go for the big sausage instead of the little one.  And speaking of little sausage, listen to this Jimmy Dean customer complaint.  This is a man who definitely smells what I’m cookin’. 

Oh my heavens!  Did he just say “Fuckin’ pussy roll o’ sausage?”  I think I love this man.  So back to the whore thing…when I’m not in the mood to trade sex for favors, I use food…preferably hungry-man style junk food.  Again, compromising my principles for personal gain, since I typically like to feed my family healthy things that nourish their bodies and brains.  But come on – we all know that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach and no self respecting whore would show up at a Super Bowl Party with a tray of crudites.  No – if you want your man to be putty in your hands without having to swallow or do some bush hogging, just shell out my famous Come to Mama Sausage Dip.  You will not be denied. We whores like to please others, so I’m gonna give you that recipe for free…just make sure you tell ‘em where you got it, ya’ll.   

Come to Mama Sausage Dip

Ingredients:

1 – 16 ounce roll of sausage (don’t get that 12 ounce shit…this is no time to settle for a little sausage)

2 – 8 ounce bricks of cream cheese

1 – 10 ounce can of Ro*Tel (Diced Tomatoes & Green Chilies; find it in the canned veggie aisle)

If you like to spice things up a bit, and I suspect that you do if you are reading The Bearded Iris, get either spicy sausage, OR spicy Ro*Tel.  Don’t double down on the spice unless you want to experience the double burn when you poop for the next two days.  Trust me on this one.  

So what you do is cook up the sausage.  Break it up with a spoon while it fries in a pan.  Drain the grease off and pat it dry with a paper towel.  Then chop it up like a proper pork monger.  Put it in a medium sauce pan and add the cream cheese.  Cook on med-low until the cream cheese gets all melty and slap yo’ mama good.  Then add the Ro*Tel and heat through.  Serve it with Frito’s Scoops.  Don’t get all fancy and try to serve this shit on a wafer-thin Carr’s Water Cracker.  This is a white trash, man pleasin’, artery clogging bartering tool and should be paired accordingly.  Enjoy!

 

 

“Desperate times call for desperate measures.” – Proverb

 

Oh, THOSE Sexual Side Effects!

Good news/bad news.  The good news is that the cocktail of antidepressants I’ve been on for two weeks seems to be working!  I’m not nearly as negative and overwhelmed as I was a few weeks ago.  Can I get an AMEN?!  The bad news is the cavalcade of side effects.  Apparently that is the big trade off.  Feel better mentally, feel worse physically.  

Well I found out the hard way what all those antidepressant commercials mean by “sexual side effects.”  I always wondered…what is that?  When they say “low risk of sexual side effects,” does that mean you are less likely to start humping inanimate objects or suddenly have a penchant for bestiality?  No – it is nothing like that.  Sexual side effects specifically means loss of libido (so what’s new?), inability to get an erection (men) or attain sufficient lubrication (ladies), and/or an inability to achieve an orgasm.  (Insert sound of screeching tires and crashing car)  Stop right there, Dr. Feelgood.  Excuse me?  If I am gonna clean up my nether-regions, get all sweaty, and soil my sheets, there needs to be some kind of a prize at the end.  This is not a free lunch, dammit.  I’m no psychiatrist, but I’m willing to wager that having orgasms would actually be conducive to treating clinical depression.  And the more the merrier, eh?  So why on God’s green Earth would I want to take away one of the few rays of sunshine in my life?  Talk about depressing.  Sheesh.  This alone may be worth going off the meds.  But wait, there’s more.    

In addition to not being able to reach the top of tingle-mountain, I am also incredibly constipated.  This is a problem.  I’m a big fan of pooping.  I am normally as regular as the pedophiles at church every Sunday.   Missing a chance to drop the kids at the pool each morning is a major drawback.  I am quite fond of my daily release of the hostages, or as my friend JB calls them, Chattahoochee Brown Trout.  And keeping all that stinky poo-poo inside you for so long leads to the next unpleasant side effect: gas.  

Remember the campfire scene in Blazing Saddles?  Worse. Way worse.  Lord have mercy!  I’m as gassy as the Alaska pipeline.  You know your farts are lethal when even the dog leaves the room.  And my trusty canine companion usually appreciates the smell of my junk.  But lately he has been steering clear of me and my deadly beef darts.  So sad! These farts are like nothing I have ever smelled before, which is how I know they are a product of the strange chemicals I’m ingesting everyday.  I know, it is truly awkward to hear a lady with such a pretty floral name like Iris discussing her flatulence.  But let’s get one thing clear people: I’m no lady. So back to the paint-peelers.  Even my feisty daughter, who loves a good “pull my finger” joke, won’t play along.  She’s all, “Whoa, Mama…was that YOU?!  I thought maybe the doggie ate another frog. Remember that?  That was double gross.” And my clever 8 year old told me the other day, “Mom, it’s called Beeno. Look into it.”  Seriously, I’ve smelled road-kill more pleasant than these SBDs.  And this brings us back to the issue of sexual side effects…there is nothing that will ruin the mood or spoil your ability to achieve a good old fashioned toe-curler like an unintentional dutch oven.  Sorry about that last one honey…I’ll lay off the cabbage.    

In terms of other unpleasant side effects, there is also dry mouth, dizziness, and headaches.  Is this shit an antidepressant or birth control?  Damn!  ’Cause there is definitely no baby-makin’ goin’ on in my house right now.  I’m also experiencing some ear-clogging when I exercise, but that might just be a hygiene issue. Have I mentioned that I’m a mother of three with very poor time management skills?  

So anyhoooo, now we just have to sit tight and wait.  Will the improved mental health be enough to compensate for all these crazy side effects?  Or will my new sense of optimism be blown asunder by all the wafting?  And will my dog run away in search of a fresher fanny?  You have questions. I have answers. Tune in next time for another riveting episode of The Bearded Iris: Battling Depression from the Bottom Up.  

 

And speaking of farts…this is just pee-your-pants-funny.  
LOVE her honest reaction!  These Canadian Judges are priceless.  
As if Mike Meyers and Seth Rogen aren’t proof enough: Canucks are naturally funny. Must be in the water.  
And that is a good thing, because if McCain wins, we are moving there.

Bearded at the Bus Stop

One of the other things about beards that I failed to mention in my first post, Hello world!, is that a beard can also serve as a disguise.  For example, when a married Republican politician has anonymous gay sex in airport bathrooms, his wife could be called his “beard” — his cover up for being a pole-smoker on the down low.  

I bring this up because I am fascinated by the way so many women I know use a “beard” in public in order to appear superior to other mothers. I have done it myself, so I know it when I see it.  We do it out of deep rooted insecurities about not being good enough.  In this age of information when we are constantly bombarded with “perfection” in the form of three page Christmas newsletters, Martha Stewart magazines, and Oprah’s favorite things, it is not uncommon for a woman to think, “Am I supposed to be doing more?” More volunteering, more home cooking, more academic coaching, more handcrafted centerpieces, more exercising, more, more, more.  Well give it up, ladies. Stop beating yourselves up. Enough with the guilt already. I’m here to tell you that when it comes to homemaking, less is more. (Note: this does not apply to dark chocolate or penis size.) 

There was a woman at our bus stop last year who was the epitome of The Über-Mom.  She was constantly “holding court” at the bus stop to showcase all of her children’s accomplishments and her daily successes in the kitchen, the garden, and even the bedroom.  This woman really got into my head.  I would find myself comparing everything in my life to the image she was presenting of herself at the bus stop. When my kid only read 20 Advanced Reading books in first grade, I felt ashamed, knowing that this woman’s daughter read 100.  When my pie crust was store bought, I felt guilty that I was poisoning my family with trans fats, knowing full well that this woman made all of her pastries from scratch.  I felt like I was never volunteering enough at school, or signing my kids up for the right activities, or capturing enough precious memories in archival quality handmade three dimensional scratch and sniff scrapbook pages.  Gag me with an acorn shaped hole punch.  

Thankfully, what I discovered after I had my last baby and she brought me the worst chicken pot pie I’ve ever eaten, in a gorgeous handmade casserole dish that I then had to wash and return, is that this woman is full of shit. She is just a whiz at PR.  Women who try to feel better about themselves by making others feel inferior are ubiquitous. They learn it from their mothers, and their mothers before them. The key to dealing with these women is to be able to recognize a Bearded Über-Mom when you see one and then ignore her. It has taken me a long time to learn this, but if you can just have the courage to be yourself, you will find other authentic people and be happy being real. Imperfectly real. Oooh, just like the Velveteen Rabbit!  Real is not perfect, but real is loved. 

By the way, this woman is not at my bus stop this year and waiting for the bus has never been more pleasant.  As luck would have it, her daughter was “accepted into private school.” (A.K.A. they wrote a big fat tuition check.)  When I asked this woman why she made the switch, she spun a colorful yarn about wanting to provide a Christian-based learning environment that challenged and nurtured her gifted child. In other words, her daughter got caught giving blow jobs in the back of the public school bus.    

Obviously, I can’t change other people, only myself.  So for me, the real lesson here is to try to believe in myself a little more and stop comparing myself to others.  It is also helpful to recognize when someone else is wearing a beard and avoid those people like the scrapbooking aisles at the craft store.  

68

Is it me, or are the libidos of men and women totally incompatible?  I really think Ellen and Portia are on to something here.  Not the least of which being that their bathroom is probably so easy to clean.  

I remember hearing once that men reach their sexual prime in their late teens but that women don’t reach theirs until like their 40s.  What the fuck kind of intelligent design is that?  It seems slightly misogynistic. Like God said, “Well, I don’t want women to want sex all the time when they should be busy taking care of their families. I know, I’ll just delay their sexual prime so they can propagate first, play later.”  Clearly God was not taking into account the fact that by the time we are done with all that breeding all our fun parts are too stretched out and ugly to feel good about sharing them with anyone else (at least with the lights on).  

I’m only 38, so I keep telling my husband to wait for it….his time is coming.  Of course by then, he’ll be so old that he’ll need to take Viagra and have his doctor on speed-dial in case he gets a perma-bone. But while we are both patiently waiting for my prime to get here, why oh why does he always seem to want sex at the precise moment when it is the last thing on earth I’d rather do.  OK, true, that is like 99% of the time. But come on.  Gimme a break, dude.  When I begged you to get that vasectomy and promised you spontaneous wild sex wherever and whenever you wanted, I had my fingers crossed behind my back.  

Here, I’ll give you an example.  Husband gets home from work the other day all sexed up and raring to go (must be that sexy voice of Terri Gross on NPR).  His timing could not have been worse.  Unbeknownst to him, I had received my monthly visitor earlier that day. You know, Aunt Flo.  Mr. Menstrual.  The Curse. Paul Revere Riding the Cotton Pony.  I’m bloated, crampy, pimply, gassy, and slightly inebriated.  But Mr. Twenty-Five-Years-Past-His-Prime doesn’t seem to notice all the warning signs and nuzzles up to me hoping for a little slap and tickle.  I say, “Sorry hon. Can’t. Got my period today.”  Oh the look.  You would think I had said that I just spent his retirement fund on another batch of Fat Burning Soap from QVC.  To say he was disappointed would be an understatement. All I wanted was my box of wine, a heating pad, and whichever Meredith Baxter Burney movie was playing on Lifetime TV.  I was also hoping he wouldn’t then ask for a 68: “You do me and I’ll owe you one.”  Luckily for me, he got on the Internet instead.  Hallelujah for free porn.  

If he was my gorgeous lesbian life partner instead, we’d be on the same cycle, sharing an institutional-sized box of Tampons from Costco, watching Lifetime together, guilt free.  But then, who would mow the lawn and grill the steaks?  I guess I’ll keep him.  And here’s hoping for that sexual prime to get here sooner than later.