Thanks @acupofjoe!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zOrV-5vh1A&feature=player_embedded

this blog is huge in malaysia...AND canada!

one of the great things about having an account with Blogger is that you can very easily check and see how many people are actually reading what you're putting out there {vs how many people 'say' they're reading it, but really they're watching football....um, EVERYONE ELSE!}

so imagine my surprise when i read where my audience is concentrated and of course, yes, my core followers are in the great U.S.of A, but i have two people in Canada AND one person in Malaysia that are keeping up with Besa, too! this is inspiring! makes me want to do a special Canadian post {an homage to DeGrassi Junior High, perhaps?}, and i'm not sure what the heck to post for my Malaysian reader. maybe they're sick of their own surroundings and would like to see a little slice of where it is i am? {let's hope so, otherwise i'll immediately lose my international fan base, a la David Hasselhoff}

so Gig Harbor is where we are fortunate enough to live. it doesn't rain all the time as some of you suspect, the community is awesome and the people are truly wonderful characters. add to it, it's not an ugly place to live. {except when the Seahawks get pounded; then it gets really ugly}

come visit some time, won't you?

we've found Nemo, and tonite he'll be served in a lovely tomato butter sauce with capers.

today is much the same as any other day wherein my son and i go stir crazy at about 5 o'clock, give or take. you see, here on our planet, by the time 4:30p rolls around, it is inky black outside and cold here. our day is essentially done, except for the fact that we have oh, about four more hours left to fill with still more learning and togetherness.

(oh, we do origami here. we bake cookies. i make homemade play dough. we draw. we read and read and read. we're not sitting idly by, i assure).

this is also the time where Beau has finished his snack and tossed the house and wagged the dog's tail (literally), and so one of two requests fall from my son's delicate lips.

request number one: "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhnnn't Thomas! aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnt Thomaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaas!"

request number two: "ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhn't Me-mo. aaaaaaaaahn't Me-mo! Me-mo! Me-mo!"

*sigh*

this evening (and my ability to blog about it) is brought to you by a sympathetic friend and good soul who gave Beau the Ratatouille DVD for Christmas. {because before Remy, my choices were limited to a talking train or a talking fish. at least now we're adding in a little variety with a talking....... rat. excellent.}

i have always had an uncanny (read: ANNOYING) ability to remember television and movie dialogue. i'm the friend who lends you the movie and then wants to rewatch it with you, and then surreptitiously (and inadvertently, i might add) turn into the over-dialogue-talker, or (much, much worse), the 'oh-my-god-this-next-part-is-so-funny!' girl.

i have two Ikea bins on the living room shelves {ask anyone who knows me. i hate clutter}. one is full of kid-friendly movies, and one with my DVD's. strange thing is, this kiddo has only been actively 'watching' shows for about the last six months, yet he has more DVDs than i do at 31 39 years old. huh.

so imagine my fright at having my recall abilities turning on me as i now can quote any Pixar film ad nauseum, but i can barely remember which character wore what color in Heathers. gah! Pixar is the kryptonite to my ability to quote from every season of Sex and the City! Miranda has been replaced by Marlin, and i can easily name off six...no, eight(!) of the train names in Thomas. this is a slippery slope, my friends.

now if you'll excuse me, i need to post this before i trip over 17 Matchbox cars on the way to flip the laundry. {my days are SUPERGLAMOROUS. i'm pretty sure i speak for lots of SAHM's out there when i ask- 'um, what are these bon bons you speak of?'}

well, a girl's got to eat, after all

while the pictures that i posted from my surgery yesterday elicited some upset stomachs* from some {read: most}, i am here to redeem myself!

i decided to pay it forward and cook dinner for my good friend and neighbor-foodie, darci. after all, she surrendered herself yesterday as well, to the hospital regulations of no cell phones, no internet, long wait times and very few answers. basically, she gave up a solid 7 hours of her life to be there for me.

so the least i could do was make her this little number from the Barefoot Contessa: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/crunchy-noodle-salad-recipe/index.html

hope you all enjoy!

*ironically, i added chicken to the recipe. go figure.

 rough chop of parsley, julienne red peppers from Harbor Greens

 sugar snap peas in a cold bath after a quick steam

 nummy peanut sauce {see all ingredients in Ina's link}

 added in rotisserie chicken from Costco

TAH DAH! dinner for darci & the big guy!

surgery, schmurgery {that sounded better in my head}

so today's surgery was a success! for the prelude, see:  http://besary.blogspot.com/2011/01/youll-never-eat-chicken-tender-again.html

anyhoo, i have a bandage on my upper shoulder and 14 needle pricks on my hand and in my arm, plus i scored a pair of non-skid hospital slippers out of the whole thing. DEAL!

the only low point for me was not being able to see what it is they pulled out of me. so i Googled it (of course i did.) if you're not of the faint of heart, look here for what they may have gotten:

or since i was totally under and i never got to see it, maybe they got this: 

{which is cool, because my cell has been a little cumbersome these days}

either way, thanks to everyone for the well wishes and prayers upfront (they clearly worked!) special thanks to kristi for watching the kiddo and sending me home with a vegan (!) dinner, and to darci whom everyone should take with them to hang out with, waste time with (and get lost with, but that's a story for another time!)

that said, it's time for me to scrub off some of this iodine. just because i'm a fan of george hamilton, doesn't mean i have to look like him.

will follow up with real before and after pics once bikini season rolls around (read: probably never).

you'll never eat a chicken tender again.

this friday i have out patient surgery to remove a lipoma* (i'll save you the time: it's a fatty mass). my fatty mass is in my left collarbone and is pronounced enough that i feel like Quasimodo when i wear a tank top. or like i'm constantly shrugging my shoulder, take your pick.

so today i spent some quality time getting poked and prodded for pre-op, during the course of which, i was handed a detailed pamphlet outlining the anesthesia.

to be clear, i'm not scared of the surgery. i'm actually looking forward to it so i can see what this tumor thing looks like. after smushing my thumb into it over the past year or so, i imagine it's about the size of a chicken tender {told you so}. i even asked my doctor if i could not only see it, but keep it after they scoop the thing out of my clavicle. i thought the doctor would be slightly confused (if not downright concerned) with my request, but due to 19 spin-offs of CSI airing at any time you power up on Hulu, i'm clearly not the first person to ask.

i come by my curiosity honestly. the last time i had something growing inside of my body and getting bigger by the day, i got to take it home. and now i have a college fund started for it (ahem, 'him'). also, when my dad had a stint put in one of his artery or valve thingies in his heart several years ago, the doctor gave him the plaque they scraped out to take home. i think he still has it in a little glass bottle that looks like a sand timer. only filled with plaque, not granules.

so my concern is not the surgery or what they're pulling out, but the anesthesia. by all accounts, i am terrified that i will say something so profoundly stupid or personal or start singing 'the wheels on the bus' when i'm coming out of the fog that i will end up on youtube. add to this that i am to wear no makeup or contact lenses or jewelry to this scenario and my panic really starts to kick in.

for a person who never is at a loss for words, the ones i choose take time to get out there. i am mortified that i'll turn into this chick. (stick around for the 1:04 minute mark, you won't regret it...)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1IKPV9Emds

so wish me luck, and stay tuned for how things turn out. with pictures, no video. because that's how i do.

*it's worth noting that the doctor doesn't think that this gelatinous mass is anything to be concerned about, and since i never had a shot at a modeling career, the scar will go largely undetected and probably ignored at that.

Patricia Mae Andrzejewski is 58 today. Say you didn't know...

if my parents named me patricia mae andrewhqjdopdmskdsidkdski, i'd have changed my named to Benatar, too. actually, hindsight being what it is, i would have changed my last named to Benetton and tried to score as many free sweaters as possible.

so pat benatar is 58 years old today, and i know this because i am unemployed.

i am currently at http://forzacoffeecompany.com/index.asp with my friend heidi. we have our laptops in dueling positions that any onlooker could reasonably conclude that instead of surfing job sites {me} and actually working {heidi}, that we are engaged in a heady game of online Battleship.

i have been scouring the interwebs for a job back in advertising out here that will allow me to bring in some money and also not spend too much time away from my son. so far my two most viable options to do so are 1) start my own agency or 2) become a barista.

i know a lot of people who are struggling to find work these days and it's pretty easy to get bummed about the propects. maybe if i open up my job search to include sniper, food demo girl, and archeologist assistant i'll have better luck. {i wonder if 'sniper' really is a job description on Monster. huh).

anyway, wish me luck trying to bring in some extra dinero {otherwise you're all in for a LOT of postings about 80's band members getting older.} OH! and for all of you 16 Candles fans, heidi informed me that JAKE RYAN turned 50 this year.

*swoons*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjY_uSSncQw

take a hike.

as soon as the kiddo wakes up from his nap, we're going to head outside for some fresh air, as far away from CSPAN and the terrible news in tucson as we can get.

the picture below was taken a few months back. right now the harbor looks like the Blair Witch Project, what with the leaves having fallen off the trees because they were too cold to hang on.

enjoy your day. go take a walk, and hug the people you love. (or just be a little bit nicer to those people who make you a little nuts. it'll help to shift a little more good into the world today).

religion, or: i really hope God is as funny as Ricky Gervais and David Sedaris put together

did i mention i teach Sunday School now?

{please hold your laughter/applause/nostril-clearing snorts for after the post, thank you}

tomorrow is Saturday, and seeing as how i am slated to teach Sunday School the following day, i need to prepare. and by 'prepare', i mean, reread 19 times what the church director has emailed me my lesson would be to teach, and then look it up in my children's Bible i bought at Borders 3 weeks ago. With a coupon.

the truth of the matter is that i have no idea about verses and lessons and who are these Galatians? (are they Martians made from apples? again: I DON'T KNOW.) but what i do know is that while my church is full of some churchy-types who might not appreciate me using God and profanity in the same word space, my church holds the majority on free-thinking, wear-jeans-to-service, 'so Bob, you decided on the new 7 series?, gee-your-hair-smells-terrific, kind of folk. {i made the last part up, but i used to be in advertising and i think Andrew Jergens made 5 gazillion dollars off of the under thirty female set with that slogan. go A.J.}

in the midst of all of the funny i try to bring, i feel the need to lend some personal truth to this blog thing i'm doing. so here it is: i'm an Episcopalean, folks. i like church. i haven't had a two-sided conversation with God (yet), but i'm hoping my online status will boost those chances. i think that a person is allowed to swear and be wrong and be deemed largely unacceptable to others, but that God still thinks you're pretty okay, given the state of the world. and the fact that, well, he made us all (see: Rosanne Barr, circa 1990 after screeching the National Anthem). if that's not proof, then go call Indiana Jones.

and for all of you eye-rollers out there, i'm as surprised as anyone that i get to teach Sunday School, what with all of the, er, um, mischief i caused well through my high school years  early thirties.

this blog isn't to convert anyone, but you should know that i do have a moral compass. and sometimes being funny is more important to me than doing right by everyone else. {because i've tried that, and - yes? you in the back? IT'S NOT POSSIBLE!}

*sighs*

so i feel better now. now that you know a little more about me. i'm just a girl who uses humor and writing to unload some of the weight that the real world oh-so-handsomely provides for all of us.

**author's note: i also love church because of my dad. and he, i believe, because of Eloise. i am grateful to belong to a family that found God a loooooooong time before me and stuck it out with me until i found my own place.

new years resolu- wait. what glove?

so no time like the present to figure out what my new years resolutions are going to be. The Bloggess wrote a hysterical piece here http://thebloggess.com/2011/01/my-new-years-resolution-is-to-get-you-to-stop-asking-me-about-my-new-years-resolutions/ that i will never even come close to topping, but then again- maybe i'll make one of my resolutions to try to be even wittier than she is and then BAM!, i'll get to scratch something off of my list. or maybe i'll make my resolution list chock full of super easy things to do, and that way i can red pen something every single day and it'll make me feel like i'm really on the fast track to self-improvement.

my list would look something like this:

1. don't put eyeliner on the dog
2. breathe
3. accept the fact that this year is going to be chock full of crazy changes, but it's nothing a little online shoe perusing can't help me get through
4. write camille grammer and her rabid crazy friend allison dubois and ask them over here for dinner. that should be a good time. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1Gqdexq62o&feature=related
5. create an Ikea-to-English translation guide and post to http://www.babelfish.com/

or instead of an easy list of super attainable goals, i could just borrow someone else's list and take over their resolutions. let's take O.J. Simpson for example.

O.J.'s list might look something like this:

1. get out of jail
2. stay out of jail
3. don't kill anyone (else)
4. find out how to collect on my bobblehead
5. don't get shanked

completely doable!

or lastly, i could really mix things up and put them together:

1. don't put eyeliner on camille grammer. or O.J. Simpson.
2. don't get shanked at Ikea
3. collect on allison dubois bobblehead

i think we have a winner, folks!

i would ask now if you have any resolutions of your own, but i still don't think i've fixed the comments tab on this crazy blog, so you'll just have to think really hard about what it is you want me to know and maybe somehow i'll get it like that Medium chick does. i'll work on that.

putting those opposable thumbs to good use

so thanks to all four thousand  five followers i currently have on the blog since my first posting last night. i've also gotten some feedback that some of you couldn't leave comments. near as i can tell i'm going to need a 13 year old girl to show me exactly how to mess with the settings on Blogger, but for the moment i think i may have fixed what needed fixing.

go ahead. try and leave a comment. {although i may not see it either way because i fell asleep last night with my contacts in again and so i have the sightline of a possum right now}

we have friends coming over this morning for a playdate which basically means the house will get tossed three times faster and with more verve than usual, all while my friend kristi and i sip our cold coffee and lament the days when the boys were able to be politely tucked into a car seat and rocked to sleep instead of shoving Matchbox cars into the subwoofer in the livingroom.

true story.

careful what you wish for.

i'll admit it. i'm a fan of Facebook because it allows me to update my status as often as Lindsay Lohan chooses coke over Pepsi (see how i did that?), but it doesn't allow for much more than that. (Facebook, not Lindsay. i have no idea what her threshold for information is. i'm guessing she has the attention span necessary to read the first word of a Red Bull label, but i digress).

anyway, a handful of you lovely folks have actually encouraged me to start another blog. {you'll regret this at a later date, i assure. but in the mean time, thanks for the encouragement!}

so here i am, typing away. for those of you who have not been tuned in to my Facebook updates, let me just say that should you come to visit my lil' ol' blog, you'll find everything from stories about raising my kiddo to reentering the workforce, celebrity gossip, recipes that i managed to not completely ruin, and probably more posts than any heterosexual man need read about shoes.

these times are also a little stressful, so i may swear more than usual. if you are not a fan of profanity, then this is probably not the site for you. um, mom, dad: hang in there! before long you'll read this stuff and feel like i'm right there at home with my boots up on the coffee table and my wine without a coaster right next to them. {your eye-rolling is optional, but probably well-deserved}

come join me, won't you? i need groupies.