Monthly Archives: February 2015

My daughter’s father is …

faceMy husband is tall, and white, and looks older than his age. He doesn’t drive a box truck and he’s not known for his heavily processed, and packaged, baked goods. He wears a suit to work and he still has (most of a good amount of) his hair, and yet my daughter regularly mistakes all sorts of people for her father.

The people she’s called “Daddy”: Continue reading

10 things you missed about #TheDress

Lace Detail Bodycon Dress   at Roman Originals

That’s the dress — straight from the company’s website.

A picture may be worth 1,000 (times 1 million?) shares, but the words that follow are heckofa confusing.

The Internet is going bonkers over this dang dress — a gold and white (although the company does call it royal blue) number originally posted by a 21-year-old singer named Caitlin McNeill.

The performer shot the image on over to her talent manager Sarah Weichel, asking “Is this dress white and gold, or blue and black? Me and my friends can’t agree and we are freaking the fuck out.” (Ouch.)

When I first saw it posted to Facebook last night, I didn’t realize this was a “thing” and thought the woman — a social media connection — doing the asking wanted to know for herself.

Then I scrolled down, and saw every third person in my 5,000-plus connection feed was talking about the dress. Continue reading

Did you see this?

I’m starting a new (occasional) feature on Just Kristi where I share things — status updates, photos, links — I find on social media that make me stop either because they’re funny, moving, incredulous, educational, unbelievable, sad, inspiring or something else.

Here are your three for today (if the statuses are not public, I removed the author’s name. When the post is public — like with the photo in this post — I still asked permission to repost/share):

Sex>money: Continue reading

I’m done …

I’m so over …

bruce jenner

  • Chevron: Up till about six months ago I loved it, now you can buy a chevron mixer, and parents named their kid Chevron. I’m moving onto gingham, or polka dots.
  • Infused … anything: Give me pure, give me original, but stop infusing everything from cookies to cocoa to cooking oil.
  • Brian Williams: I prefer Lester Holt, anyway. Although we’ll have to see how he raps with Jimmy Fallon.
  • Binge watching: Take your time, savor the show and remember when it’s over, it’s over. You can never experience “Parenthood” (the show, not the life) for the first time again.
  • Bruce Jenner: So he’s (likely) transgender. It’s 2015. Let the man be (a woman).
  • Leather ottoman coffee tables: It’s either a table or an ottoman. Trying to make one both is like texting on a date. Not a match made in … anywhere.
  • FitBit status updates: You most certainly exercise more than I do, and you may sleep better, but I’m not sure why that information needs to be shared with anyone but you (and maybe your doctor).
  • Money-grabbing GoFundMe campaigns: Helping others is good, but people asking for money to fund their trip to Costa Rica, or their iPhone 12s, dilute all the worthy causes and genuine “asks.”
  • Kim Kardashian’s husband: He’s an attention-hungry baby. Don’t talk (tweet/blog about) his antics and they’ll stop. Irrelevancy would hurt him more than Kim K leaving the house in sweats and no makeup.

 

Overheard: Asian strippers, and a death threat

exotic dancer“Oh, man, we’ve got to go. Asian strippers are supposed to be sick. Do you get to pick your girl,” he asked his coworker. “I mean, if they send one over and you don’t like her, can you send her away and say ‘no, I want someone else’?”

I perked up. I’m an eavesdropper by nature (a trait ingrained in many reporters) and believe if you don’t want your conversation to become public consumption then you should not have that conversation when out and about.

“Um, uh, I don’t really know,” he said, busying himself behind the counter, not looking at his friend. “I’ve only been once.” Continue reading

10 things I learned during my first year as a parent

Clip Art Illustration of a Girl Toddler Holding a Teddy BearNot long ago, Little C was on her play mat, reaching for the toys hanging over head, but missing like a dental patient on laughing gas. Now she’s this little person — a girl who makes goofy faces when she’s being scolded and who spontaneously laughs at herself, and others. She has favorites — toys, people and places. I’ll often find her in her hiding space (between the chair and side table in her room) reading.

I have … a toddler.

When she burst into the world I was terrified to take her anywhere. On our first trip to the mall, I brought my mom. My heart palpitated when she (C, not my mother) squealed (in delight, mind you) in Pottery Barn. I was convinced people were thinking “why is there a child in here and why is said child making noise?!” Continue reading

Rude moms

talking womenYears ago, my parents took us to the Christmas show at Radio City. What I remember more than the falling soldiers routine or live camel on stage was how the group next to us talked the entire time.

For the full two hours they gabbed about everything from Christmas gifts to their drunk uncle to the homeless man who scared them in the Port Authority.

Why, I wondered, would you come to a show to talk? Coffee shops are for that nonsense, or bars.

We said “please stop talking.” The ushers asked them to quiet down. Management got involved. And yet, the conversation continued. Nothing worked. Continue reading

I deserved that …

twitter picMonday evening I tweeted how having a husband meant never (rarely) having to shovel.

Why?

Because he came with a snowblower — and he enjoys using it.

Before I was hitched, I lived on my own in a house over in Guilderland. The road was a dead end and, as a result, not as wide as your average street.

When the town plow came down, they’d push 80 percent of the slop to the right side (naturally) leaving those of us on the east side of the street with a heap of crunchy, crusty, icy, hardened snirt to dig out. No matter how many different types of shovels I bought, none were enough to tackle what felt like a pile of concrete at the end of my driveway. Even my neighbors who had snowblowers struggled. Continue reading