8. Avoid Eating Said Pad Thai

Rosie's latest party invitation assigned me to bring Pad Thai, a delicacy I've never ingested.

Consequently, My Pad Thai Recipe:

1. Go to local Asian market. Locate Asian employee. Beg for assistance.

2. Select excessively overpriced Pad Thai sauce and rice sticks [assume rice sticks = rice noodles].

3. Call husband. What do bean sprouts look like?

4. Go to everyday market. Locate bean sprouts, unsalted dry roasted [not cocktail] peanuts. [Also purchase fun-sized Crunch bars [for me] and Butterfingers [for husband].]

5. Overcook rice sticks.

6. Improvise. Saute vegetable oil, garlic, chopped onion, lemon juice, said excessively overpriced Pad Thai sauce, shrimp, beaten eggs. Mix in overcooked rice sticks, bean sprouts, chopped peanuts.

7. Attempt to beautify. Garnish with sliced lemons and a few raw bean sprouts.

Hallo-Weenies/Petty Larceny

I'll get you some pictures of the Apple Monster thoroughly enjoying his Halloween adventures with his grandfather as soon as I find a cord to hook up my mother's EasyShare to my computer, as I didn't realize I'd forgotten my DSLR on the kitchen island until it was too late.

But for now, the events that transpired on my front yard Friday night:

4 PM: Pay the 8th grader next door two Twix bars to break into a bedroom window because the house keys were sitting next to the camera in the kitchen.

5 PM: Regret feeding the baby prunes; clean up resultant poop-splosion.

5:30 PM: Put Jack the Pumpkin Head just outside on the entryway, leaving glass door locked, main front door open, so I can hear trick-or-treating happening while I nurse the baby in the next room. NOTE: Jack is teeming with full-sized candy bars.

6 PM: Hear first trick-or-treaters, one of whom exclaims "Look at all the candy these people have!" Place sleeping infant in his crib, grab monitor, head to front door.

6:01 PM: Mothers of young children notice me at the door, hurriedly rush off of my entryway, off of the yard, skip neighbor's houses, and run down the street.

6:02 PM: To my horror, discover that Jack? Is now empty.

6:03 PM: Whilst standing in the yard looking distraught, Dental Hygienist neighbor asks what's going on. Aghast, she takes off in her SUV to confront the offenders.

6:04 PM: DenHyg reports that they do not speak English, or are pretending to not speak English.

6:45 PM: Spotting the offenders making their way back up the street (the beauty of living on a cul-de-sac is revealed: they must return to the scene of the crime!), nonchalantly inquire as to whether they might know who took every candy out of Jack? "Oh, no, we took one per person," they offer. So they do speak English! "That's strange," I reply, "because you're the only trick-or-treaters so far tonight, and there's about 8 kids in your group, and I left out enough candy for more than 50 children." Return to the house.

6:46 PM: Watch through the drapes as mothers put some candy back into Jack. Start to feel a little better about the situation.

6:48 PM: Discover that about 10 "fun-size" candies were put back, in place of the 50+ full-size candies that were stolen.

I'm Back, and I Know You Were Worried

You guys, I've gotten off the blogging bandwagon, but now I'm back.

I'm not going to agonize over proper wording for my posts anymore, because, frankly, I haven't got that kind of time, and I know my friends in the internet won't take offense, right?

So, here we go with the things I've been mulling for the past 24 hours:

1. My husband stole my Real Simple magazine. Purchased oh, three weeks ago, on a whim in the hopes that I would be able to read it someday, it sat on the island in the kitchen for as long as I can remember, reminding me of just how much time I don't have. Yesterday, I decided I was going to relax for a little while. That doesn't happen inside this house, so I had to Get. Out. I packed up the baby and grabbed for that Real Simple on my way out the door. Of course it wasn't there. Immediately, I knew the culprit, and not just because I haven't cleaned in weeks and therefore haven't had visitors, leaving one adult and one 5 month old as the only suspects. No, I knew it was my husband because he maintains a three-foot tall stack of magazines in the bathroom. I retrieved the Real Simple and headed on my way to drive the baby around until he fell asleep then sit in a Wendy's reading my reclaimed Real Simple.

2. Baby socks get lost in the wash much more easily than adult socks, which are themselves prone to laundry disappearance.

3. While searching the dryer (isn't that where everyone stores their clean clothes?) for Tom's (anonymity be damned!) alphabet socks, I noticed the invitation for Rosie's next party (OMG if I had known this woman throws so many parties I never would have gotten mixed up with my neighbors in the first place). I have to bring German Chocolate Cake, another dessert (double the 's' because you always want more), plus a pack of beer. I think it's the beer that irks me... I mean, she knows I can't drink (what with the boy on the boob, plus alcohol in general doesn't agree with me), and Mike (ha! now they're both named! and my name is Meagan! it's all out there now!) generally doesn't drink because I generally don't drink and being drunk alone is no fun, right? So why tell us to bring beer? And why do we have to bring so much food?

4. I use too many parentheses (but that's how it is in my head, so that's how it is on paper... er, computer screen).

5. I bet that Real Simple's back on the bathroom stack already.

Thanks for stopping by again and see you tomorrow.

In Re Amway

Before I start my post, might I mention that right now, as I type these very words, the boy is sleeping ON HIS OWN IN HIS PLAYPEN? There is a God. Anyway...

Fran from down the street come over today.

I thought it was nice, albeit kind of weird [Fran is, like, 70 years old, and the only time I'd met her was at Rosie's party and OH BY THE WAY Rosie is taking an... interesting... vacation but I won't judge her because I actually do really like her... OK maybe I'll judge a little bit, but don't we all?].

Fran talked about the layout of our homes [they are all very similar, but each has its own design quirks, kind of like the Gosselin sextuplets], and about the updates she's been doing because she's trying to sell hers in order to move permanently to her vacation house. She talked about the baby, because she has a grandson two months older than him [but my kid is already as big as hers so IN YOUR FACE OTHER BABY]. Mostly she just made small talk for probably an hour and a half. Oh, Nino from up the street made a brief appearance too... another post for another day... but he left abruptly after I denied stealing his hedge clippers.

So I noticed that she was carrying a business card around with her. As I thought she was getting ready to leave, I asked her whose business card it was... and then I realized that she wasn't fidgeting because she was getting ready to leave. That would have been too easy; my life is not such that people stop by innocently just to chat. But, oh, how I wish it were.

Turns out, Fran has an Amway business [but it's not called Amway - it's "Quixtar North America"]. She wants me to start one too! We could be Quixtar friends and go to meetings and seminars and make money for our families together! We'd make money for buying things that we already buy! Doesn't it sound great?! And there are so many more benefits that I have to throw in a few more exclamation points!!!

Seriously, me with an Amway business? Are you kidding? Insert your own joke here, because there are too many to choose from.

Ugh. It's a rock and hard place situation, because I just met this woman, but I'm going to be living next to her for a while [even if she does sell her house, she'll still be on the street all the time visiting the rest of the neighbors]. I don't want to make any enemies [or any more enemies than Nino, see above]. I know she'll be calling to get me to come look at a "business plan" [emphasis on the quotation marks, please].

It's too awkward... I can feel myself recoiling from the social progress I've made in the past couple of months. Because it's a snowball, guys. If things get weird with Fran, I'll assume that she's told everyone that I'm not a nice person, and therefore I will avoid everyone on the street and we will turn into That Weird Anti-Social Couple, which is worse than before we ever became involved with the neighbors, because then we were just That Weird Couple We Know Nothing About.

Maybe we should move.

Hello, Neighbor

I'm trying to meet people now that I have a kid. I think that's what moms are supposed to do.

It's not easy.

So yesterday Rosie down the street threw a party. And I was invited! Can you believe it?! OK, it's only because I pay her son $12 a week to mow my yard, so it was probably kind of a sympathy invite. But I take what I can get.

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I had to bring some food. An appetizer and a dessert. An appetizer and a dessert! Double the potential for utter disaster as I give a few dozen people food poisoning. Fantastic.

I couldn't just bring something from the grocery. Oh I could. However? That wouldn't make an impression. If I'm going to a party and bringing food, it has to be a least slightly better than mediocre. That's all I'm going for. So I brought a salad and brownies. A summery salad with apples, grapes, walnuts and grilled chicken says "I'm not trying too hard, and I'm a healthy, and oh, this is something I just threw together. You think it's delicious? You flatter me." Right? I don't eat salad, but that's kind of the impression I get from people that do. And brownies. Because the mix is delicious.

So down the street we went [well, nothing is that easy, but this story is already getting a little long, right?].

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Then there were the questions. The questions I'm uncomfortable answering, because maybe I don't know the answers.

How old is the baby?

Easy one! Eight weeks. Yes, he's big. But he's not off-the-charts big. Stop saying he's so big! You'll make him feel fat! And I have enough weight issues for this whole little family, ok??

What do you do?

Another easy one. I stay home with the baby.

But before that?

Oh, before that. You know, a little of this, a little of that. There was college, then law school, then...

You're a lawyer?!

Yep.

Oh, I have a question for you...

The answer really depends. On what? On a lot of things... You know, the husband's a lawyer too, a better one than I am and "HONEY?! Please come over here!"

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You know what? He's probably not a "better lawyer" than I am, at least in the academic sense. I went to a prestigious law school. Really. And I did well. Really. I was good at law school and I am good at lawyering.

But, you guys, I hate it. I even hate telling people that I'm a lawyer. But I am, and there's a certain credibility afforded to me when people know that I am. So I do tell, but I always regret it.

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All in all, meeting the neighbors went well. Unless they're all still talking about us.... about the baby's diaper exploding, covering my husband in pee... about the monkey dish the brownies were on that I spent half an hour choosing in Target [options limited by my inability to purchase any item not on clearance]... about me awkwardly nursing the baby on Rosie's bed as her friend walked in on me... about me rambling on about how terrible it is to smoke around children as the woman behind me lit one up... oh, about any number of mishaps.

But you know what? They're not so normal either. And the husband and I are still talking about THEM.

Take that, neighbors.