I Got the Music in Me!

I've really done it now. I have failed as a mother. I have exposed my sweet children to....Abba. OH NO! I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I came downstairs and saw and heard Sweet Marissa listening to Abba on iTunes. She has the whole outfit nailed though, doesn't she? Maren cannot help but dance to it. Abba compels her to move. She cannot not dance. Oh well, I am sure I have exposed them to worse things along the way.

I really do love music - and yes that includes Abba. (Some - like the Captain- may argue that Abba is not truly music.) Growing up, my mom always had music going around our house via a good old eight track player. Remember when we used to think those were so much cooler than records? The Captain and I get a kick out of reminiscing about what he used to listen to growing up (definitely a little more rock and roll) compared to the easy listening station at the Vaas household. We had Kenny Rogers (my mother's hero - I still choke back a bit of vomit when I hear "Islands in the Stream") Air Supply, Donnie and Marie Osmond (more vomit), Guy and Ralna (of Lawrence Welk fame) with a touch of redeeming Elvis and the Beatles.

I love the way music can transport you to that time and place where you first fell in love with a song. Sort of like what happens to the nasty food critic in Ratatouille- just one taste and time drops him off and shoves him out the door into his mother's kitchen where he first fell for his mother's ratatouille. Maybe not so much the ratatouille, but everything that went along with it. Likewise with a song - you just have to go along for the ride. I listen to the Mavericks and I am two-stepping with the Captain when we first started dating. I hear a certain Eagles song and find myself lying (unrestrained - and I am worried about Abba exposure?) in the rear window of the family car, warm sun on my back, driving west through the endless state of South Dakota in search of the All-American vacation to Mt. Rushmore. Abba? Well, I am strapping a pair of metal roller skates to my tennies with my brother Don, making laps around our basement - first around the pool table, figure-eight around the ping pong table, all the while, getting our boogie on. All good memories.

I do hope the girls have some fond memories of music growing up, but like my good friend Dawn says, a little Abba - goes a long way - about 30 years or so for me.

Orange Shag Carpet

We are having my side of the family over for our Christmas party tomorrow night (sure to be bloggable) and so I have been doing some cleaning. Nothing like entertaining (and vanity and pride) to make you clean your house. I even vacuumed the basement. We have a very, shall we say, very shagadelic-Austin-Powers-would-feel-right-at-home-sort of basement. Dark paneling, Coca-Cola pendant lights hanging over our burnt orange Formica "bar" area , harvest gold door, and yes, lovely at least 2 inch deep pile burnt orange shag carpet. Someday, we have plans to remodel, but for now it is the girls groovy play room. ( They too, should have to suffer through the colors of the 70's and appreciate what their parents went through.)

So vacuuming the basement is a major undertaking. It is hard to push the vacuum over carpet that is that shaggy. It is also like searching for lost treasure. I am sure I vacuumed up enough loose change to pay my Christmas bills. I also vacuumed up dozens of googly eyes from one of the girls craft projects. Not to mention Barbie shoes. So the girls stand at the top of the steps (neither one of them likes the vacuum very well) and holler at me every time they hear the vacuum loudly suck something up "Mom, what was that?". I have warned them - once they have everything cleaned up and it is time to vacuum that anything left on the floor is fair game. (They are usually a bit more thorough when I tell them this).

Anyway, I am vacuuming and vacuuming and vacuuming, and it happened, it actually happened several times - carperpetuation:

Carperpetuation (kar' pur pet u a shun) - n. The act, when vacuuming, of running over something at least a dozen times, reaching over and picking it up, examining it, then putting it back down to give the vacuum one more chance.This is called a sniglet -words that don't appear in the dictionary, but should. I started giggling to myself because my older brother and I really thought these were hilarious back in the day. Here are some of our favorites:

Agonosis (ah uh no' sis) - n. The syndrome of tuning into "Wide World of Sports" every Saturday just to watch the skier rack himself. (that one really ages me)
Airdirt (ayr' dirt) - n. A hanging plant that's been ignored for three weeks or more.
Cabnicreep (kab' nih kreep) - n. The structural condition in which the closing of one kitchen cabinet causes another to open. ( we have one of those)
Expresshole-n. A person who goes through the grocery store's 12-item express lane with 22 items.
Facon - n. The fake bacon bits served at cheap salad bars
Hozone (ho' zohn) - n. The place where one sock in every laundry load disappears to.
Kedophobia (ked oh fo' be uh) - n. The fear of having one's sneakers eaten by the teeth on the escalator.
Prestofrigeration: The peculiar habit, when searching for a snack, of constantly returning to the refrigerator in hopes that something new will have materialized.
Rignition (rig ni' shun) - n. The embarrassing action of trying to start one's car with the engine already running. (I just did this the other day)

Nice trip down memory lane, must have been the 70's color scheme. But after tonight, I have made up my own sniglet:

Vaclamation: the loud protest children make when they are worried a parent has vacuumed up their toys.