Monday, February 25, 2013

Twelve Minutes 'Til The Bell Rings...

Some of my best ideas come out of me at the last minutes of the day... let's see if this is a testament to as much, shall we?

Probably not, probably going to be gobble-di-gook...but hey...what is to be expected from someone in my predicament?

I have been locked in a Bio Hazard called "Home" for about 5 days...and man is it good to be out. 

I came back to work to a mole hill, but it's gone now.  All gone...bye bye...

I sit and I wonder just how much "better" Choni feels now that he is on day 5 of Flu Watch 2013...

He hasn't been sick like this in about 5 years I would say.  He used to get the Flu shots every year and he would get deathly ill right after.  Call it what you want, it's the truth...He was that 1%.  Trust and believe I kindly requested he STOP getting the damned things and just let himself get sick like a normal person.  Well, he didn't sick after that...and life was good.  Thing 1 must have the immune system of Bubble Boy because she just can't seem to shake the sick.  She has gotten sick every year since she started school which the statistcs say is normal and American as Apple Pie...Thanks though... But no thanks just the same...

The worst thing in the whole world is when your kids get sick.  You can put bandaids on a scraped knee and a pricked finger, you can pull out frikkin splinters, you can even put salves on burns, but you just can't get them better from the flu... It sucks and it's belittling as a parent.  I took her to the Pediatrician and he said she was teetering between viral and bacterial infection...so wait and see...  $30 bucks to get "wait and see"... Oh great...so we did... I got a presription just in case the worst hit over the weekend, but after being sick ALL week...her whole vacation from school down the tubes...she was better.  It's a miracle!! Not so fast ya'll.... Then HE gets it....

I stayed home from work on Wednesday, went in for two hours on Thursday and went in from 8 to 2 on Friday all so I wouldn't drown in a mountain of paperwork and phone calls today...and I'm glad I was able too...Thanks Ma :)  I didn't really see him Thursday, Friday or Saturday... except for a trip to the Urgent Care Saturday morning and then the CVS for medication of awesome sorts...  Sunday afternoon, much to my surprise, he emerged :)  Shaved, showered, and less death-like hue to the skin!!  Yay!!! 

I have done more laundry and dishes and meal preparation than I probably have in a year...  We haven't had a whole weekend to ourselves in a long time and it's been even longer since I have had such domestic duties thrust upon me... Weird to sit there and have to wonder how many pairs of jeans and how many towels you can fit in your own washer...because that's how long it's been since you've done serious laundry...  Funny to sit there and wonder what setting to wash the dishes on again cause it's been so long since you've had to do more than just load the thing up with dishes...  Funny....

But not really all that funny... There was a time I knew all these things.  A very different space and time when we both had jobs and Harley was the only Thing and we dropped her off for the night at Gma and Gpa's... It's "funny" how different your life gets...and not even because you "wanted" it to... but because it HAD to be different.  It was forced to be different...and pretty soon you wonder... How did I do this before??  And the answer is simple... You didn't...  I didn't have to clean a house and juggle a baby... I didn't have to figure that part out myself....  A crash course wasn't necessarily what I had in mind but I am now glad that I had it, and I'm glad it's over.  I'm glad I got reminded I'm the Mom I'm the Wife I'm part of the equation...I'm not just here to keep the lights on and keep the water running...  I'm sorry that everyone was sick... but now I'm thinking it all happened for a reason... We all got something out of it...  If you want a silver lining of course...maybe I want one, because maybe I NEED one... Maybe I NEED one after seeing my poor girl lethargic on the couch for a week, after seeing the piles of paperwork on my desk, after seeing how much Choni does and how much he could use a break no matter what form it came in.... 

And now it's all over and I can go back to the most annoying thing being that Amazon just shipped my camera and I won't have it until next week...  damn Amazon...

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Happy....Thursday!!

Why was it that I walked into work this morning and everyone is wearing pinks and reds and/or having something on their person that resembles a heart shape???  Why? WHY???

Oh yeah, it's Valentine's Day...

Not always was I a cynical person about this man made holiday of love.  I got all crazy about it once upon a time...but I was still in single digits and the biggest thing that ever happened was Darkwing Duck getting sucked into the Negaverse... 

It was MANY and I mean MANY moons before I was faced with the situation of a boyfriend AND Valentine's Day happening at exactly the same time and space.  And of course, it was Antonio...

Valentine's Day 2001 just so happened to fall on our 2 month anniversary (yeah, I said it, I'm a fucking girl) and I was sitting there in my mom's kitchen thinking how cool I was that I didn't put the screws to this guy and expecting a gift on our first Valentine's Day when out he comes with a gift.,...wrapped...in several sheets of gift wrap...  frikkin goofball...

After the seventh layer I see a cover of a movie I knew well, thank you BBV and thought to myself "Why the HELL would I get a copy of 'The Cider House Rules'" and what added quick insult to injury was that it was a screener no less (a screener is a copy of a tape that the distribution house sends the video rental company to see if they think the movie will rent and/or how many copies you will need for your store).  Then I moved my eyes to the little block letter stickers on the cover "02-14-01"... Hhhmmm...

And of course I would learn soon that my then bf was no one to trifle with opening presents, you have to open them quickly and use them soon so he can be part of the enjoyment... already loved him for that.  What happened next was awesome... Popped the movie into the VCR and the sneaky little sucker took and made a montage to a Louis Armstrong song of all the cutsie romcom's we liked and some not so rom com but rom to us and it was frikkin sweet!!  I watched that tape all the time and we still have it... because he since added to it of course...  Mr. Genius with the VCR editing and such.  It was a little rough and some tracking issues, I think you can even see the word "Play" on the top left of the screen, but of course I think it's endearing as hell!!

Now comes why that particular gift set me so far back...  When we had our first state of the union conversation in the front seat of my Impala on the way back from the WB tour, he mentioned how he thought Valentine's Day was a sham... a likely story I thought.  All guys think that right? Right.  He goes on about how he thinks it's really lame that women create this tornado of drama and pigeon hole themselves into giving a guy one day in which to show how they feel.  There are so many things he thinks are wrong with that thinking that he can't even get them out in one sentence... "Birthdays, Anniversaries, Christmas, Mother's Day, Father's Day, these things matter...  Valentine's Day?  One day to do something incredibly romantic?  There's nothing romantic about KNOWING when you're getting something special.  It should be spontaneous!"  He is very big on spontaneous...  VERY big... and I thought, sitting there in my old brown car with Anna Banana asleep in the back seat after a long day of walking all over some of the most famous sound stages in the world, I was listening to a steaming pile of pig shit...  Of course he was saying that, he's trying to be cool....  I didn't really think he was trying to hook me at that time, I just figured he was being a guy...  but again he shocks me.

Not only does he say that cheesey line that "You should expect more everday not more one day a year" but he actually acted on it and still does.  Instead of waiting for Valentine's Day or the week surrounding, I will come home to something special, not everyday because that's a stamina I don't know exisits to keep coming up with something fresh and new everyday, but definitely often enough that if I was one of the people that expected something for Valentines' Day to make up for the NON special days through the year, I would sell myself short for sure.

We don't celebrate Valentine's Day since that first one...That first one was actually so special and so sincere, I don't think he could top it.  Not with all the awesome I get still throughout the year...  But I DID get Carnations on our anniversary last year... and that's coming up again soon...

Which is why I say "Happy Thursday" everybody.. cause it's really just Thursday to me...until the next time I go home to something "special"!  OH! And don't think the special door swings one way... I give as good as I get!

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

This Time Last Year...

Wow, you know what? I really should start a series called ,"This Time Last Year..."  I did the birthday story for Marysu...and now I get to do the pneumonia story with HarleyQ...

More like March 5th of last year, but still...This time last year HQ was recovering from a nasty bout of bronchitis.  I can't believe she got it.  It was just a little cough...cough syrup wasn't helping and my home remedies were getting kicked in the ass so to the dr. she went and she had bronchitis.  Antibiotics and a plastic bubble later, she slowly recovered.  Always having this phantom cough and sniffling ALL the time.  If you don't like nails on a chalk board then I don't recommend listening to a 6 and a half year old sniffle for months...  makes me shudder...truly.

Then there was the maternity leave which was awesome family time at it's greatest.  Went by like a flash.  On the EVE of my returning to work HQ's cough was coupling a fever that had gone on for 48 hours and was getting higher and less compromising by the hour...at 5:30pm I decided to take action and to the ER we go where we find out after 6 hours that it was walking pneumonia.  Shots and antibiotics later she was a new HQ after 24 hours.  She had weezing in her chest and I couldn't handle listening to that I wanted to crawl into a hole and die.  My poor Harleymunser was so sick...  We took her to the dr for a follow up.  I am not a fan of that dr.s office.  And we don't go there anymore and we have been happy since we changed back to her old dr.  Insurance.  Sucks.  Anyway, I started to feel a sinus infection coming on and I told MY dr. about her being sick so much and I couldn't stand the thought that she could be asthmatic like I was and my husband REALLY was...  But he said it didn't sound like that to HIM...so GUESS what he said? 

Just GUESS???

After all the problem and the sick and the holy shit...  He told me to give her Benadryl... Just one dose of old school Benadryl, even generic CVS, Equate, UP and UP, whatever is fine... Just one dose before bed... see what happens...

AND DON'T THAT BEAT ALL?!?!  IT FUCKIN WORKED!!!

Yep, it was THAT exciting.  After one week, her cough was gone...

And, not to forget to mention.  He was telling me that I should be doing the same thing!?!?! 

Love. My. PA.

Not even a Dr.  A PA...  Love him...  I tried it on my and I will tell you what... I have taken them ALL!  Everything that ends in D... all of it.  I have taken shit I can't even PRONOUNCE!  I can feel the sinus infections come on and they come on like a bastard.  The only time I haven't had any sinus flux is when I'm pregnant (so not a reason to do it again on purpose and not possible anymore anyways hehehe).

Harley was doing SO well in fact that I was down to honing in on the symptoms so early I would give her a Benadryl the night I would notice SOMETHING and then POW!!!  Muhfucker's HISTORY!! 

It's horrible when something is so simple and so wrong with your kids and when someone gives you a simple answer for what you feel is a simple question it's exciting!  Especially when I used the same advice for me and I am able to knock out my symptoms now with a simple pink and white pill that I can get OTC for 4.99 a bottle for the generic shit,...  Harley started to get a cough and I thought "Oh, that doens't sound allergy related"... silly me.  Cough syrup didn't work for shit and when I gave her the Benadryl what the hell do you think happened?  I got so used to her being ok over the past few months.. MONTHS!! that I forgot about the Benadryl... 

Lesson learned:  This Time Last Year I was learning how awesome old school Benadryl can really be !!!

Harley has surely escaped more horribly sicknesses due to her allergies NOT getting out of hand and I am so loving my Dr for it!!!

Which reminds me, I need to add Benadryl to my shopping list!

...I KNEW IT!!!!....

Blogger chick that I love so much for all the reasons we are so drastically different just as much as we are alike on so many things finally did it...she blogged about her pictures she takes for her blog.  I knew it was going to come one day because she was so heavily into film photography at one point and now it's the expression of the photos along with the words that move her blog...  I love that reading her blog sometimes is more like "reading" ...  more like osmosis if you will... 

I was sitting here thinking that it must be something awesome...awesome-ER than my camera...my meesely little Nikon 3100 that I got in red cause I could dammit...  and then I see the filters on the pictures and before I had Instagram I was completely in AWE by the filters on these photos and the moments she captured...  And then the blog hits and she talks about ALL of it!  I can't believe myself and how fast I soaked it all up like a slurpee in August...  **SLURP** done gone and all comprehended and accounted for. 

I KNEW IT...  I just did...  I knew that she used her damn iPhone...  top of the line awesome sauce iPhone that fits everywhere...  and I knew it.  I knew it because of the sheer amount of accessability demanded from the pictures she took... I just knew.  And now I know, next year when I get my new phone, I am getting either an iPhone or a badass camera phone... but probably...iPhone...  I am still getting my point n shoot Nikon Coolpix P520 ( in red because I can) to take the place of my DSLR which we WILL in fact be keeping because a) we are getting $$ back from the IRS and b) Choni can use it in his ventures.  Also I was only really selling so I could justify the purchase for my name is Ebeneza Scrooge, you may know my great great great grand uncle...

Fantastic news as that is, I am going to want something point and shootable that takes great pictures and then I'm going to want something that takes great video and then I'm going to want something with a great zoom feature and it just all pointed to P250...Also getting a Fuji instax mini.  I have been putting that purchase off since the goddamned thing came to the market and I'm doing it now... and it comes in yellow...  But someday very soon, it will be just me and my iPhone...taking the video and pictures that mold and shape our lives.  Because it's not about the tools you use on the photos but the passion with which you take them... disagree all you want... I'll just mock you...  heehee.

Walking, Talking & Sippy Cups...OH MY!!!

Our baby is just over a year old...  Technically a toddler, but still the baby...She is already leaving her days of extreme Baby-dom in the dust cloud of life...  She wears real shoes, walks all over to get from place to place and she is soon to be bottless (that's Daddy, Daddy's not ready...he's so cute...).  She talks (in the way that a parrot mimics) but still...  There's "Dis" for "This and mama, dada, baba and when she really wants what you've got it's "Mumumummmmm..." which means "Hey I want that gimme it..." 

Still though, raging with teething and the physical side effects.  Hates having her diaper changed still, something that came with her 6month mark and never left.  Sometimes we can give her a sippy cup or a bottle when we are changing her and she will forget that she thinks she's going to get cut in half...  Seriously, her little brain is thinking, "I KNEW IT!  TODAY'S THE DAY!  IT'S REALLY HAPPENING! I KNEW THIS DAY WOULD COME!" 

Kids man, the amaze me truly...she knows that there is a process to the day and she gets it...she rolls really well...and we get the diaper out and she sees it and she's fine, she sees the wipes and the powder and she's fine.  we get her down on her back to change her and that's it...the defining moment of her day where she is so absolutely sure that we're about to pull out the ban saw and make our move for baby sushi...I know it sounds horrible, but you should HEAR this child scream at the changing table...We have tried changing her in different spots of the house even, nope.  She hates it with the fire of 1,000 suns...

Enjoyable still is the growing dynamic between the two Littles...  They're so good together, and Thing 1 still thinks that because it is her sister she can do what she wants with her.  Some of these things are very helpful; Pulling her from the crib when she wakes up from a nap, bringing her to the living room in the morning when they both wake up, playing so me n Dad can do some sort of thing that doesn't require kid help...  It's pretty awesome... And of course, when we forget something and half Thing 2 undressed and realize "oh yeah, need something" she is there to spring to action and save the day!  Unhelpful is the smaller one...  Harley will decided that tonight is the night that she will sit on the couch and read a book in perfect silence with her family around...And along comes Maryyyyyy ... remember that song??  Cause that's what I sing to myself and sometimes aloud when I see Marysu zero in on the book Harley's reading and BOOM she's on her like white on rice!  And then Harley realizes her mistake and goes in her room to read. 

Now is the time of explaining "She's a baby, she doesn't know what she's doing"  and then we even go further to explain "But one day she WILL know what she's doing and you'll have every right to bitch about and then she will get punished...just not now.."

I think I gave Harley something to look forward to :)  I have also said this to the child enough times now that she gets it and she even says "I know I know, she doesn't know what she's doing... I just wish that she did..."  and I retort, "Yes, I wish she did too...but that's our job.  To teach her." 

Harley is going to be a great teacher for her little sister.  That is, if she remembers that she has a list in her room of all the things she wants to teach Mary once Mary is old enough.  I think of how old Harley was when she was doing some of these things and I think, if Mary is THAT old then Harley will be THIS old and then she won't want to do these things with her sister by that time... But then again, if it's just the two of them in the house and no friends peering in, I think I'll be pleasantly surprised at taking a peek in on their room one day and see a 12 year old Harley and a 6 year old Marysu playing Little People together :)  I think...maybe...  yeah...

Until that day comes though, we are soaking in all the walking, talking, clapping, laughing, giggling, smart ass things that the 1 year old does cause she won't be 1 forever... 

Prepare To Be Bombarded...

I told myself I would do this more often...and then I told myself I would keep a little journal (of which I have many rolling on) of blogs I could start... then I told myself that if I don't get to write it on the actual blog I'm safe because I will have the little journal...

And now the little notepad that I keep in my desk at work is half full, the journal I keep in my bag is a few pages full and I can probably sit here and do post after post...but I will just sit here until my lunch is over and save the rest for later.  I have time :) 

Here I sit, typing over a hot bowl of soup that could easily feed two but who cares.  Work has picked up immensely in just a week.  I mean that with the depths of my being... I even used the word immensely.  I work in the accounting department where customer set up is part of my duties (of which I have many) and I maintain the customer accounts (of which there are many).  Basically, I do a lot of stuff.  Usually that stuff doesn't necessarily come with a time frame attached, just when I can get to it I do.  That works for me most of the time and with Chinese New Year and our factories in China being down for two weeks I was thinking I would have time to do a lot of the little odd job maintanance.  Not so much lately.  Apparently we started this new product program that everyone is going absolutely ape shit over and that's so fantastic!  Because I am busier than a one armed paper hanger!  I didn't think I would love it this much, but I really love it!  I love being busy at work! 

And it's the busy at work that is why I am bombarding my blog with posts all at once.  Sometimes at the end of the day there is a half hour window where I have nothing to do and it has been expressed to me that the reason I am here at the end of the day is to answer the phones.  That being taken into consideration, I have no one here to work WITH if I were to do work anyway.  Thus utilizing that 30 minutes for myself by checking my bank account, balancing my checkbook, pay some bills if I didn't already and maybe even send myself a recipe or two or a crochet pattern or two...  or maybe blog if I feel like it. 

Not lately!  And that is why.  I still do not have internet at home.  I can't do it with my current company that has my TV service cause they don't DO that and I am thinking I want to go the route of FiOS like everyone else in the world.  I hate Verizon though so I don't know what we're gonna do...probably suck it up and do it.  Oh well...not the first time I made a special concession in the name of a monopoly...

But not until Spartacus is over... when Spartacus is over and we have watched all of our DVR's episodes we will be doing the switch...I'm still wondering if I should go back to having a home phone.  I'm just thinking that cell phones are still not a perfect science and with the two Littles at home I'm thinking it might be nice to have something to fall back on...and comes with Unlimited service in the U.S. :) 

..I just burned my tongue...

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

I Should Have Listened to My Dad and Become A Lawyer....

...or a mediator.. that would have been good too...

My Pop was a smart cookie...and I knew that even as a kid.  I knew that if I wanted him to see my way on something, I was going to have to step up my game.  And I did a pretty damn good job of it, too!  I could easily argue my way into a new Barbie, some matchbox cars or a couple of Archie comics from the impulse aisle of the Lucky's ...

Just when I started to think maybe I wasn't that good at it, I met my fabulous hubby.  He became witness to these moments of my arguing my way out of a paperbag (some people can't do that) and was once again self aware of my power of Justification.  The Ends Justify The Means...  probably would be the name of a semi-auto biography about my life :) 

Today I am justifying why I need a new lens for my Nikon, of which there are many.  But just now I was checking out a blog I love!!  The chick takes awesome pics with her iPhone...bare with me here...  I don't have one of THOSE and I don't have the $$ to buy a new one cash outside of the available upgrade for my cell plan that comes up NEXT year...  So I'm thinking, since we are due a good sum on our taxes, I would like to get a 55-300mm lens for my Nikon.

I didn't realize it until I read the blog as to WHY... 

I open my followed blogs and the first thing I see is an adorable and obviously instagrammed pic of a cute 18 mo old girl in her messy room.  Obviously Blogger Chick was standing above her child. Said child is happy and not screaming.

  Immediately my mind goes here:  Hey, that's a really cute picture and how come I don't have more pictures like that because i don't have an iPhone would it matter if I did have one I don't think it would because everytime I have my phone out Marysu wants to grab it and eat it and then I let her because I'm a sucker and then she gnaws it and then I have to take it and then she gets mad and then I have to dissuade her intentions away from my phone and then I don't get the cute picture I wanted so why don't I just pull out the Nikon because if you pull out the Nikon stupid ass then the baby will want that too and you won't get the good picture you wanted you will get a series of much too close up pictures because she will be on your ass like a fat kid on a cupcake and you shouldn't say stuff like that because your husband used to be a fat kid but thats okay because everyone of your boyfriends in middle school was a fat kid and hey didn't one of them give you a necklace for your birthday where the hell is that did it survive any of the moves why didn't you check and make sure that it made it okay it probably got lost with one of the tubs that had your matchbox cars in and now you have a spare room full of cars because your former fat kid husband makes an effort to put a new matchbox car in your stocking at xmas every year...

... I go from why don't I have a Nikon lens that I can zoom and take snaps from across the room to "There are way too many matchbox cars in my spare room"...

I'd like to avoid these head space convos... and I need to take snaps from across the room so I can Ninja-Photo my kids...

Therefore: I need a new lens...

CLEARLY, I chose the wrong profession...

...and speaking of photos.. think I should integrate more photos in this thing? Is it too boring without something to look at? 

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

First World Problems....

I'm getting my hair done tomorrow. 

No big deal right?

I know I could probably do this on my own at home cheaper... but there are some things that just because you CAN do them, doesn't mean you should.

I have dark blonde hair that, in high school, was deliciously golden blonde...sun kissed fantasticness that all the "bops" (we called them bops) in school would ask, "Like wow! WHERE did you get your hair done?  WHO does your hair?"

To which my smart ass self would answer "Uhm, I got my hair done... outside??  By, uhm... God?  I guess..."  and I would walk away... Yes, the Lord did my hair with a power assist from Mother Nature.  She rocked my socks on the hair SO well I didn't touch it for years.  Nothing. Totally Virgin Hair!!  Yay me... but before the pats on the back start... I started working and going to school SO much that I was never outside.  I was inside fluorescent lighting of SOME kind all day... from home to work to home to school to work... Fun...  And when I realized that it was affecting my hair I got a WILD fire lit under my ass to change my hair.  I had a thing about "Hi Lights" ... that doesn't look right does it? Well I did that so you would know how AWKWARD it was for you to read that, it was awkward for me to try and get something done to my hair that I got for free... everyday...and was done perfectly naturally...  Enter Adult Life Phase 1.  Letting go of that shit. 

Unless I became a Forest Ranger, I wasn't going to get the same sun play on my hair, that being said I decided redheads have more fun and I went red...for about 5 minutes.  After I felt like I was chasing that perfect red, much like chasing the "perfect high" like a damn crack head, I stopped chasing and let the red fade out... it faded into a dull reddish brown.  I applied a brown over it to appease my inner self that was screaming at me that I looked ridiculous with my tri color hair...  Luckily,  I was making my plans to get married and I needed to do something dumbed down until I decided what I wanted my hair to look like for the big day.

The week before I got married, my big sis and I went trolling the aisles of Wally World to find that perfect color and it was a toasted Almond by who I don't know... it was a box.  It was rad... I wish I could have remembered that brand...cause I would just do that to my hair...but it would fall out ... and then I would cry...

I have been doing dark to moderate browns ever since because I was enjoying the contrast between having blue eyes and having brown hair.  I found I saw that a lot less in the natural world...so I had my fun.  then one day I was looking at myself in the mirror.  You know when you look in the mirror and you have a mind's eye idea of what you're about to see?  And then that second happens and you're like, Yeah, I see me...

I didn't see me... I was a little taken a back by what I saw.  This usually happens when you get a new hair cut or color.  but I was well into my umpteenth dye job of brown...I even started getting my hair "done" as a concession to myself ... a "spa day"... a "pat on the back" if you will.  I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't go out... WE don't do any of those things and after I talked to the hubby, he was super on board and now I "get my hair done" every 5-6 weeks.  But now I am in the process of not changing ... but changing back.  Going "Back to One" if you will...  And it's been awesome.  The chick that does my hair is super affordable and close to my house and has a fantastical personality... it couldn't be a better fit if I tried... and I didn't.  My coworker said if I was every thinking of getting my hair done professionally that she would float me the chick's number cause she rocks...and she DOES!! 

So, I get my hair done tomorrow again...and I'm wondering...

Should I cut it???

Yeah, I said ALL that just to get this...

My hair has always been long.  I kept it shorter for a few years, grew it out SUPER long and hacked it off, donated it cause I took a 2 year hiatus from color and now I am back to one.  Hair is grown out...  Want to hack it off... but my budget doesn't allow for a second trip to the salon and the cycle of going every 5-6 weeks allows for a "free" hair cut (that is actually already worked into my budget) every couple of months.  I think by the time I come around my cycle again, I will be ready for a hack job... yeah, I think so.  Because even at just past shoulder length my thick ass hair will be persona non grata during our hot ass summer...

Ass...

hehehehe... 

And now I get to go and hang with my kiddos Han Solo cause Daddy's got a mandate...  Mandate... Mangina... okay, I'm done now...