Sometimes, Hands just Taste Good....

The Art that is Passive Aggressiveness

Passive aggressiveness is the time honored tradition of showing you're upset about something by acting like you're not upset about it all. It’s telling someone you’re mad at them with smoke and mirrors, instead of direct communication. Basically, it’s marriage.

Marriage can be difficult, but so can ordering a “grande sugarfree nonfat vanilla soy latte”. And just like at Starburcks, sometimes you have to repeat your order.

Everything is relative, and when it comes to communication, I think it’s most important to consider your audience. Sometimes it’s OK to yell, and sometimes you must harness the powers of sweet, sweet awkwardness.

Once you're married, passive agressiveness becomes an art. Especially if you have a dog. Rather than saying something sarcastic directly to your spouse (a surefire way to start a fight) you can ask the dog a question in a baby voice that is loud enough for all to hear. For example;

"Maxy, did daddy forget to load the dishwasher again? huh baby? Yes he did….yes he did...Oh, what’s daddy thinking….huh buddy?...I guess mommy will just have to do it...."

or perhaps:

"Max, what did you mommy do with that remote? Did you see, buddy? It wasn' you was it? No, I know it wasn't you...you would put the remote back on the table, wouldn't you buddy...yeah..."

My dog has the self esteem of an overweight pre-teen.

If there were a Marriage Olympics, passive agressiveness would be the marathon. Long, drawn out bouts of silence where you end up worn down and dehydrated. Except in the actual Olympics you leave with a medal, or at the very least pride. In Marriage, you don’t leave until you die.

But marriage is not the only arena to practice this mental sport of bottled anger. The internet has become THE soundboard for those who wish to passive-agress their significant other into oblivion. In particular; facebook.

The advent of facebook has allowed for an entirely new level of passive agressiveness (or passive e-gressiveness, if you like). Is your boyfriend being a bum? Just update your status to “I think I deserve better than this….”  Did your “bestie” flake at the last second and leave you high and dry? No Worries, just update your status to “I’m glad I know who my true friends really are….” BINGO, passive e-gressiveness.

And as far as your bleeding heart is concerned, calling somone out without actually calling them out is genius. Now you’ve got a boatload of e-friends to e-commiserate with, and at least a dozen will coment on your post and tell you you’re great and that “everything will be e-OK.”

Personally, I don’t understand why people do it. When has inviting more people into a problem ever made it better? Never. And once it’s on facebook, the dogs will eat. If people don’t comment, they’ll talk about it. If they don’t talk about it, they’ll blog about it….eh hem.

But in the end, I guess the important thing is that you work out whatever issues you may have, with whoever you have them. And if you do choose facebook as the method of your madness, you can bet I’ll be cheering from the cheap seats hoping for a public trainwreck. And when the carnage is complete, I’ll copy and paste your meltdown into an email to share with friends and co-workers. It’s public passive e-gressiveness, and it’s beautiful.

Mom's nose blowing scares/delights baby

This video had us laughing for hours so we just had to share it on our blog. Can't wait till Jude starts laughing...

Jude in Black & White....But Brighter than Sunshine

In case you need to get caught up, here's the first two months of Jude....in black and white, set to one of my favorite songs, Brighter than Sunshine. Enjoy.

Jude Loves the Bumpo!

Jude's 8th Week of Life

Here's a few pics recapping a busy week for the little man. Doctor's office on Tuesday for four shots (booo). He took them like a champ, but Mom had to look away :).

Jude also celebrated his first Fat Tuesday with dinner at the Crossroads Public House in the Lakeview Neighborhood. Nice little Irish pub, but definitely a college crowd. by 9pm I think the average age in that place was 21 1/2, and anytime there's beads on the table things could get out of control in a hurry!

Happy Friday, everyone. It's St. Patty's weekend in Chicago, and the Bennets are taking a year off of the mayhem. Have fun on your pub crawls and trolly rides, everyone. We'll see you next year...

I'm 2 Months old!!!

Hungry? Why wait..

When Boredom Attacks

check out these.........JAZZ HANDS!!!!

John, George, Ringo, Paul and.....Jude!   The 5th Beatle!

Baby JB rocking the Mohawk hat that Grandma Menk made for him. Thanks Gramma!

Splish Splash Jude's Takin' a Bath

Chicago Public Transit: The Usual Suspects

I kicked off this Friday morning with another episode of Chicago Transit Theatre. I ride the bus, but the cast of characters on any public transportation is usually the same. CTA gets you where you need to go, but you pay a much larger price than the $2.25 fee. Meet my constituency:

-          Mouth Breather Guy: Your constant wheezing and puppy breath make me want to wrap my mouth around the bus exhaust. Halitosis? NO-sis!  I know the four steps from the bus stop to your seat may have you out of breath, but you are poisoning the air with your mouth stank. Close up shop and use your nostrils, your breath smells like a butt just drank coffee.

-          Cell Phone Girl: You are on every bus I’ve ever ridden.  I know your boyfriend be crazy, but the other 60 people on this bus don’t care. Who the hell are you talking to at 7am? Wait, let me guess, another girl on another bus? I’m starting to think there isn’t even anyone on the other line and you are just being loud to disrupt everyone around you because you know it makes us want to murder you. Mission accomplished.

-          Obscure Loud Music Guy: You disrupt everyone’s commute. The $3 headphones you bought do not contain the garbage that comes out of them. Despite having music pointed directly into your eardrums, you still set the volume to “obnoxious”. I do not know your nationality, but you are brown’ish and I detect horns and woodwinds from the music. Not that that matters, it would just be nice to focus my anger on a specific genre, rather than music in general.

-          Book Reading Lady: There were no seats available so you stand.....and read. Seriously? You are so into that self-help book that you won’t set it down for 5 minutes? Oh I see, it’s better to bounce like a Plinko puck off of the other passengers because one of your tiny, frail arms won’t support you AND the book. Your 17 cats may love you, and I’m sure the ficus in your living room that you named Henry approves, but you can wait to read your book until you get to Starbucks with the rest of people who want to look intelligent.

-          Homeless Guy: I appreciate that you ask how I’m doing before you ask for “a little change to help get your mom’s medication”, but being nice will get you nothing from me and you smell like Charlie Sheen.

-          Bus Driver Guy/Girl: I know the City of Chicago is trying to squeeze every … single…last…dime they can from it’s residents, but there is no room in the back or in the middle or on top of this bus. You have us crammed in here like a Chinese commuter train and I think I may actually have a leg in another man’s jeans. I know it’s your job to get people to where they need to go, but aside from hugging the homeless mouth breather who is already chest to chest with me, you are out of luck. 

The bottom line is that nobody really likes to use public transit, but it's there and it works (sorta). I suppose we can't all stare at our phones and avoid eye contact with the rest of the world, but there's always hope...

Ride on.

Whip It

My company is either out of Marketing ideas or they're on to something brilliant. Last year our Juicy Fruit brand introduced the "Serenading Unicorn", where you can send people personal serenades with a Unicorn lip synching to the likes of Michael Bolton and Boyz to Men.

And now this.

Keenan Cahill has become "famous" over the past several months for lip synching songs himself. He is a  dwarf, and he is a littler peculiar looking, but he does make for compelling YouTube videos.

If you have the time and don't mind killing a few more brain cells, I recommend checking out his "DJ's Falling in Love Again" and "Teenage Dream" videos as well.