Invisible mom

When someone tries to take my picture, I turn into the dorkiest stiff that ever posed. Ick! I look at the few photos of me in our photo library and cringe. Sorry, Ira. When I'm dead and gone, you'll only have a handful of shitty pictures to remember me by. If I've learned anything from Top Model, is that Tyra will keep you around if she thinks you have potential and are willing to work on "learning your angles." Maybe I can fix this with some practice.

Heylove is a professional model and she was happy to show me some common mistakes.

Here's before:

See? The jaw is not relaxed, she's really not showing you the ears, which are her best features.


Here's the after:

Jaw is relaxed and defined, ears are up. I like how this one looks candid. She's not mugging at all.

This dog makes it look so easy!

The one about dogs

Yesterday this dog escaped our home and went missing for about fifteen minutes. Like outside missing, gone without a trace missing, who let the dogs out missing!! Luckily she was found in a neighbor's fenced yard and all is right and well in Casa de Neon.

A good thing, too because imagining my life without this precious pup was making me panic in a major way. She is the only one I live with who will do what I say most of the time. Being taken seriously is apparently something I value highly.

You know who is not a naughty dog? Cousin Roxy, who we dogsat a couple of weeks ago:

I mean, she's not too terribly naughty. She only responds when you call her about 50% of the time, but open the front door and this dog won't run away with the circus. I can live with these odds. Plus she's about two pounds of bump on a log cuteness and loves to be curled around your neck like a chihuahua-skin stole.

Who knows where Heylove would have ended up on her oddysey had we not found her. Tell you what. First place I was going to look was Del Taco. She's got a thing for nachos.

It's art, dad

The kid loves to draw. He often comes home from school with an armful of art. We have him tell us about each one and then we very slyly recycle most of them. The secret is out! Of course, we keep the ones that are remarkable for whatever reason, be it likeness for the original object, humor, or achieving some kind of artistic milestone. Here are a couple of my favorites from the last month or two.


"Tacnayn (evil Nyancat)." Not bad!



"LEGO Ninjago Guys." I don't know if he copied this from another picture or what, but I love that it's all kind of in perspective, with the red guy in the center being the biggest and the guys on the side being smaller and in the background.



"Mega Chief Louie Louie!" This one just cracks me up. The face and the hands! It was inspired by a tiki decoration at his school.

Being the recipient of awesome kid art is probably one of my favorite parenting perks.

Phoning it in series

It's time again to put the least amount of effort I can into a blog post. What. It's very daunting to update after so long.

Here are some pictures from my phone, that small computer I keep at the bottom of my very large purse. It makes phone calls, too. Oh, and I threw in some other photos from my real camera for good measure.

It was really hot out for a couple of weeks here. We kept cool with some yogurt, sno-cones and garden hoses. And by we, I mean some of us and all of us (sometimes).


Big spoon. Since Ira is five, he can choose five yogurt toppings. He always picks candy toppings that freeze into rocks when they hit the yogurt: gummies, bubblegum balls, etc. I used to do the same thing when I was a kid. It took a long time to master the art of frozen yogurt toppings.


Osaka Ya. Our first ever trip there after hearing about it for years. It was way worth it.


Garden hose + crazy face.

We also spent some time in the city, where it is infinitely cooler than our town in so many ways. We went to the Academy of Sciences, the Japanese Tea Garden and met some friends for dinner.

Academy of Sciences. All those little teeth! The two in the center on the bottom are loose.


Academy of Sciences + rainforest exhibit + dad hugs.


Golden Gate Park + sunny smile. When I was about to deliver Ira in the hospital some 5 years ago, I made sure to tick the box for the extra cute kid.



Japanese Tea Garden. A little tea before dinner. His eyes are so brown-green. Or green-brown. Not hazel though, right?


We also went to Japantown where I found this $1.50 store and hence, this $1.50 hat. It didn't make me feel too conspicuous, so I bought it. I hardly ever wear hats and so they feel sort of forced to me.


I'm teaching myself Photoshop, that's why this picture has words on it. It also has words on it because I really want to take a moment to lament that I don't know how to make a presentable face for pictures. Is there a skin cream for that? An online tutorial? A university extension class? ANYTHING? My life is in crisis. I stay up nights worrying that Ira will have no pictures of me to show his children where they got their unphotogenic faces from. Apparently in my worst nightmare here, his future wife didn't tick the box for extra cute kids at the hospital. I already hate her.