Honea Express

Archive for the ‘gift’ Category

Hello, and welcome to a new feature which I’ll most likely only do once, the Wednesday Review! The Wednesday Review is where I review some products that were sent to me for said reviewing. I have a whole policy on this, which you can find here, but mark me, I don’t review something unless I like it. If I don’t like it then I wrap the item in newspaper and pass it off as a gift to one of my backup friends on their respective birthday and/or religious holiday. Unless it really sucks, then I’ll tell you all about it, because that’s my obligation to you, the reader.

If you read the fine print on the side of the box you will also undoubtedly be aware that this first, and possibly only, edition of the Wednesday Review! also includes tidbits and news! Contents may have shifted, but probably not.

First the tidbits and the news. I’m not really sure how to tell them apart, so tidbits and news will be lumped together for your reading enjoyment:

• I got a new job! Actually, I got more than one, but only one is live and it’s a big deal (especially to my previously starving children). I’m now on staff over at BabyCenter as part of their FameBaby site. As a matter of fact, I just welcomed myself. In public.
• You may recall me talking about my friend Troy Olsen and his new single.  Well, he’s doing great. Since my post, but not because of my post, he has been featured on iTunes twice. He’s also been all over some country charts and his Summer Thing video is popular on CMT.
• The lovely Dan Hughes and his band of merry men and women are currently underway on their epic walk for a cause. The Hadrian’s Walk is an amazing undertaking and I’m truly sorry that my finances prevented me from being a part of it.  Yes, I know, we’re taking the family to Walt Disney World this summer, but a) the total cost of airfare, park tickets and accommodations for the four of us going to WDW is less than the airfare alone would have been for the two of us to fly to England, and b) holy crap, this vacation is biting me in the ass.
• Adventure Time With Finn and Jake is freaking killing me. It’s probably not good for kids, as they talk about death, kidnapping, farts and being sexy, but I let mine watch it anyway. They can’t hear anything over my laughter.
• I sell wine! Well, not me personally (although I used to sell wine personally at Cost Plus World Market many moons ago), but rather the Clever Girls Collective, of which I am a member — this despite my being neither clever or a girl, but I am collective and WINE!  There are deals and grapes and fancy descriptions and if you buy 3 bottles the shipping is FREE! Yes, free.

In closing (of this part), I have super, big and awesome things in the works that I can’t expand on at the moment because super, big awesome things didn’t fit in the title of this post, however, trust me, they are all that and more and I’ll be spilling as soon as possible, or as the kids say, ASAP.

This is turning out to be a really long post.

Okay, reviews! Reviews of stuff that I received for the sole purpose of reviewing! But only the things I like! Yes! You’ll see the crap I didn’t like on your birthday. Wrapped in newspaper.

Games from Hasbro: True story, until a few months ago we had a version of Chutes and Ladders that featured Dora the Explorer. The kids loved it and then subsequently broke it through a series of high kicks. We never had a version of Operation, but the neighbors did and the kids called it Surgery and it was good.

Enter the good people at Hasbro. They sent me two (2) games to review, a Toy Story 3 (and here’s my thought-provoking review of the film, free of charge) version of Chutes and Ladders and an Operation game that features Shrek. Needless to say, they’re a big hit.

The ladders go up, the chutes go down and everyone has a friend in me.  Also, Shrek has eaten things that would make the dog blush.

Please note, while I did not receive it there is also a Toy Story 3 edition of Connect 4, which can only mean one thing: sequel!

Okay, this is the part where you’re going to think I’m just angling for Hasbro to send me their entire Star Wars line (which would be awesome), but it’s the truth. Can you handle the truth? My kids freaking love these games, and here’s the weird part, we play them together as a family and we all have fun and there is NO TELEVISION REQUIRED, but sometimes we keep it on to watch the Daily Show.

Take that, video games and sexting!

And now for something completely different.

Man-bathing from Dove: No, they didn’t send me an actual man bathing, rather they inspired me to be one. Dove sent me a collection of their new (and first!) product line made exclusively for men: MEN+CARE.  To be clear, this is for men only, and if my wife is reading this she should consider herself warned. MEN+CARE has been known to grow hair on test animals. Of course those test animals were hairy men, but still, it could happen.

Perhaps you’re familiar with their “Wakey, Wakey” ad. Please note, there is no implication whatsoever that “wakey, wakey” should be followed by “hands off snaky.” You see, Dove is trying to market to men, not break them.

The items sent to me include the Active Clean shower tool, which is dual sided in case you’re entertaining, or even if you’re kind of boring. This isn’t your wife’s shower tool.  Insert crude joke here.

They also sent me Body and Face Wash as well as the Body and Face Bar. If you’re so dense as to have to ask the difference between the two, the wash has MICRO MOISTURE, duh. How the hell did you read this far? I swear.

The point is, the MEN+CARE line is made for men and it cleans deep and smells good. For the first time in years I can walk out of the shower not smelling like caramel butter and coconut mango. The guys in the locker room are ecstatic.

In fact, I just used it. Lean in and take a whiff. That’s man clean, baby.

And so, four hours into this post and I still have items left to discuss.  I think that I’ve guaranteed the return of the Wednesday Review! Or maybe not.  I like to keep you on your toes (and reaching for the stars).

Thanks for playing.

Cheese and wine are fairly good company.  We all improve with age and someday we will all be consumed.  Two of us by the other.  One by worms or hellfire.  It depends on who you ask.

This birthday started like most do, with somebody puking.  However, it was the wrong midnight and things were only technically so and not yet recognized by the committees and panels that decide such things. No gifts had been exchanged. That didn’t stop him from appearing in the hallway with a day’s worth of gruel caked to his hair, an ear full of corn and a body coated in shades of dinner.  His trail read like Hansel on a bender. We followed it carefully.

He was the second son in a matter of days to spend his night reliving that which was once glorious. Neither found the sequel to be nearly as appealing.

The first one woke in the wee hours with the cutting cries — the cries that cut through the stereo, TV, what passes for conversation and what’s left of the night, only to make your heart stop even as your feet start and you run through walls (not around them) getting to your child at the exact same moment that the scream began. He woke like that and he was covered with five pies worth of used blueberries.

The women in the audience screamed. Bossman Bob Cormier take one look at Bill Travis and barfed on Principal Wiggins. Principal Wiggins barfed on the lumberjack that was sitting next to him. Mayor Grundy barfed on his wife’s tits. But when the smell hit the crowd, that’s when Lardass’ plan really started to work. Girlfriends barfed on boyfriends. Kids barfed on their parents. A fat lady barfed in her purse. The Donnelly-twins barfed on each other. And the women’s auxiliary barfed all over the Benevolent Order of Antelopes. And Lardass just sat back and enjoyed what he created. A complete and total Barf-A-Rama.

That’s pretty much how it happened.

And then he was better and life went on and we healed and we lived and we fell down a rabbit hole, and then the other one was standing in the corner covered in tears and culinary memories. Everything is circular.

It’s been sunny since January.  Today it is snowing lightly.  The clouds are grey and slightly heavy and they catch on trees as they roll down the mountain.  It is a temporary melancholy.  A remembrance of what has passed.  It does not cut with cries or stand silently in the corner, but it too has come back from places we’ve long forgotten.  It too will be consumed.

Birthdays are like that — reminders of what once was glorious, a tease of what may be; a temporary slice of melancholy with candles lit upon it.  In between we heal and we live and we pour the wine more freely.  We hope it will all stay down.

The snow is a nice touch.

__________

Quote from Stand By Me

“Oh, blood. Somebody must have died there.”

He is five-years-old and I’m standing outside the bathroom on the campus of his elementary school. The door is propped open and the floor is covered with paper towels and urine. There is blood on the sidewalk between me and the tile.

“I doubt anyone died there,” I tell him. “Today,” I keep to myself.

Maybe it is spit heavy with dye and candy.

He is unfazed by the possibility of death or by its looming presence. He is running in the cloudy haze of springtime, fresh from finding a favorite sweater among the memories of the lost and found. He is jumping cracks and lines drawn from chalk.

I am walking a growing distance behind him. My sweatshirt is pulled tight. The springtime wind is sharp and cold.

My head is full of medicine and mucus. The image is unpleasant and the reality is worse. It is a day after my 38th birthday and I am tired and my Facebook wall is full. It is a good feeling to be thought of, but even the warmth of sentiment is lost in the breeze. I pull my sweatshirt tighter.

We are home and the boys are not listening. My wife is listening to the J. Geils Band and everything is a freeze frame.

There are cards in the mailbox full of checks and signatures. I read every line, even the words written by a company that has never met me. I put the money in my wallet and throw the cards away. They’ve served their purpose and theirs is to be forgotten and recycled. Perhaps they will come back as a love note or parking ticket, a poem or a receipt. Maybe a birthday card is all there is.

I’m behind in my work. I’m behind in my bills. The daylight lasts an hour longer and it is not enough.

There is cold coffee and leftover spaghetti on my desk- a temporary stop before they are a part of me, like the spring and the wind, life and death, my boys, my wife, a wall written on and mailboxes filled. Like work and bills and walks of growing distance, everything is medicine and everything is mucus. It is heavy with dye and candy.

Everything is a freeze frame and for some reason I find comfort there.