Snagging Seacrest's Sharpie

A local charity was having a telethon - fundraiser today and none other than Ryan Seacrest was the celebrity star/host.

My kids (age 10 & 7) love the American Idol shows and my daughter has this microphone that will transmit over an FM station. (WTH was I thinking??? It's SO loud.) It's also got buttons for applause and to hear RS say "We're back live, on American Idol"

So we took that, plus a cast CD, and a permanent marker, and the camera, all in this giant purse I carry around (and get laughed at for now & then but hey, whatever.)

We got there and I saw him off to the side, not on camera at the time. Some teenage girls went up to him and he did autographs, so I said "come on, kids!" and we went around the end of a red velvet rope. (Trespassing. I'm some role model, huh?)

We waited until those girls were done and then he looked at us and I asked if he would give my kids autographs. He was really nice about it, asking their names and personalizing what he was signing. The people with him saw my camera and turned the kids around and said "Mom wants to take a picture, Ryan" and he got right down to their level. Then he came forward to shake my hand and said hi. (He sooooo wants me. Don't give me that crap about batting for another team.....snicker...) I took the marker out of his hand and he said "Is that yours?" I replied "yes, thanks for taking the time to talk to my kids, I know how busy you are today." Then I stuck the marker in my purse and we said our goodbyes... while we were walking away my daughter said "Here's your marker, mom" and handed me mine.

Ooops.

Me & the Riddler

So, I promised the story of how I met Frank Gorshin who played the role of The Riddler on the Batman tv series a zillion years ago. Don't get too excited.

Back oh, a few ::::cough cough 20 cough cough::::::: years ago when I was in college, I met a geek, uh, a guy from RPI. There's a great limerick in there somewhere, but I don't have it.

He took me "home" to Connecticut for a visit to his (Oh MY gosh) huge house. Then we went over to his friend M's house which was BIGGER. Geek had more or less told me that M's dad was Frank, and who he was. I assumed he wouldn't be around.

At some point I had to use the bathroom and Geek took me down this hall, around a bend, etc. When I exited the powder room I took a wrong turn somewhere and I was wandering through the dining room and pretty much bumped smack into Mr. G himself.

I murmured a polite apology and asked where the heck the boys were and he pointed me in the right direction.

I'd like to say that me and Geek hit it off, married, and the Riddler danced at my wedding. Sadly, no.

See, I told you - today's a slow day.

Things you can learn from the NY Post

1.) Jessica Simpson is portraying Daisy Duke in a movie. There was a photo of her all tramped up, I mean, in costume for a scene, in in the paper. My 7 y.o. son's head snapped to attention and he said " WHO is that?"

2.) There are 60 diseases you can catch from Pidgeon Droppings.

3.) Some idiot sold ad space on his forehead. Mr. Carly and I debated whether we'd do it for 15 days for the right price. I said "What if you had to go to a family funeral during that time?" He said "well that would be in the contract of course, that for something like that you could take it off". At that point I mocked him by saying "Oh yeah, cause you know all those Ebay deals are worked out by teams of lawyers". In other words, slow day at the cafe today for breakfast. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

I am so bummed right now....

So, I met this woman recently and we seemed to hit it off, and I thought we'd be friends for various reasons that seem pointless to mention right now.

She invited me to stop by this afternoon, and I said, well, I get out of work at 2, the kids get home at 3, we'll be over.

When I got there, she was already sort of pink cheeked and laughing but I thought "so, she had a glass of wine before I got here, so what?"

She proceeded to get shitfaced, in front of my kids. I'm talking, she slurred her words, would say to them randomly, "come sit with me," and want to hug them, etc. My 10 year old was kind of "no, I'm sitting over here" and seemed pretty adept at maintaining her own "space". My 7 year old is not really old enough to pick up on my muttered cues and said "why are you talking like that?" Did I mention she was slumped on the couch, kind of droopy faced and sad?

I am soooooooooooooooooooo sad right now. I can't have this person around my kids if she consistently behaves this way. I can't "hang around" with her if she's going to drink herself into that state when we come over.

So now I thought I had this great new friend and it was fun and cool and now I am sad for her and worried about what to do to try to help her and whether I even can.

People who annoyed me today

In chronological order....

1. The person on my team who *ALWAYS* annoys me. Some of you know who that is, so we'll just gloss over that. It's so repetitive. Do.Your.Own.Effing.Job.

2. The prissy project manager who took my "I will try to get my boss to give you an estimate by EOD Monday" IM and thanked me in an email (cc: to the entire eastern hemisphere) for committing to have specs by then. WTF are specs? I said we might be able to tell her a ballpark cost. Said PM sends me an instant message at 2:06 "Oh, are you still here? I can stop over" forcing me to repeat that no, I leave at 2pm, I need to leave now, to be home when my kids get home, because it's, like, a bazillion degrees below zero, and social services frowns on you leaving children outdoors in that type of scenario.

3. The lady in the minivan behind me on the way home. I was going 65 on 787 which has a limit of 55. She was so far up my backside my little magnet yellow ribbon on my trunk lid leapt onto her front grill. SHE HAD KIDS IN HER VAN. Slow down, wench.

4. The girl at the dentist's office, with adidas sandals and socks on. Repeat, it's a bazillion degrees below zero and there's snow everywhere.

5. The pinhead at the dentist's office who was SO full of himself and his cell phone and couldn't stop talking on it. Someone didn't show up for work and he was going to fire them but then THAT person called and he found out they'd been in the hospital and so well, I just wanted to speak to you man to man about this but we're ok now and this is behind us and you can work your shift tonight.... I actually flipped this guy off as he was leaving. I swear to you.

6. The lady at the pediatrician's office (this morning my daughter casually said "I have strep throat, Mom"... well, it's a sinus infection, so there....) ... anyway this lady is the sniffle counterpart to the Coughing Man in Florida that Shamus had to deal with. She blew her nose 40 times. The nerve, how dare she go to a doctor's office when she's sick??

While at the doctor's office my son looked at something and said "Mommy can I play with that?" I realized it was Not A Toy. It was a little gimmic with buttons and a "gas meter" to help you figure out if you're low on Testosterone. I swear.

So, I decide I am, because here are the questions:

• decreased libido (it's 10 degrees colder in my bedroom than the rest of the house because it's an addition with a crawl space so it's basically like sleeping in the garage) - YES
• lack of energy (have you met me?) - YES
• decreased strength, endurance (pffft. ) - YES
• loss of height - well, NO
• decreased enjoyment of life (in the fabulous northeast working for my fabulous company?) - YES
• are you sad and/or grumpy? - YES YES and / or YES!
• eeerections less strong - um, ....
• deterioration in ability to play sports ( bad in highschool probably worse now) - YES

I gotta go make an appointment! Bye...

Nike Pro commercial

http://niketown.nike.com/niketown/catalog/category.jsp?categoryId=52627&navtype=ntcomtout

if you look at the video part of this page, you will see some of a pretty efffffing* cool Nike commercial, shown during Idol


*I never used to say efffffing until I started reading blogs composed by various people I know (and sort-of-know).

Note to Omar

Dear Omar,

thank you for picking my kids up on your big yellow schoolbus. It's snowing AGAIN and I'm really not interested in going out there. I know that this is regents week and the local school administrators are not CAPABLE of saying "no one except high school kids have to show up", but really. The reason this world is so fucked up is that MEN run it. If Moms were in charge, you'd be home watching whatever funny shit you like to watch on tv.

I hope you enjoyed the Christmas cookies I gave you. (If you're not christian, they are of course, Holiday Cookies.) I noticed you put the gift bag on the dashboard and gave me a friendly wave - that was cool. Just so you know, I also noticed that when you hit the gas, the bag of cookies fell off the dashboard and all the little baggies fell out all over. I hope you're not used to dropping little baggies of important stuff all over. I hope the cookies didn't break too much.

I love your dreads, but could you please stop playing your rap station when you're driving my kids around? It's mildly disconcerting to see my seven year old son stand up (in his little dorky Catholic school uniform, complete with shitty clip on tie) and sing "I Like Big Butts and I Can't Lie...." et cetera.

Have a great day, and drive safely. Thanks for taking my little monsters, uh, sweet babies, out of my hair for a while. I'm going to use some PTO time and watch Sex and the City DVD's. Wheee!

love,
Carly

Degrees

It was eighteen degrees out this morning. ABOVE zero. Wheee!

Either:
A. my blood has thickened to the consistency of the McDonald's lard (just before the fryers are turned on in the morning)
B. I've hopped over the last hurdle to insanity
C. I've resigned myself to the totally unappealing weather situation which will continue to suck over the next week or so... I can't bring myself to look any farther ahead in the forecast, not that they know jack anyway...

or... it really IS warmer today, considering that yesterday it was MINUS thirteen.


So, who watched Bachelorette last night? Is she stupid? Why keep the crying frenchie, who/whom from here on out, I shall refer to as Le Pussycat? Why keep Jerry? I'm sorry, he's a player and I knew it the first time I saw him telling the guys "I told her I felt like I was meant to be here" B. S. !! You can shine like silver all you want, but you're just aluminum, (or something like that...BNL)

Supernanny - yes, I know it's an impostor but I love Jo and I enjoy the show. I really felt terrible for that Mom, as she sat there crying while she was trying to get her baby to go to sleep. This is what's wrong with our family structures nowadays. That poor Mom had no one to show her "here's how to handle this, and here's how to do that..." I'd be willing to bet her mother doesn't live nearby or doesn't visit very often and her mother in law just treats her like crap. She doesn't seem to have someone who can offer the "been there, done that" advice as to how to teach your kids how to behave.

I was lucky on the sleep front. When my daughter was very young we started playing a small music box when we put her into bed and she learned to associate that with falling asleep. Small wrinkle... she's 10, we still play it every night when we tuck her in. I wonder if her husband will like hearing Music of the Night every evening?

My son needs the radio on Delilah, but that's another matter. I can not STAND her. She's too syrupy, blechhh. Kind of funny coming from me, isn't that? However I just find her cloying and all too quick to bring up her religious beliefs in the context of EVERY conversation with callers. It seems to me that if you LIVE like a good member of the Christian faith, or of any other religion, you shouldn't have to preach to the people around you constantly about whatever God(s) you believe in. If they see you and respect you and in some way try to be more like you, then you've (uh, what's the word? represented? I am too white to use that word...) "served" well.

It's the same thing that bugs me about this one realtor who goes to my church, sits way up in front and acts like an extra-holy prissy, and I know because she sold my house to me that she's as dishonest as the day is long.

It's really creepy to get up during the night and hear middle - of - the - night - DJ voices coming from your kid's room.

String of Pearls

Raising a child is like stringing pearls, only there is no knot in the end of the string. I feel like I do the same things OVER AND OVER....

My daughter is 10. She is half-way-to-grownup.

My son is 7. He's not a baby, not a toddler, not even a little kid. He's "a kid"

I missed it. Somewhere in those strings of pearls all of the "baby" moments slipped by me.

When Irish Eyes are Fibbing

So I was TRYING to mind the bank's business (or at least participate in my meetings via phone)while staying home with Sick Daughter and my cell phone rang in the middle of a meeting. I had a Bad Feeling and it wasn't from last night's dinner.

It was the school nurse. Ut oh.

Immediately she began scolding me: "I've been trying to call for a while and the phone has been busy." Excuse me? Why do I have to explain to you what I'm doing, using MY PHONE? I could be calling QVC for crying out loud, and it's still none of your business. I explained as politely as possible that I was participating in a MEETING. As in, yes, I am WORKING FROM HOME. Hrrrmphhh. Whatever.

Then she told me that D was in her office, saying that he didn't feel well. "He's very pale but he doesn't have a fever." I resisted the urge to tell her that he is pale on the 4th of July, because of the Irish blood on daddy's side, and that he is not sick really, but perhaps envious of the fact that Sick Daughter was in Mom's bed watching TV when he left the house.

So I spoke to my son, who used Tears and Sad Voices to ask me to come to get him. I promised to get there "soon". Meaning, as soon as I figure out how to watch daughter AND go fetch son. (Did I mention it's below ZERO again and that there are penguins wandering around in my backyard?)

My neighbor is retired (but hasn't started his vegetable garden yet) so I used an emergency chip and called him to run over to sit with sick child #1 (the One Who Really Was Sick... or at least... The One Who Thought of It First....)

Neighbor came right over to watch tv and keep an eye on #1, although the first thing he did when he walked into my family room is look out the window to see how HIS house looks from mine... that was wierd... but he's cool so it's ok.

When I got to school my son looked at me with a studied "sad face" and then did the dramatic "throw myself against mommy and wrap my arms around her" move. I tried not to let the nurse see me rolling my eyes. We got home and I could see him looking toward where the TV was...off.

"Well, get your pj's on and get back in bed, D". HUH? Tht wasn't what he expected. "Can I read?" "Yup, in your bed." Hmm. Scowl. That didn't go as he planned.

Both kids slept for a while because I would not let them watch TV, dammit!! Then a light lunch was offered, because, well, you never know. (He wanted a bologna sandwich.... it's a miracle! He's cured!!)

It is now midafternoon and I am tired, and

we

are

watching

T.V.


.... I surrender!!

All together now....

Q: What did George and Bob say to St. Peter?

A: Heeeeeeeeeeeeeere's Johnny!




Can you imagine how much they're laughing up there?


:::sniffle::::

I'm a medium or something

Well, let's see. I mocked snow, and got a blizzard.

I made fun of puking, and guess what my daughter said this morning? ( "Mommmmmmmy....." ) I got the deluxe package. Tears, pale face, etc., but no actual puke. Bonus! So I said OK, stay home, I'll stay with you. Watch tv in my bed honey, you'll feel better. Now my son is jealous ("She gets to watch tv all day?")

I will now make fun of winning the lottery, and of people who complain about midwinter thaws melting all of the snow. (I'm high enough...floods don't scare me.) I will also make fun of people who won the lottery and subsequently purchased huge homes complete with studio space for all of their art projects, exercise equipment, and hot tub; those people who, for some reason I can't comprehend, need to leave their luxury homes, to take luxury vacations and get massages and manicures while they're not sunning themselves on the Lido deck.

I will make fun of people who quit work so that they can concentrate on their vegetable gardens and their charity work. I don't have a vegetable garden, but I would, darn it. If only I could keep the deer away.

Baby, it's cold outside!

As you may know I am in upstate NY and we're getting a blizzard... that's what I get for making fun of all of those people just trying to get their shopping done while I was destroying supermarket displays.

I heard from sister and she doesn't have to go in to work (she works nights) so I am VERY relieved. I made a pot of spaghetti sauce, then chicken parm and I have to say it came out pretty well!! We drank the bottle of wine that I got the other night first, with some bruschetta. Yummy. Wish you all were here, I'd share. I love to have people over and cook for them. I usually make WAY too much food when I have people over.

We are watching Spiderman 1on DVD .... can #2 be far behind? Will my cabin fever be enough to keep everyone in the house warm? Stay tuned. We're getting out the board games, folks. This is A Very Serious Situation.

Not Quite Kodak Moments

So today 15 called me "a cool person trapped in a Mom's life" and that inspired this post about (drumroll...)

Infamous Moments in My Life As a Mom

We'll start with my son's top four.....at least the four that come to mind anyway...

#4 - D's first day of school:
I got him dressed in his catholic school uniform, gray pants, white shirt, little plaid tie (the tie is ugh plaid but the rest looks cute) He threw his arms around my neck and whimpered "Mommy I don't wanna go there."

I said "Honey, you'll have fun. Thomas and Patrick will be there." So then he said "Do I have to wear this? The other kids are gonna laugh at me." I said "Why? They'll be wearing the same thing. You look nice".

"I look like Bull-dozer-head Guy." ::::Mommy, with nothing more to say::::::



#3, the day D met our new pastor ...
He was talking to several parishioners and then he (the priest) turned and took a step while he was talking to someone, and stepped on D's foot! So of course he apologized to D and started talking to my husband (I was still with the rest of the choir). Then a minute later D says "Look at my shoe" and he says "It's nice, buddy, but it looks like there's something on it".... D retorts "That's where you stepped on me!"

#2 The Ant
Years ago we had a little issue with carpenter ants. My child actually got bit by one, and turned to me with the ant hanging off his finger. I tried to brush the ant of and the effing thing had actually sunk whatever it is that ants bite with into his finger so I had to PICK it off. Ew, ew, and ew. Then I had to call the pediatrician; "Is there a shot or anything that he needs??" Oh, so much fun. But not as much fun as...

#1 The Dog Story!!!
I put the kids in aftercare, which I don't normally do.

So I went to pick them up and the teacher in charge said "Gee, he's not himself today." I vaguely nodded at her thinking "Uh huh, they hate being here after school" and she said "Did you have to go by the police station?" That got my full attention and I said "Excuse me?"

She then told me that "Your son told me about the dog". When I finally conveyed to her that I had NO IDEA what she was talking about she said "Your son told us that a robber broke into your home last night and shot and killed your dog." No part of this was true.

I then found out that he had told his homeroom teacher the same story so we went by her class on the way out. After he apologized she asked him to wait outside a moment. She then let me know that last week he'd told her that our neighbor's home burned down and one of them died. Oh. My. God.

I can't remember what we did to punish him. It seems like there was somewhere we had planned to bring him, a buddy's birthday party or something, and that was nixed. For a while, EVERYTHING he told us, we grilled him. Did that really happen, or did you imagine it? Because you have to tell us when you're pretending and you can't pretend when grownups don't know you're pretending!!! Oy vey.


It's not just stories about my son that I remember...

I only have one for B, my daughter, but it's a kicker; it happened, 11/7/2002 (It was two days before my birthday; and she was EIGHT YEARS OLD. Keep that in mind.)

I had her take a shower in the afternoon before dinner. I normally comb conditioner through her hair which at the time was down to her shoulder blades.

A while later I went looking for her to see what she wanted for dinner. She was looking at herself in the mirror. I picked up a comb and started combing out her wet hair and she quickly said "I combed my hair already".
I started combing it anyway just to get the last few tangles out. It's a warm-fuzzy sort of cute-kitten thing to comb your little girl's hair. I love to do it. All of a sudden I noticed a piece of hair sticking out in a funny direction. I realized it had been cut! I gasped in horror. "Who did this to you?" I thought that certainly someone had done it to her at school.

She gave me this horribly guilty look and said "I did it."

I was so upset. I ran my fingers through her hair and chunks of it were gone over her right ear. It was terrible. One piece was cut down so that the end was barely an inch from her scalp.

I was crying, heartsick. We have been growing her hair out for almost 3 years. Three years of untangling and braiding and trimming only the ends and so on. It was so discouraging because I really thought we'd have to cut it all off because of what she'd done. I figured, at best, it might be chin length, and probably feathered all over.

So I was sobbing and yelling at her "what were you thinking? why would you do this? Little babies do this... not eight year olds!" She showed me the garbage can where she she had dropped the pieces of hair and I saw about a handful of hair! She had used her little school scissors. Thank goodness that she didn't have REAL scissors and her hair was wet and not easy to cut!

(Mr Carly) came in as I was melting down and yelling. He couldn't believe she had done it either. He told her that she would get a haircut as short as him. (which would basically be a buzz cut). I was still crying....
So then he called our haircut place, and his friend, the owner Sue, was there. She said (with a sigh) "They ALL do this, sooner or later...bring her in."

She later told me that she knew that if I couldn't even call her myself, it was BAD.

* * *

I really have to admit that I have nothing to complain about if these are my "biggest problems" so far. Sure, we've had the tonsils (puke in the car on the way home) and the teeth extractions (more puke), and the time I puked AND my kid puked at the same time, (not in a car though). But all in all they are healthy and wonderful and we are blessed. And now I can pretty much watch anybody puke and not really care! And that, my friends, is a Life Skill.

Welcome aboard

If you haven't read 15 minute lunch please do. What am I saying? I have 3 readers and you're all in my links. Now I can get to your page easily so that I can Sametime you if you don't post often enough. Anyway.

I have been in his car and it is SO not like a minivan, it hurts me. No, I do not drive a minivan. If my husband were to buy me a minivan, I would lie down in the driveway and ask him to drive right over me with it. (He'd have to kill me to get me into it.) So I do not own a minivan and yet I do not own a convertible. It makes me deeply sad. I once had a Mustang convertible (rented, but why nitpick? I had it for 3 weeks. It was mine!!) and had a great time driving from Portland to Seattle. Do you know that outside of Seattle there is actually a sign that says, "I-90, Boston" ??

So (insert another "anyway" here), I pretty much said to 15, "so when are you taking me to lunch in your convertible?" and he actually DID take me for a drive to Mickey D's, because it was a nice sunny (but windy, as I recall) day. We were eating and he noticed first, I think, that it was starting to rain, and had to point out to me "let's get going, the top of my car is down." Normally it is hard to distract me when there are fries around.

I returned to work rather soggy because when we got outside the storm had increased quickly (fast wind brought it in PDQ) and we got soaked because I was basically useless in getting the top of the car up. Pffft. Don't think I didn't get remarks from the resident idiots I sat near at the time for looking drenched.

The new Mustangs are niiiiiice. I want sonic blue, or legend lime (bahahaha ...please.) Blue, with nooooo leather seats (too effing cold in wintertime).

Cleanup in Aisles 5, 6, and 7

If you ever want to drive me utterly insane, lock me in a supermarket.

I swear to all that is holy, does ANY manager really believe that having racks of overpriced shit in the middle of EVERY aisle helps the traffic flow? Not that you know how overpriced the shit is because if you should for some reason pick up something off one of those racks, there is no price sticker on it. Don't buy stuff from those racks, people.

Honestly, didn't some wannabe engineer who dropped out from RPI figure out how wide to make the aisles so that you can't pass another cart easily if they have a even so much as a small bunch of (overpriced) flowers sticking out of the end of their basket?

This afternoon I was in the market with my two kids and I wasn't paying attention to what I was doing (shaddup, it's the crappy music they play). I crashed my cart right into the front edge of this big towering cardboard thing holding a bunch of O.S. It tipped toward me and somehow I caught it, and I pushed against it to put it upright again. Or so I thought. I let go, it fell toward me. I swore, I pushed it back, let go, it tipped again. Rinse, and repeat. I looked down at the front corner of the cardboard shelf and thought "Nice move, Exlax, you wrecked it, this thing is never going to stand upright again." I had a date once where the exact same thought crossed my mind. But where was I ? Oh right....

So I had no other choice but to literally LIFT the whole thing up and lay it down on its side. Little boxes of O.S. were falling everywhere. It was so damn embarrassing. I'm sure they're playing the tape upstairs in the security department even now, saying "Look how red her face is.... have you ever seen that colour??"

I could try to blame the cart but I actually got one that didn't have a locked wheel, rolled fairly straight, and it wasn't even that freaking "car" one that my kids still try to get me to use. The market was somewhat crowded because, you know, it's going to snow this weekend. So, We All Have to Buy Lots Of Food Because We Might Get Snowed In. (After the Christmas blizzard two years ago, I was out and about the next day. Hello! My mother in law could feed the entire town with the canned goods she keeps in her basement)

So I wandered around the market trying to find other O.S., (the things that were actually on my list, that is) because, you know, a manager's main duty is to rearrange the store as often as possible so that people can't actually find anything they intended to buy when they walked into the store. It's a good thing I didn't run into the manager, I have seen him and he is obscenely cheerful, and that definitely would have put me over the edge.

After what seemed like an eternity in the blazing fires of hell, I got to my FAVORITE part of the grocery store....the checkout lane, where some dumb kid stuffs my food into bags. I know I need to seek help about this issue, but it never fails to drive me up the wall that no matter how many bread items I have, they all go into ONE bag. "d'oh, it's bread, we'll put it in the same bag to protect it..." I always want to grab them by their "1 Year of Superior Service" pin and say howcanIenjoythatbreadafteryoucramitintoabaglikethat???

My second favorite moment is when they put my gallon of orange juice in the flimsy plastic bag that the gallon of milk is in. The plastic handles start to stretch and tear as the dimwit is putting it into the cart. No way will it make it up my front stairs.

I could go on and on. The last time I was there, the kid dropped my onion, watched it roll across the floor, picked it up, and said "Do you still want this?" Since it was in one of those bags (oh! those produce bags that you can NOT open...) I just said "yeah, whatever" which translates to "I just want to go home and cram this stuff into my cabinets so that I can have a glass of wine"

That's Where I'll Be, By the Sea (...crest)

Go ahead - roll your eyes.

We're going to meet Ryan Seacrest next weekend, at the telethon pre-party for a charity near me. Mr. Carly has been involved with the group for many a moon and so we are invited to the party the night before the telethon. I found out today Ryan's this year's on-air celebrity. Wheeeee! Ok, it's a slow news day - this is all I've got for you. Mock me, I can take it.

My kids want to bring their "American Idol" microphone to have him autograph it. (imagine if you will, your child singing Hakuna Matata on one of those things... it works over an FM radio so it can get r-e-a-l-l-y loud... it has a button you press and RS says "We're back, live, on American Idol")

Hmmm. Maybe I won't mention to him that several previous hosts are no longer with us (MacLean Stevenson, Nell Carter, John Ritter... as far as I know Barbara Eden's ok....)

*****************************************************

This just in .... 87 on the science test!! This news was accompanied by said child bursting into tears which really puzzled me, because I am fine with that grade. She tripped over a compound/ complex machine question - who wouldn't? - and was afraid I'd be mad at her for it. I think the miserable bus ride home dreading telling me is MORE than sufficient punishment (my motto: D is for Diploma).

Testing ME

My daughter has a science test tomorrow. She has the exact test in her hands (Class, the test will be the 14 questions on page 243. Fill in the blanks. ) Did she bring it to the place where we sat today for OH, TWO HOURS? (Haircuts, takes time to cover all the gray, ya know....)

No.

Did I explain to her that SHE needs to be responsible for studying for HER tests?
Hell yeah.

Grrrrrrrrrrrr. Do YOU know the difference between a compound machine and a complex one? I do, now. Why? Because I just studied science for an hour.

Thoughts on Idol episode 1:

*I* know "You Raise Me Up" ... ask me, I'll sing it for you.

Anwar Robinson (guy with dreads) was fantastic.

People should not sing so nasal that it hurts MY nose.

I would like to do that Weasel gag from the mcdonald's commercial to someone I work with, but he'd kill me.

Toni Braxton's cousin (yeah, right) sounds like Johnny Mathis, and I swear I wrote that down before they talked about him later.

Melissa with the pink hat... well, you know how I feel about pink hats.

The chick who sold her ring... I'm shaking my head. O-t-h-e-r o-p-t-i-o-n-s. Try a car wash. But see, with all those people there, did anyone give her the $200? Mark (hot) was "emotionaly involved" (gay, no longer hot) but did HE give her the money? Did he say Here's $5 if you promise to put it toward getting your ring back?? DID ANYONE? Oy, see that's what's wrong with me.

And no, it looks I'm never going back to my Golden Globes remarks. But I love that Terri Hatcher won!! (I was actually watching the show then.)

Less whine, more wine

Whine:
Welcome back to ItsTooFreakinCold-ville

Well I didn't have to climb into any vehicles through the BACK today, so as cold mornings go, this didn't suck TOO much. Don't you hate it when the door you want to use is frozen, and you have to climb over the gear shift? arrrgh. That happened to me over the weekend with Mr Carly's truck (well actually I had to get in the back and climb into the front and Didn't I Look Funny? )

Whine:
Idol filler - bad taste, too much filling

I'd love to give you a full shot of my thoughts on American Idol. Alas, I didn't watch last night. It's sitting safely on my DVR box right now; all I saw was the last girl. Frankly I think she needs some counseling and hope she isn't severely depressed after being ridiculed. So now today she is probably catching hell at school. It's a shame that she had no one with her, no family, no friends, supporting her. Scary, even, considering how she acted, and I bet her parents didn't even see her on tv. Help her!!! As I've said 12,000 times previously I am a sap. I don't like making fun of people when it hurts them.

I don't really care for the "audition" episodes of AI anyway. I hate seeing the people who sing poorly, have bad diva attitudes, and argue with the judges, whine about how "they don't know anything, I'm fantastic" and so on. Zzzzzzzzzzz. My husband thinks it's hilarious.


WINE!!

My week was brightened considerably by the wine tasting class I attended last night.

The guy in charge reminded me of a 50-ish Bob Newhart, with the halfway-down-the-nose reading glasses, but more hair (kinda Robin Williams in the Mork days). He was very soft spoken , not wildly animated but he had a number of good points. He also had some really funny stories about stupid things he's done over the years.

He talked for a while about how people have tried to grow old world wines in the new world and you can't just plant any grape anywhere because there are so many factors that go into how a wine tastes, like the type of soil, how much sun it gets, how cold it is at night, and so on. It was interesting - I'm not doing it justice.

His main focus was "slow down and enjoy the stuff you're paying good money for". We were actually seated around a table, with bread, and some cheese (a cows milk with green peppercorns that I was astonished that I enjoyed, and a GOAT'S milk soft cheese, which wasn't baaaad. Sorry.)

He said that for a wine to taste its best, you should buy it, take it home and let it sit for a day or two. (long dissertation on not bouncing your wine too much and shaking it around)

For whites or rose' , stand it up in the fridge (any sediment will sink down to the bottom... you don't want that in your glass and that's why the bottom of wine bottles are indented, to keep as much of that sediment as possible away from the wine. The smaller the surface area in contact with the liquid, the better.)

It had been almost an hour at this point, and no wine in Carly's hand. Oy vey. Patience, I'm not known for.

Then he poured 3 blush wines. The ubiquitous white zinfandel, a grenache/syrah/cinsault blend, and a syrah rose' -- not that I had any idea; I took lots of notes. :o)

(I wrote Jensou instead of cinsault but hey, what can you do? )

He taught us that you should be letting the wine sit and do its thing for a little while after you pour it, and not immediately gulping it down. It apparently needs to mix with air to reach its flavor. He did a little riff about the song "love is like oxygen" at that point, and how wine likes a little bit of oxygen while you're drinking it but when you're STORING wine, you want to prevent it from getting too much air because that will keep changing the taste. Ahah! That's why my wine in a box keep so well! bahahahah!

So, take a bigger glass, and fill it one third to one half, and be sure to swirl it around before you sip. It really did make a difference.

You don't have to swoosh it like mouthwash... people will laugh at you. But if you move it around just a little before you swallow, you get more of the flavor.

I discovered that I no longer like white zin. I used to order it all the time at Salty's. (See previous post about Bistros) It's basically a rush of sweetness, with no acidity after you swallow. So after a while that gets "yechhhhh."

I liked the Routas (the blend, it was a 2003) somewhat, my SIL loved it. To me it had a much more noticable acidity. However, at the end of the evening (after it had been poured about 1/2 hour or more) it was pretty smooth and balanced in a way that tasted good to me.

My favorite was the Villa San Maurice 2002 Grand Syrah Rose. It was only 7 bucks too...! It was balanced the entire time I drank it - not too sweet, but the acidity wasn't so strong that you paused after you drank it.

So guys, be nice to the ladies this week, buy a bottle of something new, perhaps like these, and don't forget the cheese & bread (a nice sourdough bread or something, right from the supermarket, and don't be afraid to try cheese with white rind on it, just slice it up and eat the middles). Leave the Schlitz for next time.

The best part was that this class was FREEEEE. I was buying a bottle of the syrah afterwards and the lady behind me said "there's no charge for the class?"

"Well it would be nice if you buy something." he replied with a touch of humour, yet you knew he wasn't really kidding.

Here's a website that he recommended: www.ozclarke.com

Too Cold

It's too cold.

Chicago woman, age 56: "It's so cold that my pipes froze. Not just my windpipe, but also my tailpipe." Detroit man, 28: "It's so cold that I actually feel like listening to Rush Limbaugh. That's how desperate I am for some hot air."

I'm too cold.

Really dammit, it's too cold! It's colder than a witch's...... well, nevermind. It's about four degrees outside and the wind is blowing and makes it all even more miserable for us idiots who actually LEAVE HOME without plane tickets to Florida clutched in our flimsy gloves. (Yes, I really do hate you. I would be happy to go with you, you can sit in that conference all day, I don't give a damn, just let me sit by a pool down there somewhere drinking something with an umbrella. )

There is a chart I've seen, you put cute and ugly across the top, and smart and stupid down the left side. I think credit goes to Dilbert (Catbert, whoever, but in that strip). So then everyone falls into one of the four category squares that you get when you grid that out. I prefer my men to be cute and stupid, but hey, what can you do?( You can't always get what you want --did he age badly, or WHAT??? )

So anyway, where I'm going with that is that there is a second chart I thought of on the way home. It's called "dressing for winter". Which goes, cute, ugly, warm enough, not warm enough. It's pretty hard to get up into that upper left box!!

*** And on track 2 ...now departing for parts unknown... ***

Cross your fingers for me (everything you have two of, actually, please!) Mr. Carly has a job interview today. He's been out since A-u-g-u-s-t. That's a whole lot of time to have a 6'3" guy underfoot. At least he's got a great parachute.

So I gave him a big hug, wished him luck, and felt like a big old phony. It really was not sincere for some reason. See what I mean? I'm too cold. Maybe it's because the whole time, he has been stressing out, as in, "I need a job, how am I gonna find a job, I thought I'd have a job by now" and I've been Ms. Sunshine in some wierd attempt at balancing out the situation. "Oh you'll find one, you still have plenty of time on your severance package, don't panic." I guess I can't stand to see both of us panic at once. In my opinion, things always work out somehow, if you are patient.

So would a normal person be panicking now? Am I somehow more detached than I should be? Or do I just cope well?

WHY is it so cold????

Virgin wants casino on its A380 jets

Read about the huuuuuuge planes here:
Branson says the carrier also wants gyms, salons, private double beds on supersized planes

"Since you have gaming and you have private double beds maybe there are two ways of getting lucky on a Virgin plane," entrepreneur Branson told reporters in France.

Well, alrighty then!!!

Supernanny

So did you watch SuperNanny?

Holy crap. There really is such a thing as a Living Devil. OK, that was harsh. It's someone's baby. Someone's spoiled rotten, running-wild spawn.

I would have been mortified if I were that Mom, being on national tv looking like SUCH an idiot. She had ABSOULTELY no spine and looked like she didn't have the faintest idea how much mileage she could get out of one really good spanking.

Ok, ok, you should't spank your kids. Much. My technique of "Make them fear you, just a little" seems to work for me.

I was just fascinated at the little Taz's antics. Racing through the market, running over her siblings (why was a tricycle even in the house???)....

Oh, and the Dad, he needs to raise his voice now and then and say "SIT DOWN, DAMMIT" and those little kids would quiver in their shoes. Instead they kicked him. KICKED HIM. He was a wuss though and admitted it halfway through the show. The tantrums, the screaming, oy vey.

My kids are getting cake & ice cream tomorrow. They're sooooooooooo good compared to the Jeans girls.

Ways to procrastinate balancing your checkbook

I'm feeling Andy Rooney-ish. Note, I said -ish. I am not presently feeling up Andy Rooney. That would be so disgusting, almost as gross as, is it MICKEY Rooney showing his bare butt in that commercial.

Do people actually buy these? I mean, I love the dragonfly thing for some reason, but...

I apparently have 6,734 days until I retire but I get bank holidays, too, wheeee! So that's about 10 a year

.. .- -- ... --- -... --- .-. . -..

Ow, ow, Owwwwwwwwwww

This poor bastard is lucky his wife isn't a bitch like me. I'd have said "Oh, stop whining about your toothache and go to work already." Of course, Mr. Carly pushed my buttons today by asking me to make him coffee, right when they were starting to review fashions from last night on TV. The nerve of that guy.

Globes, part 1

OK, quick hits

1. Robin Williams: Funniest. Man. Ever. I saw him about 5 years ago as the main guest when Dave Letterman returned to tv after his heart surgery and he was SO hilarious. I LOVE him.

2. Terri Hatcher by far looked the best of the Housewives (yes, I clicked over from the globes to watch DH) - she looked AMAZING... followed closely by Eva Longoria. PS: WTF - who drew those eyebrows soooooo big on Marcia Cross? holy crap!

3. Clint Eastwood looks soooo much better in a tux than that crappy suit he wore last night- guess he reads my blog huh? OK, yeah, I know. Shaddap.

4.Re: Joan Rivers and her daughter, we were watching them, and then my DVR switched because I was recording two OTHER things at 7 pm, and my kids put up a stink: "Hey, where are the two funny ladies?" ...because Al Roker just doesn't cut it.

5. "The more you know" ads suck.

6. So, IS Jennifer Garner knocked up? I couldn't tell.

7. I was TORN between Sex & the City and Desperate Housewives for best comedy. I'm a little disappointed. But SatC was over a while ago now. Time to move on, no? I do love that the writer dedicated his award to his Mom. Because, you know, I'm a total sap, and all that. My SatC girls were apparently seated WAY back in the room because I caught a glimpse of Charlotte and Miranda, and that was all.

8. OMG outfit: the closest I could come was Renee Zellweger (sp?) who seems to have stopped eating just after Thanksgiving, because her waist measured maybe 17 inches around. I've seen Survivor top-two finalists who are pudgier. It's not a good look, she's sooooo pasty pale. Git some meat on dem bones!!! But Hilary Swank, just a pony tail to an awards ceremony? Let me beat you with a hairbrush. No other blantant style faux pas for the women are coming to mind right now. However my whitey white DH (darling husband) was critical of Wyclef Jean (purple suit, red shirt, tie & hat).... "his hat's too tight...."

Hmm, gotta run, running out of things to say - goodnight Mrs. Doubtfire!!!

The weirdest thing so far today...

We were in the choir loft today, and some guy walks in (in the middle of mass, mind you) with a two year old who's crying.

(Now, I can see where you MIGHT think it was a cry room, but not so much, as you climb up the winding spiral staircase and hear the singing getting louder and louder. I think Betty was having a fit.)

Luckily we had a coloring book and crayons stashed up there, because some of the members bring their kids/grandkids along now & then. (My son does hilarious freehand drawings of the choir and you can actually tell who he's trying to depict in some of the sketches) So my daughter gave the crayons to this guy, (who we all thought someone else in the choir knew, and it turns out NO ONE KNEW HIM.)

We were good until the guy came up to bring us communion and the kid looked up and started saying "I want a chewie too!!"

Oy vey.

I was going to write him up as a nominee for the bad parenting award I discussed in my very first blog entry-- until my husband, who knows EVERYONE in this inbred little whitey-white town, pointed out to me that his wife died last year and he has 3 small children. (Oh, great, so now I'm a real jerk. )

Stay tuned for future posts on Who Looked Great and Who Looked Like Crap at the Golden Globes. I live for this stuff. Beautiful stars in gowns I might be able to fit my left leg into, wearing diamonds worth more than my car. I'm all over it. Bonus! I don't have to work tomorrow because it's MLK's day.

Really now....

Anyone who has read this blog knows I have a sappy, drippy bleeding heart (but I no longer have AV node re-entry, which is nice)

...but the Tsunami concert /fundraiser on N B C REALLY sucked.

Madonna - you sucked most, that song should have been in a completely different key OR SOMETHING, and your one finger in the air at the end was not moving and profound, actually it was pretty queer.

Clint Eastwood - I couldn't stop laughing at you - that suit color was bad, the shirt collar looked like my 10 year old ironed it, and why did you wear your father's most ugly tie?

Maroon 5 - ok Mittens, you were right, they do suck live even though I like their cd.

Gloria Estefan didn't suck. I've always liked her. Norah Jones was good, as was Sarah McLachlan, and Elton (I reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally want a grand piano. Of course I have absolutely nowhere in my home I could put even a BABY grand, but whatever. )

Jay Leno... where do I start? No, I don't want a phone for $3000 (am I the only one wondering if it would work in your home without a PBX and whether Leno would even know what that meant?) and when he said it would even have star's DNA on it, I gagged on my nephew's birthday cake.

Let me tell you - I made an AWESOME birthday cake for the kid. He wanted a "picnic" theme for his birthday (his dad actually grilled burgers and dogs, it was about 30 degrees out). So I made this two level cake that looked like a patch of dirt with grass on it, and a mini grill (round, w/charcoal, natch) with burgers and dogs on it. Almost completely edible except for some wood sticks I covered with foil to use to make the grill on the top of the bbq. I shall post pictures someday when I get around to getting my film developed.

I really want a digital camera, but I should buy a new stove. Not that I currently have spare cash sitting around for either, but there it is. I'm presuming I'll get a small bonus, but at least half of that has to go toward debts like that schnazzy pink glow in the dark retainer I've mentioned adorning my daughters bicuspids.

Well, enough random train of thought, tired plus tired is too tired and that's me... donate to the Red Cross despite tonight's pathetic show, willya?

How to cheer me up (for future reference)

1. Click here here
2. Order in large quantities
3. Deliver in person
   
   Use in case of emergency only!

(My son gave me one of these candies and as Mr. Food would say......)

A much lighter note....

Here's a little something for you guys, for making it through my last post. Of course, that's me in the picture...

:o)

The rain gets me this way....

I was driving to work this morning in the pouring rain. I mean, I was looking for Noah, seriously, but I was actually in a pretty good mood because I had my favorite "bad" breakfast (a croissant with egg and cheese, oj, and Coke from Burger King). I was listening to Kelly Clarkson's new cd and it's excellent.

Before I left I saw Dubya on tv. Apparently Baba Wawa (my god, I miss Gilda Radner) did a new interview of the Dubya and his wife.

She asked him something to the effect of "Why did God allow the Tsunami?" and he pretty much blew the answer, IMO.

He talked about how we as humans shouldn't presume to know what God is thinking, and we shouldn't infer that He is displeased when a horrible event happens. Also he said that we should never play God.

He's got it all wrong.

Now, don't misunderstand, I don't think God set out to smite sinners with that big wave. Not at all.

If you say to me, "where was God that day?" I will tell you that God was there in the form of the rescuers. The people who grabbed someone and held on, the people who came to help as quickly as they could (except Diane Sawyer, it still bugs me that she went over there.), even those of us who clicked a few buttons to donate ten bucks, or more. We are all playing God.

The best thing you can do in your life is give of yourself to someone who is in need. Step up and help them. Sacrifice for their sake. That's how God is there.

This message brought to you by a long drive in the pouring rain....

Bioryhthms

Mine actually said "Your brain is on standby today." It's true!!!

http://www.bio-chart.com/

Icky Dick Strikes Again

If you've never heard the tale of Icky Dick, you've missed out.

A true story....
Carly slipped the sheet music into her choir folder. "Six baptisms in one day!" she thought. "They weren't kidding that Catholics have kids in bunches." Although she had converted she never felt completely like a "real" catholic when she looked at the devout women she sat with each Sunday.

She peeked over railing behind the organ. Down below at the front of the church Father was handing out lighted candles to the parents of the newly baptised. Other members in the choir were shuffling their own music or exchanging whispered bits of conversation. The advantage to being up in the choir loft in the rear of the church was that they could sing but not be seen.

Hazel, who usually stood at Carly's left, was leaning against the organ, trying to whisper something to Stan, the choir director. "Who would expect a choir director and organist to be SO hard of hearing?" Carly mused to herself. "It's a good thing Betty is here to keep him on track." Betty had been with the choir for over thirty years, and Carly was very fond of her because of her quick wit and helpful nature.

Carly's eye wandered over to the right wall. There were two framed photos hung there, group shots of the choir in days past. Photos were of special interest to Carly, especially vintage photos. Since Diana wasn't present that day, Carly finally had a clear path and she shuffled slightly to her right to check the photos out.

She was enjoying a mental game of "who's who", spotting Stan and one or two current members, looking for Betty, when she heard a voice much too close to her ear for her liking.

"I had hair then" Icky Dick remarked with a self satisfied smirk. Carly cringed in horror. Noooo! She had drawn the most despised member of the choir over to her side. Bald as the day is long, and generally unpleasant no matter how you sized him up. Chronically late. Quick to argue about nothing, and a crummy singer to boot.
She glanced furtively around. Hazel was still trying to convey something to Stan. Crap!

"Uh, yeah, well, it's got 1979 written on the corner. That's almost 25 years ago" she offered lamely. She didn't have the heart to be outright mean to the man, who clearly didn't have a lot of friends. After all, she was in CHURCH. Brotherly love - ugh.

She looked over her other shoulder. Larry met her glance, but he was a kind old man who wouldn't catch on to her complete dismay. "No help there," she thought.

Icky was still talking. Stating the obvious as usual, he was making a remark about how some of the people in the photo had moved, and some were "no longer with us (annoying chuckle)". Man, this guy was a freak. She could sense a trace of "I didn't brush my teeth yet today" on his breath and tried to put some distance between herself and the source. But she was hemmed in by folding chairs, the wall, and HIM. She smiled blandly at him, trying at the same time not to meet his gaze. Her eyes were aimed in the general direction of his collar. Tan/ beige shirt, and pants just a shade darker. "Don't look, don't look, don't look" she thought. "Just want I don't want, is an image of that man au naturel."

He was still talking! She had a flash of inspiration and picked up her music again. Shuffle, flip. Find one piece, set it down in an imaginary pile. Polite nod. Shuffle again, find another. Nod.

It worked... as the members of the choir began to stir and line up again for the next song, Dick slithered back to his own corner.
Phew!

***********************************************************

Well, tonight Dicky showed up 25 minutes late (for our usual weekly 2-hour rehearsal) and I swear to you, he sat down and the first thing he did was check his watch. I wanted to shout out loud "IT DOESN'T WORK!!!"

Blogs are taking up too much of my time....

I decided I'm spending way too much time on blogs! I read mine, those of people I know, and the ones THEY have links to. I really have to stop posting at work before KB figures out and fires me.

From now on - once a day, after work. Which is...right now. So of course, I have writer's block, which is kind of funny because it's not like I HAVE to post every day or something!

I was thinking about what the point of this blog is, and it's pretty much been what I would say if I were having coffee with someone (No, wait, I gave up coffee a few posts ago, didn't I?). It started out with me thinking about how I'm going to be 40, and a "who am I" thing. So either I'm more relaxed now, or in a downward spiral to mediocrity (ha, ha).

It struck me today, that some people define themselves in terms of the negative events in their lives, ex "I'm divorced." That, in my opinion, shouldn't be one of the first 10 things you tell someone about yourself. It's in the past, so leave it there. Don't hold it up as "I've been disappointed in my past so I just want you to know, because my gut instinct is that you will probably disappoint me too, so don't think that anything good is going to happen between us." Nice healthy attitude, huh? It's even odder that some people have to proclaim that they're divorced, IE "I'm not a loser who never got married, I did get married, it just didn't work out." As though divorced is somehow a better kind of single than someone who never married. I just don't get it. I dated a guy once who started to bring up something, then said "Well, it's too soon to lay all of my baggage on you.. we can get to all of that some other time." Um, perhaps some OTHER time, or some alternate universe, buddy. Bye!

Another thing I don't understand is how some people don't see that they're the cause of their own problems. Take C.... my least favorite co-worker. He goofs off all day at work. Then when a project is due, he's all full of drama about how he's really under a deadline crunch and not getting the support he needs. Um, whenever I walk by your office you're looking at SI.COM .... think maybe you could try working on your projects when you get them??

Well, I have two hours to do something useful with my life before I have to make dinner. (I'm going to go surf for something even funnier than Erik's " Terror Alert" featuring Muppets. )

Good food, annoying people

So, I went to my next cooking class last night at the Glen Sanders Mansion , and I was pretty psyched about it. The first thing they made was a "scallop pot pie", you know, not chicken but scallops, and it was pretty damn good considering I burned my mouth up because it was so hot. I actually snagged my sister in law's serving too, about 30 seconds after she said "I really don't like fish." Nice white wine, can't recall exactly what name but it was fruity and "off dry" according to the speaker. This month I start a wine tasting class with the other sister in law so I will be a wine snootypants before long.

Next was some quesadillas which I can barely spell, much less eat. I love seafood and italian, but hate most mexican food. Whatever. After that was a lasagna with white sauce (bechamel) instead of tomato sauce, and about 5 kinds of cheese when we counted. Other than spinach and onions, it was cheese, cheese, cheese and cheese again and I couldn't really eat it even though it tasted good. Way too rich and it sat like a brick, KWIM? I think after a salad it would have been OK, not following something like the scallops potpie.

I was glad I saved room for desert - they made a bread pudding out of challah bread and it had raspberry sauce all through it. OMG. Yummy. Whipped cream, sliced almonds. I'm hungry again just thinking about it.

The annoying thing was that every time I go to one of these classes I can't get even REMOTELY close to the front of the banquet room because you know the ladies who wear red hats because of this stupid poem and form clubs? Well these ladies reserve tables and hog up the best seats. In an even more annoying development their daughters seeemed to have formed a League of Spoiled Rich Girls Who Wear Ugly Pink Hats. They're young and perky and I wanted to smack the crap out of them for some reason. After the demo cooking was done the chefs went around answering questions but their time was monopolized by SRGWWUPH. Wenches.

Why I Am Not An Eskimo

No, really.... http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/01/12/alaska.kaktovik/index.html

It just sounds like SO much fun there. I'm going to book a group tour now. Any takers?

A typical day at work...

I am still playing with getting the stupid picture in my STUPID profile. Arrrrgh. I am very STUPID today. I stopped at a green light - no, really. Luckily all of the smart people were nowhere near me. They had all gone on their merry way and the absence of other cars around me got me confused. I am dropping things and I couldn't find my badge, and I'm just generally losing my mind!

OMG, I really *AM* going to be 40 this year?

Hmm, here are other hot women turning 40 this year

(shut up, OK? my son just told me via the voice changer, "Yo, Mommy, you're so cool"...it sounded like Rocky...this is MY blog and I can cling to whatever delusions I want)

1. Elizabeth Hurley - whenever I see her can't stop thinking about Hugh and that hooker, bleahhhh

2. Diane Lane - who I thought was waaaaaaaaay older than me for some reason

3. Kristin Davis - from my favorite show EVER, Sex and the City which now has the DVD with the 2nd half of the final season for sale, in case you hadn't noticed the HUGE ad campaign (it aparently got lost in the Christmas blizzard)... why couldn't they do a movie? How could they do this to me?

4. Terri Hatcher, from my new favorite show, Desperate Housewives

5. Sarah Jessica Parker - sure, she shops at the Gap. Mmmmmmokaaay....but listening to LK makes the commercial worth my time.

6. Shania Twain - love her, usually, but that Party for Two single sucked


(photos are in the same People magazine as my previous post)

Thoughts on People

Ok, you need this week's People Magazine (Jan 17) to play along

pg 3 - Kenny Chesney is sooooooo icky. He's really bald, and small from what I hear too.

pg 8 - Mariah Carey looks like a bad knockoff of Princess Leia in that hat. It's really REALLY very funny. Buy the magazine for this alone.

Pg 13 - what is wrong with this kid, that she is trying to pull Simon's swim trunks down? That stuff in there should never see the light of day.

Tara Reid: refer to definition #3

pg 15 - why are the Olsen Twins wearing such HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE glasses? did they raid Grandma's closet again? John Stamos is such a loser.

pg - 16 Mischa, burn that skirt before someone runs over you with a mower

Chelsea kinda looks like a younger Mariah Carey, which might not be good.

I Really Don't Need to see Matthew MocConaughey's pits.

pg 21 - Scoop - the expression is "he never left her side" not "...sight".... kinda like when Matchbox Twenty sings and it sounds like he's saying "Let's just keep this all under our heads" when it's really "...hats" Stuff like that bugs me. (Not as much as the thought of Seal proposing to me ".... in uncharted terrain on a glacier, in a natural snow cave, in an igloo built just for the moment..." Now, that's just WIERD.)

pg 22 - I challenge you to look at the picture of Ozzy and not laugh. It's something about Sharon's lips.

pg 24 - Usher, lose the socks+sandals look or I will NEVER, ever spend the night with you.

Hey, American Idol's starting, and the Bachelorette... I have to go set my DVR, which is quickly becoming one of my FAVORITE THINGS EVER. (....because it's nearly impossible for my DH to mess it up once I've set it.)

Gotta go set up my recordings.... later......

Bistros and Dorks

I've noticed that since I told you guys about my blog, I'm just basically doing a lot of negative crap and avoiding posting the warm fuzzy stuff that makes you all gag. We're done with that now.

Since I've posted several negative things in a row, I shall now list off A Few Good Things:

1. Creme Brulee Cheesecake. I was at Salty's the other night with the hubby (yes, I was wearing my rings that day) and my daughter. They have a new owner who is now calling the place Salty's Pub and Bistro. That's right, Bistro. Which usually means a place like this but not at Salty's. The old motif was New England Seafood, so my daughter and I were kind of thrown by the word BISTRO given all of the nautical stuff still lying about. No little tiny tables, no French waiters. (Incidentally I figured out a couple of years ago I've been to Salty's over 500 times, and I went on strike for a while, but I've caved. Now, where was I? ) I got a nice piece of fried fish but the REALLY wierd thing was that it was in this giant deep fried tortilla shell. Boo (my daughter) offered up "Maybe his mother is Mexican." Could be - WTFK ?

At any rate, the desserts have improved with the new owner and the Creme Brulee Cheesecake, well, I had to not go "Mmmmmmm" too loudly or people would have given me some funny looks. It got me through going to a local high school basketball game, which I really wanted no part of, but the spouse thought it would be fun. As the original Salty would say, "Ayup." We sat courtside and at one point the visiting team overshot the ball and it almost whacked my kid in the face. That would not have been good, given that she's sporting an $1800 hot pink-glow-in-the-dark retainer. SuperJockMom(formerly known as the spaz who sucked at sports in high school) managed to stick her hand up at the right time and deflect the ball. Yay me!

2. My former sister-in-law is still uglier than me. I'm not proud, but a victory is a victory. Someday, maybe in about 15 years at the most, she's going to be just about bald with a big crooked nose like her older brother. (I'm going to hell for this one, right?) I'm so glad my brother-in-law traded up. The NEW wife takes me to fun places like wine tasting classes, and cooking lessons at Glen Sanders Mansion. We get to try the food, have the wine they recommend for the dish they're preparing, and so on... sweet!

3. My 7 year old got "spy gear" for Christmas and one of the things is a voice changer which will hold a 20 second message. He also got a self inking Spiderman stamp in his stocking. (Santa, you're a pain in the ....)
He decided to "tatoo" himself with the stamp several times while Mommy was screwing around on the internet. I called him a Dork, in the most loving way of course (laughing at him... care to donate to the trust fund for the counseling he'll need someday?) and then said "Oh, you're Mommy's dork, I love you" to soften the damage to his fragile psyche (not... he laughed right back at me) He went away and came back with his voicechanger spewing out Darth Vader saying "I'm Mommy's Dork... I'm Mommy's Dork". I'll miss him when he runs away from home. Right now he's torturing his sister with the motion detector. I've got to go!!

It's the Pitts

Well since Jim brought it up, what makes Brad & Jen's breakup blog-worthy to me isn't the Fairy Tale aspect (A million dollar wedding, amortized over only 4.5 years, ouch.) but more the Oh Crap, They're Real People and Their Lives Can Suck Too surprise hidden in the bottom of the box.

It's the minute details that you'll find here and there, that I can relate to. I read a piece that said Jen has been photographed at times recently not wearing her wedding ring. Oh, passive aggressive symbolism - I'm all over it.

Let me tell you, fifteen years of marriage can seem like a V-E-R-Y long time sometimes. There were days before the marriage counselor (thank you, Rocco) that I just could not even begin to force myself to shove that diamond band onto my finger. I knew it would just sit there on my hand all day saying "Ha ha, till death do us part and everyone on the continent but you thinks he's the Most Fabulous Guy Ever".

Poor little old Jen might be just like me. Isn't that a pisser?

The Best of the Average?

OK, so if you know me in person, you know my older kid (age 10) struggles in school with math and spelling (but she kicked ass in her clarinet solo, dammit!)

Now, my kids attend a Catholic school, and it's challenging, and if they graduate with good grades they get a decent scholarship to some of the private high schools around here. When I say "challenging" I mean if you don't get a 75 on a test, you fail. My 4th grader is doing "elapsed time" problems I can't do in my head, and I was a math major. She's got somewhere in the vicinity of a 79 average in math, which just misses a C . (A is 94 and up! Hurts me.)

Her little sidekick got pulled from our school and plunked into a public school. She sucked at math when I helped them with homework. Now she's getting A's and her mother made a point to me that she's doing "SO much better now in this school" and I should move my kids to public school too. Because, you know, if I don't, I'm a bad mother and all.

Methinks I'd rather have my kid struggle for a hard C then get an A handed to her.

Is winter over yet?

Bad thing:
I hate people who don't clean the snow off of the roofs of their vehicles. A pickup truck cut in front of me on the way home, and two seconds later his sheets of snow/ice flipped off and smashed on my windshield. Now I gotta change.

Good thing:

Hey, my visits counter is going up ! Wheee!

OK, maybe Jim and Erik are messing with me by signing on from various IP addresses.

Spiderman

In the first movie, when spiderman is hanging upside down, and MJ pulls his mask up/down to his nose, his chin looks like a giant nose while they are kissing. It freaks me out, frankly. How could she think that was sexy?

Then he leaves her alone in an alley. Hello! Two minutes ago she was in peril and you took care of THOSE guys but do you think there are NO MORE??? Men are so stupid.

The Green Goblin looks like a giant ant, and I have no cavities, in case you were wondering, and Spiderman 3 is apparently due out in 847 days.

Planes

I was out shoveling the half foot of crap Mother Nature is dumping on me, while sleet pinged against my face, because I have to go to the freaking DENTIST today, and my kids weren't even helping me shovel.

A plane went over my head. I can't look at a plane in the sky anymore, without thinking of 9/11.

I was depressed enough already, thank you very much.

He's BACK!

Got some great news yesterday, the soldier I mentioned in my first entry is home!!!

( http://goingon40.blogspot.com/2004/12/time-to-start.html and oh man, did I type WAY too much, or what??)

Here's a news article.....

http://www.wrgb.com/news/local/local_news.asp?selection=article_26841

*not that I can get quicktime to work or anything... I really REALLY need a new PC.

Erik with a K

I have this "work friend", Erik with a K. (Eww, that makes me sound like a callgirl or something, but we've always been only friends, both hands on the table.) I told him I might tell him where my blog is and he made a joke about how I could write about this jerk I know who moved to Cleveland and left all his friends high & dry. Well, we do miss him....jerk.... the odd thing is that I talk to him now via IM more than I did when he was here.

He's got a blog too ( http://tearsofaclone.blogspot.com ) and I'm sure it's going to get funnier every day. But every once in a while he will write something like this:

I think it means that we, and by we I mean me, can't turn our lives upside down and suddenly devote ourselves to another calling, no matter how noble and right the cause. We must strive simply to live a little better each day, by being nicer to complete strangers who might not be reciprocating that to us, by finding a small thing to do now and then to help someone out, by knowing that there will be opportunities for us to make selfless decisions and help others, as long as we recognize them.

For some, like my aunt, must've known early on in life that she had the conviction and capacity to devote her life to her god. And those people are truly doing a job that is almost inconceivable to me, almost out of my realm of comprehension. But that's ok. I don't need to squeeze myself into a mold I wasn't made for. I'm one of the worker drones, just like most of you, and if we take the time to really think about what life is, and what our role in it can be, then life seems a whole lot more like the grand opportunity it really is, rather than the unwanted burden we sometimes talk ourselves into. Maybe a little more empathy in this world, and a little more recognition of the reality of our own mortality will do us all good.

This was pretty helpful to me today, because a few minutes after I read it I had to refrain from strangling a co-worker I simply can NOT get along with. I was in such a harmonious place before that guy walked in my office... good thing, otherwise I'd be in a cell now, getting fingerprinted and deloused.

At any rate, it's still close enough to New Year's day that this fits into my theme of examining your life and your resolutions. Cheers!

A joke by my son

Today my seven year old son said,

Mommy, what's tired plus tired?

Too tired.

Years ago, when my grandfather was drawing close to the hour of his death, after a long illness, he said softly to one of his sons, "I'm like a bicycle." "What, Dad?" was the reply. "I'm two-tired."

Maybe this Karma thing is real. (Look out, he's back now! )

Maybe my Grandpa was right when he would look at me, laugh, and say "Don't ever get married."

Or maybe the real lesson was,

...keep them laughing, right up until you leave the stage.

Ex-ed

I walked in for coffee today, and there he was. The last guy who really messed up my head. The one before the one I'm with now, that is (ha, ha).

It's a peculiar feeling to be rooted to the ground, yet want to run, hard and fast. We pretended to ignore each other. At least, I was pretending to ignore him. Perhaps he actually was ignoring me.

It's been so long, that I thought I was past wanting him to be sorry, to make it up to me. For a long time I wanted to have a breakthrough conversation where he admitted that he really did love me, and he was sorry he screwed it up, and he wanted me. You know, kind of like what Big said to Carrie in Paris in the very last show.

(And no, I'm not shooting for this weblog to be Sex and the Soccer Mom....)

He walked right by me, with that air of disinterest that only a true knob can master. As though I was the one who had been a jerk. He lied to me, played me like a fool, was involved with another woman the entire time, and never had any intention of marrying me. So why is it that I practically had a heart attack this morning? I guess because a little part of me still mourns that lost relationship, or at least the one I THOUGHT it was and not the one it really was. The little part that misses those feelings I had when I first met him and could trust him and believe in him and thought he was The Most Wonderful Man Ever...the lying bastard... I'm still disappointed by him. I guess I still want that apology that I'll never get.

It's not as though I want him back. I've progressed to the point where I really can see what a jerk he was, and honestly say I'm better off now. It's just so disconcerting to have Really Bad Memory from your past pop up out of nowhere.

New Year's resolution 4,397.... give up coffee?

Diane, go home!

Let me preface this by saying, I'm sure Diane Sawyer is a lovely, wonderful person. Truly. It's nothing personal.

However, it annoyed me to no end this morning to see that she has hopped on a plane to go to Asia to report to us.

I am fully able to grasp the magnitude of the situation. Every meal I eat, I feel sadness. I pour a glass of water, and offer up a prayer for those who need it more than I do. When I wash the three loads of laundry per day that my family generates, I am thankful to have clothes to wear and electricity and all of the trimmings.

Having Diane earnestly report to me wearing business casual clothes and her glasses doesn't make it more profound. It doesn't "make it real". She's not "bringing it to me".

Stop taking drinking water and food that are needed by others. Go home. Let younger, stronger people go over to report, because in their spare time they can lift more, move more, carry more than you. Get out of the way!

As I said, it's nothing personal.

What's Luck Got to Do With It?

I broke a mirror today. Yes, today, January 1, Happy Fabulous* New Year.

*My sister and I have given up the F word as our resolution. I have great timing, huh?

See you in seven years. I'm off to hide under my bed.

Let Peace begin with me

I went to church today, it's a holy day and so my husband kind of expected it. Frankly, I go to church so that I can sing up in the choir loft. There's a gem up there... our organist who has played in our church for decades. I want to enjoy every minute of his music while I can. It seems so effortless, and it's so beautiful. He's kind and funny and if he doesn't give up smoking, well, he'll leave even sooner someday ... I will miss him. I'm "storing up" little memories of him.

The cantor who sings with him has been friends with him for at least a couple of decades. I enjoy their little banter that comes from such a lasting comraderie. She'll hand me a piece of music and say "Can you sing alto on this?" Half the time, my response is, don't know, we'll give it a try! I did fairly well with the first one today, and the organist was smiling his approval. "Hey, you should join a choir."

Later, singing about Peace begining with me.... I thought, that's where it HAS to start. You have to put the past behind you, forgive yourself for your mistakes and less-than-saintly deeds. Find peace for yourself, and then you can give it to the people around you. So my "resolution", if I have one, is to make peace with that little voice in my head that says "you should have.... why did you...."

The quirky thing about resolutions is that so many people make the same ones every year. They do exactly the same thing, and are surprised when the result comes around once again.

Try something new this year. Be nice to yourself. Take care of yourself so that you can be strong and happy and spread that to the people around you.

Cheers!