Happy eve of the new year

Fresh and clean, we get to start a brand-new year tomorrow. Some people make resolutions. I have no allusions that I can just decide to make significant changes to myself.

For me, change happens because of something, not just my mind saying, "Dude, you should so lay off the brownies ... I mean, you ass is getting huge." There's got to be something else simply because my determination has A.D.D.

I know this. I don't pretend otherwise.

Determination A.D.D. is the antithesis of resolution making. So instead this New Year's Eve, I'll be cherishing this time with my family and my friends.

Happy New Year!

With a side of envy

Margaret and Bill are home today, like they were yesterday and like they will be all of next week.

It's a great relief actually, having Bill be off from school. Margaret doesn't have to go to daycare and she can spend the days hanging with her dad. Those two have a really good time together.

Bill gets stuff done around the house, but doesn't get hung up on the notion that if he's not engaged in some significant project then the time home is wasted (like I do). He enjoys his time at home with Mar ... and so does she.

Before leaving work for lunch today, I called Bill to see what was on the lunchtime agenda. He had already made my lunch as they were preparing to go to the movies this afternoon.

I felt a pang of jealousy and asked if they could wait for me to get off work ... I like to go to the movies.

I probably should have just left them to go by themselves, but I didn't and they happily agreed to wait a couple hours so I could tag along. And that's what's even more awesome about Bill and Mar, their ability to be flexible.

I have a lot to learn from them ... still after all these years.

Let it snow

Around 5 this morning, being sandwiched between Bill in his hot, fleece, "Surrounded by nuts" pants and wiggly, elbowy Mar was more than I could stand. Because I had to go to work in the morning, Bill got kicked to the curb ... OK, he really ended up in Mar's stuffed-animal-filled bed, but still ...

So it was just more insult to injury when I woke him up once again at 7:30 this morning to shovel the drive and get my car started, because it had snowed a couple inches over night. But because he's a good guy, he got up without complaint, donned his snow boots and threw a jacket on over his pajamas and braved the cold for me.

Did I say "good guy," because I really mean "great guy" — especially since the neighbor across the street made fun of his bright, yellow, M&M pants.

Here are a couple of pictures I took on my way to my nicely warmed-up car this morning:


To read about how we spent our Christmas Eve, click over here. Believe me, you wanna click ... my kid is either crazy or a genius ... or both.

Spoiled

Christmas has always been the most important holiday for my family and this is a tradition that I am trying to maintain.

In a normal year, we bake cookies to take to our friends and neighbors and have people over to celebrate. This year is not a normal year, but it was still important to me that we have a normal Christmas celebration.

Lucky for Margaret, Santa brought some really fun gifts. Margaret gave Bill and I two of her "published" stories from school — a wonderful gift indeed. Bill spoiled me with an iPod Nano (I've been dying for one of these ever since they came out) and we all got a bunch of really lovely gifts.

One of my favorite gifts this year was not something I either gave or received, it was a gift that Bill received from his mom ... these bright yellow, fleece pants:

with M&Ms all over them with the phrase "Surrounded by nuts" printed all over them.

Awesome.

Merry Christmas Eve

I've been out of town and away from the world of the Internets.

I'm back now and plan to begin posting regularly once we get through the holidays.

I'm at work this morning and posted a funny story about Bill trying to think on his own over here. Silly boy ... trying to do stuff all by himself.

Lightening the load

For the past two years I've been updating this blog five days a week, give or take a day here or there (omitting the week I was in Buffalo where they only had dial-up and a tree fell on the phone line).

I'm going to take a break for a while. I need to direct my attentions elsewhere.

I hope everyone has a merry Christmas and a happy new year.

Fall into winter

You need a coat if you're going to go outside now. We turn up the thermostat when we're home and Margaret never strays more than 6 inches from our space heater. So winter's here.

Even though it's cold, the light is so gorgeous during those fleeting daylight hours.

Shhh ...

I had lunch with Bill today. I enjoy seeing Bill during my work day. We talk about what's going on and we can even swear without being reprimanded by our 7-year-old language cop.

While we like to have lunch together on a regular basis, we have to be careful to not mention this to Margaret. We found this out the hard way.

One day I said something to her about a conversation her dad and I had during lunch. Her eyes got wide and she cried, "You had lunch with daddy but not with me?"

Whoops.

Then she asked, "Do you do that a lot?"

Yeah, I was all, "Not really, just when we have boring adult things to talk about." OK, I guess it is true that we do have boring adult things to talk about. And "not really" is a subjective amount of time, so it wasn't a bald-faced lie.

But considering the fact that we work so much, I feel that we should be able to eat lunch out when we want without having to feel the scrutiny of a 7-year-old kid — she disagrees, of course, but we've learned to expect nothing less.

Happy Birthday, Rog!

Today's my brother's birthday. He's old today.

So if you see this guy:
Wish him a happy birthday.

Photo project

From my "Across the table" photo series. Click here to see and read more this photo project.

The riot just got a whole lot more quiet

Bill yells to me while I was in the shower this morning: Oh no.

Me: *startled* What?

Bill: The lead singer for Quiet Riot was found dead in his Las Vegas home.

Me: Oh no.

Bill: Do you think we'll get the day off work?

R.I.P. leopard-spandex-wearing, Quiet Riot dude

Not feeling Monday

I totally felt for Mar this morning when she sat glumly in front of her waffle and cried, "Why did I have to get up so early, there's no school today?" But, alas, there is school today.

The four-day weekend lulled her into a blissful existence of sleeping in and tweaking all day on cough medicine and antibiotics.

I was right there with her, though, wishing for just one more day at home. I got up late Sunday then spent the rest of the day fitfully resting in our little futon room in front of the giant TV.

I'm sick and I can't ever seem to get enough rest. Broke down and worn out. But still I probably should have at least put some pants on. But really, pants aren't conducive to being recumbent. The crotch rises up and the legs get all twisted and bunched. Pant legs are stupid.

Bill bought a humidifier yesterday and I had him plant it in the middle of the tiny room I was holed up in (yeah, Bill had to do everything for me yesterday. I didn't get up for nothing. Panty girl had her panty-clad ass permanently attached to that futon). Just so you know, humidifiers are great. I didn't have to mine giant snot rocks out of my nose this morning (OK, I did kind of miss the giant fossilized boogers ... but who wouldn't?) and I didn't feel so much like a piece of beef jerky either.

So to recap:
Monday = bad
Humidity = good

Thrift and cute

More on why I'm thankful for Bill:

This morning, when he could have been sleeping in and lounging around in his pjs all day, Bill got up, dressed, got our kid up and dressed and is now out braving the crowds of bargain-hungry shoppers to get himself some post-Thanksgiving discounts.

The dude is thrifty. And that's awesome. Shopping with Bill is great. You've never seen a guy scour a clearance rack the way Bill does.

Plus he smiles like this all the time:
Just one more thing for which to be thankful.

The giving season

We had a very good Thanksgiving.

This is what I'm thankful for:

I'm thankful that even though I couldn't be with my family, I have wonderful friends with which to spend the holiday. I'm thankful that these group of great people treat my daughter with such love that she knows what it feels like to be with family.

I'm thankful for my loving husband who does so much to enrich my life without ever expecting anything in return and for the fact that he makes me laugh every day — even if I don't want to.

I'm thankful for having a job that I love even when I have to work on the day after Thanksgiving.

And I'm thankful for the Internets who provide me with so much daily fodder. And here, dear Internets, is a way to do something good while you wasting time: Here's an addicting vocabulary game — every time you get a word right, they donate rice to help end world hunger. And it's legit ... I checked it out on snopes.com.

The traditional green salad

Thanksgiving is tomorrow.

We're not making a turkey. We're making the green salad for our annual orphan's Thanksgiving that we attend.

Mm, green salad. You know how much everyone looks forward to green salad on Thanksgiving ... yeah, not at all. I mean, really have you ever heard anyone say, "Oh, I love having all that green salad on Thanksgiving"?

Yeah, because no one does. But we're making the green salad and it's going to kick ass with yummy cheese and pomegranates and other stuff. OK, it's not going to be the favorite dish. I can live with that.

We're also making the cranberry sauce. We're bringing two kinds. One made with fresh cranberries and one slid out of a can ... yeah, because Bill loves the tube o' cranberry gel that comes out of the can yet still looks like the can. He likes that.

And we're bringing the relish tray. Because what's Thanksgiving with out pickles and olives.

Yeah, it's like Thanksgiving without green salad.

What to do?

I drive a 2004 Chevy Trailblazer. I love it. It's roomy and comfortable. I can maneuver it and park it without too much trouble (except for today at lunch I had to adjust three times before I was adequately in the parking spot. Doh!)

We'd planned on keeping this car forever. But now I'm nervous. See the warranty is up, yet we still owe on it.

I don't like this. I don't like having a car that is getting older. I don't want to have to start "doing" things to or "getting work done" on a car. I just want to have a car that is going to get me wherever I wanna go every time I get in it.

Bill and I were talking today that maybe we should be leasing a car instead. Do you know anything about this? Had experience leasing a car? E-mail and give me your thoughts.

P.S. I love you, Internets.

Halle-freeken-lujah!

WOO-WHOOO!

For the last week and a half, Bill and I have been furiously painting and cleaning and arranging and generally trying to button things up around our house because we wanted to have it appraised.

We're not moving, we just want to do some refinancing crap. In order to get the best rate possible, we had to get this appraisal to come in at a certain amount. We just found out that the appraisal was for three grand more than that certain amount.

So, we're golden.

I'm exhaling now.

sweet.

Birthdays 'n' stuff

We celebrated Sean's 17th birthday over the weekend. I made a kick-ass, double-layer (I know, I'm fancy) cake. Mmm cake.

We got Sean some clothes that didn't fit, then we measured him on the wall which revealed why they didn't fit ... dude's 5'11-1/2" — 'the hell? He's a half-inch from 6 feet tall. Genetics are a funny thing, in that both his parents are not anywhere near 6 feet tall.

We also got him this cell phone:
Which is a lot like the Razrs that Bill and I have, but only more narrow and more cool and more better and I want one but there's nothing wrong with my phone except that it's not new and cool like Sean's.

Damn kids getting cool things for their birthdays.

OK, now for a smooth transition ...

Saturday night we finally made it out to see the Mesa State hockey team play.

Our friend, Rob, is the assistant coach, so we wanted to support him and watch some hockey. Bill and I both like hockey. Margaret liked hockey until the hot chocolate ran out and her cinnamon pretzel was gone, then she was the most bored she's ever been in her life ... according to her.

Mesa didn't win (that's my euphemism for "lost") but it's only their second season and they seemed to have some solid talent. They'll be in the thick of it soon enough, I'm sure.

And I should know ... because I said so.

More but this one has a great punchline

I posted again over here.

Because I wanted to. And I can.

So I did. Just click the link already.

Neck and neck

I posted over here. But I omitted the part about how I left the meeting early because I had to meet Tracee for our weekly Survivor dorks night.

What?

Yeah, well, I couldn't get a hold of her before the meeting and I couldn't just leave her hanging.

As it was, after running home, Margaret and I found Tracee lying on our newly painted porch floor coloring in a My Little Pony coloring book.

And then to top it all off, Tracee is now only one point behind me for the season ... dag nabbit ... and I was off to such a good start.

Isn't that sacrifice enough, people.

Something old

Now that the holidays are upon us, I've been thinking back about how my family spent the holidays while I was growing up. And it seems that quite often on Christmas, after we'd have opened our presents and visited with my grammas, we would go out to eat a late breakfast.

And, if my memory serves me correctly, we would often go to Dick's Restaurant and Bar. I haven't eaten at Dick's in probably 20 years (good gravy, when did I get old enough to be able to say something in my life happened 20 years ago?), but I still remember the vinyl banquettes and the thick haze of smoke.

Back when I was in grad school I remember seeing a Radiohead video and swearing it was filmed in Dick's Restaurant. Now, thanks to the powers of the Internets, I was able to confirm that Radiohead did indeed film their video for High and Dry at Dick's Restaurant in my hometown, San Leandro, California.



Huh, whodathunk it?

Part of the problem

I have have a plastic cup on my desk. I use it to drink water. I try to drink a lot of water from my plastic cup.

Lately, I've been bringing bottled water to work to drink and my plastic cup has been dry.

But not just any bottled water ... Fuji Water.

I love Fuji Water. It's my drink of choice these days. I guess you could say that I have a crush on Fuji water.

It's not called Fuji Water ... it's Fiji Water. That makes me like it better.

I have to buy Fiji Water in bottles. Bottles are evil. I tried holding my hands out and having them pour the Fiji Water into my hands so I didn't have to buy the evil bottles, but they said, "No."

Fiji is the best water ever.

The End.

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I posted a sad diatribe about my kid over here. She's awesome. I am not.

Better, thanks

I'm feeling much better today. I think most people who come into contact with me can feel pretty safe that I'll behave in a civilized manner ... no promises though.

So. Yeah, what did you do over the weekend?

Oh yeah? Huh.

Me?

Bill and I painted our front porch. The. entire. thing. Floor to ceiling. Yes, the floor and the ceiling and the walls AND all 11, 8-paned windows. Yes, our porch has 11, 8-paned windows and we painted them all.

No, I don't have pictures because I was too busy painting.

I guess I should say I started painting them but Bill finished the job to the best of his ability, while I did all the cutting-in work and painting of the window sills and trim. Bill's painting skills are fine ... not great, not bad, just fine. The only thing that saved us from having to do hours of scraping was Bill's quest to put as little paint as necessary on the windows and this genius invention.

They are corner tape stickers and they worked great. Trying to tape all those flippin' corners is a pain in the buttocks, but these little beauties did the trick. They are kind of expensive at just under $5 a roll and a roll only includes 60 pieces which wasn't nearly enough ... we have 352 corners to paint.

352! Gah.

Luckily, we were able to reuse them over and over again ... because we're cheap like that.

So yeah, we spend half of the day Saturday painting (the morning was dedicated to Margaret's piano festival — she did awesome, thankyouverymuch) and All. Day. Long. Sunday. I finished painting the floor of the porch somewhere around 6:30 p.m. when it was too dark to really see what I was doing. But I was able to figure out how to not paint myself into a corner — literally.

And now it's done (for the most part).

We got rid of a bunch of crap we kept piled out there. It's amazing how WT we are and are now looking for a nice wide chaise lounge to put out there so I'll have yet another place to lie down.

Lying down rocks. Not painting rocks, too.

Stand back! It's gonna blow!

I'm irritated this morning.

There are a million things irritating me in ways that are making my blood pressure increase my already ginormous head to the size of a hot-air balloon.

Just so you know, it looks great on me. I can get away with a giant oblong head, just like Sara Jessica Parker gets away with her giant horsey face. Except that she has an amazing body and mine is like a bunch of lumpy pillows held together with wire coat hangers.

Yeah, that's irritating, too.

This morning I was trying to cancel a travel reservation for my boss using an online travel service. I kept getting an error message saying that I couldn't use Firefox and that I needed to use Internet Explorer.

I called the customer service rep and when I was explaining my problem, I actually said these words to her:

"It says I have to use Internet Explorer, instead of Firefox. That's like going from driving a car to hitting yourself in the face ... with a rock ... it's just plain stupid."

So, I'm trying to avoid being around me this morning. I'd suggest you do as well.

Inside joke

I posted this picture on my band's myspace account today.

I think it's funny for a bunch of reasons.

First, when Kelley started playing with us two years ago, she was surprised when I had to adjust her mic stand a whole bunch so I could use it. She said, "You're not that much taller than I am."

Yes I am. She's like 5'3." I'm just shy of 5'9."

She's wee — in a good way — but wee nonetheless.

So Saturday night at our show, I made Kelley go stand by the tall mic stand because I'm mean like that. Lookit her little arms all reaching up ... ha, ha.

Then I added the Diet Coke comment because on our way to Denver, Kelley wanted a can of Diet Coke. She didn't want a bottle or a jug, just a can. So she was delighted when the convenience store had cans of Diet Coke. But when she got the counter she had a can of Sprite in her hand.

She was shocked by this and exclaimed, "Who put this here? I hate Sprite. All I wanted was a Diet Coke."

Yeah, it's not as funny all written down, but believe me, I'm still busting a gut over that picture.

Poor Kelley, all she wants is a can of Diet Coke.

What do you like to do on your day off?

On Margaret's day off, she likes to give herself more school work. While she was out of school Tuesday, Mar wrote one of the best stories I've read in a long time. Click over here to read it.

It's a distinct possibility that in the future her neighbors will say that she was a quite woman who kept to herself a lot ...

She's a genius, or maybe an idiot savant

Margaret answered the phone last night and I heard her portion of the ensuing conversation:

Mar: Hello.

Pause.

Mar: Yes, Bob. Here just talk to my mom (said with disgust).

Hands me the phone.

It was my co-worker who had asked for me, then asked if she was indeed Margaret. Apparently asking her this caused disgust in her little 7-year-old brain.

But, the crazy thing was that Bob never identified himself. When I asked her how she knew it was Bob, she rolled her eyes and said, "I recognized his voice."

She'd never talked Bob on the phone before. She's seen him several times over the past six years though. I was surprised that she could recognize his voice on the telephone.

After prodding her some more, she finally stated, "I can tell anyone's voice." And then she proceeded to describe the voice quality of everyone she knew in graphic, mind-numbing detail.

It's those moments I wish I'd kept my mouth shut.

Not just anyone

I posted over here about how we're looking for a nanny. Now it seems that I should've said that we're looking for someone who's not a child molester, terrorist or a person who sells children for lion bait.

Meme thing

I woke up with the worst migraine I've had in a long time. So instead of writing about the fun we had playing music Saturday or about how we didn't get shot outside a club two miles from where we played or about how friendly but unhelpful the drunk people were in Denver, I'm throwing down a meme.

What?

Memes are cool.

OK, but it's better than nothing, right?

The rules are simple yet difficult:

1. Change the italicized word.
2. Insert your own answer
3. The answer must be one word and one word only. Uno. One-o. No cheating!

Hearing: Heater
On Your Desk/Workspace: Dwight
Outside: Light
Your Eyes: Bespectacled
You Wish Some People Would: STFU
Before This You Were: Editing
On Your Feet: Loafers
What Makes You Feel Shitty: Anger
What Soothes You: Bill
Color of Your Refrigerator: Almond
Number of People You Share a Bathroom With: Two
Your First Boyfriend/Girlfriend: Uh?
Your Favorite Kind of Bread: Nut
On Your Mind: Death
Something You Have to Complete: Painting
Your Last Medical Appointment: Lump
You Want To Be: Satisfied
You Wish You Knew More About: Parenting
The Superpower You'd Choose: Patience
Your Last Purchase: Shirt
You Don't Like to Watch:Fighting
Your Idea of Relaxing: Laughing
Last Thing You Forgot: Conditioner
After This: Work

One-word Sarcomical Sunday courtesy of ... Sarcomical!

More new stuff

Four brand new songs on a uber cute mini CD (which plays in any CD player ... really!) and all for only $5! Five bucks! What a deal!

And these songs kick ass.

Number 1 is Creepy Girl which is about a girl who like this band so much it just ain't right. That band may or may not be the Supersuckers and the girl may or may not be me. Laurena and I wrote the majority of this the lyrics on the way back from Salt Lake City after seeing the 'Suckers and Social Distortion.

The second song is a hard-rockin' little ditty , In My Skin. La wrote the lyrics. We all collaborated on the music. It has deep meaning, I'm sure. That song kicks ass, fer reals. I love what our producer/drummer/band boy did with Kelley's vocals on this one. Supa awesome.

Number 3 is La Diabla and this one was written by Kelley, music and all. I love all the songs on this disc, but I think this one if my favorite because it's all wah-wah and all grungy in a most beautiful way. Plus Kelley sings this one like it's a torch song. Just beautiful.

The last song, Wrong Dream, is partially inspired by my antics at one of Bill's shows. Lyrics by Laurena and she and I collaborated on the music. It's our quirky song and is super fun.

We're very pleased with this CD and we're even more thrilled to have them for our show in Denver tomorrow night.

Riveter's going to Denver! Watch out Front Range!

Mmm, candy day

I love the day after Halloween.

Everyone has their left over candy sitting around and people are all, "Here, eat my candy."

And I'm all, "OK."

It's awesome.

Then there's Margaret's candy booty from her trick-or-treating expedition.

Lookit that candy. It's all the good stuff. Our neighbors rock!

Mar had a great Halloween and I did, too. You can read more about it over here.

And just look how cute Mar was in her cool cheerleader costume:
The little ghosts below are Tootsie Pops dressed up for the night. I stuck them in the little pumpkins. For a long time last night, Frida, our calico kitty sat with the pumpkins looking all Halloweeny. I couldn't figure out how to get a picture of her before some trick-or-treaters tried to get her into their bags.

Mmm bacon

Free bacon machine — at least that's what the graffiti says. Click here to see what the heck I'm talking about.

Almost as good as Thanksgiving

I love any occasion that would cause the people in my office to organize a potluck. Luckily Halloween is just one of those occasions.

Potlucks here aren't like they are in other offices I've worked in. Here they start at 8 a.m. and go until the food's gone.

This morning I had homemade biscuits and gravy along side an egg casserole. For breakfast dessert I had zucchini bread.

For lunch, so far I've had chicken and rice soup, posole, yummy pecan salad and some of the hottest salsas I've ever tasted.

I can't wait for lunch dessert!

Click over here to see some Halloween goblins.

Reading is fundamental

I think I've mentioned before that I always have to have a book to read. I carry a big bag around to accommodate my book du jour.

While flying home from Washington D.C., I finished the book my dear friend, Kristen, lent me, Dishwasher. (Click the link and check out the "Jess on Letterman" button. That part of the story is awesome.)

While in the Denver airport, a short one-hour flight from home, I had to find a book to read — not having a book to read in my possession makes me start to panic. I hate having spare time and knowing that I could be reading something.

I headed to a news stand and looked over their selection. I started to panic again, almost more than not having a book to read, I hate having to actually pay money for books.

I have never willingly re-read any book. There are so many out there that I can't see going back over a story I already know and because money is always a issues, I can't see spending a lot of money on novels.

Mostly I borrow books from friends. One friend, in particular, has a similar taste to my own and he lends me books all the time.

I also get books from work. Publishers, hoping for some free publicity in the form of a book review, send copies of books to the newspaper all the time. I get to pick from the leftovers.

Because I'm not that picky, the borrowing and scavenging for books works out pretty well for me. And when those sources fail me, my trusty library card comes to the rescue.

This morning I finished the thriller that I bought in the airport last week and I don't have another book lined up yet. Luckily I have a few unread freebies on my desk, so I won't have to panic.

It seems strange to me know, but there used to be a time when I wasn't much of a reader. I'd read a book now and then, but it wasn't a compulsion like it is now. But as far as compulsions go, this is one I don't mind so much.

A season to scare

I posted over here about the celebratin' o' the 'ween. There are pictures. Go on click it.

We love passing out blank checks

Friday Margaret didn't have school, so we had made arrangements for her to go back to her old preschool/daycare facility for the day. Because Bill doesn't have formal classes on Friday, he was the one who dropped her off and picked her up.

I had this conversation with Bill this morning:

Me: How much was the check for Margaret's daycare Friday.

Bill: (pause) Um, what do you mean, you made out the check.

Me: (getting heated) No, I wrote the name of the school and signed it. You had to fill in the amount. I don't know what they charge for one day.

Bill: No, you filled out the check and I just gave it to them.

Me: (boiling sounds in my ears) Dude, you gave them a blank check.

Bill: I just gave them the check.

Me: Yes, you gave them a blank check.

Bill: I'll call them to find out how much they made the check out for.

Me: Thanks because I won't be able to balance the checkbook if they bought a new church van with that check.

Luckily for us, Margaret's former preschool/daycare is a Christian facility associated with a church and they only filled the check out the amount for one day of care.

So I guess the moral of the story is: Don't give blank checks to my husband, but if you do make sure it's made out to a bunch of Christians.

Friday stuff

Look, I made a poster for our show next weekend:

Ooooohhhah! A poster.

And lookit this:
We have new shirts. (I designed those, too.) You can buy one.

Um, let's see ... Oh, my friend, Tracee and I play a Survivor game and finally after two seasons of getting my ass kicked, I'm still ahead this season. There's hope for me yet.

K. Uh, yeah, that's all I got.

A Story by Margaret

Yesterday, Bill and I attended Margaret's parent-teacher conference. It was awesome. I wanted to kiss her teacher, the school psychologist and the gifted-and-talented teacher, they had such great things to say about Mar.

She is having a great year and is doing well in all subjects. And not having any of the "having trouble keeping her hands and feet to herself" problems that she had before. When I mentioned that this was a problem before, her teacher was shocked and said that her behavior is excellent. Hurray, for not having a grabby kid anymore!

Below is a story that Mar wrote, typed and illustrated in class.

Page 1

Sorry, Mark, Kristen and Bill that y'all got nothing but browned out faces.

Page 2

We actually saw two Porcini mushrooms, but Parcheesis sound like a good time, no?

And yes, Mark is amazingly brave. Thanks for risking life and liver to taste test those mushrooms, Mark.

Page 3

Puff Balls are pretty sweet with all their puffing skillz.

Page 4It's true, we were amazed. And what's great is that we get to be continuously amazed by our daughter every day.

It can't be ALL that bad, right?

Dentist: OK, that should do it.

Me: gurgle, slurp, ick

Dentist: (in the same "all done" tone) You're going to need a root canal on that one. The decay was so deep I couldn't get it all without disturbing the nerve.

Me: glick, gulp

Dentist: (again with the "it's sun shiny bright" tone) You can make an appointment for the root canal and then come back to us for the crown.

Me: 'the hell? (I just kept this in my brain as my mouth was too numb and sore to actually speak.)

Receptionist: After you get the root canal, come back December 19 for the build up and crown.

Me: Well, merry Christmas to me.

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

I posted over here about my kid and that horrible sound that keeps coming out of her face.

Mar in D.C.

I just discovered Picnik — it's a free (so far) photo editing site. It allows you to make cool photos and it's easy.

These few photos were taken from in front of the National Gallery:

I love the above picture and the look on Mar's face.

I posted this one on the Haute Mamas blog, but I like it, plus I added the cool, blue vignette effect:
Another one from outside the Capitol building.And one of Bill and Mar. Let's all say it together now .... Awww!

Overheard

Margaret is sick. I had to pick her up from school today and bring her back to my office.

As she and I were walking past a co-worker's desk, Margaret overheard her answer the phone.

Mar: Why did Rita answer the phone, "Appetizing, this is Rita"?

Me: (snort) She said, "Advertising, this is Rita."

"Appetizing" is way funnier. I'm going to suggest that to Rita.

D.on't C.ount on seeing everything ... ever

I think D.C. is an acronym to remind people that after you walk around trying to fit in as much of the amazing sights as you can, that you'll be D.own for the C.ount. Bill is still not done complaining about his shin splints.

Click over here to read about our tour of the Capitol and to see some pictures.

In hog heaven

I had to stop myself from throwing myself across the threshold of the National Gallery of Art and weeping openly this afternoon.

I love the National Gallery so much Margaret actually asked me this as we walked through those hollowed halls today:

Mar: "Do you love being here more than you love me?"

Of course not, but that National Gallery is pretty high on the list of things I love.

One of my favorite moments was while we were standing in a gallery with portraits by John Singer Sargent, James McNeill Whistler and Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres. I am in awe of them all. Margaret decided she liked this one by Ingres the best.

Ingres rocks and I was super impressed that she was drawn to any of them, let alone the one by Ingres. Super awesome.

It's been more than 12 years since I've been to D.C. and all the treasures it holds. It has been wonderful revisiting all the places I grew to love while in graduate school. Plus I'm seeing some things I never saw before, like the National Zoo.

Mar and I spent all morning trudging past cool animal after cool animal. Much to Margaret's relief, we got to see the giant panda. It was really the only thing that she wanted to do while we are here in the nation's capital.

But we also saw some crazy giant fish from the Amazon.


This fish is way bigger than I am and I'm not embarrassed to admit that it freaked me out a bit. I pretended it didn't because I wanted Mar to enjoy the exhibit. Now there's some good mama skillz.

After a long day of walking hither and yon, Mar and I joined Bill and his colleagues for a dinner on the waterfront. We ate at a seafood place that had an all-you-can-eat seafood buffet. I ate so many different kinds of fish that I don't even know the names of them all.

Mm seafoody goodness.

I can't wait for tomorrow.

Traveling with kids

Me: You can pick from any of these restaurants for dinner.

Mar: Oh goody. Let's eat at McDonald's.

Me: That's not even an option. We didn't just travel 1,400 miles to eat McDonald's.

Mar: But it looks different than our McDonald's at home. Maybe it had different food.

Me: Trust me, it's the same.

Mar: How do you know? Have you eaten there?

Me: Yes, I've eaten at every McDonald's in the world.

Mar: Lucky.

Now that's rock 'n' roll

Last night we had band practice like we do every week. We practice at Scott and La's house in Scott's studio. The studio is really set up nicely and we are able to really hear ourselves and practice effectively.

We were working through our set for our Denver show and playing our little hearts out when I noticed that someone had opened the door.

A man stood in the doorway looking expectant. I signaled to La as she was closest to the door. She stopped playing and took off her headphones to talk to this guy.

Then we all stopped playing and watched as Scott got served a court summons.

Oh yeah, rock 'n' roll, baby.

Photoessay: Why Fall Rocks!

New songs ... that you can buy

Oh, we're not just cute, we're all high tech, too.

Our trusty fill-in drummer and permanent recording technician/producer/savior of our girl band, Scott, spent the majority of his weekend recording drum tracks and mastering four brand spanking new Riveter songs.

We decided — at the last minute, as we're prone to do — that we should have new EP to take with us to our Denver show at the beginning of November.

I busted my hump and created a design that we all liked for the face of the disk. (I tried to post the disc graphic but Blogger is constipated or something. I'll try again later.) And now we have the audio tracks done.

You can click over to our myspace and hear them over there.

Or you can slide on over to the right here and purchase them all (plus the four from our previous EP) for $.99 each.

I know, we're super high tech.

Watch out, we're hot right now. And it feels so good!

I got a fever

I got a fever ... Rockies fever! Click over here to read about it.

No excuses

OK, that's twice this week that I never had a moment to write a decent post for this blog. I'm skidding along at warp speed these days.

This week most of my spare moments have been spent working on graphics for the band. We decided that we'd like to have some new shirts to take to our Denver show. We still have some with an old design that we like, but we wanted something that was more representative of who we are now, as a band.

I struggled for a couple of days trying to come up with a simple white design to go on a black t-shirt. The more I worked, the more I began to hate everything. Finally, I just sent the designs to the girls and made them pick one.

Here's what we're going with:

Good choice, no? We're so cute and now we have the shirts to prove it.

Blur

It's all a blur, these days. I have so many irons in the fire, it's no wonder that I don't spontaneously combust.

After teaching a freshman-level art appreciation class for six years, I've been invited to each an upper-division, art-history class.

So next fall, I'll be lecturing on Neoclassicism, Romanticism and Impressionism, 19th century art. In. Depth. No more glossing over topics and throwing out sound bites. Of course, it's going to be a whole shit-pot full of work, but I'm fine with that. Lately, I've been all about art.

I've been reading text books and flipping through art picture books obsessively. And soon I'm going to get a huge dose of art in that we're going to Washington D.C.

Bill's got a conference for the National Science Foundation grant he and his team won. He goes every year, this time Margaret and I are tagging along.

I went to grad school a mere three hours from D.C. and spent many a weekend touring the museums and galleries. But it's been years, many, many, way too many, so I'm very excited.

And ever since our trip to the Denver Art Museum in February, Margaret has been all about going to museums. Plus our hotel is a block away from the national zoo and they have a baby panda there, so she's stoked.

Gooooo Art! (Yeah, my dork status remains intact.)

I don't feel so good

My gut is hosed. I've been all ... um, icky all weekend long. I'll avoid sharing the disgusting details. Needless to say, I was sofa bound all day Saturday and much of Sunday. Click over here to read about how I spent my sick Saturday.

I also posted a great picture of Mar taken Friday night while we were celebrating our dear friend Special K's birthday.

I was starting to feel better but then one of my co-workers forced me to try her new oatmeal chocolate-chip cookie recipe. Gah! The sacrifices I make for others. The cookies were amazingly delicious, but my gut is on strike, so now I pay.

Smugness

Him: "See. It was just a low tire. There was no need to be all hanging up the phone on me."

Me: "If I hadn't hung up the phone on you, would you have rushed over here and fixed my car?"

Him: "No. But now all those people I was sitting with think you're a bitch."

Me: "I am a bitch. A bitch with a fixed car."

Margaret's not stupid or weird either

It's true that kids do say the darnest things. Click here to read a quite brilliant Margaret-ism.

Not dead yet

As I said yesterday, a cloud of gas has been released upon us. Now it's looking like it's not propane but the smelly gas they add to propane so that it can be smelled in case of a leak.

That gas is call mercaptan.

The gas companies say that it is harmless to humans. The toxicology people suggest otherwise. The Agency for Toxic Substance and Disease Registry that states that mercaptan is indeed toxic.

But it might not be mercaptan as it seems that the junk yard from where the gas originated is not saying that it could be from some unidentified liquid.

In the meantime, gas clouds are floating within two miles of the junk yard. Those two miles include my place of employment and my house. So I'm getting gassed from all angles.

There's going to be a press conference shortly to announce whether we're all going to die a slow death from liver failure or not.

We've been breathing in these noxious fumes for three days now and many of us are complaining of sore throats, dizziness, fatigue and headaches. My migraine finally broke this morning after my fourth dose of Max-Alt.

It will be interesting to see how this turns out. But there are a lot of us looking to form a posse and string up those jokers at the junk yard. Yee haw.

Gassed

Yesterday employees at a local junk yard were cutting open some old propane tanks. Unfortunately, at least one of them was not empty and they released a ginormous cloud of propane on the lower downtown area. My office is located within a couple blocks of this junk yard.

The cloud of propane descended upon us with the fervor of a group of 2nd graders on a box of Oreos. We didn't have a chance.

The gas poured into our building quickly and all of a sudden we all could smell the disgusting scent which is added to propane.

We quickly abandoned ship but it was really like jumping out of the frying pan into the fire as the gas cloud hung outside our building like a junkie near a needle exchange. Many of us were sickened by the smell and by breathing those fumes.

The fire department was called, but due to construction and a train blocking the tracks, they were delayed. Finally they arrived and located the source of the gas cloud.

When it was determined to be carelessness by the junk yard employees we filed back into the building. But it was still full of propane. I quickly got a headache and left work early.

I was sick all night long with a headache. Around 3 this morning, I was up trying not to puke. Bill tried to help by talking really loud and clicking the TV channels to the most noisy and visually jarring shows — because he's helpful like that. After choking on some vomit, I decided it was time to head back to bed where I slept with an ice pack on my head.

Good times.

I groggily got up and made my way to work, only to find our building still chock full o' propane gas. Luckily for me, my desk sits in an underventilated nook so I got to breath in gassy fumes all morning — more good times.

My hands and feet when numb and I tried to pass out a couple of times ... you know, just to keep the good times rolling, but the office eventually started to air out.

Now after having breathed in those volatile fumes for far too long, I began thinking about the sorry sacks o' poo that huff this stuff. Whatever high we may have gotten from this stuff was counteracted by an extraordinary headache and nausea. Why not just get your foot run over by a bus instead?

For all those that think Mar looks just like me

According to MyHeritage.com she looks equally like Bill and me.


Check out this celebrity look alike doo-hicky:




And that's not all, watch me morph into Kate Hudson:

%1

Now, I'm gonna go morph Bill's face ... oh fun for the whole family!

OK, I had to add Bill's celebrity look-a-likes because his birthday bro, Antonio Banderas is included in his list. Coincidence?