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.

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

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.