I was tired and knew it was going to be a late night, so I drove down with our friend, Elissa, in my own car so I could go home if I got tired.
Well, the best laid plans ....
I ended up drinking — which is such a rare things these days, but was fueled by an encounter that I wasn't expecting.
As far as I could tell, the Wrong Impressions put on a kick-ass set. Here are some photos: Johnny G. Bridgett
Bill Halen
Danny
As the night progressed, I proved to many a folk that I have quite a talent.
Take a look at these photos: Yeah, I took them all. You can't really tell, but my arm is all streched out and holding my little camera just perfectly for a nice close-in headshot.
People would ask if I wanted them to take the picture of me with whatever poor soul who happened to be standing/sitting near me when I got the desire to snap away, but those pictures never come out as well as the ones I take myself.
Yes, it's a strange narcissistic talent but it so fits with my need to control the camera yet still have pictures of myself (and with my narcissism in general).
Just to dwell on the changing of the seasons a little more:
Last night was the last downtown farmer's market for the season. And to celebrate the wonderful weather we've been having, I hitched Margaret's tag-a-long to my Electra and we rode downtown.
We got a couple of slices from our favorite locally grown pizza place, Pablos and watched the people snapping up apples and other fruits of the early fall harvest. As we sat and munced our pizza, Margaret says, "This is such a nice town we live in. All the smiling people."
I died a little from happiness at her keen observation and reveled in the joy she got from the city in which she was born.
To celebrate, we headed into Brown's cycles (we have many great bike shops in town, but Brown's is where we buy all our bikes and gear).
Margaret is now the proud owner of an Electra bell for her two-wheeler (she picked the Electra bell because it was pink with white Hawaiian flowers and she thought it was a Barbie bell — oh the allure of Barbie).
And I finally got a basket for the front of my bike. Woot! It clips on and off so I can carry it like Dorothy ... but I doubt I'll ever carry my dog it in — yeah, it would be a bad day when I had to try to carry our live-wire of a dog in a basket on the front of my bike.
As we rode home, I could hear Mar back there recounting the joys of fall and winter: "Oooh, it's fall and then it will be winter. Winter is so much fun. I can eat snow and all the bugs will go away — ew, I hate bugs. But I love the fall."
ELLICOTT CITY, Md. - Federal drug agents aren't laughing about marijuana packaged in yellow, smiley-faced gumballs. The "Greenades" gumballs were found in January at Howard High School in Ellicott City. The federal Drug Enforcement Agency recently released an intelligence bulletin about them. "It's a new idea and it's new to the DEA," Gregory Lee, a retired supervisory special agent of the Drug Enforcement Agency, told The Baltimore Examiner. "When it comes to drug dealing, you're only limited by your imagination. Police charged three 17-year-old students after a teacher alerted a school resource officer. She told the officer that she saw a student give a plastic bag that the teacher believed contained drugs to another student. The officer seized the bag, which contained two "candy balls" wrapped in foil, police said. Instructions on the foil told users to chew for 30 minutes to 1 hour before they wanted to be high and to "chew for as long as possible, then swallow." Officers charged two students with distribution of drugs on school property and a third with possession of marijuana.
"Chew for 30 minutes to 1 hour" then swallow. Dude, that seems like entirely too much work.
Sunday saw Riveter at our first official photo shoot.
KP and I were at a party over the summer. Toward the back of the yard we found a couple of graffiti artists down in what looked like it could have been a pool ... a long, long time ago.
And we were right. The house is of a early 1950s vintage complete with built-in swimming pool. For some reason, about 40 years ago the pool was drained and sat to decay ever since.
There are trees growing in the bottom of the pool. It's crazy.
But cool. And KP immediately thought it would be a great place to have our picture taken.
She was right.
Keith, our photographer, took over 100 shots and I can't wait to see them ... and of course, post some of them on this blog and over here, as well.
Here are a couple of shots I snapped while the other girls were getting their individual pictures taken. Yes, KP, why so hot? Bridgett working the urban agnst angle of her persona — complete with sunglasses at night (that's right, I just made a Cory Hart reference ... I'm so old). See, I told you there were trees growing in there. Laurena working the squat (don't say "working the squat"). And here Professor La La is playing the little Dutch girl. Yes, we did load most of Bridgett's drum kit down into the deep end of the pool and brought our guitars down for some action shots of us playing ... er, pretending to play.
We were actually disappointed once we got down there that we couldn't actually play. But it did inspire some thoughts of having our CD release party there ... could be fun.
Dinner with the McCrackens a photo essay by Rivetergirl
It all started with the creepy-jackalope-eye stare down.
Followed by the patented, Bill-Halen, elbow to the teeth maneuver. Which led to the oft-attempted, but rarely sucessful "pity me" poopy face. Which inspired Daddy to raise his class in victory. All that drinking made Daddy hungry. Mmm-mmm goood! The End
Thursday, September 21, 2006
"I'm so sorry to see you go."
"I wish you were mine."
"If I could keep you, I'd watch you every day."
"Good-bye, I'll miss you."
These were actual things that were said to the first disc of season 2 of The Office as it was being tucked, oh, so carefully, back into its protective sleeve, as it was readied for shipment back to Netflix.
Oh and it was me doing the pathetic lamenting over the departure of the DVD.
I watched at least — at the very least — one of the six episodes since it arrived at our house last week.
I love that show. And I realize that no one really cares. But Margaret has started trying to pick out the theme song on her keyboard. Oh and the theme song to Jeopardy!, too.
We think she might be a musical savant.
She knows pretty much all the words to Johnny Cash's "Cocaine Blues." Because really, you haven't lived until you've heard a 6-year-old sing, "I took a shot of cocaine and I shot my woman down."
It really warms the cockles of your heart.
She can sing along with the Supersuckers which makes this mama really happy (I learned to sing "Peace in the Valley" because she liked it so much) — but we've had to stop listening to some of their songs in the car. I mean, hearing your kid sing about drugs and violence against women is one thing, but hearing her repeat the "F" word over and over again ... yeah, that's just going too far.
So, she knows the words to the songs with the most minimal amount of swearing. And she definitely has an affinity for the Suckers. Just the other evening, she was filling out a form online for Barbie.com or some other little kid Web page and under favorite music, she typed (and spelled correctly — with mama's help) Eddie Spaghetti (the lead singer for the Supersuckers, if you didn't know).
What I love is when she makes a request from the back seat. The other day, she wanted to hear "Jackson" as sung by June and Johnny Cash.
Luckily, Bill got me a disc of June and Johnny duets last year. We spent an afternoon last fall running errands and listening to "Jackson" over and over again. So I knew that she knew the words to Jackson.
What I didn't realize that while the rest of the CD became background music to our mindless chatter. Margaret was in the back seat learning the words to all of those songs.
She's a little sponge and I love that she's absorbing all this music.
Yes, it's true fall is here as evidenced by the acrid smell of burn lint and cat hair that permeated my house this morning.
Bill turned on the heat for the first time since last spring. Mar was happy to have the chill knocked off but she was still firmly anchored to the space heater when I left for work this morning.
I've started pulling out my sweaters and dug through my sock drawer in search of a pair of tights that allow the gelatinous mass that is my thighs into them ... no luck, by the way, I'm wearing pants today.
We're taking full advantage of these days outdoors. The weather is perfect for Margaret to race around on two wheels and we've been walking to her school in the evenings. She plays and runs around while I like to swing.
Also with the fall comes the triplet's birthday. The birthday honorees were too busy racing around enjoying the mark of their 9th year for me to get any decent pictures of them. But I got a couple of Mar and friend, Janess.
These girls are two peas in a pod, same age and same willingness to spend an awful lot of time crying instead of enjoying themselves.
I thought I was the only one who had a kid who wanted to mope and fuss over trying new things, but Janess proved me wrong. Her mom and I shared stories of our precious little girls and their weepy tendencies.
It's nice to know I'm not alone.
And lastly, Friday while Bill was at band practice, I insisted that our dear friend, Ty, accompany Mar and I to the mall (on a Friday, I know, the life of a rock star is so glamorous). After which we stopped for ice cream at Soda Jack's (yum-my). I love this picture of Mar, lookit that skinny little neck. It's a wonder it can hold up that big melon of hers.That's the look you get if you ask her to share.
I'm trying to post every week day, but my stupid job and my stupid (not really, but kinda — just kidding, Bob — not) on-vacation co-worker have left me with a whole heap of work and no time.
Plus I'm sick (I'd whine about that but I already did over here).
And I'm tired.
But luckily I had the forethought to go the grocery store at lunch so I can sit on my happy ass this evening with my kid and enjoy watching the first disc of Season 2 of The Office ... again (I heart Dwight Schrute).
It's funny how the seasons change here in the Grand Valley. It's like mother nature flipped the season dial to "Fall."
I like fall. The whole concept of the atumnal season was lost on me until I moved to Pennsylvania from California.
I was in awe of the amazing, vibrant colors fall brought to the landscape. I took pictures and saved leaves.
Then I moved to the high desert of the Colorado. We have four seasons here. But summer really keeps the other seasons subdued, forcing them back into a subservient position.
Fall here isn't the grand display of color and texture that it is back east, it's mostly golden yellow — the color of aspen leaves when they do through decidious menopause and make the change.
It gets hot here. I think the reason is that the sun moves to within a mile from our sorry, baking bodies sometime around July 2.
But as summer recedes and the knob is dialed in, autumn descends upon us.
Saturday, while changin our sheets, I asked Bill if he thought it was too early for the flannel sheets. Like devine intervention, the temperatures dropped and made snuggling into those cozy sheets all the more wonderful.
I dug our oscillating space heater out of the basement storage and Margaret has taken up permanent residence in front of it. Her winter activities are limited to those things that she cans safely do while sitting on the floor in front of that heater. It's like she becomes a dog on a short leash, whimpering and whinning, if we get too far away from her.
But I love fall. I love what little rain we get and the coolness of it. The smells and the colors.
It might be all slow and stilted with some awkward pauses, but that children's standard seems like a symphony as it comes from Margaret's fingers.
Yes, her piano lessons are going swimmingly.
We're still working on fitting her lesson into our hectic daily routine, but once she gets going, she smiles with pride after she completes each song.
She plays deliberately and will pause until she's sure which key is the correct one, as she hates making mistakes.
I love Wednesday afternoons. I sit on the edge of my seat while I watch Margaret play for her instructor. Yesterday saw Mar playing her first duet along side her teacher.
The hardest part for me is being passive. I'm like a coiled spring the entire lesson. I want to encourage her and remind her of answers that I know she knows.
But I don't. Instead I sit, pretending to read, when really I'm watching my little nut make her first foray into the world of music.
I'm so happy for Margaret that she's finding success with this daunting instrument and I also happy for me in that I'm learning a bit of self-control (finally).
Even though they are tiny beings, babies require a whole lotta baby crap. The people who make baby stuff spend a lot of time coming up cool stuff to sell to gullible parents with too much money and not enough sense.
Check it: This a high chair ... for feeding a baby.
This is way cooler than the white plastic monstrosity we had for Mar when she was a tiny nut.
I think it looks way cool. But the thing about babies is that they are only babies for a short period of time. So as cool as this space-aged baby pod is, it's usefulness is limited to the time that you actually have a baby person to put in it.
But still, way cool ... except for one thing, the price tag.
$570.
Yeah, five-hundred and seventy dollars.
'the hell? Who in the name of all things groovy and orange would pay $570 for a high chair.
People who have their babies encrusted with diamonds, I guess. Oh and Angelina Jolie, but she got hers in black, of course.
Aw, look. It's a floppy elephant.
Yeah, $36 ... for a half-stuffed elephant with it's eyes closed. 'the hell?
What about this flaccid pachyderm is worth $36? Yeah, I just don't get it. It doesn't even have its eyes open, people. It's asleep — forever.
So yeah, I was cruising around the baby-stuff world today looking at baby stuff. My friend, who actually has a baby (unlike me who is just distracted by the world of the Internets) is in the market for something to act as a substitute for her pillow.
Her baby wants to sleep on her pillow. All the people who make up the rules for what you are and are not supposed to do with babies say you can't let them have a pillow. I don't know, something about suffocation or something.
Anyway I found this: It's listed as a "cotton baby pillow."
Because I'm a total anal retent, I wanted to learn if it was approved for use with a baby. This is the description below the picture (completely unedited):
"100% cotton. Delivery from writhing one day. For Asia. Nice and more conferrable. This product use full for couple."
What a useful description, don't you think?
Man, this will deliver you from writhing one day. Because I totally need to be delivered from writhing at some undetermined point in the future.
And it's nice and more conferrable. What more could you want in a pillow afterall?
But what does "this product use full for couple" mean? Why would you want to use it empty? It's a pillow. It it were empty it would be a flour sack. 'the hell? This is a latex pillow. Here is the description:
"Our products are manufactured with pure latex solely from super-clean and unadulterated natural rubber latex from the trees."
Yes, because I must have only super-clean natural latex directly from the trees. I won't abide any adulterated hothouse latex coming from sickly bushes.
And lastly, the velvet quilt: "Elegant and having good hand feel."
We drove over Saturday morning, arriving at my gramma's house (because what true rock 'n' roll tale doesn't include a stay with gramma?) around 1.
Laurena, Kelley and I spend the requisite time making ourselves pretty and gathering our jumpsuits and acoutrements d' rock stars. Then we headed downtown to check out the club.
Once we had located our final destination, we scooted over to LoDo for some P.F. Chang's. Can I just say:
Dear Mr. P.F. Chang,
Your food rocks. I wish I had a couple extra stomachs so I could've kept eating.
Oh, and Chinese food is the perfect pre-show meal.
Love, rivetergirl
So we left LoDo properly carbed up and ready to start our pre-show preparations. We arrived at the club at the designated two hours before our show time. We loaded in our gear then spent the next couple of hours visiting with our friends who'd come to see our show on the fabulous Larimer Lounge patio.
Because they'd run out of buns, they were serving free barbecue, which Johnny assured numerous times was going to sit well in his stomach.
Then, before we knew it, we were suited up and ready to rock. (I should note that our "green room" consisted of the backseat of our SUV ... thank goodness for tinted windows.)
We loaded our equipment on stage, individually tested the instruments and microphones and then the sound guy said, "OK, play."
And we did.
We rocked a 45-minute set of all originals except for one cover — Dylan's Don't Think Twice and even got called for an encore ... Woot!
Here are some pictures from our set:
The last picture is the Denver band, The Sights They Affect. The shirtless bass player broke his E-string — something that I've never seen happen — early in the set. The guitar player plaintiffly asked if anyone in the audience had a bass they could use. Laurena offered hers.
Oh, the delight of seeing that guy rocking her red heartbreaker was worth the drive to Denver alone. Truly a brilliant cap to a great day.
And the band rocked. We really dug their sound. The singer was adequately emaciated and full of enough self-loathing that it made the fact that he stood introspectively on stage work for him. Their bass player seemed to be trying to work a Flea vibe, but really only succeeded in looking like a lost frat boy ... except the mofo could play, that's for sure. Their rhythm guitar playing was cute enough and I keep forgetting they had a drummer completely.
Yeah, that guy. One guy, a keyboard, an acoustic guitar and a show that probably took every free minute of the last six months to prepare. It was crazy and bizarre but also kinda good.
He wants to do a show with us here in Grand Junction, but ... oh my, I can't even begin to think what the folks in GJ would think.
But we did decide that when they are making the Riveter rockumentary, we'll totally use this guy as filler between scenes. In the meantime, it was decided that he should do iPod and Levi commericals.
The end of the night saw us driving back to my gramma's house while KP, Laurena and I laughed over Bill's intestinal urgency.
See, the one bad thing about the Larimer Lounge were the bathrooms.
The ladies room had to toilets. One had a curtain and one had a door that you could move in front of you while you peed. Oh and the sink was backed up. Delightful.
But those were 4-star accomodations compared to the men's room which you could smell 50 away and had one toilet that was duct taped closed.
So Bill's refusal to use the ladies room before we left the club made for a long ride back to gramma's. I tried to stop a couple of times but nothing was open at 11 p.m. on a Saturday night.
Poor guy. By the time we'd brushed our teeth and made the bathroom available to him, he was sitting in my gramma's recliner, looking all gray and sweaty.
Not even a double dose of Febreze air freshner followed by a Glade chaser could stem that stench.
I wanna write about our kick-ass trip to Denver, but that's going to have to wait until tomorrow as I need to cap off the can o' worms I opened regarding myspace and my stepson.
Go here and read my column that ran on the opinion page on Sunday.
Make sure you read the comments.
I'm both horrified and delighted (how often am I both of those things ... yeah, too often) that a woman from Today's Christian Woman magazine wants to quote my column. I wanted to send her this e-mail:
Dear Christian lady,
I'm a raving heathen.
So, do you still want to quote from the mouth of Satan?
Love, Chick who is gonna burn in Hell
But instead I took Bill's advice and told her that I would be fine with her quoting me. You know, because I want everyone to love me. And I love irony.
I also love the comment from the guy who took issue with my use of the word "Nazi" and to him I say, "Calm the hell down, word Nazi."
And to the drugged up crazy who left me a comment on my previous post here (aka "roger" the long suffering brother of rivetergirl), I say:
Do you think mom and dad would have turned a blind eye had I been keeping empty bottles of Jagermeister and an ashtray of roaches in my room?
And yes, I do realize that most of what they are publishing posturing. Because of that, I only asked Sean to remove the most egregious of the items. He's still got things on his page that are questionable but my point wasn't to be a complete fun-sucker.
My point was that I checked up on my kid, I didn't like what was going on. He and I talked about it, he made changes and I am once again completely in awe of his general goodness.
But the best part is that now he and I have established a relationship based on mutual respect and trust. So score one for the evil stepmother.
Stay tuned for tomorrow's installation: Rivetergirl will wow y'all with her tales of how Riveter hit the big city and of how one Denver bassist got Daisy Rock'd.
I've become one of those annoying mothers who crusade for the betterment of our children.
I have a cause.
I have problems (like y'all didn't already know that).
Since I've begun my daily exploration of my stepson's MySpace page and the pages of his friends, I keep getting the feeling that I'm the only mom out there who has done so. I mean, how many moms or dads would be all, "Nice placement of the Jagermeister banner next to the giant marijuana leaf adorned with nekkid ladies, son."
It just seems unlikely to me that parents are looking at these pages and giving them the OK.
I didn't and I'm a totally slack-ass mom. I immediately talked to Sean and asked him to reconsider some of the crap he was endorsing.
Since, we've have an ongoing and very fruitful dialogue on the attitudes of teens toward their MySpace pages and on why parents freak out when we see drugs and alcohol glorified on their pages ... damn, there I go again.
And really, who am I to talk? I spend hours on MySpace adding "friends," sending messages and leaving comments.
Of course, I pretend that I'm marketing my band. And I am, but I'm also trying to make up for an extraordinarily pathetic teenage life. I want to be cool. I want to be popular. I want to have lots of friends and I want people to request to be my friend, so I can stand in judgment and decide to approve or not.
So I've begun a campaign against my own vice. But I do so while wearing the "concerned parent" hat, a hat that I've always felt should be relegated to Oscar the Grouch's home than on anyone's head, especially my own.
But two good things have come of all of this:
First, I wrote a column that is going to appear prominently on the opinion page Sunday. (Of course, links will be forthcoming.)
And second, but vastly more important, I have planted the seeds for a relationship with my stepson that is based on trust and mutual understanding.
Or he's just really great at saying the things I want to hear.
Honestly, I don't care which. I feel better. I'm totally in love with my fabulous stepson (not in that way, you sicko) and my ulcer seems to be dormant ... for now.
That's right my 6-year-old made Marge Simpson out of clay. How cool is that?
She made the rest of the Simpsons characters, but she's blew her yellow-clay wad on Marge.
Mar also recently received a Marge doll from our uber-cool friends, Special K and Markel. Mar likes to stroke Marge's tall blue hair and say, "Oh, her hair feels so good." It's quite disturbing, so I, of course, delight in it.
Mar had another piano lesson last night. Can I just say that she is kicking ass? We are so proud of her. Her piano teacher called last night on a completely unrelated matter and talked with Bill, she said that Margaret is doing wonderfully ... and that says a lot because this woman is an institution in the world of piano lessons.
And on a completely unrelated note, check out this site. You can make your own seal. Oh, the time I can waste doing this:
Preoccupied and way too busy ... those are my excuses for not updating yesterday.
I'm preoccupied with a column I'm writing about myspace.com, teens and the role parents should be playing. I was working on that column up until 5:00 last night. I've still got some work to do on it, but it's coming along.
Oh, of course, I'll provide a link when it's published. Speaking of links, go here to read about Margaret doing this: That's right, she's riding a two-wheeler. And boy howdy is she pleased with herself ... and so are we. Little nut.
Friday night saw us doing the typical McCracken front-yard hang until ... way past our bedtime. I think it was around 3:30 a.m., by the time we kicked the last drunkard out. It was a good time.
Special K and Markel brought over the best bratwursts and giant wieners that I've ever had. Big, juicy tubes of meat ... gah!
And because we're all completely juvenile, we spent far too many hours making lamely veiled double entendres about the fat (and phat) meat we were eating. Poor Tracee was suffering from "don't say" overload and we were all prone to dissolving into fits of laughter.
The reason for the soiree (like we need a reason ... Bill's invented the "because it's Friday" social hour just in case we can't come up with a real reason to gather, drink and goof) was to mourn immenent departure of our dear friend, Ty, whom I've written about before in my emotional and pseudo-poignant offering, "The day the donuts died." We've since decided that I should've titled it "Where's my diet Coke, bitch," but I was afraid that the subtlties of the nuanced Coke reference would give people the wrong impression.
Needless to say, it was a wonderful holiday weekend that generously allowed us an extra recouperation day before the work week starts.
Most people look forward to holiday weekends and as much as I like having an extra day off, I hate the work that goes into it.
Friday's are hectic for me at work normally, then when you add in needing to get Monday's work done on Friday, too ... well, it's a lot to get done.
But I'm looking forward to this evening. We're having people over — gasp! I know! We never do that — but this time it's bittersweet. We're saying goodbye to our dear friend, Ty.
I wrote about his departure a while back when he quit his job, you can read about it here. I posted a new entry on our Haute Mamas blog, too, but it's essentially a rehash of what I wrote here earlier this week. Yeah, I've had to resort to recycling this week.
In my attempt to post something here every weekday, I sometimes have to punt ... today is one of those days.
I'm sure it's no surprise to that I have issues. They are varied and plentiful.
I consider myself to be a reasonable healthy person, but that doesn't stop me from inventing sundry ailments that cause me to hold mini-medical dramas every couple of months — some are concluded with an actual diagnosis, others are all in my head (big surprise — sistah has to keep her daily quotient of drama in the danger-red zone).
After the last mini-drama, I was reminded that I'm anemic. My doctor suggested taking a multivitamin laced with iron as part of a way to replace my flagging iron levels.
I told Bill of my need for a multivitamin and he dutifully came home with some.
I started taking them in the morning with the other perscription I now take (a drug that not only keeps my blood-pressure whipped into submission but has also reduced the number of migraines I get dramatically — so Woot! to that).
After about a week of taking the vitamins, I asked Bill if he thought I should be taking two vitamins a day. He looked at me, took the bottle from my hand and read the label, "One a day. Seems to me you should take one a day, but you may want to call the doctor just to make sure." Then he made that smug face that made me fall in love with him those many years ago.
Smart ass bastard.
But once the novelty of taking daily pills wore off, I started to forget to take them in the morning.
To remedy the situation, I started carrying the two pill bottles around in my bag with me. Then I could take them with my muffin the morning.
But there's a problem. I think I got a defective vitamin bottle; the lid keeps coming off and spreading my one-a-days amongst my camera, books, pens and other bag crap that I carry around.
The first couple of times this happened, I quickly scooped all the errant vitamins out of my bag, back into the bottle and firmly replaced the lid. But because I have to open the bottle everyday and because I can't be held responsible for closing the bottle firmly everyday, they keep spilling.
I've grown tired of rescuing the beige ovoids from the horrors of being free range in my bag.
Now, each morning I root around in the bottom of my bag, pull out a pill, inspect it for foreign material and ingest it. Good enough ... at least I remember to do this once a day.
Ever since I really began looking at Sean's myspace.com page, I've had some realizations.
One realization is that these kids aren't really doing anything different than teenagers of my or any other generation ... except for the fact that they are doing it in plain view of the world or at least the cyberworld.
They are publishing public comments in a forum that they naively believe is just for them, like somehow anyone over 21 can't see computer screens — like we're dogs that can only see 3-D. That in its self proves that they are very much like every other teenager who ever walked the earth ... inherently stupid.
Also I came to realize that they have created for themselves a community where they are both simultaneously connected to everyone, yet utterly alone.
They sit by themselves in front of their computers instant messaging their friends — both actual friends and virtual ones — being completely connected to all that is going on in their world without ever uttering a word or laying eyes on the flesh of another person.
Honestly, I'm fine with that.
The longer Sean's ensconced in his cyberworld, he's safely away from the actual flesh of teen girls. And really there's nothing a parent can say that will overide the power of girl flesh. *shudder*
I also realized that as advanced as these kids thing they are, they are still kids none the less. The pictures they choose to adorn their myspace account really says it all.
This is the picture on Sean's account: Check him out, trying to look all cool.
Then look here: This is Bill's nephew, Ryan. He's the same age as Sean. It's a good thing that Ryan has his cyberworld, because it's going to be a long time before he gets close enough to take a whif of actual girl flesh.
Saturday night saw my band, Riveter paying homage to our namesake Rosie the Riveter, like only a girl band can.
Earlier in the week we trundeled ourselves to Murdoch's Ranch Supply in search of some Rosie-the-Riveter-type coveralls.
We had been wanting to dress up like a Rosie for a long time and decided now was that time.
We paraded around the feed store trying on accessories and checking ourselves out before we knew we had the right ones.
We decided on these blue jumpsuits as they are lightweight, comforable and most importantly they were ripe for the pimping.
We each took our coveralls home with the promise that we'd adequately bedazzle them for our Saturday night show.
It took some doing, but we all tricked them out superstar style.
We all added patches with our new rockstar monikers. Kelley is, of course, KP (for Kelly Pants) as her fan club so aptly named her. Laurena became La La or Professor La La as one of the students in her department began calling her. Bridget (whose jumpsuit we didn't get a good picture of unfortunately) is now the Machine due to her drumming prowess. And I've adopted the stage name that I've been wanting Margaret to use, Midge.
We learned that these things are pretty much impervious to a nuclear war. Laurena bleached hers and even sanded the legs in an attempt to distress her outfit and give it more street cred. It just wasn't happening. The fabric on these things is so durable that hers looked just as it did when she pulled it off the rack ... except that it's been cut and adorned to fit our active rockstar lifestyle.
The amazing thing is that not only are they imprevious to bleach and sanding but they don't absorb smells either. So instead of smelling like a barroom floor at the end of the night, these things still smelled like new.
Needless to say, we were suitably cute and got lots of great feedback on their general hotness. The question now remains, do we wear them to our Sept. 9 show at the Larimer Lounge in Denver?
You can see the people whose blogs I read listed over there on the right.
I read most of those blogs whenever they update.
There's one blog that is not listed over there that I do check it on a regular basis.
But I never really read it. I just look at the pictures.
I'm sure he's very interesting, but it's like Playboy, I don't really care. I just want to see what pictures he's got going on.
This is a picture of the guy whose blog I look at but never read: Here's the link to his blog.
I'll give you one guess as to why I find him so fascinating (and it's not the snappy hair clip he's sporting here).
Yeah, it's the eyepatch.
There's something about the eyepatch that is so ... retro, intriguing, unusual.
I could probably read on his blog somewhere just what happened to his eye, but I like to pretend that he's a pirate with a bent for shopping and chocolate, oh and boobies. He seems to have a lot of mams on his site lately. But that's very piratey, so it goes with the theme I've invented.
And now that I think about it, this isn't so strange for me. Richie and I invented complete life histories for all of the people who won awards and were pictured in our companies yearly awards magazine. We figured out who liked to participate in Civil War re-enactments and who spent too much time looking at Internet porn.
So Mar had her first piano lesson yesterday. You can read about that here.
I've been running like that perverbial chicken sans cabeza and in my spare moments I've been stalking Sean's myspace page with a vengence.
I feel better after an IM conversation he and I had yesterday afternoon, but I'm still completely freaked about the whole "best way to parent a teen" thing.
Is there really a "best way" to parent a teen?
Laurena said that her kids were going to be spending all their spare time in intensive Bible study. That doesn't sound half bad.
On an unrelated but still completely uninteresting note, I did read about the phenomenon of the Google twin and now I've been stalking my Google twin.
See, you find your Google twin by Googling your own name. Then you can learn about other people with your same name or your Google twin.
This is what I know about my Google twin:
He or she (having a unisex name makes it a bit ambiguous) lives in Troutville, Virginia. (Don't say "Troutville.")
This person went to law school at Washington and Lee University. (Ohh, my Google twin could so get me out of a parking ticket.)
Rep. Bob Goodlatte (Mr. Goodcoffee?), a member of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption, has named my Google twin to represent Virginia's Sixth Sixth District at the sixth annual “Angels in Adoption” banquet, which will be held in Washington, D.C. The banquet honors one nominee from each congressional district who is making a difference in the lives of children through adoption. (My Google twin is all up in the grill of that congressman — whoa!)
And finally, my Google twin is a qualified guardian ad litem for children in district 24.
So, what have I learned? My Google twin is a way better person than I am. The Google hits that come up on me personally show that I'm in a band and I have a kid. Um, woo? Yeah.
Damn that Google twin for being all productive and contributing to society in a thoughtful and caring way.
Mostly because I'm not sure how much or how little to get involved. My stepson is 15 and inherently a very good kid.
But lately he's been making some really stupid choices.
I see no reason to lecture him. He's smart and knows the difference between right and wrong. What he doesn't know if the difference between is up and down.
Stupid teenagers with the thinking they know shit.
Stupid adults with the thinking that they can some how prevent stupid teenagers from thinking they know shit.
It's making my blood pressure go up. I'm sure that I think I have an ulcer.
My kid's 6. I should have 7 or 8 years before I have to start tearing my hair out, but I can't just leave Sean out there to hang himself.
Yeah, so the first day of school was survived by all in the McCracken family.
I'm going to write about Midge's first couple of days on my Haute Mamas blog for Thursday so I won't belabor the topic here.
So what's left ... oh yeah, the one thing that has been on my mind since I found out about it last week — Riveter's playing the Larimer Lounge in Denver.
Woooo! Hoo.
I'm very excited and I'm motivated.
I spent two days last week scouring the 800 myspace friends on the Larimer Lounge's page and adding bands that weren't too scary.
No really, click on the link. I'll wait. I can totally keep myself company while you lookit.
Nice, huh. Yeah, I know, it's not fab, but it's better than it was so cut me some slack already. It's not like I'm fully versed in HTML or anything.
Did you notice the free ticket to our show in Denver? Yeah, we totally have free tickets for anyone who wants to come. It's a sweet deal.
Damn, it's almost time to go pick up my kid from the pit that is the after school program she attends, so I'll have to leave this entry incomplete and in limbo.
It's the first day of school for everyone in our family today.
Last night we got all our respective school gear ready and tried to get to sleep early.
Mar woke up a couple of times and I was restless all night. I kept worrying about Mar forgetting her lunch or Sean getting hijacked on the bus ride home (which is ludicrous in that the kid is so buff he could kick much ass if he needed to).
The alarm seemed especially early this morning as Bill got up to get Sean to his first day of his sophomore year. Three more years of school for him ... what is it with kids and the growing up?
I got up as usual and went to work. I got some of my Monday morning tasks done and came back home so I could walk Mar to her first day of first grade. You can read about that experience here on my Haute Mamas blog.
I tried not to cry and even though I said I didn't in my Haute Mamas post, I did a little while I was sitting here at my desk like some sort of pathetic pollyanna.
Classes start at the college, too.
Bill's got an incredible pile on his plate this semester. He's working with two brand new instructors in his program. He's teaching a math class at night and he's got to begin work on the projects funded by the $450,000 National Science Foundation grant projects they won.
I'm surprised he doesn't have an ulcer. It makes me nauseated just thinking about it.
And I start teaching my class tonight.
I really enjoy teaching this class, but man, it's just another thing filling up my bucket.
I keep thinking that at some point, I'm going to have to cut back on something. But why? So I can have more time watching television?
I think about the people who have one job and wonder how they spend all their time. Then I remember that I used to have one part-time job ... and that's it. No kids, no class to teach, no band. I didn't have hobbies, but I sure as hell watched a hole poop-pot fully of the Gameshow Network.
I need stuff to do even if I whine about having too much stuff to do.
Please take a moment and read the comment on my last entry from Emily.
Emily is my co-worker who is flying the coop and heading south for winter that is her life.
I'm glad for her but oh-so-sad for me. Who, just who, is going to be my dill-weed donor now?
I hate saying good bye to people, so tonight when we're hanging out in my front yard making the new neighbors hate us, I hope to get my fill of Emily — which is going to be hard because I have the most amazingly bizarre conversations with her.
I'm gonna miss you, Emily. Please spend lots of time at your new job goofing off and reading this blog ... and leaving comments.
I've always wanted to be on a game show, Price is Right, Jeopardy, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, whatever.
I figure I would have a hard time winning, but it sure would be fun to play a game then get great parting gifts.
What a great concept — the parting gift, that is.
Or at least I thought it was until I started accruing parting gifts of another sort.
It seems that whenever someone I've befriended at work leaves, they give me a token, an item by which to remember them.
Here are some things that sit on my desk that used to sit on someone else's. And while I am truly saddened by the departure of my friends — those people who make my day-to-day work life so enjoyable — I am glad to have such things to remember them by.
My most recent aquistion is the jar of herbs pictured on the right of the picture.
Yep, that's dill weed. (Snicker, I said dill weed.)
I love calling people dill weed. I use it as a derogative. It sounds so bad and it really isn't — it's a herb. It's like calling some one ginger or marjoram (which I would never do becuase I haven't the faintest idea how that is even pronounced).
But still, I've given it that connotation and now I have a jar of it sitting on my desk.
My plan is for it to sit prominently so that I will be asked why I have a jar of dill weed on my desk. My planned reply is "So people will know."
Man, I crack myself up ... oh well, even if all my friends leave, I'll always have me.
I keep getting spam comments in older entries. I was gonna just ignore them but I started getting several a day, so I've had to limit comment to those who register.
It sucks but on the plus side, it's not hard to register if you wanna leave a comment. And I always encourage legitimate comments.
Yep, we got ourselves a bona fide gig in Denver at the Larimer Lounge on Sept. 9.
That's right, THE Larimer Lounge, the one voted AOL's CityGuide Best Music Club for 2006. And it's won various awards from West Word, like Best New Rock Club in 2003, Best Rock Club in 2004 and Best Small Venue in 2005.
This bar on old Larimer Street has been serving drinks since 1892 and serving loud punk rock and alternative music since 2003. The place is out of the hustle and bustle of LoDo, in an old neighborhood east of Broadway, and has seen such national acts as J Mascis and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club take the stage. The average patron is young, tattooed, and a bit rough around the edges.
And that's how we like our fans, young, tattooed and a bit rough around the edges. Sounds like a match made in heaven.
We've got a big show coming up here in town at the Spotlight Lounge — a venue that we love and was the first club we ever played. Then we're off to Denver next month.
Oh yeah, baby.
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Check that shit out ... that's the backpack that Midge is going to start carrying to 1st grade next week.
Next week.
Next week my kid starts the first grade. How the hell did that happen?
Last night we went to Target to buy all the "because the school says so" required supplies and all the "because mama says so" not actually required, but definitely useful supplies: Crayons (pronounced "cran" not "crown" like some misinformed people around here like to say), markers, paints, paper, notebooks, glue (two bottles — as Bill says, "One for gluing and one for eatin'."), colored pencils, the aforementioned Hello Kitty backpack complete with giant pink rhinestone adorning Miss Kitty's ear bow, lunch box (they aren't boxes anymore, but insulated bags) and a soup carrier ... or thermos to those who aren't 6 and obsessed with the idea of carrying soup to school — now really what kind of kid obsesses about carrying soup to school? I was convinced that all soup was toxic sludge until I was about 20 years old.
So she's got all the necessary (and unnecessary) crap to start school. And more importantly, the purchase of these supplies has cranked up her enthusiasm for school exponentially.
But Monday is still going to suck. She's going to get scared and shy and I'm going to cry, hopefully not until after we drop her off.
I'm equal parts excited and terrified of these landmark days. Growth and change are inevitable but it doesn't mean that it's easy.
We have the good fortune to have friends with neat stuff.
Neat stuff like this cabin about an hour out of town, up on Grand Mesa: This is where we spent our weekend. It was glorious. It rained and the wind blew at night and was warm (not hot) and sunny during most of the day. I sat on that porch for a good portion of Saturday afternoon while Bill helped our friend, Tom, cut wood for the winter.
Margaret, who Tom nicknamed Midge, learned how to cut up a salad. I was under strict orders to only supervise the knife usage, but to let Midge to the actual work — which was hard work for this slightly neurotic mom (yeah OK, perhaps the correct modifier should be "desperately pathetic and completely neurotic" but I'm gonna cut myself some slack this Monday morning). We hiked down to the creek a couple of times.
Midge loved walking along the rocks and trying to dam up the falls. I loved sitting my sorry ass on a warm rock and reading my book (I read this crazy memoir and really enjoyed it). Bill caught a fish.
I would have gotten a better picture but the darn fishy couldn't keep its gills shut for half a second while I zoomed in and flopped out of Bill's hand.And we saw more different varieties of mushrooms than I've ever seen anywhere before. I took a bunch of pictures and I am hoping to identify them.
It seemed like teaching Margaret to read was a good thing.
OK maybe it is, but it's given her so much power.
Yesterday when I got home from work, I threw on a tank and a pair of shorts and went out to wash our very dirty car (now our car is often very dirty, but recently it was coated with a very-sticky, yellow, granular substance that was sprayed all over the parking lot at my work from the fish-food manufacturing plant across the street — and let me tell you, as messy as their explusions are, the smell is even worse).
Mar and Bill helped me try to get the car clean (I noticed this morning that the windows are still all stickied up with fish goo). Afterward we were hanging out in the front yard.
Mar noticed the t-shirt I was wearing and read it aloud: "Chicks kick ... ass? Does that say, 'Ass'?"
When I told her that my shirt did indeed say "ass," she promptly told me, "You should not wear that shirt around the neighborhood. You are setting a bad example for the kids."
I was equally horrified and delighted by her comments.
Being told that you are a bad example by your 6-year-old child is more than a bit disconcerting. And I was hoping that she wouldn't figure this out until she was at least 8.
But on the other hand, I love that she has the presense of mind to not only recognize that moms shouldn't be a display case of profanities but that I should have the decency to remedy the sitution ... which I eventually did.
He's ... old, but it's cool. Getting old beats the alternative.
Lookit this picture I took of him earlier this week when he had to spend two days digging out the back-flow preventor plumbing again and again on our sprinkler system until it stopped leaking. You can tell he was really enjoying himself.
For his birthday, I got him ... a gift that he hasn't received yet so I don't want to ruin the surprise. But I can say that while it's nice, it's not nearly as nice as the bike he got me for my birthday.
He always gets ripped off when it comes to birthday presents. See, my birthday is at the beginning of the summer when we still have money from my teaching and whatnot. Bill's birthday is at the end of the summer when we're broke.
Yeah, it sucks for him, but it rocks for me, so who am I to complain.
But we are going away for the weekend to celebrate — not too far which is good because I'm not in the mood for any long-distance driving. But far away that we won't have cell-phone reception and we will have access to a gorgeous sliver of nature complete with a trout-filled stream that Mar can throw rocks in all day long.
I'm looking forward to doing a whole bunch of nothing. Bill's looking forward to doing some fishing. And Mar will most likely be looking forward to doing her typical compliment of whinning alternating with being hilariously entertaining.
I've taken a bunch of classes and have a couple of books. I like to get up early sometimes (my alarm is set early so I have time for some sun salutations, but I rarely actually drag my sorry bag of bones out of bed and do it), but I often practice before I go to bed (and I always sleep better when I do).
Rarely do I practice yoga during the day or when Mar's around — not for any reason other than the house is quiet only when the kid is asleep.
So I find it remarkable that Margaret has taken such a strong interest in doing yoga herself.
Yesterday, I came home from work to find this: She had the yoga book with all the pictures out and spent the afternoon going through all the poses — all by herself.
This isn't her first foray into yoga by herself, I wonder what motivates her to seek out the therapeutic benefits of this practice. Regardless, I guess it's time to find a mommy and me yoga class.
I 've said that more times than I'd like to count recently.
A whole slew of people are abandoning ship at my work and I don't like it much. A couple are good friends of mine and Bill's and Margaret's.
When I first started working here, a sage co-worker advised me to not make friends in the newsroom. Not because the reporters aren't worthy, but by the nature of the business and the size of this newspaper (it's a smaller community newspaper — perfect for cutting one's teeth and using as a stepping stone), there is a lot of turnover.
Because I'm an utter nincompoop, I rarely heed such good advice. And now I'm watching a couple good friends get ready to leave.
One such friend is Emily. She's not just my friend but Margaret's, too (and she reads this blog, so I'll just be careful to only write about her many postive features and offer that I'm sure she would never set fire to anything or rinse shoes where she shouldn't).
Today for a brief time, I had Margaret in the office with me. I had forwarned her that Emily was going to be moving away to live closer to her family. Margaret was honestly distraught.
While we were visiting with Emily, Margaret very boldly told Emily that she was "big enough now to live by herself."
Ah, the observations of a 6-year-old.
Emily tried to explain that her brother had children that she wanted to see grow. Mar's response, "Ewwwww!"
I mean, how could someone pick their own flesh and blood over her? She is Margaret after all, daughter of Robin.
I should note that Margaret now owns her very own, "It's all about me" t-shirts. She and I should have our picture taken while wearing them.
Lookit how cute he is after a long night of drinking and carrying on: Bill's birthday is Thursday. But it was decided that instead of just a birthday "day," we'd celebrate his birthday week.
So Saturday Mar and I baked a cake (you'll can read about my love affair with the Easy Bake Oven on my Haute Mamas blog) and planned a typical Saturday evening front-yard hang.
It turned about to be less than usual in that we met some fun new people ... normally it's the fun old people. Oh and we had cake that I made ... that's unusual.
Sunday I forced Sean to mow our lawn for free as a nice thing for his dad. He didn't seem convinced that him mowing the lawn was really the nice thing that he wanted to be doing, but I'm persistent and a bit scary, so he relented.
We spent most of the afternoon at the pool. I even got the bottom of my swim suit wet. Yes, people, I got in the pool. First time this year.
Sean had a friend over to spend the night ... or at least I'm pretty sure he did. The kid got to our house, they went into Sean's room and that was the last I saw of 'em.
I could hear giggling so I assumed they weren't dead, but you never really know with teenagers.
Bill checked on them several times and even woke them up this morning to watch Margaret while he ran an errand. But as of lunch, there was still no actual sightings of the elusive teenagers on my part. The phone has rung several times only to be answered by the giggling voices in the front bedroom.
All I care is that they aren't doing anything illegal, they aren't doing anything gross that I find out about and that they aren't making a bunch of weird teenager noise.
Hola Rivetergirl fans, hope to not disappoint but this is uberhusband-Bill Halen sittin' in for the day. I usually enjoy being an unemployed bum during the summer and was hesitant to write this when asked (see unemployed bum) but, decided, why not! It's not like I'm going to paint the house or anything (we are on the 3 year house painting plan).
Now I know my lovely wife usually writes about herself, it is all about her after all, huh honey, so I will continue with that tradition and write about her also only with the uberhusband slant. Rivetergirl and I have now been together 7 years and time has flown by, I'm sure you all have seen pics of wee-one our little sweetheart, who, just the other day, was telling me that she is no longer a little kid but an adult. When I tryed to convince her that she needed to slow down and that she was still a kid and had cool kid stuff yet to do, she looked at me and patted my knee and said " No dad, I'm an adult now, really." I tried to point out that she didn't even have adult teeth yet, but she was having none of it, she just retorted " It's OK dad, I go down the waterslide by myself, I'm an adult." Where she gets that determination and conviction, I don't know, huh honey.
As you know Rivetergirl plays in an all girl rock band "Riveter" who are truly Grand Junction's Sweethearts. I remember when Rob first told my they were statring the band, I was excited and totally supportive, but they have surpassed my wildest dreams for them. They work hard and are truly my favorite band ever!
Robin is absolutely the love of my life, I adore her and appreciate her sense of humor, her quick wit and her beauty. She is my soulmate and lover for life, I am definitely a blessed man! What else can I say except thanks for reading and peeking in to our lucky monkey life and as our favorite songwriter Eddie Spaghetti says: "... much too good to be true. It's in my blood and in her life, far between and way to few, but I hope it happens for you!" BH
He's all cute playing his little harmonica and stuff. Lookit him:I think he prefers not to be "cute" as much as he'd like to be "hardcore" as seen in the picture below: Look at his head, it looks like it's about to spin completely off his neck; like he's on the verge of a pea soup eruption.
It's a katydid or a walking leaf bug or the bug that will likely end up dismembered on my bathroom floor.
They are such crazy bugs — all making noise and being all flat.
But as deft as they are at being incognito, my cats can not only see them but catch them and fillet them like a sous chef ... and they don't have thumbs.
Saturday night, after a long, long night at the Wrong Impressions show, I came home to find not one but two lime-green bug carcasses and their various legs and heads strewn around the house.
Google girl: whatcha doin? Me: feelin' all good about myself, the job I did this week while (my co-worker) was gone and being happy that I have a good jump on weekend pages. (I'm so smug here I could smack myself — I still might.) GG: good for you' Me: How about you? GG: looking at people who dress up like carrots Me: fer reals? GG: that makes me laugh just typing it Me: yeah GG: wanna see Me: um yes! GG: k GG: http://www.flamingcarrot.com/FC/FanGallery/FCcostumes.html GG: i'd make a great character on the office* GG: the girl who always is googling stuff Me: yep and is totally funny GG: what the hell is this website and why do they like to dress up like carrots? Me: and they don't dress their wholeselves up, just their heads. GG:i know Me: that kind of freaks me out GG: i really don't understand GG: there's no explanation except that people have been doing it since the eighties GG: is it a band tribute???? Me: uh, i dunno GG: me either GG:they make action figures too
That was the iChat conversation I had with one of my most favorite people and co-workers last week. She googled "pictures of carrots" and was led to the land of the Flaming Carrot.
After our extensive research, we learned that the Flaming Carrot — despite the vigorous assertions by another co-worker that the Flaming Carrot is some sort of homosexual avatar — is a surrealistic comic-book hero.
I never learned what about the carrot-headed dude made him special. I also could never get over the fact that he was a regular guy except for a giant carrot head and flippered feet. But I did learn how to make a Flaming Carrot costume.
If I cared more and had less of a life, I'd totally make this costume ... because, like the Web page says, "Flaming Carrot gets allllll the ladies."
*That's a reference to the American TV show, "The Office." Google Girl doesn't actually watch the show as she finds the situations and characters too similar to events and people that work in our office.
Johnny G.
Bridgett
Bill Halen
Danny
Yeah, I took them all. You can't really tell, but my arm is all streched out and holding my little camera just perfectly for a nice close-in headshot.
