U.S. Postal Service: We Care!

Today I dragged myself home with my grainy, vomit-colored, green-tea smoothie (the idea of the green-tea smoothie was a lot better than the actual green-tea smoothie). I stood at the table to sort the mail before I spent most of my lunch hour at my appointment with the toilet.

I had to laugh when I came across this piece of mail from Bill's dad in a plastic baggie with "WE CARE" emblazoned across the top:

If they care, why are they taking giant bites out of the mail. Don't they feed their employees?

And the grumbly remains

I barely made it home from work Friday before my guts erupted all over the carpet, the floor, the door, my clothes. It was disgusting and I was home alone.

After cleaning up my puke-o-rama. I laid in my bed shivering. Bill came home and took me to the doctor where I got some anti-nausea medicine that worked wonders.

By Saturday, I felt fine ... the operative word is "felt." I was not fine, I just thought I was.

I worked on my class and rode my bike downtown with Margaret. The weather was glorious. Saturday night we watched a movie with some friends (Walk Hard, again. That movie is way funnier than it has any right to being).

Sunday ... ick. Sunday I was sick again. I stayed in my pajamas and missed a party I really wanted to go to. I was too sick to get any work done and too sick to sleep. I mostly ate Popsicles and watched stupid TV holed up in my tiny, back-room sanctuary.

The weather was gorgeous again and I missed it all.

A co-worker just told me he had the exact same thing as me along with the eruptive vomit storm and the Saturday lull.

My neighbors were sick in the stomach as well with e.Coli. Fer reals e.Coli. They have no idea where they got it and luckily they are much better after being down for five days.

I'm managing alright, but am in a sour mood to match my stomach. Being sick can kiss my ass.

NOOOOooooooooooooo!

No, no, no, James can't leave Survivor because of an injured finger. That's just not fair, Survivor people.


Oh James, I'll miss you and your rock hard abs.

Compelling reading

Jennifer Plesko twittered that these blog entries were riveting. She was so right. If I didn't have to do all this stupid work, I'd be reading this woman's accounts of being admitted to mental hospital all day long.

And some people think twitter is a waste of time.

It's May 1st, here's some snow for you

One of the nice things about living in western Colorado is the temperate climate.

Or I should say normally temperate climate. We just got through one doozy of a winter, but spring was here ... wait ... we thought spring was here. 'the hell?

I think Mother Nature's gone off her med or she's aching for an ass kickin'.

I didn't want to like it

I didn't even want to watch it, but I was peer pressured into watching Into the Wild with Bill.

I don't like the idea of being alone in the wilderness. The idea of wandering off into the wilderness is about as foreign to me as reading Chinese or understanding physics. Plus it scares the bejezuses out of me.

Bill read Krakauer's book years ago and really liked it and was excited to see the movie. I told him he was on his own. I wasn't interested.

Turns out I was wrong. This story is so interesting.

Of course the movie takes some liberties and there is some conjecture about the events at the end of the story, but the story is so compelling, I couldn't not watch.

I'm always so surprised when my initial visceral reaction to something is so very wrong.

But then again, being wrong is something that I've grown used to.

The good, the bad and the ugly truth

The good news is that I'm four chapters from completing the curriculum for an online course I'm going to be teaching.

The bad news is that I still have four chapters to go until I'm done with my online curriculum.

The ugly news is that I've been working all. day. long. every stupid day. I work my day job, then my teaching job, then I come home and work on my curriculum. I take an occasional break to pretend I'm a rock star, but then I'm back at it.

It's more boring and tedious than you can imagine ... or I guess you could imagine if you've been reading this blog or my other blog. I've been writing some pretty lame crap, I know.

I'm uninspired and tired. But Jenny at The Bloggess said she loved me because I posted a picture of myself on the crapper yesterday. And that is pretty much the most awesome thing ever, because that chick is awesomely hilarious in a biting sourcastic way (I'm making it my personal mission to replace the word "sarcasm" with Margaret's "sourcasm" ... just like those people did with the coffee in those commercials all those years ago ... does that make sense to anyone other than myself?). So expect more pictures of myself doing things that would embarrass my mother. (Hi mom!)

If I stay on schedule, I'll be done with my curriculum this week and I get back to my regularly scheduled life which should be including yard sitting (it's that time of the year again) and incessant rambling about things that are funny to me.

Because I used to think I was hilarious, I hope to get that way again.

Oh how we love the Fruita Fat Tire Festival

Saturday my band Riveter played the Fruita Fat Tire Festival. This was our third year playing the festival and we love it more each year.

The crowd was huge and awesome despite the fact it was pretty dang cold, but people stayed and were rocked by our hot selves.

I wrote last year about Team 'Stache. These guys are so much fun and so nice that they made us t-shirts.

Here's mine:
Classy, no?

Needless to say, we had so much fun playing this show. I can't wait until next year.

It's our dude drummer, Scotty "Boom Boom" Davis doing his best Bret Michels impression along side Punk Rock legend Bill Halen aka free sound guy.



Does it look like we're having fun? Because we totally were.

We're so cute we can even rock the shizzle out of mustaches.

Sometimes a girl needs sometime to read an atlas. What? Jealous?

This was actually taken while Laurena, Kelley and I were getting ready for the show in the bathroom of Over the Edge Sports. We neglected to tell them what we were doing and some of the patrons seemed a bit miffed we spent so much time in there spraying glitter and fluffing our hair.

Our rock star lives are so tough.

The bible according to Bill

Attack of the stomach

For the last couple of years Margaret has an on-again, off-again relationship with monster in her stomach. Sometimes she's fine and sometimes she isn't. Today she isn't.

I think she's reacting to all the crappy food that Bill lets her eat.

While my mom was here, she and Bill would go to Sam's Club while I was at class and stock up on sugar cereals and packages of cookies and crackers and cheese.

Recently I stopped eating this kind of food in an effort to made myself a healthier person. Bill continues to eat the crap and feed it to my kid. So it's all Bill's fault.

OK, OK, it isn't all Bill's fault that my kid is sick, but it's so much easier to have someone to blame. Having to come to terms with my kid's delicate stomach is much harder.

My double Doh day

When Margaret was in kindergarten she got a report card that said she was still learning how to keep her hands and feet to herself. I was horrified that my kid was one of those kids; you know the ones that don't keep to themselves.

She seemed to have gotten better about that over the last year or at least I thought her had.

Click over here to read about my kid's anger issues. Double dirty Doh!

Is there a grace to growing old?

When I look in the mirror I see tired bags under my eyes and gray in my hair. I just spend a chunk of my hard-earned cash on several vials of potions to help my skin look better, less lined and old. And I go to the salon regularly to get my gray covered (it used to be because I wanted blonde hair ... now it's a necessity. Doh!)

I wear sunscreen on my face everyday and wear a hat and sunglasses when possible outdoors. I want to preserve what's left of my youthful skin (of course, I want to avoid more skin cancer, too). Must. Not. Look. Old.

But then I see people like Priscilla Pressley:
and I think, "Why would she do that to herself?" When she talks her upper lip doesn't move, nor does she seem to have much expression in her face. She's 63 years old and she's turned her face into a mask. Is looking old so horrible that we chose this instead?

It seems so.

At lunch today I was watching a show on the CMT station (yeah, I have no excuse for why) where some girls are trying out for a traveling singing and dancing group or something. One of the contestants is 37 (my age) and she looked pretty good, but the judges kept calling her an old dog and suggesting she couldn't learn anything new.

'the hell?

What ever happened to growing old gracefully?

Blurzerb, zert, guglug

Between the gas and oil fumes emanating from Bill and the grinding of my overworked brain, I'm more than a bit fried.

I grapple (I so wanted to type "scrapple" there — while living in Pennsylvania a friend once asked a deli counter woman what scrapple was. She replied, "Well, it's ... uh ... scrapple." Warning enough, no?) with common words and have to think really hard to get them out.

I can't even muster a witty twitter this morning. And I have no pithy repartee on the Rock of Love Reunion show yesterday — despite the fact that seeing Heather grab Daisy's weave and punch her in the head over and over was beyond awesome.

Gah, I becoming ... slow and dull ... shoot me now.

If they didn't already

the neighbors are going to now ...

Bill got "the bike" the started. He's still got some issues to work out, like a sticking carburetor, but the ole Triumph is running.

When I called Bill on my way home from band practice last night, he sounded giddy. Then ecstatic when he revealed that he got the bike to turn over. I was like he won the lottery.

Awesome.

RIP Green Pants

Anyone who knows me in the real world and outside of work* knows that for the last four years I've been wearing a pair of Old Navy cotton capris almost every day during the spring and summer.

Every year when it would get nice enough to start wearing capris I would bring out my favorite green pants. I would finger the fraying seams and worn fabric and wonder how many more years I could get out of my beloved green pants. Then I'd worry about what I was going to do when the knees wore through or a seam split.

This spring was no exception. I unfolded my trusty green pants noticing the stains and wear was getting quite noticeable. I didn't care. I love my green pants, so on they went.

Then two weekends ago, we decided to take Margaret to the movies. As I was hauling my fat ass into the back seat of my mom's new car a tragedy happened.

The fabric that once covered my ample left buttock gave way with a hideous scream. I knew immediately what happened. I jumped out of the car only to witness rolls of gelatinous blubber oozing out of the tear of my green pants.

The fabric split on the left hip area; not on a seam, but right between the seam and the back pocket.

Margaret laughed heartily at my ripped pants. I wanted to cry.

My mom offered a few suggestions on how to attempt a repair, but I knew it was a lost cause. My beloved green pants are dead.

I tried to throw them away, but that just seemed too sad. So now they are in a heap on my closet floor waiting for their trip to the land fill.

Oh green pants, I will miss you.

P.S. I went back through my iPhoto to find some pictures of me wearing my green pants. Out of the 5,730 photos I have this is the only one of me wearing my green pants.
Moral of the P.S. is that I don't have many pictures of myself. Huh.

(* People who only see me at work would be aghast that I have loved a pair of green pants, as I only wear black to work. Really. Only black every day. What? It's easy and I'm lazy.)

Half moon

I took this picture Saturday night while we were standing around looking at Bill's motorcycle. I was hoping to capture the half moon and it kinda worked. Go little Nikon.

Let's just call it "the bike"

I wrote about Bill's new love over here.

In case you were wondering ...

this is what a ’69 Triumph motorcycles looks like in the back of a Ford Explorer:

And this is what it looks like out of it:

It's in and he's on his way home

Bill sent me this picture from his cell phone yesterday:


It's my father's 1969 Triumph motorcycle, partially disassembled and loaded in the back of the 1999 Ford Explorer — both of which are gifts from my mother. Both of which are essentially gifts for Bill.

He's been salivating over that motorcycle ever since he first saw it 9 years ago sitting in my dad's storage shed. And now it's on its way to Grand Junction.

Bill's original plan was to rent a trailer and pull the motorcycle home. But U-Haul will not rent trailers to people driving Ford Explorers. Nice vote of confidence for our new-to-us car.

Then he was going to use my mom's snowmobile trailer (and leave the snowmobiles sitting in the dirt until he brought it back in June), but then he finally decided to disassemble as much as possible and get the neighbors to help him load it in the back.

When he and my mom arrived in Truckee Thursday afternoon, he barely let my mom in the front door before he began the quest to get the motorcycle out of the storage shed at the back of the house.

Luckily for him the 10 feet of snow that had been blocking shed access had mostly melted. Then he fussed and fretted and made calls and focused all his energy yesterday on how he was going to get that motorcycle home.

I know Bill to be a guy that likes to get the job done, but he was obsessed with that bike. Obsessed with getting it home.

Barring any unfortunate incident between here and where ever he is in Nevada (knock on wood), that mission will be over sometime tonight.

Wish him luck.

Oh and if you happen to know anything about Triumph motorcycles, lemme know, as we're still not sure of the model (and the title is sitting in my parent's safe ... and my mom doesn't know the combination ... doh!).

ETA: Oh never mind. Bill researched the good ole Internets last night and found out that it's a 1969 Triumph TR6R Tiger 650.

1974 Weight Watchers Cards

Sometime back, Candy Boots found a stack of Weight Watchers recipe cards from 1974 and posted them along with her comments on her site.

Every time I see them, I am immediately turned into a 14-year-old boy. I get totally distracted and completely absorbed in laughing at these cards.

So now that Lynn linked to them today on our Haute Mamas site, I've become utterly useless (not that I wasn't before).

The one that gets me — and — into the most trouble is this one.

Richie and I spent several days a few years back talking about nothing other than the certain word that we learned which was associated with that recipe.

Gramma driver

My mom has this way of driving where it doesn't matter if she's accelerating or not, but it always seems like you're slowing down.

To say she's a conservative driver is a big understatement so I was not at all surprised to have this conversation with Bill yesterday an hour after he and my mom had left for their trip to California.

Me: Where are you guys?

Bill: Well, your mom forgot she had to get gas so we had to stop at Sam's Club.

Bill: Then she forgot she wanted to take her shoes off, so we had to stop so she could take her shoes off.

Bill: Then she forgot she wanted to take her coat off, so we had to stop so she could take her coat off.

Me: Ha-ha.

Bill: So we're just outside of Fruita. And I forgot I wanted to take my pants off so we're going to have to stop for that shortly ...

Plus, she's insisting that they not drive over 65 mph ... for some gramma reason that I don't understand.

And don't think that Bill will be able to drive faster while she sleeps because on our trip from California to Colorado when I was just out of high school, any time I went over 70 she'd wake up enough to say, "SLOW DOWN."

She has some sort of internal speedometer. It's a little scary.

Bye Mama

I don't know what her problem is? I mean why would anyone want to leave our house?

For the past 6 weeks, my mom has been staying in our house, sharing a room with her precocious ... er, I mean, precious 7-year-old granddaughter. She got an entire drawer in Margaret's dresser and a spot in her closet for hanging stuff. We shared our bathroom with her and gave her room for her stuff. What else could a grandma want?

And while we were at work, the cats and the dog kept her company ... oh wait, she doesn't like animals that much and she especially hates them to touch her.

So what if she has her own roomy house with her own bedroom and her own bathroom ... OK, three bedrooms and three bathrooms without a dog or cat in sight.

I mean we only called her once to come get us because Bill and I decided to share an entire bottle of tequila (Hornitos, of course) with our friends. We'll just forget that Bill forced her to take us to Weiner Dog. She got the last laugh in in that we called at 10 p.m. ... yeah, we're not the late-night partiers we once were.

But whatever.

The good news is that she's going home to get her house ready to sell, to sort through the garage full of my dad's prize possessions and then she's going to move here.

So even though she won't move into our tiny house with us now, she is moving here and that's awesome news indeed.

1943 Guide to Hiring Women

The following is an excerpt from the July 1943 issue of Transportation Magazine. This was written for male supervisors of women in the work force during World War II.

"Eleven Tips on Getting More Efficiency Out of Women Employees: There's no longer any question whether transit companies should hire women for jobs formerly held by men. The draft and manpower shortage has settled that point. The important things now are to select the most efficient women available and how to use them to the best advantage.

Here are eleven helpful tips on the subject from Western Properties:

1. Pick young married women. They usually have more of a sense of responsibility than their unmarried sisters, they're less likely to be flirtatious, they need the work or they wouldn't be doing it, they still have the pep and interest to work hard and to deal with the public efficiently.

2. When you have to use older women, try to get ones who have worked outside the home at some time in their lives. Older women who have never contacted the public have a hard time adapting themselves and are inclined to be cantankerous and fussy. It's always well to impress upon older women the importance of friendliness and courtesy.

3. General experience indicates that "husky" girls - those who are just a little on the heavy side - are more even tempered and efficient than their underweight sisters.

4. Retain a physician to give each woman you hire a special physical examination - one covering female conditions. This step not only protects the property against the possibilities of lawsuit, but reveals whether the employee-to-be has any female weaknesses which would make her mentally or physically unfit for the job.

5. Stress at the outset the importance of time the fact that a minute or two lost here and there makes serious inroads on schedules. Until this point is gotten across, service is likely to be slowed up.

6. Give the female employee a definite day-long schedule of duties so that they'll keep busy without bothering the management for instructions every few minutes. Numerous properties say that women make excellent workers when they have their jobs cut out for them, but that they lack initiative in finding work themselves.

7. Whenever possible, let the inside employee change from one job to another at some time during the day. Women are inclined to be less nervous and happier with change.

8. Give every girl an adequate number of rest periods during the day. You have to make some allowances for feminine psychology. A girl has more confidence and is more efficient if she can keep her hair tidied, apply fresh lipstick and wash her hands several times a day.

9. Be tactful when issuing instructions or in making criticisms. Women are often sensitive; they can't shrug off harsh words the way men do. Never ridicule a woman - it breaks her spirit and cuts off her efficiency.

10. Be reasonably considerate about using strong language around women. Even though a girl's husband or father may swear vociferously, she'll grow to dislike a place of business where she hears too much of this.

11. Get enough size variety in operator's uniforms so that each girl can have a proper fit. This point can't be stressed too much in keeping women happy."

As amazingly obtuse these are, I can't argue with No. 11 — there's nothing worse than a stack full of smalls and no x-larges for us big uns.

Speaking of big uns, let's address No. 3, shall we?

Speaking from experience, "husky" girls aren't more even tempered, they are more hungry. But I do have to say that the reference to "their underweight sisters" was quite delightful.

I'm going to stop calling skinny girls "skinny" and start calling them my "underweight sisters." I think they'll like that.

When tattoos go wrong ...

Very wrong.



(Thanks Markel for forwarding this to me. Nice way to start the morning.)

8 years and counting ...

The traditional gifts for the 8th wedding anniversary is something made from either bronze or ceramic.

Let's see. Bill and I are celebrating our 8th anniversary today maybe we should get something like this:
We could save money in that ... uh, yeah, right. Eight years and we still haven't figured out the meaning of the words "savings account."

Or this:

Everyone knows how much we likes ourselves some nekkid goddess and cupid sculptures.

The modern gift for the 8th wedding anniversary is something made of linen or lace.

So we could look for things like this:
Linen is oh-so practical for a guy who works in a greasy machine shop all day.

So this?

Um, do you really want your lingerie to blend in with your skin and extrude your fat rolls out? Because if the answer is yes, then that is all me. But I'm thinking, yeah, no.

So I guess Bill and I will have to go with our usual gifts which is constant love, thankfulness that we found each other and a heaping dose of goofiness. And just to mix it up this year, we're going to throw in a little backyard landscaping — because we're so romantic like that.

Funny shit

This gal is hilarious. In her last post she wrote this:

In more personal news, I planted grape hyacinth bulbs in the planter outside my front door. They have sprung but not yet bloomed. A few of them look a little corky. And by corky I mean retarded. I think they would have done much better than they are now if people would quit shitting in my planter, leaving malt liquor bottles in my planter, sprinkling pistachio hulls in my planter and otherwise putting things into my planter which are not PLANTS or at least NOT ANY MORE.

People can be such jerks.

I’ve thought about making a small but decorative sign that would say something like, “If you don’t feel like picking up your trash and throwing it away, imagine how psyched I am about doing it. Not even a little bit. At least empty your bottles before chucking them in so I don’t get soaked by King Cobra at 8am on my way out the door to work. And if you really have to go to the bathroom so BAD that you choose to crap in my planter, I am guessing that you are in very bad shape or are dead from pooping out all of your vital organs that last time. That loggage was monster. Was it better or worse than the last time I had to clean up human feces? When it was in a pair of tighty-whiteys sitting on top of the Burger King bag the culprit had wiped his (because you know it was) ass with? The jury is out.”

Now that's some funny shit, people.

Can't blog ... working ...

No time ... stressing ... rushing ... waiting ... trying not to tear my hair ....

Just click over here and comment to win some jewelry already!

The honeymoon is over

Bill flew out yesterday to do a consulting job for the Department of Defense's unmanned robotics project (I know, he's all fancy). I called him on my way home from band practice last night around 9:30 (he left from here yesterday morning around 11 a.m.).

Let me preface the rest of this story by pointing out that Bill teaches math and is very interested in his kids having a strong foundation in math.

I was telling a story about how Margaret was wowing my mom and I with her understanding of fractions at dinner last night. I was expecting an enthusiastic response but instead I got crickets.

I immediately thought of those cell phone commercials about dropped calls and I was all, "Hello ... hello!"

And Bill goes, "Oh hey yeah, good story."

What? I then asked him if he was watching TV instead of listening to me (honestly sometimes I'd rather watch TV than listen to me, but still ... ) and he was all, "Uh, no, uh, I was just a little tired."

Me: Dude, you feel asleep while I was talking to you?

Him: Uh, no not really.

Me: OK then what did I say?

Him: You said, 'Mar was writing down fractions'... and then ... the rest of what you said.

Me: 'The rest of what I said'? You totally feel asleep while I was sharing another facet of our daughter's genius.

Him: I'm tired, it's almost midnight here.

Me: **crickets**

Monday is our 8th wedding anniversary. I feel safe to say the honeymoon is finally over.

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

Over at the Haute Mamas, we're giving away jewelry. Free jewelry. Free nice handmade jewelry. Come on, click it, you know you want to.

Kids who are awesome

I write a lot about how awesome my kid is, but believe it or not there are some other kids that are uber cool as well. Shocking, I know.

Below is video proof of the awesome powers of my dear friends' triplets:



Make sure you check out Chance's face on the left and watch for the cinnamon as it comes out his nose. Like I said people, awesome.

For those unaware, the cinnamon challenge is to ingest a heaping spoonful of cinnamon without any sort of liquid. Just the thought makes me start to gag. And apparently multitudes of people are doing this and posting their reactions on YouTube.

Oh Internets, what did we do before you existed?

Luckily for us, those plucky youngsters weren't satisfied with cinnamon challenge and create this gem:



I love the turkey noises in the background and Piper, camerawoman extraordinaire, telling Chance to stay behind her.

Like I said, awesome all the way around.

To hell with accountability

New! Gmail Custom TimeTM

Ever wish you could go back in time and send that crucial email that could have changed everything -- if only it hadn't slipped your mind? Gmail can now help you with those missed deadlines, missed birthdays and missed opportunities. Pre-date your messages You tell us what time you would have wanted your email sent, and we'll take care of the rest. Need an email to arrive 6 hours ago? No problem. Mark as read or unread Take sending emails to the past one step further. We let you make emails look like they've been read all along. Make them count Use your custom time stamped messages wisely -- each Gmail user gets ten per year. Worry less Forget your finance reports. Forget your anniversary. We'll make it look like you remembered. Learn more about Gmail Custom Time »

Wow! I mean, forget about being conscientious, you can use Google's new "Custom Time" feature to lie for you. This makes me want to throw up.

ETA: Doh! I'm so gullible! April fools on me. Click here to read more.

Making the cut

I love this picture of Margaret. I love how her hair is all long and wind blown. (You can click here to read a tiny blurb I wrote about this day over here.)

Saturday she's getting it cut into a shortish bob. As much as I like long hair and I love fixing my daughter's hair into braids and ponytails, she does not.

She insists on wearing it down and messy and full of leaves. She doesn't like to comb or brush or otherwise fuss with her hair, so it's coming off again.

We cut her hair in kindergarten and it looked cute and she liked it. Why do we keep thinking that will change? She's Margaret and she doesn't care of her hair's a mess. I can live with that.

Notes for a car dealer

One of the things that my mom wanted to do while she was here in Colorado was buy a new car. So for the past couple weeks, we've been researching cars ... more specifically small SUVs.

My mom needs an SUV, or at least a car with all-wheel drive, simply because of the conditions she drives in in California and here in Colorado. She also likes the cargo room that SUVs offer.

The first step in the mom's-buying-a-car process consisted of going to the dealerships and sitting in the cars. Sitting. That's all. Not driving. We sat in the driver's seat, the passenger seat and the rear seats. Then we inspected all of the cars' nooks and crannies.

It was then that we got to meet some car salesmen.

I have some advice for car salesmen: Women are not stupid and do not need to be talked down to. Just so you know.

I mean, the world of the Internet has opened up a plethora of information and all we really need of you, dear car salesmen, is to unlock the doors. We can deal with the rest.

Things we liked in cars (not considering safety — because all cars are pretty safe these days — and fuel economy — which was very important to my mom) is a place to put your purse while driving. As women, we take our purses with us most of the time and it has to go somewhere.

After going through the "sitting in the car" phase, we moved on to the "drive the car" phase. This is an important step. We learned a lot about these cars.

Probably one of the most important things is seat comfort. All those safety features 'n' shit are important, but if the seat is uncomfortable it's going to suck driving that car. We found that several of the small SUVs have small seats. Seats designed for regular to small people. We are not regular to small, we are big people and therefore big seats.

Also, while leather seats and millions of doo dads are nice, my mom wasn't really interested in that. She was interested in comfort, reliability and fuel economy.

After driving many cars she finally decided on the 2009 Subaru Forester. Yes, in March of 2008 we were looking at the 2009 Forester. She sat in the 2008 Forester and found the interior too small and confining. The salesman was quick to comment that Subaru had redesigned the Forester for 2009 and they just happened to have a couple.

She finished test driving the other SUVs pretty much knowing that she wanted the 09 Forester in blue ... with the sunroof that she didn't want until she saw how big it was in the Forester.

And she was right, she liked the pep of the Subaru four-cylinder better than the other and the Subaru's interior was head and shoulders better than the domestics. She had made her decision. Now came the negotiation.

Here's another piece of advice for car salesmen: If you make with a customer, be on time. Twice my mom had to wait for a salesmen when she had an appointment.

One of the times was when she was going in to actually buy the car. So she was already annoyed and when the dealership wouldn't negotiate and were uncertain when they could get the exact car she wanted, she walked.

My mom's awesome that way. She walked out of the only Subaru dealer in town, despite the fact that she really wanted that car.

So we took again to the Internet and I found her car ... in Longmont.

My mom called the Longmont dealer and the dealer in Glenwood Springs. And because my mom was going to write a check for the car, she held all the power.

The Glenwood Springs dealer didn't have the blue one, but they said they could get one. The Longmont guy had the car but was 200 miles away. The Longmont guy agreed to my mom's price AND to drive it to our house.

Then the Glenwood Springs guy agreed on the prise and promised the car would be at their dealership the next day.

My mom told the Longmont guy we were going with the Glenwood Springs guy; he offered more money off.

Now she was just having fun.

After weeks of research and getting treated both bad and good by dealerships, she was the one with the control. Then she started feeling guilty. I told her that this is they way that the car dealerships made it with all the bickering and dealing and bullshit. She had the power and she should take advantage.

She told the Glenwood Springs guy of the Longmont guy's additional discount and he matched it. And it was done.

We drove the next day to Glenwood Springs and bought her car. But not before she got calls from other dealers offering more money off other cars.

So we learned a valuable lesson and one more bit of advice for car dealers: We're on to you. We know how you deal and we don't trust you no matter how big your smile. We're going to wait you out until you call begging to give us a better deal.

Too much, really?

My stomach is upset and I can't, for the life of me, figure out why.

For breakfast I had two pieces of Easter candy. For lunch I had a large piece of Pablo's la Chupacabra pizza, three stove-top (aka unbaked) cookies, a piece of chocolate spice cake and a brownie ... oh and a whole can of non-diet generic Dr. Pepper.

I wonder what it could be? I'd better go eat some chili to make it feel better.

Eyes have it

When I retire or become independently wealthy, I'm going to conduct a study of eye color. There are so many different colors. We need more categories than brown, blue, hazel, violet.

This, of course, has come from the fact that we've been mystified by Margaret's eye color since she was a baby. At age 7 we are confident that they are greenish hazel ... to be specifically non-specific.


This interests me so much because I have blue eyes and Bill has brownish eyes. I expected either blue or brownish for Mar. This blend Margaret received is very cool, but surprising.

I want more information on how eye color is determined, please.

Would you like some whine with your ARRGH!

Why is my kid kind of sick all the time?

To make sure I die of stress at a young age.

It is just her

Margaret: Is it just me or do I have to pee?

Austin fashion

Last year at SXSW it seemed that everyone had skinny jeans and emo haircuts. This year we noticed a different trend among the ladies:


Skirts or dresses with boots.

I took the pictures of these 12 boot'n'dress wearing gals during legendary punk band X played their set at Spin magazine's at Stubb's.

Last year, Bill finagled us into that same party where the Buzzcocks were playing. This year I was the one who got us in ... but with far less finesse.

We were standing outside the venue and it was hot and I was tired and I didn't want to be standing around there anymore. Bill tried to get in and was told that we'd have to wait. I saw a guy giving out passes and I walked up to him, held up my hand and said "five." He looked at me and said, "That's aggressive." And I shrugged my shoulders. He gave me five passes.

Sometimes you just have to ask.

Can it be real?

Do you think spring is really here? I hope so. We really enjoyed the mild weather this past weekend.

Click over here to see pictures of us carousing.

Like father, like daughter.

I saw the quirky and low-fi gal

One of my favorite moments at SXSW was seeing Kimya Dawson play at a record store.

For those unfamiliar, Kimya did many songs on the Juno soundtrack and I've been listening to that soundtrack non-stop for more than a month now. I love Kimya's music so much, it inspired me to make this video which I posted a while back.

And I've said "quirky and low-fi" so much that one evening when I was at band practice and Bill and Mar were visiting neighbors, Kimya's name came up in conversation and Margaret immediately said, "Oh she's low-fi and quirky." Awesome.

The record store was a LONG way from Sixth Street and most of the other SXSW goings on. We had to hoof it a LONG way in 90 degree temperature to see her. We got there late, but Bill and I still managed to squirm our way to the front and stand there all hot and sweaty, but it was worth it. Seeing her made my trip, fo' sho'.


We've listened to Kimya's music with Margaret a lot, so I was excited to learn that she's putting out a children's album with songs that talk about gorilla farts and such. Double awesome.

Oh and I posted over here about Margaret's addiction ... hopefully she won't be going all Amy Winehouse on us.

Riveter's Invasion of the GoGirls – SXSW 2008

GoGirlsMusic — I love this organization. GoGirls is the brain-child of Madalyn Sklar and this chick rocks. Fer reals.

She knows all the ins and outs of the indie music scene and works hard to provide information and services that are geared toward helping musicians reach their goals ... and not about lining her own pockets.

Invasion of the GoGirls is a showcase featuring 60 acts over three days and it all takes place during Austin's famed South by Southwest music festival. So Austin is already chaotic and full of musicians, but that doesn't stop Madalyn from running a tight ship.

Over three days, she runs four shows featuring over 60 singers, groups and bands. Just getting picked to be part of this showcase is huge for us, but then getting picked for the Saturday night event was even more huger (yes, "huger" is a word ... in my mind).

The shows ran on time and they rocked. We witnessed some acts that were truly unlike any acts we've seen before. You'll never be bored when the GoGirls are in town.

We're not in Texas anymore

We got back into town a day later than we expected, but we had a great trip and I'll have pictures and more to write about that. Now I'm just playing catch up.

In the meantime, I wrote about Margaret and how she's coping with her grief over here.

Rivetergirl at SXSW

Click here to see video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNToJyroO6A

Why I love San Antonio - Part 2

San Antonio smells AWESOME!

Some parts of town smells like delicious Tex-Mex or bar-be-que, other places smell like fragrant spring flowers and our hotel smells like herbs or something that inspires me to say "I love the smell of our hotel" every time we go to our room.

The part of the city we're in is clean and wonderful for walking. We're next to the Alamo and the famed riverwalk. And I mean right next door to both.

And you can get giant margaritas with Sauza tequilas with Hornitas. I don't know what Hornitas are, but I love 'em. Mmmm ... Hornitas!

Oh and even though it's been rainy, it's warm enough to be comfortable with a hoodie. It's like paradise after the brutal Grand Junction winter.

Why I love San Antonio - Part 1

Don't mess with Asian Jesus

"Confess or I will use Jesus punches to beat you."

Awesome.

South by Southwest, baby!

My band getting ready for our show Saturday night and then Bill and I are off to Texas.

After relaxing for a few days, we're going to pick up the rest of the band at the airport and then take South by Southwest by storm.

We're going to be writing about our experiences on GJSentinel.com's community page and we'll be posting photos and video there as well.

We're also being featured in The Daily Sentinel's entertainment magazine, Out and About, tomorrow. We had a photo shoot for that.

Check out these pictures:

We're giving stuff away

Click over here to enter to win a super-cute, hand-crafted handbag. It's easy and quick and and you can win a free bag.

Free stuff. Who doesn't love free stuff?

Linkity Links

Garfield minus Garfield: It's so much better this way.

Almost plane crash: So much better than an actual plane crash.

Did you know ...

that I love the Supersuckers? Because I do. If I didn't there's no way I'da hauled my cookies out on a Sunday night to see a show.

A Sunday night.

And it was awesome.


The picture of Bill and I standing in front of the stage is during Eddie and Jordan Shapiro's version of Peace in the Valley ... that they played because I asked in a most enthusiastic way.

Awesome. It was a great show and I'd totally go out on a Sunday night again to see them.

Spring cures many ills

Margaret played piano in a sonatina festival Saturday. She didn't win, but she played well and we're super proud of her. You can read more about that over here.

It was a gorgeous spring day (despite the fact that winter reared its vicious head Sunday). While we were waiting for the other performers to finish, we walked around the college's campus.

It was glorious. Then we bought gummy bears. Awesome.