Monday, November 24, 2008

A Really Cute Pirate Chick


I actually had these pictures printed up on photo paper and everything, since I was also printing one of Eric in Macbeth. I was looking through them and I thought, Why, she's just the cutest little pirate chick, why haven't I posted that on my blog? She still has Halloween candy left, by the way, which she taunts her dad with mercilessly.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

This One's for Jana --

You THOUGHT you were the queen!

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Text Messaging - Big Bang style

Now that the Big Bang Theory and 30 Rock are back with a vengeance, my phone is filling up with quotes every week.

FROM JANA:

There is mayonnaise on this grilled cheese - What?!? (30 Rock)

Live every day like it's Shark Week. (30 Rock)

I want to learn to text in my pocket. (After watching an especially impressive Burn Notice)

Michael Weston can do anything. So much cooler than MacGyver. (Same idea)

Shirtless adorable Brit alert! No pic. Sorry. (British soccer coaches who are housed with my sister, beware... this post, plus the one about stalking, should creep you out but good)

It's like the start of a joke: a Welshman, an Englishman and a Scotsman were playing poker... (which actually did happen at Jana's house last summer when she housed a Scottish soccer coach)

More cowbell!! (self-explanatory)

Kids suck. (This from a former kindergarten teacher, now a child's librarian.)

I just stalk people until they give in and become my friend. (Jana, explaining her friendship technique, which she actually is employing RIGHT THIS MINUTE to one lucky soccer mom in Kalispell, Montana -- not to scare anyone...)

What a newb. (Big Bang Theory)

We have monkey. (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia)

FROM ALEX:

Tracy Jordan dress for success: Dress every day like you're going to be murdered in those clothes. (30 Rock)

Carter, you have to learn to do things yourself... Carter, you have to learn to do things yourself... Carter, you have to learn to do things yourself... (Max Warnell, before his auntie yelled at him that she felt Carter either got the point or wasn't listening anyway)

I'm going to need the energy if I'm going to start blowing crap up. It's what the Founding Fathers would have wanted. (Jim Gaffigan - Beyond the Pale)

Fashion show! Fashion show! Fashion show at lunch! (The Office)

I did not become a Lackawana County volunteer sheriff's deputy to make friends -- and I haven't. (The Office)

Haha. My favorite food at Thanksgiving is fun dip. (Again, a nugget of profoundness from Max Warnell.)

Haha. My charming smile is not creepy. It's warm and inviting. (Reba)

FROM ERIC:

Margaritas. (This pertains to the time last summer when Jana drank four margaritas in about a 45-minute time span and then puked on the lawn in front of her kids and my kids and our parents, all before, like 7:00 p.m.)

After reading over these texts, not many are from the Big Bang Theory. But I post older texts first, to clear off my phone. So my next texting post should be chock-full of BBT goodness.

Update

Well, it's been awhile since I've posted anything, I know. So let's get to it.

Eric, as you may have heard, has gone all thespian lately. He volunteered to star in MacBeth as Caithness, or as he'd be named in a more contemporary play, Soldier 3. He gets to yell, "Scotland, Scotland" and then die on stage in a sword fight. He absolutely loves it. I don't think this means he's going to be quitting his job to concentrate on his "craft", but he may volunteer again soon --

Alex made the varsity basketball team at her school. Her team is full of, basically, school-season basketball players, which doesn't bode well when you play, for instance, Enumclaw Middle School, which team has at least two players who play year-round with a team from Fircrest. (For those of you unfamiliar with this area, the high school in Fircrest is called Foss. For those of you unfamiliar with Foss, there is a large African-American population there. When Eric heard me telling someone these girls play year-round with a bunch of black girls, Eric called me a racist, but in terms of basketball, I think it totally makes a difference when you qualify it that way. Anyway, I'm from Montana and while I don't consider myself a racist, I am less politically correct than other people.) Although they didn't lose by 40 like Eric predicted, they did lose by 36. I don't think we have a lot to look forward to, i.e., the future of White River girls basketball. It's seems like every year around this time (her first basketball game) I start thinking to myself, "How in the hell did we end up playing year-round soccer?" Eric and I took Alex to EVERY SINGLE Federal Way Eagles girls basketball game from the time she was born. She was the ball girl for two or three years and took her job very seriously. I mean, neither of us had any interest in soccer before Alex. The whole reason she even started playing was because Eric approached this basketball coach in Federal Way and asked him if he wanted to help start up an AAU girls basketball team. Pete said that would be great, but right now they needed some more soccer players. And here we are.

Samantha is taking a jazz dance class on Wednesdays. They have two practices left. She loves it, but I would like to see a class with more dancing and maybe technique emphasis. This class is only eight weeks long and it's basically geared all towards the recital in December. Not that I have a lot of interest in having her become a dancer, but she still loves Dancing with the Stars, and when she sees those juniors dance, she always says she would love to ballroom dance, just not with boys.

As for me, I have actually had quite a bit of transcription work at home lately. Last week when I finished my last transcript, I started panicking and offering to work for people. I actually had a job set for Thursday, which I had to cancel because Thursday is Samantha's teacher conference. It's like the conferences happen once a year, and it just happens to be the time when I try to go take a job.

I always start November thinking that I'm going to finish up my Christmas shopping by the end of November. It never happens, and I don't think it's my fault. This November hasn't been a banner month for me for getting paid. I'm so broke right now it's ridiculous. Normally I'd be in a HUGE panic, but I have some really big invoices out right now and a lot of medium sized ones. I just need a few people to pay their bills and I should be fine. This is just something I've had to be used to my whole career, seeing as how I work mostly in bankruptcy court. There's a reason those people are there -- they have no money. Then there's always the gift card conundrum. I always start out with good intentions to get gifts and no gift cards this year. A gift as opposed to a card just feels more personal, even though who wouldn't like a gift card? But I'm sure by December 15th I'll be standing in line at Target with a fistful. Ugh, I'm not looking forward to Christmas, except for the going to Montana part!

This year the whole teenager thing has really started to rear its ugly head. Alex has complained quite a few times about not wanting to spend the whole vacation in Montana because "what if it snows here and I don't get to go sledding with my friends?" Um, excuse me. I know the main point of that statement is the friends part, but sledding here is basically a slight incline in the cemetery, whereas we have The Hill of Death at grandma's house, complete with Uncle's four-wheeler to haul your sorry asses back up the hill. Plus it usually snows here in January and February, not December. Anyway, the main point of this anecdote is the fact that our days of going to Montana for the whole break, I'm afraid, are numbered.

Sunday, November 9, 2008

30 Rock and The Big Bang Theory

I think two of the coolest shows on T.V. right now are 30 Rock and The Big Bang Theory, in terms of the HILARIOUS quotes. The other day I happened to be watching 30 Rock on my computer, sitting right next to my stenograph machine, and not for the first time, I seriously considered typing it out while I watched it, just so I would have all the quotes already on my computer. I actually sent my sister maybe three texts and then realized that at the rate they were going, I hadn't even watched five total minutes from the show. It would take my forever to watch a 22 minute episode AND text all the hysterical quotes at the same time. Seriously, if you haven't seen them, now is the time to get caught up. And from the way 30 Rock has been going, this looks to be a stellar year. Now if they'd only bring back Dennis Duffy, since he's not been doing much on Terminator 2... I would include some youtube videos of either show, but they're not embeddable, of course, so you just have to be curious to go find them yourself or start watching!

Text Messages

From Jana:

Alcohol? This smells just like hill people milk. I've been drinking this since I was a baby! (30 Rock)

Of all my days of watching girls puke, Daisy may be the hottest. ~ Bret Michaels

Shirtless soccer player - yum. (In reference to the UK soccer coaches who visited Kalispell last summer.)

I am a bit concerned that I am running around smelling like cat pee. (In reference to the time they left the cat in for the weekend and she's an outdoor cat who is not used to a litter box, so she went on my sister's bed instead, ALL WEEKEND.)

Tell me if this is rock-bottom - shopping in the plus size section at WalMart.

BTW, Shirtless Silas - not bad. (In reference to Weeds.)

When I say Subway, you say Hero! (30 Rock)

What we need around here is an anti-whining ordinance. (News Radio)

Suck it, monkeys! I'm going corporate. (30 Rock)

I don't know if Michael meant to punish me by putting Ryan back here with Kelly, but if he did ... Genius. (The Office)

From Me:

Unless you're planning on running a marathon, choosing both stuffing and mashed potatoes is a starch-filled redundancy. (Big Bang Theory)

No sank yew. (To Alex -- she used to say this ALL the time when she was little)

Hmm, Elizabeth Hasselback lost her baby weight without even dieting. I'm so happy for her. That's really, really super great.

Cool story, Jeopardy Contestant.

God, I am glued to my T.V. If Dillon goes to rehab, I will be SHOCKED. (This when I was heavy into that Intervention show on A&E)

Wait, what is it? You're not thinking happy thoughts. I saw my grandmother's vagina. (Weeds)

The 7th grade band just played a warmup scale that made my ears bleed a little bit.

I hate the commercial where the woman eats a five dollar bill.

Live every day like it's Shark Week. (30 Rock)

Cool story, Horrible Bitch. (The Soup)

Next time you're in your car going 50, strip down to your underwear and jump out the door. That's what it's like to crash in professional cycling. (TdF commercial)

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Birthday party hangover

Well, the slumber party is maybe two hours from being OVER! Yay Me! It actually went pretty well. One of the main differences from normal play dates, though, is that when she has any of these girls over to play, I usually don't know they're here. Five of them, however is a different story. You just want to beg them, Look, I know you have to scream, but could you do it in a lower register, PLEASE? PLEASE?!? But on the whole, there were almost no hurt feelings due to what-to-play disagreements. That was mostly what I had been worried about.

Around 7:00, two of Alex's friends showed up to hang out. One of them is this huge babysitter, and I think she does it because she LIKES it. She hung out on the floor with the birthday party goers and colored for, like, an hour. It was the quietest the house had been all week. I put the partyers to bed with a movie at 9:00. Choosing a movie, predictably, took about 20 minutes. I used to have a TiVo that I allowed me to burn things to dvd, so Samantha has every single Disney or Nickelodeon movie ever made from a year ago. Then there was also one lone holdout on the sleeping front, again, just as I predicted. However, I got the culprit wrong. After Samantha came to my office tearfully at 9:48 to complain that they all wanted to sleep but Jace wouldn't stop talking, I told her I'd be up to turn the T.V. off at 10:00. All in all, it was a successful party.

When the party started getting set up for bed, Alex and her friends went to her room and hung out watching T.V. Pretty soon there's a knock at the front door, the guy down the block. I let him in but told Alex they couldn't be hanging out in her bedroom anymore. So he came in and the four of them hung out in the family room downstairs, basically texting other people. I know they had fun, because they did get pretty loud once or twice. And just when I was starting to worry about kicking them out at 11:30 so we could GO TO BED, they all left around 11:00. Buckley is a pretty small town, which is allowing Alex a lot of freedom already in the 8th grade. The kids can walk across town to another kid's house, and they can stay up late and still walk down the block home. It's pretty cool. While I know it drives Eric crazy that we get a lot of kids hanging out here, I've had to have the "relax" talk already once, pointing out that if she weren't hanging out here, they'd be doing it somewhere else. At least here we know what they're up to. At one point I even heard her friend telling someone else on her phone that she were here with her friends and her friend's mom.

Anyway, we are now one hour closer to the end of the party! I can't believe I made it...

Friday, November 7, 2008

Birthday Party !!

There are these commercials on T.V. right now -- I think they're AT&T -- where someone comes on and talks about how, if his phone had any bars, he'd get the call that his friends want him to come to Paris, but since he doesn't, he has to stay in the hostel with the Techno Twins, these two other guys who are into alternative dancing -- or the one where the girl is a "Phelps Phan" and won't be getting the call that he's right down the street signing autographs, since she has no bars. The one that totally gets me is the one where the mom didn't get the call about how the big purple dinosaur she ordered for her daughter's birthday party won't be coming but they'll be sending the terrifying T-Rex instead. Then she goes "Yay Me!" in this really shaky voice.

Last Sunday, Samantha came running down the stairs, crying, to tell me that we "forgot" to have her birthday party this year! Yay Me! I'm not sure what would be worse, to have 11 or 12 6-year-old girls over for two hours and get it over with or to have 3 or 4 over to spend the night. We opted for the spend the night plan. We have, I think, 5 coming over right after school, with at least 2 spending the night. The plan WAS to have them jump on the trampoline, go to the grade school down the block and play on the playground, make our own pizza, and GO TO BED. Since the weather is TOTALLY not cooperating, we'll probably hang out indoors and fight over how no one can agree on what to play and so-and-so is being mean. I thought about taking them swimming, but one little girl broke her wrist and still has a cast on and wouldn't be able to go. Yay Me!

On a different topic, yesterday I remember leaving my sister a voice mail about how proud I was with myself because, even though we may be pretty broke this month, I've got our tax debt almost paid off. Then Eric's Check Engine light went on on his way home and the car SHUT OFF three times in about a two-mile distance. Yay Me!