Friday, June 30, 2006

June's Perfect Posts

A Perfect Post

This is my first month playing "Perfect Post" (through MommaK). I took it pretty seriously; everytime I read an exceptional post this month, it went into a special folder. Of course, that left me with a ton of posts to pick from this week.

I finally decided on WordGirl's post regarding world's sexiest men. I thought it was great: well written, funny, and true. And the pictures were enough to make you wish you'd forgotten to hit your biological clock's snooze button: Men with babies... Yummy. Congrats to WordGirl!!!

Here were a few of my runner's up:

Amalah's brave and honest post about some of the things nobody tells you about being somebody's mummy.

The Smartbitches take on some... less than fascinating comments about the differences between male and female readers.

Finslippy's horrid adventures in babysitting. (She certainly handled it a lot better than I would).

Miss Zoot who got me thinking about all the things I'm going to have to take back eventually.

Bonanza Jellybean's f_a_n_t_a_s_t_i_c, semi-political (lol) post winningly titledThe Sermon On Who You Should Mount .

And, just because it is my newest favority find, I'm going to stick WantNot in here. People, she is beyond fabulous. So far I have learned of a good place to buy printer ink for cheap, seen that there is such a thing as too much target (Check
this out), and wondered if maybe I don't need something else from Old Navy after all. And I've only been reading for about a week.

Thanks for stopping by... Hope you'll enjoy some of my picks.

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

We're working!

There is gladness throughout the land, as my laptop seems completely healed after our little splashing incident. We've talked it through, and I've made promises (that I probably won't be able to keep) regarding food and beverages in our workspace; I feel we've reached an amiable agreement... Laptop will not fizz, click or stop randomly, and I won't feel the urge to throw up every time I turn on the screen. All sides are pleased.

And to celebrate lovely laptop's return to the land of the dry and working... a special treat (in the form of a long meme). About Books.

Lovely, fabulous books.

A book that scared you: Scariest book ever? It, Stephen King: Pennywise the clown, the blood coming out of the drain, the sewers, Henry Bowers talking to the moon. It's one of my all time top 10 books, probably because it still (after about 15 rereads) really scares me.

A book you loved in elementary school: I loved the Ramona books in elementary school, as well as the babysitter's Club books, the Bobsey twins, Nancy Drew, All of the Anne of Green Gables books. And my first "adult" book - Gone with the Wind, which I found utterly entrancing. I read it three times, back to back, the summer between fourth and fifth grades.

A book you loved in middle school: For me, middle school was all about "Are you there god, it's me Margaret?" I also kept a close watch on the Sweet Valley Twins, the R.L Stine Fear Street series, and all the Stephen King books I could get my hands on. As a special treat, I'm going to add any book read outloud by our 6th grade teacher after lunch: The Indian in the Cupboard, James and the Giant Peach, Where the Red Fern Grows, The Secret Garden --- oh the joy of the SECRET in the Secret Garden. And my teacher had the best voice, a perfect sense of pacing: she kept 26 twelve-year-olds quiet and in their seats for at least a half hour every day.

A book you loved in high school: Nothing that was required reading, that's for sure... Except for poetry: High School sucked the fun out of a lot of things for me, but it was where I fell in love with the rhythm of Emily Dickinson, Whitman, Rossetti, and really found out that poetry wasn't all stupid dead people talking about posies: Mary Oliver, anyone?

A book you hated in high school: Oh, my god: Can we talk about Ethan Frome, please? How godawful boring was this book? It was all dullness and snow and bleakness and limping. And the movie version? Just as bad. I h_a_t_e_d this book so passionately. It was just pointless: "Look how drab and horrid life can be!" Well, yippee: I'm in high school, you think I don't know this already? (and Things Fall Apart by Achebe ... I was so lost, I thought I must have gotten the title wrong: I spent an entire summer obsessing over the fact that I had read the wrong summer reading book... Because they couldn't actually have picked this, could they?)

A book you loved in college: Oh, college led to many book-related discoveries: The Queen of Romance, Nora Roberts - just excellent writing and great stories that I love infinitely: they have become comfort food for my soul. I kept up with Stephen King, all the way through, and his Insomnia is some beautiful writing, with an imaginative storyline. I finally had an excuse to indulge my children's book habit while I was in school, too, so I got caught up in the Harry Potter series, fell in love with the artwork in Jaime Lee Curtis' Today I Feel Silly, and remembered just how great Good Night Moon actually was.

Your favorite "coming-of -age" book - I suppose I should say, The Catcher in the Rye, but I mostly didn't really get that book: I figured it was a guy thing. Joy School, Elizabeth Berg; I cannot recommend her writing enough. She's fantastic, and Joy School may be her best work (to date).

A book that made you Laugh: Long list here - Lambby Christopher Moore; anything by Jennifer Cruisie or Dave Barry; A.J. Jacob's The Know it All.


A book that made you Cry: there's a lot: I remember the first time a book made me just bust out bawling - I picked up whatever book was next in the Little House on the Praire pack I had, and it started "Mary was blind." WTF?!?!? How did that happen? Mary was just fine when I left her at the end of the last book! I started crying so hard that my mother thought I was sick.

Once I calmed down, I was more angry than sad: does anybody else remember the computer game Oregon Trail? It was a staple in a lot of classrooms in the late 80's - We played it every week at "computer class" on our Apple IIGEs at my school. We thought it was the ultimate in gaming: it is, of course, hideously obsolete now. Anyways, my point (did you think I even had one?) was that Mary turning blind was similar to that game: Somewhere along the Oregon Trail, you'd start to run out of food or water, and the people in your wagon would start dying. "Pa has dysentery" "Joe has died" - it always seemed pretty random to me. You'd be called upon to write their three word tombstone, when they'd seemed just fine to clicks of the spacebar ago.

My Little House experience was the same way.

Others that I can't read without tissues include: Little Women, Pull of the Moon, I'll Love you Forever & You are My Miracle (Heck, sometimes I don't make it through the card aisle in the store without Kleenex... you're lucky I'm stopping here).


A book that disgusted you: You know, I should have a billion answers for this question, but I try to block bad books from my memory. I guess my most recent intensely disliked book would have to be from the Anita Blake series by Laurell K. Hamilton. I know and like many people who LOVE this series, but it was really not for me.

Your favorite horror book: I mentioned this above, but It: The thing that grabbed me, as a ten year-old reading this book, was that King recognized that kids aren't stupid - in the book they are the only ones who really know what's going on. He saw that kids have power, and that evil targets them because of it.


Your Favorite Science Fiction book: I wonder what this genre consists of, really: the In Deaths by J.D. Robb are set in the future, they might count.


Your favorite poem/book of poems: I could never pick a favorite poem, and any collection I'd mention would have a variety of poets to choose from. Today's favorite poem might be from John Masefield:

An Epilogue

I have seen flowers come in stony places
And kind things done by men with ugly faces,
And the gold cup won by the worst horse at the races,
So I trust, too.



Your favorite biography: Tales from the Bed by Jennifer Estess. Reading other people's accounts of living with chronic illnesses is always a real double-edged sword for me: On the one hand it's such a reflection of what I am living through, it makes me feel less lonely; and on the other, it's so hard to be living it, to know that other people are suffering too. I found the Estess sisters' work both inspiring and challenging.

A book that challenged your imagination: The Harry Potter books. Yes, they're technically children's books, but I am telling you, people, these books are so rich and full, you won't even notice they're talking about teenagers. But they do have their own language: Muggles, Hufflepuff, and all that stuff. If you were out of practice reading about whole new worlds, these books really made you stretch.

A book that challenged your morals: Most of what I read in my ultra-Liberal school was challenging to the ideas of my family/parents. Since I had already decided that most of those ideas and opinions were wrong, I was perfectly happy to have other options. The names of most of these books are long gone, but I remember a lot of the content: mostly they covered all the inequities of our society. I just wish they'd have given me a better idea about what I was supposed to do to fix them.

A series that you love: I'm a bit of a series-holic, I'm afraid. Must buy's include the latest in the Stephanie Plum books by Janet Evanovich; in any of Nora Robert's series & her J.D. Robb's In Deaths; I loved the serialization of The Green Mile a few years back; obviously the Harry Potter series is also a favorite. My latest find is Eloisa James' Bridgerton series... must pick up Gregory's story ASAP.

Your favorite book not on this list: Some books that I didn't find a category for are America the Novel, by Jon Stewart et.al.; How to get your child to love reading by Esme Codell; & Cupcakes by the Cake Doctor ( I wish I could bake better, so? wanna make something of it???)

Books, my friends. Could there be anything better? (Like perhaps, a miraculous laptop??)

:)

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Things not to do

Commit to blogging more often, and then splash water on your laptop.

Water...
On.
My.
Laptop.


People?!?!?

This was Saturday: I immediately shut it down, called CompUSA.

(Thank God for tech people!!! )

Turn it over ("like a roof") and let it be for a few days.

I peeked at it yesterday, plugged it in for a few seconds:

It seems to be ok, but there was a little splash of water (inside) coming from the corner of the screen. I decided it needed a few more days: the waiting is driving me crazy (as is having to come all the way in here, and SIT UP while typing... not good for Flaring NTE).

Anyways... I know I promised. I keep my promises. Here is a post... there will be more this week if I have to .. well, IDK what I'd have to do. But they'll be here.

Poor little laptop... It was the tiniest... tiniest tiniest little splash.

It'll be fine.. must not obsess. Must post and then rest.

:) I'll be back :)

Saturday, June 24, 2006

L is for the way you Look at me... O is for the Only one I see....





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Had a little difficulty narrowing down my choices today: Love is so overwhelming, where to start? So, I went through some of my quotes, scrounged up some pictures, and this is what we've got to say about LOVE:




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Did you ever stick your arms out and spin and spin and spin? Well, that's what love is like.
Practical Magic




That's my youngest sister: SisterK spinning around. There's something about that picture, how free she is, that just tugs at my heart.


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"Sometimes it's better to put love into hugs than to put it into words." - Unknown


A grainy picture of SisterS & SisterM hugging, somewhere around 1988. SisterM is a lot less affectionate now, and this picture reminds me of a time when she could show us how much she loved us. I wish it were this easy now.



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So how does it happen, great love? Nobody knows... but what I can tell you is that it happens in the blink of an eye. One moment you're enjoying your life, and the next you're wondering how you ever lived without them. Hitch


My grandparents at their 50th Wedding Anniversary (in 1989). I can't imagine loving someone for that long, through all the trials that 50 years would bring, but they always made it look easy. My grandfather died 8 years ago this week - my grandmother once told me that living without him was like living without a part of herself: She still wonders what he would do, still talks to him in her own way. I can only wish for a love that deep, that true.
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To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides.
David Viscott





Here's Youngest Nephew, about 7 months old, in the Fall of 2000. There's lots of times I'm not really sure what I'm doing with my life. But one thing I never doubt: Being an aunt is the most special thing I have ever done. I am helping to raise some beautiful people.


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"I love this spot, it's like heaven right here on earth, maybe that's what heaven is, maybe we go through life collecting people and places we love and they become in our heaven " Here on Earth.



My Dad and Oldest Nephew, Easter 1999.





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"To be alive was to live in such a way that you were both of these people: the comforted and the comforting, the loved and the loving, so that finally all you were, all that you had lived your life to become, the sum total of each sunrise and sunset you'd ever managed to witness was to love. To live was to receive love, and to give it away." Brett Lott



This is my Nana and Only Brother, Christmas Eve 1999. It's just a perfect moment: somehow the connection between them was captured by the camera.



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"You don't ever have to do anything sensational to love or to be loved."
Fred Rogers
Here's SisterJ (circa 1984) ending this whole thing with a big kiss for all of you!


Hope your week is happy... thanks for stopping by!!!

Monday, June 19, 2006

Let me explain something here

I am feeling.... Off.

It may be the fact that the air has turned to soup outside, necessitating the return of the dreaded air conditioners. I cannot breathe without the air conditioners, but I hate hate hate living with them. They are loud. Their droning makes it impossible to understand what anyone is saying if they are more than three steps away from you. We have to turn all the ringers back on the phones, making them loud enough to startle the sleeping baby (or the reading Auntie). And you have to close all the windows & doors (um... duh?), which makes me feel even more disconnected from the outside world.

It may be the fact that my stupid wheelchair broke - again. My chair is nine years old now: this fact depresses me immeasurably.

It was originally bought as a stopgap - a concession to my mother as I went away to college. I was firmly ensconced in my denial at the time: yes, I was crawling from room to room of the house. Yes, I was unable to walk three steps unassisted. Yes, I was frequently passing out and falling down. Yes, I had concussed myself more than once. No, that did not mean I would need a wheelchair to get around college. Why not? Because I did not want one. I honestly can't imagine what I thought I was going to do once I got to school, considering the fact that I couldn't even get out of the car on my own, but I was adamant: NO WHEELCHAIR! And then, my mum sat me down and pointed out all the things I already knew. She reminded me that I hadn't made it through high school without riding in an ambulance more than once (because of my falls), and wouldn't it be better to be the "girl in the wheelchair" than the "girl who crawls to the bathroom" or the "girl who we called the ambulance for again?" So I got a wheelchair.

And it has broken about 16 times in the past nine years (oh... There are stories there, M_A_N_Y stories... But, they're not today's). But does MassHealth (our state medicare, my only insurance) want to let me have a new one? No, they do not. Oh, they might wind up paying for it, but a prescription from my doctor? That's not enough. They need him to fill out this form, me to fill out that one. And the first 6 stores they told us accepted MassHealth? No longer do. The hospital supply store? Doesn't either. I could order it, and maybe, just maybe, this could take 6-8 weeks. What am I supposed to do in the meantime? I'm not quite sure, but you can bet that I thought twice before returning the wheelchair at Target the other day... then I figured I'd paid by check, and they'd be able to track me down.

It may be the fact that, since the baby was born, our whole schedule has been screwed up: Youngest nephew's Mum is on maternity leave, so we're no longer his primary afterschool care. But that doesn't mean they won't be over here: no, it just means we can't plan on him being here. They might decide to stop by, and stay till 9 at night. Or just pop in for dinner. Or a nap. I am a schedule type of girl (more out of necessity, really: I need to know when to conserve energy and when to use it up), this is really throwing me.

It may just be that I am, once again, fed up with myself. I'm sick of this whooole thing, and sometimes it just wears me out. I don't want to read, or eat, or watch t.v. - I want to be well (and thin). I want to go shopping and dancing or gambling or maybe be a contestant on Jeopardy (hell, if I'm skinny, I won't mind having my picture taken).

My horoscope said I would fall in love today "just for the fun of it."

I'm thinking it couldn't be more wrong.

Sunday, June 18, 2006

Father's Day links

A while back, I started reading Kevin Smith's My Boring Ass Life. Being that his life is, of course, about a billion times more entertaining than mine, his writing is too. He talked about losing his dad in this post. It's a moving tribute to the kind of person his dad must have been (without venturing into the so-schmaltzy-this-person-can't-have-actually-existed territory).


Mom-101 brings us a Father's Day Reality Check. With her usual fine humor.

Over at Easy to be Hard (which is chock full of ... less than work acceptable... material) is this Groucho Marx Father's day song. Kudos to her, because I've been searching limewire for weeks, to no avail. Also, I don't know how to post music yet. So, go there instead.

And Townie Bastard
talks about one of my pet peeves - the lack of good Father's Day cards:
"The problem is, there are four kinds of cards that you can buy for your dad on Father's Day, his birthday, Christmas or whatever occasions. And these are the percentages of their availability.

1. A card with a fart joke involving your dad - 33%
2. A card with a golf joke involving your dad - 33%
3. A card about his inability/fixation with tools - 33%
4. Anything else - 1%"


Well, I got my dad one from the 1%, but still wasn't pleased with it. ("You could write a book about being a father/open/ And having pefect children") It's dumb, but my dad doesn't fish or golf; he's a fixer, but has no obsession with tools. My dad likes the Beatles; He's a fabulous cook; he has fixed the broken wheel of my wheelchair no less than 72 times. Where are the Beatles cards? The ones that don't make fun of his attempts in the kitchen? The heartfelt thanks cards? No such luck at Target yesterday.

Nobody in my family reads this blog - I like it that way, because then I can say what I want.

But if they did, I'd say thanks to my Dad.

Who I don't always get, but I know loves me.
Who didn't have to make this a family who doesn't really understand the significance of the word step- in relation to ourselves.
Who never said a bad word about my Daddy (especially since he had so much cause).
and Who I'll keep listening to, even when I know you're wrong.

And I'd say Happy Father's Day to Older Brother, who has impressed me no end with his ability to change. Who has never looked sweeter than when snuggling his baby girl. Who I only hope can remember how hard it was to be the older brother & help his son become the best.

And to my Daddy, Who I wish I didn't have to miss. Who has loyal friends. And who once showed me the zipper they put in his knee.

And to my grandfather, who called always called me his special girl.

(Sorry, I went into the schmaltz, didn't I? Oh well....)

Happy Father's Day, all!

Saturday, June 17, 2006

SPH: This time... with pictures!





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------------------------

When I saw the theme for this week's photo hunt, I was... less than excited. Sports and I do not co-exist peacefully. Although, if I were going to be technical, it's more specifically sports equipment and I that have issues.

That's because I have some sort of magnetic force that pulls sports equipment towards me. Had someone been reporting the sports that were occuring in my family, the copy would resemble this:

"Yesterday's baseball game was called after the ball was hit straight into the face of first baseman NTE."

Or "The metal bat got away from Only Brother, and, to the awe of all, flew backwards and took NTE down at the knees."

"Family outing ends in stitches for NTE when basketball hoop crashes down on NTE."

"Tennis camp money returned as NTE sprains ankle on another player's volley."

"Although NTE wisely decided not to participate in the yesterday's badmitton game, this did not prevent tragedy: Even though she was sitting a good 15 feet from the main action, SisterJ's racket managed to fly out of her hand, hitting NTE in the face and leaving a horseshoe shaped bruise."

I had no luck when it came to sports: you name a piece of sports equipment, I can show you the scars or tell you about the size bruises it can produce. Basketballs, footballs, hockey pucks & sticks. Lacrosse sticks, bowling balls, croquet mallets, volleyball nets.

So I, understandably, shivered at the thought of having to find some sort of sports-related picture for this post.

I shouldn't have worried, though. There were plenty to choose from, as I am the only one in our family thus afflicted:

Here's Only Brother, circa 1987, playing catch. Catch was a game I never really understood the point of. Watching a ball get thrown back and forth... and back... and forth... was just about as boring a thing as I could imagine. Yet the men in my family still find it enthralling. I'd rather read a book.









And here's some t-ball playing at Youngest Nephew's 6th birthday, this May:






Here's my personal favorite --> Water balloon fights.




A game where the equipment is supposed to hit you?




I bet you can guess who usually wins at that~

Happy Saturday!

Monday, June 12, 2006

I give up

... trying to add pictures to Saturday's post, that is. The pictures will NOT be uploaded; Blogger says they are and then? No pictures. So... I'm just going to pretend that they were there and move on with my week. Thanks to everybody who kept checking back --- I might try to sneak them into another post, just to see if that works. But not today, as banging my head against that particular wall is not my idea of fun.

With a few, very random thoughts.

1) I think my eyelashes are falling out at an alarming rate. I can't think of a reason that this might be true (unlike the time I tried a new drug and all my eyebrows immediately fell out), but it's true nonetheless. Every two or three hours lately, I am having to fish another stray eyelash out of my eye, where it is floating, poking me at odd angles. So, if say one eyelash every three hours everyday for the past week or two that's (math... I hate math...) 168 eyelashes in the past week. How many eyelashes does a person have, anyways?

2) Youngest Nephew is still having a very hard time acclimating to his new big-brother status. I finished reading Siblings Without Rivalry,

and now have to figure out a way to make my brother and (soon-to-be)sister in law read it too. I suppose the hardest part is that he has turned into a real brat lately, when we are all so used to him being well-behaved. It's a hard change for us to deal with, as if this little whining monster has been lurking beneath the friendly exterior all along. And now has come for an extended visit.

3)I have about a billion things to do, and writing blog posts should not have been #1. But... at least I can cross it off my list now, right?

Saturday, June 10, 2006

Community = Games?





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This week's SPH turned out to be harder than I thought:

I was hoping to get out of the house and take some pictures of Prospect Hill Tower, which is were the first American flag was raised waaaay back in 1776:

January 1, 1776 is the date that made Prospect Hill famous. On this day, George Washington ordered that a new flag be raised on a 76-foot schooner mast placed on Prospect Hill. This "Grand Union Flag" was the first true American flag, representing the united colonies. It was raised with a salute of 13 guns and loud huzzahs by the soldiers. (from here)

Yeah, that didn't happen. But if you click the link, you can see it.
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So, instead, I had to rummage through older pictures, looking for something "community-ish" (I should copyright that). Here's what I came up with:


Community isn't just a place: It also means fellowship, sharing, group togetherness. And nothing brings my family closer than GAMES.



We are game freaks: We own at least 10 versions of Trivial Pursuit (I got 2 myself, for my birthday: SNL Trivial Pursuit & Book Lovers Trivial Pursuit). We rock at Pictionary, and have played Scattegories so often that we would pay BIG bucks for a new refill pack (attention Milton Bradley? Are you listening? NEW CARDS, Please!!!). A few of our newer obesessions are Loaded Questions and Clue Jr. (now that Youngest Nephew is old enough to play, we must start his indoctrination).

My favorite Uncle and his family lived in Virginia when I was younger. Every year, they would trek up here to visit. We spent an entire week playing games. I am not kidding: maybe, every now and then, we would stop to sleep. People would take little breaks to go get food, and then bring it back and we'd all eat. While playing. If we were in the car, on the way to somewhere, we played Uno. We carried TP cards in our pockets and asked questions at the park. Or in line at the movies. Or while pretending to go to sleep.

This is not to say that we are all good sports: the story of the Uncle who broke his pencil in half and then lobbed it at his partner in Pictionary is legend. Game boards have been tossed in the air, fist fights have broken out. Final outcomes debated for years after the actual game. Cheaters are NOT tolerated, and "helping" or "clues" are hit or miss - I personally hate them, other people, not so much.

In my family, the only time we are all together and DON'T attempt to get a game going is at weddings. And that's only because there are other people - those not related to us, and therefore without the obsessive game gene - there.

But my Mum will have some cards in her purse & I might have the portable cribbage board, so if you want to play a quick hand, you just let me know.

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ETA: This post has pictures, but blogger is not showing them. The status says they are "fixing" it... Hopefully they'll be up by the end of the day... So, please check back soon!

Sunday, June 04, 2006

It's my birthday....

So I'm going to post whatever I feel like (as if I don't do that everyday):

First off? A birthday meme -
Go to Wikipedia and look up your birth day (excluding the year). List three neat facts, two births and one death in your journal, including the year.

June 5th is the day that....


in 1829, the HMS Pickle captured the armed slave ship Voladora off the coast of Cuba. How funny is it that someone named their ship the PICKLE?


in 1968 U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California by Sirhan Sirhan. (He dies on June 6). I don't know why Bobby Kennedy's death makes me so sad ~ the idea of all that promise wasted, I suppose. Although I was years away from being born, it's one of those things you can't help but wonder about - how different would the world be if it hadn't happened?

and in 1977, the Apple II, the first practical personal computer, went on sale. People, do we remember the Apple II? We had an Apple II GE (We may actually still have it in the basement.) It was the same computer we had in school, and I was a wiz on this thing. I mean, anytime a teacher needed a banner printed: "NTE, go down to the computer lab and print me a 'Spring is blooming' banner." Hokey dokey. Since those printers were so unbelievably slow, printing out a banner would take at least an hour. An HOUR out of class, usually with a friend, sitting in the computer lab like we owned it. And let me just say two final words on this subject - OREGON TRAIL, baby! Oregon Trail

These lucky people share my birthday:

Fabulous children's author/illustrator Richard Scarry. (Remember Lowly Worm?) He turned 60 the day I was born.

Hello, Marky Mark. We share a birthday: 1971 - Mark Wahlberg, American singer and actor. You are only 8 years older than I am... plus you still have your Boston accent. We have so much in common.

And, since they can't all be good, in 1956 Kenny G, American saxophonist made his earthly debut. Don't blame me.

This less lucky person died on my birthday:

The Velvet Fog, Mel Torme died in 1999. I'm not the biggest jazz fan ( I like my songs sing-along-able), but he has some very nice standards. But mostly, I remember him b/c of Night Court.
-`-`-`-`-`-`-`-`-`-`-`-`-`-`-`-`-`-`-`-

Here's some other tidbits I know about June 5th:

1) 6-5-79 was a Tuesday. In 1979, ABC's primetime lineup starred Laverne & Shirley . I was born to the sounds of: "There is nothing we won't try, never heard the word impossible, this time, there's no stopping us, we're gonna do it!" I suppose this a good theme song, but I'm having a hard time putting it into practice. (Plus, there is the possiblity that I was instead born to:"1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 Schlameel, Schlamaazal Hassenpepper Incorporated," which is much less inspiring.)

2)This year, it's Whitmonday, which I've never heard of before, but apparently is Pentecost. Who knew?

3)It's World Enviorment Day, which is different from Earth Day how? But, hey, the earth and the environment can take as many days as they want.

4)Did you know that if it rains on the 5th of June, it means the blackberries will be small and full of seeds? I am not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, as blackberries aren't exactly a staple of my diet, but it's drizzling here, so perhaps they may be medium sized?

and

5)June 5th is also Gingerbread Day. This makes about zero sense to me, as the only time people even talk about gingerbread is around Christmas. If I wanted to make a gingerbread house today, I doubt I would be able to find anything at the store with which to make it. But if someone dropped some off, I doubt I woudl complain. ~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_

So that's what I know. It's my berf-day. I'm going to reallly attempt doing something fun. I hope you do too.... :)

Friday, June 02, 2006

Mirror Mirror...

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Today's theme is Mirror.

Yesterday was my youngest sister's (SisterK) Junior Prom.

Here's some shots of her make-up practice session with SisterJ










And she looked absolutely gorgeous last night...

(Side note here, people... when did pantyhose become unneccesary? Apparently no one wears them anymore? Not even to the Prom? :shrug:)

I hope she had a ball - & that all of you have weekends to match!



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Seperate side note - Speaking of mirrors, do you remember Poltergeist III? I watched it on cable last night, for the first time in quite a while. The whole Poltergeist trilogy scared the crap out of me: The tree coming through the window, the swimming pool full of skeletons, that scene with the tequila (from the first movie); Kane (from the second); and the all the mirrors in the third. In the third one the "They're Here" people try to get poor little Carol Anne through the mirrors. And the whole frickin building is mirrored: Mirrored hallways, elevators, bedrooms.

Now I figure mirrors are scary enough, without having to worry about whether or not I'd see this face behind me.

Anyway, I know it's pretty cheezy, but for some reason those Poltergeist movies still get me. And mirrors? Well, I"m totally staying away from them for now.

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