Cool Blogger

Okay you guys, you got me.  I'm a weirdo.  I admit it.  I thought I would open up to you and tell you a vulnerable truth and then we could have a beautiful moment opening up about the strange things we do, and become best friends, but apparently I'm the only one in the world (who reads this blog, there's probably lots of people who don't read at all that are a lot like me.)  that pretends weeds are drug dealers and pizza-opening is a c-section. Even Jenny the Bloggess said that my pizza fantasy is crazy.  I thought if anyone would understand me she would, but apparently not.  Okay, fair enough!  I over-shared and now I see I'm going to have some trouble getting my "cool blogger" reputation back.   That's fine.  I have all the time in the world to try to convince you that I'm cool.

That all being said, the person who is giving me the hardest time about this whole weeding/drug dealer thing, (Kira) was watching me spray Roundup on the driveway weeds yesterday and she said in her smart-alec way, "So, is that your 'gun' that you use to 'shoot' the 'drug dealers'?"  (Honestly that never crossed my mind, but now it totally is my gun!)  (Oh crap, forget I said that. I'm cool.)  I said, "Yeah, I guess it is!  Freeze, Turkey!" shoot shoot shoot   Kira shook her head and rolled her eyes and looked at me with the disgusted pitying look she is perfecting.  After a while she said, ".....can I try it?"  So HA!  Validation!  And I bet she isn't the only one who will be fighting the war on drugs (weeds) on the mean streets (gardens) in the near future!  YOU'RE WELCOME!

"So tell me punk, do you feel lucky?"

Walter Mitty

I recently found out that something I do that I thought was totally normal and common is actually kind of weird.  But I still don't think I'm weird.  I'm sure other people do this too, but don't admit it so because I'm coming clean, I want you to come clean too, in the comments, so I don't feel so stupid.

When I'm doing something boring, or something I don't like I pretend I'm doing something else that's perhaps dangerous, or heroic or really important.  For instance, when I go for a walk in the winter in the deep snow, and I have to climb the hill in our back yard, I, of course, pretend I'm climbing Mount Everest. That's so obvious, I bet everyone does that!  However, I told Kira about one today and she looked at me like I was a lunatic and won't stop making fun of me.  Yes, you heard right: KIRA making fun of ME. Today I had to weed my landscaping rocks.  But before I go into that, why is it that plants grow so lush and beautiful in the landscaping rocks?  I can't grow gorgeous plants on purpose, but I can't stop weeds from growing out of rocks.  That just doesn't seem fair.

 Anyway, back to my ALLEGED weirdness:  While I weed I pretend that I am a police detective, a "narc," if you will, and I am at the frontline in the war on drugs.  The weeds I pull are drug dealers, and if I'm lucky, my arrest (weed pulling) will lead to the seamy underground of the drug world and I will bust a huge cartel (root system) and clean up the streets for the kids of the future (?).  I love when I pull a tough little tuft of grass and it has a root system that leads to all the other tufts of grass in a large area.  That, my friends, is a good day on the streets.  Makes the days when I can only manage to get punk street dealers (leaves) and they won't give up their suppliers (roots).  Those are frustrating days.  They're why I drink.  Life is tough for a cop on the beat sometimes.

So do you also do this totally normal thing to make a boring or unpleasant task tolerable?  I'm sure you do.  Please tell me about it.  I need some reassurance.

I also pretend I am the six million dollar man (but I'm a woman, of course!) when I'm on the elliptical machine at the gym.  I pretend the people around me are scientists and they are saying things like, "Oh my god, nobody has ever gone for 45 minutes on level 5!  NOBODY!" and then they write things on their clipboards.

Also, when I make frozen pizza, when I cut open the plastic wrapping around the pizza I pretend that I'm a doctor and the plastic wrapping is a woman, and the pizza is a baby and I'm doing an emergency C-section.  "Save her, doctor!  Get the baby out!  You're the only one who can do it!" Then I cut it out and voila, a healthy pepperoni baby.  Then I throw the mother in the garbage and cook the baby.

Conversation overheard outside my bedroom window in the wee hours of the morning

Raccoon:  Hey Bear, how's it going?  Nice place huh?

Bear:  Yeah, I've been living here for a couple years.  I'm thinking about making the move inside.

Raccoon:  Did you know that the stupid bitch who lives here keeps whole garbage cans full of dog food and bird seed?  Right up there next to the house!

Bear:  Oh yeah?  I think I heard her husband tell her that was a stupid idea about a million times but I never checked it out.

Raccoon:  She is a stupid bitch.  I was taking the lids off last night, you know, with my fully functioning opposeable thumbs, and stealing food and she kept trying to catch me at it and finally I thought, you know what?  I'm tired of hiding in the shadows every time she clumps into the kitchen and turns on the lights so I just stayed there and stared her down.

Bear:  No kidding! What did she think of that?

Raccoon:  She almost shit her pants.  It was hilarious!  She waved a broom in the air.  Why do they do that?  It's so weird.

Bear:  I think they think it makes them look bigger.  Idiots.

Raccoon:  So then she let that chicken shit dog out so I had to take off.  Have a look at those cans.  They are still there but now they have cases of Diet Coke on the lids.  I can't lift them off.  Think you could help me out?

Bear:  Nah, not right now.  I'm busy.  I see she got a new hummingbird feeder.  I have to get it down.

Raccoon:  You eat nectar?

Bear:  No, I just want to break it.

Raccoon:  I hear you there!  I wish I was as big as you but still, these tiny hands can do a lot of damage.  See those flowers and veggies she has planted in pots?  I dug them all up.  For no reason at all!

Squirrel:  Hey MothaFuckers!  How's it going?  Did you notice the lady hung the good bird feeder super high? Kind of putting a cramp in my style, but I can still get it.  Stupid bitch.  I started to feel sorry for her but then yesterday when I was puzzling out how to get way the hell up there, she watched and laughed at me every time I missed.

Raccoon:  Yeah, she really thinks she's something.

Squirrel:  I heard from the mice that there's a way to get inside and run through the ceiling.  It really freaks her out.  I think I'm going to do that.  Wanna come with?

Raccoon:  Maybe.  But for now I'm going to continue keeping her up nights by making noise on the deck and wrecking everything.

Bear:  Me too.

Rabbit:  Hey guys, Did you see those pea plants?  Well, they are gone now, but they were fucking delicious!

Raccoon:  Yeah, she planted more, but I dug them all up.

Rabbit:  Asshole, you're interfering with my livelihood!

Bear:  Hey, we should all come here together and freak her out, it would be so hilarious!

Raccoon:  Yeah, that would.  I heard the mosquitoes have been cooking up some West Nile for her too.

Rabbit:  Oh great, here comes that stupid dog.  See you guys later!

Raccoon, Bear, Squirrel:  Yeah, later tonite!

Seven Secrets to a Fabulous Marriage

Mitch says he doesn't like when I write about him on the blog, but I think we all know that's a big fat lie because who doesn't like to see their name in print, am I right?  We have been married for a loooong time, like almost half my life (assuming I'm 26), which surprises and amazes me because before him I was never with anyone longer than a year.  People just get on my nerves after a while, know what I mean?  Not that I didn't mean it when I said, "Til death do us part,"  I totally did, I just assumed one of us would kill the other by now (thank you for not killing me yet, Mitch).  Since I am obviously so incredibly good at being married, I'm going to give you some of the secrets to my amazing success which, in a phrase, is this:  set that bar low.

1.  On your honeymoon, if things start getting too romantic and spectacular, get diarrhea so badly that when you emerge from the bathroom in the teeny tiny cabin you're staying in, you find your new husband holding one of the clove-scented coasters you got for a wedding present against his face to keep himself from gagging.  If he stays with you, that's good, if he stays in the cabin with you, it's true love.

2.  When you are pregnant and miserable and he gets you flowers to try to brighten your day; because that is so out of character for him, and also because you are absolutely mental when you're pregnant, accuse him of stealing the flowers and then look in the checkbook register to see if he actually paid for them.  Don't expect flowers again after that for a long time, but it's worth it because it's important to set mental-health low points early on.

3.  Let your wife know you are the man of the house.  Let her know you are going to be there and provide for and protect her and the little ones.   Mark your territory and don't leave any doubt as to whose territory it is:

Just to be on the safe side, you better use your last name, or at least your last initial,
 in case the little woman is simple-minded.  

4.  In a successful marriage it is understood that as you grow older, you will change physically and probably lose a little of the initial hotness that got you together in the first place.  A good spouse knows that and accepts it.  A really good spouse will morph into a cartoon character to keep things "interesting."

                     

5.  Teach your wife to appreciate things she never in a million years thought she would appreciate.  Say something like, "If I ever poop the bed, tonight will be the night," and then when you don't poop the bed, she will actually be happy!  And grateful!  And all you have to do is NOT poop in your bed!

6.  Laugh together.  When your adolescent boy comes out of his room wearing pants four inches too short because nobody has done laundry in a week and the boy grows out of clothes at an obnoxious rate; purely for the entertainment of your beloved, one of you should say, "Hey, nice pants!  Where's the flood?" which will make the other one laugh hysterically.  Who cares how the boy feels?  He's got to get used to people laughing at him if he's going to wear pants like that anyway.

7.  Support each other's interests.  If she gets obsessed with shoving live plants in jars with rocks until your whole house is full of terrariums and the moss patch in your yard is full of divots SO BE IT. If he gets carried away with installing poles so that your back yard looks like a forest full of leafless yellow-trunked trees, LEARN TO LOVE IT.

That sums up the glue that holds my marriage together.  What are your tips?

The Bear is Back

Well, the bear is back.  I was wandering around the house late last night with a turkey baster, watering all my terrariums and I heard a loud banging that sounded suspiciously like the bird feeder I've brought back from total destruction about five times.  I quickly turned on the outside light and saw... nothing.  But the bird feeder was gone so I knew I wasn't crazy.  So I continued with the terrariums and then when I looked out the window again I saw the little bastard pluck my carefully placed hummingbird feeder from the hook in the eave and then decide he wanted nothing to do with it.  He just broke it to be mean and get sticky.  I yelled to the family to come and see the bear and we all kneeled on the couch and gawked at him out the big front window.  He saw us.  He didn't care.

Then the bear sat down and ate the sunflower seeds he spilled from the bird feeder.  He was kind of cute.  I'd say he was about the equivalent bear-size of a ten year old kid.  Mitch said, "He's not a cub, he's probably a year old." God, he bugs me sometimes, with his biology know-it-allness.  I cherish the memory of the time I told him about the book Beast I read by Peter Benchley about a gigantic octopus (or maybe it was a squid?  (Same diff!)) and the octopus kept attacking boats and people and terrorizing them with his giant beak and Mitch scoffed, as if what I was reading was somehow silly and unrealistic and a total waste of time.  Mitch said that octopuses don't have beaks and even if they did, they wouldn't peck boats to pieces with them.  Okay, Mitch is a fresh-water limnologist  (I don't know) so why would he even pretend to know what a giant octopus would do or wouldn't do with his giant beak?  So I looked up octopuses and it turns out they DO have beaks!  HA! SUCK ON THAT, MITCH!

Money shot

And also, most octopuses (octopods?) don't get big enough to attack ships and they are smart enough to accept their limitations so they stick to small things in shells, but I, along with Peter Benchley, have no doubt in my mind that if they found themselves growing big enough to handle a boat with some delicious humans in it, they wouldn't hesitate.

See?

Anyway, back to the bear. We watched him gorge himself on seeds and molest my lilac bush which is now leaning and broken, and then he sat up like a person and looked so cute that it struck me how much I would like to see him ride a bike and now I understand why people train bears to ride bikes.

Then he ran around a little bit and we noticed his front paw was hurt, and then he shook like a dog and so much water came off of him!  He was really wet.  Kira wanted to lure him into the house and I had to remind her of the utter destruction one single wild pigeon can do, imagine what a bear would do? and she didn't really care.  Then he ran off on three legs.  I still have not gone outside to retrieve the remnants of my bird feeders because a) it's raining and b) THERE'S A BEAR OUT THERE!

Scrabble

The kids took a break from their three month moratorium on the written word long enough to play a game of Scrabble with their mom and pop.  This is what we get when we help Kira.  A freak seven-letter triple word score and endless rubbing it in.  

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to my dad, who has been a great dad, teaching us all kinds of things, like how to drive when I was sixteen:

Dad:  Okay, now watch out because this is a busy intersection and the cross traffic does not stop.  Look for cars.

Me:  Looks clear. (floors it)

Dad:  STOP!  WHAT ARE YOU DOING? THERE'S A CAR COMING!  AAAAAAAHHHHH!  AAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!

Me:  Dad, if you speed up when you get in the road, they don't even get close.  Geez, relax.  When you screamed you sounded just like a girl!

Dad:  PULL. OVER. NOW.

Or last year when he taught my sisters and me all about pop culture from twenty years ago:

Dad:  That man (on the tv) is named L.L. Cool J.  It means "The Ladies Love Cool James."  I looked it up on the internet.

Me and my sisters:  (mouths agape)...........PWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Dad:  What? What's so funny?  Its' true.

But mostly you've taught us how to be the FABULOUS people we turned out to be!  Thanks, Dad!  Have a great Father's Day!

My sister Amy's comment:

There was also the time he was teaching ME to drive and he picked me up at camp in Minneapolis in his Corvette. As we're getting on the freeway, he's explaining that when you are on the ramp, you just have to speed up and the freeway traffic will just let you in.

Dad: "See? You just slowly come up to speed as you're coming around the ramp and the freeway traffic will make room for you...."


Me: (Looking at traffic and apprehensive....)


Dad: "OK, we're coming off the ramp....now this truck should just move over...."


Me: (Looking at truck making sure he is going our exact speed but not moving anywhere....)


Dad: "OK....this guy should be moving over....SHIT!!!!" (Brakes slamming on as we run out of merge lane and have to swerve behind the truck from the shoulder.)


Lesson learned. Twenty year old trucks know the Corvette will move first. Thanks Dad!! I love you!!


Sarah....you also forgot the story about when he taught us to look for rocks when we're in the boat. And then he hit a rock.

(Clever Title)

Okay, I'm a little embarrassed about being such a Debbie Downer in my last post (you're right, Jane)  Wa wa for me, healthy, normal kids, boo hoo.  I know, I know.  I'm just a little depressed.  Post-partum lasts a LONG time.  And no, Anne, not in a million years would I (purposely) get pregnant again.  I was nuts during pregnancy.  And you know what nobody ever tells you about having babies?  After you pop that kid out you lose TONS of hair.  I lost my bangs.  Like, all of my bangs.  I had to comb hair from my crown to cover the fuzzy bald patches.  I looked like Jane Pauley for years after having both my kids.  I can't pull off that look anymore. 

I could take my sister's baby.  In fact, just today she told me that if she dies I can choose which one of her girls I get.  My other sister gets the one I don't pick.  They are both pretty good.  Watch your back, Beth. 

On second thought, Beth, try to hang on until they are out of diapers, ok?

So what have I been doing to ward off the post-partum depression?  I've been making terrariums! 

Mini-terrariums. 

Many, many mini terrariums

My dad thinks I need a job.  I think I need more terrariums.

BTW, thank you so much to Yandie at Inspiriation strikes.  In the Kneecaps. for the mention on her blog today.  For the record, my pre-teen infatuations were with Doctor Bricker from the Love Boat,

and Trapper John M.D.

And it really wasn't fair that all the Tiger Beat magazines were full of Leif Garret and Simon LeBon and NOT ONE had a spread on Pernell Roberts or Bernie Kopell!  It was BULLSHIT!



Mid-parenting Crisis

My kids are making a big jump this summer.  Kira is no longer an elementary school student, she's now a big middle-schooler, and Sam will be going to HIGH SCHOOL.  I just can't wrap my head around this because it seems like time is going too fast.  I'm having a hard time with this.  They don't NEED me anymore.  If I left for a day or even a week and left them alone, they would most likely be fine.  I was stressed when they were little at the thought that if I took my eyes off them they would do something stupid and get hurt, and now I'm stressed that they don't need me to watch every move they make.  What's my role here?  Crisis.

The other night I went to bed and looked around at some of the pictures of them when they were little.  Oh man, they were so cute!

They are still cute but now they have more chin hair than me (Sam) and can share shoes with me (Kira).  Where are my little kids?  I feel like someone took them and it makes me sad.

I was thinking about this yesterday as I was petting my dog and I thought to myself:  If I'm this sad now, what will I be like with an empty nest?  And then I looked down at my wonderful dog and the thought occurred to me that right around the time the kids leave the house, the dog will be reaching the end of her natural life.

An empty nest and a dead best friend.  And that's what will happen in a best-case scenario.  Life sucks sometimes.

What Would Higgins Do?

Kira is in sixth grade right now and a lot of girls in her class are totally in love with Justin Bieber and New Kids on the Block (no? not anymore?) but not Kira.  She thinks those girls are sick.  She would rather go to summer school than be caught screaming for the attention of a teenage boy (after all, her brother is a teenage boy.  yuck!)


That's not to say she can't be star struck.  She spends a lot of time thinking of her two favorite tv stars.

Adrian Monk

Jonathan Quayle Higgins

She wonders what they would do in certain situations, what they would think of each other, what they would each in turn do, for example, in response to her letting a gigantic fart that makes her family say, "KIRA!  Gross!" (For the record she thinks Monk would cover his face with his jacket and leave the room, and she thinks Higgins would say, "Oh My GOD!")

She is pretty sure that Higgins is the star of Magnum P.I. and can't understand why anyone would make or watch an episode that he isn't in very much.  She loves his hair, his stories, his hobbies, and how high he wears his pants.  Tom Selleck in his prime, half naked, tanned and gorgeous?  Who cares.  Where's Higgins?

  

Summer begins

Summer is getting off to an ominous start, what with the forty degree temperatures and my baby girl catching what sounds to me like it must be tuberculosis.  We were supposed to leave on a girl's road trip yesterday to tropical Des Moines, IA.

 But when I woke Kira up (AFTER I showered and packed for us both) she croaked, "I think I might have strep throat."  Ugh.  We went to get a strep culture instead and then she spent the day laying low, and I spent the day feeling sorry for her.  BORING.

Sam and Grandpa

Sam finished eighth grade last week.  The day after school let out he went up north to my parents' house to help my dad out with some yard chores.  I am so glad he is able to do this because some of my best childhood memories are spending time at my grandparent's house in the summer.  My grandma spoiled me ROTTEN.  I got whatever I wanted.  She got me Lee Press-On nails, she let me drink coffee every morning, we had root beer floats every night, and I saw her bawl-out a nurse who was not-quite nice enough to me at the clinic once.  It was great.  So I'm glad Sam can go somewhere that people will spoil him because I certainly don't.  They are having a great time together, but when Sam calls me, I get a little concerned.

Me:  Hi!  Are you having fun?

Sam:  Oh yeah!  I drove 17 miles today!

Me:  What?  Drove?  Drove what?

Sam:  Grandpa's truck!  

Me:  Where did you drive?  

Sam:  On the road!  Grandpa said that before I leave I can drive 100 miles.

Me:  You are fourteen.

Sam:  Grandpa says I'm a good driver. 

Sam:  Today Grandpa took me shooting.
Me:  Shooting?
Sam:  Yeah
Me:  Shooting a gun?
Sam: Yeah!  What else would you shoot?
Me:  Oh.
Sam:  We had a quick draw contest.
Me:  ....... You had a what?
Sam:  Quick draw, you know, to see who could unload their gun at the target the fastest.  Grandpa won because my gun jammed.  He shot all his bullets before I could even shoot once!
Me:  Oh Jesus.

After all that, I'm half-expecting to hear how much fun they had while bull riding, or going over a water fall in a barrel, or swimming with sharks.  Oh wait a minute, they've already done that one:

In my opinion mosquitoes are annoying, but that's just me.

I have a mosquito bite on the hardest, thickest part of my big toe.  It might drive me insane because if I scratch it, it just makes it itch more, and it can't really be scratched because the itch is way underneath the thick skin.  I have even gone outside and scraped it on the sidewalk thinking that would give me some relief, but it didn't.  The itch is way inside there.  While I was out there scraping away I noticed a branch clipper leaning against the garage and thought, hey, if I clipped my toe off, I bet it wouldn't itch anymore!  Then I reconsidered because that seems a bit drastic.  I really have no tolerance for slight discomfort.

Actually I have about twenty mosquito bites just on my feet because apparently when I slathered my entire body in bug spray the other night I forgot to put any on my feet.  I have one bite on the arch that's really itching right now, about five on the backs of my heels, and the rest are on my toes.  How did I not even notice this was happening?  I'll tell you why.

I read about mosquitoes and in their little tiny proboscis they have two tubes.  One for stealing your precious blood, and one for administering anti-coagulants, pain killers, immunosuppressants, along with the occasional case of yellow fever, dengue fever, and malaria.  Yuck!  And how is that little proboscis strong enough to penetrate any of our skin, much less thick toe skin?  It's really thin and sharp, that's how.

earth's biggest asshole

Mosquitoes have been around for about 30 million years, honing their craft, so we really don't have a chance against them.  They are disease carrying, thieving little bastards.  If they were humans they would be the kind of people who would kidnap you in South America and steal your kidney to sell on the black market, and you wouldn't even know what happened to you.  You would just wake up in a hotel bathtub with a terrible headache and a sloppy incision in your side.  Do you think they'd care if they gave you hepatitis or sepsis?  No they wouldn't care at all.  All they care about is your precious kidney.  That's what kind of people mosquitoes are.  You wouldn't put up with someone injecting you with dirty needles or stealing your organs, so why is it okay for someone to inject you with drugs and gorge themselves on your blood every chance they get?  I know it's not PC to call for the extinction of an entire species (like pandas), but I don't care.  I say we kill all the mosquitoes.

Our Weekend In Pictures

Mitch did some landscaping.  There was grunting involved, and possibly a hernia.  I should have taken this picture with a person in it.  It's bigger than you think.  If I wrapped my arms around this trunk they wouldn't even come close to touching.

I watched a squirrel gorge himself on seeds from my squirrel-proof feeder.

Kira tried to catch the squirrel with this grabber and came closer than you think she could.  Now it's sitting by the front door, ready for the next time she wants to try.

My bird annoyed the crap out of me by flying all over the place like a total shithead so I clipped her wings and gave her a shower which I thought would bring her down a peg or two but it didn't.  I brought her outside, (BECAUSE I DIDN'T THINK SHE COULD FLY, THAT'S WHY!) and she flew away.  I think she was just as surprised as I was.  She flew into the tippy top of this tree:

and I couldn't find her for hours and hours, but I could hear her squawking so I told Kira I'd take her out for ice cream if she could get the stupid bird down.  There was a lot of shaking of branches, and eventually she came down.  Now the bird is back, safe and sound.  I wonder what she thought of being outside, so high up in a tree?  I really wonder.  I think she liked it and now harassing Mitch by stuffing her head up his nose is not going to be enough for her.  (she really likes Mitch)

I also got two bags of these because I had a coupon for buy one get one free.  Did you know that if you eat the better part of a bag of pita chips you might get diarrhea?  I didn't either.

Movie Review: X-Men First Class

I just got home from watching X-Men First Class and I LOVED IT!  But to be fair, I can't say I'm really all that impartial because I love all the X-Movies, even the third one that all the movie snobs say was horrible, trite, predictable, silly, blah blah blah.  SO WHAT if at the end, when Dr. Jean Gray was totally freaking out with her crazy mind power so much that only Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) could get near her, and her power was so intense that it kept blowing off his shirt and his chest flesh (but not his pants)?  It's called DRAMA, people!  Wolverine loved her, but had to kill her to save the world, but he loved her, but the world depended on him.  But he loved her.  DON'T YOU GET IT!  IT WAS A TOUGH DECISION!  It plunged further into the murky depths that make up Wolverine.  How anyone could sit through that without shedding a tear, I will never know.

That all being said, this X-Men was fabulous!  And part of the reason I am saying that is because I am newly in love with Michael Fassbender who played Magneto, who also played Mr. Rochester in this year's movie version of Jane Eyre.  I went to see that movie a few weeks ago at the new hipster theater downtown and the tiny theater was packed full of people, most of whom probably remember when the book came out.  They were OLD.  I think it might have been a nursing-home field trip.  Anyway, I also LOVED Jane Eyre (because I think I might love every movie) and Mr. Rochester was soooooo wonderful.  Crazy, lovable weirdo.  Mitch calls Jane Eyre "19th century pulp fiction" so he wouldn't go see it with me.  Apparently the Bronte sisters were the 19th century version of Danielle Steel (according to Mitch; crazy, lovable weirdo!)

The movie starts with the same scene that starts the very first X-Men movie.  Magneto is a teenager, in Germany, in 1944, and he and his family have been taken to a concentration camp where he was separated from his parents and he can't stand it and he is calling out and trying to get to them, and in the process bends a gigantic metal fence with his unharnessed power.  I know that's what happened because I've seen that scene a million times.  However, I did not really see it this time because some lady came down my aisle (which is always up at the top so I can avoid this very problem) and needed to get past me.  OF COURSE!  There are hundreds of open seats all over the place, but you have to sit in MY row, in a seat on the other side of me, during the first scene of the movie!  So I missed the big fence-bending because I was looking at this lady's ass and she was stepping on my feet, but I got the idea.

Shortly after that the movie jumps ahead in time 22 years to 1962.*  Magneto is trying to avenge his parents, and Dr. Charles Xavier has just gotten his degree from Oxford.  Blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda, they get together and prevent the Cuban Missile Crisis from turning into a nuclear war.  (Oh, sorry.  Spoiler alert.)  Sam was watching it too with some of his friends and I take great comfort in the fact that this is now and forever going to be the first and therefore most credible version of the Cuban Missile Crisis that they ever learn.  (I wish there was a way to make sarcasm come through in typing because that last sentence was supposed to be sarcastic. fyi.) This movie answers the questions we've all always had about the X-Men:  How did Professor Xavier get paralyzed? Why does Mystique walk around naked all the time?  Why aren't Charles and Magneto rivals who always call each other "old friend?"  How did the X-Men school get started?  Where'd they get that big plane?

 It's very good.  You should see it, if only for Michael Fassbender.

Mr. Rochester/Magneto/Michael Fassbender, (but mostly Mr. Rochester in this picture.)

*UPDATE:  My dad kindly pointed out to me that 1944 + 22 years does NOT equal 1962.  I guess I meant to say that the movie jumps ahead 18 years.  Soooooooooorrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!! (again, I wish there was a way to convey sarcasm in type)  I don't need basic math skills right now, it's summer!

Reason 12,349 why I think grown women who have affairs with adolescent boys are mentally deranged:

This is about five or six days worth of laundry, cleaned, folded and ready to be put away.

You know what's not represented in this huge pile of laundry?  Any underpants from the resident 14 year old boy.

More About George...

I'm reading a biography about George Washington written by Ron Chernow.  It's really good.  Recently, I came across a couple parts that made me laugh.  GW kept a journal where he kept track of things.  He didn't really tell how he was feeling or expound about the big important things that were going on in world events, he mostly told what the weather was like, what he bought or sold, or what he hunted.  He was an avid hunter and one day his journal says, "killed five mallards and five bald eagles."  I don't know why, but that made me laugh out loud when I read it.  Take that, majestic national bird!

I also read a blog about GW (see the sidebar) and today's post features a tackle box of George's.  He liked to fish for fun, and also he had a pretty successful commercial fishing venture going at Mount Vernon.  The blog post also tells us that when Washington was in Barbados when he was 19, he enjoyed some fishing time and he caught a shark and a dolphin.

Ohhhh, he didn't, did he?  
Yes, he did.  

Later that trip he caught small pox and pleurisy.