Parkour, Celebs, Day-drinking, and Three-hole potties: My trip to DC

I'm in a dumb phase lately.  I can hardly think a coherent thought.  Tonight I sat next to a man I work with every single day and I could not for the life of me remember his name.  Then I had to get money from the ATM and I couldn't remember my pin number.  Jesus, what is happening to me?  And the dumbest thing I've done is totally forgetting to write about my trip to DC with my sisters!!!

We went for a long weekend because Amy was going to run in the Marine Marathon, but she got a deferment for a year because she didn't exactly train in any way whatsoever.  Oh well, we decided to go to DC anyway and it was FUN.

The first night we checked into our hotel and got settled, then went for a walk.  Our hotel was right downtown, kind of by the white house, so we walked down there to see it.  It was lit up pink for breast cancer month.

Then we were walking around and Beth was talking about how she is really into Parkour lately.  You know, Parkour?  Like this:

Amy and I didn't quite believe her and told her to prove it.  She took on the challenge and jumped off a one foot step, and then leap-frogged this barrier-thing which would have been really cool if she didn't stub her crotch and fall down.  If the barrier was three inches shorter, it might have been impressive.  So then I tried to jump over a fire-hydrant but forgot I was wearing a skort and almost killed myself.  We are lucky we came back from Washington with all our teeth.  Here's Amy Parkouring her ass all over the place.

The next day Amy and I went for a run.  No, you shut up.  I can run!  We ran for about 23 miles all over the Mall area.

 Amy says it absolutely was not 23 miles but I don't know how she knows it wasn't because we didn't map it out or anything. It was probably pretty close to 23.  

We went to the Holocaust Museum.  Depressing.  They have a gift shop in the lobby so you can shop for key chains and coffee mugs that say "We Shall Never Forget" all over it.  There was even a little stuffed bear in a trench coat who was wearing a little tag that said, "I'm a refugee."  It was a bit much.  Amy thinks that a bar would do better business than a gift shop because after going through and seeing all the horrors that was the Holocaust, a person really needs a good stiff drink.

So then we went to have a good stiff drink, which leads me to the day-drinking portion of our trip.  We did a lot of that.  That's what vacations are for, right?  At one bar we sat next to a guy that told us that Chris Brown of beating-the-shit-out-of-Rhianna fame was arrested at the W Hotel right across the street from us. Turned out to be true.  Some guy photo-bombed a picture Brown was in so he ran after the guy and mercilessly beat him.  Seems like an appropriate response.  We also went to the W Hotel (fancy schmancy) to have a drink in the bar that is on the roof.  It was nice but every table had a reserved sign on it and nobody came to sit at them.  I got a free beer.

Saturday we went to MOUNT VERNON!  We took a boat from DC up the Potomac to the estate.

Amy and Kristen on the boat to Mount Vernon.  They can
barely contain their excitement.

 Unfortunately we only got four hours to tour the place.  I thought it was kind of a rush, but nobody else did.  You can see barely anything in four hours.  We hit the high points:  The house, museum, tomb, wharf-area.

This guy took us through a hay-bale maze.  What's the point of a hay-bale maze, you ask?  I don't know.  You can see right over it and figure out your path.  Easy.  This guy said to shut our eyes and go through conga style.  It was weird.

Then I saw one of my favorite Mount Vernon attractions:

The three-hole outhouse.  Amy asked me once if I could meet George Washington and talk to him, but only if we were both using the three-hole outhouse, would I do it?  Probably.

The next day was the marathon so we went to watch the runners.  It was a beautiful day and it was fun to watch the marathon.  The people at the front of the pack run fast the whole time.  I mean FAST.  It's not a sprint, j'all!

We met some cool people while we were there.  We saw Senator Franken at the airport and said hello to him.  We met a retired Capitol Police guy at a diner one morning and got him talking about senators who are all bluster in public and who cry in the elevator at the end of the day.  And we met Carlos Arredondo, an activist who helped save people after the Boston bombing.  I recognized him from a picture and we talked with him for a while.  He is a fantastically nice person.  I was really happy we got to meet him and I got to take a picture with him and an ice-cream sandwich.

The last day we were there we walked around for miles and miles and miles.  We went to the Smithsonian Portrait Gallery too.

Amy took this picture of me nerding it up in front of a statue of George Washington surrendering his commission after the Revolutionary War.  He was dreamy.

I also got this really cool photo of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial.  Nobody was there right then because the marathon was going on and everyone was cheering on the runners.

But before I got that good picture, I got this one:

This lady literally ran into the frame at the last second.  I wish I knew who she was so I could send her the picture.  

Summer Vacation!

I have been having a lot of fun lately, and I know when I tell you about it you are going to be jealous and then probably write me off and not pay any attention to me anymore, but I'm going to risk it.  You'll get over it.

On the 4th of July Mitch and the kids and I went out on Mitch's brother's Mat's boat to watch the fireworks. It was glorious!

The Coast Guard stopped us because the four kids and I were sitting on the bow.  The kids were all wearing life-jackets so they gave us five Dairy Queen coupons for "all the kids on the bow wearing life-jackets."  Hey!  They thought I was a kid!  And they also thought I was wearing a life jacket.  Time to lose some weight!

On the morning of the fourth, my friend Shelly and I went to the Duluth Rowing Club for a rowing lesson with our gym trainer, Jeff.  He is a rowing coach.  He took Shelly, another teacher named Jane, and me out on a four person boat.  It was so much fun!  The weather was perfect and the water was like glass.  Apparently over the last hundred years or so the boats used for the sport of rowing have been designed and improved and engineered to be perfect rowing machines, but that didn't stop us from giving Jeff suggestions on how the boat could be better.  You are supposed to cross your hands left over right in the middle of the stroke.  Shelly suggested that right over left would be better and I suggested that maybe they should just make the oars shorter so no crossing was necessary in the first place.  Jeff explained that the boat is designed to be perfectly balanced when the rowers put their left hand over their right hand, and that the oars needed to be the length they are for the optimal amount of leverage in the row.  We are still skeptical.  

He has a lot of patience.  

A few days later I went to see Brandi Carlile in concert.  She was FABULOUS!  She has so much talent packed into a tiny, adorable little package.  What a voice!  It was an outdoor concert along a river in Des Moines.  Gorgeous night!

A few days after that my sister Beth and Mitch and I went to the Richard Thompson/My Morning Jacket/Wilco/Bob Dylan concert here in Duluth.  It was a lot of fun.  My sister Amy was heading to Duluth that evening and said, "I'd really love to go to the concert with you guys if it wasn't Bob Dylan."  Apparently she's not a fan.  Amy and Beth went to a Dylan concert many years ago when they were teenagers and apparently he just stood in a dark corner and sang unintelligibly.  He was pretty good this time but he didn't say one word to the audience and at one point when he was singing Beth said, "I wish there were subtitles."

Later that night my sisters and I came back to my house and celebrated Amy being back from Afghanistan by eating Doritos and Top The Tater, drinking Miller Light, and learning how to twerk from instructional videos on the internet.  Oh, you don't know what twerking is?  It is the latest gross dance kids are doing to horrify their parents.  Basically you squat down and shake your undercarriage.

Beth got pretty good at it with some practice but Amy is hopeless.  Her twerk was mostly arms with not much going on below the waist.  We kept yelling, "Less arms!"  but that just made her shake her arms more.  I don't know why that happened because arms aren't even a small part of a good twerk.  When I do it I feel like I'm really moving, but apparently I'm just sort of standing still making pigeon movements with my head.  SEXY SEXY SEXY!  

Seafood and Computer Magic

Okay, I've really sucked at blogging lately.   I have to get back on the ball.  First of all, I want to tell you about the high points of Christmas.  I told you before about the presents my sister Beth has gotten me over the years: the appliance box of old rated R VHS tapes for my kids; the case of dollar store fish-n-crackers; the receipt for a case of Diet coke she bought me the previous summer that I forgot to pay her back for, wrapped nicely in a box with a bow.

Well, this year I was looking for something for her.  I got her some nice(ish) things but I wanted to get her one more thing.  I shopped around and couldn't decide on anything.  So I went to the dollar store to get some wrap and tape and stuff.  I looked through the food aisle to see if they still had the same fish-n-crackers.  They did, along with a surprisingly wide variety of canned fish.  I know, I thought, I'll get her a seafood extravaganza!  Who doesn't love sea food?  I got her a box of the fish-n-crackers she loves so much, a can of tuna, a tin of kipper snacks, a tin of anchovies, and best of all a dented, dusty can of clams.  I got a cute basket and a teeny bottle of Asti Spumanti (to class it up) and wrapped it up beautifully.  She loved it.  Who wouldn't?

Over Christmas I also learned that my dad is a gifted computer whiz.  We were going to Skype with my sister Amy who is in Afghanistan right now (she's in the service, not on vacation) and my dad couldn't remember his Skype password.  We told him to reset it.  So he clicked the "I forgot my password" button and Skype sent him a link to make up a new password.  He couldn't get it to work so he handed me the computer in frustration and told me to do it.  I said, "What password did you choose?"  He couldn't remember the password he made up two minutes before.  No, I shouldn't say that, he couldn't remember if it was the dog's name, or the dog's name1.  It was either/or.  I figured it out by typing one, then typing the other to see which one would work.  He was amazed.

While I was there I used his computer to go on Facebook and I forgot to log myself out.  Then I got this email:

UMmmmmmmmmmmm, Sarah you turd! You dicked around with my Facebook setting so when I click on it, your page comes up, not mine. How do I get it back to mine. Next time you come up I get to spend an hour using your computer and we'll see how you like it. Why has my typeface changed? NOW What did you do to this computer? Dad

Yeah, that's right, I can now make his computer switch to italics anytime I want.  Don't mess with me or I'll do it to you too.

Awkward Family Photo

This might be my new favorite Christmas picture.  These are my sister's daughters, in their pjs, in front of their Charlie Brown Christmas tree middle (their dad had to cut the top off to make it fit in the house), they are holding hands, and Millie (the little one) looks to be choking to death.

Here's another picture of their tree middle:

The sparse branches seem to grow right into the ceiling.  Christmas magic!

Fond Christmas Memories

Having-a-job is really cutting in to my blogging time and you know who suffers for that.  Nobody You do. And I'm sorry about that. Also we are having a feud with our Internet provider so wifi at home is sporadic and slow. It's not that I have nothing to write about, I do, I just can't get myself organized enough to do it properly. For instance right now I'm writing this on my iPad at a coffee shop which seems so lame-o, but that is what's happening. Its really hard to type on an iPad.

I've been getting ready for Christmas, decorating and shopping and stuff, and that got me to thinking about Christmases past and my funny sister Beth.  She usually gets me a passive-aggressive, and hilarious gift. Last year she gave my kids every single VHS tape she has ever bought, and she put them in one giant box. I think it must have been the box her washing machine or dryer came in. It was enormous. The kids, of course were thrilled with it. As I was sitting there thinking about how I was going to get her back for that she said to me, "You better go through those before the kids do. Some of them are extremely inappropriate for kids."  Nicely done, Beth.

The year before she gave my kids about thirty packages of "tuna snacks" she had gotten at the dollar store. My gift was the story of what happened when she bought them, and it's still to this day one of the best gifts ever.

She bought a package of the tuna/cracker combo one time just to try it, and she liked it. The next time she went to the dollar store she saw them again and had fond memories of them so she decided to buy all of Dollar Tree's stock. She got one of their teeny carts and cleared the shelf of all their tuna snacks and, feeling proud of herself, headed for the checkout. That's when she ran in to one of her old boyfriends. They said hi and he looked in her cart, and then looked her up and down and said, with sincerity in his voice, "How are you?" which I choose to translate as, "How long have you been homeless?"

Anyway, after that she lost her taste for dollar store tuna so she gave it all to my kids for Christmas. But the joke is on her because they really liked it, ha ha, Beth!

You Never Stop Learning from your Dad

The other morning over breakfast my dad told me about something I never knew existed, and much like throughout my entire life, he has opened my eyes to new possibilities.  This is what he told me:

"Did you hear about the newest tattoo fad?  It's anal tattoos."  

Thanks Dad!  I did NOT hear about the latest tattoo fad, but now I can't stop thinking about it!  Oh, the possibilities... 

Or...

I was opening my mouth to ask my dad how he knew about this new fad when he said, "The worst part of it is asking your tattoo artist to do it for you."    

Um,... what Dad?  You've gotten so far with this that you've had to experience the awkwardness of actually asking someone to tattoo your anus?  So I skipped over the preliminary questions I had and asked, "Dad... Do you have an anal tattoo?"  And I don't know if he is serious or not because I NEVER WANT TO CHECK, but he says that he has one like this:

How sweet!/disgusting!/passive aggressive!  I always hoped my name was tattooed on my dad's heart, but I guess I can live with the thought that at least I'm tattooed somewhere.

So now I am having some ideas.  Nobody would ever see this tattoo except possibly your spouse, doctor or sodomist, so you are pretty much free to get whatever you want without worrying about public rejection.  You could get a simple greeting that would be a nice surprise come exam time and give you and your doctor something to talk about to fill the awkward silences:

Or you could embrace the hemorrhoids that you got while you were pregnant 15 years ago that will never go away:

Or you could get a stupid saying that only you think is funny:

I haven't decided what I'm going to get yet.  Maybe something classy like a topographic map of the Himalayas.  What kind of anal tattoo would you get, if you had to get an anal tattoo?

Internet Predator, Shminternet Shmedator

When I started this blog my main reason was to write down the funny stories about my kids and husband.  People told me not to use our real names lest an internet predator come after us.  Mitch insisted he didn't want anything written about him on the blog and I was never ever to post any pictures of him!  It's been four years and  I've gotten exactly two nasty (hilarious) comments and I've made a bunch of friends.  Blogging has been pretty sweet.  Kira even has fans.  She says she hates when I write about her, but whenever she says anything that makes me laugh she says, "Don't write that on your blog!" but then later she asks.  "Did you put that on your blog???  Did I get any comments???"

Recently her biggest admirer, Jane, sent her a special present.  It was addressed to her and there was an envelope in the package that said, "TOP SECRET."  Mitch said, "Oh great, people from the internet are sending our daughter secret packages." Jane assured me that there were no razors or cocaine in the envelope so I let Kira have it.  (If it had razors and cocaine in it, I would have kept it for myself.  I'm extremely hairy and disappointingly sober these days.)  In it there was a plastic cockroach much like this:

but not exactly like this.  The one Jane sent is much more elegant, but I can't get a picture of it because Kira is sleeping with it and I would rather touch a real cockroach than wake her up to ask her where her fake roach is.

Anyway, there was a note with the roach that said:

Enclosed is my friend, Steve the Cockroach.  You can name him whatever you want.  

I have had SO much fun hiding Steve around the house and scaring people.  He is great in the silverware drawer, a drawer in the bathroom...... in the butter.....

The best, is where you're out to eat.  I put him between a friend's toast one time at breakfast and when she picked up the toast she screamed her head off.  Then the waitress came running over and she screamed.  I laughed so hard I fell off my chair.  

Steve is also fun to hide on your plate, under your salad or vegetables, then call your Mom over and ask what it is.......

I'm sure you'll think of many ways to scare everybody!  Enjoy!!! And take good care of my buddy Steve!

It's amazing how someone who has only read stories about her on the internet can know her so incredibly well.  Kira and Jane are kindred spirits.  She could not have gotten a more perfect present.  Thankfully I was there when she opened it so I was spared having the life scared out of me by a strategically-placed Steve, but my sister was not so lucky.  Kira's latest thing is to hold a closed fist out and say, "Here," to any willing dupe.  When I was still falling for this ploy, I was handed a Daddy-Long-Legs, some seeds, a rock, and an enormous slug that I still can't believe she touched.

Beth came over to my parents house one day and Kira saw a golden opportunity.  She put Steve in her hand and casually said, "Here, Beth." Beth said she had a funny feeling but ignored it and held her hand out to receive what Kira had to offer.  When she saw the roach she screamed louder than the all the Mandrake babies in Harry Potter put together.  It was deafening.  Kira was laughing so hard no sound was coming out of her mouth, her nostrils were flaring and her face was bright red.  She couldn't breathe.  It was the best prank ever.  We all (except Beth) enjoyed it. Thanks, Jane!

So, in my experience putting all kinds of information about your kids on the internet has been a good thing (unless you're Beth) and I would recommend it to anyone.

Something gross and something embarrassing

First the something gross:  My sister called me and left me a message that said, "Millie ate something DISGUSTING; guess what it was..." and she left me hanging thinking of all the gross things a one-year-old could potentially eat.  Poop came to mind.  Gross.  So I called her back and she made me guess for a while; poop? no.  A bug?  Yes.  Sure, that's pretty gross, but still, so what?  When Kira was one she ate a jar of ladybugs that Sam collected.  I didn't believe it when Sam told me that, but sure enough, the little weirdo had a little orange shell on her lip and her breath had that squished-lady-bug smell.  So I wasn't that grossed out about a baby eating a bug until she gave me the details.

Millie ate an engorged wood tick.  A wood tick like this:

Beth said that she saw something blackish dripping down Millie's chin and couldn't figure out what it was because she said, "I knew it wasn't dirt.  I don't have any plants."  So, now that she had eliminated dirt, Beth wiped off Millie's chin and thought about what it could be when Millie spit out the flattened, deflated carcass.  Beth thought it was a grayish corn kernal and then it dawned on her that Oh My God, that was a disgusting wood tick that must have been attached to the dog, filled itself with dog blood and then her baby ate it.  

We wondered how one could call the doctor and ask if dog blood passed through a tick is bad for babies without seeming like a horrible parent.  There is no way.  But we figured since she spit (most of) the blood out and then also spit out the carcass, she's probably going to be okay.  Nevertheless, I'm never touching her again.  Gross baby.

I'm not going to go into great detail about the embarrassing thing because it is about me and this is my blog so I don't have to put myself through the wringer like I would if this was someone I knew.  Let me just tell you that in a fit of hypochondria I convinced myself I was dying so I went to the doctor and after a thorough, thorough exam she gave me my diagnosis:  "You have your period."  Yeah, that's right, I'm 41 years old, have had my period for about 30 years and I panicked and went to the doctor only to have her politely tell me that I'm perfectly fine, I'm just menstruating.  I was like, "Oh.... heh heh.... better safe than sorry!... lol."  and she said, while decidedly not lol-ing, "Do you need a pad?" and then she gave me pamphlet titled, "Congratulations! You're A Woman Now" and sent me on my way.  Just kidding.  She didn't give me the pamphlet.  I would feel better if she had.  But hey, I'm not dying!  That's something!

Yard Sale

School got out last week and we already had a busy summer weekend.  We went up to Intl Falls to help my parents and sister with their big garage sale.  I put some stuff in too.

Mostly old purses and all the chicken decorations everyone and their brother gave me several years ago when I got three live chickens.  Seriously, nobody gave a second thought about what to get me for my birthday that year, if it had a chicken on it, the general consensus was that I wanted it.  I got a chicken platter, a chicken rug, chicken plates, chicken candy dishes, a metal and wood decorative chicken, a chicken key holder, a big glass chicken full of olive oil and vegetables, a chicken basket, a chicken bank, a chicken tape dispenser, a gigantic cement chicken that weighs more than a 100 pounds etc etc etc.  I brought some of the better looking chickens to sell, thinking nobody would want a bunch of chicken stuff and it would end up in the dump.  The very first lady at the sale, who arrived an hour and 15 minutes before it officially opened, bought ALL the chicken stuff and would have brought more if I had only brought it all.  DARNIT!  I should have brought it all.

I finally acquired the giant fish platter that my sisters and I have been coveting since my mom got it about fifteen years ago.  I thought I was going to have to wait until they were dead and then fight my sisters for it, but my mom decided she doesn't want it anymore so it was going to go in the sale.  First my sister Beth was going to snag it and give it to my sister Amy for her birthday (tacky), but too bad for Beth, she was at work, so I put it in my car. HA HA! Now I have the big fish platter, my sisters do not have it, and my parents are still alive.  Win win win.

I tried to sell Amy's dog again, but nobody wanted her.

E is for Eloquence

My niece Sid is such a brat but she is so funny.  Lately she has been copying how people talk.  She told my mom one day, "My dad said to me: 'You're annoying,'" and when she said "you're annoying" she said it in a really deep, dumb sounding voice.

Her baby sister recently had a birthday and I asked Sid if the cake was good.  She said to me, "I wanted to touch the frosting but then Mom said, 'DON'TYOUDARETOUCHTHATCAKE!'" and she yelled out the quote in a screamy, devil voice.  Oh, how I laughed.

Recently she was laughing about something so my sister asked her what was so funny.  She said, "Grandma always says to me, 'You're squishing my boob!'  That's funny."  That IS funny.  Why do you let her squish your boobs so much, Mom?

When she isn't doing unflattering impressions of her family members she just copies what you say right after you say it.  I forgot how annoying that is.  Her dad is right.  

My Girls

I just got back from a quick trip to visit my parents and my sister and her daughters, Sid and Millie.

Sid, the three year old, is a BRAT, but she makes me laugh harder than anyone.  My mom told me a story about how one day Sid fell down the stairs.  She fell forward and was lying on the stairs on her stomach with her head facing down and her feet on the top step.  My mom was shocked that she fell and was on her way to ask if she was okay and help her up when she heard Sid say, "Grandma... Grandma... grab my feet."  She wouldn't move because she was afraid she would fall further and it cracks me up that she had a plan for my mom to save her while she was lying on her stomach on the steps.  I'm laughing even as I write this.  

A few weeks ago she got her first case of diarrhea since she has been potty trained.  She came out of the bathroom and told my mom, with her voice full of wonder, "I peepooped!"

Yesterday Sid was all hyped up and being obnoxious.  She was about to jump on Kira and Kira said, "Oh god."  And Sid cracked up laughing and ran up to me and told me "Kira called me 'OOOOHHHGAAAAA!" and then ran to the bedroom where my sister was changing Millie and yelled into the room "Kira called me OOOOHHGAAAAAA!" and then she shut the light off and shut the door.  Beth had just taken Millie's diaper off so the baby was lying on the bed half naked and suddenly they were both thrust into total darkness.   Why do I think that is so funny?

Beth is trying to teach Sid the concept of time-outs for undesirable behavior.  She tells her that she has to stay in her room for her time-out until Beth comes back to get her.  Sid lies on her stomach in the hall with only her feet in her room and yells, "MOM, COME AND TALK TO ME!"

Sid thinks it is HILARIOUS to call me Amy and call Amy Sarah.  She's been doing that since she could talk, and we thought it was just an honest mistake, but it isn't.  She does it on purpose to stick it to us.  Yesterday she made me pretend she was a baby and put her in the crib for a nap.  Gladly, I thought.  When I got about two steps out of the room she started yelling, "AMY! COME AND GET THE BABY! AMY!  AMY!  AMY!  AMY!  AAAAAAAAMMMMMYYYYYY!!!!!!" So I yelled back, "Amy isn't here!"  and she laughed and laughed and said, "SARAH, COME AND GET THE BABY!"  So I went back in the room and she looked at me with her sweet little face and said, "Hi Amy!"  She's a brat.




President's Week pretentious fun fact!:  Washington was known for his incredible physical strength and dexterity (swoon).  At the end of the revolution told a friend that he never knew anyone who could throw a rock as far as he could. Once he threw a rock on top of the Natural Bridge in the Blue Ridge Mountains.  Here's the Natural Bridge:

Those tiny things at the bottom are people.  (It's really high.) Another time at Mount Vernon a group of young men were having a competition "throwing the bar" which I suppose is like a javelin.  Washington happened upon the young men who were stripped down, sweating, showing off, and asked where the furthest mark was.  He then grabbed the bar and flung it further than any of them without so much as removing his jacket.  He smiled and said, "When you beat my pitch, young gentlemen, I'll try again," and walked away.

Washington was also a fantastic horseman.  Preceding the Battle of Trenton, GW was riding up and down a column of soldiers on horseback and suddenly his horse slipped and started to fall backward down a steep, icy slope.  Washington locked his fingers into the horse's mane and hauled up its head by brute force.  He shifted his balance backward just enough to allow the horse to regain its footing.  The people that witnessed it were in awe.  Washington saw their stunned faces and said, "What? It's no biggy."  (no, he didn't.)  I saw Mitch do that on the lawn tractor once.  It really is impressive.

This has nothing to do with GW's strength, but I like it so I'm including it:  Ethan Allen (the man, not the furniture company) was captured by the British during the Revolution and he reported that the British had a picture of George Washington hung in their outhouse.  Allen supposedly said, "It is most appropriately hung. There is nothing that will make an Englishman shit so quick as the sight of General Washington."  

The Krampus

I just heard a story on the radio about a mythical Christmas creature called the Krampus.  Why didn't anyone ever tell me about this???  I LOVE IT!  The Krampus is a demon-like creature who plays the yin to Santa's yang and while Santa is giving presents to the kids on the nice list, "when the Krampus finds a particularly naughty child, it stuffs the child in its sack and carries the frightened thing away to its lair, presumably to devour for its Christmas dinner." (from Wikipedia)

Merry Christmas!

Do you know how much I would have loved to tell my kids that they better be good or the Krampus would come and kidnap them via giant sac and then take them to his stinky cave and eat them alive?  That is what Christmas is all about!  All I had in my parenting tool-belt was "Be good!  Santa is watching!  You might not get a present if you're naughty!"  Kira was so naughty when she was little,

that the "Santa's-watching!" threat never worked on her. She didn't care.  If Santa stiffed her, she would make Santa sorry he was ever born.  If the Krampus was in the picture, I might have gotten better results.  Oh well.  It's too late for my kids.  They would laugh if I told them about it now.  But it's not too late for my nieces!

And the best part about telling them in disturbing detail about the Krampus is that in their waking hours they will be scared to death to be naughty, and because I'm not their mother, I won't have to deal with the inevitable night-terrors!  Win-win!  I can't wait to see their big eyes when I tell them all about listening carefully in the dead of night for the clip-clop of cloven hooves on Mom's new hardwood floors,  

and that the only way to avoid being stolen and eaten by the Krampus is to sleep IN BETWEEN Mom and Dad every single night of the year.  


Wow, this is so great that I might have to start teaching kindergarten again!  I'll get this book for story time!

Sleep well, kids!

Jib Jab Jingle Bell

It's not even December and I'm already getting in the holiday spirit!  And when I say I'm in the holiday spirit, I mean that I've been playing with Jib Jab, making my favorite holiday cards.  Here's some screen shots from the one I made of my parents, sisters and me:



The Whole Family



Dad and Mom

Dad, rocking out

The whole fam again

If you want to see the whole card, click on this link.

Now I'm at work in a math class and the kids have an assignment and they are actually doing it and being quiet so I was playing around and made another one.  I don't have my computer here at school, but I have my own school account, but I don't have access to very many of my own pictures so I just took some off my blog.  This one is me, Mitch and a honey badger.  Here's some screen shots:

You can see this card at this link. Next I think I'll make one with Kira and a couple of chickens. 

Now go and make your own cards and paste them on to Facebook and then make sure to friend me on facebook so I can laugh too.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  Remember last year when I liveblogged Thanksgiving?  Well, there hasn't been quite that much excitement this year.  My dad doesn't have any revelations for us like last year when he shared with us that L.L. Cool J. means "The Lady Loves Cool James," but we did have a nice conversation about mean things teachers used to do to kids back in the good ole days.  My dad said that when he was in school he had a little, mean woman teacher that was an ex-marine and he said, "She had skin like a marine, too," whatever that means, Dad.  Anyway, one day a kid was tipping back on his chair and he fell over backwards and this woman said ominously, "Pick your chair up.  Sit in it.  Tip it back." and made him repeatedly pick it up, sit in it and tip it back and fall until he started crying.  Beth got spanked in front of the whole class in first grade because she tripped a kid named Rusty when he was passing out papers. 

Last year was also the year that my dad and I played that fateful game of social chicken that ended with us both going to the winter parade.  I thought he learned his lesson but he wrote me this email yesterday:

Sarah:

FYI: Just read this in the Journal:

"Twas the Night Before Christmas Parade & Parade Party. 7:00 PM Friday evening followed by the All-New After-Parade Family Party. S'Mores,marshmallow roasting, hot chocolate. Just thought you might like to know for your planning purposes. Dad

Dad, don't dare me to go again because I WILL and DAMMIT I WILL BRING YOU WITH ME AND WE WILL STAY UNTIL THE BITTER END WHEN WE ARE BOTH STUFFED WITH S'MORES, HOT CHOCOLATE, NEW FRIENDS AND HOLIDAY CHEER.  Don't play with fire, old man.  YOU WILL LOSE.

Beth's Help

Amy and Beth and I were determined to get some good pictures of ourselves while we were on our trip.  We are constantly taking pictures, but they are usually of our kids who don't really take bad pictures.  Beth was a bit stunned by my total inability to take a good picture, which led me to record some Bethisms (thanks for the idea Kady and Summer) so she thought she'd help me out by snapping candids of me when I wasn't expecting it, thinking that maybe if I didn't know a camera was pointing at me, she could capture the real me.  These are some of the shots she got.

Walking the streets of Annapolis:

On the train to NYC:

And then: Finally!  A half-way decent one!

(That's me on the left)

Bethisms from our trip:

"Amy, you re-ran over that squirrel"

"If I took my kids on a plane, I'd drug them."

"The new cool will be having LESS Facebook friends!"

"What are you doing with your face?"  said everytime she looked at a picture snapped of me.

Thanks, Beth!

Russian Samovar

I have a couple of stories for you from my sister's vacation.  We had tickets to see Wicked at the Gershwin theater for Tuesday night, so before the show we planned on eating at Russian Samovar.  I chose that restaurant because when I looked up "good placed to eat in Midtown" when I was planning our itinerary, that name kept popping up.  I'm not much of a fan of Russian anything, but that restaurant kept getting rave reviews, so I thought we should check it out.  When we walked in I didn't think we were in the right place.  It looked like a bit of a dive.  What caught my eye was the light fixtures with wires hanging out all over the place.


Here's a picture of Amy and you can see the light fixtures, but you can't really see the wires.  Oh well, believe me, it was a bit weird. 

We decided to be totally Russian and drink vodka and eat caviar.  The waitress who was an adorable Russian girl with a thick accent brought us a list of flavor infused vodkas so we ordered some. 

The first one I got was lemon and it was pretty good.  Next I ordered a chocolate one and the waitress looked me square in the eye and said, "No."  I said, "Pardon?" and she said, "No. Is no good."  So I told her to get me a good one.  She brought me pear.  It was good.  We ordered our caviar:

See, it's served with little pancakes and onion and boiled egg and sour cream.  It was surprisingly delicious.  A bit fishy but guess what?  It's FISH EGGS!  I ate fish babies and they were delicious.

"Thank you ma'am, your babies were delicious."

Sometimes I feel bad about eating meat because I've seen footage on factory farms and how meat is processed and it is so barbaric and gross I can hardly stand it, but I don't think I will ever think of fish as an animal.  When we go to the Great Lakes Aquarium and see all those fat salmon swimming around it just makes me ravenous. 

Anyway, we had a wonderful time there drinking vodka, and eating appetizers and desserts (cheesecake and little tiny doughnuts with a raspberry sauce that was so good you could have eaten it with a spoon).  We loved our waitress and so we were trying to figure out how to say thank you in Russian and when I looked it up on my translator on my phone, this is what came up:  Спасибо.  I was looking at it for a few seconds and my sisters said, "What does it say?" and I said, "I don't know.  I don't know how to pronounce 'six'," but we figured it out and thanked her in Russian like the dorky tourists we are. 

Because we are middle aged and have to pee every 20 minutes, we asked our adorable waitress where the bathroom was.  She pointed us through these heavy velvet curtains to a staircase and said, "Up there," so we went upstairs to the exact room where Mikael Barishnikov took Carrie on their date on Sex In The City.  It was totally empty until a tough-looking man came shooting out of a back room, looked us over and said, "You must go downstairs."  We told him we were looking for the bathroom and he said, "Downstairs" and herded us to the staircase.  We decided to hold it.  When we were walking to the theater Beth said that the waitress probably sends women who she thinks would be good for selling into white slavery up the steps (aww, thanks!) but the guy got one look at us and thought to himself, "No.  Too old.  Too fat.  Couldn't make the profit margins," so he shooed us away.  Rejection!  We couldn't make a profit as sex slaves. Oh well, one less thing to worry about, I guess. Which reminds me of one more quick story from the trip:  One day we were walking around downtown Washington and there was a guy playing a banjo at an outdoor produce market.  He was just playing, not singing.  He was pretty good until I walked past him and he started singing "Where have all the young girls gone...hmmmm hmmmm hmmmm hmmmmm...." to the tune of Where Have All the Flowers Gone.  Hey Banjo Guy, you are no spring chicken either so SHUT IT.