Nightcrawler

I learned something very disturbing about my daughter last week when we were at my parent's house.  When we stay there, Kira and I share a room.  One night I went out and came home late.  She was still awake.   I said, "Why are you still up?" and she said, "Because I was just about to go on a night crawl."  I said, "What???"  And then she shut our room light off, dropped to her knees, opened the door and crawled out.  I thought she was just being creepy and was going to crawl into the bathroom in the dark and scare the crap out of me, but when I went in there to brush my teeth she wasn't there.  In the middle of my bathroom routine, she crawled in, shut the light off, and then crawled out.  When I got back to our room she was in there and I said, "What did you do?"  She said, "I told you. I went on a night crawl."  And then she went to sleep.

Here at home Kira has door beads that rattle whenever she goes in or out of her room.  Last night before bed she was tying them to the side and I asked her why she does that sometimes.  She said, "Because I'm going to get up at 3:30 and go on a night crawl and I don't want anyone to hear me." I said, "That's why you tie your beads back?  How long have you been night crawling?"  She said, "A long time."

Mitch got home late last night and I said, "Did you notice that Kira's beads are tied back?  She does that because she gets up in the middle of the night and crawls around the house in the dark. She calls it 'night crawling.' Apparently she does it on a pretty regular basis."  Mitch was totally creeped out.  When we went to bed he said, "Do you think we should shut and lock our door? I think we should.  Go lock it."  I said, "Why? It's not like she's going to kill us, she is just going to silently crawl up to the side of the bed in the dark in the middle of the night and stare at us for a while and then crawl away.  Where's the harm?" and Mitch shuddered.  I don't think he slept very well last night.

Todd Akin, Feminist

I couldn't avoid hearing about this because it was all over my Facebook feed.  This is what Congressman Todd Akin said about pregnancy resulting from rape:

“It seems to me, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare,” Akin told KTVI-TV. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something: I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be of the rapist, and not attacking the child.”

And then a shitstorm of anger rained down on his head from both men and women.  I don't know much about Todd Akin, and why would I?  He is a representative in congress from Missouri. But what I can tell is that the people have him all wrong.  He is probably the most pro-woman representative in congress, and maybe the world.  I AM a woman and am almost through with my child-bearing years and I didn't even know that I could "shut the whole thing down" if I wanted.  I am embarrassed to say that I've wasted a lot of money, time and worry on stupid, stupid birth control.  So I looked into Todd Akin and he is a super feminist, a true believer in the abilities of women.  If only women believed in women like Todd Akin believes in women.

Other things Todd Akin thinks ordinary women could do if they had any confidence in their own abilities and really tried for once:

- make 80 cents for every dollar a man makes instead of just 77.

- bring home 60% more bacon

- fry up 100% of all bacon brought home

- wear higher heels

- math

- slide an entire banana down her throat while making bedroom eyes

- fly

- give birth to a litter of adorable puppies

- 80% more dishes

- lose ten pounds

- produce enough breast milk to feed the world

- poop inexpensive and non-polluting fossil fuels

- a pull-up

- parallel park

- win the heart of The Bachelor


What Todd Akin apparently doesn't think women can do:

- vote

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?

Ambition

Last night Mitch and I were watching an episode of Dexter, the show about the lovable serial killer of serial killers, and we saw guy who was bludgeoned in the head with a hammer, then he was disemboweled, then his guts were replaced with a handful of live baby snakes and he was sewn back up, then his body was dumped in the ocean. Mitch said,

"That's how I want to go."

Happy Birthday to Amy!

Today is my sister Amy's birthday.  I wanted to write a special post today to honor her because she is about the best sister a girl can have.  She will be leaving in several weeks to go to Afghanistan for the navy (yes, the navy). Her job is to help people in a rural province learn about their government ("we have a government?") and to make them aware of money and programs they are entitled to.  If anyone can win over hearts and minds, Amy can.  

Even though she is one of the nicest people I know and it's her birthday doesn't change the fact that I am her big sister so I can't really help but post embarrassing pictures of her.  It's like it's my job.  

 Just because we were teenagers and we spent the summers on a houseboat at the lake didn't mean we didn't want to look nice.

This is Amy and Beth on their first day of school.

She's dainty, and if you don't agree, she will punch you in the face.

The costume designers of the ice show thought it was fun to put big hats on Amy's big head.  She played Mayor McCheese one year.  

Oops!  That's not Amy!  Here she is:

Honest mistake!

Happy Birthday, Amy!  I love you!

Why I'm a Neurotic Hypochondriac

I woke up this morning and checked my email to see I got an email from both of my parents:

The mailbot is from my Mom.  It was this:

She knows that I've been doing a lot of swimming this summer and just wants me to be informed that IT COULD KILL ME.  Notice her personal message, "Don't swim in any small lakes!  Pretty close to home."  Don't worry, Mom, I'm pretty sure my body is already crawling with all the deadly amoebas it can possibly host.  Hey, I bet one of those little amoebas is in my brain and that's why I'm so dumb lately!

This is my dad's email:

Hey Sarah;

Did you read the internet article about the woman in China that had a spider living in her ear canal for 5 days? She went to the doc because she had an itching on the right side of her head. Doc looked in her ear canal and saw a spider in there. A flush with saline solution got the spider out. What if she had left it in long enough for the spider to have babies? Dozens of little spiders crawling around inside your head? Wow! Something to think about as you drift off to sleep. You could tell Kira, "Oh mah god Bibsie! I think I may have a spahder in mah noggin! Whatever am I going to do abhout it??????? ...........

He doesn't know this, but I killed a little spider that had spun a web right by my night stand the other day.  She probably already laid her eggs in my head.  I have been trying to forget about that, telling myself not to be ridiculous and paranoid, but now that I know that it really happens to people, I'm not going to feel so stupid when I tape all my orifices closed before I go to bed.  (Sorry Mitch).  

Thanks Mom!  Thanks Dad!

When does school start?

Summer is getting long.  I can tell because one of the things Kira and I have been doing to keep ourselves entertained is to talk (yell) to each other in an overdone British accent.

Kira:  Mumsie!

Me:  Yes Bibsie?

Kira: Whut aaa you making foa dinnaa?

Me:  Why, Bibsie, we aaa having rewsted chicken and mashed pohtahtoes.

Kira: Capital, Mumsie!  I can't wait!  You know how I love my pohtahtoes mashed!

Sam: (rocketing out of his room) Oh my god, why do you keep talking like that?!

Kira:  Oh, deaa bruthaa, you shouldn't talk to yoa mumsie that way!

Sam:  I'm sorry, but please, please please shut UP!

Kira:  Sam stop ova-reacting or you will end up pewping yoa pants!

Sam:  Mom, please, make her stop.

Me: Oh, my daaling boy, I don't do things foa people who tell me to shut up.

Kira:  Bewbs!

Sam:  I wasn't telling you to shut up, I was telling her to shut up!

Me:  Whateva foa?

Kira:  Bewbs!

Sam: ...Jesus.

It's fun, but even I have to admit that after a while it gets a little obnoxious.  Kira just walks around the house all day constantly monologuing what she is doing in her high pitched, incredibly loud accent.  I was about to tell her to stop it yesterday but then she got me laughing so hard I couldn't even talk.  She was making herself a drink of flavored water with this stuff Mitch bought the other day called Green Thunder.  Mitch always says it in rumbling voice much like a professional wrestler, like this:  GREEN THUNDER! so now everyone in the house says it like that.  This is what Kira said to make me laugh:

Kira:  Well, Mumsie, I am getting raathaa thirsty.  Whut shall I have to quench my thuuuust?  I didn't realize I was so paaached!  Have we any iced tea, Mumsie?  Oh I know, I'll have some GREEEEEN THUNDERRRRRR!....

And that is when my mind finally snapped and I've been laughing ever since.  When does school start?  Seriously, Sam wants to know.

Idiot

Do you ever feel like you are a little dumber than you normally are?  Like sometimes for a few months you might be especially clever, but then that is balanced out by being a complete idiot for a couple months.  I'm somewhere in the middle of a truly idiotic phase which makes me wonder why, since I don't recall having any particularly smart phases.  Part of being an idiot is not realizing you are an idiot, but I finally came around to the idea when I realized that not a lot is going on in my head these days.  Usually I'm thinking about things I'm reading, or about things to write, or about things to do, but when I'm having my dumb days this is what is in my head, ".........huh?..............(crickets)................(tumbleweeds)....."

Also I've been playing a game called Quoridor with my family.  It is the only board game I can stand.  The object is to get your game piece across the board to the other player's home before he can get to your home.  To help, each player gets ten little wood fences that they can prop in the grooves in the board impeding their opponent's movement.  (Quoridor = Corridor?  Hallway?  get it?)   Usually if I can get someone to play with me I have a fair shot at winning, but not lately.  I think I've won three games of the last 300 I've made Sam, Kira, and Mitch play with me.  I thought I was forgetting about some key strategy so I had Mitch talk me through his thinking as he was putting up his fences and I still lost.  I'm obsessed with this now.  Why can't I win?  When will this bout of idiocy be over?  Kira is starting to take advantage of me, "Mom, I'll play Quoridor with you and if I win you have to do the dishes for me tonight, mkay?" I can't resist.

A few days ago Kira thought it would be hilarious to set up the Chess board and have me play Mitch.  He beat me in about four moves, but in my defense, I don't know how to play Chess.  The idiotic part is that I didn't admit to Mitch or to myself that I don't know how to play.  I thought I could fake my way to a win and was a little ticked at all his snotty Chess jargon:
Mitch: Check
Me:  What the fuck are you talking about?

I've been reading two books that I started before the idiocy began; Jane Eyre because it's my favorite, and a book called Pox Americana about the smallpox epidemic of 1775-1782.  I know that the cloak of dimness descended sometime after Jane realized she was in love with Mr. Rochester because I could not put the book down, but now, when she is in crisis after finding out about his hidden wife, I can't get through five pages without being amused by something utterly ridiculous.  Like when Mr. Rochester was comparing Jane with his wife and he said, "...look at the difference! Compare these clear eyes with the red balls yonder - this face with that mask..."  I had to stop reading because I wasn't comprehending anything and all that was going through my head was, ".... 'red balls yonder'...... lol."

As for the other book, Pox Americana, I started it and was fascinated because it combines two of my favorite subjects; the American Revolution and pestilence.  I've always loved pestilence.  But lately I've been reading about how smallpox traveled around throughout the entire continent with people and on blankets, and how horrific it was to be completely covered in a huge smallpox scab and I think, "...huh....boring."  That is sooooo unlike me!  I usually love to read about deadly epidemics.  When I was in my twenties my favorite book was a terrifying non-fiction book called The Coming Plague.  It still gives me shivers (of joy) to think about it.

I guess I have no choice but to ride this out and hope it ends.  The question is what to do to entertain myself while my IQ is below 80?   Maybe I'll read Fifty Shades of Grey.

Nah.  I'm not that desperate.  I'd rather just sit in a chair and stare and think of absolutely nothing. (raaaarrr!)

"... yeah, that's right."

Kira in the Car

I think someone should make hotdogs completely out of pig meat and then they could call them "Hog Dogs."  

Fashion

I want to get a new job.  Not that substitute teaching, which means every day going in to a strange classroom cold, with a bunch of strange kids who are sometimes really mean to me, and getting paid a pittance with no benefits or retirement plan isn't a sweet job, but I guess I'm getting kind of sick of it.  I actually do like it most of the time, and I was hoping to use it as a way to get my foot in the door of a bunch of school districts who are not hiring, and are, in fact laying off more teachers every year.  It's time to give up the dream, I guess.  So I've been applying for new jobs.  I applied for a bunch at the University of Minnesota.  Everything from receptionist to adjunct professor in the philosophy department (whatever that is LOL!)  Just kidding.  I didn't apply to be a professor.  Turns out that despite earning a Bachelor's Degree, I'm not qualified to do much.  I really painted myself into a corner when I majored in English.  I'd like to go back and slap college me.

I've been a little anxious about the whole thing because I don't have an "interview outfit."  I wear basically the same thing every single day and it isn't interview-worthy.  So yesterday I went shopping.  Man, shopping sucks.  I looked at literally tons of clothes and hated 99.9999999% of them.  I wanted to get a blazer/jacket type thing, a blouse and maybe a skirt or a pair of dress pants.  That should be easy huh?  Pretty classic pieces, shouldn't be hard to find.  I found a jacket that I really like a lot.  It wasn't easy.  Then I had to get a shirt to go under it and a skirt.  Skirts, I found come in a few varieties:  Cindy-Lauper-from-the-eighties style, Mrs. Doubtfire style, Janice Joplin style, or the classic street-prostitute style.  None of which, I am exactly crazy about.   For one thing, I hate the idea of skirts because all it would take is one quick tug from anyone, and boom! I'd be half naked.  I'm not crazy about that.  I need it to be cute, long enough to not accidentally flash my nethers to the world, but not so long that I look shorter and dumpier than I actually am.

I was about to give up when I decided to go to Sears.  I HATE Sears so I wasn't expecting to find much.  I was flipping through the clearance rack and I saw a black skirt.  Okay, right color.  It was the right size.  Okay... So I tried it on.  It fit me like it was made for me and the best thing of all - it's not a skirt after all, it's a skort.  I have pants on in secret, but it looks like I'm wearing a skirt!  I love that.  AND it has four pockets!  I realize that I'm not making this skirt sound exactly stylish, but it's a black skirt (skort) that is not too short, not too long.  That's all I require.  The undershorts and pockets are just icing on the cake.  I don't need it to be haute couture.  I just need it to be a skirt, be black, and cover my butt when I go on a job interview.

I also looked around for a blouse.  I usually wear solid-colored ladies t-shirts.  I figured if push comes to shove, I could just wear one of those under my jacket, but I wanted something a little more fashionable.  Why are all ladies blouses these days made of gauze?  Seriously, there is nothing to them.  They are not made of textiles so much as they are made of spider webs.  Most of them are flimsy and transparent.  Who wants to wear that?  I tried on one and it was sort of fitted with strange gathers on the sides and in the front.  The seams on the side went in an arc toward the front which just made me look like a pregnant 41 year old, and right in the center, between boobs and belly button there was a stitch gathering all the front material together.  What?  Who made that and thought it was a good idea?  It's not like I'm picky, I just want to look somewhat nice and not be naked.  I require full-coverage, and the clean lines that a skort full of pockets can provide.

I'm just going to wear a neck brace and Hello Kitty bandaids on my nipples under my new blazer.  That's the direction women's fashion is going anyway with the bandage dresses and guaze blouses.  It's first aid couture.  The fashion industry thinks we want to convey this message to the world: "I'm sexy, I'm injured and I'm practically naked... uuuuuuhhhhhhh baby.... come and get me!" I might as well be on the cutting edge.  

Movie Review: Young Adult and Sarah's Key

I saw two movies this weekend, Young Adult and Sarah's Key.  They were both very good but kind of sad.

Charlize Theron is in Young Adult.  She is a fiction writer who writes a young adult series kind of like The Babysitters Club or something like that.  She thinks she's a really big deal because she moved from a small Minnesota lake town to Minneapolis.  She gets a birth announcement from her old high school boyfriend (he and his wife had a baby) and she is perturbed.  She goes back to her hometown to win him back because small town + marriage and family = boring.  She thinks of it as rescuing him.

Charlize Theron is so good in this movie.  She is gorgeous and funny, but you can tell her character is depressed.  She drinks a lot and she seems to be stuck at about 18 years old or something (The movie is called Young Adult, get it?).  In the movie we learn why and it's kind of sad.  It's a good movie.  I'd recommend it.

The other movie was Sarah's Key.

It's two stories that converge around an apartment in Paris.  The first story is about a family who live in the apartment in the 1940s.  They are Jewish and they are rounded up by French officials and brought to camps.  When the officials come, the mom is home alone with her two little kids.  The girl, Sarah, can tell how afraid her mother is of these officials, so she hides her brother in a concealed closet in the bedroom and locks it.  She keeps the key.  The mother and daughter are taken to a stadium with the father where they are kept for days.  Sarah is frantic because she made her little brother promise to stay in the closet until she came back.  She is desperate to get back to him.

The other story takes place in 2009.  An American ex-pat is about to move into the same apartment.  She is a journalist who is writing a story about the rounding up of the Jews in the 1940s.  She learns that her new apartment was once part of the Jewish section of town.  She is disturbed that her apartment may have been stolen from a Jewish family by her husband's family who have owned the apartment since the war.  She goes on a quest to find out what happened to the people who lived in it before her husband's family moved in.

Guess what?  This movie is sad.  In case you didn't know, WWII sucked.  Especially if you lived in Europe and especially if you were Jewish.  My father-in-law is reading The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich right now and the other day he told me, "Hitler was a jerk.  I mean, a REAL JERK."  And you know what?  It's true.  Hitler was a jerk.

Other than the movie being incredibly sad, it was very good.  If you don't mind getting depressed, I would recommend it.  

Kira in the Car

Kira:  Dad, do you think midgets get picked up a lot?

Mitch:  They don't really like to be called "midgets," Kira.

Kira:  I don't care what they like to be called, I just want to pick one up.  

Head UPDATED!

I come from a family of people with giant heads. We are like a family of Bratz dolls without the skinny, sexy little bodies.

From left to right:  My mom, me, Amy, Beth

Then I married a man with a giant head.  Naturally our children have giant heads as well.  They were doomed to it.  Thankfully both of them were born via C-section or my head wouldn't be my only freakishly oversized body part.  I remember when Sam was born and they told me his head was nearly 16 inches in circumference.  In my drug haze I couldn't quite grasp what they were saying.  When I was a teenager my grandma told me that when SHE was my age, she had an 18 inch waist.  My teeny little newborn baby couldn't possibly have a head nearly the size of my grandma's teenage waist, could he?

Thank you, Sam, for being breech.

I thought they must be talking in centimeters and wanted to snottily remind them that we live in AMERICA and we don't use the stupid metric system!  But no, they were talking about inches.

My kids were both in hockey when they were little.  Since they started when they were about four years old, we have had to buy them adult sized helmets.  When they got to be around nine or ten years old, they were wearing an adult extra large and there was nowhere else to turn unless we ordered specially-made freak sizes.  The kids would complain of headaches from the tightness of their helmets so Mitch solved the problem by shaving off, or cutting out the protective padding inside the helmets to give their heads more room.  Sam told me yesterday that he broke a helmet once.  I said I didn't remember him ever falling hard enough to break a helmet and he said, "I didn't fall.  My head broke out of it."

Now my sister Amy, who arguably has the biggest head of all of us, is getting ready to do a tour of duty in Afghanistan.  When she was in high school she was nick-named (by me) Big Head.  I actually remember chatting with one of the study hall monitors one time and he said, "Your sister has a really big head." and I thought he was talking about how cocky she is and I said, "Do you think so? I think she's pretty humble, being a freshman and all." and he said, "No, I mean her head is enormous." and he made a gesture with his hands around his head like it was the size of a beach ball. (It's not that big.)  I said, "Oh yeah, of course. Everybody knows that."

Yesterday she was issued all her war-time equipment.  (You can read all about it here)  She said that her helmet is GIGANTIC.  She says that she looks like Dark Helmet from Spaceballs.  She didn't post a picture but I am sure that is no exaggeration.

UPDATE:  My sister stupidly told people she has to work and live with about her older sister's blog.  Why not just say to them, "Hey, wanna pick on me for a while?  Need some material?  Go visit my sister's blog!  Here's the address."  Anyway, I can't help it if she makes it easy.  She posted a picture of herself in her new war helmet and she does look a little like Dark Helmet.  You can read about it HERE)

The Story of the Gummy Bear

Last September, after getting to school at the crack of dawn, Kira and her friend Mallory decided to kill a little time by the vending machines before the bell rang.  Mallory got a package of gummy bears (breakfast!) and Kira surreptitiously stole one, bit off the head, licked its whole body and then threw it on the ceiling.  That's what kind of a girl my daughter is, stealing from her friends and defacing public property.  Anyway, that defiled gummy bear was stuck to the ceiling by the vending machines all year long.  The girls enjoyed looking up with astonishment through the months to see that the disgusting little thing was still up there, virtually unchanged.

Mallory

On the last day of school, the girls were yet again killing time by the vending machines, eyes trained on the ceiling, reminiscing about the day Kira stole the gummy bear; amazed at how sticky a headless, wet gummy bear must really get, and applying what they learned that year in health and science classes to try to explain the utter lack of decay.  It looked like it did they day it was thrown up there!

Kira and Mallory in the panto-horse

That's when Mallory decided to make right the wrong committed against her those many months before, "That's it, I'm eating my gummy bear!" she cried!  "Give me a boost!"  The sixth graders gathered around and hoisted her up to the ceiling where she tugged against the asbestos tile to claim what was hers.  She got it down, and to the joy of all who watched, she finally (finally!) ate the gummy bear she was unjustly separated from a mere nine months before.   How was it?  "Crunchy!" she cried! 

Sam is funny

Azia's Fluff

Azia, who recently gave birth to a beautiful little baby boy (Congratulations, Azia and family), tagged me in THIS post on her blog and now I am instructed to answer the questions she answered from yet a different blog.  I don't know who made up these questions but I suspect it is someone teetering on the edge of a drug addiction, or playing with the idea of getting into the drug business.  Here goes!

How tall are you barefoot?
I'm 5'10 in my bare feet.  .... No wait, that's my ideal height for my weight.  Sometimes I forget.  I'm actually only 5'5.  Shit.

Have you ever smoked heroin?
I have never smoked anything, and even if I did, I don't know if I would do heroin.  I have seen people on TV (Albert from Little House on the Prairie) throw up from taking or withdrawing from hard drugs.  I would rather make out with my brother than throw up.  Sure, I don't even have a brother so that's kind of an empty threat, but still; if I had a brother, I bet I would not like the idea of making out with him.

Do you own a gun?
No.  (... see what I mean about the author of the questions dabbling in some drug business?  I think they are maybe just trying to recruit some "business associates" if you know what I mean.  I watch Breaking Bad, I know how these things work.)

Rehab?
Huh?  Is that a question?  Have I gone to rehab?  No.  And I wouldn't want to either because I hear it sucks.

Do you get nervous before things?
I get anxious when I anticipate events or activities.  That's why it was so hard to become a sub.  Still to this day, if I schedule a job weeks ahead of time I find myself dreading it, even if it's something I want to do.  If I schedule it the night before, I don't worry so much.  Don't have time.

What do you think of your friends?
I hate them.  Just kidding.  How do you think I'm going to answer that question?  If they are my friends, I think they are friendly and worth the time and effort of cultivating a relationship.  I love my friends.

What's your favorite Christmas song?
By far it is "Baby it's Cold Outside."  I like the duet part of it and I really love that it's not so much about Christmas as it is about date rape.  Nothing says "Happy Birthday, Jesus!" like date rape!

What do you prefer to drink in the morning?
I sometimes like coffee, but I really like lemon lift or orange flavored tea.

Do you do push-ups?
Sometimes.  The girl version.  I'm pretty good.

Have you ever done Ecstasy?
No.

Are you a vegetarian?
No.  I don't eat a ton of meat but I like it.  I had a frenemy once who went on a great rant one time when she popped in and I was making dinner (some sort of meat) and she said how she is a vegetarian because it is healthier and because she can't bring herself to eat anything "with a face."  A few months later she bought a livingroom set made of leather.  I would love to see what those cows looked like, you know without faces and all.  Or maybe she had no qualms about lounging on the dead, processed skin of things with faces.

Do you like painkillers?
I LOVE painkillers.  Who doesn't?  Who likes pain?  I carry ibuprofen with me everywhere.  Did you mean prescription painkillers?  Love those too.  Painkillers are a miracle.

What is your secret weapon to lure the opposite sex?
You mean Mitch?  Because he's the only one that's been interested in over a decade.  We sing "Baby It's Cold Outside" together and then there is no stopping him.

What time did you wake up today?
8:40.

Current worry?
Money, health, kids, rotten teeth... the usual.

Current hate?
Chest colds, rhubarb and hemorrhoids, and diarrhea.  (The first one because I have it now, and the second, third, and fourth because they are really hard to spell.  And they are also unpleasant.)

Do you own slippers?
Fuck yeah!

Do you burn or tan?
Both.

What songs do you sing in the shower?
"Baby it's Cold Outside"

How many TVs do you  have in your house?
One.

Do you wish on stars?  
Sometimes, but I have been known to mistakenly wish on the odd planet or plane or lamp post (my eyesight is BAD).  I don't know what becomes of those wishes.  I saw a UFO once but I didn't wish on it.  It was at about sunset time and I was driving.  It was flying above K-Mart.  Nobody believes me.

What song was played at your wedding?
No songs.  It was a courtroom quickie. (That's what she said.)

What song do you want played at your funeral?
Ballroom Blitz

Do you love someone?
Yes.

I think I am supposed to tag someone else to answer these questions now so if you are reading this, you are tagged.

Magic Mike

A few of the bookclub ladies and I got together last night to see the critically acclaimed, sure-to-be-a-classic movie, Magic Mike.  

Not to sound like a snob, but the movie wasn't very good.  Surprised?  I was too because although I was expecting a plotless excuse to show a male review nationwide on the big screen, it was worse than I thought.  The movie attempted a plot which was so bad it made me wish it was only a male review show.

Mike (the guy in the center) is a gifted stripper with big dreams of making crappy furniture out of garbage he finds on the beach.  He works odd jobs during the day, one of which is as a roofer where he meets "The Kid," a nineteen year old hunky loser who lives with his sister.  I know he lives with his sister because he tells Mike he is living with his sister and also because all the dialogue throughout the entire movie between "The Kid" and the sister goes like this:

The Kid: Hey Sis, thanks for letting me bunk on your couch.
Sister: No problem, Brother, that's what sisters are for.
The Kid: Remember when we were kids and had the same parents?
Sister: Yeah, the same mom and the same dad... good times.
The Kid:  Sis, can you spot me 20 bucks?  I got fired from my job for stealing a pop.
Sister: Oh, baby brother, what am I going to do with you?
The Kid: Well, whatever you do, don't forget I'm your brother! Ok, Sis?

Get it?  They are brother and sister, dummy.  Mike gets The Kid into the lucrative business of male stripping which The Kid LOVES.  I mean, who wouldn't?  You know who doesn't?  Mike.  He's been doing it for six years and he's sick of it.  When is he going to admit that his life is going nowhere, and he's NOT the crappy furniture maker he wants to be, and he is just an aging (and gifted) male stripper, shaking it for ones every night of the week?

The Kid gets into drugs and his sister gets mad at Mike about it because Mike said he was going to take The Kid under his stripper wing and take care of him but he didn't. (shocker)  The big dramatic moment of the movie is when the sister goes to Mike's house looking for her brother who didn't come home.  Mike says he is upstairs with a girl and the sister goes up and finds her brother passed out on the floor and there is a pot-bellied pig eating his puke.  Gross!  She rails against Mike for not keeping his promise and calls him a loser which really hits Mike right in his heart (of gold) and makes him come to terms with the path his life is on.  I'm not going to tell you the rest of the plot in case you haven't seen it and want to see it (don't bother), but I'm sure you can guess what happens.

Matthew McConaughey is in the movie.  He is the owner of the male dance club.  He does an outstanding impression of Matthew McConaughey throughout the whole movie (he says, "Alright, alright, alright!" about 50 times), and he does not wear a shirt in even one scene.  I don't think he ever wears a shirt in real life either.

Matthew McConaughey as Uncle Sam.
Remember when he was in Amistad?

I saw my Mother-In-Law yesterday and told her I was going out with my ladies to the movies.  She asked what movie and I told her and she said, ".....Oh..... Well.... Matthew McConaughey is in that.  He's a good family man."  I said, "Yeah, that's why we're going."

My favorite line from the movie is where Mike and The Kid are sitting on the beach talking about the stripper life and how much they have to look forward to and The Kid says, "I'm having a ball...  I'm having. A fucking. Ball."

Beach Day

Kira and I had what she has dubbed the "best day of the summer" today.  It has been so blazingly hot lately that we decided to see if Lake Superior is swimmable.  Usually it is so cold that you can't even stand to wade up to your ankles, but sometimes, for some reason, it feels relatively warm and it is super fun to swim in it.  Today was a warm-water day.  It was glorious.  It was really windy so there was surf.  I didn't take my camera along but I looked for some comparable pictures online of the kind of surf we were in today.  

It wasn't this big.  This isn't even Lake Superior.  I'm pretty sure it's the ocean.
That's a big wave.  I would never go in that.  

This actually is Duluth, and it is not far from where we were swimming, but the waves weren't this big either.  

This is more like what we were dealing with.  

The bottom picture is the same Park Point beach we were at today, but there were lots of people there, and I want to say that the waves were even a little bigger.  They were big enough to be exhilarating, with a few waves big enough so smack you hard on the back of the head and rip your feet out from under you, but not big enough to be terrifying.  My life-long recurring nightmare is to be swimming and suddenly be faced with a wave like the one in the top picture, but also one of my favorite activities is swimming in surf.  I can see how surfers get addicted to waiting for the next great wave.

When I was a kid and we lived in Australia, we decided to go to the beach one day because it was punishingly hot.  We lived about an hour or so from the coast so we got in the van, complete with barf-bucket/sand castle bucket for me/my sister Beth, and headed to the beach.  We drove around and saw beaches so packed with people there wasn't even room to put your towel down.  We kept driving.  Finally we came across a beautiful beach with white sand and big surf and it was practically empty.  We stopped and spent the day swimming and playing in the sand.  Later we learned that that beach is notorious for it's deadly riptides and sharks.  Oh well.  It wasn't crowded and we survivied.  Win win.

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.

I wish I was a camel

Okay everyone.  I think I'm back for good now.  I have been gone on and off for about three weeks at Rainy Lake having fun swimming and kayaking and eating whatever the hell struck my fancy, but now I'm home for at least a few weeks, so hopefully I can get back to regular life for a while which includes blogging and not eating 10,000 calories a day. (Highlight of the trip: kayaking to an island and exploring and swimming around. Lowlight:  I accidentally ate a spiderweb.)

I can't think of anything to tell you about right off the top of my head now because I'm so unbelievably HOT.  I think I might right now, at this very moment be suffering from brain damage because my gray matter is literally being cooked.  I read recently that camels are adapted to the desert in a bunch of clever ways, one of which is that their body absorbs heat and stores it and it doesn't go to their brain because there is some kind of barrier and insulation that keeps their brain nice and cool no matter how how hot their bodies get.  I wish I had that because I'm so hot I can barely think, yet my saddlebags, which hold a large portion of my cellulite, are cool.  Why can't my fat absorb the heat and leave my vital organs out of it?  I have never in my life wished so bad that I was a camel.

Last fall Mitch and I thought we were sooooooooo smaaaaarrrt because we got new super duper insulation blown into the walls of our house.  God, we were so smug about that; bragging about it, saying obnoxious things to people like, "Oh, you don't have blown-in insulation???  Weeee do.  You need to get it.  Seriously, you really need to get it."   Now it is 9:30 at night, and it is 75 degrees outside but it is still 85 in the house!  And now I know that you are thinking, "Oh, you don't have air conditioning???  Weeee do.  You need to get it.  Seriously, you really need to get it."  Well, we don't have it because normally Duluth has only about five or six days that are unbearably hot.  This year it's been much hotter which I usually like, but not when my brain gets hot.  I may go swimming in Lake Superior tomorrow.  If I live until then.

Good morning!

I'm sitting here at the McDonalds in International Falls writing this on my iPad. It is 6:17 AM. Why??? you ask? Because I didn't sleep last night between being farted upon by my lovely daughter who was sharing my bed, and the eighteen kabillion mosquitos in our camper. That high pitched whine is enough to drive a girl crazy. When I didn't hear it in my ear, I was waiting for it, anticipating it, dreading it. It sucked. So now I am in town having a bucket of coffee and listening to the early morning McDonald's regulars jabbering. One of whom is my old elementary school principal, Mr. Arveson. I loved him when I was a little kid. He has an accent that sounds vaguely like Lawrence Welk, in fact he looks a lot like Lawrence Welk. He's old now and he looks so cute sitting on the new mod-squad, "this is a coffee shop not a crappy fast-food joint!" stool. His black, velcro tenners don't even touch the ground.

What am I going to do today, you ask? I don't know. Probably have diarrhea from the shocking amount of coffee I've managed to suck down in the last 15 minutes, listen to Kira's grievances, scour the camper for the goddamn hole where the mosquitos are getting in, read, kayak (preferably after the diarrhea), swim, sweat. The usual. What are you going to do?

Anti-Pervs

The other day out on the lake Sam and I saw a boat full of teenage girls in bikinis driving by.  Sam's head followed them as long as we could see them and I thought to myself, oh, my baby is growing up into a man, but then he said, "Did you see that motor?  I think it was a Johnson 215 horse!  Nice!"  I said, "Ha ha, Sam, good one!" and he said, "What?" and I said, "Seriously?" and he said, "What???"

Which I suppose is totally normal considering that when Mitch was a kid and was obsessed (like all kids were) with The Dukes of Hazzard, he couldn't understand why, after Daisy smashed her fast car and got a lame Jeep, she was still on the show.  What a waste of screen time that would be better spent with the General Lee jumping over yet another bridgeless ravine! (Hazzard County was a dump sadly in need of better infrastructure.)

And the other day we discovered that both of our parents had this album:

And we both vividly remember the cover.  I remember it because I thought, OMG, I think that lady is NAKED under there!  That's kind of risque!  And Mitch remembers because he wondered if she got to eat all the whip cream after the photo shoot.  

Summer Cold

I'm getting a cold.  I haven't had a cold for about a year and I forgot how unbearable I can be when I have the slightest discomfort.  I think I get colds worse than anyone in the world.  I really really hate slight discomfort.  This morning I let Sam drive me around and I was complaining because my sinuses hurt and my throat hurts and wa wa wa wa wa wa! And Sam said that one day he was feeling bad about himself because of some lame reason and then he saw a girl at school who is confined to a wheelchair and can hardly move at all and she was singing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and that put it all in perspective for him and he saw how lucky he is.  I pointed out to him that 1) that girl probably didn't have a sore throat like I have because if she did, she would not have been singing anything, 2) When someone melodramatically complains that their sinuses feel like someone ruthlessly went at them with a melon baller, they don't want a life-lesson on optimism from their 15 year old boy because that just makes everyone look stupid, and 3) if he ever wants to drive the goddamn car again he will start feeling sorry for me RIGHT NOW.  Somebody needs to teach that boy some empathy, and I think it is probably up to me since I am his mother, but I can't today because I don't feeeeeeeeel gooooooood!

I have been gone again, up at Rainy Lake with the kids.  I only came back for a few days to mow the lawn and go to book club tomorrow night.  Kira caught a turtle under water yesterday.  It was innocently swimming around, being the aquatic animal that it is, and she swam up to it and grabbed it.  It was super mad.  I've never seen a turtle so mad.  Last year she caught a duck by swimming up to it under water and grabbing its feet.  Needless to say the duck wasn't particularly happy about it either.  I've never seen a person so at home in the water, and so unafraid of grabbing wild animals in their natural habitat.  

Sam is becoming one with a 1958 Johnson outboard motor.  I say that because he can sense what the motor needs and what it likes and does not like.  I shifted myself in the boat the other day and for a split second the boat went slightly faster even though the motor was going full speed.  I said, "Hey!  I can make us go faster!" and I threw myself around a little and Sam said, "STOP IT! That's bad for the prop!" which I found slightly insulting.  

Spider Island

Are you afraid of spiders?  If you said no, I can predict that you are sitting somewhere in a civilized, not-all-that-natural environment right now and there is virtually no danger of a spider the size of your hand running across your lap.  And you're a liar.  Spiders are scary.  And creepy.  And fast.  Yuck.

(Thank you to someone on Flickr for the photo of the gross spider.)

Amy has the most adorable little cabin on a perfect spot on a perfect lake.  For three months out of the year it is paradise.  Except for all the spiders.  Whenever I go out there I try to convince myself that:
A) they don't want to attack me, and if I leave them alone, they will leave me alone,
B) They are good because they eat bugs that bite me,
C) They are fascinating creatures, what with the spinning of webs and all.

It never works.  For one thing, they are EVERYWHERE.  Sure, they don't want to attack me, but say you are walking to the outhouse a little way into the woods; unless you make a conscious effort to blur your eyes, look only where you are going, and don't look at the buildings that have spider-web thatched roofs, you WILL see a frighteningly fast, DISGUSTING spider scurrying out of your way.

My dad said he saw a spider out back behind the shed that was as big as a small woman's hand and it was moving slowly because it was carrying an egg sac the size of a marble.  Just writing that sentence makes me want to throw up.  When my dad told that to my mom and me we both almost gagged.  I don't know what's worse: a spider that moves faster than lightning, or a spider that is slow because it is carrying a web-backpack full of millions more spiders.  When my dad saw our reaction he said, "They are good!  They eat bugs!" and my mom said what women have been saying for generations, "I'd rather have the other bugs."

Spiders are kind of interesting.  On TV.  Or on the opposite side of a pane of glass.  And only then when you chant, "She's just like Charlotte! She's just like Charlotte! She's just like Charlotte!" to yourself in a frantic cadence while doing Lamaze breathing.

I watched some fat-bodied non-giant spiders outside the sauna spinning webs.  It wasn't the worst thing in the world.  But if they were on the inside of the sauna, instead of the outside, I would have freaked out and smooshed them.  And then I'd be totally grossed out by how much their disgusting fat bodies squished.

Kira has always liked to tell me I'm a sissy when it comes to the spiders.  She acts all tough and even goes so far as to hold and play with Daddy Long Legs.  Gross.  Well, not this past week.  Amy and I were at the fire pit, and Kira came down from changing out of her swimming suit and she was frantically trying not to be frantic.  She was laughing a forced laugh that would have been screaming if she wasn't so stubborn and determined.  She had the curled up body of a spider on her towel and she said, "I caught this spider crawling ACROSS MY FACE!"  The spider was huge.  She said she noticed it and then did the international bug dance which flung him off of her, and then saw the spider trying to crawl away across my bed so she smashed it with my book.  I am so happy she had the wherewithal to smash it after she brushed it off her face.  It saved me from a sleepless night of wondering when the spider was going to crawl up my body and lay eggs in my mouth.  When all spread out with the legs and huge body, that spider was probably the size of the top of a coffee cup.  Kira was freaked out.  Amy and I (who are both terrified of spiders so our reassurance doesn't count for much) tried to tell her to forget about it.  Amy said, "Kira, in a ten foot square space anywhere on this island there are probably a thousand spiders.  They won't hurt you."  to which Kira replied with, "Yes, but they are not ON MY FACE!"  to which Amy and I said, "Touche," and we all sat there and shuddered for about an hour.   

I've been gone

The kids and I took a little mini-vacation up to Rainy Lake for the last several days.  Kira and I stayed with Amy at her cabin, and Sam stayed in town with my parents so he could drive them around wherever their little hearts desired.  I have lots to catch up on around here so this isn't really a real post.  A real one will follow soon.

I learned something about myself while I was gone.  I have absolutely no self-discipline when I am away from home.  I ate food that I would NEVER eat at home (re: Top the Tater and chips were at the base of my vacation food pyramid.) and I didn't really wash (I was swimming. Who needs soap when you have lake water?) and I wasn't even really good about brushing my teeth. (Can't worry about tooth decay and spiders at the same time.) More to come...

Sam is a Driver

Today was Sam's last day of driver's ed.  He has gone through 30 hours of classroom training.  For every hour he has had, he has also had a lesson for me about what I am doing wrong while driving.  Yesterday he told me, "Mom, you're in that semi's 'no zone'." The day before he told me how mangled my arms could get if I insist on keeping my hands at 10 and 2 like I was taught.  He said, "Back when you learned to drive, air bags weren't invented.  If you keep your hands there the airbag will break both your arms." Also, apparently you shouldn't ever have your thumbs on the inside of the wheel because they could get snapped off in an accident.   According to Sam's stories, driver's ed was mostly a series of car commercials and gory movies about teenagers and car wrecks.  The climax of which was watching Red Asphalt III earlier this week and Sam said it should have been called brain-covered asphalt.  Gross.

I think Sam's driver's ed teacher must be the world's worst driver based on all of her personal anecdotes about the horrific accidents she's been in.  Sam told me one day that if I get too close to big trucks on a motorcycle, I could get sucked under it.  Like the good mother I am I said, "Shut up! You can not!" and he said, "Yes.  It happened to my teacher." Another time he told me that you can't open the doors in a vehicle sinking in the water until it is completely filled with water.  I said, "I don't know if I believe that," and he said, "Yes. It happened to my teacher."  Sam also said that his teacher killed someone before.  I said, "Oh my god, what happened?"  He said, "Road rage," which makes me think she is teaching the class as part of some court ordered community service.  Or Sam's full of beans.

Through all he learned about "no zones," and the fragility of thumbs, and catastrophic head injuries, he never had one lesson on what I've found to be the best driving lesson:  What to do if there is a bee in the car.  I  have had more near-accidents because I was screaming about a bee (or some other gross bug) in the car I can't even tell you.  I had to learn the hard way how important it is to keep my hands on the wheel and my feet on the pedals and to keep my eyes open.  If it was up to me, when the kids took the behind-the-wheel test, I wouldn't bother with the parallel parking.  I'd just throw a bee in the car and see how they react.  If they spaz out: fail.  If they keep their cool: pass.  Easy.

An Open letter to Stephen B. Oates, Author of Lincoln's Biography

Dear Stephen B. Oates, author of With Malice Toward None, A Biography of Abraham Lincoln,

I got your book because it got really good reviews on Amazon and on the back there was a blurb from The Washington Post that said, "The standard one-volume biography of Lincoln."  Perfect, I thought.  I want to know about Lincoln because I find presidential biographies interesting, but mostly because I like to know just a little more about common topics than average people so I can feel smug about it.

I read your book.  I liked it.  I was feeling smug.  That is until last night, when I went to see the documentary Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter and I realized that you left out a LOT.  Maybe that is why The Washington Post made a point to say that yours is only a one-volume book.  Maybe all the necessary information about the the vampire hunting goes into volume two.

Never mind that you left out little details that bring a story to life like the fact that Lincoln's vampire hunting weapon of choice was a silver tipped axe (the "rail splitter," ha ha; my ass), and that he was a martial arts master, was strong enough to cut down a big tree with one swipe of his blade, was a parkour enthusiast, and could twirl his axe better than any beauty contestant in the seventies could twirl her batons; you didn't even mention his motivation for doing all the vampire hunting:  Vampires killed his mother!  You said she died of "fever."  Boring.

You went in to great detail to outline the political shape the country was in during the time of Lincoln.  The 1850s was a tumultuous time between the South and the North because of the "peculiar institution" of slavery.  You kept saying that phrase "peculiar institution," which I just assumed was something it was called back in the old days and I didn't think twice about it.  Now I know why it was so peculiar, no thanks to you.  The South was full of vampires, feeding on slaves!  Were you afraid to tell me that because you thought it might make me think even less of the old South?  Are you from the South and don't want to make your ancestors look any worse than they already look?  Are YOU a vampire?  ARE YOU?!

You know, come to think of it, I should have known about the South's history with rampant vampirism.  I read all the Twilight books and Stephenie Meyer mentioned that when Jasper was turned into a vampire during the civil war, that the South was teeming with vampires.  My bad.  I should have paid better attention.  But still, you could have at least mentioned it.  HUGE oversight on your part.

What I am most disappointed that you left out of your book is the part of Lincoln's young adult life where he finally, finally hunted down his mother's killer and chased him with his axe amongst a bunch of stampeding horses, actually running across the backs of running horses, chasing a vampire.  Oh My God, I bet you feel so stupid right now.  Did you just slap your forehead?  You should have.  That was a MAJOR part of Lincoln's life.  He could have been killed by those horses, OR by that vampire.  It was pivotal, PIVOTAL! 


When Lincoln got in to politics he put his vampire-killing axe away in a trunk because he thought it was better to fight the epidemic of vampirism with words instead of with the axe.  He became a politician and we both know how that turned out.  But you didn't mention that in the dark days of the civil war, when he realized that vampirism couldn't be defeated with only words and he went in to that dusty old room with his old trunk and he opened it and got out his old axe and started twirling it like an old pro.  That was poignant.  I don't know why the lady sitting behind me was laughing.  You missed a real opportunity there for some good writing.

And how about when Lincoln realized that the South was winning battles with less men and inferior supplies because they were using vampires?  If it was left up to you I wouldn't even know that it was Lincoln's idea to bring artillery made of pure silver to Gettysburg!  That is not only a major part of Lincoln's life that you just totally glossed over, but a major part of  our national history.  And you call yourself a professor emeritus of history?  Do you really think you deserve that title?  The Gettysburg address has always been a powerful piece of writing, but it means so much more when you know that the entire night before he gave the speech he was fighting vampires on a train.  Holy crap, he must have been tired!  No wonder the speech was so short!

So anyway, "Professor," I just wanted to tell you that back before I knew the whole truth, I liked your book but it would have been way better if you would have mentioned what a kick-ass vampire hunter Lincoln was.  I think it might be time for volume two.  Get busy.

Sarah Lindahl

Kira in the Car (she's really something lately)

Kira: If I was a superhero, I would like to only have one eye.

Mitch: Why???

Kira: Because I think it would be hard to cut two eyes out of a mask and make them even.