Puppies

Remember last year when I described teaching kindergarten like having to manage a room full of cats?  They all had their own agenda and didn't give half a crap what my agenda was.  Just like cats.  Well, after a few weeks of teaching sixth grade I can honestly say that unlike a room full of cats, they are like a room full of puppies.  They are all eager and frantic and playful and have whippy tails and sharp little teeth, and their play looks a lot like fighting.  Just kidding. (They don't have tails.)

We had a teacher workshop the other day about "Learner Engagement."  There are five levels. Level one is "authentic engagement."  The student is truly interested in the topic at hand, wants to participate, and wants to learn.  I can't remember what the fifth level was called, but basically the student is not at all engaged in the topic being taught, and is causing problems and distracting other students.  Levels two, three, and four were something between the two, but I didn't really pay attention to those because I have found that my students are either at level one or at level five.  There is no in-between.

The funniest thing about them is that in my class, I seem to have a gravitational pull.  This is what my class setup looks like every morning:

The kids all have their own desks and I have a kidney shaped table at the front (I don't know how to make a kidney shape on Microsoft Paint) and a side table where I keep my lesson stuff.  Our room is nice and big so we have lots of room to spread out and I have a microphone and stereo system so everyone can hear me.  The kids actually only spend about 30 minutes at their desks, and the rest of the time we are all moving around.  I started the year mostly teaching from the front but I found that by the end of the day, this is what my room looks like:

The kids have all moved closer to the kidney table, in fact some kids who were in the back are now sitting at the front tables, and the side table is pushing into my side because it has been moved so close to me.  The kids still sitting in desks are complaining that they don't have any room to push their chairs back and the kids left in the back are complaining because they don't want to be "waaaay back here!" when in reality they are about eight feet away from where I am sitting.  I have tried to watch this happen, but it must be like watching a plant grow; you know it's happening, but you can't ever see it in action.  I have started teaching the first half hour of class - when everyone is in their desks - while walking around the room to see if this has any effect on the migration of desks.  It doesn't.  I end up moving every desk back about two feet every day after school.

They are just as fun as a room full of puppies, but they are also as exhausting as a room full of puppies.  One day when we were discussing whether the word "consistently" is an adjective or an adverb one girl raised her hand and told us, "I have ADHD."  Then about five other kids said they did too and before I knew it the conversation was no longer about vocabulary, it was about who does and who does not have ADHD.  I wrangled them back in and taught them the word "analogy." I told them that our class is like a train, I'm the conductor, and everytime someone blurts something out, or says something totally off-topic, it's like they just jumped off the train, and then I have to stop the train, back up, and pick them up.  They are so funny because now whenever someone says something off topic, the rest of them say, "GET BACK ON THE TRAIN!"  It's the ADHD Express and it's a pretty wild ride.

Hey Sarah, what stinks?

It's me.  I'm the one who stinks.  I don't think we realize how important smells are until our lives are ruined by a bad one.  A few years ago sewer gas seeped into our house for a few days and I can't even tell you how many hundreds of times I considered burning the whole place down.  And now I can honestly say that since my dog got sprayed THREE times in a ROW in the FACE by a skunk last week, I love her less.

I love her less because I can barely tolerate the stench I think will probably follow her (and me) around for the rest of her life.  I love her less because she was stupid enough to get sprayed three times, not that it would make that much of a difference smell-wise if she only got sprayed once, but how dumb was that?  If a skunk sprayed you in the face, would you keep chasing it?  I thought border collies were supposed to be smart.  Not this one.  I love her less because she didn't have the decency to wait until the skunk left the deck before she harassed it, so the first time it sprayed her it also sprayed the house, the deck furniture, and the door.  I don't think she thought the whole thing out very well.   SO inconsiderate.

If it was summer I would shave her bald to get rid of the offending fur that is carrying the stench, but no, it's fall so I suppose it would be considered animal cruelty to shave her naked right before winter.  Also, one time I cut her hair short and she looked ridiculous and slinked around in utter embarrassment for about six months while it grew out.  She's very vain so I bet this whole debacle is pretty bad for her too.  I cut off the worst of the hair, around her mane, and she looks pretty silly.

Since I had the scissors out there cutting grossness off of her, I also cut her butt hair because in another example of how stupid the theory of intelligent design is, the hair right around her anus grows longer than any hair on her whole body.  I don't think I have to tell you why that is gross.  Now she looks like she has a radical bob haircut on her butt.  I kind of like the way it looks, but judging by the way she tucks her tail between her legs everywhere she goes, she does not like it.  She would NOT let me take a picture of her back end.  Every time I got her to stand and then pointed the camera at her she would sit.  See?  She seems pretty smart!  But she's not.

Just so she wouldn't feel so alone I also got a bad haircut.  My sister sent me a great picture of my dad yesterday and my hair looks just like his in that picture.

Of course, he is in his sixties and is working outside in the rain so the style is understandable on him.  On me it just looks weird.  So now both Maisy and I smell bad and look weird.  For a while.  Someday the stench will fade, and the hair will grow out, and we will be back to our old sweet-smelling, gorgeous selves.  But probably not for about a year.  

Skunked

Yesterday morning while I was still in bed Sam let our dog, Maisy, outside for the day.  Almost immediately I heard her barking like a crazy person and then shortly after that the entire house was enveloped in a never-ending cloud of skunk spray.  Sam said he saw the whole thing unfold.  Maisy went outside, around the house, and saw a skunk eating out of her dish.  She ran to defend her territory and the skunk ran away from the dish.  Maisy wouldn't let up and chased it.  That's when the skunk did a handstand and sprayed Maisy in the face.  Right next to the back door.  ON the deck.  Maisy got pissed and continued chasing the skunk into the yard.  The skunk sprayed her again.  In the face.  Did she learn her lesson?  No.  She continued to chase the skunk and got sprayed one more time.

I had to go to work so I couldn't do anything about it yesterday morning.  When I got done with work I went to Petco and Shopko and got Skunk-Off, Dawn dishsoap, baking soda, hydrogen peroxide and a big plastic tub.  I found a solution on the internet that combines the dishsoap, baking soda and hydrogen peroxide that  is supposed to work at cleaning off the stench.  It didn't seem to work.  I washed her with the solution and rinsed her off.  She still stunk.  I cut off the hair that got the worst of the spray and then washed her again in Dawn dishsoap.  She still stunk.  I covered her with the Skunk-Off and let it soak in twice as long as recommended before rinsing it off.  She still stunk.  I washed her with shampoo.  She still stunk.  By that time she was shivering and I was thinking that maybe I needed to abandon this futile project and just get a new dog.  I let her free to shake and seethe and then later I let her in the house to warm up.  God, my house stinks.

Both the kids said that shortly after they got on the bus yesterday people would sniff around and say, "Pew, something smells like skunk."  They said they got a blast of skunk every time they opened their lockers all day.  I opened my desk drawer where I keep my purse and was blasted in the face by skunk stench.  Is this ever going to go away?  My hands have an awful smell and it's not exactly skunky, but it's so horrible that it gives me a headache.  I need a do-over.

I think that poor Mitch is having a harder time with this than me or Maisy because he has been telling me for years and years not to leave dog food out next to the house.  Naturally, I have ignored him.  That food feeds chipmunks, squirrels, bluejays, other dogs, bears, gigantic chickadees, the occasional rat, mice and apparently skunks.  Mitch is dying to gloat, but he hasn't.  I think I have finally learned my lesson.  Go ahead and gloat, Mitch.  

Hot Cross Buns

I went to a party this weekend for my sister who is leaving for Afghanistan in the next week or so for a nine month deployment.  Many of the people there were people we've known since we were in high school so some hilarious stories were told.  One time Amy had a friend sleeping over and they snuck out and went to a party.  When they got home the door was locked.  Crap.  So they went to my sister Beth's basement bedroom window and knocked.  

Beth said as soon as she heard the tapping on the window she was immediately paralyzed with fear.  She was laying in her bed, scared to death and couldn't even move so, of course, she didn't let them in.  Amy and Christie then had the brilliant idea of taking off their pants, knocking on the back door, and then when my parents answered, telling them that they were getting the dog (who always slept in my parent's bedroom) and the door swung shut and locked them out.  

Why did they take off their pants, you ask?  Well, I asked the same thing.  They said that their story would be more believable if they did it without pants because then my parents would think that they had been in bed and got up to get the dog.  SO smart.  They got in and I'm still not clear how.  Did my parents let them in?  Did they sneak in a different way?  I don't know.  But anyway, after they got in they confronted Beth about not letting them in her window.  She told them she was petrified and didn't know it was them.  She said, "Next time knock a song so I know it's you.  Knock 'Hot Cross Buns'."

Beth said that when she snuck out, she always left a bathrobe in the garage to put on in case she had to knock on the door so she could be spared the indignity being pantsless when she had to beg to be let in the house.  

Stories

One of the dozens of techniques my students use to get me off topic is to tell me crazy stories.  They can tell I love their crazy stories so there is an absolute fight every day during small group for them to tell me something outrageous.  I have tried to parlay this into a writing assignment by telling them that if it is so vital to have their story told, they need to write it down and then they can read it to me.  It's funny how they can pare down a twenty minute blabathon into one hilarious sentence.  One boy had what I could tell was going to be a long story about how he is afraid of spiders and how he thinks they might kill him blah blah blah blah... and I said, "WRITE IT DOWN!" so he sighed a sigh of resignation and started to write.  When it was his turn to share he had reduced his long-winded story to this:  "I am afraid of spiders and death."  Another boy said he had a hilarious story about what happened to him last weekend.  I told him to write it down.  So he did.  He said he was on a city bus with his brother and there was an old lady sitting across the aisle and one seat ahead of them (at this point in his reading I interrupted and said, "Nice details!  I am getting a good image!  Go on..." Then he said, "and she farted and dust came out."  

Nighty Night

Mitch's parents and my brother-in-law, Mat were over today; and while we were chatting he was perusing my bookshelf.  He picked up my copy of Bear Attacks and asked if I had read it.

I told him I used to read it to the kids before bed.  I never thought that was strange but by the looks I got from Mat and his parents, it was akin to child abuse.  "They liked it!"  I had to say in my defense a hundred times.  Mat paged through and found a story about a man and woman who were stalked and eventually eaten by a grizzly and read it aloud for all of us.  It was graphic.  Lots of blood and ripped-off scalps.  "How old were the kids when you read this to them???" my mother-in-law asked in shock and horror.  "I don't know, I suppose Kira was about seven, and Sam about ten.  Old enough," I replied.

"What else did you read them?" Mat asked in a judgemental tone.  I said, "Well, let's see... Johnny Tremain, Harry Potter, Death in Yellowstone..."

"Death in Yellowstone???" they all said in unison.  I got the book out of the shelf and showed them.

It is a book that lists in order all the deaths that have happened in Yellowstone National Park since its inception, and the stories about how they happened.  Fascinating.  It was one of our favorites.  We especially liked the story about the guy who jumped in a boiling mud pit to save his stupid dog and he was so badly burned that his skin peeled off in sheets and then he died.  At this point I think my mother-in-law was considering taking the kids home with her for good.  I was about to change the subject when bigmouth Kira said, "What about that book called Between a Rock and a Hard Place about the guy who cut his own arm off with a dull pocketknife?  That was good."

Apparently I have to teach Kira that the throat-slitting gesture means to SHUT THE HELL UP.

Kira in the Car

You know what I think goat owners should feed their goats?  Ground up goats.  

(I don't think she likes goats very much)

Reluctant Readers

I've been talking about "avoidance" a lot with my reading class lately.  The class I'm teaching is an intervention class aimed at kids reading below grade level.  Of course, some of them loathe the idea of being in the class because everyone in the school knows that kids in my classes are reading at lower levels than most of the other kids.  They don't want the stigma of having everyone think they are stupid.  Who does?  They aren't stupid.  They are extremely clever.  They have been avoiding reading as much as humanly possible since first grade.  I know because I've known many of them since they were in kindergarten.  They are the kids who have to go to the bathroom, go to the nurse, go to the office, get a drink, sharpen their pencil etc. etc. etc. every time they have been required to read in class since day one.  I don't know why they start avoiding it in the first place.  Learning to read is hard.  Maybe that's it.  But over the years it has taken a toll and they are now starting to face the consequences.  I feel bad for them because they are frustrated, but I'm also exasperated with them because they work so hard to avoid learning anything new.

So we've been addressing the problem of avoidance.  Part of my program splits the kids in to three groups and during our time together they go to different stations.  One of the stations is on computers set up with reading software that is awesome.  It modifies itself to their level and works individually with them on reading passages and answering comprehension questions, vocabulary, and spelling.  Of course they always want to go directly to the spelling so they don't have to read anything.  They seem to like the software though.

Another station is the individual reading station.  They pick a book from the class library (high interest, short, age appropriate books supplied by the program) and get twenty minutes to quietly read in a section of the room with bean bags and comfy chairs.  I have been watching them while they do this and for the most part they don't actually read.  They sit in the chairs quietly (because if they don't they have to go back to their desks), and they hold a book and they stare.

The last station is the small group station where one group at a time comes to me and we work in their text book together on the skill we are trying to master.  They are like popcorn in this group.  It's less like teaching and more like playing whack-a-mole.  They work together like a pack of wolves to keep from doing the task at hand and keep me from focusing them on "finding the main idea."  I have to say, their diversions are entertaining to me because of their pure ridiculousness.  When asked to use our target word in a sentence one girl said,"Wanna see me do a backbend?" and before I could say no, I wanted her to use the word "consequence" in a sentence, she was doing a backbend.  It was pretty good.  When asked to identify the topic sentence in a paragraph, one boy said, "I wrote a song, can I sing it?" Um...no.

They all are capable of reading, like I am capable of running; but much like me and running, they will avoid it at all costs.  So I have to ask myself, what in the world could possibly motivate me to run because maybe that is the answer to how to get my kids to be more open to reading.  The truth is that the only thing that could cause me to run is if something dangerous was chasing me.  So I guess the answer to the "how would I motivate myself to run" question is pure self-preservation.  I don't think that translates to getting 6th graders to read.  I wonder if Scholastic has any cute "READ OR DIE" posters I could hang in my room.

Well?  I'm open to ideas.  Were you a reluctant reader when you were a kid?  Obviously none of you are now because you're reading this blog, but maybe you used to be.  What can I do to get these kids to do my bidding?

It's almost my birthday (I think)

It's almost my birthday.  Well, I think it is anyway.  In the past few years there has been some question of when my birthday actually is, and how old I actually am.  My parents have secrets.  My parents tell me they met in January of 1969, had a whirlwind romance (gross), and got married in June because they couldn't stand to be apart.  Then, as their story goes; in the fall of 1970, a full fifteen months after they got married, I was born.  When I was a teenager I thought about the story a little more carefully.  They met in January and got married in June....hmmmm.  That's weird.  Who gets married to someone they've only known for five months?  Then I looked more closely at my mother's wedding dress.  Empire waist.  Hmm...

Interesting choice.  Sure, it was in fashion in 1969, wasn't it?  But still.  See where I'm going with this?  I suspect I was born in September of 1969 and not September of 1970.  I could never get my parents to admit it though.  In fact, whenever I bring it up (every year) they get a little impatient with me and tell me, "You were born in 1970, NOW DROP IT."  Somebody doth protest too much, Mom and Dad.

The other birthday bombshell is that September 29 is not my real birthday.  September 30 is.  I learned that last year in an email from my dad:

"Here's what I remember about your birthday. In September 1970-do the freaking math will you!........ You were born in a Catholic hospital in St. Cloud with nuns in attendance. Mom was in labor for over 24 hours and she passed out between labor pains. At one point she told the cute little red-headed nurse she wanted to go home. The nurse looked at me and said, "Do you want to take her home Mr. Lindahl?" I didn't.  You finally popped out in your own good time and all was well except we missed some insurance deadline for coverage by an hour or two so the good old nuns changed the dates of your birth to get us the coverage we needed. You ended up costing us not much. Whew! You may have been born on the 30th of September but it was in 1970 NOT 1969. Sometimes you acted like a little bastard but you actually are not one. Happy birthday and legit or not, I love you! Dad"

Notice the defensiveness about the birth year?  Interesting.  Oh, and of course I didn't know until I turned 41 (42) when my birthday really was.  They kept that secret for over forty years.  That just makes me wonder what else I don't know about these mysterious people I call my parents.  What else are they hiding???

I Might Be Really Sick

Something is happening to me and I don't like it.  My skin is raw and tender and dry, and my tongue is so tender and chapped that I could barely eat the chili cheese Fritos I had with my lunch.  Barely.  I'm actually kind of regretting the Fritos because I don't think they were worth all this pain.  Mitch says that it sounds like an allergy and I said, "But what in the world could I be allergic to???" and he suggested it's the neighbor's dog that I have stolen made friends with.

I let her in our house every night to sit on my lap and watch TV (we like the same shows).  Mitch isn't crazy about it because he is afraid we are going to get busted by the neighbors and he's sure that she will just happen to be on Mitch's lap when the angry neighbor looks in the glass door and sees his dog with her new family.  I don't think I'm allergic to her.  I'm not allergic to dogs, Mitch, I mean, "DOCTOR."  And my tongue is the most affected part of my body and I don't lick the dog.  You'd think if I was allergic to her I would have itchy hands or an itchy lap, but I don't, Dr. Oz; I don't.

If I was going to self-diagnose (which I always do) I would guess that I probably have the beginning stages of leprosy or scurvy.  Or maybe Vitamin D poisoning.  Mitch, are you lacing my food with extra Vitamin D???  My plan for dealing with this problem is to do nothing different and escalate the whining and complaining.  

Boot Dance

I'm finally NOT overwhelmed at work so hopefully I can be a better blogger.  So far, two weeks in, I am loving the job.  I don't know if you know this about me, but I'm a pretty good teacher.  The hardest part of the job is acting like an adult and being professional around the other adults.  Seriously, that is really hard for me.  I wore some new boots to work the other day and someone complimented me on them and I had to stop myself from doing a tap dance in them.  Specifically the move where you twirl your arms like windmills while your legs are doing jumping jacks.

inappropriate

That was my first instinct.  Something like that happens every second of every day I'm around a coworker.  Now you understand why I have been avoiding the work-a-day world for so long.

The kids are a lot of fun.  They openly enjoy a good boot dance.  They are just now learning how to run their locker combinations.  I told them they will dream of forgetting their locker combination for the rest of their lives.  One girl was coming to class late all the time with a huge pile of books and I found out she had given up on her locker and just decided to carry everything with her all day long for the next three years.  I've been making her practice opening her locker and now she can do it like an old pro.  Yesterday the kids really buttered me up by telling me that I look like I'm 37 and feigned shock when I told them I'm almost 42.  (Who says they don't have social skills!) They said that I look good in yellow, and that they like my fingernails.  One kid asked me if I dyed my hair.  I told him if I didn't, it would be mostly gray.  He said, "You can't even tell you dye it."  Which was weird, because how did he know to ask me if I dye it in the first place if it looks totally natural?  

When Animals Attack Sam

I've had another marathon week at work.  This "having a job" thing is really cutting into my blogging/sitting around time.  Luckily I had time to snap a few pictures of the panto-horse attacking Sam.  Enjoy.

The Terror Face

Mania

I think I have been having a bout of mania.  I can't seem to stop my mind from racing a million miles a minute and I have gotten more done the last week than I have in the past six months.  Now I see the allure of crystal meth, I have all the productivity but without facial scabs and rotten teeth...  Well, without facial scabs.   I don't even want to list the things I've done because A) it's boring, and B) it would just make me tired to think of it all again.  Does that sound braggy?  Because it kind of is.  However, I would really like my mind to slow down and relax a little bit but until I get settled in my job, I don't think I will be able to.  Oh well.  Better than being depressed and not being able to do anything.

I had book club this week.  We met at a Thai restaurant and when I told Mitch he said, "Whoever chose that place doesn't have any nerve endings in their mouth."  He went there once and apparently what he had was spicy, which isn't saying much because we think ketchup has a little too much zing sometimes.  I had something delicious and non-spicy.  The ladies were hilarious, as usual.  I actually did a spit take with my water at one point because some of the ladies were talking about people jumping off a tall building in Duluth where some of them work.

this building

Apparently one time a woman went there for a medical appointment of some kind and while her husband was in the waiting room she went up to the roof and jumped.  Someone said, "I wonder if he saw her do it?" and the lady who told the story said, totally seriously, "I don't know...  I don't know the speed at which she flew by."  That's when I almost choked on my water.  It was funny.

We also talked about my cute dentist.  I told them that Mitch thinks the next time I'm there and he has his cute little hands in my mouth, I should lick his fingers and make eyes at him.  The ladies all think that is a great idea, which makes me wonder if they are really my friends because I'm pretty sure that wouldn't end well for me.  Or maybe it would..... hey...

Hopefully this week I will get a handle on my new life and get back to my old self.  Until then I will get all the things done that I have been putting off for the past five years.

Have a great week!

School Picture Day

It was picture day at school today.  Of course, I forgot all about it and Kira looks like she slept on the streets last night.  Now that I am staff at the school, I had to get my picture taken too.  I've mentioned before how unphotogenic I am.  It's amazing, really.  I knew it was going to be weird but I'm resigned to looking like a fool in all pictures for the rest of my life.  I sat down on the little stool and the girl taking the photo kept looking at her monitor and then looking at me like she couldn't believe what was happening,

and she tried to position my head in all these weird, unnatural positions.  She took the first picture, looked at the monitor and actually blurted a laugh.  She said, "Let's try that again," and she repositioned my head.  She said, "Point your nose this way... too much, too much, back a little... other way a little.... okay.... um..........okay," and she took another picture.  This time she managed to not laugh out loud, but I was watching closely and she definitely stifled another one.  So we tried again.  This time she had me turn my head much like I had the neck flexibility of an owl, had me look slightly downward and avert my eyes from the camera.  She judged that that was the best of the three and sent me on my way.  It's going to be hilarious, I can just tell.

Kira is very photogenic, however, lately she has taken a couple of doozies.  The first was when we went to Valley Fair and she went on one of her first roller coaster rides.  It was a GIANT roller coaster and she was terrified.  On one of the hills there is a camera that takes a picture of all the people on the ride and they can look at it when the ride is over.  Mitch was making a fun face, Sam was super cool and pointed at the camera, Kira's friend was smiling, and Kira said she was making a "terror face."  I made her show me and it is hilarious.  She won't let me take a picture of it, but it is something like this:

Or this:

The other picture she took that sounds pretty funny was taken on the first day of school.  The last twenty minutes of the day all the kids in the whole school went out on to the soccer field for a huge group picture.  This is what Kira said to me when we got home, "Mom, for the big picture I was so happy because I got right in the front row.  I was feeling pretty cool.  Then right when he was about to take the picture I could feel a sneeze coming on and I thought I could hold it, but I couldn't so in the picture I'm doing this:"

But Kira's version has more teeth and less snot. That, of course, isn't Kira, because now that she is almost a teenager, she is too cool to let her mother take pictures of her making weird faces and posting them on the internet.  What is wrong with her?

I will post my school picture when I get it, and the big sneeze picture too, and I will try to get Kira to make her terror face and sneeze face for the blog but don't hold your breath.

Update

Okay, I've got some time to write for a few minutes because Kira is supposed to be cleaning the kitchen and I have to sit here and watch her and remind her of something she skipped about every ten seconds when she enthusiastically says, "Ok, I'm done!" when all I really want to do is go downstairs and play Mario Kart.

So, as I told you earlier, I got a job.  I wasn't going to take it because the job I applied for was a .4 position, (less than half time, paid hourly, no benefits).  After my interview they called me up and offered me a .8 position, which is mostly full time, pretty good salary, and benefits.  I still almost said no.  The .4 job I applied for was to teach reading to 7th and 8th graders for two class periods a day.  The two periods that it happens is over the lunch period and the kids in the class are all coming and going at different times.  Yuck.  I thought the .8 position was to teach twice as much reading to 7th and 8th graders.  Ugh.  But I lucked out.  I get to teach reading to sixth graders, who are still incredibly cute.  Something happens between 6th and 7th grade and kids get mealy and stinky and snotty and they are not very much fun, collectively.  I teach two sections of 6th grade language arts, so I'm with kids four hours a day and the rest of the time I am frantically trying to do in one week what I would have done over a whole summer had I been hired before the summer.  But I wasn't.  I get my own room and don't have to share it with anyone which is so nice.  I don't have to travel between schools like a lot of teachers do either.  And I get to teach 6th grade!  Did I mention that?

I know about half the kids in my classes from when I subbed over the years.  Some of them I have known since pre-school.  I think after I get caught up and am not feeling so overwhelmed, it will be a sweet job.  

The Big News

I haven't been very good about blogging just lately and that is because I've been super busy.  Why have I been super busy?  Because I GOT A JOB.  I know, I know; you're thinking, "But Sarah, blogging IS a job!" and I totally agree, but I've discovered the main flaw in having a personal blog be my primary occupation for the last several years.  It doesn't pay anything.  And I'm not just saying that in a complainy way, it literally, it doesn't provide any money.

I got hired as a mostly full-time teacher at Kira's middle school.  I was officially hired yesterday.  Yesterday was also the first day the kids had class.  So I had no lesson plans, no materials, no nothing.  It's going to be a rough couple of weeks getting started.  Wish me luck!

Kira in the Car

"Mom, what is the ugliest food you love?"

I Love Duluth

This afternoon the family and I went on a St. Louis River tour with the St. Louis River Restoration Initiative.  We took a big tour boat through the Duluth Harbor and up the river a ways.  It was a beautiful day and we had lots of fun.

This is a train bridge that goes across the river and when a boat comes the center of it pivots and makes room for boats to go through.  There was a guy in the little bridge-house watching us.  I waved at him but he didn't wave back.  We came really close to an iron ore ship too, but I was too busy eating meatballs to take a picture.

The part we toured is an estuary so we saw lots of birds and I saw a fish jump out of the water, but nobody else did, and the tour guide said there are fish as big as five feet long in the water.  Yikes.

Of course, we were on a boat so it didn't take Kira long to figure out that we were held captive so she tortured us all a little.  Mitch got butt bumped about 5000 times, I got my tenders pinched, and all she had to do to drive Sam crazy is touch his back.  I have to admire her ability to ride the line of being annoying enough to cause exasperation, but not annoying enough to get thrown over the side.  That's my girl!

The best part of the tour was when we pulled back up to the pier.  There were about 50 people looking over the side while the crew tied up the boat and this guy busted out on his unicycle and rode down the middle of the street.

It's not a quiet street.  He was in the middle of traffic.

I love Duluth.

Neighbors

Kira has a checkered history with bees and wasps.  The other day she noticed some wasps were starting a new hive in the peak of the roof of the garage.  She got the hose and power-washed it until it came off.  It was rather annoying because for about an hour after she did it the area around the garage and back door were swarming with angry wasps.  She took a chunk of the hive and put it on the deck railing right next to the door we mainly use so she could look at it.

The wasps came back to it and now we have a wasps nest right at hand-level in the doorway.  Mitch said, "They are very calm.  I touched one today."  I said, "On purpose?!"  Yes, he couldn't help himself.  He said it didn't even move.  It just sat there and accepted a friendly petting from Mitch.  He's like Dr. Doolittle but he won't even let me get a cat because he says, "It will literally kill me."  Wa wa.

**********************

A dog has adopted us.  Her name is Tilly and she comes over every morning when her owners let her out.

She hangs out on our deck all day and charms everyone except my dog, whom she bullies.  We live out in the country and when I go for walks I sometimes get snarled at by big dogs running loose.  None of them seem to be dangerous, but they are certainly scary sometimes.  The other day Tilly went on our walk with us and when the big mean dogs charged up to us barking their heads off, Tilly's teeny hackles went up and those big dogs stopped short and went back home and left us alone.

She has short-man syndrome but unlike most short men, it actually works for her.  She's our muscle.  And she's so cute because her little front legs are kind of bowed.

Kira washed her today because although she is adorable, she STINKS.  She rolls in everything gross.  One day she came over and she was green.  I don't know why.  She must have rolled in cut grass or something, but she didn't smell good like cut grass.  She usually smells like a poop-covered old corpse.

I never have to watch Lethal Weapon again!

I finally finished!  Well, technically, I fell asleep before the big ending of Lethal Weapon IV, but I was present while it was playing, so it counts.  Here's a review:

Gas station explosion...Riggs haircut... Murtaugh abused... house explosion... car explosion... boat explosion... another car explosion... Murtaugh is too old for various forms of shit... pregnancy... babies... Chinese people...shooting... laughing gas... promotion... Chris Rock's big teeth... blah blah blah blah...

Don't be fooled.  He IS too old for this shit.

Labor Day Deals

Happy last day of summer!  What are you going to do today?  I got this flyer in the mail so I think I am going to take advantage of some of these Super Saver(!) deals.

Specifically I am going to save 37% on an 18 inch machete (with nylon sheath).  I had no idea machetes were so cheap.  

Streaking! OMG!

I had to call this post streaking because if I told you what it was really about you wouldn't have read even this far, but I promise that if you read til the end, you will get a surprise.  Okay, I know you guys don't like my reviews of old eighties buddy movies, but too bad.  I can't just stop at two Lethal Weapon movies. I have all four movies (on VHS) so we are in this for four reviews.  Live with it.  

First of all, let me say that I'm really getting sick of watching Lethal Weapon movies.  Mel Gibson is a dick and so is his character, Martin Riggs.  I love Danny Glover but how in the world could he stand working with Mel Gibson?  And also why does his character, Roger Murtaugh, love Martin Riggs so much?  He's an inconsiderate maniac freeloader.

Okay, let's get this over with.  The plot this time is that Murtaugh has eight days until retirement.  Every day he gets closer to retiring, Riggs puts Murtaugh's life in danger in some ridiculous way.  He almost gets them both blown up in a building because he didn't want to wait for the bomb squad (who we know from the last movie can't actually prevent explosions, they can just delay them for one second.) He got them into a car chase with two armored trucks.  One day when Murtaugh was making lunch for Riggs from the lunch truck he apparently works at during lunchtimes, Riggs started a shootout with some gangbangers and Murtaugh had to save him by shooting a teenage boy.  Thanks a lot, Riggs, you dick!

Anyway, a dirty former cop named Travis is using his knowledge of police procedures to steal weapons collected as evidence.  There are a lot of guns collected by the police department.  Like, warehouses FULL.  So the story is that they are trying to find this guy and stop him.  Renee Russo is an internal affairs officer on the case.  She stores her gun in her pants.  The police in L.A. in the eighties had to use their own cars and they couldn't even afford holsters so they had to stick loaded weapons in the back of their Guess jeans.  Nice.

Murtaugh's real estate agent, Joe Pesci, tells them that they will be able to find Travis at a hockey game because he has season tickets so they go to the game but they don't know what seat Travis is in (good police work!) so Riggs gets on the speaker system and tells Travis that they are there and that they are after him, I think hoping to flush him out but guess what, it doesn't work.  Riggs gets Joe Pesci shot.  Nice going!

In the middle of the movie, Murtaugh is feeling bad for killing the teenage gangbanger so he gets drunk on his boat.  Riggs is worried so he goes to check on him.  He throws Murtaugh's booze overboard, punches him in the stomach, and then yells at him.  He is a TERRIBLE friend.  They hug it out and Murtaugh ends up apologizing to Riggs!  Hey Murtaugh, get out of this relationship, it is abusive.  You are too old for that shit.  If Murtaugh was a woman this would be a Lifetime movie.

At the end Travis kidnaps the captain of the department and goes right into the belly of the beast, which I guess is the main evidence locker for all the guns that are confiscated.  Riggs, Murtaugh and Russo figure out what is going down and they take a young whippersnapper who is turning 22 TODAY(!).  He is wearing a red star trek shirt.  Just kidding, he's not really wearing a star trek shirt but you know what I mean.  No reason for him to be introduced at this point in the story other than to make us feel bad when he gets killed, which he does. (Happy Birthday!)

More happens. Specifically a needless inferno caused by Riggs to finally capture the bad guy which he barely does.  Finally it's retirement day for Murtaugh.  He celebrates by shooting Riggs in the face.  Just kidding.  I wish.  But really, he has changed his mind about retiring because he can't bear to leave Riggs because Riggs really needs him so he is going to give it ten more years.  Roger, you're an idiot.  Riggs is going to kill you.

Okay, time for your surprise.  If you can answer the following questions about this post, I will send you my VHS copy of Lethal Weapon III:
1.  What three things can't the L.A. police department afford?
2.  What kind of pants does Renee Russo like?
3.  Who is the worst friend in the world?

One more to go!

My New Friend

I got a Venus Fly Trap yesterday.  I've never actually seen one in real life and I've always wanted one of my own to feed hamburger to, and finally yesterday my childhood dream came true when I saw one at the grocery store.  It was in a plastic container which I assumed was for my own safety.  I wanted to replant it into a pretty glass jar I have but I was afraid it would bite me so it was kind of a messy process.  When I told Mitch that I had trouble replanting it because I didn't want to touch it he said, "Did you think it would... bite you???"  I just looked at him because yes, that is obviously what I thought.  Who wouldn't?  They BITE.  That's their thing.  Then he said, "You know it's a plant, right?"  Yeah, I know it's a plant.  A biting plant.  And I don't want to get bitten.  Jeez, what's so hard to understand?

After I replanted it and got it all situated, I turned on the outside light and waited for moths.  It always seems like moths immediately appear around a lightbulb, but when you're waiting for them, it takes a while.  I lost patience and went in the house and looked for a fly.  I found one, slapped it just hard enough to stun it and then picked it up with a tweezer and tried to feed it to my plant.  Apparently my plant wasn't hungry because when I put the stunned fly in it's jaws, it didn't snap shut like I was expecting (hoping).  It just sat there and then the fly came back to his senses and flew away.  Your loss, Flytrap!  The directions that came with it say specifically, "Do not feed your flytrap meat!" which I assume is because if I feed it meat it will grow like it's on steroids and be aggressive and dangerous.  When it gets used to its new home and gets hungry I'm going to feed it some raw hamburger.  I can't wait.  I want this plant to grow to frightening proportions and then I'll get a sign to put next to my door that says, "Beware of the plant"

my dream

my reality... (for now.)

My name is Sarah and it's been one day since I had pita chips.

I think I understand drug addiction now.  I mean, I always knew that it could really take hold of a person and they couldn't do much about it, but I also wondered why they would go out of their way to do something that made them sick, or gave them face scabs, or horrible rotten teeth.  Nothing could be worth that, could it?

I might not be into meth or heroin but I do have a substance abuse problem.  It's pita chips.  I love them, and I can't stop myself from eating them if they are around.  I eat them until I'm literally sick and if there are still some around, I will eat them till they are gone.  I know you're thinking, "Oh, you're just trying to be funny by comparing your love of pita chips to a meth head's love of meth, and they don't compare, you idiot."  I beg to differ.

This week when I went grocery shopping I saw that pita chips were on sale.  I already had to buy some chips for a party I went to so I just threw the giant economy bag of pita chips in there too, telling myself that I would bring them to the party, and wouldn't eat them all myself.  See right there?  I lied to myself and made a lame justification for the procuring of the addictive substance.

As soon as I got home from the store I opened the bag.  How could I justify that?!  Well, a girl has to eat lunch, doesn't she?  Sure she does.  I carefully took out a small bowl's worth, telling myself again that having a normal serving was fine.  No big deal.... Then I had another serving.  Then Kira saw the bag, even though I hid it in the back of the pantry closet and she said, "Oh pita chips! Can I have some?" and I said, "No! They are for the party!" knowing full well that I wasn't going to bring them to the party.  After my second bowl of chips, I stopped using the bowl and just ate out of the bag so I wouldn't realize how many I was eating.

The thing about pita chips is that they literally make me sick to my stomach.  I can't digest them properly and I get cramps and horrid gas.  Gas that is so constant and disgusting that I can't really go out in public.  For several days it was like my family was on an olfactory tour of the sulfur pits at Yellowstone Park, or a boiled egg plant, or a perm factory; and we were all getting a little sick of it.  It was a rough afternoon, evening and night.  The next morning I wasn't feeling any better, but I couldn't stop myself from eating pita chips for breakfast.  I didn't want to.  I felt guilty and stupid and really bad about it, but I did it anyway, knowing that it would compound the already terrible stomach cramps.  About mid morning I noticed that the bag was almost gone and I was relieved.  They would be gone by the end of the day.  I felt doubly horrible all day and night and the next morning again.  Today I'm finally feeling on the mend.  The gas is almost gone, the cramps are better and I don't feel so listless and weak.

I decided to clean the house up a bit and when I was vacuuming the floor under the counter where I sit and eat my breakfast, I noticed a few pita chips that had been sitting there for at least 36 hours.  I had to physically stop myself and tell myself out loud, "Do NOT even think about eating those," but then I did.  I ate stale pita chips off the floor after being sick from them for days.  That's called rock bottom, folks.  I don't know what it is about pita chips unless they are laced with some kind of delicious opiate or something, but I have a problem.  I have recognized it and now I know I have to practice constant vigilance to keep myself on the straight and narrow. 

Sleepwalker

There was a brief period in my life when I was a sleepwalker.  It was when I was a waitress in college.  I would have vivid stress dreams of getting the food out to the right people and not dropping it, and that I couldn't find the waitress station.  In my dream I knew it was somewhere between our living room and our kitchen, but I couldn't find it.  Turns out I was wandering around my parent's house all night long.  I know it because at one point I had to get something out of the oven so I got a hot pad from the top drawer of my dresser and in the morning I found a pair of my clean underwear on the breadboard next to the oven in the kitchen.  I suspect that I've sleepwalked other times too, in fact, I suspect I was sleepwalking the other night.

We went to a barbeque at my friend Dana's house. She made me a cocktail called a "Southern Hospitality" (said in a thick southern drawl).  It's made with Southern Comfort, watermelon schnapps, and Red Bull.  It was so good.  It tasted like a Jolly Rancher.  So I had another one.  Mitch drove home.

While I was sleeping that night I had vivid dreams.  I dreamed that I was still at Dana's house and I was using her bathroom and I decided that my teeth really needed a good brushing so I took a toothbrush out of her toothbrush cup (which, coincidentally, was exactly like mine) and I started brushing my teeth.  It felt a little weird so I looked and it wasn't my orange toothbrush like I expected it to be, it was a black one.  Was I using Dana's toothbrush?  I bet she wouldn't like that.  Oh well, I thought, she will never have to know, and I kept brushing my teeth.  

Then I wandered into her kitchen which, again, was just like mine.  Same white tile floor.  I dreamed I was sitting on a stool in the middle of the floor and I suddenly really had to go to the bathroom.  I didn't want to pee in Dana's kitchen, but I couldn't seem to stop myself, so I peed and felt so much better but at the same time felt guilty for making such a big mess in her kitchen.  

Then I woke up in my bed in a panic because I know that having detailed dreams of peeing is never a good thing so I thrashed around in utter dread, thinking I wet my bed.  I didn't.  Thank goodness.  Mitch would NEVER let me live that down.  Then I thought maybe (oh sweet Jesus, please no) I got up and peed all over the kitchen.  But I wasn't wet.  So I went back to sleep.  Then I dreamed that there was a hidden room behind Dana's bathroom that looked just exactly like Sam's room.  In fact, Sam was sleeping in it.  Did Dana know about this?  Is Sam leading a double life?  In my dream I told myself to remember to tell her about the hidden room behind her bathroom, but I wasn't going to tell her Sam was living in it.  

In the morning I got up and discovered that nobody had urinated all over the kitchen.  I was totally ready to blame the dog if I found a big puddle of pee in there, but thankfully, there was none.  I did, however, have a suspiciously empty bladder, and surprisingly clean teeth. So, did I walk around my house all night dreaming I was still at Dana's party?  Was it the Southern Comfort, the watermelon schnapps, or the Red Bull that gave me such a weird night?  Nobody will ever know. 

Are you a sleepwalker? 

Lethal Weapon II

Last night Mitch and I watched Lethal Weapon II.  You know what I figured out?  I figured out why the movies are called Lethal Weapon.  Mel Gibson IS the Lethal Weapon.  Is he crazy?  Or is he just crazy good?  We still don't know.

I think I saw Lethal Weapon II when it came out in the eighties because I remember the iconic "toilet scene."  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  This film starts with Murtaugh (Danny Glover) and Riggs (Mel Gibson) in a car chase in Murtaugh's wife's station wagon.  Murtaugh drives this big woody station wagon throughout the whole movie which makes me wonder why the L.A. police department would allow that.  It seems a little unprofessional to have a detective driving around in car chases in a grocery grabber, but hey, what do I know, I live in fly-over country.  And also, isn't Murtaugh's wife a little put-out that her husband is using her car every day?  How is she getting around?  Why doesn't Murtaugh use his own car for work?  Anyway, Riggs and Murtaugh and a bunch of other rag-tag, lovable detectives are chasing a guy who eventually crashes and a bunch of gold treasure comes out of his trunk.  That's not a euphemism either.  Literally, a bunch of gold coins spill from the trunk of the bad guy's car.

It turns out that the bad guy with the treasure is a South African diplomat and the South Africans are running some kind of illegal drug trade in L.A. and are getting paid in gold coins, apparently; and they are dodging law enforcement because of their diplomatic status.  Riggs is on to them and starts to sort of stalk the main South African bad guy because if Mel Gibson hates anything, it's racism and apartheid and those South Africans are all about apartheid.  He will not put up with that shit. Riggs meets a South African hottie that works at the embassy(?) and he starts up a relationship with her, if you can call practically kidnapping her and bringing her to his crappy trailer and having marathon sex a relationship.

While Mel is with this woman, the South Africans start assassinating all of the rag-tag police team that chased them down and discovered their plot.  A house where a poker game is being played is blown up with what looks like a million pounds of TNT.  That took care of five or six.  Another one was going to do a few laps in her pool before her shift and when she jumped on the diving board it blew up and flung her end over end across the whole neighborhood.  Didn't seem like a very practical way to kill someone because she might have been able to tuck and roll her way out of death, but apparently the South Africans have a flair for the dramatic and a lot of explosives laying around collecting dust.

Which brings me to the plot to kill Murtaugh.  Somehow, they got in to his house and wired his toilet so that after he had a good poop and stood up from the pot, it would explode.  They stupidly gave him a hint about what would happen by writing, "Boom, you're dead!" on the toilet paper.

I'm so glad they spelled "you're" right.

Why did they do that?!  Nobody will ever know.  Murtaugh tried calling Riggs all night to tell him he was stuck on his toilet, but Riggs was too busy to answer his phone.  When he finally went to check on Murtaugh he discovered him on his toilet and they had a good laugh.

"It really stinks in here."

They called the bomb squad and the plan was to freeze the bomb with nitrogen to give Murtaugh enough time to jump in to the bathtub to avoid the blast.  That's why we are paying big bucks for bomb squads, so they can buy you one second before the bomb goes off and tell you where to jump while it explodes.  If this is really the way bomb squads work, we need to rethink bomb squads.  Anyway, Murtaugh has been sitting on the pot all night and he can't feel his legs anymore so Riggs decides to stay and help him into the tub.  The bomb squad guy tries to talk Riggs out of it, but Riggs is not moving because he and Murtaugh are soul mates.  Before the big jump into the tub Murtaugh and Riggs tell each other they love each other in their manly way and then they make the big jump.  They survive.

Actually, I think I have my chronology messed up somewhere there.  It doesn't matter.  Oh, I also forgot to tell you that Riggs can get out of a standard straight jacket by dislocating his own shoulder and wriggling out.  Okay, now that you know that, I can tell you that the South Africans kidnap Riggs and tell him that they are the ones responsible for killing his wife in a "car accident" four years earlier.  Then they put Riggs in a makeshift straight jacket and throw him into the ocean.  He gets out, of course, because he can dislocate his own shoulder, but while he is down there he sees his new South African babe.  She got the whole straight jacket treatment as well.  Riggs loses his mind.  He is going to avenge  his wife and girlfriend by taking on the South Africans on his own.

He calls Murtaugh and tells him, and Murtaugh, of course, agrees to help him out. They go to a ship where the big wig South African bad guy is making some kind of shady deal and they get in a shootout. It's bad.  The bad guy shoots Riggs but before he does he holds out his ID badge and says "Diplomatic immunity! HA HA HA HA!"  Then Murtaugh shoots him because he doesn't give a crap about diplomatic immunity.  After he does he says, "It's just been revoked."  BADASS!  Then Murtaugh goes to Riggs and holds his head in his lap and gives him the will to live.  He keeps saying, "Do not die until I tell you to," which I thought was weird.  And then Riggs wakes up and says, "You're a beautiful man," and they both have a good laugh.  I didn't see what was so funny.  I thought it was weird.  What were they laughing at?

I thought the second Lethal Weapon was better than the first.  Mitch had some problems because the Murtaugh family house was having some construction done and the nail gun worked without being attached to a compressor.

Mitch thinks the compressor probably didn't have a very good agent and that was the point at which Mitch could no longer suspend his disbelief.  I give the movie an A- and the minus is only for the weirdness in the last scene.  Mitch gives it a C- "at best" he says.  I think if it wouldn't have been for the lack of compressor, Mitch would have given it a solid B.  SO much happens!  I didn't even cover half of it.  Riggs chases cars on foot again! Joe Pesci is in the movie!

Murtaugh kills some South Africans with the nail-gun-with-no-compressor and then says, "Nailed 'em!"  You should see it.  In fact, if you want my VHS copy, email me your address and I'll send it to you.

Movie Review: Lethal Weapon

Last year my sister Beth thought it would be hilarious to give my kids a box the size of a camper van full of her old VHS tapes.  She taped a note on it that said something like, "Have your mom sort through these first because some of them are rated R and are incredibly inappropriate for kids.  Enjoy!"  My kids were ecstatic.  I was not.  You know why?  Because I already got rid of my VHS tapes and it wasn't easy.  Now I had about a thousand more to deal with along with trying to explain to the kids why they couldn't watch Strip Tease and American History X.  And Beth saw to it that I had to deal with it because she presented it as a gift to the kids.  Nicely played, Beth. You go ahead and laugh for now.  I have a line on getting your girls a beard-of-bees starter kit for Christmas.

Four of the movies in the box were Lethal Weapon, Lethal Weapon II, Lethal Weapon III, and Lethal Weapon IX.  Beth is nothing if not thorough.  I don't know how she could bear to part with these gems.  She probably has them on Blu-Ray now though.  Every time there has been nothing good to watch on TV after the kids go to bed for the past 15 months or so, I say to Mitch, "Wanna watch Lethal Weapon?" and he always says, "No!"  But last night he was out in the garage so it was my chance to watch it.  And watch it I did.

In case you have forgotten, it starts out with a scantily clad, drugged out babe jumping do her death from a high rise building in L.A.  Danny Glover (Murtaugh) is assigned the case.  He is a family-man detective with the police department and it is his 50th birthday. He goes in to work and is assigned a new partner, Mel Gibson (Riggs).  Riggs is a loose cannon.  He recently lost his wife in a car accident and is being evaluated by the department shrink because he might be suicidal, but he might be faking it to get the many societal benefits a person gets when they are diagnosed with a mental illness.  We soon learn how crazy he is when he goes to the top of a building to talk a potential jumper down and instead of talking him down he handcuffs himself to the poor guy and then forces them both to jump.

If you didn't know what a great actor Mel Gibson is, you'd swear he was really crazy!

They jump into a big air bag and aren't hurt but at that point Murtaugh is worried that this new partner of his might not be just faking it, he might actually be crazy.  He brings Riggs to a private place and yells at him and demands to know if he really wants to die and he gives Riggs his gun and tells him if he really wants to die, to put the gun in his mouth and pull the trigger.  Riggs is just about to do it when Murtaugh pulls the gun away.  It is at this point in the movie when they, newly acquainted partners, forge a bond that usually takes years to forge.  They look deep into one another's eyes and their souls say to each other, "Hey, you're my brother, man.  I know you."  Then Murtaugh says, "I'm too old for this shit," for the first time.

"You complete me."

Soon they learn that the girl who jumped from the building was murdered, but it wasn't just a run-of-the-mill hooker murder, it goes deep.  Really deep.  All the way back to Vietnam and the heroin trade. And Gary Busey is in the movie too and he is at his absolute prime.  His name is Mr. Joshua.  He's nuts.  He gets burned with a lighter for the fun of it.  Murtaugh thinks he is way too old for that shit.

I don't really remember what happens after Murtaugh and Riggs forged their bond with the gun in the mouth scene because to tell you the truth I was emotionally exhausted from watching Mel Gibson's tour de force perfomance and the love not only between Murtaugh and Riggs, but I suspect between Danny Glover and Mel Gibson as well.  You can't fake that.  I know there was some shooting, a car chase where Mel Gibson was chasing cars on foot with a machine gun, and there was a helicopter/limo chase.  Oh, and Murtaugh's wife can't cook for shit.

The movie ended with a fist fight between Riggs and Mr. Joshua in Murtaugh's yard.  Riggs won, barely, and when the uniformed officers were cuffing Mr. Joshua after the fight he somehow got one of their guns and was going to shoot Riggs, who was having a good hug with Murtaugh and somehow, I think because of their highly tuned bond, they could feel what was coming so they both turned around and shot Mr. Joshua before he could squeeze the trigger.  Holy shit.  It was so close.  After that Riggs was a part of Murtaugh's family.  In the very last scene he comes over to the Murtaugh's house for Christmas dinner and he brings his dog, who gets in a fight with the Murtaugh cat and Danny Glover says, "I'm too old for this shit," but you know what?  I suspect he is exactly the right age for that shit.

I apparently wasn't the only one who could see the iron-clad bond of soul-melding brotherhood between Murtaugh and Riggs.  The movie producers saw it as well so they made three more movies.  Mitch and I can't wait to watch them.