Point of View

Mother Nature dumped a shitload of snow on us last weekend.  

Wait, wait... you see, that sentence right there is indicative of my attitude on winter, and it needs to change because I live in Northern Minnesota where it is winter for about 5 months out of the year and unless I want to go bananas I have to change something, and I can't move, and I can't make it warmer, so the only thing I can change is my attitude.  Instead of saying "dumped a shitload of snow on us," I should say something like, "The yard is covered with a beautiful blanket of fresh snow!  It's so wonderful!  I love it!" but clearly, that would be a lie.  And if I said that you would just think I was being a smartass and you'd avoid me because who wants to be around a sarcastic smartass?  Nobody. 

So if I can't be excited about spending the next 5 months shivering, sliding, falling, and avoiding the outdoors at all costs, at least I can be neutral.  So I will start this post again, and I will try not to be negative. 

Winter has begun. 

A huge bullshit load of wet sticky Snow fell last weekend!

My socks got wet just looking outside at the white shit stuff.

 

 Driving on the wet, slippery roads SUCKS MAJOR ASS proves to be a challenge, but what a view!  I can just picture that loaded tree falling on our powerline and being without electricity for a week a horse-drawn sleigh, warm blankets, horse farts, and hot cocoa! 

What a beautiful picture of our yard, that I won't be able to enjoy unless I spend 15 minutes putting on ugly snowpants, boots, an itchy stupid hat and then when I come back in I have to change pants and socks anyway because the snow ALWAYS gets in no matter what.  I can't wait to get out and enjoy it!  (that's just a lie.)

I wonder which one of those big beautiful pine trees will get bogged with so much snow that it falls and crashes a giant hole in our house in the middle of the night? 

Goddammit, Winter is here!

Hell

 The Sassy Curmudgeon has a feature on her blog called Curmudgeon of the Week.  One of the questions she asks her curmudgeons is this: 

You are Dante. What, in order from least to most excruciating, are your nine circles of hell?

I am not the curmudgeon of the week, but I thought long and hard about this question and I do have an answer.  Here it is:  

1. I discover I am riding in an elevator with Mario Lopez.

2. The elevator I'm in with Mario Lopez shudders to a halt and we are stuck.

Mario Lopez

 
3. After being stuck in an elevator with Mario Lopez for an hour that seems like a hundred years, we (thank-the-lord) start moving again. We reach a floor that is not the floor I want. It is a gym class and I'm supposed to teach it.

4. In the gym class I'm supposed to teach on the floor I don't want to be on, with Mario Lopez, I discover that we are supposed to be playing Dodgeball and Mario gets things going by rifling a ball at my head, and then smiles his irritating, tongue-displaying smile and laughs at me.

5. Now I'm in court for murdering Mario Lopez with my bare hands in front of a classroom full of children, and what I thought was a fool-proof defense (it was a public service), doesn't pan out because my jury is comprised of a bunch of eighties teen girls with Saved By The Bell t-shirts and lisps.

6. My punishment for murder is to take the Saved By The Bell (SBTB) girls on a series of plane trips during wind storms and when we board we discover that SURPRISE! Mario Lopez isn't really dead, he's the flight attendant. Must endure horrifying take-offs and landings in hurricane-like winds, listening to the SBTB girls scream with lispy excitement about having Mario Lopez as their flight attendant.

7. Mario Lopez is pushing the drink cart down the aisle and I have to pee super bad but I can't because the fucking drink cart is in the way. When Mario and the drink cart finally get to my seat there is no Diet Coke. In fact, no one has ever heard of Diet Coke!!!!!!!

8. The plane I'm on with Mario Lopez and the SBTB girls crashes in a horrific LOST-like scenario, but we are not in the tropics, we are on the Island of Misfit Toys from Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and it's cold and THOSE TOYS ARE FREAKING ME OUT!

NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

9. While the freaky toy-rejects and the SBTB girls are all fawning over Mario Lopez and making him their leader, we hear an obnoxious voice shouting through a bull-horn. It's Ty Pennington. He lives there too and he tells us we are the only survivors of the entire human race and it's up to me and Mario and Ty to keep humanity alive by reproducing because all the SBTB girls are sterile. Must listen to SBTB girls lispy sobs while Ty Pennington screams through the bullhorn “Let's get it on!”

 

The best part of sleeping in late

Hi Everybody!  I'm featured on LOL today, so go over there and check it out and give me a comment.  DO IT! 

I realized this morning that I will never be a thin person.  I came to this conclusion because I slept in late because I was really tired, and then I ate breakfast and was really happy with myself because I can eat lunch about an hour after I eat breakfast. And then I thought to myself, "This is sweet, I should sleep in late more often."  And then I thought to myself.  "Oh crap, this is why I'm so chubby."

Happy Veteran's Day

Kira's school had a Veteran's Day program and the fifth graders were the hosts, so I went to it.  I love elementary school so much.  All those kids were gathered in the gym, sitting on the floor with their classes, being adorable.  There was a guest singer invited to sing the national anthem.  She was a teenager with a beautiful voice and the idea was for her to sing a moving rendition of the song a capella, but the kids all sing that song every morning so they joined in, even though their teachers were shushing them.  The singer was a high soprano, so the song was being sung higher than I've ever heard it and the kids that were relentlessly joining in really had to strain to keep up, but they did.  It was just about the cutest thing I ever heard.

Okay, this was supposed to be a reverent Veteran's Day post, but I'm sitting here next to Mitch who is in the process of making a homemade pantomime horse costume and it's very distracting.  There's a lot of thinking-out-loud going on about the facial expression it should have, and perhaps maybe the face should be velcro-able so the expression can be changed to match its mood.  That way it would be a much more versatile pantomime horse, which is a better value any way you look at it! 

This is NOT Mitch's pantomime horse.  
I am under strict instructions not to take any pictures of it until it is finished and is running around our yard.   

In case you didn't know this already, Mitch is obsessed with pantomime horses, and he and Kira want to be one in the worst way.  When I was gone on my trip he bought a bunch of fleece and made most of the costume.  Right now there is the better part of a pantomime horse sitting on the couch in the basement and Mitch is talking to me about whether or not the horse should have eyelids, or if they will just blend in too much with the rest of the "hide," and maybe he could make eyelashes out of yarn!  Now he just said, "You better not be live blogging this."  Oh, I'm live blogging this. Now he's wondering if the panto-horse should have reins, a harness and a saddle blanket, and Hey!  Maybe some blinders!  He realizes a saddle wouldn't be very practical for a panto-horse because come on, nobody is going to ride it!  That would be ridiculous!  But the quality of a panto-horse is almost totally dependent on the tiny details.  He realizes that his sewing isn't the best so he wants to draw the eye away from the puckered seams with fantastic facial features.  Now he just tried the eyes on it and said, "Oh yeah, the eyes really make it come alive.  I'm sure glad I didn't go with the googly eyes!"   

So happy Veteran's Day, Veterans!  You fight to keep our panto-horse dreams alive!  Thank you!

Mary Roach

Blogger hasn't been working for me lately but I'm still here!  I just have to jump through some hoops to post.  I'm not too big on jumping through any kind of hoops, so I hope Blogger starts working better soon or I'm in trouble, blogwise.

I've been reading books by Mary Roach recently.  The first one I read was called Bonk, all about the science of sex.  She's really funny.  Now I'm reading Stiff, all about what happens to our corpses after we die.  Wow.  It is so morbid and so interesting.  The whole book is like a horrible car accident that you can't tear your eyes away from.  I'm on a chapter right now about the future potential of whole-body transplants.  If your body is all gross and diseased and dying, but your head is okay, in the future you could get a whole body transplant!  Some doctor in France did it with some monkeys and the poor little monkeys lived anywhere from a few hours to three days. The monkeys weren't too happy about it because whenever the doctor got near them, they would bite him. They don't call it a head transplant, they call it a body transplant because medical science has pretty much decided that we are our brains.  There has been some anecdotal evidence that some personality traits or thoughts of the donor show up in the recipients of heart transplants.  Like this one man who told his doctor that heknew he got his heart from a young black woman and that she died in a car accident and she was not too happy about having her heart ripped out.  He said sometimes when he looked in the mirror he saw her instead of himself and she was all bloody.  His doctor was kind of freaked out so he did a little digging to find out if the donor actually was a young black woman who died in a car accident and it wasn't.  It was a middle aged man.  And then that doctor looked into the donors of other people who said they thought they knew who their donors were.  They were wrong every time.  We live in our heads, and like I was saying, you could potentially get a body transplant someday, but since medical science still can't fix severed nerves, your new body would be paralyzed from the neck down.  Bummer for you.

Some scientists in France during the heyday of the guillotine tried to figure out how long a head lived after it is removed from it's body, and they decided it is as long as ten minutes.  TEN MINUTES.  They did this by looking at the head right after it was chopped, and studying the eyes and the expression.  When after a minute or so the head got tired and the eyes drooped, the doctor would yell out the head's name and he would open his eyes and focus on the doctor like, "What?" and look at him for a while and then doze off again.  The doctor did this to the head three times and every time the head woke up and focused on the doctor.  Oh my god, just let the poor head go to sleep already!

I don't think you really will get the chance to get a body transplant someday because of the expense and the ethics of it.  Insurance would never cover it and instead of tacking that paralyzed body onto you, those organs could go to save the lives of several people, so the only people getting body transplants in the future will be filthy rich paraplegics.  So you still need to exercise and take your vitamins and take care of your gross ingrown toenails!

The next book by Mary Roach that I'm going to read is called Spook, and it is about the science of the afterlife and the soul.  She talked to some people who said the soul has mass.  They measured it by putting a dying person on a super sensitive scale and at the precise time of death they weigh slightly less!  Weird!  I can't wait to read what she has to say about that.  

PMS

PMS is horrible.  I don't get it very often, certainly not every month (thank god), but on occasion it hits me like a ton of bricks and it's pretty tough to live with.  For everybody.  I know lots of jokes are made of it, but when you are in the middle of a significant bout of it, it's not very funny because you know what?  When you're in the middle of a bout of PMS nothing is fucking funny. To say I feel a bit touchy is understating.  It's more than cranky or touchy, it's mental, psychotic-feeling, impotent rage. 

PMS used to be put forth as a reason not to elect women to leadership positions because every month they would "go nuts."  I think that not only do we not go nuts when we feel like this, but we do a pretty darn good job of compensating for the true feelings of utter, mindless rage.  Like at the grocery store when the man ahead of me who was buying one loaf of bread challenged the clerk on the price which made her call back for a price check.  Did I feel like ramming my cart into his ankles and screaming, "JUST PAAAAAAAYYYYYY HEEEEERRRRRRR!!!!" in a demon voice? Yes.  Did I do it? Of course not, that would be crazy.   When I was emptying my cart on the belt and got uncomfortably hot, did I rip my clothes off, jump on the belt and scream, "WHY IS IT SO FUCKING HOT IN HERE!!!!!!" and scratch out the eyes of the nearest person?  No.  I calmly removed my jacket and continued emptying my cart even though I felt like I was on fire.  Did I smile and make some mindless banter with the clerk like I usually do?  No.  I couldn't manage it because I was too busy trying not to spontaneously combust.

Usually I'm a nice, easygoing, good humored person, and if every six months or so I feel mentally horrible, would it be so hard to give me a little sympathy and understanding?  Because although I know I'm not the easiest to be around at that time:

 if someone says something even a tiny bit snarky or nasty, it just makes things so much worse:

It would be like if you ran over your foot with the lawn mower and made a mess of your big toe, and not only was I not sympathetic to your ailment, but every day I stepped on your foot and made it a little worse.  Who is the bad guy in that situation?  The person who didn't want to run over his toe, but did because that was what that bitch, Mother Nature, made him do; or the person who steps on the sore toe every day to make a point that your sore toe is no excuse for limping.  (What?  That doesn't even make sense, you say?  Tell me about it!)   I'd say that the person who steps on the sore toe is the jerk, and is risking his life because the person with the sore toe is feeling awful and is developing a craving for hearing you make that choking sound you make when she pokes you in the throat.

Kira, stay away from my webcam

Roommates (thanks for the idea, Anne)

Since I can't think of anything to write on my own, I'm shamelessly piggybacking on other people's ideas.  Today I'm stealing Anne's idea.  She wrote about roommate quirks and how important it is to live with people you aren't related to and don't necessarily like before you get married and try to live with someone you love that you're not related to for the rest of your life.

The only time I had roommates was in college, like most people.  Freshman year I lived with Becky who annoyed the crap out of me because most people annoy the crap out of me.  She was adorable and petite, played on the tennis team, and had a boyfriend named Chris who she called, "Chwith" in what she thought was endearing lovey-dovey babytalk, but actually probably got her closer to being murdered than she's ever been; and got me closer to being a murderer than I've ever been (up to that point.)

She got up at the buttcrack of dawn every day and proceeded to open the drawers (which were on noisy rollers) on her desk and her dresser more often than you'd think drawers could possibly need to be opened.  I counted one morning and from the time she got up at asscrack o'clock, and the time I got up at around 8:00, she opened a drawer 109 times.  She almost died that day too.  We had our beds bunked because I had to get as far away from her as I possibly could get so I'd come home and climb up to the top bunk and ignore her.  That didn't stop her from grabbing the bed post and shaking it and yelling, "Come down from there!  Let's do something!" and "I'm SO HYPER!" and "I'm tho exthited, CHWITH ith coming!" which made me fantasize about swinging my leg in a giant arc and kicking her in the face. Towards the end of that year I was in a real conundrum because although I could barely stand to look at her face, she got a car and I desperately needed to be driven around.  It was a yellow Bronco and she named it "Toto."  (cringe cringe shudder) Also, her go-to phrase for any situation that was less-than desirable was "Oh.  That sucks donkey cocks," which made me visualize human-on-donkey fellatio every time she said it, no matter what I did to try to avoid it.

We got along for the most part because I realize that I'm probably equally annoying to live with and I really held it in and was civil.  So was she.  We don't keep in touch.

The next year I lived with Michelle, who drove me nuts, but I couldn't help but love her despite her stupid boyfriend, and the fact that she never once changed her sheets, and that everything in the room was shellacked to their surfaces with her hairspray, including every single sunflower seed shell she opened, (which were tens of thousands.) We had fun.  She only lasted one semester and then she moved out.  I thought I was going to have my room to myself, but Nicole moved in.  She was in the army reserves and was pretty cool, but I wanted to live alone so bad that when the first Gulf War happened a couple weeks after she moved in, I found myself shamefully wishing she'd be called to active duty.  I know I'm a horrible person, but I really really wanted the room to myself.  The only things Nicole did that were annoying was 1. Make me race home at lunchtime every day so I could watch All My Children before she could get home and turn the tv on to watch Days of Our Lives, and 2.  Although she was a sophomore in college, she was dating a high school loser who came to visit her one weekend.  They went out somewhere and I stayed home and was doing laundry.  I went down to switch loads over and they came back.  I was obviously somewhere close by because our room light was on, the door was open, my shoes were there, and the tv was on.  When I came back up to the room about 15 minutes after I left, the door was shut and the lights were off and before I knew what I was seeing (which was pasty highschooler ass humping my roommate in MY ROOM) I was in an uncomfortable situation with a couple of naked strangers.  I hated college then.

 Suitemates:  Weirdo Michelle, Goose, Nicole the Peder and me, the cool one in the acid washed jeans.

We lived in suites so we shared a bathroom with another room.  My suitemates bugged me too.  One was Weird Michelle and the other was ... I don't even remember.  I called her Goose (to myself) because she looked like a goose.  Goose was pretty nice, but Michelle was super weird (hence the nickname "Weird Michelle").  She liked to come in my room and tell me long drawn out stories about riding in the wake of her brother's apparent coolness and the whole time she was talking she'd be methodically circling her hands into gestures of repeated downward points.  It was mesmerizing.  I think Goose must have had a boyfriend with an apartment because she wasn't there much.  Sometimes I'd have to get up in the middle of the night to pee, and I had to walk past their door to get to the bathroom.  No matter what time of night it was, Weirdo Michelle was up with all the lights on and she was usually standing in the middle of the room watching TV.  Sit down, for god's sake.  When she spotted me she would startle and jump like I was coming after her with a chain saw.  (I wasn't)

After that I switched schools (but none of my credits did) and I lived with friends for a while instead of random strangers, and then with a boyfriend who I was engaged to but he broke up with me, and my friends told me it was because he was gay.  Like actually homosexual, which they said was blatantly obvious to everyone but me.  I believed them and didn't feel so bad for being dumped.  I ran into him a few years ago and he's married with three kids. I wonder if his poor wife knows he's gay. But that's another post for another day.

Letter to my 16 year-old self

I've read a few blogs with this as the title today, so I decided to get in on the action.  That, and I can't think of anything else to write about.  I'm feeling booooooorrrrriiiiiiiinnnnggggg.  The last thing you want to read is a post by a blogger who can't even stand to be in the same room with herself because she's so boring.  I need to do something exciting, like getting arrested, or intravenous drug use.  At least one of those things would be good for blogging.  I don't know if I'd blab too much about using heroin because then you'd all be like, "Hey!  Where can I get some heroin?  I want to try heroin!  Why didn't you ask me to try heroin with you!" and that would totally harsh my buzz.  Actually, as great as I think heroin might be (because what is there that comes out of Afghanistan that isn't great, am I right?) I've seen movies where people do it and then throw up.  I'd rather not do heroin if it means throwing up.  And I hate shots so, strike one and strike two, Heroin!  I almost throw up just by having blood drawn so I would be a terrible intravenous drug user.  See what I mean?  I'm boring. 

Anyway, back to the topic at hand.

Dear 16 year-old Sarah,

Stop looking at me with such disdain.  I'm you 24 years into the future.  What's that?  No, I'm not sixty.  It's a relatively simple math problem and either you're really that bad at math, or you're just a little bitch. (it's both) Leave me alone and listen for five minutes!  I've come to make your life easier.  Geez.

On the topic of personal grooming, first and foremost - stop getting perms.  They aren't cool.  You look foolish and years from now when people look at the pictures of you from these times, they will laugh and laugh.  I'm sorry, but that's true.  Your hair is the butt of many a joke, past and present.  It will never be thick and full and Fawcett-ish so give it up and save yourself some heartache. 

Secondly, blue eyeliner is a mistake.  So is green or any other color that isn't dark brown or black.  I don't care if all the other girls are wearing it.  It looks bad on them too.  Especially the pink.  Who wants to look like an albino rabbit?  You know what?  Forget eyeliner altogether.  You don't really need it.  Seriously.  And rethink the green contact lenses.  You're not fooling anyone.  Nobody has eyes that color. 

Nextly, stop pegging the pants. 

a pegged pant

You are short with short legs.  Face the facts.  Pegging your pants accentuates your shortness and your skininess of ankle (which will be prone to spraining.)  It's not a good look.  It makes you look like a diamond (in shape, not in radiance), or an ice cream cone.  For that matter, take a good look at your body and learn to love it because for the most part, you won't be able to change it. (And it looks as good as it will ever get right now.) You will never be willowy, or tall, or long-of-leg, or breathtakingly beautiful.  Stop worrying about it.  You're not hideous, you're average and that's just fine.  It could be worse; think about that girl at school nicknamed Blueberry and be thankful that isn't you.

On the topic of relationships, DUMP YOUR BOYFRIEND LES!  He's a psycho and you can do better.  Soon he will tell you his big dreams of being a professional wrestler and you will be in too deep to get out gracefully.  Get out now.  TODAY!  And while we are on the topic, destroy all pictures of the two of you together because for years to come your sisters and parents will laugh hysterically at the one of him sweeping you into his arms and kissing you on the lips in front of the cameras when you go to Snoball with him.  Also, by dumping him now you will avoid having his psycho future girlfriend/wife stalk you when you are in college, and instead of doing a private investigation to bust her (And a damn good private investigation at that.  Thank you very much, answering-machine tape.) as your stalker, you can spend your precious time studying.  Or whatever. 

You know that guy, Mat, who is new at school?  Well, he has a brother who lives in the Cities, and you will marry him.  No, You shut up!  (I'm sorry, you will not ever marry Joe Elliot from Def Leppard.  Let that dream die.) It's a pretty good marriage except for one thing.  The first time you meet him is during junior year at a New Year's Eve party.  Here's a tip, don't go out on New Year's of your junior year.  You will eventually meet your future hubby anyway, and it would be nice to be able to tell your future children the story of your first encounter that doesn't go: "We met at a party where I was incredibly drunk and got into a fistfight." 

You won't marry him until your late 20s and you will have lots of boyfriends in the meantime.  I'm not going to tell you all about them, but I will tell you this:  Don't fall for it when a guy says to you, "How about just the tip?" or "Let's just put it in once." Those are ubiquitous phrases on the landscape of teen/twenties dating and if you have to be cajoled, it's not worth worrying about birth control and pregnancy and disease.  And plus, anyone who uses those phrases is a lame-o.  He's probably also the one who tells you about "blue balls." FYI - that's not real. 

Be nicer to your friends.  Especially Jackie.  And your parents aren't nearly as stupid as they seem right now (but how could they possibly be, right?)

On the topic of academics.  Lose the "fuck this" attitude when it comes to computer class.  I know it sucks to try to write a program to make a line drawing of Santa say "ho ho ho" on a Commodore 128, and it doesn't seem like it's worth even one hour of your time, much less the hundreds of hours you unsuccessfully spent on it.  Try harder.  Computers figure prominently in the future.  Take more math classes and don't revel in being bad at math.  It's not funny to be so incredibly stupid.  I know it sucks, but power through! Someday your seventh grade son (no, you shut up!) will totally humiliate you when he asks for help with his homework and you don't have a clue how to do it.  Avoid that.  It's uncomfortable and humbling.  Take a chemistry class, even though it's really stinky in that room.  You might learn something! 

Get a lot more education when you go to college.  Being a teacher is fun and all, but for the most part, it's a shitty job.  The pay sucks, the administrators don't care about you, the parents are mostly nice but that fact is overshadowed by the crazies, and the field never "breaks wide open!" like your college teachers say it will.  The economy goes in the shitter so teachers hang on to their jobs like grim death, even in the face of being the societal scapegoats for all that goes wrong in the world.  Go into something computer related.  You'll like it, I promise!  Learn about "social networking" via the "internet."  If you get on the ground floor of that, you will be rich rich rich!  Don't ever work for Lehman Brothers, but AIG would be okay.  Get one of those jobs with the sweet bonus packages. 

Those are the highlights of what I have to tell you.  I'm sure there is more, but I can't have you avoiding all your mistakes, that would just make you more boring than you already are.  Oh, sorry, when you're 40 you get boring. Try to avoid that.  But don't do heroin.

And stay away from Cheez-its and pita chips.  They are like heroin to you and they make for uncomfortable and tight, surprisingly gas-producing pants.  Yeah, you're forty and farty.  Prepare yourself.   I have to rush off right now to catch the rocket to my vacation home in the moon colony.  Be good!  Have Fun!  

Love,
Your 2010 Self

p.s. Your parents know about Jonelle's and your wine-cooler hiding spot behind the shed.  Just a head's up. 

Down

I'm feeling a bit blue because I'm coming down from such a fantastic trip to Washington D.C.  You know how that is, you look forward to something for so long and once it's over it's like "Oh crap, it's over."  I really love Washington.  I think I could live there. 

I'm also a little bit depressed about the election.  I hate politics so much.  I'm depressed because our representative, Jim Oberstar, a POWERFUL Democrat with lots of seniority got beat by a guy who seems pretty normal (in his commercials), but I listened to a debate and he told lies about how Oberstar was trying to "federalize" every field that has water on it at any time during the year by calling it a wetland, and taking it out of state control and putting it in federal control under the umbrella of the Clean Water Act.  Just a bald-faced lie/scare tactic and that depresses the shit out of me. 

And I shoveled a bunch of bullshit snow off the deck today.  SNOW!!!

Now nothing is on TV so Mitch and I are watching a weird show with Kirk Cameron telling the secrets to more effective street-evangelizing.  Like giving people million dollar bills with the Lord's message on the back.  He says to give them to waiters.  Then the waiters are all, "Hey, thanks! Wait a minute, what the fuck is this bullshit million dollar bill?  I'm totally spitting in your food if you ever come here again."  Kirk didn't say that's what the waiters would do, but I've been a waiter(ess) and that's what I'd do if someone gave me an evangelizing fake-million-dollar-bill instead of an actual tip.

That's about it for now, Peeps.  The rest of the week I'll be in a third grade class.  That should be fun. 

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! In honor of the holiday I'm posting pics of people I know dressed up, not necessarily on Halloween.

Halloween circa 1979, Beth is the bunny, Amy is the witch and I'm the Klan member.  Actually I was a ghost but for some reason the eye holes wouldn't stay put (might have had something to do with the giant glasses) so my mom tied a cord around my neck.  Don't know how to explain away the point.

Amy and my dad and some faceless penguin in front of their giant egg.

Amy and Beth dressed up as ballerinas for a dance recital.  Can you believe they were in dance?????? (CLOMP CLOMP CLOMP)

Sam as Harry Potter.  Wield that wand, Boy!

My kids being HILARIOUS.

Beth wearing her baby's hat.

Me dressed as a dork for Snoball, "89.  No, I'm not wearing a beret.  That's just my hair.

 Us three girls dressed up for an skating show.  Amy's a flower, I'm part of a rainbow, and Beth is a KKKlan member.  Or a crayon. 

This oldie but goodie.

I tried to make the "burkini" take off, but to no avail.  Don't make any sassy comments about "fat"wa, because I've already thought of it and now you won't seem clever.

Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear

Today was the day of the big rally so we left Amy's around mid morning thinking the ride on the Metro would be maybe a little busier than usual, but totally do-able in a reasonable amount of time.  We got to our regular station and there was a line about a mile long.  We couldn't believe it.  We met some ladies who were from Michigan who were also going to the rally and they said, "Are you ladies going to the rally?" and again, my uncle was all, "What The HELL?" He doesn't look like a lady to us. Does he look like a lady to you?  Here's a picture:

 Just kidding.  That's not him.  That's Bea Arthur.  Here he is for real:

That's him on the right.  ....... No, the RIGHT!

So we drove a few stations up hoping it would be less crowded, and it was slightly less crowded, but still unbelievable.  Here look:

 

That's a LOT of people.  We kept telling my uncle that we were going to pinch the butt of the lady right in front of him so she'd think he did it.  He didn't want us to do that.

We got to the Mall and there was oh, soooo many people.  We couldn't get anywhere near the stage, or even one of the jumbotrons to see what was going on, and we could barely hear what was going on.  It was hard to stay together in such a big crowd so Amy and I took off on our own and went to the National Archives while the Roots were playing on stage.  The Roots are good and all, but like I said, it was Crow-DED!

The Archives were not crowded, in fact, they were practically empty and I got to use an entire bathroom all to myself.  It was fantastic (and now I can say that something of mine is in the National Archives.)  Then we went to look at the documents.  We were looking at the Declaration of Independence and I was in awe that I was actually looking at it, and Amy said, "Wow.  They used really big paper back then.  Like, really big paper."

After that we went back outside and found a hot dog vendor and got a hot dog and then decided to cross the Mall to check out the rally and head over to the American History Museum.  We got trapped in a bottleneck of crowd about right here:


It was MILES away from the stage and we couldn't really hear anything but it was literally impossible to get any closer because of the tightly packed crowd.  We fought against the crowd, an ambulance, some police on horses (I almost got trampled by a horse and only have my fear and my ability to make my arms incredibly stiff to thank for saving my life) and after about an hour we made it to the other side of the mall and then, and only then, did I consult my trusty map to find out where the American History Museum was.  It was on the other side of the Mall.  Kind of right by the hot dog stand where we got hot dogs an hour before.  I thought Amy might strangle me.  We crossed over a few blocks away from the rally, and walked down to the end of the Mall and then walked in not-so-crowded crowds to the American History Museum where we saw lots of cool stuff, like this:

 

That, ladies and gentlemen, is George Washington's military uniform.  The one that he wore to pose for portraits.  

Lincoln's actual stovepipe hat that he last wore at Ford's Theater.  (and we all know how that turned out!)

And Kermit the Frog.  Amy said she thought he was much bigger than he is.  We also saw Archie Bunker's chair, Carol Burnett's Gone With The Wind dress, and Dorothy's ruby slippers.  (jealous?)  Then we went and looked at the gallery of First Lady inaugural dresses.  We were a little disappointed to discover that the only dress that would probably fit us was Barbara Bush's dress.  And it was so ugly I wouldn't wear it even if I had the chance (cat sound!).  

Then we met up with my aunt and uncle again and tried to find a place to get a beer but every bar within a mile of the Mall was packed like sardines, so we just came back to Amy's, ordered a pizza, and watched the rally, which Amy had recorded.  It was very good.  Here are the highlights:

The stage

Stephen Colbert in a Captain America costume complete with cape.

Stephen Colbert in star pants, a flag sweater, and cowboy boots.

Stephen Colbert high-fiving a giant puppet of Stephen Colbert.

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert having a debate.  

There was other stuff too, but if you want to know about it you are going to have to watch it on Comedy Central or CSPAN or something because what am I?  Your personal reporter on the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear?  No, I'm not.  Do your own homework. 

Smuggler

I got an email from Mitch tonight telling me how things are going without me.  Here it is:

I took Sam and Andy to the dance; pretty funny.  Kira and I just hung out and shopped during.  She told me if she were to steal drugs she would try to look like she was from Mexico and put the drugs in maracas and then be like, "Hey I'm in a band."  (she thinks all drugs are pills, I guess).  I have never heard a worse plan for anything, ever.  It's so bad on every level that I just said "Sounds good to me!"

Night Out In the Big City

My aunt and uncle (who is obviously male, beard and all) came to Washington today because they want to go to the Jon Stewart rally with us tomorrow.  It's going to be so fun! (unless the crowd gives me a panic attack).  Tonight we went out to a nice place for dinner and we were sitting in a booth and the waitress came up and said, "Hi!  Girl's night out?" which of course, made my sister, my aunt and me almost die laughing which embarrassed the poor waitress and made my uncle be all, "What the hell?"  and then my aunt tried to explain it away by saying that she probably said it because she just saw three girls and he has "girly hair," which made us laugh again and she said, "I SAID CURLY HAIR!"  which made us laugh harder.  (I think they might be getting sick of us already.)

Then Amy told us a story about how she was waiting in a park one day for her friend to get off work and a man came up to her and said, "Do you need something to eat?" and she thought he was hitting on her or something and she turned around and said, "Uh... No?" and then he said, "Okay, just want to make sure everyone in the park gets something to eat today," and then she realized that he thought she was homeless.  I am still laughing about that.  I can't stop.  I mean, it's one thing for someone to mistake you for someone they think looks like you, but to take a good look at you and think you are homeless?  Well, let me tell you, when that happens to your sister, it is HILARIOUS.

Tourist

I went on a six hour guided tour today.  It was a bus/walking tour of D.C. with a lunch cruise on the Potomac.  It was Awesome!  Here's the highlights:

Ben Franklin waved to me. 

"Hi Ben!"

Our tour guide, Dion, who I love and he loves me back, in front of the capitol building.

A professional tourist.  I thought I looked like a nerdy tourist with my backpack and my map but this lady has me beat.  I never even thought of a brown velour sweatsuit and over-glasses-sunglasses WITH NO GLASSES UNDERNEATH.  Well played, lady.  Well played.

Guess where!

WWII Memorial

President Obama in Marine 1.  I'm not even kidding.*  I saw him get on.

 President Jefferson.  He was a GIANT.

This lady came all the way from Kansas to get bit by a big-city squirrel.  

Watch out, Phyllis!  The laser-eyed killer wants more chips!

Hope your rabies shots go okay!

This is FDR.  He was one of our greatest presidents.  He got us out of the Depression, started Social Security, and (not a lot of people know this about him) he was also the Green Hornet.

Giant Abe

Forrest Gump Pool

Super depressing Vietnam Memorial

If you don't stay on the sidewalk you are dishonoring people who died for our country. 

And if you walk on my lawn you make the Baby Jesus cry.

This is the heaviest flagpole in the world.

After my tour I went to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History to go on the "Night at the Museum II" tour.  Just kidding.  They don't have that.  (I checked.) 

Nobody was talking about the elephant in the room.

AAAAAHHHHHH!

This fanged-deer was in the Hall of Joke Animals along with the Easter Bunny and Snuffalupagus.

This bronze caveman is handing me some bronze meat and I can see his bronze penis.

Early golf

This is a crocheted reef.  Yeah, a crocheted reef.  Ding ding.

 I wanted to see the Hope Diamond.  And then I saw it and I was like, "Big whoop."

AAAAAHHHHH!!!

So that was my day.  Busy.  I really crammed a lot of stuff in today.  It was so fun!  Tomorrow Michelle Obama and I are going out to lunch at Panera Bread. 

*I'm kidding