From One Holiday To The Next

We had a fantastic and busy Thanksgiving. A little drama going into the weekend (broken doggie, broken car that can't get from TN to NC) but much fun was had when we finally got everyone in one place. Here are a few of my favorite pics from the holiday:

The ten of us in the "immediate" family.

The extended family of choice.

And then just the kids. Do you have any idea how hard it is to take a picture of kids like ours? They wiggle and squirm, look in random directions, crack a joke or turn to laugh at the one who did, and some of them make jazz hands (cute of the 4 year old) or text (not so cute of the 16 year old!) That's the Ninja Princessa there on the left, then Chaos (texting), Bug (eyes open in a picture which is a MIRACLE), then another almost-son Justin, with Mayhem in the hat, Havoc in the button down, and finally C is for Coffee & Salsa Man's two kiddos in front. I miss them all so much! (Well - except for Bug who's in the other room and the Princessa who is a half a mile away at school. Them I can squeeze any time I need to.)

The big December news is that Bet and I have signed up for a half ironman triathlon. We plan to swim 1.2 miles, bike 56 miles, and then run 13.1 miles - all in less than 9 hours. Not until November - but I'm still freaking out about it a bit. Excited. Nervous. Excited.

Peace to everyone!

Frankendoggie

Our fluffy dog tried to run face first through a floor to ceiling window. Our windows are apparently original to our house - built in 1955 - which means he did not charge into safety glass. Poor, sliced up puppy! He has stitches on his face and both paws. He has to put up with being a conehead for a few weeks but eventually he'll be just fine. He'll even have a cool Harry Potter scar to show off to all his dog buddies.

In Which Translation Occurs (Sort Of)

Lilymania needs an update. Bad. I thought I'd go out and find a cool new template to celebrate three years here in the blogosphere. (Three years!) Of course I managed to find the perfect template - on a technical blogging page that's all in SPANISH. (I have always wanted to learn Spanish, but so far all I've managed to get is a little Russian, some French, and a smattering of Italian and Latin. The last two help a teeny bit with the Spanish but not nearly enough to translate a page about widgets and templates!) Then I noticed a handy dandy translator button off in the margin. (You see where this is going, right?) Who is in charge of this stuff?!! Here is a sample of what I got:

I think ofreceros free, as always, several designs of pagination so that you prune to unload them and to install them without problems… You have a little patience.

One forgot to me. . . You can see a sample working in the main page of my blog, right under the entrances or posts, you puncture Here.

Errr, yeah. That was helpful. (Not.) I particularly like the pruning to unload and the instruction to "puncture here". You have a little patience indeed! Well, I'm out of patience, friends. For the nonce, Lilymania remains the same. Oh - and Bet and I are off to Philly tomorrow to see Madonna in concert. Chances are I won't be blogging until we get back. (Shall I say "so much for NaBlo" once more? :P ) Peace.

In Which I Fail But Refuse To Worry Much

Ok - NaBlo is a flat out bust for me. I don't think I've hit the every other day mark, much less the every day mark. Bug turned 18 - EIGHTEEN - on Friday. Saturday I spent quilting - having borrowed a machine from a friend. Saturday night Ninja Princessa and I went to see High School Musical 3. Sunday I embellished a quilt journal page while I watched football. It was a FABULOUS day in football land. Yay for my Titans! Undefeated! Bet's Dolphins won; our Colts won and even though the Redskins lost to the Cowboys last night - I'm still coasting on some serious pigskin induced happiness. I'll try to post pictures tomorrow (of the birthday party and quilting - not so much of the football.) :D Peace.

You Know Your Daughter Loves You When...

The other night the Ninja Princessa had a dream that I died. Sure, some smarty pants psychologist could make a case for the Princessa working out her anger at her evil step-mother by killing her off in a dream but I choose to see it as proof positive that I am well and truly loved. I offer my evidence thusly:

Point 1 - Apparently my funeral was a huge success. Fabulous people (including none other than Lorelai and Rory Gilmore) came to say how sorry they were and to offer the Princessa their deepest sympathies. (Now you may not be the Gilmore Girls fanatic that we are so you may not realize what a testament that is to my beloved state - but take my word for it. When the hippest, most articulate and beautiful mother-daughter duo attends your funeral, it's a good sign.)

Point 2 - After my funeral, our whole family moved into the house of my dreams (the Twykham House in Stars Hollow) and the Princessa was sad that I was, you know, dead and couldn't enjoy it so she had my grave moved to the back yard. Yep - they took my dead, mouldering self with them!!

Point 3 - (And this is the kicker.) Not long after the move, I rose from the grave and shuffled back into their lives - ZOMBIFIED!! Me. A zombie! How utterly cool is that?! (You do have to get past the relentless, brain eating, putridness of the zombie archetype and move on to the "wow, my children think about zombies more than they think about anything else in the whole wide world" aspect to see this as a sign of love and devotion, but I am there.) Remembered, resurrected (reanimated, whatever) - I am SO loved. The undead step-mom. There is no higher pinnacle of my children's esteem to which I aspire. Just saying.

Frustrations In Fabric

I took my pile o'charm squares (that I showed a couple of posts ago) and sorted the browns and neutrals into a "coffee and cream" theme. What else would you do for a friend you call C is for Coffee? But it was too blah. I needed something to pop it out. Something I had a lot of. (Turns out that not as many people participated in the brown and neutral months of the swap. Without another color C is for Coffee's lap quilt wasn't going to cover her lap!) I thought about what our coffee dates are about - how we celebrate our families and life triumphs together, how we dream, how we chase the blues away by being friends and talking. As I was thinking my hands were sorting out the aqua and blue squares. Hmmm. Ok. That looks kind of cool! Then I started making nine patches. I love nine patches the way I love log cabin squares and flying geese. They are the epitome of the traditional quilt look in my mind, but you can do so many interesting things with them.

Here is a fantastic quilt blog I found where I got the idea for what to do with my nine patches (i.e. how to slice them and reassemble them). She does a MUCH better job of the step by step documentation. I got so excited about cutting my squares up that I forgot to take pictures.
<---Here is the layout I used. It's sort of random but it's also symmetrical. So far so good! (Well except that several of the charm squares I most wanted to use were 5 3/4 " instead of 6". A couple were bizarrely cut on the bias instead of square on the weave. I guess whoever was cutting lined her ruler up with the print and not the actual fabric? That is the problem with a charm square swap. Not everyone is on the same page. One of the ancient ladies in my guild swap cut all of her charm squares with scissors and templates. Forty squares every month. It probably took her the whole month to do it! She doesn't trust rotary cutters. We all have our own quirks, don't we. I try to be compassionate about it. Those squares I wanted to use so badly? I think I'll make a coaster out of one of them to give with the quilt.)
This is what the top looks like all assembled and hanging on my makeshift (<---ha ha ha - the first time I typed that I left out the 'f'!) design wall. (Please ignore the half built glass wall - it's a work in progress too.) I bought a very soft (plush even) backing fabric (totally forgetting that it wouldn't be quite so snuggly when it was quilted - er, still working on that.) I got the whole thing layered and sandwiched. (<-- Which I do with a Dritz basting gun because safety pins are too laborious to put in and obnoxious to take out in the middle of machine quilting; I gouge myself when I try to use straight pins the way Ruth McDowell does; and hand basting is NEVER going to make sense to me.)

I made a few muslin squares to work out my coffee mugs and cup designs on. I limbered up my fingers on those and threw in some bonus practice stippling. I laid out my pictures, made my chalk marks. Perfect. Everything was set. I was ready to machine quilt! I love machine quilting. Rather, I did. This morning it has been a mess of broken threads, tangled bobbin stitches, and deformed shapes that don't even qualify for my beloved "folk art" label. I am so frustrated I want to scream. It is probably something to do with my bobbin tension, but I'm sick of trying to figure it out and too scared to muck about with it too much for fear of ruining all the adjustments. I am out of patience for the ratio of three minutes of stitching to 8 minutes of detangling and rethreading. I'm tired of switching thread colors based on which one works best in the machine instead of which one works best with the design. Grrrrr. I'm taking a coffee break to try to get in better space. Do you think they make a "Zen Patience" flavor creamer?

Thank You Veterans!

I am grateful for anyone who has ever served our country. But I'm also whiny because the Princessa and I were counting on our Netflixed disk arriving today - which it did not because there is no mail service. Instead I went fabric shopping. I have five - count them - FIVE quilt projects I'm in the middle of. Er, well to be honest, one is at the middle stage the other four are at the "Oooh this fabric is pretty and fun" stage. One is getting sandwiched and chalked tomorrow. <--That is assuming I can lift my arms tomorrow. Bet, Linus, and I are doing this crazy thing called the 100 Push Ups Challenge and I did 46 of those suckers today. Ouchie kabowchie. However sore, floppy, noodle arms or not - this quilt is the one that has to be completely done, washed, dried, and wrapped up with a pretty bow next week for one of my dearest pals C is for Coffee. Send me some good quilty vibes! Peace.

It Is SUCH A Monday

I have a whole list of things I must do today - important things - boring things. I don't want to do any of them. I am incredibly hungry. We have plenty of food in the house - boring food. I don't want to eat any of it. What I want is to ignore the world, read my book, and eat sushi for breakfast. Sigh. If anyone needs me I'll be at either the pharmacy, dry cleaner's or the bank. A Monday can only last so long, right?

In Case You Were Wondering

If you hear someone in Lilyville say something very, very weird, you can almost always blame it on Mr. Izzard. Hence my saying "Cheese blat, cheese blat...LARGE hair net!" to my family recently.

Charming Day

I have a quilt to make for my dear friend (C is for Coffee) whose birthday is right after Thanksgiving. I've wanted to do one for her for years and this is the year. She and her family are driving 500 miles (and bringing three of our children with her) for the holiday. I want to do something extra special for her. The parameters are that I have two weeks and must not buy any new fabric. Hmmmmm. Here's where the pile o'charm squares comes in!

Also on today's slate - a haircut. First time since June! Exciting stuff. Still, a post's a post, right? Peace.

Daily, Meaning What Exactly?

Well dang! Totally rocky start. Every day was supposed to be every day? I've double blown it - starting late AND skipping. But it's either go on imperfectly or quit, right? Year Two - and still flawed. Maybe third time's the charm for me and NaBlo. Still, rather than quit, here's some catch up:

Rock the Vote: Election Day was long - about a 22 hour day for me. I worked at the precinct and LOVED every minute of it. We had an unbelievable 73% turnout. (That is roughly twice our usual turnout for a general election.) After our polls closed and we got our precinct reported and squared away, it was off to a returns party. I have said it elsewhere but I'll say a bit of it here. I am energized and hopeful and so grateful for the outcome in my state's and our country's presidential elections. I also completely understand that there are those who feel otherwise. I was a blue girl in a deeply red state for far too long not to empathize with the fearful and disappointed looks on some of the faces around me. I will do what I can (little though that feels like) not to fuel any rancor from partisan divides. I hope that showing this cute picture of the Ninja Princessa and her friend Ki in their Election Night gear will fall on the side of the line that is "tasteful celebrating" not "gloating". (Although since Ki kept referring to her temporary tattoo as a "tramp stamp", I'm not sure the word tasteful applies.)

Remember, remember the fifth of November: Yesterday I spent the day trying to catch up on sleep and household chores. We had a family movie night watching, what else but V for Vendetta.

On the slate for today: I'm still playing catch up! I had meant this post to be quick and do something fun with my profile but five interruptions later I'm thinking my plans were overly ambitious. There's always tomorrow though, eh? Peace.

PS - Hello to my NaBlo friends from last year! Good to be back and can't wait to get a chance to visit everyone!

November First Already?

I had still have plans - big plans for NaBlo this year - like maybe updating my blog, making new friends, filling in some significant blanks! I know, I know - I'm two days late but I was in Appalachia where there was zero connectivity (or cell phone service or fast food - not that I missed the fast food.) I'm just going to blog for a whole month starting today. I'm not in it for the prizes anyway. But... I'm on my way to help set up our precinct for Election Day and tomorrow I'll be there for 14+ hours. Sigh. Why is NaBloPoMo in November? Oh, wait. It's not. It's all year long now, isn't it. Dang - no excuses. How about this - missed start, a drive by blogging on day two - I'll be a less-than-perfect NaBlo person in all my glory. Peace!

First Day Of School

I can't wait to post the back to school pics! The kids slipped right back into the routine. They're all going back to the same schools as last year which start at the same time and it was all just...smooth! They were happy/nervous/excited but not high strung. Which is amazing considering that there is so much stress here I think my head might explode. The Princessa has been home for two weeks; the boys only five days. Not much time to readjust simply to being back home* much less to get ready for a new school year. And the trial - the custody trial - is this week. Thursday. Back in Tennessee. I found out three weeks ago the date had been set back in April but no one had remembered to tell me. I found out waaaay too late to protest that it was about the most disruptive week possible. I can't blog any more about that because I will spew and I won't stop for hours. Mr. Tapioca is ludicrous in a tragic, horrifying, stunningly stupid way.

I have just erased three paragraphs sketching out his most recent irrational behavior with a few of his unbelievable hypocrisies thrown in. I told you. Spew happens. Lucky for you, somewhere along the way God invented the delete key!

I've missed blogging here and maybe after Thursday I can be back. You know, on a more or less normal blogging schedule. I am hopeful (see me hoping, hoping, hoping!!!) it will be safe to write without being swamped by Tapioca nastiness every time I open my computer. Thursday. Please think of us and send good mojo out into the world for my sweet (and somewhat wacky) family to stay together. Until then I'll leave you with a classic overheard conversation (shouted back and forth from the kitchen and upstairs) between Chaos (now 16) and Mayhem (now 14):
C: Hey, is the oven on for a reason?
M: No!
M: I mean, yes! Yes it is!
C: (after a long pause in which Chaos waited for details which were not forthcoming, Chaos shouted back - somewhat frustrated) Who's cooking what? Why's it's on?
M: I don't know!
At that point, we (in the library) were laughing too hard to understand Chaos' muttered comments about Mayhem (which is probably a good thing.)
Peace.

*After being gone for nine weeks, they weren't back home for a half an hour before I heard their cheerful voices arguing about exploding intestines and disintegrating spleens. Oh how I missed them!!!

Where Do I Go Now

Hmmmm, May 27th to July 9th is a long time. A lot has happened. Here's some of it:

We enjoyed hanging out all together while we could as school wound down.

The Ninja Princessa turned 13 and started taking martial arts again. (Tae Kwon Do this time, not karate but I'm not changing her name because it just wouldn't have the same ring. )

She got a silver bracelet from her brothers that says, "A sister is a forever friend." (They picked it out!) She almost cried which made them go all boy and start hitting each other to relieve the tension. (They did not put up with hugs.)

I got a hair cut. Woo hoo!

Chaos turned 16 and had a Cthulu tentacle "cake" only someone stole one of the tentacles before I could even take a picture. Boys! I'm sure I should have posted about this earlier too because I won't do it justice here, but Chaos has this new routine that he does about being oppressed because he's a "Ginger". It's a hilarious play on a combination of the red-headed step child being left out and Black Power rhetoric. (NOT to make light of real civil rights struggles. He more or less walks that line carefully.) I'll ask him to take out the trash and he starts in on how it's always the Ginger has to do the unwanted tasks (even though the chores rotate by week and it's his week on the schedule). He's got a couple of red-headed friends at school too that he calls his Brothers In Red. We've made jokes about him being the Ginga Ninja etc, etc. At one of our hilarity infused family dinners, Chaos interrupted a story the Princessa was telling and she interrupted right back saying something like, "Can it Ginger Snap!" We lost it. Hence the "Ginger Snap" on the cake.

Chaos tried to steal my Israeli Paratrooper canvas satchel so I got him one of his own with a skull on it.

Bet went to an oceanography institute for a week and built an underwater ROV (which I will have to get pictures of because it is very cool. She's going to do some great things with her students involving the topics she studied. She's trying to write a grant to get some sextants for her classroom. How cool is that?

We took pictures of the dogs' noses:
Tallulah -

Wasabi -

And Linus had a birthday. Bet and I decided to make it a "theme" birthday. We woke him up with the Secret Agent Man theme song and sent him on "missions" all day long (mostly to get his own birthday presents and to eat). He got clues and maps and had special agent assisting him.

Bet and I were Agent Smith and Agent Smith. We were bad ass. And we got to boss Linus around. It was all kinds of fun. Everyone had to wear X4/GM12 Eco-transponders (i.e. nametages). Agent-In-Training "The Bug" had a cool beetle on his and Agent "Slim Dunk" had a crazy cartoon WWF Wrestler. The evening ended with a party of 12 Special Agents converging on a little Indian restaurant around the corner for dinner. Good times!

There has also been some complete crappiness - mostly involving Mr. Tapioca. The court stuff is ridiculous and the tactics his red neck lawyer employs are stupid. (I hope Mr. Tapioca isn't paying that guy very much. I have yet to receive a document from him that has fewer than five spelling/grammar/punctuation mistakes. Seriously, the last thing I got was a list of questions that weren't even numbered correctly! That doesn't even go into the insanity of the content. I have had such a hard time resisting the urge to post that document here!!!) I think one of the reasons I haven't blogged is because I haven't wanted to spew about it all.

Chaos, Mayhem, and Havoc are all with him for the summer. I get to go visit and have the boys every other weekend. The Princessa is gone for 6 weeks (which used to seem long but is 3 full weeks less than the boys are gone!) Bug is an only child with us for the first time ever. It's a very different dynamic. Bug is still in school - and kicking ass. He's gotten nothing but A's so far! (Chaos finished his semester with straight A's too! The Princessa and Mayhem? Lucky to simply finish the year - especially Mayhem whose attention span was strained to the breaking point with weeks left to tough out! Havoc breezed through but doesn't get letter grades the way the middle and high schoolers do.) Bet is home for the summer and Linus is working from home. It is a summer completely different from any other.

The good news is the triathlon training is going well. We're on track for the San Francisco half marathon in a few weeks. (Our long run this weekend is an 8 miler!) We've already done a "mock tri" the same distance as the olympic distance we're signed up for in September (swim a mile, bike 26 miles, run a 10K) and we did it in less than the cut off time for the course. Since our main goal is to finish, it was a huge confidence booster!

I'm not sure what direction Lilymania is headed. There are some challenges to mommy blogging. It's hard to find the time to blog in the moment when we are in the midst of family activities and it's even harder to blog about my kids when they are all gone for the summer. I've found on my few attempts this summer that those posts come out pretty whiny! And there are only so many cute dog posts I can write. I don't plan on abandoning ship but I'm relatively content to drift aimlessly for a while. Maybe I'll play around with the format and layout and that will spark something - but until then... PEACE!

Weird News Day

You know - there is just some weird shit in the news:
- I do not know (nor do I wish to know!!) how one goes about having sex with a car - or a helicopter for that matter. It also occurs to me to wonder how one would break up with a car. Walk away? Sell it to someone? (Eeeewwwww - can you imagine how gross it would be to realize you'd bought a car from that guy?!!!!!!!!!!)

- Not being a hockey fan, I had never heard of octopi tossing until last week. Although my good buddy Unky Dunky (who is a Predators fan and loathes Detroit) says that in Nashville, sometimes Preds fans respond by tossing catfish on the ice to counteract the Red Wing octopus mojo. Hel-lo! Throwing fishy creatures at each other is bizarre fan behavior. (And the guy in the article, trying to be delicate in talking about the goo on the ice? Cracks me up. 'Cause hockey fans are known for their tender sensibilities and can't handle a full on explanation of why exactly their cephalopod twirling must stop?)

Crazy crap aside - I keep reading the news because sometimes I come across stuff like this that makes my day:
Team Hoyt is incredible. Inclusion is almost as big a deal to me as peace. I should probably have saved this for Father's Day, but it's too wonderful not to pass on.


Peace.

Love This

This was on the car in front of me the other day:

Sportsmanship

If this doesn't make you want to run out and sign your kids up for a team sport, then nothing will. (Grab a hankee before you click!) Peace.

A Whole Bunch Of Chaos

I have mentioned how challenging it can be to take a "good" picture of my almost 16-year old son, Chaos, right? He thinks it's HILARIOUS to pose normally and then make a face right as the camera snaps. He's talented that boy. So here he is practicing some of his favorite looks.

Here he is going for either Rob Zombie or a serial killer.

He's laughing because he just stuck his face RIGHT into the lens and said, "Fisheye!"

Then he got mad because I erased a picture. I said, "Your mouth was open and your eyes were almost closed. That one was terrible!" He said, "That was my stoner look. I thought it was funny. You should have kept it." I said, "Your stoner look?! I don't want you to have a stoner look! Ever! How do you know what stoners look like anyway?" He rolled his eyes at me and said, "I go to high school, mom. Sheesh." Then he said I could take one more picture and he would be good. The one below is what he considers good.

I finally caught him in the middle of an important PS3 mission where he was too busy to pull a Calvin on me. I love these two pictures, because this is what he really looks like (even if he'd rather you thought he looked scary like the first picture.)

Peace.

Photo Mania

Mayhem - did I tell you he's back on restriction? Yeah, FOUR D's on a progress report will do that to you. Good thing he's cute, eh?

Bug wanted to dye his hair black. It's a little blue and kind of elfin, but I think those are pluses in his book. He got A+'s in both of his classes! Yay! We like adult high school!

Wasabi says, "Where are mah eyes?"

Tallulah says, "Treats please!"

Kira says, "But I'm not even yours!"

The Ninja Princessa says, "Yay! I'm off restriction! I can play video games for the first time since February!"

Action shot of Havoc. And a close up of the dimple.

Linus on the porch with a look of "Quoi?"

Bet from faaaaaar away. Obviously I hadn't figured out the zoom yet.

Chaos being Calvin (will post more in this series tomorrow because they are pretty funny) and also him snuggling with Tallulah on my bed.

The kids brought me tortellini in bed (b/c I don't like breakfast foods). They were cute and silly and I love them to bits!!

Guess what I got for Mother's Day?? (And if you didn't guess cute pink camera then dude, what's wrong with you?) Peace.

One Grateful Mom

It is hard for me to come up with words intense enough to express my gratitude for my family. I treasure my own mother and I adore my five children. Even on the toughest days, I don't lose sight of how blessed I am to have them all. (If I ever do sound like I've forgotten to count my blessings - feel free to kick me in the shins. Hard.)

This week I have inadvertently stumbled upon the blogs of two separate families whose stories, while wrenching and tragic, are being told with honesty and grace. I cannot imagine the trust it takes in the world to open yourself so wide in grief. I am humbled by their willingness to stay connected. This weekend (and pretty much from now on) my heartfelt prayers will go out to the families of Susan and Liz. Peace.

I've Never Been Called For Jury Duty But...

Guess who spent 15 hours in a room without windows telling people where to put their ballots on Tuesday? Honestly, it was a fantastic experience. I was totally jazzed about being part of the voting process. (I single handedly saved at least one ballot from total obscurity. "Ma'am that's a trash can. If you want your vote counted you have to feed your ballot into that machine right over there. Yes. That one with the big sign. See the arrows? Yes. That one.") It was exciting to see folks I knew. More than a dozen people waved and called me by name as they came through. I could feel my tendrils unfurling as I let myself take root in this community. My fellow poll workers were an interesting mix: a rabbi, a blue-collar lesbian, a retired Coca-Cola Co. executive*, a 20 year-old college student studying to be an elementary school teacher, and a well-dressed woman in her fifties who seemed uptight at first but who turned out to be witty, organized, and quite kind. (Her two kids brought her coffee mid-morning. The two of them were tattooed, pierced, skinny in an 80's hair band kind of way, and when they walked in, she LIT UP. They gave her a big hug and she beamed for about 10 minutes after they left. It was pretty remarkable to see a complete stranger morph like that. I don't know if it was the coffee or the thoughtfulness of her kids (or the combo) but she was much more easy-going for the rest of the day.)

It was a long day. We were required to be there from the set up through the official poll closing/clean up procedures. We all brought our lunches and snacks and only left the room to go to the restroom. It was a busy day, as you'd expect given the democratic primary race thus far. I had expected clumps of voters, long lines at times and dull moments at others, but we were steady all day. The veteran poll workers assured me that we had an unusually high turnout, especially for a primary, and also that we'd worked out a good system to get folks through the process without big lines. Our precinct was very well run. I think the only people who had to wait at all were the 17 1/2 year olds (because we ran out of ballots for them!) or the few who had issues with their registration. The hundreds of others fairly sailed through. One woman even seemed miffed that she wouldn't have a chance to read her book while waiting! All in all, it was an incredible experience for me. And? I didn't know it when I signed up, but they pay you for it! I have no idea how much - probably not a lot - but maybe enough to take myself out to eat to make up for the lunch and dinner I missed. Peace.

*There's more! You find out all kinds of things about people when you sit and talk to them for 15 hours. This guy turns out to have played in the NFL!!! He played for the Chicago Bears in the early 60's. I was babbling excitedly to Linus about how this guy had played at Lambeau Field. Lambeau! I heard about the icy January game, the field like concrete, and how by the fourth quarter, everyone's pads were frozen solid. This guy described having to get in the showers fully dressed in order to thaw the gear enough to get it off. I recounted it all to Linus who smiled and nodded. Uh-huh. "Do you even know where Lambeau Field is?" I asked. "Texas?" he guessed. "TEXAS?!!!" Linus hugged me and said,"Maybe you should call your surrogate sports husband Duncan for this one, love." So I did. Duncan, at least, was properly impressed.

This same guy also mentioned (when I pulled out my Vanderbilt sweatshirt) that he was going to a family reunion in the Nashville area this summer. He said his nephew had 400 acres. "A farm?" I asked. "Well, kind of. It's over there...not in Brentwood. What's the area close by?" "Franklin?" I suggested dubiously. "Yes! Franklin." "Wow. Four hundred acres in Franklin? What is he, a country music star?" I joked. "Actually, yes," was the reply. "Anyone I've heard of?" "Maybe. You heard of Brad Paisley?" "Er, yeah. I have." But of course Linus hasn't. So I called Duncan again. There you have it - my very Amurican day, chock full of voting, football, and country music stars!

Shunnnn The Non Believer

The phrase "It's a magical liopleurodon" cracks me up every, single, freaking time. Other things guaranteed to make me laugh without fail: MC Hammer's pants and Basil, Neville, and Yorick. I can hear the kids laughing in the other room as they watch This Is Spinal Tap (for the second time today.) We have been laughing together a lot recently - mashing together our own running gags from the comedy we've seen as a family. No doubt we are incomprehensible to outsiders but man, I love hanging out with our crew. Hope everyone's having a good weekend. Peace.

Did I Mention She Was Snoring Too?

Tallulah Rockstar fell asleep with her beloved tennis ball IN HER MOUTH!

I had time to walk into the room, see her on the bed, get my camera out of the bag and take a few pictures before she woke up.

When she woke up, she gave me the evil eye.

Then she spit out the tennis ball and went back to sleep! Weird dog! (But note, she is still snuggling with her tennis ball!)