I just voided three checks in a row. First I wrote down the wrong company name. Then I wrote down the wrong amount in the box, and then I wrote the amount out wrong on the second line. And I almost had to void the check for the next bill I paid as well. Think I'm preoccupied with something?

It could be that this is the week from hell. I'm going to a Super Suppers party tonight. It's a neat concept and the various companies that do it are getting a lot of national press attention. It's a store that offers meal assembly. You choose a menu of six or 12 meals and then move from station to station in the store assembling your meals. Then you take it all home and freeze it. The idea is that you're taking a couple of hours to assemble two week's worth of meals. Each portion serves four people, so I'm doing six meals and dividing them in half. It's supposed to be fun, with the store serving appetizers and wine during your time there. If I like it, I'm thinking of throwing a party myself. But I'm only going to know one person there, and that's kind of stressing me out.

Then Thursday I have to attend a lunch for a colleague who's leaving, then go to an elementary school at 1:30 to read to a bunch of fourth graders (what exactly am I supposed to read to fourth graders?). And that night I have to attend the Journalism Alumni Association mixer.

I have to find a babysitter for Saturday night just in case we do end up with tickets to the Tigers basketball game. I have to be in Southaven Saturday morning for my alterations appointment at David's Bridal. If it turns out that we're not going to the game, then I'm going to leave for McMinnville Saturday afternoon. If we do go to the game, I'm leaving for McMinnville on Sunday morning and coming back here on Monday, sans child, who will be spending the week with his grandparents (it's Spring Break for him next week).

I need to work in an oil change in there somewhere, because I still haven't done that.

Weekend recap:
Mom came for a visit, so that meant shopping. Saturday we drove to Southaven so that I could pick up my bridesmaid's dress, and then we went to a few more stores while we there. World Market is very, very cool, and I think I'm going to have to go back next weekend when I'm back down there for my alterations appointment. They had some ottomans that I want to buy to put under a window in our living room. The ingress and egress around that new mall and the nearby shopping centers and restaurants is terrible. It's worse than Wolfchase. Then we drove back to Memphis and went to Oak Court, where I used the last of my Christmas gift cards for Ann Taylor Loft. We hadn't eaten since breakfast, but it was late, so I decided we should just grab a snack. We picked Jesse up and went to Ben & Jerry's for ice cream.

I wanted to take mom to Gus's for some divine fried chicken Saturday night, but when we arrived, the restaurant was closed for a private party. So we went to Huey's instead, which is always good and had the added benefit of televisions showing the Tigers game. They won. Yay! Two more games left: at UAB, which will be tough because they're scrappy, and here against Houston. I'm still hoping we'll get to go to that one.

Oh, and Happy Anniversary, mom and dad! They've been married 36 years today. Thanks for setting such a great example, mom and dad.

My sister called me yesterday on her way to Louisville to see Coldplay. She was confused because they'd passed a sign saying they were entering the Eastern Time Zone and the clock on her phone had changed. I looked up a time zone map and told her that, yep, Louisville is in the Eastern Time Zone.

This makes it official: My sister doesn't even know what time zone she's in.

I have just been reassured that a person can't overdose on Vitamin C, unless they're really, really trying and have a lot of time on their hands. Which is good because I've ingested about 3,000 mg of vitamin C since 9 pm last night in an attempt to stave off this determined little cold bug I've picked up. My temp last night said 99 degrees, which didn't seem to be worth wasting a sick day over. Turns out I should have stayed home, but not because I feel bad. Because this day has been a long series of screw ups, disasters and embarrassments, and I would have been much better off curled up in my bed watching DVDs of The Office.

In other news, Bass Pro Shops released details of its plans to turn The Pyramid into a sporting goods Mecca, and the renderings include a fishing lure-shaped inclinator (a sort of external elevator) that would climb up the side of The Pyramid. Yes, I said fishing lure-shaped. Too bad Oscar Mayer isn't buying the building because I would much rather see a giant hot dog climbing The Pyramid. Oh, see. Now the ideas are just flooding into my brain. What shape would you like to ride in during your trip up the side of The Pyramid?

One last donation call

Jesse is jumping rope to raise money for the American Heart Association. If you'd like to donate, go to his site here. They take a minimum $25 donation online. If you'd like to donate even just $5, give me a yell.

Hee. I'm the proud owner of another Dance Dance Revolution game and dance pad. Someone I work with sold them to me for 30 bucks. Wee ha! I can't wait to surprise Jesse. Now we can play DDR together instead of taking turns.

Oh, and SkooterPie, you might want to get under the house and brace up that area of floor in front of the television. And this new version, Dance Dance Revolution Extreme, has songs by Duran Duran. You've been warned.

I. Am. So. Excited.

The Tigers won again last night, beating UTEP by 10. I could have gotten tickets to the game, but tip-off was at 9 p.m., and yawn. At least it was on ESPN. Once again, during the broadcast they showed the footage of Darius collapsing after missing his free throws against Louisville last season in the conference tourney, knocking us out of contention for the NCAA tourney. I really hope they stop replaying that moment after this season. Only three more home games to go. Regular season anyway. The conference tournament is here. I still haven't heard from Christy about tickets for senior night and probably won't until the very last minute. I've been to senior night for the last three years in a row, and it would be a shame to miss it this year because Rodney Carney has been my favorite player for the last few seasons.

OK Go's album "Oh No" is good stuff. Go buy it. What other good albums do you recommend Jesse's Mom? Muse "Absolution," Bright Eyes "I'm Wide Awake It's Morning," Spoon "Gimme Fiction," and Interpol "Turn on the Bright Lights." And the Yeah Yeah Yeah's release their newest album next month, and I just can't wait for it.

Dance, sports and music. I think I just about covered it all, didn't I?

We had so much running around to do last night. A nearby pizza place was holding a Campus School night and offered to donate 20% of every purchase to Jesse's school. So we went and saw lots of school/neighborhood folks. But our little homebody was ready to get back to his video games and TV afterwards and threw a fit when he realized that our outing wasn't over. I needed to return one of the two pairs of silver shoes I'd bought for April's wedding (DORK!), and we really needed to pick up a few groceries to get us through the rest of the week.

The ride from the pizza place to Macy's was filled with Jesse's cries of "Why can't you just drop me and dad off first?" and "I don't want to go anywhere else!" and "I'm thirsty!" Except much louder. And I found myself wishing he'd just go ahead and go through puberty, because I don't know how much longer I can take his high-pitched voice. But I was determined not to let him push my buttons and tried to make light of the whole thing.

"WHY CAN'T WE GO HOME!?!"
"Because this is so much fun."
"I WANT TO GO HOME!!!"
"I want a pony. What do you want SkooterPie?"
"Right now, I want to be deaf."
"WAAAAAAHHHHHH!"

More on Falling Rock

Weird. Apparently my Pa is not the only to spin a tale around the "Falling Rock" signs. I just found this after googling "Falling Rock signs":

The Story of Falling Rock.

After my parents divorce, my Dad would come and pick me up on weekends and take me back to the reservation. Our reservation is up in the mountains just south of Palm Springs. As we drove through the mountains, we would pass several "falling rock" warning signs. Not knowing what they meant, I asked my Dad about them. He told me that Falling Rock was the name of the last "free" Indian that never surrendered to the white man and wherever you see a falling rock sign marks a place where Falling Rock was seen attacking passing cars. As a kid, I would always look to see if I could see him, free and angry.

I wanted to name my web site after Falling Rock because it is in his spirit that I create art.

Nana and Pa

I try to call my grandparents on a regular basis, but I don't talk to them nearly as much as I'd like to. Because my plans to go home this weekend were spoiled by the weather, I didn't get to see them. It's now been almost two months since I've been home. They're the only grandparents I've ever really known, and I was the first granddaughter so I guess I've always felt really close to them. The year that SkooterPie and I lived in Morrison was good for many reasons, but I mostly loved being able to see my Nana and Pa any time I wanted to.

So I called up Nana and Pa last night. Pa answered the phone. He usually does, with his trademark greeting of "Yello." He reads a lot, so we talk about books. He likes historical fiction. His favorite subject in school was history, and when he and Nana were traveling all over the country, he said he most enjoyed visiting places he'd read about in history books. He told me they traveled routes all the way up alongside the Mississippi River. I told him that I could see the river from my office. I can walk by and see the barges pushing freight along the river. When it's windy or stormy, the river can look downright choppy, like an ocean. That led to a story about how he's never been afraid of storms. He told me sometimes he'll sit out on the front porch getting nearly soaked as a storm blows through, while Nana is "hoppin' up and down" inside. He told me that when they were first married they lived in a house with 11 rooms, and a storm blew in one night. Pa said Nana tried to wake him up, but he just pulled her close to him and told her not to worry. He wouldn't let a storm get her. Pa reads about three books a week, and Nana had just brought him a book with jokes and funny stories in it, so he's been enjoying reading it. He told me one about an airline pilot who in the middle of an announcement to the passengers, he suddenly yelled "Oh my God!" A few minutes later, the pilot came back on the intercom and apologized for alarming anyone. The flight attendant had spilled hot coffee on him. "You should see the front of my pants," the pilot joked. "That's nothing," a passenger yelled back. "You should see the back of mine."

As I talk to him these days, I find myself listening to his voice more, paying attention to the cadences and rhythm of his speech and the verbal tics and sounds as well as the way he pronounces things. Winder instead of window. That kind of thing. The last time I visited them Pa was telling a story and used the word "haint" instead of haunt or ghost. I wished I had had a recorder with me. SkooterPie picked up on it too. "Your Pa said haint," he said. "That's so cool."

Nana has a great sense of humor too and is also a great story teller in her own right. But she is in no way a push over. And you know exactly where you stand with Nana. I usually end up talking about current events for some reason with Nana. She really pays attention to the news and has a long memory and firm opinions on most things. I was talking to her as I was cooking and mentioned that I had to resort to making spaghetti because it was just too cold this weekend to do the weekly grocery shopping. She laughed and said that wasn't much of a hardship considering how much I love spaghetti. She was talking about the night that the two of them took Lisa and me to an Italian restaurant, and Pa and I finished off huge plates of spaghetti. We were in North Carolina (Raleigh?) with them for about a week. They were working as Olan Mills photographers (one of their many careers). Lisa and I (I think we were 8 and 10 at the time) were excited about going with them because there would be a pool at the hotel, and we were looking forward to swimming the whole time. Last night Nana and I laughed together over the fact that the pool was green with algae and Lisa and I ended up entertaining each other by playing on the elevators. I also wrote lots of poetry. After Pa read my poems, he pulled out of his wallet several poems he'd written. I also remember one other thing about that trip. After overhearing me say "yeah" and "uh huh" to one of their customers, Nana told me that she better start hearing me say "yes, ma'am" and "yes, sir" to adults. She knew how to make it in the world.

That was also the trip that Pa shared the "legend of Falling Rock" with me. He told me it was an old Indian legend about two young Cherokee lovers. But the girl disappeared or was killed or something, so all those road signs that were posted alongside the mountains of Tennessee and the Carolinas were put there by the Indian boy looking for his love. My Pa's a real hoot.

After winning their last two games by a combined 79 points and as the only Division 1 team in the country that is undefeated on the road, it is still likely that the Tigers will drop in polls today from No. 3 to No. 4. Sigh.

(UPDATE: It's a split decision. The AP poll does indeed have us at No. 4, but the coaches' poll still has us at No. 3)

I really wish I had seen this on Valentine's Day, but it still cracked me up when I read it this weekend. From McSweeney's.net: "Obsessive-Compulsive Valentines." An excerpt:
"Sweetheart, I've got you under my skin. I'll wash and wash, but you'll never come out."
"Roses are red, violets are blue. Sugar is sweet, and I think I left the iron on."

I'm totally stealing this link from the genius blogger labmonkie. I watched the video for "A Million Ways" this weekend, and I feel like I've found my new favorite band. I may even brave the elements this afternoon and walk to Tower to see if they have it in stock.

Weekend recap: I bought two pairs of silver shoes Friday night for April's wedding because I couldn't decide which pair I liked best and didn't know if either was really the style of shoe she wants us to get. Also I'm a dork. SkooterPie and I could not decide on a place to eat dinner and ended up at The Half Shell, which apparently was the last place either of us wanted to eat. The problem wasn't so much the restaurant. We were trying to pick a place based on geography, knowing that everything we need to get done was in East Memphis. So The Half Shell was convenient, but once we opened our menus, it was like "I don't want a single thing to eat here."

Then we went to Schneesel's to stock up on bread and beer for the weekend, which was predicted to be icy. It was, and I spent the rest of the weekend holed up in the house. Jesse and I made chocolate chip cookies. Actually it was more of a solo effort. Jesse played his Lego Star Wars video game all weekend. I snuck in about an hour of Dance Dance Revolution. I cleaned house a little bit. SkooterPie and I sparred over the thermostat. I immersed myself in reading Entertainment Weekly and The New Yorker. All in all it was a pretty boring weekend.

Jumpin' for money

Jesse's school is participating in the American Heart Association’s Jump Rope For Heart event. If you'd like to sponsor Jesse, you can donate money at his event site here.

Something seemed amiss this morning when I realized I hadn't yet yelled at our cat Greely for climbing in a drawer or knocking something off the dresser or lying on my work clothes. Greely (A.K.A. Greely Bob Rodriguez) usually wakes me up a few minutes before my alarm goes off by licking me on the face and ears. Then he and Nellie (the other cat, A.K.A. Nellie Precious Snowball, and Nellie Belly) have to follow me into the bathroom to keep me company while I shower. But this morning, it was only Nellie. Then at 7, it finally dawned on me that I hadn't seen Greely all morning.

Our first cat, El Gato Jones, used to disappear on us all the time, but he was old and cranky and would find a hideaway space for some peace and quiet and then refuse to come out. Greely is young and annoying and always underfoot. I asked Jesse if he'd seen Greely, and he said that yes, Greely had been in his bedroom that morning. I asked SkooterPie if he'd seen him, and he said Greely was just in our bedroom. How, I wondered, could they both have seen the cat but I hadn't? They're both full of it, that's how. After 15 minutes of searching the house and calling his name, I finally found Greely in the kitchen, trapped between the wooden door and security door that leads out to our back yard. At about 1:30 a.m., I had nudged SkooterPie awake and told him the dog, Sadie, wanted outside. Greely must have slipped in between the doors at that time, so the poor thing had spent the night there. I have to wonder if Sadie Girl had trotted over there to taunt him throughout the night.

Why are you here? Go read Neal Pollack; his writing on family life/popular culture is so much better than anything here. An excerpt from today's entry:

"I do feel fit to comment on the odd incident last week where Britney Spears got photographed driving with her baby on her lap. Of course Britney is an incompetent dipshit. We all understood this long ago. However, I do find it vaguely amusing that Secretary Of Transportation Norman Mineta saw fit to call Britney "irresponsible" during a speech to commemorate Child Passenger Safety Week, a holiday which has echoes of the ancient pagan festival Seatbeltus, wherein parents would lash their children to large trees for seven days and leave them to the elements."

We had a great time at the game last night. I like going to games that are a total blowout. At halftime, Southern Miss had only scored 10 points. The final score was 80-41, with Memphis still undefeated in the conference. Gooooooo Tigers!

I live a semi-charmed life when it comes to scoring tickets for Memphis football and basketball games. I am the beneficiary of the kindness of many, many ticket sources. Early on in this basketball season, I was given tickets that belong to a very prominent businessman in Memphis. I'm not going to put his name in here, let's refer to him as John. But I will say that around the office we call him Big John, and not because he's physically a big man, but because of his stature in the business community. His seats were about three rows from the court directly behind the announcer's table. It's very, very hard to go back up in the nosebleed section after watching a game where you're eye-level with the players.

Most recently a friend who has no interest in basketball but who works at the U of M forwarded me an e-mail from the college administration offering four free tickets to tonight's game to faculty and staff. Did I want her to grab them for me? Yes, please, I said. Now, a week earlier, I had asked a manager here at work if he had any tickets available for the same game (we get them because of work we do for the U of M). He said he'd check, but I didn't hear anything back from him. So yesterday I picked up the four tickets my U of M source got for me, and I have to say that the U of M really doesn't think a lot of their faculty and staff because the oxygen is thinner sitting in those seats. Then two hours later, the manager walked by and plopped down four tickets on my desk (these are on the first level). So, in the span of a few hours, I had been given eight tickets to tonight's game. I gave the fourth ticket to a friend here at work (unfortunately she has to sit by us, lucky girl), and I'll probably sell the other four to a scalper before the game.

Yesterday morning another friend who works for a company that owns a suite e-mailed me to say she was working to get four tickets to the March 4 game and IF she gets them would SkooterPie and I like to go with them? Yes, please, I said. (Oh, by the way, SkooterPie, we may be going to another game March 4 with Wayne and Christie. Heh. Oh, and I signed us up to join a cult next month. Love ya, hon.)

So that's what SkooterPie and I are doing on Valentine's Day: Taking Jesse to a basketball game. Woo hoo! Go Tigers!

Long post for a long weekend.

Weekend recap:
Friday we didn't leave the house because of the snow. Jesse and I played outside until it was dark. We were so unprepared for snow. Jesse doesn't even have any boots, so his feet were soaked. I had the comfort food covered though. I made a big pot of potato soup for dinner.

Saturday Jesse played outside in the snow with some of the neighbor kids until SkooterPie witnessed him throwing snowballs at the heads of two little girls. When I stuck my head out the door to yell at him, he was running away from a neighbor's yard with a garden decoration in his hands. Taking things that aren't his would become a theme for the weekend. Later Jesse and I went to Ian's birthday party at the Cordova skating rink. I skated without busting my ass or any other body part this time. We rushed home from the party, and I turned the TV on in time to catch the last two minutes of the Tigers' game against Marshall. We won by 10. Yay! Then I hurried to Schneesel's to buy a dessert for the neighborhood association's spaghetti dinner at 5:30. There were quite a few people there, including several of Jesse's classmates. That's all it took for kid pandemonium to take place. Jesse has this interesting idea lately that he can just ignore a clear and direct order from me, like "Jesse, sit your butt down in the chair and don't move." Maybe my orders are unreasonable, and I should say something more like: "Jesse, don't break anything." or the even more vague "Don't embarrass me." Oh, who am I kidding? Those are pretty damn unreasonable to an 8-year-old.

Sunday was the birthday party, and things went awry right away. Schneesel's called at 11:30 asking if I was ever going to come and get the cake I had ordered. "Yes, at noon today, like I said in my order." "No," the lady said. "You mean noon yesterday." So after picking up our day old cake, we went to Huey's for lunch. Let me back up a minute to add that Jesse had been acting terrible all day (party excitement, I guess). I wanted him to take a shower that morning, and when I saw him standing by his dresser in his bedroom, I told him not to bother getting dressed because I wanted him in the shower in a few mintues. I then went in my bedroom and got dressed. When I came out, I saw his pajamas lying on his bedroom floor. I don't even know how to describe the next few moments (possibly because I experienced a rage blackout). I hunted down my fully clothed son (he even took the time to put on his shoes-I have to wonder if he has a death wish) and ordered him to get naked and get into the shower before I beat his ass. As he ran for the shower, SkooterPie called out "Oh my God, he's so naked and skinny!" Well, Jesse was just looking for an excuse to turn the tide of sympathy in his direction and launched into a full-on "Wah! Daddy's making fun of me! He hurt my feelings!" crying fit. Unfortunately for him, his mother is not so easily distracted, and he still got berated for blatantly disobeying my clear and direct order not to get dressed. Which brings me back to Huey's. Where he continued to act like the worst kid in the world.

Then during the party, I glance over to see one of the children throwing a fit by the Coke machines. Thank goodness there was at least one little tattletale in the group to tell me what the heck was going on. Apparently the kid stuck $5 in a change machine, and when the quarters started falling out, a bunch of kids reached in and grabbed all the change away from him. My child was one of those kids. Before I could sort it all out, Jesse had spent at least 50 cents of that money. I recovered $3 in quarters from the little theives involved, and SkooterPie ponied up another dollar for him, and I confiscated the stuff Jesse had bought and gave those items to the kid. But I was mortified about it all and made all the kids involved apologize to the boy. As soon as his mom arrived to pick him up from the party I told her the whole story, including that my son was involved. She was very nice about it, but ... God! I was so pissed at Jesse, and he was getting to eat birthday cake. SkooterPie and I yelled at him the whole way home.

I am so glad to be back at work today.

I think it's very cool that (a) the archaeology team that discovered the first Eyptian tomb in the Valley of the Kings in 84 years is from the University of Memphis and that (b) the coach of the Olympic snowboarding team, which has already won several medals, is a Memphis kid. Just thought I'd share.

Snow remnants and party

Here's the snowman Jesse and I built in the backyard.

And the LaserQuest party was a big success. Jesse's code name during the game was Anakin. Originally he said he wanted it to be called Killer, but someone beat him to the name. I think there may be a grown-ups-only party in the works now. We should do it before one of us breaks a hip.

Snow!

5:30 p.m.: OK, GG and Poppy, I let Jesse go outside. He, of course, headed straight for the trampoline.

It's 4:19 p.m. Probably two inches of snow on the ground right now, and it's still coming down. It's hard to be all bah snowbug about it with Jesse around. He is soooo excited.

Bah-dum!

Why did the toilet paper roll downhill?
To get to the bottom.

Jesse told me this joke this morning. Funny, yeah? I bought him a joke book for Christmas because he loves jokes, and I thought it might encourage him to read. Plus, I don't really know very many jokes. I can't remember a joke to save my life. This book has some pretty good kid-friendly jokes. Jesse made me write one down on a piece of paper so he could tell it at school today: What does a sardine call a submarine? A people can. OK, so that one's not as funny.

The weather guys here are whipping everyone up into a frenzy about the possibility of snow today, and while I'm usually very skeptical of snow forecasts, I think they may be right. I really don't like snow.

Is anyone else bothered by the way CNN.com headlines their video links? They're usually proceded by the word "watch," which creates a disturbing possibility in my mind. Like this one: "Watch: 37-pound mom delivers healthy baby boy." Well, no, I don't to watch that. Ew.

Currently reading: "In Cold Blood," by Truman Capote.
I bought this about three years ago at a yard sale, along with "The Boys on the Bus" (about journalists covering the 1972 presidential campaign) and "The Brethren" (an inside look at the Supreme Court by Bob Woodward). It was a nonfiction phase. At that time, I read a couple of pages of "In Cold Blood" and then sat it down and moved on to "The Brethren," which I loved by the way. So last night Jesse had settled in with Cartoon Network, and SkooterPie was napping, and "Lost" wasn't on for another hour, and I decided I just needed to read. I haven't seen the movie "Capote," but I know his journey in writing this book is a major component of it. I bet I'll be glad I read this before seeing the movie, if I ever manage to see the movie. Once I started reading it, I couldn't put it down. I zipped through 180 pages before finally going to sleep at 12:30, so I'm about halfway through with it.

After previously griping about what a pain my son is to deal with the mornings, I have to heap some big praise on him for his performance this week. He has decided, totally on his own, that I should wake him up when I get up (about 20 minutes earlier). He promised to get himself dressed while I'm in the shower and to figure out on his own what he wants for breakfast. I was skeptical, but he's actually been doing it. And the last couple of mornings have been so peaceful. He really is a good kid.

I didn't even come close to winning the lottery last night. But no one else won either, so the dream is still alive.

Obviously my friends and family need to catch up on their celebrity gossip. Way too many people were surprised at the news of Robert Palmer's death OVER TWO YEARS AGO. And then I mentioned last night during a phone call with Cis that Britney Spears had created a big stink when she was photographed driving with baby Sean Preston in her lap. Cis was less surprised about Britney's lack of a mothering instinct than the fact that I knew her son's name. So in the interest of bringing everyone up to speed on the latest in celebrity news, I give you two Web links: The Superficial and Gawker. And you're welcome.

Most recently added items to my Amazon wish list:
All Purpose Wine Stoppers and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Widescreen Edition).

Thing that's bugging me today:
My checking account. I just haven't done a very good job with the financial planning this month. I have to pay for Jesse's LaserQuest party on Sunday, which also involves buying a cake and all the party supplies. I also really need an oil change. And I need to get SkooterPie something for Valentine's Day. There's also a neighborhood spaghetti dinner to attend on Saturday night, and a birthday gift to buy for Shali's son, Ian, whose party is on Saturday. All this is coming down before I get paid on the 15th. It could be my imagination but I think my checkbook looked a little judgemental just now. Did I really need the two bottles of wine I bought at Buster's last Friday? How about that trip to Ben & Jerry's on Saturday, was that really necessary? All I know is that I don't want to live in a world without wine and ice cream. So, I'll fork over $1 this afternoon for a lottery ticket and keep my fingers crossed.

I don't really care about the Super Bowl, and when I figured out that the Today show would show us the best commercials of the night the next morning, I stopped even bothering to watch it for the ads. Slate has a regular contributor who writes an ad report card, and his take on the Super Bowl ads is pretty funny.
An excerpt: "A Dove ad shows us little girls who have body-image problems: Women, do not be duped! Dove is not selflessly interested in your (or your daughters') well-being. It is a multinational beauty-products company, which hopes to sell expensive cellulite cream to these same little girls just a few years down the road."
Amen.

Personally, I loved the promotion ABC did for "Lost" with poor, dead Robert Palmer singing "I'm addicted to Lost." I mean, it made me a little sad seeing Robert Palmer being digitally forced to posthumously use his most memorable hit to market a TV show. But I figure that when you're famous, you sort of ask for this sort of thing to happen.

I came straight out of sleep this morning (Sunday), sat up in bed and told SkooterPie: "I have to order a cake for Jesse's birthday. I totally forgot about that." His answer was even more alarming: "The refrigerator isn't working." I told him that I had read somewhere that a person is statistically more likely to have a heart attack first thing in the morning. "Well," he said. "I didn't want to wake you up last night and tell you."

It was 8 a.m., and I had several people scheduled to arrive at my house at 2 p.m. for April's cake tasting. So, I made pancakes and hoped that SkooterPie's assessment of the fridge was wrong. Alas, it wasn't. Without the hum of the fridge, the kitchen was so quiet that I could hear the clock hanging over the sink ticking as I cooked. The fridge came with the house, which we bought 8 years ago. The user manual for the fridge is dated 1986, so it's at least 20 years old.

By 10 we were rushing to get to Sears to buy a new fridge. By 11, SkooterPie and our friend, Ron, were maneuvering our newest appliance into the house. And to Ron I can only say: It was so nice knowing you. I know you'll never answer another phone call from me again. And, how's your back? Wait, don't answer that. I'm not sure I want to know. I hope you'll let us buy you and the lovely Bethany dinner some night soon.

We barely managed to get the house back into shape in time for April's cake tasting, which put me in a weird, almost manic state. Stephanie, the lady making April's cake, must think I'm a total freak. I don't know how appliances seem to know exactly the worst possible time to break down. The stove will be the next to go. SkooterPie has been having dreams about it breaking down.

Sick blogging

Ugh. The plague is rampaging through our house. SkooterPie has barely left the bed since Sunday. He's ventured out twice to try to go to work, only to come right back home. I left early yesterday and sat on the sofa sipping ginger ale. The kid has been unaffected (except for the latent neglect from having two parents basically bedridden). Thank goodness he's old enough to be self-sustaining. I'm at work today, but I don't know for how long.

Look, Ma! I'm on TV

New Year's Eve 2005: Dinner at Gus's Chicken, half-hearted attempt to party at Jillian's, detour to the Shell Station for beer, silliness in front of the surveillance camera at said Shell Station, count down to 2006 in Harbor Town. Picture by Bny. Shown are Bny, Mamie and me.

Things I need

A digital camera. Well, a working digital camera.
A camera phone.
Another bedroom added onto our house.
A laundry room added onto our house.
How about just a bigger house in general?
A dishwasher.
Braces.
A Roth IRA.
A law degree.
A manicure.
A trip out of town with friends.
A babysitter.
A benefactor.
Mad skillz.
Everything on my Amazon Wish List.
Time.
Better penmanship.
A book deal.
Goats!
My own business.
Tonight's lottery numbers.
A housekeeper.
A nap.
A night of dancing.
A bottle of Pepperwood Vineyards Pinot Noir.
Exercise.
20/20 vision.
An oil change.