Saturday, September 24, 2005

Making my list and checking it twice...

I am doing things to get ready for my trip on Tuesday. Figuring out what to bring, making checklists so as to not forget anything. I am very much looking forward to seeing my husband and to seeing four back to back Posies shows!
This has led me to creating a list.

Things NOT to do when attending a Posies concert (By Michelle):

1-Sing louder than the band from the audience so that everyone can hear you during the softer parts. It isn’t a three part harmony, and lord knows I will pay to go see your band if you are that good of a singer.

2-Don’t go so crazy in the front row thrashing around that you smack the mic stand and almost take out one of the singer’s front teeth. Those things are HARD, so please thrash, just do it within a reasonable distance of anything that has the potential of making my husband look like a Jon-O-Lantern!

3-I don’t care HOW MUCH you have had to drink; spitting booze into my husband’s mouth is strictly prohibited.

4-If Ken strips, don’t take that as a sign that you should strip as well unless you are a swimsuit model. One act of public nudity is enough to try and divert your eyes from other hairy guys joining in leads to several years of therapy.

5-If Jon hands you his guitar while on stage don’t leave with it! Also, don’t have a conversation with him about it while you are holding it. I don’t know if you notice, but he is in the middle of a song and wants you to toss it back to him when he gives you the signal.

6-If you see something backstage that looks like it might be lyrics or anything else scribbled out by the band that is NOT a setlist, don’t think it is OK to take it, because it isn’t.

7-(edited for adult content) ;-)

8-Don’t throw stupid crap up on stage like your shoes, your toys, your ice, your cups, or whatever other random shit you think would be funny to throw on stage. It isn’t funny.

9-Don’t heckle the guys incessantly. Maybe a little banter once is funny, but if you run your mouth between every single song, it gets old really fast.

10-Don’t stand around like a lump on a log! Dance, get your boogie on, go up on stage when they invite you and show that you are having a great time! I promise, the better the audience is, the better the band plays!

Friday, September 23, 2005

The perfect birthday mixtape....

I made three versions of Jon's birthday mixed CD, but I think the third time was the charm. That was the perfect one.

The first one had a couple of songs that I didn't realize were on the anniversary mix until after I burned it so that was trashed.

The second one I had amended that but then felt like there were a few obvious oversights (Wonderwall being one of them. Long story behind that one, but it has lots of happy memories for us) and after playing it a few days in a row decided to drop a few songs because they didn't "feel" right for this mix even though I love them.

So I did some moving around and adding and subtracting of songs and today I finally have the perfect, most meaningful birthday mix CD (That I can fit on an 80 minute disc) for my honey!

Greetings In Braille 3:50 The Elected
Honey And The Moon 4:44 Joseph Arthur
Wonderwall 4:18 Oasis
Natural One 3:09 Folk Implosion
A Girl Like You 3:55 Edwyn Collins
Since You've Been Around 3:18 Rosie Thomas
Vanilla Sky 2:46 Paul McCartney
Somebody 4:36 Depeche Mode
Lipstick Vogue 3:31 Elvis Costello
Sugarhigh 2:37 Coyote Shivers
Anything, Anything 3:21 Dramarama
Mental 4:01 Eels Beautiful Freak
Bright As Yellow 3:33 The Innocence Mission
Erase-Rewind 3:38 The Cardigans
hidden track 3:51 Russian Teammate
Last Tide 2:55 Sun Kil Moon
You've Been Loved 4:11 Joseph Arthur
The Sound of Settling 2:14 Death Cab For Cutie
Wild World 3:19 Cat Stevens
Stations 4:14 Denison Witmer
Homeward Bound 2:29 Simon & Garfunkel
Feel Good Inc. 3:43 Gorillaz


OCT 19 I will have known him for ten years. Wow! So hard to believe, it feels like just yesterday!

The Power of Three....

We have THREE gerbil babies today! Yay! Let's hope this batch makes it!

I think we should name them after the Charmed sisters or the three stooges...

Thursday, September 22, 2005

You've been loved

I love the weather today, crisp and sunny. In my book this is perfect weather. In fact, I would be thrilled if this was the climate year round with a little rain now and then to keep things blooming and clean. (Because we ALL know how bad Seattle smells when it hasn't rained in a while!)

Why does it seem every time I am getting ready to fly somewhere there are loads of plane crash news on the television? Did you all see that thing about Jet Blu last eve? My god! at least everyone landed safely! I fly out on Jet Blu next week! Makes me a little squirmy thinking about it. I am thrilled to be finally hooking up with my man though! I miss him so much.

Today was picture day. My daughter is not a big fan of picture day. She is a very lovely girl, but when faced with a camera and told to smile she makes the strangest faces. Cocks her head to the side closes her eyes and smiles without showing teeth. It looks so odd. I don't know why she does it. It reminds me of that Friend's episode where Chandler could not smile right in photos. It is a mental thing. She also hates the amount of time it takes to get ready in the morning on picture day. She doesn't like having to stand still while I do her hair and add a little mascara to her eyelashes to make them pop better on camera.
Make-up is the secret to good class photos. The first few years we didn't use anything and she always looked a little sick and washed out under the bright lights. Last year I used a little light powder and some mascara and she was picture perfect. So now we will do that ever picture day. It only makes sense. They use the same big bright lights as a pro studio.
I am surprised they don't provide some kind of makeup for the amount they are asking for their packages! They are not cheap! And let me tell you, there is nothing like spending $50 on a package of photos where your kid looks nothing like themselves! I would prefer going to Sears and paying $9.99 at least they let you pick the photo you pay for!
Oh, and this year, they snuck the class photo into every pack! Charming. You HAVE to buy one, no choice! All I am saying is since I am paying the extra $$ for it one of her classmates best become famous someday so we can sell that sucker to Extra! :-)

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

I HATE Homework!

Why? Look at the name- it is WORK at HOME! No fun since I WORK at WORK all day. When I go home I want to veg out and eat a leisurely dinner, chat with some buddies and then chill out with my kidlette.

So last night, Darian and I sat down and started doing homework. I thought it would be a piece of cake since she is technically in the fifth grade. Boy howdy was I ever wrong.
This was some advanced math! Seriously folks. I HATE math, I swear I cheated my way all through math and then in college our professor was totally OK with us using a calculator so I went out and purchased the best scientific calculator ever and could even do complicated Algebra on it. It took a while to read all of the instructions, but I am good with that, I just don't have any patience for the "Show your work" part of math, but give me a machine and I will find an answer!

Anyhow, this had fractions and algebra and square roots and all sorts of fun stuff.
WTF! There were like 14 pages of it!

We went through all of the pages, did an awful lot of googling a little bit of cheating and got through it by 11:40 last night. YES- my WHOLE NIGHT was spent on math homework with a short break to go to the store and get dinner and one more to chat with Jon on the phone briefly.

In between problems I was looking up tutoring places and pricing them out. I was ready to hire someone on the spot! I was stressing because most tutors listed in the phone book are like $45 per hour!

Too much suck!

The best part of this story: After I was ranting about how if this is how this new teacher was I am going to change classes and so on. She gives me the rest of her papers that needed to be filled out and signed and sent back.
As I am going through the papers this little note falls out of the pile:

"Dear Parents-
You may notice the math homework is stuff that the children may or may not even be familiar with. This booklet was copied straight out of the high school standardized test. The children only need to do 3-4 problems from the booklet so I can get an idea of where they are at. They may need to ask for your help with those problems."

WHAT!!!!!!!!

So basically after we finished the ENTIRE 14 page booklet we found out that we only needed to do 3-4 problems!!!!

Darian and I laughed so hard we cried and then went to sleep. We were still laughing about it this morning!

Sunday, September 18, 2005

Why some people need to spank their children...

My weekend thus far...
Friday- Went and saw The Brother’s Grimm. Was not too bad, but not really great either. It was kind of a midlevel movie that would be a fun rental if you have kids. Darian said it had some cool parts, but for the most part was pretty silly.

Saturday- Went to see The Exorcism of Emily Rose- This was totally on a whim. Darian had saved up her allowance money from keeping her room clean to buy the new Inuyasha video so we were downtown at Suncoast and then just wandering around in the mall. We went by the mall theatre and she asked if we could go see a movie. I said sure why not. She wanted to see this particular movie. I said no, it is probably rated R. Guess what, it is PG-13! That pretty much sealed the deal.
The movies started out promising but two minutes after it started this flood of teenagers started to fill in the seats all around us. Before you knew it we were stuck between three rows of them. They all stuck their legs up on the seat in front if them and all started talking. One guy was reading every name that came up on the screen in opening credits. I think they were on drugs. (Like- Hey I know, let’s all eat mushrooms and go see a scary movie!) I leaned forward and told them to kindly shut the fuck up. They turned around probably expecting to see an old lady sitting there and found me, which completely confused them so they turned back around before saying anything smart back and were quiet for about 5 minutes. Then the talking started again, the entire theatre shushing them, it sucked. Darian and I finally moved to the other side of the theatre.
I don’t think I could tell you if this movie was good or not just because every time they had a build up scene the kids would talk or else their cell phone would ring and 4 of them would leave the theatre to take the call and then come back a few minutes later. They were sitting really close to the front so no one could miss this. Their cell phones rang loudly at least 8 times. (Their parents should have spanked them more growing up! Flipping brats!)

Needless to say I complained after the movie and got two free passes for another movie. I started a trend because as I was getting my passes people were lining up behind me to do the same thing.
The manager just sat there with the passes and handed them out saying, “I’m sorry” “I’m so sorry”… The end.
I told Darian to take a long hard look at those teens. I told her, “You see them, if you hang out with them in high school you can look forward to an exciting adult life of making $5.75 and hour.” She understood what I meant. Scared straight I tell you!

Oh and the funniest moment on Saturday- At the mall some guy walked up and shoved a flyer in my hand. It took me about five seconds to realize that it was a scientologist flyer. I chased him down and handed it back and said "I'm sorry, I don't need this, I don't aspire to go into acting."
The look on his face- Priceless!

Today, we are going to do the Puyallup http://www.thefair.com/
One of our friends invited us along, so I said, why not? I have a coupon that I need to use anyhow!
 

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