We found out yesterday that my Mom's aunt had passed away last Thursday. It was time; Auntie Anya was in her 80s and could hardly recognize her own family members or remember what day it was. She is in a better place now, no doubt. She will be missed greatly.
Auntie Anya helped raise my Mom, and then later me. I stayed at her apartment a lot in my college years; she gave me a key as soon as I moved to St-Pete. She was an incredibly interesting person with an amazing life. I mention her in my 99 things. She's the one that ran away when her home village was occupied in 1942, and ended up being sent to Germany as slave labor to work on a farm. She came back in '45, narrowly escaping the Soviet labor camps. She was very social, and had many friends. She was always willing to help people in need, sometimes complete strangers. We are proud to be related to her. May she rest in peace.
"Mom, are you a BIG Christian?" CB asked me the other day, and quickly added: "I hope not!"
"I get bigger every day," I honestly answered. But I doubt that my son meant my dress size. In fact, I have a pretty good idea what he meant. Many a time have I wished that my more vocal fellow believers would act more, you know... normal.
You know how it feels to have a really weird family member who constantly embarrasses you in front of your friends? Now imagine it's millions of weird, embarrassing family members, and they are always up in everybody's face acting weird. Meantime, the nice and normal family members are sitting quietly in the family room and the world doesn't even know they exist. Awkward, isn't it?
But I digress.
On my way to work every day, I pass this little church whose members seem to have a talent for inappropriate church signs. The one they put up a few days ago, however, was better than any I'd seen from them before. I have to have a picture of this, I said to myself. But how?
So I thought of a plan, and I thought of it fast.
1. Park, then shoot.
My initial plan was simple. On the way home from work, I pull into the church's parking lot, which should be empty, so no harm done. I then get out of my car, walk up to the sign, take a picture, and leave.
I was halfway up to the sign when another car pulled into the empty lot. As I kept walking, the car stopped, the passenger-side window rolled down, and a middle-aged woman leaned out.
"Excuse me, Ma'am? Why are you parked here?"
I looked around - no reserved spots, no handicapped spots. Dozens of empty spaces all around.
"Oh, I'm sorry," I said, "am I not supposed to be parking here?"
"No you're not."
"Awww sorry, I didn't know," I stuttered as I turned back to the car. I figured I was pretty much busted anyway as far as my picture-taking. But, but, why can't I park in this lot? I'm pretty sure anyone is allowed to park in my church's lot, so what's the deal? Later that evening, I realized that the ladies probably didn't want random people to use their church's lot as free parking. But at that moment, what was going through my head was omg omg i'm not allowed to park in a church, wtf why not, what do they have going on here, oh is it human sacrifices, omg omg this is creepy, i'm scared, need to get outta here LIKE NOW!
"I'll be leaving now," I offered, "I'm lost. I was going to ask for directions." I've always been an above-average liar, having been raised in a strict family and all.
"Visiting naahhhbahhh?"
Visiting WHO?
"Pardon me?"
"Are you visiting naahhhbahhh?"
Ohhh, nearby. "Oh yes, yes I am. I'm leaving now." and I hightailed it out of there at full speed.
2. Park "naahhhbahhh" and shoot.
Long time ago, my buddy George told me: "Goldie, you don't take no for an answer." It's actually worse than George thought. I take "no" as a challenge. "Oh, so you say I cannot do it? Watch me." With that in mind, I turned into the next street, whirled around, and came back to a stop sign.
The street was empty, I pointed my camera out of the window and took a picture. Sadly, it came out pretty pathetic:
3. Early morning shoot (this one worked!)
This was on Tuesday. Yesterday I was home sick. I spent the day in bed, reading my camera manual and taking practice shots of my ceiling fan. Most importantly, I learned how to zoom in.
Today, I skipped my usual workout and breakfast and left for work early. I figured there wouldn't be anyone in church at eight AM. I pulled onto the curb, zoomed in, took a shot, and left.
It worked perfectly. Here it is. I also submitted it to Crummy Church Signs.
I'm sick as a dog - actually took my first sick day in a year and a half - so I cannot really think of anything to post. Luckily I prepared my musical offering in advance. Late 80s, early 90s, ah those were the days. Single, making enough money to support myself, not a care in the world. The year this song was a hit, my biggest problem was a catty roommate. But enough of my feverish rambling. Enjoy.
First of all, the obvious. Suppose you are at home on a nice Sunday morning, sleeping in, sipping coffee, sitting on the can with a morning paper, or getting kinky with your spouse (last one happened to me and Mr. Goldie in 2004. But I digress.)
Your doorbell rings.
It rings again. And again.
Your dog is jumping at the door, barking on top of his lungs. Your preschoolers are hollering "Mom, Dad! Somebody's at the door! Mom?!"
You don't have a choice. You hastily pull up your underwear, forgo wiping your ass, and run downstairs. Or you hastily interrupt your lovemaking, throw on a robe, and run downstairs.
On your doorstep is a random stranger. He's come to tell you who to vote for.
Will he convince you?
The second issue I have with this door-to-door strategy is more serious. You see, I tend to assume the best of people until proven otherwise. With an adult, for instance, I automatically assume that he or she have done their homework; that, whomever they decided to vote for, they must have their reasons.
Yes, it's true that in reality, many people tend to vote with their rear end. But let's at least give them the benefit of the doubt.
The article I've quoted here seems to assume that your average McCain supporter is a confused, misguided individual. That the only reason he wants to vote for McCain in the first place is because an Obama volunteer has not yet turned up at his doorstep and showed him the true way.
Tell me how that is different from a Jehovah witness going door to door with a stack of Bibles.
Tell me how many people have been converted into Jehovah witnesses because someone came to their door when they were having dinner and explained it all to them. I'm guessing the answer will be below zero. Then why is it suddenly one out of twelve in this article?
I probably speak for most of us when I say, show me some respect. Don't patronize me. To quote Michael Corleone, do not insult my intelligence. It pisses me off.
And stay away from my door, all of you. If my dog won't bite you, I will.
Sunday Bitching Session: Do You Know Bradley L. Dunlop III?
I am often in a bitchy mood on Sundays, and here's my complaint for today.
I find myself in the middle of this conversation at least twice a week:
"So, Goldie, where you from?"
"Originally, you mean?" (When I tell them the name of the city I live in, people just stare, so I assume originally is what they mean.)
"Yeah, originally."
"Russia".
"Ohhhhh. " (pause) "Do you know Tatiana Smirnova? I worked with her five years ago and she's Russian!"
"Sorry, no, I don't."
"You sure you don't know her? Tatiana Smirnova. A very nice lady. You absolutely sure?"
Yes, dude, I am absolutely sure. There are 43 thousand people of Russian descent in our area and yes, I am pretty damn sure I do not know each one of them. It was cute the first few times, now it's just bordering on offensive. I know you mean well, but it is really coming out all wrong. If you think I overreact, let's put a lil twist on this fine dialogue:
"So you're a WASP?"
"Yes I am."
"Say, do you know Bradley L. Dunlop III? He's a WASP too. Tall, balding guy. You sure you don't know him? Positive? He's a WASP just like you."
Or how bout this one:
"Say, I can't help noticing your skin color. Do you know Tyrell Williams? He lived on my street ten years ago before I moved. He's a really nice guy. No? Are you sure? I think you've got to!"
If you cannot say this to a person, then don't ask me about your buddy Tatiana Smirnova, because it is the same damn thing.
See, in a convo like that one, I cannot help feeling objectified. I am not my country of origin. I am not my ethnicity. I am not my hair color and I am not my boobs. I am a unique individual with unique interests, a unique family and an awesome blog (right?)
If you treat me as such, I will gladly tell you all you want to know about my ethnicity and home country.
This is all the bitching I have for today. Enjoy what's left of your weekend, folks.
CB quoted a comedian at me this morning, "I meant to read the Bible, but then, someone gave away the ending."
That got me thinking. The fear of spoilers is huge in American culture. It is a mortal sin to spoil a book or a movie for a person. It took me a while to understand. Only after I took a few (verbal) beatings for unsuspectingly trying to discuss the ending of a book/movie, did I finally pretend I understand the rules and start playing by them.
My children are even worse. In the months before the sixth Harry Potter book came out, one of them (or both, I don't remember) had changed their Newgrounds forum signature to "SNAPE KILLS DUMBLEDORE". I still enjoyed the book, by the way. (If you meant to read the book and I just spoiled it for you, well, at this point, you're really weird, my friend.)
I just don't get the hype, though. When I read a book, ninety times out of a hundred I will peek at the end. This has never stopped me from enjoying a good book. To me, it is not as important to know that the plot gets from point A to point B as to find out how it gets there; to enjoy the journey with the author. If it is a good book, then the language, character development and their inner philosophy, other thoughts expressed on its pages take priority over the plot. If there is nothing to book other than its plot, I don't want to waste my time reading it, spoilers or no spoilers.
It turns out I am not alone. Recently I came across this article about spoilers by a Russian movie critic. If you don't read Russian (and why is that, may I ask? Shame on you!), the contents of the article in a nutshell are that a good movie cannot be spoiled by giving away the ending. Anna Karenina threw herself under a train, says the author, Don Juan paid for his sins, and the Titanic sank. Knowing these details, however, did not stop anybody from reading the book or seeing the movie.
Arguments against disclosing the plot, the author continues, are based on a questionable concept that a movie is essentially a narrative. That the main thing about a movie is the story it tells. That the only way to impress a viewer is by grabbing the chair from under him at the right moment. But a movie is after all more than a retelling of a plot, and it works on different levels of perception.
The above is my attempt at translating a paragraph and a half of the article. I found myself agreeing with its author completely. By insisting that there be no spoilers, we cheapen the movie or book. Why bother employing Hollywood stars and spending millions on production if all that matters is how the movie ended? Just make a low-budget cartoon with the same plot and get it over with. Right? Why bother writing a thousand-page book when you can just print the beginning and the end - or some kind of cliff notes that lay out the plot in two pages or so? It's all that counts, right?
Let's be proactive, people. Let's start a movement. Let's be the change agents. I say we continue giving away the plot of every movie and every book to everyone we know until people finally realize that it's not the plot that counts. It's the quality of the movie or book. If that quality is poor, then it should not be seen or read. And if the quality is good, then the spoiler won't spoil any of your reading or viewing experience.
I begged Max to please let me go. I told him that I would scream. He backed up after all. So nothing really happened that night, except a lot of talking and Max dashing to the bathroom every half-hour. In the morning, he had circles under his eyes. He told me he'd spent the whole night jacking off. What. A. Gentleman. I am being only half sarcastic here.
I learned a lot of things that night that I was supposed to know as a preteen.
I learned that people do have sex all the time, not just when they need to make babies. I learned that it feels good. I hadn't felt much myself, so I had to trust Max on that one.
I learned that, although I treated men as my friends and equals, some of them will interpret a simple "Hi" as "I want you NOW". They will pounce, and they will later accuse you of having led them on.
I learned that being drunk affects my judgement in ways I'd never thought possible. I learned that a little alcohol is okay, but everyone has a limit. After that limit, a person starts doing things that he or she will regret the next morning. I learned that knowing your limit is of life-and-death importance.
I also learned that, when a guy invites you to his apartment for coffee, you should say no, unless you prefer your coffee with a lot of cream. Most cases, you're better off brewing your own.
Max walked me out of the apartment, and I went to my aunt's place to catch up on lost sleep. I felt shocked and betrayed. Not by Max, though.
I felt betrayed by my own parents. Why didn't I know any of these things? Why did I leave home and start life on my own not knowing any of them? Most kids do pick this knowledge up on the streets. But my parents knew damn well I wasn't one of those kids, not by a long shot. Why didn't they tell me? Why did they leave it to me to find out the hard way? I realized I'd gotten off incredibly easy. Not everyone has the manners Max did. I could have been raped, or dead.
Is it worth it, preserving your child's innocence to an unnatural age of 17? Yes, short-term it looks pretty awesome. The kid stays out of trouble till graduation, and then she moves out and she's on her own and no longer your problem. But aren't we raising our children for the long-term? We need to stop and ask ourselves, what is our first priority as a parent? Is it to have an easy child, a baby that sleeps through the night, a toddler that never says "no", a teenager that obeys your every command, no questions asked. Or is it to raise a person who is capable of living independently, realizing his or her potential to the fullest, and being a person others want to be friends with? I chose the second. I've seen people who earnestly choose the first.
So that was what got me thinking, and that was how a decade later, I ended up exposing my children to things and concepts a mother does not usually expose her kids. Nothing extreme; I just let them watch certain shows and read certain books, and regaled them with real-life stories that a mother doesn't always share with her children, including this one. I caught a lot of flak for it, but it is working so far.
Most importantly, I never lied to my kids. No matter what the question, my answers were the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but truth. Sometimes that meant saying things that made me cringe inside. Oh well. Nobody said parenting was going to be easy.
Musical Hump Day - There Should Be Sunshine After Rain
Hi guys!!! Soooo, how's your 401K doing? Mine is on its knees, praying to the porcelain god! Seriously though, the last few days' financial news is scary. I'm just blocking it all out because there isn't much I can change even for myself at this point. In light of that, I thought this song would be appropriate. "Why Worry", by my secret crush Mark Knopfler.
Let me know if the video doesn't work. I cannot test it now and won't be able to for the rest of today.
I really meant to finish my date rape story, but CB and Sparky got up and are now distracting me. Right now they are both crawling stealthily through the room. I think they're hunting for a fly. Anyway, I decided to bitch about elections instead, because it's easier to write.
1. Beauty contest?
The media coverage and the Internet coverage are driving me nuts this season. This morning, on my Google News front page, I saw this gem: "It is no longer between Obama and McCain, it is now between Brother Barack and Sister Sarah".
What the fuck?
Let me rephrase: it is no longer about the issues. It is about who looks better on stage, who killed a bigger moose, who was in more beauty contests as a teen. Yes a lot of this shit seems to be coming from Palin. Election coverage had been at least semi-normal until she entered. It has now switched to full-on special-ed kindergarten level. Congratulations.
If you think it's not working on actual people, think again. This is an actual conversation with my parents a week ago:
"Can you ask LP if he... (question follows). We tried to ask him, but he answers in English and we cannot understand him."
"K I will."
"Also, can you tell him to... (request follows). We did, he said something back to us, but it was in English and we don't know if he's going to do it or not."
"K will do."
"Also we watched Sarah Palin's speech last night and she is so good! We are definitely voting for her now. We could understand every word she said, and, she is so good-looking! And young! Not like that old fart McCain."
"Um, wow, I gotta go I guess?"
Of course they could understand every word she said. She is a mother of five! She's used to speaking so a small, easily distracted child can understand her. I'm the same way. Vote for me!
Anyway, since that's what decides our vote now, I propose we completely cut the crap like all those debates, discussion of issues and all that brainy confusing stuff, and make it a combination of American Idol and Miss Universe. Have 'em sing. We can have Simon judge them; he's cute. We need to definitely have a swimsuit contest, too. Heck, have them wear swimsuits all the time. This will take care of "omg he had his hands in his pockets" type of issues. No pockets=no incidents. We could go farther if we want to. Just imagine McCain on a Playboy spread. Wait, cancel that. Dang, too late, image is stuck in my brain now.
My point here is, we're acting like morons and we deserve whatever we end up electing in November.
2. Division.
As I'm reading my Internet buddies' blogs, I increasingly see attempts at spin and that saddens me. One of my best Internet friends posted a pair of quotes from Obama and Palin side-by-side. When I first read them, I gasped. The way the quotes were laid out, with no comment except the post header, made Obama look like a cynical baby-hater next to a caring grandmother that is Palin. Then I read the full quote in the comments, turns out Obama's speech had been about contraception and STD prevention, not about abortion as the post seemed to suggest. Big difference, no?
Recently, I discovered a blog that I liked and started reading it daily. A week ago, this is what I see in the comments, written by one of the blog authors:
"...she doesn't bring in the Hillary voters. They hate the right as much as they hate men."
Damn, and I was just starting to like this site. Where on earth did this even come from? Not only is it offensive as hell, it's also a mile off. Many of my friends are Hillary supporters. A lot of them are men. All of them would be surprised to hear they hate men. I am not a Hillary supporter by the way. I am an Obama supporter. So, what's the word on Right Street, who am I supposed to hate? Crackers? Why yes I do. I don't even have any crackers in the house. These things are loaded with empty calories, you know?
This is crazy. We are all getting caught in the heat of the moment and the best of us are posting things they would never say or write in normal times. I'm going to go with the flow and say that McCain is trying to pick a war with my home country, and Palin is nothing short of a national disaster. That said, I lived through Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko, and my parents lived through Khruschev and Stalin. We will certainly survive four to eight years of John and Sarah. Granted, it will suck, but it's not the end of the world, well unless McCain does start WWIII and then it will be.
Whew, I feel better now that I got this off my chest. Y'know what? I'm going to make it a Sunday feature. Every Sunday I will moan and bitch about elections. Stay tuned. I'm off to teach Sunday school, my first time ever with a class of fourth-graders. Yikes! See ya!
Since it was my first time ever being drunk, I did not register it at all. As far as I was concerned, I was feeling happy, walking down the streets of my favorite city, having an intellectual conversation with a refined, older man. In the meantime, something strange happened to my judgement, as I found myself agreeing to increasingly bizzarre stuff.
"Are you cold?" Max asked me.
Damn, he was right! I hadn't even noticed that I was freezing. Aw, what a nice, caring guy.
"This is my house," he said. Wow, what a coincidence. What are the odds, right? "It's still a long time till they raise the bridges. Why don't we go up to my apartment, have some coffee, and then walk on to the river?"
Coffee, great idea. I happily agreed. We walked into a huge apartment. I was introduced to Max's mother, who scurried away in a hurry. We went into Max's room. In the room I saw a lonely bed, a coffee table, some chairs. As it usually is in a Russian intellectual's lair, the room was crawling with books.
"I'm going to go make coffee," Max said to me. "Here, read this." He thrust a largish book at me and was gone.
Bookworm as I was, I found I could not read what Max had given me. First off, it was in Finnish. Also, there was hardly anything in it to read. The book consisted mostly of black-and-white photos of naked men and women in uncomfortable positions. I turned the pages, confused and unsure what to make of this.
Max came back with the coffee.
"I just had an idea," he offered suddenly. "We don't have to see the bridges tonight. You look tired. Why don't we stay here for the rest of the night, have a good night's sleep, and go see the bridges some other time?"
Had I been sober, I would have asked why I had to sleep at Max's apartment and not at my aunt's two blocks away. But, like I said, something weird had happened to my judgement. I found myself nodding and agreeing. Max brought me a phone and I called my aunt's neighbor, who watched over me, and told her that I was spending the night with my girlfriend. She said okay.
"You sleep on the bed, I'll sleep on the floor," Max decided. "The shower is round the corner."
I went into the shower, but was confused. In my parents' house, we never showered before sleep. I threw some water on my face, came back, and got into bed.
Five minutes later, Max started complaining.
"This is my room, why do I have to sleep on the floor? Can you scoot over?"
Of course I could.
Next thing I knew, I was in some random apartment, in a random bed, and a random naked guy was in bed next to me. The guy was actively grabbing at my private parts, breathing heavily.
The new comments feature on Violent Acres depresses the crap out of me. The more I read them, the less faith I have in the outcome of this year's election. I'd make LP comment, but he stopped reading the site the minute it jumped the shark.
After a week of reading everybody's takes on abstinence-only sex-ed, I suddenly remembered that I, too, have a story to tell. This happened when I was 17, and is the driving force of pretty much everything I do as a mother. If you know me, you'd know that a large part of my parenting is quite unorthodox. Here's why.
I was a bookish, bespectacled teen raised by rather strict parents. The outcome of this combination was that at seventeen, I left home and went to college not having the foggiest idea about real life. Up till age ten, I did not know where babies came from. Then my best friend told me ("he puts his what in her what?!") I came home and asked my Mom if it was true. With a straight face, she told me no. All you had to do was really want to have a baby, and bam, it mysteriously appears in your stomach. I believed her. I vaguely remember being deadly afraid during my preteen years that I would accidentally feel like having a baby and get pregnant from that.
Though by age seventeen I knew how babies were made, I was still unaware about many many things. I believed that sex was a chore. People had it once, twice or three times in their lives in order to make a new kid. I did not know people actually did it for pleasure. I did not know what the pleasure was about. My Mom told me that, if I touched myself down there, I'd grow a penis. I believed her, so I didn't. I had never had a boyfriend. Once when I was in a trauma unit in a hospital, a guy tried to kiss me and I ran off in horror. The guy was on crutches, so it wasn't hard.
At age seventeen, I had also never been drunk. My Dad was a complete prohibitionist when it came to drinking. There was never a drop of alcohol in our house, except on holidays, when my parents let me have a sip. I had never gotten drunk with my friends, because I was a nerd, plain and simple. My looks changed a lot for the better at seventeen - I was blonde and skinny with forever legs and serious boobage, but still a nerd at heart.
With this horrifying lack of street smarts, I went to a big city to take my college entrance exams, passed them, and stayed on for the mandatory two weeks of community service. Mom's aunt left me a key to her apartment. She was away for the summer. Every day after my community service was over, I'd walk around the city, looking at sights. When I got tired of walking, I'd sit down on a park bench, read a book for a while, and move on when rested.
It was on a park bench that I met Max. He was short, bearded, and 11 years older. Max sat down next to me and struck a conversation. He asked what I was reading, then told me a little about himself and asked about me. Max lived in an apartment close to the park with his mother. He had been married, but was long divorced.
"So you're new here," he said. "Have you ever seen how they raise the bridges?"
As you may know, St-Petersburg is built on a river and is often called "Northern Venice" for the multiple canals running through the city's center. Naturally, there are a lot of bridges for people to get across. St-Petersburg is also a port, so at night, they raise the bridges for the large ships to pass through. Then they lower the bridges again at dawn. It is a fun thing to watch. I watched it once with my friend and her cousin. But that was some years later. Back to Max.
"Do you want to see the bridges raised? They're going to do it in a few hours. Let's walk around and then I'll show you."
Of course I wanted to watch the bridges raised. We decided we'd walk around the area and have some ice cream while we waited. Now here's something you won't see in your Dairy Queen. Back in '84, in Russia, in an ice cream shop, you could get a glass of champagne. Nobody asked you for ID. Max and I walked down the stairs into a small ice cream place and had a scoop of ice cream and a glass of champagne each. Half an hour later, Max suggested that we do it again in a different ice cream shop, so we did.
Before long, Max had taken me to five or six ice cream shops and I was plastered.
It's been very hectic since CB's injury last weekend, so one thing led to another and I missed my Musical Hump Day. Here's the video. It is, once again, a song that was popular when I was a kid. Do you know that the guy who sings it died at 42? Do you know I will be 42 next year? Or will I?... Scary, scary thoughts. Anyway here's the video. Joe Dassin, "Champs Elysees". The place that I will never see, the way this recession is unfolding.
****
I'm reading The Stand now, and have gotten to the place where the superflu kills 99% of the population. I love the book; one thing I noticed, though - how come every one of the survivors is a WASP? Congratulations, Stephen King, you killed off all Blacks but one, all Asians, all Latinos, all immigrants. Didn't want any of your survivors to speak with an accent, eh? Oh, and the Jews, too? Again??? Well good job on your ethnic cleansing, and screw you.
Ahhhh, I kid. I like Stephen King. Funny though how all of them really are WASPs. Check for yourself.
****
CB on the other hand, is reading Oliver Twist as his school assignment. There was a list to choose from, but the teachers hinted to all kids in the gifted program that they would really benefit from the hardest book on the list. You know, what with their amazing brains and all. So this is what CB and his friend have been reading for the last two weeks. Here are their thoughts on the book, as of yesterday:
"Mom, can you believe it, in Oliver Twist, there is a character called Bates. And Oliver has to call him Master. Get it? Master Bates?"
Last weekend: Urgent care with LP. Yesterday: Emergency room with CB. Scheduled for next weekend: alien abduction/anal probe for entire family.
When I came home from work, as soon as I walked through the door my parents started telling me what an awesome person Sarah Palin is. After ten minutes of it, I suddenly remembered I had plans. That's how I ended up at LP's high school parent orientation last Thursday night.
Dear Costco shoppers. If you, with a group of your friends, decide to have a loud conversation in an aisle, blocking it completely, then I reserve the right to park my cart by your group and continue offering helpful comments until you let me pass. "He said what?" "Oh no she didn't!" "That's where you're wrong." "All right, here's what I think you should do..."
Also, next time your unsupervised child runs out in front of my cart, I will abduct him, bring him home and use him for child slave labor. There's plenty of dog shit in my backyard that needs to be picked up. None of my kids want to do it.
"Are we having fun yet?" "Can we go home now?" "Are you working hard or hardly working?" Ask me any of those questions and I will mix ground Ex-Lax into your lunch. Before you ask, yes, I do have a bad case of the Mondays.
A friend confronted me yesterday. Apparently some time ago, I sent him a picture of my dog. He was wondering why. I don't remember doing this, but I can see the reasoning I must have used.
Dude probably asked for new pictures of my family and my thought must have gone something like this:
Send him my picture? Nah. I'm not getting any younger, or any more photogenic.
Kids' pictures? Nah. There is nothing cute about pictures of a 13-year-old and a 15-year-old. Besides, I don't have their pictures anyway. They are never around me long enough to get their pictures taken. Plus I'm suddenly having these odd concerns about privacy. Should I be sending out their pictures without their permission?
Send him Mr. Goldie's picture?? Now this is just wrong.
So we are left with the only member of my family that is irresistibly cute and smiles each time he sees a camera pointed at him. It's a no-brainer.
However, my friend also has a valid point in that dogs are not quite family, or even human. Nobody wants to see a picture of my nasty-ass dog. People want to see family pictures.
Point taken. Family picture. You can clearly see myself and CB in this one. Don't we look awesome? Check out how CB has grown.
This song was a huge hit back in my college years. Why? because we had mandatory draft. We had 18 year old kids drafted and sent to war against their will. Not all of my friends returned. Of those that returned, not all returned intact. May this never happen to our children. Status Quo, "You're In The Army Now".
Like a good mommyblogger, I still swipe material from my kids when I get a chance. This is CB's new forum sig. I love it, and cannot believe my son's genius.
"Opinions are like penises, they are best kept unrevealed in public."
*** *** ***
I have a new favorite read that I will add to my sidebar when I get a chance. Behold the new bash.org, Favrd. If only I could tweet like those guys. Alas, most days all I can do is croak.
I plan on getting most of my election coverage from this site. It may not be accurate, but hey it will reflect the voice of the people. Plus, it will be funny.
*** *** ***
So how was your long weekend? Mine consisted of these events, in this order:
- Friday: CB's friend asks to sleep over when there would be no adults in the house till around midnight. Friend's dad grants permission. I grant a "whatever". - Mr. Goldie leaves for a five-day fishing trip. - Poker night. Return at 12:30 AM. Make beds for CB and friend. - Saturday: Go see Tropic Thunder with CB and friend. Possibly the best movie of the year. And to think that, if it wasn't for all the "come picket with us" emails, I wouldn't have even thought of seeing it. - Dinner out with CB and friend. Friend leaves. - First feedback. From my writing class. Very helpful letter from my instructor. Where she says. I need to stop using run-on sentences. - Eight loads of laundry. - Sunday: iron. - Walk the dog four miles in 85 degree heat. Dog still energetic upon return. What a waste. - CB and I go to an outdoor concert with friends. A friend greets CB with, "I never thought you liked this kind of music". Drive home only takes an hour and a half instead of estimated two hours. Home at 12:30 AM. - Monday: leisurely morning is interrupted by a trip to urgent care with LP. I didn't even know kids could have... oh never mind. - Raging headache. Gee, I wonder why. Spend the rest of day fighting headache. - We all agree this has been a "fun weekend". - Tuesday... everything hurts. - What is this "work" you speak of?
