Yucky Salad with Bones

October 31 '06

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

Ryan Phillipe and Reese Witherspoon have decided to end their seven year marriage, and the Hollywood community is reeling with shock...upon learning they had stayed together that long.

"Seven years, wow... that's a long time to pretend to be be straight," one tinsletown insider observed, "I mean when you think about it, in dog years, that's like, um, what, like 12 years or something. It practically matches Tom Cruise's record."

Please. Ryan Phillipe is no Jack Kennedy. I mean Tom Cruise.

I know I'm not the only one, I mean predicting the demise of a Hollywood marriage is like predicting the sun will come up tomorrow, but I did say in last year's Golden Globes screed that Mr. Phillipe was six months from Chad Loweville. He'll escape that fate, actually, since he parlayed his wife's good fortune into a decent career for himself as of late, though I buy him in Flags of Our Fathers about as much as I bought Melanie Griffith in A Stranger Among Us.

October 28th '06

So Miguel was chuckling at Bill Simmons this morning, and he read me Mr. Simmons' wife's story about her favorite all-time Halloween costume, some friend of hers who dressed as a one-night stand.

Halloween costumes...there isn't a wit in cyberspace or otherwise who hasn't already weighed in on girls who simply use the day to dress like whores, so I'll not go into that here; I'll stick to my favorite legitimate costumes over the years.

My brother Joe once wore my mother' big fake fur coat and hat and went as a bear. The fact that my mother essentially wore the bear costume to church every cold winter Sunday of my childhood simply speaks to her delicious sense of humor.

Another year, when he was in college, he dressed as an aborted fetus. It was right around the same time Robert Mapplethorpe and his merry band of bullwhips were forcing their way into the annals of the collective conscience, (pun intended) so Joe was able to sell it as scorching public commentary. Those of us who know him well knew he was just being disgusting.

It wasn't for Halloween, but rather the high school Sadie Hawkins dance, that Mary Louise and her date dressed as Dutch Elm Disease. By the time I got to high school, that dance was no longer really a costume dance; everyone just dressed like hillbillies...but back then it was, and yes, I did just bring that up to illustrate how much older than me she is.

Anyoots, she and her date wrapped themselves in tarpaulins painted to look like bark, with giant orange "T"'s on them, and glued branches and leaves to the football helmets they wore on their heads. If memory serves, they won first prize...ML always won prizes for pretty much anything that took artistry; I think she designed the homecoming button every year she was in school. One of the most famous Mary stories was that she got a "D" in art class one year, a grade worthy of note for the snorting derision it garnered her art teacher, who clearly didn't know his ass (which probably had a bullwhip sticking out of it from time to time) from his elbow, around our dinner table.

My best-ever costume was Yul Brynner. I was basically a catchall version, a mixture of Yul in two different roles. I wore a bald-headed wig with a hole cut in it in order to free a long side braid and a set of King of Siam jammies, since I didn't want to go topless like King Ramses did. Not that anyone would've mistaken me for a girl with my top off...it's a physical trait I've long accepted, people. If I'm comfortable with it, why can't you be?

I outlined my nostrils and eyes with a black eye liner and was virtually unrecognizable. The problem was, I was 19 and all my friends were dressed as, you guessed it, slutty cats and the like, and I ended the evening with nothing but my misdirected creative impulses to keep me warm.

Josie was a basket of dirty laundry last year, that was pretty good...come to think of it, Meg was a stellar Willy Wonka. She's ended her Johnny Depp tribute phase, however, ( two years ago she was Catptain Jack Sparrow) and this year she and Josie are dressing as "hippies".

Hippies. That makes me laugh...it's comparable to me dressing as a flapper. There's got to be lesson there; perhaps it's "No matter how radical you think you are, eventually but still in your lifetime, you will be mocked by 11-year-old girls." Maybe next year, Meg and Josie could go as Robert Mapplethorpe.

Studio 60 review from Kenny: (not broken dishes hemorrhoid Kenny, see below, but musical theater Kenny. I ask you, how many bloggers out there have to differentiate their Kennys?)

"Could they have shoved any more social issues down my throat in an hour? I fully expected an AIDS patient covered with oozing sores to come straggling onto the set or for them to give a small, naked homeless boy a pair of pants."

Putting Molly to bed tonight, we're going through her alphabet book. She was tired and crabby and tried to phone it in, but I caugt her red handed whn she turned the page and grumped, "Q is for bed" and whipped her book on the floor.

"Molly, Q isn't for bed, it's for 'quilt'", I scolded her.

"It is too, mom, there's a picture of a bed so it's for bed."

It made me wonder, what's a better skill to have? The knowledge that "q" is for quilt or the ability to convince me it's for "bed"?

October Million and seven, '06

One of the many perks of being a regular 'salad reader (the biggest being, of course, a sense of superiority gained from the reminder that you are a better speller than I am, and probably a better person in general. Certainly a better dresser; though we can't see each other, I believe I can say with a certain amount of confidence that you are. Unless your name is Helena Bonham Carter, in which case you are not) is that I will wish you a Happy Birthday when your numbers change, provided I know when that is. Happy Birthday, Sarah, and remember: you're not livin' til you're bonin'.

All right, that was a little ridiculous, I was trying out a new "catch phrase" that was suggested to me as an identifying slogan:" You're not livin' 'til you're bonin'...Yucky Salad With Bones." It's too much, even for me. Besides, too many apostrophes. Another suggestion was "Maybe if you spent less time on the computer there'd be something decent to eat around here", which I thought was really bad. I came to the conclusion that I don't need a slogan, it's not like I'm running a t-shirt stand.

Speaking of 'Salad readers, this story from reader Kenny made me laugh: Your kidney stone reference reminded me of one of the funniest analogies I've heard to date. When my dad was in the hospital with hemorrhoid surgery, he was visited by an elderly friend from their church who, when reminiscing about his own bout with said ailment, stated that the only way he could accurately describe the experience of "going" afterwards was "like giving birth to a full set of broken dishes".

Still today. I'm not done yet.

N'kay...just read the paper, and I simply cannot let this slide...The Source page has a completely idiotic piece on Holloween treats, recommending handing out rice cakes and fruit leather to trick-or-treaters. Yeah, that's a great idea. You know what? If your intention is to hand out something like that, take my advice; just deposit those items directly into the nearest trash receptacle, turn off your lights and pretend you're not home. Don't make little kids go through the bother of standing on your front steps in the cold for that.

My lady love Heloise has done topped herself, too:

Dear Heloise,

I carry my cordless phone wtih me at all times. I find it fits perfectly in an empty, square tissue box in my walker tote.

Ahem.

WTF??????

Dear Heloise,

While looking for glue one day to reseal an envelope, I found clear fingernail polish instead. It worked beautifully.

Substitute "to reseal an envelope" with "to get high" and this one makes a lot more sense.

The best one:

Dear Heloise,

Use lengths of metal chain to weigh down dropcloths when potting plants, painting, etc., outdoors on breezy days.

WTF???

Gosh, kinda breezy today...but I gotta get those plants potted...if only I had some object to weigh down my dropcloths...hey, I guess I could use lengths of heavy chain...I mean I hate to let the slaves go, but what can I do? All my cordless phone-filled kleenex boxes are in my walker tote!

The next morning. it's still October, and its pretty early in the morning. For me, that is.

Oftentimes I'll go a long stretch without reading any blogs, and then I go read my faves all at once and catch up on everything I've missed. Like a camel. Sadly, it's the way it has to be; if I read them all every day, I'd get nothing done and my children would starve. Short story long, I noticed this morning that this fellow recently used kidney stones as a descriptive connotation of an unpleasant experience, as I have done below. I would like to say that it is pure coincidence; yes, I do read his blog regularly, yes, he did write his piece first, no, I wasn't trying to copy. (Remember when you were a kid and "copying" was right up there with not owning up to flatulence?) I just wanted to clear the air (ha...I said "flatulence" and then "clear the air"...ha!) and dispel any thoughts of lawsuits on his part. But I know this fellow to be a decent sort; always been nice to me and occasionally drops me a note concerning something I've written, kindly instructing me to remove my head from my rear. So I call upon his good nature to let bygones be bygones and let the kidney stones indeed pass.

I've never actually had kidney stones, but I had a kidney infection once. Not fun. My sister in law has had them and she assures me they are far more painful than childbirth, but she's had six kids and by the last one, of course it wasn't painful. They were basically falling out.

Billy also dropped me a note this morning, telling me that I combined the words "extinguish" and "diminished" for a grand total of "distinguished" in my last post. I changed it. Man, I've been doing that a lot lately. It's certainly no secret I'm a lazy speller, but...well, OK, I'm a lazy everything. Time to go.

October something, I don't know, I think it's Monday but I'm not sure.

I know I went to church yesterday, so it probably is. Why the confusion, you ask? Well its MEA weekend, of course! And we've now stretched it to include Monday as well, invoking the "In for a penny, might as well take Monday off too" defense.

Overheard while I did the dinner dishes:

"Meg, say 'I can', then spell 'cup'."

"I can then spell cup."

"No, I mean say 'I can,' and then spell 'cup'."

"I can and then spell cup. I know this one, Finbar," she says with all the eye-rolling knowingness that comes from having lived a full three years longer than he has.

"OK... Molly, say 'I can', then spell 'cup'."

"I can't spell, Finbar! I can't even read yet!"

"It's spelled 'c-u-p'....now say, 'I can,' and then say 'c-u-p'."

"I can c-u-p."

Howling laughter. Not even that incredibly lame, completely butchered set-up could extinguish his enjoyment of that joke.

Yesterday was loverly. A lazy Sunday, and though we didn't discuss The Chronicles of Narnia, we did indeed make cupcakes. I gave myself a stomach-ache by eating an ill-advised third one, but no worries; I had Kickboxing this morning and worked it off along with everyhting I've eaten in the last month and most of my dignity.

That's right, I said kickboxing. Muzz and I signed up under the tutelage of the children's karate teacher, and we love it love it love it! It's honestly such a blast, I intend to dump my gym membership and just kickbox and run all winter. And may I just say, this is seriously the hardest workout I have ever tried. I hurt so bad the whole first week, I felt like I had the flu...picture Muzz and I, stumbling around the gym flailing at each other like Million Dollar baby if she'd kept fighting after she was paralyzed from the neck down.

We're grunting and sweating like we're trying to pass kidney stones and I'm not sure if we can't get a breath because we've gone way over our VO2 max or if it's just 'cuz we're laughing so hard.

Took Molly's kindergarten class to a pumpkin patch last week. Not fun.

A) It was freezing B) It was drizzling C) the kids were told they had to carry the pumpkins themselves and there was not a single pumpkin there under 20 pounds. "Pumpkin patch" was a stretch, too, to be perfectly honest. It was just a pile of pumpkins sitting in the middle of an open field that had turned to mud by the time we got there. There was a hay ride, and a little petting zoo, (The children shrieked with laughter over a well-endowed Shetland pony that was "trying to poop"...finally there was a confused pause as the children stared, mesmerized, and one little boy rightly observed, "I don't think that's poop.") and a big hay mountain to climb on, but again, it was raining and freezing, so by the time we marched the kids over to the pumpkins, half of them were in tears.

"OK, crying, wet 5-year-old, grab one of these giant slippery pumpkins and haul it back to the bus, which is at least two miles away! Isn't this fun??" My group of kids and I alternated between me carrying some and the kids rolling the others. That sounds much more efficient than it really was, mind you; I'd like to see Moses try to herd kindergartners across a mud field in the rain is all I'm saying.

So we finally got all the kids settled back on the bus, and they are told by the bus driver they are not to put the pumpkins on the floor or they will roll around, they must hold them on their laps. Again, these pumpkins were wet, cold, and as big as the kids. I piled as many as I could on a seat and just crammed all my kids together. Molly passed out. Back at school, I asked her little pal "Well, did you think that was fun?" and he smiled really big and said "YEAH! Except for the part when we went to the pumpkin patch."

October 16 '06

North Korea may have blown off a nuke, not even the Amish are safe from gun-wielding lunatics, a pig congressman gets caught with his hand in the, uh... cookie jar and someone paid attention to the man behind the curtain of the Twins almost magic season.

I'm here to tell you it ain't all bad, folks. If you haven't seen the cover story of this week's US Weekly, then I am pleased to be the one to tell you that party girl extraordinaire/future Oscar winner (fingers crossed!) Tara Reid got her boobs fixed. Apparently she had so much scar tissue on her nips as a result of botched surgery, (according to her publicist, her breasts had a deviated septum) her areolas were oblong. Oblong! Like some sort of circus freak! Her emotional retelling of the trauma she's endured over the last year, particularly the ridicule she received after her accidentally (hello, Tara haters, fake boobs don't have any sensitivity, duh! How was she supposed to know one of the birds was leaving the nest?) exposed breast at P. Diddy's birthday party alerted the world to her shameful secret, makes me view the film Van Wilder with a whole new level of respect. Poor Ms. Reid was unable to have sex with the lights on for like a year. You know, I hear something like that and I think, Darfur who?

And as if that weren't enough, the lipo she had on her stomach left it slightly lumpy.

How much must Tara Reid be expected to endure in one lifetime?

But she overcame her deep self-loathing, picked herself and a Yellow pages up and found a doctor (in L.A., of all places, whoda thunk it?) able to give her a proper flat stomach and round, rosy nipples. All is well in Taradise now, and my friends, the lights are staying on.

If only Tara's doctor was able to do for her career what he did for her funbags; she is currently starring in an AOL movie called Incubus, downloadable for one month on the internet. Next stop, porn. Godspeed.

Oh...and in the loose talk or short takes or whatever it's called section, this quote from Carmen Electra: "I'm really into quantum physics."

October 15 '06

Happy Birthday to Liz! Liz has been my best friend for over twenty years. We met in high school, where we were on the Cross Country team together...she was super outgoing, one of those girls everyone knew and liked, and if she hadn't taken the time and effort to befriend me I wouldn't have had much social life at all, me being the kind of girl who was happy to stay at home with only my bitterness for company. But she made the effort, even though the way she tells it, her first friendly gestures toward me were met with much resistance. Apparently I didn't just have a wall around me back when I was younger, I was Fort Knox.

I owe much of whatever ability I have to talk to people now without wetting myself to her. Because anti-social behavior is usually owing to simple insecurity, you know? I'm not talking sociopathic behavior, mind you, I just mean that thing that drives teenagers to go Goth and mutter wisecracks about everyone else (OK, I haven't completely grown out of it) and what have you, and she is the person who made me feel not so insecure anymore, mostly by way of laughing at everything I've ever said...and that includes when I'm not trying to be funny. She boosts me up and puts me in my place when needed.

Happy Birthday, Mumsie, we loves you.

Saw The Departed last night. WOWZA. We'd been told by at least four different people how great it was, and it was. The best movie of the year by far...it's 2 and a half hours long and I was completely sucked in the whole time. Oscars for everyone, forthwith! I couldn't possibly choose who in it did the best job, honestly. I pity the fool who is in any other movie this year, come awards season.

Little boys are hilarious: The other night, the phone rings. Mike answers it, and it's one of Finny's pals from school.

"Um, Hi? This is Matthew? Do I have a test tomorrow?"

October 11 '06

Back. Project Runway finale tonight. My money's on Laura, she's got it all. Uli makes cute sundresses, Michael is good at sportswear, Laura I'd wear everything she's designed so far and happily. Jeffrey...well, I wouldn't wear one single thing of his at gunpoint. All right, I would maybe wear that yellow checkered monstrosity he made, but I'd tell people I made it out of the curtains of my antebellum home, which had been decimated by the civil war. And they'd be like, "Well, we won't make fun of her ugly dress because she is obviously nuts and is probably on her way to eat dinner out of a dumpster." And again, I would only do that at gunpoint. A big gun, not a little one.

Ps...my dad just emailed to tell me to change "paternal" to "maternal". Whoops. Poor dad, I'm sure he can't wait to feel the glow of maternal pride about moi.

Earlier today:

Got new Buffett, yay! A new Buffett cd coming out ( I refuse to say "dropped", I hate that phrase because I don't understand it, and yes that's an ignorant reason but what do you want from me? I don't like fish, either, but that's because it tastes bad. "Why Katie, not all fish tastes bad!" Yes it does. Where was I? Would you mind not interrupting me with your inane fish stories? Now I've lost my train of thought. Oh yes...) is like Christmas and summertime all wrapped into one. I know the guy is 87 or so now, I know his concerts have devolved into little more than carnivals at which he is the king barker, and I don't care. I'll love him 'til the day I push up daisies, and even then, I want the guests to conga to him at my funeral. All three of them.

Filed my first column in months today. Felt good to dust off the cobwebs and jump back in the fray. But more importantly, Finny got his black belt on Sunday! I'm still basking in the glow of my Maternal pride, (this said "paternal" earlier. Sue me) after enduring the worst case of helpless mom-nerves ever, watching him do that test. I swear, he's got a Jedi-like aura around him now...perhaps I'm the only one who can see it, and perhaps I'm just projecting it onto him, but indulge me, OK? He's my son and he worked so hard, and I'm proud of him. I have to go to the grocery store now.

October 9 '06

Well if this isn't the nicest thing ever...thanks, ML. cue my Jimmy Cagney imitation: My my mother thanks you, my father thanks you, my sister thanks you, and I thank you...only change it to, you know, my husband thanks you, my daughter thanks you, my other daughter thanks you, and I thank you.

October 5 '06

Happy Birthday to Margy! If I know her, she is fixxin' to eat lamb chops and peas tonight, as that was always the menu on her big night, and the evening meal was the star of the show. Gifts weren't part of the equation.

I was five when my parents informed me I would no longer be receiving birthday presents.

I did not look upon this as good news; in fact, I thought they were kidding. They weren’t.

The three of us were sitting in my father’s home office. My dad was sitting behind his desk, rocking back in his chair, and my mother was standing over me with a frozen smile on her face, nervously wringing her hands together.

“You’re not being punished, sweetie,” she said. “We love you, and the days you children were born were the best days of our lives…it’s just that someone has a birthday every month, sometimes more…Margy’s birthday is the day right after yours! Which is great, we love it...but the presents, well…there are just too many of you and we can’t afford it anymore.”

This last part spilled out in a quick torrent. She furtively glanced at dad, who nodded his agreement.

It made sense. My dad was a writer with ten mouths to feed. (Don't get me wrong, I took the news as well as any five-year-old would, meaning badly, but I eventually did get over it like two years ago.)

My folks had already broken this bit of disturbing news to my siblings. As number eight, and my younger sister not to be born for three more years, I was the last to know. I would still get dinner and the cake of my choosing and no chores for the day, but the possibility of a new Barbie or an EZ bake oven for simply managing to exist for another year had passed.

Dinner, that was another matter. It was always a feast, anything you wanted no matter how time consuming. My mom spoiled us rotten in the food department. There was never not something yummy around, homemade cookies or brownies or nut goodies or something...walking in the back door after school you'd see one of two things: a kitchen table covered with piles of folded laundry (which we'd then have to put away, not sweet) or piles of warm cookies (sooo sweet). Dinner was (still is) always a home cooked extravaganza of deliciousness, discounting the odd annual night of ham hash or beer-battered fish (sorry mom....and just for the record, I love both those things now). She out-did herself on birthdays. Even if you requested eggrolls or fondue or something just downright foolhardy to try and feed a crowd, she'd cook all day and get 'er done. Andy always requested sweet and sour pork, which I think took her about three days to make and everything in the house reeked like grease for a week afterward, but wow was it good.

It's funny, how stupid we were...we were always jealous of kids who got factory made treats, because we only got them if my mom was sick (I only remember that happening maybe twice my whole life, and it was so world shakingly terrifying. Mom is sick? Our mom, who can do anything? How can she be sick, she can't get sick! Why is the world spinning off its axis? Why? WHY?) or the oven was broken or something. My brother Billy wrote something so funny this summer, about how he wouldn't even tell my mom he had a fever because he knew she'd brought home "store bought" cookies for whatever reason, and he didn't want to miss out on Nutter Butters and Oreos. I got a factory cake on my tenth birthday because our oven was busted, and I was so totally jazzed about it until I bit into it. Weird...it looks like chocolate, but it tastes like...lard.

My kids are hip to gramma's skills, too...every time I make one of her signature dishes, the reaction is always "it's good...but it's not as good as gramma's." Finbar once said to me, after tasting a treat from one of his friend's grandmother's, "All Grammas are professional chefs." Mike's mother was no slouch either...her brown sugar carrots and turkey tetrazzini are still faves with my kids.

Anyway, everyone pretty much had their unwavering favorites and they continue to this day. The only exception would be Andy's cake choice, there were a few years there when he had some bizarre pick like Blueberry coffee cake or Oreo pie, for which he was ridiculed mercilessly even though they were great.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARGY!

Oh, and I need to rectify a mistake: Kenny objects to my saying he is a "former" actor/comdian, and I am appropriately contrite. There is no such thing as a former actor/comedian and Kenny is simply between shows. His last show did just win an Ivey award and his stand-up dates are TBA....

October 4 '06

Trolling through the blogosphere this morning...come across an ad for an IQ Test, click on as I vaguely wonder how blogs get advertisers and whether or not I should...mentally file that thought under "too much work" and begin test...feel my self-esteem rise as I fly easily through it, getting more excited at the thought of tangible, print-outable proof that I am a genius.

Ha! Got it, they're all multiples of four, minus three for each one...whoever wrote this will have to get up a little earlier in the morning... I click through a series of red herrings to get my results; no, I don't want to go to the University of Phoenix, no, I don't want to pay 12 bucks for a full IQ report, too smart for that, ha...geez...this is taking a while...oh wait, what's that, "skip this ad", OK...here it is...I knew it, lookit that number, my ninth grade guidance counselor was wrong! I inflate with a smugness that is quickly pierced by a loud, frantic shriek: "MOMMY IS BREAKFAST READY YET?"

It's 8:57, and my pajama-clad kindergartner, who has been patiently sitting at the table for half an hour, has to be at school in three minutes.

Whoops.

Fall television update: Nip/Tuck is rocking so hard this season, especially gratifying since season three blew. My initial love for Studio 60 is cooling a bit, on the following grounds: Billy and Kenny ( independently of each other, mind you,) brought up the point that none of the self-described "brilliantly funny" characters ever do or say anything actually funny. Kenny, who is himself a former comdey/theater performer, assures me that when you get a bunch of comedians together, all they do is try and out-do each other. My beef, maybe not really an actual beef yet but the seeds of annoyance are definitely planted, is that the show-within-the-show is supposed to be so wickedly edgy and to illustrate this they do sketches about...Tom Cruise and GW Bush. Wow, that is fresh...to quote the dearly departed Larry Sanders, "Is it last January already?" The Moliere references were also more than a tad precious...I'll keep watching, hoping it lives up to its hype.

October 3 '06

Back. Anyway, had a party for the team and sundry friends and relations who ran, and my backyard is still a shambles, a testament to our good time. My heart goes out to the family of the poor man who died, apparently he collapsed very near where we were but I didn't see anything, knew nothing about it until I heard it on the news. I did catch the very end of the Twins game, and I fully admit I'm a Johnny-come-lately to the hoopla, I never really pay attention until the playoffs, but better late than never, right?

The kids are putting up the Halloween decorations as we speak. I guess we're not really speaking, but you know what I mean. They're concocting some sort of grisly looking scarecrow...suddenly they love horrible, scary, bloody things... they want to be demented surgeons and posessed clowns and the like this year, when in the past it's always been cheerleaders and princesses and Star Wars characters. Well, Molly wants to be a cheerleader again.

Speaking of Molly, she pulled the biggest Molly yesterday I wanted to straighten every curl on her little blonde head. She's been begging me, begging me I tell you, to let her take karate like the other kids do, so finally I relented and signed her up formally. I say "formally" because she's been going to the studio for so long she knows it like the back of her hand and is already on a first name basis with everyone who works there, takes classes there, has a kid, loved one or casual aquaintance taking classes there, drives by there or has ever heard of there, doing her best to lull them into a charmed stupor of Molliness on her quest for total world domination. Anyway, I sign her up and now that she's actually in the class with a bunch of other kids, she realizes she isn't the sole center of attention anymore and this simply doesn't fit into her paradigm of how the world is supposed to work. But she is plucky and resourceful, so she immediately starts the "I'm a delicate flower too afraid to join in the sweaty antics of this class" waterworks. It works, of course, all heads turn, she is petted and cosetted and sweetly ushered out to her mother, who knows exactly what she's up to. So I say to her through clenched teeth, "My sweet, I'm taking you home now."

"OK," she sniffles pathetically, well aware that people can hear us.

I take her by the hand, we leave and the second we get in the parking lot: "NO mom take me back IN I'm missing my CLASS!"

"What? Molly I am not taking you back in there unless you actually want to do the work."

"I DO mom I PROMISE."

Open the door, we walk in, she slumps her shoulders and starts to sob and cling to me and says loudly, "MOMMY I WANT TO GO HOME!"

The cute little teenaged assistant who Molly adores comes over, takes her by the hand and showers her with undivided attention the entire rest of the class (which is what the kid wanted all along and frighteningly, knew exactly how to get it,) and as I watched my young daughter, who I love with all my being, it hit me like a ton of bricks: she's Roxie Hart. Her idea of Heaven would be if flashbulbs went off every time she left the house.

Crazy busy/Grrrreat weekend. Could not have been a better day for a marathon Sunday, just stunningly beautiful...it may have been a smidge too hot by the time most were done, but the colors! The sunshine! C'MON! The fabulous Jason, who designed the blog (sidenote: all technical glitches associated with this blog are because I start messing around where I don't belong, always resulting in me calling Jason in tears and begging him to fix it. For free.) you are currently reading on your way to some other, more interesting web destination, finished seventh. Seventh. Think about that, y'all...and while he was disappointed he didn't finish higher (athletes of his caliber are always a little disappointed when they don't win, which is how they got to where they are in the first place) got his Olympic qualifying time and we are all vedy, vedy proud of him. The fabulous Susan won the women's masters for the second year in a row. Must go, will be back sometime today.