Children Are Precious Gifts

Except when it's three 11 year old boys, 2 of them aren't yours, and you've had them all in your possession for 30 hours.

Wednesday was the last day of school, so I took Thursday off work and invited two of Robb's friends to spend the night. When I picked them up, one of the moms told me that unless I could keep her son until 8:30 pm the following night, he wouldn't be able to spend the night (because she would have no way to get him to the proper babysitters, otherwise). Even though a big voice in the front of my head shrieked "NOOOOO", I told her that was fine. And of course, I then had to offer to keep the other boy that long as well.

It started out well enough. We stopped at Safeway to get supplies, came home, I made them dinner and then turned them loose. I remember my 11 year old slumber parties, and I remember that that is plenty old enough to let them have their own space, so I took everything I needed and settled into my bedroom to laze around for the night. The kept themselves busy with videogames, movies, and pillowfights, and when I finally ventured out around 2 am, they were all passed out.

Thursday was the tough day, though. They were up playing videogames before I even woke up. I tried to drag out breakfast and make that last, same with lunch. Around 2 I took them to see Spiderman 3, thinking that should kill a good 3 hours. But when we got back, that's when things really started to go downhill. Everybody seemed to come out of the movie cranky (maybe because the movie sucked?), and I still had about two and a half hours to kill before their parents were to show up. They were squabbling a lot, and the pillowfights and wrestling were beginning to get a little too harsh. I still tried to stay out of it, but did have to step in a few times.

There was one nice tension relieving moment, though: all three boys came running into my room, shouting that the toilet was overflowing. I hurried over and turned off the water. When I turned around, one of the boys looked at me and said "I took a really big crap". Great, thanks for not only clogging my toilet with your massive poo, but for telling me that what I'm about to clean up is, in fact, your massive poo.

The rest of the night was mostly me breaking up fights, and finally seperating them all about 30 minutes before pick up time. One of the kids' mom showed up right on time. The father of the other (he of the massive poo) didn't show up until almost 2 hours later, despite numerous phone calls.

I felt pretty bad for Robbie, because it should have been a really fun time. It would have been, too, if it had ended about 5 hours earlier. He was pretty upset by the end of it and is currently never talking to either boy again. One of them is pretty ok in my book, but the massive poo kid, frankly, I would be thrilled if they never played again. I doubt that will happen, though.

Thus ends the Great Sleepover of '07.

Hard Hat Days and Honky Tonk Nights

High on my list of movies that I'm always happy to catch on cable is Urban Cowboy. Yesterday, I was getting ready to take my "because I can" Saturday afternoon nap, and caught Urban Cowboy right from the start.

It was made in 1980, when I was 6 years old, so it's well within my frame of reference as far as lifestyles go. In fact, my mom has always been a country music freak, so the entire soundtrack takes me back big time, and at that time she was married to a real life good old boy. I was young, yes, but the era is not as foreign to me as say, Breakfast at Tiffany's.

There are so many things I love about this movie, and even more that perplex me. At that time, was it really still ok to smack your woman if she smarted off to you? Was a sullen cowboy who expected a wife to follow his every command really still attractive? Was it really that easy to move in with your cowboy after knowing him for a few days? It just seems weird to me, that in a time period that I have recollection of, attitudes could have been so very different. Maybe it's true, maybe we have come a long way?

All of these questions are overshadowed by the pleasure of watching John Travolta dance, though. I don't know why, but it just really tickles me that he's so good, in so many different kinds of dance. He's just as good two stepping with Debra Winger as he is disco dancing with Karen Gorney, the hand jive with Olivia Newton John, interpretive dance with Cynthia Rhodes, or the twist with Uma Thurman, and I love it.

Also, it reminded me that I've always wanted to ride a mechanical bull. Any takers? There's got to be one somewhere in this town.

Well There's Your Problem

Every girl who wears makeup has (hopefully) stumbled across the perfect lipstick at some point in her life. Sadly, nothing lasts forever and at some point it gets discontinued. My best color has been gone for a couple years. Since then, I've found others, and moved on to lighter shades. I kind of forgot about it, really.

Over the past couple weeks, I've managed to run out of all my lipsticks all at once, so I popped in to Target today to grab a couple new ones. I got one of my standards ("Nature's Blush" by L'Oreal, if you really must know), and looked at some darker wine colors. "Divine Wine" caught my eye, so I grabbed that too. When I got home, of course the first order of business was to try it on. Well it's almost exactly like my old favorite.

That *click* you just heard? That was my whole life falling back into place.

Big Round Butt, Here I Come!

Since this whole debacle started in late January, I have lost over 20 pounds. Most of this is from purely just not eating. I know this is bad, I know that if I just start packing food away again it's going to hit me like a ton of bricks. But anyway, now that I don't have a pot belly anymore, I was thinking I should get some good form to my bones. I've been doing situps like mad (and by "like mad", I mean for about 3 days in a row, then forgetting for a couple weeks, then doing it again), but what I really want is a nice big round firm butt.

I've never had much of an ass to speak of, and I know this. It's been on my mind lately, but it came to a head Saturday night. My friend Beth was over, waiting for me to pick something to wear. After I finally settled on some jeans, she said, "Holy shit, Jacqui, you have NO ASS!" I agreed that this was true, but she continued, "no, I mean really, not even like you just have a little ass, you have NO ASS".

That's it, that is enough! I vaguely remember an episode of Laverne and Shirley when Shirley got a fake butt to wear under her clothes, but I don't think that's the direction I want to go in. What to do? Even when I was dancing and super toned, I had a small butt. Dancers don't particularly want large asses, and the exercises that you do in ballet and other disciplines simply doesn't do that. I know lunges are a good place to start, but my knees aren't in top shape and give out on me a lot, so that's kind of hard. I do the occasional set of leg lifts here and there, but don't feel like I'm really feeling it where I want it.

But today, I found a new idea: while driving home, I sort of shifted and flexed up and I happened to notice where I felt it. "Hey", I thought to myself, "I'm on to something here". So the rest of the way home, I flexed, and flexed, and flexed. I did stop when a big truck came to a stop next to me, lest they think I was some weirdo getting my jollies in traffic as it was clearly visible that I had some pelvic thrusting action going on. I think this may be a brilliant exercise routine. I did it pretty much nonstop for just under an hour, and (here's something I never anticipated typing here) frankly, my ass is fucking exhausted.

Keep a close watch on my bum for updates.

The Definition of Insanity

The clever saying goes something like, "Insanity is doing the same things over and over and expecting different results".

So I'm crazy, because I just bought some new plants. Now I admit, sometimes I just forget about my plants, and then they die. But even when I remember them and tend to them lovingly, I just don't seem to have the knack for keeping them happy.

I started off with some things that should be pretty easy to keep up:

Basil

Thyme

Rosemary

Oregano

Grape tomatoes (we had some of these last year, grew the most delicious tomatoes like mad)

Mint

Spearmint

Verbena

Now mint is next to impossible to kill; in fact it will take over the neighborhood if you let it. But I have nice big boxes to let it fill up and make good smells. And it's yummy in my tea. Basil should do pretty well too, and the tomatoes and rosemary as well. The thyme and oregano will likely be my problem children. (*NOTE* I will probably not actually ingest any of these things besides the basil, tomatoes and the mint. Maybe if I start cooking more I'll find the other items are called for, but we'll see. I just got them because they smell so good.) And the flowers I got, verbena, I've had splendid luck with in the past, when I remember to water them.

Everything's already been re-potted and placed where it needs to be, sun-wise. I have a really great patio that should be ideal as far as letting in the right amount of sun without baking the poor things in the July Phoenix sun. I think that if they are still all doing well this time next month, I'll add to the collection. Last year I tried strawberries and cucumbers, (the former was somewhat successful, the latter not at all); maybe I'll give them a go again.

Also, do you know who's pretty?

We Have Liftoff

Mostly. Got all hooked up with internet, but I am having trouble with the dratted laptop finding the dratted wireless signal. So for now, I am typing on a desk, not my lap. As I prefer to look on the bright side, I am thrilled nonetheless.

I am still surrounded with mountains of boxes. How can I possibly have so much stuff? I keep thinking, "there, that room is all done", then I find 50 more boxes of shit that belong in it. I think I'm never going to move again. Maybe if I stay long enough, my landlord will see fit to simply bequeath me this house. Hey, it could happen.

Other exciting news:

I am going to have a Big Gay Cinco de Mayo starting at a gay sportsbar, then moving on to a gay cowboy bar. Who knew? My mind doesn't know which way to turn. Take one of my favorite kinds of bars (gay) and mix it with my worst kind of bar (cowboy and/or sports) and I just don't know what to think. I'm assured that that drinks will be cheap, and they're both close to my house, so I think it will be a grand time. I'm already in a tizzy over what to wear. One should dress nice for a gay bar, but one should dress casual for a sports bar. One should never dress country, not even for a cowboy bar. The me part of me is fully prepared to go shopping. After all, it's been months since I bought new clothes, and even longer since I bought going out clothes. The new, boring, responsible part of me knows I shouldn't do that. We'll see who wins. I've been awfully good lately. I'm a good shopper, I can get something fantastic for under $30 I bet.

Also, as reported at Casey's, a major tool just got canned from my work. This guy was (is) the biggest douche ever. For a while, I felt bad for him and thought he was just a lame guy who tried too hard. I tried to tell the boys to be nice to him. But no, his dickwaddery could not be denied, and finally even I gave up and recognized him for what he is: a sad, lame 40 year old man married to a 25 year old woman who looks 14, who thinks women are nothing but that thing surrounding a vagina (even the women who would never deign to be with him. Unsurprisingly, he doesn't know that there are any women who would never deign to be with him), who develops man-crushes on nearby alpha-males, rolling over on his back like a dog all the while still convinced he's the pack leader, bullshitting his way through every situation rather than taking the 5 minutes to learn what he's talking about, dropping compliments on everybody and never knowing that everyone can smell his insincerity from miles away, a VP who wears t-shirts and flip-flops to work (for the 5 hours he spends there, anyway) and who wears matching shirts and rides bikes with his girlchild wife while lying to his employees about where he is.

Wow. Ok I'm done. I told Casey I'd give this guy all my negative energy. Good thing he's leaving, this isn't good for me.

I'm off to read some Rob Brezny and find my good energy again. Pronoia, check it out, man.