Recent Evie-ry

Evie: "Read this. Say this country."

Me: "Hungary."

Evie: "Ha, ha, ha! I know! Hungary! That's so funny!"

Ah, a third grader's knee-slapper.

Yesterday when heading to church

we were sitting at a light minding our own business. The light turned green, we started moving, and then a pedestrian came running across the street right in front of our car. I swore (in a way that was especially appropriate for someone on their way to church), Ben hit the breaks, and all was well. Then a block later the guilt set in and I explained to the girls, "I wasn't really swearing back there--I honestly thought that guy was Jesus." And Evie in an incredulous voice said, "He doesn't even look like that in books."

Evie etc.

In response to Moira's upsetting comment that Evie had a mustache--

"If you keep saying that, my emotional tank will be completely full."

I think this is public-education-touchy-feely talk for 'Quit it or I will bash your face in.'


By the way, my foray into public education is going well, but I'm too busy to write about it right now. So many anecdotes, so little time.


P.S. WEEDS is back!!!

Some Evie-ry

A family discussion that somehow veered into the subject of flowers and perfume--

Moira--"Alcohol's in perfume?"
Me--"Yeah, alcohol's in lots of things."
Evie--"Especially you!"

Thanks, Evie.

Another meaningless post to past the time

Ben just left to go do man stuff with his man friends in a manly cabin with a big manly grill and whatever. Whatever.

So the girls and I are going to spend his money while he's gone and do some back to school clothes shopping. Ugh. I'd rather grill. Moira and Evie hate shopping as much as I do and we all get so grumpy if it takes too long.

This week's episode of Weeds was so wrong in sooooo many ways. Spanking, illegal graphic cougaring, and Shane . . . Shane . . . ugh, I can't even say it. I can't decide if this was worse than the porn movie tangent in season 3 because I'm just too scarred to think straight. I'll get back to you on that. I'm sure you're all dying to know.

Clean and Clear Morning Burst is like an Altoid for your face. So weird. I bet it would be really, really horrible if it got in your eyes. Perhaps it has a secondary use as mace. Speaking of mace, is it true, Sam and previous UK dwellers, that pepper spray is illegal there?

Once upon a time, Ben and I were going downtown for Midnight Mass and we were going to have to park our car and walk for a bit. So I decided we should take my pepper spray I got while I was in college. But it hadn't been used for a long time and I thought we should test it. Ben got the brilliant idea to test it inside by spraying it down the basement stairs. But just when he did, the cat came around the corner and went running down the stairs right into the spray. Yes, we maced our cat. It was sad, but we were then absolutely positive that the spray still worked. Every cloud has a silver lining.

I've gotten out of the habit of wearing earrings and now, when I do put them in, my ears itch. Not the Mandy-I'm-allergic-to-all-metallic-substances kind of itchy--just itchy.

We have less than one month before the big move.

Moira's been learning a lot of European history lately, but it's getting dangerously garbled in her brain. My favorite gaffs so far have been her repeatedly calling Martin Luther 'Martin Luther King, Jr.' and her reference to 'King Richard the Lion Herder.' I'm really thinking it might be best for her not to open her mouth in school.

Meanwhile Evie's brain has become the center of reason and logic. She now shoots down poorly made arguments with six year old ease. The other day I told her to take a couple things downstairs and put them away where they belonged. After just one trip up and down the stairs she came into the bedroom and dramatically flopped onto the bed with an exhausted groan. "Ugh! My arms are tired!" To which I replied, "Just because you're so lazy." "No, if I was lazy my arms wouldn't hurt because I wouldn't have done anything because I was so lazy." Touche.

Alright, as much as I hate it, I must go shopping now.

Upon request

A photo of Evie sans lower incisors. Did I mention she lisps a little now too?

I'll stick with the theme and include a little Evie-ry--

I was getting breakfast ready for the kids and Moira was helping by pouring the drinks. She happened to fill her own glass before her sister's and this struck Evie as the height of selfishness. "You're pouring YOUR milk first?!? WHAT A WASTE OF LOVE!"

*Gasp*

Mandy expressed ignorance of both William Sledd and Christine Ebersole so allow me to do some educating . . . the lazy links way.

Christine Ebersole's imdb page.

And William Sledd's YouTube page. Definitely check out the cupcake baking video. The fashion victim videos are fun but can get kind of mean. And the video where he goes through his own closet and shows all his preppy clothes and his 18 million pairs of underwear is also fun.

Evie just said, "Hey, Bitches."

CRAP!!!

No more William Sledd.

Odds 'n ends

I was watching an Order of the Phoenix behind the scenes thing with the kids, and Jason Isaacs referred to his character as Luscious Malfoy. So there.

I don't know what that 'so there' meant.

I've really been down on tv lately.  Commercials are agonizing and I felt burdened by the new seasons of Heroes and House coming up--the thought of tuning in every week felt like a big ball and chain.  By the end of last season Heroes had become so tedious and this week's episode did little to change that feeling.  But I'll persevere so I can keep up with the Heroes chatter on everyone's blogs, and I'll live in the hope that some more people will get killed off and I'll cheer up.  (WHY didn't Peter and Nathan die?!?  They live on just for the pleasure of annoying me, I'm sure of it.) 

I must apologize, however, for dissing House lately.  Last night was GREAT!  Yes, it's formulaic, but the Dr. Buffer moment alone was worth coming back for.  It was also really nice not having any of the annoying team around.  I'm sure they'll be back, but I'll be enjoying their absence to the fullest.

Today Evie told me her real mother is a vegan mermaid.

Elmo's popularity is total illusion.  For every kid that loves him there are ten adults who want to squeeze his furry little body until he stops moving . . . forever.  I am one of them.

One of the joys of apartment living is the dumpster.  Although having the dumpster in your parking lot is convenient, it also means you have to look at it.  The people that live in the other buildings just don't understand this.  So when it gets really full they just keep throwing their trash in until it falls out rather than walking over to one of the other dumpsters.  Or they just put in on the ground in front of it.  There are no dumpster elves to pick up the loose trash during the night and whisk it away to happy trash land.  Heck, the garbage men don't even do that.  Anything outside the dumpster stays there, those guys do not get out of their truck.  And I HATE it when people throw loose trash in there.  Anything not bagged up is free to fly out of the truck when the dumpster is tipped in.  Then it blows all over the place until the landlord or one of us from this building pick it up.  Grrrrr.  It got so bad the other day that I picked Ben up from his music thing rather than allowing him to get a ride home because I didn't want Traci to see this--

I like looking out of our bedroom window in the morning though.  If you don't look down and to the right, the view isn't too bad.

I was going to put up pics from our weekend trip to the farm but the computer is suddenly rebelling so it'll have to wait.  Poo.

Miscellany but mostly quotes

Sometimes the Safari web browser pops up a little statement that says Safari Cannot Open This Page.  It just happened when I clicked on Blogger and I found myself thinking, "Yes you can" in this really positive and nurturing way before I hit the refresh button.  This amused me.

On Saturday a bunch of us were having pizza at a friend's house.  Our friend Tim walked up to Evie who had just sat down to eat and said, "Well, hello Evelyn.  It's very nice to see you this evening."  And Evie said in a matter-of-fact voice, "Yeah.  Now can you let me eat?"  I think I'm going to stop taking my kids outside the house.

Today's ditzy moment (besides the numerous times I quickly walked to a different room, did something totally unrelated to why I went to that room, returned to the room I had originally been in only to realize that I hadn't accomplished the simple thing I'd set out to do):  Taking my bowl of soup out of the microwave, salting it and then putting the salt in the microwave and shutting the door.

That gloriously effeminate Mika guy can write both the happiest and saddest songs.  Hmm, bi-polar?

I am amazed at the pleasure my kids take in annoying one another.  Back and forth, back and forth and they just giggle and giggle and everybody's having such a good time until Evie, in the blink of an eye, explodes with rage.  It's so weird and so predictable.

Okay, I'll start with the short quote--

"When asked 'What do we need to learn this for?' any high school teacher can confidently answer that, regardless of the subject, the knowledge will come in handy once the student hits middle age and starts working crossword puzzles in order to stave off the terrible loneliness. Because it's true.  Latin, geography, the gods of ancient Greece and Rome: unless you know these things, you'll be limited to doing the puzzles in People magazine, where clues read 'Movie title, Gone ___ the Wind' and 'It holds up your pants.'  It's not such a terrible place to start, but the joy of accomplishment wears off fairly quickly."

(You probably already guessed that was David Sedaris again.)

And here's the longer one from the documentary I Like Killing Flies which I just finished today. I don't think this is exactly the philosophy that I would like to raise my children with, but I think there's a kernel of truth here--

"This is like another one of my half-baked philosophies:  The first duty of everybody in life is to realize that they're a piece of shit.  They're selfish, they're self-centered, they're not very good.  And that you're willing to sacrifice 20,000 people in another country just so that you can go to  . . . a Wings concert.  You sacrifice the lives of 100,000 Chinese female babies just so you can rent that fucking camera and do your stupid art project.  No problem--you're a piece of shit. 

Once you realize you're a piece of shit, it's not so hard to take.  Because then you don't have this feeling that you're a good person all the time.  And let me tell you something, feeling like you're a good person all the time is like having a brand new car with no scratches on it--it's a real responsibility that's almost impossible to live up to.  Being a piece of shit and then occasionally doing something that's good and true is a much easier place to be.  

I think that's really important and I always tried to raise my kids to understand that they're not that terrific and that not being that terrific that's okay because most people that say they're terrific, Bill Clinton, Cardinal Egan, anybody you wanna talk about, they're not so terrific.  Martha Stewart!  They're not so fuckin' terrific either and there's nothing wrong with not being so terrific, you know.  In fact, that's what the whole ballgame is about, about bein' not so terrific and accepting it."

uh-oh

This morning Evie was coloring while quietly singing, "Satan, Satan, lend me a dollar. Satan, Satan, lend me a dollar now."

Maybe that Weeds soundtrack wasn't such a good idea.

Oh, what am I saying?  Of course it was.

Evie-fy

Evie's turned her little teeter totter (is that not the dumbest looking word in print?) into a horse and added a saddle and reins. But just telling your horse to get moving is sooooooo mundane. So today I saw her wave her chopstick wand and yell, "Geddiupify!"

(As you might have guessed, "Whoaify" is the counterspell.)

Completely random

We're rat-sitting Jessica's two rats, Josephine and Ozni again. Ozni had fallen asleep with her head right next to the side of the cage. Evie was charmed by the rat's sleepy cuteness and said loudly, with her face an inch away from Ozni's head, "AAAAAW, Ozni's sleeping! (pause) Oh . . . not anymore."

Jeopardy is the only game show I can watch. It lacks all the horrible hyped up drama and suspense of the newer shows. And those shows always make me care about the person playing--I hate that! I don't want to care, it hurts too much. With Jeopardy everything's quite dignified, no one gets worked up and I never care about the contestants. The girls and I usually pick who we want to win, but if they don't, no biggie. But today Jeopardy's spoiling everything. I'd already decided I wanted Monica to win--she had funky glasses and nice lip gloss and teeth I admired. Then in her Jeopardy Cute Anecdote Time she talked about her morning rule that no one could even talk to her until she'd finished her coffee--I have the same rule! So I felt that I'd bonded with Monica and I definitely didn't want the plastic surgeon to win again--like he needs the money. So I thought everything was good until they introduced the other new guy--a hospice chaplain. *GROAN* How can you not want the hospice chaplain to win? He's one step away from deserving the same amount of pity I'd have for someone that said they only had two weeks to live. And he was older and endearing in that bashful, good sport way. But Monica . . . CRAP! So torn. In the end, Monica won. woo-hoo . . . ish?

I pre-ordered the new HP book from Amazon. But I ordered it with something else and got that free shipping thing. But now I'm vacillating--I still have time to pay a little extra and get it delivered on the day it comes out. It's 5 more dollars . . . I can wait, I'm just afraid that I'll stumble upon some spoiler somewhere in the days before I get the book. : ( AAAAAAAAA, what should I do?!?

I googled Deathly Hallows and couldn't get the right cover image. But they had this picture of J.K. Rowling which I thought was adorable. Her expression says, "I can't believe I have to endure this photo shoot."



Jennifer Garner is a horrible actress.

Speaking of bad actresses--Milla Jovovich. I've recently rediscovered her album the Divine Comedy. She has a really good voice and I like the album. But sales must have really tanked because she never did another album. But being a bad actress in campy vampire, living dead kinda movies must be REALLY fun. Why try to be a good actress when being a bad one allows you to wear skin-tight, shiny black outfits made of . . . vinyl, poured latex/plastic . . .

Evie--

"On Sesame Street they had to talk to this girl in sign language because she was death."

You know your five year old is cool

when you say, "I got soul but I'm not a soldier" and she says, "You just sang what was in my head."

But that's not Evie's favorite Killers song--that would be Read My Mind. But I think that has more to do with the green dinosaur(?)than the actual song . . .



Man, I've had a lot of kidcentric posts lately.

This is The Cheese Man

Happy Birthday, Sweetie

And of course a little Evie-ry--

(said in the sweetest, most wondering voice) "I like it when it's my birthday . . . it's kinda like I'm the boss."

This--

is a pokeypine.

Evie-ry

These are Evie's lions. Today she told us their names are Upper and Downer.

So Evie Said

We were late (SURPRISE!) for our Super Bowl get together thing. Since we're late to just about everything I wasn't too worried. "Ah, no problem--they know we're late people."

And Evie (in a cheerful voice) said, "We're losers."

Evie (in English accent)

"I AM THIN AND GORGEOUS!"