The Graduate

Blogger is being uncooperative about letting me upload pics this morning, but managed to get these online before it got cranky.


Jak-El graduated from preschool on Friday. We're very, very proud. I managed to hold off on crying until they got to the photo montage of babypictures of all the kids. Then, I teared up. I also teared up the next day when we watched it again on video, which proves, as my husband says, that I'm mental.


Here's the graduation cake. When he was a baby, we did a photo cake for Jak-El's baptism. It looked good, until it fell over and part of the frosted Jak-El's hand slid off. And, it was very disturbing to have to cut up my first born's head and serve it with ice cream. I'll never get a photo cake ever again. This does look cute though. Jak-El is front and center, in the blue shirt.

I'm Here....

...but I'm not. Been a crazy week between work, a sick kid (Dan-El has strep, *again*) and getting ready for Jak-El's preschool graduation today.

Vacation roundup and graduation pics next week.

Bon Weekend, all!

Oh, and its my anniversary today, so happy anniversary husband!

Honey, I'm Home

::Lois walks in front door and is surprised to see everything neat and tidy. She hears yelling and turns around to see elderly neighbor shouting at a policeman::

I don't know what this world is coming to! I go away for a week to see my sister Adelaide--you know, she's the one with the bad hip and the diverticulitis--and I come home to find my home in a shambles. There's brownie crumbs everywhere--who eats brownies in the bathtub? Red wine is spilled over the carpet and someone spray painted "E. Izzard is my homeboy" on the ceiling. What on God's green earth is an Izzard? And the whole house smells funny...like oregano or burning rope or some such.

::Lois goes back in house, locks door, finds the husband.::

Honey, remind me in October to not take the kids trick or treating to Mrs. Kravitz's house. Don't ask why. I'm just not sure we'd be welcome.

Gone Fishin'

Or something. Be back in a week or so...

And no, I didn't even try to lock the doors this time, because I know you'll all get in somehow. And judging by the comments on Cake's blog today, most of you probably won't even be clothed.

Infrastructure is on the kitchen counter. Cookies are in the cabinet by the door. The number for a reputable carpet cleaning service is on the fridge.

It's Wednesday...

Clean up all those errant bags of poo and make the world a prettier place!



(More art by Darryl Cunningham can be found here.)


Three Things I Just Don't Get the Point Of:

1. Twitter

2. Super Delegates

3. Clam Strips

Dreams Can Come True!

A few weeks ago, the Husband had a dream that his dad came over to help us with some stuff around the house, and he brought The Rock along to assist.

Last night, I killed a spider in our living room using this week's issue of Entertainment Weekly.



To sum up:

Thank you, Dwayne Johnson!

You Know You're Raising Your Kids Right When...

...your two-year-old--who had been excitedly demanding to watch "Doctor Who" for an hour--asks you to wait to change the channel, so he can finish watching a "Monty Python" sketch.

This is what we were watching (without Spanish subtitles):



It also did my heart good earlier in the show to see him laughing his head off and repeating "THE Larch" over and over in a silly voice. (Pythonites will get it.) Reminded me of myself as a teenager. Which means that:

(a) Dan-El is very advanced for his years. Or,

(b) At age 15, I had the social maturity of a toddler.

I think the truth lies somewhere in between.

Um Yep, It’s Friday

::phone rings and Lois has a conversation with a heavily accented public relations person who seems to speak English as a fourth language::

Lois: Hello, Lois Lane.

Caller: Yes, um, hello, um, Lois.

Lois: Hello.

Caller: I’m Mimi Madeupname from, um, BlahBlah Corp. Are you, um, going to be at, um, SomeDumbThing next, um, week?

Lois: I’ve never even heard of that. Is it a conference?

Mimi: Um, yes, it’s like a, um, conference. Joe Schmo of BlahBlah is going to be presenting as a speaker on, um, topic, of Something Vaguely Related to What the Magazine Lois Writes For Covers, But Not Really. It would, um, be a good, um, opportunity for you, to um—

Lois: Not to be rude and cut you off, but as I said, I’ve never even heard of that conference, so I’m not attending.

Mimi: Oh. Well, um, are there any, um, stories, you are, working on, related to what BlahBlah, um does?

Lois: Nothing specific, but I’m sure we’ll do something.

Mimi: Um, BlahBlah is, um, a, um, leading something something, um something.

Lois: I am familiar with the company.

Mimi: Yes, um, I, know you, um, had a, um, briefing with BlahBlah. But I thought that, um, it would be, um, a good, um story for you, um, about, um, This Thing That Really Wouldn’t Be Covered By the Magazine That Lois Writes For.

Lois: There’s no angle for us there. We cover What We Cover.

Mimi: Um, yes. But, um, it, um, is, because you could, um, do, um this and this.

Lois: Yeah. I’m sorry but I really don’t think so.

Mimi: Okay. Than, um, I will, um, keep, you, um in touch, um for, future, um things.

Lois: Oh, please do.


Um, here’s a video. Happy Weekend!

Entertainment Tonight

(Here’s a post written on Friday night, that I never got around to posting this weekend, with Monday morning Director’s Commentary.)

Since I haven’t posted anything recently (I know the Dwight YouTube thingy was just phoning in. I do, I really do), and it’s Friday night (as of this writing…who knows who when I’ll get around to posting this?), and I’m enjoying a nice glass of infrastructure, let’s have a really random talk about entertainment.

Why entertainment? Consider it a post in honor of Joyce Kulhawik, channel 4’s very cool entertainment reporter, who gave her last report tonight. Thanks to budget cuts at the station, she was laid off. (Boo budget cuts!) Pretty much every Boston station has laid off their entertainment reporters, which means local music and theater can kiss their TV coverage goodbye.

(Of course, it’s not like I actually get to go out and hear live music or see live theater anymore, but it’s nice to pretend.)

This is sad. Of course, its not like I get out much anymore to see live performances. The last movie we saw in a theatre prior to a few weeks ago was “Juno,” which we saw Christmas vacation week. “Juno” was awesome, and features a shout-out to one of my BFFs, Herschell Gordon Lewis (Google him if you don’t know who he is). Okay, maybe HGL doesn’t think of me as a BFF but he is a friend and an exceedingly cool guy who completely freaked out my boss’s former boss by hugging me and then jokingly declaring to a group of people at a conference that he and I had been having an affair for years. I think the boss thought I was gonna sue or something. I just cracked up laughing.

(Have I told that story before? Who cares? I’ve been up since 5:15 a.m., and the little bast…I mean, darling who woke me up then proceeded to yell at me for several hours, about everything from what was on television to the fact I wouldn’t him eat M&M Yogurt for breakfast, nor would I change my shirt just because he wanted me to.)

I told you this was gonna be random. Someone will sum up in the comments, so either go there or keep reading, ‘kay?

Anywho…

A few weeks ago the husband and I saw “Iron Man,” which, as Cake said, was really, really cool. Robert Downey Jr. was excellent, and as IANO said (no link, cause he said this to me in person—I know. How old school) the movie would have been great if he was just playing Tony Stark for 2 hours, and not Iron Man.

(Caught the end of the MTV Movie Awards last night. Downey was very funny.)

A movie that was not so good was “Spider-Man 3,” which we finally saw on cable last week. As a good comic book geek, I generally make an effort to get out to the theaters to see these sort of things. And we intended to see Spidey the Third on a cinema, we really did. Then…everyone we knew who had seen the flick—geeks and non-geeks alike—told us it was crap. So shelling out $50 bucks to a babysitter suddenly seemed like not such a good idea.

(Oh, but you know what was good? Friday night’s “Doctor Who.” We’re up to “The Poison Sky” here in the U.S. – that’s part 2 of the Sontaran story. Loved the “Are you my mummy?” bit. If you saw it and didn’t get the joke, go get the season 1 DVDs and watch “The Doctor Dances.” C’mon, like you’ve got something better to do.)

Skipping Spidey at the multiplex was $50 bucks well saved. In the midst of one of the many song and dance interludes, the husband looked at me and said “Who is this movie for? Do they think kids would like this?”

“I dunno,” I said. “Maybe gay kids, who are trying to reconcile their love of superheroes with their love of Broadway?”

Then, I realized that gay kids would have better taste than to like this sort of nonsense.

As for my kids—who are gay? Straight? Who knows? I’m sure they don’t even know yet…Dan-El liked the action sequences, but was nowhere near as excited as he was for “Transformers,” which he has watched multiple times (that’s very high praise for a non-cartoon movie coming from a two-year old). Jak-El kept wondering why we weren’t actually seeing Spider-Man more (I wondered that too), and thought the ending was very, very sad.

For the most part, I don’t watch a lot of movies on TV. I tend to fall asleep, even if I’m really enjoying the movie. This is a byproduct of having a child who gets up at 5:20 a.m. almost every day.

I do watch a lot of TV though. This season of “Top Chef” has been pretty entertaining. There was one high pressure challenge where I predicted accurately who would win. The husband was puzzled. How did I know? Simple. She was a mom, and used to doing multiple things at once while people screamed at her simultaneously about things unrelated to the tasks she was doing. Before writing this I made Jak-El a grilled cheese sandwich and Dan-El pasta, while at the same time feeding the cats and listening to Jak-El give me detailed rundown of an episode of “SpongeBob” and Dan-El yelling “Light on, Mommy!” as he played with a light switch.

(Every time I hear the name “Top Chef,” I automatically start singing it to the tune of the “Top Cat” theme. Cause I’m a bit of a tard. It’s true. Ask my cat.)

And since Dan-El is screaming “DADDY HERE! DADDY HERE!” I know the husband is home with our dinner (from Boston Market. YUM!) that means blog writing time is done.

In the words of Gordon Ramsey, SHUT IT DOWN! SHUT IT DOWN!

Happy weekend, friends!

(Happy Monday, that is.)