Necessary boredoms

It seems I am always searching for a way to add more time, more organization, more space in my world. It just ain't happenin'. I'm too involved with too many things - and its my own fault. And not just "outside of my house" stuff. Primo example - I was determined to get through a simple to-do list today. Instead, I started a completely different project that could have waited. So one more day with a nasty bathroom floor, but at least the laundry is getting done. My list had a few minor things - hang a few pictures, vacuum, scrub bathtub. Would have taken 2 hrs.

Instead, I started going through all the crap in the office. Cleaned up one bookcase, made a dent in another. I have a stack of Parenting mags going back 3 yrs. I've looked at them maybe 10 times in the last year. There are a few good articles and I'm not much of a cook, but they have doable recipes. So "organizer" me starts going through them. I probably pulled articles from 10 or so. Which means I have a lot to still go through. Now I'll have to take those articles, categorize them (health, food, money, Toddler, etc...) and find a 3-ring binder for them. Thank god for a curious, busy toddler in the house. She was a great excuse to work less on it that my organizer instinct would like. Amazingly, she balances me, usually. :)

Why do I do this to myself? It would have been so simple to just stick to the list. Now I've created an entirely new one. I'm exhausted just thinking about it. I'll compromise. We decided to take S out to an indoor play place tomorrow. I'm cleaning the frickin bath as soon as I get up in the morning, so I can enjoy the afternoon with no worries - the mags can wait, again. Checkmark! One down. God - life's little necessary boredoms.

The first step is admitting it...

I admit, I am an American Idol junkie.
I'm slowly getting drug into Tuesday and Wednesday tv. And I usually despise what is on network tv. I hate the initial episodes where they show the poor off-key singing souls with their freaky costumes and freakier voices. But once they get the people who can actually sing, I'm completely riveted.

i have a tendency to root for the weird ones. The less Brittany, and more Avril. More Bo, less Carrie (although her country girl-ness definitely had some sentimental value for me). I'm all for the rock stars - the pop kids need to just sit down - we have too many of the cookie-cutters out there as it is. Which is why most radio sucks. (Exception - www.kexp.org out of the U of Wash.)

There was a guy on AI last week who was a total rock star. Married a chick with 2 kids - she was there and so teary as she "gave him his chance." I wondered how I would handle that, once he was a star, that is. Talk about having to be flexible. I dug the guy though, and his story. They don't tell stories until they actually make it some sort of distance in the contest. i'm interested in hearing him sing again.

One thing I can say that is really positive, other than giving people their 15 min. of fame, it also shows me how many interesting people are out there. Not to mention showing the rest of the world the same. Americans can be such individuals (at least the under 30s) - and isn't that cool? Look out Republicans - the weirdos are getting older.

Mild humilation and a great visit.

The two events in the header have absolutely nothing to do with one another...so I'll start with the visit.

My beloved cousin D was in town last weekend. He is my sis's age, and was always the "younger brother" in our family. He is a great kid (guy, whatever) and I don't get to see him very often. Strangely enough, I can't remember the last time I actually sat down and chatted with him. I now feel as though I have missed out. D, if you read this, I don't mean to embarrass you, but you are an extremely funny, personable, entertaining, intelligent, easy guy to hang with. I wish I knew the perfect girl to send your way, 'cause you'd be a wonderful catch for someone (even if ATVing is your hobby). ;) I feel like I've missed out on being your friend as we've all become older. I really want you to keep in touch. Chee and B had a great time as well. Next time we'll do pool and beer instead of coffee. :) Maybe the hi-po will station you with a few hours of us - that would be very cool. You are always welcome in our home.

As for the mild humiliation - scenario is: Chee and I have LOTS of single friends. I really think we have more than the average happily married couple. And I want ALL my singles to find a happy double. With that in mind, I did some searching on craigslist.com, not seriously having any certain person in mind, I just wanted to help. Bad move on my part - I was looking at women seeking men, and lo and behold, saw an interesting match for our friend Mikey, so I sent. I got a little carried away and saw several other options, and sent to him. Then saw a great one for friend T. Sent to her. Catch that? HER. Oops. T (not knowing yours truly is an idiot) sent the nice lady an intro email. Caveat - no name was in the online ad and T is hetero. So, plot thickens. Nice lady writes T back. Signs it with "Kathy." T finds this hilarious and calls me to rub it in - what are friends for? T even tells her Dad. O god - good thing I embarrass easily - more fun for T that way. Poor Kathy.

Morale of story: Be careful when sending "helpful" emails - or at least make sure you get your genders/sex orientation straight (pun not intended).

BTW - Happy Birthday, T! I'm glad I made you laugh your ass off today.

Politics, sorta.

So I'd say I move from the left to center. No way am I right. Unlike my family in KS. I can't talk to them about anything political - they are always right/Republican, regardless of the blantantly obvious & the stuff you have dig past in the media to get to the real news(so Dad, if you're reading, sorry). We actually had a HUGE fight when I was in college about Rush Limbaugh. What a waste of breathe - and I never rubbed the whole "drug addiction" in anyone's face when that came up(of course, I'm sure that would have had justification, as well).

Most of our friends are Dems or Indies. I'm at the point where I just want:
A. a leader in the big white house who can speak intelligently, and who has travelled out of his own backyard (we SHARE this planet, after all)
B. someone who at least tries to be nonpartisan
C. the possibility of a leader other countries can respect (versus hate or laugh at, which is what we have now)
D. no more pres. who work for big corporations (i know this is a HUGE stretch, but one can hope)

I'm just sick of the last 6 yrs. What a huge step backwards for us all.
The one bright spot for me (and many of my cohorts) is Senator McCain. A Republican who can think outside of the Rep. cage. I saw him speak recently & I think 2008 is his year. He seems honest, willing to work with other people and isn't trying to make everyone on his side happy ("i've got an idea - let's make the Christian Right happy - nothing else matters"). The worse thing that could happen would be more of the VP in power. Crimeny.

I just hope others are as sick as I am about the last years of shite and "lies" being pushed down our throats by guilt and fear. It has just been so embarassing! Makes me cringe.

I'm going to add a few links to this blog - there are some funny/scary things out there on the Web regarding all this. http://www.commondreams.org is a good place to start.

Good coffee

I've noticed lately that new coffee shops are popping up all over town. I think it's wonderful. I'm not a huge coffee drinker, but it allows for excellent meeting spots where people will not be getting drunk; granted, people who are drunk will stop in once in awhile, but that just makes things more interesting.

I just like the variation of ambiences these indie coffee houses come up with. I'd like a room like that in my house. :) Some have live music at nite - which can get annoying sometimes (too loud to converse). Few have comfy chairs like they used to. I would think it

Having all the great indie places leaves no excuse for people to go to the "global coffee monstrosities." If you frequent particular coffee places, they get to know you and your tastes, leading to coffee made exactly your way, not made to fit the corp. recipe. And if your ambrosia is made by someone other than yourself, don't you want it to be made-to-order?

It's such a nice change.

Kid movies and other randoms

My daughter is obsessed with the Mary Poppins movie. I've now seen it, or parts of it, approximately 2 million times. It's awful. I used to like the movie - it's my fault - I introduced it. Now have the lyrics to "Let's go fly a kite" in my head 24/7. Hopefully this period will pass soon. She knows all the characters, including the dog. I never knew the dog's name until I had an obssessed almost 2-yr old (it's Andrew). I admit, the Uncle Albert part still makes me giggle - ah the joy of the old Disney movies. I do still have trouble with Dumbo - I skip the separation part (it upsets me and S) and the drunk baby elephant part is way over her head, but silly more than anything. Now it looks to me like the Disney animators back then were all high at the time they wrote that particular part...

The new kid movies are so focused on being "entire family" movies that they are full of adult humor. The old ones do have adult themes (death, separation, etc...) but you don't have to worry about everything being over their heads (like all the sublties in Mulan - which I love, but S won't "get" for a long time).

I can't believe parents took very young children to the last Harry Potter. Talk about adult themes - scary movie for a little one. My take - if you haven't read the books, DON'T ASSUME it's okay for your child. People are stupid when it comes to movie hype. If it even has an inkling of "kidness" (animated, kids in the movie), they'll bite. Unbelievable. No 4 yr. is ready for Harry Potter 4. When we saw it in the theater, there was a whole gaggle of what loked like 7 yr. olds and under. (It looked like it may have been a class outing.) 3 adults to 11 kids. Horrible. 1/2 way through, the kids starting walking around and goofing off. The special effects were amazing and we came away very impressed, but it was not apprpriate for the kids, as they obviously weren't interested 1/2 way through. And my kid will not see it until she is old enough to read and fully understand the book.

Take all this with a grain of salt. I was a very impressionable kid. A bookworm who came out of her shell with a vengenace. (Reading is still one of my fav pastimes.) On the farm, we only had 3 tv channels. We rarely went to the movies, and my parents never let us watch scary ones. I saw a made-for-tv movie once about a girl who was kidnapped, and I had nightmares for weeks. I remember my mom saying she never should have let me watch it. Ghost story books completely freaked me out. I still dislike horror flicks (unless they are cheesy B movies). I don't think it's a bad thing to want to keep my kid from seeing what really amounts to a waste of time, energy, money and brain power.

Festivus

Ok - I'll admit it, I'd heard of it, but really had no clue as to the details.
So - for those of you who are in the same predicament - here's the skinny:
http://www.vidlit.com/festivus/

Thank god for the internet.

Beautiful book

My Aunt C is an amazing florist. She is a head designer at a prestigious studio in LA. She's done lots of "movie star" weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs, birthday parties, Oscar dinners, etc...(she also did the flowers for my first wedding - which were so incredibly gorgeous. Too bad that marriage did not work out, but I've got some freaking amazing floral shots!)

And she has finally published a wonderful how-to book! I have a copy and it is so gorgeous. Great ideas of decorating with flowers while on a budget. "Splendid Flowers for Every Day" - I might be a bit biased, but you won't be disappointed...
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=Iz5uiLLCqB&isbn=1402725140&itm=1

i don't watch local news

because it sucks. I was reminded of it last night, watching the local revelry broadcast by a young & obviously getting drunk blonde man.
You rarely learn anything of value from local news, unless there was a shooting nearby, and you want to know who bit it. Which is truly infrequent. Most "reporters" look like new college grads, freezing their asses off, or getting rained on, or hanging out at some local event that no one has ever heard of, blathering on with huge *pregnant* pauses. everything is a freak-out. they have to make news. is that what journalism has become? I'd rather know about city issues in detail. About where the local road construction is going on, and where the money is coming from to do it; detail on who is running for what and when for pete's sake! It is almost impossible to find out voting info, unless you're working on the campiagn issues directly. How sad is that? But I can tell you, by God, how many people got shot at the local QT a month ago - and about Jessica simpson's latest drama. Crimeny and what the hell? That is considered important to me? Too bad you can't choose a "My News" on your tv like a My Yahoo. Someone should invent that.

I feel like I can criticize - a. because it is a free country (so far & as far as we know) and b. I was a Journalism major. I met some of these people, and yes, most are just pretty faces who can read a teleprompter just *pregnant pause* right.

What happened to journalism on tv? There are too many damn "entertainment news" shows. I've found the only news where I can really know what is going on in my own country is by watching the BBC, or CNN. My daily NPR fix makes me feel semi-informed, but i know they have their limits. ( I should really read the city paper - maybe that is my problem). it's so much about ratings, that nothing worthwhile is even touched upon. there is a reason international news is either avoided, or gets a meager 30 sec at the end of a broadcast. in the u.s., the vast majority of people don't seem to care, unless it is entertaining in some way.

is this the media's fault? well, to an extent. if their audience gave a crap, they'd move the focus from "buffy the cat who was trapped on an airplane" to the hell that is currently Sudan. we can't do anything immediate about either situation, but it might open up some seriously closed eyes...

no idea where this mild rant came from...we're actually about to the point where our cable might go away. if it weren't for discovery, history channel, noggin, and the occasional ball game, it would have gone away long ago.

And that, my friends, is why you can't buy cable by the channel. 'Cause NO ONE would spend the same kind of money they do now in buying the ESPN Ocho channels individually. Please.

Happy first day of the rest of your life

It was a lovely day here in the Midwest. A freaky 60 degrees.

The best part of our day was the long-awaited visit of J&K from VA. THANK YOU for coming to visit - it was really wonderful to see you both. I miss you so. Let's keep in better touch this year. Life is too damn short to lose touch with those you care about...let us know if anything new pops up. :)

I've decided to post a pix of my two great loves - what would I ever do without them?


After working on this blog for awhile, I may add more...