I love technology, until I don't.

This was a bad, bad weekend for my laptop to shit its pants. I can't get Internet, which means I'm at the mercy of my husband to lend me his. Add to this the fact that my Ipod has also died, which for me means a torturous ride to and from work (approx. 1 hr each way). I hate technology, unless it's easy and it works. I miss my precious.

On the non-techno front, potty training is not going well. We figured a four day weekend would be perfect, we'd go cold turkey and come out the other side of the weekend victorious. The only thing I'm victorious about is doing laundry. Lots and lots of laundry. Out of all three of my kids, this is definitely the most stubborn; I'm beginning to take it personally.

So while I can't really complain about a 4-day weekend, I'm going to anyway. Waaaahhhh!!!

This is why I married a man who cooks...

J and Ian had to leave early this morning to help feed the elderly, so he left me a list of instructions to assist with cooking Thanksgiving dinner:

1. 10:00 am: Put 18 eggs in pot. Cover with hot water, add 1 tbsp salt. Bring to boil and turn to med high and allow to boil for 20 minutes. Fill pot with cold water. (I don't eat boiled eggs and only make them once a year at Easter for the kids. I can never remember how long to cook them for and whether the eggs go in before or after the water boils)

2. 10:30 am: Place aluminum foil over turkey breast.

3. 11:00 am: Make relish tray.

Simple, right? Well, I did okay, except I put the tinfoil all around the turkey in the pan and made sure it was nice and tight. Which apparently overcooks the turkey? What he wanted me to do was exactly what he wrote - put a piece of tinfoil over the turkey breast, not the whole turkey (I'm still not sure why you would do that). Luckily he caught it as soon as he got home and it worked out. Oh, yeah, and I forgot to take the corn out of the microwave and we didn't realize it until my brother came over 5 hours after we had eaten dinner!

Then, after he cooked the pie, he was outside working on something and asked me to take it out of the oven. Not that difficult....except about 30 minutes later we (he) realized I didn't turn off the oven. It's not that I forgot, uuummm.... I thought the local firemen should come over for a nice Thanksgiving dinner!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I have so much to be thankful for:

Family (this includes you ALL)

Friends

Continued recovery for Ian (even though it's soooo sllllooowwww)

A job that makes me happy

The fact that I'm an American and live a comfortable lifestyle without fear of political persecution

Happy Thanksgiving!

Because I Miss True Blood

Because I miss True Blood (and that yummy Eric goodness):
(Found these here)

They start 'em young...

Weekend wrap up:

I'm glad I went to see New Moon with my brother and his fiance at the Midnight show. When I took BB last night, it was as bad as I thought it would be. The guy in the seat next to me spoke to his friends all through the show (he even took a phone call), in Spanish. The man in front of me talked to his girlfriend through the show. There was a group of hecklers down in the front section (where the pez-heads have to sit) - a lot of people shouting "Shut up" at them. But BB had fun and it was a nice mother/daughter evening.

I downloaded Amazon's Kindle for PC this weekend and picked up a couple of free books to test drive the Kindle and see if I like it. So far it doesn't seem any different than what I've been using (microsoft reader). We'll see.

Ian started his first job this weekend. He's doing busboy work at a cafe near Tulane's campus; J says Saturday/Sunday mornings the Tulane co-eds do their walk of shame past the place so he's got a nice view. He likes the work and he's tired out at the end of his shift. Good.

BB went to two birthday parties this morning. The first one was at English Turn country club. When we pulled up in front, Molly yelled "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse!" haha - I guess we don't get out much. The second party was at an art studio. While she was there, the little girl who lives next door to us announced to everyone that BB has a hairy back (I guess she bent over to pick something up and her shirt rode up). Is it wrong of me to refer to an 8-year-old as "that little bitch next door"?

My Nerddom is Cemented.

So, I did go to see New Moon at 12:01 Friday morning. It was great - better than Twilight. Got home around 3am and even though I had taken the day off, had to get up at 6am to get the kids off to school and begin my day. Needless to say I went to bed early last night!

Well, I just finished purchasing my online tickets to go see New Moon tonight with BB. She's been bugging me for days and when she heard I'd already been to see it she almost died! It's funny but that's how we did it with Twilight last year too.

So, anyway, I've been to the midnight show, am seeing it again tonight, and will see it again the weekend of Dec 12 when my SIL and Twilight partner-in-crime will be visiting. (Hannah - we're going that Friday night no matter what else is going on!)

On the plus side, at least they don't have uniforms I could wear like Star Trek so people won't know I'm a Twilight nerd unless I tell them!

Pot, meet Kettle.....

One thing that really chaps my ass is people who run red lights. Yellow lights are for slowing down, not speeding up. These people drive me nuts. Guess what? Today I got pulled over for running a red light. Yup, I sure did. Luckily for me I was sent off with a warning - (thanks you know who!!!) but I couldn't believe I did it. What lesson did I learn? Don't judge.

In other news, I was not exactly offered a job yesterday but they did ask if I was looking and would I be interested if there was an opening...It was a real day-brightener!

Lastly, (Nerd Alert!!) I may be going to see New Moon tonight at midnight with H1 and H1Fiancee. Gotta check available tickets. Luckily I'm off tomorrow so I will not be as miserable as I would be.

Thanks Ian!

I can't stop listening to this song....

Cleanliness is next to Godliness?

Hi, My name is Patti and I am addicted to Q-tips. I'm not even sure that's possible, but there it is. I am constantly cleaning my ears. I even have Q-tips in my drawer at work and keep one or two Emergency Q-tips in my purse. Did I just say Emergency Q-tips? MmmmHmmm. I don't know why....I'm just totally paranoid about my ears. Is that weird?

click....

We all keep passing around The Sickness. Took Molly-moo to the doctor yesterday - she's now on 4 different meds. Poor baby! I had the windows in the house open for about a week so at least I feel like I aired out some of the "sick". I hate being sick and cramped in the house, it's almost like a spiritual cleansing to be able to wash all the clothes/linens and throw open the windows for a few days.

click....

You know how someone will say something and it'll remind you of a line from a song? It happens to me all the time. This weekend, BB said something, and I sang the line from the song (it was an 80s tune but I dont' remember which one) and she says "Way to try to be cool mom. Fail." Ouch!!!!!!!

click...

For H1: Molly's been coughing a lot. One way I make her laugh: Give her a stern look and in my best Rene-from-True-Blood-cajun-accent say "Don't cough on me, you." Gets her every time!

Uncle Sam wants me? Nah, I don't think so!

Before I get to the point of this post, you must first know a couple of things about me:

Fact 1: I am a people pleaser. It's very, very hard for me to say no. I'm very non-confrontational. If there's something you want me to do that I don't want to do, my first line of refusal is to ignore it. If that doesn't work, I'll make some non-committal noise and change the subject. It's only been recently, now that I'm an adult with three kids, that I can tell people no. Do I feel guilty about it? Absolutely! But I've learned the hard way not to overstretch myself.

Fact 2: I was a Navy Brat. My dad retired from the Navy when I was 18 or 19. I spend my life living on Navy Bases until I was 16 and my parents bought a house here in New Orleans. I spent my childhood around military men and women, both in and out of uniform, all day, every day. Because we were allowed to roam the Navy Base(s) as kids, we were pretty much surrounded by military people. My dad was military, my friend's dads were military.

Fact 3: I graduated from High School in 1988. The Iraq war was ending; popular movies were Dangerous Liasons, A Fish Called Wanda, and Die Hard; popular music was George Michael, Robert Palmer, Erasure, U2, Guns N' Roses; and of course, being 18, I was very self-centered and sure about the world and my place in it. I knew what I was going to do with my life and how it would turn out. (My after-school job was as a cashier at a local grocery store - we had to wear these awful brown polyester pants and an orange smock. I hated that uniform!)

So.....

You know how, in your senior year, the Army/Navy recruiters contact you trying to get you to enlist? Well, they went from sending mail to calling my house. And as I mentioned above, I'm not good at saying no. But I knew without a doubt that I didn't want to join the military. I'd spent my life seeing/doing things the Navy way. I understood how the system works - it's not bad, it just wasn't for me. I wanted to be My Own Person. I wanted to go to college. I must have given the recruiter some non-committal answers, because they kept calling. No matter what vague excuse I gave, they had a solution/reply. Finally, one night they called, and I was on my way out the door for a hot date with my then-boyfriend (now my husband!) and the recruiter called AGAIN. I'd had it. I don't remember why, but I was really annoyed at this guy.

Finally, I (Ms. Non-confrontational) told the guy "I'm not going to join the military." And he asked why not. My reply? "I don't want a job that I have to wear polyester every day."

There was a moment of silence, then, "Wow. I've never been given that reason before and there's nothing I can do about that. You have to wear the uniform. Okay, thanks."

And that was it. They never called again.

Some of my favorite things about living in New Orleans

I know I am sometimes guilty of bashing my fair city. Sometimes she deserves it, sometimes she doesn't. Today I present you with a list of my favorite reasons to live here (in random order):

The Music. You can't walk past an open doorway without hearing some kind of music pouring out. I love music!

The People. New Orleans is probably one of the friendliest cities in the world (unless you're at a fast-food restaurant, then we're the worst). You can have a 10-minute conversation with a complete stranger and it's not weird.

NOMA - I love the museum. 'Nuff said.

The Audubon Zoo/Aquarium of the Americas. I love the Zoo in the spring and fall, when the animals are out and moving around. We really do have some nice exhibits. I usually do the Aquarium when it's too hot to go to the Zoo. It's just a ferry ride across the river so getting there is as much fun as being there.

The French Quarter. I know, I know - dirty, smelly, yuck. But it's also fun - going out drinking and staying out all night - no curfiew or open container laws here - the fun only ends when you decide it's time to end. During the daytime I love to walk around and imagine the lives of the people who lived here centuries ago.

Mardi Gras. Need I say more? I will say, in our previous house, at Mardi Gras time, we could sit on the porch or, if the windows were open, inside the house and hear the music from the bands in the parade on the other side of the river. Really nice.

The architecture. We've got the antebellum homes uptown, and the art-deco high-rises downtown. I love them both. There are all kinds of hidden architectural gems scattered throughout the city.

There's always a festival somewhere: Jazzfest, French Quarter Fest, Satchmo Fest, Tomato Fest, Citrus Fest, Strawberry Fest....

The French Market - It's like a year-round hippie garage sale: knock-off purses/sunglasses/perfume, touristy items, books, clothing, food, it's got just about everything!!

And The Saints! This year they're making history - 8 - 0 - woo hoo!!!

Lazy Sunday

Can't get rid of Michael Jackson (insert "Beat It" joke here)

I'm not exactly sure how to preface this story....I guess some of the kids at school have been talking about Michael Jackson - maybe because Thriller always comes up around Halloween? My 3rd grader, BB, has mentioned him a few times in the last month, and I let her watch Thriller and Beat It on youtube a few weeks ago. (She didn't know which one was MJ until I told her.)




Well, this weekend, J got SIL a gorgeous book about Frida Kahlo, sort of a copy of her diary with pictures and commentary. My 3-year-old opened the book to a picture of Frida (not this one) and said, "Is that Michael Jackson?" WTH? Since then, she's asked about Michael Jackson several times, and when "Beat It" covered by John Mayer and Fall Out Boy came on the radio, Molly asked me to replay her Michael Jackson song over and over.



As I am sitting here typing this, she's sitting next to me with her play phone:
ring, ring, ring......"hello Michael Jackson!"

Oh, God, make it stop, please!!!


In other kid news, when I took Ian to his Halloween party, he commented "Oh, we're driving by Laser Tag. I didn't realize he lived near here." At which point BB pipes up from the back seat, "You got to go to Laser Tag - you're so lucky!"

Ian's answer: "Shut. Up."

And on the potty-training front: BB encouraged Molly to pee in the toilet, "Molly, you'll be a big girl if you go potty on the toilet." Molly: "I don't want to be a big girl." BB: "What do you want to be?" Molly: "I want to be a vampire!!"

Weekend Wrap-Up

Guess who I saw on Saturday? Yup - Charlaine Harris!!!! The book signing was awesome! We got there early and were number 3-6 in line!!! They gave out numbers so we didn't actually have to stand in line and went and got coffee and shopped a bit. We had a blast. I even think Ian, my Book Mule, had a good time too! At one shop, I had put aside a couple of fake apples to buy, and while I was browsing the rest of the store, he secretly paid for them! How sweet is that? He's such a good boy! I have pics but they're on my home computer, will have to update when I get home.

Ms. Harris was so sweet and answered questions and was very gracious and chatted a bit with us as she signed her books. She said Pam is her favorite character and after her next book, Dead in the Family, she is contracted for three more books.


H1 and SIL I think had a great time too. After the signing, SIL met J and H1 at VooDooFest and they didn't get home until 4 am!! I took the kids trick-or-treating (mom sent me more pics, will post soon) and spent the rest of the evening in quiet.

Then Sunday, we woke up late, had lunch at a local Japanese restaurant, and H1/SIL headed home to Houston.

The funniest thing happened yesterday - Molly was in her room playing, and Mike went outside to his truck. As soon as the door shut, Molly comes running out of her room "Where's My Mike?" - we have no idea how she knew it was him that left the house. My theory - she felt a disturbance in the Force.

And, while they were getting ready to leave, H1 and BB were bouncing Molly off the air mattress. She'd sit on the corner, and H1/BB would plop onto the mattress and Molly would literally fly through the air - it was super funny - until she landed face first on the edge of an open suitcase. Poor baby!!! But I swear - if we'd have caught it on video - we'd be on that Funniest Video show, it was hysterical!

All Souls Day

He would have turned 10 yesterday.

I hate that his birthday was on Halloween and I don't just have the one day to stay home and think about him. Maybe that's a good thing, I don't know. I would never deprive my other kids of their Halloween festivities, but it's hard not to think about that day. That's probably the reason I always put off doing Halloween until the last minute.

10 years ago, as I worked through my grief, I'd often wonder if it would get any better and if the pain would go away. I journaled and cried every night for weeks. I saw a counselor. The grief eventually did get easier, and I could go days at a time without thinking about him; now it's usually some trigger, like hearing his name.

I'll never forget him but it doesn't hurt like it did.