SYDNEY AND ROXY DON'T KNOW GOOD WHEN THEY SEE IT

what a crap weekend

first off, i'd like to go ahead and add alan rickman to my top 5. i'm not completely sure of the entire line up, but he's on it. i'm feeling "restrained british romance" this week and he sums it up nicely.

the good:

i got a neat henna tattoo (mehndi) this weekend at the fair from the "south asian businesses of schaumburg" table. kate got 2. hers are cool, but i made her put them places that can be covered for a photoshoot, whereas mine is right on my hand. this association had the BEST float in the parade. you could hear it coming for blocks and was super high energy, gorgeous costumes, drums and dancing. i think we should go to india for a girls trip. it'll be like a bollywood movie.

hit the labor day sale at filene's. got 2 dresses for kate (one will have to be returned because she hates the jewels on it, which i thought she would love. brat), a cute little orange blazer/jacket thing for me, 9 assorted pairs of socks, a green sweater (the long kind like a jacket), and the cutest cutest cutest lounge/sweat pants for me. all for under $50.

now. for the REST of the crap that filled my weekend.

the bad:

jay and molly came with their 2 kids. logan will be 5 in november. he throws temper tantrums. no, really. like a 2 year old. molly doesn't feed him anything but gatorade (she calls it 'blue juice') and power bars (called 'cookie bars'). kid is pasty and small, i presume from not getting enough actual food. the only thing i saw him eat all weekend was cheese pizza and tomato soup. she told me twice this weekend that his preschool teacher thinks he's ready for kindergarten. kid can't read a sound and throws temper tantrums so either molly's high or the educational system in iowa has really low standards.

lucas, is cute and fat and eats everything that i put in his mouth. i got in trouble for giving him popcorn (i bit off the kernel part and gave him the "poof" on top), angel food cake, and blueberries. molly also would not let me give him corn cut off the cob, croutons, blueberry muffins (guess what were $2 a pint at the farmer's market friday), tomatoes, cocoa puffs, or a grilled hot dog cut into cubes. he's 10 months old and still eating pureed baby food. he's got 8 teeth. unfortunately, he also has carrot red hair. i can't tell if that's going to darken or not......

the ugly:

maggie calls saturday night. at 11:30pm. that can't be good.

"your dad had a little fall. he's being airlifted to a hospital in springfield."

so here's what happened. my dad was moving a patio table down a flight of stairs. for anyone who hasn't been to my dad's, the stairs are slightly less steep than a ladder and considerable more slippery because they're painted wood. so he's taking a table down the exterior stairs from the front door down to the lower balcony. he falls OFF the lower balcony at the bottom of the stairs, presumably with a little momentum. maggie was at work. the neighbor got irritated by my dad's dog barking his head off and saw my dad laying in the gravel under the balcony and called 911. good dog.

the diagnosis on saturday at the tiny hospital in camdenton is broken back, collapsed lung, broken ribs. they morpine him up, stick in a ventilator, and fly him to a real hospital in springfield. i wake up jay and tell him. we figure he's probably going to die and we're trying to coordinate transportation to springfield via des moines.

sunday the diagnosis is unclear. springfield decides he doesn't have a collapsed lung after all. but they add broken toe to the list.

monday, they decide surgery isn't necessary, but a back brace for at least several months is. they took him off the ventilator. monday is also the day maggie gives my dear dad an ultimatum. shape up or she's leaving. oh, did i mention his blood alcohol was twice the legal limit, to say nothing of the pharmacy of chemicals he takes on a regular basis?

i don't know why the hell she's still there.

so roxy isn't WT after all....

i stand by my original statement that i thought we ALL were white trash. since yamaharley and syd cut out early like they were going to church in the morning, the verdict is still out on them. and yamaharley sounds like the love child of a lovely japanese girl and a mean grizzly bearded metal worker.

anyway, rox and i stayed in the dot long enough to realize that we simply didn't belong. there is something to be said for the safe and generic strip mall tavern of johnson county. we shall ne'er return.

bonus points to comedian john reep for being able to incorporate both hawaii and retarded into his act. i do wonder if craigslist vibrates quite the way john does when riding his motorcycle. :)

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

that i am so excited about spending the night with **content removed** at a business class hotel off the highway that i am going to take pictures. please bring your A game. especially if we're going to a C list club.

Open Mouth, Insert Foot

so i went to the churchill subdivision annual nite out. there was a fire truck. there was a volunteer cop who gave all the kids whistles.

idiot.

and there were potluck desserts. i brought snickerdoodles. it was my intention to bring one dozen, but i ran out of batter so i only brought 8. i snuck it on the table so i didn't look cheap.

anyway, kate sees a kid who goes to her school so i introduce myself to the mom. she seems nice. we're talking about school. and the school play which is going to be 'oliver'. if you're not familiar with oliver, it involves orphans, a gang of thieves, and a prostitute with a heart of gold. i say:

i think it's a strange choice for a children's play. but i'm sure they'll give all the 'good' parts like fagan and the prostitute to adults. which i think is RIDICULOUS because it's supposed to be a SCHOOL play. i can't believe that they gave all the good wizard of oz parts last time to grown ups, like the good witch and the scarecrow. i'm SURE there were perfectly capable kids who wanted those roles as practically the entire school auditioned.

she says: my kid is very into drama. so is my husband. he was the scarecrow last year and has already been asked if he wants to be in oliver.

ew.

and i wonder why i haven't made any friends here.......

Pretty People

I am concerned that the Pitt-Jolie's are too pretty. All of them. I wonder if they will start selling their genes in order to give to charity. How much would having a Pitt-Jolie cost someone?

kate's basketball camp

first off:  yea me!  i figured how to download a photo off the internet without a right click button!  

now.  kate.  basketball camp.  so this week she attended the schaumburg park district basketball camp.  kids aged 6 to 14 could go.  it was supposed to be girls only, but they mixed the boys with the girls because they didn't have enough girls to make 2 full teams.  i haven't been staying to watch because i can make kate nervous and because those idiot beanie baby boys can't function without me.

so i show up about 15 minutes before the end of the last day of camp yesterday.  they've got the kids divided up by skill level.  one court has all the "junior high" sized kids playing.  one court has all the girls aged 6-11 plus the smaller boys playing.  and one court has all the 10-11 year old boys PLUS KATE.  

she's playing guard and i can see that she's pissed as hell.  finally she goes up to the coach, tears in her eyes.  i can't hear her, but she's mad.  she's gesturing at the boys.  coach whistles and says "throw kate the ball, boys!"  after their game, the coach asks kate if she wants to stay and shoot hoops with him.  kate tells me "i was so mad because they said i couldn't play cause i am a girl!!"  i told her they were intimidated by a 7 year old who could kick their boy butts. she seemed to like that.  plus there's a character on 'zach and cody' on the disney channel who plays on the boys bball team and they're surprised when she shows up at a dinner looking pretty.

this coach, by the way, reminded me so much of vargas that i was going to ask him if he was related.  he looked like him, he acted like him.  big guy, but clearly a teddy bear.

anyway, kate is so pumped up about basketball that we checked out a book at the library on sheryl swoopes and another one on rules.  and last night she ran on the elliptical for almost an hour because she thinks she's in training.  this morning she decided to work on strength training on the wii fit.  HILARIOUS!!

but......i'm still going to sign her up for the girl's league this fall.  :)