School Supply Shopping

School supply shopping . . . .

We get the list with the last report card, lol. But I'm actually grateful for it. Wasn't too bad this year, about $225 for 4 kids, I can't complain too much. Dan combined the 4 lists excel spreadsheet style to help me....and I was sooooo grateful!

Now for the $440 dollars in after school club/art/field trip fees the first week of school....that's more challenging, lol.

and that bag of okedokey? Yeah, that was my required "after school shopping" supply! :)

We enjoy shopping at Kmart and value their lawaway program

All done, and went back 6 days after to get it re-adjusted and got another 40 bucks off!! Whoo hoo! Those adjustments sure are worth the trip.  

Admittedly could have saved more if I did what Angela does, but I'm not the type to go to different stores for this/that. I like to get it done in one swoop, and early....so the stuff I need isn't sold out. (Damn triangle crayons, or fat pencils...my back-to-school nemesis for a few years there!)

Right before I walked with Smiley down to Classic Slice to split a $5 lunch, I watched the Jerry Quarry - Mac Foster bout from the summer of 1970. Contrary to every other fight of his I've watched, Quarry avoided getting cut and TKO'd Foster in the 6th.

Scrabble

According to the statistics on the Scrabble app on my Nook, I have played 421 games, with a record of 263-154-4; that's a 62% winning percentage. In my best game I scored 406 points, I have notched eight bingo's, and my best scoring word of all time was FROLICS for 82 points. All but about two dozen games were at "normal level", with the rest at "hard".

LOL

This week the girls are at day camp while Smiley is stuck home.

Each morning Lisa will drive the girls to their bus stop while I walk him to school. Anywho,as Park and I were crossing a busy intersection Lisa and the girls rolled up in the van and honked their horn. 

"Heyyy good looking," Lisa yelled out the window. "Can I have your number, sexy? 

"It's 9-1-1 you CREEP!" I yelled across the intersection in my best totally-upset-girl voice. 

Smiley didn't stop grinning for a block and a half.

Under the Skin

We just finished watching "Under the Skin", a film that stars Scarlett Johansson as an alien seductress who lures men to their death by exploiting their desire for her body. It is the epitome of an artsy  "Oriental" movie, and from what I can tell from Bing critics adore it. Myself? It only tolerably kept my attention, was flush with Kurbrik-esque homages that had me reliving "2001", had dialogue so heavily Scottish it may as well have been filmed in the Ukraine, and was so overtly artsy it was almost a parody of film. Eh, what do I know. On the upside Johansson is naked or topless for many parts of the movie, so, you know, cool.

One Direction

One Direction is playing on the TV right now. They've really accumulated a nice catalog of hits, including some that far surpass your average boy band fare - and I like boy bands.  Someone I respect actually compared them to a modern day Beatles (and no, it wasn't a kid or a teenager). I don't know about that, but all props to them. I wouldn't mind seeing them in concert with the girls (never gonna happen; YaYa is a Taylor Swift fan, which is the Yankees to OD's Red Sox)

An Interesting Walk

Walking with my Godson

Smiley, Junie and I seem to attract crazies when we're together on Sunday's (remember the fireworks brawl last week?). On our walk today with my Godson we stopped at a Family Dollar near his house, where I bought them all a juice. The cashier seemed distracted.

"I'm sorry, that guy out there has stolen from here before. I just need to write down his license plate." she said.

I looked out the door. "The guy in the Altima?" I asked. 

"Yeah, he steals every time he walks in. He's robbing us blind."

Well there happened to be a blonde behind us in line. When we were done with our purchase I stood outside opening the drinks for the kids as she walked out . . .and got in the Altima. Oopsie. The cashier had said all that within earshot of the guy's girlfriend. Cue the guy going loco and charging into the store. 

Cue also my deep sigh. "Smileyr, if I give the word walk TJ and Lauren to Uncle Tre's house, ok?"

"Why?"

"Just do it if I say. I gotta make sure this guy doesn't do something stupid."

There's not a whole lot more to the story. He screamed and swore at the cashier, she said she was calling the cops, another customer and I made sure the guy knew he was outnumbered, the girlfriend beeped her horn, and he ran back to his car and drove away.

The kids were wholly oblivious, except for Junie who commented on the crazy way the man squealed his tires as he left the lot. I finished opening the drinks and we walked home together. 

The end.

Happy Birthday!

Happy 20th Birthday Jonah!

Today is also, as I pointed out last night at work, the 45th anniversary of the moon landing. I did err tho' in saying Chappaquiddick happened the same day - it was actually the 18th of that month. My bad.

James Garner

Aw man. RIP James Garner, age 86

Argh

When Parker was at camp I surprised him by cleaning his room, so with Lu gone since Sunday (Saturday, if you believe my Mom) I decided to do the same. I cleaned a bunch of it yesterday, then just went upstairs to finish the job. Except, of course, that the room is now thrashed. I'll skip the dialogue excerpts, but let's just say I wasn't happy. No one admits to it, and Junie even blamed LuLu- never mind that she's up in Door County. $%#%@#

Yup

It's All Relative

Enjoying the new reality show "Leah Remini: It's All Relative". It's a hoot. #leahtlc

Quake

This morning, at around 6:51 AM my time, I had the unusual experience of being on the phone with Fred Bryan when an earthquake hit his hometown of Yakutat, Alaska. Cocky as he is, he calmly stated it felt like a "5.0". Sadly, he is no seismograph; the web says it was a 6.0.

JFK Jr.

Today is the 15th anniversary of the death of JFK, Jr. He was such an iconic figure during my early lifetime. I remember watching coverage of the search for him while living at our apartment on 23rd street, and knowing in my heart that tragedy had befallen the Kennedy's yet again. 

Banshee Chapter

Watching a scary movie with dad 😱🎬  Banshee Chapter - YaYa

The Snowtown Murders

This morning we watched "The Snowtown Murders", a movie based on the story of Australia's "worst" serial killer and how he groomed and corrupted an abused young man to be his protege. It was . . . well, it was depressing and frightening and sad and graphic. There is child abuse, sibling rape, torture, animal abuse, and a prolonged murder scene. Describing it makes it sound like a snuff film, and it assuredly was not, with most of the above - but sadly, not all - occurring off camera. It's a well made, serious film that's what I call an "Oriental" meaning it would play at an independent show house like the Oriental or Downer. If you can handle it I strongly recommend streaming it on Netflix. Just don't expect to smile for the rest of the day.

I hope so

AT&T

While their product is great, I can't continue with AT&T for my TV and Internet.

I'm on a plan that's supposed to be "X" a month, and yet, EVERY month it's a different amount. This month's tally is literally double what it should be. I'm going to call, they're going to claim the difference is because of taxes, fees, the end of a promotional period (it's not), or an increase in the price of strawberries in Kansas. , I'm going to argue, they'll knock something off the top, and we call a truce for a month. Or so it would normally go. But this month we are super tight, and even if we weren't enough is enough. 

What's worse, AT&T just bought out my cell phone provider, which explains why their normally exemplary customer service went down the tubes last month. Ugh.

That's a Pretty Big Difference

"The difference between us is that we're using missile defense to protect our civilians and they're using their civilians to protect their missiles," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Big Blue

15 years ago today, Big Blue collapsed at Miller Park, killing three workers.

I remember my friend Tre calling me with the news, and turning on the TV to watch coverage of the tragedy in the living room of our apartment on 23rd St. 

Frolics Fireworks

The family bugged me to go to fireworks but then gave up the fight, heading off to bed while actively expressing their dislike in who Lisa chose to be their father. Usually that doesn't bother me, but this time I said WTH and rousted them out of bed to go the South Shore Frolics. (Lisa and YaYa chose to stay home, even though Yaya had been the biggest proponent) . No parking whatsoever, so Junie, Smiley and I had to walk from a spot on Indiana and Fernwood to our eventual seats a block east of Texas and Superior (Mapquest it). It was a great view and the fireworks were swell, and I couldn't have had better company. :)

Here's the adult version of the before-mentioned evening: All of the preceding was true. But in addition, the kids got an extra special treat. A group of young males, eager to disprove cultural notions about the role they play in society, decided to start screaming and swearing and hollering the N word, over some slight, be it real or imagined. Before too long they were brawling in the street, both with members of their party and some locals who had told them to knock it off. Two pairs of guys were swinging at each other, and another pair were rolling around on the ground like it was a "stop drop and roll" exercise." As we were sitting at the end of a dead end street about 150 ft from this fracas (actually, Lauren was sitting on my shoulders) I was a bit concerned. Then - and I mean this literally - I saw how cartoonishly inept they were at inflicting damage on one another, gauged my chances of success as "high" if it came to it, and told the kids to ignore it and watch the fireworks. Two squads came to break it up by by then they'd moved on .F'ing ridiculous.

Faux Child Free

Lulu is now away at Girl Scout camp, set to explore Door County for the next five days, Yaya is at a friends house in our old stomping grounds near 31st and Mitchell, LK is still at Grandma's, and Smiley. . . Smiely has spent the entire day glued to his tablet in his room. This is about as close to "childless" as it gets for #TeamSlap

Soccer and Boxing

Wow, the World Cup Finals in on the air, and at the half the score is . . . . 0-0. [crickets chirp]. What a tremendously exciting sport.

Update: 

Rather than waste precious hours of my life watching a World Cup match that is 0-0 *at the completion of regular time* I fired up last nights Canelo-Lara bout. I scored it even up 114-114, with one round that really could have gone either way. The judges scored it 115-113 (one for Canelo, one for Lara), but the deciding score was a ridiculous 117-111 in Canelo's favor. That judge, IMHO, is on crack.

Disappointed a planned bowling outing with Da Boyzzz was cancelled, especially since Mike Ste-- had extended the invitation to Smiley . . . maybe next time.

Walked with YaYa from guitar class to the library then home, a nice brisk pace. Then watched Jerry Quarry v Ken Norton ('75) and now Joe Louis v Cesar Brion ('50) update: then Bob Foster v Mike Quarry ('72)