The Grand Avenue Mall

Lunch at Grand Avenue Mall with Lisa

All Cheerleaders Die

We just finished watching "All Cheerleaders Die", a horror film that was pretty darn good. And yes, that was surprising. Bring on the sequel!

They Don't Like this Pizza

I bought a thin crust Spicy Fennel Sausage, Mushroom and Red Pepper pizza for the kids tonight from Papa Murphy's .. . . and they hate it. *I* happen to think it may be the best pizza ever, but I'm now in danger of being the victim of a coup . . .

My kids prefer supreme pizzas loaded with all of the above (well, not fennel, although I use it in my zupa toscana). . I thought they'd adore it. What I think threw them off was the white sauce.

At Gastrau's Golf Center with Lisa

Trivia Time

Where am I?

answer: a stairwell in St. Luke's parking garage. 

A Solemn Anniversary

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War, which, all hyperbole aside, completely molded the 20th century into the bloody, conflict ridden mess it was.  RIP to all who perished during its four years.

Divergent

Just finished watching "Divergent" with the middle two. Not bad. I think Hunger Games was better, and D romanticizes violence much more than HG, which I find repugnant, but overall, a decent flick. I liked it better than the book.

Grouchy

I'm having a pretty crap*py day - if I was going to give details, you'd have read them by now - and to burn off some steam I hit the pavement and walked over to Socialist's house. From there we walked over to Goodwill to scope out some golf clubs for a starter set. I picked up a driver and a great golf bag, the latter being only $4.99. As this is my life we're talking about, the cashier initially refused to sell it to me, saying it was mistakenly marked and should have been either $14.99-$24.99. OFW lady, y'all wrote the tag, not me.. A nice driver and a great bag for just over $9 - a much better way to BLAAH than by shoving food down my throat.

Watching the Ali-Chuvalo fight from '66. It's a great, grueling slugfest.

My Day

Two things, the first a little TMI: With a family history of skin cancer, I went to the dermatologist today about a nasty mole I was worried about. It turned out to be ok, but the Dr noticed and removed two others she thought were actually worthy of concern. I'm sure it's nothing and the procedure was easy. The worst part was when she said she felt the need to do a full body lookover and ordered me to strip. "Ugh," I said, as she poked around my belly. "This would be a lot less embarrassing if you were older or uglier", which inspired a good laugh from her and a blush from moi.

Second, I walked there and back (about 3.5 miles total) and took in the sights and sounds of Bay View along the way. I really love this place - it's the best part of southeastern Wisconsin, without a doubt. I was so damn proud of my hippy-dippy yuppie paradise that by the time I was at the Doc filling out my medical forms I filled in my city as "Bay View, Wisconsin". LOL

Watching the Season 13 premiere of Project Runway. I'm digging Carrie Sleutskaya, but that might just be the beautiful face and the hot blue hair. #ProjectRunway

All Is Lost

For the record, Robert Redford's "All is Lost" is a stunning, beautiful film that is a fitting finale to his acting career (if that's what it is; he is, after all, 77).

Quote

Lana Del Rey: "I have slept with a lot of guys in the industry, but none of them helped me get my record deals. Which is annoying."

"No One Has the Right to Judge"

This isn't about anyone who reads Slapinions, so fear not, you're in the clear :)

When I hear someone say, "I don't want to be judged" or "No one has the right to judge me", my mind automatically translates it - correctly - to sound like "I've done some f'ed up sh*t that falls below the minimum standards of acceptable behavior held by both society and my conscience and yeah, I know I'm wrong. But emotionally I can't handle hearing someone else say that, or admitting it out loud, so I'm going to go on the defensive and pretend that every individual exists in perfect isolation and thus is not subject to any moral or ethical standard other than what they retroactively concoct to appease their guilt". 

Or something like that LOL

Oops

Hmm. According to my phone I have pocket dialed half of Wisconsin in the last ten minutes. Humblest apologies folks.

Quotes

“Discipline, doing what you hate to do but do it like you love it.”- Mike Tyson

“I hated every minute of training, but I said, 'Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion'." -Muhammad Ali

The difference between who you are and who you want to be is what you do - stolen from a meme on FB

LOL

A girl at school asked Smiley for his number today. 

"Some of the ladies like you, eh boy?" I said with pride.

"Some?", he replied. "ALL".

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.