Our Visit with TJ

Back on December 10th my friend Tre and his wife had their first child, a boy named Theodore John, or TJ. More than two months premature, he spent a month in the hospital before going home.





Today I took YaYa and LuLu to visit the little guy. It was their first time meeting him, although YaYa made a Christmas stocking for him that hung in the hospital over the holiday.

First tho', I finished feeding and burping the little guy.







Then it was YaYa's turn.









Now obviously, the little guy has a problem around his left eye. It's a hemangioma that's put pressure on his optic nerves and threatened his vision. It's been treated with steroids and has retreated internally. The last-ditch option of chemotherapy has been discussed but has been shelved, and yay for that.





Then it was LuLu's turn to hold him.







Here's TJ high-fiving YaYa:



A few minutes later, while distracted by talking to Tre, I looked over and found both of my girls talking to one another on the couch, their arms on each other's shoulders like the best of friends. Naturally, as soon as I drew attention to the fact they turned on one another, but they *tried* to pose for this shot:





Whatever problems he may or may not have with his eye, the boy seemed chubby, content, alert, and glad to be doted on. He's a great big blessing, and we're glad to have him in our lives.

Welcome TJ!

ISO

I'm looking for marbles to replace missing pieces from Smiley's Hungry Hungry Hippo game. None of Milwaukee's grand and varied Dollar stores carries marbles, or at least had them in stock. Any (really cheap) ideas on where I can find some? I don't want to spend $6 to restock a $9 game that's already well worn.

A Wrestler?

Aside from breaking my son's foot the day went well. I have pics from the wrestling practice, so hopefully a blog post will follow. The coach went gaga for LuLu; his eyes just sparkled. He said she was a natural, that her body instinctively reacted w/ the right moves as if trained; that right NOW she would do well in a tourney and be near the top of the food chain in her age bracket.

Wow. My LuLu, a wrestler?

 It'll be 4 years since I quit smoking and Newport still sends me coupons. If you smoke Newports, and would like $1 off/pack on the delicious, relaxing yumminess that is a menthol cigarette enjoyed with a cup of coffee in the dead of winter then [slap!]. Whoa. Maybe that's y they still send them, to tempt you. Anyhow, ur welcome to the coupons.

RE: Smiley's Foot

Smiley has a "questionable" fracture in his 2nd metatarsal. How can be questionable when they can name the bone? I'm not sure. Sees the specialist in 5 days. He doesn't whine, but crawls around the house instead of putting any weight on it all...my poor baby. I'm convinced it is not a questionable break at all and he needs a cast so he can walk instead of crawl!

And for those worried about my other baby, I'm not mad at him. I was mad for a minute by his less-then-sympathetic initial reaction, things are fine now. Shit happens.

Update 5:03pm: Smiley has three broken metatarsals (bones on the top of the foot). He now has a BRIGHT orange cast, and is much happier now that he can walk around (albeit slow).

- Lisa

The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad is posting FB messages in Arabic. Odd, and a wee disturbing, to see my 'wall' decorated by 3 posts in Arabic, w/ no English translation on hand.

Parent Teacher Conferences

Went right from work to YaYas parent-teacher conference. It went much better than I feared, w/ her teacher heaping praise and compliments on her. Still, she rightly pointed out that YaYa, if we can speak plainly here, rarely gives more than a half-ass effort in math and anything she finds 'boring'. Time to break her of that before it gets too ingrained (sp?) in her personality.

This week's Lost

Lost: Excellent episode, u can really feel the season picking up steam. So in alt. timeline Locke is happy; he has his woman, comes to grips w/ his paralysis, and is fufilled @ wrk - all by abandoning faith, making him a true opp. of his 'old' self. Will Jack be equally fulfilled by *embracing* faith in that timeline? Yin/Yang, etc?

God Bless Her

 God bless my mom. She took YaYa, LuLu, and Smiley swimming! Junie is resisting a nap pretty hard core, but hopefully she'll settle down and peace will occur. At least for a little while! Happy Thursday....later today, YaYa's conferences.... - Lisa

Facebook Feb 6th - 9th

Feb 6th: MacMillan books are now back on Amazon. Correct me if I'm wrong, but BN and Borders did little to push that publisher's titles during the drama. It seems to me like waste of a golden opportunity to profit at Amazon's expense.

* Cases of whisky left behind by explorer Ernest Shackleton were found in the Antarctic

* LuLu is cute as can be, asleep on the couch, Ginger is coloring at the dining room table, and I can hear YaYa singing along upstairs to the soundtrack of Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat. Me? I'm sitting here with a smile on my face because it's the little moments that make the day worthwhile.

* Re: the Super Bowl. I have no dog in this fight, so I'm good with either team getting the W. NO's a better story, no question, but as a Favre basher I recognize that another ring for Manning - one more than Brett - gives him even more ammo in 'best of' discussions. So . . . slight nod towards Indy.

* (re: a tazering at Southridge Mall) Screw the crime and tasering. They lost me when they lost Cinnabon's.

Feb 7th: Worked all day, didn't even know the outcome of the SB until minutes ago. Congrats N.O.! Meanwhile, my Dad took Grace rollerskating. On the bus trip back a drunk woman got on, stumbled, fell, and then began vomitting blood. The bus was evac'd by police and they stood in the cold for an hour until a replacement bus arrived. I guess the woman was only 16 or 17, so just a girl. My Dad and Grace said a 'friend' of the girl literally pushed her aboard. She spoke no English, and within a mile was doing her Ebola impersonation.

Feb 8th: Tonight we watched the Black Eyed Peas concert from Malta. What a crowd!








Feb 9th: The poster above Grace's bed reads: "School prepares you for the real world . . . which also sucks"

Lisa's take on the poster: Is it wrong that when I saw a picture tacked above my daughter's bed that said "school prepares you for the real world....which also bites" I kinda was proud that she's got the gist of life down? LOL....I mean the resignation that things will be hard but you keep going anyway? Or should I be worried that at 8 she's alr...eady showing signs of my "glass is half empty" genetics? hmmmm....

* On our way out the door to go to Ginger's playgroup, snowstorm be damned. But I still can't believe MPS chose to stay open, not with 14 inches expected to fall.

* MPS cxl'd school halfway through the day for @ least the 2nd x this yr. WTH - either have the foresight to close in the AM or the courage to ride it out. Even tho' the girls attend Catholic school, I went & picked them up. I think we're housebound for the rest of Tuesday.

Valentines Pics

I Salute U

To the unknown person who donated the coffee maker to the Value Village, which I purchased 2day for $3: Sir/Madam, I salute u. No castoff this, no 'best fit for the rubbage heap but donate it 4 the write-off'. I can see the love u had for it, the care u took in maintaining it. Even on the shelf it shone like a glimpse into the Hereafter, so spotless my efforts to 'clean' it were superfluous @ best. Well done.

A 3rd Grade Photo from 1983

An old classmate posted this picture, dated June 7th 1983, on Facebook. I'd completely forgotten about this get-together in the intervening years.

I'm in the second row from the top, wearing a lovely red-white-and blue shirt with horizontal stripes. In those days I wore a newsboy hat, or a white leather cap that my Grandpa gave me, so the Brewers hat doesn't jibe with my memory. It's a shame I didn't recognize the value of my fantastic hair at that age. I would never have worn a hat and wasted the God-given gift.

The woman in the picture was Mrs. Kusch (sp?), my 3rd grade teacher, and at the end of the year she invited the entire class to her home. It was certainly a more innocent time, as I can't imagine a teacher risking the liability today. I don't remember much of the day. I have a flash of hurrying through her kitchen, and of actually posing for the picture, but that's about it.

Man, its 27 years later and I have a third grader of my own -yikes!

Proud Dad

[wipes tears of pride from my eyes] Smiley just brought me a copy of Dr. Who magazine and asked me to read it to him while he ate lunch. "umtimes I 'ared, umtimes I not" he said. The other day the family watched "Lazarus Experiment" (great underated ep.) and he was petrified but stuck it out, even as he said to me "I ave night'ares tonight, it your 'ault"

It's Paczki Day!

Today is Fat Tuesday, the last hurrah before the solemnity of Lent, and here in Milwaukee Fat Tuesday means Paczki.

Although they look like a jelly donut, the Polish treat* is made from a very rich dough that contains eggs, fat, sugar and (sometimes) milk. A small amount of grain alcohol is added to the dough to prevent the oil from soaking in when it's deep fried. While certainly denser than a traditional donut, the influence of French chefs during the reign of Poland's August III made the dough much lighter than it reads in print.



Inside the paczki a fruit filling - prune, raspberry, apple, lemon, cream, etc - and the outside is sprinkled with sugar or iced.



This morning I stopped at the neighborhood bakery - an Italian one, but Milwaukee-fied enough to promote paczki's. I picked up two dozen, with 18 of those being shipped off to my parent's apartment.

Enjoy your Fat Tuesday!



* (pronounced PAWNCH-kee or PONCH-kee but some speakers pronounce the word as POONCH-kee, PUNCH-kee or PANCH-kee)

Sleeping LuLu

Aren't you supposed to sleep on a sleepover? I guess not. Just a few hours after her sleepover ended, Lu was fast asleep on the loveseat.

Beans and Rice and No Nightlights

Red beans & rice + sausage for dinner, then an hr of the most scuffles ever recorded among the kids. It was like Wrestlemania Slapczynski.

But good can come from bad.

As they were all nuts anyhow, we picked today to break Junie of sleeping w/ the room light on. She slept in the dark from birth to 2, then picked up the habit when she moved 2 her own rm. 2night: darkness. & a lot of crying. It might be a long one

More Facebook Feb 3rd - 5th

Feb 3rd: I liked Lost, but we learned little other than the ID of the Smoke Monster. The Abomb worked to create a seperate timeline, but I'm not buying the 'everythign would suck anyhow' storyline (not the case for the hundreds of dead, no?) . . .and that's that. Jack's broken, so this season will be about his redemption.

* (from the UrbanDictionary.com)Dan - A man of unusual humor, consistently finding strange, and lewd comments amusing and/or entertaining in a way as to prevoke violent and uncontrolled outbursts of laughter

* re: a news article about how two of the Duggar children saved a little girls life A tip of the hat to the Duggar children. They were raised well.

* "The time has come to lip-sync . . . FOR YOUR LIFE! And remember - don't F**k it up!" How is it that Rupaul's Drag Race doesn't get more press? Watch the show already.

* I'm sick of all the cliched sob stories on American Idol. Every contestant grew up poor and unloved, had cancer and got knocked up with a Martian baby while working three jobs. At this point I know longer buy any of it at face value. I want proof - birth certificates, payroll records, hospital bills, sworn affidavits. Otherwise, STFU and sing.

Feb 4th (in response to a CNN link detailing how the DNA of newborns is collected by the government If you RTA, you'll note that the DNA collection is government mandated and often done without parental consent or even notification. In many states the DNA is then stored by the gov't indefinitely. Only in states like TX and MN do you have the option of demanding the destruction of the sample.

(posted by my Uncle George) Whoa, was that Smiley I saw at 3 pm running to Lisa's car with no shirt or shoes?!!

Me: [hangs head w/ shame] yes. I was heading into the shower when Lisa called to ask me to bring out LuLu's Daisy vest, so I sent Smiley in my place. It was a five second trip outside - how was I to know you'd be driving by? And in my day, not only did we go outside in winter without shirt and shoes, we thanked our lucky stars we had pants - and we walked three miles to school each day too!

Uncle George: I should have known that it ran in the family!

Feb 5th: On his weekly Project Runway blog, Tim Gunn called Milwaukee native Anna's piece "one of the lowest points in the history of the show". Ouch. It's a brutally honest blog and worth a read.

The last of the Bo tribe of India passed away.

* The producers of Lost have announced the date of the series finale: Sun May 23rd, with the 24th therefore being a day of mourning.

* Smiley's IEP was this morning, and the news was largely posititve. Details to follow over the weekend on my blog.

* Our neighbor (the good one) just surrendered his Harley and had it towed away. He lost most of his income in '09 w/ the P. Cudahy fire. I went out to talk to him thinking the bike was going in for repair & he couldn't speak beyond telling me the bare bones . . Shitty. He's a good joe.

* Just got a(nother) rejection letter from an editor. It's a shame many come via email nowadays. If they still came exclusively by USPS I'd have enough to wallpaper the hallway.

* Jon Gosslin is willing to let TLC film the kids, provided they drop the legal action against him.

* LuLu's sleepover is not going well. One girl is already homesick and called home, and despite massive amounts of food they all claim to be starving. Plus a few kids brought their Nintendo DS's (!), which has created a schism in the group btwn the have and have nots. I think we'll do one kid over @ a time from now on.
(One girl did go home, and one was picked up TWO HOURS late. Other than that, it went OK)

Vince Gibbens

Want to feel older than your years? It's been 15 years since WISN and Fox 6 anchor Vince Gibbens unexpectedly died of a heart attack in 1995. Remember all the on-air memorials at the time? Yikes. Fifteen Years.

You know things aren't great when answering "what's on your mind" results in unacceptable phrases for facebook pages, ugh.... Lisa

Jenny Jones on Match Game

There was a Future Celebrity sighting on Match Game this morning. Jenny Jones, future talk show host, appeared in today's 1978 episode and won the grand prize. Interestingly, she stated she was born in Bethlehem (Palestine) to Polish Catholic parents.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentines Day!

Last year at this time Lisa made Smarties Valentines treats that looked like old propeller planes. They were wicked, but of course I failed to get a picture. This year we went a little more basic, making bags of what I've dubbed Angel Chow. We made bags for each student and teacher in their classes.

Lisa melted white chocolate, added red food coloring, and coated coco-puffs with the gooey goodness. She then sprinkled them with pink jimmies, and we formed an assembly line to bag them and tie each with a purple curling ribbon.

Happy Valentines Day!

What'd I get my wife for Valentines Day? 8 hrs home alone w/ four kids while I worked. But on the way home I did pick up 2 'Heart' pizzas from Papa Murphy's for dinner.

Were they good?

We wouldn't know. Our oven tanked so we couldn't bake them.

Then Junie wizzed all over the dining room and the bathroom.

And then . . . lol . . . moments ago, while cleaning off the dining room table, I tried to toss a plastic bowl into the sink from a room away (yeah, I know). Naturally I missed not only the sink but the doorway. It ricocheted and knocked Lisa's favorite painting off the wall and onto the floor, atop a pile of buttered noodles Junie had dropped. . . . Is it Monday yet?

Good times, good times.

 It looks like I'll need a new water pump for the Escort. Anyone have an idea about how much it'll cost? It's one of the few items I haven't had work on over the years.

Oh My Got

 The Junie is running around saying "Oh my Got" this morning & ignoring our efforts to switch to "Oh my gosh". I don't understand where she gets it. I'll swear like a drunk trucker, but I almost never use the Lord's name, even for that kinda stuff. Which isn't to say I'd be ok with her saying "you m.fer" - at least until she's four. Three at the earliest

Facebook Feb 1-2nd.

Feb 1st: I kinda dig the smell of skunk - from a distance. We drove by a skunk spray the other day and I mentioned this to Lisa. She said nothing for a moment and then quietly said "You know, there are a lot of things wrong with you."

regarding an article dealing with home invaders who kidnapped, raped and killed: "'Punishment is the way in which society expresses its denunciation of wrongdoing: and, in order to maintain respect for law, it is essential that the punishment inflicted for grave crimes should adequately reflect the revulsion felt by the great majority of citizens for them.". - Lord Justice Denning. These men deserve nothing less than death.

* Bumped Family Night up a day this wk. L supervised homework & worked on valentines cards w/ the kids while I made mock chicken legs and mashed potatos (ckn breast for me and L). Then, after dishes, L played scrabble w/ YaYa, while Smiley & I played memory & watched Wizards of Waverly Place w/ LuLu. Then Ginger went and... rubbed blue toothpaste all over the bathroom and herself, so we cleaned her up and sent her to bed.

My buddy Tre responded that toothpaste was better than poop. He jinxed us. A few days later she had an accident and smeared the stuff all over her window, door and wall. Thanks Tre!

* **** Tune in to NBC tonight @ 1235am ET to catch NKOTB performing on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon! Check local listings for more info.**** It was a good, strong performance.

* Catholic scholar and mystery writer (the Father Dowling mysteries) Ralph McInerny has died. RIP.

I went on a bit of an Andy Kaufman video spree at this point. I'm not even a Kaufman fan, but I was in the right frame of mind.

Feb 2nd (regarding Sen. Harry Reid (D) taking undue credit in a Black History column: If they cared at all, his own people should've told Reid to STFU. Like he needed to look like an ass to the African-American community - again.

* "The future of American space exploration came into question on Monday as President Obama released his 2011 budget. . .The plan leaves many open questions about the future of U.S. space travel, includingIF AND WHEN NASA will EVER build rockets of its own again, when astronauts will return to space and in what kind of s...pacecraft." Shortsighted, and a betrayal of our children's future.

* WTH? Reuters ran an article on 'back door' taxes - allowing current credits to expire, increasing the tax burden w/out press or actually 'raising' taxes. Now, it's pulled, reading only "The story Backdoor taxes to hit middle class has been withdrawn. A replacement story will run later in the week".

* It's a huge night for TV. American Idol, Fringe, Dirty Jobs, the start of season 2 of Rupaul's Drag Race, a brand new Duggar episode, and of course my beloved Lost. It's a shame I'm in such a deep, dark depressive funk or this just might rank as one of the greatest nights EVAH.

my.youngest.is.possessed..... Lisa

What a Night

Got home from work @ 9. 

Lisa & I then had to deal with Junie who picked last night to scream, stomp her feet, & refuse to sleep in true 2 yr old fashion. We left her in her room to chill out, but that took 5 HOURS, lasting until 3 a.m. 

Then we woke up @ 6:45 to YaYa screaming like she was under attack. Y? "Where'd you put my school clothes?"

@#^&%

The Marquette Basketball Team visits the School

Before I forget: a few weeks ago my two oldest came home ecstatic that the Marquette basketball team visited their school. YaYa was impressed by Robert Frozena, while LuLu thought Jimmy Butler (who gave her an autograph) was the nicest guy in history.

This isn't an Improvement

Want to knows something crappy about the new FB? Say there's someone you don't want knowing your business, but you have a mutual friend. When ur friend comments on *your* post, it shows up on her wall. That means ur business is out there for the world to see. Not a huge deal, but annoying

The Snowstorm of Feb 9th and 10th

This past Tues/Wednesday featured a pretty decent snowstorm. I don't have the final tally but original predictions were for 10 to 14 inches of 'lake effect' snow, and I think we came close. School was never cancelled, and the roads were never very bad (by Milwaukee snowstorm standards), but it was still a chore to clear it all. Not so bad in the early stages, as the temperature was mild and the snow light and dry, but in the evening the wind picked up and this morning, after the storm, the temperature dropped.

These are a few pictures Lisa took while I was clearing the alley. I love this first picture:

Me and Ginger

Throwback: 3rd Grade

 Dated June 7, 1983. I'm second from the right in the second row from the top, wearing a Brewers cap and an a red, white, and blue polo LOL

It was the end of 3rd grade, and our teacher Mrs. Kusch (sp?) invited us all out to her house for the day. 

New Zhu-zhu

I just showed Smiley an ad for the new generation of Zhu-Zhu pets and he freaked out. He started hopping up and down and sounded like he was going to hyperventilate. Man he loses those toy hamsters!

LOL Tim

 "Jackie O would NOT have camel toe" - Tim Gunn

 My oldest wants me to put her up for adoption.....ugh....she's never been one to be short on the drama - Lisa

Lost "What Kate Does"

I think yest.'s episode of Lost ("What Kate Does") was a big improvement over last week, even if it did center around Kate, who I find predictable & dull (when in doubt, run. When certain, run anyway). Note that Claire's ultrasound was dated a month after the Sept crash of 815 in the org. timeline. So . . is this a true alt timeline, or has something manipulated the group AFTER the crash? And what is the "darkness"?

Facebook'ing the end of January

Jan 30th: Lisa took the girls to their Mardi Gras dance last night, coming home at 10:30 on an adrenaline high. L and I then watched 'This is It'. Commercialization of MJ's death? U betcha. But seeing his obsession to detail and the pure grace of his moves was worth it. And his voice . . . Sh*t. If MJ's voice wasn't a gift from God nothing is.

Obama had another wonderful idea: to meddle with the format of how college football decides its champion: I stand by a belief in never letting the urgent crowd out the important, but this is neither. There's bigger things to worry about in Washington than whether or not Boise State has the opportunity to win a NCAA championship. Seriously, Mr. President - speaking not as a Republican but as a citizen - why is this even on the radar?

* Big news in the book world: MacMillan has asked Amazon to raise the price of ebooks it offers; not only have they refused, Amazon has now dropped all MacMillan books from its site. This also includes Mac. imprints Farrar, Straus & Giroux, St. Martins Press & Henry Holt.

Jan 31st: Came home from work and watched 'Ghost of Girlfriends Past' w/ Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Garner, Lacey Chabert and Michael Douglas. MUCH better than I feared. It's a fun romantic comedy and very enjoyable. Well worth the rental.

*(saw) A preview of Oliver Stone's sequel to "Wall Street". I liked the original but is there a story worth repeating here? More likely it's just an excuse for Stone to practice his heavy handed preaching. 1 thing: if Gekko spent 23 years in prison for insider trading, while you can serve much less for murder or rape - what a f'ed up system.

* Just finished polishing a piece I wrote, went to send it and the word processor crashed. Now, no trace of the file remains - no file, no anything. It's like someone took an eraser to it. F**k.

* Lousy day, lousy mood. Among other things our oven now refuses to heat up. Sha-it. the oven works, but temperamentally

* Watchin the season premiere of the Duggars on "19 Kids and Counting" and juggling my DVR schedule to accomodate the return of Lost.

Facebook Jan 28-29th

Jan 28th: J.D. Salinger has passed away. RIP. Still, let me be honest: I'm one of those readers who felt Catcher in the Rye was vastly over-rated, and that Holden Caulfield was a spoiled brat.

* How to be a Bad Parent to an 8 yr old: After school, YaYa was ecstatic. "Dad, I got a hundred on my math test!" she said. To which I immediately responded: "How?? Did you cheat?!"

The Senate voted to increase the debt by $1.9 trillion: From the piece: The measure would put the national debt @ $14.3 trillion — more than $45,000 for every person in the United States. And the debt is increasingly held by foreign nations such as China. The measure passed 60-39 under ground rules insisted upon by Republicans that required 60 votes to pass it.

* My sister just called to say Jay Leno's on Oprah, doing an "aw shucks, I didn't mean to screw over anyone" schtick, perfected circa 1992. Never fear Jay, your AARP audience will stand by you. I thanked her for the info, but I've got no interest in boosting Oprah's ratings.

* That's it folks. MPTV will no longer be featuring daily episodes of Mr. Rogers. By the time of my grandchildren it will known only through second-hand recollections. RIP Neighborhood of Make Believe.

Avatar neared Titanic on the all-time revenue chart: Because someone asked me about this very subject . . . if you account for inflation and the rise in ticket prices, Avatar would have to double its current gross to approach Titanic, and would have to rake in 1.5 BILLION to match Gone with the Wind.

Jan 29th: My five favorite TV Shows are Lost, Project Runway, Match Game, Doctor Who and American Idol. BTW, if you were going to flesh out my list of TV shows: Twilight Zone, Dirty Jobs, MASH, Friends, Barney Miller, Naked Science, Seconds from Disaster, Air Emergency, As the World Turns, Chuck, The Dish, Launch my Line, One Step Beyond, Demons, Life is Worth Living, The Prisoner (original), Unsolved Mysteries, Beyond Belief, Cake Boss, Rupaul's Drag Race, Medium, 19 Kids and Counting, etc.

* Today's random, taken out of context, overheard conversation, this time at a local restaurant: "Just shut up and put your meat in the hole".

* Doctors volunteering in earthquake stricken Haiti were under fire for pictures of them drinking: Poor judgement and indiscrete. Yet their work was 'excellent' - & keep in mind they're not giving breast implants to movie stars, they're helping quake victims in the middle of chaos and carnage. Give them a break, and bury the PC bullsh** that might cost them their careers.

* This being Doppelganger week, I asked Lisa what celebrity I resembled. "Dante from Clerks," she said. Duh - I was even called Dante for a bit when the movie was big, and neither one of us has a chin. "That, or a really, really fat Ben Affleck."

Why Hasn't MPS Cancelled School?

On our way out the door to go to Ginger's playgroup, snowstorm be damned. But I still can't believe MPS chose to stay open, not with 14 inches expected to fall.

UPDATE

MPS cxl'd school halfway through the day for @ least the 2nd x this yr. WTH - either have the foresight to close in the AM or the courage to ride it out. Even tho' the girls attend Catholic school, I went & picked them up. I think we're housebound for the rest of Tuesday.

My Life according to Facebook Jan 25- 27th

Jan 25th: Pissy Dan says - I know some people here have Bluetooth's, but I have to say it. If I'm in line with you, and you're yakking into thin air on that thing all la-di-da, obnoxiously loud and pretentious, know this: if it wasn't for my good looks making jail a liability, I'd put you on the ground.

Later that day I find out actor Pernell Roberts has died: What lousy, lousy news. True (albeit dorky and lol) story: in high school typing class we were instructed to type out a letter to someone of our choosing. I wrote a fan letter to Pernell Roberts.

Jan 26th: Father Gene Jakubek, a beloved Milwaukee figure who left the city in 1989 after admitting to an affair with a woman, has passed away. He was 87. Among other things, Jakubek was the founder of Father Gene's HELP (Happiness for the elderly, lonely and poor). I still remember going with my Dadto donate clothing to that o...rganization. He did a lot of good in this town. RIP Father.

Here's a rule of life as true as any in physics. No matter how long your ride - 10 min, 30, eight hours- you can count on a radio station playing a great 7 or 8 minute opus when - and ONLY WHEN - you are 2 min or less from your destination. I haven't heard the end to Bohemian Rhapsody or LA Woman in years.

I finally (!) found a new tank for the turtle, dang near a month after his old one shattered. It's as big as his old tank/smaller than his temp. digs, but he seems happy. Smiley and I found it at Goodwill for $5, and stopped to get Franklin a 'welcome home' meal of live crickets as a treat.

Plans for Family Night: BBQ chicken with a baked potato bar (salsa, sour cream, bacon bits, etc), followed by either a card game or door-to-door for Girl Scouts. Later, AI. Right now tho' Lisa is volunteering at YaYa's play practice for the 1st time, and I expect some rookie hazing. I give YaYa a 50/50 chance of NOT forcing Lisa to give her up for adoption.

Quoting Lisa's FB: [YaYa]has reached her goal of selling 150 boxes of Girlscout cookies! I feel redeemed for a pitiful showing last year (we didn't sell any!). She told the last house "I only have 3 more to sell and then I can go home!"....and the lady bought it! (it was the truth, but part of me thought, why didn't we... think about that line earlier!)

Jan 27th: Family Night went as planned (for once!) and all was well. My take on AI: Avril was an immature brat and a waste of airtime, Katy Perry was stunning, headstrong, and should be invited back, and this show is doomed once Simon leaves. BTW, "This isn't a Lifetime movie" (Perry) was one of the best lines I've ever heard fr...om an AI judge not named Simon.

"Not ironic?? This is like O. Henry and Alanis Morissette had a baby and named it This Exact Situation!” - from Archer, a great adult cartoon on FX

refering to pop star Ke$ha, who sings TikTok: Clear something up for me Ke$ha. Everybody gettin crunk crunk, boys trying to touch ur junk junk, now the dudes are lining up cuz they heard u got swagger, but u kick em to the curb unless they look like Mick Jagger. Have u looked in a mirror girl? Why would YOU waste your time on a Jagger look-a-like?

Then again, I do love a woman who brushes her teeth with Jack. :)

Should I be worried?

Is it wrong that when I saw a picture tacked above my daughter's bed that said "school prepares you for the real world....which also bites" I kinda was proud that she's got the gist of life down? LOL....I mean the resignation that things will be hard but you keep going anyway? Or should I be worried that at 8 she's already showing signs of my "glass is half empty" genetics? hmmmm.... - Lisa