A Mixed Day

Yeah, one of the worst afternoons with the kids in months. Junie is screaming at me and pulling at my arm right now, Smiley is banished to his room after a crybaby fit that lasted the length of a city block, LuLu is arrogant and short-tempered, YaYa is just plain lazy and jerky - and they've destroyed my house. 

Good times, good times.

update: Things have improved and everyone is smiling. 

The reason? 

It's pretty disgusting. YaYa ran into the house screaming "I have to poop!", then a moment later bragged about her handiwork and is *still* trying to convince people to go check it out. Hard to be angry at people when they show such pride in their work.

 AI (men): much better than last week, & Ellen finally looked comfortable. Kara: please stop the neck motion and get out of Simon's shot. Ugh. On the hot seat: John Park, Jermaine, and Todrick, *maybe* Garcia (can't ride the 'Straight Up' train 4ever). Casey will stay, but vocals were weak. Alex was much improved.

Shutter Island

I finished "Shutter Island" today. I was right - I'd guessed the ending after only a few chapters. It was still a good bk, but w/ all due respect to those who rave about 'the twist', I don't think you had to be Hank Aaron to see that particular curveball coming.

Dinner

Smiley  just Shake 'n Bake'd the chicken I'm prepping for dinner. He was dancing around the kitchen shaking the bag like maracas. Did a pretty good job of it too. btw, on the menu tonight: baked chicken, mashed potatoes, corn, homemade cheese and garlic biscuits, and pudding.

Not too sound all girly, but when a man makes his family a dinner and says be home at 5:30, it'll be on the table then, the clock should *not* read 5:49 w/out so much as a phone call. I [pretend to] slave all day, and for what? I feel like putting down my frilly apron and going home to Mother

update: Let it be noted that she strolled into the house w/ the kids at 6:27, nearly a FULL hour late. And I ALWAYS called.

Suess' Birthday

In honor of Dr. Seuess' birthday, Smiley's class is having a different Seuss activity everyday this week. Tomorrow is "Silly Sock Day", where you can wear silly, mismatched socks.

Thank God. We usually do that anyway, but tomorrow it'll look like we did it on purpose.

I replaced the coffee pot Junie shattered. The problem is I didn't measure it & its too tall for my coffee maker. You can fit it in, but you 1st have to remove the filter/coffee part, then lift the lid of the pot and slide both in @ the same time, giving it a little jiggle-wiggle there @ the end. You also have to keep the lid up the whole time its brewing. In short, it's a ridiculous jerry-rigged contraption.

 Long day already. Came home from wrk last night and had to fix something in the basement: Result: 3.5 hrs of sleep. Followed by an argument w/ YaYa on the way to school, Mass, grocery store, home to cranky Junie, now waiting on an appt. Full afternoon/evening planned, followed (~ 10) with hitting the DVR and watching AI, Lost, Dirty Jobs, 19 Kids, etc. Tuesday's. Yikes.

by 'fix' I should say: clean up my bleeping mess and make the basement presentable for the appt. I mentioned. It's a much bigger basement than I give it credit for, at least when it's a sty and I'm the one working on it.

I pointed this out on their FB page & was labeled a troll, but it's the truth: the Milwaukee Public Library FB's nothing more than 'inspirational' quotes & links to Wikipedia entries - Dinah Shore (!) today. Isn't posting a daily Wikipedia entry just admitting "hey, we're irrelevant! Even we use the web to get our info!". All those English majors and not one can write a FB status update?

"Damn those Christians!"

There wasn't much to recommend David Zucker's An American Carol, a parody of the Left and filmmaker Michael Moore. Not that it was bad because it was conservative in ideology. No, in fact it's every bit as funny as the cookie-cutter Airplane! knock-offs that come out every summer. But that's the problem: those movies aren't funny.

But it did have a great scene, a Bill O'Reilly interview with the pseudo-Michael Moore and the 'real' Rosie O'Donnell, thinly masked as Rosie O'Connell. In it Rosie spounts her usual nonsense, including her 'truther' theories. But best of all is her 'documentary' of the terrorist attacks she credits to Christians (in the film).

Although fictional, it really serves to highlight the idiocy of some of the reactionary Left, and their knack for establishing loony arguments to rationalize their anti-Western ideas.

BTW - I run into a 'Truther' a few times a month, complete with T-Shirt advertising his beliefs.

Facebooking my life Feb 10th - 12th

Feb 10th: I don't know if I felt the northern IL earthquake or not, but coincidentally I woke from a sound sleep at the same time it hit. I ck'd the time, apologized for waking Lisa, then laid back down and went back to sleep.

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 hyperventalate. Man he loses those toy hamsters!

If you haven't read it already, check out http://punchdrunkcritics.blogspot.com, a great site for movie news and gossip - and tell 'em I sent you. The latest: Zac Efron may be on board to take over as Peter Parker in the next Spiderman movie.

Feb 11th: Designer Alexander McQueen has been found dead of an apparent suicide, mere days after the death of his mother. He was 40.

Former President Clinton had a heart procedure: I wouldn't (and didn't) vote for the guy, but I hope he recovers quickly.

re: a prison escape: Allegedly he 'escaped' because he presented false release papers, returned to Milwaukee for an unspecified time, and was arrested again when he showed up to see his parole officer. Nuh-uh. This smells like the prison screwed up and released him themselves, w/ him thinking it was legit. Y else would an 'escapee' visit his parole officer?

Scientists Rebuild Iceman Genome From Hair Sample

Feb 12th: According to a lawsuit filed by Dr. Dre, he hasn't been paid royalties on his landmark album "The Chronic" since splitting with Death Row Records in 1996. 1996!

re: another delay in the Roman Polanski case: I'm loathe to argue against seeing 'justice' served, at least as it's defined by the courts, but enough already. How much more time and $ is the LA system willing to waste in the name of publicity?

Aurochs Project Aims to Breed Extinct Ancient Cattle

Got home from work @ 9. Lisa & I then had to deal with The Ginger, who picked last nt to scream, stomp her feet, & refuse to sleep in true 2 yr old fashion. We left her in her rm to chill out, but that took5 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?" @#^&%

re: Obama severing our manned space program. I feel stronger about this than almost any aspect of this administration. All the rest is the here, the now, the monumental but mundane decisions of our everyday lives. Space is our collective future. What he's done is no better than a monarch of 1600 ...saying "That New World is too far away, too costly. We have problems here, in Europe, to solve first." Foolish, short-sighted, & completely lacking in vision.

Oh man. What lousy news [a Luger dies during an Olympic test-run] RIP.

On reports of sexual assaults at the County Metal Health Complex: If you've ever had the (dis)pleasure of escorting someone to the Complex, this doesn't surprise you. It's more like a prison yard than a hospital, and I've been asked to come along just to have the comfort of someone my size at the ready. They help people, but they do it in an atmosphere that makes your soul scream.

Before I forget: a few weeks ago my two oldest came home ecstatic that the Marquette baskeball 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.