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Monday, March 8, 2010

 Where's my donut?

update: 

Thanks to Roger a friend from STAA I got my raspberry sugar patzke (or however you spell it!)....I guess If I don't pre-order them we don't get them. And since my ass is broken it didn't get done. sigh.

- Lisa

Sunday, March 7, 2010

 Happy 5th birthday Smiley!! - Lisa

Smiley's Party

 3 words to describe Smiley's bday party (in progress): pretty dang lousy.

update: It turned out OK, and Smiley was very pleased with it. Just My kids and my niece fill a room by themselves, so it didn't look empty, he loved his gifts (and we even set up and played with them) and the food was good.

Not nice Danny. Just because you think it was pretty dang lousy doesn't mean SMILEY DOES!!!!:) - Aunt Katie

I know what you mean Danny, it would have been nice if every child showed up....and I'm sure that Parker if he was older would have noticed....He is just young, Grandpa and I had a great time...at the adult party . Food was great.. - Grandma Jeanne

The kid party is done. 1 hr 55 minutes until the family party for Parker starts. I think I'm going to try and nap. Or watch the Magic-Lakers game. Either/or.

Don't take a nap Danny or Lisa ...... rumor has it the future holds the fact cupcakes will be EATEN !!! oh yeah blue frosting on a cake will be coming - Aiunt Katie

Funny! It all worked out, thank goodness I can whip a cake together like that! - LIsa

Smiley's name appeared on Sprout's Birthday Wishes at ~9:32 this morning, but (so far) not his card.

My Apple Cake Recipe. Wellll, Redbook magazine's recipie actually, but it's mine now.

Here's the apple cake recipe I've been talking about on Facebook. I've made it twice and was never 100% satisfied w/ the result (once too dry once too, er, wet), but I'd chalk that up to my tempermental oven, not a flaw in the design.


Chopped walnuts or pecans
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon
4 large apples, peeled and sliced (I use 8 small/medium, mainly because that's what I usually have on hand)
1 tbsp bakingpowder
1 tsp salt
4 large eggs.
1/2 cup veg oil
1/2 cup/1 stick melted butter
1/4 cup Orange Juice
2 tsp vanilla extract


Heat oven to 350 degree F

Combine apples, cinnnamon, 2 tbsp of the flour, 1/4 cup of the sugar, and toss.
In another bowl, combine remaining sugar and flour, baking powder, OJ, oil, vanilla, butter, eggs, salt. Beat until smooth.

Spray pan with nonstick spray and sprinkle bottom liberally with nuts. Pour in half the batter. Cover with a layer of 1/2 the apples. Spoon the remaining batter over the apples and top that with what's left of the apples. With luck you might have some left over for the kids (apples that is).

Bake 1 hr and 20 min or untl toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Today is Smiley's 5th Birthday!

Happy 5th Birthday little guy! We love you!

Smiley is a huge fan of Sprout, PBS's all-preschool TV channel; Caillou and Barney are recorded and watched endlessly around here. Another thing he likes about Sprout is their wonderful practice of announcing birthdays on air, and showing off homemade cards parents create and send in. As a surprise, Lisa made a card and sent it in last month. I know it breaches the no-names policy established here, but I can't resist showing it off.

Note: something is goofy with our scanner, and so bits of the card look to be in shadow. The original looks great. [front cover, left inside, right inside, back cover]

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We still have to wait and see if his card is shown on air (we've set the DVR to take nearly the whole day of Sprout), but at the stroke of midnight a scanned copy of the card * DID * appear on the Sprout website, as they promised! Card

Again, we love you little man! It's been a pleasure being your Daddy these last five years :)

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Our Day

I woke up at 6 am, got dressed, scraped the frost off the windshield and drove to work, ready to start at 7 . . . only to discover my shift didn't start until 10.

D'oh.

After a busy day at work I came home, chilled for a bit, then noticed we were down to only 2 kids (after my niece's bday party YaYa stayed over, Smiley is at Gma). So I packed up & burned part of my paycheck on dinner at Villa Roma. Click on that link for a review of our experience. Lu and Junie were dolls. A nice end to the day.

Happy Birthday Stacey!



Today our youngest niece (on my side) turns 9 years old. All blessings to you Stacey, and we hope you have a great birthday!

In other news, it is also the 14th anniversary of my cousin's horrific car crash (he's ok now, but still walks with a limp)

- and -

The 174th anniversary of the Fall of the Alamo. May we never forget their sacrifice.

Friday, March 5, 2010

 My parents just left. I'd invited them over for a Lenten meal of cajun style salmon cakes, rice, salad, and that homemade apple cake I made yest. Personally, I think the cake was a little dry, but everyone seemed to like it.

Lisa: loves fruit roll ups!

Facebooking my life Feb 15th - 17th

Feb 15th: 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.



* 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.

* Red beans & rice + sausage for dinner, then an hr of the most scuffles ever recorded among the kids. It was like Wrestlemania Slapinions. But good can come from bad. As they were all nuts anyhow, we picked today to break Ginger 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. Note: It was a complete success. While I did have to unscrew the bulbs in the overhead light to keep her from turning it on, she's now sleeping in the dark, and falling asleep faster than ever.

* Oh hell yeah! Neil Gaiman to write Dr. Who Episode.

Feb 16th: Mitt Romney is threatened on a flight out of Vancouver. Mitt's new book comes out March 2nd. I can't wait!

* [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 a...ve night'ares tonight, it your 'ault" :)

* (linking to a $250 plate dinner w/ Jeb Bush] It's well outside my price range, but if your situation is different:

* [a 94 year old convict on death row dies of natural causes] The man was in prison for armed robbery, shooting a cop, and murder. He escaped and killed again. By the time he died he'd been in prison (all told) for nearly *79* years. $'s never a reason to kill a man, but try and convince me this wretched life was worth what it cost taxpayers.

* Lousy link, grumble. Anywho, this is about the "Betty White to Host SNL" movement, including some comments by the busty Mrs. White. Er, did I just put that last part in print?

Feb 17th: Good luck, and get well soon. (on news that former Bucks coach George Karl has cancer)

* [on yet another article critiquing the Olympics] I think most people need to just shut up and enjoy the Games.

* 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 superflous @ best. Well done.

* Zahi Hawass is everything the last 3 letters of his name implies, an ego-mad Egyptian who views everything in a Jingoistic light. King Tut could not be effeminate, as theorized, you see, regardless of what facts may or may not have been, because that wouldn't jibe with his world-view of manhood and Egyptian royalty. That said,the video doesn't include his take on the subject, so what's the point of the link at all?

* [on news that an 'ancient' Arabic inscription had been found] It was some Call me whackadoodle, but 1,100 years old doesn't qualify as "ancient" for anything historical. Heck, Alfred the Great was busy burning cakes by then.

Note: that post brought up a great discussion w/ Socialist. He asked me what I'd consider 'ancient'. I said at the earliest, anything B.C. "Excuse, me (airquote) Before the Common Era (airquote)." I said.

Later, I realized how idiotic that sounded. "It makes no bleeping sense to go around changing the name from AD and BC. Why? You're still dating things from the birth of Christ, right? Basically you're just farting around, saying you want to be tolerant and this and that and all you're doing is slapping some paint on it. You want to be PC, go ahead and redate every bleep thing. Just pick a random starting point and go at it. Or better yet, STFU."

He agreed.

We also discussed Truthers, those fair-haired kooks who believe the government conspired to fake 9/11 by various means. I still run into a guy who proudly wears a 9/11 Truth t-shirt, nevermind that it erases all respect for him in the minds of people he meets. We both agreed Truthers were nimrods, for a number of reasons. We both agreed it would take hundreds, if not thousands, of accomplices to pull off such a conspiracy. Presumably, those reams of volunteers were not only cool with killing thousands of their innocent countrymen, but were sooooo trustworthy they've all kept mum before and during the attack, and for the decade afterwards. Get out of here - Washington can't run Amtrack, much less plot 9/11.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

TV Time

The kids accidentally erased this weeks Lost from the DVR, and in retrospect I'm almost grateful. Now that I've watched it on ABC.com I thought it did little to move the plot and next to nothing to develop the characters. C-

Meanwhile, American Idol  (women): an up-and-down night. I liked Bowersox but don't understand the mad love the judges have for her; no way she'll adapt to the weekly themes to come. Lily was good, on par or better than Bsox, but Shiobahn was spectacular. Plus she's a short -haired kooky brunette? Hell yeah. Adios to Haley, Lacey or Didi.

Nirvana on Ice

I've got nothing against figure skating, OK? I might even admit to liking it as a spectator sport. And I certainly have nothing against U.S. skater Scott Williams. But this . . [weeps] . . . this . . is a MONSTROSITY. Why Scott? Why?



To make things worse, it's not even a cover, which I think would be slightly kosher, it's the actual album version. Therefore *someone* gave permission to use it, which means I have one more f*ing reason to hate Courtney Love.

Facebooking my life Feb 13th - 14th

Feb 13th: Selena Roberts is a hack who wrote an A-Rod bio that had to be pulled from the shelves in bulk when it tanked. Here she does a hatchet job on the IOC, trying to sell us the idea a) they murdered the luger b) pushing the envelope is bad and c) all sports should be played as if your Grandma was suiting up. SI - can her already.

On a serious note, this quote from [Roberts']lead-in: "The International Olympic Committee's need to push the envelope is sewn into its motto Citius, Altius, Fortius - or swifter, higher, stronger - as if to be swift enough, fast enough or strong enough were a weakness" is an arguement for mediocrity and stagnation. It is not the Olympic spirit - it is not the human spirit - and I find it vile that someone that believes such a tepid idea is paid to comment on sports.


* Former White Sox slugger Frank Thomas officially retires: When I went to Brewers games as a kid, Thomas was the only hitter who inspired genuine anxiety in me every time he came to the plate. I always thought he'd ice the game for the Sox.

* The Ginger 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 un...til she's four. Three at the earliest ;)

* To anyone hearing rumors that Facebook will be charging $ starting this summer: it has been labeled as FALSE by snopes.com, and in fact the site is warning that some of the 'protest' groups here on FB are fronts to push hidden, malicious code. If and when FB decides to charge, I'm sure we'll hear about it from mainstream sources.

* [Frederick C] Weyand was a good battlefield commander with a knack for correctly analyzing intelligence data. He was responsible for US forces moving closer to Saigon prior to Tet, enabling the U.S. to hit back @ the VC hard - & possibly saving the captial. He also yapped too much to reporters, but that's another story. RIP.

* Damn (refering to Dana Patrick crashing in her Nationwide debut)

* 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.

Valentines Day: Damnit. Dick Francis was one of my favorite mystery authors. All the good ones are passing away this year. RIP.

* How Catholic Are You? Quiz
Result: Ready for Catechist
Wow! You're knowledge of the church is impressive! You should consider teaching CCD!

* I've liked this catchy little diddy since I first heard it on WARP AM back in college. [Cannonball by the Breeders]

* 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. And then Gionger wizzed all over the dining room and the bathroom. Good times, good times.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Happy Birthday!



Happy Birthday to my sister Katie! I love you!

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.



Tuesday, March 2, 2010

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

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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.

Monday, March 1, 2010

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.