Wii wish you a merry christmas

In our quest to get a big jump on our christmas shopping SP and I decided wii needed an evening out.

Basically, our evenings out consist of her giving me a hard time because I put 9/10 of everything back before I check out and me giving her a hard time because she forgot all of her money and she made me go to the ATM.

That last part was a lie. It was me, I forgot my money and she very generously went to the ATM so wii could get some dinner. My head was all scrambly last night. First the money and then later when I spilled half my bags onto the sidewalk at her house and didn't know how to unlock my car. How, after more than two full years can I NOT know how to unlock my car? Seriously, I'm asking you.

The one thing I was really looking for isn't all that available but wii got lucky...there seem to be a few hanging around here and there. So I got it. And I actually hugged it once wii got in the car.



Can you guess what it is? Huh? Huh? Canya?



And yes, I did too hug it. How could I not?




I mean, look at her.

And now, I'm wanting this. And this. And this too! I mean the kids, yeah, the KIDS are wanting these. Or they will be. Because they don't know they're getting one. And it has nothing to do with what I want. Nothing at all.

Now, how to tell my husband....

Over the past year or so, on occasion, I will sometimes tease the boy about girls. Not in a mean spirited way, more like a 'she's kicking you for a reason' type of tease.

Now, don't get me wrong - I'm firmly in the no way do you need to be having a girlfriend at this age camp. But he always laughed and made gagging faces when I would say something about A. pulling his hair or K. begging him for math answers.

This year, he says (with no prompt from me) that there are girls. Girls with crushes. On him, my boy. He's giggling the entire time he's telling me that he's heard from his friends that there are some girls crushing on him. So I ask him if there's some one who might be the object of HIS affection and he just laughs. NO DENIAL, NO GAGGING SOUND.

I call him out on the lack of gagging and he says that there is a girl. He refused to dole out any more information except more giggling and that, my friends, was that.

The next day he mentions a girl, M., who sits between him and his friend and I raise my eyebrows and say "M??" - He catches on in a blink and laughs and says "No, not M." and starts with the giggling. I tell him I'm going to keep throwing a name out there every once in awhile, until I get it right. And so for the next few days, I do. And every time it's a denial and some laughter.

I worried that he'd get sick of the name throwing out thing so I asked him if it bothered him. He says to me that he doesn't mind if I tease him, that's it's fun. And then he snuggled up next to me to watch Survivorman.

I feel like it's not long now, until I lose him bit by bit...to friends, sports and even girls. What two, maybe three or four years? And I just want to hang on so tight to every minute I've got.

And yes, this IS important

So, all three of you know one show I'll be watching this fall. I probably shouldn't mention that by last week, the second week of its new season, I had already forgotten to watch. Ergh.



What else?

Okay, well Dancing with the Stars because, well, alright there's no good reason. Before the first season I thought, No Way would I evah watch, no way. I think I caught the season finale that time. And then, I figured, maybe I would try to watch Season Two. It was a slippery slope people...Hi my name is Jenny and I am a DancingWithTheStars-aholic. I could do with less guest performers and dramatically placed commercials though.

And then there's Survivor. Between the casting and the editing...never mind the challenges and drama...It's my Thursday night, only talk during commericals, place to be.

I started off strong with Heroes last year. Watched it religiously. And then something happened, I missed one. And forgot to catch up online. So then I missed two and then three and the season finale would make four. So, while I know that they saved the cheerleader and the world, I've no idea HOW. Season Two started last night and I didn't watch, because of the same stupid reason...like if I don't watch them sequentially my head will explode or something. What's the matter with me?

I don't watch any of those CSI or Law and Order shows. Nor do I watch Grey's Anatomy (I did watch one or two episodes and during one the main whiny girl rolled off a pier and into a lake (ocean?) and I thought...'thank god, I HATE that girl'. I said to a friend that I hoped that they wrote her off she totally laughed and said that she doubted it because it was the GREY from Grey's Anatomy that I was talking about. And that was the last I saw of that.

I rarely watch comedies, since my tendencies go toward shows like It's Always Sunny and Arrested Development (still mourning the loss, thankyouverymuch) and there aren't alot of shows on that are twisted enough for me to enjoy.


I always mean to watch Rescue Me, Friday Night Lights and The Shield but forget when they're on.

Last night I watched Journeyman with Lucius Vorenus. It was pretty good. Watchable. I'll stick with it, especially if I remember when it's on.

And Kid Nation? Did anyone see Kid Nation? I was totally anti when I was seeing the previews, then a few reviewers sort of sucked me in. Plus, the husband was at some hockey thing so I curled up on the couch with the kids and we watched. I have to say...I. Loved. It. Where did they find some of these kids? They're more mature than I am, some of them. The whole idea of it, fending for yourselves and relying on each other...it's all taken to the extreme, of course, but it's pretty cool. And the first season, where no one has preconceived notions about the show, is usually the best. *repeats to self*Wednesdayat8, Wednesdayat8, Wednesdayat8.

Which is the same time as Pushing Daisies, a show I wanted to try to watch. Oh well.

And then there's Cavemen. Um, hello. Who ever thought this was a good idea should lose their job. Immediately.

So...what shows do are you watching?

The Name Game

Swiped from Lisa, who generally tags me with the more difficult questiony type memes and but apparently NOT the nice easy fill in the blank styles. Hmmph. Plus, she got to test drive a Mini Cooper and I'm still a bit jealous.

1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet & current car)Jangles 4runner

2.YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (fave ice cream flavor, favorite cookie)Praline Caramel Chocolate Chip

3. YOUR “FLY Guy/Girl” NAME: (first initial of first name, first three letters of your last or maiden name) JLan

4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal)Blue Dog

5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born)Anne Anchorage

6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last or maiden name, first 2 letters of your first)Lanje

7. SUPERHERO NAME: (”The” + 2nd favorite color, favorite drink)The Purple Pina Colada

8. NASCAR NAME: (the first names of your grandfathers)Claude Vincent

9.WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother’s & father’s middle names )Joy Wayne

10. TV WEATHER ANCHOR NAME: (Your 5th grade teacher’s last name, a major city that starts with the same letter)Buckley Birmingham

11. SPY NAME: (your favorite season/holiday, flower)Summer Hydrangea

12. CARTOON NAME: (favorite fruit, article of clothing you’re wearing right now + "ie" or "y")Blueberry Caprie

13. HIPPY NAME: (What you ate for breakfast, your favorite tree)English Muffin Beech

14. YOUR ROCKSTAR TOUR NAME: (”The” + Your fave hobby/craft, fave weather element + “Tour”)The Reading Blizzard Tour.

And tomorrow there's a sale at OUR town library

Not only is it the time of year for freshly picked apples, cozy fleece blankets and Sunday dinners cooked in that forgotten appliance...the oven, but it's also the time for thelocal semi-annual library book sales.

A dollar for hardcovers and fifty cents for paperbacks.

Who could resist?

Here's the goods:

A Civil Action by Jonathan Harr - Nonfiction, Takes Place in Boston, plus it won a prestigious award....-
Ship of Fools by Katherine Anne Porter - Older book, sounded good - I picked it up as I was walking out, at that point what was one more?
Gap Creek by Robert Morgan - I bought this in spite of the Oprah stamp on the front.
Crooked Little Heart by Anne Lamott - Don't think I've read anything by her, now's as good a time as any.
The Alibi Man by Tami Hoag - gratuitous junk read
The Hornet's Nest by Jimmy Carter - I love listening to Jimmy Carter talk, maybe this'll be half as nice.
Blow by Bruce Porter - I think this might have been a movie (Johnny Depp?). Regardless, I didn't see the movie but it looks fairly interesting and again with the local ties - this time Cape Cod.
Greenwitch & Silver on the Tree both by Susan Cooper - I started reading The Dark is Rising and was totally liking it but I was sidetracked by something else. It was a library book so I figured it'd be safer if I just bought my own copies of the series.
Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie - I don't think I've ever read this, thought it might be good to read aloud to the kids. Although the boy would rather not I might try to sucker him in.
Night by Elie Wiesel-This got a lot of press from the Oprah thing and again, I'm reading it in spite of her recommendation. I saw him being interviewed and this book has been hanging around in the back of my mind ever since.
Life Expectancy by Dean Koontz - Hey, winter in New England is long...don't judge.
Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All by Allan Gurganus - I've never heard of this book or this author but for fifty cents the worst that can happen is that it ends up on the book table at the transfer station.

Plus seven easy readers and a very cool nursery rhyme book (with pictures I remember from MY old nursery rhyme book) for the girl and three owl books, a book about Unexplained Mysteries and one about Abraham Lincoln for the boy.

$14.25.

Not a bad deal at all.

Is that a warm summer breeze ?

Or the MFY breathing down the necks of my beloved Sox?

At 1.5 games back, definitely the latter.



I could watch this commercial a thousand times and it would still make me smile. I think.



The Patriots had a big win on Sunday and as hoped they beat the crapola out of the crying LaDanien and the Chargers. And remember how I said if they lost the rest of the games that'd be okay, y'know, cause they cheated. Well, I'm sort of regreting that now because I kind of want them to win. Every game. So, oops. And Belichick is a fool but he's MY our fool and I still kind of like the old grouch.

Cowboys are 2-0 in case you're keeping track. Which I know you're not (unless you're me. or Dawn. or maybe Amy, now that she's got internet) so whatever.

Survivor tomorrow night. Finally. Am looking forward to Blackbird's recaps almost as much.

My new boss, at my most awesome (if a bit dull) new job...he gave me a company credit card to buy fruit and soda for the office. I was hoping he'd say this and this too but no dice.

I'm feeling one step behind these days. I just read somewhere that someone was moving at 'kid speed' and I thought...exactly.

My concerns about school this year couldn't have been further from the mark. My boy complained for a solid hour on the first day, so much so that I gave him the 'find two positive things' challenge...and since then? Mostly good. Like 90 percent mostly, which is huge for us. He's been a member of the I Hate School Club since first grade (even though his grades and conduct have always been great) so to hear him say that his day was - and I quote - Okay. Well, let's just say it's awesome. What's helping too, is the end of grades that read like MCAS (some idiotic state standardized testing that has overtaken the school system) scores...."meets grade level standards"and other such nonsense. Which, I'm glad he meets the standards and all but isn't that just average, what the average kid should be doing? Or a C? Nope, don't be foolish. This year it's A's and actual Number grades. And what a difference it's made to him. Thank god.

The girl on the other hand, who I was sure would excel, I mean, EXCEL. Well, she's having trouble. Not with the school work, exactly but she's having a lot of trouble just telling the kids in her group to leave her alone while she finishes her work. They ask her for answers and call her name over and over and she gets "too distracted to finish on time" was how she put it. And her teacher is a first year lady and we're getting weekly progress reports with those 'meets grade level standards' type of things in like ten different categories. And she's not meeting them all. Ugh.

In other, more fascinating news, the boy's hockey team won their first game on Sunday. Which is a good thing....my husband has been waking up at FOUR a.m. reviewing drills and running through different plays in his head. He's exhausted. But he's exhausted and victorious, which is fine.

And I've been doing a bit of this and a bit of that and not enough of any one thing. Not enough time to blog, watch baseball, embroider, read, watch football, edit photos for the hockey website, work and perform all the various house related tasks. Of course there's enough time but I am a procrastinator and a general time waster so life's a bit of a scramble right now.

Hey there.

If it's between ten and eleven p.m. on Thursday click the red X and go watch my favorite show.

Disenchanted

So This. This has shaken my faith to the core of my being. Would it have been so difficult to just play football?

Apparently, matching up the defensive calls to the plays takes very little time. Polaroids are taken before and during/after the snap (this is a legal and general course of business) and then they can match them up to the calls on the video and by half time it's a done deal. And when the Patriots come out in the first quarter looking mediocre and then again in the third quarter looking like superstars, well, one has to wonder.

Let me just say, that the whole third quarter turnaround is pretty much the Pats style of play. And as fans, we came to rely on it. To be proud of the way they could turn a game around in the second half.

Not that they came out, in this past game, looking mediocre...oh no, Tom Brady had so much time to throw that ball, from the very first passing play, that I called my husband in to watch him stand there and visibly pause. Can they match the calls to the polaroids that quickly? And with the questionable radio frequency issues maybe they got the calls into Tom in time for the snap.

Supposedly you can get the same info by recording from the stands...why take a chance on the sideline? The whole thing makes complete sense and no sense all at the same time. Do I think they're guilty? Sadly, sounds like it. Do I think they're the only team that does it? Not likely.

And do I still hope they kick the hell out of the Chargers and that bitch Tomlinson this weekend? You bet.

Then, if they lose every single game after that...that's fine. There's more pride in losing honestly than cheating. They would do well to remember that.


I suppose I'll have to put a little more stock in my second favorite team. A team I'm picking to go to the NFC Championship game. The Cowboys.

Two Hours

Until we see a little of this:

Some of this:

And a whole lotta this:

I love the Sox. Really I do. But football is my thing. Patriots football, more specifically.

I love the hard hitting intensity of those guys, the team spirit, the beauty of a perfectly executed play, the spiral of the ball as it lands in a receiver's hands thirty yards downfield and he never misses a step, a great 'knock him to the ground out of midair' tackle, the coach's sweatshirt with creative scissor action on the sleeves, being introduced not as indiviuals but as a team, watching a running back break a tackle or drag the defenseman those extra two yards as they cling to his legs and quarterback/wide receiver hugs.

One hour and forty five minutes.

Edited to Add

The man in the background is the bee sting victim.

Front of the girlie's shirt.

I added some wee birdies to the back of the shirt up near the collar.


And just so you know, I looked into those recipes...and they involved making some sort of butter. Butter? Yeah, well whatever...ain't happenin'.

I just heard about a fair that I so would like to go to. It's a bit of a ride AND opening day for the Patriots so it's looking like that won't be happening either.

Wham, Bam, Thank You Ma'am

And just like that summer vacation is over, school has started and I report to the new job tomorrow.

Labor day weekend was a blur of driving and hockey and fireworks and children. I can barely remember what I was doing and when so here are some highlights in absolutely NO particular order:

Went to our friends house for a last minute gathering and he and his neighbor had a fireworks battle royale which our party totally kicked his lame-o fireworks lighting ass, so that was fun. Our friend, M had purchased hundreds of dollars of fireworks up in New Hampshire, stuff that is probably best handled by professionals and not partially drunk hockey coach attorney types, but whatevah.

We went to cookout at my parent's cabin in Maine (we share 31 acres). While we were there one of the guys took a swig of beer and swallowed a bee. Which promptly caused his throat to start swelling shut. To say we are out in the sticks is kind of putting it mildly, the nearest neighbor is a mile away and if you go in the other direction? No one for many miles as the road turns impassable). His wife and a few others loaded him into a truck and high tailed it to the fire station where he was whisked away by ambulance. He had swallowed some benadryl before he left and by the time he actually got to the hosptial? He was fine. Still, we referred to the incident as a buzzkill. Har-har-har.

Red Sox are playing some good ball.

Hockey has finally started. There was so much drama surrounding the past few weeks (goalies, they pay half price...can they pay full price and skate out? If you could see how many emails this generated....oh my word) I was anxious to just watch the kids skate. Until I went to the rink and started meeting people as "the coach's wife". ugh. But then I watch my boy, who looks so at ease out there and I find myself rethinking my 'ugh' and will probably just sit by myself (or with a select crowd of those I already know). Christ, is that snobbish or what? Oh well, I just want to watch...and enjoy.

Am wanting to try out the recipes *wink wink* that they show on Weeds. Dudes, really, it could be fun.

Am still hooked on embroidery. Just finished a shirt for my girl...pictures to follow.

Okay, apparently it was only "permanent" until my husband fixed it by shutting the t.v. off and turning it on again.

Phew.