In Which Many Sentences Begin With And

Today Grandma H is here hanging with Sam so I can have some ME time. (It's all about ME!)

And I spent some time in Common Ground, reading The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton and listening to this dude give a girl a really really bad HR textbook interview for a receptionist position at the auto repair shop across the street, sipping their trademark mediocre coffee and I thought "Man, this place is really a dive!" I hardly every notice it's divey-ness, because it's COMMON GROUND!! But it is really super divey. It must cost the owner not much of anything to run the place because they sure don't spend any money on a cleaning service, or upkeep of furniture or repair of old dilapidated air conditioners.

And I love hanging out there. I noticed today that it is because it is so divey that it is so cool. And because I almost always see someone I know. And it's walking distance from my house. And lots of people in upper-middle class white America would really dislike it. And people with unfashionable clothing and weird hair hang out there. And they smoke. And they play chess. And the Motorcycle Church hangs out there on Sunday Mornings. At least that's what we call it -- I don't know why they are there, but there are a lot of them. Apparently people with Crotch Rockets are allowed in now too. There are a couple of crazy people who hang out sitting in the outside seating in the summer that rock themselves back and forth and grin and talk to you and make you slightly uncomfortable because they don't make sense and you're left feeling unsure of how to respond. The coffee is cheap. The WiFi is free. The clientele is very diverse, including the Ethiopian Guys who hang out outside nightly during the summer and have animated conversations and interrupt themselves long enough to tell me what a beautiful boy Sam is......

And it might be a dive, but I like it there.

Maybe It Was The Espresso

The other day I had an urge to dye my hair jet black, get my eyebrow and nose pierced, lose 75 pounds and wear really funky glasses so that I could get a job at Kava House serving up espressos while smoking long skinny cigarettes on my break. I could take yoga classes and read up on vegetarianism.

Maybe I have a funky inner coffee house girl inside me just waiting to be recognized.

Instead, I drank my African Dark Fair Trade froo froo coffee and ate a big fat cinnamon roll and read my John Grisham Book.

The Lonely Goatherd Does a Meme

I heard Cookie Monster Burp on Sesame Street today. Did he always do that?? Gee, I think I woulda thought that was hilarious when I was a kid.

Maybe I just thought it was normal.

And Geez I wrote this whole post this morning and lost half of it while trying to publish. BAD Blogger! BAD!

SpookyRach says Rachel's Mom says we should do this meme: So I'm following orders. That's all. It has nothing to do with the fact that I have not an ounce of creativity in me this morning. Nothing at all.

1. List two things that are true of you that are not stereotypically true of members of some group that you belong to.

a) I don't enjoy shopping at the mall. It drains me. I don't generally like shopping anywhere for very long. It sucks the life out of me, and it took me a long time to finally admit that. I get bone tired after about an hour and all I want to do is sleep. I used to humor my friends and I tried really hard to like it, but now I just admit defeat and don't bother unless I have to. This is not to say that I don't like stuff, or buying stuff - I just think the shopping atmosphere is bad for me personally.

b) I rarely take 2 hours to get ready in the morning or to go out somewhere. I do not have to look perfect. I mostly don't give a crap what other people think of my appearance. (mostly) Especially, if I'm going to Walgreens and just might step in a pile of grits. People who spill GRITS in the parking lot!? Why should I care what they think of my appearance??

2. List two unusual talents that you have.

a) I can yodel. I'm not great at it but I can do it better than most. I won a yodelling contest in the GR Oktoberfest when I was 21. I did it in my marching band uniform - because that's why I was there in the first place. The band always had to be at all of these freaking COLD wet rainy events! I didn't plan to enter, but when I heard everyone else, I thought sure I could do it better. So I sang: "High on a hill was a lonely goatherd! Lay ee odl lay ee odl lay hee hoo! Loud was the voice of the lonely goatherd! Lay ee odl lay ee odl-oo!!!" I won a big stein of beer. I drank the beer and gave the stein away.

And now, I'm too embarrassed to yodel even for my husband. But I'll drink a stein of beer for him if he asks me to.

b) I can do spoonerism really well. I'm gery vood at it.

3. List two unusual weaknesses that you have.

a)I'm creeped out by bugs even though I grew up in the country. I get all girly and scream and stuff sometimes. Other times I'm really tough and deal with it pretty well.

b) TV. I can't do much or have an intelligent conversation if there is a TV on in the room. I have to glue my eyes to it and sit with my mouth hanging open. I even do this when it's Sam's Farm Baby Einstein DVD that we've watched several times. I still sit just as mesmerized as he is by Teletubbies. So unless I leave the room, I'm sitting there with him, doing nothing, rotting my brain out.

4. List two unusual things that you aspire to.

a) When I wrote this this AM I wrote that I aspired to make Spring Rolls soon. Well, I did that this afternoon. Now I aspire to making really GOOD spring rolls. heh.

b) I aspire to sleeping for more than 3 or 4 hours at a time someday. Mr. Samson at 8 months still believes he must eat like a bird during the day and then eat 4-6 ounces every 3.5 or 4 hours at night! Then if he's teething or has a cold - forget it. grrrrr!

5. List two words that you use more than most people do.

a) dang
b) groovy

6. List two foods that you dislike and most other people like.

a) I just like food. I don't dislike much that isn't generally disliked by lots of people I think.

7. List two strange habits that you have.

a) According to others, I have lots of strange habits. One of them is that I smell things. I am constantly smelling things. Sometimes it's embarassing. Someone will give me a gift and I'll smell it. Then they look at me funny and I feel silly.

b) Click my fingernails against a book while I'm reading it. Sometimes I even annoy myself!

** disclaimer: I am not saying that people who eat grits are lower than me. Grits are Great! I would say the same if it were Eggs Benedict I stepped in in the parking lot. Just sayin....

WHAT are the ODDS!?

AAAGH!!!

This morning I bundled Sam up and took off for Walgreens to pick up a few little things and as I was getting out of the car I nearly fell because I placed my foot directly into a great big pile of cold slimy GRITS!
WHO SPILLS gobs of GRITS in a parking lot in MICHIGAN!?
And WHO out there could have GUESSED that it would be ME putting my FOOT IN IT!?

GARRR!!!!

Colorful Dreams

Last night I dreamed I had a blogger party and all my fellow bloggers came for dinner. I had people sign up for salad, soup, bread, or meat. So I was announcing which course we were having and people pulled their appropriate dishes out from under the table. I remember feeling stressed. And I remember that someone brought baked cornish hens and my mom (even though she doesn't have a blog) brought baked turkey breast. I thought YUM!!! But for some reason, I was too busy to eat. Maybe you were there..... I don't remember who was there besides my mom except that it was a very long table full of people.

Speaking of food.... JustPat and I tried another sushi place last Thursday evening. We sampled sushi from Alpine Teriyaki & Sushi. It way rates better than Sho Gun and better than Minado's, but still doesn't hold a candle to Marado's (downtown). We tried 4 different rolls, one of them was squid, which I think neither one of us would order again. It wasn't horrible, but not exciting either. The Sweet potato roll had a piece of tempura fried sweet potato rolled with the rice and seaweed - now that was pretty good! We also had a smoked salmon roll and a JB Roll which was similar to a Philly Roll but with Green Onion.

In other news, I have been putting off re-entering our Address List into a spreadsheet! I did it before our wedding in order to keep the invitations organized, and the file is now lost in floppy disk land since our new PC has no floppy disk drive. Anyway, I thought it would take hours. It only took 1. heh. I haven't done data entry in a while, but I used to do it all the time, so I forgot how quickly it can go! So that's done. yee haw.

I have rolling around in my head an idea to have a coloring party. Crayons and coloring books and coffee and cookies and friends. hmmmm....

Also, it snowed. Lots. And now it's sunny and purdy out. And Cold.
Brrrr.

Toy Party

It appears as if the toys partied all night long at our house. I thought I heard something but I thought it was the neighbors..... This is the scene I came downstairs to. (I honestly did no arranging of the toys, this is how I found them!)

Mr. Frog passed out on the rocker seat:















Mr. Elly Funt passed out on the toy box:















And Walter the Farting Dog in the fray too, apparently has fallen and can't get up!

Of Birthdays and Beer Bread and With Lots of Links!

A Belated Happy Blogging Birthday to ME!!

3 years in September! Can you believe it. I say this every year, but I did not really think I'd still be doing this. I did think I'd be doing it differently, that's for sure. I thought I was going to have this deep spiritual but funny quasi Anne Lamott style blog where I was all witty and cool but also a little like the Dalai Lama. But no. It's not really like that.

Hopefully it's cool though. And you're reading it. So -- maybe you think it is too.

Anyway: today's adventure: Beer Bread made with Leinenkugel's Oktoberfest! It is GOOD BREAD!! I got the recipe HERE, if you're interested. I left out the herbs and seasonings, and made a plain loaf. Maybe for St. Patrick's day we'll do Guinness bread!

Happy Oktober!

Denial, Noise and Politics, Oh My!

We watched the Granholm-vs-DeVos debate last night... you can read what Amazing Man thought of it here. I pretty much agree with him. I got a really ikky feeling in my gut when Granholm brought up the scandal about the investment. I thought it was a really low blow and really slimy thing to do. As De Vos kept saying about her statements, it was "disappointing"!
But, not all that unusual in politics. However, Dick DeVos didn't impress me at all either, sliding all over avoiding questions and slipping on his own indirectness... Again - not at all unusual in these "debates" - which in my opinion nearly always end up presenting as Demolition Derbies. So, oh well...... we'll see how this thing goes.

In other news, I gave Sam a foil pie tin to play with today. He thought it was terrific. The cat did not. Mr. Hobbes was on his cat tree trying to nap with all the banging and clanging. He laid his ears flat and shut his eyes tighter and waited out the storm.

It's warm enough out to have the windows open! And I'm still in "nesting" mode. WEE!! It feels good to have some loose ends tied up. However, I wondered this AM if some of this is nervous energy spent avoiding some of the things I really need to be doing but really don't want to do, like balancing my checkbook and reconciling the credit card bill.....

Organization Station

I don't know what it is about having a cold and being down for a while then getting a little better that makes me nest like crazy even though I'm not pregnant. I finally tackled organizing all the gift bags we've thrown in the front closet for the last 2 and a half years! Wedding (still!), baby, christmas, birthdays - all in a nice neat pile. Not sure what to do with it yet, or exactly where the best place to put it is, but it feels great to have gotten that far with it! Also, recycled all the leftover maps to our wedding. Why was that sentimental so I couldn't throw them away after the wedding?? Weird.

In other news, I've somehow labeled 156 of my Sam pictures first tooth2. So now I must rename 156 files.... I'm not sure how I did that. Nothin' like making a little more work for myself! GO ME!!! Maybe I should not organize my digital pics while I am hopped up on cold medication!

I'm in the mood to clean up and throw out half of our posessions. Garage Sale!! - TODAY! NOW! GET RID OF IT!!!! ACK. But alas, that is not possible. So instead I started a box labeled Garage Sale stuff. And I stuck some stuff in it. YAY!