Monday, February 27, 2006

thelma and louise

This is a story from when I was a young, footloose woman. Before I even knew Archie. One of my brothers had a girlfriend named Kelly. She was fun. We went out a lot together, without my brother. We'd go dancing and stay 'til the club closed and then we'd get breakfast and she'd drop me off at home. We'd meet cute boys. Life was great.

One day, we went and saw the movie "Thelma & Louise". Then we went back to my house for dinner and we decided to go out dancing. My brother gave Kelly her gun -- he'd cleaned it for her. It was unloaded. She stupidly put it under the front passenger side seat. I didn't know much about guns and didn't much care -- we we're going out dancing!

We got to the Brewery District and proceeded to drink a little and dance a lot. We danced and danced. We both ended up dancing with two cute boys. There might have been some kissing. The place was closing and we decided to all go and get breakfast and the boys got in Kelly's car with us.

We didn't go too far -- there was an all-night place close by. Kelly parked the car and the guy she was with ws getting out of the front seat and he said, "I just hit something under the seat with my foot." "Oh, that's my iron," Kelly replied. The guy said, "Why would anyone keep their iron in their car?" Kelly and I started to laugh. He thought it was an iron for pressing clothes! Ah, cute boy. "It's my gun!" said Kelly.

We went into the diner. We sat down and ordered drinks. The boys excused themselves to use the bathroom. Our coffee came. No boys. We got refills -- no boys. When out waitress came and asked if we wanted to order, I said, "Well, we came with two guys and they went the bathroom and we're waiting for them." "Kind of tall guys, brown hair, one wearing a leather jacket?" "Yeah..." "They left 20 minutes ago."

We laughed and ordered breakfast. And continued to laugh because, guys don't go to the bathroom together. Obviously, they thought we were some kind of criminals, toting a gun in the car, ready to shoot them after we fed them breakfast or something. Which we most definitely weren't planning on doing, since there was no ammo in the gun. "God -- they thought we were Thelma and Louise!" I said.

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

catching up

Why do people still look at this page every day? There has been nothing new in several weeks. I am a bad person. But now many of you are rewarded!

So, mostly I'm just going along and trying to watch way too much TV every night. Because -- Olympics! And "American Idol"! And also getting my weekly hour of "Bleak House" (although next week is the two week finale and those of you not watching can rent or purchase the DVD)! Then there is the sad, sad, state of my TiVo, jam-packed with stuff that there just isn't enough time to watch.

I'm turning into a bad Olympics watcher. I'm only really watching the figure skating. I tried -- I fell in love with Shaun White, aka The Flying Tomato and I paid attention to some of the early speed skating. But then I just couldn't bear to watch any skiing or the crazy luge/bobsled/skeleton stuff. The figure skating makes me happy. There was the crazy French guy skating to James Bond-movie music in his tuxedo with 007 on the back in rhinestones and making a gun finger. Oh, that was very funny and I just gave over to the insanity and laughed through the entire thing. Pluschenko (or however it's spelled) and his crazy arms that flew off into the audience. (OK, not really. But wouldn't it have been fantasic if they had?) Johnny Weir and his crazy individuality and insistence in a spotlight piece that old fogeys should be frightened of him because he will do what he wants, when he wants, damn everyone else. Um, Johnny? You're a figure skater. No one cares what you say -- we just want you to do a quad, lots of triples, and look pretty. If you want anyone to take your ideas seriously, you might want to look into college or something. Otherwise, please try to make your bus and not be so pouty. Because Evan Lysacek had a horrible short and then skated a beautiful long while suffering from stomach flu. You just look like a whiny boy compared to that.

Then there was the carnage (I love Canadian announcers!) of the ice dancing competition. Everyone falling down! An Italian couple refusing to talk to each other because of a fall! Drama! Ugly, ugly costumes. The women's short program was fantastic and I'm looking forward to the free skate. Plus -- the exhibition!

Because of all the crazy TV watching, I am tired. But, this past Monday, we took the girls to this amusement-type place and had lots of fun. This place is mostly a lot of little playgrounds and then there are a handful of rides and it is completely stuck in the 50s or 60s. Lots of worn paint and the rides are incredibly lame. But the girls lovelovelove it. There is a dragon ride -- like a train, but it's a dragon -- that goes through a shady circuit around the park. There are all these little things along the route -- but they are totally cheesy. As I said to Archie, "I think this is where damaged lawn ornaments come to retire!" Little garden gnomes, rusty metal deer, two big plastic pandas among some bamboo. It would be completely sad except that all the girls just love it because they are so easy to please.

I was telling Archie that Universal studios is running a commercial where these 6 and 7 year olds are complaining about going to Disneyland (but without naming Disneyland) because they are too, too jaded and teacup rides and princesses and Winnie the Pooh characters are too babyish for sophisticated children, now. Our little trips to this kind of crappy place ensure that our kids will think Disneyland is the best place ever. Heh.

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

not a bleak house

I'm watching the Masterpiece Theater miniseries "Bleak House". (You should be watching it, and if not, rent the DVD which will come out in a few weeks. It's really, really good.) I just finished the first two hour installment and Lulu and ChaCha watched the last 10 or so minutes. Lou asked what it was about and I said it was about a court case and the lives of all the people the case has an effect upon. And that it's based on a book written by Charles Dickens which was published about 150 years ago.

And Charlotte said, "So, Charles Dickens is...a zombie?"

I think she might have a future career in literary theory. She's taken the whole dead white authors thing to a brand new level.

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

i have no reply to that

Archie got us Togo's sandwiches for dinner (shut up) and he got the girls these individual bags of mini sandwich cookies. Bebe and Lulu said they couldn't finish their cookies and wanted me to save them, so I put the bags on top of the fridge. But Cha was still eating her cookies and the twins decided they wanted their bags back. So I gave them the cookies.

Fast forward to a few minutes later and Lulu is crying that all her cookies are gone. Here is the conversation that followed:

Me: Of course they're gone -- you ate them.
Lulu: But I wanted to eat them tomorrow!
Me: Then you shouldn't have asked for the cookies.
Lulu: You should have stopped me from eating them! Wah!

You know what? The title of this post is a total lie. I did have a reply. "OK, it's time for bed!"