need reinforcements

Okay, so back when my friends with young daughters were having to go off to see Hannah Montana or Miley Cyrus or whoever she is... Back when I teased about the High School Musical marathons and then even High School Musical on Ice....

Payback time today.

Today, I functioned as the requisite Parental Guidance for Meego at a showing of Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen.

Was it any good, you ask? Heck if I know.

I just know that I SO need a chick flick now! Maybe I can get some sort of quick fix over at YouTube!

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another's treasure

I'm not sure how I did it, but somehow I managed to convince the kids to clean up their Man Cave. If I'm not mistaken, it had something to do with a powerful vacuum cleaner and threats to suck up anything that wasn't either too big or bolted down.

During the ensuing excavation, we discovered a zoo.

Not just any zoo, but a Playmobil DeLUXE zoo! We're talkin' vultures! We're talkin' tiger family! We're talkin' extra fencing! We're even talkin' zoo technician, complete with shovel and wheel barrow!

Have you any idea how ridiculously priced this stuff is?!?! (Note: We did not purchase this. It was a gift to Meego several years ago from my I-can-buy-love father-in-law).

Anyway, so the tote housing the zoo was unearthed from beneath layers of other misfit toys. I can't remember the last time the thing was even out in the fresh air. I told Meego that he could probably get a lot of cash for it. I could see the "CHA-CHING!" gears a-grinding in his brain.

But first, he'd have to set it up all pretty like so I could take a photo of it. That was the downfall

It's still there. Not wanting to sell Just Yet, on second thought...

What's in your closet?

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Silver Lining Saturday, part XLV

Here I sit on a beautiful Saturday morning. The birds are appropriately chirping... hear them?

Had an absolutely lovely bike ride this morning, and my legs are feeling a bit noodly at the moment, so polishing the silver linings seemed like a worthwhile thing to do.

Yesterday, Wolfgang and I were puttering about the house as Meego was playing out front with his communist friend. Suddenly, we heard much excitement from the two of them. A moment later, a UPS truck drove up, no doubt to deliver the lego set Meego had recently ordered. I'm thankful it arrived and I'm no longer dealing with the incessant anticipation of him waiting. Geesh, it was only about 4 days or so. UPS drivers are like Santa Claus around here. Only real. Personally, I have a beef with UPS regarding a package that "absolutely positively needed to be there overnight" but wasn't. This is silver lining saturday, however, so we won't go there.

Also in the "new stuff" category, I'm awaiting a call from the vision center. I needed a backup pair of glasses and ordered some a few days ago. They will have transition lenses. *emits restrained squeals of delight*

On that note, I also had an eye exam since my previous prescription was expired. (I still need to schedule that pap smear, but I went with the eye exam as the much lesser of two evils). I'm happy to say that at the ripe age of 44, I am still not in need of -yikes!- bifocals. Oh, the mere thought of them....

Yesterday, we had an exciting thunderstorm wreak havoc on our fair city and neighborhood. So exciting that it roused Meego, Wolfgang, and Chaco outside to experience nature's wrath.

I snapped this photo of them after the thing had passed. They're doing their you-call-this-a-storm?! walk back to the house after venturing out into the prior violence. I mainly took it because I had no picture of the week for this post, so lame as it is, it's all I've got. I think Wolfgang is saying, "Don't post that on facebook!" He never said anything about the blog. tee hee.

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angel

First, I remember wanting to be Cher. Later on came the try-to-emulate-Brooke-Sheilds years.

But really, deep down, what girl growing up in the 70's didn't want to be a Charlie's Angel?


They were smart and tough, yet hot and feminine at the same time. Yeah, when I grow up, I want to be a Charlie's Angel.

Okay, maybe not. But maybe I could at least be, maybe like a watergirl for Charlie's Angels?

Or no. Maybe if I tried reeeaaallly hard to clean myself up and do the hair right, maybe... just maybe....

Not Farrah, though. No way. She was waaaay out of my league. Not an option.

May she rest in peace.
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maybe it's just shy?

I've consulted my records, and my suspicions are true.

I'm overdue for the dreaded pap smear.

Okay, fellas. In case little red flags went off in your heads, signalling that things are about to go all TMI, you're absolutely right! Feel free to beat a hasty exit NOW!

Now, the "dreaded" pap smear hasn't always been the "dreaded" pap smear. It used to just be the pap smear. But it seems that somewhere between Chaco and Meego, my faithful uterus decided to get all tippy or "retroverted".

I would never have known of this shift had I not been informed of it the first time a doctor went looking.... and looking.... and looking.... and looking for my pap smear target cervix. Apparently the thing is quite elusive now.

So the "routine" pap smear has since become the "dreaded" pap smear. Oh, yes, they eventually DO find the thing and take the "dreaded" swab. But I've had these doctors make interesting comments as they spelunk around in search of treasure.

"Hmmmm.... I know those babies came out of SOMEwhere"

"Sorry if this feels like I'm trying to remove your teeth via this route"

"Really, I do these pap smears all the time!...heh"

(Just pick a spot on the ceiling and ride it out)

In her defense, my current doctor probably dreads my pap smear as much as I do. Makes me wonder. Other people rehash things at the end of the day. Lawyers talk about messy cases. Engineers ponder design problems. Moms fret over obnoxious behavior. Etc. I can see my doctor, sitting at her dinner table.

"Bitch of a pap smear today..."

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this one time?......

So yeah, I really DID do band camp one summer. Except it wasn't technically BAND camp. I was a flag girl in our high school marching band, so I actually did FLAG camp, which is probably a lot like band camp, but way cooler.

The band director signed four of us guinea pigs up for this camp in the big city. The idea being that we four would bring back our new flag camp skillz and disperse them to the rest of the team. A first for the band, a first for us.

There were two total rookies. Nice girls who could not keep a beat to save their lives. The other girl - whom I will call Nancy, since that's her name - and I were not close friends, but friends enough. Looking back, we were probably only friends since we were on the flag team together. Other than that, she actually kinda got on my nerves.

I figured the two hapless rookies would go off with their group, and that Nancy and I would go off with the more experienced group and that would be our Flag Camp. On the trip up I learned that Nancy would be with the Intermediate flags and that I would be with the Advanced.

Advanced? What was this "Advanced"? This news left me feeling honored and queasy at the same time.

We were just a little sex-change town high school marching band. There I was on my way to the big city to be twirling flags with these big-city-marching-band-advanced flag girls. Four days of humiliation.

But ya know? It wasn't that bad. Our instructor was this fun and dynamic flag chick with the Blue Devils drum and bugle corps - whoever that is. And I learned that I could throw down with the best of them. Plus, I didn't have to hang out with Nancy all day.

But one of my main memories of flag camp - the thing that has me remembering that it was four days long - was the separation between my then-boyfriend and me.

In the days leading up to my departure for camp, he would stare off into space and monotonely mourn, "four days.... four.... four days....."

Ah yes, the dysfunction of adolescent codependence. By the time I'd embarked on the journey to big city flag camp, the boyfriend had also worked me into a mournful stupor, wondering how I would survive a whopping four days without him.

So my days were spent with hours of drills and routines from the commander from the Blue Devils. Evenings were spent on the phone in the phone booth in our dorm with the boyfriend. I did manage to do a bit of socializing in those free time hours, or go on adventures with my podunk-town cohorts with the band director. He'd take us to adventurous places we didn't have at home - like malls and stuff.

But mostly I remember the phone booth.

Oh, and I got a t-shirt.
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Silver Lining S-day, part XLIV

Greetings, people of the civilized world!

Well, we did go camping this weekend, and now we're back. Our first trip of this summer back to the stone age was a filthy success.


I'm thankful that we had a nice weekend for it. Not too hot, not too stormy. Not too crowded. Not too buggy. Not too carnivorous-wildlife-encroaching-on-the-campsitey.

The kids all had a good time. I'd gotten on them last season about helping out a little more rather than just relying on Mag and me to be their personal Camp Slaves. They did good with that.


The weekend included good times around the fire and a somewhat successful "quest for beverages" hike with Chaco, Wolfgang and me.


And there was the usual camp fare of getting lost in the woods and spotting of strange things. We did not come across any carnage as in previous explorations. I did come into contact with many helpful black squirrels, which I hadn't even known existed before. I'm very thankful that they weren't skunks - my first impression. WHEW!

So all in all, a good wild weekend. Now that we're home, I'm thankful for Biz and Shout.

And let me just say Happy Father's Day to all you good dads out there! Hallmark holiday that it is, I for one, am thankful for my own strange but loving father!
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