Hancock

I went to see Hancock last night and will now declare it the "Best super hero movie of all time ever" totally tying it with Mystery Men. Yes, I can have two totally best super hero movies of all time; it's my list, my blog and my imaginary award to give out. Anyway, I really like the juxtaposition of real life and super heroes; it's a theme that runs through both movies. Hancock introduces a super hero who has very human flaws including a drinking problem; Mystery Men illustrates very flawed humans who find the super in their flaws.

I love that stuff. It means that even when we think we have an idea about Perfection we can still be hip checked by a derby girl with wonderfully big thighs or loose all the poker chips to a person who has OCD and can remember every card dealt or played. It’s these stories that promote the idea that different can be great and redefines perfection by blurring the boundaries we lay as criteria.

Yang Today

Today I have to act like a total grown up by washing dishes, doing laundry and then getting on the phone with no less than one insurance company and two customer service departments. So that's my cosmic balance from yesterday, getting to push one for English and then holding for most of my day and explaining my situation to at least 4 representatives in three departments before anyone even knows shows a glimmer of recognition about my situation. I can safely predict Ella will be yelling "I'm hungry!" or "I'm toOOoooo hot!" or "The dog won't stop breathing next to me!" while simultaneously clinging to my leg and spilling milk on the couch. She will undoubtedly time it perfectly with the moment I get the representative that can make all my problems vanish by pushing that single magic red button, but won't because I've just screamed "Stop it! You're making me crazy!" into her head set.

I did three things today...

Went to the beach with the kiddo and some pals again today. Came home and had a glass of wine while I cooked dinner... WOW! I feel like I drank a six pack. Shoot college kids should run a mile before going out drinking, it would totally improve their buzz (although it would totally improve the hangover too.) Anyway, those are the only things I accomplished today (four things if you count blogging) and that makes it a damn great day. Woo hoo summer time!

F-Stop?

My regular camera is stuck in new battery product recal customer service limbo and I am such a brow beaten consumer that I've temporarily given up and pulled out my camera from three years ago. You know the old tank that takes crap ass pics but never breaks no matter how many times I fling it to the floor or jingle it around in my purse. While I was digging around I found an old old camera that I loved but didn't seem to cooprate anymore, but they just don't make. It takes such clear pics with a hexogonal technology that Fuji abandonded for regular square pixels and I don't know why. After breaking the first, I even bought a second model on E-bay... a rebuilt one that like I said, doesn't like to cooperate.

To use either of these oldies I had to run and get new rechargable batteries, charge them and then try the old cameras out. The tank works like it always did but I forgot the cord is lost and the chip reader in my computer is not working so my pics are stuck there until Dan puts the chip in his computer and transfers them through the network to mine (Pain In The Ass.) So I ventured out into the back yard with the old old Fuji that I love to see if it wanted to play nice and it did. Hopefully it was the addition of the new batteries that caused it to love me back and maybe just maybe this relationship could work out for a while.

The following bumble bee pics were taken with my old Fuji Finepix 4700 Zoom in Northern IL. Aren't they lovely little bees! Go ahead and click on those pics and look at them all up close and personal. The detail this camera shows still just blows me away and makes it by far my favorite digital camera ever.



















These princess knight pics were taken with my old tank the Finepix E510 (after they went back to the square pixels.) They just look like regular old cutie family snap shots to me.



















One of these days I should buy some film and see what my old 35 mm Cannon can still do. I loved that camera too. That was the one that I used back in the day when I used to save up my money and buy filters instead of roller skate wheels. I wonder if anyone still teaches photography classes with "dark room time" anymore. We used to argue over who could get into the darkroom sometimes, back when I used to walk to school uphill both ways and all.

McBush

I keep sending people to this website and to see this video. So here it is thanks Jed Lewison.

Unedited Version?

She asked her to be in the wedding and then offered to inject botulism into her face.

So I ask, if a friend offered you botox would you feel:
a. insulted because she is in fact saying you are wrinkly
b. pity because she doesn't find beauty in wrinkles
c. excitement at the opportunity to erase your wrinkles
d. other (please explain)

I pick B. I am sick sick sick of women torturing their bodies and spending resources on this ridiculousness. I would like to age right out in the open for everyone to see so that my daughter and the world will know what this 35 year old woman looks like. Yes, I'm all for keeping healthy, using a little moisturizer, mascara, and washing the ol' arm pits. Hell, even shaving a leg or two and plucking some brows seems a little high on the pain for beauty scale but explainable, especially in light of the daily shaving (some) men do.

Where are you on the issue?

Indy

I'm booked for geek fest this year. It's in Indianapolis and Dan and I haven't gone in at least 6 years. Yes, we are geeks from way back. I am terribly interested in art that get's 40 year old men interested in collectable card games, my husband is addicted to small paintable lead armies and Ella will no doubt enjoy the many attendies in costume that will be milling about in all their super glory. Ahhh, the joy of having breakfast with storm troopers at the corner cafe or seeing and entourage of barbarians, monsters and pirates wait at the crosswalk in downtown Indy. It's worth it just to see the public's reaction.

Here's the other thing Dan and I have never, in 16 years, vacationed in anyplace other than a city. Nope, no camping, no beach house, no north woods log cabin (no, Grandma's doesn't count), just cities. Perhaps it's because we live a little in the country but mostly I think it's the thread count. I'm excited Indianapolis has a great Children's Museum, a resturaunt that makes food from Istanbul, the fifth largest art museum in the US that includes 152 acres of gardens, and I think they have some auto racing stuff too.

Two for One Coupon

Yesterday went grocery shopping which is usually like this:

"If you don't stop whining, I'm going to send you to wait in the car!"
"Stop wandering away from the cart!"
"We are not buying any pudding in cups we can make pudding at home!"
"We do not need 6 even though they're on sale, just get one!"
"Ok, we can get muffins but then we have to put the cookies back, which one?"
"Marshmallow fluff is not a healthy snack even if you put it on wheat bread!"
"Stop poking your fingers through the plastic on the grapes!"

So this time I left Dan at home and brought Ella and her new picture grocery list instead. She loved it. Not everything we bought was on the list but it was a nice break to have her shopping with me instead of against me and reminding me of items we needed while crossing them off as we went. She even drew a picture of cookies on the list (how could I resist) and then we picked some out and she crossed them off too.

Our local grocer has these tiny carts that essentially are a hand-basket on wheels with a push handle and so the kids get a huge kick out of shopping with these little things. They look like a perfect mini version of the bigger carts. So here was Ella with her list and her pen and her tiny cart walking around muttering "Hmmm, where's the broccoli?" and "Mom, stay close by me so I know where you are!" I was really tempted to throw a bunch of things in her cart just to hear her say "Those aren't on the list!" or I could've said "Ella! Ella! Ella! Can I have some ---fill in whatever we are walking by that is bright and shiny here---?!" while simultaneously pulling on her arm until she threatened to make me ride in her cart, but instead I just followed along with my bigger cart and threw all the junk food into it.

Love Her!

I just saw this over at Feministing and HAD to repost it!

An almost perfect weekend (I'm dumb)

Holy canolies dear Internets! Last week I compiled the entire 2007-2008 roller derby season and with the help of my skatey mate L'iterate Her we watched and edited it all and produced a small 17 minute video for the awards banquet on Saturday night at which time I celebrated so boisterously I threw up on Sunday morning... (yeah, pretty pitiful. I think I'm done drinking for a looong time.) In the coming weeks, my goal is to shorten that video even further so I can get it onto youtube and share with everyone. (Don't worry, the stuff I'm going to cut out is the boring stuff that only the ladies on the team are interested in. I'll leave all the hard hits and cool plays an crazy pics.)

So then after horking my brains out on Sunday, we took the family to the Renaissance Festival. It was humid and hot and I was hung over, but only slightly thanks to my early morning porcelain shenanigans. We met up with two other families and luckily my dear pal KTJ and a new pal A. took Ella on the ride she loved the most with the other kids (I was not hopping onto the big swingy thing that makes your tummy feel weird) Thank you both so much for that ladies. The festival was actually pretty cool (literally) it's mostly under tree cover and in the shade it was only maybe 78* or so. It seemed like they had more rides and different things this year and we of course enjoyed it along with the company very much.

My camera isn't working, I think it's the battery, so I am without any photos to show you.

hot

Hey folks went to the beach today because is hot. Too hot to blog.

so check this cool stuff out!

The Sunny Side of Life

I ranted about McCain and I ranted about the county considering concealed carry against the wishes of the state and I ranted about the patriarchy and then I totally ran out of steam and needed to hear some good news and couldn't find any out there on the internet. I needed a little hope and thought maybe I should listen to an Obama speech but instead I grabbed up my family and went to my Grandparent's cabin for the weekend and had a perfectly lovely time.

Friday

I sat down and wrote three different political rants this morning and can't seem to get it together enough to actually hit post. So instead I present to you this photgraph. It has no point.

Leinenkugel's - Now with more manly!

Waitress: I'm sorry I think we're out of Miller Highlife

Dan: You should try that Leinenkugel's Summer Beer, that's what I'm getting.

Me: Ok, I'll take one of those.

...

Me: Mmmm, I like it. It's fruity.

Dan: It is not fruity. It's citrussy.

Me: Isn't that the same thing?

Dan: No, one is definitely manlier.

I spilled some on the couch... because my cup is running over.

Ella and I were supposed to leave in the morning but didn't get out the door until 2:30... because we slept in and watched a movie after we had pancakes on the couch in our jammies.

When we arrived at the mall we were only able to play at the play area for a half an hour... because we had serious shoe shopping to do.

After four shoe stores that didn't carry tennis shoes in Ella's size we needed to hit a fifth and sixth store outside of the mall and it was soo exhausting I stopped at Panera to get a mocha and Ella whined and begged until I got her some... broccoli soup.

When we finally found a pair of tennis shoes for her we couldn't decide wich ones and argued about it... until I realized both pair together were under budget and we stopped arguing and bought both.

We missed that "buy one get one half off sale," it ended yesterday so... I only bought one pair of shoes for myself.

By the time we arrived home and got settled in the season finale of "Hell's Kitchen" already started and... we had to watch it through the DVR and missed all the commercials.

It totally rained hard, blowing into all the windows in our house and... cooled the house down by about 15°.

Once Upon a Storm

Went to see Kung Foo Panda last night and really enjoyed it. Ella was doing "just-saw-it-on-the-screen-style karate" the whole way to the car. That's the kind that involves a lot of flapping ankles and "Hi-YA!" yelling. My brothers and I trained in that same style on Sunday mornings with Master Bruce Lee back in the late 70s.

While we were in the theatre it rained hard and the wind blew power lines down in a way that the police said we had to take a different country drive home. On this different country drive with the lightning strikes on the horizon I saw the most concentrated five acres of lightning bugs I've ever seen in my life. The winter wheat looked like the storm was dropping bits of green lightning bolt glitter across the field. This was quickly followed by a tiny frog army launching an epic assault on our car. I scrambled for my camera and alas have nothing to show you, it was too dark. It's one of those cruel realities; magic can only be seen with the naked eye and hardly ever recorded. Ask anyone who's seen a fairy.

Barometric Pressure

We don't have air conditioning and so far this year it hasn't bothered me much but we are nearing the days that will smother us with humidity and I will begin to think wearing a tube top might be a good idea and of course who needs a bra under a tube top because not only is a bra too hot, itchy and constricting but the tube top has lots of stretchy and should hold "the girls" in place just fine. Then of course later in the day perhaps while regaining my sanity at the air conditioned grocery store, I'll remember that "the girls," like me, are also 35 and wrapping a tube top around us is insane because we are playing the "is it a tube top or cumberbund game" most of the day while I yank, rearrange and restuff when I think no one is looking. But I won't be the only insane person when the weather gets there, there will also be that guy grilling with his shirt off, the chick on the back of a motorcycle in flip flops, and joggers. I just need to remember really, anything I wear is going to feel too hot, itchy and constricting because existing without air conditioning the world IS hot, itchy and constricting.

Dancing in the Street

I took Ella to a street dance last night. We listened to a band called the Crunchy Frogs who I like. They play lots of rock music from the good ol' days, the kind everyone knows all the words to and isn't Foot Loose and you don't mind your kid singing the chorus. Ella danced like crazy which I am happy to say in a sea of six year olds shakin' their groove thing doing Beyoncé moves my kid still runs in place and wags her arms around like a Goldie Hawn dancing on Laugh In occasionally throwing in a hop or two for accent. This of course is the same dance that made me fall in love with my husband fifteen years ago so I'm pretty sure rhythm is genetic.

in short

I'm slightly sunburnt, eaten blueberry pancakes and grilled burgers (not at the same meal though), went swimming, had candy thrown at me, saw a parade and am ready for some fireworks in about an hour. Woohoo! Happy Birthday America!

The Zoo

Checking out the painted turtles










Dad tells Ella about the Lioness














Buddies checking out the prairie dogs














Mom! Take a picture of my tongue it's red from my Popsicle!














Hey Ella, would you like to hold a hissing cockroach?