Cindy Lou Who

She's not more than 2














Some time ago I uploaded this picture and seems people have been goggling "Cindy Lou Who" and this is the what they have in their heads when they google it - it was what was in my head when I googled it. Well, after uploading I earased it but now it still sppears here only very very tiny and so you can't find it in the blog just up above the google image divider. So now, today ( a year later) I am inserting the photo for you all here to see. Enjoy dear internet and if you please click surf around the blog - click on Bombadee's Garden and read someting recent or catch a classic like "Toddlers in the Mist" or the haorrowed tale "You are Marching in it" and Happy Holidays everyone!

The Beginning of the End

Ella and I were in the tub this morning having a discussion about babies and little girls. We have decided that Ella is a little girl now because:

1. She can talk
2. She can get her shoes on by herself
3. She doesn’t have a bottle

Naturally I steered to the topic of mommy’s milk. I told Ella that since she’s a little girl now that she could probably say bye-bye to mommy’s milk. She nodded and waved bye-bye. We talked about how if we say bye-bye to mommy’s milk we could maybe get a new baby at our house (there’s some biology/timing issues here). She was very excited about this idea exclaiming “Ella want new baby at house!” We went on with our bath; washing hair and playing with beloved Ducky and Peoplepottomus. When Ella absent mindedly had a sip of milk (mommy’s milk) I asked her if she still wanted mommy’s milk even though she was a little girl and do you know what she did… she spit it out. My heart simultaneously leapt and broke. She’ll be two soon.

Bombadee's Beer Garden

Here is a rare glimps into Bombadee's Beer Garden, from last night. I will have you all know I drank coffee and sobered before I drove home - where the Kaluha flows freely.

"Drunkitey, drunk, drunk, drunkeliciouse! Oh yeah internets I'm toasted on beers and Kaluha and creams (actually vit D milk, but same same taste). Reed Vanderwobble put a hand full of pop corn in my purse this evening and then I put the unpopped beebee like kernels in his beer - he's such a munch. Oh and Stinky Ferret Boy totally drank beer with me and we swapped teacher stories till we giggled like crazy. Lovely evening folks. Oh plus we drunk dialed Piefer and thought her daughter was she. Good thing I didn't say anything too incriminating. I took a picture with my brother and I totally said "Hey lets try and look like each other" and then we both smiled. HAPPY BIRTHDAY Little Brother! We played some "Mr. Roboto" on the juke box. Then there were many jokes about garbge trucks and Mexican shaman oh and of course handle bar moustachios... Ya had to be there. I'm not even sure I got all the jokes but I pretended like I did by laughing like mad. Ella is sleeping, Dan is up - Woooooooo hoooooo!"

Here's Mud in Your Eye

What color would you say these eyes are?

Plant Lilacs etc

Oh joy! A reason to make a list. And you know I’ll take any excuse to do so.

Here comes my year end review. I have to dig out the list from last year and see what I can check off. Alas I don’t think I made a list last year and this might explain why I didn’t do anything worthy of putting in a Holiday Letter.

So here’s the list for 2006:

Finish painting the kitchen
Finish painting the bathroom
Paint the outside of the house
Get quotes on a new porch and front doors
Have the chimney taken down
Get Ella potty trained
Wean Ella
Build another baby
Get my photos onto CD before they get lost forever
Make at least one short movie
See a hockey game with my friends
Go dancing till I’m dripping in sweat
Renew wedding vows in Las Vegas
Have way more sex
Get a good plate of scallops
Perfect a bread pudding
Find a nice china cabinet for less than $200.00
Sell my old digital camera to pay for china cabinet (Piefer - ask me about this!)
E-bay everything we don’t use
Get the pool table cleaned off enough to actually play a game
Find the perfect strappy sandals for Vegas
Organize a dinner for the Library
Start waking up before Dan leaves so we can have a 'family breakfast'
Write more letters
Finish one painting
Start writing my business plan
Get to Milwaukee for African food
Maintain
Vacuum out the van more than one a year
Attend a bonfire
Plant a veggie garden
Camp out
Plant lilacs
Karaoke with the Casseroles

Ok folks, I’m casting a wide net by listing all these things. I’ve found in the past that it makes it much easier to cross things off at the end of the year.

Breaker Breaker 1-9

Dan had the day off yesterday. He spent it with the stomach flu. Poor guy, he was so looking forward to going shopping with us. We didn’t go without him; the big events in our day were an hour long bath and then lunch at McDonald’s. I suppose if you’re almost two that’s all you could really hope for, a bubble bath and then cheeseburgers with toys.

It occurred to me last week that Ella will laugh at what I think is so modern. She’ll look back at my blogging with the same amusement I look at my parent’s fleeting fascination with CB radios. She’ll never know a time when people didn’t have music everywhere they went, and she’ll get her very own flying car and jet pack. Also last week, Dan and I talked about spending our 50th wedding anniversary on the moon.

It Was Nice

Santa, this is business...

The Gazette
December 22, 2005

Dear Santa Letters from (my Small Midwestern Town) Elementary School Students
pg. 11

Dear Santa,
Santa, this is business if you don't give me more than two things on my list I won't belive in you any more. So these are the games I want Doom 3, Doom 2 and Doom all of them on ps2 and if you don't I'll make signs about you how cruel you are like no more Santa and Santa is the meanest. I'll even send it on the internet. So I mean it buddy. From the person that does not believe in you, Ethan

Dear Internet

*

*

*

*

*

See you Monday!

Pink Sparkly Girly Foof

For the past week Ella has completely ignored the festive boxes under the Christmas tree. She will move them out of the way to get to “Grey Mama’s Birstday Prenent” Yes, under the piles of red and gold striped boxes and the silver covered packages is the small pink and sparkly wonder that is Great Grandma’s Birthday Present. Ella pulls it out every day and talks about it. She has no idea what's in it, she just knows it's pink and has a sparkly, curly bow.

Dan thinks we should’ve gotten her a train table instead of a kitchen set. HA! Pink, sparkly, girly foof here we come!

Solstice!

Hello Sunshine - Sung by Aretha Franklin

Hello sunshine,
So glad to see you sunshine,
Hello sunshine,
It’s been dark for a very long time,

I can’t explain what I’ve been through,
Trying to live my life without you,
People say I act so strange,
But you got the power to make me change,

Hello sunshine,
So glad to see you sunshine,
Hello sunshine,
It’s been dark for a very long time,

Without you sunshine,
The world is such a lonely place.
Without you sunshine,
My heart was filled with an empty space.
Without you sunshine,
The wind and the rain,
The wonders of spring,
Don’t mean a thing.
With out you baby.
With out you baby.
With out you baby!

Know I know everything is all right,
No more pain,
No more sleepless nights.
My days were dark,
But now I see,
Because my sunshine has come home to me.

Without you sunshine,
The world is such a lonely place.
Without you sunshine,
My heart was filled with an empty space.
Without you sunshine,
The wind and the rain,
Don’t mean a thing.
The wonders of spring,
With out you baby.
With out you baby.
With out you baby!

Here He Is

Ok folks here he is my newly single brother Joe. He has a job, owns a car and a house and has two dogs. He’s kind of shy and quiet. He'll be 25 on Friday the 30th.

His ex broke his heart via the telephone because she had “to find herself”, after he supported her through college. After much discussion yesterday and your comments (thanks internets) he’s decided that she had something happening on the internet (up till 4 in the morning on My Space, shut the screen off when he walked in and asked when she was coming to bed). We also decided that he was a good catch and he deserved better. At least someone who could contribute to the household either by cooking and cleaning or paying some of the bills, preferably someone that will help with both next time.

He’s so frustrated, because he felt like he was trying really hard and things were getting better. Poor guy, he’ll probably spend a lot of time at my house over the next couple of weeks. He’s off work cause of the weather (construction). He said sitting at the new house alone (pics of 7 years of relationship all over the walls) is making his stomach hurt. There might be an opportunity to go repair hurricane roofs for him that would put him in FL for 2 months. We’ll know more today. Let’s hope that pans out, he deserves a little good news.


PS My hormones are better now that I have a crisis to handle, and a peron to direct my scroogieness at.

Bitch!

My Brother's fiancé (they've been together 7 years) left him yesterday. He was cleaning house and making a pot of chili and she was out shopping for Christmas presents. She called and said she was going to her mom’s and not coming back. Earlier that week she had gone out drinking with friends (twice) and didn’t come home all night. What do you make of this internet… Give us what ya really think.

I Think I’m Having Hormones

Wednesday: We went and saw The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I asked Dan if he felt like each and every scene had its own epic climax and made him want to weep and he looked at me like I was ridiculous. I swear by the last 25 minutes, I was so tired of having my tears jerked I was just mad (and slightly sobbing).

Thursday: I clearly had my happy dial tuned in to the ’Grinch’ position.

Friday: I am flattened by the idea that Ella will grow up and that we can’t sit in big blue chair and read “Every where Babies” together for eternity.

Saturday: We visited Dan’s parents where I read the local paper. Mrs. McTeacher’s 2nd grade class had written to Santa and the Gazette published it. I thought how cute and then to my horror blubbered in front of everyone as I read the letter that went ‘Dear Santa, We had a house fire and this Christmas I just want to replace the clothes and stuff I had and if it’s not too much, I want a new puppy because my life long best friend and bestest dog in the whole world died in the fire. Love, Cindy-Lou Who’ (I’m paraphrasing).

Sunday: I read PhD’s post about The Real War on Christmas and how she has to explain to her boy “…polar bears are starting to drown, because the ice is melting and they have to swim too far to try to find food …” It breaks my heart for the whole world, every child who is disappointed, every soul that is in need, every drowning damn polar bear.

Spatula?

• I finished making my Christmas cards! Phew. Now all I have left to do is sign them, address them, put a return address on them, write a letter to go in some of them, lick them, stamp them and mail them. Simple.
• In other news, my daughter loves any man that will play a guitar for her. We went to a cafe for dinner Saturday before we went shopping. There was a long haired young man playing guitar for tips. Ella made googly eyes at him the whole time while he sang to her and smiled back. It made Dan very uncomfortable.
• Heard this weekend while breakfast cooked:
  Dan: What the hell did you do with the spatula?
  Me: I put it at the neighbor’s house just to irritate you.
  Dan: Well it’s working.
  Me: I love you too honey.

Crotchy McCrotcherson

I don't feel bloggy today. Instead I will post some photos I've stolen from god knows who's website. Feel free to write your own captions. Or just vote for your favorite.

"Crotchy McCrotcherson"

Protesting the Peace Protesters

I found this guy first

Months later I found his soulmate

Then I found this chick

And then I found her soulmate too

Eeek

And finally, my new favorite...
"Sonya on Her Birthday"

Breakfast at Bombadee's III

I put my waffles in the toaster and then fed you the only two cherries in the whole can of fruit cocktail, that’s all you wanted. The waffles weren’t done so I poked them back down into the toaster. A good song came on the radio and you took me by the hand and we danced in our jammies in the middle of the kitchen giggling and yelling “oooh lalala – oooh lalala!” I burned my waffles cause I was dancing, but the butter melted right into them they were so hot. I gave you the corner that wasn’t burnt. You sucked the butter out and fed the remainders to our dog while I ate the burnt part. I wiped you nose and put you in the tub. You splashed me and said “Funny Momma?” It’s these little things you don’t comprehend that make me realize my Mother. You won’t get it until you are the one giving up the non-burnt corner of your waffle...

Mystery Solved

Christmas wafted in while I was having sushi. Dan brought me mall sushi last night and an evergreen candle from the expensive candle store. We lit it the candle and mixed wasabi into soy sauce and there it was, Christmas drifting up my nose. It truly was the bit I’d been missing, it’s the smell that kicks it all off for me. This is the first year we’ve not had a real tree. Mystery solved, now you can all go back to worrying about world peace and WMDs now.

In an unrelated note, look at my 2 year old pretending to be a teenager. I took the picture and then realized that it may not be that far off before she’s embarrassed to kiss me in front of her friends and we aren’t bestest buddies anymore. Right now she needs me to keep her heart from hurting when she feels sad and I need her for – well, the same. We have never spent more than a few hours apart and when I see something cool I yell, “Hey Ella, come here and see this!” When she sees something cool she says “Mom, what is that?” Ella and I are symbiotic. This too shall pass and I wonder if it will actually break my heart as much as it does to imagine that I won’t always get to be her best friend.

Making a List Checking it Twice

• Christmas mood? Not so much.
  
• Holiday Cheer? I really can’t, I’m driving.
  
• Evergreen smell? On my way to buy some.
• Cookies baked? Why, the dough is so much better raw.
• Snow? Enough to make it into the tops of my boots while I scrape my windshield with a CD cover.
• Christmas Carols? Only if the Wiggles are singing them.
• Presents bought and wrapped? I think I bought enough to make the baby Jesus happy.
• Tree decorated? Ella’s still too little to make the good kind of decorations; I think I have to wait till Kindergarten art class before I can get a God’s eye with a school portrait glued to the middle.
• Holiday cards sent? Quick do something worthy enough to put into the letter.
• Thankful? Every day.

Demoralizing Our Troops

And they say I'm demoralizing the troops by demanding a valid reason for sending them out to kill.

It's stuff like this that makes me want to cuss. What I will actually do is spread this info like the flu to everyone I know and then I will remind them to vote. Please cut and paste it, blog about it, send it as a response to the next "happy-smappy go USA because Jesus voted for Bush" fwd someone sends you.

Education is the answer folks.


Bodies Sent To Families On Commercial Airliners
POSTED: 4:46 pm PST December 9, 2005
UPDATED: 10:19 am PST December 12, 2005

"...Dead heroes are supposed to come home with their coffins draped with the American flag -- greeted by a color guard. But in reality, many are arriving as freight on commercial airliners -- stuffed in the belly of a plane with suitcases and other cargo.

John Holley and his wife, Stacey, were stunned when they found out the body of their only child, Matthew John Holley, who died in Iraq last month, would be arriving at Lindbergh Field as freight. Matthew was a medic with the 101st Airborne unit and died on Nov. 15.
'When someone dies in combat, they need to give them due respect they deserve for (the) sacrifice they made," said John Holley'..."


Love is not a word that fits this despicable 'crusade'
Published: December 12, 2005

"...Westboro Baptist Church says the military casualties are God’s punishment for defending a country that tolerates homosexuality. Phelps goes as far as to say that natural disasters such as hurricanes Katrina and Rita are God’s punishment on America, too. The protests have nothing to do with the sexuality of the fallen service members.

Just as inexplicably, Phelps and his followers have called their protests “Love Crusades.” A member of the Westboro church says protesters may turn up today outside Patten’s funeral if their schedules permit..."

Homeless Veterans: An Ongoing National and Local Disgrace
Published: 12/12/2005 09:48

"...In December 2005, a veterans’ self-help agency in Brooklyn noted that they had seen “approximately 60 [veterans from the War on Terror] with serious housing needs, at least six of whom spent time in homeless shelters.” One of the program’s directors stated that, With Vietnam, you did not see homeless veterans during the conflict…What’s alarming [now] is the conflict is still in progress and you’re already seeing reported cases of homelessness. This is something new..."

When humor tells us troubling truths...about ourselves

12.13.05
"...So let's review: immediately after the President told us that more than 32,000 people have been killed, he moved seamlessly into joking around - and the audience yukked it up, as if they either hadn't even heard the casualty count, or didn't care. 32,000 people - that's like filling up an NBA arena and killing everyone in it. How could someone immediately then start hamming it up? Worse, how could the people sitting there laugh along?

The answer is clear for both the President and the audience. The reason the president could laugh it up after telling us an NBA arena's worth of people had been killed is because he and the neoconservative advisers around him who pushed this war have never actually served in combat..."