Nothing four glasses of pinot grigio and one hydroxyzine won’t cure.
Charlotte, North Carolina
November 10th, 2006NOOOOOOOOOOO!
November 4th, 2006Fuck.
No ma’am. You DO NOT KNOW HOW TO CLIMB STAIRS. I will not have it. I will tie your ass down to the floor with back-to-back episodes of Sesame Street. The allure of Elmo will be too great, and you will never learn to climb stairs, and I will be able to continue child-proofing the downstairs, setting you down on the floor, and lying down on the couch to read while you explore.
That is the way it is going to be.
Oops . . . Must go get daughter off upstairs landing before she plunges to her death.
Great Expectations
November 3rd, 2006This morning. I posted about it on Atlanta Metroblogging, but must also brag here on the people who were working the polls. They were so surprisingly courteous. Anyone who knows me knows there is just about nothing i hate more than shitty or rude service. In government employees, it makes me see red. I expected the usual surliness and rolling eyes, but instead was very pleasantly surprised.
Before we go hailing Dekalb County as a mecca for great service-oriented government employees, I must add that I also had completely rude and dismissive service earlier in the week when seeking information on redistricting the Dekalb County schools from an Area Superintendent. However, i am giving said rude bitch (with a doctorate no less! Can anyone get one of those things?) a chance to reply to my latest request for information before posting anything further. Maybe she (and her two higher-ups, whom I copied on the email) are just out of town for a long weekend. I am sure they will be back by Monday.
Halloween Pictures
November 2nd, 2006Rollie doesn’t have school on Tuesday, so costume day was Monday at school. They don’t allow anything scary, or weapons or masks, so Rollie’s costume was out. Instead, he went as a cowboy. This is Matilda (in her Little Pumpkin outfit) and Rollie before school.
For Halloween, we invited friends Ned, Vanessa, and Scarlett over, and Jackie, er. . . i mean, my sister, Lisa also joined us for the festivities. I made a bigass (Trust me. It’s one word.) pot of chicken chili and cornbread. Mostly, we put away some wine and beer, and a tad too much candy. I was a little foggy yesterday.
Tiller and me. She’s a fairy and I’m . . well, me, but with some icky makeup on.
Lisa held down the fort while Vanessa, Todd, and I took Scarlett, Tiller, and Rollie out trick or treating in the neighborhood. I was completely surprised with how well everyone took the experience – zero tears, despite it being almost bedtime, and the fact that Rollie had no nap and Tiller was teething.
This is Rollie at the first house, the monks next door.
Rollie taking the steps in stride.
Our little Yoda
Rollie did a great job, walking the whole way, taking the steps in stride (only a few spills), and dealing with a malfunctioning pumpkin handle that dumped his candy all over the street a few times. Todd and I were immensely proud that he sometimes said “thank you” without prompting.
Vanessa and Scarlett (as Raggedy Ann)
A boy and his Daddy
Todd, Rollie, Vanessa, and Scarlett at “The Jackpot House”
Tiller, with wand, which she held onto the entire time we trick or treated. (Which wasn’t very long, because Tiller and Scar don’t get candy, and there was wine for the mamas back at the house.)
My little Fairy (rear view)
My little fairy, amazingly smiley for past bedtime
Okay, let’s take this picture and open more wine.
Retirement: Halloween Quote
November 1st, 2006 One need not be a chamber to be haunted;
One need not be a house;
The brain has corridors surpassing
Material place.
~Emily Dickinson
Halloween Soundtrack, Vol. II: Big Kids Mix
October 31st, 2006While creating my kids Halloween mix, I first culled a ton of Halloween-appropriate stuff from our collection. It came out to be about 3.4 hours. I decided that a lot of it was a bit much for the kids, but perfect for the big kids, so i shortened it to create the following 1.6 hour list. Like yesterday’s kids mix, this was just what I could find in our collection, and when I looked at the list, i realized there were a ton of things that I would have put on the list if I was allowing myself downloads. Some Ministry, Danzig, and The Cramps; stuff that I used to listen to in the olden days when music came on tapes, but which i never bought on CD. Todd also pointed out that I should have included Motley Crue’s “Shout at the Devil.”
The Big Kids Mix
- Please Mr. Gravedigger – David Bowie
- Spooky – Portastatic
- Lullaby – The Cure
- I Bleed – The Pixies
- I’m a Ghost – Ted Leo & The Pharmacists
- Hypnotise – The White Stripes
- Necromancing – Gnarls Barkley
- Dracula’s Wedding – Andre 3000
- I am Stretched On Your Grave – Dead Can Dance
- Hellbound – The Breeders
- Psycho Killer – Talking Heads
- Scary Monsters (and Super Creatures) – David Bowie
- Paint it Black – The Rolling Stones
- Tombstone Blues – Bob Dylan
- Little Ghost – The White Stripes
- Werewolf – Cat Power
- Moon Over Bourbon Street – Sting
- Leslie Anne Levine – The Decemberists
- God’s Gonna Cut You Down – Johnny Cash
- Willow Garden – Charlie Monroe
- Bringing Mary Home – The Country Gentlemen
- Mother’s Only Sleeping – Bill Monroe
- How to Disappear Completely – Radiohead
- O Death – Ralph Stanley
- I Will Follow You Into the Dark – Death Cab for Cutie
- What’s He Building In There? – Tom Waits
- Eyepennies – Sparklehorse
- Nosferatu Man – Slint
On another note, I mentioned the song, “The Ghost of John” and a friendly net-wanderer named Stephen suggested this website that has a version of the song available for download. I went to the website, found the song (albeit not the version I remembered – it’s on the flip side of the Teeny Tiny Woman album), and then proceeded to spend an hour looking at all the gems this guy has collected. He evidently collects old Halloween-themed albums. There were quite a few that I remembered from my childhood, and he also included the album covers, and the artwork is total timewarp.
My favorite download: “Sounds to Make You Shiver! Bloodcurdling! Terror! Horror!” (1974). I am pretty sure that my neighbors had this (or one of the other Sounds to Make You Shiver albums) when I lived in New York. We played it in my basement when we made a haunted house.
Wanna find that particular spooky album you remember from childhood? Take a look at The Spooky So Far, an album cover image-linked list of all the stuff he has available for download.
This website is the perfect Halloween timekiller.
Halloween Soundtrack, Vol. I
October 30th, 2006Volume I: Kids Mix
Coming up with a kid-friendly Halloween mix is not as easy as it seems. There is a fine line between Halloween-themed and downright nightmare-inducing; Halloween is not exactly full of kid-friendly themes, nor is our CD collection. If the list is really for the kids then the songs also have to be fun, too, which is quite the challenge – Kid-friendly, fun to listen to, and yet still dark enough to pass as Halloween listening fare. With the exception of Monster Mash, the rest of the song were already in our CD collection, so I didn’t have to download any others. If I were going the downloading route, I most definitely would have included Thriller. Duh.
Without further ado, i give you my Halloween mix, kid-style. . . .
- Worms (The Pogues)
- Monster Mash (Bobby “Boris” Pickett)
- My Doorbell (The White Stripes)
- Strange (R.E.M.)
- People Are Strange (Echo and the Bunnymen)
- Superstition (Stevie Wonder)
- Do the Vampire (Superdrag)
- Goolie Get-Together (The Toadies*)
- I Walked with a Zombie (R.E.M.)
- Ghost Town (The Specials)
- O Death (Camper Van Beethoven)
I also really looked around for a recording of the song “Ghost of John,” which I learned in first grade and is the epitome of Halloween music for me, but could not find it anywhere online. It goes a little something like this:
Have you seen the ghost of John?
Long white bones and the rest all gone,
ooh, ooh, wouldn’t it be chilly with no skin on?
Oh, well. Maybe i will teach the kids to sing it (along with the zombie dance that goes with it). Talk about a horror show.
As always, comments with your suggestions for the list would be more than welcome.
*I do not actually listen to the Toadies, but this song was on some Saturday morning cartoon CD someone gave me as a gift, and it seemed appropriate, so I stuck it in there.
Accomplishment
October 29th, 2006
My first 5K went pretty well. My friend Andy decided to run at the last minute, so I met him and his girlfriend, Ginger, and her dog, Nugget, at the Start. It was nice to have someone else I knew in the race – he pulled away pretty quickly in the beginning, but I could see him up ahead on the long straightaway parts of the course, so that was nice.
The weather was pretty miserable; Cold and windy, with pretty strong gusts. Grant Park is really green and has tons of old trees, so there was a lot of debris on the course. They had cleared some fallen limbs, but it was still a little messy in spots. I wore shorts, but kept my long-sleeve shirt on, and ran comfortably in that. It would have been nice to have gloves, and I wish I had warmed up more, because the race went right into a big hill at the beginning and my calves are paying this morning.
Grant Park is HILLY. There was a pretty short, but really steep hill right at the beginning and at about mile 2, there was a straightaway on Cherokee Ave., which was LONG, you could see forever, and it was up and down and up and down, like waves of hills. Then, at the end, there was another long gradual hill, which kind of sucked.
My time was only 35:06, but I think it would have been better without hills, and if I felt warmer. Right at the start, I was cut off by a runaway woman and her dog, so that slowed me down. I also slowed to stretch my calves, which felt really tight, early in the run, and I also actually stopped for a few seconds to check on another runner. She was running right behind me and to my left, and was closer to the cones they set out to mark the course. Some asshole in an SUV actually swerved into the course, and hit the cone closest to her, which was kind of scary. Then, myself and a few other runners slowed down to talk to the nearest policeman we saw, to tell him what had happened. He forced the guy to pull over, so that was nice. I also think that I will do better in the future without the fear of the unknown.
I didn’t come in last, so that is good, and in fact, I passed a number of people, and there is quite a thrill in that, although as slow as I was, i also felt a little bad, because the people I was passing were more like me – probably new to the whole running thing, and who wants to be passed? Quite a few of the people running with dogs passed me, too, though. (Runners went in the first flight, then runners with dogs, then the walkers and dog-walkers.)
My favorite part was getting to the end, and coming through the finish, and seeing Todd and the kids waiting, and Rollie running up to me to give me a high five. He looked really happy, and in my imagination, proud of his Mom.
Afterwards, we walked around to see the booths and there were TONS of pets in costumes, which is always entertaining. They had a jumpy castle, so Rollie jumped for a while, then we got a lollipop for him and walked back to the car. It was funny, because he was right at dog eye level, so every dog in the park stole a lick of his lollipop.
All in all, i felt really good and the sense of accomplishment in setting and meeting a goal is a nice feeling. It is also nice that so many of my friends and family were so supportive. I am lucky to have such great people around me.
Okay, enough with this sappy endorphin shit.
The Dark Day
October 28th, 2006“Go Dawgs,” she said, her heart barely in it.
This is not going to be pretty. Not a bit pretty.