Nate the Magician

Nate, Tyler and Ellie were in a talent show tonight. Nate practiced all day in an attempt to get his "magic show" down. I have one more video. It's the first time he went through it, and it's very funny. But, blogger won't upload it. I'll try to add it in the morning.

Take 1



Take 2

Love the showing off of the teeny tiny "magic wand".

Final Take

A nearly perfect performance, until the point where he picks his nose as he goes off camera.

Opening and Closing Night

I tried to get him to do it once more and include the wand, but he was having none of it.
After he got done, he said, "Mom, when I got up there, I got really nervous"

Close Encounters

Warning: This post will contain the word tampon. It might contain other embarrassing words as well. I don't know yet, because I haven't actually written it.

Recently, I realized I was nearly out of tampons. Which of course, can not be. So, on my last trip to Wal Mart, I picked up a box or 4. And while I was there, it also made sense to stock up on a few other items. So with my leaning tower of girly stuff, I went to grab some hot dogs and frozen pizzas and promptly ran into someone I knew. Oddly, even though I can discuss my tampon needs with all and sundry in the written word, I felt very awkward running into anyone I knew with an inordinate amount of the things. OK, with any number of them. Which is weird, right? Because they are advertised on TV. It's not like it's a secret that women use these things.

As I was approaching this family, I hastily placed a couple of things over the boxes so that they weren't such a glowing signal, only to realize that I had emphasized the chocolate bars, crumb donuts, castor oil (for a facial, I swear!), Doritos, vicodin, Preparation H (eye bags, cracking feet. . . I swear) and a case of diet soda. Pretty much everything I might need to survive whatever nature throws at me. . . all displayed in a mortifying array in the bottom of my basket.

Which, when I told Rebi, reminded her of another bad shopping trip for tampons. And she promptly blushed and burst out laughing at the thought.

Last year, when I stocked up on the best invention since sliced bread, it was after midnight on a Saturday. I was pretty sure I wouldn't run into anyone I knew, so Rebi agreed to join me. Because we don't believe in bedtime around here.

After piling our Empire State Building of Always and Tampax into the cart, we turned the corner and ran into a bunch of teenage boys. That knew us by name. Trying to be nonchalant about the cart of embarrassing horrors, I calmly pulled a gallon of milk out of the cooler while Rebi edged closer and closer to the door. Without looking at the big shining TAMPONS which were beaming their orange logo like a batman beacon, I calmly set the milk in the cart on top of them. Except I missed.

And spilled an entire gallon of milk all over the floor, myself, and the boys. I believe I ruined 2 pair of shoes. Which was still less embarrassing than the fact that I managed to draw their attention right to the tampons. Go Figure.

Lunch

I keep seeing this great tortilla tutorial all over the internet. So I think I'm going to make them for lunch.

Hee hee hee

Poor Dolly

Will somebody PLEASE take these doll clothes off of me? It's so degrading. . .

The Disgrace

Let it be said, I am a HEAVY listener of Collective Soul.
Which is why I did not appreciate this hacked up version of the song.


Even if it's probably going to win the contest for him.

It was already slow. There was no reason to sing it like a bad Vegas lounge singer.

Just listen to a few minutes of the original. More depth. More interesting.


Excuse me, I have 86 Collective Soul songs calling to me. The David Cook version is certainly not one of them.

The Pursuit of Whiteness

When I was 7 or 8 years old, I thought it was super cool to spin around and around in the swimming pool. I could go really fast, for a very long time. But, when I spun, it made my hair go in my eyes and I couldn't see a thing. Which is why I didn't notice the pool's edge, and upon flinging my head back to get said hair out of my eyes, I smacked my face right into the concrete and broke my front tooth off about half way up. If I allow myself, I can still remember the zinging pain that went clear up into my eyeballs. So instant. One moment, playing and having fun, the next moment, completely consumed by what I can only describe as high-pitched pain. I have no idea what that means, but believe me, it hurt.

The dentist met us at the office, stabbed a needle into the bone in the roof of my mouth (and we wonder why I don't like shots in my mouth) and gave me a beautiful fake tooth. Which lasted until I was 12, when I fell and cracked it. And that lasted until I was 15 when the whole piece got knocked off again during a game of kissing rugby (because Shane didn't really get the concept that just because girls were willing to play kissing rugby, it didn't mean the girls wanted the wind knocked out of them and their teeth cracked in the name of a kiss). And after 3 shots in the roof of my mouth, I became a lot more careful about the fake tooth.

So, 20 years later, the composite material is starting to look pretty bad. It's stained from my heavy coke addiction (the soda kind!) and the bonding is starting to look a little weak. Plus, it isn't very smooth- it has some weird ridges on the front. The time has come to redo the tooth. Except that presents us with a little complication. All of my teeth have suffered from the cola. One of my teeth looks like I've been sucking cigarettes up against it, it's so brown. Or yellow. Just ask Nate, who kindly points out my yellow tooth and mustache as often as he sits on my lap. The turd.

Which brings us to the caustic chemicals. I am now in the process of bleaching my teeth. After they have reached a decent whiteness, we will again inject the bone in the roof of my mouth, remove the old composite, clean it all up and put a new composite on. I believe I will also veneer all 4 top teeth in order to give a better color match. But I haven't decided yet.

In the pursuit of whiteness, I am finding that I have a few issues, which I am loathe to discuss with my dentist. Because I'm pretty sure he already told me all of this, and I wasn't listening. I listened a little, but I figured the bleach would come with instructions in the package. It didn't.

If you know the answers, feel free to help a girl out. Because I can't afford to make this guy any crankier than I did when I started trash talking about his music. He's nice, but everyone has their limits. Honestly, my smile depends on you. And we all know how very vain I am.

1. If the bleaching is supposed to take 2 weeks and I have 8 tubes of bleach, should I be using 1/2 of a tube each day? Because honestly, that seems like a LOT of bleach.
2. Is it better to bleach at night?
3. If I bleach at night, do I brush my teeth after bleaching but before bed?
4. Or is it better to leave the bleach on after I take the trays out?
5. Does anybody really care about my bleaching dilemmas?
6. If I miss a day, will it set back the whole process, or will it not really make a difference?
7. If I miss a day and do it the next morning, will my teeth fall out if I bleach again at night?
8. Am I off the Coca-cola for the rest of my life? Because we all know how much I love Coke with Lime on a hot summer day.

And it's 100 degrees here. And my AC isn't working.

Laundry Monster, and Other Assorted Household Evils

Short of going out and purchasing all new clothes for the family, which I am opposed to less because I am curbing our spending and more because I hate shopping, I must live in the laundry room today. And by live, I mean slowly be crushed by the weight of the 9,000 lbs of dirty clothes, socks, and underwear. But, as a reward, once I am finished with the washing and the drying, I then get to spend the next 4 days beating encouraging Ellie to fold and put them all away. Because it's her job. I have HIRED her to fold and put away clothes. I pay her. Well, not really, because she never actually folds and puts away the clothes. They just multiply like bunnies across the family room.

And after the laundry, I feel compelled to clean the bathrooms. Because they stink. As always. Don't worry though. The boys will be getting out cleanser and washing the walls.

Collective Soul

One of the benefits of living in Southern California is that many of the casinos book bands for smaller venues in hopes of bringing people in to gamble. The tickets are usually priced well, and the crowds are small-ish. Sure the bands are often older, but I'm older so it works out great.

Tonight, in an effort to prove our stupidity, we left our home where the thermometer read 99 degrees and drove out to Palm Desert area (Hi Katz!). It was kinda similar in temperature to driving into the mouth of hell. I'm thinking it was over 110 in Indio today. But anything for Collective Soul, a band I have been listening to rather incessantly for at least 6 months now.

Because I can dance to them. But not when anyone I know is here. Not to worry. I know my limits. In fact, someone with the initials JS who likes to mess with my teeth but shall remain anonymous recently told me I dance like Elaine from Seinfeld.

I like them because they do really interesting things with their guitar lines. Except in the song Hollywood. I really don't care for the recorded version or that one. In concert though, he added a little AC/DC (I think. I'm not a huge AC/DC fan, so it's hard to be sure) in the middle and perked it right up. Ed Roland, lead singer, was also not shy about paying a little tribute to The Killers, which made me feel all sorts of better about my guilty addiction to them. It was great to hear Collective Soul live because it was obvious that not only do they have genuinely interesting music, Roland has a great voice, unmixed, and they seemed to be having a lot of fun entertaining the crowd.

On the way to the concert, Dave asked me what type of people I thought would be there. I confidently said, age group 25-40, guys in button down shirts with collars and light denim, girls showing lots of cleavage, mid-height heels, and lots of alcohol. And other than a few funky old people getting down in the bleacher type seats, I was pretty much right on. I'm gonna say the anomalies were comped by the casino. Dave was impressed by the accuracy of my prediction. I was disturbed by the 60-year old guy who danced like a big-bellied white boy, but he knew all the words. Clearly a fan. And, we fit right in, sans the cleavage and the alcohol. Dave wore the dark denim rather than the light. I boycotted fashion and wore a dirty T-shirt (because as it happens, I am also boycotting laundry), frayed jeans, and Rebi's shoes. Which were not mid-height heels and were not well received. One drunk bimbo actually eyed them derisively. Or maybe she was just grumpy that I was laughing because she looked like she had sprained both ankles on her cute shoes, and yet continued to hobble around in them.

Sadly, this is the first concert of my life where there was no mosh pit. And frankly, I really missed it. I felt old, standing there in my row, dutifully in front of my seat, trapped behind 3 people swaying with their arms locked, essentially forming a wall between me and the stage. I know I have to come to terms with my mortality at some point, but I wasn't ready to do that in the smokey haze of drums and guitar rifts. And I'm secretly afraid that I might dance like the old big bellied white guy- infinitely worse than dancing like Elaine from Seinfeld.

Always too short, I was pretty bummed when the concert ended. So Dave took pity on me and bought me a T-shirt. Rock on. I can continue to boycott laundry until Monday.