Thanks Ira Glass

I'm an Ira Glass freak.  He is the commentator on "This American Life"...Last night I was able to go see the re-screening of the live performance of "Returning to the Scene of the Crime".

I am encouraging and asking everyone to take an hour...put it on your ipod, or listen to it at work on the computer (I do this while I'm doing my paper work).  If you get a chance to watch it...it's even better...to see the expressions of the writer's faces.  We sometimes forget that writers are real people and these are real experiences

To my family...please listen to it...there is a part in the middle done by Dan Savage, which really hits home.  So even if you are not a NPR fan (which I don't understand how you can't be)...check it out, let me know what you think.

heres the link:

"THIS AMERICAN LIFE RETURNING TO THE SCENE OF THE CRIME" 

pick the full version...

I think I can convert some of you

spring has sprung

Tonight Bobby took Ilin to band practice with him and Olive and I made Tuna Melts...exciting I know.  

When we were done preparing, I Forman Grilled them, then placed Olive with food, short table and babysitter ( yeah, whatever Homey...it's called the TV), and came down to write.

I'm sitting here with my tuna-melt and glass of white wine...and nothing to say.  

The George Forman grill rocks ass.  I can definitly say it was the best 17$ my cheap ass has spent in a while.  Jorge was right when he says you can grill anything with half the fat....mmmm....mmmm good.

shit...i spilled my wine...

I'm back, don't anyone fret.  

As Spring has Sprung I am frantically trying to get my yard in order.  Colorado weather only allows us for about 1 month of beautiful green grass then it gets firecrotch hot and turns everything brown.  So brown that you can't often remember the green.

Spring is my favorite time of year.  Fresh, clean, new beginnings and a time to forget the mistakes and start over.  Bobby and I had started digging out the front round of the grass 2 years ago.  I just couldn't decide what to put with the house.  An English Garden is honestly what I wanted but our house is very 1964 modern and the free form garden would not Ying and Yang, if you know what I mean.  

I finally decided on zebra grass.  It's an ornamental clumping grass and I thought it would stick with the modern theme with it's light and dark leaves.  So, my tiny sprigs of zebra grass came in an unbelievably small box and I planted them, with love and hopes of something lovely.  We also planted the hanging tomatoes, the hot peppers and the cilantro.

1977? My Family was Fancy

That's my sister ...the brown one :)
Aunt Kathy is sporting the Sophia Loren's.
what are these people doing?
The real question is?
Who took these crappy pictures and who decided to save them?
they are so nicely centered...the time before we had photoshop.

The cameras put this nice orangey haze and not quite enough pixels....Perfect everytime. No Zits No wrinkles.
























Style hasn't changed much in the past 30 years.
Check out my brother Jamie sporting the Izod and My mom in her high-waisted Palazzo "everyday pants".
What is on her head you may ask? Vintage Hair Extensions (state of the art back then).
Mom was a "dancer"...she had nice long bleached blond hair, then wadded it up and stuffed it either under a wig or a hairpiece with ALWAYS a scarf, which of course matched her outfit.
























(another nicely centered picture...probably drunk)

That was not our house, we lived in a mansion on MiddleBrook Dr. with a huge swimming pool in the backyard, on the river, with boats . We were fancy...this part of my family was not.
My mom raised ducks in the backyard. Taught them to swim in the pool...then my dad complained when all the ducks would come back as adults and land in the pool.
My mom thought up a good way to designate the shallow end of the pool from the deep for the kids. She had a HUGE Budweiser sticker made....Drained the pool had it put in right where the slant of the deep end started....
My family was fancy....it was an Olympic size pool ( I kid you not), so you can imagine how big the sticker was.

























My brothers had a lot of these T-shirts.

Like I said ....
we were fancy.

Sunday Secrets

Post secrets at work.
I have to make up a few hours so as not to use my vacation time, so that means sitting at work, filing, organizing and getting caught up. Then I break and read Post Secrets. I wish I could read them in the other languages. I'm guessing their secrets are pretty much the same as ours...it's universal isn't it?
Ilin's dad called me yesterday and said they were taking Robin to Moab for Mother's Day...he said he was sorry we haven't communicated much about it,but is taking Ilin.
OK...
I had hoped and planned now for about a month that Ilin would be home to babysit, but how could I keep him home if he has a vacation with the step mom to Moab in the works? I couldn't. That would not be a very good mom on my part if I did that. Sacrafice...That is what it is about. It's ok. The kid deserves a vacation, probably more than I do.
My schedule is full and a weekend home will be ok, even if it is the CD release party. I don't think he will even notice if I am there or not. Besides, I need to work on sewing Ilin's shorts for the wedding. I have the shrug to finish and I need to really get organized before school starts. I have been putting it on the back burner and have been doing all kinds of goofy things instead of what I should be doing...let me give you an example: Instead of figureing out all my liscencing and such to do clinicals, I spent an hour or so looking up composting.
After that, instead of figuring out my school/work schedule....I looked up the smallest feet in the world.

could someone tell me what is wrong with me.

Yesterday...I took a Xanax, drank a glass of the crappiest plum wine ever (don't buy plum wine made by the same people who make soy sauce), and then went to Target. I wandered up and down every row, listening to Olive's endless diatribe about Polly Pockets and Lil Pets...vacant.
Listened to David Bowie and wished I had more Xanax.

TM.18.W CD is Here

Support new music....
The Mighty 18 Wheeler

CD is raw and rockin....
Like the shows.

Like Lou Reed with Ed Van Halen
on guitar.