Maybe we should call it "Six Feet Under" and get it over with
Tonight is the premiere of Dirty Sexy Money on ABC, starring my future ex-husband, Peter Krause.

It worries me a bit that I have had to go digging to find info on this show. My Entertainment Weekly that came last week had a spread several pages long on "Heroes" but the only mention of DSM was in the "What to Watch" section, and even then, it was only the name of the show listed for Wednesday. At least EW wants us to watch it.

I just have a bad feeling that this show is going to be like the other shows I started watching last fall, like "The Nine" and "Studio 60." It may be good, but probably won't get the viewership. It may be dead on arrival, in other words.

It's meme time!
(stolen from a myspace friend)
29 Unusual Lasts

1. To whom did you last give the finger?
Yesterday I gave the finger to my co-worker whom I hate, while she passed me in her car on the way home.

2. If you had 1,000 dollars what would you buy?:
$1000 less credit card debt

3. What was the last beverage you spilled on yourself?:
Water, in the dark, two nights ago while fumbling in the kitchen

4. Are you different now than you were 6 months ago?
A few pounds here or there, yes

5. Have you kissed a boy/girl in the last three days?:
yes

6. What was the last photograph you took?:
Either my kid or my cats

7. Where were you last night around 9:30?:
upstairs watching the BB8 finale *yawn*

8. What do you think of guys that wear eyeliner?:
not my type

9. How many hours did you last sleep?:
I didn't really sleep all that well last night... psuedophedrine is not my friend

10. Who was the last person to whom you spoke on the phone for over an
hour?
some crazy ass client who was bitching up a storm

11. 50 Cent shows up at your door, what do you do?:
how is this the "last" time I did anything? If Fiddy shows up at my door, there better be a damn good reason.

12. How was the last egg you ate prepared?
scrambled on a Sunday morning

13. Where did you last wear sunglasses?:
today? yesterday? i don't know.

14. Ever worn your underwear backwards?:
Ouch, and no.

15. What's your favorite scent?
laundry in the dryer

16. Does it bother you when people put && before every sentence and ;; after?
I have honestly never seen that before.

17. What animal did you last pet or hold?:
Uncle Dom aka "Unks"

18. What was the last law you broke?
speeding, jaywalking?

19. What are you wearing?:
black short skirt, black and blue lace top, black suit jacket, black sandals

20. What did you think of your last kiss?
it was from my son so it was sweet

21. What was the last newspaper you read or skimmed?:
the Plain Dealer but only the sports and arts and life section

22. What was the last thing you wrote on your hand?
it's been a long time since i've done that so I have no idea

23. What was the last hair product you used?:
hair spray this morning

24. What was the last text message you received?
"20 14 2" from my boss which referenced the Browns score against the Bengals on Sunday after 2 quarters

25. What was the last medication (Rx or OTC) you took?:
Mucinex about 10 minutes ago

26. Who was the last person to make you really laugh?:
my boss

27. To what song did you last sing along?
Little Brown Ant by the Wiggles

28. What was the last musical instrument played in your presence?:
I played the guitar yesterday to figure out the chords to "Little Brown Ant" by the Wiggles

29. What was the last superstitious thing you did?:
knocked on wood probably.

A matter of timing
Good thing I watched that final "24" episode... my DVR gave up the ghost tonight. Also a good thing that I discovered this prior to 9 p.m. so I didn't miss a certain season finale. That, to borrow a phrase, would have suuuuuuuucked.

Sick
Thursday night, it finally hit.

The Back To School cold that I knew would get me, eventually.

It could have come from multiple sources:
1) Doodle brought something home from daycare
2) M.I.L. and other family members have been sick
3) Spent the previous weekend at a large children's gym-type place that I'm sure was teeming with germs

Anyway, the weekend was miserable. I still managed to go to the Indians game on Saturday night, which I'm sure didn't help. Sunday, I got out my leftover cough syrup with codeine from the last time I had bronchitis and I took a tablespoon.

OOPS.

Had I read the label, I would have realized that the correct dosage was TEAspoon. This resulted in me falling dead asleep, on the couch, during the Browns game, with my husband and Doodle in the room. Doodle kept pounding on me, saying "Wake up, Mommy!" I would, but then I would immediately drift back into my comatose state.

Several hours later I woke up, sniffled and coughed for a few more hours, and then took ANOTHER tablespoon of the codeine stuff before bed. THEN I read the label. Night, night!

Yesterday I took the day off work and instead of dropping 25 bucks at my quack doctor, I went to the drugstore and bought the hard stuff. You know, the stuff you have to ask for and sign an affadavit and swear not to give it to a meth head. For one lousy box of nasal decongestant and expectorant. Heh. I was expectorating yesterday.

One nice thing about being sick yesterday was that I caught up on all my TV that had backlogged on the DVR. The only show I'm behind in now is Top Chef. I even watched the "24" finale -- I'm not kidding -- from November! That's how bad it was. Just in time for all the new shows I am planning on putting on there...
-Survivor:China
-Kitchen Nightmares
-Dirty Sexy Money (Peter Krause, I would have his babies)

And of course the shows I already watch:
-The Office
-Greys Anatomy (are new episodes starting?)

I'm not sure what I'm going to do after tonight when Doodle requests "Brother" ... I have been telling him that "Flipping Out" is Brother, but now that's over too.

Anyhow, I'm back at work now, in kind of a daze, but it may be just what I need to stomach a Donato victory tonight. KWIS?

At least he's modest
A few nights ago, when we were trying to get Doodle to GO TO BED ALREADY FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!!!!!, he was using his usual delaying tactics of a) getting us to read to him -- how could we deny a child who wants to read? b) pleading to not watch Wiggles or Doodlebops or one of his shows, but rather to watch "Brother" which has become his word for all shows Mommy likes to watch. But instead, we were watching the Indians game, or as he calls it, "Daddy's Baseball."

Doodle was sitting next to me on the couch, and would point out the various numbers he recognized on the screen. In the score box, he saw the number 4. He pointed to the number 3 on a player's jersey.

My hubby looked at Doodle and said, "Wow, Doodle, you're getting really good at counting!"

Before the word "counting" was out of his mouth, Doodle replied, "Yeah, I know."

Which sent us into fits of laughter. And delayed bedtime for another few minutes.

1000 words (these don't count)


They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Unfortunately, a picture taken from a crappy disposable camera isn’t.

So instead, here are a thousand words about this pic.

What you see here is my best furtive shot of Pete Yorn while performing at Blossom Music Center on August 20, 2007. I say “furtive” because I smuggled the camera into the venue in the waistband of my pants. I knew we had pavilion seats so there was a chance we’d be close enough to the stage where I could take a decent shot.

I had looked forward to this show all summer. Pete Yorn, one of my favorite musicians, opening for the inimitable Dave Matthews Band, whom I had never seen in concert. August 20, right smack dab in the heat of summer – what could be better?

Anyone from the Midwest recall the weather that week?

Yeah. It rained. And rained. And then poured. And it was cold enough to break out the jeans and long sleeves. Not to mention, the concert was on a Monday, so I took the day off, as well as Tuesday, thinking that I’d be able to enjoy some time in my backyard, lay out in the sun, get some yard work done. Mmm hmm. That didn’t happen.

I wasn’t too concerned about the rain impacting the concert, because I knew we’d stay relatively dry under the pavilion roof. Though, I was having flashbacks to my teen years, when I was in the last row of the pavilion for Lollapalooza (the year Pearl Jam, Nirvana, etc. were there) and it rained that day, and all the people from the grass behind us surged through the gate and suddenly we had 100 extra people in our row. But I digress.

We got there just in time to see Pete take the stage, and by some chance occurrence, the usher seated us one whole section in front of where we were supposed to be. We didn’t realize this until after he was done and we got up to get drinks in between Pete and Dave’s set, but it worked out great for me because I was really there to see him. He went on right at 7, and so not that many people had taken their seats. I felt kind of weird applauding loudly after each of his songs since no one else around us knew who the hell he was, but I saw some other fans sprinkled around the pavilion, too.

Since he was the opening act, he did an abbreviated version of his usual set, and included some cover songs. He opened with a Dead cover, “Friend of the Devil” that I’m sure a lot of the crowd recognized, and he ended with “Suspicious Minds” in homage to the late great Elvis Presley. And in between he did his classics, including my two favorites, “Strange Condition” and “Crystal Village.”

I should mention at this point that I had a vibe even before I got to the show that I was somehow going to meet Pete. I have seen some of Blossom’s opening acts set up a merch booth and sign autographs during the main show so I was kind of hoping for that.

Anyhoo. You will notice in the photo above that I have pointed out a fellow henceforth known as “Douchebag.” He came in the middle of Pete’s set and was about 6 or 7 rows in front of us. However, his friends had seats right next to us. For the entire set he kept turning around and yelling stuff to his friends. It was tres irritating especially when I was trying to hear “Strange Condition” and had to also have the Douchebag in my line of sight. I was actually glad when we found out our seats were farther back and thus away from the Douchebag and his Merry Marauders.

Pete finished his set and of course I was disappointed that it was over, but also excited to see Dave. I have heard that he just puts on a phenomenal live show. Admittedly, my knowledge of the DMB library ends at “Before These Crowded Streets” (the one that has “Crush” on it.) The first song he played, I believe, actually came from that CD, but after that I was kind of lost. Even my hubby, who is less of a DMB fan than me, knew more songs than I did.

OK, so this whole “meeting Pete” thing. Our seats were to the right of the stage and it just so happened that we could see into the artists’ parking lot when they came off stage. Immediately when Dave took the stage I noticed a member of Pete’s band come out and stand maybe two sections in front of where we were, and watch a couple of songs. I had the eagle eye out for Pete.

Sure enough, maybe 3-4 songs into it, here comes Pete out of the parking lot, through the VIP section, and into the crowd. He’s being led by a cute girl and it looks like he is going to sit down.

Here is the point in the story when I choke.

Even though I had a BB8 Amber-like vision that I was going to meet Pete, when it came down to Go Time, I was paralyzed. Also probably because I realized that I really had nothing to say and I also had my husband with me. I’ve been in situations before where I’ve met someone that I semi-idolized (former Indians player Jim Thome comes to mind) and I haven’t been able to properly craft a complete sentence.

We decided to leave early to avoid the traffic, and thanks to mother nature, the grass parking lot was now a mud pit. My little Corolla almost didn’t make it out. We heard later that many cars were stuck until the wee hours of the morning waiting for a tow.

Not quite the experience I had dreamed of, but an adventure nonetheless.

My ranking of the Wiggles characters in order from least tolerable to still not tolerable but more tolerable than the previous

Jeff
Murray
Dorothy the Dinosaur
Henry the Octopus
That pirate in Captain Feathersword's crew who has the wine corks hanging from his hat who has facial tics
Wags the Dog
Greg
Captain Feathersword
The rest of the pirates
Anthony

It's been a while
Since I posted about Bad Lady. She and I are getting along much better these days, but she still grates on my every last nerve. So she hasn't had much to do, and has been asking me for work. I've been giving her minor stuff that I know she can't eff up too bad.

She just called over to me and said, "So you know Sandy* whose business card you just had me do? She said she wants 'more options.' I don't DO 'more options.'"

"Dude, what ELSE do you have to do?" I asked. Maybe I didn't say dude. But I do say dude sometimes. I shouldn't.

"Stuff." Her witty retort.

"*exasperated sigh*"

Strange conditions
Date: August 20, 2007
Time: 12:08 p.m.
Current temperature: 60 degrees Farenheit
Current weather: Monsoon-like conditions

Likelihood I will not get wet at Pete/Dave concert tonight: zero

Who'da thunk?

Mystery Pic

Going through some old photos. I came across this one... made me laugh.


What's going on in this pic? Take a closer look...

Stormy weather
We've had rain on and off all week and last evening, we had a pretty nasty storm. Around 6:30, the power went out.

Try explaining to a 2-year-old why you cannot oblige his command for "lights on," or why the compelling episode of "Blue's Clues" has suddenly vanished off the TV.

We were without power for 45 minutes. But I swear it was more like 45 years.

Paranoid. Must. Shop.
Instead of the usual physical issues that go along with "that time of the month" for most women, I come down with mental issues. For instance, I always get an extreme paranoia about the other girls I work with -- that they are talking about me behind my back, that I'm being scrutinized at my job, etc.

Today is that day.

Add the fact that Doodle threw the most pathetic and heartwrenching tantrum this morning when I left him (read: abandoned) (read: I'm a horrible mom) at day care, and I've become a total train wreck.

My remedy? Go shoe shopping at lunch.

Unfortunately nothing struck my fancy, but somehow $60 worth of Bath and Body Works ended up coming back to work with me. I have no idea how that happened. I remember nothing.

Lolcats
I made my first lolcat pic... I ish ashamed for myself. Someone needs to give me some work to do.

Lucinda (a.k.a. "Unks")
We have really nice neighborhood cats.

You may remember my post about Walter, the kitty who stole my heart a few weeks ago. I am sorry to say that Walter has not made a return visit.

However, over the past week, another kitty has been sighted in our yard -- a smaller, female tortie who I have dubbed Lucinda. She likes to hang out by our non-grape grape arbor in the backyard. I saw her a few nights ago and went out to see if she was friendly. She mewed and approached me for some lovin'. Then she went back about her business of chillin' at the grapeless arbor.

Last evening after dinner I took Doodle outside, despite the nearly unbearable humidity, and Lucinda materialized and took a distant post to observe us.

"Unks!" shouted Doodle, for this is what he calls Uncle Dom, and also Aunt Peepers. "No, that's not Unks, it's another kitty," I told him. "Hi Unks," Doodle said.

Lucinda timidly approached us, and then rubbed on both me and Doodle for some attention. After she had her fill, she playfully flopped down in the grass. "Unks sleeping," Doodle told me, and he proceeded to also lay in the grass.

She hung around for the remainder of the time we were outside, until I finally decided it was time to go in and take a bath and get ready for bed. "Bye Unks!" Doodle said.

I find it very interesting, and odd, that two cats who are total strangers to Doodle and to my family have paid that child more attention than the two who live with him every day. You know, Unks and Unks.

Parking: $9
Admission ticket to park: $20
Confidence boost: Priceless

If you have any body or confidence issues whatsoever, I have a cure for you. When you look in the mirror and don't like what you see, or if you're feeling miserable about your life in general, it's time to take a field trip. Get a friend, preferably one with a great sense of humor. Drive to your local amusement park. Make a day of it, or just purchase a starlight admission -- most parks discount the fare after 5 p.m.

This worked for me this weekend. My husband and I decided to visit Geauga Lake, an amusement park close to where we live. It's a pretty decent park, but it's no Cedar Point.

Before we even purchased our admission tickets, I thanked my husband for taking me. I felt like Miss America walking into the park. It was an eye-opening experience, to say the least. I saw people in clothes several sizes to small, things bulging out of places from which I did not know things could bulge, people with fewer teeth than my son, bathing suits that creeped and crawled into folds of skin.

Once inside the park, we enjoyed ourselves, despite coming off each roller coaster with a feeling of "we're definitely too old for this." The night before, we had gone on a bike ride, after recently having our bixes fixed. I haven't been on a bike in at least 5 years, maybe more, and it showed. When I got off the bike, I could barely walk. My tailbone in particular was bothering me. So riding roller coasters the next day? Not a big help. The old wooden coasters tossed us around and my poor petuttie was aching. The Big Dipper, which is Ohio's oldest coaster at the ripe old age of 82, was a killer. Both my husband and I have battle scars from that ride. Mine is a huge, grape jelly-colored bruise on my hipbone. Seriously, I have never had a bruise this color. I'm not sure that I'll be able to reproduce after the jostling my insides got. Sorry, Doodle.

We also escaped peril by mere minutes. We were in line for the Double Loop, another one of the older coasters, and they had loaded the car ahead of us. We were next in line to go. Without warning or apparent reason, the ride operators, most of which were not U.S. natives, by the way, shut the ride down, citing mechanical failure, and apologized for the inconvenience. I bolted away from that ride faster than you can say class action lawsuit.

After about 2 1/2 hours, we had had enough. We rode everything we wanted to ride (Double Loop and a second closed-down coaster notwithstanding), we saw a little slice of Americana, and we felt good about ourselves and our lot in life.

It was time and money well spent.

Shameful...
Not gonna lie, I am so totally gonna watch this...

Twodle, now with bonus photo action!
When we all got home this evening, Doodle got to open some presents.



The first thing he opened was a pretend cell phone from my aunt. This was such a big hit that we couldn't open any more presents until the novelty of talking on the phone wore off.



The present opening was delayed further by the fact that an episode of the Doodlebops that we tivoed put Doodle in a bit of a trance. ALL YOUR DOODLE ARE BELONG TO US



We finally opened the rest of the presents, including an Elmo doll that was a huge hit, as well. I will promise to torture you with a video of all the Elmo action later on this week.

Before we ate dinner, I managed to get two bee stings, when I pulled up a tablecloth from our back patio, where a bunch of the pesky bugs had decided to build a nest, unbeknownst to me. Luckily Doodle was untouched.

After dinner, Grammy and Poppy stopped by to say hello (and brought some Raid to quell the angry hornets who were still buzzing around in search of revenge, an hour later). Once the bees had been given the bum's rush, Doodle was able to frolic for a while in the yard. With bubbles!





I think Uncle Dom was around here somewhere, but all I see in this pic is wrapping paper. ;)

Two-dle
Today, my little boy turns two years old. We have been hinting to him that his birthday is coming, and that he will be two, but it hasn't registered. I sang the "Happy Birthday" song to him, but he turns it into a game where I then have to sing happy birthday to half of the known world, including, all family members, including auxiliary family members Doodle has only met one time; all his girlfriends at school, DeeDee, Rooney and Moe (the Doodlebops), Elmo, Ernie, Bert, etc. This has, however, gotten us from the house to day care in lieu of driving this distance with a tantruming Doodle in the back. Every time the tantrum begins to brew I started the song again.

Last night I went to the grocery store, picked up mini cupcakes for his day care class today, ordered the half-sheet cake for the party we're having on Saturday (I was gravely disappointed to find that they did not have an Elmo cake. They had every other kids' characters, even freakin' Ratatoulle for god's sakes, but no Elmo), and then after Doodle went to bed I wrapped his presents that we'll give him tonight (an Elmo doll and a book about ladybugs). This morning when he woke up, I went in to his room to wish him a happy birthday.

"Hi, sweetie, it's your birthday today! You're two years old! What a big boy!"
"Go 'way, mommy."
"Did you just tell me to go away?"
"Go 'way."

OK then.

Did he wake up as a teenager this morning? Did we skip about twelve years? It's hard to believe it's already been two. Let's hope that this year isn't as "terrible" as they say it is.

Concert reviews

1. JOHN MAYER/BEN FOLDS JULY 1, 2007 BLOSSOM MUSIC CENTER

This was my third time seeing JM live at Blossom, but the first time that I did not have seats in the pavilion. I was kind of bummed about that, but it turns out that the lawn is an AWESOME people-watching venue! Half the time I forgot that I was at a concert, because I was so engrossed in the human drama around me. My sister-in-law and I enjoyed this immensely.

Ben Folds opened the show, and though I only own that one CD that everyone owns of his, the one that has "Brick" on it, I still recognized most of the songs he played. Which was weird. He also made us laugh out loud by his between-song banter, where he attempted to recreate the "Brown Note" -- the same frequency the military allegedly uses to make people crap their pants. He couldn't get down low enough but he said that the low tone he played was enough to make the weaker people "shart" -- which just about killed us.

During his set, a nearby Ben Folds MEGAFAN was shouting all the words, dancing, and interjecting certain catch phrases between songs, like, "Fuckin A", "Fuck Yeah," etc. John Mayer came out during the last song in BF's set and the megafan was not pleased. Not at all. Then, when the set ended, he loudly proclaimed that he had been ripped off, that Ben Folds should have been allowed to play longer (he played for about 45 minutes), and then the Megafan packed his stuff up and left before JM hit the stage.

John's set was awesome. He opened with "Belief" which is one of my favorite songs off of Continuum, and then went into "Why Georgia" -- another good one. He played a good mix of his three main albums, plus a John Mayer trio song, and another obscure one that I have heard before but can't place.

During the set, we had, at various times, intertwined lesbians, high school idiots, college idiots, drunk idiots, and a host of others around us. It made for some good snarkage.

For the encore, John treated the audience to my least favorite song in his reporitoire, "Your Body is a Wonderland," but he did it acoustic. The last time my sister-in-law and I went to see JM, we were trapped next to these obnoxious girls who shout-sang the lyrics to this song and even had hand motions to go along with the lyrics. Smartass that I am, I performed a slowed down version of their pantomime routine during this acoustic set. It was funny to me and my SIL, but people around us probably thought I was an idiot.

2. THE POLICE JULY 16, 2007 QUICKEN LOANS ARENA

As Andy Summers struck the opening chords of "Message in a Bottle," thus beginning the Cleveland show, the woman next to me (who looked and sounded remarkably like Kelly from "The Office") turned to me and said, "I bet you weren't even alive the first time these guys were on tour!" First of all, THANK YOU to that woman for making me feel not so old. But actually, yes, I was alive. I was in about the third or fourth grade when the Synchronicity album came out, and I also owned all of the prior albums (Ghost in the Machine, Zenyatta Mondata, Regatta de Blanc) on casette. This was largely due to a huge musical influence in my life -- my babysitter at the time, Carrie, who was a few years older than me and a HUGE Police fan. She and I would watch MTV and wait for the video to "Every Breath You Take" to come on, and we would listen to all the albums all the time.

Anyway, I am still riding the high from this concert. Every Police song that I could think of that I would want to hear live -- they did. They did some other great songs that fans of the Police would recognize, and they did a couple obscure songs that even I didn't know. Sting looked fantastic and sounded great. Every once in a while there seemed to be some kind of disconnect between Sting and Andy -- I couldn't tell who was at fault, but the music just seemed to be off. Also, Stewart Copeland was AWESOME. So much of what makes the music of the Police so great is the drums, and he was truly a showman. In addition to his standard drum set, he had a gong, a series of chimes and bells, and some other random percussion instruments. During certain points in the show, he would literally toss his drumsticks over his head, grab a brush, and get up to play the chimes. The song "Wrapped Around Your Finger", which is not one of my favorites normally, was probably the best song they did because of how cool Stewart's part was. When he was done on the chimes, he would again toss the brushes over his head, pick up a new set of drum sticks, and go right back to drumming. So cool.

My seats were in the LAST row of the Q (I hate calling it that, but to borrow a phrase, it is what it is), but at least we were facing the stage. There were screens set up above the stage so we could always see the action, and they also featured some retro Police graphics (for instance, the analog caricatures of the three band members that was the cover art for Ghost in the Machine, see below). So that was cool. Because we were up so high we could pretty much see everything and everyone, and that really added to my enjoyment of the show. To be part of such an enthusiastic crowd was really something special to me. I am so glad I was there.



3. LATER THIS SUMMER ... DAVE MATTHEWS/PETE YORN ... BLOSSOM MUSIC CENTER

I bought the tickets because I love Pete Yorn. But I have never seen Dave Matthews live, and I am looking forward to it. I'm not the hugest fan of his, I have his first three albums but then kind of lost interest. We have pavilion seats, which should be great, especially for Pete. I am totally going to be the Pete Yorn Megafan who is pissed that he didn't play longer.

Doodle's got talent
You're looking at the next John Popper (minus about 350 pounds)...