Thursday, January 14, 2016

Last Pooh Movie



Update 12/14 - 12/20

I'm not sure if I should apologize or say "You're welcome" for these shorter updates, but it is what it is.  The week before break was pretty hectic and exhausting.  I'm sure if you just dial back to what you did that week, it was probably the same type of crazy of here.  Last minute amazon buys, getting all the work you can before people leave town, generally run around trying to see as many people as you can feeling the holiday spirit, every ounce of it.

Some highlights would be that I went to the dog park one day with Sandi and then we went for lunch at homegrown which is always fun.  And then I also went to the park with the whole crew, after which I picked up Ashley, and we tested out the present I had planned on giving to Bailey to make sure it worked.  Then Zach, Ashley and I all went to Harper's 2nd Birthday party. It was Winnie the Pooh themed.

Zach: I did see the last pooh movie though and it was terrible . Two thumbs way down.
Matty: Straight to DVD.
Zach: Except I saw it in the theater
Matty: Alone?
Me: Worst date ever?
Zach: No, my whole class went.

I mocked Zach for getting super excited about applesauce and honey sticks, because giving Zach a hard time is fun.  Then, Nicki did the same thing, and when Zach told her I mocked him, she got all defensive.  Now, I hadn't planned on mocking her, but the applesauce was just a banana short of being baby food, so I went with it.  The more defensive she got, the more entertaining it was even though I think I was more amused by a 25 year old being gleeful over squeezable applesauce and honey sticks, the 16 year old was fun too.

I did meet up with Kelly, Zach and Kelly's mom for dinner and pottery. I choose a K-cup dispenser that I simply painted googly eyes on.  Zach didn't paint anything because his wallet took a beating when we went to the dentist. 

Me: The travel agency told us specific places to go for "safe" ATM's in India.
Zach: It can't be worse than Florida.
Kelly: Did you just say Florida was more dangerous than India?
Zach: Definitely.

Zach: I have to figure out what my next birthday party theme will be.
Kelly: You don't want to buy 200 dollars worth of cake again?
Kelly's Mom: He can't afford that b/c he has cavities.
Kelly: I think I single handedly got three cavities that night based on my shopping cart.

I think that's about it, then I flew to NY which we'll cover later. :)


Whorecruxes



Update 12/7 – 12/13

This might be one of my shortest updates to date.  The highlight of the week was spending an entire day lounging around watching the Gilmore Girls.  Becky had never seen the show, and Rachel had some free time so she was able to come over too.  We started off with coffee, breakfast, and mimosas, and then proceed to drink, eat and bake our way through almost an entire season of GG.  On episode 20, I finally looked over at Becky and said, “So, do you like it?”  Zach stopped by for a bit too.

Zach: are they married yet?
Me: Zach! Becky hasn't seen this before!!
Zach: well how was I supposed to know you had a friend who had never seen the Gilmore girls before? 

We ordered in several times, we had platters of every junk food imaginable, I baked 20 dozen cookies, and Becky and I wrapped around a hundred presents.  Becky wrote out Christmas cards, and it was just lovely. 

Becky:  This might be my best day ever, and I’m including my wedding in the count. 

It was a really good day.  Other than that.. I worked hard, packed up the office a bit and ordered another round of Christmas cards.  I also had breakfast and Raymond & Michelle's with guest appearances by Dawne & Jordan.  Raymond made French toast and Nicki made some yummy quiches.  Percy intimidated the much larger labradoodle, Buddy, and Zach ended up having to redo his entire company's forecast at the breakfast table.  But since I didn't have to do that, my morning was just delightful. 

Oh and here’s a funny thing that was said:
Hays: My head hurts.
June: Maybe you have too many memories.

Okay so there was a twitter post that Shana shared with us that said, “The only way to stop Donald Trump is to destroy his Horcruxes.  His wig is definitely one.  If you need me, I’ll be finding the other six.”
To which Jen replied, “I think in Trump’s case those are spelled Whorecruxes.”

Nut Shave



Update 11/30 - 12/6

I think most of this week was a blur of work and catching up because I have nothing of interest to report.  Oh! Except that I forgot to mention that the week before I rushed to get my "move/Christmas" Card out before Thanksgiving.  When I told my mom that I had gotten them in the mail on Wednesday, my dad ran to the post office that same day to put his in the mail because he's always the first to get his cards out.  Because he is closer to most of the people on our mutual lists, they all got theirs the day after T-day, while mine came several days later.  So, he wins again!

On Saturday, I had brunch at Dr. Rach & Anders.  While holding Anderson...
Jen: OMG, if I could guarantee my baby would be this cute I might do it again.

Anders made some seriously amazing coffee cocktails complete with whiskey, amaretto whipped cream and nutmeg from an actually shaved nut. 

Me: Seriously, how cool was that Nut Shave? I had no idea that was a thing.
Jen: Speaking of Nut Shave...
Me: No way, you actually have a Nut Shave story?
Jen: Yes! In college, during one of my classes, these guys did video project of a guy shaving his nuts. While filming,  there was an unfortunate incident in which the razer nicked the skin. 
--Insert collective gasp of sympathetic pain--
Jen: It was a very artsy fartsy class. In college I was in to that... not nut shaving but artsy fartsy stuff. 

Someone was talking about something and mentioned "Short form."
Lily: I don't know what that is.
Dr. Rach: I guess you'll learn that when you're an adult.
Jen: and so much else.

Lily: Now that I'm a brown black person...
Jen: Belt
Lily: Yeah, that's what I meant.

Jen: I was watching Life of Pi.
Anders: I thought it was pee.

Zach came over later and we watched a copious amount of Christmas movies.  In fact, it was after 2am when he was leaving the house.
Me: Oh man, I have to set my alarm to talk to Kathi at 9 tomorrow.
Zach: You should just call her now.
I did try, but she was off line.  I rallied though, and had a lovely catch up with Kathi in the morning - Skype is so cool.  I also really thought I broke my foot earlier in the week.  So much so that I ended up staying off of it all together, and went for x-rays.  Turns out, I just sprained it, but I was so worried I seriously injured myself with only 6 weeks to my trip that I was so relieved to hear that I just had to wear a boot thing again.  Okay so that wasn't a funny story, that was just real life. But not you're up to date - which is awesome right?


What does regulated mean?



Update 11/23 - 11/29

I'm rewinding a bit to Thanksgiving week.  I flew out to New York on Wednesday night, so I had time on Wednesday to meet up with Lucas and Dawne for lunch.  Lucas filled me in on his car debacles.  Plural because, first he though when he bought the car right before we drove up to Seattle last spring, that they dealer had registered his car.  Only they hadn't, and he proceeded to get all sorts of tickets that they had to figure out.  And then, he locked his keys in the car.  I'm not going to tell the story correctly, but here's my understanding.  He was parked against a wall, and he drives a prius.  When AAA / locksmith came, they couldn't get the car started because kind of electrical connection to the car to start.  In the process of trying to figure that out, they left the car on and wore out the battery.  But they couldn't tow the car because it was up against a wall, and they couldn't jump start the car because they didn't have a key.  Several guys came out to try to fix the problem and all left Lucas without helping.  Finally the owner of the locksmith came and said that he wasn't leaving until Lucas had his car back.  They guy drove him to a dealer who made an extra key from the key that was sold to Lucas when he bought the car, then they drove back to find that it was the wrong type of key and then had to go back to the dealer to have a new one made before he could get back in, jump start the car and drive again.  So... that was my lunch with Luke. 

Then I went back to the house with Dawne and Lucas to make cookies with Dawne, Zach, Diana & Harper only Zach and I didn't help bake at all and just watched Harper & Dawne do all the work.   But it was nice seeing everyone. :)  Dawne had rented a Yukon Denali so that they could all go to Leavenworth over the weekend.  Jumping on the opportunity, we filled it to the brim with the rest of my stuff and unloaded it into my spare bedroom where it has been ever since.

If I remember to add it, I saw this video of drunk girls and puppies that I think is super cute.

Percy and I headed to the airport, but before we did, I stopped at Chick-Fil-A for dinner.  I was very surprised to find myself in a pay-it-forward situation where someone ahead of me had paid for my dinner.  What an awesome way to put you in a grateful and giving mood for the holiday season. 

Thursday was Thanksgiving which means I went to Sean & Stacey's and Stacey, once again rocked it in the kitchen.  Everything was absolutely perfect and I was overwhelmed with love, happiness and a feeling of gratitude for having such an awesome family.  In other news, Stacey has had this fish tank for 15+ years and recently one of her sharks died.  She threw her "beloved" pet in a ziplock and put it in the trash because it wasn't flushable (these sharks are like a foot long.) 

Jackie: Did you hear about Dumpling?
Me: Morgan's guinea pig?
Morgan: Yeah, I came home and told mom that I wanted to bury him.
Stacey: I got rid of him. I took a spatula and threw him in the trash.

Jackie: I was in my Socratic discussion class and this girl was finished a 15 minute speech on Isis.  She paused to take a drink of water, when this other kid raised their hand and said, "So Isis isn't just one person?" and the girl ended up spitting her water all over the place.

Mo: Put some cherry pie on there, Kyle, I already threw out my plate.
Kyle was not happy about this, which is why I thought it was funny, but I also vaguely remember Sean considering taking something out of the trash to eat it, a la George Costanza, but I can't confirm the detail or if it was this weekend or Christmas weekend or if it happened on the Gilmore Girls, so maybe I'll skip that story. :)

The girls were discussing having a secret santa at Stacey's family Christmas.  The adults traditionally do a secret Santa, but Jackie thought it would be fun for there to be a 5 dollar Secret Santa.  As the Morgan & Jackie were discussing the details...
Morgan: How are we going to do this?
Jackie: Mom takes us to 5 below, gives us each 5 dollars and goes away.
Stacey: Excuse me?

Carla decided to so something a little different with the pie this year...

The day after Thanksgiving, Carla, the girls and I had our traditional brunch and baking morning.  I introduced them to "Spyfall" the day before, so we decided to play a little.  Basically, everyone gets a character, one of which is the spy.  Then the spy has to figure out where everyone is while the rest of the group has to figure out who the spy is, and the game is timed.

Morgan: What does regulated mean?
Jackie: Oh my god, we don't have time for that right now, Morgan.

Jackie: Bailey requested to be transferred out of my gym class. 
Me: You didn't want to be in the same class as Jackie?
Bailey: I'd rather be with no one so my ego wouldn't be crushed.

Jackie has requested that everyone call her Princess.  The family has agreed, but it comes out more of a sarcastic, "Okay, Princess... "

We tried out three different recipes.  The first one you had to take pie crust and wrap it around Hershey Kisses.  Bailey and I wrapped them by rolling the dough into a perfect ball.  Carla & Jackie decided to make origami shapes out of the dough.  We're all puzzled as to why we continued to task them with the wrapping portion when there were many other jobs we could have moved them on to.  The last batch of cookies required some serious mixing.  Carla suggested we use the electric mixer, but Bailey insisted on doing it by hand saying, "Mixing my only exercise!"

Maureen: My kids think you have the most awesome job.  Meanwhile, they have a very low opinion of being a teacher because in the Game of Life, teachers are the worst thing you could get.

Eva & Briana came over with Austin & Freddy on Saturday morning.  My dad had surgery the week before and so he had a bandage from his ear to his neck.  Eva was telling Freddy that Percy bites, but you know, just a little bit, no big deal, while Freddy was giving her a look like, "What the hell, Mom? Why did you bring me here?"

Briana: I see you got bit by the dog, too.
Frita: He went for the jugular.

After everyone left:
Frita: You were interrogating Freddy like it was the inquisition.
Me: That's how you talk to kids.  I was taking an interest in his life! 

I think the following conversation happened with Frita, although it kind of sounds more like Eva.
Frita: Father Rajan left the parish. We had a party.
Me: Did you go?
Frita: Yes. Not for him, for the treats.

Sean, Jackie & Morgan came over and we decorated the house with Christmas decorations.  It’s a major project, I'm not going to lie.  Sean also took down something from the attic (that my dad would later wrap up for him for Christmas) and I took down my Simpson Marionettes. Clearly, we couldn't remember where everything went, but I kept telling Sean not to stress about it because Mom would just move it all anyway after we left. Jackie sat on the arm of the Chippendale chair in the living room and there was this huge cracking noise.  I tried to cover it up but still tell my mom that the chair was broken, only to find out that Kevin broke it ages ago and Momela had glued it back together.  Phew. 

On Saturday evening, Lisa came over.  She was telling us all about Buddy (the Elf on the Shelf) and his friend Sparkle. 
Lisa: We told the kids she's from the South Pole.  She's darker because she was 20% off.
Luckily, Maureen's kids never did Elf on the Shelf because

Maureen: Sometimes in class, when the kids are acting up I say, "God is watching." And then, "It was okay in the catholic school - is it not okay here? Okay, but he is."

My sister always says, "Pool pond" instead of saying, "whatever."  It's a phrase that has always been in my life, but like some many other things, I had no idea what it was from.  I found out it was from caddy shack this weekend, and now I kind of want to watch that movie again. 

Bailey: I tried baking again..
Me: Oooh! It looks like Vermont!