Second Blooming

RTT: Whiny McWhiner, Not-Chili and Cash

 

Oh. Dear. God. My husband is the WORST PATIENT ON THE PLANET. I realize that all you women think that YOUR husbands are the worst patients on the planet, but this would be incorrect. It is mine. You may remember that we've had a bout with illness around our house. Well, Jude has bounced back and returned to his usual bouncy self. Jimmy? Not so much. After bucking up on Saturday night so he could shoot the film he's working on, he has hereby dissolved into the most pathetic and demanding sick person I've ever experienced.

Sunday night, he was up most of the night moaning. Yes. Moaning. His symptoms? A temperature of 99 degrees, and a cough. I know it was 99 because he obsessively takes his temperature every 30 minutes. "It's STILL 99!" The man was moaning. And tossing and turning, I might add, which made for a rather unpleasant night for us both. Monday morning, he staggered out of bed and announced that he'd just endured the "worst night of my life". He was telling ME. And that he needed to go to the doctor immediately. I tried to tell him that he had a virus, and that there was very little the doctor could do to help him. That he just needed to stay in bed and get some rest. At which point Jimmy got a bit ugly and nasty, and accused me of a lack of caring and a certain amount of bitchiness.

Upon returning from the doctor two hours later, he announced melodramatically "The doctor says I have a VIRAL INFECTION!!" Mmmm...no kidding. "And there's NOTHING HE CAN GIVE ME!!" Hmm. Surprise. At least the doctor did prescribe some nice cough medicine with a healthy dose of Codeine, so he would go to damned sleep and GET OUT OF MY HAIR.

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I have yet to make it to a Weight Watchers weigh in this week, due to all the illness and Halloweening around here. But I fear that the week will not prove successful. While I was pretty good for most of the week, I fell a little off the wagon last night. Too many yummy treats. And I'm not talking candy. I'm more of a savory girl. Between Juliet's famous artichoke dip, Lynn's cheese dip with bacon, and these excellent pomegranate martini thingys...what can I say.

I did, however, make a tasty Weight Watchers stew, which I will share with you...

Spicy Chicken Stew (which the website LaaLoosh calls 'White Chicken Chili", but I refuse to defame the name of chili by applying it to anything that includes chicken or white beans, no matter how tasty it might be)

1 tsp. oil

1 1/2 cups chopped onion

4 cloves garlic, minced

8 oz. boneless chicken, cubed

2 4-oz cans diced green chilies

1 1/2 tsp. ground coriander

1 tbsp. ground cumin

1 tsp. chili powder

salt and pepper to taste

2 15-oz cans Great Northern beans, drained and rinsed

3 cups fat-free chicken broth

2 limes, juiced

1/4 cup chopped cilantro

In a large pot or Dutch oven, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 5 minutes. Add chicken, and cook until chicken is no longer pink. Stir in chilies, coriander, cumin, chili powder and salt and pepper. Cook another 5 minutes. Add beans and broth; bring to a simmer. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 20 minutes. Stir in lime juice and cilantro and cook for 5 minutes more.

Makes 6 servings.

WW Points Plus - 5 points per 1 1/4 cup serving.

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Geeky choir humor...

 

Meow!

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Instead of handing out candy to all the little neighborhood trick or treaters, my mother-in-law Mommy passes out...cash. Yes, every year she goes to the bank and gets rolls of nickels and dimes, which she drops in each little Halloweeners treat bag. When I asked her why she does this, she answered "There was a big scare! They was putting razor blades in the candy! Nobody was letting their kids eat the candy no more, so I started giving them money." "But Mommy, wasn't that back in the 1970's?" "Well...yeah." So for the last 40 years, Mommy has been handing out cash. Apparently, this makes their house particularly popular. "Sometimes they come back over and over." "I'll hear one kid shout out 'This lady's giving out money!' and they all come running." I have to say, Jude would much rather have cash than a bag of lousy candy corn or Dots.

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Okay, I'm out of here. Whiny McWhiner needs a new damp rag for his forehead. I promise not to spit in his chamomile tea.

Endure the Pain

About 10 years ago, Jimmy's back "went out". This used to happen fairly often, but this particular time, Jimmy was doing a play, and needed to go on stage that night.

Feeling the need for some sympathy, Jimmy called his dad. He told Pop all about how bad his back hurt, how he could barely stand, let alone walk and perform a role. He expected his father to agree with him that he needed to stay home and ice himself, and make his under-rehearsed understudy go on.

Instead, Pop listened quietly then said..."Endure the pain."

To give you an idea of how this was intoned, imagine Tony Soprano issuing an order to Big Pussy that he had to go whack somebody. Quiet. Strong. Blunt. "Endure the pain."

"But Pop, I really should..."

"You gotta job to do. You do it. Be a man. Endure the pain."

And that was that. Jimmy endured the pain and went on stage that night.

That's kind of what's been going on around our house this weekend. Remember how I've been sick with a cold for the last week? Sawing away at all that cardboard making Jude's Lego Zombie costume while wheezing and hacking? Because I had to finish his costume in time for his school's big Halloween Parade on Friday.

Endure the pain.

Friday, Jude proudly dressed up in his uber cool costume for the parade. I fear that as cool as it is, it's not exactly...comfy. And things like...oh...walking...are not so easy. For those of you who missed Friday's post, here's the Lego Zombie...

But the kid was a super trooper. Wore that thing with pride for the entire ENDLESS parade, shuffling around like a true Lego Zombie, never complaining once.

Endure the pain.

Alas, our unbelievably incredible, coolest costume of all the costumes EVER did NOT win the prize. Much upset. From ME, not Jude. But I'm not even going to go there, because I'm too disappointed (robbed, I tell you ROBBED...no don't go there).  Jude, however, who has won a prize the last two years, was his usual stoic self, happy for those who did win (how this child spawned from my loins, I don't know). As we turned to shuffle out to the car, his first words? "What do you think I should be next year?" I swear to God.

Endure the pain.

On Friday night, I was awakened by Jude at about 2 am. He was standing next to my side of our bed, quietly crying. "I'm scared." This is not like my big boy. While he still loves to snuggle, he seldom cries, and is stubbornly stoic about showing any fear at all. So I knew something was up.

I opened up the blankets for him to crawl with us, and sure enough...boiling with fever. Ergh. I get him a dose of Tylenol, and try to go back to sleep. But between the boy thrashing feverishly and Jimmy's freight train decibel snoring, sleep was elusive.

Saturday morning, I woke up to discover that not only did Jude have a 102 degree fever, but Jimmy had a 101 degree fever! Thus explaining the particularly awful snoring. And Jimmy had to be on the set of the short film he's shooting this week at 4:00 pm for a night shoot!

So I spent Saturday nursing my two sick boys. Then bundling Jimmy off with a bag full of tea and cough drops to go to work, from which he wouldn't return until about 3:00 am.

Endure the pain.

Sunday, I nursed the big and the little boy again. The big boy was by FAR the more difficult patient. I must have opened the window/closed the window, turned on the fan/turned off the fan, put on a blanket/pulled off a blanket at least 20 times each. The little boy snuggled on the sofa, and I must have really been feeling indulgent, because I let him watch about 5 hours of DumbBob. 

Endure the pain.

Then today, it's HALLOWEEN. Sigh. I'm determined that at least the littler boy will be well enough to trick or treat. Because, damn it, that costume is too cool not to show off at least one more time. AND we have a handful of close friends and their kids coming over to trick or treat in our weird little neighborhood, which is one of our very favorite yearly celebrations. I'm making Spicy Chicken Stew (the recipe calls it Chicken Chili, but as a Texan, I refuse to defame the name of chili by using it to describe something with includes chicken and white beans), cornbread, salad and Pumpkin Spice Cake. Little of which I can actually consume because of my Weight Watchers.

Endure the pain. 

Spin Cycle: Two Words

I've got two words for you.

Lego Zombie.

A pair of them. One for Jude and one for his friend A.J.

As a public service, I will share with you the following informative lesson in...

How To Make a Lego Zombie Costume -

1. Waste weeks and weeks while your child vacilates back and forth between wanting to be a Lego Zombie and wanting to be a Giant Two-Headed Snake.
2. Spend two days driving around town trying to score cardboard. Grocery stores, appliance stores, nobody has any stinking cardboard any more. Apparently, they stick it immediately into some kind of crusher.
3. Finally end up cruising alleys of East Hollywood, swiping cardboard out of dumpsters.
4. Have a pathetic argument with your ridiculously honest and law-abiding 8-year old about whether it is or is not morally correct to steal cardboard out of the back of a truck if no one is watching. Child wins by shaming you.
5. Locate last cardboard box on a street corner. It's full of coffee grinds, damp paper towels and what appears to be cockroach droppings. Nothing a coat of spray paint won't fix up!
6. Troll the 99 Cent store looking for containers of the right size and shape to make Lego hands. End up buying several containers of Fritos and smaller containers of roasted peanuts, none of which you can eat because of your stupid diet.
7. Have to go back to the 99 Cent store 3 times because you keep forgetting stuff.
8. Spend 2 days sawing cardboard with your X-Acto knife. Cover the entire living room and dining room with tiny bits of cardboard sawdust. Stop even attempting to clean up after yourself after the first day. There will be plenty of time to clean around Thanksgiving.
9. Tiny moment of joy when you're sitting there, sneezing and coughing (did I fail to mention the rotten cold you have?) and sawing away with your X-Acto knife and your child walks up to you and says sweetly "Mom, I'm thankful for all the work you do for me." Your heart melts. You keep sawing.
10. Duct tape.
11. More duct tape.
12. Spray paint.
13. Trip to hardware store for more spray paint.
14. Trip to second hardware store for more spray paint because the other store ran out of the color you needed.
15. Trip to third hardware store because nobody has the damned paint color you need.
16. Stupidly inhale a wee bit too much spray paint, which causes the hairs inside your nostrils to stick together and gives you a strange high, which is actually rather pleasant, despite the knowledge that you are most probably killing your brain cells.
17. Paint details.
18. Enjoy!

For those of you questioning my sanity, I assure you that I came by this Halloween overkill nonsense honestly. While most of my friends sported plastic masks from the drug store, my Mama would spend weeks sewing my costumes. I was SO proud of them. Seriously. Unfortunately, this is the only picture I can find (though I have more somewhere - I think in that box of stupid slides)...

I am Cat Woman on the left. That Cat Woman costume was FAB-U-LOUS! I was a tiny little 7-year old Julie Newmar. I was hot. You can't see in that terrible picture, but Mama sewed me a little cat ears head piece, a tight little catsuit with a cool logo on the front and a black cape. I will never forget this costume. And I was so proud that MY Mama had made it for me!

And therefore...

Lego Zombie.

So shoot me.

I hereby submit this to the Spin Cycle: Halloween then and now. Please visit Sprite's Keeper for my Halloweeniness.

RTT: Lucius, Rainbow and The Doctor

 

Bad news...I have a cold.

Good news...I have an excuse to take NyQuil!

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After all my hootchy-cootchy dancing and boasting last week, this week I totally got what I deserved...

Weight Watchers weigh in -

GAINED .2 pounds.

Okay, I realize that's not much of a gain, but I'm supposed to be LOSING for God's sake. I'm thinking it's a plateau.

I will not allow myself to become discouraged. I wonder how many WW points are in a shot of NyQuil.

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My latest hot, moody Brit crush...

Jason Isaacs as Jackson Brodie on the new Masterpiece Mysteries show "Case Histories".  Brooding, damaged Scottish detective. All the stuff that I love. Mmm. You must check him out. I watched two 2-hour episodes before I figured out why he looked so damned familiar. Picture that face with long, weird white hair. Nasty attitude. Wand.

Lucius Malfoy! Who I never, ever, once thought was sexy. So...I'm thinking this Jason Isaacs must be a damned good actor.

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The altar went rainbow at my church on Saturday...

My choir sang for a celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Los Angeles Ministry of Lesbian and Gay Catholics. Yes, we are some rebel Catholics. Only in Hollywood, I know. It made me very happy though. I've never been in a church so filled with love. It was a night all about love and acceptance and love and acceptance and more love and acceptance. Kumbayah.

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New favorite shopping site - RUCHE. Really cute stuff, really cheap. Look at this necklace...

$18.99, including the matching earrings! And this one...

$15.99 with the matching earrings!

Love, love!

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Ever since Jude and I visited Disneyland a couple of weeks ago, I've been meaning to tell y'all about Shelby's blog - My Year With the Mouse . Shelby used to be part of Gen X Mom's Blog, but has recently been writing about "One woman's quest to do everything there is to do at Disneyland." If you'll be visiting Disneyland anytime soon, you definitely need to check out Shelby. She has been exploring every corner of the Land of Mouse, and is full of discoveries and hints.

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I fear that I have lead my child into Official Dorkdom. He too, is now a Doctor Who aficionado. His latest desire is to have...

Yes, a Doctor Who Sonic Screwdriver. This one here is actually a working flashlight (or torch as we say in the UK) -

 

 

Is that too dorky? Maybe I should just get him ...

 

 

Or I could just get it for...me.

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Okay, I'm off to take my shot of NyQuil. What fun! Please drop by Stacy for more Rebellious Randomness.

 

Things I've Done

Last weeks Things I've Never Done post left me feeling a little negative and unfulfilled, so I thought I'd add this follow-up...

I'm 50 years old. And I have...

1. Visited Lenin's tomb.

2. Held an Academy Award.*

3. Sung with the band.

4. Bumped into Gerald and Betty Ford on a dance floor.

5. Parasailed in the Caribbean.

6. Been fingerprinted.

7. Floated in the Dead Sea.

8. Gone on a drive-along with a Vegas cop.

9. Received a standing ovation.

10. Been cheated on.

11. Visited the real Dracula's Castle in Romania.

12. Sung Handel's Messiah.

13. Had sex on the catwalk over a theater.

14. Performed as a giant dancing cigarette.

15. Written a cookbook.

16. Prayed at the Wailing Wall.

17. Driven a tractor.

18. Seen Old Faithful erupt.

19. Brewed my own beer.

20. Peeled a banana with my toes. **

21. Made love outside in the rain.

22. Had someone die in my arms. ***

*They really are heavier than you'd think.

**There may be photographic evidence of this in existence. I find this worrisome.

***Daddy.

Spin Cycle: L.A. Noir

It was a cloudy day in the City of Angels. The kind of morning that made you want to pour an extra shot of bourbon in your joe so you could face the day.

I looked at my face in the mirror and cringed. Bad night. Hot flashes. I splashed some water on my mug and headed on my way. I had a job to do. Some gumshoe work.

Armed only with my iPhone and a pair of mom jeans, I jumped into my stealthy Prius and started on my quest. My quest for...murder.

I headed south. Seemed a fitting place to start. The most brutal and notorious LA murder of all.

3925 S. Norton Avenue

Nowadays, it's your run-of-the-mill, well-maintained, middle-class South Central home. But back on January 15, 1947, on a cold, dreary morning just like this, it was just a vacant lot. They'd stopped building the  tract houses in the development because of the war, and the lot was overgrown and abandoned. A young mother, pushing her kid in a stroller, noticed what she thought was a department store dummy sprawled in the grass. When she got closer, she realized that it was really the mutilated, naked body of a woman, severed in half, and arranged grotesquely in the weeds. The Black Dahlia, Elizabeth Short.

 

Elizabeth had been an aspiring actress, with a face and body that got her noticed, even in a town where good-looking dames were a dime a dozen. Beth's black hair, pale white skin and penchant for wearing all black clothes led to her nickname, The Black Dahlia. Six days before they'd found her body, Elizabeth had disappeared from the lobby of the Biltmore Hotel. Investigators later surmised that Elizabeth had been tied down and tortured for several days.

Even though The Black Dahlia case became the most notorious and high-profile Hollywood murder in the 1940s, Elizabeth's murderer was never found.

I headed west.

10881 Clarkson Road

Wedged in the smoggy armpit of the 10 and the 405 freeways I found this ugly house. Ugly, but not as ugly as the mug on it's previous occupant, this guy...

Paul Snider. Sleazy-bag husband and "manager" of Playboy Playmate of the Year 1980, Dorothy Stratten...

It was here, on August 14, 1980, that Dorothy and Paul's dead naked bodies were discovered. Murder/suicide. No one knows the exact details of what went on there that day. Dorothy had recently left Paul for director Peter Bogdonovich, and moved into his Bel Air mansion. Hmmm. Bel Air mansion...this hell hole. I don't blame you Dorothy. That day in August, Dorothy had gone to meet Paul and give him $1000 - assumedly a bribe for a divorce. I'm thinking Paul didn't like the idea, because instead of a divorce, he gave her a bullet to the head. Police found evidence of intercourse, but considering there were bloody handprints on Dorothy's buttocks, nobody could say if the sex was pre- or postmortem. Yuck.

My next murder took me north. Prettier neighborhood. Murder just as ugly. I'll give you a hint...

You guessed it? How about a couple more hints. Bloody glove. White Bronco. Kato Kaolin. That's right.

OJ

879 S. Bundy Drive

Anybody with a television during the '90s knows the skinny. June 12, 1994. Nicole and OJ Simpson were splitsville.

Nicole = round heeled broad. OJ = jealous. Ron Goldman = caught in the middle.

White Bronco = low-speed car chase. Johnny Cochran = high-priced mouthpiece.

If it doesn't fit = You must acquit.

I drove on.

The next stop?

Home of the rich and famous. And home to four of my murders.

810 N. Linden Drive 

Thems pretty classy digs for a poor Jewish boy from Brooklyn.

"My friends call me Ben, strangers call me Mr. Siegel, and guys I don't like call me Bugsy. But not to my face."

Bugsy Siegel. American mobster. Head of the Genovese crime family. Put Las Vegas on the map.

Actually, the house didn't belong to Bugsy, it was rented by him and his moll, Virginia Hill.

Luckily for Virginia, she wasn't home on the night of June 20, 1947. The story was that they'd had a fight, and she'd flown to Paris to cool her heels. But some say that it had been highly recommended to her that she “leave town for her health". If you get my drift.

At 10:30 that night, Bugsy was sitting in his living room (those arched windows over to the left side of the house) reading the LA Times, when an unknown trigger man opened fire through the window with a .30-caliber military M1 carbine. Several shots ended up in Bugsy's head. Some reports claimed that Bugsy's left eyeball had been blown right out of his skull, ricocheted across the room,
and broke a statue of Bacchus that had been standing on the grand piano. Poor Bacchus.

My tour of lovely Beverly Hills continued. Two blocks away I found...

730 N. Bedford Drive

Sweet-looking house, right? Lana Turner's darling daughter Cheryl Crane was pretty sweet-looking too.

But on April 4, 1958, she took a 10-inch butcher knife and plunged it into the chest of Mommy's gangster boyfriend, Johnny Stompanato, severing his aorta.

Cheryl's story was that Johnny and Mommy Dearest were having one of their fights and Johnny was smacking Lana around pretty good. Cheryl got the knife and was just getting to the bedroom door when Johnny ran out the door and straight into the knife which Cheryl was just innocently holding. Uh-huh.

My next destination led me up the windy, secluded roads of Benedict Canyon, in the actual hills of Beverly Hills. This one was a little hard to find. I got lost and drove around in circles before I finally found the joint. They'd changed the notorious address over the years, and put up "Closed to Through Traffic" signs to keep out the riff raff. I chose to ignore them.

I couldn't help but wonder how this gumshoe, a middle-aged woman with a GPS and an iPhone, took this long to find it, when back on August 8, 1969, a truck full of drug-crazed hippies didn't seem to have any trouble at all.

10050 (10066) Cielo Drive

Behind those gates is where Charles Manson...

sent his little posse of  "family" members - Tex Watson, Pat Krenwinkle, Susan Atkins and Linda Kasabian - on their murder run. They broke in and butchered the nine months pregnant Sharon Tate...

...along with her friends Jay Sebring, Polish actor Wojciech Frykowski and coffee heiress Abigail Folger. Manson's gang went all psycho killer - Tex Watson stabbed Frykowski 51 times, THEN shot and pistol-whipped him. Just to make sure, I guess. When Tate begged that they spare her baby, Watson stabbed her 16 times, then used her blood to write the word "PIG" on the wall.

Helter Skelter, baby.

Back down the hill I went. I was ready to get out of the hills and hit the flats again.

722 N. Elm Drive

Beautiful house. Nice place to raise a family. Nice, that is, unless your boys happen to be...

The Menendez brothers.

On the balmy night of August 20, 1989, Mom and Pop Menendez, Kitty and Jose, were lounging on their sofa, watching a video and eating blueberries and cream, when their two loving prodigy, Lyle and Erik, walked in and blew Mom and Dad away with multiple blasts from a .12 gauge shotgun. But Kitty must have been a tough old broad. Even though her darling boys had pumped all their metal into her, she still wasn't dead. They went back to the car for more ammo, and this time shot Mom's face full of birdshot. They then left and went to the movies. The show? "License to Kill". Ha!

The boys were caught because Erik, the sap, started singing to everybody, including his shrink, who taped the confessions. At their first trial, they used the "abuse excuse". Seems Daddy Jose liked his little boys in ways daddy's aren't supposed to. Jury was hung. Second trial found them guilty. Life in prison. At least they have each other.

Next stop took me out of Beverly Hills into plain old Hollywood.

120 N. Sweetzer Avenue

A sunny apartment for a young starlet with a bright future, just getting a foothold in big, bad Hollywood. Unfortunately, "My Sister Sam" star Rebecca Schaeffer...

...also had a whackadoo stalker, paranoid schizophrenic Robert John Bardo.

Freako Bardo had a shrine to Rebecca in his bedroom, and wrote her loving letters saying things like "I'm not crazy, but...if I can't have you, no one can...We'll be together in heaven soon...".

But then sweet little Rebecca starred in a sex scene in the film "Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills", and on the morning of July 18, 1989, Bardo decided she needed to be confronted for "losing her innocence". He confronted her alright. Right there on the front stoop of her apartment with a gunshot to the chest.

Interestingly, Rebecca's murder led to legislation which first recognized stalking as an criminal offense punishable by law by the state of California in 1990. Didn't do Rebecca any good.

My final stop led me over the hill into the Valley. Because Hollywood doesn't have all the good stuff.

4349 Tujunga Blvd., Studio City

Vitello's Italian Restaurant. I've eaten there. Jude loved the pizza. Most popular item on the menu? Pasta a la Robert Blake.

Yep, it was right here in this parking lot...

where Blake shot his slutty wife, Bonny Lee Bakley...

Bonny Lee was a chippy and a star hound. She had a daughter who she named Kristian Brando, because she thought for sure Christian Brando was the daddy, but after DNA tests, Blake found out the kid was his. Classy, right? Anyway, Blake, a well-known nutjob with a violent temper and a gun collection apparently couldn't take her anymore. At least he gave her a nice ravioli dinner before he snuffed her.

So that's the end of my death troll. I guess it's time for me to shut my yap and take a powder. All that murder and mayhem made me hungry. Unfortunately, I couldn't stop for pizza at Vitello's because of my Weight Watchers, and I was forced to go home and stuff my face with arugula.

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And while I didn't lay my eyes on any ghosts, I'm pretty sure there must be a few of them hanging around these places. If you believe in that kind of thing. So visit the Sprite's Keeper's Spin Cycle for more ghost tales.

 

Things I've Never Done

I'm 50 years old. And I've never...

1. Met a Beatle.

2. Gotten a full Brazilian wax.

3. Died my hair blonde.

4. Gone white water rafting.

5. Dropped acid.

6. Killed anything larger than a bug.

7. Done stand-up comedy.

8. Been to Paris.

9. Had surgery.

10. Finished War and Peace.

11. Made a perfect chocolate souffle.

12. Witnessed a murder.

13. Seen a Great Lake.

14. Made out with an Asian man.

15. Been to Washington D.C.

16. Watched an episode of Survivor.

17. Gotten into a fist fight.

18. Watched the Olympics in person.

19. Written a novel.

20. Sipped absinthe.

21. Learned all the words to "American Pie".

22. Had a daughter.

This post was prompted by a prompt from...

Who used this template, which she copied from Pioneer Woman, without asking her permission.

Please visit Mama Kat for other users of her prompts!

RTT: Unicorns, Queso and Virtual Knee Surgery

Ran...dom dom dom. Ran...dom dom dom doooooom. (Sung to the tune of the Dragnet theme song.)

Conversation overheard while walking through a local Los Angeles shopping area:

Crazed woman on phone outside yoga studio: And now he's trying to claim that it's HIS fucking unicorn! He called in his lawyer and shoved him in my face! That's MY unicorn, damn it! Mine!

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It's all my friend Lynn's fault. Really.

As of today, I have a new iPhone game app obsession - "Where's the Water?"

Swampy the Alligator loves his nice not baths. Unfortunately, his water supply has been sabotaged, and you must help get the water flowing to Swampy's bathtub. Lots of obstacles to overcome, lots of fun to be had. DO NOT RECOMMEND getting this app right before attempting to go to sleep, as sleep will be seriously delayed.

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Are y'all doing this Pinterest thing that I mentioned yesterday? I honestly can't decide if I adore it or think it's stupid. It does keep me heading back. Over. And over. And over. If you're on it, let me know and I'll follow you.

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I did a crazy hootchy- kootchy dance in the Weight Watchers office. Read 'em and weep -

Weight Watchers weigh in this week -

Lost - 2.6 lbs.

Total weight loss so far - 12 lbs.

Now you understand the hootchy-kootchy dance.

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And speaking of Weight Watchers...

I am obsessed with a website I recently found - LaaLoosh . She does Weight Watchers recipes. Or maybe I should say really kind of amazingly yummy recipes which just happen to be Weight Watchers. Please check it out, it's so good. I swear. I've been just clicking from one recipe to another and they're all fabulous. She's tweaked everything so that it's low carb and high protein, and has lots of flavor. And her serving sizes are reasonable, which is rare in a WW recipe. Usually, they'll say a serving is 1 cup, which would be appropriate if one was a 3 year old. But hers are twice that. Last night we had her Lemon Garlic Shrimp with Vegetables, and it was excellent. Also, she shares "finds", like this...

Queso = 0 Points. I just died. Good old Trader Joe's.

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And speaking of websites with great recipes...

All of you MUST vote for Jan of Jan's Sushi Bar in Shape.com's Best Healthy Eating Blog competition. If you don't read Jan, you should. Aside from being wonderfully funny and wry, her recipes are excellent, and her photography blows me away. And she's a food renegade, who espouses the eating of paleo/primal/real food, which you'll have to let her explain to you. So please, please head to the Shape.com website and vote for Jan. She's doing pretty well so far, but is up against some biggies (like that damned Pioneer Woman) and could use some extra support.

And I feel like I can say thank you from Jan.

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And now for something completely different...

Check out THIS website - i am baker. Nothing low cal about any of this stuff, but it's so BEAUTIFUL and CREATIVE. Imagine making this for your kid's Halloween party...

 or this...

And these are just on the first page of her blog! I'm awed.

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This was really far to much fun...

Virtual Knee Surgery.

I particularly enjoyed wielding the rongeur, the bone saw and the patellar jig. Clearly, I've missed my calling.

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So there you have it people. Please head over to Stacy Uncorked, who is continuing to host Random Tuesday Thoughts for the absent Keely. And she's doing a lovely job, I must say.

Gretchen's Busy Weekend

My weekend - in bullet points...

• Friday, 6:00 pm - Took Jude to his Cub Scout Pack meeting. Three hours in a gym with 40 boys, all screaming and running around. Much chaos.
• In new unofficial role as "Cub Scout Leader Who Doesn't Really Have a Position or Any Authority and Refuses to Wear the Ugly Uniform But Seems to Do a Tremendous Amount of the Work" spent much of this time arranging/passing out new scouting t-shirts and handing out achievement beltloops/patches.
• Actually achieved 3 patches of my very own as "CSLWDRHAPOAAARTWTUUBSTDATAOTW".
• Didn't eat any of the dinner, because the Webelos had made cheeseburgers and Doritos for dinner, and that's not exactly Weight Watchers.
• Friday, 9:00 - Returned home and managed to scrounge up some Weight Watchers doable foods.
• Couldn't get Jude to go to sleep until 10:00, because he'd started a new book (see sidebar).
• 10:00 pm -Stupidly started fiddling around with this Pinterest thing everybody is talking about.
• 12:30 pm - Realized that I was still fiddling around with this Pinterest thing, and that it was 12:30.
• Saturday, 6:45 am - Alarm went off.
• 7:15 am - Arrived with Jude at the soccer field at the time his coaches had told us we needed to arrive for his 8:00 am soccer game.
• 7:45 am - Everyone else on Jude's soccer team arrived at soccer field, including aforementioned coaches. Sigh...
• 9:00 am - Painful defeat - 0 - 3. Sadness all around.
• Went to grocery store on the way home. Remembered to buy toilet paper, milk and wine. Yea me! Forgot to buy dog food. Sad for Fancy, the dog.
• Cleaned house. Did laundry.
• 1:00 pm - Walked around to the cul-de-sac to help set up for our neighborhood associations yearly fall block party as was asked. Two other neighbors there. No one knows what's going on. We stare at each other for 30 minutes, waiting for someone who knew something to arrive, while Jude flew around the cul-de-sac madly on his scooter with no helmet on. No one who knew anything ever showed up. Went home.
• Piddled with this Pinterest thing.
• Cooked  chicken taquitos and hotdogs to take to the block party.
• 4:00 pm - Walked around the corner to the block party carrying taquitos and hot dogs. Jude entered the giant blow up slide thingy with all the other neighborhood children.
• Hung out with neighbors. Ate one piece of chicken - only Weight Watchers worthy food at block party.
• Stared at barbecued ribs and chocolate cake, but didn't eat them.
• Felt hungry, but happily pious.
• 7:30 pm - Jude's friend A.J. arrived at the block party and joined Jude in aforementioned giant blow up slide thingy, from which Jude had yet to emerge.
• 8:30 pm - Jude and A.J. decided they wanted to exit the giant blow up slide thingy together and I needed to take them back to our house to play to Wii. Jimmy stayed at the party.
• Still hadn't bought any dog food, so gave Fancy two hot dogs for dinner.
• While boys played Wii, I watched 5 episodes of "Criminal Minds" which I'd taped over the last many weeks. Jimmy called to tell me that he and his little friends Brian and Erick (both other middle-aged dads) were going to go to Erick's garage and "jam" (play guitars and tambourines, sing and...drink tremendous amounts of beer).
• Fancy's hot dog induced gas filled the house with a horrid stench.
• 11:00 pm - Managed to make Jude and A.J. go to sleep. Stayed up watching more "Criminal Minds".
• 12:00 pm - Tried to go to sleep, but due to excessive "Criminal Minds" viewing, was sure that a serial killer was going to sneak into our house and do something heinous like staple my eyes open, or dip the boys feet in acid.
• 1:00 am - Time Jimmy claims that he came home, drunk, from Erick's "jam session".
• 2:30 am - Time Jimmy did, in fact, come home, drunk, from Erick's "jam session", because I heard him.
• Sunday, 9:15 am - Woke up, looked at clock and freaked out - needed to be at church, Jude and A.J. in tow, for pre-mass choir practice by 10:00 am.
• 10:00 am - Tried to leave for church. Made hungover Jimmy get up to move his car, which was blocking my car in the driveway. Jimmy's car wouldn't start.
• Jude, A. J. and I, with the help of some random neighbors who happened to be walking by, manage to push Jimmy's car out of the driveway onto the street.
• 10:30 am - Arrive at church for my 10:00 rehearsal. The large church parking lot is all set up for the annual church carnival, which we were planning to attend after mass. Boys are very excited. About the carnival, not so much about the mass.
• 12:00 noon - Church is over, and we head out to the carnival. After joining my friend Lynn and her daughters, Julianna and Isabella to set up the church auditorium for our choir hosted bingo, we all hit the rides and amusements.
• 12:30 pm - Jude's friend A.J. asks for the first time if he can play the "toss the ping pong ball and win a goldfish" game. I tell him "no", as A.J.'s mother, Ronda, won't allow him to have a goldfish because she has cats.
• 1:30 pm - Jude and A. J. have run through all $40 worth of carnival ride tickets I've purchase for them.
• 1:35 pm - Jude and A. J. think they may need to vomit from excessive carnival ride riding. No one actually vomits.
• I send a frantic text to A. J.'s mother, Ronda, saying "THEY'RE DRIVING ME CRAZY, COME GET THEM!"
• 1:40 pm - I eat one piece of grilled chicken from the Filipino Food Booth, the only food I can find at the carnival which is Weight Watchers approved.
• 1:45 pm - Jude's friend A. J. asks me for the 968th time if he can play the "toss the ping pong ball and win a goldfish" game. I say "OH, ALRIGHT, FOR GOD"S SAKE!"
• 1:55 pm - A. J. spends $6 in game tickets to try to win a $.18 goldfish. Luckily, he's not a winner, and we aren't forced to tote a bag of ill-fated fish around for the rest of the day.
• 2:30 pm - Ronda arrives and whisks those boys off. Whew.
• 3:00 pm - Choir Bingo starts up in the auditorium. I work in my new career - Parttime Volunteer Church Bingo Caller. "O - 62!"
• 8:15 pm - I stop calling bingo.
• 8:45 pm - I arrive home to find hungover Jimmy asleep, while Jude (whom Ronda had kindly fed and returned home) reads next to him in bed.
• 8:46 pm - I pour myself a much needed glass of wine. I realize I haven't eaten any dinner, and eat 1 Point worth of smoked turkey and a cheese stick.
• 8:50 pm - Realized that I still hadn't bought any dog food for Fancy. Gave her 6 dog treats and some smoked turkey for dinner.
• 8:55 pm - Prepared for dog gas.
• 9:00 pm - Made Jude go to sleep.
• 9:05 pm - Wrote this blog post.

Sweetest. Thing. Ever.

I've mentioned that Jude's BFF A.J.'s mom, Ronda, is the assistant teacher in Jude's Third Grade class. She also teaches them religion - remember it's a Catholic school.

Well, the other day, they had an exercise in class where first they wrote a letter to God, using the primary hand they write with (Jude's your standard righty). They then wrote a letter back from God to them, using their other hand (Jude's left). Sweet, right? The idea being that the left-handed writing frees the creative side of their minds and releases...God, or whatever. Well...

A couple of days later, Ronda ran up to me and handed me the following. She had told the kids that their letters to God would be private, but she just couldn't resist showing it to me because it was so damned sweet. So PLEASE, if you happen to know my child, DON'T tell him that you saw this. I'm figuring that by the time he's figured out that I write this blog, and starts digging through it in horror, he won't care about this any more.

So here's his letter to God...

Couldn't you just DIE! I'm sorry that my child doesn't know how to spell my NAME. Sigh. I think God is incretible too! But is that the sweetest thing you've seen or what? No wait...here's the sweetest thing you've ever seen, his letter back from God (left-handed writing)...

 

Mama here may recover sometime in the next year or so. How much do I love this odd little boy of mine?!

These papers are going straight into the top drawer of my bedside table.

When I was a kid, both Mama and Daddy had top drawers on their bedside tables, into which they put their treasures. A place for safe keeping. A place for precious items that brought them joy and comfort to look at, and which they wanted to keep close by.

When Daddy died, I looked through his bedside table and found, along with his copy of the AA Big Book signed by Bill W. himself, this picture of Mama...

Yes, Mama...in a bikini. Which I used to think was the sweetest thing ever, but I now think is the second sweetest thing ever.

So there you have it...the sweetest thing ever AND the second sweetest thing ever both in one blog post. What more could you want?