Vacation Blog '10 - Day Three

Today we woke up about 9:30 - although I miss my fluffy babies, it is SO nice not to be awoken by them at the butt-crack of dawn (generally with a butt in the face!) Actually, it was housekeeping rap-tap-tapping on our chamber door that woke us up. As Natalie scrubbed a days-worth of skank from her limbs, I took my bowl of Peanut Butter Crunch out on the balcony and communed with the waves from the 8th floor.

We got our towels, Gnarley's bucket, my book, our ipods and phones and trotted out to the beach. The wind was very chilly and our nakie footies on the cold sand and then in the cold water made it imperative that the morning's walk be cut short. But not so short that we don't have fodder for today's Dear Tom!

But first, Tom's response regarding yesterday's question. He says that the "nasty looking pile of goo was (sic) the beginning of a new mountain range." With answers like this, we may have to rethink our faith in Tom's knowledge. But on to today's question...

Dear Tom,

We found these weird shells on the beach. What are they from?

P.S., you'll note from the Dominos box, that I'm making sure your daughter is eating well.

Back to the day - Natalie and I headed out for a wee bit of shopping therapy and when we got back, found Gnarley on the balconey with evidence of a wee bit of debauchery. So, of course we joined in.

Then after a little computer research and pixelating magic by Natalie, we set out to David's Gallery to get me my Scarlet Pimpernel tattoo. For those of you who know the story, back in the 80's there was a made for TV movie of the Scarlet Pimpernel with Anthony Andrews and Jane Seymour in it. I loved the movie and since we had it taped, we watched it over and over, memorizing dialogue. ("Sink me." "Gone to the north country in the middle of the night? How bizarre." "They seek him here, they seek him there, those Frenchies seek him everywhere. Is he in heaven? or is he in hell? GASP! That damned illusive Pimpernel!") Finally Dad put his foot down and made us tape over the movie. But it was a 3 hour movie! So first, say they taped an hour long show over it, well, when we finished watching that show, we'd watch the last 2 hours of the Scarlet Pimpernel. :) Finally, we were down to just the last 15 minutes. We watched that 15 minutes over and over again, until finally Dad just recorded over the whole 6 hour tape!

I now have the movie on DVD and watch it every so often for nostalgia! So minutes after getting my first tattoo, (see blog dated Sept 2008), I KNEW that my next tattoo had to be a scarlet pimpernel. Of course, then I got sidetracked by the cat tattoo that I needed to complete my paw prints (Feb 2009). But I'm here, with wee bit-o-discretional fundage, so we were off!

After what seemed like forever, we finally left. Me with a sore spot on my upper boobage. And we were starving, as we hadn't had anything to eat since the Peanut Butter Crunch mid-morning. So we headed to Lamberts Cafe (Home of the Throwed Roll). The grammar there gave Natalie considerable pause, but I'm thinking she enjoyed it as we both all but had to be rolled out of the restaurant. We came back to the hotel and Natalie surfed the web while I watched Lost. So now that Lost is over, I'm thinking it's time for bed. Natalie continues to surf, but my eyeballs are tired. The forecast for tomorrow is showers and high of 40, so I sense a day of indoor relaxation. Stay tuned.

Vacation Blog '10 - Day Two

Monday morning. I awake, blessedly on my own, rather than with the aid of an alarm or a cat. The view from the balcony is wonderful, although a little more sunny than that in the picture, because by the time that I thought to take a pic it got a little overcast.

Normally, my first instinct would have been to head on out for a walk on the beach, but two things stopped me. 1) my (as Natalie calls it,) chicken hair - thanks to the Darth Vader mask I wear to sleep in at night; and 2) my hair... well, not that styling, or lack thereof, but the color. I'd bought some color and wanted to do it this AM. After making the hair look presentable, and taking the aforementioned picture of the view, and checking my Treasure Madness on Facebook, we nabbed a couple of muffins from the stash of food we trundled down from the great north and hit the ... road!?

Yup, you read that right, we got in the car and drove, like, forever, to go to Wal-Mart AND Target. Gnarley needed a few accoutrements for the beach, Natalie wanted some shorts, and I'm sure I got something, but I can't think of anything at the moment... although Gnarley conveniently forgot his wallet, so I suppose I bought a bunch of crap for him!

We got back to the hotel, gathered our ipods and cameras and phones and hit the beach. The sand was chilly to the feet and the water was icy, but once the footsies got used to the temperature, the nerve endings in the feet died enough that we walked a fer piece down the beach.

This brings us to today's edition of Dear Tom.

Dear Tom, as we were walking down the beach we found a lot of this skanky looking foam (see picture). What is it?

Now back to our regularly-scheduled blog: At one point, we found a baby sting-ray upside down in a pool of tide water. It was spluttering at us and we felt bad for it, so Natalie got a stick and helped it turn over onto its tum... when we saw that the poor thing had a cut down its back.

After trotting back to the hotel, we washed our sandy feet off and hit the car to go in search of food, as all we'd eaten so far were a couple of my pumpkin-chocolate chip muffins. First, though, Souvenir City.

Dinner was at the Gulf Island Grill. Natalie had crabcakes and I had steak. It was yummy and we were stuffed. A little more shopping (a hat to cover my chicken hair in the morning, so I can have my walk pre-shower in the AM) and then back to the hotel to rest and watch some NCIS.

The forecast for tomorrow is sunny. I'm thinking the book, the ipod and the big ol'glass of Diet Pepsi and Rose'll spend the bulk of the day on the sand. I know Gnarley is ready. G'night!

Vacation Blog '10 - Day One

Let me tell you 'bout a story of a girl named Rose,
A sad landlocked Hoosier wanted sand between her toes.

So she grabbed her gnome and munchies and shoved 'em in the car

and headed down south to the Alabama shar

Shore, that is, white sand, white legs, white waves.

Dateline: Sunday, February 21st, 7am (or thereabouts). My neice Natalie and I packed up the rental car, an upgrade to a Dodge Journey. Between us, we had 2 laptops, two cameras, two cell phones, two ipods, 1 CPAP sleeping machine, 1 GPS (named Jason), and all of the corresponding adaptors, chargers, and connectors. NASA has nothing on the combined technology that is in this car!

A whopping 30 minutes into the trip, and we've stopped twice. Now, the first time was at McDonalds to get me some caffeine, and the second was to fill up with gas, but come on! We're still in Indiana!

Whew! Ok, the first rest stop we stop at, was in Tennessee. Gnarley struck up a conversation with the woman at the counter, and we could barely get him to get back in the car. She was dressed rather fancy for a job in a rest area. Hmm...

We drive on, jamming to the Sirius radio, mostly the 70's on 7, but also whatever DJ Natalie decides to land on. While we listen, she makes notes of songs I need to download to my ipod. She's a good secretary.

We cross over the Tennessee/Alabama border, and the first rest stop is easily identified by the NASA rocket by the road. Gnarley was very impressed and decided at that point that he'd have to investigate the requirements to becoming an astronaut. We didn't want to tell him that there was probably an age limit even if there wasn't a height requirement. Poor dude.

The next rest stop was manned by a rather dark guy. Frankly, Nats and I were wanting to get out of there as quickly as possible, but again, Gnarley strikes up this conversation. I'm not sure

where this chatty streak of his came from, but if we're going to get to the beach before midnight, he better curtail it.

We had to wake Jason up around Birmingham. Birmingham is the only city where I seriously considered hurting my mother once. We were driving back from the beach, on the Friday of Labor Day weekend one year, and while in Birmingham, we decided to take a side trip to see the statue of Vulcan and his naked butt (see the picture from the time, a couple years later, when Gnarley and Dad successfully navigated to Vulcan). Anyway, it was holiday/rush hour traffic, the construction, and Birmingham traffic is just awful. We had to just give up on Vulcan and mom lived to see another day. :)

After we left Birmingham, we noticed a distinct change in the trees along the road. There were all these tall skinny pine-like trees with no limbs for the bottom 2/3's of the tree. Nats texted Tom, her dad, my bro-in-law, and he was able to tell us that they were Georgia Pines. I asked why they were Georgia Pines, when we were in Alabama... and I don't think I got a satisfactory answer to that question. Either way, this leads us to a new feature to my blog. It is called "Dear Tom," and each day, I will ask Tom a burning question that Natalie and I have come up with during our travels. The first one will appear in tomorrow's column.

We made it to our hotel, the Island House Hotel, in right at 11 hours. We're on the 8th floor, and according to the desk clerk, we have the floor to ourselves. She just asked that we not run naked in the halls. I told her I'd try to control myself.

After hauling everything upstairs, we plugged our laptops on, checked out the wireless internet and I checked on my farm. We called our respective mommys to check in and then decided to venture forth and find some sustenance since the major food intake of the day was a big bag of cheesy poofs.

The woman at the desk suggested a restaurant called Cobalt. It was a little pricey to this Happy Meal woman, but the food was delicious. I had Cajun Chicken Alfredo with a glass of milk, and I was very glad for that milk, as the Cajun made its presence known very strongly.

At dinner, we discussed the fact that I didn't see the USA network on the list of television channels we get at the hotel, and how I didn't know if we'd survive an entire week without NCIS. But rest assured, dear readers, when we returned to the hotel, I double checked and we DO get USA. So you do not have to worry about either of us.

As we got comfortable for the night, Natalie sitting at the laptop, ripping music for me, I crawled into bed with the ads from Mom's Sunday paper, I folded up the crossword puzzle and my eyeballs told me it was time to go to bed. So the puzzle sits on the floor, my Darth Vader mask is on my face and it is time to go to bead. I'm sure tomorrow will hold more adventure and, hopefully, a lot of sun. G'night!

I Laminate, Therefore I Am

Apologies to Descartes for the title, here. We have a laminating machine at our office, and there is one attorney, who shall remain nameless, since I like my paycheck, who has his assistant laminate all sorts of crap (newspaper articles and such) and then he'll mail it to the people mentioned in the article with a note of congratulations. I assume it's a marketing tool. We jokingly call his assistant the "Laminating Queen." Doesn't really matter that assistants come and go, whoever his assistant is, she is the Laminating Queen.

Well, my point here is that Greg, one of the attorneys I've had the great fortune to work with (and I cannot say that about all of the attorneys I've worked with over the past 19 years), just came through asking us if we'd teach him how to laminate. The boy (I can call him that, he's 8 years younger than me - not to mention his child-like view on the world) was downright giddy at the prospect.

I asked Steve if he was feeling the urge to learn how to laminate, since I didn't want him feel left out or anything. He said that he was good in his ignorance re: laminating.

Just now, Greg bopped back downstairs from the laminator and he's proudly waving his first laminating job in the air for all to see. Ah, kids.. so easily entertained.

Oscar Review #2 - District 9

(Disclaimer: If you haven’t seen this movie, there may be information in this review that might be considered a “spoiler” - although I consciously try not to put major spoiler info in my reviews. Proceed with caution.)

For my second Oscar nominee viewing, I chose – well, Netflix sent – District 9. I only vaguely recalled the commercials for this and I thought there were aliens involved, but other than that, I didn’t know much else. However, to paraphrase Stephen Colbert, it was the “Craziest F%&$ing Thing I’ve Ever Seen.”

First, the premise. About twenty years ago, an alien ship comes and stops over Johannesburg (think Independence Day), and just sits there. After some time, the humans have to break into it and inside they find severely malnourished aliens. The ship had lost its command module so they couldn’t go anywhere or, I suppose, even leave the ship. The aliens are moved to a detention area in Johannesburg – the titular District 9. So time passes and District 9 becomes a violent, filthy slum (think Slumdog Millionaire) and the government hires a company, MNU, to go into District 9 and evict the aliens and move them to District 10, an area about 200 miles outside of Johannesburg. Needless to say, hilarity ensues! J

The film starts out in a documentary-esque format, obviously from the hindsight point of view, with talking heads commenting on the events from their comfy offices. The documentary follows Wikus van der Merwe (that’s what I’m going to name my first child, BTW), as he leads the group of humans into the District 9 to evict the “Prawns.” While inspecting the shack of one of the Prawns, Wikus finds and accidentally squirts a strange, inky black liquid in his face. Subsequently, he gets sick and starts turning into a Prawn (think The Fly) and he is taken into the custody of either MNU or the government, it was hard to tell, and they perform all sorts of medical experiments on him and discover that his DNA is merging with the Prawn DNA which allows him to use Prawn technology, specifically weapons and machines.

When the doctor prepares to hack off Wikus’ arm/flipper, Wikus makes a run for it and finds safety with a Prawn, Christopher Johnson, and his son. While hiding out, Wikus discovers that Johnson and his son have been searching for, and actually found, the lost command module from the ship that still sits above Johannesburg and that the mysterious liquid was a fuel of some sort to allow the thing to work. They get the command module working and there is a HUGE battle during which Wikus fights off the “bad guys” from MNU to allow Johnson and his son to reunite the module with the mother ship. At one point during this battle, I took my eyes away from the screen for just a minute and next thing I know, Wikus is roaming around in this Transformers/Iron Man type suit shooting the bad guys. I have NO idea where that came from.

But Johnson and his son are able to reunite with the mother ship (think E.T.) and fly home, presumably to round up troops and bring them back here to whoop earthling butt for putting their people through 20 years of slumdum.

Ok, having basically just given you the entire plot of this movie, I apologize if I spoiled any surprises for you. Rest assured, there is still plenty of stuff that I didn’t tell, so…

I have several observations about this movie. First, and in no particular order, it was directed by Peter Jackson of the Lord of the Rings fame. Having seen all of the LOTR movies, I can only ask what was this guy smoking to want to make this movie?? I didn’t expect to see Hobbits, but I was expecting a good ol’Independence Day type of movie – that was not what I got. I should have known better than to think that that type of movie would have been nominated for Best Picture. Duh! Rose.

Observation #2 – back to this being the “Craziest F%&$ing Thing I’ve Ever Seen” – I thought that “In Bruges” had the most f-words in it, but then I saw this movie. If they bleeped all of the f-words in this movie, the end result would sound like some new age weird techno-pop type music. With the one exception of a (relatively) tender phone call between Wikus and his wife, I can’t recall a single sentence that didn’t contain at least one f-word. In fact, after a while, I was thinking that if I could stomach watching the whole thing again (which I could not), I would attempt to count them.

Observation #3 – it may have been on purpose, I don’t know, but as I jokingly alluded to in my summary of the plot, it seemed like this movie couldn’t decide what it wanted to be. First, a documentary, next a shoot’em up. I saw it described as a “thriller” in a magazine.

There must be something to this movie that I missed because I can’t see WHY it was nominated for anything other than special effects. So having said all of this, I did not enjoy this movie. It wasn’t the worst movie I’ve sat through, but I’m glad I didn’t pay to go see it at the theater (technically, I didn’t pay anything, it’s mom’s Netflix account.) I just don’t see this winning the Best Picture.

Oscar Review #1 - Up!

(Disclaimer: If you haven’t seen this movie, there may be information in this review that might be considered a “spoiler” - although I consciously try not to put major spoiler info in my reviews. Proceed with caution.)

Anyone who actually KNOWS me would not be surprised that I chose the animated film for my first Oscar review. In fact, if Netflix didn’t have so many of the Oscar choices available, I could easily be convinced to make this my only Oscar review! Of course, I’m talking about “Up” - Pixar’s 2009 release featuring the voice of Ed Asner as Carl Frederickson, a crotchety old man who ties thousands of helium balloons to his house to float it to South America.

The movie starts out with Carl as a little boy, sitting in the theater watching a news-reel about the great explorer, Charles Muntz, and his attempt to prove the existence of a rare South American bird. Carl, the little boy, idolizes Muntz and is running around pretending to be him when he discovers a little girl, Ellie, doing the same thing. Ellie maintains a scrapbook of Muntz’s adventures and the back section of the scrapbook is empty, saved for her own adventures. She informs Carl that she intends to go to Paradise Falls, the place where Muntz does his exploring, someday. We then see time pass as they grow up, get married, and grow old together. Carl finds the scrapbook and remembers Ellie’s dream to go to Paradise Falls. He gets plane tickets and plans to surprise her, but before he can, she gets sick and subsequently dies. At this point in the movie, I’m bawling like a baby.

Flash forward to current times - Carl has a lonely existence in the same house he lived in with Ellie refusing all offers from the construction company who is building all around the house. (Picture the Bugs Bunny cartoon where he refuses to move his hole for the building of a super-highway and the thing ends up with the highway built around Bugs’ concrete-encased home.) Back to Carl. Events happen and he’s going to be put in a home. Carl appears to play along with the plan, but then when the men in the white suits come to pick him up, he lets loose the thousands of balloons he has attached to his house, and the house starts floating through the city. With a compass and the picture of South America from Ellie’s scrapbook, Carl sets course for Paradise Falls.

Shortly, Carl discovers that Russell, the Boy Scout who he’d previously sent on a snipe hunt to get rid of him, was a stowaway on the house. Carl, as I previously mentioned, is crotchety so they do not get along well. Along the way, Russell befriends a strange but friendly multi-colored bird who he names Kevin and a dog, Dug, whose owner has fixed him up with a collar that allows Dug to speak his thoughts. Of course, like most dogs, Dug’s thoughts aren’t very deep, centering mostly around smells and squirrels.

I don’t want to say much more, so as not to spoil any surprises. Nevertheless, hilarity ensues as one would expect from an animated movie and all turns out well. Carl learns a few lessons, including if you get rid of the baggage of the past, your load gets lightened enough that you can head out on adventures. Also, that life is an adventure, if you look at it with the right attitude. By the end of the movie, Carl has become a grandfather figure for Russell. They and Dug have many adventures.

I’m a fan of animated movies. I have been since I saw my first, Disney’s Robin Hood (which reminds me, Haley's supposed to be burning that soundtrack for me..), back in the .. um.. early 70’s. My criteria is simple, memorable characters (especially the kind that make good Happy Meal toys), a good story, good laughs, a few tears. Up met my criteria and then some. Two thumbs up for Up! It is movie that kids and adults will all enjoy. Mom and I both enjoyed it, so I can guarantee you it won’t win the Oscar, but there you go.

Is There Anything Worse than Sick Kids?

My babies have been sick the past couple of weeks with some respiratory virus that cats get. It’s related to the herpes virus and neither of my babies have ever gotten it before, so I blame Winifred. Winifred was sick with something when we first brought her indoors, and she’ll occasionally have the sniffles and sneezes ever since, but nothing major. I’ve taken to calling her Typhoid Winifred. I figure her immune system is, well, immune to this thing, but my babies had pure unadulterated immune systems and they caught it.

Well, first, Gizmo started sneezing. And if it hadn’t been rather pathetic, it would have been funny. He started sneezing on a Friday morning and by Saturday morning, he looked all feverish around the eyes. So I took him to the vet in case there was something they could do. Now, this was Giz’s first vet visit in a long time and he howled the entire way up there. Giz does not enjoy car rides… his theme song definitely is not “Life is a Highway”! Turns out the poor creature had a fever of 104 degrees. The vet gave him a shot of something and an Rx for me to give him at home. I got him home and drugged up and he slept the rest of Saturday and most of Sunday. By Monday, he was looking better and by Wednesday, he was back to wrestling with Winifred on the living room carpet.

Meanwhile, on Sunday evening, Sophie started sneezing. I took her to the vet Tuesday afternoon. She goes to the vet frequently, generally for hairball-related symptoms, so although she does mew on the drive up, it was nothing like with Gizmo. She and I listened to my book on CD. Now, her fever was not as bad as Gizmo’s – probably because I’d been slipping her some of Giz’s antibiotics. So the vet didn’t give her the “shot,” just more of the same antibiotic that Gizmo had been given.

Poor Sophie. Whereas Gizmo was running and playing and totally back to health, Sophie just got worse. For a day or two, she was forced to breathe through her mouth, which in a cat is just freaky. And because she was mouth-breathing, she was drooling. Also, she fights the medicine, so I end up getting some on her. By the following Saturday, she was a crusty, drooly, sticky mess. Just plum disgusting. But she must’ve been feeling somewhat better because she allowed me to plop her in the bathroom sink and soap up her crusty chin and try to clean up some of the ick. Unfortunately, a week later (and several scars for both me and Mom) she just wasn’t getting better. So I packed her up in her carrier and Mom drove her to the vet. She still had a slight fever and Mom told the vet about our issues with dosing her, so he gave her a shot of some antibiotic that is supposed to stay in her system and work for 14 days – to which I’m thinking WHY don’t you ALWAYS give us this?? Do you KNOW how many scars I have from trying to give her medicine!? Sigh.

That was Wednesday. Sophie spent the remainder of Wednesday and all of Thursday hidden under my bed. Once each morning and once each evening, I’d get done on the floor and talk soothingly to her, but otherwise leave her alone. I was SO happy this morning when I woke up and saw her peering at me from under the chair at my desk. And when I ambled into the bathroom for my shower, she followed me (as is her usual), albeit at a much slower pace. I’m happy to say that I think we’ve rounded the corner and she’ll keep improving.