Vampires and Other Vagueries

Since I am unable to think of any astoundingly interesting subject matter - I'll just do a little week-in-review. Why would you want to read my week-in-review? I have no idea, really. Oh! I know why! Because you're PROCRASTINATING!! You got online to pay bills or meet some deadline or other and here you are.

Let me see if I can make it worth your while.

I'll start with Friday - even though that was technically the end of last week - and I would think a week-in-review would start at the beginning of a week. But since we're not to the end of this one, yet, I am taking liberties with the whole time is linear thing.

Where were we? Oh yes - last Friday. Was Gandhi's birthday. Mahatma Gandhi. I learned this impressive historical fact from somebody's facebook status. Yesiree, folks, I get my news and information through the Internet. So - it was also the night that we had promised to take Joel out for Indian food (his 15th birthday had been on Wednesday). Coincidence? I think not.

Joel, by the way, does a fantastic Gandhi impression.

Then we went to see the Old Man in Rehab - not the Betty Ford Clinic - just a plain old physical therapy rehab. If you are interested in reading about that whole fiasco - go down a couple of posts to Healthcare Crisis!!!!. If you are not even vaguely interested but are trying to avoid unloading the dishwasher - well, it will help you put off the inevitable for another 4 minutes or so, depending on how fast you read.

So while at Rehab, Ellie performed a little concert on a horribly out-of-tune piano. I would like to say that this moved the residents to tears....but mostly they just wanted her to stop so they could hear the TV.

On Saturday (still with me?) we did yard work. Well, WE did not do yard work. I holed up washing clothes and reading vampire porn, an activity of which I am wholeheartedly ashamed.

I read Laurel K Hamilton's Anita Blake series. I don't like them. They are poorly written. The sentence structure is often awkward - the characters are almost schizophrenic in their inabilitiy to maintain a constant and non-conflicting persona, the characters all speak in the same voice so you often can't tell who's doing the talking - the men are so effeminate (and I don't just mean the long hair - they are overly sensitive and basically act like women in every sense of the word). But the woman can knock out the novels. She can weave a tale. Involving several long-haired vampires and shapeshifters and one vampire hunter woman. And all that entails.

Now how did a nice girl like me end up with vampire porn? I'll tell you how. I have a wicked friend. Who reads vampire porn. Although, truly, I think she quit somewhere around book 6 or so and I am on book 15 or so because I apparently have the vampire porn monkey on my back THANK YOU WICKED FRIEND. I thought I had kicked it. Really, I did. I did not "wait" for this last book, Skin Trade, to come out. I didn't pay attention to the publishing date. I didn't look for it, anywhere. But it found me.

"Look, Mom," said Ellie while we were browsing through the library. "Isn't that one of those awful vampire porn books you read?"

"Used to read," I reminded her. "And they're not porn."

"Sure they're not, Mom," said a smirking Ellie. I hate the smirk.

What was I supposed to do? Walk away from it? What if it was fate? What if the Universe Herself was trying to give me some important message via vampire porn?

Bleh. I finished it. It was awful. Good. Awful Good. Occasionally just awful.

On to Sunday. Are you REALLY still with me? Great! Who wants to fold socks anyway? Let's keep going....

On Sunday we drove to Austin to take our daughter and her friend (the son of the infamously spiritual Grilled Cheese Chick) to Austin City Limits Music Festival. It is a 3-day festival with a great line-up. The kids bought 1-day passes so they could see The Arctic Monkeys, Jack White's latest band, and Pearl Jam. It had rained all day on Saturday, so we dropped the kids off at a MUD PIT and I am not kidding. One columnist wrote that the organizers had thoughtfully dropped loads of hay on top of the mud to try and help, resulting in the formation of adobe bricks that stuck to shoes and feet. Oh well. Leave it to youth, music, and the cannabis wafting through the air to ensure a good time - no matter the weather.

We dropped our pair off, had a wonderful Thai lunch while surfing pics of the festival and the mud, etc and then we then met a friend we hadn't seen since 1980 (I am screaming in my head!!!!!!!!!!!!!) for a few beers. We sat and talked until we were hungry, again. Then we went out to dinner. The plan was to continue sitting on our asses in a late movie but the kids called and said they had had enough of the mud. Party poopers. Really. They are. So we headed home earlier than planned. (I do not know why the mud picture is so small....I am basically a lazy person who just learns enough technology to get by....so I got it on here but that is the extent of my abilities.)

Monday was Odyssey of the Mind. My high school team meets here, as does the elementary team. This is all very hush hush and secretive because God knows there are Odyssey spies everywhere.....but I MUST say that Camille is trying to figure out how to make herself a pork chop costume. She is going to be a pork chop.

Monday evening found us back at the ballet school - Camille inside dancing - me outside feverishly finishing up the vampire porn book. In the car. So nobody would see me.

Tuesday was a "home day". We did some school work. The boys are doing some much-needed grammar.

The sentence they were analyzing was, "Everyone, but Candy, went to the movies." So for the rest of the day the boys talked of butt candy. Sheesh.

On Wednesday I took Joel to tae kwon do, and started a little Flylady de-cluttering. Did you know that I am the proud owner of a butter churner AND a pressure cooker? I didn't know, either! And I was freakin' going to BUY a pressure cooker! The pressure cooker I found had a piece of masking tape on it that had my mom's name and "$15" on it. Apparently I had saved it from a garage sale fate - a save I do not remember. The butter churner? Was my mother-in-law's. It came with the house. Cool. Because I am going to make some butter. The announcement of my butter-churning intentions elicited a smirk from the ever-smirking 17-year-old non-reader of vampire porn, and therefore a much better person than I am, daughter.

Today is Thursday. And I am blogging. Then I am shopping. Then I am washing. And then I am heading to ballet, which is probably going to be rather boring an uneventful, seeing as how I am out of vampire porn. Sigh.

Now go change your sheets or whatever it is you've been putting off for the past 10 minutes.

Sardine Mama