I’m writing this post at 1:30 in the morning in response to my friend Jen’s Twisted Mix Tape Link-Up. She asks us to make a hypothetical mix tape (I’m going to assume everyone reading knows what an audiocassette is) for a friend. It’s my first time linking up and, since yesterday was his birthday, I think I’m going to make the tape for Dave. We’ve known each other now for more than two decades. Music (and laughing at the same stuff) is pretty much what brought us together. So it was hard to cull it down. I decided to pick a song per decade starting with the 50s and then cheated a little at the end.
Because it reminds me of the X-Files and every single time we hosted a party, especially at Mardi Gras.
Because it’s the Beatles and we’ve sung it together at the tops of our collective lungs so many times. Also, because it’s the Beatles.
Because it reminds me of the acoustic Squeeze concert we watched under a lunar eclipse in a parking lot with only about 50 other people. Who else can say that?
Because it’s one of those songs we always talk about that makes us happy and sad at the same time.
Because it reminds me of watching Sabrina, the Teenage Witch the night I went into labor with Dean.
Here’s where I cheated. I was supposed to stop at five songs. But who wants to be friends with someone who always follows the rules?
Because it elicits absolute euphoria. And I actually got to meet Tim DeLaughter. (I’m sorry you didn’t.) And because I can remember Vivien belting out this song in the back of the car. At age 3.
Because I remember listening to it right after I dropped off our babies (5 and 3) at foreign schools in a new place after we lost everything. And sobbing so hard that I had to pull the car over. Then returning to our borrowed home and doing it all over again with you.
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Happy Birthday, Dave.
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“Life is short, Break the Rules. Forgive quickly. Kiss slowly. Love truly. Laugh uncontrollably. And never regret ANYTHING that makes you smile.” – Mark Twain
P.S. Mel and I also host a link-up called #KetchupWithUs. Because it involves two fool women parading around in public wearing nothing but ketchup costumes. We don’t take ourselves too seriously. And neither should you. For the current link-up, we just need one funny selfie. No words at all. Give us your best #BitchyRestingFace. (Guys are SO welcome.)
It’s been five days since I checked in here. Glad to see that number down a bit. Pretty impressive considering the cheese consumption in this household this week. And we’re now headed into Mardi Gras weekend. The good news is … lots of walking. The bad … lots of food … and drink. Sigh. Promise to be honest with the stupid weigh-ins. Ugh.
1. I attended a Polyphonic Spree concert with my brother and my friend, Vanessa. I realize most of you probably aren’t familiar with this band, so please allow me to pontificate. There’s something about their music (especially live) that elicits an inexplicable feeling of euphoria usually only indicative of a nice muscle relaxant. Or, well, something like that. Maybe it’s the 16 people taking the stage at once wearing choir robes and carrying with them an orchestra’s worth of instruments that sets them apart. I don’t know. And, because I’m a big dork, I stuck around after the concert to meet the band’s frontman, Tim DeLaughter (even his freakin’ name sounds happy) and snap a quick photo. I’ve included the picture as well as a shameless plug for the band (a video of their appearance on Scrubs in 2004 – Love this band. Love this show).
2. While Googling the above song for a good video for this post, I was reminded of a movie (in which the song was used) that I always intended but never actually got around to seeing. (Story of my life.) So this week, thanks to Netflix, I watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Anyone besides me ever see it? That is one unconventional film. And it involves Jim Carrey in a serious (as opposed to manically stupid) role which (like Robin Williams) is always a good thing. I won’t ruin it for you by rehashing the whole plot. Just go see it for yourself some time and come back and tell me what you think.
3. Ellen DeGeneres used one of my jokes on her show this week. “ONE of my.” That’s funny. Like I have an arsenal or something. Anyway, she was seeking corny Valentine’s Day jokes and I tweeted her one. What’s that? Well, YES, I tweet. It’s 2012, McFly. (Great. Any hipness Twitter just bought me was erased by my cavalier use of ‘McFly.’)
4. I lost half of my face to a little snafu with a women’s skin care product, uncharacteristically cold weather and my own, full-on ignorance. Apparently, Retin-A does not double as a moisturizer. I’ll bet any woman worth her salt already knew that. In the area of cosmetics and girly savoir faire, I am not worth any salt, mine or anyone else’s. Which, apparently, is only about $2.99 per pound, thus rendering me pretty useless. Except that when I complained of my Retin-A debacle, one friend actually said I was ‘making leprosy cool.’ Um, thanks?
5. I made cheese. Yes, that’s right. I built it. From the ground up … or the milk up, as it were. There were powders, liquids, cooking thermometers and oversized, cauldron-y-looking pots involved. And then there was the whole curds-and-whey-separation, a rather tedious process. And kneading. Dear God, was there kneading. But, in the end, there was cheese. Mozzarella cheese. That we promptly used on a homemade pizza for dinner last night. I made cheese. (Sniff.) I may try walking on water later this weekend.
6. I watched my girl kick butt in her third year in the school talent show. She channeled a young Michael Jackson beautifully in her own take on ‘I Want You Back,” although I think she was going for Nickelodeon’s Victoria Justice who recently covered the old J5 song. And, as always, we got to see a lot of other kids strutting their best stuff on stage all evening. One of my favorite acts involved two nine-year-old white boys popping and locking better than a 1980s Alfonso Ribeiro. (Without googling him, please comment below if you actually know who I’m talking about. No cheating!)
7. With the help of a few friends, I compiled a list of of people we’d like to see cloned and sent it to @GeneticsView who (foolishly) decided to follow me on Twitter. They hung in there for most of my shenanigans but finally unfollowed me because, I think, I got greedy and asked for too many clones. Who was on the list, you ask? Using the input of others as well as my own ideas, we sent them the following names: Brad Pitt, Jane Russell, Johnny Depp, Julia Child, Bono, Ellen Degeneres and Orlando Bloom. We were really just getting started when they unfollowed. Cowards. What crappy customer service.
8. I learned that I am an unteachable monkey when it comes to the computer. As such, there will likely be many more ‘This is not a real blog post‘ blog posts until I get this crap straightened out. Feel free to ignore them.
9. I learned that I know someone who knows Paul McCartney. That’s only two degrees, people. Meaning YOU are only three degrees of separation from Sir Paul. Go run and update your Facebook statuses … now!
10. I accidentally emailed my kids’ teachers from my ‘tits’ email again. Bear in mind, my daughter’s teachers include a nun. Please say a prayer for me immediately.
11. I an effort to throw off the many cheesy porn autobots of the world, I tried reprogramming my Twitter account by using hashtags like #Osmonds, #GirlScouts, #PBS, #BillCosby, #7thHeaven, #milk, #Crazy8s and #Waltons. It worked, but only for about five hours.
12. I devoted a day of my life to thinking good thoughts about Doug Henning. Doug Henning, you guys! Am I the only one who misses his big, buck teeth? Did you know he was a magician, illusionist, escape artist AND politician? Didn’t see that one coming, did you? A moment of silence for Mr. Henning, please.
Oh, yeah. And we passed 25,000 hits on this six-month-old blog. Yay, us! Thanks to all for reading. Happy Mardi Gras! I’m off to THE paradeS.
Today was the last day of Christmas break with my kids. Yes, I know that kind of statement is usually followed by exclamation points … and arena-quality cannon bursts of confetti. But, believe it or not, I’m writing it with a little sadness in my heart. I love my little rats, both of whom are getting far too old for my comfort level. And I kind of like having them around, even when they squabble like chickens and can’t go for more than two minutes without reporting the other’s misdeeds to me.
So today … on this last day before their “torture” resumes tomorrow … I planned a little outing for us where we could do a few of the things we wanted to do before the break was through. Among them was seeing a movie, which I let them pick. “Anything PG,” I said naively.
Did I just get home from the hospital with the formula samples? Have I not been doing this for more than a decade? What was I thinking?
What I meant to say was “What do you want to see … the Muppet Movie or Arthur Christmas?” I figured they’ve both gotten great reviews and one offers a little nostalgia from my generation while the other offers a nice ending point for our holiday season. Either way, I’d be happy. … So, why in the HELL did I stupidly say, “Anything PG?” … Why?
The next thing I know, we were all in the car headed to the movie theater to see … Alvin & The Chipmunks – Chipwrecked. To those of you who haven’t been following over the years, this film is the third installment of the modern Chipmunks movies. And … in case you were wondering … No! I do not expect a trilogy of prequels to be released twenty years later featuring the ancestors of the current characters.
Just to get you up to speed, when I looked up our three movie choices for the day on my ‘Flixter’ (Rotten Tomatoes) app, I found the following critics’ approval ratings:
Muppets – 96%
Arthur Christmas – 92%
Alvin & the Chipmunks – 13%
Okay, we’re all on the same page. We now return to our regularly scheduled post.
One of the best parts of today’s movie experience was getting to hear one of my favorite songs (‘Light & Day,’ Polyphonic Spree) being used in an upcoming kids’ movie entitled Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax. I can offer no endorsement for that movie here though. I got so caught up in the song that I more or less ignored the actual trailer. And, after a series of other trailers came and went, our feature film began. I could see that my kids were very excited about it … so I decided to sit back, shut up, enjoy my silo of Diet Coke and ingest a little junk, both in food and theatrical form, with my little people.
The movie started, as always Chipmunkian cinema does, with the harmonious little rodents performing their version of another artist’s song. (Seriously, have they ever sung anything original outside of their beloved Christmas Song?) In this case, it was Vacation (first popularized by the Go-Gos in the 80s). And I immediately thought to myself … I wonder what kind of royalties are paid to the original artist(s) when your song gets Chipmunk’d. Also, is it a good thing or a bad thing … meaning are you honored to be counted among the elite artists mimicked in these high-pitched cover versions? Maybe it’s like when your song gets Weird Al Yankovic’d. That’s got to be good, right? So far, none of my songs have been Yankovic’d, which I think would be just … awesome.
Anyway, I settled into the movie … happy to be entertained by two actors I’ve always liked, Jason Lee and David Cross. I’ve seen them both in numerous roles but Lee’s ‘Earl Hickey’ and Cross’ ‘Tobias Funke’ are probably my favorites. (When Dave reads this post, he will argue that Cross’ ‘Slow Donnie’ is better. And, while he does make a good point, the body of Tobias’s work is just so much more impressive to me.) I have no idea why two such talented actors would literally ‘Chipwreck’ themselves into these movies, the most recent of which offering cheap references to Castaway, the honey badger and the Dos Equis ‘Most Interesting Man in the World’ ad campaign. (Yeah, you guessed it. They replaced ‘man’ with ‘monk.’ And it was hiLARious!)
But I hate to say too much more. It would pain me to think that I ruined the plot for anyone. And that’s not what today was really about anyway. The important thing is that my kids liked it. A lot. And when they asked if I liked it when the movie was over, I said what every other mother worth her salt would say, “Um, it was better than I thought.” When they asked about my favorite part, I quickly came up with “Uh … the zipline part, because it reminded me of our summer vacation.” When they asked who was my favorite chipmunk, I said, “I guess Theodore, ’cause he’s the cute, little fat baby with the Puss ‘n’ Boots eyes.”
And when they continued poking at it with a stick and asked if they could get the movie on DVD when it was released, I said, “What? Are you freakin’ kidding me? That stupid chipmunk movie?!!? Please! It wasn’t that good. We don’t need to own every damned movie we ever see on DVD! My … GOD!”
Alright, fine. I’m lying. But wouldn’t that have been funnier my real response? “Um … sure. I guess. We’ll see.”
Like I said, I love those little rats. And I sure am going to miss them tomorrow. Whether you believe me or not.
Just writing about the daily dumbassery of life. The good, the bad and the so-utterly-mundane-that-you'd-think-I-wouldn't-even-bother-to-write-about-it.
OldDogNewTits 