Every time I see Signs, I can’t get over how incredible it is. The storytelling, acting, score, effects – they were all superb. The police officer’s subdued empathy. The brother’s wish to redeem himself. The father’s acceptance of the inevitable. The change from minor to major key at the turning point of the movie. It’s in my top 5 of all-time favorites.
Does John Kerry have acromegaly, a condition that causes growth of extremities? Abraham Lincoln was said to have had it. Consider these pictures, and look at the size of his hands:
For Valentine’s Day, hub and I are going shooting. Then the next day we’re going to get up at 6 o’freaking clock in the A. of M. and go take our concealed handgun class together. This, laddies and ladies, is real romance and don’t you forget it.
Kid #1 got her shots last week so we can put her into preschool and they made her feel bloody awful. She had a 103 fever for a few days and was generally miserable. She and kid #2 have been thumping each other at least once hourly, then they both come to tattle on the other. hub has decreed that in the event of any tattling, they’re both getting sent to their rooms, tattler and tattlee. This has cut down on the tattling, but not the thumping. It wouldn’t be so bad except for the occasional wails of pain.
It’s cold. And rainy. And rainy and cold. Rainy, too. Hub and I almost talked ourselves into going to Las Vegas this weekend but I had an attack of acute sanity at the last minute (seriously, I mean we were just about to book a flight) and nixed the idea. It was insane, is what it was. Not saying I don’t want to go, but I think it needs more than 2 days of planning.
Been pretty boring around here. Next weekend we’re going to the rodeo. Woo!
I can’t believe this cat refused to eat. She follows me around all day long now, waiting for me to drop food. Someone enters the kitchen and she’s in there too, yowling for sustenance. She used to sit upstairs all day and was completely anti-social. Now I can’t peel her off my lap. That’s twice now that I’ve had cats who encountered near-death experiences who turned into complete and total love sluts after recovering. Apparently the thyroid medication really did a number on her. She’s off it and feeling swell.
Max got out the other night. Around 3 am we were just about to go to sleep and I called the cat. He didn’t come. Couldn’t find him anywhere. I went onto the porch and noticed the screen door was open.
Thus followed 2 hours of intense searching. I went on foot, hub went in the car. We woke up the neighbors across the street. Didn’t break my heart much; they’re the ones who had the dog yap for 5 hours straight one night and ignored the phone and doorbell. They let their dogs out at night and one of them is a biter. He charged me one night when I was about 8 months pregnant and out to check the mail. We ended up calling the police because when hub went to see what was going on, he got charged too. Every time we stepped out the front door we had a large angry barking dog run at us.
So I grabbed a flashlight and started walking around calling the cat. I’m pretty sure one of the neighbors thought I was up to no good, because about 15 minutes after I was back from the dead end down the street, a cop went tearassing down there and was there for about 10 minutes.
Around 5 am I started to think maybe I should get a couple hours of sleep and try again when it got light. I had tried getting Cuervo out to track the cat. Brave and valiant dog tracked the cat a good 15 feet, from the porch to the front steps. Woo. I tried one last time going to the porch and calling, and heard the cat jump onto the steps and brrrrrrrrrt at me. Joyous reunion. I picked him up and he was about 3 pounds heavier than usual. I think he ate all the nice next-door kitty’s food while he was out.
Hub was very nearly in a great deal of trouble for leaving the porch door open, after having accidentally let both Gus (gone for over a week) and Lilly (gone for 48 hours) out in the past. Max saved his bacon by returning.
I thought chilblains were something only damosels in distress in Victorian novels got. Apparently I was wrong.
My feet always get really really cold in the winter. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Cold feet don’t really bother me that much. Hot feet, I can’t stand. When I was smoking, my feet would do this horrible thing, especially at night, where they would get bright red and get really hot to the touch and burn like hell. I used to have to prop them up higher than my head in order to make it stop. Sometimes I’d just go outside and stand on the sidewalk in freezing weather to cool them off a little. Apparently people can get this condition, called erythromelalgia, so badly that they ice down their feet to the point of frostbite and gangrene. Luckily that never happened to me, and it pretty much went away when I quit smoking.
My dad used to have this thing happen to him in winter called Reynaud’s phenomenon. It was bizarre. His fingers would turn paper white, or sometimes blue, when he got cold. That doesn’t happen to my, but my hands and feet turn into utter popsicles in cold weather. I can assure you that this does not please my husband at all, especially when I place said appendage on him at night. It was an accident. I swear.
Anyway, I guess my feet got too cold. Probably around Thanksgiving when we were in the camper and it was 20 degrees out. A few days after that I noticed bumps on my toes that were kinda itchy. I thought it was bug bites, since that happens when you’re camping. They just never went away. I asked my doctor about them and he was perplexed. They were just on the left foot, coincidentally the same side which was closest to the cold outside of the camper. The doc said something like, “Well that’s odd” and went back to looking at my broken finger.
Want something done, you gotta do it yourself. I searched around the internet and found the description of what happened to me (bumps, red spots, turned blue, itchy, burning, painful as hell) because I thought I had some bizarre variation of athlete’s foot and was honestly pretty embarrassed. Luckily I got some nice, respectable Victorian condition.
The bummer is that I have to keep my feet nice and warm, and I hate warm feet. Oh well.
TiVo recorded Sixteen Candles for me. It was on the Womens’ Entertainment network. The classic line was munged so:
“Ahhhhh, no more yankee rum drinkie. The Donger need food!”
Rum drinkie? Are you serious?
On the plus side, I don’t need surgery on my MCL. Just physical therapy. That’s cool, cause I’ve seen orthopedic surgery on TV, and it totally looks like dissecting chickens. Gross.
I had an MRI today for my knee, which has been bugging me since all the walking we did at Disneyworld. That was wild! They asked me what radio station I wanted to listen to and then gave me some of those air-powered headphones like they have on airplanes. Then I had to hold completely still for 20 minutes. Not much of a problem, since I fell asleep. Hope I didn’t snore too loud.
The dogs are driving me insane. Kona is horribly gun shy. She spent the week at the ranch and was totally precious and adorable. When we got home, she and Cuervo started their normal routine of barking at anything that moves within a one mile radius. I went out there yesterday to make them come inside and she refused to come. I spent 15 minutes outside with no shoes on in the cold chasing that frigging dog until she came in. She got kenneled for the rest of the evening. I don’t understand how she can be so good for a week, then so awful when she comes home. She needs to go to boot camp.
Cuervo keeps creeping up the stairs at night and sleeping on our bedroom floor. That’s all very well and good, except the animal snores louder than any normal human. I’ve had to shout at him several times a night to roll over. If I try locking him out with the gate at the top of the stairs, the cats don’t realize it’s closed and they slam into it, so it sounds like a gong going off every hour or so. *BLONG*
We shot a couple of deer and a hog at the ranch over New Year’s. I got one of the deer, but I shot it in the shoulder and the bullet totally pulverized both shoulders and ruined the meat. Hub got the other one in the neck, which was fine and didn’t ruin anything. Upon quartering the 180 lb hog and bringing it home to slice and freeze, we saw that the meat was rife with tumors. Seeing as how we have no desire to be on Fear Factor, we pitched it. What a waste.
If you are a single female in the Bay area and looking for some hot studly action, let me know and I will set you up with my mostly decent-like and very good looking friend who is horny.
Santa is available at the mall near my house for photo sessions. When I called earlier this afternoon the wait was around 90 minutes. The other mall I called said the line was all the way down the mall. I would rather stick a fork in my eye than stand in a line that long with 2 young children. Last year my kids got sick from some other kids feeding them its cold-infested boogers while waiting for the Claus.
We decided to try first thing tomorrow morning. As we were in the mongo line of traffic to see the Zilker Park trail of lights, I called the mall to find out Santa’s hours. The lady said they opened at 8:30. When I asked what the best time of day was to go, she laughed at me, then said in a musing sort of voice, “Actually, right now our line is only 10 minutes.”
We hauled ass into a U-Turn faster than you can say St. Nick. Hub went the wrong way which turned out to be serendipitous since we discovered A) a shortcut to some B) free parking for the Trail of Lights. Not only did we get Santa pictures, but we also did the lights tonight, and no lines for either. None, as in we waltzed right up to Santa and the kids got to spend a good 5 minutes with him since there wasn’t anyone waiting.
That was cool.
The other day hub started talking to me about Bluetooth headsets and which one I thought he should get for his cellular phone. It’s a bit of a moot point right now, since the number port request that he put in on November 25th still hasn’t gone through. Anyway, he said he did some looking over the reviews and thought he would go with the Sony Ericsson model because it got a good review and it charged with the same plug as his phone.
Not one who has to be smacked over the head more than once with a clue club, I took the hint and ordered one for him.
Last night he mentioned that he doesn’t want that model after all, because it is big and the battery life sucks on it. A tad frustrated, I told him he was getting the one he talked about it, dammit, because I ordered it after he said he wanted it and Merry Damn Christmas.
Hub laughed at me. The reason he kept bringing up the bluetooth headset issue was because he was trying to pick my brain to see which one I wanted for my phone.
