Something I did while in Utah for my reunion.

While in Utah, we passed this new entertainment complex they're building in Ogden that houses an iFly place which basically allows a person to simulate skydiving. However, instead of falling, you're actually flying in a vertical wind tunnel.

Here's a picture of me in the wind tunnel. To watch a video (not of me) that shows you what happens while in the wind tunnel, just click on the picture. The guy in there with me is the instructor who basically keeps you from hurting yourself.



To say it was fun is an understatement. I basically laughed like a fool the entire time I was in there. According to the people who work at this place, there are only 12 of these wind tunnels in the world. I'm assuming they mean vertical wind tunnels open to public use. I was only there for the one-time go, but I think people who live nearby can purchase packages that allow them to come back multiple times and learn how to do tricks and stuff like that.

My friend and her three daughters also took flight and they pretty much agreed it's about as awesome an experience as a person can have.

Story from reunion, although not about reunion.

I will talk about the reunion one day. I promise. Until then, let me tell you a story I heard while at the reunion. One of my former classmates is a doctor. I think she has probably spent most of her time serving disenfranchised communities. She told us that during her residency she worked some time in Appalachia where she had a woman come in with a very interesting complaint. According to my classmate, the woman came in and said. "I got vines growin' down there."

Being perplexed, my friend asked, "What?"

"I got vines down there."

Still confused about what this woman could be suffering from, my friend performs an examination and finds that, indeed, the woman does have vines growing down there. It turns out the woman had inserted a piece of potato (possibly for contraceptive purposes) into her vagina and then forgot about it, giving it time to sprout. According to my friend the "vines" had gotten to a length where they were hanging out of the woman's underpants. When I asked what the potato looked like when she removed it, my friend said, "Exactly what you think it would look like." EWWW!

Now, I ask you, even if you had inserted a piece of potato up your cooch and forgotten about it, wouldn't you remember when you looked down to see something worthy of a 4-H ribbon growing out of there? I think I would.

Here's a picture of a rotten potato, just in case you were wondering what one would look like.

Mmm, mmm, mmm. We're having au gratin tonight.

My personality DNA

I am going to talk about my reunion when I have more time.

Does your name fit you?

This seems like fun.

Check the letters of your name and what they mean... Does your name fit you?

K: crazy
A: Hot
T: smile to die for
H: cute
L: very good kisser
E: has gorgeous eyes
E: has gorgeous eyes
N: easy to fall in love with

I would have to say, yes, I am crazy hot and I do have two gorgeous eyes.



A: Hot
B: Amazing kisser
C: good kisser
D: can kick ur butt
E: has gorgeous eyes
F: lowild and crazy adore you
G: very outgoing
H: cute
I: loves to laugh and smile
J: is really sweet
K: crazy
L: very good kisser
M:Makes dating fun
N: easy to fall in love with
O: has one of the best personalities ever
P: popular with all types of people
Q: a hypocrite
R: is a good person to be with
S: makes people laugh
T: smile to die for
U: is very sexual
V: not judgmental
W: very broad minded
X: never let people tell you what to do
Y: smile to die for
Z: can be funny and dumb at times

Now you guys give it a try.

What to say?

I'm sitting painting my toenails because I leave for my 20th high school reunion tomorrow. I'm painting them "rapid ruby." In some ways, I feel like I want to talk about going to the reunion, and in other ways, I really don't. Which I think makes sense because it probably reflects both the excitement and apprehension I feel about going. Excitement because I can't wait to see friends I haven't seen in a long time and apprehensive because I don't want to be bored playing nice to people I never liked. I know, I'm a bitch. My daughter starts school tomorrow and I'm actually more consumed with that right now than I am with reunion stuff. Let me show you the ravages of twenty years. This is me in high school.

And this is me now.

See how skinny I used to be? The bummer is that I didn't think I was skinny back then. I've pretty much always considered myself to be a little on the chunky side. But when I look at pictures of myself in high school and college, well anything before I had my daughter, I realize I wasn't fat at all. Why can't we appreciate the good things when we've got them? So, anyway, I've been doing all this "reflecting" on my life and whether or not I've spent my life well. When I look back so far, there are definitely things I'd do differently. I'd definitely have traveled more before having my daughter. The simple fact is you just can't pick up and take off any old time when you've got kids. Everything is about their school schedules and social lives. I also wish I would have taken better advantage of the opportunities that are available in college, like study abroad programs and stuff like that.

The end of summer is upon us.

Well, I think the family has officially had its last summer outing for the year. Friends invited us up to a lake cottage that they had been given use of, and we just got back. It was a pretty good time. The kids and menfolk went fishing and swimming, and my friend and I stayed at the house and read without anyone bothering us. We just sat on the deck and thought about nothing, which is about as good as it gets at this point in life. Did I mention we made smores? Because that's the most important part about spending a weekend at a lake house. It's kind of like the law, you know. What was interesting about this particular house, though, was that anything that was supposed to cook food didn't work so well. I started to grill steaks on the gas grill they had up there, but that didn't work so well, so I had to build a fire in the charcoal grill. Luckily, I had brought up charcoal, but getting the grills in and out of that thing was hard and I ended up burning my forearm with a red hot poker I was using to try and get the grill in place. Yeah, it sizzled when it hit my skin, but did surprisingly little damage to my arm; although, the skin does look a bit charred. Not just burned, but charred. So I guess that's kind of gross. So I finally got the meal cooked. Then this morning, my friends was trying to fry potatoes in this electric skillet they had in the house, but that thing didn't work for shit, either. I basically think the people who own the house decide that when something stops working so well, they just take it up to the lake house. Also, there was no air conditioning, which I don't understand. I don't know why anyone living in modern times would deny themselves the pleasure of air conditioning. There's no reason for them to not have a couple of window units or even a portable air conditioner, so it was hot and muggy to say the least. My friend and I pretty much spent the entire weekend drenched in our own sweat. So I guess that's kind of gross. But all in all, it was an incredibly pleasant weekend and thoroughly enjoyable.

Copying a meme because I lack originality

From Dantallion's Can[n]on.

Step 1: Put your iPod or iTunes on random.
Step 2: Post the first line(s) from the first 20 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing the song.
Step 3: Post and let everyone you know guess what song and artist the lines come from.
Step 4: Strike out the songs when someone guesses correctly. I will cross out the correct guesses as I go.
Step 5: Looking them up on Google or any other search engine is CHEATING - for which you SHALL be punished…

NOTE: Apparently, I can't do strikeout on Blogger, so I'm just coloring guessed answers red. Because red means stop. Like a stop light. Which means don't go. Anyway, you get it.

1. Toot, toot. Hey. Beep, beep. Toot, toot. Hey. Beep, Beep.

2. Ooooh, oh, oh, oh. You run, run, run away. It's your heart that you betray.

3. You know, I was, I was wondering, you know, if you could keep on because the force it's got a lot of power, it make me feel like...ooooh. Lovely, is the feeling now.

4. Right about now, the funk soul brother. Check it out now, the funk soul brother.

5. Pack it up, pack it in. Let me begin. I came to win. Battle me that's a sin.

6. Unos, dos, tres, catorce. Turn it up loud, captain. Lights go down. It's dark. The jungle is your head.

7. She works hard for the moeny, so hard for it honey. She works hard for the money, so you better treat her right.

Donna Summer, "She Works Hard for the Money." Guessed by Jess.

8. We are young, heartache to heartache we stand. No promises, no demands. Love is a battlefield.

Pat Benatar, "Love is a Battlefield." Guessed by Jess and J-Mo.

9. I see them every night in tight blue jeans in the pages of a blue boy magazine. Hey, I've been thinking about a new sensation.

Cindy Lauper, "She Bop." Guessed by Jess.

10. I've been waiting for so long to come here now and sing this song. Oh. Don't be fooled by what you see. Don't be fooled by what you hear.

11. Take it back. Take it back. Oh, oh, oh. Everybody look at me, me. I walk in the door you start screaming. Come on everybody whatcha here for?

12. Once I had a love and it was a gas. Soon turned out had a heart of glass. Seemed like the real thing, only to find Mucho mistrust, love's gone behind.

Blondie, "Heart of Glass." Guessed by J-Mo.

13. Yo, I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want. So tell me what you want, what you really, really want.

14. La, la, la, la... I just can't get you out of my head. Boy your loving is all I think about.

15. Working Monday through Friday takes up all of my time. If I can get to the weekend, everything will work out just fine.

16. I'm bringing sexy back. Them other boys don't know how to act. I think you're special. What's behind your back?

Justin Timberlake, "Sexyback." Guessed by Jess and J-Mo.

17. Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto. Mata ah-oo hima de. Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto, Himitsu wo shiri tai.

Styx, "Mr. Roboto." Guessed by Jess.

18. At first I was afraid, I was petrified. Kept thinking I could never live without you by my side.

Gloria Gaynor, "I Will Survive." Guessed by Jess.

19. Only came outside to watch the night fall with the rain. I heard you making patterns rhyme like some new romantic looking for the TV sound. You'll see I'm right some other time.

20. Woo, gave you my money, I gave you my time. Why you wanna hurt me, girl? Are you serious? I'm just curious, why you wanna hurt me girl?

Wow! That just took way more time than I would have thought. I feel I should clarify that the only music I have on my iPod is workout music, so don't necessarily judge my musical tastes by the songs here. Don't get me wrong, I like them all, but my tastes are much broader that what they would seem from this selection.

Me as a Simpson

Don't I look cute? By the way, I bought four pairs of shoes yesterday. It's all about the baby steps.

And this is my husband

And my brother.


And my daughter. Yes, I have too much time on my hands.

Now Simpsonize yourself.

Shoes

I've been finding myself unusually obsessed with shoes lately. I like shoes, but I don't have nearly as many shoes as I'd like to have. Mainly because I'm not rich and if I bought as many shoes as I wanted, I'd be sucking on ice cubes and eating sunflower seeds for my meals. This might not be so bad because then I wouldn't have to do Weight Watchers. However, I do have a family I need to feed, so that means no shoes. Anyway, I've been wanting to buy shoes a lot lately because of my reunion. I don't know why. You'd think if I wanted to buy anything, I'd want to get one of those body-shaping lycra things that will make me look twenty pounds thinner, but I want shoes. Since I can't buy them, I look at them. The internet is great for looking at shoes. I've been spending way too much time looking at shoes. This has led me to buy shoes for my daughter because then I can rationalize the expense. It's not really for me. Plus, she needs shoes for school anyway. I tend to spend a little more money on her shoes than most people would think reasonable for shoes that will only fit her for a year or so, but I can't help it. Since she wears a uniform to school, I like her to have a little character with her shoes. Now, I don't spend $100 on her shoes, but I have been known to fork over $50, which I won't even spend on myself. I only spent $20 on my wedding shoes. That's pretty much the range I like to stick in for my own shoe purchases. I did spend $100 for a pair of Dansko clogs, but those things were worth it. They're incredibly comfortable and I'll have those shoes forever. The thing with looking at shoes on the internet is that you get to see all kinds of shoes and their prices and I really don't understand the shoes that are like $400. If you've got $400 to spend on shoes, you've got too much money and should probably do something a little more altruistic with it. Hey, I've got an idea. If you're a shoe designer or retailer, why don't you send me shoes to test run and write reviews. I'll do that. Just let me know.

So sad.

I got a call yesterday afternoon from someone on the parent/ teacher association telling me that the father of one of my daughter's classmates had unexpectedly passed away and would I be able to make a desert for his funeral lunch. I told her of course and asked how he died. She said she didn't know, only that it was very sudden. So in my mind I'm thinking heart attack, accident. I have to admit suicide did pop into my mind because I've recently learned that a classmate of mine from high school killed herself a couple of months ago. At any rate, I told my daughter and she felt very sad for her classmate and said she'd like to make the cake with me, which she did. Anyway, I had to drop it off at the church this morning and there were already some ladies getting the meal together and I asked them if they knew what had happened, and neither one of them knew, only that it was unexpected because that's what was in the obituary. One of the women showed the obit to me and said she asked the pastor and all he would say is that the article says it was unexpected, so let's just leave it at that. So, of course, we're both assuming it's something like suicide or drug overdose or something along those lines because no one ever wants to say what really happened in those sorts of situations. We did really only talk about suicide, but who really knows. Besides my daughter's classmate, he and his wife have one other child, and I just can't help feeling terrible for those kids. You feel sympathy for the wife as well, but in my thinking she's an adult and is better equipped to handle something like this, but those kids may never understand why this happened. And I don't necessarily know that anyone can truly understand, but as a parent, it makes me angry to think that a father would willingly put his children through this sort of hardship.

Now, I know he must have been suffering from depression or maybe even battling substance abuse, but I generally look at suicide as one of the most selfish and self-centered acts a person can commit. I've known people who had family members who committed suicide that probably would have more sympathy than I would, but I only ever feel sorry for the people left to deal with the aftermath. In my mind, if you've got the wherewithall to take your own life, you've got the wherewithall to ask for help. Granted, I also understand there are people with serious mental illness like schizophrenia who commit suicide, but I usually view those people as not really having the capability to understand the consequence of their actions in relation to the world around them. I suffer from depression myself so I know how very low one can get. And as a teen (or even when I suffered from post-partum depression), I probably had incredibly fleeting moments of considering suicide at some level, but I always knew that was never a real solution to anything and I always knew there was no way in hell I'd put my family through that kind of agony. So my prayers go out to the family dealing with the loss of a husband and father and hope that they can find some kind of peace in their lives and not blame themselves for an action that rests squarely on the shoulders of the person who committed it.

The Brick and LG appliances suck big donkey dicks.

This is a post that Dantallion recently put up and I'm just spreading the word because I've been similarly screwed by Best Buy in the past. Best Buy is the devil, and so, apparently, are The Brick and LG appliances. So read on.

tick…tick…BOOM

If any of you heard a loud noise last night, or the earth rumbling, or perhaps reports of a possible nuclear explosion, not to worry - here’s the explanation.

I’ve made mention several times on my blog recently that my 2-year-old LG refrigerator (with extended warranty) crapped out just over two weeks ago. Aside from the food loss, LG and The Brick (where I purchased it) dicked me around for two weeks - wasting hours and hours of my time, with their incompetence and sheer unwillingness to help - and this despite my being patient and polite for the first week of this nonsense. They had the part in stock the whole time, and could have sent it to me within 2 days of the failure. Instead they told me it would take a MINIMUM of 2 weeks to get the part - and if I was without a fridge for that time, that was just too bad. It took me 1 phone call to the manufacturer to confirm that the parts were readily available. And then hours of my time talking with useless “customer service” people trying to convince them to send the part immediately. I would get one helpful rep telling me that they would ship it to me overnight that night, and then the next day when it didn’t show up, I’d find out that another rep had cancelled the order because they felt that the procedure that had been followed was wrong. It was a comedy of incompetence and apathy like I’ve never seen before. Add to that waiting around for hours for FIVE different service calls (partly because when they DID send the part, it was invariably the wrong one). Once they even sent it to the wrong address.

So finally this past Tuesday, they fixed the fucking thing.

You wanna know the kicker? Last night (Wednesday), I went to the grocery store and spent over $120.00 dollars on stuff to replace some of what I’d lost 2 weeks ago. When I got home, the fucking thing wasn’t working. AGAIN.

SO, in the interests of doing the public a service, and in the hopes that anyone Googling LG or The Brick will come across this post, I offer the following:

WARNING: Don’t ever buy LG products. Don’t ever shop at The Brick furniture and appliance stores. LG and the Brick are incompetent. LG and the Brick offer inferior products. LG and the Brick say they offer good service – this is a lie. LG and the Brick are more interested in washing their hands of their customers once they have sold their product. LG and the Brick do not respect their warranties. LG and the Brick are lazy. LG and The Brick’s complete disregard for their customers and the problems that arise from the products they sell them is disgusting. I’ve bought many different things at many different stores, and never have I been a badly treated as I have been at LG and the Brick.

In their marketing, they infer that LG stands for “Life’s Good”. They forgot to add: “For US. YOU, On The Other Hand, Are Totally SCREWED”.

BUYER BEWARE.

Pass it on.

Life's bitter disappointments.

My daughter is in drama camp this week. It's the first time she's ever done anything like this before, and I think her sudden interest in the theatre stems from my recent participation in the local civic theatre. Anyway, I picked her up today and she had an incredibly sour look on her face so I asked her what was wrong.

"Nothing."

I told her I could tell something was wrong, so why doesn't she just tell me.

"Nothing."

Anyway, I waited until we got in the car and then I asked her again to tell me what was wrong. Then she goes into how she didn't get the part she auditioned for and that she kept getting knocked out of the bathtub and into the darkness. I understood not getting the role, but the rest of it was bizarre to say the least, until she explained the bathtub was part of a scene they were doing. I tried to explain to her that it's rough not getting the part she wanted, but that happens sometimes and that she should still try and do the best that she can with the part she did get (she's apparently part of the court), and try to not let the disappointment ruin the rest of her fun while she's in camp. She had to let her sorrow wash through her for a little while before she could smile and think life was worth living again. And, I understand that. Sometimes we like to just stew in our misery, don't we?

Once she'd finished feeling sorry for herself, the contempt came into play. "I don't even know why the girl who got the part got it," she said. "She doesn't even say the right words."

I told her that it's the director's job to worry about people not doing their jobs and that she should just concentrate on making sure she does her role the way she's supposed to. I think she understands that, but I totally get that she's got to trash the little ho that stole her part.

Burning Questions.

I'm a person who likes answers. If I wonder something, I want to know who, what, when, where, why, and how. However, even I am sometimes stumped in my quest to find answers to all the questions that pop into my head. To wit, I'm going to periodically post those questions and hope that someone out there can answer them for me. I'm also willing to entertain plausible theories, so, please, give me some answers.

Question 1:
Why doesn't Whoopi Goldberg have eyebrows?

Question 2:
Has Michael Jackson really, truly lost his nose to too many surgeries?

So there's a couple to get you started. I'm hoping you will help to dispell any remaining vestiges of ignorance I shamefully carry upon my shoulders. And thanks. You're all swell.

Finished. Finally, truly finished.

So that's that. No more Harry Potter. It's finally finished and I'm kind of sad about it. By the way, there will probably be spoilers in this post, so if you don't want to know what happens in Deathly Hallows, I'd suggest you stop reading now. Speaking of the deathly hallows, I really don't know why they were even in the story. It all seemed pretty unnecessary to me. I don't think it really added anything. Generally speaking, I like the book as much as I like all the other ones. But I am disappointed that there seems to be so much still left up in the air. If this is the last book, give people the satisfaction of tying up all loose ends. I hear JK Rowling plans on releasing a sort of encyclopedia of everything not in the books, which would be helpful. Although, I hope it's just not an encyclopedia in the classic sense. I'd like it to be written as a narrative. Go ahead and organize or categorize like an encyclopedia, but write the stories.

I'm bummed that she killed the people she killed, except for Voldemort of course. The only thing is that it all seemed sort of anti-climatic. I dont know what I was expecting, but I thought Voldemort's death would somehow be more shocking than it was. I don't know. I am glad, though, that she did not kill off Ron or Hermione. I think that was a real fear of many readers, but she's leaves them alive. The death that bummed me out the most was definitely Fred. I can't imagine how George's life goes on without his twin. I wish she would have gotten a little deeper into their future lives. I mean, she gives the epilogue, but she only gives you tiny hint of what their lives are like. I felt so sad that Tonks and Lupin both die, leaving their son parentless. I mean, come on, she could have left at least one of them alive so little Teddy didn't have to end up an orphan.

My daughter is currently listening to the audio book and just heard that Hedwig died and she asked, "How much more can [JK Rowling] do to Harry?"



By the way, one of my daughter's friends clued me into the Potter Puppet Theatre on You Tube. It's sad, but true, to say I've finally reached a point of my life where my cues on the hip and relevant come from nine-year-olds.

Can't. Talk.

Reading. Harry. Potter. 100. Pages. Left.

My daughter is a whiner.

My daughter is now attempting to practice guitar for the first time in a month, and she is really making it a bitch. She has class tomorrow, so I told her to start practicing last night because she hasn't done it at all these last few weeks of vacation, and she plunks a couple of notes before wailing, "I can't remember anything." My big mistake was trying to reason with her. I told her to go back to some of the older stuff that she's played a million times so that her fingers could get back in the groove of it and sort of jump start her memory. But she was determined to whine, and utterly convinced that she didn't remember how to play guitar. Anyway, I told her to wait until her father came home to help her (he reads music and I don't), but that didn't happen because we had a dinner date with friends last night. So she's trying to practice now and telling my husband that she's lost and she doesn't understand what he's trying to tell her. It probably wouldn't be sooooooo bad if she weren't literally whining. You know, those pathetic sort of noises kids make when they're complaining about something. She just did it again and it's all I can do to keep from flying off the handle. I HATE it when kids whine and my first impulse is always to smack them. I particularly hate it when my daughter whines because it means she's not even trying and that infuriates me more than anything. I probably shouldn't be admitting these things because now a world of strangers will think I'm an abusive mother, but what are ya gonna do? While I'm confessing my sins, let me tell you what I did earlier this evening. My daughter had a loose tooth that she finally agreed to let us pull out. My husband's preferred tool is pliers. So he yanks that sucker out and I tell her to rinse and spit until I can bring down some gauze for her to bite on to stop the bleeding. One of the things I didn't mention about while we were on vacation was that my mother stayed at our house to watch our dog. She took that opportunity to completely clean and reorganize my house. (Something she knows I don't like her doing.) So I went up to the linen closest and couldn't find the gauze, but I did see my box of tampons. And that's when the wheels started turning. Tampons are made to staunch bleeding and, surely, they're sterile because women shove them up their cooches. That technically makes them a medical supply. So I took one out and removed the applicator and took the cotton down to my daughter and told her to put it in her mouth and bite down. She asked me what it was and I told her it was something specifically made to stop bleeding. I have to admit it was a little funny to see her walk around with the tampon string hanging out of her mouth. And that's how we mothers get back at our children for whining. I should have taken a picture.

Harry.

Went to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix yesterday and it was pretty good. In some ways, I think it did a good job of distilling the book down to its essentials. However, it's always a bit disappointing that the movies can't include a lot of the side stories that make the books so entertaining. In particular, Hermione's SPEW movement. I think that's some of the funniest stuff in the books. But, it's a different medium and one that is unfortunately limited to a couple of hours, for commercial purposes anyway. It's hard to know how someone without any prior knowledge of the books would view the films, but it's also hard not to fill in the blanks when you know what they are. Does that make the movies more enjoyable than they might be otherwise? I don't know. All I know, is that I thouroughly enjoyed this latest installment. I thought the actress playing Luna Lovegood did an excellent job getting across Luna's, well, loonieness. It's always a shame to me that actors like Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman only get a few short minutes to show their stuff, because they are so damn good at what they do. I thought Imelda Staunton was wonderful as Dolores Umbridge; although, I wish they would have made her look more the way she's described in the book. She wasn't nearly toady enough, I thought. At any rate, I liked the movie and didn't feel like I'd wasted my money.

Changing topics now, I'm attending my 20th high school reunion next month. I'm excited to see my friends becaue I haven't been to Utah in about eight years. Although, I'm always more interested to see how people, in general, have turned out. I know how all my friends are doing, so of course, I'm really interested in all the other people. Basically the people who treated me poorly. I want to see if their lives have descended into the hell they should have. I'm kidding. I don't really wish people's lives have turned out crappily. Seriously. I'm not that cruel. Most of the time.

Back to the real world.

Well, we're back from Disney and everything seems really anti-climactic now. How does one live in the real world once they've seen Disney? It was fun, but that place is a finely-tuned money sucking machine. It's incredible the way they make you forget about everything and keep you focused on spending, spending, spending. Like when you're finished with a ride, it empties out into a gift shop. And you find that you must spend your money. You can't help yourself. Beyond that, it really is a fun place. My daughter said it was the best week of her life, and isn't that really what it's all about?

Here are some things I learned while in Disney:
1. It's a bad idea to plan a trip to Disney when your children are babies or toddlers. We specifically waited until our daughter reached nine because I wanted her to be old enough to walk all day long and be old enough to control her emotions. At least be able to control them better than a baby or toddler. I saw these families dragging these kids around who were just miserable. I mean they were probably having some fun, but they were also crying and whining about the heat and having major meltdowns. To me, this is something you experience everyday when children are that age. I am not going to pay big money to take my child across the country to have her do what she does at home for free.

2. People are still jerks, even in Disney World. It's amazing to me how rude people are in a place like Disney World because everyone is there to have a good time, right? I mean, if you're going to get upset because the line is too long and the weather is sweltering, you shouldn't be there and you definitely shouldn't be taking it out on your family or other visitors. I saw some really harsh stuff as far as parents just going off on their kids and being majorly rude. For instance, I lost sight of my daughter at one point while she was watching this High School Musical thing. I was just trying to get through the crowd a bit so I could find her and know where she was. As I was squeezing by this lady, she actually started pushing me off to the side and I was like, "Look, I'm just trying to find my daughter, OK?" And she's like, well I'm keeping an eye on my kid, too. And pushes me off to the side again. Like she thought I was trying to steal her space or something. Whatever. I just wanted to catch sight and I eventually had to get down on my hands and knees so I could peer between people's legs to see where she was. But not until after I stood right next to the lady at ear level and screamed my daughter's name as loud as I could. Have I ever mentioned I can scream really, really loud? I mean really loud. I'm pretty sure they heard me at all the other parks.

3. I hate European tour groups. Everywhere we went, we encountered these tour groups compiled of about 300 hundred teenagers and God help you if you ended up in the middle of one of these groups, or worse, behind them. Seriously, it's like trying to make your way through a stampede of wildebeest or something. And they're clueless. They don't seem to have the ability to figure out what they should be doing or able to discern what's going on around them because they're focused so closely on the person with the flag that's taking them around the place. It's like sheep. Nothing else exists but the leader. So you get jostled and generally abused. They should outlaw those tour groups or mandate that any individual group can only hold up to 20 people.

4. People from the UK are generally very friendly. I cannot count the number of times we ended up in conversation with families from the UK because one of the parents just started talking to us. I didn't mind it at all and they were all very enjoyable conversations. Not so many Americans did the same. I just find it interesting that as a society, we seem so disconnected from each other that we're unlikely to want to speak to strangers. Even at Disney World.

Blueberries, anyone?

My mother, daughter, friend Cyndi and I just returned from picking blueberries. We brought home roughly thirty pounds, and my friend picked about eleven pounds. It's the first time I've ever gone blueberry picking and it was a lot of fun. When we got there, though, they directed us to a certain area where the bushes weren't too spectacular. The berries all looked pretty small, but we passed several bushes where the berries were pretty large, so my mom asked if we could do those and the girl was trying to tell us how they were really open yet, but my mom pointed out other people were picking the berries from that area and, finally, the girl had no choice but to relent and let my mom have access to the other bushes. We stayed in the original area, but then my daughter went to pick with my mother and came back with the mother lode of berries, so we moseyed on over the good plants. When we got there, there was some guy there rapidly picking only the large berries and then moving on to the next plant. You're supposed to pick a bush as clean as you can before you move on to the next one, so this guy was pretty much breaking the law. Well, don't ever think you can get between my mother and good anything, so she would move to the bush in front of him to strike before he could get to it. My friend Cyndi, who goes to this berry farm pretty often, told us there was a woman who works at the farm who she calls the Blueberry Nazi because this woman yells at people if they don't pick a bush clean before moving on. I saw the lady before we left. She does look like a Blueberry Nazi. Anyway, it was a good time and I recommend it highly if you ever get the chance.

Happy Fourth of July.

The child comes home today and I'd be really excited about it if I had time to dwell on it. But, my parents are bringing home the child which means as soon as I post this blog, I am off for some MAJOR house cleaning. Mainly because my mother maintains a certain standard of cleanliness that's hard for most humans to maintain. What's worse is that she's not too shy sharing how I do not quite live up to that standard. She might not say anything at first, or ever, but then you see in her eyes how she's scanning everything and making a mental note as to what she's going to tackle first. And when I say tackle, I mean clean. It bothers me that I can't control what goes on in my own house when she's here. I tell her to stop and attempt to physically restrain her from cleaning, but then she tells me she's just trying to help me and why don't I let her help me and why do I try to make her feel guilty for wanting to help me. It's a point of contention that will never be resolved because my mother simply refuses to acknowledge that it's not her god-given right or responsibility to clean my house, or rearrange it, or improve it, and I refuse to acknowledge that it is. In many ways, this argument boils down to cultural differences. Korean mothers do clean their children's houses and the children let them, and in some ways expect them to do it. However, as far as house cleaning goes, I'm thoroughly American and don't want my mother to feel like she has to do anything other than relax when she in my home. In fact, I find it somewhat disturbing that some of my Korean cousins don't have any problem letting their mothers do their housework. In my mind, my home is my responsibility and I'm certainly not going to expect my mother to lift a finger in addressing that responsibility. Anyway, although I love having my parents here, it's always just a matter of time before that bomb explodes and we end up with another screaming match about cleaning. It's a bummer to have that cloud hanging over your head. So, I'm off to clean. How does this all fit in with Fourth of July? It's all about the fireworks, baby.