Fast Five

Alright, so I'm home from my Spring Break vacation.  We went to my dad's and then down to my hometown.  We had a ton of fun.  I was reminded of why I miss it (great get-togethers with my friends and family) and why I will never move back (the heat, the heat, mosquitoes, the heat, a couple random people that I would be perfectly happy if they went cliff driving during low tide.......did I mention the heat?).  So now I'm working overtime on my master plan to kidnap as many of my near and dear ones and force them to relocate closer to me.  

  



For our trip home, I scored two house guests.  My granny and her dog.  She's come up to spend some time with me and the boys and to tour Washington DC as much as possible.  So, with her help, me and the hubs got to go out on a date last night.  YAY!! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And because my husband and I are predictable like that....we went to dinner and a movie.  

Dinner was delicious.  Somehow, in my entire life of living near good seafood and loving shrimp, I completely missed out on grilled shrimp.  How did that happen?  I'm so upset that I've missed out on so many years of eating my new favorite food.  

After educating my palate, we hurried back to the late showing of Fast Five.  

Vin Diesel......*drool*
The Rock....with a goatee.......*drool*
Vin Diesel's voice............*double drool*

The movie was great.  It wasn't as much of a racing movie as the first (and third) installments; but it was much more about the characters and developing their story.  I didn't leave with an overwhelming need to street-race on the way home, but I definitely left glad that we choose to watch that movie.

Plus it had The Rock, bulked up bigger than I've seen him in a very long time, with a goatee.  


And Vin Diesel.


All that comes together to equal fun for the boys AND that girls.  Yay!


HELPFUL HINT:  When you go watch the movie, stay until after the credits are over.  They left a little clip for you at the end.

Things I learned on my trip to my dad's house

1- It takes 4 1/2 hours to get from Washington DC to Quantico Marine Base if you never go over 25 mph.

2-  If you drive fast enough when it's raining, you don't need to use windshield wipers.

3-  I have approximately 8 hours worth of songs that start with the letter "L" on my iPod.

4-  If the Christian nutjobs are right and I'm going to hell, I'm pretty sure I will have to constantly relive that drive over and over again for eternity.

Wow

Apparently my sons' elementary school has a seedy underbelly of prolific anabolic steroid use.

This was hanging front and center in their gym this afternoon.

This definitely wasn't in the community brochure.

But now I'm starting to really question why my oldest son has grown 3 sizes in the past year.  Do prepubescent 'roiders need rehab?

I'm going to volunteer myself to be cloned

I think having more than one of me around would be very very helpful....but only if we could somehow mystically share one brain.
 
Like, Clone One - Go finish the laundry.  Clone Two - Finish reading this book.  Clone Three - Go pick up the boys from school.  Clone Four - Make sure that The Tyrant stays in bed and takes his nap.  Original Me - Go to the movies. 

Then we'd all break off to do our assignments and when we come back together all the thoughts, information, and memories each of us produced while on our assignments would meld together into one collective consciousness that we all share. 

It be awesome. 

But I figure I'll either become a complete recluse, happy in my own company, or I'll hate all myselfs after two weeks. 

Is it against the law to kill your own clone?  

Uh-mazing!

Today, I went to see Cirque du Soleil's "Totem" in Baltimore.

It was absolutely fantastic!

Everything was wonderful, but the acts that stood out the most to me were the Native American skating acrobats, the Native American Hoop Dancer, and the trapeze "Love Birds". 

And I'm a little shocked that my husband didn't immediately leave me to go be the juggling Russian twins' groupie. This chick, times 2. 

I think when we roll through Vegas, we should try to hit up the Zumanity show.......

Cirque du Soleil's 18 and Over show....acrobatic burlesque.  Awesome!

This is bullshit

There is a good chance that we are only going to pull in half a paycheck on the 15th.  All because some douchebags in Congress are willing to shut down the government in order to cut funding to Planned Parenthood and other family planning and women's health clinics, which provides many necessary services to many, many women. 

Despite the fact that cutting the funding to these clinics will ultimately cost the government MUCH MUCH MORE than it will save.  These clinics specialize in providing low-income women with check-ups, exams, pap smears, STD testing, and birth control.  If these low income women aren't able to afford these services without the help of these clinics....how are they going to afford the unplanned pregnancies, children, diseases, and subsequent medical care that stems from having no access to regular women's health services? 

They aren't....and the government will end up footing the bill. 

But these fucktards are so invested in imposing their morality on the rest of the world that they are willing to screw over a large portion of the population (ie. the military, government workers, and anyone who will need to utilize any of the government services) so that they can exert some kind of control over women and their bodies. 

I think Chloe over at Feministing put it best:

A citizen’s health is not a bargaining chip. A citizen’s health is not a political football. Unless, apparently, that citizen happens to be a woman, in which case, bargain and play ball. We’re only 51% of the population. We’re only responsible for gestating the next generation of Americans, so we don’t really need to be healthy. We’re only women, right, so who the fuck cares?

 No, really, I wasn’t asking that rhetorically. Who the fuck cares? I sure as hell hope the Democrats do.

Unfortunately, I don't have a whole lot of hope that they do.  It's been proven time and time again that women's rights and health are ALWAYS on the table if it's politically convenient.

Ooohhhh

I want to see this!

What can I say...there's not a lot going on here.

I know I watch a lot of movies.  But really....books and movies are my only hobbies right now.  Personally, I think they are pretty damn good ones.  At least I won't be saddling my kids with some ginormous (and completely useless) rock collection when I die.

The other night I watched a movie called Chloe....

 

 

 

Basically, it's a tamer, lesbian version of Fatal Attraction.

It was good.  Julianne Moore's character has an extremely flirtatious husband (played by Liam Neeson) and she comes across reasons to believe that he is cheating on her.....soooo, she does what any sane woman would do.  Hire a prostitute to come onto him to see if he is willing to sleep with her...then sleep with said prostitute to get back at him.  What could possibly go wrong in this scenario? 

"You are so lucky that you don't have a rabbit I can boil."

I also watched "Brothers" with Natalie Portman, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Tobey Maguire.  It was an excellent, and very heartbreaking,story about a Marine and his family.  He goes to Afghanistan, where his helicopter is shot down.  The military tells his family that he is dead, but he actually was taken prisoner, tortured, starved and made to do incredibly horrible things until he is rescued.  When he comes home, reintegrating with his family that he thinks has moved on from him proves to be more than he can handle.  It's a seriously heartbreaking movie.   

Both of these movies are on Netflix Instant Streaming, if you are interested.

Kid shows I absolutely loathe....

So, I'm sitting here with my three year old watching Caillou....which is one of the more moderately annoying cartoons on television.  While I prefer Dora the Explorer, Go Diego Go, or Mrs. Spider's Sunny Patch, I will take unrealistically happy parents parenting an amazingly whiny kid over these shows any day of the week. 

CHOWDER

This show is not just annoying....it's down-right STUPID.  I banned my boys from watching it after seeing an episode where Chowder, his best friend, and his mentor are accidentally locked in a tower...where they proceed to drown themselves in their own pee.  WTF?

 YO GABBA GABBA

Those are the eyes of a man who has hit rock bottom.

SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS

Really, who comes up with this ridiculous crap?  Every single character on this show is mind-numbingly annoying.  Every. Single. One.

 TELETUBBIES

None of them.  Thank god.  Because I would shoot myself.

 And I saved this for last, because it's not a show, it's a movie.  If by movie you mean horrible, screeching teenager (pre-teenager?) who records his crapfest on film to torture the rest of the world with. 

My kids and husband love it.  It makes me want to gauge my eardrums out with an ice pick.

*Sigh* I long for the days of He-Man and She-Ra. 

Why is this so hard to understand?

Today, one of my favorite feminist writers, Jessica Valenti, posted a link to her most recent "The Daily" article on Facebook.  Entitled "Daddy Issues", this article explains how until our culture stops treating parenting as 'women's work' and holding fathers to a much lower standard than mothers, we will never have a society where truly responsible parenthood is embraced by men. 

Everyone should read it.

I've known a lot fathers.  I've known a few men (and women) who shouldn't be allowed near the children they've helped conceive.  But I've known far more men who were good guys, but mediocre to down right crappy fathers...and the vast majority of those fathers thought that they were good - even great - dads.  And furthermore, they were never called on their mediocrity by their family or friends.  In fact, they were generally lauded as good fathers just simply because they spent any amount of time with their children at all. 

This, in my humble opinion, is complete and total crap. 

Changing diapers, bathing and dressing children, feeding them, taking them to doctor's and dental appointments, volunteering at their schools, helping them with homework, teaching them the thousands of things that they need to know in order to live and be happy in this world......all of these things are what PARENTS do.  Not just mothers.  If you have a child, and you're not doing ALL of these things on a regular basis......then you aren't being a responsible parent. 

Ha, there may be hope for me yet.....

When I was little, I became completely enamored with this movie called "Clan of the Cave Bear".  Between the ages of about 7 and 9, I watched "Clan of the Cave Bear" and the "Labyrinth" over and over again every single day.

Can you imagine how long my mother must have had the "Magic Dance" song in her head?!  Sorry Mom.

Once I got a little older, I bought and read Clan of the Cave Bear (and the three books that followed it - Valley of the Horses, The Mammoth Hunters, and The Plains of Passage).  I loved the series.  Quite a few years later, I found and read the fifth installment of the series, The Shelters of Stone.  And for quite a few more years, I've been increasingly disappointed because I thought that Jean M. Auel was going to leave the story unfinished. 

But, lo and behold, Ms. Auel has finally released The Land of the Painted Caves!  Ten years after the release of The Shelters of Stone......and a grand total of 31 years after she first released Clan of the Cave Bear. 

Makes me feel a little bit better about the fact that I've been diddling away at my story for just under a year and only have 63 pages. 

Writer's block is a bitch.