Distracted by Rap

People, I have a problem.  I'm addicted to celebrity tributes to rap.  And while I meant to blog about my fantabulous weekend with my high school posse, I sort of got all wrapped up in the Jimmy Fallon/Justin Timberlake tribute to rap.  Now, it's 10 p.m., and The Wife must shower.  For the good of her family, her workplace, and the Nation.


Let me say quickly that I hope y'all voted today - CH and I figured out at 7:56 p.m. we hadn't voted and it's Election Day, so we left the teen in charge of the third grader in the bathtub, ran out of the house and drove the three blocks to the polling station (yes, we drove, but c'mon, we only had a few minutes and we are thick and slow) and just made it in to vote, which probably raised the turnout in our district to 9%.  But really, you can't complain about government if you don't participate, people!


Back to the rapping and the showering  - enjoy these, and I will post some drinking pics tomorrow.





PART 2:





PART 3:
They disabled the embedding function on this one, so you have to go to the link. Let's just see how committed you ARE to this, huh? Because I watched it, people.
Jimmy and Justin and Part 3

Monday Minivan Media

Picture yourself in the front seat of my Venture minivan. (Oh yes. You're already green with envy over my life of obvious excess.) We both have a grande skinny vanilla latte, and we have a little time to kill. We could be waiting for our kids, or for our meth dealer to show up. No matter. We're here, in the van, together. Let's talk pop culture. I promise to give you a 1000 word review where less than 10% is actually about the topic. It's like having an actual conversation with me.


Today's movie: Midnight in Paris

Okay, I know today is actually Tuesday, but really, I'm so far behind that on my To Do List it is still Monday, so I'm going to put this in the Win column.  On a side note, still best time ever because I got to leave work today at 12:30 and take my kidlets to the pool, where I sat on a chair and started Hunger Games and drank a gi-freaking-normous fountain Diet Coke and got a small sunburn.  Lovely.  I know I will regret the Diet Coke and the sunburn someday, but for a few hours I felt like I was 17 again.  Except that my legs looked less like Barbie legs and more like turkey drumsticks and these three kids kept calling me Mom.  At one point, the Depeche Mode song "Personal Jesus" came on at the pool, and I was truly transported.  But do I want to be back in high school?  Never.  College?  Maybe.  But now is pretty good too.  Which brings me to the topic at hand.

Last night I had the double benefit of seeing a friend I haven't seen in a while and going to the movie "Midnight in Paris".  I normally avoid Woody Allen movies because of the whole "gettin' down with Soon-Yi" thing, but this one had Owen Wilson in it and it is about writers and Paris, so game on.

And? It has a cool poster.

The movie was terrific.  Owen Wilson is the same, affable, yearning character he always is, Rachel McAdams is gorgeous but cutting, and I love Michael Sheen in anything.  (Marion Cotilliard is great too, I loved her in La Vie En Rose, but she lost me when she started spouting off about how the US government was complicit in 9/11.  I mean, puh-lease.)  The theme in the movie is wanting to be somewhere else.  Owen Wilson is a writer who wants to be in another time, and he ends up in Paris in the 1920's with Hemingway and the Fitzgeralds and parties galore, and he lives the life of an American in Paris.  Lovely.  The scenery made me want to be a foreign exchange student.  But one starts to explore the idea of being somewhere else.  Do we all yearn to be a part of another time?  In another place?  Do the people who live in that time and place yearn to be elsewhere?  What does it mean to be happy where you are?

Besides getting all philosophical, I drank a large Diet Coke and ate half a bag of buttered movie popcorn, which, combined with the raw broccoli and dip I had before I left home, very burpy.  I am sure the people sitting around me were thrilled about that turn of events.

In sum - my legs look like drumsticks, I still like Depeche Mode, and I have horrible gas after eating broccoli or movie theater popcorn.  That is all.

Happy Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday, and go see the movie, and then yearn for Paris.  And maybe the 1920's.  But take it easy on the popcorn.

What great movies have you seen this summer?  Any recommendations?

The Asylum is Empty

Be careful what you wish for, 'cause you just might get it.

A few months ago, Oldest Daughter was told by her cello instructor that she should go to a music camp at a private college in northern Iowa.  After I got over the tuition stroke, I said, "Sure, great" because it all works into my theory that there aren't many pregnant or meth-addled teen cellists.  Then I had a crazy thought.  Current Husband's parents live in northern Iowa.  Perhaps they could be talked into taking the other two children during the same week.  CH and I could have the week ALONE.

By some small miracle, it worked.  This morning, we drove nearly four hours to take OD to her camp.  We checked her into registration, and took her things up to her DORM ROOM, and as we climbed the stairs my throat started constricting and a whisper in my brain started chanting, "Four more years! Four more years!" It didn't help matters that on the drive up I read an article in Parade magazine about teen binge drinking on college campuses, which all parents who want to panic can read here.  http://www.parade.com/health/caregiving/index.html

Then I started thinking about me in college, and I kept thinking, "She's not ready!  She's just a baby!"  But the baby bird pushed the mama bird out of the nest and made me leave her and pray that there is no hanky panky at orchestra camps.

We then drove The Son and Youngest Daughter to CH's mom and stepdad's house, where they will stay until mid-week, and then they will be switched to CH's dad and stepmom's house, where they will stay until we drive back up next Saturday to collect OD.  All of the kids will have a fun-filled week.  I thought I would as well, until I Aunt Flo dropped in a week early this morning, so no Brown Chicken Brown Cow as previously planned.

We got home, and the house is so....quiet.  I can think in complete sentences.  I can eat ice cream without anyone asking for a bite, or better, for me to please get them some.  It's weird.  It's 9:30 p.m. now, and normally I would be on my last nerve trying to get them to finally go to bed, but the only thing I can hear is the dryer running and CH playing Modern Warfare on XBOX 360 without The Son telling him how to play.  Is this what the empty nest holds in store for me?  I'm not completely sure I like it.

But while I'm trying to figure that out, I'm going to cut this blog short and get in bed, early, and try to finish the book Commencement by J. Courtney Sullivan.  I highly recommend it so far.

Happy Monday, and have a great week!

Monday Minivan Media

Picture yourself in the front seat of my Venture minivan. (Oh yes. You're already green with envy over my life of obvious excess.) We both have a grande skinny vanilla latte, and we have a little time to kill. We could be waiting for our kids, or for our meth dealer to show up. No matter. We're here, in the van, together. Let's talk pop culture. I promise to give you a 1000 word review where less than 10% is actually about the topic. It's like having an actual conversation with me.


Today's musical: Avenue Q

The other day I was behind a car with a bumper stick that read, "Friends Don't Let Friends Drink Starbucks", and I had to laugh.  I do love me some Starbucks, but I would really prefer to drink Rocket Fuel from my friend Tommie's coffee shop in Mount Vernon, Iowa.  She has awesome coffee and kick-ass scones and cookies baked by her mama, Pat, and it is a complete funkatorium of art and antiques and badass tshotckes.  Here is her facebook page, I'll wait.  Fuel... art and espresso. You might have to be signed in to Facebook to link up.  If you see something you like and it is smallish, I'm sure Tommie will happily ship it to you.

Coffee addictions aside, Current Husband and I made it out to see Avenue Q.  It's kind of a shock that I got him out, musicals aren't really his thing, but when he found out I was chatting up the guy next to me at Mamma Mia, he decided to get some culture.  No matter that I was talking to the guy next to me and his husband, still, I was mixing it up at a musical.  CH's danger siren went off.

Avenue Q is pretty hysterical.  Some of it is a little bit "Hey, we're swearing!  Isn't that hilarious!" but other parts are priceless.  Here is my favorite song:



Because really, everyone IS a little bit racist.  The other one I really love is called "I Wish I Could Go Back To College", which honestly almost made me tear up, but really.  I do.  My life now is great, but there were moments in college that the fun just didn't seem like it could ever end.  *sigh*



So let's address the creepy factor here.  As evidenced in this video, there are times in the musical where two people run a puppet, and usually it's a spare woman.  You find yourself paying less attention to what is going on, and instead look at that chick and think, "Is she really necessary?  That guy couldn't run both puppet hands?  What a lazy jackass."  The spare puppeteer walks around a step behind the main puppeteer, trying to convey the puppet emotions without actually saying anything.  She ends up looking like a sign language interpreter who isn't really signing to anyone.  I was a little fascinated by her.  Does the rest of the cast exclude her from things because she isn't "really" a cast member?  Does she sit outside of the main puppeteer's dressing room and weep until it's time to go on?  Do the puppets get a better seat on the tour bus than she does?  These are questions I need answered in the Playbill.

CH was very excited about our seats, because they were in the balcony, and they were seats 1 and 2 in our row, which were the only two seats in that row.  He thought that made them more ideal.  When the show started, we figured out quickly that the audio wasn't very good, so we couldn't hear about 50% of what was said.  I already know the songs, so I know when to laugh, but CH just got more frustrated with the whole thing.  It necessitated another drink at intermission.

What did I learn?

1. Everyone IS a little bit racist.
2. The Internet is for porn.
3. Naked puppets having sex can be just as graphic as real people having sex.
4. I want to go back to college.  Just for a couple of weeks.  Or for a mulligan if I could end up with the same husband and children.
5. I'm losing my hearing, along with mobility in my knees.
6. Season tickets to musicals would make CH an alcoholic.

In sum, Avenue Q gets four furry paws up.
Happy Monday, Wifers!

Monday Minivan Media

Picture yourself in the front seat of my Venture minivan. (Oh yes. You're already green with envy over my life of obvious excess.) We both have a grande skinny vanilla latte, and we have a little time to kill. We could be waiting for our kids, or for our meth dealer to show up. No matter. We're here, in the van, together. Let's talk pop culture. I promise to give you a 1000 word review where less than 10% is actually about the topic. It's like having an actual conversation with me.


Today's musical: Mamma Mia

I think I've figured out the smell from last Friday.  George the Superpet is extremely shaggy, because I don't get him groomed in the winter because I feel all guilty taking away his coat.  It's like saying to your cute, defenseless kindergartner, "Hey, I know you have this really awesomely warm sheepskin coat, but since it's about 10 degrees outside, I'm going to make you go outside in just a tank top and pee in the yard."  So George still has his very thick sheepskin/poodle coat on, but it's been thawing, and even though I picked up five grocery bags of poodle poop the other day, the dog still poops every day, and he has apparently been acting as a large Poodle Swiffer in my backyard, collecting mud, bracken, and the remains of the 30 or so feral cats from the backyard in his shagginess.  He's been banned from my bed, which makes him very upset, and I'm calling a groomer tomorrow.  He weighed in at 111.2 pounds at the vet last week, but I bet 10 pounds of it is his coat.  Poor George.

So last Saturday, I loaded up the girls and drove to Omaha, Nebraska.  It's a five hour drive from my house, and until Des Moines it's okay, but the stretch between DSM and Omaha is enough to make you want to drive straight off of a cliff.  If there were any cliffs between Des Moines and Omaha, which there are not.  It's very flat and devoid of much, so even if you wanted to drive into something, you couldn't.  It's especially awesome when your 7-year-old says, "How much longer, I can't take it any more" about every 15 minutes.  You can't even bribe the children because it is the longest stretch in the world without a McDonalds.

I grew up in Nebraska, and live in Iowa, so I can say mean things about them because it is said with love in my heart.  It's kind of like how I can say, "It drives me nuts how my husband can just sit on the couch all night and watch TV" but if you say, "Doesn't it drive you nuts how your husband sits on the couch all night and watches TV" I will be forced to say, "No, I encourage it.  It keeps him from screwing the neighbor like yours does."  This is how I am about Iowa and Nebraska.  If you say, "It's so boring to drive there" I will say something like, "It's beautiful in its sparseness - ever hear of Willa Cather?  Try driving through Kansas."

We got to my parent's house, which is actually just a summer cabin on the Elkhorn River, and of course, my mom wasn't there.  She was shopping with my sister, which is where she usually is when I show up.  This time, they were shopping for three queen-size inflatable mattresses, because my sister's house was full of natural gas as their furnace broke.  Oh, and I was on Day 2 of my period.  If only we had a leper and a whore and this story would take on Biblical proportions.

My mom was taking Oldest Daughter, my sister, and me to Mamma Mia at the Orpheum Theater in Omaha for OD's birthday.  We sat around talking until we realized with a panic that we were late, we raced to the restaurant only to find that the wait was too long and we ended up at Panera Bread to eat fast before the show.  Mom had accidentally deleted the tickets from her e-mail, so we had to drop her off for the Will Call window at the front of the theater.  We dropped her off for the tickets, found a parking garage a couple of blocks away, prayed for a crime-free night and settled in for the show.

She is not in ABBA, nor is she a Mamma, and it is not set in Italy.

She is laughing at us, not with us.

Mamma Mia was terrific, with two notable exceptions:  A) the girl playing Sophie was very ANIMATED and THEATRICAL to the point of distraction, and B) Colin Firth was notably absent from the role of Harry.  I moaned loudly about the lack of Firthiness in the show, and during intermission my mom very loudly told us all a story about the last time she was in the Orpheum Theater: 

"Suzanne from work and I came here to see a movie, it must have been about 30 years ago or so, and I looked across the aisle and there was this guy jacking off, and it was the only time I've ever seen someone do that in public.  He was REALLY into it.  But the Orpheum has really changed since then, it's so much nicer."

You're welcome, everyone in Loge seating section 2.

Inside the Orpheum Theater,

where no one masturbates anymore.

So the show ended and we drove home and mom wanted to know why everyone was going to bed?  Aren't you going to stay up and have a drink?  Um, Mom, it's 1 a.m., and I have to drive five hours tomorrow.  Stay up with me, I never see you.  Okay.  So I stay up with Mom and have a drink, and when I just can't stay up any longer I crawl into the air mattress and promptly roll into the middle with OD  because the mattress is already deflating, and it's freezing cold in there, and just as I get warm one of the kids gets sick.  All of the adults get up to sit with the sick child, and when that seems to be okay, we all go back to bed around 2:30 or so.  Then I wake up in a panic at 4 a.m. because it's almost dawn of Day 3 of my period and sometimes there is an emergency.  I woke up at 8 a.m. with the same kind of emergency, and at that point mom was up with coffee having her morning smoke, so I decided to stay up with her and eat chocolate cookies for breakfast.  Because we are ALL about health in my family.

At 11 a.m. I packed up the girls and we left, just in time to hit a small snowstorm in Des Moines, and then Youngest Daughter got carsick in Williamsburg and then in West Branch, so I'd like to take this opportunity to say Thank You to McDonalds for having the cleanest restrooms on the Interstate. 

All told, it was nice to see my family, and we loved Mamma Mia.  But Sophia can tone it down a little bit.  And the Orpheum Theater is lovely, even though Colin Firth would have certainly perked everyone up a bit.  The end.

Monday Minivan Media

Picture yourself in the front seat of my Venture minivan. (Oh yes. You're already green with envy over my life of obvious excess.) We both have a grande skinny vanilla latte, and we have a little time to kill. We could be waiting for our kids, or for our meth dealer to show up. No matter. We're here, in the van, together. Let's talk pop culture. I promise to give you a 1000 word review where less than 10% is actually about the topic. It's like having an actual conversation with me.


Today's music: The Black Keys

I hope everyone had a lovely weekend.  It's Sunday night here, and I find myself wanting one more weekend day, as always.  My plan for a perfectly balanced life includes working four eight-hour days and enjoying three day weekends every week.  In addition to that, my plan for a perfect marriage is broken up into a four-week plan - the first weekend, Current Husband leaves the house, the second weekend I leave, the third weekend we run away somewhere together alone, and the fourth weekend is family weekend with the kids.  This way, we each get alone time, and we get one-on-one time with the kids, we get a weekend to walk around naked and drink excessively, and one weekend where we soley do things as a family.  According to this plan, my life is completely unbalanced.  Unless spending 60% of my time either preparing meals alone in the kitchen or driving people around town is considered "alone" time and "one-on-one" time.

We are expecting another 8-10 inches of snow in my part of Iowa in the next two days, and frankly, I'm over it.  So suck it, Winter, move on back to Northern Canada or Russia where you belong.  It's days like these when I spend an unhealthy amount of time fantasizing I'm in a Corona commerical.  I can almost feel the sandy beaches.  Sigh.

I bought CH a snowblower two years ago because I was sick of shoveling the walks around our 1/3 acre corner lot, and somehow during the move, the snowblower was broken.  Now, when we try to start it, gasoline pours out of the back of it.  Somehow, this seems wrong.  And unsafe.  And even though CH's life insurance policy is paid up, he is like small furnace in bed and I would be very cold without him, and I need him to pick up the slack in driving people to activities, so I guess we're back to shoveling.  We should be getting that piece of equipment fixed sometime around Easter, when the lawnmower is scheduled to break down.

So.  The Black Keys. (Click there for the fansite.)  For the first time in a long time, I've found a band where I'm not having an adolescent crush on the guitarist.  And I STILL LIKE THEM.  Wow.  I've heard The Black Keys off and on for a few years, but really started liking them when I got the Eclipse soundtrack.  Make fun of those movies all you want, but their soundtracks kick ass.  Here is a video from The Keys that I love - the drummer has the glasses, the guitarist and singer is the ginger.




Okay, how adorable is that?  And funny!  And who can believe these two dorky white guys from Akron, Ohio can come up with that big soul bluesy sound? Their latest album, "Brothers" is up for a bunch of Grammys, and they are pretty cool. But of course, now that I like them, they are done touring because they're burned out. I am like the Grim Reaper for bands, once I like them, it's over. 

Whole album is great - I give it five whiskey sours.

In other music news, Nelly and 3Oh3 are playing within 3 hours of me, and I'm really tempted to go, but am afraid I will get punched or shot, and I'm too old for that shit.

In unrelated music news, Flavor Flav opened a new chicken restaurant nearby, thus proving once again that truth is stranger than fiction. I loved a comment in the local newspaper that went something like this:

"I watched some of his reality show, and I won't eat ANYTHING Flav has touched." 

Happy Monday, have a great week!

UPDATE:  NPR's Teri Gross AND Stephen Colbert are totally copying me.  Get original, people!  Click here for more Black Keys info from the poseurs...

Monday Minivan Media

Picture yourself in the front seat of my Venture minivan. (Oh yes. You're already green with envy over my life of obvious excess.) We both have a grande skinny vanilla latte, and we have a little time to kill. We could be waiting for our kids, or for our meth dealer to show up. No matter. We're here, in the van, together. Let's talk pop culture. I promise to give you a 1000 word review where less than 10% is actually about the topic. It's like having an actual conversation with me.



Today's book: "Room" by Emma Donoghue

It was a busy weekend in our house.  In my world, weekends should begin on Friday after work, when I take off my work clothes and put on flannel pj's and a t-shirt, and then I should be able to stay in said outfit until Monday morning, when I get ready to go to work.  So you like pina coladas and gettin' caught in the rain?  Well I like a nice malbec and sleeping in until 10.  I also like movies, ordering out, reading books, and morning coffee.  This weekend had a little more going on, and I still have a freelance article due tomorrow, but guess what I'm doing?  Blogging.  Because I haven't procrastinated my paid work long enough.  Plus, I have the hooker job tomorrow, so the paid writing won't get done until about midnight tomorrow night, when I'm panicking and past deadline.  Just like college.

I'm also sore.  My in-laws visited and we had Christmas, and my husband was the recipient of a shiatsu massage chair.  This idea came about when we visited them at Thanksgiving, and I sat in their shiatsu massage chair next to the wood stove and fell asleep in the middle of a conversation.  It was lovely.  And mildly humiliating.  So when they gave Current Husband the chair, I promptly sat in it and spent the next two hours there.  I'm all about too much of a good thing, and last night before I went to bed it felt like I had been worked over by sugared-up preschoolers with metal bats at a pinata party.

Dear God, make it stop. 

Today, I had to buy dog food and chips before the Packers/Bears game (chips for people, dog food and rawhide bone to keep massive pony/pet from blocking the tv screen) and it was all I could do to heft a 20 lb. bag of Purina in the car.  Thankfully, this was my weekend off from the IronMom competition.

The book for my book club this month is Room, by Emma Donoghue.  I first heard of this book earlier this year when NPR did a story on Independent booksellers and how they select books for their stores, and they were all raving about Room and how everyone was buying it to sell in their shops.  It's the story of a 5-year-old boy and his mother, who have been kept captive in a garden shed since the mom was abducted seven years earlier.  This book was at the publisher when Jaycee Dugard was found with her daughters in the shed in California, and the author has said she was completely freaked out by that and didn't think she would want Jaycee to read the book.

One would think this is a creepy read, but it isn't.  It's all told from the perspective of the little boy, so Room is the only place he has every known, and he spends all of his time with his mom.  He mind doesn't think about the creepiness of it, or understand their situation.  I couldn't read The Lovely Bones because I just didn't think I could go there, and I had some misgivings about Room for the same reasons, but I really love this book.  Then I read the book jacket, and saw that Emma and I were born in the same year, yet she has written numerous books and won awards, and then I had to eat 18 Oreos and read People magazine to quell the depression I always feel when people my age are doing things I want to do and I can't seem to get my ass in gear. 

So I guess that was the worst part about reading this book.  If you've accomplished all you've wanted to, and you don't want to be published, and you won't feel despair at her excellent writing and character development, then by all means, read Room. 

I give it five lattes.

Monday Minivan Media

Picture yourself in the front seat of my Venture. (Oh yes. You're already green with envy over my life of obvious excess.) We both have a grande skinny vanilla latte, and we have a little time to kill. We could be waiting for our kids, or for our meth dealer to show up. No matter. We're here, in the van, together. Let's talk pop culture.  I promise to give you a 1000 word review where less than 10% is actually about the topic.  It's like having an actual conversation with me.





Today's book: "Open" by Andre Agassi


My Monday post is a little on the late side, because A) That’s how I roll, and B) Andre Agassi monopolized my time. Tennis players. What a bunch of prima donnas.




Our family spent five lovely years living the quaint Iowa town of Mount Vernon, home of Cornell College. If you are in the vicinity of Mount Vernon, I strongly recommend a drive-by (without guns) where you can shop at the unique stores and eat at the unrivaled Lincoln Café and have coffee and homemade cookies at Nest/Fuel. (Can you tell I used to be on the Tourism Board in that town?)


ANYWHOO – The Son has the cutest friend ever, whom he met in pre-kindergarten, and they are still best buddies. When they were 4 years old, they had their first sleepover together at our house. I didn’t have any brothers, so the whole “boy” thing was a little foreign to me. The Friend had been over for about an hour when these two completely adorable little blonde boys come running up to me, out of breath, and The Friend says, “Mrs. S, can we run around in our underwear?” They both stop, and look me expectantly. Um. I guess there are no mandatory reporters able to see in the windows, so sure, go for it. Both boys strip down to their Bob Builder/Batman tighty whiteys and start just running like hell through the house. I had no idea if this was appropriate play or not, but I watched in fascination for about 20 minutes. Boys. Who knew?


So here we are, seven years later and now about an hour apart, and they still get together three or four times a year and do boy things. I often liken them to St. Bernard puppies, big, hungry, and rolling around and bumping into each other, with huge paws and wide grins. Cutest thing ever.  So The Friend's Mom and I have a little tradition where we exchange books when we exchange boys.  The Friend's Mom has given me books like "Olive Kitteridge" and "The Time Traveller's Wife" and the like.  I've given her "Twilight" and "New Moon" and "Eclipse".  So it's a pretty even exchange.


Last time, she gave me "Open", and I didn't get to it.  I tried to give it back to her on Saturday, (along with my book "Room" for her to read), and she said, "Are you sure?  It was one of the better books I read last year..." and then she had me, because I cannot turn away from a book when it's been recommended twice.

He actually looks like he's pleading with you to read it.

Okay, okay, sheesh. You had me at sad millionaire.

I also felt compelled to read it because all his life, Current Husband has been told he looks like Andre Agassi, or at least his poorer, trashier brother.  Maybe like a Billy Carter or a Roger Clinton.  Except CH has baby blue eyes and his ears aren't pierced.  For a while, if CH was called Andre, it made me Brooke Shields, so I was okay with it.  I picked it up Saturday night and read it pretty much solid until Sunday night at 11 p.m.  Then CH forgot to take it with him to give back to the Dad to return to The Friend's Mom, so the whole "ruining my weekend with Andre" thing was pointless.

"Open" is actually a terrific book, riveting, honest, yadda yadda.  Andre isn't afraid to lay it out there and make himself look like a neurotic, needy super-mega-athlete.  Or maybe he didn't do that on purpose, but there it was.  I loved the stuff about his hairpiece, and his dad was pretty scary.  He wins a bunch of Grand Slams, divorces Brooke Shields, and marries Steffi Graf.  The end.  I have a subscription to People magazine, so I knew all of that, but it was STILL interesting, so that says something.

ON TO TODD'S PARTY:

Todd the Taxidermied Squirrel party is tomorrow night (Tuesday) from 7:30-9:30 p.m.  I wish we could Skype, but I will be off-site and don't know how to manage technology outside of the home.  I found a little sombrero for Todd tonight, and other little surprises, and there will be pictures.  I'll try really hard to post them tomorrow night after the party, but it might be Wednesday night because my pesky hooker job gets in the way of my dead squirrel fun.

TODD PARTY, AZTECA in Cumberland Square, BETTENDORF, IOWA,

7:30-9:30 p.m., first pitcher of margaritas and first order of chips, guac and cheese on Todd.  Be there and be a Nutcase.

Monday Minivan Media

I miss the days of the auto play with playlist.com on this blog.  I really put a lot of time into figuring out which song would go best with the theme for the blog post that day, so much so that Vanilla Ice gave my laptop a virus.  Of course, back then I didn't have a job and this blog was about all I had going on outside of my mom life, so picking out a song was of paramount importance and could take another hour of time.  I don't really have that luxury anymore.  BUT.  That doesn't mean I don't get out once in a while, and since I really love movies and music, I am going to dedicate Monday's blog in January to my Minivan Media report.

Picture yourself in the front seat of my Venture.  (Oh yes.  You're already green with envy over my life of obvious excess.)  We both have a grande skinny vanilla latte, and we have a little time to kill.  We could be waiting for our kids, or for our meth dealer to show up.  No matter.  We're here, in the van, together.  Let's talk pop culture.

Today's movie:  The King's Speech

I saw this movie last week with one of my Mount Vernon homies, and it was awesomeness to the fourth power.  It had the trifecta:

1. Colin Firth
2. Gorgeous vintage sets
3. British people

I am an unabashed Anglophile.  It started with the Beatles and continued with Princess Diana, then paused for a moment at Sid & Nancy (a movie I LOVED, but it made British people look a little dirty and prone to junkie stabbings), and then came back full-on with the A&E version of Pride and Prejudice.  I love Brits so much that when Hugh Grant got his hummer from the prostitute in LA, I thought, "Unfortunate, but I'd still let him colonize me." 

Current Husband will not abide my travel into England because he knows damn well that the moment I step into Heathrow and someone says something like, "Spare a pound, miss?" I might be tempted to sleep with him.  "Fancy we get a flat together and go round for a pint" and it's over, I'm staying.

Call me Mummy and you can eat my crumpet.

The acting was terrific, the story was fantastic, and the movie was as rich as shortbread at tea with the Queen.  Here is a clip if you haven't seen it yet:  The King's Speech trailer.

Even Helena Costume Drama was excellent (that is a friend's brilliant nickname for her, but I would love to take credit) and I don't ever WANT to like Helena Bonham Carter in anything, because she was The Other Woman when Emma Thompson was married to Kenneth Branagh.  Kenneth left Emma for Helena, and Emma wallowed in depression for a year before her mother told her to get out of bed and pull herself up, for God's sake, and so Emma did and made a movie called Sense & Sensibility, where Emma won an Oscar and eventually married the man who played the hot but scoundrelly (and noticably younger) Willoughby.  SO, I'm always wanting to dislike HBC and say, "See, that bitch that helped break Emma's heart is a posuer", but guess what?  HBC is always good, and I can't help but admire her as an actress.

Colin, are you quite sick of that gorgeous Spanish wife of yours? 

Because I'm married to Tim Burton and I'm sure he won't mind.

As an important side note, I did have a large Diet Coke and eat buttered popcorn and peanut M&Ms concurrently, which added to my movie-viewing pleasure considerably, even though it cost $45.  Also, no one behind my talked on their cell phone, or yelled out one-liners at the movie screen in that age-old contest called "Who's the Cleverest Person in the Theater!?" where everyone is a loser.

The King's Speech rating: A+

Guys - while there are no tits, there are some nice bits of vulgarity.  No guns, robots, or Megan Fox, but it is more endurable than a romance and you'll get points for going.  You'll feel smarter when you leave, and can brag that you saw it and talk about the historical perspective without acting like you're really interested.  It's a win-win.