AGT is BACK!!!

SQUEAL!  SQUEAL!  Excited jumping up and down, arms akimbo ( why aren't legs ever 'akimbo?'  Or abdomens.  Or ears.  You never hear someone say, "OMG, I was jumping around, ears all akimbo!!"  Except the President.  Of course, you rarely see anyone texting 'akimbo' either.  What would be the text equivalent?  Must Bingle this.  {combo of bing and google} ).  But - on with the show.  I mean post.

So YEAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!  The return of "America's Got Talent!"  I luuuvvvvvvvvvv this show. Love.it.  I'm as excited as a menopausal woman when she hits an unexpected pocket of air conditioning while walking down the strip mall to get to the nail salon.   

As I've said before, it's the big block of Velveeta cheezie goodness show......cheezie, hokie and cringe-worthy, with little dancing girls and big singing palookas and would-be magicians, violinists, and nubian beauties doing bohemian African dances, a yodeling dominatrix and a guy who eats light bulbs.  It completely improves my addytude.

How could you ever miss this?  Yeah, American Idol has the fans and music and stuff - but do they have a 62-year-old tap dancing grocery store clerk?

Or the chicken chaser guy from down south -

When you see him standing on that stage, and you can tell that he genuinely feels talented, and he's nervous but ohhhh...so hopeful.  The naked yearning, the vulnerability that shows up on his face when the audience goes quiet - you can almost see him thinking - "Don't let me choke out here - please god, let me make the family and neighbors in Little Poke Tree, Arkansas (pop. 256) proud!  Please let me do well enough that even if this is it, this is all I get, that I can hold my head up when I slink back home.  I've had this dream for my moment - any moment in the spotlight - for so long.... if it goes bad, I won't even have the dream left..."

And the producers know - they KNOW how to get me, with their side stories and back stories and sad/proud/bad stories, oh yes, they work me every which way from Sunday until I'm just an emotional wreck at the end.  But proud - SO proud, to be in an America with such talent.

I cry, I play the drinking game - you know, the one where you have to drink every time 'The Hoff' says "You are what this show is all aBOUUUUUUUT!!" - I laugh, I cringe, I boo.

And then I do it all again the next night.

Seriously, the best escape from summer corporate life EVER.

Warning - I will continue to post video and comments until this season is done.  If you're not a fan or not that interested, you can just sit your unAmerican butt over there - there in the corner with the cynical 'Law and Order' rerun watchers.   Talk amongst yourselves until the fall - or until there's a winner of Season 4, America's Got Talent.

Sunday Earworms

I saw Jersey Boys last night.  Yeah, I know that I'm like three years past the really cool hipsters who saw this when it first came out on Broadway but hey - I don't live there and I didn't have connections to get tickets anyway because the waiting list was really really long so I had to wait until the show hit the road BUT ANYWAY - it's a seriously good rockin' show for decksters of all ages.  

And thank god - the music from last night finally drove the MJ 'Billy Jean' earworm out of my head and now it's filled with 'Sherri Baby' and 'Walk like a Man.'  

Except last night, I woke up at 4 am with a confused earworm mixture of 'Who loves you when you walk like a Thriller, Billy Baby even though you're not my lover.'

So I'm going to download the cast album from iTunes today.

It's interesting to compare the lives of Michael Jackson and Frankie Valli - they're both filled with talent and sadness and surely, MJ is far better known globally; however, the work ethic and loyalty of Frankie Valli outweighs the weirdness factor of Michael Jackson's life.

And that's all I've got to say about that.

It is such a gorgeous morning, that as soon as I finish blogging and watching "Varsity Blues" on TNT for the 30th time, (good gosh amighty allFriday - because like those chick movies that I have to watch every time they show up, there are some boy movies that I also have to watch when I pick them up while channel cruising.  Like 'Men in Black,' and 'Superbad.') I'm going to hang out on my screen porch with the curtains blowing and the vintage glider rocking, reading and crafting.

And if that makes me sound like Grandma, so be it.  Grandmas can be hip and fun too.

Enjoy your weekend!

Wow...The Deaths of Two Unique American Icons

Holy crap.

Wait - that was the last post.  BTW - all was fine, slept through the whole thing, no pain, no problem.

But gaaaaahhhh!!!  Drama intended - two icons of my teenage / young adult years dying on the same day!  I really really feel old.

There wasn't a girl my age who didn't want - and try for - Farrah Fawcett hair, and there wasn't a guy at or around my age who didn't have her classic poster in his dorm room or bedroom.

When I babysat - the girls all wanted to be Jill Munroe when they played Charlie's Angels.  Seriously - Kate and Jacqueline just faded into the background....

And Michael Jackson - good god.  Seriously.  Who didn't buy "Thriller" and who couldn't still sing all the words?  I taught aerobics in the big hair-shiny leotard-leg warmer days, and we used all of his music.

Despite any tarnishing of either of these stars later in life - both of them represent really unique points in my life and for people in and around my age - we're feeling what our older brothers and sisters felt when John Lennon died.

Tripping so Lyetly through the Evening

I remember.  

I remember what colonnos meant, on my blog list.  And not brown nose, like W said.

It means - my colonoscopy, scheduled for tomorrow.  Nothing wrong, just screening.

But ummmm....it's just not fun.  In fact, it's crappy.  HAHAHAHAH.  HAAHAHA.  Haha.

Ha.  ha.  

Yeah, pun intended.  And I know it's a crappy pun.  HAha- there I go again.

Not that medical procedures are supposed to be fun.

But let me tell you - I would take a 10-minute mammogram over the colonnos any day.

(Full disclosure - I was a mammography technologist in a previous life.  Yeah - that woman).

Still - the not eating and the prepping and the drinking of the Halflytely stuff (and there's nothing halfway about it - I'm holding onto my head by the ears, to make sure that doesn't come through too!) and being hungry...and I'm not even to the procedure yet - as far as screening exams go - yeah, the mammogram, in a heartbeat.

So colonnos Part 2 tomorrow...I'm off to the little chamber room.  The little stinky chamber room.

Blog past forgetti colonnos alzh image

Image

Glog

forgetti

colonnos

alzh

beeechuys

This is the list of blog posts that I'll be writing soon.

I don't know what any of the words mean.  

So it might take me a while.

As I fell asleep while 'reading' to WonderBoy over the past 10 ten days and nights, (I told him that Lulu can SO read with the book stuck on her nose!) great blog posts and stories swirled around in my head.  I mean - I was on fire with the ideas!  So I left some paper and a pen on my nightstand to make sure that I captured them all.

I just found it - the list - under the forgotten bowl of cheerios on the screened porch.  Which had been rained on - but the ants still found it - the cheerios and milk, I mean.  And the ants started calling in their ant friends for a rave.  Or a twitter.  Whichever.  Whatever deck ants are doing these days.  I shut the door and let them have at it.  Teen ants deserve a summer break too.

But to the point....

The ink ran a bit, but the list is still readable - if I spoke Frenish.  Or Germish.

But now I'm really afraid that I'm forgetting stuff because I read a book on early-onset Alzheimer's disease on the flight back from the MyFriendTeri and Lulu trip and I'm sure that I have it.

(caveat.  Not making fun of anyone with this disease.  My father-in-law - and our family by osmosis - suffered from it for 5 years before he died).

I'm always sure that I have the worst disease or ailment no matter the symptom, which I can really really freak out with because my first job was in healthcare and I know all the big words and symptoms and stuff.  So I don't have a headache, it's an arteriovenous malformation.   It's not gas, my gallbladder is about to blow.  It's not a stomach ache, it's my appendix.  (Oh wait, that did happen.  Another story - hey!!  I'll add it to the list!)

So of course, I'm forgetting what I wrote down at 2 am after going Mach 3 with a four-year-old all day?  Yeah, it's......what is it again?  The forgetti disease.

Forgetti disease!  That's on the list, right?

Live Your Life with Arms Wide Open

This is why I've been a non-blogger for the past week - spending time at the beach with WonderBoy.  My house is sooooo quiet without him, especially after 10 days of laughter and fun and toots and burps and movies and surfing and sand and the pool and naps and Hot Wheels and endless games of Candyland.

How do four-year-olds learn to cheat at games?  

Off to check out my blogsters!

New Post Below

Yes - see it below.  Even though it says that I posted it Monday, in the interest of full disclosure, I've been working on it since Monday but posted it this morning when I couldn't sleep and had to start working already and now I've been bouncing back and forth between my work laptop and home PC........and I haven't even had any coffee yet!

Parachutes, Conversation, Life Jackets - and maybe Some Boots

I saw a news clip video on NBC earlier this week, with snippets of various commencement speakers interspersed with comments from graduates, and while I think that it's a great honor when the President, Elie Wiesel, Ellen DeGeneres or Kermit speaks at your college graduation, I believe that an untapped speaker source is being overlooked.  For real words of wisdom - there should be more four-year-old speakers at commencement.

Four-year-old wisdom is the best - it's simple, straightforward, heartfelt and honest. 

Super-grandson always gives it to me straight.  "Stay put, and no touching my hot wheels, and you will be very very good.  And then you can have a mini-drumstick as a good surprise, ok?" "Monster spray to keep out the bad guys does NOT last for six months - you have to use it every night."  "Eat vegetables or your brain will melt."

So his latest nugget is the following:  when in a touchy situation - say, when you're flying around in a gummy jet piece of candy and you find yourself accidentally eaten, (his scenario not mine, but hey, it could happen) there are three things that will help you out-  "Parachutes, conversation and life jackets.  Because the parachute will help you float into the green stuff in the stomach, and then when the parachute gets wet as you sink, you have the life jacket to help you float again.  And sometimes you need boots.  You know - to keep your feet dry and all."  

So - what's the conversation for?

"Oh - oh yeah.  Because you just need to be nice and tell someone how to get around in the stomach.  And they will help you.  Because really you should be nice to everyone no matter if they're different and they'll be nice back."

How great is that advice?  All said so earnestly and sweetly....

And it occurred to me - as I pass my 128th post - that you fives and tens and sometimes twenties! of readers and commenters and deck hip blogsters - you are all my parachutes and my life jackets.  You help me float into the icky green stuff, you act as my life jackets as I bob around in it for a while, and sometimes, you even act as my boots - either to ground me or keep my feet dry, whatever works.

Plus your conversations!  - letting me know how to get around in the big bloggy stomach and being nice to me.  Or giving me crap, which is really being nice to me.  In a way.  

And you're all very different.  Which is the most important point of this post - see!  You knew I'd have a point eventually, so you stuck around!

I started this blog to get some peeps for my etsy store and then I found - and keep finding - so many different writers and actually getting distracted from the store - oooooo shiny blogs......must read....must comment.....what store? 

I digress.

But I like the fact that I don't have a typical blog to follow - you're all very cool with many different points of view and lots of ways to swear.  Some of you post every day and others....not so much.  You write with unique voices, about a thousand topics and every day, you inspire me.

Or you just let me escape from daily life and make me laugh so hard I blow coffee out of my nose.  Whatever.  It works.  Don't laugh at me.

So 128 thanks to all of you!  Thanks to Mom O Matic, and Yo Mama (and her renters) and What Were You Thinking?!!  Just when I'm Cooking Blind, and thinking You've Got to be Kidding Me, I find The Fifty Factors and remember Libby Logic.  Don't forget WendiWinn and Green-Eyed Momster - they bust me constantly.  Susie Scott and Heart of a Cowgirl and Deb Trotter and Sweet Pea help me get artsy, Married Geeks throw some Bananas and Toddlers into the Little House on the Quarry and get me to A Parent's Life to Behold, through the Eyes of Insanity and Bliss.  The Flying Pinto keeps me up in the air, and Kids and Daquiris keeps me laughing.   Angie and Amber - you were two of my originals so I have to send a special thanks, even if life is keeping you too busy to post.

Here's to finding new bloggy friends - cheers!

Dave Matthews is a Prophet

....or so my daughter says.

I laugh every time I remember this - she said it to my husband oh-so-earnestly when she was just out of college.

"You know, Dad.......Dave Matthews is a prophet."  And we're not particularly religious, so she meant it in that very specific, righteous way that only college graduates - who know everything of course! - can mean.  "He speaks the truth.....he just, he knoooows, you know what I mean?  And it's like - he just speaks to me and to my friends.  He's just so, you know, like so - he can tell the future and we need to listen to him."

How fortunate for us, that the prophet is on the Today Show this morning....

Are you baby psychic?

So my niece is having twins, in (hopefully) about 8 weeks, which will take her to full-term.  She's a little bitty thing and although I haven't seen her yet (this weekend there will be a viewing) my sister says that when she sits down, they form a little chin rest for her, because they're sitting right up there.

Mom and Dad have chosen not to know the gender of the little kiddles until they're born so my question is - are you baby-psychic?  Do you always predict the gender of yourself/your sister's kids/your friend's or neighbor's or colleague's kids?   And do you think that you're always correct?

Because I'm always wrong.  

So give me your guesses - show off your psychic chops!

Aunt Lulu