Updates Like Crazy!

My dad is doing well, according to me. According to him, he is not as far along as he'd like to be. Him and my mom don't see the vast improvements, since they are there every day. But trust me...there are improvements!!

My sister who lives in Germany left on Tuesday morning, and one delayed flight, one cancelled flight, one missed flight, one lost piece of luggage, one hotel room, and one trip to the first-class passenger lounge later, she just made it home!! Yay!! Here is a pic of her with my oldest and youngest nephews, as well as Sam. (Don't worry, the oldest just got a hair cut...it doesn't look like that anymore!) Sam was not in a cooperative mood for mommy the photographer.

Memorial Day is next weekend. Just wanted to remind ya'll.

I have a vet appointment for Fonz tomorrow to make sure he doesn't have cancer. I really don't think he has cancer, but he has been limping a tad on his back right hip, and I found a couple of new lumps, and his dad died of cancer when he was 10. Fonz is 10 1/2. We're doing x-rays just to be sure, and because I feel it has been all too long since I have handed a couple hundred dollars to my vet.

I have heard no news on my buddy The Piano Man. I am starting to wonder if I started a rumor, or was spreading news that wasn't supposed to be shared. Oops.

I joined Networked Blogs on Facebook! I've been wanting to do this for a while but didn't have the patience to figure it out. Turns out it's super easy. But due to dial-up speed "high-speed" internet access at home, I almost lost my mind and threw the computer out the window last night. (The only reason I didn't is because there are too many wires attached and there is a big-ass printer in front of the window.) So please! Feel free to click the little button over to the right and follow me!! I am not exactly sure how this works, so if there are too many updates for you, then you can always un-follow. I think all it does is post an update on your wall whenever I post a new blog. And if you go to MY wall, then you can see the posts of people that I follow. I think that's how it works. But again, let me remind you of the dial-up fiasco that almost happened last night...so I could be wrong. Also let me remind you that the number of followers I have is directly tied to my self-esteem...soo.....

Even though it's only Thursday, I am super duper looking forward to the beautiful weekend ahead of us. The sun is shining, it's almost lunchtime...so get off of your computer (after you follow me) and go outside and play!!

Shuttles and Body Pillows

It’s a crazy thing how the mind works. Last week, my sister was flying in from Europe. Since she lives there, she doesn’t have a cell phone that works both there and in the States. (at least that is the story that I get) Since I live the closest to the airport, and talk to her the most, I was tasked with safely picking her up from the airport. Which sounds easy, except she was coming in at 1am on a weeknight and I was already going to be 3 hours away. So I found what I thought to be a wonderful, cheap, shuttle service. Turns out, you get what you pay for.

They called me the day of her flight to confirm and I explained to them that she was flying in from Europe and I would have no way of contacting her. At this time, I was told that their office closed at midnight, so we decided that the driver would be in an assigned spot 30 minutes after she landed. Around 9:30 that night, they called again, to confirm. I explained again that I had no way of contacting her and that the driver was just supposed to be there to meet her. At this point, I was told that the office would stay open until they picked her up. How nice. At 12:30, they called and said that her flight had taken off an hour late from Miami. OK, great. So what? Well, that means she won’t be there at 1:25am to be picked up, and she should be ready around 2:15. But the problem was, they couldn’t get her until 4:15. A.M. From O’Hare International Airport. After she had already been awake for 24 straight hours. Great, now I am not worried at all.

I had told my dear sister that if the shuttle wasn’t there to get her after she got her baggage to find a payphone and call me. Which she did, around 2:30am. I gave her the number to the shuttle, and she called them, and then called me back, and then settled in to read her book. She finally made it to my house around 5:30am. But forgot to call me to tell me she was safe until 6:30am. Needless to say, I didn’t get much sleep.

But the point of this post is not to whine about Pipeline People Movers. They did do what they said they would, they got my sister from point A to point B for $29. They just didn’t do it in an extremely timely manner. My point was to tell you about my friend who is also pregnant.

For whatever reason, she has really poor circulation. So she is always cold, and her fingernails are always bluish-purple. She always sleeps either on her back or on her stomach, because if she lies on her side, then that side of her body will fall asleep while she is asleep. Which, obviously, is irritating. She was telling me about this last week, and how she bought the body pillow that is curved, and how great it was and it really helped her to sleep. So each time my phone rang, at 12:30, 2:30, 2:35, & 6:30; and then when I woke up in a panic at 5:30 because I hadn’t heard from her, and again at 6 when Workaholic returned my text telling me that she had gotten to our house safe, EACH TIME, half of my body was asleep. And I was PISSED. Not because I couldn’t feel my fingers, but I was pissed at my friend. Somehow, I blamed her for falling asleep while I was asleep. I was quite sure it had nothing to do with my rapidly expanding belly, or the weird, super-cushy pillow at the hotel, or the more firm mattress I was sleeping on…NONONO…it was my friend’s fault. And I HATED her for it.

Fortunately for both of us, my hatred lasted only until I got up for the day. In fact, I completely forgot that I hated her until I thought about going to work later that weekend. She understands, and isn’t mad at me for blaming her and hating her in my sleep. Or lack thereof. My point? It’s funny how the mind works. That’s all.

Colds and Babies

I have a cold. I guess this is what happens when a small child who has a cold coughs directly into your open mouth. So I am all sniffley and sort of achy and super tired. The tired part is really nothing new, but now I have another excuse, on top of being pregnant with an almost 15 month old.

Speaking of, my daughter is a little girl. I mean, a real, live, little girl. She loves her babies. And my loves, I mean that she can hone in on one in any room within about 30 seconds and immediately declares it hers. Her daycare teacher actually asked me how we handle it when she gets “attached” to something and that something needs to get taken away. The example given was her baby. Oh dear. She carries her babies (yes, plural) around most of the day, occasionally disregarding their safety and tossing them aside for a drink of juice of perhaps a “bear” (aka Teddy Graham). She must sleep with them, and if you have to wake her in the morning, she has to eat with them as well. She has this same attachment to her blanket, only a little less severe. She seems to know that the blanket is for when you are tired and cranky and crabby and crying all. the. time.

So she is a little girl who already has a preference of which barrette she wants in her hair, knows that when she is wearing a dress she looks pretty, and is developing this new high-pitched squeal/scream/cry that I have been dreading. She is also a little girl who has a nice, high tolerance for pain, and thinks nothing of knocking her head against a wall or falling down and scraping her knees. She isn’t a huge fan of grass, and when she touched it when picking up Easter eggs, she always brushed her hands off, as if to tell that dirty, dirty grass to suck it. (I hope that she gets over the grass thing, one of my favorite childhood memories was running around the yard.)

Yesterday, my sister and mom took my twin nieces to the American Girl store in Chicago. They each came home with a set of little twins, and also a wheelchair as an accessory. (Not quite sure how that came about.) Sam immediately decided that the babies, yes, ALL FOUR, were hers. And they belonged in the recliner, or the wheelchair to be pushed around. She could’ve played for hours. Fortunately, my nieces are very good about sharing and knew damn well that those babies were going home with them. And Sam was just so darn cute. And no, I did NOT think to grab my video camera so everyone could enjoy my child’s adorableness. (Yes, the Flip video camera that I bought so I can keep in my purse where it is ever so handy to just grab when something sweet is happening.) We had to sneak the babies out of the house, and since Sam’s attention span at this point is just longer than that of a gnat, there wasn’t too much trauma.

I always knew that little girls could be fun. I was just convinced when I was pregnant the first time around that karma would rear its ugly head and I would be challenged with a child that put me straight into the insane asylum. And yes, I know that could still happen. But for now, she is so darn cute, and sweet, and easy-going, that I can’t imagine it any other way. On Thursday, we go in for our 2nd ultrasound, and we can find out the sex of this baby. Don’t get all excited folks…there are 19 more weeks of waiting for you and me alike. We WON’T be finding out if this is a boy or a girl, it’s just more fun that way. (Plus, I don’t think my credit card could take it…once I know what I am having, let the online shopping commence!)

London in Pictures

Here are just a few of the photos we took...

My sister, me, and Workaholic at the pub Checquers, in the Bull Shit Corner. (seriously, look at the plaque in the right-hand corner of the picture!)


The three of us in a self-portrait next to one of the cute phone boothes they have all over place.

Me in the same phone booth.

Workaholic striking a pose across the street from Buckingham Palace.

My sister, me, Workaholic, and his uncle and his wife. Many thanks to them for an enjoyable evening!

London in Words

We’re home! I was happy to be on vacation, although I am not going to lie, every morning I wanted to just lay in bed all day and watch TV. But we would get up, shower, and head out on the town. Walking. After the first day, we did not walk very quickly, mainly because I couldn’t. My short little 25 inch inseam legs just couldn’t keep up with my sister and Workaholic. That and the pain in my calves, and shins, and feet. So I typically walked behind them, and every once in a while, they’d turn to make sure they didn’t lose me in the sea of people on the sidewalks of London. We walked and walked, to the point where even my sister had had enough and wanted to jump on a bus. It didn’t matter what bus, any bus, anything to get us off of our feet.

We had a great time, I loved being with my sister, who I really only see about once every 2 years. She is kind of a nut, and was ecstatic to be in her favorite city in the world. (at least that is what she says after a couple of glasses of wine) We went to the Tower of London, (where they used to behead people), Westminster Abbey, (where the bury people), and St. Paul’s Cathedral, (where Charles and Diana got married). We went on The Eye (a huge ferris wheel), went to Trafalgar Square and Buckingham Palace, saw The Globe Theatre (where Shakespeare’s plays were performed), walked on London Bridge and Millennium Bridge, went shopping on Bond Street and Oxford Street and Covent Garden, walked through The British Museum (where Brits show off everything they’ve stolen from everyone else through the past 1000 years), The National Portrait Gallery (Picasso, Monet, Rembrandt, etc.) and Tate Modern (Andy Warhol & more Picasso, as well as lots of other weird art). We saw Big Ben and Parliament, and Downing Street (where Prime Minister Gordon Brown lives) We saw lots and lots of the red postal boxes and the red telephone booths, and the last day we were there, Workaholic and I walked the length of Hyde Park (twice) and visited Princess Diana’s memorial.

And the pubs. I wish we had actually visited more pubs, but they didn’t seem to be exactly where we wanted them to be when we were in the mood for a drink. We went to the Guinea, The Hung, Drawn, & Quartered, Checquers, something about Marlborough, and something else about Boxing. There were a couple of more, but I don’t remember their names. One of them was even on our map, which we didn’t realize until after we left. I generally drank wine, because I just couldn’t stomach Guinness, and Workaholic had one bad night with sake. We had dinner with Workaholic's uncle and his wife, who were kind enough to treat us and introduce us to the "Bull Shit Corner".

All in all, we had a good time. It was best just seeing my sister and hanging out with her. I haven’t spent that much time with her in years. So a big THANK YOU to American Airlines for giving me 3 seats to sleep in on the way there and the way back, and Grosvenor House in Westminster for being a 5 star hotel and still giving me my employee discount. Someday…we’ll be back!!

Just the Four of Us

Back in June, I went to the state (boys) baseball championship game. My cousins were playing in it, and they played against my old high school. They lost, but before we ran back to the hotel to visit with the family some more, my sisters and I managed to gather for this picture. We only get the chance once every couple of years because one of my sisters lives in Germany. As we were posing, the tornado sirens were going off and the lights were being dimmed in the stadium. Basically they were telling us to get the hell out. All I can say is, I may be the youngest, but at least I have the biggest boobs!!!