Tag, I'm it!

I feel all shivery. I've never been tagged before! My friend Karla left the following comment on my previous post: "Bonnie, I am tagging you for your prom pictures....." and I am helpless to resist.

I actually posted a couple of my prom pics last year on my other blog, after my prom date revealed himself to be at least an occasional reader of it (Hi, Jason!). Before I post them here, I'll have to give you a little psychological background, so that you can better understand the choosing of my dress.

I had a serious case of Scarlett fever when I was in middle school. More than anything else, I longed to wear corsets and hoopskirts. I wanted to ride sidesaddle and have a house full of servants catering to my every whim. I wanted Clark Gable to rescue ME from Atlanta as it burns. And god did I ever want those dresses.

Here's a picture of me at the age of 13 posing for my grandmother in an old formal that belonged to either my mother or my aunt (Suzie? Mom? Who wants to claim credit for this confection?):



Here's another shot of the same dress, this time on my cousin Julie, and me in my bathing suit. I'm putting it up mostly because I can't believe I was ever that skinny. Also, I promise you, we are standing that way because Grandma posed us. (Mom, Suzie, tell them! Tell them that Grandma made us stand that way!):



Now that you understand my obsession with big poofy dresses, I have to share with you the sad story of how I came to have PTDS. That's Post Traumatic Dress Syndrome. When I was in eighth grade, my school had a huge formal dance. I spent the evening in a cafeteria filled with teenagers who looked like extras from the barbecue scene in Gone With the Wind. I was wearing this, what I will always remember as The Really Bad Dress:



Three years later when it was time to select the dress for my one and only senior prom (yeah, I was 16 when I graduated--wanna make something of it?), I needed more than a dress. I needed a cure for the psychological scars inflicted by The Really Bad Dress. I found it in a bridal shop in downtown DeLand--yards and yards of lovely peach satin spread out across a huge hoopskirt.

My poor photos have not held up very well, or maybe everything was orange in 1983 and I just don't remember it. Here are the pictures I posted on the old blog last year:

Me with Jason on the front porch:



Me trying to cram my enormous hoopskirt into Jason's car, the Mighty Maverick Moose Mobile:



And here are some pictures I copied out of my photo album just a little while ago:

My mom helping me put my shoes on (dig the high-tech computer in the background):



A portrait in front of the piano:



My mom fastening the pearls that Jason psychically willed to fall:



I tried on my prom dress when I was back home in Florida last fall. I'm sad to report that the zipper doesn't come anywhere close to fastening. Not that I would necessarily wear that dress today, but it would be nice to know that I could if I wanted to.

Tagging is only fun if you pass it on, so I'm tagging Deana (because I know she has rather recent pictures of her prom dress, but I can't remember if I ever got to see teenage Deana in the dress) and Chris (because guys should get the opportunity to post prom pictures, too).

Portrait of a father as a young kite

You think you'll never forget all the cute things your kids say and do, but it happens. My dad is in the process of cleaning up the image files on his computer, and he sent me an email the other day asking which of my 2 young artists might have been responsible for the May 2000 work entitled "Fred the Kite." I was stumped until he sent me a copy, and then it all came flooding back. Yes, Annabelle (4 years old at the time) was the artist, and I remember her giving the picture that exact name.

I posted "Fred the Kite" on my message board of invisible friends and invited comment on any symbolism or themes in the piece. Kim suggested that perhaps it means, "She's got Daddy wrapped around her finger." Well, that would be true. Tina asked if maybe it could mean, "Daddy is larger than life, and she completely controls him?" Hmmm . . . true again.

Here it is, ladies and gentlemen . . . "Fred the Kite":



(Let this be a lesson to you to label your child's artwork!)

The sunroom is finished!

I fear I'm at risk of running the world's most boring and shallow blog. Can you handle more decorating pictures? I hope so.

We finally finished the sunroom! Starting from the upper left and moving in a clockwise direction (feel free to click the pictures to enlarge them), we have the view from the living room into the sunroom; the bay window (ignore the fat cat on the table); the wall between the sunroom and dining room; and the piano and the sheers that are covering the French doors into the dining room:

New member of the family

He scrimped. He saved. He raked leaves. He asked for cash for Christmas. He endured weeks of humiliation of calling the PX only to told "No, ma'am, we haven't gotten any in yet." But last Thursday was Mike's lucky, lucky day. He walked into Best Buy looking for a bargain on a CD and walked out the proud owner of an XBox 360:

Come back, Jenny!

I took my sister back up to Louisville this morning and put her on a birdie heading south. We had a great time this weekend, although the weather was a disappointment--no snow to be found for miles and miles.

Hey, Jenny, check out this picture of my front yard that I took just a few minutes ago:



Any chance you could come back real quick?

My sister is here!

Last time Jenny visited us, we picked her up at the airport and took her immediately to Holland to see the tulips. I knew that the tulips would be a tough act to follow, so this year, we planned on picking her up and taking her to . . . sit down now. . . Indiana to see snow, which she hasn't seen since 1979. Unfortunately, Indiana was closed on account of no snow. So instead of snow, this visit is all about food and wine.

We had supper at PF Chang's last night and followed that up with red wine and Mexican layer dip while we played board and card games. Today we made Russian tea and spinach dip, and we had a nice cheese fondue tonight for supper. We also killed off a couple bottles of white wine. We've got tortilla soup and chocolate fondue on the menu for tomorrow. I think I need to buy more wine though.

I haven't taken any pictures from this visit, so why don't you just enjoy this shot of us drinking wine last year, while sitting in my car seats in my kitchen?

She's her father's daughter

If we were a royal family, my husband would go down in history as Fred the Terribly Tidy, and our daughter would be Princess Annabelle the Organized.

Annabelle's favorite book in recent months is Organizing From the Inside Out For Teens. She brings it along to amuse herself on long car rides, and she reads it in bed at night, until she drifts off to sweet dreams of a big sale at the Container Store.

Fred and I have put most of our efforts these past few months into getting the downstairs fixed up, while Annabelle has worked tirelessly in her room, organizing and reorganizing her numerous collections. A couple of weeks ago, Fred and I decided to turn our attentions to helping Annabelle finish her dream room, and it's finally DONE! Fred sanded down the pink paint on the formerly pink and white furniture and replaced it with a cool blue to match the new Island Paradise theme, and here's the finished product (you can click on each picture to see it a little bit bigger):




Annabelle is developing quite a reputation for her organization skills. At school the other day, her teacher handed her a stack of papers from her desk and said, "Here, Annabelle, can you straighten out this mess for me? I hear you're really good at organizing stuff." Annabelle just beamed when she told us this story later.

I'm hoping that maybe Annabelle can help me straighten out all of my various messes one of these days!

Famous friends

My invisible friend Deana is a guest columnist over at Mommybloggers.com. Go read her account of her fabulous Disney vacation! Go . . . now! (But then come back, please.)

To Kim at Harcourt

Dear Kim,

Please don't feel like you're eavesdropping. Really. If there's something I don't want people to read, I just don't blog it.

For example, I have a REALLY funny but TERRIBLY embarrassing story about my sister. She would kill me if I blogged it. Hmmmm . . . actually though, Jenny just looks at the pictures. So I could probably WRITE about it, just so long as I don't post the pictures. Be patient though--I'll have to get the pictures from the cops.

Hugs and kisses--
Bonnie

Local temps: variable in the extreme

I suppose it's not uncommon for a big old house like this to have some areas that are cooler and some that are warmer. I've been told, for example, that heat rises, which explains why when the top floor is at a comfortable temperature, the bottom floor feels like the arctic tundra. I will often sit upstairs in my office, starving yet unwilling to brave the frost to get through the kitchen where the food is.

What I don't understand is why certain areas on the same floor can vary so much. The other night, I trudged upstairs from the frigid living room and entered my comfortably toasty bedroom. Halfway across the room, however, I ran smack into a wall of heat that crushed my soul. Fearing that what I was experiencing might be the onset of hot flashes, I mentioned it to Fred, who confirmed that yes, indeed, one half of the bedroom is significantly hotter than the other half.

"If you think that's something," he added, "go check out my closet." I stepped into the dressing room and opened the door to Fred's closet and was greeted by an intense blast of heat.

Fred's closet is the gateway to hell. It's the only explanation that makes any sense.

Give Eddie a beer and a remote . . .

. . . and I swear he would look almost human:

Feelin' blue

I just heard that one of the 12 people killed in the Blackhawk crash over the weekend was a JAG officer from Fort Carson. His death is no worse than those of the other 11 people, but it seems a little more personal to me.

Stupid war.

The joy of sox

Shortly before we moved to Germany, I picked up a knitting magazine that featured clear plastic rainboots and socks made out of funky colored yarn. I HAD to have those boots, so I tracked down a pair and bought my first skein of sock yarn. Unfortunately, the boots were miserably uncomfortable to wear, but I was hooked forever on the pleasures of hand-knit socks and have made several pairs over the years.

This photo shows samples of all my socks, from the very first pair (on the left) to the most recent one (on the right):



The pair featured on the right is so recent, in fact, that it is only half done. I am in the middle of the dreaded SSS or Second Sock Syndrome. Face facts--the second sock is never the thrill that the first one is. This new pair though is a little different from the pattern I used for the first 4 pairs. Note the cool ribbing and the pointy little thinglets all around the top (and please ignore my pasty white leg):



Unfortunately, this new pattern apparently takes more yarn than Old Faithful did, so yesterday I made a road trip up to my fancy-schmancy yarn store in Louisville for an extra skein. Now I just need the opportunity and motivation to knit. Usually long car rides provide me with both, but I am fresh out of travel plans at the moment. On the other hand, I'm procrastinating getting started on a new indexing project, so maybe I could make that work in favor of my socks. ("No, sir, I didn't index your book. But look at these socks! Aren't they cool?") Hmmmm . . .

Final furniture delivery

Oh, I'm feeling all grown up today! The remainder of the new furniture has arrived, and the early-newlywed junk is on its way to the basement.

We had fallen in love with Thomasville's Color Cafe line but were having trouble justifying the extreme cost. I did a little online searching and found that the Thomasville stuff is manufactured by Canadel. We found a dealer in Louisville who handles Canadel, and voila! Eight weeks later, here is our new dining room, custom made to our desires for 50 percent of Thomasville's price.

We decided to go with the boat-shaped table and 8 chairs. Here is the table with 1 leaf and all 8 chairs (pretend you can't see all that crap along the wall):



There is a second leaf, but I'm afraid we'll have to sledgehammer out a wall in order to ever use it in this dining room.

Here is the new china cabinet:



Now I just need to fill it up with my Polish pottery collection!

I have ordered the rest of my curtains and am expecting them any day now. We might actually have the downstairs (with the exception of Fred's office) finished by the end of the weekend! I can't believe I ever had illusions about getting this house done by Halloween.

Hey, babe, what's your sign?

Photographed Saturday in Newport, TN:



Newport: Not like all those other American towns where turning left on red is allowed.

Sad thing: We saw somebody turn left on red anyway.

"But, Mom, it doesn't say No Unicycling!"

In my grandmother's neighborhood earlier today:



And now I really am done blogging for the year!

Holiday greetings from Florida

We're having a nice vacation in Florida, but it feels like a week at Christmas camp. We're busy, busy, busy, with almost every minute scheduled. Our time is flying by, so I'm just going to share a few photos and then take a blogging break until we're back home in Kentucky.

Flamingoes are very popular as Christmas decorations down here. Mom and Dad have a holiday flamingo on their porch:



If you click here, you can see some rough video of Santa ho-ho-ho-ing.

Here's another scene of Florida Christmas. I took it outside a taxidermy shop in DeLeon Springs:



Finally, here is our official greeting card for this year:



Have a great holiday, and I'll be back in 2006!

• Edited to add these, just in case you thought I was kidding about the flamingo decorations:
  
  

"My mom ate my homework."

I am proud to say that as of tomorrow, Mike and Annabelle will have completed one entire quarter of school. I'm not even sure that tomorrow counts though, given that they get out before noon, and everybody at Annabelle's school will be wearing their pajamas and slippers, so let the celebration commence right now!

I am also very proud to say that as of tomorrow, I will have completed one entire quarter of school in my maternal capacity. For those of you who are sitting out there shaking your head and thinking no way could you ever homeschool, let me tell you something: Homeschooling is sooooo much easier than regular school, or at least it was for us. I think the reason for this can be traced back to one major factor: homework! When you're a homeschooling mom and an assignment strikes you as tedious, pointless, or downright stupid, you can exercise your homeschoolerly perogative and blow it off. No such luck when the assignment is given out by a teacher (who presumably does not view it as tedious, pointless, or downright stupid). Nope, under those circumstances you are stuck at your dining room table, trying to be supportive in the face of much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Truth be told, you are often in fact the wailer and/or tooth-gnasher. Or at least, I am.

I was cleaning files off my antique computer recently in preparation for my annual hard-drive reformatting crisis, and I came across some images that illustrate perfectly why I should be kept as far away from homework as possible. But first, the backstory:

Surely you have all heard of Flat Stanley, right? He's a character in a book who is smooshed flat (falling bulletin board, I think) and is therefore able to travel to different places in an envelope. Somewhere along the way, some teacher got the idea of having students create their own little flat people whom they would then send out on various travels, which they (the students, not the inanimate "people") would document on posterboard. Very clever. What could be better than a homework assignment you foist off on friends and family?

Somewhere along the way, this became a rite of early elementary school passage similar to the loss of the first tooth, and now EVERYBODY is doing it. Little flatlings are winging their way around the world. I know--I posed with some woman's grandson's Flat Stanley in a restaurant in Rome.

Annabelle encountered Flat Stanley in first grade in Texas. I encouraged her to send her Flat Stanley to my sister, who I knew would put her heart and soul into showing a paper boy the wonders of central Florida. Annabelle, however, was adamant--her Flat Stanley was going to be sent to a child. (Sorry, Jenny.) This presented me with a problem. Most of my friends who have children also have lives, jobs, and other obligations that might get in the way of their hostessing the Stan-Man in Pearl Mesta fashion. No, Stanley needed to go to somebody who would be able to let the child handle the project without turning it into her own personal mission.

We (meaning me, because let's face it--first graders don't go to the post office) wound up sending it to a friend who I think does a really good job of letting her children live their own lives without excessive micromanagement. I resigned myself to the fact that Annabelle's classmates' flat travelers were going to go off on exotic jaunts to Vegas, Disney, and possibly Europe, while hers would be going to the playground and maybe the library or the mall.

We (meaning me, because let's face it--first graders aren't slaves to the calendar) started getting nervous as deadline day approached and Stan had yet to be returned in the postage paid envelope that we (meaning me, because let's face it--first graders just don't think of these things) had provided for him. We (meaning me, because by this point Annabelle had pretty much forgotten all about Stanley and was focused on her Neopets) didn't want to nag, but finally we (OK, do you get the theme here? Me, me, me, it's all about me!) sent out some feelers.

Turns out my friend had done such a good job of delegating Stanley to her daughter that he had gone AWOL. I told Annabelle's teacher about this unfortunate turn of events, and she was very understanding. Apparently, a Stanley or 2 go missing every year. "What most families do," she suggested, "is have the child make a new one and then just take it around San Antonio. You could take it to Sea World, Fiesta Texas, the Alamo . . . "

I don't want to sound like a Bad Mom, but at that point in my life, I had Other Obligations. For example, I was taking a guide dog puppy around San Antonio and cleaning up after her when she pooped not once, not twice, but THREE times in one trip to the mall. There was no time in my schedule for escorting two-dimensional tourists around town. Sorry.

Through the miracle of modern technology, however, I was saved from the shame of having my daughter turn in a Wanted poster for her Flat Stanley as her project. I had some digital photos that Fred had taken on a trip to Australia a couple years earlier, so I simply scanned Stan II into the computer and digitally inserted him into the scenes. Look, it's Flat Stanley on the Great Barrier Reef!



And here he is with Fred and a koala:



We printed out the photos, and Annabelle attached them (as well as some Australian-themed stickers, diecuts, and coins) to her posterboard. Voila! Flat Stanley was done.

I, however, just couldn't stop. I was seized by a Flat Stanley mania of sorts. Look, it's Flat Stanley crossing the Delaware with Washington:



Corporal Stanley planting the flag on Iwo Jima:



And my personal favorite, the Apostle Stan at the Last Supper:



I think given my history I have done an admirable job of dealing with homework for the past 9 weeks. Can I have a sticker?

Our own personal REFORGER

I'm sure my military readers know what REFORGER means: "REturn of FORces to GERmany," a huge annual Army field exercise designed to reassure NATO of our willingness and ability to stop the Russians at the gap. The Army held its last REFORGER in 1993, but I am pleased to report that I will be carrying on the tradition. Well, at least the part about returning to Germany; don't look to me to be fighting the Russians (except for maybe that one jerk-face Kremlin guard).

Yep, the kids and I are coming back for 3 glorious weeks this summer! Mike has been hounding me for quite some time to at least send him back, but one ticket from Louisville to Frankfurt during the summer is at least $1000. Through careful internet surfing, I was able to secure 3 roundtrip, nonstop tickets between Orlando and Frankfurt for . . . I hope you're sitting down . . . $1559. Total. For 3 people. In the summer.

So, Germany, brace yourself. We're coming back!

One room (almost) done!

Fred and I had a burst of energy this afternoon and managed to hang the living room drapes and put together our wooden flowers from Hawaii. We still want to get floor lamps for either end of the couch, but I'm really happy with the way it's looking so far. I'm especially pleased with our super-cheap end tables from Target.

Here's the view from the front hallway:



And here is the view looking TOWARDS the front hallway:



I think our mantel looks kind of empty. Fred's clock is definitely staying, but the pottery pieces are just something to take up space for now:



Any ideas of what we should put there?

Eddie loves the new furniture . . .

. . . and because of his nifty green claw covers, the new furniture loves Eddie, too:

Who's a sweepy boy?

Fred and Eddie kick back and relax:

Formals and heavy machinery

What a weekend we had! I truly meant to blog this days ago (is it REALLY Wednesday already?), but somehow time slipped away.

Our formal Thursday night wound up getting canceled because of the icky weather. I felt guilty for being so happy, because it was a really big deal awards dinner, and apparently people had come in from all over the country to attend. We got our ticket money back, but frankly I would have paid $40 for the opportunity to stay home that night.

Saturday night we went to the USAREC holiday formal. I wore the red dress I bought for last spring's JAG prom. If there is one thing that offsets the psychological trauma we are inflicting on our children by moving every other year, it must be the fact that I do get a lot of opportunities to re-wear the same dress without worrying that people are thinking, "Why, here's Bonnie . . . and her dress." Here's me confessing my secret hopes and wishes to Santa Claus:



And here I am with Fred. You may remember that the last time I wore this dress, I had a rodent as a date, so I am definitely moving up in the world:



As I was contemplating getting ready for Saturday night's formal, my next-door neighbor called to tell me about the huge water line break out in front of our duplex. She had put in the emergency work order and figured they would be showing up at any minute to turn off our water and fix the pipe. Fred and I set a world record for showering, but we needn't have hurried. When we returned from the formal some 6 hours later, we still had water. At around 11 that night, however, they parked a huge tractor in our front yard, dug up the pipe, and kept pumps and other loud machinery running for a good 2 hours:



Sunday morning I refused to get out of my jammies until it was time to squeeze myself back into my wonder unders and put on the new dress I had ordered to replace the velvet one that seems to have inexplicably shrunk over the years. We dropped the kids off at the movies to see Narnia, and then we drove down to Elizabethtown (yes, the one just like in the movie of the same name) for the CG's holiday reception. We had a nice time. Secure in the knowledge that the wonder unders were on the job, I gorged myself on shrimp cocktail and the most amazing dip made from Vidalia onions and cheese. Here's the obligatory in-front-of-the-tree shot:



You might think that we would be done with our holiday social obligations after a weekend like that, but we're not. There's one office party and 2 coffees standing between us and packing to head for Florida after school next Tuesday. Ho ho ho!

Wish I'd found this last fall

Not that it would have changed anything (probably), but how cool is this?



Looks like they're still for sale here.

Action on the old blog

After I posted that picture of the kids in front of the very scary squirrels, I started going through some of the other pictures from Europe that I never got around to blogging. I decided to leave behind this icky, freezing cold day and journey back to warmer times and put up a post about our final trip to the Luisenpark. You can read about it here. I'm double-posting my favorite picture from that day here though, because it makes me happy every time I look at it:



I seriously contemplated using that shot as our Christmas picture.

Squirrels again

I can't stop giggling over this comment from Dawn about the dog-eating Russian squirrels:

Hmmm. Does this mean I should stop throwing rocks at the squirrels to keep them out of my feeders? Will they go all "Veruca Salt" on my ass and carry me into the trees? Now THAT is scary.

It reminded me of a picture from my still-unblogged photos from last May's trip to Venice. There we were cruising through Bavaria--or maybe we were in Austria by then--when we saw something so disturbing that we had to go back to take pictures. Here are my kids and my friend Sandra's son Heath standing in front of something you just don't see every day:



Like the sign says, "the future of nature." Be afraid. Be very afraid.

A most unfortunate typo

We got a heapin' helpin' of icky winter weather yesterday afternoon. The kids were sent home early from school, and Fred canceled his plans to go to Ft. Meade today. Last night as we lay in bed watching ER, I was paying close attention to the announcements of school and business closings and delays that were scrolling across the bottom of the screen. Looks like the Soiled Rotten Cloth Diaper Service will be running late on their deliveries today.

Beware of . . . squirrels?

As I was driving home from the PX this afternoon, I was half listening to NPR when something caught my attention. Apparently reports of vicious squirrels killing and eating a stray dog in a Russian park have been spreading across the internet. The speaker said that investigation has revealed that the report originated from a Russian tabloid known for its sensational stories. Given our familial interest in squirrels and other rodents, I just had to learn more.

This evening I turned to my trusty friend Google.com and typed in the search "squirrels attack dog." Bingo! There, as the very first hit, was an article from no less an authoritative source than BBC News--"Russian squirrel pack 'kills dog'":

A "big" stray dog was nosing about the trees and barking at squirrels hiding in branches overhead when a number of them suddenly descended and attacked, reports say.

"They literally gutted the dog," local journalist Anastasia Trubitsina told Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper.

"When they saw the men, they scattered in different directions, taking pieces of their kill away with them."

The speaker on NPR reassured the host that this news article had come from the Russian equivalent of our supermarket tabloids, and I came home prepared to break the vicious squirrel news here and compare Komsomolskaya Pravda to the National Enquirer. Something just didn't feel right though, so I decided to investigate further. I found a couple of articles that accused Komsomolskaya Pravda of occasional yellow journalism but nothing that would suggest them to be a consistent source of UFO sightings.

I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep tonight until I found the original article. Do you have any idea how tricky it is to do a google search in Russian, even if you did manage to graduate with a degree in Russian Studies back in the mid-1980s? It's hard if for no other reason than I don't have a cyrillic keyboard, let alone know the word for "squirrel." I persevered though for you, my readers (all 15 of you!), and I am happy to report that I was successful. You can read the article in Russian here. OR you can read a snippet of the translation that I carefully prepared by pumping the Russian text through an online translating service:

People is going to arrange in a wood of an ambush on rodents

Above brothers our smaller local residents yet did not see such rough handling. In the center of settlement Lazo of area Dalnerechenskogo is a small wood: on its footpaths peasants go every day for work and home. That day on park three
lazovtsev walked. Nearby rezvilsja the homeless dog rushed between trees and oblaival black the squirrel, hidden on trees. Whether bark has bothered rodents, whether they too ogolodali, but is unexpected the whole flight squirrels have rushed on a poor mongrel.

"Excuse for a terrible detail, but they in literal sense gutted a dog," Anastasia Trubitsina, the correspondent of the newspaper Shock Front, has told to us about punishment according to eyewitnesses. People, seeing such horror, have rushed the dog on proceeds, but was late. The squirrel flight tore up the dog no more minutes. And when squirrels have seen men, have rushed in all directions, carrying away with itself slices of extraction.

News about the flown into a rage squirrels has quickly scattered on settlement. Now many inhabitants bypass a place of severe punishment by the party. Are afraid, that squirrels in a wood any more only nutlets gnaws. If they have attacked on large dog can and up to children who like to walk, reach here.

So Anastasia Trubitsina--quoted as a "local journalist" by the BBC--works for a newspaper called Shock Front. I couldn't find a website for Shock Front, but I'm thinking it's what one might call a "rag" if one knew how to say "rag" in Russian. I find it amazing that I, a blogging mom in Kentucky, can uncover that small detail when the great minds at BBC, all of whom probably have really cool British accents, couldn't.

It just goes to show you can't believe everything you read in the mainstream media. Which is too bad, because, damn . . . bloodthirsty squirrels. Wouldn't THAT have been something?

Weather forecast: Sun tomorrow, betcher bottom dollar

We just got back from Louisville. Fred and I took the kids up there this evening to see the touring show of Annie. It was a great show and lots of fun. Annabelle says she still ranks Cats as her all-time favorite, but she liked this one a lot, too. I don't know which she enjoyed more though--seeing kids perform or seeing a dog on stage! (Mike claimed to be going only because I insisted that he come along, but I think he enjoyed it.)

Right before the curtain went up, they made an announcement: "The part of the stray dog in the dog catcher's cart is played tonight by Heidi. The Louisville Humane Society will have information available in the lobby during intermission for anybody interested in adopting Heidi." Naturally, I stayed clear of the lobby for the whole evening, but I still got to spend the intermission squirming in discomfort while the kids begged for a dog (Annabelle) or a second cat (Mike).

ANNABELLE: Why can't we get a dog?!

ME: We just bought a white carpet.

ANNABELLE: But I never asked for a carpet!

Some future therapist is going to make a mint off of my kids.

Trapped in a velvet prison

What is the point of a blog if you can't occasionally humiliate yourself before all of mankind? You have to understand that I have been sick for the past couple of days. Really, really sick. I spent all day yesterday in my PJs wallowing in my bed, and it looked like today would follow the same pattern.

Even in the depths of my sickness, however, it was not lost on me that we have TWO formal events to attend next week--some Audie Murphy awards dinner on Thursday night followed by the holiday formal on Saturday. For the holiday formal, I'm planning on wearing the red dress I wore to JAG Prom last spring. (That is one good thing about moving every 2 years--there's always a new crowd, so nobody ever says, "Didn't you wear that thing to the last 3 dances?") I'm at a loss though as to what to wear to the dinner on Thursday night.

I've been planning on going up to Louisville to go shopping for a couple of days now, but given that I haven't even had the energy to shower and get dressed, those plans keep getting pushed aside. Today, I at least feel well enough to shop online, and that is what I have been doing for the past hour or so. I found several things I like, but of course they all cost money, and I'm feeling rather thrifty with Christmas staring me in the eye. So I went to my closet in a hail-Mary attempt to find SOMETHING, anything that I could make do with for the awards dinner.

I dug and I dug and I dug, and finally I came out with a long-forgotten black velvet dress that I had bought for a song at Lord & Taylors several years ago. I ripped off my PJs and pulled the dress over my head. I tugged and I tugged and I tugged, and finally I stood before my mirror looking not unlike a black velvet sausage:



Pretty dress, but it's not going to work for Thursday night unless I lose 5 pounds off my butt between now and then. Even the wonder unders can't provide the sort of control I would need to make this happen--believe me, I tried them.

Having used up what little energy I have this morning, I went to reverse the process so I could crawl back into my jammies and back into bed. I tugged and I tugged and I tugged, and I did manage to get the skirt up north of my hips, but then it stopped and no amount of tugging will get this dress off of me. It's a physical impossibility unless I break both arms and maybe a collar bone.

I've even looked around for a hook at just the right height, thinking that perhaps I could snag one of the bows on the back and then just kind of sink down, sliding out and leaving the dress hanging on the wall. I can't find the right hook though, and it's probably just as well. The only thing worse than having my husband coming home this evening to find me lying in bed wearing what appears to be a black velvet tube top would be having him come home to find my lifeless body hanging on the wall, strangled to death by a black velvet noose.

Then again, I don't know why I should worry about HIM. He knows what HE is going to wear--the same damn thing every other man in the room will be wearing, only none of them will be embarassed to find themselves dressed identically. After all, they look alike Monday through Friday, so it's old hat to them.

If I call 911, will they send the jaws of life?