Windy!

The weather is beautiful here today, right around 60° I'd guess. I walked up to Target at lunch to buy Macaroni some pants that fit. He had a "PMSy" type morning...none of his jeans fit. Thank goodness he's an 8 year old boy and not a teenage girl or he probably wouldn't have been so happy walking out of the house in sweatpants.

Not much going on, as usual. I need to start, yes...start, Macaroni's pirate costume tonight. Procrastination is my middle name. And last name. And should be my screen name. At least he doesn't seem too freaked out by the last minuteness.

Just found a new photo of Ewan from Miss Potter. (Notice how I cropped out Renee Zellwhatever? Heather knows all about my cropping skills when it comes to photos of Ewan and the ladies. Ladies that aren't me, that is.)










He looks so unEwanlike. Still hot, just not as steaming hot as usual.

Netflix review: Jboy rented Yojimbo and Sanjiro , both Japanese samuri movies. I watched parts, but didn't really pay attention to the subtitles enough to follow the stories so I don't know if they're good or really good. Jboy liked them.
Once he was done I watched Firefly for a little Joss/Nathan fix. I only got through the first two discs, which is weird because I usually watch all 14 episodes in one weekend. I feel like I left the iron on. Firefly is my all-time favorite TV show ever. Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Veronica Mars are currently duking it out for second place. Joss created BtVS, but he guest starred on VM. Makes it so hard to pick.

Girl fight

Whatever happened to the good old days when you'd kick a girl's ass if you didn't like her? Or put Nair in her shampoo? Or make out with her boyfriend at a party?
Today high school girls are putting up fake myspace.com pages (or hijacking pages already there), posting personal information, less than flattering photos and spreading horrible rumors about people. I've been dealing with myspace.com and yahoo, trying to get down a page attacking Mandy. She took my advice and not only confronted the girl (who used to be her best friend) but smacked her too. Not that I condone the fighting but it's what I would have done.

Not much else going on. I really need to finish Randy and Shannon's wedding announcements/invitations (they were married in May) and I really, really need to get started on Macaroni's Halloween costume. He's either going to be a pirate or a pirate zombie. I think fake blood is the only difference. And knowing Jboy he'll decide to dress up at the very last minute and expect me to whip out a costume that night.

Netflix review: Lost in Translation

Three stars. The movie is set in Tokyo which was cool, but I got so distracted listening to Jboy tell me about all the places he recognized from his trip that I kind of missed the point of the movie. If there was a point. I really like Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson bugs me a lot less than when she was filming The Island with my boyfriend Ewan. And she is a good actress. I'm sure if I had watched it alone first and then watched it with Jboy it would have been much better, it won tons of awards afterall. Constantly pausing to read kanji kind of takes you out of the moment.

Slugfest

Sunshine is super lazy today, as opposed to the everyday lazy you'll usually get, so this won't take long. Nothing new to report, except that I'm going to type fast cause I've got to pee.


Netflix review: SLiTHER
(Again, not a Netflix. But it was just delivered to my mailbox last night, so it's Netflixish. Right? )
Did we ever decide how many stars we're working with here? Five out of five? Whatever, SLiTHER gets them all.
I'll start by disclosing two very important factoids.
1.) I heart Nathan Fillion, star of today's movie. He is so very pretty, and he captain'd the ship in my all-time favorite movie: Serenity. I'd give it up in a heartbeat for that boy.
2.) This movie is fucking gross.

And still, all the stars. I'm not usually one for gore and guts or horror movies in general. Unless they're done well. And first time director James Gunn done did well.
It is a horror movie (ala Night of the Comet...remember that one Shayne?) but it's so funny. So Horor/Comedy. Best thing (besides Nathan) is that they combine CGI and physical effects so that it's not totally old school/fake and it's not all computer-pristine/fake. Makes for a lovely little picture. Lovely and bloody.
And the bonus features (so many bonus features) not only pimp out Nathan big time, there's also a bit about how to make your own fake blood. Probably the only part of the DVD Macaroni will be allowed to watch.
My only complaint? No naked Nathan.

Look at all the pretties

Mandy in Times Square

Crazy pedicabs!

Strawberry Fields

Atop the Empire State Building.

Can you say windy?

Shop 'til you drop

Billy, our horse from Central Park

Notice how my arm is bigger than Mandy's thigh. Lovely, no?

Wherefore art thou cartilage?

Whoa, I'm tired. And my knees hurt. Thank goodness Mandy is lazier than I am cheap, because we ended up taking cabs (and pedicabs, holy crap are they scary!) everywhere in New York. I would have much rather walked and soaked everything up but sitting here with swollen knees and a sore back I guess I'm glad. No, wait, really I'm not. I would rather have seen the Statue of Liberty and have swollen knees. Oh well, sixteen year olds have different priorities.

New York was a blast, even though there were more "wish-we-had-done's" than there were "glad-we-did's" and I ended up spending way more than I had planned. Hopefully I'll have some photos to post soon. The photos Mandy didn't delete that is. Pimple evidence.

Thought of your mama everyday KK, especially at Central Park. But it's so not as cool in the dark.

We only saw Matt Lauer, and I don't think he really qualifies as a celebrity. (He was however with his pregnant wife, so now I'm the gossip queen! Take that Us Weekly.) We saw two "shoots/production sites" but alas, no Ewan. One in Grand Central Station and one right in the middle of Times Square. I did take photos at both just in case it was Ewan's movie and he just wasn't on the set at the time. We also went to Bryant Park (where Ewan and Hugh Jackman were shooting two weeks ago) and took some photos. I resisted the urge to lick all the tables and chairs, only because there were some pretty "interesting" people around and unless I knew Ewan's ass had been in that exact chair why risk the infection, right?

What else? We saw The Lion King and Wicked. Loved them both, Wicked a little bit more even though the vocal performances weren't quite as powerful as the cast we saw in Minneapolis. We ate at Tao and sat right next to the 20 foot Buddha, watching the koi fish try to jump out of the water. I would kill for a cute boy who could make me those dumplings everyday. (Tao in Las Vegas is much cooler, which seems assbackwards as New York is so much cooler than Vegas.)

We didn't get to the Statue, TeaNY or Tiffany's. Ditto for Serendipity and Magnolia Bakery. No Rockefeller Center or ice skating. And no Brooklyn Bridge. There were times I felt like we weren't even in NYC. Mandy refused to ride a train (although I did get her to walk down to the platform) and insisted on taking a carriage ride through the park after dinner, so we didn't see shite. I did make her walk to Strawberry Fields on Sunday to get photos of the John Lennon memorial.

I am so glad I have sons. Mandy is way too cute and mature looking. Lots of dirty old men making comments and staring at her. Especially the gross guy in the Porche who followed us for ten blocks or so. He was too old for me, let alone a teenager! Yuck! We did breeze right through security at the airport though, thanks to her skin tight outfit and the cute hat she haggled for in Chinatown. Several people called her Brittany, which she thought was really insulting and I thought was pretty hilarious.

I bought a few cute things, mostly gifts, and an umbrella that we could have done without. Mandy bought lots of clothes and two pairs of Puma's (even though she brought/packed about 30 tees, 6-7 pairs of jeans, 3 pairs of Uggs...all for four days!) and a new Coach purse.

Speaking of purses, in Chinatown everyone on the street says: "handbag? Louis Vuitton, Coach, Gucci". Seriously, everyone. You can't go five feet without someone approaching you. Mandy didn't get it, since there were bags right there on the street. So I explained to Mandy that there were "backrooms" where they had the really good knockoffs, or as I'm told now, the stolen bags. So she talked me into saying yes and we rushed across the street after a shady looking Asian man, into a much shadier looking building...straight into a sweatshop. It was horrible. All of these women at sewing machines in a crappy building. If a fire had started we all would have died. So anyway, we follow him through this dirty room into a small corridor, around the corner into a smaller little secret room filled with designer handbags, and thankfully, two other women shopping for bags.
We looked around, the whole while I'm trying to send Mandy psychic signals that this is not where we should be, thinking what a horrible role model I am. "I boycott companies for labor practices like this!" After looking around and asking the price of several bags we finally go to leave when the woman running the show says "How much? $35?". The bag Mandy was looking at is a $400 Coach tote and the price she had quoted us was $65, so Mandy turned around pretty fast and went right to that bag. Obviously the woman meant a different bag because she got really angry, as if we insulted her, when she's the one who made the offer. Needless to say we hightailed it out of there. Very creepy experience. I think I'd much rather buy a stolen bag than one those poor women were slaving over.

So that was our trip. Fun, but not as cool as the first time. Oh yeah, we also went on a Outlet Shopping trip our last day there. We got to smell the Port Authority bus terminal, and yes, I do mean smell not see. Lots of places in NYC smell like urine, but the bus station definitely smells more like poo. And not pleasant baby diaper poo either.

My favorites: Tao, Wicked, Mandy's face when we walked into the four story Abercrombie & Fitch store (her Mecca) and she saw the half naked boy standing at the entrance (apparently they don't do that at the Mall of America store). Ooh, our first pedicab driver. He had a very nice backside and rock hard calves, which I tried to stare at rather than paying attention to the traffic we were weaving in and out of. Roasted cashews and the kids lightsaber fighting in Central Park.
Just being in New York again. I could live there.

My least favorites: paying for six block cab rides, dodging puke on Broadway's sidewalk Sunday morning, the crazy shower curtain in our hotel that attacked me everyday. The lack of a cash machine in our hotel. Not finding Ewan. Thinking about the credit card statement that will be coming. Did I mention all the effing cab rides?

Netflix review: Okay, not really Netflix since I own it. Moulin Rouge
All of the talk about Ewan McGregor got Mandy in the mood for one of the best musicals ever. I could listen to Ewan sing all day. And have, more times than I'll admit to. Moulin Rouge gets an infinite number of stars. Okay, not much of a review but Ewan's hot, Nicole Kidman is fabulous, and Richard Roxburgh is so deliciously creepy as The Duke. If you haven't seen Moulin Rouge, hang your head in shame all the way to Target or Best Buy or wherever you buy DVD's from. Don't rent it, it's that good. It's like crack for the ears, meth for the eyeballs.
Easter Egg: On the first menu, highlight "The Cutting Room" and press Enter. Press the down arrow three times to highlight "Main Menu." Then press the left arrow button, and a red windmill will appear. Press Enter to see what appears to be an outtake of the scene where Ewan McGregor sings "Your Song" to Nicole Kidman.

Remember when Brad was dating Gwyneth?

Me either, but apparently they were a couple when they made SE7EN together. Sunshine is boring, all I did was work, work and housework this weekend. But I did manage to watch a movie in between sink loads of dishes. Poor crusty cuticles. Oooh, I did get the best birthday present yet...photos of Baby K! I love them all, but must say that the one of her slurping spaghetti noodles is my favorite. Reminds me so much of myself. Love the picture of her wearing the jacket I painted for her too. I'm thinking about getting the koi fish from her sleeve tattooed on my left forearm. Maybe this week.


Netflix review: Se7en
The best thing about this movie was Morgan Freeman. I mean Kevin Spacey. I mean Morgan and Kevin, I love them both. Jboy and I watched it and were both "this is so good, why didn't we see this 100 years ago?". And then we saw the ending. Pfft. Two hours I could have spent cleaning grossness off my kitchen floor. Okay, so I'd rather watch the movie than clean, but the end really did suck.

Work is for suckers.

It's Saturday. And I'm sitting at work. I was thinking about posting a smartass remark about how KK should find a rich husband instead of a great best friend, but anyone who knows me knows that's just the exhaustion talking. Typing?
Although a rich husband with only hours to live (or weeks if he's hot) might not be bad.
Here's the list of things I'd do with some imaginary-rich-husband money.
1. Fix my bathroom. I mean really, the jokes about me and the bathtub falling into the basement are becoming a little spooky.
2. Visit KK and Shayne!
3. Fix the hole in my sunroom ceiling. It's been there for years and is getting a little embarrassing, even for someone with my incredibly low home interior standards.
4. Put some money away for the boys to go to college and for me to retire one day.
5. Fix my front and back doors, the bungee cord holding the door shut is so 1990's.
6. Go back to Scotland! Or go to Japan, or Thailand. Anywhere really.
7. Quit this crappy job and stay in bed on the weekends.

Funny how the odd numbered ones are what I should be doing with my actual money. I just like vacations so much more than home improvements.
So Baby K, work = bad, money = good. Or something almost the opposite of that.

No Netflix review today. Jboy and I watched 1 vs. 100 last night. Another gameshow, just what the world needs. Some of the questions were way too easy. Now J wants to go on the show.
Instead of a movie I'll review a cd: The Dandy Warhols Come Down by none other than The Dandy Warhols. Excellent, track 6 is my favorite but I keep singing "Minnesoter" over and over. I so need to figure out how to link to stuff. Then you could see how unbelievably cute Courtney Taylor (sometimes Taylor-Taylor) is. I love him long time. Especially with the mohawk. Yummy.

Not quite Hallmark

The friendship ball is in the mail. Finally. It's filled with what will probably be referred to as a "Hammer gift". As in "Damn, Sunshine is so cheap she made me another freaking Hammer gift?". But Baby K is so cute I think I can get away with it. Again. I care enough to send the very best...it just requires a trip to the store and I'm tired.

For those who don't have their very own shiny Friendship Ball: Baby K's Mama and I share a silver ornament that opens up to hold little gifts and such (just big enough for a travel size bottle of Pepto, as we discovered before a trip to Mexico). There's a dirty little secret about that poor old friendship ball. It's occasionally neglected by one of it's deadbeat owners, evidenced by the little denty ding on it and the months worth of dust that covered it's box until last week. And the fact that it sat for months.

The blogs first (but not last) grammatical correction comes from my eldest son and includes our first (but not last) Strongbad quote: "If you want it to be possessive, it's just 'i-t-s', but if you wanna make it a contraction, it's 'i-t-apostrophe-s'... Scalawag." Now if I could just figure out how to link you to Strongbad's emails...

I'm afraid the ball has come to symbolize our friendship...and I'm embarrassed to say that Shayne does all the hard work. She's organized and considerate; I'm sitting in the recliner. She sends thank you notes in the mail; I might remember to send an email. She always calls me; I have great conversations with her all the time...but they're usually in my head. By the time I think to call it's somewhere between 3 and 5 AM. She brings the sense; I bring the sarcasm. She cooks; I eat. I guess opposites really do attract.
I guess I'm feeling like a crappy friend. It's not that I don't love her. It's not that I don't think about her every single day (especially first thing in the morning when I'm brushing my teeth and holding the little silver angel she sent me. Most likely in the friendship ball). I'm just lazy.
And I'm positive that ding occurred while I had custody of the ball.

So Baby K, I hope you grow up to find a best friend just like your Mama. She's been my best friend since junior high (that's more than 20 years! Wow, we're old) and I couldn't dream up a better friend. Even with 922.22 miles between us, I always know she's there for me. And hey, that's only a 14 hour drive?!?! Auntie Sunshine has a hard time with 14 minutes in a car but I never realized we were that close.

Netflix partial review: Animal Farm
Orwell's novel about the Russian Revolution adapted for the screen using live animals voiced by actors. (Another reviewer says it better than me - 'Can "biting satire of totalitarianism" ever coexist in the same sentence as "brought to you by Hallmark"? Yes, if you're not a purist.') The movie was good although a little slow at parts and what the hell is with the snotty pig noses? Do pigs really have constant gallons of mucus spilling from their snouts? Yuck. One more reason not to eat bacon. I remember reading the book more than I remember the book. Worked 11 hours yesterday without a break for lunch so I was just too tired to watch the end. Which apparently was altered to achieve that aforementioned Hallmark moment. I'll let ya know.

Something to do with tea cups

So I'm sitting at my desk wondering why I still live in Minnesota. Obviously my family is here and it's where I've always lived. Part of it used to be the politics, but that's been changing and it's not as Minnesota Nice as it used to be. (Although it's never been quite as nice as we like to pretend.)
I still really love autumn in Minnesota. The leaves changing color, crunching under your feet and cool, gentle weather. But we seem to have skipped the season this year and are headed straight to the frozen tundra.
Today it's 25° and blowing snow. The average high for today is 61°! And we'll be lucky to hit KK's low temperature of 35° for a high. I'm sure in a few weeks flurries and a low of 25° will seem almost tropical, but it's getting harder for me to adjust to the weather changes. Old age and arthritis. Not fun. Now I know why retirees move to Florida and Arizona. Although I've still got my eye on Scotland. It's 16° Celsius (60° F) in Edinburgh today. Beautiful landscape and Scottish boys, warms the heart if not the arse.
Enjoy your mid 50's this afternoon KK, I'll be making another cup of tea and digging my slippers out of the filing cabinet.

Uggh! Here I thought I had learned a cool trick. Holding down the Alt key and typing 248 on the keypad, I got the little degree symbol. ° But when I preview the page it's showing an ugly capital A wearing a ^ on top in between the number and the symbol. Now not only will KK discover that Auntie Sunshine can't spell or construct a proper sentence to save her life, but that she's technologically retarded too. --- Aha! I may be a moron, but I'm resourceful. Got rid of that scary hat wearing A afterall. After all? Whatever, it's gone.

No Netflix review today, I worked on wedding announcements/invitations with my sister-in-law Shannon last night and went to bed without turning on the TV. And we're actually getting offered some overtime at work, so it may be awhile before I watch anything good.

Worst. Blogger. Ever.

Wow, six months. Is there an award for being the laziest blogger on Earth? Finally a category I can dominate. I'm blaming my employer (for keeping me too busy to blog) and my mom (for raising a cheapskate who refuses to pay for high speed internet at home). I promise to keep the acceptance speech short.
Actually, I'd forgotten all about this blog until Baby K's mama started one of her own. That inspired me to jump back in. Admit it, you're amazed by my password recall, aren't you?
So, what do boring people blog about? The broken recliner I sit in every night watching Netflix movies? My LOVE for Veronica Mars? The scary mold growing in my even scarier basement?
No, for once I have something exciting to type about. Do not get used to it.
I am going to New York next week!
My other beautiful, not-Baby-K goddaughter (why do I always type gooddaughter? Because I have sons? hmm...) Mandy and I are going to NYC for a quick shopping spree. Four days of shopping, sightseeing, shopping, dinner at Tao and a performance of the Lion King, more shopping and, guess who just happens to be in New York while we're there? My imaginary boyfriend, Ewan McGregor! Manda will be a professional celebrity stalker by the time I'm done with her. But only in a good way. And only so she can take photos of Ewan. She is not allowed to touch!
Wish me another picture with Ewan. And no double chin this time!

Netflix review: A Home At The End Of The World
I could watch Robin Wright Penn in anything, she's stunning. And this one has Colin Ferrell (who just finished making a movie with my boyfriend Ewan) making out with a guy. Worth watching.