He's Almost Home

After three weeks of being apart, almost four months of traveling, and over 50 performances of Cabaret, The Dad Guy comes home today! It's been a whirlwind, but we are ALL so happy he's coming back.

Granted, the mad dashiness of our life doesn't stop here. Off to stay with my dad for a bit. Yep, the whole crew is making the move for some downtime, a chance to be with "Snappy" for bit, and to make getting more settled in NYC a little easier. Always an adventure with us.

This is going to be a challenging time, and I sometimes find myself wishing it were all a little different. As of late, I suppose my life mantra has been pretty consistently: There is Never Enough Time. So, please say a prayer for us that is a good, happy, easy time. And get out there and enjoy every little minute of time you have!

A Top Ten List, Almost

I've been thinking about pop music lately. I think about pop music a lot, actually. Seeing the Madonna/Justin Timberlake video is inspiring to me. How can Madonna stay so relevant? Will JT ever miss the mark. I love this stuff!

So, in honor of my love of the world of Billboard Top Tens, I offer my top favorite names of pop singers.

SADE: I am pretty sure that no record label would let you have the name Sade in the current pop climate. It's not the name so much as the pronunciation. And I can't believe it got past labels in the 80's, either. How would someone go to Tower Records and find the album by the woman whose song "Smooth Operator" was backsold as "Sharday?" Where do you start to look that up? And now, if you were to type "Sharday" into iTunes, I suspect you might not find what you are looking for. The music business can go for lowest common denominator sometimes and I am impressed that they didn't go all 'hooked on phonics' to help sell records.

RICK ASTLEY: So, I feel like Rick Astley is the kind of guy who might have Google Alerts and he might like seeing his name pop up on the internets, right? And, wouldn't it be cool if Rick Astley read my blog?! It's not like he has anything else to do. But, Rick, I'm never going to give you up. I'm never going to let you down. I promise.





PRINCE: You had to see this one coming, right? I mean he's Prince, he's the Artist Formerly Known as Prince, and he even just rocked a symbol for awhile. Nice. And, you gotta know he has a great name if even the King of Pop himself, Michael Jackson, when naming his children says, "You know what's a great name? Prince." In fact, he liked the name Prince Michael so much he used it twice.









MOBY: There was a great episode of "How I Met Your Mother" where the gang runs into a guy that they are sure is Moby. They have him tag along on their New Year's Eve adventures. It's later discovered that the guy is a) really creepy, and b) someone other than the pop star. So, for the rest of the episode they refer to the guy as Not Moby. I guess there are two kinds of people in the world: Moby and Not Moby. And you have to appreciate the literary reference.



RICK SPRINGFIELD: Okay, so this is a bit of a stretch, and I don't have any intention of loading this list with "Ricks" per se, but I heard a song recently that sleighed me. It's a Rick Springfield song where he laments being confused with "The Boss" himself, Bruce Springsteen. I don't know who confused these two. Ever. But if it's about the "spring" in his last name and that's all it took to inspire this song, I love it! Take a listen to "Bruce" to hear what I am talking about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EW1Frr4OcRc.



DOLLY PARTON: No one else could pull off the name "Dolly" like this tiny, well-endowed, generously coiffed spitfire. You gotta be bold to call yourself, "Dolly." And with genius tunes like, "Jolene," I am glad she didn't decide to call herself anything else.









If I try to fill in a Top Ten list I am sure boredom will set in, for all of us. So, I am settling for a Top Six, and letting you all throw in your bids for the last four spots. And, if you decide to offer your two cents I will love it, but remember, we are going with solo artists, not bands. Coming up with odd but lovable band names is like shooting fish in a barrel. Chumbawumba, anyone?

Me and My Girl

I don't normally put photos of myself anywhere on the interwebs if I can help it. But I do love to show off The Babes. So, thinking we are looking more and more alike, I thought I might share this photo The Dad Guy snapped the other day of me and my favorite girl.

What do you think? Are we starting to look more alike?

Do I look like I need a lot more sleep? I do.

It's been too long since my last post, so I decided to throw something up here.

Maybe this is a good time to share some great news. It's 10:34 p.m., and you know where my daughter is? Asleep! We now have a regular bedtime routine and she is in bed, most every night by 8:30 p.m. And she sleeps for many, many hours at a time. Can you believe it? Now I just need to figure out what to do with myself!

I never thought I would reclaim this part of my life, but here we are.

It's hard to believe Little G is almost a year old. We are trying to plan her first birthday party. We've been brainstorming on how to throw a great little party for our favorite little lady buddy. Any suggestions?

Tapping into Pop Culture

The husband and I were chatting the other day about what I know anything about. The fact is that I know a little bit about a lot of stuff. I am the Queen of Useless Trivia, so to speak. We concluded that pop culture is really my area of expertise. I have no idea what I am supposed to do with this information.

In any case, I was brainstorming on all things pop-culturey I might want to blog about yesterday, and I thought about reality TV. I am not a big reality TV fan, as such, because none of it is "real." I think of it as commensurate to having conversations with total phonies who say, "I'm just keeping it real," which is code for, "I am full of it" or "I don't care about what my actions have to do with anyone else." They may not know it's code. Reality TV is full of it, and it shows no concern for consequence, so it's all kind of the same gig to me.

But, I loved the first couple seasons of the Real World. It appears that it has now sunk to desperate lows of depravity, but the first few seasons were like gold to voyeurs like me. The people on the shows had no idea that they might become "famous." They worked real jobs and had real relationships with their roommates, for better or for worse. The first meetings weren't set-up as the "who would I like to screw?" intros that they are now. I loved the first couple seasons of American Idol, too. These were real unknowns who just wanted to sing. Most of the contestants just wanted a chance to sing for an audience. No one was being courted by celebrity fashion designers to wear their clothes during performances. They took it seriously, but not too seriously. And they didn't talk back to the judges. Contestants honestly say stuff like, "Who are you to judge me?" THEY ARE THE JUDGES.

So, I know the names and story lines of the first couple seasons of both shows. I couldn't tell you the names of anyone from "The Amazing Race," "Survivor," "Big Brother," "Beauty and the Geek," etc. And, I grow to hate the current seasons of anything "reality," more and more. But, I thought that I might start blogging about the pioneers of reality TV. I know Kevin from the original Real World, New York, has been writing for Vibe magazine, and is very politically involved. Heather, also from NY, started producing hip-hop music. Judd and Pam from San Francisco got married. What became of the rest of them? These people who basically gave their lives for the new face of TV, actually wanted to go back to their real lives. And they live real lives now. They aren't trying to work their way onto TMZ, just to stay in the spotlight.

I was thinking that maybe I would start a series of posts dedicated to the "whatever happened to..." of legit pop culture icons. And, I was wondering, just yesterday morning, where could I start? Then, I turned on MTV at 10 p.m. last night. I never watch MTV anymore, but last night I thought, why the heck not? And you now what was on, "The Real World Awards Bash." They were pimping the next season of the show while looking back at the last 19 parts of the series.

It was a bizarre coincidence to find this on last night. And it was one of the weirdest things I have ever seen on TV. It was crazy to see what has become of most of the people. The most legit people were on via video clip. They were too classy to show up for the pool-side booze-fest. Yes, there was a pool. And, yes, people ended up in it. Big surprises abound. As I suspected from my earlier musings, I didn't recognize about 80% of the people. From what I could tell in their clips and from the awards, I believe that none of these people have jobs, and have embarrassed themselves beyond the point of no return in their appearances on the show. Seriously. I was embarrassed for them.

My hubby came home partway into the spectacle, and was shocked to find me watching it. He knows my deep and abiding loathing for programs like, "Girls Gone Wild," and this basically looked like 90 minutes of that. He asked me to justify why I was okay with this and not with GGW. Girls Gone Wild is the ultimate example of what I hate about current popular culture. While I was pregnant I'd see those ads and completely freak out, yelling at the TV. So, so awful. But, all I could think to answer the husband was, I was watching to see the what's become of the blueprint for current television and what people want to see. I like to be in the know. Sadly, in all its hideous, exploitative, embarrassing, self-indulgent, wrecked messiness, this is exactly what that blueprint built.

And, for the record, I don't need to do all that much research. The starting point is all pretty well done for me. Check it out here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Real_World. And for more that is the abomination of the Awards Show you can check this out: http://www.mtv.com/ontv/specials/real_world_awards/.

Maybe I will see what else I can dig up here on these Internets another day.

Eating While...

Eating is the kind of thing that you should be focused on when you do it. But we all know that people often partner all sorts of activities with eating. Sure, eating and drinking go together, that's obvious. But, even from an early age, everyone learns to not talk with your mouth full. Feeding Little G today, I had to instruct The Dad Guy not to distract her. "Let's stay focused on eating, little girl..." I said.

One of the more famous websites dedicated to the idea of what it's funny to do while eating has to be, http://cryingwhileeating.com/. It funny to see the combinations of what types of tears are shed over various cuisines. It's also just generally funny to see people distracted from two endeavors that should require one's full attention, crying and eating.

My husband tells tales of when he wanted to know what it was like to eat while showering. As it turns out, unbeknownst to him his brother tried Eating While Showering, as well. Years later they discussed their experiences. What, you might ask, did my hubby choose to eat in the shower? Chicken. Yup, a chicken drumstick, in fact. You might think this would be a time that would call for watermelon, right?

Which brings me to the reason from my post on this topic. I was driving down I-5 last week and was stuck in traffic. Big surprise (How do you do it Zesty Jenny!?)! But someone to lighten my mood and make my trip a little easier, I had the time to look over and see a guy driving a Ford Explorer. And Eating While Driving. It's not advisable in any case. But do you know what this guy in a business suit in an Explorer was eating? A really big chunk of Watermelon.

That was weird.

Spitzer Swallows

Happy Valentine's Day, Everybody!

No, I haven't lost it. Yet. I know that we are long past Valentine's Day. But it's sort of been in the news as of late, so I thought I would address it, even if we've added a few days to the calendar.

It's been in the news via an unlikely source, Eliot Spitzer. Yes, that Eliot Spitzer. Yeah, some Valentine, right?

Well, it turns out that his infamous tryst as Client #9 was on February 13-- Valentine's Eve. Yucky Pucky. This means that he presumably left DC and headed North on the 14th to spend the holiday of love with his wife and the mother of his children. Again, yuck.

Is there anything that Mr. Spitzer could have done on February 14 that would have made it a good holiday? Anything that would have made up for the $4500 travesty of the night before? Try as he may, try as he might, we all know that there is NOTHING he could get her to make up for his action. What his wife really wants is to trust her husband again. You can't buy that at Tiffany. The only things he buys soothe his own conscience.

What the hell was he thinking? Beyond the ethical and moral ramifications, this guy is a big pile of idiot. Did he think he wouldn't get caught? The guy busting up corruption in NY thinks he gets away with this? What a moron, right? He thought he could illegally move $80,000+ around to pay for hookers and his poor wife, kids and state constituency wouldn't find out. Amazing.

And Valentine's Day eve... His poor wife gets trotted out last week in front of the media, as the February 13 extravaganza plays out: where he was, who she was, how much he paid, his "special" requests. And she's just standing there, stricken. No one asked her where she was on Valentine's Day Eve. What did she get him? What did he get her? I didn't notice any big bling. I suppose anything of note surely would have lost its luster already.

* * * * * *
Even if he gave his wife this gift, it couldn't be enough. He could even throw in a line about how it represents "their journey." What a journey it is now.

But, for fun, let's just say Mr. Spitzer did go all out this Valentine's. Here are some thoughts on what he might have gotten "the Mrs." this year:

A Monthly Delivery Program so she's reminded of him 12 wonderful times a year

Lasting Moments: Creative Memories Scrapbooking Magazine subscription (so she can archive all the good times)

Giant Bear with Roses, (Nothing says love like a big old stuffed animal)

Sandals Jamaica Getaway: For Two People in Love Package

Or This Getaway instead-- it strikes me as more his style

Boudoir Photography Session of Sexy Photos... of Himself!

Personalized Glass Photo Frame: Is this what love looks like? (quite frankly anything from this site looks like a good choice)


That's just a start. And if they do work through this he's going to have a lot of gift-giving to do. Remember Kobe Bryant? I'm having a really hard time getting in this guy's shoes myself. Any Other thoughts on what he might have give?

We are the Champ-ions

What I am working on right now:

Darina Allen's Champ

This is not a book or an album, it's a recipe. My family is having our annual St. Patrick's Day to-do tonight and I volunteered to make Champ. It's really just fancy shmancy mashed potatoes, but a very traditional Irish dish. The scallions are chopped. The potatoes are boiling. The milk is ready to be warmed.

The woman who wrote the recipe uses some fabulous lingo in it. She says to put "knobs" of butter in a well on the top. The knobs are all prepared. But my favorite item she instructs is that you are to boil the potatoes with their jackets on. I love the idea of potatoes in jackets. In fact, I really like personification of inanimate objects. Seriously. Ask me about it sometime. It's pretty much always funny to me.

So, The Champ is happening. And it's going to be really, really good. Along with all the other tasty items being prepared. And this way we can make St. Patty's last through the actual day, March 17. But we celebrate today in order to not conflict with Holy Week, which starts on Monday. This issue hasn't come up in decades, but we're finding a way to make it work. Little Irish Catholic trivia for you.

My Mom Is Awesome

This is a shot from the Washington State Senate last week where Senate Resolution 8717 was passed, honoring my mom. It's bittersweet because she can't be here with us to celebrate this amazing honor. Were she still here, last Tuesday would have been, well, Tuesday.

I have been battling the bitter part of the "bittersweet" as of late, but today I am savoring the sweet. My mom was one amazing lady and I am so blessed to have her as my mom. I am extra blessed that I have gotten to share her with so many appreciative people. The language of the bill is quite "senate-y" but really nice:

http://apps.leg.wa.gov/documents/billdocs/2007-08/Pdf/Bills/Senate%20Resolutions/8717-Kathy%20McEntee.pdf

I treasure all this, but I think my favorite part is that she "acted on her deeply held beliefs in such a manner that she brought honor and dignity to herself and to our state, and resulted in her gaining the respect of even those who most vehemently disagreed with her on policy..." This is a conversation Mom and I had a lot. She would say that there were people who called her controversial, but, moreover, said there were people who didn't like her. I often noted that people may disagree with her, but they all respect her. And, they do. What is there not to love about this woman? You couldn't help but like her. She deserves respect and she got it. Now, it is forever in the record of Washington State that this is true.

Another neat part of this is that it was introduced as a bi-partisan resolution. She would like this almost as much as the fact that it thanks her husband and kids. My dad and I talked the other night and we talked about how my mom would never take credit for the things she did. She was always so grateful to my dad and really praised his faith, dedication, fortitude, and on and on. She's 100% right about all that and more. My dad is quite remarkable, too, I'll have you know. But, my mom would always tell you that everything she did wasn't about her, but was for "Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam" (AMDG) or as it is translates, "For The Greater Glory of God."

I am constantly thinking about the ways I can be more like my mom. How lucky I am to be like her in many ways already. Living for the Greater Glory is certainly a start. I am praying for the blessings and gifts that only come from God like the ability to make people see the best in themselves and make them feel special, the ability to connect with people in a unique way, to light up a room, and to make people feel good... (she had more gifts than I can possibly name here). I am praying, too, for the patience to develop these skills-- and wisdom to discern them as they are presented to me. I ask for wisdom and patience a lot. It can't hurt to ask you to pray for me to have those gifts, too.

Please continue to pray for my family. We all have a hole in our hearts. Please pray for me and for people generally to become better and more loving.

As many have said in honor of my mom, I add, "Job well done, good and faithful servant." What I add is, "I have fought the good fight. I have run the race. I have kept the faith." Yes, you have, Mom.

Color My World

Hello friends!
I added a special new feature to my blog recently. I have a profile photo. Up until now the perfect photo had eluded me. Then I found this one. (Look! My profile is over there, just to the left.)

I encourage you to visit my profile and click the button to enlarge it. If you want you can print it out and make a craft project of it. Perhaps there will be a contest in honor of my birthday in May. We'll see.

It's not so much homework as it is a fun diversion, right? It's not a command performance.