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WOO TO THE FUCKING HOO!!!

GO LETA GO!

Isn’t it odd how someone can be totally caught up in a complete stranger’s life? I guess it isn’t really that strange. Even though Heather & co. don’t know me, I know them. I can so totally relate, having the whole mormon heritage thing going for me, and when I read about Leta’s progress this morning, I felt that so-happy-I-might-cry feeling that I get from looking at my own spawn.

It’s a busy busy day today, and I’m feeling good. I have new sexy underwear on, and it’s doing the trick! The end of the day can’t come too soon. I know I’ve been all mopey and not writing, cause of the having to enter in old lost posts, but the light at the end of the tunnel is near and then I will be bombarding the internet with many many more words.

– amy dances to the beat of the drum

I’m at work today, the Friday before the big Christmas weekend, because I’m not allowed to take vacation until I’ve been here for 6 months, and I had to use most of the fancy comp time I had built up specifically for next week to stay home with my sick son and then again when it snowed and his school was closed, which doesn’t leave me with a lot of comp time to use on luxurious staying home around the holidays. I don’t mind being at work really, because boy was the traffic BREEZY and there’s not really many people here, so it’s quiet and kind of nice. However, I have had contact with home a few times and it makes me a little sad to hear all the cute oh-so-Christmasy sounds emanating through the phone at me, like the sound of Jocelyn talking her cute little phrases, “What doing?” “Stuck!” “Dat better!” “HI! HI! HI!” and Ethan singing his cute little nonsense songs and the sound of the Christmas train choo-chooing and whistling and just the overall snuggly coziness that home sounds like in those brief seconds.

It’s ok though. I have several of snuggly Christmasy staying at home days coming up, so I can handle today. And while I belive I’m going to get VERY busy directly after new years, right now the actual availability of work is on the low side so it makes for a pleasant, slow sort of work day.

While this year I got all grown up and sent presents to all of my family and even most of James’ family (all of his immediate family), I neglected to get something for my only remaining grandparent, my mother’s mother. I can’t BELIEVE I overlooked her, errgh. And it would be especially bad if she came over to my folks house for Christmas day, which is a likely scenario, and if everyone opened presents from us while my grandmother sat and wondered where HER present from us was and why didn’t she get one. I did realize this in time to select something online and have it sent to her, but noooooo I neglected to do this as well. When I discussed it with my mom, she mentioned that I might just send her some flowers, so earlier this week as I desperately cast around for something to send for her, I landed on that idea. Which quickly changed to, “Flowers die, I’ll send her yumminess! Then at least when it’s gone, you still got to eat something good!” So I browsed around Harry and David looking for something tasty, which they ALWAYS have, and that led to me asking James if he thought HIS grandmother would like some too, which he thought she would, so I ordered some for her as well. Then just as I was thinking how yummilicious everything was looking, it popped up with “Order some for you and get 20% off!” Seriously, who can resist that? So Grandma is getting a box, James’ Nana is getting a box, and now WE are getting a box too. Yum. I love Harry and David fruit.

This is not the end of the story. The next paragraph seems unrelated, but actually IS RELATED. You just have to trust me on this.

So last night I was wrapping up a few remaining presents, and I thought, hmm. I know I had more stuff for James. Now, I didn’t go all hog crazy with presents for James, but when I wandered around the house collecting the boxes that had arrived from various online stores that I knew that contained James presents, I only found two, and one of them I remembered what was in it, and it was pretty minor. I walked around a couple more times trying to think if I had placed a box in a super secret hiding place SO super and SO secret that I had forgotten where it is and James will have to have his present in 2013 when we sell this house and found the super secret hiding place only because the entire house is being packed up to move to, I don’t know, Canada.* It didn’t help that I couldn’t actually remember what was supposed to be in the missing box, or even which online store the mythical box came from. By this morning, I had actually remembered the item that was missing, so I felt relieved that at least I wasn’t going crazy. I do have specific memories of placing this item in a shopping cart, but I am fickle sometimes and perhaps did not follow through on the actual ordering. So this morning I hop on my e-mail and try to track down whether or not I actually ordered the item or not. It turns out that I did not. Silly silly Amy! No big deal, because I can go get it in a store, it just probably won’t be as cheap.

So, while I was rummaging around in my “orders” e-mail folder, I decided to check in on the Harry and David boxes, and was pleased to see that both grandmother’s orders had been marked as “Delivered” and that our box was currently out for delivery. However, on closer inspection, I saw that ours and Nana’s box were the same, but my grandmother’s had a different product. I ordered the same thing for all three orders. Then on even CLOSER inspection, I realized that NONE of the three orders had the box that I actually ordered, they were totally something else! So, depending on what arrives at our house, I may or may not open up a can of whup-ass on Harry and David for sending the wrong items. I figure I can at least wait to see what we get, and maybe it actually is what I ordered, and they just put something else on the tracking page for some odd reason. The box I ordered had apples and pears and I *think* chocolate covered cherries. I want the box I ordered dammit!

* Oh. My. God, do I love the run on sentences. You really should hold an intervention for me or something.

I hope that you love me and forgive my pointless seemingly-never-ending stories. Because I don’t think it’s likely to stop any time soon.

I’m getting my haircut today at 4:30. THAT went over well when I told James last night:

me, mumbling incoherently: I made an appointment to get my hair cut at 4:30 tomorrow.
james: What did you say?
me: I made an appointment to get my hair cut tomorrow at 4:30.
james: WHAT?!!!*
me: I’M SORRY I CAN’T HELP IT!!
james: WHY are you getting your hair cut again?! I thought you liked it after you got it cut!
me: I DID like it! I liked how she did it! I, however, cannot do it like she did it! I’ve given it a week! I have tried!
james: What are you talking about?!
me: LOOK AT ME! I LOOK LIKE SHAGGY FROM SCOOBY DOO!
james stares intently into my eyes, probably trying to recall how he ever thought marrying a whacko like me was a good idea.
me: you’re looking at my eyes, LOOK AT THE HAIR!
james looks at the hair.
james, finally admitting to the shaggy doo look: You really don’t have the hair skills, do you.
Now, this is too much. I HAVE MAD HAIR SKILLZ. IT’S THE HAIRCUT PEOPLE!
me: I BOUGHT A NEW HAIRBRUSH! I EVEN GOT OUT TWO DIFFERENT SIZED CURLING IRONS. YOU EVEN SAID YOURSELF THAT IT WAS A MAZE OF CORDS AT MY SINK! I HAVE THE HAIR SKILLS, I JUST CAN’T GET THIS HAIRCUT TO WORK FOR ME!
james: Well, ok then.

* note: I JUST had my hair cut last week, and unfortunately I have a history of not liking haircuts and going and either making the original hair cutter redo it, or going to a different salon and getting it re-cut. *cough* I think I’ve done this 2 or more times. At least two though, in the past 2 years. Maybe even three. I just add this note to let you know that James reaction is pretty much on target, and I was totally expecting it.

Aren’t you sick of hearing about my hair? I know I am sick of spending gobs of time on it only to look like Shaggy Doo. I’m thinking, let’s hack it all off, something that requires no curling irons, no brushing while blow drying. I’ve totally used up my allowable minutes spent on hair beautification for this year and the next, so a bob* is starting to sound really good to me about now.

*How roaring 20’s is that? I think I’ll get my hair bobbed, go meet a sheik and slip into a speak-easy to drink and dance the Charleston. James, you can be my cat’s meow, the bee’s knees, or maybe even wasp’s nipples.

amy often thinks about what she would do if all other human beings were suddenly gone from the planet.

Probably not, as I try to block it from my mind. Well, not really, because if it were blocked, then I wouldn’t be able to bring it up when I want credit for working in the service industry.

I was a waitress at Denny’s. And it wasn’t just any Denny’s, it was the Denny’s in Park City, Utah. SKI RESORT DENNY’S! You’d think that wouldn’t make a difference, but I swear it does. You would think that it would make a difference on the PRO side, but you would be wrong. OH SO VERY WRONG.

I’m afraid I really really sucked at waitressing. I was OK if it wasn’t too busy. But once it gets busy, then watch out because I won’t visit your table and I’ll bring you the wrong order, and that wrong order will be COLD! I was VERY good at apologizing and giving you free stuff to compensate, however.

One thing that kind of flabbergasted me was the wide powers over the ticket that a server had. Maybe it was just my Denny’s, where we actually wrote the tickets on a ticket slip BY HAND (none of these highfalutin computer systems there, I tell you whut). I was probably 19 or 20 and just amazed that I could just give free stuff away ON MY OWN SAY-SO. I didn’t have to talk to anyone else about it, if I felt that free stuff was warranted, I could do it! OH THE POWER THAT WAS MINE! FEAR ME AND FLAGRANT USE OF GIVING AWAY FOOD FOR FREE! I suspect that my Denny’s was somewhat lenient in this regard however. Did you ever work in a restaurant? Was this how it was for you?

Even as the “worst” job I ever had, it wasn’t too bad. Mostly it was bad when it got busy and because I was new and no one else wanted to do it, I had to take the night shift from 10pm to 5:30am on Sunday night (the one night off the other night server had). It was just me and the cook, who never really talked to me, and the customers which were around until about 2am, but then not so much. I remember one man who came in at 5:45 EVERY morning on the dot. He walked in, walked straight over to the same table and sat down. I was shocked at how blatant he was. Menu? No, no menu needed. I walked over to him offered him a menu, and was informed of what he’d have instead. As soon as I got it through my skull that he’s been coming here probably longer than I’d been living in the state or maybe had even been alive, I dealt with his lack of proper restaurant behavior (no waiting to be seated! no need for a menu! no waiting for the check just money on the table and he’s gone! what am i to you, just some cheap Denny’s hooker?!!) just fine.

I had a couple of other notable jobs. I didn’t really work in high school or during the summers much, but in my junior year I got a job with my friend’s mom’s cleaning company. It was crazy good money, $8/hr, and I got to work with my friend Michael so that was fun, and we both were in choir together so we’d sing as we worked sometimes and always had fun. Once though, I almost electrocuted myself by touching some wires that were hanging out of a socket. It’s kind of amusing to think back. I remember touching them, and then I was on the floor and Michael was standing over me asking, “Are you ok?” with no time lapse in between. Very odd.

I remember another time I was electrocuted. We moved to Marysville Washington from Colorado, and while we lived in town, it was a nice little neighborhood and there was this little side street where there was a field where a horse lived. I loved horses. (Remind me to tell you about the time my friend Emily and I planned out how we were going to buy a horse when we were 14.) I would take a carrot and go to that field and stand on the bottom rung of the fence and visit with the horse. It was a very nice horse. Brown, with a white blaze on his head. One day there I was, carrot in hand, but no horse. Just inside the fence they had strung up an electric fence, just a single wire. I knew, in theory, what it was, but I was curious. I picked up some grass and dropped it on the fence. Nothing happened. I guess in my mind, I expected a cartoonish “BUZZZT!” crackle or something, but of course, nothing happened. So next, I picked some long grass and touched it with the grass. If you didn’t already know, grass is an excellent conductor! Now, the voltage running through it is pretty low, I don’t think I even lost my grip on the fence, but I definitely didn’t go touching any electric fences after that.

Well, today has been a day for rambling and remembering, it seems. I’ll just leave it at that and bid you happy Tuesday.

amy is too cool for school.

I actually reread the entire series this summer. Except the last book. It’s gone missing. If anyone has seen my copy of The Last Battle, please let me know.

As I walked out of the movie, I was filled with mixed emotion, mixed impressions. When I got home, I was still all mixed up. I couldn’t decide whether I liked it or not. I am pretty easy to please, and just enjoy being entertained, so it is a little odd to be so perplexed about the movie. I think it can be summed up in the first scene. It’s the very first 5 minutes, so I don’t think I’m giving anything away to tell you, but if you would rather not know ANYTHING about the movie before seeing it yourself (that’s the way I am), then you may want to skip this post.

It begins from the perspective of a bomber looking down on London, and the audience follows the dropping bombs down to the buildings below. We then see a mother and her four children scurrying into a shelter, quite panicked, as is to be expected. It is all very real. Very life and death. Very turbulent. Next we see the children being packed onto a train, complete with tags attached to their coats labeling their destination, with hundreds of other children, and hundreds of parents watching them go.

The first few sentences of the book is as follows (please don’t sue me, it’s just three sentences for crying out loud):

“Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. This story is about something that happened to them when they were sent away from London during the war because of the air-raids. They were sent to the house of an old Professor who lived in the heart of the country, ten miles from the nearest post office.”

Do you see the difference here?

I think it can be pinned down as this: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe is a children’s book. And as such, it glosses over items that children do not necessarily need detailed. And it’s more than just, “It’s a children’s book.” Harry Potter is also a children’s book, but not a lot is glossed over. Lewis not only wrote a children’s book, he is telling a child a story. In the movie, there is no glossing. The audience is not necessarily a child, it could be anyone – adult or (hopefully slightly older) child alike.

Well, that’s it. That is the difference. So after hammering this out in my head, I’ve resigned myself to the innate differences these two types of media yield. I do like the movie. I just have to keep telling myself that it is a different telling of the same story. And it is the same story, and a great deal of it IS told the same way. But it will never be the same as the first time it was told to ME. Through the pages of his book(s), C. S. Lewis told me the story himself. Over and over again, through my childhood, adolescence and even now.

So, now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, I will tell you that I adored little Lucy Pevensie. She was absolutely perfect. I would say second to Lucy was the White Witch. Perfect. And in no particular order because he had virtually no screen time, was the Professor. I just loved him. Stay for the credits. I’m not sure about the choice of Liam Neeson for Aslan. Not that he was bad, but the entire time I just kept thinking, “That’s Liam Neeson’s voice!” instead of paying attention. I don’t think that was what the movie was going for.

As soon as I got home, I blabbered incoherently to James about the movie for a few minutes, and then I ran to my computer to see what was going on with the next movie. And as far as I could tell, NOTHING! COME ON HOLLYWOOD! These kids are growing up! GET ON THE STICK! I can’t remember which book comes next, because nowadays they are printed up in a different order than when I read them. However, the movie uses the first book I read as the first movie. Anyone remember which one is next? I’m thinking it is the The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, but who knows.

Other children’s books I would love to see made into WELL DONE movies: Anything by Noel Streatfield – They’ve done The Little Princess, and The Secret Garden (both by Frances Hodgeson Burnett), it seems like Ballet Shoes should be at the front of the line. The Book of Three anyone? I would love to see that one on the big screen, and really targeted to children, rather than adult children’s movies. I’m sure I’ll think of more as time goes by. Any you’d like to see? Comment!!

amy, who adores children and young adult literature and still reads it all today

So have you heard about the pharmacist who refused to fill a woman’s prescription?

The original livejournal post that I was reading about has since been taken down, but here are some other articles on the subject:

• Druggists refuse to give out pill
• Pharmacists’ Rights at Front Of New Debate

Seriously. This makes me want to go to school, become a pharmacist, and then PUNCH SOMEONE IN THE NOSE WHO PULLS ANY OF THIS CRAP.

Amanda Marcotte says it all so well – I have to at least quote this sentence in the last paragraph:

“Instead of openly admitting that they want to use any means necessary to force their religious beliefs on women, religious wingnuts instead are pretending that they are actually being oppressed if they are forced by law to respect others’ right to their own beliefs. They’ve convinced themselves that black is white, that they’re beliefs can only be respected if they are allowed to force them on others.”

Some more links:Ill. pharmacists withhold emergency pill – action being taken by Walgreen’s against those who refuse to fill prescriptions.

I honestly just wonder about people sometimes.

What’s even worse is when people’s wacko actions like this rub off on the non-wacko yet still religious folks. It just gives anyone religious a bad rap, and then when someone slams another’s belief system it’s humorous or OK because everyone knows that all religious people are crazy.

Why can’t everyone just let others believe what will make them happy and worry about themselves? That is seriously my motto about religion in life. If it makes you happy, and doesn’t hurt others, more power to you.

And if other beliefs make others happy, then why ruin that for them? It’s their life, not yours. If it makes them happy, then isn’t that great, that they’ve found something to believe that makes them happy? Yes! It is! It’s great! Just because it’s not for you doesn’t mean it’s not for them.

amy will step off the rickety soapbox now, because she really sucks at trying to get her opinions across anyway and it’s best left to other people.

Have you ever felt like you have so many things to do, that they are choking you, smothering you and you can’t possibly do any of them? That’s how I’ve been feeling so far this week, despite the beautiful snow – usually it snows and nothing can keep me out of the clouds, because really, snow is beautiful and wonderful and sometimes comes with the added benefit of not having to work. But while it is beautiful and wonderful, I do have to work, and I do have to clean the house and watch kids and bath kids and feed kids and answer 1 kid’s questions (which is infinitely better than the next one) and try to determine the desire that isn’t being met by the other kid who is throwing a huge tantrum and let’s not forget about the work part and the not sleeping part and the being stuck in my head with all the same old depressing thoughts and mentalities that make me just want to pull the covers up and stay put all day.

Lately I’ve been wishing that I was someone else because I’m so sick of being me. It’s not that I think my life is so awful, really I quite like my life, it’s more that I’m just so tired of being depressed by the same things over and over that if I could just swap mental faculties with someone else, their mental problems would be a refreshing change of pace. I’m bored and frustrated by my own tendencies toward depression, I guess. And generally speaking, I am not a depressed sort of person. I generally can go through my days pretty happy and contented and loving life and (oh here she goes with all the ands and no commas and what in the world did we do this Tuesday morning to deserve this Amy?!!!!) oh ok ok OK ALREADY! I’ll stop!!

So. Funny anecdotes. Nope, not in the mood for any of those. Witty anecdotes? Sorry, this is me we’re talking about and I’ve already used up my one allotted witticism for the year. Sad anecdotes? Hmmm, more in line with the mood, so I will tell you that last night when I got Jocelyn into her jammies, I put on the sort that have pants and a shirt instead of the all-one-piece-that-zips-and-has-FOOTIES!! and while it seemed fine at the time, I forgot to put socks on the girl, and at this age she doesn’t really keep her blankey on her all the time, and so this morning at 5:45 (5 minutes before my alarm went off) she woke up crying because her poor little feet were like icicles and our fucking heating system upstairs was designed by idiots because the thermostat is on our bedroom and the vents manage to actually get hot air to our bedroom while bypassing the other rooms nearly completely which results in our room becoming warm, the thermostat registering the temperature in there and turning off and thus the other rooms including the ones where our children sleep being little ice cubes. We have tinkered with the flow valve thingees up in our attic to try to shut air off from our room and push more air into the secondary bedrooms but it never seems to do any good. Any suggestions welcome. What we should do is leave their doors open at night but then we have the problem of Ethan getting up at 6:30, turning on every light switch he can find on his way to the potty which I’m sure would wake up his small sister. If of course, he didn’t just go in there (and he would, if the door is open) and holler, “WAKE UP!!” or “WOOOO WOOOOOOOOOOOO!” at her. We don’t need that at 6am, don’t you think? So. Back to the original sad anecdote, my daughter’s feet were frozen half the night and she finally woke up and complained about it loudly. This is saying something, because she will stay in her bed hours after she’s woken up, just sucking her thumb and musing about world peace, probably, waiting for someone to fetch her. So James got up and went to check on her and felt her icicle feet and had to put her back in her crib while he went in search of socks because there weren’t any in her drawer because last night instead of putting away the massive amount of clean laundry like I said I was going to I was smothered by all the things I needed to do and therefore did not do any of them except wallow in a chair watching Gilmore Girls. He swore in the darkness and Jocelyn wailed in her crib where she thought she was being redeposited for good and she didn’t like that because the icicle feet had not yet been thawed and covered. I got up and went in and held her while James put her socks on and then I rocked her for a bit with her blankey all snuggly around her and told her I was sorry about the socks and she looked at me and said wisely, “Socks.” I nodded and apologized again and then she forgave me if I never let it happen again, and put her head down on my chest and breathed slowly. I held her until I really had to go get in the shower because of the whole needing to drive to work thing, and so put her back in her crib and tucked her blankey all in around her. I miss her so much sometimes. I see Ethan often, I get him up and take him to school and pick him up and take him home, but James and Jocelyn sleep a bit later and they’re still in bed when Ethan and I leave the house. So I see her in the evenings and on weekends, but I never see her during the week until Ethan and I get home and she screams, “MOMMMY!!” and throws herself at my legs until I catch her and swing her up for some bear hugging. I miss my daughter.

Boy. I’m afraid to reread what I’ve written above, but I think it’s safe to say that a tired depressed amy results in very long run-on sentences with lots of ands and no commas and not much comprehension. I think I’d better stop while I’m…. well, I don’t think I can say ahead, so I’ll just stop.

amy could use an upper this morning. damn her non-coffee drinking lameness.

I caught a show on the Parthenon on the Discovery channel. It was really pretty cool, and it got me digging about more info on Athena. I like to share my knowledge (because let’s face it, it’s scant) with the world so here you go.

• The Parthenon was beleived to not actually be a temple to Athena, but a stronghold to house Athens’ treasures, including a statue of Athena herself.
• Athena was not born, but sprang, fully grown and in full battle gear, out of Zeus’ head (the mind boggles)
• Athena was the Patron Goddess of Athens, the Goddess of Wisdom, the Goddess of Weaving and the Goddess of Military Victory (tactics, not just inane fighting, see) (among other things)
• The Parthenon was built to be somewhat of an optical illusion. While the columns look straight, they all lean slightly. They also look the same width from the bottom to the top, while really, they grow narrower as they ascend.
• Athena was one of the virgin Goddesses.
• Athena is often called Pallas, or Pallas Athene. This name comes from a childhood friend she accidentally killed when they were having a mock battle. Athena was distraught and carried her friend’s name. The name, Pallas, means Maiden.

Coming next week, Snowball Earth!