Sooner or Later, Your Legs Give Way, You Hit the Ground

G. giving two big thumbs up for her birthday this weekend.

So, yeah. The president paid us a visit today...Well, he came to town to speak. I didn't get to see him, but those who did really dug what he had to say. It's funny that Coadster went to see him speak on the Ped Mall on Earth Day a few short years ago in front of some of our citizens without a lot of hoopla. This time he was in a limo with Secret Service Agents swarming every orifice of our fair city. During lunch a helicopter hovered over my office building. We were all trying to figure out who was up there. We guessed Obama, secret service, the press and finally my boss said, "It's Joe f'ing Biden!" Hilarious.

Anyway, that's over now and we're moving into the weekend. I wish I had another day off tomorrow. What I really wish, is that I could take a week off of work and do some serious Spring cleaning and house fixer uppering. I won't start using my vacation until my girls are out of school for the Summer, though. With only two days, I have those older windows in my house where you have to change out the storm windows for screens, so I thought I might change those out and wash all the windows while I'm at it. Pray for me.

So, tomorrow night, I might just stay in. Coadster wants to start washing her bedroom walls so we can prepare to paint on Saturday and Sunday. Once her room is painted, I can finally rip out that nasty, old stained carpet and clean up the hardwood floors underneath. Stinky has a 16th birthday party to go to and some of her friends will come over and watch a movie when that's over.

Saturday is G.'s however many 29th birthday. She told me she wanted all of her friends to start on Friday night. She wants everyone to go bar hopping wearing Nirvana t-shirts (her sister is a certain dead lead singer's widow's personal assistant (got that?) and she gets all kinds of swag because of it). I don't think I'll make that. I told her I'd go out for a bit for her actual birthday on Saturday. It's also the 3rd annual 80's punk rock reunion show at The Mill. I may do a drive-by to that for a minute, because a lot of my old friends will be in from out of town. It should be interesting to see how much I can cram into a few short hours on Saturday night.

Mostly what I want to do this weekend is run and bike my ass off, get my windows cleaned and switched-out with screens, do some yard work, keep trudging along on my kitchen and finish my book. You know how rabid I get about a good book and I'm really digging Brooklyn by Colm Toibin. If you're looking for an entertaining, quick, escapist read, I highly recommend it.

Now, it's your turn. Will you be Spring cleaning this weekend or celebrating someone's however many 29th birthday?

Life Ain't So Bad at All, If You Live it Off the Wall

Here is a crooked photo of the doors my neighbors painted on their porch.

Wow. What a crazy day today was. First I'll address all the dead people talk. I'm sorry to hear about Farrah. I know a lot of boys lost their...Whatever to her poster.

Second I'll talk about MJ. I'm sad that he's dead. His music was amazing pop. The Jackson 5 was crazy huge when I was in grade school and I saw The Wiz at the the theater for my 12th birthday (I think). In high school we used to run to Off the Wall and some of the girls - you know, those kind of girls would get a little teary whenever they heard Michael's voice crack with emotion in that one part of "She's Out of My Life". Which was always good for a laugh. Thriller came out my senior year in high school and seemingly played non-stop all the way through my first year in college. I remember watching the world premiere of the Thriller video at my sister's friend Julie's house that first night it aired. Of course, his life was fucked and he was whack and he had a lot of scary issues that took away any respect I had for him. I think it's weird how people try and make him a saint because he's dead. I'm all for acknowledging his talent, but I can't forget the bad stuff either.

Now, I will stop talking about dead people and discuss something way more interesting - Me. I got my migraine meds switched back to the stuff that works now. It took me almost a week to hear back from the dial-a-nurse people, but once I did, they got it all taken care of in a day. I was beginning to dread my three day migraines again.

This weekend should be full of music. On Friday night, I'm going to the Mill to see a local'ish band called House of Large Sizes play. Then on Saturday night, I'm going back to the Mill to see the Meat Puppets. I had an opportunity to see them at a basement party in 1985 when I was staying with my oldest sister in Tempe, Az. I decided not to go, because back then we were all such hardcore assholes and very territorial. We weren't nice to punks we didn't know who came to shows. So, I was too much of a wuss to go and risk getting my ass kicked. Now, I'll get to see them when I'll actually remember the show. I can't say that about many of the shows I saw in the 80's.

Soooo, what are you planning this weekend? Will you be busy mourning dead celebrities? Or will you be watching old people try to rock and not throw a hip out at the same time?

I Can't Keep Up With What's Been Going On

Here is a picture that I love that Coadster took of me walking away from her in a parking lot.

So, I have two kind of weird/funny things tonight.

1. I was dropping Coadster off at show choir tonight, and I saw this guy walking out of the same door Coadster was going to enter. I asked Coadster, "Hey, who's the kid with the seventies hair?"

And Coadster responded, "You need to put on your glasses. That's not a kid, that's Jackson Browne." Oops. I totally forgot there was a rally for John Edwards at the high school tonight. Bonnie Raitt was supposed to be there too, but we didn't see her. Oh, and I have a question for you. Why do you think it is that anytime I hear of Jackson Browne, the first song that comes to mind is "Lawyers in Love"? He's actually written some decent other songs, but that's the only one I always think of and then I have to remember the video and giggle to myself.

2. You know how when I first started hanging out with my cell phone I was all enamored? I couldn't believe I met one device that met most of my needs - it had an alarm clock, an mp3 player, a calendar and it freed me up to be able to go places without my daughters? Well, it's not that I don't still really like it, but I've realized I've become a little complacent about it. I still think it's pretty and I definitely appreciate it, it's more that I don't feel the need to take it with me everywhere I go and sometimes, (please don't tell it this) I kind of forget I even have it.

So it was last night, when I went to bed and was going to plug it in, when I realized I had missed a text from my friend K. two hours before. I checked it out and it said:

U suck.

I replied:

Why do I suck this time?

I was surprised K. was awake after midnight, but she immediately responded thusly:

The Steelers lost in OT. We're blaming u.

Holy shit. Can you believe it? I didn't have time to go to The Vine on Sunday and I totally made the Steelers lose by not watching them.

To those of you who love the Steelers, please know that I wasn't having any fun during the game. I had to pick Stinky and her gaggle of girlfriends up from the mall. When I drove onto I-80 there was a fresh accident up ahead and I had to basically sit in my car for a half an hour and crawl to the next exit ramp off. Then, while I was driving down the Coralville strip, a car with Nevada license plates cut me off and it was wet outside, and when I hit the breaks, my obstinate car wouldn't stop. It finally did, just before I would have slammed into the Nevada car and it would have served him right, but it wouldn't have served me right. Anyway, it sounds like both me and the Steelers had a bad day on Sunday.