Happy No Cussing Week

Well, it's almost official here in California (the bill has to pass the state senate), but the first week of March is slated to be No Cussing Week.

You know who is excited by a No Swearing week? My daughter. She says the common penalty is giving a dollar to the person who witnesses your swearing.

We've discussed swearing before. To a degree they're just words, and one can certainly be cruel, insulting, or crass without using swear words. But some words are simply rude to people and swear words are an easy no-brainer for kids. I've told her that swear words coming from a child is very rude-sounding, much more jarring than from an adult. Maybe the lack of life experience to warrant certain words or expressions? For example, to hear an adult say "I'm going to kill this dog if he chews my shoes again", one assumes sarcasm and exaggerated frustration. If a 6 year old says the same thing, alarm bells go off and concern is expressed--"you know that would be awful and wrong, to kill Biscuit?" Anyhoo, the girl gets it.

So of course, I had to ask her if she thought I swore a lot. She thought about it and said, Well, you don't swear all the time. But you don't swear a little. She sighed. You're moderate. You know, in-between. Maybe closer to "a little."

So I asked her when I swear. She rolled her eyes--when you watch those football games and they do something wrong, you swear at them and scream "WHY did you do that?!" Or when the animals knock something down. Or when you do something, like break a dish on accident.

I decided against clarifying that when I swear at football games, it usually also includes the words, come on! People have money on this game! But I did tell her I'm up for the challenge. She adds that this includes when you write swear words too. Like when you write F, asterisk, asterisk, asterisk.

Got it. Here we go.

Oscar Best Picture noms

Every year my goal is to watch all the Best Picture Oscar nominations before the Oscars ceremony. I have yet to make that goal. This year the nominations have doubled. But believe it or not, I think I may be able to do it. The nominations this year are:

- Avatar
- The Blind Side
- District 9
- An Education
- The Hurt Locker
- Inglourious Basterds
- Precious
- A Serious Man
- Up
- Up in the Air

I only have Avatar, District 9, The Hurt Locker, and A Serious Man left to watch. 2010 might just be the year I see all the nominations before the ceremony!

A little help

from my sister:

She recommended this book for my de-cluttering efforts. And believe me, I can use all the help I can get. Wish me luck.

How a quad amputee kicks my a$$

In a word, copiously.

I mentioned what my friend accomplished 3 weeks after getting two prosthetic legs? She basically said, screw the wheelchair, screw the double-arm walker, and yes, screw you too cane, this broad is walking. And she walked on those two prosthetic legs. In 3 weeks.

Then I said what can I accomplish in 3 weeks? And I said I was going to hit a resolution a week. And I said I was going to finally faithfully stick to the Weight Watchers log, no joke.

Well, it's been seven weeks. And in those seven weeks I only hit two resolutions (a bag to goodwill and one photo shoot). And I've lost one singular pound (no, I wasn't so resolute with my WW log). Pathetic.

What has my friend done in that time? She is cooking again. Cooking and making meals for her family. And driving. Yes, driving. She drove her son to school and picked him up. She drove on the freeway. While I can't even manage to stick to Weight Watchers, a quad amputee is cooking and driving her kid to school. B!tch.

Okay, I'm going to try again. If there is something I'm learning from Linda is the value of not quitting. Especially after getting my a$$ kicked. Here we go--let's see what I do with these 3 weeks.

A Hoppy Birthday

For my husband's birthday, a few of us went to The Flying Saucer, where they have over a hundred beers on tap. But Paul's birthday drink of choice was Mead:


He had been wanting to try it for a while but was deterred by the high price tag ($22!) Apparently it's pretty expensive because they ferment pure honey into an alcoholic beverage. The sweetness was a bit deceiving as it was easy to drink big draughts of it and then the buzz would hit hard a few minutes later.

On top of the Mead, I shared a sampler of wheat beers and belgian ales with Professor X.



I also got Paul a membership into the UFO club. He'll get an honorary plate with his name hung up on the wall when he's tasted 200 different beers.

Happy Birthday Paul!

Greetings from the Middle

Flying off on a mini-vacay to spend some time with my old man. Got the middle seat for the four hour leg of my travel. Best part? Hmm, perhaps it was that there was no room in the overhead bins (with all the baggage fees, I think every single flyer is avoiding checking in bags)—requiring me to check my carry-on as I was boarding and left me stuck with my coat. Yup, totally 'pitted it for four hours. And then got to wait for my carry-on at the baggage carousel.

No wait, perhaps the best part was that both Mr. Aisle and Ms. Window took up both armrests, leaving me with none. As if it doesn't suck enough being in the middle seat. Can I at least get an armrest, you inglourious basterds? Actually I think the topper was that Mr. Aisle was listening to some sort of electronic jazz that couldn't be contained by his lame earbuds. Not to knock that genre, but to listen to the tinny residue that comes from weak earphones is pretty darn miserable. It was enough for me to wish I had the biggest tunafish sandwich to eat.

Oh, to dream when you're in the middle seat.

Justice and Heartache on President's Day

For a little break on the President's holiday, the girl and I got dressed up and hit the movies. We decided on “The Spy Next Door”. For those who know me, I'm a huge fan of Jackie Chan's Hong Kong movies. Less so when he started making movies in the US—I'm looking at you, “Rush Hour” franchise. I enjoyed “Shanghai Noon” immensely. And much, much less so “Shanghai Knights”. And sadly, even less so, “The Spy Next Door.”

Ugh, the “romantic” scenes were absolutely cringe-inducing. Are Jackie Chan and Amber Valleta secretly brother and sister? Yeah, that's how awkward those romance scenes were. The brief fight scenes sparsely rejuvenated my Jackie Chan fandom, which were vaguely reminiscent of the great fight choreography of his Hong Kong movies but the story was banal and the villains incredibly two dimensional. My girl, surprisingly, enjoyed it. Aaaah, the expectations of a 10-year-old.

Afterwards we saw there was a sale at Justice, a tween girls' clothing store, and the girl really wanted to go. Sigh. Gone are the days where she just let me pick up clothes for her at Target. And it wasn't just jeans and t-shirts she eyed. She wanted a fancy dress, dressy tops, and hip bolero-cut hoodie jacket.

Yikes. When did this happen? When did my little girl become this fashion-conscious tween girl? Lordy, she is growing up kinda fast. Eeek—I'm already missing my little girl.