Deadwood

I wrapped up season 1 of Deadwood last night as a weeping mess on the couch. Between Doc Cochrane's angry prayer for God to take Rev. Smith, Joanie Stubbs' matter of fact declaration of incest and prostitution at the hands of her father, and Mr. Al Swearengen acting as an instrument of God and answering Doc's prayer, I could not keep the tears from flowing.

separated at birth

Thanks to Melissa (Bill's sister), I have become addicted to Flight of the Conchords. I was watching the video I posted below, and realized that Bret MacKenzie of FOTC reminded me of someone. And then I figured out who it was:

BRET MacKENZIE


HIS TWIN SISTER


Uncanny, no?

Magical bling-bling

Sio at School

flotsam and jetsam

I keep starting posts that go nowhere, so I'm just going to write a few things that are probably incomplete.

1. I've been listening to NPR after work, and they've had a series about summer food. Various people have written in to talk about foods that bring back happy memories of summertime, many of them were invited to come in and record their little stories.

As I listened, I kept thinking about summertime foods from my childhood. We had a lot of cookouts, so there were lots of burgers and baked potatoes and toasted marshmellows. And I have a wonderful memory from when I was about 4 years old, and our neighbor Mrs. Bartolucci gave me a huge wedge of watermelon and told me the seeds reminded her of the freckles I had on my face.

But the food I kept coming back to hardly qualifies as a food: ice pops.

My mother is not a demonstrative woman. We've never hugged or kissed - even when I was a young child, she made it clear that she did not like to be touched. She has a hard time expressing her feelings, too - well, she's pretty good with anger, but feelings of love and affection are kept inside. So she always used food as a way to show her love.

Unfortunately, my mother is a terrible cook. She didn't bake us special cakes or teach us recipes handed down for generations - what we lacked in quality she made up for in quantity. She would pack huge lunches for me and tell me to share them with my friends. She would buy an extra loaf of crusty Italian bread from Iuliano's Bakery so we could all eat as much as we wanted.

And in the summertime, our freezer was chock full of ice pops.

She would send us out the door early in the morning, with the instruction that we were not to bother any of the neighbors until 9:00 a.m., but when it started to get hot, she would come outside with a huge handful of ice pops for all the kids in the neighborhood. She would lop the tops off of our chosen colors (ice pops are always ordered by color, not by flavor) with a knife and hand them out. There were always seconds available.

That's my summertime food memory.

2. So You Think You Can Dance

If I was voting, I'd be voting for Danny Tidwell - he's just beautiful. Although I will be fine with anyone winning - I love Sabra, Lacey has been great at almost every dance no matter the style, and Neil is a great dancer for a gymnast ; )

But I'm kind of excited, because Monkey and I got tickets to the So You Think You Can Dance tour. Pretty good seats, too!

3. Stu Bycofsky

I know everyone else has already addressed this douchebag, but if the right-wingers don't like the dissent and division in this country, they could A) avail themselves of a poll showing that the country is pretty solidly together on the subject of getting out of Iraq, so how about rallying around that?; and B) remind themselves that they are the ones who supported the scorched earth strategy, 50+1, only governing for wingers President Bush. If you want a unified country, you need competent leadership. Bycofsky is one sick bastard.

4. My kid is going to college in 3 days!

On Sunday, we're taking Sio up to Worcester and leaving her there.

We went to a WPI BBQ last night, which turned out to be great. The organizers had the students sit together at one group of tables and the parents sit togethr at another group of tables. You might think that a group of people who have a Polytechnic Institute as a common factor would be very geeky, and you would be correct. I love a geeky crowd though, and I enjoyed talking with the other parents. Although I'm going to have to practice saying "I was young when I had her" if I keep interacting with other parents! One of the dads said "and you are here for....I'm stumped, you aren't old enough to have a college age child." Well, I am, actually.

I'm vicariously excited beyond belief. I wish I was going away to college. I especially wish someone else was paying for it.

To Tie Together My Last Two Posts

In the post on Deadwood, there is a comment left by Sio (although it says maurinsky) shaming me for using bad language. That reminded me that the only time Sio has ever heard me say a swear word was when she, John and I were playing a game - I think it was Risk - and John absolutely screwed me, and I yelled "FUCK!", which was sort of a callback to my random fact about being a sore loser. I guess even though I'm much better now, I still have a little of that sore loser inside me.

Tagged by Toast

1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged write their own blog post about their eight things and include these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names. Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged and that they should read your blog.
5. 8 is a magic number. Not three.

Thems the rules - here are the random things about me:

1. I occasionally make homemade pudding, but only in the winter, because I like it hot, and my favorite part of the pudding is the skin on top.
2. Even though Loki sleeps during the day and I sleep during the night, I always stay on my side of the bed.
3. I have never eaten a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
4. I spent my 16th birthday filling out job applications.
5. I remember the first time in my life that I realized it was possible for me to be wrong. I was in second grade, and we were going over a sheet of math homework. The teacher would go around the room and everyone would have to answer a question, and if someone answered something incorrectly, she would ask the next person the question. Mrs. Johannsen got to me, I answered, and she said "that's incorrect", but before she moved on, I protested and told her that she must have the wrong answer, because I do not give wrong answers. She showed me the teacher's edition, and I still protested, but then I redid the problem and realized that I. Was. Wrong. I thought I was going to vomit.
6. As a child, I was a sore loser, and if I was playing a game and it looked like I might lose, I was not above upending the board and suggesting we should start over. If we did, I would cheat. I am still very competitive, but I am now gracious in loss.
7. I lost 60 pounds when I was pregnant with Sio, because I had hyperemesis gravidarum. I did not have this condition with Monkey, but I had so many food aversions and such a loss of appetite (without nausea or vomiting) that I only gained 1 pound when I was pregnant with her.
8. I have six nieces and 2 nephews.

Okay, now I have to tag some folks: konagod, Terra, Sio, Hazel, Leslie, Mike, Loki, Tree.

Listen up, you motherfucking limberdicked cocksuckers!

Yes, that's right, I'm watching Deadwood. We had HBO when it started airing on HBO, but for whatever reason, I never watched it. But I added it to my Netflix queue, and I watched the first two episodes.

It's fucking Shakespeare, my friends. And the acting is just incredible. Ian McShane was robbed if he didn't win any awards for his performance. Also, the show's cast includes one of my odd little crushes, John Hawkes.



There is something about that worried look, the vulnerability of his expression - I just love him.

I'm only two episodes into the series, and I'm hooked.