Daily Photo

Let's not question why my dad took this pic. Let's just enjoy that it is weird. More here.

Daily Lansbury

You know what you can get me for Christmas. Along with my Murder, She Wrote pillow.

Daily Golden Girls

This is exactly what I would do with my time if I were an artist.

End of Days.

Happy news for all of us as we consider what the end of our life will bring.

Friday, baby. Friday.

Let me tell you what kind of week I had. I left work today at 5:30. By 5:35 I was at the liquor store. I thought I'd grab a bottle of wine.

5 minutes later I was walking out with a liter of vodka and a case of soda water.

Exactly.

Tillman

I have always been fascinated and, more than anything, moved by the story of Pat Tillman. His life reads like a Hollywood movie: turning down a life of fortune in the NFL to fight for his county, he signed up for the Army after 9/11. Even when he had doubts about the war in Iraq, he declined the chance to leave the service early. And he looked every bit the hero, the Hollywood version of himself.

The rest of the story goes from Hollywood to tragedy. Gunned down by friendly fire. This version of events, the truth, is of course a very noble way to die. The way that Pat Tillman lived his life ensured that any way he died would be noble. But it was not enough for the higher ups in the Army, who couldn't stand to have their golden boy story marred by the realities of war.

And now the last phase of his life is a movie, a documentary called The Tillman Story, by Amir Bar-Lev. The review by the Times makes it sound excellent, and I hope that I have the chance to see it some day. Based on the review of the docu, it looks like his entire family follows in Pat's warrior foot steps, battling lies, cynicism, and red tape until they were finally victorious in uncovering the truth. Good for them. I love this story. I love Pat Tillman, atheist/soldier.

Daily Landsbury

I have never seen the movie The Season of Passion. I was reading about a Lansbury movie-a-thon from last year on Alt Film Guide, which referenced that movie, and described it this way:

Unlike just about everybody else, overall I prefer Season of Passion to The Manchurian Candidate — at least partly because the former doesn’t have nearly as many plot holes or absurd twists as the latter. In fact, Season of Passion is just a simple, character-driven tale about two friends (Ernest Borgnine, John Mills) who hook up with two women (Lansbury, Anne Baxter) during one summer.

Adapted by John Dighton from Ray Lawler‘s acclaimed play, nothing much happens in Season of Passion in terms of plot, but the characters at one point do have to come to terms with life and the passage of time. I believe that most of us will be able to relate to their plight.

I think that that sounds great. Just a gentle movie about people and time. I think I'll rent it soon.

In or Out?

Beautiful beautiful dress. Is there a reason Ashley Greene couldn't wear it in black?

Ah, right. Because she has bad taste and cares more about looking sexy then looking good. Which, you could say the same thing about me, but she can pull sexy off, so she can be hated on. That's how it works, friends. Read all about it.

Daily Golden Girls

Way. Too. Much. Or not nearly enough? Love.

Find them here.

Daily Photo

Click on people's faces in the photo to tag them.

Daily Photo

Summer is ending. See more photos here.

Daily Landsbury

Never wake me when I am dreaming about solving crime with J.B. Fletcher!

Daily Golden Girls

And definitely do not wake me if I am dreaming about the Golden Girls!

Yuck

Alright, fine, I'm fat. I admit it. But I don't care! I love food. I just can't help myself. I wanted cookies for dessert, so I ate them. With frosting.

Rock star? Baby? Banana eater? Cute!

Molly's little monkey.

These are a few of my favorite things.

Snack foods. I've been having some serious fun with snack foods lately. My favorite is and will always be the TOO FABULOUS Jalapeno Krunchers. I'm not going to lie and tell you that I can control myself around these chips. I can't. So I've tried to keep my fatty fat love under wraps lately and not eat them too much.
These were my next obsession. Snyder's of Hanover pretzel pieces are delicious in any flavor. Jalapeno are my favorite, but I also love buffalo, ranch, mustard, pretty much anything I can lay my grubby little mits on. Horror of horrors, they sell these at the gas station next to my work. I have way to much access to these chubis. While I'm happy being pleasantly plump, I'm pushing phat these days. So I had to find a replacement snack. Which I did. My gas station started to stock a new snack, and I gave it a try.

Feast your eyes on my new favorite snack food. Szechaun Chex Mix is delicious. I tell myself I can be happier with this food choice because it is certainly much lower in fat than the other snacks that I love. But that doesn't matter. When you are consistently putting down 2 bags a week, I think you've canceled out any calorie savings. And I don't care at all! Love. It just feels right.

Manicures.

They are frustrating. They last for like 2 seconds on me. I had my nails done of Friday, and by today, a full half of each nail's polish has peeled off. This is in contrast to pedicures, which are very satisfying, talk longer to get, and last forever. So for me, it's pedis all the way. Mmmmmm. Sounds good.

Daily Golden Girls

I have seen like almost every publicity still ever for the GGs, but not this one from Dorothy's wedding. I love the Dorothy wedding episode because Dorothy is always the ugly ducking, but in the end she is the one who gets the guy. She marries Blache's uncle in a hilarious 2 part episode which also ends the series. Good times.

It's 7:47am. Do you know where my husband is?

So, I'm driving to work in the morning, and what do I see on the car in front of me? A vanity plate reading JDOGMKE. And I start to think, what if Mister Jeff is living a secret life? Not that secret, since his identity is being broadcast on his license plate, but still. A separate life if not a secret life. So I tried to get closer to the car to see the driver, and I could tell that the driver did not have a 'fro, so it couldn't be Jeff. But then I thought what if it was his second/secret wife? So I tried to get closer again. Until I was like, I don't want to see that chubi! And what if she's the first wife. And I'm the secret one? While I was pondering that, I lost track of the car. It's probably better that way.

Daily Landsbury

RUDE!!!

Daily Photo

My babies when they were babies.

Everything is wrong with me.

On Thursday night, Mariah and I ventured into Milwaukee to meet
Jason Mulgrew. It was a lot of fun because it gave Mariah and I a chance to catch up, and also because Jason turned out to be really nice! And funny. Just like you'd think. We invited him to Kari and Brent's wedding, but he couldn't make it. I was disappointed because he and Mariah would make a cute couple. If there's one thing that she loves, it's a sailor/nautical theme to an outfit or event. Match made in heaven.

New beginnings?

No, probably not. I shouldn't read too much into cutting my hair. But today, I was just ready to do something. The something that I wanted to do was to have a really big party, but that just was not going to happen. So instead, I decided to have a personal party and do something fun. Getting your hair done is always fun, and doing something drastic can be GREAT. And I was feeling drastic today. Like, it was cutting my hair or cutting myself. And I have to work tomorrow, so really only one option was going to fly.

Payback.

Stupid Wells Fargo. Take that! Mariah has run into these very problems in the past. We went to her local bank to complain. They may have thought that we were "life partners" (long story), but they refunded some of the money. Good times.

Wedded bliss

I like being married. It suits me.

I've been married for about 5 months now. It's not really that anything is different from before, since Mister Jeff and I lived together for a number of years before, but it's very comfortable and fits my way of life. I'm the kind of person who likes to have a partner. I say lots of stuff like "We haven't had lamb stew in forever, have we Jef? We love lamb stew." Or "Going to movies together is our favorite date, isn't it Jef? Movies are our thing."

I don't really know why I'm always talking in the "we," but it probably has something to do with the stability I feel not having to face things alone. Even lamb stew. Hey, that stuff takes forever to cook! You need someone to talk to. I've been talking like this since well before we were married, but I feel even more justified in my pathological speak since we tied the knot.

Jeffrey never really says a whole lot in response to my incessant "we" talk, but I assume he doesn't mind because, for one, he married me, and and for two, Jeffrey just doesn't mind much. When I make one of my comments like, "We love going to the bookstore, don't we Jef? We always have fun with that. We'll definitely do that again soon," he just looks up from where ever he is reading the paper or playing with the cats and smiles and says, "yep." Which suits me just fine.

Aesthetics

Tonight's dinner started out simply enough. Gnochhi, an Italian potato dumpling. They are delicious, and usually dressed pretty simply, lots of time with pesto. Tonight, I wanted just some olive oil and parmesan with a dollop of ricotta. I took a picture of it. I thought, hhmmmm. Bland looking. You know what would make that look better?

Red sauce. Wouldn't red sauce make a better picture? Yeah, I think it did. (Ignore the fact that I didn't take the picture as well the second time, I can assure you, it looked fresher and more lovely with red sauce).

But it didn't make a better dish! I had already taken a bite of the gnochhi with olive oil, and I loved it. With read sauce it was just ok. And I knew that would happen. I don't particularly like gnochhi with red sauce. Since they are made of potato, red sauce is not really the thing with it. I wouldn't put read sauce on a baked potato, and I don't love it on potato dumpling. So why did I do it? I knew it would have a better look. Sort of stupid, that's the moral of this story.

This is an amazing story and I'm not kidding.

I know that this must be everywhere by now, but it is INSPIRATIONAL. INSPIRATIONAL!

Daily Photo

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Daily Golden Girls

I hate to laugh at something that is serious and newsworthy. Unless it is hilarious.

Daily Landsbury

Something is happening. And I like it. I suppose. Maybe.

New research on diagnosing Alzheimer's is very hopeful. Read about it at nytimes.com which reports that a new spinal fluid test can be "100 percent accurate in identifying patients with significant memory loss who are on their way to developing Alzheimer's."

Part of me thinks that this is great news. Another part of me wonders how soon you would want to know that you have Alzheimer's. It's a horrible disease and it takes your whole life away.

Quick aside: one day I was at Hilldale Shopping Center in Madison and I came upon Sundance Cinema. I thought, "why have I never gone to a movie alone?" I'd never eaten at a restaurant by myself either. I realized that it had to do with my anxiety about being alone, which I have always had. Ironic for someone who likes to be by herself so much, but this is different- this is alone in public. And I'd just never been comfortable doing it. I could run errands by myself, and although I preferred to have someone with me, at least I could do that. But that is a little different. When you run errands by yourself, you are cloaked in the comfort and normalcy of the task- you're just grabbing a quick something before you reintegrate yourself into your busy life full of people! People!

Anyway, on this particular day, I decided that I needed to assert myself, by God, and go to a movie by myself! I chose "Away from Her." Big ass mistake. I don't know if you've ever seen it, but I'll be conservative in my description of it and call it SOUL CRUSHING. It's about a beautiful older couple with just enough. Just enough money, just enough life, just enough baggage between them, just enough love, just enough interest in each other, just enough intelligence, to make their struggle with Alzheimer's horrific to watch. I sobbed alone there in the theater. I couldn't really stop. It took me 3 years to work up the courage to go to a movie by myself again.

So, the point is, I'm not sure how much I'd like to know that Alzheimer's is coming. How long I'd like to wait for it to get me. How much I'd gain by thinking ahead. Would it just be like knowing the date that you are going to die? Where you would probably end up obsessing and sort of losing precious life focusing on your death. Or maybe you'd be able to fight it or something, get some treatment and live through it.

Either way, it's probably the end of days. That much is almost certain.

Daily Photo

Harry's new girlfriend

I don't know why, but I have just been loving this new girlfriend of DanRad. Probably because her name is Olive and she chain smokes Camels. As I was searching for pics of her, I came across this one of them together. Is this the most adorable thing? Why is he so tiny? He's a serious hobbit! I need to see he and Elijah Wood together, both wearing their skinny jeans and their heeled boots, standing proud at 5'2". Love.

Aggression.

I've been feeling it lately. No better way to deal with aggression than with guns, that's what I've always said. I'm sure you've heard me say it often.

So yesterday my friend Tom was kind enough to teach me a little something about guns. And shooting them. I got to shoot a lot of them, and I liked it, thankyouverymuch. We shot a .22 rifle, a 9mm Glock, and the lovely gun pictured above with the equally lovely Beth, my coworker, friend, and part time militia member. I can't remember exactly what that gun was called, except that it is an AR, which everyone thinks stands for assault rifle, but is actually a reference to the original branch that made the style of gun.

Good times.

Daily Golden Girls

A favorite picture has been used to commemorate a birthday on dlisted. Excellent taste that Michael K has. Ah, youth.

H(e)art

Mister Jeff and I went to the Brewers game on Friday night. It was quite fun, and our seats were great. The tickets came with passes to the NYCE Club, a semi-private club with indoor and outdoor seating overlooking the park. It was nice, but when we sat down at our table and saw the little table tent letting us know that since we were enjoying the "best view in Miller Park" we would be asked to spend "$25 per person, per hour" we decided to linger no longer than 30 minutes over our nachos and beer. Good times.