Totoro Today

• I now own an ipod, Aubrey's hand-me-down. So feel free to send me songs from itunes as gifts.


• During the sacrament today I was leaning over to tell Rebekah to shut up. She saw it coming and beat me to the punch; she quickly said, "I love Jesus!" Then it was me struggling to shut up (my guffaws).

Jem - They

Song of the day. It reminds me of a musician I like called Mika. That leads me to the quotation of the day from out.com: "Mika’s preternatural cheeriness, seemingly boundless energy, and celebratory circus-stage imagery belie the traumas in his oft-repeated back-story: Born Mica Penniman to an American father and Lebanese mother in Beirut, Mika was evacuated with his family to Paris when he was just a year old. They later moved to London, where as a student Mika was bullied by peers and teachers at Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle.

'School was really hard,' Mika says. 'I had a lot of trouble with the kids in my class, but at the same time I had a lot of trouble with teachers because I had a lot of learning disabilities. I’m very dyslexic, and by the age of 11, I couldn’t read or write. My life was kind of falling apart. I was a complete outcast freak. I got into trouble for everything that I said, so I stopped talking. I got pulled out of school [and] didn’t go for about seven, eight months, and during that time I started to learn how to sing because I had nothing else to do.'”

Various

• It is darn early for the day after Christmas, but the blog bug bit my butt.

• Here is my new umbrella (ella ella eh eh eh). It is lovely and ever-so-Londonesque. Acknowledge it before it destroys you. If you ever have the chance to choose from whom you would like to receive a gift, a very good option would be Lela. Another would be Santa. But I would go with Lela.

• Here is my nephew Alex. He is so precocious that he is considering starting a blog. And to that I say, "Go boy go." See that link in the upper right hand corner up there that says "Create Blog"? Click on that, sign up, and you're blogging. And you too can post cute but possibly embarrassing pictures of other people, and there's not a thing they can do about it. Just don't ever mention your last name or where you live, right? And see that list of links to the left of this post? I am just wishing that I could add "Alex's blog" over there. [And on second thought Lela, I think that my blog IS child friendly for one as old as Alex.]
  

• Here is my whole fam damily, taken a few months ago in Las Vegas. All of these people stem from my dad (bald guy on the left) or his wife Chris (next to him), either by blood (eewww) or by marriage. You'll excuse me for not naming them all.
  

• Here is the same clan, years ago. (How many years, ya'll?) We purposely mimicked the people placement as much as possible, so as to exclaim over the differences. In the older picture I was so poor that I was wearing a butt-ugly shirt that was Jerry's (given to him as a hand-me-down). In the recent one I am wearing a nice hand-me-down from a friend with good taste. I have come so far.

• Here is Rebekah with the flu and red hair.
  
  
• So I apparently ruined an episode of House for my sister because she read one of my blog posts before she saw the episode. *wince* Sorry, Miss Amanda. I vow to put a spoiler warning in the titles of all spoiling posts from now on.

Video of Aubrey's Bahamas Trip

Here is Aubrey and classmates in San Salvador, Bahamas. I uploaded this video to YouTube myself! You can see her best in the last 20 seconds. She is wearing swim shorts and blue/white shirt.

No me gusta

• We had an enormous four-ward Christmas concert Sunday. I played flute in a duet with a violin, in an obbligato with the choir, and sang in the choir. A big snowstorm was expected that day, but people in all four wards were praying for good weather, as it was also an enormous missionary effort. It did not snow. Now jeer at me if you like, but it was a miracle. There is great power in a large group of people praying for the same thing at the same time, especially if it is for such a worthy cause. This was the first musical performance I have been in, out of my whole life, that I actually enjoyed. I know everyone says their ward/stake has so much talent in it, but I will say it too. Here I go: "Our stake has so much talent in it." It is a very affluent area, and the people come from privileged backgrounds. Lots of money went into the building of said talent. Several harps, cellos, a whole orchestra really. And the singing! Ahh... We blew the roof off. Performing beautiful music, and with spiritual intent, to me, is the most direct and active form of worship.
• Quotation of the past several months: "No me gusta!" --Aubrey H.
• I have been thinking a lot about Karen Carpenter. One hears a lot of her music around Christmas time. I watched the E! True Hollywood Story about her recently. 20% of people with anorexia die from it.

Dan Fogelberg : 1951 to 2007 - The Passing of a Legend

On my Christmas list this year I had a Dan Fogelberg CD. I heard a few days ago that he died of prostate cancer at age 56. His music is beautiful.

Big Girl

This video goes out to all my female readers. I can see you one after the other, doing a crazy penguin dance across the backs of my eyelids. You are all big in some way: big booty, big heart, big patience, big accomplishments, big endurance, big boobies. Rock on my sister homies. Don't let 'em get you down.

On joy and sundry

• Quotation of the day: "Don’t get me started on joy. When you’re older you’ll understand. Joy is a trick, a diversion. It doesn’t last forever. It breaks your heart every time. (honks horn) Damn joy!" --Adrian Monk, Monk


• Kitty (her name is Poubelle, but she goes by Kitty) exercises with me every morning. Seriously. Here is a picture we took of ourselves before some strenuous stair-running and some intent observation of said stair-running.

Pair of Daisies

• Quotation of the day: "That idea would make a stupid idea feel better about itself."--Emmerson Cod, Pushing Daisies. Have you seen this show, by the way? It is an artistic, creative feat. Eye candy. Every line is witty and well-thought-out. The opposite of South Park. Plus it includes some oblique Mormon references.
• Best duos/pairs (not necessarily couples) of all time: House and Cameron, House and Wilson, cherry pie and vanilla ice cream, Mulder and Scully, Booth and Brennan, Sabrina Fairchild and Linus Larraby, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz, Mick St. John and Beth Turner, Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling, Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy, Remington Steele and Laura Holt, Bert and Ernie, and (Jerry reminds me) Adam and Eve, Mike and Mike in the Morning, Buffy and Spike, Cathy and Heathcliff. Whom did I miss?

Gelliant Gutfright

Watch this.
Loved Bones and House last night. Thirteen is the new Cameron but, dare I say it?, even better. I'm glad Cole is gone; don't know how much more "Big Love"ing I could take. Did you notice it prominently said "carthage" on the chalkboard behind House? *Note: I originally posted this on 21 November but messed it up and had to re-post it*

A Blog Entry

Yay! Yay! Yay! Booth and Bones finally kissed. Quite satisfactory.




Here is a pic of Aubrey in the Bahamas, where she went on a week-long field trip with the Academy of Science sophomores. She is the one second to right, in the white t-shirt and sunglasses. She doesn't know I am posting this picture and would probably have a fit if she knew, but she saved this pic on my work laptop, so we'll say it's her fault. She doesn't read my blog, so what she don't know, don't hurt her. She had so much fun that she can't shut up about it. Lots and lots of snorkeling and good stories. My favorite is when they followed around a five foot shark for a while. It is downright joyful to this parent to see her able to have such an experience, and to witness the outright happiness it gave her.

Rebekah and me on our way to the opera Don Giovani by Mozart, at the Kennedy Center Opera House. It was a fantastic experience for all. Let's do it again.

• At Thanksgiving we (but Aubrey was in Bahamas for Thanksgiving) were having our feast and naming what we were thankful for. Rebekah's list: her bird, her cat, and mitochondria.
• I was swigging water the other day when Rebekah said, "Why are you drinking that water, when you're just going to pee it right back out again?"
• Miss Lexi farted the other day. Christa asked her, "What was that?" Her response: "That was my bum talking. It's speaking Spanish."
• Black Friday is the busiest day of the year for retailers. It is also the busiest day of the year for plumbers.
• I am crushed. I screamed. Sweeney Todd is going to be rated R. I might as well descend into the fiery pits of hell, so extreme is my distress, suffering, pain, sorrow, anguish, agony, grief, misery, upset, torment, and irritation.
  

Miss Allison

• Here is Allison Nicole Morgan, my new little niecie whom my brother Guy is adopting. Fat cheekies! I want to go out and see her....
• Going to the opera tonight!
• Aubrey is leaving for the Bahamas tomorrow. I'm afraid she will jump out of her skin. eeewwww!

Cuidado! musica country

• A coworker drove me to work today. She was blasting the country music all the way in. When we finally got there, I gratefully made my escape from her car, but I was left feeling nauseated and bruised.
• Quote of the week. Jerry: "I'm so glad I can speak English." Me: "Why?" Jerry: "So I can watch football."

Hugh Laurie - Mystery

Clip of the day! Also a story: I was sitting in my office when this older gentleman stuck his head in and noticed the enormous metal computer server rack that is being stored in my office. Without thinking, he said, "Nice rack." I felt sorry for the guy, but it was so nice to not be the one inserting foot in mouth for once. I am adding Dr. Hannibal Lecter to my list of favorite characters ever. He is right up there with Elizabeth Bennett, Spike, Dr. Gregory House, Severus Snape, and Heathcliff.

Hey Jude

Hee hee i hijack mom's blog! I think this is silly!!!!! I love ya mommy!
---By: REBEKAH

A Bit of Fry and Laurie - Jewelry

Video of the day. I figured out how to post videos!! I win.

Ketchup

They stinkin' blocked my ability to blog at work again. So here is the latest, written at home against my will.

• Last night Aubrey passed out and hit her head on the corner of a desk. She's ok. She's passed out several times before from standing up too quickly, but this time she had been standing for some minutes. Doctor says it's likely nothing big, maybe she's coming down with something, but going to a cardiologist again just in case.




• Aubrey went to homecoming Saturday with a bunch of friends. Here is a poor picture taken on my phone cuz I still don't own a digital camera.

• On the way home from church we had to stop for about 15 minutes at a blocked off intersection. Finally a bunch of police vehicles and a limo went by, and I swear Dick Cheney was in the back of the limo! Dick Cheney!



• Several weeks ago I gave a talk in church on coveting. I had a choice between that and keeping the Sabbath day holy. I found coveting much more interesting, so Jerry got stuck with the Sabbath. I gave a shout out to my Sunbeam class, and read The Berenstain Bears' The Green-Eyed Monster out loud and showed the pictures. Oh, man you should have seen all the eyes riveted on me. EVERYONE paid attention. Of course as soon as I finished the book, I lost everyone again. Oh well. The take home message of the talk was that we, as humans, compare ourselves to each other and measure ourselves against each other, but God does not see things like that. He does NOT compare us to each other or measure us by someone else. If we could come to think more like God, we would have no need to fear man. Sigh. Easier said than done, but it's a lovely idea to me.


• That same Sunday I played in a trio with a violin, harp, and me on flute. I must say, I have never played with a harp before, and it was divine. We rocked.


• So Dumbledore is _____!!! I won't say it because it is kind of a spoiler, but it has been in all the news. Let the record show that I totally called it when I was reading book 7. I totally knew it.
  
• Here is a pic of the Jerry's side first cousins. Clockwise from top left: Aubrey, Rebekah, Ainsley, Michael, Quinn, Evan, Courtney, Darcy, and Alex.

• Here is a pic of my sibs and me in Las Vegas. Clockwise from left: Heather, April, me, Amanda, Guy

• I am a vegetarian. Yup. A non-militant one. I have been thinking about it for a long time, and I didn't eat much meat before anyway. My reason is this: I don't like the idea of slaughtering animals that have personalities just like my cat does, draining their blood, chopping them up, and eating their muscle. If there is a choice, I choose not to eat animals. All power to you, though, if you like to eat animals, and if I ever am served meat in the future, I will eat it. And if I feel like eating meat in the future, I will eat it. See? Non-militant.
• My friend Carolyn always told me that I would love Silence of the Lambs. I would never watch it because it was rated R. But now I have seen large edited chunks (so to speak) of it on TV and absolutely love it. Carolyn was definitely right. So I am now reading the book, which is equally good in a different sort of way (not as creepy, more insight into Clarice's character), and I will get the sequel when I am done. Some darn good reading.
• Aubrey will be starting piano lessons next week. Of course the fact that we don't have a piano could have been a problem, but she will practice at the church every day between seminary and school. We want an upright piano. Our keyboard just don't cut it.
• Someone called me "Red" the other day. Love it.

pic and pet

• I found out that pictures ARE loading to my blog; they just won't display on my work computer. So I will blindly upload pics today. One pic is The Doctor, Rose, and the Tardis, from Doctor Who. I don't have a digital camera, so the only pics I have available of Las Vegas are ones people (Amanda) have sent me. Another pic is Sierra and me. The third is Rebekah, Lexi, Madison, Aubrey, and Sierra.



• Poubelle (but she goes by Kitty-Cat) and Shishkabob the parakeet had their yearly checkup yesterday. Both are well, but Kitty-Cat got two immunizations and needs to have some teeth extracted. I will have to drop her off next Friday for the whole day. They will give her general anesthesia, poor pooter. This will cost over $500 when all is said and done. Poor expensive pooter. The vet said she is likely in pain because of the teeth.

I Mind You Minding My Non-Open Mind, Mind

• I had to change offices today. No more window, alas. Still very glad to have my own office tho. Beats the heck out of a government cubicle.



• Dirty Sexy Money is good. Bionic Woman is not.



• I keep trying to watch South Park with an open mind. "People" keep telling me that it's really really good. To that I say, "Bah!" Every time I watch, all I see is crassness and vileness only for crassness's and vileness's sakes. Last night was an episode about Tourette's Syndrome. What a cliche and unoriginal theme. Perfect vehicle for crassness and vileness. If it was All That, it would have at least approached the topic in an original, creative way. I saw no sign of that whatsoever. South Park approached it in a completely predictable, vile, and crass way. Cheap. Somebody send me one shred of evidence that this show is worth more than a pile o' poo.
• Wow, I just read Stephen Fry's 27 September blog entry. Makes me highly regret my three or so approaches (letters mainly) I have made to famous people. Makes me want to stay far far away from anyone even remotely famous. Human interaction is so fraught with problems. You can't go wrong by avoiding people for the most part. Extroverts are mysteries to me.

Jubilation! She loves me again

• Yay yay yay! I had a virus or three on my laptop at work, so they wiped it clean and now I can access my blog!!! I've been keeping a list of all the things I want to say, so here goes.
  


• I just got back from Las Vegas at about 1:00 this morning. We were pretty full of ourselves since we were able to pay for a good chunk of the trip ourselves. George (Jerry's dad) did take care of our rooms, though, and he paid for us to see the show called O at the Bellagio. This show was fantastic. I thought about the Harry Potter cave scene throughout. Inferi, you know. Anyway, a person could see this show ten times and still not see everything there is to see. The main purpose of the trip was to celebrate Eila's (Jerry's mom's) 70th birthday. This went really well. Highlights for me were small cousin silliness, looking at Lela (one fine work of art this woman is), meeting the cousins from Finland, and the polenta at the Bellagio buffet.



• Also in Las Vegas I got together with my whole fam damily. All the siblings together, Dad, Grandpa Morgan, and many many more. Pics to follow. Highlights include fancy dreamy cupcakes, that stinker Lexi getting in the hot tub fully clothed, cousins in the pool, and Sierra falling asleep on my shoulder because I sang her "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". The best smell of the trip: Sierra.



• Best part of the trip: walking in the front door after getting home and picking up my soft fuzzy kitty. Then falling asleep on the couch with the TV on. I think someone might have once said, "There's no place like home."
  


• Jerry, Rebekah, and I went to the free open house at the Kennedy Center a few weeks ago. We saw these ridiculously good tumblers, a ballet, and a jazz band. It was a good trial run for when I have to go back there 16 November: Rebekah and I have tickets to see Mozart's Don Giovanni.
  


• Also at the Kennedy Center, through the Jack Kent Cooke Young Scholars thingy, Aubrey was able to go to the National Symphony Orchestra's season opening concert for free. The reason: one of her fellow Scholars, Peng Peng, was a featured soloist at the concert. He is her age, and is a piano prodigy.
  


• Aubrey's 15th birthday was 23 September. She is having a sleepover this weekend. (She laughs when Jerry and I say "slumber party"; apparently this is passe.) We got her a bicycle. She had been riding around on an old rusty musty one, so she is thrilled. She likes to ride around until she gets lost, then find her way back home. And then try to make a map of the neighborhood. Silly girl. She bade her lovely fancy new lab book goodnight recently.

Her face is a map of the world

Is a map of the world

You can see she's a beautiful girl

She's a beautiful girl

And everything around her

is a silver pool of light

The people who surround her

feel the benefit of it

It makes you calm

She holds you captivated in her palm

Suddenly I see

This is what I wanna be

Suddenly I see

Why the hell it means so much to me

I feel like walking the world

Like walking the world

You can hear she's a beautiful girl

She's a beautiful girl

She fills up every corner

like she's born in black and white

Makes you feel warmer

when you're trying to remember

What you heard

She likes to leave you

hanging on a wire

Suddenly I see

And she's taller than most

And she's looking at me

I can see her eyes

looking from a page in a magazine

Oh she makes me feel

like I could be a tower

A big strong tower

She got the power to be

The power to give

The power to see

Suddenly I see

(by KT Tunstall)

• The other day Rebekah, out of nowhere, said, "I have a tummy full of blasphemy."


• Speaking of the legendary R (the ultimate nickname for Rebekah), she auditioned for, and was accepted in, the All-County Chorus and the elite Chamber Choir at her school. Also, the girl REALLY wants to go to Finland next summer. She has a standing invitation from her relatives over there. Wants to learn Finish too. Let's see what we can do about that....


• I hate mean people and cat pee.


• Every year my company SAIC rents out Six Flags for a free company party. We went again this year. Fun dat.


• Break a sweat today. Eat when hungry.


• House and Bones make Tuesdays worth living through. I also tried out Journeyman and Private Practice. Both are keepers.


• So nice to go back to eating oatmeal and string cheese and salad and such. Heavy food has its place, but enough is enough.


• Blogspot is not letting me attach pictures. I will come back and try to put some up later. Hopefully it will spontaneously regenerate. Formatting is also incredibly difficult on blogspot. Again, you get what you pay for. I can't complain, but sometimes I still do.

Non-abandoned blog

Ok, so weeks ago they blocked access to blogspot.com at work. I am so ticked; work is where I do all my blogging. Thus the lack of posts lately. Not from lack of things to say though. I have not abandoned blog. I will find a work-around if it kills me.

I, Anglophile

• I didn't end up watching "Firefly" (it wasn't available to view instantly on Netflix). However, I did watch every episode of Season One of "Doctor Who" (a.k.a. the 9th Doctor, for those who understand). I am eagerly awaiting Season Two to come in the mail from Netflix. Season One was available to view instantly, but not Season Two. I think David Tennant, who played Barty Crouch Jr. in Harry Potter, will make a nicely weird and creepy 10th Doctor. I told Jerry I want a Union Jack t-shirt like Rose, and he said why don't I just hurry up and move to England already.


• I also watched Taxi Driver (TV edited). Wow, that's some powerful stuff. Now I know where the line "You lookin' at me?" came from too.
• The weekend was good except Monday. Had a migraine all day. Caffeine helps the migraine, so I take advantage of the situation and get my caffeine in the tastiest way possible: frozen espresso drink from Starbuck's.


• ALSO watched Christopher Plummer--oops, I mean The Sound of Music. Aubrey hadn't seen it all the way through. Though that movie never really gets old, it's better if you watch with someone who hasn't seen it before.
  
• Today is the first day back to school. I like to see the excitement of going back to school, without having to go through it myself. Aubrey wouldn't pose for a picture for me because she knew I'd immediately post it here, so here is a picture of her walking toward the school after I dropped her off. HA, Aubrey. HA! You can't escape.

Some Guilty Pleasures

Ok I thought of some more of my guilty pleasures:

• working with introverted, smart old men
• watching people in the rear view mirror when stopped at a stoplight; people watching in general
• poo jokes; laughing with Rebekah about poo
• hearing Aubrey respond, "So is/does your face" to just about any remark
• the smell of cigar smoke
• all-day "America's Next Top Model", "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", and "Veronica Mars" marathons
• anything by Joss Whedon and any other extremely well-done sci-fi/fantasy
• interrogating and making crazy comments to 3- and 4-year-olds to see how they respond. For instance, saying, "The sun is kissing me," or "See that over there? [point out blinking radio tower] That's a giant firefly." Or "Dirt is tasty." Or putting a toy being fought over into time out for causing problems. Then let the entertainment begin.
• comic book stores
• baby prunes (the little jars of baby food)
• children's books
• complete silence
• Barry Manilow
• anti-heroes
• fan fiction
• not answering the phone
• making loud straw slurping noises. Also makes whatever it is taste even better.
• rude eating as a family
• helping Rebekah dye her hair the color of the week: pink, blue, purple...
• sniffing Rebekah
• extended couch lounging/sleeping/eating

That's it for now. I'm off to watch "Firefly" episodes starting at the very beginning!

Morgans are Pirates

• Check it out. Source is here if you care (you don't).

6 Last Names Reveal Pirate Ancestry
Shiver me timbers! If your surname is
Morgan, Kidd, Teach, Rackham, Bonny or Read, there's a good chance there is a
pirate lurking in your family tree.
People who have these names could very
well be related to Britain's most famous pirates, reports London's Telegraph. Of
course, proving that will take some genealogical sleuthing, a difficult task
since pirates rarely kept permanent records of their nefarious backgrounds.
Still, the payoff is well worth it. "What could be more exhilarating than
finding you are related to one of Britain's most colorful characters?" Abigail
Baker of the genealogy research organization Achievements Ltd., asked the
Telegraph.

• I was planning to try to put a video clip in my blog today, but apparently you can't (very easily, anyway) "pirate", if you will, clips off of YouTube. So here is a link instead, to the video of the day, "Stephen Fry's Guilty Pleasures" (part 1 of 3) which had me trying desperately to smother my sniggers while watching at work. And it makes me want to start a list of my own guilty pleasures. I'll start with 1) watching "Stephen Fry's Guilty Pleasures" at work, 2) stealing the other SAIC division's miniature candy bars to eat while doing item #1. I will ponder on this some more and add to the list as they come to me. Feel free to list yours in a comment.
• Aubrey is at King's Dominion today. Darn her all to heck.
• Rebekah is cleaning the house. She darns Aubrey all to heck too.
  

Screeching

• The above pic is Mom and Aubrey in Phoenix. I hear Aubrey got a manicure/pedicure, played golf, watched the Mr. Bean movie. I'm curious how she managed to let someone touch her feet for so long, without screeching. Yay, no more boredom!
• Empty elevators reek of people. I have a bionic nose. I can smell their leftover cigarette smoke, their breath , B.O., perfume/aftershave, what they just ate, what they were carrying with them.
• Quotation of the day: "Go up his rear and get a smear. Which reminds me, kinda feel like a bagel." --Dr. Greg House

Pass the Marmalade

• Quotation of the day: "Read less, more TV." --Dr. Greg House

Dr. Who

• Word of the day: moniker
• So yesterday Aubrey and I were both bored nearly to tears. She was nearer than I was. She went for a bike ride. I watched Netflix stuff online. This is the best ever: hundreds of movies instantly available to watch on the PC. I watched two episodes of "Fawlty Towers" (BBC) and three episodes of the most recent "Dr. Who" series (also BBC). Maybe it was because I was so bored, but it seemed to me yesterday that British TV moves slower than American. Anyway, I still really liked both shows. I liked "Dr. Who" better than "Fawlty Towers".
• Just fixed the boredom issue: Aubrey is flying to Phoenix tomorrow to clean Grander's house for a few days.
• I checked in millions of dollars of equipment today. Learning a lot of IT-type stuff.

Wilde

• I saw "A Good Woman" the other day with Helen Hunt and Scarlett Johansson. I mean I didn't watch the movie with Helen and Scarlett; rather, Helen and Scarlett were actresses in the movie I watched. At the end I saw that it was based on Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde. No wonder I liked it so much. I dig Oscar. So much so that I think I will dig up some more of his stuff and read it online. Project Gutenberg has tons of literature free online. Good for the workplace.
• I also saw "Dreamgirls". It was good, but I liked "A Good Woman" better.
• I dislike pretty much anything having to do with sports, but Mike and Mike in the Morning on ESPN Radio rocks.
• Amy Schumer is my favorite on "Last Comic Standing".
• Yea for Miss Madison, who is going to be a ballerina and tap dancer. You go, girl.

Someone gave me clothes~ I'm free!

• Do you know that "vendor" can also be spelled "vender"? It's true! Whom do you petition to expunge a word from the dictionaries? I don't like "vender".
• There's nothing to brighten the life like someone handing you a couple thousand dollars' worth of clothes that fit perfectly, that you like, for free! A friend of mine who is six feet tall did just that yesterday. Stuff she didn't want anymore, but it was like getting a lovely new wardrobe for me. Mostly Banana Republic, wahoo!!
• 'House costars Jennifer Morrison and Jesse Spencer have called off their engagement, PEOPLE has learned exclusively. "After much consideration, we have decided not to get married," the couple said in a joint statement. "We are still very close, and we look forward to continuing to work together on House." Spencer, 28, who proposed to Morrison, also 28, over the holidays at the Eiffel Tower in Paris, recently said that it had taken him six months to ask Morrison to marry him. They had planned to wed later this year. ' (Source: http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20051905,00.html) Then I read here that they are already married! Wedding pictures and everything!

• The new promo for the upcoming House and Bones season is here: http://www.sendspace.com/pro/4arhac . I can't wait! And putting my two fave shows back to back! Go Fox go.
• Jerry and the girls got me flowers and a card just cuz they like me. Sunflowers and some other types. Splendid.

Skin the Color Mayo

• This pic is Rebekah swinging in the rain on Friday. I went higher than she did.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• This pic is my friend Jennifer and me at the 3-D IMAX Harry Potter movie. A good time was had by all.
  
  
  
  
• Picture of the day: Stephen Fry. I adore the man. If I could have lunch with anyone in the world today, it would be him.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Saturday was a special day. It was Amanda's birthday. The darn girl was out of town, so I couldn't speak to her. But I will say right here that she is thirty now. Add in your own denigrating comment here: _________________. No, don't, really. I joke. She came and she gave without taking. She is queen of all frothy confections and deserving of all the lovely things.

I'm digging waistcoats.

In addition to Harry Potter, I saw two other movies this weekend: Copying Beethoven and Deja Vu. Both good. But Copying Beethoven is the one that is sticking in my head still this morning.

Attention all my homies with skin the color of mayo: a couple of months ago I found out I had a severe vitamin D deficiency. I've been taking mega doses of D since then, and recently had a follow up blood test. While my vit. D level has improved quite a bit, I am STILL deficient. So now I'm taking SUPER mega doses. I asked the endocrinologist why my level still is not normal when I am in the sun quite a bit now, and am taking all that D. He says people with skin a whiter shade of pale like mine (who don't/can't tan) just have a very hard time absorbing it. MORAL OF THIS STORY: all that calcuim yer taking may not be doing a darn bit of good if you aren't getting enough vitamin D to absorb it. Also the D deficiency causes other health problems too, of course. The doc says D deficiency is almost epidemic. Might as well get tested next time yer visiting the doctor.

Green van

This is 1) Rebekah with two of the many crabs she caught (big, eh?) 2) Rebekah with her ship/classmates 3) Rebekah catching crabs

• Word of the day: Capricious. Means 1 : governed or characterized by impulse or whim as a) lacking a rational basis b) likely to change suddenly 2) not supported by the weight of evidence or established rules of law. This word was brought to you by, and in honor of, the silly residents of Wisconsin. Because some lovely but unstable people can't stand capricious women.
  

I have now enabled anonymous comments.

Rock the House

Quotations of the day (source:http://blog.meevee.com/my_weblog/2007/07/house-in-da-hou.html):

• "At the risk of spreading even more wildfire rumors, I don't see what's so unattractive about House," [Robert Sean] Leonard said. "Maybe I've just been playing Wilson too long. (House) is extremely self-effacing, he's extremely funny, he's brilliant, he's scathingly honest, he's incredibly candid. What don't you like about him? ... I'm not sure what people mean. He's shocking and he's bold and he can be unnerving. But as a friend, I would seek out someone like that, I think."
• "One of my favorite moments in 'Star Trek' is when Captain Kirk looks out over the vast cosmos and says 'The three most beautiful words in any language are-', and of course your heart sinks because you think it's going to be 'I love you' or something, and he says, 'Please help me.' What a fantastic idea, that vulnerability and need is a beautiful thing. And actually House is a character in need - of human contact and some kind of redemption - and I think that 'Please help me' aspect is an important element of the show."--Hugh Laurie
  
  

We picked up Rebekah from her CTY site, then went to get Aubrey at hers. Here is a picture of the cute reunion. Aubrey, you can't complain about this picture cuz you won't sent me another one. ("I don't like your blog, Mom.") It's cute, though, girl (the picure AND the blog)!

• Pukey McPuke (Rebekah) had her second migraine yesterday. The lingering vomit smell in the car on the way to work this morning made me remember Rebekah fondly. Poor kid. Now we have Maxalt for future episodes; it's the same stuff Grander (my mom) and I are on. Thanks a lot, Grander, for your superior genes.
• The electricity went out for a few hours yesterday, because of the heat I think. Girls including Superfriend Miss Claire went out in the back yard and did slip-n-slide. They (the girls) are the same length as the slip-n-slide.
• We are determined to go see Mozart's Don Giovanni (or maybe La Boheme) at the Kennedy Center Opera House.

Mama don't allow no music 'round here

• Check this out. The article is called Walking to the shops ‘damages planet more than going by car’. Hilarious. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article2195538.ece
• April just won $100 with a little help from me. She bet a coworker that the family on 14 Children and Pregnant Again was NOT Mormon. April was right, of course; they are Southern Baptist. (She couldn't look it up at work, so I looked it up for her.) While I was looking for the information, I was shocked to read people's comments on this family. So many find it repulsive and somehow personally offensive that someone would choose to have that many children. I think it is a sad state that you are vilified by modern society for choosing not to use contraception and to have 18 children. Yes, I agree that having that many children is certainly astounding, but not EVIL or IDIOTIC as some would claim. Why are people so agitated by this?
• Girls are back from CTY. Pictures forthcoming. Rebekah is VERY dark. Hard to believe she came out of me. She's also covered in scabs and bug bites. Her hair is bleached white by the sun, and we dyed the front of it (just her very long bangs) orange and pink yesterday. Some heavy-duty sleeping and anecdote-telling is going on in our house.
• We only had Sacrament Meeting yesterday since they are re-doing the gym floor. Rare and wonderful. I read HP out loud to Jerry and Rebekah until I couldn't speak anymore.
• Gramper-in-the-hospital will be just fine, methinks.
• I'm going to get shot now (allergies, don't 'cha know).

Dullest

• On my very first blogging-day I got five comments, including one from myself. She's so POP-u-lar!
• Word of the day: Something I read today had the word excrescence in it. It means abnormal growth. You can't make up stuff this good. It's like surprise donuts.
• I would rather be at Jungle Jim's.
• So I've seen the Harry Potter movie twice now, one regular theater, one IMAX. Working on a third, this time at IMAX in 3-D. My fave HP movie so far. Get thee to a theater, all you slackers.

Gramper

I just talked to Gramper. I had to speak slowly and loudly, but he was quite coherent. He's going on a trip up to the Jemez to see "lakes and trees" and such. He said he has "seen it all before." I could tell he was kind of making fun of the trip, so I said, "Is that going to be fun?" He said, "Well, Madeline seems to think so." Ha! I told him it sounded boring and we got a good laugh out of that. He said that it had been so long since we talked, it was a good thing that I identified myself!

Another

This is fun after all. Here is Aubrey with her newly straight, un-braced teeth.

Here is Rebekah with her newly-spotted iguana balloon.

And here is a really bad picture of Jerry with the Simpsons. Sean, this one is for you. I daresay you liked the movie?

Rebekah's Blog

Here is a link to the blog for the Midred Belle, the boat Rebekah is currently sailing for her CTY (Johns Hopkins University's Center for Talented Youth, http://cty.jhu.edu/) class called The Blue Crab. She has been on the boat since 26 July, so the entries only apply from that date on.

http://mildredbelle.blogspot.com/

Dad-Blasted Formatting

So I discovered that you can't make paragraphs on Blogspot. It just shoves all the paragraphs together in one big mass, thus the bullet points in the below post. I guess you get what you pay for.

I'm going to call Gramper and Christine Borgelt, since I am done completely ignoring what everyone was saying on the conference call I was just on. I only perked up when I heard my name, then said "okay." I hope I didn't agree to do anything immoral. I just don't know.

Definitely New. Exciting? To Be Determined.

• Look, I have a blog.
  
  
• Here is my office, and here is me in my office.
  
  
• Check out this tell-all by JK. *major spoilers for HP and the Deathly Hallows inside the link* http://www.harrypotterspage.com/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=4254&view=findpost&p=133508
  
  
• I am looking forward to reading above book to Miss Rebekah, as I have done at least once with all the Harry Potter books.
  
  
  
• Can't wait to pick up those squishy, sunshiny kids from CTY on Friday. R says she has approximately 51 mosquito bites. I guess her blood was too sweet even after taking all those garlic pills. Who knows? Maybe mosquitoes have evolved and adapted, and now they really dig the flavor of garlic blood. Garlic and blood, garlic and blood, hmmm....
  
  
  
• Aubrey last night told us about the dig they did yesterday. Theirs was the first CTY archaeology group to have their very own dig site. They did it just like real archaeologists. They found tons of stuff, including some dynamite. Yikes. The teacher didn't seem concerned because it was so waterlogged and decomposed, but I couldn't help thinking that the teacher must not watch Lost.
  
  
  
• Saw Simpsons movie. Good stuff. Be sure to watch all the way through the credits.
  
  
  
• I have watched my entire DVD box set of A Bit of Fry and Laurie now. All four seasons. Fascinating stuff. Just prior to the fourth season, both Hugh and Stephen went through some serious bouts of mental illness. It's amazing how they manage to be so hilarious in and around and about their misery. For example:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x-jrq3uozY
  Also they were forced for the first time, in this fourth season, to have guests on the show, which they had never done before, and they hated having guests. It's so funny to watch them step all over, cut off, and generally humiliate their guests throughout the season. I love these guys.
  
  
  
• Quotation of the day: "I will add that the first three scripts that I read of this season are not only three of the best 'House' scripts I've ever read, they're three of the best scripts I've ever read. It may be that in the execution of it, we'll make a dreadful hash of it and you'll go, 'Well, I don't see what the fuss was about. That was a terrible piece of television.' But purely as scripts, I find them absolutely phenomenal. I've never read anything that so ambitiously tries to mix broad comedy and gut-wrenching tragedy and philosophical musings and bizarre literary references all in the space of five seconds. The speed with which it jumps from tone to tone is quite phenomenally ambitious."---Hugh Laurie
  
  
  
• Poor Brian. He has dysentery.
  
  
  
• Time for lunch.
  
  
  
• Comment if you like. I would like. Just keep in mind that many people will be able to view your comments.