And still we walk without quite seeing things

My public is growing antsy again:

Pointless Ramble from WAY BACK Wednesday?????????????? Come ON girl, your audience is getting restless!!! I know you have a life and have been busy and all that, but Wednesday???   Okay, I've hit you pretty hard in the complaint dept. and I know you get that at work from customers and so I'll lighten up...well, I'll lighten up IF you get a PR posted soon.

Love, Your adoring audience! (I think I'm the spokesperson for all of us, the other couple are probably just too shy or nice to say this!!)

The BEST part of this is how my mother references "the other couple" of people who actually read this blog on purpose.  (I've been getting a lot of hits lately, like in the TENS every day, but I think it was just Mom.  Well, I was cool for a while.)

So this one's for you, public.  I mean Mom.

I have some big news to share: Linkin Park apparently has a new album coming out!  And we can download the first single tomorrow!  People, this is like the best news ever.  The only bummer is that I have to work a full day so I probably will only have time to listen to it like 15 times in a row instead of the 55 it deserves.  (You think I'm joking.  That is so cute.)

This has been an incredibly busy weekend.  And because we were all awesome Friday and Saturday, today has been all about playing catch up.  And begging Johanna to PLEASE stop running around with that laundry basket on her head.

Climbing Mt. Laundry.

"Remember when I was little and I'd run around with a laundry basket on my head pretending to be Rapunzel?" she asked me this morning.  No.  I mean, yes, I remember her running around with a laundry basket on her head--she was probably three or four when that was her main form of entertainment--but the Rapunzel thing is news to me.

I think she just ran herself into a wall.  Good lord, there are a lot of things I think I don't have to say as a parent, but I guess maybe I really do.

Friday!  The 13th!  Was my mother's birthday.  So!  We partied like it was 1948, that's what.  We went to pizza (with Abby's friend Lily in tow) and scarfed it down because it was so delicious, and then we went back to Mom and Dad's for dessert and presents.  Mom had said she didn't want any presents, but that's just whack.  So I got her some flowers (an azalea bush, actually, I guess) and a Ghirardelli chocolate bar.  WITH ESPRESSO BEANS.  Good lord, I had no idea I'd gotten that awesome when I'd picked it out, and it was in my bag at work because I didn't want it to melt in the car, and then I was all, I am going to eat this, I swear!  And Stacey was all, you can't eat your mother's birthday present!  And I was all, she won't even know!  And Stacey was all, how old are you again?  So I didn't eat it after all.

But that's not even the awesome part.  The awesome part is that I made creme brule (Mom's choice--you get to pick your dinner and dessert when it's your birthday, that's just the law) and it was my parents' first time EVER having that.  I daresay they enjoyed it.  Well, you simply cannot go wrong with that amount of egg yolk, cream and sugar, really.

Johanna being Johanna because I didn't
think my public would want her
picture on my blog.

Tangent: I don't have a blowtorch because Eric doesn't think that would be "safe," so I just stuck the thing under the broiler.  Which is cool.  Anyway, I couldn't decide if the sugar was really melting all that well, so I stuck my finger on top just to check.  And entered a world of pain.  Blisters!  And on my right hand pointer finger too.  That did not make typing or writing or living in a general sort of way very pleasant.

So then Saturday.  Got to sleep in.  And then I drug all three girls (because Lily spent the night) to town for an artists' open studios tour.  I'm not an art connoisseur by any means, but the girls are very artistic and like that sort of thing, so I thought it would be fun for them to see the different mediums.  PLUS. I roused myself and left the house!  With my children!  On purpose!

That's gotta count for something.

We saw some cool stuff.  And the artists were all pretty nice, taking time to talk to the girls about pastels or digital imaging or pottery or whatever.  Johanna has decided she needs to take a pottery class and that pastels would be right up her alley "because I like to get messy!"  Abby was fascinated by the digital images and announced that if she were a millionaire there were a lot of prints she would be taking home.

Johanna is learning about money at school, by the way, and it was in no way embarrassing AT ALL to have her going on about how many dollars something was.

One artist was waaaaay out in the woods.  I wanted to see him especially because he's "off the grid," as he explained to me when I called him earlier this month for this newspaper thing I was working on.  He IS off the grid.  Maybe even off the charts, as Johanna kept saying.  Hydroelectric and solar power, living in this little cabin with art displayed everywhere--you basically just had a free pass to wander around the house looking at stuff.  Checking out art in someone's bathroom is awesome.

Also, I sort of wanted his cute little kitchen with the antique stove.

So then we still had a little time left, so we went to an alpaca farm not too far from our house.  Have seen the signs, just never bothered to go.  Well, my sister-in-law raises alpacas, so you know, it's not really that big of a deal, but still, I had roused myself, remember, and was trying to be an actually involved parent, so we went to check this place out.

Alpacas are pretty damn cute.  They've got these lower teeth that sort of curve up, making them look like they're in on a really good joke that you are not.  The girls fed them some... pellets or something, I have no idea, and that was pretty hilarious.  Then they bonded with Charlie, the guard dog, who was this HUGE bushy thing that we all decided we wanted to take home.  You could saddle that dog up, I am not even kidding.  And I'm guessing he'd make a great bean bag chair.

S'up?

Now, you'd think that this would be enough activity for one day, right?  But!  We also got tickets to this community theater production for 7:30 p.m.  It wasn't the best performance we'd ever seen, but you know, it was fine.  And Johanna really liked it (Abby and Lily were sort of above it all, but I think they just enjoyed the opportunity to freely mock something, if you want to know the truth).  We had great seats, practically front row.  We could SEE.

And then it was about ten o'clock and we dropped Lily off at her house and then came home and went to bed and then slept in this morning, except Eric had set his alarm for some reason so he was up about 6:45 which is just stupid, really.  Johanna came bounding in at 8 with a lot to say.  Wow.  It's a good hting I was well rested.

Today has involved laundry, getting my kitchen clean, and going grocery shopping.  I still need to clean the bathrooms and make tortillas, which, incidentally, is going to be my cracker project for this month even though tortillas really aren't crackers.  Oh, and answer some emails.  And order our Disneyland scrapbook because that Snapfish deal ends tonight.

Well, anyway.  Eric says I have until 9 p.m., so why worry?

Toad the Wet Sprocket, Nanci.  I'll take Nanci, for you Loretta's fine.