€

I can make a Euro sign with this keyboard.

That is all.

Yin and Yang

I saw a great movie (see below) and so it must follow that a pretty awful one must come next. The kids and I just watched The Golden Compass. Oy! First the good. It was a beautiful film, by which I mean that it had pretty settings, costumes and people, though the overall lighting and colour could have been better in a lot of scenes. In addition, it was well-acted, and I very much appreciated the lack of gore. That said, this is quite possibly the Worst Book to Film Translation Ever. I don't even know where to start. The whole thing felt choppy and rushed (probably because it was!) and so much was changed -- even the rival bear king's name! -- that it was ludicrous. Maybe it would have helped not to have read the book at all. Or maybe it would have made it more confusing. Not even the lovely Daniel Craig (what little there was of him) could redeem this story, which is sad, because it's a pretty compelling story in its book form. But during the film I just kept rolling my eyes and hoping it would end. When finally, mercifully, it did, it wasn't even in the right place. WTF?

Gah!

A Very Dirk Gently Sort of Life

I don't mean that I bill people for trips to Jamaica when I'm supposed to be looking for their cats, or that I routinely find disembodied heads slowly revolving on turntables. I just mean that my life is always filled with odd little coincidences that are all interrelated.

And now, some completely unrelated random moments:

My children want to write a fan letter to Sean Bean that says "Dear Mr. Bean (even at this they cackle wildly),

Please have lots of children and name them Green, String, Kidney, Wax, Scarlet Runner, and Garbanzo."

This slays them.

They can't decide whether it's funnier to refer to him as Shon Bon or Seen Been.

* * *

I love the film Tomb Raider and am embarrassed to admit it.

* * *

I wrote a scene in my novel only to find that I had already written the exact same scene about 40 pages back and somehow forgotten about it. At least I'm consistent.

* * *

My slimy politician's name has been changed to Leon Sphecter.

* * *

Did you know that there was a Battle of Sphacteria? I bet they could have ended it with a huge antibiotic suppository.

* * *

The Island of Lesbos is said to be covered with over 11 million olive trees. That seems like a lot of trees to me.

I can never hear of the Isle of Lesbos without thinking of Jeff.

* * *

Mollusc has had a major motion picture character named after her.

* * *

Did I post this already?

Crazy Tuesday

True to form, Crazy Tuesday has been just that, and it's only 1/3 over. It started with 2 hours of TKD. When we got home, I took off my uniform, but left my sports bra and tankity top on because I'm going back for 4 hours this afternoon/evening, so why bother changing? We did lunch, and I'd started helping the kids with all the school stuff they hadn't gotten through when the doorbell rang. (I should point out that I did have pants on, thank goodness.) It was a guy with a teensy weensy dog that he'd found in the middle of the busy road bordering our sub. I was pretty sure it was the neighbour J's dog so I steered him over there. About 5 mins later I realised I'd seen J leaving as we came home from class, but as the guy hadn't reappeared, I figured maybe she was home again. A little later a different neighbour rang the doorbell. HE now had the dog and wanted to check if it was, indeed, J's dog. I told him I thought it was, so he said he'd hang onto her. Who knows what either of these guys thought of my strange attire. At least I had a bra on under my tank top. ^_^

A few minutes after this, the phone rang. It was some Academy of Dance and it was an 810 area code, which is Brighton, a nearby town. Completely contrary to the way I always handle phone calls from unknowns, I answered it just in time to hear a woman say "How Rude," and hang up. WTF? Even more contrary to the way I deal with strange phone calls, I checked caller ID and called them back. I figured I'd tell the woman that her message had gone off-target and she might want to try again. My call went to a machine which was cut off before I could leave a message. I called back. Whoever it was picked up and hung up. (Repeat several times.)

At this point, Prawn -- inspired, no doubt by the presence of the phone -- decided she'd like to hear the story from the library again (a recording you can call and listen to) so I called it for her and let her listen. Partway through she told me that the story "went beep-boop." I figured it was some glitch. When she was done, I checked caller ID to get the dance academy # again and there was another call on there from a "Private Number." Ah, that explained the "beep-boop." No doubt the Dance Person on her cell phone. And she thought I wasn't answering since Prawn was listening to the story, LOL!

I decided to call the dance academy again to clear things up before some weirdo started crank calling us at all hours of the morning, and reached a different-sounding woman who said she'd just gotten to work and had no idea what was going on. She apologised profusely. I told her I didn't care, and that I was just calling to clear it up so we didn't start getting a bunch of weird calls. I kind of wonder if someone crank called the academy and they checked caller ID and misdialed and got me. I'm curious now, but I guess I'll never know, since I don't know anyone who goes there.

I then got a call from a guy in Milwaukee who wants to talk to MuNKi about a job. Please no. (I didn't actually say that, though.) I'm pretty happy with our record-setting 4 years in one house, and I'd like to continue setting new records here.

So any takers on whether it's the door or the phone next? Or maybe something completely different.

Yeah, pictures are better than this, I know.

Any Wagers

as to how long I can go on without posting?

Oh.

D'oh! ~_~

OK, well, now that I'm here I may as well say something. Sorta.

We put in a paver patio by our front walk and it was backbreaking work. Without the help of good friends, we'd never have gotten done in time to get the rental compacter and brick cutter back before we had to pay for another day.

They look GREAT! Pictures to follow once I do something about planters at the edges. ^_^

Life has been seemingly hectic for the last week. I'm hoping things will settle down soon. I'm not sure that they will though. Holy Wednesday has been defiled by the necessity that I teach after school class at 3:00. However, it should only be for a few weeks. Then it will be defiled for the whole summer by kids' sparring. O_O On the plus side, the Bigs will be attending 3 hours fewer per week. And the Littles can take class together, so instead of having to try to get to 4 different age group classes, there will just be three. I hope. Unless I'm still needed to teach the 3-5 year old class.

OK. Enough rambling.

MuNKi has been making fabulous food and bread. We've had sleep-overs the last 2 weekends. The sun is shining, the peas are growing, and I think the tomatoes bought the farm due to frost.

I guess I need to face the fact that my blog is pretty much only rambling.

*shrug*

The kids are watching Spirited Away, which I definitely recommend, as long as you're OK with bizarro surreal weirdness.

Oh, and I finally caved and bought a Swiffer, something like 7 years after everyone I knew was going nutso over them. I just couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger because of the expense for all the pads. I think people found that a bit laughable. I'm still not big on the idea of buying cleaning pads to use once and throw away, though, so I bought microfibre cleaning cloths at the dollar store. They ROCK! Yay! :) Those things used to be somewhere between $8 and $24 when they came out. Now they're 2 for $1. Who's laughing now?