Scenes from a Duke Game on DVR

Evidently, to raise awareness about the environment, people handed out green T-shirts to the Cameron Crazies prior to the game.

Spouse: "Nothing says I care about the environment more than a cheap T-shirt you're going to throw away." At halftime, down by 9 to NC State, many Duke fans shed their t-shirt and toss them into recycling bins at midcourt.

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Announcer Len Elmore notes that Duke is slapping the floor in a show of increased defensive intensity. Camera pans to assistant coach Wojo.

Len: "And there's the guy who started it."
Quinn and Spouse (in unison): "No he didn't!"

Pause.

Spouse: "I miss Dickie V."
Quinn: "Welcome to the dark side."

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Artist's rendition of Cigarette Guy:



(Yes, he kind of looks like Jon Scheyer. Not spookily so. But close enough.) I ran into him on campus today. He couldn't get away from me fast enough.

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We won. Some fantastic plays. I love DeMarcus. Way to go, Paulus!

The Perfect Storm

Today, the Perfect Storm hit. In my book, that's a snowstorm that cancels school where I work, but not where my kids go. This was the best: not only was their school open and on time, but the roads here were perfectly clear.

What did I do on my snow day?

• Graded 30 short assignments.
  
• Finished reading A History of the World in Six Glasses. Hat tip to Liz for the suggestion.
  
• Watched the rest of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix with Spouse. I loves me some Weasley Twins!
  
• Worked on my crocheted skirt. Nearing knee-length.
  
• Took a bath. Ahh....
  
• Bathed my dogs. Not fun, but really needed to get done.
  
• Got the oil changed in my car (and the headlight fixed, and the axle regreased or whatever...)
  
• Had alone time.

TtFTE

Best form of TtFTE ever.



Wild Boy stayed dry all day.

Project Update

The white blanket is done, and the blue skirt has moved from Paris Hilton length to sort of an Ally McBeal length. (So I've still got a ways to go.)

The biggest project, which is a joint effort with WB, is still a long way from completion.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend

A half hour or so before tip-off for the Duke-Clemson game at Cameron this afternoon, they were showing the end of the UNC-Maryland game. Where Maryland knocks off the #1 ranked, undefeated Tarheels. Cameras showed Duke and Clemson fans high-fiving each other.

Ah, schadenfreude. How I love thee.



ps. We totally own Clemson!

Oy.

Wild Boy is potty training.

This seemed oddly appropriate today...

"Party Generation," by Dar Williams

When he turned 34, but who's counting?
He couldn't find anyone who wanted to party
So he walked around the playground with a bag of Mickey's Tallboys
And he heard the sound of laughter and he followed it for fifteen blocks.

There was a house between Mavis and Water
They were out on the porch, they were inside playing Quarters
And he said, "Don't you know the game Kazaam? It's a better game.
You point your elbow at someone, and say somebody else's name.
And it alternates whose turn it is, and if you lose, you drink."
They said, "Man, you really make us think. Yeah, you make us think."

Crack Crack Crack

Today at lunch, I was eating leftover Indian food with a piece of naan which I had overcooked in the toaster oven. Hence, it was hard and when I tried to break it, it cracked and several pieces broke off. What follows is the transcript that is going to get my children taken away (and probably adopted and baptized by the Flanderseseses.)

Quinn: "My bread cracked."
Wild Boy: "Crack!"
Drama Queen: "I want some of the crack."
WB: "Me, too. I want crack."
DQ: "I love crack."
WB: "I love crack."
Quinn: "You kids want more crack?"
Both: "Yeah, we want more crack. Can I have more crack?"

Just starting out

Two projects that have been in the works during the winter break:



I started this on my trip to Tejas. It's patterned off a Lion Brand block, but I like it better as a striped blanket than in block format.



The skirt is a little, um, Paris Hilton-esque right now. Don't worry... it's supposed to get longer.

Where are the Mormons?

I'm currently reading (or re-reading, probably) Peggy Pascoe's Relations of Rescue: The Search for Female Moral Authority in the American West. One of her case studies is an industrial training home for plural wives in Salt Lake City.

She describes three images of Mormon women that the Protestant reformers wanted to help, and her categories struck a chord with me:

1. The "wronged first wife," or Barb.
2. The "deluded plural wife," or Nicki.
3. The "besieged young girl," or Margene.

Ok, so she doesn't really use those names.

Mama Mia!

Something remarkable happened today. My mother (R-Cascadia) said she might vote for Obama.

Karma's a bitch

Wild Boy was bouncing around the playroom, where we have a mattress on the floor for just such activities, last night. He likes to bounce bounce bounce and then dive onto the mattress. Face first. He was doing this last night, holding in his hand one of his new trains from Santa. Dive onto the mattress, face hits train.

Today, he has a bit of a black eye.

Communist Fire-Ants

In my so-evil-it's-grand African American history course in grad school, we read a book by Pete Daniel called Lost Revolutions: The South in the 1950s. Good book. I enjoyed the stuff on Elvis, on stock car racing, and most of the rest. But the class as a whole -- me included -- had big issues with his take on fire ants. He drew connections between foreign threat, anti-communist rhetoric, and the influx of Argentine fire ants to the US South. So were the fire ants (who are red, of course) communists? Just symbols of communism?

Our class debated this part and basically determined that Daniel was far too sympathetic to the evil little critters. Fire ants aren't Communists... they're Satanists! They literally try to kill you with their bites. And while the chemical assault was dangerous to the environment and expensive, it STILL didn't manage to get rid of the fire ants. Why? 'Cause they're fru-its of the de-vil.

So reason #482 that we're glad we moved back to the Northwest: no fire ants. On our recent trip down South, DQ got 3 ant bites on her toes. That was a week ago. Last night, she was up twice (1:30 and 5:30am) crying about how much her toes itched and hurt.

I think I might have to pull an Eddie Izzard and seal her feet in a block of concrete should we ever go back there. For starters!

Dead, Doing Porn, or Finding Jesus?

Remember last year, when I blogged about the VH1 special about the top 100 songs of the 1980s? Well, I recently DVRed the 1990s version, and thought I'd share my reactions. It proved to be a spark to a wealth of interesting comments last time. Let's see what happens here.

Spouse and I have been skimming through the countdown. Like the 80s version, this countdown tells us what the people are doing now. I noted -- prematurely -- that nobody was dead yet. Then came Biggie, Tupac, and that guy from... oh, hell, one of those grunge bands (no, not Cobain. That comes later). So much for that theory.

Instead, I notice a trend of people who have found Jesus (including Gerardo, of "Rico Suave" fame! Dios mio!) and people who dabble in porn. I freakin' love that the guy from the Presidents of the United States of America does instrumental music for porn films. What a great job that must be!

Random Comments:

• Damn, I really loved Sophie B. Hawkins, until she compared Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" to Mozart. Sophie. It's over. I no longer wish I was your lover.
  
• Spouse continually argued that each song from 1990 or 1991 (and a few from 1992) were actually 80s songs. Turns out, anything that came out while he was in high school he considers 80s, even though the majority of his high school years actually fall in the 90s.
  
• Oasis, "Wonderwall." I can't tell you how much I detest this song.
  
• En Vogue. I can't tell you how awesome they are.
  
• Alanis, Pearl Jam, Sinead. Yep, these are all good choices.
  
• I have a sneaking suspicion Britney's gonna be in the top ten. Ew. Yep, there she is at #7. Although good commentary ("I feel dirty.")
  
• Madonna's "Vogue" at #5? Should probably be #1.
  
• Back Street Boys at #3? You're kidding me. I prefer Weird Al's version.
  
• U2's "One" is #2? I'll buy that. Although I think it should be #1.
  Oh, crap, I just figured out what number one is. I tell Spouse, "It's gonna be Nirvana." Spouse responds, "Why? Why? Why would that be number 1?" "Because he's the fucking voice of our fucking generation." Seriously, folks, while the song is good, the only great legacy about Cobain in my mind is when Julie dressed as him.
  
  
  

Resolutions

Well, I rung in the new year with a black eye, thanks to my son's new fort toy. Large foam-covered sticks for building stuff, but with wicked little metal magnets at the end. He managed to whack me just below the eye with the small metal end. He got a timeout. I got a shiner.

With that introductory anecdote, I give you this year's resolutions:

1. Don't kill my kids. :)
2. Let work be at work. Don't bring it home if I can help it.
3. Work on my sanity plan (sleep hygiene, stress reducers, etc.)
4. Try to do some fiction reading here and there.