Top ten list

1.  I'm deathly terrified of ferris wheels but I ride them every chance I get just to prove to myself I'm not going to die on them.  They are awful.  Gut wrenching.  Makes me sweat.  I'd puke if my throat wasn't so tight. 

I do, however, love roller coasters that go upside down and backwards and things that spin.

2.  I make awesome egg salad.  Cover eggs with water and put on to boil.  As soon as the water comes to a rolling boil, turn off the heat and cover the pot for twenty minutes.  Rinse them in cold water.  Throw away half of the yolks, and dice all the whites and the remaining yolks.  Put in half as many rounded tablespoons of mayo as there are eggs.  Salt and pepper to taste.  It's best if you use eggs that have passed their sell by date.  (So, like, 12 egg whites, 6 egg yolks, and 6ish tablespoons of mayo.  Fresh ground salt and pepper is the best, pre-ground will do)

3.  I'm taking a new class through work.  It's on Relationships.  Capital R.  It promises to be a doozy, and comes with a verbal disclaimer.  A bigger disclaimer than the one on Communication that I completed a few weeks ago, and that pretty much put me through the ringer.  I thought it would be about becoming a more effective communicator, but it was really about building and repairing emotional ties through better listening.  We'll see what unfolds over the next 24 weeks. 

Yesterday the facilitators did a visual with a ghosty white costume lying on the chair between them, and spoke about how there are three entities in a relationship: Person A, Person B, and the Relationship.  They described the Relationship as an ethereal being with an age and issues and health and and and.  It's funny, because when they put it between themselves, I imagined it as a beautiful flowy billowy angel.  Like Stevie Nicks sans coke habit.  Then when one of the instructors talked about the icky relationship between her and a person who has been in her life for a long time I imagined it as a crippled up corpse bride.  Funny the images you can get from a tattered white polyester dress.

The whole thing made me want to go home and get out pencils and paints and draw the relationship I have with a few people. 

My feelings made me want to create art.

4.  Writing and blogging is fine for what it is, but I'm having fun creating things in other ways these days.  It's interesting how lots of things can be an outlet.  Writing is the easiest for me, but definitely the least rewarding. 

5.  There's a scene in Billy Madison where the kindergarten teacher rubs paste all over her face while the kiddos are out at recess.  That's always been appealing to me, but I can't get past the mess it must make.

6. We just set up Netflix through the Wii.  I never have to leave my couch again. 
Which is good because it's slated to be 134 degrees for the next ten days.

It's a nasty summer.

Last night there was a thunder clap so huge that it shook the house.  You don't see storms like that here too often.  I miss them, but it scared me out of that floaty insomnia place where you might just get some sleep if there's no noise. 
The 4ams. 
Gotta love the 4ams. 
It's sorta like Stevie Nicks, coke habit included.

Except I don't do coke.  I'm just naturally a spaz.

The local news is so annoying lately because it talks about "possible tornadoes" every other day.  Just because a tree falls down or gets twisted doesn't mean there is a tornado.  These people in these parts don't know what tornadoes are, so they just make stuff up when things get a little messy.

7.  I'm seeing lots of old friends this summer, and it is super fun.  Last weekend my friend Rhino was in town, and he and Dave and I bummed around Passyunk Ave until we picked up Jake.  Jake has never seen such a large human being and he's still talking about it.  Kids and giants are funny together.  If Rhino ever comes to your house, make sure you clean the kids' feet, because they will be touching the ceiling at some point.  Even if you have 11 foot ceilings.  Clean your own feet too, because you might find yourself up there too.  I wore a skirt, mostly so I didn't have to be tossed around.

In a month + week I'm in another old friend's wedding.  We were all in middle school together (me and the bride and another bridesmaid- and Rhino) and that was a long time ago.  I'm not sure what constitutes old friends, but I'd say 20+ years definitely qualifies. 

I should probably try that dress on again to make sure I can sausage myself in to it.  Exercise dieting alterations may be in order.  I'd like to look pretty on that day so I can get a couple good photographs taken of myself.  Isn't that vain?  At the bride's first wedding I looked super pretty, and some of my favorite pictures of myself are from that day.  I looked nicer at her wedding than I did at my own, a month before. 

8.  How about that Mel Gibson, eh?  A long time ago when I was just a waitress and before the world knew how crazy he was, I stuck my licked finger in his sheppard's pie and took a fingerbite out of his mashed potatoes.  Why?  I don't know.  Because I could.

I have issues.

9.  Jake is getting better at sleeping in his own bed, and that makes me sad.  I like it when he's in my bed.  He's working on earning a full-sized bed, and he is nine nights away from getting it.  I'm hoping it takes him all summer to sleep in his own bed for nine more nights.  He's already earned his big sheets and his quilt.

He's got the red quilt, and a navy star sham.  His sheets are striped blues and reds and cream and white.  He picked it all out by himself.  The boy is pretty good at picking things out that we can both live with.

10.  Jake has figured out how to use the speed dial on my phone and knows who goes with what button.  Last night WAY after his bedtime, he speed-dealt my brother while I was in the bathroom to tell him that he couldn't sleep because he was worried about him and wanted him to know that he loves him and hopes he's feeling well. 

That's just the sort of kid Jake is. 

Brian said that Jake reminds him of Simon from Lord of the Flies.  I agree.  I actually thought that a couple years ago but didn't say anything to anyone because it's not right to compare your two year old with a highly developed character from a classic novel.

***

This list has been made possible by Kelly at Dare to be Domestic, who is droppin mad el bees courtesy of P90X which almost makes me want to dust off my copy and try again.  (But it hurts my knees and wrists worse than anything I ever did, so I'll just stay fluffy and blame it on being a mom and working a billion times harder than I've ever worked before at this job when really it's just that once I'm home I can't peel myself off the couch to get to the gym.)
Kelly's pretty damned awesome in one thousand other ways too, you should definitely check her out if you haven't already.
Plus she gives me shiny things like this: