Dusty Shale

Becky: I told my doctor that Web MD diagnosed me with the plague, and I got no reaction. I'm pretty sure I wasn't the first to say that.

Jordan did his very first Kickstarter and reached his initial goal in 28 hours!  I can’t explain how completely fascinated I was watching the numbers grow… we’re all very excited, though, kinda disappointed that we didn’t win the $10,000 prize which included Grizzled Veteran Game Designer Mike coming to our house to play a game.  Maybe next time.  Maybe.  There’s still time to get involved if you’re so inclined: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1613260297/shadowrun-returns

As you may know, my favorite part of holidays is not getting presents but giving them, so I had a super fun week giving Dawne a present every day so that she had a happy birthday week even if her birthday was on Easter.  And before I left on Thursday night, Dawne gave me a duck stuffed animal that turns into a pillow and I took great pleasure in holding it at the airport like a security blanket. 

 I finished the Hunger Games Trilogy in 48 hours, and man, are those brutal.  I’m surprised my niece could handle them, because I had trouble sleeping for three days.  That might be an effect of reading so much in such a short amount of time, but still.  I’m not saying I didn’t like them, because I did, I’m just too emotional to not be affected by them.   Apparently, Bailey (my 14 year old niece) went to see the movie with her friends, and at one point, when you could hear a pin drop in the theater, Stacey looked over to see three girls sobbing.  Bails said, this was followed by one friend laughing at their show of emotion.  Kinda like that time I watched Titanic with Debina, to look over and see her sobbing – and the moment was ruined forever.  Even if I do see it in 3D, all I’ll be thinking of is Deb with hiccuping for breath and tears rolling down her cheeks – and I it wasn’t even at the part where [SPOILER] she throws away the necklace. 

Friday night I went to see Young Frankenstein at Eisenhower Hall with my parents, Bailey, Jackie, Morgan and Kevin.  I definitely forgot how much innuendo and not so subtle references were in Young Frankenstein.  Morgan kept turning around to look at me with big eyes and a giggle – and Kevin, who I wasn’t sure was getting everything, came home to repeat every line to his mother and told her that he couldn’t wait to watch the movie.  (We also played spoons before the play, and I was pleased to see I hadn’t lost my touch.)  My parents had taken Kyle (6) to see The Rat Pack play a couple weeks earlier, during which, Kyle had turned to his mother and said, “This is somewhat inappropriate, Mom.”  He also saw Sammy Davis Jr. with a straw hat on and then later said, “Remember when Mr. Potato head did….”  My brother, a couple months ago, went to a charity auction and “won” a framed picture of the Rat Pack, with some cards depicting the various hands in poker.  He thought that it was signed or had some value, but when he got it home not only was it not signed, but the hands weren’t even labeled correctly.  Naturally, it hasn’t been hung up yet, but it is in the dining room (a good conversation piece for every formal affair.)  Maureen asked Kyle to identify Sammy Davis Jr.  (thinking that he would call him Mr. Potato Head – only he wasn’t wearing the hat).  Instead, Kyle answered, Barack Obama?  

Saturday morning I woke up to flowers from Becky, my favorite kind of muffins from Maureen, and I was fully looking forward to an awesome day of Easter Egg painting with friends and family.  I don’t know if you know how very seriously I take Easter Egg decorating – but I’ll let you in on my secret, I use electrical tape.  Last year was the first time I had met Deb’s now husband Mark, and when they arrived I had already made them a spectacular wedding egg.  To my sheer delight, Mark had saved the egg in the freezer, and I received a picture of it on Saturday morning.  That’s a man who appreciates quality.  J  

Earlier in the day I was showing off bridesmaid dresses to Mo, and she got really excited because the color was the same as the bridesmaid dresses that she and Stacey never got to wear back in 97.  She immediately ran downstairs to find the dress.  Then, when my friends were over, she came out wearing the dress asking if she, too, could be a bridesmaid.  Deb, knowing that she was a-ok crashing her bachelorette party, warned that this could actually happen.  My friend who is getting married, said she’d get an extra bouquet just in case – and I think Stacey was just upset that she didn’t get some warning because she would have worn her bridesmaid dress too. 

Sean was telling us about going out to dinner with Stacey and meeting up with a gentleman, dressed in full as a real life cowboy, only he was also adorning quite a bit of fur and was clearly a fan of dating males.  He was also a big fan of Stacey, and proceeded to gush about her awesomeness.  Sean, sitting nearby must have looked a little confused because the cowboy turned to Sean and said, “I love your wife.  I mean, I’m going to f*** you, but I love your wife.” 

Maureen had quite a week last week.  First, she ran out of shampoo and instead of going out to buy shampoo, she just went to the gym more often to shower.  That’s one motivation.  She also had a “God must really love me” week.  First, she was talking to Stacey at school, and Stacey was talking about how she had 3 dollars that she had put in her purse specifically to buy something for charity or something like that, but when she looked, the three dollars wasn’t there. Midway through the story Maureen interrupted and said, “Oh man!  That reminds me!  I left my purse two periods ago – I better go to get it!”  And, because God loves her, her purse was still there.  Her second indication was that she was given the track uniforms after practice.  She then proceeded to get into her car, leaving the track uniforms outside, and drove home.  That night, she remembered that she had forgotten them, knew she couldn’t order more because the meet was the next day, and just hoped for the best.  She drove to school the next day, and lo and behold there were the track uniforms sitting where she left them.  Only now, they were soaked by the rain.  She figured no problem, I’ll just hang them up in her classroom on the hooks around the room.  (This is when Stacey interrupted the story and said, “I can’t believe you were going to hang them around your classroom” and Maureen responded with, “Had it come to that, they would have also been hanging in your classroom, too.”  Instead, one of her students said good morning to her on her way to the classroom and Maureen asked, “Do you live around here?” (Which is silly question, because if he goes to Sleepy Hollow, obviously he lives around there.) Naturally, Maureen followed up that question with, “Can you run home and throw these uniforms in the dryer.”  Then Maureen wrote him a note to get out of his next class, and by the time she had him in 7^th period, she had dry uniforms for the track meet that afternoon.  I know I said that there were three things that happened proving that God loves her, but ironically, she forgot the third thing she forgot. J  When this got all finished, Sean’s only reaction was, “You coach track?” and “Why don’t you just run with your team instead of going to the gym?”  The obvious answer was, “Shampoo and I don’t them to know the speed in which I run.” (Only those weren’t her exact words, because honestly, who speaks like that? 

Later, we were talking about coaching soccer (Jackie told us that, “We’re 11 now.  We don’t play for fun anymore.”) and how Maureen thinks the main objective is to win games, and Sean’s main objective is to ensure that kids come out to play again next year.  Then Maureen was talking about going swimming with the boys, and Patrick had a 13 second lap and Maureen didn’t believe him because her fastest lap was 17 seconds.  She then went full  throttle against him, and Patrick still won. 

Sean (to Bails): This is when she put ankle weights on him.

Maureen: True story.  I told him he couldn’t wear his goggles because I’m a WINNER. 

Sean and the girls picked out pink glittery converses for me.  When I tried them on my dad said, “They are showy and functional just like your personality.”  And I think I’ll wear them every day now. 

Sunday, I found my Easter Basket, and then got dressed up for the second day in a row, and headed to church.  My mom likes us all to sit in the same pew for Easter, and seeing as she gave us life, it’s the least we can do.  :P  However, saving seats makes my skin crawl so every year I freak out for 20 minutes.  We all have our sticking points in life right?  Now you all know mine. 

The Easter Egg hunt went well, although one particular egg was being guarded by a snake:

Seeing as Momela indulged my wishes and made her honey baked ham on my birthday, Stacey made an awesome steak dinner on Sunday.  See Sean and Stacey hard at work? 

And here’s something that Roy’s sister posted that I just thought was so funny I had to share:

Then we played some bocce and celebrated Bailey and Jackie’s birthday (I made sure to get very messy and loud presents for Jackie which I could tell Stacey was very excited about. J )  Then on Monday, I hung out with Maureen and the boys, followed by my parents driving me to Newark (we did stop and get Chicken Parm, on homemade pita bread, at a Greek restaurant, in a Korean neighborhood in NJ) before I spent over 12 hours getting back to Seattle.  And that’s just one of the many reasons why this is being delivered on a Wednesday. 

Lastly, I went to do my taxes last night (I don’t want to rush into anything) and totally couldn’t find my W-2’s.  Dawne did her best to help me out, and I was just about to give into the wave of panic, I decided to do a quick look through my Christmas cards, and there they were!  Yay! Taxes, DONE.  This means that the list I gave my mother yesterday morning of what I was going to do (bridesmaid dresses order, hotel and car reservations made, taxes) all got done – which might just be a first for me.  Feel free to send congratulations cards to tiffany@sweetandsarcastic.com for doing the bare minimum at the last minute.  :P

Oh- and on a side note, every time I sneeze, my headphones fly off my head.  The first time it happened this morning- they flew off into my coffee spilling copious amounts everywhere.  The second time (just now) I just barely caught them mid-flight before the hit my cup.  This can’t be an isolated problem, yet I don’t hear anyone else complaining about it.  Weird. 

UPDATE FROM MO:

When you wrote about looking for the taxes, I just remembered the third thing.  I went to the woman in health benefits for my district.  She totally settles all my billing problems, she was going through two in particular and then turns to me and says that I just have to bring in my "explanation of benefits " letter so the other insurance company could pay the difference.  At this I say "you're supposed to keep those?" (mom was horrified at this moment that she realized that I wasn't ) and jannette just laughed as if I just old her something really funny, " I know you're just kidding". So I didn't want to disappoint her, so I just smiled and said I would look for them.  Of course I couldn't find it that night because I throw them all away.  The next morning I leave to go to school, matzah, cream cheese, peanut butter, butter and jelly to bring in for the kids and just as I'm about to leave remember that I should bring napkins.  I pick up the napkins under which is an unopened envelope - you guessed it - the explanation of benefits that I was looking for.  There is the third "God Loves Me" moment:)