Dylan Fix

I am currently getting myself pumped up for tonight's Dylan show. And that involves incessantly listening to Mark Ronson's (Mark Ronson + Bob Dylan = Sheer Brilliance!) remix of Most Likely You Will Go Your Way (& I'll Go Mine.) If anyone out there is doing the same, you can check out the vid here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCeKkJlMJDQ YouTube won't let me embed this one, but it's worth a view.

Grey's Anatomy

New girl crush alert. Lexie Grey. George pretty much said it all: "You!.......are kind of awesome." The rest of the show was pretty much 'eh...' but I'll keep watching, of course.

Private Practice

Yeah, I'm easy. It only took Addison dancing nekkid to Scissor Sisters to reel me in. Scissor Sisters have that effect on me too - not so much stripped down - at least not before Leila's bedtime... but anyway...My girl crush on Addison grew to huge proportions last season, so I was hoping this spin off would be palatable and I was pleasantly surprised. I can see how some are critiquing it for being "Grey's Lite", but after last season, I think I needed a little Grey's Lite (frankly, I'm pretty worried about Grey's this season!) PP still managed to bring the angst and sexual tension, but it was fresh angst, which is a good thing. It may not have the depth of Grey's - yet - but the characters seem worth getting to know (LOVE that Dell the desk boy is learning midwifery!) and 2 out of the 3 patient stories made me cry. Like a baby. Or like the emotional mother I am. And that, again, is a good thing as far as my TV watching experience goes. Could have done w/o the old stroke victim and the epic battle for his sperm, but can appreciate that it was a necessary parallel to Sam and Naomi's unfinished business. And hey, I'd probably have no problem watching Taye Diggs and Tim Daly read the phone book for an hour, so I'll keep watching to see how this one coasts along.

I'm kind of kicking myself for not watching Dirty Sexy Money. I may still have to try to pick it up and swap it for Journeyman b/c I can only do so many shows starting at 10 a week (yes, I'm somewhat prideful that we still don't have DVR/TIVO!) Probably won't get to watch Ugly Betty until the weekend on the computer b/c I have a much needed hair appointment tonight that will get me home just in time for the girl's bedtime.

The Husband

Two calls from my dearly beloved in the past 5 minutes went a little something like this.


1) He: Hey, I'm sick.


Me: Sorry, what's wrong w/ you (as I sniffle through my own allergies/cold)?


He: I'm sore all over my whole body.


Me: Ok, what would you like me to do about it?


He: I'm going to take a Tylenol.


The end.


2) He: Hey, did Nancy Pelosi get a makeover. She looks totally different...her face... her hair...


Me: I don't know. I'm working here (/applying for a job.) Botox maybe??


He: She looks hot.


Me: Okaaay... Buh-Bye.


I suppose I should take some comfort in the fact that he the reformed apolitical republican knows who Nancy Pelosi is and is acknowledging her hotness!

Blah...

I have nothing fun (unless Swiffer dusting with one hand while simultaneously Dyson vacuuming with the other counts) to report from this past weekend. We did our usual Mexican/ Salvadoran dine out Friday night then dropped into Carter's to briefly visit with his in-laws and laugh as he tried to track down CO2 for his hush hush early birthday present. Saturday we ran out to Tyson's to purchase Leila's entire fall/winter wardrobe at one fell swoop in H&M - well I thought it was her entire wardrobe until I got home and inventoried her drawers to recall that she still needs PJs, undershirts, boots and shoes (the Crocs that have been on her feet for 7 months won't cut it much longer)...not to mention school uniforms. But anyway, I adore H&M for the kiddos. We do the occasional Old Navy splurge too, but $276 (still a bit of an ouch) at H&M bought us 1 winter coat, 1 tracksuit, 2 pair of jeans, 2 pair of cords, 4 long-sleeve tees, 3 sweaters, 2 skirts, scads of socks and tights, and hair accessories (that she only wants to play with - or put in my/Cesar's hair - not hers of course - hers is lucky if it sees a brush - not for my lack of trying.) I believe we spent $60+ on her coat alone at LL Bean last year. And the skirts and such are just as cute as Crew Cuts. I haven't really checked out their boy selection - seems to be the compiled of the fairly standard shades of blues, browns and sports motifs - but I highly recommend checking it out for the wee ones. Yesterday morn we took a walk to Old Town, which seemed to take two hours because Leila actually walked a good stretch of it, then I tackled the grocery store, laundry and attempted to get at least one room of the house dust and cobweb free during nap time. Good times.

Better than a narcotics laced lollipop I suppose...

Huh. If I ever had to place one of Leila's pacifiers (better known in our household as "bah" for some unknown reason) in my mouth -- and believe me, I did on more than a few occasions when I was trying to juggle her and all the paraphernalia we lug around with her -- I always clutched it between my teeth in reverse so that I wasn't actually sucking on the nipple. Oh well. To each her own. Sean P. is looking awfully cute though, if a mite befuddled.

Happy weekend to all!

Now here's a nice message for Ramadan...

Unreal!

RADICAL RIGHT -- REP. KING: THERE ARE 'TOO MANY MOSQUES' IN AMERICA, WE SHOULD 'INFILTRATE' ISLAM. In 2006, President Bush appeared alongside then-House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Peter King (R-NY) and heaped praise on the Congressman, calling him a "strong, strong chairman" who was "doing a fine job to help us protect this country." The Politico reported yesterday that King, now ranking member on the Committee, is now directly attacking Muslims. In a recent interview, King said: "Unfortunately, we have too many mosques in this country. There are too many people who are sympathetic to radical Islam. ... We should be finding out how we can infiltrate." Throughout his tenure in Congress, King has regularly stereotyped and launched racist attacks at Muslim-Americans. You "could say that 80-85 percent of mosques in this country are controlled by Islamic fundamentalists," he said in 2004. Muslims are "an enemy living amongst us," he added. "They won't tell what's going on in the mosques. They won't come forward and cooperate with the police." Gen. John Abizaid recently stated, "the battle of words is meaningful, especially in the Middle East to people." With members of Congress like Peter King, we continue to lose that battle.

The Girl

Leila is extremely verbal. She has been ever since she started stringing words together. Some days I would swear I was talking to a 12 year old instead of a nearly 2 & 1/2 year old. She's almost getting a bit sassy on me already. Recently, whenever I start to tell her something, she'll pause what she's doing and say "huh (or rather more of an 'uh')... what are you talking to me about mom?" And it just makes me chuckle every darn time. And for some reason, we've become "mom" and "dad" - I still get mommy/momma mixed in, but Cesar is usually dad these days - pronounced with an explanation point - "don't do that to my play dough DAD!!" Won't be long before she's calling us by first name. She is an entertaining child.

Who's Hotter Than Hot?

James Purefoy as Marc Antony with Kohl lined eyes and all hennaed up and bewitched by Cleopatra... that's who is hotter than hot!

How I wish I could find a screencap of his beautiful bare torso as he and Cleo prepare to have the most blush inducing sex ever seen on the small screen. Repeatedly.

We only have one final episode to watch from season 2 of Rome and I think I'm very sad about that.

Burning Question...

So do I go out and buy Kanye's Graduation CD because I'm obsessed with "Stronger", or do I just go home and dig out some classic Daft Punk??

Yuck. I'm back to the office grind/doldrums after 4 solid days home with Leila. I adore the child, and certainly wanted to be home caring for her, but I fully respect the fact that I could not be a single mother. We went to our 3rd Dr.'s appt. in 5 days this morning (I asked if they'd just keep a tab open for me for our co-pays) and her lungs apparently sound great. Still have to continue the Augmentin for its 10-day course and continue nebulizing through Friday, but chick-a-dee's going back to school tomorrow!

In between medicating my child, I did get to watch the movie Half-Nelson this weekend, and wow - I <3 Ryan Gosling! It was extremely hard to do so, but I did manage to save the remaining two episodes of Rome Season 2 for Cesar's return. We need to knock them out this week, before shifting to Kevin McKidd in Journeyman's premier next Monday.

And as a final random update, Massi finally bullied me into joining Facebook last week, so please feel free to be my friend there! I have quickly seen how addictive it can become as I flipped around there before I even went to Perez and Pink is the New Blog today!!

Life as I know it...

Here's a series of events from my last 48 hours:

• 8:20 a.m. Wed.: Drop Cesar at airport for his 4 nights away male bonding trip to Arizona w/ his dad and brother.
• 8:50-5:00 Wed: Work blah, blah, blah
• 5:20 Wed: Pick up Leila dear at daycare
• 5:30-8:30 Wed.: Nice and normal evening routine w/ Leila
• 8:45 Wed.: Rejoice in the fact that I can have a glass of wine and Brie cheese for dinner since Cesar's away
• 9:05 Wed.: Call mom to catch up
• 9:30 Wed.: Enter kitchen to top off glass of wine while still conversing with mom and see big ass cockroach making its way around periphery of kitchen floor -- enter bag protecting Cesar's golf shoes and grab one to aim at cockroach -- lob said shoe and hit, but only enough so to amputate a leg -- cockroach stunned enough so that I can reach Raid under sink and spray half a bottle on it -- cockroach crawls under dishwasher to hopefully perish.
• 10:30 Wed.: Lay head to pillow
• 12:50a.m. Wed/Thurs: Leila cries out & continues crying/calling for mom -- go to comfort her and realize by touch that she has a fever -- bring her to bed with mom.
• 5:00a.m. Thurs.: Mommy! Change my diaper (we're working on pottie training & she's finally telling me when a wet diap. bothers her) -- Ok, sweetie, but it's still dark and ni-ni time so we're going back to sleep when we're done
• 5:01 Thurs.: Put a band aid on the boo boo on my foot
• 5:03 Thurs: Take the band aid OFF
• 5:05-6:40 Thurs: Sleep
• 6:40 Thurs: Sneak out of bed and leave Leila asleep
• 6:55 Thurs: Peak back in on Leila and she awakes -- window of opportunity to shower gone -- take temperature & it's still just under 101 -- no day care/work today --doctor??
• 7:00 - 8:30 Thurs.: give Leila Tylenol/milk -- watch Wiggles, Higgleytown Heroes & Curious George
• 8:30 Thurs.: Make Dr.'s appt. for 10
• 10:00 Thurs.: She's very wheezy - the infection/fever is coming from the lungs...So, like, Bronchitis? Actually, more likely a little Pneumonia. Pneu-whatinthehecknow? What 2yr old gets Pneumonia in early September???
• 11:00-6:20 Thurs.: Fill prescriptions - go to coffee shop for cupcake (i.e.: frosting) and a bit of play - go home to nebulize - nap - nebulize - watch PBS Kids - Play with Play Dough - Papa drops in on way home from work to check on patient.
• 6:30 Thurs.: Vaguely stated to Papa and no one in particular "yeah, there's kind of this dead roachie smell in the kitchen - I think its carcass is under the dishwasher still..." and Papa says "a dead roach shouldn't smell" and I say "huh?, how bout you pull out that drawer under my stove to check for any dead mice?" and BINGO! Mouse trapped mouse # 9!! We went through a couple weeks there with nothing... Here we go again....
• Meanwhile in Sedona Arizona...Hey babe - I'm on the 17th hole - I'll call you back in about an hour.........AAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bath Time Shenanigans

The goggles and floaties getup in the bath is completely her own doing....

A Heartbreaking Work...

Read this book. Seriously. As soon as you have the chance. I'm no Oprah, but you could put my stamp of approval right alongside hers. In this day and age, it should be required reading for every adult on the planet. Yes, it is dreary, dark, depressing, haunting, hopeless...Strike that, it is actually not hopeless and that is the simple beauty of it.

In a landscape completely obliterated either by nuclear fallout or natural disaster (McCarthy is purposefully vague about the causal event, which renders its aftermath even more effective) an unnamed man, "Papa", and his young son, born in the days following the disaster, fight to survive if only for each other. It is their bond, their unwavering love, their commitment to remain the "good guys" and "carry the fire" in a world that seems to have no place left for good that carries the plot and left me such an emotional wreck. If you have a child, you will certainly want to hug him or her to you and not let go on completion of this book. Yes, I was the freak on the metro last night choking back tears as I devoured the last 20 pages. Please check it out. Even if you're short on time to read, it is a very fast read. The prose is spare and minimal and there are no chapter breaks to slow you down. And if you are very improbably a hater, direct your animus to Oprah, not I. I'm just the sappy, sentimental parent who is not ready for the apocalypse!

A picture is worth...

Here's that priceless shot of Fiddy in reaction to Brit's "performance" that I was earlier talking about:
I think my face looked about the same until I bust out laughing, loudly, when I saw him. Oh, that is the funny I tell you!

The train...

... is wrecked. Jack-knifed. Totaled. Beyond Repair. Perez Hilton's open letter to Britney says it all, but wow, that was reeaallllyyy bad! The best part about the "performance" was seeing the "what the eff? " faces in the audience on the likes of 50 Cent and Diddy. That was priceless. And in her heinous get up, she even made me feel good about the state of my body. Seriously. I even stood in front of my full length mirror in my bra and panties afterword and contemplated how OK I look in comparison. Of course, the badness before my eyes also led me to have one more glass of wine than I should have, so I'll blame those calories on Brit! Yes, I'll probably still belt out "gimme gimme...gimme more..." when it comes on in the car. Though I may want to be careful when I'm carting Leila around because that's not necessarily a refrain I want to hear out of her mouth regularly. The latest lyrics she picked up from my driving performances were those to Umbrella. It's a trip to do the "ella, ella, ella eh eh eh"s with her.

And aside from watching garbage on TV (we did do some quality Rome watching as well - there is some unbelievable shizz going down in season 2!) the most fun I had all weekend was using my Dyson. Trust me. You don't know how amusing and satisfying it is to vacuum cobwebs out of hard to reach corners until you've done so with a Dyson. There was some marathon play dough play in the mix as well. I think I'm good and ready for the temperatures to get just a little bit cooler so we can start doing some fun outdoor outings like apple picking.

Alexandria Shout Out

Meant to post this earlier in the week. It's not often you open the weekend NY Times dining section to see "Next Stop Alexandria, Va. A Town Takes Its Place at the Culinary Table..." Hometown pride y'all! I can certainly speak for Rustico and its fine, fine beer collection as it's only a short stagger from our house. As well as for Eamonn's and its fine, fine battered cod and chips. And one of these days I'll find a special occasion (and an influx of cash) to sample restaurant Eve...

http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/09/02/travel/02nextstop.html

And in real news...

...that I somehow don't find surprising in the least!

IRAQ -- BUSH KNEW BEFORE INVASION THAT SADDAM HAD NO WMD: Two former CIA officers have confirmed to Salon that President Bush was told in Sept. 2002 that Saddam Hussein did not possess any weapons of mass destruction. According to the officer, CIA director George Tenet provided Bush with top-secret information that "detailed that Saddam may have wished to have a program, that his engineers had told him they could build a nuclear weapon within two years if they had fissible material, which they didn't, and that they had no chemical or biological weapons." Bush reportedly dismissed the warning immediately. According to one of the officers, "Bush didn't give a f*ck about the intelligence. He had his mind made up." Tenet never brought up the information again; in fact, only a few months later he infamously referred to the case that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction as a "slam dunk." The intelligence about the lack of weapons of mass destruction was never provided to Congress before their vote to authorize military operations in March 2003, and British Prime Minister Tony Blair depended on this faulty information to make his decision to support the Iraq war. "Blair was duped," said one of the CIA officers. "He was shown the altered report." Even though Bush finally publicly admitted in 2004 that "Iraq did not have the weapons that our intelligence believed were there," he continued to believe that they were. In his new book on Bush, Robert Draper writes that the President repeated conviction that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction "to Andy Card all the way up until Card's departure in April 2006."

Hello, I'm a Mac...

I'm having a bit of a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea of Drew Barrymore and Warren Cheswick - oops I mean Justin Long as a couple. Oh, who am I kidding, he'll always be Warren Cheswick to me. I miss Ed. In it's prime. I think I forgot to watch the last season. Ahhh....Tom Cavanaugh...

Dyson Update

Believe the hype! That is one powerful machine. Thank you for your 5 years and 5,127 prototypes James Dyson.

Upgrade!

I can hardly contain my excitement about upgrading from this P.O.S. stick vac with a broken handle:
To THIS!!!!:
Yep, I'm pretty pathetic, but dude, it's a Dyson! It never looses suction. And it's pink!
I haven't even plugged it in yet, because I wanted to devour every word of the instruction manual last night so that I could fully appreciate its superior technology. Yet there it sits in all its sculptural beauty in my living room...

And...The Beach...

The beach was great -- when is a beach ever not great? OK, maybe when it's Ocean City it's not so great... I do realize though, that our - meaning Cesar's and mine - vacation days are pretty much over. I had exactly one hour to read outside by myself in three days and we went to bed at 10:00 each night b/c even if we tried to keep the TV on muted with the lights out Miss Priss wouldn't lay her pretty head down to sleep. I can see why families put a premium on hotels that have a suite setup with separate living area, and even more so, how nice it is to travel with extended family to have some backup to afford a break. This is not to say that we did not have a blast with the girl. Just that it might have been nice to have the leisure to linger over a few more Mango Margaritas at Mama Kwan's...

Williamsburg Pit Stop

If you've been to Williamsburg in the past 4 years you know this, but The Cheese Shop is now on DOG street. It has taken over the space that used to be "A Good Place to Eat", or whatever that random place only frequented by tourists at the end of the first block on the right was called. There are scads of outdoor tables and it is adjoined by a Trellis'y looking restaurant that is open in the evenings I gather. Don't fret that it has gone out of existence completely and hop into the first alternate sandwich shop you see as I did. Even though our alternate turned out to be nearly equally as yummy. The old Cheese Shop space is now a sit down bistro kind of place which looked quite good, but sitting down to a $20 entree and a Belgian beer was not really in our cards for a quick pit stop en route to the beach.

Here's the girl at the alternate sandwich shop we settled on before I realized that the Cheese Shop did indeed exist as I ducked into Wythe for some gummy provisions. I believe it was called Louis' (or Lewis') Gourmet. It's right next to Massey's camera shop and it was very tasty. Aside from the anchor of Massey's, I believe that whole strip on Prince George Street has changed. Next to Louis'/Lewis' was a retro ice cream counter kind of place (speaking of retro soda counter...that old pharmacy when you first hit DOG street is now Williams' Sonoma - random) that also served deli sandwiches, then a coffee shop that bears no resemblance whatsoever to our old coffee shop - I suppose it has revamped for the positive, but didn't really look like the kind of place I'd be comfortable drinking refill after refill and pouring over 19th century American literature for hour upon hour in....
On the way back Saturday, we did make it into the Cheese Shop for house dressing laden treats, and it was a MOBSCENE. I'm sure it's good business to draw the tourists, but it was sort of nice to recall it as a secret student spot. I convinced the girl to climb the cannon outside Wren, but was not so successful in getting her to pose seated next to a new(ish?) Thomas Jefferson statue on DOG street. Or Thomas Jefferman as she called him.

Before the trip...

Leila and I had a lovely Tuesday morning play dough play date with Emily and Henry and I got some nice snuggle time with Baby Lucy. That was followed by your typical lunch out with a 2 and 3 year old in Shirlington (can mommy see just one more bite of chicken go in your tummy...that's MY pink crayon....etc...)
And then:
That even looks like my poor little CRV in that frame from A-1 Towing and Recovery's Website. Yep, we walked back to the parking garage and my car was gone. Em's was still there with a warning flier on it. Sure we were parked it spots indicated "Office Visitor" when we were actually retail visitors, but still, cut us some slack!

This was not quite the crazy experience that my first tow was years ago, when Frances Burton and I had to go pick up my prelude "behind the yellow building" in Southeast DC, pay $200 to retrieve it b/c it was a Sunday, find it unable to start b/c the tow company had disabled something then have Russell "9 & 1/2" Norwood (yes, I still recall that unforgettable name, and it was "9 & 1/2" because he was missing half a finger you see...) give me his card and flirt with me the entire time he worked to restart my car...though it was still somewhat traumatic. We had Em's car, but were a car seat short of course, so she creeped onto 395 towards Crystal City with Leila strapped onto my lap in front. We missed the turn we were supposed to take off of Boundary Channel Drive and were spooked by all the Pentagon police we were passing, so we pulled into a parking lot off the parkway, strapped Leila into Henry's seat with him in the middle and tried to work our way back to the dive of a towing yard in an abandoned stretch of Crystal City. $100 later (which Em graciously went 50/50 on) we collected the car without further incident. Though I was working really hard to get Leila to forget that "the truck took our car away?" "remember when our car was gone...the truck took it away..." and keep this one a secret from daddy, dumb#$* me went and left the warning flier on the windshield for him to see when he got home. Oh well. The little parrot wouldn't have stayed mum forever.

Ugh! Back to the grind...

Started the day with the AC repairman at the house at 7:00 a.m. after significant leakage through the first floor stairwell ceiling last night and a restless sleep in fresh air. Home sweet Amityville. Truthfully, I love to sleep with the windows open, but our street is LOUD. The delivery men start dropping stuff off at Lee's Market at about 3:55a.m., and once the buses start running at 6:00, fuggedaboutit...Plus, dear hubby's a maniac if the house is a degree above 70. Anyway...pipes are unclogged and we're all freoned up, so a couple quick posts to sum up the past week follow.