what did you just say?

Yesterday we took Nash to his first real grown-up musical, Grease.  Salem State’s Summer Theatre has six performances over the next two weeks and I’ve been looking forward to taking Nash since I first heard it would be there.  I’ve never seen the musical and honestly can’t even remember the first time I saw the movie (but have seen it at least a bajillion times in my life) but I can’t remember ever not having the soundtrack.  I had the LP (that’s an album, kids.  You know, a record?  Round vinyl thing with grooves??….ask your parents), cassette and eventually CD and can sing every word to every song on it.  It was definitely the soundtrack of my youth.   I had no idea what Nash would think of all this 30 years later, let alone be able to sit still for two and a half hours.  Well, I’m happy to report that he looooved it!!    A few of my favorite quotes:

Nash: “Can we always come here?”

Me: “No, it’s just here for six days.”

Nash (moments later): “Is it here every July?   Can we come next July?” (dude loves his “traditions”)

Me: “Nope.  This is it.  So shhhh, and enjoy it.”

Me & Jeff (at intermission): “Do you want to stay for the second half or do you want to leave?”

Nash: “Why the hell would we leave if it’s not done?  This is the greatest thing EVER.” (or some variation of that)

Nash (during dance scene): “What celebration is this?”

Me: “It’s called Prom.”  (not officially but really the concept of a dance off competition seemed impossible to explain in the dark with Born To Hand Jive playing)

Nash:  ”I can’t wait for high school so I can have prom.”  (Little does he know that thanks to Aunt Paula’s brilliant idea that will involve him and his date being stuffed into the blue chair)

So dude was a complete champ, lasted through the whole thing and freaking loved it.  As soon as we got home he had to draw a picture of it.

It’s actually a pretty good replication of the stage set up with all the ramps and what not.  That’s Danny and Sandy up on top.  The purple square on the top right is the box the house band was playing from.  All those dots are the audience members.  I love that the stick girls are all wearing skirts but my favorite is the bottom left.  That purple person is “an actor coming out of the bathroom”.  I must have missed that part.  Maybe it’s Rizzo when she thought she was pg…..

That was a quote from Brandi C. on I love Money, VH1’s new train wreck that I’ve gotten myself sucked in to.  Just when I thought they had come up with everything, they’ve gone green and recycled.  They’ve taken 15 of the “best” rejects from three different looking-for-love shows (Flava Flav, Brett Michaels and New York - ‘nuf said) and brought them on a new show, in a new house, with a new prize - $250,000 cash money.

The season preview looks to be every bit as addictive as Rock Of Love was for me.  The mix of people range from cocky, slutty, ditzy, mildly retarded to just plain insane.   With names like 12 pack, Heat, Mr. Boston, Pumkin, Rodeo and Toastee (and of course the already mentioned Midget Mac and Nibblz) I think I’ve found my summer guilty pleasure.

Oh, and you’ll be glad to know that “Whiteboy” DID pick Brandi C and **spoiler alert**  Midget Mac was sent packing.

Once I could prop him up, I started taking weekly photos of Nash in the same blue chair so we could watch him grow.   It started out something like this….

And a few months into it, he looked something like this:

This is how week 52 ended up and I figured this would be the end of the show:

But alas the documentarian in me insisted the show must go on so now every year on his birthday, I drag out the chair for an annual photo.  Here’s year 2, sharing the spotlight with Vegas:

Year 3 I let him pick his own outfit.  Um, possible mistake:  

Year 4 was pretty darn cute.  It was the “don’t ever put down Thomas” and “Clifford Rules” phase:

Year 5 was on our way out the door to NASCAR.  Really.

And here we are six years later.  The chair had to be dug out of the attic of the garage only to be put back a few days later.  

If I have my way (and you know I will) I will be stuffing a grown man into this chair in his tuxedo on his wedding day….

This whole blog world is so fun and exciting.  I think it’s like a new kind of mommy therapy.  As a blogger, I have a place to dump out all the pointless thoughts running through my mind AND keep the friends and family up to date on the life of Nash.  I vent, I rant, I laugh, I cry.   It’s one of the few things that’s all mine and frankly I cherish it.  It really is like a journal that you don’t mind leaving out on the front steps for anyone to stop by and read.   And the other fun part of blogging is discovering other blogs.  I like to do a little blog surfing myself.  This entails reading one of your favorite blogs, then checking out their “blog roll” which is a list if their  favorite blogs, clicking on one (or all) of them and discovering even more cool bloggers that you will love.  And the best part is when you find a blog you love and have the time to read through pages and pages of posts.  Within about 20 minutes you feel like you’ve just made a new best friend.  (Except that usually the person doesn’t even know you exist but really, who has time for real friends anyway?).  

My most recent example - after yesterday’s very boring post, shockingly my blog was visited by the very author that I mentioned in my post.  (no really, she left a comment and everything so you can totally check) I’m loving her new book that I’m currently reading (Outtakes from a Marriage) so I already knew she was a funny and brilliant writer.  So when she invited me to read her blog, I dug right in.  Yeah she’s a famous author who happens to married to an acclaimed actor, but at the end of the day, she’s a mom, a wife and (dare I say) a bit of a geek, just like the rest of us.  

So grab a cup of coffee or glass of wine and check out  Bean or Ms Picket or Carolyn Online or Ann Leary and pretend they’re your friends, too.  It’s fun!

I have 20 free minutes all to myself this morning between dropping Nash off at camp and getting to a 10 o’clock meeting. What to do, what to do. I could:

• blog about my 4th of July weekend
• iron those few things waiting patiently in the basement
• watch the end of the episode of October Road I started watching yesterday
• read more of the juicy Ann Leary novel I’m in the middle of that needs to go back to the library soon

Nope. Instead I got to clean up cat diarrhea. Yippee!!

File this one under things learned at summer camp….

The other day while shopping I stumbled upon what I thought was a cute skirt.  Upon closer investigation I realized it was actually a skort.  A skort?  Only old ladies wear skorts, right?  But I tried it on and fell in love.  It was damn cute and super comfy.  I could have kept it my secret, but I told a couple friends and they had the same reaction as my initial reaction.  I could tell they thought I crossed over to the other side and was one step away from a shag haircut and garden clogs.  I wore it today and could exit my car without flashing my panties to the paparazzi.  I leaned over and picked baby Georgia up from the floor without flashing anyone in the office.  I played mini golf with two six year olds and could bend over without worry to pick up many a stray ball.  I gracefully sat at a picnic table (getting up no less than six times to get more napkins for the very messy ice cream eaters).  I got chased around my front yard by said six year olds + one grown man armed with squirt guns and felt every bit a lady in my “skirt” while feeling every bit as sporty in my “shorts”. So there.  I love my skort, dammit.  Good thing I bought it in two colors.

The little guy turns SIX tomorrow and the festivities kicked off today at 10 AM with a jumpy party at Pump It Up.  This place is a giant warehouse filled with moon bounces.  It’s ridiculous and the kids loooove it.  

They were all sweaty and exhausted by the time we hit the “party room” for pizza and cake.  What kind of cake?  Why Speed Racer cake of course!

Here’s the sweaty birthday boy on the inflatable throne.  Seriously.

We spent the rest of the day assembling toys, returning toys and buying more toys with gift cards.  Dude was in heaven.  And we ended the day with a sushi dinner, per the birthday boy’s request.  See it was 6 years ago tonight that Jeff brought home sushi for dinner and 2 hours later, I went into labor.  (and 12 hours later he finally entered the world but that’s another story…..)  And gotta think that has something to do with him always liking sushi, right?

Anyway, happy birthday, bear.  I super love you.

In a day filled with headlines of escaped convicts, guilty verdicts and celeb splits the big breaking news is not out of Boston or Hollywood today, but from my mom straight out of my hometown of Battle Lake, Minnesota (remember B.L.??)

So who do you think shows up for a week of vacation?  On MY lake?  Eating pizza at MY pizza place (where I used to waitress)?  O.J. freaking Simpson.  Seriously.  Turns out his girlfriend of 12 years is from Fergus Falls and her brother has a place on Ottertail Lake so they came out for a visit.  Oh, and to meet her dad because O.J. HAD NEVER MET HIM.  Who dates someone for TWELVE years and doesn’t meet her dad?  Or maybe dad didn’t want to meet him because of the whole killed-his-ex-wife thing.  Hard to picture O.J. driving by my folks place on his way to Zorbaz.  It’s just weird.  My last “brush” with O.J. was sitting at table next to his table at the Ivy back in my L.A. days.  And I thought that was kinda weird.  Too bad the Beaver Trap is closed.  I bet he would have liked that place. 

Click here for the full story.

Every work day I park at a local church parking lot and walk to the train station sometime between 8-8:30.  On my walk I pass the county court house.  Occasionally I’ll see some shackled convicts being escorted into the back of the court house.  I usually steal a quick glance then look away.  Or avoid looking at all if they are being obnoxious and whistling or some shit.  Well, today one of those convicts broke free and ran away to a waiting get away car and he’s still on the loose.  Yikes!  I caught the 8:06 train today.  The local newspaper I hate is reporting online that this happened at 8:05.  Of course they are wrong since they can’t report anything to save their lives and I’m pretty sure I would have noticed a shackled man running towards me.  Another is reporting that it happened at 8:20, when I would have been safely on my way to Boston. Either way, yikes.  It’s super creepy knowing there’s some escaped convict out there but I’ve convinced myself that if he had an obviously well planned escape, he’s long gone from here.