It's Beginning to Smell a Lot Like Christmas...

Because today it was warm and hazy, but it smelled like a cozy woodstove fire. Not like one of them summery Memorial Day Weekendy bbq fires, evidently we have Canadian forest fires to thank, it's true, I read it in the Buenos Aires Herald which reports hectares upon hectares of woodsy Portlandian scents that caused my hubby hours of tv-resistant hysteria in fear that the smoky aroma was coming from the walls of our home. AND Dennis Hopper died. And there's that whole unstoppable oil spill thing, start prayin' folks!

Wildflowers

Our flowers are popping out, I'm so excited!









On a walk to the grocery store my other wildflower insisted on pushing the chariot himself.



...it made for a verrrry long waaaaalk. Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

Sun, Sand, Shrimp

Today Hubby took down some branches so's that MAYBE our garden will get some sun this year.



Jimmy took a sand nap.



And I made a seafood casserole.



And I'm still depressed that Dancing with the Stars is over! And there's over a month until Big Brother starts and I heard that So You Think You Can Dance begins tonight, but I don't get that channel, so I'm basically suicidal. 'Night all!

A Green-Hot Date!

It was haw-aw-otttt today, I think it reached the 90s and Hubby was all sweaty and irritated and working on his Agent Orange hotsauce so Jimmy and I decided to beat the heat and get out of the kitchen by attending His First Movie Theater Movie!!



We went to see Shrek Forever After in 2-D, I felt very old-fogeyish as I balked at ticket prices ($7.50 for a Wednesday matinee?) but at the same time very hip for simply being there; the last film I saw in the theater was Borat. So in that time all y'all may have completely alienated me with your incessant blabbing-about with your Avatar and your Iron Man and your The Blind Side and your The Hangover, you may now include me in your Shrek 4 discussions because it is still in theaters and I saw it! ....Well.....I saw most of it, I'm not sure how it ends, really, because Jimmy wanted to leave, but still! I sat in a movie chair for the first time in 3.5 years today, huzzah!

Makin' Mud Pies

....and clam cakes:

It appears summer is here!

Finals!

Tonight is Night 1 of the 2-night Season Finale of Dancing with the Stars 10, woo woo!

I'm so excited and crossing my fingers that Jimmy will be busy enjoying his inner eyelids, because his latest obessession, the Remote Control Thomas, is a little LOUD (thaaaaaanks, Daaaaad. Ha!)

Mama Trauma, Commotion, and Ani-Motion

Awmigawd, yesterday at Sam's Club I let Jimmy eat a chocolate chip cookie and *instantly* he broke out into hives. I was freaking out, but not really, most of the time I freak out over these things once I think of other mothers who pre-Jimmy would freak out, when I always thought "why is she freaking, it's just freaking hives" but when the 40 pounds of hives only has you to rely on for his health and well-being and to keep his airway passages circular and open-y, it sorta gives you that other-perspective thing, the "what-if" thing, and I understand why or why not other parents naturally freak out, naturally?

By the time we were home Jimmy's right eye was goopy and irritable and bloodshot and the panic set in because obviously, this could be a serious case of blinding eyeball-dissolving disease and the fact that it was also getting all swollen wasn't much of a help for my nerves.

Dr. Google led me to Dr. Sears (my hero :batting eyelashes:) who said that parents will often wonder in cases like these if they should bring the child to the doctor/ER. He said that if the child is behaving as normally and as chipperly as ever, then a dr's visit is unnecessary. I looked over at Jimmy, he wanted to show me how he could sport a pair of women's sunglasses.

Crisis averted. I followed the e-doctor's orders and wiped Jimmy's eye down with a warm cloth, and things started getting better almost instantly.

Just in time for us to open up our VIEWER MAIL!!!!

Sweet sweet Leann and her hubby and their little fella Barker of All About Barker sent Jimmy a birthday prezzie, a new favorite book of his, the "ani-motion" illustrated book Bee & Me by Elle J. McGuinness/Heather Brown.

Leann, I could tell you how much he loves it but hopefully the pictures speak for themselves. Many biggie boy thanks from Jimmy to his iPal Barker, it's a beautiful book, we love it!

And sakes alive, the Bee & Me hive be-rid Jimmy of his hives. And his goopy eye. High-5!!!

Jimmy: Park Bench Edition

Today was so beautiful, Jimmy and I walked the post office and he grabbed this seat on the walk home, I just had to take photos.






Yaaawwwwwn








Would you like a stick, Mumma?


I know there's a playground around here somewhere...

Just a reminder...

For every 5pm tyke who looks like this...



...there's a caregiver behind him who probably wants to be doing the exact same thing.

Manytimes that's me, but first, today I tunafish-sandwiched up our salmon leftovers, mmmmm!



Sorry cats, it's mine!

Clairvoy $tory

I was in one of those late night cosmic "aw wooooooooow" moods *cough*cough* when I started noticing all these cowboy themes in random commercials: An errant cowboy at a pirate party; a new Cowboy Burger at Applebee's, complete with references to childhood cowboy dreams. And then Buzz Aldrin started pimping his spacey status everywhere--Dancing with the Stars, 30 Rock, WWE--and it just seemed to me that with all the cowboys and astronauts stuff that it looked like the good folks at Disney were busy mind-controlling, er, peppering our tv culture with subtle Toy Story 3 promotions. Tonight on Dancing with the Stars I watched a Pixar'd-out Aflac commercial which was cobranded with Buzz and Woody and the gang (a kids movie to sell insurance, well naturally! Hrrm, come to think of it, MetLife uses Snoopy, what's up with that?) and why not, studies show that a partnership with Toy Story 3 will up your product's price value by 28 percent.



...3 aisles over,



So I sat and meditated about it and I don't know about you, but I'm thinking that all this subliminal advertising is working because I cannot wait to see this movie!!! Coming June 18! I haven't seen a movie since Borat!

Belated Bemonkey Bephotos

...from our (be)Mother's Day viewing of Curious George Live!















It was great! Unbefortunately someone was a little squirmy so we missed the second half of the show, but whatever. Jimmy still loves the performance arts, he's completely pulling for Evan Lysacek on Dancing with the Stars (sssshhhh...don't tell him that Mommy is an ardent fan of Team Houghzinger!) Good luck Evvv...icole!

\m/

I think it's a good idea to only name children after dead people, because even if some people may have sprinkled our world with art or justice or sport or mercy or innovation, you just never know what people might end up doing (do you want your name to be Orenthal James? Richard Milhous? Richard Cheney?) Our son is named after a guy who "drowned in a massive amount of red wine," but even so, I always had other tribute names swimming around my head, like Daniel Day-W. or Charles Nelson Wenzley (the original Charles Nelson Reilly died just 10 days after Jimmy was born, shucks!) but I had to shy away from the names due to that nagging what-if-they’re-homicidal-pedophiles thing.

Today one of my “Someday But Let’s Face It Probably Not Ever” baby names sadly became available. Ronnie James Dio died at 7:45am, presumably finally finding out if that theory about aliens authoring the Bible is true, and leaving behind a glorious library of music, lyrics, hand gestures, performances, and a respectable name for some little boy, somewhere.

We're a ship without a storm

The cold without the warm

Light inside the darkness that it needs, yeah

We're a laugh without a tear

The hope without the fear

We are coming - home

RIP Ronnie James Dio

July 10, 1942 – May 16, 2010

Back in the saddle, some roads I traveled in the week of my blog-cation.

This week I stifled a little giggle when reading about a 2-hour podcast on "the perils and benefits of Time Control Technology," only to be struck by the accompanying image:


Dang .gif files, why do they always convince me so??

I don't Twitter, I could care less about updating the internet with "I'm eating cereal, omg!" or news of any itchiness between my toes, I despise that the media constantly push us to follow inane comments from idiots like Kim Kardashian and Dr. Phil but I did this week discover an embarrassingly large dependency on needing to know everything to be uttered by Derek Hough. Ridiculous.



Have you seen this kid? Jesus.

Also this week my father connected me to Skype, I was skeptical but he eased the nerves by telling me that from across the world I can now be reached by random 14 year old boys. SOLD! Ha, no not really, but it does make me wonder why Oprah is so busy selling it in her little show there.

And, in the middle of the night one night this week my hubby typed "Big Pharma" into Google Videos and ran this:



as my jaw dropped for an hour and 8 minutes and 22 seconds. Pretty eye-opening, every word is compelling...don't ask your doctor about Havidol, bulge your eyes out and ask your doctor about the emotional marketing that starts Day 1 of med school. Hrrrmph!

And what else happened this week? Hmmmm...whatelse? What. else? Oh yeah, I know what else happened! Today my Reason for LIVING, my Jimmy turned THREEEEEEE years old!




Vroom, vroom!

Happy Birthday, Jimmy! He celebrated with lots of friends and family, so thankful to those who made could make it!