What I Learned This Week

I intended to make a list of things I learned this week, but I can only come up with one lesson: BJ's Party Platter of Sushi is kind of gross.

Some other unsavory moments this witnessed this week:


Creepy Buzz Aldrin's waltz.


Discovering some photos say more about my windows than they do about yardwork.


Bosom Buddies still earns awards, mrrawrrrm.


Biddeford's La Kermesse festival is in jeopardy due to multipronged scumbag behavior. Shocking!

And I think that's it!

Maestr'uh-oh

Uh oh! Maestro James demonstrates his keyboard skills (it starts loud, sorry!)

No Time Like The Tardy!

Yesterday Jimmy and I were back at Greenlight Studio, we were responding to their Facebook post about throwing another Easter Egg Hunt, presumably thrown for people like us--the marginalized who never got it together to attend a timelier Egg Hunt. Also, it was during Greenlight's Half Price After 1pm Tuesdays so we were in!

I don't think Jimmy really understood the whole concept of egg hunting, he would find them (hard not to with Mommy practically throwing them in your hands with loud enthusiasm, and zeal) but he had no interest in collecting them. He ended up with 4, and then decided the fun came in opening them.









We (Mommy) were hoping to get free passes in our eggs, but we ended up with felt stickers and a kaleidoscope and a whistle, all were very cute. I had to laugh when I heard another girl opening up her eggs: "Another can of soap..." she said over a second mini-bottle of bubbles. Ha! Cute.














We had a great time, as usual, and Jimmy drifted off into extra-sleepyland extra early that evening (score!) We also enjoyed the free gluten-free muffin samples they are introducing this week, and I think Greenlight Studios is my favorite indoor playground in the area, I just think it's more parent-friendly than the others. I like the whole cafe concept, and the size helps--it's not as sprawling as the others so you can stay in one place and keep your eyes on your little ones a little easier. Merry Belated Easter Egg Hunting!

My Fair Polymath

Yesterday: Dairy Artist,

Today: Arbor Slayer!





After:





Yaaaay, look closely behind the web of sticks and branches and you will see Wally conquering the dangerous dangly limbs that cracked during a big windstorm a couple months ago. What a relief! I'm so thankful for the things my hunny can do around the house, if he could only meet my level of enthusiasm for Tony Dovolani, he'd be absolute *perfection*!

Ha! J/k, of course. He can hate Dancing with the Stars all he wants as long as he keeps up those bulging Renaissance Manskills. My living Butter Lamb, my hero!

Buttering Me Up!

Yesterday my friend Joan W. of the Mid-Atlantic made a Facebook post about the lamb butter sculptures she places (and her family decapitates) on her yearly Easter table. I was maximumly intrigued, I had never heard of this tradition but I knew it was a MUST for us to start. Since I had to work the holiday this year I begged my talented hubby to consider starting our own butter sculpture tradition in 2011, leaving him a year to study an array of traditional Butter Lamb images and to ponder his approach.

But(ter) wouldn't you know, today I came home from work to find this:

Baa baa butter sheep,
Have you any butter?
Yes'm, yes'm,
Two sticks worth...

(Sung to the tune of Baa Baa Black Sheep---a nursery rhyme Wally claims to never've heard, where is he from???)

Is it not my Easter Butter Lamb gorgeous!!! I am so happy, I think she looks butterer than any of the Butter Lambs on the website. Thanks, Hunny! Best Easter Day surprise ever!

In other Easter happenings:



Jimmy prepares for the excitement in his new Easter jammies.



This morning he loved all the treats found in his awesome train basket. Thanks Joan L!

And we had good times watching Disney's The Princess and the Frog. Happy Easter!!

Proof That Cosmic Mind-Reading Eggsists!

Jimmy and I made Easter eggs today. One of the eggs completely broke apart in the boiling process and the empty delicate shell made me think of the egg art Christmas ornaments that my unreasonably crafty grandmother used to make. It always freaked me out that a chicken egg shell could last as a yearly treasure, but that woman could do anything small, complicated, and detailed--including drafting Escheresque optical illusions and then putting them to needlepoint, and all her work was by hand, without the use of lasers or radiation or deathrays or anything! Amazing, and today I was sorry I no longer knew where those egg ornaments were.

So imagine my surprise when a few hours later I opened a package sent to Jimmy, and found this inside:



It's a goose egg art Easter ornament! From Jimmy's great-aunt Betty, aka "Anonymous." =D THANKS, BETTY! We love it! And Jimmy had a ball investigating the remaining contents of his Easter box-asket (and Hubby thanks you for the turtles.)



Just two more days to Candyrama!

Rachel Fool's Day!

It's April 1, the day after I risked my health in 3 hours of rain, chatting it up with the mentally unhealthy on both sides of me in line for tickets to see the President speak on healthcare. The text has since been changed, but I coulda sworn that the Chellie Pingree site said that once you have tickets, you are guaranteed a seat for the speech, I mean, it's the least they could do for the 3 hours in the rain thing, right.


Portland welcomes President Obama, but Rachel does not.

I offered my father the other ticket and we figured, we had tickets, doors opened at 1:30, showtime was 3:30, there might be a bit of a line, but we weren't the Salahis, we had TICKETS issued to us by the White House so we were good to go, right. Well apparently so did a special set of "Blue Ticket" folks and I'm not sure how these people got their privileges and their short line and their magic tickets, but something tells me that The Freeman Perspective (google it) might have an opinion.

We arrived into the general vicinity at 1:25ish, we raced through the Tea Party so no one, like the media, would catch us with them...





About a quarter mile later we thought we were close to joining the end of the entry line:



But we were wrong, the line bent around the corner and extended another 1/4 mile:




Dad iPhones his experiences from the back of the bus.

Everyone around us was nervous, we weren't sure if we'd make it inside. 2.15 hours later as we were stalemated 500 feet from the door we got the word that nope, we weren't going to see the president, that the Secret Service wasn't accepting anymore ticket holders in, if we didn't have Blue Tickets we were SOL. Only, the Secret Service didn't come out and tell us this, nor did any event coordinator or policeman or anyone! Hundreds of us were all just left to stand there, it was pretty RUDE, imho!!! (Mm, hmm!)* We had to get the information from other in-line suckers who had phone access to people who were already inside.

So, five total hours of line-standing-in for nothing. What a jip! The only redemption I could salvage was a glimmer of hope that the presidential cavalcade would drive past my house on the way to the airport. We were back at the house in time to watch the speech on TV, and I got a little excited when I noticed police vehicles preparing the roads for the presidential exit...right outside my house!

So I stood and waited, and waited, I tested my camera's movie function, I stood closest to my house because I wanted to know that the President was breathing the air around it. It made sense in my head. I saw a handful of people gathering up at the corner, but I wanted the full-on Rachel Perspective of him driving past my HOUSE.

Once I saw them coming I soon learned they weren't scheduled to drive down my street, they were instead taking the ramp to I295. The footage I took stinks, I would have had a better view of the departure from my kitchen window. Sigh, it just wasn't my day.

We did make the best of it still. The weather was beautiful and Dad and I both got to enjoy a couple dog/toddler-free hours, so that was nice. All of us in the "cheap seats" got a good laugh as this Work Hard/Play Hard kinda guy drove by, gawked, tipped his phone away from his mouth and shouted "Dick Cheney!" Ha! And even if our day didn't go as planned, I feel worse that the girl who was first in line for tickets, 11 hours in heavy rain, was also shut out.

Maybe next April Fool's Day will be better.....

*PS, you know what else is rude? Walking up to a 1/2 mile line of people who previously stood for 3, 4, 11 hours in the rain for tickets and asking "Do you have any extra tick-ahts? Scuze me, does anyone here have any extra free tick-ahts??" Uh, NUH!