Went to Massachussetts last week to see family I have not seen for years. I had never even met my grandma, so that was neat, I also got to meet an uncle I didn't know existed and a cheeky cousin who reminds me a little of me at her age. Also I got to stay with my cousin Laura, who I remember mostly from photos on my refrigerator as a six year old in angel wings. Now she's grown up.




Here I am during the Nor'easter. Weathermen made up the word "drismal" to describe this weather. Raining sideways! Wicked retarded! ; )

My family and I got sucked into a made for TV movie on the Lifetime network tonight. We could not get away, we were squirming and grumbling, the movie had it's claws in. Damn you Lifetime network and your gripping trailers, and hypnotising made for TV dramas! The movie was called Small Sacrifices and it starred Farrah Fawcett. It was about a lady who shot her children... for love. And also maybe Duran Duran made her do it. In the movie she shot her children to "Hungry Like the Wolf", and they actually played the song in it's entirety. In the courtroom the serious lawyer asked the daughter witness "What was the song you heard ... was it HUNGRY LIKE THE WOLF?!". Dramedy.

I pick the building that I want to live in...



We bought a condo... it's more like a townhouse. It's about time since we're paying for rent about the same as our mortgage. It's in a good neighborhood as well, one I lived in before. Now we can walk to the grocery store, video store, two coffee shops and of course Taco Shack.

I am for a moment going to talk about Michael Jackson. Look away if you don't want to hear. Michael Jackson was one of my childhood heroes. I had a MJ doll as a child, and Thriller was my all time favorite video (and album!). I cannot deny the Michael of yesteryear, nor can I stop loving his songs that I always have done. I get excited at the skating rink when I hear the bassline for Billie Jean. Last Tuesday they played four MJ songs in two hours. Hurrah. My friend and skate buddy Stephanie wore here MJ t shirt. I was so proud of her.
I am only mentioning this because I have been criticized recently for liking Michael Jackson songs... for goodness sakes! I'm not trying to be political... and you like them too!
I mean, Madonna has totally sold out but I'll still listen to skate/dance/boogie down to her songs if they're on.
Why is it that I'm a little less forgiving of Madge than Jacko? Is it because she seems totally aware and he just seems kind of nuts?

Last night I had dreams about lice and tornadoes (separate dreams). I will not be eating cheese so close to bedtime again.

OK, my mom has proven herself officially out of touch with reality this weekend. She was going to come visit, but this did not happen... so I'm going to go ahead and salvage this weekend and still enjoy Mother's Day. I'll say a happy Mother's Day to me because I pretty much raised myself anyway. Of course I didn't do the best job having eaten my weight in mac n' cheese dinners, vienna sausages, cream of mushroom soups, beenie weenies, etc... but I'm still here. So today a glass of muscato and some chocolate covered strawberries to me!

Today while stuck in traffic I saw a giant effigy of Uncle Sam drive up - "Is that Uncle Sam?" I remarked. As it approached and then passed we realized that it was indeed Uncle Sam and he had a hankering for a spankering. The hand actually moved to spank the bottom of Tom DeLay. Fabulous.




And you can drive him!

Happy Birthday to me. Best Birthday ever.

"Miss, did you know you could get warts from pointing at a rainbow?!"

-kid in my class

No, I did not know that.

Mitch Hedberg died today, and I am sad about it. I had seen him on Letterman lots of times when I used to stay up. I usually don't think stand up is very funny... but this guy... brilliant. Here are some of my favorite quotes:

"I got an ant farm. Them fellas didn't grow shit."

"I used to do drugs. I still do drugs. But I used to, too."

"I think Pringles initial intention was to make tennis balls. But on the day that the rubber was supposed to show up, a big truckload of potatoes arrived. But Pringles is a laid back company. They said "Fuck it. Cut em up."

"I saw a human pyramid once. It was totally unnecessary."

"I wish I could play little league now. I'd be way better than before."

"You know they call corn-on-the-cob, "corn-on-the-cob", but that's how it comes out of the ground. They should just call it corn, and every other type of corn, corn-off-the-cob. It's not like if someone cut off my arm they would call it "Mitch", and then re-attached it, and call it "Mitch-all-together"."

"You really need to get that cat to stay off the booze!"

-K

Tonight I went to Randalls to get Kettle Corn and make fun of the little cans of Big Red (is the red still big?) and ran into Dave Skinner who has not aged a day, he actually looks like he is getting younger. Thanks Dave for letting me make you lose your place in line!

I had no flippin clue that Stacy from Kids Incorporated, one of my favorite cable TV shows as a child was the same person as Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas.

Real World Austin crosses my real world again:

It was back to work this morning... and I waved goodbye to the international band who had been staying with me this week on the way to my car. I thought it would be hard to have so many people staying in our little apartment, but it was actually fun, and a little sad when they weren't here this afternoon. I will be visiting Antwerp for a couple of days this summer, so that will be wonderful!

This morning I woke up early and walked down to Waterloo to see the Doves:



Then on the way back the most rain I have ever seen and then the most beautiful rainbow.



At night we saw the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players who played some old songs, and a couple of new ones. My favorite new one was called Beautiful Dandelion, and was just kind of a stream of random slides. We also got to see the George W. Bush Singers perform, which was their second performance ever, and was awesome. It looked pretty new to most of the audience, but I've been a fan for a while.

Today I also found out that a band that was playing in a store I went to buy a bedroll from the other day was actually Bloc Party, a band that I wanted to see. I am seeing great bands on accident. Huzzah!

The best band I saw tonight was Morningwood from New York, they were again dirty, not very cute, very hot. Glad I gave some shows a miss, my friend Melissa called me to come see the Goldie Lookin' Chain show, and then five minutes later to tell me that she no longer liked Goldie Lookin' Chain.

Also tonight I got to see (and meet!) Stuart Maconie. I record his shows weekly on Mini Disc to listen to in my car to and from Del Valle, and he influences my musical choices more than anyone lately... so this made my day, and my music festival. He's such a great guy in radio, and in real life.

Mystery Viewmaster slides off ebay - Knight Rider. Score.

One of my favorite things - people getting big checks:



In the past week I have seen two big checks presented to people. I love that they make them big. I wish we presented more things to people real big like that, and I like that they always seem to sneak up on people with those big checks.