The other night while Chickeymonkey was brushing her teeth, I noticed how loose her bottom right front tooth was. It flipped back & forth so loose, I told her she better yank that puppy out of there or she’d swallow it with her PB&J and wind up not even getting any cash. No tooth, no tooth fairy, you know what I’m sayin?

She grimaced. And winced, and whimpered. That’s pretty standard.

The next night, we were eating dinner and she held out her hand to me and said “my toof!” Yep, there it was, and how giddy was she? I think she was more proud of herself for not swallowing it. Then it was all about the tooth fairy, “maybe she’ll give me A HUNDRED DOLLARS!” – heh! Yeah, dream on, kiddo. When she’s big, she can pay someone a hundred dollars to take her teeth, but no tooth fairy in her right mind is going to give that for a measly little baby tooth, even if it is the first one. (No tooth fairy that I know of, anyway.)

* * * * *So I slept hard lastnight – for the first time in a long time. So hard that I’m still sluggish, and if I don’t keep moving I’ll just go find my cozy spot on the couch and turn the ringer off. It could be the snow (depressing) or the cold (even more depressing), I’d like to think it had more to do with the steady stream of chaotic personal events that have suddenly given me some calm and clarity.

* * * * *I’ve found myself terribly disappointed with this fine arts association I’m a “member” of. Not only did I work my fingers to the bone preparing for exhibition – but my pieces hung for over a month before tags were put up (and I’m assuming they’re up now, with less than 2 weeks remaining update: the tags are still not up. ), but on the brochures that went out? They spelled my name wrong. On the second set of brochures? They didn’t even put me in it! Why the heck did I get all jazzed about this, anyway? It’s nice to know people are walking by and seeing my work, definitely. It’s not so nice to think they didn’t have any idea that my work is available for purchase or who to call to obtain it. No information available for that long? Ugh. That’s just bad business. I paid for my membership, I was ready with my pieces and I filled their space with some kick@$$ paintings. I make them look good – why can’t they return the favor? Ok maybe that’s why I have a headache, too.

[/disappointment]
I’m really glad I have other successful venues to make my work available.

How many of you have been disappointed lately with these so-called “fortunes” found in fortune cookies? This isn’t a fortune, it’s more predictive – or insightful. That’s it. Insightful. They should rename these “insightful cookies that teach you how to speak chinese on the back.” And they should have a warning, “Lucky numbers may not be lucky. They’re selected totally at random.” I mean really, if they’re going to take the fortune out of a fortune cookie, how can they claim the numbers are lucky? Well, I suppose they might be lucky to the guy writing the little insightful verse, but who really cares about that?

Honestly, I thought it was pretty karmic or something that this was in my “Insightful Cookie”. But it kindof stirred the negative emotion in me, you know? Is this insight telling me I’m an artist, or that I’m still an amateur? Why is this thing leaving me hanging? Am I supposed to guess? Is the insight dependent on the recipient having a huge amount of self-esteem, or what? Dang.

::thinking happy thoughts::

You know what I’m talking about?

We went to dinner lastnight, and half of us are sick today. The half that’s sick used different oils in our (Mongolian) food than the other half, and it’s my best guess that the oil may have been a little rancid.

Easter was wonderful. Church services were moving, our biggest little one played three songs on piano before services began and I was so proud of her, she played so well. Our baby quaker parrot birdy boy was just adorable this weekend (see our little pocket pal?), and we had a couple of slumber parties that left us all sleeping on our ginormous sectional.

One of the highlights for me was seeing and id’ing a new backyard bird. Meet Jeepers, our new brown creeper. (Jeepers, creepers. Easy to remember, yes?)

Ain’t he just the cutest? I thought it might have been some kind of nuthatch, the way he climbs the tree. He’s even foraging off the nuthatches stowed away food under the bark. I identified him on BDI – man I love that site. We’re doing a lot more to the yard this year to bring more birds in and right now we’ll get to see some of the most interesting birds as they migrate. My camera and I are so excited!

I’ll end my Monday on that note, since going off into tangent-land would probably cause my fingers and wrists to ache, and I’ll be using them in the studio later.

Happy Monday (in spite of it all!)

Happy Easter, everyone. :cheerful:

Our little Quaker parrot, Quintin, is a hoot. He’s still a baby, 3 months old, and he’s starting to really get animated. We play ball – he “throws” a little wiffle golf ball for us to catch, and it’s really funny. I’ll get video of that after we have a few more practice games. For now, you can see his silly personality starting to come out. Enjoy!

(don’t have your volume up too loud, you’ll be plugging your ears when you hear my “talk to the cute little birdie” voice!)

Yes I’m finally figuring out how to use my dang movie maker thing. Yahoo!

I saw a MasterCard commercial lastnight that was really disturbing to me. Maybe you’ve seen it? If not, allow me to set the scene for you – (and I’m being loose with the details because I won’t claim 100% accuracy):

• Man in zoo (caretaker) sneezes.
• Elephant hears man sneeze.
• Man goes home with a cold.
• Elephant goes galavanting around from store to store buying cold remedy stuff for man with the cold.
• Elephant swipes MasterCard in front of this new little MasterCard PayPass device and without question from sales clerks, leaves with merchandise.
• Elephant goes to man with cold’s house and with his trunk wrapped around the merchandise, gives it to man with cold sitting in a chair through the window.

Update: Watch the commercial!

insert audience supposed reaction: “awwww how sweet of the elephant!”

insert intelligent audience reaction option 1: “Is MasterCard approving elephants now, and if so, why didn’t they approve me?”

insert intelligent audience reaction option 2: “That elephant just used a stolen MasterCard, charged it up and no one even noticed!”

No matter how you look at it, this swipey thing is nothing but trouble. When the worlds largest living land mammal can use a credit card in front of a clueless albeit cheerful sales clerk, something is wrong. You don’t do anything but swipe your card in front of a little laser – no ID required. So let’s say you lose your wallet, someone just snags your MasterCard and goes on a shopping spree, and gets away with quite a lot before the card is reported stolen and the perp is found.

MasterCard claims:

the concept of a “Tap N Go” way to pay is very appealing. MasterCard PayPass offers added security because the card never leaves your customer’s hand.

Security for who? Who is going to check the signature, or validate the ID of the person using the card?

• Faster than cash: handle more customers in less time.
• Faster than a card swipe: eliminates the trial and error of customers swiping their own cards or handing their card to sales clerks.
• Merchant differentiation: customers are more likely to return to merchants that accept PayPass.
• Customers like to use it: MasterCard PayPass is simple and easy to use, great alternative to cash.
• Higher tickets: MasterCard PayPass will drive more of your customers to use their cards, and their purchases are not limited to cash on hand.

So they’re promoting the thing as “who cares if it’s a stolen card, you can be hands off with your customers, and make even more money! cha-ching!”

This whole thing bugs me. Any thoughts on it? And MasterCard people, if you’re reading this, sorry for the bad review. Please don’t cancel my cards.

[ / end rant ]

What a weekend! We took a little road trip to Chicagoland (ok, the burbs, technically) to see my family. I started out with a smidge of a sinus thing, hoping it wasn’t going to turn into anything. We hit the road and over half the drive looked like that. Fog. It was scary, and it also made me want to take a nap. It cleared up, thankfully, (the fog, not my head) because I wouldn’t have wanted to miss all of the new housing developments that took over the forests and fields I grew up around. Good gravy!

My high school was secluded 18 years ago. It was in the middle of a cornfield. You turned left out in the country, you took a right down a quarter of a mile long driveway covered in speed bumps, and at the end of the road was the school. Looking out from any angle, all you saw was corn, and forest. I grew up in a deer hunting farmland area. Holy cow have things changed.

Now, when we visit, we stay at the hotel that sits directly in front of the school. I look out my window and see the school, and as far as the eye can see – houses.

This baffles me. I spent the whole weekend with the makings of a serious head cold (and right now my head feels like the fog in the first picture), and it was spinning just trying to figure out how it was possible to even own a single family home (from the low $240’s!) where I grew up.

We still don’t get it. How can there be this many people making more than $100k a year? How can there be so many fast food joints and stores (oh my, the stores) – where I’m sure folks are making just over minimum wage, how can these people afford to live in this area now? It’s seriously mind boggling. Still, everywhere you look, if there’s an empty field, there’s a for sale or lease sign in the middle of it. The Chicago burbs are creeping out further and further into the middle of the state – it’s closer to Rockford now than I’ve ever seen it – and soon it will cover the whole northern half of the state.

It’s really quite frightening.

Gone are the 1/2-5 acre properties with unique and original house architecture. Everyone is cram packed beside another house that is not even a full shade different in color, in a reverse layout from the one before it. Garages butt up next to eachother. Privacy fences are all that you can get that offer you any real privacy in your own home. You could toss a jar of peanut butter from one kitchen window to the next.

I’m in an area that’s eh- so/so. I am feeling more and more crowded as the years go on, and I’m craving a nice big lot where I know the trees aren’t going to come down on the whim of someone who simply doesn’t like to rake.

I have to know, do you live in an area like this? Do you like it? Are there more pros than cons? Does the traffic make you nuts?

And more importantly, I’m sick as a dog over here. Pity and well wishes are absolutely welcome. (I promise I’ve covered my mouth while typing and I’ve sterilized my keyboard.)

This fish was in the middle of our table at the Military ball Saturday night. It didn’t even occur to me that he could be ingested by the end of the night, but once it was brought to my attention, my protective instincts kicked in. I borrowed a camera to take this pic of him, thinking it would turn into a memorial. Thankfully, he was quickly swept up with his other centerpiece buddies before the real party began, so (I hope) they all made it out alive. Those military boys are crazy, I’m telling you.

None of you may have noticed that in our photo, Mark is missing some stripes on his right sleeve. I know I didn’t know they were missing until I saw others and asked what they were for. If he had stripes there, he would have four, and they would represent the number of years over his military career that he’s spent in combat. On his left sleeve, the stripes represent the years of service, times three – or divided by three, depending on how you do your math. He’s got 5 stripes, 15 years in. In 5 more years, he can retire. His panel of ribbons – well, there’s a whole bunch and I’m not sure what they all mean, but it’s impressive, eh?

I did spend a lot of the evening asking questions. “What do those swirley things on their sleeves mean?” and “how come his stripes go all the way around his arm?” and “What’s the star mean in the middle of his rank?” You’d think after 17 years, I’d know some of this stuff, but honestly this was my first Military Ball and I’d never seen so many dress uniforms all in one place. There were military men there who commanded respect, they had so many stripes and such a large panel of ribbons. Blue lapels, special cords – these are the men who have dedicated much of their lives to serving our country. It was humbling to be in a room full of men who stood at attention without hesitation, “hooah’ed” in support of their unit and eachother, and you know that they’d pack their bags and leave their families to go to war and serve their country in 10 minutes or less.

The evening was steeped with National Guardsman traditions, of which I knew none. There was a grog, which is this wicked combination of drinks that they pour into a hat – then the two commanding offers drank a toast from the mixture – consisting of burbon, whiskey, wine, beer – and I think one other thing but I can’t remember now. But iew? That had to taste bad.

Dinner was nice, the award ceremony was interesting, the toasts required a reply from the guests, so I’m glad I had a script. 😛 We were about 5 feet from the dessert buffet – so do I need to mention that I had dessert first? And also last. Because I was too close, and should have sat further away.

We sat with some really great guys and their wives, people that Mark spent a lot of time with in Iraq. I met a lot of them for the first time, and a few that I actually remembered meeting before. Dusty Hill was there, he looks amazing and it was so good to see him, smiling and having a good time.

All in all, it was a whirlwind of an evening, and I think I’m caught back up on sleep now. Put a bunch of military boys, beer and wives together, and what you get is a night with a lot of hemming and hawing and not a whole lotta sleep. It’s sortof like a fancy family reunion.