Before I Leave Town

We're heading out of town tomorrow for a week-long trip to visit family and friends in the Midwest. This will include 3 days, 3 nights of away-from-the-kids time for just me and DH. Can't wait! We desperately need to recharge the marital batteries. Short getaways always do us a world of good.

We're really lucky that my folks are so unbelievably awesome with our kids. They beg us to take trips like this where they watch the kids so we can have some alone time. And the kids beg for it, too. DS has been counting down the days, and planning all of the things they're going to do together in the Bigger City. The excitement in the house is palpable.

Also on the books is a visit with one of my BFF's, S, who just had her second baby at the end of August - her son is almost 3. Planning the part of the visit where we hope to see her has actually been a huge pain in the ass. You see, S has many, many amazing qualities, but is just not a very organized person in general. Even before she had kids, she typically was 30-45 minutes late to everything. Since adding kids to her life, now multiply that number by a thousand, and you're still not even close to the level of tardiness she's capable of. That being said, she is hands down one of the most caring, genuine people I know, so I put up with her little quirk (and she puts up with loads more of mine, I'm sure.)

S originally wanted to meet us in the Big City where she lives for dinner. Then she changed her mind and asked us to drive an hour and a half to her parents house to meet there on a Saturday night, after having flown halfway across the country, even though her own house is in the Big City. Then she realized we weren't planning on renting a car, so she said she'd meet us in the Big City at 7:30pm after her son goes to bed, and they want to bring the baby which is fine. So we're taking that to mean we had better go have dinner by ourselves somewhere at 5pm, and plan to meet up with her at like 8:30pm at the earliest somewhere else. Big ginormous eyeroll.

For reasons I'll explain, I've been feeling like not so special a person to her lately. But I'm trying to temper those feelings with a dose of reality. (She's just had a baby! Give her a break!) In short: she took 2 weeks after her normal, healthy, vaginally-delivered baby was born to finally call and tell me about it personally. Yes, truthfully, I was kind of bummed that the woman I think of as one of my 2 best friends in the world chose to deliver me the news of her baby's birth via a text message from her DH to my DH, which simply said 'it's a girl,' and gave the date and time... It then took another week for me to get the mass email telling me the baby's name and sharing a picture. Ugh. Not necessarily the communication choices I would make for an event one generally has 9 months notice on. I think the kicker is that her mother is taking 100% care of her and her family for the next month. She has literally moved into her parents home to be doted on, and she loves it. (Man, I'm jealous.) But then again, with all of that help she still couldn't manage to find 5 minutes to pick up the phone? I know, I know. I need to cut her some slack. She's a new mom again. It sucks. And she's disorganized as all hell to begin with. It so clearly is not personal. I know the last thing she'd ever want to do is hurt one of her best friends. But still. I'm hurt.

I have this assumption I walk around with that goes something like: "You make time for the things and the people who are truly important to you. You may say someone is important, but if you didn't make the time for them, they truly weren't that important to you." And I tend to view others' actions as though they share my worldview. From my own experiences, I just can't wrap my head around treating a friend that way. Even though I had zero unpaid helpers with both of my postpartum experiences, I still managed to put together a list of people to call from the hospital. So to me, that equals a bare minimum standard that I apparently am expecting her to uphold without ever having mentioned it. ;) This is where I suck as a person - I have these great expectations for myself and sometimes I put them on to other people, and get disappointed. Then I finally have a moment of clarity: "Oh, my Type A way is not normal?" Yeah. Having one of those moments right now!

Talk to me before I get out of town!

True Blood recap - S4, E12 Finale

Goodbye, Season 4! All things considered, I thought this episode was a rather nice send-off.

Except the I Choose Neither of You scene. Huh? I don't get it.

Why not date them both! You haven't even been outside of Bon Temps yet with Eric. You still think you have been fired from your job! You have nothing but time on your hands. GO ON VACATION with one or both of these men, Sookie. Get to know them. See the world. Live it up. Gah - her line of reasoning just made no sense to me. Moving along..

Farewell, Jesus! Now that was a total shocker. It seems that the fate of Tara and Lafayette must be to each lose the one they love at the hands of something supernatural. That was a horrible, horrible scene with the knife and Marnie's threats. Ugh, hard to watch. Lafayette should probably be a bit worried about being charged with murder - might be an interesting test case of the "I was possessed by an evil, dead witch" defense. My gut tells me Bon Temps isn't exactly a place where a black man can get a fair trial.

Sayonara, Nan Flanagan! I kind of saw that coming. Nobody calls King Beel and Sheriff Eric Northman 'puppies' and lives to tell of it. Clearly, The Authority and the "Factions" within in will be a major theme next season along with....

RUSSELL EDGINGTON! Welcome back, you! He makes me happy. Such a fantastic little villian. Glad he clawed his way out of the concrete (and like, duh, of course he was going to). By my calculations he was underground for about 13+ months. Long enough to go uber-crazy-crazy. Even crazier than his initial, televised spinal column ripping, You Killed My Talbot! batshit crazy. Watch your ass, Sookie.

And Sookie, you'd better watch out for Pam, too. I think it takes a lot of pain to make Pam cry like a babe in the arms of Sweet, soon-to-be-glamoured-again-for-the-bazillionth-time, Ms. Ginger. I don't know about that scene though. Something was off. The humor in that scene, busting on Sookie while bawling, now that part I totally buy. Pam is probably a lot more patient than that overreaction illustrated. But anyway, we get it: she loves her maker.

Adios, Debbie Pelt! We're in book territory now. If memory serves, that's also how Charlaine H took her out. Minus the part of course where Tara is about to die on Sookie's kitchen floor with a massively bleeding gunshot wound to the head. Nice cliffhanger, ABall! Which vamp will run through Sookie's door first? (Wait, did this all happen during nighttime? Yes, I think so.) I predict one of Sookie's vamps is going to have to turn Tara to save her. And I think it will be Eric. And I think this will make Pam positively apoplectic in addition to the state she is already in.

Jessica made one sexy Little Red Riding Hood. That's how you do Sexy Halloween Costume. And yes, Hoyt's analysis of Jason missing something inside was spot-friggin'-on. But you know what I've been wondering about? The perma-hymen. No mention of it yet with Jason. Hmm...

So Rene's ghost made a Halloween appearance - I loved Arlene's reaction. (You know, only bad things happen by that green dumpster in the back of Merlotte's.) Ghost Rene says Terry's new ex-platoon buddy is going to turn Terry into a Bad Guy, and Arlene needs to get Baby Michael out of there. Should be an interesting storyline next season.

Your thoughts?

p.s. The next TV show I'm going to recap weekly will be AMC's Mad Men, whenever the new season comes out in 2012. Hope you'll join me!

True Blood recap - S4, E11

I felt like this episode was only like 30 minutes long tops. It was really action-packed. And I can hardly believe the season finale is next week. Holy hell!

So many things about this ep totally cracked me up. Lafayette proclaiming: "Marnie just puked the bitch out!" Jason going down the row of 4 vamps telling each one off in turn. Andy Bellefleur's woods wandering then sexy romp with a putative fairy. Andy telling Arlene all about it in funny/bizarre detail. Her reaction. Priceless. I wonder what Andy's pinky promise to this fairy is going to mean for him next season. Could she be Sookie's actual fairy godmother?

There was some of that wild and crazy mix of the grotesque with the hilarious. Eric ripping Marnie's right hand man's heart out, and then sucking blood from the main artery as though it were a drinking straw, before tossing it to the floor. Eew. But funny. I love how this show can pull that off. Welcome back, Real Eric.

Pam busting out the bazooka that could have killed Sookie - you know, maybe Eric should have used a little foresight here. Of course Pam is going to have a Sookie problem given all that has transpired! And if you think about it, Pam truly has Eric's best interests at heart. Perhaps Sookie is not an appropriate love object for Eric given that she also loves King Beel. Really, no good can come from it. It is hazardous to the health of everyone involved. (And they have no chemistry, but I digress. ) Anyway, as a 1000-year-old, with the incredible wisdom that has got to come from all that experience, it seems to me Eric could have simply used a little of that "as your maker I command you" stuff to get Pam to come around. Now they're having a little tiff. Hmm...

Jessica, that was good of you to save pretty Jason's face with your blood.

Marcus met his maker at the hands of... Alcide. Not Sam, even though Marcus killed his brother. Because it looked to Alcide like he was screwing Debbie. But actually nothing really happened between them, even though she was scantily clad and sitting on her bed-- right? We saw the Scary Yellow Eyes again that I hate. Alcide needs to work on managing his macho dick shit. Now Debbie is going to run off, and do loads more V, and eventually come after Sookie like in the books, right? Nooooo!!! Can't say I'm loving this were storyline anymores...

Your thoughts?

Not on FB, But My Kid's Preschool Is

I got the following email from DS's Montessori teacher today:

"Dear Parents,

I've created a private parent forum on facebook. The purpose of this
forum is to provide a place to share Spanish language resources,
promote parent interaction, and encourage each other in providing
Spanish instruction to our child/ren.

In order for me to give you access to this site, I need you to log
onto facebook and look for: [Teacher's Name] and ask to be added as a
friend. Once I have you as a friend (thank you by the way), I'll add
you to the parent forum. I'll also add a widget on the homepage of
the school so you can easily click onto the forum..."

I know, I know. Everyone and their mother is on FB. I note the assumption of such in the email's first line.

This sucks, because DH and I have basically made a pact not to be on FB while the kids are tiny. We will reconsider it once they're older. No judgments to those who are on FB and love it (which is like 80% of everyone we know)! This is merely a lifestyle choice we've made due to the fact we live in a ridiculously small town, and we want to zealously guard our privacy, and we want to spend less time online (says the woman who blogs)...

Anyway, I want to let the teacher know, and see what the options are for getting the info the school want us to have but without the hassle of being on FB. Ugh. I don't want the tone of my email to come across as "off" though, and I'm afraid it will. Gah!