Couple of Reviews

Some holiday reads/views:
Avatar - FABULOUS! Go see this movie (just don't take kids who have not heard the S-word in your home yet, but of course ours have). The special effects just in the first 5 minutes blew me away. I also didn't know it was in 3-D, but they're decent glasses and the effect is incredible - the jungle looks miles deep. On the pro side, the story is good, it's cool that James Cameron brought Sigourney Weaver back from Aliens to be in another movie about aliens, and Giovanni Ribisi is one of my favorite actors. On the con side, why must Sigourney's avatar wear 70's athletic wear? She looks like Olivia Newton-John in the Let's Get Physical video or something. My main hang-up was a line near the end about how we killed our Mother - nothing green left on Earth. I looked in the credits for Al Gore's cameo but didn't see him. Another hang-up was all the G-D'ing - I was waiting for an F-bomb but there wasn't one. So why is McDonald's pairing up with this movie and giving out Happy Meal prizes of Avatars? This movie is not for little toddlers!

Julie and Julia - So dang funny! Just made me feel so good - Meryl Streep is amazing, and we all gasped in delight when we saw the tall chick from Glee come out as her sister - fantastic. They're looking at themselves in the mirror before a fancy party that they've both dressed up for, and Julia says to her sister something like, "Looking good....not great, but good!" It'll make you want a sister if you don't have one, and if you do have one it'll make you wish she lived in the same state, AHEM! The wedding scene where they're both dancing with their husbands and they reach out to hold hands made me get a little tear in my eye - shhh! On the Julie side, when she starts blogging it's right on the money. My only complaint was at the end when you read what happened to everybody, they say "Her book was made into a movie." Well, duh, and isn't that a little self-serving? My sister said it made her want to go in the kitchen and cook. It made me want to buy Julia Child's cookbook , till I actually read some of it in the bookstore - oh HELL no!

And now I embark on Under the Dome (is that the right name?), given to me by Drew, who knows his Momma loves her some Stephen King! That one's about 4000 pages, so don't hold your breath for the review.

Christmas Eve Weather

This was our weather on Christmas Eve - that's why Lucas warned Santa to be safe. Felt more like a hurricane, so we prepared the kids that Santa might get blown away. Could've used that as a good excuse had we forgotten to set out the presents!

This is the note Lucas left for Santa - notice that he opted for the politically correct Happy Holiday instead of Merry Christmas...huh. Also, thanks a lot to all of you out there spoiling it for the rest of us with these damn elves (you know exactly who you are). All I've heard about is how EVERYBODY has an elf and they do such funny things. Like leaving underwear strewn all over a Christmas tree (I'm not naming names...) Or rolling a ceiling fan with toilet paper for Christmas morning. You get the picture.

I did have to break his heart and tell him that elves leave on Christmas so don't expect one...at least for a year. There's no way I could do an elf; you may remember from previous posts that I forget the dang Tooth Fairy stuff sometimes. I guess if he does ever get one it'll be the laziest elf ever seen!

Holiday Oysters to You!

May your holiday oysters be full of cheer, and not Vibrio!

Random Morbid Thoughts...

I've always been puzzled by something. When you're in a car wreck, how do they notify your next of kin? I have really put some thought into this over the years but I can't figure it out. If I had a wreck, they'd run my tag and get my name, number, and address. But what if nobody was home? Do they go to your cell phone next? "Mom" is easy, but how do they know what my husband's name is? They can't know where he works, can they? Do they knock on neighbors' doors for information?

I guess that's why it seems to take a while sometimes, like when that van with 11 or 12 kids in it crashed in New Orleans - how do you know who all the kids are? That seemed to take 24 hours from what I remember. Can you imagine being a little kid in the hospital and they don't know who your parents are?

That reminded me of when I came home one afternoon a few years ago and cars were stopped because a toddler was sitting in the road with his dog. Everybody's just sitting there in their cars! I jumped out and picked him up out of the street and took him back to my car till the cars went by. He couldn't tell me where he lived, and there was not a parent in sight, so I ran through the scenarios of calling 911 versus driving him past houses to see if one was his. (That one screamed "kidnapping" in my head.) Meanwhile, we're sitting with the dog in my car and finally an older woman runs up - his grandmother. She swears that damned dog is going to get him killed, because the dog runs off and the kid follows (who's watching the kid? Oh wait, this has happened before - does DHR know about this?), but thanks for finding him, bu-bye!

So we've made sure the boys know their address and phone number. Lucas pulled out a little folded piece of paper with my cell phone number on it tonight and said, "Look Mom, I've got your address." Close enough.

No, Seriously

Okay, so these are real outfits I would wear (or should I?). I gotta say I feel like I'm playing dress-up with the short skirt because the boots are so big on my legs, so that one's not gonna happen. When I tried on some more pointy ones I felt like I was missing my whip - totally dominatrix! But as Dean always says, "You can't wear Keds forever." (I tossed my last pair of white Keds in 1991 at the age of 24.)

Oh, you want a PICTURE?

Well, I didn't have time to get a fancy outfit on, but I'm rocking a homemade vest from 1992 and the figure-enhancing Mom jeans (that's the name, really) I bought last year - what the hell was I thinking? They're built to squeeze in your middle-aged gut and lift up your sagging butt (I think I just wrote a jingle!), but they look like my Mom's Lee jeans from the 80's - wouldn't you agree, Mother?

I'll get a snazzier picture of the boots up later. This is my white-trash representation.

New Look!

I think this background complements my new hairstyle below much better. Makes me feel warmer and more vibrant...much like my NEW BOOTS!

I had 2 pairs of boots when I was about 7 or 8 years old. The white lace-up boots were my "go-go boots" and I felt very snazzy in them, though in pictures I just look like Ruby Sue from Christmas Vacation - very red-neck. The black ones were zip-ups and I didn't wear them too much - also very red-neck. I looked like the kind of dirty kid with unbrushed hair who went in grocery stores barefooted. And I did do that - I remember the last time I was barefooted in the Super Valu, I believe it was, with my mother. She saw a friend of hers and I almost died of shame. I was probably 11 or 12 then - just white trash barefooted in the grocery store. What were we thinking? I swore to never go barefooted in a store again.

So since then I've always wanted sophisticated pointy boots with decent heels to wear with a cute skirt and tights which make my legs look shapely. Well that would've been nice in my 20's, but at 42 I think it's pushing the envelope. Plus my calves are about 5 inches around so creating the look of shapely legs will involve duct tape, according to the boot saleman at Dillards (I didn't understand it either).

Well, anyway, I bought a great pair on sale at Penney's and will wear them with long skirts and pants. And boy do I feel snazzy again!

DailyMakeover.com - what fun!

I'm Feeling a Little Sicky-Poo

"Sicky-poo" came from the brilliant "Murder by Death" which was a TV movie spoofing murder mysteries in the 1980's. Peter Sellers starred with David Niven and the red-headed lady who pushed the "quicker-picker-upper" and a bunch of other famous people back then, and they played famous detective duos that come together at a mansion for a party, then have to solve a murder. Truman Capote also starred as the host who's supposedly murdered at his own party. They're all attacked eventually, and the 2 English ladies are in a room filled with poison gas, but they survive because the old chick in the wheelchair who's hard of hearing breathed all the gas while the other one covered her face. She says she's "sicky-poo" as they're on their way to the hospital. It's really funny - you should rent it!

So I'm sicky-poo with a terrible sinus infection (it's NOT the flu....I don't think...) but still had to work, and Scott took issue with that. He thinks I'm terrible for spreading my germs (I follow a strict hand-washing and sanitizing procedure before every patient and have not coughed or sneezed in a room once!) but I countered that if I cancelled they would have to be re-scheduled for next week or go to the ER. I reminded him that Dr. Gray worked through the flu at least one time that I could remember.

He said, "Well I recall another doctor who was a little older. He may have been before your time. I believe his name was Hippocrates, and he said, 'First, do no harm.'" I was very impressed that Scott knew some medical history, but I countered with the fact that I also knew an old doctor named Kervorkian, who had a little different policy.

I don't know who won that argument, but I admitted 2 patients to the hospital today and set another one up for surgery at the big university hospital up north, so maybe I WAS needed after all; you make the call. (And if you caught a cold from me, I'm REALLY sorry!)