tiltawhirl

the great initial carving caper

My parents had this hideous furniture when I was a kid. It was all Mediterranean styled, mostly red and black I think, with wooden arms that had like knobs on the ends of them, kind of like you would see on a stair railing. It was hideous, but it went really well with a painting they had of three Spanish looking dudes that hung on the wall above it.

At some point, I got an overwhelming urge to carve something into the wood arm of the couch. I decided that the smartest thing to do would be to carve my SISTER'S initials into the couch. At least what I assumed my sister's initials were - CEA.  I was too young I guess for it to have registered on me that my sister went by a different last name.

When my mom saw it, Charlene got in trouble of course. When my sister protested that those weren't even her initials, I think my mom suspected she might be telling the truth, but couldn't definitively say one way or another which of us did it. It wouldn't be the first time a family member who wasn't technically named Aumack used the Aumack last name. Just ask my cousin Peter, aka "Gonzo Aumack" as he introduced himself at my brother's preschool.

a family tradition

My Uncle Kenny recently brought up a childhood story about his brother, my Uncle Eddie, drawing a penis and trying to convince my grandfather that it was NOT a dirty drawing, but instead, a rocket ship.

When I asked my mother about this, it reminded her to ask me if I was involved in the drawing of a penis on her paperwork that she needed to return to the dentist. Apparently, said penis was drawn over the holidays while Ryan and I were visiting.

I was *not* involved in this incident, but I can understand her targeting me as a primary suspect. When my brother Chris was in maybe 4th or 5th grade , I took his homework and wrote "Chris smells" on it. He  did not notice, and turned it in with my comments still intact.

He got in trouble for it with the teacher, and found himself in "The Gotcha Club". Now, I don't know what the Gotcha Club was, I imagine it was something akin to this teacher's "Shit List", but he was mighty upset about being in it. The thing that was always so confusing to me about the whole thing was, why was he in trouble? It has to be pretty obvious he didn't write that about himself. And if he did write that about himself and turn it in, wouldn't the teacher recognize it as some sort of self esteem problem?

Char and John and Cash visit Seattle

Here's a set of photos from their visit. I wish I could have gone more places with them while they were here, but I had to work all week :/ It sounds like they had some fun on their own though.

These are from this weekend, when we took the ferry to Whidbey Island, and the next day we spent the morning in Fremont.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/michellemc/sets/72157603769845043/

Dog kisses

Here's where I will post all the Photos from New Jersey .

negative bike - car interaction

Ryan had a bike accident on the way home last night - he is OK, but has two broken ribs and a lot of road rash.

He was riding home from work and was coasting at pretty good speed down a hill when a car at a cross street crossed in front of him. Ryan did not have a stop sign so he had not slowed down approaching the intersection. The driver apparently never saw him, because he pulled away from the stop and Ryan had to brake hard to avoid hitting the car, sending himself ass over teakettle, flying over his handlebars. We also assume he never saw him, hopefully that explains why the driver did not stop.

Ryan hit the ground and knocked the wind out of himself pretty good, which is always very scary. I was coincidentally and unknowingly driving only a few blocks behind him on the same road. Ryan called me and said "I had an accident." I asked "Are you OK?" and he said way too cheerfully "I think so!" which made me more nervous than anything. I asked him where and he told me and I was there in a minute or so. But it was a long minute driving to where he was. The man whose house this all happened in front of was helping him and helped me put Ryan's bike in the car.

I took him home and looked him over. His arm looked kind of bad, puffy with a bump, and a lot of scrapes and blood were all over him. The most troubling thing, htough, was the pain he complained of when taking a deep breath. So, we fed the dog, grabbed books and magazines and DSes and headed to the Emergency Room.

When my sister and her husband were here in July 2006, they had occasion to visit our local ER when Jack ad an allergic reaction to something he ate. They were very impressed with the quality of care they got in our ER compared to their local system in NJ. I have to say I agree with them based on our visit. If you are sick in NJ, you might consider flying out here to go to the ER. You might get seen quicker it sounds like.

We got there, talked to the nurse at the desk, talked to a triage nurse within 30 seconds of that, and they had us in a treatment room within 15 minutes. And the waiting room was quite full. They offered him a warm blanket, made him comfy. Then various people came in, talked to him, looked at him, cleaned him up and xrayed him over the course of the next two hours then we were all set to go. Everyone was incredibly nice. His meds were ready for him right there at the after hours pharmacy before we checked out. We barely even had time to read our books or play with our DSes. I had gone in there ready for a campout.

I am glad Ryan wears a helmet, and protective gloves and good rugged pants - his injuries could have been worse. Road rash on your hands is sucky especially. And head injuries are never good. He was wearing these pants from Chrome - they never even ripped, even thoguh he has some good bruises on his knees and thighs.

Icky photos of the road rash:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/michellemc/sets/72157600262420681/

i hate you, entertainment book.

I hate the entertainment book.

If you know what the entertainment book is, you're probably thinking "How can you hate the entertainment book? It's full of coupons, designed to save you money, and buying an entertainment book usually results in funds raised for some worthwhile organization. Shame on you! Shame on you for hating the entertainment book!"

But I hate it anyway. I've never owned an entertainment book, but I have been terrorized by it.

My mom is a big fan of the entertainment book, and has been for a long time. Every year, she'd get the entertainment book, and would immediately sit down, looking through it, plotting all the different ways she would torture us with it in the coming year. As soon as there was any discussion of doing ANYTHING, she'd slink away and come back with that damned book.

"If we're going to McDonald's, there's a buy one Filet O Fish sandwich, get one free coupon in here."

"But, no one wants a Filet O Fish sandwich. They are disgusting."

"Well then if we go to Wendy's, they have buy one get one free baked potatoes."

"Wendy's is 20 minutes away. And we have potatoes HERE."

And so it goes. The entertainment book always wants to sell you two of the thing that no one wants ONE of.

There were always two possible outcomes with the Entertaiment book. Either my dad would take one for the team and eat the Filet of Fish sandwich with grim resignation and pretend he was enjoying it, or there'd be some loophole that would prevent us from using the coupon. My mom would have already torn the coupon out of the book to present it, so she'd have to tuck it back into the book. By the end of the year, the entertainment book was falling apart - torn out coupons jutting out of every page at wild angles. My mom also puts other coupons that will never get used in there - non Entertainment book coupons, so that adds to the overall disheveled appearance of the book.

I was talking to my dad recently on the phone and we got on the topic of the Entertainment book. I told him I hated it, and that I wanted to throw it out the window of a moving car while crossing a bridge. He offered, with no hesitation "She keeps it in the driver's side door pocket in her car."

the strange scent of YooHoo

Bob drank a bottle of chocolate milk in our team meeting today. It was one of those dairy company type chocolate milks - the real stuff. Not nonfat or soy, or Nestle's Quik, which tastes more like water with vegetable oil in it. It was honest to God actual chocolate milk, like 2% milk.

I've always thought it was kind of a trick, that 2% milk sounds so much healthier than whole milk. But isn't whole milk something like 3%?

All of this discussion in the room about the chocolate milk led to someone mentioning YooHoo.

I drank some YooHoo back in childhood days. But I stopped abruptly when I decided it smelled like mother spit.

My mother used to take me out to the bus stop, and once we got out there, she'd realize I had something on my face - breakfast usually. She'd dab her tongue with a tissue, to wet it a little, then rub it on my face. I'd walk around the rest of the day smelling like mother spit. One day I realized that the smell of my mom's spit on my face those mornings was very similar to YooHoo. I think it was because she had just finished a cup of coffee before rubbing spit all over my face. Once I made the connection, it was difficult to drink a YooHoo without thinking "Mother spit - you are drinking mother spit".

It should be noted - mother spit is not necessarily more distasteful than the spit of any other family member or person. It was just my first encounter with foreign spit. I would go on to have more casual encounters with other people's spit later in life, but never would it be rubbed (intentionally) in my face, or served to me in a yellow can.

make out session

Ryan and Nellie
Originally uploaded by Michelle McGee.

Every night when Ryan arrives home, Nellie can't settle down until he sits on the couch and pets her for a few minutes. You can't be close enough for her taste. Sometimes I think she wouldn't be satisfied until she's actually inside your skin.

Mom at Rialto Beach

Mom at Rialto Beach, originally uploaded by Michelle McGee.

I finally spent some time clearing out my 1GB compact flash card, which had photos on it that were as old as last Christmas. This included some photos from my family's visit during the summer, when we went to Olympic National Park.

See the rest of the photos at:

http://www.flickr.com/gp/37912399@N00/z7H1S1

ryan's birthday/christmas eve

sunny and cold, a nice day for a walk.

we listened to some football games on Sirius satellite radio, since this is Broncos country and if you are interested in the Bears game, as my father-in-law is, or the Seahawks game, as we were, you're probably not going to get it on tv.

we took a walk, then went to church at 5.

christmas eve is also ryan's birthday, so after a great birthday dinner, ryan opened birthday presents. nellie helped.

my parents sent him these legging things for riding his bike in the rain, but clearly he failed to read the instructions.

rob told a joke, but kathy decided since she had heard it before that she should cover her ears. unfortunately for rob, we found this more amusing than the joke. not that it wasn't funny, of course.