All Spooks Day

Look at our crafty pumpkins. They were freestyled. I think it's better that way. Look how happy they are!

And look who decided to photobomb this shot. Kirby was obsessed with the pumpkins. He loved the smell, the seeds and the actual flesh. I think he was just hoping that we'd allow him to go Hannibal Lecter on their asses. We did not. At least not yet.

And here's Kirby in his Halloween best. He was made honorary sheriff for Halloween night. His bay definitely keeps the hooligans away. Tomorrow he will sadly have to relinquish his badge until next year.

Happy Halloween!

Excuse Me, Ma'am

After Sunday mass, I went out for a nice Sunday brunch with family. The restaurant was packed to the gills. As we were walking out, someone in the group noticed that the lady walking out in front of us had a tail! Can you see it in that picture above? No? Allow me to zoom in closer...

A tail made of toilet paper! I keep looking at this thinking, how the hell did that happen? And how did she walk through that crowded restaurant with not one person telling her about her toilet paper tail?

Of course, we were no better. Instead of saying something we took a picture. So, I guess we are just as bad as all of those other people. In our defense, she was getting into her car and we would have had to run to tell her that she had just totally embarassed herself to an entire restaurant. This picture really is golden.

At that same brunch, I saw a 10-year-old kid pick his nose and eat it right at the dinner table and also a 40-year-old lady rocking a Snooki bumpit. Stay classy Eagan!

My Camera Will Never Learn

Secret Confession Time. I am addicted to looking at photographs. On Facebook, I will find people who I am not facebook friends with and only remotely know (or don't know at all) and look through their photo albums with all the vim and vigor that a fat kid has in an ice cream shoppe.

I just love looking at pictures. However, I am horrible at taking pictures.

Many moons ago I made it my NYE resolution to take more photos. I wanted to really try and document my life. What types of things did I do, who was there, what was I wearing, what did my hair look like, what foods was I eating, etc. That year I learned two things: 1. Many people don't like to be photographed and 2. When you are into taking photos at an event and no one else is, you will feel like a total creep.

After a few months of being that awkward photographer who at every function was like "Hey guys, let's get do a group photo", I decided that my self-esteem couldn't take it any longer. I stopped taking photos and instead creeped on other people's photos. So, basically I went from taking photos and feeling pervtastic to not taking photos and feeling the same way.

I wish I could learn the lesson that having my own photos to look through would probably make me less loser like in looking at stranger's photos.

Random Acts of Douchebaggery

This one goes back to my childhood. But I'm not above RADding people from my childhood. No one is safe.

As a young'un, I was a dancer. Not a child stripper, but an actual tap, jazz and ballet kind of dancer. I loved it and danced, danced, danced until my little heart wept. There's a video of me when I was five in my very first recital and I'm up there in the center of the stage tapping away and screaming out the words to the song. It was intense. At the end you kind of see me pick my nose a little bit. I'll admit to doing it, I was four and totally not scared to gross out the general public.

Anyhow, when I was let's say 10, I was in quite a predicament. My mom was out of town and I was staying with my grandparents. My grandma had taken me to dance class and I had to order my recital tights by that class or else my legs would be NAKED. My grandma would not let me have naked legs, she was going to take care of that shit.

We went to my dance teacher after class and my grandma said "We need to order tights for Molly, but I don't know what size she should get." Simple question. The dance teacher said "Oh, you know she has thin calves, but she's a little bigger up here, so I'd try a large." When she said "Bigger UP HERE" (emphasis added) she was pointing to my middle section. My tummy, or fupa if you will. Yes, that's right, bitch done called my 10-year-old ass fat.

I almost started crying. My grandma said something along the lines of "This girl does not wear a large!" and we ran out. I'm not really sure if we ordered the tights or not, but I never went onstage with naked legs, so somehow it got taken care of.

My point is, I wasn't fat (porky maybe, it was an awkward phase of childhood), but there really was no reason for the teacher to point out my body's misgivings. She had a little bit of a fupa herself. I think my grandma was worried I'd be damaged from it, but I told her "Nah, grandma, that lady's a total bitch." But, I think it actually did bother me a bit. I know I sucked it in around her a lot more often. And sucking in while you are tapping away is not easy.

Look lady, don't call young girls fat. It's a douchey thing to do.

Addicted to Planning

I am one of those people who has multiple calendars. I have a planner that has a weekly look at my schedule. Then on my desk, I have a monthly calendar with basically the same information that is in my planner. Then at home I have a monthly calendar on the fridge. I also enjoy keeping a daily to-do list that has all of my tasks including things that I have scheduled for the day. Right now in my to-do list for the day I have "Lunch with Alice" written down.

My name is Molly and I am addicted to planning.

A lot of people might say that a planning addiction is not really a bad thing, but those people are wrong. A planning addiction means that you spend so much time in the planning process that you can't ever get to the doing phase. So, my addiction causes me to not be a doer. Sigh.

This weekend I'm thinking about multiple projects that I need to work on. My closets need to be switched from summer to fall/winter. I have a couple of sweaters and coats that I'd like to get drycleaned. I want to finish cleaning out the gardens. I have to buy my Halloween pumpkins. I have multiple CD's filled with pictures that I want to get uploaded to kodak gallery and ordered. I have to go to the grocery store. I would like to hang a couple of pictures. Because of my planning obsession, I know that only a few of these will actually get accomplished. I have overbooked myself for the weekend, so have limited time and will likely spend that time making a list about all of the tasks that I have.

Can someone help me so that I won't have to continue wearing tank tops to work next week?

Babies are Cute

One of my most avid readers had a baby today. Congrats to her. I'm so excited for her family!

Another girl (or are you a woman once you've had a baby?) that I work with had a baby last night. So, it's a baby kind of day.

Nothing warms my heart more than pictures of newborns. You know those first hospital pictures that they take where the baby is all "Get that effing camera outta my face! I just suffered a major trauma here" But in a cute way. I love those pictures.

The Hunger Games

I had been hearing about The Hunger Games for awhile before I read it. I kept hearing that it was incredibly suspenseful and that the next books weren't coming out for a long time and that the suspense was killing people. I am such a baby for this type of thing, so I waited until all of the books were out before I read anything. I'm glad I did because I was so hooked that I read the books back to back within days of each other. I couldn't put them down.

I know some people might be worried that these go the way of the Twilight series in that Young Adult fantasy love (wait, that sounds bad) genre. But, I assure you, these are better than Twilight. Much better.

How can I explain without giving anything away? The books are set in the future and the future's looking grim. The U.S.of A is broken up into twelve districts and the government is rather oppressive leaving the districts poor and desolate.

Just for fun (and to repress any thought of an uprising), the government stages these super fun games for the country's youth. The games involve two youth luckily selected from each district who get to play to the death. Yes, that's right, there is only one victor and that person is only a victor because they aren't dead. It's gruesome and morbid and kind of difficult to actually read.

Our hero, Katniss Everdeen decides that she's not really about that shit and she tries her hand at fighting the government. It's hard to really say more without giving things away. The book definitely throws a lot of curve balls at you. I kind of thought I had the ending pegged and then something totally different happens. Plus, when the book was done I could not wait to get my grubby little paws on the next book. So, 4/5 or 8/10 stars!

I can't review the book without talking about the movie. The Hunger Games has the potential to be an awesome movie. Like hella awesome. The author has a seriously creative imagination (is that an oxymoron?) But, I'm worried that Hollywood will ruin it. I've seen it happen before, and yes, I'm looking at you Twilight.

First of all, the casting. I'm not super down with the casting of this Josh Hutcherson as Peeta. Peeta's a major character to screw around with. He's supposed to be all stocky, all-American, straight laced hotness. And they have a short, non-buff stoner. He's not even really that cute. Then they cast Lenny Kravitz as Cinna. I loved Cinna in the books. Loved him. Lenny Kravitz...ummm....does he act? I mean besides playing himself? It's either brilliant or terrible.

The second point of concern is the timing of it. The filming ended in mid-September and it's going to be out at the end of March. That seems really, really fast. Like, we aren't going to spend enough time on the special effects fast.

I also don't like the message of a March release. What good movies have you seen in March? And you can't say Hot Tub Time Machine. That was just a fluke. I just hate when Hollywood comes in and takes this really great book that could be a really great movie and ruins it because they want to make money fast. That's just wrong. Because once they make this movie, they can't remake it for at least 20 years.

Carousel of Progress

Just looking at this picture gives me the true blue warm fuzzies. I love Walt Disney's Carousel of Progress, but I think I might be the only one.

My first time at the Magic Kingdom, this was one of the last rides that I went on. I thought it sounded real dumb. However, once I learned the magic of the COP, I wanted to ride it again and again. And I did, I just kept getting in that line over and over and over. My mom had to beg me to go on a different ride. The only way that I can explain it is that I'm tenderhearted for history and nostalgia and this ride is chalk full of both.

The premise of the show is that you are in a moving theatre. You go in, take your seat and then this music starts "There's a great big beautiful tomorrow, shining at the end of every day..." The music cues the theatre to move onto the next stage in it's carousel and there you are going through the 20th century and being shown all of the wonderful inventions that have come over the years. I'm pretty sure that I could accurately recite the entire show to you if you really wanted me to.

My biggest complaint about this ride is that they haven't added anything new. I'm not sure exactly how they would do it without building a whole new carousel. And I think the point of the ride is that they are going through the 1900's. It's just that it used to be the last stage was really modern and technologically current...and now...well, it's a little out of date. I have a feeling that's got Walt spinning in his grave. I'm always surprised that they haven't at least changed that last scene at all, maybe added some actual new technology. I'm sure, however, that if they did change it there would be something I didn't like about the change. So, I guess I'll just shut up and love it the way my 9-year-old self loved it.

Even if you don't love the show, you can love these few things: 1. no line, 2. air-conditioned theatre, 3. you can get off your feet for 20 minutes, 4. darkened theatre (I've seen several parents sleeping).

5/5 or 10/10 stars. It probably doesn't deserve this rating, but I let my biased heart win out.

Short Sleeved Sweaters are Confusing

I guess this post is self-explanatory from the title. I always get annoyed by short sleeved sweaters. Who wears a sweater to stay cool?

When I was in high school I bought a short sleeved sweater and it was the biggest fashion mistake of my life. When do you wear it? The one day in October and the one day in May when it's cool enough for sweater material, but hot enough for exposed arms? I typically wore it in the fall and spring and was either cold or hot, but never in between. It sucked balls.

Why do retailers do this to us?

Iced Tea Melee

I stole an old woman's iced tea the other day. And I don't feel guilty. Here is my story.

One cold and chilly fall morning a few weeks ago, I went to Dunn Brothers for my morning iced tea. It was still September and I wasn't willing to give up my summer time drink despite the chill to the air. I get in line and order one large black iced tea.

After ordering, I move to the "Piccup Line" and wait for my order. There are two old ladies hogging the counter, so I was standing behind them to the side. After a couple of minutes a barista comes up with one large black iced tea and puts it on the end of the counter closest to me.

Here's my thought process: 1. On a cold day in a coffee shop, I must be the only idiot ordering an iced drink, 2. The drink sat there for more than 5 seconds without anyone else going to pick it up and 3. Iced tea isn't really an old lady drink. So, I swooped in and grabbed the iced tea.

As I started unwrapping the straw, I felt old bitty evil eyes poring into my side. I turned to see the old ladies glaring at me. I stop what I'm doing, look them into the eye and genuinely say "I'm so sorry, did one of you also order an iced tea?" Silence. I think the bitties were trying to shame me. Bitches, please. It's downtown at 8:00 on a workday morning. I feel no shame for diving at my morning caffeination. Maybe if they felt the same sense of urgency about being awake, they'd be enjoying an iced tea by now.

One of the old ladies mockingly said to me "I did order an iced tea, but maybe you were here first." Awesome Minnesota passive aggression. They clearly knew that they were here before me. So, I did the kind thing and slid the iced tea cup towards her and said "I'm sorry, why don't you take this one and we'll just get a new straw."

So, now I've apologized twice to her and offered her the iced tea. Old lady wasn't going to give up in trying to shame spiral me. She had to take one last dig and said "Maybe you need it, you look like you're in a real hurry."

That was it. I grabbed the iced tea and said "I am in a hurry", poked the straw into the top and took that first sweet sip all while making direct eye contact with the ladies. Then I left. I totally went downtown on her ass.