Books

You all know that I like movies, but did you know that I also like to read?

During summer vacations, I would rather have stayed inside and read a book rather than be out running around.

When it was time to turn out the lights and go to sleep, I used to get out of bed and read by the dim hall light.

I always carried a book with me and read whenever there was a spare moment in school. I read all kinds of books. My mother fed me books like: Nancy Drew, Cherry Ames, Trixie Belden, Donna Parker and authors like Elizabeth Enright, Eleanor Estes, Laura Ingalls Wilder. Lois Lenski and Beverly Cleary;when I was old enough: Anne of Green Gables, Beany Malone; and from my grandmother I read Grace Livingston Hill.

I used to sneak my mother’s Harlequin romance novels and read them on the sly.

When I would visit my friend Ginger, we would each sit and read from a pile of romance novels that she got from the woman for whom she babysat. Libertine Lady was our favorite. I wish I could find a copy!

Went I was in college, I got into Stephen King and Dean Coontz and authors of that ilk.

Then for a while I was into John Grisham and Richard North Patterson and Robert Ludlum and David Baldacci and slowly graduated on to murder mysteries and chick books by the likes of Katie Fforde.

Recently my sister suggested that I start expanding my library by collecting Newbery Medal and Honor winners.

I found a list and have been slowly working my way through it.

So far I've read or own the following:
Blue Willow - Doris Gates
The Hundred Dresses - Eleanor Estes
Charlotte's Web - E.B. White
Gone-away Lake - Elizabeth Enright - i highly recommend this one
Rascal - Sterling North
The Egypt Game -Zilpha Keatley Snyder - currently reading this one
Abel's Island - William Steig
Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry - Mildred D. Taylor
Ramona and Her Father - Beverly Cleary
The Great Gilly Hopkins - Katherine Paterson
Indian Captive - Lois Lenski
The Witch of Blackbird Pond - Elizabeth George Speare - i read this one in school so often that it earned me the moniker "Witch" that lasted until I graduated high school

What did you read growing up?

women!!

Reasons why it is tough to work with women:

1) One week someone is on a diet and cranky
2) Your outfit is always being scrutinized and you can’t wear the same thing on Monday and Friday
3) Stinky perfume applied liberally
4) It is either too hot in the summer or too cold in the winter
5) Another week someone else is on a diet and we can’t order Domino’s
6) Who cares about your mother-in-law?!?
7) Nobody says a word about the fact that since you’ve come back after being away three months because you felldownthestepsandbrokeyourleg, you’ve dropped almost 15lb and are looking pretty good

Need I say more?!?

Theme Songs

I realized the other day that not only is there a dearth of good half-hour sitcoms on TV but the sitcoms that are on don’t have the quality theme songs of the sitcoms of yore.

Can you name them all?!

1) Come and listen to a story about a man named Jed
A poor mountaineer, barely kept his family fed
Then one day he was shootin at some food
And up through the ground came a bubblin crude


2) Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale
A tale of a fateful trip
That started from this tropic port
Aboard this tiny ship

3)Here we come
Walking down the street
We get the funniest looks from
Everyone we meet.

4)Who can turn the world on with her smile?
Who can take a nothing day,and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile?
Well it's you girl, and you should know it
With each glance and every little movement you show it

5)Hello, world, hear the song that we're singin'
C'mon get happy!
A whole lot of lovin' is what we'll be bringin'
We'll make you happy!

6)One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight
Schlemeel, schlemazel, hasenfeffer incorporated
We're gonna do it!

7)Just two good ole boys,
Never meaning no harm.
Beats all you never saw, been in trouble with the law
Since the day they was born.

8)I'll bet we've been together for a million years
And I'll bet we'll be together for a million more
Oh, It's like I started breathing
On the nite we kissed
And I can't remember what I ever did before

9) Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got.
Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot.
Wouldn't you like to get away?
Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name, and they're always glad you came.

10)Look at what's happened to me,
I can't believe it myself.
Suddenly I'm up on top of the world,
It should've been somebody else.
Believe it or not,I'm walking on air.
I never thought I could feel so free-.
Flying away on a wing and a prayer.
Who could it be?
Believe it or not it's just me.

11) Well we're movin on up,
To the east side.
To a deluxe apartment in the sky.
Movin on up
To the east side.
We finally got a piece of the pie.

12) Come and knock on our door
We've been waiting for you
Where the kisses are hers and hers and his
Three's company, too!

13) Show me that smile again. (Show me that smile)
Don't waste another minute on your cryin'.
We're nowhere near the end (nowhere near)
The best is ready to begin.

14) Boy the way Glen Miller played
Songs that made the hit parade.
Guys like us we had it made,
Those were the days.

15) Thank you for being a friend.
Travel down the road and back again.
Your heart is true, you're a pal and a confidant.
And if you threw a party,
invited everyone you knew.
You would see the biggest gift would be from me
and the card attached would say,
thank you for being a friend.

16) Welcome back,
Your dreams were your ticket out.
Welcome back,
To that same old place that you laughed about.

17) Now, the world don't move to the beat of just one drum,
What might be right for you, may not be right for some.
A man is born, he's a man of means.
Then along come two, they got nothing but their jeans.
But they got, Diff'rent Strokes.

18)What ever happened to predictibility?
The milkman, the paperboy, evening TV.
Everywhere you look , everywhere you go (there's a heart).
There's a heart
A hand to hold onto.

19)Maybe the world is blind,
Or just a little unkind.
Don't know.

20)You take the good, you take the bad,
you take them both and there you have
The Facts of Life, the Facts of Life.

Give me some more

color me irish

In honor of it being St. Patrick’s day and all I am wearing:
1) my favorite green t-shirt that says “Lucky” and has a leprechaun doing a jig on it.
2) green striped socks with shamrocks
3) subtly applied green eye-shadow

I am also suppressing the urge to answer the phone in my best Irish brogue “Top o’the mornin’ to ye”

Chores and such

Because I know you are so very interested in the minutiae of my life....today I did NOT do the following:

1) Clean out refrigerator
2) Clean the tub and toilet
3) Dust
4) Address Easter cards that I mean to send to each and every one of you or at least those of you whose address I have
5) Vacuum the living room
6) Fold clean underwear and put away

But I DID:
1) Finish my latest book
2) Start a new one
3) Three loads of laundry
4) Made pancakes for breakfast
5) Swept kitchen floor
6) Watched a Rita Hayworth/Gene Kelly musical

sprinkles

Today I cleaned out my cupboards.

When I cleaned out the cupboard holding all my baking supplies, I discovered that I have accumulated quite a few containers of sprinkles:

1) Farm animals - chicks and ducks and cows and sheep in colors not found on any living, breathing animal
2) valentines day- pink and red and white hearts
3) 4th of july - red, white and blue
4)2 jars of halloween - one of traditional orange and black and one with green and purple
5) autumn mix - orange and yellow and red leaves
6) Christmas
7) Football season - little footballs and helmets - i even have cookie cutters to go with these
8) plain chocolate
9) red and green sanding sugar
10)two packs of cupcake papers - easter and christmas

The worst part?

I don't even bake cookies or cupcakes.

I just like the idea of baking.

And all the pretty colors.

I think I have a problem.

Anybody want them?

Ides of March

“Beware the Ides of March” - these were the words of the soothsayer to Julius Caesar in Shakespeare’s immortal play ‘Julius Caesar’.

I wracked my brain to come up with other things of which to beware.

Sadly, the list is short:

Beware of the dog
Beware of Greeks bearing gifts
Caveat emptor or “let the buyer beware”
Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly they are ravening wolves" (Matthew 7:15).

What else should I beware?

just like that jen changes direction

Yesterday I met our neighbors. Rich and Joellen. We got their Rolling Stone in our mailbox by mistake. So I dropped it off on my way home from work. Let me tell you, I was hard-pressed not to read the magazine before I gave it to them. If there is one thing I hate, it is when someone else has read my new magazine or book before I have.

You know, this post was going to be all about meeting our neighbors, but the above phrase “if there is one thing I hate” has made me change tack.

If there is one thing I hate…..actually it is more than one thing. Let me just give you a list!!!

Currently I’m hating on:

1) The phrase “baby mama” or “baby daddy”
2) Miley Cyrus – bobble-headed dingbat
3) Fragrance free detergent – I like my clothes to smell nice, but this detergent was purchased whilst I was laid up and other people did my laundry so I really shouldn’t complain.
4) My new co-worker – she is giving me attitude.
5) The lunch truck – he parks waaaaaaay down at the end of the parking lot and I have to walk too far to get my Pepsi – which is SEVERELY over priced at $1.50. Doesn’t he know I’m crippled?!?!
6) The new Cheryl Crowe song - actually ALL Cheryl Crowe songs

Good Humor

Reasons why I’m in a good humor today:

1) My sister and kids came down from VT. Jody, my sister, is travelling out to Arizona to see her sister-in-law. The kids will be going out to stay with my parents in PA while she is gone but they stopped in NJ first.
2) I was awoken by a little voice saying “Aunt Jen, Uncle Tom says it is time to wake up!”
3) I’m wearing sparkly lip gloss. Even though I can’t see my lips, it makes me happy to know that they are sparkling
4) The snow has finally melted away in my backyard and my husband, on his day off, is out raking leaves. Jason and Phoebe are helping Uncle Tom by picking up branches. Verna is inside gorging on pizza flavored Goldfish.
5) Snoop Dogg’s “Sensual Seduction” I know…..don’t ask

Instant satisfaction

Foods I make from a box/can instead of scratch:

1) Kraft Mac & cheese
2) Stove Top stuffing
3) Gravy – pork, chicken, beef - usually from a can but I just recently found a powder mix that tastes just as good, plus it got a two thumbs up from himself
4) Potatoes – I love instant potatoes
5) Pepperidge Farms layer cakes – still slightly frozen; Sanna, Jess and I burrowed our way through a coconut one in no time flat when we were in high school
6) Iced-tea – always from a mix and store brand is better than Lipton
7) Minute rice or instant couscous– I cannot be bothered to take the time to steam rice
8) Jello instant pudding
9) Pancakes – Aunt Jemima mix - add water and stir
10) Icing from a can - I especially like to eat it straight from the can with my finger or spread it on graham crackers



and finally - I like any biscuit, roll or croissant that comes rolled up in a can. Mostly I just like to hear it pop open



What are YOUR instant satisfactions?

movies - round two

Here's another list of movies:




1) Hey Goose you big stud! That's me, honey. Take me to bed or lose me forever. Show me the way home, honey.


2) What, you want me to name someone? You want like a name? Oh, God, the pressure of a name... I got it. Cindafuckin'rella

3) Do you expect me to talk?

No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die.

4) I won’t be ignored, Dan.

5) To infinity and beyond.

6) Whose motorcycle is this? It's a chopper, baby. Whose chopper is this? It's Zed's. Who's Zed? Zed's dead, baby. Zed's dead.

7) Come out to the coast, we'll get together, have a few laughs...

8) You know, I have one simple request. And that is to have sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads!

9) What is your damage, Heather?

10) Stop hatin', start participatin'. Come on, twinkle twinkle, baby, twinkle twinkle.



The answers for last week:

1) Country Baby Homemade in Cleveland? Ummm. I don’t think so. - Baby Boom - Diane Keaton

2) Andrew, are you going to bring me my lemon or do I have to squeeze it from my hat? - Overboard - Goldie Hawn

3) Six thousand dollars? It's not even leather! - Working Girl - Joan Cusack

4) Pink is my signature color. - Steel Magnolias - Julia Roberts
5) Do I understand this correctly? I'm being marked down? I've been kidnapped by K-Mart! - Ruthless People - Bette Midler

6) Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son - Animal House - Dean Wermer

7) There's no way, no way that you came from my loins. Soon as I get home, first thing I'm gonna do is punch yo mamma in da mouth! -Smokey and the Bandit - Jackie Gleason

8) Mongo only pawn... in game of life. - Blazing Saddles - Mongo

9) We're on a mission from God. Blues Brothers - Elwood

10) Cinderella story. Outta nowhere. A former greenskeeper, now, about to become the Masters champion. It looks like a mirac... It's in the hole! It's in the hole! It's in the hole! - Caddyshack - Bill Murray

lazy sunday

today i did the following:

1) stayed in my pj's all day
2) ate nothing but junk food
3) read a book
4) watched a movie -Key Largo
5) watched Jon & Kate Plus 8: Gosselins Go Skiing
6) ironed three shirts and two pairs of pants
7) paid bills
8) played Zuma; beat my husband's high score
9) contemplated cleaing the bathroom but decieded to save for another day
10) took a nap

all in all, a most productive day!!

Do not disturb

1) I have a headache that won’t go away
2) My back aches
3) My boobies are tender
4) Everything my husband does or says makes me insane
5) I ate a whole box of crunch&munch in 15 minutes flat

You guessed it….. it’s PMS.

Need I say more?

Now, beat it, all of you or suffer the wrath of Jen

Don't Be a Litter Bug

I actually had a nice list all planned out for today. But on the way home from work last night, I experienced something that simply cried out for a post. So here goes:

I was fourth in a crawling line of cars. The man who was leading this procession drove a green Cadillac. I was not impatient, since the turn to my road was in sight. Much to my chagrin however, the man in the slow moving Cadillac turn down my road, but I contained myself. Home was just a mile away.

As slow-moving Cadillac man continued to creep down Road To Jen’s House, I saw him do something so heinous I can barely write about it here. I saw him flip a plastic Big Gulp cup out the passenger side window.

Yes folks, he LITTERED!!!

I was incensed. So incensed that my hand, seemingly of its own volition, laid on the horn. This startled both me and the litter bug. He pulled over to let me pass, as he obviously thought that I was expressing my disgust at his slow pace.

As I whisked past him, I shook an admonishing finger at him, mouthing “You ought to be ashamed of yourself”, and I continued self-righteously down the road feeling as though I had done my good deed for the day.

I can’t/don’t litter. My mother raised me better than that. But I hadn’t realized how passionately I would react to seeing littering in action.

I was so very tempted to:

1) Take down that man’s license number
2) Call the police department and report him or
3) Follow him home and throw litter in his yard and see how HE likes it

Furthermore, I think that people who get caught littering should be put on a list. Like they do for pedophiles. And the police should send out notices when a litterer moves into a new neighborhood. And they should be shunned or forced to wear litter around their necks as a sign of their transgressions.


So what have we learned today? And what are your suggestions for punishing a litter bug?

Movie Madness

Today we will do a meme I found at Jen On the Edge.

An interactive meme

Below are the rules:
Pick 10 of your favorite movies.
Go to IMDB and find a quote from each movie.
Post them here for everyone to guess.
Strike it out when someone guesses correctly, and put who guessed it and the movie.
NO googling or cheating by doing an online search. Share the fun and only guess one movie.

Remember: Winners never cheat and cheaters never win, unless you are the New England Patriots (ooooh, NJaney may never speak to me again!!)

1) Country Baby Homemade in Cleveland? Ummm. I don’t think so.
2) Andrew, are you going to bring me my lemon or do I have to squeeze it from my hat?
3) Six thousand dollars? It's not even leather!
4) Pink is my signature color.
5) Do I understand this correctly? I'm being marked down? I've been kidnapped by K-Mart!
6) Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son
7) There's no way, no way that you came from my loins. Soon as I get home, first thing I'm gonna do is punch yo mamma in da mouth!
8) Mongo only pawn... in game of life.
9) We're on a mission from God.
10) Cinderella story. Outta nowhere. A former greenskeeper, now, about to become the Masters champion. It looks like a mirac... It's in the hole! It's in the hole! It's in the hole!

These are very simple quotes from very simple movies.

A prize to the first person who can correctly identify the movie AND the actor/character for all ten.

Let the games begin!!

Making the band

The summer between my freshman and sophomore years of college I landed a good paying job. It was at a state-run (Dept of Mental Health/Mental Retardation) institution for the mentally retarded. More commonly known as a State School.

I worked there along with my best-good friend Sanna and Jess (you all know Jess, she’s the one who keeps me in Oreos) and our other friend Molly. Sanna’s parents were high muckety-mucks there and were instrumental in helping us get the jobs.

After we were hired, we had to endure two weeks of intensive on-the-job-training. There we were, on our summer vacations, back in a classroom setting taking copious notes and being drilled on how to safely do a two-man lift, how to do proper chart documentation, how to change a diaper on an adult and more. These were serious issues involving people with disabilities. And it was impressed upon us most strongly that we needed to treat these patients, clients, individuals (the name changed yearly with the need to always be politically correct, being a state-run institution and all) with the utmost respect.

We managed to keep our act together and behave like semi-responsible adults until we got to the section on bowel movements and such. It became too much. Too graphic. There was one phrase that particularly got to us and sent our imaginations soaring.

Within a few minutes, Sanna and I had founded an imaginary band, decided on our stage names, had a snappy tag line and titles for the first six songs off our new CD.

Ladies and gentleman, may I present, LIVE!! TONIGHT ONLY!!!

“THE LIQUID MOVEMENTS”featuring “Sphinc” & “Flatch”

“They will cause you an urge to open and defecate”

1)Seemingly Endless State of Flux
2)Kiss The Bubble
3)The Narrow Realm
4)Woeful Shortcomings
5)Glacial Pace
6)Lustful Crust

We would have been HUGE internationally.

Finer points contributed by Sanna aka Sphinc

Ennui

This post was languishing in my draft pile from many moons ago, but it conveniently had a list so I resurrected it for your reading enjoyment:

You might as well know, I’m suffering from ennui.

No it’s not contagious.

It's a French word, pronounced ahn-wee.

I like to say it with a French accent.

According to dictionary.com it’s: a feeling of utter weariness and discontent resulting from satiety or lack of interest; boredom.

The direct cause of my ennui is a surfeit of blogs. I've gorged on too many blogs both good and bad.

The good blogs were full of light and joy and laughter.

The bad blogs were rife with misery and discontent.

It's these bad blogs that contributed to my ennui (are you saying it with the French accent?!?)

I decided to not read anymore of these types of blogs until the people lighten up.

So I'm only reading frothy, no real point to them, just for pure entertainment blogs.

And furthermore, please read my list of things that are totally pissing me off right now in regards to blogs:

1) People who use the word "hun". In the first place, shouldn't the word be "hon"? Short for honey?

2) People who offer "hugs". Don't hug me. I don't know you well enough to accept a hug

3) LOL - this, this, THING (I don't even know what to call it) is beyond annoying. I banned it's usage on my spaces blog and should enforce it on this one.

4) People who use stage directions i.e.: "leaving the room shaking her head". Please don't. Just don't.

5) The term blogosphere.

And I’m spent!

How cranky was I when I wrote this!?!?

The worst part?

Nothing has changed, these things STILL piss me off!!

Am I the only one who feels this way?

Sage Advice

I just gave my sister-in-law Jenny, (you all know her, she’s The Zach Attack’s mother) some unsolicited advice. I can’t resist giving people advice, especially when they don't ask for it.

The advice given was a sound bit of advice that my mother gave me years ago.

When someone asks or says something to you that is wildly inappropriate or simply none of their business you fix them with a beady eye and say “why ever would you say a thing like that”. In general, I have found that saying this usually stops a person in their tracks.

Other kernels of wisdom from my mother:

1) Make your head save your heels – meaning that when you are going up or downstairs to please take something with you. I heard this one a lot, since we lived in split-level house.
2) Don’t burp at the table – if you burp at the table at home, when you go out to eat you might forget yourself and burp in public.
3) If you wash your dishes by hand always dry them thoroughly before putting them away. She didn’t believe in air-drying dishes. First you wash and then dry with a linen dishtowel and then put away. Putting dishes away wet breeds bacteria. To this day, when I let dishes air dry on the counter I feel a little bit naughty. She also taught me to rinse out the dish cloth in boiling hot water so it doesn’t get sour
4) If you are behind on your dinner preparations, chuck some onions in the frying pan so when your husband comes in it smells like dinner is well on its way
5) When your husband comes home from a hard days work, don’t immediately bombard him with your troubles. Let him decompress. I let my husband pet the cat and watch Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon on ESPN’s PTI.

Now I know the last two bits of advice sound way too 1950’s for us modern women, but if doing these things avoid an argument then what is the harm?

go fish

I performed an experiment on a fish oil capsule Saturday night.

The capsule in question was fished (pun intended) out from under the jelly cabinet in the kitchen. It was covered in cat hair. At first I thought I would just rinse it off and take it. But then I had a brilliant thought "What would happen if I ran really hot water over it. Would it melt?"

1) Turns out it doesn't melt

2) But it does get very soft.

So then I thought, "How much pressure would it take to break it?"

What happens when you put too much pressure on a softened fish oil capsule.

3) It becomes not unlike a geyser and spews a great plume of fish oil straight up onto the ceiling.

4) And leaves behind the unmistakable aroma of fish.

Since I'm not quite able to clamber up onto the counter to reach the ceiling, I had to humbly ask my husband to do it for me and in the process admit my failed experiment. He was not impressed with my quest for knowledge.

Procrastination is my middle name.

Below is a to-do list I drafted months ago and just found the other day. This wasn’t even a truly ambitious list. Just a few things I wanted to get done before Christmas. Don’t forget that I felldownthestairsandbrokemylegin November which hindered me somewhat, but I’ve been ambulatory this past month and should have been able to get things accomplished. Let us discover exactly how many chores were completed.

1) Repot plant – still in pot, rapidly becoming root-bound
2) Drop off stuff at dry cleaners – still in pile waiting to be dropped off including good wool winter coat
3) Pack up at least three boxes to go to post office – I sent these boxes out but have three more
4) Put new rug in bathroom - done
5) Put up curtains in bathroom – still waiting to be ironed and hung
6) Put up curtains in bedroom - done
7) Take picture to framers – never made it to the framers
8) Take computer to repair shop – never happened using lap top instead
9) Get new mat for tub – still not done current mat is a breeding ground for mold and mildew
10) Hang pictures in upstairs hall – still waiting to be hung.


Check back with me in a month or so and we’ll see if I’ve made some headway on this list.