AnnieF

The F-ster is exactly the same, Willowy. My kitchen always has good food (I eat Paleo, kinda, mostly because eliminating gluten has had a positive effect on my chronic pain, but I don't make the rest of my family eat that way). There's fruit, there's nuts, there's bacon (cooked, crumbled, and stored in the fridge -- thx Bol for that idea), there's a rotisserie chicken, there's some leftover Indian takeout. And what does he eat? Frozen pizza, tortilla chips, and white bread. Dafuq, kid?

Earl, I'm sorry, that sounds like a not-fun situation. :( Barphe, I hope your gardening injuries are healing. That sounds like more not-fun. :( dusky, that is also a not-fun situation. Boo. :( I demand a stop to all the not-fun. Cut it out, universe, dammit. My 14-year-old son, the F-ster, has entered the stereotypical teenage-boys-eat-everything-all-the-time stage. It all seems to be going towards making him taller. He'll match his dad at 6' pretty darn soon. And he eats things that he never would've eaten even a couple of months ago -- chicken tikka masala? No way at Xmas time, now completely groovy and delicious and is there any more of this? It's simultaneously awesome that he's broadening his horizons and also alarming because it's true: there's never really an end to the eating. He's always hungry. There can never be enough snacks. It is expensive, blergh. Thank goodness for Costco (hi Silverfox!). Thinking more about this, it occurred to me to ask y'all who've dealt with (or have been) teenage boys and the appetite from Hormoneland: does it level off? Taper? Anything? Heh.

One of Bol's cats is a superkitty who has only three legs (hit by a car years ago, lost one of her hind legs). She's pretty agile for only being 3/4 of a cat. ;) Anyone doing anything fun this weekend? I've got to get the F-let to do homework, because his teacher assigned a fairly big reading project for spring break WHYYYYYYYYY. But everyone's back to school next week, hallelujah.

Hey, cko, it's no skin off my nose if you compare yourself to the Fillion. I would never make that comparison, of course, because I like you. :P CR, since you're in CA, I'm going to guess that your water heater is indeed strapped to the wall. It is if your landlord wants to be in compliance with state law, at any rate. ;) Hi Wonderflonium! I can't believe the chicklet is already three years old. Time, flying, etc.

I live in a suburban "planned community"* of pretty large-ish, fairly characterless stucco boxes that have lots of windows. (EDIT: like this.) My neighbors' house is a 3-story model, so it has so very many windows. But the stucco-chipping-outing was just baffling. The new windows cannot possibly be awesome enough to justify the massive expense. I am truly without clue. The water-heater-strapping-in must be an earthquake-zone-specific thing. And the blanket is because it gets cold at night here in the high desert. Single digits in the winter (which is pretty dang mild compared to other parts of North America, I realize, but it's cold enough to warrant putting a blanket on the water heater). All our bookshelves are strapped to the wall, too. And the dressers in the kids' bedrooms. Life in a seismically active place, hee. :) *We intend to get out of this neighborhood soonish. We moved here for the elementary school, which truly has been a good school for both my kids. But the F-let only has one more year there after this, and we can barely afford to live here. Property tax times are always joyous. Ha. We're going to be heading to more financially copacetic climes, which will also have the bonus effect of putting us closer to the kids' (future) high school. Win!

My neighbors just replaced all their windows. All 47 of them. And because the windows that they chose didn't quite fit in the existing space, they had crews out there chipping away at the stucco window surrounds. The whole job took weeks and has to have cost tens of thousands of dollars. I find it incomprehensible; they'll never get that money back out of the place, and the energy savings with the new windows might be pretty good, but $50(?)K good? Seems unlikely. Thanks for the commiseration about the stupid water heater. :) At least the plumbers do the strapping (it has to be strapped to the wall. By law, I mean, because earthquakes. This is maybe not a thing in less earthquaky places, I imagine?), but it'll take several reminders from me before Mr F puts the blanket back on (maybe not a thing in warmer climes?) Huh. That's more than I've thought about water heaters in maybe ever. They are boring. ;)

Aaaaaaand my water heater is, in fact, a goner. Being replaced as I type, at the gasp-worthy sum of $1800. O_O It is really hard to save money when every time you manage to have something stored, you need it for a dire household emergency. Blergh. This is on top of the other plumbing emergency that happened around Xmas, when the furnace drain pipe was leaking and the plumber had to cut a two-foot-long hole in the drywall to get to the leak. That hole is still there, btw. Not because we love the look, but because we'd been waiting for a little breathing room in the budget before we hired a drywall guy (because the Xmas plumbing emergency cost $1K). I guess the hole stays for another month, at least. Home ownership sure can be fun. :/

Chyna=Keena. That's my guess. (I may have seen similar names before :P) My water heater i s apparently dead? Or dying? So much aaaarrrrrggggghhhhhhhh.

Thanks for your kind words, Earl -- I don't take any MS drugs now, so all my railing is past-tense. And making generics is a worthy thing. :) I'm sorry for the loss of Earl the dog. It does make a great story. I think the vids are gonna be embedded, which means the Safety Dance joke is no more. Adieu, Men Without Hats. You served us well. ;)

My stepsister runs a barn/boarding service for horses (she's in OR). It sounds exhausting, but horses are her passion, and this way she gets to ride most days and spends A LOT of time with them. I hope it's not Biogen Idec. I, uh, may tend to say nasty things about them (as an MS patient, I've been down some bad road as far as pharmaceuticals go). ;) And Earl, if your name is not a Dixie Chicks reference, I will have to reorganize my whole brain. Hi to everyone! bug, you're not the only high school teacher (english is too, although I don't know if she's gonna post here) and Endeavour, you're not the only paralegal (the other would be Boliver). There definitely seems to be a dearth of awesome TV at the moment. Hmph.

Hello to the imagery! ps it was pretty funny :)

Yep, me too. That's why my family goes to at least 3 Giants games every summer (we live in Reno, so it's a bit of a trip. We stay with friends). This makes me think that we need a bit of meet n' greet, 'cause the lurkers have delurked (yay!) and we're not all conversant with each other's lives and whatev. I'm Annie, you can call me that in real life and I will answer, although it's not my first name (it's my middle name). I'm 45 years old, married, with two sons aged 14 (that's the F-ster) and almost 11 (the F-let). My husband, Mr F., is a graphic designer (he's working for the National Judicial College now, which is cool). I trained as a chef, and that's where my professional interests lie. Alas, that fuckin' multiple sclerosis came along and screwed me right up. So I'm partially disabled (I often use a cane) and I can't really work. It is a pooper. :( But I am mostly positive, and have been a volunteer in a study for a new MS treatment (venoplasty). It works, but not permanently. There is always another challenge, but I have hope. Feel free to ask me anything about MS. I am always ready to spread the ccsvi word. :) Chime in with deets, y'all. Whatever you're comfortable sharing. :)

Holy crap, even soft-sided coolers? Someone hasn't gotten the message about how it's a perfect opportunity to make more money off fans! Heh. Every ballpark I've been to has pretty strict rules about what you can bring into the park, and food isn't allowed. That's all west coast -- ATT Park (SF), Dodger Stadium (LA), Petco Park (San Diego), Safeco Field (Seattle). All had "no food" rules. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm here now. :)

You can't bring your own food into a ballpark, at least not at the Major League or triple-A level. Your bag is checked before you enter the park -- they are mostly looking for weapons, but they will confiscate large items of food, too (you can usually get away with bringing in a candy bar or something like that, but they'd probably make you toss a big bag of popcorn, for example). Just like the airport, it is a perfectly tuned system to make a captive audience pay more. Hence a bottle of water costs $5 and I don't even know what beer goes for, but it's over $10. Total aside that is probably boring: most baseball is played in ballparks now, not stadiums. Those big ugly concrete "multipurpose" facilities built in the 60s and 70s to house both baseball and football were never that great for baseball (think Candlestick Park. And then go get warmed up; I'm so sorry I made you think of that ;)). The renaissance of fields built specifically for baseball began in the 90s with Camden Yards, and it has spread throughout the league. Some teams do still play in their horrible old stadiums (Oakland Coliseum, I'm looking at you) but mainly baseball is played in ballparks. Not stadiums. This has been today's boring baseball trufax. :) *jinx, harrie!

Ah, because they are seasoned like crab cakes. Gotcha. :) So are we talking about Camden Yards? Can you get actual crab cakes at the ballpark? I do intend to visit there at some point (it's a long-term goal, to visit as many Major League ballparks as possible. American League teams have to take a number behind National League teams [because the NL is clearly superior YOU ALL KNOW I'M RIGHT], so Baltimore was probably always going to be pretty far down the list, but I may have to rethink that ;) ). At the bottom of that list is, of course, Arlington TX. I have a hard time imagining that I will EVER make to an AL ballpark in Texas, but who knows?

Garlic fries are delicious. I'm having trouble with "crab fries." Fries with...crab on them? I encourage everyone to try trivia. I can't do it because it makes me TENSE all day, but if you're not as wonky in the brain as I am, you might enjoy it. ;)

I can save up to 20% on selected nights at Disneyland. Haha, yeahright. That's my idea of hell.

We just came from brunch at Grandma's. It was bacony goodness. ;) I am going to post here and stop posting at TWoP. Moving on...

My furnace is making a weird screechy sound when it starts. This is probably not good, y/y? Argh. I am all about a new t-shirt list. I am finally feeling comfortable about dressing myself (I had breast reduction surgery done last June) and I have been going just slightly bonkers with the novelty t-shirts. I could never wear them before, so it's like a whole new world of clothing options. (It really has taken almost nine months for me to get used to my new self. It was a big change, and I think I had some dysphoria that is finally resolving. But I'm at long last fully at home in my bod, yay.) As for Spuffy, to each their own. I didn't think it was handled well on the show (could have been, but wasn't) so my reaction to it was "yeuuuccch." I like Bangel mostly because it takes place during a better era of the show, and also because it did a better job, IMO, of capturing what it was supposed to represent: that sort of DRAMATIC high school romance that can't last, but seems bigger than everything while it's happening.

I think it's groovy that lurkers are delurking. :) Maybe the TWoPocalypse will end up being a good thing, bringing more folks into the Buffy vortex. Or something, I dunno, I can't metaphor today. Heh. My 14- year-old son, the F-ster, is now 6 feet tall and wears bigger shoes than his dad. And his skin, oy. He's doomed, since both his dad and I had terrible acne. But anyway, I don't think I told y'all about him doing online school. Did I? I can't remember. Oh yeah, even as I type this, I recall...oh well, anyway, it is working out really well. His grades are up, he's getting taller by the second (which I wonder if might be related to the fact that he can now get 10 hours of sleep every night. Biology, hmm) and we spend more time together. It is good. Anyone got any good news, or good stuff happening? I think we could all use some cheering up, heh.

Scandale! But really, you spared yourself quite a bit of dreck. (And you missed a few bright moments. But only a few).

Yo. I feel somewhat less discombobulated now.