The Boy Who Would Be King...if only his dad weren't such a dumbass.

In the interest of Following Up on a few things mentioned in recent posts:

Yes, the air conditioning is fixed. And I only had to call twice and email once. Funny thing, though, Elite apparently has no interest in communicating with me directly. I'll call, leave a message (and I KNOW they're sitting right there by the phone) and eventually I'll hear back from whatever random repairman they're sending out. I sent them this email, along with a read-receipt request:

I called and left a voicemail last night at 10pm and haven't heard back so I thought I'd just double-check to see if anyone got the message. Our neighborhood's been experiencing brown-outs periodically and yesterday we discovered that our air conditioner isn't working. It's just blowing hot air. Would it be possible to send someone out here today? I realize that the recent storms caused a whole lot of damage and I'm sure the repairmen have busy schedules. Even a ballpark ETA would be great, so we could plan for the weekend when it's supposed to get hotter.

The kids and I are going to be be heading out to someplace cool, but I'll have my cell phone with me and I'll check my email when I get back. Thanks.

See how nice I am? Not once did I berate or insult them.

I got the read-receipt, so I know they read it. Nobody from the office answered it. I guess they assume that if they send someone out, that's tantamount to actually communicating with me. Well, it's NOT. It's shitty customer service. Seriously, a little call to follow-up would take 15 seconds out of someone's day and if my opinion of them weren't already pretty much cemented in my mind after the last year, it might possibly make me hate them just a teeny bit less. So nice to know they care.

Oh, and THEN they send out this dude who was about 79 years old - when he called I totally thought I was on Crank Yankers or something - asking me for directions on how to get to my house from Road X. I said "Road X is west of us, so come east on Road Y, and we're about 3 houses from the intersection of Road Y and Road Z."

He calls me from Road Y and Road DLAKFVARNTHSGXDFTLKVGN.

"I thought you said to go west on Road Y!"

"No, I said Road X is west of us."

"Well, I'll be DADGUMMED if I ever come out here again! Maybe I'll be by later..."

"Ooooh, I sure hope so! Fingers crossed!"

Who the fuck says DADGUMMED???

So he shows up about 30 minutes later, and the first thing he says to me is,

"Y'know, you should probably tell people to go SOUTH on Road Y. That makes more sense."

Y'know, Pa Kettle, you should probably GET A FUCKING MAP. Just a thought.

I was totally expecting him to pull open the door on the air conditioning unit to reveal a baby pterodactyl sleeping, like something out of The Flintstones, and then he'd poke it with a stick to wake it up, problem solved. But he fixed the A/C, somehow. God be praised. It was a-hundred-and-fuckin-TWO degrees outside today. Gih.

Update #2. I WENT TO LYLE LOVETT. You kinda have to appreciate what a big deal this is to me. I've wanted to see Lyle in concert for years, and it was always too expensive or otherwise impossible to go. Two years ago he did a FREE concert downtown but because the boys were too little and R had to work, I had to miss it. I cried. So I read that he would be coming to Live On the Levee to play a free concert down at the Arch. I would have gone by myself if I had to. That afternoon, two forces of evil began to conspire against me.

Force of Evil #1 - The Weather. The St. Louis area has been totally pummeled by storms recently. And for a while, it looked pretty threatening. I was unfettered. Bring on the lightning, I'm hangin with Lyle.

Force of Evil #2 - R's work. At 2pm they tell him he has to stay and work 30 minutes of overtime, which means now he'll leave at 6:30 instead of 6. The concert starts at 7, a good 40 minutes away. Great.

Here's why I love R. He says to take the boys to The Play Place, bring Beeb, pick him up at work and the three of us will go. That's what we did. And Lyle even waited for us to get there before he started. Everybody else probably just thought he was running late, but I'm convinced he was waiting for us.

Great show. If you ever get the chance to see Lyle for free, GO. If you ever get the chance to see him in any venue, at any cost, GO. We had a blast.

Beeb fell asleep in the car on back to R's car (which we left at his work), so I told him to pick up the boys and Beeb and I went home. While I was putting on my twisted-strap jammies, I saw Pie walking down the hall, sobbing the really quiet, almost-silent sob with a big open mouth and huge tears in his eyes.

"Buddy, what's wrong??"

"Daddy said I can't be King when I grow up. Daddy said I could NEVER be a King!!!"

Remind me to have a little conversation with Daddy.

"Well, Ry, there aren't really kings anymore. Guess what, though! You could be President of the United States, if you wanted. Wouldn't that be cool?"

"But Mom, Presidents don't use swords and shields, and they don't wear crowns!"

Now think of every Valedictorian, Best Actor/Actress, or any acceptance speech from any award you can imagine. Do any of them say "I'd like to thank my dad, who told me I couldn't be king when I grew up." NO. They say sappy shit like "I'd like to thank my parents who always believed in me and always told me I could be anything I wanted to be!" Insert thunderous applause.

Way to go, R. You just bought us years of therapy.

You guys know I really love R, right?


BONUS!! DVD recommendation:

Kathy Griffin Allegedly. R said watching 2 hours of her stand-up is like being on a date with me. I'm pretty sure it was meant as a compliment.

Poll, Knitting News, and My Starbux Adventure

Poll:

I assume that most people who read this blog are knitters, but I think I have a fair amount of non-knitting readers too. Today, I have a question for the non-knitters. Do my knitting-related posts cause your eyes to glaze over and your jaw to reflexively slack open? Hell, my knitting posts probably bore the knitters.

I want to see what draws the non-knitters to my bloggiepoo. Do you skim over the kntting stuff to the non-knitting stuff? What's your favorite non-knitting related recurring topic? OR is there something I haven't talked about that maybe I should? Are you a fan of the Aldi Files? Ryanisms? I'm just curious. What brings you back to Behold My Brilliance? Or did you land here by accident when you did a search for Yakov Smirnoff?

So chime in! Knitters, you can chime in too.
Like I could stop you.


Knitting news:

Knock a WIP off my list. Before you go thinkin I finished something - The Cascade Fixation Tank now resides in the Frog Pond. I have replaced it with the Moebius Capelet (minus the Squiggle), which is almost done. I'm beginning to see that Instant Gratification is a big thing for me. I also began and completed two of Poops' coffee cozies last week, which were well-received by the coffee drinkers in my life.


Tangent that leads to a funny story:

I will now admit publicly for the first time that I am absolutely petrified of ordering coffee in a coffee shop. Petrified. Terrified.

Coffeeshops scare the crap out of me. I'm so out of my element, I'm completely intimidated. I've never drank a cup of coffee in my life. Really, never. It's not even so much that I don't like the taste (how would I know?), I just try to stay away from as many potential addictions as possible. And my mom is as big a coffee addict as you'll ever find.

Since she knew I was going to be passing a Starbux on my way to pick Mom up, she asked me to bring her some coffee. If the fact that there's one on every streetcorner didn't already render it a safe bet that you'll pass one anytime you get into a car, I'd swear Starbux luvahs must have some sort of internal Starbux-seeking GPS system. I ignored my sweaty palms and the sound of my own heart pounding in terror, and I asked her what she wanted.

A Large Cup of House Blend.

Simple enough, no? I repeated it back to her no fewer than four times. I just wanted to make sure I got it right. Don't coffee people get really pissy when their coffee is wrong?

It seemed, to a coffee-ordering rookie, fairly straightforward. No triple double shot espresso moco-caramel latte, no foam, no half caf/half decaf, twist o' lemon, nothing fancy at all. I was confident that I could handle it.

Now, if only I could get through the door.

Would they shine a light in my face and make me show a Coffeedrinkers Membership Card (and if so, how quickly could I whip up a fake one)? Would they ask me for a password? Should I avoid eye contact?

Would alarms go off? INTRUDER! INTRUDER!

Can coffee-people spot non-coffee people? I'm sure I must exude coffee ignorance. I imagined that walking into a Starbux as a non-coffee person would be like Captain Kirk and Crew landing on a strange new planet. Should I immediately raise my arms over my head and assure them that I come in peace?

I walked in the door, and let me just say that if there had been a jukebox in the room, it would have gone rrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. I totally sensed that I was interrupting a secret club meeting where this small faction of Starbux devotees was plotting its next move toward Total Global Domination.

Yes, yes, we'll bulldoze the elementary school and the fire station and the homeless shelter and build a giant solid gold 24-hr Java Temple there! Brilliant! Yes, otherwise people would have to drive two-tenths of a mile to the next Starbux. Oh, the horror!
(sniff sniff) What the...? Who let the tea-drinking INFIDEL in here!! ABORT!! ABORT!!

I took a deep breath and cautiously tiptoed toward the counter, so as not to trip the High-Tech Mission Impossible Infra-Red Laser Beam Security System that, although invisible to the naked eye, was fully operational. I'm totally sure of it.

Problem #1. I'm reading the menu. There is no LARGE. There's Tall, Grande, and Venti or something like that. Huh??? Tall is the smallest? Grande is Medium? What the hell does Venti mean? Why do they gotta jack with me? Seriously. How hard is SMALL, MEDIUM, LARGE? How f*ckin pretentious. Whatever. I'm just gonna ask for the biggest and see what happens.

So I get up to the counter, feeling pretty good about my Plan B, and supercute blonde curly-haired hippie surfer pooka-shell necklace wearing coffee order-taker dude Josh says, "Yes ma'am, what can I get for you?"

Hey! I understood that! They speak English here!!! Wait a minute, what's my line? A loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stickah buttah? No, that's not it...

"A Large House Blend." Yes! I did it!!

And then, Problem #2.

"I'm sorry, we don't have the House Blend today."

Oh SHIT. I didn't have a backup alternative.

Total panic. I felt the room spinning. I stood there with my mouth open long enough for Josh to realize I needed rescuing.

"We have the Verona today, is that all right?"

I must have nodded, but I seriously don't remember. It was like I was standing in the middle of an Impressionist painting where everything around me was all swirly and out-of-focus and blurry and I just wanted to get the hell out of there before I fainted from the pressure.

And then Problem #3, the question I didn't anticipate.

"Room for cream?"

I'd never heard that combination of words before. I asked him to repeat them so as to slyly buy myself time to process the question.

Room for cream? What is that about? Are you basically asking me if I want you to give me less coffee than I just paid you for? Do you want my permission to short-change me? No way, mister supercute blonde curly-haired hippie surfer pooka-shell necklace wearing coffee order-taker dude. I'm onto you.

"Um, no, thanks."

He handed me my full-to-the-top Venti Verona (NOT the Large House Blend I was supposed to get) and I left, pondering how I was going to break it to Mom that I, through no fault of my own, was unable to get what she'd asked me to get. Keep in mind, I'm dealing with a woman who hasn't had her caffeine yet. If I give her The Wrong Coffee, she may just throw the Scalding Hot Sacrilege at my head.

I reverently presented my mother with the fruit of my labor, the hard-earned cup of Starbux coffee, as though I were presenting Salome with the head of John the Baptist. I am compelled to confess to her, however, that it is NOT the coffee she sent me for. It's the head of some other saint. It's the best I could do.

"They didn't have the House Blend, so I got something that starts with V." I instinctively took a step backward, toward the door.

"Verona? Oh, okay, that's good. That's fine."

Thank GOD. Relief. Victory. Sigh.

"Oh, and didja leave room for cream?"

In case you missed it -

So I went a little nutso with the Nana and PopPop pics and now they don't show up right. Yeah, I know. Sorry about that. When I click the link to "Hanging with Nana and PopPop", I can see the whole post, even when I keep breaking up the posts, it doesn't seem to help.

These pics deserved a post of their own anyway.


Pie regaled us all with what he referred to as Hip-Hop Dancing.








Yeah, it was a good time.

Part 2 of Hangin' With Nana and Pop Pop.

July 24th is the birthday of Henry Shaw, who gave the city of St. Louis the lovely Botanical Garden. Admission to the garden is free on Mr. Shaw's birthday, so we went to check out the Dale Chiluly: Glass in the Garden exhibit, which was quite impressive.













And the next day we took Nana and PopPop to The Magic House, which is also free (noticing the recurring theme of my superduper cheapness?) on Tuesday nights during the summer.

A few years ago Beeb won a contest where kids submitted trivia facts to be displayed throughout the house. She was really proud when we found it!


The obligatory photo with the static electricity ball.



Here's my little mercenary.



Pie selling ice cream. He'd sell popsicles to penguins.



And here's what I want for my birthday. A RUN-DMC action figure! That's the coolest thing I've ever seen.

I am so proud my children know that the answer to the musical question "Whose House?" is, of course, "RUN'S HOUSE."

This was also my favorite line in the movie Dogma. Classic.


So that summarizes the past week. Here's what I'm dealing with currently.

- While I have electricity, my Air Conditioner is not working. It's blowing room-temperature air. It's about 86 degrees in the house right now. I put a call in to those geniuses at Elite 12 hours ago. It's gonna be 93 and megamuggy today. Still waiting to hear back. Assholes.

- My sister and her hubbypoo and their dog are planning a brief visit as they follow Widespread Panic to Memphis and St. Louis and Louisville (I think that's the itinerary). I'm not sure how I feel about this.



















- I bought a really cute pair of jammies that I love, only last night I realized that one of the straps was sewn on wrong and is permanently twisted. I couldn't bring myself to return it. I'm calling it a design feature. And it wasn't even my design.

- Next week, the boys go to VBS and Beeb goes to Chess Camp. I'm imagining a classroom full of Malcolm and his Krelborne friends.

- My Reality Shows are getting good. I've missed Big Bro all this week, but Jase and Will are nominated and tonight is Eviction Night. At least we know one evildoer is leaving. The Fogals are off of Treasure Hunters, Praise The Lord!! And Rappin' Granny is through to the next round of America's Got A Bunch of Talented Freaks! I called in a vote or two for Bianca Ryan. She's cool.

- I'm trying to give up drinking soda. We're on day two and I haven't killed anyone yet, so it's going pretty well. Although if somebody doesn't get out here to fix the damn A/C pretty effin soon, I can't be held responsible for my actions.

- If anything gets in the way of my seeing Lyle Lovett tomorrow night at Live on the Levee, I'm gonna be pissed.

- I've been asked for an update on the Terry Bradshaw Dream Date mission. Well, Bob, I emailed most recently on July 7th, and this time I went directly to Terry's Ranch. Still haven't heard back. So far I've written Ellen three times, Fox Sports twice and Circle 12 Ranch once, but I'm not giving up. I'm thinking I may just have to take my dream straight to the top - Miss Oprah. I figured it was faster than praying, since I'm pretty sure God asks Oprah for book recommendations.

Hangin' With Nana And PopPop

** I'm having trouble getting the pictures to show up right. The last 3 pictures are of Pie. ***

My mom and dad (aka Nana and PopPop) went home to Texas yesterday after visiting for a week, so having nothing to do today feels kinda weird. We did a lot of fun stuff with them. The night that they arrived was when that huge freakin storm hit the city and knocked out the power at half a million homes. But miraculously, not ours! We did have a wee bit of flooding in our basement, but since I'd been kickin ass on laundry, there was only a minimal amount of wet clothes on the floor. Hallelujah. It really was a scary storm. Made the national news; maybe you saw it.

We visited the Train Museum that Tito loves - in fact, my dad was actually involved in the dedication ceremony for the re-opening of the museum many years ago.
My dad's a train nut too, so he and Tito bonded. T later told me that PopPop is his best friend.







Mr. P. was a crabass. He did a lot of scowling.








Beeb particularly enjoyed the Creation Station, where she made a creepy new friend named Linda. I'm sure this lady meant to be sweet, but she just gave me the willies. At one point she told me, "Oh, your daughter Natalie is just so special! If I had a daughter like her, I would never, ever cry."

(shudder)

Ok, the "if" in that sentence implies that a) she doesn't have a daughter (or at least not one as cool as Beeb) and b) that she cries a lot. Neither of which is particulalrly surprising, but oh, that's just sooooo much more than I needed to know about Linda. Still, I do appreciate her candor. So I can poke fun at her on my blog.

Beeb loved the attention, despite the fact that it was coming from a troll. Note Linda's eerily adoring gaze. Creepy, no?






Saturday night we took the kids to the drive-in to see Monster House and Nacho Libre. Despite the sub-par peoplewatching, a good time was had by all.


Sunday was Beeb's party! We had perfect weather and a really nice group of girls.

Here's Beeb's cake.



The Reverend arrived in a fugly Hawaiian shirt, which amused me, but I was enormously (and ironically) disappointed at Mrs. Aldi's shocking display of uncharacteristically good fashion sense.

I tried reeeeeally hard to get a Baby Got Back pic for you all, but this was the best I could do. My apologies.









Pie regaled us all with what he referred to as Hip-Hop Dancing.








Yeah, it was a good time.

Have I been outed?

I fear that my days of blogging under a cloak of semi-anonymity are (ahem) BEHIND ME.

Both Mrs. Aldi and Aldigirl were wearing swimsuits other than the ones they wore the last time I wrote about them. What are the chances?? Hmmm??? At first, I was just bummed because I was looking forward to talking snarkily about them, but then I thought, oh shit - what if they read my little rant about inappropriate swimwear for 8 year old girls and my idea to knit a one-piece with short-row shaping in the back?

Maybe it's just an ooky coincidence. BUT, a while ago, I had some dude from Michigan who randomly came across my Tickle profile tell me that he knew someone from my hometown Who Looked A Lot Like Me and, through some investigation, we were able to determine that he was in fact referring to my SIL. Immediately my Seinfeldian "worlds colliding" phobia sent me into a panic. Imagine if I'd had nudie pics or something?? All I need is the thought of Reverend A looking at ... oh, I just can't even complete that sentence. Incidentally, I never talked to the guy again after that. It would have been like Bizarro World, and I ain't goin' there.

But that was long before I started blogging. So they'd have had to periodically check my Yahoo profile to see that I'd updated it with a link to Behold My Brilliance. And why would they do that? I'm sure they've at least seen my Tickle ID (cuz the dude emailed it to Mrs. Aldi to see if she knew me, thanks so much), which had a link to my Yahoo ID, which now has a link to here, but I can't imagine that they'd have re-visited any of my IDs for any reason since I entered Bloggerworld.

I think that when I was first debating the merits of starting a blog, it was for the purpose of periodically updating my family members and friends on the goings-on at Chez Karma so they could see pictures and read up on us at their convenience. But then I started getting cattier and rantier and darker than I expected to be, ya know? I guess I've always kinda figured that the possiblity existed that the Aldis might accidentally stumble onto my silly little blog. And I'm sure that, to them, the characters I describe would be immediately identifiable. I mean, how many Aunt Drama and Uncle Earhair pairings exist in the world?

Maybe I'm just paranoid.

I'm 99% confident there is absolutely no danger of them telling FIL what I have said here. I know they share the same sentiment, and, being familiar with FIL's behavior, nobody'd want to stir anything up. So that aspect of it is a non-issue. But what am I gonna do if I can't write freely about the Aldis? They provide some of my best material.

Feel free to offer suggestions. Topics, updates I haven't touched on in a while, unanswered questions... what should I talk about?

FYI, My next post will include Our Latest Trip to the DriveIn and Beeb's Birthday.

My parents go home tomorrow, and then I'll have more time to sit and update with pictures. But for now, I'll leave you with -

Still more searches that lead to my brilliant blog:

"Pay Me" Teavana.

Oprah's pronunciation of Kleenex.

Social Anxiety Disorder I'm a Dork.



courtesy of extremetracking.com

My baby's a whore!!!

We have discovered that my little Pie will do darn near anything if you pay him enough.

In fact, he's been known to ask "how much will you pay me if I... (fill in whatever you want)" several times a day. Here's a conversation we've had more than once:

Hey Mom, want me to bring in the mail?
Well, sure, buddy, that'd be nice...
How much will you pay me?
Nothing.
Never mind.

I fast-forward in my head to Mr. Pie in a fraternity house surrounded by a bunch of drunk guys daring him to light a fart for five bucks. And Pie'll hold out for more money before he does it. Like that Ogre guy in Revenge of the Nerds. Only he'll be a Nerd so I guess that would make him more like Booger.

I'm conflicted. On the one hand, I applaud his outside-the-box entrepreneurial spirit, and yet, I'm a little bit nervous that this boy has no shame. No limits. No dignity.

Yesterday, R, my parents and I took the Apes to Cici's Pizza for lunch. Dad was thrilled that you can ask for any kind of pizza you want, so he asked them to make him an anchovy pizza. I think he thought they were going to tell him no, but sure enough, they whipped Dad up an anchovy pizza. Yick.

Dad's eaten anchovy pizza, whenever he could get one, all my life. I think they are icky, foul, smelly little slugs with whiskers and you couldn't pay me to touch one, let alone eat one.

So I told Ry I'd give him a dollar to take a bite of PopPop's pizza.

My dad upped the ante: "Ry, I'll give ya FIVE dollars if you take a bite!"

R laid out the stakes: "Hear that, Ry? You can have six bucks just for eating a bite of PopPop's pizza!"

And Ry said -

"I want seven."

Deal.

I've never been so happy to have had a camera with me.



Initial Reaction


Still Chewing


Washing it Down


The Money Shot


Making Sure it's All There


Mama's so proud of her little ho!

I'm so FOC'ed Up.

I got a really good deal on some KnitPicks yarn I bought on eBay.

The phrase "hole in the head" immediately leaps to mind, but I got nine skeins of Andean Silk Twist AND nine skeins of Shine - total retail with shipping would have come to $52.02 - for $42.15 (including shipping), a savings of $10.05! Tell me that's not a steal!! I don't buy a whole lot of yarn on eBay because I prefer to support my LYS and all, but I do like helping a fellow knitter thin her stash.

I've got projects planned for all of it. The Silk Twist will be Clapotis, which I've been threatening to make for a while now. The Shine will be Picovoli, which I'd like to have done before it gets to be too cold to wear it.

I've also got a Cascade Fixation Tank I just started. And socks. One day, I shall make a sock. Maybe even two.

I've been thinking about taking on a lace project. Nothing fancy, maybe just Branching Out, to test the waters.

I just purchased the One-Skein Wonder pattern from Glampyre Knits. What am I thinking???

I've been making those dipshit FunFur Flip-Flops, which helps me use up my stash and keeps me from buying more yarn, at least for a little while. Then I'm going to try to sell them so I can use the money to buy... what???? MORE YARN. And maybe Knitting Over The Edge. That's the book I have my eye on now. I just ordered Big Girl Knits too.

Why, why do I do this??

I believe I might have Fear Of Completion Syndrome.

Oh, I finished the Twisted EviLucy bag, and before that, the little drawstring bag for the baby shower, so it could be said that I'm on a completion roll. But I have about ten WIP's laying around in various states of completion, in addition to the growing queue of projects in my head. And I'll most likely buy more yarn before I finish anything else. Not even "most likely", I KNOW I will.

Why don't I pick one of the UFO's up and finish it instead of starting something new? I don't know. Do other knitters experience this? Is it because something else always looks more fun than what I'm already doing? Cuz that's pretty much the case in every other aspect of my life too. Sigh.

Oh, and Beebie and my parents are arriving in like, 4 hours. I missed the Beeb. I gotta clean. Dang.

OH, NO HE DIH-INT.

Moments ago, Tito walked into the room, tossed a clean diaper onto the floor, laid down beside it and said,

"Mommy, change my poop.
I GOT STUFF TO DO."

The $60 Alternative to Kitty Litter; The SkyView DriveIn; and Uncle Earhair - The Weekend's Events

Saturday night we dropped my leaking-upwards, stanky car off at Tom the Mechanic's humble abode, as he had offered to check it out for considerably less than the Shop he works in would charge. I said cool, since he was the one who would be doing the work on it anyway, and this way I'd pay less and he'd make more off of the job. Win/win.

From there, we took the boys to see the Double Feature of Pirates of the Carribean and Cars at the Skyview Drive-In in Belleville, Illinois. The Skyview is so cool. First of all, you can't beat the price. An adult ticket is $8, and each adult can bring 2 kids for free. So all five of us could see two movies for $16. And the BEST part is, you can bring in your own food. Including alcoholic beverages. This unique set-up lends itself to some of the best people-watching you're gonna find ANYWHERE, which, for me, takes the sting out of the fact that we have to drive 45 minutes to get there.

The boys really dug the vintage drive-in old-school playground. The playground is an especially fun place to people-watch. R and I like to play "Guess Which Kids Go With Which Parents". Hooda thunk the little boy with the white-blonde hair (shaved almost to the scalp except for a curly little white-blonde tail in the back) went with the guy in the Lords Of Acid T-shirt who looked like George Costanza with a combover?

We had a little over an hour to kill before the movie started, so we walked to the Schnuck's Grocery Store just down the street and spent $25 on candy. Including Werther's Chewy Caramels. Then we went back to the car and set up our spot, and who is sitting next to us but George Costanza Lords of Acid guy and his freaky tail kid and several other people who appear to be a family unit of some kind.

One of the women in the group smoked the entire time (and I'm not going to complain because we're outside, but it did start to bug me after a while) and the worst was that they turned their FM radio (that patrons have to bring in order to hear the sound from the movie) ALL THE WAY UP and it sounded like it was between two stations so it was really scratchy and hard to understand. I probably missed about half the lines. I was so pissed.

Here's a pic R snapped at the drive-in. At first glance, you might think it was a pic of me knitting at the Drive-In. It's really a pic of the creepy family next to us. Behind me is the freaky blonde kid, the Marlboro Woman (in white - and yes, that's a Fanny Pack) and the George Costanza Lords of Acid guy beside her, in black. And, if you look reeeeeeeeally close, right behind the kid's butt you can see the radio that all but wrecked my evening.




Right before the movie started, Tom called to tell me that he fixed the leak in the car. He took out the thingie and the housing for the thingie and flushed and cleaned some other doohickey and plugged the leak from the outside with spray silicon or something. I mean, he explained it all to me, but when he goes into Mechanic Mode, all I hear is blah blah blah blah transmission brake shoes blah blaaaaaaah leaking fluid blah really dangerous blahblahblahblabbity two hundred dollars blah.

Dude, I trust you. Just tell me it's fixed. I don't care if you plugged the leak with a frickin wad of bubble gum. Anyway, he said he'd just charge us $60 for the labor. I nearly wept with joy. You know you have a great rapport with your mechanic when you can write "sexual favors" in the memo section of the check you give him.

Pie fell asleep about 20 minutes into the movie. T fell asleep about an hour later. We left before the second movie started. I've seen Cars already, and I actually kinda hated it, with the exception of the mildly-amusing Tractor Tipping scene.

Sunday morning R mowed the grass and got really sick from the heat. R is really sensitive to the heat and the sun. It's the red hair and fair skin. He felt so nauseous and icky that he told me to call Aunt Drama to let her know that we probably wouldn't be out there for the cookout that day. She said I could come by myself with the boys, but I really didn't feel like going, plus I was nervous that she'd ask me if I'd mailed my scratch-off ticket chain letters, so I told her that I felt like I should be home in case R needs me. Apparently, I worried her enough that she talked to R's mom, who called our house a few minutes later. Here's the half of the conversation to which I was privy:

I'm ok... yeah, I mowed the backyard... well, I thought it was early enough that it wouldn't be that hot... about two hours ago and... well, I just didn't know when else I was gonna do it, it's only going to be hotter the rest of the week... yes, I'm drinking water but I'm just kinda nauseous and... no, I don't need an IV... no... I just need to rest... I'm fine, really... I don't think we have any Gatorade in the house... yes... uh-huh... I'll tell her... ok, bye.

About an hour and a half later, we left for Aunt Drama's. Wouldn't want Mom to worry.

The afternoon was fairly uneventful, despite the FIL's presence. Aldigirl's offensively ill-fitting bikini provided some amusing cattiness fodder for R and me.

Mrs. Aldi has backfat. She Dunlaps in the BACK. In her day, girlfriend had a great bod. She was a physical education major. But her best days, as well as everything she's eaten in the past two years, are (ahem) BEHIND HER.

Ok, yeah, I would probably look hideous in a bikini too but here's the difference - I'D NEVER WEAR ONE. Maybe I'll knit Aldigirl and her mom matching one-piece swimsuits for Christmas. This pattern (click here) has a disturbingly appropriate title. Oh, and I did manage to put her on the spot for an RSVP commitment to Beeb's party. They're coming. And I'm bringing the camera. Just for you.

The highlight of the day was when I was fixing myself a barbecued pork steak sandwich and I was trying to get some Sweet Baby Ray's Barbecue Sauce out of an almost-empty bottle. Uncle Earhair saw me struggling, squeezing in vain, and said, "Here, gimme dat..."

He then proceeded to pop the plastic top (not the lid, the little thing that snaps on over the top of the squeezie-bottle to prevent you from pouring the whole bottle onto your sandwich at once) off the bottle with a knife, took the bottle to the sink, turned on the water, ran the bottle of barbecue sauce under the stream for a second or two, popped the lid back on, shook it up and handed it to me saying, "Here ya go, Sarah, try dat..."

At that point I didn't feel like I could really say "um, no thanks" so I put a little on my sammich - just enough to appear appreciative of Uncle Earhair's efforts - and left the kitchen, aghast.

Do NOT desecrate the barbecue sauce, Uncle Earhair.


Other random tidbits that have nothing to do with anything but I wanted to mention them anyway:

I'm currently knitting the Cascade Fixation Tank with Elann.com's less-expensive version of Fixation. I don't do well with patterns that require a lot of counting and concentration since I'm always having to put the WIP down to unleash my wrath on one of the Apes and by the time I'm done layin' the smack down I've forgetten where I left off. So I know I've knitted when I should have purled multiple times and completely jacked up the uniformity of the stitches, but I figured that it wouldn't be visible when I have it on. Fixation is a nice, stretchy yarn, but I'm kinda skeptical that this thing is gonna fit me when it's done. Still, it will be my first finished wearable garment that isn't a scarf or a hat. And that's something.

This Weekend's Blockbuster Online Rentals were Hustle And Flow and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Both very good.

WHY didn't Kaysar put Will and Boogie up for eviction from the Big Brother house??? I LOVE Nakomis!

My new favorite tea is Rooibos Lemon Twist from Teavana. I spent about $50 at Teavana Friday night. Worth every penny.

I'm gonna miss Beebie tonight when I watch our two favorite shows - Hell's Kitchen and Treasure Hunters. Beeb likes it when I talk in a Chef Ramsay voice. YOU DONKEY!!

We also love America's Got Talent (although I think NBC's choices of Celebrity Judges are actually evidence to the contrary). I want that Harmonica Kid to win.