Mar. 29: A few thousand words

I think all of us are just now feeling mostly healthy again. Over the past few weeks Vic had the flu, I had a bad cold that turned into laryngitis, and the kids both had 2-week colds. We've successfully infected everyone we've come in contact with, and our work is done.

Not a lot to say here, but I did update several pages on the web site. Here are changes you might want to check out:

• Katie and Jack's most recent portraits
• Cooper Harrison Bissell
• A couple photos from the Lassen Family's Disney cruise
• The latest photos of that darling Presley
• A picture of Abby and Katie dressed as princesses

I just heard that Jerry Falwell is critically ill. Boy, that's a darn shame. And yes, I know I'm going straight to hell for even thinking such a terrible thing. But he thinks he's God and I know he's the Anti-Christ, so either way, the guy ain't a real human being. I can think of many farm animals or body parts he might be though...

Because I love you all so very, very much, I'll share with you my joke for the day:

How is an elephant like a tomato?
Neither one can ride a bike.

Somehow I forgot to include one of my biggest pet peeves in my last entry, so here it is. It is not Nordstrom's, it's Nordstrom. It is not Meier & Frank's, it's Meier & Frank. It is not Fred Meyer's, it's Fred Meyer. It is not J.C. Penney's, it's J.C. Penney. No one says Costco's, or Safeway's, or Target's, or Eddie Bauer's, so why do people insist on tacking an "s" onto the end of all those other store names? I don't get it. Something else I don't understand is why people say The Wal-Mart. We don't say The Target, or The Safeway. But instead of irritating me, hearing The Wal-Mart mostly just makes me snort. I have to remember that The Wal-Mart is from the land of The Piggly-Wiggly, also known as the part of the country where family trees have no branches.

My my, I'm sounding quite snobbish today. I'd apologize, but I don't wanna.

Burgerville started serving their fresh strawberry milkshakes on Saturday. If you haven't had one before, you really should. They're the best. Vic and I just couldn't wait to have our first one of the season, so on the way home from Walla Walla the other day we stopped in The Dalles, wherein lies the east-most Burgerville. We're trying to figure out what part of our regular diet will need to be swapped out so we can have several shakes a week. We should probably try to figure out what bills we'll stop paying to afford them too.

One more recommendation: "The Incredibles" on DVD. Love it, love it, love it.

More next week or whenever I get around to it. Lovies!

Mar. 8: Restraining Orders, or "get out of my dreams and also out of my car"

You know, it's very easy to criticize. Fun, too.

Today, for your reading pleasure, I'm going to share some of the things that really bug me. Because it would be impossible for me to rate these things by degrees of annoying-ness, they're in no particular order. You'll notice that many of the things that bug me are writing- and grammar-related. My sister's list is identical in that way; blame our perfection-obsessed parents.

My Airing of Grievances
with apologies in this non-Festivus season

• Incorrect usage of your and you're, it's and its, their and they're and there, to and too. A typo is one thing. If you really don't know the difference, though... did you pay no attention in grade school English class??? Sheesh.
• Watching my mom prepare her coffee. First, she waters it down, and then destroys it further by adding powdered creamer, even when there's the perfectly good liquid kind in the fridge! And then she DRINKS it!
• Over-using exclamation points!!! If I do it, it's because it's necessary. No one else has a good excuse.
• People that don't signal when changing lanes; I want to know that you know where you're going. People that try to merge on the freeway at 40mph. People that go the speed limit in the fast lane; first, it's there for passing, not for driving, and even if you think you're forcing everyone to obey the law, you're really just a traffic hazard and the source for much road rage. Someday when someone shoots at you it will be because you deserve it.
• Inconsiderate neighbors (not just mine). You know who you are. Actually, you probably don't, but if you did you wouldn't change. You're just that way, aren't you?
• That more people don't listen to my brilliant ideas. I have many.
• People using apostrophes where they don't belong, as in, "Lot's of people have brilliant idea's, but not as many as my friend's and I do." Also incorrectly using plurals, like "skys" or "sky's" instead of "skies." Have you heard the good news about spell-checkers?
• Not using spell-checkers.
• People that don't take responsibility for their actions. "Ouchie, I spilled coffee on my nether regions because I put it in my lap even though I knew it was super hot. Now McDonalds must PAY!" Because of you, food packaging now says things like, "Warning: Product will be hot after heating."
• Houses painted in hideous colors in neighborhoods of houses painted in non-hideous colors.
• Return envelopes that say, "Tampering with this envelope or its contents will result in legal action." I don't know how serious the threat is, but it interferes with my habit of returning crap mail to senders just to show them how annoying it is to receive crap mail. A Sharpie used to be enough to fix identifying info on the outside of envelopes, but now I'm too a-scared!
• Web sites with ridiculous shipping rates. They suck. Also, poorly designed shopping cart systems on store web sites. Ya gonna have a web presence? Make it work.
• Reruns in prime-time.
• Bad tippers. Like it or not, in this country, it's customary. Don't embarrass your dining companions by being cheap.
• That annoying shortcut language that's become popular and accepted thanks to chat rooms and messaging. You know, using "u" instead of "you," "2" instead of "to" or "too," "b4" instead of "before." The abbreviations don't bother me--LOL, BRB, IMHO, etc. It's the weird Prince-like spelling that gives me the shivers.
• That Crispix is so expensive. Other cereals are expensive too, but Crispix is my favorite. Seems every time it's on sale the store has, like, four boxes in stock. Stooopid store.
• Expiration dates.
• The dash lights in my car. Too much red! It looks like a freakin' cockpit at night. As much as I love Volkswagens, it's always something with them. At least everything is still working in the Passat, unlike my Jetta, which had odd little electrical problems from the start.
• The fact that if not for Hitler, Volkswagen might not even exist. I just found out, thanks to Yahoo!'s question of the day, that that German Ethel Merman ordered development of what eventually became the Beetle. I blame my goofy dash lights on him.
• Putting two spaces between sentences or between the state and zip or after a colon. The "two spaces" rule went out with typewriters and fixed-width fonts. Stop it.

That's all for today, kids. Maybe tomorrow I will share a few of my favorite things, like raindrops on roses, whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles, and warm woolen mittens.

Or not.

--Jen-Jen

Mar. 3: Pope-y peed on my sofa

My step-sister Cindy got married the other day. It was fun and celebratory, as weddings should be, but everyone there was nice and mostly normal; this was disappointing to me and Erin. Who could we gossip about? We were actually exchanging recipes at one point. I did, however, get a good pic that makes my mother look like she misbehaved much more than she actually did. Blackmail via blog!

Here's another pic, one of my mom and Len at Cindy's wedding.

Vic's and my eighth wedding anniversary was on Wednesday last week. We celebrated by me getting sick early that day and not improving much as the day went on. I moved our Morton's reservation to Friday night and spent the evening watching my ever-helpful husband assemble our new bookcases. On Thursday we moved the kids' toys, etc. to their new playroom and tried to clear out what had been in there before. We worked hard and got a lot done but there's still an ungodly amount left to do. Friday was more of the same, 'cept it ended with a fabulous dinner at Morton's. Over the weekend we were back to cleaning, organizing, and simplifying, and finally found a good stopping place so we could welcome Katie and Jack back home to show them their new playroom. Slowly, things have begun to come together. After a trip to Ikea I've planned for next week I should have the tools I need to finish the organizing part. We really are trying to get rid of stuff as we go along, and it's a lot more difficult than I expected. I don't know why we hang on to some of the things we do, but we're both packrat-y.

Me and my ever-handsome husband, fourteen years after we first met and about three years before we had a garageful of crap.

Why, oh why, won't they just let that poor pope dude die??? The guy has nine toes in the grave. He's gotta be miserable. I admit, I don't exactly understand the "holiness" part of the pope (or "Pope-y," as my ever-respectful husband calls him), but PLEEZE, just appoint another one and let this guy go. Sheesh.

I have few good things to say about the Adventist church, but one is that no one person is more holy or closer to God than the next. 'Course, lots of them think they are, and that they have the right to criticize others... Oh, don't get me started. That's a whole 'nother blog.

I'm a little worried Debi might never come back from Scotland. Her trip has been extended at least a few weeks. For me, though, the worst part is that she has inconvenient Internet access and we can't have our daily e-mail conversations. Poor me. What about my needs???

Seems as though Martin might be my only friend, as he's the one regular comment-leaver on this page. I mean "regular," as in "consistent" or "frequent," not any other kind of regular, though that may also apply to him, but I don't really know and I'm not going to ask. Anyway, shame on all of the rest of you! (If he'd e-mail me some new pictures I could probably update his page... hint hint...)

For a certain someone or two that might be dying to post a comment but something's holding you back: remember, you can post anonymously and without registering. Just an idear.

I got a butt-load of free software when I bought my tax program today and I gotta get it set up. I wonder how many hard drives this round of installations will kill.

With a love that will echo through the ages--

Jen