Oh  My  God, i was SO in love with Spike!!!  I've always had a thing for vampires and Spike was so...grrowwlll!   

I'm back.  We went to visit brother and family last weekend for his graduation.  He's graduated, he's a doctor!  FINALLY!  Woohoo!

The nephew is 28 months now, and he is definately 2.  "My daddy!  My mommy!  My dog!  My house!  My A!"  Hee hee.  Mom gave him a bath and afterwards he told her, "Wanna watch a TV-o!" (which is what he calls a video)  and mom told him that he'd have to ask mommy and daddy.  He thought for a moment and said, "I'll ask Pa-Pa and Thirteen."  Bwahaha!  No flies on my nephew, no sirree.   

So mommy has been borrowing TV-o's from the library for nephew to watch and he loves Jungle Book: Mowgli's Story.  Fine, we'll watch that.  You know how you form a set of expectations when you first hear of something, then the more information you get, the bar lowers or raises?  OK, this is a sequel, so the bar's set pretty low to begin with.  However, I can tolerate most cartoons as long as they aren't Dragon Tales, so it's not too low.

Then the details come pouring in.  It's a live action (the bar slips downward--ka-chunk, ka-chunk) Disney (Disney live-action is toxic more often than not, ka-chunk), straight-to-video (ka-chunk, ka-chunk) movie featuring animals (ka-chunk) that communicate in cheesy voice-overs (ka-chunk, ka-chunk); monkeys are prominently featured (KA-CHUNK *snap* KA-CHUNK [the snap was where one of the supports was broken off in the swift, downward motion of the bar) and they sing (KA-CHUNK, THUD--the bar hits the ground) and dance, courtesy of the same low-tech camera trickery that made the cats dance in the cat food commercial back in the 1970's (thhhwuck--the bar buries itself 6 inches underground.)

So my expectations were low to say the least.  However, the movie managed to exceed them in every way possible--this is a profoundly stupid, irritating, insulting, boring, STUPID STUPID STUPID movie and I want Disney to reimburse me for my brain cells that committed suicide rather than expose themselves to the wisecracking, dancing monkeys one second longer.  Even Pa-Pa couldn't stand it, and Pa-Pa can watch nephew sleep and consider it adequate amusement.

Seriously, I watch bad movies on purpose.  I like bad movies.   Not even Joel and the 'bots could save this steaming crap-heap.    I can't wait for nephew to grow up a little and develop some taste.   Mommy and Daddy are taking the movie back to the library and have vowed to never mention its existance ever again. 

DISCLAIMER:  I don't think monkeys are funny.  I don't find rampant hilarity in monkeys wearing clothes, or making faces, or spitting water or any of the stereotypical crap I'm supposed to lose bladder control over simply because a monkey is doing it.  So if you removed the monkeys....nope.  Still sucks.  I'd rather watch Barney  Yeah, I said it, and I'd say it again.  I'd rather watch Barney.  Barney's only a half hour long.    

The interminable previews showed a movie that could possibly suck more than the feature film.  I'll talk about it when I'm feeling better.

On the plus side, they also borrowed The Aristocats and while it isn't classic Disney, it's still pretty good.  We all sang along to "Everybody Wants to be a Cat" and Pa-Pa and Nephew danced.  It was fun.   

Ever since Agatha's been gone I've had trouble making my herbal rinse.  It was simple:  boil water, add herbs to the coffee filter, steep for an hour or so while I love on Agatha, wash hair.  Now I forget to start it, or it doesn't steep long enough, or it's so hot I singe my scalp.  So this weekend I dug out a wide-mouthed Thermos I bought at a yard sale for 50 cents.  I made up a Thermos-full of rinse at once and I'm using it this week.

We'll see how it goes.  I added lavender buds to the mix to hopefully decrease the risk of molding.  It worked very well on Tuesday. 

Quote:


I try, Angel Spun, I try.  If it were up to me, it'd be Looney Toons, Pixar, and good Disney cartoons, but he's enamored with the shiny, colorful, insipid crap the all-powerful "they" feed preschoolers nowadays.  My brother and SIL don't even have cable and he still loves it.  Sigh.  I'm sure I had just as rotten taste when I was a kid, but when Pa-Pa tried to show the nephew Bugs Bunny, he fell asleep.  I'm thinking of demanding a DNA test--no nephew of mine disses da Bugs.  I'll give him till the age of 5, then off to the lab we go.   

And when he's old enough, I will tie him down if I have to and read him all of my Daniel Pinkwater books, then force him to watch The Tick and Invader Zim.    8)

And now, the preview--my oh my, the preview.  It looks like your standard Hallmark Hall of Fame wannabe--turn of last century, salt-of-the-earth farm types.  The hero, the earnest son of the farm wants a pony more than anything; his younger sister wears a brace on one leg and needs an operation to walk again.  The crops should bring enough money to accomplish both goals, but horrors!  A terrible storm destroys the crops!  What will our plucky young hero do now? 

We all know that at some point the hero will scrape up the money, be forced to choose between his pony and the operation, choose the operation, and end up with a pony, too, right?  Just checking.  So it's a predictable story, though if done right it's not too offensive.  HOWEVER...that's not all.  This one has a twist.  A shocking twist.  An unexpected twist.  A wacky twist.

Any guesses?

Come on, you can do it.

It has....MONKEYS!  I swear before all that is holy, they dropped 3 monkeys into this story.  "Mom, did I just see monkeys on the screen?"  "Yes you did."  "Dad, did I get plastered at dinner tonight because I thought I only drank a can of diet orange pop."  "No, Thirteen, you're sober."

D@mn.  Monkeys.   

You see, the monkeys escaped and they're worth $15 dollars a head which is a lot of moola to a turn of last century plucky young hero with pony mania and a limping sister and if he can only catch the monkeys without getting in trouble with his parents for the monkeys' hilarious wacky mischief because of course his parents don't believe there are monkeys in their z-grade Lttle House lives...h#!!, I'm still in denial (Monkeys!  Ye gods and little fishes.  Monkeys)...and of course he has to catch the monkeys before the obligatory bad kid does with his nasty sharp traps which will hurt the monkeys which is bad, but if he can catch the monkeys and get he $45  everything will have a happy ending although even in the turn of last century I doubt you could get an operation for 45 big ones.  It cost more than that to get Gorey a steroid shot.  And he's just a cat who doesn't even have a leg brace.

It's called Summer of the Monkeys.  Don't you dare miss it.  It promises to be the suck star in Disney's live action direct to video suck crown.  Truly inspiring.


I opened up my thermos last night to try out my rinse and there was no mold.  But it was sour and it had a thin, sparse white foam on the surface.  I think it was fermenting.  I added some ACV and used it anyway and it was fine, if a bit smelly.  I need to work on my storage.  My 'fridge is downstairs and I shower upstairs.  And I'm forgetful.  And lazy.  The rinse needs to be upstairs and I'm not wild about installing an upstairs refrigerator.  I might try adding some ACV to the rinse this week.  Or I could just let it ferment in case the nephew wants to watch more live action monkeytastic shenanigans.

Modified Gibson today.  It turned out very nicely.  I even got compliements, though of the "You hair looks lovely, now when are you going to dye your grey; you're much too young to be so grey!" kind.  Sigh.  I made the inner bun a rose bun and fastened it with my new plastic purple stick; then I made the rest into a 2-strand braid and wrapped it around the inner bun and under the stick.  The stick kept it from wrapping too tightly, thus minimizing the pile of poop effect I tend to get with this style.  A winner all around, I think.  And completely monkey-free.

lol 13....I'll trade weather with you any day! It usually only stays cool & gray here until about 3:00 pm, then is boiling hot. 

At least rain is on the way...(hopefully)...

Still sounds like perfect weather in your area, 13. To me at least.

Hope you feel better after the nasty egg salad incident. Drink lots of water. Saltines help, too. 

I may never eat egg salad again.  On the one hand, it's a shame, because I LOVE egg salad.  On the other hand, egg salad is only slightly better for your heart than pure lard spread on a slice of ham, topped with cheese and rich creamery butter.   8)

I tried a Regency Updo today.  It wasn't successful.  I don't have the curls to pull it off, but I thought I could make little cinnamon buns.  However, after I do the french twist part (which actually turned out very well--tapered at the bottom and swelling gently in the middle) the remaining length is too layered and stumpy to do anything decent with.  As I fiddled with it, the whole thing started sliding down the back of my neck and I could tell it wouldn't hold.  I finally pulled out the pins in the twist and put in my tortie Ficcare maximus, made the top into a two part bun and filled it full of magic grip hair pins to keep it from keeling over.  It held, but it looks odd.  Sigh.

BPAL:  Red Lantern.  It smells like caramel with an undercurrent of something dark brown (the tobacco most likely)  By now the caramel has receeded but left its sweetness and the tobacco smell is predominant.  Yum.

Amigurumi -  That used to be my Mom's favorite thing to do...... her and her friends made all kind of stuff....
Hadn't heard or thought of it in years.


And now that you mentioned SUSHI, I am getting hungry myself and a taste for it........