More F$#@&* $#*!
Dropped the car off at Scott Robinson Honda at lunch. Waited half an hour for the shuttle van. "Only 3 more minutes, ma'am." Five minutes later. "He'll be about ten more minutes. Can you wait that long?" I finally walked back to work. Fucking shit.

Friday the *$#@!*# 13th
F*%#ing car died twice on the way to work! F*%#!!! And f*%#ing Guido's response when I say I want to drive the other car is that it's better if I drive the car that breaks down. My f*%#ing hero.

Auuuggggghhhhhh
Just found out Marymount is not holding any summer programs this year for elementary school kids. Oh no! Where are Scooter & Fluffy going this summer?! They can't spend the entire summer at camp in the park! I need suggestions! Help me!!!

Figure Ate
Almost forgot to mention the ice skating. Yeah, we went skating the weekend before last at the Health South Training Center in El Segundo. Veeeeery nice facility. The skates really hurt your feet, though.

Fluffy and her friend Thea were soaking wet by the time we were done. They seemed to enjoy falling down, and did it a lot! So we stopped at Old Navy on the way to dinner and bought the cheapest clothes we could find. Christmas tops on clearance for $3.49! I got them extra big so maybe she can wear them NEXT winter.

A bunch of us met for dinner at L.A. Food Show. I love that place! Very nice, but kid friendly, too. If you order the chicken and waffles, you get a lot of food!

Yep, I have to say the best part of ice skating was going out to eat afterward.

And I must give Scooter a nice little pat on the back for being such a good sport as Marianne (4 years old) kept flinging food all over him. Poor little Scooter sat next to her without complaining, even when Marianne tried to shove macaroni and french fries with maple syrup in his face.

Weekend Update
Not so timely with the updates again. Here's the dilemma: if I update at home, it's too slow with our dial-up modem. If I update at work with our speedy DSL line, well, I'm not supposed to. Anyway...

I can't really say much about the Pinewood Derby races, coz I was too busy selling patches, handing out blue ribbons, judging and writing creativity awards, and talking story with buddies. But the picnic part was fun. And Fluffy and Scooter seemed to have a good time.

Scooter's basketball game was awesome! Some of those boys are really intense. The game went into double overtime, the guys started playing rougher and rougher, we incurred some injuries, the worst of which was probably Scooter's jammed finger, and in the end we won. I didn't think 4th grade boys could care so much about a stupid game. But I guess I should have known, after seeing some of the meltdowns that occurred at our 2nd grade little league games.

Sunday was pretty mellow since Scooter skipped practice because of his jammed finger. Fluffy had her first baseball team meeting. We had a bye on Fluffy's basketball game. This is what our sports schedule looks like for the coming month. Look at Friday.

Mon 4:30 Fluffy softball practice
Wed 6:00 Scooter basketball practice
Fri 3:30 Scooter basketball practice
Fri 4:30 Fluffy softball practice
Fri 4:30 Scooter baseball practice
Fri 6:50 Fluffy basketball practice
Sat [various times] Scooter basketball game
Sun 1:00 Fluffy batting cages
Sun 1:00 Scooter baseball
Sun [various times] Fluffy basketball game

Little League opening day is February 28th. Once the season starts, we should have fewer practices. Instead, we could have up to three games a week per kid! That's a lot of snack bags!

Trailblazin'
Oops, not doing a very good job on timely updates.

Went skiing with the Trailblazers a couple of weekends ago. Stayed at YMCA's Camp Whittle, in a lodge this time, which was way nicer than those icky cabins. I must admit, however, that I preferred the bathrooms that the cabin-dwellers had to use. I felt like they were actually cleaner than those in the lodge. But the lodge was definitely more comfortable, with carpet, chairs, tables, better mattresses (though we took our own sleeping bags) and bunk beds, and HEAT!

There was SNOW on the ground when we got there, which is always exciting! Scooter found some interesting bits of ice that looked like broken glass.

We had a lot of fun in the evening, playing Apples to Apples. (I'm STILL looking for Wise and Otherwise, if anyone wants to buy it for me...)

Skiing was FUN! We skipped the lessons this time, and just skied all day long until the lifts stopped running! Fluffy is doing great, learning to get on and off the lifts, and making turns as she goes down the hill. And Scooter zooms down the mountain ahead of the rest of us. I am really proud of my kids. I watched a lot of their friends give up after barely trying, and one gave up even BEFORE she started.

The only down side of the trip was that Bear Mountain SUCKS! I never realized it before, but I must have gotten really spoiled skiing in Tahoe all those years. They weren't very service-oriented at Bear Mtn, and they definitely didn't have enough personnel on the slopes, monitoring the activity there. I've skied at Sugar Bowl, Squaw, Northstar, Heavenly, Sierra, Homewood, Ski Bowl and Echo, and never had a negative experience. Of course, I didn't have kids then, so my perspective was a little (lot) different than it is now. Well, we'll see how things go at Snow Summit (Bear Mountain's sister ski resort) next weekend. Maybe we'll have to plan trips to Tahoe and Mammoth every year from now on!

Embrace the Weirdness
From the time I was a kid, I was told that I had a warped sense of humor. And it's true, I was never like anyone else I knew. Then I moved to California and it was like the mothership had landed.

Hippo Gnu Deer
Yikes! I haven't updated this thing in over two months...

So Thanksgiving and Christmas were spent in S.F. as usual. Scooter & Fluffy had a great time playing with their cousins, which is really nice, because I never got to play with cousins when I was growing up, even though there were four of them just down the street.

We spent a few days in Tahoe! It was great! On the way up, when we started to see snow along the roadside and in the mountains, Scooter commented, "If I could live here, that would be the life!"

We played in a snow park the first day, sledding down a big hill and throwing snow at each other. The next two days, we skied. Each kid spent a day in lessons, then we all skied together. It was Scooter's second time and Fluffy's first, and both of them did great! I have to give Fluffy a lot of credit; it was snowing pretty hard by the time we pulled her out of her lesson, but she insisted on going on the lifts and skied all the way down with us. She fell a few times, but got right back up and continued on her way.

Santa found us in San Jose and delivered a lot of presents. Not too many clothes this year, just the way the kids like it. Thanks to Aunties Laurie & Lisa, who got them exactly what they wanted. Wink-wink! (You can pay me later! Ha ha!)

New Year's Day was pretty mellow. We went to the movies, cooked a roast beef that was way too rare, even by my standards.

Now it's business as usual. Hopefully I'll update this more often.

Dizzyland
Spent all day Sunday at Disneyland with my best friend from Hawaii, Leann, and her family and their friends who tagged along. We had a great time! The weather was cool and comfortable. It wasn't very crowded (by Disneyland standards, it was virtually deserted). We hardly waited in line for anything. We practically ran through that long tunnel maze for Indiana Jones and walked right onto the ride. The kids went on Splash Mountain twice without even waiting. Scooter and I had a blast on Matterhorn, screaming Kelsey's name the whole time, just for fun.

We ate dinner at Rainforest Cafe, just like we did the last time they visited. Leann & Kelsey really like the strawberry lemonade. We usually eat at New Orleans Square, but Rainforest is our dinner-with-Leann tradition.

So, now, is it just me getting old and jaded, or is Disneyland starting to lose some of its lustre. Four attractions are currently shut down for the long term, and they are major ones - Space Mountain, It's a Small World, Roger Rabbit and Big Thunder Mountain (well, we all know why THAT one is closed). I'm still lamenting the demise of Rocket Rods, which I got to ride just once (fortunately) before they shut it down forever. Now here's the thing that pushes my jadedness (?) over the top. WHILE WE WERE THERE, the following rides broke down: Indiana Jones, Matterhorn, Winnie the Pooh. And those are only the ones we know of.

Well, the main thing is we got to hang out with Leann and her gang, and we have fun with them no matter where we go. I hope they're winning lots of $$ in Vegas now so they can visit us again!

Fluffy's Chickmunks
GUIDO: (complaining about something stupid)
WILD FLOWER: Grrr. Your brain is smaller than a chipmunk's.
SCOOTER: (giggling, to Guido) A chipmunk's head is really little.

Fluffy Can Read!

Show & Tell
Sitting around the Marketing table, reminiscing about our childhood...

MIKE: My mom was president of the school board.
MATT: My mom would get really mad at my brother and me, and pick up the nearest thing and throw it at our heads.
MARC: My mom used to play strip poker during the day with all the unemployed men in the neighborhood.

FloMotion
At work, brainstorming slogans for a new product called FloMotion...

WILD FLOWER: How 'bout 'Mo Flo Fo Yo Money'?
MARC: Thank you very much, Chow Doggy Dog!

You probably had to be there to get the humor.

U.F.O.s
SCOOTER: Mom, what did you put in this spaghetti sauce. It tastes really blah.
WILD FLOWER: Thanks. Make sure you remember to tell that to your wife someday. 'Honey, this dinner you cooked is really blah.' And make sure you duck when the frying pan comes flying at your head.

Bloody Murder
When Fluffy's tooth fell out, she calmly walked over to me, handed me the tooth so I could rinse it off, and proceeded to scream bloody murder. Scooter started yelling at her in her face that she was bleeding all over the place, etc. So I screamed at him shut the fuck up. Another pleasant evening with the Bunnies.

Right on Target
I never grab a basket or shopping cart, because I'm only planning to buy a couple of things. Of course, by the time I reach the checkout, my arms are loaded down with all sorts of essentials. Today I stood in line at Target with a weird assortment - two cans of Raid, rope, candy, baby wipes and a broom. (yes, I am going to lure little children into my house with candy, tie them up, spray them with Raid, sweep them out of the house, and clean up the mess with baby wipes) I dropped one of the Raid cans and screamed because I thought it might explode. People look at you funny when you scream while standing in the checkout line at Target.

Holey Moley
It must be fall, because teeth have been falling out of Fluffy's head like crazy. She has three holes now, excellent for slurping noodles. And we're not just talking skinny little somen noodles. Aside from the choking risk, she could, in theory, slurp three huge udon noodles all at once.

So anyway, Fluffy was rather incensed that the Tooth Fairy has been slacking off her job. She came to me the other day, hands on hips, and huffed, "She didn't put the dollar in a bag again! She just left it on my bed. She must be new!"

Pumpkin Head
Fluffy has THREE loose teeth right now. If we can time them to fall out at the right time, we could put a candle in her mouth and stick her in the front window on Halloween!

Mom's Cooking
Fluffy refused to eat her dinner one night...

GUIDO: If you don't eat your dinner tonight, tomorrow I'm giving you dog food.
WILD FLOWER: Hey, you can't give her dog food! I've never served YOU dog food!
GUIDO: (pause)
WILD FLOWER: Don't answer that!
WILD FLOWER: Let me rephrase that. I've never served you anything that wasn't fit for a dog!
GUIDO: (pause)
WILD FLOWER: DON'T ANSWER THAT EITHER!

Banner Mania
I FINALLY finished our team banner, barely in time for the game! Talk about procrastination! You know how some people say they work better under pressure? And other people will say that's a bunch of B*!!$#!*? Well...

I had three weeks to do this. The first week, I was on vacation, and there was no way I was going to waste that precious week working on a stupid soccer banner.

The second week was our big BTS meeting, and I worked late every night, so again, no way I was going to work on the banner.

I spent this last week sketching dragons and banner designs. I didn't start working with the felt until Wednesday, when I was feeling sufficiently panicked. I stayed up really late every night the rest of the week, working on the stupid thing, and drinking lots of caffeine during the day at work. But everything worked out. We had a banner in time for our first game. That's all that matters, right? Nobody needs to know I was working on it right up until I left the house that morning...